History and Legends of a Galaxy Far, Far Away
Robert Mullin, author of The Wells of the Worlds series
With special thanks to Kevin J. Anderson, Matt Batson, Joe Bongiorno, Nathan Butler, Trevor Davey, Cera Dempsey, Giovanni De Bonis, Justin Farnell, Evan Gamble, Barbara Hambly, Rich Handley, Pablo Hidalgo, Gabor Horvath, Brist McConico, Shanna Metzger, Karen Miller, Ron Ostrander, Guillaume Perrin, Randy Stradley, Kathy Tyers, Eddie van der Heijden, Craig Van Sickle, Luke Van Horn, Dave Wolverton (a.k.a. David Farland), Edward Whowalker, & Timothy Zahn, and pretty much anyone willing to provide feedback and share the link.
And in fond memory of those who have become One with the Force
Introduction
“Without a trustworthy chronology, history would be but a darksome chaos.”
—François Clément
For years, The Star Wars Expanded Universe Chronology served as a favorite resource for the devoted fan. It was always my intention to create a user-friendly timeline that would allow people to navigate the thick and muddied waters of the Galaxy Far, Far Away. When Lucas decided to sell his company to Disney, I for one was excited that we would finally be getting more onscreen fiction, because like it or not, that is the foundation of the franchise. However, my attempts to post positive material or to incorporate the canon (more on that later) into the SWEUC were met with hostility and confusion. How could I, under the name Expanded Universe Chronology, be incorporating the new material? To me, the answer was obvious: it’s all Star Wars, and I had not given up on attempting to harmonize it when any other film or television series came out, so why should I do so now? Alas, many did not see it that way, and so I have retitled and reinvented the project. After many failed attempts at formats that I thought would be able to accommodate the continuity as reflected by a post-sequel trilogy era, I finally came up with a format that would be (I think) easy to understand and easy to modify when new information came along. What you have now is the culmination of years of effort, and while it is imperfect, I feel that it finally does what people have been asking for. And whether you’re an EU “purist,” a canon-only fan, someone who likes to create their own head canon, or like me, someone who generally enjoys it all, you should find what you seek in this timeline.
What makes this timeline unique
“I’m absolutely BLOWN AWAY by this timeline…. It’s a Herculean task, and what you’ve done is astounding.” –Rich Handley
1. An adherence to text and substance of the story, rather than official placement. All too often, the official Lucasfilm decrees are arbitrary, and conflict with the stories as we read or view them, and with the statements of the creators. Like a biblical scholar, I give the original text priority over commentaries (reference books and internal Lucasfilm retroactive continuity fixes, or “retcons”). While official decree may require the overwriting or moving of a story, I still prefer authorial intent inasmuch as shifting continuity will allow. In such cases, the deviation is noted.
2. A focus on accuracy rather than precision. This may seem contradictory, but pertains to the abundance of continuity references within such things as the Clone Wars multimedia project, which was very precisely dated as originally published, but was filled with contradictions due to allusions to events that could not have happened yet, etc. Thus in this Companion I have taken the approach of giving full precedence to the events themselves, so we don’t have (for example) characters dying and then showing up alive and well simply because of something as trivial as an official date. When necessary the date has been corrected to allow the events to line up. For example, Lando’s famous Battle of Tanaab has to take place (in the Legends timeline) after A New Hope and prior to his acquisition of Cloud City. Simple enough, except that these stories must take also place while Han still has his reward money, which pushes all of those events much further back than they had been.) In most instances, a note of correction has been added for clarification.
3. A quick reference system that assumes a certain amount of familiarity with the subject. As previously stated, this is not the place to read detailed history. This is a document designed with the sole goal of guiding people through the already-existing media with a maximum of clarity and minimum of fuss. Various media are noted after the titles, and for the sake of simplicity I have not distinguished between “comics” and “graphic novels,” etc. Sequential art stories are simply categorized as “comic.”
4. Though canon trumps non-canon just as history trumps legend, where possible I will take the entirety of the lore into account and allow legends and history to inform each other. If a canonical piece does not have a specific placement and can be understood better in the context of a Legends story, it will be placed accordingly. This occasionally means that the official placement is ignored, but never to the detriment of continuity.
How do I use this document?
“Our life is frittered away by detail… Simplify, simplify.”
—Henry David Thoreau
“In what order do I read these stories?” has to be one of the most frequently asked chronology-related questions. I decided long ago that it was time someone addressed this in earnest. Other timelines (much more impressive in scope) focus on relaying the franchise in toto, breaking down stories into their constituent chapters, some even going so far as to include page numbers and paragraph references for precision and historical accuracy. Yet very few are designed to answer this one basic question quickly and simply. Moreover, the complexity of these approaches can make the timeline bloated, unwieldy, and difficult to use. Therefore, my purpose in constructing this chronology has been quite different. Initially fashioned after the primitive timelines that most of us began with (themselves a framework for the abbreviated official timelines available now in the novels and on the publishers’ websites), I have attempted a much broader, back-to-basics approach that incorporates both simplicity and sophistication. The project now known as The Star Wars Chronological Companion has gone through many iterations, but until recently, failed (in my opinion) to address the fundamental needs of the fan. I have studied everything from gospel harmonies to world history chronologies to come up with a system that seemed to answer most of the necessary requirements for readability and understandability. History, archeology, and paleontology have taught me how to be flexible when it comes to dating and understanding of eras and years. (NOTE: I don’t believe that truth is relative or that the actual events of history are subjective, but I do know that understanding of past events vary greatly, and thus color our interpretations. But that’s another subject altogether, and is relevant only insofar as to say that while time is the medium in which this project exists, it is also a fluid enough medium in the fictive world to allow for a number of seemingly irreconcilable differences to coexist.)
The continuities are kept parallel to each other for maximum clarity and to show how they relate to each other. Each story is generally represented by a single entry, placed chronologically (and those that cannot be placed strictly chronologically are placed optimally for continuity and smoothness of storytelling). Each entry contains the title, the author, artist, and initial publication information, and when possible, a brief summary. Notes (hover above each entry or print to view) primarily include information related to placement and continuity (though certain entries warranted more random musings or commentary than others). Live links point to free resources like soundtracks, archived short stories, YouTube videos, Wookieepedia entries, etc., so I suggest hovering over each cell to see what's available. If you are interested in a straight read-through (watch-through, etc.), just follow the trail and ignore the text. If you want to listen to the soundtracks, just search for the words "music by".
What is included in this chronology?
Anything that forms a narrative that could be considered fiction rather than commentary. Generally, I do not include the summaries and supplemental historical and reference information found in Essential Guides, etc., but I do include anything that could be considered flash fiction. Often these are commentaries or asides unto themselves, but done in such a way that they read like scenes. Since they are technically vignettes and not short stories, they are labeled as such, but you can assume that if it is included it is because they would be part of the fictional universe shared by the films, comics, novels, etc. These vignettes may expand somewhat as I do more research into RPG material, etc., but I have chosen to err on the side of caution, as this Companion is primarily designed to keep the comics, novels, and other fiction narratives in order, and does not rely upon the mutability of games or the interpretive nature of reference material to shape the narrative except inasmuch as they can help narrow down placement for stories whose internal evidence is vague or problematic.
Concurrent tales
I have typically chosen to concurrent tales directly after their “source” (usually, but not always, a film) and in sequence with each other. Some of them overlap so closely that I have to choose between narrative cohesion or simply placing them in order of their latest narrative point.
Flashbacks, embedded narratives, and stories taking place over long periods
With very few exceptions, I have placed long narratives at their most current moment in history. Flashback and embedded narrative tales will have two placements, the past marked "past" and the present placed without special designation in its "current" spot on the timeline. Generally I recommend reading everything in its “present” position, particularly since there is often a question of historicity when a story is being related by one character to another, but I fully understand the desire to read the stories in the context of their original setting, as well (particularly with this recent fixation with imbedded narratives), which is why I provide the option.
Role-Playing Games (RPGs)
After much consideration, I have eliminated all but linear works of fiction from the timeline, with the only exceptions being anything that truly advances the fictional narrative. The very nature of Role-Playing Games (and indeed video games) keeps them from being entirely locked into any sort of canonical status. I have begun to add them in, but that is a large project, and not at the top of my priority list.
Canceled and unpublished stories
My criteria for including these are similar to that which I use for including fan works. If the story was written by someone who has been officially published or worked with Lucasfilm, it is included as part of their body of work, even if it is not considered canon, because frequently these unpublished tales complete dramatic arcs that were left unfinished in their original publication (e.g. The Adventures of Bungo & Rusti). Someday in the future I may create a completely formatted library of these stories to either link to or provide as a lengthy appendix or companion to this document, but for now, I have taken this one step further, and included only those stories that are available in some form or another (usually online). For example, Kenneth R. Flint’s Heart of the Jedi is included, while Christie Golden’s unwritten Sword of the Jedi is not.
Dating conventions
The dates given are based on the basic system of utilizing the Battle of Yavin as a zero point, so everything before Star Wars Episode IV is dated BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin), and everything after it ABY (After the Battle of Yavin). While there are several alternate dating conventions, I have chosen the oldest and simplest to keep the timeline from getting cluttered with non-relevant and contradictory information. (I have, however, chosen to eliminate all but the ABG designation from the Clone Wars section, as it has far too many conflicting dates to begin with.) Star Wars has always functioned best when it was loosely defined and had some breathing room. Since the emphasis in my timeline is on events, this segues into the next point.
Years in the Star Wars Universe
“As to your dates, that is the biggest mystification of all.”
—Dr. John Watson
Figuring out exactly “when things happened” is difficult enough for the mathematically inclined, and it doesn’t help when multiple dating systems are used. Adding to the complexity is the fact that a “year zero” is often applied to the Legends timelines rather than a mere zero point like the Birth of Christ (our own Gregorian calendar does not include a year zero). Fortunately for me, the canon timeline has simplified the zero year to date from the Battle of Yavin, rather than leading up to it. Most of the authors for the Expanded Universe stories utilized a 12-month calendar, while Karen Traviss (and possibly others) utilized the in-universe 10-month calendar set forth by West End Games. James Kahn made reference to “six of this desert planet’s months” having passed between the events of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, and no source until The Essential Atlas gave any clue as to how long that might be. While the Atlas did not give the number of months in a year, it did give the number of days in a month, allowing me to deduce that (assuming a Tatooine year was roughly the same length as a year on Earth—unlikely in real life, but a reasonable assumption based on the way things tended to be done in the GFFA) there were eight months in a Tatooine year. This allowed Kahn’s original statement to be true as well as LFL’s later dating of those events a year apart (their original decree was “six months to a year,” later expanded to “a year”). The way six Tatooine months play out on the calendar could easily lead one to round up and say that it had been a year. The way the dates in the Clone Wars era have been shifted around is another story, and leads to even more confusion, which is why I have eliminated all date references for that period except those in relation to the First Battle of Geonosis. The following chart at least gives a visual aid for those who, like me, have difficulty with the numbers. It is not particularly useful for reading the Companion itself, but hopefully it will give you an idea why I chose some of the placements and how the years are broken down (I generally use the Galactic Atlas, Timelines, and Wookieepedia for my dates, though I deviate from any source whenever necessary).
Relative chronology vs. absolute chronology:
“The more you define, the more you confine.”
—Randy Stradley
Two basic factors go into placing a story:
1. The dates involved, either in-text or otherwise assigned to the story from an official source (absolute chronology)
2. The events and characters involved (relative chronology)
With an absolute chronology, the events are fixed within the context of precise dates and historical information. With a relative chronology, the focus is primarily on the events. Beginning with the Clone Wars and continuing through the addition of multiple canon projects, the focus of this Companion has shifted from an absolute to a relative chronology. Even in the days of the Expanded Universe, the more material was overwritten or simply contradicted by other authors, the more flexible I had to be to keep the stories from cancelling each other out. This often meant ignoring the dates entirely as they simply could not be accurate and consistent with the events as they were relayed. I have, whenever possible, tried to place the Legends tales in a logical framework within the canon, so, for example, if a character is alive in Legends in a story dated later than his/her canonical death, I will shift the position of the Legends story. On the other hand, while the difference between canon and Legends is immutable, I have allowed the rescinding of canonical placement if logic dictates otherwise. This includes allowing the placement of some canon stories to be informed by Legends as long as it does not cause a continuity problem.
The Canon Question
“He’s right, and he’s right… they can’t both be right.”
“You know, you are also right.”—Fiddler on the Roof
October 30, 2012 will live on in Star Wars history. On that date, we heard what was, to Star Wars fans, the announcement of the century. Lucasfilm had been sold to Disney, and plans were already underway for new Star Wars saga films every two years, starting with Episode VII in 2014. Even more startling was the notion that there would be spin-off anthology films in between the saga films.
Fan reactions were mixed, ranging anywhere from amusement to horror, and Facebook and other outlets were soon glutted with parody memes and jokes. My personal feelings were largely positive. People, it seemed, had forgotten that Star Wars has always been a family franchise, and Lucas was interested in having the legacy of family-friendly films preserved. I had no doubt that the saga of the Skywalkers would continue in a vein worthy of the name.
Then, on April 25, 2014 came the news we had all been expecting, and many were dreading: The Expanded Universe was discontinued and rebranded as Legends. Some planned projects (such as Sword of the Jedi) were cancelled. For the first time, all novels, short stories, and comics henceforth would be part of a single canon determined by the Lucasfilm Story Group, each with equal weight to the films. For the last several decades, the licensed properties had been instructed to maintain, inasmuch as possible, a single continuity, albeit one that existed parallel to George Lucas’s film vision. Now, a definitive line was drawn, and everything except the films and The Clone Wars television show declared apocryphal. That does not mean that nothing except the films “really happened” (in the sense that anything “really happens” in a fictional universe, of course), but it does mean that the Story Group would not be expected to adhere to anything except the films. The creators are still free to draw from or ignore whatever they choose from the previously published material. So how much has really changed? Kevin J. Anderson, in the foreword to the Dark Empire graphic novel, wrote:
When you read Dark Empire, or any of the other novels, remember that although Lucasfilm has approved them, these are our sequels, not George Lucas’s. If Lucasfilm ever makes films that take place after Return of the Jedi, they will be George Lucas’s own creations, probably with no connection to anything we have written.
Those words seem almost prophetic now. Because George Lucas never gave his writers a story bible (standard practice for television and most licensed properties; something every major creator does if they want the canon to stay consistent across the board), and held his cards close to his chest when it came to writing his own stories (read: allowed himself the freedom to contradict himself if he wanted to), it was clear to me that he never had any intention of letting the EU be anything other than what he claimed it was in the first place: a universe existing parallel but secondary to the films.
In a Facebook post dated December 18, 2016, the late Dave Wolverton (writing as David Farland) said:
When we first began writing the Star Wars novels, we were told that it wasn’t “canon,” yet we struggled to keep them in line with the movies. The folks at Lucasfilm Licensing had so many projects going between comics, books, games, and so on that they really didn’t have anyone who was able to completely keep the storylines straight so that we as authors even COULD have a canon. We did have one fan with an eidetic memory who lived down in Texas who would read our stories and say, “This disagrees with THAT,” but even he had a tough time. You see, he was trying to keep facts straight between story lines that appeared in Bazooka Bubble Gum wrappers and Crackerjack boxes and on the backs of cereal boxes from back in the 1970s—and much of what was said there was pure drivel. So Lucasfilm always said, “The original movies are canon,” and everything else is slightly less canon. Now, at one point a few years ago there were several novels that were up for consideration as canon—Zahn’s work, my novel Courtship, some of Kevin J. Anderson’s work. But the problem was, the folks in Hollywood didn’t want the screenwriters to have to look at dozens of novels when attempting a new screenplay. So all of the current SW tales are considered more like “legends,” which may or may not have any truth to them. … The idea that anything in book form was ever canon is just plain false. For example, we were told in 1993 that we were to “ignore” previous books [Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, the Han Solo adventures, and the Lando Calrissian adventures]. Even though they were good books, we were told that they weren’t canon.
And in a 2018 interview, Truce at Bakura and Balance Point author Kathy Tyers added:
Those of us writing the EU were always told, all along, from the very beginning (have I stressed that strongly enough?), “Only the Movies are Canon.”
It really doesn’t get much clearer than that. The only sense in which the licensed material was canon was to itself; it certainly never touched the “Big C” canon of the films. To further cement the point, Lucas showed with The Clone Wars that while he didn’t mind drawing from the EU, neither did he mind overwriting it (a precedent his protégé Dave Filoni follows to this day). I suspect that one of the primary reasons that people are upset over this so-called “reboot” is a fundamental misunderstanding about the role the Expanded Universe played in the first place. As far back as The Empire Strikes Back, comic and novel author Donald F. Glut declared that the films were “gospel”, and the novels and comics were “gossip.” (I own the magazine in which he said it; as soon as I find it, I shall source it.) Moreover, the Expanded Universe, while attempting to maintain a kind of continuity, was not bound by everything that had been published before the Bantam Spectra/Dark Horse era. Though there was no technical “reboot,” the general attitude that any stories published henceforth would be consistent with each other, but not necessarily with what had gone before. To wit:
We have what we call Canon, which is the screenplays, novelizations, and other core works that are directly tied into the continuity, and then there are a lot of marginal things, like the old Marvel Comics series, that we don’t really try to work into the continuity when we’re planning new projects.
―Allan Kausch on Shadows of the Empire
It is important to note that the Expanded Universe, while technically incorporating elements from “Infinities” and “Classic Star Wars,” also frequently overwrote those stories. In a similar fashion, George Lucas’s canon (films and television) borrowed liberally from the Expanded Universe, but did not maintain strict continuity with it. One fact to bear in mind is that all licensed fiction is expected to conform to the films, so each new film changed the Expanded Universe to some degree. Once Darth Vader said that he was Luke’s father, new stories could not then refer to him as a separate person. Once Jabba the Hutt was shown to be a large, slug-like alien, no longer would he be depicted as a bipedal otter. Once Luke and Leia were revealed to be siblings, no new stories could feature potential romantic attraction between them. Once we found out that Jedi can’t marry, all the other stories that featured married Jedi had to be explained away as (multiple) exceptions to the rule. Once we discovered that the clones were on the side of the Republic, no new stories would mention the notion that they were enemies during the Clone Wars. The list goes on. This continued through the Clone Wars, and with Episode VII and beyond. Even had George Lucas made Episode VII himself and the Expanded Universe not been discontinued and rebranded, the issue of needing to maintain continuity with the new film would have remained. There would have been no band-aid large enough to hold those two universes together. (The potential for alternate timelines introduced with the World Between Worlds from Rebels is probably the closest we are likely to get. Contrary to many of my fellow fans, I do not believe this is a vehicle for altering canon, but it may be used to further strengthen ties between canon events and their Legends counterparts. Time will tell.)
So how exactly does canon work? Well, Wookieepedia has an excellent article on the levels of canon and how they applied to the licensed fiction. But I think the canon levels used in my companion explain it a bit more simply, and will hopefully clarify some issues for disenfranchised fans. Though they can all be ultimately placed into the “Canon” or “Not Canon” category, they follow this basic principle:
Canon (Lucasfilm Story Group): Currently trumps all other levels. As always, free to draw from or ignore any of the Legends material. This currently represents the “history” of the Star Wars universe. Lucasfilm Story Group Canon includes the films, The Clone Wars television series, and all books and comics written under LSG oversight. Though unbeholden to published material that has gone before, the Story Group has drawn much from the Expanded Universe, including concepts and characters (e. g., Imperial Inquisitors and Grand Admiral Thrawn). They have also taken the opportunity to clean up what they considered to be the most glaring of the continuity errors and have gone to great lengths to assure that the new fiction fits with the films both old and new.
Non-Canon/Legends: Includes the majority of the Expanded Universe and some of the Infinities material. As the name reflects, it represents the “legends,” that which may or may not have actually happened, and some that may depend upon “a certain point of view.” The Expanded Universe includes the following three categories:
Expanded Universe (proper): The licensed materials starting with the Bantam novels and Dark Horse Comics, up through the last of the Del Rey novels, etc. Though technically anything not a film was considered Expanded Universe, in the chart below, I have called this era the Expanded Universe to differentiate it from the older Classic Star Wars tales. A long-running attempt at a cohesive continuity between comics, novels, and the role-playing games, these stories overwrote and drew from the Classic Star Wars era, just as the films and television overwrote and drew from them.
Infinities: Though created for and technically exclusive to Dark Horse Comics and the British reprints of Tokyopop’s Manga comics, many other tales of varying degrees of canonicity (including parodies and humorous spin-offs) have fallen under this category. Essentially, these can be any story that did not affect the overall continuity created by the Classic Star Wars/Expanded Universe. The majority of Infinities and non-canon stories do not technically bear the Legends banner.
Classic Star Wars: Anything before the Bantam/Dark Horse/Del Rey era of interconnected continuity. Includes the original Del Rey novels and the Marvel comic book run, and also falls under Legends. Though George Lucas himself did have a hand in the initial planning for the comic books, the tales in the Classic Star Wars era had very little oversight, and continuity was very loose. LFL decreed that nothing from this era was to be considered canonical by the creators of the Expanded Universe material which succeeded it. Elements of these tales made their way into later stories, but they were considered to be versions of those same events rather than a legitimization of the entire body of work, just like Legends references in canon stories. According to fellow timeliner Joe Bongiorno, who discussed the subject in depth with Bill Smith of West End Games, the primary reason the older work was not considered to be part of the new continuity (when the EU was established in 1991) was financial. Most of it was out of print, and it was felt that referring to stories that were impossible to obtain would get confusing, and LFL could not profit from the older work. Of course, as the EU became more popular, many of the old stories were drawn from the archives and reprinted, and elements of them were incorporated into later works. Still, the bulk of them would be considered apocryphal.
The bottom line is that the comics and novels have always been expected to conform to films, not the other way around, and have been overwritten in part or in toto since The Empire Strikes Back. Each film has required an adjustment in the licensed fiction; in software terms, you might think of it as major releases and point releases (Continuity 2.0, etc.), and this compounded exponentially when canon expanded to the television format and started overwriting EU on a weekly basis. The licensed EU fiction is still there to mine, existing parallel to the canon films. Again, contrary to popular belief, the EU was not decanonized; it was rebranded and discontinued. But it stands opposite the wall from canon in the same dance hall, and can be invited to join the dance at any time. Lucas has consulted on some aspects of it, and liked elements of the published fiction, but also wanted the freedom to tell his own stories and has always reserved the right to utilize or overwrite any of it (including that which he has personally had a hand in). We see a sort of “parallel universe” that resembles the events of the comics and novels but does not adhere to them (“freely adapted,” to borrow film vernacular). And just as Lucas reserved the right to tell his own stories that do not adhere to the licensed fiction, he also reserved the right to modify the films and television he had previously endorsed. So we have the special editions (and subsequent modifications), and we have The Clone Wars, his “bigger, better” version of the Tartakovsky series. He did not consider himself bound by those early cartoons when creating the ongoing series. Story Group Canon is working very much the way Lucas did, except for the fact that they have bumped up all the new comics and novels to the film level of canon. The ongoing TCW series and films were the spine off which the new canon would be built. However, as always, the licensed fiction is there to draw from. So you have references to things like the Battle of Hypori, Imperial Inquisitors, etc. Before Return of the Jedi, most of these stories can coexist in a sort of “big picture” sense, i.e., if you step back and look at them from a bit of a distance, they can all still more or less fit if you don’t examine the details too closely. It’s mostly after Return of the Jedi that you start truly entering parallel universe territory, and the Companion reflects this. Whereas prior to Return of the Jedi, an attempt is made to harmonize events as much as possible, most post-Endor events are simply listed according to their original placements, side-by-side with canon as with the rest of the timeline but no longer informing each other.
Please refer to the following chart for a visual representation of the system, and roughly how it has played out over time.
Legends and Canon throughout the years
A Certain Point of View (Canon events and Legends counterparts)
While I have given my reasons for the licensed fiction before 2014 being considered an official parallel, but not canonical universe, I understand there are many who do not accept the reasoning (or, for that matter, the evidence). They consider the new fiction apocryphal, and the original EU the “true” version of events. (Head canon is a legitimate thing, and I’m a firm believer in allowing people the license to “choose” their own stories—in fact, this timeline is almost uniquely suited to allow one to select a personal canon from the entire franchise. They do not, however, get to choose their own facts, and the definition of canon is not an issue of preference, but of official decree.) This approach leaves the fan familiar with the EU with a rather interesting conundrum. Since the “history” (canon) stories are being written after the “legends,” drawing from them selectively, the process works almost in reverse of the way it works in real life. Instead of the legends growing around history, we now have history rising phoenix-like from the ashes of legend. With that in mind, there is a way to stop worrying and love the New-U. Just as movie adaptations of novels are rarely word-for-word, and in fact are frequently so freely adapted as to be different stories, so one can look at the Story Group Canon as a very liberally adapted version of the “real” events (the way LFL is approaching it is exactly the opposite, but bear with me). There are certain historical “facts” that remain even if the tales in which they are relayed cannot be reconciled with one another. I propose that none of the stories are strictly true, even within the confines of a fictional universe; they are all derived from a single unknown urtext and reflect facets or elements of the truth but tell the story in different ways (Luceno himself shrugged off discrepancies between the cartoon version of the Battle of Coruscant and his own with this basic approach). Though this is not how Lucasfilm would have us view it, it is perhaps one of the most reasonable ways to allow all stories to coexist. After all, this is generally how history, particularly ancient history, works. We might view certain sources as more or less reliable depending upon our own biases, but ultimately understand that the bias of the chronicler will affect the narrative.
There are dozens of cases where a specific event is reflected in multiple sources and has been adapted in a canon story in different form. A few noteworthy examples follow:
As you can see, the relationship between legends and canon is nonlinear but still very much connected. The echoes of one continuity resound throughout the other.
Updates
I have done some rearranging due to some of the events research calling attention to details I had overlooked or been ignorant of. This has led to a kind of “chunking” of stories, aligning certain factors (such as the presence or absence of Han Solo’s reward money, Lando Calrissian’s role in the Battle of Taanab and status as Baron Administrator of Cloud City, etc.) and allowing the continuity to sort itself out in a “big picture” sense. It does mean that there is even less adherence to the dates, but it should minimize the number of times a story references events that have not yet happened. I have also moved the chronology into Google Sheets, allowing the user to scroll down a single continuity, print the document out with more flexible options, and generally enjoy a cleaner and more user-friendly format. Please hover over the individual titles to see the notes regarding placement, etc. It is my hope that after years of tweaking, this will at last meet every reader’s needs.
And now, finally…
Are you still with me? Good. Because you are about to delve into a chronological project unlike any other. While it is my hope that you found the preceding information helpful, there is nothing like the timeline proper to get you truly oriented. Thank you for your patience, and prepare to take your first steps into a larger world…
THE STAR WARS CHRONOLOGICAL COMPANION
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