Andor has been debuting to amazing praise, with many people saying that it’s the best show in the Star Wars franchise. Its commitment to tone, political commentary, and writing all come together to form a more adult show. It typically avoids action, only taking it once the tension has built up to a boiling point.
But that’s not to say that there aren’t intense action scenes in the show. In Episode 11, Luthen, a character who prefers to stay in the shadows and coordinate things behind the scenes, is caught by an Imperial cruiser and is forced to fight his way out of the situation.
Luthen is a new character introduced in Andor, and like many before him, has his own ship. First seen in Andor’s second episode when he arrived on Ferrix, Luthen pilots this one-man craft on his missions. His ship is called the Fondor, a callback to the Fondor Shipyards introduced before in Star Wars.
The class of the ship is a Fondor haulcraft, which is a type of ship that hauls material around the galaxy. It would typically be a civilian ship, making it perfect for a discreet method of traveling across the galaxy while the Empire is watching.
Luthen’s ship has many unique capabilities, such as an onboard AI to assist him with his jobs, the ability to whistle his ship from afar, and a lot of hidden weapon capabilities.
The ship itself is a modified haulcraft and can create new transponder identities on the fly. In Andor episode 11, a new weapon can be seen.
When fighting the Cantwell-class Arrestor cruiser, Luthen shows that his ship has a lightsaber beam coming out of both sides of his ship, obliterating the two TIE Fighters that are trying to disable the Fondor.
This is a completely new feature on a ship and seems to require some rare technology to power this function. Luthen is a seller of antiquities and knows how things like kyber crystals work. It’s possible that these weapons are powered by kyber crystals.
The Fondor Shipyards are an important location in Star Wars, despite appearing in a limited number of times.
Originally built as civilian shipyards, they were taken over by the Empire to manufacture their Star Destroyers and a vast array of other ships. They orbit the planet of Fondor.
These shipyards appeared in the 2017 video game Star Wars: Battlefront 2, where Iden Versio and the rest of Inferno Squad travel to the Shipyards to secure them from New Republic attack and to free the Imperial Star Destroyer Dauntless, which was carrying vital equipment for Operation Cinder.
In Legends, the shipyards had a role in the Clone Wars, where Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Bultar Swan disrupted a plan to destroy the shipyards, but Anakin would crash on the moon of Nallistia.
Luthen’s ship is made at the Fondor Shipyards and is named after them. The ship was probably made before the Empire took over because a haulcraft is typically an unarmed civilian transport. The Empire would have halted the production of civilian Luthen and heavily modified the ship to house all of the complex weaponry that is put on display in Andor.
No doubt Luthen’s actions above Segra Milo will have consequences for both him and Saw. It will likely draw attention to Saw’s hiding place, and to Luthen’s ship.
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