Star Wars Reveals How The Rebel Alliance Found Yavin 4 (& It’s So Twisted)

Warning! This post contains SPOILERS for Andor season 2, episodes 1-3

Andor season 2 has revealed the origins of Yavin 4 as a key Rebellion base, though the story is actually pretty twisted. Taking place in the years before Rogue One and A New Hope, the first three episodes of Andor season 2 are still four years out, meaning the Rebel Alliance has yet to be fully formed. Imperial resistance is still largely divided among various cells at this time, and Cassian Andor’s first meeting on Yavin proves just how hard it was to form the full Alliance as it’s depicted in the original Star Wars trilogy.

In A New Hope, Yavin 4 is the jungle moon where the Rebel Alliance is based during their attack on the first Death Star, as well as during the prior Battle of Scarif in Rogue One. Located within one of the moon’s large Massassi temples, this is where the Rebellion against the Empire truly became a unified Alliance. However, Andor season 2 confirms Yavin’s earliest ties with the Rebellion weren’t nearly as hopeful as seen in the Star Wars movies.

Yavin 4 Was Originally A Rebel Rendezvous Location

A Remote Location Away From Imperial Eyes

As confirmed in Andor season 2 episodes 1-3, Yavin 4 initially began as a remote rendezvous point where members of various Rebel cells could meet, specifically cells that were part of Luthen Rael’s covert communications network. Considering Yavin 4’s Massassi temples and their canonical history with the ancient Sith, it makes sense that someone like Luthen Rael would know of the moon and see its strategic value.

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Located deep in the Outer Rim, Yavin 4 was the perfect site for meet-ups and the exchanging of intel, weapons, and resources, hidden away from the eyes of the Empire. However, Andor season 2’s first episodes set in 4 BBY make it clear that the jungle moon is not yet the home of a much larger and unified force of Rebels as seen in A New Hope. Instead, the events taking place on Yavin in Andor season 2’s premiere are far more chaotic.

Cassian Andor’s First Meeting At Yavin 4 Went Shockingly Wrong

Highlighting The Miracle Of The Future Rebel Alliance

Meant to deliver a prototype TIE Avenger to a contact set up by Luthen, Andor instead finds the stranded and desperate soldiers belonging to Maya Pei, a Neo-Republican whose brigade is also part of Rael’s network. With Maya gone and having limited food and supplies, the soldiers assume Cassian is the Imperial pilot he appears to be and quickly become divided over what to do next with the TIE, as well as who should be in charge.

Following multiple exchanges of blasterfire, deaths, and attacks from vicious hippo-like creatures known as doodars, Cassian manages to escape in the TIE and head for his own Rebel cell located on Mina Rau. Likewise, Andor season 2 confirms Cassian was indeed on Yavin 4 as he heads into orbit. As such, the contrast between the chaos of Yavin seen in Andor season 2 and the unity that comes with the future Rebel Alliance making the moon their base is quite striking, highlighting just how hard getting a meaningfully unified resistance together must have been to begin with in the Star Wars timeline.

New episodes of Andor season 2 release weekly on Tuesdays at 9 PM EST/6 PM PST on Disney+.

Andor

8/10

Release Date

2022 – 2025-00-00

Network

Disney+

Showrunner

Tony Gilroy

Directors

Susanna White

Writers

Dan Gilroy