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Thread: Star Wars: The High Republic
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2020-01-09, 10:34 AM (ISO 8601)
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Star Wars: The High Republic
This is pretty close to pure rumor, but there’s a story circulating that another set of Star Wars movies will be set in the “High Republic” period, featuring new Jedi but also (inevitably) a middle-aged Yoda.
The movies may involve exploration of the Unknown Regions, which sounds promising, but also a certain planet known for edgy weather and campy locals, which is less so. All of this is part of something called Project Luminous, which sounds like Lucasfilm is trying to mimic the interconnectedness of the MCU. That’s a tall order, but at least they’re thinking big.
For my part, I’m glad to have new movies with entirely different characters, but 400 BBY isn’t nearly far enough back to make me euphoric. I would love a series of movies showing the founding of the Jedi Order, back in 25,000 BBY or whenever it actually happened.
That to me is the most interesting and fertile period of galactic history, because this would also allow for the founding of the Republic out of whatever messy milieu existed before. Hopefully a lot of things we take for granted in Rebellion-era movies wouldn’t be so conveniently advanced, which could open up some new storytelling possibilities. Early droids, early starships, and especially the first lightsabers.
But that’s wishful thinking, because that wouldn’t allow for enough of a tie-in with the existing franchise. So, at best, it looks like High Republic is as far back in galactic history as we’ll go. Assuming the rumors are correct.
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2020-01-09, 11:28 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The High Republic
I feel like if they did do Ancient History Star Wars, it would end up like Enterprise in Star Trek. Namely, that the big draw is being in the past when all the familiar signature races/tech of the series haven't been discovered yet...but then said signature races/tech are immediately discovered and the original distinction becomes meaningless.
Going 'back' instead of 'forward' does have its merits in general. The question is if 400 years ago is far enough back to allow creative storytelling freedom without being constrained to existing canon. I don't want a Star Wars version of the Fantastic Beasts franchise where it becomes a parade of 'remember this old character from the original movie? See them now as an adult/kid!'. Middle-Aged Yoda fighting Darth Plagueis while Young Sideous watches is not something I'll want to see.NOW COMPLETE: Let's Play Starcraft II Trilogy:
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2020-01-09, 12:23 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The High Republic
Originally Posted by The Glyphstone
Namely, that the big draw is being in the past when all the familiar signature races/tech of the series haven't been discovered yet...but then said signature races/tech are immediately discovered and the original distinction becomes meaningless.
That’s an example of how not to do it, but there’s no reason why that’s the only possibility. Star Wars without hyperspace, or with a slower and more dangerous version thereof, could be really interesting.
Originally Posted by The Glyphstone
The question is if 400 years ago is far enough back to allow creative storytelling freedom without being constrained to existing canon…. Middle-Aged Yoda fighting Darth Plagueis while Young Sideous watches is not something I'll want to see.
I really hope they don’t, because I think we’ve had more than enough movies about the Skywalkers at this point. And if they are exploring the Unknown Regions, that gives some hope for some real creative freedom with the franchise.
I wouldn’t mind an extragalactic threat, which for me is the most interesting sort of threat to the Republic—much better than yet another Galactic Civil War or yet another Sith invasion. This was done in the older Star Wars comics (the Tofs, I believe) and was probably done since then, but never in a movie series.
That’s about the only thing which could pose a serious threat to the High Republic, given that by definition it’s stable and at the height of its power. An extragalactic threat would open up all-new design possibilities for creatures, vehicles and technology, as opposed to yet another iteration of stormtrooper armor.
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2020-01-09, 12:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The High Republic
Hmm, probably means the next batch of movies will go back to the wire-fu dance routine style of fight scenes from the prequels then. Can't say I'm not disappointed.
But at least they can't really mess with the story of the Skywalkers anymore.
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2020-01-09, 12:49 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The High Republic
personally if I made a Star Wars thing, it'd be about the life of a jedi, not some big destiny thing, but as y'know, an actual monk-like existence and portraying it well. following a single apprentice as their parents discover their child's uncontrolled force powers and in concern bringing them to the jedi temple, wanting them to be able to control it and tearfully departing while the jedi assure them they will do their best while the child is just excited to be a jedi.
Years pass as they train with their force powers, showing how they train with telekinesis and such and spar with practice swords so they don't get killed by each others blows if they get through in a montage. They would be shown eating plain monastic food like rice, all that jazz and when it comes time to choose a lightsaber they are questioned what color they want and its a test because its all about questioning the padawan's assumptions- the colors don't actually matter other than the symbolic assumptions you give them, such as when the padawan finds out the jedi have been keeping a bunch of lightsabers with red crystals taken from sith sites right alongside other ones, because its a lgihtsaber color its not as if red automatically makes it dark side. the dark side is about the actions you take and what you act upon. I would explore what it means for a jedi to kill and how they do so without falling to the dark side, and that the jedi's philosophy is that the lightsaber is a dangerous thing to be wielded properly for the right causes, with probably a mentor who in response to the question "whats the purpose of a lightsaber?" with "you kill with it obviously, what else? the question is when and why do you need to kill, is this the right moment to draw it, is this the moment when you need to put the lives of the many over the one your facing? such moment should be rare, or in an ideal world, nonexistent. we do not live in such a world. But do not be afraid or hesitate when that time comes."
for antagonist I dunno, but it'd be smaller scale and focused on showing how the jedis live, how they work and trying to make what they do, make as much as sense as sympathetically as possible to make it feel as if "THIS is why Jedi exist, what they are about, maybe put in some cheerful padawan guy who only learns the force to make sure they don't hurt people around them but lacks the aptitude or whatever to become a jedi and the jedi are totally chill with this, letting him go and live a normal live when he has it under control but some sith-like being kills him for being weak or something, I dunno. its half an idea right now, honestly.
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2020-01-09, 12:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The High Republic
Why does the Republic itself need to be threatened? The Star Wars universe is ripe for a wide variety of adventure stories set in its universe IMO.
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2020-01-09, 12:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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2020-01-09, 01:05 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The High Republic
I am 100% down for "Jedi Potter and the Kyber Crystal of Fire." Or maybe "My Padawan Academia".
Seriously. For all the complaints about how the stories focus on the Jedi, we've never seen what a "normal" Jedi would be like. An episodic TV series starting from a pre-Padawan level, then going through Padwan years, then showing them as a full fledged Jedi. No universe ending threats. Just smaller incidents and "monster of the week" style storylines that show what a Jedi Knight does when they are out questing.
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2020-01-09, 01:29 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The High Republic
For this to work, they'd have to resolutely decide to tell an original story and not tie into anything else. The way the canon has been going, it'd be about a Sith plot that references and call forwards to everything that happens later every few minutes.
Lord Raziere, that I'd watch.
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2020-01-09, 01:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The High Republic
If you'd asked me five years ago, I would have loved an version of Jedi Potter set in Luke's academy with Luke as Dumbledore. As it is, the thought leaves me slightly bitter.
And I am not at all happy with this "New Republic" if it turns out to be true. They're just gonna ape the prequel aesthetics like the sequel trilogy aped the original, and their description makes me think they learned the wrong lesson from Star Wars's failure compared to Marvel's success and we're gonna have movies about the super fast Jedi, the telekinetic Jedi, the telepath Jedi, and the Lightsaber expert Jedi all fighting supervillains, missing the point entirely.Many thanks to Assassin 89 for this avatar!
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2020-01-09, 02:55 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The High Republic
Exactly. all the Jedi we've seen are world-saving destiny heroes, there are jedi who do other things like, clear out sith tombs and purify them, or try to settle dispute between two settlements or something, maybe fight foes like mandalorians, things that I remember from KOTOR but could be y'know the focus rather than the backdrop to Revan's story and I'd be down with setting it in centuries or even millennia future, not having to make concessions of what it'd be like "back then", so I can draw from previous periods as relics of the past and have the stories not being entirely accurate because of how archaeology can't tell you everything or something if I really want to, it'd be all about making it so that its a viable interpretation of the Jedi and their lives without stepping on any toes because it'd be set in a period of time of my own and not anyone elses so it doesn't overlap or contradict. maybe have three jedi protagonists, who goes Jed knight classic, one who becomes a Jedi Sentinel becomes as clever jedi ninja with yellow saber finally being on the big screen and a Jedi Consular to be a diplomat and probably healer.
like one of the antagonist might just be a rogue force user who....doesn't go sith but is just this guy who uses the force for his own selfish gain on some nar-shadda or other hive of scum and villainy, not attaching any philosophical conflict to it other than that this is what might happen if someone doesn't get picked by either sith or jedi and grew up in the wrong circumstances. and they might even technically be controlled and disciplined in a way, they just are big jerks. but that might be too complex for Star Wars....
there is just a lot of potential in it, in just breaking the assumption that Jedi are all Lukes, Revans or Anakins, and to shine a light on the fact that most of them are just these monks going around doing the Star Wars equivalent of community service (this being Star wars, this includes taking out raiders and hutt mafias)
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2020-01-09, 03:09 PM (ISO 8601)
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2020-01-09, 03:41 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The High Republic
Yoda knew about the Rule of Two - it could be interesting to have a team of Jedi dedicated to seeking out Sith.
Because they would be looking the underbelly of the galaxy - crime lords, warlords, scheming politicians for far flung worlds etc they might have to make compromises the risk of falling to the dark side could be a real fear etc combined with the paranoia that maybe the Sith are extinct and there mission is pointless to lead to more doubts etc.
Could be interesting.
Alternatively we could have a movie about the Sith operating while hidden under the rule of two and how they survived for a thousand years.
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2020-01-09, 04:49 PM (ISO 8601)
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2020-01-09, 05:42 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The High Republic
High Republic? Wouldn't this just be... The Republican Era? I mean, the Old Republic Era is around the Mandalorian Wars and the Sith Wars and this would be just... The Republic. I just find this name idea odd.
Anyway, as a concept for the setting? Sure. I wouldn't mind seeing the Republic at its peak-ish. But they better damn well remember that the Republic DOES NOT have a standing military at this time and hasn't for quite some time. So if they keep the little factoids we know, and have survived the canon purge, it COULD be ok. But Im not holding my breath.
Here's hoping the Director and Writer are in sync for this thing
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2020-01-09, 05:47 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The High Republic
Wholeheartedly agreed. They've got a whole galaxy for a setting, the scale of the film doesn't always need to be set to maximum. Smaller stakes are still stakes, and can make for stories that are just as compelling as larger ones, just as long as they're written well.
Honestly, I can't say I have any reaction to this choice of setting. Sounds fine enough - and I guess it's preferable to an immediate follow-up to the sequel trilogy - but all will depend on the story they go with and how well the writers and director handle it, and this gives us no idea about those things.Toph Pony avatar by Dirtytabs. Thanks!
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2020-01-09, 06:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The High Republic
Exploration of the frontier is far more Star Trek than Star Wars. I like Star Trek, but I don't watch Star Wars to see it.
Also, the Unknown Regions should've been decanonized by Attack of the Clones, because the existence of any large volume of space in the vicinity of the galaxy far far away to which the appellation "Unknown Regions" could reasonably be applied as anything but a traditional name or in historical context makes Jocasta Nu's claim to the completeness of the Jedi Archives utterly ridiculous to the point that she'd look grossly incompetent, and a Jedi Order with membership in the tens of thousands - or, for that matter, hundreds of thousands or millions or tens of millions - does not have the resources to independently maintain a complete, up-to-date database on an entire galaxy so if Jocasta Nu's claim that "if an item does not appear in our records then it does not exist" is even remotely accurate then the Jedi have to be getting the overwhelming majority of that data from outside sources - most likely government agencies, possibly also businesses, and if the modern world is anything to go by both of those would be reasonably likely to make at least basic cartographic information public (especially the government, all the more so if you accept the EU claim that hyperspace travel is mostly only functional on carefully-mapped routes, because good navigational information is a boon to commerce and so governments tend to like to make it relatively readily available). Beyond that, 400 years in the past doesn't seem far enough back for such a thing to exist considering Palpatine's claim that the Republic of the Prequel Trilogy had stood for a thousand years, Obi-Wan's claim that the Jedi were the guardians of peace and justice in the Republic for a thousand generations, the apparent speed of travel of 'modern' starships in the Prequel and Original Trilogy periods, the implied high availability of personal starships (Luke seems to think he could buy one for not much more than ~8 times the sale price of his used sportscarlandspeeder on backwater Tatooine), and the availability of real- or nearly-real-time trans-galactic communications to at least high-ranking officials and Jedi even at notionally-isolated locations like secluded Kamino or undeveloped and largely-uninhabited Hoth.Last edited by Aeson; 2020-01-09 at 06:29 PM.
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2020-01-09, 06:34 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The High Republic
The Unknown Regions are a horrific mess of Gravitic anomalies, super-dense stars, high energy pulsars and other massive stellar obstructions to Hyperspace Travel. So they are called that because it's pretty much Space Antarctica and is incredibly difficult to explore.
And Jocasta Nu's comment has been considered incredibly moronic for years. The Yuuzhan Vong exist and they aren't in the records as are a great, great many things.
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2020-01-09, 07:14 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The High Republic
The Unknown Regions are a bunch of nonsense from the EU that doesn't fit with the setting as shown in the films.
And Jocasta Nu's comment has been considered incredibly moronic for years. The Yuuzhan Vong exist and they aren't in the records as are a great, great many things.
2. The Yuuzhan Vong are not from the immediate vicinity of the galaxy far far away - they're extraterrestrial invaders who have access to at least one form of FTL travel capable of speeds reasonably comparable to those of the hyperdrives used by the New Republic and Imperial Remnant, and apparently only began to make incursions into the old EU's "Known Regions" something like sixty years after the Old Republic fell. The standard hyperdrive of the setting, mind you, appears to be capable of crossing significant portions of the galaxy in a matter of hours - or less - within the Original and Prequel Trilogy films.
3. Unless they've been recanonized somewhere, the Yuuzhan Vong officially don't exist, because Disney de-canonized the old EU and the Sequel Trilogy - which makes no mention of them - occurs at about the time when the Yuuzhan Vong War was supposed to happen.Last edited by Aeson; 2020-01-09 at 07:20 PM.
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2020-01-09, 07:22 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The High Republic
But yet here it is, and it was integral to the entire Sequel Trilogy because thats where the FO was hiding. So its canon.
Its proven false about 5 minutes after we hear it and we know that they Jedi don't know a ton about the Sith or their practices and them having that level of cartographical information is downright unreasonable. It was a badly written line of dialogue that shouldn't be there because it causes issues like this, where you can't have Secret Planets or Systems because "The Jedi Archives hve all of it."
Or it just makes the Jedi a bunch of ***** who don't share.
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2020-01-09, 07:30 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The High Republic
It is, however, firmly established in both Legends canon and Disney Canon.
Heck, it may even exist in George Lucas's headcanon - he helped write TCW, and Ilum, the Jedi kyber crystal planet, is supposed to be hard to get to precisely because it's in the Unknown Regions. I don't know if the phrase "Unknown Regions" is ever used in that series though.Marut-2 Avatar by Serpentine
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2020-01-09, 07:53 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The High Republic
Except that it's not, because the reason given for it not being in the Archives is "Dooku deleted the information," not "we actually have a worse map of our own galaxy than a reasonably advanced pre-FTL civilization with an interest in astronomy could make from their homeworld given sufficient time and dedication."
But yet here it is, and it was integral to the entire Sequel Trilogy because thats where the FO was hiding. So its canon.
Also, the existence of "Unknown Regions" in the Sequel Trilogy era can be rationalized to some degree as the result of a deliberate attempt by the Empire to suppress information on certain regions of space over the twenty-ish-year period of its existence, coupled with the fragmentation of the galactic order post-Endor preventing easy reconstruction of a complete database. Rationalizing the existence of "Unknown Regions" in the Prequel Trilogy era requires Jocasta Nu to be an incompetent authority who makes trivially-falsifiable blanket statements regarding the nonexistence of unknown star systems in the face of the existence of a large region of unexplored space in the immediate vicinity of the area under the Galactic Republic's sway.Last edited by Aeson; 2020-01-09 at 07:54 PM.
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2020-01-09, 08:04 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The High Republic
There's actually an elegant solution to the problems raised by this comment found in The Essential Atlas (actually there's a lot of elegant solutions to various problems in that book). Specifically, there's a difference between knowing where everything is and knowing how to get there. The former is simply a matter of astronomy. There's no reason why the Republic shouldn't have charted every star in the galaxy and all their planets. That's something you can do simply by building a suitably massive telescope array. You can discern the existence of planets around stars without ever actually seeing them, by detecting the gravitational effects. Happily, this is what Yoda actually tells Obi-Wan to do and it works immediately, as it should. However, actually getting to these places involves extremely complex charting of routes through another dimension known as hyperspace, whose interactions are only poorly understood. The Unknown Regions represent those areas of the galaxy (traditionally this was the 'western' side of the galactic disk, but it always included numerous nearly impossible to navigate pockets scattered everywhere) that no one had managed to chart yet. Note that this means the galaxy becomes less unknown over time as new locations are not only discovered, but routes to them are found. The Star Wars Rebels episode 'Legends of the Lasat' shows a (overly mystical) example of how this process can proceed when the crew charts a path through a stellar anomaly to discover the world of Lira San.
More broadly, there are plenty of planets in the Star Wars galaxy whose location may be 'known,' but are only tangentially connected to the rest of the galaxy. There are numerous examples of characters in canon material (and countless ones in legends) just stumbling onto some world that no one knows anything about which happens to be inhabited by some strange group of aliens or settlers with a complex history and is under some kind of threat. There are huge areas of the Outer Rim that are essentially 'wilderness' as far as the government is concerned, but just like wilderness areas beyond the frontier in 19th Century North America, that doesn't mean people weren't living there.
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2020-01-09, 08:16 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The High Republic
Last edited by Peelee; 2020-01-09 at 08:17 PM.
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2020-01-09, 08:17 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The High Republic
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2020-01-09, 08:47 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The High Republic
I don't know, I prefer the idea of them doing the Old Republic era -- though I guess it's not necessarily an either/or with Disney. Just given that era has a lot more thought put into it than what typically goes into Star Wars.
I don't know what this peak Republic era provides them from a story-telling perspective outside of a fresh-er slate to work with. I mean, Star Wars isn't The Culture series, the fiddly and darker politics of the high point of space civilization doesn't seem to be in its wheelhouse.Last edited by Kitten Champion; 2020-01-09 at 11:25 PM.
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2020-01-09, 09:28 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The High Republic
That's true, broadly, but we've never seen it really try. There are basically zero Star Wars stories set in a period where the government is both strong and at peace. The politics could be interesting, especially when you throw in a strong and vibrant Jedi Order actually possessed of the resources to save the Republic from itself unlike the flailing and overstretched Jedi of the Prequels. I think it could work, if done well. Perhaps stories centered around some nominally independent cluster of space (Tion? Hapes?) that the Republic is trying to recruit to join the democracy while some other group (Hutts?) tries to prevent that in order to secure their criminal enterprises.
At the very least, this era does have the advantage of being almost totally wide open. There's no details in either continuity. Sure Yoda will be alive during it, and we're locked into Rule of Two Sith, but other than that pretty much anything is possible. If they get someone willing to put in the world-building effort, then it could be great. Unfortunately the Disney record on that point is very mixed so far.
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2020-01-09, 09:29 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The High Republic
That someone knows a name for something that they're looking for is an idiotic reason to dismiss the idea that it could be in a largely-unexplored region - just look at the legend of El Dorado or the Fountain of Youth. That Obi-Wan has a location where he thinks the planet is supposed to be would be a better reason to dismiss the idea that it's in the Unknown Regions, if the spot that he thinks it should be is not in them, but it's still a very iffy reason to do so since he could have the location wrong, and on top of that the area he points to in the film at least seems to be in or near the area that many of the published galaxy maps assign to the Unknown Regions.
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2020-01-10, 01:25 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The High Republic
In the newcanon, the Unknown Regions are mapped but not explored - consistent with the above description of knowing where all the stars are, but not having actually been there.
Yup - Wild Space is "beyond the Outer Rim" isn't even mapped properly - and mapping it is the job of explorers - the Adventures in Wild Space series of junior novels, has as protagonists, the children of two of those explorers.Last edited by hamishspence; 2020-01-10 at 01:26 AM.
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2020-01-10, 05:59 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Star Wars: The High Republic
A quick nerdy note on "high" and "old" republic---it means the same thing, in history terminology. E.g. there's the High (older) and Low (more recent) Middle Ages, and the High Empire and Low Empire in ancient Rome.
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