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Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor look for a way to obtain the Death Star plans. The mission immediately precedes "A New Hope". Jyn's connection to her father, Galen, turns intelligence work into a personal matter, and the different members of the resistance must decide whether to trust her plan.
- In-universe time
- 0 BBY
- Released
- 2016
- Era
- Birth of the Rebellion
About this story
A new weapon and the Erso family
The Imperial superweapon project depends on the work of the scientist Galen Erso, who was separated from his family and forced back into the regime's service. His daughter Jyn grows up with loss, life underground and a distrust of large organizations. When the Alliance gets a chance to learn more about the Death Star, her past becomes a military matter. Cassian Andor has his own orders and cannot be an openly trustworthy ally to Jyn from the start. Their partnership unfolds in a space where personal motives are constantly tested against the interests of intelligence work.
Different people within one resistance
Defector pilot Bodhi Rook brings a message that still has to be believed. Chirrut Îmwe and Baze Malbus carry the experience of Jedha and of life beside a holy site that has fallen under Imperial rule. The droid K-2SO, reprogrammed to serve the Alliance, gives the team an awkward bluntness and practical help. The characters do not become alike because they share a goal, but they gradually learn to rely on each other's skills. It matters to this story that the decisive operation is prepared by people without the standing of the saga's main heroes: each of them brings only part of the knowledge and capabilities required.
Why the Alliance needs the plans
Knowing that the station exists does not give anyone a way to stop it. What is needed is technical data that can be passed to the fleet and used to plan an attack. That is why the secure archive on Scarif becomes a target, and transmitting the information becomes a military operation in its own right. The film shows step by step how many different actions must come together for the data to reach its recipient: infiltration, the search, drawing off enemy forces and opening a communications channel. This attention to collective effort gives the events of "A New Hope" extra weight: Luke's famous chance exists thanks to people he will never meet.
Route context
A Spark of Hope
Local protests and scattered underground cells gradually learn to act together. That takes money, intelligence, safe contacts and a shared vision of the future. "Andor" shows the organizational and personal cost of this work, "Rebels" follows a crew that starts out defending its home, and "Rogue One" brings separate paths together in the operation without which the Alliance would never have had a chance at the Battle of Yavin.
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Galen deliberately builds a weakness into the Death Star's design, but exploiting it requires the plans. Jyn's team obtains the data on Scarif, and the rebel fleet makes sure it can be transmitted. The core members of the ground mission die. The information escapes the battle and ends up on Leia's ship, which is where Episode IV begins.