Expanding the Timeline: Impressions and Speculation on the future of Star Wars: The High Republic

Photo: Lucasfilm

by Arezou

*Mild Spoilers for Light of the Jedi, Into the Dark, and A Test of Courage below*

If Star Wars has a “comfort zone” when it comes to books, then it’s definitely the Original Trilogy Era. And it’s probably got something to do with pilots. No hate to the pilot fans out there - I know there are many - but of all the stories out there, those aren’t the kind I gravitate towards (Lost Stars is, of course, the exception).

So imagine my surprise when Lucasfilm unveiled details of their new, top-secret publishing initiative: a series of connected books and comics focusing on the Jedi in an era known as the High Republic, some 200 years before The Phantom Menace. 

Jedi? In their prime? A totally new era? Inter-connected storytelling? Tell me more!

As more and more information began to come out, the concerns started to set in. With absolutely no familiar characters or events to ground the reader, and knowing that Star Wars storytelling usually takes a “go big or go home” approach, how long would it be before they feel lost in the expansive world of The High Republic? There is, after all, so much there.

The authors and creatives behind The High Republic repeatedly stated that readers could pick and choose which parts of the story they wanted to engage with. In theory, any combination of books and comics would be just fine to follow the story. As someone who likes reading as much as possible, so far I’ve read all the books and some of the comics; and while it does help you feel more immersed to read more of them, I do agree with the assessment that it isn’t strictly necessary. Each book does an excellent job of setting up the world all on its own.

Now that the first round of books is out - but not the first “phase,” we’ll get to that later - let’s take a closer look. What are these stories actually about?

As mentioned above, 200 years before the events of the Prequel Trilogy, the Republic and the Jedi are thriving. It is a time of peace, and cooperation and most significantly outward expansion. As colonists head for the sparsely populated Outer Rim of the galaxy, the Republic prepares to launch the Starlight Beacon, a combination space station/relay beacon designed to keep the ever-expanding known galaxy in closer communication.

Naturally, in a time of peace and prosperity like this, something is bound to go wrong. And it does. Immediately.

A ship called the Legacy Run is struck by an unknown object in hyperspace and breaks into pieces, both big and small. These chunks fall out of hyperspace at irregular intervals, leaving massive destruction in their wake. But disaster or crisis of some kind that people need to respond to isn’t exactly uncharted territory for Star Wars. The entire film saga was kicked off (chronologically) by a blockade crisis over Naboo. 

However this so-called “Great Disaster” is just the cataclysmic event that serves as an introduction to the thing that really sets the High Republic apart as a Star Wars story: the extensive cast of characters - specifically Jedi. Yes, there are other characters too, but they exist in the periphery of the Jedi, who are the ones driving the narrative.

The idea of Jedi is synonymous with Star Wars. In the minds of even the most casual viewer, you cannot have one without the other. Which is why it’s so surprising that we haven’t had a Jedi-heavy story like this in the new canon. The ones that we have had are either like Master and Apprentice, focusing on two Jedi we already know, or like Dooku: Jedi Lost, which is still a fairly self-contained narrative, about Dooku and those in his periphery.

In fairness, each individual book does fall in line with this Jedi Lost approach - it is focused around a small core group of Jedi. Which is why I feel, despite the assertions made by the creators, that the reader is actually best served by reading as many High Republic stories as they can. The books, at the very least. Because when taken together, they put together a very interesting picture, something Star Wars hasn’t really touched on before, but is the most natural plot development possible: the eventual fall of the Jedi Order.

I know the Order technically “fell” because of Order 66. But the foundation was already weakened long before Senator Sheev Palpatine ever became Supreme Chancellor.

With so many Jedi both reacting to and being affected by this Great Disaster, it is extremely clear, if it wasn’t clear before, that the Jedi are not a monolith. Despite everyone being taught the same core principals, no two Jedi take the lessons to heart in the same way. In letting the reader observe more Jedi beyond the usual master/apprentice dynamic, we see that even among those who function within a dichotomy of Light and Dark, there is more than one way to think, and more than one way to be right. 

Before we start thinking these High Republic Jedi are somehow more sophisticated than the Jedi we’ve come to know on film, just because they can do cool tricks like floating in the air, there is something achingly familiar about them. Emotions like fear and grief are still not given the nuanced consideration such feelings require. Many of our main characters lose a friend, a master, a protégée, as a result of the Great Disaster, or some other conflict. In struggling to reconcile this keenly-felt loss with the “don’t give in to grief or anger” approach of the Jedi, we walk away from this first round of books with the distinct impression that the powerful edifice of the Jedi, which has stood for millennia, has started to crack.

Though I could very easily read an entire series of the Jedi coming to terms with their own emotions and internal conflicts regarding the Order, there are also external antagonists for them to contend with. This is another way these stories stand apart from the rest of the saga. If Yoda is shocked the first time he hears of Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace because Sith haven’t existed in a thousand years, then that requires the creation of a new enemy force for the Jedi to face.

Or, in the case of the High Republic, two. 

There are the mysterious Drengir, sentient plant monsters first introduced to book readers in Claudia Gray’s YA novel Into the Dark. Don’t let the “plant monster” thing fool you into thinking these are light-hearted villains either. We still don’t know much about them, but what we do know is both fascinating and terrifying. They have the capacity to wield the Dark side of the Force. They are, in fact, so strong with the Dark side that the Sith fear them. They’re too dark for the Sith. The Force is in every living being, it is a part of life, and yet they manage to fracture the connection between a Force user and their connection to the energy that literally surrounds and binds every living thing. 

Then there is the more developed threat, and my personal favourite of the two: the Nihil. Best described as ruthless punk space pirates, the Nihil have a take-no-prisoners approach to those they perceive as being in their part of space. What started as petty squabbling turned into a much larger violent streak when the Republic showed up with their promises of uniting the galaxy and settling in the uninhabited, uncivilized Outer Rim. One small problem there is that the Outer Rim is not uninhabited. And though the standards of civilization may not match those of the Republic, it’s not as though anarchy reigns. 

The creators of The High Republic have gone out of their way to paint the Nihil as the ultimate villains. They fear nothing and no one. They are evil. Pure evil. Putting aside for a moment the fact that Star Wars has never ever given us a purely evil, unmotivated “villain”, I would argue that even at this early stage, the description is unwarranted. It seems like a much more appropriate description for the Drengir (though I cannot wait to see what their primary motivation winds up being). To me, the Nihil read like a group that has been radicalized by the invasion - and yes, the colonization - of their homeland. 

So what comes next? 

As I mentioned above, we haven’t even gotten through the first “Phase” of The High Republic. This first phase, called Light of the Jedi (not to be confused with the book of the same name) is expected to last the rest of this year at least, and into 2022. The next two phases, respectively called Quest of the Jedi and Trials of the Jedi are expected to follow immediately after, which means we have years of High Republic stories to look forward to, with plenty of time to mine the rich story potential that has already been set up.

I suspect that we will see all of our main Jedi characters grapple with their place in the Order in some way, and if the era ends with all of them still serving as proud Jedi, I will be extremely surprised. There are, of course, the ones who grapple with loss and grief, as mentioned earlier. There are also characters, like the two most prominent Jedi in Charles Soule’s Light of the Jedi, who struggle with feelings of love and attachment towards one another. Though they are adults and believe themselves beyond these things, that kind of longing and yearning just isn’t sustainable. How many times have we seen that go wrong in a Star Wars story? I can’t help but wonder whether any of this will play into the “Lost Twenty” (mentioned in Dooku: Jedi Lost), the group of Jedi who left the Order voluntarily for other pursuits.

Then of course, there is all the potential with the new villains. As of now, the Drengir’s motivations remain a mystery, as do the Nihil’s, though it is a little easier to speculate on the latter. Their leader, Marchion Ro (called “the Eye”) by the Nihil, is a man with a mysterious identity and a personal bone to pick with the Jedi, which usually leads to the best, most dramatic of conclusions. 

A whole new era of storytelling indeed.