what if it had all been a dream?

Hmmm....This is probably gonna get me into trouble, but Ima gonna do eet anyway:

I would be OK with the idea of not only the NJO, but practically the entire EU from 9ABY - 40ABY turning into some kind of vision of an awful alternate/ possible future that has not yet come to pass. It was all just a vaugue "dream" that Luke saw during meditation before he established the Praxeum on Yavin IV. Basically, I would scrap everything after TTT and start over - especially Dark Empire and the whole Callista fiasco. I would let the X-wing (+ I,Jedi) storyline run it's course though, albeit with some necessary ret-conning.



Then it would all generally go something like this:


- Luke, (with counsel from the spirits of Obi-Wan & Yoda) decides to found the NJO on Ossus - where it belongs. In my deluded litte universe, this is where the Jedi Academy trilogy would begin, very similar to the original but "adjusted" for this alternate direction. Most all of the new Jedi characters would still occur at some point, and the whole Exar-Kun plot could still be worked in as a result of a mission to Yavin IV rather than the Praxeum being installed there.

- The basic storylines from the Black Fleet crisis, New Rebellion & Corellian Triliogy could be recycled into something with a more steamlined continuity and much more coordinated characterizations. There would either need to be some condensation of the timeline or some alternate storylines to take the place of the ones I have expunged.

- For example, I would rather see the Chiss become involved in the war between the Remnant & the Rebels(NR) shortly before the Vong invasion begins in a manner which ultimately compels the major associations in the the galaxy to unite together through necessity rather than fighting losing battles on multiple fronts. There would never even really be "New Republic" established in this reality. Instead, the sentients of the galaxy would face a choice between remaining in disarray and succumbing to the Vong onslaught or working out their problems in order to facilitate unification.
Some severe events would still have to come to pass to maintian the credibility of the threat posed by the vong, but the overall "mood" during the Vong conflict would not revolve so much around the consequences which the characters are subjected to by an endless quagmire of brutal living bio-tech weapons and their own agendas. Instead, the theme would be one of overcoming long standing grievances in the interests of the common good. The Vong would serve as a bridge to exploring new facets of the Force, and as a device used to illustrate the compound destructive path the galaxy was on before they arrived. In other words, the NJO would come to define a brave new view of the Force, and how they serve civilization as a whole.


I could go on and on and on...but I'm almost out of time. Nevertheless, let me just list a few major issues which I would love to see "revisited" :

- Luke & Mara. I would like to see Luke married w/ kids at some point, maybe even with Mara, but not necessarily occuring in the same fashion. Maybe he marries someone like Danni Quee instead. Maybe Luke & Mara do end up together, but under different circumstances. Maybe alot of things happen differently, but most importantly Luke's power and status as Grandmaster must be developed more legitimately and thouroughly than it has been in the original timeline.

- Leia & Han. Soon after TTT, the rebels still take Courosant and try to govern, but the ongoing hostilites with the Remnant makes it impossible to establish a central regime such as the original Republic. There is no need for Leia to serve as chief of state, since her efforts would be fruitless (they basically were anyway, IIRC) due to the relative political anarchy of the time. Alternatively, this allows Leia to be trained in the Jedi arts by Luke and raise her children during a realtively predictable timeframe. Once Leia gains knighthood, Luke becomes a master and sets out to build the rest of the NJO. Leia would serve as both an ambass

 

If that had happened, I'd have been pissed. NJO rocked.

 

QFT

And doesn't Lit discourage what-if threads, anyway?

 

Moreover, it would also ruin certain elements of Betrayal. In hindsight, the NJO has set LotF up well; characters have been drastically affected by the Vong War, without which we wouldn't have half of the drama Allston has presented.

 

But "what-ifs" can be half the fun in the first place, can't they?

 

well, of course, everything post-NJO would be different

 

I really don't get what people were expecting with the NJO. Are you all still bitter over Chewie and Anakin's death? Is that it? I'll admit it's not a terribly great series where consistency is concerned, but it actually added characterization to the characters that had been built up before. Yeah, you know, characters do change and they do die. Any way, to the NJO naysayers your points have been read a thousand times before now and said a lot better as well. Any complaints now are moot and just typical bitterness.

 

I apologize. I'm new to this site, and I'm currently reading the NJO for the second time, and I just wanted to throw that hypothetical question out there.

 

So this was all a Total Recall?

Mara was . . .?

[image=http://www.tribute.ca/tribute_objects/images/movies/total_recall/totalrecall2.jpg]

 

NJO FTW!

 

I agree with this. After TTT, at some point, Luke and Mara would end up together, although they wouldn't necessarily marry right away. After all, it took Han and Leia years, right? And if Luke still does establish the Academy, it would take longer, with less students. I still think Mara/Zahn made good points in her talk with Luke in VoTF. He wasn't prepared to teach than many students, that soon, all at once. Even w/o the Dark Side taint from DE, I don't think it would have went well. And then I'll just let it develop from there, and see where it goes!
Also, I would discontinue the 5-year jumps the NJO likes to use. Look how many stories Bantam managed to tell in the10 years between TTT and VoTF. The characters are getting too old now. And this may be just me, but I'm not that interested in the newer/younger characters as I am with the characters from TTT and the X-Wing Series. The more they're focused on to the detriment of the older characters, the less likely I am to continue buying the books.

 

Yeah, the NJO rocked skulls. I'd never change that series. In my opinion, it was the best thing to happen to Star Wars.

Although Legacy is quickly gonna change that...