Now that the sour taste of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is gradually starting to fade, we can continue looking forward to what Star Wars: The High Republic has in store for us, including new villains the Nihil.
The new setting takes place 200 years before the events of The Phantom Menace when peace and prosperity spread throughout the galaxy, soon to be shattered by “the Great Disaster.” The Nihil exist on the fringes of space where the aegis of the Jedi is less absolute, and were created in response to a query about what would provoke fear in an order of highly trained peacekeepers wielding psychokinetic powers. The reasoning was that since the Jedi’s purpose is to maintain order, then they would be concerned by anyone with the potential to threaten that, and who better to embody this than a marauding culture of warriors driven by unpredictability and chaos whose very name evokes their nihilistic tendencies?
Living by the creed of “you can’t take it with you but we can take it from you,” these anarchist ‘space Vikings’ are intended to be conceptually different from the Stormtroopers, who for all their martial incompetence operate with militaristic efficiency, and the Sith, who despite being dark mirrors of the Jedi use much the same fighting styles and abilities.
It’s been stated that part of what makes the Nihil so dangerous is their ability to use hyperspace, although specifics were not forthcoming. However, since the second of the upcoming novels, A Test of Courage, sees a ship dropping from hyperspace “as part of a galaxy-wide disaster” it’s possible that the raiders have somehow developed a way to manipulate the space-time dimension to their own advantage, possibly even as an armament like something akin to the wormhole weapon from Farscape.
Heroes are often only as exciting as the villains they face off against, and The High Republic’s Nihil look to be an interesting and dangerous foe that will allow for new kinds of stories to be told in that galaxy far, far away.