Alexander Freed

Alexander Marsh Freed is a writer of Star Wars comics, novels and video games.

Writing the Imperial Agent

Alexander Freed started his writing career in 2002 as a published short fiction author, and was a freelance tabletop roleplaying game designer until August 2006, when he joined BioWare Austin as a writer on the video game Star Wars: The Old Republic. The game started pre-production a year earlier, and Daniel Erickson, it's lead writer, was gathering a team of writers to flesh out the setting and the story of the game, centered around the storylines of eight unique class of characters. Freed went on to be the main writer for the one of those class: the Imperial Agent, after he refined the initial draft from a character meant to echoes the notorious movie spy James Bond, to one more serious and faced with difficult choices, such as the characters from the TV action series 24 and the spy thriller Bourne Identity, while still retaining some aspects from classic spy movies. It was also the only class not to be based on one of characters of the Star Wars movies.

As a Senior Writer and Managing Editor, Freed also took part in the creation of large amounts of non-class specific content, and helped Erickson manage the team of writers. Additionally, he wrote three articles for the game's official website, about how to write something within the Star Wars universe, an introduction to the Imperial Agent, and how the game was declined in sereral comics and novels. When the game was released on December 20, 2011, he was credited as Sub-Lead Writer.

Foray into comics

While working on the game, Freed also wrote two comics The Old Republic miniseries for Dark Horse Comics: Star Wars: The Old Republic, Blood of the Empire and Star Wars: The Old Republic—The Lost Suns. Blood of the Empire, with art by penciler Dave Ross, inker Mark McKenna and colorist Michael Atiyeh, was initially released in twelve parts, each seven pages, as a free webcomic on the game official website, between April 23 and September 24, in 2010. Unfamiliar with the pacing of such a short serialized narrative, Freed prepared himself by looking into weekly comics such as 2000 AD. Blood of the Empire follows the adventures of Tenel Keb and how he became Darth Thanaton. The story is directly connected with the Sith Inquisitor and Jedi Consular storylines of the video game, while also exploring the culture of the Sith Empire. The comic was reedited in three physical issues during the last semester of 2010, and then in a trade paperback edition on February 2, 2011.

The Lost Suns, his second comic miniseries, with art by pencilers George Freeman, Dave Ross and David Daza, inker Mark McKenna and colorist Michael Atiyeh, was released in five physical issues between June 3, and October 12, in 2011. They were later collected into a trade paperback edition released on March 21, 2012. Contrary to previous The Old Republic comics, this story is set concurrently with the events of the game, and was described by Freed as a "ninth story" that run parallel to the eight class storylines. The comics follows Theron Shan, a republic spy and a new character, notably absent from the base game.

Last days at BioWare

As The Old Republic was releasing near the end of 2011, BioWare Austin kept working on the game, providing content updates, but also planing on an expansion: Star Wars: The Old Republic: Rise of the Hutt Cartel, announced on December 12, 2012. Freed was the Lead Writer for most of the development of the expansion, and was responsible for managing the writing team, but also heavily contributed to content, especially for the Imperial storyline on Makeb. While Rise of the Hutt Cartel was still in development, and after being a writer at Bioware for six years, Freed left the company of his own volition on October 5, 2012, to pursue a freelancer career. On the next day, He participated in the "Star Wars Reads Day" event.

Before leaving BioWare, Freed left another mark on The Old Republic with "The Last Battle of Colonel Jace Malcom," a short story published in Star Wars Insider 137 on October 2012, focusing on Jace Malcom. Set after the events of the game, it is meant as an introduction to Drew Karpyshyn's The Old Republic: Annihilation, released on November 13, 2012,, and features Theron Shan, as well as Teff'ith, characters first developed by Freed in The Lost Stars.

When The Rise of the Hutt Cartel released on April 14, 2013, Freed was credited as Principal Writer, with Charles Boyd and Hall Hood replacing him as co-Lead Writers. Looking back at The Old Republic, Freed as said to be immensely proud to have worked on such project along with a very talented team, and that he fells enormously gratified for having taken part in something that meant so much for so many fans. He also added to be proud for having been part in the addition of the some of the first LGBT characters in Star Wars through his work on Rise of the Hutt Cartel.

A freelancer life for me

Freed expressed interest to write a third comic story during an interview conducted before the release of The Lost Suns. While he wasn't offered the opportunity to write a third The Old Republic comics, Dark Horse Comics kept working with him on another franchise: Dragon Age. However, Freed soon returned to Star Wars, this time with a two-part comic series: Star Wars: Purge: The Tyrant's Fist, with art by pencilers/inkers Marco Castiello and Andrea Chella, and colorist Michael Atiyeh, and released on December 5, 2012, and January 2, 2013. Set in the continuance of previous Purge comics, one-shot stories all focused on the earliest days of the Galactic Empire while Darth Vader is on a quest to hunt down the remnant of the Jedi Order, Freed took this opportunity to explore how the cultural prevalence and the rich history of the Jedi disappeared from the galactic stage along with them. All Purge stories were later condensed into a single trade paperback edition, released on July 10, 2013.

Freed later went on to write the 2015 Del Rey novel Battlefront: Twilight Company, a tie-in to the video game Star Wars Battlefront which released that same year. That same year also saw the release of the video game Star Wars: Uprising, which he also wrote for. After that he wrote for the video game Star Wars Battlefront II as well as authoring the short stories "Contingency Plan" and "The Man Who Built Cloud City" for the respective short story collections From a Certain Point of View, released in 2017, and From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back, released in 2020. Around the same time, he also wrote the Star Wars: Alphabet Squadron trilogy, the first volume, Alphabet Squadron, releasing in 2019, the second, Shadow Fall, released in 2020, and the third, Victory's Price, which was released in 2021.

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Appearances