Lit Clone Wars Continuity Discussion (Spoilers Allowed)

Best episode ever. Seriously, time to pack it in. There's no way they can ever top that.

How can you possibly top Darth Sidious going off on Darth Maul? You can't! It's already been topped by Darth Sidious vs Yoda. That was so freaking epic.

The only thing that could be better than that is an animated Dark Empire.

I just saw it again, and I'm aware of the disparity between the episode and the book in terms of whether or not Sidious has something in mind for Darth Maul. If he intends to use him, I know that there's concern for continuity. I have a solution for this. Yes, Sidious does have a use for him. But it won't be in the field or as bait, like how Satine was bait for Obi-Wan. Bring Maul to the brink of death, then use him as a guinea pig in his attempts to learn how to manipulate midi-chlorians like his master Darth Plagueis did. Obviously, Palpatine's experiments won't succeed, but we might get to see a cameo of Maul floating in some sort of tank like Plagueis' experiments were.

So I wonder what exactly Mother Talzin was planning, and how what happened here fits into those plans.

If you think about it, Savage's life really sucks - does everything he can to protect his brother only to be forced to kill that brother, and then he winds up being electrocuted, shot up, and de-limbed (more than once if I remember correctly).

Oh I would love, love, love to see that.

That would actually be perfect, but no chance in hell.

I don't expect the cameo mentioned, but I immediately assumed that was the very reason for Sidious preserving Maul. Then I realized how silly I was being for making assumptions concerning TCW.

The episode was amazing, plain and simple. Badass Sidious, crazy lightsaber fight, ******-******g anarchy on Mandalore... this is all insane, yet awesome at the same time. Now, to continuity things:

Bo-Katan Kryze is Korkie's aunt, according to Episode Guide. Weird, I assumed she was his mother based on the episode. Guess there is a third sibling somewhere out there, huh? Which brings us to this gemstone from the Awesome Essential Guide to Warfare, Page 42:

Jason Fry, you lucky in-the-know bastard! As a writer of tie-in material of TCW in general and Shadow Conspiracy specifically, you knew this all along, didn't you? Now, go and give me a Kryze among the True Mandalorians under Fenn Shysa

Also, the Encyclopedia reveals that the red-armored guys are officially called the Supercommandos. Yahoo! I can't wait until somebo-*fry*-dy can retcon Spar into all this

On the other note, I really like how the cadets from The Academy have aged. Especially the girls. It is very realistic indeed.

We can't have Episode 7 without a villian. Thus they can keep Maul around for that.

I was looking forward for the beat-down by Palpatine since the preview at Celebration. Certainly a highlight of the series.

Disappointed, but not surprised, that the character progression of Satine and Savage went precisely nowhere.

So if we go with @JediAlly's idea, Luke's sondaughter finds Maul's petrified I'm talking the frozen kind of petrified, but Maul just being so scared of Palps he literally hasn't moved for sixty years works too body in a storage tank beneath the Imperial Palace and unknowingly sets him free onto the world once more.

Time to lock Filoni in a closet.

Meh.

I got around to watching the Onderon arc. First of all, I can tell these arcs work much better on being viewed as a whole than as individual episodes. That said, I liked it, for the most part. Very fun to see Star Wars urban warfare. The battle in the final episode was beautifully choreographed, and the characters, while very thin, were at least likable.

That said, it's not all good. Lux is in it, and he continues to be... Lux. In other words, he annoys the piss out of me. On that same note, I really couldn't buy the half-attempted love triangle (I'm really glad the warfare elements outweighed the Lux-Steela-Ahsoka thing). Also, the Jedi not interfering, but doing everything possible to interfere without actually fighting felt very contrived to me, but it did remind me of KOTOR, and I was genuinely glad when Ahsoka decided to step in.

@instantdeath How does one like 'How to precisely bowl grenades under a droideka'?

That seems more appealing and fun than watching TCW.

It looks like we'll be getting some sort of prototype E-Wing in the upcoming LEGO TCW specials.

I don't have anything against the overall concept, and the correlation between velocity and energy shields is actually fairly common in sci-fi... what I did hate was the banter during the training montage. I'm pretty sure I've made it known how annoying I find Lux as a character, and he seems to have the uncanny ability of being so dull that he makes everyone around him duller. The only thing that was worse in the arc was the really painful love triangle.

I will definitely grant there were some bad scenes, and as usual for TCW, the dialogue is pretty lifeless... but I give the arc a pass because it actually felt like something I'd want to see when thinking of "The Clone Wars". I could have done without the soap opera stuff, but at the very least, they're attempting to show the wide reaching effects the war has on the galaxy. The comics did a much better job on that particular level, but still.

Regarding the aging of all the Mandalorian Academy cadets.....what the heck is the timeline for this show now?

12 years.

This is not a good line of thinking

There's some line in the book suggesting 2 years have passed since we last saw Korkie, but I find that to be a huge stretch that probably won't be finalized, especially since it not only compresses the first 2 and a half seasons into the first 6 or so months of the war, but also leaves us in no less than what's likely the last 6 months of the war.

My guess would be that maybe something closer to 15-18 months have passed since s3's corruption arc. Or Korkie and pals had a growth spurt.

I am at least glad to see that, whatever sources say, we are no doubt getting pretty far into the war here. For all we know, 19BBY may be next season.

I still say that when all is said and done, Chee will probably leave us with something like this...

All Pre TCW material with Anakin as a padawan ends somewhere by 6-12 ABG. Despite the essential readers guide taking the literal 4 weeks into the war suggestion, Chee states that "months" pass before the show begins. It will probably be less months than I'd like, but we can probably get away with 6.

Starting somewhere from month 6-12 onward, we get the battle of Christophsis. Some of the novels, and maybe a few comic stories, take place during the show, in a slightly different order, but all should occur eventually. Mina Bonteri speaks of the Battle of Aargonar, where her husband supposedly dies, suggesting it had been one year since the conflict. This may have been the same battle depicted in Republic 59. This could place that arc in roughly 15-22 ABG, one year after a conflict that occurs perhaps a month or two before Anakin is knighted. Who knows where Obsession fits, if it fits at all anymore, but I still would stuff it somewhere between seasons 3 and 4 if I had to pick a spot and just change some details like Adi's death. If it's canon at all. The rest is still fine. And Ventress' future fate now remains totally unknown. All of these events from Cristophsis onward are happening anywhere between months 7-30. My guess would be we are now close to month 30, or at least we're up to 26-27 or something (in the war's 3rd year, which starts in month 24 ABG, per what the Dark Horse comic suggests).

Most Republic Commando novels fit where planned, and events occur in other parts of Mandalore. Spar comes into play after this previous arc and we still get Mandalorian Protectors in late 20BBY (which ends in month 30) like originally planned. Even if the whole of Mandalore doesn't join the seppies, his faction does.

Seasons 6+ will occupy the last 6-9 months of the war, likely leading right into order 66. The final post-Obsession republic comics (Republic 74 onward) can pretty much take place where they originally fit since in the old canon they too had a 6-month gap after 72-73. No reason we can't make this gap larger if need be.

I know Zeta and others often speak of the utter futility of trying to realign the timeline, but the truth is that the older stories do occasionally get referenced (like in the Gregor episode where they mention the battle from the free comic book day issue), so we really can't just toss out the whole thing. If Chee has any common sense and does NOT intend to toss out the old material, we'll probably get a retconned timeline somewhat similar to this. We shall see.

I have a feeling that some Essential Guide to whatever will give a coherent timeline out of this mess - I feel bad for Jason Fry and the other people who'll have to sort it out.