Chewbacca

Chewbacca, known affectionately to his friends as Chewie, was a Wookiee male warrior, smuggler, mechanic, and pilot from the forest world of Kashyyyk. He fought in the Clone Wars, the Galactic Civil War, the Cold War, and the war against the First Order. As the co-pilot and closest friend of Han Solo aboard the Millennium Falcon, he played a part in nearly every major victory against the Empire and its successor.

The Clone Wars#

Chewbacca was born on Kashyyyk roughly two centuries before the Galactic Civil War and grew into a respected warrior of his people. During the Clone Wars he served as a combat engineer in defense of his homeworld and the Republic. He was captured by a Trandoshan hunting guild and taken to the moon Wasskah to be hunted for sport, but allied himself with a fellow captive, the Jedi Padawan Ahsoka Tano, and her companions. Together they overcame their captors before Chewbacca returned home.

He was a leading figure in the Battle of Kashyyyk, one of the last battles of the war, commanding Wookiee forces alongside the chieftain Tarfful and the Jedi General Yoda. When Order 66 was issued and Yoda's clone troopers turned on him, Chewbacca and Tarfful helped the Grand Master elude his assassins and escape the planet, an act that preserved one of the last of the Jedi.

Smuggler and co-pilot#

In the years of Imperial rule that followed, Chewbacca was enslaved by the Empire and forced to labor on Kashyyyk and elsewhere. He was freed by Han Solo, then a young Imperial corporal, and the two became inseparable, with Chewbacca swearing a Wookiee life debt to the man who had saved him. He served as Han's co-pilot during a raid on Kessel for the Crimson Dawn syndicate, after which the pair won the Millennium Falcon from Lando Calrissian.

The two fell into the smuggling trade under the crime lord Jabba, and a bounty was placed on them after Han was forced to dump a shipment of spice. Their fortunes shifted when Obi-Wan Kenobi hired them to carry him, Luke Skywalker, and two droids to Alderaan on a mission vital to the Rebellion.

The Galactic Civil War#

Drawn aboard the Death Star, Chewbacca helped rescue Princess Leia Organa and reach the Rebel base on Yavin 4. Though he and Han at first chose not to join the Rebellion, the two returned to fight at the Battle of Yavin, helping clear the way for Luke to destroy the battle station. Through the war that followed, Chewbacca fought in countless engagements at Han's side.

After the Rebels were driven from Echo Base on Hoth, Chewbacca escaped aboard the Falcon with Leia and C-3PO, only to be betrayed at Cloud City when Calrissian was forced to hand them to Darth Vader. With Han frozen in carbonite and carried off by a bounty hunter, Chewbacca and Calrissian tracked him to Jabba's palace on Tatooine and freed him. Soon afterward Chewbacca fought at the Battle of Endor, helping destroy the shield generator that protected the second Death Star.

The First Order war and after#

With the rise of the New Republic, Chewbacca and Han fought to liberate Kashyyyk from the last Imperial forces, and when the war ended he returned home to his family. Years later, after the fall of Luke Skywalker's new Jedi and Han's return to smuggling, Chewbacca rejoined his old friend, and the two recovered the long-lost Millennium Falcon together with the stowaways Rey, Finn, and the droid BB-8.

Chewbacca fought in the assault that destroyed the First Order's Starkiller Base, the battle in which Han Solo was killed by his own son, Kylo Ren. He flew Rey to Ahch-To to find Luke and afterward often served as the Falcon's sole pilot, aiding the Resistance at the Battle of Crait. In the final campaign against the resurrected Emperor he joined the quest that led to Exegol, surviving a moment in which he was believed dead, and lived to see the Sith destroyed once and for all.