What exactly is 'spice' ?

I've heard a few different theories about what spice is.. Is it some sort of drug like pot or something?

 

GIRL POWER

 

Well, I know it is in the category of vice

 

It is a mind altering substance that is mined from the dark caverns of the world Kessel. Kessel is a small desert world, due to it's size, the atmosphere just floats off into space because the gravity of the world can't keep it. As a result there are many oxgen producing plants on the world as well.

Underground there are giant spiders that live in black tunnels, they spin the substance that lines the walls and it is spice. With the help of slave labor, the spice is taken out of the caverns and smuggled around the galaxy.

A great source of information about Spice Mining is found in Kevin J. Anderson's Jedi Search.

It is mostly based off of Frank Herbert's Dune.

-Seldon

 

cool thanks.

 

Drugs baby, drugs...

 

I don't remember anything about the spice mines from the novel specifically, so here is my ignorant speculation:

Common punishment for criminals in the past was sending them off to work in the salt mines, which was very hard labor and had a lot of casualties. Spice is merely something that people put on their food, like salt. It's just that since it's in space, you can't send poeple to salt mines, it has to be spice mines.

Kevin J. Anderson = idiot.

 

Maybe, but Darth Seldon is correct.

You can also visit the starwars.com databank and read about it here:

http://www.starwars.com/databank/location/kessel/eu.html

 

The spice melange is used by the Spacing Guild for...

Oh wait, wrong saga.

 

I just assumed it was a commodity of some sort. Most likely it's an illegal narcotic, but it doesn't have to be as the primary reason the Empire doesn't like smugglers is because they're able to deliver goods without the Empire getting its cut.

 

now I know what the Kessel run is....

 

LURKINGAROUND: too funny..

 

Read the novel "Dune" by Frank Herbert. Then you´ll know, but this might be the wrong desert planet & universe altogether.

 

GIRL POWER

You beat me to it. I'm a young woman with the mindset that I'm still living in 1997 and that the Spice Girls and Hanson are still big.

 

You just sstole my joke!

 

I am so awfully sorry, luv. I hope no upset sand worm is going to attack me within the next days.I am just glad that nobody arround the STAR WARS universe does use any spice melange, but on the otherside... hum, hum...that might explain the behavior of some characters now & then. Ha, imagine Han Solo having an overdose of spice inside that asteroid field. Or Luke desperatly trying to fire his torpedo during the battle above Yavin. Or Anakin & Ben trying to get through to "the kidnapped" Palpatine. Then we should re-name the film into SPICE WARS. Oh, what copy right trouble might be ahead.