Wedge Antilles/Legends

"I am Wedge Antilles. I survived the Battle of Yavin. I survived the Battle of Hoth. Hell... Just a couple of weeks ago I blew up the Death Star during the Battle of Endor. The reason I'm still breathing when a lot of other good Rebel pilots aren't? Maybe it's because I'm better. Or maybe I'm just lucky."

- Wedge Antilles

Wedge Antilles was a legendary Corellian X-wing pilot, intelligence operative, and general who fought for the Rebel Alliance and New Republic from the earliest days of the Galactic Civil War through the Yuuzhan Vong War and beyond.

While Luke Skywalker was the last hope for the Jedi and Han Solo a natural leader, Wedge went down in galactic history as a man of the people, a "working class hero".

Antilles served in Starfighter Command for three decades, repeatedly defying terrifying odds, and was among the very few to survive the battles of Yavin, Hoth, and Endor. He was also the only pilot to have faced both Death Stars and survived.

Early life


Wedge's early life was split between attending school on Corellia and working aboard the Gus Treta space station with his older sister Syal, where his parents, Jagged and Zena, operated a starship-refueling depot. Syal ran away from home when Wedge was 7, and they did not meet again until following the Battle of Endor.

When Wedge was 17, the pirate Loka Hask pulled away from the station while the fuel lines were still attached to his craft, Buzzzer. The resulting fireball would have killed all aboard had the Antilles not sacrificed themselves to save the station. Wedge was devastated and set out in a dilapidated Z-95 Headhunter borrowed from Corellian smuggler Booster Terrik to seek vengeance. Numb with shock and determination, Wedge tracked the pirates to the Jumus system and coldly obliterated Buzzzer, though Hask escaped.

Galactic Civil War
"Damn you!"

- Sarkli

Insurance money allowed Wedge to buy a freighter, and he spent several years running supplies for Terrik to the nascent Rebellion. He only joined its starfighter division during an open call for pilots. He was one of four pilots (along with Biggs Darklighter, Jek Porkins and Cesi Eirriss) who assisted Captain Nera Dantels in bringing badly needed R2 units to Yavin 4. Upon returning to Yavin 4, he joined in the attack on the first Death Star, flying an X-wing in the unit designated Red Squadron as Red 2, alongside Biggs and Luke Skywalker. It was during the pilots' approach to the station that Antilles uttered the immortal words, "Look at the size of that thing!". Following Skywalker into the trench, he was forced to pull away when a TIE fighter's laser fire shredded his fighter's stabilizer.



Afterwards, he founded Rogue Squadron along with Luke Skywalker, which participated in several Rebel missions, including the campaign against Moff Kohl Seerdon, a skirmish over Geonosis where he fought the traitorious Sarkli, the Battle of Jabiim and an attack on Thila (during which the Wookiee Chewbacca was an unwilling passenger). Wedge flew a modified T-47 airspeeder with Rogue Squadron during the Battle of Hoth, destroying an AT-AT. Later in the battle, he flew his X-wing as a transport escort during the Rebel retreat. He soon became leader of Rogue Squadron and participated in the Battle of Gall, the rescue of Princess Leia from Coruscant, and the Battle of Endor, where he flew into the station's superstructure and was jointly credited (along with Lando Calrissian) for the station's destruction.

In the years following the Battle of Endor, Wedge, along with Tycho Celchu, Wes Janson and Derek "Hobbie" Klivian would be the core nucleus around which Rogue Squadron was formed. Immediately following the Battle of Endor, they would participate in the conflict at Bakura, and defend against the invasion by the Nagai and the Tofs. During the next year, Wedge and the Rogues would participate in many important missions for the New Republic, although the most important (that of capturing Imperial Grand Vizier Sate Pestage), ended in failure.



It was shortly after this failure that Wedge temporarily broke up the Rogues and participated in many different PR events for the New Republic. It soon became apparent that in order to solidify the New Republic as a major force in the galaxy, the Empire would need to be driven off Coruscant. To that end, Wedge reformed Rogue Squadron in 6.5 ABY, bringing in many new recruits that would go on to become as famous as he himself had been during the height of the Rebellion: Former CorSec officer&mdash;and later Jedi Knight&mdash;Corran Horn, the Gand Findsman Ooryl Qrygg, and Gavin Darklighter, who would himself become leader of the Rogues during the Yuuzhan Vong War.

Wedge also went on to found Wraith Squadron, leading them during the New Republic campaign against Warlord Zsinj. He would return to Rogue Squadron shortly after Zsinj's defeat and lead them during the Thrawn campaign. Shortly after the conclusion of that conflict, he accepted the rank of general, and commanded the Star Destroyer Emancipator during the Battle of Dac. Later, he gave up fleet command (though he kept his rank) to return to his activities as a pilot and occasional covert agent. He also played a diplomat's role when he, along with Tycho, Wes and Hobbie were assigned as the New Republic's official envoy to the planet Adumar. Even with a corrupt Intelligence head and a hundred starfighters to contend with, Wedge managed to win Adumar over to the New Republic side through his own methods. Then under Garm Bel Iblis's command, he and Corran Horn investigated the "Vengeance" organization on Bothawui during the Caamas Document crisis. He also flew at the head of Rogue Squadron during the Battle of Yaga Minor which marked an end to the Galactic Civil War.

He had a brief romance with Qwi Xux (one of the principal designers of the first Death Star), but they later parted on good terms. Wedge eventually married Iella Wessiri and retired after the end of the Galactic Civil War. The couple had two daughters, Syal and Myri.

Yuuzhan Vong War
"Antilles, you are obviously deranged. You should have been put out to pasture years ago." "I was, Pwoe. I should have been left there. And if the Advisory Council had conducted its part of the war with the Yuuzhan Vong in any competent fashion, I could have been left there."

- Councilor Pwoe and General Wedge Antilles



When the extent of the Yuuzhan Vong threat became clear to the New Republic, Antilles was asked to reenter active duty. Holding his old rank of General, Antilles was placed in command of one of the three fleets defending Coruscant. Following the fall of Coruscant, Antilles and his fleet fled to the Pyria system where they retook the planet Borleias from Yuuzhan Vong control.

After taking the planet, Antilles established the Blackmoon as his base of operations, collecting scattered fleet elements that had retreated from Coruscant. While preparing to receive the Yuuzhan Vong counterattack, members of the Advisory Council arrived in-system. Led by Senator Pwoe, the Council members ordered Antilles to prepare a delaying action at Borleias to provide enough time for their escape. Realizing that a static defense of the system would not hold long against a full Yuuzhan Vong assault force, Antilles managed to wrangle more ships and even the vaunted Lusankya out of the remaining New Republic space forces. With these new resources, Wedge put into motion his plan for the defense of Borleias, using the Starlancer feint to draw a large contingent of Vong forces to attack.

During the preparations, Antilles also oversaw the formation of the Insiders, a resistance group inside the New Republic which intended to place agents on Vong worlds and set up resistance groups against both the Yuuzhan Vong and the perceived-incompetent New Republic government.

In the heat of the battle that followed, Antilles managed to single-handedly escape in an abandoned X-wing and return to the fleet without even the aid of an astromech droid, a great achievement for the aging ace pilot. Even though his own fleet was nearly wiped out, the New Republic counted the Battle of Borleias a victory, as it took months for the Yuuzhan Vong to retake the planet, thus giving time for the other survivors of the attack on Coruscant to regroup.

Antilles continued leading elements of the Galactic Alliance Defense Force throughout the war, and partook in the Liberation of Coruscant, where he flew an X-wing in an attempt to prevent a modified coralskipper infected with Alpha Red from infecting Zonama Sekot.

Second Corellian Crisis
"Your looking for the wrong man"

- Wedge

Wedge retired after the end of the Vong war, and did not participate in the Swarm War. When tensions escalated between the Galactic Alliance and his homeworld of Corellia, Wedge initially resolved to remain retired and not to choose between his allegiance to the Alliance and his allegiance to his homeworld. However, after Galactic Alliance Intelligence operatives came to his home and moved him to a holding cell on Coruscant, his decision became much easier. After escaping, he took up the position of General in the Corellian Defense Force, eventually becoming a coordinator between the Minister of War of the Corellian system and the Prime Minister Aidel Saxan. Wedge was responsible for planning the assault on the planet Tralus in a way which would not kill a large number of Corellian civilians. Along with Han Solo, he commanded Corellian forces at the Battle of Tralus, where he fought against his own daughter, Syal Antilles. Wedge also openly disagreed and condemned some of the more dangerous actions Thrackan Sal-Solo planned.

Portrayal
"We'll put that in your biography. General Antilles was so good he couldn't fail when he tried to."

- Tycho Celchu

Denis Lawson portrayed Wedge throughout all three films, except in one scene in A New Hope. During the pre-battle briefing on Yavin IV, Luke briefly chats with a character seated next to him who scoffs at the idea of successfully hitting such a small target as the Death Star exhaust port. In the shooting script and novelization of the film, this character is identified as Wedge. However, given his skeptical attitude and the fact that he was not played by Denis Lawson in this scene, many assume that he was one of the other anonymous Rebel pilots. Fans sometimes refer to this character as "Fake Wedge". While many fans believed that the actor delivering this line was Jack Klaff, who played John D, Pablo Hidalgo recently revealed on his weblog that the actor in question was Colin Higgins.

Wedge was voiced by Don Scardino in The Empire Strikes Back radio dramatization and by Jon Matthews in the Return of the Jedi radio dramatization. Lawson returned to the role of Wedge to voice him in Star Wars: Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader.

Denis Lawson is the uncle of Ewan McGregor, who played Obi-Wan Kenobi in the prequel films.

Continuity
Fans of the Star Wars series explain his popularity by describing him as a survivor: he is the one minor character to survive all three movies without the blessings of 'fate' (i.e. luck and destiny) that allow the major protagonists to survive constant peril and certain death. He is also the only known pilot to have survived each Death Star attack (Keyan Farlander, the Y-wing pilot seen in A New Hope, was not in the Death Star II attack).

There is even a term for such characters used outside of Star Wars: a Wedge-type character is a minor character having little to no backstory, who nevertheless survives many deadly cataclysms. The opposite of a Wedge-type character is a redshirt, whose sole purpose is to die soon after being introduced.

Appearances

 * X-wing Rogue Squadron 1/2
 * Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
 * Rebellion (game)
 * Vader's Quest
 * Star Wars Empire: "General" Skywalker
 * Star Wars Empire: In the Shadows of Their Fathers
 * Star Wars Rebellion: My Brother, My Enemy
 * Star Wars Galaxies: The Ruins of Dantooine
 * Galaxy of Fear: Planet Plague
 * Star Wars: Rogue Squadron
 * Star Wars: Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader
 * Star Wars: Rogue Squadron III: Rebel Strike
 * Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
 * Shadows of the Empire
 * Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
 * The Truce at Bakura
 * X-wing: Rogue Leader
 * Lucky
 * X-wing Rogue Squadron: The Rebel Opposition
 * X-wing Rogue Squadron: The Phantom Affair
 * X-wing Rogue Squadron: Battleground: Tatooine
 * X-wing Rogue Squadron: The Warrior Princess
 * X-wing Rogue Squadron: Requiem for a Rogue
 * X-wing Rogue Squadron: In the Empire's Service
 * X-wing Rogue Squadron: Blood and Honor
 * X-wing Rogue Squadron: Masquerade
 * X-wing Rogue Squadron: Mandatory Retirement
 * X-wing: Rogue Squadron
 * X-wing: Wedge's Gamble
 * X-wing: The Krytos Trap
 * X-wing: The Bacta War
 * X-wing: Wraith Squadron
 * X-wing: Iron Fist
 * X-wing: Solo Command
 * Heir to the Empire
 * Dark Force Rising
 * The Last Command
 * X-wing: Isard's Revenge
 * Dark Empire
 * Dark Empire II
 * Empire's End
 * Crimson Empire
 * Jedi Search
 * Dark Apprentice
 * Champions of the Force
 * I, Jedi
 * Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy
 * Darksaber
 * X-wing: Starfighters of Adumar
 * Planet of Twilight
 * The New Rebellion
 * Assault at Selonia
 * Specter of the Past
 * Vision of the Future
 * Union
 * Chewbacca
 * Dark Tide I: Onslaught
 * Dark Tide II: Ruin
 * Edge of Victory II: Rebirth
 * Star by Star
 * Enemy Lines I: Rebel Dream
 * Enemy Lines II: Rebel Stand
 * Destiny's Way
 * The Final Prophecy
 * The Unifying Force
 * Betrayal