Chandrila: A World Shrouded in Political Shadow in the Star Wars Galaxy
Despite Mon Mothma’s rising prominence in the Star Wars universe, Chandrila, her home planet, remains surprisingly unexplored. Unlike iconic locales such as Coruscant, Hoth, Tatooine, and Alderaan, which have played pivotal roles in the Skywalker Saga, Chandrila’s significance has primarily been symbolic. Even its contribution to the Rebel Alliance has been more about representing ideals than providing tangible support. The upcoming second season of Andor marks the first time viewers will witness Chandrila on-screen in current Star Wars canon, shifting its importance towards its role in the early New Republic era rather than during the Empire’s reign.
Even within the Expanded Universe (EU), now known as Legends, Chandrila, like its Senator, served more as a symbol of resistance against the Empire than a crucial operational base for the Alliance to Restore the Republic. So what do we know about Chandrila’s role in the Galactic Civil War across both versions of the Star Wars narrative? The simple answer is, not much, which speaks volumes.
In both iterations of its history, Chandrila is a key figure in the Republic’s foundation. As a major planet in the galactic core, relatively close to the eventual hub of galactic civilization, little was explored about it until the era of the mainline Star Wars movies. Even Chandrila’s participation in the Clone Wars remains largely untouched. Recently, Alexander Freed’s novel Mask of Fear revealed that its capital, Hanna City, was targeted by extended orbital bombardment during the conflict, which was largely thwarted by planetary shielding.
This enigma persists throughout the Empire’s rise. While Mon Mothma’s documented opposition to the new Emperor and her involvement in Padmé Amidala’s Delegation of 2,000 would have made her a key player in the Imperial Senate’s efforts to curb the abuse of power, it was only after Mothma’s departure from office following the Imperial military’s Ghorman massacre and the formal declaration of the Alliance to Restore the Republic in 2 BBY that Chandrila became known as a sympathetic world to the Rebel cause. Even then, its direct role in the war remained obscure; the world was simply one of thousands suffering under the Empire’s shadow, rather than a particularly focused target.
Chandrila was recognized as an important site for materiel and secure supply caches by the Alliance, but its reputation was primarily symbolic because of its association with Mon Mothma. This symbolism partially contributed to the world, along with Mon Cala, being included on the list of potential targets for the second Death Star following the Rebel fleet’s defeat over Endor.
In the rebooted Star Wars canon, Chandrila’s importance is considerably greater after the events of Return of the Jedi. With Coruscant engulfed in planetary civil war after the Emperor’s death, Chandrila became the capital of the reformed Republic. The first senate convened in Hanna City, with Mothma as its first Chancellor. In the following year, Chandrila became an important military and legislative center for the emerging Republic as military operations against the Imperial remnant continued. However, an attempted terrorist attack by brainwashed liberated Imperial prisoners at peace negotiations between the New Republic and the Empire caused the first attempt to end the Galactic Civil War to fall apart, jeopardizing Chandrila’s position as the New Republic’s heart.
Despite remaining the Republic’s capital, even after Coruscant’s liberation and the formal end of the war with the signing of the Galactic Concordance, the Republic Senate would rotate its residency across member worlds each year until the body’s destruction on Hosnian Prime in 34 ABY.
Chandrila’s period during the Empire’s rise is much more extensively explored in the Expanded Universe, owing to the sheer amount of content. Yet, what we learned about the planet was primarily a prelude to what would transpire in the rebooted continuity. In the EU, Chandrila was still a largely symbolic representation of resistance to the Empire, but in a much more proactive way. While tensions between it and other worlds involved in the early formalization of the Alliance (namely Corellia and Alderaan) once again largely made Mon Mothma a political figurehead of the organization rather than a significant military power, Chandrila was a key world for Rebel recruitment and supplies throughout the Empire’s rule.
It was the Rebellion’s destruction of the first Death Star that truly made Chandrila a target for Imperial efforts. After Mon Mothma’s replacement as its representative in the Imperial Senate, Canna Omonda, was executed a year after the Battle of Yavin for publicly condemning the Emperor’s dissolution of the governing body, Chandrila—which had already been subjected to retaliatory tariffs on luxury agricultural exports by COMPNOR (the Commission for the Preservation of the New Order)—was blockaded by the Imperial Navy.
Although Rebel forces, led by Rogue Squadron, managed to liberate the port city of Nayli from ground assault and supply restrictions, Imperial forces in the sector stationed fleets around the nearby worlds of Brentaal IV and Corulag, effectively threatening Chandrila with a larger planetary blockade that effectively kept the planet out of open participation in the Galactic Civil War. Only after the Battle of Endor (just as would be the case in revised continuity, victory for the Empire would’ve meant a full planetary invasion of Chandrila and its eventual destruction by the second Death Star) and the liberation of Coruscant itself would the blockade be lifted, allowing Chandrila’s provisional government to formally join the nascent New Republic.
The comparative lack of exploration of Chandrila, whether due to its genuine lack of emphasis in current Star Wars canon beyond Mon Mothma herself or the planet’s blockade in the EU, has left the world’s society only superficially explored. In many respects, Star Wars’ penchant for single-biome worldbuilding extended to Chandrilan culture in the limited ways it was touched upon. Because our primary lens on the world was through Mon Mothma, who was largely explored as a political leader of the Alliance and later the New Republic, any information we learned about Chandrila was filtered through her. Mon Mothma was interested in politics, so Chandrila is now an entire planet obsessed with politics, with a cultural reputation for robust debate and a matching interest in civics, and its people defined by outspoken political candor.
That may change slightly when we visit the world for the first time in Andor season two. The show’s prior, but brief, exploration of Chandrilan culture, again through Mon Mothma’s personal perspective, touched on a divide between modern cosmopolitan society and ancient cultural traditions, particularly arranged marriage. Chandrilan culture, when not expressly about politics, had a similar undertone in the EU: as an agricultural world, Chandrila was noted for its unwavering nurturing of the planetary ecology, promoting the idea that its natural world could coexist with the technological advancement of interstellar society.
No doubt, what we see of Chandrila in Andor will continue to emphasize the traditional aspects Mon Mothma dislikes more than anything else. But beyond being our first time seeing the world on-screen, it will at least add much-needed texture to a significant location in the Star Wars galaxy.
