Lit Apocrypha: an in-depth analysis of non-canonical media

Okay, I wrote a dissertation on the "Year 3000" thing: https://jedisabacc.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-year-3000-star-wars-chronology-of.html

 

Anywhere we wanna go now? I've dominated this thread long enough.

 

One important corner of apocrypha that never seems to get a mention is alternate timelines. While the timelines themselves obviously can't be canon in a meaningful way, I still think there's a lot of interesting lore to be found. Basically, every alternate timeline story has a "point of divergence" at some point where the timeline splits off from canon. Most parts of these stories have no bearing on canon, but there are some story beats that would not be effected by the POD/butterfly effect. The biggest example are character deaths. In Infinities: The Empire Strikes Back, Vilmarh Grahrk makes an appearance around 3 ABY. While Luke's death on Hoth massively changed the galaxy, there's no way it would revive a hypothetically dead Villie. As apocrypha, Infinities: ESB proves that Grahrk was alive during 3 ABY.

Are there any other cool bits of lore to be found in alternate timelines/infinities stories?

 

@SpecForce Trooper great point about how to worldbuilding loot the Infinities and other alternate stories. Like even Tales and other fun or humor only comics have a lot background detail that is worthy. Some hidden as aurebesh only even. That aside some clothes, architecture and locations only found in Infinity timelines should be accounted for as well.

F.e. Tiny Death Star cellphone app with details about the everyday life in the Death Star Architecture!

Also characterisations of some characters in Infinities timeline can diverge from the main timeline due to different experiences shaping them, but those without a changed past should still be able to give us insight into their heads and characterisation where the same is missing or lacking in the canon timeline. Especially regarding characters meeting up that in the other timeline did not. Or if in one timeline a character falls to the Dark Side.. does that mean he/she is as succeptible in the other one but it just didn't happem/trigger him/her?

f.e. alternate ends and paths of games like Katarn games, or movie replay games, or even Lego games.

 

Or you could look at it the other way around, that Villie living to 3 ABY somehow butterfly-ed Luke into dying on Hoth.

 

Hey Specforce I replied to your comment on my site! I also had commented on yours somewhere!

 

I'm sure you're all familiar with Tilotny Throws a Shape and the Rebels episode The World Between Worlds, the only SW stories to have time travel. This could explain the alternate timelines of the Infinities Trilogy, TFU, and DF II. KOTOR is too confusing. I do not think this opens up for parodies, though.

 

I'd like to bring up another topic: fan films.

*mysteriously sinks back into darkness*

 

I don't think most fan films would really qualify as apocrypha. To me, apocryphal media would be anything outside canon that can be seen as legitimate in one way or another. Unlicensed media sold as official products, stories made by Star Wars creators, and Word of God all constitute apocrypha IMHO. Good apocrypha examples would be Uzay, the Indiana Jones series, and Karen Traviss' outline for Imperial Commando 2. Most fan films, and fan fiction as a whole, make no attempt to masquerade as official canon. Discussion of fan fiction would probably be better suited for its own thread. On the other hand, fan fiction with the involvement of official creators would qualify, and even hoaxes like the works of SuperShadow.

 

Not sure if it's been brought up already, but one piece of possible apocryphal media that's stood out to me are the Alien Chronicles books commissioned by Lucasfilm. While they weren't intended to be set in the Star Wars universe, references were made to them by the official HoloNet News site (which was active when AOTC came out) as well as some RPG books by WOTC. Additionally, the books were illustrated by Terryl Whitlatch, who designed a lot of the aliens and creatures in TPM. I've been tempted to track them down and see if they could fit into the SW universe without issue.

 

Weren't they repurposed from outlines for the Alien Exodus books?

 

Yeah. Bongiorno still has them on his timeline.

 

Well some fan films are an important part of people's Canon. For example I accept these ones as Canon:

• Duality
• Contract of Evil
• Seeds of Darkness
• Knightquest
• Revelations
• Rogue
• Broken Allegiance

Just because they are classics of the genre and should be Canon. They've become as permanent to fans memory as the EU.

A lot of fans want the Vader series as Canon. I enjoy it, but no thanks.

 

Here's a weird apocrypha for ya:

 

I've been thinking a lot about how one could create a timeline for the distant future of the galaxy using apocryphal works. It would be full of massive time gaps, but I think it leaves a lot of room for interesting headcanons to smooth things over.

>138 ABY?: Battle of the Sith Lords
Darth Maul and Darth Talon fight a war against the One Sith and their Sith Emperor. Could this unnamed emperor be Darth Nihl after Krayt's death, or a revived Krayt?

500 ABY: The Council
The Jedi and Sith are both active in the galaxy, and coexist relatively peacefully. The two groups are both ruled by an ecumenical council of six Jedi and six Sith. The Solo and Skywalker families are both still active amongst the Jedi.

1000 ABY: New Republic
A New Republic exists in the galaxy, as well as a Senator Heria Organa.

<3000 ABY: The Great Jedi Rebellion
The Jedi-Bendu, sworn protectors of the Emperor, rise up against the Empire. The Jedi are hunted down and replaced by the Knights of the Sith.

3000 ABY: New Galactic Empire
The Empire moves to invade Aquilae, the last independent planet. This invasion fails, and the Empire faces a growing rebellion.

Events of unknown date:

The Great Rift
A defining feature of the galaxy during Emperor Cos Da****'s reign is the Great Rift and the Forbidden Systems.

Ronin
The galaxy is run by a feudal Jedi Empire. A splinter sect of dissatisfied Jedi begin the Sith Rebellion. Ultimately, the Sith are betrayed by their own Dark Lord and lose the war.

The Storyteller
The Squidge rise up against the Vindar.

I think there's a lot of interesting events that we have to work with. I'd be very interested to see where the the stories without firm dates would fit best on the timeline. I feel like The Duel might fit best in the New Imperial era, before the Great Jedi Rebellion. "Great" in relation to what? Perhaps the Ronin's rebellion. And the stories that take place between these events are just begging to be told. What happened to the Allies after Legacy? How did the New Empire arise? How have the various Sith orders rose and fell, and what was their origin? What is the Great Rift, and what caused it?

 

Don't forget Spaceballs

 

Talking of the future galaxy, Supernatural Encounters (which is definitely apocrypha, so I hope mentioning it doesn't start a fight) has an absolutely crazy epilogue giving a brief look at the final conflict with the Old Ones at the end of time. It features elements like a tiny, mobile pocket dimension that serves as the headquarters of the last bastion of resistance, and alternate universes colliding with each other as time and space fold down. Trippy doesn't even begin to describe it. The heroes of this time are a gathering as offbeat as the premise, and include...

* T'Ra Saa's daughter.
* K'kruhk's grandson.
* Latara and Teebo's great-great-etc-etc grandson, and his Dulok fiancee.
* Anakin Skywalker's ghost.
* The Guardian of Forever.
* The Fairy Queen from Willow (yes, really).
* A repentant Abeloth.
* The Queen of the Oswaft, on whom Abeloth rides.
* ...and Artoo and Threepio.

Star Wars does Grant Morrison's The Invisibles, kinda.

 

Perhaps this is veering off too far into fan fiction territory, but I've thought a lot on what the Great Rift could be and how it might've arisen. I've been getting a lot into Warhammer 40k and wondering how its concepts might align with bits of Star Wars lore. We know that Star Wars has its own version of Chaos, and dimension hopping is a vital technology (hyperspace, otherspace). Perhaps a faction in the galaxy made a hyperdrive that could travel to the realm of Chaos, unleashing dark side horrors upon the galaxy. Ancient dark side spirits could make for Chaos gods, sithspawn are essentially daemons, etc. Perhaps a tear in reality might have occurred. The Great Rift could have cut off a large part of the galaxy through Chaos storms. The Sith Lords would obviously flock to serve their evil gods, and I could see entire fleets of Imperial and Republic vessels corrupted by the pure dark side energy. We know that the ancient dark side spirits are lurking in the afterlife, so I think it would be interesting to see them try to break through into realspace.

 

Battlefront 3 should be a non canon story but it is saved by Battlefront Elite Squadron and makes that story canon in the EU even though it is a forgettable story X2 could be a Random Jedi from Luke New Jedi Order also in Battlefont Elite Squadorn it is the only time we see Rahm Kota after the events of TFU 2

 

That was cancelled Battlefront IV with allegiance swapping for lots of characters

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Oh lord, Battlefront IV is an entirely different box of frogs. I wonder how one could incorporate it, if not into the One Canon, at least into the larger Infinities multiverse. I'm not even sure if one could find a logical Point of Divergence. At least we get visual depictions of altered events and alternate characters. For example, Emperor Vader is immediately relevant to the RotS video game alternate timeline.

On another note, the Jedi of Battle of the Sith Lords could easily fit into Legacy. The Jedi of the 2nd Imperial Civil War seem quite few in number, so it's nice to have more Jedi for their roster. Ideally with less goofy haircuts, but I digress. Nexus Wan could be a distant relative of Obi-Wan Kenobi. We don't really know anything about Stewjon after all.

 

Actually fitting Battlefront IV's madness in is easy I think! Just take a page from Harry Potter and the Cursed Child:
Flowwalking madness when a flowwalker changes the past and hops through a variety of timelines trying to correct it back to the one he came from Back to the Future style. I'd call it: "TAG & BINK's Excellent Adventure" in which they meet Splendid Ap, learn to flowwalk from the Aing-Ti, stumble into the World between Worlds and somehow surprisingly get back to their time, universe, and correct timeline Sliders style.

Now imagine a Battlefront IV style visual exploration of the variant futures Jacen saw in Betrayal with Dark Luke, etc.


But as for apocryphal media: What about Death Star Designer and Tiny Death Star? I know they can easily exist in either canon, Legends or OneCanon, but think of the implications. Luke killed families and kids living on the Death Star! Imperial Designers did a lot of stuff the Emperor would not be pleased about. etc. etc.

 

Star Wars Episode VII: Shadows of the Sith is the cancelled or non canon project that intrigues me the most because it was an adaptation of Legacy of the Force and it would have been the first time we had seen the Solo twins in a video game but Ben Skywalker was going to be the protagonist and not Jaina Solo but if we talk about non canon projects we can talk about Lucas Sequel Trilogy or Episode VI: Revenge of the Jedi or Episode I: the Beginning or Sword of the Jedi

 

It's definitely a fascinating story. I believe the script was leaked, but I could be wrong. Darth Talon in the early Legacy era is definitely an interesting concept. We don't know how many Darth Talons existed, but certainly a few. It seems like the first Talon served Darth Maul around the end of the Clone Wars. Perhaps Maul had unfinished business with Bo-Katan's government.