Retcons at Lightspeed

One of the quiet background realities of the Star Wars galaxy is that it is spectacularly bad at labor. Not just “late-stage capitalism” bad, but structurally, culturally, and institutionally allergic to the idea that workers should have enforceable protections. You’ve got child soldiers, child labor, debt slavery, corporate fiefdoms, and a Republic that can field a galaxy-spanning bureaucracy but somehow never gets around to standardizing “maybe don’t enslave people.” The Empire of course doesn’t fix this; it industrializes it.

So in that environment, formal labor law is either nonexistent, unenforced, or actively hostile. Which means if you’re operating in a sector where the state either can’t or won’t protect you, you get a classic historical pattern: workers build their own rules.

Enter the gray economies.

Groups like the Smugglers' Alliance (Legends) and the Bounty Hunters' Guild (new canon) look, at first glance, like professional associations for criminals. But if you squint at them through a labor history lens, they start to look a lot like early, proto-union structures — especially the kinds you see in maritime or extralegal industries on Earth.

Think pirate codes (yes actual ones, Pirates of the Caribbean didn't make that up). Think matelotage agreements. Think dockworker brotherhoods that predate formal unions.

Because what do these groups actually do?

They:

set norms for compensation and contracts

regulate competition to prevent destructive undercutting

provide a framework for dispute resolution

establish reputational systems (“you don’t honor contracts, you don’t get work”)

That’s industry self-governance in the absence of law.

Take bounty hunting. Without something like the Bounty Hunters' Guild, the field collapses into chaos: clients don’t pay; hunters underbid each other into oblivion; jobs get duplicated, interfered with, or sabotaged. And nobody trusts anybody!

The Guild steps in and says: here are the rules of engagement. Here’s how claims work. Here’s how you get paid. Here’s what happens if you break contract.

That’s basically a union crossed with a licensing board and a regulatory agency, just without any moral pretense.

Same with the Smugglers' Alliance. Smuggling is inherently risky, decentralized, and dependent on trust networks. If everyone is constantly betraying everyone else, the whole system stops functioning. So instead, you hash out agreed-upon routes and territories, informal protections against betrayal, mechanisms for information sharing, and consequences for breaking the code

Again: not altruism. Stability.

And the reason this emerges specifically in gray/illegal sectors is because they have to. The Core Worlds might pretend they have laws, but those laws don’t meaningfully protect the people actually doing dangerous, itinerant, high-risk work. So the margins of the galaxy — where enforcement is weakest and risk is highest — become the places where labor organization evolves first.

Which is very historically grounded.

On Earth, some of the earliest labor protections didn’t come from governments; they came from workers in dangerous, decentralized industries—sailors, pirates, miners—who literally wrote their own rules because no one else was going to save them.

Pirate codes, for example, often included:

compensation for injury

shared distribution of loot

limits on captain authority

Which is … shockingly progressive compared to a lot of contemporary working conditions (cough Amazon cough).

So in the galaxy far, far away, you end up with this ironic inversion:

The “legitimate” systems — Republic, Empire, megacorporations — are exploitative, inconsistent, or indifferent.

The “illegitimate” systems — smugglers, bounty hunters — are the ones building functional labor frameworks, because they need to survive.

And that feeds back into why the galaxy feels so unstable overall. There’s no universal baseline of rights. Everything is hyper-local, network-dependent, and contingent on whether you’re inside a system that has rules you can rely on.

If you’re a clone trooper? You are literally property.

If you’re a factory worker on a corporate world? Your protections are whatever your employer feels like offering.

But if you’re a smuggler or a bounty hunter?

You might actually have clearer expectations about your pay, your risks, and your recourse — because your “union” is the only thing standing between you and total chaos.

So yeah: the Smugglers’ Alliance and the Bounty Hunters’ Guild aren’t just flavor. They’re a glimpse of what labor organization looks like in a galaxy where the state has fundamentally failed to provide it.

Let's look at Rome for an example. Rome early on had the ideal of the soldier/citizen/farmer, but by the time of the late empire you had most agricultural work being done by slaves on massive properties owned by the same individual, who'd wait for their neighbours to go bankrupt (not being able to keep up with slave labour) and then purchase the land to put more slaves on it. Much of Rome's civic woes can be traced to the fact that people were locked out of positions because of the institution of slavery, leading to class stagnation along with a host of other problems.

Quoting Jason Pargin, who articulates it better than I could:

"In any kind of a sane world, The Mandalorian should have run for 150 episodes at least. They had a formula here that could have worked forever.

"It's a formula that has always worked: a heroic stranger wanders into a strange new land and meets a bunch of colorful characters, usually under the thumb of a powerful threat. The threat is usually in the form of a villain who's played by a famous actor just chewing the scenery. He uses hits wits and his courage to get out of it and then he moves on.

"Have Gun, Will Travel" ran for 225 episodes from 1957-1963. It's where Gene Roddenberry of Star Trek fame got his start.

"The sci-fi space adventures we had years and years ago used to run forever. Star Trek TNG had about 180 episodes, Deep Space 9 had about the same number, even Voyager -- the show that we think of as being a "lesser series" -- had 172 episodes. And here's the thing: most of those episodes were really good!

"But because of the way the business works now, and because of 'corporate synergy,' by season 2 of the Mandalorian, they were brainstorming "how do we get this back to Luke Skywalker and the Death Star?"

"By season 3, fans were lost, because some huge plot events had occurred in a completely different series, because they needed it to connect to their Boba Fett show. And now, the Mandalorian is dead. They're gonna wrap up the story in a movie, and that's it.

And the crazy part is, this was always the perfect format for Star Wars: it always should have been a short form serial! That's what George Lucas was ripping off when he made the film back in 1977: serials like Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon.

These were little 12-minute long episodes that played as one continuing story, but each one was its own little lighthearted adventure that usually ended on some kind of a cliffhanger.

"This is why so many of the most hardcore Star Wars fans who are old like me only like two of the movies, because by the third film they were already just repeating beats: they were attacking yet another Death Star.

They ran out of ideas so fast, because this is not the ideal format for this universe. The Mando and Baby Yoda Show is the ideal format! This should have run for the next 20 years! They even set it up so that the star wouldn't even need to be on set for most of it, because he wears a helmet!

"I think some fans object to this, because they think of it as making Star Wars smaller, that you're reducing it to 'just a TV show.' But it's the exact opposite: it lets you expand the universe, because you're forced to to keep coming up with new places for him to go, and new people for him to meet, new villains for him to face -- you're not forced to just keep coming back to the Death Star again and again, and the Sith, and the Jedi.

In Episode VII: The Force Awakens, the Starkiller Base destroys five planets. That's mathematically five times more tragic than the destruction of Alderaan.

"And if you want evidence, just look at Star Trek! It's the show that expanded the universe. The Star Trek films were just action movies that are very forgettable. But I guess the world has changed, because they don't even do Star Trek that way anymore.

Picard ended its run after 30 episodes. Discovery concluded after 65. Hopefully, Strange New Worlds marks a return to form for the franchise.

"I don't get it, because it seems like a version of this show that runs until the year 2040 would have just printed money. The merchandise sales alone would have covered the production costs. Instead, it's 24 episodes and a movie that I think everyone has already stopped caring about."

And like. The Jedi are a culture. They’re a religion.

You know that, right? You know that many cultures, including generally peaceful ones, have sacred weapons, right? You know that the bond between a Jedi and their crystal(s) is an extremely sacred thing that requires the consent of both parties and is integral to their way of life, right?

You know that lightsabers are not intended to be only for killing, right? That the first thing Luke learns to do with his lightsaber is to shield and defend? You know that a culture having sacred weapons doesn’t mean that they view killing as sacred, right?

I put special emphasis on "practiced for a number of reasons such as physical, mental and spiritual development; and the preservation of a nation's intangible cultural heritage" because that's exactly why the jedi have lightsaber combat: it's part of their culture, as essential to it as the Force, and it's a way to train and connect with themselves, each other, and the Force. plenty of martial arts use weapons like swords and staffs, and it's most notable on asian martial arts like kendo, which is literally what lightsaber combat in the movies was inspired on. the weapons don't mean they're more violent than unarmed martial arts, or that they are meant to kill. they're just a different style of martial art, much like music has so many different genres.

plus, lightsabers are extremely limited in range, they are obviously meant for defense over offense. they can only cut down people who get close enough to be within range of the blade, and even though they can deflect blaster shots they still need to have been shot at first. using a lightsaber to kill is easy. anyone who gets their hands on a lightsaber can do that. using a lightsaber to defend, to save lives? now that requires plenty of training, discipline and understanding of oneself and one's weapon. that's what lightsaber combat is. that's why jedi carry lightsabers.

In the films, Anakin was a nice kid who became a moody teenager who became an even moodier adult? That's not how tragedies work! His fatal flaw is that he's a kid who is getting tired of being told no? That he lacks patience? That he fears death of loved ones? That he doesnt take the high ground? That's too many flaws, George. They tried to make a real and grounded character also be the superpower space wizard tragic hero.

Anakin was a big dumb himbo. You will never convince me otherwise. Macbeth was ambitious, Oedipus thought he could beat the fates, Wayne Gretzky is an alcoholic gambler, and Anakin was a big dumb himbo. Look at Vader. Look at him! The guy is massive. And a decripit Palpatine keeps him on a leash. How?

Anakin was a big dumb himbo. That's how. A golden retriever of a man. Great fighter. Great pilot. Absolute moron with a heart of gold. Do you know what war does to folks who have hearts of gold? It breaks them. Having Anakin start out as a moody teenager only serves to understate his downfall. Yeah, the cranky kid just kept getting crankier until he started doing war crimes. Boring.

When Kenobi says "he's more machine now than man" he's lamenting watching his former student have all the softness ripped away from him by the challenges of keeping order in the galaxy, the same way the republic turned into the empire.

Rather than eliminating the order in a slaughter, this version of vader is in many respects THE LAST JEDI STANDING the only one still holding to his knightly duties while everyone else fucked off to become a hermit.

So much about Naboo culture is infuriating from a logical standpoint. They have a queen, okay. A constitutionally elected queen? Weird, okay. Don't know why they'd do that but... She's FOURTEEN? Excuse me? Is it a ceremonial thing or, oh no it's not? Legit head of state? Why does she dress like that? Why does she talk like that? I'm so tired.

Here's the explainer. Let me go cook.

There's this joke in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy where the last living human goes back in time and finds out humans aren't actually from Earth, but an alien culture that tricked all the middle managers, pedantic weirdos, and other infuriating folk into getting in a space arc which they gave the wrong evacuation coordinates to simply get rid of them. The Naboo are like this but they're all artists and poets and hippies, but like classy ones. They fled their home planet during a war and crash landed on Naboo, then did a colonism to the Gungans because, hey, they were fleeing a war and it was do or die. This spiritual rot in their creation story is later rectified by Padmé. But it's super important to their cultural psychology. They're hippies, but will subjugate if needed. They are "peaceful" but I guarantee you every single one of them has a tiny extremely shiny pistol up their sleeve and they will draw down on you if backed against a wall.

The scene that I think says it all is at the end of Phantom Menace when Padmé is surrounded by Nute Gunray and his droids, they've got her dead to rights, but Sabé her double creates a distraction so the queen can make it to her throne. This one piece of furniture is the Naboo in a nutshell. It's richly carved with artistic details, it has two seats to the side so the queen's handmaidens can read the lips of people in the back of the room and use hand signals to communicate with the queen while she can remain focused mostly on who is speaking to her. It is hundreds of years old. And it has a secret compartment in the armrest that is FULL OF GUNS. Layers of artistic opulence hiding their true intentions.

The Naboo were created to be backwards compatible with Princess Leia. They're compassionate pacifists, but they will shot you if needed.

Why do they elect teenage royalty? It's a little creepy. It's giving "age of consent is emotional maturity". It makes no sense.

The explanation they give outsiders is they want youthful idealism untainted by cynicism. What they don't tell you is that they take kids with stated interest in politics and put them in an advanced highly competitive Leadership Academy which is like Model UN mixed with Battle Royale. Well, they don't kill each other but it's intense. It's like what the clones went though just all diplomacy training and tea ceremonies all the time. Which is crazy but so Naboo.

Oh, and all the delegates for the royalty election run using pseudonyms for security. Imagine voting for the head of state but you can't run a background check. It's so crazy.

Why does Padmé dress like that? Well, fashion is one of Naboo's major industries so it's like she's wearing the entire Fall line catalog at once. To advertise not only the talent of her people, but to show how much they favor her. BUT that dress has multiple layers of padding and resin armor. And aforementioned spots for those little silver blasters. And it breaks up her silhouette making her harder to shoot. And it's so elaborate you pay more attention to the crazy dress and not if the person wearing it is really the queen or a decoy. Everything about Naboo is like this.

Queen Amidala has that weird accent while Padmé does not. Because all her handmaidens helped create the accent together so they all can imitate it. It's like if you gave girls at a rowdy sleepover the job of federal counterintelligence. That's what they came up with.

The handmaidens wear colorful identical clothes so you can't tell them apart, hoods to partially conceal their identity, and they don't wear the queen's fancy makeup. So one of them can be the queen and spy on people in the audience. Because the Naboo don't trust shit for shit.

Their public face is so silly to hide all the truly weird shit they do behind the scenes.

They use their reputation as artist hippies to conceal multiple layers of subterfuge and disguise their methods of self defense and assuage their paranoia due to wartime trauma and their disturbing colonial past. All of them are completely off their rocker even by Star Wars standards. And I love them so much. They put on a show so everyone thinks they have them figured out but what they have going on is far more weirder and more sinister than meets the eye. You know how catty, neurotic, and competitive art school students stereotypically are? Yeah, planet art student. Love them!

Star Wars: Breaking Down the Duels - Revenge of the Sith

Saw had a couple X-Wings and a dude known for having tubes.

And then there's the matter of end goals

Saw doesn't have much of a plan beyond "make the empire burn", he has no answers for what comes after, for what the galaxy looks like if/after the empire is destroyed, and based off real world historical precedent, it will be anarchic wars galaxy wide, and/or just a new dictatorship replacing the old

Saw is someone who was doing ON THE GROUND rebel work since before the Empire took over. There's an entire arc in season 5 of TCW where we are introduced to him and he's already helping lead a group of rebels alongside his sister on their home planet to overthrow their Separatist ruler. Once the Empire takes over, we see in TBB that Saw has continued to do on the ground rebel work almost immediately, and not even just on his own planet since Jedi: Fallen Order shows him on Kashyyyk.

And Saw is not actually an ineffective idiot, either. One of the main things he tries to do in TBB is blow up a building where a lot of top Empire officials are meeting, including Tarkin and Krennic. And he almost succeeds! The only reason he doesn't is because TBB get in the way and so Tarkin and Krennic live on, and we all know what THEY'RE responsible for. Saw is the person that Galen Erso trusts to come save his daughter and he does. He is also the person Galen still trusts years later with the information about the Death Star. And during Rebels, as much as he is struggling more with empathy, he's the ONLY PERSON that truly realizes there's a bigger threat coming from the Empire and is trying to actively figure out what it is. That's not nothing!

I don't think that Saw's contributions need to be whittled down to "he died in a cave" in order to defend Mon Mothma's own contributions. Saw is one of the ONLY PEOPLE we see truly on the ground doing what he can for everybody IMMEDIATELY after the fall of the Republic. Saw is perhaps the only person trying direct strikes against the Empire to weaken it when it is still new. And yes, he doesn't succeed at being able to do some of those things, but he DOES succeed at others. The only other person really doing something like this is perhaps Rex, whose efforts are pretty focused in on helping the clones rather than everyone in the galaxy at large. Saw gave himself an impossible task because nobody else was doing it and someone had to. Saw is ON THE FRONT LINES in a way Mon Mothma simply is not for over fifteen YEARS. Saw did his part, he held the line for as long as he could, and it took everything from him until he was a shadow of the person he'd once been by the end. Of course Mon Mothma is more emotionally stable than he is by the time she finally decides that enough is enough and joins the fight on the ground.

I also think you can make a solid argument that Mon Mothma would perhaps not have had much of a rebellion to JOIN fifteen years into the Empire if Saw (and people like him) had not been spending those fifteen years doing what he could to help people, if he had not jumped into action immediately because he recognized that they had reached a point of no return far faster than Mon Mothma did (and without the insider information that someone like Rex or Bail Organa would have had).

In comparison, there's not a lot of exploration of Mon Mothma's early involvement in rebel actions within higher canon. She isn't around in the two Jedi video games nor is she ever in TBB in any meaningful way. The only thing I know of that really is starting to answer that question is the new book The Mask of Fear which, from what I've seen of people who've been able to read it thus far, seems to imply that Mon Mothma is primarily just trying to continue working within the political systems as she knows it. And while we as the audience know that this is going to be entirely ineffective, she doesn't have the information we do in order to realize that for herself. Not unlike Saw, she is working with the information and resources she has to do what she thinks will be the most helpful, it's just that she chooses to go through politics and Saw chooses to go take a more grassroots approach, and neither is enough on its own.

By the time of Andor, Mon Mothma is still primarily working within the political system, but has begun being more active within the rebellion by sending funds to certain people she thinks will help. She isn't involved in any of the day to day on the ground work at this point, whereas Saw has been actively doing so for over FIFTEEN YEARS. Saw is reaching the END of what he is able to do as a rebel, the end of what he can handle mentally in this battle, but Mon Mothma is, in many ways, just reaching the BEGINNING of her own battle. Mon Mothma takes another 3 years to recognize that the political path is completely useless and leave it to join the rebellion more full time. And as per what we see in Rebels, she isn't even all that good at leading the rebellion when she first starts. She gets there and her first act is to bring together all of the separate rebel cells into one alliance, and then her second act is to deny the alliance's help to a rebel base being attacked by the Empire because whoops the alliance maybe ISN'T ready to go face-to-face with the Empire yet. She becomes a stronger leader later, but she does not start out that way.

This doesn't take away from what Mon Mothma DOES ultimately contribute to the rebellion once she chooses to join, nor does it mean that Saw's later instability wasn't an issue that hindered him and his efforts to help people and fight against the Empire. So while I think it's unfair to dismiss Mon Mothma as someone who just "fights with the power of love," I think it's equally as unfair to dismiss Saw as someone who just "never had a plan and then died in a cave." Imagine what Mon Mothma might have been like if she'd been down in the dirt with Saw from day one, if she'd left her entire family and life of glamor and grandeur behind immediately, if she'd been in the trenches giving blood sweat and tears just to get a few supplies to the people who needed it because no one else would, and if she'd had to do that for several DECADES with nothing but a hope that one day they'd be free to keep her going. I wonder how well Mon Mothma would have stood up to that kind of pressure and if she'd have been any more mentally stable than Saw by the time Luke Skywalker arrived at Yavin 4. I genuinely don't think she would've lasted very long, and that's not an indictment against Mon Mothma or a personal bias against her, just an indication of how different these people are in what they were able to do and contribute to the same end goal.

Like, after A New Hope you can be like "Han is cool! He's a rebel, doesn't take any shit, he's that quintessential bad boy who does the right thing in the end". There's jokes about him not being as cool as he might seem, but sure. He's a cool dude with a sweet-ass car!

Then Empire starts with "Han is an idiot who can't talk to the girl he likes, and can't fix his car".

Then towards the end we meet Han's old buddy. We get that he goes way back, that him and Han were on the same path once...

Lando is now a mayor. That cool car? It was his, Han swindled it out of Londo somehow.

The movie is like "oh, you think Han is cool? Han's bud is now running a city, while Han is stuck doing Craigslist gigs in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. He's a loser! And Han's bud is objectively hotter."

And I mean the "objectively": I would argue that they cast/dressed/made-up Lando as "guy who can be the most handsome guy in the room while standing next to 1979 Harrison Ford".