The unofficial Timelinetroubleshooting Discussion (Canon, Continuity and Fans)

We got one for Cartography... we got multiple timeline related topics. Lets at last try to concentrate some of them in here and sort out the mess of overcrowded areas of EU.
Of course very special topics can stay separate, like NJO, like Clone Wars, like timeframe between ANH & TESB.
but lets discuss issues here first if possible?



I start with an EU gem I just discovered in my hunt for rare comics:

The Imperial Spy from the sw kids mag



I like the story and since post ANH is crowded, would like to read your thoughts on the matter?

issues:

starts few days post Anh
ENDS: with the evacuation of Yavin and Vaders fleet arriving afterwards

trouble?
Vader early in his hyperbaric chamber on executor... evacuation before 6 months post ANH? and others...

 

We've been talking about the evacuation a lot in my Marvel thread...long story short, yeah, we're pretty much stuck with 6 months ABY, after which they're kind of all over the place for a while.

I haven't read the story, but the Ex took a good couple years to build (even ignoring TFU), so if the problem is just that Vader's seen in his chamber at one point, there's no reason to think that that room wasn't done way before the rest of the ship, like the DS2 throne room. Now if the Ex is shown kicking around the galaxy and it's demonstrably a good amount of time before the evacuation, then that's a problem.

Edit: wait, maybe I misread your post - are you saying it depicts the evac as sooner than 6 months ABY? Is it possible that it could span that amount of time?

 

the ex does not even appear. just vader in a hyperbaric chamber like his on the ex, and talk about HIS fleet arriving at Yavin soon to invade. so I assumed it is the ex. also does this fleet arrive at the end and invade after all rebels are already gone and the traitor/Imperial spy is left behind.

PS: since this comic is rare, I could make it availeable to those who do not know it, if that is allowed. it is just a couple of pages, not a real comic but more a continuing series from the sw kids mag.

the comics internal dating is:

starting after ANH with Leia not asleep since the end of ANH... so seems to be 1-3 days post ANH where we begin. they are looking into several possible locations for new bases to evacuate Yavin but it is very well explained WHY it took them so long to leave. 1st finding a suitable base is not as easy as one might thing, 2nd the Imperial blockade, 3rd an Imperial Spy hacked their computer and sent their base proposalds to Vader personally.

well, in short: my basic concern is: wasn´t Vader out of contact with his crashed Tie? for a week or 1 month at last?

then they do a spy hunt, well done actually
later they evacuate Yavin after the spy was discovered, leaving him behind to Vaders invasion force.

so it seems to be an early evacuation since it does not match with the marvel/newspaper strip one including Dodonna etc. maybe the rebels moved back in to Yavin for whatever weird reason, but both evacuations can´t work as the same.

another interesting tidbit is the inclusion of Alderaanian survivors arriving at Yavin in Bail Organas personal ship, another Corellian Corvette. seems Bail sent them away and stayed behind to save as many as possible.

and in the beginning, why I think it is few days up to 1 week ABY, we see Luke and Red Squadron return from a mission to get more X-Wings since their old ones are heavily damaged or not fit to fly. Luke sends the Reds away to get even more and stays with Leia and Han.


wookieepedia has a good summary, link I posted above

EDIT: the comic could span a longer time than it was meant to be. in between issues (of the kids mag) it might have gaps of a few days. but it isimpossible to be 6 months. 2-3 max. I'd say. but all the chars wear their ANH celebration clothes.

might be stretched to 6, but still both evacs are very different. we'd have to check what Luke/Leia/Han were up to during each to make sure if there is room for all this.


a proposal:

maybe Leia sent away a large chunk of rebel forces and supplies with this first evacuation to not endanger them, sending them to lesser bases, since they did not yet have a new main base at the end.

the rest digged in and went into hiding, waiting until Vaders invasion force left again? might work with the several battles of Yavin (post-Yavin) where the Imperials won 1 and the rebels all others, taking the moon back on the ground. some forces might also hide on the other Yavin moons. maybe they just evacuated to them and did not leave the system yet?

 

Is the only crucial Yavin dating the one about Leia not having slept since the battle? To me, even saying that she wasn't slept for so much as a minute in 3 days is a little implausible after everything she's been through, so here's a thought - she hasn't slept well since the battle. What with the imminent Imperial attack, and the thousand comic/strip adventures she's been on since then.

 

that'd work. though we need the evacuation solved, if my idea does not work. if it does we are ok, and Vader works, too then.

 

hmm yub

and his name is Rogor
a Rebel officer and security Guardsman...

 

Okay, someone please help me out here... I thought there were two evacuations, the initial one within a few days of the Battle of Yavin - followed by the blockade and a skeleton staff on the moon to keep the Imperials busy there - and then the final escape from Yavin after the Ex was built.

 

Who's to say that the chamber isn't on some other ship?

 

I thought that was just fan speculation?
I've also heard that Battlefront: Renegade Squadron also portrays an evacuation, which is more consistent with "Imperial Spy" than the old comics. Is this true?

 

Can you post the quote from the comic? This wouldn't seem to make much sense even if you only take Star Wars Kid's own continuity into account. Star Wars Missions #1-9 would have to take place before this comic, as well as the Rebel Thief and X-Wing Marks the Spot comics.

That's essentially the retcon we have to live with. It's certainly not a perfect retcon, but it does help to solve some other timeline difficulties. Since this is the Unofficial Timelinetroubleshooting Discussion (great thread idea, BTW), I'll explain it in detail. (You may want to pull up a chair and pop yourself a Star Racer, 'cause it might take awhile.)

Q-7N

Q-7N is a droid character that appears in both the Star Wars Missions books and the Star Wars Kids comics. In Star Wars Missions #20, Q-7N is destroyed. These Missions books also reference the newspaper comics, and are written to lead directly into the comics. This would place them before the Yavin evacuation storyline with the Executor. If Q-7N is destroyed before the Yavin evacuation, this creates problems with the "Imperial Spy" comic under discussion, since Q-7N evacuates with the rest of the Rebels. But if we assume there were two different evacuations, there is no problem.

Tycho Celchu

The X-Wing novel Wedge's Gamble states that Tycho Celchu joined the Rebel Alliance shortly after the Yavin evacuation. Unfortunately, Star Wars Missions #18 has Tycho with the Rogues *before* the evacuation. If we assume that Tycho joined after this this first evacuation, again, no timeline problems. Which brings us to the final point:

Rebel Strike

The video game Rebel Strike has its own, unique version of the Yavin evacuation. Unlike in the newspaper comics, General Dodonna actually survives the evacuation, and actually oversees missions occuring after the evacuation. These missions include the defection of Tycho Celchu (see above). Now, there are many differences between the Rebel Strike evacuation and the Imperial Spy evacuation, but in light of all the timeline problems caused by the timing of Tycho's defection and Dodonna's survival, it is far easier to reconcile Rebel Strike with Imperial Spy than the newspaper comics.

My timeline for the events surrounding "Imperial Spy" looks like this:

(A New Hope)
THE DAY AFTER THE DEATH STAR
STAR WARS MISSIONS #1: ASSAULT ON YAVIN
STAR WARS MISSIONS #2: ESCAPE FROM THYFERRA
STAR WARS MISSIONS #3: ATTACK ON DELRAKKIN
STAR WARS MISSIONS #4: DESTROY THE LIQUIDATOR
EMPIRE #14: THE SAVAGE HEART
STAR WARS #0: KEEPER?S WORLD
PIZZAZZ #10-16 (SWW#57-59): THE KINGDOM OF ICE
WAR ON ICE

(TWO WEEKS AFTER THE BATTLE OF YAVIN)

REBEL FORCE #1: TARGET
REBEL FORCE #2: HOSTAGE
SCIENCE ADVENTURES #1: EMERGENCY IN ESCAPE POD FOUR
SCIENCE ADVENTURES #2: JOURNEY ACROSS PLANET X
STAR WARS #7: NEW PLANETS, NEW PERILS (ALTA #1) (pages 119-124)
STAR WARS #7: NEW PLANETS, NEW PERILS (ALTA #1) (page 124-end)
STAR WARS #8: EIGHT FOR ADUBA-3
STAR WARS #9: SHOWDOWN ON A WASTELAND WORLD
STAR WARS #10: BEHEMOTH FROM THE WORLD BELOW
STAR WARS #11: STAR SEARCH
STAR WARS #12: DOOMWORLD
STAR WARS #13: DAY OF THE DRAGON LORDS
STAR WARS #14: THE SOUND OF ARMAGEDDON
STAR WARS #15: STAR DUEL!
STAR WARS #24 SILENT DRIFTING (ALTA #2: DE)
STAR WARS #70: THE STENAX SHUFFLE (flashback) (ALTA #5: FB)

(ONE MONTH AFTER THE BATTLE OF YAVIN)

*SCOUNDREL?S LUCK
THE EARLY ADVENTURES #4: TATOOINE SOJOURN
STAR WARS MISSIONS #9: REVOLT OF THE BATTLE DROIDS
STAR WARS KIDS #1-5: THE REBEL THIEF
STAR WARS MISSIONS #10: SHOWDOWN IN MOS EISLEY
STAR WARS MISSIONS #11: BOUNTY HUNTERS VS. BATTLE DROIDS
STAR WARS MISSIONS #12: THE VACTOOIN

 

seems right.. but why is Vader back so early?

 

I think it's safe to jot down Han's line as exaggeration, considering all the other stories that have to come before this one. I can't take too much credit for the timeline--I've had lots of discussions with Mavrick and Nightowl about how the stories in the ANH-TESB period fit together, and have taken a lot of it from their timelines

TC

 

Is it confirmed that through Rogor, Vader knew where Yavin 4 was all along?!

And... do we have a good timeline for Vader's various activities after Yavin? Vader's returns to Coruscant in The Savage Heart seems to contradict his seeming recovery inside his TIE cockpit in Scoundrel's Luck, yet Captain Sodarra's mission to recover the TIE, and the rivalry between Vader and Nox Vellam, both from that second version, have recurred in later references; similarly, we have two versions of how Vader discovered Luke's name, one on Centares, combining events of Marvel #35 and Vader's Quest, the other in Perfect Evil (which also appears to contain a THIRD version of Vader's return to Coruscant, and a completed Executor as well! ).

My suggestion is this [retcons in brackets]:

1.) The Savage Heart: Vader returns to Coruscant.

2.) Scoundrel's Luck: Sodarra and his stormtrooper unit, an élite group personally loyal to Vader [501st? Torrent Company?] go [WITH Vader] to recover the TIE; meanwhile, Palpatine transfers some worlds from Vellam's oversector to Vader's control, as punishment for Vellam's failure to discover the Rebel base inside his oversector [Admiral Griff's dual loyalties suggest this may have included Executor and Fondor]; this leads to the events of Scoundrel's Luck: Vellam attempts to asssassinate Vader, and Sodarra attempts to return with Vader and the TIE to Coruscant, but Vader [either due to exhaustion after Yavin 4, or injuryes sustained in attacks by Vellam's troops] is in a hibernation meditation inside his cockpit. What follows is an undeclared civil war between Vellam Vader's forces, including the Executor [which Vader's forces hurried out of dock due to the threat that Griff might seize the ship], commanded by Captain Piett and [an] Admiral Ozzel[, NOT Kendall Ozzel, who's commanding Reprisal in Shelsa Sector].

Han helps Vader escape [and doesn't tell the Rebels about the SSD].

3.) Marvel #35 / Vader's Quest: [the Executor is returned to dock, and] Vader discovers Skywalker's name on Centares, returns briefly to Coruscant, and has his first face-to-face confrontation with the young man; then he returns to Coruscant, and Palpatine plans to greet him with a "Hello, Skywalker".

4.) Perfect Evil: Vader returns to Coruscant [from the events of Vader's Quest], and is given the Executor [which then returns to Fondor for completion]; Vader [who secretly ALREADY knows about young Skywalker] meditates and [having previously been confused about his exact identity] figures out that he's his son by Padmé.

I wonder if we could place Darth Vader Strikes between Vader's Quest and Perfect Evil, too, to allow the Executor to be back in dock, but I'm not sure if it's too closely tied to Revenge of the Jedi to allow that, or if Vader knows too much about his son during the trap at Fondor there?

Any problems left in that?

- The Imperial Ewok

 

Yes.

Perfect Evil.



NOT. CANON.

And I don't know why something with the Infinities label plastered all over it (albeit in the wrong places in the British version, so I've been told) is allowed to make it's way into the canon at large.

 

*waves English flag*

God bless Perfect Evil.

 

So you are Sinre.

You're talking utter nonsense. Infinities label = Infinities.

The only thing I can cling to is the fact that Abel mentioned that the inclusion of Tao in the still unpublished Vader's Legacy was a "high brow version of a low brow joke"... so Perfect Evil might not be made canon in the way everyone seems to think after all.

 

Then it certainly has the potential to be canon.

Darth Vader scream and all.

I thought that'd secure any concerns you had about my identity. I'm mightily tempted to simply get a 'Sinre' sock to cover these moments of technical problems, now.

 

sounds good so far... but I still am looking for that Tao stories and the 2 editions of special Star Wars mangas... meh... nowhere to be found.

PS: could this minor civil war between Vader and Vellam be the start of several minor civil wars leading up to the "Zaarin Insurrection" from Tie Fighter where Zaarin + Allies unite? or is Zaarin just one of the many minor ones.

we also have other insurgencies, like "To Take the Tarkin" shows another one.

 

Germans can't order from amazon.co.uk? link and link

 

we can but I have no credit card... and amazon.uk does only take credit card. weird but true.

 

I'd prefer to think that Rogor didn't manage to infiltrate the Rebel base until after the Battle of Yavin. Which raises an interesting question: why didn't Rogor (or Sarkli, for that matter) tell Vader about Luke Skywalker? Blackhole mentions in Gambler's World that he has infiltrated the Rebel base; perhaps Rogor was one of his agents, and under orders not to reveal Skywalker's existence...?

Mine works something like this:

1. Vader limps to Vaal, crash lands his fighter, returns to Coruscant in a shuttle to meet with Palpatine. (Empire #14: The Savage Heart)

2. Instead of meeting with the Emperor, Vader is commanded by Sate Pestage to return to Vaal and retrieve his fighter. Vader brings Captain Sodarra with him. (Vader: The Ultimate Guide) NOTE: Abel Pena has set up a nice retcon here between Savage Heart and Scoundrel's Luck, but it doesn't quite go all the way. As McEwok pointed out, we have to assume that Vader ends up incapacitated in his fighter at the end of this mission.

3. Vader is scheduled to arrive on Delaya and take custody of Leia Organa. (Rebel Force #2: Hostage) (Note: since Vader doesn't actually show up in this book, this should work, However, depending on whether or not Vader appears in future Rebel Force books, we may have to move this farther down the timeline.)

4. Vader is MIA in the Bright Jewel Oversector. The Rebels and Imperials spend the next month looking for him, with Han Solo joining the search with Luke and Leia in the Millennium Falcon. (Scoundrel's Luck) (Note: I assume that Luke and co. are free to pursue other missions during this search, allowing us to fit other stories in this month.)

5. Captain Sodarra, with the unwilling aid of Han Solo, brings the remains of Vader's TIE Fighter, containing his comatose body, to Vader's agents on Tatooine. (Scoundrel's Luck)

6. After making contact with the Imperial double agent Rogor on Yavin, Vader leads an immediate attack that forces the Rebels to evacuate (Star Wars Kids: Imperial Spy)

7. Vader chooses not to return to Coruscant in order to track down the pilot who destroyed the Death Star. (The Essential Chronology) He does, however, begin making reports via hologram to Emperor Palpatine. (Rebel Strike)

8. While en route to Ultaar, Vader senses Luke's presence in the Force. He is unable learn anything about Luke from the Rebel on Ultaar (thanks to Valance) and fails to capture Luke and co. at The Wheel. (Marvel #18-23)

9. On Centares, Vader nearly learns Luke's identity before a duel with Valance keeps him from doing so. (Marvel #29)

10. Vader finally returns to Coruscant with his TIE Fighter and meets with the Emperor in person for the first time after Yavin. He is assigned to the Malagarr system to oversee one of Tarkin's pet projects: a new interdictor device. Malagarr is later destroyed. (Star Wars Missions #17-20)

11. Vader journeys to Fondor, where he prepares a new trap for the Force sensitive Rebel he seeks, but the Rebel later escapes. (Classic Star Wars: Darth Vader Strikes)

12. After returning to Centares, Vader learns that the name of the pilot who destroyed the Death Star is "Skywalker". Vader again returns to Coruscant, where Palpatine questions him about the destruction of "Tarkin's pet toy". (Possibly the device on Malagarr, and not the Death Star.) Vader later nearly captures Luke on Jazbina before he is forced to leave the planet. (Vader's Quest)

13. Vader learns Luke's full name from a Rebel on an unknown world. Sometime later, he faces off with Luke on Monastary before the young Rebel escapes. (Marvel #35)

14. As Vader continues to learn more about the Rebel Luke Skywalker, he remains unsure as to his relationship with Anakin Skywalker. Although he is willing to consider the possibility that Luke is his son, it will be some time before

 

Mainly because it's fun.

I suspect that Vellam's fight with Vader (which ended with BOTH of them keeping their ranks!) may be related to the anti-Vader officers reluctantly selling the Ex's plans to the Alliance at Fondor, since Admiral Griff was in the middle of both groups.

Perhaps the amount of information Rogor can transmit is limited in some way?

Or perhaps Vader knew already, and was searching for the information simply to kill anyone who knew?

I like your organization of the events, although I don't remember Luke being in Scoundrel's Luck.

Everything seems to fit together pretty neatly, and being able to move back Darth Vader Strikes to before even Vader's Quest might be surprisingly useful - although is it clear that Vader doesn't yet know the Rebel's name is "Skywalker", which would NECESSITATE it being on that side of the story?

Well, is that so hard to explain? Somehow, Vader got knocked off the Star Destroyer again afterwards.

I'd want to keep the continuity to a maximum. Even if that's not the actual canon direction the story took, the Executor, commanded by Piett and (an) Admiral Ozzel, is there with the Avenger. Heck, we could even say that Kendall Ozzel was coopted into the move to support the ship, but Vader never met him. Han is less likely to recognize that Ozzel than the man who kicked him out of the Imperial military.

- The Imperial Ewok

 

McEwok, I believe you had pointed out before that the original X-wing game had you taken to the Executor if captured by the Empire - which ends with the end of ANH...