Rose Tico

Rose Tico, her older sister Paige and her parents Hue and Thanya grew up on Hays Minor, an impoverished mining colony in the Otomok system. As children, Rose and her sister liked to train in their grandmother Etta's Z-95 Headhunter simulation, watch holodramas, and Fathier races. During one of their Z-95 simulations, Rose and Paige were astounded at the speed of their simulated craft, and Paige finally allowed Rose to fly on her own. But despite Paige's begging to pull up, Rose crashed. Their parents arrived soon after to get the girls for dinner. Their mother would tell them, that no matter what Hays Minor lacked and the girls dreamed about experiencing on more lush worlds, they would always have the sky.

The First Order took over Hays Minor's mines and forced Rose's people to mine their planet's resources to feed their war machine. Rose and Paige protected their parents and fellow citizens from the First Order and their mining pollution. Rose was able to blow up twelve OreDiggers and stop the First Order's mining operations for three days. Her parents told her that she and Paige had to find the Resistance and join them in their fight against the First Order. Rose and Paige were welcomed into the Resistance by Admirals Gial Ackbar and Amilyn Holdo. The two of them joined the Resistance's Cobalt Squadron. Rose eventually received news that the First order shelled her people to test the results. Having lost everything they had to the First Order, Rose and her sister committed themselves to the Resistance to avenge their homeworld. The two of them were approached by General Leia Organa, who offered them her condolences for the First Order's genocide of Hays Minor. Organa told Rose and her sister that she would let them go after First Order on their own. However, the two sisters decided to stay, knowing, they could make a bigger impact on the First Order. Rose and Paige promised themselves that they would stop the First Order from pillaging and destroying other worlds.

At the D'Qar Resistance base, Rose and Paige stood listening to General Organa at a meeting, as she discussed exploring D'Qar for its natural resources. With limited fuel, the General needed a solution. Nervous to present her idea, Rose whispered to her sister, who raised Rose's hand for her, loudly stating that Rose had an idea. Rose had some old sketches of wheeled vehicles that could be built from their junk heap. The confident head mechanic Lazslo doubted Rose's idea, saying they should focus on modding speeders rather than using wheels, but Organa approved Rose's idea anyway.

Heading out to the junk heap, Rose got to work, building a three-wheeled truck. Finally starting it, Rose pressed a red button, and the vehicle made a loud popping noise. Lazslo and Paige were standing nearby, and the mechanic was quick to chide Rose for her idea, telling her she should get back to her real job. Rose felt discouraged, but Paige helped cheer her up and encourage her to try again. Just when she was about to press the button, General Organa appeared with more words of encouragement. Inspired, Rose tried again, and the truck worked- now all she needed to do was build another one from the junk heap.

Looking at the two completed trucks, Rose was proud of her "first fleet", and her and Paige took them for a test drive. Racing the vehicles, the sisters made it to a distant cave, with a fresh water river inside. Continuing their trek, Paige was having too much fun, and lost control, driving off a huge log. Rose found that her communications were down as she tried to contact help, so she packed a backpack and went to look for Paige herself. As she was climbing, Rose began to feel bad about her creations, citing their junk origins as the reason Paige crashed and they were lost. Refusing to give up, Rose encountered a bush and a strange noise, and became scared. Suddenly, several squonks emerged from the bush, and Rose named them after the noise they make. Enlisting the large wild birds' help, Rose set off to find Paige.

Together, her and the birds found Paige's red scarf. The birds smelled the scarf, and quickly ran off, eventually arriving at a large cluster of trees, Paige's empty truck, and a ravine. Looking into the pit, Rose yelled her sister's name, and heard her yell back! Paige was stuck on a fragile cluster of vines, and needed Rose's help escaping. Using her surroundings, Rose made a pulley system out of wheels and began to pull Paige out of the ravine. Nervous, and scared at a snapping vine, Rose looked up and just barely managed to save Paige. Upon reaching the top, Rose and Paige realized the cliffside was made of Durasteel ore, the reason the communications were jammed. They took a large chunk back to the base, and wished the squonks goodbye. Back at the base, Lazslo was quick to insult their loss of a truck, but was quieted by the valuable Durasteel ore. Meanwhile General Organa was very impressed with Rose's successful, albeit unconventional plan.

Eventually Paige served as a gunner on the Resistance bomber Cobalt Hammer, as part of Cobalt Squadron. While Rose was a mechanic, both siblings were very close; they each wore matching pendants around their necks at all times.

At some point Organa assigned both Rose and Paige on a quiet fact-finding mission to the Atterra system. Organa desired to know more about what the First Order was actually doing to local settlements in Atterra. There were rumors that the trade routes for the system were being blockaded, preventing traders from coming and going.

Rose and Paige then traveled to the system inside the Cobalt Hammer, accompanied by bombardier Nix Jerd and pilot Finch Dallow. Their orders were to release an equal number of spy probes over Atterra Alpha and Atterra Bravo. The plan would then have them wait for several hours in space, ideally avoiding attracting attention from the First Order, until they could retrieve the spy probes and fly back to D'Qar with the information within.

After being transferred to the Resistance cruiser Raddus, Rose spent a long time reading through how it worked. Another mechanic named Lazslo mocked her by saying she never did any hard work, just sat there and read. Rose's sister Paige then told her to go to sleep, but Rose continued, stating that she had to keep reading as some commands were even in Calamarian, and that it was Paige who actually needed the sleep. After Paige left, Poe Dameron himself arrived to express is appreciation for mechanics like Rose who kept the Resistance flying.

During Poe Dameron's subsequent patrol run, First Order ships appeared and Poe Dameron was trapped outside the Raddus with the hangar door being unable to open. General Organa called an emergency meeting with all of the Resistance's mechanics to try to open the door. While the rest of the mechanics got to work, Rose went back to the manuals to find the solution. As Rose was having issues solving the problem, Dameron began to joke with her over the comms, but Rose eventually found a Calamarian failsafe automatic reboot code, and opened the door. This allowed a group of X-wings to exit the cruiser, support Dameron, and destroy the TIEs, saving the day. Everyone thanked Rose, and, in the end, all the reading paid off.

Following the Resistance's victory over the First Order by destroying their superweapon Starkiller Base, the Raddus assisted with evacuating the Resistance base on the planet D'Qar. Rose Tico was aboard the Raddus during the subsequent Battle of D'Qar, when Poe Dameron led a successful starfighter and bomber assault on the First Order Dreadnought Fulminatrix; however, the Resistance lost the bulk of its Starfighter Corps, including the bomber Crimson and Cobalt Squadrons—Paige Tico sacrificed herself to drop the bombs that destroyed the Fulminatrix. Rose was devastated by the loss of her sister, and her sorrow was shared by Fossil, "the Old Lady" who commanded the late bomber squadrons serving as surplus crew on the Raddus.

While the Resistance continued fleeing from First Order pursuit in the Oetchi system, Rose Tico was stationed in the Raddus escape pod bay to prevent any deserters from leaving the ship. There, Tico encountered Finn, whom she soon realized was the Resistance hero who served at the Battle of Starkiller Base. Despite her awe, she also realized that Finn was attempting to escape upon spotting his packed bag in an escape pod; she angrily stunned him with an electro-shock prod before placing the incapacitated man on a cart and started dragging him to the brig.

When Finn regained consciousness, he tried to convince Tico that he was not deserting but merely trying to warn his friend Rey of the direness of the Resistance's situation, pointing out the fact that the First Order could track the Raddus through hyperspace, chasing them down until they ran out of fuel and were destroyed. Tico realized that the Order must be using a tracking device aboard their main ship, the Supremacy. With Tico's knowledge of mechanics and Finn's knowledge of First Order ships, the two devised a plan to shut down the tracking device and allow the Raddus to escape into hyperspace. They then informed Dameron of their plan to infiltrate the Supremacy, although they did not know how to decrypt the ship's computer codes to be able to gain access to the ship itself. Dameron contacted the pirate Maz Kanata for help, but she was busy in an armed dispute, instead referring them to a "Master Codebreaker" that they would be able to find on Cantonica.

Without permission from acting commander Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo, Finn, Rose, and BB-8 took a ship and traveled to the casino city of Canto Bight. While Finn marveled at the superficial beauty of the city, Rose understood the darkness hiding underneath. She pointed out that many of these rich people and gamblers had come into their fortunes by selling weapons and goods to the First Order, or otherwise had profited from war and the suffering of others. She also pointed out to him the blatant abuse of the fathiers and their child caretakers, expressing a desire to shatter their hollow and selfish town.

Rose and Finn continued to search for the "master codebreaker," and thought they had identified him by the pin he wore on his lapel, but they were arrested by the Canto Bight Police for parking their ship on a private beach. While in prison, they met a mysterious figure who claimed to be able to get them onto the Supremacy undetected. Rose and Finn politely declined. The man shrugged it off and proceeded to open the door of their cell with a lockpick.

Now free, Finn and Rose escaped through the sewer system of the city, emerging in the fathier stables. There, Rose secured the allegiance of the young slave Temiri Blagg by showing him her Resistance ring, which she then gave to him before they released the animals and the herd stampeded through the city, leaving a wave of destruction in their wake.

Riding one of the fathiers out of the city, Finn and Rose attempted to reach their ship, but the police destroyed it before they could reach it. The mysterious slicer suddenly returned with BB-8 aboard a stolen vessel, rescuing Finn and Rose once again.

The slicer, known as DJ, decided to help the duo infiltrate the First Order after Rose offered him her gold pendant as a down payment. As promised, his hacking skills were impressive, and they passed through the Supremacys radar undetected. They stole a set of First Order uniforms from the supply rooms and sneaked through the ship until they reached the tracking mechanism.

DJ used Rose's pendant as a conductor in order to hotwire a door panel; he returned it to her afterward. The door opened, but the trio was quickly surrounded by First Order forces. Once captured, the slicer made a deal with the First Order to secure his freedom, allowing the Supremacy to spot the fleeing Resistance shuttles and begin firing on them.

Rose and Finn were taken before Captain Phasma and General Armitage Hux, the latter of whom recognized Rose's medallion as being from the Otomok system and took the opportunity to taunt her, mocking her home system as vermin. Refusing to be cowed, Rose bit his hand hard enough to draw blood, humiliating the general in front of his troops and leading him to call for their execution. DJ then bargained for his life, exchanging Resistance secrets he had gleaned from Finn and Rose in exchange for payment and freedom. Rose and Finn were both furious with the maneuver. Deeming death by firing squad to be "too good for them," Phasma summoned a pair of executioner troopers instead. Before they could be executed, however, Holdo jumped the Raddus to hyperspace right through the First Order fleet, splitting the Supremacy. The blast briefly knocked Finn unconscious, whereupon Rose began dragging him towards a nearby shuttle before he regained consciousness. But their way was barred by Phasma and a squad of stormtroopers, who immediately opened fire on them. Suddenly, a rogue AT-ST began firing on Phasma and her stormtroopers. The pilot of the rogue walker was revealed to be BB-8 when the armor of the walker was removed. Rose took cover as Finn engaged Phasma with a Z6 riot control baton, ultimately besting his former superior, who plunged into a fiery pit.

In the ensuing chaos of the Supremacys destruction, Rose and Finn escaped with BB-8 aboard a stolen First Order shuttle. They took the shuttle to Crait, where the remainder of the Resistance forces had retreated at an abandoned Rebel Alliance base. As their shuttle was being pursued by two TIE fighters, the Resistance assumed all three craft to be hostile and began closing the base doors. Rose and Finn managed to pilot their shuttle into the hanger just before the doors shut, resulting in critical damage to the shuttle before they were met with a barrage of blasterfire from the Resistance members. To prove they were not First Order, the duo showed their hands, prompting their comrades to cease fire.

Rose piloted a ski speeder during the Battle of Crait. The speeders were relics left in the base from the days of the Rebel Alliance and so were in a state of serious disrepair. Having no other option, Rose and several other pilots, including Finn and Dameron, flew the speeders towards the First Order's battering ram cannon in order to prevent them from entering the base and destroying the last of the Resistance.

The majority of the speeders were destroyed by AT-M6 fire. When Dameron ordered the squadron to retreat and fall back to the base, Finn refused to retreat with them, instead deciding to fly his speeder into the cannon in an attempt to destroy it. Rose crashed her speeder into his in order to stop him from doing so and save his life, though she badly injured herself in the process. Before falling unconscious, Rose told her friend that they had to fight for what they loved instead of just fighting what they hated, and kissed the dumbfounded Finn.

Finn dragged her back to the base in order for her to receive medical aid. She was transported onboard the Millennium Falcon, with the few remaining survivors of the Resistance who survived the Battle of Crait, with Finn watching over his unconscious friend.

After talking with Poe and Rey following the Battle of Crait, Finn took the opportunity to check on Rose. Shortly after telling Rey some of his recent experiences, Dameron met Finn and asked him how Rose was, to which Finn stated that she was asleep, something he thought that was good, though he wasn't sure at all, as he wasn't a doctor, commenting on the first aid training received by the First Order stormtrooper and the realization that the stormtroopers who failed were left to die from their injuries, leading Dameron to tell his friend that he was sure that Tico would be alright even though he couldn't be sure she was, but that he was sure that he can choose to believe the former. Finn then proceeded to clothe Rose. At some point after she awoke, she and Finn talked and decided to remain as just friends.

In the aftermath of Crait, with the help of the Ryloth Defense Authority, Tico and the Resistance set up in a cave base on Ryloth. However, someone in the planet's capital of Lessu betrayed them, forcing the Resistance to escape the First Order once again.

Rose stayed at the Resistance Camp on Anoat following the Battle of Crait. She assisted General Organa on making a few repairs on the Millennium Falcon before it went to Mon Cala.

She joined the general to go to Mon Cala, where she threatened Chadkol Gee for pointing a blaster at the general. A fight between a group of Quarren and the Resistance agents led to them being judged by King Ech-Char.

After Rey volunteered to take part in the Ancient Rite of Challenge, Tico intervened by shooting Arkay-Nine. In accordance with their laws, they were then exiled. However, a Quarren sabotaged their shuttle, and Tico borrowed a speeder to chase him down with Rey's help.

Organa was then able to convince the Mon Calamari to aid them, just as a First Order Star Destroyer fleet arrived. The Resistance was able to flee after General Nossor Ri's sacrifice.

After Mon Cala, the new crew of the Millennium Falcon were sent to Fermic to pick up supplies. By that time, Tico had named all the Porgs. As they were finishing loading, they received a distress call from Minfar, prompting them to head over to assist. Upon arriving, they were ambushed by the forces of a First Order light cruiser, forcing them to take a hard landing on the planet. Tico was working on the engines.

After landing, the crew explored the jungle, soon falling into a series of tunnels where the Zixon live. They were met by Lim, who took them to her village. Needing parts, the locals took them to the Forbidden Lands, which were old Imperial laboratories. The Zixon were then enthralled by the Echo Horn taken by First Order Commander Branwayne Spiftz. Tico took an old power armor set to attack them, but they escaped, leaving the Resistance to come up with a new way to free the Zixon, assisted by the spy Glenna Kip. They went back to the Falcon to strafe the camp, while Dameron infiltrated their cruiser the Ladara Vex and destroy it and the Echo Horn. A call to the Resistance then allowed for reinforcements to arrive.

At some point after her heroics on Crait, Tico was promoted to be the leader of the Engineering Corps by Organa. During the course of the next few months, Organa assigned Tico's talents to developing new technology and techniques to prevent hyperspace tracking and counter other new advancements in First Order technology. She worked with the Resistance droid pool to construct biohexacrypt codes in the pursuit of bypassing First Order jamming or interception. The now-Commander Tico was present when a message from a First Order spy was decoded, confirming that the Dark Lord of the Sith and Galactic Emperor Darth Sidious had survived his death aboard the DS-2 Death Star II Mobile Battle Station. Tico was still unsure if they could believe it, but C-3PO revealed another part of the message; Supreme Leader Kylo Ren had allied with the Sith Lord and planned to deploy the Sith Eternal's fleet, the Final Order, unlike anything the galaxy had known. Beaumont Kin responded by noting that the Resistance had no large scale weapons and only half their starships were functional, but Tico declared that they would quickly fix them.

Tico was then tasked by Organa with studying the specifications of Imperial Star Destroyers in case they had similarities with the Sith fleet. She was offered by Finn to accompany the group, but due to her assigned task, she declined. She was later present at the Battle of Exegol, serving in the assault led by Finn and former stormtrooper Jannah. When Finn and Jannah stayed behind in an attempt to disable the transmitter of the Steadfast, Tico was hesitant to leave Finn, but eventually left with persuasion from Beaumont Kin and Kaydel Ko Connix.

Rose Tico was portrayed by Kelly Marie Tran in the 2017 sequel trilogy film, Star Wars: Episode VIII The Last Jedi. Tran's casting in the film was first announced on February 15, 2016. The first photo of Rose was released during The Last Jedi panel at Celebration Orlando on April 14, 2017. Rose's surname of Tico was revealed by Vanity Fair on May 23, 2017. Rose shares a name with Maz Kanata's placeholder name during the pre-production of Star Wars: Episode VII The Force Awakens, which was a tribute to director J.J. Abrams' and production designer Rick Carter's late teacher Rose Gilbert. Rose Tico first appeared in Star Wars: Force Arena when she was included in the 2.3 Update on December 12, 2017.

The Last Jedi director Rian Johnson conceived Rose because he realized that having Poe go with Finn to Canto Bight would have been boring. "It was just these two dudes on an adventure," he said. "I knew something was wrong when I looked at their dialogue and realized I could interchange any of the lines. There wasn't conflict between them. So I realized I had to come up with something else. Finn needing somebody else to go with who would actually challenge him and push him and contrast with him was where Rose came from." During the casting process, Rose was referred to as "Del."

Johnson did not envision Rose with a specific ethnicity. "We saw a lot of talented actresses of a very broad range — but honestly, it was more about finding Kelly," he recalled. "There was something about Kelly that had that kind of genuine oddball nature and a real sweetness to her. She has the most open heart of anyone I've ever met and I knew that was going to shine through onscreen." Kelly Marie Tran's chemistry with John Boyega, Finn's actor, solidified the director's opinion that she was perfect for the role. Tran had never seen a Star Wars movie until she got the part: she was more of a fan of other series like The Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter. She attributes the fact she landed the part to this oversight, explaining "I didn't have this expectation of what I thought this person should be like; I wasn't trying to model her after someone I'd seen in a movie."

Carrie Fisher inspired Rose and Paige's crescent necklaces. Johnson tweeted in response to a fan inquiring about the idea that, "In rehearsals Carrie grabbed my arm and told me with great urgency that we needed 'space jewelry.' I thought that was a fabulous idea. So."

Despite the critical success of The Last Jedi at the box office, Tran received online racist attacks to the extent of attracting news coverage, including of vandalism to Rose Tico's article on the free-to-edit, unofficial online encyclopedia named Wookieepedia. In response to criticism likening Tico to Jar Jar Binks, the official Star Wars Facebook page defended the character's contribution to the story plot. Attorney Anthony Nguyen described Tran as the first "woman of color" to be cast in a leading role in the Star Wars franchise, while journalist Nicole Karlis commented that attacks on Tran reflected a fear of women who defied sexist stereotypes. Prior to the release of The Rise of Skywalker, another controversy emerged in which Lucasfilm allegedly removed the character from the film's advertising and merchandise.

Tran reprised the role in Star Wars: Episode IX The Rise of Skywalker, with a significantly reduced screentime, largely limited to the Resistance base on Ajan Kloss. Co-writer Chris Terrio commented, "One of the reasons that Rose has a few less scenes than we would like her to have has to do with the difficulty of using [the late] Carrie [Fisher]'s footage in the way we wanted to. We wanted Rose to be the anchor at the rebel base who was with Leia. We thought we couldn't leave Leia at the base without any of the principals who we love, so Leia and Rose were working together. As the process evolved, a few scenes we'd written with Rose and Leia turned out to not meet the standard of photorealism that we'd hoped for. Those scenes unfortunately fell out of the film. The last thing we were doing was deliberately trying to sideline Rose. We adore the character, and we adore Kelly – so much so that we anchored her with our favorite person in this galaxy, General Leia." Terrio later clarified, "I was referring to a specific scene in which Leia's emotional state in Episode VII did not seem to match the scene we wrote for use in Episode IX, and so it was cut at the script stage before the VFX work was done. If we had chosen to use the scene, ILM would have made it look perfect. They always do."

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