Editor's note: The below contains spoilers for Andor.The plot is quickly thickening on Andor. After the conclusion of the gorgeous first arc in the third episode, the new Star Wars show is carefully laying the foundations for Cassian (Diego Luna) to eventually turn into the accomplished Rebel spy we know from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. As expected, the overall tone of the series is highly political, emphasizing the abyss that exists between the might of the Galactic Empire and its subjects, and how profoundly affected the lives of ordinary people are under an authoritarian regime.

Star Wars is at its best when it takes actual elements from our own world and discusses them as plot points. It was so with the Original Trilogy and its analogy for the war on Vietnam, the prequels criticized the war on Iraq and even the sequels addressed the rise of fascist movements after decades. Now, Andor is continuing this tradition by tackling one of the practices that shaped our world as it is today: colonialism. Throughout the four episodes released so far — but especially on the fourth, "Aldhani" — the show effortlessly raises this issue, seeing as how the Empire colonizes worlds, explores them to the point of exhaustion, and then leaves them to their own luck after stripping them away of their resources.

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The Mimban Campaign

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Image via Lucasfilm

At the beginning of the episode, Luthen Rael (Stellan Skarsgard) and Cassian debate his joining the Rebellion against the Empire — which is still not the Rebel Alliance, but it's quickly growing into that. During the conversation, Cassian reveals he served as a cook in the Mimban Campaign, a bloody and messy conflict that saw the Empire conquering that world. We'd previously seen this in Solo: A Star Wars Story, when young Han Solo (Alden Ehrenreich) was in the infantry of the Imperial Army. Bounty hunter Beilert Valance also fought this campaign, as seen in the Bounty Hunters comics by Ethan Sacks.

As Cassian tells, the Empire had the population of Mimban fighting among themselves. The planet had already seen its fair share of conflict during the Clone Wars, and was once again the battlefield in a war for its natural resources. The planet was home to many species, and those who favored the Empire's presence were of great help to the Imperial troops. The conflict eventually got so bloody that both Cassian and Solo left their posts and deserted. Cassian even mentions being one of only 50 survivors.

The strategy of fomenting conflict inside the population of a nation is one of the most used by colonialist forces. Of course, the might of the Empire could easily subdue resistance in Mimban, but it's better to let the locals do most of the job — not only is it cheaper, but it also makes sure that a faction aligned with the colonizers comes out victorious.

Throughout history, there have been many cases in which foreign colonizers' presence divided people for their own benefit. The British employed this strategy in many of its colonies in the height of its empire, especially Nigeria and India. Even after colonial rule ends, these tactics leave lasting scars on the population. The dividing of the population of Rwanda into different ethnicities by the Belgian colonial authority, for example, resulted in the Rwandan Genocide decades later.

Aldhani

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Image via Disney+

The tactics the Empire used in Aldhani were a little different from those employed in Mimban, but no less effective. As Vel Sartha (Faye Marsay) explains, more than 40,000 villagers lived in the Aldhani highlands, and they were all driven by the Empire to the south Enterprise Zones to work for wages in factories and construction sites. Instead of natural resources, the Empire exploits the planet's strategical location. "Aldhani has the unfortunate quality of being close to nothing and not very far from everything, it's a perfect hub for distribution," Vel says.

As it turns out, money is also used as a colonizing tool. By promising easier access to basic needs and the chance to improve their way of life, the Empire got people to leave the countryside and move to the city. The offer of progress is one difficult to resist, especially combined with the prospect of climbing the social ladder. It rarely goes this way, though, as the ones making the offer don't usually intend to have people getting to the same level as them. Money only works as a power tool if there is an imbalance and one side has more than the other.

Another important consequence of the Imperial colonizing strategy in Aldhani is the decaying of local traditions. Vel tells Cassian that "there are still a few shepherds in the hills, nature-lovers, mystics, dead-enders," people who still cling to the old traditions, but the Empire's presence has all but swept away the traces of local culture and customs, immediately replacing them with the idea of working for a living. The offer of a life of dignity by earning your wages is usually enough to make rethink their lives in favor of a "true and superior" way of life.

In reality, this process happened especially in Africa, where ancient cultures were decimated in order to accommodate the European colonizers' way of life and, as consequence, make them rich while the locals were getting poorer. Latin America also saw most of its native peoples decimated by Portuguese and Spanish colonizers with the same intentions, but also with a religious twist backed by the Catholic Church. Vel also mentions the remains of a temple as part of their mission in Aldhani, making a direct parallel as to how religion and ideology are enforced on natives through money.

Perpetuating One's Power

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Image via Disney+

A given when talking about colonialism is that every colonial power seeks to perpetuate its hold over its colonies. Always. It might eventually become independent, but the price a colony pays is often too high to sustain its self-sufficiency, and they only start to fully develop as nations a long time later. In Star Wars, though, that's a far-away dream for most of the systems and planets in the galaxy, seeing as the Empire is very effective in establishing and maintaining its presence in conquered territories.

So far, all Star Wars movies and series that take place in the Imperial Era show different ways by which the Empire asserts its dominance and power in the galaxy. In the animated series The Bad Batch, we see the issuing of Imperial Chain Codes to every single citizen, a way of keeping track and better controlling the people. In Solo, the only way young Han can leave his homeworld of Corellia is by enlisting in the Imperial Academy, because he simply cannot afford a ticket for an official transport due to the social disparity between Imperials and their supporters and the rest of the population. Rogue One shows exactly how oppressive the Empire's authority is, especially in Jedha. Now, Andor further explores this issue by showing the internal mechanisms of Imperial dominance, in worlds like Aldhani and beyond.

Andor premieres new episodes weekly every Wednesday on Disney+.