Destruction of Starlight Beacon

Following the Attack on Valo, the Galactic Republic initiated a crackdown on the activities of the pirate group known as the Nihil. This initiative, named Operation: Counterstrike, resulted in conflicts on planets like Cyclor, Galov, and various other locations throughout the galaxy. Simultaneously, the Nihil began testing their novel living weapon, identified as the Great Leveler, against the Jedi Order on the planets Grizal and Xais. These tests led to the demise of Loden Greatstorm and the hospitalization of the Force-sensitive bond-twins, Terec and Ceret. Marshal Avar Kriss, deciding to intervene directly, resolved to lead a team in pursuit of Lourna Dee and her Tempest within No-Space.

After Starlight Beacon relocated to the planet Eiram to provide aid to the injured and assist in rebuilding the infrastructure following a devastating cyclone disaster, Jedi High Council member Stellan Gios cautioned Kriss about the Council's recommendation for prudence. Kriss disregarded Gios's warning and proceeded with her plan, accompanied by fellow Jedi Keeve Trennis, Sskeer, OrbaLin, Goonral Monshi, and Nooranbakarakana. Consequently, Gios assumed Kriss's position as marshal of the station.

Having acquired several Nameless during the mission to Planet X, Marchion Ro, the clandestine leader of the Nihil, initiated his scheme to destroy Starlight Beacon. He dispatched three devoted followers, Cale, Werrera, and Leyel, disguised as workers, to the space station aboard a ship ostensibly carrying Rathtars but actually containing seven Nameless creatures. Upon arrival, the three began to sabotage the station, while the concealed Nameless disrupted the Jedi's connection to the Force, causing Gios to suffer from insomnia and nightmares.

The Jedi stationed at Starlight Beacon developed varying theories regarding the source of the disturbance, ranging from the recently arrived rathtars to the pervasive stress and fear induced by the Nihil's attacks, or simply fatigue from recent battles. Meanwhile, the Nihil operatives discovered former Nihil members Nan and Chancey Yarrow imprisoned on the station and decided to liberate them to aid in their mission and to honor Nan's fallen comrade, Hague.

Ro also orchestrated simultaneous attacks on the Echerta system, Aleen, Yeksom, Japeal, and Tais Brabbo, forcing the Republic to disperse its forces across the galaxy in response. Starlight Beacon also provided refuge and opened its hangar bays to accommodate individuals seeking ship repairs, medical assistance, and protection from the Nihil attacks, thereby straining the station's capacity.

Initially dismissive of the disturbance, Jedi Regald Coll decided to investigate the anomaly after consulting with Orla Jareni, a Jedi who had recently arrived at the station and sensed the disruption in the Force. Jareni's confirmation that the issue originated within the station prompted Coll to trace the disturbance toward the cargo hold. Coll, along with fellow Jedi Jareni and Indeera Stokes, separated to investigate the source. Coll approached the location where the Nameless lurked and was subsequently killed by the creatures. Stokes also neared the area, and although she survived, her confrontation with the Nameless resulted in a coma. Jareni discovered Stokes and transported her to the medical tower. Coll's body was also located, but it had been reduced to ashes upon being touched. Stokes's injuries were so severe that her own Padawan, Bell Zettifar, could not sense her presence in the Force while lying beside her. While examining the scene, Jedi Master Elzar Mann realized that he was unaffected by the Nameless due to his detachment from the Force.

Avar Kriss, arriving in the Eiram system aboard the cruiser Ataraxia after capturing Lourna Dee and much of her Tempest, contacted Starlight Beacon and engaged in a dispute with Stellan Gios regarding her actions. Simultaneously, Ro's agents initiated their plan by detonating the bombs, severing all communications within the station, isolating the top half of Starlight from the bottom half, locking all hangar bays, unleashing the Nameless upon the Jedi, shutting off the lights in the medical tower, and propelling the station into Eiram's gravitational field.

Sensing the shockwaves of the explosion, Avar Kriss directed the Ataraxia to board the top half of the station by cutting through the hull with her lightsaber. She discovered numerous individuals trapped on the station and began leading them toward the Ataraxia. However, herself, Nooranbakarakana, and Keeve Trennis began to experience the effects of the Nameless, perceiving Sskeer as a monstrous figure. Avar activated her lightsaber in defense of Trennis, whom she believed Sskeer intended to attack. Sskeer, unaffected by the Nameless due to his disconnection from the Force, attacked the creatures and drove them away, saving Trennis and Kriss, but not before Nooranbakarakana was transformed into a husk. Sskeer assured Trennis that they would meet again before engaging the Nameless himself.

Following their successful mission in capturing Kisma Uttersond, Jedi Master Emerick Caphtor and investigator Sian Holt, accompanied by Beesar Tal-Apurna, arrived at the burning Starlight Beacon.

Realizing the failure of all communications, Elzar Mann, Stellan Gios, and fellow Jedi Nib Assek convened and discovered that all of the station's lifts were disabled and the maintenance shafts were contaminated with dangerous levels of radiation. The Jedi in the bottom part of Starlight then gathered at the quartermaster's office to strategize their next move. However, Assek separated from the group to further investigate the mysterious creatures. While inspecting the location where Regald Coll had died, Assek suddenly felt the surrounding air grow cold and observed a shadow across the corridor. She cautiously pursued the shadow, but she began to experience terror for the first time in years, sensing not only the overwhelming darkness of the creature but also its hunger. Pilot Leox Gyasi managed to bypass Starlight's communications blockade on his ship, the Vessel, enabling Gios to contact the Jedi Council and inform them of the situation. However, he learned that by the time any Republic forces capable of rescuing them could arrive, they would likely be dead.

Elsewhere on the station, Jedi Master Torban Buck and Jedi Knight Qort, along with several other skilled Jedi, battled the Nameless to protect the younglings and Padawans aboard the station. Qort managed to wound one of the creatures, and Buck acquired some of the monsters' blood on his clothing, but numerous other Jedi were killed by the Nameless. Adding to the chaos, Nihil prisoners escaped their cells and fought against the Jedi in an attempt to flee the collapsing station.

Investigating the explosion, an Eiram medical cruiser circled the medical tower of Starlight to assess the situation. From the tower, Bell Zettifar amplified the communication range of an LT-16 droid to communicate with the cruiser. The cruiser provided Zettifar and Burryaga Agaburry with a scan of the station's damage, prompting the Padawans to regroup with the other Jedi trapped on the bottom half of Starlight to formulate a plan. Zettifar and Agaburry were dispatched to calm the crowds in the docking bay. There, they realized the auxiliary power was failing, so the two Jedi assembled a team and worked to restore it. Elzar Mann descended into the maintenance tube to acquire more power cells to enhance the life support system when he felt the station begin to fracture.

On board the Ataraxia, Jedi archivist OrbaLin also observed the station breaking apart but believed they could still salvage the situation by activating the cruiser's tractor beams to stabilize the superstructure. However, at that moment, Lourna Dee's Tempest broke free of the Ataraxia's cells and moved to seize control of the ship. Monshi attempted to repel them and warned OrbaLin of the attack, but Dee managed to reach the bridge and fatally shot the archivist in the head, avenging her defeat during the Attack on Valo. Witnessing the station's disintegration, Lourna decided to steal the Ataraxia and escape.

On the Vessel, Stellan Gios informed Queen Thandeka of Eiram about the dire situation. Although she lamented the situation, she warned him that the second half of the station was likely to crash into one of their largest cities below, and they might eventually have to destroy the station to save thousands of lives on the ground. He approved, and she assured him that they would grant them as much time as possible to repair, save their half of the station, and rescue everyone remaining on board.

As Sian Holt's ship approached the station, Emerick Caphtor began to experience the effects of the Nameless on board Starlight. Uttersond explained that the Nameless, sometimes referred to as the Shrii-ka-rai: Eaters of the Force, induced hallucinations in Force users through unknown mechanisms. Observing the station splitting apart, Uttersond urged them to evacuate the area, but Emerick refused and insisted on boarding the station to assist anyone who could escape. They crashed their ship into the station, where they encountered Torban Buck and his group of younglings and padawans. Qort guided the padawans onto the ship while Buck explained the situation. Caphtor, Holt, Qort, Uttersond, and Beesar ventured deeper into the station to gather more information about the Nameless and confronted one in a hallway. Experiencing the creature's effects, Caphtor was nearly killed, but Holt shot the creature, and Caphtor severed one of its hands. Uttersond detonated a grenade, killing the creature but attracting the Nihil prisoners. The Nihil forced the Jedi group to retreat back to the ship. Buck gave Caphtor his robes, which were covered in the blood of the Nameless from his battles with them, and ran into the station to continue fighting while Caphtor and Holt left the station, having obtained samples of the Nameless and rescued a group of younger Jedi from certain death.

Meanwhile, Elzar Mann managed to restore communications on what remained of Starlight. Mann then collaborated with Logistics droid JJ-5145 to repair the life support system. While traversing the corridors, Stellan Gios encountered one of the Nameless, which disoriented and weakened him. Gios managed to use an airlock to isolate himself from the Nameless, saving himself. Meanwhile, Bell Zettifar successfully stabilized the auxiliary power, and he and Burryaga Agaburry went to locate Orla Jareni, only to discover her corpse, along with the corpse of Nib Assek, who had been searching for Orla. After he and Gios were informed of their deaths, Mann decided to enlist the help of the other non-Force-sensitive individuals on Starlight to seal off the corridors in order to contain the Nameless on what remained of the station, as they seemed to have no interest nor have any noticeable effect on those who didn't use the Force.

On the ground, Eiram began evacuating its cities, particularly those in the coastal regions. Although many citizens initially doubted the possibility of the station's destruction, as time passed, more and more people recognized the severity of the situation and evacuated inland.

Avar Kriss and Keeve Trennis arrived at the hub of Starlight, where they discovered Jedi Master Estala Maru using the Force to hold the station together, preventing it from disintegrating in an attempt to give more people a chance to escape. He urged them to leave the station, but they refused. While Trennis went to the healing chamber to get the twins, Terec and Ceret out of the station, Kriss assisted Maru in holding the station together, while also activating her Force network to empower the other Jedi still fighting aboard the station, including Mann, Buck, Vernestra Rwoh, Gios, Agaburry, Trennis, and Zettifar. Trennis reached the healing chambers, but an explosion created a breach in the wall that began to pull her into space. She was rescued by the twins, who awakened due to Kriss's network and used the Force to hold her. Trennis then rushed them to the escape pods. As the top half of the station entered the atmosphere, it began to burn up, disrupting Kriss's network. Maru instructed Kriss to leave, but she refused to abandon him. Anticipating her response, he had KC-78 push her into an escape pod, saving her and KC-78, but sacrificing himself as the top half of the station burned up in the atmosphere. Mann felt Maru's sacrifice as he watched the top half of the station separate from the bottom and burst into flames after his death. Following the separation, the hub remained intact for a brief period before it, along with everyone inside, was engulfed in flames.

After witnessing the destruction of the top half of the station, Leox Gyasi's co-pilot Affie Hollow decided to use the Vessel's communications system to hack into Eiram's satellites and broadcast a wider call for help across the galaxy, hoping someone could arrive to save the day. Although some initially dismissed the message as a prank or Nihil propaganda, word of the situation on Eiram soon spread throughout the galaxy. Within minutes, civilian spacecraft from across the galaxy began converging on Eiram to offer assistance. Some planetary governments that had been attacked by the Nihil in the past dispatched their flotillas and medical ships to provide aid. Even Chancellor Lina Soh implored people across the galaxy to assist the Jedi. As a fleet of mostly civilian craft began to appear in the system, hoping to help in any way they can, Marchion Ro's Gaze Electric arrived hidden in the crowd in order for him to watch the burning of Starlight in person. He also ordered all Nihil forces to refrain from attacking the station any further. Meanwhile on Eiram, Avar Kriss began to channel her strength to those who remained on Starlight through her Force song, hoping for their survival.

While sealing off the corridors, Bell Zettifar devised a plan to save some of the people on the station by having them board the ships in the cargo bay and trigger an explosion on the cargo doors to allow those ships to escape. However, during this plan, he accidentally released several rathtars that were on a cargo ship. Activating their lightsabers, Zettifar and Agaburry engaged the creatures. Zettifar killed one by stabbing it through its body, and then someone set off an emergency flare, distracting the creatures enough for them to flee and seal the rathtars in the cargo bay.

Gios instructed Zettifar to return to the medical tower to find a way to evacuate the patients there. Mann proposed a plan to use the retrofitting subsystems to reconfigure Starlight Beacon so smaller ships could fly inside it. This would enable them to move from the docking bay to the cargo bay, allowing them to leave the station when the Jedi opened the bay via explosive decompression. The reconfiguration would also allow Mann to use a repair pod to travel down to the positional thrusters and mechanically get them working. With the growing tensions, partly caused by one of the civilians on board the station, Koley Linn, a fight broke out within the docking bay. When Gios arrived on the scene, lightsaber in hand, Linn aimed his blaster at a kid and tried to force his reckless plan of escape, but then the Vessel's Navigator Geode jumped between Linn and the kid. Linn fired onto Geode, only for the blaster bolt to be shot back onto Linn, killing him. After explaining the plan to the assembled refugees, Mann lead them through the station and into the cargo bay. As the group arrived, they were attacked by rathtars. He and Agaburry fought them, but were failing due to the effects of the Nameless weakening them. Mann was able to get the cargo doors open, causing explosive decompression and allowing many people to escape the station in their ships, but Burryaga was chased by the rathtars and was believed to have died in the decompression.

As he made his way back to the tower, Zettifar formed a plan, realizing the medical tower could theoretically be separated from the rest of Starlight if he created a large enough explosion that could push the tower out of the station. After getting his plan approved by Gios, Zettifar constructed a crude bomb and set the bomb at the base of the medical tower, closing every air lock he could on the way back up. He detonated the explosives, and the tower blew away from the falling station and was caught by the Eiram medical cruiser's tractor beam. As the station got farther away, Bell felt his connection to the Force growing stronger yet again.

As the window to destroy the station before it crashed on Eiram's surface got closer, the Eiram government debated on destroying the station, however Queen Dima refused to do so, even as her defense minister argued otherwise. She reminded them that they had known and accepted every risk since the station arrived in the first place, and refused to let the Nihil turn them into murderers.

Mann began to make his way down what was left of the station in a shuttle, passing by a Nameless on the way down. At the bottom of the station, Nan and Chauncey Yarrow were trying to repair the thrusters when Werrera, Cale, and Leyel came and fought to stop them, but the three were killed by the duo. The two women got back to work, and nearly repaired the station in time, but Mann arrived, and assuming they were further sabotaging the ship, sliced Yarrow in half with his lightsaber, killing her. Only then did he realize they had been trying to save the station, all too late as the station fell past the point of saving. Nan ran off while Stellan arrived to the controls.

After the patients on the medical tower were secured, Zettifar got into a shuttle and flew back to Starlight to see if he could help in some way. Getting in contact with Affie Hollow, they worked together to restore and free the escape pods, which he visibly confirmed as safe from his distance before they launched. As the station grew closer to the ground, Leox Gyasi decided to take a risk, since now most of the people aboard the station had already left, leaving only a few behind. He brought out a thermal detonator that was hidden on the Vessel and used it to blow a hole in the doors. From there, he was able to get out and open the doors. However, after doing this, Gyasi himself was pulled out into the atmosphere, although his glider suit was able to save him from his death. With the doors finally opened, the remaining ships were able to escape at last, including Nan, who decided to steal Kaley Linn's ship, the Ace of Staves and escape.

Gios sent Mann back up the station to escape. On his way out, Mann came across an injured Sullustan and helped him to an escape pod. Mann got into another pod and escaped the station alive, landing near an ocean on Eiram. Gios stayed on the station to the end, and knowing he couldn't save the station but could prevent it from destroying the city below, was able to use the thrusters to move the station to fall into the ocean instead. Although he did not survive, Gios prevented potentially hundreds of more deaths as a result of his sacrifice.

Many Jedi who survived, such as Avar Kriss, Bell Zettifar, Elzar Mann, and others, went back to the surface. Their purpose was to aid those who had survived the catastrophe and to repair the damage inflicted by the station's crash, notably a desalination facility rendered inoperable when the station impacted the ocean.

The attack on Starlight had the consequence of diverting resources from other galactic conflicts, like the Battle of the Corellian Shipyards, as efforts were concentrated on supporting the collapsing station.

The station's destruction resulted in the confirmed deaths, captures, or disappearances of at least 13 Jedi, ranging from padawans to masters. This list includes Estala Maru, OrbaLin, Sskeer, Nooranbakarakana, Monshi, Stellan Gios, Orla Jareni, Nib Assek, Regald Coll, Burryaga Agaburry, Torban Buck, Farzala Tarabal, and Lula Talisola. These losses deeply affected their comrades in various ways, with many sensing the widespread chaos and death across the galaxy, especially those close to the Jedi stationed at Starlight. Avar Kriss and Elzar Mann were particularly grieved by the loss of Gios, whom they regarded as the central figure of their group. Gios's passing also created a vacancy on the Jedi Council. Zettifar, recalling a previous false report of his master's death, embarked on a search for Agaburry, hoping to find him alive. Similarly, Zeen Mrala felt that her friend, Lula Talisola, who was officially listed as deceased by the Republic, was still alive, as she could not sense her death through the Force. Jedi Master Cohmac Vitus felt the death of his friend Orla Jareni, which was the primary reason he chose to leave the Jedi Order. The deaths of so many Jedi, coupled with the revelation of the Nameless and their power over the Jedi and the destructive nature of the Nihil, prompted the Jedi Council to activate an emergency signal, recalling all Jedi to Coruscant and advising them to avoid the Outer Rim whenever possible.

In the wake of Starlight's fall, Marchion Ro extended invitations to all active members of the Nihil, with the sole exception of Tempest Runner Lourna Dee, to gather in a secret star system. The purpose of this gathering was to celebrate his victory with a lavish feast, free from interference from the Jedi or the Republic. Subsequently, he broadcast a message to the Republic, revealing himself as the true Eye of the Nihil and claiming responsibility for masterminding the Nihil conflict and the destruction of Starlight Beacon.

The initial depiction of Starlight Beacon's destruction occurred in The High Republic: The Fallen Star, a novel by Claudia Gray within the Star Wars: The High Republic series. It was released on January 4, 2022.

Gray mentioned that the destruction of Starlight Beacon was planned from the start as the culminating event of Phase I of the High Republic project. She also disclosed that the decision to split the space station in half during its destruction was made because both her novel and the final issues of the 2021 Marvel Comics High Republic comic series by Cavan Scott were going to cover the event. Gray and Scott wanted to avoid repeating content in their respective works. The Fallen Star primarily focuses on the experiences of survivors trapped in the lower section of the destroyed station.