Star Wars: Skeleton Crew: What Is At Attin and The Great Work?

Star Wars: Skeleton Crew‘s first two episodes have the fandom in a tizzie. Skeleton Crew focuses on a group of children finding a starship and going on an adventure, hearkening back to kids adventure movies of yesteryear. Much like those older films and TV shows, there are some mysteries inherit to the plot, and a huge one is revealed in Episode 2, when the kids get to the pirate stronghold of Port Borgo and begin to ask how to get back to their home – a place named “At Attin.” Everyone scoffs at them, saying that At Attin is nothing but the myth of a lost planet full of treasure.

Skeleton Crew took a close look at the children’s lives, and revealed a few things about At Attin in the first episode. It was a world that seemed more real-world than anything seen in Star Wars before. The planet has suburbs that are reminiscent of ones in the classic kids movies, and it all seemed rather pedestrian – until we learn that the planet exists behind something called “the Barrier” and the citizens of At Attin are devoted to a duty called “the Great Work.” This has made fans wonder what is really going on in this strange society; however, there are definitely clues to what At Attin actually is, and what the Great Work may be – and they point to it being something related not to the New Republic, but rather the early era of the Republic, before the Clone Wars.

At Attin And The Great Work Could Have Been Set Up By The Republic

There are several clues that viewers get almost immediately in the show that At Attin is a relic of the pre-Imperial Republic,. In the first episode’s opening scene, pirates find a single New Republic credit, which the camera lingers on for a moment. Not long after this scene, Wim is given lunch money by his father and the credits look entirely different. This comes into play later at Port Borgo when Wim pays for transport from their ship to the station and tries to pay for lunch. Wim calls his credits “dataries”, a name familiar to fans of Prequel Trilogy; Qui-Gonn tried to used Republic dataries to pay for the J-Type Nubian hyperdrive from Watto. Getting these credits causes a bit of a stir on the station, as the pirates and criminals on Borgo all want to get their hands on them.

Having Republic credits on At Attin points to the planet and the Barrier not being a part of the New Republic or even the Empire. There are also other clues about the Republic origins that fans may miss as well. For example, Wim is obsessed with the Jedi. This may seem normal for a kid in the New Republic, but here’s the thing about that – the Empire spent much of its history putting out propaganda against the Jedi. The public was told that the Jedi turned on the Republic and were the enemies of freedom. There would be no storybooks about Jedi for children, they were monsters. An argument can be made that the New Republic would start putting out pro-Jedi propaganda, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as widespread and no other Star Wars show of the post-Imperial period has shown anything like that.

The technology level is the next clue. Star Wars explains the difference in technology between the Prequel and Original Trilogies as the Empire keeping the best technology in the Core Worlds and for the military. At Attin’s tech level doesn’t match what has been seen on non-Core Worlds and is more on the level of the Prequels-era Republic than the Empire or the New Republic. There’s also no mention of the war between the Rebels and the Empire, which is the biggest historic event in the recent history and would have been referenced at some point. The use of droids on the planet is also a clue. Droids became much less ubiquitous after the Clone Wars, when droids were used as weapons of war to slaughter Republic citizens. It has been established that many have PTSD because of this, so having droids everywhere on At Attin doesn’t make sense unless their culture never experienced that trauma.

This all points to At Attin as a project of some kind set up by the Republic, with isolationist and traditionalist values that would keep its culture independent of the Clone Wars and the eventual rise of the Empire.

Star Wars: What Is The “Great Work?”

This brings us to the Great Work – and once again, there are context clues that exist in the show’s dialogue. One of the hallmarks of the Republic shown in the Prequels was the bureaucracy. The Republic was a massive government, and it needed a huge amount of civil servants to work. Wim, Neel, Fern, and KB’s schooling all seems to be training to become bureaucrats of some sort. When Fern’s mother asks everyone that they want to be, the students all want some kind of governmental desk job. Wim’s desire to be someone that helps people is met with light derision, which would make sense in a system set up to make bureaucrats for the Republic; the Republic had no military for a millennium before the Clone Wars, and the Jedi did that sort of work. The Great Work, then, is more than likely all about keeping the Republic and its promises of freedom and democracy running.

At Attin And The Great Work Are A Throwback To Another Time

The way Skeleton Crew sets up the mystery of At Attin and the Great Work is very well done. Before the children leave At Attin, it would be easy to assume that this world is a member of the New Republic and the citizens there are working to create the bureaucracy that the new government would need to function. The mystery of what the Barrier is registers, but it could be something as simple as the New Republic’s protective measures for this planet; it doesn’t seem to be affected by the pirate attacks that the show establishes. However, At Attin being looked at as mythical by the people of Port Borgo recontextualizes what viewers thought they knew about the planet. It’s safe to assume that At Attin was set up before the Clone Wars, and its Great Work seems to be devoted to the principles of the Republic’s swollen bureaucracy – possibly a sharp satirical joke about how far out of touch government institutions can be.

Star Wars: Skeleton Crew airs on Tuesdays at 9pm EST/6pm PT.

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