Q & As about 'Star Wars' : If 'Star Wars: The Clone Wars' is canon, where Ahsoka Tano in Episodes II and III?

Ahsoka Tano as she appears in Star Wars: Rebels. © 2016 Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) 

Asked on Quora as: "If the Clone Wars series is considered to be canon, then where is Ahsoka Tano (Anakin's Padawan) during AOTC and ROTS?"

After George Lucas put the finishing touches on Star Wars - Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, the then-chairman of Lucasfilm Ltd. hired animator Dave Filoni and a team of producers, writers, computer animators, and directors led by Catherine Winder. Their mission: to set up Lucasfilm Animation and start production on a new television series, Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Lucas himself told fans about the new show - which is set between Attack of the Clones (AOTC) and Revenge of the Sith (ROTS).

As Lucas has stated in several behind-the-scenes interviews, the Clone Wars is a conflict that can’t be depicted in its entirety in the main Saga films. We only see how the war begins in Act Three of AOTC and its end in ROTS. (There is a three-year time gap in the films’ in-universe timeline.)

Lucas - and Lucasfilm - were aware that the Clone Wars was a massive event in Star Wars lore that needed to be explored visually to fill in the blanks in Anakin Skywalker’s character development. After all, in the live-action films, we didn’t get to see much of his legendary achievements as a Jedi Knight or his close friendship with Obi-Wan. This is why Star Wars: The Clone Wars was made, to show fans more of what Lucas the storyteller knew they wanted: stories about other Jedi, other planets and peoples hinted at in other Star Wars tales but never seen on screen (Mandalore, Dathomir, Mon Cala).

As for Ahsoka Tano? Obviously, she is what is known in showbiz as a “retcon” (short for retroactive continuity). In real life, she was created after the script for Revenge of the Sith was written, because in Matt Stover’s novelization Anakin grouses that he never had anyone refer to him as “Master” the way he does to Obi-Wan. Until Star Wars: The Clone Wars was introduced in the summer of 2008, there was no clue (canonical or otherwise) that Anakin had had an apprentice.

In-universe, Ahsoka Tano is a youngling in the Jedi Temple during the events of Attack of the Clones. She is introduced to both Anakin and Obi-Wan sometime after the First Battle of Geonosis during the Separatist invasion of Christophsis. She becomes Anakin’s apprentice and serves essentially as his executive officer in the 501st Legion of the Grand Army of the Republic with the rank of Commander. Around six months before the Battle of Coruscant (the start of Revenge of the Sith) Ahsoka is framed by the disillusioned Jedi Knight Barris Offee for the bombing of the Jedi Temple. Prosecuted by Admiral (later Grand Moff) Wilhuff Tarkin for a crime she didn’t commit, the young Jedi is stripped of her Jedi Knight status (and her Republic Army) rank by the Jedi Council.

Anakin Skywalker is the only one who believes in his Padawan’s innocence. He persists in investigating the Temple bombing and eventually discovers that Barris Offee was the culprit and presents the evidence to the Jedi Council, In light of the new evidence, Tarkin and the Council drop all charges against Ahsoka, and Yoda says that she can rejoin the Order. Ahsoka refuses, and even though she is grateful to her former Master, her disillusion with the Council is too strong to overcome.

At the time of Revenge of the Sith, Ahsoka’s whereabouts are murky. When Disney-owned Lucasfilm canceled the series in 2013, there were at least 65 episodes in the production pipeline. 13 (three-quarters of Season Six) were already finished and eventually released on Netflix (and, later, on home media) as The Lost Missions. Others were almost done: a four-episode arc known as Crystal Crisis on Utapau had already had its dialogue and music track recorded and the animation was in what’s called animatics, as was another about the clones called Bad Batch. None of these featured Ahsoka, but Anakin’s sadness about “losing” his apprentice was explored on the arc about the hunt for a Kyber crystal being used by the Separatists for mysterious purposes. (This, of course, is related to the use of Kyber crystals for the Death Star’s planet-killing laser.)

Lucasfilm Animation has been working on a seventh season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which will be seen on Disney’s new streaming service. Ahsoka Tano’s post-Season Five adventures are probably going to be explored.

Meanwhile, Filoni’s second animated series, Star Wars: Rebels established that Ahsoka survived the Jedi Purge (part of which is seen in ROTS) and went on to assist the formation of the Rebel Alliance in the years before the events of Rogue One and A New Hope. At the time of Return of the Jedi, Ahsoka was still alive