Episode 12

July 04, 2025

00:17:41

Spoiler Free Starlight Stories: Hidden Danger

Hosted by

Bryce Rankins Bryan Romero
Spoiler Free Starlight Stories: Hidden Danger
The Starlight Archive
Spoiler Free Starlight Stories: Hidden Danger

Jul 04 2025 | 00:17:41

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Show Notes

In this episode of The Starlight Archive, we're going back to The Beacon!

Starlight Stories, a collection of short stories all take place around Velko Jahen and Ghal Tarpfen and their work in the day-to-day life of Starlight Beacon. A science convention is on its way and we think you may need to remember some things before you dive into these stories. These short stories may seem like filler to some, but they actually have some integral information about characters from other books and just do an all around great job enriching the overall story of Star Wars: The High Republic.

Join us as we explore how these stories contribute to the greater THR saga, introduce  new characters and expand on beloved ones, all while avoiding spoilers so that you will still get to enjoy the story fresh!

Tune into our next episode when we go over the events of this story in detail in our spoiler-packed review!

This episode is certified Spoiler Free.

Chapters

  • (00:00:00) - A Note on Names
  • (00:00:20) - Introduction
  • (00:02:21) - Hidden Danger
  • (00:14:02) - Recap of Major Events
View Full Transcript

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Just a quick note. For some reason, we got it in our head that J6, the nanny droid was actually called J9. And we didn't figure it out till way later. So as we continue to say J9 throughout the episode, please don't get mad at us. We do eventually figure it out. Hey, everybody, and welcome to the Starlight Archive, the best Krivin High Republic podcast this side of the western reaches. How do you have reaches like northeast, south and west in space? [00:00:28] Speaker B: I guess there'll be more Z axis. [00:00:31] Speaker A: Yeah. What's the other two? [00:00:34] Speaker C: I don't. [00:00:35] Speaker A: Up and down. Yeah, there is no up and down in space. [00:00:40] Speaker B: What is orientation? [00:00:41] Speaker A: I don't. I need an orientation on the space orientation. [00:00:45] Speaker B: We'll talk to our map guy, Jason Fry. [00:00:46] Speaker A: Yeah. Anyway, hi, welcome to the Starlight Archive. We're a podcast about the High Republic, so you should tune in. Today we are talking about. [00:00:55] Speaker B: Which is why you're here. [00:00:56] Speaker A: Which is why you're here. And if it's not why you're here, I'm really curious. The algorithm brought you here and, and, and welcome. So today we're talking about Starlight Stories, which, as Brian just pointed out to me, my name's Bryce Rankins. That's Brian, that's me. [00:01:22] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. [00:01:23] Speaker A: The Starlight Stories were a group of short stories that were all in Star Wars Insider magazine that all took place in the continuity of the High Republic and in some cases kind of move the story along, which is kind of cool. But in this case, they actually kind of start wave two. So if you're going in chronological order, then technically, once you're done with wave one, the Starlight Stories, short stories are where you start. [00:01:51] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:01:51] Speaker A: So today is a non spoilery episode. We are not covering what happens in these two stories. It's a two parter we're going to talk about called Hidden Danger. But we are going to talk about all the things that you need to remember. Whether you're like, hey, I read all of the High Republic, but skipped the Starlight Stories and other short stories, and now you're coming back and you're like, oh, what is this? When does this take place? What do I need to remember? What characters, minor or major, might I need to remember before this story starts? Or if you're doing the chronological journey with us and you have just want to know what you need to remember going in because there's so many things to remember. This is the podcast for you. Anyway, that's enough introduction, so let's get right down to it. [00:02:34] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:02:35] Speaker B: So this one is from Justina Ireland. What's cool about these stories is High Republic authors took turns writing the short story. So. [00:02:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:02:44] Speaker B: So it's cool seeing different points of view as this major story is going along, of kind of smaller characters. Sometimes bigger characters show up. But overall, it helps kind of fill in little gaps of what's going on and gives little characterizations and just fun little things that we can do. [00:03:00] Speaker A: I like it, too, especially because phase two is all George Mann. [00:03:05] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:03:06] Speaker A: And that's sort of George Mann's introduction into the High Republic for his writing. [00:03:12] Speaker B: Yeah. Besides the super small picture books that we haven't really talked about yet, but we'll get into in one of our other episodes. [00:03:18] Speaker A: Yeah. But in the first phase, kind of everybody's given their short stories, which is a fun thing because it's kind of like a test run with everybody else's toys. [00:03:27] Speaker C: Right. [00:03:27] Speaker A: Like, Skier is Kevin Scott's. [00:03:29] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:03:30] Speaker A: But Justina Ireland gets to play with Skier at one point. [00:03:33] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:03:34] Speaker A: And everybody gets their time with Velko Jay. And those are like the two mains you got, you know, Velcogen and Gal Tartfen. And those are the two mains you gotta go with. But like Estala Maru or Avar Chris or Avon Starros or any of the others that come through, everybody else who has written a short story gets a little bit of time with them, which is kind of cool because it's not. The stakes are obviously going to be as high as a short story will allow, but the short story format, I feel like, gives them enough time to go, how well do I play with this in a neat way? And where can I take them without going too crazy? When you suddenly see that Daniel Jose, older, is taking a character from the books and is putting him in an Adventures comic, and it's a character that's very much an adult, very much acts like an adult, and then is suddenly thrust into the Padawan pals, as I like to call them, or even. I mean, I guess it doesn't quite work that way with Cavan Scott writing an episode of the Young Jedi Adventures. But, like, it's interesting to go, hey, let's take this very serious character and then toss him in a children's story. [00:04:40] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:04:41] Speaker A: Or vice versa. Or, let's take this kid and make him deal with the very adult problems that everybody else is dealing with in the High Republic. So it's fun to see them kind of play around with it. And I think the Starlight Stories format allows them to do it in kind Of a safe space. [00:04:55] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. And so we actually get that with this story, we won't go super into it. This is the non spoilery episode. But there's some characters that show up that are usually in other stories. [00:05:06] Speaker A: Normally I would ask what we should read first, but since we're already talking about characters. [00:05:09] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:05:10] Speaker A: What characters do we need to remember exist for this story? [00:05:14] Speaker C: Yes. [00:05:15] Speaker B: So in this story we have our two main characters who kind of been almost the connecting tissue through all these short stories. We have Velko Jahin and then we have Gal Tarfan. [00:05:25] Speaker A: So Velko Jahin is a soykin female and she was an aide to the Galactic Republic head of the Starlight Beacon Station, which is Rodor Keane. So she's an administrator. And it's interesting because she's not really a security person. That's Gal Tartfen. But Gal Tartfen and her wind up working together reluctantly over and over again. [00:05:49] Speaker B: Which kind of things just keep happening on the Beacon. Weird. [00:05:52] Speaker A: It's cool though. Cause it's like when you read it, if you don't remember that it's very easy to just assume that these are just two cops dealing with cop stuff. [00:06:00] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:06:00] Speaker A: But it's not. It's a bureaucrat. It's very Law and Order. It's a bureaucrat administrator type person who's not like a bureaucrat bureaucrat. But she's still. She's. She's an office lady. Right. Like a coordinator. She's a suit. Okay. Yeah, she's a suit. And. And she. And she's a coordinator who works for Rotor Keane. But Rotor Keen is like too busy, I guess because the guy never shows up in the Starlight stories, I feel like. But she's kind of a no nonsense administrator. And she obviously cares in a way that security Lead Tarpfen doesn't. Or at least it seems that way. [00:06:35] Speaker B: Yeah, they don't get along. [00:06:36] Speaker A: Hard nosed, but they don't. Yeah, they don't get along. But like they obviously care about each other, which is interesting when one of them gets in trouble, how they kind of stick up for each other. [00:06:44] Speaker B: It's very much enemies and a friend's situation. [00:06:48] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:06:48] Speaker A: But again, it's also very Law and Order. Like doo doo doo doo doo. And then some soft jizz wailing. We need an entire theme song. I'm gonna work on this. [00:07:01] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:07:02] Speaker A: I got nothing to do in the next couple of weeks. I'm on vacation anyway. Rotarquin works alongside the Stalamaru. He's way higher up, which Is why he's not dealing with the individual problems. Yes. Which is why the day to day Soiken is doing it. If you are unfamiliar with soykins, they're kind of. Do you remember the book the Rainbow Fish? [00:07:21] Speaker B: I barely do. [00:07:22] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:07:23] Speaker B: Actually, yeah. [00:07:24] Speaker A: The soykins are the rainbow fish of people. Like, they don't have scales, but they still have that same textured thing that's on each. On the scales in the rainbow fish before he gives all of his scales away. So today's story is actually about the rainbow fish. Different book. Anyway, when I think of soykin skin, I think of that like particular kind of gray. But you put it in the right light, it's fishy, but it's not scales. [00:07:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:50] Speaker A: Anyway, so that's Velcogen. That was a long three to five minutes, depending on how we edit this about Velcogen and not at all about Velcogen. The other person, of course, is Gal Tarpfen. Gal Tartfen is a Mon Calamari. [00:08:05] Speaker C: Yup. [00:08:06] Speaker A: She has a mysterious past that we don't get to talk about just yet. [00:08:10] Speaker C: Right. [00:08:11] Speaker A: And it's. It's some good salty tea. Salty because Mon Katamari water planet. Anyway, she works in tandem to help keep the beacon running. Running and safe. Yeah. She is the head of security. She's not just some security officer. Just as Velko Jayen is not just an office gal. She is an administrator. And she is a head of. [00:08:37] Speaker B: She's the head of security. [00:08:38] Speaker A: Security, yeah. [00:08:39] Speaker B: She's the main lady. [00:08:40] Speaker A: They're the two that are basically running the show here. [00:08:43] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:08:43] Speaker A: So anyway, that's that. Yeah, Those are the two. Connective tissue. [00:08:47] Speaker C: Right. Yeah. [00:08:47] Speaker B: And they team up with Astalomaru. [00:08:50] Speaker A: They do Astolomaru, which you may remember from the High Republic Marvel mainline comic series. He is the guy who runs the beacon. He holds it together, as it were. [00:09:00] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:09:00] Speaker B: From the Jedi side. He's a Jedi and he is great. [00:09:03] Speaker A: We love him, honestly, as Stalimaru is a badass. [00:09:06] Speaker B: He's so cool. [00:09:07] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:09:08] Speaker B: One of my favorites. [00:09:08] Speaker A: I don't know what he's species is. [00:09:10] Speaker B: He is a Kasurian. Thanks, Wikipedia. [00:09:15] Speaker A: A Kasurian. [00:09:16] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:09:16] Speaker B: He's got these like kind of almost horns in the front of his head. [00:09:20] Speaker A: They're kind of tubular. [00:09:21] Speaker B: Yeah, tubular. [00:09:24] Speaker A: And he's got cool sideburns. [00:09:26] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:09:27] Speaker A: And he's got red skin. [00:09:28] Speaker B: And that's pretty much it going into it. Everybody else is fairly new, if not straight up. We do have one more character, but they. They're kind of part of the plot. [00:09:40] Speaker A: Mystery. [00:09:40] Speaker B: Yeah, mystery of what's going on. So we'll leave it at that. [00:09:43] Speaker A: So that's what you need to know for everything regarding this storyline going forward. As far as people, major locations. I would say maybe a brief rundown of the beacon might be necessary. Remember, the beacon is a giant space station. It's like the antithesis of the Death Star, but it does have gardens and it has meditation rooms and a temple, but it also has commissaries and a hospital. [00:10:11] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:10:11] Speaker A: And it's a. It's a floating city that is massive beacon that is meant to aid both in emergencies as well as aid in telecommunications. [00:10:21] Speaker C: Right. [00:10:21] Speaker A: Hollow communications. [00:10:22] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:10:22] Speaker B: And they also. They also host different events that go on. This one's premise is based on a science convention. Yeah, basically a science convention. [00:10:32] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:10:32] Speaker A: Okay. [00:10:33] Speaker B: And that's. [00:10:33] Speaker A: I mean, that's it for the starlight beacon. Right? That's really all you need to know. [00:10:36] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:10:36] Speaker A: Like, it has. It has the capacity to host thousands of people. [00:10:40] Speaker B: Yes, it is massive, if not tens. [00:10:43] Speaker A: Of thousands of people. Because you are talking again about a floating city that has a full hospital. And a full hospital at any given time can hold, you know, a thousand people. So. And the hospital's at the top. Like, it's up at the top of the beacon, which means everything else below, all those lower levels and the big wide level, before we start getting to the weird, ugly underbelly, is very much. I mean, living quarter. Like, I. I think of it kind of like the disc is not all that dissimilar to the saucer section of a Star Trek ship. [00:11:15] Speaker C: Okay. [00:11:16] Speaker A: And that, like you see in a Star Trek ship, it does have all the functions to function, but also has enough living quarters for what is effectively a small city. [00:11:26] Speaker B: Yeah, it's basically a floating mobile city. [00:11:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Maybe not like a metropolis per se, but like, it's still huge. [00:11:33] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. [00:11:34] Speaker A: So. [00:11:34] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:11:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Anyway, and then as far as events that you should know, you should probably remember that the starlight beacon opened and that it is functioning from wave one. And you should probably remember that the hyperspace disaster happened where the Nile released a ship into hyperspace right next to another ship, and they collided and it nearly destroyed several planets and several systems. It in fact did kill off. I think one planet was decimated because that was Casa's fault. [00:12:06] Speaker B: The great hyperspace disaster was, in light of the Jedi that we have, into the dark. And that's where the Drenger get released. And so the galaxy's kind of dealing with the Drengir situation. [00:12:16] Speaker A: The Nihilist is dealing with that as well. [00:12:19] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:12:20] Speaker B: Who's the Marshal of Starlight? She's not in this, but she's mentioned. [00:12:23] Speaker A: It's important to know because she's probably. She's not on the beacon at the time. Right, right. Which is because the Jedi have currently teamed up with the Hutts, of all people, in order to fight the Drangir off in the frontier space, that the Drangir are popping up everywhere. So I think that's it. [00:12:39] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:12:39] Speaker B: And then at this point, the drain gear breakout on the Starlight has already been taken care of. [00:12:46] Speaker A: Right. There was a breakout of the drain gear at one point. Orbalin and Vern and Wreath. [00:12:50] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:12:51] Speaker A: Had to take it on. Was it Emry? It was. It was Vernon. Emry, you're right. Yeah. [00:12:57] Speaker B: They've already handled business. They've taken off pretty much every dreng gear on the station because they're like, you know, this isn't a great idea. [00:13:03] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:13:04] Speaker B: That kind of leaves us just finally at the. At the tail end of all this nonsense going on. All the Drengir stuff is happening elsewhere in the galaxy. The Nihil have kind of calmed down. They're. They're popping up here and there, but for the most part, the Jedi believe that they've taken care of most of the Nihil after. [00:13:22] Speaker A: After the Battle of Kerr. Yes. Yes. Okay. Well, and that's the other thing with Wave one before we're going in. I know we already did our state of the Galaxy. Wave one kind of all takes place concurrently. Yeah, it's me. Other than the Drengir books, which go on a little bit further, and Starlight. Other than the comics and the Starlight stories, most of the main events are between the hyperspace disaster and the battle occur. [00:13:50] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. [00:13:51] Speaker A: A lot of what happens in into the Dark takes place when hyperspace is shut down. Hyperspace is back up and running by the end of Light of the Jedi. In A Test of Courage, Skier and Keeve Trinis, as Master and Padawan, go and rescue Vernestra Rowe, Emery, Kentaros, Evon, Staros J9, and honesty weft from the planet that they're trapped on. And that is before the Beacon opening ceremony. [00:14:16] Speaker C: Right. [00:14:16] Speaker A: Which is put off by a couple weeks, but ends the Light of the Jedi. So, like everything other than the Drengir fighting in Wave One basically takes place in the Light of the Jedi at the same time. [00:14:28] Speaker C: Right. [00:14:29] Speaker A: It's a lot of meanwhiles, and, you know, I love those meanwhiles, but. Yeah. So this is like our first. And then what happened? Yeah, after all of that other than. Other than Drengir stuff, which is nice because it's like. Oh, a science convention. Cool. That'll be fun. [00:14:45] Speaker B: Super chill. [00:14:46] Speaker A: Yeah, that'll be fine. So anyway, just to recap, we have Velko Jayen, rainbow fish skin head administrator, works for Rotor Keen. Rotor Keen? Not here. Estala Maru runs the entire station. Red skin, cool looking horns, holds that whole place together. Gal Tartfen, head of security. Head of security. Mon Calamari, chip on her shoulder. Not sure why. Starlight beacon. Big old beacon in space. Floating around in ecstasy. Don't stop me now. I'm going off the rails. Anyway, main things that you need to remember. The hyperspace disaster. There was a ship. It knocked another ship out of hyperspace. Things came out at sublight speed, but pretty close to light speed. Almost destroyed multiple sections of the galaxy, actually basically ruined a planet. All the events that took place during that into the dark. That's Wreath Silas releasing the Drengir Avar Chris currently off fighting said Drangir Vernestra and Emory Cantos just recently fought Drangir with Orbalyn, the archivist on the starlight beacon. And you may remember them from the story where they were having to babysit Avon Stos, the annoying little kid with the. With the J9. [00:15:54] Speaker B: The J9 robot who ended up being kind of cool but was still kind of whiny. [00:15:57] Speaker A: Avon Stos comes around, but like, oh. [00:16:00] Speaker B: Let'S talk about J6. [00:16:00] Speaker A: But it's J6. I keep wanting to say J9. [00:16:04] Speaker B: Yeah, J6. [00:16:06] Speaker A: I like J9 because that sounds like. [00:16:08] Speaker B: It rolls off the tongue better. [00:16:10] Speaker A: But also I knew a Janine and J9 really feels like a Janine. She's totally Janine. Anyway, J6. [00:16:17] Speaker B: Yeah, with Avon. [00:16:18] Speaker A: With Avon. Who is her? She's her nanny droid. But Avon likes to tinker and has given. None of that really matters. Yeah, she's super. [00:16:26] Speaker B: She does stuff. She'll come into play later on. [00:16:27] Speaker A: Yeah, Honesty Weft. He's not. He. He. We're not going to see him again until out of the shadows. Anyway. Spoilers. Yeah, now there's a science convention in space. That's the rundown. You got it all. Congratulations. Have a great day. So, in the words of Velko Jaen, be sure to follow us on our socials. We're on threads, we're on Instagram. We have a Discord. You can actually find our sneaky geek discord. And we have several Starlight archive channels within there. And join us next week for our Hidden Danger Total spoiler review, where we go over the whole thing and we'll get you all your spoilery goodness and we'll go over what happens in the story and the greater implications of what that means for everything. So, in the words of Velko, JN. [00:17:11] Speaker B: I know, but shooting our guests, that's never going to be a wise move. [00:17:24] Speaker A: The Starlight Archive is brought to you by Bryce Rankins and Brian Romero. It was edited by Bryce Rankins. Brian Romero. Bryce Rankins designed the logo. Brian Romero did most of the research. It's produced by Bryce Rankins and Brian Romero, and basically, it's just us. The Starlight Archive is brought to you by Sneaky Geek Media 2024. All rights reserved.

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