In the second-season premiere of Disney+’s Andor, a small group of Imperial officers gather for a meeting. In delicate euphemisms, over a tasteful catered lunch, plans are hatched for the wholesale slaughter of Ghorman, a vaguely Continential-inspired planet whose only crime is being made of material the Empire wishes to mine.
That the ruling powers would be capable of such callousness is no surprise; their abject cruelty is as much a part of the Star Wars fabric as orphan heroes or neurotic droids or the Force. But this isn’t Tarkin casually wiping out Alderaan to prove a point. This massacre is being orchestrated with great consideration not just for the logistics of murder but its packaging for the public, by an overseer (Ben Mendelsohn’s Orson Krennic) who recognizes that the right narrative can be just as effective a weapon, in its own way, as a fleet of Star Destroyers or
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