This morning Lucasfilm lastly gave us our first, brief look on the long-awaited second season of Andor. In addition to hinting on the conflicts to return, each internally and towards the Empire alike, in doing so it additionally quietly teased one other teeny little bit of the outdated Star Wars Expanded Universe making its method again onto screens.
That teeny bit is definitely not-so teeny, bodily talking. It’s the ship that Cassian is seen stealing through the snippet: a TIE Fighter with a well-recognized design that can instantly be recognizable by any old style followers of classic PC flight sims within the type of TIE Fighter‘s TIE Avenger. And if the ship is something prefer it was once within the EU, then Cassian is pilfering fairly the imply little starfighter.
What Is the TIE Avenger?
First launched within the 1994 traditional TIE Fighter, the Avenger was one in all a number of profitable manufacturing descendants of the TIE Superior prototype flown by Darth Vader in A New Hope. That includes the TIE Defender, canonized in present continuity through the occasions of Star Wars Rebels. In-game, the Avenger enters deployment after the occasions of the Battle of Hoth happen in Empire Strikes Again, because the Empire started shifting fighter design away from the sheer overwhelming scale of mass-produced customary TIEs—buying and selling protection for maneuverability and numbers—to a collection of extra particular traces of fighter ships that would counter the Insurgent fleet’s equally designed assault wings, in addition to the Alliance’s hit-and-run guerrilla techniques.
The Avenger performed a serious position within the narrative of TIE Fighter‘s story marketing campaign, earlier than making appearances in its successor video games X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter and X-Wing Alliance as a playable ship. However whereas Andor season two will mark the primary time we’ve seen a TIE Avenger within the modern Star Wars continuity, it’s not the primary time the ship has been acknowledged within the rebooted canon, having been beforehand talked about in reference books.
What Made the TIE Avenger So Harmful?
Improvement of the Avenger and Defender leaned upon what was seen by the Imperial Navy as an growing must shift to high quality over amount in its Starfighter corps. Each the TIE Fighter and TIE Interceptor excelled in established Imperial techniques of sending massive quantities of ships to overwhelm the technically superior fighter craft utilized by the Insurgent Alliance, however growing Imperial defeats within the wake of the destruction of the Dying Star, in addition to the introduction of additional Alliance ships like the A and B-Wing, noticed a number of Imperial leaders push for growth on increased high quality craft that would obtain related ranges of offensive and defensive functionality as their enemies.
The TIE Avenger was supposed to be the Navy’s go-to house superiority fighter, championing this pivot. The Avenger featured an elevated stage of armament, with 4 blaster cannons on the suggestions of its photo voltaic arrays; multi-purpose warhead launchers that allowed the ship to hold elevated payloads of missiles, torpedoes, and even heavy bombs that allowed it to supplant the TIE Bomber as an assault ship in some capacities; and even a short-ranged, restricted tractor beam that the Avenger may use to momentarily disable enemy fighters and line up a killshot. Whereas the Avenger had equally marginal bodily armor plating to the TIE Fighter and Interceptor, alongside that extra offensive functionality was the inclusion of deflector shields, a primary for the TIE line.
However what made the TIE Avenger such a potent starfighter was that it integrated all of those developments into an identical dimension profile as prior TIEs, on high of getting superior engines that permit it attain speeds that would even outmatch the A-Wing. Pairing these engines with the inclusion of a devoted hyperdrive additionally allowed the Avenger for use in hit-and-run missions, in a position to soar right into a system, assault, and slip away once more at lightspeed—a key tactic of the Insurrection, however one which had largely been eschewed by the Empire.
What Occurred to the TIE Avenger within the Star Wars Expanded Universe?

The thought of a brand new TIE Fighter being launched post-Hoth that principally outgunned, out-moved, and out-defended the whole lot else being utilized in Galactic Civil Conflict as much as that time makes it appear to be all the percentages have been stacked within the Empire’s favor, however as ever, Imperial paperwork and corruption stymied its impression on the combating till it was too late.
In fact, a ship with such superior capabilities value much more to supply than the TIE Fighter—even when the purpose was the necessity to deploy much less of them in engagements—angering Imperial Command, which might funnel among the improvements from the Superior’s prototyping line into cheaper ships just like the Interceptor and Bomber as a substitute, resulting in a lowered manufacturing want for the Avenger. As a distinct segment elite starfighter, the Avenger was additionally shortly supplanted by the event of its sister ship from the Superior line, the TIE Defender, which had related offensive and defensive capabilities, higher maneuverability, and a bigger design profile that afforded it the prospect to be a multi-role vessel as a substitute of strictly targeted on fighter interception just like the Avenger did. The Defender was a equally expensive mission, however its expanded subject functionality made it a extra viable funding even past its minor positive aspects over the Avenger on a technical stage.
Ultimately what capability the Empire needed to produce the Avenger was closely broken by the betrayal of Grand Admiral Demetrius Zaarin. Zaarin was one of many lead architects on growth of each the Avenger and Defender whereas he labored for the Empire, however a rising disillusionment with Palpatine noticed him launch an tried coup in 3ABY. One among Zaarin’s first strikes was to start assaulting Avenger manufacturing services, wiping out a lot of the Empire’s already restricted capability to supply the ship at a big scale. By the point Zaarin was defeated, the Empire itself was on the verge of its splintering with the loss of life of the Emperor and Darth Vader on the Battle of Endor, so there was no time in any respect for Avenger manufacturing to ramp up once more, consigning it to historical past as one of many Imperial Navy’s awkward center kids of fighter design.
What Does the TIE Avenger Imply for Andor Season 2?

As with just about each wink to the deep cuts of Star Wars continuity within the present thus far, in all probability little or no. Andor‘s focus has by no means been on the Easter egg nods to wider Star Wars canon it provides to diehards prepared to note (just like the point out of the Rakata in season one). To the viewers that is aware of, it’s a cool nod to a beloved sport. To the viewers that doesn’t—and most probably maybe a Cassian that doesn’t, both—a TIE Fighter is a TIE Fighter regardless of the form of its wings or its weapons loadout. In any case, as Luthen tells him as a part of the transient montage of clips we obtained to see, Cassian remains to be considering like a thief, fairly than as a serious determine in a burgeoning insurgency.
However provided that the second season can be set leaping 12 months by 12 months nearer to the time of Rogue One and A New Hope, it is attention-grabbing if that is the on-screen debut of the Avenger. Contemplating its historical past within the EU as an evolution of the TIE Superior prototype, the thought of seeing it in a recent interval to that ship (which we already know was uncommon and distinctive in A New Hope as Vader’s private vessel) raises some enjoyable questions. It additionally wouldn’t be the primary time a TIE Superior offshoot obtained launched into the timeline earlier than A New Hope both: Rebels, which is chronologically modern to Andor, did a lot the identical with the introduction of the TIE Defender as one in all Thrawn’s private tasks—which itself confronted a similar fate of Imperial paperwork and incompetence stopping its mass manufacturing earlier than it may change into a serious risk.
Need extra io9 information? Try when to count on the most recent Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s subsequent for the DC Universe on film and TV, and the whole lot it is advisable find out about the way forward for Doctor Who.
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