The Future of Star Wars

Well, I've now seen Rise of Skywalker and the entire run of the Mandalorian, and my prognostication for the future of the franchise is... that, well, there's some life yet in it, but it's going to have a hard time flourishing under the foolish stewardship of Disney.

First the movie.  It's been out a week now, so I'll give a quick capsule overview.  As Overlord DVD said, and I agree, it's the best of the sequel trilogy, yet it's also the worst.  It's the best in that it's the most charming to watch, and the characters finally have some charisma and chemistry.  There's a handful of ideas that are actually kind of clever, even if they're hampered by being stuck in a stupid plot, and of course, it's a very pretty movie most of the time.  It also minimizes the wokeness, no doubt as an apology of sorts for the Last Jedi, as well as the numerous franchises that are falling to audience rebellion due to their execrable social and political posturing and their outright hatred for the core audience that loves them.

It's the worst of the Star Wars movies because the plot is stupider than any others.  It finally manages to undo literally everything that happened in the Original Trilogy (and even the whole point of the prequel trilogy, for that matter) just so Rey can do it right the way those stupid white males like Luke and Han and Annakin and Kenobi couldn't.  It doesn't even bother explaining how things happen.  Why is Palpatine alive after we see him die, and then to make it even more final, the Death Star he just died on is blown to atoms?  I dunno.  Shut up and consume.  Speaking of the Death Star being blown to atoms, why is the wreck of it sitting out there in the ocean on Endor?  I dunno.  Shut up and consume.  This kind of farcical nonsense happens over and over again.

Also, Rey is such a dire Mary Sue, that she gets new powers that would have dramatically changed the course of the prior movies if they were actually a thing.  The force teleport thing between her and Kylo, and the force healing are usually shown as the most egregious offenders here.  Although--I have to be fair and point out that the force teleport is a kind of unique thing because they are a force dyad (whatever that is), so it isn't meant to be something that's just a magical convenience.  (No, it's a rather deus ex machina plot device unique to these two characters.)  And the force healing is a thing that's been common in many Expanded Universe things for some time now, and technically, we saw it more recently in an episode of the Mandalorian a few weeks earlier.  Nobody seemed to complain about it then; in fact, in general, the people who love to hate on the movie love to love on the Mandalorian.  But the fact is that the Mandalorian is just as cavalier with established Star Wars plot points, even though they're usually more local and detailed in scope.  The force healing that Baby Yoda does to old Apollo Creed is just the biggest; the details about Mandalorian society are completely at odds with other canon sources of info on the Mandalorians such as the Clone Wars and even Star Wars Rebels.  Since when can Mandalorians not take off their helmets?  They do all the time in those two shows.  Since when are Mandalorians not a race but a creed? On Mandalore and Kalevala in the Clone Wars, they absolutely were the former not the latter, but the new show makes the opposite true. (Although I'm not naive; I know what's happening here.  George Lucas invalidated a bunch of older EU stuff about Mandalorians, and the Disney custodians have been just semi-quietly bringing it back since the acquisition as much as possible.)  On the other hand, they at least are telling entertaining stories (mostly) and the set up for new stuff, especially given the last couple of episodes, is intriguing for once.  If the Mandalorian is the template for New Star Wars, it won't be great, but at least it won't be terrible either.  It'll be somewhere between the quality of the Clone Wars and Rebels, most likely.  Hopefully more like the former than the latter, as r-selected writers and quiet woke moments, such as Sabine Mary Sue, the Mandalorian Asian girl, and bratty Ezra, who's supposed to be a cool, relatable teenager, but only if you were a really stupid, entitled, bratty teenager does that actually work, etc. kinda ruined Rebels a fair bit, and the moments of brilliance it had was much fewer and farther between than on the earlier show.

If I were somehow suddenly put in charge of Star Wars, I'd... well, first, I'd fire almost everyone working on it and tell them to take a hike.  Lower budget stuff with compelling characters, as in the Mandalorian, would be my first step to rehabilitate the brand, whether to theatres or a streaming service or however it was most convenient to be done, with the goal towards making blockbuster movies again.  But I'd have some other design principles in common first too:

• First, I'd have everyone on whatever creative team I put together go outside and engage in some coed team sports.  If that doesn't alleviate the nonsense about women acting like men and vice versa, then those who can't get with the program get fired too.
• Then, we'd do an exercise where we watch both the older 1981 Clash of the Titans and then the 2010 (or whatever year it was exactly) one back to back, with a particular emphasis on the characterization of Perseus and his love interest (which for some dumb reason isn't even Andromeda in the second movie) and why they work.  If I really need to spell out the fact that masculine men and feminine women are attractive to normal people of both sexes and r-selected palette swaps between men and women are off-putting to normal people of both sexes, then I clearly have the wrong creative team.  Adhering to biological sex roles works because... well, because it's biology.  Anything else marks the movies as a time capsule from a period of Clown World.
• By the same token, what is Star Wars?  A space opera?  Yes, heavily based on the Lensmen, Dune, Flash Gordon and John Carter.  It also has lots of elements of the Western in it, and Ruritanian romance.  What do all of these have in common?  They are unique stories created and told by white men for white men.  And while they have a kind of timelessness about them that makes them popular across the world, the core audience for Star Wars has always been white men.  We're not going to chase phantom diversity audiences, we're going to focus on our core demographic.  The majority of the protagonist, and even secondary and love interest characters should all be white.  Diversity casting (otherwise known as blackwashing and brownwashing of white, American culture) is cultural appropriation of the most egregious kind, and if it's good for the conservative goose, it can be good for the liberal gander.  You don't get to complain about cultural appropriation of non-white cultures while looting white cultures for whatever you want to take, and expect us to accept that.
• The sequel trilogy was a debacle, but for "normies" they probably don't want it soundly denounced.  A better way to go about it is what I've always suggested for STAR WARS REMIXED; go forward in time far enough that you wipe the slate clean.  Refer to some of the characters of the old movies as legendary figures about which no truth is remembered, and strongly imply that we don't even know anymore what of what is seen in the older movies was actually true and what wasn't.  And then largely ignore them anyway and focus on more immediate characters and events.  Nostalgic callbacks are for losers who don't have anything interesting to say in their new movie.  A few are kinda fun, but don't overdo it.  Feel free to depart from some of the tropes of Star Wars if necessary; this was done to good effect in many of the better Clone Wars episodes, for instance, and some of the better material in Old Republic.  The latter was seriously held back, on the other hand, by trying to imply too much stasis in many ways; four thousand years before Star Wars, everything was pretty much exactly what Star Wars had been?  C'mon.
• Knock it off with the Jedi and Sith.  Sure, you can have them, but the orders after thousands of years won't look like what they did in the prequels.  I actually like how the Remixed version had a kind of fragmentation of force using and lightsaber wielding traditions as well as a balkanization of the political structure of the galaxy anyway.
• As another aside, in the original trilogy, while the Jedi and Sith were both these kind of space wizards, their powers were subtle, understated, and not terribly drastic and amazing.  When the Emperor starting shooting lighting out of his hands at the end, that was a dramatic moment, because nobody suspected that that could even be done, and it's strongly suggested that he was some kind of force using prodigy anyway (same for Yoda.)  As the movies progressed, even under Lucas' supervision, the Jedi and Sith became outright superheroes, completely disconnected from anything that a "normal" adventuring character in the galaxy could ever expect to be able to match.  The Mary Sue aspects of Rey were previewed by the Mary Sue aspects of the Jedi overall long before Rey took it over the top.  Let's pull that back down.  Sure, they have some pretty cool acrobatic and combat abilities with their sabers, and they are capable of some minor misdirection and persuasion here and there.  Force abilities and lightsabers themselves have gotten too over the top.
• Now, that doesn't mean that wild Hong Kong style fight scenes should go.  Those are, of course, freakin' awesome.  No, what it means is that rather than an action tax on the Jedi, everyone should, if need be, be a credible threat, because cool, swashbuckling action isn't limited to people who use the force.  A Mandalorian, for example, should expect to be the equal of any Jedi.  Stormtroopers should be feared rather than mocked.  Experienced, James Bond-like agents, smugglers, criminals, soldiers, mercenaries, bounty hunters, and what-have-you should all be action heroes of comparable ability to any Jedi, Sith or member of any other knightly order.

In fact, it's really not that hard to make good Star Wars content, as a variety of fan films on Youtube and elsewhere show.  It's just that the people in charge of making actual, official Star Wars content are incompetent people who hate the audience for the franchise, and hate what the franchise actually stands for, so they are deliberately tearing it down.  Not that I think these highlight all of the dot points I do, but they are reasonably good Star Wars fan films, which proves the point: it's not really that hard to do.

The Fall of Skywalker

I strongly suspect that this is completely true.  Sadly, as I said, because I don't talk about Star Wars much with my wife, she bought tickets for us to go see it in gigantic imax on Friday.  Granted; we used free ticket vouchers, so we didn't buy them per se, but for accounting purposes and from an opportunity cost perspective, we've contributed to the opening weekend of Star Wars.  Sigh.  Sometimes she's pretty cute when she's trying to help but gets it wrong.  So, although next weekend isn't likely to be a great opportunity for me to log in and review the movie, I'll eventually do it (probably too late to matter, because everyone who will see the review will already have seen the movie or decided that they won't under any circumstances anyway.)  As the video linked above says, we can already basically review the movie based on the spoilers that have been leaked; even through desperate reshoots, recuts, and re-edits, they still don't have a fan pleaser on their hands, and they know it.  I almost wish that they had gone with their disastrous first instinct, just to make sure that Kathleen Kennedy and Jar Jar Abrams never work in Hollywood again.

Meanwhile, the Mandalorian has played out pretty much as I predicted it would in my earlier post on the subject.  It continues to be... OK.  Not bad at all.  Which, compared to everything else going on in Star Wars the last several years means that relatively speaking it's fantastic, but the truth is that the show isn't great.  I actually really hoped for more from it.  Granted, even though it's a shorter show streaming on a streaming service, it's still a show at the end of the day, and I always give shows several episodes to find their legs before I judge them completely.  But we're almost done now; there's only eight episodes in the first season, and we've now seen six of them, and it really hasn't quite risen to the level of being more than a paint by numbers, emotionless Western set in space, with characters that have almost no charisma or chemistry with each other.  Nobody is really a memorable character; even the title character of the show himself.  The only break-out is Baby Yoda, and there's not even any good reason for it other than he looks like a much quieter and more passive version of Gizmo from the Gremlins movies who doesn't shed. This isn't meant to sound like a negative review, because I don't dislike the show at all; I just really hoped to actively like it better than I do.  Sigh.

For whatever reason, though, I'm getting re-enthused by The Old Republic again.  Now granted, I haven't played that in a long time, and I actually had some issue where it wouldn't launch on my computer with the hot graphics card anymore (probably because I still have Windows XP on that computer and hardly anything runs on that anymore unless it's an old version of the program.)  "Our" laptop has been effectively commandeered by my wife as her own (and it doesn't have a graphics card anyway, and although I attempted to install it on that, it didn't run very well), "my" laptop is provided by work, and I can't install games on it.  I am, however, expecting a new second desktop, which we'll put in the office at home instead of the bedroom, and one of my first things to do with it once it's up and running is reinstall Steam and Old Republic, and then enjoying games that I haven't played in a year or more, including Old Republic, which I' never really played as much as I'd have wanted to.

Playing Old Republic is both fantastically fun in some respects and shockingly frustrating in others, but I'm aware of the limitations of the medium and the studio, so I don't expect to be as frustrated by the unfortunate elements of it as if I didn't understand those quite well, at least.  It's curious that there's a fair bit of activity here.  A new expansion just came out a couple of months ago, and I was probably dragged in because of both my intense schadenfreude watching the sequel trilogy burn in a dumpster and anticipating both the Mandalorian show and the new episodes of the Clone Wars in February.  The Old Republic's most frustrating aspect, though, is the potential I can see through it and in the setting, which isn't realized because something like The Mandalorian or The Clone Wars wasn't the product of the setting.  Can you imagine a decently made ensemble cast ongoing series set in that setting?  How awesome would that be?  Granted, BioWare probably has some strange rights meaning that Lucasfilm would have to pay them royalties back in return to use their version of the setting, or some other such complication, but that's exactly why I've always thought that going forward in time from Return of the Jedi sufficiently that the setting can be made to resemble the Old Republic setting in some ways, and yet do its own interesting things at the same time. That was the whole point of my Star Wars Remixed tag, after all, and I still maintain that that would make better new Star Wars than what we're actually getting by a long shot.  In fact, that's almost always been the main problem with new Star Wars; both the sequel trilogy and much of the Expanded Universe material, for that matter.  It either tinkered with a story that was already told and didn't need any expansion or tinkering, or it sperged out on some minor detail and made it tedious.  What it always needed was new stories about new characters, yet set in the same setting.  Preferably characters that were a little more evergreen, in many respects.  The saga of Luke Skywalker was always a closed circuit; there isn't anything you can do with Luke after Return of the Jedi that's interesting or desirable, because his story was already done. This is the fatal flaw of both the prequel trilogy and the sequel trilogy; trying to milk the same story that was already concluded.  It's also where the potential of the Clone Wars and The Mandalorian, when they were really on their best game, came through.  If only the creators (including Lucas himself in the 90s and 00s) had had the sense to do something new like this, we'd have had a very different conversation about the Star Wars franchise than the one we've had the last couple of decades, where fans are labeled as "toxic" because they rightly recognize that the potential is being wasted.

Anyway, here's an interesting hybrid video put together that's The Mandalorian + The Old Republic.  If this doesn't at least jump start thoughts in your mind about the potential of Star Warsian space opera, there's no hope for you.

Star Wars, licensing and Star Wars Remixed

So, my wife took one of my sons and my daughter to DisneyWorld to go see the new Star Wars land.  We'll all be able to see it next year, except that one son.  He just graduated from high school, and will be leaving on his mission in a month.  With two years in Peru, visiting DisneyWorld with the family in 2020 will obviously be out.  Besides I'm all out of vacation, and my youngest son still has to be in school.

Anyhoo, I've seen a lot of discussion among the "Fandom Menace" type guys about how Star Wars Land is failing, and Disney Parks is hurting, and the whole thing is going to come crashing down soon (in fact, I embedded several of them in my last post.)  To counter that, I suppose, I'll say that my family is reporting that Star Wars Land is pretty packed, and they think it's really cool—although the one ride available has had mixed reviews, trending negative (two thumbs down, one thumb up.)  And the droid and lightsaber factory things, while cool, are absurdly expensive.

 That said, I still think that the Star Wars brand is not nearly as strong as it was, obviously.  The new movies, especially The Last Jedi, but also The Force Awakens, were just on the downside of mediocre at best, and actively offensively terrible at worst.  And I have no expectation that the new movie is going to fix it, because Jar Jar Abrams just isn't a good enough film maker.  Plus, he's mired in the paradigms that messed up Star Wars in the first place too much to ever be able to make an actively good movie.  Toy sales are down because nobody really likes or cares about the new characters, because they're so badly done, and everyone's honestly kinda pissed off about what they did to the original trilogy characters; turning them into sad, old losers.  Probably because in Jar Jar Abrams and Rianne Johnson's world, those are the only kind of parent figure people that they know.  Rey simply isn't a stand-in for young Luke; she's a cypher and an egregiously Mary Sue bore.  Kylo Ren isn't a stand-in for Darth Vader; he's just a whiny, entitled bratty little princess.  Oh, he's evil alright.  But not in an engaging way from a story-telling perspective.  He's, again, too much like the creators for that.  The sidekicks characters are marginally likable, but nowhere near Han Solo quality, the weird surrogate Yoda figure with the old African lady voice and her eyes set inside two buttholes is considerably worse than Yoda.  Even BB-8 is a piss-poor bad reflection of R2-D2.  Nothing about the new movies is memorable or even really very good.

I do like the rumor, which I think one of my videos I embedded yesterday referenced, that part of the reason DisneyWars has been so insistent on getting rid of any trace of the Original Trilogy, even going so far as to modify the appearance of the Millennium Falcon (new version; Millennial Falcon in reference to the generation of narcissistic, entitled, bratty little princesses that this movie is targeting?) is because George Lucas still gets royalties from them.  He sold them Star Wars, but not everything Star Wars, so they're trying really hard to replace everything that George Lucas still gets royalties from with something else.  Of course, that's not necessarily a bad idea, but their execution was absolutely freakin' terrible.  And part of that was that they set it so close in time to the original trilogy that it begged a bunch of questions about how stupid and incompetent the rebellion had to have been to allow the Empire to turn into the First Order and how stupid did Luke have to have been to have failed to restart the Jedi Order properly and how much of a loser did Luke, Han and Leia have to have been to turn out to be the people that they did.  Except Leia, of course, because girls always win in Clown World Star Wars.  The Old Republic was better executed (especially in the first game—although there are too many SJWisms buried in there too, it didn't poison the main thrust of the story yet) but more to the point, it was far enough in time from the original or the prequel trilogies that it could stake its own territory without it feeling ridiculous and copied.

I still maintain that my idea of STAR WARS REMIXED is the way that the new movies should have gone.  Go forward in time far enough in the future that you can have the freedom to structure the setting the way that you want it.  Of course, none of that matters if you give even brilliant ideas (and I'm hardly pretending like my idea is brilliant; it's just Old Republic turned around, and then because Legacy did the same thing, I borrowed a few concepts from it there too) to people like Jar Jar Abrams and Rianne Johnson to screw up.  The First Order vs The Resistance with old Han, Luke and Leia isn't a totally unworkable idea if it'd been executed better—although I don't think it was the best idea either.  Timothy Zahn certainly showed that a legitimate sequel with a high quality story could have been made.  Not that Disney could have made those, at least not without recasting, because Zahn's trilogy is set; what, about five years after Return of the Jedi, so actors who have aged more than thirty years in real life since filming Jedi couldn't possibly reprise that role exactly.  But maybe that's kinda the point; as good as Zahn's books were, they didn't need to be filmed, especially in the 2010s.  What needed to be done was to allow the characters to have their assumed happily ever afters and just move on after their long gone.

History of m20

I was poking around a bit while waiting for roadside assistance to come unlock my daughter's car so the keys could get picked up out of the passenger seat (long story and not very interesting; don't ask) yesterday, and re-read some of my older blog posts.  I thought one was ripe for some updating, which explained my history (at the time) of using m20.  Let me start with the ordered list that I originally had and then add some new line items at the bottom.

1. I'd been running around house-ruling d20 Modern and D&D 3.5 to be used with my DARK•HERITAGE setting for years.  I'd also played with other systems, but never really settled on anything.  Until...
2. In early 2013 I belatedly discovered the Microlite system (amazingly, by then it had already been around for almost 7 years!)
3. In May of 2013, I created my own adaptation of m20 for use with DARK•HERITAGE.  I also took the two existing Star Wars iterations of m20, combined them into a single one, and added my own elements.  I think this was a great adaptation of the m20 rules to an existing setting that works well with the premise of an old-fashioned game like m20 anyway.  Even if it's just me saying so.
4. These systems underwent periodic revision and fixing of minor elements for some time.  Most of these changes were minor, but they didn't really completely settle down until 2015, at which point both the Star Wars m20 and DARK•HERITAGE m20 were considered complete.
5. Also in 2015, I was confronted with the possibility of needing to pick up where our group had left off; in a campaign that was faltering.  We ended up doing something else (Call of Cthulhu—a campaign that also ended up faltering, as it happens.)  I decided to start the CULT OF UNDEATH project; a thorough pruning and adaptation of Paizo's Carrion Crown adventure path.  For whatever reason, I decided to adapt m20 to do this.  This was the genesis of the m20 CULT OF UNDEATH game; I basically took the DARK•HERITAGE game and replaced the DARK•HERITAGE races with some that more closely resemble standard D&D.  I could, of course, simply have used an existing m20 D&D version, including the original 2006 m20, or maybe the Purest Essence.  But, for whatever reason, I wanted to do my own thing.  
6. In June of 2016, I decided to expand the CULT OF UNDEATH system into a full-blown "My D&D"—i.e., my own take on what I think the D&D system should look like to best emulate my ideal game of it.  This became, of course, FANTASY HACK.
7. By this time, The Force Awakens is already out and of course it's disappointing, although not nearly as much so as The Last Jedi was going to be.  About a quarter into 2016, I started to think that my STAR WARS REVISITED was played out.  I was very happy with the system, but less happy than I hoped to be with the setting, because it was irrevocably tied to an IP that I was more and more unhappy with.  Although this predates CULT OF UNDEATH, I did some early exploration of what it would mean to turn STAR WARS REMIXED into AD ASTRA in April of 2016, that really wasn't a full blown initiative yet, and it wasn't until March of 2017 that I really released AD ASTRA as its own stand-alone game; although by this time, with a setting that was off to a good start.
8. Almost a year ago, I had really started getting excited about developing the CULT OF UNDEATH setting more (under the draft name of TIMISCHBURG), but as I was doing so, I found I was turning repeatedly to ideas that were in DARK•HERITAGE; many of which had actually been cribbed from some other setting I'd developed before being put into DARK•HERITAGE itself.  When it became clear that the two settings were converging, I decided to make it official and bump Dark•Heritage from it's current version 4 to DH5; still a substantially similar setting in many respects, but with a substantially altered geography and more a focus on Medieval familiar pseudo-British nations rather than the pseudo-Renaissance Spanish nations that were more the protagonist race of DH4.
9. With substantial updates to both settings, I had a look at all three rulesets and harmonized and updated all of them a small amount.  This led to other ideas, and the updates were slightly more thorough than I had originally expected.  This especially applied to the two fantasy games.  I added a small section to enable FANTASY HACK in particular to serve as a fantasy Western, mostly because I'd gotten into Red Dead Redemption 2, but also because I'd had the idea of doing so a couple of years ago anyway.  It was just a small add-on appendix anyway.
10. Other than that update, though, I don't really have any additional plans for FANTASY HACK, and DARK•HERITAGE in its current format is basically the same game, except optimized for the setting (all that really means is that the monster lists differ slightly as do the player races spotlighted.  FANTASY HACK therefore is officially a "dead" although still obviously quite playable game, and the DH5 specific version of the rules is really my preferred fantasy game.  I might yet dust off FANTASY HACK sometime for a D&D game, and I've got a few random elements floating around (EBERRON REMIXED, for instance) that could be added to it, but I'd actually prefer not to and as of right now, I'm not planning to.  I have therefore two real games; DARK•HERITAGE which is fantasy and AD ASTRA which is space opera, along with their attendant settings.  Although both are 100% usable as is, I do intend to continue setting development for both; especially DARK•HERITAGE, which after the major structural change is actually less developed now than the space opera, although over the next year or so that will probably change.
11. For the heck of it, here's a picture of spaghetti western era Clint Eastwood interpreted as a fantasy character.  I could see him in the Hill Country as a fairly typical PC.  Sweet.  Onward with more development!

Anyway, stepping back, here's a copy and paste of Microlite's own description of what it is.

What is Microlite20? 

Do you remember when the gaming table was full of pizza and soda, not rulebooks, miniatures and dungeon tiles? Do you yearn for a role-playing game that doesn’t require weight training to carry all the books? Do you want to be able to hold all the rules in your head - or in your back pocket? And do you still want to use all those lovely monsters, adventures and game worlds too? So do we!! 

--  Greywulf 

Microlite20 is a minimalist role-playing game designed to be usable with the majority of the OGL/d20 supplements, rules and adventures with little or no advance preparation. The basic rules for character generation, combat, magic and level advancement take up a single sheet of paper, meaning it is perfect for introducing role-playing to new players, gaming oneshot adventures or tailoring into your own game system. 

History of Microlite20  

Microlite20 was designed by Robin V. Stacey (aka Greywulf) in 2006. The purpose of the rules were to strip the OGL/D20 system down to its bare minimum so that the world’s most popular fantasy system could be played quickly and without thousands of pages of rules, but still be usable with all the adventures, campaign settings, and supplements that had been published for the 3.x edition of the world’s most popular fantasy RPG. 

Amazing, one page of basic rules (coupled with the Fantasy SRD for spells and monsters) really did allow for fast-playing games with just about every adventure and supplement published for the 3.x edition. 

Microlite20 was an immediate hit with players who liked the 3.x edition of the world’s most popular fantasy RPG but did not like the complex and time-consuming (both to GM for and to play out combats) beast it had become. Microlite20 was a rules-light way to play that brought fun back to many game tables. 

The Microlite20 rules were entirely open game content. Only the names “Microlite20” and “Robin V. Stacey” were listed as product identity. Having the entire system open game content sparked a flurry of gamer creativity. Simple variant rules and basic expansions came first – for example, lists of limited spells and monsters so Microlite20 could be played without lugging the huge SRD around. However, customized rule sets and complete games based on Microlite20 soon followed.

As an interesting aside, I've been looking over the big Microlite Compendium, and although there are tons of alternate and variant m20 games included, almost none of them bothered to include anything whatsoever to explain what they are, what they're doing differently, or why you should look at them instead of just basic Microlite20.  Even the ones that included an Introduction just copied and pasted the introductory text to Microlite20.  Sigh. 

Old Republic storylines

Well, I reinstalled Old Republic, but the launcher still won't start.  I probably need a new rig, sadly.  I'm not interested particularly in getting a new rig, but I probably need to.  (My wife appropriated our newest laptop, but it didn't have a graphics card anyway.)  My old Desktop is old, and still has Windows XP.  And my work laptop is probably pretty nice and would run it, but I'm locked out from installing software on it.  I might be able to run it on an SD card that's just copied to that, but I don't know.  Maybe I'll try it, maybe not.  Either way, I decided that actually playing the storylines probably won't happen, barring the game getting an offline version that I can get and just play like I did Knights of the Old Republic back when I played that three or four times on my old Xbox.  Even if I get the game to run, I'll probably lose interest before I get far enough into it.

Of course, you don't really need to, because you can get it pretty good by watching one of the many, many playthroughs on YouTube.  This last week, I watched an edited (but mostly it just cut out a lot of the side quests, the running around planetside, the flashpoints and space missions, etc.) playthrough of the Sith Warrior, along with some commentary by the player.  He not only made the character look pretty good (at least once he started wearing helmets) and picked a lot of conversation options that aren't too different from what I'd have picked myself, I think.  To the degree that CRPGs, especially in the Star Wars setting, scratch the same itch that watching Star Wars movies or TV shows do, then this is pretty decent way to find some new material.  It's sometimes debatable how good it is as a substitute for good movies and TV shows, but what are you going to do?  The TV shows and movies aren't that great anymore.  In fact, most of them outright suck.

I've just watched the first chapter of the Jedi Knight storyline too, but it's not as good—mostly because the character is a boring idiot, and the light side and dark side split is moronic.  If the player had picked more of the cocky conversation options, then the story would have been better, but I already know that he'd be told off literally every single time, and it'd get really, really old.

The way the story is written, with so much r-selection, doesn't help either (Am I really the only one wondering why it is that liberals are so insistent that it's evil to give traitors the death penalty?  Makes you wonder.  That particular choice rankled me quite a bit, that it was supposedly "dark side" to advise the legal ruler of a Royal House execute a traitor who had caused the death of many, many people.)

The Secret History of Star Wars

Many years ago, I stumbled across the free ebook The Secret History of Star Wars by Michael Kaminski.  Third edition, published 2007.  I grabbed it as a pdf, and I'm glad I did, because shortly after that point, he repackaged it as an actual book that he now sells on Amazon and elsewhere for a fairly hefty sum.  I managed to find it at the very end of its trajectory as a free, pdf ebook of original research on the creative process behind the "Star Wars Saga" and how we've been largely led to believe a myth about how it was conceived.  But if you don't mind the cost, or are able to find a copy of the old pdf still floating around somewhere, it's well worth the read.  It's meticulously detailed, and has tons and tons of quotes from all kinds of people directly involved in the making of Star Wars (and its subsequent sequels and prequels and other spin-off products), making his case quite definitively that much of the narrative that George Lucas himself has told, in commentary, featurettes, documentaries, etc. is actually wrong.  The original Star Wars is something quite a bit different than what Star Wars eventually became, both in terms of many details, but also in quite broad questions of tone and theme.  Let me selectively quote a small portion of the first chapter:

Now, I want to take you back to the beginning.  May 25th, 1977.  Star Wars has been released.  No, there is no "Episode IV," there is no "A New Hope"—those are additions in the years to come.  For now, there is only Star Wars, a magical fairy tale about a young farm boy who fights an evil Empire and rescues a beautiful princess, along with the help of his wizard mentor, loyal droid servants, pirate friend and a gentle giant [ed. Chewbacca isn't exactly gentle...]  A mysterious power known as "The Force" aids the hero with the strength to vanquish the forces of evil and destroy the battle station Death Star, while the menacing black knight of the Empire, Darth Vader, survives the battle; the conflict between the Rebels and the Empire will continue another day.  Ending the tale, the heroes are bestowed medals of honor in light of their heroic deeds which stand to "restore freedom to the galaxy," just as the opening scroll promises. 

Do you remember that movie?  It is hard to nowadays imagine Star Wars as simply "Star Wars, the movie."  While today, Star Wars has become an epic saga, filled with melodrama and a scope which spans the forty-year rise and fall of Anakin Skywalker, it is surprising to look back on the magical simplicity of that first film way back in 1977. ... Audiences today are largely unaware of how differently the first Star Wars film was perceived—and most importantly, presented—way back then.  A swashbuckling fairy tale, filled with humor, adventure and simple mythology, with good guys on one side and bad guys on the other.  It was a romantic story in its idealised and heroic depiction of chivalry and adventure, a perfect fusion of old-fashioned storytelling and modern technology, all told with the most sophisticated cinematic technique. It was pure and simple, and anyone could watch it, young or old, man or woman. 

When one looks back at that film, it is surprising to find how much things have changed.  George Lucas has said the prequels will change our perception of the original trilogy, and indeed they have, but before that the sequels alone changed the original film as well.  The Emperor was not a wicked sorcerer but a crooked politician, modeled after Richard Nixon.  Yoda did not train Ben Kenobi, because we didn't know Yoda existed (and neither did Lucas, as we will discover).  Darth Vader was not Luke's father and Princess Leia was not Luke's sister.  Part of the charm was the tradition of storytelling which Star Wars re-popularized—Luke was the naive peasant who rises to the status of hero and proves his worth by rescuing the royal princess from the clutches of the black knight. 

Living on Tatooine, a virtually uninhabited backwater planet with only the frontier bordertown of Mos Eisley as a link to the outside world, Luke was the idealistic young dreamer, awkward, unpopular, and confined to dull farm life.  Obi Wan Kenobi was the wise wizard; regarded as a senile old fool, he was once a powerful warrior and friend of Luke's noble Jedi father, and he teaches Luke the mysterious ways of the Force, unlocking its secret magical powers as Luke is swept away into an exciting world of romance and heroism.  It is a movie that has become buried under years of expansion and elaboration, and one that comes back to us from time to time, a distant and faded memory. 

The plot thickens with the mere mention of an iconic name: Darth Vader.  Remember, Anakin Skywalker does not exist, so far as the audience is concerned.  Darth Vader is the name of a man, a seemingly robotic henchman of the Empire, who was once a student of Obi Wan's but betrayed him long ago and murdered Luke's father.  He was labelled in the publicity materials and novels as a "Dark Lord of the Sith"—but without any further elaboration of what a "Sith" was.  For all audiences of the time knew, "Sith" could have been a race or an Imperial rank; in fact he is stated as a Sith Lord, presumably one of many, who also serve the Emperor, and it was not clear that Darth was even human.  In fact, the concepts of the Force and the Jedi were very different than what we now know them as. 

The Jedi were portrayed as a specialized mystical police force rather than a religious organization; anyone who is eager and wiling can sign up and be trained—only whose pure in heart and deed will succeed and be able to use the Force.  Han Solo can't be a Jedi because he is a cynic, he doesn't believe—but Luke is innocent and he does believe, and so he will train to become a Jedi like his father.... 

Yes, it was a very different galaxy

Anyway, there's obviously a great deal more—over 500 pages of it, in fact—but this is really in some ways one of the big money takeaways: Star Wars was once something fairly different than what it later became, and the original conception of what Star Wars was to be is, in most respects, a more compelling vision than what we actually got.  It was more simple, true, but more importantly, it was more straightforward, and it more accurately reflected classical storytelling traditions, much of which was reflected in the pulp stories on which Star Wars was originally based.  Lucas initially made few (if any) bones about the fact that he was writing a pastiche of Flash Gordon*; only later did it accrete a bunch of nonsense about moral grayness, politics, the real weird semi-Zen Buddhist anti-heroic and lying nature of the Jedi, with their weird little puppet mystic and his fortune cookie pronouncements.  And I say that as a big fan of The Empire Strikes Back, but as great a movie as it was, in many ways, it laid the seeds for the "fall" of Star Wars into something often seen as bigger, yet somehow feeling curiously lesser than it was originally.

And this is in some ways what I really hope to do with AD ASTRA as an ersatz Star Wars—not Star Wars as it is, but Star Wars as it was, and Star Wars as it promised to be.  Before it became something else.  If you read more of The Secret History of Star Wars, it talks a bit about George Lucas' original conception of the series as being much more like the Republic serials of which it was a pastiche, rather than what it became.

To aid in this, hey—check out these pieces of art by Timothy Anderson, where he whipped up old-fashioned pulp novel style covers for the three movies of the original trilogy.  That's more the tone that we're going for here.

* Well, among a few other elements.  It was Flash Gordon that he initially wanted to remake, but it also borrows a lot of obvious elements from the Lensmen and even more from Dune.  And the plot started out as borrowed from The Hidden Fortress, which is a fairly well-known aside—although many commentators fail to point out how much it ended up deviating from it, even as it migrated from it's early summary treatment to an actual first draft, to say nothing of further evolution as it underwent the second, third, and fourth drafts, etc.  The Hidden Fortress knock-off features Luke Skywalker, but he's a character more like "General Kenobi" than he is like the Luke Skywalker we now know, and there wasn't any element of the Force or Jedi in the treatment that really follows the Hidden Fortress carefully.  Nor is there a Death Star, or Darth Vader.  I'm surprised to see that chestnut repeated even today that Star Wars is a remake of The Hidden Fortress.  If you've ever actually watched both movies, that becomes obviously a ridiculous thing to claim.  The only thing that remains is that, yes, there is a Princess on the run, the two droids as kind of the two peasants from Kurosawa's treatment, and the fact that the Jedi ended up being broadly modeled on the samurai from that and Kurosawa's other films.  Much of the rest of the elements that are sometimes attributed to The Hidden Fortress are so common to any kind of swashbuckling adventure story that they're more fairly treated as scènes à faire rather than attributions to a specific source.

Cyberpunk Star Wars

Just discovered another great "remix" concept—Star Wars + Blade Runner.  Given that I'm deliberately moving AD ASTRA a bit away from STAR WARS REMIXED and into a more 80s, synthwave-fueled setting (not that I've posted anything about either in some time), this is right up the same alley.  Beautifully done.

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/Kz1xo

Ad Astra vs. Star Wars Remixed, Part I

AD ASTRA is specifically a repurposing of my STAR WARS REMIXED setting into a new setting that is "generic"; i.e., Star Wars without the Star Wars I/P.  It'll migrate in time even more away from what is already a pretty divergent interpretation of the Star Wars canon, but in the meantime, it makes sense to draw some very specific parallels; what will eventually be AD ASTRA setting elements that started out as STAR WARS REMIXED setting elements before being renamed and gradually evolving into their own things entirely.

It's helpful if you're familiar with the STAR WARS REMIXED setting a bit.  Let me first link to my Star Wars m20 document.  Let me second, cross post some portions of the STAR WARS REMIXED setting description here.  In Part II, I'll then label many setting elements with all new AD ASTRA labels.

I had thought that I'd described the STAR WARS REMIXED setting here before, and while I have, here and there, it's a bit out of date, and poorly organized, and not conducive to simply being linked, so I thought it worthwhile to copy and paste the setting portions from the m20 document right here.

Setting Intro

STAR WARS
Episode n
OUT OF DARNESS
More than a thousand years after the prophecy of the CHOSEN ONE was fulfilled, the galaxy is emerging from the chaos of a lengthy DARK AGE. The old governments and institutions are gone and new ones struggle to find their place as they rise from the ashes of the old. 

Emerging superpowers, many with their own traditions of knights who use the mystic power of THE FORCE threaten to break the tense peace of a brooding cold war, and the looming threat of TOTAL WAR casts its shadow across the stars. In this tense environment, feisty bands of independent entrepreneurs, including budding force talents that belong to no standard knightly tradition, emerge on to center stage of the galaxy, caught up unawares in a political gambit where they will find themselves pawns of the nefarious SITH LORDS and their allies the Nightsisters to bring the Revanchist Republic and the long-standing Bern Monarchy to war...

So… as the opening crawl above states, “my” Star Wars setting is fairly far removed from the movies in time, much as the Old Republic setting is far removed from the movies in time. Knights of the Old Republic—the original game is what gave me the idea. It’s not a unique idea; as I was developing my first pass at this setting several years ago, Dark Horse announced Star Wars: Legacy, and I picked up Issue #0, only to see that they’d either (1) totally used the same idea I had, or (2) totally come up with better ideas than I had! So, I took the former as confirmation that the ideas were good, and the latter as opportunities to improve my own setting.

But there are a number of key factors that are significantly different from what Legacy did that need to be addressed.

• I’m way farther out in time than Legacy. Wookiepedia makes a big deal of the fact that the Legacy comic books take place 125 (or so) years after Jedi whereas mine take place a good thousand years later. There is no living memory of the events of Jedi anymore, and much of what happened has passed into legend, which means that truthful details have often been lost in favor of fanciful or politically expedient ones.
• Jedi vs. Sith is, of course, the core conflict of any canonical Star Wars story (with the exception of some of the more scoundrelish stories, of course) but I’ve expanded that conflict greatly. My original idea was that the Jedi Order had something happen to it much like what happened to the Christian Church, where it went from centralized and common to splintered by something not unlike the Reformation. Stealing the idea of the Imperial Knights as one of the most important of the factions, I still went with the notion of more independent and varied traditions of Force and lightsaber wielding Knights. More conflict always makes for more drama and fun, after all.
• Although Star Wars is famous for being pretty black and white, the prequels really changed that (frankly, the original trilogy had a bunch of that going on, but it was on slow simmer back then.) The Jedi were not really always portrayed as being wise, just, and good—although I think that sometimes the lack of that portrayal was accidental and based on George Lucas’ weakness as a storyteller rather than because he was really trying to introduce moral complexity to the series. My version of the story will tread a middle ground between black, white and grays—not unlike the Old Republic games, I’d think, except hopefully less corny.
• The Star Wars franchise has, at various times, had different feels and tones over time. I’m aiming mostly for the feel and tone of the first movie or two—Flash Gordon swashbuckling space fantasy, with some of the darkness and conflict of Empire but not the attempted (and failed) seriousness of, say, the prequels. More action and swashbuckling, less philosophy and self-righteous preachiness. More handwavey and fast-paced rather than hard science fiction and thoughtful. Star Wars is, after all, the “science fiction” that introduced parsecs as a unit of time (instead of distance in space) and referred to “hydro-spanners” (water wrenches?)
• Legacy had to account for Expanded Universe stuff. I don’t. I actually take a perverse pleasure in watching stuff like the Clone Wars or Rebels cartoons skewer EU material (and then, curiously, have EU custodians bend over backwards to try and retcon the Clone Wars into the EU without changing it, even when it makes no sense whatsoever. The treatment of Mandalorians, Rodians and Dathomir in particular are subject to this problem—the Clone Wars clearly went a totally different and incompatible direction on those than the EU, but the EU tried to digest the Clone Wars without changing. The result is satisfying to no one.) For my purposes, canonical material is the theatrical release movies (counting the Clone Wars pilot theatrical release), the Clone Wars and Rebels cartoon shows, and as a junior tier (and therefore more subject to change at my whim), the Old Republic material from the three computer games with that name. In reality, none of that really matters all too much, because by setting the game 1,000 years in the future from the older material, I’ve removed it sufficiently that I don’t have to explain why any detail doesn’t show up—after all, it’s 1,000 years later and lots can have changed.
• Rather than the open warfare of the Galactic Civil War, I’ve got more of a Cold War environment with lots of players—the Monarchy, the Revanchist Republic, the Sith Empire, the Hutt Cartels, the Mandalorian Confederacy, the Corporate Conglomerate, etc. Again, this is more about giving me lots of opportunity to set up conflict, and the ability to make it a bit more varied than just Rebels vs. Stormtroopers and Jedi vs. Sith all the time. This also a bit of a noirish bent to Star Wars normally—organized crime has played an important role in the franchise from the very beginning. And much of it has to feel like a wild and wooly Old West in space—certainly Mos Eisley, that “wretched hive of scum and villainy” comes across that way.

Knight Orders

Gray Marshals: The personal agents of King Maddav Bern, the Gray Marshals are famous for their devotion to the Monarchy. They operate with a great deal of independence in their role, and often can be seen on their own. Only fully trained Marshals are allowed in the field, so there’s really no good reason for a squire (called padawan by some other orders) to be out on assignment. While on duty, and not incognito, Marshals are famous for their black flight suits and their silver or white lightsabers.

Jedi (Orthodox): The goal of the Orthodox Jedi is to recreate the old Jedi Order from before the Purge. Seeking out clues and lingering evidence of how the Order used to operate, the Orthodox Jedi are too involved in their own concerns to be overtly political, as other orders are. Orthodox Jedi usually travel in their errands by twos—a knight and a padawan together. Although not required, most Orthodox Jedi use blue lightsabers, whereas Skywalkers prefer green. But that’s merely a preference, not an absolute.

Jedi (Skywalkers): Rejecting the rigid dispassion of the original Jedi Order, the Skywalkers believe that the compassionate and activist stance of Anakin and Luke is the way to balance the Force. They take their name as well as their approach from the order founded by Luke following the Battle of Endor. Closely associated with the Revanchist Republic, the Skywalkers are famous as do-gooders throughout the galaxy. They’re infamous for doing so with smugness, self-righteousness and a heavy-hand all too often, however. And a closely guarded secret of the order is the large number of Skywalkers who fall to the Dark Side…

The Cyborg Order: Knights who supplement their fighting abilities with cybernetic augmentations, as did the Chosen One himself, or so they imagine. In reality, these Knights tend to more closely resemble General Grievous than Darth Vader. They are loosely associated with the Corporate Worlds and their combat droid armies, making their resemblance to the erstwhile general even more pronounced, although not deliberate. Because of their location in the galaxy, they can more easily access yellowish lightsaber crystals, which grow naturally on Yuggoth, an icy planet in the Corporate Sector, making yellowish lightsabers more common amongst the Cyborg Order.

The Nightsisters and Nightbrothers: This insular and secretive order has grown tremendously since its days of isolation on Dathomir, where Count Dooku nearly destroyed them overnight during the Clone Wars. Now, a galaxy-wide cult who settle in isolated enclaves and cells throughout the galaxy, Nightsisters and their odd relationship with the Nightbrothers, can be found on many wild and often inhospitable planets. Many are allied with the Sith Empire, although the Sith obviously have their own order of knights as well. Nightsisters and Nightbrothers do not typically use lightsabers, although some of them have discovered the ancient secrets of making darksabers, and more and more this antique-style weapon is showing up in the hands of Nightbrothers in particular.

Sith: After the disastrous risk to the order was revealed if the apprentice kills the Master and doesn’t ascend to his place (i.e., the death of Darth Sidious) those who have attempted to follow in the footsteps of the old Sith order have looked much further back to the ancient Sith Empire rather than the more recent age of the Rule of Two as their model. The master/apprentice dynamic is still important to the Sith, but many such pairings exist throughout the galaxy, reporting loosely to a Dread Council of Arch Heretics, and the Sith Emperor himself. The Sith are infamous for their red lightsabers, made of synthetic crystals. However, because synthetic crystals are often easier to come by than natural ones, seeing a red lightsaber is not necessarily a clue that you’re looking at a Sith Knight anymore.

Independents: In addition to these major (and many other minor) Knightly orders, there are a great many individuals who can use the Force as their ally, and who carry lightsabers or similar weapons. Some have trained with an Order, but turned their backs to its traditions, while others have sought out solitary masters who follow esoteric codes or traditions, and some very few are even self-taught. Because of this, there is no way to generalize what an independent knight looks like, thinks like, or what his philosophy may be, but they are indeed varied and often strange.

Political Groups

The Bern Monarchy: Following the Battle of Endor and the subsequent rise and fall of the First Order, the Empire was dealt what appeared to a be a mortal blow, but things are never, of course, so simple. Much of the Imperial citizenry—especially the military—saw themselves as the heirs of a glorious tradition stretching back thousands of years into the age of the Old Republic. If Palpatine and Snoke were bad seeds, well that didn't invalidate generation after generation of tradition. Surrendering to barbarians, anarchists and malcontents—as they saw the Rebel Alliance—or the traitors who colluded with them in the old Senate and elsewhere, was never going to happen. Seeing themselves as heirs to the Old Republic through the unfortunate hiccup of the Empire and then the First Order respectively, this ancient tradition evolved into the Monarchy. While not nearly as vast as during the heyday of the Old Republic, the Monarchy is still one of the largest and strongest of the superpowers in the galaxy. Protected by the Gray Marshals, paramilitary agents capable of standing toe to toe with Sith or Jedi, the Monarchy is well-provided for with its own Force and lightsaber wielding Knightly tradition.

• Capital: Raxus Secundus (former capital of the Separatist Confederacy, seen in the Clone Wars episode "Heroes on Both Sides."
• Leader: Maddav Bern, King
• Military: Stormtroopers and others, fleets of thirteenth generation Star Destroyers, Gray Marshals
• Alliances and Enemies: The Monarchy sees the Sith Empire as its primary rival for power, and the Republic as its primary ideological rival. It has a relatively friendly relationship with the Mandalorians.
• Galactic Control: Between direct control and allied systems, about 15% of the galaxy owes some degree of allegiance to the Monarchy.
• Cultural attitude towards Knights: The Gray Marshalls are an enshrined, official organization. Because of their tradition of strong loyalty to the Monarchy, they are viewed with a great deal of respect throughout the Monarchy's territory. Other knights are viewed with suspicion or outright hostility, especially the Jedi. Echoes of the ancient perception that the Jedi betrayed the Republic and carried out the Clone War in defiance of the will of the people remain strong.

The Revanchist Republic: The direct heir to the New Republic established by Mon Mothma, Leia Organa, and the rest of the architects of the Rebel Alliance, the Republic has had many generations of hardship. While many of the Rebels and later the Resistance were well-meaning idealists who wanted nothing more than a restoration to the way things were before Palpatine, it was clear that too many in both groups were little more than scoundrels, pirates, and other opportunists who took advantage of the chaos of the Galactic Civil War to line their pockets with what plunder and pillage they could. Following short periods of relative peace, the Republic was plagued by periods of violence and anarchy, not unlike an extended comparison with France following the overthrow of the Bourbon monarchs. After being reduced to a mere handful of Core worlds, the Republic finally got its act together and started aggressively retaking former territory, "liberating it" from whatever "tyranny" might have been occupying it. This revanchist policy has been adopted officially as its new name, the Revanchist Republic, an emerging, feisty superpower—-not really a rival yet to the Monarchy or the Empire, but a growing power nonetheless.

• Capital: Coruscant
• Leader: Mon Organa, Supreme Chancellor
• Military:"Freedom" troopers, and Calamari built fleet, association with the Skywalker Knights
• Alliances and Enemies: the truculent and often self-righteous approach of the Republic has won them little in terms of friendships, but they have cool alliances of convenience at times with the Monarchy, the Hutts and the Mandalorians. The Republic sees the Monarchy as a continuation of the Empire that they claim responsibility for overthrowing many generations ago, and the Sith are greatly disliked for obvious reasons.
• Galactic Control: Was down considerably, but as the revanchist movement gains some ground, about 10% of the galaxy owes some degree of allegiance to the Republic, albeit sometimes somewhat grudgingly.
• Cultural attitude toward Knights: The Jedi (both varieties) and some independent Knights keep a low profile, but are usually viewed favorably, if a bit warily. The Republic hates Sith knights, with the belief that the Sith overthrew the Old Republic, of which the Revanchist Republic claims to be the true heir.

The Sith Empire: Centered on the ancient capital of Dromund Kaas, the Sith Empire may be the most powerful polity in the galaxy—although that often works to its disadvantage when no other group trusts them, and they are often "ganged up on" both diplomatically and militarily by wary other governments who find tenuous alliance in restraining the ambition of the Sith. But the Sith are patient in their ambition to rule the entire galaxy, and are seemingly content to hold strongly to their existing territory and advance slowly over their opponents over the course of generations. Black-garbed Sith soldiers bring a measure of order to the galaxy, or at least so say the Empire's apologists. And drawing from the ranks of both Sith acolytes as well as their allies the Nightsisters and Nightbrothers, the ranks of Force-using knights who serve the Empire's interests is considerable.

• Capital: Dromund Kaas, the ancient Sith capital during the Old Republic age, reclaimed and re-established again.
• Leader: The Sith Emperor, name unknown
• Military: black or chrome garbed Sith troopers, a powerful Armada, sometime alliances with Nightbrother and Nightsister warriors, and Sith Knights, the most feared "face" of the Empire.
• Alliances and Enemies: Occasionally allied with the Mandalorians, the Sith, as the biggest guys in the galaxy and the most feared, infrequently find common cause with any of the other superpowers.
• Galactic Control: Some 20% of the galaxy either belongs directly to the Sith Empire, or is part of a somewhat looser protectorate puppet government
• Cultural attitude toward Knights: Knights are viewed with fear and great respect. Citizens tend to believe that Jedi, Gray Marshals and other knights are not unlike Sith knights, except in their politics. In this, they understand little of the differences between the light and dark sides of the Force.

The Corporate Sector: In the chaos of the Dark Age, many large corporations were more stable and less corrupt than most governments. And in a large reach of the Inner Realm worlds, the corporations essentially became the government. Providing a high quality of life to those citizens willing to combine civil service and their careers together, the Corporate Sector has beat back all attempts by traditional governments to integrate them fully. Protected by vast droid armies and loosely allied with the many knights of the Cyborg Order, the Corporate Sector may indeed be mercenary—by definition even—but that doesn't mean that they're more corrupt or heavy-handed than any other government. The watchword of the Corporate citizens is professionalism in all aspects of life.

• Capital: various regional capitals, but the artificial planet known only as HQ is often seen as the center of Corporate policy
• Leader: various CEOs and Presidents, but Lord Alfram Roole is the most important and charismatic face, who frequently speaks for the entire Corporate sector
• Military: both militia troops and vast hordes of battle droids, often led by allied Cyborg Order Knights
• Alliances and Enemies: Rarely overtly aggressive, the Corporate Sector groups often have a tangle of alliances of various types with all of the powers. They are among the most likely to do business with the Sith
• Galactic Control: Some 10% of the galaxy owes some form of allegiance to the Corporations
• Cultural attitude towards Knights: Knights are viewed warily, although some come to be seen as trustworthy and able advisors or consultants, particularly those of the Cyborg Order.

Hutt Cartel: Infamous as making up the dark tentacles of a seedy underworld throughout much of the rest of the galaxy, there also is a patch of the galaxy where the Hutt's rule as undisputed masters continues as it has without change for millennia. Rather than strong traditional military, the Hutt's have relied on each Hutt master's private militia, often consisting of eclectic and unusual companies of mercenaries. This disunity might be seen as weakness, and certainly seldom have the Hutt's engaged in overt acts of conquest or military adventurism, in reality the Hutt's maintain a strong enough presence that their place has not been seriously threatened in generations.

• Capital: Nal Hutta
• Leader: Various, but the Hutt Council of Lords speaks for the entire group
• Military: private militias of various Hutt Lords, accompanied by purchased battle droids and mercenaries
• Alliances and Enemies: a long association with the Mandalorians has dwindled somewhat in recent years, but the Hutts find their most likely common cause still with them. They occasionally engage in Machiavellian alliances with the Sith as well.
• Galactic Control: About 5% of the galaxy owes allegiance to the Hutt space.
• Cultural attitude towards Knights: Knights are viewed with respect for their abilities. Knights that are strongly associated with one of the political groups are viewed warily, but not because they are knights, but because they are so strongly associated as agents of their government. A number of independent knights, belonging to minor orders, or even no order at all, operate here as mercenaries, bounty hunters, and other types of fringers.

The Mandalorian Arm: Following the disastrous collapse of Duchess Satine's well-meaning but foolishly naive pacifist regime, the Mandalorians looked more to their glorious and storied warrior past on which to model their society. Death Watch themselves were still seen as an equally dangerous extreme as Satine's pacifism, yet the evolving Mandalorian society grew to resemble Death Watch more than many realized. Initially allied strongly with the Hutts, the Mandalorian Arm—so known because its territory is centered on one of the spiral arms of the galaxy—has grown in power and prestige so that it can treat with the other Great Powers as an equal. Although some Mandalorians are born with the genetic predisposition to be Knights (as are most groups in the galaxy), there is no real tradition of force-user training amongst them. Rather, a fully trained and equipped Mandalorian supercommando can fairly be considered the equal of any Knight in combat without using the Force—a point of pride for Mandalorian soldiers.

• Capital: Mandalore
• Leader: Jerec Vizsla, of the ascendant Viszla clan
• Military: Both regular troops and fleet, as well as the elite supercommandos
• Alliances and Enemies: The Mandalorians are at open war with no one, but their tendency to deal more with the Hutts and Sith than anyone else will has made them somewhat untrustworthy in the eyes of the Republic and the Monarchy. Still, supercommando mercenary groups, while not officially part of the governmental military (their first allegiance is to their own clan) can be seen across the galaxy in the employ of many
• Galactic Control: About 5% of the galaxy recognizes some level of sovereignty of the Mandalorians, although in some cases that's a very loose client or vassal arrangement.
• Cultural attitude towards Knights: Knights are respected for what they can do, but Mandalorians take great pride in their ability to match a knight in one-on-one combat without using the Force at all (replacing Force abilities with technology in their supercommando battle-armor, usually, as well as intense training.) Mandalorians are generally tolerant of knights who are not acting overtly as agents of another super-power, however. Many independent knights make their homes in Mandalorian space, where they are less likely to come into unnecessary conflict with others.

Independents: The largest plurality of worlds in the galaxy belongs to none of the super-powers at all. Certainly, some smaller multi-system polities exist, like the Chiss Ascendency, or others, but all of them are small enough that they do not control an appreciable percentage of the worlds cataloged in the galaxy. Some of these are able to maintain independence by virtue of their own strength, either diplomatic or militarily, such as Umbara and the Chiss. In many ways, these independent governments are like smaller versions of the Mandalorians or the Hutts. Others have managed to eke out a precarious neutrality because their neutrality is valuable to one or more of the super-powers. These systems are living on borrowed time, however, if the Cold War erupts into a hot war, in which case the treaties that guarantee them their neutrality will likely be ignored by aggressors. And finally, many worlds manage to hold on to neutrality simply by virtue that they are small and unimportant enough to fly under the radar of the superpowers. If they lack any significant strategic or tactical benefit, and don't have any resources that are vital, they can manage to stay neutral, and can even hope to do so in the event of a greater war.

• Galactic Control: About 35% of the systems in the galaxy are not allied with any super-power at all.

Locations 1,000 Years after Return of the Jedi

A list of a few select locations in the Star Wars canon, including what's happened to them in the 1,000 years since they were last seen in the movies.

Coruscant: Coruscant currently is the capital of the Revanchist Republic. Like a modern day Jerusalem, its significance to various political groups is huge. To the Bern Monarchy, it rankles that Coruscant doesn't belong to them, since they see themselves as the unbroken continuation of the Old Republic through the Empire and into the Monarchy. To them, it is naturally their home planet as well. About 300 years ago, Tiranos Bern, a distant ancestor of today's king, Maddav Bern, declared a Crusade to liberate Coruscant from the hands of the Republic, which was at that time weak, riddled with corruption, and political infighting. The Monarchy held it for twenty years even, although the insult of losing their capital finally united the Republic into a semi-cohesive whole. With the recapture of Coruscant, they officially became the Revanchist Republic, and their revanchist agenda took off, putting them at open war with the Monarchy and the Empire both. It's to their credit that they were even able to survive that time at all, much less thrive and grow, until peace settled again uneasily over the galaxy.

Coruscant remains a world rife with political division, class and social division, and more. Dissidents, terrorists, activists, and other malcontents lurk under the surface, and the grim and overcrowded underworld of Coruscant is still an easy place in which to get lost, either on accident or on purpose. The bright and classy world of the surface is a different world altogether from the dingy and anarchic underworld, which is patrolled insufficiently by law enforcement to be little better than a wretched hive of scum and villainy. Criminals, political malcontents, and spies make up a shocking percentage of the population.

The Senate still remains in power, and their rebuilt Senate building strongly resembles the former one. The Jedi temple is now a public park, though. The Skywalker Jedi operate frequently on Coruscant, but have smaller, more modest temples scattered throughout the planet. Orthodox Jedi also live here, and some even tend the old temple, although they have been unsuccessful in their attempt to sue for its return to their order.

Tatooine: Once famous as a semi-lawless place, far from the bright center of the galaxy, and ruled by the Hutts and other gangsters, Tatooine has undergone quite the transformation in the last 1,000 years. Oh, it's still harsh desert, with the Dune Seas covering much of the surface, and the Jundland wastes cover other large areas. And it's still lawless. If anything, it's in fact quite a bit more lawless than it was under the Hutts.

As the home world of both Anakin Skywalker, the Chosen One himself, and his son Luke, who redeemed him and together brought balance to The Force, Tatooine has become a major pilgrimage site for knights, historians, and more who all want to see what makes this hot wasteland so special. Indeed, some have developed philosophies that the harsh environment is what led to the strength and fortitude of the Skywalkers, and would-be utopian communities of various stripes dot the surface here and there. Some of them thrive, after a fashion, butmany more wither and die as their philosophical fervor fades and they move on to other things, or fall prey to sand people... or worse.

Many of those who now live on Tatooine either serve the needs of the pilgrimage tourist trade, or parasitically feed on it. Tatooine is still a dangerous place, and one haunted by mercenaries, bounty hunters, criminals and worse. While the Hutts gave up on the planet in disgust rather than fight Jedi pilgrims over such paltry resources as the planet afforded, the only powers to fill in the void left by their departure have been regional and highly unstable. One does not ask which crime lord is ascendant on Tatooine, one asks which crime lord is ascendant today.

Raxus: Two planets make up this system. Raxus Secundus was once the Separatist Confederacy capital. Although abandoned at the end of the Clone Wars, the Monarchy later appropriated and renovated Raxus Secundus, and the Separatist government buildings now make up the bulk of the official buildings of the Monarchy's bureaucracy. The Bern palace is even located on Raxus Secundus, which in spite of being the home of such bureaucracy and the seat of so much power, remains a somewhat rural locale, with rolling plains unspoiled by over-development, by tradition. The Bern monarchs in general have decreed that it be retained as a kind of garden or preserve world, and the current monarch, Maddav Bern, has reiterated that policy.

Raxus Prime, on the other hand, remains an industrial wasteland, a dumping ground filled with junk and sludge. However, the remains of ships and droids means that Raxus Prime is an important source of resources, and salvage crews and salvage droids scour the surface of his planet with regularity. In the past, Raxus Prime was quite lawless—following the fall of the Separatist Parliament, the entire Raxus system fell into disfavor. Now, being so close to the capital of the Monarchy, the Bern's would not tolerate Raxus Prime as a lawless junk world, however. Security remains fairly tight on Raxus Prime.

That said, it is only lightly inhabited and insufficiently patrolled to be completely foolproof. Raxus Prime remains a beachhead for the seditious, smugglers, and more.

Dathomir: Dathomir was the original home of the related cults of the Nightsisters and Nightbrothers. When Mother Talzin and Nightsister Asajj Ventress meddled in the affairs of the Sith Lord, Count Dooku during the Clone Wars, they incurred his wrath. He sent General Grievous with an invasion force to wipe them out, and nearly succeeded (although Mother Talzin, Ventress, and a few others did escape the initial massacre. See Clone Wars season 4 episode "Massacre" for details.)

This ended up not being the end of the Nightsister and Nightbrother cults, however. The Nightbrothers were untouched by the massacre, and given the low numbers of the sisters after the massacre, the Nightbrothers were able to start dealing with them from a position of greater strength. The subservient position of the brothers relative to the sisters started to change.

Also, after the near massacre, the cults decided to establish new cells throughout the galaxy, rather than be grouped together all in one location. Today, the Nightbrothers and Nightsisters cults are relatively common, and knights from both can be seen throughout the galaxy. Although the cults have largely grown together into a single cult, they still retain the formal distinction for tradition's sake. The sisters are more likely to be the sorceress-type archetypes, while the brothers, following in the example of Darth Maul and Savage Opress, are warrior knights, wielding traditional red lightsabers, or more likely, darksabers. Although occasionally uneasily allied with the Sith, the Nightsisters and Nightbrothers remain completely separate cults from the way of the Sith, and in general do not acknowledge the superiority or authority of the Sith Dread Council or the Sith Emperor, except politically.

Despite this spread of the Nightsibling cults, Dathomir remains their home planet, and many make pilgrimages there at some point in their careers. Thriving colonies of Nightsisters and Nightbrothers remain still on Dathomir. Their allies, the Sith, are occasionally welcome, as are—on rare occasions—knights of other orders. But the cults have become wary of other knights, and avoid or attack them most often, rather than deal with them.

Ilum: Ilum was the traditional place where Jedi found their lightsaber crystals during the Old Republic, and up through the Clone Wars. Following the Jedi purge, Emperor Palpatine had the Jedi temple on Ilum destroyed. Luke Skywalker was, in fact, unaware (or at least unable to travel to) Ilum when he had to create his own lightsaber. Because of this, Jedi following in Luke's footsteps and tutelage were much more likely to use synthetic crystals, given that natural crystals were very difficult to find or use.

Synthetic crystals also led to a wide variety of color variation, although many Orders of knights eventually tried to settle on a color that was "theirs", in particular to try and separate themselves from other Orders.

Today, most of the major orders have settled on a crystal color. The Orthodox Jedi, though, in accordance with their stated goals of recreating the entire process and practices of the Jedi Order prior to the Purge, have reclaimed Ilum, and in fact have their primary temple and headquarters located in the ruins of the old temple, which they've largely renovated and repaired. The Orthodox Jedi tend to have blue crystals, most of the time, but they strongly dislike using synthetic crystals, and Ilum is their preferred crystal location.

Other orders are not typically welcomed on Ilum, and that lack of welcome often manifests as outright hostility.

Hoth: As a major battlefield of the Imperial era wars, Hoth gained a bit of notoriety many centuries ago, and it's now no longer a world that is greeted with a blank stare or a shrug when mentioned. That doesn't mean that much in the way of valuable resources have been found here. Hoth has a few small communities, that mostly cater to smugglers or other ne'er-do-wells, much as Admiral Ozzel believed the rebel base to be. But a few hardy gas miners have discovered that chemical reactions deep under the ice have produced stores of tibana gas, and other useful gases that can be converted to fuel. There isn't exactly a Tibana Rush on the planet, but a few solitary, independent types manage to eke out a reasonably comfortable living on Hoth even so.

And occasionally rumors will float about that some independent knight has discovered crystal caves where lightsaber crystals grow naturally on Hoth, as they do on the ecologically similar Ilum. This has never been officially confirmed; if any knights are finding crystals, they're keeping that find close. But knights do occasionally arrive here to scout out the planet, and occasionally come into conflict with each other. The locals often look at the arrival of a knight as if it were the arrival of a potentially dangerous and notorious gunfighter in an Old West town. They are respectful, but try to encourage them to move on as much as possible. and prefer to keep them from coming into conflict with each other as much as possible too.

Mandalore: The domed, glass-like cities of Mandalore have continued to grow. The ruined ecology of the planet, and the white, sterile sands of areas like the Sundari Wastes, continue to dominate the planet, but slowly... ever so slowly... it has started to make a comeback in small pockets. Plants, imported from Concordia, have started, first as carefully tended private gardens, and finally growing into self-sustaining preserves.

Mandalore today is the capital of Mandalorian society, but no longer its single locus. As the power and influence of the Mandalorians grew, so too has the area which they claim. Colonists, encouraged by cultural and governmentally induced incentives, have spread rapidly, procreated wildly, and Mandalorian culture is now "native" to dozens of nearby systems. Many other systems have sworn vassalage to the Mandalorians, and collectively this entire area is known as the Mandalorian Arm of the galaxy. The vassal states are not truly considered Mandalorian themselves, at least not by Mandalorians, who are very particular about their cultural and ethnic purity. Although there have been some conversions of non-Mandalorians into Mandalorian culture and mixed race marriages, by and large the original Nordic Mandalorian ethnic group remains as it was during the Clone Wars. Quasi-religious cultural traditionalism has enforced an extraordinary level of cultural stability into the Mandalorian way of life in a way not unlike that of the Ashkenazi Jew.

Many of the Mandalorian vassals or clients have taken to imitating many aspects of Mandalorian culture, including developing their own traditions of battle-suits and mercenary military service. These clients are careful not to copy the Mandalorian template too closely, as the Mandalorians are very zealous about the uniqueness of their battle-armor, and dislike too open imitation as disrespectful and gauche.

A curious fact is that the descendants of many clones, decommissioned after the Empire was defeated at Endor, have made their way to this area. Although not per se part of Mandalorian society, they see somehow a connection (through Jango Fett, a shadowy historical figure who the clones look to as an ancestor, and who the Mandalorians look to as an imitator and source of some shame.) The relationship between the ethnic Mandalorians and the ethnic clone descendants is somewhat strained on occasion, yet remains an interesting dynamic, as they number at least as many as the Mandalorians themselves in Mandalorian territory, and have their own traditions of martial excellence. While outside of Mandalorian society proper, they still retain a somewhat favored position as a largely pluralistic segment of society that cannot be ignored, and who have, by tradition, maintained a military cohesiveness that rivals that of the Mandalorians themselves.

Nal Hutta: This slimy swamp is the home world to the Hutts. They keep it as a kind of preserve, though, and have strict immigration controls. Much of the planet remains in a state of greenish-yellow swamp, overcast and undeveloped. A few cities still remain, including Bilbousa, and it remains the capital of the Hutt Cartels.

However, following the fall of the Hutts—albeit not for long—to Darth Maul and Death Watch’s so-called Shadow Collective, the Hutts have diversified to protect themselves. While most Hutt Lords maintain palaces on Nal Hutta, few stay there permanently, and many have spread throughout much of Hutt space, to make the Hutt Cartel as a whole less vulnerable to potential attack. The Hutts, when on Nal Hutta, maintain a strong presence of mercenary bodyguards and militia, including—if they can get them—Mandalorian supercommandos and fallen or independent knights.

Other than in the heavily armed Hutt palaces, however, Nal Hutta remains a relatively lawless place, with little in the way of government oversight. Because of this, it prospers, but gangsters and organized crime remain a significant deterrent to ever truly expanding its trade and commerce base beyond items that are otherwise illicit or illegal throughout much of the galaxy. Slave trading cartels, spice trading cartels and more make up much of Nal Hutta’s import/export business.

Nar Shaddaa: Nar Shaddaa remains much as it ever was; a kind of Monte Carlo, Las Vegas, Bangkok and Tortuga of the galaxy, all rolled up into one and under the control of the Hutts. As a side note: much of the EU material, or Star Wars Legends canon, as its now called, calls Nar Shaddaa a moon of Nal Hutta, the galaxy map of Star Wars Insider #65 shows it as an independent planet, which is how I’ve chosen to treat it.

Nar Shaddaa is a hotbed of political intrigue. While it’s in Hutt Space and is loyal to the Hutt Cartel, it plays no favorites, and the Hutt’s famous general trend of neutrality between the three superpowers means that embassies and espionage from all three are commonplace in the dark streets of Nar Shaddaa. It still has the same reputation as a wildly dangerous place that it’s always had, but now one with a particular partisan bent, as shadow wars rage in the streets between proxies. All parties are careful to keep this activity at least marginally discrete, however, as the Hutts’ are only laid-back hosts to the degree that their own interests are not threatened.

Moraband: While an important planet to the Sith for historical, archeological and cultural reasons, in reality there is little on the planet to tempt the Sith today, and they maintain it more as a curiosity than for any other reason. Many Sith knights make pilgrimages to the planet as part of their training, but few remain. The ruins that once dominated the Valley of the Dark Lords are mostly stripped clean of any artifacts of interest or note, and many of the ruins toppled or defaced.

The Sith tolerate a few unusual features about Moraband, however. Several pirate and smuggler operations are here, known to the Empire, but not molested. The inhabitants of these enclaves are particularly vicious and paranoid, as might be expected, since few of them know of the official tolerance for their activity, and they feel that they may be rooted out by feared Sith Knights and their black-garbed troopers at any time if discovered. In truth, it’s not clear what the Empire tolerates them for, although it may be as simple as the fact that the harshly competitive meritocracy of this environment has been a good source of potential recruits for them; force sensitive pirates are trained as apprentice Knights, and those who are not become highly skilled agents-provocateurs for the Empire, often drafted into dangerous yet important missions on behalf of the Empire.

The Sith also tolerate several villages of Nightbrothers and Nightsisters on Moraband, including some of the most important and centralized points of the cult. While the Sith cult and the Nightsiblings cult have usually enjoyed friendly relations, it is not clear why this particular tolerance is allowed on what is a site important to the Sith cults’ heritage. It is observable, however, that the Nightsiblings cult on Moraband has gradually migrated more and more into being one that resembles the ancient Sith cult itself. It is believed by a very few who are aware of this phenomena that this tolerance may actually be part of a long-term conspiracy to draw the Nightsiblings cult directly into the Sith cult itself and merge the two. The whispering of the Dark Side and the ghosts—rather real or echoed—of past Sith Lords who still wander the blasted badlands of Moraband may be instrumental in bringing this to pass.

Dromund Kaas: The capital of the Empire is the ancient capital of Dromund Kaas. It is much as it was during The Old Republic in many ways, although Kaas city has grown to encompass much of the surface area of the planet. Very little of the old jungles remain.  In general, Dromund Kaas can be seen as a darker and much more militarized mirror of Coruscant as it was.