This TLDR post is based off of the Star Wars RPG. I have a question about the Lothal region for a possible Star Wars RPG campaign I am thinking of starting work on. Since a lot of sourcebooks, adventures and such exist for the Star Wars Rebels series, I started doing a little reading.

Hypothetically speaking . . . if I were to start my campaign in the year 19 BBY (a few months after Order 66 & the Prequels) were any of the main Imperial characters from the series in those positions they held during Rebels during 19BBY (just after the Clone Wars ended)?

I was reading something on the wiki on this where it reads . . .

"We want Lothal to be the center of this part of the Outer Rim. That means industry, mining, commerce, expanded youth and military academies... and a powerful navy presence to maintain it all. If Kintoni starts drawing away our ships, everything else will follow. Do you want to live on Lothal the way it was, Minister Tua? Or do you even remember that far back?"―Governor Pryce's vision of Lothal

But, once the Empire took over, everything changed. They started rebuilding and demolishing older structures basically to pave the way for Imperial-style structures, and overnight, large sectors of the city were depopulated. All of this was met with mass protests which caused the Empire to just declare martial law. From what I've read, this pretty much happened very early on in the Empires occupation of the planet.

I was thinking maybe I would run a campaign set in this sector in 19BBY with is roughly 14 years before anything in Rebels happened. That way I would not be stepping on any canon toes and it just seems like a fun place to drop the players characters at for them to stir up trouble + I have plenty of coursebooks on this region of space (even if it is 14 years in the future, it still makes for solid information for 14 years prior).

This is why I was asking which if any of these characters from the Empire were in Lothal at the beginning of the occupation (which if I read correctly took place right after the Empire came about) or am I basically going to need to write up new people in charge since none of the Imperials from the series were at Lothal this early in the timeline? I've been reading but finding exact dates for specific NPC's arriving in positions of power on Lothal is not being found easily. Would it be better to just have different people in charge of Lothal and I can assume before Rebels begins these people who were in charge were either reassigned or killed etc etc making way for the cast of Rebels to be in power.

I like the idea of basing the campaign out of this sector 14 years before anything happened with Rebels, it makes it easier for players to use theater of the mind with specific locations having seen them from the series.

When the GI stops the shots with his lightsaber the shots just dissipate rather than deflect back at Kanan.

Think it was purposeful that he chose that over a deflectable shot since he knew he'd be fighting inquisitors and sith in his life?

According to Star Wars Encyclopedia: The Comprehensive Guide to the Star Wars Galaxy, Seventh Sister was a was coerced into becoming an Inquisitor. That could explain why she was being reflective instead of showing sadism when saying the Jedi are gone to Ezra as her prisoner. Also, that *is* why Iskat sensed something shattered inside Seventh Sister. How would Ezra come about this after learning that Seventh Sister UNWILLINGLY turned into an Inquisitor?

I'm sure we all agree that Konstantine is one of the worst and most incompetent Imperial officers. I doubt Vader gives him any thought, but as for Kallus, I've always believed that his promotion after Siege of Lothal was due to him fulfilling Vader's orders and generally proving himself to be a very competent ISB officer am I correct?

Also, he somehow doesn't appear to be affected by Vader's powerful presence and dark side of the force (whether because of his ISB training or he is actually under his influence and being manipulated without realising it??)

I see this small arc between Vader and Kallus to be a nod to that of Vader and General Veers working relationship in Empire Strikes Back- both escape Vader's wrath and survive being force-choked when serving directly alongside him.

Or.................... maybe it's not that thought-provoking and it's simply those glorious muttonchops that serve as extra +10 armor against the dark side of the force. (LOL)

https://preview.redd.it/o9ohcvvv5u2e1.png?width=619&format=png&auto=webp&s=2c99ba3c23233ecf4c87feec5b46f3e4c4afdc49

Seeing the amount of people misunderstanding Pryce, I decided to debunk the most common misconceptions about her backstory in the Thrawn book.

(Explaining why she DIDN'T betray her friends, why she isn't morally black, Batonn crisis, why Azadi isn't a saint, the issue with comics..)

Labelling her as just another "villain rotten to the core" oversimplifies her story and ignores the complexity of her character. I believe a lot of people miss or simply don't understand why exactly she did certain things, which is why I made this post, I want to address them and offer a clearer understanding of her character.

‼️This post's goal is in no way to defend her crimes, it is to point out how heavily demonized she is by the community and how most if not all situations she was thrown into were nothing but a case of "eat or be eaten", leaving her no choice but to react the way she did if she didn't want to get walked all over.

⚪ "She is and always was a horrible person."

This is simply not true. Arihnda was trusting, with a strong sense of justice and good nature, which were the qualities that ultimately led to her downfall.

Her naivety is further evidence that she didn't fully understand what she was getting into when she arrived on Coruscant. Having spent her entire life on Lothal, a place clearly lagging behind, how could she have known?

She naively trusted Renking and assisted him, only to be caught in a poorly planned trap for Moff Ghadi that he never disclosed to her. This led to the plan backfiring, her being threatened with imprisonment, and being forced to plant fake information in Renking's office, which resulted in her losing her job.

She believed she had genuine friends, but they all turned out to be using her for their own gain, putting her in danger and abusing power.

‼️ The only way for her to avoid such threats was to gain more political power, which only fueled her desire to climb the social ladder. It was clearly hinted that she was uncomfortable relying on anyone after all her experiences, relying solely on herself became the only safe option.

Actions that show she wasn’t morally black like people make her out to be:

• When she was new on Coruscant, she compelled an arrogant landlady to repair a leaking pipe in a tenant’s apartment block by leveraging legal authority, purely out of her sense of justice. If she wanted to gain something, the landlady was the only one who could provide anything, yet she pitted herself against the landlady by standing up for the tenant.

• She befriended Juahir, back then a waitress, and her friend Driller, there was nothing to gain here from these people. Pryce helped Juahir find an apartment in her building, and as Renking’s assistant, she got the chance to attend a high-ranking officers’ ball, helping her friends who didn’t have that chance to get in as well, again expecting nothing in return.

• When she turned in Juahir to the ISB for her crimes, she gave her advice that ultimately helped her avoid execution.

• When she became the governor of Lothal (after spending over a year on Coruscant training for the role), she closed her family’s company due to the doonium vein being completely exhausted. Despite her allegiance to the Empire, she ensured that the oldest employees, who had worked for the company since it was owned by her family, were prioritized in securing new positions.

• Again, despite her allegiance to the Empire, she genuinely cared for her parents and was even willing to kill other Imperials to keep them out of harm’s way. Instead of sending someone else to Batonn, she went there herself, putting herself in danger to save them, which further shows how strong her loyalty is.

⚪ "She betrayed her friends."

First off, it’s important to clarify that Juahir and Driller were not her friends, definitely not at the end. They were using her as a tool to gather information about the Empire for Nightswan, effectively making her an innocent agent in their crimes. They intentionally never told her because they knew she would never agree to such actions.

Juahir was sending her students, whom she had trained as bodyguards, to spy on members of the Imperial Senate. One of these students even attempted murder. Juahir was also the one to introduce agent Ottlis to Arihnda, setting her up.

Driller was fully aware of Ottlis working for Moff Ghadi, who not only sprayed Arihnda with an illegal drug but also threatened her with imprisonment and got her fired from her job in the past. Despite knowing about Ottlis' ties, Driller never told Arihnda. (Ottlis was specifically assigned to her since the very beginning as a spy, as stated by Ghadi himself.)

‼️ By turning them in to the ISB, Arihnda gained protection from Colonel Yularen. Had she not done so, she would have faced arrest along with them. Turning them in was inevitable.

‼️ Arihnda’s choice was about protecting herself from a threat they got her into, not out of malice.

‼️ Being opportunistic, she also managed to turn this threat to her advantage, securing the governorship.

People also tend to ignore the amount of political manipulation she was both under and had to perform herself. She had to eliminate another threat of imprisonment from Moff Ghadi by aligning with Moff Tarkin, all while trying to resolve the problem with Higherskies.

⚪ "She killed innocent civilians and felt no remorse."

I could write entire paragraphs about how weak this argument is, as people cherry-pick which equally horrible (or most of the time even worse) criminal character is to be glorified and which shamed for their crimes, being very obviously biased. But that’s not the topic of this post, so I’ll just explain the situation since many people ignore a very important part of it.

When Arihnda set off the explosion, she did so under the impression that she was hiding the body of an agent who had threatened her with a gun and intended to leave her parents to die on Batonn, along with the rest of the civilians. Hearing that the crew was already on their way to her parents’ house, and with the risk of the dead body being discovered increasing by the second, she acted quickly, failing to realize the massive impact the explosion would have since the shield was still up.

The result shocked her as well.

Does that excuse it or make it any better? Absolutely not. Does it tell you anything about her character other than that she acts impulsively under pressure? Also not.

The result was unintentional, but at this point in her life, she would risk anything for her own and her loved ones’ survival. She had become fully capable of eliminating anything or anyone who dared to endanger her, which left her feeling no guilt for the impact of her actions, further showing how corrupted and numbed she had become along the way.

⚪ Arihnda Pryce vs. Ryder Azadi

People put Azadi on a pedestal and make Pryce seem like the spawn of the devil, which is neither entirely true.

When it comes to Azadi, we don’t know that much about his character, but there's something that he did that struck with me. When he discovered that a vein of doonium had been uncovered in the Pryce Mine, he wanted to buy a controlling interest from the company’s owner, who was Arihnda Pryce back then. It was clear that Azadi had been bothering her about this in the past, and when Pryce refused, Azadi acted shockingly. He attempted a complete takeover by falsifying embezzlement charges, leading to the arrest of Arihnda's mother and denying Arihnda the chance to bail her out or even visit her.

When Pryce went to senator Renking’s office to appeal for her mother’s release, he confirmed that her mother would be held by governor Azadi until proven innocent, and he could not be convinced otherwise. This was a very strange thing for Azadi to do and raises questions about the actual goodness of his character. First, he wanted to slowly but surely take over someone else’s company, and then he resorted to extremes when he was refused.

When it comes to Arihnda, I never see people talking about the other things she did for Lothal.

Before becoming governor, she spent over a year on Coruscant training for the position, putting in effort to bolster Lothal’s standing among other Imperial planets.

Pryce’s main issue with Lothal was how behind it was, her primary goal to modernize the planet.

She constructed factories and mining posts, planning to increase industry, mining, commerce, and new workers. She also aimed to establish military academies and a powerful naval presence to maintain it all. While many decried the increased Imperial presence, the new development increased employment opportunities and prosperity, benefiting the planet.

She also thwarted Governor Sanz of Kintoni’s plan to expand military-grade facilities on a neighboring planet, which threatened Lothal.

• Now I'm not saying that Arihnda was the better governor, I just think it's worth noting that her actions weren't all black and Azadi's all white.

⚪ The issue with comics:

Now, a bone I have to pick with the comics.

Since the books are long, the comics are forced to simplify the story, often leaving out information or adding things that didn’t happen at all.

This is one of the reasons I always recommend reading the books before reading the comics, as the comics are supposed to be based ON the books, but obviously can't contain everything.

In the scene where Arihnda pulls up with the ISB to arrest Juahir, at some point she says "i'm on the road to power now. I may be able to pull enough strings to get you out, in a few years. If not.... Maybe you should've chosen your friends better."

The whole prison situation is very complex and generally misunderstood in itself, and this comic portrayal didn’t help it at all. Arihnda never said "maybe you should've chosen your friends better", which I think is worth mentioning since it gives you false implications.

In the following panels, the fact that Arihnda was genuinely devastated by Juahir’s betrayal and by having to turn her in, tearing up, not even able to look at her, was completely erased, and the comic falsely portrayed her as unaffected, even malicious, with the whole situation.

⚪ She had so much potential to have such a meaningful redemption. I'll never agree with the writers for ending her as an unredeemable character, she had it all. She knew oppression, she knew what it was like to be seen as and feel inferior because of her origins, she knew what it was like to be scared off into a corner with no way out by people in power, she knew what it was like to do ANYTHING to protect her loved ones, she knew what it was like to simply not have a choice.

If the writers managed to redeem agent Kallus, undo absolutely everything about his initially unredeemable character, they could've put a quarter of that effort into Arihnda and ultimately save her as a character. Her story could've ended as her learning to accept and love her roots, as it's not a rare issue for people in real life to struggle with. Or realizing the fact she does exactly what she initially hated. The list is endless, really, there was so much more they could've done with her.

🔵 My personal input:

Arihnda's whole character is about being opportunistic and cunning, the shots shot at her tearing her down and her standing right back up and shooting back. She's a someone who was initially a good person with a dream, fighting evil, and getting corrupted in the process of survival, turning into the very thing she originally fought against.

She doesn't forgive and takes revenge on anyone who ever did her or her loved ones wrong. She's extremely intelligent when it comes to politics and seeing her in action, coming up with a solution for any problem thrown at her, no matter how complicated, and often managing to turn it to her advantage aswell, was genuinely thrilling. Personally her parts in the book were my favourite and I wish more people enjoyed them too.

In S3E12 Ghosts of Geonosis: Part 1, the episode starts with the Ghost crew getting a holo-message from Senator Bail Organa, who tells them he wants the crew to head to Geonosis to search for the previous search party that went missing “two cycles ago”.

As I understand it, a cycle is a full year. Are they saying their previous party they sent has been missing for two whole years and the rebels are just now reacting and sending a search party to look for them, or is this just an error on the writers’ part and they meant to say “two rotations ago”?

On one hand, seems like a dick move to just ignore the fact that the party disappeared two years ago and they’re just giving a shit now. On the other hand, the first party they sent out and was lead by Saw Gurerra, who I can see a lot of rebels being like, “Ugg, welp no big loss. Glad we got that pain in the ass un-stuck from our craw once and for all.”

I just watched Clone Wars and Bad Batch so now onto Rebels.

Firstly, I know people say the first season is kinda slow but there are some really great moments in Spark of Rebellion that hit harder when you have seen the show (several times) before.

Anyway in Ep 3 - Droids in Distress, Threepeeio and R2 are somehow assigned to imperial Minister Tua. And I’m wondering if there’s any story about how that came to be? Later in the episode you see them back with Bail Organa so they were already part of the fledgling rebellion, so why are they with an Imperial?

Thanks in advance.

Playing Jedi Survivor; wanted to get something close to the lightsaber designs of Kanan and Ezra, how’d I do? Went back later to choose blue as the blade lol

I think they could have done something with him using dark side abilities. Like the time he used mind domination. I don't think he would go full "join maul and become evil" route, but just some force judgement or something would've been cool.

Sometimes they can say something funny in the middle of a tense moment as they can miss the sub text, but when the fuel depot exploted and the episode ended and cut to the silent credits you could hear a pin drop. They loved Kanan. For me, I had missed the hints that he knew what was coming to him and it hit hard. RIP master Jarrus

I believe that in trials of the darksaber, Sabine was subtly drawing on the dark side of the force (subconsciously ofc), which helped her overpower Kanan. Plus, it looks like she tapped into it again during her training with Ahsoka in 1x03 of the Ahsoka series, however, unlike Kanan (though, it's possible he purposely provoked her into using her emotions in order to overcome her mental block - at least temporarily, but who knows) her master saw it coming. "Ahsoka feared that if Sabine unlocked her potential, she would become dangerous." 👀

Maybe the show mentioned it and I missed it. Does anyone know for sure.

Ok can we talk about how 3 inquisitors thought they could take on maul in twilight of the apprentice part 2. These 3 ametures (the inquisitors) thought they could take on the original double sided Saber weilding baddie and they struggled it shows how weak the inquisitors were.