This article contains spoilers for Star Wars: The High Republic - Trail of Shadows #5.
A new Star Wars comic is reinterpreting the Chosen One prophecy. When George Lucas launched the prequel trilogy with 1999's Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, he pivoted to make Anakin Skywalker its focus rather than Luke. As part of this, Lucas introduced a mysterious Chosen One prophecy that Anakin apparently fulfilled - an ancient Jedi prophecy of a child born of the Force, destined to bring it back into balance.
The precise text of the Chosen One prophecy was only revealed in 2019, in Claudia Gray's novel Master & Apprentice. "A Chosen One shall come," it reads, "born of no father, and through him will ultimate balance in the Force be restored." Apparently, the prophecy of the Chosen One is found in a collection of ancient Jedi prophecies, and Qui-Gon Jinn was already primed to find the Chosen One because he had studied these prophecies and recognized they were being fulfilled. Some of these prophecies remain mysterious, though, particularly one that appears to explain how the Force lost balance in the first place; "Only through the sacrifice of many Jedi will the Order cleanse the sin done to the nameless," it reads.
Lucasfilm's Star Wars: The High Republic transmedia initiative is set hundreds of years before the birth of the Chosen One, and yet surprisingly it appears to have a direct relationship to the prophecy. The first phase has introduced the ultimate Force Predator, a creature that consumes the Force and leaves the bodies of Force-sensitives calcified. The truth about these creatures is finally explained in Star Wars: The High Republic - Trail of Shadows #5, by Daniel Jose Older and Dave Wachter. Jedi Master Emerick Caphtor, who has been assigned to investigate the deaths of Jedi who have encountered the monsters, learns they are in fact the Nameless. "Some call them Shrii-Ka-Rai," he is told, "Eaters of the Force. To others, they are simply the Nameless."
The mere presence of the Nameless drives a Jedi insane, leaving them overwhelmed with fear. The Jedi's response to the Nameless has already been teased in Star Wars Adventures: Ghosts of Vader's Castle #1, in a scene where a historian discusses records he's uncovered. "You won't believe the things that were left behind," he celebrates. "Records from the Nameless Purge. Art from the Old Republic." It looks as though the Jedi will react to the Nameless in fear, choosing to wipe them out, and in so doing they will disrupt the balance of the Force. After all, as Lucasfilm's Dave Filoni explained in The Art of the Mandalorian, "The Force naturally exists in balance; that balance is thrown out when someone chooses to give in to their fears and then spirals out of control making selfish choice after selfish choice. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering."
All this indicates the Nameless Purge is the sin mentioned in the ancient Jedi prophecy. The precise wording - that "only through the sacrifice of many Jedi" will this sin be atoned for - is evocative of Order 66, suggesting the actions of the Jedi had such a catastrophic effect on the balance of the Force that it became necessary to wipe them out and start again. Although Palpatine did not know it, Anakin Skywalker was serving the balance of the Force when he killed the Jedi - and he would do again when he brought the Star Wars original trilogy to a dramatic conclusion, killing Palpatine as well.
