We have a new look at the ships of Star Wars for The High Republic. The upcoming publishing initiative is set to explore an era roughly 200 years before the prequels. It's vastly unexplored territory for the franchise, when the Jedi were at the height of their power. These ships give us a sense of the aesthetic of the era.

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It was announced during Disney's big investor call that Russian Doll creator Leslye Headland is bringing the first live-action TV show set at the tail end of The High Republic to Disney+ in the near future. The new series is called The Acolyte, and revolves around a female protagonist. As we've seen with The Mandalorian, the first live-action Star Wars TV show, Lucasfilm likes to bring ships and vehicles to life from various Star Wars media, so the same will probably happen here, with everything being introduced in the books and comics before they stream on Disney+.

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That being the case, several ships were revealed for The High Republic including some used by the Jedi and others used by the new villains, the Nihil. the Jedi Vector Starfighter, the Nihil Tempest Runner, a Nihil Stormship, a Republic Longbeam, the Legacy Run and the Starlight Beacon. Pablo Hidalgo of the Lucasfilm Story Group had this to say.

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"We all found a lot of inspiration in how the prequels opened up a more refined era of the galaxy, but by virtue of those films' proximity to the originals, it had to start showing early signs of corruption. By moving further in time, away from that downfall, we're able to see the Republic at its height in this storytelling. In the Core Worlds especially, that's reflected in fashion and technology. A lot of the visual exploration in the High Republic is taking what we know, but idealizing it."

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The Nihil will debut in the novel Light of the Jedi in January. They are described as "brutal and savage." The ships they use are designed to suit that aesthetic. Pablo Hidalgo explained, saying the following.

"For the Nihil, their look derived from art developed specifically for The High Republic initiative. There were some pieces from The Force Awakens and the current Star Wars movies that explored pirates, scavengers, and basically Star Wars survivalists. That pointed in the direction of a patchwork force that was uniform in its non-uniformity. The Nihil have a design language with a big vocabulary."

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All of the ships were designed using previously abandoned art from other Star Wars projects. The Republic Longbeam, for example, recycled some artwork originally cooked up for The Last Jedi. Phil Szostak, Lucasfilm's creative art director, had this to say.

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"I love that an unused James Clyne ship design for the Resistance bombers from Star Wars: The Last Jedi is now our Republic Longbeam. James did a series of beautiful early concepts for that vessel, some of which you can see in The Art of The Last Jedi, before he turned the whole idea of a bomber on its head with a vertical bomb clip."

With the Legacy Run, more The Force Awakens art was repurposed. Originally, this ship was designed as Han Solo's freighter that he and Chewie were using before they found Rey on the Falcon. Pablo Hidalgo had this to say about it.

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"The Legacy Run was derived from an unused design for Han Solo's freighter in The Force Awakens that I always liked. There's a blunt simplicity to it: a flying box of boxes. It tells a story that this isn't a luxury passenger liner, but it's all some people can afford. You can tell how it operates just by looking at it. And it isn't fancy. In this case, it didn't matter that it came from the Resistance/First Order era, because this design is likely hundreds of years old. Star Wars designs are shaped more by culture than they are by innovation, so this is much more a working ship."

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Lastly, as Phil Szostak explains, "Warren Fu's Episode III design for a Republic clone fighter is a stunner, and I'm so glad that it's finally found a place in Star Wars canon as our Jedi Vector," So there is art from both the sequel and prequel trilogies being put to use here. Be sure to check out all of the ships for yourself. This news comes to us via StarWars.com.