Lit GENERAL QUESTION THREAD (What to read? Where to start? What's canon? What's not? Duros, etc.)

I was about to say Tales of the Jedi, but according to Wookieepedia, it's the ROTJ novelization.

 

The phrase wasn't used, but, thanks to TTT's reference to the Emperor's enhancement of his military with the Force, and this being later named battle meditation, it's the first appearance, in publishing, of the power.

 

Also, just going by the Wookieepedia appearance list, the first appearance of the name was Dark Empire II. Which makes sense since DE originated a lot of the concepts in TOTJ.

 

Going by the description in HTTE, I'd question whether that's what Palpatine was actually doing. It sounds more like directly controlling and coordinating his own forces than a "traditional" battle meditation of the sort we'd later see in, say, Tales of the Jedi #2, which is also my vote for when the term was first used. Wookieepedia does say Dark Empire II, but it's right there (as "Jedi battle meditation") in TOTJ #2, two years before DE II.

 

Where was it first mentioned that a precursor race invented hyperdrives?

 

I have been reading through post Return of the Jedi Legends in chronological order. The X-wing series has how the New Republic took Coruscant and the Thrawn Trilogy shows the New Republic controlling Coruscant but then Dark Empire starts off with Imperials contoling Courscant and having a civl war. Is there any material on how the Imperials retook Coruscant other than Retreat from Coruscant?

 

There is unfortunately little to no content between The Last Command and Dark Empire (aside from Isard's Revenge, focusing on the Rogues) and I always felt like it was ripe for a bridge novel. I think "Retreat From Coruscant" is literally all there is outside of descriptions of the event in The Essential Chronology, the Dark Empire Sourcebook, and various other reference guides. Hell, the battle to retake Coruscant in 7 ABE is covered even less, with only a throwaway line of text in the epilogue of Empire's End.

 

Was it ever mentioned anywhere in canon or Legends why Owen and Beru never had children of their own? Were they unable to, or did they just choose not to?

 

I haven't seen it mentioned directly ever. The new canon has set up an interesting scenario, with the two doing more than just farming in their younger days. The Padme series has set up Beru as being part of the slave liberation front on Tatooine. It could be that before Obi-Wan dropped Luke off at their house, the two either just didn't want kids or figured they were too busy (or their occupations were too risky? I hope someone follows up the Beru/slave story). But so far there's been no direct explanation.

 

Having seen Dune 2 last night, it made me want to ask this: where was "Spice"/Glitterstim first established as a drug in Star Wars lore? I've always heard that Lucas pulled the idea of a drug with that name from Dune, but it just hit me that I can't recall it ever being mentioned as a drug in the original films. It's just something valuable that is mined on Kessel and smuggled by Jabba.

 

I always wondered about the similarity of name between Ramsees Hed docking port at Cal-Seti (from Dark Forces) and the city of Barons Hed on Sulon (from Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight.) Obviously both games were conceptualized and largely outlined by Justin Chin at LucasArts, but it would have been cool if the Essential Atlas or some other source had drawn a thread between the names (as arbitrary as it seems; I just love little tiny, tidy bows on my mega-obscure Star Wars references.)

@jasonfry Any random ideas to throw into the ether?

 

I think it came from the original Star Wars script, where Jabba gets upset at Han for dumping the illegal "spice". They don't specify it as a drug, but it's clearly not allowed.

I also assumed Lucas got it from Dune (as a drug), but also potentially like spice smuggling back hundreds of years ago (pirates and all that... although that also included "drugs").

That's a cool connection. I never finished Dark Forces 1 so I never caught that... I guess the remake is as good a time as any to try again. Presumably "Hed" is like "Ord" in some way...

 

Dark Forces is great. I only had the sampler disc with my LucasArts Archives Vol. II CD-ROM collection from '96, so all I was able to play for a few years was the first three levels, but I finally played the full game in 2001 and recently beat it a couple more times since 2016. It's a great basic Boomer Shooter and the Remaster is fantastic. I'm only a couple levels in, but it looks and feels gorgeous. Much like TIE Fighter Total Conversion, I don't know if I could ever go back to the original after playing it.

 

Does anybody have a list -- or back-up links/scans/screenshots -- of all of Wizards of the Coast's online RPG articles and adventure supplements? I can randomly see them as I skim over Wookieepedia for various things, but I'm having trouble finding a chronological list of all of them.

 

Is Chewbacca "free" after Episode IX?

 

Huh, did Chewie's life debt to Han get passed down to Ben/Kylo? If so, why did he shoot him?

 

Pick any of the following (they're not mutually exclusive) - because he was just that angry, or because it works differently in canon than in Legends (which Solo also points to), or because he was deliberately going for a non-lethal shot. I actually asked about having read an official source for that last one in this very thread, in fact, but I think it must have technically been someone's headcanon since nobody could track it down.

 

Is there a no-filler issue list for the old Marvel comics? Specifically, I want to read anything to do with the Mandalorians and the Nagai and Tof wars.

 

According to their Legends Appearances on Wookieepedia, Mandalorians appeared in #68-69 and #99-107. Tofs and/or Nagai appeared in issues #91, 95-97, 99-100, and 102-107.

 

Does Yoda speak backwards in non-English translations of Star Wars?

 

Were the Jedi in ROTS the first actual Jedi (not just Force users) that Palpatine killed in both Legends and new Canon?

 

I can only speak for the Spanish dubs, but in that case, yes, it was very accurate to the original english version.

 

Yeah, I was just thinking that since in German sometimes they put the verb at the end of the sentence...for them, Yoda-speak would just look like an ordinary sentence. Dunno if this happens in other languages as well.

 

For those who have read the junior novelization of Revenge of the Sith: can you tell me what are the differences between the Junior novelization and the adult novelization? I generally don't care about novelizations at all, because I prefer to watch the actual movies instead of reading the novelizations. But I'm genuinely curious in this case, because Revenge of the Sith is my favorite movie, and it is the only movie of which I have read some pieces of the novelization.