The strongest family a Jedi can have is the family a Jedi chooses.
—Rey Skywalker
Rey Skywalker, often known simply as Rey and colloquially referred to as "the Skywalker," was a human female Jedi Grand Master who rebuilt the Jedi Order in the wake of the Battle of Exegol and the final defeat of her grandfather, Darth Sidious. Trained by Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa, she took on the name Rey Skywalker to honor them and the dyad she shared with Leia’s son, Ben Solo, who died giving his life to her after renouncing his dark side identity of Kylo Ren. Rey, along with friends like Poe Dameron and Finn Dameron, was credited with helping restore the New Republic as well as giving rise to the Free Worlds Alliance.
After the Battle of Exegol and the defeat of the First Order, Rey took on Finn as her first apprentice and the two rebuilt the Jedi Order on Ajan Kloss. After ten years, a new generation of Jedi had been trained and set out into the galaxy to help its people, using the principles that Rey established for her new Order. By 135 ABY, Rey was no longer the Grand Master of the Jedi Order and her later life became the subject of rumor, including whispers that she was able to somehow reunite with Ben Solo after his death on Exegol.
Biography
- For the canonical events of Rey Skywalker’s life, see Rey Skywalker on Wookieepedia. This page covers her life in the lore of SWRP after the events of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
Rebuilding the Jedi Order
I will finish what Luke started.
—Rey Skywalker
In the aftermath of the Battle of Exegol, Rey traveled to the childhood home of her former Jedi Master, Luke Skywalker, on Tatooine, to bury the lightsabers of Luke and Leia Organa in the ancestral grounds of the Skywalker family. She was encountered by an old woman who said no one had been to that home in a very long time, and she asked who Rey was. Rey, seeing the spirits of Luke and Leia watching over her, declared herself Rey Skywalker in honor of the family that been such an influence on her life—and explicitly rejecting the Palpatine bloodline of her grandfather, Darth Sidious.
As Rey left Tatooine, she knew that the duty to rebuild the Jedi Order had fallen to her—not as the last Jedi, but as the first of the new. Returning to the Resistance base on Ajan Kloss, where Leia had trained her as a Jedi, Rey took her friend and Resistance General Finn Dameron as her first apprentice. Together, they helped free conscripted First Order stormtroopers from across the galaxy. Many of those among them who were Force sensitive became some of Rey and Finn’s earliest students. Together, they built a library and temple deep within the Ajan Kloss jungles to house the sacred Jedi texts from the First Temple on Ahch-To, the ancient birthplace of the Jedi Order. Hidden among the planet’s jungles, the Jedi under Rey’s tutelage learned the ways of the Force and began to decide what role they wanted to play in the galaxy.
As Rey’s temple grew, one of the first changes she made from how the old Order operated was how students were recruited. While Force sensitive children would still be taken from orphanages, no prospective initiate would be taken from their families and forced to leave their lives behind, and there was no age restriction for when a student could begin their training. Regardless of age or background—from the innocent newborn to the elder Jedi with a back bent from the weight of time and regret—all were welcome to walk the Jedi steps. Rey and Finn knew more than most what it was like to be separated from their families against their will, and they pledged to never do the same to another child.
The return of the Jedi
Throughout the early days of the new Jedi, Rey relied on General Poe Dameron as an invaluable ally in providing resources for the building of their temple and library, often with the assistance of Zori Bliss and her spice runners. Rey intentionally kept the activities of her Jedi as discreet as possible in their early days, knowing that anti-Jedi resentments still ran deep in the galaxy and that there would always be enemies of the Order. There were some voices in the New Republic, as it was being rebuilt, who wanted to hold Rey’s Jedi accountable for the Order’s part in the conflicts dating back to the Clone Wars. Lando Calrissian, the first chancellor of the restored New Republic, remained a key ally for Rey. Future chancellors, such as Chancellor Rose Tico, continued that allegiances and helped squash anti-Jedi efforts.
Rey was not one to reject accountability for the Jedi Order, however. She knew the cautionary tale of Luke Skywalker building a training academy and how its mistakes led to the rise of Kylo Ren, but she also knew that she, like Luke, was never meant to be the last Jedi. Rey felt unburned from the failures of the old Jedi Order in a way that Luke, an apprentice of those old Jedi himself, never did. She felt strengthened by the voices of past Jedi she could commune with, and knew that Darth Sidious was gone forever. Learning the lessons of history, she forged a Jedi Order that would bring light and hope to a galaxy still reeling from millennia of wars between the Jedi and the Sith. The students she sought out were ones that she saw great potential and light in, ones who could become a beacon of hope and spread the story of the Jedi.
The library of Ajan Kloss thus became a pilgrimage point for both Jed and non-Jedi. As the galaxy learned of the return of the Jedi, as well as the legend of what Rey did to defeat Sidious once and for all, those who ought out wisdom and knowledge occasionally arrived on the doorsteps of the new Jedi Temple, seeking the way to the library’s knowledge. There were even rumors that R2-D2 was given backup recording of the Jedi texts. In the years to come, the galaxy at large did not know what became of R2-D2, but some believed he was still out there somewhere, keeping the ancient history of the Jedi safe—and, perhaps, sharing the story with others.
SWRP Appearances
- Star Wars Legacies: The Force Eternal (Mentioned only)