Lit A Chronological Journey Through the EU: Currently Disc. Interference

Reading the Dawn of the Jedi stuff, I was aware, in some sense, that they were pretty new materials. Exactly how new I didn't really know, but I had the sense that I was slowly advancing on the big Legends Announcement as I progressed through Dawn of the Jedi. I didn't know it for sure, but given how little material is in the era, I just kind of thought, "I bet this stuff ran right up to the end of the original EU; I bet the Legends Announcement was the thing that stopped this series." It gave the era a kind of bittersweet quality actually. And all in all, I am kind of sad we won't be getting anything else in this series.

 

Reading Dawn of the Jedi, I got the sense that the EU had come to be... unsupervised. Sith Jedi (no comma ), the birth of the Jedi Order depicted so very casually, lightsabers 25000 years before the movies, Force lightning in literally every other panel.... It felt a little bit like hubris, you know? I enjoyed the series (though not as much as you did it seems, Rogue1-and-a-half), but I ever since it was announced I felt that the people in charge had sort of given up on trying to play editors with the franchise, and just greenlighted whatever sounded cool. Never expected "Legends", but when it did come, this is one of the things that made it feel justified.

 

I will admit to being underwhelmed by the Tho Yor. I would actually prefer if the exact way that the Force was discovered, etc., was left a lot more vague. I think it's kind of impossible to come up with a beginning that's as mythic as it needed to be. And the Tho Yor is really not that beginning. But again, as to what Starkeiller was saying about the EU kind of coming off the rails, I think that's definitely something I liked about the era. I talked a lot in my Into the Void review about how primal and raw it felt and I think it's for exactly the reason you say.

 

I loved the Tho Yor and the prologue to this series. Didn't feel like an underwhelming mythology for the Jedi backstory to me. The whole thing was one of the most Flash Gordon-esque concepts to appear in SW in a long time. And I did like the fact that these primeval Jedi were very different from the latter-day Jedi. I just felt that Ostrander was telling his version of the Jedi origin and not the Star Wars Jedi origin -- that's the best way I can explain it. And the lightsabers, too, were unforgivable, more so because they didn't even have the stomach to call the bloody things lightsabers.

 

What do you think about the rancor riding humans on Dathomir?

 

This seems to seriously bother you for some reason.

 

fixed and why should it not?

 

I don't see why it's a problem.

 

Why not?

 

What's the problem with rancor-riding humans on Dathomir?

 

Having read "Into the Void," I still find it amusing that a Jedi has a somewhat civil dealing with a Sith (species, of course). I guess that's way before the Sith hits the fan.

 

You mean beside humans on Dathomir i pre-35.000 BBY?

The rancorn riding part is a problem from a old-canon statues since it was previous stated that it was not until the time of Allya that humans learned to tame the rancors, but then again most post-CoPL material featuring Dathomir have ignored that it was stated that rancors did not allow nightsistes to ride on them.

 

I don't see a problem with humans being on Dathomir at that point. "Soft retcon." No biggie.

Yeah, this was pretty much blown to dust long before DOTJ.

 

Why not?

 

Rancor-riding human witches on Dathomir 36000 BBY felt wrong. It is theoretically possible that there were humans on Dathomir at the time, that they could ride rancors and that they could use the Force, but the Witches of Dathomir had, at the time, an established backstory, and the choice to include them in this series amounts to taking a massive dump on said backstory. Not as bad as lightsabers, but certainly felt like the Witches were placed in the wrong era just to have them included where they didn't belong.

 

Because why should there be a problem with it?

 

Wow, huh, I didn't even really notice the rancor-riding humans on Dathomir. I mean as in noticed that it didn't make sense or whatever. Well, you guys hash that out. I mean, it does seem like a long, long time prior to CoPL for there to already be kind of Nightsistery things on Dathomir . . . well, but whatever, I guess.

10 Key Battles: 4. Uquine



10,996 BBY

*Okay, so this is a kind of interesting one. This entry appears only on DinoJim’s timeline; the other three timelines I’m using as reference points don’t include this one.

*So, this little section called Uquine is part of a Star Wars Insider article called 10 Key Battles. It has brief little blurbs of a couple paragraphs or so on ten different battles that helped shape the GFFA. It runs the gamut from the battles in the films to the New Jedi Order. You can buy the issue it’s in, which is #133, online if you’re anal about reading everything.

*This one comes at around 11,000 BBY and it sits alone at this period, separated from anything else by a long while. The timeline entry before it is Xim at Vontor which is at approximately 15,500 years BBY and the entry after it is at approximately 7,000 BBY. So, it’s separated from any other text we have by 4,000 to 5,000 years.

*This article, by the way, is a tie in article to The Essential Guide to Warfare. Thus, it is kind of a reference article, so I can see why the other timelines left it off. Still, it’s of some interest, so let’s talk about it.

*At this period, it seems that the Republic has become a theocracy of sorts, completely controlled by a group called Pius Dea. The current leader of the Pius Dea, and by extension the Republic, is a fellow name of Constipex XIX.

*Obviously a riff on the Catholic Church then.

*The Pius Dea have controlled the Republic for about a thousand years at this point and they’re basically waging religious wars on any species they consider impure.

*They start with the Hutts, which I think we can all agree is a good call.

*The Jedi are, surprise surprise, attempting to stay neutral in this whole conflict.

*So, the Caamasi convince the Jedi to join the Renunciates, a secret alliance plotting to overthrow the Pius Dea. The Renunciates plan for a hundred years . . .

*These must be some awesome plans.

*Anyway, they plan for a century and then they make the move. They lure the Pius Dea fleet into a huge battle and then activate a virus that’s been installed into the Pius Dea fleet computers. This virus sends the Pius Dea ships into hyperspace and kicks them out at the planet Uquine with all their weapons disabled. The Renunciate fleet is waiting for them at Uquine and thus endeth the Pius Dea control of the Republic.

*So, reading this I did remember that some of this is covered in the Essential Guide to Warfare, and I did read that whole book, but, honestly, there was a lot in there that didn’t really stick in my mind. It’s not as though I cared about this part of the history when I was reading it.

*Or do at this point.

*So, I think what this whole Pius Dea/Renunciate thing was the EU starting to open up a new era in which it could tell stories. This is a blank slate here and books and comics would doubtless have filled in all around this main little framework. But then the big Legends shift happened and so we essentially have this one thing happening in this era and nothing else. It’s the set-up but nothing follows it.

*That’s conjecture on my part, but I think that’s the likely explanation for this. What other reason would they have had to set up this one thing happening here?

*Oh, unless it ties to callbacks or stuff like that in the other sections of the EU. Like the Dha Werda Verda did. If that’s the case, please fill me in on that.

*Anyway, there’s nothing particularly wrong with this little blurb. It’s interesting in the way it’s evocative of the Catholic Church and I could definitely see some interesting stories being told during this period.

*But, as it stands, it’s completely unnecessary. There’s simply no reason to read this and with the timeline being as long as it is, I simply have to clear as much of the clutter as I can in my personal canon.

*CANONICAL STATUS: There is no reason to believe the account of the battle of Uquine. There remain no other texts from this period to support this document. This work is NOT RECOMMENDED as a historical resource.

** stars.

Jason Fry, Paul R. Urquhart

*All right, next time, we’ll jump to 6,900 BBY and get some inside info on the Sith’s activities after the banishment to Sith Space. Join me next time as we crack open the Book of Sith and read Sorzus Syn’s Chronicle.

Star Wars Reviews!

 

If you don't see a problem with humans on the Outer Rim Territories planet Dathomir, in the era of 35,000 BBY were only a small handful of species know of hyperspace travel, and none of them humans, so do we work on different wavelengths

 

Ah, I see your point.

 

Personally I was amused by and like the whole Pius Dea crusades. Not only is it a reference to the real crusades of history but the way they had cathedral like ships and commissars made me laugh that Star Wars basically went through a Warhammer 40k period. I find that hilarious.

 

Your journey through the DOTJ era was an interesting read. The era never appealed to me because I hated that Mortis stuff in TCW, which the stories looked like they would be exploring. It sounds like they mostly just took the imagery, and never really got into the mystic stuff, which is a plus IMO.

I have some other problems with exploring this era, but for what they are, the comics sound like classic Ostrander goodness. Ignoring larger implications, it sounds like a good story. The time jump to the last arc sounds a lot like the Epitaph episodes in Dollhouse. Basically the creator saying "This is where I was going with the characters and plot. There are a lot of cool things I jumped over, and there would be more cool character moments if I had longer to tell the story, but here's the cool payoff I was aiming for." It's unfortunate when that has to be done, but does a good job a piquing your imagination. Actually, I think Ostrander is just good at endings that leave you wanting more. That's certainly how I felt after his last Republic arc.