Fellow puzzlers and PuzzleNationers, we celebrated Star Wars Day (aka May the Fourth Be With You) last week by sharing a puzzly brain teaser.

Today, let’s go through how to solve it!

Rebel Roundup

The Empire came up with a brilliant plan in order to trap various members of the Rebel Alliance: creating a fake Rebel summit. Each Imperial agent involved would invite a Rebel to the summit while posing as one of the Rebels being invited.

It would have worked perfectly, except for the fact that Admiral Ozzel posed as the person that he had invited. OOPS. Courtesy of Ozzel’s bumbling, the Rebels were warned ahead of time and armed themselves, hoping to turn the tables on the Empire.

Thanks to Han Solo’s timely warning, Luke had hidden his lightsaber and a vibroknife with R2-D2 and C-3PO respectively. These extra weapons allowed the seven Rebel agents of them to escape. It also helped that Admiral Ackbar arrived last in his ship, Home One.

Each Rebel arrived in a different spaceship, but two Rebels hitched a ride with fellow agents, so only five spaceships were involved.

Answer these questions:

• Who traveled with Leia?
• Who traveled with Luke?
• What vehicle did each Rebel arrive in?
• Which Imperial invited which Rebel?
• Who did each Imperial pose as?
• What weapon did each Rebel carry?

Here are your clues:

1. Leia, having been warned by Han, carried a concealable Holdout Blaster. She did not arrive in an X-Wing, nor did she fly the Millennium Falcon.

2. Han wouldn’t let anyone fly his baby. Han carried his Heavy Blaster Pistol, ready to shoot the Imperial who invited him while posing as him. This naturally made Han suspicious.

3. When Admiral Ackbar saw who invited him, he put his Force Pike to the Imperial’s throat. He was not invited by Darth Vader, who had posed as R2-D2.

4. C-3PO arrived on the Tantive IV, along with another passenger. This was not the ship Lando used.

5. The Lady Luck was flown by the man invited by Admiral Piett. Its pilot, who traveled alone, carried a Blaster Rifle with him. He gambled a bit, and almost crashed into Luke’s X-Wing. The Imperial who invited him posed as Admiral Ackbar.

6. Grand Moff Tarkin invited Admiral Ackbar. He did not pose as Luke Skywalker, nor did he pose as Leia.

7. General Veers invited R2-D2. Veers posed as R2-D2’s best friend. Captain Needa did not pose as Lando.

8. Leia was led to believe that Luke invited her to the summit. Emperor Palpatine invited Luke while posing as Leia. R2-D2 delivered his weapon to the Rebel so he could keep his father busy long enough for everyone to escape.

Now, the first step is going through the clues and listing all of the options for every variable. This will help us with the second step: building a grid to help us organize information.

• Rebels: Ackbar, C-3PO, Han, Lando, Leia, Luke, R2-D2
• Imperials: Needa, Ozzel, Palpatine, Piett, Tarkin, Vader, Veers
• Ships: Home One, Lady Luck, Millennium Falcon, Tantive IV, X-Wing
• Weapons: Blaster Rifle, Force Pike, Heavy Blaster Pistol, Holdout Blaster, Lightsaber, Vibroknife

Okay, let’s build our grid. Now, we could list every intersection of information, like a full logic problem grid, but I don’t think that’s necessary here. We can simplify.

Now let’s fill in what we know from the clues. From the introduction, we know that R2-D2 has the Lightsaber and C-3PO has the Vibroknife. We also know that Ackbar arrived on the ship Home One.

We also know that Leia has a Holdout Blaster (clue #1), and that Han has the Heavy Blaster Pistol (clue #2). Clue #2 also tells us that Han arrived in his baby, the Millennium Falcon. Han was also invited by the Imperial who posed as him, and from the introduction, we know that Ozzel mistakenly pretended to be the man he invited, so that means he posed as Han to invite Han.

So far so good. What else?

We know that Ackbar has a Force Pike (clue #3), that C-3PO arrived on the Tantive IV (clue #4), that Ackbar was invited by Tarkin (clue #6), that R2-D2 was invited by Veers and that Veers posed as his best friend, C-3PO (clue #7).

Finally, we know that Leia believed she was invited by Luke, and Palpatine invited Luke while posing as Leia (clue #8).

That’s a lot of information, and we can immediately use it to resolve clue #5. The Lady Luck was flown by the man invited by Admiral Piett. This clue gives us a linked Imperial and Ship pairing, and only Leia and Lando have both of those pieces of information missing. But since the Lady Luck was flown by a man, we can eliminate Leia and determine that clue #5 applies to Lando.

Not only does this allow us to fill Lando’s entire row, but we also learn that Luke piloted an X-Wing.

There’s another pairing that we can fill in from here. In clue #3, we learn that Darth Vader posed as R2-D2, and that information only fits in C-3PO’s row.

By process of elimination, that gives us Captain Needa as the Imperial who invited Leia and Lando as the person Tarkin posed as.

We also know that R2-D2 delivered his weapon — a Lightsaber — to the Rebel so he could keep his father busy long enough for everyone to escape (clue #8). Luke fits this description.

Finally, we know that Leia didn’t arrive in an X-Wing or the Millennium Falcon (clue #1). The Lady Luck is also out, as Lando traveled alone (clue #5). The introduction states that Ackbar arrived last, implying he traveled alone as well, so that only leaves the Tantive IV as Leia’s possible ship. (Clue #4 states that C-3PO arrived with another passenger.)

That leaves us with R2-D2. From our deliberations about Leia, we can remove the Lady Luck, Home One, and the Tantive IV from the list of options, leaving only Luke’s X-Wing and Han’s Millennium Falcon.

Now, one of the questions we need to answer is “Who traveled with Luke?” That implies someone did, which would mean R2-D2, but again, that could be a trick question, and the answer would be “no one.”

There’s also the information in clue #2 that Han wouldn’t let anyone fly his baby. Does that mean he flew alone? It’s not clear.

But we also know that R2-D2 carried Luke’s Lightsaber. If they traveled together, what’s the point of R2 having the Lightsaber? Luke could just carry it himself. That seems to imply they traveled apart.

So how do we resolve this? Look at the patterns of who invited who.

Tarkin invited Ackbar while posing as Lando. Piett invited Lando while posing as Ackbar. Needa invited Leia while posing as Luke, and Vader invited C-3PO while posing as R2-D2, and they traveled together. Meanwhile, Palpatine invited Luke while posing as Leia, and Veers invited R2-D2 while posing as C-3PO. These parallel invitations line up if R2 travels with Luke.

It’s an elegant plan, only screwed up because Ozzel invited Han while posing as Han.

So, to wrap it all up, let’s answer those questions.

Who traveled with Leia? C-3PO. Who traveled with Luke? R2-D2. And the other four questions? We covered them nicely with our completed grid.

So, how did you do? Did you crack the Rebel Roundup puzzle? Let us know in the comments below!

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