Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi everybody and welcome to the Starlight Archive, the best Griffin High Republic podcast this side of the Starlight Beacon dining hall.
Really, really low stakes for this one.
[00:00:17] Speaker B: Stakes.
[00:00:18] Speaker A: Today we are doing our spoiler packed version of Hidden Danger. Hidden Danger. Yeah, I'm trying to think. It's not really a version of our spoiler packed review slash coverage of Hidden Danger.
[00:00:31] Speaker B: Yeah. By Justina Ireland.
[00:00:33] Speaker A: So this is all from a compilation of stories called the Starlight Stories, which were short stories that were taken on by multiple different authors from the High Republic initiative and put in Star Wars Insider magazine. These stories, Hidden Danger and Hidden Danger Part 2, were part of issues.
What did you say?
[00:00:53] Speaker B: 203, 203 and 204, back to back.
[00:00:56] Speaker A: So we're going to give them to you both at the same time instead of making you wait an entire month for the next issue to come out. So look at us. Except we're not giving you the entire thing. You still have to go read it yourself. But you can find it in Star Wars Insider magazines 203 and 204, which may or may not be available at your library. Or you can pick them up in the Starlight Stories little collection.
[00:01:17] Speaker B: It's a. Yeah, but it's cool because it also has like interviews and some behind the scenes stuff in there too. So it's pretty fun. Pretty, pretty fun collection of stories.
[00:01:24] Speaker A: Yeah, it's nice. It kind of looks on the outside like one of those old Disney animated film adaptation books. It's like that size of a large children's book, but instead it's Star Wars. A bunch of Star wars short stories and regular adult book size font. Yeah, but yeah, so this one is the.
The third story in the short stories collection go together.
[00:01:54] Speaker B: First Duty and Hidden Danger.
[00:01:55] Speaker A: Yeah. So one of those is two is two parts and one of those is only one part, I think that takes place on the Starlight Beacon and centers around the characters of Velko Jaehan and Gal Tartfen, who are an administrator and the head of security.
[00:02:14] Speaker B: Right.
And it's cool. Then we get little cameos from other Jedi that are around different characters that show up in and around the High Republic in general. So it's kind of a nice glue that holds everything together almost.
[00:02:25] Speaker A: Yeah. I like to think of it as a very intentional and sometimes it moves the story along, but a very intentional from a certain point of view.
Unlike the certain point of view stories where it's a small character that's kind of on the outskirts of the movie main storyline, those stories all tend to happen During a major event in a Star War. You know, whether it's like the first story and the return of the Jedi, from a certain point of view, is the guy who goes, well, then we'll double our efforts, and it's like, about the next week of that man's life.
But these are just sort of. These other characters that are.
These are just kind of happening in between. They're not necessarily a different viewpoint of a major event.
[00:03:15] Speaker B: Right. And. And while Starlight is a major.
I wouldn't say, I mean, almost character. Yeah. The Starlight's kind of a character. And this whole initiative.
These stories focus on the smaller characters working in and around the beacon itself.
[00:03:30] Speaker A: Yeah. And the beacon was such.
Right as this. This initiative starts. The beacon is such a symbol for the High Republic itself. Like, we call it the High Republic because this is, like the peak of the Republic. This is when things were really just going off. We were expanding.
[00:03:50] Speaker B: Lina so good times everywhere, you know.
[00:03:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Lina so's great works are happening. This is the symbol of the outreach to the Outer Rim territories and planets that Lina so was kind of pushing for to really bring that we are all the Republic idea together. So it's kind of cool to have that focal point be the main location for all of these stories in Phase One.
[00:04:17] Speaker B: Definitely. And a lot of that mindset comes through in these stories where this is such a big, important thing and different events will happen in and around the beacon itself, good and bad. But at the same time, it's like, hey, this is. This is an important piece of architecture and just a huge station that really is important to the Star wars galaxy at this time.
[00:04:41] Speaker A: What's cool about this, too, is it's kind of the mobile base equivalent of Coruscant for the Jedi. Like, it's not necessarily. Maybe the Jedi don't necessarily think about it that way, but narratively, I think the Starlight beacon is what Coruscant was to us in the prequels. Like, oh, there's something being talked about regarding the ideas of what the Council might be doing, etc. The council's still meeting on Coruscant.
The main Jedi who are having those conversations aren't having those conversations in the Coruscant Temple. They're having them on the beacon.
[00:05:17] Speaker B: Yeah. And they definitely go back and forth sometimes, but they're really trying to really make good use out of the station.
[00:05:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:25] Speaker B: It's high tech, it's new. It's got great communications.
So, hey, why not?
[00:05:30] Speaker A: Yeah. So, Brian, you recently reread this Story. I've only kind of skinned it since my first reading, but you've kind of got a full rundown of what this is, so why don't you take the lead?
[00:05:41] Speaker B: Definitely. So we open up with part one, and we have Velko, Jaehen and Gal Tarfin sprinting out of the security hub on Starlight, going towards the nearest elevator. There's something's going down. We don't know what it is.
And they're running and Velko is thinking to herself, like, how did things get so bad so fast? And then boom. Smash cut.
We're going back one day early.
[00:06:04] Speaker A: Nice little.
[00:06:05] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:06:06] Speaker A: You're probably wondering how we got here. Freeze frame.
[00:06:10] Speaker B: Exactly. Nice little voiceover.
[00:06:13] Speaker A: Boom. One day earlier.
[00:06:19] Speaker B: So, come to find out that the starlight beacon is hosting the Galactic Agricultural alliance annual meeting. It's a big meeting of minds between the galaxy's biggest agricultural minds and biochemists, bioscientists and botanists.
Usually this meeting is held on Coruscant, but because we have this big brand new space station, it was pretty good idea to have and host this big old event on. On the station itself. So Velco is kind of in charge of making sure everything is set up properly. Things are running smoothly, Decorations are up, decorations look good. And that security is. Is up to snuff. And she's working on that with Gal Tarpfin as well. But it's kind of her project. And as she's going through and checking on these decorations, she's noting that Rotor Keen, who's her boss on the station, he's kind of the second in command along with some of the Jedi and, and, you know, the marshal of Starlight Beacon Avar, Chris, that he's kind of switched up a few of her approvals and things, and she's like, of course he did. And it's kind of funny. She was talking to one of the decorators and he's like, oh, yeah, like, we switched the tapestry to green because plants and plants are green. And Velko's like, not all plants are green. Like we had it red because of other plants. But okay, fine, whatever.
So she's annoyed with him. She's going through, checking out everything and, and everything's going smoothly, everything's looking good.
And they should be getting 100 of the scientists rolling in or I guess, flying in any time now with everything going on in the galaxy. Keep in mind, this is. This is kind of the start of Wave two, phase one. And so the Drengy are a big problem. The Nihil were kind of dealt with, but there's still little pockets of them showing up. But because of all these things going on in the frontier and that this event is being hosted in the frontier, things have to go smooth.
[00:08:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:18] Speaker B: Have to go well. And they need to go off without a hitch. She needs to keep a lot of scientists safe and happy and again, make sure this event goes off perfectly.
Once this event becomes successful, it's going to be a really good lead in to the Republic Fair that's coming up that they're spending a lot of time also preparing for. So.
[00:08:37] Speaker A: Which also has its fair share of like, science exhibitions too, right?
[00:08:41] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:08:41] Speaker A: This is kind of a prelude to the fair.
[00:08:43] Speaker B: Yeah. Definitely a good warm up.
[00:08:44] Speaker A: Soft launch.
[00:08:46] Speaker B: Soft launch for sure.
And so it's really cool with these short stories again, we're kind of getting filled in on the smaller characters around or at least the characters that are showing up on. On Starlight Beacon and making it run. Such as Velko, when we find out the planet that she comes from is war torn and has this ongoing, like, endless, pointless war.
And in their culture, if you can't fight, you end up becoming a farmer. And that's looked down upon, you know, if you can't fight, then what are you. What are you good for? Which is weird because food, and food's pretty important, but that's their war culture. And she's. She, she's working around her biases, which honestly good for her because she's hosting basically all these farmers and all these botanists and she's like, okay, fine, I guess I'll. I'll make this thing good for, you know, these lesser creatures, quote, unquote.
[00:09:34] Speaker A: It's interesting that she has this sort of mentality too because, like, she's an administrator, she's not, you know, head of security or things like that. Like, she's logistics and management.
[00:09:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:48] Speaker A: Real quick, A Republic fair, you say? Like, we haven't really mentioned that so far in this season after everything that's happened. Lina so wants to hold a Republic fair.
[00:09:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:00] Speaker A: That highlights and brings about all of the cultures and planets that are in the Republic.
[00:10:09] Speaker B: Right.
[00:10:10] Speaker A: But we're talking about like a gigantic interplanetary festival. Yeah. Celebration of things. And so, and, and this is something. This is part of Lena so's great works. You know, more on this.
We are all. The Republic shtick she's been going for.
That's a lot of pressure for something to kind of be the. The prelude to something like that.
[00:10:32] Speaker B: Definitely.
[00:10:33] Speaker A: You know, as soon as we said it. I was like, oh, yeah, the fair. Because we've been recording it all season, but we haven't actually talked about it so far in this.
[00:10:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:40] Speaker A: In this season yet.
So given that we're recording this out of order, Tarantino style, so. So back to Velko Jay and Klingon culture. That's not Klingons, but the soykins are at least, maybe not soykins. I don't know whether or not her planet is purely soykins, but the planet that she comes from, the culture of it is, is very much, you know, being a warrior, being a good fighter, that kind of thing. And I think you see that in the story. But it's interesting because it's like, oh, yeah, farmers. That's what you do when you can't fight. It's like, girl, you're playing in a party.
[00:11:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
It's all about food.
Remember my first time throwing a party?
[00:11:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Right. Get it together.
[00:11:27] Speaker B: Yeah. But she's. She seems like she's on board, and she's. She's open to it, which is, again, good for her. She's working through those biases and. And she's doing her job, and she wants to do her job well.
So she ended up deciding that everything's looking good, and she wanted to check in on the security measures going on and wanted to head up to where our good friend and no nonsense head of security, Monkel Gal Tarfin, is hanging out. And instead of taking the elevator, she notices that her fitness lately hasn't been quite up to par. Which makes sense. It's a busy beacon. There's a lot of meetings going on, a lot of planning. So she decides to take the stairs, which, as a certified professional, I approve. It's better than nothing. If you want to get a little something in. A little something's better than nothing.
So as she's running up the stairs, she gets about five flights up, and she, like, skids to a stop to avoid running into a girl that's in the stairwell. Keep in mind, the stairwell is you have to have security clearances to get into. And why. Why would a girl carrying a plant have security clearances to get her in the stairwell? So that is weird, right? Yeah. So that's what Vilka was thinking. And as she's looking at this girl, she notices again, she. She's holding this potted plant, and she kind of gets a weird feeling about it, and she's thinking herself. It kind of reminds her of the Drangir. But that can't be because they just got Rid of all the Drengir, as we saw a few comic issues ago. And the Marvel line on the Beacon.
[00:12:57] Speaker A: Right?
[00:12:57] Speaker B: Yeah, on the Beacon. The Dringer that they had on board kind of freaked out, and they had a huge drinker problem. Vern and Emory were taking care of it, so there's no drink here on board anymore.
[00:13:07] Speaker A: And Orbalin, give. Give credit where it's due.
[00:13:10] Speaker B: That's fair.
Estal helped out too, but yeah, so she's like, no, that can't be. Like, it's. It. It's just a plant. Like, it kind of looks like it, but it's not the yelling, it's not angry, it's not saying. It just wants to eat meat.
[00:13:25] Speaker A: And it's being held by a little girl.
[00:13:27] Speaker B: And it's being held by a little girl. Yeah. So Velka's like, who are you? What are you doing? Like, what. Why are you in the. The stairwell? And the girl's like, well, I. I'm with the. The delegation that's coming in for the big science extravaganza. And I have to bring this plant up because it needs a certain amount of humidity, otherwise it's going to wither and die. And we're trying to get all the flowers to bloom like you wanted us to, which is another thing that.
[00:13:53] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Time all of the plants so that they were all blooming simultaneously.
[00:13:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Because flowers are pretty and scientists like flowers, especially botanists, so why the heck not?
So she's running up the stairs to try to get to the dining hall because it has the perfect humidity already for this plant.
[00:14:11] Speaker A: That's a forward thinking kid. Good for her, whoever she is.
[00:14:15] Speaker B: Yeah. Seems super smart. And Velko's like, okay, like, that makes sense. But like, how did you get into the stairwell? And the girl's like, oh, I spliced it. No big deal.
[00:14:23] Speaker A: Like, okay, cool. Now I know how, like, why you're here on the Beacon. How are you in this place, this secure location?
[00:14:32] Speaker B: And then she goes to explain that the standard security locks for the Republic are like weak sauce. They have a braided equivalency of the Grattan cipher, which I feel like is a cool shout out to fellow High Republic writer for phase two and three. Tessa Grattan.
[00:14:46] Speaker A: Yeah. And Justina Ireland and Tessa Grattan are like BFFs. So.
[00:14:50] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. They co. Write a few.
[00:14:52] Speaker A: And this is before Tessa enters into the.
The team, if you will. So that's kind of.
[00:14:59] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So it's a nice little shout out. And then explains the Maven algorithm is set to a four beat pulse and it's easy peasy to work around. Around.
So Velko's like, what? Okay, that's good to know. Yeah.
All of a sudden, the door in front of them opens up and a droid comes out and yells, avon, where have you been? I've been waiting for you. I beat you up there. You're too slow. Basically, it's Avon, Staros.
[00:15:27] Speaker A: Avon, staros, you little so and so. Of course you spliced it and it's.
[00:15:33] Speaker B: J6 that's yelling at her.
[00:15:35] Speaker A: Our favorite nanny droid. Our favorite nanny droid turned security droid turned revolutionary.
[00:15:43] Speaker B: Right?
So many guns.
[00:15:46] Speaker A: So many guns.
Just waiting for her to start yelling meatbag.
[00:15:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
Hanging out with HK47 a little too much.
[00:15:55] Speaker A: Yep. Yep.
[00:15:55] Speaker B: Or not enough, depending on who you ask. But yeah. So it turns out Avon is working under this. This professor that is helping put together the symposium, this big old science extravaganza. And. Which makes sense why she's holding the pot and why she's helping set up. But she kind of knows what's going on with the plant itself. And she's like, hey, I won't be in the stairs again. I gotta get this plant up before it dies. Because it's pretty volatile to. Or the air is pretty volatile to it and it will affect it and kill it if I don't get it up. So. But I'll. I'll meet back with you later and I'll tell you and show you how I hacked the system K by and like, boom. Runs off and Velko's like, cool.
[00:16:38] Speaker A: What just happened?
[00:16:40] Speaker B: Yeah. So then we smash cut to the next day, of course. Yeah. As we do. But everything is ready to go.
Everything's set up. Everything looks pretty. The flowers are either getting ready to bloom or they're blooming already and they have a nice little lifespan with said blooms. And we find out that there's five different ships coming in that are bringing 100 of the most important. Again, botanist, ag experts and biologists. And they're coming from the five main rims of the galaxy. So you have like the outer rim, the mid rim, the core, and some of the frontier worlds as well. But they basically flew to what, Anything.
[00:17:21] Speaker A: From the unknown reaches?
[00:17:23] Speaker B: Nope. Because they're unknown.
[00:17:24] Speaker A: Oh.
[00:17:25] Speaker B: I mean, there's a few planets that are in there, but it's possible that there are. We just. We didn't get that much detail.
[00:17:30] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:17:31] Speaker B: Yeah. But it did mention that basically there's five planets that these five Ships were coming from where all these scientists kind of gathered at first and then loaded up. So we have a ship coming from Coruscant, ship coming from Chandrila, ship coming from Onderon or Mantel. And Raxis.
[00:17:49] Speaker A: Oh, cool.
[00:17:49] Speaker B: And they're all.
[00:17:50] Speaker A: But I know the other ones.
[00:17:51] Speaker B: Yeah, Raxis is from.
Oh, I looked that up last week.
[00:17:57] Speaker A: Raxis Secundus.
[00:17:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
Simply known as Raxis. Oh, that's the planet from Tales of the Jedi where Mace and Count Dooku went to.
[00:18:09] Speaker A: Oh, yes, yes, yes.
[00:18:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
But we see it in the bad batch. We see it in Clone Wars.
[00:18:16] Speaker A: Yeah. They had the corrupt senator who was basically selling them out.
[00:18:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:20] Speaker A: And then Onderon is where Saw Gerrera is from, another Clone wars planet. And then Chandrila is the home planet of Mon Mothma.
[00:18:30] Speaker B: Right. Which we see in Andor.
[00:18:32] Speaker A: Which we see in Andor. And then, of course, Coruscant is the. The capital of the. The Republic.
[00:18:39] Speaker B: Yeah, we've only seen that a couple times.
[00:18:40] Speaker A: Yeah, once or twice. And then the last planet was what?
[00:18:43] Speaker B: Ord Mantel.
[00:18:44] Speaker A: Ord Mantel, which of course is the.
[00:18:46] Speaker B: The Bad Batch planet.
[00:18:47] Speaker A: The Bad Batch planet.
[00:18:48] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's. It's their planet.
[00:18:51] Speaker A: It's their whole planet.
[00:18:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:53] Speaker A: Boardman tells the sketchy Bad Batch planet that.
[00:18:57] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:18:57] Speaker A: What's her name is. Is on there. Sid.
[00:19:01] Speaker B: Sid.
[00:19:02] Speaker A: Sid.
[00:19:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:04] Speaker A: Where. Where Sid's bar is.
[00:19:06] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And it's popped up a few times in Clone wars as well.
[00:19:09] Speaker A: Cool.
[00:19:10] Speaker B: Yeah. So nice little planets tying everything together. But yeah, so the scientists in those regions traveled to these planets, and then they all traveled to the starlight for this big ol science party of agriculture. I like how I describe it. Slightly different every time. Yeah, I mean, the story does that too, but yeah. So the scientists are slowly starting to arrive onto the beacon and. And again, things are set up. They look great. Everything is ready to go, and Velko is ready to help host this happy, fun, successful science event.
So a few hours after checking and making sure everything is tip top perfect, her and Gal are up in the security headquarters. And Velko's joking how she's amazed that Gal can keep track of everything that's going on. And. And Gal's like, again, not amused. Very serious. Does not joke. And she's like, what, you mean, you mean this? They're. They're just a bunch of scientists that are like, roaming around the garden sniffing flowers. This isn't exactly the most exciting thing going on, right?
Yeah. But Velco took That as a win, since one of her main goals, which wasn't necessarily a priority but was a nice touch, was to have the flowers blooming with when everybody arrives. So score. As they're patting themselves on the back, they get a ping from a security console, and it's a security droid sending a notification that they're picking up aggression responses.
[00:20:38] Speaker A: Such a fun turn of phrase. We noticed some aggression responses.
[00:20:42] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. In the story, it says the droids are programmed to recognize over 3,000 different kinds of aggression responses. And that's basically because there's so many different kinds of species of aliens in and around the Star wars galaxy that they need to figure out what alien is actually mad or what, or if an alien looks mad but isn't. So that's where these aggression responses come from.
[00:21:05] Speaker A: So it's. It's per species, not different types of aggression. I was like, oh, yes, they know the difference between petty and irritable and hungry.
[00:21:16] Speaker B: Yes. But then for all sorts of aliens.
[00:21:18] Speaker A: But also Iorian, petty is very different from Trandoshan Petty.
[00:21:22] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, you don't even want to go there.
So that's where we basically start from with the beginning of the story where they're running down the. The hallway. They're running down the hallway to get to an elevator to get down, because there's a fight going on down at the main concourse.
[00:21:38] Speaker A: Oh, no.
[00:21:40] Speaker B: So they get down there, and it's an Ithorian who's fighting a.
[00:21:45] Speaker A: An Amani.
[00:21:46] Speaker B: An Amani, yes.
[00:21:49] Speaker A: Ithorians being the big hammerhead.
[00:21:51] Speaker B: Yeah. And Amanis have tails.
Yeah. So the Aetherian throws a punch, and the Amani spins around and uses its tail to hit the Ithorian.
And by this point, that's when Velko and Gal are there, and Gal kind of looks around, kind of doesn't really know what to do. And then she ends up just taking out her gun and she shoots him.
Both of them.
Huge surprise for everybody. Turns out they were just stun bolts. They're just stunned. But it's still kind of a very aggressive and surprising action to take. But she is the head of security, so, you know, she might know what she's doing.
But also, like, she shot a guy.
She shot two guys.
[00:22:35] Speaker A: That escalated quickly.
[00:22:37] Speaker B: Yeah, some. Some dude killed a guy with a trident.
[00:22:44] Speaker A: We've seen Amani before. The first time we actually ever saw an Amani was Return of the Jedi.
[00:22:50] Speaker B: Oh.
[00:22:51] Speaker A: So the Amani are these kind of lizardy things. They have these really long front limbs, and their face is behind this sort of crest, almost as if it reminds me of like a stingray or like a manta ray, how their face is like on the flat side of an. Otherwise, like, what you'd think would be the front of their face is actually the. The back of their head.
[00:23:16] Speaker B: Got it.
[00:23:17] Speaker A: But they've got really, really long arms. They lived on Utapau, and they show up in the Clone wars in the episode A Death on Utapaut and In Search of the Crystal and the Crystal Crisis. And in the A Death on Utapau episode is actually when they. They officially get a name. Up until then, they weren't technically canonized with any particular species name within the current canon.
So Return of the Jedi is where we first see them, you know, coming out of that workshop.
[00:23:49] Speaker B: Kind of similar with the authorians, where they were just the. The Hammerheads.
[00:23:53] Speaker A: Yeah. And then somebody finally decides to do it. So they're also in the Search of the Crystal and Crystal Crisis, which. Crystal Crisis is not an episode that actually aired.
[00:24:03] Speaker B: Yeah, it's one of the animatics, right?
[00:24:05] Speaker A: Yeah, it's one of the animatics.
So they show up in that animatic. But you know that whether or not those are fully canon may be up for some debate, but they do show up in the canon side of Wikipedia. So if you haven't watched those. Those animatics with their very poor animation, very incomplete.
Go give those a shot. And then you can see some of them.
[00:24:27] Speaker B: And they have full voiceovers, though.
[00:24:29] Speaker A: So they did all the voice, recorded.
[00:24:31] Speaker B: All that, all the characters. Yeah.
[00:24:33] Speaker A: What you're effectively watching is previz before they've cleaned everything up and turned it into something like, really cool. So, you know, they'll. They'll glide instead of walk, and their facial expressions won't always be great unless it's really, really extreme.
[00:24:44] Speaker B: But yeah, yeah, it's cool stuff.
[00:24:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:48] Speaker B: Anyways. Yeah, cool. So, yeah, so we have those two people fighting.
Gal shoots him.
Velko's like, dude, what did you do? And she's like, it's. It was the quickest, easiest way to deal with it. And at this point, because they're, you know, there's a big old fight going on, the crowd kind of dissipates, security droids are rolling in. And then Velko's like, just still in complete and shock. And Gal's like, you rather. I let them pound each other into protein paste, which I thought was funny. So Vilco asked the droids to take the fighters to the med bay. Once they wake up, they can kind of question them, see what's going on, see who said what about whose mom or whatever.
At that point, an upset lady comes walking in, demanding, what is going on. Turns out that's the President of the Galactic Agricultural Alliance.
[00:25:38] Speaker A: Oh, no, not the head of the Ag Committee.
[00:25:41] Speaker B: Yeah, you don't want to mess with her. I mean, have you ever met a nice one?
Anyways, that's Professor Schnar Quasba. And she comes in like, what? What. What is happening? What's going on? I just got here and got told a couple of my colleagues are fighting. I thought you guys were supposed to have good hospitality. And then you go and shoot him, like, what is happening?
And keep in mind this. This event is usually on Coruscant, and it's on the starlight this time.
So everybody's already feeling kind of on edge, maybe iffy about the move.
[00:26:14] Speaker A: Hey, man, when you change the location of a major event, I mean, I remember when they moved Anime Expo from the Anaheim Convention center over to the Staples Center. Like, it's, you know, you're not sure. Yeah, I'm not sure if this is gonna work.
[00:26:25] Speaker B: Right.
[00:26:26] Speaker A: Every time they go to announce a new Star wars celebration location, we're all on edge about where it's gonna be.
[00:26:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
So excited for la, though.
[00:26:34] Speaker A: Yeah. Seriously. Thank God.
[00:26:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
Anyways, Gal stands by her stun gunning these two. She's like, hey, this was the safest way to do it. I'm head of security. I made the call. I stand by it. And it turns out these two that were fighting are like BFFs. They're old friends. They go back years and years. So it's very odd that they would be fighting.
[00:26:59] Speaker A: Yeah, that's. That's unusual.
[00:27:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. And because of that, Velko's like, we'll tell you what, professor, because you know them and you know their history, why don't you go along with the droids? And when they wake up, you can talk to them, because you'll be able to get better answers than we can and help us out, figure out what's going on. Because if that's unlike them, we want to know what's going on. Just as that's happening, Astalomaru comes out on the radio and he's like, all Jedi and security details, report to the dining facility immediately.
Riot is in progress.
And to the surprise of everybody, they kind of stood there for a second. Gal runs off, he calls it again. And then Velko runs off, and this time her stomach's a Knots. And I think part of the reason she kind of stopped for a second is because she remembered earlier that the strange girl she ran into in the stairs with the weird looking plant was on her way to the dining facility.
[00:27:57] Speaker A: To the dining facility? Yeah. Wow, Avon, what have you done?
[00:28:01] Speaker B: Right? Boom. And that's the end of part one. What?
[00:28:04] Speaker A: No, not a cliffhanger, Brian. Whatever will we do?
[00:28:08] Speaker B: Yeah, we gotta wait that two months because insider comes out every two months.
[00:28:12] Speaker A: I did not.
[00:28:13] Speaker B: Anyways, it's been two months.
[00:28:14] Speaker A: Oh, good.
So part two.
[00:28:18] Speaker B: Part two.
[00:28:19] Speaker A: We're back running again. Estala Maru is calling all hands on Star Deck.
[00:28:24] Speaker B: They run to the elevator, get down, it opens up. And it's not a riot. It's more just a street brawl. They're expecting them taking all the, the pictures off the walls and throwing them and causing damage. And you know, maybe this isn't about.
[00:28:38] Speaker A: Property damage, this is about people damage. We're in a melee.
[00:28:41] Speaker B: Yeah, straight up bar brawl. It is on. And then she notices it's all the rest of the scientists that weren't up at the main concourse level. It's all sorts of different species. There's a Miri Ellen in a hover chair that is going after an ugnaught, like trying to run him over. There's a Devronian going after some other alien I can't pronounce, but it's, it's chaos, utter chaos. And they're all trying to fight each other. And so at this point they kind of stop and like, what, what do we do? And Gal looks over and she's like, still feeling it's maybe a bit rude to shoot our guests.
And that was that. She made it funny. She. She was, she was, she made a joke.
[00:29:22] Speaker A: Gals finally, finally feeling a little, little loosey goosey.
I mean, this is Gal, she's like, gonna do it. Gonna do the thing.
[00:29:32] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:29:33] Speaker A: This is her element. She's like, hell yeah.
[00:29:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:29:36] Speaker A: Brawl cannot wait.
[00:29:38] Speaker B: Yeah, let's go. And Velko's like, no, that, that was definitely the best idea. But like, we can't stun everybody in.
[00:29:45] Speaker A: Here because by hell we can't.
[00:29:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
Just then a group of Jedi come down and ask if they could help. And they're just like, well, sure, go for it. And it's an interesting note at this part in the story.
Velko doesn't recognize any of the Jedi that come down to help. Oh, yeah. And at this point, the usual Jedi that are in and around Starlight, they're off either, taking care of the Drenger, which are a huge problem in the galaxy right now. Or they're helping mop up the, you know, the leftover Nihil that are.
[00:30:18] Speaker A: Or they're prepping for the fair.
[00:30:20] Speaker B: Or they're prepping for the fair.
Yeah. So the Jedi. Cool. There's probably eight to ten of them, and they're like, let we'll try to use the Force and try to calm them down. And they did, and it worked for, like, three seconds. And then boom.
Fists start flying again. The hover chair is running over, like, 20 other people. Someone's throwing the ugnot. Like, I'm sure there's a wookie over there that just chucked him across the room.
[00:30:49] Speaker A: Do fly.
[00:30:54] Speaker B: Well played.
And so once they see that didn't work, the security droids start showing up, and Gal tells them to spray the non lethal suppression foam.
So do.
[00:31:09] Speaker A: The non lethal suppression foam.
[00:31:12] Speaker B: Yeah. So their chest open up, and a huge, basically metal pipe rolls out and just starts shooting this foam everywhere. And it's starting to expand and, like, capture everybody and the security detail. And Gal and the Jedi start taking steps back out of the dining hall. And then the doors close. And as that's happening, Gal's like, hey, turn off the air circulation system. And I don't know if that was because the foam was going to go up in there or if the foam was. Had some sort of scent that was calming, like chamomile or something like that.
[00:31:50] Speaker A: You know, or she's like, it's possible she's assuming that whatever's causing this might be some sort of airborne thing.
[00:31:57] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:31:58] Speaker A: That Circulating throughout the rest of the beacon. No, she actually just really wants to. To make it stuffy in there and uncomfortable so that they'll all.
[00:32:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:06] Speaker A: Lose. Lose their blood oxygen levels.
[00:32:09] Speaker B: Right. Yeah.
That sounds more like her anyways.
[00:32:12] Speaker A: Yeah. Right.
[00:32:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:13] Speaker A: Lower the oxygen levels. What circulation?
[00:32:16] Speaker B: It's fine. I'm head of security, Trust me.
[00:32:20] Speaker A: Just turn off the ac.
[00:32:24] Speaker B: Yeah. So everybody was peacefully asleep, and they get everybody out of the foam, they move everybody to the med bays and wait for them to start waking up to figure out what's going on.
They want to figure out what's going on, because if something is making this group this aggressive, if that spreads to the rest of the beacon, it's going to be bad news all around. So we smash cut. Everybody's in the med bays, and Gal and Velko are talking to the head doctor, who I think is also skier's doctor that we see a little bit later. On in the Marvel comics.
[00:32:57] Speaker A: Oh, oh, what is his name?
[00:32:59] Speaker B: It's in here, but I couldn't pronounce it, so I didn't write it down, which I probably should.
Genoli.
G, I, N, O. Oh, I've been.
[00:33:06] Speaker A: Pronouncing it Geno Lay.
[00:33:08] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't. I don't know.
[00:33:09] Speaker A: It probably is like Ginoli or something like that.
[00:33:11] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:33:12] Speaker A: Holy gnoly.
[00:33:15] Speaker B: So he's an anaconda, which gives you.
[00:33:18] Speaker A: A hint as to what type of. What type of body he might have.
[00:33:21] Speaker B: And we do see him, I'm pretty sure, in the Marvel comics next arc.
And he's taking care of Skier at the same time.
[00:33:28] Speaker A: Yeah, he's the chief of medical operations on Starlight Beacon.
[00:33:32] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah. So that makes sense that he's with.
[00:33:35] Speaker A: Everything that happened to Skier at the end of Phase one, Wave one. He's up in the medical facility. And anytime we go to the medical facility, Dr. Ganole actually comes up a couple of times.
[00:33:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:46] Speaker A: So he ends up playing a bigger part than. Than we give him credit.
[00:33:49] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Anyway, yeah, so the doctor's there, and he's like, I. I've looked over everybody. I've ran tests, I've checked their blood.
I can't find anything. There's nothing suspicious in anybody. I don't know what this is, but it must have a very fast half life if we can't pick anything up.
[00:34:06] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
Well, that's good at least.
[00:34:09] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:09] Speaker A: Not still going, right?
[00:34:10] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. But at this point, the two original fighters, the Ithorian and the Amani. Amani. Thank you. They've woken up so they can be interrogated and talked to and just see what's going on. So Velko and Gal split up to go ask questions and figure out what happened.
[00:34:30] Speaker A: Nice little good cup, bad cut.
[00:34:32] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. So the Amani remembered walking around sniffing a flower.
His friend, the Ithorian said something annoying, which made him angry, and then he blacked out and woke up in the med bay.
[00:34:43] Speaker A: He wasn't even awake while they were pummeling.
[00:34:46] Speaker B: Yeah. So it's kind of freaky. Yeah. He had zero recollection of the fight or who he fought.
And then he was like, wait, who. Who was I fighting? And he was like, oh, you're the Ithorian guy. And he was shooketh. Like, he's like, that's. That's one of my oldest friends. Like, we went to university together. We go way back. He's a brilliant scientist, but he ain't no fighter. Like, What? Is he okay? Like, what, Did I kick him?
[00:35:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:13] Speaker A: Did I win?
[00:35:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
So they finish talking, and everybody meets back up, and it turns out no one really got any useful information from anybody. Did remember smelling a flower on a vine.
[00:35:29] Speaker A: The last thing they all remember is that.
[00:35:31] Speaker B: Right.
[00:35:31] Speaker A: They smelled one flower on a vine.
[00:35:33] Speaker B: Yeah. Which is.
Flowering vine is pretty rare. Anyways, if it doesn't. Especially with, I guess, the. The plant life they have on there. So it kind of stuck out to them.
[00:35:43] Speaker A: They're like, oh, that narrows it down just a little bit. Cool, cool, cool.
[00:35:46] Speaker B: And Velcro's like, wait, the girl in the stairs with a strange plant that. That might have something to do with this. Because she didn't mention that the vines were gonna fly flower. So we should. We should go look for that.
[00:36:00] Speaker A: Yeah. I have a plan.
[00:36:02] Speaker B: Yeah. And we get a nice little Lore building of the Starlight Beacon.
We don't know exactly how many gardens are on the Starlight, but it said they went through three gardens before they found the flowering vine. So I know there's a meditation garden for the Jedi. There's a different garden for just anybody living on Starlight. And there must be another one. If not maybe one or two more.
[00:36:27] Speaker A: Why wasn't it back in the cafeteria?
[00:36:30] Speaker B: What's that?
[00:36:30] Speaker A: Didn't she take it to the commissary?
[00:36:32] Speaker B: Yeah, she was. She was going up to the. The cafeteria area, but they were looking and smelling at the flower as they were walking through the garden.
[00:36:41] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:36:42] Speaker B: But they didn't quite remember which garden it was.
[00:36:44] Speaker A: Gotcha. It's just because you said that she was like, oh, maybe it has to do with that plant. And then they went through three gardens, and it's like, velko, why didn't you go straight to the commissary where you knew this plant was going?
[00:36:54] Speaker B: I let that detail out on accident. So, yeah, they end up finding this plant, and on their way up, as they're, you know, running through all this stuff, gal's like, you know, that plant grew pretty fast if it was all over everything. Because they did say that it was a long vine. And, like, if. If that's the only one that's there. And it grew this fast, overnight, basically.
That's very concerning.
[00:37:19] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:19] Speaker B: And then that.
[00:37:20] Speaker A: Well, I mean, it had two months.
[00:37:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Right.
[00:37:24] Speaker A: And so overnight.
[00:37:25] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. And Velko, greed. She's like, yeah, shoot, maybe it is a Drengir. But also, it wasn't that violent, and Drenger are very violent, so maybe. Maybe it isn't Maybe it is, or.
I don't know. We need to find it fast, though. So they find it, and they're checking it out, and it's got flowers all over it. Velko gets closer, and she takes a whiff of the scent, and she blinked, opened her eyes, and she saw a dringier. So of course she swung at it because it's Velco.
[00:37:56] Speaker A: Oh, shoot.
[00:37:57] Speaker B: Yeah. And then she blinked again, opened her eyes, boom, she was back in the war on her planet.
[00:38:03] Speaker A: Oh, no.
[00:38:04] Speaker B: Full on. Yeah. So at this point, I'm getting like. Like in episode five of Ahsoka, when Ahsoka's going through basically her own timeline with Force Ghost Anakin in the World Between Worlds, I'm getting, like, those kind of vibes. She's, like, sitting, like, how am I here? What is going on? As this war is going on around her, and everybody's fighting, there's blasters going off. I doubt there's any Jedi. But we kind of find out that she has a little bit of PTSD of what happened on here, which is probably why she got off planet and became. And basically had a pivot of careers.
[00:38:37] Speaker A: Yeah. She's not a warrior.
[00:38:39] Speaker B: Right.
[00:38:39] Speaker A: At this point, like we talked about at the beginning of this episode.
So, you know, it makes. It makes sense that she is.
If she's got some ptsd, it makes sense that she has relegated herself to being an administrator and. And now an event plan.
[00:38:53] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. Who's in charge of flowering flowers.
So she's in this weird state, and she's in this fight, and this dude comes up and he swings on her, misses. She hits back. Hits him. He hits back. And she basically runs into this column, and she's like, wait, I'm in the middle of a field. Why is there a giant column in the middle of this empty field? Oh, the dude is kind of snapping out of.
[00:39:22] Speaker A: Still in. In her PTSD flashback.
[00:39:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
All of a sudden, once she kind of realizes, like, why is there a column here? The man disappears, and then Gal shows up.
[00:39:35] Speaker A: She's been beating the snot out of Gal.
[00:39:38] Speaker B: Yup, yup.
And she hears a voice that she thinks is Road Arkin, who's the head of Starlight Beacon, aside from the Marshall and the Jedi and all that. And he's like, hey, hit her again with the mist. And it's basically a.
[00:39:55] Speaker A: It's a counter agent.
[00:39:56] Speaker B: The counter agent. Yeah. And she fully snaps out of it. She's a little confused, but she's like, what just happened?
I'm on the starlight Right. They're like, yeah, yeah, you're here, you're good.
And you hear a woman from behind go, oh, yeah, you were hallucinating.
My bad.
I wasn't done working on that. And you guys wanted stuff here.
The plant causes these aggressive hallucinations that come from being hybrids with dring gear.
[00:40:27] Speaker A: Great.
[00:40:28] Speaker B: Yeah. Because that's a great idea.
[00:40:30] Speaker A: She looked over and she said, you kept on trying to see if you could, and you never, ever gave the thought of if you should.
And then she continued to eat her Chilean sea bass.
[00:40:42] Speaker B: Right, right. And then they got away on some Jeeps. It was great.
But, yeah, it turns out this professor, who is Glenn A. Kip, who is actually Avon's advisor and. And who Avon is working under, was tapped by the Republic and by her own interest to be like, hey, the Drengir survived this long in stasis, and they're very sturdy plants. What if we GMO them and apply them to these other crops?
[00:41:14] Speaker A: Oh, yes. Culturally. If you've got a plant that can spread. Survive in stasis for millennia, and not just as seeds, but as full plants.
[00:41:22] Speaker B: Yeah. What could we do?
[00:41:23] Speaker A: Makes sense. Okay.
[00:41:25] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Except the Drengir are.
Well, we don't really know what they are just yet.
[00:41:29] Speaker A: You're right.
[00:41:31] Speaker B: Except everybody has a bad feeling about them, including Velco. So. Yeah. Turns out they've been studying the Drengir with whatever pieces they've had, and they started splicing them.
And for some reason, this flower, this plant created these hallucinations.
[00:41:50] Speaker A: And I mean, it's not entirely surprising because the hallucinations there were hallucinations created for Des Ride and right into the dark.
[00:42:01] Speaker B: And even Skier had the drinker in his nose and he saw things as well.
[00:42:05] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. As did one of the.
As did. Is Tarot or Sarek. Yeah. As one of the bomb twins did they. They both were experiencing horrifying doomsday, you know, hallucinations. So.
[00:42:19] Speaker B: Right.
[00:42:19] Speaker A: I don't. You'd think it. That Glenna Kip would, you know, read a comic or something so that she could know seriously things. Come on. Yeah.
[00:42:27] Speaker B: They were out by then.
[00:42:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
Amateur hour over here.
[00:42:32] Speaker B: Right? Yeah.
So, yeah. So she calls for Avon to come over, and she's like, hey, salt one of these plants. And she sticks a huge salt packet underneath the. The soil where the plant is growing and boom, Withers and dies.
[00:42:47] Speaker A: Salt the earth.
[00:42:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
Because the plant needs a specific humidity to live, and salt will absorb all the water.
[00:42:54] Speaker A: Yeah. Also, don't throw salt on a lawn. That's literally why they call it salting the earth. Like, you'll kill everything salt. So. But it's crazy how fast it. It goes.
[00:43:03] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And so at this point, they're all like, why would you do that? That's a horrible idea. Did you not see what the Dringier are doing and have done?
[00:43:11] Speaker A: Did you not read the comics?
[00:43:13] Speaker B: Yeah, did you not read the comics? Come on.
They're on the stands over here. Avar is on the COVID of her too. She's writing. No, she's not writing a rain core yet.
That's later.
[00:43:23] Speaker A: Spoilers for later.
[00:43:25] Speaker B: But the previews have her writing a rancor later.
So here's where I.
I got confused because it's. That's why I told you to read the passage I sent. Because.
[00:43:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:43:37] Speaker B: Says that gals like, hey, if you could do this, what's gonna stop anybody else from doing this sort of thing? And then spreading the seeds?
And then the professor's like, well, I haven't been able to spread seeds.
And so they. Not only that.
I don't know. It's weird. It's weird the way it's. It's written on here. It's almost like. I can't tell if it says they weren't able to spread Drengir seeds without any kind of splicing and hybridness. Like they're just trying to spread the Drenger seed just to see if they could. Or they couldn't spread hybrid Drengir seeds and that they weren't able to do it themselves.
[00:44:20] Speaker A: Yeah. She says, like, it's hard enough when they infect the living. Now we have to worry about them seeding themselves. And she's like, oh, no, that won't happen. I've tried creating seeds from the drainage and it's proven utterly impossible. So whatever the drainage are doing to actually, like, multiply seems to only be through their sort of splitting.
Mitosis.
[00:44:43] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:44:43] Speaker A: Is that what I'm looking for? Is that mitosis?
[00:44:46] Speaker B: Yeah, that makes more sense.
[00:44:48] Speaker A: That sort of mitosis thing that they're doing, they actually aren't going to seed. So if somebody were to, quote, unquote, seed the drain gear on other planets, I think they would have to actually put a full drain gear on a planet and then let it multiply. Which means that even though these things are, quote unquote plants and can be spliced with plant DNA, there is some sort of fundamental lack of reproductive seed system within them, according to.
[00:45:16] Speaker B: Yeah. Or at least one that works. Yeah. Because it does sound like they do have seeds, but they don't do anything.
[00:45:22] Speaker A: Yeah. So the. Yeah, the seeds might be inert or maybe they. They're vestigial, you know, at best. This is, of course, possibly also just an unreliable narrator. I mean, we have Professor Glenna Kip, who thinks that this is impossible, but that's what she has found within her studies. Doesn't mean it actually can't happen. I mean, as we'll see in Edge of Balance, what we think the drain gear are capable of doing is not everything.
[00:45:53] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. And we. We find out there's other things involved as well, possibly.
[00:45:58] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We don't really know for sure what that all means, but.
[00:46:03] Speaker B: Yeah, but we know the Republic still don't know a whole lot about the Drenger.
[00:46:07] Speaker A: Yeah. That is, I think the theme of the beginning, at least of Wave two is that the Republic's awareness of just how messy things actually are is very little. There's a lot of hubris going on here, and it's not entirely.
It's not entirely their fault. I mean, the information that they have. They are going on limited information, but they think they have enough.
[00:46:33] Speaker B: Right.
[00:46:33] Speaker A: They think that they've defeated the Nile because they took out Kassive and they. And even then, like, going forward, they don't even figure out some of the other key players in the Nile. And then with the Drengir and how they came about, you know, we're still.
[00:46:49] Speaker B: Yeah, they're still trying to.
[00:46:50] Speaker A: I don't even know that they fully attributed it back to Reed, Silas, Jess yet.
[00:46:55] Speaker B: Probably not. Yeah, yeah. So that was all going on. And at this point, all the plants that they've brought in that have this hybrid splice have been killed off with the salt. Things are calmed down. They know that everybody is safe again and that they can continue on with the probably more successful science extravaganza that they've been.
[00:47:16] Speaker A: I should hope so.
[00:47:17] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're gonna go to all sorts of panels. They're gonna go see some really cool research posters.
[00:47:23] Speaker A: Oh, yes, the research posters, for sure. There's definitely some. Some scientists with some trifold boards.
[00:47:28] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:47:29] Speaker A: As well.
All range of skill level. You know, we have the research board, but we also have, you know, the make your own volcano.
[00:47:36] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah.
[00:47:40] Speaker A: So after all that, Gal and Velko, what are they. What are they up to now?
[00:47:45] Speaker B: So Gal's like, well, you look like crap. You. You could. You look like you could use a.
[00:47:50] Speaker A: Drink because you just went through, like an entire war and got into a huge Fight with her. I love the Gal's the one saying this, having just been pummeled as well.
[00:47:59] Speaker B: Yeah. And she's like. And. And she's like, you can use a drink. Let's go get it. Like a drink. Like a drinky drink. And Vel's like, I am so sorry I hit you. And Gal's like, don't be. It's the first time I've liked you.
[00:48:12] Speaker A: They're gonna be friends.
[00:48:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
And that is Hidden danger parts one and two.
[00:48:19] Speaker A: This is a nice setup for what's gonna be like, kind of what is to come. I think a little bit. Like, as far as the Drangir storyline, like, we clearly don't know a whole lot about it.
[00:48:31] Speaker B: Right.
[00:48:31] Speaker A: It's kind of a welcome back to the High Republic, which is, you know, it's. It's not super high stakes per se, but we get a little hint that Avon Staros. We are not done with Avon Staros.
After a test of courage, and we get to see that the Drangir are more than just big plant eating monsters. They might also have these spores and things like that that might impact how people are thinking. We know that they're already steeped in the dark side, but now, you know, the, the question of just how effective are they at getting into people's heads in the same way that they did into does? Right in.
[00:49:07] Speaker B: Right. So, yeah, those hallucinations and the way they can kind of take over other plants, which we've seen with other beings with like, with Skier and the Bond twins and even the. The children that are going missing from the comics.
[00:49:21] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And then of course, we get more good Velko Jayen and. And Gal Tarfin Lore. I. I'm. I'm happy to see them kind of getting along. Like, up until now, they've obviously worked together just fine, but even at the beginning of the story, they're kind of like, you're not doing this the right way.
[00:49:38] Speaker B: Yeah. They're almost butting heads.
[00:49:39] Speaker A: Yeah. A little bit. And by the end, she's like, nah, nah. Now that you punch me in the face. And I know that you can like kind of, you know, you can hang.
[00:49:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:49:46] Speaker A: Let's go get you a drink.
[00:49:47] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:49:49] Speaker A: So that's Hidden danger.
[00:49:50] Speaker B: Yeah. Pretty fun one.
[00:49:51] Speaker A: Yeah. I remember really enjoying this. I think this was around the time that I started to actually really get invested in these characters a little bit more. You know, the first one being a Joss and pick a story and then first duty and what's the other One was. It wasn't past mistakes.
[00:50:09] Speaker B: No, past mistakes is just after this, we had. Yeah, we had Go Together, and then First Duty and then Hidden Danger.
[00:50:16] Speaker A: Oh, and then this. Okay. So, yeah, we had First Duty with Jocelyn Pickett, Adrian. And then, of course, we had First Duty, which introduces us to them, but we don't really know much about them other than them kind of trying to figure out this new job. This is kind of the. We're in it now. We're working here.
[00:50:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:50:33] Speaker A: You know, First Duty is Velko's, like, first day.
So now we're a little bit more established. And I, like my Star wars lived in, and I feel like the benefit of all of Wave one kind of all happening concurrently is that the more you read into it, the more you know what's going on on the outskirts so that you can. Can understand what's happening in the context of it all.
[00:50:58] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Why everything is such a big deal when things do go down.
[00:51:02] Speaker A: Yeah. And then with this, you know, now that we know what the beacon is for. Now that the beacon has opened up, we've seen it open up in four different places. You know, it opened up in Young Jedi Adventures. It opened up on Light of the Jedi. It opened up at the Marvel Comics into the dark, and opened up in the Marvel Comics. Like, now that we've seen the opening ceremony from six different angles, we can.
[00:51:26] Speaker B: See it in action.
[00:51:26] Speaker A: Yeah. How's it working? How's it functioning? And I really like it also because it does kind of give you that beacon character like you were talking about earlier, in that you now know that this isn't just something off in space.
[00:51:41] Speaker B: Right.
[00:51:41] Speaker A: You know, it's not like, oh, yeah, and then that thing existed, and now it's just a monument that opened like that. Doesn't really have any character or any important importance, but this is like a functioning place.
[00:51:52] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:51:53] Speaker A: And. And it's. It's not just doing its job, but it's a place that people live.
[00:51:59] Speaker B: There's gardens that people walk in. There's the cafeteria food area. There's a huge.
[00:52:05] Speaker A: Yeah. There's a commissary. It's a campus.
[00:52:07] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's. At least.
[00:52:08] Speaker A: At least.
[00:52:09] Speaker B: Yeah. And it mentions there's a few hangers as well.
[00:52:12] Speaker A: Yeah. Multiple hangers. And hangers have to be able to hold full olan starships. So this thing's huge. And it's. And it's a lot to work with. And Rotor Keen and Astalomaru and Gautarfen and Velco Jay. And are all really managing a lot. Like, they're basically government officials at this point, Right.
[00:52:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:52:31] Speaker A: Because of how big this is. You know, it's one thing to run a building, it's another thing to run a small city.
[00:52:36] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:52:37] Speaker A: So. And it's cool to see them solve a problem.
[00:52:40] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. They're working as a team, and the hierarchy seems like it's working as it should.
[00:52:46] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's nice at the end, like, when she's like, oh, let me get you that drink.
They're like, nah, like, let Rohr Keane handle it.
[00:52:54] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:52:55] Speaker A: Now he's fine.
[00:52:56] Speaker B: Yeah. We've done enough. It's his turn.
[00:52:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
So what's next for us, then?
[00:53:02] Speaker B: Going forward in this season, we're not just having guests. We have guest co hosts, and these are some of our friends that we've met in the High Republic community, and they've graciously agreed to come on and talk High Republic with us.
[00:53:18] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's cool because they've all had to kind of jump in and do a little bit of research.
And I really. I mean, it's one thing to be like, hey, come on. Like, listen to us chat and give your opinion here and there. It's another thing to voluntarily go, yeah, I'll take on the task of describing what happens to these characters and really, you know, digging into. Getting into the trenches with it.
[00:53:43] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we have some great episodes coming up. Our next one will be the High Republic Adventures Comics with Kevin.
[00:53:51] Speaker A: With Kevin, yes. Archive Master Kevin from the Jedi Archive podcast, which actually just had their 50th and 51st episodes.
[00:54:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Huge milestones.
[00:54:03] Speaker A: So big milestones for him. He's been. He's been doing these great little episodes that range from 10 to 30 minutes.
[00:54:11] Speaker B: And shares the news from the last week or two, but also then adds in just little fun character bios of either droids or planets or specific aliens and characters. Good stuff.
[00:54:23] Speaker A: Yeah. For a while they were doing Rolling the Dice. He would. He had a list of 20, and he would roll a D20 and go, what are we talking about next week? And then he would dive into this, like, oh, we got to go through all of Malastare or whatever. Yeah. So, yeah, and he's. He's got some really fun insights for the Star wars, the High Republic Adventures comics, which at the time were being published by idw.
And we will be going over a few issues of that leading into the Republic Fair. Fair. But just before we go to the Republic Fair, we're Going to take a detour over to the Marvel Comics and we'll do a few issues of that with Rachel of Jakku from the of Dathomir podcast. Yeah, I'm really excited. I'm so. I'm so proud of us getting as much of these as we have and I'm so just grateful for all of the people who are going to come on. So I'm really excited for everybody who's made it this far in our podcast and. And listens to us retell these stories with our own little spins and our own little analysis here and there.
[00:55:24] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And all our Pokemon analogies and dbz.
[00:55:28] Speaker A: DBZ analogies.
Hey, I think I snuck a Star Trek one.
[00:55:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I was gonna say into Star Trek. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're all about all geekdoms.
[00:55:37] Speaker A: Heck yeah. So yeah, the next next episode is Kevin from the Jedi Archive podcast and we'll do a spotlight on him as well as a spoiler free episode with you and me and then the actual spoiler packed episode with Kevin, which I am super looking forward to.
[00:55:54] Speaker B: Yeah, it's gonna be a good one.
[00:55:56] Speaker A: Well, thank you so much for listening, everybody. Make sure you follow us on threads and on Instagram if you want to come talk with us over on our discord. We are in a discord called Sneaky Geek, which is named after our other podcast. And we have channels in there for talking about Starlight Archive. And you can also find us on Goodreads, we've got a High Republic kind of reading discussion group that we're getting started on there.
And listen to us wherever you find your podcasts and tell your friends, tell your enemies, make sure everybody's listening so that maybe we can win them back over to the other side. Yeah, so.
And in the words of Gal Tartfin, I really want you to show me that punch again when you're up to it.
[00:56:41] Speaker B: Foreign.
[00:56:48] Speaker A: Archive is brought to you by Bryce Rankins and Brian Romero. It was edited by Bryce Rankins and Brian Romero. Bryce Rankins designed the logo. Brian Romero did most of the research. It's produced by Bryce Rankins and Brian Romero. Basically, it's just us. The Starlight Archive is brought to you by Sneaky Geek Media 2024. All rights reserved.
