Star Wars Ahsoka’s E-Wing Explained—The EU’s X-Wing Replacement

But just as EU fans can be overjoyed at the E-Wing’s return to mainstream Star Wars prominence, questions remain as to just how long that prominence will last. After all, by necessity of Ahsoka’s place in the timeline, we know the E-Wing is not bound to be around for all that long. In the material from this period of the Star Wars timeline so far, the X-Wing has remained the primary starfighter of what little we’ve seen of the New Republic. Official novels set across the 30-year period between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens have seen the Republic institute a policy of disarmament, vastly reducing its own naval forces in lieu of ceding military operations to planetary defense forces.

And in a familiar echo of its fate in the Star Wars Expanded Universe, we also know that by the time of the sequel trilogy, the X-Wing has once again become the face of our hero’s space superiority fighters: this time with the creation of the T-70 model, the updated design that became the iconic ship of the Resistance in The Force Awakens and its sequels. With the E-Wing nowhere to be found in those movies, perhaps it’s safe to assume that in the current continuity the vessel faced an even more dire fate than its EU counterpart—not just overshadowed by iterations on its more famous sibling but completely erased by it.

That fate, however, is not yet written—there’s plenty of room for more stories in this period of Star Wars, and there’s of course many different ways to explain away the E-Wing’s absence from the sequel trilogy. There’s always a little truth in legends, of course, and this venerable vessel is as fine an example of that as any of the old EU revivals in canon we’ve had so far.

But just as EU fans can be overjoyed at the E-Wing’s return to mainstream Star Wars prominence, questions remain as to just how long that prominence will last. After all, by necessity of Ahsoka’s place in the timeline, we know the E-Wing is not bound to be around for all that long. In the material from this period of the Star Wars timeline so far, the X-Wing has remained the primary starfighter of what little we’ve seen of the New Republic. Official novels set across the 30-year period between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens have seen the Republic institute a policy of disarmament, vastly reducing its own naval forces in lieu of ceding military operations to planetary defense forces.

And in a familiar echo of its fate in the Star Wars Expanded Universe, we also know that by the time of the sequel trilogy, the X-Wing has once again become the face of our hero’s space superiority fighters: this time with the creation of the T-70 model, the updated design that became the iconic ship of the Resistance in The Force Awakens and its sequels. With the E-Wing nowhere to be found in those movies, perhaps it’s safe to assume that in the current continuity the vessel faced an even more dire fate than its EU counterpart—not just overshadowed by iterations on its more famous sibling but completely erased by it.

That fate, however, is not yet written—there’s plenty of room for more stories in this period of Star Wars, and there’s of course many different ways to explain away the E-Wing’s absence from the sequel trilogy. There’s always a little truth in legends, of course, and this venerable vessel is as fine an example of that as any of the old EU revivals in canon we’ve had so far.