Attention: the article contains spoilers for Season 2 of Star Wars: The bad consignment.
The final episode of the second season of Star Wars: The Bad Shipment brings us a blast from the past. Diving into the history of the Jedi Order and those that came before it, fans rightly wonder who are the “Ancients” and what could they mean for the larger mythos of the galaxy far, far away.
the last episode makes Phee Genoa, played by Wanda Sykes, the star of the series, a treasure-seeking pirate who fills the hole that Dr. Aphra left in our lives. Like that morally ambiguous archaeologist, Phee gives us a glimpse of the state of the galaxy in years past. Along with mentions of Novak’s Great Pearl and Zakata Par’s Sword, one of Phee’s stories stood out more than the others.
Are the Ancients connected to the Jedi?
Under Phee’s guidance, the evil consignment travels to the uncharted Kaldar Trinary and seeks the mythical Heart of the Mountain in Skara Nal. Skara Nal is eventually revealed to be a walker-like WMD and while nothing is confirmed about its creators, Phee claims that the “Ancients” predate the Jedi Order itself.
The Ancients may be the Je’daii Order, which originated from the planet Tython and eventually evolved into the modern Jedi Order. Considering Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) brought Grogu to Tython in The Mandalorian season two, there’s already a foundation to build on in the main Star Wars canon. However, this seems unlikely when we compare The Bad Shipment’s look at Skara Nal and the dark side creatures of the Kaldar Triune with the Je’daii’s motives to bring balance to the Force.
However, the Ancients could be linked to Andor, by Tony Gilroy, and being a throwaway reference to the Rakata species. Here, Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård) gave Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) an advance on a Kuati seal embedded with an azure blue and white kyber crystal. In addition to saying that he comes from an “ancient world”, she confirms that he “celebrated the uprising against the Rakatan invaders”.
Rakata? Like in Knights of the Old Republic?
Introduced in BioWare’s Knights of the Old Republic video game in 2003the rakata are a fish-like species who first mastered hyperspace travel. Furthermore, the Rakata were a sometimes evil race that used the dark side to blend their technological prowess with spiritual evil.
Since Knights of the Old Republic is set some 4,000 years before the George Lucas movies, and the Rakata existed 30,000 years before that, the timelines agree that they are the Ancients Phee is referring to. For those still unconvinced, a portion of the 2003 game takes place in a place called the Temple of the Ancients, on the planet Lehon.
In particular, the Rakata developed a devastating weapon known as the Star Forge. The Rakata enslaved Force-sensitive creatures and used the dark side emotions of their victims to power machines. Others were used to help build the Star Forge as an automated shipyard that constantly produced vehicles and soldiers to man the Rakata’s “Infinite Empire”. Knights of the Old Republic ended with players choosing between destroying the Star Forge to embrace the light side, or taking control of it for themselves on the dark side.
As for the Rakata, the Star Forge corrupted the species and led to a brutal civil war that, coupled with a deadly plague that shattered their connection to the Force, brought the empire down. The bad consignment shows that something has decimated the Kaldar Trinaryand since the Rakata are notorious for stripping planets of their resources, it adds credence to the theory that they are, in fact, the Old Ones.
What The Ancients Mean For The Future Of Star Wars
The Jedi Order we know was founded by the shadowy First Jedi in the year 25,000 before the Battle of Yavin, so we know The Bad Batch isn’t preparing the much-rumored The Acolyte, set some 100 years before The Phantom Menace. Even so, That doesn’t mean The Ancients can’t lead to more live action or animated projects..
This is speculation, but since The Bad Batch is set around the year 19 before the Battle of Yavin and coincides with the start of construction on the Death Star, the destructive power of Skara Nal and the Ancients could play a much larger role than we know. Although Skara Nal is all but destroyed by the time the credits roll, Phee’s hint at the Ancients is a good introduction to these relics of the Expanded Universe.
In the second season of Star Wars Rebels there was already talk of the Star Forge with an easter egg inside the Sith temple that looked a lot like the Rakatan space factory. There’s been a lot of talk about a live-action adaptation of Knights of the Old Republic, and with two possible nods to the Rakata in Andor and now The Bad Batch, it’s just too casual.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi may have overlooked that Luke Skywalker inhabited the first Jedi Temple on Ahch-To, but long ago, George Lucas gave screenwriter Terry Brooks an extensive history of the Sith and Jedi for his novelization. from The Phantom Menace. Like Phee’s sometimes fanciful stories, there is usually some truth in these forgotten fables. We’ll have to wait and see if The Bad Batch’s hint at the Ancients pays off later on.
