It seems that people are getting excited for the imminent arrival of Andor season 1 after a couple of fantastic trailers, but while we have seen a couple of familiar characters from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story in Mon Mothma and Saw Gerrera, there is one fan-favourite who we haven’t seen: K-2SO.
There is a good reason for this, though. We know from Rogue One that K-2 is a reprogrammed Imperial KX-series security droid, while season 1 of Andor is said to be be showing the formation of the Rebellion and Cassian joining it, so it just sounds like their stories don’t quite line up at this point. But further to that, the story of Cassian and K-2’s first meeting has actually been around for years, in the comic book one-shot Rogue One – Cassian & K-2SO Special 1, published on August 9, 2017 by Marvel Comics and later collected in the trade paperback Star Wars: Rogue One Adaptation.
Now that story was said to take place in the same year as the Battle of Yavin, which means that Cassian and K-2 actually knew each other for less than a year. Season 1 of Andor is set 5 years earlier and takes place over about a year, with season 2 covering the remaining years and taking us right up to the events of Rogue One. So it could be that we are left waiting until right near the end of season 2 to see K-2, but I also wouldn’t be too surprised if the story is altered for the series, either moving the events forwards by a couple of years to give more time with a fan-favourite character, or even potentially showing a completely different version that follows the main steps, similar to how we saw the final arc of The Clone Wars not quite stick to what had been described in Ahsoka.
So how did the pair meet? If you don’t want spoilers for the comic or potential spoilers for Andor season 2, consider this the end of the article, but for those who want to know, read on…
Cassian travels on a mission to Wecacoe with the Rebel spies Kertas & Rismor, attempting to gather some intel. Despite a much heavier Imperial presence than expected, they continued with their plan but tripped an alarm.
As they tried slipping away, Cassian was found by the Imperial droid K-2SO, but Kertas & Rismor managed to switch him off, allowing Cassian to attempt to wipe his memory, managing to do so enough to switch him back on and ordering him to lead them to their ship—though much like in Rogue One, K-2’s inability to lie effectively saw them still end up being pursued by Imperials—while K-2’s base layer programming also remained, leading him to attempt to arrest Cassian multiple times.
Reaching their ship, the Rebels found it surrounded by stormtroopers, so Kertas & Rismor drew many of them away, telling Cassian that K-2 had the intel he would need. Cassian eventually wiped this base layer, allowing him to now take new orders. With Cassian’s ship having been destroyed, K-2 protected Cassian as they found a new ship to commandeer and helped him break into it, and the pair managed to escape together, while Cassian realised that breaking the base layer programming had not fully wiped the droid’s memory, meaning that the Rebellion would still be able to get the intel they needed.
What do you think of the current story of their meeting? Do you think it will be altered for the series?
Thanks for reading. Rebellions are built on hope….
The Canon Padawan 