One hundred years before the events of The Phantom Menace, Star Wars” latest streaming series The Acolyte presents us with the end of a point In Star Wars chronology known as the High Republic era. Itself named for the transmedia initiative which began in 2021, much of the events of this initiative took place about a century before The Acolytegiving us a rough idea of how the galaxy far, far away – and in particular the Jedi Order and the Republic – evolved from the height of that “golden age” to the transitional decline we see in the series. this week’s episode also gave us a more intriguing direct link to the High Republic books…one that raises some additional questions about what The Acolyte This is what these institutions say.
At the beginning of “Choice” – which flashes back 16 years before the events of the rest of The Acolyte—we meet a group of four Jedi tasked with a research mission to the world of Brendok, the planet where twin sisters Osha and Mae grew up. At the time, however, these four Jedi (Sol, Indara, Indara’s Padawan apprentice Torbin, and Wookiee Kelnacca) believed Brendok to be completely uninhabited, with Indara explaining to her Padawan that Brendok had previously been labeled by the Jedi and the Republic as a lifeless world, having been ravaged by a “hyperspace catastrophe” a century ago.
The disaster that Indara refers to—The Great Hyperspace Catastrophe—is a key event that kicked off the first wave of High Republic books and comics in 2021. Extensively explored in Charles Soule’s novel The Light of the JediThe disaster occurred when a transport ship, the Legacy Raceinterrupts the hyperspace jump. Legacy Racealready a century old at the time of the accident, shears off while trying to avoid what its crew believed to be unexpected debris along its hyperspace route, but which was actually another ship, a raider belonging to the pirate Nihil, using previously unknown and uncharted hyperspace jump paths.
Not only did everyone on board, including 9,000 colonists traveling toward the edge of Republic space in the Outer Rim Territories, appear lost, breaking apart while still traveling at lightspeed, but fragments of the ship re-entered realspace at unpredictable locations. Legacy Racethe planned hyperspace route. These debris would re-enter real space maintaining almost the speed they had reached travel in hyperspace in events known as “emergences,” becoming deadly meteors of molten slag that could appear at any time, almost anywhere on the Outer Rim, and devastate entire worlds and systems in the near future.
Millions died in the surges, and worlds in the Outer Rim were affected. Hyperspace travel to the outer reaches of Republic territory was briefly interrupted by its Supreme Chancellor, Lina Soh, and the Jedi Order, operating from the Republic’s newly constructed Outer Rim command station, Starlight Beacon, provided assistance. The Jedi’s primary relief mission focused on the Hetzal system, a key agricultural source for the Republic and in particular for the nascent medicinal substance bacta, which was particularly threatened by the surges, saving much of Hetzal Prime and its moons from total disaster.
According to Indara, Brendok was hit by one of these emergences, rendering the world entirely uninhabitable, and abandoned by the Jedi and the Republic in the aftermath of the disaster. However, over the next century, natural life returned to Brendok, accompanied by a group of witches and Force users who built their own society out of mining facilities abandoned when Brendok was hit by an emergence. Brendok’s group survived on the world in isolation for years, unknown to the wider galactic society, until their existence was discovered by the four Jedi we meet in The Acolyte.
These Jedi were there to investigate how natural life had re-emerged on the planet, theorizing that at some point in the last century—perhaps in response to the sheer natural destruction Brendok had endured during the Emergence’s impact—the planet had become home to something called a “vergence” in the ForceA highly powerful and concentrated coalescence of the Force itself, the vergences could center around a location like Brendok or even a singular individual as would be the case with Anakin Skywalker, reflecting an ancient Jedi prophecy about a chosen figure who would be powerful enough to bring balance to the disparate light and dark aspects of the Force.
The concentration of Force energies could manifest life itself, as the Jedi discovered in the flora that had regrown on Brendok… or, in the clan’s case, could be harnessed with other magics and spiritual practices to help create a sensitive life in the form of Osha and Mae: twin sisters whose biology revealed that they were related to the spirit of a singular being split into two physical forms
Besides being a fun Easter egg to connect the original High Republic books to The AcolyteThe answer is probably not very straightforward. After all, the events of the great hyperspace catastrophe are now firmly in the past by the time of The Acolyteand these events are primarily more significant because of the Force convergence that manifested on Brendok in its wake, rather than necessarily because of their literal, direct impact.
Instead, the event is primarily interesting. for what he says about the Republic itself and the Jedi Order a hundred years later, reflecting the growing stagnation that would eventually bring down both institutions a hundred years later during the events of Star Wars prequels. The fact that the Jedi and the Republic abandoned Brendok in its entirety after the Emergence is a fascinating idea: if an earlier mining facility was still well enough preserved for the clan to come and inhabit it, it’s clear that the world wasn’t completely destroyed by the Emergence, so even declaring it completely lifeless seems like a move made out of lack of attention or to focus priorities elsewhere during the relief effort. But it was through this lack of attention that the clan managed to thrive, and given that the Jedi only returned to Brendok when the city was once again potentially interesting and exploitable thanks to its regenerated flora (and, thanks to the vergence, exploitable as a spiritual resource as well), it speaks to the kind of moral rigor that the Republic and the Order itself are now facing at this time.
For a century, Brendok was nothing to these great powers, until she showed that she could potentially become something to them again, ignoring the needs of the communities that had thrived without their involvement for years and years. How these four Jedi reacted to the clan’s presence on Brendok is further reflected in The AcolyteCriticism of these great institutions and how, ultimately, even the best intentions can lead to darkness and tragedy.
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