I always thought the list of Order 66 survivors was pretty short. You’ve got Yoda, Obi-Wan, a few names like Kanan or Ahsoka if you follow the extra material, and that’s about it.
However, Star Wars quietly introduced another survivor—a former Jedi who not only lives through the Purge, but survives the entire age of the Empire and makes it all the way to the events of the sequel trilogy.
Naq Med – The Jedi Who Walked Away and Still Survived the Purge
Naq Med first shows up properly in Star Wars: Force Collector, a YA book set around 32 ABY, just before The Force Awakens. The story never stops to advertise how old he is or where he sits among other survivors. It lets us put that together ourselves. We’re told he was a Jedi Padawan who left the Order before the Clone Wars, built a family, was hunted by the Empire as a former Jedi, and eventually went into hiding on the swamp world Pam’ba.
The book follows a teenager named Karr Nuq Sin, who keeps getting headaches and visions whenever he touches certain old objects. His grandmother quietly suggests the obvious answer: this might be the Force, and it might be connected to the Jedi she heard about as a child.
Most of the book plays like a scavenger hunt. Karr travels around the galaxy picking up relics—Clone Wars helmets, old lightsabers, pieces of wreckage—and every time he touches something important, he sees flashes of the past. Through those visions, we watch him slowly build a picture of who the Jedi really were and what happened to them under Palpatine, long after the rest of the galaxy has swallowed the propaganda.
The twist is that one of those missing pieces turns out to be in his own family. Late in the story, Karr learns that his great-grandfather was once a Jedi who left the Order before the Clone Wars, survived the Purge, and then vanished completely. Following his visions, Karr tracks him to Pam’ba and finds him still alive—an old man who has spent decades hiding from an Empire that no longer exists.
That’s the moment where Star Wars quietly answers the headline question. By putting this meeting so close to The Force Awakens on the timeline, Force Collector confirms that at least one Jedi-trained survivor of Order 66 lived all the way from the prequel era into the sequel era. The book doesn’t announce it with a big canon label, but if you follow the dates and the dialogue, it’s all there: this is the longest-surviving Jedi of Order 66, revealed almost casually through the eyes of his great-grandson.
How He Actually Survived Order 66
Naq Med survives Order 66 mostly because he’s already stepped off the board. By the time the clones turn on their generals, he’s no longer at the Temple, no longer flying with the Jedi, and is trying to live a normal life with a wife and daughter. When Palpatine broadcasts that the Jedi tried to overthrow the Republic, Naq believes it. From where he’s standing, it really does look like the Order turned traitor, so his first instinct isn’t to fight back—it’s to stay quiet and keep his family far away from anything to do with the Jedi.
The Empire still comes for him. During the early years of the Purge, the Grand Inquisitor tracks Naq down. In Force Collector, we see this through Karr’s visions: Naq facing the Inquisitor, sabers clashing, and the Inquisitor’s weapon breaking. Naq does something very few Jedi fugitives ever manage—he survives the encounter and escapes. He doesn’t treat that as a sign to join a rebellion or look for other survivors. He takes it as proof that staying visible will get everyone he loves killed.
After that, he disappears to Pam’ba, a forgotten swamp world where there’s no reason for the Empire to look twice. He leaves his family behind for their own safety and builds a stilthouse over the marsh, living alone and doing everything he can to be unimportant. While the Purge grinds on, the Rebellion rises, the Death Stars are destroyed, and the Emperor falls, Naq just keeps his head down. By the time Karr finds him in 32 ABY, he’s spent decades assuming the Empire is still hunting Jedi and that stepping off that platform for the wrong reason will be the end of him. That’s how he makes it from the prequel era to the sequel era: not by winning big battles, but by refusing to come back into the fight at all.