Star Wars Teases One Jedi Master’s Dark Fall

Star Wars has a long and sordid history of its greatest Jedi masters falling to the side of evil – and The High Republic era was no different. 

The storyline of Star Wars: The High Republic Phase III continues this week with The High Republic comic series and Jedi Knight Keeve Trennis’s battle against the Nihil. After the Nihil captured and annexed part of the galaxy, Keeve was part of a response from the Jedi and Republic to help those caught in the swath of the Nihil raids. Unfortunately, the Nihil were ready with their response, in the form of their new enhanced enforcers, the Children of the Storm. On top of that, a member of the Hutt Cartel, Skarabda, brought her muscle against the Jedi – including former Nihil lieutenant, Lourna Dee. Keeve quickly found herself captured. 

In The High Republic (III) #2, Keeve is tortured by Skarabda’s lieutenant Masakene, who can force his way into Keeve’s mind. The torture session lasts until Keeve gives up the secret Skarabda was looking for: who killed her heroic sister, Myrga, who fought alongside the Jedi against the dreaded Drengir plant monsters, and the Nihil. The killer was Lourna Dee, whose treachery is exposed in front of Masakene. In the resulting chaos Lourna escapes, and Kreeve helps her Republic and Jedi allies defeat the Child of the Storm member, Brother Lycos.

 However, Lycos reveals a strange truth about why he has such hatred for the Jedi: because of what he’d experienced in the Nihil Occlusion Zone: the brutality of Jedi who has fallen to darkness and “thinks he’s a God,” leading Jedi to cut down any who oppose them. The implication is that this dark Jedi “god” is Keeve’s former master, Sskeer. 

What Happened to Master Sskeer? 

Sskeer was last seen aboard Starlight Beacon during the Nihil’s ambush that destroyed the station and took the lives of many Jedi, Republic soldiers, and innocent civilians. The Nihil had deployed there ancient Force-eating monsters The Nameless on Starlight, to both disorient and kill the Jedi. When Keeve and some of her closest Jedi allies were almost killed by the Nameless, Sskeer stepped in to protect his former Padawan; Sskeer had lost his connection to the Force battling the Nihil, making him immune to the Nameless. He was last seen making a heroic stand against the monsters, using Kreeve’s lightsaber as his sword. 

Before the Fall of Starlight Beacon, Sskeer had been struggling to control his darker impulses, after the Nihil attack in the Great Hyperspace Disaster (and the resulting battles because of it) killed some of his closest Jedi friends and/or mentors.