Senator Leia's 'Force Awakens' Backstory: Resistance Origins in 'Star Wars: Bloodline'

The story, set just six years before the events of The Force Awakens, focuses on Princess Leia Organa in her role as senator in the New Republic.

Leia, who eschewed becoming a Jedi like Luke, is fed up with the squabbling politicians, split into the intractable factions of Populists and Centrists following Mon Mothma’s departure as chancellor.
Leia would rather leave behind the government pettiness on Hosnian Prime and go travel the universe with hubby Han Solo. Since the event of Jedi, Han helped out Chewbacca with a sticky situation on the latter’s home world of Kashyyyk.
Chewie has remained on his planet with his family, while Mr. Kessel Run has formed his own championship racing team.

Although theirs is a long-distance relationship, Han and Leia are still very much in love, and he plays a big part in Bloodline.

Joining Leia on Hosnian Prime is her chief of staff, Greer Sonnel, one of Han’s former racing protégées; teen intern Korr Sella (who appears briefly in The Force Awakens as Hosnian Prime later gets vaporized); ace X-wing pilot escort Joph Seastriker; savvy political rival Ransolm Casterfo; and the scheming Lady Carise Sindian. Bloodline also name checks several classic characters (including Lando).

The book’s title is a direct reference to Leia’s parentage. Luke and Leia have learned that
their mother was Padmé Amidala. But much of the novel focuses on Leia’s two very different
dads.

Leia receives a lovely holocron message recorded to her by Bail Organa, her adopted father but the man she really considers her paterfamilias. However, the message also reveals the secret of Leia’s true father — something she has kept hidden from everyone but Han and Luke.
Even her son, Ben, doesn’t know. Then, her adversaries in the Senate find the holocron and play it to devastating results.

As the political intrigue plays out on Hosnian Prime, Leia also tries to piece together the provenance of a shadowy outfit operating on the fringes of the galaxy and to make sure it isn’t a threat to the hard-fought peace.

Reveal: Why C-3PO Has a Red Arm in Star Wars: The Force Awakens

By Joshua Yehl

In Star Wars Special: C-3PO #1 from Marvel Comics, written by James Robinson with art by Tony Harris, we got the answer about C-3PO and why he had a red arm, in a story that takes place before the events of Force Awakens.

In a story called "The Phantom Limb," C-3PO and a group of four other droids hurry off of a crashed Resistance ship before it explodes.
C-3PO mentions a Captain Hoff and the ship’s crew, and it’s implied they all died in the crash and subsequent explosion, leaving the droids to complete their mission by reaching a downed ship across the planet.

Their mission is to escort a First Order protocol droid, named OMRI, to the Resistance so they can datamine him for the location of the captured Admiral Ackbar.

As they journey the hostile planet full of savage creatures and perilous obstacles, C-3PO and OMRI have an ongoing conversation about the nature of being a droid and how they fall on either side of a larger conflict. They talk about how droids often have their memories wiped, and how they sometimes remember their older lives, with C-3PO vaguely recounting the events of the prequel trilogy, which leads to them realizing they could have once fought for the other side and never know it.

They are beset by alien beasts along their journey, and at one point C-3PO is grabbed by the tentacle of a large monster that rips his arm off, but he was able to escape with the help of OMRI.

The other droids, however, were not so lucky. By the time the ship is in sight, they’ve all been destroyed, leaving just C-3PO and OMRI. Acid rain begins to pour down, so they take cover just yards away from their goal. OMRI decides to choose friendship over choosing a side, and so he gives Ackbar’s whereabouts to C-3PO and then sacrifices himself by walking into the acid rain in order to activate the homing beacon. The rain eats away at OMRI’s plating, revealing red primer underneath.

C-3PO gets rescued by Poe Dameron and BB-8, and he keeps the red arm, wearing it as a reminder of the droid friends he lost and the lesson OMRI taught him.

Reveal: Who is Lor San Tekka in Star Wars: The Force Awakens?

"A legendary traveler and explorer, Lor San Tekka is a longtime ally of the New Republic and the Resistance.

After the Battle of Endor, San Tekka helped Luke Skywalker recover secret Jedi lore that the Empire had tried to erase, and Leia Organa hopes the old scout can now help find her brother.

Following decades of adventure, San Tekka retired to live simply on Jakku, where he follows the dictates of the once-forbidden Church of the Force.

The Church of the Force is an "underground" sort of faith that operates illegally - due to the laws inflicted by The Empire (and, more secretly, The Sith). The Church of the Force is "loosely affiliated worshipers of the Jedi ideals, who steadfastly believe that one day their light would return to the galaxy."

Tekka is not a Jedi. Instead, Tekka is part of a "collective of worshippers" at Tuanul village, "who praise the virtues of the Force without being graced by the ability to wield it."

As The Empire fell, they essentially inflicted a bit of the ol' Scorched Earth on the knowledge they'd gained of the universe at large. They "destroyed records that would have been vital to the New Republic's attempts at galactic reconstruction."

As such, the New Republic relied on people like Lor San Tekka, who is a "font of obscure information" about the Outer Rim and esoteric bits of knowledge like what is contained on his "antiquated data storage unit," this is Lor's "most valued possession."

"This will begin to make things right."

Tekka gives this data storage unit to Poe Dameron shortly before Tuanul village is destroyed by stormtroopers from the First Order.