Rebel 2023

The Motherworld has been ruled by 1000 Kings in succession. The royal blood lines consumed everything on the home planet and sent their armies outward to conquer new worlds for their resources. Only an assassin stuck down the King and Queen, severing the bloodline forever.

A senator named Balisarius seized the power and started to crush the rebellion in the outer reaches of the empire. Balisarius sent his most brutal commander Noble, to deal with the rebellion.

Atticus Noble (Ed Skrein), the sadistic admiral of the militaristic Imperium, arrives on the backwater moon of Veldt on behalf of the Motherworld, an interstellar empire fueled by centuries of conquest and war.

Veldt is simple farming community. Kora works the fields and is pursued by Den (Stuart Martin), a local farmer. Kora has only spent 2 seasons at Veldt and says that she is a product of war, and that the idea of family was beaten out of her as she was turned into a soldier.

The villagers saw the dreadnought enter their atmosphere. Kora alerts the villagers. Gunnar is a farmer who advocates dealing with the Imperium as partners, but Kora says that Imperium can only subjugate and never partner. Gunnar sold the excess produce to rebels in the previous season, and Kora wants Imperium to be given what they ask for, before they dig too deep. Sindri, the head of the village refuses to negotiate with the Imperium.

Noble explains that his troops are hunting for a band of rebels led by siblings Devra (Cleopatra Coleman) and Darrian Bloodaxe (Ray Fisher), and offers to buy the village’s surplus grain at 3 times the market value. Noble says that the Bloodaxe have been attacking the Imperial ports and stores and as such the army is running low on provisions.

The village’s leader, Sindri (Corey Stoll), refuses the offer, claiming they barely have enough to survive as their land is rocky and their winters are harsh. A farmer, Gunnar (Michiel Huisman), contradicts Sindri’s claim, indicating that the village might have some surplus.

Noble kills Sindri and orders Gunnar to prepare enough grain, which will not leave the village with enough to survive, in ten weeks. The village produces 12,000 bushels of harvest and Noble wants 10,000 bushels for the army.

Noble departs, leaving a handful of soldiers, including Marcus (Greg Kriek) (a cruel soldier) & Private Aris (Sky Yang), who is disillusioned with the Imperium and Motherworld’s immorality-and a “Jimmy” robot (JC-1435) (Anthony Hopkins) to oversee the harvest. The Jimmy robots refused to fight once the King was slain, which was driven by something in their programming.

After being harassed by Marcus, Jimmy starts to become independent. The villager Sam shows empathy with Jimmy and befriends him.

Jimmy tells Sam the story of their slain King and their daughter Issa. Issa was supposed to usher in an era of peace and prosperity across the Empire. Jimmy says that Sam reminds him of Issa. He says that Jimmy’s were created to protect Issa.

Kora wanted to flee the village when Gunnar and Den decide to give the Imperium what they want and depend on their mercy for survival.

Kora (Sofia Boutella), finds the other soldiers holding another villager Sam (Charlotte Maggi) and Aris hostage, preparing to sexually assault Sam, and kills them with help from Jimmy, who has defected from the soldiers. This is unprecedented as Jimmys have not killed anyone since Issa was killed.

Kora warns the villagers that Noble will massacre the village once he returns, unless they mount a defense.

Kora and Gunnar depart for the port town of Providence to recruit warriors for the village’s defense, including Titus (Djimon Hounsou), a disgraced Imperium general who turned his own forces on the Motherland. Gunnar accompanies Kora to find the Bloodaxe whom he supplied grain in the last season.

During their journey, she reveals to Gunnar that she once served the Imperium as a soldier, having been adopted and renamed to Arthelais by Balisarius (Fra Fee), an Imperium commander, after he killed her family and eradicated her home planet’s population when she was 9 years old. At the age of 18, she became an officer and was given a command position. She was now fighting on distant worlds under the banner of an empire that killed her entire family.

She became bodyguard to Motherworld princess Issa (Stella Grace Fitzgerald), who was expected to usher in an end to the Imperium’s conquests. Issa was rumored to have the power to give life.

She was unable to protect Issa during her coronation, when the royal family (King (Cary Elwes) and Queen (Rhian Rees)) was assassinated, and Balisarius subsequently declared himself regent before renewing its conquests.

Arriving at Providence, the pair learns from Gunnar’s contact that Titus is most likely on Pollux.

The pair meets smuggler and criminal Kai (Charlie Hunnam), who agrees to take them to recruit Titus. On the way to the planet Pollux, Kai takes them to two additional warriors: Tarak (Staz Nair), a beast tamer, and Nemesis (Doona Bae), a talented swords-woman enhanced by cybernetics.

The group arrives at a gladiator on a remote moon, finding Titus in a drunken stupor. Titus used to command the Eastern forces for the Old King.

Titus initially refuses but agrees to join them after Kora suggests that he avenge his fallen soldiers, who died after Titus surrendered to Balisarius.

Using Gunnar’s previous dealings with the Bloodaxes, they then arrive at planet Sharaan (The home planet of King Levitica) to meet them and their rebellion, intending to recruit them. Darrian agrees to defend the village and brings with him a handful of rebels, including Millius (E. Duffy), with him, while Devra considers a fight against Noble’s dreadnought, the King’s Gaze, hopeless and a waste of their resources. She says that a dreadnought is a destroyer of worlds and cannot be fought with a few fighters.

After they depart Sharaan, Noble arrives and eradicates its population as punishment for assisting the rebels.

Kai tells Kora that he has been moved by her quest to abandon his illicit life as a smuggler and that he has one last shipment to drop off to leave that life behind him and join her in her fight to save the village. He takes the group to a trading post at which Noble’s ship has arrived and restrains them, save for Gunnar, betraying them to Noble and revealing he had always intended to do so for the bounties on their heads.

Noble identifies Kora, Tarak, Nemesis, and Titus for their history-Kora and Titus as deserters, Tarak as a criminal and former prince, and Nemesis as the killer of several Imperial officers in revenge for her murdered children.

Noble says that once he presents their bodies to the Regent, he will be proclaimed as a Hero of the Realm and granted a seat on the Senate.

Kai demands that Gunnar paralyze Kora; Gunnar instead frees her and kills Kai. The other warriors are unshackled as well. A battle ensues, with Darrian and Noble-the latter at the hands of Kora-among its casualties. Darrian sacrifices his life to save his fellow fighters and to bring down Noble’s ship, without which none of them would have survived.

Afterwards, the surviving warriors return to Veldt together, with Jimmy watching them from afar on their way to the village.

Noble’s corpse is recovered by Motherworld forces, and he is resurrected after having spoken on an astral plane with Balisarius, who demands that Noble end the insurgency against him and bring Kora to him alive so he can execute her himself.