The Acolyte Creator Confirmed Whether That Unknown Star Wars Planet Is Ahch-To
Contains spoilers for "The Acolyte" Episode 6, "Teach/Corrupt"
At long last, "The Acolyte" Episode 6, "Teach/Corrupt," has revealed some intriguing details about its apparent central villain, the Stranger (Manny Jacinto), aka the character "Star Wars" fans are thirsting over, Qimir. After his slaughter of several Jedi, he escapes to an unknown planet with Osha (Amandla Stenberg), who has swapped places with her sister, Mae (Stenberg). He recalls once training as a Jedi before his master ultimately betrayed him, leading him down a much darker path. While this information about Qimir is intriguing, many fans couldn't help but wonder about where he and Osha actually are during this conversation. Could the water-covered planet featuring a handful of islands be Ahch-To from "Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi"?
With speculation running rampant among "Star Wars" fans, "The Acolyte" creator Leslye Headland spoke to Collider and set the record straight. "It's not Ahch-To. I know it's similar, and it was intentionally supposed to be similar in terms of terrain and feeling isolated and surrounded by water and less lush green and more rocky," she said, describing the planet as Qimir's "home base" because of its lightsaber-resisting cortosis deposits. Headland added that the planet was also kept vague because it's not one that has been charted by the Jedi just yet.
With that in mind, could this planet be a different one that longtime "Star Wars" fans are familiar with?
If it's not Ahch-To, is this planet Bal'demnic?
If the identity of this planet is to be figured out, perhaps going purely by the aesthetics isn't the best approach. Rather, maybe the truth of it lies in its most valuable resource: cortosis. The rare metal has hardly been explored in "Star Wars" canon so far, with "The Acolyte" putting it on display more than any project to date. So, to figure out which planet could have it in high supply, we look to the non-canon "Star Wars" Legends continuity, also known as the "Star Wars" Expanded Universe. As it turns out, there's a specific planet that not only resembles the one Qimir and Osha are on, but is known for its cortosis content.
Bal'demnic is an ocean planet located in the Outer Rim territories that was introduced in the animated "Star Wars: Clone Wars" series. It's expanded upon greatly in the "Darth Plagueis" novel by James Luceno, where it's explained that it contains a high amount of cortosis — something that doesn't go unnoticed by the Sith Lord Darth Tenebrous. He launches a mining expedition there but doesn't get far before Plagueis, his apprentice and one of the most powerful Sith in the "Star Wars" universe, strikes him down and takes it for himself.
Between its oceanic nature, high amounts of cortosis, and importance to the story of Darth Plagueis — which unfolds around the same time as "The Acolyte" — could the planet seen in "Teach/Corrupt" indeed be Bal'demnic? We'll just have to wait and see as "The Acolyte" Season 1 continues.