Ahch-To

"Do you know what happened to him?''" "''There're a lot of rumors. Stories. The people who knew him the best think he went looking for the first Jedi temple."

- Finn and Han Solo, on the whereabouts of Luke Skywalker

Ahch-To was a planet mostly covered in water, with numerous rocky islands blanketed with green trees located in the Unknown Regions. It was the birthplace of the Jedi Order and held the ancient Jedi texts. Three decades after the Galactic Civil War, it served as the home of Jedi Master Luke Skywalker who went into exile seeking the first Jedi Temple after his Jedi students were killed by Kylo Ren. After the Resistance pieced together two map fragments to reveal Skywalker's location, Rey traveled to Ahch-To in the Millennium Falcon accompanied by R2-D2 and Chewbacca, in search of him.

Description
From space, Ahch-To appeared to be a world of nothing but deep blue oceans orbiting twin stars. Dotting the oceans, however, were rocky island archipelagos covered with green trees and grass, where birds such as Porgs would congregate. The first Jedi Temple was built on one such island, known as Temple Island. By the time of the conflict between the First Order and the Resistance, Temple Island was dotted with Jedi ruins.

The planet was the homeworld of a large variety of creatures, such as the mysterious Lanai and the large thala-siren. It was also inhabited by Caretakers, who cleaned the huts dotting the islands.

History
"The map! It is complete!''" "''Luke..."

- C-3PO and Leia Organa

Ahch-To was the birthplace of the Jedi Order. Before the Jedi Purge and the Age of the Empire, Jedi scholars argued that a number of locations could be considered the birthplace of the Order. The scholars argued that Ahch-To, Tython, Coruscant, Jedha, and Ossus could all be considered candidate worlds for the Order's birth and the location of the first Jedi temple. Despite much deliberation, however, the location of the first Jedi temple was a mystery by the time the Galactic Civil War came to a close. Following the failed attempt by Jedi Master Luke Skywalker to rebuild the Jedi Order, Skywalker vanished and went in search of the first Jedi temple. He entered into a self-imposed exile on Ahch-To, residing on an island with stone ruins.

As the Resistance began its fight against the First Order, General Leia Organa, Skywalker's sister, hoped to find her brother and bring him back into the fight against the dark side. She sent Commander Poe Dameron to Jakku, where he retrieved a partial map held by Lor San Tekka that gave part of the direction to Ahch-To. Later, after the partial map was given to the Resistance, Skywalker's astromech droid R2-D2, who had been in low power mode since Skywalker's exile, returned to full power and provided the rest of the map to Ahch-To. R2-D2 unknowingly had the map in his databanks for many years, having found it in the network of the Galactic Empire aboard the Death Star during the Galactic Civil War. Rey, a young Force-sensitive scavenger, took the map and traveled to Ahch-To, where she found Skywalker in his exile.

After training Rey, Skywalker opted to remain on the planet rather than travel to Crait to fight the First Order. After being visited by the spirit of Jedi Master Yoda, Skywalker projected himself to Crait to interact with the Resistance and with his fallen pupil Kylo Ren. Projecting himself required a massive amount of Force energy and ultimately led to his demise, although Luke found inner peace and purpose in his final moments as he gazed upon Ahch-To's binary sunset and became one with the Force. His sacrifice bought the Resistance enough time to escape from Crait and live on.

Behind the scenes
The planet Ahch-To first appeared in the final moments of the 2015 film Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens. The name of the planet was not uttered in the film, and instead was revealed in the script. Ahch-To, where Rey meets Luke, was filmed on site at the 6th century monastic settlement of UNESCO site Skellig Michael, an island located off the southern coast of Ireland. Ahch-To was featured once again in Star Wars: Episode VIII The Last Jedi, which released on December 15, 2017. This time, however, Lucasfilm built a replica of the monastic 'beehive' huts atop the Ceann Sibéal headland in the nearby village of Ballyferriter, County Kerry, Ireland.

Appearances

 * Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens
 * Star Wars: The Force Awakens novelization
 * Star Wars: The Force Awakens: A Junior Novel
 * The Force Awakens: Rey's Story
 * The Force Awakens Golden Book
 * The Force Awakens Read-Along Storybook and CD
 * Star Wars: The Force Awakens Graphic Novel Adaptation
 * The Force Awakens, Part VI
 * Star Wars: Episode VIII The Last Jedi
 * Star Wars: The Last Jedi: Expanded Edition
 * Star Wars: The Last Jedi: A Junior Novel
 * The Last Jedi Adaptation 1
 * The Last Jedi: Rey's Journey
 * Chewie and the Porgs

Non-canon appearances

 * LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens