Ord Mantell

• Appeared in:
  
  I
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  CW

• Climate:
  Temperate

• Terrain:
  Plains, mesas, seas and urban

• 

From the Movies

Following his initial exploits with the Rebel Alliance, smuggler Han Solo found it hard to make a clean break from his underworld past. In the intervening years between the Battles of Yavin and Endor, he faced one close call too many, including a run in with a bounty hunter on the planet Ord Mantell.

From the Expanded Universe

Located in the Bright Jewel Systems Cluster, the planet Ord Mantell was founded 12,000 years ago by Corellian colonists as an advance Republic military and scout base. It is one of several Ords -- Ordnance/Regional Depots -- from this era.

Ord Mantell can be said to be in the middle of nowhere -- convenient for those wishing to lay low. But at the same time, it is located close to some major hyperspace trade routes, making it a thriving port. The combination of these two factors have made Ord Mantell a smuggler's haven. The planet also hosts a lucrative gunrunning business, as weapons are smuggled to the nearby war-torn world of Anobis.

Ord Mantell is called the Heart of the Bright Jewel. From orbit, pink clouds cover 70 percent of the planet's surface, shielding the pinpricks of city lights and the yellow soil of open land. Dark, placid seas reflect the warm glows of its twin moons, and 13 lesser satellites. Ord Mantell has a 26-hour day, and a population of 4 billion. Wildlife on Ord Mantell includes the Mantellian savrip, and the Ord Mantellian flutterplumes.

A world of varied terrain, Ord Mantell's continent of Worlport boasts a sprawl of cities along its southern shore. It is this part of Ord Mantell that many spacers regard as a safeport, free of Imperial patrols. Wolport's cities have all sorts of casinos and vice-peddlers. The most well known of Ord Mantell's casinos are the opulent Imperial Palace Casino Hotel, the Naweenan Fate Rooms, the Pink Sky Casino, and the Fifteen Moons Casino. These casinos, no matter how sleazy, do not allow weapons past their doors.

Much of this part of Ord Mantell has become a tourist resort. Ord Mantell attracts about a billion tourists annually. Outside of the sprawl, and a narrow equatorial band of starports, much of Ord Mantell remains very rural and low tech. Most of the structures in Ord Mantell's metropolitan areas beyond the casinos lack address markings. The philosophy behind this is that if you don't know where you're going, then you don't belong there. These parts of Ord Mantell are not intended for tourists.

Despite Ord Mantell's attempts to be contemporary and on par with the Core Worlds, its pollution from use of fossil fuels has kept it quite barren. The planet maintains huge robotic coal yards used to fuel the planet's cities. An immense scrapyard dominates some of Ord Mantell's landscape.

Ord Mantell has some of the most lenient banking laws in the galaxy. Nearly anyone, in any line of business, can get an account in a bank of Ord Mantell with no questions asked. As long as customers pay the proper tariffs, service fees and taxes, and don't cause trouble, the authorities on Ord Mantell are quite accommodating.

During the later years of the Galactic Civil War, the Empire infringed upon the safe-haven feel of Ord Mantell by moving one of their Naval staging areas close to the system. The space around Ord Mantell would often fill with Imperial warships moving through training maneuvers, and the port-towns would often host Imperials on shore leave. Usually, the Imperials avoided rooting out trouble on Ord Mantell, since it really wasn't worth their while.

Han Solo has had a history of close run-ins with bounty hunters on Ord Mantell. It was there that Solo's smuggler friend Drub McKumb warned him about the sizable bounty on his head, and the pursuing hunters on Ord Mantell. One of these, Skorr, was the one that almost tagged Han Solo prior to the Battle of Hoth. He kidnapped Princess Leia Organa and Luke Skywalker, holding them hostage at an abandoned stellar energy station on Ten Mile Plateau as bait for Solo. Solo and Chewbacca turned the tables on Skorr and rescued their friends. Another hunter, Alfreda Goot, succeeded in kidnapping Princess Leia in an effort to force Han into a race that would prove her the fastest in the galaxy.

One of Solo's most harrowing run-ins involved the hunter and black marketeer Czethros, and his Rybet henchmen Briff. These two Black Sun associates kidnapped Chewbacca. Solo turned the tables of Czethros, freed Chewbacca, and handed over the criminal to Imperial forces.

About three years after the Battle of Yavin, the Rebel Alliance was in need of money and capital to supply their base on Hoth. Before the Galactic Civil War, the Organa family owned a large interstellar shipping company that was seized by the Empire. Shortly before the Battle of Hoth, this company was shipping a large cash tribute to the Empire. The inconspicuous shipment was intercepted by the Rebel Alliance on Ord Mantell. Leia Organa, who still had access to the master code of the computer on Ord Mantell, switched the loading instructions of the money shipment. This plan nearly failed due to yet another bounty hunter, this one named Cypher Bos, who tried to capture Han Solo.

Later, Solo, Skywalker and Chewbacca were captured by several bounty hunters on Ord Mantell. Their captors included Skorr, Dengar and Bossk, and they were working for Boba Fett, who imprisoned the trio in an abandoned moisture plant in Ord Mantell's back country. The heroes escaped that close call as well.

Four years after the Battle of Endor, the New Republic added Ord Mantell into its roster, deploying an X-wing fighter wing to the planet. Five years after Endor, Grand Admiral Thrawn attacked Ord Mantell to keep the New Republic off balance while he continued his campaign to retake Coruscant.

Every year for almost a century now, Ord Mantell hosts the Blockade Runners Derby, a breakneck race among spacers to prove who is the fastest pilotwith the fastest vessel. A dense cometary cloud orbits near Ord Mantell, and is the staging grounds for the race. Distant holocams strategically placed along the race broadcast spectacular images to the eager fans back on Ord Mantell.

Han Solo, retired General and diplomat from the New Republic, was the Grand Marshal for the 93rd Blockade Runners Derby. Solo himself was a three-time winner of the race.

Behind the Scenes

If each tale of Han's exploits on Ord Mantell was taken at face value, then it's a wonder he keeps returning to the planet, so frequently do bounty hunters attack him.

Based on a single line of dialogue in The Empire Strikes Back, Ord Mantell was formally introduced to readers through the daily Star Wars newspaper strips by Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson.

In the story arc, the hunter named Skorr kidnaps Luke and Leia to lure Han into a trap. Solo gets the jump on Skorr and escapes, but several story arcs later, Skorr returns, backed up by such hunter heavyweights as Dengar, Bossk and Boba Fett for another run-in on Ord Mantell.

In a 1984 audio dramatization, author Brian Daley penned a tale of a Rebel Mission to Ord Mantell, wherein the Rebels needed to get badly needed funds out of a bank on the planet. There, Solo faces off against Cypher Bos, a Nalrithian bounty hunter.

In 1990, author Troy Denning told of another encounter in the solitaire game adventure book, Scoundrel's Luck. Though Solo and the bounty huntress Afreda Goot don't have a face-to-face confrontation on Ord Mantell, Goot does kidnap Leia from the planet, leading to a wild chase that eventually ends up on Tatooine.