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For over a thousand generations, the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic.

With the Skywalker Saga at its close, LucasFilm is launching a publishing campaign (and potential multi-media project) set 200 years before Episode I. In this period, the Jedi are more like “Knights of the Round Table” or “Texas Rangers,” patrolling the frontiers of the Republic. The major threat are not Sith but rather a band of “space Vikings” known as the Nihl.

LINK




Look for these titles:

Interesting. Shame that its not going to be Sith Wars but could be good.

 Manchu wrote:
. In this period, the Jedi are more like “Knights of the Round Table”

.. finally.

 reds8n wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
. In this period, the Jedi are more like “Knights of the Round Table”

.. finally.

In one breath Knights of the Round Table, in the next breath Texas Rangers. So we’ll see.

The heart of the pitch, to me, is “This is a hopeful, optimistic time, when the Jedi and the Galactic Republic are at their height.”

I want to believe.

 ingtaer wrote:
Interesting. Shame that its not going to be Sith Wars but could be good.

To me, that’s the glory rather than the shame. SW has been made too cramped and its largely thanks to everything being Coke versus Pepsi, er, Sith versus Jedi.

Good direction. Good amount of time in the past. Now jump forward 500 years too. Get as far away from the Skywalker era as we can.

I can't watch the video right now--will there be novels, or just comics?

This looks like the best idea anyone's had for the Star Wars franchise is 25 years. Maybe Lucasfilm can learn from its failures.

Light of the Jedi is a regular novel aimed at adults (“adults”). Into The Dark is a YA novel. A Test of Courage is a children’s book. Note comics to be published both by Marvel and IDW.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
This looks like the best idea anyone's had for the Star Wars franchise is 25 years. Maybe Lucasfilm can learn from its failures.

Yes.

I sense something, a presence I have not felt since ... 1999.

Was hoping to see the Sith Fury on the big screen! Watching the video the first thought I had on the "enemy" for this was Vong, hopefully they are not an inspiration!

Interesting.

Wondering how it’ll feed into the concept of the latter Jedi order becoming a bit complacent, and arguably even corrupt (at least, corrupted from their ideals).

And hey, 200 years? Expect Yoda?

Wow. Something new?

Are... are they even allowed to do that?



---
Wookie jedi at 3:35. Not sure how I feel about that.

Finally! While I have always loved the Old Republic area since the old Dark Horse novels, it'll be nice to see Star Wars as something other than Dystopian, with the weight of the First Order or Empire hanging over everyone's heads.

Kind of wish they had gone further back, though. Because you know this means things like Yoda will constantly be addressed by writers as an easy way to attach themselves to the movies. 1,000 years before OT would have been a nice separation.

I'm ready for all sorts of high adventure.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Finally! While I have always loved the Old Republic area since the old Dark Horse novels, it'll be nice to see Star Wars as something other than Dystopian, with the weight of the First Order or Empire hanging over everyone's heads.

Kind of wish they had gone further back, though. Because you know this means things like Yoda will constantly be addressed by writers as an easy way to attach themselves to the movies. 1,000 years before OT would have been a nice separation.

I'm ready for all sorts of high adventure.

The 1000 year point has its own set of issues involving existing lore and events. The 200 year point is a blank slate where they can do pretty much whatever they want.

Genuinely curious how they're going to have concurrent regular comic book runs without any era appropriate fan ship designs to trace.

Also a little curious how the Jedi will be one part knight of the round table and one part Texas ranger without being samurai enough to merit a mention.

But beyond that, looking forward to seeing what comes out of this. Lucasfilm's multivector projects always produce a lot of unique side protagonists and the further away we get from 'force sensitive kid with a destiny' the better I'll feel right now.

Third novel in: Somehow Palpatine is still alive and now a time traveler. Sir Walker, Jedi Ranger, must rally the other Jedi Rangers to confront this chronic antagonist while discovering the true nature of his lineage.

 Ahtman wrote:
Third novel in: Somehow Palpatine is still alive and now a time traveler. Sir Walker, Jedi Ranger, must rally the other Jedi Rangers to confront this chronic antagonist while discovering the true nature of his lineage.

"OK, yes. They blew up Corellia. That's ok. We don't have anyone definitively state that Han is from the same Corellia."

 Ahtman wrote:
Third novel in: Somehow Palpatine is still alive and now a time traveler. Sir Walker, Jedi Ranger, must rally the other Jedi Rangers to confront this chronic antagonist while discovering the true nature of his lineage.

Sadly, they don't even have to do this work Palpy in. They can just expand on his stupid episode 9 backstory and have him send a clone or three of himself from Evil Sith planet.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Finally! While I have always loved the Old Republic area since the old Dark Horse novels, it'll be nice to see Star Wars as something other than Dystopian...

I get your point, but the initial main villains are literally 'Mad Max in space' aliens.

That along with the 'Dinosaurs' bit pointed out above worries me that essentially it's a "think what movies have been more successful than the sequel trilogy in the last 5 years and do that".

 Captain Joystick wrote:
Genuinely curious how they're going to have concurrent regular comic book runs without any era appropriate fan ship designs to trace.

Also a little curious how the Jedi will be one part knight of the round table and one part Texas ranger without being samurai enough to merit a mention.

But beyond that, looking forward to seeing what comes out of this. Lucasfilm's multivector projects always produce a lot of unique side protagonists and the further away we get from 'force sensitive kid with a destiny' the better I'll feel right now.

They can always trace pictures of common objects, like funny-looking lamps or half-eaten baklava, then trace details from tiny, little pictures of artillery. Instant Star Wars ships.

Dinosaurs?

 Riquende wrote:

I get your point, but the initial main villains are literally 'Mad Max in space' aliens.

Junker pirates are hardly a rarity in the existing SW material.

 Manchu wrote:
Dinosaurs?

...Sure. Add some thrusters, some 1/144 battleship bits, and they can be Star Wars ships, too, I guess?

Oh, you mean in the stories.

 Captain Joystick wrote:
Genuinely curious how they're going to have concurrent regular comic book runs without any era appropriate fan ship designs to trace..

Bit of luck GW will have released some more Tau vehicles by then and....

Glad to see them break from the usual Sith vs Jedi paradigm. I know its a core part of SW, but at some point there must have been SOMETHING that wasn't based around just force sensitives given the scale of the galaxy. So since Mandos are off the table, I'm glad something else is involved.

 Manchu wrote:
Dinosaurs?

Its written on the whiteboard of ideas in the video.

Sterling191 wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
Finally! While I have always loved the Old Republic area since the old Dark Horse novels, it'll be nice to see Star Wars as something other than Dystopian, with the weight of the First Order or Empire hanging over everyone's heads.

Kind of wish they had gone further back, though. Because you know this means things like Yoda will constantly be addressed by writers as an easy way to attach themselves to the movies. 1,000 years before OT would have been a nice separation.

I'm ready for all sorts of high adventure.

The 1000 year point has its own set of issues involving existing lore and events. The 200 year point is a blank slate where they can do pretty much whatever they want.

Yup, the fact that they've deliberately gone for a time period that hasn't been previously covered actually has me really interested. While I enjoyed the Sequel Trilogy, I've really struggled to get into the post-EU books, as for some reason I find it more difficult to ignore the previous setting in the books than I did with the movies.

This has the potential to tell some really cool stories without running into canon conflicts. Win!

I didn't realize 1k years in the past was covered in fluff already.

I'm more of a "seriously casual" Star Wars consumer. I know about the Old Republic from things like the old Tales of the Jedi comics and the video games, and I have read a bunch of the now non-canon EU, but that's it. I can't name complete timelines, or anything. What was the big stuff that happened 1k years ago? I thought the Sith War was older than that.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I didn't realize 1k years in the past was covered in fluff already.

I'm more of a "seriously casual" Star Wars consumer. I know about the Old Republic from things like the old Tales of the Jedi comics and the video games, and I have read a bunch of the now non-canon EU, but that's it. I can't name complete timelines, or anything. What was the big stuff that happened 1k years ago? I thought the Sith War was older than that.

Darth Bane, the New Sith Wars, the Ruusan Reformations, and the foundation of the "modern" Republic that old man Palps would tear down with the Clone Wars and O66ing the Jedi. From a structural perspective its a big honking deal in the film chronology, even if few people are aware of it, which is why they're not going near it.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I didn't realize 1k years in the past was covered in fluff already.

I'm more of a "seriously casual" Star Wars consumer. I know about the Old Republic from things like the old Tales of the Jedi comics and the video games, and I have read a bunch of the now non-canon EU, but that's it. I can't name complete timelines, or anything. What was the big stuff that happened 1k years ago? I thought the Sith War was older than that.

It depends which 'Sith War' you're talking about (there are un-apologetically a lot of them). The Knights of the Old Republic games and Old Republic MMO are about FOUR thousand years before the battle of Yavin. There are about seven separate wars in that period, collectively known as the Old Sith Wars (if you trust Wookiepedia). The Great Hyperspace War was 5000 BBY. (Republic versus what was technically probably a completely different Sith Empire.... there have also been a lot of those)

Darth Bane is the primary contender for 1000 years ago

SW 'history' is stupidly long and repetitive.

Going to a period with little information is a good call by Disney. Less pushback on canon, expired canon and whatever. The notable entries for the year 200 BBY are that droid memory wipes become commonplace after a personality virus is unleashed, the Mandalorians are off killing some species no one cares about, and the Jedi noted the Force is 'in flux' and feared a shift in the power of the dark side. And most of that only comes from the New Essential Chronology, published in 2005, so doesn't have any real hold on what Disney might do. The memory wipe bit is from the 1985/86 SW: Droids cartoon.

I didn't realise the Darth Bane stuff was the 1,000 year mark. I thought it was more in the era of the KOTOR period and there was largely nothing in the between times.

Still will be a nice era to have Jedi heroes that aren't either token "turns out my character is a survivor of Order 66" (a surprisingly large group when it comes to personal fiction), or knowing they will be otherwise killed off either in or at the end of the Clone Wars.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
I didn't realise the Darth Bane stuff was the 1,000 year mark. I thought it was more in the era of the KOTOR period and there was largely nothing in the between times.

Yeah the SW timeline is weird. Long lag times, then certain periods are just packed. Until I looked the Sith War stuff I hadn't realized the Exar Kun stuff was immediately prior to KotoR and Naga Sadow was 1000 years earlier.
It doesn't help that I mostly think of Exar Kun tied to the Sun Crusher, and Han Solo foiling that book plot, but that sort of thing happens when evil ghosts can just hang out for thousands of years.

All the Sith lords blend together, and the more-or-less complete technological stasis (and political repetition) over 5000 years makes it difficult to parse historical 'eras.' Vaguely tie fighter and star destroyer shaped things are constantly attacking a Galactic Republic, whether its 5000, 4000, 1000 or film time.


Hopefully there won't be Sith machinations behind the Nihil 'vikings' or whatever. Its a chance to make the SW universe bigger, not spin the wheels on the same plots.