Doctor Spaceman posted:

Han was trained as an Imperial pilot too, at least in the old canon.

quote:

SPOCK: Hull surface is pitted with meteor scars. However, scanners make out a name. SS Botany Bay.
KIRK: Then you can check the registry.
SPOCK: No such vessel listed. Records of that period are fragmentary, however. The mid-1990s was the era of your last so-called World War.
MCCOY: The Eugenics Wars.
SPOCK: Of course. Your attempt to improve the race through selective breeding.
MCCOY: Now, wait a minute. Not our attempt, Mister Spock. A group of ambitious scientists. I'm sure you know the type. Devoted to logic, completely unemotional.

Wheat Loaf posted:

Did Lucas ever clarify details of what he imagined the Clone Wars were like before he started writing the prequels? As I recall, the view of most early EU writers was that it was fought by the Republic against clones, e.g. a bunch of RPG backstory, Pellaeon narrating about how he once tangled with a hostile clone force when he was in the Republic navy.

Hannibal Rex posted:

Considering that Lucas took a lot of his inspiration when writing Star Wars from then current science fiction, how likely is it that his lines about the Clone Wars were based upon the Eugenics Wars from Star Trek's Space Seed?

Wheat Loaf posted:

One thing I really enjoyed about the Bantam era EU particularly was what all of the writers involved thought the history of the setting was like. You had, for example, stuff like Jorus C'Baoth was awarded the rank of Jedi master after he completed his studies at Jedi university, as I recall.

Wheat Loaf posted:

Did Lucas ever clarify details of what he imagined the Clone Wars were like before he started writing the prequels? As I recall, the view of most early EU writers was that it was fought by the Republic against clones, e.g. a bunch of RPG backstory, Pellaeon narrating about how he once tangled with a hostile clone force when he was in the Republic navy.

SeanBeansShako posted:

A whole Planet of Lando!

Wheat Loaf posted:

Wheat Loaf posted:

Haha, I didn't know that. I definitely remember Jedi university being part of his backstory, though. At least up to a point; it might have been retconned out when the prequels were made. Anyway, I like C'Baoth in Outbound Flight a lot because he's something you very rarely see in Star Wars: he's a Jedi who is a bad guy but isn't on the dark side (right until the very end, at least).

Chairman Capone posted:

C'Baoth's Jedi university (I forget the name) got mentioned a few times in the various Clone Wars era EU sources. I think it was at least in a few of the pre-AOTC HoloNet News website articles.

SeanBeansShako posted:

I like to think it of it as one of those shady online or mail order only type of school deals.

Arcsquad12 posted:

I'd have liked to see a prequel setting where the Jedi were more like wandering watchmen who were incredibly rare sights, rather than druidic advisors to the galactic government. Would have made the myths about them and their obscurity by the time of the Empire more believable than a galaxy-wide cover up by palpy. Their extermination could have been a shadow war masked by the clone wars the same way the Mandalorian Wars and the subsequent Dark Wars converted Jedi and then slaughtered them.
Widespread Jedi activity just doesn't quite work for me anymore. None of these academies or giant temples. Just old, isolated monasteries off the coast of planet Ireland

Arcsquad12 posted:

I'd have liked to see a prequel setting where the Jedi were more like wandering watchmen who were incredibly rare sights, rather than druidic advisors to the galactic government. Would have made the myths about them and their obscurity by the time of the Empire more believable than a galaxy-wide cover up by palpy.

Lord Hydronium posted:

That sounds like basically Tales of the Jedi, which was an interesting sort of setup in its own right.

Wheat Loaf posted:

Bits of it are easily some of the darkest stuff Star Wars has ever done. I'm thinking of this bit:

Chairman Capone posted:

Jedi vs. Sith is great. When you compare it to the first Bane book that covers some of the same territory, the difference is pretty stark. Especially the characterizations of Bane, Kaan, and Githany in each work.

Chairman Capone posted:

The artist worked on the X-wing comics too, I think.

Chairman Capone posted:

Makes sense. Open Seasons is another favorite early-2000s comic of mine that I feel like has been kind of forgotten.

Wheat Loaf posted:

Bits of it are easily some of the darkest stuff Star Wars has ever done. I'm thinking of this bit:

quote:

The owner of the world’s largest Star Wars memorabilia collection has learned a hard lesson about trust. On Monday, he told his own saga in which $200,000 in collectibles were allegedly stolen from his California museum by a man he once considered a friend – and asked fellow movie fans for help in recovering them.

Steve Sansweet, the owner of Rancho Obi-Wan in Petaluma, California, said in a release to “Star Wars fans and collectors” that 100 items, which he referred to as “vintage US and foreign carded action figures, many of them rare and important pieces”, were taken from his collection between late 2015 through 2016, many of them resold.

He posted details of the crime on his website and asked fellow collectors and fans to email tips@ranchoobiwan.org with information.

The alleged culprit: Carl Edward Cunningham, 45 of Marietta, Georgia, a fellow Star Wars collector whom Sansweet has known for 20 years. Cunningham was arrested in March in Sonoma County, California, and charged with felony grand theft. He is free on $25,000 bail and a preliminary hearing is scheduled for 27 June.

It’s devastating,” Sansweet told the Guardian on Monday about when he learned a friend was charged with the thefts. “It’s a feeling of utter betrayal that someone could stoop to this level, an alleged friend and confidant, someone I had invited to my house and shared meals with.”

Sansweet said he met Cunningham in 1996, while the museum proprietor was head of fan relations at Lucasfilm.

Since 1977, Sansweet has accumulated at least 350,000 franchise artifacts, stored inside a 9,000-sq-ft warehouse he calls Rancho Obi-Wan, located on a idyllic country lane an hour north of San Francisco. He has also written 18 Star Wars books and is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as owning the world’s largest collection of Star Wars paraphernalia.

The theft came to light in February when Philip Wise, a major Star Wars collector, posted news of the theft of a rare action figure from his Texas warehouse. Another dealer from southern California informed Wise that he had purchased the figure from Cunningham, a Georgia collector, Sansweet wrote in his release to movie fans Monday.

The California dealer, Zach Tann, told Wise that he had bought many other Star Wars collectibles from Cunningham and sent a detailed list. Wise concluded that the quantity and quality of the items suggested they had been taken from Sansweet’s sprawling Ranch Obi-Wan museum.

He contacted Sansweet who confirmed that the items were missing, including a rare three-pack of figures and a store display worth $20,000.

“When I saw the items missing, and considering the circumstances of the theft, my stomach physically sank,” Sansweet said. “I was queasy. I was dumbfounded,”

Sansweet said authorities were trying to retrieve items that had been resold and implored Star Wars fans to report anything they knew about the thefts or sightings of the items. He said two fans have contacted authorities to say they bought some of the items from a legitimate dealer and have offered to return them, even if they do not get their money back.

Actor Mark Hamill, who played the character Luke Skywalker in the film franchise, tweeted Monday about the theft, saying: “Maybe publish a list of stolen items to protect potential victims from purchasing ‘hot’ merchandise.”

Sansweet said the thefts ran contrary to the collegial spirit of Star Wars fans.

“We’ve had thousands of visitors since we became a nonprofit museum in 2011,” he said. “And never once to our knowledge have we had a single item stolen.”

Sansweet said the museum had already upgraded security, but he refused to say that his trust in friendship had been ruined. “The message here is not to start mistrusting your friends,” he said. “Or you’d be the most miserable person in the world.”

Hannibal Rex posted:

Here's a question for you: Can someone give me the rundown on how the Mandalorians evolved from being a throwaway mention in the ESB novelization (I believe) to whatever their state was before Karen Traviss got her hands on them? The first time I heard about them was in KOTOR, and my impression at the time was they're simply yet another poorly thought-out generic sci-fi warrior culture.