"Space... is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big it is."

- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams

Arcturia.

The little green planet was almost dead centre of the Chommell Sector, in the Middle Rim, comfortably sat near Naboo – almost close enough to be considered a moon. Their interplanetary friendship with each other extended to close trade, interspecies breeding, a connective space transport that ran daily – and even representatives on the councils that governed the two planets.

The inhabitants of the planet were near human, short, olive skinned, with distinctive colouring to their eyes and hair, when paired with the symmetrical markings on their bodies – similar to that of a Togruta – set Arcturians apart from other humanoids.

Arcturia's main export was the fish found in the many rivers that spiralled across the small planet. Life there was easy, the weather temperate and predictable, the people happy, the economy stable. For many years, Arcturia thrived, the royal family just and uncorrupted. The capital city held an annual galaxy-famous market, where all cultures and species were welcome to showcase goods and services, in a massive showground. People travelled from all over the planet and beyond to sell and buy rare and beautiful things found nowhere else.

Bhāsā was a small town by the edge of the Ākāśī River, just on the outskirts of the capital. It was a beautiful place, of white wash houses with domed roofs, and on the other side of the great river, mountains stretched. It was there that the Omari family lived, and there that Raiko Omari had been born, ten years before the blockade around Naboo and Arcturia formed.

Falada Omari had been heavily pregnant for a while now – two weeks overdue – but she had known it would be so, and so there was no panic, at least, not from within the family. Within the Bhāsā community, the Omari family were tolerated and even liked, but not trusted. They had always had something about them. Some strange whispering aura that seemed to stick to them, and let them know things they shouldn't. It was strictly unnatural and un-Arcturian, and often ended any conversation that went past the basic greeting.

When Alioth Yu-Sen married into the family, everyone had expected him to keep his own name, so untrusted was the name 'Omari', but, as was tradition, he changed his surname to Omari. Then he gave her a son. The son's name was Kei, and he quickly grew to be gentle and soft like his father. His blood ran green like a normal Arcturian, his markings were brown, and his hair navy blue, his eyes little pieces of the clear blue sky. All standard. He showed an indication towards the Mājhi, swimming as well as he crawled – and the fishermen took him under their collective wings with ease. He was, by all means, a normal child, and there was no hint of any strangeness about him, and so, from a young age, he acted as a liaison for the Omari family.

Falada's youngest child and only daughter was taken away ten years before the blockade around Naboo and Arcturia set into motion events that would effect the whole galaxy.

She had given birth to a beautiful young girl with crystalline lavender eyes and a shock of violet hair. Her marks were a deep purple that mirrored her own, and the most beautiful thing of all, in her eyes, was that the same strange power that seemed to follow her family was stirring in her daughter. Stronger than it had been in her, and perhaps that was the reason the visiting Jedi came to her door, a day after her daughter had been born.

Jedi Master Mace Windu was doing a routine follow up on a terrorist claim when he had felt the tell-tale pulling of a force sensitive. He found himself at the door of a seemingly ordinary house, but the woman who answered the door was anything but – and the quiet baby in her arms was even more extraordinary. And so, when he returned to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, he brought Raiko Omari with him.