The Gibbela system existed as a component of the Atrivis sector, which itself was situated in the New Territories region of the extensive Outer Rim Territories. Its location was quite remote, far removed from even the lesser-used hyperlanes, and it was the home of the solitary terrestrial planet called Gibbela. Gibbela was the original homeworld of the shapeshifting Dazouri species. When sufficiently angered, the Dazouri would transform from their typical, harmless Humanoid appearance into towering, three-meter-tall, murderous, and wildly aggressive predators. Consequently, spacers generally avoided making stops at Gibbela.
During the Imperial era under the Galactic Empire's rule, the Empire formulated plans to colonize Gibbela. An Imperial scouting party, consisting of a Sentinel-class landing craft transporting an Imperial officer and a stormtrooper guard, was sent to the world. However, when the vessel touched down at the farm belonging to one of the Dazouri, and the Imperial officer declared Gibbela to be Imperial territory and demanded the farmer's submission, the Dazouri underwent their species' signature transformation and annihilated the entire Imperial force. Sometime between 4 ABY and 12 ABY, the Gibbela system came to be situated within the territory of the Pentastar Alignment.
The Gibbela system's first appearance was in the story titled "The Value of Proper Intelligence to Any Successful Military Campaign is Not to Be Underestimated," a comic penned by Ken Lizzl, with illustrations by Lucas Marangon. It was published in the nineteenth edition of the Star Wars Tales comic series on May 14, 2004. In relation to the Star Wars Legends continuity, Lucasfilm initially considered stories within Star Wars Tales 1 through 20 to be of S-canon, or "secondary" canon status, unless they were later referenced in a source outside of Tales. At that point, the subject matter would be elevated to C-canon, or "continuity" canon.
The events depicted in the comic story from Star Wars Tales 19 were later referenced within an entry for Gibbela in the 2008 publication The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia. The 2009 reference work The Essential Atlas, written by Daniel Wallace and Jason Fry, officially named the Gibbela system and placed its location within grid square L-5.