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'Star Wars' Finally Explains How The Sith Wayfinder From 'The Rise Of Skywalker' Works

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By Culture SlatePublished 3 years ago 4 min read
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One of the new concepts that were introduced in Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker was that of the Sith Wayfinder. The movie itself didn’t reveal much about the pyramid-shaped devices that resemble a holocron but are something vastly different; these ancient artifacts were created by the Sith in order to navigate the dangerous hyperspace to the Sith world of Exegol, deep in the Unknown Regions at the western part of the galaxy. There were two of these devices: The first one was owned by Darth Vader and later acquired by his grandson Kylo Ren. The second one belonged to Darth Sidious and was on the second Death Star at the time of its destruction.

Rae Carson’s novelization of TROS goes a bit more into detail, describing that Ren got Vader’s Wayfinder from the Eye of Webbish Bog, a spider-like creature that lived in a symbiosis with a blind giant in a lake on Mustafar. These scenes were actually filmed, but ultimately cut from the movie, and so Kylo just takes Vader’s Wayfinder out of a stone container. In the recently released issue 8 of the Darth Vader comic series by Greg Pak, we learned that Vader received his Wayfinder from the same creature, although it is unclear how the device was returned to Mustafar and how Sidious got his.

Pablo Hidalgo’s Visual Dictionary for TROS sheds a little bit more light on these strange devices: they are at least 4.000 years old and were principally created by reverse-engineering the brains of the purrgil, giant space whales with the natural ability to travel through hyperspace which were introduced in the second season of Star Wars Rebels.

As the age of the Wayfinders precede Darth Bane’s Rule of Two by millennia, it is not entirely clear whether the two devices presented in Episode IX were the only ones that were ever built. And it is unknown if all Wayfinders (if there where more of them) were set for Exegol, or if it was possible to “program” them for other destinations, but as Darth Vader issue 9 mentions, navigational coordinates that are part of the glyphs at the base of the pyramid, it seems more likely that the end-point was fixed and could not be changed.

The Visual Dictionary furthermore states that both Sith and Jedi (as there were Jedi Wayfinders as well, like the compass that Luke discovered on Pillio) were able to infuse the devices with a presence in the Force. Strangely enough though, unlike holocrons, it doesn’t seem necessary to tap into either the light or the dark side of the Force to be able to use the Wayfinders. Instead, it was possible to “download” their data into modern nav computers, making the them more or less obsolete after their first use.

Justina Ireland’s recently released young adult novel A Test of Courage (part of the first wave of novels of the High Republic era) introduces a new Force ability called “wayfinding.” It is described as something that requires a lot of training and is thus usually performed by seasoned Jedi. Those who do perform wayfinding mentally search for the presences of living beings in the Force, no matter how far away they might be. If a larger number of such beings can be detected, they act as a kind of Force-beacon, and the Jedi then lets him- or herself be guided there by the Force.

Although the word “wayfinding” strongly suggests that this Force power is similar to the way the Wayfinders work, there are some stark differences between these two concepts: the focus of wayfinding seems to lie on basically locating a place that is strong in the Force or at least populated with a lot of beings with strong Force presences. The aspect of how to get to this place, once it has been found, doesn’t seem to be that important.

In Wayfinders, on the other hand, the point of destination is both pre-defined and known to the user, and the main purpose of the devices is to present a way how to get there and how to avoid all the obstacles that lie in its way.

Furthermore, the concept of wayfinding, as described in Ireland's book, is not new in Star Wars canon, only the name itself is: In the penultimate episode of season 6 of The Clone Wars, Master Yoda found the planet of the Five Priestesses by letting himself be guided there through the Force, and the Chiss used Force sensitive children as navigators when plotting hyperspace jumps through the Unknown Regions.

Still, it is far too early to give a final verdict on the similarities and differences between wayfinding and Wayfinders, as this Force power was just introduced into Star Wars lore by one single book, and the Sith devices where merely a McGuffin in just one Star Wars movie. It remains to be seen if future publications, movies, or TV shows will dive into this in more detail and further establish the Force power in Star Wars lore.

Written By Gerald Petschk

Syndicated From Culture Slate

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