Star Wars Andor S1E7: "Announcement"

Our new arc begins with Cassa once again an independent operator, only now he's a wanted man back on Ferrix and cut off from his friends and family there. More alone than he's ever been. The Aldhani heist, meanwhile, was starting to have political consequences as soon as the news covered it the following morning; we saw the space FBI having a full on panic session, and it goes without saying that there will be a massive, galaxy-wide security clampdown after this. We're basically back at the season one pilot, only more extreme. Lonelier Andor, and more oppressive regime.

But hey, at least he's got some serious money now. I'm not sure how much 200,000 credits is worth, exactly, but from the way they all argued about it earlier it's got to be significant. What does a man in Cassa's position do with that money, I wonder? Resume the search for his sister? Open a business? Buy a ship? Not that any of those are mutually exclusive, of course.


We open on the character with the least to do with anything at present. Cyril is still living with his mom, but at least he's mustered up the spoons to start having job interviews. Seeing the news about Aldhani evokes some strong, but unspoken, feelings in him.

There's nothing to suggest a connection with his own misadventure on Ferrix of course, but it's got to feel relevant nonetheless. The imperial security state that condemned him for his incompetence has just made a much more embarrassing fuckup than he ever did.

Perhaps he's even wondering if the corporations having more men like him and fewer men like Dickface in their security departments could have prevented this. Linus gave him that unhinged speech about the corpocops being the Galactic Empire's real first line of defence against chaos that he seemed to agree with. What if people like him were able to give crimes like the murder on Morlana I the attention that they truly called for, instead of having to sneak around through back channels in order to do their jobs? Maybe things wouldn't escalate to the point where the second and third lines of defence start taking damage.

Is this making him feel vindicated, or disillusioned? It's hard to say, yet. But he's definitely feeling one of those two things.

Over at Space Langley, Dierdre's organization - the Imperial Security Bureau - is having exactly the boost in funding and authority that one would predict. They now have authority to access any documents from any government agency, military service, or corporate entity in the galaxy, to treat any crimes linked with interplanetary criminal or political organizations as acts of terrorism and react to them accordingly, to outlaw any cultural or religious practice that has been proven to provide cover for criminals or terrorists, and a whole bunch of other totalitarian shit. All authorized by Spinnin' Sheev himself.

Dierdre, sharp as she is, immediately realizes how fucking stupid they're being. But, nobody ever listens to her, do they?

At the very least, she can now freely access the records she'd been trying to get her hands on before and build the case for there being a coordinated rebel alliance at work. A case that her superiors will probably be much more receptive to regardless of what evidence she finds, after what just happened.

...

The way that this policy change is being talked about, the security bureau is now being given KGB-like power to establish cells and overrule the command structures of the other state apparatuses, including the military. Remind me, did we see any of these guys in the original trilogy? Like, in Darth Vader's scenes aboard imperial ships, when he's interacting with his gaggle of mostly-unnamed lieutenants, was there anything hinting at a distinction between military and internal-security?

It's not a flaw if we didn't. Such agents might not break cover unless the situation warrants it. With many years to go between now and the events of "A New Hope," it's also possible that the security bureau falls out of favor itself in the interim. If these guys WERE hinted at in the original movies though, then that would turn this scene into a really cool callback.

...

For now, Dierdre is just going to keep her head low, do the best work she can with the new powers she's just been given, and hope she can eventually convince her superiors to stop doing the stupid.

Her feelings get vindicated in the very next scene, featuring Luthen gloating about his success to an outraged Mon Mothma. Apparently, she didn't quite know all the details of what sort of operation he was planning.

Doesn't he realize what he's just set in motion?

Yes. Yes, he does.

Doesn't he realize how much suffering his actions are going to cause? How many people are going to be killed or tortured? How much worse the oppression is going to be for those already suffering the most under the imperial yoke? How much more awful he's just given Palpatine permission to get?

In response to her line of questioning, Luthen smiles and says "That's the point."

Princess Leia might well have been paraphrasing something Luthen himself once said when she told Grand Moff Tarquin that the harder he clenches his grip, the more star systems will slip through his fingers. And, they're right. This is what terrorism does. This is what terrorism is for. The money they got from Aldhani is also going to be very helpful when it comes time to reap what they've sewn and build a network of the aggrieved and repressed. But the sowing itself? That was just the act of committing the theft itself.

Dierdre gets it. Too bad none of her coworkers do. But then, if the Galactic Empire was governed by the sort of people who understood this, there'd be less reason to want to overthrow it in the first place.

...

Granted, I'm probably using the word "terrorism" inaccurately here, since they attacked a military target and stole military assets. But, technicalities aside, strategically speaking, Luthen is using the terrorist playbook to foment the rebellion.

And, in yet another amusing parallel that I'm pretty sure the writers did intentionally, it's also not too far away from what Palpatine himself did to create the Empire.

...

He tells her that if she's really serious about wanting to do a revolution, she needs to understand the moral costs. There's no way around it; she knows as well as he does that her own methods haven't been working. If she wants to call it quits, she can call it quits. And, with great reluctance but impressive outward cheer, she relents.

Granted, the amount of blackmail material he must have on her at this point might be a factor in her decision. But I don't think it's the main factor. The fact is, she doesn't have any good arguments, and she knows it.

If Luthen sounds cold here, well, he is. But while he's smug in his victory, and while he's venting his frustration with Mon Mothma in a very villain-coded way, I don't get the impression that he's *actually* taking the suffering the Galactic Empire is about to inflict lightly. After doing the campy villain boasting for a bit, he goes dead serious and explains that the Galactic Empire was eventually going to do all this anyway. The two choices are a) the Empire escalates its oppression fast, now, giving everyone a shock and inspiring them to rebel, or b) the Empire escalates its oppression slowly the way it's already been doing for years, slow-boiling the frog and wearing down the opposition before it can organize. There is no available option for preventing these horrors that Luthen can see. They can only choose between bad outcomes.

And he means it. We still don't know Luthen's backstory, but this scene - like several others before it - very much communicates that he knows what he's talking about, and the decisions he's making aren't made for want of empathy for the empire's victims.

...

One of the tragedies of this scene's juxtaposition is that Dierdre appears to basically just be a version of Mon Mothma who's drunk more of the Kool-Aid, works for a (much, much) less democratically inclined part of the government, and has decided to keep her dissenting opinions to herself altogether rather than at least vocalizing them in the public square and halfheartedly supporting the resistance like Mon Mothma.

On a brighter note, we know that by the time of the original trilogy, Mothma becomes a major leader (possibly even THE leader) of the Alliance to Restore the Republic, and by then she bears little resemblance to the squeamish politician of this era. I wonder how much of that character development we'll see onscreen in this series?

...

Mon Mothma goes home. Luthen remains at his antique shop, wondering aloud how much longer he'll be able to stay on Coruscant now that the clampdown is starting. And then we cut to Cyril getting an entry-level desk job at the space Department of Commerce.

Full credit to Cyril for the interview itself. When the manager doing the interview learns that he was involved in the somewhat-notorious Ferrix incident, Cyril is immediately ready to spin the story in his favor. Explaining, truthfully, that his operation failed because of corruption within the corporate security forces, that he believes his termination was an injustice, and that he's now been disillusioned with the corporate world and wants to work in the public sector. He's using some genuine conviction with these words, even though they're obviously also rehearsed. Cyril might come across as kind of a bumbling mook in general, but we know that he was able to make it into the upper-middle echelons of an interplanetary megacorp despite his humble origins. Here, I think we're getting a glimpse of how he managed that. He knows what to say to the guys in the suits, and he knows how to phrase it and what expressions he should make with each syllable.

So, he lands the low-level desk jockey position. Effectively becoming one of the people he used to bully back at Preox-Morlana. Only the work environment here appears to be even worse than the one he created for his own underlings on Morlana I.

No cubicle walls, with desks spaced far apart. Perfect balance of not allowing the workers any privacy OR any chances to socialize as they work. God only knows how far you have to walk to get to a bathroom or a water fountain or a snack machine or whatever.

I wonder if the government bureaucracies' working conditions were this bad during the Republic era. If so, that, uh, might have actually played a role in how badly mismanaged things got.

...

Also, I like the implication that government agencies are the biggest employers on Coruscant. Or at least some of the biggest employers. It makes sense, with the sheer amount of administrative work it must take to govern an entire galaxy, let alone one as populated, diverse, and chaotic as Star Wars'.

...

Anyway, it's a shit job, with shit conditions, and probably just slightly-better-than-shit pay. But at least it's a job. I really wonder where the story is going with Cyril. He's obviously going to do something important eventually, if we're still following him, but what?

...it occurs to me that the same skillset that makes him a good interviewee and a successful company suck-up would also lend themselves well to espionage. He might end up spying for the empire against the rebels, or for the rebels against the empire, depending on how things go. Hmm. It's a thought, at least.

We next have a meeting between Luthen's colleague whose name I didn't catch, and Val. They meet at the spaceport as Val returns to Coruscant after stashing the ship and the bullion as planned. Val is dressed sort of aristocratically herself now. Not quite to the same extent as Luthen, I don't think, but she definitely either comes from money or is playing a character who comes from money.

Also, just to quickly note that we have our first stormtrooper sighting in this scene. A few of them are standing around in full useless armor as Whatsername makes her way through the spaceport.

Either their role does include some rote dirtside security duties at this point in time after all, or these guys are just on their way to somewhere else.

Anyway, for all the good work that Val did, Whatsername isn't one for pleasantries with anyone besides Luthen. And she also tells her that - given the circumstances of his departure - Cassian Andor has proven himself a dangerous loose end. He knows too much, and has too little commitment. So, Val's next mission is to track him down and murder him.

...did Luthen order this? If so, I think he's getting a bit too carried away with the whole Hard Man Decisions thing. If you can still find Cassa, then isn't he the sort of guy you might want to hire again once in a while, even if he's not willing to sign on as a full-time revolutionary? Surely, Val's report must have included the fact that Cassa had a perfect opportunity to steal all the money for himself if he was so inclined. And the fact that he did her the favor of killing the other guy who HAD been planning to do that, at little to no benefit for himself, shows that he's not the type to betray an employer even after the fact.

"Can I find a way to justify not killing you? Can I take that risk?" is a dilemma the show has come back to repeatedly. It's what made Cassa decide he had to kill the second security goon on Morlana I, once he'd unintentionally killed the first. His motives for killing rather than merely rebuffing Skeen were less explicit, but probably likewise. So, now Cassa is on the wrong end of this question, and...well, I think Luthen and/or his pal are miscalculating. It's not just because I like Cassa, or because the show has gotten me invested in him; considering Cassa's potential future utility, and the given model they have of his behaviour, I actually think they're doing a stupid here even in purely pragmatic terms.

In other news, over one hundred dhani have been taken in for questioning, but they seem to have missed the one that they were really looking for. Sinta is still free on Aldhani, positioned to see the repercussions of the heist effect her own people and decide for herself if it was worth it.

Wait, those things can fly in a planet's lower atmosphere? I thought they were space-only.​

And then, finally, at nearly the halfway point of the episode, we see what Cassa actually got up to after he traded the collateral kyber for his credits and dashed. It's unsurprising, and also touching.

He's snuck back onto his adopted homeworld of Ferrix, and to his home city (now under martial law). His mother has basically accepted that she's never going to see her adoptive son again, so his return is a tearjerking surprise for her. Anyway, with the money he got, he wants to relocate himself, mom, and cuckcube to another planet. Somewhere safe and comfortable where she can happily live out her retirement.

Damn, that really is sweet. I'm guessing he still plans to continue looking for his sister after he's gotten this taken care of, but he really doesn't forget the people who have done right by him.

Granted, helping Mom wasn't the only reason he came back here. He wants to know who narc'd on him to Preox-Morlana. He's simultaneously bemused and disappointed when she tells him that the truth of that has already become public knowledge, and that Tim the snitch already died when he put himself in the middle of the situation he created.

Oh, right. That reminds me. What's Bix up to at this point? I'm guessing Cassa will check on her next.


I'll split it here.