The Mystery of Starkiller Base and the Satisfying Answer

 Disney gets a lot of flack from toxic Star Wars fans, but as a member of the true fandom, I won't stop praising Disney for what it has delivered and continues to deliver. Over the past decade, Disney has built the largest canonical fictional universe that has ever existed in terms of cross-media storytelling. We are talking a dozen films, various cartoon and live action series, books, comics, and radio plays all following the same story with very little (if any) contradictory material.

The unsung heroes of this monumental accomplishment are the Lucasfilm Story Group (The Keepers of Canon). Individuals such as Leeland Chee and Pablo Hidaglo not only manage to keep everything straight, but they manage to pack in treat after treat for fans to find.

One such treat is Starkiller Base.

Now, initially there are a lot of story problems with Starkiller Base. One: Where did it come from? Two: Why can it destroy planets? Three: This is just another Death Star right? 

Starkiller is a totally unsatisfying plot device at first glance. But what if it isn't? What if it's just the largest Easter Egg every hidden in a galaxy of Easter Eggs? Allow me explain...

2001: Jedi Quest

We begin our story of Starkiller Base in the Fall of 2001. It has been a couple years since The Phantom Menace released and several months before Attack of the Clones. The first Jedi Quest book is published, a series which will chronicle Anakin's path from Jedi Padawan to Jedi Knight. The first task Anakin must complete in this series? The building of his lightsaber. So he travels to planet Ilum (which obviously comes from the word illuminate). The planet is covered in ice and features secret caves full of green and blue crystals. Anakin will use such a crystal for the core of his first lightsaber.

2012: The Gathering

In the Clone Wars Season 5, Ahsoka Tano brings six younglings to the planet Ilum, where they are to find crystals to power their lightsabers. They have one day to find their crystals and make it out, else they will be locked in the caves permanently. The crystals of Ilum now include the color purple (a reference to Mace Windu's purple lightsaber featured in Attack of the Clones). 

2015: The Force Awakens

Starkiller Base is featured in The Force Awakens as planet with a snow-covered landscape. According to The Force Awakens Visual Dictionary the icy world was selected for its unique-energy crystalline deposits. Okay... honestly we should have seen this coming.

2016: Rogue One

 The entire plot of Rogue One includes the fact that Kyber Crystals are used to power the Death Star. The same crystals used to power a lightsaber are used to power the Death Star. Are we making any connections yet, people?

November 2019: Jedi Fallen Order

When Cal Kestis travels to the planet Ilum to fix his broken lightsaber, it's looking very, very similar to Starkiller Base in The Force Awakens. This is basically proof right?

December 2019: The Rise of Skywalker Visual Dictionary

It's confirmed. The story team has been laying the breadcrumbs for a while, but they finally came out an said it. STARKILLER BASE IS PLANET ILUM! One of the most sacred planets in the old Jedi Order was stolen by the Empire and repurposed as a super weapon.

Now, through my research it became pretty obvious to me that the Lucasfilm story team knew that Starkiller Base was Ilum from the very beginning, but didn't confirm it until 4 years after the release of The Force Awakens. Bravo.

Other Star Wars Mysteries:

The Mystery of Max Reebo's arms: https://roadto7.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-strange-story-of-max-rebos-arms.html

The Mystery of the Sandspeeder: https://roadto7.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-mystery-of-sandspeeder.html