Does Jyn Erso Have A Major Star Wars Artifact in Rogue One?

The unexpected and intense new trailer for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story out of Japan today brought with it a lot of brand-new footage. There are more shots of Darth Vader, who by all accounts is a background villain in the film. There's an interesting and spoiler-filled scene with the Death Star that we won't mention here (Watch at your own risk!). But perhaps most intriguing is a scene early in the trailer, in which we finally see Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones)'s mother, Lyra (played by Valene Kane). She's talking to a young Jyn, and tells her, "Trust the Force."

While she's saying that line, she gives young Jyn a very particular necklace, with a crystal on it. Jyn is shown then still holding and wearing that crystal later in life, as an adult.

So why is that crystal so (potentially) important? Well, connecting the dots, with Lyra mentioning the Force poignantly while giving her the crystal, chances are it's a Kyber crystal, an extremely important artifact in the world of Star Wars. The Kyber crystal is what powers lightsabers of the Jedi, but it's also what powers the Death Star laser. What we know about the Erso family so far is that Galen Erso (, Jyn's father, is researching the Kyber crystals, and his research gets noticed by Director Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn), who comes to "recruit" him to the Death Star project.

With that significance, the crystal Jyn is given almost certainly must by a Kyber crystal. Of course, that may spark some rumors again that she is Force-sensitive, or even that her mother Lyra is, but it's more likely the expanded view of the Force that Rogue One is promising to deliver. With Jedha, the "Force Mecca" as a central location in the film and Chirrut Îmwe (Donnie Yen), the blind monk who worships, but doesn't wield, the Force, we're going to see how the general population looks at the mysterious religion. Remember, even in the Original Trilogy, non-Force wielders used "May the Force Be With Us/You" on a fairly regular basis; at least, regularly enough that it's not out of place or anything that makes it seem you'd have to be Force sensitive to say.

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Rogue One: A Star Wars Story hits US theaters December 16, 2016. Directed by Gareth Edwards, it's the first of the new standalone features from Lucasfilm and Disney, which take place outside the core "Skywalker Saga" of films noted by an Episode number. Rogue One tells the story of the small band of rebels that were tasked with stealing the plans to the first Death Star. The story spins directly off the opening crawl from the original Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope. In that crawl, it read: "Rebel spaceships, striking from a hidden base, have won their first victory against the evil Galactic Empire. During the battle, Rebel spies managed to steal secret plans to the Empire's ultimate weapon, the DEATH STAR, an armored space station with enough power to destroy an entire planet."