Spoilers for season four of Star Wars Rebels and potentially Ahsoka

Ahsoka launched tomorrow with a two-part premiere, so now seems as good a time as any to talk about what very well may be the crutch of this whole show. Ahsoka takes place after the events of The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, with the former Jedi padawan traveling the galaxy with Sabine Wren in order to put a stop to the return of Grand Admiral Thrawn. Based on certain motifs present throughout the marketing, those who have seen all of Rebels have to be wondering if the Ahsoka show will be dabbling with the World Between Worlds in some capacity. I happen to think it’s a safe bet. But if you’ve not seen Rebels, you may be wondering, what is the World Between Worlds? Well, just in case it does feature in the show, here’s a primer!

The World Between Worlds was teased throughout Rebels and even The Clone Wars during the Mortis Arc. It’s a nexus of space-time within the Force itself, bridging (literally) time together. It was also known as the Vergence Scatter and was theorized during the ancient days of the Jedi, where an unnamed source wrote the Chain Worlds Theorem which hypothesized the existence of the World Between Worlds. That book would end up in the library on Ahch-To and would then up in the possession of Rey, who took the library during the events of The Last Jedi from Luke Skywalker. The dimension ends up being the place where the Cosmic Force and the Living Force coverage. The Living Force is the energy of all life within the galaxy and the aspect of the Force we’re most familiar with. It’s how Jedi can move rocks, to keep it simple. The Cosmic Force is far more abstract, dealing with concepts like destiny, space and time while also serving as the wellspring for the Living Force. When one passes away in Star Wars, they became part of the Cosmic Force. From there, certain beings could commune their will through the Force, such as Kanan Jarrus speaking to Ezra Bridger as the Lothwolf Dume.

One accesses the World via a special door. So far, we know of only a portal on the planet Lothal, at the Jedi Temple, which was adorned with a painting of the Mortis Gods. There may be more doors out there across the galaxy, but we don’t actually know for sure. Ezra Bridger, a Jedi Padawan and protagonist of Rebels, was able to access the World and save Ahsoka Tano from her duel with Darth Vader. By bringing her out of the duel and into the void of space-time, Ezra theoretically changed the timeline, at least at first glance. As you can imagine, there were some strong opinions about introducing time travel to Star Wars. It’s one thing to have visions of the future through the Force, it’s quite another to mess with the timeline. Dave Filoni, the creator of Rebels and showrunner of Ahsoka had this to say to Cinemablend on the concept of time-traveling in a galaxy far, far away:

“I mean, because this is important for this particular story, and I think we’d have to be very careful about how it would be used otherwise. It’s why we destroy the temple in the episode. It’s mainly a place that people would go to see the future and the past. It’s not such an active place and Ahsoka, for her part when she’s pulled out of that moment, is placed back in that same timeline and not very long after she left it. So again, she’s smart enough to know that she cannot go back with Ezra, so there is not this big time travel thing. She knows she has to remain a part of her world and her timeline.“

On the concept of time travel, he had this to say:

I don’t really think of it as time travel. It’s not really a thing where you go through one door and out another in a different time. The world between worlds is really about knowledge and gaining knowledge. As the Dume wolf says, what’s in there is knowledge and destruction. You can gain knowledge of the future or futures that may happen, and you can see things that happened in the past. You can at times choose to alter them, but it’s perilous to do so and when you alter something you don’t know if that’s not the way it always happened. So destruction is the other half of what’s in there. When you go through these doorways, you’re in peril of destruction because you’re missing all sorts of things that would have happened or things would’ve happened otherwise, you know, so it’s a dangerous game but it’s not something we’re here going in and out of different doors. It’s an extension of the Jedi’s ability to perceive the future and the past, as described in Empire Strikes Back.

He also sat down and talked about the World Between Worlds in this video, I highly recommend watching it.

So in order words, Filoni is saying here that the World Between Worlds shouldn’t be used to retcon major events in the canon and it isn’t like the Delorean from Back to the Future, where you can just go in a door and change things. In fact, everything that should happen has already happened. So Ezra always saves Ahsoka, that’s just how time flows, he hasn’t actually changed anything. But the use of the World’s iconography in the marketing material, as well as certain shots in the trailers for Ahsoka, suggests that we may not be done with the concept quite yet.

Chiefly, the logo for Ahsoka (the banner image for this article), seems to showcase the same kind of symbols and motifs used for the World Between Worlds, featuring many curved paths and circles as focal points, or doors. The show’s chief villains, Skoll and Hatti (named after mythological Norse wolfs who chase the sun and moon, respectively). They’re shown to be working with Morgan Elsbeth, who was last seen in the second season of The Mandalorian, the Imperial who dueled Ahsoka. We see them looking at some sort of map. While it certainly looks like it could be galactic, it could also be a map showcasing doorways to the World and where they are in the galaxy. The circular designs and angled lines connecting the points are just too similar to the aesthetic of the World not to dismiss it. Likewise, there’s a temple shown in the trailer with similar visual motifs.

I just don’t think a radical concept like the World Between Worlds would be never used again, and considering how Filoni is the showrunner for Ahsoka and he created this concept, I feel he would tap into it somehow. True, the temple on Lothal was destroyed, but was that the only entry point? I have a feeling it wasn’t. The question now remains, if the show is going to feature it, why is the Imperial Remnant seeking it? If knowledge is the answer, what do these Imperial Agents have to gain?