Wedge Antilles/Legends

Wedge Antilles (21 BBY&mdash;) was a legendary 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 throughout the Yuuzhan Vong War and beyond. A Corellian by birth, Antilles repeatedly defied odds and was among the very few to survive fighting in the Battles of Yavin, Hoth, and Endor. He was also the only known 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, where his parents Jagged and Zena operated a starship-refueling depot. 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
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 the Twi'lek Doc) 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 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, the Battle of Jabiim and an attack on Thila (during which the Wookiee Chewbacca was an unwilling passenger). 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 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 infamous 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. 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
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 starfleet. 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 Y-wing and return to the fleet without even the aid of an astromech droid, a great achievement for the aging ace pilot. When the Vong forces in the Pyria system were devastated and retreated, Antilles and the victorious New Republic fleet left the Pyria system for the next phase of the war.

Behind the scenes
Denis Lawson played Wedge in all three films. Coincidentally, he is the uncle of Ewan McGregor, the actor who played the young Obi-Wan Kenobi in the prequel films The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and Revenge of the Sith. He was voiced by Don Scardino in The Empire Strikes Back radio dramatization and by Jon Matthews in the Return of the Jedi radio dramatization.

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, though the anonymous Y-wing pilot seen in A New Hope could possibly have been in the Death Star II attack. Some sources have it that the Y-Wing pilot was Horton Salm, who is known to have fought in the Battle of Endor. It is generally accepted, however, that the lone Y-Wing pilot is Keyan Farlander, a character created in the X-Wing computer game background information.

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 but 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.

Appearances

 * Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
 * 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
 * X-wing book series
 * X-wing: Rogue Squadron comic series
 * Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy
 * Dark Empire
 * Crimson Empire
 * Union
 * Jedi Academy Trilogy
 * New Jedi Order
 * Betrayal