Author | Troy Denning |
---|---|
Cover artist | Cliff Nielsen |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Series |
The Dark Nest Trilogy Canon C |
Subject | Star Wars |
Genre | Science fiction novel |
Publisher | Del Rey Books |
Publication date
|
July 26, 2005 |
Media type | Paperback |
Pages | 544 pp |
ISBN | |
Preceded by | The Unifying Force |
Followed by | The Unseen Queen |
The Joiner King is a science fiction novel set in the Star Wars expanded universe. It is the first book in the Dark Nest trilogy of novels by Troy Denning. It is set 35 years after the Battle of Yavin (35 ABY). In the chronology of the Star Wars novels, The Joiner King takes place after the final book of The New Jedi Order series, which is The Unifying Force, and before the second book of the Dark Nest trilogy, which is The Unseen Queen.
Six years after the Yuuzhan Vong War ended, all of the survivors of the Mission to Myrkr back in Star by Star, except for Hapan Queen Mother Tenel Ka Djo, respond to a call through the Force. They all leave their current posts and travel into the Unknown Regions. After this happens, an envoy from the Chiss Ascendancy, Mitt'swe'kleoni (Tswek for short), comes to the Jedi Masters' Council on Coruscant to file a complaint. He asks why the Jedi Knights are involved in a border dispute with an enemy of the Chiss who Tswek refuses to give the name for. None of the Masters give an answer, but Luke Skywalker agrees to look into it. He takes his wife Mara, their son Ben, and Saba Sebatyne into the Unknown Regions in order to learn what the Knights are up to. When Han and Leia Organa Solo discover this, they join the Skywalkers and Saba in their journey after they rendezvous inside an insect-like hive in space, which is filled with beings from all over the galaxy, along with strange insect beings. The Skywalkers, Solos, and Saba all meet up with Captain Jae Juun and his rude copilot Tarfang, who agree to take the group to the planet Yoggoy, where they will be able to find the Jedi Knights.
On Yoggoy, instead of meeting any of the Jedi Knights, the Skywalkers, the Solos, and Saba all meet up with the leader of the strange insect beings that populate the world of Yoggoy, UnuThul. As it turns out, UnuThul is the badly burned and psychologically scarred Raynar Thul, a Jedi Knight who was taken by the Dark Jedi Lomi Plo and Welk during the Mission to Myrkr. UnuThul reveals that the ship that Plo and Welk took him in had crashed onto the surface of Yoggoy while the Yuuzhan Vong War was still commencing, and the insect beings who now call themselves the Colony took Raynar in to repair his badly burned form to the best of their abilities. A side effect of being with those of the Colony is that they eventually become part of their hive mind. Due to Raynar's Force-sensitivity, however, he had accumulated such power that he actually become the leader of the Colony, and he helped them expand their territory from Yoggoy. When asked about what happened to Lomi Plo and Welk, Raynar tells the group that he has never even heard of them before. Afterwards, as the Skywalkers, the Solos, and Saba find evidence that the Colony is really the long-lost species of the Killiks, the clan is attacked by dark blue Killiks. They survive the attack and confront UnuThul about the matter, who denies any knowledge about it. Regardless, the Skywalker-Solo-Sebatyne clan leave Yoggoy for Qoribu, where the Jedi Knights are fighting alongside the Killiks against the Chiss. Leia figured this out because when the clan visited the crash site of the ship that brought Raynar to Yoggoy, she saw a vision of her son, Jacen, telling her this information. As it is, Jacen had previously visited the Yoggoy crash site and had a vision of his mother visiting the crash site, and he decided to tell the vision where the Killiks and Jedi were fighting the Chiss.