25 Years Later, One Line In ‘The Acolyte’ Just Redefined The Weirdest ‘Phantom Menace’ Concept

When Qui-Gon Jinn took Anakin Skywalker to the Jedi Council in The Phantom Menace the big bomb he wanted to drop on them wasn’t just that Anakin had a high midichlorian count but that he believed that he’d encountered a “vergence” in the Force.

Now, 25 years later in our galaxy (but a hundred years prior in Star Wars) the concept of a vergence in the Force suddenly feels urgently different. In the flashback-heavy penultimate Acolyte episode “Choice,” the notion that the Jedi have discovered a vergence in the Force is suddenly the key to everything. And in bringing back this concept from The Phantom Menace, the basic idea of why the Jedi sought — and feared — a vergence now makes a little more sense. Spoilers ahead!

The Acolyte’s secret Jedi mission — revealed

Back in “Destiny,” Episode 3 of The Acolyte, we had no real idea why the Jedi were hanging out on the non-Republic planet of Brendok, but in Episode 6, it’s made clear. A “hyperspace disaster” has rendered a huge number of planets lifeless, but for some reason, this planet has life. (The hyperspace disaster is likely a reference to “The Great Hyperspace Disaster,” which kicked off events of the first High Republic Star Wars novel, Light of the Jedi.)

In any case, the four Jedi on this mission — Indara, Kelnacca, Torbin, and Sol — have been tasked with figuring this out. The Jedi make it clear that they “are looking for a vergence,” and that they suspect that a vergence in the Force is the cause of the inexplicably thriving planet. But what is a vergence?

A Force vergence in Star Wars — explained

In The Phantom Menace, Qui-Gon Jinn described Anakin Skywalker as a biological embodiment of a vergence, but elsewhere throughout the Star Wars canon, a vergence in the Force tended to be a place. Mortis was the ultimate vergence in the Force, a place where various Force powers intermingled and existed, seemingly outside of a tangible plane. It’s also thought that the cave on Dagobah was a vergence in the Force, a place where light and dark intermingled and was more highly focused on the Force. Ditto The Wellspring of Life planet, which is where Yoda learned about how to become a Force Ghost in The Clone Wars.

In other words, a vergence, in Star Wars canon, was a place, thing, or object (like the Skywalker lightsaber in The Force Awakens) where the Force seemed to be more potent. This all suggests that Mother Aniseya used this hyper-focused area of the Force to create the twins Mae and Osha, prior to the earliest flashback in The Acolyte. We learn in “Choice” that “their symbionts are the same.”

This is some nitty-gritty midichlorian action here, but the idea is that the microorganisms that Qui-Gon Jinn described in The Phantom Menace — the ones that allow everyone to communicate with the Force — have been somehow cloned, indicating that Mae and Osha share the same Force spirit, on a microscopic level.

A new kind of Force in Star Wars

By revealing that the Jedi are obsessed with finding a vergence, The Acolyte has slightly pivoted the overall goals and interests of the Jedi throughout the High Republic and prequel-movie era. Now that we know that a vergence on a planet-wide scale could bring life from lifelessness (shades of Star Trek’s Genesis device) the power of such a discovery becomes a lot clearer.

If a vergence in the Force can create life, and also create duplicate midichlorian symbionts, suddenly it becomes way less of a philosophical concept and more about a huge amount of power in the universe. Darth Vader said it first: The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force. But, now that we see that this specific concept scares the Jedi, and creates life from nothing, a vergence in the Force suddenly seems more powerful than all the Jedi, Sith, and Knights of Ren, and Witches in the galaxy put together. Clearly, if there’s a way to stockpile Force energy, it’s through a vergence like this.

The Acolyte streams on Disney+.