Tinian Codex

For other uses, see Tinian.

"It's my favorite object in the collection. I was heartbroken when we sold it."

―Kleya Marki talking to Lonni Jung as part of her cover^[1]

The Tinian Codex was an artifact created around 2000 BBY by a culture that considered blindness a gift. The Codex was a book that told a story to the sightless via an intricate pattern.^[1]

Description

"It's a book. You read by touch, your hand. It's from a planet where blindness was considered a gift."

―Lonni Jung describing the Codex^[1]

The Tinian Codex was a sculpted disc that told a story through an individual touching the intricate patterns inlaid in metal.^[2]

History

"The Tinian Codex was forged 2000 years ago on a planet where sight was considered a disability."

―Kleya Marki describing the Codex to Lonni Jung^[1]

It was created around 2000 BBY^[3] on a planet by a group called Tinian who believed that blindness as a gift and that sight was considered a disability.^[1]

Around 5 BBY,^[4] Luthen Rael sold the Codex to Davo Sculdun. Before the sale, Kleya Marki, Rael's assistant, suggested that they plant a listening device in the piece in order to gather intelligence for their rebel operations against the Galactic Empire. Despite Rael's initial reluctance, he agreed and the piece was sold and eventually placed in Davo Sculdun's gallery on Coruscant. During its time in Sculdun's possession, the listening device provided only small bits of intel to Rael, such as lies told by Colonel Wullf Yularen, the Holo-News buyout, and Sculdun's efforts to court Grand Vizier Mas Amedda.^[5]

In 3 BBY,^[6] Sculdun discovered that a piece in his collection, the Coryio Chalice, was a forgery and ordered his assistant Mishko to have his entire collection re-appraised. After hearing this conversation through the the listening device and later confirming the timeline with Mishko, Marki informed Rael of the situation and after an initial angry conversation they made a plan to remove the device from the Codex during a party Sculdun was hosting for Senate Investiture.^[5]

At the party, Marki recruited Lonni Jung, a rebel operative working undercover as ISB Supervisor, as part of her plan to remove the Codex. After briefly giving him a cover story about how they meet, Marki took Jung to the disc where she pretended to show it to him while secretly using her brooch to unscrew a section of the pedestal displaying the Codex. As she worked to remove the device, she talked to Jung about the history of the piece. She was eventually able to remove the device before another group of party goers stopped at the disc. To further sell the lie as to why the pair was at the Codex, Marki had Jung describe the piece to the newly arrived group.^[1]

Behind the scenes

The Tinian Codex first appeared in the fifth episode of the second season of the television series Star Wars: Andor,^[1] which aired on April 29, 2025^[7]