Onderon is one of three planets in the Japreal System. It is a wonderful place according to the game Knights f the Old Republic II: the Sith Lords. Not only the planet landscapes, but also the cities, the inner locations, and the whole infrastructure was a real masterpiece. Onderon's largest moon is Dxun which is a jungle moon, but has many mountain terrains in some locations, too. Both Onderon and Dxun have a humid climate, however when the Exile Jedi arrived it was only raining in Dxun, while Onderon had shiny bright weather.

Onderon was once home to a primitive race of humanoids. They learned how to build cities after some time. Most cities were surrounded by strong walls, since the native wild animals and beast often attacked the people. One of the first founded cities was Iziz, which later became the capitol city of Onderon. After some time, a Sith Lord named Freedon Nadd arrived, bringing the dark side to Onderon. He successfully proclaimed himself king, and his rule was so firm that hundreds of years later, all the ruling families of Onderon would be descended from him.

Onderon strict rulers chose to throw out criminals into the wild from Iziz to be killed by the beasts as a punishment; but over time the criminals learned to control and tame the beasts. Many survived somehow, and called themselves "beastriders". Basically they were exiled criminals, who were transported here to be separated from the peaceful urban populations. In our history there was a similar event, when mostly British convicts were transported to mostly Victoria and Western Australia, although Australia itself had been already discovered, inhabited, and colonized. But a city called Modon Kira was established by the exiled criminals! Many of these outcasted survived, and founded their own city called "Modon Kira" which was of course a rival city to Iziz. From this city, they waged war on Iziz and the ruling family, in a prolonged series of conflicts known as the Beast Wars. Eventually, Jedi Knights led by Ulic Qel-Droma were dispatched to mediate a settlement, but they finally had no other choice just to encroach into the conflict and both rulers.

During the Mandalorian War, a talented man, called Vaklu gained fame and respect from the populace of Onderon for leading an active resistance during the occupation of the planet by the Mandalorians. (Even Canderous Ordo who was later a Mandalore, spoke of Vaklu with respect.

Unlike his cousin Talia, who believed in and supported the Old Republic, Vaklu was against Onderon's membership in the Old Republic, believing the galactic organization was exploiting the planet for manpower and resources, and so he advocated secession. (This was only important for the politicians and the leaders, for the power and the money, the everyday man, and even the soldiers didn't hate each other, neither the Old Republican, nor the Onderon soldiers. If they had a dayoff from the army, they often spent their time in the cantina, drinking and joking together, only the aristocracy insisted to keep this crazy conflict.) But anyway, the Old Republic supported the loyalist Talia, and raised her into the throne. Later Queen Talia became the ruler of Onderon. This event and their conflict on staying with or secede from the Republic caused much friction between the two and often led to fiery arguments between them, whenever the issue came up. Though Vaklu had substantial support amongst the governing council of Onderon and in the Onderonean army, he could never gainer enough support to push through any resolutions of secession, or to grab the throne for himself.

General Vaklu did not give up. He searched alternate ways to achieve his goals. He tried to gain the biggest influence in the army which is possible. The Queen also worked hard to control the army, so she placed her men into key positions, to prevent Vaklu's efforts. (Gelesi, Bostuco and Riiken captains were in key positions for example. They will have important rule in the DS ending, since a dark Exile will get a quest from a Vaklu agent, to remove these three officers from their posts in a way, you can do it by killing them, but there are more clever, and more interesting ways too, to get rid of them, which will give you more XP and a better game feeling.) Onderon soldiers were guarding key positions of the streets, security cameras and security laser turrets were on every corner. The army got divided into two, first half remained loyal with Talia, the other half was controlled by Vaklu. In addition, General Vaklu set secret alliance with the Sith, in order to remove Queen Talia, and gain the total control over Onderon. Queen Talia however found a powerful ally in the Jedi Council, who sent out Master Kavarr to give the needed support for the queen against the Sith threat, and against General Vaklu. The situation was close to detonation. The citizens was forbidden to leave Onderon in this situation, the planet was surrounded by space ships, and a Onderonean port master guarded the space port, only those was granted to leave, who had a startport visa, which gave a permission to enter the space dock, and to travel away from this crazy planet. Those who could leave this mess, have already left. The others stayed, and waited for an open startport visa, or waited for a wonder. (Although these two was almost equal in these days...) This balance was really fragile. It was a tie, however a third party could turn the tide between the Royalists and the Vaklu soldiers. Both party wanted the now independent Exile Jedi to join his or her cause to have the upper hand. General Vaklu tracked down the Jedi Exile in his/her journey, and dispatched Colonel Tobin, one of his best and closest man to find and convince the most powerful ally who can be imagined, the Exile. Five years after the Jedi Civil War the political conflict eventually erupted, and Iziz was thrown into an internal civil war between the Onderonian royal family. Now not only Iziz, but the whole planet was split between Queen Talia and her cousin General Vaklu and the uprising began after Vaklu launches an assault on her palace with the aid of the Sith, in order to gain control of the government. The victor enlisted the help of the Jedi Exile and his followers. In the canonical Light side ending, the Exile intervened on behalf of the Queen, eliminating Vaklu's traitors, in the Dark Side ending the Exile Jedi's intervention swung the balance of the battle into General Vaklu's favor, as Vaklu's soldiers stormed the palace, and invaded the Queen's throne room, however the whole structure, every corridors, and doors were trapped by a Talia loyalist twi'lek male, called Kiph, to prevent, or at least slower the advancing Onderon soldiers and a Dark Exile. The Separatist assault force was led by Colonel Tobin himself. Jedi Master Kavarr tried to stop the invasion, but the Jedi Exile defeated him in a lightsaber battle. Queen Talia was subsequently killed, either by Vaklu's forces, or in a duel against the Jedi Exile (depending on the Exile's choice).

The conflict on Onderon, and ultimately, Talia's fate, is settled mostly due to the choices of the Jedi Exile, however I repeat, the canonical ending is the LS ending, namely protecting the Queen, repelling the Onderonian Vaklu soldiers, saving them from the Sith, and leaving with peace after meeting Master Kavarr.

Onderonian Soldiers performed both the functions of army and law enforcement (sort of police men) on Onderon. According to the game they were all capable to use pistols, rifles, and both one-handed and two handed swords. We often see them using one of those in a fight. (I chose to customize a rilfeman Onderon soldier.) An everyday Onderon soldier wore brown uniform, while the officers wore a blue or rarely a grey uniform. Both classes of uniform were offset with silver piping and orange stripes what I think were kind of ranks. Additionally all soldiers and officers had a white wrap-like garment covering their shoulders. During the Onderon Civil War the soldiers had to differentiate themselves from the hostile Onderon soldiers, so soldiers siding with the Separatist faction wore a cap on their head and a commando mask that covered the lower half of their face, whereas Loyalist soldiers wore neither, which means they wore no cap, and you could see their faces.

This makes a funny situation, that you can see in this screenshot. It seems like the twin problem still a big challenge for the developers, since the faces are the same on the Loyalist army! You will be shocked, if you take a look at the Onderon soldiers who are fighting for Queen Talia. They got the same Asian face! Wow! That was a really numerous family! (BTW, that will be the face of my custom thug 1 figure, too.) There is an other funny thing in this screenshot. The Asian guy in the background looks like if he'd used aikido or some other kind of martial fight technique on the Vaklu guy, since the Vaklu soldier is in the air with all four limbs in the air. It will hurt for sure. Probably he won't piss off an onderonean Bruce Lee again! :-)