Compromise and Conceit

I have been watching the Star Wars series Andor, which describes the radicalization and activism of Cassian Andor, the spy who was one of the main characters in Rogue One. It’s an excellent show, well written with a great plot and very enjoyable characters, and I’m thoroughly enjoying it. In addition to the (slightly milquetoast) tale of awakening and rebellion, the attempt to describe the inner lives of the Empire’s agents is intriguing, and the various schemes and plots are tense and exciting. I also appreciate the beauty of the settings, which really make me appreciate the breadth and diversity of the galaxy. Mina Rau’s farmlands are stunning, the peaks of Chandrila where the wedding takes place are beautiful, and even Ferrix has a kind of grim charm. However, the show really does bring attention to the enormous inequality of the Star Wars universe. What does it tell us about the Republic and about the motivations of the people working for the rebellion that the galaxy is so deeply (and in Ferrix’s case literally) enmired in the grimy reality of inequality?

[TW: this post contains minor spoilers for the TV show]

The grinding poverty of Andor’s world

Over the course of one and a half seasons we see Andor living and working in Ferrix, Morlani, Aldhani, Niamos and Mina Rau. We also see Coruscant (where Senator Mon Mothma is based), and get occasional glimpses of a planet used for TIE fighter development and Mon Mothma’s homeworld, though we only see her estate. We also see various other aspects of the living circumstances of the spies, rebels and Imperial workers. Almost all of the planets where Andor and his comrades live and work are grindingly poor, undeveloped, and grim. For example:

• Ferrix seems to be a world based around mining and brickmaking, and its people live in grinding poverty without even paved streets, and almost no local economy outside of these two industries. Everything is second hand, upcycled, grimy, and falling to ruin. The radio Bix uses to contact her (incredibly rich) rebel handler is barely functional, the local shipyard is essentially a scrapyard that repurposes derelict vessels, and even the droids are almost defunct. The flight in, the spaceport and the transfer process all reminded me of Cox’s Bazaar, the famous ship-breaking area of Bangladesh, but people in Bangladesh have nuclear power, a metro, TVs and cricket
• Kenari, Andor’s home planet, is the galactic equivalent of a desert island occupied by some uncontacted tribes who live in abject poverty. The story of Andor’s rescue form Kenari tells us a lot about the Republic
• Aldhani, where the rebels do their bank heist, is an undeveloped hinterland with no roads, where the only industry appears to be an extremely primitive form of shepherding and where the local citizens are superstitious and uneducated. The best real world equivalent for this place is 1940s Tibet
• Mina Rau, which Andor’s comrades escape to, is a decrepit farming planet with huge fields of some kind of grain, which appears to have almost no industry outside of this single form of agriculture, has no paved roads to speak of, barely has radio communication, doesn’t seem to have TVs, has no air conditioning (or indeed any form of privacy in the communal dwellings where people live) and seems to also have very little water

Almost all of the places where Andor lives and works function entirely on second hand, upcycled, recycled and multiply repatched hardware. Crucial systems that are essential to the basic economic and social stability of these communities are ancient, held together with duct tape and human will. These places are dirt poor.

It’s not just the backwater planets where Andor hides, either. In his well-written but ultimately lame speech in the lowest levels of Coruscant, where Luthin tells his spy that he is risking as much as everyone else (spoiler: he isn’t!), we see hints of deep levels of poverty and inequality in the capital city, beneath the gleaming towers where the majority of the action happens. In Niamos, apparently a resort planet, everything is crumbling. Andor’s spaceship, which is overrun in the beginning of season 2, appears to have no toilet, no extra seats, no emergency food supplies of any kind, and essentially no mod cons. It’s basically the equivalent of a recycled Ford Fiesta from 1985 with the back seats ripped out and replaced with … nothing. Presumably to make it a bit more fuel efficient or something. This is a general property of many of the spaceships we see – they’re run down, have no facilities of any kind, and barely function.

Almost every scene that takes place in this show outside of the homes and workplaces of Mon Mothma and Luthin is set against a backdrop of deep and grinding poverty.

This is all the Republic’s fault

The show is set 4-5 years before the battle of Yarvin, so by the time the events depicted in it take place the empire is about 20 – 25 years old, I think. It’s younger than Cassian Andor, and we know this because his mother rescued him from a planet where his entire community were exterminated by Republican troops, for the crime of having killed (in self-defense!) a single Republican soldier. The poverty and underdevelopment is not a recent phenomenon, however. The kind of infrastructural problems we see in Ferrix and Mina Rau are generational, and indeed many of the customs and ways of life that we witness are clearly much older than a generation. Cassian’s adoptive mother (who rescued him from being killed along with his entire community by Republican troops) was a daughter of Ferrix before the empire began, and this institution is clearly very old, as is the system of arranged marriages on Mon Mothma’s home planet and the religious practices (such as they are) of the people on Aldhani.

This poverty that we witness in almost every scene of Andor has nothing to do with the Empire. It is the result of generations of abandonment and irresponsibility by the Republic, which has clearly neglected its citizens in a shocking way (when it isn’t exterminating them, as it did with Cassian Andor’s entire community!) The Empire merely inherited this network of crumbling, decaying planets with their teeming desperate poor. Depending on how you choose to interpret it, at the beginning of season 2 we even learn that the emperor is deeply concerned about the energy poverty of these outlying communities, and wants to solve the problem of energy independence permanently. Admittedly, his solution is a little barbaric, leading as it may to the destruction of an entire planet, but it is superficially a lot more than the Republic has ever concerned itself with. Energy poverty? Let them eat yellowcake!

Why do people fight for this?

Imagine you’re an ordinary citizen on Ferrix or Aldhani or Niamos, living in this crumbling, poorly-maintained settlement that doesn’t even have paved roads, surviving on decrepit, barely-functioning tech that you have to constantly repair and jury-rig because you can’t afford anything new, while overhead your Republican leaders fly by in their super-fancy ships to their gorgeous homes in the towers of Coruscant. Nothing has been done to repair or improve your village or town for generations, and then one day the Empire turns up and offers you a job as a stormtrooper, where you finally are able to eat warm food, live in a comfortable dormitory, get health care for your ailments, and send remittances back to your family to help them improve their situation. Maybe your monthly salary is helping to send your little sister to the local school, or enabling your Aunt and Uncle to upgrade their moisture farms and get some new droids.

Now imagine that you’re contacted by a member of the landed gentry from Chandrila, through an extraordinarily well-dressed and pampered intermediary. She tells you that she wants you to betray your employer as part of a scheme to help this fantabulously rich woman steal the payroll of hundreds of thousands of ordinary people like you, to be diverted (she promises you!) to help fund a rebellion against the Empire which will, if it’s successful, restore the Ancien Regime that has overseen the galaxy and its grinding poverty for the past dozen or so centuries.

Would you help her? Would you look at the development work that her and Princess Leia’s regime had done on your home planet – its unpaved roads, its pothole-filled runways on its barely-functioning spaceport, its unsafe factories and grimy hospitals that you can’t afford to use – and think yes, this is the way, I need to restore these grandees to power?

Perhaps you would say no, for economic reasons. Then this rich landowner’s agent might remind you that the Empire does terrible things, that it kills people for no reason and imprisons them for tiny crimes. But you would have a vague memory of a kind woman snatching you up and taking you away from your home planet just before Republican troops descended on it to murder everyone you had ever known. Would you think, yes, justice demands that I overthrow this terrible regime and restore the government that massacred my whole village?

Or would you say sure, Miss Money Bags (or is that Duchess Money bags?), sure, I’ll work for you, and then immediately go to your local Imperial Security Bureau office and tell them that yes, you’ve got some important information about a traitor and a rebel spy, which you’ll hand over to them provided you get to be the one who pulls the lever on execution day?

Why would any normal, ordinary person work for the Rebellion? What does it offer them? What part of its restored grandeur will be shared with the common people? What was the Republic’s purpose, except to maintain a small number of extremely rich people in positions of absolute power over a hundred billion desperate, poverty-stricken and ignorant people?

Why would you risk anything for these people?