Andor needs a group chat
While you wait...
Andor, Disney's new Star Wars series, is a hit — and critically worshipped. I love it too. As a thirty something who fell for Star Wars as a child, it's nice to see a series that has grown up with me.
This series is adult and heavy. People die, good guys lose and steal. There are politics, momma boys, scarred villians. Disappointed (and disappointing) parents — although Star Wars always had one dark lord in disappointing fathers; class over/undertones of inequality over lay with each scene cut to new characters. The rebels harvesting crops in hiding, whispering over their shared meals to the elite wedding party of the rich dancing to a droid disco ball. The word "rape" — and an act of sexual assault — even makes it into an episode. We are in a new galaxy, or at least a part where adult things happen and the action figures are left in the sand and toy box.
Even at it's most kiddish, one thing I've always enjoyed about Star Wars is how it sometimes feels real. The tech can feel real in the scenes. You see Han Solo clank the side of his ship to turn it on. Droids need to fix broken ships. Droids breakdown and get dirty, need cleanings. Blasters jam. Hyper drives need repair. Despite all the science fiction, things break, have flaws, the tech can be buggy.
That's why the radio communication in Andor is intriguing and frustrating. The main character, and thief rebel spy, Cassian Andor uses a spy network of communication — a pirate radio of a kind that keeps his communication secret. People have to go to back alleys, climb hidden ladders, pull out secret devices to use it. People speak in whispers, clanking into the static abyss hoping for a message. Hidden signals, back channels.
Cassian's companions, a group of rebels working — illegally — on the wheat planet Mina-Rau, hop on their headphones searching in the burbling for Cassian to meet them and pick them up.
After reporting "radio silence" we see the assistant to Luthen Rael, Kleya Marki go back to her switch board looking device called a fractal radio She wears headphones and plugs in cords searching for a voice in the void.
There is a true emphasis on how the characters — the seeds for this rebellion — struggle to communicate because they lack the power to have strong communication devices. They can't be loud about their messages. Even the powerful and rich among them must whisper in a hallway, or speak coded over an expensive cocktail.
One of the main writers, Tony Gilroy, has said this season is about how a rebellion goes from being in secret to going public. How do you gain the strength to be public and clear about where you stand politically?
In secret, in the back of an art and antique shop (a cover), Kleya, who is helping find funds for the rebellion and unite the factions across the galaxy, reaches Andor, but it's scratchy. Communication isn't quick or fast. It's jagged and inconsistent, unclear. More frustrating than dial up internet. One Reddit user pointed out that the fractal radio was inspired by the Enigma Machine used in WWII. I think generally it draws inspiration from a rotor machine,, which was how people used to encrypt messages through the 1920s and 1970s, according to Wikipedia anyways.
Cool, but this offers more evidence that Andor, at times, like much of Star War's main conflict across its vast library, is rooted in a cartoonish version of WWII. Or some other conflict of the past, as Gilroy the writer attests on an NPR interview:
"I've spent an incredible amount of time reading about revolutions and studying history, you know, in an idiot kind of way, a dinner table going away, but really fascinated with it," Gilroy said.
In signing on to Andor, he added that "all of a sudden, here was an opportunity I can cherry pick through 6000 years of history."
"I mean, is it the Roman revolution? Is it the English revolution? Is it the Russian Revolution? Is it the American Revolution? All the things I know about the Haitian revolution," Gilroy said.
Perhaps this is a small reason Andor's comm tech is weak — the creators didn't gather inspiration from the right era: our own. They cherry picked and mixed it together.
Despite the light speed space travel, the laser swords powered by crystals, the floating space stations that can blow up planets, the racer pods, or all the characters with a mystic future-seeing and an object push-pull Force — there isn't anyone working on a Star Wars version of Signal? (Just watch who you invite). An app that encrypts messages and can delete them after 30 seconds?
Hell, I feel like the scroll and raven comms in Game of Thrones worked better — and faster — than Andor fiddling with his radio lost in the black net of outer space.
Is the Empire the only ones with strong signals and good communication infrastructure? Just because you have to operate in secret, doesn't mean you have to use crappy tech. Put down the rotor machine, pick up a Signal Chat.
This oddly feels like the big-time article from Semafor that dropped this week about how elite billionaires have reshaped politics via hive mind group chats. As Ben Smith writes:
The group chats aren’t always primarily a political space, but they are the single most important place in which a stunning realignment toward Donald Trump was shaped and negotiated, and an alliance between Silicon Valley and the new right formed. The group chats are “the memetic upstream of mainstream opinion,” wrote one of their key organizers, Sriram Krishnan, a former partner in the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (typically styled a16z) who is now the White House senior policy adviser for AI.
What the article most reveals is the weird feeling that group chats are shaping our reality. As a common person (not a billionaire), I often feel like I'm so far from shaping the political reality. These chats have been a way to create a "vibe shift" — a way for powerful people from all across the political arena to speak in private.
In my view, the Empire, the right wing, and the agenda to hurt the poor and vulnerable is becoming a realty. Ryan Broderick from the Garbage Day Newsletter put it best:
But the ultimate takeaway is that, yes, the intellectual dark web is real. The right wing are working together closely. They are texting each other constantly and sharing resources and tactics and if we have any shot at getting ourselves out from under their thumb, we have to have the same level of coordination. Invite me to some group chats!
I want to be in those group chats, too. As Cassian Andor goes public with his rebellion, I want him to get on the right group chat — get some tech that allows him to communicate. Build on ideas, create allies, and buddies to help start a rebellion, or revolution — shift the vibe to something better.
Star Wars is far from our reality. It still is escapism, but to some degree it has never felt closer to our reality with Andor. Reaching out and creating good communication is the first step in any strategy of building a new reality.
Thanks for reading. I hope your name gets called soon.