Rewriting Episodes I-III more EU friendly (caution,spoilers)

[Lord Aramus]

one of my biggest problems with Episodes I-III is not anything to do with the acting or the gungans.. Its the abundance of Extended Universe material that it flat-out contradicts.

So.. for me, this thread/project will be my attempt at making sure I don't have to throw out a decade worth of game notes in an effort to make these events fit my knowledge of starwars history, I hope that you will take from and add to this thread as well.

This post is a work in progress, so check back often.

first step: Timeline

As much as I hate to admit it, and even though I don't think they were epic enough for a movie, the events of episode I can be consistant with the extended universe.

Episode II and beyond:
The clone war. It makes little sense from what we learn in the Timothy Zahn series of books that all the clones would be from a single individual, and bred in secret. It also makes little sense that boba fett would be a clone. (although that can be retained if it is important to your campaign)

so, the way I see it, to make this series of events more gamer friendly one must rewrite history.

Anakin and Padme. Much of this is retainable, but I have to say, if my boyfriend/girlfriend slaughtered a whole village of sand people, I'd be more than a little wary about where the relationship was going.

Anakin and Obe-wan:
it doesn't much matter how this transpires, so long as it is full of a sufficient level of angst between them which culminates in a turn from the light for anakin and a fateful showdown.

The clone war: Too short in the movie and not consistant with what we were told previously.

Clone army = threat to the new republic, in my re-write, it is an army under the control of General Grievous (who amazed the heck out of me in ep III) who is a secret puppet of Palaptine. The Old Republic has too much trouble on its own with its aging ship fleet and slow-to-act senators, so a war fleet is commissioned and chancellor Palaptine is put in charge of its creation and great benefits and pay bonuses are given to those who voulenteer to crew this fleet of dreadnaughts and carrak cruisers to oppose the fleets of the clone army. This is the birth of his imperial fleet.. He rewards the most devoutly loyal and accuses those who suspect treachery in the senate of treason.

Rumors of these events get back to the Jedi and their suspicians are confirmed as Anakin (having been given the position of envoy to the Chancellor) informs Mace Windu (who is on coruscant) and Yoda (who is away with obe wan investigating the activities of the imperial fleet) that the chancellor has appointed Count Dooku to the command of his fleet. Anakin has his suspicians that Dooku may be the sith lord that the council has been seeking. Mace Windu has suspicians that the chancelor may be the sith that the council is seeking and that Dooku is merely an apprentice. An argument erupts between the two and Anakin Rushes off to investigate Dooku alone. Mace Windu Confronts the chancellor. The chancellor reveals himself to be a dark jedi, and the fight that ensues leaves Mace Windu dead and branded as a traitor, and Palaptine scarred beyond recognition. Palaptine holds a confrence with the senate and using his own disfigured body as evidence of treachery convinces the senate to lock down the jedi temple until a full investigation can be achieved into how far the jedi assassination plot stretches into the order.

The Jedi who are off world know now that The Republic is in trouble, those who return immediatedly are assassinated by the imperial fleet as they approach the planet. Those who remain away begin to work to undermine the Chancellor/Emperor. Quite a few, find a new ally with the clone army.

Yoda sees that the jedi are being assassinated around coruscant so he chooses to approach the planet in secret. He confronts the Emperor, but fails to depose of him. Yoda retreats off world and is persued by the imperial fleet and Count Dooku. Anakin, who has so far been unsuccessful in his attempts to locate Count Dooku instead goes to find Obe-wan, assuming that the two of them together can dispose of the evil presence.

Yoda is pursues all the way out into the rim where he comes to a jungle world. low on supplies, fuel and friends... He confronts Dooku on Dagobah. and after a battle of unparalleled power, Dooku is slain and a dark cloud washes over the surface of the planet. Yoda escapes yet again to further plan to expose the Emperor. He decides his safest option is to seek asylum from Bail Organa on Alderaan, who was one of the few senators to outright oppose the granting of special powers to the Chancellor.

Anakin locates Obe Wan and attempts to convince him that Dooku is the Sith lord, and that Mace Windu must have been in league with him to attempt an assassination on the Chancellor. He suggests that with the jedi council being unreachable and the jedi temple being under lockdown, that their only option is to return to Coruscant and plead with the chancellor on behalf of the jedi that Mace was acting alone in his assassination attempt.

Obe wan disagrees and instead he decides to seek out the other Jedi and plan further from there.

Anakin once again sets out on his own. On his way to Coruscant, he is greeted by some unwelcome news. His Secret Wife is pregnant. He diverts to visit her on Naboo.

Padme has been paying close attention to the events in the galaxy and when Anakin arrives, she tries to warn him that the Chancellor is up to no good, but Anakin is too stubborn to listen and he continues to coruscant.

Anakin is allowed to Coruscant at the behest of the Emperor and is allowed council.. Upon word of his arrival at Coruscant. The Emperor orders Grievous to kidnap Padme and lay waste to Naboo. Grievous does so with brutal efficiency. Grievous initiates a surprise attack on the jedi under his command, and on Naboo simultaneously, removing from his presence all opposition. Padme is taken prisoner and "interrogated" a holovid of the interrogation is taken and sent to coruscant.

When Anakin arrives at the Emperor's palace on Coruscant, the Emperor uses this video and also his own corruptive will to turn Anakin fully against the clone army. He insinuates that the dark jedi presence ran deeply through the jedi council, which is why they had so much trouble seeing the force for so many years. Their own members had been actively restricting access through the use of the dark side. The Emperor informs Anakin of Dooku's demise. The Emperor then convinces Anakin that his only two remaining enemies are General Grievous, and Yoda, who has been most darkly corrupted of all. Anakin is assigned the task of removing General Grievous and Yoda from the galaxy and restoring order to the Old Republic.

Anakin departs to attack Grievous and Reclaim Padme and his child.

Yoda drums up support from Alderaan and a few other loyal friends and they decide to create a fleet of their own, comprised entirely of dreadnaughts, and using the same technology learned from the trade federation over a decade past, they construct from hundreds of aging dreadnaughts, a fleet of exceptional power, and manned largely by droids. They call it the Katana fleet. But mysteriosly, upon completion, it vanishes into hyperspace not to be seen again for nearly 30 years. (The reason for this being that Palaptine was behind the events of the Trade Federation dispute as well, and he knew that the potential for the droids to be used against him was high in the future.. so he entered into their command structures a backdoor, which allowed him to dispose of the fleet when he learned of its existance. A few worlds were punished by some of his newly created super ships. The star destroyer. He designated these new ships "Victory" class to inspire fear into his enemies and pride into his own forces. The events that transpired to these sister conspirators of Alderaan were never made public, those planets remained in imperial lockdown until a great many years later when the New Republic finally removed the Empire from them. Alderaan, however, was not so blind. But to appease the Empire, Alderaan gave up its weaponry and decided to devote itself to a peaceful existance. This bought Alderaan time, but as Alderaan never forgot the lessons learned from its co-conspirators, the Emperor similarly never forgot Alderaan's treachery.

Yoda once again went into hiding.

Anakin fought a personal, running campaign against Grievous stepping on all who stood in his way and forcing him dangerously close to the edge of the dark side. Grievous was eventually killed. But Anakin erringly believed that Padme had been killed. This was the final straw on his sanity. He snapped. Flying into a murderous rage he laid waste to all that was in his path. He returned to the Emperor fully convinced that any who would oppose the Emperor such as the General who killed his wife would fall to his hands. No longer having to make any pretenses about his own dark associations, The Emperor reveals himself as Darth Sidious and appoints Anakin as Darth Vader. Vader is given one more task. To destroy the remaining treacherous jedi.

Obe-wan learns of this plot, and hoping to return anakin to the light side, confronts Anakin in a battle which leaves Anakin forever scarred, and forever turned against his former friend and master.

Obe-wan leaves, mistakenly believing vader to be dead. He makes an astonishing discovery. Padme is alive after all. Obe-wan locates both Padme and Yoda. The three decide that it is best for the galaxy if Padme is relieved of one of her twins, since vader does not know of a second. so the boy is chosen (Luke) to be hid away on tatoonie with Owen and Beru. Padme keeps her daughter and for a while is successful.

Emperor Palaptine renames the Old Republic to The Empire and declares himself surpreme commander, using fear and Imperial might to keep the system lords in check. He makes an example out of the remanants of the clone army, executing the majority of his creations. (but reserving the best and also hiding away his clone Spaati cylinders on Mount Tantiss)
left guarded by a dark jedi clone (see the thrawn trilogy)

The few worlds that resist the Emperor's take over are made examples of and become no better than Imperial slave states.. one of these is Kashyyyk ( wookie homeworld.)

Episode III (never saw this coming, did ya ) Rise of the Rebellian


Rumors of the Empire's atrocities spread to the rim. These planets, far removed from begin to organize a resistance. they are funded in secret by planets such as Alderaan. They use clone war cast-off ships and fighters such as the old Carrack cruisers and z-95 headhunters and they succeed at becoming little more than a thorn in the side of the Emperor.

He is hardly concearned, he has a bigger target. The remaining jedi. He uses Darth Vader to destroy the remaining jedi, one by one as they work against him. Vader is impressively successful. The Emperor bombards the Jedi Temple to the ground. and begins construction of a palace the likes of which the galaxy had yet to see. He makes this his total priority. Upon its completion, he comissions a second force of more powerful star destroyers to strengthen his stranglehold on the galaxy. He sets up a test facility in a nearly untraverseable area of the galaxy populated by black holes.. he uses their close proximity and gravimetric and radioactive auras to mask his use of this facility and construction of a prototype death star is begun.

Obe-Wan finds his ability to navigate the galaxy being less and less likely and he goes to Dagobah to consult Yoda, who is using the dark presence left by Dooku to mask his own presence with the light side of the force. The two decide that it will be best to wait until a new jedi can be found who will be able to confront vader and the emperor. They agree that the only likely candidate would be vaders own projeny. so Obe-wan goes to tatoonie to oversee Luke's development.

Yoda, feeling his age, and having been damaged in the fight with the Emperor a few years previous, knows that he cannot confront either alone, so he remains on dagobah until such a time as training can commence. But the longer yoda remains in isolation, the more he wonders if bringing the son of vader into the galaxy is really a wise thing.

A few years pass. Vader believes he has been successful in his jedi purge, as he has seen no sign of his old master or yoda in 5 years. He refocuses his attention to creating a choke hold on all the systems under the Emperor's command. He knows the Emperor is evil, but that is of little consequence, for one day, he will find an apprentice of his own, and overthrow the Emperor. The galaxy will belong to him.

The Emperor senses the lack of faith in Vader and he chooses the best of his fleet to become admirals in his navy. He appoints three Grand Admirals who serve as his militant arm. Imperial Dominance seems assured, but a growing rebellion on the fringes of his domain grows to be more and more of a nuisance. He dispatches admiral Harkov and A young admiral of a non-human nature to the fringes of space to deal personally with the rebellian. The Non- Human is Vice admiral Thrawn ( the results of this endeavor are more fully explained in the Lucasarts game "Tie Fighter")

The Emperor, unknown to Vader discovers that Padme is alive and has her executed to keep vader believing that she died all those years before. She succeeds in hiding leia away on Alderaan before she is captured and killed.

A young imperial pilot is assigned to patrolling Imperial held territories, including Kashyyyk. His name is Han Solo. He is appalled by the atrocities he witnesses on this planet. He liberates a wookie he befriends by the name of Chewbacca and flees for the rim. He reinvents himself by signing on as first mate for Lando Calrissian. Soon later he cons Lando out of his ship, the "Millenium Falcon" and he sets himself up a modest smuggling run to kessel. He earns his ship the reputation of "fastest ship in the galaxy" by dangerously overmodifying his ship. he is successful for many years until he makes a deal with a hutt lord known as Jabba.

my knowledge of the Rise of the rebellion is limited, so any help in this matter would be appreciated

feel free to challenge me on these points, or tell me when I am wrong, there are some amazing minds here at the rancor pit, those who know the EU well, so do not be afraid to speak up.

this thread should be to the benefit of us all, so omissions and contradictions will be corrected and added to this core document.. who knows.. maybe one day we can make an EU clonewars supplement that is entirely consistant with the books and games.
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[Endwyn]

Well, I honestly only skimmed; but two points:

1. The Dagobah dark force in the cave is much older than the prequels. It was explained somewhere, but I don't remember where.

2. Alderaan is a peaceful society. The only mention I have ever seen of them having arms was in the WEG module Graveyard of Alderaan. And even then it took lots of convincing to get them to have the one ship in that module.

I plan to go back and re-read, but I'll do that a little latter.

Also, why do you need so much angst between Anakin and Obi-wan? It's really as simple a brother - little brother relationship. Obi-Wan was oblivious to the problem and Anakin was tired of being treated like a child. He was like a Van Gough with the force, can you imagine Van Gough being taught art at the local college? Can you image how frustrating it would be to have to recieve special training from someone who it took 8-10 to learn to do what you just knew how to do without training?

I only ask because as written it looks like you want angst on both sides. Obi-Wan's issue should be having been pushed into a confrontation he doesn't want to do. The feeling of failure in teaching, ect.

Have you noticed the best Jedi in the galaxy either were redeamed from the dark side of endured the pain of their students falling?

[KageRyu]

This is a similar idea in a lot of ways to my Fall of the Republic campaign I recently undertook. In that campaign I am rewriting the prequel era to make it more true, not to EU sources specifically, but to actual information that was released by Lucas himself and Lucasfilm Ltd. back in the mid to late 80's in numerous TV and magazine interviews and behind the scenes. It was clear from the orriginal trilogy, and from those interviews that the clone wars were indeed clone armies threatening the Republic, but there were indications that the Republic fought clones with clones. He also indicated that due to the accelerated growth of these clones, many went insane and rebelled, leading to great carnage. In those myriad of interviews, technical journals, notes, and behind the scenes that were released (all the ones Lucas now claims he never put too paper?) House Mandaloria assisted in hunting down the Jedi in the clone wars (yes, they were still around, and didn't die off 1000s of years ago), culminating in a great battle between the Jedi and the Mandalore warriors...the Jedi won. There were also mentions of cloned Jedi, which Timothy Zahn took advantage of in his Dark Force Rising trilogy. The main problem with these notes and articles are that they are incomplete, and scattered. If you have old Starlog, Fangoria, Cinemagic, or the Official Star Wars Magazine from that time period, you will be able to find much of this straight from the horses mouth (i.e. Lucas). Some of the sources for his TV interviews include Entertainment Tonight (circa the mid 80's), -Lights, Camera, Action-, and numerous behind the scenes specials that aired on HBO, TMC, Cinemax, and various cable channels at the release of Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi.
Hope some of this helps
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"There's a set way to gain new Force Points and it represents a very nice system, where you're rewarded for heroism, not for being a poor conductor to electricity." ~Jachra

[Trusty]

The very reason why we run an infinities campaign set in the Star Wars Universe. All I told my players is this, the history up until ROTJ happens, but not as it happened in the movie. There was no family/main character story lines...just the events that happened...albeit in a different way. Before EP. 1, I loosely use the established timeline, and after ROTJ I wrote my own...using lots of the resource material from WEG's sourcebooks and set about 15 or so years after the Dark Empire era. I just took a SW galaxy map, and divided it up between what I call the Republic Alliance, the Mandalorians, the Clones, The Droids (yes, those from the prequals are back!!! Controlled by a lone R2 unit ), and the Sith Galactic Empire. And I made some indeendent/nutral.

Lots of fun and nothing can be expected.
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Growing old is inevitable. Growing up is optional!

[Endwyn]

KageRyu,

The backstory used for the Prequels in the comics has Jango being a mandalorian and an entire plot behind that and some of the story of mandalorian activities in that timeframe.

My biggest disapointment is that a lot of the good backstory released recently in the EU has not made the movies.

And Lucas is such a dweeb with his contractictions he claims aren't because the first statement "never happened". Do you remember how Luke and Leia were written up as having different ages in the release material for A New Hope. Or how he now claims that "Revenge of the Jedi" was a stunt to prevent people from bootlegging merchandise. I can't wait for him to say "Huh. The Star Wars Holiday what? I don't know what your talking about. Whatever it is it isn't official."

[Lord Aramus]

wow.. thanks for the extremely quick replies.. I edited a bit more info in after the rise of the rebellion to tie up some loose ends..

I think some of what has been said above makes perfect sense to be worked in.

my internet connection will be going down soon though, so it may be a while before I do the revisions..

I just wanted to pop something up there that you could discuss and offer suggestions to before I go away.

Thanks all
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There are alot of cool places in the world. Alaska is one of them.
http://www.hostexcellence.com/cgi-bin/affiliates/clickthru.cgi?id=alexvont

[KageRyu]

[Endwyn]

Yeah, I'm always looking for one of those posters in good condition. I keep trying to pick one up, but the deal always goes south.

[Hellcat]