Tatooine might be the inescapable center of the Skywalker Saga, but when it comes to the most influential planets in the Star Wars galaxy, Ghorman just hyperspace jumped to the top of the list.

In the season premiere of Andor season 2, the Earth-like planet lands in the crosshairs of Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn), the cape-wearing Imperial crony last seen in Rogue One. In a secret meeting on the Maltheen Divide, Krennic and various representatives from across the Empire watch a 1950s-style PSA about the prosperous business of harvesting silk produced by Ghorman spiders, or ghorlectipods.

But Krennic’s interest in Ghorman goes beyond — or rather, deeper — than textiles: Underneath the planet is an ore, kalkite, that could completely reshape and empower the Empire. He intends to mine it at all costs.

Ghorman has been on the periphery of Star Wars lore while never in complete focus. In the first season of Andor, Ghorman pushback against Imperial rule led to sanctions from their overlords and cries in the planet’s defense in the Galactic Senate, spearheaded by Mon Mothma. Mentions of the planet’s silk production pop up in other parts of Star Wars — mainly in the High Republic book Convergence, set nearly 380 years before the events of the show — but Ghorman’s real claim to fame in Star Wars history is a violent turn.

Ported from “Legends” EU material like Dark Apprentice into canon auxiliary material like 2023’s Star Wars Timelines, the “Ghorman Massacre” saw the Empire “slaughter peaceful protestors” (per Timelines) who stood against trade blockades. Compilations of the bits and pieces of lore about the attack suggest thousands were killed. The Andor season 2 premiere sets up the pieces to depict this horrific event, which, if things follow current canon, should be an inciting moment for Mon Mothma to go full rebel.

Star Wars’ screen stories have their fair share of devastating Imperial action, but the way Krennic lights the fuse for the Ghorman Massacre is particularly ugly and despicable. If the established timeline holds, the Empire’s attack on Ghorman protestors will go down in BBY 2. We see Krennic’s meeting at the Maltheen Divide in BBY 4. What may have sounded like a moment of bubbled-over rage on the part of the Empire now looks like a diabolical plot.

“Ghorman is of great interest to the Empire,” Krennic says to his goons. The reason is kalkite energy; instead of manufacturing synthetic alternatives, the Empire could mine the real thing from the planet and truly fulfill the “Emperor’s dream of energy independence,” which sounds like the most cheery presidential executive order hogwash imaginable. The Empire surely does seek “stable, unlimited power,” as Krennic puts it, but I have feeling that coating “reactor lenses” has less to do with sustainability than powering, I don’t know, a Death Star? We know where Krennic winds up in Rogue One.

Krennic knows his pitch to frack Ghorman won’t even fly with all of his Imperial collaborators. So he brings in Dee Shambo and Nisus Osar from the absolutely evil-sounding Ministry of Enlightenment to lecture the group on the need to “weaponize the galactic opinion” over the Ghorman’s “arrogant” business affairs and the government’s general “secrecy.” Tony Gilroy’s metaphor for modern political chicanery feels so thinly veiled (in a forceful, satisfying way) that you almost expect someone to claim George Soros is fueling the Ghorman resistance effort. Only a few minutes later, one of Krennic’s goons wonders aloud if they should just unleash a plague on Ghorman to wipe out the population so they can swoop in with drills.

It gets uglier. Krennic has the majority on his side, but doesn’t trust his own propaganda plan. He turns to Security Bureau lieutenant Dedra Meero (Denise Gough) for better ideas. “You need a radical insurgency you can count on,” she tells him. “You need Ghorman rebels to do the wrong thing.”

Woof. The days of blowing up Alderaan in a single shot almost seem quaint. The stage is set for the Empire to get the best of the Ghorman people through their own slippery resistance. If the Empire can fuel enough rage, the protest movement will go over the line and give permission for them to enter, like militarized vampires. Like life, but unlike most Star Wars, it seems no one will show up at the perfect time to scream “It’s a trap!” The silk, the spiders, and the Ricola commercial of a planet will all be wiped out over something that has nothing to do with any of it. Most prequels tend to go back and shade in the familiar. Andor, on the other hand, plucks from Wookieepedia obscurity — then decimates accordingly. Good luck, Ghorman; we hardly knew you.

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