The Expanded Universe discussion

I thought we could use a place to discuss any/all Legacy Era fiction.




"Legacy" confusion

To be clear (since Lucas Books hasn't been):

Legacy Era is a span of a hundred years (so far) that covers the story of the Skywalker legacy.

Legacy of the Force is the novel series that takes place at the beginning of the era (40 ABY). This concerns the rise of Ben Skywalker.

Legacy (2006) is the ongoing comic series that takes place at the end of the era (130+ ABY). This concerns the life of Cade Skywalker.

Han Solo and the Lost Legacy takes place prior to Episode IV and has nothing to do with Legacy Era.

Legacy of the Jedi is a young adult book that has nothing to do with Legacy Era.

So anyway, they've green-lit Riptide, a sequel to Crosscurrent. It's set to be written by the same author, Paul S. Kemp, after he finishes the upcoming Deceived (Star Wars: The Old Republic #2). Riptide is currently planned to be released July 26, 2011.

I highly recommend reading the current Legacy Era novels in timeline order. I skipped straight from the Legacy of the Force series to the Fate of the Jedi series and am now going back to read Crosscurrent and Millennium Falcon because the characters and events in those books are referenced so often in FotJ.

Yes, I plan on reading Crosscurrent and and MF in the correct order too. But when will Riptide take place?

I read Millennium Falcon, but somehow missed Crosscurrent. Thx for pointing it out. Might have been years before I noticed, thinking id kept them all in order. Ive been reading them in order since x-wing (a few exceptions). I did miss the e-books though.

William, here's a preview.

Jim, many mass market paperbacks of later novels include the various ebooks. Try browsing at your local book store to find the right ones. Off the top of my head I think Star by Star & Destiny's Way include NJO ebooks.

I am reading Legacy of the Force. This book series makes me want to tear my face off.

sneezer wrote: "I keep thinking that there wouldn't be so many smiles at the end of ROTJ if they knew that this is what would happen."

:D

I think that movies VII, VIII, and IX would be of the Thrawn trilogy. I have to admit, I'm on tempest of Legacy series, and have put it down to read tatooine ghost. Because it is driving me insane.

The problem with new movies or a TV show being anywhere near the OT is the actors. Mark Hamill is the only one very enthusiastic about returning with Harrison Ford and others refusing to and several being wish-washy about it. If they were to get something going soon, I expect it would be set late in Legacy Era with Luke as the only one left or a ghost OR in Sith Era to cross promote with the book, comic, and game lines that are a recent focus.

I don't know if anyone is watching A Game of Thrones (based on the novel), but I wish Star Wars would get the same treatment.

I think to do a VII VIII IX movie you would need to do something closer to the original series in time line form. If you go off time line people may get lost. If there are going to be a 7, 8, and 9 movie it should be the Thrawn Trilogoy. Why? Because that is when the twins are born to set up for the NJO series and the Legacy Series. I regret starting with the Black Fleet Crisis series even though it was a good series I then had moved to the NJO series and into Legacy with out reading the Thrawn Trilolgy which is by far the best series in the expanded universe

Okay, conjecture time.

The question of when to set the story is the question of what the overall story is about.

The story isn't about Luke and friends, or the prequels would never have existed, and to many children the prequels are what they saw first.

It's not about the Rebel Alliance's struggles as they didn't exist in the prequels and have turned into non-rebels in the EU.

If the story of the movies is about Anakin Skywalker, then it's over and there's no need for more movies.

If the story is about the Skywalker Legacy, then they could just as easily jump to after Ben or even past Cade in the timeline, explain in the opening crawl what the Legacy is and that this new guy is part of the Legacy, and go. And that would save them lots of trouble casting characters the audience knows as another actor's face and voice.

Here's my suggestion. And this goes back to something that was floating around in the past as George Lucas's planned end to his original "trilogy of trilogies" idea. I don't know if that was an urban myth or real, but it goes that there would be 9 movies total and at the very end of the ninth, there's a big reveal in which it turns out the movies are R2-D2 and C-3PO talking back over their lifetimes as they wait for their memories to be erased.

If the story is about R2-D2 and C-3PO, now you have options Anyone can "play" (or remote control) R2 these days and a gray-haired Anthony Daniels (or anyone that can fit in the suit + anyone else that can mimic the voice) can play 3PO throughout time. They could make Star Wars movies for hundreds of years.

I think what they should do is take that route, skip well past Del Rey's playgrounds of Fate of the Jedi and the stories of the children to when the droids are separated from the Skywalker Legacy and pick up on the shenanigans they get into with their next owners.

Guys, guys, guys! Stop pretending like George Lucas cares about the EU beyond its ability to generate profit. He doesn't care about the story, about what other people have done with his characters. He's been quoted as saying that when episode VI ended, as far as he was concerned, the story of Star Wars ended.

Nothing new beyond that point in the timeline is going to make it to a screen.

Dash wrote: "Guys, guys, guys! Stop pretending like George Lucas cares about the EU beyond its ability to generate profit. He doesn't care about the story, about what other people have done with his character..."

^ I agree. Lucas really only considers what happens in his movies to be actual canon anyhow. Though the idea of an new movie trilogy would be awesome (considering the fact that the actors are generally the right ages for the Fate of the Jedi series and beyond), its just very very very unlikely. Would be interesting to have (in trilogy movie form) the last era of Luke's life, introducing the new generation. Despite the obvious canon disputes with the EU.

I'll just be content with novels honestly, for aslong as authors are still able to play around in Lucas' Star Wars back yard.

Same here. I think the EU novels are, generally speaking, far truer to the source material than the source material's author has been in - oh, twelve years, three months, two weeks and two days.

Roughly speaking.

Midichlorians...christ.

Dash wrote: "Midichlorians...christ. "

Haha I think everyone swept that under the rug and pretended Midichlorians never happened. I cringed when Kemp's Crosscurrent brought it up again, but it actually managed to handle it pretty well.

Just bought Crosscurrent, haven't cracked it yet. We'll see how I feel about it, but it'd have to be impressive to erase the image of monocellular little Force-bacteria swimming through the bloodstreams of Jedi and Sith everywhere.

Derrick wrote: "I really enjoyed Crosscurrent. Enough that I'm actually looking forward to the sequel, Riptide.
Can't say that about any of the other Old Republic novels, sadly."

Croscurrent is good! I recommend checking out the free Lost Tribe ebooks that Crosscurrent introduces. Oh goodness the Old Republic novels... The first one started way too dry and was way too long, the second started off really good but ended up disappointing and was way too short.

I'm sure Karpyshn will redeem the series with Revan, which I'm really looking forward to!

I'm also looking forward to Revan. KOTOR was my favorite SW video game.

Karpyshn did a good job with the Bane novels, too. Revan sounds like it'll be great =D

I'm SO JEALOUS

Old Republic is definitely my favorite era, KotOR: both the video games and the Graphic Novels were great, still need to read the newer novels, Darth Bane was good too.
Udesii, vode.

Old Republic has so much unexplored potential. The problem with the Legacy series and beyond is the fact that the Expanded Universe has boxed itself in. With Dark Horse's Legacy comics set only 100 years in the future, the Legacy era has to begin to set the stage (as in the current Fate of the Jedi series). Which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing, except for the fact that all the main characters now have a big death clock ticking over their heads. It won't be surprising if they kill off someone significant in the last two novels of TFOTJ (I'm halfway through Ascension). But anyways, the Old Republic has thousands of years of unexplored possibilites. :}

Luke, Leia and Han can't live forever. I just finished Ascension, and I think you're right - I think at least one of those three are going to die in the next book, Jag is going to become Emperor of the Fel Empire, and the stage will be set for Legacy.

But it had to be done eventually.

I'm fonder of EU stuff set after Jedi, but the nice thing about the Old Republic era is that there are thousands of years of unexplored material, that still ties in to the Star Wars we know and love.

I'm also interested to see what material they come up with that's set after the Legacy comic series.

Let's talk about Old Republic-era novels in the OR thread?

Can anyone clear up what happened with Zekk at the end of Invincible? He like disappeared (physically and in the Force) in the last star ship battle, right after feeling some big time Dark Side tension with his interaction with SHIP. Then all of a sudden he's back in the Fate of the Jedi series like nothing happened. Did I miss something?

I don't think they've said yet - except that he might have been doing something under cover for Tenel Ka.

I assumed there was an Insider short story I missed. (I'm not a subscriber.)

Can anyone check?

Already did - no joy.

@Derrick - I don't think you're alone, but I kind of feel bad for him.

Did he do something terrible that I missed? He was one of my favorite characters in the Young Jedi Knights series. D:

Forearm rubbing.

See The Dark Nest Trilogy for more info.

I think he's mostly guilty of the crime of existing while not being Jagged Fel.

Okay, that too - but mostly when it comes to Jaina, and a lifetime of unrequited love will do that to a guy, right?

I think he's a victim of mixed perceptions/expectations. You say, "Real men move on;" other people say, "Real men stand and fight." How's a Jedi supposed to know what to do?

Oh, right...the Force...hm. He's actually worse than the creepy boyfriend, because he really ought to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jaina's not interested.

I like Jaina/Jag because it means the Fels, the Antilleses, the Skywalkers and the Solos will all be related, and that just makes me smile.

I think he's better now. Jaina and Zekk have had little to no interaction with one another throughout the current series. Which is great, since Legacy love triangle was so inappropriate considering what was going on at the time. Zekk will get his spotlight soon, once his "secret mission" is over/revealed. But I think its very likely that Zekk is on his last leg, wouldn't be surprised if he died protecting Allana or something self-sacrificing like that, and all that Zekk nonsense will be over. P:

:D I think Dark Nest was weird, but I got into Star Wars for the cool, variable-theme novels of the 80s. More like classic pulp sci-fi.


My guess on Zekk suddenly being dropped in FotJ:

On purpose or not, he's apparently the new love-to-hate Jar Jar-style annoyance. And Sue is way to into soap operas to let the Zekk/Jaina thing drop. I bet FotJ ends with Zekk coming out of nowhere mad jealous. He kills Jag and becomes a new Sith Lord. Jaina, already pregnant with Jag's twins, internally battles with revenge being of the dark side versus her own Force-chosen role as the Sword of the Jedi and ultimately puts Zekk down. The End.

The next series is Jaina's kids as the padawans, Ben as the young Master, and Luke as the frail, wise Yoda type.

Hm...I'll bet not.

Yeeaaah, I don't think so...

Zekk is a part of that elite Jedi club of "Never Going Dark/Never Going Back." Luke, Kyp, Jaina, Zekk, Kyle, and apparently Corran.

If anyone's going to the dark side, folks, it's Ben Skywalker. And I'm taking bets on that, even odds.

Really Ben? I keep hearing that since he already walked that line already with Jacen, and Jacen's betrayal affected him so much that it wasn't even a possibility. Hmm.. unless Vestara somehow twists events to cause this to happen.

That's what I was thinking, until I finished Ascension - now, I figure if it's going to happen, it'll be down the line. He never crossed over to the dark side with Jacen, not really. He came close, and turned back.

If Vestara has anything to do with it, it'll be because he kills her. And since, given who she is, that's not necessarily a dark-side act, we'll have to see what happens.

I don't think Ben is mentioned at all. But since I don't think Luke's remarrying or having any more kids at this point, it's safe to say Ben lives to procreate...of course


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he could have already taken care of that.

Cade isn't Luke's grandson - he's Luke's great-grandson. But if I see where you're going, yeah - there's no mention yet of the relationship between Kol Skywalker (Cade's father) and Ben.

I assume that's just for publication reasons. By not describing the relationship between Ben and Kol, or Ben and Cade (if Ben stays alive that long), they leave it open for other authors to describe elsewhere.

Legacy follows Cade - if they talk about those relationships in Legacy, it's backstory. If they leave it open for other authors, those authors can take the relationships deeper.

Dash wrote: "**************************************************
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Lol noooooo... I'm pretty sure what you're suggesting did not happen. Especially after hearing Ves's internal monologue to herself in the end. Ben is definitely the male carrying the Skywalker line (I think there is actually a family tree on wookiepedia or something). The biggest question is, who will be the mother of his offspring? I still think he's way to young to even suggest kids right now. Let's leave that to Jag and Jaina.

Sometimes, I forget that Jaina's in her thirties. It's weird.

Dash wrote: "Sometimes, I forget that Jaina's in her thirties. It's weird."
Lol maybe because her general badass-ness is eclipsed by her 12 year old whiney hormone driven nature. just a thought.

I guess I haven't read her as having aged any since NJO. They wrote her back then as maybe a bit too mature for a sixteen year-old (even if she was a *little* whiny), and haven't figured out how to compensate for that.

What's especially weird about it is I didn't have that problem with Jacen, who was *exceptionally* whiny. Seriously, he should have taken the name Darth Petulance.

I wish they would do more "How's Jaina doing after killing Caedus" and less "How are Jaina and Jag going to resolve their differences blah blah".

lol I know right! Darth Petulance! ROFL!!!!

Sonny wrote: "Can anyone clear up what happened with Zekk at the end of Invincible? He like disappeared (physically and in the Force) in the last star ship battle, right after feeling some big time Dark Side ten..."

I read on the star wars website months ago that there was supposed to be a Zekk novel but I think the release date got bumped. It may fit into the gap that you are wondering about.