Cavan Scott is one of the key writers in the universe of Star Wars: The High Republic – a collection of inter-connected stories that take place in that galaxy far, far away 200 years before the events of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.

With his latest book The High Republic – Star Wars: The Rising Storm out now, we sat down with Scott to discuss what fans can expect from this new story which follows the events of Charles Soule’s Light of the Jedi. From how the team of authors work closely together to weave together a tale they already know the ending of to what it’s like writing a novel aimed at the adult market as opposed to the young adult one, Scott reveals a ton about writing for one of the biggest franchises in the world.

In addition to The Rising Storm, Scott is also the writer behind the ongoing Star Wars: The High Republic comic series. Not only do we dive into the differences between writing a Star Wars novel and comic book, but you can also see exclusive art from Issue #7 in the interview below.

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IGN: As far as Star Wars book titles go, The Rising Storm sounds pretty ominous. Would you say that describes the general tone of the story as the Jedi and Republic deal with the immediate aftermath of Light of the Jedi?

Cavan Scott: Oh, absolutely. I had three words written on my white board throughout the writing process – SENSE OF DREAD. We’ve definitely been building towards this in all the books since Light of the Jedi.

IGN: How closely did you work with [Light of the Jedi author] Charles Soule in developing this story and making sure his book would lead seamlessly into yours?

Scott: We’ve all worked together on this story from day one, so we knew exactly what beats had to be both in Light of the Jedi and The Rising Storm. I think I started writing Rising Storm while Charles was on his last draft of Light of the Jedi, so we talked about what changes he was making so I could follow that through into my novel. Plus, I was dropping in things to foreshadow events from both Justina Ireland’s Out of the Shadows plus the next wave of High Republic novels.

Everything is connected. Everything means something

IGN: Does The Rising Storm largely focus on the same cast as Light of the Jedi? Are there any newcomers fans should be on the lookout for?

Scott: It’s mainly the same cast, although Avar Kriss has now moved off into the Marvel High Republic series. Rising Storm brings Stellan Gios into the mix, a Jedi who we’ve heard a lot about but not met. He’s recently been elevated to the Jedi Council and is feeling the pressure of being the poster boy of the Jedi.

There is also Ty Yorrick, the so called ‘Saber-for-hire.’ She’s a mysterious character when we first meet her, a former Jedi who now acts as a mercenary and monster hunter.

IGN: The previous book gave us our first look at the Nihil. Will we learn more about these pirates and their plans for the galaxy in this chapter?

Scott: Yes, we delve deeper into the politics of the Nihil, especially its leadership. I had a blast building on what Charles first introduced about Marchion Ro and his Tempest Runners. We spend a lot more time with Pan Eyta and Lourna Dee in particular, the latter of which has become a bit of a fan favourite. For those who don’t know, Lourna is a murderous Twi’lek who can never be trusted. I’ve really enjoyed delving more into her character, both in this and my upcoming Star Wars: The High Republic audio drama, Tempest Runner.

As for Ro, The Rising Storm really gets into his head, which we find out is the most terrifying place in the galaxy!

IGN: This is your first full-length Star Wars novel aimed at the adult market rather than YA-focused books. Was that a challenging transition to make for you? Did it force you to rethink how you approach your storytelling at all?

Scott: Not particularly. For me, basic storytelling is the same, whoever you’re writing for; it’s just the lens that’s different. Writing for a slightly older reader in The Rising Storm just meant I could lean more into emotions and events that we wouldn’t show in a kid’s book. In my heart, I’m a horror writer, so this is probably my darkest Star Wars work so far. Our Jedi go through a lot on Valo and beyond

IGN: How different is it exploring the High Republic era as a comic versus novels? Does having that visual element help you connect with the characters or visualize the action in ways prose doesn’t?

Scott: For me Star Wars started with comics. I read the original Marvel run in the late 1970s long before I saw the movies, so Star Wars just feels like a comic for me. That’s often what I see in my head when I think of the franchise: images from that original run, from the incredible Dark Horse series of the ’90s and beyond (Star Wars Republic is still one of my all-time favorite Star Wars series) and the recent canon comics published again by Marvel, especially the incredible Darth Vader runs by Kieron Gillen and my fellow High Republic creator, Charles Soule.

Comics can hit us between the eyes with epic action one moment and then bring things so close and personal the next. That’s definitely what I’ve been trying to do in the High Republic comic, especially when dealing with the relationship between our main character, Keeve Trennis and her former master, the Trandoshan Jedi Sskeer.

IGN: Ario Anindito launched the series with you, and now Georges Jeanty is coming onboard. Jeanty is an interesting choice of artist for Star Wars, and one who seems to bring a more human touch to the franchise despite the larger-than-life imagery. Is that the balance you’re trying to strike?

Scott: Absolutely. I’m not interested in Jedi being untouchable gods. I want to see what it’s really like to live this life, to have the pressure of being a beacon of light to the galaxy. There was a lot of talk when we started this story that our Jedi were the best of the best. Yes, that’s true, as far as the galaxy is concerned. But just as those early character descriptions were teasers, place-holders even, the truth of the matter is far more complex. I’m interested in looking at where the stress points are for our characters, the cracks that moments like the events of The Rising Storm and The High Republic comic can break open. Avar Kriss for example is someone who deeply believes she should be the best, that she should shine brighter than everyone else. But what does that mean for her when the galaxy around her gets darker? Both Georges, and Ario Anindito who was the artist on our first arc and will be returning for issue eight, are so good at capturing those moments when, just for a moment, we glimpse the person behind the saber and the robes.

IGN: The cover to issue #6 paints quite the picture. Is this image of a Jedi riding a Rancor a chance for you to unleash your childhood Star Wars fantasies?

Scott: Absolutely. The first Star Wars film I saw in the cinema was Empire Strikes Back, but the film that made me a life-long fan was Return of the Jedi with all the wild and crazy creatures of Jabba the Hutt’s palace. I adore monsters and so fell instantly in love with Star Wars’ very own kaiju, the Rancor. And then came the Rancor riders of the older Star Wars Expanded Universe. That was a tradition I wanted to continue the moment I joined the High Republic team.

IGN: The High Republic stories have begun to shed light on the Great Progenitor and the Drengir. Will these characters play a big role in this upcoming story arc?

Scott: The Drengir are a massive threat to the galactic frontier at this point, enough to keep Avar Kriss, the hero of Charles’ book, from rushing to help when the Nihil strike the Republic Fair. They are a very different villain to the Nihil themselves and will play a major role in the future of the High Republic too.

IGN: This arc features an unlikely alliance between the Jedi and the Hutt cartel. How much conflict does that alliance create among the Jedi protagonists?

Scott: Let’s just say there are plenty in the Order, and especially the Council, who aren’t happy with the alliance between Avar and the Hutts. And the ramifications are going to rumble on for years to come. For me, I wanted to see Hutts in battle. It all comes back to Jabba!

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IGN: Now that we’re a little ways into the High Republic initiative and the creators have been developing the story for a few years, has this project surprised you in any ways? Has the overarching plan taken any detours you weren’t expecting?

Scott: I’ve been over the moon (that’s no moon, etc.) with how the initiative has been welcomed by fans. It’s so gratifying to see how characters we’ve created have really chimed with a large section of the fandom. Again, I remember how important the novels and comics of the ’90s were to me, and have been trying to instill that same sense of wonder, excitement and, at times, heartbreak to the High Republic.

As for surprises, well, the storyline has been planned for all three phases of the High Republic. We know how this is all ending, and how we’re going to get there. But we have given ourselves space to be surprised by our characters, and also watch to see which characters have really landed for the fans. None of that has changed our plans for them, but it has influenced the way we get to that ending. We wanted to give ourselves the opportunity for the story to grow organically as time goes by.

That said, I’ve written the last pages of the High Republic for the heroes of the High Republic comic and shut them away in a drawer. Will I rewrite them when we finally get to tell that part of the story in the years to come? Probably, but I doubt the main details will change. I think it’s important that as creators we have an ending in sight that we’re all working towards. The fans who come on the journey with us deserve that.

IGN: Light of the Jedi set the tone and direction for this era going forward. How much will the ending of The Rising Storm and the second arc of the High Republic comic set the stage for this next leg of this journey?

Scott: How do they set the stage? Well, to be honest, it’s only just beginning. The first wave of books and comics formed our pre-title sequence. The end of The Rising Storm? Well, this is where the fun begins…

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Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.

NASA has a longstanding history of hiding Easter eggs on the various robots it has dispatched into space over the years, particularly those making the 300-million-mile journey from Earth to Mars, including the likes of the Ingenuity helicopter, the Perseverance rover, and the InSight lander.

The hidden details planted on the space agency’s fleet of robots serve a variety of purposes, from practical to playful. Some of the add-ons are purely aesthetic whereas others have more functional uses to assist the space cruisers whilst they’re traversing the rugged terrain of the Red Planet.

“These kinds of embellishments add artistic elements on missions that are otherwise solely dominated by science and technology, as well as lasting tributes to colleagues who have helped pave the way for humanity’s exploration of space,” said Jim Bell, a professor of Astronomy at Arizona State University, who has festooned almost all of NASA’s Mars rovers.

So, if you’re the type of person who likes stargazing through a telescope, then you may want to shift focus and spend some time magnifying all of the hidden details on NASA’s Mars-roaming robots. Click through our slideshow below or read on to find out more about these mission mementos.

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Ingenuity Helicopter – Wright Brothers Flyer Fabric Swatch

NASA’s Ingenuity helicopter weighs about four pounds with a wingspan of 1.2 meters and runs off a solar-powered battery; it landed on Mars for a technology demonstration to test powered flight in space. The helicopter successfully executed its flight on April 20, 2021, with NASA reporting that the small chopper had taken off, ascended to around 10ft, and landed again, making it the first aircraft in history to complete a powered, controlled flight on another planet. 

The space agency previously billed the flight as a potential “Wright brothers’ moment” – referencing the first powered, controlled aircraft flight on Earth in 1903. NASA honored that feat by equipping the Ingenuity helicopter with a small piece of history: a swatch of fabric taken from the wing of the Wright brothers’ very first aircraft, known as The Flyer. The team used insulative tape to wrap the material around a cable beneath the copter’s solar panel ahead of its journey to the Jezero Crater.

Perseverance Rover – Dare Mighty Things Parachute

NASA’s Perseverance rover spent over six months speeding towards the Red Planet at 12,000 miles per hour before finally touching down on the Jezero Crater on February 18, 2021, to commence its mission. The car-sized lander measures approximately 10ft long (excluding the arm), 9ft wide, and 7ft tall and it also weighs 1025kg. The robust rover is specifically designed to support the mission and its purpose to better understand the geology of Mars and seek out signs of ancient life.

Perseverance carried aboard seven instruments to conduct its research, including an advanced camera system that captured some thrilling footage of the rover’s entry, descent, and landing suite, together with the deployment of a patterned parachute that contained a hidden message: “Dare mighty things” – which is the motto used by the Perseverance team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the research and development center that helps the rovers to blaze a trail through our solar system. 

Eagle-eyed onlookers paused the video of the rover’s landing to study the frame, paying particular attention to the design of the parachute and its colored columns. The unusual pattern correlated with binary code, with the red panels representing ones and the white panels representing zeros. The numbers were then organized into groups of ten, ring by ring, to create 10-bit patterns that linked to letters of the alphabet, working in numerical order. NASA later shared a decoder ring to better illustrate how the playful puzzle was solved.

Perseverance Rover – Portrait of Past Rovers

The Perseverance rover is expected to stay on the Red Planet for at least one Mars year, which is the equivalent of 687 Earth days, but fortunately, it didn’t make the trip all by itself. In fact, a whole family of rovers accompanied the robotic explorer. A portrait showing the evolution of the vehicles was printed on a plaque aboard the latest cruiser. The inscription pays tribute to those that have made the journey previously, and to all the new possibilities that may lie ahead with space exploration.

Space.com spotted the plate, bolted to the top of the rover, which shows the white decals lined up in chronological order from left to right, according to when each of the rovers touched down on the Red Planet. Sojourner is symbolized first for its role in the Mars Pathfinder mission in 1997, followed by the intrepid twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity in 2004; Curiosity in 2012; Perseverance in 2021; and the Ingenuity helicopter that hitched a ride with Perseverance on NASA’s Mars 2020 mission.

Perseverance Rover – Identification Markings

The Perseverance rover sets itself aside from its five siblings because the vessel, nicknamed Percy, is adorned with several extra embellishments that NASA says were “thoughtfully chosen, designed and then etched onto pieces of titanium or aluminum” before making the trip to Mars. The space agency also noted that the trimmings commemorate different things as “some designs celebrate past missions, while others offer hope for future human achievements on Mars.”

In addition to its family portrait, the Perseverance rover has a nameplate mounted on its arm alongside a mission plate that includes the lander’s launch year. A mission identifier is printed on the side of the plate right next to the mission’s name. This is the first official off-planet Product Identification Number (PIN) issued in part by the Society of Automotive Engineers to classify the cruiser. The unique code holds information about the rover’s launch year, vehicle type, manufacturer, and more.

While the PIN acts like a fingerprint for the rover, the vehicle also has its very own DNA. A DNA illustration is printed like a tattoo on the rover’s front left wheel and is said to serve as a reminder that NASA’s “space robots are of human origin, and reflects the innate human desire for exploration.” Another picture, positioned next to the twisted symbol, represents the tyre tracks left on Martian sand and gives a nod to the pioneers and technological achievements of space exploration.

Curiosity Rover – Morse Code Tyre Tracks

The Curiosity rover was launched from Cape Canaveral on November 26, 2011, and landed on Aeolis Palus inside Mars’ Gale crater in the opening days of August 2012. It has a similar design to Perseverance, though it has fewer bells and whistles. NASA likens the size of the vehicle to that of a small SUV as it measures 10ft long, 9ft wide, and 7ft tall. It weighs 899kg and comes equipped with a 7-foot-long arm to assist on its mission of exploring environmental conditions on the planet.

Curiosity is still operating on Mars to this day, which means it’s been leaving marks on the Martian surface for years now, along with all of the other Red Planet roamers. Curiosity leaves quite a different impression to that of its cohorts though, as the vehicle has Morse code imprinted on all six of its wheels. The straight lines placed between the zigzag tyre tracks represent the letters “JPL,” which is short for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where the rover was built and the mission operates from.

“Imagine standing in front of a picket fence, and then closing your eyes and shifting to the side. When you open your eyes, you wouldn’t be able to tell how many pickets you passed. If you had one picket that was a different shape though, you could always use that picket as your reference,” explained Matt Heverly, the lead rover driver for Curiosity at JPL. “With Curiosity, it’s a similar problem in featureless terrain like sand dunes. The hole pattern in the wheels gives us one ‘big picket’ to look at.”

InSight Lander – Secret Braille Code

InSight (short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport) made its journey to Mars in May 2018. It plunged through the thin Martian atmosphere and touched down on the planet’s surface on November 26, 2018. The solar-powered rover landed quite close to the equator to give it maximum power for its mission, studying the “inner space” of outer space, with cutting-edge instruments to delve deep beneath Mars’ surface. 

InSight was sent to study what cannot be seen, so it aptly includes a nod to those without sight. According to collectSPACE, this Easter egg is situated on the lander’s deck, on a target plate created by JPL engineer Jesse Grimes-York. The plate features flags and logos of various countries and space agencies involved in the mission, as well as a set of red dots on the camera calibration target. The dotted pattern is a message coded in braille that spells out the letters “J-P-L.”

Spirit and Opportunity Rovers – World Trade Center Metal Piece

Spirit and Opportunity landed on Mars on January 3 and January 24, 2004, on a mission to explore the Martian surface. The six-wheeled, solar-powered rovers both exceeded their planned 90-day missions, with Spirit remaining active until 2010 and Opportunity continuing to operate up until 2018. They were specifically built and designed to withstand the dusty and difficult terrain and both came equipped with rock-inspecting tools to search for clues about past water activity on the planet.

The New York-based engineering company Honeybee Robotics was working on those tools in September 2001, less than a mile away from the twin towers of the World Trade Center, which became the target of a shocking terrorist attack that same month. Honeybee employees wanted to find a way to pay tribute to the victims of the life-changing tragedy. In the end, they managed to recover some aluminum from Ground Zero to make a protective cuff to shield the rovers’ cables. 

“It’s gratifying knowing that a piece of the World Trade Center is up there on Mars. That shield on Mars, to me, contrasts the destructive nature of the attackers with the ingenuity and hopeful attitude of Americans,” said Stephen Gorevan, Honeybee founder, and chairman, and a member of the Mars rover science team for NASA.

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Adele Ankers is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.

Sega has released a new trailer for Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania showing a bunch of remastered levels and the updated versions of the monkeys. Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania is a remaster of Super Monkey Ball Deluxe, which was a remaster of Super Monkey Ball and Super Monkey Ball 2 with some original levels as well.

The new trailer doesn’t offer any new information about the game, but it does serve as a reminder of the many different locations Super Monkey Ball levels are set in, ranging from the inside of a machine to a blue and pink colored amusement park, with many other locales in-between. The trailer also shows a beach, a lava-filled volcano, and the ocean floor.

Originally revealed at the E3 2021 Nintendo Direct, Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania will feature over 300 recreated platforming levels and will see the return of some of the series’ minigames, like Monkey Target. This will be the first Super Monkey Ball game since the 2019 HD re-release of Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz.

Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania on releases on October 5 for Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

After months of steadily increasing in price, Skytech RTX 30 series equipped gaming PC desktops have finally been marked down. I’m not sure the exact reason why, but I’m going to assume it is because of the state of bitcoin and bitcoin mining at this moment, since it’s still impossible to find an RTX 30 series card at any retailer. These aren’t insubsantial savings either; we’re talking about discounts of up to $400. Score an RTX 3060 PC from $1499, and RTX 3070 PC from $1899, or an RTX 3080 PC from $2499. Amazon has also listed RTX 3070 Ti and RTX 3080 Ti PCs that should ship out by the end of the month.

Skytech RTX 30 Series Gaming PCs on Amazon

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Eric Song is IGN’s deal curator and spends roughly 1/4 of his income on stuff he posts. Check out the IGN Deals articles and subscribe to the IGN Deals Twitter page.

Let’s say you need to buy a gift for a Nintendo fan, but you don’t want to get them a game. Finally, there’s a solution to your problem. Nintendo has teamed up with Edible Arrangements to create a series of gift-able food treats themed around Mario. Buying them even gets you My Nintendo Platinum Points. You can see the full selection here.

Fifteen gift baskets (or arrangements, if you will) are in the collection, and they offer a decent amount of culinary variety. Some only include fruit (chocolate-dipped strawberries count as fruit, right?). Others come with fruit and cookies, or even balloons and flowers.

Most of the baskets are themed around Mario Kart, so you can get a Rainbow Road Arrangement or a Mario Kart Cup Berry Box. Others are just Mario-themed, like Cookie & Fruit Power-Up Birthday Bundle. Buying any of these Nintendo-themed Edible Arrangements gets you 100 My Nintendo Platinum Points.

Granted, these are pretty unconventional gifts. But if you’re going to a Mario-themed birthday party, for instance, they’d fit right in. Regardless, they’re fun and would undoubtedly bring a smile to the face of your Nintendo-loving friend or family member. If you want to peruse the options, you can pick one out here.