With the Shattered Empire comic series just recently wrapping up, we thought it would be a great time to flesh out some of the details in the Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens stories and what they may mean for the future of Star Wars. Do you want to have a general idea of what these stories brought to the table in regards to canon, but don’t want invest all that time and money? Look no further, we’ve got you covered.

Some non-major spoilers for The Force Awakens will follow. Some of this post will also include some speculation.

Well, the evil Sith Lord is dead, and his Empire is fractured without him. But even with a master manipulator, dark lord, and war criminal dead, the Galaxy is far from at peace, and since conflict is the soul of drama, the next three major Star Wars movies are going to be about – you guessed it – another Galaxy-wide war. Recent narratives from the Journey To The Force Awakens line have painted a clearer picture of what to expect in the Palpatine-free Galaxy, and they have provided key hints at what we’ll see in the new film. In Part 1 of this article, we’ll be covering the novels Lost Stars and Aftermath, the Shattered Empire comic series, and the Uprising mobile game.

[The information and speculation in this article is provided by Pomojema (PJ) and Hard Case (HC)]

Book Description:

The reign of the Galactic Empire has reached the Outer Rim planet of Jelucan, where aristocratic Thane Kyrell and rural villager Ciena Ree bond over their love of flying. Enrolling at the Imperial Academy together to become fighter pilots for the glorious Empire is nothing less than a dream come true for the both of them.

But Thane sours on the dream when he sees firsthand the horrific tactics the Empire uses to maintain its ironclad rule. Bitter and disillusioned, Thane joins the fledgling Rebellion—putting Ciena in an unbearable position to choose between her loyalty to the Empire and her love for the man she’s known since childhood.

Now on opposite sides of the war, will these friends turned foes find a way to be together, or will duty tear them—and the galaxy—apart?

Characters to look for in The Force Awakens:

Thane Kyrell

Ciena Ree

Kendy Idele

Nash Windrider

Dalven Kyrell (Thane’s brother and an Imperial)

Story Points That May Relate to The Force Awakens:

The Battle of Jakku begins in the books final chapters. It takes place about one year after ROTJ.

We are given the name of the crashed star destroyer from the second teaser trailer (Inflictor), and we learn how it came to its final resting place on the surface of Jakku. The ship was purposely crashed into the planet by its new captain, Ciena Ree (the novel’s female protagonist), due to Thane Kyrell (the male protagonist) and a Rebel strike team having boarded the ship in attempt to take it over. The Rebels disabled the self-destruct, and Ciena was forced to take matters into her own hands rather than allow the ship to fall into Rebel hands.

The Imperial factions begin to disappear and it seems that the New Republic has finally won the war. However, unknown to the Republic, the factions have begun to unite once again and rebuild.

For the full SWNN review of Lost Stars by Hard Case Click Here.

Book Description:

The second Death Star has been destroyed, the Emperor killed, and Darth Vader struck down—devastating blows against the Empire, and major victories for the Rebel Alliance. But the battle for freedom is far from over.

As the Empire reels from its critical defeats at the Battle of Endor, the Rebel Alliance—now a fledgling New Republic—presses its advantage by hunting down the enemy’s scattered forces before they can regroup and retaliate. But above the remote planet Akiva, an ominous show of the enemy’s strength is unfolding. Out on a lone reconnaissance mission, pilot Wedge Antilles watches Imperial Star Destroyers gather like birds of prey circling for a kill, but is taken captive before he can report back to the New Republic leaders.

Meanwhile, on the planet’s surface, former Rebel fighter Norra Wexley has returned to her native world—war weary, ready to reunite with her estranged son, and eager to build a new life in some distant place. But when Norra intercepts Wedge Antilles’s urgent distress call, she realizes her time as a freedom fighter is not yet over. What she doesn’t know is just how close the enemy is—or how decisive and dangerous her new mission will be.

Determined to preserve the Empire’s power, the surviving Imperial elite are converging on Akiva for a top-secret emergency summit—to consolidate their forces and rally for a counterstrike. But they haven’t reckoned on Norra and her newfound allies—her technical genius son, a Zabrak bounty hunter, and a reprobate Imperial defector—who are prepared to do whatever they must to end the Empire’s oppressive reign once and for all.

Characters to look for in The Force Awakens:

Norra Wexley

Temmin Wexley

Sinjir Rath Velus

Jas Emari

Jom Barell

Rae Sloane

Olia Choko

Adelhard

Krysta Agate

Jak (youth from Coruscant)

Dav Taffral (rebel from Saleucami)

Pade (youth from Uyter)

Mercurial Swift (bounty hunter)

Hatchet (Weequay and Imperial slave)

Palabar (Quarren and Imperial slave)

Greybok (one-armed Wookiee and Imperial slave)

The Acolytes of the Beyond (The Knights of Ren? – HC)

Iggs (youth from Coruscant, freedom fighter, orphan on Naboo)

Adwin Charu (employee of the Red Key Mining Co. – searching for something valuable on Tatooine for his employer)

Cobb Vanth (possible Boba Fett alias? – HC)

Kars Tal-Korla (miscreant from Bespin, aka “The Scourge of Cloud City”)

Corwin Ballast

Unidentified Imperial Fleet Admiral (Thrawn archetype? – HC)

Story Points That May Relate to The Force Awakens:

The empire is basically in ruins and standing on its last leg. They have one Super Star Destroyer left, under the command of Admiral Rae Sloane, who gathers the top remaining Imperials to the outer rim planet of Akiva to plan their next move. It is revealed at the end of the book that Sloane answers to an unnamed fleet admiral who appears cold and calculating with a penchant for the arts (sound familiar?).

In one of the books many interludes between chapters, Han and Chewie set off on a secret unsanctioned mission to liberate the Wookiee homeworld of Kashyyyk from the Imperial remnant that is in control of the world.

Jawas on Tatooine are in possession of a complete set of damaged Mandalorian armor. A mysterious man named Cobb Vanth, who fancies himself the “sherrif” claims the armor for himself. Could this man be the notorious bounty hunter himself or is he just a pretender?

We are introduced to a mysterious group of fanatics known only as the Acolytes of the Beyond who may be in possession of Darth Vader’s lightsaber that was lost in ROTJ. Could this group have a connection with the recently revealed Knights of Ren?

Mon Mothma, the head of the new Senate, has resolved to reduce the New Republic’s military presence by 90% once the war is over in an effort to allow diplomacy ro resume. This may prove to be a fatal mistake in the end.

A former adviser to Palpatine, Yupe Tashu, has a great respect for the late emperor and the Sith order. He suggests to the Imperial powers that be on Akiva that they “move toward the Dark Side”. He states that Palpatine believed that the source of the Dark Side came from beyond the known regions of the galaxy and during his reign sent men and women into the unknown regions in an effort to discover the source of the Dark Side.

(In the “Mortis” arc from Clone Wars, Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Ahsoka unknowingly pass from their galaxy into another dimension. They encounter a mysterious world overflowing with the Force called Mortis. On this world they meet the “Daughter” who is basically a conduit for the Light Side of the Force, and the “Son” who is a conduit for the Dark Side. The “Father” of the pair serves as protector of the universe by keeping his children in balance. During this arc, Anakin is proven to be the “chosen one” as he was able to tame both of the Father’s children at once. In one of the episodes, the Father says that all of the Dark Side is channeled through Mortis. Could Palpatine have been looking for the mysterious extragalactic Force world of Mortis? – HC)

Tashu suggests that the Imperial forces regroup and rebuild outside of known space and in the meantime seek out the source of Palpatine’s power. The implications here could be huge for the upcoming film. Is it possible that a discovery in the unknown regions sparks the awakening described in the film’s title?

In the novel, there is one character, simply referred to as “The Rebel”, who briefly appears in an interlude (he is strongly implied to be Luke – PJ). He’s seen on his own and seemingly facing a spiritual quest. This seems to parallel one of the proposed endings to Return Of The Jedi, where Luke left the Rebel Alliance after the deaths of the Emperor and Darth Vader in order to pursue the path of restoring the Jedi Order.

For the full SWNN review of Aftermath by DEKKA129 Click Here.

Comic Description:

Emperor Palpatine’s twenty-year reign of terror came to an abrupt and fiery end in the skies above the forest moon of Endor. A decisive victory for the Rebel Alliance, to be sure, but even with the loss of its leadership, the Empire’s Moffs and regional governors retained their hold on important systems from the Core to the Outer Rim, thanks to the might of the Imperial Starfleet. Now, with a power vacuum atop the Empire, those Moffs will jockey for position and control, and the heroes of the Rebel Alliance will soon discover that a wounded and fractious Empire may be more dangerous than any threat they faced before!

Characters to look for in The Force Awakens:

Shara Bey

Kes Dameron

Story Points That May Relate to The Force Awakens:

The comic follows Shara Bey, a human female pilot who served as a lieutenant in the Alliance to Restore the Republic during the Galactic Civil War. She is married to Kes Dameron, a Rebel pathfinder scout. They both fought against the Galactic Empire in the Battle of Endor, during which Bey was part of Green Squadron and Dameron was part of Han’s strike team on the forest moon. After the Empire’s defeat during the battle, both Dameron and Bey participated in an assault on an outpost manned by Imperial holdouts on the farside of Endor.

Shara and Kes are the parents of Poe Dameron, who is a small child during the events of ROTJ. Many speculate (given Leia’s fondness of Poe and his own patriotic devotion to the Resistance in Moving Target) that Shara and Kes will eventually die sometime before TFA and Leia will have raised Poe in their stead.

In issue #4, Shara (disguised as Commander Beck from Smuggler’s Run) aids Luke on a mission to retrieve some Jedi artifacts that were previously being held by the Emperor and are currently still under Imperial guard. The artifacts turn out to be saplings of the tree we see planted at the Jedi temple on Coruscant during the Yoda arc of the Clone Wars: Lost Missions. Shara and Kes are seen planting the tree on a jungle world near some temple ruins at the end of the series. Some have speculated this to be Yavin IV. The tree may have significance in TFA.

The final issue also showed us a Luke Skywalker that was very proficient with his Force powers and his lightsaber. Add another 30 years of training under his belt by the time of The Force Awakens and it’s easy to see how powerful Luke could potentially be in the upcoming film.

Click the following links for the full SWNN reviews of the Shattered Empire comic series by Kyle: issue #1, issue #2, issue #3, issue #4

How does Uprising fit into all of this? So far, it appears that the game is fairly standalone and does not explain very much about the post-Palpatine Galaxy as a whole. Fitting, considering that the Anoat sector is blocked off from the rest of the galaxy by Adelhard’s Iron Blockade, a group that denies that the Emperor is dead in the first place. Leia’s message from Aftermath is featured as a neat little tie-in, along with Lando and Lobot assisting in the fight to liberate Cloud City in the same story, but otherwise, there is little to tie in with the other stories set in the time period. That being said, there are some organizations from Legends that are pulled over into the canon such as the Zann Constortium (Empire At War: Forces Of Corruption)as well as some planets from the Star Wars Role Playing Game such as Anoat, Mataou, and Burnin Konn.

Characters to look for in The Force Awakens:

Adelhard

B9-DT

Tam Bastion

Commander Bragh

Brask

Deathstick

Riley

TO BE CONTINUED…

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