Editor's note: The below contains spoilers for Episodes 1-3 of Andor.There are many signs in the first three episodes of Andor that emphasize how galactic society is crumbling apart. Everyone on Morlana One in the year 5 BBY seems to be on their own, left to fend for themselves where resources and trust are scarce. Corruption and poverty run rampant, and the powerful, greedy Preox-Morlana Corporation works to ensure that it stays that way. The citizens that labor for the Corporation are made to live in small buildings all cramped into a widespread area, and they have to work long days, leaving very little time for interpersonal relationships.
Life has grown hard and lonely as these private corporations strive to please the Empire, and because the Morlana Corporation fears an uprising against the Empire is building, things are about to get worse for the workers both on Ferrix and beyond.
Corruption in the Private Security Forces
The first episode opens with a blatant example of sentry guards abusing their power. Cassian (Diego Luna) shows up at a brothel asking for information on a girl from Kenari. While there, two Morlana guards hassle him, and after he leaves, they follow him to shake him down. Cassian fights back instead of paying off the corrupt guards and accidentally kills the first one he hits. When the other guard finds that his friend is dead, he begs Cassian to help him lie about what happened so no one gets in trouble, further proving the corruption of the corporate security guards.
Instead of helping the guard lie, Cassian decides he has to kill him and go into hiding. He is just looking for information when he goes out that night, but because of the Corpos' entitlement to misuse their power and dehumanize him, Cassian winds up with a big target on his back for their murder. This kind of systemic corruption is a clear sign of societal decay, since it indicates a culture that's discarded the values of honesty and integrity in favor of avarice and power.
The CEOs of the Security Forces Encourage Corruption
Viewers are shown later that corruption in the security forces doesn’t just lie with the henchmen drunk on power abusing the citizens. The Deputy Inspector for Morlana’s private security firm, Syril Karn (Kyle Soller), reports to Chief Inspector Hyne (Rupert Vansittart) that he believes investigating the murder of the guards is vital to their security. The Chief informs Karn that these two guards were at a brothel drinking on duty and probably provoked whoever murdered them, and that would look very bad for their security firm if those details became public.
Chief Hyne specifically mentions that their murder is bad timing because he’s leaving that very morning for an Imperial Regional Command review, where the crime rates in their region will be scrutinized by the Empire. Hyne shares with Karn the true goal of their security forces, telling him that "minimizing the time the Empire spends thinking about Preox-Morlana benefits our superiors and, by extension, everyone here at the Pre-Mor Security Inspection team, which at the moment includes you." The Chief is basically implying that if they didn’t hush up this murder, he might not be a part of the Pre-Mor Security Inspection team in the future. The systemic corruption of security forces going all the way up the chain of command clearly shows how the deterioration of the galaxy has gotten far worse under these private corporations.
The Thriving Black Market on Morlana One
Because of how restricted the labor class is, people in Cassian’s position who need help and need it fast have no choice but to turn to the black market. The more desperate a population is for the things only black markets can provide, the more the black market's economy is able to thrive. Cassian’s friend Bix Caleen (Adria Arjona) has a legitimate job working on engines, but we find out when Cassian visits her that she has connections to buyers in the black market looking for things that would be illegal to purchase any other way. Cassian has had a valuable machine stashed away for just such an occasion, and Bix’s connection comes to buy it right away.
This is one moment in the show where it seems that the Force seems to be at work, as Bix’s buyer Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgård) came because he was more interested in recruiting Cassian than acquiring the NS-9 Starpath Unit he was selling. There seems to be a far greater destiny in store for Cassian than going into hiding, and the connections he made through the thriving black market are what made it possible.
Fascist Factions Within the Corporate Security Forces
Karn has taken the murder of two of their own very personally, and sees this crime as an attack on the entire corporation. He has been ordered by Chief Hyne to sweep the murders under the rug and make up a story for the report that shows the officers' cause of death to be sensible and respectable, but easily brushed aside. The Deputy goes against this order, though, and leads an investigation to find and arrest the suspect.
Sergeant Linus Mosk (Alex Ferns) begins working under Karn and also disagrees with their Chief trying to hush up the murders. He calls the half-measures and coverups a “plague on discipline” and sees their superiors as weaklings disregarding their duty. He thinks that the affiliated planets within the Morlana system need stronger discipline to be kept in line, saying, “There’s fomenting out there, sir. Pockets of fomenting." It’s clear Mosk is not acting out of a rational fear that their security forces are being attacked, but that he’s hungry for more power and authority over the labor class that works for the Corporation.
A Spark of Rebellion Lights the Flame of Star Wars
After Bix’s jealous boyfriend Timm (James McArdle) turns Cassian into the Corporate Security HQ in the third episode, the community is outraged after they witness Karn and his fellow guards trash the home of Cassian’s adoptive mother, Maarva (Fiona Shaw). Immediately the working class people begin signaling each other, banging metal pipes outside their homes and locking down their doors and windows.
In the end, it takes many individuals committing several acts of sabotage to help Cassian escape from Karn. In the salvage fields, Cassian’s friend Brasso (Joplin Sibtain) hooks a cable from a monstrous piece of junk to one of the Corpos' ships to prevent them from having air cover. Bix, while trying to find Cassian, gets captured, handcuffed to a wall, and made to watch as the guards gun down Timm, something she may want revenge for later. Timm may have been a hot-headed jealous traitor, but he didn’t deserve that. Meanwhile, Luthen helps Cassian create a diversion to take out many of the guards and escape to his ship. Each of the people that aided him is left worried about if they did the right thing — or, even if it was right, might they get in trouble for helping.
Parallels Between This Small Rebellion and the Future Rebel Alliance
The galaxy has deteriorated to the point where most of the population is poor and vulnerable with very little hope left. This could be just the spark that the oppressed working class people of the galaxy need, though, to ignite the rebellion that will take down the Empire in the future. After all, Cassian was just searching for his sister when he was harassed by those Corpos, and he killed them to defend himself. The bullies who died being Karn's coworkers doesn’t give him the right to use his authority as a Deputy Inspector to oppress those he feels have wronged him.
This event on Morlana One is just a small-scale example of the galaxy-wide oppression private corporations are pushing their agenda under the banner of the Empire. It’s exactly this type of fascism that the Rebel Alliance is fighting to defeat in the original Star Wars trilogy, so it would make sense for this to be the very beginning of when the lower classes of the universe stand up against the Empire.
Andor premieres new episodes weekly each Wednesday on Disney+.