Why the Alphabet Squadron Trilogy is a Masterpiece
1. Introduction
In my opinion, Alphabet Squadron is not only the best set of Star Wars books, but one of the best book trilogies that I have ever read. This book deconstructs the Rebellion-Empire conflict like never before through complex discussions on ideology, profound character arcs, and interesting settings and action sequences. Here’s my essay on why the Alphabet Squadron trilogy is the best set of Star Wars books of all time. This essay will reference plot points from the entire trilogy, and thus, contains spoilers for the entire trilogy.
2. Yrica Quell & Soran Keize — Limits of Redemption
Yrica Quell’s arc is the driving force behind the trilogy as a whole. She’s a very relatable character because her personality is very realistically written — she’s awkward around her team when trying to lead, she acts more like an Imperial than a member of the Alliance, she’s very socially reclusive and struggles to open up to her team, but she still tries her best to do better in leading a New Republic squadron against Shadow Wing. We spend almost the entirety of the first novel believing that Quell is an Imperial defector who wants to do better, but at the Battle of Pandem Nai, it’s revealed that she was not a willing defector of Shadow Wing. She was forced out of the Empire by her mentor, Soran Keize. Soran believed that the Empire was going to lose the war no matter what, and that Quell should try to live her life away from the war. However, Quell participated in Operation Cinder, destroying Nacronis, because she was too cowardly to leave the fight herself. She’d planned to leave the Empire, yes, but she was simply too scared to do so until Soran forced her to leave. However, she did realize what the Empire was doing with Operation Cinder was terrible, and while stationed at Traitor’s Remorse, she made the hypocritical point that every day, the new defectors would be worse in their redeemability, since there had been plenty of opportunities to defect thus far — and that the longer into the war that the defectors showed up, the less they deserved redemption.
Soran Keize’s ideology, however, refutes Quell’s aforementioned statement at Traitor’s Remorse. Soran believed that there was no way the Empire would win, and thus, left the Empire and tried to live a life as a wanderer named Devon. Eventually, the New Republic caught up with him, and he realized that they would never let him be. Be it a clerk, a sandtrooper, a pilot — the New Republic would track down everyone involved with the Empire. Where else could Soran go but back to his people in the Empire? There may have been plenty of opportunities to leave, but that would have meant putting yourself at the altar of New Republic justice. Imperial troops may feel all the regret in the world about what they’ve done, but as evidenced by Soran’s journey, there is no alternative. They have to stay with the Empire, so it’s not necessarily the case that defectors late in the war are more dedicated to the Empire — they just haven’t had a chance to leave without facing corrupt New Republic justice.
This is further reinforced by the events in Shadow Fall, when Soran repeatedly states that he does not care for the broader Empire as a whole, since he knows they’ve lost the war, but that he fights to give his people purpose, which is an incredibly interesting ideology. To that end, he attacks Troithe and attempts to hunt down General Syndulla’s New Republic forces. He partners with a local loyalist, Governor Yadeez, who he is ultimately forced to abandon as he leaves the planet. It’s later noted in Victory’s Price that she was unfairly treated by the New Republic when on trial, further cementing his ideology. There is no alternative for his soldiers and they cannot leave the Empire. They can regret all of the mistakes they’ve done and make every attempt to redeem themselves, but why would the New Republic care? All Imperials are branded as if they’re the Emperor, when some of them had no other choice in their life.
Quell’s arc parallels this in an interesting way — in Shadow Fall, she’s stranded on a planetoid with Caern Adan and IT-O. Adan recruited her for the mission in the first place, and IT-O is a reprogrammed Imperial torture droid who asks Quell to take part in therapy sessions to recount her memories. In a way, they initially represent the worst of Quell, by forcing her to recount her worst memories and by forcing her to lead a mission without regard for what she’d been through. On this planetoid, Quell is forced to face a monolith that induces visions of one’s worst memories, where Quell was overcome with horrible memories of what she’d done as an Imperial. She thought that was all there was, that was the legacy of Yrica Quell and she’d never find a way to get past that. Then, IT-O goes insane and reverts to his Imperial programming, attacking Quell, and Quell is forced to destroy him. IT-O’s surrender to his primal self is an analogy for Quell’s potential surrender to her murderous self that served the Empire. Subsequently, Adan dies of his injuries from the crash, but not before making the point to Quell that the only way to get past what you’ve done is to move forward. Nothing more, nothing less. It’s what he’d done to get past his demons, and as he died, he passed along this advice to Quell, hoping to help her to move past her demons.
Who will win? Adan, who gave her hope for the future, or IT-O, who represented her worst self?
In the end, Adan won, and Quell was able to conquer the monolith, pledge to move forward and accept her past, and escape offworld. The line “The nightmare was agony, yet if she abandoned it then what made her Yrica Quell would be left behind too.” is perfection. You can’t simply erase your past, however horrible it may be, because everything that happened to you is a part of your identity. Accept what happened to you and accept the mistakes you’ve made as a part of yourself, and pledge to do better. Nothing more, nothing less.
Quell then pretends to rejoin Shadow Wing, while in reality, she works to destroy them from the inside. Early on in Victory’s Price, the Emperor’s Messenger is destroyed by Quell. In the story, the Messenger reflects the idea of the “higher Empire”. Neither Soran nor Quell believe in this idea, although some pilots, like Nord Kandende, still do. Soran disassembles the Messenger and believes that it must hide a secret, that there must be some hidden purpose to all that the Emperor had them do, sending Quell with a team of pilots to the planet Netalych to find out what it is. On Netalych, Quell discovers that the secret is a database on Coruscant where the Emperor logged every single action and war crime by every Imperial. The database is an extremely clever plot device that essentially puts Quell and Soran at a crossroads. It poses a very interesting ideological question, since the database is a metaphor for the atrocities of one’s past:
Do you move forward in life by destroying who you used to be?
Or do you embrace all that you have done and find a way to move on?
Soran’s ideology perfectly aligns with the decision to destroy the databank so that his pilots can live free, free of all of their past mistakes for which the New Republic will judge them to no end. In doing so, he’ll be dropping the databank on numerous Coruscant citizens, but he doesn’t care — all he cares about are his pilots living clean lives after the Empire is inevitably defeated. As Soran comes to this epiphany, Quell imagines a conversation with IT-O (it was a very interesting decision to imagine this conversation with IT-O instead of Adan, since IT-O represents Quell’s darker half). Quell concludes that at this point, above all else, she wants to save lives. She wants to move forward by helping people. Going from here, she concludes that the databank must not be destroyed in order to save the lives of the citizens of Coruscant, and she heads to Coruscant with Kairos.
On Coruscant, Quell and Soran have a deep conversation as they fight. Soran’s still convinced that destroying the databank is the only way for his people to move forward, while Quell is focusing on saving the lives of Coruscant’s people here and now, nothing else. When Kairos crashes into Soran’s TIE fighter, Quell finds him in the wreckage, and he suggests using an EMP to delete the databank. This wouldn’t harm anyone on Coruscant, but it would delete the Imperials’ sins regardless. Quell is at a turning point here as to whether she should destroy the databank or not, now that the immediate lives of Coruscant citizens are no longer threatened, and Soran once again reminds her that she must destroy it in order to protect the pilots of Shadow Wing from New Republic justice. Quell counters this with two points — for one, destroying the databank doesn’t change what the pilots have done, and they’re going to live with that haunting them for their lives. For every pilot who served with the Empire unwillingly, there was one who served willingly. Having people who have committed atrocities running around the galaxy freely does not equal peace. Moreover, she also states that she and the rest of Shadow Wing were just murderers. Simple as that. She can’t forget her past, she lives with the memory of what she is capable of every single day, and wiping those records for the rest of the Empire will not help them move forward or make peace in their lives. As his final words, Soran asks Quell if he trusts the New Republic to judge them fairly, and Quell says that she hasn’t earned the right to make that call. Soran then dies, accepting the flaws in his ideology, and leaving his hope with Quell, who leaves the databank be, and then works for redemption by settling down with Chass and meeting a survivor of Nacronis, giving her hope for the future. The final scene in Victory’s Price where she acknowledges that she would never forget Nacronis, but would continue to fly, is beautiful.
The ideological discussion surrounding Quell and Soran’s arcs is nothing short of a masterpiece. Their character arcs are perfectly used to examine the cost of war, whether you must forget your past or simply accept it and move on, whether you can trust a system of justice, whether you’re defined by your worst mistakes, and above all, what it takes to move forward. What Alexander Freed has done here has numerous parallels to real-world history and is very masterfully written. Soran’s dedication to his people and the way his arc naturally reflects the tide of the war after Endor is very unique — nothing like this exists even in Legends. Although Quell’s arc does share some similarities with Gara Petothel’s arc (from Aaron Allston’s Wraith Squadron novels), particularly in their shifting loyalties and infiltrations of an Imperial unit, it’s still different in major ways, particularly relating to how Operation Cinder plays into it, and overall, is one of the strongest Star Wars character arcs that exist. These arcs alone are enough to carry the trilogy, but alas, we have several other key characters to discuss with equally compelling arcs.
3. Kairos — Metamorphosis and Ostracization
Kairos definitely has the least overall page-time of the five Alphabet Squadron members — she’s injured in the first third of Shadow Fall and is absent for the rest of the book — but this does not, in any way, discount the strength of her character arc. Throughout the first novel, we see Kairos through the eyes of the other squadron members. Chass just pegs her as a freak, Nath and Wyl find her mildly interesting, and Quell is intimidated by her. All that Quell knows is that Adan and IT-O both have a strong connection to her, but she doesn’t know the extent of this connection or where it came from. Throughout the novel, Kairos is shown to be a fierce warrior, slaughtering stormtroopers on Abednedo in defense of her squadron. When the squadron is sent by Hera Syndulla to the Harkrova system for a routine supply run, they encounter a Jedi temple, prompting many of the squadron members, such as Wyl and Chass, to come forth with their stories. One of the best scenes in the novel is when Kairos comes forth with her story, told simply by sketches in the sand. We don’t know all of the details, but we understand that she lived a simple life on a remote world that was attacked by the Empire, changing her in the process. She draws a figure in the sand that continuously changes and is reshaped amidst the destruction and chaos caused by the Empire. As a character, Kairos represents the idea of metamorphosis during war, both literally and figuratively. Kairos later tells Wyl, “The Emperor’s shadow is long”, in one of the few times she speaks in the novel. It’s interesting that she tells Wyl this after the squadron begins to bond to an extent on Harkrova. My interpretation of this line is that after Wyl, Kairos, and Chass shared their stories to the squadron, they began to bond and realize that maybe they’d move past their traumas. Kairos, having experienced the most trauma of them all, warns Wyl that it’s not so easy. You can’t escape the demons caused by the Emperor that easily. Change and metamorphosis is inevitable, and it’s not over for any of the squadron members at that point.
In Shadow Fall, the first scene of note involving Kairos is when Chass sees the trophies that Kairos has collected from her enemies in a compartment in her U-wing. This scene was really interesting, and further demonstrated the deep resentment that Kairos held against the Empire for what they did to her. At this point, we don’t know the specifics, but we truly understand the extent to which the Empire has wronged Kairos. She’s undergone this metamorphosis, but hates that a part of herself, to the extent that she is merciless against her enemies, further recontextualizing the Abednedo scene in the first novel. Shortly after this scene, Kairos is injured in the midst of battle, and is taken away to Chandrila. She’s absent throughout the reveal of Quell’s participation in Operation Cinder and the subsequent events on Catadra, Core Nine, and the planetoid, only returning once the operation is complete with the line“I am healed.” In Shadow Fall, we do get the backstory of how Adan met Kairos and IT-O through their prison escape, and our takeaway from this is that Kairos believes in a blood debt to Adan and IT-O, not unlike Chewbacca’s life debt to Han Solo. She believes that they have become a part of her, and that they are now inseparable. However, when Kairos returns, Adan and IT-O have both died, although nobody but Quell is aware of what happened to them.
In Victory’s Price, Kairos is by far one of the strongest characters of the novel. She perfectly embodies the themes of the book and elevates it to an entirely different level. We see her back as a full member of the squadron, having undergone another complete physical metamorphosis after being healed on Chandrila. However, once the probe droids attack the Deliverance and the squadron members are stranded from each other, we see a really interesting interaction between her and Hera. Kairos is hunting the droids despite being injured, and Hera offers to help her. Kairos violently refuses, opening up to Hera about what happened on Chandrila. Alien hands touched Kairos and healed her body, and she feels like she has been corrupted. To her people, blood is sacred, and in the process of her healing, she was touched by those who were not her people. She then reveals to Hera that her previous suit was a chrysalis, a healing cocoon, and her ongoing metamorphosis was interrupted. She acknowledged why it had to happen, since Adan, who she had a blood pact with, did it to save her life, but nevertheless, she was incomplete. It’s a really interesting dichotomy between Kairos’ culture and Kairos’ love for Adan, and even though Kairos respected Adan’s choice, because it saved her life, she’s still tied to her culture and seeking acceptance from them, which leads to her feeling incomplete. Her next notable role is going to Netalych with Chass in order to track down Quell, where she is merciless in cutting down Shadow Wing troops in order to find Quell. Her U-wing is damaged in the ensuing fight, and while Chass and Quell are scrambling to repair it, Kairos does something really interesting — she goes home. Instantly, despite being light-years away, she knows how to get home. She points in that direction, and instantly returns home, and Quell compares this to how some flowers drift in the wind, knowing the way home, but this is never explained in further detail.
It was an excellent narrative decision by Freed to not reveal the name of Kairos’ species or homeworld or to explain how exactly she got home — it tremendously added to making the galaxy feel large to have such exotic and unique species participating in these wars.
On her planet, Kairos asks Quell what happened to Adan and IT-O. After Quell explains that they died to save her, to give her the ideology and the strength to carry on and push forward, Kairos declares that her blood pact now extends to Quell as well. They are now tied together, like it or not. Later, she explains in complete detail what happened to her — she served as an emissary, the Empire came to her planet, experimented on her because she was an unknown species — and she took the name Kairos only after meeting Adan. Prior to meeting Adan, she had initially been her pure self, but after the Empire experimented on her, she’d experienced her first change and become corrupted. After escaping an Imperial prison with the help of Adan and IT-O, she’d undergone her second change and become Kairos, the name of the creature bonded by blood to Adan and IT-O. After Cerberon, where Adan and IT-O died giving life to Quell, Kairos saw Quell as the last of her two friends — but Kairos was also corrupted by the New Republic, and at this point in the story, she was no longer Kairos, no longer anything, due to her incomplete metamorphosis. Later, another metamorphosis occurs when Kairos, Quell, and Chass came into contact with the other members of Kairos’ people. They simply stood, willing to drive them out, but Kairos worked with Quell and Chass to destroy the Imperial installation on that planet and make them think they’d escaped. In doing so, Kairos rejects her people. She felt incomplete because according to her people, New Republic hands could not touch her, but this occurred through an act of love. By rejecting her people and moving forward with Quell and Chass, people who show her genuine love despite her change, Kairos is satisfied. She recognizes that this portion of her metamorphosis is over, choosing love over arbitrary acceptance, and she leaves behind her suit as they leave the planet.
As we enter the climax of Victory’s Price, we see Kairos choose to go with Quell to Coruscant, rather than follow the Deliverance to Jakku — this makes perfect sense for her character, since she now believes that she is bonded by blood to Quell. On Coruscant, Soran and Quell have an intense debate about New Republic justice and the sins of Shadow Wing while duking it out in starfighter combat. As Soran is about to kill Quell, after stating that what she did couldn’t be forgiven, Kairos intervenes and crashes her ship into Soran’s before ejecting. At that moment, Kairos makes the decision to forgive Quell. She was no longer the Kairos who had yearned for blood, who had taken joy in destroying the Empire which had wronged her. She also was no longer the Kairos who feared the judgment of her people for connecting to those of the New Republic. She forgave Quell, someone who had destroyed worlds, someone who represented the very Empire that had tortured Kairos — and decided that despite all that she had done, she was worthy of forgiveness. And when she attacked Soran, it was not a move of vengeance or bloodlust, but a moment of peace and forgiveness towards Quell. Kairos finally let go of the anger of her past, and after Soran died, she experienced her final metamorphosis. Kairos had become someone not linked to war and destruction any longer — she had fulfilled her task in protecting Quell, returning the favor of Adan and IT-O, who had saved her in the prison, and now, she’d become someone new, seeking somewhere beautiful away from the war.
Kairos’ arc is truly profound, and it perfectly reflects the themes of the entire trilogy — primarily that of constant change during wartime and seeking redemption for past crimes — and with each metamorphosis, we learn more about who Kairos is becoming, as her literal transformations of body throughout the trilogy perfectly correspond to her transformations of mind. Her relationship with Adan and IT-O was that of love, and her hatred towards the Empire had become a love for Quell, who Adan and IT-O had protected. In this way, despite dying in Shadow Fall, Adan and IT-O prove pivotal to the arcs of Kairos and Quell, further enhancing their final moments in Shadow Fall. As a whole, Kairos was the standout character of Victory’s Price and elevated the book to be a true masterpiece of character development. Quell’s, Soran’s, and Kairos’ journeys alone would have been enough to carry this trilogy — but alas, we have three more characters who undergo equally transformative and profound journeys.
4. Chass na Chadic — Community over Fanaticism
Chass na Chadic is my personal favorite character in the trilogy, and probably one of my favorite characters in the entire Star Wars franchise — the way that she is written perfectly plays into Alexander Freed’s strengths. He’s very good at writing mentally unstable characters who have complicated backstories and hints at potential mental disorders, but continue to fight on in a war and transform themselves in the process (very much like Namir and Roach from Battlefront: Twilight Company). Chass’ personality is something that also plays a large role in her journey — she’s abrasive, unhinged, and expresses herself without fear of judgment, blasting forgotten ballads from across the galaxy in her cockpit while she flies. It’s interesting to note that she grew up as a Theelin in a very xenophobic Empire, which I can see accounting for how abrasive and cynical her personality is at the start of the trilogy.
In the first novel, we meet Chass serving with Hound Squadron, and through the chase in the Oridol Cluster, Chass meets Wyl Lark and initially dislikes his idealistic personality. Throughout the chase, multiple of Chass’ squadmates are killed, and Chass believes that maybe they could have ejected, that they should go back and search for them, but the squadron leaders tell Chass that it’s unlikely. We see Chass as someone who’s distressed at the funerals of her squadmates, but also cynical about the speeches given by the survivors, yet we don’t really learn why she’s like this. Throughout the remainder of the chase, we learn that she hates this mission. She acknowledges that she’ll probably make it out alive, and for that reason, it’s not the mission that she wants. When the pilots are playing a game predicting when they’re going to die and how it’ll happen, Chass makes a dark comment about how they’ll remember her long after the rest of the squadron is gone, and Wyl ponders this comment, remembering it long after the game. Later, she wants to hear from Wyl about Riot Squadron’s service at the Battle of Endor, and she fantasizes about dying above a planet to save her squadron and destroy the Empire. And in the final fight with Shadow Wing in the Oridol Cluster, Chass has an opportunity to sacrifice herself and destroy Shadow Wing, but Wyl takes that choice away from her, taking out her cannons and forcing her to leave with him, and subsequently, she hates Wyl for this.
At this point, I was very intrigued by Chass as a character. We’re introduced to all of these puzzle pieces about who Chass na Chadic is, but we don’t really begin to put them together until the Harkrova mission. Chass opens up to the squadron and recalls a time about five years ago when Jyn Erso, under the alias Liana Hallik, saved her life in the streets. Later, on her quest for more forgotten ballads, Chass sees a hologram of Jyn giving her speech to Rebel Alliance command (as seen in Rogue One), and realizes that she became a martyr for the rebel cause, giving her life meaning. From that moment on, Chass internalized Jyn’s story, due to the fact that she didn’t value her own life, and realized that rather than trying to make her life have value, she should make her death have value. She joined up with multiple rebel cells, including the extremist Cavern Angels, in an attempt to sacrifice herself for the rebellion and become a martyr like Jyn. On its own, this is a topic that I can never see addressed in a Star Wars film or show, except maybe something like Andor. This idea of a martyr complex is probably the darkest character arc and ideology I’ve ever seen in Star Wars, yet it makes perfect sense. Every cause has martyrs, and although we don’t learn where Chass’ lack of value for her own life came from quite yet, we understand her goal and what she hopes will lead to her being remembered. During the Battle of Pandem Nai, Chass has an opportunity to sacrifice herself and destroy Shadow Wing’s ship as they attempt to escape the battle. However, she comes to realize that it’d be pointless. She yearns for an important sacrifice that will be impactful, not a pointless sacrifice, and although she told Wyl earlier in the novel to let her make her own choices, she accepts his wish to let the freighter go, allowing that portion of her arc to come full circle. In the end, Chass is playing cards with Kairos and dancing with Wyl and Nath as her music plays over the intercom, and although she hasn’t figured out her mental state entirely yet, she has at least found a community for the time being.
In Shadow Fall, Chass’ mindset about martyrdom hasn’t really changed, but she’s become more connected to her squadron, primarily Wyl and Nath. She’s still intrigued by Kairos and unsure how she feels about Quell, but begins to warm up to her in the early missions of the novel. The first pivotal moment in her arc in this novel is when Adan sends out the transmission to Wyl and Chass that Quell was responsible for the destruction of Nacronis. Upon Nath and Quell’s return to the Lodestar, Wyl is resigned and confused, but Chass is furious. She almost attacks Quell then and there, calling her out on being a traitor, stating that she had no place in this squadron. Chass had been trying to connect with her squadron and move beyond just looking forward to the next battle, but this reveal called all of that into question. What was the point? Why was Chass fighting alongside someone she’d dedicated her life to defeating? Why was Chass spending her life like this when her death would be so much more meaningful? Just as she began to attempt the basics at authentic human connection again, this reveal had come out of nowhere. She’d dedicated her life to martyrdom against the Empire, and Quell, her squadron leader, now represented that Empire, destroying Chass’ mental state.
Subsequently, Shadow Wing attacks Troithe, and Chass is left adrift among debris. She is at her lowest point here, having been betrayed by her commander and left for dead by her squadron. She then thinks of Jyn, and how she’s the antithesis of everything Jyn was. Jyn died in an important battle, sacrificing herself for a losing cause, but Chass believed her life had no meaning, and continued to live to no end, even when the New Republic was winning the war. Chass’ music symbolizes her desire to be like Jyn, to live up to martyrs. Her songs are all collections of lost civilizations, and by playing them in battle every time she fights, she fights not for herself, but for her own memory. For the memories of those of the past, and for her desire to end up just like them, nothing but a memory. Chass loses her music at this point in the story while trying to fix her ship, and it drifts away toward the black hole of Cerberon, symbolizing that a change is about to occur in her mental state. Eventually, a ship belonging to a cult, the Children of the Empty Sun, finds Chass and takes her to Catadra.
At this point in the story, we learn another piece of Chass’ backstory — her past with organized communities. She once believed deeply in a cult called the Inheritors of the Crystal before discovering that they were amassing weapons and being led by a lunatic. Her belief in this community, in this family, was shattered by this experience, and after leaving, she felt alone, distrustful of any community due to the ulterior motives that always seemed to be present. After Quell’s betrayal, Chass’ current community, the New Republic, was no better than the Inheritors of the Crystal. When joining the Children of the Empty Sun, she took the name Maya Hallik, partially an alias used by Jyn, another symbol of Chass’ past and desire to be a memory. She then took part in daily activities, including prayers, listening to broadcasts from Let’ij, helping Gruyver recruit new members, and all the while, began to listen to what the cult had to say. The main lesson that Chass took to heart was that the New Republic is no better than the Empire, and the only peace that one can find is through the Force and the harmony and community of individuals. However, soon enough, Chass found a dark side to this cult. They were stockpiling weapons, and they’d taken a Shadow Wing pilot, Palal Seedia, as prisoner. Despite being encouraged by Gruyver to try to get along with Seedia, Chass began to try to find a way to escape, thinking of this cult as no different than the cults of her past.
The next scene involving Chass, one of the best in the novel, is a scene where multiple cultists confessed their sins. Seedia came up and confessed that she’d taken part in Operation Cinder, and she wasn’t ashamed of it, but what she was ashamed of was not showing love to her family. Then it was Chass’ turn to speak, and she confessed a dream that she had. It was her worst fear. In this dream, she did not become a martyr. She was a standard soldier who survived the war. No third Death Star, no big Imperial base to destroy — the war simply ended, and she survived. She thought about aimlessly living her life, having zero idea what to do, perhaps living on Coruscant. The dream ends with her standing in an alleyway, looking at her blaster. Although the ending of the dream isn’t spelled out, it’s clear enough that Chass sees no life for her beyond this war. She shivers and feels faint after confessing this, but the cultists all bow to her and hug her. She feels nothing but compassion and community and acceptance for who she is, something she never got from the New Republic. Eventually, Chass did escape the cult, but not before speaking to both Let’ij and Gruyver. They stated that she’d carry a seed with her, that there is no shame except self-deception. And when Chass flew off in her B-wing, her music had been replaced with a box of lectures from the cult. After this, the true identity of Maya Hallik was born. Half of this name, “Hallik”, comes from Jyn Erso’s alias, marking Chass’ past desires. And the other half, “Maya”, is a new name, marking Chass’ newfound, yet unconscious, desire for a new future.
In Victory’s Price, we see Chass alienated from her squadron, spending time by herself listening to Let’ij’s lectures and hearing Let’ij’s voice in her head, constantly calling her Maya Hallik. When the Deliverance is attacked by probe droids, Chass is unable to contribute to fighting them off in any meaningful way. When the other pilots are going through her lectures, Chass fights them off, hearing Let’ij’s voice say that they’ll never accept her and that Chass needs to come home, something that Chass is beginning to accept. Shortly afterwards, Yrica Quell is discovered to have joined Shadow Wing, and Chass and Kairos take off in the middle of the battle at Chadawa, relentlessly following her to Netalych. Here, Chass violently attacks Quell, stating that Quell should have just died, before dragging her to Kairos’ U-wing, but not before losing her new lectures. After their ship is damaged, and subsequently, the three go to Kairos’ homeworld, Chass has a lot of time to reflect. She whispers Let’ij’s prayers to herself but was conflicted on whether to hear Quell’s side of the story or be angry at her. She questioned whether she should go back to the New Republic, since all they did was abandon her, but the cult did not. This cacophony of thoughts inside Chass’ head culminates in her confession to Quell that even though she doesn’t like her, she trusts her, and that she never planned to survive the war. Chass had recognized that Quell’s conflict and what she had been through wasn’t that different from what Chass had been through, and she began to trust her again.
Chass’ arc culminates in the Battle of Jakku, but prior to this battle, she has a really interesting conversation with Nath, who warns her about Let’ij. Nath is perceptive enough to understand what Chass’ post-war life now looks like, and he warns her that Let’ij will have an ulterior motive to rob or exploit Chass in some way. During the battle, Chass’ old self emerged, the self that wants to die in a blaze of glory, and in contrast with the battle at Pandem Nai, destroying the Shadow Wing carrier now would be tremendously significant. Shadow Wing was using Chadawan particles to cloak themselves and destroy New Republic vessels, but at Pandem Nai, they were simply fleeing. At this moment, Chass has the chance to be the next Jyn Erso, but she chooses life instead. In her mind, she argues that being like Jyn is all she wanted, that she can’t trust the cult, that the cult is the only home she had, that she’d never been this scared before, and above all, that she had decided she wanted to live. And with that decision to pull away from Shadow Wing, and her subsequent decision after the war to not join the cult, but to live a quiet life of harmony and peace with Quell, Chass na Chadic’s fight was over.
Chass’ arc is my personal favorite in the trilogy, and it’s because it’s so unique. We really haven’t seen a character with this mindset and motivation in any Star Wars media, and the way that Freed uses plot devices like the cult in order to display the idea of community during wartime was very interesting. Even though the cult had been stockpiling weapons, Chass saw the good in them, the idea of harmony, peace, and community, rather than martyrdom. And rather than choosing either extreme of dying or joining the cult, Chass lived a peaceful and ordinary life, keeping the best ideas of the cult in mind, which was a very strong narrative decision. The music and lectures were also interesting plot devices to represent the dichotomy between who Chass used to be and who Chass could be. Above all, Chass’ arc is inspiring and beautifully written, and her character arc alone elevates the trilogy to be a masterpiece in character development.
5. Wyl Lark — Gift to the Galaxy
Wyl Lark is a very strong character, and his personality really stands out and elevates his character (I think it’s helpful to imagine him like Karis Nemik from Andor). We meet Wyl as a shy kid who loves his squadron, talks to his A-wing and treats it like a sentient creature, and is described by his squadmates as a “gift to the galaxy” because of his pure heart. He yearns to go home, but is someone who empathizes with the enemy and sees them as people, rather than a faceless enemy. The scene in the Oridol Cluster where Wyl talks to Blink is the scene where I was convinced this trilogy was something unique. Never had I seen something so obvious, yet so genius, used as a tactic of communication between enemies — an open comlink during battle. This plot device perfectly showcased Wyl’s character — a kind boy who didn’t want to kill his enemies and cared deeply for the safety of his squadron, so much so that he damaged Chass’ B-wing so that she would be forced to leave the battle.
When the squadron is formed, Wyl forms a close bond with Nath, who serves as an elder brother figure to Wyl, often providing a cynical outlook on situations to Wyl’s more naive and optimistic look. On Harkrova, Wyl easily confessed his story to the team, discussing how he and 119 other pilots were sent from Polyneus to fight for the Rebel Alliance, and that he yearns to go home and be with the sur-avkas, a creature he thinks of when flying his A-wing. Wyl could be seen as a Luke Skywalker clone, a farmboy in a war, but I think Freed made some great choices in his characterization that set him apart from Luke. Wyl wants to go home, and Luke does not. Wyl has seen tremendous battle experience, fighting at Endor, something that Chass even envies, while Luke relies on his natural talent with the Force to fly, rather than trained skill in flying sur-avkas like Wyl. Wyl is someone who has been fighting for too long and seen too many comrades go given his age and outlook on the world, but he made a promise to the people of his homeworld to fight the Empire, and for that reason, he continues to fight and empathize with his squadmates, primarily Chass and Nath. And in the battle above Pandem Nai, Wyl feels connected with the mission to shoot down the debris above Pandem Nai and save the planet, rather than to take down Shadow Wing. He feels that although the dead of Riot Squadron wouldn’t approve, the people of Home would, further demonstrating that Wyl’s managed to retain his heart despite the situations he’s forced into. Never does he think of fighting what he hates, only of saving what he loves, but he’s forced to fight what he hates all the time and must reluctantly step up to do so.
Shadow Fall doubles down on putting Wyl into situations where he has to violently fight and go against his principles. Early on, we understand that Alphabet Squadron has been involved in a brutal war of attrition on Troithe, and Wyl’s sick of it. He doesn’t see a point to fighting this war when the New Republic is essentially already victorious in his mind. He records messages expressing his feelings to Blink, but deletes them before sending them. Blink both killed Riot Squadron and helped save Pandem Nai, and in Wyl’s mind, Blink is a face for a faceless enemy, someone who shows Wyl that the people they’re fighting have the same hopes and fears that every New Republic pilot has. Shortly afterwards, it’s revealed that Quell destroyed Nacronis, and rather than being enraged like Chass, Wyl is sad. He questions if Quell would have done it to his homeworld and is resigned when he says that Quell should probably go to the brig. Wyl thrives off others, essentially wearing his heart on his sleeve, and it was heartbreaking to hear that his commander represents the tyranny that he’s fighting against.
Subsequently, Shadow Wing attacks Troithe, and Wyl and Nath are forced into hiding underground with some members of Twilight Company. The plan that they collectively devise puts Wyl in a position of power — to lead an airspeeder squadron, to teach infantry soldiers how to be pilots, and to motivate the troops to press on toward stopping Shadow Wing. Wyl’s proposal is to retreat in order to avoid any more collateral damage — Troithe isn’t like the sparsely populated Pandem Nai, and Wyl realizes that any fight will cause tremendous civilian casualties. However, Wyl reluctantly agrees with the infantry’s plan, even though he doesn’t like them much — the infantry are pragmatic and focus on taking down the enemy, but Wyl’s focus, aside from reaching out to Blink, is to make sure no civilians are hurt. Wyl leads his troops through battles where multiple infantry troops and pilots die, and he becomes further disillusioned with this leadership position that he’s been forced into. Before the final battle at the Core Nine facility, Wyl reaches out to Shadow Wing. He openly communicates with them and asks them to stand down, all in the name of saving lives. Nothing more, nothing less. Nath confronts Wyl and tells him that despite disagreeing with what Wyl tries to do, he’ll watch out for him, but Wyl has to accept the consequences of his actions and stand by his choices. Wyl accepted that he’d failed for the time being, and after the battle at Core Nine, sent a message to the elders of Polyneus asking for advice. The Cerberon campaign had put Wyl through the ringer and encouraged him to find a way home. Nath, Hera, Chass, all of the New Republic believed in fighting Shadow Wing as the right thing to do, but to Wyl, none of it felt right. The New Republic was fighting a comfortable war from a position of power, and they were set on killing an enemy with a face rather than actually saving anyone, which was purposeless and futile to Wyl.
Wyl Lark is on the cover of Victory’s Price — a logical choice, as he has some fantastic character moments during the course of this novel that pay off moments from the previous two books very well. The opening scene of this book involves Wyl confronting Hera about when the war would end — Wyl viewed Endor as a victory, and to him, all of this prolonged fighting is pointless. At Chadawa, Wyl once again establishes an open comlink during the battle, and at a lull in the fight, begins telling stories to the Shadow Wing pilots. Ultimately, they start responding, and other New Republic pilots join in, sharing stories and ballads and poems and dreams and fears with their enemy. Once again, the open comlink is the perfect plot device to characterize Wyl as someone who empathizes with Shadow Wing and just doesn’t want to fight them. Wyl then tries something different in an attempt to stop the fighting — he confronts Soran Keize, challenging him to a head-to-head match. Wyl holds on to the hope that if he wins, Soran will retreat, and no more lives will be lost, which is the idea that he’s held onto since the first novel and continues to hold onto despite all the battles that he has fought and the leadership position that he’s been forced into with the departure of Quell. Wyl loses the fight to Soran, and when he returns to the medbay, injured, he’s at his most vulnerable. He tells Nath that he’s done fighting and he wants to go home. This is furthered by the fact that the elders of Polyneus told Wyl that of the 120 pilots sent to fight the Empire, everyone had returned home except for Wyl. They ended the war on their terms, not on the New Republic’s. They decided their war was over, and that any further fighting was futile. Wyl recognized that it was impossible to destroy every remnant of the Empire, that there had to be a stopping point, that the current remnants were rallying up for a last defense. Wyl joined the Rebel Alliance to save lives and fight an Empire that was destroying innocents, not an Empire that was scared and in retreat. He’d been forced into a leadership position with a violent and cynical infantry group and had been forced to fire at the enemies he’d sung songs with hours earlier. And with all of this in mind, Wyl’s decision to leave the squadron before the Battle of Jakku makes perfect sense. It’s so unexpected and jarring when you first read it, but it makes complete sense in retrospect. He decided when to stop fighting on his own terms. Nath and Chass and Vitale and Denish and the rest of his pilots may have been abandoned by their commander right before the fight of their lives, but to Wyl, his principles were more important than his arbitrary duty.
However, Wyl’s fight wasn’t over. During the Battle of Jakku, he was attacked by Palal Seedia, or Blink, who had infiltrated the Deliverance. She almost killed Wyl in this fight, screaming about the names of the Shadow Wing pilots that Wyl and his comrades had mocked. Not Char, Puke, and Snapper, but Gablerone, Nasli, and Perush-anon Seedia. The face of the enemy that Wyl had empathized with, who he assumed was someone he could get along with, was someone as tortured and traumatized as Kairos or Chass or any other New Republic pilot. With Palal’s final words before destroying the Deliverance, “The Empire will never stop fighting”, Wyl realized that he’d been too idealistic. Walking away from a fight where he had to shoot down Shadow Wing pilots may have been the right thing to do, but walking away from all the lives that he’d harmed during his service was not the right thing to do. There would always be evil, but there were peaceful ways to help. And Wyl’s resolution, with his return to his homeworld and decision to become a Senator, is an unexpected yet perfect ending to his arc. He’s someone who found the intermediary between being a violent pilot and being a complete defector — he chooses to fight in nonviolent ways, which is the perfect way to end his arc.
6. Nath Tensent — Denial of Unacceptable Truths
Nath Tensent’s arc is probably the most low-key among all of the squadron members, in that it’s not as literal as Kairos’ metamorphosis or as heavy as Quell’s transformation, but it’s still a very interesting and realistically written arc. He’s got some similarities to Han Solo’s arc and personality, but Freed writes enough differences in there to make Nath stand out as a character, and, honestly, for Nath to be the only character in this series who I can see appearing in future Star Wars content (more on that later).
We learn Nath Tensent’s backstory very early on in the novel when Quell tries to recruit him for Adan’s working group. He originally led a squadron of Imperial pilots, and when he was caught doing some sketchy deals with pirates, he defected and led his squadron to joining the Rebellion, eventually flying a Y-wing in battle. On the planet Trenchenovu, his entire squadron was wiped out by Colonel Shakara Nuress, something that traumatized Nath and led him to run away from the fight, retreating to the Entropian Hive. He initially rejected Quell’s offer to join Adan’s working group, only to accept after hearing from Adan that he would receive payment in exchange for regular reports on the working group’s squadron members. At this point, Nath Tensent joined out of vengeance. He appreciated the credits, but didn’t care much about the people they were fighting for, so long as he had an opportunity to get back at the forces who had eliminated his squadron.
Nath has a high level of emotional intelligence, being the oldest and most experienced of the squadron, and sees right through Quell, Chass, Hera, and Wyl, understanding who they are at their core very quickly. He establishes a rapport with Quell and offers her not only trust, but a voice of reason. He tries to connect with Chass, and at the very least, be someone who she can relax around. But mainly, Nath connects with Wyl, and sees his younger self in the man. In Wyl, Nath sees someone idealistic, who isn’t yet disillusioned by war and death the way Nath is, and in this regard, Nath tries to look out for him, opening up and sharing stories about his old squadron. Even though Nath didn’t admit it to himself at the time, the new crew reminded him of his old squadron. Piter, Reeka, Ferris, all of them. Nath felt it was up to him to be Alphabet Squadron’s protector alongside trying to get revenge for his old squadron. However, on Pandem Nai, he ignores his current squadron and takes an opportunity to avenge his old squadron. He abandons the mission mid-battle to go after Nuress and asks her to give the names of the pilots who killed his squadron. Nuress has a moment of personal realization that they’re all gone, and that she’s the highest-ranking officer left involved in the Battle of Trenchenovu. Nath is disbelieving, but resolved to avenge his squadron, and shoots Nuress. After the battle, Nath outright admits that he has no idea what to do now. He’s not connected to this squadron to the extent that he’ll die for them all — he outright gave Adan the intel on Quell’s war crimes from Nuress’ console, potentially jeopardizing her future with the New Republic. But he’d avenged his squadron, and still, he had no idea what his future would be.
In Shadow Fall, Nath doesn’t have a tremendous transformation the way that many of the other squadron members do, but he’s someone who’s confused about his loyalties. Is he loyal to Adan? To Hera? To his squadron? To the New Republic as a whole? Or to himself? In the first half of the novel, he tries to figure this out by getting into the heads of his other squadron members, trying to talk to Chass about her mindset during a battle. He accompanies Quell to rescue Adan and is mostly silent during the resultant fallout about her crimes on Nacronis. He’s not angry at Quell, understanding that she had no choice in what she had to do, but he doesn’t think of her as someone he’s loyal to. However, he’s later stuck on Troithe with Wyl and Twilight Company, and recognizes that he’s not the best choice for leadership, given his messy mental state about leading a team, and decides that Wyl should command their new airspeeder squadron. Going through multiple battles and skirmishes against Shadow Wing loyalists as well as meeting with the locals of Troithe loyal to the New Republic, Nath realizes that he doesn’t care about broader ideals. He cares about the people surrounding him here and now. When Wyl tries to contact Shadow Wing, Nath almost turns his blaster on him out of anger, but it’s a protective anger. It’s an anger for the betterment of Wyl. In that moment, Wyl realized that Nath was truly loyal to him and would do anything for his benefit, since Nath saw himself in Wyl. Nath warned Wyl to do what he had to do, but he had to accept the consequences. A short while later, this is proven true for Nath, as he takes a missile meant for Troithe and almost crashes, but survives and emerges as an unintentional hero of the planet, a persona that’s been forced upon him. He takes the missile to protect Wyl, to protect the locals who had cheered for him, to protect the people that he’d decided he was loyal to.
In Victory’s Price, Nath is known on multiple planets and by the New Republic military as the Hero of Troithe, a persona that he detests. He recognizes that he’s not the honorable, selfless, planet-saving hero that so many people view him as. Despite this, Wyl doesn’t fully think that he’s a good man at his core, which is something that Nath wants to show him. When the probe droids attack the Deliverance, Nath pulls a risky maneuver in order to close an airlock and save Wyl, almost dying in the process. As established in Shadow Fall, Nath doesn’t care about broader causes, and is loyal to only select people. It makes perfect sense here that he doesn’t care what the New Republic thinks of him, he cares what Wyl thinks of him. Wyl is just Nath’s younger self, and Nath feels like his past self is judging his present self. At Chadawa, Nath leads Hail Squadron, a squadron of Y-wings, into battle and watches as they’re almost completely obliterated by Colonel Madrighast’s forces. Once again, Nath is forced to relive the worst memory of his life — his entire squadron dying around him. The Hero of Troithe could do nothing more while the people he was responsible for were wiped out around him, further wearing him down.
Later on, when Wyl decides to leave the squadron, Nath is furious — not so much at Wyl’s decision, but what it means for himself. Nath knows that he now has to lead the squadron. He has to put on the Hero of Troithe persona and be the honorable leader that he knows he’s not. It’s an interesting parallel to Wyl’s arc — Wyl has to be the killer that he knows he isn’t, and Nath has to be the honorable man that he knows he isn’t. Reluctantly, Nath leads the squadrons into battle, honoring Wyl’s idea of the open comlink during battle by taking the lead in talking to the Shadow Wing pilots as the fight rages on. However, near the end of the battle, he fakes damage to his ship in order to stay out of the fight near the end. At this point, Nath’s arc has reached its climax. He also had no idea if any of his squadron was even alive at this point — and he’s not loyal to the New Republic, he’s loyal to his squadron. He’s had to take on the mantle of leadership when he knows his heart isn’t in it, and he knows that his squadron wouldn’t want a faux leader. He knows that because that’s who Quell once was to his squadron and why he isn’t loyal to her. Wyl pulls out of the fight because he’s too soft, but Nath pulls out of the fight because he’s too cruel. Both of them are confident in who they are, and rather than embracing a false persona, they’re steadfast in their beliefs and fight their battles on their own terms. After the fight, Nath is seen recruiting former Shadow Wing pilots for a new crew that won’t directly be a New Republic military unit, but they’ll run freelance underworld missions for the New Republic, with Nath in the lead on his own turf. It’s really interesting to note that Nath seeks out enemy pilots for his crew — whether he admits it or not, Wyl has shown him empathy, and that’s rubbed off on Nath. All the time spent around Wyl using the open comlink during battles culminated in Nath taking the lead to use it in during the Battle of Jakku, and Nath has moved past pretending to be the Hero of Troithe. He’s now the leader of an underworld crew, something he’s good at and knows he can do — but he hasn’t completely reverted to his old ways, seeing as he now trusts his former enemies with his loyalty.
With how Victory’s Price ended, I can easily see a project titled, say, Rangers of the New Republic, about Nath and his new crew. Nord Kandende was a fanatical believer in the Empire, what does his mental state look like now and what motivated him to join Nath’s crew? Bansu Ro and Creet are devout Shadow Wing pilots who displayed empathy for Soran at several points, what do they think their purposes in life are now? And Nath has been taught compassion by Wyl, how does he go forward in leading in his own way now? It’s very easy to see this crew of pilots, perhaps working together with some existing characters that fit the era (Jarek Yaegar, Wes Janson, Sanrec Stronghammer, Iden Versio) and navigating a post-Jakku era, maybe alongside characters from Twilight Company like Namir and Brand. Perhaps they could go on missions for the New Republic against Imperial remnants, or crime syndicates looking to fill the power vacuum, or a number of other potential opponents.
The Tone (of Victory’s Price in particular)
In a standard trilogy, the first story is mainly the origin story for the characters, ending with a victory at the end, and perhaps the reveal of a larger villain. The second story is the war story where the characters face their trials, overcome their obstacles, and generally have the biggest character arcs, with the story ending on a cliffhanger. The third act is the space opera that generally begins with the team on a dedicated mission (but one or more team members absent), has characters from across the trilogy reappear, and culminates in a large climax where some characters die, ending in a peaceful resolution for the survivors. The Alphabet Squadron trilogy follows these tropes almost exactly, and while some may see that as a weakness, I think it’s a strength in the way that it makes character arcs realistic, plot points nuanced, and even in the way that it establishes tone and atmosphere in the writing. Victory’s Price in particular has a very similar tone to the movie Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. That film begins on a dark note, and has the survivors of a team on a dedicated mission, the missing members of the team with their own subplot, a tragic villain, an atmosphere that feels large yet makes the characters feel small, etc…and all of this applies to Victory’s Price. We open with Wyl, Kairos, Nath, Chass, and Hera on the Deliverance out to take down Shadow Wing. Each character struggles with their demons — Wyl wants to go back home, Nath is being held up on a pedestal after saving Troithe, Chass can’t stop thinking about the cult, Hera also wants to get away from the war and back to her family, and Kairos is reeling from her metamorphosis. Cinematically, it’s easy to envision a shot of this ship floating through space as we pan around to the characters standing by themselves, dealing with these traumas, while Hans Zimmer’s At Wit’s End from the At World’s End soundtrack plays. It’s easy to imagine Soran and Quell enacting Phase 2 of Operation Cinder, paralleling the scene where Davy Jones destroys the pirate ships with the Flying Dutchman, with the same soundtrack playing. It’s easy to imagine the final battles above Jakku and Coruscant to Zimmer’s I Don’t Think Now’s the Best Time. This novel has a truly epic tone, a dark yet hopeful atmosphere, and that is one of its biggest strengths as a reading experience.
Hera Syndulla
Hera has mostly a supporting role throughout the trilogy, but I thought she was a welcome addition to the story, essentially connecting it to the larger Star Wars galaxy by being an established character as well as giving it a sense of gravitas. In this trilogy, I feel that Hera was more brusque and snappy than how she was portrayed in Rebels — which makes sense, given that the war has raged for almost five years since the Battle of Lothal, and she’s been separated from her son. Despite this, she still is written very much like her portrayal in Rebels, and serves as a good mentor figure to Quell, paralleling her mentorship with Ezra Bridger and Sabine Wren. She also provides an important role in Nath’s arc by being the one to encourage him toward New Republic service, and since Nath is the most experienced soldier of the squadron, she feels comfortable admitting to him that the New Republic doesn’t exactly know how to fight a winning war and that she’s not entirely comfortable in her commanding position. Three Hera scenes in Victory’s Price are standouts — the scene where Nath and Hera sing a war ballad (pretty much paralleling the Edge of Night scene in Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King — you can easily see this song set to a backdrop of the TIEs bombing Chadawa), the scene where Hera takes off from the crashing Deliverance in the Ghost, and the scene where Hera talks to Mon Mothma and decides that Quell deserves forgiveness. It was clear that Hera was dealing with her own demons of being away from her son and having to put off the search for Ezra until the war was finished, and her role in the story as a mentor figure to the team, showcasing the best sides of Quell and Nath, was a very welcome addition.
The Cerberon System
It was an interesting narrative decision to set the entirety of Shadow Fall within a single system, but the setting choice by Freed is incredibly intriguing and reflects the themes of the story. The Cerberon system contains two worlds of note, Troithe and Catadra, as well as a planetoid that will be consumed by a black hole at the center of the system. Quell, Adan, and IT-O land on this planetoid, where they note that the planetoid will inevitably be consumed by darkness, and on this planetoid, Quell must confront the darkness of her past and absolve to move past it. She counters the imagery of the system that all will inevitably be consumed by darkness and pledges to move forward, leaving the planet before it is consumed by the black hole as a changed person. Catadra is the planet of the Children of the Empty Sun, a Force-worshipping cult that Chass encounters, and Troithe is an industrial planet that the Empire seeks to control. It’s very interesting to have this dichotomy in place of a planet that believes in community and sharing trauma, despite the inevitable darkness, with a planet that believes in control, looking to combat the inevitable darkness. Wyl and Nath spend the majority of the novel on Troithe, Chass ends up on Catadra, and Quell ends up on the planetoid, reflecting each of their arcs. Quell learns to counter her darkness, Chass learns to accept a community, and Wyl and Nath must both step up to leadership and figure out their loyalties through a brutal war of attrition, all reflecting the corresponding planets that they are on in this book.
Twilight Company
I thought the inclusion of the 61st Mobile Infantry in Shadow Fall was a great choice. Battlefront: Twilight Company is one of my favorite Star Wars novels, and I think Freed did a great job of expanding on his strengths in Twilight Company — primarily writing mentally unstable characters like Namir and Roach — in Alphabet Squadron. The story could have worked with random rebel soldiers in there instead, but the cynicism of Twilight Company, as established in their novel, was necessary for Wyl’s arc and for his idealism to contrast with their worldview. Also, it was nice to see Twitch, Carver, Zab, Vifra, and others from Twilight Company back again, and even to have Namir and Brand (albeit unnamed) involved in the initial asteroid plan to trap Shadow Wing.
Soundtrack:
To cap off this essay, I’ve compiled a list of soundtracks from various movies and shows (Star Wars and otherwise) that I believe best reflect the Alphabet Squadron trilogy.
For example, “Traitor’s Facade (#2)- First Nacronis flashback” means that Traitor’s Facade is the name of the track, the corresponding song is #2 on the below Spotify playlist, and First Nacronis flashback is the scene or character motif that this track corresponds to.
Overall, this is an absolute masterpiece of a trilogy, and I would love for Alexander Freed to write more Star Wars content!
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/32Xhk8cESv5wi8Qwj5ArQp?si=f6c98ed285ba4bc1
Alphabet Squadron
- Alphabet Squadron (Title Theme) (#1)
- Traitor’s Facade (#2) — First Nacronis flashback
- Gift to the Galaxy (#3) — Wyl Lark’s Theme
- The Story He Told (#4, 0:00–1:47) — Nath Tensent’s story
- Who? What? Where? (#5) — Chass’s Theme
- Clustered Combat (#6, 3:19-End) — Oridol Cluster Battle
- The Loner (#7) — Devon’s Theme
- Shadow Vendetta (#8) — Abednedo Escape
- Emperor’s Shadow (#9) — Kairos’s Theme, Harkrova Temple
- Pilots over Squadrons (#10, 2:04-End) — Montage of missions with Alphabet Squadron learning to work together
- Burning Worlds (#11) — Battle of Pandem Nai begins
- Avenging Trenchenovu (#12) — Nath confronts Nuress, Chass confronts herself, Alphabet Squadron & Shadow Wing shoot down the debris together
- Nacronis’ Eulogy (#13) — Second Nacronis flashback
- Here to Find Out (#14) — Ending dance scene on the Lodestar
- War’s Over, Imp! (#15, 0:00–1:37) — Devon reveals himself as Soran Keize
Shadow Fall
- Shadow Fall (Title Theme) (#26, 1:40-End)
- City of Demons (#16) — Sets the atmosphere of Troithe
- Twilight Company (#17) — Plays during the infantry street battles
- The Messenger (#18, 0:00–2:30) — Emperor’s Messenger Motif
- War of Attrition (#18, 4:12-End) — Battle where Kairos is injured
- Reckoning of Shadows (#19) — Overlapping shots of Kairos taken to Chandrila, Quell and Nath returning to the Lodestar, Wyl and Chass getting Adan’s message, Soran entering the system, Twilight Company on the asteroid
- Blink (#20) — Battle over Troithe begins
- Shadow Fall (#21) — Battle over Troithe continues, Lodestar down
- Urban Warfare (#22) — Wyl, Nath, and Twilight Company fight the Imperial loyalists on Troithe
- Nexus Events (#23) — Overlapping shots of Chass on Catadra, Quell on the planetoid, Soran overlooking the city, Wyl & Nath traveling with the infantry — every character at their lowest point, essentially.
- That Which You Take With You (#24) — Planetoid sequence part 1, death of IT-O and Adan
- I Move Forward (#25) — Planetoid sequence part 2, Quell opens the monolith
- Planting the Seed (#26) — Chass’ cult confession
- Core Nine (#27) — Battle at Core Nine
- Alliance (#28) — Hera arrives
- Courage in the Ruins (#29) — Shadow Wing and Quell escape Cerberon
- Inertial Velocity (#30) — Kairos returns, Quell reveals herself to Soran
Victory’s Price
- Victory’s Price Suite (Title Theme) (#31)
- Quell’s Fire (#31, 1:28–1:55) — Quell infiltrating Shadow Wing
- Cinders (#31, 4:09–6:06) — Soran enacts round 2 of Operation Cinder
- Into the Void (#31, 6:07-End) — Probe droids attack the Deliverance
- Nostalgic Surgeons (#32) — Mission to Netalych
- Not of the Empire (#33) — Kairos and Chass fight Shadow Wing on Netalych
- Dance of the Flyers (#34) — Wyl vs. Soran over Chadawa
- I am Healed (#35) — Kairos’ homeworld and metamorphosis
- Malevolent Equations (#36) — Quell imagines IT-O
- Soran’s Pilgrimage (#37) — Soran, Quell, and Kairos leave for Coruscant, the Deliverance leaves for Jakku
- Martyrdom and Freedom (#38) — Quell vs. Soran on Coruscant
- Blink and You’ll Miss It (#39) — Eulogy over the comlink, Wyl vs. Seedia, Seedia destroys the Deliverance
- Glimpse of Atonement (#40) — Chass makes her decision
- Metamorphosis (#42, 0:00–2:25) — Kairos’ final metamorphosis, Battle of Jakku ends
- Rangers of the New Republic (#41, 0:00–1:28) — Wyl and Nath’s final scene
- Flight (#42, 2:25-End) — Quell flies
- The Price of Victory (#43) — End Credits Theme (Avengers: Endgame signature-style credits for Seedia, IT-O, Adan, Hera, Soran, Nath, Kairos, Chass, Wyl, and Quell).
