Takodana as seen from space with the Millennium Falcon approaching to land. Image from Star Wars, Episode VII, The Force Awakens.
Takodana Revealed?
Grogu pushed himself as close to the canopy of the N-1 as the constraints of the cockpit would allow. He couldn’t stand on the instrument panels and it wasn’t easy to stand on his dad because he had to have ready access to the controls and the instrument panels. He worked out that he could cling to the side of the pilot’s seat, gripping it with his fingers and toes, and push his body against it and turn his head, with one ear tucked down, and get a good view. It wasn’t easy, but it was worthy.
He wanted to see exactly what Takodana looked like from orbit and see if he could recognize some of the landmarks that he and his dad had discussed when he presented his research findings. He hoped the castle and the lake were visible as they came in for their first landing pass. He wanted to see how they really looked because the records he could find didn’t really cover their size. They may have been gigantic or they may have been much smaller, but important in other ways. It had been hard to tell.
Grogu had also hoped to see how much of the planet was covered with trees and meadows and fields and all that sort of stuff versus factories. He had the impression that Takodana had no important exports, excepting neutrality, and imports were all about sustaining life on the planet, but that actually seemed more like sustaining the lives of droids and mech and ships. The parts had less to do with industry and more to do with maintenance. It was strange. By the numbers the planet should have had a much larger population and higher general level of technology and development and been a hub of commerce given where it was located. It had none of those things and Grogu wondered why.
Finally, he was very curious about Andui, the planet’s only named city. Or at least the only one Grogu found in the galactic encyclopedia. It was called a city, but it’s population was less than Mos Eisley. To Grogu that made it more like a town or a village, but then he’d grown up on Coruscant and you could argue that whole planet was just one large city. It skewed his perception and he supposed he had to adjust for that.
He’d asked the Mandalorian about that when he did his presentation of findings and his dad had sighed and said he considered any place that had a general store and a cantina a city. Grogu had laughed at that and commented that Freetown had both but didn’t seem at all like a city to him. His dad asked him what he thought made the biggest difference between a city and any other grouping of people and Grogu had chirped out ‘Mass transit’ of all things. He was mostly tweaking his dad’s nose, considering how much time the Mandalorian spent alone in his life, but Din Djarin had considered his comment thoughtfully and said using that criteria even Mos Eisley and Mos Espa wouldn’t qualify as cities. Grogu agreed with that. They were both sprawling towns and villages.
“Buddy, as long as Andui has a tavern we can stop in and get something to eat and drink, I’ll call it whatever the people there call it.”
Grogu giggled at that. Even Din Djarin got tired of ration packs and plain water eventually. Grogu was more than ready to test out the local cuisine, which he understood included something called ‘chicken nuggets’. They were cubes of meat prepared with a coating and fried in something. He didn’t know what and he didn’t really care. It was one of the things he hoped to try on Takodana, but he hadn’t told his dad that. When you are telling people your top three research findings, yummy local cuisine didn’t seem like the sort of thing a Mandalorian would find interesting.
As they got closer to the planet and it began to really reveal itself Grogu was happy to see that water and greenery that was associated with a temperate climate. Not too hot, not too cold (or cold at all since that poles weren’t frozen, although the planet seemed to be rotating on an axis). Interesting. He doubted the Mandalorian would enjoy seeing all that water, but to Grogu that meant Takodana really was home to ten thousand and three species of small amphibious critters including nine thousand different species of frog. Yippee! He didn’t think he’d have time to catalog them all, but he certainly intended to make a record of the ones he did run or hop into. It wasn’t very often that he was on a planet that the Empire hadn’t obviously ruined, or the people who were there before the Empire messed around with everything.
Grogu began to search for Andui and saw it just as he heard a ping from the N-1’s navigation comp. Yup. It noticed the ‘city’ too. The zone for landing ship’s was larger than Grogu thought it would be and wondered why. Did everyone just keep their ships far away from each other or did some huge ships show up and take up all that space? The reference materials he had access to didn’t have anything to say about that, but he supposed he was hoping for too much. Sometimes a thing was aspirational and those aspirations were never realized. Big landing port next to the planets largest village might have made sense when it was created, but time had passed and needs had changed.
It wasn’t doing any harm. He just hoped his dad didn’t have to place the N-1 someplace that was far away from the main thoroughfares of Andui. Grogu didn’t think his dad would want to have the pram floating around and no doubt he’d leave R5 with the ship. On a planet like this one having a droid rolling around with you wasn’t always desirable.
“Do you see Ahsoka’s ship? She might not be here yet, but take a look.”
Grogu did as his dad asked and studied the other ships in the landing area as the Mandalorian brought the ship in to it’s berth coordinates. He didn’t see anything like her T-6 shuttle, but there were actually too many ships there for him to feel certain it wasn’t present. He didn’t sense her being on the planet, but he wasn’t going to tell his dad that. The Mandalorian didn’t really know he could do that.
Grogu looked out at the other ship’s as his dad brought the N-1 down and suddenly found one of them very interesting. He wondered why. He’d seen YT-1300 light freighters almost anywhere they’d gone. But there was something about this one that was special. He tried to sense it using the Force and accidentally squealed out loud, he was so surprised.
“Is that a yes or a no?”
“Nope.”
Grogu didn’t know what or rather who he had found, but he wanted to figure that out. Takodana’s history, other than housing the ruins of a Jedi Temple, didn’t point to a lot or even anyone using the Force showing up there routinely. But now he knew someone was there who could use the Force and it wasn’t him.
“Grogu, ‘nope’ is not a useful answer. Did you find Ahsoka’s ship?”
“Nope.”
He tried not to laugh. It wasn’t his fault that Din Djarin didn’t understand what question Grogu was answering. He’d have to wait and see who this Force using person was before he brought it to his Dad’s attention. Sometimes with the Mandalorian only seeing was believing and that was especially true when it was about the Force.
“Okay. Gather your stuff. Let’s go find our friend and get something to eat.”
Grogu nodded his head and grabbed the few things he was going to take from the ship. He was pretty sure that packing light made sense when you were hunting someone who might or might not be hunting you. This was most definitely the way.
Din Djarin didn’t know how Grogu managed to do the things he did. Not using the Force and not just using that adorable look and irresistible smile. He didn’t know how the Force worked, but he’d seen enough displays of it by Luke, Ahsoka, Grogu, the others to last him a lifetime. He’d also watched grown adults just fall all over themselves to protect, feed, care for, and encourage the small person who he, himself had adopted, rather than sending him back to his own kind. They were all under Grogu’s spell and it never seemed as strange to him as when they were in the N-1.
Grogu loved the ship and disliked it in about equal measures. The boy loved that it was fast. That it could stop short, spin, plunge, and surge forward without hesitation. He loved that you could see hyperspace all around you when they were hopping from planet to planet. He loved being able to chat with R5 when he was bored. But there were plenty of things he didn’t like about the ship as well.
Grogu hated that the ship didn’t have a fully private privy, like the old Razor Crest had. It certainly had proper equipment to make it as relatively comfortable as possible for the pilot, but Grogu didn’t consider any of that adequate. The Mandalorian sometimes wondered how Grogu had managed to deal with the lack of privacy he must have experienced during those years after he’d been rescued from the Jedi Temple. There was no way the other people responsible for him had all had proper hygiene equipment everywhere they went.
But that wasn’t the only thing Grogu didn’t like about the N-1. He also disliked how small the storage capacity was on the ship, particularly the preserver. It only held a few, small essentials, like bacta and liquid nutrient concentrate. The Mandalorian preferred ration packs and didn’t care if the water or ferment he drank was warm or cold. Grogu on the other hand preferred to eat his freeze dried frogs cold because he said they got soggy when they got to room temperature. He also preferred bone broth to other liquids and didn’t mind that cold, but didn’t like it warmish, but not hot. It had to be either hot or cold, but tepid was a huge problem.
As was the lack of storage for common items like his stuffed animal collection that grew larger every time he saw Greef Karga, Peli Motto, or Daimyo Fett. The Mandalorian allowed him to bring to non-essential items with him on trips like this one. One stuffie and the control knob from the Razor Crest. Djarin still had to find room for his poncho, hammock, and pillow, which meant that he’d been going without spare socks, first layers and second layers. Grogu often complained that the Mandalorian spent too much time in the fresher when they arrived at any lodgings they were using but he had to clean those things somewhere and it took time.
Yet, even with all the scowling, grousing, complaints, and mumbling, during every trip Grogu found a way to keep himself amused. Sometimes he just watched as much Diggle and Daggle as he could get away with, normally two or three seasons worth of programs played back to back. Other times, he found something he wanted to do more research on and the Mandalorian was actually lucky to get Grogu to pay any attention to his bodily needs including eating and sleeping. When Grogu wanted to know about something he was a voracious consumer of data and information. Which was great the majority of time.
Did the Mandalorian really need three separate discussions about purrgils, there migratory habits, mating rituals, and historic significance? No. Not really. He was grateful that the critters existed but beyond that he really didn’t know what else to do with all that information. That’s why he gave Grogu an assignment to learn about Takodana once they were in hyperspace. Djarin wanted the former Jedi padawan to have something to focus his attention on without feeling like he was going to be completely overwhelmed or left behind.
The Mandalorian had been on Takodana before. He liked what he could remember about the place. It seemed pretty friendly, all things considered, and hoped he’d have a reason to visit it again. Now that he had that reason he was looking forward to exploring more of the planet as well as finding out what Ahsoka Tano wanted with him. They were done with most of the Imp remnants, he hoped, and could start focusing on bringing the New Republic up to speed and finding a way to heal Mandalore the rest of the way. He hoped that whatever Ahsoka needed their help with it was about one or the other of those things and not some wild tauntaun chase. He’d had enough of that sort of thing to last him another lifetime.
While they were in hyperspace he would do his best to not eaves drop on Grogu’s process, but it wasn’t going to be easy for him. He liked observing his son when Grogu was focused so intently on a project. Djarin felt like he could see Grogu’s brain working through all the problems and drawing conclusions and considering alternatives and going off on his own metaphorical wild tauntaun chases.
It had taken him a while to work out the best way to avoid too much oversight without completely ignoring what was going on right under his helmet. Then he discovered the ‘behind the scenes’ companion episodes of Diggle and Daggle that explained how the program was put together and included interviews with its stars, crew, and other cast members. As much as Grogu enjoyed the show, Djarin enjoyed the show behind the show. He just hoped that he’d be able to complete season four before they reached Takodana. He wanted to know who had thought to give Diggle top billing, when Daggle was the co-producer.
Until then, he just hoped Grogu was enjoying himself. He deserved it after everything they’d been through, again and again.
Grogus gathered around Din Djarin as a reminder that the Force is strange and mysterious. Grogus in background are watercolors by me.
Uncomfortable
Meditation was a wonderfully useful tool for many things. You could use it to calm your breathing and give your body a break from the stress of everyday living. You could use it as a way to clear your mind and allow your brain to have time to recover and orient itself. You could use it as a means of communing with the Force, allowing yourself to be one with the universe and feel the connections all through its many galaxies. But you couldn’t use it to forget that you needed to use a privy. Nope. Never worked that way. Grogu was miserable.
He knew that his dad had some means for sorting out those natural biological processes, but he wasn’t his dad. He usually retained everything until they reached their destination. His biology allowed for that and he was grateful for the way it worked. At least most of the time. Sitting in the N-1 was not ideal for sorting out alternates. It just wasn’t.
Now they were in hyperspace and he’d have to wait until they reached their destination before he could address such a simple, clear cut need. Uff.
“Grogu. It’s time to work on the background for the planet we’ll be meeting Ahsoka on. I’ve only been here once before and I don’t really remember enough about it. Paz was there, along with a few other Mandalorians and I’m pretty sure that I met the person who runs the place, but honestly, after everything we’ve done, it’s gotten a bit hazy.”
Wow. His dad had a real way of saying absolutely nothing and making it sound like he’d said something. Grogu wondered sourly if all Mandalorian bounty hunters took lessons in misdirection through boredom. He knew he was being biased. He knew that was because of his current condition. He couldn’t help either one and had no intention of trying.
“Now, Buddy, I can feel you frowning at me. We’ll be on Takodana before you know it and you’ll be able to relieve yourself in your preferred manner. In the mean time, you should take this datapad and start finding all the information we talked about earlier and use it to work up your report and an initial plan of contact. Ahsoka suggested that we travel to Andui first. She plans on meeting us there, but she didn’t specify a location. Based on your education as a Jedi, I want you to develop a list of suggested locations that would be good to examine.”
Takodana! Yippee! At least that was one thing in Grogu’s favor. He’d already looked up a lot of information about the planet when he was setting up his art installation. Or at least planning his art installation. He hadn’t actually gotten to the real work of setting it all up. But now that was fine. He was actually going there and that real experience would help him determine if the places and features that he’d included in his sketches and layouts for the mural were the right things to focus on. That made this whole trip worthwhile, at least for him. He supposed when they finally got there, met Ahsoka, helped her with whatever she needed help with, there or somewhere else, it would be worthwhile for her. That was good, right?
Well, whether it was good or not, at least her interests and his interests coincided for once and Grogu was happy about that much. It took the edge off of how things had been going for the last year and he’d needed that much more than he thought he had. Just bouncing from one place to another was all well and good and very exciting, but being able to do a deep dive in advance really seemed like a luxury that they hadn’t been able to afford, until this moment. Yippee!
Grogu opened up the program on the datapad and began to pull up all the information he’d collected on Takodana for the cabin enhancement project. He liked the basic information he’d collected about the planet. It wasn’t cover by deserts like Tatooine or specifically volcanically active like Nevarro. It had water, but wasn’t swampy like Degobah or under a lot of constraints, like Sorgan.
The galactic encyclopedia described it as being ‘hot and humid’ but they provided no reference data. As far as Grogu could tell from another report on the planet, Takodana was cooler than Tatooine and far less humid than Trask. He supposed whoever had collected the information just didn’t like breaking a sweat and it had been his experience that if you were doing enough work you could break a sweat on Hoth as easily as you could on Tatooine. You’d just find that you felt twice as cold when that happened if you didn’t keep up that same level of work. The cold was absolutely no fun.
Takodana didn’t have a moon which Grogu found interesting. He’d learned to appreciate moons when he’d been on planets that had them. That had actually been the only thing he’d liked about Hoth. Three moons decorating the sky and sliding through their phases and disrupting things when they were close enough to each other and the planet that their gravity wells created little pockets of special gravity. He’d once seen an avalanche of snow get sucked up into such a gravity anomaly and it had really been kind of magical. He’d wished he could do something like that with the Force but he had no idea how to even attempt it. But that wouldn’t be an issue on Takodana, so he had to refocus and consider what issues were there.
He supposed an old Jedi Temple was a pretty good issue. There was always a chance that something special had been left in it and you’d need a real or experienced or dedicated Jedi to find it. Or, given that almost every Jedi Temple ever constructed had been built on the foundations of an old Sith Temple (looking at you Coruscant, Dantooine, Moraband, etc.,) it was possible that the Sith had left stuff on Takodana as well. That would be a good thing to sort out early. Given what they’d just been through, relatively speaking, keeping stuff away from any other Sith or Sith adjacent people seemed like an excellent use of time.
And, even without an old Jedi Temple, there was a castle, and not just any castle. It was the home of the pirate Queen Maz Kanata. Had Ahsoka gotten in trouble with a bunch of pirates, again? Grogu hoped not. Pirates followed strange rules that they were happy to follow very strictly until it occurred to them that they didn’t actually have to follow them at all. Then you were in trouble. Also, pirates kept strange company. They tolerated all sorts of people that were normally not welcomed in civil society. People like bounty hunters. Oops. Maybe that was a good thing then. If Maz was a pirate, maybe she’d like the Mandalorian. Or at least not care that he was a bounty hunter. Grogu couldn’t imagine a Pirate Queen getting all obnoxious about handing over weapons and detonators the way those people on Chandrila had been. Another point in Takodana’s favor from Grogu’s perspective.
Hmmm. There was still a lot for him to learn and to collate into a report that his dad could understand. He’d have to start his outline now and then fill in the blanks and take on new research paths when they called to him. After all, the initial data he had on Takodana didn’t really mention much about critters and it had been Grogu’s experience that critters, wherever they went, were a key aspect of how the work they performed would go. Rancor weren’t native to Tatooine. Someone had brought them there ages ago. What if they also existed on Takodana? Or Krayt dragons? Or rathtars? What if they had Mythosaurs? Sure, Takodana wasn’t close to Mandalore, but what did ‘close’ even mean in a galaxy as large as the one they were in?
Uff. That was a lot to learn and he really needed to get a good handle on it before they arrived at Andui, Takodana’s only real city (more like a largish village, but again did size really matter). He also needed the layout of the city, where the landing port was, markets, taverns, and importantly privies. Yes, he couldn’t forget that even though having a project to occupy his mind was helping. He just hoped it lasted through the long ride there or they would both be very uncomfortable when they arrived.
A view of Nymeve Lake and Maz Kanata's castle on Takodana. Image from STAR WARS Episode VII, The Force Awakens.
No Place Like Home
Grogu was looking at the various vids he’d taken since he’d received his first datapad from the Mandalorian. Some of them were just shorts of various places they had gone. Others were stills that he had pulled from the shorts because he wanted to use them to inspire his artwork. He was looking for something specific because his dad had ‘okay’d’ him coming up with a scheme to paint the main room of the cabin.
He’d been looking at the vids and stills for hours but hadn’t found the perfect one yet. He wanted something that spoke to both of their experiences and things they both loved, but it wasn’t easy to find that common ground.
The Mandalorian liked armor polish, fast star fighters, unique weapons, and fire stacks. Grogu liked fire stacks and going fast, but he wasn’t fond of weapons of most sorts and he definitely didn’t care for armor polish, and if a star fighter didn’t have a proper privy, he really didn’t want to spend days in it. Uff.
Then he’d thought about all the planets that they had visited. Arvala-7. Nevarro. Tatooine. Sorgan. Trask. Tython. Ossus. The list went on and on. Grogu liked planets that had a lot of water. Din Djarin liked planets that understood law and order, but weren’t too picky about what Mandalorian Bounty Hunters were up to. Grogu hadn’t really worried about that because in his experience even the most successful planets had flaws and even the most flawed environments had something worth liking.
Nevarro had rivers of lava and vast, smoking plains of cooling basalt. It didn’t have much in the way of bodies of water, but it did rain there and he liked that as well. The rain supported that tiny pond in front of their cabin and that supported the frogs he liked to chase and eat. Strangely enough, even though that’s where they lived now, Din Djarin didn’t really seem to enjoy Nevarro. He complained about having to polish his armor all the time. He griped about the affect of the smoke and heat on the N-1 when it was just sitting on its landing pad. He absolutely hated the rain. Grogu wondered why they just didn’t live on Tatooine. The air was clean, it had lots of sand, which his dad didn’t mind at all, and it was practically a water free zone.
He’d asked his dad about that once, but all the Mandalorian had said was ‘We live here because this is where we live.” It was a complete non-answer. Either he thought it was obvious that they should live someplace that had a cabin and a landing pad and had been gifted to them by the High Magistrate, or he just didn’t want to explain to Grogu why he had accepted that gift since he complained about the place all the time.
Grogu supposed that he should have filtered his vids for the conditions that made Nevarro problematic and he could have saved himself a lot of time. He could have skipped looking at the vids of Corvus that he had been taking when no one was looking.
He refreshed his datapad and began his search over. He filtered out planets that had too much water, too much smoke, too many gigantic critters (that hidden world that the Mandos had been was eliminated with that change), too cold, too hot, too humid, and too close to Chandrila, Coruscant, Mandalore, and Jakku. They had either been a problem for his dad or a problem for him and he thought that the planets near them would create too much trouble.
The output of those filters was pretty slim. Endor. Hmmm. Maybe. Plazir-15. Nope. Too many droids. Takodana. Ahhh. Din Djarin had liked Takodana. He’d been there at some point before he’d met Grogu and had commented that it was a nice planet. That might have been the only planet Grogu had ever heard his dad compliment that way. Of course Grogu had never been there. Hmmm.
He started to open the vids that were marked Takodana and realized that his dad must have downloaded the content from his helmet’s sensors and cam and just never done anything with it. Grogu clicked on a vid to watch and smiled immediately. It looked like the introduction to an episode of Diggle and Daggle, the Fish that fish. The ship, it must have been the Razor Crest, had done a sweeping arc down to the planet’s surface, crossing over Lake Nymeve, circling a castle of some sort and then resting in a clearing surrounded by beautiful, full grown trees. It was very pretty.
He watched the next video and grinned even more. His dad was tromping down a path that probably lead to the castle. Grogu could see bits of it as the images filled the screen. The funny thing. The thing that made him grin, was that his dad seemed to be humming. Grogu had never heard Din Djarin just hum for the sake of humming. That meant that he was’t worried about people finding him or finding someone who he needed to collect for a bounty. Seeing his dad so carefree was unique. He liked it.
There was another vid that was a bit garbled, but he understood that his dad was looking for a person, but not to bring them in cold. Nope. He needed there help. He was given some directions and then he was heading back out into the wilderness. Grogu wondered if this was why his dad didn’t mind walking places. If he just pretended that the walks were all on Takodana they would seem a lot more pleasant than they actually were.
The final vid he watched showed the Mandalorian reaching a small cabin along a tree line. It was hidden but not hidden in that strange way that eyes liked to ignore things that seemed the same even when they weren’t. When his dad reached the door he had obviously turned and looked around at the rolling hills, the fields, and the sky that was full of fluffy white clouds that clearly had no intention of releasing any rain.
“Now this wouldn’t be a bad place to raise a family.”
What?! Din Djarin had actually said that out loud. Well. Grogu knew what he had to do now. They might not ever live on Takodana, but they could look at that view together, as a family, and enjoy that future. It was at least worth a try.
First off, I dislike the constant talk of wanting X character(s) to appear in Skeleton Crew, let it be its own thing!
Second, as far as I'm concerned, there's only to cameos that could make sense
Boba Fett and Maz Kanata
What makes them work as opposed to anyone else is they are fixed to a location, Tatooine and Takodana respectively, any appearance by them is predicated by the Skeleton Crew going to those worlds, as opposed to randomly wandering into anyone else by happenstance
Plus, Takodana and Tatooine are places the Crew could conceivably go
Tatooine has numerous spaceports, and this is SW, all roads lead to Tatooine, it's a good place for the characters to stop on their journey (and for Jod to meet up with people he knows), and it's very easy to see how they'd run into Boba
Given that thus far every stop they've made has involved accidentally getting themselves into a mess and then running away from the people they ticked off, I could very easily see the kids tipping over a swoop gang's bikes which escalates somehow into a full scale brawn which brings Boba to the see to be all "What the fuck is going on here?" and try and get control of the situation
As for Takodana, well Maz I'd the reason to go there, she's old and knows lots of people, probably knows Jod, and given that she is also a Force sensitive Pirate that gives them a point of commonality, but also her age could mean she was alive for the time when At-Attin was not lost to the rest of the galaxy, and while she might not know where it is, her knowledge can help the crew head in the right direction
“Well, that explains why BB-8 is here,” Poe said, a laugh in his voice. “The General is gonna be pissed.”
“Or maybe not,” Karè interjected. “It’s always been one way or the other with those two.”
Rey had no clue what they were all talking about. If memory served, the Millennium Falcon had achieved fame thanks to the smuggler turned rebel Han Solo. Which meant the General probably knew him. Or more?
Suddenly, a rather ominous looking Upsilon class shuttle rose from the surface behind the castle, flanked by several TIEs.
“Ren!” Poe said, venom in his voice.
“Should we go after him?” Snap asked.
“Negative!” Poe responded. “I just got a transmission from BB-8. He’s in the forest hiding, and the surviving civilians are safe. We’ve done our job. For now.” Rey could tell from the sound of his voice he would love nothing better than to blast that ship out of the sky, but it wouldn’t be an easy thing to do, and it wasn’t worth the effort right now.
The obscure Star Wars facts you have to dig up when writing 'between the scenes' of the movies. For example, did Poe have an astromech droid with him in Black One during the dogfight on Takodana? Or was he stupid enough to go into battle without one just because he didn't have BB-8? Watched those sexy scenes closely and got my basic answer. Wookieepeedia did the rest!
