1. This is the way…seeker. Justina Ireland’s new novel will explore Vernestra Rwoh’s life about 20 years prior to the events of The Acolyte, a giant leap from when we last saw the teenaged prodigy in Phase III of The High Republic storytelling. https://www.starwars.com/news/sdcc-2024-lucasfilm-reveals
We can fully expect that they will spend a lot of time in-between the end of the High Republic initiative and the Acolyte. That is a hundred years to fill in where they can tell full life stories of the High Republic characters.
Cant wait to get into adult Vernestra Rhow headspace and this will be 4 years before Brendok incident.
With them announcing new books about Acolyte characters probably indicates that a season 2'is very unlikely. I honestly think books can do a better job with new eras then Disney Plus tv shows can so I'm not real disappointed about that.
them not announcing tie ins woulda been a death knell Ala willow not getting anything also if qimir is featured is a novel big enough to reveal his real name (qimir is an alias ) or would they save that for season 2
From what we’ve seen, they aren’t keen on having tie-ins to things that are still running. It’s why Adam Christopher’s Mando novel got shelved and why Timothy Zahn hasn’t been brought back to write any more Thrawn stories. They tend to put that stuff on the back burner until the creatives have it all worked out. Conversely, Solo 2 probably isn’t happening any time soon and that’s why we got so much Qi’ra/Crimson Dawn content in the comics. I don’t know that this means there’s no Acolyte season 2, but I wouldn’t expect much by way of Qimir if there is.
those are filoni projects so my comment stands he doesn't play well with others in his little sandbox
We’ll take my comment and apply it to Andor then. Same thing there. We know there’s a season 2 coming, but they haven’t done anything major with that in publishing.
I think, more to the point, these projects would have been approved before Disney had enough information to decide if they were renewing The Acolyte or not (if that decision was going to be based on ratings and how many people actually finished the series). They're just part of the universe, and not a signal about anything else
These are prequels and I'm sure Vernestra's story can be finessed such that Qimir can still be before the novel's setting and avoid direct mentions of him. He did say it was a long time ago. *Edit* While we're all caught on the question of Qimir, it's not being appreciated that Indara is right there in the promo art. I'm keen to get more of Indara's story.
This could go either way. It could be excellent or it could be akin to Picard: The Last Best Hope - wonderfully written but a grim set of events for a grim TV story. Not seeing how this announcement rules out Acolyte S2, especially as LFL look to be improving on their coordination.
I think folks might want to pump the brakes a little re: divining creator / company intent from things like which projects have tie-ins and which ones don't. In particular "Gilroy and Filoni don't like tie-ins" is... probably the wrong conclusion to draw. If I were interested in why the Acolyte has its own mini publishing program when other shows don't, I'd be looking instead at the strongly character-focused nature of both the show and the marketing - "Yord Horde" and so forth - as well as the fact that the show is already associated with a successful publishing program with its own fanbase (the authors of both novels are established HR authors). In other words, consider opportunistic marketing rather than fickle creators as a reason for why Acolyte has a publishing initiative and something like Andor didn't.
The Acolyte tie in novels are for characters who are all dead or otherwise will not interfere with anything unfolding on screen. They don’t do tie ins for the Filoni shows because the annoying mystery box format storytelling is still in effect for pretty much the entire cast (the ones who will sell novels, at least)
A backstory novel centered around Vernestra, of all characters, doesn't line up particularly well with that theory. And what "mystery box" still exists surrounding anything in the Filoni shows, other than things directly related to the ongoing story in Ahsoka? You could pretty easily have a Din Djarin novel or an Ahsoka novel at this point. Don't confuse "they haven't told the story yet" with "they're never going to tell the story."
I like that the synopsis suggests we're getting some backstory on why Vern isn't hip to what Rayencourt is laying down. Wouldn't be shocked if he's a junior senator or aid in the new book.
Hope that "underworld crime" is not a Nihil remnant. Seems like a good opportunity to finally return Crymorah though, since Wandering Star, that appeared in THR, was established to be its part. If Vernestra was a Wayseeker, maybe she trained and then attacked Qimir during this time, that is why nobody else in the Order know about him.
I doubt Vern outright "attacked" Qimir. She's up to some sketchy ish politicking, but no still don't think Vern is the type to have just gone full aggressor like that phrasing suggests.
Qimir can hide full truth, but so far, IMO, his scar does not seem like a result of a purely self-defense from Vernestra.