The Red Honeycomb Zone, also known as the Ship Eater and the Blood Net[1] was a safe passage through the Galactic Barrier, a chaotic web of anomalies that prevented travel into the galaxy's Unknown Regions. Using a Sith wayfinder gifted to him by the Eye of Webbish Bog, Darth Vader passed through the Red Honeycomb Zone while traveling to the planet Exegol. His grandson Kylo Ren would later forge a similar path while attempting to locate the same planet.
After stealing Ren's TIE whisper, Rey recovered Vader's wayfinder from the ship's burnt wreckage and used it to travel to Exegol through the Red Honeycomb Zone while transmitting her coordinates to the Resistance. Once the Resistance received Rey's coordinates, General Poe Dameron led the Resistance through the Red Honeycomb Zone to get to Exegol where they engaged in battle against the revived Darth Sidious and the Sith Eternal.
The Zone was inhabited by at least one unidentified creature, a subspecies of the summa-verminoth.
History[]
Vader's journey[]
The Eye of Webbish Bog, the being that gifted Darth Vader with a Sith wayfinder that led through the Red Honeycomb Zone.
During the Imperial era, the Dark Lord of the Sith Darth Vader came into conflict with the assassin Ochi of Bestoon, who had been hired to hunt him down on Mustafar by Vader's master, Darth Sidious, to punish the Sith Lord for his insubordination. After a brief duel, Ochi managed to trap Vader inside a cave, wherein the Sith Lord spoke to the Eye of Webbish Bog, an enigmatic being who gifted him with a Sith wayfinder, promising that it would raise further questions.[3]
After escaping the cave, Vader confronted Ochi, forcing him to access the wayfinder and plug the coordinates into the navigation computer of an abandoned Eta-2 Actis-class light interceptor. The assassin promised that these coordinates would lead to the planet Exegol, where Sidious was said to hide his secrets. Vader was satisfied by Ochi's work, but nonetheless abducted him by trapping him in an escape pod and attaching it to his interceptor. With Ochi still protesting, Vader jumped to hyperspace, taking them both to the entrance of the Red Honeycomb Zone.[4]
With the only path to Exegol being directly through the Zone, Vader had no choice but to press onwards into the nebula, especially as his interceptor was attacked from behind by several Star Destroyers, under the command of Administrator Sly Moore and Admiral Corleque. Moore ordered the deployment of hundreds of TIE fighters, many of whom pursued Vader into the Zone, where the unidentified creature lay in wait. Vader managed to evade the TIEs, using the creature, which destroyed several TIEs with its sprawling tentacles, to his advantage.[5]
However, the Sith Lord's luck quickly ran out, as the creature launched a telepathic attack on him and his unwilling companion, seeding visions of the past, present and possible futures into their minds. With Vader incapacitated, the interceptor tumbled into freefall outside of the Zone, crash-landing on Exegol's surface. The creature followed, but Vader was able to tame it using his strength in the Force, and used its flying capabilities to travel to the planet's Sith citadel.[5]
First Order-Resistance War[]
Vader's wayfinder, which Kylo Ren used to travel through the Red Honeycomb Zone.
As the First Order-Resistance War was nearing its conclusion, the galaxy received a mysterious transmission from Sidious himself, who was thought to have been deceased for over thirty years. Determined to discover the whereabouts of the revived Emperor, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren traveled to Mustafar. There, in the Corvax Fen region, he encountered a cult called the Alazmec of Winsit, who were devoted to defending the remains of Fortress Vader, and the late Sith Lord's wayfinder. Ren decimated the cult with ease, and progressed into the region, where he encountered the Eye of Webbish Bog. Much as it had with Ren's grandfather, the Eye allowed the Supreme Leader to access the wayfinder and thus discover the path to Exegol. Using the wayfinder, which he connected to his TIE whisper, Ren passed through the Red Honeycomb Zone and continued on to the Sith world on the other side.[1]
Soon afterwards, Ren fought the Jedi Rey on the moon Kef Bir, during which she fatally wounded him, an action she soon reversed using Force healing. Leaving Ren to face a crisis of faith, Rey commandeered his TIE whisper, which still contained the Sith wayfinder. After some deliberation, Rey connected the wayfinder to Luke Skywalker's T-65B X-wing, Red Five. Using the path set out by the wayfinder, Rey flew the X-wing into the Red Honeycomb Zone, and transmitted the path to the Resistance navy, which soon followed her, led by Generals Poe Dameron and Finn. The path through the Red Honeycomb Zone allowed the Resistance to arrive at Exegol and engage in battle against the Sith Eternal forces.[1]
Behind the scenes[]
The Red Honeycomb Zone first appeared in the 2019 film Star Wars: Episode IX The Rise of Skywalker, and was first identified as such in the film's novelization, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: Expanded Edition.[1]
In The Skywalker Legacy, a making-of documentary included on the film's home video release and on Disney+, the creation of the Zone is discussed.[6]
Appearances[]
- Darth Vader (2020) 9
- Darth Vader (2020) 10
- Darth Vader (2020) 11 (Mentioned only; in the opening crawl)
- Darth Vader (2020) 45 (Mentioned only)
- Shadow of the Sith
- Shadow of the Sith audiobook
- Star Wars: Episode IX The Rise of Skywalker (First appearance)
- Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: Expanded Edition (First identified as Red Honeycomb Zone)
- Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: Expanded Edition audiobook (First identified as Red Honeycomb Zone)
- Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: A Junior Novel
- Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: A Junior Novel audiobook