‘Star Wars’ Comics Reveal Luke Missed An Opportunity To Stop Starkiller Base's Construction
For millennia, the planet Ilum was a sacred place for the Jedi. Located deep within the Unknown Regions, hardly anyone outside the Order knew of its existence. Nevertheless, countless generations of Jedi younglings were taken there for a ritual called The Gathering, where they searched inside the Crystal Cave for a kyber crystal that would “sing” to them, and build their lightsabers around their crystals. The crystal and the Jedi-to-be formed a symbiosis that would ideally last for a lifetime.
One year after the end of the Clone Wars and the proclamation of the Galactic Empire, the new regime discovered the navigational routes to the icy planet in the Jedi Temple and began exploiting the vast resources of crystals for their new superweapons. Star Destroyers orbited the planet hauling away the harvested minerals, preventing any remaining Jedi from returning to their sacred place.
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Nevertheless, former Jedi Ahsoka Tano returned to the planet she had once visited with a group of younglings, years after the Empire had started to strip it. Jedi Padawan Cal Kestis did the same, and he even made it into the Crystal Cave to find a new crystal for his lightsaber. And in Star Wars #19, Luke Skywalker spent a short time on the planet that would later become Starkiller Base. But, unfortunately, it seems that this visit was without any consequences.
After their failed mission to get back the carbonite-frozen Han Solo, Luke and Leia returned to the Rebel fleet, still hunted by the Imperial Navy after their narrow escape from Hoth. While Leia postponed her search for Han for the time being, focusing on their fight against the Empire, Luke left again shortly in search of former Jedi locations that could help strengthen his connection to the Force, so that he would be better prepared the next time he faced Vader.
R2-D2 was able to get a list of such locations from an Imperial database. Though Luke didn’t hope that he would find anything useful there, as the Empire would have destroyed or captured it already, he saw no other possibility to expand his knowledge. However, it seems strange that he didn’t even consider going back to Dagobah to continue his training under Yoda…
The first planet he traveled to was Ilum. By this time, the planet already sported the enormous trench at the equatorial regions caused by the massive mining operations, and that would later house the superweapon, Starkiller Base. Luke landed his X-Wing on the planet undetected, but he sensed only pain and left again shortly. Perhaps there was so much pain that it clouded Luke’s ability to see the future. Even Luke’s vision of Han and Leia on Cloud City was not clear.
Interestingly Charles Soule, the writer of this issue, didn’t reference the sequel trilogy at this point. At this time in the Star Wars timeline – shortly before Return of the Jedi, neither the First Order nor Starkiller Base existed. But this seems like a missed opportunity for Luke to not even have a Force vision, showing him what would become of the planet after the end of the Empire and the devastating effect it would have on the galaxy once it was transformed into Starkiller Base. Would Luke have been able to do anything against it if the Force had granted him such a vision?
Hardly, after all, he had come to Ilum alone in his X-Wing, with only R2 accompanying him. Even if he had sabotaged and disabled the mining machinery, this would hardly have affected the Empire severely enough. But Luke sensing the danger of Ilum, could have planted the seeds for future events and actions, probably not happing before Return of the Jedi, but maybe after the Empire was finally defeated and its remnants had retreated into the Unknown Regions.
But so, Ilum is just one of many planets that Luke visited in this issue of Star Wars, just a few panels seemingly with no significance or consequence. He had probably forgotten about it shortly after leaving the system. Obviously, Charles Soule couldn’t write anything that would directly contradict the events of the sequel trilogy, but having Luke visiting a planet that had such an importance in the past of the Jedi Order and that would have such an impact on the future of the galaxy, without using this opportunity to even hint at possible stories to come, still seems like a bit of a wasted chance.
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Source(s): ScreenRant