A&A The Official Jason Fry Discussion Thread

RE: Rome/Carthage analogy, I always thought of the Tion Worlds as being the "Carthage" to the Galactic Republic's "Rome". Afterall, didn't the Republic Navy literally bombard Desevro into a pulp? Reminds me of the Romans liternally destroying Carthage and rebuilding it.

--Adm. Nick

 

I always figured the Tion to be more like old Greece as Xim clearly has the Alexander the great vibe and his Empire pretty much went the way of the Diadochi a few years after his death. Plus I would figure the Tionese actually being too proud to accept reconstruction and just get to rebuilding themselves.

 

Hi, Jason. A note to say that I enjoyed reading the fleshing out of the characters in Shadow Conspiracy, especially Viszla and Satine - and I hope you come back to write in Star Wars soon. Also, the capsulization of the New Mandalorians and traditional Mandalorian history cleared up things for me, and in only half a page!

 

So some time ago I asked if Shadow Conspiracy was worth getting. Jason pointed me to his blog where he discussed the differences between the show and the book - end result I bought it. And I enjoyed it very much. Jason I hope you write some more (would really like to see what you'd do with a full novel).

And since I just found about the Clone Wars Episode Guide (living under a rock, that's me), I'm now looking forward to that as well. And maybe when the show is done we can get a guide that works both the new clone wars material and the old one into one cohesive bit (I keep looking at my shelves and trying to figure out the chronological order of some of these and it's driving me nuts).

 

Thanks DG. Would love to try my hand at a full SW novel, but all Star Wars work is fun.

CW Episode Guide just wrapped, but we'll see what the future holds -- as you might imagine, with all the news recently everybody's trying to take stock of what's coming and how to work with it. So I've got nothing on the stovetop for now. But that's OK -- I'm hard at work on the second Jupiter Pirates book.

That full CW guide would be quite a challenge, from timelines to sorting out the various contradictions. But what the heck, it can't be harder than mapping a galaxy. If they asked me to tackle it I'd do my best.

 

Jason,

Over in the Core Worlds thread, we have been discussing the sorts of governments that each individual world in the Core had (republics, monarchies, democracies, aristocracies, etc). During your work on the Essential Atlas, did you or Dan ever come up with a list of Core Worlds local governments? Some are well known (Chandrila a democracy, Brentaal has guilds, Alsakan has aristocracts, etc), but we are trying to piece together the various pieces and see if there are any trends in the Core.

In other words, if you are interested to share your thoughts on the matter, swing on by the thread.

--Adm. Nick

 

Gotta confess I didn't have anything in mind re either question. Depending on the project, world-building's a bit like matte painting -- you fill in the stuff you need and leave the rest blank. (Not that I've ever created a matte painting.)

For Anaxes I wanted a kind of "Officer and a Gentleman" setting, with a side of pomp and circumstance from the wellsprings Jello identified. Once I had that I didn't worry too much about the rest.

Won't be a revelation to anybody but my view of the Republic/Imperial system has always been that nobody particularly worried about the mechanics of representation below the Senate level -- there'd just be too many traditions, value systems, etc. for things to function if "democracy" had to equal "one being one vote" or some other core principle. The ideal would be a government that could decently represent a galactic civilization -- kinda like a more empowered version of the UN.

It makes sense to me that the Core would preserve all sorts of old traditions that had become sources of cultural pride -- monarchies, oligarchies, rotations among ruling fungus colonies based on climate changes, etc. But there'd be a lot of diversity among outlying systems too, from corporate-owned planets to hereditary monarchies founded by wealthy utopian explorers to anarchist settlements to anything else one can think of.

 

Canonize. Now.

And this, because you just brought up my absolute favorite thing that's almost never been mentioned.

 

Better dead than Fungus Colony Zed, I always say.

 

My brain immediately leaped to "what Core Worlds do we know little enough about that this could totally be their system of government?" Because, yes, this must happen.

 

Denon

Edit: Ah not a Core World... hmmm hmm... Trantor?

 

There are two ways to go with Trantor. Either make it as perfect an homage to Asimov as possible (in which case, it should be a human-dominated ecumenopolis ... that is to say, a stereotypical Core World), or take it as far from Asimov as possible. I lean towards the former, but if you're a fan of the latter, ruling fungus colonies would be a good way to go.

I was leaning more towards Eamus 6, Lujo, Chamm, Goorla, Shulxi, or Shumogi: all Southern core planets (more likely to retain alien political systems) with very little information about them (more likely to possess ruling fungus colonies than a planet with a claim to fame as a Human homeworld, for example). But that's just the tip of the iceberg; most of the planets in the Core are nothing more than fleeting name-drops somewhere, with plenty of room for an author to expand them in bizarre directions.

 

I'm personally voting for Gama, just for a little Dark Empire love

 

Well, Trantor had Mycogen Sector...

 

I remember Anakin being sent on a diplomatic mission to some plant people who had long been part of the Republic in of TCW comics.

I wonder if there are any worlds with a computer ruler? I know anti-droid sentiment is high in most places, but there have to be exceptions.

 

Yag'Dhul and the Body Calculus, without any actual computers.

 

That was my thought as well upon my first seeing that in CatCW's. If Anaxes is as much of a democracy as Alderaan is then were in really good shape. A strong monarchy and nobility, existing alongside with some other democratic assembly.

Maybe the King of Anaxes could be a vassal of the Emperor of Axum.

 

Speaking of Anaxes, this discussion brings to mind one of my old questions about it. Where did the name come from? Out of universe, that is. There are certain planets I rather like the names of, but I've never been able to figure out what inspired most of them.

 

If the Prequels are any indication, a king doesn't mean a monarchy. To quote Palpatine in TPM, "May I present Queen Amidala, recently elected ruler of the Naboo." And I might also quote Sio Bibble of Naboo. "We are a democracy. The people have decided."

The Core can be full of democracies, but they might out of tradition keep old titles like "king" or "emperor". ;-)

Besides, unlike my buddy Jello, when I read "democracy", I don't see it in the pure Greek direct democracy form. I see it more in the modern sense of democracy, which includes democratic federal republics like the United States and constitutional monarchies like the United Kingdom.

--Adm. Nick

 

Need a cough drop?

--Adm. Nick

 

There's nothing to cough about. At least in Europe, the countries with kings and queens aren't directly ruled by them, they're mostly symbolic and have been for centuries. The prime minister and parliaments are the ones in charge.

 

Probably just sounds. In naming stuff I typically start with something rough that might vaguely fit what I want and then iterate it over and over again until I wind up somewhere cool or decide the name's a goner. Sometimes that starting point is a real-world place or name, but more often it's just a couple of sounds mashed together. (Sectors are tough because you ideally want a range of names that sound like they could come from a variety of Earth cultures -- I tried really hard to meet that goal with the latest round of sector names for the Expansion Region.)

It's a long time ago now, but for Anaxes I probably wanted something that sounded old, vaguely Greek and had a certain military rhythm -- no soft sounds in the usual places. Though that x reminds me that a lot of my names, arguably too many, have x's or sh's in them.