Playing for Zero: The Sabacc Lore of Zero Company

2 days ago

9 min read

Zero Company are smooth Operators at the Sabacc Table as well as on the battlefield

WARNING: The following post contains spoilers for Star Wars: Zero Company. We suggest playing through the game at least once before reading this post if you are intending to get the game!

Star Wars Zero Company was released last month, and fans have been enjoying the turn-based tactical game which puts you in command of a roster of 'Operators', rough-and-tumble mercenaries who take contracts to run paramilitary operations in and around the margins of the Clone Wars. Stepping into the shoes of Tesh Hawks, the ex-Republic soldier in charge of Zero Company, players are introduced to an eclectic cast of characters and treated to an exciting new story, snappy character dialogue, and a wealth of visual and wordbuilding details... including numerous references to the game of Sabacc!

Join us for a run-down of all the ways that Sabacc features in the new game, as it comes up again and again in character interactions, game environments, and even operational scenarios!

CARD SHARKS

The members of Zero Company play a lot of Sabacc. In fact, they never seem to shut up about it! The game acts as a social touchstone for the mix of scoundrels, misfits and mercenaries that make up the company, and is also an important tool for characterisation: for the Operators, watching how someone plays is a way to get a read on them, inside and outside the game. In that spirit, here's our guide to the Sabacc sharks of Zero Company, and how their character is expressed by what people see in their game:

Aurelio

Aurelio is the sacrificial lamb of Zero Company's narrative, laid low by enemy fire in the game's tutorial to teach you how injury and death works in the game's mechanics. In the story, it also sets the scene for Zero Company's present straights: desperate for paying clients, struggling to get paid by existing ones, and up to their eyeballs in debt with the Hutt Clan. Aurelio's death is the latest setback for the company, and what little we learn about him comes through a conversation about his foibles at the Sabacc table:

TRICK: Hey, Cap. Shame about Aurelio.

HAWKS: Yeah...

TRICK: We were squabbling over cards just last night. Hell of a thing. But if he can take it, I can. Did we at least get paid for the job?

Hawks: Not yet. Still waiting for our mystery client to pay us a visit.

TRICK: Speaking of mysteries. For a guy who barely played, that little Rodian was suspiciously lucky at Corellian Spike.

HAWKS: You think he was rolling loaded chance cubes?

TRICK: It made playing him halfway interesting. But he wasn't that lucky, in the end.

Hawks: No, I guess not.

Trick

The fin on Trick's helmet could be a visual metaphor - this Clone Trooper is Zero Company's resident Sabacc shark. As a soldier Trick values loyalty, fortitude and a strong moral compass, always the first to object if the player's choices stray into mercenary territory. In his free time though, he loves games of chance (both Sabacc and holochess). Trick clearly places a great deal of stock in getting a read on opponents at the table, and is quick to size up new companions through their playing style.

Perhaps this aspect of his character has something to do with the mindset needed to tolerate the kind of risk and uncertainty that bears down hard on the Company on and off the battlefield. An early conversation sees Trick sharing a black joke about the wins and losses of an inveterate gambler, which Hawks quickly connects to the outfit's own fortunes:

TRICK: Hey Cap, I got one for ya!

HAWKS: Hit me.

TRICK: So this Devaronian fellow wins a million credits at a sabacc game.

HAWKS: Good night.

TRICK: Great night! Back slaps and spotchka shots all around. His best buddy asks, "So how're you planning to spend the winnings?" Devaronian says, well, I owe a couple big anoobas some money, so I guess I'll pay them off first.

HAWKS: Smart man.

TRICK: Sure. His friend's still all excited though. He asks, "Well, what about the rest?" And the Devaronian says...

HAWKS: "Well I guess they'll have to wait!"

TRICK: Haha, that's right! You've heard that one before?

HAWKS: That, and we're about to be owing some big anoobas ourselves if business doesn't pick up.

Keep an ear out round the Den, and you'll frequently overhear Trick trying to rope his fellow Operators into a Sabacc game, only to discover his reputation has preceded him:

TRICK: Up for some Sabacc?

HAWKS: Uh uh. No chance. I've seen the shark you become when the cards are dealt.

TRICK: You know, a few of us were thinking about playing some sabacc later on. ZEEDA: Nu-uh. Runa told me what you're all about, and I like my credits just where they are.

TRICK: C'mon, you're gonna believe her?

ZEEDA: Oh, you're dangerous.

Despite forgiving Aurelio's possible misdeeds, at other times Trick makes his low opinion of cheaters clear:

ROGGAR: Hey, those cards were hot!

TRICK: I don't care how hot they were. A sabacc deck's only got two sylops.

ROGGAR: Maybe where you come from. TRICK: Where I come from, we got names for "inventive" card players like you. I just don't use 'em in the workplace.

Runa Blask

Runa Blask acts as Zero Company's accountant and personnel manager, an imposing presence on account of her unusual height and uncompromising manner. A former employee of the Trade Federation, she isn't afraid of making known her distaste for the Republic and her belief in the free market ideology the Separatists espouse. As Zero Company lurches between contracts, she can be found wistfully reminiscing about the lost perks of her last job (an office with 'a Serennian caf maker stocked with every imaginable color of milk') and planning a future in which she can 'buy a moon, build a pleasure compound, gun it to the teeth, and spend the rest of my days sipping squigs and running holotrades'.

Runa doesn't spend much time talking about Sabacc, but she features in other character's stories about it. As we saw above, she takes it upon herself to warn new Operator's about Trick's proficiency at the table. Neesh clearly thinks there's a possibility of recruiting her for a game (see below). Jae Mordant, the Shu-Toran client and combatant with the company, can be found begging mercy for a fearsome hangover after Runa takes her out drinking one night, making her doubt the old tale that members of the Shu-Toran dynasty have phrik in their bones. I'd put money on it that while out on the town, Runa has put her honed financial instincts to work at the sabacc table at least once in awhile.

Bennic Halloran

In his Republic uniform, Bennic sticks out amongst Hawks' rag-tag outfit -- he's the liaison sent by the Republic to hire Zero Company's mercenaries for work they can't spare any of their troops for. But Bennic's aura of core world polish is actually a front for a hard-scrabble childhood spent in poverty on Klendar X. This makes him more relatable than the crew at Zero Company initially assume. One of the best features of the game is his repartee with Runa at the tactical holotable, where his earnest replies to her barbed quips frequently defy her expectations.

Although as you might expect, it's Trick who reads Bennic by his performance at the Sabacc table:

TRICK: That Lieutenant Halloren's alright. Played a few rounds of cards with him the other night.

HAWKS: He win some hands?

TRICK: No. But he lost well.

HAWKS: Ha... that sounds about right.

Neesh Renark

The logistics officer for Zero Company, Neesh has deep connections in the black market, and has no doubt spent his fair share of nights around the Sabacc table building up those contacts. He has less chatter on the subject than the rest of Zero's crew, but makes a point of asking Hawks if he can convince Runa to joining some of the crew for a game at a local cantina, because someone of her unique stature can be useful for distracting opponents at the table! Hawks demurs, and wisely advises the Lasat not to let Runa catch him talking about her like that.

SABACC GEAR

Sabacc Decks

Sabacc cards are strewn over Trick's workstation in the Den—Zero Company's homebase and operations centre—lying beneath the holographic battle maps he spends considerable time poring over. Behind him, in front of another computer terminal, is balanced a precarious house of sabacc cards. It stays standing perfectly through-out the entire game, leading us to question if the same quirks of physics that allow sound to travel through space in Star Wars are also protecting this construct!

There are only a couple of card values represented — one and two in triangles and squares, the Queen of Tris, the Ten of Tris. These cards are reused multiple times to make the spreads and the card tower, making it look like someone has stolen a bunch of them from different decks.

The box for the Sabacc deck also lies on Trick's table — the same Corellian Spike deck box designed for Solo: A Star Wars Story. As we have seen from the character dialogue, the members of Zero Company only have eyes for Corellian Spike, which has pretty much become the default form of Sabacc in the Disney continuity.

Sabacc Dice

Zero Company are using barrel-style dice with sunken faces, similar to those seen on Canto Bight though considerably smaller and without the hollow cavity those dice had. It's also the same style used for the Coruscant Shift Sabacc dice, without the gilt finish.

The symbols on the faces are difficult to make out: the third-person camera in Zero Company orbits around the player, and there is no first-person perspective, making it difficult to directly inspect objects in the environment. From the angles we have captured, it seems like the symbols are not direct matches to the Spike dice we've seen so far. The four symbol (the 'Compass') looks the same, but other symbols resemble a square and triangle, a bit like the suit symbols on a Shift dice. There's also a symbol with two triangles pointing up and down, and a square or hex with a detached wedge.

This brings us up to three existing variants of Spike dice in Star Wars media so far - the standard Solo format, the Resistance/bad Batch variant, and now the Zero Company variant.

Credit Chips?

There's another conspicuous item scattered amongst the Sabacc cards and dice - a few stacks of tokens, marked with red symbols. They look like some kind of metal tile or ingot. From the context, we might surmise these are some form of credit chip or wager marker.

*Sabacc Card and Rank Chips in Tales from Galaxy's Edge VR*

So what are they? In fact, this same set-up has appeared before in the VR game Tales from Galaxy's Edge. A sabacc spread with cards, and these metal tablets stacked on the table — again, highly suggestive of credits. So is this case closed? Do we have a new type of credit-currency to add to the visual archive?

Unfortunately not, because these metal tokens appear very prominently elsewhere in the canon. They are exact matches for the rank badges worn by Resistance officers in the Sequel trilogy. Specifically, the rank badges for Captain and General:

Resistance Rank Badge Plates

Their appearance alongside Sabacc spreads in the Galaxy's Edge VR game was odd. Their appearance in Zero Company is even more problematic, since the Resistance will not exist for another 50 or so years.

This seems to be a background mistake perpetuated by re-using 3D assets. We should probably ignore them and pretend they are stand-ins for some other credit piece... unless we want to invent some pretty torturous lore about the Resistance adopting credit chips for their officer ranking system!

GAMBLING OPERATIONS

Sabacc even comes into play in some of the many scenarios presented in Zero Company's theatre of war. Under the Operations tab on the holotable, the player can launch 'Operations' - short text-only missions resolved by player choices and chance that net resources like credits, contacts and intel that can be spent elsewhere in the game.

OPERATION: SABACC SEAT — An early operation in the game is 'Sabacc Seat', taking place on Zero Company's home turf, the Ring of Kafrene. After breaking her out of the Separatist prison camp on Jabiim, a grateful former prisoner offers her seat in a high-stakes sabacc game. If the mission succeeds, they report: 'Our team won a couple hands and met some potential clients'. The operation can net you 750 Credits.

OPERATION: CASUAL SABACC — An outpost on Mon Gazza holds a regular sabacc tournament. The operators lose more hands than they win, and only take away about 250 credits. Or maybe the problem was they didn't send Trick?

In addition to Sabacc, the Company also takes on other cantina and tavern-based games:

OPERATION: DEJARIK ANTICS — Zero Company receive an invitation to a cantina dejarik tournament that will be attended by some high rollers. Possible outcomes include: starting a bar fight, accusing a player called Sussiukk of cheating, or stealing a set of droid capacitors during the tournament.

OPERATION: ARM WRESTLING — An infamous quadrennium arm wrestling tournament is kicking off in the pits of Ord Mantell. Zero Company has the opportunity to send someone for a shot at winning the grand prize. The operation can net you 2000 Credits, but also some nasty bruises for your Operators.

CHECK OUT THE NEW ZERO COMPANY SABACC DECK THEME ON HOLOCARDS!

To celebrate the release of the game, and the love shown to Sabacc by the writers, we've whipped up a new Zero Company-inspired Operator's Sabacc Deck theme for the Holocards app:

Available with the next update, the Operator's Deck theme (for Kessel & Corellian Spike) will be available as an unlockable reward for players who successfully complete enough of the newly featured Contract Challenges by the end of the month!

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