In one of his memorable last lines in The Last Jedi, Luke Skywalker contradicted Kylo Ren to say “The Rebellion is reborn today” and “The war is just beginning.” John Boyega predicted that Episode IX would be about war as well, saying:
“I think Episode IX you know, regardless of where the story goes, and I haven’t read it by the way, is going to be all-out war …”
This grand vision is somewhat belied by the reality at the end of TLJ, however. The entire remainder of the Resistance fits on the Millennium Falcon, and its calls for help to its Outer Rim allies were evidently ignored. The main First Order fleet may also have taken a blow from Holdo’s suicide attack, but even just the ground forces portion of its remainder is considerable. We also know that it has troops elsewhere with which it is tightening its grip on the galaxy.
So how can there be all-out war between two such asymmetrical forces? One possibility is guerilla warfare, perhaps with the Resistance operating out of mobile headquarters since having a stationary one didn’t work out so well for them. They can harass the First Order, strike at its supply lines, rally support in the populace, conduct sabotage missions. This is how badly outnumbered and outgunned forces have fought for millennia, after all.
Guerilla warfare by itself is not enough, however, to be described as “all-out war.” It’s not enough to topple the First Order, either, and that is the Resistance’s goal especially if Luke, Holdo, Finn etc. are right and they are resurrecting the Rebellion. A rebellion as I understand it doesn’t just seek to weaken and undermine the enemy, it seeks to replace the enemy government. Nibbling around the edges of the First Order’s domination of the galaxy might be fine for Leia’s barely-sanctioned militia, but a full rebellion against the First Order needs to have the means to unseat it and defend territory from it. Leia implies that necessity herself in the Poe Dameron comic:
What are the sources of the troops and materiel the Resistance/Rebellion might have? Here are a few I can think of.
Resistance forces and allies elsewhere
It appears that the Resistance did not put all its eggs in one basket and there are others who were not in Leia’s fleet that ran from the First Order. Black Squadron, for instance, was on a mission to the Outer Rim to gain support from allies. The one mission that we know about from the partial transmission in the comic is a failure and the radio silence in response to the Resistance’s distress call implies they may have not met with resounding success, but there is a chance the Squadron itself survived.
Zay and Shriv from the Battleront II single-player DLC were similarly dispatched to the Outer Rim to contact the Resistance’s allies. They may well come back with allies of their own, though this did not come to pass at the end of TLJ. Have the Outer Rim allies really foresaken the Resistance, or was something else going on?
Lando Calrissian
Lando’s return in Episode IX may mean a significant boost in the Resistance’s forces, too. Lando was a General during the last war, the Administrator of a city, and the owner of Calrissian Enterprises, a huge droid manufacturer. His wealth and resources, coupled with his war experience and the security forces he himself must command, make his return a hopeful development for the Resistance/Rebellion. Since his base of Cloud City on Bespin is located in the Outer Rim, he may well have been one of the allies Leia dispatched people to contact.
A droid army
The droid manufacturing capacity of Calrissian Enterprises could additionally mean the manufacture of combat droids to augment the Resistance against The First Order. We saw droids fighting armored troopers before in the prequel movies and The Clone Wars. Could we be seeing a reprise, only this time we’re meant to root for the droids?
Droids aren’t just cannon fodder but also excellent sources of information, as C3PO’s plot in the Poe Dameron comics showed. C3PO had an extensive droid spy network, something that was on Leia’s to-do list to revive in The Last Jedi novelization. It remains to be seen whether droids will play a greater role in the war.
The New Republic
We know that the
New Republic is in shambles after the destruction of the Hosnia system,
but by the time of Episode IX they will have at least begun to regroup.
If the New Republic’s military were to join forces with the Resistance,
as seems likely, we will see a significant boost in the Resistance’s
numbers. They should also, in my opinion, be called not “Resistance” or “Rebellion” but Republic forces. Such a change also brings potential for cultural clashes and mutual
resentments, something that may have begun to be explored in TLJ
but didn’t really go anywhere.
If Leia plays a leadership role in the New Republic again because they come to their senses in the crisis and realizes they need her, then we’ll see her lead the charge on this end. This seems a likely path for her character to take, since the footage cut from TFA that will be used in Episode IX is likely to pertain to the New Republic’s political situation, like the deleted scene with her aide Korr Sella.
People around the galaxy
Finn’s conviction that people around the galaxy would rise up against the First Order may not have been borne out on Crait, but was validated by the final scene of The Last Jedi when it was shown that people throughout the galaxy are sharing and taking heart in the story of the Resistance and the Jedi. Over time this hope may become a groundswell of support for the Resistance.
Stormtroopers Insurgent Free Troopers
This is my personal fondest hope of all, that Finn inspire other kidnapped and brainwashed Stormtroopers to rise up as he did. He has already gone twice into the heart of the First Order and escaped, showing that this group not invincible–they’re kind of pathetic, in fact.
Speaking of pathetic, the new Supreme Leader of the First Order is this dude:
Kylo Ren, a man who has a lot of raw power but zero self-restraint or dignity, who is skeptical of the entire Stormtrooper program (but not of slavery itself–he brought up clone troopers in TFA), and who very publicly made a fool of himself on Crait in front of his army.
It seems likely that Finn’s exploits, together with disappointment in Kylo Ren and his leadership, will lead at least some Stormtroopers to be disillusioned with the First Order. They could fill out the Resistance’s ranks or at least drop out of the fighting altogether, making the numerical disadvantage less overwhelming.
As one anon has pointed out (link), combined with the droid army idea above, it’s possible that we could see Free Troopers and droids working together in another inversion of the prequel trilogy/The Clone Wars dynamics when they were pitted against each other.
Such cooperation would be all the more poignant because, with the recent canon incorporating a droid liberation plotline, the Free Troopers and the droids would share a liberation narrative. And if the new Star Wars canon gives a liberation plot to the droids but ignores the Stormtroopers then man, fuck Star Wars.
In conclusion
Though the ending of TLJ is very bleak in terms of its prospects for the fight against the First Order, the Resistance has a lot of untapped resources. Episode IX could show these allies coming together to destroy the First Order and, eventually, start the hard work of rebuilding.
@rebelspies I would LOVE to see Mandalorians as a political and military force on the big screen at last. I just can’t think of how to bring them in when they weren’t shown so far, unless Finn turns out to be one in which case I will die of joy right in the theater.
I could see them bringing the Mandalorians if Finn is one of them.
Or, the Resistance could form an alliance with Boba Fett.
“I knew Darth Vader. You, boy, are not Darth Vader.”
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