Centares has been a part of the galaxy’s documented history for a very long time. Some scholars have mentioned of Centares being part of the Kiirium Reaches conqured by Xim the Despot a century prior to the founding of the Galactic Republic. Although this was later disproved – the Kiirium Reaches being identified as the Ash Worlds – the fact that Centarian civilization is ancient is not in question. During the early years of the Clone Wars, the entire Maldrood sector, including Centares, joined the Separatists. This led to the Battle of Centares between the clone armies of the Republic and the Separatist’s droid troops which was inconclusive but resulted in the system remaining in Separatists hands.

Modern Centares is a prime example of global development done right. In urbanizing and building up the world, the Centares local government has balanced the needs of economic development and environmental preservation, making the planet the economic hub and breadbasket of the whole system. The planet boasts a gentle and varied climate, with polar ice caps, warm equatorial forests and a mighty central mountain range. The planet is blessed with an abundance of water, from flowing freshwater rivers and marshes to oceans teeming with fish and other marine creatures. Small areas of sandy desert are located in the rain shadow of the central mountain range, and are home to a number of mining towns that extract and process the silica into building materials for the rest of the planet.

Approximately three quarters of the planet’s surface has been urbanized, with glittering marble towers and glass fronted skyscrapers rising from what used to be mountains, plains and forests. Municipal developers have been careful to incorporate environmental protections and wildlife preservation methodologies such as environmental corridors between fragments of forest, stepped waterways to bypass dams and regular underpasses under highways, for animals to cross. In the mountains, where parts of the huge cities are built on giant repulsorlift platforms, many buildings include nesting boxes for birds and other flying animals. Every city includes giant greenhouse complexes, many on repulsorlift platforms to maximize the planetary volume devoted to food production. Centares’ equatorial oceans, both fresh and salt water, are intensely aquafarmed close to shore, but further out, natural ecosystems prevail, with large marine organisms living mostly as they would have millennia ago.

Space transport infrastructure is particularly well developed, with almost every city having facilities for the loading of heavy transport vessels. The floating greenhouse complexes and shoreline aquaculture centres together supply almost half the food production of the entire system. Many cities also include tall towers with networks of freight elevators to service multiple heavy freighters simultaneously. With this level of economic activity, there are proportionately fewer impoverished citizens. Almost anyone who wants to work can find work in the farms, aquaculture centers, freight warehouses and associated facilities.