Warning! SPOILERS for Andor episode 5.
Despite being set almost 40 years before the events of the sequel trilogy, Andor is helping audiences finally care about its Star Wars: The Force Awakens Coruscant replacement. Taking place five years before the events of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Andor revisits a period in the galaxy in which there was still an Imperial Senate. Andor is also revisiting Coruscant now as the capital of the Galactic Empire, combined with references to the planetary system that will serve as a capital for the New Republic.
The galaxy has seen three governments throughout the Star Wars saga. One was the original Republic, which assumed many different forms and last for more than 25,000 years. Another was the Galactic Empire, which came to be after Palpatine overthrew the Republic and became the Senate himself. Last, the New Republic followed the fall of the Empire in Return of the Jedi and represented the galaxy’s hope for a fresh start after more than 20 years of imperial oppression. With The Force Awakens taking place around 34 years after the events of the original trilogy, Star Wars would get to show an established New Republic.
Just like Tarkin destroyed Alderaan using the Death Star, The Force Awakens saw the First Order destroying the Hosnian Prime system, the capital of the New Republic, using the Starkiller base. The problem is that audiences had never seen or heard of Hosnian Prime prior to The Force Awakens, which means its destruction didn’t have nearly as much impact as it if were Coruscant that was being destroyed. Subsequential Star Wars novels and comics offered a better look at Hosnian Prime, but live-action Star Wars movies or shows had yet to reference the system. While Andor did not show Hosnian Prime, it acknowledged the system twice. The first reference was in Andor episode 4, in which Hosnian Prime was one of the destinations announced in the Coruscant spaceport. The second one was in Andor episode 5, when Dedra Meero is trying to find a jurisdiction loophole and suggests taking a look at Hosnian Prime. While both of those are small references, they organically make it feel like Hosnian Prime belongs to the galaxy in a way The Force Awakens never did. Hosnian Prime was also visually way too similar to the Star Wars planet of Coruscant, which is why it’s important to give the former its own identity and place in the story.
Why The New Republic Moved The Capital From Coruscant To Hosnian Prime
After more than two decades of Emperor Palpatine ruling the entire galaxy by himself from Coruscant, those behind the inception of the New Republic wanted a decentralized system of government. The galaxy had learned the hard way that too much power in the hands of one person or a small group of people could lead to problems, and that is why the New Republic decided to change its capital once in a while. That way, what happened with Palpatine and the Senate in Coruscant would never happen again. Around 24 years after the Return of the Jedi movie, Hosnian Prime was elected to be the next capital.
In The Force Awakens, the state of the galaxy was quite similar to that of the Galactic Civil War – a conscious decision to make the sequel trilogy resemble the original Star Wars movies. The destruction of Hosnian Prime was mainly for shock value, and it left all the necessary worldbuilding for future stories. Fortunately, novels, comics, and shows like Andor are adding more to Hosnian Prime than just it being the new Coruscant.
New episodes of Andor release on Wednesdays on Disney+.
Want more Andor articles? Check out our essential content below…