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I'm cranking out a short "sample" bit of fluff, in the TNOiP style on the Thrawn Campaign and a little short to go with it. I don't suggest we actually use it, but its an idea of things to come. Quite crude stuff, because I'm throwing it together on the seat of my pants. Not what we'll actually roll with, but a taste. I'll post by sometime this weekend.

Illuminatus Primus wrote:I'm cranking out a short "sample" bit of fluff, in the TNOiP style on the Thrawn Campaign and a little short to go with it. I don't suggest we actually use it, but its an idea of things to come. Quite crude stuff, because I'm throwing it together on the seat of my pants. Not what we'll actually roll with, but a taste. I'll post by sometime this weekend.

I am looking forward to it. Me, I have begun some work in earnest on the timeline and a story bit about the Battle of Brentaal from the X-wing comic.

On another note, since we now appear to be starting in earnest and have had a few days for people to notice and apply, we should begin to structure the project. I believe we have pretty much decided on whom to actively invite; notes should be sent to the appropriate parties. Once we have their answers, I propose that we establish an organisation to keep track of the project; at this stage, it need not be anything elaborate, just a nucleus for the project. Depending on if/when another communications mechanism can be established, we could use DrakaFic's precedent and use the common forums (in our case, PSW) with a special "EU-Fic" thread heading. As material comes in, we should also set up a register for it.

Karmic Knight wrote:

NRS Guardian wrote:I'd be willing to help with ideas, constructive criticism, proofreading/continuity advice, maybe even a couple short stories.
I have recently been thinking about how to rationalize the NR's military organization or seeming lack there of. Though its not all bad. Starships of the Galaxy(2007) states that by the end of the Galactic Civil War the NR had many Executors. That does beg the question where were they during the Vong War? Though one could ask the same question of these same Executors while they were in Imperial hands during the Galactic Civil War.

During the GCW I would think that the giant endless fleets were tied up maintaining the status quo, not dealing with terrorist Senators.

I'm talking about post-ROTJ when it became a more conventional war. The GCW spans the period from just before the Battle of Yavin to the peace between the Imperial Remnant and NR. Of course the Rebellion prior to that didn't amount to much of a threat compared to the semi-independent states, rogue imperials, and core sectors capable of building their own star dreadnoughts.

I've been revising my outlook in the post-Endor civil wars, and I don't think they were full-intensity total wars, but largely political struggles and relatively low-intensity (at least until the campaign for Coruscant).

NRS Guardian wrote: I'm talking about post-ROTJ when it became a more conventional war. The GCW spans the period from just before the Battle of Yavin to the peace between the Imperial Remnant and NR. Of course the Rebellion prior to that didn't amount to much of a threat compared to the semi-independent states, rogue imperials, and core sectors capable of building their own star dreadnoughts.

The fleets would still have to maintain order in the systems they were already in. Just because Palpatine kicks it doesn't give your average Imperial free reign to do what ever they want. They still have obligations to those above them, and they have obligations to keep the sector they are assigned to safe from pirates, and to keep the sector stable. And as you said, the rebellion itself is not in anyway more powerful than it was days before, it just has the "We killed Palpatine" bumpersticker now.

A minor but meaningful touch: fleshing out and making realistic the combat and equipment of the Rebellion and Empire. Another principle I've approached is that of "impressionism". In short, what is the general idea the publication(s) are trying to convey. In other words, when you see the early post-Endor civil war documented by the Rogue Squadron comics, does that mean all of the major turns of the political scene was dominated by ace vs. ace naval aviator combat? No. But does it imply perhaps that Alliance to Restore the Republic/New Republic's military doctrine emphasizes a greater reliance on hyperdrive-equipped starfighters and independent aviation operations in the greater concept of fleet strategy than the Empire? Sure. When we see that the commonest line combatant of the New Republic is the 1.2 kilometer- MC-8X series cruisers, does this mean this is all the combat we should see? No. But it does imply a different approach either by doctrine or necessity to fleet actions by the New Republic than the Empire. Yet at the same time, I am emphasizing the true state of the scale of the galactic civilization, millions of fighters being routine. The T-65 X-Wing will be in limited use by the Empire in certain regions and roles, and refitted or painted-over Imperial hardware like TIE-series fighters and Star Destroyers will be very common in the New Republic naval forces, probably predominant for some time as doctrine, victory, necessity all compete for influence over the makeup and disposition of the forces. Remember, this is a CIVIL war, and that means a lot of the equipment is being produced by people who jumped sides, and being made off production lines built before the war. A lot of commonality which will become more distinct with time (my personal perception is that there will be a major 'counterforce' campaign - that is, combat emphasizing destruction of the enemy war materiel and forces in detail in of itself, as opposed to occupation of territory or acquisition or destruction of resources - once the NR and Empire sweep in to claim Zsinj's territory and meet, the Essential Chronology really emphasizes the Star Destroyer losses of the campaign, and I think that's a good time for force depletion to trigger the expansion and development of more 'home grown' designs and models).

For example, my fluff on the Thrawn Campaign emphasizes the fact that Thrawn used HIMS Chimaera as a general purpose flagship and courier. Does this mean no Executor-class ships remained in the Starfleet? Certainly not. But perhaps does this emphasize a dedication by the Mitth'raw'nuroudo to seeming more like the common officer's officer to the Armed Forces? To forsaking egotistic gigantism? Sure. And maybe it was partially because the Empire at that stage could no longer afford vanity command ships for its elite. In this vein, do I consider the Executor to be a prestige command ship which exceeds the basic requirements of military science? Sure, that is the impression delivered by the canon. Does that mean that no common intermediates exist between Executor and the lowly Imperial-class? Certainly not. I expect to portray an "erstaz Imperial-class," filling the impressionistic role of the Imperial-class to many authors: that of a common and very capable typical-class fast battleship, while existing in much greater numbers and somewhat lesser than the cyclopean Executor-class and Eclipse-class ships, yet still much larger than the diminutive in true scale terms Imperial-class. Perhaps something like Giel's flagship or a bit lesser would be appropriate. Imagine such a craft to be a ubiquitous major combatant "off-screen" the numerous and immense in-the-distance arrowheads of Dark Empire and other comics.

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.

How should we approach the various extragalactic alien powers? Should the power of (and threat posed by) the Chiss, Ssi-Ruuk, Toffs, Nagai, et al be inflated or reduced relative to official canon? This is one area that can't be fixed merely by injecting a proper sense of scale. Turning them into the credible threats to the Republic/Empire they were (arguably) intended to be perpetuates the retarded conception of the Unknown Regions as being large swaths of the main galaxy's interior (!). I presume we're going to treat them instead as star clusters significantly above or below the main galaxy's plane ala the SWTC; therefore no.

But then again, you might want/need powerful, indigenous collaborators for the NJO. I guess it would help if we knew what the basic plan for the NJO was.

Darth Raptor wrote: How should we approach the various extragalactic alien powers? Should the power of (and threat posed by) the Chiss, Ssi-Ruuk, Toffs, Nagai, et al be inflated or reduced relative to official canon? This is one area that can't be fixed merely by injecting a proper sense of scale. Turning them into the credible threats to the Republic/Empire they were (arguably) intended to be perpetuates the retarded conception of the Unknown Regions as being large swaths of the main galaxy's interior (!). I presume we're going to treat them instead as star clusters significantly above or below the main galaxy's plane ala the SWTC; therefore no.

But then again, you might want/need powerful, indigenous collaborators for the NJO. I guess it would help if we knew what the basic plan for the NJO was.

Which is why we should start in broad strokes, if we start looking for details to bog us down with, we will end up finding them.

We should start with a time line of events, and work from there.

Each objective should open up the next objective pretty obviously, and unlike Lucasarts, we can scrap entire ideas because we aren't making anything off of their existence.

Edit: Also, from what I understand, many of the examples were only threats to the NR immediately post-Endor, so they may not be Galatic threats, but they were threats to a fledgling government that just knocked off the leader of the Galaxy.

BTW IP, I've already secured fractalsponge's permission to use his take on Anonymous Star Cruiser #5. He's yet to settle on a name, though Lictor-class was suggested and I kind of like that. Is this the kind of middling-displacement fast battleship you're looking for?

Thrawn did have capital warships in his personal command which resembled some of the Star Cruisers seen in the Marvel comics, as evidenced by a picture found in the TTT sourcebook (unless said ships are Tectors).

Could we just write off the Unknown Regions as one of the satellite galaxies?

Pelranius wrote:Could we just write off the Unknown Regions as one of the satellite galaxies?

Would it really make a difference? For a galaxy that's possessed FTL civilizations for 25,000 years, the difference between an "unexplored" satellite galaxy is about as bad as having an "unexplored" region of space in the galaxy-proper.

The retcons already posited elsewhere, that the Unknown Regions are merely un(der)developed swaths of space, due largely to the Old Republic's territorial limits, more and more accessible resources closer to home, the backwardness of its native species, and the rather underdeveloped and independant Outer Rim, are sufficient, in my opinion.

TC Pilot wrote:Would it really make a difference? For a galaxy that's possessed FTL civilizations for 25,000 years, the difference between an "unexplored" satellite galaxy is about as bad as having an "unexplored" region of space in the galaxy-proper.

Agreed. The Rishi Maze and the other as-yet-unnamed satellite galaxy have had more than enough time to be explored and developed. It's the tiny, isolated star clusters of intergalactic space where there be dragons, and for purely economic reasons.

The retcons already posited elsewhere, that the Unknown Regions are merely un(der)developed swaths of space, due largely to the Old Republic's territorial limits, more and more accessible resources closer to home, the backwardness of its native species, and the rather underdeveloped and independant Outer Rim, are sufficient, in my opinion.

That's Wild Space though, which is, IIRC, supposed to be distinct from the Unknown Regions.

Doesn't have to be one of the satellite galaxies shown on the Jedi Archive map in AotC. We could place it several galaxy spans away from the GFFA proper.

Looking over this all, well, I must say that it is something that I have always wished was done. That a group of people got together and came up with a single, overarching, organized, connected and interesting timeline for all of Starwars. And in my wish one started with post-RotJ and then later on went back and covered the days of the Galactic Republic.

So seeing this project was something that is highly interesting to me.

Now, I am definitely interested in it and what it seeks to achieve. My personal ability is in setting making, which applies to timelines, character creations, world creations, organizations, plot formations, and such. I do not really write dialog-ridden stories as I suck at that, but I am pretty okay with things like news or encyclopedia articles.

I also do not have any understanding of physics (beyond the basic level taught to all) and thus mathematical formulas for the development of the pure numbers of things does not actually work for me. So I could do fluff, I could do connection with already written stuff, but you won't see me backing fluff with scientific formula-based aspects (its actually why I stay away from many threads though I watch). I am saying this because I want it known from the start that if this project dips to deeply into such things, well, then I cannot follow scientifically (though I can thematically).

But yeah, I am definitely interested in working in a project that allows for the coming up of information that presents the galaxy-spanning nature of all things in the universe. I completely and fully support the use of Publius' work and the statistics that he comes up with. As, using his information, one can very much work to come up with non-minimalist sorts of information.

I would like to say that anything we write should be from an out of universe source. What I mean by this is that if we state something about the Republic or the Empire, or whatever, than it should be fully considered true - not a personal opinion of a Rebel officer talking about the Imperial Military. I really dislike such things as they take away from the true sense of the story, for me at least.

I also believe that we should come up with a certain grouping of standards - like the extent of the Galactic Republic and later the Empire and New Republic. This would allow us to all work together and come up with info that utilizes it and doesn't come from left field. (I'm not saying you all haven't been doing it, I'm just stating what I thing.)

I also have to say that in some ways I have a problem with how you guys seem to be portraying Thrawn. Maybe its my love of his character and what he has done, maybe its the limits imposed on writing on an internet forum. But whatever it is, I don't know if I completely agree with your accounts. I personally feel that one of the major facets of Thawn is what he does, the art thing, and whether its believable or not, I think we should stick to it. At least somewhat. I mean I have no problem saying that he has access to intelligence sources that are beyond the wildest dreams of others and that most of them are never told to anybody else, but I think that that should provide greater support for his base ability - which is a major point of Thrawn. I also think that if we plan on changing anything than its how he dies - not that he dies, but the method of it. The way it occurs now is deux ex machina and seems out of place and random. I don't know how we would change, but I do think we should.

In addition, are we sticking with the idea of Pellaeon rebuilding the Empire, creating the Imperial Remnant and ushering in peace between the Republic and Empire. I think we should, though I think we should modify the Remnants (and make it known that it never called itself that, it was always the Galactic Empire) territory upward somewhat.

And while you guys seem to disagree with the Yuuzhan Vong War, I do think we should keep in mind the comics that take place a hundred years or so afterward, the ones in which the Empire comes back. I think that is a nice timeline focal point, if you ask me.

Anyway, that's it for now, I think. I will post more as I think about it and as time makes me available. I really gotta say that I like what this is about and that I hope that it succeeds and exceeds all expectations.

Illuminatus Primus, don't take this as an insult or anything as your points are very interesting and useful to read, but could you possibly break up your paragraphs a little more. I find it somewhat hard to follow huge walls of text on the internet. It kinda makes it so I miss some of what you say.

Karmic Knight wrote: The fleets would still have to maintain order in the systems they were already in. Just because Palpatine kicks it doesn't give your average Imperial free reign to do what ever they want. They still have obligations to those above them, and they have obligations to keep the sector they are assigned to safe from pirates, and to keep the sector stable. And as you said, the rebellion itself is not in anyway more powerful than it was days before, it just has the "We killed Palpatine" bumpersticker now.

I'm not denying this, though with warlordism some officers did abandon their responsibilities to go their own way. My main point is that the reason we don't hear in the EU about all these Executors the NR has is for the very same reason we don't hear about them in the EU when they're in Imperial service. Also, while relatively rare the Executor was still common enough at least in an absolute sense that Han could shrug off the presence of one around Endor, and Starships of the Galaxy(2007) states that the Empire had dozens of battle groups each commanded by an Executor. These referred to battle groups are most likely Imperial Oversector Groups.

I feel that that we could write Thrawn off as one of those savant geniuses who pops up every once in while (an anomaly like that guy in the USSR who reminded every detail of his life).

Or we could claim that his genius was enhanced by Palpatine tampering with his mind (mental steroids). I know that sounds pretty corny, but I felt it was at least worth throwing up, for the purpose of shooting it down if nothing else.

Pelranius wrote:Or we could claim that his genius was enhanced by Palpatine tampering with his mind (mental steroids). I know that sounds pretty corny, but I felt it was at least worth throwing up, for the purpose of shooting it down if nothing else.

Outbound Flight would shoot that thory down.

A question that came up when I was researching some older sources: Should we keep the moronic Stackpole/Anderson statements of widespread and institutional misogyny in the Imperial Military? I personally would like nothing better than to rid EU-Fic of it altogether (though I could certainly support an interpretation of certain individual officers being misogynist or whatever), especially the particularly vile "Non-huMan" offal from X-wing which had High Human Culture equate women with aliens. Any ideas for a credible ret-con for that, or can we be content to just throw it out?

Darth Raptor wrote: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.

Darth Raptor wrote:How should we approach the various extragalactic alien powers? Should the power of (and threat posed by) the Chiss, Ssi-Ruuk, Toffs, Nagai, et al be inflated or reduced relative to official canon? This is one area that can't be fixed merely by injecting a proper sense of scale. Turning them into the credible threats to the Republic/Empire they were (arguably) intended to be perpetuates the retarded conception of the Unknown Regions as being large swaths of the main galaxy's interior (!). I presume we're going to treat them instead as star clusters significantly above or below the main galaxy's plane ala the SWTC; therefore no.

I actually wrote an essay on galactic astrography on this board, and have since been developing it into a much more advanced essay or series of essays. I've put a lot of thought into this and the various powers of the Unknown Regions. Basically, the Unknown Regions formally are stars and astrographic features which no longer correspond to their marked locations on the star chart, or stars and astrographic features that are not marked at all. Namely, if you don't know it exists, if you can't find it at all, or if you punch in the listed coordinates and end up in deep space, it is in the Unknown Regions. However, some things which aren't Unknown Regions are called that colloquially because they're just rediscovered, or they had been out of contact, or a known and listed astrographic feature had inhabitants or settlements unmarked.

I modeled the galactic civilization as occupying all of a primary spiral galaxy (grand design or semi-grand design with a two or three partial arms) and a series of satellite galaxies and globular clusters. I imagine the existing powers have telescopes, they know about the primary and the major powers and may deliberately avoid contact and be isolationist and defensive or nomadic (defying attempts to normalize relations and establish contact) which pretty much are categories most Unknown Regions powers can fit in.

Darth Raptor wrote:But then again, you might want/need powerful, indigenous collaborators for the NJO. I guess it would help if we knew what the basic plan for the NJO was.

We haven't decided. My instinct is to de-emphasize the foreign invasion aspect, which is highly problematic for several reasons. I wouldn't mind having foreign invasions as part of a general crisis including civil war and internal disputes.

Darth Raptor wrote:BTW IP, I've already secured fractalsponge's permission to use his take on Anonymous Star Cruiser #5. He's yet to settle on a name, though Lictor-class was suggested and I kind of like that. Is this the kind of middling-displacement fast battleship you're looking for?

I was thinking of Giel's battleship or a miniature version thereof.

Darth Raptor wrote:

TC Pilot wrote:Would it really make a difference? For a galaxy that's possessed FTL civilizations for 25,000 years, the difference between an "unexplored" satellite galaxy is about as bad as having an "unexplored" region of space in the galaxy-proper.

Agreed. The Rishi Maze and the other as-yet-unnamed satellite galaxy have had more than enough time to be explored and developed. It's the tiny, isolated star clusters of intergalactic space where there be dragons, and for purely economic reasons.

Also agreed.

Darth Raptor wrote:

TC Pilot wrote:The retcons already posited elsewhere, that the Unknown Regions are merely un(der)developed swaths of space, due largely to the Old Republic's territorial limits, more and more accessible resources closer to home, the backwardness of its native species, and the rather underdeveloped and independant Outer Rim, are sufficient, in my opinion.

That's Wild Space though, which is, IIRC, supposed to be distinct from the Unknown Regions.

I was also developing a system of political galactic astrography based on canon and science. A glimpse of that was seen in the tiers of traditional devolved government described by Publius in the Moff chapter of The New Order in Power. Basically I worked out a system of seven major territorial units - the galactic regions which are the (formally) Deep Core Region of the Galaxy, Core Worlds Region of the Galaxy, Colonies Region of the Galaxy, Inner Rim Region of the Galaxy, Expansion Region of the Galaxy, Mid Rim Region of the Galaxy, and the Outer Rim Territories Region of the Galaxy.

Below the galactic regions are the greater regions, such as the Greater Region of the Bright Jewel Cluster or the Greater Region of the Koornacht Cluster or the Greater Region of the Transitory Mists. And below the greater regions are the lesser regions. And below the lesser regions are the sectors. I imagine (based on 50 states per sector Imperial Sourcebook estimates, that there are between 10,000 and 20,000 sectors).

I figured Wild Space as a colloquialism describing territories which are not formally incorporated into the galactic regions, which predominantly refers to various isolates (like Kamino, which is not even inside a satellite galaxy ["just south of the Rishi Maze"] - which for the most part I envision as incorporated into the Outer Rim) and areas which were lost to the Unknown Regions and now being reincorporated or other areas reincorporated for other reasons (temporarily abandoned due to a supernova or gamma ray burster, became a ghost system, etc.).

Admiral Felire wrote:Looking over this all, well, I must say that it is something that I have always wished was done. That a group of people got together and came up with a single, overarching, organized, connected and interesting timeline for all of Starwars. And in my wish one started with post-RotJ and then later on went back and covered the days of the Galactic Republic.

So seeing this project was something that is highly interesting to me.

Now, I am definitely interested in it and what it seeks to achieve. My personal ability is in setting making, which applies to timelines, character creations, world creations, organizations, plot formations, and such. I do not really write dialog-ridden stories as I suck at that, but I am pretty okay with things like news or encyclopedia articles.

That's really welcome and I'm glad. I think a lot of stories should not venture beyond the lesser regional or even sectorial level, which is really an incredibly large area of space.

Admiral Felire wrote:I also do not have any understanding of physics (beyond the basic level taught to all) and thus mathematical formulas for the development of the pure numbers of things does not actually work for me. So I could do fluff, I could do connection with already written stuff, but you won't see me backing fluff with scientific formula-based aspects (its actually why I stay away from many threads though I watch). I am saying this because I want it known from the start that if this project dips to deeply into such things, well, then I cannot follow scientifically (though I can thematically).

That's fine. I don't expect us to draw up DrakaFic-esque exact orders of battle and place precise figures on anything, because its just too difficult to construct a reductionist, deterministic model of SW society and warfare, and certainly outside my time and competency. The idea is to project a sense of more accurate and rich verisimilitude. I like Hoth's committee concept, and maybe eventual we could have a few editorial groups, a tech and mil science one, a history and other miscellaneous one, and of course the most important one of continuity-keeping and general thematic and narrative editing.

Admiral Felire wrote:But yeah, I am definitely interested in working in a project that allows for the coming up of information that presents the galaxy-spanning nature of all things in the universe. I completely and fully support the use of Publius' work and the statistics that he comes up with. As, using his information, one can very much work to come up with non-minimalist sorts of information.

I would like to say that anything we write should be from an out of universe source. What I mean by this is that if we state something about the Republic or the Empire, or whatever, than it should be fully considered true - not a personal opinion of a Rebel officer talking about the Imperial Military. I really dislike such things as they take away from the true sense of the story, for me at least.

I disagree. I think its more enriching and realistic to have in-universe sources, for several reasons. One, it provides more texture and richness to the universe than simply having dry text. Two, I'm no postmodernist but there IS wiggle room and debatable issues regarding history. Its unrealistic to pretend that there really is a deterministic etched-in-stone quality to history we just need to work hard to find. Its not a science. That said, I think also there should be an informal out-of-universe writer's bible, and maybe we could slowly produce something like the Dune encyclopedia.

Admiral Felire wrote:I also believe that we should come up with a certain grouping of standards - like the extent of the Galactic Republic and later the Empire and New Republic. This would allow us to all work together and come up with info that utilizes it and doesn't come from left field. (I'm not saying you all haven't been doing it, I'm just stating what I thing.)

I agree. It seems that scale and the progress of the war and all kinds of things were handled haphazardly during the Bantam era. And the Del Rey coherentized things, but held them to a shitty common standard.

Admiral Felire wrote:I also have to say that in some ways I have a problem with how you guys seem to be portraying Thrawn. Maybe its my love of his character and what he has done, maybe its the limits imposed on writing on an internet forum. But whatever it is, I don't know if I completely agree with your accounts. I personally feel that one of the major facets of Thawn is what he does, the art thing, and whether its believable or not, I think we should stick to it. At least somewhat. I mean I have no problem saying that he has access to intelligence sources that are beyond the wildest dreams of others and that most of them are never told to anybody else, but I think that that should provide greater support for his base ability - which is a major point of Thrawn. I also think that if we plan on changing anything than its how he dies - not that he dies, but the method of it. The way it occurs now is deux ex machina and seems out of place and random. I don't know how we would change, but I do think we should.

Look, I don't dislike Thrawn's character. I just think that the idea he was an altruistic antihero to protect the galaxy is not truly born out by the statements of the character itself and what we factually know about him to be true. I'm not trying to subvert him. He should and will be a Ramanujan of military science, a freak savant of tactics and strategy with almost no peers within his magisterium. 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. I mean the implication that he knows what Ackbar will do based purely on guesswork after admiring the being's art is ridiculous. 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. But it shouldn't be acknowledged as the actual source of his genius. I 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.

However, we're not going to arbitrarily alter the facts of the canon. The fact is that Mitth'raw'nuroudo was assassinated by his own bodyguard in an act of apparent narrative irony and karma for his deceitful betrayal of his own allies. Deep down, it was actually accelerated or facilitated by the machinations of Palpatine the Undying while occulted on Byss and preparing for his Shadow Hand Strategy.

Admiral Felire wrote:In addition, are we sticking with the idea of Pellaeon rebuilding the Empire, creating the Imperial Remnant and ushering in peace between the Republic and Empire. I think we should, though I think we should modify the Remnants (and make it known that it never called itself that, it was always the Galactic Empire) territory upward somewhat.

The Imperial Remnant is not the same constitutional organism as the Galactic Empire. The Imperial State ceased to exist with the death of "Emperor Xandel Carivus" and was dissolved. The Imperial Remnant is a ex nihilo federation of late warlords' factions and Imperial holdouts on the Rim. It differs from the Empire in many ways (it also mimics it in several). Among other things, the Moffs were never a ruling class formally in of themselves in the Empire.

Admiral Felire wrote:And while you guys seem to disagree with the Yuuzhan Vong War, I do think we should keep in mind the comics that take place a hundred years or so afterward, the ones in which the Empire comes back. I think that is a nice timeline focal point, if you ask me.

Its too hard to maintain continuity with Dark Horse Legacy if we're altering the timeline at any point between the post-ROTJ EU and DH Legacy. I'm afraid that's too great a constraint on the project. We all have personal tastes, I like some of the NJO books greatly, but we sooner or later have to come to a compromise of what's doable, practical, and coherent. And the easiest thing to do is to fix the Galactic Civil War and fully revise the NJO and post-NJO era. We can't bend the project to each member's preferences of post-ROTJ material. The basic facts of the Bantam era are being retained and clarified for coherency, and we're going into new territory in the NJO and later era, maybe we'll end up keeping a lot, but right now that's where consensus decided to draw the line.

Admiral Felire wrote:Illuminatus Primus, don't take this as an insult or anything as your points are very interesting and useful to read, but could you possibly break up your paragraphs a little more. I find it somewhat hard to follow huge walls of text on the internet. It kinda makes it so I miss some of what you say.

Constructive criticism is always welcome, and I revised this post accordingly upon reading your comment. I would like my own writing to be more coherent sometimes. I definitely am one of those who benefits from several editorial passes. Thank you.

Darth Hoth wrote:A question that came up when I was researching some older sources: Should we keep the moronic Stackpole/Anderson statements of widespread and institutional misogyny in the Imperial Military? I personally would like nothing better than to rid EU-Fic of it altogether (though I could certainly support an interpretation of certain individual officers being misogynist or whatever), especially the particularly vile "Non-huMan" offal from X-wing which had High Human Culture equate women with aliens. Any ideas for a credible ret-con for that, or can we be content to just throw it out?

I think institutionalized misogyny is totally ridiculous. However the common concept that like many fascist movements, some factions within the New Order coalition believed women should be the supportive sex. Should it be a major or dominant faction, I don't think so (like some of the Nazi theorists who posited concepts which failed to dominate or become endorsed by the movement, like Himmler's occultism and Rosenburg's racial historiography). Of course I think High Human Culture should also be a side-movement to Correct Thought and the "mainstream" New Order ideologies.

I think IP has done a good job of hitting this particular nail on the head.

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?

My only Thrawn related concern is Pellaelon. The retconning of a more high rankers being present at Endor makes Pellaelon a panicky coward and completely unsuitable as Thrawn's lieutenant and heir presumptive.

Imperial Overlord wrote:My only Thrawn related concern is Pellaelon. The retconning of a more high rankers being present at Endor makes Pellaelon a panicky coward and completely unsuitable as Thrawn's lieutenant and heir presumptive.

The following is a discussion of military organization in general and naval organization in particular. I may screw up badly and this is outside my competency - Publius and Lonestar would be much better for this. Anyway, the problem with that Pelleaon is a post captain in the Thrawn Trilogy; he is not Thrawn's second-in-command, his chief-of-staff, but merely the captain of his flagship. Thrawn is presumably the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of the Imperium (using The New Order in Power model). He is the military dictator of the Empire, in charge of directing all aspect of the war effort and in overall operational command at the strategic level. Now, the Supreme Commander presumably has a staff of his own (the Supreme Commander's Staff) to plan strategies and operations and to coordinate the war effort with the service chiefs and staffs of the various distinct service branches (the Chief of Naval Operations/First Space Lord, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff and the Commander-in-chief of the Forces, the Commandant General of the Marines, and the Superintendent General of the Ubiqtorate, leading the Imperial General Staff, the Naval Staff, the Commandancy Staff, and Ubiqtorate of the Imperial Navy, the Imperial Army, the Imperial Marines [the Stormtroopers], and Imperial Intelligence, respectively).

Aside from this, Thrawn directly and personally commands a field unit in the fleet led by HIMS Chimeara. So he is doublehatted as the Supreme Commander and as the commander-in-chief of that fleet. As the commander of the fleet, the fleet itself will have its own staff in charge of directing and planning its operations and readiness. Subordinate units of the fleet, be they combat formations or support formations, will be commanded by their own officers (probably admirals in their own right). In the disposition of those roles, they will run their own personal staffs and subordinates. The flagship, HIMS Chimaera, is simply the ship where the admiral chooses to command his fleet from (a flagship is quite simply, the ship flying the admiral's flag). Captain Pelleaon is simply the commanding officer of Thrawn's flagship. He may technically even not answer directly to Thrawn, but to intermediate task force commanders to which Chimaera belongs before the chain of command reaches Thrawn as overall fleet commander. I'm willing to wave that aside, and suggest that Thrawn, being the Ramanujan savant of military science he is, micromanages military operations, especially in his personal fleet. He may even be a Napoleonic-era RN-style captain of the fleet in addition to being flag captain, liaising between Thrawn's immediate subordinates and him as overall commander. Anyway, in no way, shape, or form is Pelleaon a direct subordinate in the chain of command, operationally, administratively or organizationally. Maybe he showed promise and as his flag captain, Pelleaon takes him under his wing as a confidant and personal aide. I am willing to entertain the possibility Pelleaon himself is multi-hatted and in addition to being CO of the Chimaera he also serves as a personal aid to Thrawn and other roles. But this still does not make him logically the next in line to Thrawn in his personal fleet, the navy, to say nothing of the greater military establishment of the Empire in general.

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.

Illuminatus Primus wrote:

Darth Raptor wrote: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.

Darth Raptor wrote:How should we approach the various extragalactic alien powers? Should the power of (and threat posed by) the Chiss, Ssi-Ruuk, Toffs, Nagai, et al be inflated or reduced relative to official canon? This is one area that can't be fixed merely by injecting a proper sense of scale. Turning them into the credible threats to the Republic/Empire they were (arguably) intended to be perpetuates the retarded conception of the Unknown Regions as being large swaths of the main galaxy's interior (!). I presume we're going to treat them instead as star clusters significantly above or below the main galaxy's plane ala the SWTC; therefore no.

I actually wrote an essay on galactic astrography on this board, and have since been developing it into a much more advanced essay or series of essays. I've put a lot of thought into this and the various powers of the Unknown Regions. Basically, the Unknown Regions formally are stars and astrographic features which no longer correspond to their marked locations on the star chart, or stars and astrographic features that are not marked at all. Namely, if you don't know it exists, if you can't find it at all, or if you punch in the listed coordinates and end up in deep space, it is in the Unknown Regions. However, some things which aren't Unknown Regions are called that colloquially because they're just rediscovered, or they had been out of contact, or a known and listed astrographic feature had inhabitants or settlements unmarked.

I modeled the galactic civilization as occupying all of a primary spiral galaxy (grand design or semi-grand design with a two or three partial arms) and a series of satellite galaxies and globular clusters. I imagine the existing powers have telescopes, they know about the primary and the major powers and may deliberately avoid contact and be isolationist and defensive or nomadic (defying attempts to normalize relations and establish contact) which pretty much are categories most Unknown Regions powers can fit in.

I generally agree with Illuminatus here; I always thought the Unknown Regions were so due to lack of economic incentives, not technical constraints.

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.

Darth Raptor wrote:But then again, you might want/need powerful, indigenous collaborators for the NJO. I guess it would help if we knew what the basic plan for the NJO was.

We haven't decided. My instinct is to de-emphasize the foreign invasion aspect, which is highly problematic for several reasons. I wouldn't mind having foreign invasions as part of a general crisis including civil war and internal disputes.

Whatever happens, let us stay clear of the Vong and their biowank. There is a limit for suspension of disbelief, and no problem inclusionwise, given that we agreed to revise that period completely.

(I know you agree with this, it is for the benefit of the others.)

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.

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. 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.

Darth Raptor wrote:BTW IP, I've already secured fractalsponge's permission to use his take on Anonymous Star Cruiser #5. He's yet to settle on a name, though Lictor-class was suggested and I kind of like that. Is this the kind of middling-displacement fast battleship you're looking for?

I was thinking of Giel's battleship or a miniature version thereof.

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).

I was also developing a system of political galactic astrography based on canon and science. A glimpse of that was seen in the tiers of traditional devolved government described by Publius in the Moff chapter of The New Order in Power. Basically I worked out a system of seven major territorial units - the galactic regions which are the (formally) Deep Core Region of the Galaxy, Core Worlds Region of the Galaxy, Colonies Region of the Galaxy, Inner Rim Region of the Galaxy, Expansion Region of the Galaxy, Mid Rim Region of the Galaxy, and the Outer Rim Territories Region of the Galaxy.

Below the galactic regions are the greater regions, such as the Greater Region of the Bright Jewel Cluster or the Greater Region of the Koornacht Cluster or the Greater Region of the Transitory Mists. And below the greater regions are the lesser regions. And below the lesser regions are the sectors. I imagine (based on 50 states per sector Imperial Sourcebook estimates, that there are between 10,000 and 20,000 sectors).

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 figured Wild Space as a colloquialism describing territories which are not formally incorporated into the galactic regions, which predominantly refers to various isolates (like Kamino, which is not even inside a satellite galaxy ["just south of the Rishi Maze"] - which for the most part I envision as incorporated into the Outer Rim) and areas which were lost to the Unknown Regions and now being reincorporated or other areas reincorporated for other reasons (temporarily abandoned due to a supernova or gamma ray burster, became a ghost system, etc.).

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

I think a lot of stories should not venture beyond the lesser regional or even sectorial level, which is really an incredibly large area of space.

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

That's fine. I don't expect us to draw up DrakaFic-esque exact orders of battle and place precise figures on anything, because its just too difficult to construct a reductionist, deterministic model of SW society and warfare, and certainly outside my time and competency. The idea is to project a sense of more accurate and rich verisimilitude. I like Hoth's committee concept, and maybe eventual we could have a few editorial groups, a tech and mil science one, a history and other miscellaneous one, and of course the most important one of continuity-keeping and general thematic and narrative editing.

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.

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.

Admiral Felire wrote:But yeah, I am definitely interested in working in a project that allows for the coming up of information that presents the galaxy-spanning nature of all things in the universe. I completely and fully support the use of Publius' work and the statistics that he comes up with. As, using his information, one can very much work to come up with non-minimalist sorts of information.

I would like to say that anything we write should be from an out of universe source. What I mean by this is that if we state something about the Republic or the Empire, or whatever, than it should be fully considered true - not a personal opinion of a Rebel officer talking about the Imperial Military. I really dislike such things as they take away from the true sense of the story, for me at least.

I disagree. I think its more enriching and realistic to have in-universe sources, for several reasons. One, it provides more texture and richness to the universe than simply having dry text. Two, I'm no postmodernist but there IS wiggle room and debatable issues regarding history. Its unrealistic to pretend that there really is a deterministic etched-in-stone quality to history we just need to work hard to find. Its not a science. That said, I think also there should be an informal out-of-universe writer's bible, and maybe we could slowly produce something like the Dune encyclopedia.

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.

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.

Admiral Felire wrote:I also believe that we should come up with a certain grouping of standards - like the extent of the Galactic Republic and later the Empire and New Republic. This would allow us to all work together and come up with info that utilizes it and doesn't come from left field. (I'm not saying you all haven't been doing it, I'm just stating what I thing.)

I agree. It seems that scale and the progress of the war and all kinds of things were handled haphazardly during the Bantam era. And the Del Rey coherentized things, but held them to a shitty common standard.

No arguments there.

Admiral Felire wrote:I also have to say that in some ways I have a problem with how you guys seem to be portraying Thrawn. Maybe its my love of his character and what he has done, maybe its the limits imposed on writing on an internet forum. But whatever it is, I don't know if I completely agree with your accounts. I personally feel that one of the major facets of Thawn is what he does, the art thing, and whether its believable or not, I think we should stick to it. At least somewhat. I mean I have no problem saying that he has access to intelligence sources that are beyond the wildest dreams of others and that most of them are never told to anybody else, but I think that that should provide greater support for his base ability - which is a major point of Thrawn. I also think that if we plan on changing anything than its how he dies - not that he dies, but the method of it. The way it occurs now is deux ex machina and seems out of place and random. I don't know how we would change, but I do think we should.

Look, I don't dislike Thrawn's character. I just think that the idea he was an altruistic antihero to protect the galaxy is not truly born out by the statements of the character itself and what we factually know about him to be true. I'm not trying to subvert him. He should and will be a Ramanujan of military science, a freak savant of tactics and strategy with almost no peers within his magisterium. 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. I mean the implication that he knows what Ackbar will do based purely on guesswork after admiring the being's art is ridiculous. 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. But it shouldn't be acknowledged as the actual source of his genius. I 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.

However, we're not going to arbitrarily alter the facts of the canon. The fact is that Mitth'raw'nuroudo was assassinated by his own bodyguard in an act of apparent narrative irony and karma for his deceitful betrayal of his own allies. Deep down, it was actually accelerated or facilitated by the machinations of Palpatine the Undying while occulted on Byss and preparing for his Shadow Hand Strategy.

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.

Admiral Felire wrote:In addition, are we sticking with the idea of Pellaeon rebuilding the Empire, creating the Imperial Remnant and ushering in peace between the Republic and Empire. I think we should, though I think we should modify the Remnants (and make it known that it never called itself that, it was always the Galactic Empire) territory upward somewhat.

The Imperial Remnant is not the same constitutional organism as the Galactic Empire. The Imperial State ceased to exist with the death of "Emperor Xandel Carivus" and was dissolved. The Imperial Remnant is a ex nihilo federation of late warlords' factions and Imperial holdouts on the Rim. It differs from the Empire in many ways (it also mimics it in several). Among other things, the Moffs were never a ruling class formally in of themselves in the Empire.

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.

Admiral Felire wrote:And while you guys seem to disagree with the Yuuzhan Vong War, I do think we should keep in mind the comics that take place a hundred years or so afterward, the ones in which the Empire comes back. I think that is a nice timeline focal point, if you ask me.

Its too hard to maintain continuity with Dark Horse Legacy if we're altering the timeline at any point between the post-ROTJ EU and DH Legacy. I'm afraid that's too great a constraint on the project. We all have personal tastes, I like some of the NJO books greatly, but we sooner or later have to come to a compromise of what's doable, practical, and coherent. And the easiest thing to do is to fix the Galactic Civil War and fully revise the NJO and post-NJO era. We can't bend the project to each member's preferences of post-ROTJ material. The basic facts of the Bantam era are being retained and clarified for coherency, and we're going into new territory in the NJO and later era, maybe we'll end up keeping a lot, but right now that's where consensus decided to draw the line.

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.

Darth Hoth wrote:A question that came up when I was researching some older sources: Should we keep the moronic Stackpole/Anderson statements of widespread and institutional misogyny in the Imperial Military? I personally would like nothing better than to rid EU-Fic of it altogether (though I could certainly support an interpretation of certain individual officers being misogynist or whatever), especially the particularly vile "Non-huMan" offal from X-wing which had High Human Culture equate women with aliens. Any ideas for a credible ret-con for that, or can we be content to just throw it out?

I think institutionalized misogyny is totally ridiculous. However the common concept that like many fascist movements, some factions within the New Order coalition believed women should be the supportive sex. Should it be a major or dominant faction, I don't think so (like some of the Nazi theorists who posited concepts which failed to dominate or become endorsed by the movement, like Himmler's occultism and Rosenburg's racial historiography). Of course I think High Human Culture should also be a side-movement to Correct Thought and the "mainstream" New Order ideologies.

There might be an undercurrent of it, no problem with that, but preferably nothing remotely related to the gross caricature that was Non-huMan.

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.