A Sequel to Andor: Rogue Company
My pitch for a thrilling Star Wars show after Andor
The rebels won, but the dirty work isn’t done.
This is a long post of very niche, nerdy fan fiction. I’ll include a little overview of my relationship to fan fiction and related topics at the bottom. Until then, enjoy my pitch.
Some art feels like it was made specifically for us and sometimes that very art stirs us to make our own. I have had this idea rattling around in me for quite a while, probably some time after Rogue One came out. I want more stories like the ones Andor gave us, so I wrote them (well, bits of them).
Anyway, I’ll start with the pitch:
Title: Star Wars: Rogue Company
Logline: A year after the fall of the Empire, A team of rebels hunt down the worst Imperial war criminals against the backdrop of a burgeoning New Republic.
Tone: Andor meets the movie Munich
Synopsis: The long galactic nightmare is over. The Emperor is dead, the Imperial Remnant has been defeated and scattered to the Outer Rim. The New Republic is building what it can from the wreckage of what came before. While the leaders of the Rebellion pick up the pieces of what's left of the Imperial government, a small team of operators, spies, soldiers and scoundrels work in the shadows of the new dawn to hunt down the worst of the Empire. From the disgraced Senators who collaborated with the evil Empire to the generals at the tip of the Imperial spear, Rogue Company brings them to justice.
Main Characters:
Kleya Marki. The main protagonist. She worked for many years with Luthen Rael to chip away at the Empire and, ultimately, create the circumstances that allowed the Rebel Alliance to exist. In the days of the Empire, bombings and assassinations were the norm, but the new bosses want her to stay on the straight and narrow.
Arin Mosch. The other main protagonist. He's a true believer in the New Republic and its lofty ideals. He's the moral counterpoint to Kleya's ends-justify-the-means methods. He is the scion who went to war while his siblings managed the family business. He frequently clashes with Kleya.
General Alexsandr Kallus. A former ISB agent who secretly fed information to the Rebels under the name Fulcrum and defected to the Rebellion. He is tasked with developing a New Republic espionage and counter-espionage division while also staying true to its ideals. He is Rogue Company’s commandant, the guy who gives the orders and sets up missions.
Dedra Mera. Imperial triple agent. Dedra survived the fall of the Empire only to find herself among a small Imperial Remnant after a prison break staged by Rebellion operatives. The Rebels believe that she is their secret but she is actually feeding them false information. She works against both the Imperial Remnant and the New Republic in service of her mysterious new master. She walks the knife's edge at all times and even she doesn't know where her true loyalties lie anymore.
Mon Mothma. The leader of the New Republic. In addition to the constant challenges of creating a new government, she has to deal with the old, unsettled scores of her life as a Senator, appease the many factions fighting for favor, and prevent the Imperial Remnant from filling the vacuums that the New Republic can't fill themselves. On top of that, there's the matter of all the promises, compromises and favors she made in the service of the greater good and what happens when those porgs come home to roost.
Senator Tamril Yoost. Senator from Kuat. Yoost is the main antagonist to Mon Mothma, representing the planet most sympathetic to the Imperial Remnant. Yoost is outwardly supportive of the New Republic as it takes shape but unabashedly critical of the Rebel Alliance's methods during the war. Maintains the lie that the Jedi are dangerous and blames Darth Vader for the Emperor's radicalization.
Chief Advocate Marl Fetter. A harried and experienced attorney in the Coruscant justice system, Fetter defended Rebel criminals against Imperial crackdowns, constant authoritarian overreach, mercurial shifts in enforcement, and capricious, inscrutable corruption, all while deftly avoiding reprisal. He was a natural choice to head the new government’s criminal justice reforms and the prosecution of the Imperials, but he’s used to being on the other side of the courtroom.
Neska Pujar. Ambitious young journalist with something to prove and new hire at the Coruscant News Network. Neska has only ever known the Empire and lived a hard life in the lower floors of Coruscant. She has fought hard to get to where she is, and was just assigned to the Reclamation Desk where she does little more than rewrite official reports from the garbage and sanitation departments. She stumbles upon information that suggests things are not what they seem in the new government.
Supporting Characters
Moff Kobb Sobelle. Sobelle was the Moff in charge of the Kuat sector during the Empire. He is most definitely still in charge of Kuat, albeit unofficially, and maintains his luxurious lifestyle. He keeps a reprogrammed Operation Cinder messenger droid as a toy. His hedonistic lifestyle hides his true ambition: rebuild the Empire with himself as the Emperor.
Hosan Maye. A low level Imperial manager who only knew the Empire as his employer, blissfully unaware of the crimes and atrocities and nearly every aspect of the Galactic Civil War. The New Republic is just the new boss to him, and he dutifully continues his work overseeing Sector 7345 in the Coruscant Sanitation Department.
Episode 1: Long Live the Empire
An angry Kallus storms out of a meeting with the New Republic military. Kallus has presented irrefutable evidence that Kuat is harboring an Imperial Moff who oversaw and facilitated multiple war crimes. The military council refuses to act, preferring a diplomatic solution that has so far gone nowhere.
Kallus finds Kleya Marki who has been quietly supporting rebellion elements in Imperial Remnant sectors. He convinces her to come back into the field and undertake a secret, unofficial mission to bring Moff Sobelle to justice.
Mon Mothma presides over her own contentious meeting, though hers is with representatives of the Rebel Alliance and members of the Coruscant delegation. They argue about how much power former Imperials should have and what concessions are necessary in order to keep the capital planet operating smoothly. One of those is the head of Coruscant Reclamations, who returns to his own department with a chip on his shoulder.
He is forced to demote one of his best administrators, a mid level Manager named Hosan Maye, a former Imperial who oversaw multiple departments of garbage sorters, including a family of Ugnaughts. They’re fired by their uncaring, ambitious new manager. One of those Ugnaughts kept an old holo diary of a Clone Wars commander turned Imperial who suspected, and gathered evidence, that Darth Vader was actually Republic hero Anakin Skywalker. This Ugnaught quietly gives Maye this recording as a parting gift.
I stopped at one episode because you get the idea.
The plot of the show is structured similarly to Andor. The main story centers on Rogue Company and their secret missions to bring war criminals to justice. That sets the scaffold on which the whole show is built and gives us our two leads, Kleya and Arin.
Their first mission, likely over the course of a few episodes (following Andor’s 3-episode arc structure), would be to extract Sobelle. Further adventures, quests, or missions could include more extractions (and a few lively debates about assassinations), heists, and general shenanigans against the Imperial Remnant. We could even venture into the dark underbelly of the galaxy — we don’t see it much in Andor, but the Hutts and the Pykes are two among many criminal organizations still active and still very much a threat to peace.
The possibilities for continuing adventures are endless, but here are a few of my own arc ideas:
Life During Wartime. A deep cover specialist with cyber mods that allow them to change identities goes silent. Their final message warned of an impending disaster and hinted at another secret super weapon. Is this a paranoid break with reality or something much worse?
Uneasy Ghosts. Tay Kolma was a loose end to Luthen and Kleya but he wasn’t just a man in the wrong place at the wrong time: he was a connected and influential member of the Coruscant elite. Tay’s widow, penniless and destitute, comes to the Coruscant NewsNet with a wild accusation: her husband was murdered on orders from Mon Mothma herself.
Too Many Masters. The hits keep coming for Dedra — her Republic controller demands something they can use or they’ll cut her loose. Her leads on Republic secrets have dried up and her Imperial commanders are losing patience. One night, a stranger visits her in the dead of night with an offer: for the low, low price of an undefined favor some time in the future, they will give her exactly what she needs to satisfy both. What could possibly go wrong?
Sympathy for the Devil. The return of the Republic means the return of the rule of law and the pursuit of justice. Marl Fetter has become a steady hand in the chaos, balancing a need for justice against cries for revenge from the many victims of Imperial rule. His dedication to truth and justice is tested when Rogue Company brings in a famous war criminal who might not be who he claims to be. The victims want blood, and there are lots of people in the New Republic who don’t care that he might not be the man responsible — they need a win. Can Fetter knowingly sacrifice an innocent man on the altar of freedom if it’s for the greater good?
This central conceit and set point of view on Rogue Company could be easily modified a little bit to make it a procedural, with a Villain of the Week structure. I don’t think that’s as interesting as my version, which builds on Andor’s depth and scale.
Character Dynamics
Just like Andor, Rogue Company lives and dies by its characters. A proper sequel should pull some characters over from Andor — Kleya feels like a natural co-lead. The character of Arin is meant to be a foil to her. He’s a true believer in the values of the New Republic. He’s been submerged in the rhetoric for so long that the whole struggle must seem pretty black and white. Kleya long ago gave herself up to the gray. Throughout the course of the show, they will bring each other a little closer to their side and maybe meet somewhere in the middle (at least in some cases). While Arin is due for a rude awakening, Kleya could use a little light in her darkness.
Again, like Andor, we also follow other stories. Mon Mothma has an unenviable job in front of her. She has to help make a new government that’s better than the old one, rebuild the Senate, deal with the last 20 years of Imperial authority, rebuild the bridges she burned when she joined the Rebels, and try to pay all the debts she accrued and return the favors she promised while she led the Rebel Alliance to victory. A lot — and I mean a LOT — of people are going to want to take credit for what the Rebels accomplished. She’s their main target.
Senator Yoost is a villain with a lot of juicy possibilities. He’s been around a long time and has too high a profile to be removed. In private, he changes his mask depending on who he’s talking to — in his meetings with Mon Mothma and other rebels, he’s a sympathetic fellow traveler who misses the easy choices of the Old Republic but grudgingly must do what his constituents demand. To the former Imperials still floating around Coruscant, he’s just playing nice with the New Republic while helping funnel aid to the Imperial Remnant. The New Republic has “may the force be with you.” The Imperial Remnant has “Long live the Emperor.” To the public, he’s a fiery critic of the new government and is quick to remind everyone of how great things were when the Emperor was in charge.
We’ve never seen criminal justice in Star Wars. The arrest of Andor and his subsequent imprisonment are the closest we’ve seen. There are some in the deep, pre-Disney lore, but I bring it to the forefront. If you’re bringing war criminals in for justice, what does that justice look like? My pitch introduces the tantalizing possibilities for Star Wars courtroom drama and lets us explore what this victory really means for the good guys. How good are they, really? Let’s find out!
More on the Supporting Characters
I didn’t fill out more of the Company itself, which could include a bunch of really interesting side characters pulled from the Star Wars galaxy — maybe a refugee from Ghorman (like Magva Yarro), a fan favorite like Migs Mayfield, a spunky droid like C1-10P (Chopper), etc. I’d love to see some diversity, of course, both in the human contingent (lest we forget that Rogue One had zero white guys in the main cast) and the nonhuman one.
The Big Secret
The Death Star looms over Andor and Rogue One. That secret is the engine behind a lot of what we see eventually play out, especially in the second season. I propose a similar secret behind the action of Rogue Company: the true identity of Darth Vader.
Behind the immense struggle between an authoritarian Empire and the ragtag Rebels is a religious dispute: Emperor Palpatine is a practitioner of an ancient religion who wiped out his generational enemies, the Jedi, as part of his rise to power. To this end, Palpatine pumped the galaxy full of anti-Jedi propaganda for decades.
Anybody who is remotely pro-Empire is going to lean into that propaganda to sow discord against the New Republic, which has an actual Jedi at the center of its two greatest victories: the destruction of the Death Star and the death of the Emperor.
I can easily see the Imperial survivors blaming Darth Vader for all the bad things that happened, including the evils of the Empire itself. All the galaxy knows is that Palpatine started the Empire after the Jedi tried to assassinate him. Simultaneous to this was the appearance of Darth Vader, in his spooky black armor, at the Emperor’s side. Nobody knew who he was or where he came from. The obvious move for the Imperial sympathizers is to blame Vader for everything, including Palpatine’s sudden turn to authoritarianism. Palpatine would approve.
Imagine all that discord circulating in the galaxy and then it comes out that evil, manipulative Darth Vader was all along Anakin Skywalker, the Jedi hero. Palpatine was right: the Jedi are evil schemers and their deaths were all faked by the Jedi themselves. They have secretly been in power this whole time, using their mind powers to twist the Emperor into their servant. That’s bad news for the New Republic! Especially since their big hero was Anakin Skywalker’s son. Imagine if these same people found out who Darth Vader’s daughter was.
Nobody really knows what happened in that throne room during the Battle of Endor. All anybody knows is that Luke Skywalker, a known Jedi, went in with Darth Vader and the Emperor and only Luke came back out. Those Imperial sympathizers would be absolutely frothing to use that against their political enemies. If they knew that beloved Rebel hero and survivor of the Alderaanian genocide, Leia Organa, was Darth Vader’s actual daughter in addition to Luke Skywalker’s sister, and that Darth Vader was also the Jedi hero Anakin Skywalker, I imagine the outcry would be immense. Or, at the very least, the pro-Empire Senators and other leaders could use that to destroy the reputations of the people the galaxy is supposed to trust with the new government.
If all that is true, what other secrets are the Rebels covering up? How can the galaxy trust them at all?
This naturally leads to the third storyline: the reporter.
Journalism in Star Wars
Just like criminal justice, we’ve never really seen what journalism looks like in Star Wars. I’d love to see a hungry, young reporter find out who Darth Vader really was and what lengths the New Republic would go to keep that news from leaking out. We could trace her investigation of his real identity and, through that, explore parts of the galaxy we’ve never seen before.
I imagine Neska, listless and annoyed by the reality of working in the big city, absent-mindedly flicks on the holorecording given to her by the harried, now unemployed former sanitation worker. In this recording, a low-level Imperial officer recounts his theory that evil Imperial scapegoat Darth Vader is actually Anakin Skywalker, the hero of the Clone Wars. She watches this recording, realizing that it might be true, while on the screen behind her, Senator Yoost blames Darth Vader for the latest atrocity to come to light. In this moment, at the end of Episode 1, we set the stakes.
The Canon Question
According to the internet, the true identity of Darth Vader was not revealed to the galaxy until shortly before the sequel era, in a book called Star Wars Bloodline. That would be decades after Rogue Company, so my idea clears the canon issue (I find most questions of canon to be tedious and irrelevant to good storytelling, which should always be the primary aim, but I concede it here).
What Happened to Dedra?
I couldn’t let Dedra die in prison so I would put her back in action for this story, too. She’s on the run and in more peril now. I have her working for the Imperial Remnant but owing her life to the Rebels and serving an additional third master. It seems obvious that this master would be Snoke or a First Order predecessor of some kind, but I left it ambiguous. Dedra is fascinating and I love Denise Gough’s performance. But I also don’t want to make her a hero — she’s a very banal monster but a monster nonetheless.
Her life is an unrelenting nightmare of imminent discovery. The model for this storyline for me is Baltar in the 2003 Battlestar Galactica. I want to see what lengths Dedra would go to in order to protect herself.
The Ghosts of the Future
Looming over any story after the Return of the Jedi is the unavoidable certainty of things like the return of the Empire as the First Order and the return of the Emperor as, well, the Emperor. It gives me some cover for this story, though, because I don’t have to pretend that the New Republic is going to be a return to the thousands of years of peace that preceded the Clone Wars — they’re going to fail, at least for a little while.
Continuing Qualities of Andor
Some aspects of Andor that I want to continue and are important ingredients to what I would call Andor-Like Star Wars storytelling.
no big characters. I don’t want to see any of the famous faces we all know and love. They’re superstars in the Star Wars universe, too. Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo, Lando Calrissian — they are too big for this story.
no Jedi. The force is mysterious and misunderstood, at best.
no easy answers.
Threading the Needle
I don’t want the thesis of Rogue Company to be: “you have to kill all the Imperials just to be sure they don’t come back” nor do I want it to be “you have to be merciful in victory and treat your enemies better than they treat you” despite my own complicated feelings on these issues. I see this show as a way to tell some really juicy, complicated stories in the giant universe of Star Wars and Andor is a beautiful door into those stories. As all fan fiction, I’m just building on what came before me.
Star Wars is about good guys doing good things and bad guys doing evil things and Andor, and Rogue Company, let us look at the shadows between light and dark. Even so, I would want to make sure that light stays bright. It’s important that even as we have fun on the margins of the story, we acknowledge that the story of Star Wars is a victory of good vs. evil. Let’s not lose sight of that.
Final Notes
Like I said, this is fan fiction. I don’t expect an actual sequel to Andor, nor do I envision this as Andor season 3. Getting this whole thing out of my head and into the universe is my only aim. I also welcome any comments or (nice) criticisms.
I posted this to the Andor subreddit but without this last bit because nobody there wants to read about my history with fan fiction.
Anyway, a lot of talk around writerly folks (or maybe creative folks in general) floats around the idea of a “flow state” or the trance-like act of work/creation that we are all trying to access or engender in ourselves.
For a creative writer in the flow state, the words come out as if some greater power is dictating them. Accessing the flow state means tuning our radios to that frequency and transcribing what we hear. It’s the closest I have managed to get, personally, to what I would call a spiritual experience, or a feeling that powers bigger than me are using my brain and my fingers in service of something else.1
The exact nature of this flow state is one of great interest to me and I’ve been collecting data since I read The Artist’s Way (this data mostly amounts to things written and said by famous creatives like Tom Waits and Bob Dylan). The nature or origin of the flow state is probably just some combination of body and brain chemistry that strikes like flint to steel, but it sure feels like, well, the hand of god. Or maybe the hand of “a” god. It’s fun to think about anyway.
I mention the flow state because my longest encounter with it was many years ago, in the back yard of my future in-laws house, where I sat at a picnic table and smoked dozens of cigarettes while hand-writing a script for the first (pilot) episode of a Star Trek show. My show took place a hundred years or so after Picard and company and would form the basis of my first (and only finished) novel (that has nothing whatsoever to do with Star Trek or Star Wars). I couldn’t stop writing that fan script until it was finished, and it came out of me so forcefully.
I had a similar, but smaller-scale, experience with this. I suspect the restrictions of an established story with its own rules is empowering to me, like when you pinch a garden hose. I have spent a lot of idle hours in my life imagining what my own Star Wars stories would be and what I think are interesting directions to take the stories we’ve seen.
Fan Fiction is Great
This would have been impossible to convince me of 20 years ago2, but I am completely in favor of fan fiction as a viable and worthy way to spend our creative energies. I find the ability to create so tenuous and the motivation so often elusive that creation itself, and creative writing specifically, is a sacred and beautiful act, even when (or maybe even especially when) it’s created by a new writer. It’s true that writing fan fiction leads writers to explore their own creations, but that’s just a nice bonus feature. Fan fiction itself is full of wonderful stories and I encourage you to head over to AO3 to find something that rings your bell. I didn’t post this there because it’s not my community and I don’t want to parachute into someone else’s fun corner of the internet for my own gratification.
Gratification is an interesting word. Is that why we write? I would argue that we only write what we want somebody to read, but that’s not always true. Writing something is its own end and requires no purpose.
note that this does not mean I think my Star Wars fan fiction is dictated from God in order to fulfill some purpose, merely that the act of creation is good and pure and primordial irrespective of its point
I wasn’t anti fan fiction back then, but I was definitely dismissive of anything that wasn’t Writing Your Own Stuff because I was a prat
Fun idea, though I'd be inclined to add in an additional mystery on the Republic side, where they're chasing down a secret so terrible the Imperials are hiding it from themselves...namely that Palpatine was behind both sides of the clone wars, because I think that coming out, combined with Luke/Leia being Vader's children, paints a picture that the New Republic is just round two of that 'conflict' (putting aside resurrection [and the whole Operation Cinder thing which really undermines all of this] I do think it might be fun to see some Star Wars conspiracy theorists [the Emperor's not really dead! Where's the body? He faked his death!]) which could be used to explain the disengagement of the galaxy later on, until they get their own taste of what it's like to be under Imperial rule...