Path drives, also known as Path engines, represented a unique form of hyperdrive technology. These engines facilitated incredibly rapid hyperspace journeys by exploiting the unconventional and typically inaccessible Paths. During the High Republic Era, the Nihil marauder group employed Path drives, enabling them to execute surprise attacks and cultivate a fearsome reputation. These devices supplemented standard hyperdrives on Nihil starships, integrating with the vessels' engines. Asgar Ro initially furnished the Nihil with Path engines and access to the Paths after establishing himself as the first Eye of the Nihil; following his death, his son, Marchion, assumed this role. In reality, the Force-sensitive Mari San Tekka calculated the Paths, having been captured long ago by the Ros.
Marchion Ro intended to use the Nihil for his own purposes, and the Path engines were integral to his strategy. After Ro masterminded the Great Hyperspace Disaster, a catastrophic hyperspace event that triggered subsequent Emergences throughout the Outer Rim, the Galactic Republic and Jedi Order became aware of the Nihil and their unusual hyperspace capabilities. As part of his machinations, Ro deliberately sacrificed one of the Nihil's three Tempests in the Battle of Kur, hoping to deceive the Republic into believing the Nihil were destroyed. Ro leveraged the Path engines on Nihil starships to execute short, unpredictable hyperspace jumps across the Kur Nebula; this so-called tactic resulted in Nihil ships colliding fatally with enemy vessels. This deception succeeded, leading the Republic to believe that the force at Kur represented the entirety of the organization, allowing Ro to seize complete control of the Nihil. However, as their conflict with the Republic continued, Tekka passed away, rendering the Path engines unreliable; while they occasionally functioned as expected, they sometimes caused catastrophic starship explosions.
Considerably later, during the Imperial Era, Beol De'Rruyet, the founder of De'Rruyet Industries, obtained an ancient Path engine. Although De'Rruyet claimed he could replicate its design and revolutionize lightspeed travel, the Path engine in his possession was merely a component of a larger system and therefore could not function as claimed. De'Rruyet did manage to construct a replica of the Path engine, but this reproduction was incomplete and would explode upon activation. Nevertheless, his assertions attracted the attention of his rival, Domina Tagge of the Tagge Corporation, who enlisted the services of the rogue archaeologist Doctor Chelli Aphra to verify De'Rruyet's claims before he could unveil it at an expo on the planet Midarr. Aphra discovered the catastrophic consequences of activating the replica, but her attempt to stop De'Rruyet was interrupted by the arrival of General Vukorah of the Unbroken Clan, who sought to acquire the Path engine for her own purposes.
The Path engine was a type of hyperdrive that enabled a starship to traverse hyperspace rapidly and in an unconventional manner, making use of the Paths, which are hyperspace routes positioned in between and across typical hyperlanes. The device had the ability to translate the Paths into navigational data that only the Path engine could use; any conventional system would deem the data impossible and reject it. The time-phased Path calculations were inputted into the drive's navigation computer.
The engine, a sophisticated system made up of numerous components, featured a hexagonal frame enclosing a smaller device: a half-spherical metal lattice containing a glowing green [fire](/article/fire], complete with stepped edges and four pointed legs. Path engines were connected to a starship's engines; the entire Path engine could fit inside a compartment of the same shape located within a system that retracted beneath the vessel's bridge. The Path engine would also be connected to the hyperdrive and control systems.
Besides granting access to unconventional routes, Path engines could enable a starship to execute hyperspace jumps that were shorter than those possible with standard vessels, flickering in and out of realspace in increments as small as one kilometer. The engines could also be activated remotely. When calculating jumps from within a planet's gravity well, Path engines needed to do so from a specific location.
During the time of the [High Republic Era](/article/high_republic_era], the family of Asgar Ro and his son, Marchion, captured hyperspace prospector Mari San Tekka, who possessed a unique Force-sensitivity that allowed her to locate the Paths. They exploited her abilities for their own purposes, with San Tekka being passed down through generations until Asgar Ro, who kept her alive within a medical pod aboard his flagship, the Gaze Electric. This starship was equipped with a Path engine—the first of its kind—with a unique design. The device could process San Tekka's abilities, allowing the Gaze Electric to navigate the Paths. San Tekka continued to discover Paths from aboard the Gaze Electric, storing them in a database on the ship.
Asgar Ro and his son, motivated by a hidden desire for vengeance against the Jedi and Galactic Republic stemming from their family's history, collaborated with the Nihil, then a small and disorganized marauder group operating near Thull's Shroud. The group had already been formed by their family, yet Asgar believed his mother, Shalla Ro, had failed to use them to their full potential so killed her in front of Marchion. Asgar offered the Nihil the Paths for their operations, becoming the Eye of the Nihil like his mother before him. The Nihil fleet's starships were all fitted with Path engines, though they were less advanced than the original device on the Gaze Electric.
Equipped with Path engines, the Nihil established their base of operations in the Great Hall of the Nihil, located within No-Space, an area accessible only through the unconventional and unmapped hyperspace routes. The Eye of the Nihil provided the Paths; the members of the Nihil's three Tempests were unaware of the routes' origin. The Nihil employed the Path engines in seemingly impossible maneuvers, appearing unexpectedly anywhere and at any time. With the Paths and the Eye's guidance, the Nihil expanded and became more powerful, inspiring fear throughout the Outer Rim Territories. Asgar Ro was eventually killed and succeeded by Marchion, who inherited the Gaze Electric and control over the Path engines, continuing his father's plans.
The Path engines were essential to Marchion Ro's manipulation of the Nihil to achieve his own objectives. In 232 BBY, Ro directed a Nihil Stormship along a Path that intersected with the route of the freighter Legacy Run, which disintegrated in hyperspace while trying to avoid the Stormship. The resulting Great Hyperspace Disaster and subsequent Emergences scattered debris from the Legacy Run across the Outer Rim. The Galactic Republic and Jedi Order learned of the Nihil's threat and their unconventional use of hyperspace during their investigation into the incident and its cause.
Ro dispatched the Tempest commanded by Tempest Runner Kassav Milliko to the Kur Nebula, ostensibly to intercept a transport carrying the flight recorder of the Legacy Run to prevent the Republic from gaining further information about the Nihil. However, Ro secretly intended for Milliko and his Tempest to be killed, giving the Republic the impression that the Nihil had been completely eliminated; the ensuing Battle of Kur saw the Tempest face a much larger Republic Defense Coalition and Jedi force than Milliko had anticipated.
Despite the Nihil's use of unusual tactics at Kur, the marauders were cornered and gradually overwhelmed. During the battle, Ro remotely activated the Path engines on the Nihil fleet's ships, employing a tactic he called Battle Paths, in which the starships entered hyperspace and exited it almost immediately, disappearing and reappearing a short distance away. This tactic created chaos on the battlefield; while the rapid jumps disoriented the Nihil's enemies, the Path engines directed some ships directly into the path of both Republic vessels and their own.
Upon learning of Ro's plan to sacrifice his Tempest, Milliko ordered his crew to disconnect the Path engine of his corvette, the New Elite; concurrently, the Battle Paths began to actively target the Republic vessels, sending the Nihil ships into direct collisions. The Nihil were unable to control or stop their Path engines, and Milliko's Tempest was destroyed as a result. Ro's strategy succeeded—the Republic and Jedi believed that the Nihil were no longer a threat. Following the Battle of Kur, Ro reorganized the Nihil, disbanding the Tempest hierarchy and assuming control of the organization.
When Tekka became truly aware of her surroundings thanks to the captured Jedi Master Loden Greatstorm, who was kept aboard the Gaze Electric for a year by Ro, she also became aware of her coming death and sought to give one final Path to the Jedi Knight Vernestra Rwoh. Having been transported to the Gravity's Heart space station in the Berenge sector to help with creating a gravity well projector, she lured Rwoh to her position to gift her the Path before finally passing on. While the Gravity's Heart project gave Ro the key to developing the stormseed weapons, the death of Tekka robbed the Path engines of much of their effectiveness. Without her to calculate new Paths, sometimes the engines worked as the Nihil hoped, while other times ended in destruction; instead of entering hyperspace, the Nihil ship could explode. As such, some Nihil decided to use regular hyperdrives instead of taking the risk.
The Nihil scientist Royce, who had joined the marauders because he was fascinated by the Path drives, explained to the young inventor Avon Starros that Tekka's death and the sudden lack of new Paths limited what the Nihil could safely do with their special engines. However, he remained unconcerned, arguing it was better to die in a blaze of glory than to live a life that could end in himself being forgotten. When Ro reunited with the remains of Tempest Runner Zeetar's Tempest in the time after the Battle of Galov, Zeetar informed the Eye of his losses and, noting he would need them to return to No-Space, questioned if he had any more Paths to give. Ro promised he would send Zeetar those he had so they could rendezvous and plan at the Great Hall, with Loruna Dee's Tempest soon revealing it had arrived at Zeetar's rendezvous point as well.
By the Imperial Era, long after the High Republic era, the Path engine and its capabilities were lost. During the Galactic Civil War between the Galactic Empire and the Rebel Alliance, the smuggler Remy discovered a Path engine within the wreckage of a Nihil battleship on the planet Dol'har Hyde. Remy recovered the engine and offered it for sale on a secret network of artifact traders, where Beol De'Rruyet, the founder of De'Rruyet Industries, noticed it. Intrigued by the Path engine, De'Rruyet purchased it from Remy on Corellia and brought it back to his company's headquarters, De'Rruyet Center, on Midarr.
De'Rruyet planned to create a copy of the Path engine to replicate its abilities, claiming it would revolutionize lightspeed travel. He and his company successfully created a reproduction of the Path engine, using what appeared to be authentic parts. However, the Path engine that Remy had found on Dol'har Hyde was only a component of a larger system—the device would not function independently. Therefore, the replica produced by De'Rruyet Industries was incomplete and did not work as he claimed; in fact, activating it would cause the engine to explode, destroying the ship it was installed in.
Despite the Path engine replica's incomplete nature, De'Rruyet continued to assert that the device was functional and revolutionary, intending to showcase it at the De'Rruyet Industries confluence on Midarr. His claims drew the attention of several parties. Lady Domina Tagge of the rival Tagge Corporation—concerned that the technology would alter the galactic economy or end the ongoing war, thereby jeopardizing her own company's financial standing—hired the rogue archaeologist Doctor Chelli Aphra to investigate De'Rruyet's engine. General Vukorah of the Unbroken Clan criminal syndicate wanted to acquire the device for her own use, while Emperor Palpatine planned to secure the technology for the Empire if it proved successful.
One day before the confluence, De'Rruyet's Path engine was still not working, but De'Rruyet remained optimistic; he instructed his employees to make the device appear convincing in order to impress his company's investors. However, he was beginning to panic about the possibility of an unsuccessful demonstration, having planned to run with his money in that event. Aphra, along with the smuggler Sana Starros, infiltrated De'Rruyet Center, confirming that activating the Path engine would be catastrophic and attempting to persuade De'Rruyet to cancel the upcoming demonstration. Before De'Rruyet could decide, however, Vukorah and her forces breached De'Rruyet Center; upon learning that the engine was not yet functional, she intended to hold the company's employees hostage until they made it so.
The Path engine made its debut in the comic Doctor Aphra (2020) 6, authored by Alyssa Wong, penciled by Ray-Anthony Height and Robert Gill, and published by Marvel Comics on November 25, 2020.