Created in 1991 by Timothy Zahn (for the wonderful Thrawn trilogy), Rogue Squadron had 12 X-wing pilots. In that first trilogy, which came out between 1991 and 1993, we actually only hear the names of 3 confirmed members of these "Blue Angels of Star Wars ":

Wedge Antilles (their leader)

Derek "Hobbie" Klivian

Wes Janson

All three "original Rogues" accounted for (flying X-wings) in the game so far.

Next in the timeline was Michael A. Stackpole meeting at Skywalker Ranch in 1994 to discuss books (and comics). Coming out of that was the following recollection:

" And then in 1995, out of the blue, I picked up the phone and there was Mike. It seemed he'd just been contracted to write a series of Star Wars X-Wing books for Bantam and wanted to discuss the Rogue Squadron group I'd created for my own Star Wars books. " ―Timothy Zahn.

The end result was a 35 issue run of X-Wing: Rogue Squadron comics by Dark Horse (1995 - 1998), and a 4 novel collection about the Rogues, the first of which was called "X-Wing: Rogue Squadron" (1996 - 1997). More novels followed in this line, but the first four are the best. Rogue Squadron is the single best thing to happen to the EU, perhaps ever (in my opinion, of course).

So, who are the rest of the Rogues?

Tycho Celchu is in all 35 issues of the comic run and all four of the novels. He clearly should be also flying an X-wing in this game.

Plour Ilo is also a pilot seen in all 35 issues of the comic run.

Ibtisam is in 23 of the 35 issues, flying an X-wing.

Feylis Ardele is also in 23 of the 35 issues.

As for the novels, the following pilots are seen flying X-wings in all four books:

Corran Horn

Ooryl Qrygg

Nawara Ven

Rhysati Ynr

Gavin Darklighter

Riv Shiel

Honorable Mentions

The confusing history of Rogue Squadron, tracing its origins from Red Squadron at Yavin, through Rogue Flight and/or Rogue Group on Hoth (led by Luke and flying snowspeeders, no less), to a second Red Squadron at Endor (possibly already Rogue Squadron, re-named Red Squadron just before the battle as a nod to the past, and now led by Wedge), could allow for some extra high-pedigree pilots to show up, flying X-wings. Since we have two fewer veterans of Endor than Yavin in our existing line-up, I feel a good balancing maneuver would be to include a pair of pilots that squared off against the second Death Star. Both have screen time, so they cannot get more canon.

Grizz Frix (Red 5 at Endor)

Keir Santage (Red 7 at Endor)

A nice smattering of new-to-the-game Red/Rogue Squadron astromechs is possible, as well, including:

R2-Q2 (Biggs)

R5-D2 (Wedge's "Mynock")

R4-G7 (Klivian)

R2-T7 (Frix)

Obviously they can't include all of these guys as new X-wing pilots. There are currently only 10 total X-wing pilots, 8 of them named. The largest number of pilots for a given ship type in the game is 13 for the TIE/ln (10 named).

If we could only get a two of these, I'd say the answer is obvious: we need Tycho and Corran , perhaps included with two generics called Rogue Squadron Pilot .

Nice summary. I recently started reading the X-novels and thought Ooryl could make a great pilot in this game.

1 minute ago, No Pickles said:

Nice summary. I recently started reading the X-novels and thought Ooryl could make a great pilot in this game.

You would love the comic series, too. I bought them all over the course of the last summer, and enjoyed them very much.

12 minutes ago, evanger said:

Obviously they can't include all of these guys as new X-wing pilots. There are currently only 10 total X-wing pilots, 8 of them named. The largest number of pilots for a given ship type in the game is 13 for the TIE/ln (10 named).

If we could only get a two of these, I'd say the answer is obvious: we need Tycho and Corran , perhaps included with two generics called Rogue Squadron Pilot .

I wouldn't be mad if they included all of the main rogue squadron pilots in the game even if that meant 10 new X-wing pilots. I loved that book series and would be thrilled to get more characters drawn from it. More X-wing on the table would be great since I rarely see any outside of Biggs.

The Rogue Squadron comic series also brought us Tycho Celchu, Baron Soontir Fel, Turr Phennir, and the 181st Imperial Fighter Group, to name but a few more. Wonderful stuff!

49 minutes ago, evanger said:

The Rogue Squadron comic series also brought us Tycho Celchu, Baron Soontir Fel, Turr Phennir, and the 181st Imperial Fighter Group, to name but a few more. Wonderful stuff!

Colonel Vessery is actually from their stories too... I love the Rogues, always have, and those stories did a lot to inspire the early pilots of this game. It's a shame in my opinion so few of the most famous pilots in Star Wars don't see the table. Interestingly, most members of Rogue Squadron were the Rebel pilots with EPTs, Klivian being the one blatant exception, although he was always the butt of the teams jokes.... Anyway, I think the Rogues deserve more than they currently have, but then again I fly them most of the time, so maybe it's fine.

On January 30, 2017 at 10:17 PM, evanger said:

You would love the comic series, too. I bought them all over the course of the last summer, and enjoyed them very much.

I read most of the comics but didn't enjoy them nearly as much. The best part for me was seeing a close-up of Wedge's X-Wing with his kill list painted on the side. If I ever get a small enough brush I'll try to recreate that on one of my X-wing models.