Lit The Jedi-New Republic relationship in the NEU

Flipping back through Jedi Search the other day, the idea came to think about the relation between the Jedi and the New Republic in the NEU as compared to the old EU. Particularly with the Poe comic featuring the search for Luke, plus Aftermath 2 and Bloodline all coming out in the next few months, it seems like this will be something we’ll at least be getting more hints of soon.

And in case a moderator thinks this belongs in a mega-thread, I think it is a unique enough topic to justify standing on its own and not being swallowed up into a larger discussion, so I would appreciate this not being closed down and linked somewhere else. TIA.

So in the old EU, the New Jedi Order was essentially given approval by the New Republic, but it wasn’t much of a relationship. In Jedi Search, when Luke addresses the New Republic Senate to ask their blessing to remake the Jedi, he pretty much says as much – he just wants them to agree that him doing it is something they approve of. He even positions it as something that would be most important to the NR after the war against the Empire ends – once there’s no more common enemy is when the Republic will need the Jedi to mediate disputes amongst members. Notably, of all the NR officials there (Mothma, Ackbar, Rieekan, Madine, Dodonna, and Bel Iblis), it’s only Bel Iblis who raises any objections, given the history of Vader and Joruus. It’s said that Mon Mothma gives her assent, and the rest of the council goes along with her.

So there was a connection, but it was essentially just a formality at first, until the era of the prequels/NJO when it essentially became what the prequel era order was (a corps of Force-sensitive commandos and pilots). One of the few times I can think of Jedi going on business for the New Republic (as opposed to Luke serving in his military capacity) from the era was Kyp Durron being sent to investigate Corbos, or Luke using a NR ship to look for Jedi artifacts on Toola in Courtship. There was much speculation that the new Jedi from the sequels would be that way. Well, the joke was on us to expect the Jedi to feature in a Star Wars movie, but from the glimpses we get, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

From what we know of the Jedi in the post-ROTJ era in the new canon:

1: About a month after Endor, Luke takes a captured Imperial shuttle and a NR pilot and attacks an Imperial base to rescue a tree. There doesn’t seem to be any sort of official sanction for this mission, given he has to ask R2 to find him a pilot immediately before he takes off.

(As an aside, if there is a sanction for this mission, though, I can see it being of strategic military importance, since the Vetine base also seems to be the place where the Imperial Emissary droids were being controlled, which I took to mean that Commander Hurron was basically controlling the Empire from there. Which is simultaneously a take on the Imperial warlord concept that Bantam didn’t take, while also reflecting the Great Leader hologram hoax from YJK.)

2: At some point after the Battle of Endor, Luke returns to the Devaron Jedi Temple. No indication that this has anything to do with the New Republic.

3: At some point after the Battle of Endor, the Church of the Force helps Luke find Jedi artifacts. Notable the TFA Visual Guide made no mention of the NR helping Luke do this (though it does note that Lor San Tekka helped the NR find lost star systems as well, presumably how he got to know Leia).

4: Leia is a high-ranking member of the New Republic government, but never becomes a Jedi, unlike in the old EU.

5: Luke at some point has a Jedi Temple of his own with at least some students. It certainly doesn’t seem to be the Yavin temple. (My initial hunch from the trailer was that Luke’s temple was on Endor, and even though the movie didn’t establish that, I actually think it would make some good thematic sense.) Nothing so far indicates that the NR is involved in any way (though in the Force vision scene with the Knights of Ren, the warrior who gets killed is wearing what I feel looks like one of the Rebel Endor strike team helmets from ROTJ, so maybe is an indication some kind of soldiers were there at the massacre.)

6: The New Republic doesn’t seem to have any interest in finding Luke, only Leia and the Resistance.

From this, given all available information so far, it seems like the New Republic has no real interest in having a relationship with the Jedi, even less than it did prior to the prequels causing the NJO to get much closer.

Personally, I think there are two reasons for this. First and more simply, Luke’s rebuilding of the Jedi in the old EU was done in the context of a Civil War (and other conflicts) that just kept going for eight years after he formally starts rebuilding the Order. Almost immediately they get drawn into direct attacks on their headquarters by the Empire. Luke himself and his powers are central to various military victories, both before and after the Jedi get formally re-established. In the old EU, therefore, the NR had at least some vested interest in the Jedi as a vital strategic asset in a conflict vital to the Republic’s survival, and on the flip side, the Jedi saw it as their duty to help the Republic survive. In the new EU, however, the war ends much more quickly. From everything we can gather so far, Luke plays no major role in the post-Endor battles, he doesn’t start rebuilding the Jedi until after the end of the war, there’s the long string of peace until his own temple is attacked, and the NR itself is committed to pacifism and demilitarization. In this peacetime (and daresay, more idealistic commitment of the NR) there is therefore fewer practical reasons for the Jedi and the Republic to be meshed together.

Second, we can look to the new canon history of the Jedi and the Old Republic’s relationship, and all the corruption and incompetence that various new continuity stuff has shown (and really old EU stuff focused on, too). In particular, we can look at Mon Mothma’s interactions with Jedi in TCW, which admittedly aren’t much but are telling: she was at the fake funeral of Obi-Wan where the Jedi did a lavish public lie so one of their own could become a bounty hunter, and she was at the trial of Ahsoka, where she was innocent, but another Jedi was still a perpetrator and the Order’s treatment of Ahsoka was not sterling.

I bring this up not just because Mon Mothma is pretty much the only NR founder we know of, but also because most of the notable NR reforms we know of (pacifism, elected senate, rotating capitol) come from her, so her deciding to ask Luke to reform the Jedi then or affiliate them seems likely to come from her too. But all of those reforms were also supposed to help rein in the corruption in an Old Republic which enabled the Clone Wars to break out and Palpatine to rise. So Mon Mothma’s rejection of the Jedi’s close role with the Republic can be seen in that light, too – it was too deleterious for both groups.

 

Locking and redire-



I kid, I kid.

Ho ho ho. I am so hilarious.

*cough*

I would agree. I'm interested to see where this goes.

 

It is interesting that unlike the old canon examples you note, the NEU hasn't decided (yet) to make th re-establishment of the Jedi Order something actively supported by the New Republic. OOU, this is probably due to the fact that the fate of Luke and his Jedi was such a secret in the lead up to TFA, so none of the authors could write about the Jedi. IU, it will be interesting to see what we get in works like Bloodlines. I can't see the New Republic, especially the early New Republic, being anything but supportive. Luke Skywalker is a Rebel war hero who's actions at Endor helped bring down the Empire. Many of the world's that compose the Galactic Senate would well remember the Jedi as heroes from the Clone Wars, even if the war ended badly for all.

The biggest question in my mind is how long it takes Luke to start his class. Did it take him the better part of a decade or two to gather enough students? When did Ben Solo fall to the Dark Side? I'm assuming a lot of these events only happened 5+ years before TFA, but as we get more info it will b easier to build a solid timeline.

--Adm. Nick

 

This is an interesting thread topic and something we can definitely discuss more over the next few years as more material comes out to fill in the 30 year time gap. There isn't a whole lot we can discuss right now other than what we think is going to happen because we really only have three books/comic out right now that talk about post ROTJ events (Shattered Empire, Lost Stars, and Aftermath) and those three don't go beyond 5ABY.

It's hard to say at this point rather the disconnection between the New Republic is more the NR doing or if it is Luke's doing. The new canon so far has portrayed Luke as being much more concerned about his own personal journey than what is going on with the galaxy as a whole. Even as early as in the months following the Battle of Yavin he separated himself from the Rebellion for a time to go search for Jedi Temples and further study the history of the Jedi. Then in the Shattered Empire comic while the Rebellion was still fighting battles he was going off on a mission of his own to find a tree.

I'm sure the Bloodlines book coming out in a couple months will give us a lot more info about Luke and Ben and the New Republic. It takes place in 28 ABY. My guess as to why they have decided to tone down Luke's involvement in the events of wars and Post ROTJ politics is because they are going to be making regular movies again and theese are movies starring Rey, Finn, and Poe more than they are the OT cast. It's easier to lessen Luke's role in the movies if say he was always on his own personal journey separate from the Resistance/New Republic than if he was right in the thick of things fighting battles.

 

This was my thought, too. Especially given the prominence the second season of Rebels is giving to the Inquisitors as a group, it might be an indication that Mon Mothma and the like would see more down-side to having a state-sponsored group of Force users doing the government's bidding.

Or from Luke's point of view, it could be him taking the lessons of the Clone Wars to heart - if the Jedi hadn't served the Republic, they could have been able to more effectively mediate the dispute, and not have been pressed into service at the start of the war (which seems like it's out-of-universe formally a bad thing for them to have done).

 

This theme came up at the end of the old EU too in LOTF and FOTJ.

Personally, I feel that the Jedi need to be connected to the Republic. Not subservient, but definitely engaged. The Galaxy, even in the NEU, experienced it's best days when the Old Republic and the Jedi wisely governed and protected the Galaxy. The Clone Wars showed the risk of this connection, but that was due to Sith manipulation and treachery.

There needs to be balance, but still a strong connection. Divorcing the Jedi from the New Republic completely would be a mistake, IMO.

--Adm. Nick

 

If the New Republic did distance itself (intentionally or unintentionally), hopefully this is rectified in the remainder of the Sequel Trilogy. The best hope for the Galaxy has always been a peaceful Republic and a wise Jedi Order.

--Adm. Nick

 

I am an advocate of them not aligning. I love Jedi stories, don't get me wrong.

But a cool message would be if the galaxy did not need external super beings to save them from themselves...if the non-supers could create their own destinies and do it well.

Maybe the failed NR is the first draft of a better NR that will work better.

 

I never really thought about this before, specifically the funeral and the trial. And I wonder -- did she find out that Anakin was Vader at some point, even if it was after ROTJ? Considering all she had seen, it's almost surprising she would encourage Luke to establish a second Jedi Order. How would she sell that to the new Senate? "On the table today... telepathic monk police force. Operates completely outside our jurisdiction. How do we all feel about that?"

The dynamic between the neutral planets and the NR would be something to consider as well. Beyond the Awakening mentioned there were quite a few systems that decided to wash their hands of republics/empires entirely. So if Mothma's encouraging a new Jedi Order, is it operating in the NR exclusively?

(This reminds me of the kind of issue the Jedi ran into during TCW:
"Oh little Jonny fell down the well on Planet X."
"We can't help little Jonny because Planet X is neutral."
"Oh. Well you Jedi suck and can't do anything."
"Ok ok we'll help little Jonny..."
*10 million people die*)

I had always wished, after the Jedi Academy Trilogy, that Luke's team would be more like the X-Men, where we'd see individual next-generation Jedi get their own stories all the time while the school slowly grows. What we ended up with was mostly Big Three & Kids-centric stories, with staggered glimpses of the school now and then, but it was rarely a consistent "team" like Professor X's school. Characters like Cilghal and Streen and Kirana showed up every once in a while, but they rarely got a starring moment beyond their introduction and were mainly filler. Many of them just disappeared over the years, or worse, were written inconsistently (Corran I'm looking at you).

So -- this might be a chance to start with scratch, with a plan. I mean yeah we know all the students are gonna die by TFA, but maybe in these post-TFA stories, we can see Luke build an actual academy with characters that will have their own adventure stories. I guess Story Group is in charge of continuity, but how much are they involved in planning and outlining future plotlines?

 

I fully expect them to have as high a survival percentage as the OJO did in regards to Order 66, actually.

 

Speaking about his EU Jedi class and their relative roles, Luke going AWOL in TFA reminded me a lot of Before the Storm and his concerns over wielding the sort of power a Jedi Master had and whether he could avoid the temptation of the dark side, so that's been my personal explanation for his disappearance in TFA, too. I also always thought it was funny that in BTS he hands the Academy over to Streen of all minor characters... and then in TFA Luke ends up looking like Streen and living as a hermit, like Streen did before Luke recruited him.

 

I hope Luke will fight some in early space battles in minor wars against minor enemies in his X-Wing in future SW novels coming in 2017 possibly as searching the galaxy for Jedi artifacts to help restore his New Jedi Order before it;s destroyed years later by the Knights Of Ren and Ben Solo becomes Kylo Ren. If they're doing a SW novel called Bloodline with Leia in the early struggles of the New Republic before TFA. They should do a similar novel with Luke about his NEU exploits fighting against minor threats against the galaxy in space battles and searching distant planets and moons for Jedi artificats to restore the Jedi Order. John Jackson Miller could write such a novel. I hope it's announced at Chicgo Comic Con next week.

 

Cross-posting from the State of the Galaxy thread:

I don't know yet what the ideal relationship between the Jedi and the galactic government should be, but I think TFA definitely establishes that there needs to be both a Republic and a Jedi Order in order to have a stable galaxy.

 

I wonder how Luke specifically looking for the first Jedi Temple ties into this. I suppose it could be something mystical like "the Jedi first connected with the Force here". But I also wonder if he'll be revealed to go there to see how the original Jedi organized themselves before the association with the Republic. For most movie watchers, they'll only know the Jedi from the prequels, where they worked for the government. Having the sequels do a unique take on them would probably have to have a different type of Jedi organization than that, I would assume.

 

The New Republic and Jedi need to work together, as both are core pillars of a stable, peaceful, and free Galaxy. However, I think that one of the issues we see arise in the Prequels is that the Jedi were frankly too close to the Old Republic to see the dangers threatening it. The Jedi are the rightful protectors of the Republic (old & new)... but I think having your Temple next to the seat of government causes the Jedi to lose some perspective. The best way to serve the Republic and the greater Galaxy is to be aligned, but not fully intertwined.

I very interested to see how the remainder of the Sequel Trilogy plays out regarding this.

--Adm. Nick

 

Are we gonna see Coruscant again in the ST? And will the First Order or the Resistance/Republic or even the reemerging Jedi Order led by Rey and the Knights of Ren fight for it in Episode IX??

 

Actually, thinking about it some more, I wonder if one potential connection was not that Mon Mothma's takeaway of the Clone Wars was to shun the Jedi, but that her reforms of the New Republic were inspired by the Jedi ideals and how to correct the defects she saw in both them as well as the Old Republic.

 

We don't really know much about NEU canon Mon Mothma's view on the Jedi, at least at this point. It is something that is worth being expanded on, hopefully we'll get a better sense of what role she thinks they should play. There are a lot of potential ways they could go with this, all interesting.

--Adm. Nick

 

So given the revelations from the propaganda book's solicitations on the relative size of the New Republic compared to the Empire and Old Republic, I think it adds to the notion that the Jedi might not be connected to the NR the same way they were to the OR. That would seem even more pointlessly partisan and limiting in a more pluralistic galaxy.

 

This is entirely based on my own thoughts and not reflected (as far as I know) in either new or old EU, but that she might have seen the failings of the Jedi in the Old Republic (or been told about them by Bail, based on what Yoda and Obi-Wan [or in the old EU, Ylenic It'Kla] described to him) and that those failings of the Jedi might in turn have helped shape her opinion on what reforms the New Republic would need to institute.

 

I agree, but I definitely think that the Republic needs to have a laic, centralized agency tasked with mediating conflicts between worlds (or even between people of the same world) without intervention of the Jedi. Not an army, but at least a FBI equivalent. Less Confederacy, more Union.