Every Star Wars movie and TV programme prefers to stay within the 70-year Skywalker Saga chronology, so when they do, it is a big deal. The Clones took their next expedition to the long-forgotten ruins of an ancient civilisation in Episode 5 of The Bad Batch, sort of accomplishing what was described above. Although little information was provided about the location, there was enough to imply a connection to the video game Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order.
The young Jedi Cal Kestis, a survivor of Order 66, is the focus of the canonical video game Jedi: Fallen Order. He ends up on the planet Zeffo on his quest to become a Jedi Knight, which led archaeologists to discover a wealth of historical artefacts there. Ancient graves, strong droids, and unusual power sources could all be found across the entire plant, all pointing to a society that vanished before the Republic. And this society reminds me a lot of what the Bad Batch discovered.
The inhabitants of Zeffo were noted for having a strong connection to the Force, which they termed “Life Wind,” and shared the same name as their planet. They built massive tombs and monuments in honour of their leaders using their power, and for a very long time they were thought of as a peaceful, spiritual people. But when the dark side of the Force spread throughout the society and the people became divided, civil war broke out on the planet.
Kujet, a well-known Zeffo Sage and formidable Force user, served as their previous leader. He tried to prohibit them from practising their religion because he had a hunger for power and thought that only the dark side could guarantee their place in the galaxy. The Zeffo people were on the verge of extinction when they decided to leave their home world as a result of the treachery that sparked revolts and massacres. The last survivors of their species merely claim that they ventured into the unexplored reaches of the cosmos in search of peace and haven’t been seen since.
Given that the Zeffo were known to explore other worlds and that there aren’t many old civilizations in canon, it’s highly likely that they built the ruins observed on The Bad Batch. A surprising number of specifics support the notion, too. To begin with, the Zeffo temples in Jedi: Fallen Order make extensive use of blue glowing lights, which were extremely common during The Bad Batch. A further challenge for the Batch was the abundance of intricate puzzle rooms in the Zeffo temples.
The largest connection, though, may be the enormous mechanical weapon they released, whose head resembles a Zeffo’s eerily closely. It appears that this is their preferred style because the game had mechanical guns with similar-shaped heads called Tomb Guardians. And to top it all off, the Heart of the Mountain, which the Bad Batch were looking for, is a blue power source that these Tomb Guardians carry in their chests.
So even though The Bad Batch undoubtedly left some questions open, for the time being it appears that the Zeffo had some sort of connection to Episode 5. While it’s unknown why the Zeffo would bury a potent weapon off of their home planet, they possessed the technology and motive to manufacture such a thing. It makes for a fun but subtle connection for video game aficionados. On Disney+, new episodes of The Bad Batch air every Wednesday.