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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Lit What's This? More Droids from Handley and Peña?

Discussion in 'Literature' started by Plaristes, Jun 13, 2013.

  1. Havac

    Havac Former Moderator star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 29, 2005
    The density of retcons is pretty impressive. Making the most out of limited space.
     
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  2. LelalMekha

    LelalMekha Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 29, 2012
    Great! :) I made Broom the first good article on the Wook based on the MyComyc strips, but I guess I'll have to update it now.
     
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  3. HedecGa

    HedecGa Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 19, 2006
    Both of these articles are outstanding. I had to read them with one window open in Wookieepedia to make some connections, and that's always the sign of a great article for me :)

    I am curious about the decision to pen Jann's fate, Abel. While I love it for its unexpectedness and originality, it does seem to be a departure from the usual writing style. Most of the fates are either known or extrapolated from what we already know. It's like a subtle blending of facts to create a new whole. But with Jann, was there any particular reasoning that went into the decision to just write a brand new outcome from scratch?

    I'm still hoping for a Behind-The-Scenes article from you and Rich on this! I love hearing about the retcon/creative process!
     
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  4. JoinTheSchwarz

    JoinTheSchwarz Former Head Admin star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Nov 21, 2002
    Droids and Ewoks were my introduction to Star Wars; West End Games made me fall in love. Thus I've enormously enjoyed this.
     
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  5. Kez-Iban

    Kez-Iban Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Sep 4, 2012
    So what's the next big Droids project from Handley and Peña? Hopefully there's still more to come. A character encyclopaedia would be nice!
     
  6. JoinTheSchwarz

    JoinTheSchwarz Former Head Admin star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Nov 21, 2002
    It's always fun to see the MyComyc stories referenced. Such an obscure part of my comic reading childhood. Droids were big in Spain!
     
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  7. CeiranHarmony

    CeiranHarmony Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    May 10, 2004
    I want them to pen one episode of the upcoming REBELS series... a DROIDS episode for REBELS by them full of goodies and retcons!


    Edit: Actually... Detours would have been the perfect title for a new DROIDS series... a canon one. not that boring weirdo stuff Detours was supposed to be.
     
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  8. Gorefiend

    Gorefiend Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 23, 2004

    So needs to have Screed, maybe they can even get Graeme Campbell to voice him again. :)
     
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  9. CeiranHarmony

    CeiranHarmony Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    May 10, 2004
    actually... a brilliant idea crossed my mind. Screed needs a girlfriend... a lot would make much more sense if Lumiya alias Shira Brie was his daughter in fact.
     
  10. Gorefiend

    Gorefiend Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 23, 2004
  11. CeiranHarmony

    CeiranHarmony Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    May 10, 2004
    [face_money_eyes]
     
  12. Gorefiend

    Gorefiend Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 23, 2004

    Afaik he is married and already has at least one child
     
  13. CeiranHarmony

    CeiranHarmony Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    May 10, 2004
    he can have more.. ;)
     
  14. Grand Admiral Paxis

    Grand Admiral Paxis Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    Wow, I have to say I've never been particularly interested in Droids or Ewoks, but these articles have really grabbed my attention! Thank you so much Abel and Rich, for making me incredibly interested in what's essentially a completely unexplored area of the EU for me.

    I especially love the additional backstory for Screed and the Great Heep. I particularly enjoyed the possibility of Ronyards as a giant Abominor, and it raises a number of interesting points and questions. The number of dead droid husks littering the planet and the Abominor's tendency to feast on droids adds an almost sinister dimension to the droids on the planet worshipping it as a god - does their religion entail some form of ritual sacrifice, or do they cluelessly worship in bliss as the planet slowly saps away at their power? I don't know, but I sure as hell want to now! And how did the planet-sized droid make it from the Vong galaxy all the way to the GFFA - does it have planetary repulsors like Zonama Sekot or the Corellian worlds, or did it travel some form of ship and managed to feed upon so many droids that it grew to the size of a planet? My favourite thing is the possibility of a planet-sized Abominor is that The Unknown Regions mentions a planet sized computer called Mnemos, which I always though of as a giant Silentium. Can someone please make a story about two giant, planet-sized robots getting into a fight at some point? [face_laugh]

    Also, I enjoyed that we finally had some elaboration on the circumstances of Screed's death. Although I find it odd that Pellaeon couldn't even remember if Screed was still alive over two decades after his death, now that we know he was practically responsible for it. I'm not sure if this makes him uncharacteristically callous or just disturbingly senile for a head of state :p

    I know, I'm rambling but it's only because these articles have really captured my imagination so I hope you take that as the compliment I intended it to be.
     
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  15. Jeff_Ferguson

    Jeff_Ferguson Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    May 15, 2006
    Ah, come on man, Pelly was delirious at the time while recovering in a bacta tank. Give him some credit. [face_peace]

    Also, Mistress Mnemos is even older (out-of universe) than the Heep.
     
  16. Grand Admiral Paxis

    Grand Admiral Paxis Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    Oh right, he was too! I suppose I can cut the poor man some slack in that case. And the Mnemos I mentioned is different than the Mistress Mnemos from the comics. Mnemos is described as "a planet-sized computer database" in the Unknown Regions, although not much information is given about it beyond that. It's from The Unknown Regions RPG Guide.
     
  17. Kez-Iban

    Kez-Iban Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Sep 4, 2012
    Happy that we now know more about Kybo-Ren and Jyn Obah! Hopefully some day we can get an even more in depth look at the crew and exploits of the Pirates of Tarnoonga as well as Reddjak and his pirate crew. One again, great work guys! These Droids articles have been the Star Wars highlight of the year for me.
     
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  18. Sompeetalay

    Sompeetalay Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Dec 17, 1999
    This was another great entry! We've finally have some species names, completed names and stories to link the Droids from one owner to the next one. Some nice retcons like always! Took away my Saturday evening to update these on Yodapedia (still updating because it has so much info).

    It's true about what happened to Jann Tosh. His fate is not as fortunate as one had hoped for. Wouldn't it be great to have C-3PO and R2-D2 meet one of their Droids masters in an upcoming story. Would be nice for Luke to team up with Jann or Thall.

    Despite these great efforts of Abel and Rich, there is still so much unknown from 'Droids'. We must continue to show our appreciation for the show. If the fans stop to remember the show, then nothing will happen at all.

    PS: Would have loved to see the species of Yorpo Mog :)
     
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  19. Halagad_Ventor

    Halagad_Ventor Star Wars Author - SWRPG Designer star 4 VIP

    Registered:
    Jul 3, 2001
    Ah. So this is what Palpatine meant by "unlimited power." Muhahahaha...!

    No comment. [face_whistling]

    Is that its mass shadow that you're referring to, jaoblias? I guess the answer is a resounding "maybe," though can you remind me where that bit comes from?

    Ah, yes, but 15 years by the standard of whose orbital period?

    Even so, given the alternate lifestyles found in science fiction, and Star Wars in particular, this is probably contextually even less of a bizarrity than what our own historical cultural inheritance prepares us for.

    But I'm sure Mungo waited patiently until Auren was at least 18 standard years of age before suggesting any initiation into congress whatsoever (maritally, naturally).

    Plenty of that comes from the New Essential Guide to Droids, which actually forced us to rearrange or scrap a good chunk of the the original backstory we wrote for the Heep ten years ago ... which, with the hindsight of Dan's version, I didn't greatly regret. It also allowed us to throw in the Ronyards and Broom bits.

    I dare suggest that question is best answered ambiguouslyespecially given the state of canon in the wake of the Clone Wars TV series and the Disney sequels.

    That makes two of us! That was Rich's bit, and my reaction was somewhat the same: a little sad, and all of the sudden I realized that Jann mattered just a little more to me than he previously had. It's a small bit of reality injected into the safe world of the cartoon series. But it's also not a complete end to Jann, and it's also not a sob story. (Necessarily, anyway. Someone could take it in that direction, though I would rather avoid a cliche.) It's just an unexpected turn in life, which is something that happens to non-Skywalkers and non-Solos, and the rest of us normals.

    Great job, Rich.
     
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  20. Jeff_Ferguson

    Jeff_Ferguson Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    May 15, 2006
    A consequence of the Broom revelation is that Troublesome Outing should now take place after the TV series' Mungo arc --- which means that the droids were (ambiguously canonically) re-united with Jann Tosh. If you ask me, that's a great explanation for his bizarrely-coloured hair and clothing. His time at the Academy... changed him... [face_hypnotized]
     
  21. MercenaryAce

    MercenaryAce Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Aug 10, 2005
    Something I am confused about though - according to this, Broom went mad researching information that was a revealed during their stay with Baobab, and they joined Baobab after their adventures with Tosh - yet it was Tosh who owned them when they encountered Broom.

    Edit: ninjaed while fact checking. Curses.
     
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  22. Jeff_Ferguson

    Jeff_Ferguson Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    May 15, 2006
    It's still somewhat arbitary, but in light of Re-Animated Part 2, I've moved the final five Spanish comics to a post-Mungo position in both Threepio and Artoo's Wook biographies. Three of them feature the Fromm Gang, of whose escape the droids don't learn until after their Mungo adventures; another one is the Broom one; and the last is another Jann Tosh one that may as well be paired with the Broom one --- it also features the planet Roon, as does the one with Vlix stealing the droids' hotrod, so a post-Mungo placement makes more sense when you consider that Roon is a hidden planet whose location the droids don't know pre-Mungo.
     
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  23. TalonCard

    TalonCard •Author: Slave Pits of Lorrd •TFN EU Staff star 5 VIP

    Registered:
    Jan 31, 2001


    Given that the god of the droids as presented in the comic seems benign, (if wrathful), I'd like to think that it may be a more benevolent example of the so-called Abominors. We don't know where the Great Heep and his consumption of sentient droids falls on the spectrum of Abominor morality. Perhaps this Abominor offers itself as a refuge for what are, after all, its exploited and persecuted kin. Or perhaps while the world itself is indeed of Abominor origin, the once-menacing droid has since joined with the worshipers it attracted and is now more a reflection of their own collective personality than its original, alien state. (This is, IIRC, hinted at somewhat in the original comic.)

    TC
     
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  24. jSarek

    jSarek VIP star 4 VIP

    Registered:
    Feb 18, 2005
    Given it's from Alan Moore's Star Wars run, I'm quite comfortable with this more sinister, almost Lovecraftian take on Ronyards. After all, this comic that was immediately followed in Devilworlds by The Pandora Effect, where the only way our heroes avoid eternal torture at the hands of evil is by releasing an even more powerful evil, and where the silver lining to the story is "Let's just be glad that we've done it in an Empire-held sector of space."
     
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  25. Tzizvvt78

    Tzizvvt78 Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jun 12, 2009
    I think Han & Leia losing two kids and Luke losing his wife injects some reality into their lives, too.

    Plus Luke's hand. ;)