Star Wars Just Came Up With a Brilliant Solution For Its Obvious Jedi Problem
Is there an entire population of Jedi living far, far away?
Everyone knows nearly all the Jedi in the galaxy were extinct by the time of The Last Jedi. But how many Jedi lived in other galaxies? The Ahsoka finale established another galaxy as a plausible destination for Jedi and other Force-sensitives, and while the canonical path forward for post-Ahsoka stories remains unclear, the existence of this other galaxy may provide a kind of retroactive backdoor escape route for Jedi who lived in the centuries before the era the movies portray. With The Acolyte still on the horizon, and plenty of new adventures taking place in the High Republic era, it seems possible that Star Wars canon may have found a way to save doomed Jedi by simply relocating them.
The High Republic’s Connection to Canon
Is this place the origin of the Jedi?
As depicted in comics, novels, and the children’s cartoon Young Jedi Adventures, the High Republic era covers the events from about 500 to 100 years before The Phantom Menace. This is a time when the Jedi are in their prime, and are exploring the galaxy in ways almost more appropriate for Star Trek. Young Jedi Adventures specifically is set about 232 years before A New Hope, so two centuries before little Anakin Skywalker has his fateful podrace. The long-lived Yoda is around, but do all the other Jedi we see in this era simply expire of old age before the movie saga begins? And do any other long-lived Jedi still around during Revenge of the Sith all get wiped out by Order 66?
Because the Star Wars franchise is introducing so many new High Republic characters in shows like Young Jedi and The Acolyte, one has to wonder if there’s a larger plan in place here. In fact, some High Republic book characters are going to show up in Young Jedi Adventures Season 2, which raises questions about how much Lucasfilm is investing in this period, and if it’s possible for these distant prequels to impact the future.
The new galaxy’s place in canon
Ezra may have made it home. But what is “home” anyway?
As established in Ahsoka, ancient Jedi legends make it clear that this new galaxy has at least some knowledge of the Force, and some connection to the Jedi. Because we’ve only seen one planet — Peridea — in this new galaxy, it’s tough to know exactly what’s going on over there. But there are certainly opportunities to explore it further, either in Ahsoka or another Star Wars project.
The events of Ahsoka have effectively isolated Ahsoka and Sabine from the events of the sequel trilogy, assuming that they don’t go back to the “main” galaxy. Could this have happened before? Could Jedi from the galaxy we know and love have migrated to this galaxy? And if so, could this have been going on for generations? It’s difficult to get there, but it’s hardly impossible.
If Jedi from the High Republic era did find themselves “stranded” in the other Star Wars galaxy, a parallel version of the Jedi could have endured despite all the chaos happening back home. Furthermore, as many fans have pointed out, the presence of the Mortis god statues in the Ahsoka finale indicates that some very ancient Jedi lore originates here, which could suggest an entire population of indigenous Jedi (and Sith?) already live there.
Or maybe they’re not called Jedi over here at all. Maybe there’s a whole new wildlife for Force users in this galaxy, one in which worrying about balance and rules of attachment are traditions they don’t have. We don’t know, and that’s what’s so exciting. In the old galaxy, almost all the Jedi are gone. But this new galaxy could be teeming with them, and with countless opportunities to tell stories about their swashbuckling adventures. We love Jedi, but the Star Wars canon demands we wind up with very few of them. This new galaxy can upend all that and finally take a few storytelling risks.
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