Star Wars - Some setting exploration

I do agree with the earlier poster who didn't want the Sith to come back, because it would invalidate the meaning of Vader's victory.

(Queue backstory)

If I were to attempt this, I would go even further back into SW:EU history. This Sith we know in the movies and even as early as KotOR are not the original Sith. The originals were banished from the Republic long before for trying to control life itself via the Force. They settled on a distant world and interbred with a near-human species called the Sith, which eventually led to their name.

A long time passed before the Sith Empire was discovered by accident by Republic explorers, leading to the Great Hyperspace War. While they were eventually beaten back, the ancient Sith were not destroyed outright, and have not been re-encountered since. Supposedly Revan (from the original KotOR) left known space to counter some threat hypothesized to be the return of the ancient Sith, but he was never seen again.

All "Sith" encountered from that time forward were actually fallen Jedi who learned Sith powers by studying remnants left behind by the "True Sith."

(End of backstory)

I'd have the True Sith re-emerge as a threat. Perhaps they've been their all along, eluding detection just beyond the edges of known space, and possibly manipulating things from afar.

(since some massive thread necromancy is going on here, I'm going to reply to something from way up-thread)

Hobo said:

I didn't used to give a crap about the EU, but the more I think of it, the more I think why not try and accomodate it as much as possible? That's the whole reason I'm moving the timeline forward as much as I am is so that I can write out stuff I don't like without having to actually just pretend like it's not there.

And I like the Sith. There hasn't been a Star Wars movie yet that didn't very heavily feature a Sith opponent. Knights of the Old Republic is all about Sith. Sith feels so quintessentially Star Wars to me that I think it's a shame not to have them.

Click to expand...

FWIW, in the Star Wars games I've run (a short tabletop game and PBP that fell apart, unfortunately), I've pushed the Sith very much into the background. The game is set 100-200 years after the Knights of the Old Republic video games, and my thinking was though the Jedi are in bad shape post-KotOR II, the Sith are very nearly destroyed. So the Sith are lurking in the shadows, and the current crop of evil force users are new (though their founder was one of the ex-Jedi 'Sith' that followed Revan).

resistor said:

I do agree with the earlier poster who didn't want the Sith to come back, because it would invalidate the meaning of Vader's victory.

(Queue backstory)

If I were to attempt this, I would go even further back into SW:EU history. This Sith we know in the movies and even as early as KotOR are not the original Sith. The originals were banished from the Republic long before for trying to control life itself via the Force. They settled on a distant world and interbred with a near-human species called the Sith, which eventually led to their name.

A long time passed before the Sith Empire was discovered by accident by Republic explorers, leading to the Great Hyperspace War. While they were eventually beaten back, the ancient Sith were not destroyed outright, and have not been re-encountered since. Supposedly Revan (from the original KotOR) left known space to counter some threat hypothesized to be the return of the ancient Sith, but he was never seen again.

All "Sith" encountered from that time forward were actually fallen Jedi who learned Sith powers by studying remnants left behind by the "True Sith."

(End of backstory)

I'd have the True Sith re-emerge as a threat. Perhaps they've been their all along, eluding detection just beyond the edges of known space, and possibly manipulating things from afar.

Click to expand...

drothgery said:

(since some massive thread necromancy is going on here, I'm going to reply to something from way up-thread)



FWIW, in the Star Wars games I've run (a short tabletop game and PBP that fell apart, unfortunately), I've pushed the Sith very much into the background. The game is set 100-200 years after the Knights of the Old Republic video games, and my thinking was though the Jedi are in bad shape post-KotOR II, the Sith are very nearly destroyed. So the Sith are lurking in the shadows, and the current crop of evil force users are new (though their founder was one of the ex-Jedi 'Sith' that followed Revan).

Click to expand...

Since I'm starting to get excited about the impending release of the Old Republic MMO, I've been revisiting this old thread. These two posts were especially interesting, given the direction BioWare has apparently decided to go with the story.

Anyway, thread necromancy...

Wow. Yes. Some serious threadamancy! I started reading and only noticed most of the way in that it was originally from 2006.

Anyway, if I may comment, I'd just like to say that if you go by George's vision, it's not just the Sith that get destroyed at the end of Return of the Jedi but also the dark side itself, which GL has described as being like a "cancer". It is not a natural part of the Force. There is no Yin/Yang thing going on here, so a "balanced" Force is a Force that is purely "light side" with no dark side whatsoever. This does not mean that there is no more evil in the galaxy. Just that people can no longer twist the Force to perform unnaturally evil "magic".

Obviously that throws the entire post-film EU out the window ... and, to be honest, I'm perfectly fine with that. I think the majority of it, particularly the Legacy era stuff, does a huge disservice to the point of the original films. If the galaxy is just going to be plunged into an even deeper darkness with an even stronger Sith Empire than before a mere 150 years after Palpatine and Vader are destroyed, then what's the point? Doesn't that belittle the entire classic Star Wars story? Everything that the movies' heroes fought (and, in some cases, died) for is entirely undone and rendered moot a mere century and a half later. Not only that, but the movies' heroes don't even get to rest on their laurels and "live happily ever after", as Palpatine comes back multiple times, then some blue dude tries to take over, then the galaxy gets invaded by a whole bunch of aliens, including some weird dinosaur guys, some emos, and some extra-galactic S&M freaks (and Palpatine gets retconned into a more benevolent dictator who was merely trying to prepare the galaxy for the YV invasion).

Anyway ... just throwing my two credits down on an old, much-flogged horse.

pukunui said:

(and Palpatine gets retconned into a more benevolent dictator who was merely trying to prepare the galaxy for the YV invasion).

Click to expand...

Bear in mind that the one person who says that is one of Sidious' pawns, so we can't exactly take it at face value. I think the only influence knowledge of the Yuuzhan Vong threat had on the Empire was in its militarization--if that hadn't been out there, the Imperial Army might not have been built up so much, given that it was both an asset and a danger to Palpatine's dominance.

As for reconciling Lucas' comments with the EU, I take the point of view that it's the specific form of Sith embodied from Darth Bane to Sidious and Vader--the Rule of Two, Dark Side ascetic, long-term planning ones--that get wiped out, and it was that form of the Sith who really threatened the balance of the Force. The Dark Side still exists, as do people claiming the Sith lineage, but it's no longer 'metastasizing' and threatening to snuff out the light forever. Even the Legacy era, though it has more Sith, doesn't approach that kind of imbalance and near-extinction of the Jedi.

Yes, this may take some liberty with Lucas' comments, but I like enough of the EU to want to keep it around (although I'd happily excise the Legacy of the Force series and the Mandalorians, even if it cost the Fate of the Jedi and Legacy comic books).

Matthew L. Martin said:

As for reconciling Lucas' comments with the EU, I take the point of view that it's the specific form of Sith embodied from Darth Bane to Sidious and Vader--the Rule of Two, Dark Side ascetic, long-term planning ones--that get wiped out, and it was that form of the Sith who really threatened the balance of the Force. The Dark Side still exists, as do people claiming the Sith lineage, but it's no longer 'metastasizing' and threatening to snuff out the light forever. Even the Legacy era, though it has more Sith, doesn't approach that kind of imbalance and near-extinction of the Jedi.

Yes, this may take some liberty with Lucas' comments, but I like enough of the EU to want to keep it around (although I'd happily excise the Legacy of the Force series and the Mandalorians, even if it cost the Fate of the Jedi and Legacy comic books).

Click to expand...

I don't know that attempting to reconcile Lucas' comments with the EU is all that necessary. If you buy into the EU, then it's obvious that you don't buy into what Lucas said about there being no more dark side -- let alone no more Sith -- after Palpatine's and Vader's deaths.

The Legacy era may not have as much of an imbalance in the Force, and the Jedi may not be as near extinction as they were in the movies, but it still cheapens Lucas' story too much for my taste. Maybe if they'd set it further ahead in time (like 500 years or even 1000 years), I might not mind it so much. I think the biggest issue I have with it is that it's supposed to have only been 150 years. In Star Wars time, that's a blink of an eye.

pukunui said:

Anyway, if I may comment, I'd just like to say that if you go by George's vision, it's not just the Sith that get destroyed at the end of Return of the Jedi but also the dark side itself, which GL has described as being like a "cancer". It is not a natural part of the Force. There is no Yin/Yang thing going on here, so a "balanced" Force is a Force that is purely "light side" with no dark side whatsoever. This does not mean that there is no more evil in the galaxy. Just that people can no longer twist the Force to perform unnaturally evil "magic".

Click to expand...

Yeah, well that kinda removes any ability to tell an interesting story about force users, though, doesn't it?

Plus, the only GL comment I remember seeing about that was rather throwaway. I wouldn't make too much of it. Also plus, it's not like GL's comments have been an example of consistency over the years.

pukunui said:

Obviously that throws the entire post-film EU out the window ... and, to be honest, I'm perfectly fine with that. I think the majority of it, particularly the Legacy era stuff, does a huge disservice to the point of the original films. If the galaxy is just going to be plunged into an even deeper darkness with an even stronger Sith Empire than before a mere 150 years after Palpatine and Vader are destroyed, then what's the point? Doesn't that belittle the entire classic Star Wars story? Everything that the movies' heroes fought (and, in some cases, died) for is entirely undone and rendered moot a mere century and a half later.

Click to expand...

No, it does a disservice to the point of the prequel films. The original films were about overthrowing one tyrannical regime and redeeming another. There wasn't any balance to the Force thing going on there.

And despite Lucas' implications, it's pretty obvious from reading earlier comments of his and other people who worked closely with him on the movie that he didn't envision that at the time either. It's something that got retconned into the movies by the prequels.

pukunui said:

Not only that, but the movies' heroes don't even get to rest on their laurels and "live happily ever after", as Palpatine comes back multiple times, then some blue dude tries to take over, then the galaxy gets invaded by a whole bunch of aliens, including some weird dinosaur guys, some emos, and some extra-galactic S&M freaks (and Palpatine gets retconned into a more benevolent dictator who was merely trying to prepare the galaxy for the YV invasion).

Click to expand...

Of course not. Rest on their laurels? Where is there time for that to fit into the pulp/serial CONSTANT ADVENTURE paradigm that was so integral to the Star Wars milieu?

No, there's no laurel-resting. Bringing back clones of literally the same character over and over again, though---mega-lame.

The whole EU post-Jedi is so hit-or-miss, so fragmenting to the fan-base, I wish they'd just stopped telling stories about Luke, Han, Leia, etc. after The Last Command (or even the Hand of Thrawn duology, since Luke finally hooked up with Mara Jade) and focused on someone else. My biggest beef with the NJO was that it continued kicking the Heroes of Yavin instead of just letting them pass the torch and fade into the background, their part down, their happily-ever-after well deserved, etc. etc.

However, it is entertaining to come up with an alternate future for the galaxy to use in a Legacy-style campaign set say, 1,500 years into the future. Then none of it matters expect as paragraphs in a history book.