Apparently Del Rey was going to hire Luceno, but when the license transferred to Bantam, Bantam decided to hire Zahn instead. What would Luceno have written about? Who would the villain(s) be?

I’m sure Luceno would be willing to reference Dark Empire, unlike Zahn.

 

A lot of references to the Han Solo Trilogy, since Luceno and Brian Daley were longtime friends...probably the Lando novels and Marvel Comics thrown in as well, given how much Luceno loves to reference existing continuity (which I very much appreciate!).

 

I know Daley and Luceno actually had concrete ideas for a post-ROTJ series where Luke starts a new order of Jedi knights, and fights off disciples of Palpatine. These never came to light of course, but you can see how the EU picked up similar ideas in later books: You had a new Jedi order started by Luke in the Jedi Academy trilogy, and disciples of Palpatine as villains in the infamous Jedi Prince series. In that sense, it would've been the same just a lot sooner.

 

That would have been good.

 

That sounds incredibly interesting! Is there any more information on what this series would've been?

 

Sadly no, most of what I said came from a Celebration VI panel dedicated to Brian Daley, and I haven't found anything beyond what Luceno's already said. Who knows if there's a summary still out there somewhere in Luceno's personal archives?

 

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/The_Tao_of_the_Force

I wonder:

- Would the “disciples of Palpatine” have been the “Peculiar Hat Crew” from ROTJ?

- Would the Empire still exist after ROTJ?

 

What if James Luceno was hired to start the NEW rotj novels instead of Chuck Wendig?

 

Emperor Mas Amedda?

 

Nah, Sate Pestage as Grand Vizier, Mas Amedda retired but brought back to assist in leading?

 

Luceno's first canon book, Tarkin, had Pestage as simply a member of the council and Mas Amedda as Grand Vizier. The first time we learned Amedda was Grand Vizier was the Rebels tie-in Holonet tumblr page, but that was only a few weeks before Tarkin came out, so I don't know who came up with the idea that Amedda was the canon Grand Vizier. Either way, even if it didn't originate with Luceno, he certainly went along with it and likely would have done so with the post-ROTJ books too.

 

A hypothetical Heir to the Empire incorporating continuity from the Marvel comics right from the start would have been interesting. Alliance of Free Planets instead of New Republic? A galaxy recovering not just from the Empire, but from the subsequent Nagai/Macabree/Tof invasions? Luke still using the shoto he built to counteract Lumiya's whip? I don't know how that would have flown back in 1991, but the what-ifs are fun to consider.

 

Would Lumiya play a big role from the beginning? Would Ric Olié have said, “Had Abbadon: the entire planet is one big city”? Would Seoularians, the Cosmic Wars, and Onrai have played a bigger role in the lore? Would the Massassi have different lore surrounding them?

 

In the hypothetical 1991 where Luceno is writing the first post-ROTJ novel while respecting and referencing existing continuity, all that is possible and more. Maybe Plif is still around. Given Luceno's friendship with Brian Daley, I'd have to imagine we'd see some heavy referencing of the Han Solo novels - maybe Han and Leia would have run into Doc and Jessa, or Trooper, or Bollux and Blue Max. (That last would have been a lot of fun, I bet.)

 

Luceno's first two NJO novels actually provide an interesting look at how he would've handled references to the Han Solo Trilogy, in among all the other amazing continuity references he threw in there.

 

I also wonder if the Silentium and Sharu would have played a bigger role.

 

Well I think we would get a very different look at the Empire post Endor. It might be totally gone, since the wook article made reference to 'clandestine efforts', of the Palpatine followers.

I know we wouldn't have Thrawn or Mara or the rest.

I wonder if Luke would have a love interest. Also if Leia would end up running the Alliance of Free Planets.

 

Given how many love interests Luke was given across the Bantam run by different authors, I think that would have been inevitable.

 

You know I have never read a romance in Lucenos work. That would be interesting.


Another thing to consider is that without Zahn then Dark Empire would be set just after RotJ. So the events of the first DE would happen in 5 ABY and we might get a more jedi Leia.

 

That's another interesting question: where would the EU have gone if Dark Empire had been the defining work rather than the Thrawn Trilogy?

I think we would have seen a bigger, more gonzo Star Wars universe than the relatively more grounded one we got (Crystal Star excluded).

 

I suspect there would be more emphasis on the Jedi and Sith and less on the Imperial military. Depending on how much the people of the galaxy know about the events of Dark Empire, they’d have to deal with the implications of the people knowing about Sheev’s true nature.

What does “gonzo” mean?

 

In this context, I'm using it in the sense of "outlandishly unconventional, outrageous, or extreme" (source).

 

Ironically, that's... kind of what we have now in current canon.

And if the lead in being built up by Mando is any indication, the gap era might prove quite outlandish/wacky indeed.

 

I think post RotJ would look more like the Tales of the Jedi/Jedi Academy stuff than the military faction focused we got.

As @darklordoftech said there would be more focus on the Sith and dark siders as threats to the galaxy. It would feel more science fantasy than the x-wing or thrawn books.

I think Leia would also be more active as a Jedi and that might be as much as a focus of her character as the political stuff.

 

A shame, as I find Zahn’s writing to be pretty poor.