The Star Wars Universe splitting game

[Dr_Fred]

Hello, fellow Escapists.

A friend and I, both Star Wars fans, have unwittingly started playing a game ressently, following the official announcement on Starwars.com over the shelving of pretty much the whole EU. We were discussing what's left (in short : not much), and what isn't.

As it turned out, the Star Wars universe has a pretty weird shape right now, mostly because The Clone Wars TV series referenced quite a lot of things from the EU (and so did, to a much lesser extent, the prequels), things which have been struck from existence until they appear again in new, official material.

So, as a way of saying goodbye to the EU we used to love, we opted to do something similar to how the chapter headings of Invincible (the last novel from Legacy of the Force) said farewell to Jacen Solo by retelling his most (un)funny jokes. Seing how we were as much bummed by the news as MovieBob was by the last spider-man movie, we choose to have a good laugh rather than just complain, so as to make things less depressing. So we came up with this game.

Here are the rules : you must name one thing that is now part of the One Official Star Wars Continuity as defined by Disney, and one thing that used to be official stuff (not just fanfics from the Internet, but things that bore a LucasFilm trademark logo on them and got Lucas' approval). The contrast between the two ought to look as goofy as possible, no matter how obscure the goofiness is to a non Star Wars fan.

You are of course allowed to double-check the involved material, or make extensive use of the Wookieepedia.

As a reminder, the only official material as of now is composed of the following (helpful source [http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Forum:CT:New_canon_policy]) :
-> The contents of Episodes I, II, III, IV, V and VI, along with any *officially* leaked content from Episode VII.
-> The contents of the *3-D* animated series The Clone Wars.
-> The upcoming contents of the TV series Rebels, along with any content that will be published from now on (which should start with the "A New Dawn" novel, unless a major content update comes to The Old Republic before then).

Anything that appears in those (including characters not even named but listed in the end credits) is okay, anything else with a LucasFilms approval that came before is struck.

Here are a few examples :

Anoat is a rather well-known planet, though no one has ever heard of Corellia. [EDIT: Scratch that first one, I've been told that, apparently, Corellia was mentionned in ANH... I have no idea when this happened though.]

You can pilot a T-16, but not a Y-wing.

You can set your S-foils in attack position, but you may not be able to do it aboard a X-wing. (I'm not sure on that one though.)

However I am sure that you can technically "fly" a XP-38, though certainly not an A-wing.

The Malevolence will stay in history books, contrary to the Executor.

You can hope to survive a space battle by flying an Eta-class shuttle (the smiley-face shuttle from TCW), but not by flying a TIE-defender.

General Motti has had a longer and brighter career in the service of the Empire than the Grand Admiral Thrawn did.

...and while I'm at it, the neimoidian military occupied more planets than the Chiss did.

Princess Leia never set foot aboard the Tantive IV, nor any other named starship, save for the Millenium Falcon. Unless...

...unless you count the film novelizations (whose status is currently unclear) as official. I wouldn't, but if you do, then it turns out that Carrack cruisers existed (as opposed to MC-90 star cruisers). However, they only ever fought under one the command of one officer : Lieutenant-Commander Lorth Needa, who owes them his only military success... serving the Republic.

Major Derlin fought for the Rebel Alliance. Kyle Katarn didn't.

Savage Oppress was a Dark Lord of the Sith, but not Exar Kun. (At least until the next Old Republic content patch.)

Darth Bane was also a Sith, who has a tomb on Moraband. However, neither Marka Ragnos nor Naga Sadow had a tomb on Korriban, as they weren't actual Sith Lords.

The ewoks are fearsome creatures for, until proven otherwise, they have killed more people than wookies, gundarks and rancors all together. (That is : they killed more than one gamorrean.)
(I have a slight doubt over the actual bodycount for wookies, but I believe their only confirmed kills are droids, with possibly a couple stormtroopers depending on whether Chewie was piloting or gunning the AT-ST in RotJ. Errr, sorry, I meant the "unidentified imperial bipod vehicle".)
(Note also that I did not count the Ssi-ruuk, Yevethas and Yuuhzan Vongs in my list of "less-deadly-than-ewoks" creatures, because that would have been too easy.)

The rodians are either treacherous senators who betrayed the republic, or bounty hunters who shoot at people first. However, never a bothan has failed to fight heroically for either the Republic (against the CIS) or the people who made the Rebel Alliance.



...and that's only a few examples, I'm sure you can come up with better ones. Some of them might be wrong (I'm pretty sure that accepting the movies' novelization would invalidate many of them, as I haven't read them), but if there is an error to point out, I would appreciate a precise sourcing.

PS : I also apologize if there are a few translation mistakes. English isn't my main language, so I had to use the Wookieepedia to find translations for things like "S-foils".)

CAPTCHA - "fill it up". I guess it's talking about the list.

 

[Chessrook44]

Gonna have to shoot down your "Can't pilot a Y-Wing" comment. You definitely see them flying in the Battle of Yavin, and at least one is seen flying away from the Death Star at the end.

 

[twistedmic]

I do not care what official policy is set forth by Disney, Lucasfilms and/or George Lucas himself, I refuse to accept the prequel trilogy as cannon and the EU (Young Jedi Knight series in particular) as non-cannon.

But in the spirit of the thread I will add my own cannon/non-cannon comparison.

Holding the high ground now results in losing body parts from the waist down and Jedi spin, twirl and flip more than Olympic level gymnasts and figure skaters combined. Chewbacca no longer has an awesome death (howling defiantly at a falling moons as it crushes him) and Leia Organa Solo no longer has hyper-competent ninja bodyguards who are almost fanatically loyal to her because she is the daughter of Darth Vader.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I don't understand. Why can't you fly an A-wing or a Y-wing? An A-wing takes out the Super Star Destroyer in Return of the Jedi (my favorite scene, by the way), so they're very real and official. And Y-wings are all over the original trilogy, and they even show up in The Clone Wars. As for S-Foils, the phrase is used in A New Hope and you see the X-wings opening up, so clearly those are on X-wings.
May I assume that these are just a simple translation goof, because reading your other stuff, you clearly know you Star Wars.

I'm struggling to come up with anything, I fear. I read every book that is set after Return of the Jedi over twenty years, so it's kind of hard for me to separate the E.U. stuff that I picked up from the new "Official only" stuff.

Hm...I guess, since we're saying that the name Tantive IV name doesn't exist, then neither do X-wings, A-wings, B-wings, TIE Interceptors, TIE Advances, or TIE Bombers. The reason I say this is because those names are never used in any of the films. They're just ships by the rules of this game The only reason Y-wing isn't on the list is because, in the Clone Wars, there's an episode where they say that name, thus making it official.

Did I do that right?

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I do not care what official policy is set forth by Disney, Lucasfilms and/or George Lucas himself, I refuse to accept the prequel trilogy as cannon and the EU (Young Jedi Knight series in particular) as non-cannon.

Darn right! Tenel Ka is the best red head ever. Sorry, Mara Jade.

 

[Neverhoodian]

As a reminder, the only official material as of now is composed of the following (helpful source [http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Forum:CT:New_canon_policy]) :
-> The contents of Episodes I, II, III, IV, V and VI, along with any *officially* leaked content from Episode VII.
-> The contents of the *3-D* animated series The Clone Wars.
-> The upcoming contents of the TV series Rebels, along with any content that will be published from now on (which should start with the "A New Dawn" novel, unless a major content update comes to The Old Republic before then).

Wait, I thought only post-RotJ EU was being discounted so they didn't have to worry about continuity issues for Episodes VII-IX. It was my understanding that things that happened concurrently or before the films were still valid, like Shadows of the Empire and KOTOR/TOR.

Ah well, doesn't matter much to me either way. I tended to cherry-pick what I liked and came up with my own personal headcanon. For me, Star Wars consists of the following:

-Four films, Episodes I, IV, V and VI (what? Don't look at me like that. I liked Episode I. Sue me).
-A few scenes from II and III.
-The Genndy Tartakovsky Clone Wars cartoon.
-The general plot of Shadows of the Empire (multiple versions of the story were told via novel, comic book and video game. All of them contradict each other at certain points, so it's kind of a mess).
-Various games (KOTOR 1 and 2, Republic Commando, the X-Wing series and the Dark Forces/Jedi Knight series).
-Certain novels (Brian Daley's Han Solo books, Timothy Zahn's Thrawn trilogy and the X-Wing series, particularly the ones pertaining to Wraith Squadron).

Everything else I consider apocryphal at best. Time will tell how much Disney will be able to contribute to it.

Maybe it's because I'm tired or something, but I'm not sure I understand this game. Many of the things you mentioned as "non-canon" are still "canon" (Y-Wings, A-Wings, the Tantive IV and Executor all feature prominently in the films).

Anyway, I'll take a stab at it:

Emperor Palpatine died at the Battle of Endor, where he remained dead. He most certainly did not resurrect himself in a clone body (twice!), turn Luke Skywalker to the dark side and proceed to terrorize the New Republic with multiple superweapons (World Devastators, Eclipse-class super star destroyers and the Galaxy Gun) before being finally killed off for good by the spirit of a quadruple amputee Jedi Master.

...Yeah, Dark Empire was dumb. Can't say I'll be sad to see it go.

 

[Dr_Fred]

Gonna have to shoot down your "Can't pilot a Y-Wing" comment. You definitely see them flying in the Battle of Yavin, and at least one is seen flying away from the Death Star at the end.

You do see them, and their previous iterations are in The Clone Wars, but I believe they are never named on-screen. Hence you can only fly an "old vaguely Y-shaped rebel starfighter" until they chose to officially name them again.

Hm...I guess, since we're saying that the name Tantive IV name doesn't exist, then neither do X-wings, A-wings, B-wings, TIE Interceptors, TIE Advances, or TIE Bombers. The reason I say this is because those names are never used in any of the films. They're just ships by the rules of this game The only reason Y-wing isn't on the list is because, in the Clone Wars, there's an episode where they say that name, thus making it official.

Did I do that right?

Yup, that was the idea for the ships. (Unsure if Y-wings were named in TCW, though they definitely appeareded.)

There's probably many other names that became commonplace but are not technically in the movies, but it's a dangerous game when it comes to unnamed NPCs, becaue many of them are actually listed by their otherwise unknown name in the credits. What's too bad is that imperial Star Destroyers made the cut, however Admiral Ackbar's ship is not the Home One anymore.

Another one :

Standard issue blasters everywhere in the galaxy went from perfectly deadly to barely usable in twenty years. No exceptions are known, save for Han Solo's blaster. (Many books spent a lot of time coming up with justifications for the movie's apparent Principle of evil marksmanship [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy], especially on the first Death Star.)

Also, somewhere between Revenge of the Sith and A new hope, someone apparently figured out cryptography. All of it. Hence, the concept was simply ditched altogether, since any astromech droid is now able to crack any military cypher nearly instantly.