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Here’s the official description of the novel Phasma by Delilah S. Dawson, due out on September 1 as part of the “Journey to The Last Jedi” publishing initiative:
One of the most cunning and merciless officers of the First Order, Captain Phasma commands the favor of her superiors, the respect of her peers, and the terror of her enemies. But for all her renown, Phasma remains as virtually unknown as the impassive expression on her gleaming chrome helmet. Now, an adversary is bent on unearthing her mysterious origins—and exposing a secret she guards as zealously and ruthlessly as she serves her masters.
Deep inside the Battlecruiser Absolution, a captured Resistance spy endures brutal interrogation at the hands of a crimson-armored stormtrooper—Cardinal. But the information he desires has nothing to do with the Resistance or its covert operations against the First Order.
What the mysterious stormtrooper wants is Phasma’s past—and with it whatever long-buried scandal, treachery, or private demons he can wield against the hated rival who threatens his own power and privilege in the ranks of the First Order. His prisoner has what Cardinal so desperately seeks, but she won’t surrender it easily. As she wages a painstaking war of wills with her captor, bargaining for her life in exchange for every precious revelation, the spellbinding chronicle of the inscrutable Phasma unfolds. But this knowledge may prove more than just dangerous once Cardinal possesses it—and once his adversary unleashes the full measure of her fury.
On today’s podcast, I’m analyzing the synopsis and what it tells us about: the three character posters that were released; when the novel could be taking place (as in, where is the story timeline-wise in the new canon); the importance of Phasma in the eyes of the Resistance; and how this could connect to Commandant Brendol Hux (who is the father of General Armitage Hux from The Force Awakens) and the savage new training regimen for soldiers he created, which was hinted at in the last novel of the Aftermath Trilogy, Empire’s End.