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Both the Rebel Alliance and the Resistance have called a few different planets and moons home over the course of Star Wars’ history, and yet Yavin 4 continues to be the best of them all. Finding somewhere safe outside the purview of a fascistic government can’t be an easy task, but Rebels somehow keep finding their way to the jungle moon of the gas giant Yavin Prime. We first see this moon in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope as the home base of the Rebel Alliance and again in Rogue One. Though we’ve yet to see how or why the Rebels came to settle on Yavin, Andor season 2 might just give us some insight into how this Rebel base came to be.
Series creator Tony Gilroy told Empire Magazine that there will be a return to Yavin this season. “I mean, we have to end up in Yavin, right? So, we’ll tell the story of Yavin. No one has quite dealt with Yavin the way we will be doing it.”
Settling on a planet like Hoth, as the Rebel Alliance does in The Empire Strikes Back, makes logistical sense. It has a harsh, unforgiving, frozen surface, which makes it less likely for there to be Empire-sympathizers hidden on the planet and it makes it less likely for random ships to show up and find them. Obviously, we know that this logic wasn’t totally foolproof as the Empire does find them, but it makes more sense, in some ways, to make a home base on a planet like this than it does on Yavin 4.
But we can’t fault the Rebels for choosing Yavin 4 as their first major base either. From what we’ve seen of it thus far, Yavin is a gorgeous place. It’s lush and green and inviting. It does make sense that Rebel leaders would want to settle on a place that kind of feels like a vacation destination – probably makes for a nice little morale boost.
We’ve yet to see other people on Yavin 4 other than the Rebels. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the moon was uninhabited, but the Rebels also don’t seem like the kinds of people who would force their way into a place if it meant angering or displacing people indigenous to the planet. That’s what the Empire does.
In the Doctor Aphra comic series, it was revealed that a species known as the Massassi once lived on Yavin 4, but they were extinct for millennia before the Battle of Yavin took place. They built temples at the behest of a tyrannical Sith Lord, which we have yet to see on screen. It doesn’t seem likely that Gilroy would reference these in Andor, as the series likes to stay grounded in the everyday people outside of the Sith and Jedi, but it’s still an important part of the moon’s history that could come into play.
It will certainly be interesting to see how Yavin 4 went from what was likely an abandoned moon to the hub of the Rebel fleet. By the time we see Yavin in Rogue One and A New Hope, the base is thriving with forces moving in and out as needed. The Battle of Yavin is so important to Star Wars history that it has become the point from which all other time in the Star Wars universe is based. Everything either happens before the Battle of Yavin (BBY) or after (ABY). We can’t wait to see what Andor has in store for this moon and what the show will add to its history.
Andor season 2 premieres Tuesday, April 22, 2025 on Disney+.
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