Thread by @JoinTheSchwarz

Welcome to another deep-drive thread boosted by quarantine boredom. This time we are going to look into my favorite not-IU Star Wars reference book from the Disney era: @pablohidalgo and Kemp Remillard's "Rogue One: The Ultimate Visual Guide"

The usual rules apply:
-A page-by-page analysis
-Everything contained to one single easily-muted (cough) thread
-One picture per thread but never scans or pictures from the book (buy it, it's been a while and it's cheap now)

What's this guide? It's a combination visual dictionary/cross-section book about Rogue one, the first and best Star Wars spinoff movie

Why now? Why this late? Well, I had to get it out of storage. What? I live in a little house.

Also my copy is signed by both author and artist. I bet you feel jealous now!

...

No?

...

Cough. Okay, let's get it started.

FOREWORD

Who else but John Knoll could write the foreword? He started the ball rolling on "The Planet Killer", remember. He talks about nostalgia for nostalgia's sake not being worth anyone's time, and I couldn't agree more. This movie straddled that line very well.

OVERVIEW

We start with my catnip: a galactic map. We hear how the defeat of the Separatists gave the Empire a territory far larger than the Republic's ever was, and how this caused a massive military buildup to happen. And this war machine is usually housed in the Outer Rim.

The map includes most significative planets to that date, most significantly perhaps Lothal from Star Wars Rebels.

We get small sidebars about Lah'Mu, Jedha, Eadu and Scarif. No Kafrene (perhaps due to it being a late addition) although it appears in the map

Pic source: EW

There's also a small timeline called "Countdown to War" using a BR1 (Before Rogue One) format.

I can't want to see the headlines reading "Lucasfilm Just Changed The Star Wars Timeline - Again!" If you see any in the near future, please leave them here.

The timeline covers the space between The Phantom Menace and Rogue One, showing most expected events. I *think* this was the first place to show Mon Mothma's defection happening 2 years before Yavin, as Rebels would eventually show us.

CHAPTER 1: A FRAGILE PEACE

We move now to the time period shown in the Rogue One prologue.

The text tells us that it's been six years since the Clone Wars and that the Empire is strong. Many wary about the new government have tried to escape it.

LAH'MU: PEACEFUL SANCTUARY

Lah'mu (Neimodian word meaning "prosperity") is a small unremarkable planet in the Outer Rim. Its silica rings are formed from the remains of a natural satellite long gone.

Curiosity: the local biosphere transforms iron into chlorophyll. Science!

LIFE ON LAH'MU

The next page tells us four facts about the Ersos life on Lah'mu: it's sparsely populated (500 settlers on its western hemisphere!), they grew crops to subsist, own a homestead and 65 hectares, and had to carefully purify all their crops from volcanic residue.

They acquired the land through several fronts thanks to Saw Gerrera. We saw their arrival here in the closing chapters of Catalyst, one of the best movie direct-tie-ins... maybe ever. We'll be seeing many more connections between that book and this one.

PURIFICATION VAPORATORS

The vaporators seen in Lah'mu are Pretormin GX-8, the same seen on Tatooine. Here they distill and purify water from air, as the underground water in the volcanic world is not potable.

CORUSCANT TIES

We briefly move even further back in time now, to the time shown in Jyn's dream. We read a very short summary of the events in Catalyst: the Ersos' captivity in Vallt, Krennic's rescue of them, Lyra's mistrust of their apparent savior.

Really good novel!

Taking a short break, but we return with an in-depth look at Lyra Erso.

And yeeeeees, we'll start seeing all the deep references you crave.

LYRA ERSO: COMPASSIONATE CONSCIENCE

Section opens with a sidebar again referencing events from Catalyst: her meeting Galen in Espinar, her moving to Coruscant with Galen as he worked on the energy field, and her being the first to recognize the truth behind their benefactors.

We read that Lyra studied the Jedi philosophy. It's left as a possibility that she ever contacted the Church of the Force.

The Church of the Force is a concept from the Underworld TV series. Lor San Tekka from TFA was a member of said movement.

This spirituality is seen not only in the kyber pendant she passed on to Jyn, but in the Jedha scarlet vestments she now dons.

Yup. she wears the Red Sash of the Enlightened, like Chirrut. I wonder if this is a nod to her early conception as a fugitive Jedi.

Lyra's data file tells us more about her. She was born in Aria Prime, as mentioned in Catalyst. She studied in the University of Rudrig, like Viurre and Kiili from Han Solo and the Lost Legacy (first Daley nod!)

Curiosity: she wears a sativa plant-fiber robe. You know: hemp. Fold up the 420 flags, kids.

She owns a comlink with a coded channel to Galen and Jyn. I know we see it on-screen, but it made me think of the very traumatizing opening scene of Ewoks: The Battle of Endor. Not okay.

That's it for Lyra. We'll return next with a look at the Erso homestead, including mmmmmmaybe my favorite two-page spread in the whole book!

ERSO HOMESTEAD: SERENE SANCTUM

Yay alliteration!

Some more Lah'mu backstory: the Republic's Ministry of Economic Development incentivized settlers to move to the Outer Rim.

This office was mentioned in KOTOR supplemental materials, and was mentioned in Propaganda.

This campaign was an absolute failure, but it left the Ersos with a few sparsely populated but surveyed worlds to hide in.

Yay to silver linings

Most of the homestead is underground, heated by geothermal convertors built by Galen Erso.

We get a few nice shots of the interiors, making you love even more all the production designers. These movies are made with care, people.

Several props adorn the page, including Galen's "Blissex-head" screwdriver (well, "bit turner") I've told this before, but I will again.

WEG introduced us to two spaceship engineers: Walek Blissex (made ships for the Republic, defected to the Alliance) and his daughter Lira Wessex (designed the Imperial Star Destroyer, staunch Imperial.) Their feud and lives were featured in a couple of fondly-remembered modules.

So Blissex-head and Wessex-head turners were introduced in some TFA materials as the spacey equivalent to Phillips-head and flat-head screwdrivers. Some good fun.

We take a brief look at Essie (SE-2), the Ersos' labor droid, and we are reminded that he's very loyal. He warned them of Krennic's approach.

Finally, we see the family's battered speeder, kept for scrap bits. It's labeled as a Gian V-44, and you might remember the Gian V-19 from The Phantom Menace. There's another Gian in TFA, so the line appears to be pretty successful!

JYN'S TOYS: A SIMPLER TIME

Do you remember Jyn gathering her toys in Rogue One? Well... they get a full two-page spread, and it's delightful. Most of them, if not all, appear to be homemade.

Are we going to look at them one by one? Oh hell yeah we are.

First we have "Abommy the Gig." People always say that it looks like a Wampa, but I suspect it's supposed to be a Gigoran (WEG species, also in this movie.)

And "Abommy"... well, it does look like a certain abominable snowman.

Next, "Stormie", a stormtrooper doll that was prominently featured in the EW photoshoot.

She also has homemade toys representing an astromech, a TIE Fighter, an Eta-2 starfighter, an ARC-170, a Corellian corvette, a Venator, and a Separatist Dreadnaught. Jyn the fleet junkie!

More dolls: "Opee Opee", probably a toy Opee sea killer of TPM fame. "Sniksnak" a pet shaak, from AOTC. "Longee", a giraffe-like creature that I'm not sure what it could be... but probably prequel-related, if I had to bet on it.

Or not, because "Tinta the Snow Lizard" is clearly a Tauntaun (and sounds like a mispronounced one, as well.)

She has two tooka dolls: one, a pretty realistic one, is called "Koodie"; the other one is called "Starrie" and yes, it's pretty much like Numa's doll from The Clone Wars. Attention to detail!

"Mr. Iggy" is, amusingly, an IG-series droid.

"Bad Mister Goob" is a pretty scary villain: I don't know if it references anything, so let me know if you do! It reminds me of Apocalypse!

And I left my favorite one for the end: "Lucky Hazz Obloobit." It would appear that Jyn named a doll after Catalyst hero Has Obitt, who she probably remembered as one of the people who helped her family when she was very little. An adorable touch.

And that's all for tonight. Not even half-done with the first chapter!

Join me next with a look at Krennic's shuttle and the very, very, very scary death troopers. See ya!

KRENNIC'S SHUTTLE: DELTA-CLASS T-3C

Look at this thing! Can technology look malignant? Yes it can. "But technology is neutral!" Of course it is, kid! That's why we use atomic warheads as paperweights!

We read that it was never a popular model, but Krennic liked its looks.

The shuttle is, like all other shuttles named after Greek letters, a product of Sienar Fleet Systems and Cygnus Spaceworks.

Did you know that Cygnus originated as fanon? They were first named in some old very-well-made blueprints for the Lambda shuttle.

Unlike the Lambda, the Delta offers little in the way of comfort. It's a brutalist nightmare often used by Krennic and his six death troopers. They don't even hail landing ports: they expect them to check their transponders. Krennic is such a damn brat.

Captain Pterro, Krennic's aide, commands this shuttle. He privately calls it Pteradon (nerd) because Krennic refuses to do something as sentimental as naming his shuttle. It's Imperial shuttle ST-149, and that's enough.

The cross-sectional view is, of course, a work of art. Did you expect any less from Remillard? We get to see the manufacturers of some of their components, including usual suspects like SFS or Taim & Bak. I appreciate that the WEG nomenclature is followed, but that's probably me.

Oh, and in case you didn't love-to-hate Krennic already, we are told that despite his being afforded personal docking bays in the Death Star, Eadu and Scarif, he's incensed that they are secondary to the ones allocated to Tarkin.

This guy.

Oh, nearly forgot: we find out that the SFS/Cygnus shuttle line is called Abecedarian. The Sienar marketing department probably thought that Alphabetical was too simple and harder to trademark.

DEATH TROOPERS: ELITE SOLDIERS OF THE EMPIRE

My favorite of the new stormtroopers, for sure. An elite unit created to protect key personnel and facilities, recruited by Imperial Intelligence and subjected to classified medical procedures to enhance their abilities. Creepy.

Another window into Palpatine's craftiness: we read about his ability to recast old symbols into New Order icons. Think of Hitler and the Roman Empire. WEG mentioned this often, with his using Mandalorian lines for the Red Guard or his use of Atrisian rhetorics.

The Death Troopers were another example: they got their name from a legend, a rumored ultrasecret Imperial project designed to animate dead people. The use of that name and their striking black armor helped their scary reputation grow.

This is, of course, a reference to Legends-era zombie novel Deathtroopers, by Joe Schreiber. An oddity at the time, but one I've come to appreciate with time.

These zombie deathtroopers joined modern lore thanks to Star Wars: Commander, as a special Halloween campaign.

Anyway, the real non-zombie death troopers protected officers within the Tarkin Initiative, a secret think tank within the Advanced Weapons Research division.

The Tarkin Initiative was first mentioned in the Darth Vader comic. A hint of things to come? Retroactive continuity? 🤷‍♂️

We'll be seeing more about the Initiative later on. What matters is, Krennic appears to love his death trooper guard and goes with them everywhere.

Did you know that death troopers were intended to look good next to Krennic, like a reverse of Vader and his stormies in ANH?

We learn that death trooper armor is coated in a new polymer known as reflec.

Reflec was first seen in The Kathol Outback, part of the DarkStryder Campaign. It was also said to be what covered Blackhole's stormtrooper's armors, from the Manning comic strip.

The nameless death trooper featured in the data file has most of his information classified, but he belong to Unit TI-23 "The Undying." He's an expert in demolitions, improvised weaponry, and guerrilla warfare. It feels like Larry Hama wrote his filecard, so thumbs up.

PEACE DISRUPTED

A gorgeous two-page spread tells us the sad story of Krennic finding the Ersos. Jyn hiding in the hatch, a drill she has practiced countless times. And the cost that Krennic made Galen pay for his initial refusal to go back.

Heartbreaking.

Join me next when we start with chapter 2, looking into the Alliance: goals, organization, equipment, and personalities. "It's going to be a long one", he threatened.

CHAPTER 2: REBEL ALLIANCE

"A tempestuous union of star systems" is a pretty good description. The introduction page tells us that they are outnumbered and divided, and that they need to come together if they are to carry the torch of hope.

JYN ERSO: ROGUE TURNED REBEL

There she is. A grown-up Jyn. A survivor who hasn't heard her own real name in years, escaping her past grief with recklessness and defiance, but fighting just to live another day.

The text gives us three of her aliases. "Liana Hallik" we already know from the movie. "Tanith Ponta" appears in the other great tie-in novel, Beth Revis' Rebel Rising; the Pontas briefly become Jyn's adoptive family.

Seriously, how good were this movie's books?

The last one, "Kestrel Dawn", is likely a reference to Raleigh "Kestrel" Dawn, from Pablo's old Rookies comic strip, that adapted a couple of WEG adventures. She's based on the character once played by a friend of his, I believe! Very cool nod!

Alliance Intelligence knows of Jyn's connection to Galen and decide to spring her out of prison. She's unimpressed with the Rebel brass and doesn't appreciate being briefed while still in binders. I hadn't thought of that, lol.

Her remarkable martial skills come, of course, from her time with Saw Gerrera, who rescued her from Lah'mu. Saw abandoned her five years before, not doing anything good for her already existing feelings of abandonment.

The data file gives us her planet of birth as Vallt, as seen in Catalyst. And yes, she's supposed to be 21. Ah well, Star Wars and ages.

Her comlink, a 2-MAL, is probably a previous version of the 3-MAL used by Rebels in Hoth. What? Too nerdy?

Her crimes against the Empire are listed again, this time classified as Class One and Class Two infractions.

This references the Imperial Reference Code (ImPeRe) from WEG, that I've lauded before. Crimes can go from Class Five (minor fine) to Class One (death penalty.)

JYN'S MISSION

The next spread shows as Jyn and Cassian getting ready to leave Yavin 4.

The Wobani prison vehicle is explicitly identified as a HCVw A9. The one in ROTS was a HCWv A6, and the earlier WEG iteration was an A5. A proud line of big tanks!

We see a brief appearance by General Draven, but we'll see him again later. We are told their mission is dubbed Operation Fracture, the same name used in the novelization and in Jason Fry's excellent Rebel Dossier.

Another short break, but we'll return later with a look at Yavin 4 and to Ms. Mon Mothma herself.

YAVIN 4: BASE ONE

We open with a planetary profile of Yavin and its system. Information like the Yavin gas giant having 26 moons is straight from Legends; several sources like one of WEG's Galaxy Guides or Wizards' Geonosis and TORW looked at it in-depth, so why not use them?

The planet picture has two of its continents labeled as Wetyin and Starloft, info straight out of Galaxy Guide 2.

he Massassi temples are simply said to belong to an extinct civilization, so sorry if you really wanted the EU's Sith connection back (you monster)

Also, although often forgotten, the Base One monicker is straight from ANH.

That's it for Yavin 4, other than some really pretty pictures, so let's move on to the entry I feared the most...

MON MOTHMA: LEADER OF THE REBELLION

Mon's entry begins by mentioning that her father was an arbiter-general for the Republic and her mom was Chandrila's governor. Check your privilege, girl. Anyway, this is all EU info; mom was called Tanis Mothma according to the HNN website.

We get a brief mention of her cut ROTS scenes, as well as a couple of pictures. Her reunions with Bail and Padmé in said scenes are said to happen at Cantham House, neatly recovering some old WEG lore from the Rebel Alliance Sourcebook.

We learn that Mon Mothma spoke publicly against the Emperor after "escalating outrages", calling him a lying executioner. Star Wars Rebels depicted this, clarifying that the Ghorman Massacre (another WEG event) was the final straw. She fled Coruscant and resigned her seat.

This public declaration of rebellion eventually gave rise ton the formal Declaration of Rebellion, in case you wondered if Mon Mothma read this whole thing to the Senate: no, she probably didn't.

As the Rebellion is both paramilitary force and political movement, Mon Mothma fills two roles: Chief of State of the civil government, and Commander-in-Chief of the Alliance Forces.

Again: lore from WEG's Rebel Alliance Sourcebook. Get used to it, because you'll see more.

(As some additional trivia, the EU had the head of the New Republic also adopt this title, Chief of State, presumable as a continuation of the Alliance's office. So yeah, blame WEG for the pages and pages of aliens blaring "Chief of State Organa-Solo!")

We get two final nods in her portrait's labels. First, her pendant is called a "Medal of Freedom", recovering the original Visual Dictionary term over the more recent "Hanna pendant" from the Character Encyclopedia.

Don't go! Space jewelry is important!

And second, her haircut is described as "Naylian-style."

Nayli was the city in Chandrila seen in the Nintendo 64 classic Star Wars: Rogue Squadron.

And that's it for Mon. Next, we'll continue with the main Alliance military leaders seen in the movie: Raddus, Draven and Merrick.

ADMIRAL RADDUS: FLEET COMMANDER

Time for a look into our favorite Mon Calamari based on Winston Churchill. Physically, I mean, because as far as I know Raddus is not necessarily pro-genocide.

At the time of Rogue One, he's in command of the Rebel Fleet.

Mon Mothma considers this fleet the most important component of the Alliance Forces. The Council is of the opinion that, if there's ever a victory against the Empire, it will be won in a naval battle.

At this time, the fleet is a hodgepodge of donated and stolen ships, of course. The text mentions Hammerhead corvettes, Dornean gunships, Alderaanian cruiser and Gallofree transports.

The last two are known properties from the OT, but the first two merit a separate mention.

The Hammerhead first appeared in Rebels and then was added to Rogue One, making it an animation-to-live-action transplant. It was based on the Hammerhead from the KOTOR videogames.

The Dornean ship was rescued from obscurity, originally a background model briefly seen in ROTJ. It was named by a fan named Ello137 in the old What's The Story? contest, making it a product of an allied species seen in the very underrated Black Fleet Crisis trilogy of EU novels.

But the fleet is in the process of acquiring "a new and mighty spine." I would say "a mighty fishbone" but that's probably the reason I don't write these books.

Yeah, we are talking about the Mon Calamari fleet!

After the Empire occupied Mon Cala, many Mon Calamari vessels escaped into hyperspace.

And we are talking, as the text calls them, "city-ships." You saw them in The Clone Wars. WEG always called them converted civilian ships, so it's not much of a deviation.

We saw this exodus in the second volume of the Darth Vader comic, published months after this guide. Who knows who had the idea first, but that's the beauty (and frustration) of shared storytelling!

That comic showed Raddus leading this exodus, so of course, he leads the fleet.

The city-ships are being rebuilt into warships in deep-space facilities in the remote Telaris system.

Telaris is briefly mentioned in WEG's Rebel Alliance Sourcebook as the place where Ackbar assumed control of the fleet. So, again, fitting.

Raddus is always with this Fleet, rarely setting foot on Yavin 4. His aides, Caitken and Shollan, are always by his side.

I don't know if it's been established that their race comes from abyssal Mon Cala depth, but it should. Or maybe not: too obvious.

The plan is that, as soon as the Rebel Fleet is ready, it will carry the Alliance's starfighters, reducing the risk of a ground base being discovered.

I've talked about the "large Alliance/small Alliance" tension in Star Wars storytelling before. Here we have it again!

Let's look at Raddus' data file now.

He's 65 standard years. His skin is "chromatosphoric" and aids camouflage, presumably in his native environment. In the real world, chromophoric chemical groups absorb light at a specific frequency and so impart color.

Raddus comes from the polar regions of Mon Cala, and his people's blood is said to be thicker than that of their salmon-colored neighbors. A reputation that Raddus loves to live to: he's not into social pleasantries or waxing poetically about hope and whatnot.

A pause and then we'll return with General Draven, our favorite spook.

GENERAL DRAVEN: ALLIANCE INTELLIGENCE

Let's open this section by talking about someone else than General Draven!

Because as we find out here Draven is "merely" the Intelligence liaison to Yavin 4: the Intelligence director is General Airen Cracken.

Alliance Intelligence was first described in WEG's Rebel Alliance Sourcebook (1990), although its boss wouldn't get a name until the following year's Cracken's Field Guide.

Yeah, he's one of those guys who gets books named after them. Important people!

Cracken appeared all through the EU. In the RPG he "authored" more books and even had his section in the Adventure Journal magazine, "Wanted By Cracken."

He and his son Pash showed their faces from time to time in EU novels, particularly of the Zahnstackpole inclination.

Funnily enough, one of the Falcon's gunners during the Battle of Endor was retconned into being Airen. Why? Who knows.

He's appeared in more recent materials, like Moving Target, Alphabet Squadron, or the Doctor Aphra comic.

But enough about Cracken! Who is Draven?

Draven is a Clone Wars veteran personally trained by Cracken. He served in the Republic's military intelligence, so he personally knows many of the current Imperial military leaders... and what they are capable of.

He worked side by side with the strategists and commander who would form the core of the Imperial war machine, so he knows they go to great extents to ensure Imperial dominance. It's an interesting portrayal: Draven is driven to stop the Empire at any cost.

We see a screenshot of a cut scene where General Merrick confronts Draven after the Eadu fiasco: Merrick considers Draven too coldly pragmatic, too removed from the comradeship that fighter pilots encourage and enjoy.

I think they don't like each other.

Draven doesn't appear to care about Merrick's point of view. Alliance and Empire still haven't started open hostilities, so he knows that victories are not going to be glamorous: his tools are sabotage and assassination, and he doesn't care about recognition or praise.

Now we take a look at his data file. His full name is Davits Draven, he's 45 years old, and he comes from Pendarr III.

Pendar III was first seen in... you guessed it, Wanted By Cracken! It was the homeworld of the Pendarran Warriors.

The Pendarrian Warriors were a military group that fought alongside the Jedi during the Clone Wars. The EU had a few of these, perhaps too many: Freedom's Sons or the Antarian Rangers are other examples.

Can we infer that Draven was part of the Warriors? No, not really.

He was part of Republic Intelligence, not any paramilitary. But the EU was the Warriors be exterminated to almost the last man and woman during the Purge, so I bet this would tint his perception of the extremes the Empire was willing to go. Just my personal take on it.

Since this guide came out, good old Draven finally met his end in the pages of the Star Wars comic. He sacrificed himself, feeling the weight of the guilt over nearly having ruined Operation Fracture. He was personally Vadered, so not a bad end. [In The Arms Of The Angel plays]

Next, the best mustache in the Rebel Alliance, with all my respects to Biggs Darklighter: General Merrick!

GENERAL MERRICK: BLUE LEADER

General Anton Merrick leads the X-Wing, Y-Wing and U-Wing squadrons assembled at Base One but he's also Blue-1, leader of Blue Squadron. He's a veteran at the controls of U-Wings, but he prefers a good ol' X-Wing.

We love his smile.

Like Draven, Merrick is a Clone Wars veteran. He led the Rarified Air Cavalry a Virujansi, his homeworld's defense force.

Virujansi is a world with a long story in Star Wars, and it's cool to see Draven hail from it.

I first knew of Virujansi through an adventure included in the Star Wars Rules Companion, one of the last 1st ed books I ever bought (sadly, the publishers in Spain released a mishmash of 1E and 2E.) The player characters pretend to be the Rajahs of Virujansi, shenanigans ensue!

I always double-check this kind of info with Wookieepedia, and the wiki insists it was actually first mentioned in the ANH novelization. Huh. So I got it off storage (hush) and... so far I haven't been able to find said reference.

Take it as you will.

I wonder if whoever edited that entry was being a bit... overzealous, as Virujansi was indeed given as Gaven Dreis' homeworld. You know, Red Leader from ANH.

Oh yeah, I should add: Blue and Red Leaders come from the same world!

Virujansi and its Rarified Air Cavalry were later featured in Insider #72, in a Holonet News feature that had Anakin leading them against the Separatists and earning his "Hero With No Fear" monicker from the local resistance movement.

I miss Holonet News a lot.

Anyway, after the rise of the Empire, the Virujansi Council was replaced by an Imperial governor and the Rarified Air Cavalry was forces to disband.

Merrick and Dreis politely refused an offer to join the Imperial Navy, retired with honors, and jumped into Alliance's arms ASAP.

More than following any political ideals, apparently our buddies just thought the Alliance's pilots were better and more coordinated than "the unimaginative TIE Fighter forces of the Empire."

Pilots!

A small sidebar tells us that Merrick is particularly protective of U-Wing pilots, who despite being more modest than X-Wing hotshots carry the extra responsibility of ferrying infantry to and from battlefields. They are all work and no glory.

We'll talk about them soon!

Some chain of command info: Merrick leads the Base One starfighter wing, having both Dreis (Red Leader) and Vander (Gold Leader) under his command. In his absence, Jan Dodonna himself is in charge of the fighters (as seen in that little "Star Wars" film.)

Merrick knows that the Alliance will never have a fleet to rival the Imperial Fleet, and he's aware that his starfighters will make the difference.

Rebel fighters are hyperspace-capable: they can strike fast and retreat. The Rebel doctrine since WEG days!

We jump to Merrick's datafile. He's 46 years old and (as seen) hails from Virujansi.

You know, I'm wondering now if his homeworld is a nod towards the fact that the character in the ANH novel that tells Luke that he knew his father is called "Blue Leader"!

His helmet is a Koensayr K-22995. I believe it's the first time we get a manufacturer and model for Rebel flight helmets? Is that possible?!

His flight suit's Diagnostech and Guidenhauser gizmos are all taken from existing lore.

It's the small details you remember as a GM!

And that's it for tonight! Next, we'll be taking a look at Alliance High Command, ie the Rebel Council. Some old faces, some new faces, all Rebel to heart!

REBEL COUNCIL: ALLIANCE HIGH COMMAND

The different cells in Yavin 4 have combined to form High Command and, despite what Imperial propaganda says, the Alliance is quite structured, formed by both a civilian government and a military hierarchy.

Of course, not all cells are that organized (insert here your Star Wars RPG adventuring group that keeps hollowing out R2 units to sneak into Imperial facilities) but Base One is a model of order and efficiency.

Art by @hishgraphics

The upper command is commonly known as the Rebel Council and even though it is a military entity they include several senators in it.

We hear that their meeting can get heated. Yeah, you could say that.

The Alliance feels emboldened by recent successful strikes in Lothal, Garel, and Ord Biniir.

Lothal and Garel are from Rebels, of course. And I guess that getting rid of a Grand Admiral and sectorial Governor and freeing a world counts as a successful strike. Yeah, I'd say so.

Ord Biniir is a world from the old Rogue Squadron comic. In Legends, a battle took place there: a minor victory that was nonetheless very popular because it happened at the same time as the Battle of Yavin. We can assume this time it happened somewhat differently.

Still, all these victories haven't proved the power of the Alliance.

What about the liberation of Lothal? That was major! Well, first, it was not an official Alliance operation. Second, it happened long after this guide came out, dummy. Shit happens.

So the Alliance is kind of split: some believe their future is in negotiating a peace with the Empire, others believe they are past that point, and I guess a few *know* that it's never been an option.

Next, we see a list of Rebel ranks. You know, the small domino pieces thingies.

We read that the Alliance adapted them from the Alderaanian standard. That explains why the guards in the oh-so-diplomatic Tantive IV wore them openly.

So that was the introductory section. In a bit, we'll take a look at the assembled military leaders of the Alliance.

GENERAL PITT ONORAL

This jolly-looking fellow is nothing less than the leader of the Yavin 4 Special Forces division.

Rebel SpecForces was a WEG creation, and we'll be seeing them a lot in future sections!

He was a logistics officer during the Clone Wars, so he has military experience.

Oh, and he actually appeared in the Star Wars comic! Before... well, let's say I'm not 100% sure he's still alive. We'll see why (and lol @ Larroca's "photo-referencing" in this panel)

COLONEL HAXEN DELTO

He's the overseer of a team that basically scour over Imperial and civilian communications looking for usable intelligence. You know, like in Three Days of the Condor.

The Rebels Files called this team Communications, part of Alliance Intelligence.

WEG (of course) had a similar team, the Intentions branch, but never expanded much into communications analysis. Imperial Intelligence did, though. It still makes sense that the Alliance would operate the same (plus, you know, we see them in Rogue One...)

COLONEL BANDWIN COR

This stern man in an Alderaanian jacket is pretty much General Merrick's aide, and he's in charge of day-to-day Starfighter Command decisions. He's the necessary rational counterpart to Merrick, treating fighter resources as that: resources.

Cor works side to side with General Dodonna deciding how to use their fighters in the Gordian Reach.

The Gordian Reach is the area of space where Yavin is, first mentioned in Marvel's Star Wars #25 in 1979.

Bandwin Cor would meet his end met his end in Star Wars #51 a couple of years ago.

Him too? Yup. Author Kieron Gillen got rid of most of High Command there to explain how the heroes rose through the ranks so quickly in ESB.

COLONEL ANJ ZAVOR

Did you know that Dodonna was not the only ANH character recast for Rogue One? Yeah, Anj Zavor was too. You know, Anj. Everyone's favorite character, right?

Anyway, it's believable. Dunno if this was the intent from the start or just a happy retcon.

He's the Base One liaison to the Fleet, to Admiral Raddus himself, and he's part of Fleet Command, keeping communications between Yavin 4 and the always-mobile fleet.

Fleet Command? More WEG? More WEG.

GENERAL BACCAM GRAFIS

No, it's not Rex, stop it.

Baccam Grafis is the Rebellion's procurement specialist, leading the Ordnance and Supply division, looking for fuel and weaponry whenever it's available.

GENERAL DUSTIL FORELL

Forell was in charge of Support Services, taking care of the Alliance's transportation network. At the time of Rogue One, that transport fleet only encompassed a few medium transports and "one military-converted light freighter."

Yeah, probably the Ghost.

MAJOR CAPIN HARINAR

One of Draven's men, he's a materials analyst, carefully examining Imperial technology to assess the Empire's capabilities and plan countermeasures. I bet he resigned once the Death Star was confirmed!

GENERAL JAN DODONNA

You know him, of course, as he had a speaking role in ANH. He's the Sector Command officer for Base One. The base commander, basically. His opinion carries a lot of weight in the Council, obviously.

We read that he was a bridge officer aboard a Jedi cruiser during the Clone Wars and that he served the early Imperial Starfleet until he defected.

The EU had a very thorough backstory for Dodonna, mostly through comics. I thought it was very good.

So that's Alliance High Command.

And guess what?

Yup, it's pretty much the same structure seen in the Rebel Alliance Sourcebook. Boom!

Not the first time this book pulls this trick, as you'll see next.

Break time. Join me next for a look at the Alliance's civil government!

REBEL COUNCIL: REBEL SENATORS

(The term "rebel senator" gives me shivers)

Let's take a look at the Cabinet, the six ministers beneath Mon Mothma (who, as mentioned, is the Chief of State of the Alliance Civil Government.)

Let's post this WEG bit in advance, okay?

Remember that WEG bit about Mon Mothma being an "elected dictator"? Well, that's no longer true: she's wary about wielding too much power.

Why the change? Well, we see her her outvoted in Rogue One, don't we?

The text tells us that Mon Mothma, despite no longer being a member of the Senate, is in contact with her allies there and that support for the Rebellion there is growing.

It's a very delicate time that the appearance of the Death Star could easily ruin.

SENATOR JEBEL

Meet Senator Nower Jebel of Uyter, Minister of Finance. You know him from the movie: he's the necessary coward that wants to sue for peace. Okay, he's not that bad, but I bet that's the perception most people had of him after the movie.

He's the third senator from Uyter we've met, believe it or not!

Lexi Dio was a Loyalist senator seen in AOTC. The EU had her be assassinated during the war.

She was succeeded by Male-Dee, seen in the Delegation of 2000 scenes in ROTS.

So we could easily say that Uyter was one of the founding worlds of the Rebel Alliance.

Their prominence would continue after the Galactic Civil War. We briefly see Nahani Gillen, the New Republic senator from Uyter in TFA, before she goes boom with Hosnian Prime.

Back to Jebel, the text tells us that he's a believer in democracy and still believes that a negotiated peace is possible. He's seen Space Hamilton more than 20 times [citation needed]

He vividly remembers Saw Gerrera's crimes and doesn't want the Alliance to spill more blood.

Of course, as the text tells us, he has no proof that the Empire would accept a peace offering and he's becoming dangerously close-minded.

The Aftermath trilogy would show us that his career survived until the New Republic. A true political creature!

(As extra trivia, WEG told us that the Minister of Finance was responsible from raising money, including raising taxes from Allied worlds (yes, guerrillas and terrorist groups do this IRL) and releasing Alliance War Bonds redeemable 5 to 25 years after the war.)

SENATOR VASPAR

Meet now Vasp Vaspar, Minister of Industry and Senator of the Taldot Sector. He's wearing a cloak with marks that point at him as a veteran of the Battle of Balamak.

This Clone Wars battle was first mentioned in Tatooine Manhunt (see my thread on it!)

His role is to oversee the Rebellion's meager resources. This makes him risk-averse, although he's not opposed to conflict: he just thinks it's unsustainable for the Alliance in their current state. When the Death Star is revealed, he recommends scattering the fleet and hiding.

SENATOR PAMLO

Next is Senator Tynnra Pamlo of Taris, Minister of Education.

Taris, the "Coruscant of the Outer Rim", was the focus of the first act of Knights of the Old Republic, one of the best Star Wars videogames ever made, and has made multiple appearances since.

Just like with Jebel, she's not the first Tarisian senator we meet. We met her Clone Wars era senator in TCW, Kin Robb, and the representative in the New Republic, Andrithal Robb-Voti, in TFA.

Pamlo's amulet is labeled as a "Tarisian amulet of the Robb", perhaps related to the two senators mentioned before.

Are they part of an influential family? Was the Taris level designer someone called Robert? Who knows, but the connection in there.

What does the Minister of Education of a revolutionary group do? According to WEG, both intelligence and propaganda.

Pamlo works closely with Alliance Intelligence and she's seen what the Empire is capable of doing, so she doesn't doubt the Death Star is real.

The next mentions three Imperial atrocities as an example of the truths Pamlo is privy to: Ghorman, Geonosis, and Lasan.

All three have been seen or mentioned in Rebels, where we hear stories of how the Empire "sterilized" Geonosis and massacred Lasan.

As I mentioned before, Rebels mentions that "the events at Ghorman" were the final straw that made Mon Mothma defect.

The Rebel Alliance Sourcebook gives us a description of the Ghorman Massacre, and I wouldn't be surprised it the lore was unchanged.

Pamlo wishes to go back to Taris to consult with her people, as she has no doubt that the Death Star is indeed a planet killer and that her homeworld would become a target: it's not a call she can make by herself.

Not the best timing but hey: understandable.

BAIL ORGANA

And finally meet Bail Organa, former Senator of Alderaan. He's, of course, Leia's adoptive father, first alluded to in the original trilogy and finally seen in AOTC and ROTS. He's one of the founders of the Alliance and will be a martyr of Alderaan.

The text gives us a summary of his actions during the prequels, from his always having been wary of Palpatine to his hosting the meetings that would evolve in the Delegation of 2000.

Replaced in the Imperial Senate by Leia, he's led Alderaan in funding and arming the Rebellion.

And that's it for the Council.

But wait! We were promised six ministers! Who are the Ministers of State and War? Is Bail one of them?

I don't know, but I do know that it's good to leave loose ends in books like these!

Tomorrow, we'll be back to profile two radical Rebel rascals that are soon (hopefully) going to be leading their own series: Cassian and K-2SO.

See ya!1

CASSIAN ANDOR: ALLIANCE INTELLIGENCE

Cassian is a spy, a veteran, respectful of the chain of command and respected for his ability to follow orders and complete operations with minimal resources and support.

He's a badass.

Cassian is in mid-twenties (Star Wars and age!) but he's fought all his life. During the Clone Wars, his father was killed at Carida Academy during a protest against militarism.

Carida and its very important academy have been with us since Jedi Search.

Although never a Separatist, Cassian became a child soldier in a Sep-backed insurrectionist cell, throwing bottles and rocks at clones and walkers.

Hence his "I've been fighting this war since I was six" making sense.

(And yes, before anyone asks: I know there's a Cassian series coming and I know it may or may not respect this backstory. I expect at the very least some alterations. But it's always been part of the game! Just enjoy this for what it is!)

What was this Space Palestine where Cassian grew up?

A world called Fest.

Aw yeah.

Fest is a world from the Rebel Alliance Sourcebook, part of the example cell given in it: the Atrivis Resistance Group.

Here's a snippet that I've shared before about Fest's insurrection as described in the RASB.

The text continues telling us that he's learned the hard way that all machinery has a weak spot.

He threw his lot in with "anarchist movements" before being recruited by Draven.

My punk boi Cassian.

(By the way, the ARG was drafted back into canon by Dan Wallace in The Rebel Files, and we learn there that pre-Alliance they were part of Mon Mothma's group. That paints a cool picture of Cassian allegiances that works perfectly with Rogue One.)

A small vignette tells is Cassian has been breaking the law (breaking the law) for two decades, so of course escaping Saw's dungeons was no big trouble for him.

Another small vignette tells us of his meeting with Tivik in the Ring of Kafrene. Yeah, that's it. Latecomer!

Another vignette tells us that this early Alliance relies heavily on operatives like Cassian. He's been pulling acts of sabotage and assassination for a long time, with little rest. He avoids having any downtime, mostly to avoid having time to think about what he does.

Grim.

We get to his data file. His full name is Cassian Jeron Andor, and he's 26 years old. He's spent most of his Alliance career working for Operations, the "direct action" branch of Intelligence.

As we saw the other day, this is another bit from the Rebel Alliance Sourcebook.

The text continues saying that statistics place the odds of an agent surviving 20 field missions around 23%, so Cassian has been moved to Retrieval, hence his helping with the rescue of Jyn.

23ers are another cheerfully grim detail from the RASB. That book is a gold mine.

Next we see a list of his operational aliases. He's a spy, remember.

This is a very fun section, so let's look at all these aliases one by one.

Willix, government agent on Ord Mantell

Willix was Cassian's name in one of the early drafts. This movie went through a lot of changes, and this appears to be a nod to its history. Dunno about Ord Mantell: random or another draft reference, who knows!

Aach, senatorial contact on Darknell

This Aach was Garm Bel Iblis' Rebel contact in Zahn's short story Interlude at Darknell. Continuity bending, baby! Yeah!

Joreth Sward, assistant to Admiral Grendreef

Admiral Grendreef was the villain from classic WEG adventure The Isis Coordinates (that title has aged well). The adventure did show a spy, but it was someone called Ulthar Blaze.

Fulcrum, recruitment agent in Albarrio sector

We know from Rebels that there was more than one Fulcrum! The VR experience Shadows of the Empire has Diego Luna voicing the holographic Fulcrum symbol when talking to the heroes, so here's your reference.

Albarrio is the sector where classic adventure Riders of the Maelstrom happens. This adventure did show us a Rebel spy codenamed "Dagger", but he turned out to be a droid, so probably not a reference to that.

One final nod appears in his transponder's label, that tells us that it hides a "lullaby" suicide pill (again, he's a spy).

This piece of slang is from Galaxy Guide 9: Fragments from the Rim, another gift that keeps on giving.

And that's it for now. Next, Kaytoo!

K-2SO: SECURITY DROID

Guess who's here? It's time to take a good look at the movie's main droid character: Kaytoo!

We find out that even though he's reprogrammed Alliance personnel get startled by his presence in Yavin. The galaxy hasn't forgotten their fear of combat droids, stoked by memories of the recent Clone Wars.

Kaytoo is an Arakyd product, like the Viper probe droids. After the Clone Wars, Arakyd dodged the new restrictions on battle droids by classifying the KX series as "security droids."

As we found out in Scum & Villainy, Holowan pulled the same trick with their IG series.

Kaytoo's original programming included an exception to the usual hardcoded prohibition against harming organics (as Threepio told us years ago) and defaults to immediately obey Imperial officers.

Cassian's reprogramming took all those presets out.

The elimination of said factory settings has a notable side effect: Kaytoo is now brutally honest.

He doesn't appear to care about following orders that much, either. He's a droid with an attitude.

The next section tells us about the KX's anatomy, something Arakyd is very proud of. Their exaggerated proportions help them have a similar mobility to a human athlete: they might look spindly and ungainly, but they are perfectly designed.

Kaytoo's built-in communicator helps him scan Imperial communications with ease, but Cassian often tells him to avoid interacting with these to avoid leaving traces of their presence.

Cassian trusts Kaytoo with his life... but not enough to let him carry a gun.

Kaytoo's obsession with having a blaster? Look, he wants to test his targeting system. That's all.

No, the "blasting meatbag" guy is that other sarcastic droid.

We look at his data file now. Kaytoo was built in Vulpter.

This world was first mentioned as the homeworld of podracer Dud Bolt (called a "Vulptereen" in TPM.) Holonet News later hilariously depicted the local company Arakyd taking over the world.

We also find out that Kaytoo represents a disappearing droid design philosophy: he's versatile and multifunctional, but the industry is moving towards increasingly specialized models.

He can use all kinds of tools and even fly more than 40 different Imperial vessels!

Next, we'll be looking at a variety of Rebel support staff we can see around Yavin!

REBEL SUPPORT: TECHNICAL STAFF

Did you know that running an armed insurgency requires a lot of technicians and mechanics? They get no glory, but they keep the ships and weapons that make victories possible up and running.

(Pic from ANH because it's funny)

Of course, even Rebel technicians are combat-trained. In case of an Imperial attack they are unlikely to end up in the line of fire, but that's because they are too valuable and their safety takes priority.

Without them, the Rebellion would just crumble.

PRIVATE TENZIGO WEEMS

Hey, look! A fan favorite!

Working under Draven, Tenny is part of the signal analysis group we mentioned earlier.

His job is not easy: he needs to make sense of a multitude of reports from automated listening posts from all over the galaxy.

To make things even easier, said reports bounce back and forth through a network of repeaters to make sure the Empire can not locate Base One.

Tenzigo tracks the progress of Operation Fracture from Jedha to Eadu.

Of course, his claim to fame is finding out that Rogue One was blowing stuff up in Scarif and getting the ball rolling.

Without Tenzigo, the Death Star wouldn't have been destroyed.

Be like Tenzigo.

D4-R4B (ARFORB)

This adorable astromech is part of the labor pool in Base One. A programming glitch makes him afraid of heights, so he only works at ground maintenance.

And he works even harder to make up for his glitch! It's not your fault, Arforb! Self-care!

R3-S1 (THREECE)

R3 is a clear-domer astromech, showing off her overclocked Intellex V processor.

Intellex IV processors were mentioned in the original WEG rulebook: it's what R2 units have inside their heads.

Threece has her own personality glitches: she's vain and competitive, having trouble working with others, but she's a great organizer.

So of course she's the chief of the astromech pool. She takes care of technology upkeep all throughout Base One.

Threece was built by Brad Oakley of the R2 Builders Club. Out of universe, I mean!

Probably my favorite part of every Celebration.

We'll return in a bit with the other half of the tech staff!

SERGEANT GALE TORG

Gale is assigned to escort VIPs when they get to Base One. He's wearing an Alderaanian consular security uniform, similar to the one seen in the Throne Room in ANH.

He appears to be inspired by Galen Torg, one of the honor guards from that scene: he was named by WEG's Galaxy Guide 1.

Why wasn't he just kept the same character? His name was *Galen*, you know. So he might be the same guy or not. Your call, honestly.

CHIEF GARN STEWER

Garn is the chief technician at Base One. He's a good-humored man, constantly joking about pilots ruining "his" ships. His tech team has a great rapport with the pilot roster.

He appears to be the kind of guy you want to work with!

His son, Garn Stewer Jr., would go on to become one of the A-Wing pilots seen in TROS, as revealed in the Visual Dictionary.

I'm not a fan of family sagas, but I love these little connections.

R2-BHD (TOOBY)

Tooby is Gold Leader's astromech. He might look unfinished, but he's not!

He's a good-natured and loyal little droid who's been in rebel service for years. He doesn't get why other droids, like Arforb, can be that grumpy: it's illogical.

And that's it for Rebel support personnel.

Next, we are going to take an in-depth look at two Rebel starfighters: the U-Wing and the X-Wing!

U-WING GUNSHIP: UT-60D SUPPORT CRAFT

Here's the U-Wing, perhaps Rogue One's most absolute triumph when it came to expanding the universe. Look at this beauty!

The U-Wing is a well-armed gunship whose purpose is flying into conflict zones and delivering soldiers to the middle of battlefields.

Even though it is classified as a "starfighter" it is more of a support craft.

The U-Wing is powered by four (or two in Rebels!) Incom 4J.7 fusial thrust engines.

X-Wings have been described as being powered by 4J.4 fusial thrust engines since at least the early LucasArts flight simulators.

Its thrusters are described as being "variable geometry thruster ports."

This term, variable geometry, first appeared in the Dark Empire sourcebook, but it was probably made popular by the Vulture droids or "Variable Geometry Self-Propelled Droids."

We learn that U-Wings are the preferred vehicle for extraction vessels as, you know, they actually have passenger seats.

Despite their ground-related role, they are still part of the Starfighter Corps. Thankfully, Starfighter Command and SpecForces cooperate with ease.

The U-Wing has, of course, two flight configurations. When it extends its wings to the back like Naruto it's in the combat-ready flight configuration.

Wingspan is greatly extended. Wings help radiate engine heat and extend the shield's bubble as well.

The power core is labeled as "principle reactor core." Edition mistake or does the U-Wing run on ethics? Your call, reade-- no, it's an edition goof.

Its front laser cannons are Taim & Bak KX7.

The KX-series has been around since the EU. X-Wings are armed with KX9's and Lambda shuttles carry KX5's, for example.

Am I extrapolating RPG stats from this? Oh boy, you know it.

(By the way, Windham's Haynes guide on Rebel starfighters would eventually talk about two- and four- engine variations.)

UT-60D: CROSS-SECTIONAL VIEW

As you were probably expecting, the cross-sectional cut is gorgeous. Let's peek into the sidebars and labels, and see what interesting info we find.

The text tells us that the U-Wing might well be the ideal Rebel vehicle, as it can fulfill so many roles. Medevac? Troop transport? Gunship? Shuttle? This baby can do it all.

Sadly the number of U-Wings in the Alliance's hands is small, so they are very valuable vessels.

The U-Wing was one of the last new designs Incom released before being nationalized by the Empire.

The nationalization of Incom is pretty old lore, at least from the Star Wars Sourcebook. Recent Solo lore supports the Empire nationalizing shipbuilders.

So the U-Wing never saw a full production run. Bail Organa managed to get a shipment of U-Wings to "disappear" and "accidentally" fall into the Alliance's hands.

Oh, there's also a civilian version of the U-Wing: the BT-45D, sometimes found around the Mid Rim.

(This BT-45D is a great starting ship for RPG groups. I know, I'm obsessed. Hush.)

Even though it's equipped with a hyperdrive, U-Wings rarely perform long-range operations: they tend to drop off, extract or drop soldiers, and leave to preserve fuel.

That's it for the U-Wing. We'll be closing this chapter with a look at our old friend the X-Wing!

X-WING FIGHTER: INCOM T-65 STARFIGHTER

The King is back👑

The T-65 has quickly become the ultimate space superiority fighter: there might be ships that excel in particular aspects, but no starfighter is as balanced as the X-Wing.

Incom engineers looked at two of their past products when building the X-Wing: the ARC-170 and the Z-95 Headhunter.

The ARC-170 is from ROTS and was kind of named by Lucas himself (the approved Ryan Church concept art was labeled "ART-170")

The story of the Z-95 is looong... a ship appearing briefly in the first Daley novel, its name later used for some X-Wing concept art by WEG, and finally turned into an on-screen starfighter by Clone Wars.

The X-Wing was intended to become the main starfighter in the Imperial Starfleet, but politics sidelined Incom in favor of Sienar.

This is all pretty old lore. Sienar have always been douches.

Thankfully, the Alliance wouldn't let such great design sit on a shelf gathering dust. They "acquired" them, modified them, and presto: your premier Rebel starfighter.

This idea comes, again, from the Star Wars Sourcebook. The EU portrayed it a couple of times.

Its S-foils (you know, the wings) can split into attack mode, giving the ship better shielding, better weapons coverage, and a reason to be called "X-Wing."

Let's go into the datafile. The ship's model is T-65C-A2.

Fun fact: the Star Wars Sourcebook alternatively labeled the X-Wing as T-65C-A2 and T-65B. Literally two pages apart.

So yeah, officially they are different models, both in use by the Rebellion.

Most of the X-Wing's systems named in here come from a great two-page spread from the Star Wars Sourcebook.

Here's a crappy scan:

And what didn't hail from there, most likely came from the X-Wing videogame. The Krupx MG7 torpedo launcher, for example.

It's very hard to track the OOU origin of components and bits. I only keep track of the Falcon's and that's because of (again) my RPG background.

And with this, we finally close chapter 2.

Next: a very in-depth look at my favorite world from Rogue One, maybe from all Disney-era films.

Jedha!

CHAPTER 3: OCCUPIED TERRITORY

Welcome to Jedha, where Saw Gerrera and his people fight against the Imperial occupation of the Holy City.

I rarely post pictures of the books I go through but... come on, I just had to post this.

JEDHA: ANCIENT SPIRITUALITY

First, let's look at Jedha's planetary profile. It's located in the Mid Rim, very close to the Unknown Regions, and it's a moon of NaJedha.

We wouldn't see NaJedha itself until the Star Wars comic, and... it's kind of weird but pretty.

Jedha used to be very popular until the hyperroute taking to it decayed and fell into disuse. Nowadays only people who don't want to be found or pilgrims looking for answers visit the moon.

And even though some think the moon gave its name to the Jedi, most scholars think it was the other way around. No matter what, their history is intertwined.

Next page we get a few shots of Jedha locations.

The first one tells us that several ancient faiths consider Jedha a holy city, among them the Ninn Orthodoxy, the Zealots of Psusan, and the Phirmists.

The Zealots are an older creation, kind of. This lady seen in the Outlander Club in AOTC is said to have a belly tattoo parking her as a Zealot of Psusan.

And no, I don't know who this "Susan" is. I feel like I knew at some point, but I'm old and forgetful.

The Phirmists come from everyone's favorite series, Join the Resistance, published a few months earlier.

Their name is a tuckerization of Mike Phirman, a comedian friend of Acker and Blacker.

The next picture shows several imperial officers, and tells us that the presence of large kyber deposits has led the Empire to occupy the Holy City and start mining the planet.

By now, we all know what kybers are, right? From TCW to... to everywhere.

The idea that the kyber crystals that empower the lightsabers were used in Sith superweapons and that Palpatine was interested in it was first seen in Crystal Crisis, an unfinished TCW arc. The fully-voiced animatics were released years ago. Pretty recommendable.

The third picture shows a crashed X-Wing in Jedha and tells us of the local rebellion. You can briefly see this X-Wing in the film itself.

And finally, we see the Catacombs of Cadera, where Saw Guerrera has his base of operations. We'll see them in more detail later on.

The last section in the data file is a nice shot of the Holy City, also known as Jedha City as NiJedha (I hate this kind of confusing name, so I'm glad it's barely used.)

Despite the daily violence, Jedha still sees many visitors.

Sure, Jedha is dangerous, but it's a more reliable port than any of the surrounding uncharted systems. Plus some people just want some excitement in their lives.

We get a few labeled locations.

First, of course, the Temple of the Kyber.

Similar to Fortress Vader, don't you think? The similarity in their designs is not accidental, of course.

This temple was inspired by the Temple of Pomojema from Splinter of the Mind's Eye, the very first EU novel. In this novel, based on a discarded draft for an ANH sequel, it houses the Kaiburr crystal.

Nothing ever goes to waste, my friends.

The Temple houses many statues made out of kyber crystal according to the comics.

Well, "housed": in the Catalyst novel, Galen Erso receives some kyber samples that he suspects were stolen from a temple. Ah, those Imperial rascals!

The Temple has its defenders but don't worry: we will give them a really good look pretty soon!

Other labeled locations include the ancient city walls, the Dome of Deliverance and the Path of Judgments.

If you didn't get it by now, Jedha is Jerusalem, Mecca and Tibet all rolled into one. I love it so much.

Next, the fun begins! We'll be talking about some of the Jedha pilgrims! Background characters woohoo!

JEDHA PILGRIMS: SEEKERS OF SALVATION

Some of Jedha's buildings are among the earliest known in the galaxy. The moon is "soaked in history." Dozens of faiths can trace their ancient connections to the Holy City.

Pic: Masada

This makes Jedha a favorite destination for pilgrims looking for some kind of answer to their spiritual questions.

The text reminds us that there are records talking of the Force that are more than 25,000 years old.

The Jedi were their most widespread practitioners, of course, but many other faiths evolved parallel throughout the galaxy. Not all of them *use* the Force, but they all *know* the Force.

The Empire is not fond of such displays of spirituality. After their extermination of the Jedi, they have started eyeing other faiths with suspicion.

Draw your own real-life parallels: you have so many to choose from.

Jedha natives like the Disciples of the Whills are tolerant of outlanders as long as they show the proper respect and peace. They are, of course, pretty spiritual themselves.

The EU has several examples of persecuted faiths, like the Cosmic Balance or the Sacred Way. Universal!

So let's take a look at some of these pilgrims and some members of the native faiths.

Art: @astarwarscomic

TOSHDOR NI

Ni is a member of the Brotherhood of the Beatific Countenance from Lorrd.

Lorrd and Lorrdians were introduced in Han Solo's Revenge, the second Daley novel. They are a human culture, all about body language.

The text alludes to this background, calling their concealing robes a "physical vow of silence." Because you can't see their body language, you know. I thought it was witty.

Other than Fiolla from HSR, Nee Alvar from ROTS was also a Lorrdian.

Toshdor is carrying a censer of Qatameric incense.

Qatamer is a city in Lorrd, mentioned in the excellent Hyperspace feature Death in the Slave Pits of Lorrd, authored by the JC's own TalonCard86. Weird flex, I know.

ANGBER TREL

Angber here is representing your average Disciple of the Whills wearing the simple scarlet robes of the order.

They are not as active as their cousins the Guardians of the Whills, but they still congregate around the Temple of the Kyber.

SILVANIE PHEST

Here's another Disciple, this time a recent convert. She's an Anomid wearing a vocoder mask.

Anomids are a WEG species, first appearing in classic adventure Riders of the Maelstrom. They indeed needed respirator masks... and were also all about body language.

Silvanie collects money for the poor, but she like her fellow Anomids are subjected to frequent Imperial searches out of worry they are wanted fugitives in disguise.

(Don't talk about politics in this thread, don't talk about politics in this thread, don't...)

KILLI GIMM

Killi is another Disciple. She hides her human face behind a mask and runs an orphanage adjacent to the Temple.

We see Killi and her sister Kaya as well as the orphanage in the excellent Guardians of the Whills by Greg Rucka.

THE HIGH PRIEST

Here's the leader of a particular congregation of the Brotherhood of the Beatific Countenance, sporting a blue Lorrdian Cowl of Quiescence.

He's taken his faith precepts to the extreme of stripping himself of a name.

This is something we've seen before in the EU, with a Jedi called only "the Dark Woman" doing this same thing. I don't know how much humility replacing your name by a badass superhero name shows, but okay, you do you.

Probably not a reference, but I thought I'd mention it.

"His followers refer to him only by a keening wail of specific pitch."

This made me giggle so much. Also reminded me of Splash.

Although these are all bros, it's not the first time we meet believers in this Beatific Countenance. Seib Nod from AOTC was a member of the *Sisterhood* of the Beatific Countenance.

It's funny how many religious faiths we just met in the Outlander Club, out of all places.

OMISHA JOYO

Our last pilgrim is a member of the Clan of the Toribota, a nomadic tribe from Isde Naha.

Isde Naha is the capital of Yarith Sector, first seen in a certain Greater Javin gazetteer written by certain galactic cartographers. And I love it so much.

The Toribota believe that Jedha is the first celestial object glimpsed by their ancestors, and that's a cool backstory.

Omisha's hat is intended to resonate "the call of the First Light." Oh, and he carries a water distillery hanging from his neck. Useful for a desert, I guess.

Some fans like to think this Clan of the Toribota is the nameless clan seen killed by Kylo and the Knights of Ren in the TFA "forceback." I don't think it was ever confirmed, but it would be a nice and harmless connection, I guess.

And that's it for now. We'll return with the next two pages of Jedha civilians!

JEDHA CIVILIANS: LIFE DURING OCCUPATION (I)

Despite having been turned into an urban battlefield, life in the Holy City goes on. It's not like inhabitants and visitors have any other choice.

Jedha is in a way a microcosm of the Galactic Civil War: a hard-to-contain struggle between Empire and insurgents with civilians caught in the middle.

And in a place like Jedha, any alley and any square can suddenly transform into a warzone.

The Holy City's population has adapted to the situation. Life goes on.

Despite Imperial restrictions, a black market has flourished. Other businesses make a living tending to the needs of the Imperial troops--and trying to get them to turn a blind eye to their infractions.

Transportation to and from the City is a lucrative business, as landings are only permitted in particular plateaus away from the city.

And of course, there are always ruthless people willing to make money off the situation in any possible way.

A small vignette introduces us to the cultists of the Central Isopter, death-worshipping zealots who visit areas of violence to meditate on mortality.

Introduced in R1, these creepy guys would later resurface in the Star Wars comic fulfilling a similar role.

Isoptera are termites, by the way. At least one of the cultists has a name referencing these insects, as we'll soon see. Is it because of their helmets' colors? Who knows! Might have been a production nickname or something!

THE DECRANIATED

If you've been following my threads, you know them. They've been around, but here is where we first met them.

The Decraniated are victims of a vile medical procedure performed by a certain fugitive surgeon, becoming as subservient as droids.

Wounded victims of the ongoing insurgency are prime candidates to suffer this process. Rumor says they are sold into servitude, stripped of their individuality.

They ones we see (?) in Jedha work at Gesh's Tapcafe. We'd get a better look in Solo.

Tapcafe is an old EU term, hailing from WEG and Zahn's original trilogy.

This particular Decraniated is holding a tray with chav tea. Chav is a drink first seen in classic Star Wars #66.

And this entry starts a "hidden" subplot tieing together several of the Jedha entries, that of the mysterious surgeon and his accomplice. Because, of course, this guide wasn't going to ruin a particular cameo, right?

DOBIAS COLE-TRUTEN

Lovely name.

This gentleman makes a living selling "burrowing silichordates" that he captures. They appear to be these lovely worms.

He works near the kyber mines, giving him some miner's lung equivalent, hence the respirator.

GAVRA UBRENTO

Gavra is a local mechanic. She's great at keeping starships going with little more than spit and a paper clip.

We first met her in Guardians of the Whills, where she had a small role.

WOAN BARSO

Woan smuggles refugees out of Jedha City. His ship is a container tug that could stop working anytime, hence his vac-suit.

We also heard of him in Guardians of the Whills, mentioned as an option neither Baze nor Chirrut liked.

VALWID INED

Ined is a Vobati forger who works with the Partisans supplying them with counterfeit visas to elude Imperial checkpoints.

TAM POSLA

I left the best for last.

Here's the first look we had at Posla, who would become a main character in the Doctor Aphra comic: the best Lawful Stupid gay cyborg ever. Maybe the only one.

He's the best. Seriously. I mean, not *best*, but...

This book introduces Posla as an interstellar lawman from the Milvayne Authority.

Milvayne was a world first seen in WEG's Last Command Sourcebook. Decades later, the Aphra comic really developed it a lot (turns out it's an awful pro-Imperial place)

Tam is well out of his jurisdiction and working as a bounty hunter. He's investigating the creation and sale of Decraniated in Jedha, a case similar to what two visitors called "Roofoo" and "Sawkee" did in Milvayne.

He's been taken off the case by his superior officer, but Tam will see the perpetrators brought to justice one way or another.

Tam Posla in... GALACTIC JUSTICE (I can dream)

Our friend is carrying an IPKC license in his pocket.

That's an Imperial Peace-Keeping Certificate. A bounty hunter license, basically. Another WEG creation hailing from Galaxy Guide 9 and 10.

If you are intrigued by this plot... it's actually in the Doctor Aphra comic for a good chunk of its original run!

The perfect time to catch up!

That's it for tonight. We'll return with another set of Jedha civilians, and then it's Partisan time!

JEDHA CIVILIANS: LIFE DURING OCCUPATION

Hey, remember this thread? We are backity-back.

GUCH YDROMA

Guch is a Phirmist who says his god touched him during a desert pilgrimage. He claims to have been bestowed the ability to create water, an ability he displays in several temples around the Holy City. Of course, he then sells the water. Duh.

JEDHA CHILDREN

Most adorable Pendra Silio is the face of this little section, and she's lucky in that she still has a mother (and a father according to the Rogue One novel!). Her mom is still desperate to find a way off-planet.

(Yes, this is Pendra, you remember her)

Orphans are common throughout the city. Many temples shelter them from the dangerous streets--as seen, once more with feeling, in Rucka's excellent Guardians of the Whills.

K-OHN (KONE)

Kone is a manumitted L-1 tactical droid who offers his skills for money, spare parts, and power. He often works as a translator in the Marketplace, and he's actually befriended a gang of urchins that he protects and feeds. Awwwww.

Interestingly enough, Kone is saving up for a processor upgrade because he wants to understand the nature of spirituality. The EU touched the subject of droid beliefs from time to time, and I've always found it fascinating.

Do you like L1 droids? I'm glad, because they turn up again. You can see a variation in Solo, in Corellia. Two more variations, MK5-L1 and GM12-L1, can be seen in the Spice Mines of Kessel.

Popular design. I think it looks very cool!

FASSIO ABLUND

Fassio is not a popular man: first he sold the Partisans to the Empire, then he was deemed a criminal after stealing armor from a dead stormtrooper. He has no allies: a death sentence in dangerous Jedha.

NESTA TERM

Another believer in the Central Isopter, again with a termite-inspired name. She calls herself "the Lens of the Central Isopter" and is in Jedha to "study the harmonies of discord."

The Star Wars comic revealed they were attracted to places of tragedy. Uh oh.

JALICE ANDIT

Yup, those striking eyes from the SWCE reel.

She and her husband Joali are thrillseekers and guns-for-hire. They are loosely allied to the Partisans, but they're in for the money and the adrenaline rush.

Damned tourists...

CAYSIN BOG

Caysin is a high-gravity humanoid. A sci-fi trope that you gotta love. He was blown apart by a Partisan attack and rebuilt by the mysterious "Roofoo" with techniques that, go guess, match the Decraniated.

Bog had a pretty busy after-R1 life, being a character in the Aphra series. There, he's revealed to have started a relationship with Tam Posla, and the duo would team up to track Roofoo (who, of course, is Doctor Evazan.)

Sadly for them, they decided to join forces with Aphra.

He was part of a taskforce alongside our dear doctor, and he... met a very messy end. No spoilers, but you'll end up wondering what the hell is wrong with Aphra.

Alas, poor Bog.

NIK HEPHO

Nik is a Britarro. Also a bounty hunter, and not one of the cool ones: he hunts down adherents to the outlawed Church of the Force, that concept from shelved TV series Underworld that keeps resurfacing.

Having hunted his way through Coruscant, he's now come to Jedha.

(He's that blur in the back!)

He got a list of suspected members from the Imperial Security Bureau (illegally) and keeps in contact with the droid intelligence of his ship, the Apostate, waiting in orbit around Jedha.

A nice, scummy villain.

Join me next as we finally get to the Lion of Onderon! The Hero of Salient! The Stinger of Kashyyyk! The Eraser of Panaka! The man, the myth, the madness...

S-S-S-S-S-S-S-SAW GERRERA!

*reggaeton horns*

Until next time!

SAW GERRERA: DISGRACED REBEL

"Extremist, madman, and terrorist are all labels that Saw Gerrera has been branded with--by sworn enemies and reluctant allies alike. Such slurs mean nothing to Saw."

Here's the leader of the Jedha insurgency, the Empire's most wanted: Saw.

Saw has been fighting the Empire since day one, and "has lost so much in this fight that fighting is all he knows and has left."

He's such a tragic figure.

The text proceeds to summarize the events of the TCW Onderon arc. How civil war erupted due to a puppet king installed by the Separatists, and how his sister Steela and him became the young leaders of the insurgency.

The Jedi Order went on to secretly train the Onderonian militias to topple this proxy enemy.

A really interesting bit: his torture at the hands of King Dendup and Steela's tragic death are pointed to as the main reasons he became so cold and remorseless.

I say interesting because torture rarely has any lasting consequences in Star Wars--especially not in animation, where it's used so often and so casually that it makes you wonder what's actually going on. So I really, really like this angle.

After the Clone Wars the Empire annexed Onderon, and they found Saw ready to lead a rebellion against this new invader.

We know from the featurettes that Lucas intended these Jedi-trained militias to be the spine of the future Rebel Alliance, and here we see it work out.

"It is a bitter irony that the insurgent trained and armed as a proxy ally in one war would become the unscrupulous enemy in the next."

*side-eyes Pablo*

Insets tell us that Saw used to be more lucid before his health started deteriorating, and that he's become obsessed with stopping the Empire no matter what it costs him.

Pic: badass Kurtz!Saw concept art by Aaron McBride

Another inset tells us that Jyn's reappearance makes the warm man that Saw once was reemerge. He saw her as a daughter and trained her to be a rebel.

Their relationship is one of my favorite parts of Rogue One. He's such a messed up take on the mentor role...

Pic: ???

Saw's conviction that the Empire is up to something diabolical combined with his decaying health has made him paranoid, convinced that both Empire and Rebellion are trying to assassinate him.

We take a quick look at his equipment. His walking stick is made out of dxunwood.

Dxun was the moon of Onderon in Legends, first seen in Tales of the Jedi and then in KOTOR 2. It's a very dark place, seeped in evil.

There's a clear thematic connection between the TCW Onderon rebels and the rebellious Beast-Riders of Onderon seen in the TOTJ comics, insurgents that rode Dxunian beasts. It's never been made explicit by any source, but it's still a nice treat for fans.

Saw wears a tattered Onderonian banner as a cape.

It's not seen in the guide's entry, but it sports the Onderonian rebel symbol from TCW (originally intended to be a precursor to the Alliance firebird!)

His armor is labeled as "plastoid ailette blackblast armor."

Plastoid is the "totally not plastic, pinky swear" material used in stormtrooper armor and Vader's suit. Basically: if you see what it's clearly plastic being treated as a strong material, it's plastoid!

Ailette is a real-world term, pretty much "those things on the shoulder of 13th-century armor", and you would know that if you had played more AD&D!

The label, then, only describes Saw's neck-thingy.

Easter egg: his personal timeline mentions a mission to investigate Geonosis. This refers to the then-upcoming "Ghost of Geonosis" episodes of Star Wars Rebels. Also the beginning of Forest Whitaker's "if Saw is there, I will voice him" trend. I love it!

He also has an "atmospheric sensor" installed on his shoulder. I guess he's paranoid about poison--probably because of his exposure to the gas canisters in said episodes. Next entry will give more weight to this hypothesis.

The last inset tells us that Saw has been following clues for two decades, not knowing that they actually point to the Death Star.

That's what we say that #SawGerreraWasRight

This obsession has shown him as willing to go very, very far, targeting civilians and employing brutal interrogation techniques. To the point that the Rebel Alliance has formally censured him!

And that's it for now. Next, we'll take a look at Saw's hideout. And after that, it's Partisan time!

See you then!

SAW'S HIDEOUT: THE CATACOMBS OF CADERA

So let's take a look at the place where the Partisans are hiding.

Oh, by the way, this book never ever mentions any "Partisans": it's always "the insurgency.

The Catacombs are away from the crater that contains the Holy City. They contain the remains of a long-forgotten species and are now believed to be haunted.

"In a sense they are, but by Saw."

Saw has been operating from the Catacombs for a few years by the time of Rogue One.

Here we have a picture of bald!Saw sitting on a flight chair lifted straight from the YT-1300. Ah, all that mysterious footage!

This spread spends quite some space on Saw's medical devices: his suit is the only thing keeping his pulmonary system going, and Saw's health is getting worse with each passing year.

We meet G2-1B7, Saw's medical droid, hacked to make sure it ignored some of its ethical guidelines and kept dispensing drugs at "dangerous intervals."

The droid is surrounded by medical equipment, like a picoscope for tissue analysis.

Know your metric system, kids.

There's also a computer that tracks the purging of "Geonosian insecticide" from Saw's lungs.

As I mentioned before, this is a reference (actually foreshadowing as it came out first!) to "Ghosts of Geonosis": it's probably where Saw's lungs became chop suey.

On the same page there's a picture of a card deck that Saw's people use to play Dead Man's Binspo.

Binspo is a card game from Riders of the Maelstrom.

A few pictures show us other locations in the Catacombs.

We see The Gut, the dungeons where Saw lets his prisoners rot until they're broken enough for interrogation.

There's also an armory. The text tells us that Saw's insurgents are constantly modifying and repairing their weapons to keep them operational in the harsh conditions of Jedha.

We also see the fantastic "analog dejarik" from the movie. There are not many luxuries available in the catacombs, so the insurgents get entertainment from this hand-carved version of the famous holographic game first seen in ANH.

The last picture shows us the gorgeous latticed window where Saw met his end. It was built by the previous occupants of the catacombs, the Church of the Contained Crescent.

That's it for the Catacombs of Cadera. Next, we'll be taking a look at some of Saw's insurgents, and then to his right and left hands: Edrio and Benthic Two Tubes.

See you then!

SAW'S MILITIA: REBEL OUTLAWS

Saw's guerrilla has changed many time since their creation during the Clone Wars. Saw went full Che Guevara and left his planet, striking Imperial targets all over the galaxy.

We are reminded that these are the people Jyn Erso grew up with.

There are questions over whether Saw's insurgency on Jedha is a net positive, as civilians get wounded often, but he pays no heed: he knows that the kyber the Empire is mining is going to be used to create something abominable.

Saw is an obsessed man. Some of his people share that obsession, that desire to expose the Empire. Others are driven by revenge, by the desire to give back all the pain the Empire has inflicted upon them.

These are their stories.

WEETEEF CYU-BEE

Warwick Davis!

His name was derived from a production nickname: "wee teeth" because of his many sharp incisors inspired by piranhas.

Weeteef is a small Talpini who can easily hide in the crowds of the Holy City. Despite his short stature is is "kilo for kilo [...] one of the most destructive members of Saw's band of rebels."

Our friend is a sharpshooter and explosive experts, and builds the sticky bombs the Jedha insurgents use to blow up Imperial walkers and tanks.

His gun is a weird hybrid of a DH-17 and a E-11 rifle: part Rebel, part Imperial. Symbolism!

MOROFF

This massive insurgent is a Gigoran, a species that originates in (all together!) WEG. Another Gigoran would also appear in Solo.

Moroff is a mercenary, traveling from conflict to conflict selling his brawn and firepower to whoever can buy it. He's not particularly interested in politics, but thinks there's a buck to be made in the insurgency.

Sounds like a "Step 4: Profit!" situation to me, tbh

KULLBEE SPERADO

Our spooky friend was recruited on Serralonis, running from a mysterious past. He disappears for weeks on end and has been spotted praying at the Temple of the Whills. A most mysterious militiaman.

CYCYED OCK

Our friend's visual implant is wired straight to his brain, giving him unerring aim with his vibrorang.

WEG started the tradition of naming weapons "vibro-something." This is most likely a vibro-boomerang.

Note: both Cycyed Ock and Kulbee Sperado survived the events at Jedha. If you want to know what became of them, check Dan Wallace's Smuggler's Guide. Or al least my thread on it!

LEEVAN TENZA

This Sabat was part of Dodonna's team of rebels until he was court-martialed for preemptively attacking an Imperial target.

Dodonna's pre-Alliance group (the "Massassi Group") was first seen properly in Star Wars Rebels.

Leevan has no regrets: he defiantly "embraced his guilt" and escape Rebel custody, soon joining Saw Gerrera's faction.

Time for a pause, and then we'll return with the last three Partisans featured in this two-pager.

EUWOOD GOR

Euwood is an Alderaanian and a former Rebel Pathfinder.

As mentioned before, Pathfinders are another creation of WEG, one of the divisions of Rebel SpecForces. We'll see more of them towards the end of the book!

Euwood fought in Onderon against the Imperial invaders and eventually "went native." He didn't go AWOL, though: he joined Saw's forces.

MAGVA YARRO

Magva has her own reasons to hate the Empire: she's a survivor of the Ghorman Massacre, here explicitly described as the slaughter of peaceful protesters.

Yeah, I think we can assume WEG's description of the Massacre is more or less still a thing.

Magva thinks that Mon Mothma and her rebels are just cowards.

She's a forward spotter for the Cavern Angels, Saw's X-Wing squadron. The X-Wing tabletop game has her piloting a U-Wing.

(Aside: we see little from the Cavern Angels in the movie--we see a crashed X-wing and we see partisans jumping on another one to escape the destruction. Did Saw steal it from the Alliance went he went his own way? Because that's always been my assumption.)

BEEZER FORTUNA

Bib's activist cousin!

No, no, really: that's who he is. He resents his family's lumpen asses being involved in the galactic underworld. But Beezer? No, he's a believer.

(His weird lekku? Dessicated.)

Beezer was radicalized during the Clone Wars by Cham Syndulla himself.

(Anyone else finds hilarious that TCW had two different Che Guevara expies down to their names, Saw Gerrera and Cham Syndulla?)

Beezer was captured during an Imperial raid in Lessu, Ryloth's capital seen in TCW and Rebels. He was freed by Saw's people and joined them.

Beez is one of Saw's chief strategists, controlling Imperial activity in the Holy City and helping Saw carry his insurgency.

Now, some BTS information, as we know quite a bit about Beez's origins.

First, his looks were apparently based on a ROTJ production maquette for Bib Fortuna, thin lekku included.

His connection to the Fortuna clan comes from his production nickname, "Cousin Bib"

And his name? Apparently, Bib Fortuna held the title of "High Beezer of Hoth" in early ROTJ scripts. I say "apparently" because I haven't been able to find anything in the Winzler book. Leave me alone! These threads are free!!!

That's it for today. Next, join me for a look at the Two Tubes duo. It will be tognawesome!

(oh, if you really enjoy these threads, make sure to check the comments: people way better in the know than I am drop by from time to time with comments and corrections!)

(and lol I bet you thought for a second that I was going to post my Venmo)

TWO TUBES: SAW GERRERA'S WARRIORS

Meet Edrio and Benthic. These two merciless Tognath mercs have signed up with Gerrera's cause out of a desire to strike back at the Empire, who conquered and occupied their homeworld Yar Togna.

Let's talk about the Tognath a little bit.

They are an ancient species related to Kel Dor (like Plo Koon from the prequels) and Gand (like Zuckuss from ESB)

Yeah: other people wearing breathing masks.

Tognath are a peculiar species: they have endoskeletons like mammals, but also exoskeletons like insects.

Their compound eyes and complex hearing/balance system is the reason they were those lenses and cybernetics. They look uncomfortable, yes, but... guess what...

...they don't mind them because Tognath are immune to most pain thanks to their primitive nervous system.

That makes Saw trust them with operational info: he's paranoid but he knows Edrio and Benthic won't talk if they get captured and tortured. Always the pragmatist.

Benthic and Edrio are eggmates. Most consider them brothers but their bond is different: they were born from eggs that grafted together while in their suspension jelly, and actually appear to share a tenuous telepathic link.

Benthic is the Two Tubes in the trenchcoat. He's a marksman and spotter used to prowling the alleyways of the Holy City. Despite not holding a formal rank, he is more or less equivalent to a lieutenant of the Rebel Alliance.

Benthic carries a monocular scope around his neck, several explosives in canisters behind his back, and a sniper blaster rifle he got from the black market.

He famously brought Bodhi Rook to Saw Gerrera in Rogue One. He nearly killed him because there's no word for defector in Kling-- in Tognath. Thankfully, Moroff managed to more or less explain what was going on.

Close call, Bodhi.

Benthic's eggmate, Edrio, is a pilot, even though he's also skilled at ground combat. He's part of the Cavern Angels, Saw's X-wing squadron.

Even though they have six vessels, they can only afford having a couple of them operational at the same time.

Now let's see some BTS and EU info.

The benthic zone is the deepest ecological area of a body of water. It's probably a reference to his looking slightly abyssal.

"Two Tubes" was their production nickname, that was respected when it came to creating their backstory. We've seen that before with Weeteef and also Leevan (another production nickname and a reference to Lee Van Cliff). I like it when these names are preserved in some way.

Also, yes: we see Benthic in Solo! He fought with Enfys Nest first, so he's a real veteran.

His name in that movie was just "Tubes." His being Benthic was first confirmed by Alien Archive...

...and then reiterated in the Star Wars comic, where he played a pretty large role. Because after the events of Rogue One, Benthic was the person who gathered the survivors of Saw's forces and brought the Partisans back to action.

The last issue of Gillen's arc in said comic actually has Han recognize Benthic and call him out on the ways he's changed.

A door is left open on whether Benthic and the Partisans are going to rediscover hope or not. An uneven arc but with a nice ending!

And that's it for our favorite eggmates.

Next, we'll be going back to our main cast and looking at some guy who insisted, despite all evidence on the contrary, that he was just the pilot.

BODHI ROOK: IMPERIAL DEFECTOR

Here's our everyman, Bodhi, the young Imperial pilot whose crisis of conscience would make him start the chain reaction that would end in the destruction of the Death Star.

Bodhi was an Imperial pilot with good technical skills. A native of the moon of Jedha, he would regularly run cargo runs of kyber crystals between Jedha and the secret research facility on Eadu.

That's how he would run into Galen Erso, the man who'd change his life.

Galen let him know about the horror that the Empire was building. Unable to deal with his own (relatively small) role in the whole affair, Bodhi decided to defect to the Alliance.

It's not easy to find the Rebels. So he surrendered to the local insurgent: Saw Gerrera.

Despite undergoing Gerrera's cruel interrogation to the point his own sanity was in danger, Bodhi managed to pass on Galen's holographic message.

The book does not mention Bor Gullet explicitly, perhaps to keep the surprise of our favorite Cthulhu.

Bodhi was a reluctant rebel, but he found the courage to fight the Empire, even coining the name of the team: Rogue One.

We all love Bodhi.

We get more info about Bodhi: he's cleared to fly all manner of Imperial cargo ships, from Lambda-class personnel carriers to the larger Zeta-class.

The Lambda we know, originally from ROTJ. The Zeta originated here in R1, and we'll take a deeper look later on.

Sometime you might not know about Bodhi: he's a gambler! That's how he makes ends meet, plus it's a good way to keep his tormented soul quiet for a bit.

He bets in odupiendo races, one of the sports seen on the Outlander Club screens in AOTC.

This gambling hobby actually saved Rogue One's life. Despite his credentials being instantly revoked when his defection is found, he has a few identity chips from other pilots that he won betting. That's what gets him into Eadu or Scarif.

Heh.

I don't really need this kind of "fixes" for perceived "plot holes" but you know, it adds character to Bodhi. So I approve of it.

We get an extensive list of Bodhi's equipment.

The binoculars he uses in Scarif are Neurosaav TE1.3

We've seen Neurosaav binocs before, the TD1.4 in ANH and the TD2.3 in ESB.

Look, I appreciate this consistency, okay?

We find out that he fidgets with his comlink when he's anxious, even when communications are jammed.

Our sweetest nervous wreck.

Bodhi joined the Empire when they took over his homeworld, taking their meager salary to survive. He witnessed the damage they made to Jedha. Eventually, he realized he couldn't stick to the sidelines.

BTW, the reward for his capture is 75,000 credits.

Not bad!

Even though his defection was met with suspicious, his commitment to the cause and the mission was enough to make him face the same Imperial soldiers he once worked alongisde.

Bodhi is a good man with human failings, yet he manages to find the strength to fight evil.

And that's it for the pilot.

Come back later for a look at fan-favorite Chirrut!

CHIRRUT îMWE: GUARDIAN OF THE WHILLS

Hell yeah Donnie Yen!

This deeply spiritual Guardian of the Whills believes that all things are connected through the Force. He's blind yet a highly skilled combatant; he appears to lack Force sensitivity, yet is no stranger to it.

Chirrut's nearly-extinct order protects the massive Temple of the Kyber.

Their origins are linked to the origins of the Jedi: some believers think they inspired the Jedi Order, but historians think it was most likely the other way around.

Chirrut was not born sightless, but he never talks about what happened to him: whatever it was, it's irreversible.

He's adapted to his condition through rigorous discipline and perfect motor control: he uses his other senses to move with unnerving accuracy.

The section that explains Chirrut's martial arts prowess is called "The Blind Master," like a certain G.I. Joe character.

Any other author? I wouldn't have considered it a reference. But in this case? Yup.

Chirrut knows a Jedha martial art known as zama-shiwo, "the inward eye of the outward hand." It's based on perfect control of one's body, and it's said that masters can even alter their heart-rate at will. Not unlike some Jedi techniques.

Just dropping this picture, okay?

Chirrut has absolute faith in the Force and respects the disappeared Jedi Order, but the Guardians' teachings are not focused on the light/darkness dichotomy. They focus on the totality of the Force, not the discord found within it.

A small sidebar talks about the relationship between Chirrut and Baze Malbus, "opposites in balance." Both sharing a backstory, completely different in their faith in the Force, yet both acting as the other's protector.

Another section is labeled "The Force of Others." Chirrut uses that term in the movie, but its origins are actually in the first draft of *The* Star Wars.

If you are curious about it, Dark Horse actually adapted it into a gorgeous comic miniseries.

Let's take a look at Chirrut's belongings now.

He's cloaked in a kasaya robe, very similar to what Lyra Erso wore.

A kāṣāya is the traditional robe worn by a fully ordained Buddhist monk.

Hanging from his belt we can find his echo-box, an echolocation device that helps Chirrut locate potential obstacles or hazards on his path.

Hanging from Chirrut's back we can find his lightbow, a handcrafted and apparently pretty complex variant of the well-known bowcaster native to Jedha.

Remember: he shoots down TIE Fighters with it. It's a nice weapon.

Ritually crafting your weapons is central to many warrior societies with a mystic slant in the Star Wars universe: Guardians, Jedi, Mandalorians, Jensaarai in the EU continuity...

It is a fantasy trope inspired in ancient history, so yeah: it perfectly fits Star Wars.

And hanging from Chirrut's neck is a can of worms. No, not literally.

It actually is a Jedha pendant depicting "an ancient starbird", a symbol that only recently was modified and adopted by the Rebel Alliance.

I talked about a can of worms because both EU and Canon have insisted on explaining the origin of the Rebel Alliance symbol.

Was it an evolution of Sabine's phoenix? A combination of it and the Partisans logo? An ancient starbird? All of them and holy crap, what a coincidence?

Hey, at least we know it's no longer the family crest of Darth Vader's secret apprentice's clan.

Eek. I just shuddered.

Chirrut's data file tells us that he is 52 years old, the same age that Donnie Yen was at the time Rogue One came out.

And that's it for Chirrut.

Next time we'll talk about his counterpart, Baze Malbus! See you then!

Pic: Tahei and Matashichi from Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress

BAZE MALBUS: HEAVY WEAPON WARRIOR

Baze is a former Guardian of the Whills who's found a new calling in fighting the Empire. Jedha's brutal subjugation has turned this battle-hardened veteran into an angry instrument of vengeance.

His bravado and dark humor serve as a counterpoint to the spiritual centeredness of his best friend Chirrut. The blind master's constant stream of mantras exasperates him: Baze lost his faith in the Force a long time ago.

Baze didn't care much about any differences between Rebel Alliance and Partisans, until the Empire made it personal through a certain star of death.

According to novella Guardians of the Whills, Chirrut and Baze actually fought for Saw for a while!

This fearless warrior has replaced the vestments of the Guardians with combat armor and an array of heavy weapons, especially his heavy repeating blaster.

An inelegant weapon, perhaps, but one that gives Baze a sense of retribution with every blaster bolt he lets loose.

His weapon is highly-illegal, of course, but in these times laws in Jedha have become meaningless.

The text tells us the weapon's destructive power is equivalent to five blaster rifles. The backpack stores ammunition and systems to cool the weapon.

Baze hasn't forgotten his hand-to-hand training, of course, and he puts it to good use during the Scarif mission incapacitating stormtroopers left and right.

His armor?

Guess what it's made of.

Yup: plastoid. You are getting the knack of this!

His ammo belt uses Galven circuitry, a concept introduced in WEG's Galladinium's Fantastic Technology, a 1995 supplement that also included several fan-submitted entries! This technology focuses blaster beams into stronger discharges.

And this is it for Baze, but next we'll get a deeper look to both Baze's cannon and Chirrut's lightbow.

And after that? We'll review the technology used by the Empire in Jedha, and we'll finally close the chapter on this world.

GUARDIAN WEAPONS: CHIRRUT AND BAZE ATTACK!

Chirrut's and Baze's weapons of choice couldn't be more different. Chirrut calls Baze's cannon soulless, and Baze thinks that his friend's lightbow is an antique, but they trust each other's skill with their weapon.

Baze's cannon is a MWC-35c "Stacatto Lightning" repeating cannon.

MWC stands for Morellian Weapons Conglomerate. This company and the remote Morellian Commonwealth were introduced in WEG's Alliance Intelligence Reports in 1995.

This weapon has two fire modes: standard (a rapid-fire mode) and single-shot (a single, more powerful blaster discharge.) I suspect that we actually see both in Rogue One.

In the standard mode, the MWC-35c's electroscope's smart targeting array takes into account Baze's position and facing, grouping shots into bursts to maximize hits on multiple targets.

That's how he took down all those stormtroopers in Jedha so effectively.

Baze has no problem using other weapons: in Scarif, we see him use a HH-12 rocket launcher against an Imperial walker.

The HH-12 is a new creation, but we saw the HH-15 missile launcher in the classic Battlefront series.

Chirrut has two weapons: his lightbow and his staff.

Funny bit: the lightbow uses the handle of an E-11 blaster, the standard issue weapon of Imperial stormtroopers. No clues on how he obtained it!

The weapon is powered by a diatium power cell, just like lightsabers are.

Diatium cells were introduced in the original Star Wars Visual Dictionary, back in 1998. They crawled back into canon through the TFAVD, being mentioned in the section dedicated to Kylo's iconic saber.

Chirrut's gauntlet is actually part of the weapon! It's an impeller gauntlet that he uses to aim the weapon and to receive feedback from it.

Impellers were mentioned in Han Solo and the Lost Legacy, and WEG mentioned impeller fields. Probably the same technology.

Guardians build their lightbows upon completion of the seventh duan.

I'm assuming it's some Guardian rank.

Let's move on to Chirrut's staff. We learn that it's made of uneti wood.

Uneti trees have been around canon quite a bit: they are a species of tree that grew on Ahch-To and that a strong connection to the Force. The sacred Jedi texts are partly made of uneti pulp.

The metal lamp that crowns the staff actually contains a small sliver of kyber, a symbol of inner illumination.

Chirrut uses the crystal harmonics and the battery's humming to guide his hits. And yeah, that's why he smacks stormies with such ease. Magic stick. Shut up.

And that's it for our Guardians!

Next we'll be swapping sides and taking a look at the Imperial arsenal deployed in the Holy City, starting with the combat assault tank.

See you then!

COMBAT ASSAULT TANK: HEAVY ARMOR

And we are back with something I had wanted to see on-screen for a long time. I finally got my wish (partially: more on that later)

Meet the TX-225 GAVw "Pccupier" combat assault tank.

The Empire inherited impressive ground-based forces from the Grand Army of the Republic, but it's worked to expand them even further. Because the starfleet is impressive, but the Empire needs to control a vast amount of land.

The growing Imperial arsenal includes ground assault vehicles (GAVs) like these combat assault tanks.

The term GAV is an old one, having first appeared in WEG's seminal Imperial Sourcebook. And yes, it's based on real-life terminology.

The TX is a product of Rothana Heavy Engineering.

RHE was introduced during the ramp-up to Attack of the Clones. They were a secret Kuat subsidiary that worked closely with the Kaminoans to craft the Grand Army's vehicles. Essential Guide to Warfare has a nice profile on them.

In Jedha, these tanks carry kyber crystals confiscated from local mines to waiting shuttles that will deliver them to offworld Tarkin Initiative operatives.

They are stored inside these orange crates, as we see in the film.

The ambush we see in the movie happens in a place called Tythoni Square.

Tython was the place where the EU had the Jedi Order originate, a very different place to the Ahch-To of the new canon. It's mostly known thanks to SWTOR.

These tanks are heavily armed, but they are not built for urban combat and could be vulnerable to targeted attacks. To counter possible guerrilla ambushes, they are accompanied by an infantry escort.

The tank commander issues orders from the top hatch of the tank, leading both the tank's crew and the infantry escort. His pretty cool helmet is synced with the tank's computer, giving him updated info on anything happening.

This particular commander is HC-4120, first sergeant Jimmon Arbmab.

A "Sergeant Arbmab" of the Imperial Hammers Elite Armor Unit appeared in the Imperial Sourcebook. His name has to be a reference to WEG author Jim Bambra, right?

TX-225 OCCUPIER: CROSS-SECTIONAL VIEW

Yeah, gorgeous art, of course.

We read that Rothana is a shadow of its former self and has specialized on treaded and repulsorlift armored vehicles. The TX-225 is one of these.

There are two main models of the Occupier: the TX-225 GAVw, that uses segmented tracks for propulsion, and the GAVr, that uses repulsorlifts and actually hovers.

Or "the one from Rogue One" and "the one from Rebels."

(Apparently, the version from R1 was also intended to hover, but time constraints made the production team leave the tracks intact. The animated team went with the hover version. It's fun to think of the different constraints live-action and animation have.)

(That's why I said that I *nearly* got my wish: WEG often spoke of Imperial repulsor tanks. My group never found the Adventure Journal that depicted them, so they became a Holy Grail of ours. We were *so close* to seeing them on screen!)

Back to the book, the Empire has deployed the tracked model on Jedha because it's apparently more nimble in tight urban quarters and because if the insurgency deployed repulsorlift mines the tank would be not affected.

Enter Weeteef's sticky bombs. Bye, tracks!

Ground vehicles rarely have energy shields. They are less efficient inside an atmosphere, apparently. The TX-225 is well-armed, though: a light structure of quadanium-enriched titanium with ceramic plates and phase-bonded into... okay, a lot of technobabble, you get it.

Quadanium is a very durable material from Legends. It's what the Death Star is made of!

One last detail from the cross-section: the TX-225's weapons are manufactured by Dymek. This company was first mentioned, once again, in the excellent X-Wing flight combat simulator.

A few years later, WEG will have them be the manufacturers of the Outrider's cannons. Ugh.

A break, and we'll return with the imperial tank drivers. I love their helmets so much!

TANK DRIVERS: IMPERIAL TANK TROOPERS

It's time for the tank bois.

Imperial combat drivers operate the Empire's GAVs. Three of them (commander, driver, gunner) crew the TX-225. They all wear this nifty armor.

The gray markings on their shoulder armor are the mark of the commander.

It's good to see that the Imperial rank system is just as demented as always. Please never change it. Please.

Imperial combat driver armor has changed several times during the Empire's existence. This is its iteration at the time of R1, a partial suit of plastoid plate that allows the drivers to sit comfortably.

This is how they looked in Rebels, by the way.

We read a quote attributed to the aforementioned HC-4120, who this time is identified as a member of the Imperial Hammers Elite Armor Unit.

So yes! The same character as the one in the 1989 Imperial Sourcebook! And the Hammers were in Jedha!

The next section tells us of the friction between tank crews and infantry.

Tankies call grunts "tiny tanks" and "lightfoots", infantry call cavalry "fire magnets."

The Rebel Alliance rarely fields armor units, so most counterattacks on Imperial GAVs come from mines or improvised explosives.

It's time for the data file. The chosen trooper is HH-4413, Warda Gojun, a 22-year-old from Saleucami.

You probably remember Saleucami from ROTS.

AT-ST: ALL-TERRAIN SCOUT TRANSPORT

We close this section with an old friend: the AT-ST, the scout walker, first seen in ROTJ (okay, okay, an earlier iteration was seen during the Battle of Hoth)

Insurgents often underestimate the ungainly AT-ST, but it's a powerful patrol vehicle designed for open battlefields.

In Jedha, faced with ill-equipped street guerrillas, it's pretty much an indestructible death machine.

I'm not going to get into full-detail, as the AT-ST is a known property.

It has three weapon points: the chin laser cannons, a side blaster cannon, and a concussion grenade launcher.

Yes, yes: Jedi: Fallen Order shows a different weapon configuration. It's a game.

And that's it for Jedha! We are halfway through the book.

And now it's time for...

CHAPTER 4: THE EMPIRE

"From the chaos of the Clone Wars, the Galactic Empire emerged as a stabilizing force promising peace and security to a war-weary populace."

The Senate attempts to keep Palpatine's power in check, but they are having little luck. And once the Death Star is complete? He will be unstoppable.

Join me next as we take a look at this movie's horrifyingly-mundane villain: Director Krennic!

ORSON KRENNIC: IMPERIAL MASTERMIND

Krennic is the Director of Advanced Weapons Research for the Empire, and he works for the Imperial Security Bureau. That's probably why he's wearing white, like other ISB officers do.

The ISB was little more than Space Gestapo when it was created by WEG, but they've certainly mutated in canon and it's not clear what they are anymore. I'm sure some future source will eventually straighten this up.

In the meantime: "evil intelligence bullies."

Krennic is cruel and brilliant, and the completion of the Death Star has become his obsession: he's staked his future on delivering a functional planet killer to the Emperor.

Krennic lived through the violence of the Clone Wars and he thinks that the galaxy needs a strong hand to steer it: his hand, ideally.

This and most of Krennic's past was seen in James Luceno's Catalyst.

Krennic's brilliance earned him a place in a gifted program known as the Brentaal Futures Program.

His time there was seen, again, in Catalyst. Brentaal IV is a well-known EU planet that we've mentioned before, another WEG creation.

Krennic, by the way, is not a scientist by profession: he's an architect!

A detail that I love: remember the steady emergence of Imperial-looking buildings during the last seasons of TCW? Krennic's doing! Yup, he pretty much created Imperial brutalism.

Here we learn of another facet of Krennic's character: perhaps a certain inferiority complex.

He does not hail from Coruscant and the Core, like other Imperial higher-ups, but from Lexrul, in the Mid Rim. He's no debate club kid, either, and often loses his patience.

This, Krennic's volatile temper, is hinted to be one of the reasons for Grand Moff Tarkin's distaste for the man.

Lexrul, by the way, is another WEG planet, this one hailing from the Bissilirus campaign, that appeared in a couple of sourcebooks during the game's life.

It's described as a staunchly-Imperial urban world, a backwater the Empire lifted up. Kind of like Vardos from BF2.

The next section tells us that after landing an appointment in Imperial Intelligence (again not clear how much Intelligence/ISB lore has changed) he devoted all his resources to one single task: locating his former friend Galen Erso.

Catalyst paints a great picture of Krennic's manipulation of Galen, one that includes the possibility that he actually cares for his friends: he just knows better, that's it.

Anyway, the pressure put on Krennic makes him ruthless in his mission to locate the elder Erso.

"Krennic believes he gave Galen every opportunity to comply and see things his way. That Galen cannot is an intolerable flaw in his character."

Yeah. That's Krennic.

The next section is titled "Architect of Destruction," a title that has been given to people like Albert Speer, Henry Kissinger, and -perhaps most relevant- J. Robert Oppenheimer.

This movie's production codename was "Los Alamos" after all...

Krennic is surrounded by Imperials as ruthless as him, if not more. Now that the Death Star nears completion, he's both "on the verge of greatness" and greatly vulnerable.

He's very close to his objective: becoming a hero of the Galactic Empire.

This page's funny caption: "Keen mind dissects architectural puzzles and conspiratorial plots."

His rank plaque shows that his rank is equivalent to a Fleet Admiral (keep the crazy ranks coming!)

And his gun is a DT-29 heavy blaster pistol. We are reminded that it's non-regulation. I suspect Krennic feels above such rules.

Oh, and his gloves are made of tee-muss hide.

Tee-muss(es?) are the mounts seen in Felucia in TCW.

Let's look at his data file!

He's 51 years old, actually a few years older than Ben Mendelsohn was at the time of the movie's filming. Color me surprised!

His full name is Orson Callan Krennic.

I know that Callan is a relatively common name in Australia, at least compared to the rest of the world, so I wonder if it's a Mendelsohn thing. Who knows!

He's the Director of Advanced Weapons Research for the Tarkin Initiative.

We'll be taking a very in-depth look at the Initiative in this thread. It's one of those concepts everywhere over the current continuity, and it probably merits a short detour.

Finally, we get a small personal timeline. Nothing that's not mentioned somewhere else in the text, other than his joining Republic weapons R&D around the time of AOTC. That bit is, of course, from Catalyst.

And that's it for Orson!

Next: Darth Vader!

DARTH VADER: DARK LORD OF THE SITH

A minor character in the saga. You probably haven't heard of him.

Vader is the Emperor's personal emissary. He holds no rank and needs no rank. He "haunts the upper tiers of the Imperial military hierarchy."

As the Death Star is of special interest for Palpatine, he's sometimes dispatched to keep the ambitions of the men tasked with its construction in check.

As we know, that tends to involve a little bit of choking. The man has a peculiar management style.

The left sidebar tells us of his backstory, a summary of the PT, and lets us know that Vader is not a very public figure and his origins are mostly secret.

He was once a daring Jedi known as Anakin Skywalker until he was seduced to the dark side and then went KFC on Mustafar.

The Emperor saw fit to rebuild him into "a mechanized tyrant." This means he's rarely far from medical facilities dedicated to the maintenance and upgrading of his cybernetic components.

His personal fortress lies on "an inhospitable world" that the guide does not identify as Mustafar (remember that it was intended to be a surprise.)

As I mentioned before, notice that it's a dark counterpart to the Kyber Temple on Jedha.

As Vader meditates within his rejuvenation tank he's visited by his attendant, Vaneé. He's Vader's Igor.

It's been speculated that he has some relation with Kren Blista-Vanee, one of the Imperial Advisors from ROTJ, but nothing has ever been confirmed.

"The stark, modern structure is built over an ancient castle full of dark secrets."

Yeah, this is the very first indication of the plot of the VR game Vader Immortal, way before the Vader comic first showed us said underground castle. These things are prepared well in advance!

Vader, as we know from ANH, has little use for the Death Star. Technological terror, insignificant next to the power of the Force, etcetera.

To his eyes, the ambitious men behind it are unworthy of its power, knowing nothing of devotion or sacrifice.

His data file reminds us that he was raised on Tatooine but his place of birth is still unknown.

Also, he's 41 years old. Ah yes.

There's a small sidebar devoted to his helmet's red lenses, color-shifted to accommodate his damaged eyes.

Over the years he's used different optics in the helmet, probably a way to explain why Vader's eyes change color throughout the OT.

In his position as the Emperor's personal emissary, Vader is afforded many military resources, including his flagship the Devastator.

We'll talk about the Devastator later on, but it's the same ship he had in ANH before he got the Executor in ESB.

Break time, and then we'll move on to one of Rogue One's main actors: the Death Star itself!

THAT'S NO MOON: THE DEATH STAR

The culmination of two decades of research: the DS-1 Orbital Battle Station, codename "Death Star."

The DS-1 name comes from the Wizards of the Coast edition of the RPG. See? They did stuff too!

The Death Star is "a mobile, planet-killing superweapon." Perhaps a small reference to Knoll's original pitch, titled "The Planet Killer."

It transforms the raw energy of its hypermatter reactor into a massive superlaser using Galen Erso's kyber-based secrets.

Let's look at the data file.

"Diameter: 160 km (100 miles)"

The size of both Death Stars has changed so many times through the years that I don't really care anymore (not that I ever cared much.)

160 kilometers. I'll take it.

The station is made out of several layered decks covered by surface "city sprawls" that serve varied functions.

This lore comes straight from WEG's original Death Star Companion, a magnificent sourcebook on the superweapon by legendary designer Bill Slavicsek.

Its population depends on the mission, but it oscillates between 1,186,295 and 1,206,293.

These numbers are so specific that I was tempted to dust off DSTC and Cross-Sections to see how they added up, but no: I'm not that crazy. Not today, Satan.

The Death Star superlaser combines eight component laser streams that are magnified through kyber crystal technobabble.

The firing sequence must be carefully orchestrated or it could be disastrous, as we saw in an EU novel I won't dare mentioning.

A small detail that in retrospect is pretty obvious: the Death Star houses the greatest concentration of power ever built.

At least until the Abramsweapons in the sequel trilogy!

DS-1 EVOLUTION

"The Death Star's path to completion is a long, circuitous one full of setbacks, intrigue, and breakthroughs."

Ask me someday about how the Expanded Universe did this. Get me very drunk first.

As we know, the Death Star began its life under the Separatists, during the Clone Wars. Of course, Sheev secretly controlled both sides of the war: the Separatists knew how to build the battle station, and his Empire was able to turn their plans into reality.

We get a timeline of the Death Star's history titled "Birth of an Abomination."

First, the Stalgasin's hive of Geonosians was tasked by Count Dooku to design a deep-space battle station with a kyber-based superweapon.

Poggle the Lesser, Stalgasin leader, was eventually captured by Anakin, as we saw in TCW.

He would then reveal the nature of the Separatist weapon, insisting it was just a theoretical concept.

Enter Tarkin, who hears of the superweapon and thinks "golly, that would be a nice thing for the Republic to have."

Catalyst goes in-depth on this, and it's a pretty good parallel to real-life Project Manhattan: fueled by fear that the other side will build the weapon first.

Catalyst also shows us that Poggle and the Geonosians are the ones building the Death Star for the Republic. Operation Paperclip who?

Construction begins over Geonosis, and we see how it's going in one of the final shots of ROTS.

But one man, one hero, would follow the existing leads and get very close to uncovering the Empire's secret weapon: Saw Gerrera.

So, of course, the Empire moves the weapon (to Scarif?) and EXTERMINATES ALL OF THE GEONOSIANS to cover their tracks. Genocide, baby!

But then they run into a little problem: they have no idea how to build the superlaser.

(So why, then, had Dooku specifically ordered the construction of a kyber-based weapon? We know from TCW and Rebels that ancient Sith used said weapons; probably lost knowledge.)

Galen Erso was key to the superlaser's development, and until Krennic found him and forced him to go back to work for him the project stalled.

When the movie begins, we see the superlaser, freshly arrived from the Eadu facility, being fitted into the station's massive superstructure.

A Death Star is born.

So that's the story of the Death Star.

Join me next time as we take a look at the Empire's workhorse: the Imperial Star Destroyer.

IMPERIAL-CLASS STAR DESTROYER

Thanks to the military ramp-up during the Clone Wars, many starship construction facilities have been turned into forges of death churning out massive Star Destroyers.

The mentioned shipyards are Kuat, Corellia, Ringo Vinda, and Fondor.

Kuat, the home of Kuat Drive Yards, was first mentioned in WEG's Star Wars Sourcebook and has since been seen in both Legends and canon.

Corellia's shipyards are seen in Solo building ISDs, so you can call this mention a teaser.

Ringo Vinda is another artificial-ring world, this one seen in TCW.

And Fondor is a shipyard first seen in the Archie Goodwin strips back in 1981, and since canonized by the Battlefront 2 campaign.

The Imperial Star Destroyer is larger than the Venator, the Jedi cruiser of the Clone Wars, and "just a harbinger of even larger warships yet to come."

The data file tells us we are talking about the Imperial I-class Star Destroyer, that's, the model seen in ANH.

Here's a diagram by AnowiShipyards explaining the difference. I can never tell. I'm ship-blind.

We get a series of stats that are straight out of the 1987 Star Wars Sourcebook... with an exception! The ISD now gets an atmospheric speed.

WEG had the ISD unable to enter planetary atmospheres, but that's pretty obviously changed with the new canon.

It looks ominous.

The section next focuses on three specific ISDs that appear in the film, so let's take a look at them one by one.

First: Executrix.

This is the flagship of Grand Moff Tarkin. We see it in the movie when the Death Star's superlaser is fitted and Krennic and Tarkin have their little bitch fight.

Its commander is Captain Hindane Darcc.

Ship and commander have been inherited from the EU in a slightly twisted way. Let's take a look at this!

First, the Executrix appeared in Luceno's Dark Lord, a sequel of sorts to ROTS. It was Tarkin's flagship during the subjugation of Kashyyyk.

Luceno being Luceno, he couldn't help adding a nice continuity connection, so this ship is captained by "Captain Darcc."

Darcc first appeared as Moff Darcc in 2001 videogame Galactic Battlegrounds, where he's the Imperial warlord in control of Kashyyyk in the Wookiee campaign.

Luceno himself brought the Executrix back into canon through his novel Tarkin, and this guide brings Darcc as its commander.

Poor Darcc is no longer a powerful Moff, though: Moff Tolbruck pretty much takes his place in the Aftermath trilogy. Sorry, Hindane.

Oh, and this is obviously not the ship that goes up in flames in Rebels. That's the Sovereign.

Tarkin appears to alternate between Executrix and Sovereign. He took the Ex to Salient in 19 BBY, the Sov to Mon Cala one year later, then the Ex again to the Death Star.

Second: Devastator

The Devastator is Vader's flagship, and the very first ISD we ever saw, in the first seconds of ANH.

We learn that it's the last of the Imperial-I class to come out of Kuat before its replacement by the new Imperial-II.

That doesn't mean that the Devastator is outdated: it's a state-of-the-art warship built to Vader's precise specifications.

Darth Vader appears to have a knack for vehicle and ship design!

The ship commander is Captain Shaef Corssin, who is described as competent and focused.

His first name is probably a tip of the hat to the actor who portrayed him in the movie, Michael Shaeffer.

Third: Dauntless

Or the ISD hanging over Jedha. A very striking shot in the movie's first full trailer.

It protects the ships extracting kyber from the world and serves as a symbol of Imperial power.

There was an ISD Dauntless in the EU, first appeared in Riders of the Maelstrom.

But honestly? A really common name.

Let's check Wookieepedia.

Hmm-hmmm.

Yup, at least seven different ships called Dauntless. So yeah.

(Oh, and those balls next to the bridge? Yeah, still shield generators. For now. I think loremakers should constantly change their function to keep us on our feet. I humbly suggest "atmospheric recyclers" for their next iteration.)

And that's it for today! Next, we'll take a look at some Imperial officers!

IMPERIAL COMMAND: SERVANTS OF THE EMPIRE

(Timely reminder that Jason Fry's Servants of the Empire is a fantastic series, one of the new continuity's most-overlooked jewels, and that you absolutely should read it)

We read that the line between the political and military spheres has blurred since the birth of the Empire.

The Empire slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, transformed into a stratocracy.

So gradual the process was that the public-at-large still believes that the Imperial Senate is in charge of things, and that it represents their best interests.

The Senate was, of course, ultimately disposable.

Authority was funneled into the Emperor through a new military hierarchy that grew thanks to the efforts of the Imperial Academy system to raise ambitious men and women eager to bring the New Order's credo on the galaxy.

The final stage of this transformation would depend on fleet command, on military nerve centers such as Scarif, and on the horrific Death Star.

Some of the most ruthless Imperial officers raise from Scarif, waiting for their turn to subjugate the galaxy.

A cheery topic, I know.

IMPERIAL INSIGNIA

"Sector-specific design schema creates a hodgepodge of non-uniform markings."

They are not even consistent in the movies themselves. I appreciate some attempts to make them have sense, like Guide to Warfare's, but it's a lost battle. Embrace the chaos!

LIEUTENANT NILES GAVLA

Niles is stationed on Scarif and he's a graduate from the Carida Academy.

The Carida Academy first appeared in EU novel Jedi Search, and it's long been established as the most prestigious academy, perhaps next to Coruscant itself. A classic.

Niles is an administrative liaison to other Death Star-based officers.

Sounds cushy. It'd be a pity if someone were to crash that party.

GENERAL SOTORUS RAMDA

Meet the commander of the Scarif military garrison, he who might or not be blind according to certain members of the Imperial hierarchy.

Ramda, an unimaginative officer, achieved success when he crushed a local insurrection as commander of the Syni IV garrison.

This failed insurrection was first seen in a 1997 article by Tim O'Brien on Imperial garrisons that appeared in the Adventure Journal.

He longed for a position in the Core Worlds, but he's happy with Scarif: the place is pretty much a heavily-defended beach resort, after all.

So he's grown overcomplacent. It'd be a pity if someone were to crash that party.

GENERAL HURST ROMODI

Okay, I really like this one. Let's see.

Romodi is a battle-scarred veteran of the Clone Wars and became one of the first general in the new Imperial Army. He served alongside Tarkin in the Western Reaches Campaigns.

He's actually returned from retirement by personal invitation, and now has become part of the Death Star project. One of Tarkin's trusted men, basically.

And believe it or not, we've known him for a while!

Here's Hurst Romodi in ANH.

Yeah, he's one of the officers in the conference room scene. Incredibly enough, he went unnamed until 2012, when Jason Fry named him in the pages of the Essential Guide to Warfare using a name from the original novelization.

The Essential Guide to Warfare actually gave Romodi a whole spotlight-on section.

If you want to know of how he got his scars or hear about his political career, that's the place!

LIEUTENANT (JUNIOR GRADE) TOBIX CHASSER

Chasser oversees the Death Star's allocation of staff, and it turns out that anyone aware of the battle station's existence is dying to be assigned onboard.

It'd be a pity if...

LIEUTENANT CRIDEN VALDAS

Valdas is a readiness officer on Scarif. He reports to General Ramda on matters of technology allocation and contingency planning.

"Contingency planning." Maybe he was lucky when the Citadel was destroyed because he looks like the ideal scapegoat to me.

LIEUTENANT MYTUS ADEMA

Mytus is a young and ambitious officer. He's not happy about Ramda's command. He considers the Death Star a waste of money, but still sees it as a symbol of Imperial power.

In the meantime, our friend is watching Ramda closely.

He wants to someday present Director Krennic with a damning account of Ramda's ineptitude.

That's the Empire for you!

That's it for Imperial officers. Next, a look into Imperial support personnel, before heading for Eadu!

IMPERIAL SUPPORT: TECHNICAL AND SERVICE PERSONNEL

Meet the people who keep the Imperial war machine running.

Droids are, of course, the lowest of all the support personnel: the Empire does not afford them any respect or even acknowledgment, unlike the Alliance.

Service technicians don't fare much better. Those wearing gray uniforms are usually in charge of menial duty, the ones in black are higher in rank.

And then there are navy troopers, gunner, etcetera. The Death Star project needs a lot of hands.

"The Service and Technical Sectors of the battle station's personnel number in the hundreds of thousands."

Another reference to the great Death Star Technical Companion.

CORPORAL ANSIL THOBEL

Here's a navy trooper. The text tells us that they've become so numerous aboard the DS that people have started calling them "Death Star trooper."

This name has been used in licensing since... forever. Still a misnomer, as we've seen them outside the DS!

Navy troopers are trained in shipboard combat, in case some Rebel team decides to board the ship.

Most are also trained in some other operational duties. Thobel, for example, mans a sector suite station when he's not a sentry in the Death Star's Command Sector.

4D6-J-A7

Here's an RA-7 protocol droid. 4D6 is an administrative assistant to the Intelligence and ISB offices in the Citadel.

First seen in ANH, RA-7 units soon gained the fan name of "Death Star droids."

4D6's position means she's routinely exposed to classified info, so her encryption protocols are state-of-the-art. This has made her arrogant and conceited, although so far she's still behaving professionally.

ENSIGN YORT CAVWOL

A fastidious man, he serves General Ramda and Lt. Adema on routine operation within the Citadel.

Not much more about him, sorry.

C2-B5

One of many astromechs patrolling the Citadel for maintenance, C2-B5 is what most droids sadly are like: devoid of any personality due to routine memory wipes.

Emancipate the droids!

2ND LIEUTENANT FROBB

This deck officer catalogs shuttle traffic in Landing Pad #9. Why does that sound famili--? Oh. RIP.

His job is as expected: making sure ships are appropriately resourced and keeping his eyes open for anything out of the ordinary.

MSE-6 DROID

Mouse droids!

Rebaxan Columni "mouse droids" are a common sight in all Imperial facilities, serving as couriers.

Rebaxan Columni are a WEG thing, of course.

CREWMAN TODES HALVAX

This computer technician is the sysadmin at the Scarif command room, keeping the CItadel running and ready to tackle any issues that may arise.

I bet he gets paid as well as IT people usually do. Grumble.

LIEUTENANT DANBIT BRUN

Danbit monitors the power systems on the shield gate station above Scarif.

He also wears a very Star Wars mustache.

TECHNICIAN KENT DEEZLING

Better known as "guy who was nice enough to lend Jyn Erso his armor," Kent is a deck technician.

Deck technicians work in busy surface ports helping direct traffic. They are plugged into air control traffic through their headsets.

They prefer a manual approach, using their "luminous wands" to guide approaching ships.

They wear piloting gear, as they are authorized to commandeer certain ships if the need arises.

And if I was writing this, I would add that their #1 mortality cause was getting caught by Vader pretending their wands were lightsabers.

vvvvvmmm vvvvvvvvmm ugh agh CRACK ekkk

Yeah, yet another reason it's a good thing I'm not writing jack.

And that's it for Imperial personnel.

Next, we'll fly to stormy Eadu and meet the scientists behind the Star Wars, Galen Erso included, and discover a lot of historical Easter eggs you might have missed!

EADU: SECRET LABORATORY

The most "volatile" research of the Death Star project took place far from the battle station, for safety and security reasons.

Eadu is a world that Grand Moff Tarkin owned (!) until he ceded it to the Tarkin Initiative to house Krennic's secret lab.

The planetary map shows us the Tarkin Initiative laboratory, a blast range for kyber experiments, and a local village cluster.

Yup, Eaduans are a thing: they amount to 2.5 million and are nerf herders.

A sections called "Life Under Watch" tells us about the events shown in the movie, from the very angry Krennic arriving on site to Galen confessing to spare his colleagues' lives.

Eadu is a remote planet and its difficult terrain provides natural defenses to the laboratory.

The Empire still has deployed a full garrison of stormtroopers. Heavy turbolasers and a full TIE Fighter squadron complete the base's heavy defenses.

GALEN ERSO: CAPTIVE GENIUS

Galen is a renownedc polymath, known primarly as a physicist and a mathematician.

Born into poverty, he devoted his talent to solving "the problem of want." He was particularly incensed by how unevenly resources were distributed.

Comrade Galen!

The initial sidebar summarizes the events shown in Catalyst, similar to how Krennic's entry was organized.

He mastered music and chemistry as a young prodigy, absorbing knowledge through the HoloNet.

The HoloNet is another WEG creation: we'll talk about it one of these days.

He eventually was admitted into the Futures Program, as seen in Catalyst, and there he met a gifted and charismatic architect: Orson Krennic.

After graduation, Krennic helped Galen get a visiting professorship at the Institute of Applied Science in Coruscant.

While in the Institute, Galen found focus and a research topic: kyber crystal.

Krennic eventually coerced Galen into joining Project Celestial Power, an energy project meant to help the galaxy recover after the Clone Wars.

Allegedly.

Project Celestial Power relied on Galen's vast knowledge on kyber crystals to find a way to obtain humongous yields of power.

Of course Galen was unaware his research was not for renewable energies for the whole galaxy: Krennic was part of the Death Star project.

Thankfully, there was another factor involved.

During a field expedition Galen had met Lyra. They had married and had a child, Jyn. The trio had become political prisoners during the final days of the Clone Wars, until their rescue by Krennic.

Galen felt indebted to Orson.

Thanfully, Lyra helped Galen realized what was going on.

The whole family escaped to Lah'mu, where Galen tried to make up for the lack of attention he had given his daughter during the years of research.

Until Krennc found them. You know the rest.

Seriously, read Catalyst.

Let's move on to the datafile.

His full name is Galen Walton Erso, he was born in Grange (a new world first seen in Catalyst) and he's 55 years old.

He used to be affiliate with Project Celestial Power, is now part of the Tarkin Initiative.

The symbol on Galen's shoulder evokes a faceted kyber crystal and has become the logo of the think tank known as the Tarkin Initiative.

But who are the Tarkin Initiative?

As usual, it's hard (impossible) to tell who had the original idea and what influenced what, but the TI was first named in Gillen's Darth Vader comic, already shown as developers of superweapons and purveyors of mad science for the Empire.

It got its name from its founder, Grand Moff Tarkin, who was apparently not shy about lending his name to things.

Since Rogue One, we've seen them get involved in a looooot of mad science for the Empire, often involving Doctor Aphra.

They are fun.

We see Galen's personal timeline, pretty much showing all the events from Catalyst.

Still, it's sad to see that the Ersos' freedom only lasted four years. This movie is so tragic.

A last sidebar gives us a list of Galen's academic achievements.

He won a scholarship in a subadult (WEGese for "child") science fair in his homeworld, Grande, and top honors in a competition in the Brentaal Futures Program.

As an adult he was awarded the Kuat Systems Engineering Medal.

KSE was a subsidiary of Kuat that made small ships and starfighters for the Republic. The new continuity also has them building the A-wing instead of Incom, a sensible move considering the very similar lines.

He also received the Ashgad Prize.

This is probably a reference to Seti Ashgad, villain of infamous EU novel Planet of Twilight, a brilliant man with an engineering background.

Not the last Hambly reference *cackles*

And finally, he got the Roche Foundation Prize.

I take this to be a reference to the Roche asteroids, the setting of WEG adventure Strike Force Shantipole. In the EU, a group of Verpines used them to develop advanced starfighters for the Alliance.

DEATH STAR RESEARCHERS: CAPTIVE RESEARCHERS

Okay, first things first: this section is going to be longer than you might have expected.

Why? The author turned this two-pager into a massive reference to Project Manhattan, and I decided early on to try to find every single one.

Many thanks to @DarkSapiens, our trusty fandom physicist, who helped me find the last references by suggesting I expand my search to Project Manhattan sites.

Of course, some of my "finds" are just educated guesses. Let's get that out of the way.

Now, enjoy the history lesson.

The introduction tells us that the Death Star has been developed in scattered secret laboratories over two decades, working on the never-finished Geonosian schematics and trying to solve the riddle of the station's power source.

Geonosians failed to crack the secret of kyber.

The Empire had a difficult task in front of them: kybers are exceedingly rare, usually too small to be useful, and extremely volatile.

So while the battle station was built over Geonosis, the Eadu team worked under Galen's lead to solve two different problems.

First, how to fuse small crystals into larger forms.

Yeah, that's why the crystal crates seen in R1 are considerably smaller than the massive kybers from Rebels: the latter are probably very, very rare and the Empire couldn't depend on them.

And second, how to control the chain reaction. Kind of important to not have your superweapon explode on you.

The Kyber Crystal Research Team, a subdivision of the Tarkin Initiative, has been working on these problems for nearly twenty years.

RASETT MILIO

His name is probably a combination of Project Manhattan scientists Franco Rasetti (co-discoverer of the secret behind nuclear fission) and Emilio Segre (Nobel Laureate for his discovery of antiprotons.)

Milio leads the HECIL division, High Energy Concepts and Implementation Labs.

And this is a holy-crap-obscure WEG reference! It's from Paul Sudlow's Jedi Academy Sourcebook, their most-often forgotten EU reference sourcebook.

This makes absolute sense, of course: this trilogy included the EU origin for the Death Star, with the Maw Installation being an analog to Eadu and the Omwat Think Tank the equivalent to the Tarkin Initiative.

Very nice touch!

Rasett and his team work on creating containment fields to focus the energy unleashed by the superlaser into a focusing cone.

Pretty much what Doxin, his EU equivalent, did. Consistency!

(Sorry, this is the only Doxin picture I could find)

VLEX ONOPIN

His name is probably a combination of Project Manhattan members John Van Vleck (Nobel Laureate for his research on electrons interacting with solids) and Emil Konopinski (one of Fermi's collaborators in the first nuclear reactor ever built.)

Vlex is a graduate of the Magrody Institute of Programmable Intelligence.

This institute, led by Nasdra Magrody, was the galaxy's premier AI research laboratory, as seen in EU novel Children of the Jedi, the best novel in the Bant-- okay, okay, I'll keep it professional.

As expected by his background, he's a programmer: he codes the devices that calculate the complex hyperspatial formulae that make the Death Star's firing sequence possible.

AMES URAVAN

His name is probably a reference to two Manhattan Project sites: Ames, Iowa (headquarters of the Ames Project, where uranium metal was developed) and Uravan, Colorado (a now-abandoned uranium mining town.)

As expected by those two references, he's in charge of the process that melds smaller kyber crystals into larger compound crystals.

This is very roughly what the Ames Process did: obtaining uranium metal that could be used in atomic bombs from uranium halides.

Great reference.

Oh, and he's a native of Christophsis, the planet first seen in the Clone Wars movie.

Very appropriate for a crystal expert!

SIRRO ARGONNE

His name might be a combination of Los Alamos director Norris Bradbury and the Argonne National Laboratory (a still functioning research facility where the first power-producing nuclear reactors were built.)

I am not 100% certain on the first name's origin, but Sirro here is the administrator of the Eadu Facility, so it would appear to be appropriate.

He ensures that scientists in the laboratory have their needs met.

And yeeees, he was played by some Doctor Who actor. You people are impossible.

Before the Empire, he was a member of the Galactic Republic's Minister of Science.

This branch of the government, MiniSci, was introduced by HoloNet News in a cheeky reference to the Death Star project.

FEYN VANN

His name is probably a reference to superstar scientist Richard Feynman who, before earning the Noble Prize for his work on quantum electrodynamics and popularizing the concept of nanotechnology, was a member of the Manhattan Project.

He's a shield technology expert, having once been a researcher for Nordoxicon Unlimited.

Nordoxicon, another WEG creation, were first introduced in the Star Wars Sourcebook and then went on to be the most-commonly-mentioned shield manufacturer.

(Pic by @hishgraphics)

Vann has used deflector shields to direct the hypermatter stream from the Death Star's main reactor to the crystalline firing array.

So, in case you wondered, it would seem like the kybers are not the core of the station. It's still a "simple" hypermatter reactor.

Spread through the two-pager we discover a few things about the Tarkin Initiative uniform: the coveralls are antiseptic, their footwear is grounded to prevent static discharges, and the tunic top changes color in the presence of radiation.

And that's it for the Tarkin Initiative! I really enjoyed this section!

Join me next for something a little bit more pedestrian: stormtroopers!

(And sorry for keeping calling it "Project Manhattan" instead of "Manhattan Project": I mixed it up in my head with "Project RAINBOW"!

I'll delete the whole section and-- lol no way)

STORMTROOPERS: SOLDIERS OF THE EMPIRE

Stormtroopers are an evolution of the late Republic's clone troopers.

They are no longer Kaminoan clones: stormtroopers are recruits.

The "dehumanizing military doctrine" they receive instills in them a fierce loyalty to the Empire.

Ironically, despite not using clones, the Empire has eliminated individuality among the stormtrooper ranks. They are an army of identical, faceless enforcers.

I heard Dave Filoni talk about this in some Celebration past: how the Jedi try to turn identical beings into people and the Empire tries to turn people into identical beings.

yvan eht nioj

After the end of the Clone Wars, the Empire started retiring their clone troopers due to their accelerated aging.

Once hailed as heroes, the Imperial populace soon forgot about the veterans who had fought in the Clone Wars. These vets found it hard to find a place in the galaxy.

The Imperial Stormtroopers became the face of the New Order, being produced by a rapidly-expanding network of Imperial Academies across the Empire.

A caption tells us that the Empire's more strict protocols have done away with the customized armor that had become so common during the Clone Wars.

Some Imperial academies begin training cadets as young as 13 standard years.

They are molded into "servants of the Empire" (cough), something particularly easy on impoverished or war-torn Outer Rim worlds where the Empire swoops in as an apparent savior.

After years of abuse and conditioning, the cadet emerges as an anonymous stormtrooper. His name is gone, replaced by a number.

I'm glad this is just fantasy. An army recruiting teenagers? Abusive training to forge kids into blindly nationalistic killers? lol yeah sure

We get a small section on the garrison protecting Eadu, the 975th. Attached to the Tarkin Initiative, they are so loyal they often rotate through top-secret facilities.

Note: Magna Tolvan, one of the main Aphra characters, was in charge of Eadu security during the events of R1.

The core of the Stormtrooper Corps consists of our brave men in white. Gender, race, origins... they are all hidden behind the unblinking plastoid face of the armor.

Still, mission- or theater-specific needs have produced an array of specialist stormtroopers.

Uniformity in the ranks is so strong that these differences rarely cause rivalries or envies: stormtroopers see themselves as one overarching force.

(collage by u/Reaper_64 @ Reddit)

We see a nice picture of stormtrooper armor.

I'm no stormie lore expert (I actually try to avoid it) but I recognize some terms from the old Essential Guide to Weapons of Technology. Pieces are "magnatomically affixed", for example: space adhesive, so to speak.

The data file introduces us to our example stormtrooper, TX-14057, a human from Aargonar deployed in Eadu.

Aargonar was mentioned in TCW and appeared in Rebels, but it was first seen in the classic Republic series by Dark Horse Comics.

STORMTROOPER EQUIPMENT: IMPERIAL TECHNOLOGY

The Empire equips its troops with the latest technology to make sure they stay one step ahead of rebels and insurgents.

Not that this has stopped these insurgents from finding weak spots in Imperial armor, for example.

Stormtrooper armor is mass-produced and rebels have discovered that it can be breached by well-placed blaster shots or hits.

Even though elite units have better equipment, rank and file stormies have to make do with vulnerable equipment.

The Empire's solution to this vulnerability?

Just keep throwing more troops into it.

The variant armor that Jedha patrollers wear is known as sandtrooper armor.

This armor, the same seen worn by Tatooine stormtroopers in ANH, but named as early as the original 1989 Imperial Sourcebook.

Advanced filtration systems in the armor make sure sand doesn't clog the breathing ports.

The cooling units employed on hot deserts, like Tatooine, are not necessary for the cold wastes of Jedha.

Although specialist branches of the Stormtrooper Corps use special armors, the standard armor is modular enough to be configured for specific missions.

The example given is the stormtroopers patrolling the Holy City of Jedha and confiscating any kyber crystals.

These stormtroopers carry these confiscated crystals in canisters that they then fit in their heavy backpacks. They also carry a datapad for cataloging their "captures."

(They are also seen in Kafrene, by the way. I chalk that to "late addition to the movie", like the Reaper)

Spread through the two-pagers we have a lot of stormtrooper equipment.

We have two models of Neuro-Saav binocs and quadnocs. I've already mentioned that I'm a sucker for this consistency, so I won't hammer the point home anymore.

We see the sandtrooper type 4 field pack. You know, their backpack.

Also the "armor accessory cube locker." I have no idea what this is (although we can guess), or if it's actually seen in the movie, but it looks like the cubes from Portal. 🤷‍♂️

The stormtrooper helmet gets some more love.

It's colloquially known as "bucket" by both Imperials and Rebels, and it's packed with fancy electronics and lenses.

The HUD is generated by the armor's Multi-Frequency Targeting and Acquisition System (MFTAS)

This piece of lore comes from WEG, and I believe it was first mentioned in the classic adventure Starfall, but it might have appeared even before it.

(pic: German cover for variety)

The helmet can be hermetically-sealed but it doesn't have an air supply. External atmospheric tanks are available, though.

Did you know that we see stormtroopers wearing these tanks outside the Death Star in ANH? I didn't for YEARS.

And this is the end of chapter 4. Bye, Imperials. Can't wait until Endor.

Next, and last, Chapter 5: Going Rogue. The Battle of Scarif and the conclusion of Rogue One!

CHAPTER 5: GOING ROGUE

This chapter covers Jyn's unsanctioned mission to steal the Death Star plans, no matter the risk.

The chapter picture is the very first released cast picture. When we got the first indication this was going to be a different star war.

SCARIF: MILITARY COMPLEX

Scarif is a small tropical archipelago world rich in dense metals valuable in shipbuilding. Its placement in the Outer Rim makes it economically non-viable as a supplier for Core shipyards, but it's perfect for the development of secret projects.

Thus Scarif has become an "incubator for Imperial military research" centered on the stronghold known as the Scarif Citadel.

Of course these projects are developed behind the Senate's back.

Incidentally, a silly piece of trivia: Scarif's name apparently comes from what a Starbucks' barista wrote of Gareth Edwards' latte when he gave "it's Gareth" as his name.

A series of small vignettes show us four facts about the world (I really like this format, by the way.)

We find out that some kyber crystal is brought to Scarif instead of Eadu for specific experiments, hence the crates seen on the landing pads.

There's a bunker network surrounding the Citadel, with scattered landing pads connected by a repulsor rail system.

The Citadel itself is capped with an immense command tower that affords a view of the whole complex.

An excellent vantage point to see things going boom!

Scarif is considered an ideal placement: a tranquil environment far from Coruscant. Citadel officers have become overconfident and relaxed, an attitude partly derived from the world's excellent defenses.

The stormtroopers assigned to beach patrol are well trained, though.

We get a brief look at how these patrols work.

Areca palm trees offer natural protection from would-be infiltrators.

These palms are actual plants, valued for their nuts (lol). The whole palmtree family is known as Arecaceae.

Troopers in the treeline scan for wildlife incursions, deferring to shoretrooper specialists if the need arises.

We'll see these "beachtroopers" in detail later on.

Let's look at Scarif's data file.

It's a world of oceans and island chains in the Outer Rim. Its diameter is 5,662 mi, smaller than the Earth (7,917 mi). It has no moons (for now *evil laughter*) and a population of 475,000.

That's it for the tropical world of Scarif.

Next, we'll take a look at SW-0608, the unlikely hero ship of the movie's third act, including another gorgeous cross-section!

This, by the way, is a perfect time to revisit this StarWars.com piece by @dan_brooks:

DESIGNING AN EMPIRE: DOUG CHIANG ON IMPERIAL ARCHITECTURE IN ROGUE ONE

starwars.com/news/designing…

CARGO SHUTTLE: IMPERIAL ZETA-CLASS TRANSPORT

Time for the chonky boi!

The Zeta is one of the Empire's more versatile cargo shuttles, and it's a product of Sienar Fleet Systems and Telgorn Corporation.

Sienar, makers of the TIE series and quintessential evil corporation, have been around since the original Star Wars Sourcebook. WEG used them often.

Telgorn are another WEG creation: they created the Gamma shuttle, an original assault ship from the Imperial Sourcebook.

The Zeta is used by both military and civilian government agencies. It's built around a central modular pod, so it's greatly configurable.

The Death Star project makes great use of these shuttles.

Pilots like our friend Bodhi are constantly flying loads with cryptic labels, completely unaware of being a small part of the machinery that will give birth to the planet killer.

Another cheery topic!

These flights are becoming more and more frequent.

Shuttles take kybers from places like Jedha to Eadu. Then, agglomerated crystals are brought either to the Death Star or to Scarif for further analysis.

The modular pods draw power from the shuttle and can be refrigerated if needed. Good pilots can drop off and pick up without even landing the Zeta.

The color is described as "interstellar orange", a term seen in the TFA visual dictionary to describe Resistance flight suits.

The text mentions a larger class, the Eta, that can hold multiple cargo pods.

This ship is briefly seen in R1. It should not be confused with the Eta-class shuttle from TCW!

Hey, they eventually had to run out of Greek letters (or the Empire ignored early Republic nomenclature)

Operating the Zeta requires a pilot and a copilot with licenses from the Imperial Space Ministry.

This bureaucracy was first mentioned in Galaxy Guide 6: Tramp Freighters, the beloved WEG sourcebook that opened the game to fringe characters.

Yet many green pilots with minimal security clearances are given the control of Zeta shuttles. The reason is the increased rate of cargo deliveries we mentioned. Pilots are very rarely allowed to exit their ships while docked, though.

A small sidebar mentions the ship's tech station, that can receive constant info from the cargo pod.

SHUTTLE SW-0608: CROSS-SECTIONAL VIEW

Another masterpiece by @Kemptronicus. Maybe my favorite (I'm a sucker for small figures)

I know, I know: it's very hard to communicate the info from a cross-section in a thread like this. We'll try our best.

SW-0608 is the ship commandeered by Rogue One during the Scarif mission. "Liberated" from Eadu, the ship is again used to take the Rebel commandos to their fateful destination.

Bodhi has been to Scarif before, over a dozen times. His security clearance has never let him step on the planet itself, though, even less on the Citadel.

His clearance codes work, thankfully, and the ship penetrates the planetary shield through the gate station.

After landing, Jyn, Cassian and K2 disguise themselves and head to the Citadel.

Baze, Chirrut, and the commandos use the cover of the blasts of coolant regularly spewed from the shuttle's vents to steadily sneak out of the cargo pod and into the Scarif jungles.

And whoops, it's late and I don't want to do this in a hurry. We'll finish this section next with a look at the information seen in the cross-section. And then, a look at the Citadel's vault!

As mentioned, the cross-section is a real beauty.

We find out that Jyn Erso got her disguise from Kent Deezling (profiled earlier in this thread) and Cassian got his from Lieutenant Colin Hakelia (pictured below, more or less)

Another two Zeta shuttles are identified: SW-4415 (bringing deflector shield matrix circuitry) and SW-1721 (bringing turbolaser barrel sleeves.)

As we see, Zeta are not exclusively "kyber cargo shuttles"!

Other heroes of Scarif are depicted: Bodhi, Chirrut, Baze, and two Rebel soldiers, Tonc and Sefla. We'll be seeing them soon!

Also, the knocked-out stormies are "stored" at the bottom of the cargo pod, under the empty kyber crates. Sucks to be them.