When were they established?

Hey everyone. There are a few things that I've been wondering about lately, and Wookieepedia doesn't seem to be any help on the matters. I'm hoping you all can help me out --- I have three questions, and I was considering posting them in the "What should I read/I have a question" thread, but I feel like they're epic enough in scale to warrant a new thread. I hope, anyway. There are three super important things in the EU, and I cannot for the life of me figure out when they were established. Well, the third one really isn't that important.

1) When did Rogue Squadron come to be?

I know that they were in The Empire Strikes Back --- my question is more like... when was it decided that this flight group, who weren't in Return of the Jedi, would live on in the EU as this super-elite fighting force led by Luke Skywalker? They weren't in any of the Marvels, save for the first two ESB adaptations, so I can't help but feel that it was Timothy Zahn in Heir To The Empire. Or was Rogue Squadron one of the elements that Zahn drew from the old West End Games stuff, maybe Galaxy Guide 3? Rogue Squadron have become so iconic, but it seems like we take their existence for granted. Who was it that ensured they would live on post-ESB?

2) When was it first established that the Thrawn Household Phalanx was NOT the Chiss Ascendancy?

Looking through Agents of Chaos again for the 181st discussion got me wondering. In Hero's Trial, Moff Saretti suggests to the New republic war room that the Yuuzhan Vong might be the Agressor that the Chiss were fortifying their systems against. He says the Chiss, and doesn?t make any distinction between Thrawn?s group and the wider Ascendancy, which got me wondering --- did that distinction even exist yet?

When Mara Jade spoke with Voss, Baron, and Stent in Vision of the Future, did they explicitly say to her, ?These are Chiss. They have an Ascendancy, but we?re not a part of that.? ? Around here, it?s generally accepted that Sean Williams and Shane Dix conflated the Chiss Ascendancy with the Thrawn Household Phalanx/Empire of the Hand, buuuuuttttt... was Survivor?s Quest actually the first time it was established that they were two separate entities? According to the Wook, the Chiss Ascendancy was mentioned in Dark Tide Ruin, so maybe it was there that Jag was like ?We are not a part of the Ascendancy.? Can anyone confirm this?

Edit: The Chiss Ascendancy doesn't have a "first mentioned" or even a "first appearance" listed on the Wook, so I feel like this is something we should definitely take a look at.

3) When did the awesomely-named planet Mon Calamari start being called the boring ?Dac??

Mon Calamari is an awesome name for a planet. And it was being called Mon Calamari as recently as The Unifying Force. Why do we call it Dac now?

 

Maybe the Quarren complained.

 

This is definitely WEG. They developed bios for Wedge, Wes and Hobbie, and Zahn took them as he found them. Fandom, and "the cult of Wedge", may also have played a role.

The tricky part is explaining when Rogue Squadron emerged as a unit, in-universe; The Rebel Alliance Sourcebook says that "rogue squadrons" was a generic name for the fighter squadrons assigned directly to Rebel High Command. In ESB, there's a snowspeeder "Rogue Group", and there's a Rogue Flight and a Renegade Flight in the Radio Drama...

The first time the Chiss government was called the "Chiss Ascendancy" was in Survivor's Quest, but under the alternative name of "the ruling families", it's already contrasted with the Household Phalanx in VotF: Stent says that "the ruling families can't stop" the threats, and nor can anyone except "us", and Parck says "Stent and his unit are working for us", although "the ruling families pretend they don't know"...

The only ambiguity is whether there's official denial that there are any Chiss operating outside the Ascendancy, or official denial of the fact that the Household Phalanx are operating as an Imperial unit. The place of the Household Phalanx under an Imperial chain o

 

Wow! That's awesome, Paul. Thanks so much for all the info. So it looks like the name "Dac" existed before the name "Return of the Jedi" did. Even so... was GATORW the "recent" source, then, that established that "Dac" was the official name? Like, is that why the Wook article is "Dac" rather than "Mon Calamari (planet)"?

Did those WEG bios establish that Rogue Squadron continued to exist after the Battle of Endor? Or did they just establish those three pilots as Rogues during the Battle of Hoth? And by WEG, do you specifically mean Galaxy Guide 3? Sorry to be ask such nitpicky questions.

Ah, cool, thanks. Seems like the ?appearances? section of that Wook article needs a lot of cleanup, then --- Vision of the Future should be the first mention, and SQ should be the ?first identified as Chiss Ascendancy?, etc. I?d do it myself, but I?d feel bad doing it without the actual sources in front of me.

It seems almost certain that Sean Williams and Shane Dix didn?t look closely enough at Vision of the Future, then --- if Voss Parck said ?The ruling families can?t stop the threats; only we can?, and then Williams and Dix placed Baron Fel as working side by side with those same ruling families...

Thanks again for all of your help! I was hoping you?d be able to answer #2 for me, but then you rose to the occasion for all three. Bravo!

 

1. Rogue Squadron was formed out of Red Squadron from ANH. Based on the old Rogue Squadron game, it was formed around 6 mths ABY (or whenever the original Dark Forces game was set).
3. If you mean why the article for Mon Calamari (planet) is under "Dac (planet)" on Wookieepedia, despite the virtually universal usage of Mon Calamari, despite the entry in the old EGPM and the new EA listing it under Mon Calamari, despite Dan Wallace saying that it should be listed under Mon Calamari, chalk it up to the contrarian nature of some of the editors at Wookieepedia.

 

Blackmyron is correct that Rogue Squadron was formed out of Red Squadron. In a Guide to the Star Wars universe it says :

Rogue Squadron:The X-wing starfighter squadron that took on the original Death Star and has included such pilots as Luke Skywalker, Biggs Darklighter, and Wedge Antilles eventually became known as Rogue Squadron. It was Luke who originated the concept of a squadron without a set mission profile. Without standing orders, his "Rogue Squadron" could take on any and all missions that came its way. He combined the best pilots with the best fighters and taught them to work as a single unit. When Luke finally resigned to spend more time with his Jedi studies, Wedge took charge of the squadron.

 

Actually, it's because it's called that consistently in Legacy and we prefer to name things by latest source. Poor assumption there.

 

The Wook had the article as "Mon Calamari (planet)" until Legacy #20 established that the planet was better known as Dac during Legacy era.

ETA: Or, what Hydro just said.

Dac's a better name anyhow. Stupid Mon Cals.

"Star Dreadnaught" never caught on anyway, thank the gods.

 

Is that from the original 1984 edition? The Wook is telling me that A Guide to the Star Wars Universe was updated in both 1994 and 2000, but if that gem you just shared is from 1984, I think I have my answer.

I can't help but doubt, though, that a 1984 guide would mention Luke resigning to spend more time with his Jedi studies.

During the Legacy Era, yeah... but in the Droma article I wrote, I mentioned Han being on Mon Calamari in The Final Prophecy, and someone changed it to Dac. If I'm talking about something that happened back when people were still calling the planet Mon Calamari, shouldn't I call it Mon Calamari ... ?

 

Yes, it's fine to call it Mon Calamari there. Whoever made that change, it was unnecessary.

EDIT: General Dac/Mon Calamari discussion is obviously fine here, but let's take any further discussion on Wookieepedia policy to the proper thread.

 

Haha, I never understood that Star Dreadnaught nonsense. I mean, sure, "Star Destroyer" doesn't necessarily make a lot of sense as a name because who in their right mind would label a ship with such a negative connotation, but hey, we're talking about the same organization that actively named something the Death Star. It's a name that incites fear and intimidation into enemies, and it worked the moment we saw one fly overhead in the opening to 'A New Hope'. First time you saw that movie, tell me you weren't intimidated by the big wedge-shaped ship coasting over the screen.
The whole "Star Dreadnaught" thing just reeks of Curtis Saxton trying to shoehorn his own agenda into the canon once he had the ability to actually write licensed materials and not just manage a fan-website, and it's always irked me.

 

If Darth Vader calls it a Star Destroyer (ESB special edition) then it's a Star Destroyer as far as I'm concerned.

The whole "Dac" thing reminds me of how Paelontoligists kept renaming stuff when they find earlier references that give things differant names. Until they find out that named Tyranosaurus Rex something else first, released they could never get away with it and made an exception. Though people still use the term "Brontosaurus" despite the fact that it was completely replaced by Apatosaurus in 1903.

 

I just assumed that the official name of the planet was Dac, but since only Mon Cals left the planet and established themselves across the galaxy it was well known as Mon Calamari. Add to the fact that the Mon Cals are one of the leaders in war ship building along with Fondor, Kuat, and Corellia the name just stuck in the galaxy at large.

 

I think there's stuff in GG5:RotJ as well...

I could probably do it.

It's Stent who says that, not Parck, but yes, Williams/Dix are the first to show Thrawn's forces working for the Chiss government, changing the situation depicted in VotF, SQ, and even Dark Journey, where Jag says "This phalanx has never been ruled by the thinking of tradition-bound Chiss senators, or by Imperial politicians whose first concern is personal power. Was a change-of-policy holocube issued during my recent absence?" - and FH3 also backdates this connection, by having Jag begin his career in "the domestic Chiss military force"...

There ARE ways to make sense of this (Jag began his career in a colonial phalanx after RSBF, defected to the Household Phalanx before DT:R, and then the Household Phalanx intervened in the Ascendancy between DJ and FH3), but I suspect it may have been a straightforward gaffe, caused by using fan resources like the TimeTales chronology...

And at 4am, too!

I suspect that's from the 1994 version, as the index on the Wook suggests three separate entries: "Blue Squad" for Yavin, "Rogue Group" for Hoth, and "Red Wing" for Endor, with no actual "Rogue Squadron".

There IS no actual use of the term "Rogue Squadron" in the movies, in fact....

Now I think about it, I strongly suspect that the actual name "rogue squadron" originated in WEG. Moreover, in The Rebel Alliance Sourcebook, perhaps its first appearance, it was a generic, uncapitalized term for ALL fighter squadrons assigned directly to the High Command... actual application of the name "Rogue Squadron" to a specific unit may be from GG3 and GG5...

... although it may also have had a fanon origin before that

I'm not going to touch the "Dac/Calamari/Mon Calamari" stuff, but there's some evidence that "Dac" is the Quarren name (the "Free Dac Volunteers Engineering Corps" that built the Invisible Hand are Quarren-led, and the Wook also refers to a wider "Free Dac" Quarren political movement; and then "Dac" is the popular name in 137 ABY, when the Quarren are dominant)...

"Calamari", as coined by WEG or perhaps the RotJ production, is probably the Mon Calamari's name for the planet; "Dac" seems to be the Quarren name; and "Mon Cal(amari)", which emerged OOU as a sort of quasi-mistake, could be explained as an off-worlders' name that became popular during the Rebellion/NR...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

I just wanted to pop in and note that Rogue Squadron's first chronological appearance was in Star Wars Missions #12: The Vactooine Disaster.

TC

 

Thrawn McEwok : I suspect that's from the 1994 version,

I checked my copy and it's actually from 2000, so I guess I wasn't much help after all. Sorry about that.

In the Star Wars annotated Screenplays, Luke is referred to as "Rogue Leader" in the script, though he is Rogue Leader of the snowspeeder flight. I guess I always thought of that snowspeeder group as the Hoth-based version of the X-wing group...same pilots, just using a vehicle better-suited to flying around Hoth while their X-wings sat in the hanger. Maybe that's how the name Rogue Squadron came to be?

 

Here's what the Dark Empire Sourcebook has to say about General Wedge Antilles.

It also talks a lot about Rogue Wing, which is a wing of fighters Wedge was given command of after being promoted to General. What was wrong with his old wing of fighters?

Anyway. The same article also references the battles of Sluis Van, the Katana Fleet, and Bilbringi, so any information it has on Rogue Squadron likely came right from Timothy Zahn's nameless trilogy.

Very interesting stuff, right there. I wonder if anyone has Galaxy Guide 3 or 5? ... Jello? Either Nathan?

I wonder if the Snowspeeder Flight is referred to as "Rogue Squadron" in the ESB novelization? Said novelization isn't in their appearances section on the wook; I'd check myself if I hadn't packed away all of my SW books into storage a couple of weeks ago. Anyone have it handy?

I really appreciate everyone's help on the matters. You guys rock!

 

It took me awhile, but the name Dac doesn't bother me as much as it used to. For starters, I noticed that the majority of the EU and most posters refer to it as Mon Calamari, so that could be part of it.

However, I kinda like the idea of it being called Dac in 137 ABY due to the dominance of the Quarren. Afterall, the Sith and Quarren did rename the capital city from Ackbarea to New Coral City, IIRC...

Sounds like someone or some group was trying hard to downplay the Mon Cals influence.

--Adm. Nick

 

I only have the 2nd edition of GG3 (from 1996), but it has some stuff of interest here. Voren asks the reader to imagine trying to trip an AT-AT:

So, it appears that there was a squadron with the official name of Rogue Group until the Battle of Hoth. Since Voren is writing from the perspective of the fleet rendezvous point after that battle, Rogue Squadron as an official entity must have been formed right around then.

 

Well I guess you could read it two ways; it's a destroyer that navigates the stars, or it's something that goes around "destroying" stars (figuratively speaking). The latter has a bit of a negative, overkill connotation to it I guess.

But yeah, I totally agree that retroactively renaming something that already has a clearly defined title and description is retarded.

 

Found the old Rogue Squadron manual:
"Luke Skywalker and Wedge Antilles have assembled Rogue Squadron...", not too helpful (nor is the information that it's set between ANH and TESB). It has to have been assembled as early as Madine's defection. TalonCard, I believe, has shown as least one source that has it set up shortly ABY, so it's a strong possibility that it's really just a continuation of Red Squadron, renamed after the battle.

I think that's exactly it. Saxton established the link between the Quarren and the usage of "Dac" versus "Mon Calamari". Dan Wallace - who really brought term out of quasi-canon - had it originate at the inhabitants' name of the world in the GORW, but noted that the initial Republic contacts gave it the name Mon Calamari which became the rest of the galaxy's name.

 

Not the entire galaxy, necessarily; it just says it's in "common use in Basic".

It also establishes that Dac is both species' name for it, not just a Quarren thing.

 

The quote reads - "Republic contacts (primarily Basic-speaking Humans) termed the world Mon Calamari after the 'dominant' species, and that name has since fallen into common use in Basic."
Then, of course, it specifically mentions the resentment of the Quarren towards the name - tying in, again, with what Nick said.

Hence when I said the 'inhabitants'. See above for the linkage with the Quarren.