Discussions Your ideal post-NJO

Like a lot of people I am not a fan of how the post NJO era was handled. It’s gotten to the point where I don’t consider it canon. Here’s what I would have done with the post-NJO:

Jacen goes around the galaxy learning from different force using organisations, gradually increasing his knowledge of the force and he would become the next big hero in place of Luke. He’d have some adventures with Tenel Ka and others and the two of them would eventually get married and have Allana. And he would NOT become a Sith, because having another Skywalker fall to the dark side like that is stupid, especially for Jacen when you consider his arc in NJO.

Jaina would continue to advance in her piloting while also training other pilots. She would be restless trying to live up to the prophecy of Sword of the Jedi. In my version, one of Jaina’s mini character arcs would be that she can’t place so much pressure on herself and that she needs to learn to relax a little bit. She would also eventually help form the imperial knights with Jagged Fel that we see in Legacy and likely create her own squadron within the Empire. Her and Jag would eventually marry and have children (or just one child).

This is probably the most controversial idea I have, but I would bring back Anakin Solo back somehow. He would end up on a planet and go through some trials and tribulations at which point he is at rock bottom psychologically, similar to Jacen’s story in Traitor. Eventually he would reunite with everyone. After that I would have adventures featuring Anakin, Tahiri and Uldir (who needed more stories).

Speaking of Tahiri, my god the post NJO really butchered her character. I would have her continue to learn under Corran Horn and trying to balance out her Vong and human side. Part of this would involve her creating a unique lightsaber. Corran is trying to teach her the lightsaber technique that involves trickery (I cant remember the name) and she is having trouble with learning this but she eventually modifies her lightsaber so that it can switch between standard blade and light whip, like an amphistaff (which would help with her Vong side). When Anakin eventually comes back which would be about a year or two after the end of TUF, he wouldn’t be as confident as he once was and would be harbouring some self doubt and she would help to get him through it just as he helps with her Vong side and it would be a beautiful relationship. It would be especially interesting after all the change Tahiri has gone through. Like Jacen and Jaina, they would eventually marry and have a child. Also in my version, they are the great grandparents of Ania Solo from Legacy Vol 2.

Ben Skywalker would have a young reader series like his older cousins and I would give him actual friends. As for his personality I would still have him being a sarcastic smart mouth. I also think it would be nice to have a story where he hangs out with Jacen and Anakin and they have a boys adventure or something like that. (I guess you could counter that with a Jaina, Tenel Ka, and Tahiri adventure). As he gets older I’d have him learn some skills from his mom and become a Jedi detective where he goes on Indiana Jones style adventures. I don’t know who he would marry yet so I’ll leave that up to others to decide (I’m guessing it’s gonna be Vestara Kai or that Seha girl from LOTF).

I would also like to give Tenel Ka some stories but I’m not too sure what I would do with her as I haven’t read YJK so I’m not as familiar with her as I am with the other characters. Maybe have her try and get rid of the corruption within Hapes or something like that. But I really would love to see her character explored more, and maybe her relationship with Jacen because the last time they had romantic feelings for each other was Star by Star and Jacen has changed a lot since then. So their interactions would be really interesting.

What I’m getting at here is that the younger generation are now main characters, with the older gen taking a back seat. Also, everyone would live to an old age and get a relatively happy ending, no doom and gloom. The characters will go through many tough times but ultimately overcome the adversities. Characters don’t have to die to make a story interesting.

Han, I’m not too sure what I’d do with him to be honest.
Leia would become a Jedi and establish a Jedi diplomatic corps or something like that.
Luke would become more of a mentor role, instructing Jedi and even becoming more of a family man, spending more time with Ben and Mara, because let’s face it, he barely got to see his son during the Vong war.

I would also have stories with other Jedi like Kyp Durron, Kyle Katarn, Corran Horn, Jaden Korr, Rosh Penin, etc.

There wouldn’t be any galactic level threats like a second galactic civil war or anything like that. A lot of stories would be about rebuilding the galaxy after the devastation of the Vong war.

Speaking of the Vong, they don’t just disappear in my version. I’d have some of the Vong forming some sort of remnant similar to the imperial remnant from the new republic era, some Vong would be mercenaries/pirates/bounty hunters cause why not.

That’s a basic overview of how I would have done the post NJO /my post NJO head canon.

I know I probably missed out a lot of characters and other things but that’s all I can think of off the top of my head. What would you guys have done?

 

I would have separated the post-NJO content into various duologies, trilogies or solo books
Each regular NJO character (as well as Ben) could have had a chance to shine in the corresponding book
While keeping a global post-war context

I didn't really think about what the characters could have done in concrete terms, but I would have liked Luke to take a little distance in his role, retaining a certain place of authority (but without the grandmaster thing) but by withdrawing from action
A kind of retirement
Luke would therefore give way to other Jedi Masters like Kyp, Kyle, Corran or Octa
I would have given Jacen a year or two of rest and discovery in the Force and then his return to the Jedi Order, not as a warrior, but rather by teaching the ways of the Force to the novices
And I really like this idea with the Yuuzhan Vong. I think Jacen would have been concerned by the situation, it would have added interesting issues to him given his past
As for his love life, I would have put him with Danni. I think they were a beautiful, promising romance

 

I could write an essay on this, and I’ll see if I can do so later today.

 

Mine would involve a focus on standalone novels, each dedicated to a character or location. Generally lower stakes stories not another major galactic war. Cause even if our hero is just trying to save a base, a settlment, a world, the handfull people they are currently with, you can still make the readers care if you write the supporting characters well and not just as props for the main characters like the Denningverse did.

Also I would finally retire the big three, maybe give each of them one spotlight novel but after that they would largley only do cameos anymore, like Luke showing up at beginning of a story to send the protagonist on a mission and then maybe at the end for a kind of After Action Report so to say. Instead I really would put the focus on the younger generation.
Ideas for Stories could be:
-Tenel Ka actually working on improving on the injustices of Hapan society instead of them being just ignored(could also feature Jacen as a major character)
-Jagged Fel giving us a look into the IR while maybe dealing with the revelation that his father wasn´t as utterly innocent of the imperial atrocities than he always claimed(could have Jaina in a major role)
-Tahiri being confronted with her past and maybe finally moving on from Anakin
-Jacen interacting with some obscure sect of force users who have a very different view on the force than the Jedi
-Zekk trying to improve the lifes of the poor people on Coruscant, maybe coming into conflict with the goverment
-Kyp continuing his vigilante campaign and maybe a discussion of the moralties of it
-Raynar coming back, either still involving the Killiks or differently
-Lowie trying to mediate a peace between Wookies and Trandosians while having to struggle with being fair and not give the wookies preferable treatment
-Ben doing something that makes him more than just Luke 2.0 with his mothers hair and snark

Through these one could slowly build up a new threat to the galaxy, with subtle hints that something is going on. That threat could be Krayt or even Abeloth. I would defenetly not have one of the characters fall to the dark side in a pathetic attempt to create drama and cash in on the PT hype. Sure they might disagree or even forced to do some questionable things, but not retell the tale of Anakin.

This big threat would then be another major series and kind of a finale for the younger generation and thus be set in like 70 ABY or so. Then having them also move more into the background for the next generation to come, possibly heralded by Allana and Jaina's son with Jagged(or Zekk).

 

So...

1. Character building.
I want to develop the cast of the post NJO-with consistent character development across the books, and so this would be coordinated. Where does the post war take Jaina and Zekk? And Luke and Corran? Also fleshing out the relationships between characters. Mara and Luke had divides over Jacen teaching Ben-how much does this affect their marriage and their individual relationships with Jacen? What are Han and Leia’s post war plans? Does Han have a preference for the guy he wants for Jaina? Or does he not even want to think about it?
2. World building-the post NJO does not make use of the potential in return for a status quo lite. What happened to the Vong who didn’t go to Zonama. Are there any Bothan sympathizers? For Coruscant-I’d treat it as a more divided issue, some want to use whatever means required to purge the planet of Vongforming as quickly as possible and others want other approaches-from a more balanced mixture of steel and jungle, to pretty much letting Coruscant remain as is, and treating it as a memorial of sorts. Not an important plot-at least not at first. But better than the return to Pt era Coruscant. The growth of the galactic south as a power and Corellia’s simmering discontent. The Galactic north is badly damaged and Vong holdouts and Peace Brigadiers have to be eradicated in post war “policing actions” that take a few years. Refugees throng southwards. Many without papers, or other means of being integrated again as citizens. With many straining the resources of worlds forced to shelter them. Anti refugee sentiments emerge-as its felt that it’s unfair that the massive burdens should be allotted to those who just happened to be fortunate to avoid Vong conquest. The Hutts are badly wounded and pretty much lockdown Hutt Space and begin restoring their hold and accessing their hidden resources in deeper less traveled parts of their space. While being based on Tatooine(thus dramatically increasing the world’s population). Other political stuff like IR/GA integration causing tensions, and the like.
3. small scale conflicts-I’d not introduce the Killiks as rumors. Certain Jedi go missing, and the Chiss would refer obliquely to a menace in the unknown regions.
4. The Actual Killik conflict would when I got to it serve some purposes-such as strengthening the hand of the Moffs, and weakening GA authority, by a poor response.
5. In general I’d want more novels focused on individual characters or small groupings of characters. That would both develop and enrich them and the fans’ devotion to them.
6. So I wouldn’t start any LOTF equivalent until around 2008 or so-regardless of the different particulars I want to build up the characters before some of them die.
7. ^On that note, galaxy spanning conflicts of high stakes would be infrequent. And I would aim to have it be 3-4 years of real life publishing between such arcs. That gives them more gravity and weight when they occur.
8. More authors and coordination. In general I’d want to emulate both the best of the Trek litverse, and the Horus Heresy 40K stuff-in terms of general writing quality, and consistency-of both worldbuilding, characters, theme, etc...
9. Probably more comics and the like. Set in the era.
10. Also more NJO stuff-maybe showing important characters introduced in my post NJO and developing the conflict-beyond the sky solos.
11. I have no issues with krayt or Lumiya, but I’d definitely want to coordinate with Legacy-or barring that, I’d have a Legacy equivalent set 500 years in the future. Enough that it doesn’t limit creative freedom or railroad the plot for the immediate decades following the Vong war. I’d reincorporate old elements better-Daala, Luke’s old girlfriends, and the like. As opposed to the often poorly contrived way it was done. Or simply not do so. Small universe syndrome and all.
12. Above all else, both IU stuff and publishing plans, I’d want to reward the readers and treat them with respect. SW fans deserve better quality material than they often got. And I would want to keep them onboard.

 

@JediAvatar ... I've been around these boards a crazy long time and let me say one thing about your ideas.

If you write it, I will read it in less than a minute because yay!

Jacen is not a Sith, he winds up with Tenel Ka.

Anakin Solo returns and reunites with family and Tahiri who in her own right does a lot of growing.

Jaina doesn't have to lose either of her siblings and marries Jag.

Luke and Mara are together, which is tops with me! I also wouldn't complain if they had more kids once the dust settled after TUF. And Ben would be the perfect age to be a "big brother."


I love the idea of standalone novels like you say and focusing on small-scale conflicts.

Danni and Kyp would get their own story arcs for sure. Not necessarily together although that would be interesting

I adore the idea of Leia and Han taking a less active role and just basking in being grandparents. LOL

 

Interesting to hear everyone’s opinions. From what I’ve read I think we’re all on the same page when it comes to having stories that are smaller in scale and more character driven. Also that the new generation should be the main characters moving forward, with Han, Luke and Leia being retired/mentors/grandparents.
1439580]@adalmentia[/USER']@adalmentia[/URL] Yeah, duologies, trilogies and standalone books is what I had in mind. Though I’d also be up for comics on the side as well, considering we don’t have many from this era. Glad you like the idea of the Vong hanging around. I agree that Jacen would be concerned about certain surviving Vong. I think it would make for an interesting dynamic as some people would understandably hold resentment towards the Vong and want them dead, whereas Jacen would want to go for the most peaceful solution.

@Anedon It would be nice to see Tenel Ka getting rid of the injustices that are prevalent in the Hapes. Also your idea for Zekk helping out the poor sounds like a near idea, makes a lot of sense when you consider his backstory. Though I would probably change the planet cause I’m pretty sure most of if not all the poor people were killed on Coruscant during the Vong invasion, but the idea can still work on other planets really well.

@Darth Invictus I haven’t gotten to TUF yet but doesn’t that book say that Coruscant would be uninhabitable for anyone but construction workers for decades? If so then your idea of Coruscant representing a memorial of sorts could work really well. I think they would relocate the galactic alliance capital while simultaneously rebuilding Coruscant over several years/decades. Not sure which planet but I’m sure there’s an option. It would be interesting if they relocated the GA capital to a planet that wasn’t part of the core worlds.

@WarmNyota_SweetAyesha Thank you. I have actually though about writing my ideas into stories at some point, just a matter of when. I really just want everyone to get happier endings then what they got in the Denningverse. With Anakin coming back I imagine he wouldn’t be as confident after his near death experience on the Vong worldship above Myrkr. So that would be great to see him interacting with Tahiri who has grown a lot since they last saw each other. And it would be interesting to see him and Jacen interact now that he’s changed a lot. The same could apply for Jacen and Tenel Ka.
It’s funny that you mention Kyp and Danni Quee because I’ve actually thought about what they would be like together.

 

Let me break it down:

1) The overarching plot of anything post-NJO is the factioning of the galaxy...not into 2 sides, but into a mozaic of republics, autocracies, theocracies, and everything in between. It brings the level of government/military strength way down...to the point that the Imperial Remnant can assert itself as one of the more imposing powers still in existence.

2) This division concerns Luke and his remaining Jedi, who worry that fighting will break out and be unrestrained. They seek to bridge the bonds strained by the Vong war, hoping to salvage what unity that victory mustered. But someone is sabotaging them from the shadows.

4) Jacen and Jaina, in an effort to restore their bond, honor their fallen brother, and live up to the expectations of the galaxy and their family, lean on one another like never before. The pair become the twin power that some thought Luke and Leia should have been. The twins triumph many times where each alone would fail, and whispers from the force sound to them like their little brother, still watching out for them.

5) As the Twins ascend, Luke, feeling depression and defeatism surrounding him as the galaxy breaks apart, begins a quest to rediscover the force's intentions for him. Accompanied by Mara and Ben, he revisits the ancient Jedi sites and the force religions as he had years before, only this time, instead of seeking tools by which to use the force to serve his hopes for the galaxy, he seeks out guidance from the force on who the galaxy needs him to be.

6) Leia, never one to give up, refuses to let the alliance collapse. She becomes the figurehead of a powerful concentration of worlds between the core and Hapes Consortium. Tenel Ka is her closest ally, and her dedication to reform keeps many Hapans ill at ease as the principles Leia and Tenel Ka represent seem almost archaic, if not absurd as the galaxy comes undone.

7) Han runs. With time to breathe, time to grieve...he runs from his pain. With Lando, officially retired, the two pimp the falcon with more gadgets and surprises then the batmobile, and the 2 jump from one edge of the galaxy to the other, checking on Lando's investments, looking into Leia's contacts, making peace with past mistakes, and then making new ones.

-------------
The stories would be unnumbered, but essentially tied together as they lead to a climactic battle with a new villain, who seeks to destroy all force users, save themself. Luke and Leia are force to realize that the galaxy in a fractured state is actually preferable to a pan-galactic unity...as many of these different governments are not evil, and can act better in the service of their people, and too much centralized power is too easily manipulated to tyranny.

In the end, the twins overcome the new villain, as the big 3 understand their best aid to the galaxy is to give it over to good hands.
Tenel Ka takes the leadership of the Alliance of Open Worlds, and maintains a cool peace with Jagged Fel in the Imperial Regency.
This cool peace is maintained by the quiet communications between their trusted, and secret spouses, the Solo Twins.

In the final chapter, Luke has come full circle. He stands in the courtyard of a farm on Tatooine, shouting for Ben to come inside, as Ben looks out over the horizon. The world is changed. No longer a bleak desert starved of water. Small scrub brush and fields of tended crops stretch out before him. But the same twin suns set as he dreams of what his destiny may yet reveal.

 

They lived happily ever after

 

That’s what I had in mind. It seems with the rise of grim dark everyone wants their characters to live miserable and depressing lives.

In my opinion there shouldn’t be any large scale galactic conflicts until the Legacy comics, with everything between NJO and Legacy being smaller scale conflicts on different planets and rebuilding the galaxy after the devastation of the Vong war.

 

Yes please! A nice happy GA, sans evil Jason and Chief of State Daala is how it should've been.

 

rewriting Post-NJO to me means LEGACY is no more.

Otherwise, they need to do a better job earlier on of adding Darth Krayt across all the media to give him the stakes they wanted him to have.

 

I'd really like to write a lot on this topic, but I don't feel prepared to at the moment.

The bare basics for me are:
Prioritize closure for the next Skywalker/Solo generation over the Legacy comics era, aka introduce Darth Krayt in the time of Jaina, Ben and company. I would prefer finishing that story while they or their offspring are alive.

If we still have Jacen turning dark and dying, actually explain FROM THE BEGINNING the vision he had of his daughter.

Give Vestara's story closure, and Boba Fett's.

 

Well, let's get the nos out of the way:

1) No more Sith. Seriously, no more. Palpatine and Vader were the pinnacle, we're never going to top that. If we want Sith stories (and I certainly don't want them stopped altogether), there's 5,000 years of history at least leading up to the movie era in which they can be set. Just use that.

2) No more Solo/Skywalker family members going to the dark side. It happened to Anakin Skywalker, that's plenty, and that family's story deserves a happy ending instead of just more dramatic tragedy.

3) No more major galaxywide wars for a while. As a rule, one per generation should be the absolute maximum. Anakin's generation had the Clone Wars, Luke's generation had the Galactic Civil War, Jacen and Jaina's had the Yuuzhan Vong War. If we're going to get another big event on that scale (and mind you I'm not sure we should), it shouldn't be until Jacen and Jaina's kids are old enough to come-of-age through it.

With that wrapped up...

4) Luke, Leia, Han, and Mara take a back seat at the end of the Yuuzhan Vong War. They don't die, they don't go away, but they go into a sort of semi-retirement and allow younger people to take the reins of the Jedi Order and GA. We still get adventures with them from time to time, but they tend to be smaller scale. (And yes, eventually they die, though I'm in no particular hurry for that).

5) Jacen becomes an errant Jedi, wandering through the galaxy trying to learn more about the Force from various traditions, while also constantly stumbling across people who need help or injustices that need righting... which he addresses, but as non-violently as possible, preferring diplomacy first, trickery second, lightsabers only as a very last resort. (Think of original MacGyver, or possibly Doctor Who, rather than a more conventional action hero). In his elder years he becomes more sedentary and a respected senior Jedi Master, but in a teaching more than a leading role. By the time he's in his fifties, he's basically ESB-era Yoda, with more Dad jokes.

6) Jaina on the other hand is the conventional action hero of the pair. I like the idea of her being in Rogue Squadron for a while, since as she said it should have at least one Jedi, and she does love her piloting skills... and I'm always up for more stories about the Rogues. Eventually, she does end up with Jagged Fel, so she'd probably leave the GA's service by then if not before. But I don't really want Jag to end up Emperor. I'd actually prefer it if his Chiss affiliations ended up stronger than his Imperial ones, and he and Jaina ended up settling in that corner of space and going on various adventures in the Unknown Regions. Plenty of good adventure stories to be milked out of the chaos of the Unknown Regions, plenty of drama to be milked out of the Chiss slowly opening up to the rest of the galaxy and the various powers involved squabbling over the Empire of the Hand's legacy.

7) Neither of them, nor Ben, ever end up Grand Master or at the equivalent. Let other Jedi do that. And in general, less galaxy revolving around the SkySolos, please. Which doesn't mean we shouldn't still get lots of stories about them, but they don't need to be the center of every galactic drama.

8) Tenel Ka becomes Queen of Hapes, where she spends the rest of her life trying to reform the Consortium into something more democratic and more in line with her own Jedi values. Exasperated with the glacial pace of change and the number of obstacles in her path, she ends up creating a Zorro/Batman like persona that goes out at night from time to time to beat the crap out of some particularly egregious injustice or other... which, unexpectedly, ends up becoming a folk hero, inspiring unrest among the masses, and helping her own reform efforts along. Obviously, in this series of stories, Ta'a Chume gets to be an antagonist, but one that never ends up killed - I'd imagine her as a sort of cross between John Marcone from The Dresden Files (the brilliant antagonist that the hero never quite manages to checkmate and any case ends up having to work with just as often as against) and Zeus from Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (the parent-figure that the hero is rightly pissed off at for her neglect of both her family and the little people, but who nevertheless helps out the hero out more often than they like to admit, partly because of a soft spot for them. Yeah, in this scenario she does mellow a little in her old age).

9) Nothing nearly as fleshed out or detailed for Tahiri, but at some point, she's got to spend some time on Zonama Sekot. Checking out how Yuuzhan Vong society is healing and changing, helping process her own trauma from her implanted personality, and keeping up communications between the Jedi and Zonama Sekot somehow.

10) I honestly have no idea what I'd do for Ben Skywalker, except that it shouldn't resemble either Jacen or Jaina's path.

And the big picture stuff:

11) While most of the post-NJO gets wiped clean, Mercy Kill or some version of it that follows the book as closely as possible still happens, because I really loved that book and I want to keep the X-wing series going. This also means some version of the Lecersen Conspiracy from FOTJ still happens, as well as some version of the slave revolts from that book series. In my headcanon, abolitionism becomes a hot topic in the post-NJO world, partly thanks to these uprisings and partly to pressure from various factions that supported the Rebellion back in the day because of its anti-slavery stance and think the New Republic/GA hasn't done enough to follow up on it. All of which ads up to future X-wing books in which the Wraiths and Rogues find themselves assigned to a GA task force trying to interdict and then stamp out slavery in Hutt space (think Royal Navy West Africa Squadron). Which also takes us back to what we read in the Essential Guide to Warfare about the Hutts rearming and militarizing more.

12) The reformed Jedi Council proposed in Destiny's Way actually happens, and it remains that way for the foreseeable future. There's plenty of friction and tension, but it does help to counter the Jedi's ivory tower tendencies and go some way towards reassuring the galactic population that they aren't a lawless organization. I also don't want the Muggle council members pigeonholed into an Obstructive Bureaucrat/Sleazy Politician role, even if that does happen from time to time.

13) Speaking of which, no more stories for a while about the GA going quasi-Imperial as with Jacen/Niathal or Daala. The Bantam era politicking with Borsk Fey'lya isn't perfect but is closer to what I want, where there really were conflicts in the leadership and also some real scumbags, but without going full "the Empire's back!" Turning the goverment straight fascist so your heroes have to overthrow it is the lazy route, as opposed to having multiple competing factions looking out for their own interests.

14) As they continue to grow, the Jedi get decentralized. No more concentration into one spot like Yavin or Coruscant. That means knight errants, but it also means the revival of localized Jedi traditions, like the Corellian Jedi that we've always been told are a touch different and stick to their own system. This, also, helps to counteract the Jedi's ivory tower tendencies and improve their reputation with the public, since more and more people see them as part of the neighborhood and not "oh, yeah, the Jedi. Those people in that castle on the other side of the galaxy."

15) The capital of the GA remains Mon Calamari for the foreseeable future. Coruscant is getting rebuilt, but it's in no condition to be the capital of anything and won't be for quite a while. More generally, follow up on The Unifying Force premise about how the galaxy's turned upside down: the new big divide in galactic politics, crowding out the older Human vs. Alien and Pro-Jedi vs. Anti-Jedi debates, is between the worlds that lost big in the war and those that came out ahead. This doesn't even need to be the focus of any story; it's just sort of there in the background when the stories have to get into GA politics.

16) There are Yuuzhan Vong versions of Bantam's Imperial remnants. I don't want them to take over the post-NJO era to the same extent that warlords-of-the-week took over the post-OT era, but I do want to get a couple of stories about renegade Yuuzhan Vong commanders still roaming around the galaxy refusing to submit to the new order. Nas Choka did say that he'd be there to help the GA bring them down if they happened, and speaking of that - we've never had a story with a Yuuzhan Vong protagonist that I know of, and Nas Choka subduing a Yuuzhan Vong Remnant while processing everything that's just happened to him and adapting to the new way of things would be a pretty good novel.

17) Speaking of which: we get more Yuuzhan Vong War books. Seriously. The expanded universe has been going back to the well of stories set in the original trilogy forever, no reason it couldn't do the same for the NJO era. I don't want an overload, but it'd be a nice thing to have from time to time. Also, more dealing with the consequences of the war - refugee populations, planets that have been ravaged, lawless regions - and less "galaxy resets, nothing to see here, move along, move along."

18) One last one, just totally out of left field: there is a reunification between the Duros and the Neimoidians. No real reason for this except that I remember the Essential Guide to Alien Species saying that there was a movement in favor of that, and I just think it'd be cool to see as part of the whole post-NJO galactic shakeup. Maybe the Duros needed the credits for reconstruction after their world was conquered by the Yuuzhan Vong, and the Neimoidians needed a ticket out of pariah status by association with a more popular species. Either way, it'd be a spotlight to shine on two non-human species that you either don't get to see enough of (Duros) or don't get to see enough positive portrayals of (Neimoidians).

 

This. More than anything else, this. To expand: from the time of YJK, Jaina and Jacen gave us a glimse of what it might have been like had Luke and Leia grown up together: two people that were able beat all comers because they were TOGETHER. There would have been a mountain of expectations for these two: the surviving children of the Chief-of-State, niece and nephew to Skywalker, and the grandchildren of the last ruler of Alderaan. They would have met this challenge. Why? Because they were together.

Yep. Which also feeds into Invictus's line of thinking: no more 'galactic-scale' crises.

I would love to see a competent, well-functioning, bureaucracy. The only way to rebuild after a horrible war is to have a competent government. Disagreements don't have to lead to 'squabbles', they can just be disagreements.

 

It's sad, but as I was writing it, I was thinking this is actually the one thing on that wish list that's the least likely to have happened. Pop culture is just completely in on the notion of "institutions are either evil and dangerous or incompetent and corrupt."

One of the things I liked best about the Bantam Era was that while they never delved into the complexities of the New Republic's tax code or public health programs or God knows what, you still regularly had little things dropped into the background of the various stories showing how, yes, the New Republic was making lives way better for millions of sentient beings. The fact that you still had pains in the ass like Borsk Fey'lya or real scumbags like Tomer Darpen from time to time just made it that much more well-rounded - no, this government isn't perfect, yes, it has real problems, but also yes, it's a massive improvement over the Empire in huge ways. (Which retroactively vindicates the OT heroes for choosing to fight in the civil war in the first place, which seems kind of important to me).

 

My ideal post-NJO is... nothing. I personally believe that the events that happen between The Unifying Force and the Legacy comics should be shrouded in mystery, and that it’s the readers who have to imagine what happened in that century of peace, based on the information the Legacy comics provided to us.

Perhaps, the only post-NJO story I might like is some story where Anakin Skywalker’s Force ghost appears to the family, explaining why he fell to the Dark Side, talking to the family about Padmé and their love, and finally reconciling with everyone, including Leia, Jacen and Jaina. I know that Leia had more or less forgiven him, but it was never a sincere forgiveness, she never really knew the Anakin Skywalker that we know through the films and the Clone Wars Multimedia Project and, above all, she never really knew why he fell to the Dark Side. So I think it would be nice for her to meet him again with her children, and in the presence of Luke and Mara, and maybe even Han. The family deserves to know what happened, because only knowing Anakin’s true story they can be able to forgive him and feel proud of being his descendants.

But other than that, I wouldn't write any more stories and leave the readers to imagine what happened in the century of peace before the Legacy comics.

 

Neimoidians changing their ways would resolve the direct cause of the rise of Palpatine.