After much speculation about when we might actually get to see it, the first trailer for The Mandalorian‘s upcoming second season dropped last week. The footage didn’t offer up much in terms of plot details, but it did set the stage for some more Baby Yoda shenanigans in what looks to be another epic run of sci-fi television.
Fans think they might have spotted Boba Fett’s armor in the promo, but there was no glimpse of The Mandalorian‘s most highly-anticipated new addition. Yes, longtime animated favorite Ahsoka Tano is finally coming to live-action, and some people were left disappointed that she didn’t feature in the trailer at all. Lucasfilm are clearly keeping her involvement under wraps until season 2 airs, and a new theory claims that Anakin Skywalker’s former Padawan may have formed a new Jedi Order by the time we see her next.
If The Mandalorian is treating The Clone Wars and Rebels as official canon, then Ahsoka was last seen heading into the Unknown Regions with Sabine Wren, the character rumored to be played by WWE’s Sasha Banks. And while Ahsoka might have turned her back on the Jedi, she may have reconsidered her stance in the years since the fall of the Empire.
The plot seems to focus on Mando under orders to deliver Baby Yoda to the Jedi, and the expanded Star Wars universe has revealed that only Force-sensitive beings can traverse the Unknown Regions. Furthermore, there’s been rumors that the title hero might possess the ability himself, while the area is full of characters with strong ties to the Jedi.
This could lead to Ahsoka and Mando’s first encounter, where she would be established as the leader of a new batch of Jedi, one who would no doubt understand the significance of a Yoda-esque figure given her own history. As ScreenRant explains:
All of this, naturally, raises a disturbing question; if Ahsoka has begun to found a New Jedi Order in the Unknown Regions, what will happen to it? Sadly, the most likely scenario is that, like Luke’s Jedi Order, they will be destroyed by the Emperor and the First Order. Ahsoka probably thinks the Unknown Regions are a safe place to rebuild the Jedi, avoiding the political complications that came from the Old Jedi Order being based on Coruscant, and bound too tightly to the Old Republic. Unfortunately, according to Chuck Wendig’s novel Aftermath: Empire’s End, the last Imperial loyalists fled to the Unknown Regions. There, they regrouped and gradually transformed into the First Order.
Meanwhile, Palpatine himself was resurrected in the depths of the Unknown Regions, on the legendary Sith redoubt of Exegol. Both the First Order and the Emperor would look upon Ahsoka’s New Jedi Order with hatred, and seek to destroy it. This would explain why Ahsoka’s Jedi Order has never been mentioned before; because her attempt to reform the Jedi ended in tragedy, not in success.
It’s a solid theory backed up by canon, but we’ll have to wait until The Mandalorian returns next month to find out how close to the truth it really is.