ST Discussion of the Emperor's excavation on Jakku and what it could mean for VIII-IX

We have a Superweapon thread so I'm hoping the mods will allow this more specific discussion topic on the Emperor's excavations on Jakku and how that could play into VIII-IX. This goes beyond Snoke. So, I was hoping for a topic where we could discuss the potential significance of this 1000 year-old relic that fascinated Palpatine so and how it could form a big part of VIII and IX.

First debuting in Rey's Survival Guide and later a significant aspect of the Aftermath series we now know Jakku is far more than it appears. In the new cannon not only did the Emperor himself decades earlier order an excavation on Jakku for a relic that was significant 1000 years ago and would be again soon, he also had a research facility and weapons facility built underground.




The Knights of Ren as we all know share some similarities to previous non-Sith old Republic Dark Force groups as well. We're also about to witness the first Jedi temple and possibly a Holocron from within it in VIII. Rian Johnson also said at Celebration Europe that he spent 6 weeks working on the outline for the rest of the saga, working daily with the Story Group. Since so much of the legacy work that's now up for grabs to be reshaped involves more mythical elements and ancient history, and since they've used new cannon EU material post-TFA to establish the significance of ancient objects and research facilities the Emperor set up on Jakku prior to the end of the Empire... it certainly seems like VIII will tackle this element in its story to me.

What did the Emperor dig up there? What does it do? Who buried it there? Did Luke travel to the first Jedi temple because he sensed this ancient evil awakening in the Force?

 

The timeline is intriguing because even though they've given themselves the ability to reshape old cannon, and blend old characters, almost like the new Trek reboot, I think they've shown a willingness (and I'm sure the story group helps here) to utilize legacy cannon where it makes sense to. Almost in broader strokes with less specifics. The Guardians of the Whills in Rogue One for example is a good recent example of that kind of thing.

I say this because a thousand years prior to the battle of Yavin affords a ton of darkness and magic. That was an era in legacy Star Wars Cannon of intense, ancient combat between armies of the Light and the Dark. Force (thought) Bombs capable of killing all Force users in an area. Dark Force users who had mind control over populations. Transference of life into other beings. Holocrons sharing ancient wisdom. Sith magic that goes beyond what we've seen in the Saga films before. There's so much potential here for something fun and new to the saga. Embracing the mythical elements a little more. Rian Johnson has shown he's not afraid of high concepts so I'm optimistic he'll run with this and bring a significant amount of fantasy and old Republic magic to VIII.

 

More food for thought. Even within the Saga Palpatine shared with Anakin that he had the ability to avoid death and prolong life. It was established in fairly recent EU Cannon (prequel era Cannon) that Dooku himself acquired the holocron for transference of life for a time. So, it's already established that Palpatine has had success discovering or acquiring ancient Sith artifacts with tremendous value and power.

 

There might not be anything buried in that spot on Jakku. The Emperor says the ground was important a thousand years ago and will be again. He also only says the spot where the droids were digging is precious to him and that he would eventually send more droids to build something at that location. Since this all happens a few years after TPM and Palpatine calls himself Emperor (before the Empire is created) in front of Rax, it's possible he's playing a long game. So maybe what is important to him is the upcoming battle of Jakku or something to do with Rey? Or Jakku is going to be an access point into the known galaxy from whatever the Emperor is building in the Unknown Regions.

 

Great points. My biggest counterpoint would be to question what this Saga will ultimately be about beyond Rey getting better, Ren battling her and an eventual showdown with Snoke. Following the defeat of Starkiller base what could our villains have up their sleeve next that would shift the stakes and odds back in their favor in a scary way? It has to be big. If it was another Death Star type of object I think we would have had a leak by now. Conversely, it's much easier to hide something that's magical or mystical and more intimate from the masses and by all accounts VIII has been described as almost an indie film set as far as intimacy goes. Looper was the same. Big concepts handled in small, personal ways.

In any classical 3 act structure act 2 is the climax where the villains seem unbeatable. We begin VIII following the destruction of their technological base with Snoke explaining to Kylo Ren he will provide him more Dark Side training. This is where I think we may get more insight into the kind of relics Snoke has inherited from Palpatine via Rax. We begin with Luke outside the very first Jedi temple. It's here where I suspect Luke will give us some insight into the beginnings of the Jedi Order and what they were up against. The setup to me seems like both Luke and Snoke sharing in their own ways something that happened thousands of years ago that's repeating again. This time with each of them in integral roles in this battle beteeen light and dark. The EU offerings following TFA have both hinted at the significance of Jakku and this dig so when I add it all up it doesn't seem illogical to expect more myth in VIII and that those hints from the story group post-TFA might lead to more in VIII. They know that the EU is for the hard core fans to go deeper on what's coming up.

 

The Tarkin novel indicated that the Emperor was not interested in running the Galactic Empire. In that book, during his inner monologues, it is explained that he wants reshape reality itself and have influence of the ultimate sort. Which basically means he wants to become God. Somehow, further exploration of the dark side would grant him this wish. So maybe Snoke is after this power.

Anyways, I think the three theories in Rey's guide each have a bit of truth. The first theory says that there's a base underneath the ground. The second theory adds that the Emperor is involved. The third theory explains that the Emperor planned to explore and conquer the rest of the galaxy from Jakku.

 

I agree.

I found it interesting that one of the 6 films Rian Johnson had his cast and crew watch was Letter Never Sent. A Criterion collection film about a mining group who have to locate a missing mine in Siberia. They find it but it costs them. Could this be a prelude to what he's imagining occurred on Jakku?

I've been trying to imagine what kind of significance this whole Casino planet subplot may have to all of this. I can't help but think that the Casino folks may be the more organized and sophisticated version of the role Jabba played as far as organized crime goes and that they are also involved with buying, stealing and smuggling Sith and Jedi relics on the black market.

 

The Casino world could in part have to do with the path of the blue lightsaber. Maz said how it got in her possession was a good question for another time. In the call sheets (or whatever they were) that the websites got long before TFA came out, there was a more detailed explanation for how Maz got the saber. At one point the saber was sold to a character code named "Fat Cat," Maybe that wealthy person shows up there.

 

I think that "detailed explanation" is no longer accurate, back then, you had the saber being found on Jakku and going all over the place until it ended up with Maz. They even named the person who found the saber as Naka.
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Naka_Iit

if we go back in time, first speculation/rumors had Luke's saber being found on Jakku which kicks starts the adventure with Rey/Finn. But the saber being found on Jakku and than eventually ends up with Maz while Rey, Falcon, Tekka all also from Jakku would have been kind of preposterous. The final film makes me think most of that lightsaber journey is not the journey of the saber anymore.

also feels to me that post Battle of Jakku, Jakku lost relevance to the galaxy at large. Most people living there are scavengers, scum, people wanting to make a fresh start.. There seems to be less than 25 000 people on the planet. The FO only went there because they were looking for the map otherwise the boss of Jakku is essentially criminals/scum and neither party is interested in the planet.

 

It wasn't all that different even in Rax's day though as a child there. He wanted off that desert planet, too. In fact, it was probably even better then as the perfect "deserted island" (deserted planet) for ancient relics to be kept and secret bases to be set up. Less people around. Less to scavenge back then.

 

sure but once Palps and the Empire started looking for something there , supposedly an object,the planet gained some relevance. The Empire also established both a weapons facility and a research base there, which they supposedly destroyed before leaving. The planet was also used to jump to the Unknown Regions, wasn't it also said that the Empire was exploring the Unknown Regions before the fall of the Empire, so using Jakku makes sense. It's also where their last stand happened to take place.

Once they all went to the Unknown Region following the Concordance signing, the planet became seemingly irrelevant to both sides. If Jakku was still relevant why is there no FO or New Repuclic on the planet and the planet is basically a war graveyard run by scum/criminals/scavengers.

we also don't know whether Palps ever found the object or not. If he did find the object and the Imperials went to the Unknown Region, than the use of the planet went out the window.

 

We need more information to fill in the gaps, but there's something important about Jakku still to be revealed.

 

they're looking for everyone's old, buried kenner sw figures.

 

Jakku's real significance seems to be it's placement. It's the last stop on the map before entering the Unknown Regions - Where Palpatine believed the source of the dark side to be.

• Michael ‏@druzod1012 6 Sep 2016
  @pablohidalgo Palpatine had something there, Rax is interested which lead to the final battle, and Tekka, Rey, & the Falcon ended up there.
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  Pablo Hidalgo ‏@pablohidalgo 6 Sep 2016
  @druzod1012 It's in a very important spot. Last exit to nowhere.

https://twitter.com/druzod1012/status/773101129253154816


Beyond that, it is also very important to a number of religious groups, the Church of the Force, the anchorites, The Sitter, and the Consecrated Eremite, etc.

As far as the spot beneath the Plaintive Hand Plateau goes, we do have a number of subterranean shrines and temples in the wider canon at the moment:

There was a Sith shrine buried beneath the Jedi Temple of Coruscant.

The ' darkside cave' on Dagobah is ( as is confirmed in the TCW Yoda arc ) actually a man made structure of some sort.

The Sith Temple on Malachor was also underground.

Vader's castle on Mustafar is built atop an ancient Sith cave.

The Jedi temple on Lothal sits buried beneath the ground, until opened by a master and apprentice.

 

I'm pretty sure we're going back to Jakku in IX after we get the reveal of its importance. Final lightsaber duel may even occurs there.

I also think that when they are going to do an Old Republic series/movies they will probably feature Jakku when it is still a lush world perhaps with a different name.

 

Potentially within the ancient temple surrounded by ancient Sith artifacts. That would be a cool visual.

Do you folks think that VIII and IX will move slightly away from the concept of a large technological superweapon and slightly more toward space fantasy and the importance of a relic which has fallen into the hands of the Dark Side?

 

My theory: its going to mean diddly squat outside of the novels. The EU is for hardcore fans. They arent going to introduce ideas into the novels, only to have to reexplain it in the movies.

 

They already have. Saw was in the EU prior to RO. Palpatine was fleshed out more via the EU prior to the prequels. The concept of Jedi temples is new to the big screen and that's from the EU. The graveyard of ships on Jakku that play a crucial role in Rey's life as a child and scavenger are being explained via the EU. The First Order's origins and Hux's father are all in the EU. We know 2 people left Rey with Plutt on Jakku for some reason and left quickly. We don't yet know why. So, it's likely Jakku isn't done in this ST and if it isn't then these details they've set up in the EU about Jakku seem more likely to be revisited. Rian Johnson said he spent 6 weeks with the Story Group on the outline. Why involve the story group if EU elements weren't going to be weaved in as ideas and/or ideas for the new outline weren't going to be shared with the story group so that they could sit down with authors and provide them with info on the ST direction to weave in those elements into their EU offerings? This new era of Star Wars seems to be far more focused on ensuring consistency between the new EU and the films than ever before.

Let's not forget that flashbacks and epilogues are now an established narrative device option within this new era of Star Wars.

 

I bet it's all related to Palpatine's true, final endgame for the galaxy, and Snoke is aware of what it was. And thus, he's going to try and enact it during Episode 9.

 

Tangential to the "emperor has a base where he keeps/studies such-and-such". In the Shattered Comic book Luke goes to one of the secret underground bases that the Emperor has built and guarded....where the last two branches of the tree that used to grow at the centre of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant are kept and experimented on. Luke grabs them and gives one to Poe's mother, who plants it outside their house when he's a boy (giving Poe some force sensitivities I think allowing him to be such a kickass pilot).

I say this, because it matches with the idea that Palps was pretty obsessed with anything ancient (the tree had stood at the centre of Jedi power for centuries drinking in force use) that could give him power. So yeah, I could fully buy that Jakku is much more important based around whatever the Emperor thinks was there.

Great post!

 

I can't express my disappoint that it looks like they'll return to that stupid planet for whatever, another final battle. Enough of desert planets already. Can't they stage something somewhere else, like, not in the bloody desert or snow? Seriously, enough is enough.

That said, I agree with Mungo Baobab that Jakku's significance is the closeness to Unknown Space and "the source of the Dark Side" (as Palpatine believed), rather than the planet itself. So whatever was excavated on Jakku (Snoke's mummy? He looks like a mummy/Nospheratu, lol) may have significance to whatever secret Unknown Region hides. I'd rather they go there (probably not in this trilogy but in the next? or one of spin-offs?) and introduce some new enemy unlike anything we've seen in the movies (I'm pretty sure EU covered that somehow).

 

If there is a Sith shrine, or temple buried on Jakku, something occurs to me. In Life Debt, Palpatine, and Tashu visit Jakku in the Imperialis, sometime during the PT era. it's said to be three decades earlier than the events of Leif Debt, so timing is open to question but roughly of the PT period.

In the Marvel Lando series, set just ABY, the Imperialis has become a space-born museum of Sith relics. It's possible that some of this hoard was taken from Jakku, though we have no way of knowing at the moment.