Was Zahn the first to mention the Unknown Regions?

Just what the title says. Do any knowledgeable Star Wars fans out there know if Zahn was the first to mention the UR? Or did WEG? If it was WEg, how old is the concept of the UR?

 

99% positive that that is a yes, in Heir to the Empire in 1991.

You can find more in the Essential Guide to Planets and Moons in 1998. Or so my source says.

 

Yeah I'm pretty sure it was in Heir to the Empire.

 

For some reason I think it was WEG in the late 80's.

 

First I know of it is Heir to the Empire in 1991, although I don't have any of the old sourcebooks that might have it earlier...

 

I'd almost peg it as having debuted in one of the early West End Galaxy Guides (the "Alien Races" one, or maybe "Scouts" or "Fragments from the Rim"), but I'm too kriffing tired tonight to dig through them all for a backcheck.

 

I'd suggest checking the dates on some of the first edition Galaxy Guides as some of them may have been released about the same time Heir to the Empire came out. Though largerly it seems most of the GGs were made for the second edition and those for the first edition were redone for the second. So there would only be a very few first edition GGs out. But I can think of something else to check and I'll check it as soon as I can.

 

Well, I just checked my copy of A Guide to the Star Wars Universe. It lists as it's sources for the UR entry Heir to the Empire, the Heir to the Empire Sourcebook, and WEG's second edition corebook. No mention of GGs for it. Considering my copy is the second edition of that book, and that edition came out in the early '90s, if there is any info on the UR in GGs it's probably going to be in second edition GGs that came out after HttE.

 

yep

 

Unknown Regions of Star Wars, Unchartered Territories of Farscape, Everything north of the Night's Watch . . . it's all the same. Even a jack in an unopened box.

 

So maybe Zahn did come up with something that wasn't already in the Marvel stuff.

 

Generally: I'm sure this came up at RASSM a few years back and there was some really obscure reference that may have influenced Zahn in the WEG material or something...

Specifically, Ex: I think there is a difference, though - where the Night's Watch seem to sitting in a scenario inspired by travellers'-tales in Procopius, Zahn's Unknown Regions remind me rather more of Tacitus...

There's enough "desolation of the real" in the Known Regions at the minutes, anyway...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

Someone out there have a page number and quote from HTTE on this? . Not that I doubt you, just want to look it up and can't find it.

 

The Last Command defintely says UR, when Jade admires the full galactic starmap, before C'baoth comes in.

 

Isbeth, do you have the second edition of A Guide to the Star Wars Universe? If so, then look up Unknown Regions in the U section of the book. I know the first edition predates TTT, and I don't know what all sources the third edition quotes for the UR, if it even has an entry on them.

As for HttE, it's been years since I last read it, but if memory serves, it's within the first five chapters or so. Peallon is thinking about the state of the Empire after Endor and then thinks about how Thrawn returned to the fleet from the Unknown Regions to lead them.

 

I think that the first time I had ever seen mention of the "Unknown Regions" was in TTT (or the HttE trilogy...my preference for calling it). Before then, I think "Wild Space" was the most remote region I had ever seen described in Star Wars.

 

From the first chapter of HTTE:

the Grand Admiral had spent so much of his career out in the Unknown Regions, working to bring those still-barbaric sections of the galaxy under Imperial control. His brilliant successes had won him the title of Warlord and the right to wear the white uniform of Grand Admiral--the only nonhuman ever granted that honor by the Emperor.

 

<Knight1192:

Isbeth, do you have the second edition of A Guide to the Star Wars Universe? If so, then look up Unknown Regions in the U section of the book. Knight, this is good to know, but I don't have said book.

JoruusCbaoth, thank you for that!

 

I myself was mentally blurring the early "Unknown Regions" citation with those of "Wild Space"...mucho appreciated. As for WEG's influence, Zahn himself has stated that it brought a great deal to bear upon his creative line of thinking (from a 1991 Waldenbooks interview):

You make clear little details, such as the fact that light sabers can be locked on. Did Lucasfilm provide you with background information on the Star Wars universe? Or are you just trying to make things logical and consistent? Or both?

Zahn: The Star Wars movies themselves are always my basic source of "real" knowledge. Supplementing that is a tremendous body of background material put together by West End Games over the years for their Star Wars role playing game. The WEG sourcebooks saved me from having to reinvent the wheel many times in writing Heir; the Interdictor Cruiser, for one example, is one of their creations. What I didn't get from the movies (e.g., the lightsaber lock) I invented, always with an eye to consistency with the movies.

How big were the Death Stars? Han Solo says "size of a small moon," but that is rather vague. Is there any background information on that?

Zahn: The only information I have comes from the to-be-published Death Star Technical Journal from West End Games. The number they've come up with is a diameter of 120 km for the first Death Star. Please note, though, that the book has NOT yet been approved by LucasArts, so that number should be considered tentative at best.

...And so forth. You get the general idea.

 

You're welcome

As for Slavicsek's 2nd Ed., I have that also, though not the first or third. The Unknown Regions entry is as follows:

The Unknown Regions are parts of the galaxy and beyond that remain unexplored. Certain regions within the borders of known space are also called Unknown due to the fact that they appear on no official astrogation charts. Some of these places are known to the Empire, the Rebellion, and even fringe society groups, but they remain hidden from the galaxy at large. [HE, HESB, SWRPG2]

HE and HESB are listed as Heir to the Empire and HttE Sourcebook in the early part of the book, while SWRPG2 is Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, Second Edition by Bill Smith at WEG, 1992.

 

I always thought it was stupid that there was an "unknwon region".

These people ahve been space faring for over 25,000 years. Like investors, explorers, and other business and industry wouldn't want to go there to hit unspoiled worlds first. "Oh, let's not go there! It scawy! Let's go traverse the deep core instead! It's so much safer there! We saw terrifying blue people there! They knew I grew up on a farm raising domestic animals and went to college in a beach town, where between binge drinking, I acquired a degree in science (me being scientist and having it on my badge was an indication, of course), and that I read Humpfer, the theorist of emphermalil indoctrinism! All because I was wearing my Pert Shampoo shirt!" *sobs hysterically*

Zahn has to have the biggest Gary Stu in the history of the universe, Thawn, have half the galaxy just to make his lame appearance. Yeah right.

 

After the Big Bang, the Unknown Regions would supposedly be the oldest pasrt of the galaxy . . . right?