Carson Teva

Carson Teva served in the Rebel Alliance against the Galactic Empire by the time of the destruction of the planet Alderaan in 0 BBY. During that time, he once served alongside the astromech droid R5-D4. After the fall of the Empire, Teva continued to serve with the Alliance's successor, the New Republic, where he held the rank as a captain in the New Republic Starfighter Corps and flew a T-65B X-wing starfighter. Teva became suspicious of activity from remnants of the Empire in the Outer Rim Territories, which the New Republic did not believe at the Core Worlds. However, due to the small size of the New Republic Defense Force, Teva and his fellow officers were unable to properly patrol the whole Rim due to a lack of resources.

In 9 ABY, Teva was based at Adelphi Base on the planet Adelphi, where he served as part of the Adelphi Rangers starfighter squadron and operated in the Spinward patrol. As part of that patrol, he and fellow New Republic pilot Trapper Wolf were sweeping for holdouts of the Empire in the Outer Rim. The pair came across the gunship Razor Crest near the planet Maldo Kreis. As the starship's transponder was not emitting, Teva reached out to the starship over comms, him and Wolf flying either side of the vessel. The gunship's pilot, the Mandalorian Din Djarin, replied and came to explain the Razor Crest was pre-Empire and so did not need to run a beacon. Teva, though, corrected him that the New Republic had new rules requiring all craft to run beacons. Djarin acknowledged Teva's statement, promising to get on setting up a beacon, and both prepared to part ways.

Teva, though, continued, asking for Djarin to send him and Wolf a ping to ensure the pair that he was not affiliated with the Empire. The Mandalorian stalled, claiming the required hardware on his ship was offline and then specifying that it was not working. Teva told the bounty hunter to follow the New Republic pilots to the Adelphi outpost if the pair could not confirm he was not Imperial. Djarin then transmitted his ping, but Teva heard him whispering and asked what that was, the Mandalorian giving an excuse for it. Having received the ping from the Razor Crest, Wolf asked Teva to move to channel two and the pair connected Djarin to a prisoner breakout aboard the New Republic Correctional Transport Bothan-5.

As the New Republic pilots unlocked the s-foils on their X-wing starfighters, Teva asked the Mandalorian if the Crest had been in proximity of Bothan-Five. That was when the Razor Crest broke away from the X-wings, flying towards Maldo Kreis. Teva and Wolf follow in pursuit, and the former asked Djarin to stand down, threatening to fire on his ship. Teva remarked to his wingmate that the Crest might break apart in the atmosphere due to its age. Following the Razor Crest into some glacier canyons, Teva asked Djarin again to stand down, but lost visual of the gunship and ordered Wolf to head north to cover more ground.

Having lost the Razor Crest, Teva and Wolf ran tabs on the vessel, learning that there was an arrest warrant on Djarin for abducting a prisoner on Bothan-Five. However, the pair also discovered from Bothan-Fives security records that the Mandalorian had helped capture three other priority culprits who were involved in the heist as well as attempting to save the life of Lieutenant Lant Davan. Teva and Wolf soon found the Razor Crest through a hole in the surface of Maldo Kreis, being swarmed by knobby white ice spiders. Both pilots fired on the spiders and landed, using their A280C blaster rifles to finish with the smaller creatures.

Djarin exited his damaged ship to meet the pilots, and Teva explained what he and Wolf had found when running tabs on the Razor Crest, asking if the information was true. After the Mandalorian asked if he was under arrest, Teva implied that this was not the case. Djarin then requested the the pilots help fix the Razor Crests hull to forego the bounties on the three criminals the Mandalorian helped apprehend. Teva, though, asked that the bounty hunter fix his transponder in case he came across a New Republic patrol again. The New Republic pilots then seated themselves into their X-wings and departed the scene.

A short while later, Teva and a wingmate traveled to Nevarro, a volcanic planet independent from the New Republic which the Spinward patrol regularly passed. On Nevarro, a base controlled by an Imperial remnant had recently been destroyed. He visited Nevarro City, run by the Magistrate Greef Karga, whose transponder logs had recorded the presence of the Razor Crest. Teva questioned Karga about the base's destruction and the Razor Crest, but the magistrate claimed to not recall remembering anything prior to the event and stated that his control droid could not tell apart anything pre-Empire like the Crest. After the captain asked if there was anything else to add, Karga assured that he would receive a gram if there was anything.

After parting from Karga, Teva approached the city Marshal Cara Dune, who he had learned from her records had been a soldier in the Alliance. The captain offered Dune a place in the New Republic, but the marshal refused. Teva then explained his suspicions of Imperial activity in the Outer Rim, stressing that local support was key to solving the problem. After Dune silently denied his appeal, he then pointed out that she was from Alderaan, asking who she had lost during the planet's destruction. The marshal claimed she had lost everyone during the disaster, and the captain gave his condolences before leaving a marshal's rank plaque with her and going back to his X-wing.

Sometime later, Teva and Lieutenant Reed carried out a patrol in X-wings above the desert planet Tatooine. During their visit, they noticed a rebuilt N-1 starfighter flying very fast next to a passenger liner, which was against New Republic rules. Teva and Reed pulled the N-1 fighter over and Reed questioned its pilot, who stalled with the lieutenant's inquiries. Teva recognized the pilot's voice as Djarin, stopping Reed from taking manual control of the starfighter and letting the Mandalorian off with a warning.

Teva then went on to question Djarin's association with the Imperial remnant incident on Nevarro, as Djarin's former vessel the Razor Crest had been reportedly involved. When the captain asked the Mandalorian to answer some questions for him, Djarin used the N-1's thrusters to shoot himself away from the X-wings. Reed thought the starfighter had jumped into hyperspace but Teva cleared up the situation for the lieutenant, who wondered whether they should report the N-1 fighter. The captain sarcastically asked Reed whether he wanted to fill out reports at their base all day, which the lieutenant laughingly declined.

Sometime later, Teva was lounging at the cantina in Adelphi Base, speaking with another New Republic pilot at the bar, when the Snivvian bartender came over with a message for the captain on a datacard. Teva promptly asked to borrow the Snivvian's viewer to read the datacard, which the bartender willingly complied to. The viewer revealed a hologram message from High Magistrate Karga, who explained that Pirate King Gorian Shard had taken over Nevarro City. Karga humbly requested the New Republic to send a help to clear out the pirates, stressing how dire the situation was and fearing that all of Nevarro would fall to the invaders.

The Lasat pilot Garazeb Orrelios, having overheard the message, came over to express his sorrow over Nevarro. Teva wanted to forward the message to the planet Coruscant to request permission to intercede in Shard's occupation of Nevarro, but Zeb replied that Coruscant had not returned a dispatch in weeks, doubting that Teva would get an answer in time. Reluctant to let that happen, Teva decided he was going to Coruscant himself to make the request, Zeb wishing him luck.

Teva went to the New Republic's offices on Coruscant and made his way to the office of Colonel Tuttle. Outside the office, Tuttle's Rodian assistant tried to stop him from entering without permission, but Teva still barged into the colonel's office. Despite the Rodian's stress, Tuttle was fine with Teva staying to make his case. The captain introduced himself to the colonel and requested if he could get an authorization for the Adelphi squadron to deal with the pirate siege on Nevarro, allowing the superior to view Karga's message on his holo-player. Tuttle stopped the message early to respond to the request when the New Republic Amnesty officer Elia Kane came in to ask if the colonel needed anything from the commissary. Tuttle chose to ask Kane about Nevarro, and Teva made note of the pin on her uniform linking her to the Amnesty Program, which comprised of former Imperials that had been captured and put through a reintegration program.

Kane brought up Nevarro's position as an independent planet. Despite Teva arguing that they could not leave the planet defenseless, Tuttle brought it up that the backlog of requests from New Republic member-worlds had priority, questioning whether intervening with pirates on an independent planet was worth the resources they had. The captain, though, brought up the reports of Imperial activity related to Moff Gideon—a warlord who had been captured by Djarin and his allies not long before and handed over to the New Republic—and argued that they could be linked to the pirate invasion. Tuttle called Teva's claim a "leap," but the pilot answered with how Gideon had never made it to his trial at the New Republic Tribunal.

With Tuttle trying to bounce over his claims, Teva requested authorization and backup to deal with the pirates on Nevarro. Kane then stepped in, suggesting that Nevarro's leaders needed to understand why joining the New Republic was valuable. Teva called it suffering and said it was an Imperial way of thinking, but the amnesty officer argued that Nevarro needed a "new perspective" to see the light. The captain told Kane that her sort did not see the light, citing that she had been captured, though the ex-Imperial called it liberation. After Tuttle concluded that they would see if they could allocate any additional assets to Teva's matter, the captain warned him that something dangerous was happening and that they needed to act before looking over to Kane and leaving the office.

Seeking help elsewhere, Teva reconnected with his old ally R5-D4, whom had since been sold to Djarin. Teva was able to locate a secret Mandalorian covert on a rocky desert planet by tracking a signal sent by R5-D4. There, he landed near the parked Mandalorian Gauntlet starfighter and disembarked to approach the covert's cave hideout. As he walked closer to the cave entrance, Teva identified himself while putting his arms up. That was when the Heavy Infantry Mandalorian Paz Vizsla came out, followed by other Mandalorians, and warned the "blue boy" to leave. Djarin also came out asked how Teva had found the covert, the captain explaining his help from an ally inside as R5-D4 came out to reveal himself. Teva's old quarry shut down Vizsla's suggestion of killing the pilot, citing when Teva cut him a break above Tatooine.

Although Djarin too asked the captain to leave, Teva handed over Karga's message, being careful not to cite the Mandalorians with their weapons drawn and explaining Nevarro's situation. Pocketing the message, Djarin walked over to speak one-on-one with Teva, questioning the pilot's real intentions. The captain claimed Nevarro would be blown to hell and added that Coruscant did not care. Teva wanted the New Republic to realize that the Empire was growing again, with Bo-Katan Kryze listening to every word. Teva then reinformed Djarin that his friend Karga was in danger before going back to his X-wing. Wanting to help Karga, Djarin convinced the covert to help Nevarro, and the Mandalorians went on to successfully defeat the pirates on Nevarro.

As Teva later patrolled through empty space, he found a wrecked Lambda-class T-4a shuttle with a breached hull on its side. The captain contacted Lieutenant Reed to report what he had found, asking for any reports in the area. Reed found a record of a missing ship in the region, with its details classified. Teva thus had his astromech R7 launch a probe droid to investigate the wreckage. The pilot also sent the shuttle's transponder signal across to Reed to run through the flight logs at central command. Reed found out that it was a New Republic prison transport, Teva's probe discovering the bodies of New Republic corrections officers.

Teva then had Reed check the Lamdba shuttle's departure times, and the lieutenant discovered that they matched those of the starship that was transporting Moff Gideon, confirming the rumors that the warlord had never made it to trial. With no survivors, nor Gideon's body, the captain concluded that it was an extraction. Teva ran a scan inside the shuttle through the probe to find evidence on who the attackers were, in which he found that there was a fragment of beskar alloy embedded in the cabin wall, suggesting that Mandalorians may have been the perpetrators.

After the Mandalorians successfully got rid of Gideon in their battle to liberate Mandalore, Djarin came to Adelphi Base and entered the lounge with his newly adopted son Din Grogu. Djarin was interested in working for Teva and the New Republic; however, he told the captain that he would be selective in his jobs given his new position as a father and teacher. Teva countered the offer that it was over the regulation and would not be approved by the New Republic, Djarin replied that the cooperation would be unofficial and he would act as an independent contractor. The captain said that he needed to think about it, but the Mandalorian told Teva that he had already thought about it. Djarin told Teva that he would need a scrap assassin droid parts to rebuild IG-11 as a front payment. Teva agreed, and IG-11 was rebuilt to serve as the Marshal of Nevarro.

Sometimes later, Teva and several other pilots joined the Twi'lek General Hera Syndulla, who was also joined by her son Jacen Syndulla and the C1-series astromech droid C1-10P "Chopper," going on an unauthorized mission to aid the Togruta Ahsoka Tano, the Mandalorian Sabine Wren, and their architect droid Huyang on the planet Seatos. Syndulla appreciated Teva's willingness to help. In response, Teva stated that he would not want to miss it, calling her "Phoenix Leader." Teva and the other pilots escorted the VCX-100 light freighter, Ghost, before jumping along into hyperspace.

They soon exited hyperspace and arrived at the Denab system, encountering the massive ring-shaped starship, Eye of Sion. Approaching the massive starship further, Teva locked his S-foils in attack position and commanded other pilots to do the same. As they flew closer toward the Eye of Sion, Teva and Syndulla received a reading about a tremendous power surge coming for the starship. Hera predicted that the ship is heading into hyperspace. Before Teva could react, the massive starship went into hyperspace which caused a massive shockwave, flinging him and his X-wing starfighter around. Teva survived the shockwave, quickly stabilizing his starfighter; however, two of the pilots, Baysee and Mowaat crashed into each other, dying during the incident.

The remaining party then approached Seatos and searched for Tano and Wren who went missing without a trace. While Syndulla, along with Jacen and Chopper went to an altar to investigate, Teva, Jensu, and Lander flew across the surface, searching for the missing Togruta and Mandalorian. Shortly after, Carson landed and told Syndulla that they were overdue to return back to base and that Senator Leia Organa Solo said she could only give them cover for so long. Their conversation was cut short however, after Jacen called Hera over. After a moment with her son, Hera ordered Teva back to his fighter to redo a full sweep over the ocean and for Huyang to join her on the Ghost in an attempt to continue the search for Tano. Confused, Huyang briefly explained that Jacen had special abilities and that his father Kanan Jarrus was a Jedi. Teva then quickly ran over to his fighter as he ordered Lander to get everyone prepared. As Teva continued their search at low altitude, he told Syndulla over the comms that nobody is in the ocean and warned that they are going to hit the fuel reserves. Syndulla appreciated his help and ordered him to widen his search along the coast. He flew off to the side, as Jensu and Lander followed behind.

In their continuous efforts, Teva and the others managed to rescue Tano, who was drowning in the ocean. After a single rotation, Teva urgently met up with Syndulla and Tano, who were talking after the latter had just recently regained her consciousness. He warned Syndulla that a New Republic fleet was approaching; however, they were not coming to aid, but rather to apprehend the missing general for trial. Syndulla and Teva went aboard the Ghost, contacting Chancellor Mon Mothma for clarification. Through a hologram, Chancellor Mothma asked if they have any evidence to support their claims of Imperial activities and the return of Grand Admiral Mitth'raw'nuruodo "Thrawn," Hera reluctantly said no. With nothing left to suggest, Chancellor Mothma told Syndulla to go with the fleet back to Coruscant to stand trial for her actions, determining if she should be suspended permanently. After their failure to convince the chancellor, Tano entered the cockpit, claiming to know how to find Wren.

Later, Teva and the other fighter pilots went out of orbit to stall time for Syndulla and Tano, meeting the New Republic fleet. When asked about the whereabouts of Syndulla by Captain Girard, who led the coming fleet, he avoided her question. In response, Girard threatened Teva's rank to be stripped, which Teva then gave up and told her about Tano and Syndulla's plan, though he warned her that she might not believe him. Later as he explained the situation they were currently at, a pod of purrgils flew by Teva and the fleet, shortly before jumping into hyperspace and leaving him in awe.

Soon after arriving back on Coruscant, Teva attended the trial of General Syndulla in the Defense Council building. During the trial, one of the senator of the New Republic Senate, Hamato Xiono, was not convinced that the appearance of Imperial Remnants to be something of note despite the report of the incident back on Seatos, calling it a fairy tale. Teva stood from his seat and brought up the recent conflict on Mandalore as an argument against Xiono's statement. In response, Xiono referred to Gideon as a warlord acting alone without proof of a greater conspiracy. Xiono then accused Syndulla of abusing her authority for personal gains, pushing for her to be court-martialed.

The protocol droid C-3PO then entered the courtroom, and presented a report from Senator Organa, proving that she personally sanctioned General Syndulla's reconnaissance mission to Seatos and was unaware that Senator Xiono had voted against her mission. C-3PO asked the other senators to direct their concerns to Organa in her role as leader of the Defense Council. Chancellor Mothma thought that the data transcript satisfied the matter. Xiono reluctantly dropped the proposed court martial and Mothma dismissed the hearing. With the trial over, Teva approached Syndulla and C-3PO with a smile, congratulating the general. Syndulla was then called by Mothma, while Teva continued his conversation with C-3PO.

At some point, Teva sent out the survival compendium "Species From A to Z" to New Republic recruits. It was a guide that provided information about various sentient species throughout the galaxy. The information was compiled by scouts and xenobiologists of the New Republic.

Carson Teva was a human male who stood at 1.75 meters (5 foot, 9 inches) with tan skin and gray and white hair. A man of honor, he believed in the New Republic and was respected by his peers. While chasing Djarin with his wingmate Trapper Wolf, he was reluctant to fire on him even as he fled from them but continued to threaten the prospect in an attempt to make the Mandalorian stand down. Having learned of the Djarin's selfless actions on Bothan-Five after, Teva chose to let the bounty hunter go, claiming that it was trying times.

The captain worried that the Imperial presence in the Outer Rim was becoming a threat and concluded that local assistance was a necessary deterrent to solve his issue. Upon learning Cara Dune was from Alderaan, Teva realized that she had lost people in the planet's destruction and offered his condolences when she claimed that she had lost everyone at that time. Upon encountering Djarin a second time, Teva recognized the Mandalorian's voice and was sure to be lenient on him over obstruction of rules and did not intend on reporting the bounty hunter. Wanting to connect dots with the Imperial remnant incident on Nevarro, he tried to get Djarin to answer some questions to no avail.

Teva wore an orange flight suit with synth-leather reinforced pilot boots and a blue helmet with the New Republic insignia painted on in yellow. He also had a brown jacket with a rancor patch and a patch with blue and red birds with the aurebesh letters Esk and Yirt. He flew a T-65B X-wing starfighter and utilized an A280C blaster rifle with effectiveness when combating creatures on Maldo Kreis. Teva used a notepad to take notes when interviewing Karga and had an Alliance badge, which he gave to Dune. The captain also served with the astromech droid R7.

Carson Teva was first pictured in an X-wing in the official trailer for season two of the live-action television series The Mandalorian, which was released on YouTube on September 15, 2020. He then appeared in "Chapter 10: The Passenger" of the show, which was directed by Peyton Reed and released on November 6, 2020 on Disney+. The pilot was credited as "Captain Carson Teva" and portrayed by Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, an award-winning Korean-Canadian actor who also had a hobby in making Star Wars and Ghostbusters cosplay.

According to Lee, The Mandalorians executive producer Dave Filoni discovered the actor after Filoni's wife E. Anne Convery began watching Kim's Convenience, a show which Lee was known for. The producer became a fan of the show and chose to write a part for Lee in season two of The Mandalorian. One of The Mandalorian Season One directors Deborah Chow knew the Kim's Convenience actor from around 25 years before, and began attempting to contact Lee, eventually crossing paths with him at the Unforgettable Gala in Los Angeles in 2018.

Lee said he was in disbelief when Chow told him about Filoni wanting to write him a part, but had the director send photos of Lee's cosplay to the producer, who joked that Lee could just show up to set in his own costume. Three weeks later, Lee was invited on set by Chow during the filming of The Mandalorian Season One, where the actor met the showrunner Jon Favreau. Lee also watched the filming of scenes from Filoni's "Chapter 5: The Gunslinger" and Chow's "Chapter 7: The Reckoning" at Manhattan Beach and Filoni gave him a tour of the season one sets after, Lee returning the favor with a tour of the Kim's Convenience sets.

After some more months passed, the actor learned from Chow that she had advised the producer to write a bigger part for him, but he still held doubt that his part would come to fruition. That was until October 2019 when Lucasfilm asked Lee's agent for the actor's availability. Lee promised he would do what ever it took to be available as long as it did not clash with production for Kim's Convenience. He was given thereafter his character's codename, "foodie pilot." It was planned that Filoni or Favreau would call him about his role, but Lee missed Favreau's first attempt to call the actor. When he finally was able to speak with Favreau, the show runner told him about "Carson."

According to Lee, he flew down to the set soon after his call with Favreau and was almost immediately taken to the wardrobe to get his costume fitted. Lee's costume was tailor made for him with a custom painted helmet, he used his costume making skills to help the wardrobe experts helping with The Mandalorian with buckling ejection harnesses and other aspects of his new costume. When the wardrobe department wanted a reference photo of Lee in his X-wing pilot costume, they lent him the pilot helmet used as that of Biggs Darklighter—a minor character from George Lucas' 1977 film Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope—as his on set prop helmet was still being painted. After, Favreau gave Lee a tour of the sets for season two, which occurred sometime prior to the debut of season one.

For the third season of The Mandalorian, Teva wore a brown bomber jacket that was of a custom design by Shawna Trpcic and uniquely cut like the other pilots' jackets in that episode. The bomber jacket had a few custom patches that were designed by Lee. The rancor patch was originally intended to be a bulldog, because of its huge significance in Lee's life, but was later changed. The prototype of the patch was a full silhouette of a rancor with its eye glowing, but they had an issue with the rancor's tail because it looked like a genitalia. They also thought of doing a rancor's claw, but they eventually decided on the rancor's head. The blue bird and the red bird in one patch were inspired by the flag of South Korea, the Aurebesh "E" and "Y" were a nod to East York, which is a borough of Toronto where Lee lived.

Additionally, Lee had to wear a fake mustache for his scenes in the third season, because he had shaven his mustache for his other role as Iroh in Avatar: The Last Airbender.

For his appearance in the episode "Part Five: Shadow Warrior" of the 2023 live-action series Ahsoka, Lee asked Trpcic, if it was possible for them to remove the chinstrap from Teva's helmet. Part of the reason was that the chinstrap caused Lee's beard to be "funny-looking." According to Lee, Trpcic backed his request after he provided archival footage of pilots in previous Star Wars projects without their chinstraps setup. His request was later granted and the chinstrap was nowhere to be found in the episode.

Being given more information about "Carson" by his script, Lee chose to base the character off of marshals of the Old American West, modelling him as a street-smart lawman and survivor who made his own rules and did not expect a great amount of help. Lee's first shoot was for Carl Weathers' "Chapter 12: The Siege," and after meeting Weathers, the actor first did the scene where "Carson" exchanged with Gina Carano's Cara Dune. In his second shoot, in February of 2020 in Los Angeles, California, he filmed scenes for "Chapter 10: The Passenger" using the repurposed X-wing set which had been used in Gareth Edwards' 2016 film Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

The X-wing set used practical lights and controls, which were largely smartphone screens slotted into the dashboard to project video screens. Around the X-wing set was an LED screen which projected a simulated star field backdrop around Lee, and the spacecraft model he sat in rocked, coming across very realistic for the actor. Reed directed the actor to imitate a real life aircraft pilot. Filoni reprised his role as Trapper Wolf to be the wingmate as Chow, who was originally suggested to be the wingmate as Sash Ketter, was busy with her show Obi-Wan Kenobi.

A lot of the footage shot from the X-wing set was ultimately not used in Chapter 10. Filoni messaged Lee after the filming about choosing his character's last name, and the actor accepted Filoni's first suggestion "Teva." After the release of "Chapter 10: The Passenger," Lee received flurry of responses from his fans and co-workers. The actor himself watched his debut with his family. He told CBC News that a Korean-Canadian like him making it into Star Wars provided hope that dreams come true. According to Elia Kane's actress, Katy O'Brian, the office scene with Kane, Teva and Tuttle was shot over two days by the episode's director Peter Ramsey.

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