Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Confirms Major Tie to Jedi: Fallen Order and Starkiller Base

While much of the conversation surrounding a galaxy far, far away this year has dealt directly with Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, the recently released movie is just one of a few important pieces of Star Wars that fans got to experience this year. Disney+ is getting ready to wrap up the first season of The Mandalorian, Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance just opened in Walt Disney World, and EA released the critically acclaimed video game Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. As everyone knows, all of these different projects, as well as the various novels and comic books that were also released in 2019, tie-in with the action seen on the big screen. As it turns out, some of those ties go even deeper than you may have thought.

The visual dictionary for The Rise of Skywalker goes into more detail regarding several planets, storylines, and other things from recently-completed saga. This includes the origins of Starkiller base, which was featured in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and mentioned in The Rise of Skywalker. Some fans theorized that the base had a connection to a planet featured in Fallen Order, and this book confirms that to be the truth.

Ilum is the location of a Jedi Temple that housed the kyber crystals, which power Jedi and Sith lightsabers. In Fallen Order, players are sent on a mission to Ilum and learn about its history. As confirmed in this new visual dictionary, Ilum and its kyber crystal core were ultimately used by the First Order to create the Starkiller base. The crystals at the core of the planet helped to power the weapon that destroyed entire planets in the film.

Here's the book's official description of Ilum and the creation of Starkiller base:

"Properly energized, kyber crystals create containment fields that hold and amplify power to incredible levels. The Empire controlled several kyber-rich worlds, funneling their resources into the Tarkin Initiative's Death Star development. One unique world in the Unknown regions, Ilum, had a kyber crystalline core. Most of its more easily accessible deposits were scoured, but there were even larger crystals buried deeper beneath the surface. The First Order continued its excavations and gradually transformed Ilum - a revered Jedi world since antiquity - into an instrument of unfathomable destruction."

There is a lot of history to be explored with Ilum, and Jedi: Fallen Order barely scratched the surface. Given its recent importance in the movies and games, it wouldn't be surprising to see the planet pop up again in another medium sometime soon.