Human Origins

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-03-29 10:29pm

IRG CommandoJoe wrote:So the general consensus here is that SW takes place in our future, which means the "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away" line indicates the audience is the future civilization looking back in history and that the Milky Way galaxy is linked to the SW galaxy?

Far from it. In fact, don't be rediculous.

The general consensus is that SW is set in the distant past, in a very distant galaxy from the Milky Way, and that Humans were transplanted from Earth in the past to the SW Galaxy in the further distant past, by agents long gone.

IRG CommandoJoe · Post by **IRG CommandoJoe** » 2004-03-29 10:34pm

What? You're saying an advanced civilization, or more than one, took humans from Earth and time traveled to put them into the Star Wars galaxy? What instances are there of time travel in Star Wars? I didn't realize the SW civilization even had time travel technology.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-03-29 10:57pm

They don't. But another civilisation in the Galalxy might have long ago, roughly a million years before the films, and before they themselves vanished without a trace.

IRG CommandoJoe · Post by **IRG CommandoJoe** » 2004-03-29 11:32pm

Isn't that more complicated of a theory than simply saying that the time period of the SW civilization is in our future?

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-03-29 11:35pm

The problem with that assumption is that on face value, it's simply wrong.

The title card is read by US, not someone in our future.

IRG CommandoJoe · Post by **IRG CommandoJoe** » 2004-03-29 11:42pm

Hmm...so with that line of reasoning, there is no such thing as Rebel or Imperial propaganda in the books?

EDIT: Or, rather, there is no such thing as the information in the books themselves being Rebel or Imperial propaganda?

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-03-29 11:48pm

Nuh-uh, don't you go doing that...

If that's how you're going to accept things, then consider my end of the discussion with you over.

IRG CommandoJoe · Post by **IRG CommandoJoe** » 2004-03-29 11:56pm

Why? How can there be propaganda that involves the reader into the galaxy if the movies are not supposed to involve the audience into the galaxy? Or the other way around? How could there be movies that assume the audience is completely unattached to the galaxy when there are books that do the opposite? There has got to be some sort of consistent approach to analyzing sources, right?

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-03-29 11:57pm

Do you know what diegesis is?

Seriously, for God's sake, don't be this vague and expect me to hold your hand as you spew this infantile junk when you know better (at least I hope).

IRG CommandoJoe · Post by **IRG CommandoJoe** » 2004-03-30 12:00am

So you are saying that the approach is to be completely unattached to the galaxy, and yet novels are still supposed to be treated as propaganda?

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2004-03-30 12:01am

The novels are books published in the GFFA by inhabitants of the GFFA, chronicaling their events. Hence bias and exaggeration comes in since people living in it were writing it.

IRG CommandoJoe · Post by **IRG CommandoJoe** » 2004-03-30 12:04am

Ok, so then are the films supposed to show history exactly how it was, or are they also supposed to be accounts made by inhabitants of the GFFA?

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2004-03-30 12:18am

IRG CommandoJoe wrote:Ok, so then are the films supposed to show history exactly how it was, or are they also supposed to be accounts made by inhabitants of the GFFA?

The films are also biased towards the Rebellion since they show the Rebellion as good guys and the Imperials as pure evil.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-03-30 12:19am

Don't encourage him, evilcat.

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2004-03-30 12:31am

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:Don't encourage him, evilcat.

Ok.

IRG CommandoJoe · Post by **IRG CommandoJoe** » 2004-03-30 12:31am

Where is your evidence that there is bias in the movies? How do you know that the events depicted in the movies are not the plain truth? Which is returning to my question of whether or not the movies are to be treated as accounts by inhabitants of the galaxy or the absolute truth.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-03-30 12:49am

They are unbiased documentation. "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away" is just a modern version of "once upon a time in a far away land."

IP might have made the amount of Rebel/NR bias in some of the EU to be exagerated, though. Not all of it is biased, but there are occasionally a few items here and there that ar dubious. But not that much.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2004-03-30 01:18am

The films show video documentary evidence of the universe in question--visual evidence is objective.

The actual media of writing is dubious, as that's how that author chose to phrase what happened.

18-Till-I-Die · Post by **18-Till-I-Die** » 2004-03-30 06:16am

Spanky, what on Earth gave you that rediculous time travel idea? The simplest (and most likely) answer is that its the future, and that 'far, far away' shit is just filler at the begining of the 'documentary'.

Jesus...time traveling slave catchers, abducting humans, traveling back in time and transplanting them in another galaxy...oy, that is seriously, seriously funny, it's so needlessly complicated.

You could just about prove the GFFA is Andromeda, you can prove the Humans really are Humans (i.e, having evolved originally on Earth) given the existance of the Hebrew writing...but there is absolutely no evidence these faerie time traveling kidnappers ever existed, and honestly, it's just a little too out there to make so many assumptions.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-03-30 11:11am

The Hyperspace Aliens, that's what. It's actually a pretty sound theory that I or IP can explain later.

Besides, it's more damn rediculous to interpret "long ago and far away" as "in the future and very close." If that's not idiotic, I don't know what is.

IRG CommandoJoe · Post by **IRG CommandoJoe** » 2004-03-30 01:11pm

18-Till-I-Die, that's pretty much what I thought before Spanky and IP explained that what you see in the movies is the absolute truth. The fact of the matter is "a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away" is literally supposed to mean that. There is no debate about it. And with this line of reasoning, we can also say that the Empire is purely evil, and that's it. Since the novels are subject to bias, and the movies are supposed to be unbiased, I can now safely say that the Empire was indeed an evil organization.

In addition, I now am in agreement with Spanky's and IP's theory of the so-called Hyperspace Aliens time traveling.

18-Till-I-Die · Post by **18-Till-I-Die** » 2004-03-30 06:27pm

Well what is this theory? Is there any evidence of it in the canon?

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2004-03-30 06:42pm

Not in canon (of course, since it's sources come from the EU).

First is that about a million years BBY, the Hyperspace Aliens construct the Corellian System, using Centerpoint Station to pull planets equipted with repulsors across space and into their orbits.

Then they position a number of black holes into a cluster later called the Maw, and use it to travel across space and time, into a galaxy a long time forward and far, far away (the Milky Way).

Once they arrive in the Milky Way galaxy, they reach Earth at the time of Cro Magnon man, so that we have no cultural or historic record of their visit. They transport a significant portion of the human population (as well as various other examples of plant and animal life) off Earth and return to their own time and galaxy.

After arriving back home they put the collected humans on Corellia, and scatter the various other lesser plant and animal life in the system and in the systems around it.

The Hyperspace Aliens then use the Maw to travel to a higher plane of existance, where they become the Whills, and record all of Galactic history.

That's pretty much it, and it's pretty well accepted.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2004-03-30 07:22pm

The time travel device, clunky as it is (as it requires capabilities that have never been so much as hinted at anywhere in Star Wars), is really the only solution to be had if "A long time ago in a Galaxy far far away" means the Star Wars universe is our own universe (or a fictional universe where counterparts of us exist).

If it weren't for that line, we could rationalize that it takes place in another universe, where humans evolved independently in another galaxy, or it's our own galaxy in the future, or it's some other galaxy we settled in the future. If it weren't for the canonical age of human galactic civilization (20,000 years according to Obi Wan in ANH), we could rationalize that the Hyperspace aliens kidnapped Cro-magnons and took them straight back to the GFFA. If it weren't for the fact the Hyperspace Aliens have utterly vanished and left nothing but a few pieces of superengineering behind, we could say they kidnapped humans 20,000 years ago and taught them how to be a spacefaring civilization, but 20,000 years isn't long enough for every trace of the HA's to vanish, especially since we know their technology was robust enough to function after all that time. All those facts together, though, force us to accept the time travel theory, assuming the movies themselves are infallible documentary footage (which it's assumed they are, under Lucasfilm canon policy and suspension of disbelief).

IRG CommandoJoe · Post by **IRG CommandoJoe** » 2004-03-30 10:20pm

Was there written Hebrew 30,000 years ago (when Cro Magnon man was in existence)? It's on Vader's chestplate, so that gives us a minimum time period, right?