One of the highly expected events to take place during the second season of Andor was Senator Mon Mothma’s Senate speech following the Ghorman Massacre.

The following contains spoilers for Andor.

What follows is a transcript of her speech as delivered following the invocation of Article 17-252 during Episode 9 of Andor:

Fellow Senators, friends, colleagues, allies, adversaries,

I stand before you this morning with a heavy heart. I’ve spent my life in this Chamber. I came here as a child. And as I look around me now, I realize that I have almost no memories that pre-date my arrival and few moments of affection that cleave so tightly. Through these many years, I believe I have served my constituents honorably and upheld our code of conduct.

This chamber is a cauldron of opinions. For example, we all had our patience and tempers tested in pursuit of our ideals. Disagree, as we might, I am hopeful that those of you who know me will vouch for my credibility in the days to come. I stand this morning with a difficult message. I believe we are in crisis. The distance between what is said and what is known to be true has become an abyss.

Of all the things at risk, the loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous. The death of truth is the ultimate victory of evil. When truth leaves us, when we let it slip away, when it is ripped from our hands, we become vulnerable to the appetite of whatever screams at us the loudest.

This Chamber’s hold on the truth was finally lost on the Ghorman Plaza. What took place yesterday, what happened yesterday on Ghorman was unprovoked genocide. Yes! Genocide! And that truth has been exiled from this Chamber! And the monster screaming the loudest? Rhe monster we helped to create? The monster who will come for us all soon enough…is Emperor Palpatine!

Here’s the speech as it was broadcast through the Holonet during the “Secret Cargo” episode of Star Wars Rebels:

I name the Emperor himself for ordering the brutal attacks on the people of Ghorman.

Their peaceful world is one of countless systems helpless against his oppressive rule.

This massacre is proof that our self-appointed Emperor is little more than a lying executioner, imposing his tyranny under the pretense of security.

We cannot allow this evil to stand.

Additional Thoughts on Andor Episode 9 – Welcome to the Rebellion:

The Imperial Security Bureau forced the broadcast to be shut off so this could possibly explain why there are differences between the speech and broadcast. Were the lines featured in Star Wars Rebels also in the speech as delivered? They weren’t featured during the Andor scenes but Star Wars Rebels is said to be canon. The other thing about the Rebels scene is that Senator Mothma’s clothing and hairstyle is different in Andor than Star Wars Rebels. Much of this is probably due to the fact that Andor hadn’t been created yet and we’d only ever seen the senator with one hairstyle.

My major nitpick with this episode in particular is how she doesn’t have her hairstyle in the Holonet footage. You’d have thought that someone would have looked into this for continuity sake!

What we can take away from the episode is that Senator Bail Organa (Benjamin Bratt) isn’t against her speaking out but he’s staying put in the Galactic Senate for now. The base isn’t ready at Yavin 4 but it will be in due time. In any event, Organa puts a crew together to help Mothma escape from Coruscant–we knew this already from watching Star Wars Rebels. Unfortunately, things go haywire due to a mole infiltrating Organa’s team. Organa didn’t personally know them but he trusted them. So much for that.

Luthen Rael suspected something was off about Organa’s team so he sends in Cassian Andor, disguised as a Mid-Rim Network journalist coming straight from the Ghorman Massacre. Andor meets with Erskin Semaj, recently fired as Mothma’s attaché after Luthen reveals that Erskin works for him. Andor announces that he’s “done after this.” He wants to go back to being with Bix.

Organa invokes the aforementioned Article 17-252. This proposal by the Emperor’s Council states that “a senior senator in case of emergency may yield the floor freely without interruption to another senior senator.” In this instance, Organa invokes the article and yields to Mothma. She’s wearing her blue senatorial robe during her speech, unlike what was depicted above in the Holonet. Andor is there to meet her as soon as she’s done with the speech and with the ISB ordering a lockdown, they take the long way. Not able to get to the ship in time, he escorts her to the safe house, where Kleya Marki and Erskin Semaj are among those waiting.

The Rebellion wants to rewrite the story so to speak. That’s where we are heading into the “Secret Cargo” episode. Once we get past the end of this episode, one supposes that Mothma had her hairstyle differed so as to easily be disguised while leaving the planet. Andor brings Wilmon (Muhannad Bhaier) and Dreena (Ella Pellegrini) back with him to Yavin 4 after they survived the Ghorman Massacre. He wants to go back but General Davits Draven (Alistair Petrie) informs him otherwise.

“Gold Squadron will deliver the senator to Yavin,” Draven says. “She’s making a speech. We need it to be broadcast as far as possible. It’s the result that matters.”

Andor wake up to find Bix has left. In an attempt to go after him, he’s informed that Yavin is waiting on a freighter, presumably Mothma’s transport. As we all know, that doesn’t quite happen as planned. Finally, K-2SO is woken up. With that, we wait until next week’s final trio of Andor episodes.

Three new episodes of Andor will premiere weekly through May 13.

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