Galen Erso is the overarching protagonist of the 2016 movie Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. A human male, he was a scientist who had been forced into working for the Galactic Empire. Galen was the husband of Lyra and the father of Jyn Erso.
He was portrayed by Mads Mikkelsen in one of his few heroic roles.
History[]
Due to his expert knowledge of Kyber Crystals, Galen was kidnapped by Director Orson Krennic after Krennic killed his wife. Jyn hid in a nearby cave until family friend Saw Gerrera arrived. With Galen and Lyra gone, Saw took responsibility for Jyn.
Knowing that the Empire could complete the Death Star without his help, Galen decided to proceed with helping them, but built a critical design flaw into the station. After the station was completed, he passed the information on to a defecting pilot. The defecting pilot went to Saw Gerrera, who in turn provided the message from Galen to his daughter. The details of his sabotage was buried in the technical readout, which Jyn was able to steal and transmit to the Alliance.
Galen died during a Rebel attack on the installation where he was being held. He managed to live long enough to see his daughter one last time.
Galen was successful in his plans to have the Death Star destroyed. Working off the information in the plans, the Alliance found the exhaust port he had built into the Death Star. Luke Skywalker was able to fire torpedoes down the port, destroying the superweapon before it could cause the deaths of any more innocents.
Trivia[]
- Galen was loosely based on the Legends character Bevel Lemelisk, who in that continuity had served as the chief architect and designer of the Death Star. Unlike Galen, Lemelisk fully supported the Empire and did not deliberately build a design flaw into the Death Star. Furthermore, Lemelisk survived the events of A New Hope long enough to be brought before the Emperor.