The late Ray Stevenson’s Baylan Skoll in Ahsoka is one of the most intriguing and mysterious characters Star Wars has crafted in decades, and there’s one big mystery surrounding him that the franchise still hasn’t solved. While Ahsoka Tano, Sabine Wren, and Ezra Bridger all focused on preventing Grand Admiral Thrawn’s return to the main Star Wars galaxy, Baylan quietly slipped away from the action and the audience to pursue his own path on Peridea. What Baylan is planning has yet to be revealed, but Baylan’s past might hint at what his plan is.
Baylan Skoll walks the line between Jedi and Sith. He’s clearly not a full-on dark side user, but he also takes every opportunity to comment on how much of a failure the Jedi Order was. Baylan is similar to other rogue Jedi, like Qui-Gon and Dooku, who distanced themselves from the Order because they knew it was decaying. Baylan and Shin Hati aren’t like the Bokken Jedi who—despite the Sith’s triumph—try to carry on the Order’s legacy. Instead, Baylan is one of the franchise’s best attempts at making a character who is not wholly good or bad.
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Ahsoka Never Explained Why Baylan And Shin Have Orange Lightsabers
Of course, the most visually impactful differences the audience sees for Baylan and Shin are their unique orange lightsabers. Countless theories have been thrown around as to why these characters possess such a unique lightsaber color when seemingly few other characters in Star Wars do. But Ahsoka failed to answer why Baylan and Shin’s lightsabers are orange; none of the characters even comment on how strange the orange sabers are. Nevertheless, Ahsoka showrunner Dave Filoni did confirm that the orange sabers were an intentional choice.
According to the Filoni, the orange blades are meant to visually distance Baylan and Shin from any known Force-using factions. They’re not meant to have green and blue blades like most Jedi, but they’re also not meant to have red blades like most Sith. Instead—like Ahsoka with her white lightsabers—Baylan and Shin’s orange blades signify their allegiance to something new in Star Wars. While this does explain their unique lightsaber color from the production’s perspective, it fails to explain why their lightsabers are orange within Star Wars’ lore.
The Empire Regulated Kyber Crystals In The Galaxy
One of the hallmarks of the Empire that the movies and tv shows rarely touch on is just how taboo having a lightsaber really was. Many citizens still believed Palpatine’s lies about how the Jedi were traitorous, which is why just being seen with a lightsaber could be grounds for questioning and execution. The character Nari in the Obi-Wan Kenobi series is a fantastic example of someone who failed to keep their lightsaber and their force-sensitivity at a low profile, which ended up causing the Inquisitors to hunt him down and kill him.
With the Empire reducing the ownership of kyber crystals throughout the galaxy, it’s surprising that Baylan and Shin even managed to have their own unique lightsabers after its destruction. According to Huyang, Baylan’s saber is the same model from when he was a Jedi General, meaning he managed to hide it during the Empire’s reign. But Shin Hati’s saber was constructed after the fall of the Order, meaning she somehow procured her own kyber crystal at some point. Given the scarcity of kyber, Star Wars Legends offers one explanation for how Shin managed to get a crystal.
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Baylan And Shin May Have Crafted Synthetic Kyber Crystals
Synthetic kyber crystals—also known as synth-crystals—were a popular alternative to real kyber in Star Wars Legends, and could explain why Baylan and Shin’s lightsabers look as they do. Assuming Baylan’s lightsaber crystal wasn’t originally orange during the Clone Wars, it’s possible Baylan and Shin crafted their own synthetic crystals during or after the Empire’s reign. This would help explain why Baylan’s lightsaber color changed, as the “bleeding” technique Disney created for users to change the color of their kyber crystal has traditionally only been shown for red lightsabers.
In Star Wars Legends, some Sith and other dark side users crafted synthetic crystals for the power they afforded over real kyber. Even Luke’s second lightsaber was said to contain a green synth-crystal. If Baylan and Shin used synthetic crystals for their lightsabers, it’d not only explain why they possess such a rare lightsaber color, but it’d also show how Shin was able to get a lightsaber despite their rarity after the Empire. In any case, the lore behind synthetic kyber has fallen by the wayside in Canon, and synth-crystals are almost never mentioned in Star Wars.
