This article contains potential spoilers for “Andor” season 2
“Andor” season 2 wastes no time in reminding viewers just how cruel and brutal the Empire is. In the first episode of the season, we see a meeting between high-ranking Imperial officials at the Maltheen Divide. Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn), director of the Death Star project, leads the meeting, and attendees include both Dedra Meero (Denise Gough) and Major Partagaz (Anton Lesser) of the Imperial Security Bureau. The purpose of the meeting, as Krennic lays out, revolves around the planet Ghorman.
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In order to complete construction on the Death Star reactor, the Empire needs a specific mineral that only Ghorman can provide: “deep, substrate, foliated calcite.” The only problem is that mining such a foundational mineral will likely destabilize the planet, leading to forced relocations for its residents. Krennic’s meeting is primarily to form strategies to turn public sentiment against the residents of Ghorman before that happens, thus ensuring Imperial support.
It’s easy to tell from this meeting alone that things are going to get real bad real fast, but those who’ve seen the animated series “Star Wars Rebels” have some details on just how horrifically this plot line will end. In “Rebels,” which takes place over the same span of time as “Andor,” Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) flees Coruscant in 2 BBY to lead the Rebel Alliance, but not before delivering a huge speech on the floor of the Senate condemning Palpatine for his tyrannical policies and the treatment of the Ghormans in particular. This is all prompted by a specific event we know as the Ghorman Massacre, which “Andor” season 2 is now bringing to the screen.
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What do we know about the Ghorman Massacre?
The Ghorman Massacre has its roots all the way back in the old Star Wars Expanded Universe — the timeline now known as Legends in the Disney era. That event originated in old Star Wars sourcebooks, detailing an event in which Wilhuff Tarkin landed a ship directly on top of a group of protestors on Ghorman.
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The massacre detailed in “Rebels” is a totally different event that happens years later, just two years before the Battle of Yavin. We don’t know exactly what happens, but we do know that hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians are murdered by Imperial forces. As previously mentioned, we know that this is the event that finally pushes Mon Mothma to publicly condemn Palpatine, decry the Empire, and leave the Senate to lead the rebellion in person.
“Andor” season 1 already set up Ghorman being a major piece of Mon’s story, as she begins the show pushing back against shipping embargos leveled against Ghorman as punishment for local resistance to occupation. Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker) also mentions the “Ghorman Front” in season 1 — presumably a homegrown resistance movement. In other words, the show has been building towards Ghroman the whole time.
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Andor showrunner Tony Gilroy says Ghorman is central to season 2
Tony Gilroy has made it clear that the Ghorman Massacre is coming in “Andor” season 2. Since the season is supposed to take us all the way up to “Rogue One,” it needs to get Mon Mothma from Coruscant to Yavin IV at some point, and that will only happen after the Empire’s brutal massacre takes place.
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“Ghorman, interestingly, is canonical but completely undescribed,” Gilroy said in a recent interview with Collider. “It’s a total blank slate.” The showrunner knew that there was some “confusion” between different versions of the event in canon and Legends, which he wanted to help fix in “Andor” season 2. “It was an opportunity to rebuild in a really significant way,” Gilroy said. “It’s a very significant part of our show that can do a lot of different things for us.”
According to Gilroy, the story of Ghorman will cover five of the 12 episodes — nearly half the season. That makes it comparable to Ferrix from season 1 in terms of its core role in the series. However, given that we don’t go there in the first three episodes, Ghorman is likely to take up more of the middle of the season, rather than the beginning and end as Ferrix did in season 1.
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“It’s very expensive to build, so we really want to use it as much as possible,” Gilroy told Collider, referring to the physical space of Ghorman built out for the show. “I’m really confident that the really deep, passionate Star Wars community will appreciate how we’ve straightened out that story.”
