INFO: The Kari were small sentient insectoids covered with a black exo-skeleton and were the only sentient race indigenous to Karideph.
RACE: Kari
HEIGHT: 1.4 Meters Tall
SKIN (CARAPACE): Black
DISTINCTION: Insectoid
LANGUAGE: Karian
HOMEWORLD:Karideph was the heavily overpopulated homeworld of the insectoid Kari. It was located in the Minos Cluster, where the Trition Trade Route met the Rimma Trade Route. Its main industry was food production.
Due to the immensely high birth rate of the Kari, their world was one of the most overpopulated places in the galaxy.
During the Galactic Civil War, the Kari population was believed to be approaching one hundred billion—a figure of eighty-eight billion was cited, but due to the inability to conduct an effective census, this was a vague estimate at best. It should also be noted that true sapience among the Kari lay with the group-minds of hatches of twenty or thirty individuals: while the ordinary Kari would have specialized roles, ranging from traditional storytellers to high-tech engineers, the number of truly sentient minds on Karideph was merely in the low billions.
In order to feed this vast population, the entirety of Karideph's surface had been given over to an endless landscape of neat, well-kept gardens. Even the sea was extensively exploited to produce more food. The only areas not completely given over to feeding the Kari were the huge cities into which the population were crowded: the upper levels of their towers were so high as to require full pressurization, and beneath the surface, an immense underground warrens of tunnels spread out beyond their boundaries.
But Karideph alone could not produce enough to feed the Kari: foodstuffs also topped the list of items imported to the planet. To meet this need, Karideph had developed an export industry of small, high-tech devices.
Karideph was cited by New Republic military training manuals as an example of a planet "effectively covered in city-sprawls", along with Coruscant, the factory-covered continents of Lianna, and the terraformed parkland of Kuat; presumably the gardens which covered the majority of its landmass were classed as "suburban".
As a result of its immense overpopulation, Karideph was under strict embargo from the Galactic Empire. It was feared that if they acquired hyperdrive technology, the speed with which they bred and the voracious desire for resources that it gave them would lead them to over-run the galaxy.
Perhaps due to the blockade, Karideph supported the Rebel Alliance during the Galactic Civil War, although they were prone to any attack which left them without a constant source of food.
BIOLOGY AND APPEARANCE:The Kari were bipedal and walked on two powerful legs and possessed two smaller 'arm' appendages used to manipulate their environment as well as objects. Their homeworld's surface was dominated by massive city-like structures which forced a majority of the Kari to live in a underground system of tunnels. This resulted in many of the species almost never coming to the surface and, thus, never experiencing the light of their sun.
CULTURE AND HISTORY:The average Kari day involves growing food to feed the 100 billion Kari that inhabit the homeworld. To aid them in feeding their people, the Kari became quite adept at creating small mechanical appliances and machines which they exported in exchange for more food. A Kari family was called a Hatch which would 20 to 30 Kari individuals.
Being an insectoid species this resulted in a hive-like society being formed; some would even state that it was a true hive society with no individual personalities or individuality being demonstrated. As such, the Kari possess limited intelligence though one of their unique traits was developing a system of songs that served to teach history from one generation to the next. This resulted in a form of Bards being produced among the Kari with each Hatch possessing at least one singer who would preserve the history of the Hatch and 'sing' it to other Hatches.
During the time of the New Order, the Galactic Empire banned the Kari from participating or even developing space travel. This was due to the fear that the massive population growth rate of the Kari would have resulted in them outnumbering and overruning Human society.
APPEARANCES:None
SOURCES:Galaxy Guide 6: Tramp Freighters
Alien Encounters
The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
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