Onoam


Onoam was a moon of the Mid Rim planet Naboo, located in the Chommell sector and the Trailing Sectors. Its grassy plains housed second homes for wealthy citizens of Naboo while miners extracted medicinal spice underneath the surface. A secondary royal palace was also maintained there for when the queen of Naboo visited. In 228 BBY, Onoam became part of the Nihil marauders' Occlusion Zone, an area of space sealed behind a barrier preventing hyperspace travel.

During Senator Padmé Amidala's lifetime, miners protested for a greater share of the profits from Onoam's mines; under the Galactic Empire, conditions grew even worse. When Princess Leia Organa of the planet Alderaan visited the moon on a mercy mission in 3 BBY, she and Naboo's Queen Dalné attempted to address the Imperial corruption in the mines by petitioning Moff Quarsh Panaka for assistance. However, the moff was assassinated shortly after their visit with him.

Description


Onoam was a moon that orbited Naboo, a planet in the Naboo system, within the Chommell sector in the regions known as the Mid Rim and the Trailing Sectors. Onoam was located in grid square O-17 of the Standard Galactic Grid and featured a breathable, Type I atmosphere. Onoam had pinkish skies and rolling plains covered in tall grass, as well as rocky terrain and at least one river.

Rocky relationship


Miners on Naboo's moons were suspected to have been involved in an attempt on Senator Padmé Amidala's life.

Miners on Naboo's moons were suspected to have been involved in an attempt on Senator Padmé Amidala's life.

In 228 BBY, Onoam became part of the Nihil marauders' Occlusion Zone—an area of space sealed behind a barrier preventing hyperspace travel—at some point after its first expansion. Over time, Onoam developed a long history of tension with Naboo. During the last days of the Galactic Republic, the mining moons of Naboo had difficulty balancing their desire to meet production quotas with their loyalty to Naboo. As a newly minted Republic senator for Naboo's Chommell sector in 28 BBY, Padmé Amidala considered settling recently freed enslaved workers from the Outer Rim planet Tatooine on the mining moons. She decided against it, as jobs in the mines were far less likely to earn the workers enough to start a new life than farming jobs on Karlinus, a planet in the same sector as Naboo.

Around that time, there were multiple strikes as miners lobbied for a greater share of the profits from the mines, with some groups engaging in minor political violence that escalated to property damage on the surface of Naboo. When Senator Amidala narrowly escaped assassination in 22 BBY, Jedi Master Mace Windu suggested that the discontented miners from the moons of Naboo might have been responsible, although it was later proven untrue.

Vein of corruption


The Naboo system—including Onoam—fell under the rule of the Galactic Empire following its formation in 19 BBY. In 3 BBY, Princess Leia Organa began to undertake the three challenges needed to prove herself worthy as a successor to the throne of the planet Alderaan. As part of her Challenge of the Heart, Organa chose to visit Onoam on a humanitarian mission to aid miners facing difficult working conditions. While she hoped its location in Emperor Palpatine's home system would result in a relatively uneventful endeavor, her father—Viceroy Bail Organa—expressed brief concern, having recognized the moon's name. When she landed her starship, the Polestar, on Onoam, protocol required her to visit Naboo's Queen Dalné, as the young queen was in residence at her secondary palace. Organa invited Dalné to join her on a visit to a spice mine on the moon, where she planned to distribute safety equipment to the miners.

Leia Organa and Dalné experienced the Onoam mine's poor air quality first-hand.

Leia Organa and Dalné experienced the Onoam mine's poor air quality first-hand.

When they reached the mine, Organa observed that conditions for the miners had grown worse since the previous generation's protests, with the air clogged with dust. Organa and Dalné met the miners' representative, Brel Ti Vorne. Organa announced that they had brought enough equipment for five hundred miners, including safety belts, atmosphere masks, and portable force fields for purifying the air. To the girls' surprise, Vorne received the gift with dismay. He explained that the Imperial major in charge of the mines had a habit of confiscating useful equipment either as a punishment or with the claim that it was defective, before the officer sold it to line his own pockets. Organa and Dalné promised to make sure the miners would get to keep and use their equipment.

The fuse is lit


Determined to keep their promise to the miners, Dalné and Organa considered their options. Dalné recalled that she had the right to demand an audience from senior officials, and the two girls paid Moff Quarsh Panaka a visit. He agreed that while Imperial officers were given leeway to act to maintain order and economic means of punishment were preferred over violent ones, some officers abused the license and punished innocent citizens along with the lawbreakers. He agreed to Organa's proposal that he establish better oversight in the mines. Unknown to Organa, members of Saw Gerrera's Partisans, a group affiliated with Organa's father's anti-Imperial rebel movement but acting without the approval of other rebel leaders, had planted bombs at Panaka's chalet.

Leia Organa and Dalné barely escaped the bombing that killed Quarsh Panaka.

Leia Organa and Dalné barely escaped the bombing that killed Quarsh Panaka.

As the girls left the chalet, the explosives went off, destroying the building and killing Panaka. Following the assassination, Organa realized that a few weeks could elapse before a new Imperial officer could get through the lockdown and take charge of Naboo, and in the meantime Dalné would be able to act freely as queen and help the miners. Dalné promised to rise to the challenge but urged Organa to leave the moon before the Naboo system was locked down. Organa agreed, though she continued to worry about whether her father's forces had executed the strike until the latter informed her of Gerrera's involvement. In the following days, the Empire increased travel restrictions throughout the galaxy due to the incident on Onoam. Not long afterward, Organa's parents and their rebel senator colleagues expressed their disapproval regarding the effects of the mission to Onoam.

Inhabitants


The moon was home to workers who extracted spice from its mines. Many wealthy Naboo citizens also had second homes on Onoam, including Quarsh Panaka and Queen Dalné.

Locations


A view of Onoam from a starship coming in to land

A view of Onoam from a starship coming in to land

The Royal House of Naboo maintained a secondary palace on Onoam, where Dalné received visitors while in residence. A spaceport was located a few kilometers away from the palace. The palace was cupped in the bend of a river, overlooked by cliffs from which several waterfalls descended, with rolling hills on one side and flat grassy plain on the other. Other buildings surrounded the palace both at ground level and atop the cliffs, and more were clustered towards the hills on one side of the palace.

Onoam housed medicinal spice mines that, by law, had to be worked by sentients rather than droids. The entrance to the mine visited by Organa and Dalné was in an area with rising, rocky terrain. Notable residences on Onoam included Quarsh Panaka's chalet. The chalet was a single building alongside a river, surrounded by grassland, and had a terrace with a view of the river.

Behind the scenes


Onoam first appeared in Leia, Princess of Alderaan, a 2017 young-adult novel written by Claudia Gray. In other sources, the three moons of Naboo are variously named Ohma-D'un, Rori, and "a nameless mass;" or Ohma-D'un, Rori, and Veruna. The first picture of a moon positively identified as Onoam appeared in Leia Organa: Ordeal of the Princess, a Japanese webcomic adaptation of Leia, Princess of Alderaan illustrated by Haruichi, on May 8, 2021.

Sources


  • Ultimate Star Wars, New Edition
  • Skywalker: A Family at War
  • Star Wars: Timelines
  • Star Wars: Dawn of Rebellion: The Visual Guide

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