Rogue One General Draven

I doubt they would have him criminally charged. He may have went behind their backs but having your own head intelligence officer tried and sentenced officially would just benefit the Imps and be a death warrant for him. unless you mean like court marshaled within the Alliance ranks which even then I doubt they would imprison him just send him off to a smaller cell or demoted. Also I wonder about the actual chain of command situation there. Cassian is under Draven's command and the mission is also Draven's to manage. Mon was involved in the process certainly and did the briefing but does she need to be call upon when Draven makes the decision about Eadu? Like while she is the leader we don't consult the President on every order made by the CIA. I would assume that since he is in the room before Scarif he does actually have the authority to change the mission since Mon likely did not actually give the orders to Cassian in the first place. I guess that while she said them to Jyn the actual orders are Draven's and he just gave Mon a report he intended to change off the record. Not that I am saying he should have changed the orders but since he is there later it seems he actually did have the authority or she was not actually the one in charge there and just did the briefing. It is a shady thing to do but not technically treason or anything. Like if she reconfirmed her original order after Draven changed it it would be treason if he tried to change it back or ordered that strike after she gave her orders not to then he would have went against the chain of command but I would assume that in terms of active orders relating to his men and his mission he has the command unless Mon says otherwise therefore he was being shady but not actually breaking the chain of command. Or at least that's how I would work around the possible plot hole that comes with him being at the later meeting.

 

I assume it's a question of ''plausible deniability'' for the likes of Mothma and Organa. They want to try and present the Rebellion as a bastion of democracy and justice in contrast to the totalitarian tyranny of the Empire but are savvy enough to realise that wars aren't won by idealism alone. Someone has to be the one to make calls that are less than morally upstanding, to do the things that might need to be done but would cost a lot in PR terms if it was to come out - the black ops/wetwork of the Rebel military as opposed to the heroic volunteers. This is where Draven comes in - he has the experience and the responsibility to make those choices and the other leaders don't give him orders or ask him questions in order to legitimately maintain that whenever Rebels are connected with such events they gave no orders to do so and had no knowledge of any plans. If he oversteps his bounds or takes it too far then he gets the Gerrera treatment and is thrown out to fend for himself.

 

At the point we see the Rebels in Rogue One I don't think you can even say there is a unified motivation for everyone, some view the conflict as still being political were as others view it as closer to open warfare. In that respect I think Draven is actually ahead of the curve where as Mon Mothma is still more focused on looking for a political solution.

Draven's attitude I think is much more pragmatic as well, in his eyes Galen is a big asset for the Empire in weapons development and potentially extracting him is a mission with a high probability of failure where as assassinating him is much more likely to succeed as indeed it does. I don't think his attitude towards Galen is really that unrealistic either, even his own daughter preffers to think he's dead.

The big negative for Draven though is I think the lack of honesty his methods represent, going behind the backs of others and most importantly sending a daughter to help in her own fathers assassination are I think a step too far that very nearly result in disaster.

 

He didn't send Jyn, she pretty much sent herself, and to be fair Cassian seemed like he was on the verge of disobeying anyway, but Jyn decided him.

 

I don't agree with everything Draven did, but reading the novel I got the impression that despite their differences there was a mutual respect between Draven and Mothma, and I think the council of the Alliance gave Draven a lot of room to make his own operational decisions. Perhaps he overstepped the boundary, but the notion that he would have been put on trial is a bit much I'm afraid.

There's long been an assumption here that the Rebels' high standards of morality are shown by their exclusion of Gerrera. But he may not have been excluded. According to the novel, he excluded himself: "Saw Gerrera had effectively withdrawn from the Alliance over strategic disagreements; but there were other council members who shared his more aggressive agenda."
In other words some people in the Rebel Alliance agree with Saw Gerrera, although perhaps they too would have to withdraw if they wanted to go as far in practice as he did.
There is obviously some room for interpretation here: he was the one who withdrew, but it's possible he couldn't have got away with organising overt resistance on Jedha while still a member of the Alliance.

 

In either case it is very clear that the Council as a whole did not associate with nor approve of Gerrera's approach. Some of them may have but the majority did not. Whether he was kicked or quit,- they did not see him as part of the Rebellion any more. I think the key word you used would be ''overt'' as that was exactly what Draven was not if he could help it. Plan A was Andor assassinating Erso quickly and neatly with no real evidence to prove it was the Rebels responsible. If (or when in this case) that went awry, THEN the recognisably rebel X-Wings were sent in.

 

A bit of both. Chastened somewhat by Jyn and the Rogue One crew and his mistaken assessment of the characters of both Galen and Jyn Erso.

The Jedi have been essentially wiped out, so he has to function as the head of Rebel Spy Network, which means ruthlessly and skeptically without the moderating influence and insight of Jedi. Evaluating intel as best he can.

I think he’s a fascinating character. Someone who would probably look at the peace treaty with what becomes the FO askance and wanting to keep and eye on themof he could.


I have no doubt Drevan survived to become the New Republic’s Director of Security—“head Spook(Spy) ”as Smiley might say.

 

Again I think if we get another anthology film set during the OT featuring the Rebel/Imperial conflict Draven potentially makes a lot of sense appearing again.

Not only does he provide a link to an earlier film but I guess its likely that like Rogue One future anthology films cover more "behind the scenes" heroism which makes the involvement of a Rebel intelligence head more logical.

 

I really appreciated the Brit casting and his backstory - in another time and world, he'd easily be another Imperial officer alongside Tarkin and friends, One of the early criticisms of at least ANH and ESB, was the typecasting of all villains as Brits and the rebels as Americans ...

 

Great character.

 

Now that I've gotten Rebel Files (newcanon work) - I can say that Draven was still around in the Alliance in the ROTJ era. Complaining about Leia's habit of breaching security, and asking what she and Luke are up to shortly before the attack on Jabba's palace. His boss, General Airen Cracken, brings his questions to Mon Mothma "Is Leia running her own rescue op?" and says Alliance Intelligence doesn't like being kept in the dark.

 

He's a bit hypocritical given that his orders to Cassian contradicted Mon Mothma's during Jyn's briefing.

 

It appears from Rebel Files that Mon Mothma issued a censure of Saw after one atrocity too many, stating outright that the Partisans were no longer in any way affiliated with the Alliance.

 

I imagine Draven was sympathetic to Saw’s tactics.

 

Hard to tell. He's one of the ones most skeptical about Saw being willing to cooperate with them in Rogue One.

That team which turns up to help Cassian & Jyn for the trip to Scarif? Draven originally assembled it to attack Saw's fortress to retrieve Bodhi, before Jyn was sent in instead.

 

He didn't show much skepticism in that scene, as far as I could tell.

What I meant is his hardline approach to the Empire. Kill Galen, at all costs, blow up an Imperial installation, etc. He didn't have any sympathy for bringing him alive to appear before the Senate, as Mothma did. He was probably one of the more radical members of the Alliance, and may have had some sympathy for Saw's tactics (even if he wasn't a huge fan of Saw himself).

 

It's true that (prior to Mon Mothma cutting Saw off from the Rebel Alliance entirely) he was advocating "not being squeamish" about Saw's methods.

 

I've always given Draven the benefit of the doubt when it came to his decision to order Cassion to kill Galen. My assumption is that he is just so far at his wit's end in trying to combat the Empire that when he finally has an opportunity to terminate an important figurehead who he believes is absolutely vital to them, he goes for it. And I think that his and Cassian's relationship extends beyond the professional dynamic of working inside the Rebellion, to the point where obviously he can give Cassian that kind of order which went against the Council. In addition to that, when you look at the reaction of Mon Mothma after the private runs up to her and tells her Raddus has left to fight, it seems apparent that there is an underlying understanding and agreement about certain things among some members of the council that does not align with the rest of the council. And that likely goes back a long way. So when we circle back now to Draven's decision making process, it is likely that in his own mind he understands that going against the council like that isn't some radical crazy thing he is doing. He probably already assumes that there are those in the council who agree with him. Because there is more or less an unspoken trust between certain members of the council. One in which other members could rely on as well in terms of their own decision making. Knowing that even if it wasn't something the rest would agree with, it wouldn't be considered as some traiterous move against them. Which is what I assume to be Draven's angle.

 

he shows up in this issue of the star wars comic which set AFTER ANH so Draven is still a member of the Alliance.

 

And, based on Rebel Files, he's still a general and an Intelligence officer, immediately before ROTJ.

 

I wonder if he may have planned the mission for the Bothans that got the "intelligence" on the second Death Star.

 

Madine was the Rebel liaison to the Bothans, going by Rebel Files.

 

Ah, okay. Thanks.