While Disney’s Star Wars canon has been spreading itself across all sorts of mediums, it’s mainly focused on books, so we don’t really know what a lot of these fascinating new characters look like. That makes it all the more interesting when we finally get “official” looks at some of these book-based heroes.
The above image is the first official image released of Ciena Ree, one of the two lead characters in Claudia Gray’s brilliant novel Lost Stars, released last Fall in the first wave of The Force Awakens merchandise. Ree was an Imperial Academy graduate who worked her way up the ranks in the Imperial Navy before eventually commanding a Star Destroyer in the Battle of Jakku, the engagement that lead to the sandy planet being covered in the scrap Rey scavenges in The Force Awakens.
Revealed by the latest episode of The Star Wars Show, the image was commissioned for use by Fantasy Flight Games, who make several Star Wars table top games like Armada and X-Wing (Update: Fantasy Flight have just confirmed that Ree will be part of an expansion for Star Wars: Armada). So while this image might just be for Star Wars’ greatest love—merchandising—it’s interesting to see if this is a sign of the franchise having greater plans for Ciena in future works.
Either way, between the likes of Ciena Ree and Rae Sloane, it’s also welcome to see even the Empire get some diversity. It helps give them a bit of texture beyond just being “the bad guys.”