Note: Some of the following may not be considered canon anymore. But a lot of it has been such an iconic part of the Star Wars experience over its lifetime that I would be remiss not to mention it. Where possible, I will denote what is and is not canon.
Revolutionaries. Freedom Fighters. Terrorists. They’ve gone by many names. But when we were first introduced to them 38 years ago, they were known to most of us by one name and one name alone –
Rebels.
In the years since, we have seen their history extended, altered, and erased. But one thing never changed – their desire to overthrow and end the oppression of the Galactic Empire.
Formation
The Alliance to Restore the Republic rose out of the ashes of the Old Republic after then Chancellor Palpatine orchestrated the Clone Wars to bring the galactic government under his boot heel, where he could keep it controlled with the proper application of force. And like many things in the universe, a lot of the facts that we have learned over the years about the Rebellion are now in question. So… what do we actually know about our favorite group of freedom fighters?
Well, that depends on what version of the history you choose to read. For many of us, our first introduction to the formative days of the Alliance to Restore the Republic was revealed in The Force Unleashed, in which Galen Marek was manipulated by Darth Vader into drawing the various leaders of the Rebellion together where they could be captured in one fell swoop. Bail Organa, Mon Mothma, Garm Bel Iblis, and Rahm Kota all came together on Corellia to officially join together against the Empire. However, like most things in the Expanded Universe, the Treaty of Corellia is now a thing of the past.
The current canon establishes a different beginning to the Rebellion. Like previously – it grew from the Delegation of 2000, a group of Republic Senators who joined together in solidarity to oppose the way then-Chancellor Palpatine was conducting the Clone Wars. After the war’s end and the death of Padmé Amidala, several other members of the delegation, including Mon Mothma and Bail Organa, started working in secret to topple the new Galactic Empire. Individual rebellions sprang up around the galaxy fighting against the Empire, but met with limited, or no, success.
In the first season of Star Wars Rebels we are introduced to a cell of freedom fighters lead by one of the few remaining Jedi in the galaxy, and shows us how groups of individual rebel cells across the universe grew into what we would recognize as the Rebel Alliance from A New Hope.
Road to Civil War
The Rebellion was faced with fighting against an overwhelmingly superior military force and so instead of fighting a conventional war, they stuck to guerilla tactics which allowed them to make quick strikes against smaller targets and fight a war of attrition while they did their best to rally support and obtain supplies. Victories came in all shapes and sizes, from military victories and intelligence victories to defections from the Empire, such as the designers of the Incom T-65 X-Wing giving the Rebellion a powerful starfighter and Imperial officer Crix Madine, the founder of the Imperial Storm Commandos, which was created to counter the guerilla tactics of the Alliance.*
Yavin and Beyond
The Rebellion focused on these small victories until they grew to a point, 19 years after the end of the Clone Wars, where they were equipped to fight the Empire on more equal terms. They had the men, the equipment and the leaders to strike more decisive blows against the Empire. And that ability was put to the test with the creation of the Death Star. The eventual Battle of Yavin saw the Death Star destroyed and also marked appearance of Luke Skywalker, one of the heroes of the Rebellion on the galactic stage. The Rebels had won a great victory. Though their own cost was great, they had proven that they could bloody the Empire’s nose.
The next few years saw the escalation of the Galactic Civil War. The Empire could no longer ignore the Rebellion and the Rebels themselves could not afford to waste any time in trying to capitalize on their new found momentum and credibility as a legitimate threat to the Empire’s authority. They continued the fight until the loss of their secret base at Hoth and the loss of their shipyards in the Vergesso Asteroids, a loss which rocked the Rebellion firmly back on their heels. While they managed to save the majority of the command structure and evacuate much of the base, it was a major victory for the Empire and disheartening for the Rebels.**
The Civil War continued at a fever pitch until the Rebellion was allowed to learn of the existence of the second, more powerful Death Star by the Empire and that Emperor Palpatine himself was overseeing the final stages of construction. Knowing they would never have a better chance, they acted, entering into the trap that the Emperor had crafted to destroy them. But thanks to the well-timed help of the Ewoks, indigenous lifeforms of the forest moon of Endor, the Rebellion’s ground team was able to carry out their mission, allowing the assembled Rebel Fleet to launch their attack against the Death Star and destroy it, scattering the now fractured Imperial forces, allowing the Rebellion to celebrate a very decisive victory.
Beyond Endor
There was a lot written about the directions the Rebellion took after their triumph over the Empire at the Battle of Endor – information that could fill a month’s worth of articles on its own. However, we will not have anything canon until the release of Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath this September and Episode VII: The Force Awakens this December. We do know that the Rebellion continues to exist in name. But beyond that… well, I won’t speculate much and instead wait patiently*** for those details to be revealed.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this brief look at the history of the Rebellion. Over the week we will be detailing several leaders of the Rebellion, both military and otherwise for use in your Age of Rebellion games.
* These events are no-longer canon. While both the X-Wing and General Madine were important parts in the Rebellion, how they obtained them is still unknown in the current canon.
** Hoth is obviously still canon, but the existence of the secret shipyards is still a matter of debate.
*** Is it September yet? How about December? Maybe I should just go into carbon freeze for a few months.
Ben Erickson
