S4 Prediction & Speculation Thread

Yeah that concept art doesn't bode well for Clan Wren.

Since the Rebels team seems to be headed for Yavin 4 I guess we might see an episode devoted to them being sent to Dantooine to assist in the withdrawal from the base there.

 

When they showed this on Rebels Recon, the themes of Vader and Ahsoka played in the background....

--- Double Post Merged, Mar 26, 2017, Original Post Date: Mar 26, 2017 ---

 

For me, there are only three loose threads that need to be tied up before the end of Rebels: Mandalore, Ahsoka and Lothal. I think that the Alliance will not free Lothal but that they will manage to destroy the factory. The fourth thread will be the relation between Saw Gerrera and Mon Mothma.

 

Mara Jade.

 

That would be interesting.

 

If the Rebels are going to be based on Yavin then they will probably have a lot more Rogue One connections. Maybe with cameos by Cassian Andor, K2-SO, Admiral Raddus, and maybe Red Leader and Blue Leader since we got Gold Leader this past season.

 

When I saw those helmets, my first thought was: Vader was here. But then I remember the second part of Zero Hour. The imperials know that the rebels got help from the Mandalorians, which were supposed to be neutral to the larger conflict. Mandalore is not part of the Rebel Alliance for a reason. So, I would expect Thrawn to respond with a devastating retaliation, and possibly Vader gives him a hand with it. This could bring Sabine back to the Ghost for the remainder of the Season.

If Sabine passes the Darksaber to Bo-Katan as many folks are predicting, and one of these helmets belongs to the latter, then we can expect this weapon to fall into imperial hands, and eventually be placed in a safe location: Scariff, under the code-name Blacksaber.

I also think we haven't seen the last of the Bendu. He must have become one with the Force that's for sure. The question would be .. after this, will he remain "in the middle" knowing that one of the sides fired upon him and then killed him? The most likely appearance would be as a force-ghost guiding Kanan.

Rebel's Recon gave us a hint that Ahsoka's story may come back for a final end. How would she escape Malachor? Ezra/Kanan would need a reason to go back. One could be to put the Sith Holocron back to its rightful place. Another one could be related to the Bendu. A force-ghost, omniscient Bendu could reveal Ezra/Kanan that Ahsoka is still alive, and that could trigger a rescue mission.

I think we're not going to see Hera's promotion to General on screen. She may just appear as General in S4.E01, as a way to tell that some time has passed, in the same way we never saw Ezra building his new green lightsaber.

I hope we see a bit more of the children of the Force.

A lot more R1 connections:

• New Fulcrum: I'm possitive we're going to see Cassian, including perhaps a flashback to explain how he got into this fight when he was just 6 years old. Stealing K2SO from imperial hands and reprogramming it.
• Jyn Erso's arrest.

With Maul gone and apparently no more inquisitors left, who would be the main dark-force antagonist? I don't think they would bring more inquisitors. I think we're going to see more Vader, and hopefully a bit of Palpatine.

 

I was thinking about the big Vader scene in Rogue One. When he appears in the hallway there is an instant look of fear on the faces of the rebel troopers. He's only one man, so there must have been an incident where Vader gave them something to fear by his presence alone. Hopefully we get to see that moment in S4.

 

When I first saw Vader in '77 I knew nothing about the character other than he looked like a bad, bad man from his appearance alone. And that was just him standing with hands-on-hips and looking at dead bodies. Seeing him in a darkened corridor with a light saber in hand would probably be sufficient to unnerve any rank and file soldier who had spent months serving as a guard in the cozy confines of a consular ship.

 

Thanks for the support.

 

Kallus is a triple agent! That smile he gave after Kanan walked away, following his rescue from the escape pod, was telling. I think he's playing some sort of deep cover with Thrawn, possibly Vader. His turn to the Rebellion was too abrupt. I never believed it. That grin confirmed it, for me.

Although to what end? If Season 4 ends with the Battle of Scarif, or thereabouts, there's really not much he could do for the Empire at this point. The Rebellion relocates to Yavin IV and there they stay until the Death Star is destroyed. None of the leadership is killed or captured. So maybe I'm wrong...

But there must be a reason we see NO Mandalorians in the OT or beyond... so there's my prediction. That teaser image is literal. Mandalore is wiped out. All of them.

 

If he was Yavin would have been discovered before R1 and the rebellion would have been either wiped out or scattered.

 

I actually said as much in the next paragraph. A cool story would be Kanan becoming suspicious of him and being forced to kill him before he can rat them out, but maybe not having enough evidence to convince Zeb and Ezra, driving a wedge between them. Maybe even splitting them apart. Could be a way to separate them all before R1 and ANH, too. Kanan loses faith in the Force and goes back into hiding, Ezra goes rogue. Who knows. Pure speculation.

 

Wooo, I do love speculation. A few thoughts of what I expect next season- some based on interviews, some totally crackpot theories.

- Obviously, we're going to Mandalore. I expect a two episode arc. In the first one, we see Clan Wren and their allies fight the Saxon alliance. In episode two of the arc, I expect both sides to have to come together to fend off annihilation at the hands of the empire. Heavy casualties, including Rau.

- Mothma and Saw's deteriorating relationship and eventual parting of ways. I guess a lot of things could cause this, but here are two possibilities:
a) The alliance learns of a superweapon the Empire is building (the Death Star). Without knowing its full potential even, Mothma wants to dismantle and sabotage the project, while Saw wants to capture it and use it against the Empire.
b) Saw captures Thrawn and uses less than savory interrogation methods that Mothma disproves of against him to learn more about the Empire, using Bor Gullet. This would also fall in line with the Bendu's "prophecy" about Thrawn and the "embrace of many arms" or whatever it was.

- X-wings, finally. I still expect us to get Z-95s first, and see modified X-wings not long after. Probably at Mandalore.

- A few more Rogue One character appearances. Cassian and K2 most likely. Jyn somewhat likely, I guess. Krennic definitely a possibility, as I believe Tarkin is coming back as well. Chirrut and Baze probably won't happen, though a Chirrut/Kanan meeting could be interesting.

- A cutesy droid-centric episode featuring Chopper, AP-5, and K2.

All right, and one final, insane crackpot theory:
Assuming we don't lose Thrawn to Bor Gullet, let's say that we actually do get the Ghost's perspective on the Battle of Scarif near the end of the season (which, I do hope happens). Perhaps, in an effort to gain favor with the Empire, Thrawn also follows Tantive IV to Tatooine, and lands on the surface, to try to find the droids. This can accomplish some interesting things, in this order:
1) Thrawn gets captured by Jabba, bringing him into the show for the first time (unless I forgot an earlier appearance)
2) We get to see other bounty hunters- classic ESB ones like Boba, Dengar, Bossk- but also TCW scum players like Hando, Embo, and Bane. Rebels does like its TCW references, and I think it does a good job of making the overall universe feel more connected.
3) We can still see the Bendu's prophecy, in the form of the Sarlaac pit...

Or, maybe craziest of all, we might just see Thrawn survive.

One thing to consider- midway through the season, we'll get The Last Jedi. I wonder if we'll learn anything about Thrawn in it, or Ezra?

 

Did you read the last Aftermath book? Toward the conclusion we learn Thrawn was essentially the stellar cartographer for the outer galaxy. That's where he was originally from and he knew the safe route to wherever it was the Empire regrouped to form the First Order. At the end of the book, Admiral Sloane arrives and sees the Emperor's old SSD already there. What if Thrawn is there, too? It's entirely possible Palpatine chose him to lead the reformation, under Snoke? It would make sense, and give us some great stories in the Aftermath-Aftermath period.

 

I think that's definitely a possibility, too. Maybe the upcoming Thrawn novel can also shine some light on this.

 

Alright, alright...

I've mentioned this quite a lot before, but since we are approaching the Rogue One period of time, I would definitely love they include Cassian Andor - since Fulcrum 2.0 is now with the Rebellion - and of course Kay-too! Can you imagine a exchange of K-2SO with AP-5 and Chopper?? And if they add Artoo and Threepio to the mix just because they go to Yavin that would be awesome! (Guess poor Threepio would have a hard time with this fellas!)

But yeah, bring Cassian and Kay-too. (And of course get Diego and Alan to voice them too!)

Lothal does not get attacked on a big scale attack anymore - I guess they find a way to destroy the factory on some other way. Maybe that's the reason why we do not see so many TIE defenders around during the OT period.

Mandalore gets wiped in some way. I agree that Bo-Katan gets the Darksaber from Sabine, but things do not look so promising for Clan Wren or the remaining Death Watch loyal to Mandalore. And that could explain why we didn't see Mandalorians fighting with the Rebel Alliance during the OT.

Ahsoka... please let Ahsoka live!!! Agree with @Darth Walt maybe the Force-Ghost of the Bendu will show the way to Kanan and Ezra to rescue her. And something will send her to hiding, and hopefully we will find more about her during that period of time when Luke was MIA during the Aftermath trilogy. (In my headcanon wishlist, there is a moment when Ahsoka calls Luke "young Skyguy" too LOL)

*jumps with excitement*

Since we are about two standard years from the final demise of Saw Gerrera in Jedha, I expect that to be included in Rebels in some way, since they included Saw involved with our Ghost crew in Geonosis. Maybe some mission went terribly wrong and Saw needed his life support suit and lost his legs. Especially since this summer there will be released this Inferno Squad book about a Imperial infiltration on what remains of Saw's Partisans, it would be good to learn how he ended up in Jedha.

That would be a cool way to end up with the Darksaber.