Into the Dark reveals more about Sith shrine, Force vergeance under Jedi Temple

New Star Wars: The High Republic book Into the Dark unveiled more interesting details about the history of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant.

Many already knew that the Jedi Temple was built on top of an ancient Sith shrine, as that bit of information was revealed in the 2014 novel Tarkin by James Luceno. Later, StarWars.com shared a deeper history of the Temple and noted the Sith shrine itself was constructed on top of a “powerful Force nexus” dubbed the Sacred Spire.

Claudia Gray’s Into the Dark builds upon that history by giving the Sith shrine a name and exploring how the Jedi used this vergeance of Force power.

*Spoilers ahead for Into the Dark*

In Chapter 14 of Into the Dark, a set of Dark Side-imbued idols is brought back to the Jedi Temple to the Shrine in the Depths. That’s where the vergeance of Force energy, which “could be put to many uses, both worthy and wicked,” is found.

Into the Dark explains that Force vergeances cannot be created and that during the Sith Empire, the dark lords and the Jedi fought for control of these points of powerful neutral energy. The Sith controlled this vergeance first, but by the High Republic era, the Jedi had controlled it for thousands of years.

The book then reveals the shrine and vergeance are used to purify relics steeped in Dark Side energy. Jedi Knight Orla Jareni works with some of the Masters to cleanse the idols of their Dark Side energy in a safe space. That energy can “sink into the vergeance, dissipate into the cosmic Force, and again be made whole,” Gray writes in Into the Dark.

However, by the prequel era hundreds of years later, it appears the Jedi instead stored Dark Side artifacts in a hidden vault at the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. In the audiobook Dooku: Jedi Lost by Cavan Scott, these objects are named as part of the Bogan Collection — ancient Sith scrolls and weapons, including the lightsaber of Darth Krall and the helmet of Darth Momin.

According to ScreenRant, Palpatine/Darth Sidious took items from this collection after the Jedi Order fell during the events of Revenge of the Sith.

Just as the ancient Sith targeted this vergeance in the Force as the perfect site for their shrine, so did the ancient Jedi. Through Tarkin, author Luceno said the Jedi aimed to neutralize the Dark Side power coming from the Sith shrine by building a Light Side temple over it. In a 2017 interview, Luceno said he was influenced by the history of Cortez laying waste to the city of Tenochtitlan and building churches atop Aztez temples:

"The Jedi tried to cap the power of this shrine, but there’s leakage. It’s not just Sidious; it’s the power of history, it’s the residue of what’s left of the dark side there."

As for seeing the buried, ancient Sith shrine under the Jedi Temple in a film or TV series, in 2015 Star Wars shared concept art for the shrine as it could appear in a story arc on Star Wars: The Clone Wars. George Lucas and Clone Wars creator Dave Filoni said underneath the Jedi Temple were ruins from ancient Force worshippers, possibly including the Sith.