The New Era by John Jackson Miller

We've got an EXTRA AWESOME Star Wars Friday for you kids today! Star Wars writer John Jackson Miller has an exclusive look into Dark Horse's new comic series Star Wars Knight Errant! 

Star Wars: Knight Errant introduces Star Wars readers to a new era in the Galaxy Far, Far Away — and there’s something unusual (I was tempted to say, “novel”) about how we’re doing it. In conjunction with Del Rey, I’ve written an original novel that follows the events of the first Knight Errant comics storyline. But Dark Horse Comics readers will see this shared world first, in “Aflame,” the first comics storyline, shipping October 13.

Knight Errant is set a thousand years before Episode I: The Phantom Menace, and a generation before the start of the Darth Bane novels. This period is one of the darkest for the Republic. Unable to maintain control of the Outer Rim, the Republic has ceded control of large swaths of the galaxy to the Sith. The Jedi are needed at home — but some are not content to leave the people of the Outer Rim to the mercy of the Sith. Kerra Holt is one such Jedi. Having evacuated Sith space as a child, Kerra has one driving impulse in life: returning home to take up the fight. Working with Vannar Treece, a charismatic Jedi leader, she gets her chance, helping to organize a raid.

But there’s a problem. With Sith territory cut off from the Republic — even the communications relays have been deactivated — it’s impossible to know what they’re flying into. And what awaits them is chaos. There are Sith Lords without number on the Outer Rim. While they still have their eye on their Republic, they’re also squabbling among themselves for supremacy. Each Sith Lord has his or her own spin on Sith ideology, their own style for ruling their territories. Lord Daiman is a narcissist without any empathy whatsoever; his opponent (and brother), Lord Odion, thinks everyone in the universe would be better off dead. Other Sith are stranger still. But what they share in common is hatred of each other — and complete disinterest in what happens to the poor people who are caught in between. As Kerra finds out, it is a bad thing indeed to be stuck between warring Sith Lords!

Working on both the comics series and the novel has resulted a lot of extra care and attention to the realms we’re visiting. Daiman’s and Odion’s worldviews are expressed in everything from their outfits to their space fleets; we’ve even got a Star Wars Atlas special coming up for StarWars.com, showing what’s where (as far as the Jedi know).

And, importantly, the comics aren’t an adaptation of the novel or vice versa; they’re original stories, equally important. You don’t have to read one to enjoy the other. Really, it’s crafted more as a fun bonus; a chance for comics readers to learn more about the milieu, and for prose readers to see Kerra in action in a way that only comics can show.

Ultimately, it’s a chance, as with the Knights of the Old Republic series I wrote for years for Dark Horse, to blaze trails in a new time period — a period much darker than what we saw in that series, and with a protagonist who’s as serious as Zayne Carrick was easy-going. It’s a very different story in a lot of ways, but I think what both series have in common is that they’re odysseys. It’s a voyage of discovery for Kerra Holt, with space available for readers to come along for the ride.

Next stop, Sith territory. Strap yourself in!

John Jackson Miller is the writer of the comics series Star Wars: Knight Errant — #1 ships on October 13 — and the novel by the same name, on sale January 25, coincidentally five years to the day after the launch of his long-running Knights of the Old Republic series. His website is www.farawaypress.com.