Skeleton Crew is all about four kids from At Attin who get lost in the galaxy and are trying to find their way back home – only to discover that no one knows where it is. This mystery of At Attin is something especially interesting about the series, and episode three gave us quite a bit of context about it.
As Jod Na Nawood tries to “help” the kids get back home, he pays a visit to a “friend”, Kh’ymm. Though she’s stalling them to try to give time for the New Republic to arrive and rescue the kids, she also does seem to provide legitimate help for the kids by explaining why At Attin is so hard to find. She tells them:
You see, your home has been purposely hidden from the rest of the galaxy. There is no map to At Attin. No, this scroll depicts the Jewels of the Old Republic. Planets of wonders kept hidden for their protection. Long ago, they were all destroyed, except for one. At Attin. Now only remembered in children’s stories, pirate shanties, and rumors believed by fools. But I’ve always believed.
I really love this concept – it’s like Treasure Planet, but in Star Wars. It’s the first time we’ve heard about these jewels, but it does harken back to the Old Republic era, thousands of years prior to the Skywalker Saga. The current Star Wars canon has hardly touched this era (whereas in Legends it was a major deal), so it’s always fun to get a revelation like this one. And I think it’s a terrific development to have nine “Jewels of the Old Republic” (aka nine treasure worlds) that were hidden away. And the story of eight of them being discovered and destroyed is practically begging to be told, so I’m hoping that Star Wars begins to do that soon (an animated series exploring that story would be great). Was it the Sith, during the ancient Sith Wars, who destroyed these planets?
We don’t know, but I’m thrilled by these developments and immediately intrigued. But it does also leave some questions, most notably: has At Attin been closed off ever since then? Has it been hidden away for over one thousand years? And if that’s the case, does it mean that the technology they have on the planet is also that old? We’ll see that as the series develops.
But this episode also showed us examples of how closed off the planet is. First, the parents of the missing kids were told by the government that any contact outside the barrier is forbidden, meaning contact with the outside galaxy is against the law. Next, Neel mentions learning about Coruscant and Alderaan in school, and when Kh’ymm makes a joke about missing the war (since Alderaan was destroyed in the Civil War), Neel doesn’t know anything about the war. They are completely out of touch with the outside galaxy. And, finally, Fern’s patch that she wears uses Palmarisk numerals, which Kh’ymm says she’s never seen “used in proto-Republic artifacts”. It seems that these numerals might be the Star Wars equivalent of ancient Greek, or something like that. In other words: this planet is really old, and really cut off from everything else in the galaxy.
So really, we learned a lot in this episode about At Attin, and about the Old Republic, and I can’t emphasize enough how much I love the developments we got this week. But just what is the treasure hidden on the planet that led to it being a Jewel of the Old Republic and hidden away in the first place? What is the Great Work being completed on At Attin? And what role does the Supervisor and the planetary government play in all of this? Those are questions that remain to be answered – but, so far, I’m really enjoying the mystery.
Besides, Obi-Wan Kenobi would surely be relieved to know he’s not the only one who loses planets every now and then.
Star Wars Thoughts 