Lit The Essential Atlas and Galactic Cartography: Official Discussion

I noticed the maps show lots of routes, yet not every route is on every map. Sure, I know why, but...

...will fans make a map featuring all, like an overlap of these nice maps?


CerianHarmony

I'm actually in the process of doing that right now. I wasn't sure if the online content would include a 'master map'. So far I've combined all the regional submaps plus the Yavin and Hutt space maps. More to do though. My goal was to have a map that had every plotted planet included. The file is being made in Illustrator and is big right now (100 megs). Turning it into a pdf should make it smaller (and zoomable).

Jason and Dan, you had asked folks to post things we find. In making my map, I noticed Cathar is plotted in two separate places (I'm at work and can't recall which two regions it appears in). But regardless, awesome book.

 

The Essential Atlas has finally arrived! It looks wonderful. It's very hard to say anything about it because I haven't read anything thoroughly. But it's got loads of information. I would have liked to have a bigger map and perhaps even an accessory map that could have been detached from the book. I would glady have paid more for this accessory.

Great positioning of Pantora near Alzoc III. It sure explains the presence of the Talz on Orto Plutonia.

Some initial questions (I'm sure more will follow):
# Are Zelakesh and Dandelo from the Droids Cartoons supposed to be part of the Tammuz-An System? If not, why weren't they included in the index? They were featured in Droids.

# On the map of AotC, the line of Anakin en Padmé shows that they head from Geonosis to Naboo. According to 'Wild Space', Anakin recovers first on Coruscant from his wounds before taking Padmé back to Naboo.

PS: My favorite 'easteregg' from CW: Ultimate Battles is Coachelle Automata making the LEP Servant Droids I fear this book will easily be forgotten. It's a got a lot of new information about the CW Series.

 

still interesting though.. if the humanoid Sharu once had been starfish shaped or evolved from such a shape (be it early phase of life OR ancient precedessor to the species (like apes => humans)... so the Sharu created the Silentium? hehe

 

Hi, no matter how large the file or what format... I want it

 

Ok, I've been hearing some stuff thrown around in here about a Mando queen and the "new Mandos" that're in the Atlas. Anyone want to shed some light on this?

 

I'd have to look back at DE1, as it has been so long that I'm not at all sure when Cyax segments occur (that and I'm kinda fuzzy from a nap right now).

Actually, wait . . . Hmm. My comment earlier about Anakin being born around the turn to 11 ABY seems to have been right based on the internal info we've been given with him as an infant in EE and born at the end of DE2, but that isn't consistent with the Holocron info I have in front of me from Leland a while back.

It's definitely not something pinned down with any specificity. It looks like the Holocron must assume DE right at the beginning of 11 ABY, then DE2 six months into the year, with Empire's End, presumably (though not in the file I have), right at the change of the year. Hmm. That doesn't make the Cyax conception numerically possible (though I don't believe anyone has ever said flat-out that Cyax was the conception moment, and plenty of the DE audio drama is handled differently than the comics).

This is probably one to toss over to Leland. I'll email him and get back to you if he has the chance to reply. Hmm.

 

Much obliged, Nathan!

 

The "New Mandalorians" is a movement caused by Republic/Jedi attacks on the Mandalorians in the 730s BY; they were devastated, and the majority of the Mandalorians apparently adopted a pacificistic approach in order to not incur further assaults. They are the dominant school of thought among the Mandalorians by the Clone Wars, at least during Season Two. The "Death Watch" and "True Mandalorians" from Open Seasons are now 'splinter groups' trying to keep the old Mandalorian traditions alive.
The "Queen" is Duchess Sateen from the Season Two trailer. Her homeworld is Kalevala, which is in the Mandalore system but separate from Mandalore.
The Atlas goes on to say that the "Death Watch" splinter group ends up slapping down the New Mandalorians eventually during the Clone Wars.

 

Okay, so, I'm sitting here sort of slack jawed.

I emailed Leland with a question about Anakin's birthdate, hoping to determine whether it would make more sense for his official birthdate to be more like near the very end of 10 ABY, rather than saying 10.5 ABY, which would have been tough with Thrawn Trilogy and Dark Empire internal timing. I figured I'd hear back in a day or two, when he had a moment.

Instead, super-fast, he replied, sending an updated version of that Holocron file I'd had during the Atlas work . . . including that exact fix, based on my suggestion.

: blink :

So, yeah, Anakin being born more around 46:2 makes more logical sense (and again, that reiterates that "near the end of 10 ABY" would mean around "46:2," since a year relative to Yavin would run Month 3 through Month 2 on the digital calendar).

In theory, you could use that to date back, I suppose, but I do not think that the conception was ever pinned down. I'll ask him about that, but I'm pretty sure it's not been pinned down, so any dates derived from Anakin's birth would be somewhat speculative at this point.

Plus, remember, anything we could conjecture would just be fan speculation anyway, as nothing is Canon unless LFL goes with it or publishes it, y'know? (Though that fast update of the Anakin Solo birthdate leaves me a bit in shock.)

 

[image=http://www.mydwynterstudios.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/normal_colbert_headdesk.jpg]

 

Then Pellaeon would have little right to complain about "one major shipyard", and the Empire's shipyard resources would remain at two-thirds the level they had in 9 ABY, indeed greater than they were before Thrawn supplemented Bilbringi with access to the Alignment - of course, there's also the question of why Thrawn didn't have access to Jaemus, too...

So this means that the "Planetary Governors" are the Moffs, so the "Diet of Impeiral Planetary Governors" allied with the Ruling Council in Crimson Empire IS likely to be the Mofference?

I approve!

What next? Crimson Empire III: Diet of Worms?

This makes some sense; Tarkin organized "priority sectors", but it makes sense that the oversector Moffs got Grand Moff powers as part of that. Especially as Tarkin was presumably already an Oversector Moff...

Is there any indication how the oversectors and normal sectors interacted before the change? I could see the "normal sectors" being outside the oversectors' control, and the Tarkin Doctrine facilitating the exchange of territory between them - so while Outer, Zero and Five all become Priority Sectors with Grand Moffs, some oversectors (like Three) might have just ordinary Moffs, with smaller sectors being given Grand Moffs and more responsibility and territory...

I wonder if there was a plan at some point to identify Prefsbelt IV with Anaxes, which would have been a problem because The Star Wars Sourcebook clearly implies it wasn't (the top third of cadets at Prefsbelt IV don't automatically qualify for flight school, which the top third do at the central Imperial Naval Academy, which I suspect Jason really created Anaxes to be)...

In the same novel, Jacen says the same thing about Borleias that he does about Mygeeto. I'm not quite sure why, but it shows that his description of Mygeeto can also apply to a planet with an abandoned military base, an abandoned research outpost, and a few squatters...

Jello posted:

---

They did ask to be included, yes, but the advisors refused them proportional voting--suggesting that they were the ones with the authority to grant the conditions of the election. Further, the advisors were to sit as a "legislative body" to approve the decisions of the new emperor. In other words, they are holding the position formerly held by the Senate--not the mofference.[hr][/blockquote]

The Advisors are here acting as a regency executive, trying to hold onto their powers; I'm not sure what exactly the "proportional voting" issue is, but it

 

Honestly, the NJO dates have two things going for them in terms of Anakin's age:

1. The exact dates as given in the Atlas for the NJO (which I'm still waiting to hear about; we might have maps showing different than the label, though we're waiting on Eddie to check on that when he returns from a vacation) are only durations. Star by Star runs a month, The Unifying Force Runs about three months, and all the hardbacks but Vector Prime (based on info in Jedi Eclipse and Balance Point) begin at the start of a new year. (VP is more like 2 months into the year.) No other more specific dates were pinned down due to the sheer number of them, internal date inconsistencies, and Invasion having just begun.

2. The NJO books already screwed up the ages of the Solo kids repeatedly.

That being said, that pinned-down Anakin birthdate is basically what was being assumed by EU writers anyway. Remember that JJK and books using that as an age reference point already were calling him 11 in 22 ABY, which put his birthdate right at the change from 10 to 11 ABY anyway. The only place I think the birthdate was rounded down instead of up was in the info Leland sent me to work on the Atlas. Having pinned down a birth month for him should affect nothing, as it was already what was basically being assumed by most of the authors anyway.

 

T McE:

I still don't necessarily see a problem... During the times that Kaine threw in his lot with the loyalists, it seems he did so haltingly and without great relish. It even reads as though his petulence resulted in his death when the clone of Palpatine came back onto the scene. So, when Thrawn is appointed Supreme Commander, Kaine puts his money where his mouth is about supporting a worthy commander and grants men, materiel, and hulls to the war effort, along with Yaga Minor. But, as a Grand Moff, he still has largely unchecked control over his jurisdiction, and he keeps Jaemus largely to himself, likely as a 'personal asset to the oversector's governor-general' or somesuch. While Pellaeon had the clout of being able to 'federate' Sector Fleets, Thrawn may not have had as much political horsepower against a Grand Moff at the time he was in command of the Fleet.

When Thrawn is assassinated, the Pentastar Alignment (which doesn't read as being as formal a state as I initially thought*) seems to have stayed pro-Imperial, but stayed out of the march to Coruscant. When the dust from the Dark Empire debacle settles, Pellaeon 'renegotiates' with the remainder of the Alignment's personnel, and--lacking a Grand Moff to counter his overtures--essentially succeeds in absorbing the place wholesale.

Chronologically, Jaemus only seems to be active until the invasion by Ackbar and Bel Iblis. After which, Yaga Minor is left standing as the only major shipyard in the Empire. I, for one, automatically inferred that Jaemus had been razed by the New Republic during their offensive, even though it's not explicitly stated. That said, the placement of Gravlex Med inside the then-borders of the Empire is also problematic, as Pellaeon was supposed to have executed a daring raid on a Republic shipyard at Gravlex Med, culminating in the recapture of the Chimaera...

*The warlords, for the most part, actually don't sound as ex-Imperial in the Atlas as they did in a lot of previous works. Up until the Dark Empire debacle's fallout, they seldom wage open warfare against each other, and most of them don't seem to have renounced their allegiance to their ideals of the New Order--Ardus Kaine, for example, seems to have established his fiefdom more out of a refusal to acknowledge the competence or legitimacy of the post-Palpatine executive stand-ins than an actual desire to create a new state with himself at its head...

 

No, the smallest Moff rank is "subsector Moff", next is "regional Moff", then "Grand Moff". Planetary governors are still planetary governors.

He was; the three Moffs in the HNN article detailing the "birth of the Empire" all rule Oversectors - Moff Tarkin had the Greater Seswenna oversector, which turned into Oversector Outer after the reorganization. The Imperial Oversector is said to be one of the few to have virtually the same boundaries after the reorganization.

Initially, I'd assume all sectors would be under oversector control, given that they matched the 'territory' of each of the 20 Systems Armies. Later, they could be shifted around or created, like the Bright Jewel Oversector, which indicates that some regions might indeed have only have Moffs and not Grand Moffs.

The text of the Mygeeto entry indicates that there are military forces always there post-Clone Wars, enough to keep it safe - just that the planet hasn't been recolonized. That probably indicates settlements, but that it isn't open to the general public - spacers can't just pop in for a refuel and bite to eat.

Muunilinst is near its center. Yaga Minor is in Prefsbelt Sector, at the bottom left corner of the Alignment. Ord Trasi isn't right on the border, but it is in a remote location in Relgim Sector. They're certainly more on the outskirts that Jaemus.
So, easy solution - Thrawn got access to the shipyards by pledging to defend them with his forces. Also, Kaine was probably playing political games - he seemed to have ambitions for the Pentastar Alignment to be the center of the new Empire (which it did, in the end); which would also explain why he was killed during Operation Shadow Hand instead of absorbed into the Dark Empire.
In any case Jaemus doesn't seem to be a tremendous asset, at least not compared to Bilbringi or even Yaga Minor - the old "Pentastar Alignment" article says that it is "almost as large" as Sluis Van, and the only ships mentioned being made there are the Enforcer-class pickets.

 

... how much of Star by Star is covered in this...?

Probably quite sensible, overall... but I'd have put two years between Balance Point and the end of Star by Star... not least since Outcast fixes Tahiri at sixteen in Allston's duology, and Abyss establishes that Ben's two at the start of Force Heretic...

*passes you an icepack*

Where are you thinking of, exactly? The only "inconsistencies" I'm aware of are with a couple of people wrongly forgetting Jaina's nineteenth birthday in Dark Journey, an easy error to explain, and Han saying Ben's four months old in SbS, which seems to fit with your timeline, but which I'd say is just Han being Han...

I guess this probably works - my concern is more that the ABY/BBY dates are wrong (as I said, I'd have fitted the Thrawn Trilogy to CoPL with a much tighter gap)... but I suspect that's inevitable now - and right now, I'm tired.

- The Imperial Ewok

 

Come on, it could have been a lot worse than this. In fact, based on what it says in the Atlas as far as Spar eventually leading members of the Death Watch to defeat Satine and the New Mandalorians in the Clone Wars is probably a good thing since it may mean we get to see Spar in the series. They could have damaged continuity a lot worse than that. This way, most of what happens in the series is probably retconned before it even appears on TV.

 

I'm not understanding the question. Can you rephrase that? Are you meaning how much of Star by Star is on a particular map?

Tahiri's age was definitely wrong in the Enemy Lines duology. She was born in 13 ABY (and was introduced as 9 in the JJK books). With the JJK books in 22 ABY, that puts her at 14 or, at the oldest, 15, in Enemy lines. (She was nine in the start of 22 ABY, BUT Anakin first thinks she "can't be older than 10," which might suggest she was nine but nearly ten.) That's another of those ages that was screwed up during the NJO materials. The ages of many of the YJK/JJK characters were all over the place, which has been acknowledged since.

As for Ben, I don't know if I can actually give the date, but suffice to say that Ben has an exact birthdate. I'd say that as long as the Force Heretic stuff is pushing into the second half of the year, I think Ben being two in that trilogy is probably safe from clashes.

I'm thinking of Rebirth (in 26 ABY) giving Jaina (born in 9 ABY) the age of 18 (impossible), not 17 (possible, as would possibly be "almost 17"), then Star By Star (27 ABY) building upon that and claiming that the twins are 19 (impossible), not 18 (possible, though more like "almost 18" if we take the time of year of their birth into account, which most authors never do).

With regard to the NJO, the rule of thumb was always that the hardbacks began each new year. Internally, the dates just plain don't work. They're not consistent across books, sometimes not across the same book series, and not with the "five hardbacks starting five years" party line. The approach therefore that was taken to the NJO dates was to take the stated fact of the hardbacks being the change into each new year, then work around that.

As it turned out, the beginning of Vector Prime is cited as 10 (not 12) months earlier in Balance Point (with other references in Jedi Eclipse), which placed Vector Prime two months into 25 ABY (60:5), rather than at the specific start of that year (which would've been 60:3). That left Balance Point in 61:3, Star by Star in 62:3, Destiny's Way in 63:3, and The Unifying Force in 64:3. The instructions we had on the maps, though, was that the first would cover VP through the end of Agents of Chaos (though we noted the duration as all the way up to Balance Point for consistency), the second would cover from the start of Balance Point through the END of Star by Star (not the beginning), and the last would cover from the end of Star by Star onward.

What that basically meant was that we needed to determine the duration of SBS and TUF, which Eddie figured out as 1 month and 3 months, approximately. That meant that the first map would run 60:5 - 61:3 (to, not through), the second would cover 61:3 - 62:4 (taking the month duration of SBS into account), then the last would pick up at 62:4 and go through TUF, which carried us far enough into "64:X" to reach 64:6.

Now, Modi recently asked us whether there was something odd with the dates because he seems to be thinking that the second map covers through Destiny's Way, not just Star by Star, which might mean that we had two teams (map and dates) that had two different sets of instructions on what the second and third maps would cover. I'm still awaiting word on whether that actually happened

 

On Mygeeto, it simply must have some population if its a "Banking Center". Would a banking center not require bankers? Bankers plus military would be the bare minimum I'd think. I'd still imagine more myself being that it was previously populated by the Muun, but its really the "none" that I can't grasp.

As for the former Muun population, even if they left in 3ABY when the Rebels briefly took the planet, why would they not then later return? Mygeeto has often been tied to Muunilinst and the IGBC in the prior sources that I've seen. Granted, Rebel Force presents the IGBC as long gone. I still suspect the the Muun have a significant invovlement in the Imperial banking scene, and probably involvement with Mygeeto still as well.

As to Borleias and Bilbringi, in Revelation Pellaeon mentions that both Systems(assuming Borleias means the Pyria System) have small populations and that the Empire may have to fight to take them. I think that points toward Borleias having some population as I don't think Pellaeon would be concerned about potential fighting if it amounted to only a handful of beings.

Since the word "system" is clearly used in relation to Borleias its possible the population mentioned isn't even on that planet but in other areas. But it does make it clear that the Pyria System was what was offered, not the single planet of Borleias.

Further on Mygeeto, the text seems cut off a little short in the Planet section. If the Vong did attack Mygeeto then it must have fallen? Maybe this could explain the idea of the zero population beyond Mygeetans.

I just seem to have more questions now than answers about Mygeeto .

Orinda seems to be flip flopping like a fish out of water now too. I would have thought it at minimum a fortress world of the Empire, not flip flopping back and forth from Republic to Empire to Republic to Empire.

Maybe it moved back to the Republic after the signing of the Bastion Accords? Thats my best guess, but its something this inquiring mind would like to know

On the Atlas maps its clearly within Imperial space(page 207) with the path of the Republic Advance going no where near it.(Page 207) Yet the next map we see shows it beyond Imperial Space and attacked by the Vong.(Page 217)

I'm very excited to see the eight sectors of the Imperial Remnant as displayed in the Penstar Alignment on page 202. I've got all kinds of things to work on with these once I find the time. Working for a living is cutting into my Atlas time

 

Hi everybody: Part 3 of the Atlas Endnotes series is now posted! You can check it out at:

Geekosity
Starwars.com blogs

Dan

 

good catch on Cathar

p32 Cathar near Dathomir in Outer Rim [KOTOR placement]
but
p21 near Ploo in Expansion Region [WOTC placement]

Jason revised the location due to KOTOR, but apparently the original WOTC placement was not removed....I think that is what happened

 

Yes, that's right -- the Expansion Region placement should have been removed.

 

I don't see that Gactimus being a moon need be an error. Gactimus is pretty stinkin important to Tritonites, I can see them naming a moon after him easily.

 

someone please point me to our old topic about NJO internal dating...

Knowing the ages are off is... well good since it created more headaches than it did help to determine the placements. Though what does this mean for post-NJO stuff that is based on NJO ages?

I know it is covered in some posts here and maps in the Atlas somehow but... can somebody please post for me a short rundown of the most important NJO dates and birthdays? Too tired right now to extrapolate everything myself.

Nathan, if ages are off in the NJO, how are the birthdays of characters kept that take place within some of the novels and are seen in there? The month of birth would be very off then or the whole birthday would not make sense if we retcon some of the ages. Hmm?

 

The obscure phone game Imperial Ace was referenced? That's so awesome!

 

Jason, could you indicate which of the following are correct in cases of seeming double placements:

1)the relationship between the apparently new planets Archais and Taskeed vs the cities of those names (on Alsakan and Yefowr respectively)? Which events and battles tie in to which?

2) Also, the maps and appendix seem to be missing Amara, homeworld of the Amarans (ie, Amara Fox-type vulpinoids!); this should be near Ambria IIRC

3) was Outland Station rebuilt after Bounty Hunter since y'all say Imps and Rebels used it?

4) why Farrfin got moved

5) which location for Merakai is correct (p12 location or Shelsha Sector as per p16)

6) whether Nierport and Eeropha are in the same star system--I don't know of anything in JQ to either confirm or contradict that

7) why y'all place Skye so far from Tirahnn

8) whether Tovarskl is in the same system as Kalee (p70) or a separate system as per p202

9) whether Quanta Sector/Tinnel IV is in Core (p12) or Colonies (p190)

other questions:

10) which of the worlds associated with Yakh-Tosh, if any, are supposed to be Lourdes's planet from Starcrash

11) also, if Demophon was on one of the "Big Routes", wouldn't its supernova have ruined that route from Rebellion times onward?

12) are the following alien species or just human populations:
Selitani, Ereesi, Mikans (=Jellyfish statue-people???), Killam, Nimm people (depopulated and/or priests), Barisoni, Ornki of Orn Kios, Delphon "primitive culture", Seratians of Serat