This week’s episode of The Mandalorian was all about setting the stage, and the stakes, for an explosive finish to a really combined season three. However it additionally seemed to Star Wars’ future with the presence of a face very acquainted to followers of the previous Expanded Universe.
The opening of “The Spies” sees a returned Moff Gideon, free of New Republic custody, deal with his fellow Imperial Remnant commanders as a part of the Shadow Council, the mishmash of Imperial officers, warlords, and spymasters that tries to maintain what’s left of the Empire’s crumbling presence collectively within the wake of Return of the Jedi. There’s a number of acquainted names among the many council’s members, however one specifically instantly stands out: Captain Gilad Pellaeon, making his live-action debut, as an ardent supporter of the return of Grand Admiral Thrawn because the chief the Empire must be reborn.
Who Is Captain Pellaeon?
Gilad Pellaeon was first launched in Timothy Zahn’s 1991 novel Inheritor to the Empire. It’s the first guide in the enduring “Thrawn Trilogy” that formally kicked off what would come to be generally known as the Star Wars Expanded Universe, the transmedia exploration of occasions past the unique and prequel trilogies that was retired as “Star Wars Legends” when Disney acquired Lucasfilm and continuity was rebooted in 2012.
A captain within the Imperial Navy, Pellaeon was Thrawn’s second-in-command in his marketing campaign to defeat the nascent New Republic and restore the Empire to galactic prominence. However though Thrawn would perish on the climax of the ultimate guide within the trilogy, The Final Command, Pellaeon went on to have a for much longer and important function in the way forward for what would turn out to be generally known as the Imperial Remnant, all through the EU’s historical past.
Has Captain Pellaeon Appeared in Present Canon Earlier than?
Whereas Xander Berkeley’s portrayal in “The Spies” is the primary time that Pellaeon has appeared in live-action Star Wars materials, it isn’t the primary time the character has appeared within the rebooted Star Wars canon. Within the remaining episode of Star Wars Rebels, Pellaeon makes a quick audio-only cameo look, as Thrawn requests to talk with him earlier than contact is lower off by the arrival of the Purrgil (who we briefly noticed in this season’s premiere). Voiced there by Jim Cummings, Pellaeon’s historical past within the new canon would finally be fleshed out by Thrawn and Pellaeon’s creator, creator Zahn, within the trilogy of Thrawn novels he wrote depicting the Chiss’ rise to prominence earlier than the occasions of Rebels.
“I simply needed to say the title so it will get in there, so it’s one thing folks can use,” Dave Filoni advised io9 solely in 2018. “And typically that’s what I can do for issues that come out of Legends. I might create simply one other captain with some title there or I might put somebody like Pellaeon in play. After which possibly he will get picked up in comics or novels, I don’t know. However I feel that will be type of enjoyable to do, and it’s a strategy to get that concept rolling.”
Seems, he was simply ready for himself to get that concept rolling.
What Occurred to Captain Pellaeon in the Previous Expanded Universe?
After Thrawn’s assassination on the Battle of Bilbringi—killed by his Noghri bodyguard, Rukh, additionally already re-introduced into Star Wars canon in Rebels—Pellaeon turns into the de facto chief of his forces, commanding a retreat to the perimeters of the Unknown Areas. Not eager to descend into the infighting of the Imperial Warlords that rose to prominence within the wake of the Empire’s downfall, and torn on avenging his commander in a single remaining stand, Pellaeon finally returned Thrawn’s forces to the re-established Imperial Ruling Council.
Issues descended into chaos as soon as once more when the Empire broke into civil war after a shock re-taking of Coruscant from the New Republic. With the return, and second dying, of Emperor Palpatine throughout the events of Darkish Empire, Pellaeon watched because the promise of Imperial unity seemingly dissolved earlier than his eyes—till fellow Imperial Navy officer Admiral Natasi Daala executed a swath of distinguished warlords attending a gathering organized by herself and Pellaeon in an try to reform the Empire, solely to see it threaten to be destroyed fully by the warlords’ greed. Collectively, Daala and now Vice Admiral Pellaeon consolidated the warlords’ forces right into a singular energy, destroying those that didn’t undergo their new imaginative and prescient for the Empire. Finally selecting to start their marketing campaign towards the New Republic by assaulting the reborn Jedi Academy on Yavin 4, Pellaeon and Daala discovered themselves stunningly defeated by the Jedi primarily based there, Daala resigned her management function and turned to Pellaeon as the brand new chief of the Empire.
Pellaeon drew his forces from the core of the galaxy into the Mid and Outer Rim, and the remaining Grand Moffs fashioned a brand new ruling council to create the subsequent authorities of the Empire, now formally the Imperial Remnant, liaising with Pellaeon because the Supreme Commander of the Empire’s army forces. Pellaeon pushed the remnant to step away from a number of the merciless excesses of Palpatine’s Empire, abolishing slavery and persevering with Daala’s marketing campaign to recruit non-human and non-male beings into its service. After years of campaigns towards the New Republic, it was Pellaeon that sued for peace, believing that if the Remnant simply remained in its present energy steadiness it might bide its time for the New Republic to fall via different means, and be finest ready to take its place. Signing the Bastion Accords after a prolonged negotiation with Leia Organa-Solo, Pellaeon ushered within the formal finish of the Galactic Civil Warfare 19 years after the Battle of Yavin.
The Remnant, with Pellaeon at its head, helped the New Republic battle towards the invasion of the Yuuzahn Vong, and finally after the tip of the Vong invasion—and the decline of each the New Republic and the Remnant as entities, reformed into the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances—he retired from service. Pellaeon finally exited retirement to turn out to be supreme commander of the Alliance’s Protection Drive, however because the Swarm Disaster and the second Galactic Civil Warfare upended the Galactic Alliance, a long time after his former commander had suffered an identical destiny, Pellaeon was assassinated by the Sith apprentice Tahiri Veila, on the behest of Darth Caedus—the fallen Jedi son of Han and Leia, Jacen Solo—after Pellaeon refused to help Caedus’ try to take over the Galactic Alliance.
What Does Captain Pellaeon Imply for Star Wars’ Future?
The plain factor, in fact, is that Pellaeon is a herald: as we are able to already see from his transient look right here, the place Pellaeon goes, he’s rattling effectively hoping Thrawn will comply with to take the lead. Meaning no matter is deliberate for Thrawn in Ahsoka, and certain the Imperial Remnant vs. New Republic film Dave Filoni is cooking up, Pellaeon will doubtless be part of it, side-by-side along with his trusted comrade.
However is there a chance that Pellaeon is greater than the present canon’s pre-Thrawn appetizer, and will share a well-recognized destiny to his EU predecessor—tasked with main a post-Thrawn remnant because it grows and evolves to suit the galaxy’s altering panorama? It’s onerous to say. The just about instant arrival of the First Order, within the grand temporal scheme of issues, makes it troublesome for the Imperial Remnant to persist within the type of manner it did within the EU earlier than it’s basically absorbed into it. And on condition that Pellaeon was nowhere to be present in what we’ve seen of the First Order within the sequel trilogy, then maybe he’ll meet the identical destiny as his commander quickly sufficient.
However doing what the Expanded Universe did, finally having to develop Pellaeon past his direct affiliation with Thrawn, could possibly be fertile floor for Star Wars to take—and provides us an opportunity to see the entanglement of the Empire’s previous, and the First Order’s future, via the eyes of one of many previous EU’s most intriguing characters.
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