When you reset a timeline, there’s always stuff that gets caught in the shuffle, whether it’s characters or certain plot beats. It’s rare you get almost an entire game tangled up between two different storylines, as is the case with 2002’s Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter. But hey, it’s Disney’s acquisition of Star Wars – we’re all just trying to make sense of it!
At least there’s one thing that apparently everyone can agree on: The pirate Nym is too damn badass to be decanonized. The Feeorin pirate stands as a rare heroic example of a people scattered to the winds, equal parts barbarous scoundrel and man of the people. Where Star Wars: The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones gave us overly ponderous politicians and Jedi, Nym cuts to the heart of the matter with a scattergun blast.
The ambitious pirate-turned-resistance hero isn’t a guy most would’ve pegged for being on the side of the angels. By their nature, the towering, head-tail-adorned Feeorins are traditionally quite self-serving, hot-headed, and arrogant. If Twi’leks are elves, then Feeorin are dark elves, with similar head-tails but a more brutal appearance. To date, only one Feeorin Jedi is known to exist, and his ego led to his defeat at the hands of the Jedi padawan Zayne Carrick.
The lot of the Feeorin people is not unlike that of the Mandalorians, with their homeworld rendered uninhabitable. Many of their colony ships failed to bear fruit, but their “survival of the fittest” sensibilities led to the species surviving well into the Galactic Civil War four millennia later. That brings us back to Nym, one of the most prominent Feeorin pirates during the rise of Palpatine.
Unlike many pirates of his day, Nym’s Lok Revenant fleet prioritized corporate targets and rival gangs in lieu of civilian targets. Over the course of the original Star Wars: Starfighter, Nym’s forces suffered greatly under the blowback inflicted by the Trade Federation. This inspired him to lay siege to many of the droid foundries in a rather noble turn. It’s actually in part due to Nym and his allies in the Naboo resistance that the Federation had to move its production facilities to Geonosis, decimating any reserve forces the Federation could rely on.
His begrudging heroism made him an enemy of the growing Confederacy movement, as well as a potential asset to the Jedi Order. Beginning with the comic Starfighter: Crossbones and continuing into Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter, Nym would play a much greater role in the Clone Wars than anyone anticipated.
At the time, Master Adi Gallia was dispatched to try to make contact with Nym’s forces to investigate a seemingly unrelated threat. In the intervening years between the Battle for Naboo and the months leading up to the Battle of Geonosis, the Lok Revenants had grown from a band of pirates to a resistance movement against the Federation. They proved an incredibly necessary defense for citizens, who were ample fodder for the Sabaoth mercenary group operating under the orders of Count Dooku and the Trade Federation.
Despite the old Revenant base being occupied by the Federation and many of their resistance members being arrested, Nym and Master Gallia were able to restore the Revenants to full strength through strategic strikes. The two waged a desperate defense across the Karthakk system as the Confederacy unleashed terrorist attacks as field tests for advanced armaments that could’ve won the war for the Separatist Alliance. In the end, it was only with the timely arrival of Lok’s forces above Geonosis that the advanced guard of the Grand Army of the Republic could arrive without interference.
Nym’s increased importance in Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter isn’t a coincidence or purely storytelling necessity either. Between Haden Blackman’s excellent writing of Nym in several comics and the late Charles Rocket’s iconic performance, the pirate won many fans over amid a cast of strong actors. Rocket brought an intimidating badass biker energy that was equally inspiring and fear-inducing.
While a cinematic flair isn’t unusual for Star Wars games, it’s impressive how well the storytelling holds up in this dogfighting duology. When most CGI cutscenes were typically stiff and lifeless or hilarious, both of the Starfighter games boast incredibly high production values. Missions feature little narrative branches based on your performance, making you feel every little win or loss on the way to victory.
Jedi Starfighter in particular connects directly with the greater canon. Good old A’Sharad Hett cameos in the final battle above Geonosis, as does Siri Tachi, Ferus Olin’s Jedi Master. In a bonus mission, one of the original Starfighter protagonists even gets caught in the crosshairs of Jango Fett, explaining what the Mandalorian bounty hunter was up to while his associate Zam Wesell was trying to assassinate Padme Amidala.
The Starfighter series legacy far outlasted itself, with the Lok Revenant base included as a special location you could visit in the MMO Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided. All those years later, Nym had gone from stirring up trouble for the Separatists and Federation to earning the ire of the Galactic Empire. The series, and its surprise MVP, clearly left a mark on fans, with Nym’s popularity warranting an official miniature, inclusion in multiple source books, and his ship being included in the Star Wars: Armada board game.
With the Starfighter series being a longtime favorite, especially its main cast members, it was inevitable Disney would re-release the games for modern hardware. Much less expected is the re-canonization of Nym and his pirates, not only in their old role, but even loosely in the same events seen in Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter. Though obviously Disney has been hesitant to actually canonize the game itself, the Collapse of the Republic role-playing sourcebook directly mentions Adi Gallia and the Lok Revenants working together against the Separatists. They may leave out the specifics, but once again, the infamous pirate wins out in the long run.
