Warning: Contains spoilers for Star Wars #29The Jedi Order is seen as a lost and nearly forgotten culture by the events of the original Star Wars trilogy, and a canon comic book helps justify this perspective. The Jedi Knights defended the Galactic Republic for generations and fought bravely in the Clone Wars, but were nearly wiped out by the Empire in the Jedi Purge. Although their near-destruction occurred only a few decades before the original trilogy, they are depicted as having been nearly lost to time in A New Hope, but they are not the only culture in the Star Wars galaxy to be framed this way.
The Jedi Order left its mark on the galaxy time and time again before the events of the Star Wars saga. Not only did they seemingly destroy the Sith Order a millennium before the prequels, but they also maintained a steady peace until the Separatist Crisis and Clone Wars. Despite their generations of well-documented heroics, the Galactic Empire turned the people of the galaxy against the Jedi by framing them as the perpetrators of the war before enacting a horrific genocide that left few Jedi alive by the time the Galactic Civil War broke out.
In Star Wars #29 by Charles Soule and Ramon Rosanas, Lando Calrissian refers to the Nihil, a group of antagonists from the High Republic era, as a “ghost story,” a sentiment not unlike Han Solo’s when discussing the Jedi in A New Hope. To a degree, this helps justify the Jedi Order’s nearly-forgotten status in the original trilogy, as whole societies becoming nearly lost to time is not uncommon in the vast and lore-rich Star Wars galaxy. Moreover, the Empire’s oppression of the Jedi further sped up the process that, for the Nihil, was likely far more gradual.
Who Were The Nihil & Why Are They Forgotten?
The Nihil are a bygone culture of marauders who formed during the High Republic era. While the Sith Order was seemingly destroyed and the Jedi maintained an era of peace, there were still adversaries to them and the Republic. By the start of the Star Wars prequel trilogy era, however, the Nihil had been gone for decades, with their vessels and other technology being seen as relics later during the reign of the Empire. One key difference between the Nihil and the Jedi, however, is that there were no attempts to erase the history of the former, unlike the latter.
The Empire Tried To Bury The Jedi Order
The Galactic Empire, like many real-life extremist movements, attempts to rewrite history at the expense of those they oppress. The Jedi Order was extremely active in galactic history for millennia, yet their near-extermination in the Jedi Purge was further supplemented by erasure, through the destruction of Jedi artifacts, the Jedi Temple becoming the Imperial Palace, and other forms of historical revisionism. The Jedi Order’s mythic status is much harder to justify in the Star Wars sequel trilogy era, however, as the New Republic would have made no attempt to frame Luke’s generation of Jedi as a “fairy tale” like the Nihil and prequel-era Jedi.
Star Wars #29 is on sale now from Marvel Comics.
