Jedi Master Vernestra is the only recurring character in The Acolyte so far.
The fog is gradually clearing – even beyond the new Star Wars series The Acolyte. For four years now, Disney’s or Lucasfilm’s story team has been weaving one story after another, spanning centuries before to bring the nine big Star Wars films to life.
The so-called High Republic era has now even made it beyond comics and books into the world of video games, most recently playing a very prominent role in Star Wars Jedi: Survivor. With the live-action series The Acolyte, the High Republic will now celebrate its debut in the large Star Wars canon of films and series from June 2024.
The only question that arises is: Where exactly does the new series fit into the timeline? The High Republic has now spanned several centuries, and the first trailer for The Acolyte also presents an almost completely new cast that has not previously played a role in the High Republic books.
High Republic? Timeline? Bitte, was?
Don’t worry, we’ll help you find your way and give you all the information you need to be perfectly prepared for The Acolyte.
When does The Acolyte play now?
Okay, now it’s getting technical for a moment: In the Star Wars canon, years are measured in a similar way to the local BC. and AD in BBY and ABY.
BBY simply means Before Battle of Yavin, or even more simply: before the original Star Wars adventure of Luke, Leia, Han and the first Death Star in the very first movie Star Wars from 1977 (ABY then stands logically for After the Battle of Yavin).
Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace with baby Anakin and young Obi-Wan therefore takes place in 32 BBY, i.e. 32 years before the destruction of the First Death Star. And the era of the High Republic and The Acolyte take place a lot earlier.
What is the High Republic? In 2020, Disney launched a new storytelling initiative to bring to life a previously unexplored era of the Star Wars canon: the glory days of the Galactic Republic, when the Jedi protected the galaxy long before Star Wars 1 – 9 and truly without any decadence could live according to Jedi ideals. Since 2020 there have been tons of books and comics here, mainly about the Jedi Knights of this era.
If you just sort the big books and all the Star Wars films one after the other, the following chronology results:
Classic High Republic stories
The High Republic era overlaps with The Acolyte in some ways, but you probably don’t need to know the books and comics to understand the much later Acolyte series. Of course, certain characters like Vernestra or Yoda can appear in both.
- 382 BBY: The High Republic: Convergence
- 382 BBY: The High Republic: The Battle of Says
- 382 BBY: The High Republic: Cataclysm
- 232 BBY: The High Republic: Light of the Jedi
- 231 BBY: The High Republic: The Rising Storm
- 230 BBY: The High Republic: The Fallen Star
- 229 BBY: The High Republic: The Eye of Darkness
- 229 BBY: The High Republic: Temptation of the Force
The Acolyte
- ca. 150 – 130 BBY: According to the showrunner plays The Acolyte around 100 years before Star Wars: Episode 1, so logically sometime between 130 and 150 BBY. In the trailer for The Acolyte you can see Vernestra Rwoh, a Jedi master who also plays an important role in the High Republic books (as a youngster). As a Mirialan and through the Force, Vernestra ages slower than us normal humans, so her appearance in The Acolyte is pretty good.
1:46 The Acolyte: An assassin hunts Jedi Knights – first trailer for the new Star Wars series
The classic cinema films
- 32 BBY: Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Pantom Menace
- 22 BBY: Star Wars: Episode 2 – Attack of the Clones
- 19 BBY: Star Wars: Episode 3 – Revenge of the Sith
- 0 BBY: Star Wars: Episode 4 – A New Hope
- 3 TO: Star Wars: Episode 5 – The Empire Strikes Back
- 4 TO: Star Wars: Episode 6 – Return of the Jedi
Die Mandalorian-Era
- 9 TO: The Mandalorian
- 9 TO: Ahsoka
Who are the main characters of The Acolyte?
Of course, we don’t know all of the key players in The Acolyte yet, but the official Star Wars website already contains initial information about the characters shown in the trailer for the series. A lot of the descriptive text still sounds like placeholders… we hope that the characters in the series develop a little more depth.
Of course, it remains exciting to see which threads connect The Acolyte with the larger whole of the Star Wars canon.
The trailer already suggests a return of the Sith (or at least the return of dark Jedi), and it would also be entirely conceivable that some aspects of the High Republic predecessors would have an impact on the plot of The Acolyte. And then shimmering on the horizon is the new Quantic Dream game Star Wars: Eclipse, which also takes place in the High Republic era. Either way, this era is becoming more and more exciting.