When Does Ahsoka Take Place on the Star Wars Timeline?

This Star Wars: Ahsoka article contains spoilers.

The ever-expanding Star Wars canon timeline can be hard to keep track of, especially as movies, TV series, and video games continue to intersect and bring back familiar characters from different eras. For example, Ahsoka, the main character of the new Disney+ series of the same name, has been a part of many major Star Wars events over the years, appearing in several shows that take place across different eras in the Galaxy’s history.

She was first introduced as Anakin Skywalker’s padawan in The Clone Wars and later joined the Rebels crew to help take down the Galactic Empire, while her origin story was told in a recent episode of Tales of the Jedi. Rosario Dawson introduced us to the live-action version of the character in The Mandalorian, and we last saw her in The Book of Boba Fett. We already know that Ahsoka is the next story in the ever-expanding Mandoverse and that the series serves as a reunion of sorts for many Rebels characters, but where exactly does this chapter of Ahsoka’s story fall in the Star Wars timeline?

While the exact amount of time that passes across the first three seasons of The Mandalorian and the show’s first spinoff The Book of Boba Fett is still a little murky, we know for sure that The Mandalorian begins five years after The Return of the Jedi or 9 ABY (after the Battle of Yavin in A New Hope). 

According to Natasha Liu Bordizzo, who plays Rebels character Sabine Wren in Ahsoka, “Ahsoka runs along the same timeline as The Mandalorian season 3,” which we know is set roughly between 9 and 10 ABY. When we last left Ahsoka Tano in The Book of Boba Fett, which is set sometime between seasons 2 and 3 of The Mandalorian, she had paused her search for Grand Admiral Thrawn and Ezra Bridger to help Luke Skywalker start his school for Jedi. As the trailers for Ahsoka have revealed, however, it seems like Ahsoka’s search is back on.

Before she appeared in the Mandoverse, a.k.a the TV shows and movies connected to and set during the same time period as The Mandalorian, the last time we saw Ahsoka was in the epilogue of the Rebels series finale. While most of Rebels is set during the five years before the Battle of Yavin (BBY), the epilogue is set approximately in 5 ABY, or a year after Return of the Jedi. In the epilogue, Sabine and Ahsoka set off to find Ezra Bridger, a young Jedi and Rebel who disappeared with Imperial leader Grand Admiral Thrawn during the Liberation of Lothal in 1 BBY.

There will likely be some flashbacks to the Clone Wars era in Ahsoka since Hayden Christensen is reportedly set to return as Anakin Skywalker, but the main story of the show will take place roughly 10-11 years after Ezra’s disappearance and 5-6 years after the Rebels epilogue. As with The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, the Empire has been officially defeated at this point in the timeline and the New Republic has taken control of the Galaxy’s government. 

But even though the Rebels won the war, there are still some Imperial officers and sympathizers trying to regain power. With Moff Gideon’s death in The Mandalorian season 3, the surviving loyalists are likely looking to fill the power vacuum left in his absence. Based on the Shadow Council meeting we witnessed before Gideon’s death, there are still some who believe Thrawn is the true heir to the Empire and that his return could help them regain control of the Galaxy. While Ahsoka will likely show us Thrawn’s role in the New Republic era and how his return could give the latent Empire forces more power, that doesn’t mean we have to worry about the rise of the totalitarian First Order just yet, as the series is set about 25 years before the Sequel Trilogy.

Even though the Mandoverse’s timeline includes many intersecting shows, it’s safe to say that we can expect the majority of Ahsoka to take place around 9-10 ABY, or 5 years after Return of the Jedi.

Star Wars: Ahsoka is streaming now on Disney+.