Lit Pre-Shmi Skywalkers?

What the title says - I'm interested in knowing if any source, in either continuity, has any information on Skywalker ancestors prior to Shmi. Because despite what an interesting topic this seems like, I'm drawing a blank - of the books I have, the closest thing is an offhand mention in the TPM Visual Dictionary that Shmi was sold into slavery after being separated from her parents in a pirate raid.

Is there anything else? If so, what?

 

I don't think any Skywalkers pre-Shmi have appeared or been mentioned in either Legends or the current canon. I remember there was some speculation that Zayne Carrick from the KOTOR comics might have been an ancestor, thought that was probably because his series was part of the Vector crossover, with the other three each being "represented" by a Skywalker when it came to that series' era in the crossover (Vader, Luke, and Cade). Other than that though, I don't think any Skywalkers before Shmi have been established.

 

With the bloodline being extinct post TRoS, I wonder if Disney will be willing to explore Pre-Shmi Skywalkers, or at least someone who though isn't called a Skywalker, is related to Shmi.

Or just leave it a mystery and focus on no one who is apart of the bloodline in pre-TPM eras.

 

I wonder if High Republic will touch it eventually. It'd be fun if a Skywalker was just some window cleaner somewhere.

 

As a huge fan of Skywalker bloodline and genealogy I’ve always been interested in pre-Shmi Skywalkers. For a long time I’ve recalled some source that said specifically that Shmi’s parents were merchants, but I’ve never found a quote that backed it up so I might be misremembering.

I also remember this speculation about Zayne. I’ve heard arguments made for just about every Old Republic protagonist being ancestral to the Skywalkers—the Sunriders, Revan and Bastila, the Exile... at the same time, though, it’s hard to justify.

I can definitely see the High Republic eventually giving us insight to Shmi’s parents/grandparents/great grandparents, when the timeline gets close enough to her birth. There’s about six generations separating her from Light of the Jedi, so I’m not anticipating any connections yet.

I think that a lot of people were saddened with how the Skywalkers ended in canon, so going up the tree rather than down the tree might be compensatory for a lot of people.

Another place that Skywalkers might turn up is if Zahn ever does stories set prior to the Ascendancy trilogy. There’s been this building potential for their line to have some link to the Chiss Ascendancy.

 

Zahn has said he called the Chiss Force sensitives sky-walkers as a one-off joke and if he knew he would end up writing an Ascendancy trilogy he wouldn't have done it.

 

Given Shmi was a slave, my suspicion is that the Skywalker family was likely one of no significance-though it definitely seemed to be in the outer rim.

Presumably-Shmi’s ancestors were poorer economically. Beyond that we know nothing.

 

We know nothing. It was probably a rule that EU writers couldn’t write about who Shmi’s parents were

 

In the explicitly non-canon treatise for the canceled book Alien Exodus the character of Cosmo Hender is implied to be the founder of the Skywalker family. The character "gets the ability to tap into the Force through a giant crystal, giving him telekinetic powers and the ability to levitate, causing the other slaves nickname him Skywalker because of his powers." (Quote found from the Behind the Scenes sub-tab on the Skywalker family Legends tab on Wookieepedia: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Skywalker_family/Legends)

There was also interest early on in the development of The Force Unleashed in following one of Luke Skywalker's descendants 500 years after the death of Darth Vader. This descendant of Luke would be a "Jedi Sheriff" trying to keep the peace in an era where the Jedi and the Sith had established an "uneasy alliance." (https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/The_Council)

Obviously that doesn't answer the original question this thread raises, as both are explicitly non-canon and didn't make it past the proverbial cutting room floor. But it does show that there was interest from the powers that be about doing something more extensive with the Skywalker family, and that perhaps the rules against showing off too much about the Skywalkers were less strong than, say, going more into Yoda's species and background.

 

I'd love to get a story about Shmi's early life where we meet her parents and any other relatives.
Maybe even discover how she became a slave in the first place.

The trick with following the family back any further is their implied humble origins and the nature of Anakin's conception means it exceptionally unlikely that any of their recent ancestors did anything remotely interesting.

Who knows maybe their 100th great grandpa was a senator or something, a lot can happen over a thousand generations, but I'm inclined to think giving the Skywalkers much to do before Anakin would kind of undermine the significance to him being the Chosen One. People complain about the all important bloodline but the fact of the matter is Ani came from nothing and played the most significant role of just about anyone in the saga which I find more poetic.

 

With only 200 year gap between LoTJ and TPM, im all for a blood skywalker (even if that isn’t there last name....yet?) showing up. You can still have the bloodline not be special, while giving us a new character with heroic qualities, perhaps helping the fight against the Nihil. I do think Anakin should be the 1st of the bloodline to be a Jedi, but there are a variety of other roles a pre-Shmi Skywalker can have.

Some might say that a skywalker should never show up in the High Republic, because this era is supposed to be getting away from the skywalker family. I would argue that if a Skywalker does show up, we still have the vast Old Republic eras to explore which can be Skywalkerless, and the bloodline will yet to have the popularity it later does in the films, if it appears in the HR.

 

Before Shmi there was the original Skywalker, from Lucas backstory that Alien Exodus drew inspiration from but was not beholden to.

The Skywalker, a title more than a family name due to the Forcefeats he could do like levitation, was the being that first discovered the Force and taught it to his twelve children/students. If those were called Jedi, Bendu, Skywalkers or else is unknown but given these first students likely were not only but also children to the Skywalker, them being attributed it as a family name is likely.

This backstory may or may not correlate with Disney's Prime Jedi on Ach-To unless the "Skywalker" predates the Prime "Jedi".

Furthermore, the Mortis Trilogy and its expanded materials in the Book of Sith as well as other works suggests that the godlike Mortis trinity is a family, probably going back to the first Forceuser and could appear in the Sky of other worlds like apparitions or flying animals or looking like the species they visited that way, not beholden to their human form only, as we saw them transform into many other versions on screen itself, be it animal form, angelic godform or even appearing as other people like Shmi or Qui Gon. The term Skywalker for heavenly apparitions in the Sky thus also could refer to them.

Next up as already mentioned by others we have Cosmo Hender from Alien Exodus circular timeline who not only became the first Forceuser but who got his abilities from a crystal (tying into Lucas old Kaiburr crystal backstory ideas and modern kyber crystal stories).

If one wanted one wanted, one could tie them all together into a modern version of Alien Exodus: Have Cosmo Hender be the Prime Jedi, called "The Skywalker" and teach it to 12 students and children on Ach-To before some of his students create an order and a family of three of them ends up on Mortis.

 

There's plenty of reasons someone can be enslaved. They could have been on a luxury cruise ship that just happened to be raided by slavers.

 

My preference would be for them to have been enslaved for being principled people, resisting... well, slavery, or whatever else. I don't want them to be Force users or action heroes, just moral, empathetic people who stood up for what was right, at great cost. A bit like Ezra's parents, perhaps. That would seem to inform Shmi's moral compass as she imparts it to Anakin. That's just a preference of mine that I extrapolate from her character, though,

 

Things can start off as silly jokes and end up being worked into the story though!

To be honest when things like this happen (similar example is Doctor Who's Face of Boe joke) I'm always amazed that authors/creators are taken aback at people reading things into it. Like, you know you're writing for an obsessive, detail-oriented fan base right?

 

Did Filoni hit that wall with Rex/Nik Sant?

 

How quickly you all forgot Jon Skywalker.

 

You got me there! Well, that face of him reminds me of some actor but I can't put a name to it... anybody who can help?

 

I always really liked this concept. Actually, it sort of reminds me of SWTOR's later expansions.

I understand the general desire expressed here that Shmi's ancestors should not be of significant note. I think it would be very trite if, after establishing Shmi and Anakin's humble origins, it was revealed that Skywalkers were prime movers for every event in Galactic History prior to their origin.

But I'm not against Shmi's ancestors playing some role in the High Republic, whether as main or side characters. I think that Shmi herself presents some interesting story opportunities. We know so little about her yet she's the matriarch and progenitor of the entire Skywalker clan. Is there a "reason" the Force chose her to carry Anakin? Is she in fact connected to Prime Jedi/Lucas's "holy man Skywalker" concept? I don’t think she needs to be a protagonist, but I would love to know about her and her parents.

 

I love that Shmi's ancestors are unknown.

 

I whole heartedly agree with this. In my mind the Skywalker family was one of the countless billions of other no-name families in the galaxy, and it wasn’t until Anakin’s “conception” that they had anything to do with the force or major events at all. I’d be fine with a throwaway-line cameo from a Skywalker in High Republic, but I don’t want to see any sort of real character, especially one who’s force sensitive.

 

Unpopular take maybe but, the standard story of Shmi and Parents getting raided and sold into slavery could play out in a variety of ways:

1 - The obvious: unimportant trader family gets kidnapped and sold after raid
2 - The twist: The raiders aren't normal raiders but targeted them for a reason or were tasked to get them/the girl by someone else (Sith or otherwise)
3 - good and evil turned on its head: The girl's parents never were her true parents and the raiders simply stole her back, but she ended up in slavery anyway after tragedy struck her saviors
4 - The girl is special and her parents tried to get her away from something or someone but it caught up to them and in order to not have her fall into raider hands they left her to slavery (Kinda mirrors Rey's tale and her parents including a benevolent slaver and her luck with her masters so far!)

or any other way really.

 

I think there have been hints that the last name "Skywalker" is just given to orphans where the family name is unknown.

 

Was this in canon or legends?

 

Well, early on, it seemed to be a sort of GFFA human naming convention: Skywalker, Starkiller, Darklighter. That was a thing that was picked up on by the EU from time to time while the main canon gravitated to the surnames also in play that seemed almost-normal-but-not-quite like Kenobi, Organa, Antilles, Tarkin, etc. with "Calrissian" maybe being where they really nailed it. Starkiller eventually got used for something else and not a lot of people know what Biggs' last name is, leaving "Skywalker" a lot more singular than it was maybe meant to be at first.