Star Wars Expanded Universe Timeline Latest News

7/31/22 Update Day!

Progress Report: I’m 20 pages away from being at the halfway point! One of you guys can probably better recall when I started proofing the final draft and extrapolate how long it’ll take me to get through the second half. I remain excited as I go through it! To finally see it in its nearly-completed state is just very cool because there’s been a lot of blood, sweat, and tears poured into it. I’m looking forward to jumping into the second half!

Some of the content I’ve recently been reading involves the Teezl, Seoul 5, the Sumrians, the Silentium, the Abominor, Skaith, a Sith who turns against his kind, the start of troubles on Andowyne, the end of the Xylan Empire, the undersea battles between Daritha Trayus and the Warriors of the Deep; and the creepy origins of the Bando Gora. Today, I move onto Typhojem’s breaching of the gates…

But today I also wanted to talk about one of the reasons that I love the prequels, which is something I don’t think I’ve ever discussed with you guys.

So among the things about the Star Wars prequel trilogy that I find so interesting is its profundity and interspersed wisdom. These films are more philosophical and reflective than the original three (which have a different charm), presenting a tonal departure that not everyone was able to bridge and which some needed time to process before coming to appreciate. And if you haven’t yet, that’s OK too. Different strokes and all…

But there’s been a spate of disingenuous criticism recently that argues that Star Wars has never been anything but dumb, sci-fi action flicks. Youtuber Thor Skywalker did a great takedown of this argument (he’s one of the most measured critics of Star Wars content that I’ve seen online), which got me thinking about what aspects of the films I think are worthy of deeper exploration. And there’s quite a lot! But I’ll focus on just one today.

One of my favorite lines from Star Wars is this Qui-Gon Jinn quote to young Anakin, which contains a few layers of meaning that anyone can apply to their lives and benefit from:

“Always remember. Your focus determines your reality.”

Qui-Gon had earlier told Obi-Wan to “Keep your concentration on the here and now where it belongs,” and this is part of what his advice to Anakin meant. The ability to stay focused is important if we want to accomplish anything in life. Whatever projects you endeavor upon, expect there to be distractions in numerous forms along the way. Some are important and unavoidable and will have to be dealt with before we can return to the task we’ve set ourselves on. Others are distractions of our own making: the temptations of social media, smart phones, television, general boredom, or restlessness. Rather than succumb to them, we can take control by scheduling breaks for food, exercise, and mental and physical rest before returning to our work.

But Qui-Gon’s quote has even greater depth because it talks about the different things one might focus on that will “determine our reality.” This is an acknowledgement of paradox. To paraphrase science-fiction author and TESB screenwriter Leigh Brackett, the world is both absolutely terrible and perfectly wonderful. Both of those statements are true despite seeming to be contradictory. The truth is that life is paradoxical and because of that it can be difficult to navigate and know where and what to focus on.

Anakin, like many young people, sees possibilities and ideas and is filled with hope and joyful expectation, which he achieves because of his determination and developing skills. But also like many who grow up, Anakin loses those good traits. Hardened and tired from the war, misgivings and mistrust come to replace hope. Frustration and anger come to replace joyful expectation. Determination gives way to an impatient desire for domination.

In large part, this is due to what Chancellor Palpatine had been feeding him over years.

But Palpatine wasn’t Anakin’s first bad master. Watto was also greedy, deceptive, and manipulative. But Watto was more obvious and Anakin recognized those traits in him. But even more important than that, Anakin’s focus was firmly on the positive. He wasn’t blind to his situation, but he accepted it for what it was and made the best of things, knowing he’d somehow find a way to fix it.

Similarly, if we remain focused on what is positive and noble and good, and are determined to see things through, we’ll more often than not have a joyful and hopeful outlook as we go through life. To choose that path doesn’t mean we bury our heads in the sand or ignore the darker aspects of reality. It means seeing what’s bad or broken, acknowledging it, doing what we can to help (if it’s within our power), and then moving on. In other words, we don’t remain in a dark, angry, or embittered state.

Had Anakin paid better heed to Qui-Gon’s warning and kept his focus on the light, things would’ve turned out quite differently for him. Instead, trusting the wrong person and losing focus, he remained ignorant of the fact that the authority figure he’d put his faith in was twisting the truth with just the right amount of insinuation, fabrication, and accusation, manufactured to create a response in Anakin, to turn him bitter, resentful, and cynical. This changed Anakin’s focus so drastically that he now only saw bad motives, magnifying the imperfections and mistakes of others, and feeling something lacking in himself, believing it to be power. What he was missing was something he lost from when he was young: joy. At a time when he should’ve been at his happiest—with a child on the way and the war nearing its end—Anakin was at his unhappiest. This reality caused by an unhealthy focus resulted in him being severed from his loved ones and the community that had reared him.

There’s quite a bit to unpack here, and I’ll leave that to others, but I find it fascinating that this is but one of several cautionary tales that viewers can extract from the prequels.

Now it’s perfectly fine if someone doesn’t choose to delve into a movie’s thematic layers, but to argue that they’re not there and that the Star Wars films are just big, dumb sci-fi action flicks is either a reflection of the critic’s own shallowness and immaturity, a form of trolling, or an attempt to denigrate something that they don’t really like or understand.

Don’t let anyone judge or put down your fandom. We connect to different things for different reasons, and that’s because we’re drawn to something intrinsically valuable it, usually unconscious at first, and then consciously later. By the same token, let’s not be people who put down other fans or fandoms that we don’t connect to, or which we think have been corrupted. Life is short. We find joy where we can. Give the benefit of the doubt to something new. There are those who would profit from spreading hate and doubt and who have ulterior motives for doing so. By the same token, it’s absolutely not “toxic” to hold something to a higher standard and expect it to deliver. That’s called critical thinking, but being balanced means not attacking others who may not see the giant flaws that we see.

Be good to each other! May the Force Be With You!

7/15/22 Update Day!

(A day early since I won't be around tomorrow)

Special thanks for today’s updates go to the two Alex’s!

The estimable Alex Vinogradov has made the Russian translation of Cult Encounters available and in four different formats with over 150 author and translator notes! Check out Alex’s Russian Wookieepedia page here: https://starwars.fandom.com/ru/wiki/Darth_Niemand.

His editor, Ilya Garbuzov, is a huge Star Wars fan and collector (https://www.instagram.com/ilyamolder_starwarsbooks/)

The cover and interior illustrations were laid out by Alex’s good friend from the Ukraine, Serhii Yaroviy. He is a professional designer and letterer who has his own studio. This is his Twitter account: https://twitter.com/ComicsLettering.

We don’t talk politics here because it poisons and tears apart communities, but this fact bears mention: that these fans from warring countries have transcended their political and cultural ideologies to work together as friends is a lesson we should all take to heart…

Ok, back to fan stuff.

Our other champion, Alex Starch, has provided us with a ton of the old Hyperspace articles and other miscellany for you to download and/or print out as you see fit! https://drive.google.com/file/d/1azBNx5qiLtUrCT7VRfu0iimxnmS0VN9t/view?usp=sharing

Progress Report: I’m on page 350 in Chapter 43: Shadow Kingdoms, which is well over one-third of the way through. There’s been some additional reordering of chapters so that they’re more digestible, in better sequence, and thematically tied. Overall, I've been enjoying this final read-through more than any prior time I've gone over it. And I continue to be terribly grateful to all of you for your patience and support as I march forward to ensure that this book is the best it can be! I’ll see you again on the 31st with another batch of goodies! Stay safe, stay strong, and may the Force be with you!

6/30/22 Trailer #2!

It’s Update Day, Starhoppers!

And here is Trailer #2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjGouj9Dh3Q&t=51s

And in case you missed it, here is Trailer #1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmthPrjViSA

They’re kind of like contrasting light and dark sides… So enjoy! (And a big thanks to Kyle Rawlings for the sumptuous rendition of “She’s Gone” and Harry Henry for putting it all together!)

Progress continues but was a little slower since we last spoke. We had a death in the family, an aunt on my mother’s side who passed at 94. I spent many childhood weekends at her house with lots of food and family. I regularly played Dungeons & Dragons there (as DM), first saw Night of the Living Dead there, and watched countless classic horror movies there (anyone old enough to remember the weekly Chiller Theater?) Because of her desire to serve as a hub and openness to letting my cousins and me have a bit of free rein, her funeral was more of a celebration of her life and the joy she brought others.

That leads me back to the new trailer. If you haven’t yet read The Adventures of Teebo or seen “Wicket’s Wagon,” the tenth episode of Season 1 of the Ewoks, or The Battle for Endor (the second Ewoks movie), the illustration is built around concepts that are introduced there. This, of course, leads to a larger metaphysical question that SE touches on, and which I won’t go into now save to say that Endor presents what I believe are larger clues to the Star Wars universe that I think many miss because they turn away from it—undoubtedly because of the fact that it’s a dopey kids cartoon from the ‘80s! I certainly had no use for it back when it first ran, and it wouldn’t be until many years later that I decided to give the series another chance and see why Lucas spent three movies and two seasons on that world.

(And, by the way, how cool was it to see Stranger Things S4 pay homage to the Ewoks cartoon?)

However you choose to interpret the image in the trailer, there’s a secondary message there—that nothing good is gone forever—and we’re all here because we believe, to one degree or another, the truth of Obi-Wan’s words in A New Hope as applied to the expanded universe: If you strike it down, it will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine. And it has! The old fans haven’t gone away and there continue to be new fans coming into the EU all the time. And that is something to celebrate!

Yub Nub!

5/15/22 Supernatural Chronology

I finally got around to plotting the various events in Supernatural Encounters onto the timeline. I've attempted this before I'd completed it, and I won't promise that it's perfect even now, but we're getting close. I'm proofing a chapter a day, and then it'll be done. Figure about three months and then another two or so weeks to get the test copy to ensure everything is correct on the page.

5/4/22 The Trailer is Here!

The first trailer for Supernatural Encounters, created by my editor Harry Henry and featuring some of the book's interior artwork by Chris Cold and Guillaume Ducos, is now available! Check it out here.

Also, thanks to Alex Payne for the timeline update on the Obi-Wan home video game (listed in 32 BBY).

3/16/22 Update Day!

If you haven't yet, head on over to the Discord server for a little treat from the past.

The last two weeks have been spent doing various touch-ups to SE, so today I'm uploading SE to the printer and will await a physical copy. Once that arrives, I begin an intensive final read-through. This is a crucial last step to try and catch everything and anything that might have slipped by... (and there were still things that slipped by the eyes of several of us!) I don't know how long this step will take, but I don't want to rush it. That said, I'll be working on it every single day (baring any extreme circumstances).

Once that's done, I add the illustrations and maps during the layout process, and then send for another proof copy to ensure that it all looks right on the page and that there were no layout errors (which can cause wonky things to happen--a road I've been down before)! And then it's time to start shipping books!

I'll see you guys again on 4/1 with the next update!

2/23/22 Dark Horse Rebels

As revealed today by Screen Rant and other outlets, Dark Horse Comics, who recently reacquired the license to publish certain Star Wars comics, will be collecting "a variety of comics from Star Wars: Rebels Magazine including issues #1-#35, #37, and #39, along with Star Wars: Rebels Animation Magazine #1-4." In lieu of this, I've taken down the scans.

2/18/22 RIP Tom Veitch

I'm sorry to report the death of another legend--Tom Veitch.

Tom is best remembered by fans for Dark Empire and Tales of the Jedi, which are considered classics amongst EU fans. Tom's work rekindled my love of Star Wars and started me on a journey that I'm still on years later. The day I walked into a comic-book shop, looking for work, and saw this issue hanging on the shop wall, my jaw dropped and the proprietor explained that new Star Wars comics and books were coming out.

See you on the other side, Tom!

2/15/22 Update and Recommended Reading

Hey everyone, it's update day!

Hope all finds you well! I have a recommended reading list for you, as promised, and also wanted to let you know where I was in the progress stream.

Since we last spoke two weeks ago, I've been working on editing the endnotes (what I call the *infernal* endnotes!) I'm thankfully nearing the end, as it's not my favorite part of the process. One has to walk a fine line between revealing too much and too little (beyond indicating where a race or character first originated), and as this is my third time going through them, I've opted to lean towards the latter. I don't like to spoil things that are best discovered firsthand (this will be better understood later). Besides which, I'm not going anywhere after this is done, so you can always DM or email me to ask about this, that, or the other thing. Needless to say, I've got about 3/4 of the endnotes done. There's just over 500 of them.

Next up is a handy, helpful reading-viewing list to prepare for the forthcoming book:

Recommend reading/watching list:
Robert J. Sawyer's Alien Exodus (summary)—available on the author's site
Dawn of the Jedi (Dark Horse series)
The Clone Wars: Season 3: episodes 12, 15-17; Season 4, episode 5; Season 6: episodes 11-13
Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu

Marvel’s Pizzazz magazine—collected in Omnibus Wild Space and The Original Marvel Years #3
Marvel Star Wars—collected in Omnibus: A Long Time Ago (various volumes) and The Original Marvel Years #1-3
Short on time: Star Wars #30, 38, 46, 50, 53-55, 61, 66-67, Annual #2, 73, 84, 86, 97, 104-105
World of Fire—collected in Omnibus Wild Space #1 and Marvel Star Wars UK
Star Wars Devilworlds—collected in Omnibus Wild Space #1 and Marvel Star Wars UK
Star Wars: The Classic Newspaper Comics Vols. 1-3 or Star Wars Legends Epic Collection: The Newspaper Strips Vols. 1-2
Short on time: Gambler's World, The Constancia Affair, The Kashyyyk Depths, The Night Beast, The Paradise Detour
"The Lost City of Tatooine"—Dig magazine

The Ewoks comics—collected in Marvel Star Wars: Ewoks
The Ewoks animated series—available on Disney+
Ewoks: Caravan of Courage—available on Disney+
Ewoks: Battle for Endor—available on Disney+
The Droids animated series: episodes 10-13, The Great Heep—available on Disney+
Otherspace--West End Games
The Crystal Star

Book of Sith
Fate of the Jedi series

Additional Bonus Reading:
ET: Book of the Green Planet
The Seventh Tower series
Lucasfilm's Alien Chronicles
The DarkStryder Campaign--West End Games
Willow (movie, novel, and Chronicles of the Shadow Wars trilogy)
The Dark Crystal (movie and ancillary series)

Note: This is not comprehensive by any means, nor did I venture too far outside of the Lucasverse. To keep this list manageable, I also avoided inclusion of common EU sources that most people know and are already familiar with. The endnotes will help with some things too. These are just titles that feature persons or events that are referenced in a relatively significant way in SE. I'm sure I've forgotten some things, but I wanted to keep this reasonably short.

See you again on 3/1 with the next update!

1/21/22 Supernatural Friends!

Hey guys, I wanted to share this great conversation that Matt Wilkins, Christopher Nelson, and my editors, Kyle Rawlings, Patrick Maes, and Edward Dodds did last night that talks about Supernatural Encounters, how it came about, what's coming up, and some of the difficulties it's encountered with Wookieepedia.

I'm just blown away by these guys... and, really, by all of you for your love and support! Check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj-7Y6S3z9E