Everything you need to know about Star Wars: The High Republic

One of the most ambitious and large-scale Star Wars stories happening right now hasn’t been on Disney Plus or in movie theaters – at least not yet. It’s the High Republic, a massive multimedia project set centuries before the movies, telling an ambitious, large-scale story about a different era of Jedi Knights facing a different kind of threat than fans have seen before. Soon the High Republic will make its way to Disney Plus with the upcoming series The Acolytebringing a wave of new fans to the latest corner of Star Wars lore.

With this particular and fairly new era of Star Wars history about to get its TV close-up, there’s no better time to dive into this impressively large – and still ongoing – story.

What is the High Republic?

The High Republic is primarily a sprawling Lucasfilm publishing initiative that spans countless books, comics, and audio dramas, all set in a previously unexplored era of Star Wars history. The goal is to tell a diverse set of stories, all centered around a new cast of characters who respond to massive, status quo shattering events.

While the High Republic is primarily controlled by a brain trust of authors writing their stories, it is also similar to a Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting, such as the Forgotten Realms of Planescape: a standalone piece of a highly popular ensemble, a which is ripe for research in all kinds of media. Soon the High Republic will make its first appearance on screen in the upcoming Disney Plus series The Acolyte.

When was the Supreme Republic established?

Most of the action takes place about 200 years earlier The Ghost Threat. The general idea is that these stories represent what is effectively the last golden age of the Jedi Order, before the institutional rot that made the order so rigid and ripe for destruction by Emperor Palpatine by the time of The Clone Wars and the prequel trilogy.

High Republic stories feature Jedi at their peak as a diplomatic force, advocating for the Order as a powerful ally for both community building and defense. In these stories, the Jedi are ideologically aligned but also diverse – there’s a code to be sure, but they’re all still quite human and dynamic characters.

Image: Disney Lucasfilm Press

It’s far enough in the past to feel very different from what Star Wars fans know, but close enough to have many recognizable people and places. (Yoda, for instance, is very close, a snappy 700-something.) It’s also an era that keeps many centuries between itself and the Old Republic era, so as not to encroach on another popular institution.

What is the High Republic about?

The short version is simple: if the High Republic is supposed to be an era when the Jedi were at their best, someone has to make them prove it. That someone is Marchion Ro.

Initially a member of a band of crafty space pirates, Marchion Ro slowly enacts a plan to turn his gang, the Nihil, into something more dangerous and under his absolute control. Piracy gives way to terrorism and all-out war, as the Jedi are blinded by the Nihil’s attacks and slowly begin to unravel Marchion Ro’s true motivations.

Image: Marvel Comics/Lucasfilm

The Jedi’s battle against the Nihil is the backbone of the High Republic, but since the High Republic consists of multiple novels, comics, and other media, there is a lot of more going on.

How do I dive in?

Even though the High Republic is only two years old, a dizzying number of stories are already playing out. The best way to go about them is to learn how releases are structured and follow what interests you.

The High Republic is divided into three “phases” each for about a year. Within each stage, there are three “waves,” which generally include at least one new release from each major publishing category: an adult novel, a YA novel, a mediocre episode, a comic strip, and so on.

This may seem overwhelming, but in practice it is easier to understand. Essentially, the High Republic is a trilogy of trilogies, with the adult novels serving as the narrative backbone that everything else connects to.

Phase I revolved around the introductory trilogy of Light of the Jedi by Charles Soule, The rising storm by Cavan Scott, and The fallen star by Claudia Grey. This is where you should start.

Once you’ve read the Phase I trilogy of adult novels, look for anything else that interests you from that phase – many find the YA novels just as captivating, if not more so, than the mature ones, and Marvel’s main High Republic ongoing comic series are designed to complement the novels nicely. To hold Wookiepedia’s comprehensive chart of High Republic releases comes in handy so you don’t get ahead of the game in the story – as Phase II, the current phase, is a precursor to Phase I.

This is quite a lot

It is! I recommend using your library card liberally if you want to dive in, because buying all these books would get pretty expensive. But, like guides curated by fans let’s just say, the High Republic is an immersive experiment that could prove worthwhile for hardcore deep divers. It’s Star Wars for the kind of fan who wants to tell MCU-style interconnected stories, but with a level of focus and intricacy that movies can’t quite swing, with a variety of stories that cater to all kinds of tastes.

And what’s more, it’s far from the only kind of Star Wars story to be published. It’s just one of many flavors, looking at a known universe from a certain point of view.