While we already know a few key details about the moment the Alliance to Restore the Republic came into being in current Star Wars continuity, Andor‘s second season next month will kick off a year-by-year examination of the work that happened to bring us that moment (and what came after), giving us our best look yet at the origins of the Rebellion as we knew it by Star Wars‘ original trilogy. There’s plenty of parallels between that process and how the Rebel Alliance came to be in the old Expanded Universe—but there are equally some big divergences.
Early Dissent to the New Order
Although formal organized resistance to the Galactic Empire wouldn’t exist on an interstellar scale until just a handful of years before the Battle of Yavin, the seeds of that resistance were sown almost from the very beginning of the Galactic Empire’s founding and the end of the Clone War. Palpatine pushed his military to act quickly and brutally to any indicators of potential dissent, targeting the member worlds of senators who had previously attempted to discuss curtailing the emergency powers he’d been granted as Supreme Chancellor as the Delegation of 2,000. Much initial resistance to the Galactic Empire was itself curtailed by targeting those former signatories to either eliminate surreptitiously or to coerce them into compliance or political exile, blunting senatorial resistance to Palpatine’s regime, while the Imperial armed forces moved to doctrines that prioritized control through fear of overwhelming military response to dissidence.
While this approach created incidents that would engender anti-Imperial sentiment—like the Ghorman Massacre in 18BBY, which saw hundreds of protestors brutally crushed by a landing Imperial warship—it also eradicated early pockets of resistance to the Imperial regime all over the galaxy, ranging from elements of the former Separatist movement attempting to re-ignite the war, to localized rebellions on worlds like Kashyyyk, Naboo, and Kamino. Although growing resistance movements would continue to rise and fall over the course of the Empire’s early reign, considerable organized co-operation between those movements would take time to truly coalesce beyond discussion.
The Starkiller Plot
The earliest indicator of a formal Rebel Alliance would emerge from a trifecta of worlds in the galactic core: Alderaan, Chandrila, and Corellia. Although their senators—Bail Organa, Mon Mothma, and Garm Bel Iblis—had frequently discussed resistance actions among their world’s own cells in the early days of the New Order through a series of discussions on Coruscant that would come to be known as the Cantham House talks, it would take almost 20 years for the trio to be brought together again, this time in the Corellian system, to discuss open rebellion.
Little did they know they were doing so at the behest of an unwitting turncoat. Bel Iblis, Mothma, and Organa, alongside other allies such as the former Jedi and anti-Imperial mercenary Rahm Kota, were brought together to establish a broader resistance to the Empire in 2BBY by Galen Marek, the son of a Jedi slaughtered in the early days of the Empire, who had secretly been trained as the Sith apprentice Starkiller by Darth Vader. Believing he was genuinely uniting resistance leaders to help his master overthrow the Emperor, after the signing of the Corellian Treaty—the initial pact between Alderaan, Chandrilan, and Corellian resistance forces behind a singular commander-in-chief and a centralized advisory council—Vader and Palpatine exposed Marek’s unintentional subterfuge.
Organa and his daughter Leia, as well as Bel Iblis, Mothma, and Kota were all captured at the signing of the Corellain treaty, and taken to the nearly completed Death Star for execution. However, they were liberated by Marek, seeking to atone for his own betrayal at Vader’s hands. He ultimately sacrificed his life in battle against Vader and the Emperor to buy the alliance’s new leadership time to escape to Kashyyyk, where, adopting the Marek family crest as their organization’s structure, the signatories of the Corellian Treaty vowed to continue the rebellion in Marek’s stead.
Declaration of Rebellion, and the Galactic Civil War
Although the Corellian Treaty established the nascent Rebel Alliance and its initial command structure, a public call to resistance wouldn’t come until after. Drafted by Mon Mothma and ratified by Bel Iblis and Organa, a proclamation addressed to Palpatine was released in 2BBY to formally declare the establishment of the Alliance to Restore the Republic. Laying out a series of grievances enacted by the Empire—ranging from Imperial encroachment on civil liberties, increased taxation, and the expansion of the Imperial military, to the rise of non-human slavery, the overthrowing of planetary representation in favor of the Imperial Sector system and the rule of Imperial Moffs, and the ultimate dissolution of the Imperial Senate—the Declaration of Rebellion also acted as a public call to arms, vowing to overthrow the Imperial Regime.
With its release, the Galactic Civil War began in earnest. Although the Declaration moved multiple worlds across the galaxy to formally declare their own support for the Alliance, the Imperial military reacted swiftly and brutally to secessionist worlds, and with Alliance command divided over how to best begin open war with the Empire, the early days of the formalized Rebel Alliance were defined by minor strikes and fleeting victories, rather than significant skirmishes with the Imperial military. But no matter the scale of fighting, the war against the Empire had evolved from shadowed talks into open action: kickstarting decades of conflict that would claim the lives of billions, and raze entire worlds, in the name of the Republic’s restoration.
How the EU’s Formation of the Rebel Alliance Differs From Current Star Wars Canon
There are many similarities between the previous history of the Alliance’s formation and what we know so far of its establishment in contemporary continuity. The idea that formal rebellion did not occur until much closer to the original Star Wars trilogy after almost two decades of smaller-scaled networks of resistance cells is very similar, as are the importance of events like the Ghorman Massacre, and even the majority of the major players involved are similar (Garm Bel Iblis exists in a very limited, unexplored capacity in continuity, despite his eventual establishment as a key player in the Rebellion and eventually the New Republic in the EU). What actually kicked off the beginning of the Galactic Civil War itself—in current canon it’s the Battle of Scarif, as depicted in Rogue One, that acts as the “first victory” referred to in A New Hope‘s opening crawl that began the conflict—rather than the declaration of the Alliance to Restore the Republic is slightly different, too.
What current continuity largely brushes aside is the role a character like Starkiller would come to play in the Rebellion’s foundation. While elements of the foundation of the Rebellion had existed in the EU since the publication of material in the West End Star Wars roleplaying game and ancillary documents released for the PC flight simulator Star Wars: X-Wing, it would take decades until the release of the Force Unleashed transmedia project to establish the details of that process in the Expanded Universe. With Force Unleashed remaining largely consigned to what is now known as “Legends” material in current continuity, no equivalent figure like Marek exists, the declaration of rebellion taking place instead during the events of Rebels‘ third season. Time will tell what Andor‘s second season will do to flesh out the moments between those big picture details we have established, but we’re willing to bet retconning in a figure like Starkiller won’t be part of those details.
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