This is commentary for “Many Bothans Lived.”
The story’s title plays on Mon Mothma’s enigmatic line from Return of the Jedi: “Many Bothans died to bring us this information.”
New Star Wars canon
has mentioned Bothans a few times, but I don’t believe we’ve seen or interacted
with any in new material. In the Legends continuity, Bothans and their
homeworld were much more fleshed out. They played a major role in many stories,
including the Heir to the Empire trilogy and subsequent novels.
They’re ascribed feline/mammalian-like
qualities in Legends continuity, with furry bodies and pointed ears.
The main character of this
story, Lort Br’lya, is heavily influenced by Borsk Fey'lya, a key figure in Legends-era
stories. Fey’lya was a politician and high-ranking member of the Bothan Spynet
who rose to great heights in the post-Empire era. He was often an adversarial
figure, a skilled bureaucrat who manipulated others and prioritized personal
power over the good of the state. Vainglorious and stubborn, he harbored an
animosity toward Admiral Ackbar that led to a bitter rivalry between the two.
To be perfectly honest, I
could’ve used Fey’lya in this story. In fact, I went back and forth on it. In
the end, I decided to create another character with similar traits in hopes Fey’lya, like Thrawn before him, will one day resurface in Disney-era canon.
He was never nearly as popular of a character as Thrawn, but his machinations
during the New Republic era stretched from its beginning in Heir to the
Empire through the New Jedi Order storyline. Few expanded universe
characters achieved as much influence (and elicited more anger) than Fey’lya.
I imagined the Bothan
Spynet as a decentralized group of cells operating as information brokers
across the vast Star Wars universe. Some of them have friends in high
places, while others befriend low-ranking techs or politicians to milk them for
information. I use a lot of spy tropes in this story—dead drops, codenames,
coded messages—to show a side of Star Wars we don’t see much of aside
from Rogue One and Andor.
In my imagination, the Bothan
Spynet is a vast apparatus rivaling the Empire’s own intelligence division.
Lort, the group’s highest-ranking official, is one of the few figures given
access to all the information coming in from across the galaxy. Analytical and
calculating, he possesses the uncanny ability to take small pieces of
information and use them to form a larger picture.
One of the more difficult aspects
of writing stories about the Death Star II plans is making sure the characters
have stakes. The Emperor, after all, manipulated events to make sure the plans
fell into Rebel hands to set up what he foresaw as the “final showdown” against
the Rebel Alliance. The whole operation, from the Emperor’s view, is a trap. As
a writer, that really twists you into some narratively tough situations. If the
Empire “let” the Rebels get the plans, then what sacrifices are the Rebellion
and Bothans actually making?
I took the view that, yes,
it’s definitely an Emperor-engineered trap. But he allowed the plans to fall
into the hands of the Bothan Spynet with the dual purpose of finally destroying
the Spynet itself. The group’s existence had angered and rankled the Emperor
for years. It’s also important to remember the Rebellion’s spies, leadership,
and rank-and-file have no idea they’re being manipulated. To them, this is a life-or-death
situation. If they can’t get the plans to Rebel leadership, the consequences
for the galaxy are dire. They view this as their best chance to destroy the Empire
once and for all.
While the Bothan Spynet provides
vital aid to the Rebellion, Lort and his colleagues don’t have the most
favorable view of Rebel Intelligence. They see the Rebellion in pragmatic
terms and have little affection for Rebel leadership, viewing them as a means
to rid the galaxy of Imperial blight.
In a light revisionist view
of Rogue One, the Bothan Spynet heard rumblings of a “planet killer” and
passed the information to the Rebels. Based on my interpretation of the Spynet,
this makes a lot of sense. The Bothan spies, however, play no role in the movie
or the Andor series.
For a while, Lort and his
spies believe rumblings of material linked to a “planet killer” are related to
the first Death Star. Those rumblings grow increasingly loud and more frequent,
however, and they realize the Empire is working on a second, larger battle station.
In this and other stories, I
portray the Empire as a complicated bureaucratic machine. When its people follow
its policies and protocols, the Empire wins. When people become complacent or
fail to do their due diligence, the Imperial apparatus suffers. In the case of the
second Death Star, an independent contractor fails to properly conceal a shipment
manifest, allowing spies to find a single mention of “kyber.” This leads to
further scrutiny on the part of Lort and his agents.
Even then, the Rebels are
reluctant to take the news at face value. They’ve already defeated one Death
Star, as Lort notes, and are not looking forward to dealing with another. They’re
in denial.
The Moddell Sector is part
of the Outer Rim and includes the Endor system. At least that’s what several Star
Wars wikis tell me.
Lort refers to his cousin
by her codename. It’s vital to Lort that his agents conceal
their true identities. He wants to keep his spies as safe as possible. While he
makes an attempt at cold detachment in his communications with her, he can’t
quite fully commit to it. The two were very close as children and have a great
deal of affection for one another. While she may not be the highest-ranking member
of the Spynet, he puts a lot of stock in what she reports.
The prefab bunker mentioned
in their exchange is the same one we see on the forest moon in Return of the
Jedi. I like the idea of the Empire ordering a standard bunker and plunking
it down on the planet. The bunker, however, needed a reinforced power grid to
project the energy shield around Death Star II. “Aierzon” is meant to be a
playful invocation of Amazon.
I mention Bothawui as the
homeworld of the Bothan people. In Legends continuity, it was a typical,
temperate terrestrial planet. It appears current canon has turned it into a gas
giant. I will stick with Legends continuity for my purposes.
The “invalid code” comment
from Saber plays into another story, “An Older Code.” With Rebel activity on
the rise, the Empire changed its protocols regarding old and outdated codes.
That story also suggests the Empire has difficulty coordinating such orders
across its vast fleet. It would appear, based on what occurs in that story, that
the Empire again failed to follow its new policy to “stop and detain” ships
with invalid or older codes. That’s probably a good thing for the Spynet.
The Empire has also
reassigned many of its ships, which mysteriously disappear from their prescribed
patrol routes. This comes to the delight of smugglers and spice runners, who no
longer have to worry about Imperial entanglements while shipping their
ill-gotten cargo. The idea here is that the Imperials are moving the fleet to
the Moddell Sector as part of the Emperor’s plan to entrap the Rebel fleet.
I mention three Star
Destroyers. The Devastator is the large ship seen pursuing Leia’s
blockade runner at the beginning of Star Wars. It’s the first Imperial
ship Star Wars fans of a certain age ever saw. The Devastator served
as Darth Vader’s flagship until he assumed command of the Executor, the
Super Star Destroyer first seen in The Empire Strikes Back.
The Vigilance was
under the command of Rae Sloane, a prominent and popular character in the
new canon.
Lort definitely recognizes
something amiss with current Imperial behavior. It’s not like the Empire to essentially
“abandon” its patrols. It’s not like the Empire to allow Rebel leaders to
openly flaunt anti-Imperial ideas. There must be a reason for this, he believes,
although he can’t quite grasp it.
He fails to see the trap.
Myr’la mentions Mount
Tantiss. The location, which initially appeared in Heir to the Empire, served
as the Emperor’s storehouse of technology and weapons. It became part of the
current canon continuity thanks to the animated TV show The Bad Batch. It
serves much of the same purpose as a repository of weapons, technology, and
cloning. It’s pretty much Crazy Old Palps’ House of Fun and Destruction.
While the Bothan Spynet
sometimes has an antagonistic attitude toward Rebel Intelligence, Lort makes it
clear he stands against the Empire. His thoughts about the price of overthrowing
tyranny mirror, in some aspects, Luthen Rael’s viewpoint in Andor.
Armed with information
about the Death Star II plans, Lort convenes a meeting of his intelligence
chiefs. For once, they all agree on something. Bothans, by nature, are obsessed
with the acquisition of power and personal prestige. For the intel chiefs to be
all-in on the operation carries a lot of weight.
Lort suggests “For Alderaan”
is a rallying cry for the Rebellion. I was thinking of Rogue One, in which
we hear some Rebels utter “For Jedha!” after the Death Star destroyed the moon’s
holy city.
It appears the dangerous
operation to acquire the Death Star plans succeeds. It soon becomes apparent,
however, that something is awry. One by one, Bothan Spynet cells are discovered
and destroyed. Agents are killed. It’s clear the Empire is somehow tracking the
Spynet.
Everything goes straight to
hell.
Before long, Lort gets a priority
transmission from Myr’la, who drops all pretenses of protocol and implores her
cousin to make sure their sacrifice matters. She calls him by his real name on
the transmission, something that would typically anger Lort. In his grief,
however, he doesn’t care. His cousin is gone, and the Spynet he dedicated his
life to building and preserving is crumbling right before his eyes.
He's defeated. Hopeless.
As the Spynet disintegrates and
his agents die, Lort reflects on how, in his younger days, he would’ve been
concerned about how fellow Bothans would have viewed his failures. This goes
back to the idea that the Bothan people are very class driven and aristocratic
in nature, their society fueled by prestige and power.
The automated looping
message for Spynet agents to steer clear of Lort’s base recalls the message
sent to Jedi in the wake of Order 66 in Revenge of the Sith. Lort even mentions
the Jedi Purge to Guardian in a subsequent passage.
Lort is content to sit and
wait for a Star Destroyer to arrive and end him once and for all.
“This is Guardian,” I hope,
reads as a hopeful line to the audience. It means something.
Let me just say I love
droids in Star Wars. In “Turncoat,” an astromech named Fate saves the day.
In this story, an astromech named Elfie basically saves the Rebellion. Yes,
heroes have blasters and lightsabers and starfighters, but they also speak
binary sometimes.
Elfie disabled the tracking
mechanism embedded in the plans, allowing Guardian to escape without being
tracked to Lort’s base. He shows Lort the same plans we see during the briefing
scene in Return of the Jedi.
Guardian’s real name is Ray’lo.
Only after I wrote the story did I realize it sounded a lot like “Reylo,” the
portmanteau used by “shippers” of Rey and Kylo Ren. You can call it a reference
if you want, but it’s not meant to be. Just like the relationship between Rey and
Ben Solo.
A late addition during
revisions was the line about the Emperor overseeing construction of the Death
Star. The ROTJ briefing makes this a Big Deal, and while the Death Star
plans are definitely important, knowing Palpatine would be on the Death Star—and
the implication that it would mean the destruction of the Death Star would
result in the death of Palpatine—was something I needed to address.
When it comes to short
stories, I’ll often use repetition to reinforce a point or make a world feel
familiar to the reader. “Terror Bears” uses some (“We called ourselves the Dread
Forge”). So does “Turncoat” (“She told the Rebels her name was Kail Tremal/But
she was really Sevra Brack, TIE-XS75”).
In this story, I have a
list of names and codenames. In the original version, it used to be longer, and
I utilized it a few more times.
I cut a couple instances off the list. I also trimmed a few names from it because I didn’t even refer to some
of the individuals in the story itself. The only ones Lort really interacts
with are Sunrise, Saber, and Guardian, while the others are mentioned in
passing.
To the reader, the rest of
the names are somewhat meaningless, even if they’re mentioned in the story. The
important point is that to Lort, they mean something.
The last line turns around Mon Mothma's most famous line. While the Rebellion focused on the fact "many Bothans died," Lort reminds us all "many Bothans lived" to make sure the Rebellion had a fighting chance.
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