Out of the Shadows Continuity Breakdown

Out of the Shadows is out today, furthering the story of the High Republic in a great young adult novel from Justina Ireland. Beware of spoilers, but this one is divided into sections like last time that can be read individually without spoilers for the rest.

Chapters 1-7

• The connections to other The High Republic stories are too numerous to name, with plotlines continuing from The Rising Storm, Into the Dark, A Test of Courage, and The High Republic Adventures. There are a couple of teases that I suspect we might see pay off elsewhere as well.
• The book has a couple of references to Galaxy’s Edge, starting on the very first page with a mention of Batuu.
• The book introduces the Graf family to this era in a big way. The family was introduced in Adventures in Wild Space, a series of books co-written by The High Republic author Cavan Scott, before being further fleshed out by him in the Adventures comics. In the Imperial era, they’re shown to be independent stellar cartographers; this book reveals they became rich doing the same thing hundreds of years prior.
• Hynestia and Neral’s moon, the primary settings of Lando’s Luck, get a few mentions throughout the book.
• Chancey Yarrow organized something called the Lastelle Collective, which I presume might have some relation to the Lastelle system from Lords of the Expanse, which laid on a shipping lane.
• Xylan uses a datacron, similar to a holocron’s use of storing information but without any connection to the Force. The term was first used in The Old Republic materials, though the idea of a purely technological holocron storage device goes back to the MacGuffin in Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter.
• The amorphous Master Nubarron is speculated to possibly be an unknown race of Filar-Nitzan, a gaseous West End Games species originally from Alliance Intelligence Reports.

Chapters 8-15

• Xylan has a carpet of gherlian fur, an export from Hynestia in Lando’s Luck.
• Wolk and Chancey knew each other while at the Academy of Carida, an institution introduced in the Jedi Academy Trilogy and mentioned in Solo. The book establishes that it long predates the Empire, which was also true in Legends, and once had a scope beyond just war.
• Xylan offers Syl Toniray, an Alderaanian wine that’s become a staple since Claudia Gray introduced it in Bloodline.
• It turns out that Chancey is behind the development of modern gravity-well projectors, which will eventually evolve into Interdictors. The idea goes back to early West End Games, and the Empire can be seen testing them in Rebels.
• At long last, we get our introduction to Yaddle in the High Republic era, with the reveal that she’s been on sabbatical so far. She speaks normally and not with Yoda’s speech patterns, like Vandare Tokare in Knights of the Old Republic and unlike her depiction in Legends.
• Emerick Caphtor, one of the upcoming protagonists in Marvel’s Trail of Shadows miniseries, has a cameo in Stellan’s office. Stellan gives him a mission involving a “difficult” Republic liaison, directly setting up the plot of the comic.

Chapters 16-41

• The San Tekka clan is said to have mapped through the Relgim Run, a route first mentioned in a short story published in Adventure Journal.
• Chancey mentions that some ancient texts reference the Jedi and Sith of old being able to navigate hyperspace using the Force, though it’s unheard of in the modern day. It’s probably a coincidence but I liked how this reminded me of Tales of the Jedi, which I always thought of as mythic: following the death of her husband, Nomi Sunrider uses the Force as a guide through space to find Jedi Master Thon.
• Syl drinks moof juice while with the others, which is one of the drinks you can find at Galaxy’s Edge.
• Jordanna mentions that her San Tekka uncles, the ones seen in Light of the Jedi, are very into the Church of the Force. So was their descendant Lor San Tekka, as revealed by The Force Awakens: The Visual Dictionary. The idea of the Church is one originally developed for George Lucas’ unmade live action TV series.
• Syl has memories of her mother not letting her go to Zeltros for a festival. Zeltros and the very party-prone Zeltrons are from the original Marvel Star Wars run.
• The book ends with the Jedi moving close to capturing Lourna Dee, directly setting up the events of the upcoming Tempest Runner audio drama.