Star Wars Concept Art Reveals the Fate of Missing Ahsoka Character

Ahsoka hasn’t exactly been the Rebels reunion fans were hoping for. Sure, it’s brought key characters from the animated series together under one live-action roof, but one member of Rebels has notably been missing in action. While Sabine Wren (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) reunites with Ezra Bridger (Eman Esfandi), and Hera Syndulla (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) argues with senate committees, Garazeb “Zeb” Orellios (Steve Blum) is somewhere in the galaxy, charting his own path with the New Republic.

We haven’t seen him in Ahsoka yet, but we did get a glimpse of live-action Zeb in The Mandalorian Season 3, where he joined Carson Teva (Paul Sun-Hyung Lee) at a bar on the Outer Rim planet Adelphi while dressed in a blue New Republic flight suit. The color of his uniform didn’t seem to have any particular significance; we’ve seen blue suits in Rogue One, and Ahsoka has since shown us pilots wearing blue, green, and even red fatigues. But a closer look at Zeb’s New Republic threads might just explain his role in the new regime.

Lucasfilm artist Aaron McBride recently shared concept art for Zeb’s Mandalorian appearance, complete with a full-length rendering of his new look. It’s clear that a blue flight suit was always the plan for the series; it sets Zeb apart from starfighter pilots like Teva, who are normally seen in orange. Does the color denote his allegiance to a particular group of fighters, like Blue Squadron? It’s plausible, though the Blue Squadron pilots we’ve seen usually wear a darker shade.

If anything, Zeb’s suit could denote his role in the New Republic hierarchy. In Ahsoka Episode 7, Sabine reveals that Zeb is off training new recruits. Maybe teachers in the Starfighter Corps wear blue, instead of the traditional orange flight suits — they’ve got to stand out against a class of hotshot pilots, after all. Still, the idea of Zeb running flight drills is a little surprising.

Zeb’s pretty handy in a starfighter, even compared to prodigies like Hera, but during the Rebellion he typically served as muscle and specialized in hand-to-hand combat. Of course, a lot can change in a decade; we haven’t seen Zeb or any members of his rebel squad for a long time. It’s plausible that Zeb honed his flight skills in the later years of the Rebellion, or at least learned enough to teach.

Either way, let’s hope we get to see more of Zeb in future Star Wars projects. He doesn’t have to reunite with the Rebels crew any time soon, but it would be nice to see how he’s adjusting to life in the New Republic. Maybe we could get a series set at the Republic’s space camp?