Erskin Semaj? ‘Andor’ Just Revealed a Secret ‘Star Wars: Rebels’ Connection

Andor shares a complicated relationship to canon. The series has already established that the event previously thought to be called the “Ghorman Massacre” had actually happened years ago, and is now referred to as the “Tarkin Massacre” — meaning the planet has an established history with Empire interference.

Now, the series is overlapping with another part of Star Wars canon: “Secret Cargo,” an episode of Rebels following the crew as they safely transport Galactic Senator Mon Mothma after she makes a speech condemning Emperor Palpatine. While certain moments of the episodes don’t match up, they do share one similarity: a crucial aide who is way more important than we first thought.

Warning! Spoilers ahead for Andor Season 2 Episode 7-9.

Erskin Semaj was an aide to Mon Mothma during the final years leading up to the events of the original trilogy, and he made his Star Wars debut in “Secret Cargo” back in 2017. His name is actually inspired by James Erskine, a story editor at Lucasfilm, as “Semaj” is “James” spelled backwards. He subsequently appeared in a few more episodes of Rebels and has already appeared in a number of episodes of Andor Season 2, but it wasn’t until the most recent batch of episodes that he was able to truly show his role in the Rebellion.

Andor’s version of Erskin is one of Luthen’s agents, so he serves as the liaison between Mon and the rest of the greater Rebellion. He’s the one who finds a listening device in her office, and he’s the one who is paranoid that there could be more. He’s also the person who briefs Cassian about what his mission will be just before Mon Mothma’s speech.

This role is certainly different than the one we see him take in Rebels, considering he has a disagreement with Mon about the amount of caution to take. In Rebels, he’s doing whatever he can to protect the Senator. Here, he’s doing the same thing, but he’s allowed to be human and show that in a rebellion, everyone has a different threshold for risk. And after the speech, the risk for everyone has become much greater.

This character is a testament to what Andor does best: taking a character who existed previously just to inform the main characters of the circumstances and turning them into a fully fleshed-out figure in Star Wars canon. Regardless of how this episode fits into the greater canon, that is always a benefit.

Andor Season 2 is now streaming on Disney+.