001 - Welcome to The Starlight Archive!

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi, everybody. My name is Bryce Rankins, and this is my co host, Brian Romero. [00:00:03] Speaker B: Hello. [00:00:03] Speaker A: And we are here to present to you the Starlight archive. Brian and I are lifelong fans of Star wars. We have been since fourth and fifth grade. [00:00:14] Speaker B: Fourth and fifth grade. Yeah. [00:00:15] Speaker A: That's lifelong, because what happened before fourth grade? I don't know. Fractions? Cursive? [00:00:21] Speaker B: I hope not. [00:00:22] Speaker A: Anyway, I think they did. I think both of those did. I do. [00:00:25] Speaker B: Curse of so much now. [00:00:26] Speaker A: I mean, least the letters in my name. Anyway, so we're both lifelong fans of Star wars. We were both fans of the expanded universe, and when Disney buyout happened, the expanded universe became legends. Some people were very angry. Some people were fine. [00:00:42] Speaker B: We were kind of in the middle ground. Yeah, yeah, I warned. So I'm like, you know what? It sucks that they're not going to use a lot of these stories and characters, but you know what? I'm excited for what they can come up with now. [00:00:53] Speaker A: But as we've seen since then with Star Wars Rebels, the expansion of Clone wars, and the siege of Mandalore, Mandalorian, we have seen that there is very much a love for the expanded universe in the creative teams of Star wars. And we are here to talk to you about an era of Star wars that is not the old Republic and not during the Skywalker saga and kind of untouched territory in both legends and canon. Yeah, in an era we lovingly refer to as the High Republic. So without further ado, this is the Starlight archive. So, this is the Starlight archive. This is our new podcast. We have another podcast called Sneaky Geek, but convincing you to read the High Republic was that episode's goal. This podcast is here to guide you through the High Republic, convince you even further to read literally everything they have put out, including the magazine stories. [00:01:56] Speaker B: Or if not, we'll tell you about it, but not everything, depending on the episode. But most of them know, but, you know, you never know. [00:02:04] Speaker A: Yeah. And if you don't want to read everything, congratulations. We got you, because we love talking about it. And if you do want to read everything, congratulations. We love talking about it. So you get to hear us talk about it. So let's get into it. [00:02:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:17] Speaker A: The high Republic. All right, we're gonna do this. This whole new podcast. 30, 40 minutes episodes. [00:02:23] Speaker B: Yeah. Something that if you're out walking your dog, you might get through an episode. If you want to take an extra long walk, or, hey, if you're driving to work, get through half of it, or, sorry, get through all of it. [00:02:33] Speaker A: Depending on your drive, depending on your drive. Depending on your ride. [00:02:35] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So quick, fun, easy breakdowns of what's going on, what's not going on. We won't get too much into, uh, super spoiler territory. So if you are trying to read it all the way through, we're gonna get you through the basics. We will have some episodes that are straight up like big spoilers, like wave one recap. [00:02:52] Speaker A: But we will warn you of it. [00:02:53] Speaker B: We will absolutely warn you about it. So you will know, and if any kind of spoilers do end up coming up, you know, mid episodes of what we're going through, you'll still know about it, and you'll have plenty of time to skip forward or pause and come back to it once you're caught up, because this podcast is for everybody. [00:03:08] Speaker A: Yeah. Just like Star wars. Yeah, Star wars is for everyone, including you and your dog. Happy Dog is an exhausted dog. Walk him for 40 minutes. It'll be good for you. And it means you get to listen to the whole thing. [00:03:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:19] Speaker A: I mean, everybody wins to win win. It's a win win win. [00:03:23] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, shoot. Get done with our podcast. Still walk around, check out one of the audiobooks. [00:03:27] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, my gosh. We'll get into it. [00:03:30] Speaker B: You get into. Get way ahead of ourselves. [00:03:33] Speaker A: All right, so let's talk about how. [00:03:36] Speaker B: Did this get made? [00:03:37] Speaker A: Yeah, why did this get made? Not to be confused with the episode, the podcast, how did this get made? But how? Yeah, how did this whole era come about? [00:03:46] Speaker B: This is. [00:03:46] Speaker A: We know this is an era, as we've said before, this is an era that does not exist necessarily within either legends or existing canon. Because when the buyout happened, the expansions that happened within the canon post Disney buyout were aftermath books. [00:04:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:03] Speaker A: Comics taking place between the prequels and a new hope, or between a new hope and empire strikes back. [00:04:10] Speaker B: Yeah. And that was pretty much it. You know, for the first couple years, it was basically most of the books and comics that came out were just in between a new hope and empire. [00:04:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:19] Speaker B: They're slowly expanding out from the middle. [00:04:22] Speaker A: Yeah. From the Skywalker saga, we are slowly expanding both directions, but this direction is backwards. [00:04:30] Speaker B: Yes. [00:04:31] Speaker A: So we want to talk about this high republic. [00:04:34] Speaker B: Right. So the high Republic takes place about 200 years before the phantom menace, so most the Jedi we know and love. [00:04:42] Speaker A: Aren'T there, except for Yoda and Oprah and Sisus. [00:04:44] Speaker B: Oprah and sisters. [00:04:45] Speaker A: Yaddle. [00:04:46] Speaker B: Yeah. Yerio poof. [00:04:47] Speaker A: Yario poof. Yes. [00:04:49] Speaker B: Still on the council. Chillin. Oh, long neck and all. [00:04:52] Speaker A: I demand term limits. For the council members. [00:04:56] Speaker B: Yeah. It's basically, you know, just a new era of storytelling, which is really cool. [00:05:01] Speaker A: And a new era of Jedi for us, too. [00:05:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:05:04] Speaker A: Right. [00:05:04] Speaker B: Yeah. And everybody's in a different mindset because at this time, they're called the high Republic, which means pretty much everybody's prospering. Everything is peachy keen, and there's not a whole lot of issues going on. Allegedly. Allegedly. So it's kind of fun to explore that mindset. [00:05:22] Speaker A: It's fun because for me, I appreciate that we're talking about the Jedi at their most unified and their strongest. There are certain disagreements that happen, and there's certainly some fast and loose play with the exact creed of the Jedi that we'll get into later. But I really like that we are going to obviously be presented with a conflict because Star Wars. Star wars and good storytelling. But how does the council take care of this conflict and handle this conflict when they are allegedly well, being at peace for so long, but also allegedly at their best? [00:06:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:01] Speaker A: You know, when we saw the clone wars, we saw a council that had become dogmatic, that had become split over whether how to handle certain things with the phantom menace, with the clone wars, all the way through into the revenge of the Sith. There is not necessarily a lot of infighting within the council, but there's not. [00:06:17] Speaker B: A lot of balance, though. [00:06:18] Speaker A: There's not a lot of balance, and there's not a lot of good communication. And in this, I feel like while the council has its problems, and I will absolutely vent about that in another episode, the council and the Jedi order are functioning, and they're functioning well, and they know what's going on, which is not what was happening. When you have people like dooku subverting. [00:06:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:42] Speaker A: And when you have people like Sifo Dyas going crazy and then basically being hidden from the council because they don't like what he can do. [00:06:49] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. They didn't take a lot of. They've established that, you know, a lot of people who have the force, they experience different strengths and weaknesses with the Force. So. And we got those. [00:06:59] Speaker A: Applaud and appreciate that within the Jedi order as well. It's not just like, there's one way. [00:07:04] Speaker B: Right. So, like, you know, you have people that are good with animals. Some people are good with telekinesis. Some people have visions. And at the time of the prequels, those who had visions were like, oh, no, we don't want to talk to them. No, visions are bad. And it's kind of like, how do they get to this point. Why do they get to this point? And the high Republic era kind of gives us a nice little background on how the Jedi of the prequel era kind of came to be. [00:07:29] Speaker A: So who do we have to blame for this? Who was the one who went, you know, these are all those things you're all talking about. Brian and Bryce. We should write about those. [00:07:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:42] Speaker A: Who are these people? [00:07:43] Speaker B: Yeah. So first we have Michael Sieglaine. He's the creative director at Lucasfilm Publishing. He's been in and around all the panels and cons and stuff and been a cool guy to follow on Twitter and, you know, just. Just to see, even on the high Republic show on YouTube. We'll get into all that good stuff later. So around 2018, he had an idea. So he found a couple of good writers that he wanted to work with, and he talked to him individually. He didn't really say, like, exactly what the project was, gave him kind of the basics, but he didn't also say who else he was contacting. I'm sure things were still being worked out and stuff. But one of the first people he talked to was Kevin Scott. He's done a whole bunch of comic books. He's done some doctor who books. Like, he's been around. So he's. He's our people. You know, he talked to him. And I guess later on, he talked to Charles Sowell. And then right on down the list, we got Claudia Gray, Justina Ireland, Daniel Jose, older, George Mann. And then later on, for phase two, they bring in some more writers, which is really nice. It kind of expands what's going on. And so, you know, after a while, there's this whole team of writers that are coming together to create this huge project. [00:08:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:08:45] Speaker B: And so with the project, they eventually focus it down, and they figure out that they want to do three different phases, and within each phase, they have little waves of books and such that are coming out. [00:08:59] Speaker A: Yeah. How does this story break down? Because this story is kind of unique in that this is not just seven books, you know, seven novels, or, I. [00:09:10] Speaker B: Mean, like the new Jedi order, that was just books with six or seven different writers coming together. This is. This is even bigger. It's a multi year project, which new Jedi order and all that kind of stuff was, too. But this has three different kinds of books. It's got your regular novel, it's got a young adult novel, and it has your young reader novel. So basically, the difference is novels are the main characters are typically adult age, and then with the young adult novels, they are young adults. So they're teenagers. Teenagers, maybe early twenties. And then young readers, they're middle school, if not younger. So it's not necessarily that they're written for the specific group of people, but that just. That's kind of who the main characters are. And depending on what's going on. Yeah, there could be a little more fun and not as dark, but at the same time, like, some of those young reader books get. Have some dark stuff going on. [00:10:01] Speaker A: Some of those young reader books have messed me up. [00:10:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:10:03] Speaker A: Or young adult novels have messed me up. The young reader book have definitely. [00:10:08] Speaker B: Oh, there's death. And they have to deal with. And they deal with mature problems, but. [00:10:12] Speaker A: They'Re dealing with them as immature adult or young adult. And honestly, like, middle schoolers, middle grades, those aspects of the story have really impressed me because I feel like there are a lot of people who struggle to write youth. Like, they just can't fathom it. It's that kind of principal trench bull from Matilda. Like, ugh, children. Disgusting little things. I'm glad I never was one. Yeah, it's this very. It's. There's this disconnect that doesn't necessarily always work. And I really feel like this whole group has done a really good job capturing not only, you know, young adults and even younger adolescents, but captured them from a perspective that is very real, that they are part of a very mature organization. [00:11:00] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [00:11:01] Speaker A: As somebody who was a Boy Scout, I have seen all manner of how that can vary, but within my troupe, there was a certain expectancy of how we were supposed to act, and that meant we would step up to challenges in a very unique way. And those. I was very fortunate to have a very, very wonderful troupe that was very welcoming and not dogmatic. [00:11:23] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. [00:11:24] Speaker A: And it's interesting to see, because at the end of the day, we were still kids, and so there were plenty of things that we would step up to the challenge of that most of our peers would not. There are plenty of things that would absolutely break us because we did not have the. What's the word I'm looking for? Skill. Wherewithal awareness. [00:11:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:44] Speaker A: We didn't have the experience to deal with those problems. And I feel like that particular section of these books is where these really shine. And I feel like sometimes people write them off because they're like, oh, it's a ya novel, or, oh, it's a middle. [00:11:58] Speaker B: This book up at the kids section at Barnes and Noble. No, thanks. [00:12:01] Speaker A: Not me, bro. You're watching Star wars. You've already acknowledged that you're into the thing that you're, you know, little brothers. [00:12:07] Speaker B: And Star wars is campy. [00:12:08] Speaker A: It is. It's campy, and it is not camp or everyone. [00:12:11] Speaker B: And if it's not campy, it's not Star wars. [00:12:13] Speaker A: Yeah. So it's really nice to see that they kind of find that balance, and I think they're doing it really, really well, and I think people may not realize how much they're really missing by not getting into the YA section. [00:12:25] Speaker B: Right, right. [00:12:26] Speaker A: Of Star wars, which there's plenty of in this entire long form storytelling. So beyond books. [00:12:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:12:33] Speaker A: What else we got? [00:12:34] Speaker B: So. So we got those three kinds of books, but then we also go into comic books. So we had a pros version of everything, but we have different storylines going throughout with visuals in comic books, which you know us, we're all about. [00:12:49] Speaker A: Yeah. If you've listened to our other podcast, you're fully aware that we are very, very into comic books. [00:12:54] Speaker B: Yes. So listen to our other podcast. [00:12:56] Speaker A: It's called sneaky geek. [00:12:59] Speaker B: Yeah. So we have comic books, but we have two different kinds of comic books. We have the main Marvel line, which Kevin Scott writes, and then we have the high Republic adventures line, first through IDW. Idw. And then now through Dark Horse, which. [00:13:12] Speaker A: Is a very exciting thing for a whole other reason, which we can talk about in the other podcast. [00:13:16] Speaker B: And the Marvel mainline, sort of similar breakdown with the books. These are more adult characters going through. It's Star wars. They're going through some wary kind of. [00:13:25] Speaker A: Stuff that they have to deal with in stars. [00:13:27] Speaker B: I know, crazy. So then high Republic adventures, same kind of thing, but with padawans and a couple of younglings and kind of showing how their younger group of crew and friends deal with this huge war going on from their perspective. That's by Daniel Jose. Older, also good stuff. Yoda's in it a few times. He eventually goes off. We'll get into it later. And it really establishes what these younglings are going through, which is a really cool, different perspective. [00:13:56] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's not just a rehash of what happened in the Clone wars, either, where you have somebody like Ahsoka who is. Becomes a general. These are not padawans being tasked with an army. No, because this isn't a war that they're going into. This is something else. It's hard to describe, but, I mean, effectively, we're dealing with terrorism. [00:14:19] Speaker B: Yeah. A huge scale. [00:14:21] Speaker A: Pirates and pirates and. Yeah. It's very different in that regard, which is interesting because it's a new way to explore how these kids are dealing with these conflicts because they're still all sorts of, you know, tragedy and general death and et cetera that are gonna happen. [00:14:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:38] Speaker A: But it's nice to, again, it's just very refreshing. [00:14:41] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. So we had comics, which also includes a few mini series, which is nice. So as the high Republic was going on and storylines started really forming and kind of kicking into gear, we had a few extra little, tiny four or five issue mini series that kind of deal with a few different issues going on. [00:14:58] Speaker A: Right. Short arcs, though. Shorts still within the comic. Real. [00:15:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:00] Speaker A: And then there's manga. [00:15:01] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:02] Speaker A: Which there are. There's not a ton of them, but that is effectively a slightly different media than just standard american comics. [00:15:11] Speaker B: Right. [00:15:11] Speaker A: And then there's, of course, short stories. Short stories within Star Wars Insider magazine. And I love them. [00:15:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:18] Speaker A: So much. [00:15:19] Speaker B: And I've read most of them because they're short stories. They're able to tell side character stories of. Of people and even non Jedi, not non really republic figureheads and just everyday people and kind of how they're going. [00:15:32] Speaker A: Through almost like, from a certain point of view, which is, for those of you who don't know, another Star wars series of books, but in that it's also, like, directly connected and kind of finishes off stories that novels don't necessarily need to finish, which has been really nice. And then there's also a radio play, so. Yeah, an audio drama. [00:15:54] Speaker B: Yeah. So these are full casted audio dramas, and there's. There's typically been one per phase. The first two were great. So, yeah, full audio dramas. And just like the audiobooks that accompany the regular books, it's full music, it's sound effects. So you get the full Star wars experience. Yeah. [00:16:13] Speaker A: If I was to go into the high Republican, the question then is asked. Now, I say this as somebody who's actually read literally everything, but you've seen me read this after having already read it yourself. You know, I came into this. I came into the high Republic a little bit later. I did go to the panel at the end of phase one. [00:16:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:16:32] Speaker A: And got a lot of things spoiled for myself. But we both came to this with a completionist mindset, and I feel like I've even gone even more so because I also read the life day story in the collection and the Starlight stories collection as well. How much do you think we really need to get the whole story? [00:16:57] Speaker B: So that's the interesting part. The architects of this whole thing, they really set it up to, like, hey, if you just want to read the adult novels, you get a solid story out of that. If you just want to read the middle grade novels, you'll get a solid story out of that. Just want to read the comics, you'll get a pretty solid story out of that. And for the most part, it kind of works. But what's really cool about all this is a lot of these characters will show up in other parts of this whole thing. So some of the characters that started off in the first novel end up in the comics for a little bit. Some of the characters that end up in that first showed up in the comics end up in some of the novels for a little bit. So it's really nice that the authors themselves kind of have this huge playground just to use everybody, and it really creates this huge, immersive, full story. So we're a little biased, again, because we love Star wars, and we're just like, yeah, give us all the Star wars. We're gonna say, read everything. But again, if you don't have the time or if you can't find the comics, or if you can only find certain amount of books, or if you just want to designate only a certain amount of time on certain stories, then, hey, more power to you. Go for it. [00:18:02] Speaker A: Yeah. There's only one time that I found within the first phase where I felt like the young adult novel was absolutely paramount to fully understanding what happened in the adult novel. [00:18:15] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah. [00:18:15] Speaker A: And that was doing wave two. [00:18:17] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah. [00:18:18] Speaker A: But every other time, I felt that they were concurrent but not necessarily fully immersed in each other. Yeah, there were. There's definitely a little bit of a divide, but things. Some of them are so good that it's like, why would you skip that? And then some of them are really good, but you wouldn't necessarily even know about that story or need to know about that story if you hadn't gotten and read the young adult novel before. [00:18:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:18:45] Speaker A: So it can be a little bit much, I feel like, to take on. [00:18:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:18:50] Speaker A: But the good news is, is there is a podcast that actually will break down how these all work together. [00:18:56] Speaker B: Oh, my God, Ilyster. [00:18:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. [00:18:58] Speaker B: Oh, it's us. We're doing it. [00:18:59] Speaker A: We're doing it. [00:19:00] Speaker B: Boom. We got you guys. Easy. [00:19:02] Speaker A: Yeah. I really do feel like with this podcast, we can help people basically do for. We can do for them what you effectively did for me by giving these big lists and going, okay, now you read this. Now you read this. Now read this. And occasionally even checking in, going, hey, it seems like these things are actually happening simultaneously. Can I take a break mid book and read these comics, and you could go, not until this chapter. [00:19:27] Speaker B: Yeah. And we did. [00:19:29] Speaker A: If you're literally, like, overwhelmed by the just sheer amount of media that you're supposed to consume in order to understand all of this, we got you. If you are overwhelmed to the point where you're like, I'm gonna need to skip a couple of those. We also got you. And I'm not one to necessarily. I shy from spoilers as much as I possibly can, but I know plenty of people who are like, just tell me so that I can go to the next thing. [00:19:52] Speaker B: Hey, we'll do that too. [00:19:53] Speaker A: And I'm here for that. I'm here for that. And I think we can accomplish that pretty well. [00:19:58] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. So we kind of got into the basics of it. You know, we talked about different books, and again, Bryce was just mentioning some things integrate really well. Some things are kind of a little bit out of place. And for the most part, it's like 75% linear storytelling, where you can kind of go from one thing to another. But there are some overlaps with some of the books. Some of the comics take place during the same time as one of the other books, but they're happening on separate planets doing two completely separate things. So it's okay. But again, it can't be a little overwhelming, but in a fun way. [00:20:30] Speaker A: Honestly, it's also really nice to go, I want more of this story, but I need a break from listening to the book or reading a physical book and going, I need a break from the story, but I don't want to stop consuming this story so I can read the comic tie in. [00:20:42] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:20:42] Speaker A: You know, and hopefully our versions of explaining what happened during this will provide at least enough information that if you aren't going to go seeking out trade paperbacks or single issues of this comic, or if you're not going to have the time to listen to the Ya novel, we can cover that. [00:20:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:20:59] Speaker A: So you've mentioned it before. We've said it. We've said all these fancy words about phases and waves. [00:21:03] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:21:03] Speaker A: But let's break that down. [00:21:05] Speaker B: Yes. [00:21:06] Speaker A: Phases and waves. [00:21:08] Speaker B: Right. So we have. [00:21:09] Speaker A: This sounds like a physics class. [00:21:11] Speaker B: Yeah. So we have three phases that the architects kind of put together for the entirety of the high Republic. So we have phase one, which is the light of the Jedi. We got phase two, which is quest of the Jedi. And we have phase three, which is trials of the Jedi. The way they set the phases up is kind of like the movies and the trilogy. So phase one kind of think of your original trilogy, the ridge, Tridge ridged ridge. Phase two are the prequels. So this actually happens 150 years before phase one. Okay, so this is 350 years now before Phantom Menace. [00:21:47] Speaker A: What's interesting about that, too, is like 20 something plus years before the battle of Yavin in the Phantom Menace, we were tying in directly to a character, and it would seem like jumping 150 years may not tie us in to characters in phase one. [00:22:06] Speaker B: Oh, you would think that. [00:22:07] Speaker A: However, I mean, obviously with characters such as the blade of Bardotta and Oporencisis and Yoda and Yaddle, with characters like that, we're gonna. We're gonna see phase two. Yeah, yeah, but there are new characters. I mean, I say the blade of Ardata. Like, anybody knows who that is if they've just started. But there are new characters that their whole family. [00:22:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:22:30] Speaker A: Are like, have a history that is worth knowing that starts in phase two during this 150 years before phase one even happens, which is if you're doing the math, for those of you following along at home 350 years or so before the phantom menace. [00:22:48] Speaker B: Right? Yep. [00:22:48] Speaker A: Okay, so that's phase phase two. [00:22:51] Speaker B: And then once that finishes up, we go back up to kind of the present times to phase three, which happens one year after phase one. [00:22:59] Speaker A: Okay, so we just. Like the sequels that are happening after. Yeah, the original trilogy, right? [00:23:05] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:23:05] Speaker A: Okay. [00:23:06] Speaker B: But instead of 2030 some odd years after, like the movies, it's like the next. It's just one. It's one. It's one year. [00:23:11] Speaker A: Six. Is it one year? Six months? [00:23:12] Speaker B: One year. [00:23:13] Speaker A: One year. Okay, so we jump ahead one year and then we're back again. [00:23:16] Speaker B: But within each phase we have waves. And this is. It's kind of cool. How they set it up is they have kind of the kickoff novel and then the three other books that go with it. So we have the middle grade and the young adult with each phase. And then obviously, we have all the comics that are all up in there too. [00:23:34] Speaker A: Brian, we forgot one other element of the storytelling. The picture book. [00:23:39] Speaker B: The picture books. [00:23:41] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, picture books. [00:23:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:43] Speaker A: So traumatize your own youngling. [00:23:45] Speaker B: Yeah. So with phase one, funny enough, that's the only time they did it. We have these picture books that took two or three chapters of the main novels and turned them into, like, little kid picture books. [00:23:58] Speaker A: Like practically little golden books. [00:23:59] Speaker B: Yeah. With. Complete with stickers. [00:24:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:03] Speaker B: Which are great. And they're really hard to find. And I. I went on a hunt. My mission was to find these books all around Orange county ended up finding them at Barnes and Noble in Fullerton and picked up a couple copies each. And then I think I was missing one book, so had to go find that in Huntington beach maybe, but, yeah. So I got a couple copies of each. [00:24:20] Speaker A: Things we do for love. [00:24:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Yep. [00:24:22] Speaker A: Anyway, so you, within each of these waves, though, we have a regular. [00:24:27] Speaker B: Right. [00:24:27] Speaker A: Star wars novel. [00:24:28] Speaker B: Regular novel. Yeah. [00:24:29] Speaker A: A ya novel. And then a middle grade. [00:24:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:31] Speaker A: And the middle grade books are kind of those squarish ones. [00:24:34] Speaker B: Yes. [00:24:34] Speaker A: Right. Like test of courage and. [00:24:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:36] Speaker A: And the like. Okay. [00:24:37] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So we have those, and again, we have the comics that are all involved in there. [00:24:41] Speaker A: And kind of the through line is those comics. [00:24:43] Speaker B: They're, yeah. [00:24:44] Speaker A: Because they're bringing in information from happening, that's happening from all of these other stories. [00:24:48] Speaker B: So everything's fairly interconnected, but you can still get a decent story if, you know. Again, you just want to read one type of book or just the comics. It's still a pretty solid read. [00:24:59] Speaker A: So, I mean, at the beginning of each comic, there is a quick crawl that will explain to you what was. What's been going on, especially if something has happened in a book. [00:25:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:07] Speaker A: And at the beginning of each book, they will tell you, so and so is off fighting this group. And that was happening in the comics. [00:25:13] Speaker B: Yes. [00:25:13] Speaker A: So they, they let you know what's going on. They certainly don't leave you in the dark. [00:25:16] Speaker B: Right. And so phase one has three waves, and that whole phase took place over in universe. I believe it's like a year and a half or so, thereabouts, yeah. And as it was released in book form, comic book form, all that stuff. In real life, it took about a year to get everything out, which was kind of cool. You know, you had pretty quick release on some stuff. [00:25:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:25:40] Speaker B: Phase two only has two waves. Oh, yeah. And it all centers around the battle of Jedha, which we'll get into. [00:25:49] Speaker A: You will be very excited about all of the things with Jedha. [00:25:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:53] Speaker A: And if you're not, that's okay. [00:25:55] Speaker B: But it was one of my favorite storylines from the whole, whole Shebang so far. [00:25:59] Speaker A: And now we're going into phase three, which is happening as we record this. Phase three is not completed. [00:26:04] Speaker B: No. So actually there's a new young reader book out tomorrow at the time of recording. At time recording also. Happy Ahsoka day, everybody. [00:26:11] Speaker A: Happy Ahsoka tano day, everybody. [00:26:13] Speaker B: Yeah. That is today, the 29th. [00:26:15] Speaker A: It is the official anniversary of the release of the Clone wars movie. Yeah. [00:26:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:26:20] Speaker A: And the creation of Ahsoka Tano. [00:26:24] Speaker B: And one of the other greatest creations ever. Stinky. [00:26:28] Speaker A: Happy stinky day. [00:26:29] Speaker B: Happy stinky day, everybody. And Ahsoka, too, if you celebrate, you know. [00:26:34] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, yes. [00:26:35] Speaker B: Star wars forever. [00:26:36] Speaker A: Happy Ahsoka day for all of those who celebrate. [00:26:41] Speaker B: And then, yeah, again, back to phase three, and that's currently going on right now. We had, the eye of darkness was out back in November. We've had three or four of the mainline comic issues that have been out, and everything's just kind of continuing on from the craziness that happened at the end of phase one. So it's been a crazy year, and if you've been following along with me, it's been a long year because we don't know what happened to half the characters at the end of phase one. Yeah, because we went right into phase. [00:27:07] Speaker A: Two, which luckily for me, because I finished phase one very recently. [00:27:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:11] Speaker A: But for everybody who was following along, you guys basically had almost two full years before you got any info. [00:27:20] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So the cons, yeah, so I remember San Diego Comic Con at the panel recently, they dropped some very heavy hints of certain characters, and it half broke the Star wars Internet. So it was, it was good stuff relieving and, well, we'll talk more about that later. Yeah, yeah. So that kind of breaks down the general breakdown of the High Republic for there. [00:27:46] Speaker A: This whole high republic, this whole idea, this whole timeline, these of the three phases that are happening now, mentions of these events have happened in the existing canon that does take place during the Skywalker saga. [00:28:01] Speaker B: Yeah, a little bit. They mentioned it, too, in some of the interviews that they've done, that this huge project obviously takes years to plan and write and just really give it out to the world. And a lot of these storytellers are involved with other places in Lucasfilm, like Kevin Scott, who wrote the Dooku Jedi lost audio drama. That's another full audio drama which was really well done. It's basically based around assange ventress finding out about Dooku during her time as a Sith apprentice, basically. And so they have the original voice actor of Asajj Ventress in there doing her role, which was great. And then we have a few other great voice actors doing everybody else. But because Kevin Scott was working on the High Republic and doing this novel, he sprinkled in the first mention of the High Republic, which was really cool. And at the time was like, what's the high Republic smash? Cuts it down. We're like, oh, that's what it is. And then we also have Charles Sowell, who is currently writing the main Star wars line, but before that, he did a few of the mini series. So he did Anakin and Obi Wan, which is great, kind of based around Anakin and Obi Wan. That story happens in between episodes one and two, and it focuses on Anakin kind of like, questioning his role within the Jedi and if he even wants to, like, continue on, which is an interesting aspect. But it also sprinkled in his little friendship with a little. Little homie named Sheev. So we kind of see a nice little build up of Anakin getting to trust Palpatine. Yeah, no gushing over that. He also did the rise of Kylo Ren, and this book takes place about five or six years before the sequel trilogy, but it focuses on Ben solo and his fall and him training with Luke. And early on, him, Luke and lor San techa go to El Frona to a Jedi temple, and they find Avar, Kriss's holocron. [00:29:58] Speaker A: But who's Avar, Chris? We didn't even know at the time. [00:30:01] Speaker B: Yeah, we're like, oh, this cool older Jedi master from way before. And I think they mentioned high Republic in there, too. And so they. They started sprinkling all these little things here and there just to kind of set the tone and kind of start piquing some interest. And that kind of helped lead into, you know, project luminous, which is what this was called beforehand, before it was officially announced as the high republic in February of 2020. [00:30:26] Speaker A: Nice. [00:30:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. And because that's, you know, around the time of the pandemic, turns out these books were supposed to start coming out a little bit earlier. But, you know, things get pushed off as they did. So I guess I can kind of take us into kind of a general overview of story wise. What are the Jedi dealing with? What is the Republic dealing with? Because at the time, like we said, the Jedi and the Republic is kind of at their height of themselves. So what is this whole story involve? You know, we've mentioned the waves and the phases, and we've name dropped Avar Chris and Yoda's around, but, you know, what's actually going on? Well, this is the height of the Republic. This is the height of the Jedi. There's technically peace everywhere. You know, what happens when that just gets upended. So we have this huge thing that happens called the great disaster. Long story short, something goes wrong in hyperspace, something goes wrong in hyperspace, and now there's random debris flying through hyperspace and crash and out of hyperspace, crashing into planets, crashing into ships, wreaking all sorts of havoc, and they don't know what happened. They don't know why it happened, but they now have to deal with this huge emergency. Emergency. Things emerged. Do you get it? Do you get it? [00:31:44] Speaker A: I do, I do. [00:31:44] Speaker B: Okay, good. [00:31:46] Speaker A: Close one. I'm picking up what you're putting down. [00:31:48] Speaker B: Whoa. Yeah. So what are the Jedi doing? What are they not doing? What's the Republic doing? What are they not doing? Who are these new villains, the nihil that are showing up? Basically, they're pirates, they're rad, they're non Force users. And we get to see that kind of villain really wreak havoc on the galaxy. And as Star wars recently, most things are about people with the force. [00:32:11] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:12] Speaker B: And this one is only about half the people with the Force. So we could see that really cool aspect of stuff. And from there, shenanigans happen, and they release plant like monsters that are really cool. [00:32:24] Speaker A: The Drangir. [00:32:25] Speaker B: The Drangir. So we get to see just all sorts of chaos going on. And that's where a lot of these different mediums come in. We got the comic books dealing with some stuff. We got the, the novels dealing with some stuff. We got the young readers dealing with some stuff. But again, the characters will bounce back and forth. Most of them are different storylines. Most of them reference the other storylines. So you're not super lost. But again, if you read everything, you get a huge completionist story going in, and if not, again, you get a nice story with comics, you get a nice story with the main books. And what's really cool with this, they announced that one of the characters introduced in these books is gonna appear in the Acolyte tv show coming out. [00:33:08] Speaker A: Yes. Which I imagine might be the reason some of you guys have even come to listen to this podcast is to get caught up with that. [00:33:14] Speaker B: And we got it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So again, at the time of this recording, we don't know when the acolyte is coming out. We do know it sometime this year. We just don't know when. But now's a great time to read up on the character of Verne and where she comes in. She's a Mary Ellen, and they've established in the books and such that their lifespan is longer. So her character is going to show up in the acolyte, which is going to be fricking awesome. And it's a really cool tie in to just this whole era that Lucasfilm is taking it very seriously and is really invested. Obviously, they're invested with how much work they're putting into this. But also that they want to make sure that Star wars is kind of all tied together, even though it's very separate eras. Again, we got Yoda. That's 900 when he passes away. And he's been around for a while. And there's a lot of different aliens. Chewie's what, 200 years old, some odd like that. So he hasn't shown up. Spoilers. But different alien species live for different amounts of time, and that really comes into play with this whole era and part of the galaxy, which is really nice, kind of opens everything up, if you will, back to the acolyte. That happens 100 years before the phantom menace. So it happens at the tail end of the high republic. I guess you can call it kind of a high republic show, but at the same time, we don't know anything. [00:34:31] Speaker A: Yet, and we know very little. [00:34:33] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I saw the trailer in London at celebration because I was lucky enough to go, and it was amazing. And I am just as excited for acolyte as I was for Ahsoka. [00:34:44] Speaker A: Wow. [00:34:44] Speaker B: Which is saying a lot because I was super excited for Ahsoka for many reasons, but, yeah. So I'm excited to see where this show goes and how it overall ties into the high Republic. They did say that they used a lot of the designs and overall feel, and you guys can find it online. Lucasfilm really did a deep dive on the art and the character designs, and there's a great art of book that's out that covers everything, and we'll get into that too on a separate episode. But, you know, that's something that you guys can take a look at. Pick it up at your local bookstore before you check online, because brick and mortar, you know how it goes. So there's so many other tie ins that are going on currently. We still have comic tie ins with the current original trilogy era books. Luke and them go to no space where the nihil live or used to live. And again, Luke found a holocron of Avar Chris's. [00:35:38] Speaker A: Did they go to the Amaxine station? [00:35:40] Speaker B: No, Snoke lived on the Maxine station. [00:35:43] Speaker A: Snoke lived on the station, which, the Maxine station that he lives on in the comics makes an appearance in the Republic. [00:35:50] Speaker B: In fact, that's where it first showed up, in the rise of the resistance comic book mini series. Okay. Each. Each issue had a different character focused on. Yeah. Which was great. Written by Tom Taylor of super cool DC fame. Now. Yeah, it was cool that I, he got. He signed one of my copies and actually, I got Charles soul to sign one of my Darth Vader issues. This was before the High Republic, and he was writing the Darth Vader series, which was fantastic. [00:36:15] Speaker A: Oh, so good. [00:36:16] Speaker B: If you haven't read his run yet. But they're all good. But, but, yeah, so we have those comics, but also we have video games. So the sequel to Jedi Fallen Order, Jedi survivor, half that storyline involves high Republic Jedi. [00:36:29] Speaker A: That's crazy. I still haven't gotten around to playing that one. [00:36:32] Speaker B: Yeah. So we won't get into too many spoilers just yet, but we definitely will. So we'll. We'll get there when we get there, but. And that was such a huge thing. And I'm excited for that aard of book that's coming out next month, because I'm sure it's gonna feature a whole bunch of high Republic stuff. But then Disneyland released Stellan Geos lightsaber. [00:36:46] Speaker A: Yeah. And they had that cool little mug. [00:36:48] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. There's a nice little, like, little teacup. Teacup mug thing that I got, and I'm like, oh, this is cool. This will be nice for my tea that I rarely drink anymore. But it's all high Republic themed in design, which is awesome. So they're really taking this very seriously, and they want everybody to get in on it, obviously. And heck, even there's a kids show now, young Jedi adventures. That's. [00:37:09] Speaker A: Yeah, the young Jedi adventures takes place during that. [00:37:11] Speaker B: And even Kevin Scott wrote an episode, and he brought a few of the Jedi on there. Yeah, yeah. Which is funny. Cause when they announced that show, they're like, why are they making a kid show about a bunch of padawans that are gonna get killed by Darth Vader? They're not. This is, like, 205 years before, give or take. I don't know. Yeah, but it's not. It's not the Padawans from episode three. Y'all can relax. [00:37:31] Speaker A: Yeah, there's people, like, getting angry on the Internet. We are not those people. [00:37:35] Speaker B: What? [00:37:36] Speaker A: No, we are not those people. [00:37:38] Speaker B: Yeah. So that's kind of, you know, the basics of the high Republic. And as we're going on through this show, we want to, again, give a nice breakdown of the phases and the waves. We're going to talk about some of the video game tie ins. We're going to talk about the young Jedi adventure stuff. Once the acolyte information comes out, even when the show starts, we'll definitely be talking about it. What we want to do again, we're going to keep with some minor spoilers. Here and there, you'll know about. When we go into very major spoilers, we're gonna break down our phases into the waves, and as we go into the next wave, we will do a very deep dive, very spoiler, heavy recap on the previous wave to get you ready. So if you want spoilers, that's your episode you want to listen to, but also listen to everything else, because it'll give context to all that. Yeah, but also, if you don't want major spoilers, skip it. Because we want, again, we want this to be for everybody, and that's gonna be a nice, accessible part. That's, you'll get back to it later once you do read through everything. Or, hey, if you just want those spoilers, we gotcha. [00:38:39] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's, I feel like that's one of the things that I really want to make sure sets us apart from, you know, any other podcast that's just talking about this. There's definitely an approach to talking about things in a very casual setting where you're just kind of throwing out information. And if you wind up with some spoilers, you wind up with some spoilers. And if that's for you, then I got a great podcast for you. It's called Sneaky Geek. But this, we wanted to do a little bit more on the structured side. We wanted to kind of break these things down and really make sure that we're good at showing you when we are going to be spoiling something and when we're not. And this is not so much of a, hey, we may spoil something. Like, we will either intend to spoil something or we will avoid spoilers. [00:39:22] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:39:22] Speaker A: We will make sure we tag that in the show notes so that you can see what you're getting into so that you don't accidentally, you know, open it up, and then suddenly you're like, who died? [00:39:30] Speaker B: Yeah, we're not gonna do that to you guys. [00:39:32] Speaker A: No, we won't. We won't do that to you. But going forward, we have a lot of content and a lot of episodes that we're really excited to be recording about. So we've got all of our phases that will be broken down into waves. We'll be talking about characters. We'll be talking about how those characters interact with each other, where you might remember them from. Cause frankly, sometimes you start a book and you're like, I've read four different other storylines. Who was this person again? That's. That so and so from that other book, they did this and this. He used to be so and so is Padawan. That kind of thing. We're here for you. [00:40:04] Speaker B: Yep. [00:40:04] Speaker A: So you can go into each new wave going, okay, I know what I need, who I need to be thinking about. I know how they connect, and we'll hopefully do it a little bit better than the last time on. Where. Why else are they showing you this scene from four seasons ago? [00:40:18] Speaker B: Right. [00:40:18] Speaker A: Of course this is gonna come back today. [00:40:20] Speaker B: Last time on Dragon Ball Z. [00:40:23] Speaker A: It's become really common recently. Not to go off it or anything, but it's become really common lately where you see the last time on, and they'll show you certain scenes that are important for context. [00:40:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:40:32] Speaker A: And you're like, so I guess that's gonna be important this episode. [00:40:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:40:36] Speaker A: And it really spoils a lot. So I really want to try to avoid not just outright spoilers, but also implied, implied spoilers and spoilers that you could put together if you just happen to have a brain that fires on six cylinders at a time, you know? [00:40:49] Speaker B: So, I mean, depending on your model. [00:40:51] Speaker A: I have a v eight brain, maybe. [00:40:55] Speaker B: I don't know. [00:40:55] Speaker A: Anyway, not important. [00:40:56] Speaker B: The ADHD. [00:40:57] Speaker A: You'll join us, but, yeah, we've got each of the waves. We've got the characters. We'll have the spoilery versions. We'll have the not spoilery versions. And then we might have some fun in between episodes as well and bring on some guests here and there. I'm pretty excited. [00:41:13] Speaker B: Yeah, no, this will be good. Real fun. [00:41:15] Speaker A: So, here we are. The Starlight archive is brought to you by by Sneakygeek podcasts. [00:41:21] Speaker B: Yeah, that's also us. [00:41:23] Speaker A: Which is also us. We're really happy to bring this to you and really happy to be able to have this deep dive and provide information and context. And context and tie it all together in a way that isn't necessarily just a wookiepedia hole, which, don't get me wrong, we all love a good wookiepedia hole. [00:41:41] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:41:41] Speaker A: I mean, you're gonna go into a hole in a wookie. That's the one to go. But this is family friendly. [00:41:47] Speaker B: Damn it. [00:41:49] Speaker A: We love a good wookiepedia hole. And, you know, that's fine, but, you know, sometimes the Wookiepedia hole winds up taking you to, like, sebulba's brother and not where you were intending to go. So we're gonna try to keep it focused and keep it away from Sebulba's brother, unless, of course, he shows up in phase three. Oh, my gosh. [00:42:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:42:08] Speaker A: Spoiler. No, no, I'm just kidding. I'm just making it up. Sebulbas. I don't think Spoba even has a brother. [00:42:12] Speaker B: He probably would have killed him. Maybe in a race. It was his first foot race. He beat his brother and he killed him. That's way dark. And against Sebulba, who knows? I don't know. [00:42:24] Speaker A: Sebulba doesn't even walk with his feet. He walks with his hands. Anyways. [00:42:31] Speaker B: So that's kind of stuff we may or may not get into. But mostly high republic. So join us next time. We're going to talk about what's the general vibe of the galaxy, and then also the books that are involved in Waveone. [00:42:43] Speaker A: So, yeah, tell us what you guys are excited for. If you have ideas for the podcast and things that you want us to talk about, we are always welcome. For those, you can find us on the socials. We're at Starlight archive podcast on instagram. Find us there. Tell us what you think. Tell us what you want to hear from the podcast. You got other ideas? You have theories you want us talking about? Shoot us a message. Comment on our posts. We would love to start seeing a community build around this. And you can always find this podcast. Wherever podcasts are, make sure you subscribe. And in the words of esteemed Chancellor Lena, so we are all the republic. [00:43:22] Speaker B: Aw. [00:43:33] Speaker A: The Starlight archives hosts Bryce Rankins and Brian Romero embark on a journey into the depths of Lucasfilm's multimedia storytelling initiative, the High Republic. Every week, they venture into uncharted territories of literature and comics, exploring the rich tapestry of this era with meticulous detail.