Star Wars: Shattered Empire Writer Shares Details on The Aftermath of Return of the Jedi

The destruction of the second Death Star we've seen in Return of the Jedi is apparently just the beginning of Star Wars. With new books describing the events that take place after Episode VI, we can find out what happened in the 30-year gap before The Force Awakens comes out this December.

New plot details have emerged from Greg Rucka, the author of Marvel Entertainment's Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens --Shattered Empire comic book series. In an interview with Starwars.com, he offered some plot details about the aftermath. He says that the Emperor's absence doesn't kill the force of the Empire:

"The Empire still has resources. The Empire still has an enormous fleet. They may be in disarray post the Battle of Endor, but to think that in that vacuum people aren't stepping up [is shortsighted]"All these people are not about to go, ‘Oh, well, I guess we were on the wrong side. It's over, then.' [Laughs] There's a Moff out there who's like, 'Right. I'm emptying the bank accounts, I'm changing my name, and I'm going to Aruba.'' You know there is. But for every Moff who does that, there are five who say, 'Like hell am I leaving this post. We've got stormtroopers for a reason. You get out there and you shoot every last one of these upstart insurgents, these terrorists, and you make clear to them that the rule of law still stands.' So it does get ugly."

We see there, a hint that the Empire has no intention of going quietly into that dark night. One assumes that there's an uptick in support for the Alliance: people who are now willing to take up arms with the news that they [blew up the Death Star], the Emperor's gone. ‘This is our chance.' But by the same token, the Empire now has to double down. They cannot risk not defending what they hold with all their power, because they've got to know how tenuous their position is in these first couple of weeks after Endor. That's something that Leland and Pablo specifically commented on. That, while there are places that will be able to rise up, there are places that start to and the cost is so punitive that it immediately fails, and there are others where they just don't dare."

Rucka said that he was inspired by real history, and his story was influenced by the Arab Spring, the Soviet Bloc, and North Korea when he approached depicting the state of the galaxy in the comic.

"The other thing that I tend to look at is propaganda. Who controls the airwaves? The Empire does. So, the Rebellion can be jumping up and down, and screaming at the top their lungs, ‘Palpatine is dead!' But I guarantee you, that message didn't reach 70 percent of the galaxy. It's a rumor. It's a whisper."

Then, he went on to talk about Princess Leia, and her experience after the Battle of Endor:

"When you start to think about it, and you think about what Leia now knows coming out of the Battle of Endor, she's got a lot on her plate. I mean, she's got a lot on her plate, both as a war leader and as a politician following the Battle of Endor. But in the midst of all that, she's got to reconcile the fact that her biological father is directly responsible for the destruction of the people that she's always believed were her family, of her mother and father, of Alderaan, and everything else that Vader did. And once you start unpacking that, you've got this story of Padmé Naberrie, who is Padmé Amidala. That leads, inevitably, and it doesn't have to be a big moment, to her going, ‘Wait a second,' and that scene where she's got to turn [to Mon Mothma] and say, ‘You were there. She was your friend. Who was she? I want to know.' That's a hidden scene. Someday, somebody will write that scene. That scene is not in Shattered Empire. There is an insinuation that that scene has occurred. I tried very hard to respect the canonand the logical extrapolations of it."

There's a lot of interseting plot to explore in the upcoming Star Wars books. Reading them would probably give us a richer viewing experience for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Are you interested in readin the Journey to the Force Awakens books?