ONCE THERE WAS a woman who was born to lead. Orphaned as a child, she was adopted by royalty and became a princess of a peaceful planet. She began a life of public service as an outspoken Imperial senator, later becoming a commander in the Rebel Alliance, a politician in the New Republic, and then the head of the Resistance in the fight against the First Order. When she was a young rebel, she discovered the dark truth about her heritage. Her name was Leia, and by birth she was a Skywalker. But she never took that name for her own. In the galaxy she was always known as an Organa.

Once there was an old man who wanted never to die. He came from the nobility of an affluent world and was elected to lead the Old Republic through its gravest crisis, as its chancellor. His name was Palpatine, and he was often described as a thin, kindly gentleman who harbored no ambition other than to bring stability to a war-torn galaxy. But another ambition he did have, one so cunning and sinister that few realized it until after he had turned the Republic into an Empire and declared himself Emperor. By this title alone he became known, as his own name slipped into the recesses of the past, along with knowledge of the Republic’s most stalwart guardians, the Jedi Knights, whose extermination he engineered. With no one to oppose him, he held the entire galaxy under his command. Only mortality stood in the way of eternal rule, though even that might be overcome if he discovered the ancient secrets. It was at the height of his power, when all seemed secure, that the unforeseen happened. His own apprentice turned against him, throwing him to his death and thereby helping topple his Empire.

Once there was a boy who was born with an extraordinary gift. He could hear things, see things, and do things others could not. His mother shared a similar gift, as did his uncle, but not his father. What was special about the boy’s gift was that he heard voices from time to time. The voices told him secret things and warned him when he was in danger. He did as the voices instructed and told no one else about them, not his parents or his uncle, who trained him to join a new order of Jedi Knights. As the boy grew older, the voices faded from his dreams until he forgot about them altogether. But their influence remained. He eventually spurned his uncle’s teachings and used his gift not for good but for evil. His parents had named him Ben, but the name he took for himself was Kylo Ren.

Once there was a girl who had many dreams. One of them was to become a pilot and see the stars. In preparation, she practiced endlessly on flight simulators and built her own speeders from scavenged parts. She also dreamed of the past. She read, watched, and listened to everything she could about the Jedi of old, who had mythic powers that defied belief. But as much as she imagined herself flying starships and learned stories of mystical warriors from mysterious worlds, she could not explore the universe beyond the desert planet where she’d been orphaned. She had to wait until her parents returned. Her name was Rey, born of a family she did not know.

One day events beyond her control forced the girl to leave her desert home. She copiloted a famous starship under its celebrated captain, who told her that the Jedi and their powers were more than a myth. She also discovered that she had the gift to become one of their number if she received the proper training. When the last of the Jedi failed to teach her what she needed, she turned to another, a woman who had received the training but followed a different vocation.

So under Leia Organa’s tutelage, Rey learned the ways of the Jedi.