In this special episode, I discuss some striking similarities between Star Wars: Andor Season 2 and recent events in Serbia. I will return to the series of religious topics next time. Although I always make these podcasts listenable, I recommend you check out the YouTube version because I put a lot of work into editing video clips.

Hello, this is Chris Young. Welcome to a special episode of Contemplating Life.

I’m taking a brief timeout from my religious episodes to talk politics and sci-fi.

I noticed there is something eerily familiar about the plot of Star Wars: Andor Season 2. Usually, I’m not one to spread conspiracy theories and definitely have never crafted one, but this is creepy. I’ve noticed some striking parallels between Season 2 of Andor and recent events in Serbia.

The following contains minor spoilers for Andor Season 2

The main plot line of the season is that the Empire needs a particular rare mineral called Kalkite, which is essential to the construction of the Death Star battle station. The mineral is only found on the planet Ghorman, a peaceful planet known for its fine textiles woven from spider silk created by a unique species of arachnids native to the planet.

Extraction of the mineral will likely destroy the planet or at least leave it uninhabitable. The ruthless leadership of the Empire hatches a plot to intimidate the local population into starting a rebellion. This includes infiltrating the Ghorman resistance and feeding them accurate information about weapons shipments. This allows the resistance to capture weapons they will use in later activities against the Empire. The Empire wants them well armed so that they can portray them as dangerous and justify their eventual slaughter.

The Empire stokes anger among locals by building a large facility adjacent to a hallowed memorial revered by the local population. A monument commemorates innocent civilians who were killed when an Imperial ship landed in the plaza, crushing them. The new facility casts a shadow over the sacred site. This enrages the locals and sparks protests.

It all comes to a head when the Empire orchestrates a massacre of civilian protesters in the memorial plaza. This was a plan all along. Use the local resistance movement to justify a harsh crackdown and to take over the entire planet. The mining of the essential minerals will allow the construction of the Death Star, leading up to the events of the films Rogue One and Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope. The planet Ghorman will be destroyed in the process, but who cares? After all, we are building a planet-killing battle station. What is the loss of a planet or two along the way?

So, what does that have to do with recent events in Serbia?

Consider this: over the past several months, there have been massive protests, with hundreds of thousands of citizens protesting government corruption. The demonstrations were initially about the collapse of a newly built canopy at a train station, which killed 16 people and severely injured one other in November 2024. By March 2025, the protests had spread to 400 cities across Serbia. Initially led by student protesters, a wide demographic of Serbian people has joined the ongoing demonstrations against government corruption, which they blame for the accident at the train station.

Meanwhile, Jared Kushner, son-in-law of Donald Trump, has been negotiating to develop a luxury hotel and apartment complex known as Trump Tower Belgrade. It would be constructed by tearing down a set of bombed-out buildings, which were once the Yugoslav Ministry of Defense.

The buildings were bombed by NATO forces during the Kosovo War in 1999. Serbia was once part of the larger nation of Yugoslavia, but it was broken up into different countries after the Kosovo War in the late 1990s. While the buildings had been used as the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff Building of the Yugoslav People’s Army, they were unoccupied at the time they were bombed. The bombing was seen as a symbolic gesture against the Yugoslav government, which was engaged in genocide during that war.

Although part of Building “B” was able to be repaired and is still in use, the remainder of the site has been left in its partially destroyed state. The debris from Building “A” was cleared, and it was personally reinforced. It has been sitting there as a bombed-out shell. There have been efforts to have the site declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

On January 16, 2025, Kushner announced that a Trump hotel would be built in place of the Yugoslav Ministry of Defence Building. The following day, the Republic Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments stated it would not remove the Defence Building from the Central Register, citing the law on cultural heritage. Shortly after this initial refusal to allow the project to proceed, later documents were produced that released the site as a cultural heritage site, and the project was expected to go forward.

MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow reported on her Monday, May 19th, broadcast about the Serbian protests. She reported that since the protests began, Donald Trump Jr. has visited Serbia several times, in her words, “Donald Trump Jr. has made multiple trips to Serbia to try to shore up their very Trumpy president.”

She referenced a recent New York Times article, which claimed that a Serbian official who signed off on allowing the buildings to be demolished has now admitted that those documents were forged.

So, let’s recap. NATO, whose policies are heavily influenced by the US government, bombed the site in Belgrade in 1999. The local population kept the bombed-out buildings as a memorial to that event.

Now, the US president, or rather his business interests, wants to take over the site and build a large facility that will financially benefit his family.

It’s reasonable to speculate that at some point, the Serbian government will crack down on these massive protests, some of which are occurring at the Yugoslav Ministry of Defense memorial site.

If I were an organizer of these protests, and a fan of Star Wars: Andor, I would be really worried that my government was encouraging me to protest just so it could have an excuse to violently squash the protests. I would be asking, “Was the approval of building Trump Tower not only a thank you for the support of the American president, but was it designed to stoke the anger of the Serbian people, and to further justify a vicious crackdown?”

The only thing missing from the bizarre similarities between the situation in Serbia and the storyline of Andor is the need to mine rare minerals. So just for fun, I googled the following sentence, “Does Serbia mine rare earth minerals?” Google reported yes and linked me to an article which says in part, “Serbia boasts significant deposits of rare earth elements (RREs) neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, and others. These minerals are found in various locations around the country with notable concentrations in certain mining areas.”

I also found information that a proposed mining project in Serbia, known as the Jadar mine, which would produce massive amounts of lithium and boron. Lithium is a key component in batteries for cell phones, tablets, and especially for electric vehicles such as Tesla. Of course, Tesla is owned by Trump’s good friend and largest campaign donor, Elon Musk.

So, not only does the Trump organization stand to benefit by supporting a corrupt government in Serbia, but Trump’s close friend has a financial interest in mining valuable raw materials from that country.

So, we have to ask, which came first? Serbia or Andor?

I don’t know when Andor Season 2 was written. Filming began in November 2023 and was expected to wrap in August 2024, with an anticipated year required for post-production. However, filming was delayed numerous times for events such as the WGA and SAG/AFTRA strikes. Filming of this final season wrapped in early February 2024. Given this timeline, I doubt that the writers were somehow basing their material on the actual events occurring in Serbia, which did not manifest until November 2024. Also, there was no way of knowing that Trump would win the presidency, nor the role that Elon Musk would play in the new administration.

As for my conspiracy theory that somehow Trump and the Serbian government are basing their playbook on the plot of Andor Season 2, it was released between April 23 and May 13, 2025, so that doesn’t pan out either.

It is more likely that Andor creator Tony Gilroy is simply a well-read student of history and knows that many wars, including some in our own lifetime, such as the Gulf Wars, have been fought over natural resources.

My hope and prayer is that the Serbian protests are effective in ousting the corrupt government and that it doesn’t lead to a massive, brutal crackdown on the Serbian people, who have already seen too much war.

I similarly hope for the success of protests here in the US to halt the fascist takeover of our country, and to restore our democracy so that we can once again be an example to the rest of the world proving that a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, can long endure.

Links to all of my sources for the information in this episode are available in the description.

In my next episode, we will return to our religious discussions.

So, as always… if you find this podcast educational, entertaining, enlightening, or even inspiring, consider sponsoring me on Patreon for just $5 per month. You will get early access to the podcast and other exclusive content. Although I have some financial struggles, I’m not really in this for money. Still, every little bit helps.

As always, my deepest thanks to my financial supporters. Your support means more to me than words can express.

Even if you cannot provide financial support, please, please, please post the links and share this podcast on social media so that I can grow my audience. I just want more people to be able to hear my stories.

All of my back episodes are available, and I encourage you to check them out if you’re new to this podcast. If you have any comments, questions, or other feedback, please feel free to comment on any of the platforms where you found this podcast.

I will see you next time as we continue contemplating life. Until then, fly safe.