Yuuzhan Vong True Gods....the Celestials?

Its just the theory of mine. But I always wondered how the Vong religion came about and how they started believing in Gods. What if the Celestials went to there galaxy long long time ago and the Vong were so in awe of their power that they started worshipping them as Gods and they gave these beings names. What if Yun Yammka, Yun Harla, and the gods were real and they were none other than Celestials.

 

Something I've always wondered: In the Unifying Force, the Yuuzhan Vong mentions being the 4th race charged with bringing about the will of the gods, the others having failed.

We know so little about Yuuzhan Vong myths.

 

According to Harrar, the Vong gods were derivatives of the original Yuuzhan'tar, a sentient planet like Sekot (except for Yun-Yammka, who they invented when they first became warlike and decided they needed a war god). Assuming he's right, then the Celestials didn't fill that exact role, though it's possible he could have been wrong, that Celestials or Celestial-like beings were involved in some other capacity (I wouldn't mind having some light shed on the technological race that nearly whiped the Vong out and left them with an insnae hatred of machines), or that there's some connection between the living planets at the Celestials. As mentioned above, the Vong prehistory is a potentially fascinating well of stories- pity DelRey currently seems bent on ignoring them insofar as is possible.

 

Then again, we're not exactly sure what the Celestials were, so the idea that Yuuzhan'tar "was" the YV gods and the idea that the Celestials "were" the YV gods are not necessarily contradictory.

I personally don't think so, though, but it's possible. I do hope we get more light shed on the Celestials, or at least more of a base being built for potential stories related to such mysteries in the future.

The more time passes the more it seems like the future of Star Wars is in it's past. After a while Legacy will virtually have a monopoly on the future (which in a way it almost already does), and they've got thousands of years set up in the past which, as far as I can tell, have always been a source of great fan-pleasure in recent times.


I mean, seriously: KOTOR games, KOTOR comics, Darth Bane novels...


But back on topic. I'm not sure it would be wise for TPTB to tie the Celestials to too many ancient threads. They're already responsible for a lot in the GFFA, and to also give them authority in the YV galaxy might be stretching it. In fact, if the Celestials do come to ever feature prominently in a story (not necessarily as characters, mind you) then I'd say it would be better to leave roles open for other races of similar might.

Still, I have trouble with the concept of ever seeing a story heavily feature the... um... species/race/group/order? If they do, though, I repeat that I would like for them to not be responsible for everything..

 

Yeah, this is a terrible idea.

 

I agree. The YV don't even belong in the GFFA they ruined their own galaxy and decided to ruin another people's galaxy after their own homeworld rant he hell away from them. Nothing about them is native to the GFFA. Sekot was their own.

 

Weren't they already confirmed to have been the Silentium and Abominor?

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Abominor

 

Yeah, I thought that was mentioned to be them.

 

I actually rather like this!!

You, sir, get a Special Golden Ewok von Danniken?!!

I have to admit that I prefer to leave the core of the Yuuzhan Vong religion fundamentally to itself, and I have a personal suspicion that the Yun'o can be interpreted as aspects of the Force, a different metaphor from the "dark" and "good" sides but perhaps no less of a coherent one (anyoine interested in me upping "NJO-tional Retcon Week" to explain the inherrent logic of the True Way? )...

... but, that said, I'd not at all be opposed to some Stargate-cum-syncretism backstory...

After all, we know that the "Celestials" were big on long-range removal service... so there's nothing to say that things like the Corellian system weren't brought from the same place as the Yuuzhan Vong (or, conversely, that the Yuuzhan Vong came from the Star Wars galaxy)... after all, the fundamental genetic connections between the YV and GFFA indicate a common origin...

And then there's the fact that Centerpoint looks a LOT like a member of the Silentium...

So, yeah, I like this, with the serious caveat that I don't want it to be too explicit, and I suspect that it would fly better as a von Danniken imposture than the source of Yuuzhan Vong mythology...

After all, it's a well-known fact that the Ewoks were enemies of the Goa'uld...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

I seem to remember a discussion like that once where I considered how Yun-Yammka is kind of like their equivalent of the dark side. Not only because Jacen Solo, future Sith Lord, was seen as the Avatar of Yun-Yammka, but also because Yun-Yammka was "invented", which fit with how the dark side is a violation of the Force's natural flow, so by embodying Yun-Yammka he embodied the will of mortals, not the will of the Force.

Or something. It's kind of hard to put a really long discussion into a sound bite.

That aside, I always just largely saw them as "aspects of the Force" too. Nevertheless, I'd also basically agree with MasterGhandalf in that I always essentially saw them as "aspects of Yuuzhan'tar". After all, like Zonama, Yuuzhan'tar would have been a big part of the Living Force, so I figure the "gods" may have just been equivalent to what Sekot is for Zonama: Force aspects of the original world's general will.

On the balance of things, I think the Vong religion has enough interesting hooks that could be explored without tying a future author's hands if ever such story was actually told. That said, while I'm not sure I'd ever want the Yun'o to be the Celestials, I am however not necessarily averse to them being the same as the Celestials, i.e. pure Force entities that came to be... um, somehow.

Come to think of it, if and when FOTJ revisits the "this is how one becomes a Celestial" slip in Abyss, it will be interesting to look again at exactly what Sekot is. If Abeloth turns out to be some kind of "fallen angel", then I'd ponder whether the idea Celestials are "all knowing" is in fact self-aggrandizing hyperbole on their part, since the way the Mind Walkers talked they made it sound, to me at least, like a path to "omniscience" without becoming one with the Force, so would be in fact not as omniscient as a true ghost. From that line of thought, Abeloth would be a maw seeking to drink all knowledge, hungering to become one without actually ever becoming one.

So, looking again at Sekot: on a smaller scale, is Sekot not one with all life on Zonama in a similar way? Just nowhere near so extreme? Ergo, I suppose it's possible the Yun'o might (Celestials' true nature and FOTJ plot pending) be a similar kind of "all knowing collective will". Just where Abeloth has become a junkie, obsessed with more, more, more, Sekot is content to just be one with all life on Zonama, without going off on devouring all other life in the galaxy into becoming one with her.

Which, if Abeloth is a fallen angel, might be what the original Celestials were like, i.e. non-addicts, stellar consciousnesses, whatever.

Um, come again?

 

Hmm...Yun Yammka was the God of War, "The Slayer" and IIRC, at the end of TUF, Onimi stated that Luke Skywalker was the avatar of Yun Yammka and Jacen was said to be the avatar of Yun Shuno (the low class God of shamed ones).

 

Earlier on in the war the Vong were all about getting the twins Jacen and Jaina to fight, i.e. the Twin Gods, Yun-Yammka and Yun-Harla. In the end they came to see him as Yun-Shuno though, you're right. Even outside the Vong religious framework, both gods largely fit him: Yun-Yammka, the embodiment of the self; Yun-Shuno, the embodiment of the outcast. For all Jacen Solo was noble, the self driven outcast is what he later became.

Which is where that theory originally came from several years back, with Yun-Yammka, "the lie", potentially being equivalent to the lie that the dark side is stronger or that going against the will of the Force can be for the greater good. The Vong's "fall" to the Slayer pretty much brought about the same for them that falling to the dark side does for any Force-user: it ultimately led to their own destruction.

Obviously though a lot of the parallel is simply over analysis and just comes from how archtypically evil both concepts are. For what the Vong are though, I've always liked how their ancient history suggests it was their turning to war [and so worshipping Yun-Yammka] that caused them to "lose" the Force, or as Sekot theorised: caused Yuuzhan'tar to strip them of it. Turning to the dark side seems as good a reason as any for a living planet to go ahead and strip its inhabitants of their ability to touch the Force. They just kept worshipping war even after that and it took them however many millennia to realise their mistake that Yun-Yammka was not the god they thought.

Which is why I really want to see Zonama Sekot in Legacy to see whether there are any Vong who have returned to their ancient roots and regained Force-sensitivity. It'd be nice to see their casting off of Yun-Yammka at long last reawakening their race to the oneness with Sekot [or once Yuuzhan'tar] that their race had all that time ago. I can picture a religious order of peaceful monks based around worshipping Sekot as rather interesting, particularly as it'd be a bit like exploring the origins of the Jedi Order but in the modern age, through the eyes of a race who are only now once again remembering what it is to touch the Force. I don't really remember the last time we saw a truly infant Force tradition.

 

It's definitely possible. It could be a separate group of the Celestials, that decided to explore the YV galaxy. Just a few of them, that held different values and beliefs. One more warlike, one experimenter, etc.

 

I think it is worth noticing that Abeloth just happens to have a planet which she fully controls...

We know she is a "dark side entity" or something of the sort, but beyond that we know little. Does she have a physical body? If so, what is it? Zorrixor speculated in another thread that her "body" might be the Black Holes of the Maw, while the Celestials' normal bodies were stars. This is an interesting idea, for many reasons, but the answer could be something more well known.

And that's where we can start noticing the similarities between Sekot and Abeloth. Both appear however they wish to other people, be they on their planet or nearby (I think Sekot could do this... not fully sure). They're both in relative control of the world and I'm fairly certain they're both "force entities".

There was an interesting mention of other conscious planets in The Unifying Force by Sekot:

"Now I understand that the acts of the Far Outsiders may have been nothing more than a reawakening of the evil my parent experienced when its symbionts used its creations not merely to defend Yuuzhan'tar, but to launch an era of bloodshed that resulted in the death of countless worlds -- along with many latent planetary conciousnesses." (TFU, pg. 497)


Of course, this is well into the realm of fanwanking, but it's still a potential explanation for what Abeloth, at least, might be. The Celestials aren't necessarily related... After all, a cluster of black holes may be quite the adequate method for imprisoning a "rogue planet", at least if they're kept from just going their own way by something (Centerpoint). But hey, who knows...

 

I've now got this really warped final battle image in my head of Sekot going 1 on 1 with Abeloth.

 

Quick, someone build a lightsaber big enough for Sekot to weild...and arms to weild it with!

 

You raise a good point. Sekot already has massive planet sized hyperengines; a planet sized lightsaber is simply the next logical step. It's a perfectly natural technological progression!