WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Star Wars: The High Republic: The Rising Storm by Cavan Scott and Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures #5 by Daniel José Older, Harvey Tolibao, Pow Rodrix, Jake M. Wood, Rebecca Nalty, Elizabeth Brei and Riley Farmer, on sale now.
At the beginning of the Star Wars: The High Republic subseries, Marchion Ro, the leader of the Nihil, begins his war against the Republic by causing the Great Disaster, a hyperspace crash where the debris was flung throughout the galaxy, devastating multiple systems. Throughout the Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures comic book series, Marchion Ro has focused on retrieving artifacts connected with a mysterious weapon that he hopes to use against the Republic and the Jedi Order in particular. And in Cavan Scott’s Star Wars: The High Republic: The Rising Storm, Scott finally reveals this weapon: a beast known as the Great Leveler. While the full extent of the Great Leveler’s abilities are unknown, the beast seems to affect the Force, and it also has the ability to petrify any Jedi that come across its path.
The Great Leveler has been guarded by the Elders of the Path, a group that is specifically against using the Force. In The Rising Storm, Marchion Ro reveals that his family were once members of their society in a conversation with Kufa, the Elder assigned to bring Marchion Ro and his companion, Udi Dis, to the beast. While this connection is a new revelation, it fits with Marchion Ro’s rhetoric throughout the subseries, including his obsession with the hyperspace Paths. Marchion uses this connection to trick Kufa into taking him to the beast, who has been encased in ice.
One of Marchion Ro’s greatest talents lies in his charisma. He has the ability to make whoever he is talking to feel like the most important person in the world. Before the mission, Marchion Ro seems to be invested in Udi’s health, making him give up his drug addiction, and Marchion even allows Udi to call him by his first name. Udi believes that Marchion Ro has placed great trust in him, and Udi sees the mission as the first of many that he will undertake as he rises in the Nihil hierarchy. Instead, Marchion Ro only brought Udi along as a sacrificial lamb to test the Great Leveler’s abilities, and only took an interest in Udi’s health to make sure that his experiment would not be compromised.
Throughout the trip, Udi becomes disoriented on multiple occasions. The present and the past seem to blur as he walks, and he begins to have a hard time distinguishing between memories and what is actually happening around him. Udi describes the sensation as “something missing.” As the trio draws closer to the Leveler, Udi begins to feel as if he has been struck, lightheaded. Marchion Ro brings him to the beast. Udi is impaled by droids who guard the beast, but Marchion Ro strikes the final blow once he sees the extent of the Leveler’s power from within the ice. After Marchion Ro retrieves the Great Leveler, he focuses on removing the beast from its icy prison. He also reveals that the artifacts that he retrieved earlier now allow him to control the Great Leveler’s actions.
On Valo, the Jedi still seem to be winning the fight against the Nihil. Jedi Master Loden Greatstorm, first taken captive by the Nihil in Charles Soule’s Star Wars: The High Republic: Light of the Jedi, escapes and reunites with his Padawan, Bell Zettifar, which seems to further bruise Marchion Ro’s ego. In response, Marchion combines the halves of the artifact and orders the Great Leveler to attack the Jedi. He also has attached a camera to the beast’s back so that he can watch the carnage.
The attack is brief but devastating. When the creature approaches Bell and Loden, Bell feels as if the rest of the world falls away. He hears Loden screaming for help in the Force, but Bell can do nothing. Bell perceives the Great Leveler as a mist, “thicker than any war-cloud, denser than any fog. And there were teeth inside, teeth and claws and eyes and death. So many eyes. So much death.” Bell’s perceptions here are not the most reliable; he could be describing what the creature actually looks like, but he also could just be seeing his own mind’s interpretation of a horror that he struggles to comprehend. Bell’s observations continue, “The thing in the mist was everywhere at once—running, tearing, chasing him down—and there was nothing he could do, nowhere he could hide. It ripped through him, consuming everything he thought he was and everything he had yet to become.” Under the Great Leveler’s influence, Bell cannot access the Force and is powerless to defend himself.
After the attack ends, the other Jedi find Bell curled in a ball on the ground, still horrified. Nearby, the creature has turned Loden to stone. When Jedi Master Stellan Gios brushes Loden’s petrified cheek, what is left of Loden Greatstorm crumbles, leaving only ash behind.
While the Jedi have faced many horrors during the course of Star Wars: The High Republic, the Great Leveler surpasses them all on a personal level for the Order. The novel ends with the reveal of the Great Leveler and its powers, but the creature may wreak more havoc and slaughter more Jedi as Marchion Ro and the Nihil continue their rampage throughout the galaxy.
About The Author
