What happened to the Celestials. (No Abyss Spoilers!)

I have a feeling that we're eventually going to find out in future novels who the Celestials (or the Architects) really were and what happened to them. This is one of the last great mysteries yet to be revealed about the Star Wars universe. They created Corellia, the Maw Cluster, Centerpoint Station and more. But what happened to them?

After long thought, I have come up with eleven different scenarios that I think encompass all the possibilities. Any other potential solutions can probably be summed up in one of the following statements. So whenever the mystery is finally revealed, I believe that it will be one of the following 11 answers:


1. They ?ascended? to a higher level, left the universe as we know it and took most of their technology and achievements with them.
2. They gradually ?devolved? into everyday humans (or some other species) and forgot their past over the eons. (doesn?t explain the disappearance of their infrastructure)
3. They were wiped out by another, powerful alien foe. (what happened to the foe?)
4. They were killed by a great plague of some sort. (again, doesn?t explain lack of structures)
5. They destroyed themselves and their infrastructure in some kind of civil war.
6. They were basically good, and were destroyed by some terrible evil that still threatens the entire universe.
7. They were evil, and were destroyed by a combined coalition of other sentient races.
8. They were basically good, and went into hibernation and hid their technology to face some greater threat in the future.
9. They were evil, and went into hibernation to come out and destroy everything built during their absence (ala Mass Effect, or the Shadows/Vorlons from B5).
10. They went into hibernation simply out of boredom, finding no more challenge, mystery, or point to the universe? waiting until the end.
11. They never existed at all. What is attributed to the Celestials was actually the actions of numerous other ancient races and/or beings, which have been forgotten through the ages, and the legend of the Celestials materialized out of speculation and myth.


Any thoughts? If you have any other valid possibilities, please feel free to post them below.

 

I worry this thread will require Abyss spoilers soon.

But my opinion is that I think the Celestials should have never been from this universe and were creatures of the Force to begin with.

They then descended down rather than ascended up.

 

They were overthrown by their slave caste of "builders".

 

They went beyond the Rim... oh, wait, wrong sci-fi universe.

Anyway, not sure I want the Celestial mystery solved, although with Centerpoint destroyed and the Maw (no Abyss spoilers, its just obvious the direction FotJ is going in), it seems like they're going to give us some kind of answer... and it probably won't be all that good. Sometimes I prefer a mystery, as often we don't like the answer.

There are occasional legends among some old races of how advanced civilizations become too advanced and are wiped out by something very powerful (referring to an old Lando Calrissian adventure). And, um, is it ok to reference the last Sith Tribe e-book? Well, spoilers for that, but in there, there's the legend of the Skyborn, who were supposed to protect the Keshiri from the Destructors... and the Sith took advantage of that.

And I'd say the Vorlons and Shadows were very different from the villains in Mass Effect (based on what I've read online, haven't gotten the game or the system yet). Neither the Vorlons or Shadows wanted to kill all the younger races... it just often ended up like that.

Although my preferred answer is that they simply left the galaxy and are gone. Preferably not dead and defeated (since if they lost, how is anyone supposed to defeat that kind of foe, no matter how awesome Luke Skywalker is). Simply moving on to greener pastures, like what happened to most of the older races in B5.

 

Crack theory: I assume that for whatever reason, all of the Celestials currently reside on ships which are always in hyperspace, forever living in the "space between spaces". They only come out of their dimension if they encounter a primitive civilization that could use some gods.

 

I had the impression the Celestials were the Sci-Fi version of gods.

Sort of like the Vorlons.

Creatures of the Force.

 

I picture them more as Angels, who gained infinite knowledge. The "good guys" of the ancient galaxy. They simply ascended to a higher plane of being, having mastered the physical universe. But they also seem to have used the Killiks as slaves, so I don't know.

Or maybe they are the Force manifestations of the stars themselves.

Well we know the Celestials created Centerpoint Station, Sinkhole Station, the Maw, probably Kessel, the Corellian System, the Vultar System, the Cosmic Turbine, the Hapes Cluster, the Kathol Rift, Cron Cluster, and Ossus. The Kwa and Gree based their gates on Celestial technology, they scared the Sharu and Columi into regression, the Killiks were their slave labor. No trace of them can be found after 30,000 BBY, when the Rakatan Empire was at its zenith.

 

Manifestations of the stars? Hmm... interesting in a Zonama Sekot kind of way I suppose.

Although, personally I tend to think Sekot is simply the sum of all parts of the life on Zonama, and so from a certain point of view not actually anything particularly unique, just the physical embodiment of the collective life imprint in the Force that every planet would have theoretically. I suppose though that stars are the source of life in a more abstract way.

I do like the idea of them being tied into the Force in some way like either you or Charlemagne suggest. To just be another alien uberculture from the past? Been there, done that, see Rakata. But something more novel? Yeah, I'd like that.

If they were a living race though, then the living in hyperspace idea is pretty nifty too (especially if it could also be woven into an explanation for Otherspace; maybe the thing in the Maw is Waru? ).

I'm currently a bit undecided as to the Destroyers and Skyborne stuff. On one hand, it could well be a reference to the Maw thing as against the Celestials; on the other hand, it might just turn out to be a metaphor for the coming of the Sith and, possibly later, the Jedi.

I also remain open to the Celestials as the Silentium and the Maw as the Abominor. Maw and -nor even rhyme.

 

The Celestials are Charon?

Unless it's revealed that most Abominor look nothing like The Great Heap, I won't be able to take them seriously as an ancient evil race.

 

I'm still partial to them simply being humans. I mean, the NEC kind of messed that possibility up by making humans a rakatan slave race (despite, uh, KotOR making a point of the fact that they weren't) but whatever. I guess that would be too "Halo" now, anyway.

 

I try not to think about the Great Heap, Abominor or not; he's about as appealing to me as the talking mountain in the Ewoks cartoon.

 

What if the celestials were stone giants, and Mt. Sorrow is actually a decapititated (or buried) celestial?

 

I've always gone for the "Rakata" being a slave race (warriors, probably), while someone else actually ran the Infinite Empire.

- The Imperial Ewok

 

Okay, some good theories here. Sounds like we've discovered some other possibilities.

The Celestials might have been (or still be) creatures of the Force. But would creatures of the Force be able to construct physical structures of the scale and magnitude that we attribute to them? Would they even care about the physical world to begin with?

Maybe they "ascended" to live in hyperspace. But if that's true, what happened to most of their infrastructure? They must have taken most of it with them. If you only left behind Centerpoint and a few other places as leftover technology, imagine all the infrastructure needed to build them in the first place, or the sheer size that society must have been.

Perhaps they WERE overthrown by one of their slave races. But could it have been the Killiks, who are obviously not the most powerful alien species on the block? The difference between them and the Celestials is astronomical.

If the Celestials had slaves and frightened other races into hiding, does this mean they were evil? Or simply so much more powerful than anything else that they truly did seem like gods?

 

To revise my theory...

They are the Force manifestations generated by the stars, with roughly one Celestial being the manifestation of the Force presence of one star. Being from a purely spiritual plane, they are all-knowing.

But also being such good-hearted spiritual beings, they wanted to help the other sentients in the universe, but couldn't in their pure Force manifestations.

So, they worked together to descend upon the galaxies and taught an aquatic species how to create physical droid bodies to hold their consciousness, and with their new bodies they became known as the Silentium. They began to tend and garden life throughout the galaxies. They built monumental structures, but didn't need much infrastructure since they were mostly self-sustaining.

But, now being connected to the physical world, for the first time many of them became tempted by power and the dark side. These rogue Silentium developed into the Abominor, the Destructors from below, and they waged a terrible civil war across the galaxies.

Many civilizations that they had been tending to, such as Sharu and the Yuuzhan Vong, turned away from them in horror or fought back as their caretakers morphed into Abominor and began consuming them as an ever-hungry presence and a cold darkness in the Force.

Finally, most of the Celestials decided to shed their Silentium bodies again, to defeat the Abominor. They began to win, as they rediscovered their power and true light. Some of the Abominor shed their bodies too, and became the Force Demons, but were hunted down.

Eventually, the most powerful of the Abominor/Force Demons withdrew to the Maw cluster of black holes. The Silentium then had their Killik workers build Centerpoint Station to keep the monster trapped in the Maw, and built a monitoring station beneath Kessel as well.

The war was over, but the Silentium/Celestials realized their power was too great, and trying to interfere and help the living species only caused harm in the end. They began to destroy as much of their technology as they could find, so it would never fall into the wrong hands, leaving just a few choice stations and weapons in case they ever needed to return. They then ascended back to their spiritual plane, leaving behind only a small batch of Silentium to stand guard in the Unknown Regions.

The Rakatans on Lehon, fascinated by the Abominor that had cruelly enslaved them, began to replicate their dark Force-imbued technology, and went on to start the Infinite Empire.

 

Yeah...why would force creatures build machines anyway.

Besides, if there is anything I hate in my sci-fi it is this pseudo-religious "ascending" junk....especially when they try to work in evolution somehow.

What I want to know is: how long were these guys around for. I mean, their technology is still beyond what the Republic has, and that has been around for 25,000 years!

 

Well, they would do it to "help" and properly interact with and guide the sentient beings, their "children," since they are stars.

The Celestials disappeared around 30,000 BBY. They were definitely around and powerful during 100,000 BBY. And there is some evidence from the Lando books that they were in the galaxy since 2,000,000 BBY. So they were around anywhere from 70 thousand to 2 million years.

 

Phew... finally getting towards finishing Omen. Ironic that I only got around to finishing Outcast about a week before Omen... and now I've left Omen until just before Abyss. Hopefully I'll actually get Abyss done more quickly.

Anyway, the story of the Destructors intrigues me... it strikes me a lot like the Reapers from Mass Effect with the talk of this race of "gods" who Return to send civilisations back to basics when they grow too big for their boots. That... suddenly has me thinking the Celestials are the Maw threat!

Jacen would then effectively have awoken the Celestials. Throw in the fact the Aing-Tii spoke of "Those Who Dwell Beyond the Veil" (which sounds either very Mawish or hyperspacey) and believed that the Force was not something to be meddled with or used when you could avoid it, and Caedus's screwing with time becomes a sure fire thing to piss off the great Destructors who may have chosen to Return and exact punishment on the mortal races for misusing what they, the Destructors/Celestials/"gods", perceived as "Their" gift.

Abominor connection or not, it also strikes me as interesting how Ship is potentially the equivalent of an entechment-based starship. We currently have been led to believe Ship is just a semi-sentient mass of metal that has been imbued with the dark side... but what if it was more than that? If so, Ship could turn out to be a foreshadowing of an immortal race of Force-enteched droids.

But that's then probably getting way too close the the Reapers.

Anyway... back to finishing Omen I go. I have to say, the whole idea that Jacen planned for the Force crazies by flow-walking to drive them nuts as a way to accomplish things after death also intrigues me... it smacks of Han's "working to redeem himself" line in MF in an extremely indirect way than simply some weird horcrux thing. Still doesn't explain the Maw connection, though.

I'm definitely sensing a flow-walking/Aing-Tii/Celestials/Maw link though...

 

I suppose though that stars are the source of life in a more abstract way.


It's not really abstract-it's the raw elements that stars kick out that eventually form planets.

 

And possibly the rest of FOTJ.

 

I was all set to post my theory, but it would require a few minor Abyss spoilers, so I'll hold off on part of it and just say the non-spoiler part in that I personally would like the Celestials to be bad guys, or at least indifferent to the plight of lower beings. Though that isn't to say there couldn't be a worse race, just that it isn't "These guys are awesome, these guys are terrible". The idea has been kicked around these forums before, and I'm a fan of it. The idea of this mysterious angelic race of do-gooders and another demonic race of hellraisers just doesn't appeal to me. Its too cliche. Assuming there are two races of all powerful beings, I would like their relation to the lower races of the universe to be akin to how humans would treat dogs or other animals. Some might hold them in regard, some in contempt. If you saw two dogs fighting you might be inclined to break it up if you can do it without getting hurt, but realistically there are people out there who would be inclined to watch for their own enjoyment. I see the Celestials like that. Some might want to lend a helping hand to the citizens of the galaxy if it suits them, while others will just kick back and watch. Or better yet arm both factions and set them against each other. Anythings possible, but I just don't want two clear cut almighty races, one good and one bad.

 

Chuck Norris happened to the Celestials. That is all you need to know.

 

Did that joke just flow-walk all the way from 2006?

 

I SAID, THAT'S ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW.