I’ve always thought Coruscant looked incredible from above — those glowing skylanes and towers stretching forever, but under all that shine was a different world. Far below the Senate District and Jedi Temple were the underworld levels, places buried so deep that sunlight never reached them. Down there, life felt forgotten, and even the idea of government only existed because of one thing — the Underworld Police.
These officers were nothing like the sleek, polished cops or droids you’d see up top. They looked mysterious, covered head to toe in armor with voice changers that made them sound like machines. And the reason for all that gear turned out to be a lot sadder than anyone expected.
Life In Coruscant’s Depths
Coruscant’s underworld was a maze of rusted metal, flickering lights, and endless noise. The further you went down, the more it felt like the surface had stopped caring. Power shortages, hunger, gang fights — it all became part of daily life. I’ve read that the government’s only visible presence in those levels was the Underworld Police, which says a lot about how bad things got.
The lower levels used to be home to immigrants chasing the “Coruscant dream.” They came from all over the galaxy hoping for opportunity, but most couldn’t afford the surface. They ended up settling in the lower sections where housing was cheap. At first, those communities still had some support from the government. But as more people arrived, new layers of city were built on top of the old ones, burying entire neighborhoods below.
Services stopped reaching them, and the further down you went, the poorer and more dangerous life became. Entire sectors turned into self-contained districts divided by culture or species — Rodians in one area, Humans from Corellia in another, Twi’leks, Klatooinians, and so on. Over time, these communities clashed, formed gangs, and built up rivalries that made trust almost impossible.
Why The Underworld Needed A Hidden Police Force
By the time things reached their worst, some officials actually considered abandoning the lowest levels completely. But leaving them alone meant giving crime syndicates total control, or risking a rebellion that could rise from below. So the planetary government created the Coruscant Underworld Police, a special division meant to keep peace where no one else could.
That decision led to a huge problem. The underworld’s population was made up of hundreds of different species and clans that often hated each other. If an officer from one group showed up in a rival’s territory, they could be attacked instantly. It didn’t matter if they wore a badge or carried the Republic emblem. Their face alone could spark violence.
The solution was to take identity out of the equation. Officers started wearing long, trench coat–style uniforms that covered their entire bodies. Their helmets hid their faces, and voice changers distorted the sound of their speech so no one could tell what species they were. From then on, every Underworld cop became anonymous — not Human, not alien, just an authority figure. It kept them safer and helped reduce immediate bias or hostility.
Of course, this also meant that people in the underworld began seeing their only connection to the government as a group of faceless enforcers who spoke in robotic voices. The masks protected the police, but they deepened the gap between the surface and the forgotten millions living below.
What Policing The Underworld Was Like
Being part of the Underworld Police was nothing like being a regular officer. These were some of the toughest beings on Coruscant. They trained for armed and unarmed combat, interrogation, and speeder pursuit through narrow tunnels and dark city blocks. Most patrolled on foot or in small police speeders, and their job wasn’t just to stop crime — it was to stop chaos from spilling upward.
During the Clone Wars, they sometimes worked alongside Jedi investigators like Anakin Skywalker or Ahsoka Tano. There’s a moment in The Clone Wars series when underworld officers are chasing Ahsoka through the lower levels after she’s framed for bombing the Jedi Temple. Their voices sound completely mechanical through their speakers — cold, uniform, and hard to read.
When the Republic became the Empire, the Underworld Police didn’t vanish. They were absorbed into the new system, still wearing their masks, now working side by side with stormtroopers. The same helmets that once hid their identities for safety became part of a new kind of fear — enforcing Imperial order in places already used to being oppressed.