Kylo Ren should’ve guessed where the Resistance were camped out in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Following The Last Jedi, the remaining band of Resistance fighters are left without a base after being relentlessly pursued from Crait by the First Order. However, when The Rise of Skywalker begins, Leia’s group have found yet another secret base to hole up in and they remain there undetected most of the movie. This new forest location isn’t explored heavily in The Rise of Skywalker, with plenty of other business to attend to, but it certainly serves its purpose as a base of operations for the heroes.
Evidently, Luke Skywalker’s sacrifice in The Last Jedi was successful in allowing his allies to escape the First Order’s pursuit, but there’s no doubt the enemy remained ever-vigilant for signs of the Resistance. In The Rise of Skywalker, TIE Fighters are seen pursuing the Millennium Falcon through Hyperspace and Troopers capture Chewbacca on Pasaana. The hunt is very much still on. Kylo Ren also has a vested interest in rooting out the Resistance, not only to end the sole remaining pocket of rebellion against his regime, but also to continue his campaign to turn Rey to the dark side. Unfortunately for Kylo, it’s not until Rey comes out of hiding to find the Sith Wayfarer that the two come to blows.
However, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker The Visual Dictionary by Pablo Hidalgo suggests that Kylo Ren probably should’ve been able to guess where the Resistance was based and tracked them down at any time. The Resistance base is stationed on the Outer Rim moon known as Ajan Kloss, which originally belonged to the Royal Family of Alderaan and was used as a refuge during times of crisis. This explains why Ajan Kloss is so well hidden and also reveals how Leia knew to go there. Furthermore, it’s unlikely that Leia would’ve told Ben about her dead parents’ old retreat, so everything more or less makes sense up to that point.
However, the Rise of Skywalker’s visual dictionary also confirms that, following Return of the Jedi, Luke conducted Leia’s Jedi training on Ajan Kloss, as depicted in flashback scenes in the latest Star Wars film. After Leia opted not to continue studying under her brother, Luke apparently trained his early Jedi students on Ajan Kloss, which would account for the training course Rey challenges herself on and the natural environment that lends itself well to honing the ways of the Force. A problem is created when the same book lists one of Luke’s first trainees as a certain Ben Solo. It could be argued, therefore, that Kylo Ren should’ve known that his mother and uncle had a retreat designed to hide a royal family that they could access at will, because he visited it in the past. This place would surely be one of the first areas the First Order would check during their hunt for the Resistance, and Kylo should’ve at least had some idea of how to get there.
This could certainly be another example of a plot hole created by The Rise of Skywalker. Perhaps more likely is that Kylo’s reason for not knowing about Ajan Kloss was something explained in a previous edit, but left out of the finished film. Reportedly, Leia’s death, Jannah and Lando’s connection and Palpatine’s return were all explained in more detail originally, before being chopped around in post-production and coming across far more ambiguous as a result. Alternatively, these kind of inconsistencies might just be the inevitable result of melding together mythology from multiple sources. This is, after all, Pablo Hidalgo writing a reference book for a J. J. Abrams film which followed the vastly different Star Wars of Rian Johnson.
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