This article contains spoilers for Star Wars: The Bad Batch season 2, episode 5.Star Wars: The Bad Batch season 2, episode 5 offers a tantalizing hint about the ancient races who inhabited the galaxy long before the Jedi. "For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic," Obi-Wan Kenobi told Luke Skywalker in the first Star Wars film. Those words solidified the sense that this galaxy was an old one, one in which heroes and villains had waged war for untold millennia.

Viewers have always been intensely curious about the history of the Star Wars galaxy. The old Star Wars Expanded Universe sated this desire, with tales of the dawn of the Jedi, the origin of the Sith, and even dark side empires predating them both. These stories were officially branded "Legends" after Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, but in every legend there is an element of truth. The Disney era of Star Wars has begun dropping hints of the galaxy's ancient history, and many seem to confirm things really did play out in a fairly similar way to Legends. Naturally, that just makes viewers even more excited to learn more.

Related: Star Wars Explains Why Anakin Was A Great Podracer (Not Just The Force)

Star Wars Hints At "The Ancients" Who Came Before The Jedi

Star Wars The Bad Batch Ancient Device

Star Wars: The Bad Batch season 2, episode 5 reveals a little about the races who inhabited the galaxy before the Jedi. Clone Force 99 go on an unexpected treasure-hunt to the Kaldar trinary system, apparently associated with legends of a mysterious race remembered as the Ancients. Their technology endures even to the Dark Times of the Empire's reign, in a state of stasis, reactivated by the Bad Batch when they trigger what seems to be a variant of kyber crystal. The use of such crystals implies these beings used the Force in some way, and the planet in the Kaldar trinary system is stalked by creatures that may well have been shaped by the dark side.

Everything Star Wars Has Revealed About The Galaxy Before The Jedi

Rey in the Jedi Temple on Ahch-To in The Last Jedi.

Star Wars comics have explored a lot of galactic history, mostly due to various ongoing series starring corrupt archeologist Doctor Aphra. This, however, seems to be the furthest back the canon has gone to date. The Ancients may well be the same beings who constructed some of the mysterious structures found on the Outer Rim planet Baatu. If so, they presumably knew how to travel between different systems in hyperspace, and thus could have left a subtle influence on the entire galaxy - one that endures even into the main Skywalker saga era.

The Ancients may be tied to a Knights of the Old Republic race called the Rakata, who played a prominent role in the old Expanded Universe - and who were recently brought back into canon after they were name-dropped in Andor. There are certainly superficial similarities between the Rakata and the Ancients, both of whom used crystals to power their technology. The Rakata were ruthless and violent, which fits with the monstrous and destructive droid awoken by the Bad Batch. But the similarities only go so far, because the droid does look a little different to anything seen in KotOR.

The history of the Star Wars galaxy remains a secret, but Star Wars: The Bad Batch season 2, episode 5 is the closest the franchise has come to exploring it to date. The episode serves as something of an odd proof of concept for a potential spinoff, one revealing more about the history and evolution of the Jedi, the origin of the Sith, and even what came before. Hopefully Star Wars will recognize the depth of interest in this idea, and develop it further.

New episodes of Star Wars: The Bad Batch release on Wednesdays on Disney+

Next: Sadly, The Bad Batch Only Really Works As A Clone Wars Sequel