Lit The Official StarWars.com Blog Thread - That's right, I went there

For what it's worth, Jello, FFG has included some of the CWAS from almost all the way to the end. I don't know the exact cutoff, but I would assume that it is.

 

But Legends isn't meant to continue. Ideally. If the Story Group actually bothers to work.

Funny how Pablo started with WEG SW RPG, yet he nor his team can't be bothered to actually make a stand on FFG's RPG status.

 

I'm pretty happy with FFG being allowed to use whatever they want to use to make a good game without wondering about affecting existing continuity(es) or not, myself.

 

Either way it's good that it exists in the new canon, may it's mythos be as rich as before

 

Isn't that what a lot of people want to overturn though - keeping Legends continuing as a parallel line?

 

Not what Disney wants to spend money or time or effort on, though. Hence why LFL wanted to create the vaunted Story Group. I'm hoping the reason they say Battlefront and FFG stuff isn't canon is related to players creating their own adventures, not the actual lore/locations.

 

I think it is clear, from their statements on TOR. TOR was and is firmly rooted in Legends - plus it is well suspected the upcoming "History of the Old Republic" will be coming out for TOR - yet StoryGroup's long-delayed official word about it was that it will "continue on in the universe developed by the game manufacturer", or something to that effect. It's a sly way to preserve their statement that "everything is NEU", by pretending that TOR is simply all original content created by the game company based on the Star Wars franchise - that 99.99999% of it was compatible or is derived from Legends can simply be handwaved away.
FFG is in exactly the same boat, and I would contest any statements that there is no inherent 'narrative' within, as (a) there is an established history with extensive references to the whole of SW Legends and (b) RPG adventures themselves have always been traditionally a form of 'narrative'; while some details are left open (the identity of the heroes, for example), there are still events that happen within. WEG's material referenced internally numerous adventures - i.e. the rescue of Adar Tallon, for instance - and in some cases even the blanks can be filled in for the variables (the identity of Revan in KOTOR, for instance).
The only question about FFG is really if they will never develop past the traditional "Classic" RPG period established by WEG (circa 1-2 ABY) along Legends. There's a number of different options if they do:
1) Follow the Ep7 path. FFG made it clear that in the renewal that they will be allowed and will use Ep7 material. The main problem is that their prior material already has deviated from the established NEU material, so it would be difficult to establish it without throwing out the prior material - an unfortunate set of circumstances in that case. However, the modular nature of their settings can easily create an alternate, stand-alone game setting without affecting their main OT games.
2) Continue forward with the classic WEG/WOTC timeline. Certainly they've been using elements from the NR days like nobody's business - however, I would imagine that when they develop beyond the OT era, the three most likely to be produced would be either the Clone Wars, a TOR tie-in, or an Ep7 tie-in. There are a few indications of using that as a basis, from notations on the map, to set ups to classic future plotlines (i.e. Dark Empire in the description of Byss).
3) The most radical option - develop a brand-new post-ROTJ future. While probably the most interesting choice, I would think it the most unlikely.

 

Sure as tundin'. I had to dance around that particular ambiguity-that-shouldn't-have-been-ambiguity in my article on the Rawmat shortage of 1–2 ABY. (I also couldn't mention the obviously intended primary cause of the shortage - the construction of the Second Death Star - because it, too, is nowhere explicit.)

I also wouldn't rule out Harrsk having subconsciously surrounded himself with other madmen of various complementary stripes. There were no shortage to choose from in the ranks of the Imperial military.

Though it does lead to the question, what made you use an alternate spelling of Khameir Sarin, an alleged (though I don't think anyone ever proved it) birth name for Darth Maul supposedly from a foreign (Italian?) novelization or reference guide? It seemed completely out of left field until recently, but even now that it's clear you intended ties between Magnus and the "Old Wounds" version of Maul, it has only improved to mostly out of left field.

We are all just prisoners here of our own device.

 

Hey gang. I'm catching up on some old posts here.

Thanks, Hav. The whole thing threatened to get pretty unwieldy. As it is, I think Lord Shadowspawn's biography was the longest of the bunch, other than maybe Devian's.

Yeah, I really liked the tension Dan was setting up there in the relationship between Brill, Yzu and Gann. Oh, where it might have gone....

I just a little in my mouth ... and then I realized it was my own fault.

You joke (do you?), but one of my old pitches to Star Wars Gamer or Star Wars Insider was actually called "Pretenders to the Throne," and was about all the would-be and wannabe Emperors after Return of the Jedi.

I gave them out once or twice for my Thrawn McEwok-pastiche, the Master of Obscurity (MOO) award.

Thanks ... I think. It's what I do.

Yee. Sorry, buddy.

...Like I said, though, the signs were there in the Dark Forces Saga articles.

Take care,
Abel

 

The fact that neither Gamer nor Insider threw a giant sack of money at you, complete with a dollar sign printed on it like a cartoon burglar, for a Pretenders to the Throne article raises some serious questions about their editorial standards...

 

It's admittedly a little cheesy, but I think it's supposed to be. I interpreted it as the wink for us hardcore EU fans not to take this all too seriously -- it was the most mainstream of Matt's Star Wars books, after all. Well, before Shadows of Mindor.

I've actually got a story about that. The first time I attended San Diego Comic Con, around 2004, I sat in a Star Wars literature panel, and when it was over I hustled up to introduce myself to Sue Rostoni and Shelly Shapiro in the hopes of getting to write some Star Wars prose. (Haha! Oh, naive roleplaying game designer/source fiction writer! How comical they, your fantasies!) The panelists were already being mobbed by fans as they tried to leave, so I decided to circumvent the interlopers and made it up to the panelists' platform. Triumphantly, I approached Sue and Shelly from the right, but as I was nearing them, they'd already gotten up from their seats and started to leave the platform to the left. I hustled a bit faster. But just before I could introduce myself, another fan standing opposite me and directly in front of them nervously brought up a character named "Lumiya from the Marvel Comics," and asked if Lucasfilm had any plans to bring her back into continuity...?

Friends, do not judge me. I did not have the +5 charisma and +10 wisdom of the battle-scarred Star Wars author before you. Nay ... I thought the stars had aligned and my moment of destiny was at hand. "Watch this!"



Before Sue or Shelly could respond to this fan's question, I barged in on the conversation, explaining how my article, "The Emperor's Pawns," had recently been published in Star Wars Gamer #5, and in it I made Lumiya one of the Emperor's Hands, and revealed how she had survived her death in the Marvel Comics, so you see, she was already brought back and you're looking at the guy who did it, and, yes, I wrote that thing I just explained to you that I wrote.

And when I finished talking, all three of them were looking at me with their best "Who in the **** are you?" faces.

And that's pretty much the last thing I remember for the next 11 $#@! years before SkyeWalkers.

In all fairness, it was actually Michael Mikaelian who brought her back first in "Lumiya: Dark Star of the Empire" for Star Wars Galaxy Magazine #3 in 1995. (That's still 9 years, though.) He was actually working at Wizards when I got "The Emperor's Pawns" gig, and I was really tickled when he called me with some edits for the article, and we got to geek out on our mutual love of the Dark Lady.

Hey, if begging would work, I wouldn't rule it out! Alas, that ship might have sailed, Hamburger_Time. I can't say that with absolute certainty, because a well-run company almost always responds to the demand of a significant number of consumers. But I feel there would have to be a change in Lucasfilm's official position regarding the status of "Legends" material as a whole before a specific source-fiction-style project like the one you're talking about could get green lit.

Well, not by us. Rich and I tried not to go crazy with naming things in the Droids articles because we suspected that there are many things with proper names in the cartoon series that we just might not know because we don't have access to the original scripts that contain them. If you're looking for more obscure information regarding those animated series, though, those documents are yet out there....

Take care,
Abel

 

But it was so artistically done.

Yes ... ironic how it would take the subconscious of a madman to replicate Palpatine's methodical MO.

Well, honestly, it's because I thought it might not get approved with the original spelling, since it might've been perceived as somehow legitimizing that old rumor/backstory. Which, obliquely of course, it was. "Nothing's ever 100% off the table" is the philosopher's creed, after all. In any case, apostrophe-laden Tuckerizations have reared their silly, anti-diabolically cryptographic heads in Star Wars with enough frequency that I felt if I did that for "K'am'ir" then fans would get that it was a play on that transparent self-indulgent practice which so many of us authors are guilty of. And "Zaarin" for "Sarin" was just to drive home the point that the name *is* an alias, and Zeta Magnus is up to his intellectual games (as Obi-Wan realizes in SkyeWalkers with the "Oskans," as Anakin verges on understanding when pointing out "Garu, paru, or waru -- doesn't mean anything," and as I point out here regarding the title "Sith Magnus").

I still need to get me a copy of that TPM novelization in Italian translation, dang it.

I always did wonder if it was "device" or "devising." (I did much the same thing wondering if Palpatine said "according to my design" or "desire" -- probably because the latter rhymes with "transpired.")

You might have. I was potentially distracted by the nature of his troth.

Yep, all of 'em -- except Jax, I think, since I'd covered him to my satisfaction in Evil Never Dies. Also the Tribunal, Irek Ismaren, The Prophets of the Dark Side, Trioculus and Triclops.

Man. That really would've kicked so much tail.

I'm completely agreeable to accept giant sacks of money right now, of course.

Take care,
Abel

 

Anyone still here? If so, I had a question. Would it be at all possible to republish the old "Hyperspace" features on the Blog? Near as I can tell, those articles appear to have managed the nigh-insurmountable feat of disappearing completely from the Internet!

 

Stop the presses! Ring the GrandAdmiralJello alarm bell! there's a new article by Adam Bray called IMAGINING EMPIRE DAY ON CORUSCANT: EXPERIENCE CORUSCANT ON THE MOST IMPORTANT DAY OF THE YEAR, WHEN CITIZENS CELEBRATE A NEW IMPERIAL AGE AND THEIR WISE EMPEROR.

 

Misspelled Sheev.

 

This is getting out of hand! Now there are three of them!

 

Jello's about to faint! Someone call a physician!

 

Now that's an old LucasArts reference.

 

Bray is fond of using "Stann" as a shopkeeper in these articles: look at the one about a Shopping Day on Cloud City.