- "Well, you know the Rogues. All we need is a ship and rock to land it on."
- ―Wedge Antilles
Rogue Squadron, originally dubbed Rogue Flight, and also known as the Rogues, was an elite Rebel Alliance starfighter squadron founded by Commander Arhul Narra, Luke Skywalker, and Wedge Antilles shortly after the Battle of Yavin out of Red Squadron. Rogue Squadron played a key role during several engagements in the Galactic Civil War, serving as the primary defense squadron of the Alliance High Command. The squadron mainly fielded T-65 X-wing starfighters, but flew other craft as well, including T-47 airspeeders, Z-95 Headhunters, RZ-1 A-wing interceptors, B-wing assault starfighters, and BTL-A4 Y-wing starfighters.
They participated most notably at the Battle of Hoth and later at the Liberation of Coruscant. Following the death of Emperor Cosimo Palpatine II, the Rogues served the New Republic in several critical campaigns, including the hunt for Ysanne Isard, the Yuuzhan Vong War and the Second Galactic Civil War.
Organization[]
- "I'm with Rogue Squadron. Impossible is our stock in trade, and success is what we deliver."
- ―Corran Horn
Rogue Squadron was a twelve-person starfighter squadron that, throughout its history, served the Rebel Alliance and New Republic. It was composed of the Alliance's top pilots, and later, the best pilots in the New Republic Defense Force. The Rogues were the symbol of the New Republic's starfighter superiority and its most effective tool against enemy aggression;[3] their successes gave them an almost mythical presence in battle and could sometimes prompt an enemy to surrender without any shots being fired.[4] As long as Rogue Squadron endured, the citizens of the New Republic had hope that there was someone in space protecting them.[3]
Rogue Squadron was originally a flight group known as Rogue Flight, and was, along with Renegade Flight, formed from the remnants of the Rebel Alliance's Red Squadron following the Battle of Yavin in 0 BBY. The pilots of Rogue Flight, together with the pilots of Blue and Green Squadrons, flew as the ad hoc Rogue Group in the Battle of Hoth in 3 ABY, after which the Rogues became a full squadron, designed to operate without a set mission profile in order to take on any assignment that came their way. In 10 ABY, the Rogues briefly flew within a fighter wing known as Rogue Wing.[5] Throughout their history, the Rogues were led by a pilot designated Rogue Leader; some Rogue Leaders broke the squadron up into smaller flight groups of four starfighters a piece.[6][7]
For many years, the Rogues flew X-wing fighters, with astromech droids assisting them from the fighters' droid sockets.[8] The Rebel Alliance and the New Republic originally used the T-65 X-wing starfighter model, but in 11 ABY, the squadron was reconfigured into a multi-fighter unit that included A-wings, V-wings, and B-wings. The Rogues were back in X-wings within the year, however. By 25 ABY, Rogue Squadron was flying in the new T-65 A3 X-wing, and in 40 ABY, the XJ7 model.
In the New Republic's early years, Rogue Squadron was so key to citizens' morale that when its members resigned their posts to wage the independent, guerrilla Bacta War against the warlord Ysanne Isard, the New Republic put together an ersatz Rogue Squadron to be visible while Antilles's Rogues were away. Two unique Rogue Squadrons existed simultaneously with each other, but after Isard's defeat, the New Republic retroactively deemed the Bacta War an officially sanctioned operation, and Rogue Squadron was once more whole.[9]
Rogue Squadron's crest featured a blue Alliance Starbird surrounded by a twelve-pointed red star, with an X-wing fighter at each of the star's points. It was designed by Rogue pilot Gavin Darklighter in 6.5 ABY. The Rogues began to use it before it was officially sanctioned by New Republic Starfighter Command, sporting it as a patch on their flight suits and having it painted on their X-wings.[10]
Notes and references[]
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