Project: "EU-fic"

[Admiral Felire]

I must say that its interesting coming into this project. While technically its not that long after it began (roughly anyway) the fact that there are five pages worth of points makes it somewhat hard to comment and analyze. Though I will eventually try to cover as much of the very interesting points presented in this thread.

Illuminatus Primus

First of all thanks for the welcome. Like I said this is a very interesting topic and its something that I can get into and contribute.

By the way, the way you describe the astrographic regions of the galaxy make a lot of sense. I think that they are very workable and very useful and interesting. In addition, I find myself very much liking the idea of the Star Wars galaxy being not just one galaxy but the nearby galactic cluster.

By the way, one of the reasons we could explain about why they never visited other galaxies beyond the local cluster (beyond the few out glaxy exploration missions) is that the other galaxies might be beyond a certain range. That the Star Wars Territory is a cluster of nearby galaxies (one main and maybe a dozen or so minor) and that beyond that cluster is a huge swathe of empty universal space - so far that normal galactic navigation does not actually work as well.

But yeah, I like your two points on galactic astrogation and organization. It very much works.

I want to mention something. I don't think I was clear enough when I said no-inside sources. And that is my fault. I didn't mean that we couldn't include such things as part of the general fluff of what we are doing, its just that WE (as the project members) need to have a totally and completely unbised sense of what occured in the galaxy. A writers bible as you mentioned. So yeah, while something can be written from the point of view of an in-game character, we need to know what is actually technically true and what is not. I hope that makes it clear.

This pretty much comes from the fact that I very much dislike how the Imperial Sourcebook (which is a book i love) was written from the point of view of a rebel historian.

On Thawn.

I like this - "He should and will be a Ramanujan of military science, a freak savant of tactics and strategy with almost no peers within his magisterium." and this "However, the fact is that he loved and admired the Emperor, he was a committed authoritarian and autocrat, he was deceitful and eager for power." and this "I do like that he is a connoisseur of art and considers his profession not just a science, but also an art itself - it brings great parallels with Palpatine, who maintains the same conceits. I do like that he likes to muse about the psychology of his opponents based on art taste, which is lots of narrative and thematic fun." and this "like the idea he uses a lot of psychological slieghts-of-hand and shadows on his own subordinates, to keep them in awe and suspended terror of his talents and seeming omniscience."

I kinda disagree with this - "I mean the implication that he knows what Ackbar will do based purely on guesswork after admiring the being's art is ridiculous." and this "But it shouldn't be acknowledged as the actual source of his genius." I disagree with those because, at least in my opinion, it was a major part of who the character was.

I guess what I am saying is that I do not dislike him being nasty, brutish, imperialistic. Nor do I have a problem with him having five thousand secret intelligence soruces that aid him. Nor do I think he should just use one method to the exlusion of all others. But the thing about his art fetish, well, that is pretty much one of the core character concepts of him. Now, this doesn't mean that we need to state conclusively that it is how he does things, but I also don't think we should state that this is not how he does things. If you know what I mean. Yeah, multiple conflicting stories being given to various people through the itme of his reign could be interesting and cool. It could provide readers with more information and more wonder on what is the truth.

But to me the truth is pure mental capability, training, advanced Intellignece gathering, psychological training, and then maybe art.

While I know we cannot ignore this, I so wish we could drop the idea of Byss and Palpatine. Not because I dislike the Byss storyline (though some aspects of it does need some work) but because what it means for Thrawn. hehe

Honestly, despite what I might be saying, I don't have a problem with Thrawn failing (well, no more of a problem in our project compared to what I had when I read it in the first place, but that is besides the point). So yeah, we will have to do exactly what we have to do.

And this is not a point trying to change the topic because Thrawn is an awesome character and worthy of our work, but I think that maybe we should start with the Battle of Endor and the aftermath of Palpatine's demise.

I do agree with you that the Imperial Remnant is not the same as the Galactic Empire in terms of true polticial thought. At the same time I never thought that they referred to themselves as the Remnent. They were always the Empire or Imperials. So, maybe the dropped the Galactic part but they never termed themselves the Remnent. Despite them not being true Galactic Empire. I hope my clarification makes sense.

About the Dark Horse Comics area, that's fine. I'm not a very solid fan of that part so I don't actually mind. And while certain aspects of the Yuuzhan Vong War were interesting, a lot of it wasn't. So I also have no problem with that. I also despied the Swarm War and the second separatist movement that happened afterward, so I have no problem with us ignoring that part. Or at least working on it later.

So yeah, I get what your saying about not worrying about that part of the timeline right now and not being constrained by it. That is completely fine.

--

On some points made above by others

1) I so totally and completely approve of the idea of some Rebels having TIEs and some Imperials having X-Wings. I also approve of the idea that while new ships are used, that some Imperials (and Rebels) will use the old ships of the Galacitc Republic - including all those fighter types.

Personally, I am in love with the concept of an Imperial Battlegroup using only wedge- and triangular-shaped fighters and starships. I think it would look cool.

2) I also agree with the concept of the removal of institutionalized misogyny. I do not thing it should be major, important or any other feature of note. This is the Star Wars Galaxy, a galaxy with over 25,000 years of recorded history and social development, to me galactic misogyny should be not a major concept.

I also beleive that within the field of general anti-alien feelings. To me the Empire should have no problem with alien employees if they are good, though they might be segregated into different naval units, army detachments or government services. But that is just me.

--

People post faster than I realize.

--

Illuminatus Primus,

While I do not disagree with you on your point sof organization, I do disagree with you points about the relationship between Pellaeon and Thrawn. Pellaeon is a protege to Thrawn, he is also his second and whatnot. I think that is made multiple times both in the Thrawn trilogy and afterward, whenever Pellaeon is musing about the past.

I really do disagree with you on this issue. Pellaeon was chosen by Thrawn personally to be the one he made contact with. That's gotta mean something in the chain of command.

Honestly, I really think that this is an issue that we should put off until we come up with a timeline and information on the five or whatever years that precedes it from the Battle of Endor.

Darth Hoth

Your point about the Chis being in a small nearby dwarf galaxy is really cool. That way when they speak of 'galactic' threats, they can be totally honest - galactic threats related to their small galaxy, not to the other galaxies in the nearby cluster.

I also have no problem with ignoring the Yuuzhan Vong and what they do. Though, at the same time, I do thing that we need to have some sort of major Galactic War or something, that way our timeline matches up with the real one. But that is a while for now.

Your points about the past are well founded and something that I think bears mentioning. I very much support the fact of the view that the Galactic Empire is the Galactic Republic with some name and basic organizational changes. That it is in many ways a continuance of previous governing bodies.

This is a difference between the Galactic Empire and the New Republic for the New Republic is a break from the past. An entire new government institution.

I also want to mention that I totally approve of an idea that the past is known to the galaxy at large. That one can go to a Library and read about the Founding of the Galactic Republic. That wouldnt be that bad because right next to it in shiny new colors would be a book about the fall and the chaos and how the Empire is the best government of all. True history next door to propaganda.

I also agree with you on the New Republic and how its a weak in many ways and that so many problems would have to exist.

Like the galaxy has sectors and oversectors (heck, I think it should have subsectors and the subsector be the fifty world thing, with sectors being made up of multiple subsectors, but that is just me). The idea of minor regions, major regions and galactic regions all make a lot of sense. Its multiple people over many millenia using the same term to describe different concepts.

Of course one could also use other terms to describe the same thing.

--

I personally think that we should start with right after the Battle of Endor and begin their. Its a perfect place to start in my estimation.

[Darth Hoth]

Pelleaon is the Watson to Thrawn's Holmes. He is the sympathetic and grounded character, the normal eyes through which an audience glimpses into the world of a man of enigmatic origins and character, possessed of brilliance reaching that most rarefied of heights. Does anyone believe we would see Watson replace Holmes? Pelleaon is a sidekick, an aide, a confidant if you will. He is not a protege or lieutenant.

I remember it sounding silly even when I first read The Last Command how the entire fleet fell apart at Thrawn's death and Pellaeon, of all people, took charge. Even as a stupid teenager, I found myself thinking, "Eh? What's the deal, did the Navy abolish the flag ranks after Endor? Why isn't there another admiral there, if it warrants the Supreme Commander's attention?"

[Imperial Overlord]

I'm not interested in the technicalities of Pelaellon's place in the chain of command, I'm bothered by the inconsistencies of portrayal of Pelaellon. Zahn has him as someone who Thrawn has near at hand, relies on, and confides in. Like Watson he's steady, solid, and reliable. This is inconsistent with him being the shmuck who breaks the chain of command and panics at Endor and dooms the Imperial fleet to defeat. This is a fault of additional material to the Battle of Endor (more flag officers, longer post Death Star battle) without appreciating the impact that material has (making Pelaellon a guy who should be shot, not stand at Thrawn's right hand). I'm saying this needs to be fixed.

I'm with IP in believing the art bit was always stupid. Thrawn being an art connosieur and incorporating that into his studies of the cultures of other beings as part of his psychological warfare strategies is fine. The ridiculous wank of "I've studied their art so I have complete insight into the commander's psychology" is ridiculous. What does a Jackson Pollock tell you about me? Jack shit.

[Admiral Felire]

I wouldn't mind offering my services as a sort of secretary for this project. I personally feel that I need to be involved in some of the administrative tasks (or have a direct duty) otherwise I will probably fade away. And making it so that I must pay attention to keep an additional record of what was mentioned sort of helps that.

On a related note, I just went through all six pages and took the paragraphs and notes related to the ideas and plot points and put them in a single document. I would gladly post it it here if people felt the need for it. And if they did not then I have it if anybody wants it.

Of course if this doesn't suit your needs, then tell me and I won't update it or share it.

---
Darth Hoth

I never had a problem with that because I ignored Pellaeon's rank and looked at his placement as close to Thrawn. To me he was second in command of the Empire under Thrawn, despite his relatively low rank. Because of that him taking command didn't bother me one bit.

Imperial Overlord

I completely agree with you on here. To me Pellaeon is not a traitor, a coward, incompetent or anything else. He is in fact quite capable, loyal, hard working and obedient to the chain of command. So, that needs to be worked out and fit into a comprehensive whole.

I would like to mention that the expansion of the commanders at the Battle of Endor are not actually mentioned in the movie, which means that we can choose to ignore it, downplay it or modify things as we wish.

On the art bit, while it might be stupid, it is one of the core aspects of who the character is. If we change it its not changing something minor its changing something that is a major point of who and what he is. Honestly, while we can maybe point in other directions and misdirect whether its the true power of his or not, we should not remove it or remove its visiblity.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Hoth:

The idea of blue-gray X-Wings being chased by off-white TIEs with colorful racing stripes fills me with a perverse kind of glee.

Me too.

Thirded.

Let's commission some storyboards from havekoff then.

On the topic of the various alien invaders, I would rather keep them minimalist, since they were so as they were first portrayed, even by the ordniary EU standards of the time. The Ssi-Ruuk, the Nagai and the Tof were all originally supposed to hail from single planets, and were therefore not credible threats even in the canon of the time. Even the Chiss in their overinflated state only ever covered the equivalent of of a few dozen sectors; vastly more formidable to be sure, but by no means anything large by SW standards, especially given their primitive technology. One might perhaps imagine the Chiss as a small Burma in their own little dwarf galaxy, harmless from lack of a true hyperdrive and their scale, but ideologically eccentric, closed down and armed to the teeth, enjoying perhaps only a very modest trade with smugglers and assorted "Rogue Traders". This fits with their image isolationist militarists and alarmist paranoids.

A culture doesn't have to "shake the galaxy" to have very interesting stories and characters. In a way, Thrawn is more interesting if he comes from the most "dark land" (to borrow an allusion from Konrad's Heart of Darkness) with no connections and considered true barbarism and primitiveness in the Empire's Core elite. But yet he climbs to the rarefied heights to become the viceroy and despot of the Unknown Regions and later even shogun of the Galactic Empire itself.

So, are we looking at something akin to the fall of the Roman Empire, after the New Republic abolishes the emergency measures the Empire put in place to enforce galactic unity? Something that bugs me overall with the EU (and the films, for that matter) is the lack of continuity between the various galactic entities; one cannot reasonably abolish all the features of the earlier governments in the short time-spans proposed. The Empire would, realistically, continue to use the base of the Old Republic for their state, though subverting it and tacking new agencies and offices onto it as they went; many bureaucrats would continue with the new authority, as would military men &c. Instead, the OT treats the Galactic Republic as an almost mythical past, with the Jedi being viewed, how should I describe it, akin to STCs in 40k or male Aes Sedai in The Wheel of Time.

I personally, would take the idea of "heroes on both sides" and "gray as opposed to black and white" that Lucas promised and actually do it, instead of simplicity he gave us. My Empire would be significantly older, and the PT heroes collaborate with Palpatine and his program (some more enthusiastically than others - cough - Anakin - cough -). The Jedi Purge and Palpatine's openly despotic Throne would come in Episode III when they realized they'd screwed up and had buyers' remorse. I take the fact of the OT's treatment as a combination of the utter information and cultural domination by Palpatine's revivalist movement. In the eyes of almost all, it literally swept everything aside and Old Republic was a quaint and ancient institution of the past. That, and the fact that the institutions of the galaxy are so old and ossified that their culture has become romanticized and quasi-traditional/aristocratic. Obi-Wan's pomp would be because the Jedi literally romanticized themselves as the knight-saviors of the galaxy and the stewards of the Republic.

The New Republic should suffer from this to an even larger degree, given their lack of professional bureaucrats (which should be screaming; they are a terrorist/guerrilla movement, not a separate polity); in order to completely "de-Imperialise" the administration, they would be required to hold purges the scale of which Stalin could scarcely imagine, and for all my gloating at their incompetence and speciesism, I do not think them capable of this.

Just as my vision of the early New Republic forces are largely defections from the Republicanist-sympathizers in the military establishment and therefore using Imperial hardware and doctrine and officers in many cases, the New Republic would have no choice be to assimilate Imperial institutions in many cases and holdout for time to de-Palpatinize them later. This should be a major source of early angst for the NR, in its fair-weather supporters and former Imperials in their administration and state apparatus.

The problems of the anti-Imperial bias and the setting-up of their own government, leading to the Imperial Emancipation in The New Rebellion, should be emphasised, as well as their failure to learn from the Imperial example. The result of New Republic incompetence and populism might, in the end, be the rise of a new Empire.

Right, and the immaturities and weaknesses of the Palpatinic Era galactic society in general and the New Republic in particular would be the focus of my idea of a NJO-replacement arc.

The Imperial-class ISSD (Saxton's "Allegiance-class") does appear a better choice to me, although that is mostly for aesthetical reasons (practical matters such as similar/identical bridge modules might also be a factor).

Its a bit on the tiny side for an appropriately scaled-up impressionistic replacement for the role the Imperial-class occupies for small-minded and minimalistic authors. I was thinking something like a 5th the volume of Executor (arguably the true relative stature of the two ships intended by minimalist authors who not only couldn't watch TESB but simplemindedly conflated mere length with volume).

I wouldn't stop with the Imperial-class, I'd have Republic dreadnoughts which are holdovers from the pre-Palpatinic era, and weaker and smaller, as products of antiquated policy, corruption in contracts, weak defense postures, and many years of poor maintenance, but much, much larger. But still dwarfed by the scaled-up Imperial-class (again, perhaps a third the strength of our ersatz ISD, again the relative strength implied by smallminded writing). A Victory/Venator analog half that of our ISD scale-up, etc.

It might be desirable to avoid overusing the word "region" in differently sized administrative sub-divisions for purposes of clarity. Also, where do Oversectors fit into your model?

I'm afraid I was constrained by canon. The Imperial Sourcebook states explicitly regions contain anywhere from single digits to upwards of thousands of sectors. Some kind of "region" must have 5-10 sectors, and some other kind must have 2000+ sectors. I chose the former as "lesser regions" and the latter as "galactic regions" with "greater regions" for canonical cases which are clearly intermediate, like the Koornacht Cluster, the Hapan Cluster or the Transitory Mists it is part of, and the Bright Jewel Cluster.

Agreed; I envision those areas as the "Wild Frontier" of the galaxy, insofar as such a thing can exist.

Right.

Also a very good idea. This should presumably include many of the Bantam stories, unless they are substantially ret-conned.

Right. Here's where my 'simply acknowledge the actual state of things instead of pretending that something unrealistic or incredible is normal'. If Thrawn is a savant of literally fantastic capability, have people comment on this, turn it into a character attribute and texture for a story. Add it to the theme. Don't pretend absurdly amazing insights or ability is just, "he's pretty damn good" - it betrays credibility. Its fine if the Invids are the current assignment for the Rogues, but don't pretend they are a galactic power. Likewise for the Eye of Palpatinep or Daala terrorists plots. Something can be serious and merit the heroes' attention without overshadowing the gravitas of the films and "epic sequels" (by which I mean the main-thrust-of-the-conflict struggles against Pestage and Isard and to a lesser extent Zsinj, and especially and most notably The Thrawn Trilogy and The Dark Empire Trilogy arcs.

Overall numbers for fleets, populations &c should be established at least roughly to set the proper scale. But agreed, we do not need that level of detail. A tech library such as they had might be useful, however, as well as their various miscellana (coherent ranks tables, medals tables &c). This would, however, be a future priority, as such detail is not required for the moment.

Right. I think a good baseline would be establish various generic character outlines and generic orders-of-battle or basic tech fluff. Say, describe a basic Imperial system governorate and its attached garrison on several sample worlds. Then a couple typical Outer Rim Sector administrations and Sector Commands, likewise for a Mid Rim Sector, Core Worlds sector, something like the Imperial Sector too. And then accordingly for Regional administrations and Commands, some Oversectors, and some Strategic Forces.

The idea for a single overarcing committee was supposed to be an interim measure till we could formalise the structure; for that, I imagined a broader organisation akin to the one you suggest.

Right.

I agree with Illuminatus, in that an in-universe perspective feels more authentic and appropriate for such things as fluff or timelines (stories would by definition be subjective and in-universe). An OOU writer's bible should be considered, but not be our first priority.

Glad you agree.

What do you mean with a Dune encyclopedia - the appendix from the book, or another work altogether? It was a while since I studied that universe.

Just its quite appendix with key terms, "What is the Landsraad" etc.

Assuming that I understand it correctly, what Illuminatus is saying is that while being a genius, great leader &c &c, Thrawn is still human and should not be able to come up with his uberduper strategies on pure fiat, an assertion that I essentially agree with. Military matters are extremely complicated, and one man simply cannot do all that Thrawn supposedly does, planning operations in detail and micromanaging a galactic war. Psi-war and theatrics is the reasonable interpretation; the only even slightly feasible alternative is to make him some sort of mystic or precog, and there is no shortage of those in the already existant canon. I also do not believe that one can simply dismiss all the evidence for Thrawn being a speciesist, authoritarian &c; in a way, this even makes for better storytelling, as it touches on what Illuminatus and I discussed about flawed characters who serve the Empire not because they are evil, but because they are human (prefer order to chaos or whatnots). That Thrawn was supposedly "good" all along was originally a ret-con, and a suspicious one by Zahn, who demonstrably cannot help but wank his favourite characters.

Hoth's right on my page. I want to reclaim and rehabilitate the idea of Thrawn and his narrative from the Thrawn Trilogy as much as common sense and suspension of disbelief requires. Its actually quite tragic that from a rational point of view Thrawn and the Thrawn campaign from the Thrawn Trilogy is hard to take seriously on face value.

Though one can object to it on grounds of legitimacy, as Publius or Illuminatus do, the Remnant did continue to call itself the Galactic Empire, much as Taiwan holds on to the official name of the Republic of China. As we attempt to follow canon as strictly as possible, given the additional constraints of coherency and relative realism, I assume that we will keep it.

I'm sure they continued to present themselves as the Empire, but its important to remember they're not the only pretension to the legacy and heritage of the Empire. There were much higher ranking officials of the Imperial State who ran their own revivalist movements, such as the Procurator of Justice. Also, most of the histories we have are acknowledged publications by government historians, who have a vested interest in exaggerating Pelleaon's legitimacy and importance (they use him as an example of the fleet's enduring loyalty to Isard's regency on Imperial Center during the Legitimist crisis, which is absurd because Pelleaon is just some Star Destroyer captain at this point, if we're really, really charitable perhaps he was leader of some sub-flag officers' association) as the "Imperial we can work with". By acknowledging Pelleaon's zombie empire as the legal successor and inheritor of the Imperial State, they can attach more pretensions of legal legitimacy and finality to their treaty, and former Imperials/Imperialists which remain unaffiliated with his regime can be dismissed by comparison as mere pirates and criminals.

Seconded. The original idea of the threads that led up to the EU-Fic project - as far as I recall, at least - was explicitly to ret-con the NJO into something more feasible and thematically sound. I am sorry, but such is the consensus.

Glad we're maintaining coherency.

I do disagree with you on High Human Culture; that was evidently a prominent ideology among great personages of state, such as Sate Pestage, Ishin-Il-Raz or Lord Crueya Vandron, all founders and leaders of COMPNOR. It might for the most part be confined to the more grassroot, populist strain of Imperial power, but it should be a major factor. The old nobles of the Core or regions such as the Senex-Juvex also rather obviously had their branch of anti-alienism, though it was certainly less virulent.

Whether something is an official ideology of COMPNOR or even the New Order Party is something quite apart from whether it is one of the ideologies which is actually enforced over the Galactic Empire in general, and the Imperial State in particular. COMPNOR is a semi-official organization. While it does seem - in the form of the Imperial Security Bureau - have the right to exercise certain thinkpol and internal/political policing policies on behalf of the Imperial State, it does not seem to be able to interfere and enforce its own ideologies on its own accord. The Empire is not a one-party state, and the NOrdinals domination and infiltration of the normative state is a haphazard and inconsistently executed, and certainly not complete. As such, an Imperial citizen might get uniformly in trouble with ISB for violating Correct Thought or insulting the Emperor, nonhumans still do have rights and climb to heights of influence and office in the Imperial State, both as civil servants and as officers (Thrawn being the most obvious example). I imagine the movement itself has well-purged itself of nonhumans, but its ability to exercise this ideology over the actual legal institutions of the Empire and its citizenry is incomplete.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Felire:

I must say that its interesting coming into this project. While technically its not that long after it began (roughly anyway) the fact that there are five pages worth of points makes it somewhat hard to comment and analyze. Though I will eventually try to cover as much of the very interesting points presented in this thread.

Heh, I agree. We probably should split this soon into a dedicated discussion thread on a historical-focus area (Thrawn campaign, etc.) and maybe a discussion with a background focus (political/societal institutions and organization, history, astrography, and development).

First of all thanks for the welcome. Like I said this is a very interesting topic and its something that I can get into and contribute.

No problem. Thank YOU for contributing.

By the way, the way you describe the astrographic regions of the galaxy make a lot of sense. I think that they are very workable and very useful and interesting. In addition, I find myself very much liking the idea of the Star Wars galaxy being not just one galaxy but the nearby galactic cluster.

I don't mean a whole cluster (such as the Local Group to the Milky Way), I mean the entire system well-defined and gravitationally bound to the primary spiral. The Milky Way has many dwarf satellite galaxies bound to it alone.

By the way, one of the reasons we could explain about why they never visited other galaxies beyond the local cluster (beyond the few out glaxy exploration missions) is that the other galaxies might be beyond a certain range. That the Star Wars Territory is a cluster of nearby galaxies (one main and maybe a dozen or so minor) and that beyond that cluster is a huge swathe of empty universal space - so far that normal galactic navigation does not actually work as well.

But yeah, I like your two points on galactic astrogation and organization. It very much works.

I agree. Its a complex issue, and I've given a lot of thought as to why no outside contact? Why no exploration? No trade? There's a lot of good pithy responses, but one of the reasons I think its better to avoid a galactic-scale migration/invasion of the type they meant to impress on the readers with the Vong is it begs too many awkward questions. The authors themselves knew this and responded with a pathetically stupid "extragalactic barrier" - contrived author's fiat if there ever was any. I'd rather not bother with those awkward questions and concentrate on the story of the galaxy as a fully encompassing society, the way the films do. Of course I am open for discussion but this is how I feel about the problem.

I want to mention something. I don't think I was clear enough when I said no-inside sources. And that is my fault. I didn't mean that we couldn't include such things as part of the general fluff of what we are doing, its just that WE (as the project members) need to have a totally and completely unbised sense of what occured in the galaxy. A writers bible as you mentioned. So yeah, while something can be written from the point of view of an in-game character, we need to know what is actually technically true and what is not. I hope that makes it clear.

Right, I agree completely. Contributors and readers should have an unambiguous sense of what is and is not to a reasonable standard of precision. Namely no million-man galactic armies in one story and then billions of worlds in another.

This pretty much comes from the fact that I very much dislike how the Imperial Sourcebook (which is a book i love) was written from the point of view of a rebel historian.

Right, and its inconsistency with observed canon allowed us to extrapolate from its ignorance and bias that it simply ignored the Saxtonian starships, but that's preferably not something we should have to burden ourselves with in this project.

I kinda disagree with this - "I mean the implication that he knows what Ackbar will do based purely on guesswork after admiring the being's art is ridiculous." and this "But it shouldn't be acknowledged as the actual source of his genius." I disagree with those because, at least in my opinion, it was a major part of who the character was.

It stretches credibility way beyond breaking, and implies insultingly simplistic and quasi-racist and collectivist thinking. As was stated, would Jackson Pollack's art say something about your personal motivations and feelings? Help defeat General of the Army Douglas MacArthur on the field of battle? I'm afraid that at face value this trait is untenable.

I guess what I am saying is that I do not dislike him being nasty, brutish, imperialistic. Nor do I have a problem with him having five thousand secret intelligence soruces that aid him. Nor do I think he should just use one method to the exlusion of all others. But the thing about his art fetish, well, that is pretty much one of the core character concepts of him. Now, this doesn't mean that we need to state conclusively that it is how he does things, but I also don't think we should state that this is not how he does things. If you know what I mean. Yeah, multiple conflicting stories being given to various people through the itme of his reign could be interesting and cool. It could provide readers with more information and more wonder on what is the truth.

I'm fine with ambiguity and him bullshitting people that maybe he just knows but likes to draw parallels with art. I like that its his hobby and what he muses on to inspire his own art - the art of war. It just shouldn't be how he knows Ackbar is going for Bilbringi and not Tangrene.

But to me the truth is pure mental capability, training, advanced Intellignece gathering, psychological training, and then maybe art.

I agree.

While I know we cannot ignore this, I so wish we could drop the idea of Byss and Palpatine. Not because I dislike the Byss storyline (though some aspects of it does need some work) but because what it means for Thrawn. hehe

Its not possible to eradicate this without severely restructuring the Bantam arc era. And it goes back to swinging back and forth on personal preference.

And this is not a point trying to change the topic because Thrawn is an awesome character and worthy of our work, but I think that maybe we should start with the Battle of Endor and the aftermath of Palpatine's demise.

I think its way too broad in scope to redo the entire post-ROTJ EU. There's a lot of texture and work to be done that can make a gem out of shit.

I do agree with you that the Imperial Remnant is not the same as the Galactic Empire in terms of true polticial thought. At the same time I never thought that they referred to themselves as the Remnent. They were always the Empire or Imperials. So, maybe the dropped the Galactic part but they never termed themselves the Remnent. Despite them not being true Galactic Empire. I hope my clarification makes sense.

Remnant should be a Neo-Republican smear, I agree.

1) I so totally and completely approve of the idea of some Rebels having TIEs and some Imperials having X-Wings. I also approve of the idea that while new ships are used, that some Imperials (and Rebels) will use the old ships of the Galacitc Republic - including all those fighter types.

I'm glad. It'd be silly for the American Civil War not to be fought with commonly existing stockpiles and manufactures of pre-war weapons, and likewise for the Russian Civil War, etc.

Personally, I am in love with the concept of an Imperial Battlegroup using only wedge- and triangular-shaped fighters and starships. I think it would look cool.

Why not? Like I said, what I'm thinking is your average early-war New Republic group might mostly look like an Imperial fleet, with gaps filled in by local state warships and Old Republic/Clone Wars spares.

2) I also agree with the concept of the removal of institutionalized misogyny. I do not thing it should be major, important or any other feature of note. This is the Star Wars Galaxy, a galaxy with over 25,000 years of recorded history and social development, to me galactic misogyny should be not a major concept.

Glad you agree.

I also beleive that within the field of general anti-alien feelings. To me the Empire should have no problem with alien employees if they are good, though they might be segregated into different naval units, army detachments or government services. But that is just me.

Great idea. Certainly in a Sector run by a more COMPNOR party-line Moff? Why not. I can see this definitely, and this is the kind of real world-inspired texture and concepts which I think are very welcome.

Illuminatus Primus,

While I do not disagree with you on your point sof organization, I do disagree with you points about the relationship between Pellaeon and Thrawn. Pellaeon is a protege to Thrawn, he is also his second and whatnot. I think that is made multiple times both in the Thrawn trilogy and afterward, whenever Pellaeon is musing about the past.

I'm sorry, but this is a factual issue. Pelleaon is the commander of Thrawn's flag ship. That is not consistent with him being Deputy Supreme Commander, chief of staff, deputy fleet commander, etc. Maybe he's a protege, but simple facts of military rank, law, and organization mandate he as depicted in The Thrawn Trilogy is in no position to replace Thrawn. Subsequent histories have emphasized he left no chosen successor and he had no one to take his place. So I find it impossible to alter this fact. Pelleaon doesn't have to be a putz, but he's not Thrawn's right hand man. I can just as easily say his lowly rank of post captain relative to Thrawn as Zahn wrote the Trilogy is itself evidence of his intent that he was not the second-in-command to Thrawn. He can be portrayed well and competently yet flawed, and his narrative be compelling and interesting. But its an impossible stretch for Captain Gilad Pelleaon to be Deputy Supreme Commander.

I really do disagree with you on this issue. Pellaeon was chosen by Thrawn personally to be the one he made contact with. That's gotta mean something in the chain of command.

If I was a General of the Army in the U.S. regular army and I got lost in the desert for decades, and upon finding an Internet cafe, ask some colonel from Iraq to come pick me up, does it follow he should become my deputy chief of staff in Washington? That's literally the gulf in experience and rank between them.

Honestly, I really think that this is an issue that we should put off until we come up with a timeline and information on the five or whatever years that precedes it from the Battle of Endor.

I'm sorry, but I really don't see how there's any factual dispute on this point whatsoever.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I'm not interested in the technicalities of Pelaellon's place in the chain of command, I'm bothered by the inconsistencies of portrayal of Pelaellon. Zahn has him as someone who Thrawn has near at hand, relies on, and confides in. Like Watson he's steady, solid, and reliable. This is inconsistent with him being the shmuck who breaks the chain of command and panics at Endor and dooms the Imperial fleet to defeat. This is a fault of additional material to the Battle of Endor (more flag officers, longer post Death Star battle) without appreciating the impact that material has (making Pelaellon a guy who should be shot, not stand at Thrawn's right hand). I'm saying this needs to be fixed.

I'd make it more sympathetic. I'd say that some of the flag officers went warlord or withdrew of their own accord spontaneously (whilst abdicating their responsibility to organize at least a retreat if not resistance). While I'd emphasize the Force-born-disorder caused by Palpatine's death much more heavily and emphasize the fact that Pelleaon did what he felt he had to, which would be depicted as understandable if not the right thing. Everyone makes mistakes. In fact, I would have Pelleaon's great mistake and shame be an important character trait, and emphasize the similarities between the "alien and barbarian" grand admiral who came to the top with no connections, and the one big mistake captain who has a lot to offer and potential. I'd emphasize the relationship and the way Thrawn chooses to take him as his aid and rehabilitate him. That in of itself is an opportunity to make real people of the Imperial characters and to have a much more adult and complex relationship and narrative about Pelleaon and Thrawn.

This is my philosophy with this: take we have, turn it on its head, and see if you can make it a strength instead of a weakness.

EDIT: There actually is evidence that while Pelleaon is not a classical officer of the Empire, with heavy emphasis on slash and dash, fighting near the front, showing his bravery openly due to their somewhat pre-modern warrior culture, but rather an logistical and organizatonal prodigy, and that be part of why Thrawn selected him as his flag captain and captain of the fleet and personal aide. The fact he took Daala's slapped-together terrorist fleet, successful extricated it and its support substructure en bloc to the Imperial-sympathizing regions of the Rim is quite amazing.

[Admiral Felire]

Illuminatus Primus

First of all, I used cluster not in the scientific term but in the sense of a grouping of multiple galaxies around the main Star Wars galaxy.

I really dislike the "extragralactic barrier" point and thing that it is one of those things that needs to go. Soon.

It seems that my problem with what your doing is the matter of language. What I mean by this is that, for example, you state a particular basic point in a single sentance. I might disagree with the basic point. And then once you write it out in huge paragraph format I go, hmm, okay, I thought he meant something different.

For example, while it first seemd that you wanted to ignore the art issue, upon further multi-parapagrah confirmation it turned out you meant that you want to make it just the visible portion but actually just a tiny bit of the whole. Maybe like a magician trying to hide what he actually uses to accomplish his goals, Thrawn uses art to make it so that others cannot mimic him.

So, at basic I disagreed and then upon further confirmation I didn't.

What I am coming to is that this is something that will require its own thread. Its own huge presentation of ideas and thoughts. Something that I think should not be placed in this thread for want of overwhelming.

The idea could be that the general goes here but (as others have said) specifics go elsewhere.

If that is done then I think I might find myself not having a great deal of problems in what you are saying, because I seem to agree (or at least not disagree) when you post paragraphs compared to sentences. I hope that I am making sense on that.

I will say this, before we can fully detail Thrawn's camapign we need to come up with information on Pellaeon and his personal history and personality. This is essential for us to know how things should work. We also need to figure out what sort of resources Thrawn (and earlier Pellaeon) worked with, thus allowing us to figure out what needs to be changed.

On the point of Pellaeon's rank, isn't there some way we can (legally that is) fit him in so that he is both the captain of the ship but also in possession of higher authority. Because, from what is written in the book, he did not just do what captains do, he also seemed to have the authority of admirals and such. And we need to figure out how to reconsile that.

I am not sure that I understand this statement:

[I'm sorry, but I really don't see how there's any factual dispute on this point whatsoever.]

Could you please explain it a little more. Because the statement you were referring to is a statement of mine that we should work on the timeline first so that we know how the galaxy is when Thrawn arrives.

You know, there is nothing stopping us from both working on Thrawn and working on general timeline at the same time. One can occur here (the general timeline) and the other can work in a Thrawn thread.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I think this thread is best for the general organization, recruiting, and management of the project, and another two threads should develop discussions of the Thrawn campaign era and another, the galactic astrography and societal organization. Maybe the latter two or all of this should go in Fanfics under "EUFic" like they did with the DrakaFic project?

[Admiral Felire]

I agree with your latest post Illuminatus Primus. Having every thread related be titled with EUFic: x would be a very good thing. It would aid in organization and it would aid in helping people keep things organized. So yeah, that sounds like a very good idea.

Though I don't think they should go in Fanfic. I mean at this point where not really writing fanfics, were more trying to organize thoughts and stuff. So shouldn't that be in the Star Wars section of this site. Of course, if you and the majority of others in this thread think it fits in Fanfics than that works as well. Its actual location doesn't really bother me.

But I do think that organization needs to be established and somewhat quickly. Without it things usually fall apart. At least that is my experience anyway.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Well, DrakaFic and other fanfics' fluff and organization went in Fanfics, there's also the matter of exposure. A four-five post thread near the top of fanfics can garner 12,000 plus views, whereas this thread doesn't have many. PSW is a pretty tight-knit regulars' group now.

Hoth, Raptor, Fanboy, havekoff, etc. Let's see who can produce a couple page sample in the next couple days - being the weekend and all -, it can be damn crude that demonstrates what they're looking at when they think of a post-Endor, pre-DE depiction of SW the way it should've been. It can be some fluff, some brief tech or OOB, or a little story sample. But we need to get those ideas out and flowing. Also, anyone want to send little invitations to people who aren't PSW regulars and may yet to have seen this?

[Admiral Felire]

Two things

1) Okay that makes sense. I long ago realized that about this site, which is why I kinda fade away every once in a while despite loving the topic. So yeah, posting the threads in the Fanfic forum would be immensly useful and helpful to what this project is attempting.

2) As I mentioned, while I do not write dialog I can write prose and other story elements and multiple pages sometimes comes very easy. But at the same time I am not sure what sort of story elements that the project needs right now. I mean what is it that you are looking for?

3) Okay this was a late thought, but are you by any chance planning on creating the Fanfic Threads now or are you planning on doing it at some later date? Either is fine as there is really no rush.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I was thinking maybe tonight or tomorrow, going to see what Hoth and other participants have to say and what their input is. I just mean we should all write some fluff set anywhere in the ROTJ-DE period (but not only that, necessarily), and make an unobtrusive example of how you think things ought to have been and demonstrated an example of the changes you'd like to make to a particular event or era or depiction. For example, I was going to write a short description of Thrawn's return from the Unknown Regions, and accompany with it a brief battle scene during the campaign (I also thought about some short depicting the war against Zsinj from a different perspective).

[NRS Guardian]

I'd make it more sympathetic. I'd say that some of the flag officers went warlord or withdrew of their own accord spontaneously (whilst abdicating their responsibility to organize at least a retreat if not resistance). While I'd emphasize the Force-born-disorder caused by Palpatine's death much more heavily and emphasize the fact that Pelleaon did what he felt he had to, which would be depicted as understandable if not the right thing. Everyone makes mistakes. In fact, I would have Pelleaon's great mistake and shame be an important character trait, and emphasize the similarities between the "alien and barbarian" grand admiral who came to the top with no connections, and the one big mistake captain who has a lot to offer and potential. I'd emphasize the relationship and the way Thrawn chooses to take him as his aid and rehabilitate him. That in of itself is an opportunity to make real people of the Imperial characters and to have a much more adult and complex relationship and narrative about Pelleaon and Thrawn.

This is my philosophy with this: take we have, turn it on its head, and see if you can make it a strength instead of a weakness.

EDIT: There actually is evidence that while Pelleaon is not a classical officer of the Empire, with heavy emphasis on slash and dash, fighting near the front, showing his bravery openly due to their somewhat pre-modern warrior culture, but rather an logistical and organizatonal prodigy, and that be part of why Thrawn selected him as his flag captain and captain of the fleet and personal aide. The fact he took Daala's slapped-together terrorist fleet, successful extricated it and its support substructure en bloc to the Imperial-sympathizing regions of the Rim is quite amazing.

I was thinking about this as well, and I thought perhaps with the Force-induced disorientation and chaos Pellaeon ordered/suggested a tactical retreat out of Endor, so that the fleet could recover and reorganize. Most of the fleet having done this, instead of figuring out who was in charge and going back in while the Rebels were picking up their people and celebrating, the fleet fell apart. After all the EC says that at least two high-ranking officers refused to stay and instead went warlord. So what was supposed to be a temporary retreat to recover became permanent when it scattered rather than regrouping.

[Admiral Felire]

I was just thinking about something. Okay, the Imperial Military seems to be divided into two broad categories - the Standing Forces and the Mobile Forces.

The Standing Forces are those military units assigned to a particular sector, over sector, or region of the Galaxy. They can operate within that territory but not beyond it.

The Mobile Forces are Imperial-wide military units and can operate anywhere their commander feels the need (and possesses the authority to go). These forces (such as the fleet assigned to Darth Vader) are designed to aid in the defense and protection of the entire Empire.

Another point to be made is that while sectors include the mile-long star destroyer they do not routinely include larger ships in the Imperial forces. Though, as with most things, there are exceptions. On the otherhand, super star destroyers (of whatever make and model) are routinely assigned as the command forces of the Mobile Forces due to their importance and majesty.

Now, here is a thought. Wouldn't it be somewhat likely that once the Empire falls apart after Endor the events of both forces are somewhat different. I mean a Standing Force would probably just stay in their assigned territory without worry. While the Mobile Forces would either move to a territory and merge with it or would continue to travel around the galaxy doing what they wish.

Another thought is the organization of the territorial units of the galaxy. While the units of sector, oversector, and region are canon I think there should be others. First of all, in some documents the oversector is actually written as Priority Sector which means that it technically is just a sector. Which means couldn't we create something called Subordiante Sectors, also known as subsectors.

The idea would be that the subsector is what contains the 50 inhabited star systems that the Imperial Sourcebook talks about. Each subsector would be part of a Regular Sector which could contain dozens, scores, or hundreds of subsectors. Regular sectors themselves are part of regions and sometimes (though it seems not always) part of oversectors.

As written by Illuminatus Primus, the term of region itself also cotnains within the single overarching group multiple divisons. This being the Galactic Region, the Greater Regions, and the Lesser Regions. That way we could have a region of ten worlds or a region of 1 million worlds (if we wanted).

As also mentioned, within the broad authority of the Galactic Republic or Galactic Empire was actually more than one galaxy. The main Alpha Galaxy as well as a dozen or so auxiliary galaxies that are probably quite small compared to the main galaxy. Trade, travel, government and continued contact exists between the main and most of the galaxies.

Some foreign galaxies are considered under the control of their own governments and do not hold allegiance to the Galactic Republic or Empire (or its successor). A perfect example (as mentioned by Darth Hoth) is the 'galaxy' of the Chiss. They are thus technically 'galactic' in scope because they own a galaxy, it just that there galaxy is so much smaller. So when they say that they are facing a threat of galactic porportions they mean their galaxy, not the main one. It also allows the idea of the Hand of Thrawn taking over a huge span of territory that no body knew of - that territory is in a nearby galaxy that spins around the main galaxy.

I wouldn't have a problem with making the Outer Rim Territories be both the rim of the main galaxy as well as the territory of some of the most well known additional galaxies. Wild Space itself is the stars and planets that exist either between the galaxies or that lie in other minor galaxies and have not been truly contacted or brought into the main galactic civilization.

[Fiji_Fury]

For what it may be worth, I offer my support to this project. I've read (and sadly own) most of the EU novels post ROTJ up to the NJO and heartily agree that it could benefit from considerable reinterpretation.

Although I don't have much experience with story writing, I am less than a year from being certified as a secondary (grades 7 - 12) social studies teacher and would gladly offer to act as a proof-reader should the need arise. At this point I don't have any other comments but will continue monitoring this thread and any spin-offs to see where I may be able to help.

[Darth Raptor]

I started a thread for random fluff and standalone, non-story one-shots here. I'll post more as I write more.

[Darth Hoth]

Thank you. However, I don't want to domineer this. It seems the handling of the Thrawn Campaign is an issue of contention and concern. Let's make this our first focus. What do you think of it Hoth? Anyone else?

You do make a good job of rationalising it and, even more than myself, finding ingenious solutions to problematic situations, simply reinterpreting things that I would simply have ret-conned. With you having come as far as you apparently have on your work with that, I do not really have all that much to add at this stage; on these matters, we seem to be of fairly uniform opinion.

As for actual suggestions from me, I think we should emphasise the political side of the war, pointing to how tentative the New Republic's hold over many worlds would be, perhaps even them having to hold down planets by force or else they would defect to the Empire. The NR from Zahn's books is just one big happy fairytale with evil Imperials having to oppress their way through prosperous and content little worlds, and really, that is completely unrealistic, given the timeframe and the extent of local and popular support for Palpatine and the Imperial state (if not always its functionaries). (I suppose one could partly blame this on warlords and rogue successor states giving the Empire a bad name, but that cannot be all of it.) This also ties in with the idea that Thrawn's war hardly appears to be a total one, with planetary bombardments almost unheard of and the laws of war by and large being followed; both sides attempt to appear to be fighting "honourably" in order to score political points.

[Darth Hoth]

[. . .]

2) I also agree with the concept of the removal of institutionalized misogyny. I do not thing it should be major, important or any other feature of note. This is the Star Wars Galaxy, a galaxy with over 25,000 years of recorded history and social development, to me galactic misogyny should be not a major concept.

The galaxy does have some pretty ossified cultural structures (e.g., privileged nobility, enslavement of stupid species), so social progress is not necessarily beyond ours by orders of magnitude. I imagine that with technology being more or less stagnant and the economy being one of quasi-equilibrium (Some weird form of mercantilism? The various "guilds" that pop up every once in a while spring to mind), social mobility is drastically reduced as well. However, that is no excuse for being openly racist towards women, as though they were not human.

I also beleive that within the field of general anti-alien feelings. To me the Empire should have no problem with alien employees if they are good, though they might be segregated into different naval units, army detachments or government services. But that is just me.

Given High Human Culture, I think there should be a noticeable institutional bias, even if it is only fuelled by COMPNOR activists and their highly placed friends. This is not saying that aliens should not serve or be accepted as equals in some locales (perhaps a Sector with a particularly liberal governor/local administration?), but that they would overall find their service more difficult, promotion slower, &c. Conversely, in some heavily COMPNOR-influenced Sectors, aliens might be second-class citizens who individually aspire to reach the rank of "Honorary Human". On a galactic scale, uniform policies on this topic would appear difficult to enforce in every locale.

Your point about the Chis being in a small nearby dwarf galaxy is really cool. That way when they speak of 'galactic' threats, they can be totally honest - galactic threats related to their small galaxy, not to the other galaxies in the nearby cluster.

Yes, and to me it fits better with their canon portrayal; they are very insular, and a physical measure setting them apart does make sense, even if it is easily defeated by "modern" technology. Still, the main point would be that the areas that are isolated are so because they themselves want it, not because they are arbitrarily off-limits.

I also have no problem with ignoring the Yuuzhan Vong and what they do. Though, at the same time, I do thing that we need to have some sort of major Galactic War or something, that way our timeline matches up with the real one. But that is a while for now.

Illuminatus has some ideas, and personally I think there can be plenty of drama in simply having the New Republic collapse spectacularly under its own incompetence (aided perhaps by lesser foreign invasions).

Your points about the past are well founded and something that I think bears mentioning. I very much support the fact of the view that the Galactic Empire is the Galactic Republic with some name and basic organizational changes. That it is in many ways a continuance of previous governing bodies.

This is a difference between the Galactic Empire and the New Republic for the New Republic is a break from the past. An entire new government institution.

Here, I am using history as a model, specifically das Reich for the OR/Empire and the Soviet Union for the NR. The first government takes over an existing apparatus in peacetime (more or less, in the Empire's case) and gradually subverts it to its own ends, while the RA/NR is a violent revolutionary movement by an armed minority which attempts to produce a "clean slate" to build its utopia on. However, it quickly finds this unfeasible, and promptly turns to various hypocritical justifications for incorporating elements of the old government, only to purge them again when it has the power to do so.

I also want to mention that I totally approve of an idea that the past is known to the galaxy at large. That one can go to a Library and read about the Founding of the Galactic Republic. That wouldnt be that bad because right next to it in shiny new colors would be a book about the fall and the chaos and how the Empire is the best government of all. True history next door to propaganda.

History somewhat edited, of course, though subtly enough to allay suspicions.

I also agree with you on the New Republic and how its a weak in many ways and that so many problems would have to exist.

More or less everyone on the board does, I think, with ample justification. . . One could almost take the message of SW to be that democracy does not work, at times.

Like the galaxy has sectors and oversectors (heck, I think it should have subsectors and the subsector be the fifty world thing, with sectors being made up of multiple subsectors, but that is just me). The idea of minor regions, major regions and galactic regions all make a lot of sense. Its multiple people over many millenia using the same term to describe different concepts.

Of course one could also use other terms to describe the same thing.

We really do need a model to sort out these various terms; I shall get into it in more detail as I address Illuminatus's reply.

I personally think that we should start with right after the Battle of Endor and begin their. Its a perfect place to start in my estimation.

You mean instead of jumping right onto the Thrawn Campaign? I might perhaps agree with that. What do you think, Illuminatus? Should we put Thrawn on hold till we have fleshed out the background?

[Darth Hoth]

Let's commission some storyboards from havekoff then.

A culture doesn't have to "shake the galaxy" to have very interesting stories and characters. In a way, Thrawn is more interesting if he comes from the most "dark land" (to borrow an allusion from Konrad's Heart of Darkness) with no connections and considered true barbarism and primitiveness in the Empire's Core elite. But yet he climbs to the rarefied heights to become the viceroy and despot of the Unknown Regions and later even shogun of the Galactic Empire itself.

Certainly. The same might be true for the Nagai, e.g. the New Republic considers them primitive barbarians and uses them as mercenaries for particularly hard or dirty jobs, like the Bolsheviks did with Chinese or the Latvian Riflemen in the Russian Civil War. Alternatively, they are just privateers and yet another minor headache to some Sector or sub-Sector official.

What do you think of my take on the Chiss, by the way?

I personally, would take the idea of "heroes on both sides" and "gray as opposed to black and white" that Lucas promised and actually do it, instead of simplicity he gave us. My Empire would be significantly older, and the PT heroes collaborate with Palpatine and his program (some more enthusiastically than others - cough - Anakin - cough -). The Jedi Purge and Palpatine's openly despotic Throne would come in Episode III when they realized they'd screwed up and had buyers' remorse. I take the fact of the OT's treatment as a combination of the utter information and cultural domination by Palpatine's revivalist movement. In the eyes of almost all, it literally swept everything aside and Old Republic was a quaint and ancient institution of the past. That, and the fact that the institutions of the galaxy are so old and ossified that their culture has become romanticized and quasi-traditional/aristocratic. Obi-Wan's pomp would be because the Jedi literally romanticized themselves as the knight-saviors of the galaxy and the stewards of the Republic.

So, that is your take on the PT? I find much to agree with there. So, would you put the Clone Wars back in the 40s to 50s BBY as Zahn had it, or even further?

This is, however, mostly something for the future. What I meant to ask here was, what is your rough idea of what should replace the Yuuzhan Vong invasion?

Just as my vision of the early New Republic forces are largely defections from the Republicanist-sympathizers in the military establishment and therefore using Imperial hardware and doctrine and officers in many cases, the New Republic would have no choice be to assimilate Imperial institutions in many cases and holdout for time to de-Palpatinize them later. This should be a major source of early angst for the NR, in its fair-weather supporters and former Imperials in their administration and state apparatus.

I would actually like to see them try abolishing the old government, only to fail spectacularly and be forced to revert to it as chaos sets in. That fits better with their idealistic image. At the same time, there could be swings in the treatment of former Imperials depending on politics (e.g., if Fey'lya's populist/alien supremacist faction gains the upper hand, their situation grows worse).

This touches on the subject of how former Imperial citizens are treated overall. Do we retain EU portrayals of plundering, wealth redistribution and vindictive show trials? I personally would like to elaborate a little on this, as it is implied rather than stated in the extant canon. e.g., have a Nuremberg-style trial for people like Bevel Lemelisk, where the Rebels get to motivate why it is criminal to build superweapons but not to use them (as Kyp Durron did).

Right, and the immaturities and weaknesses of the Palpatinic Era galactic society in general and the New Republic in particular would be the focus of my idea of a NJO-replacement arc.

As I see it, Palpatine's centralisation, while foremost a vessel for his own ascendancy, was also in a way a last-ditch attempt to fix what was wrong with the old government. The Old Republic was clearly falling apart even before the Clone Wars, and the Empire would be the clamp-down reaction on its fracturing and non-functioning. The centralisations this imposed would, in turn, be a majorincentive for members of the old elite to support the Rebels, as they were much looser on control; thus, the New Republic would be well-intentioned but actually stripping away the last measures that might have saved the overall OR structure and speeding up its descent into anarchy.

Its a bit on the tiny side for an appropriately scaled-up impressionistic replacement for the role the Imperial-class occupies for small-minded and minimalistic authors. I was thinking something like a 5th the volume of Executor (arguably the true relative stature of the two ships intended by minimalist authors who not only couldn't watch TESB but simplemindedly conflated mere length with volume).

I wouldn't stop with the Imperial-class, I'd have Republic dreadnoughts which are holdovers from the pre-Palpatinic era, and weaker and smaller, as products of antiquated policy, corruption in contracts, weak defense postures, and many years of poor maintenance, but much, much larger. But still dwarfed by the scaled-up Imperial-class (again, perhaps a third the strength of our ersatz ISD, again the relative strength implied by smallminded writing). A Victory/Venator analog half that of our ISD scale-up, etc.

If we are to retain the Katana Fleet plot device as anything but a propaganda show, we would probably need to scale up both she ships and the numbers included in that force.

On the issue of the ersatz ISD, I can see your point. I thought it appropriate because of the name, relatively close to common design, streamlined function as a dedicated fleet warship &c; to me, it appeared a good analogue of a "Victory" ship (as per WWII, not the ISD), or a cheap, easy-to-build yet more powerful replacement for the ordinary Imperial-class, which is more suited for peacekeeping and multitasking. But if Saxton's scaling is accurate, then it is too small; I had forgotten to check it for size.

I'm afraid I was constrained by canon. The Imperial Sourcebook states explicitly regions contain anywhere from single digits to upwards of thousands of sectors. Some kind of "region" must have 5-10 sectors, and some other kind must have 2000+ sectors. I chose the former as "lesser regions" and the latter as "galactic regions" with "greater regions" for canonical cases which are clearly intermediate, like the Koornacht Cluster, the Hapan Cluster or the Transitory Mists it is part of, and the Bright Jewel Cluster.

The official material is problematic because it is inconsistent and notably confuse the terms on various occasions. This is why Publius had to build such an elaborate system of regional administration in TNOiP to house all the various interpretations. I would actually prefer if we could narrow down the band a bit. As I imagined the EU, Regions were the major bands of worlds, such as Core, Colonies &c. Below them were the Oversectors, segments of space within these Regions (e.g., Bright Jewel Oversector), and the bottom line would be Sectors. There were also "Priority Sectors" (Death Star Technical Manual, if I recall correctly), which could vary in size; these would be the areas delegated various plenpotentiaries by the Imperial Throne, and which could be anything from a few to vastly many Sectors. The Imperial Sourcebook treats "Region" not as a measure dependent on size or a group of measures, but by some other arbitrary criteria, such as being under the control of a single political entity. This could be dismissed as a mistake by the in-universe author - it is not as though there are not plenty of those already.

The Hapes Cluster or the Koornacht Cluster are described as having double-digit numbers of major worlds in all canon; they would qualify for Sectors at best if size was the sole criterion. I presume we are going to upgrade them if they are supposed to be credible, but the existant EU calling them "Regions" clearly does not intend this to mean that they have many Sectors within them.

Right. Here's where my 'simply acknowledge the actual state of things instead of pretending that something unrealistic or incredible is normal'. If Thrawn is a savant of literally fantastic capability, have people comment on this, turn it into a character attribute and texture for a story. Add it to the theme. Don't pretend absurdly amazing insights or ability is just, "he's pretty damn good" - it betrays credibility. Its fine if the Invids are the current assignment for the Rogues, but don't pretend they are a galactic power. Likewise for the Eye of Palpatinep or Daala terrorists plots. Something can be serious and merit the heroes' attention without overshadowing the gravitas of the films and "epic sequels" (by which I mean the main-thrust-of-the-conflict struggles against Pestage and Isard and to a lesser extent Zsinj, and especially and most notably The Thrawn Trilogy and The Dark Empire Trilogy arcs.

For the Invids, I would say that they were trouble for some local, inadequately manned authority that called for Federal help, e.g. the Sector Rangers; I do not think the NR should expend forces on hunting them for extended periods on its own initiative.

Right. I think a good baseline would be establish various generic character outlines and generic orders-of-battle or basic tech fluff. Say, describe a basic Imperial system governorate and its attached garrison on several sample worlds. Then a couple typical Outer Rim Sector administrations and Sector Commands, likewise for a Mid Rim Sector, Core Worlds sector, something like the Imperial Sector too. And then accordingly for Regional administrations and Commands, some Oversectors, and some Strategic Forces.

Agreed. Also, stuff like rank charts for the various organisations and militaries, which is important if we do not want to fill the hierarchy with the kind of haphazard shit that the EU did. (I am not saying that we must throw out stupidities such as "Systems Admiral" or "Captain-Administrator", but they should be made to make sense - e.g., a lot of the more obscure "ranks" should really be appointments or positions.)

Just its quite appendix with key terms, "What is the Landsraad" etc.

All right.

Hoth's right on my page. I want to reclaim and rehabilitate the idea of Thrawn and his narrative from the Thrawn Trilogy as much as common sense and suspension of disbelief requires. Its actually quite tragic that from a rational point of view Thrawn and the Thrawn campaign from the Thrawn Trilogy is hard to take seriously on face value.

Was Zahn being completely ignorant of real militaries, or did he just not give a damn? Does anyone know? Either way, I agree.

I'm sure they continued to present themselves as the Empire, but its important to remember they're not the only pretension to the legacy and heritage of the Empire. There were much higher ranking officials of the Imperial State who ran their own revivalist movements, such as the Procurator of Justice. Also, most of the histories we have are acknowledged publications by government historians, who have a vested interest in exaggerating Pelleaon's legitimacy and importance (they use him as an example of the fleet's enduring loyalty to Isard's regency on Imperial Center during the Legitimist crisis, which is absurd because Pelleaon is just some Star Destroyer captain at this point, if we're really, really charitable perhaps he was leader of some sub-flag officers' association) as the "Imperial we can work with". By acknowledging Pelleaon's zombie empire as the legal successor and inheritor of the Imperial State, they can attach more pretensions of legal legitimacy and finality to their treaty, and former Imperials/Imperialists which remain unaffiliated with his regime can be dismissed by comparison as mere pirates and criminals.

To clarify: I am not saying that the Imperial Remnant was the legitimate Imperial government, merely that they pretended to be and were recognised as such.

Whether something is an official ideology of COMPNOR or even the New Order Party is something quite apart from whether it is one of the ideologies which is actually enforced over the Galactic Empire in general, and the Imperial State in particular. COMPNOR is a semi-official organization. While it does seem - in the form of the Imperial Security Bureau - have the right to exercise certain thinkpol and internal/political policing policies on behalf of the Imperial State, it does not seem to be able to interfere and enforce its own ideologies on its own accord. The Empire is not a one-party state, and the NOrdinals domination and infiltration of the normative state is a haphazard and inconsistently executed, and certainly not complete. As such, an Imperial citizen might get uniformly in trouble with ISB for violating Correct Thought or insulting the Emperor, nonhumans still do have rights and climb to heights of influence and office in the Imperial State, both as civil servants and as officers (Thrawn being the most obvious example). I imagine the movement itself has well-purged itself of nonhumans, but its ability to exercise this ideology over the actual legal institutions of the Empire and its citizenry is incomplete.

I did not mean to say that its implementation would be complete or uniform throughout Imperial space; of course, there will be large variations. Nevertheless, I cannot dismiss it as minor and of little consequence as you appear to do; its proponent Sate Pestage was the de facto ruler of the Empire while Palpatine was devoting his time to his magery, after all, and this would be reflected in appointments, policy and the relative importance of COMPNOR. Of which the last mentioned to the best of my knowledge was not insignificant, with it having widespread lobbying power, youth corps and its own political police. In addition, the Imperial Military appears more afflicted with political and COMPNOR interference than most, given that it has two separate corps of commissars (Political Reliability Observers and CompForce Observers, respectively) monitoring it, in addition to ISB sleepers. Many senior officers were apparently also in favour of New Order policies such as High Human Culture; perhaps this was the result of a politicised Academy, or perhaps cronyism and the rapid promotion of the ideologically correct.

[Darth Hoth]

Well, DrakaFic and other fanfics' fluff and organization went in Fanfics, there's also the matter of exposure. A four-five post thread near the top of fanfics can garner 12,000 plus views, whereas this thread doesn't have many. PSW is a pretty tight-knit regulars' group now.

I guess the point was that we would be having extensive discussions in those threads; is Fanfic still the appropriate place for them? It goes without saying that finished material should be there, of course.

Hoth, Raptor, Fanboy, havekoff, etc. Let's see who can produce a couple page sample in the next couple days - being the weekend and all -, it can be damn crude that demonstrates what they're looking at when they think of a post-Endor, pre-DE depiction of SW the way it should've been. It can be some fluff, some brief tech or OOB, or a little story sample. But we need to get those ideas out and flowing.

All right; I was thinking of doing a The Test of Wills-style novelisation of old X-wing comics to straighten them up, but I shall see if I can throw something shorter together for that thread.

Also, anyone want to send little invitations to people who aren't PSW regulars and may yet to have seen this?

Who did we decide to invite, now again? I remember Shep, Ender and Connor, Marina and the various "Old Guard". Perhaps a few dedicated Fanfic writers as well?

Still no response from Darth Wong, Illuminatus? Perhaps we should send a new message, in case he missed it.

[Darth Raptor]

Okay, I've already hit a snag and before we do anything else (to the setting) I think we should focus on the following:

Astrography: Work out the whole regions, oversectors, sectors, etcetera thing. Name the galaxy. Usually, when people talk about "the galaxy" they're talking about the sum total of interstellar civilization. The primary AND its satellites, the local galactic system of the GFFA. But it's incredible to think that they wouldn't have astronomical names for each particular body. There's got to be a less cumbersome way to distinguish the main galaxy from its satellites and vice versa. We just never hear it because the topic never comes up. You know what "the galaxy" means in-context, but that alone wouldn't fly in, say, a primary school astrography text.

On that note, History: I'm content to leave everything from 60 rS onward blank because, as far as we're concerned, it hasn't happened yet. I'm also all on board with the prequel reboot, but again, we kind of need at least some background in that area. At least what, to continue the analogy, a Coruscanti grade-schooler would know about the Clone Wars, the history of the Empire, the Old Republic etcetera. It doesn't need to be anything major or even that revealing. In fact, I could probably do with just knowing from when to when the Wars were fought and when the Republic was reorganized into the Empire.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Felire:

Illuminatus Primus

First of all, I used cluster not in the scientific term but in the sense of a grouping of multiple galaxies around the main Star Wars galaxy.

Fair enough.

I really dislike the "extragralactic barrier" point and thing that it is one of those things that needs to go. Soon.

Agreed.

I will say this, before we can fully detail Thrawn's camapign we need to come up with information on Pellaeon and his personal history and personality. This is essential for us to know how things should work. We also need to figure out what sort of resources Thrawn (and earlier Pellaeon) worked with, thus allowing us to figure out what needs to be changed.

We won't go in half-cocked, if that's what you mean.

On the point of Pellaeon's rank, isn't there some way we can (legally that is) fit him in so that he is both the captain of the ship but also in possession of higher authority. Because, from what is written in the book, he did not just do what captains do, he also seemed to have the authority of admirals and such. And we need to figure out how to reconsile that.

I'm afraid that you seem to be approaching the question of Pelleaon from what seems to be a personal interest in his character. What purpose narratively does it serve to have Pelleaon as Deputy Supreme Commander (something his factual rank is completely unsuited for and a lofty position not commiserate with his history)?. I suggested that in addition to being Thrawn's flag captain (the captain of his flagship), Pelleaon serves as his captain of the fleet (an intermediate coordinator between Thrawn's fleet subordinates and him) and maybe a personal aide who lends his logistical and organizational gifts to Thrawn's greater plans. The personal relationship between them is much more important than his normative role in the management structure of the Empire. And while Zahn may be quite ignorant of military science, I think he knows that admirals command formations of ships and captains do not. His rank of post captain and his role as the skipper of HIMS Chimaera are not accidents and factual aspects of his character and depiction. These are not matters of trivia.

Could you please explain it a little more. Because the statement you were referring to is a statement of mine that we should work on the timeline first so that we know how the galaxy is when Thrawn arrives.

I meant the contention of Pelleaon's suitability to be retconned as Deputy Supreme Commander or deputy chief of the Supreme Commander's Staff (assuming the two are distinct). Pelleaon's fundamental character is a window into Thrawn's world, that of a confidant, and that of a personal aid; it is not a second-in-command or heir apparent. This has been explicitly stated, and I do not see what the convincing factual or narrative basis for retconning this is.

I also think you're a bit misinformed about what being Supreme Commander entails. It is a primitive and misguided choice by Zahn to have Thrawn be directing the Empire's war effort and the Empire as a whole, and commanding a field unit on the front. The Imperial office of Supreme Commander is somewhat comparable to the Secretary of Defense in the American military heirarchy (with operational command passing from field unit (actually fighting formations) commanders to unified combatant command (regional formations) commanders to the Secretary of Defense (overall defense policy) to the President (final say-so). Pelleaon as second-in-command would belong in whatever office building the High Command uses doing paperwork and managing a workforce of subordinates in drafting plans and contingencies and issuing orders to comply with ones in use.

I've fudged Thrawn's role on the field as a product of his secret informal staffs (consisting of Chiss and Unknown Regions' veterans) and personal office staffs and inner circle of advisors and aides helping him do his strategic planning outside of High Command and running the civil government from behind the scenes and, this, in conjunction with his freak-savant talents for in-his-head organization and intuitive plans and responses. Basically, Thrawn's just a never-sleeping workaholic supergenius who is capable of managing a fleet on the front on campaign while directing government policy and (micro)managing an entire war effort at the galactic level basically through conference calls to a small and informal staff (which itself must consist of amazing workoholic geniuses), and, if we take Zahn seriously, also finds time to micromanage the combat tactics of his flag captain. I don't even like putting Thrawn on the front 24/7 like Zahn does. I'm willing to fudge it with the fixes and cludges I listed above with a touch of the fact that Imperial/galactic military culture mandates imprudent displays of personal risk and daring so that Supreme Commanders are issued their own personal fleet which they often use for high-profile operations here and there (notice though, that even Vader as Supreme Commander had his own admiral running his formation and this micromanagement and personal supervision was an extraordinary act of personal interest in Skywalker).

I was just thinking about something. Okay, the Imperial Military seems to be divided into two broad categories - the Standing Forces and the Mobile Forces.

The Standing Forces are those military units assigned to a particular sector, over sector, or region of the Galaxy. They can operate within that territory but not beyond it.

The Mobile Forces are Imperial-wide military units and can operate anywhere their commander feels the need (and possesses the authority to go). These forces (such as the fleet assigned to Darth Vader) are designed to aid in the defense and protection of the entire Empire.

Another point to be made is that while sectors include the mile-long star destroyer they do not routinely include larger ships in the Imperial forces. Though, as with most things, there are exceptions. On the otherhand, super star destroyers (of whatever make and model) are routinely assigned as the command forces of the Mobile Forces due to their importance and majesty.

Now, here is a thought. Wouldn't it be somewhat likely that once the Empire falls apart after Endor the events of both forces are somewhat different. I mean a Standing Force would probably just stay in their assigned territory without worry. While the Mobile Forces would either move to a territory and merge with it or would continue to travel around the galaxy doing what they wish.

These are good ideas, but similar things have already been developed. I think you should read Publius' essays on the Domus Publica (also check out his SW fic, because its another source of inspiration and 'feel' for a common and fleshed-out universe) and his speculative in-universe history, The New Order in Power we're using as quasi-canon (our prequel elimination will mandate ignoring certain details referencing the PT) for the project. I realize its a lot of reading, but a worthwhile effort will require research and precision. In order to shorten the effort in regard to your particular thoughts here, consult "Leviathan" amongst his essays, and the latest chapter of The New Order in Power, "The Armed Forces of the Imperium."

Another thought is the organization of the territorial units of the galaxy. While the units of sector, oversector, and region are canon I think there should be others. First of all, in some documents the oversector is actually written as Priority Sector which means that it technically is just a sector. Which means couldn't we create something called Subordiante Sectors, also known as subsectors.

It seems this is a solution in search of a problem. I don't want to overrule existing sources unless we have a good reason. Is there a particular reason that the existing colonial administration (read The New Order in Power, "State Services of the Imperium," and "The College of Moffs"), is insufficient to organize the system?

The idea would be that the subsector is what contains the 50 inhabited star systems that the Imperial Sourcebook talks about. Each subsector would be part of a Regular Sector which could contain dozens, scores, or hundreds of subsectors. Regular sectors themselves are part of regions and sometimes (though it seems not always) part of oversectors.

The Imperial Sourcebook explicitly associates the 50 "worlds" (enfranchised member states) with the sector.

As written by Illuminatus Primus, the term of region itself also cotnains within the single overarching group multiple divisons. This being the Galactic Region, the Greater Regions, and the Lesser Regions. That way we could have a region of ten worlds or a region of 1 million worlds (if we wanted).

Oversectors/priority sectors seem to be a parallel suprasectorial unit of colonial administration and devolved government to the various regions.

As also mentioned, within the broad authority of the Galactic Republic or Galactic Empire was actually more than one galaxy. The main Alpha Galaxy as well as a dozen or so auxiliary galaxies that are probably quite small compared to the main galaxy. Trade, travel, government and continued contact exists between the main and most of the galaxies.

Very small compared to the main galaxy. But yes, this is a good basis for the "intergalactic" in the Intergalactic Banking Clan, should we retain it (I suspect we will as an institution since it canonically persists into the OT and post-OT era).

Some foreign galaxies are considered under the control of their own governments and do not hold allegiance to the Galactic Republic or Empire (or its successor). A perfect example (as mentioned by Darth Hoth) is the 'galaxy' of the Chiss. They are thus technically 'galactic' in scope because they own a galaxy, it just that there galaxy is so much smaller. So when they say that they are facing a threat of galactic porportions they mean their galaxy, not the main one. It also allows the idea of the Hand of Thrawn taking over a huge span of territory that no body knew of - that territory is in a nearby galaxy that spins around the main galaxy.

As TC Pilot described earlier in this thread, its really unconvincing that the nearby satellite galaxies would be any less settled and explored than the rim of the primary. Besides, the Chiss Ascendancy contains only 40 or so worlds, which makes it consistent with territory in the (mostly empty) galactic halo. I intend for the satellite dwarf galaxies and globular clusters to generally be considered part of the Outer Rim's jurisdiction. The Unknown Regions would be lost stars in the depths of the galactic halo.

I wouldn't have a problem with making the Outer Rim Territories be both the rim of the main galaxy as well as the territory of some of the most well known additional galaxies. Wild Space itself is the stars and planets that exist either between the galaxies or that lie in other minor galaxies and have not been truly contacted or brought into the main galactic civilization.

"Wild Space" is unconvincing as an official territorial unit designation, so I've made it a colloquialism consistent with WEG information. Namely, that it refers to "unincorporated" territorial units to the seven galactic regions system, typically because they're being resettled or reintegrated for one reason or another.

[Imperial Overlord]

Thrawn's frequent presence at the front and his "art genius" make more sense if they are part of a deliberately cultivated mystique. However we end rearranging things, Thrawn does not have the support of substantial chunks of the Imperial Remnant including the Deep Core Fleets. An aura of preternatural power (not so unreasonable in this galaxy) and ability, the perception of being an Alexander or a Caesar, could be part of a psychological and political campaign to bring the elements of the other Imperial factions over to his side.

IP, I like your Pelaellon solution.

[Pelranius]

I think we should also give some credence to the senior ranking figures of the Imperial Army and Intelligence during the Thrawn Trilogy era.

As for the Spaarti cloning facility on Wayland, should we also interpret "units" to be legions of stormtroopers?

I've toyed with the idea of making the Katana Fleet to be a Separatist stash of prototype World Devastators. Would that work?

Edit: Perhaps we could have former Imperials or disgruntled alien species defect to Thrawn's forces during his campaign? It would go a long way in explaining how Thrawn was able to practically reverse the course of the war while being hamstringed by Palpatine and the Ruling Circle.