Lucasfilm is spreading the love, first we saw IGN get the exclusive first look at the Mando Obi-Wan trailer, now Entertainment Weekly's EW.com gets the first look of a trailer with Darth Maul and Savage Opress aboard a space station.
The video opens on an unidentified space station that appears to be manned exclusively by security droids of some sort. I do not believe this is a model of droids we have seen on the show before. The lead droid identifies another droid as "SD-357," so it is possible that this is an early series of the Balmorran Arms SD-Series battle droids. The caveat with that is that they do not look like the later series droids depicted on the Wookieepedia page.
We then see Maul and Opress lay waste to the droids.
It is a pretty quick scene, but I think we just saw a bank robbery. Why? Once again we get only a brief bit of dialogue in this clip. The lead droid says the following,
Droid: "Intruders...You are trespassing on Intergalactic..."
Now the term "intergalactic" is vague enough by itself that it could mean any number of things with regard to who owns the space station and it's purpose, but we already have some clue as to what Maul may be doing in Season 5.
On the Star Wars Report website I speculated based on a forthcoming young reader novel description, that Maul will be attempting to gather his own power base from the criminal underworld. We have know Black Sun will come into play in some way, and the SDCC Mando Obi-Wan clips hints that Maul may also have a faction of Mandalorians under his control as well.
How is Maul going to control the criminal underworld? After all he does not have a Death Star, the fear of which could keep people in line. How then will he win friends and influence people? Copious amounts of credits. In the Star Wars galaxy who has the credits? The InterGalactic Banking Clan.
Once again according to the Wookieepedia (I love this thing by the way) the InterGalactic Banking Clan operates a series of Banking Clan Treasury Space Stations.
It served the InterGalactic Banking Clan during the tumultuous time of the Clone Wars and was known to have been the site of the Tide of Progress XII's construction.
Despite it being a major military target during the Clone Wars, no Republic attacks on had been successful due to its highly sophisticated defense system and the thousands of battle droids and droid fighters it contained. However, after the CIS shut down all droid forces on the order of Darth Sidious, it was vulnerable and defenseless. The Empire later attacked and destroyed the station in 1 BBY thinking by mistake it was a secret Rebel base, as they lost record of the existence and locations of these stations.
Behind the scenes
In the endnotes for The Essential Guide to Warfare, Jason Fry admitted that he loved the concept of the Banking Clan treasury space station with secret vaults and shipyards. He also mentioned that there were probably more than one of these stations and that their locations were lost after the Clone Wars, and implied that the concept of someone stumbling upon them would make a good story in the future. ~Source: Wookieepedia
So now we have the answer to (a) Why Maul needs money, (b) Where Maul could get the money, but we still need (c) How does Maul know where the treasury station is?
Enter Hego Damask, otherwise known as Darth Plagueis. This Muun Sith was also an incredibly powerful player within the IBC. As Hego Damask it is certain that Plagueis knew the location of these treasury stations. It also seems likely that Plagueis taught their location to his apprentice Sidious and that Sidious taught their location to Maul. The Sith are operating behind the scenes on their Grand Plan, but it would make sense that in case something goes wrong, the Sith would want an emergency plan. In case they are discovered and need to disappear, a quick bank robbery would supply much needed credits for a strategic retreat.
So I could be wrong but I am pretty sure Darth Maul and Savage Opress are robbing what amounts to a bank or perhaps more accurately a stagecoach or armored car.
EW VIDEO LINK
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