Star Wars: Skeleton Crew’s Biggest Mystery Just Got Even More Interesting

Star Wars: Skeleton Crew has served viewers up some tantalizing mysteries. The show’s premise — Star Wars filtered through The Goonies — has proven fertile ground for puzzles that have drawn fans in. The biggest mystery in the show — what exactly is the deal with At Attin — has had more light shed on it, starting with Episode 3. The children and Jod Na Nawood — their scoundrel “bodyguard” — learn from an owl-like alien named Kh’ymm that At Attin was one of the “Jewels of the Old Republic,” nine worlds that were hidden away from the rest of the galaxy by an unknown party. However, of these nine worlds, eight of them were found and destroyed, at least according to Kh’ymm. The group is able to get what they believe are the coordinates to At Attin and escape New Republic fighters that Kh’ymm called on Jod.

Episode 4 takes the young heroes to a world that seems like At Attin from orbit. However, when they land, they’re treated to something very different from home. The planet is wrecked, and soon the kids and Jod are pulled into a battle between two clans — the Troix and the Hattans. They learn that this world isn’t At Attin, but At Achrann. They learn about a place called the Fallen Sanctum, and eventually make their way there after Jod finds a solution to the latest problems between the Troix and Hattan. However, what they find there reveals more facets to the mystery of At Attin and the other “Jewels.”

The Fallen Sanctum Raises as Many Questions as It Does Answers

The Fallen Sanctum is immediately familiar to the kids, because it matches the Supervisor’s Tower on At Attin. At Achrann is basically a perfect copy of At Attin in every way, besides the battle damage, giving the impression that the “Jewels of the Old Republic” — Episode 4 names five more of them besides At Attin: At Achrann, At Aytuu, At Arissia, At Aravin, and At Acoda — were created to be exactly alike. This gives the impression that the “Jewels” were some kind of experiment, but it’s hard to know what kind. It could be a sociological experiment — At Attin is a peaceful world based on bureaucracy and At Achrann is torn apart by the war — but this doesn’t seem likely.

The main reason why it probably isn’t is because of the two clues viewers have been given. In Episode 3, Kh’ymm revealed that the other “Jewels of the Old Republic” were found and destroyed. However, that doesn’t mean that the planets were blown up completely like Alderaan was in the original trilogy. These worlds were rumored to be full of treasure, and whoever found them would have wanted to get the treasure, not destroy the world. They would, however, destroy as much of the planet’s infrastructure, leaving the people of the worlds to fend for themselves. This could easily explain At Achrann’s situation: the people there lost their entire civilization because they were attacked and replaced it with one based on survival.

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The other one is even simpler — if At Achrann was meant to be a planet of war and At Attin was meant to a world of peace, why copy everything so exactly? If At Achrann was meant to be a world of war, there would be no reason to copy the infrastructure and architectural details to the level that they did. However, one need only look at the name the nine worlds were given — the “Jewels of the Old Republic” — to be given a huge clue about what they are: treasure worlds for the Old Republic and repositories of culture. Perhaps someone could foresee the downfall of the Old Republic and created the “Jewels” in order to create a place to hide wealth and to preserve the political systems of the Old Republic. These worlds could have been meant to give survivors of whatever befell the galactic government the tools to recreate the Republic.

The top room of the Fallen Sanctum contains the coordinates and names of the other “Jewels,” but At Attin’s coordinates were destroyed. SM-33, the droid that the children found on the ship that took them off At Attin, reveals that he destroyed the coordinates and then killed everyone else in the ship’s crew who saw them other than the captain. This mysterious captain ordered 33 to forget the coordinates and to kill anyone who tried to get him to remember them. The day is saved for the group by Neel distracting the droid and Jod turning it off, but this whole sequence gives the mystery of the show’s plot another layer. However, there may be a simple answer to this — At Attin’s supervisors was the captain of the ship.

The Supervisor May Have Been Trying to Hide At Attin From Other Pirates and Keep It for Themselves

Star Wars: Skeleton Crew takes place in the New Republic era. The “Jewels of the Old Republic” have a technology level that points to perhaps the High Republic era of the Republic. At some unknown point between their founding and the New Republic era, eight “Jewels” were found and attacked. It’s impossible to know when, but it was certainly before the formation of the Empire. SM-33 and the ship kids found are definitely old, but Jod recognizes the controls, so it probably isn’t from too far in the past but definitely pre-Imperial. SM-33 and his captain got to At-Achrann at some point after it was originally destroyed — 33 references that the world was full of warriors even back then — so the captain isn’t the one who destroyed At Achrann, at least.

The captain is almost certainly the Supervisor. This could go one of two ways — the Supervisor knew the other “Jewels” were destroyed and went to each of them and destroyed the coordinates, hiring spacer crews and disposing of them or the captain found At Achrann, realized the other “Jewels” were found and destroyed, and went to At Atinn, destroying the coordinates to keep it for themselves. On At Atinn, this captain was able to get to the Supervisor, possibly by bluffing about being from the Republic, perhaps taking the post of Supervisor because they were a “Republic official,” or killed the Supervisor and has taken their place. A big clue for the latter is that the safety droid refuses Fern’s mother’s request to have an audience with the Supervisor after the children leave the planet. Maybe they don’t want anyone to know what they look like? Episode 4 deepened the mystery of Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, and where it could go next is anyone’s guess.

Star Wars: Skeleton Crew streams on Disney+ Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET.