This Star Wars Jedi: Survivor article contains spoilers.
The High Republic is one of the newest eras on the Star Wars timeline and it currenty largely exists in the pages of the books and comics. Fans who have been following The High Republic series since it launched in 2021 know this era is a time of relative peace in the galaxy set 500 to 100 years before A New Hope.
The Jedi Order are at the height of their powers and the Sith are nowhere to be found (although we know they’re out there somewhere). Instead, the biggest threats to the majestic, gold robe-wearing Jedi Knights of this era are a faction of pirate terrorists known as the Nihil and a swarm of plant monsters called the Drengir. There’s no Empire or Clone Army or Jedi Purge. In other words, this is a very different Star Wars galaxy than what you’ve watched in the movies and TV series thus far — a new Disney+ show called The Acolyte will change that in 2024, though.
It’s no wonder that Dagan Gera, a new Jedi Knight players meet in the video game Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, experiences whiplash when he wakes from his long slumber on the distant Outer Rim planet of Koboh during the reign of the Empire. When Jedi hero Cal Kestis finally discovers Dagan, the High Republic era Jedi has been asleep in a statis tank for 200 years for reasons we discover as the game progresses. At first, Cal believes that a full-fledged Jedi Knight like Dagan can help him in his fight against the Empire, but he’s actually made a terrible mistake by freeing him from the tank.
Dagan turns out to be one of the game’s major villains, having turned to the dark side after a failed mission to a hidden planet called Tanalorr during the High Republic era. We learn through flashbacks that Dagan had once led a Jedi expedition through a space anomaly near Koboh to reach Tanalorr, where he hoped to establish a new, secret Jedi Temple. After an attack by the Nihil, Tanalorr is lost to Dagan and the Jedi, and Dagan blames the Jedi Council for not better protecting this secret enclave. Obsessed with getting Tanalorr back, he becomes corrupted and close friend and Jedi Master Santari Khri is forced to stop him, severing his arm and putting him in a Bacta tank before leaving Koboh for good.
Now back, Dagan plans to find Tanalorr and raise a new army, with the help of a group of marauders known as the Bedlam Raiders, to take down the Empire and rule the galaxy as he sees fit. Learning that the Jedi Order of Cal’s era fell to the Sith and allowed the Empire to rise from under their very noses only strengthens Dagan’s view that the Jedi are too weak to do what needs to be done to “protect” the galaxy.
The rest of the game becomes a race against time between Cal, Dagan, and the Empire to reach Tanalorr, one that results in many casualties along the way. For Cal, reaching Tanalorr is a chance to help the Hidden Path underground network (first introduced in Obi-Wan Kenobi) to find a safe haven for fugitive Jedi trying to escape the Empire and their Inquisitors. In the end, Cal manages to defeat Dagan, but to do so, Cal comes closer than ever before to his own corruption.
It’s a captivating arc for both the game’s hero and main villain, and it also reveals that not all was as it seemed during the High Republic era. Even though we know the temptation of the dark side is always there (such as with Jedi Master Sskeer in the comics), it was believed that the altruistic Jedi Knights of this golden age largely lived in harmony with one another as they brought peace to unexplored corners of the galaxy. But now we know that even during the High Republic era, Jedi fell to the dark side and hatched nefarious plans for their own gains — even if in Dagan’s case, it all began with good intentions.
We know we’ll learn much more about the darker corners of the High Republic in The Acolyte, which is said to finally reveal what the Sith were up to while the galaxy was distracted with other matters. But for now, Dagan has given us our first glimpse at the corruption that would eventually infect the rest of the Jedi and the Republic of Cal Kestis’ time.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is out now on Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC.