The following contains spoilers for Episode 6 of Star Wars: The Acolyte , now available from Disney +.

Since the first trailer for Star Wars: The Acolyte was released, the biggest criticism the show has been facing was that the Jedi Order was going to learn about the Rule of Two Sith long before they were canonically supposed to. At first, some speculated that the show was going to resolve this wrinkle in the lore by having the red lightsaber-wielding Stranger not actually be a Sith, but now that he’s been revealed to be just that, fans are growing more concerned.

The worst-case scenario that fans have thought of is that someone like Master Vernestra or Ki-Adi Mundi will try to cover up the Sith’s existence as part of some idiotic conspiracy. Fortunately, it seems The Acolyte has already set up a way to resolve the Sith dilemma before it truly breaks the lore.

The Jedi Are Dangerously Close to Learning an Unknowable Secret

Ever since the Jedi first dealt with Mae Aniseya on the planet Olega, The Acolyte has had the Jedi constantly on the cusp of discovering the truth behind Mae's master, and, by extent, the existence of the Sith Order. It has been said many times, but for The Acolyte to maintain the overarching continuity of the Star Wars franchise, it is paramount that the Jedi Order as a whole never learn about the Sith nature of The Stranger (alternatively known as 'Qimir' or 'The Master'). To do so would undermine one of the core plot points of Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (set one hundred years after The Acolyte); that being that the Jedi were completely unaware that the Sith Order was still active and believed that they had been "extinct for over a millennium".

The establishment that the Jedi believed the Sith Order to be extinct was pivotal to setting up the discourse felt by the Jedi High Council when Qui-Gon Jinn debriefed them on his encounter with Darth Maul on Tatooine and how this in turn built the paranoia surrounding the possible existence of Darth Sidious as the master manipulator of the franchise. The Jedi Order's inability to discover the truth until Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, when it was too late, was meant to represent the greatest failure of the Jedi Order and highlight the great tragedy of the order's extinction. Yet now, ever since Master Sol was able to report back on his encounter with Mae on Olega, several high-ranking Jedi such as Master Vernestra, Master Holden and Master Ki-Adi Mundi have become aware that some malignant force has been training Mae to kill Jedi.

In truth, these Jedi still don't know the nature of The Stranger as a Sith Lord for the moment; however, with each episode, they become dangerously closer to discovering the truth. In the most recent episode, Master Vernestra and her Jedi Padawan, Mog Adana, discovered that the task force sent with Master Sol to the planet Khofar had been killed by a lightsaber wielder, bringing them ever closer to uncovering the existence of the Sith. For the Jedi Order to become aware of The Stranger before The Phantom Menace, the revelation of Darth Maul's existence shouldn't be a shock what-so-ever, and instead, their inability to stamp out the Sith as soon as they learn this would come off as sheer incompetence rather than tragic ignorance.

The Acolyte Is Keeping The Main Characters From Returning Home

So far, The Acolyte has managed to maintain the Jedi Order's ignorance through a variety of misdirections, red-herrings and convenient distractions. The first and foremost is the fact that, with the exception of Sol, Bazil and Osha Aniseya, every other Jedi who has encountered The Stranger has been killed off (those being Jecki Lon, Yord Fandar and Ithia Paan), thereby preventing them from reporting back to the Jedi High Council. Meanwhile, in the case of the survivors, they have both been put in positions preventing them from enlightening the Jedi Order about the return of the Sith.

Master Sol has had his ship's communications sabotaged by Mae (who was pretending to be her sister, Osha), and once he was able to glean Mae's true identity, he took it upon himself to leave Khofar to find Osha instead of returning to Coruscant. If Master Sol had decided to stay on Khofar for a little while longer, he would have been able to rendezvous with Master Vernestra and Padawan Mog to explain everything, but because of his overzealous love for Osha clouding his judgment, he has lost his one chance to inform the Jedi Order of his encounter with The Stranger.

The civilian Tynnan tracker, Bazil, was also present on Sol's ship, so he has been effectively shanghaied into accompanying Master Sol on his new mission. On top of that, in an almost comedic fashion, it has become a reoccurring plot point that Yord Fandar was the only Jedi on Master Sol's task force capable of being able to communicate with Bazil, so even if the Tynnan tracker was able to leave Sol and find another Jedi, they'd have to ensure Bazil made it all the way back to Coruscant so that they could find a translator for him.

As for Osha, she's found herself trapped on The Stranger's desolate island home wherein she has been manipulated by the Sith Lord to stay on the planet for an extended period of time. In all cases, the three characters with the most amount of knowledge have been put in situations that have prevented them from telling the Jedi about the Sith, and, as a result, break continuity. Yet these are only temporary solutions to a much larger lore dilemma, but it seems like there's already a planned solution that uses The Acolyte's most beloved character as a cruel scapegoat.

The Acolyte's Continuity Problem Will Be Fixed Through A Scapegoat

Vernestra’s Padawn Essentially Confirmed Master Sol Will Be Framed For The Stranger's Actions

When Master Vernestra and Padawan Mog finally arrive at Khofar to inspect the massacre left in the wake of The Stranger's fight with Master Sol's task force, they discover the incredibly disturbing detail that many of the Jedi were killed with a lightsaber. While some might have expected Vernestra to immediately jump to the conclusion that it was a Sith who killed all these Jedi, the long-standing belief that the Sith are no longer a threat remained ever-present in the Mirialian Jedi Master, preventing her from coming to the same understanding the viewers have thanks to her own misconceptions and belief.

Instead, she gives her padawan a chance to digest the evidence for himself, leading him to consider how Master Sol seemingly abandoned the mission of Khofar after being ordered to stay on the planet. This led Mog to ask the question: "you don't think Master Sol did this?" This initially provoked an alarmed reaction from Vernestra, who had known Sol for many years and considered Mog's response to be a "serious accusation", but the longer the scene with them on Khofar went, the more Vernestra considered the possibility, especially with Sol's emotional intensity ever since Osha returned to his life. This is not helped by Vernestra's past inquires as to how a Jedi Master like Sol didn't know Mae was alive despite being there at the time of her disappearance.

This may become more than just a radical theory, as within the last few episodes of The Acolyte, Master Sol has begun to shirk from his usual kind-hearted persona, showing a massive amount of rage and erratic behavior after Jecki and Yord were murdered by The Stranger. Even after that encounter, Sol was so blinded by emotion that it took him nearly a whole day to realize that Mae was pretending to be Osha, something that he should have picked up on immediately had his emotions not clouded his Force Sense ability. It appears that The Acolyte is setting up Sol to fall to the Dark Side and be the person that the Jedi Order blames for the deaths of the Jedi and, possibly, even for being the person who trained Mae. While it still feels very left-field for someone as compassionate as Sol to be blamed for these horrific acts, Sol's downward spiral may only get worse across the last two episodes of The Acolyte.

The Acolyte's Plot Is Eerily Similar To The Darth Bane Trilogy

The concept of covering up an encounter between the Rule of Two Sith and the Jedi isn't unheard of and has been done before in Star Wars Legends during an eerily similar set of events to what has occurred in Star Wars: The Acolyte. Within the Star Wars: Darth Bane book trilogy, after the Sith were presumed destroyed at the Seventh Battle of Ruusan, the titular Darth Bane went into hiding and sired a disciple who he named Darth Zannah, starting the Rule of Two duumvirate that has become famous in Star Wars. However, one particularly inquisitive Jedi Knight known as Johun Othane was not satisfied and launched an investigation so that he could know for sure that the Sith Order truly died out on Ruusan.

This ultimately led to Johun uncovering one of Darth Zannah's servants — a young man named Darovit, who accidentally led a team of Jedi to Darth Bane's hideout on the historic planet of Tython. Darth Bane and Darth Zannah were forced into a tumultuous duel that has become considered by many deep-cut Star Wars fans to be one of the best lightsaber duels ever depicted in a novel to date. By the end of the duel, five Jedi had been killed, their bodies left inside a fortress in Tython to later be found by members of the Jedi Order who were continuing Johun's investigation.

In order to curb the Jedi investigation, Darth Zannah gave one of the lightsabers belonging to the deceased Jedi to Darovit and used the force to drive him mad so that he attacked the investigating Jedi. The Jedi were able to strike down Darovit with reasonable ease, and upon finding the lightsaber of one of their fallen Jedi comrades on his person, they concluded that Darovit was a rogue force user who had lured Johun Othane and his team of Jedi to the Tython Fortress to murder them and that he was the person that the team was tracking.

Perhaps Leslye Headland was inspired by these famous novels to provide a relatively tidy way to resolve the potential lore-breaking implications of the Jedi tracking down The Stranger; or perhaps he had no knowledge of this Star Wars Legends story at all and the connection is pure coincidence. Regardless, hopefully, The Acolyte can deliver a satisfying resolution to its story without breaking the continuity of Star Wars in the process.