100 years earlier than the occasions of The Phantom Menace, Star Wars‘ newest streaming collection The Acolyte presents us with the tail finish of a degree in Star Wars chronology often called the period of the Excessive Republic. Itself named for the transmedia initiative that started in 2021, a lot of the occasions of that initiative have taken place about one other century even earlier than The Acolyte, giving us a tough timeframe for a way the galaxy far, far-off—and particularly the Jedi Order and the Republic—has modified from the apex of this quote unquote “golden age” to the transitory decline we see within the present. However this week’s episode additionally gave us a extra intriguing direct hyperlink to the Excessive Republic books… one which raises just a few extra questions on what The Acolyte is saying about these establishments.
Early on in “Selection”—which flashes again 16 years previous to the occasions of the remainder of The Acolyte—we meet a bunch of 4 Jedi tasked with a analysis mission on the world of Brendok, the planet the place twin sisters Osha and Mae grew up. On the time, nonetheless, these 4 Jedi (Sol, Indara, Indara’s padawan apprentice Torbin, and the Wookiee Kelnacca) believed that Brendok was fully uninhabited, with Indara explaining to her padawan that Brendok had beforehand been catalogued by the Jedi and the Republic as a dull world, after being ravaged by a “hyperspace disaster” a century prior.
The catastrophe Indara refers to—the Great Hyperspace Disaster—is a key occasion that kicked off the first wave of High Republic books and comics in 2021. Largely explored within the Charles Soule novel Gentle of the Jedi, the catastrophe happens when a transport ship, the Legacy Run, breaks up mid-hyperspace leap. The Legacy Run, already a century outdated by the point of the accident, shears itself aside making an attempt to keep away from what its crew believed to be surprising particles alongside its hyperspace route, however was really one other ship, a raider belonging to the piratical Nihil, utilizing beforehand unknown and uncharted hyperspace leap paths.
Not solely have been seemingly all arms on board—together with 9,000 colonists transferring to the sting of Republic house within the Outer Rim Territories—misplaced, by breaking up whereas nonetheless touring at lightspeed, fragments of the ship re-entered realspace at unpredictable areas alongside Legacy Run‘s supposed hyperspace route. This particles would re-enter realspace almost sustaining the rate it had achieved traveling in hyperspace in occasions often called “emergences,” changing into lethal meteors of molten slag that might seem at any time, virtually wherever throughout the Outer Rim, and lay waste to total worlds and techniques in a close to occasion.
Thousands and thousands of individuals died in the course of the emergences, with worlds throughout the Outer Rim affected. Hyperspace journey throughout the fringes of Republic territory was briefly paused by its Supreme Chancellor, Lina Soh, and the Jedi Order, working from the Republic’s lately constructed Outer Rim command station, Starlight Beacon, rendered help. The Jedi’s main aid mission targeted on the Hetzal system—a key agricultural supply for the Republic and particularly for the then-nascent medicinal substance, bacta—that was particularly threatened by the emergences, safeguarding a lot of Hetzal Prime and its moons from whole catastrophe.
In keeping with Indara, Brendok was impacted by one among these emergences—rendering the world solely uninhabitable, and left alone by the Jedi and the Republic within the wake of the catastrophe. Someday over the subsequent century nonetheless, pure life returned to Brendok, together with it a coven of witches and Drive customers who constructed their very own society out of mining services that have been deserted when Brendok was impacted by an emergence. The Brendok coven survived on the world in isolation for years, unknown by wider galactic society, till its existence was found by the 4 Jedi we meet in The Acolyte.
These Jedi have been there to analyze how pure life had re-emerged on the planet, surmising that sooner or later within the final century—maybe as a response to the sheer pure destruction Brendok should have endured in the course of the affect of the emergence—the planet grew to become house to what’s often called a “vergence” in the Force. A extremely highly effective and concentrated coalescence of the Drive itself, vergences may focus on a location like Brendok or perhaps a singular particular person like it will definitely would with Anakin Skywalker, reflecting an historical Jedi prophecy a few chosen determine who can be highly effective sufficient to deliver steadiness to the Drive’s disparate gentle and darkish facets.
The focus of Drive energies may manifest life itself, because the Jedi found within the flora that had regrown on Brendok… or, within the case of the coven, could possibly be harnessed alongside different religious magics and practices to help create sentient life within the type Osha and Mae: twin sisters whose biology revealed that they have been akin to the spirit of a singular being break up throughout two bodily varieties
Apart from being a enjoyable Easter egg to attach the unique Excessive Republic books to The Acolyte, the reply might be not a lot immediately. In spite of everything, the occasions of the Nice Hyperspace Catastrophe are actually firmly up to now by the point of The Acolyte, and people occasions are primarily extra necessary due to the Drive vergence that manifested on Brendok in its wake, somewhat than essentially their literal, direct affect.
As an alternative, the occasion is primarily fascinating for what it says about the Republic itself and the Jedi Order 100 years down the road, reflective of the rising stagnation that might finally lay each establishments low one other hundred years after within the occasions of the Star Wars prequels. That each the Jedi and the Republic deserted Brendok in its entirety after the emergence is a captivating concept: if a previous mining facility was nonetheless left standing effectively sufficient the coven may come alongside and inhabit it, it’s clear that the world was not fully destroyed by the emergence, so even declaring it fully lifeless looks like a transfer made by lax consideration or for focusing priorities elsewhere throughout aid efforts. However it’s in that lax consideration that the coven managed to thrive, and on condition that the Jedi solely returned to Brendok when it as soon as once more grew to become probably of curiosity and exploitation once more via its regrown flora (and, via the vergence, exploitable via a religious useful resource as effectively) it speaks to the type of ethical rigor each the Republic and the Order itself now face on this current second.
For a century, Brendok was nothing to those nice powers, till it confirmed that it may probably turn out to be one thing once more to them—ignorant to the wants of communities that thrived with out their involvement there for years and years. How that performs into the way in which these 4 Jedi reacted to the coven’s presence on Brendok weaves additional into The Acolyte‘s critique of those grand establishments, and the way in the end even the very best intentions can pave a street to darkness and tragedy.
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