With a brand new show featuring Ahsoka Tano about to debut, it’s worth examining her life up to the point where the show starts and how the character became such an integral part of Star Wars.
Follow along as we travel through the major moments in the timeline of Ahsoka and see how the former Jedi — and former Padawan to none other than Anakin Skywalker — has been involved in some huge events of the franchise nearly from the start.
Note: Time is measured in the traditional manner for Star Wars where the events of Episode IV: A New Hope, and the Battle of Yavin, make up Year 0, with any events earlier marked as BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin) and events after as ABY (After the Battle of Yavin).
Ahsoka Tano was born on the planet Shili about 36 years before the events of A New Hope, and her family knew she was special from an early age. As documented in Ahsoka’s first short in Tales of the Jedi, she had an affinity for those around her and for the creatures of the land. Cornered by a fierce raxshir, a baby Ahsoka was able to soothe it and escape with her life.
It wasn’t until a little bit later that she found her way to the Jedi. An impostor claiming to be a Jedi tried to take the special youngling, but the Jedi Master Plo Koon simultaneously arrived, sensing that Ahsoka was Force-sensitive, and foiled their plot, after a strong-willed Ahsoka refused to leave until a real Jedi arrived.
After training as a youngling and successfully finding her kyber crystal for her first lightsaber on Ilum, Ahsoka Tano was assigned to Jedi Master Anakin Skywalker as his Padawan right at the beginning of the Battle of Christophsis during the Clone Wars. Their relationship was initially volatile, with Anakin giving Ahsoka the sarcastic nickname Snips (and she calling him SkyGuy), but they developed a quick rapport.
Together, they helped halt the Separatist advance on Christophsis and then took on a special mission to rescue Rotta, son to Jabba the Hutt. The kidnapping was another plot by the Separatists to blame the Jedi for and to build a closer alliance with the underworld of the Hutts. Fortunately, Ahsoka was able to deliver Rotta back to his father and foil Count Dooku’s scheme.
Ahsoka Tano fought in many pivotal battles of the Clone Wars, including the second Battle of Geonosis. During this battle, the Republic, eager to cease production at the battle droid factories for the Separatists, launched a full scale invasion of the planet. The charge was led by the Jedi, including Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka.
At one point in the battle, Ahsoka and fellow padawan Barriss Offee were thought dead, but their training pulled them through a seemingly impossible situation. Together, they were sent on a mission of aid, but Barriss and a number of clone troopers were infected by brain worms and Ahsoka had to fend them off all by herself, proving that she could handle tough situations, even as her master was pushed closer to the brink of the Dark Side in order to help her.
After being sent to investigate an ancient distress signal, Ahsoka Tano, her master, Anakin Skywalker, and his old master, Obi-Wan Kenobi, passed through a vergence in the Force into an almost metaphorical realm called Mortis. There, she encountered a dark future version of herself, warning her about her connection to her master.
During her time on Mortis, poisoned by the Dark Side of the Force, Ahsoka attacked her master and was killed by the mysterious Son. Anakin, willing to do anything it took to save her life, was able to bring her back to life, but at a great cost to himself and the balance of the Force. Though Ahsoka, Anakin, and Obi-Wan were able to escape this bizarre nexus of the Force with their lives, questions lingered about how their experience would affect things going forward, or if it had all even been real.
Later on during the war, a bomb went off on Coruscant, killing an informant. When all eyes turned to Ahsoka Tano as the prime suspect, she realized she was being framed and went on the run to clear her name. After Ahsoka was captured and proclaimed her innocence, the Jedi don’t stand with her. Even despite her notable record of faithful service to the Jedi Order and the Republic during the war, they allowed a mockery of a trial to proceed.
When the real killer – Ahsoka’s friend Barriss Offee – was apprehended, the Jedi tried to welcome Ahsoka back to the order with open arms. Their betrayal and lack of trust in Ahsoka was hard to forget, though, and Ahsoka instead decided to leave the Jedi Order completely, well before the conclusion of the Clone Wars.
After trying to lay low and forget her Jedi past, Ahsoka Tano found herself getting into trouble anyway, only to be bailed out by Bo-Katan and her fellow Mandalorians working to take their planet back from the evil Lord Maul, who had taken over Mandalore with the help of Death Watch and his Shadow Collective. Ahsoka agreed to help Bo-Katan and went to her former master, Anakin, for assistance. He arranged for her to take Captain Rex and a number of troops from the 501st Legion to fight alongside the Mandalorians striving to dethrone Maul. After battling Maul, Ahsoka eventually captured him, though he seeded doubts in her about Anakin. Soon after, while transferring Maul as a prisoner across the stars, Captain Rex received an urgent message from Chancellor Palpatine: “Execute Order 66.”
Caught in the crossfire of this order to exterminate all Jedi (or even, in her case, a former Jedi), Ahsoka was able to flee and then remove Rex’s inhibitor chip to bring her friend back to her side, as the two worked to escape all the other Clone Troopers attempting to kill her, even resorting to freeing Maul as a diversion. Ultimately, Ahsoka and Rex managed to get off the ship before it crashed to the plant below, killing everyone still on board. On a cold, distant world, Ahsoka buried her lightsabers alongside all of the clones she loved so dearly who had turned on her and died thanks to Palpatine’s programming.
In the book Ahsoka by E. K. Johnston (and remixed a bit in the final episode of Tales of the Jedi) we learned about what happened to Ahsoka in the year after the Empire’s takeover. She tried to lay low, hiding out on the farm planet of Raada, but was drawn into their conflict with the Empire.
Eventually, an Inquisitor was sent to kill her, but she vanquished her foe and took their lightsabers from them. Then, she healed the Kyber crystals and crafted them into brand new white lightsabers. That’s when an old friend, Bail Organa, recruited her into the nascent fight against the Empire.
Years passed and Ahsoka adopted the persona of Fulcrum, a spymaster in the Rebellion, tasking individual rebel cells with missions, providing material and information, and working to restore freedom to the galaxy. This is how she got to know the crew of the Ghost in Star Wars Rebels in the years leading up to the Battle of Yavin. Together, Ahsoka and the Ghost crew continued to fight against the evils of the Empire and save people from its tyranny.
At one point, Ahsoka bailed out Kanan Jarrus and Ezra Bridger from Inquisitors, but when Darth Vader showed up, she sensed something dark and evil and yet familiar that she couldn’t quite explain.
Eventually, Ahsoka’s travels brought her to the Sith world of Malachor, where she intercepted Darth Vader just before he was going to kill Ezra Bridger. The two of them had an epic standoff, where the former master and apprentice met for what would be their final time. Ahsoka didn’t want to believe that it could be her old Jedi Master and friend, the former Anakin Skywalker, inside the suit, but after she cut his mask open, she couldn’t argue with what she saw with her own eyes.
The two of them likely would have battled to the death if Ezra Bridger had not plucked Ahsoka into the so-called “world between worlds,” depositing her back onto Malachor in a different time through the power of the Force.
After coming back to the galaxy under still mysterious circumstances, Ahsoka Tano sought to find her friend Ezra Bridger and their enemy, Grand Admiral Thrawn, as Thrawn was still a threat to the galaxy and he was the last person Ezra was seen with.
In the second season of The Mandalorian, we joined Ahsoka later in life, after the destruction of the Empire, on the planet of Corvus. There, after meeting Din Djarin and Grogu, she turned down Djarin’s request to train Grogu, concerned by the attachment she saw Grogu had formed with the Mandalorian. She then completed her goal to hunt down Morgan Elsbeth, the Imperial magistrate, asking her the whereabouts of Thrawn. Sometime after, as seen in The Book of Boba Fett, Ahsoka spent time with Luke Skywalker at his new Jedi Temple while he trained Grogu, having come to know Anakin’s son under circumstances that have yet to be revealed.
Before we saw any of this thought, there was the flash forward at the end of Star Wars Rebels, where Ahsoka, shrouded in white, began a quest to find Ezra with Sabine Wren. It seems likely that Ahsoka’s initial live-action appearances in both The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett took place prior to this reunion with Sabine, and that it’s around this point that the new series will presumably pick up.
Ahsoka premieres August 23 on Disney+
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