An animated Star Wars featurette has been released to introduce fans to The Nihil, key villains in the High Republic era.Star Wars: The High Republic is a "storytelling initiative" spread out over a series of books and comic books, all set to lead to the upcoming Star Wars television series, Star Wars: The Acolyte.
As part of the interwoven nature of the High Republic stories, the various characters involved in the series, which really kicked off in early January 2021 with the first novel in the High Republic series, The High Republic: Light of the Jedi (by Charles Soule, the writer of the ongoing Star Wars comic book for Marvel), have been mentioned here and there is various other Star Wars projects. The Nihil, for instance, were first referenced in a story in Star Wars Adventures #30 from IDW, and then Soule himself delved more into the historic impact of the Nihil in Star Wars #7 in October 2020.
Now that the official High Republic novel and comic book series have begun, though, the official Star Wars Twitter account released the aforementioned animated featurette, which explains how the Nihil work. The Nihil was a criminal organization that mostly operated around the Outer Rim of the High Republic, particularly taking advantage of people who had been put into danger via the Great Disaster (a tragedy where many ships were all pulled out of hyperspace at once, leaving mass destruction in its wake).
Initially, the Nihil were anarchistic raiders, but over time, they have become more organized due to access to the Path engines. The Path engines allow Nihil ships to travel through hyperspace in a way that lets them pretty much show up anywhere out of nowhere. Because of the value of these Path engines, the Eye of the Nihil, the people who control the Path engines, get a cut out of any raid that used a Path engine as part of it.
The Nihil is split into three groups called Tempests, which were then split into smaller groups, called Storms, Clouds, and finally the Strikes. They attack using smoke and poison gas to frighten and disable their enemy. Each group is led by a Tempest Runner. They all, though, answer to the Eye of the Nihil, who control the Path technology.
As we have seen from the aforementioned Star Wars #7, the influence of the Nihil is a lasting one, but time will tell what exactly happened to them during the High Republic.