Yahoo News Star Wars explains how Rebels knew about second Death Star
Star Wars might have claimed to have left the Skywalker Saga behind — or has it? — but it can't stop filling in mysteries from the main series that fans might have pondered over the years.
This time around, perhaps to tie in with the movie's 40th anniversary, a Return of the Jedi mystery has been addressed and retconned. Ever wondered how the Rebels really found out about the second Death Star? Well, wonder no more.
Charles Soule's new comic-book series Hidden Empire, illustrated by Steven Cummings, marks the end of an unofficial trilogy that centred on Qi'ra, played by Emilia Clarke in Solo: A Star Wars Story.
The final issue sees her attempt to bring down Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader ahead of the events of Return of the Jedi. It's the culmination of her attempts to turn Crimson Dawn into a force for good.
Qi'ra is unsuccessful in her plan, but after it fails, she tells her Crimson Dawn operatives embedded across the galaxy to "find new lives". Some might have done that, but others continued her mission, and it led to the Rebels finding out about the second Death Star.
After The Archivist tells Luke and Leia about Qi'ra's "hidden empire" and how it failed, Luke decides to take a different viewpoint on the story.
"Because of her actions, two of her agents — Bevelyn and Melton, you remember them — brought us news of the second Death Star's construction. If they hadn't, we might not have known until it was completed," he explains.
"It could have changed everything. The Rebellion might have been destroyed."
It's a development that was teased in one of last year's comics, Star Wars #28, which showed how this crucial message almost never got to the Rebels. They had received a message from secret agents about the existence of a second Death Star but had plans to dismiss it as a trap.
However, Luke ended up having a good feeling about it and heading to Coruscant, where the agents had crash-landed. He met up with them in secret and brought the defectors back to the Rebels.
So, there you have it. We might not have gotten more of Qi'ra and the Crimson Dawn in the movies, but at least we now know that they ended up being more critical to the success of the Rebellion than we ever knew before.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and the entire Skywalker Saga is available on DVD, Blu-ray and 4K now, as well as on Disney+.
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