If there’s one thing Lucasfilm has accomplished with shows like Star Wars: Andor and Star Wars Rebels, it’s in showing us the many heroes and worlds that played a key role in fighting and eventually overthrowing the Empire. We know Yavin-IV and Hoth and Endor from the movies. But what about Lothal and Ferrix? And thanks to the first three episodes of Andor Season 2, there’s another world that’s entered the Star Wars zeitgeist - Ghorman.
What is Ghorman, and why is this world so important to the conflict that is the Galactic Civil War? Why does the situation on Ghoman develop into a watershed moment for the Rebel Alliance? Here’s what you need to know about this little-known but surprisingly important corner of the Star Wars universe.
Ghorman in Star Wars: Andor
Star Wars: Andor first alluded to the planet Ghorman in the Season 1 episode “Narkina 5.” In a meeting between Forest Whitaker’s Saw Gerrera and Stellan Skarsgård’s Luthen Rael, Saw references the doomed anti-Imperial group known as the Ghorman Front. To Saw, the Ghorman Front is a cautionary tale when it comes to discussing how best to fight the Empire.
Now this world is playing a much more direct role in Season 2. In the premiere episode, we see Ben Mendelsohn’s Director Krennic speaking to a group of assembled ISB agents about a delicate problem involving the planet. He shows them a cheesy documentary reel extolling the virtues of Ghorman’s textile industry. Their silk fabric, harvested from a special breed of spider, is Ghorman’s chief galactic export.
The problem, as Krennic explains, is that the Empire is more interested in another of Ghorman’s natural resources. The Emperor himself covets Ghorman’s vast supply of calcite. Krennic claims that this calcite is needed to help the Empire’s research into renewable, unlimited energy. However, given what we know about Krennic from Rogue One, we can probably assume he’s lying. More likely, Krennic needs vast stores of calcite to complete construction of the Death Star. Like Kyber crystal, calcite is one of the limiting factors in Project: Stardust, and one of the reasons completing that terrible battlestation is taking so long.
As Krennic and his underlings discuss, the challenge with calcite is that extracting it in the quantities the Empire needs will likely leave Ghorman a barren, uninhabitable wasteland. That raises concerns about what to do about the native Ghor population. Palpatine’s grip on the galaxy isn’t quite so ironclad that he can just lay waste to an entire world and its people with impunity. That’s precisely why he wants a Death Star in the first place. At that point, there will be no contesting his Empire, no matter what war crimes it commits.
Krennic’s solution is to turn public sentiment against Ghorman so that the Empire becomes justified in taking control of the planet and displacing its people. This is a world with a history of anti-Imperial leanings, after all. But while his propaganda ministers believe that this process can be handled through social manipulation alone, Denise Gough’s Dedra Meero understands the reality. The Empire needs to install its own band of radical rebels who can be relied on to further the narrative that Ghorman is a dangerous, lawless place. Only then can the Empire swoop in and claim its calcite under the guise of restoring law and order.
All of this looks to be setting up an ongoing storyline in Season 2. No doubt Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor, Genevieve O’Reilly’s Mon Mothma, and others will be drawn to Ghorman as the political situation deteriorates and this planet becomes a renewed battleground in the Galactic Civil War. Based on what we know about Ghorman already, it’s bound to end in both tragedy and a pivotal moment for the Rebel Alliance.
What Is the Ghorman Massacre?
In short, Andor Season 2 is gearing up to showcase an event known as the Ghorman Massacre. While this event has only been alluded to in Disney-era Star Wars media, it’s actually one of the most important developments leading to the creation of a true, unified Rebel Alliance.
The Ghorman Massacre has its roots in the pre-Disney Star Wars Legends universe. In that version of events, set in the year 18 BBY, Peter Cushing’s Grand Moff Tarkin was the instigating offender. When Tarkin traveled to Ghorman in the midst of a peaceful protest against illegal Imperial taxation, he made the characteristically ruthless choice to land his ship directly on top of the protesters. Hundreds were killed or injured as a result.
The Ghorman Massacre quickly came to be seen as a glaring example of Imperial cruelty. It not only sparked public outcry, but it also led Senators like Mon Mothma and Jimmy Smits/Benjamin Bratt’s Bail Organa to begin fomenting and supporting the growing rebel movement. There’s a direct line between the Ghorman Massacre and the formation of the Rebel Alliance.
Lucasfilm is taking a somewhat different approach to the Ghorman Massacre in this new Disney era, and with Andor Season 2 in progress, we’re still making sense of the revised timeline. But the basic idea remains the same. The Ghorman Massacre is an incident where the Empire overplays its hand and inspires a renewed wave of rebel backlash.
Warning: the remainder of this article contains possible spoilers for upcoming episodes of Andor Season 2!
Most of what we know about the Ghorman Massacre in the Disney timeline is established in Star Wars: The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire and other reference books. In this version, the massacre takes place in 2 BBY. Once again, the Empire is guilty of slaughtering innocent protesters on Ghorman, sparking immediate and deep backlash.
We also know that the Ghorman Massacre serves as the critical dividing line in Mon Mothma’s political career. Up to that point, Mon is committed to working within the Imperial Senate system to oppose and resist Palpatine’s agenda wherever she can. But after the Ghorman Massacre, Mon finally throws caution to the wind and speaks publicly against the Emperor, labeling him “a lying executioner.” At that point, Mon is considered a traitor to the Empire, forcing her to go into hiding and become the full-time leader of the Rebel Alliance.
We’ve actually seen the immediate aftermath of the Ghorman Massacre play out already, thanks to the animated series Star Wars Rebels. In the Season 3 episode “Secret Cargo,” the Spectres rescue Mon and escort her to the Rebel Alliance high command. From there, Mon delivers a speech known as the Declaration of the Rebel Alliance, and the Galactic Civil War officially begins.
How Andor Season 2 Will Flesh Out the Ghorman Massacre
Rebels may have shown us Mon Mothma’s defection and escape after the tragedy on Ghorman, but Andor looks to finally be telling the full story of the Ghorman Massacre itself and the events that lead to the Empire executing innocent protesters. Creator Tony Gilroy confirmed as much in a recent interview with IGN.
“In the five-year period that I have to curate… there's a few canonical incidents that I have to pay attention to, and one of them was always, there's a Ghorman Massacre,” Gilroy tells IGN. “There's some confusion about different Ghorman Massacres. There's a Ghorman Massacre [as revealed in Star Wars: Rebels] that leads Mon Mothma to give a speech in the Senate where she breaks away and she goes to Yavin. So that's on the menu. I have to deal with that.”
Gilroy continues, “It's not identified in any canon what it is. We can make it up from scratch. We start to build it. We're going to build another really super-complicated, ornate planet with a language and an economy and all these things, and it's expensive to do that. It has to be over five episodes at least to make that worthwhile. It's a really significant part of our show. That's the construction of it. We want to make it as heartbreaking and dramatic and as essential and important as it can possibly be.”
Again, we know that in the Disney timeline, the Ghorman Massacre takes place in 2 BBY, which is encompassed in the four-year time period being explored by Andor Season 2. As Season 2 unfolds, we’ll probably see the situation on the ground in Ghorman continue to deteriorate, as the Empire manipulates its faux-rebellion and works to build justification for a full planetary takeover. This will no doubt draw the attention of Mon and other Rebel sympathizers.
We may also see Cassian himself dispatched to join the rebels on Ghorman, as the world quickly develops into the next Ferrix or Lothal. As much as the various characters are separated across the galaxy in these first three episodes, Ghorman serves as an opportunity to bring them together.
At some point, likely during Episodes 7 through 9, we’ll see the crisis on Ghorman coalesce and learn what exactly transpired during the Ghorman Massacre. We’ll see Mon make her final speech to the Imperial Senate, speaking out against Emperor Palpatine and fleeing to the relative safety of the Rebel Alliance. As for Cassian, he’ll only have more cause to despise the Empire as the clock continues to count down to the events of Rogue One and the completion of the Death Star.
For more on Star Wars: Andor, check out IGN’s spoiler-free review of Season 2 and see every live-action Star Wars series ranked.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on BlueSky.
