Star Wars Legends

I am aware that Drew Karpyshyn did not create the Sith Emperor and it was mostly the SWTOR team. However, I never knew who specifically wrote him originally or if his character was written by different people in the SWTOR Expansions. And I was curious if anyone knew these things.

So this question sort of popped into my head here and there and I've spoke of it a few times in various posts, especially when @AdmiralZod1 brought around such inquiries.

But I guess I wanted to go more in-depth with this question. Granted I feel with how Star Wars is nowadays, especially with the Galactic Empire, this question isn't so much "should" but rather "have had", but I wanted to somewhat go over my position before getting to the question.

Now as SW fans are aware, even the most casual, the Galactic Empire under the reign of Palpatine is one of control and power. Those who have power and control seem to thrive, those who have unique services or have great abilities can thrive. The Galactic Empire controls those who aren't going along with whatever the Empire wants, that if you resist them...well the boot of the Empire is going to come kicking you in the head.

Now let it be known that control and power aren't anything unique to any one faction or species or person. We have countless examples throughout all of the history of the Star Wars Universe, where in some form or fashion where you had many who were in control, who dominated this or that planet, who subjected a populace to their rule and all that.

You have various alien species who are all about violence or having control, or they conduct war just for the sake of it. This is where I feel that the writers somewhat missed an opportunity for the Galactic Empire, because all of those attributes, would fit perfectly within the Empire, specifically their military ranks.

I've touched upon here and there some aliens that were in the Galactic Empire, within the Expanded Universe, but let's have a deeper look at who they are...so first up...

1. Imperial Army General Bentilais San Sk'ar

This absolute unit of an Imperial General, is a Kaleesh, now obviously he came before the Kaleesh were ever really noted given it was '77 but he was later retconned into being one.

His backstory is that he was involved within the Huk War on Kalee and served under General Grievous(who at the time was called Qymaen Jai Sheelal), being the latter's bodyguard, after surviving the crash of Sheelal's ship(which of course he would go onto be the Grievous we know) he became a tyrant on the western hemisphere of Oben, leading what remained to basically slaughter the Yam'rii.

With his warriors and his skills, Sk'ar later then resisted the Empire for over a decade, forcing Captain Thrawn to raze Oben, Sk'ar then later joined the Empire.

See now Sk'ar at least as far as I see it, is basically Grievous before Grievous was even a character. He was a strong and powerful warrior, recognizing power when he saw it and joined with those who had greater power than he had before, rising to the rank of Imperial General and thus expanding his already formidable power and control.

So let's move further onto the next prominent alien within the Imperial ranks.

2. Imperial Stormtrooper Corps Major, Stafuv Rahz

This Stormtrooper Major, is a hardy reptilian species known as the Gektl, they are known for their survival. Their homeworld being very dangerous with one hemisphere being nothing but desert, the other having a poisonous atmosphere and ontop of all that having violent predators.

Stafuv Rahz betrayed his entire homeworld for power, shutting down the planetary shield generator and aligning himself with the Empire as they took the worlds resources. He then went into the Stormtrooper Corps, becoming an Imperial Major, leading a whole Stormtrooper Battalion.

He then goes onto a raid on Kar'a'katok and captures Ampotem Za and following that goes on to serve under the command of Darth Vader himself.

See again, we have this alien who desires power, as soon as the Empire makes itself known, he goes to the Emperor himself and pledges allegiance to the Empire, giving up his entire homeworld to get what he wants.

Now next up we have...

3. Imperial Overlord Ampotem Za(Suprema)

Another reptilian species, this time a Shimholt. These aliens are a very warlike, embracing a military like doctrine after they were attacked by the Nelori Marauders. Their planet become isolated and just didn't like anyone to come to their planet, at least until the Galactic Empire came knocking....Ampotem Za was then rejected by his planet after getting captured. Recognizing his potential, Za was then instead turned into an Imperial Overlord of Mandalore, enslaving the Mandalorians there within short order.

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Now of course everyone already knows about Grand Admiral Thrawn, being found by the Empire, joining them as he then rose in the ranks of the Imperial Navy and so on, so forth. So I'm not going to repeat what everyone basically already knows.

Mind you also, the characters mentioned above are also referenced later in material, so it's not just the old Marvel comic series acknowledging their positions within the Empire.

So what then folks, do these aliens of the Empire have in common? They are all about power and control. Yes folks, even Thrawn to an extent was about this as he was wanting to be the dominant voice of the galaxy, otherwise in his head there would be only chaos and thus the Empire served that purpose.

“Not at all,” Thrawn said, his tone going grim. “Their military abilities are undeniable, but their chances for long-term stability are nonexistent. Multiple species, with multiple viewpoints and racial philosophies, simply cannot hold power together for long. The dominant voice must certainly be wise enough to adopt ideas and methods from its allies and member peoples. But there must be a
dominant voice, or there is only chaos. In this part of the galaxy, that voice is the Empire.”

- Choices of One

On a lesser note, there were alien species that worked with the Empire too.

Now then folks, now that you've read this far and perhaps have given it some thought, my question to you is what the title says.

Do you think, the Galactic Empire should have had more aliens within their ranks? Specifically ones who held similar views to the overall of the Empire and wanted the control and power that it brought?

Forget for a moment everything, let us assume for this question that Star Wars is still relatively new and nothing has really been set in stone.

As you probably figured my viewpoint, I'm all for this. Honestly I really wish writers did more with this, instead of just writing out aliens as just a mere 1% within the EU and basically non-existent in Disney SW. Or at least in the EU case, the writers could have written more power hungry aliens that serve within the Imperial Military.

Because as we know, there's plenty of power hungry alien species that could very well fit within the Empire and their ideals. You have aliens that are warlords, slavers, crime bosses, so on and so forth.

Now obviously I get why out of universe, writers didn't expand upon this more, because aliens aren't the most populous species within the galaxy, instead its Humans and the Rebellion already had aliens within their ranks by ROTJ.

But I feel like the Empire could have had the more violent/power hungry aliens, whereas the Rebellion could have had the more reasonable and kind ones.

I feel like there could have been some interesting stories, of how both sides with their aliens see the galaxy.

Anyway, thoughts folks.

Now in terms of The Clones not serving as the backbone military force of The Empire anymore, obviously we got 2 straightforward answers for that. One was the cost of production for The Clone Army being too high and the other was The Kamino Rebellion exposing Palpatine to the flaw of having an army produced with a single genetic host being susceptible to corruption. These I understand.

What I don't get is that The Empire did continue to produce Clones during the GCW, just using different genetic hosts to do so and using them as supplementary units within The Imperial Military. So if that's the case, then why didn't The Empire still continue producing Jango Fett Clones for Military service, just scaling back their production to that of a supplementary unit within The Empire?

Considering that the 501st was the only Stormtrooper Legion that was still consisting purely of Clone Soldiers and given how effective they were on the missions they participated in, including decimating The Rebels on Hoth, it seems kind of like an oversight to simply throw away Jango Fett Clones altogether instead of reducing their production and being more resourceful on their utilization for Imperial Service.

If Visions is the Star Wars equivilant to Marvel's "What If..." series, then that means the upcoming "Ninth Jedi" series is the Star Wars equvialnt to the Marvel "Zombies" that just dropped...

I know it's a bit of stretch considering some of the key differences, but just humor me. You know how we got the World Between Worlds? Well, what if that is a bit more literal than we think? Like it's not a gateway to the future and/or past, but also OTHER WORLDS. Well, galaxies. As in a MULTIVERSE.

Honestly, a multiverse in Star Wars would be kinda cool to see, and could possibly prompt more people to watch Visions (which I'm waiting for the new season) and/or read Legends (which I haven't, lol), depending on how they do it.

If we can get a new freaking galaxy in Star Wars, then we can possibly get a multiverse too. Just saying.

Which version of Aayla Secura do you think is the best written? The Canon version or the Legends version?

I recently saw the new trailer for Pieces of the Past, (woohoo! Revan!) and wondered about how he is connected to the other (presumably) antagonist of the show, Solitus (the weird guy with the purple sabers chained together and the green skin). Then I remembered that Jedi Bob messed with the Cornerstone and changed the old galaxy, making the current one.

So we first had Bob's galaxy, then the canon galaxy, then the RtG galaxy. Sound familiar?

My theory is that Bob's galaxy was the Star Wars Legends timeline, and that by messing with the cornerstone, the events of Legends were "decanonised" - making Bob's actions a metaphor for Disney decanonising Legends themselves. I think Darth Revan's presence in the show will be a nod to Legends, or a symbol of Legends content returning to Canon - as Revan comes from Bob's galaxy into the RtG galaxy, he also comes from Legends to Canon (Lego Canon, at least).

Final evidence: The word "Solitus" means "alone" or "unchanging" in Latin. The second translation is of particular interest - it might imply that Solitus is a remnant/holdover from Bob's galaxy (and therefore the Legends timeline).

EDIT: Maybe Solitus, being a holdover from the erased/altered timeline, is trying to use the cornerstone to restore Bob's galaxy? Same with Revan - they might want to bring back Legends, maybe as a metaphor for a large portion of the fanbase.

Sorry that this is a messy post, but I thought of this literally 10 minutes ago, and needed to type it out.

TLDR; When Bob messes up his galaxy, it destroys the old timeline, just like Disney did.

Thoughts?

I've been having lots of arguments lately that all boil down to a simple thing so I want to clear it up. Where is the canon/legends line drawn? because every time I cite an event to prove my point they mention that it's from legends and the implication is that it doesn't count, one person even called a legends event I cited my own headcanon, which it obviously isn't, I did not write the legends timeline, in an attempt to disregard it. I thought that most fans had decided that what disney says is or isn't canon was irrelevent? or is this wiki's community mostly centred on the canon timeline? is there some rule I'm not aware of? (if that sounds dumb you haven't seen the rule lists for some wiki's I'm one) Or is it just that the other people who use legends agree with me so I'm only feeling the need to argue with those who use canon?

Because I feel like I'm having a mostly interesting argument with nuanced points of view and whatnot and it's actually kinda fun, though getting worse as both of us tend to start getting a little more rude I must admit, and then at some point it turns out that we are in fact both right within the lore set we are basing our opinions on. It's kinda irritating.

They only had Triple Zero at my bookstore, but I know the story and characters anyway from wiki reading so it wasn't too big of a deal.

I really like it so far, especially the fact that the clones have picked up Mandalorian culture from their trainers. The Null Arcs make me wonder if the Bad Batch in canon were based off them....and thanks to TBB and The Mandalorian fleshing out the Mandos and the clones canonically, I would've loved to see Rep Comm in canon again (alongside those stories, NOT replacing them). Oh well. I mean I can't really blame Karen Travis for either not wanting to work with Disney or not wanting to write the same thing all over again.

These are my first Legends novels (previously I stuck with the canon ones, although I have read Clone Wars graphic novels and short books that probably count as Legends). I don't think I'm going to go all out on Legends content though. I'd prefer to stick to the Clone Wars era.

The only ones i know of are Star Wars: The Old Republic and Star Wars (1977) 108. Were there any others?

I'm rather tired of the divide in the fan community over Canon & Legends EU. To me, it seems like people make too big of a deal about what is & isn't Canonical. So, I've come up with a replacement for the old "Tiers of Canon". Essentially, everything not labeled "Non-Canon" is canonical, but with varying degrees of inaccuracies.

1 - Live-Action Film/Television:

A precise historical record of events. This is exactly how it happened, & any contradictions from outside media is an inaccurate retelling or false-memory of events.

(Episodes 1-9, The Acolyte, Obi-Wan, Andor, Skeleton Crew, The Mandalorian, Ahsoka)

2- General Animation/Games/Literature:

A second-hand retelling of events, with some details forgotten, exaggerated, or overlooked, but not inaccurate.

(The Clone Wars (2008), Tales of the Jedi/Empire/Underworld, Marvel Star Wars, Fallen Order, Outlaws)

3 - Child-friendly Animation/Games/Literature:

Deliberately sanitized stories meant to convince the audience that the Jedi were flawless & virtuous in all ways. Can even be considered in-universe propaganda, similar to Looney Tunes shorts from WWII.

(Young Jedi Adventures, Clone Wars (2003), Rebels, Droids, Ewoks, Resistance)

4 - Folklore, Parody, & Legacy Media

In-Universe Folktales & purposefully inaccurate retellings of history intended for entertainment purposes only, but still containing some elements of truth. The Legends Expanded-Universe can be seen as in-universe historical-fiction, realistic-fiction, or propaganda.

(LEGO Animation, LEGO Games, Visions, Infinities, Galaxy of Terror, Legends EU)