“I was riding on the mayflower when I thought I spied some land”–Introduction
For those who grew up with the original Star Wars trilogy, waiting for each new film was an exercise of collective patience and pure anticipation. Millennials who awaited each new Harry Potter book might understand, but this waiting was our unique rite of passage for Star Wars Kids of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
We had nothing but toys, time, and endless imagination between the releases of the first three films. By the time I was nine, I had become a film critic in my own way, driven by the hours I’d spent dissecting and reimagining the Star Wars universe. When we gathered at our parents’ house parties with our little action figures, we created stories, shared theories, and spun elaborate fan fiction in form with our favorite characters—especially about those elusive Death Star plans Leia hid in R2-D2. Where did they come from? What happened just before the events of A New Hope?
Even then, we scratched at the edges of the subtext, hungry for a deeper story. This search became our mythology, leading to endless playground debates and fantasy campaigns we called “Just Before Star Wars.” If someone had told little me in the early 1980s that one day we’d have Andor and Rogue One, nearly fifteen hours dedicated to the story possibility that lived in the subtext of A New Hope—I wouldn’t have believed it. Yet here we are, gifted with a series that brings that missing piece to life.
“I Heard The Ghost of Slavery Moan”- A Child of Genocide
We must acknowledge that no story has effectively conveyed the horror of genocide to young children like Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. For nearly five decades, whenever Grand Admiral Tarkin orders the Death Star Gunners to “…fire at will,” a billion children understand that’s a morally wrong thing to do. For this instruction of such a complex idea, every human being alive owes George Lucas gratitude.
Genocide is the deliberate and systematic attempt to eliminate, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. It involves acts intended to destroy these groups. There are three primary examples of genocide in Star Wars:
1. Enslavement of Wookies: known for strength and loyalty, the Wookies were systematically oppressed by the Empire, captured, and exploited as Imperial infrastructure and military slave labor.
2. Eradication of the Jedi: Emperor Palpatine initiated The Great Jedi Purge (Order 66), designed to eliminate the Jedi Order systematically. By framing the Jedi as enemies of the State and ordering their widespread execution, Palpatine intended to erase the Jedi from the Galaxy, along with their traditions and teachings.
3. Planetary Destruction: The Empire is willing to eradicate life on entire planets, such as Alderaan, a key planet of peaceful political people who once served as the backbone of the Republic. Alderaan’s destruction by the Death Star was a genocidal act of state terrorism that operated effectively on multiple levels. Not only did it smash the Galactic Senate from what power remained after the Emperor’s rise, but it served to torture Princess Leia as a punishment for refusing to reveal the location of the Rebel base. Alderaan was where she lived safely for many years with her adoptive parents.
But before Alderaan, there was the tragedy of the event on a backwater jungle planet named Kenari. Kenari was a lush planet inhabited by an indigenous population that lived a peaceful, self-sustained life in balance with nature. The Kenari people were not members of the Republic or the Empire. Still, their planet held resources the Empire was interested in mining for Imperial use (like building a weapon that could destroy a planet).
Unfortunately, there was a deadly mining accident that released toxic substances into Kenari’s ecosystem that made the planet uninhabitable, wiping out the native population. The Empire attempted to conceal knowledge of this tragic environmental collapse by labeling Kenari as an abandoned planet that was toxic to life. But the Empire was sloppy, like all authoritarian regimes, and they didn’t perform due diligence to confirm all Kenari natives were deceased, imprisoned, or eliminated.
A small team of rebels hostile to the Empire marauds and pirates their way across the galaxy, gathering resources and skilled fighters to confront this evil Empire one day. These rebels dream of a day when a different kind of peace rules the galaxy. But on the day, that small team of rebels was led by a brilliant, kind, and obstinate woman named Maarva Andor. While pillaging the ruins for the technology they could use for travel and tactical strikes, they encounter a young native boy survivor on Kenari named Kassa. Maarva isn’t a saint, but she acts in what she perceives to be the moral way. She drugs this child and abducts him. She raises him on a Mid-Rim planet called Ferrix, changing his name from Kassa to Cassian Andor.
Ferrix is a working-class world where citizens live in poverty and make or mine things with their hands. There is unity in poverty and pleasure in being skilled at good work together. The people of Ferrix are committed to a stable environment where the common good is enforced, even with limited resources and scarce moments of joy. Andor almost falls in love on the planet Ferrix with the beautiful, talented, and loyal Bix Caleen. They do love each other, but Andor has a problem. He had a sister he promised to care for, but this was several years ago. Cassian is obsessed with finding her, saving her, and ensuring she stays safe.
“Early One Morning, The Sun Was Shining”–In Media Res
The first episode of Andor is called “Kassa,” and it starts with Cassian Andor in the middle of some shit. In the world of fiction, we call this In Medias Res. It means to begin a story in the middle of some shit going down. When this technique is used effectively, the reader or viewer quickly becomes emotionally involved.
Andor is on a dark planet, in a shady place, sparse with creatures but filled with danger. He’s in a bar that is also a brothel. His questions draw suspicion from the madame, and her attention to him draws the ire of two Imperial mid-level guards. He’s looking for his long-lost sister who may have passed through here. There is an expensive rumor that a Kenari sex worker matching what might be her current description has been sighted on this planet. Cassian has begged, borrowed, and stolen from friends and shadier acquaintances to fund this expedition to the planet Morlana One from Ferrix. Those guards follow Andor into the alley and try to flex on him, but they both end up dead and only one by Andor’s hand. The die is cast on his fate, and he is no closer to finding his sister.
Back on Ferrix, Andor tries to return to a normal life, but there is no normal now. Enter the overly ambitious Junior Imperial Officer Syril Karn, who, when alerted to the death of those two guards, puts on a full-court investigation despite being told by his superior officer to back off and cover it up. Karn will identify Cassian Andor and move to press him on Ferrix.
But Andor has decided to flee Ferrix before he gets himself killed and the people he cares about get hurt. Because of this, he asks Bix to reach out to her mysterious contact so that he can sell a very valuable piece of Imperial military equipment. In his thieving trials, Cassian has discovered a skill. He looks past the rust on things and can get into and out of trouble quickly. He is both decisive and effective. Along the way, he procured and repaired a very valuable and hard-to-obtain military part called an NS-9 Starpath Unit. This advanced navigation device bypasses Imperial tracking and monitoring systems. It would be handy for those looking to avoid any Imperial entanglements. It is worth many credits, and Andor needs those credits to disappear for a while.
This device gets the attention of a mysterious man named Luthen Rael. By the light of day, Luthen is an odd antiquities and fine art dealer on the Capital Planet of Coruscant. In the shadows, Luthen is gathering resources and money. He carefully and methodically coordinates efforts across the galaxy to create a formidable network of tactical space armies to hit the Empire where it hurts most before it can do its worst. And time is running out for everyone.
Because of this, Luthen breaks his anonymity and makes the trip to Ferrix to meet this young man who was able to steal such a valuable piece of equipment. Perhaps the man is more important than the equipment. Besides money and other resources, Luthen needs skilled people with nothing to lose. Revolutions are built on the legends and sacrifices of such people.
Luthen is assisted by a cold and calculating young woman named Leia, Princess daughter of Senator Bail and Queen Breha Organa on the peaceful but political planet of Alderaan. And Luthen reports some results of his efforts to Senator Mon Mothma from the planet Chandrila. The situation is becoming desperate because as the Empire consumes more and more outlying systems, it must rely on greater intensities of fear in its campaigns. Therefore, the Emperor ordered the creation of the greatest weapon ever invented, a moon-sized laser cannon powered by Kyber crystals, a small planet-sized lightsaber rifle.
Andor is recruited during a tense moment of life or death. If he stays on planet Ferrix, he will be arrested by the Empire and likely die in an Imperial prison colony. So Andor flees with Luthen. During the flight, he is petitioned and reluctantly agrees to join a massive heist on a planet called Aldhani.
“To Live Outside The Law You Must Be Honest” - The Aldhani Heist
Aldhani is a distant, mountainous world with a small population of native people who worship the planet’s natural phenomena, including a rare celestial event called the “Eye of Aldhani,” which is a stunning meteor shower that takes over the entire sky like God’s tears raining down from Heaven in the form of streaking colored lights. The rebel heist that Andor joins late will use this event to cover for their escape after stealing the payroll for Imperial troops stationed across the galaxy, about 100 million credits. That fortune would go a long way to building a space army from a rag-tag group of disconnected rebels.
None of the other heist teammates trusts Andor, nor should they. He was a late addition and likely a spy. The heist is successful, but not without casualties. The test that Andor undergoes happens after the heist when a fellow rebel called Arvel Skeen reveals to Andor that he wants to betray the team and steal the payroll for himself but is willing to split it with Andor. Andor reacts decisively and shoots Skeen dead. This is a major moment where Andor’s internal morality finds a north star that aims his loyalty toward Luthen’s rebellion (whatever that means).
The Aldhani Heist cannot be ignored by the Intelligence Security Bureau (ISB). Like the Nazi Gestapo, the ISB is responsible for maintaining loyalty, rooting out dissent, and ensuring the stability of the Empire across the galaxy. Enter an ambitious ISB Supervisor named Dedra Meero. She becomes obsessed with identifying and dismantling this budding Rebel Alliance that few others believe is happening. Her fellow supervisors think she’s using this fearmongering to gain power and position, that she is an ambitious woman working overtime to overcome how much harder she has to work at this than the men around her. During her investigation, she crosses paths with the now disgraced junior officer Syril Karn, who flubbed the capture of Andor Cassian, where soldiers were killed with expensive property damage. The Aldhani Heist is an act that cannot go unanswered. It has reached the Emperor’s mouth.
But Andor has not finished learning from this small rag-tag group of rebels who manage to pull off the most insane heist in the Galaxy (to that point). Another one of their ranks was killed in an unfortunate accident during their escape. His name was Nemik, and he was a brilliant and kind young man who was deeply committed to the cause of individual freedom and resisting the Empire’s depravity and cruelty. Nemik believed in the power of Democracy, and he wanted Cassian Andor to be responsible for his writings after his death.
Vel Sartha is the heist leader and Mon Mothma’s cousin. When she learns Andor murdered Skeen, Vel initially accuses Andor of being a scoundrel who has betrayed the rebellion. But when he only asks for his original cut and offers to buy the ship that gets him off the safe house planet, she knows he is loyal and lives according to a moral code. This is an important moment for Andor; his character is forged under the immense pressure of being both criminal and freedom fighter. They leave each other reluctant allies, and Andor has his money to escape. He only has a few loose ends to tie up back on Ferrix.
“You Can Always Come Back But You Can’t Come Back All The Way”–A Return to Ferrix
When Andor returns, he finds Ferrix has changed during his short absence. The fallout from the shootout has damaged his already tender relationships with friends and family. He is told to leave and does so after paying his debts from his Aldhani cut. Andor escapes Ferrix again, but he’ll be back at least once more.
Because he has nowhere else to go, Andor decides to lie low on the resort planet of Niamos, which has sandy beaches and titillating nightlife. But the Empire’s reach is long and clumsy, and Andor gets caught up in some bullshit that has nothing to do with his past crimes. He is merely walking the beach when some hooligans act up near him. He is harassed by the Imperial security guards sent in to maintain order, and then he’s held by an Assassin Droid, arrested, and tried for disturbing the peace. For that minor infraction of being in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and rubbing the wrong person the wrong way, Cassian Andor is sentenced to six years of hard labor in the Narkina 5 Prison Complex, where he will learn another critical lesson.
“Nobody Is Escaping To Desolation Row”– Narkina 5 Prison
His experience in the Narkina 5 Prison is arguably the most important facet in Cassian’s transformation into one of the most important fighters in the burgeoning Rebel Alliance. This prison runs on order down to the micron. There are minimal security measures, and the guards are more like armed shift leads. This is because the floors in this prison are empowered with an entire spectrum of shock technology that renders barefoot prisoners completely inert, and prisoners are barefoot all the time. In reality, these men would likely piss and shit themselves when the floor shocks them to incapacity.
The night's floor lights turn red from white when these prisoners sleep. There are no cell doors in these modest yet sleek and clean sleeping stalls. When an inmate steps on the red-lit floor, they are dead in seconds. Welcome to the machine, Andor Cassian. In this prison of manufacturing labor powered by cruelty and order, they build parts for something massive. We can infer the production to be for parts of the Death Star, arguably the greatest Imperial construction project in this galaxy far, far away, a remarkable accomplishment in a galaxy littered with ancient temples containing unspeakable magic.
And so the work begins. Andor is thrown into the brutality of the Empire’s forced labor cycles, and he willingly works because the alternative is to die, a choice Andor will never make until the time of his choosing. He will reinforce this core belief during his experience as a working inmate on Narkina 5. He chooses when to die. Throughout several working and sleep cycles, Andor watches and stays quiet. He asks a few questions from people he emotionally analyzes to understand their loyalty and mindset. He picks his champions and slowly puts them together into a team. He is doing here what he just learned how to do from Vel Sartha’s leadership on the Aldhani Heist. Vel learned her fierce leadership from her cousin Mon Mothma and the other freedom fighters their budding alliance has exposed her to. Leadership and sacrifice are memetic in the Star Wars galaxy, and it’s important to pay attention to this throughout all narratives of Star Wars, whether they host lightsaber duels or not.
Andor gets a plan, but he needs the help of his shift manager, a tough but morally good man named Kino Loy. Kino is a survivor and a thriver in situations where he controls the order of his immediate environment. He keeps these men safe, on time, and productive. No one falls behind on Kino’s squad, lest they fall out completely. Andor needs Kino’s moral authority to move these men into action. Because of this need, Andor tries to be patient but eventually ends up screaming out loud for everyone to hear, “NO ONE IS LISTENING!” Now, in the scene's context, he is trying to convince the men that they are not being surveilled because the Empire is running this facility on production and incident metrics. As long as the numbers are met and the shock system is in place to maintain order, there is no reason to spend valuable credits and resources on listening to the conversation of prisoners already in captivity and engaged in forced labor. But in a deeper sense, no one is listening to Andor and what he’s trying to tell them, which is that they are all going to die in here very soon if they don’t get their shit together right now.
What breaks this situation open is, ironically, a breakdown of order that doesn’t involve an insurrection (yet). So there are several floors of working inmates in this facility, working different shifts, maximizing the productivity output to be balanced with the working capacity. These inmates are given a specified time to serve hard labor for their criminal penalties. They are each sentenced to a specific amount of work cycles. Once completed, they are supposed to have served their time and would be released to roam the galaxy. One inmate was recently “released” but transferred to another floor. This got out when the man started complaining to everyone around him. A collective understanding of what Andor was trying to tell them is now coming at them from all sides. No one is getting out of here alive. Even Kino Loy, whose heart is broken by this emotional abuse, comes around to Andor’s way of thinking. All the prisoners do. But the prisoners aren’t organized, and it would take a miracle to make that happen, or at the very least, a hero of destiny with a good shot.
Andor is our man. He’s ready. He probably feels like he was born for this moment. And he’ll feel this exhilaration many more times in his short but impactful life’s journey in the multi-threaded fictional narrative of Star Wars. His first objective is to sabotage the shock system in the production room. He knows where the wire is. He has the saw in place. All he needs is the time, and Kino Loy is giving it to him now that the lie is exposed and their imminent collective death is coming. The sentence that activated Kino Loy is the same sentence Loy will repeat from Andor when he broadcasts his voice live across the facility to unite these prisoners and incite a rebellion that takes over this facility and eliminates the threat of death upon them all. Kino Loy’s voice echoes through the prison, but it’s Andor’s words, and they ignite a fire in the hearts of prisoners. Andor may have stolen those words from a dead boy’s notebook. And what would it matter if he did? They have served their purpose of intent during creation.
“I’d rather die trying to take them down than giving them what they want.”
These words start a rebellion that becomes a revolution. Andor escapes this prison facility alive, but many others do not.
“Just Like Jesse James” –The Noose Tightens on the Nascent Rebellion
Mon Mothma has a problem. She’s a Senator with a kind heart. She swore to serve Democracy and keep her people safe and prosperous. And she’s done all these things. But she’s also done much more. When she isn’t clamoring and annoying the other Senators with her charity projects, she is gallantly entertaining the elite of Coruscant. She spends money on lavish things, elegant clothing, and a never-ending pageantry. But this is a ruse because her real job is moving money around to fund certain projects that operate outside the law and are shaded from the eyes of Imperial Auditors.
But the recent Aldhani Heist has greatly complicated her situation. One hundred million credits were stolen, and that money can’t remain hidden for long. It’s somewhere, and the Imperial Auditors are already on the scent. Mon Mothma had no known direct connection with the Aldhani campaign, not one that could be proved by the movement of “charitable cause” money around the galaxy. However, a 400,000 credit discrepancy from another venture is problematic. It will likely expose areas and activities in her life that better remain in the shadows behind her fake smile and projected goodwill.
Above all, Mon Mothma loves her daughter, who is now coming to an age where she will begin making life decisions. To get the 400,00 credits moved safely into place fast enough to avoid irritating the Empire’s inspection, Mon Mothma must agree to do business with the biggest gangster on her home planet of Chandrila. Davvo Sculdun is happy to help the Senator with her situation. He can even help her move money into whatever this network of federated alliances will become. And he asks nothing in exchange, no money cut or transaction fee. He only asks that she offer her daughter’s future in marriage to his son and ensure their houses are joined together through holy matrimony and forced circumstance.
Luthen is not faring much better. He’s trying to get an old fighter on board to make a follow-up strike after his Aldhani success, which he can’t rely on mentioning because it was so illegal and arrogant. Saw Gerrera is the most fearsome terrorist leader in the entire Rebel Army, at least that’s what the Empire thinks. He is feared around the galaxy, and rightly so. A seasoned, ruthless warrior and more terrorist than a freedom fighter, Saw Gurrera has been involved in the resistance against the Empire since before it was an Empire. He began his soldiery during the Clone Wars as a guerilla fighter from the planet Onderon. He became a leader fast, and he remained fully committed to destroying the Empire at any cost, even involving the death of many innocent people. Saw has gone places and done things as morally bent as the Empire, maybe even worse. But he’s on Luthen’s side now, and Luthen needs Saw’s help to pull off another short miracle.
Luthen's next strike is run by a separate rebel unit led by a man named Anto Kreegyr. Unfortunately for Anto, the IBS has gotten wind of his planned assault and will be ready to capture or destroy his entire unit, consisting of a few dozen freedom fighters. Luthen knows that the Empire knows, but he hasn’t told Anto. Luthen is a cold and calculating man. While he doesn’t share Saw’s unrestrained ferocity in combat, Luthen is willing to sacrifice people for the sake of the greater good. He also attempts to get through Saw’s hard-headed rejection of working with other rebel units to coordinate efforts. Saw thinks these other units are unserious and ineffective compared to his methods. Other commanders judge him and are offended by what he deems necessary actions for the greater good.
But Saw’s paradigm shifts when Luthen demonstrates that he is willing to ruthlessly sacrifice to not only buy himself a little more time but to allow this nascent Rebellion to spark in the right places around the galaxy. There is a similar moment in Star Wars Rebels, where the young Jedi Ezra Bridger’s voice is broadcast across the Rebel network, a message of hope, unity, and help to come. Luthen works in the shadows, so his voice will never be broadcast across the galaxy, inspiring people like Kino Loy did, convincing desperate people to abandon all comfort and safety while coming to a new way of thinking where they “get action,” as former U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt used to say.
Luthen and Mon Mothma perform at a different and higher level in this rebellion. But the rebellion will never become a revolution without men like Cassian Andor, Saw Gurrera, and all the brave fighters who follow them to uncertain deaths.
“Chimes of Freedom Flashing”– Fight The Empire!
All of these major characters and storylines converge on Ferrix in the final episode of Andor Season 1, titled “Rix Road.” Andor returns home to attend his adopted mother’s funeral. Maarva Andor was a Daughter of Ferrix, a position of great respect on this planet. Like Mon Mothma, she spoke for her people, all of them. Her leadership held Ferrix together through tough years. They are not a wealthy planet, but they are a civil society. They have served the Empire by keeping their ship motors running. Ferrix is a production planet populated by humans and droids of service. There aren’t many aliens on this world, but there is an Imperial occupation force that passes as the common law. Ferrix’s fierce independence has been lulled with money and security, but that is all about to change, along with the galaxy's fate.
Everything hangs on a knife’s edge at this moment. There is a public funeral to plan and host for Maarva Andor. Cassian will arrive and learn about Bix’s dire situation. He will, of course, move to rescue her. That’s who he is. Cassian pays his debts and protects his friends as best he can. He is naturally what Han Solo and Lando Calrissian will struggle and fumble their way to never fully becoming: a Galaxian freedom fighter, a warrior against all that is unholy when a system of brutal oppression denies the value of the individual and enforces loyalty to the machine through terror and trauma.
Andor has been thinking about these things lately because he’s read that kid’s journal. Kid? He was probably a few years younger than Andor. But he had this all worked out in his head. He got it down on paper to get it into Andor’s head. The dead old boy’s voice narrates scenes of massive internal emotional struggle inside our Rebel protagonists. Bix is in the shit, her mind scrambled by a torture device built from another’s creature’s death screams. She’s fucked up in her head and probably will be for the rest of her life. And she didn’t have anything to tell the Empire of value, but they tortured and maybe even broke her anyway.
The old boy was killed far before his time, but he wrote these words, now burned into Andor’s heart through the fiery universal language of righteousness, which is always penned by sacrificing for something greater than oneself.
“There will be times when the struggle seems impossible. I know this already. Alone, unsure, dwarfed by the scale of the enemy. Remember this - freedom is a pure idea. It occurs spontaneously and without instruction. Random acts of insurrection are occurring constantly throughout the galaxy. There are whole armies, battalions that have no idea that they’ve already enlisted in the cause. Remember that the frontier of the rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest active insurrection pushes our lines forward. And then remember this, the imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks. It leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that.”
Indeed, Andor will remember this because he’s about to teach it to Luthen, who is losing hope of making it off planet Ferrix alive. Yeah, he’s here too, for the same reason IBS Officer Dedra Meero is here: to capture or kill Cassian Andor. But like so many of the Rebel operations to come, shit will go sideways fast, and these creative and sometimes vicious fighters will get caught up in a jam and blast their way out. Why waste a good funeral without a fight?
The Empire has only allowed this woman’s public funeral because they are convinced Cassian Andor will be present. As any metro police officer can attest, public events can turn sideways fast when the wrong person meets the right moment. The public show of praise for the old woman unnerves the Imperials. They are readying for battle. The funeral is centered on a sacred stone, a brick that symbolizes the planet’s loyalty and pride in the product of their labor. Having one’s name associated with the Ferrix Stone is a great honor. Today, it will become a weapon.
But first, meet the little service droid named B2EMO, one of the greatest pun names in Star Wars. This little droid is an emotional wreck, far worse than C3PO, who was just riddled with programmatic anxiety. EMO droid is another level altogether. Picture the most loyal animal you’ve ever met or pet; this droid is up there with them. Fiercely loyal, even passing as loving, this droid mourns the loss of Maarva Andor more than any character in this narrative. B2EMO is a fierce little wonder of fiction that you should fall in love with on sight if your heart works properly.
And he’s rolling right up front in the funeral procession. The lament that plays here is unlike any other music in Star Wars. It’s the inverse of the triumphant herald at the end of Episode IV, where Luke and Han stand with Chewbacca, Leia, and the droids, and everything is shining and bright. This music and this moment are the opposite of that glistening pageant. Something is in the air here, like an electrical hum with the taste of static on the tongue, just before a lightning storm.
Suddenly, the procession stops, and B2EMO projects a giant hologram of Maarva, who addresses her planet as a Daughter of Ferrix for the last time. She tells them it was an honor to live and work beside them. She is proud of her planet and its people. But she died with a troubled heart because her planet had been asleep too long in the comfortable shadow of the Empire. Her hologram says the following words, intensity rising in her voice. There is an enormous vortex in The Force. Any Jedi could feel this happening from planets away. She says:
“I fear for you. We’ve been sleeping.
We’ve had each other and Ferrix, our work, our days. We had each other and they left us alone. We kept the trade lanes open and they left us alone. We took their money and ignored them. We kept their engines turning and forgot them the moment they pulled away. Because we had each other. We had Ferrix. But we were sleeping. I’ve been sleeping. And I’ve been turning away from the truth I wanted not to face.
There is a wound that won’t heal at the center of the galaxy. There is a darkness, reaching like rust into everything around us. We let it grow, and now it’s here. It’s here, and it’s not visiting anymore. It wants to stay.
The Empire is a disease that thrives in darkness. It is never more alive than when we sleep.
It’s easy for the dead to tell you to fight, and maybe it’s true-maybe fighting is useless. Perhaps it’s too late. But I’ll tell you this… if I could do it again, I’d wake up early and be fighting these bastards!… From the start!
Fight the Empire!!!”
All hell breaks loose. The planet goes to war with the Empire. Shit is blowing up, and people are beating asses in the street. Both sides are getting bloody. The wrath is real. Andor only hears it happening because he’s with Bix, ready to rescue her but realizing there isn’t much left to save. Whatever the Empire did to her, it won’t heal fast. He gets her and the rest of his living friends on Ferrix to a safe getaway ship and watches them fly off the planet to temporary safety.
Before we settle Cassian Andor’s fate at the end of Season 1, we must return briefly to Mon Mothma. She is making two sacrifices for the Rebellion, both of her immediate family. First, she needs the money to plug the gap in her finances quickly. Davo Sculdun has given her a way to solve this problem. It will cost her daughter’s hand in marriage to the son of the biggest gangster on her home world. She’s paying that cost. Alternatively, Mon sets her husband up to take the fall if the Empire detects that fiscal anomaly. He is a “degenerate gambler,” as Tony Soprano would have called him. She accuses her husband of another round of reckless gambling, launching the accusation, and he protests denial, all in the audience of the spy driver the IBS has placed with her, and who she entertains as a channel to feed misinformation and sleight of hand back to the Empire.
It turns out that Anto Kreegyr, the failed mission commander Luthen was willing to sacrifice to gain Saw’s trust, is alive and working with the Empire as a double agent. His file is being closed, and he is going into inactivity in his undercover work. His whole team was slaughtered, and this retribution of justice should wash the Aldhani heist from the Emperor’s mouth, which closing is the ISB’s only concern at this moment.
Andor’s early mentor taught him that the man who sees everything is more blessed than cursed, and Andor now sees much more than when we first met him back on Morlana One, when he was only looking for his lost sister. Life was so much simpler for him then. Now, Andor is forced to put his fate in the hands of an even more desperate man. “Kill Me Or Take Me,” he says to Luthen when ambushing him to surrender inside Luthen’s “stealth ship.” Cassian Andor is a special kind of warrior and thief. He isn’t cruel like Saw Gererra. He isn’t false like Luthen and Mon Mothma. Andor doesn’t have debts that he doesn’t pay as soon as possible. Andor also has friends he can’t walk away from without hesitation. But Andor also now understands self-sacrifice and group-sacrifice. He knows how to attract others and get them to work together to amplify the impacts of mutual sacrifice focused on a common effort. Rebellions become Revolutions under the influence of Men of Destiny like Cassian Andor.
“Mama Put My Guns In The Ground”– Why Andor Is The Most Important Story in Star Wars
There have been only four moments when I have stood up while watching a Star Wars story for the first time. The first three were in the theater. The fourth was during Andor. The first was in 1977 or possibly 1978, during the third or fourth time I watched Star Wars Episode IV in the theater as a 2-3-year-old child. I was lucky to be the son of a young mother with many cool friends, and someone was always willing to take me to see cool movies in the theater. I saw Star Wars in the theater many times as a young child. There was never one time too many. There was always, “Yes, please!”
The first moment where I stood up was when I understood what was happening when Darth Vader struck down Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Death Star hanger. That loss fucked me up, just like it did Luke.
The second moment was in 1981 when I learned who Luke Skywalker’s father was. I wish I had a picture of my face when that revelation came down in the theater. I’m sure it was a horrifying shock, and I don’t know that I recovered from that blow. How wonderful is that to say about a nearly fifty-year-old movie?
The third time I stood up in the theater for a new Star Wars was with my young son on my lap in 2003. It was during the final moments of the duel on Mustafar. That critical moment of tragedy stays with me as a Star Wars fan and lover of art that moves the soul with interior kinetic motion.
Then, there is the moment in the final episode of Andor season 1, where Maarva Andor tells her planet to wake up and fight before it’s too late and that it is probably already too late. But, like Andor, these people would rather die trying to take these bastards down than give them what they want. It’s such a simple concept—freedom of self-expression in the quest for happiness that doesn’t demand from others. Freedom to live in collective peace secured by a democratic process that yields resources and planning to the best people with the greatest ideas. Democracy should be easy because it allows nature to express its natural motion toward unity and bliss. But it’s never simple when cold ambition enters the frame.
Like all authoritarian regimes, the Empire ended up spending its core fuel on cruelty and malice. Those kinds of regimes burn bright but not long because they contradict Natural Law. Systems of oppression require constant incitement, torture, confusion, meanness, and a world of sharp angles. But nature doesn’t work in sharp angles, so pay attention in Star Wars to the shapes of things, for they reveal the inherent alignment and misalignment of the creatures, systems, and cultures that populate this strange universe, now as real in the imagination of billions than any old world deity or makeshift savior. Star Wars matters.
Stories are more fundamental than religion. Religions are based on stories. The stories we share are our living culture. When our stories are filled with enemies who look and act like our neighbors, the social order breaks down, which feeds institutions of malice like the Empire “while we sleep.” But when people come together for a common cause and security, the frontier of the rebellion is everywhere, and it’s impossible to defend against for long.
There is a marked difference between a rebellion and a revolution. Both involve twisting away from the current order. Both generally seek a common social justice that pierces the superficial categories poor people are coerced to battle each other over, while the masters of war count out the blood money from the full sacrifice others are forced to make.
A Rebellion is a pissed-off group of people finally standing up for themselves. When presented in this format of a universe of good and evil, normally, we can tell what’s happening by the color of the lightsaber. In Andor, things are not as simple as space magic and laser swords. Here, politics are at play, and the tricks of the Jedi provide no second chances. Rebellions die every day, most before they are ever born. What distinguishes a rebellion from a revolution is the latter replaces a system of ideas and morality while maintaining the transition through a superior threat of force. And like people, there are good revolutions and bad, in the sense that some are good for most and some are bad for all but a few.
Andor is the story I wanted to know as a young boy, but my little mind couldn’t have taken it all back then. I’ve had to watch it three times to get it as an old man. I have written and published this long essay of analysis and appreciation for this small-screen science fiction drama because it is the beginning of every one of those moments I stood up for, except for the duel on Mustafar. Everything that flows from Andor is the root foundation of what happens to overthrow the Empire in Star Wars. His life journey is the critical path of the Revolution and, therefore, the most important story in the galaxy. If Darth Vader picking up the Emperor and tossing him into the energy shaft is the end of a snake’s rattle-tip, Maarva Andor inspiring her people to stand up and fight the Empire is the tip of the snake’s fang. But it’s still the same snake.
Star Wars could go on forever, excavating different eons of yet-to-be-manufactured fiction. However, I doubt any story told in this galaxy will ever be as critically important to the overall cultural and artistic meaning of this strange and wonderful fictional universe. Star Wars wouldn’t mean what it does now if it didn’t mean what it meant then to my generation. Andor is a testament of gratitude to young and old kids still playing make-believe with our little toys.
“Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks. It leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear. Remember that.”
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