'Skeleton Crew' Breakdown: The Truth About At Attin

Star Wars

Jan 22

After a great deal of speculation about At Attin following a tantalizing tease regarding the nature of the world published before the release of the series, Star Wars: Skeleton Crew gave us several answers about At Attin. But they also left us with many questions. Today at CultureSlate, we’ll break down both, and see if we can’t give some responsible guesses along the way.

WARNING: This article contains spoilers for Skeleton Crew.

What Is At Attin?

As revealed by Kh’ymm, At Attin is one of nine Jewels of the Old Republic. Wondrous worlds, hidden for their protection, others included the worlds of At Achrann, At Aytuu, At Aravin, At Arissia, and At Acoda. However, over time, all of the other Jewels were destroyed, likely found and looted, as we later learn that At Attin is the last remaining Old Republic mint. It seems likely that the other Jewels were also the site of mints, especially given what appears to be an identical city layout on At Achrann for the settlement there. But, it is possible that other valued resources were manufactured by the Jewels, and At Attin just happened to be the final mint from a bygone era.

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The mint though, is known by the title “The Great Work” among the inhabitants of At Attin. Series creators Chris Ford and Jon Watts confirmed it is meant to have some kind of a link to the High Republic era, and its Great Works. These unique improvements to the galaxy, from helping distribute bacta across the galaxy, to constructing Starlight Beacon, were undertaken during the leadership of Lina Soh, one of the era’s most notable Chancellors. However, the creators do not specify what the nature of the link is, and this will be discussed later.

Life On At Attin

From what we can tell, almost every adult on Attin is involved in jobs that assist the Great Work. Fern’s mother, Fara, is an undersecretary operating within the bureaucracy of the world’s operations. Wim’s father, Wendle, was a Level 7 Systems Coordinator and seems involved in managing the various systems that help run Attin.

The role of analyst though, held by all of the other parents, is intriguing. Was it their job to analyze the manufacturing to credits deep below their city? Were they being supplied numbers and figures by the Supervisor and endlessly making possibly meaningless analyses of galactic commerce? It may take another season or greater clarification in another series to learn exactly what At Attin was analyzing.

The Supervisor

The big reveal of the series was the nature of the Supervisor. An immense stationary droid in control of the security droids and many of At Attin’s systems contained in the top of a grand tower near the center of At Attin’s main settlement, the reveal was mostly something for the audience and Jod Na Nawood. As casually revealed by Fara, the Supervisor is a natural choice to rule over them, to Jod’s slight incredulity, and this lack of surprise suggests that all adults are aware of how their society operates.

The Supervisor’s comments, in the brief time it appears, reinforce why At Attin has been run the way it has been for quite some time. Dust covers most surfaces in its control room, where living beings once sat and worked though they no longer do so. When interacting with Fara and Fern, the machine gently but firmly states that authority must be obeyed absolutely, to help facilitate order, affirming some explanation for why people like Wim are treated so harshly by the systems of the world. It does not understand concepts like sleeping in, or failure due to extenuating circumstances. This machine thinks in absolutes, binary answers, and does not allow for any nuance. As we see when it confronts Jod, it provides him with two possible lines of questioning to explain his lie, a 1 and a 0 by another name. With its destruction though, the Supervisor’s firm hand over all of At Attin comes to an end, which might prove disastrous in the long term without assistance from the New Republic.

The Timeline

Now we come to one of the most thorny issues regarding At Attin. Throughout the series’ run, every episode brought new guesses about the timeline of events and the history at play. With the series end, we still have some key questions left behind despite the reveal of the Supervisor, whose death robs us of easy answers. This question is also wrapped up in just how long it has been since the mint received an emissary. The biggest unanswered question currently left standing is when At Attin was created. The term “Old Republic” used throughout this series is stated by characters outside of At Attin. However, the “Old Republic” post-Galactic Empire is used by those in-universe to refer to the Galactic Republic that emerged a millennia before and existed until the rise of the Empire. This is because of the New Republic that was born after the defeat of the Empire. As was mentioned earlier, the note of a link between the Great Works of the High Republic, and the Great Work described on At Attin, could support the idea that At Attin is merely a few centuries old, alongside Jod commenting in Episode 7 that At Attin has been hidden for centuries.

But Star Wars has had a flexible view of time and history before. For instance, at present, all three seasons of The Mandalorian took place in the same year, 9 ABY, on top of Ahsoka, The Book of Boba Fett, and now also possibly this show too. Meanwhile, other events have been placed in surprising places in the Star Wars timeline. The reference book Timelines is mainly responsible for this and, for instance, throws the foundation of the Ordu Aespectu, an offshoot of the Jedi Order, 20,000 years in the past and quite clear from any other lore in the timeline. It is entirely possible that when they say the Old Republic, they do mean the era from over 1000 years ago. It is also possible that regardless of what they intended, the idea will change, as Star Wars is also no stranger to reinterpreting its lore and events with new characters and added details that shift that original meaning or intention.

There is one final detail about the timeline which also needs examination. In the dramatic confrontation with Jod, the Supervisor reveals they have been in contact with the Galactic Republic as recently as the execution of Order 66 some 30-odd years before the events in Skeleton Crew. The question is if the Supervisor has been aware of the chaos of the wider galaxy, and keeps At Attin genuinely informed, or if it has been lying to them for quite some time. The Supervisor notes that the wider galaxy is in chaos, though whether this is simple courtesy playing along with Jod’s excuses and explanations is unclear. If it has been kept informed, then keeping such knowledge from the people of At Attin is a significant flaw in its leadership style.

Conclusion

At Attin streets — Image Source: StarWars.com

At Attin was an intriguing mystery for the kid characters of Skeleton Crew to explore, with the viewers right alongside them. With the planet now opened to the wider galaxy, hopefully, the New Republic will take great care to properly protect them from all the attention that is to come and help the locals solve any lingering mysteries, both for the sake of the world’s inhabitants and that of the future audience.

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