"We are all the Republic."
— Supreme Chancellor Lina Soh
Star Wars: Light of the Jedi is a Star Wars: The High Republic novel written by Charles Soule.
In a time of unprecedented peace, Supreme Chancellor Lina Soh is putting the finishing touches on another of her great works: A massive space station, called the Starlight Beacon, which will provide many essential services to the Outer Rim territories including a passive communication boost for the entire sector.
But before the station can be completed, the Great Disaster strikes. The Legacy Run, a freighter on a routine journey to the Rim, is destroyed in hyperspace—something that should be impossible. Worse, pieces of the Run begin emerging from hyperspace, with the majority appearing first in the agricultural system of Hetzal. These pieces come out at just under lightspeed, making them extraordinarily dangerous kinetic missiles that can kill entire worlds.
While all this is happening, the Nihil, a band of marauders with a surprising advantage in hyperspace travel, take advantage of the chaos and damage to become bolder. But even that is not so simple, as Marchion Ro, the Eye of the Nihil who provides their impossible Paths, is looking to gain more power within his own chaotic organization.
The Great Jedi Rescue is a picture book retelling the events of Light of the Jedi for a younger audience.
It was released on January 5, 2021. The first eight chapters can be read for free here
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Tropes in this novel include:
- An Arm and a Leg: Sskeer loses his left arm while fighting the Nihil on Kur, but being a Trandoshan, it'll grow back over time.
- Anyone Can Die: Jora Malli and Te'Ami are killed while fighting the Nihil.
- Arc Words: Lina Soh's chancellor motto, "We Are All the Republic".
- Beware the Nice Ones: When Porter hears the Nihil are attacking a local homestead:''Perhaps for the first time, Bell looked at the man and no longer saw the joking, bearded Ikkurkki chef he knew so well, inventor of the Nine-Egg Stew. Instead, he saw the Jedi they once called the Blade of Bardotta.
- Call-Forward:
- The current members of the Jedi Council include Yoda (who is also already a Grandmaster), Oppo Rancisis, and Yarael Poof, who still hold their positions by the time of the Prequel Trilogy.
- Loden and Bell go to the Jedi outpost on Elphrona, which we first saw in Star Wars: The Rise of Kylo Ren.
- The San Tekka clan, an organization of explorers, are knowledgeable enough about hyperspace that the Jedi seek out their help on the Nihil situation.
- Hosnian Prime is mentioned as hosting a shipyard.
- At one point, the Council holds a meeting over how to deal with the Nihil threat, and Oppo Rancisis notes that the Jedi were a military force once... and he will live to see that again. Yarael Poof also notes that the Jedi Order has previously been reduced to a handful of members before, which will happen again with the fall of the Republic in a couple hundred years.
- Two of the political efforts made towards rebuilding after the disaster include creating economic incentives towards droid construction and lessening the taxation of trade routes in the affected areas, both of which play into the conflict in the Prequels.
- Canon Immigrant:
- Rancisis mentions that the Jedi won the Great Sith War, a conflict depicted in the Tales of the Jedi comics.
- The Galaxy is said to be recovering from a Dark Ages that happened after the fall of the previous Republic, which is also what happened in Legends to explain the stagnation of technology and galaxy exploration between The Old Republic media and the Skywalker Saga.
- Continuity Nod:
- It's mentioned that Stellan mans the Jedi outpost on Hynestia. We first went to Hynestia in Lando's Luck, and it was mentioned in Spark of the Resistance — both books were written by Justina Ireland, one of the writers in The High Republic project.
- Porter Engle is an Ikkrukian, a species introduced in Charles Soule's Poe Dameron comic.
- Senator Izzet Noor represents Serenno, Count Dooku's homeworld.
- The Togruta Jedi Master Jora Malli wields a white-bladed lightsaber, the kyber Crystal of which was taken from an ancient Sith lightsaber and purified. This was a process explained in the Ahsoka book, showing that Ahsoka's white lightsabers came from purifying kyber crystals of the Sixth Brother's lightsaber.
- The Elites Jump Ship: Bell and Loden find a rich family and their guards loading up a massive starship with luxuries rather than taking refugees aboard and quickly intimidate them into stopping this.Chief Guard: What do you think you're going to do, Jedi? Cut right through the walls with your lightsaber? Fight off every one of us?Loden: Sure. Why not?
- Forbidden Love: Apparently there's a genre of in-universe romance which focuses on Jedi falling in love and being tragically forced apart by their oaths. It's mentioned near the end that younglings and Padawans often become... close when they are young, but they are expected to set these feelings aside as they grow older. More specifically this applies to Avar and Elzar who feel a very strong connection towards each other that borders on the romantic that they both know they should leave in the past.
- Foreshadowing: The Republic Fair is mentioned, which will be the main subject of the book's sequel, The Rising Storm.
- From Bad to Worse: The first third of the book starts dire enough: after the Legacy Run is destroyed, what's left of it exits hyperspace at near-lightspeed in the Hetzal system, threatening to collide with and destroy Hetzal-Prime and its two inhabited moons. Then the Jedi discover that some of the incoming debris is filled with the Legacy Run's still living passengers. Then they discover that one of the Run's chunks that's on a collision course with Hetzal's largest sun is filled with liquid tibana which will start a chemical reaction inside the sun, causing it to swell to massive proportions and destroy the entire system.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Originally a low level technician on Helzen, in the face of imminent destruction Keven Tarr proves to be an invaluable asset to the salvation of his system when he - in a manner of minutes - devises an unprecedented algorithm that can predict where the incoming fragments will impact before they do, allowing first responders to coordinate where they were previously running blind. Later, he becomes a key part of the initiative to stop the Emergences by inventing a massive network that will do the same across the entire Outer Rim - especially impressive as he was predicting what was thought to be a scientific impossibility at the time. This results in the Republic and the Jedi both taking an interest in him personally, in what he marvels is almost a rags to riches story.
- Golden Age: Before the disaster, the Republic is portrayed at its peak. Planets like Hetzal spend money on farming instead of military defenses. The Jedi are more trusted and beloved figures. People of all classes feel pride and security being part of the Republic.
- Hero of Another Story:
- Jora thinks about how her padawan Reath Silas hasn't arrived to the Starlight Beacon yet. His perspective is told in Into the Dark.
- The ending spoils that A Test of Courage ends with Vernestra and Imri becoming master and apprentice, though as both books were released at the same time, it qualifies more as this trope than Late-Arrival Spoiler.
- Humble Hero: Burryaga is uncomfortable with being singled out to survivors of the Legacy Run as the one who kept the ship fragments they were on from being destroyed.
- I Will Punish Your Friend for Your Failure: After a captured Loden lashes out against Marchion with telekinesis, Marchion threatens to murder a prisoner if he does it again.
- It Has Been an Honor: The first officer of the Legacy Run starts to tell his captain this as they work to save their passengers, but the two die before he can finish the sentence.
- Mugging the Monster: Kassav uses the information provided by Marchion Ro to extort the Eriadu system. Not only does he fail to save them after he gets his money, but then he does some research and discovers that the Eradians are a Proud Warrior Race considered only a couple steps less crazy than the Mandaloriansnote . They broadcast his name, face, and ship details across the galaxy, lend the Republic a large fleet to personally hunt him down, and their "soft" governor ends up killing him herself rather than accept his surrender.
- Mythology Gag: Yarael Poof mentions that there have been times in the past when the Jedi Order has reduced to a handful of members. This is what happened in the Jedi Civil War that took place between Knights of the Old Republic and Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, though the other instances are a mystery to us.
- New Super Power: Invoked. Elzar is a "tinkerer" who prefers to focus on learning new Force abilities rather than rely on the ones he's already mastered.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished:
- One Hetzal trader takes hundreds of people aboard his ship to aid in the evacuation, only for the ship to crash when its overloaded engine explodes.
- Honest Corporate Executive Larence Garello evacuates all of his workers and their families from Ab Dallis after it is ravaged by an Emergence, only for their convoy to be attacked by Nihil pirates due to being the first to leave the planet, with many, if not all, of them being killed.
- Long-Lived: Yoda, Oppo Rancisis, and Yarael Poof are Jedi Masters (or a Grandmaster, for Yoda) and members of the Jedi Council, just as they still will be in two hundred years.
- Race Against Time: The pieces of the Legacy Run will hit Hetzal Prime in a matter of hours, and it's up to the Jedi to save them before disaster strikes.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Minister Ecka and his cabinet quickly try to evacuate the system once they understand the danger, aren't ignorant about their own failure to maintain proper defensive capabilities, stay to coordinate the evacuation rather than flee themselves, and happily cooperate with the Jedi.
- Ship Tease: The epilogue hints that Avar and Elzar like each other as more than just friends, but they know they can't act on it because they’re Jedi.
- Simultaneous Arcs: The story takes place at the same time as A Test of Courage, Into the Dark, and The High Republic Adventures, all depicting the Great Disaster. The ending of Light of the Jedi mentions Vernestra and Imri arriving at the ceremony after Imri becomes Vernestra's apprentice at the end of A Test of Courage.
- Straight Gay: Marlowe San Tekka, the scion of the San Tekka clan, is casually accompanied by his husband, Vellis. A minor character is also mentioned as being accompanied by her wife, but neither of them get any lines.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Jedi can use the Force to leap great distances and soften their landings, allowing them to survive what would otherwise be a lethal drop. However, during the Hetzal crisis, one Jedi, Rah Barocci, gets exhausted from trying to use the Force to keep a fast-moving liquid-tibanna tank from flying into Hetzal's largest sun and causing a supernova. As a result, he dies from falling off of a twenty-story tower because he was too tired to break his fall.
- Tuckerization: The architect that designed the Starlight Beacon is Palo Hidallko, a reference to Lucasfilm Story Group member Pablo Hidalgo.
- When the Clock Strikes Twelve: The start of each chapter in Part I notes how much time is left until the debris of the Legacy Run from the Great Disaster will strike Hetzal Prime.
- Would Hurt a Child: When Loden and Bell start catching up on the ship carrying the kidnapped Blythe family, the Nihil aboard decide to distract the Jedi by throwing the family's nine-year-old girl out of the ship, forcing Bell to jump out of his starfighter in an ultimately successful attempt to save the kid from a several-miles-high fall.
