Hello everyone, it’s been too long since I’ve written nonsense opinions here.

With the conclusion of the Star Wars episodic saga with Rise of Skywalker, the future of the franchise will certainly be an interesting journey both for the company and the fandom. One of these revelations comes in the form of the High Republic, a subsidiary-era within the Star Wars universe that will delve into multiple different stories and tales in the form of books and comics.

Now this was an initial news of excitement and such, but I have since had time to think about it and ultimately I believe that limitations are likely to occur. Again, these are just my outlandish and stupid opinions. However if you want to read what I believe this “project luminous” series to be, than so be it…

I first just want to say that I am not in anyway saying that this era, or these subsequent stories, are going to suck or be lame. I am going at this at a completely different perspective and I’m certain each story will be a different level of greatness overall.

This will likely ONLY be books and comics…

Before we dive deeper into this, let us first realize what the High Republic era is about:

The High Republic era takes place two-hundred years before the Age of Republic era, and before the events of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. It also takes place eight-hundred years after the Old Republic Era. So in easier / Sillier terms it takes place after Darth Revan, but before Darth Maul.

The series is meant to show the Jedi at the height of their power, as well as the rise of the new enemies known as the Nihil. The entire era of books and comics will come out in phases with selective products.

Now there’s certainly no problems with books or comics, Star Wars is actually incredibly well initiated in these mediums with memorable in-canon and legends material such as the Vader Marvel comics and basically any book about Grand Admiral Thrawn. The problem here is that despite the quality of these sections of the franchise, only the hardcore fandom will be acknowledging or buying these books and comics. and even to that end, perhaps only a decent fractions of the fandom will even be dedicated.

It seems incredibly uncertain and unlikely for this era to make it into any other form of media, Lucasfilm themselves even stated that no movie plans are in the works for this era of time. Even the likelihood of this molding into that of a television show or video game seems like a faded dream. If these stories and characters prove to be something worthwhile then it’s going to be even more of a shame to keep them limited to only books and such.

It has been a sort of frustration to have certain events of extreme and monumental importance happen in places where a whole lot of people will never be aware of. Heck, it wasn’t until the Clone Wars show gained high appraisal that people realized the importance of that show to the overall arching story of the saga.

Again, IF these high republic stories prove to be important or intrumental, it’s going to once again be a shame that many people will not know about it or even care to pick up these books and comics.

This is just a Series to let authors and creators get creative, nothing more…

Prior to the official announcement, this was originally known as “project Luminous”. The only thing we knew at the time was that the project was going to be a collaboration of many talented writers and creators. A very cool endeavor for Lucasfilm to do, but perhaps people had, or still have, a higher expectation for this than what it atually is.

This once again goes back to what I alluded to which is the fact that these stories will likely be amazing. And again this is another redundant claim from mew that it’s just books or comics ad nothing more, but perhaps that’s the absolute intention Lucasfilm and Disney had from the very beginning.

Usually when an author or creator makes a story within the Star Wars universe, they are limited by timelines and such meaning that only certain characters, vehicles and such can maybe show up. But with a completely new era with completely untouched environment, creators can have a field day with how much cool ideas they’ll muster. Now there would still technically be some limitations (for example: you can’t have a legitimate X-wing present), but the arsenal is still packing stronger ammo than if you were to do a prequel, original, or sequel era timed tale.

And perhaps this is why it’ll likely never divulge into a film or show, the era would likely be too different or “out there” for a general audience to accept.

The Nihil will either be too cool, or not cool enough…

The new enemies in this era are known as the Nihil, which are said to be space vikings of sorts. They all wear steampunk-like masks and armor, with weapons of similar caliber, and members are derived from all sorts of species. It is said that these enemies will be the catalyst of an event known as “the great disaster”.

The concept of space vikings is as rad as you can get, but I hope that they are more important to the lore than just punks in the galaxy. I know that it seems like they are going to be important, but lets not forget how… unexpected the roles of the Knights of Ren in the sequel trilogy ended up being.

There seems to be this weird trend in Star Wars where characters show up to only look cool but do little to nothing, like some sort of glorified cameo, examples being Boba Fett and Captain Phasma. Fortunately characters like the ones I listed seem to truly shine in the other forms of media including books and comics, so perhaps that’ll definitely be the case here.

I dunno guys, I think the disappointing role of the Knights in Rise Of Skywalker has truly messed up my trust in newer enemies…

The Sith with have little to no presence…

With this announcement of the High Republic came information regarding the Jedi and the Nihil, but no real word on the Sith. But to be fair, this will likely be in due part because of canonical reasons.

The Sith at this time are hiding in secret, keeping the rule of two a proprietary measure and waiting for the opportune moment to take their revenge. We know in canon that the Sith do not take this revenge until Darth Sidious takes over the Republic, initiates the Clone wars to eventually commit mass Jedi genocide, and forms the Empire in the events of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith.

And since the High Republic takes place two-hundred before this plan is set in motion, the Sith seem almost pointless to have in this era. They could still have a role, perhaps in pulling the strings of the Nihil as the true leaders, but even then it will be selectively cameo-ish in nature. The closest character to anything familiar during this time could perhaps be a much younger Darth Plagueis, but even then that’s kind of a stretch.

It’s also worth mentioning that the name Nihil may be a purposeful reference to Darth Nihilus, so maybe, just maybe…

If you read all of this nonsense, I apologize but also thank you for doing so. I super hope I’m wrong on most of these things and anticipate a revelation or sign of great things to come. It’s kind of a weird time for fans of Star Wars right now our opinions here at Geekbeerz, individually, are mixed.

You can hear these mixed opinions in our Podcast series GeekBeerz as well as Shambles and Rambles…

Until next time…