So I’ve been thinking about the new canon, Starkiller Base, and its location. As well as the implications of some things established in Rebels and new novels. There will be light spoilers in here for The Force Awakes, so you are warned.

So, as most Star Wars fans are aware, lightsabers are powered by Kyber crystals. These crystals have a connection with the Force and are grown in caves throughout the galaxy. The most famous in the universe being Illum. Ilum is a barren, mountainous, and ice-covered world, much like Starkiller base.

The new canon pretty much wiped all things from the old EU, but thanks to Clone Wars still being considered canon, Ilum survived.

In the old map of the galaxy, now Legends material, Ilum is situated near Ord Mantell and Dantooine. They make a pretty distinct angled triangle shape when lines are drawn between them.

Recently the new Visual Guide for the Force Awakens was released and in it was a new map for the Star Wars Galaxy. In it we see the new planets featured and mentioned in the movie, as well as old ones. Curiously, Ilum is not on this map while planets such as Dantooine and Ord Mantell from the old canon are, in their old locations from the old canon. If we trace the same pattern lines from these planets, the lines align perfectly with the Starkiller Base’s initial location.



This is pretty interesting on its own. Now if we look at information from other sources such as the new Tarkin novel and Rebels tv show, we’ll see that the Empire was in the market for kyber crystals. In a large amount at that. The Death Star used kyber crystals as a mechanism for their planet-destroying super laser. In Rebels it is also shown that they were transporting these crystals across the galaxy for use in it, something the Ghost crew destroys to keep their hands off it. This means they were mining them somewhere, and that somewhere is likely Ilum since the Jedi were destroyed and Ilum was in Imperial space.

The First Order then inherited this space when the treaty between the New Republic and Empire was drafted. The Empire reformed into the First Order in the outer rim, with Ilum in its borders. According to the new databank entry (x) on the Resurgence-class Star Destroyer the First Order employed, it used turbolasers “more powerful and faster to recharge than Imperial-era weapons, a product of kyber crystals harvested in the Unknown Regions.” This was all part of the massive illegal military buildup of the First Order. They needed a fleet’s-worth of kyber crystals.

So here’s where speculation comes in: I believe the First Order used an unpopulated and barren, but livable, planet in its borders to massively mine kyber crystals. They used this massive operation to also hollow out Ilum and use its kyber crystals for their fleet, but also used the planet as a location for their newest super weapon. Ilum became Starkiller Base and the kyber crystals that grew within were used to feed the fleet, also depriving the galaxy of a massive source of lightsaber crystals.

This isn’t really a huge implication, but I really thought it was neat as I put the pieces together in my head. Sorry for the long read.