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- "[The Great Leveler] lived behind a large containment shield in a room built of transparisteel that must have been meant for medical observation."
- ―Marda Ro, in her journal
A containment shield was a device with the ability block off access to an area and isolate it with a field. The device could be used on starships to cut off a room from the rest of the ship. By around 379 BBY, a containment field was installed on the ship known as the Gaze Electric and was used by Marda Ro—the ship's owner—to hold a beast known as the Great Leveler in the ship's medical observation room. Around that year, she deactivated the field to let the Leveler feed on a Jedi. Ro later recorded a message for her descendants in which she mentioned the containment shield. By 252 BBY, her great-great-grandson Marchion Ro had listened to the message mentioning the containment shield.
Description[]
Containment shields were devices that had the ability to generate a field that acted as a barrier between areas and blocked off access to the area on the other side of the field. It was possible to use containment shields on starships, where they were used to isolate a room from the rest of the ship.[1]
History[]
- "Rox dropped the Jedi beside the containment shield, and I turned it off."
- ―Marda Ro, in her journal
The Gaze Electric (pictured) was equipped with a containment shield.
By around 379 BBY,[2] a containment field was installed on the Gaze Electric, a ship belonging to Marda Ro—the Evereni[1] founder of a group of pirates who would eventually become the Nihil.[3] She[4] used the containment field to cage the Great Leveler—a monster that preyed on the Living Force—in the Gaze Electric's medical observation room.[1] Around that year,[2] Ro assaulted a Jedi and brought him aboard the Gaze. Her subordinate Rox dropped the Jedi next to the containment shield behind which the Leveler lived. Ro then deactivated the shield to allow the Leveler to feed on the Jedi and ushered it back into the room once it had turned the Jedi's body into a stone-like husk. Later, Ro mentioned the shield in a message she recorded for her descendants.[1] By 252 BBY,[5] during his youth, Ro's great-great-grandson Marchion Ro had listened to her journal, including the entry where the containment shield was mentioned.[4]
Behind the scenes[]
A containment shield appeared in the current Star Wars canon in a flashback in the short story "A Closed Fist Has No Claws," written by Tessa Gratton and published in the 2023 young-adult anthology The High Republic: Tales of Light and Life as a part of the Star Wars: The High Republic multimedia project.[1] The technology originated in the Star Wars Legends continuity, where it first appeared in the short story "Of Possible Futures: The Tale of Zuckuss and 4-LOM," written by M. Shayne Bell and published in the 1996 short story anthology Tales of the Bounty Hunters.[6]
Appearances[]
- "A Closed Fist Has No Claws" — The High Republic: Tales of Light and Life (First appearance, simultaneous with audiobook) (In flashback(s))
- "A Closed Fist Has No Claws" — The High Republic: Tales of Light and Life audiobook (In flashback(s))
Notes and references[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.8 1.9 "A Closed Fist Has No Claws" — The High Republic: Tales of Light and Life
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "A Closed Fist Has No Claws" establishes that the section depicting the Jedi's death aboard the Gaze Electric takes place when Marda Ro is roughly eighteen years old. The High Republic: Path of Deceit, which Star Wars: The High Republic Character Encyclopedia dates the events of to 382 BBY, establishes both that members of the Path of the Open Hand receive full membership at the age of fifteen and that Ro had recently become a full member, meaning that she is around fifteen years old. Therefore, the section of "A Closed Fist Has No Claws" depicting the Jedi's death must take place around 379 BBY.
- ↑
Interview with Tessa Gratton: "A Closed Fist Has No Claws" (TALES OF LIGHT & LIFE) on the Friends of the Force: A Star Wars Podcast YouTube channel (October 6, 2023) (backup link)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 The High Republic: Temptation of the Force
- ↑ "The Lie" chapter in The High Republic: Eye of the Storm 1, which includes Shalla Ro's death, features Asgar Ro's ascension to Eye of the Nihil, an event dated to 252 BBY by Star Wars: The High Republic Character Encyclopedia. As The High Republic: Temptation of the Force establishes she introduced Marchion Ro to Marda Ro's journal, he must have listened to it by that year.
- ↑ "Of Possible Futures: The Tale of Zuckuss and 4-LOM" — Tales of the Bounty Hunters