While the Mando-verse may be covering the years after Return of the Jedi, Ahsoka isn’t exactly upfront about when the series is set. We know it’s somewhere in the New Republic era, but precisely when is up for debate.
However, in Episode 5 we saw Ahsoka undergo a Gandalf-like resurrection that finally gives us a firm benchmark. Her new look — and a key moment in another Star Wars show — may pinpoint exactly when this adventure takes place, and it’s further along than you probably thought.
The Mandalorian subtly jumped forward a few years in the timeline, but the relevant evidence actually comes from The Book of Boba Fett, which caught up with Din Djarin and Grogu after the little tyke spent a few years training with Luke Skywalker. Din runs into Ahsoka when he visits, but she’s not wearing the white robes we see her don near the end of Episode 5. She’s still rocking the gray robes she wore at the beginning of Ahsoka.
That confirms a long-standing fan theory that Ahsoka is set alongside The Mandalorian Season 3, and we might be able to get more specific. Purgils, the hyperspace-capable flying whales, play a big role in Ahsoka Episode 5, but before they were the key to a neighboring galaxy, they were an Easter egg on The Mandalorian.
Twitter user @Lilfellow25 suggests that when Grogu looks up at the Purgils in the first episode of Mando Season 3, he’s actually sensing a fellow Force-wielder in Ahsoka, who’s inside the Purgil with Huyang. It would make sense; Ahsoka is connected with Grogu through the Force, which is how we learned his name in the first place. This theory also explains where Ahsoka was throughout The Mandalorian Season 3. She was otherwise occupied for a good deal of it, at one point literally in the belly of the beast.
This probably rules out a Din Djarin and Grogu cameo in Ahsoka, but that’s honestly a good thing. The Mando-verse may be interconnected, but not every project needs extensive overlap. Ahsoka is already a Rebels cameo-fest, so setting it concurrently with The Mandalorian allows the two sagas to run in parallel... although they’ll almost certainly cross paths again someday.
