Warning! SPOILERS for The Book of Boba Fett episode 5.
The latest episode of Disney+’s Grogu, The Mandalorian's Din Djarin found the two remaining of his Mandalorian covert on an unnamed, ring-shaped space station. A massive structure covered by an entire city, The Book of Boba Fett’s ringworld is reminiscent of Halo’s rings.
Halo is a popular military science fiction video game series. Halo’s backstory involves the Forerunners, an alien species that sought to protect the galaxy from alien parasites called the Flood. As a last resort, the Forerunners built the Halo Array. These ring-shaped structures were both weapons, capable of destroying all sentient life in the galaxy - and even planets - with each structure complete with its own atmosphere and ecosystem.
Based on the video games, Star Wars has often been inspired by other science fiction works, The Book of Boba Fett did not necessarily take its ring idea from Halo.
Since its inception, Star Wars has taken inspiration from various other pieces of science fiction literature. For example, Isaac Asimov’s Foundation centers on the fall of a Galactic Empire, which influenced the Star Wars: A New Hope specifically. Both stories feature desert planets, a “chosen one,” and ancient religious orders with mysterious powers. More recently, Star Wars also began emphasizing the importance of spice, a drug, which is a crucial story element in Dune. Although The Book of Boba Fett’s inclusion of a ring-shaped structure may have seemed to copy Halo, the ring actually continued Star Wars’ practice of taking inspiration from science fiction books.
The Book of Boba Fett and Halo were both inspired by Larry Niven’s Ringworld, published in 1970. In the classic science fiction novel, the Ringworld was an artificial, ring-shaped planet with a habitable environment and native human population. This concept influenced both Halo and The Book of Boba Fett, which even used Ringworld’s idea of having an inner, segmented ring to create night-and-day cycles on the main world. Although The Book of Boba Fett might have brought the idea of a ring-shaped structure to the screen in live-action before Halo could, both popular franchises actually took their inspiration from Ringworld.
The Book of Boba Fett releases new episodes Wednesdays on Disney+.
