In last night’s new episode of Star Wars: The Acolyte, entitled “Choice,” we learned why the four Jedi characters were stationed on the planet Brendok to begin with– they were searching for a “vergence” in the Force, which is a long-established bit of Star Wars lore. Let’s explore what that means and how it relates to the Great Hyperspace Disaster from Star Wars: The High Republic, which is also briefly mentioned in the episode.
A Force vergence, also called a “nexus point,” is described by Wookieepedia as “a place in the galaxy where the Force flowed the most freely, in a concentrated wellspring of energy that could be more easily harnessed by those sensitive to its power.” The dark-side cave on Dagobah was one, as was the spire on Coruscant which served as the construction site for the Jedi Temple. But in addition to being centered around specific locations, in both the Legends timeline and in the current Star Wars canon, a vergence could also be focused on an object or a person. Several objects in Legends were considered vergences, such as the Tear of the Elders, the Grimoire of Syclos the Lame, and the Bardottan Sphere. And in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn makes it clear that a vergence in the Force was centered around Anakin Skywalker himself, the “Chosen One” who would eventually become known as the Sith Lord Darth Vader.
In The Acolyte, Master Indara says, “A hundred years ago this planet was catalogued as lifeless because of a hyperspace disaster. Yet this planet, Brendok, is thriving.” The Great Hyperspace Disaster took place in the first-ever novel to be released in Lucasfilm’s Star Wars: The High Republic publishing initiative– Light of the Jedi by Charles Soule, which was indeed set 100 years prior to the events of The Acolyte in the canon Star Wars timeline. It involved a freight transport ship called the Legacy Run that was carrying 9,000 settlers from the Core Worlds who were relocating to the galaxy’s Outer Rim. During its journey through hyperspace, the Legacy Run collided with a ship belonging to a band of ruthless marauders known as the Nihil using a specially configured “Path engine” (otherwise such an incident should have been impossible, or at least extremely unlikely). The Legacy Run was torn apart and its various sections emerged from hyperspace into realspace along numerous different points in its route.
I believe the implication of what Indara says in The Acolyte is that Brendok was impacted by one of these “emergences,” causing life to be obliterated from the planet– perhaps similar to the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago on Earth. But the odd thing is that life on Brendok regenerated over the course of a century when it should have taken much longer, and that’s why the Jedi are there investigating the possibility of a vergence, which Indara calls “a concentration of Force energy centered around a location.” Sol follows that up by adding, “A vergence could create life like what we see on this planet. It’s a power that should be studied… protected. Nothing could be more important to the Jedi.” Later on in the episode, a blood test performed on the Force-sensitive twins Mae and Osha leads the Jedi to believe that the vergence might actually be centered around the girls themselves, much like Anakin Skywalker another century later in the larger chronology.
Indara theorizes that the twins could have been created by “tapping into a power dense enough to split one consciousness into two bodies.” So it sounds to me like the witches on Brendok may have used the planet’s vergence in the Force to imbue their daughters with a vergence of their own, but what the significance of that will be in the big picture has yet to be revealed. With just one episode left to go, here’s hoping that The Acolyte finale delivers some satisfying resolutions to its many remaining mysteries.
The season (or series?) finale of Star Wars: The Acolyte will be released next Tuesday evening, July 16th, exclusively via Disney+.