Spectres

"Who are you people? I mean, you're not thieves exactly.''" "''We're not exactly anything. We're a crew. A team. In some ways, a family."

- Ezra Bridger and Sabine Wren

The Lothal rebels, known to some as "the Spectres," were a cell of resistance fighters who primarily operated on the Outer Rim planet Lothal several years prior to the Battle of Yavin. The rebels, who operated against the rule of the Galactic Empire, were headquartered in their ship, the Ghost, and also carried out operations on other nearby worlds. Each member of the rebellion had lost something to the Imperial regime and fought back in the hopes of someday liberating the galaxy from the Empire's rule. The rebels were part of a larger, disconnected resistance movement led by Senator Bail Organa and Ahsoka Tano. This movement would eventually give rise to the Alliance to Restore the Republic.

The rebels were led by Kanan Jarrus, a Jedi survivor of Order 66. The other rebels were Hera Syndulla, the owner and pilot of the Ghost; Lothal orphan-turned-Jedi apprentice Ezra Bridger; Mandalorian explosives expert Sabine Wren; Garazeb Orrelios, a former member of the Lasan Honor Guard; and the astromech droid C1-10P, nicknamed "Chopper." Their operations attracted the attention of Agent Kallus of the Imperial Security Bureau, the Jedi hunter known as the Inquisitor, and even Darth Vader, all of whom pursued the rebels in an attempt to destroy them.

Description
"We have been called criminals, but we are not. We are rebels, fighting for the people, fighting for you."

- Ezra Bridger, transmitting using a pirated Imperial tower

The Lothal rebels were a small resistance cell that operated off of the planet Lothal, primarily carrying out attacks against the operations of the Galactic Empire on the planet. For a time, the rebels were a five-person crew, with each crew member serving a different function. Kanan Jarrus, a Jedi survivor of Order 66, was the leader of the crew, while Hera Syndulla was the owner and pilot of the Ghost, the ship from which the rebels were headquartered. Garazeb Orrelios was a former member of the Lasan Honor Guard and one of the few surviving members of the Lasat species, and he acted as the muscle of the crew. Sabine Wren was a Mandalorian warrior and explosives expert, as well as a graffiti artist; after attacks against the Empire, Wren would leave her own calling card, the starbird, behind so the Empire knew who had attacked them. The crew also had a droid, C1-10P, whom they nicknamed "Chopper." Five years before the Battle of Yavin, the rebels took in Ezra Bridger, a Lothal street orphan, as a member of the crew, and Jarrus trained him in the ways of the Force.

History
"We started by wanting to fight the Empire. Somebody had to do something about the terror and injustice they're spreading across the galaxy."

- Kanan Jarrus

The group that became the Lothal rebels began with Hera Syndulla, who followed in the footsteps of her father, Cham Syndulla, a resistance fighter who led the Twi'lek Resistance against the Confederacy of Independent Systems during the Clone Wars and who later rebelled against the Empire. Her operations led her to an information-gathering mission on the planet Gorse, where she met Kanan Jarrus and learned that he was a Jedi who had survived the fall of the Jedi Order and the Galactic Republic. After working together to help save Gorse and its moon, Cynda, from Count Denetrius Vidian and the Empire, Jarrus joined Syndulla and her cause.

In the years that followed, the rebel crew of the Ghost grew with the inclusion of Sabine Wren, Garazeb Orrelios, and Chopper. They embarked on a campaign to raid Imperial supply ships, in order to steal their cargo and deliver them to other insurgents. After a successful raiding mission on Ryloth, Jarrus suggested that his crew should hit an convoy en route to the crystalline planet of Christophsis. Once again, the Ghost crew was victorious. Shortly thereafter, Hera Syndulla intercepted an Imperial signal that directed the rebels toward their next target, the Wookiee home planet of Kashyyyk. Emergeing victorious once again, the Ghost crew then focused their attention on the world of Toydaria, where yet another Imperial convoy was headed. When they rebels left Toydaria behind, Sabine Wren suggested a stop at Lothal, a backwater planet in the Outer Rim, so the Ghost could be resupplied.

They carried out a number of attacks against Imperial operations on and around Lothal, including the raiding of an Imperial supply convoy, the destruction of TIE/LN starfighters on a landing pad, and a skirmish with stormtroopers in Capital City. These attacks against the Empire attracted the attention of Agent Kallus of the Imperial Security Bureau, who intended to destroy the rebels before they could spark a wider rebel movement.

The rebels sometimes worked for Cikatro Vizago, a Devaronian crime lord who ran the Broken Horn Syndicate on Lothal. One such job was the heist of weapons for Vizago, as well as supplies for the people of Lothal re-settlement camp 43, nicknamed "Tarkintown." During the mission, they were joined by Ezra Bridger, who intended to steal the supplies for himself before the crew taught him the value of helping others. These events led the rebels to rescue a group of Wookiees, who were being held as slaves by the Empire, from the spice mines of the planet Kessel. As a result, the Wookiees became allies of the rebels. Their actions on Kessel attracted the attention of the Inquisitor, a Jedi Hunter who intended to kill Jarrus and Bridger, who had become Jarrus's Jedi apprentice after learning he had an affinity for the Force. Despite being hunted by Kallus and the Inquisitor, the rebels continued their operations against the Empire, including the destruction of T-7 ion disruptor rifles and the destruction of a powerful kyber crystal.

During their operations, the rebels also came to the attention of Senator Bail Organa of Alderaan, who secretly harbored rebellious tendencies towards the Empire. Organa became one of the founders of a wider rebel movement, the Alliance to Restore the Republic, which the Lothal rebels had a hand in forming.

Members
"We were a well-oiled unit. Things were going good. And then, this Loth-rat came along."

- Kanan Jarrus, referring to Ezra Bridger

The earliest member of the crew to begin rebelling against the Empire was Hera Syndulla, a Twi'lek female who was inspired to fight by her father, Cham Syndulla. Hera, the owner and pilot of the Ghost, became dissatisfied with life under the Empire and its treatment of her people, and so she began seeking like-minded individuals to join a resistance movement. This led her to Gorse, where she met Kanan Jarrus. Jarrus was a Human male who trained as a Jedi under Jedi Master Depa Billaba during the Clone Wars. At the time, he was known by his birth name of Caleb Dume. Billaba was killed during the execution of Order 66, but Dume survived and heard a message from Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi warning all Jedi that the Grand Army of the Republic had been turned against the Jedi Order. At the urging of Kenobi's message, Dume went into hiding and changed his name to Kanan Jarrus, spending years as a transient and taking odd jobs before joining Syndulla's cause.

Over the next several years, the cause would be joined by others. Sabine Wren, a Human female, hailed from the planet Mandalore and was a trained Mandalorian warrior, whose expertise was in explosives. She was also an artist and enjoyed giving her explosive work some flare, filling them with many different colors. She also left behind her own calling card, the starbird, after attacks in order to let the Empire know that it was the rebels who attacked them. Another member of the crew was Garazeb Orrelios, a male Lasat who survived the fall of his home planet and the near-destruction of his species. Orrelios was the muscle of the group and possessed a strength that he used when fighting stormtroopers, who he called "bucketheads." He was devastated by the destruction of his species and possessed a great antipathy for the Empire. The crew also had their own astromech droid, Chopper, who, despite his grumpy demeanor, was an essential member for the crew who often repaired the ship.

Five years before the Battle of Yavin, the crew was joined by Ezra Bridger, a Human male orphan who grew up on the streets of Lothal. Unknowingly, Bridger possessed an affinity for the Force, an affinity that was detected by Jarrus. In order to train the boy and continue the way of the Jedi, the crew took Bridger in, and he joined them on many missions while training with Jarrus to become a Jedi. One such mission was when he temporarily joined the Imperial Academy on Lothal in order to steal the decoder with the location of the kyber crystal. During the mission, he met fellow cadet Zare Leonis, whose sister, Dhara, was a star pupil at the Imperial Academy before she vanished. The Empire claimed that Dhara ran away, but Leonis believed that she was taken by the Empire, and possibly the Inquisitor. He remained behind in the Academy when Bridger left, but he became an ally of the rebels and passed information to them.

Behind the scenes
The rebels are the primary characters of the animated television series Star Wars Rebels, and made their full series debut in the premiere television film Star Wars Rebels: Spark of Rebellion.