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.”
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 hope people know that Jango Fett is a native Mandalorian. His family, Clan Fett, has been on Mandalorian soil for literal millennia. He is literally a True Mandalorian.
Bo-Katan Kryze: Siblings are natural enemies. Like the Republic and Mandalorians! Or the Jedi and Mandalorians! Or the Separatists and Mandalorians! Or Mandalorians and other Mandalorians! Damn Mandalorians! They ruined Mandalore!
Obi-Wan Kenobi: You Mandalorians sure are a contentious people.
Considering Mandalorians are one of my favorite things about Star Wars and Finn is one of my favorite characters, I’m surprised I haven’t written this sooner, but with seeing @lj-writes get a lot of questions about Mandalorian Finn, I thought I’d make a post about the theory.
The theory:
Mandalorian Finn is the theory that our favorite ex Stormtrooper’s family, heritage, or future is tied to the Mandalorians. The idea originated from one eagle eye viewer noticing the Mandalorian symbol on a flag outside of Maz’s castle in TFA.
History of the Mandalorian:
(if the original artist is on Tumblr, I would love to tag you in this, you magnificent creature)
The history of the Mandalorians are complicated due to the fact that that the old EU Legends continuity, Disney continuity, and the continuity of the animated shows has not yet confirmed the completed canon, so here’s a brief summary.
The Mandalorian are not a race or a species, they are culture. While the animated show took some… interesting depictions of the Mandalorians, there is no actual set appearance. Even a Wookie can be a Mandalorian if they earn the right.
If you want to know more here’s a link to both Canon and Legends history of the Mandalorians. I suggest reading both since the Mandalorian history in canon is only covered from the start of the Clone Wars into Rebels, but the legends continuity is still canon before the Clone Wars.
Possibility of Finn being a Mandalorian
The possibility is actually extremely high since unlike many other theories that require making one of the sequel characters match up to a specific timeline to be the child of someone’s, Finn can be the child of any Mandalorian parent that had been anywhere in the galaxy. There is no race requirement or timeline to match up.
Mandalorians can be force sensitive
Since Mandalorians are a culture, it is entirely possible for Mandalorians to join the Jedi Order and Force Users to become Mandalorians. There was even a case of Jedis who abandoned the republic during the Mandalorian Wars and become the Mandalorian Knights.
(Picture not mine)
The First Mandalorian to join the Jedi Order was Tarre Vizsla. Tarre constructed the Darksaber which is a unique weapon that usually only the leader of the Mandalorians use, but there has been exceptions before.
Mandalorian Finn doesn’t conflict with other theories either
Finn can still be force sensitive, the son of Lando, the grandson of Windu, a prince, or whatever other theory people think up, because Mandalorian Finn leaves room for only Finn’s mother or father to be a mandalorian instead of both.
A Mandalorian Finn’s role in EP-XI
Whether it be by becoming the leader of the Mandalorians or becoming an ambassador between them and the New Republic to help gain their assistance in the war against the New Republic, Mandalorian Finn opens many narrative doors for not only Finn, but for EP-XI as a whole. The Mandalorians are one of the only potential allies in the entire galaxy that could help defeat the First Order.
Considering JJ Abrams had already left a hint of Mandalorians finally making their big screen debut, I think there’s a good chance of seeing them.
I had a theory that in TLJ when BB-8 was hacking into the First Order’s database from the Supremacy, he may have downloaded Finn’s records that may lead Finn to finally finding answers about who he is and where did the First Order stole him from. BTW JJ Abrams, if you are reading this, that is the easiest way to do a Finn origin story.
It would also fit into a stormtrooper Rebellion since every Stormtrooper who had left the First Order could join Finn’s self made mandalorian clan. Finn could name it “Storm Clan” and they could mark their helmets with Red streaks in respect to Finn’s as a symbol of freedom and identifying them as free Stormtroopers. That idea came from @lj-writes
Bringing back Mandalorians to the big screen also allows Lucasfilms to bring back Boba Fett and test him out to our modern audience so they can gauge if doing a stand alone film is a smart idea.
My ideal Mandalorian family if Disney weren’t cowards?
Idris Elba – Finn’s Father
Letitia Wright – Finn’s sister
Angela Bassett or Lisa Bonet – Finn’s birth mother
Terry Crews – Finn’s 2nd father/Idris Elba’s partner
Bonus: Michael B. Jordan as Finn’s old squad mate Zero who deserted from the First Order too.
Well Known Mandalorians
If anyone has any other Mandalorian Finn interests or just Mandalorian questions, feel free to send me a message or hit my inbox. I’m not one of the experts on Mandalorian lore, but I know a good deal.
Mandalorian Finn is personally my favorite theory and I hope it happens!
Reposting because I added some well known Mandalorians to the post.
I love the idea of House Storm as a new clan! Maybe their house colors could be red and black on white. Also Stormtroopers are already used to fighting in full body armor and fight quite aggressively as a result. The Mandalorian armor and fighting style wouldn’t be as much of an adjustment, though the flying might be lol.
While I hope many Stormtroopers will be able to find their original family and heritage, that might not be an option for many of them given how genocide-happy the FO is. Even those who reconnected with their Mandalorian heritage, including Finn, might find themselves too distinct from their birth clans to fully reintegrate. Forming a new clan that acknowledges their shared experience and trauma while reclaiming their shared identity may be the most workable solution for those who lost their homes of origin or can’t completely integrate. For some time spent with their Trooper sibs might be a period of acclimatization, for others House Storm might be a permanent home. I can see them being quite open and accepting that way.
That a great number of Stromtroopers were stolen Mandalorian younglings makes sense in SW history too, given that the Clonetroopers were made with a Mandalorian template. They were literally the perfect warriors. The FO, which emulated the Empire in so many ways, would have been mindful of this history.
I can’t find any info of what’s happening in Mandalore during the ST era, if they did lose children to the FO would they be looking for them? Gone to war with the FO? Or did the FO primarily target outlying and isolated communities and families so as not to raise Mandalore’s wrath before they were ready? Would Finn’s story, then, move Mandalore to act? So many fascinating possibilities!
LANDO CALRISSIAN WALKED DOWN THE RAMP OF HIS personal command shuttle looking every centimeter the general he was, from the millimetrically level brim of his gleaming cap to the subtly iridescent uppers of his similarly gleaming boots. The elegantly close-fitting jumpsuit he wore was also subtly iridescent, so that its powder-blue sheen could pick up complementary highlights from whatever environment he might find himself in—because a gentleman and an officer must never, ever clash—and it fit as if it had been designed specifically for him, which, of course, it had. He’d designed it himself.
Thrown over one shoulder he carried his custom belt-length uniform jacket—jet black, naturally, because black goes with everything—which he’d commissioned after being reliably informed that Ackbar and Republic Command would absolutely draw the line at an opera cape.
Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, Matthew Stover
He then gets told that the Mandalorians don’t respect him because he’s a dandy, and his response is: “If looking good ever becomes a crime, Fenn my friend, I’m ready to do life.”
LANDO CALRISSIAN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN.
(This is from Shadows of Mindor, so whether this actually happened is debatable, of course.)
L.J.'s Obsessions 