Lit The Crucible Canon - Merging EU and New Canon as smoothly as possible

Hi everyone!

This is my own take on merging Legends and Disney Canon, similar to One Canon by @Sinrebirth , but ultimately very different. The Crucible Canon.

Why is it called the Crucible Canon? Because the title emphasizes the main gist of this timeline: that the sequel trilogy takes place roughly 20 years after the EU novel Crucible, in 64-65 ABY. Leia gave birth to Ben Solo at 64 years old after Crucible in 45 ABY. This is biologically possible in the real world, albeit rare, as seen at https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/28/asia/china-birth-older-woman-intl-hnk-scli/index.html .

Crucible also means "severe test" according to the merriam-webster dictionary, and I have no doubt this timeline will endure tests as each new Disney work comes out and we discuss how to work it into the merged EU/Disney Crucible Canon.

Aftermath only mentions Ben's birth in a short passage at the end, and due to Wendig's writing style I have decreed this as just a vision of the future event that ultimately takes place in 45 ABY.

Also after Crucible, the Galactic Alliance (also called the New Republic by lazy citizens especially after they moved the capital to Hosnian Prime following the Daala mess) has found a long lost Yuuzhan Vong prison world, and discovered a forgotten Vong scheme from the Vong wars--a campaign to fake the deaths of multiple Republic heroes using decoy bodies etc., imprison the "killed" heroes, and later use these prisoners as leverage. When the Vong war ended, all Vong involved were killed and the project forgotten. Until now: the Galactic Alliance has found the prison planet where Gial Ackbar, Chewbacca, and Mon Mothma among others are alive, having spent the last 2 decades in exile on this forgotten prison world where they were comfortable (after rising up against their Vong captors), but unable to contact the outside galaxy as the planet's holonet transmitter was damaged and could only receive information, not transmit any. Ben Skywalker ultimately decided not to be a Jedi and settled to a quiet life with wife and kid. He doesn't appear in the ST because Luke wanted to protect him from the violent Jedi life. Jaina is with the Fels.

The Solo film is the fictional holofilm "Han Solo and the Pirates of Kessel" mentioned in Shadows of Mindor, albeit very loosely based on real events so people like Beckett etc. did actually exist (thus allowing Solo tie-in works to remain). Other than this exception made to preserve the EU Han Solo Trilogy, the rule of thumb is if there's a completely irreconcilable difference between Old Canon and New Canon, New Canon wins. For example Dark Disciple can't fit at all with old Quinlan Vos. Taking that Obsession, Clone Wars TPB Vol. 7 is mostly noncanon even to Legends, I assume any Clone Wars TPB afterwards is also noncanon and Quinlan's ending follows Dark Disciple, not Clone Wars TPB 8. We mash up Quinlan's dark side turn in Clone Wars TPB 1-6 and Dark Disciple together as best we can.

Thrawn's situation could get messier as time goes on if he appears in a Rebels sequel series or something. Right now I'm acting under the assumption he returned without Ezra and was demoted, which future Thrawn canon will likely overrule. Clones (which Thrawn specialized in) or Flim appearing as Thrawn far earlier than the Caamas crisis explanations may have to be created.

I feel my Crucible Canon has improvements on One Canon, if I may say so myself, in being more robust by allowing a 20 year timespan between Crucible and the Force Awakens. This allows plenty of room to fit in future pre-Sequel Trilogy Era works. One Canon has explanations about Ben Solo being a sort of "shadow" brother who is never mentioned by Jacen, Jaina, and Anakin Solo. I find this explanation wanting, and my reason Ben Solo is not mentioned at all in the EU is because he simply was not born until 45 ABY.

We'll have to retcon that all of the New Jedi Order from the EU were at the temple explosion and thus killed in the event depicted in the Rise of Kylo Ren comic. Luke's boast in that comic that he is the last Jedi is his reference to being the last of the old Jedi, as told in the Thrawn Trilogy. That comic takes place in 60 ABY when Ben Solo is 15, with TFA taking place in 64 ABY with Ben Solo, now Kylo Ren, at 19 years old.

Jaina is not mentioned in the ST as she likely is stuck with the Fel Empire battling the First Order trying to absorb their territory. Honestly lack of mention of her is no more jarring than Star Trek's Spock's lack of mention of his siblings Sybok and Michael Burnham.

Yes, this ultimately means Luke, Leia, and Han were 83 and 93 in the Force Awakens. They look good for their age. Again, Star Trek has done worse by recently casting a 51 year old to play a character who is at least 83 in Star Trek Picard.

The ultimate timeline so far is below (spoilered for size). If you enjoy it, please help out and contribute!

Spoiler

25,793 BBY Dawn of the Jedi: Into the Void

25,793 BBY Dawn of the Jedi comics

5000 BBY Tales of the Jedi Golden Age of the Sith/Fall of the Sith Emire

5000-2975 BBY Lost Tribe of the Sith short stories

4000 BBY – Tales of the Jedi comics

3964 BBY Knights of the Old Republic Comics

3956 BBY Knights of the Old Republic game

3951 BBY Knights of the Old Republic 2 game

3954-3950 BBY Revan novel

3678 BBY The Old Republic comics

3653 BBY Deceived

3645 BBY Red Harvest

3643 BBY Fatal Alliance

3643 BBY Old Republic game

3640 BBY Annihilation

3000 BBY – 8 ABY Galactic Battlegrounds game

2974 BBY – Lost Tribe of the Sith comics

1032 BBY Knight Errant novel

1032 BBY Knight Errant comic

1003 – 980 BBY Darth Bane Trilogy

1000 BBY Jedi vs Sith comic

67 BBY Darth Plagueis

53 BBY Jedi the Dark Side comic

Pre 40 BBY Dooku Jedi Lost

40 BBY Master and Apprentice

40 BBY onwards Age of Republic comics

38 BBY Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan Aurorient Express

37 BBY Qui Gon and Obi Wan Last Stand on Ord Mantell

33 BBY Jedi Council Acts of War

33 BBY Maul Lockdown

32 BBY New Canon Darth Maul comic

32 BBY onwards Republic comics

33 BBY Darth Maul comic

32 BBY Onwards New Battlefront 2

32 BBY Cloak of Deception

32 BBY Darth Maul Shadow Hunter

32 BBY Starfighter game

32 BBY Battle for Naboo

32 BBY Episode I

32 BBY Racer game

32 BBY – 4 ABY Battlefront classic

32 BBY Jango Fett Open Seasons

29 BBY Rogue Planet

28 BBY Jedi Quest

28 BBY Obi Wan and Anakin comic

28 Queen’s Shadow

21 BBY onwards Forces of Destiny shorts

27 BBY Outbound Flight

27 BBY Jango and Zam one shot comics

24 BBY Starfighter Crossbones

22 BBY Approaching Storm

22 BBY Blood Ties

22 BBY AOTC

Ch. 1-21 Clone Wars Microseries

22 BBY Jedi Trial

TCW movie

TCW tv show

TCW comic books and novels

22 BBY – 3 ABY Battlefront 2 classic

22 BBY Republic Commando

22 BBY Clone Wars Adventures comics

22 BBY onwards Republic Commando Novels

22 BBY Cestus Deception

21 BBY Grievous comic

21 BBY Yoda Dark Rendezvous

20 BBY MedStar duology

20 Darth Maul Death Sentence

19 BBY Dark Disciple

19 BBY Son of Dathomir

19 BBY Kanan comics

19 BBY Labyrinth of Evil

19 BBY Clone Wars microseries Ch. 22-25

19 BBY ROTS

19 BBY Vader Dark Lord of the Sith new canon comics

19 BBY Kenobi

19 BBY Purge comics

19 BBY various Darth Vader comics

19 BBY Dark Times comics

19 BBY Dark Lord Rise of Vader

19 BBY Imperial Commando novel

18 BBY Ahsoka novel

18 BBY Last Jedi Novel

15 BBY Droids tv show

14 BBY Lords of the Sith novel

14 BBY Tarkin Novel

14 BBY Jedi Fallen Order

13 BBY Most Wanted

13 BBY Rebel Rising

11 BBY Thrawn novel/comic

11 BBY A new Dawn

11 BBY Lost Stars

10 BBY Droids comics

10 BBY Han Solo Trilogy

6 BBY Battlefront Twilight Company

5 BBY more Droids comics

5 BBY Jabba comics

5 BBY Rebels

4 BBY Lando Calrissian Trilogy

3 BBY Boba Fett Enemy of the Empire

3 BBY Agent of the Empire comics

3 BBY – 0 BBY Death Star novel

3 BBY Leia Princess of Alderaan (Panaka survives)

2 BBY Force Unleashed

2 BBY Han Solo Adventures Trilogy (Daley novels)

2 BBY Thrawn Alliances

1 BBY Thrawn Treason

1 BBY Force Unleashed 2

1 BBY various new canon Star Wars Adventures comics

1 BBY Vader Immportal

1 BBY Vader Dark Visions

1 BBY onwards Star Wars Adventures comics

1 BBY onwards Dark Forces prose trilogy

1 BBY onwards Empire comics

1 BBY Death Troopers

1 BBY Underworld Yavin Vassilika

0 BBY Dark Forces

0 BBY Shadow Games

0 BBY Empire at War

0 BBY X-Wing

0 BBY Rogue One (Scarif and Toprawa may be the same)

0 BBY New Canon Battlefront

0 BBY Battlefront 2: Inferno Squad

0 ABY ANH

0 ABY Smuggler’s Run

0 ABY Princess Leia comic

0 ABY Chewbacca new canon comic

0 ABY Age of Rebellion Comics

0 ABY Heir to the Jedi

0 ABY onwards old Marvel comics series

0 ABY Han Solo comic

0 ABY new canon Star Wars comic

0 ABY new canon Vader comic

0 ABY Tales from Mos Eisley Cantina

0 ABY Tales from the Empiure

0 ABY Scoundrels

0 ABY onwards newspaper comics

0 ABY Allegiance

0 ABY Dark Horse comics Star Wars Shadow of Yavin onwards

0 ABY Vader’s Quest

0 ABY River of Chaos

0 ABY Choices of One

0 ABY Vader Down

0 ABY Aphra

0 ABY Screaming Citadel

1 ABY Star Wars Galaxies

1 ABY Storms of Crait

1 ABY Rebellion comics

1 ABY Honor Among Thieves

2 ABY Splinter of the Mind’s Eye

2 ABY Empire and rebellion Razor’s Edge

2 ABY Target Vader

3 ABY Tie Fighter

3 ABY Rebel Heist

3 ABY ESB

3 ABY New Canon Marvel Star Wars vol 2

3 ABY Tie Fighter comic

3 ABY Tales of Bounty Hunters

3 ABY X-Wing VS Tie Fighter

3 ABY Ewoks tv show

3 ABY Shadows of Endor

3 ABY Ewoks Caravan of Courage

3 ABY Ewoks Battle for Endor

3 ABY Shadows of the Empire

4 ABY X-Wing Alliance

4 ABY Tales from Jabba’s Palace

4 ABY Mara Jade comics

4 ABY Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy

4 ABY Truce at Bakura

4 ABY Shattered Empire

4 ABY Alphabet Squadron

4 ABY Aftermath Trilogy

4 ABY X-Wing comics

4 ABY Shadows of the Empire Evolution

5 ABY Tales from New Republic

5 ABY Dark Forces 2

5 ABY Solo movie (is in-universe Han Solo and the Pirates of Kessel holofilm)

5 ABY Shadows of Mindor

6 ABY onwards X-Wing novels

8 ABY Courtship of Leia

8 ABY Tatooine Ghost

9 ABY The Mandalorian

9 ABY Thrawn Trilogy

10 ABY Dark Empire Trilogy

10 ABY Various Boba Fett comics

11 ABY onwards Crimson Empire Trilogy

11 ABY Jedi Academy Trilogy

11 ABY I Jedi

12 ABY Children of the Jedi

12 ABY Jedi Outcast

12 ABY Darksaber

12 ABY Planet of Twilight

13 ABY Leviathan

14 ABY Crytal Star

14 ABY Jedi Academy

16 ABY Black Fleet Crisis

17 ABY New Rebellion

18 ABY Corellian Trilogy

19 ABY Hand of THrawn

19 ABY Union

19 ABY Scourge

22 ABY Survivor’s Quest

25 ABY NJO

25 ABY Invasion

25 ABY Chewbacca comic

35 ABY Dark Nest Trilogy

40 ABY Legacy of the Force

41 ABY Riptide

43 ABY Falcon novel

43 ABY Fate of the Jedi

45 ABY Crucible

47 ABY Last Shot

60 ABY Bloodline

60 ABY Rise of Kylo Ren

60 ABY onwards Age of Resistance comics

60 ABY Force Collector

64 ABY Star Wars Special C-3PO

64 ABY Poe Dameron comics

64 ABY Resistance TV show

64 ABY Phasma

64 ABY TFA

64 ABY Galaxy’s Edge Black Spire

64 ABY Phasma comic

64 ABY The Last Jedi movie

64 ABY Resistance Reborn

64 ABY Allegiance comic

64 ABY Galaxy’s Edge comic

64 ABY Crash of Fate

65 ABY Rise of Skywalker

137-139 Legacy

 

Regarding the Medstar Duology, with both yours and @Sinrebirth's One Canon, it's my head canon that Barriss's experience with the bota caused her to snap, causing her to go rogue (framing Ahsoka) and then being imprisoned.

 

Yeah MedStar duology is still canon in Crucible Canon. Whether it was the bota or Barriss herself that caused her to go bad, one can only wonder. I'm still unsure about Reversal of Fortune, but if I kept it in that means Barriss was Revan'd. Due to Depa's importance in Kanan's backstory, she was definitely Revan'd.

 

One thing I didn't clarify in the above post (too much time has passed to edit it now) is since Leland Chee all but declared Reversal of Fortune non-canon when TCW Season 5 ended (he said in a tweet like Barriss will face justice and it can't be reconciled or something like that), I'm so far not including it in the timeline. It also makes it easier to ignore Clone Wars TPB 8 which also features good Barriss as of ROTS and where Quinlan gets a different ending from Dark Disciple.

Since Shatterpoint was never declared non-canon to Legends before the Disney buyout, it remains in the timeline and Depa was likely Revan'd, unless anyone has a better explanation.

 

She was never really a contemporary of Ahsoka. She just liked to hang around her so she could frame her. Barriss was a knight at the time of her arrest in Crucible Canon. Yeah a council member refers to her as a Padawan in Dark Disciple but he probably just misspoke.

Also Barriss was outed in public. Not as easy to cover up as Quin or Depa.

 

What if said Counciler did not misspeak but in fact she was sent to reconditioning/retraining as Padawan? Others had seen the same fate before her, so it is possible. By the time of ROTS then she is a Knight again and has her own Padawan as in Reversal of Fortune webstrips!
So long she is kept out of the public and media the Jedi can get away with it and Tarkin was busy elsewhere after trials, even Palpatine could save this precedent for using it as anti jedi propaganda later about them defying justice for their own benefits.

 

That's way too much going on in the last year of the Clone Wars. Since Leland all but declared the webstrip noncanon to Legends back in the day (I'll try to find the link), I'm inclined to go with that. Shatterpoint was never hinted at being noncanon until the buyout, so an explanation is made. But I try to minimize those when possible.

Even when an explanation is made, I try to keep it feeling "natural". for instance the Solo movie was about a heist of pirates on Kessel, so it fit just right with the "Pirates of Kessel" holofilm and allowed Crispin's trilogy to be preserved. The holofilm is a loose retelling of actual events in Solo's life. All we know is that Han made a Kessel Run for Crimson Dawn that ended with Dryden and Beckett dead, and Qi'ra in hiding. Qi'ra was likely a real girlfriend of Han's, but her being a childhood love interest was likely made up. Lando likely did have a droid that died and was uploaded to the Falcon. But all other stuff (like the totally different way Han saved Chewie) were just made up for the holofilm. I do wonder how the holofilm producers knew about Maul though.

The Corellian Sabacc game of Han winning the Falcon was definitely made up over the actual Cloud City Tournament events, and since Han was involved in production of the holofilm I think the portrayal of Lando as a cheating jerk was Han's "revenge" for Lando's actions in ESB.

I suspect the Empire was going to save the final reveal of Depa's history to break Kanan to the Dark Side. In fact Vader was probably prepping such a reveal when Kanan was taken to Mustafar to be tortured into an Inquisitor. As seen in Rebels, Vader never got a chance to properly do this. Once Maul got involved, Kanan became disabled and Vader decided not to waste resources into turning him and then going through the trouble of installing Count Vidian cybernetic eyes or Baron Tagge glasses.

I have no idea how to handle the House of Tagge business in Crucible Canon to be honest right now. I find it very strange Domina would never mention that Vader killed Cassio, but it's possible her Legends meetings with him predated Cassio's New Canon Marvel death.

 

Surprisingly forgiving of your.... rival's creation.

 

@Sinrebirth needs to remember the first and only reality of canon rulership. There can only be one! And he is no longer canon king. He has been... replaced!!!

Don't worry, I'm not going to kill One Canon. I have... other uses for it!!! (Actually I have no idea what those uses are, I'll have to get back on that).

 

This is the part where you are informed you are neither the first, nor will be the last, to attempt this.

 

So be it. As Pre Vizsla said: Only the strongest (canon merge theory) shall rule.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Tapatalk

 

So it's ... War?
...
Excellent.


Start the gambling odds, get the roulettes set up. Throw out the Jawa, we don't serve their kind.

 

Getting back to the topic of Crucible Canon, I find it adds a bit even to the Sequel Trilogy. Finn and Poe may not have realized that Chewie is very, very, very good at dejarik because he spent 20 years on an abandoned Vong world, when he wasn't working with Ackbar and Mothma and others to somehow create a holonet transmitter for a distress signal for the planet from almost nothing, having not much else to do other than play his favorite game.

Poe's much derided delivery of the line "Somehow, Palpatine has returned" gets more depth if you realize that Poe was an 8 year old kid the last time Palpatine returned in Dark Empire, and he surely heard the stories of how Empatojayos Brand promised Palpatine wouldn't ever come back. I do admit Poe himself may be one of the weakest elements of Crucible Canon, as he's 62 in Crucible Canon in The Force Awakens now having been shown in the OT era comics as a baby.

To be fair Liam Neeson was 46 when playing 60 year old Qui-Gon Jinn, so there's precedent even in Star Wars for characters looking younger than they are. Poe's upcoming novel about his time as a spice runner may be tough to fit into Crucible Canon, but likely not impossible. What's described in the previews as a teenage/young adult rebellion will likely have to be retconned into a midlife crisis for Poe.

 

Easy solution without needing to recontextualize the bulk of Free Fall: OT-era Poe is Poe Dameron, Sr. ST-era Poe is Poe Dameron, Jr.

 

Hmm, possible but I'm not ready to go there yet. Besides midlife crises are a thing. As long as the sequence of events is preserved (Poe tells his old dad Kes to go play in a fusion reactor and runs off with Zorri dealing spice and getting everyone from Tython to Takodana addicted), what difference does it ultimately make at what age it happens?

Plus, pretty sure Poe's dad will be identified by name as Kes Dameron in this novel, jettisoning any Poe Sr/Jr theory.

 

I think that a midlife crisis and a teenage rebellion are absolutely not interchangeable phenomenons.

Midlife crises are based around mortality and career/family stress. Teenage rebellions are about establishing independence from the "old" way of life espoused by parents.

This is why teenage rebels tend to fall in with counterculture (or organizations masquerading as counterculture, like drug runners) and men in their 40s tend to spend money unwisely in an attempt to look successful or change careers/go back to school.

Yeah, sure, maybe some 40-year-olds express their midlife crisis by becoming drug dealers. I doubt, however, that when Free Fall comes out people will have an easy time taking the dialog, character decisions, and context surrounding what is supposed to be a teenager/early-20s character and mentally refitting it around the concept of a midlife crisis.

 

As someone who's 36 and have no kids, kind of disagree. A lot of the same concerns I have now are actually the same that I had 20 years ago. Except now I know for sure because I saw with life experience that the things my parents told me 20 years ago were lies, whereas when I was a teenager I just suspected but didn't have the life experience to prove it. (keep in mind I was raised in very strict Asian family whose only concern was to make me a money making machine as fast as possible. The irony being once I got my advanced degrees, studied at Berkeley, worked with 2 Nobel laureates, and got a professional license and the six figure salary, my mother in particular dropped all pretense at even caring about my wellbeing. Not all Asian families are like this but they unforunately fit the stereotype)

To this day I wonder how my life would have been different if I followed my own interests in entertainment instead of the "become a doctor/engineer/lawyer" stuff drummed at me since childhood (and getting brutally screamed at if you even diverted from that path a millimeter). Maybe my making my own Star Wars timeline here is my partial way of making up for that.

And we just had a very successful story of a middle aged guy turning to drug dealing. It's called Breaking Bad.

And as someone who struggled to get a girlfriend into my 30s, Zorri actually allowing Poe to have a relationship with her has far, far, far more power for a 30+ or around 40 guy (to put it mildly) who's still single than a young 20 something who (mistakenly) thinks he could get a girlfriend if he really wanted. Enough power to make Poe turn to crime just so he can get a girlfriend because he saw all his life that doing the right thing was meaningless in regards to getting a date (something I have personal experience with, not the crime part I mean).

Also see Dooku who went bad at middle age/old age.

But we'll see when the novel comes out how it fits into Crucible Canon. I have concerns but am not too worried about it fitting.

 

So how many more one canons are incoming? TFN needs another forum for all kinds of one canon topics then... for I am preparing my own, far from prying eyes so far. With @Sinrebirth and @sidv88 playing their Clone War like Sidious and Dooku... I might raise my Shadow Collective as a third party to the game hehehe...

 

I didn't want to take thunder from @Sinrebirth in his own thread, so I made my own. People were asking canon questions and we would both give differing answers. My theory is very different from his. I think he has the ST mashed near Dark Nest Trilogy or something. To be honest I'm still not clear on how his timeline works because I never saw a year by year timeline of his take, something I created here on the very first post for my own timeline.

I just didn't understand how Ben Solo in his One Canon could exist with Jacen, Jaina and Anakin and never be mentioned. Jaina not being mentioned in the ST made more sense to me as she would be 36 years older than Kylo and they wouldn't really have a relationship other than someone he saw on Life Day every year as a kid. Once I saw that it was biologically possible for a 64 year old mother to have a kid, albeit rare, this new timeline all came together.

I guessed I wasn't the only person who felt the same and made my own thread, with my own year by year timeline. People who like it can help contribute!

 

Well so far I come down to agree 98% with Sinre's version. Yours has many benefits too, but I feel it is taking too many liberties to make it work whereas Sinre's version has some key alterations that see the rest fall in place naturally. But that statement is oversimplifying the complicated job you two are doing.

I can't see a late pregnancy like that for Leia. That is my main concern against your interpretation.

 

It's happened in reality: https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/28/asia/china-birth-older-woman-intl-hnk-scli/index.html . I assume with Leia Force stuff is involved maybe. Kylo being born was will of the Force or something. It's really mild considering Leia's grandmother Shmi.

What liberties do you feel are being taken? I might as well tackle them right now, that's what this thread is for. Near as I can tell the sequel trilogy itself can be moved into Crucible Canon as is without any issues.

It's the Aftermath, Bloodline, and Last Shot that has issues, and I do agree. However, I'm not seeing how it's much better over at One Canon either. My theory gives 20 entire years for Ben Skywalker and those other guys to find their way out of the story and for the ST guys to get their own prequel type works in. And no one's going to talk about Chewie's 20 year disappearance after he's made up for it by being back 20 years.

Most of the mess with merging OT canons also exists with One Canon. As it is right now, I've got Resistance and Poe's comic series moved over entirely without any changes, whereas I just don't see how those works can fit without awkwardness in an immediate post Vong Wars/Dark Nest timeline. The core background of those works, that the Republic has been at peace for decades and is caught off guard by the FO, works intact at 64 ABY, whereas the premise is gone out the window when placed closer to the Vong wars. Why have a Resistance when you have an army that just defeated the Yuuzhan Vong?

 

You raise great points there indeed. And right now I have neither the time nor right mind to tackle that, but I promise I will get back to it sooner rather than later.

In general though, a lot of One or Crucible canon elements hinge on perspective. Most seems to work if you take the makro perspective, but falls apart if going into details, depending which you value enough to keep and which you are willing to change or overlook. Given every fan has different preferences on that level, it's hard to come to a conclusion that would please everybody or most.

One one hand, you could aside makro and mikro perspectives also take another: Historians perspective that sees the entire tapestry of the gffa history being like the Journal of the Whills, an inuniverse history book that is neither 100% the truth, nor perfect and with conflicting historian opinions the truth is somewhere in the middle. Is any SW medium just a recreation of historical events? Is any SW medium 100% factful as it originally happened? Is any SW medium to be taken at face value or actually not at all? The same story told for children differs from it told to adults. See various levels of storytelling and target audiences and SW media reflects that, so does one have to take that into account when uniting and comparing all sources? Or were kids tales really as simple as presented? (see my many essays over the years on this topic as Cole and as Ceiran). It's like minimalism vs maximalism when it comes to the GFFA, be it fleet sizes, ship lengths or lots of other minimalist vs. maximalist interpretations of the saga. Another important factor is faninterpretation and retcons vs. original authorial intent and what to preserve first and foremost?

With all that in mind, I'd prefer to not have to pick and choose, to value or devalue certain pieces of the puzzle. So to make it all work somehow, I'd begin at the very core of SW: "A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away" sets us up for a piece of history as well as a piece of fiction, it is a modern myth, an ancient legend and much more. As that, SW is both, factual, yet not tied to nitpicking inconsistencies (like shjip interiors that do not fit into the exteriors!). SW has truth at its core, yet that truth can be clothed in a lot of vague mists of legend.

Another example of all unifying (fan)canon is Joe's Supernatural Encounters SW cosmology and multiverse theory that I quite like yet also would not agree with entirely given a focus and preference of some elements over others I value equal if not more than his preferences.

Of course it'd be easy to use flowwalking/timetravel, the World between Worlds and paralell universes for uniting all canons. But that is not why we are here. Still, I am not opposed to at least use these concepts to a degree to solve some tricky timeline issues while not separating universes entirely.

Where you or Sinre require dead characters to return or never have actually died, a simple flowwalk may solve this issue as well. Long psychologically mind altering prison times for these characters do work but are a stretch too. Minor flowwalks and tweaks can solve many issues but should be used not at all or only where it fits story and probably be kept rather contained, like for Jacen Solo and his goals when searching various futures and visiting certain pasts. Though, and while one could do many wonderful things with this, even create alternate post NJO events for Jacen and co, we are not to veer of into headcanon or fanfiction here (at least not too much), so we'll see how this may turn out.

So, do we take new canon as gospel and weave Legends in, or Legends as gospel and weave new canon in? Again personal preferences may differ here and both have something in their favor.

Legacy comics era too is interesting in how it fits with the ST (it does though it defeats the STs mark of finality and end of the Skywalker Saga). So do we give preference to making all fit, or to keep original intent and feels even at the cost of everything fitting?

Another point to consider is, what are we trying to achieve? Obviously to not loose anything and make it all work and fit. But at the cost of what? At the cost of detail? At the cost of feels and authorial intent? At the cost of a lot that made some of the stories we are moving around work and great? If the goal were to create the best story, the best SW possible (and I know people wouldn't even agree on what that would be), then it might be better to win some, loose some as much as it hurts. To even consider Lucas or other versions, or fantweaked and re-merged versions of Duel of the Fates and TROS.

Then there is my other hobby: Story archeology! What stories told in new eras with different characters were originally planned or supposed to be elsewhere with other characters? What got moved, merged, split that was meant for Legends and got turned into new canon?

And going back to mythology and legend: Which characters, if SW is myth, are in truth one and the same, and which are historically mergers of formerly actually separate characters and tales as happened often in history, myth, legend and fairy tale? Just see how the story of the Pied Piper evolved from vanishing kids to being kidnapped by a mysterious piper to else and its modern variants of Peter Pan and more! Arthurian Myth too is full of these. So SW is not free of it either. We had retcons merging characters (Blackhole, Cronal, etc.) and there is a lot more that can be done if analysing SW and tweaking it with these in mind. How many historical facts are actually fiction? How many fiction stories are actually history (hello Troy!). How many calendar changes lead to dating issues and misdating historic events, thus drawing wrong conclusions and corellations?


Well lots of points to consider...

So when crafting your, or my unified canon, we have many tools and many decisions to face.

 

Chewie has to be resurrected in any canon merge. If you place the Vong Wars pre sequel trilogy, Chewie must be revived. The other way around, Luke, Han and Leia must be revived. Chewie and Ackbar being stuck on a planet for 20 years is indeed harsh. However, assuming Chewie was as comfortable as possible (remember the Vong captors were likely all killed very early on) it lessens the trauma. Ackbar even in New Canon hardly saw his son anyway as seen in a Canon comic. By the time Chewie appears in TFA, he's been a free Wookiee for 20 years. Would the audience care at all that he was in exile 20 years before the film they're watching? No, it has no relevance to the film, which leads to my next discussion.

How I'm structuring Crucible Canon is based on the perspective that the EU/Legends and Disney Canon are 2 very different continuities at the core. The former, despite being a film franchise in origin, is book/comic/game based, while the latter is primarily film/tv based.

The old EU rose in the absence of new Star Wars films. Heir to the Empire and other works charted new territory. From that point on, the franchise was really book based because the only stories George had to tell went backwards in time. Even TPM changed the name of the capital to Coruscant to fit the books.

Disney Canon is primarily film/tv based. As such, undermining Aftermath, Bloodline or whatever makes little difference to me because they only exist to serve the films. And the authors' intents in those works go nowhere even in pure Disney Canon. Let's be honest, that business about a dark side source in the Unknown Regions led to nowhere. We're 3 issues in Rise of Kylo Ren comic and Leia's reveal of her relation to Vader isn't even mentioned. Bloodline is utterly unnecessary to understand the sequel films.

So Crucible Canon allows the new films to stand on their own and shine without interference from old EU, and lets old EU like the Vong wars stand on their own and shine without interference from new Canon. Thus the separation of 19 years between Crucible and The Force Awakens. One Canon in the other thread, near as I can tell, has the two timelines go right into each other, necessitating shadow brothers and the like and you're always reading one work with the knowledge that it doesn't really fit with a supposed concurrent work. The EU needs to stand on its own. Things like timelines and dates and stuff have more importance in written works, so the EU stays where it was originally assigned in the timeline in most cases.

The new films' timeline are actually NOT important to the films themselves. Nowhere in the films themselves does it say how many years after ROTJ they take place. All we need to know is that Luke, Leia and Han are old, and there's been peace for decades (thus the galaxy's unprepared state) and now that peace is gone. With all due respect to Sinrebirth, I feel One Canon throwing the ST smack into the same decade as the Vong Wars messes up the sequel trilogy's themes entirely.

Does the average film audience care whether Luke is canonically 53 or 83? It makes no difference to the story. In an interview, Patrick Stewart said he had no idea that Picard was supposed to be 94 (the actor himself is 79) and was shocked. Another Picard character who was at least 83 was played by a 51 year old! Did it make a difference to the story or performance? No. Likewise, Luke being 53 or 83 is irrelevant--we just need to know he's old.

Thus, it's far easier to move the sequel films' timeline while still preserving their story themes, than it is to move the EU books because those books have the timeline clearly written out and key to their story.

Does this muck up a few Disney canon tie-ins like Aftermath and Bloodline? Yep. But remember, those works existed only to serve the new films anyway, and were not intended to stand alone the way EU's stories like the Vong Wars, etc. were. Thus, it does less damage to the overall mythology to muck up Aftermath and Bloodline than it would be to muck up the Vong Wars by saying Ben Solo was always around but somehow missed mourning Anakin and Jacen or even taking part in the Vong war or interacting with anyone in any meaningful way.

Hopefully this makes my reasoning more clear. Plus, with Crucible Canon, you probably just need one short story circa 45 ABY explaining Chewie's rescue and Ben Solo's birth to make the sequel trilogy fit.

 

This is an IMAGINARY STORY (which may never happen, but then again may) about a perfect organization who fought for good. It tells of this organization's struggle against another perfect organization, who fought for evil. It tells of the good organization's rise, fall, re-rise, re-fall, spanning eternally into the past and into the future. It tells of the epic battles between republics and empires, between insurgents and governments, and of the sacrifices made by all combatants to ensure victory, no matter the odds, no matter what it takes.

This is an IMAGINARY STORY...Aren't they all?