Sometime after the events of Phasma, Resistance spy Vi Moradi arrives at Black Spire Outpost on Batuu to lay the foundation for a Resistance cell and enlists the help of former Captain Cardinal.
The short story, Black Spire Return To A Shattered Planet, takes place after the events of the book and was released with the book's paperback release on June 30, 2020. Dawson has expressed intent to turn follow up Black Spire with a sequel, with Phasma and Black Spire serving as the first two entries in the possible trilogy.
Tropes in this book include:
- Absent-Minded Professor: Mubo, who runs the droid shop, gets so passionate talking about droids that he almost accidentally sets a tarp on fire with his blowtorch.
- Adventurer Archaeologist: Vi has to explore ancient Batuuan ruins to recover an artifact for Oga.
- Agent Peacock: Zade has long purple hair and a love for fancy but gaudy clothes and very tight pants. He's also a skilled smuggler who's not afraid to stand up to the First Order.
- Apathetic Citizens: The people of Batuu see the First Order/Resistance conflict as a faraway problem that has nothing to do with them, even after the destruction of the Hosnian system. When the First Order finally shows up on Batuu, they watch stormtroopers brutally beat a pair of street vendors for information but do nothing, even though some are clearly outraged.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Kriki joins the Resistance after Vi rescues her from her abusive boss.
- The Big Guy: Pook, a repurposed labor droid who serves as the muscle of the team.
- Close-Knit Community: Salju describes Black Spire Outpost as this.
- Coming in Hot: Vi and Archex are caught up in a dogfight between two unrelated ships, causing them to crash-land on Batuu and get robbed of all their supplies while unconscious.
- Death by Materialism: When Vi finds her first Doomed Predecessor, she realizes that the female Trandoshan was killed when she reached into a freshwater pool to steal the treasure at the bottom, which concealed poisonous anemones. Anyone who merely reached into the pool to drink would not be harmed, as the trap was designed to punish greed, not survival.
- Dented Iron: Both Vi and Cardinal suffer from the effects of their crash-landing throughout the novel.
- Doomed Predecessor: Vi encounters several corpses in the Batuu ruins.
- The Eeyore: Pook, who constantly complains about the mission and his companions.
- Eye Scream: Kath interrogates Vi by threatening to torture her eye.
- Friend to All Living Things: Dolin. Along with having a pet trufflebore, he deliberately chooses a place with no nests or living plants when setting off a bomb to distract the First Order troopers.
- Gentle Giant: Dolin, a large but naive farm boy who brings his pet trufflebore with him when he joins the Resistance.
- Good Is Not Dumb: Vi points this out when Archex complains about the tracking anklet he's forced to wear.
- Hidden Elf Village: While Batuu isn't outright isolationist, it's an obscure "nowhere" world and its inhabitants view the Resistance-First Order conflict as someone else's problem.
- Hold Your Hippogriffs: Black Spire Outpost has several colloquialisms that reference the setting.
- "Bright suns" and "Rising moons" for "Good day" and "Good evening", respectively.
- "May the spires keep you" for "Goodbye."
- "Now and till the spire" is their equivalent of "Cheers" for drinking.
- Hometown Nickname: Locals call Black Spire Outpost "BSO".
- Honest John's Dealership: A Trandoshan named Kasif tries to scam Vi into paying for ragged old sleeping bags that nobody had died in before Salju threatens to raise the price of fuel for him.
- I Call It "Vera": Zade's blaster is named Nadia.
- I Own This Town: Oga, the local crime boss and cantina owner, is the closest thing to a government Black Spire Outpost has. She takes a cut of basically every transaction and she's so powerful she can just murder her adulterous boyfriend in public without worry.
- Innocent Bigot: Dolin can be accidentally insensitive since he's never met a non-human before. He says "What is that?" instead of "Who is that?" when he first meets Kriki, a Chadra-Fan.
- Lovable Rogue: Zade Kalliday, a flamboyantly-dressed smuggler who shows up in Oga's Cantina and flirts with several receptive women. He owes Oga tons of money due to dodging her docking fees and he was supposed to pay her back by doing a smuggling job but he lost the cargo.
- MacGuffin: Vi and Archex are sent to Batuu to set up a Resistance base, but their ship is shot down and all their equipment is stolen and the plot is set in motion by Vi trying to get it back.
- My Beloved Smother: Grana, Dolin's grandmother, who objects when he decides to join the Resistance. When Vi points out he's an adult who can make his own choices, Grana insists that the twenty-five year old man is still a child.
- Noodle Incident: Oga's Cantina has a long list of very specific rules including "No ripping off limbs." Locals joke that the incidents that resulted in these rules all happened in one night.
- Overt Operative: Vi wears a "Resistance orange" jacket with a starbird symbol on it as her mission is recruitment rather than espionage.
- The Pollyanna: Salju, who's said to have a near-permanent smile.
- Precursors: Batuu was once the home of an ancient civilization that the modern Batuuans know little about. The traditional greeting "May the spires keep you" is the modern Batuuans' way of honoring them as the giant petrified trees are the only constant between the old civilization and the new.
- Prequel: The book sets up how Vi arrived at Black Spire Outpost to start a Resistance cell, as we see at the Galaxy's Edge theme park.
- Sequel: The book continues off of Vi and Archex's adventures from Star Wars: Phasma.
- Team Pet: Waba, Dolin's pet trufflebore.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Vi works with Archex, knowing he's turned over a new leaf, but is still uncomfortable around the man who tortured her.
- Temple of Doom: The Batuuan ruins.
- They Have the Scent!: Waba can do this. He's able to track down a captured Vi and the Gatherers use him to sniff out artifacts in the scrapyard.
- We Named the Monkey "Jack": Archex names a giant worm-creature that attacks him the Hux Worm.
- Woman Scorned: Oga Garra kills her Wookiee boyfriend in the middle of her crowded cantina after she catches him cheating on her with a Rodian waitress. Since Oga's a powerful gangster and the closest thing the Outpost has to a ruler, nobody stops her.
- Wrench Wench: The first Batuuan Vi and Archex meet is Salju, who runs the local filling station and speeder mechanic shop.
