WARNING: The following contains spoilers for The Mandalorian Episode 7, "The Reckoning," streaming now on Disney+.
The seventh episode of The Mandalorian finally introduces Giancarlo Esposito as Moff Gideon, who's been teased for months in trailers and interviews. A former Imperial marshal and governor, Gideon is the one giving the orders to Werner Herzog's Client, who hired Mando to retrieve the Asset (that is, Baby Yoda). Gideon's unarmored appearance, exposing his head from the very first scene, is belied by the fact that he is also armed to the teeth: He travels with a battalion of shiny Death Troopers and commands Stormtroopers even more efficient than those employed by the Client.
He also pilots a sleek TIE fighter unlike anything we've seen before on-screen before -- or will see in the future, if we take into account the setting of The Mandalorian, five years after the events of Return of the Jedi.
This TIE fighter is dark gray with steel trimming, and although at first glance it has the signature wing design of the ones seen in the Original Trilogy, these collapse and fold upon themselves when the ship lands. Before (and after, if we count the hundreds of First Order TIE fighters), we have only seen TIE fighters suspended from the ceiling or parked on a hangar deck with their wings on full display. These collapsible wings are entirely new.
As Phil Szostak explained on Tweeter, the design is based on an unused Doug Chiang TIE-fighter concept from 2013 for The Force Awakens, which takes place 25 years after The Mandalorian, so in-universe the ship was also a cutting-edge novelty.
Or... are they? Although we know very little about Moff Gideon, the compact silhouette of his TIE fighter is something akin to a cross between Darth Vader's smaller and quicker TIE fighter in A New Hope and the elegant First Order transports that also have foldable wings. This feature has the clear tactical advantage of reducing the target area while the ship is stationary, decreasing the chances that it could receive a critical hit from enemy fire while losing none of its speed and maneuverability when they are on the air.
As regular TIE fighters were deployed in swarm formation for short-range attacks and valued speed and lethality over pilot safety, the idea that the "safest" prototypes would belong to high-ranking Imperial officials makes a lot of sense.
However, the novelty design of this vehicle might be hinting at something far more sinister: that this ship is not a remnant of the Empire, but rather a new machine that was only recently designed for Gideon. This might sound a little far-fetched, given the pitiable state of the Client and his remnant Stormtroopers, but there's a good chance The Mandalorian will deal with the rise of the First Order after the fall of the Empire. We know from The Rise of Skywalker that a key part of that resurrection was the mass construction of ships in the Unknown Regions; The Mandalorian takes place in the Outer Rim, very close to the Unknown Regions.
In canon, TIE fighters were built by Sienar Fleet Systems during the Galactic Empire, and restructured into the Sienar-Janus Fleet Systems and Sienar-Janus Army Systems when the New Republic came into power, keeping their ability to sell weapons and fleets to the First Order even as the New Republic demilitarized. So technically, in The Mandalorian, the manufacturer would still be around and available to develop new ships for those who could pay.
From this point of view, Moff Gideon's sleek appearance and well-trained entourage could be due to his high standards and discipline, but it could also be an indicator that he's part of a much larger and established power structure. His interest and infinite resources to recover the Child at any cost point at this idea, because why would a military man from a fallen Empire be so interested in a puny, immature Force wielder, if he could not use the Force? Could it be that Moff Gideon too answers to a higher power?
Created by Jon Favreau, The Mandalorian stars Pedro Pascal, Gina Carano, Carl Weathers, Giancarlo Esposito, Emily Swallow, Omid Abtahi, Werner Herzog and Nick Nolte. A new episode arrives each Friday on Disney+.