Saw Gerrera

Saw Gerrera was a loyal follower of King Ramsis Dendup, the benevolent monarch of Onderon who attempted to keep his world apart from the tensions of the Clone Wars. Saw believed firmly in independence, and did not want to see his planet thrust into galactic warfare. But Dendup was ousted by King Sanjay Rash, who committed the world to the Separatist cause. Saw was one of the fervent young loyalists who refused to acknowledge Rash's rule, and openly rebelled against the crown. He and his sister Steela were cast out of the walled city of Iziz and forced to live in ruins amid the jungles of Onderon, but formed a rebellion.

While he learned the art of combat with some help from Jedi, Saw Gerrera became a rebel leader in his own right. Though he was armed and trained by the Republic to fight the Separatists in the Clone Wars, after the rise of the Empire, he continued the fight against his former allies, seeing the emergent regime as his enemy. He garnered a reputation as an effective soldier — but over time he became more extreme in his methods.

After he received a call for help from Galen and Lyra Erso on Lah’mu, Gerrera traveled there to rescue their daughter Jyn and hide her from the Empire. Saw raised Jyn as his daughter but later abandoned her, fearing her real identity would be discovered.

While Saw rarely worked directly with anyone besides his Partisan soldiers, he did have brief contacts with other early rebel figures, including Luthen Rael. During one meeting Luthen brought Saw Imperial equipment in an attempt to convince him to work with another rebel, Anto Kreegyr, to better both their chances of success. Saw was doubtful, believing himself to be the only one with clarity of purpose, and later agreed to allow Kreegyr and his soldiers to walk into an Imperial ambush in order to protect the identity of Luthen’s ISB spy.

Later, Luthen sent Wilmon Paak to Saw to teach one of his soldiers how to safely extract the unstable chemical rhydonium. While Wilmon was with Saw, Saw revealed to him that earlier in his life, during forced labor on his home planet, he began to enjoy the toxic smell and effects of the starship fuel.

Saw and his team also visited the barren planet Geonosis after the Ghost crew had reported the entire population was gone. There was one survivor, however, and this Geonosian methodically took out Saw's team. Gerrera was determined to find this "bug" and make him talk — through any means necessary — about what the Empire had been building on Geonosis.

The Ghost crew soon arrived, sent by the Alliance to recover Saw and his crew. But Saw ended up saving the small team from the Geonosian’s battle droids. Together, they found the sole Geonosian, and discovered that he was the last of his kind; the Empire had indeed wiped out the Geonosians. But the alien, who the rebel Ezra nicknamed Klik-Klak, was protecting a queen egg — the key to his people’s survival.

Gerrera encountered the Ghost crew once again — after the Rebellion ignored his warnings about an Imperial relay. He rescued Sabine, Ezra, and Chopper from a failed mission, destroying the relay in the process. Later, he used the rebels to infiltrate a freighter holding secret Imperial cargo: a massive kyber crystal. Determined to stop the Empire from using the crystal, he drove Ezra's lightsaber into its core. The crystal became unstable, exploding and taking a Star Destroyer with it, while Saw and the rebels made their escape.

Like Luthen, Saw was seen as a thorn in the side of the growing rebel army on Yavin 4. When the Rebel Alliance learned of the Empire’s secret superweapon, the Death Star, and that Saw was holding an Imperial pilot who claimed he was sent by Jyn’s father, they sent Jyn Erso to Saw’s compound on Jedha to ask for his assistance. Reunited with Jyn, Saw showed her a message from her father, in which he revealed a flaw he’d planted inside the Death Star. Saw chose to remain on Jedha after a blast from the Death Star destroyed Jedha City, accepting his fate with the hope that Jyn could save the dream of the Rebellion.