Time Travel Returns To Star Wars With New Ancient Sith Weapon, The Fermata Cage

Time travel has returned to Star Wars, in an ancient Sith device known as the Fermata Cage. Time travel is a common trope in science-fiction and fantasy, and it’s easy to see why; the best time travel stories bring two different periods together in spectacular fashion. Even Star Wars has dabbled with time travel on occasion, with the most notable example being in Star Wars Rebels. There, Ezra Bridger accessed a mysterious plane known as the World Between the Worlds, a realm where he could view events of the past – and even interact with them.

The old Expanded Universe introduced several other methods of time travel, ranging from Force powers such as Flow walking to the possibility of using hyperspace to travel in time. Paul S. Kemp’s excellent novel Crosscurrent, for example, featured a plot in which a hyperspace accident transported an ancient Sith ship 5,000 years into the future – to the time after Return of the Jedi. Like the World Between the Worlds, hyperspace is another dimensional plane where the laws of physics have different properties, so this concept makes sense. It essentially meant the Sith ship remained frozen in its own bubble of time for 5,000 years, until it finally emerged.

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Star Wars comics are exploiting a similar idea with an ancient Sith weapon known as the Fermata Cage, which plays an important role in Charles Soule and Steven Cummings’ current Hidden Empire miniseries. Created long ago by a Sith heretic named Darth Momin, the Fermata Cage can be powered by the dark side to place someone outside of time until it is opened. According to Lady Qi’ra, the leader of Crimson Dawn, it was used to imprison an ancient Sith Lord – and she is striving to open the Fermata Cage, believing this would cause chaos for the Emperor and Darth Vader. She is almost certainly right to believe this would be the outcome, because Sith are naturally power-hungry, and any time-lost Sith Lord would inevitably attempt to wrest control of the Empire away from Darth Sidious and his apprentice.

How Does The Fermata Cage Work?

The Fermata Cage was created by the Sith heretic Darth Momin, an unparalleled architect and engineer who had learned how to create structures designed to channel the dark side with remarkable precision. It is likely the Fermata Cage is in fact the reason Darth Momin became viewed as a heretic, given Crimson Dawn is using a forbidden blend of science and Force-based mysticism to open it. The Sith would surely have tried to kill Darth Momin (particularly if, as seems to be the case, he was active at a time the Jedi believed the Sith to be extinct – and he would have drawn too much attention to them). Thus it’s likely Darth Momin imprisoned one of his pursuers in the Fermata Cage, perhaps in part as a warning to any other Sith to leave him alone.

Darth Momin was obsessed with immortality; he mastered the dark side power of essence transfer, allowing him to place his spirit within his helmet after death. Palpatine found Darth Momin’s helmet, learning its secrets, before passing it to Darth Vader – who had Darth Momin’s spirit create his fortress on Mustafar. All Sith are treacherous, of course, and Darth Momin attempted to use the dark side vergence on Mustafar to restore his body; there were hints his techniques had created a way to access the World Between the Worlds. If Darth Momin did indeed know of the World Between the Worlds, then it’s possible the Fermata Cage’s dark side magic is linked to it in some way. Hopefully it won’t be long before Star Wars reveals more secrets of the Fermata Cage – even unleashing the Sith within.

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