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| {{Quote|I'm gonna make my own Wookieepedia, but with sabbac and dancing girls!|Donald Haase}}
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| SW420 is a project to recover and embrace a lost understanding of the Star Wars Universe: what it was before the Star Wars Prequels. This site aims to provide an online encyclopedia, built on the efforts of Wookieepedia, but conforming to the Star Wars 420 Canon and with different interpretive principles behind it.
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| ==History==
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| Using Wookieepedia has always been a frustrating experience for me. I grew up with the Star Wars EU. The [[Star Wars: The Jedi Academy Trilogy|Jedi Academy trilogy]] were some of my first non-YA novels, and I got into the [[Star Wars Customizable Card Game]] shortly after its release. I played [[Star Wars: X-Wing]], [[Star Wars: Rebel Assault]], and [[Star Wars: Dark Forces]] and got to read some of the [[Star Wars (comic strip)| Star Wars comic strip]] via the [[Dark Horse]] reprints. It was always amazing to read new stories and see them fitting in to the whole universe<ref>Even stinkers like [[The Crystal Star]]</ref>. The prequels just didn't, and couldn't.
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| Due to the statements from George Lucas and the methods of interpretation dictated by LucasFilm, the previous EU was maintained as canonical but merely less so than the films and any newer material. This wasn't horribly different from the previous understanding of how to harmonize EU materials, except that the EU through the 90s had been centrally reviewed and edited prior to release to be harmonious<ref>With a small amount of exceptions</ref>. If I wanted to look up [[Jorus C'baoth]]'s history, the designers of [[DS-1 Orbital Battle Station/Legends|the first Death Star]], or how long [[Yoda/Legends|Yoda]] had been on [[Dagobah/Legends|Dagobah]], I would get answers that didn't merely expand on what I knew but replaced it entirely. Part of the methodology was not just to overrule previous information, nor to to follow the example of 'from a certain point of view', but to remove it entirely. For many years I was content to merely be a grumpy old man yelling at clouds, and poking around at my old [[Star Wars Encyclopedia]].
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| ==4/20 Canon==
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| The impetus for this came to me when trying to get a more detailed idea of where I drew the line after reading Survivor's Quest and wondering if I should pick up [[X-Wing: Starfighters of Adumar]] (released late '99) which I'd never read. I had often described my canon for Star Wars as 'pre-prequel', and perhaps give an explanation of how it's not merely 'head-canon' but an instance of a schism<ref>After all, I had gotten an MA in Religious Studies</ref>. A few times I'd called it "the '99 canon", but that just didn't have a ring to it. Then I realized that the novelization of The Phantom Menace was released on April 21st 1999. That meant that the canon I adhered to ended on 4/20/99 and could, striking, be called '420 Canon'.
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| Of course, the lines aren't so cut-and-dry. Clearly there was prequel material released before that, and some stragglers written without any prequel influence released afterwards. For details of the full canon, see [[Canon]].
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| ==SW420==
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| The primary goal of this site is to recreate the comprehensiveness and intent of Wookieepedia, but limited to 420 Canon material as sources. This is being worked on by importing a partial subset of Wookieepedia's articles (starting with articles for each canonical source, then every page that linked to those sources, approximately 50k pages) and manually editing them to remove information that is derived from non-canon sources.
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| A secondary goal of the site is to change some of the fundamental methodology and approaches taken by Wookiepedia in linking and building articles. Among these are:
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| ===Avoiding duplication of content=== | | ===Avoiding duplication of content=== |
| It is very common to find on Wookieepedia articles where the bulk of the content pertains to a different, but related, subject. This is very common in articles on Systems or Species where the system is only ever referenced in the context of one Planet, or the Species only has one representative. An example that has already been updated is the article for the [[Joralla system]], which had been almost entirely a duplicate of the information in the article for the system's primary planet [[Joralla]]. It's my opinion that linking between the two articles sufficiently allows access to the information. Duplicating it out not only builds clutter but invites the content to drift apart when being updated. Similarly, I would discourage copying the contents of an article's infobox into the main body of the article in paragraph form. | | It is very common to find on Wookieepedia articles where the bulk of the content pertains to a different, but related, subject. This is very common in articles on Systems or Species where the system is only ever referenced in the context of one Planet, or the Species only has one representative. An example that has already been updated is the article for the [[Joralla system]], which had been almost entirely a duplicate of the information in the article for the system's primary planet [[Joralla]]. It's my opinion that linking between the two articles sufficiently allows access to the information. Duplicating it out not only builds clutter but invites the content to drift apart when being updated. |
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| ===Reduce unuseful wikilinking===
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| Many specific keywords on Wookieepedia are almost abusively linked to. In part of the planning for this endeavor I sent a friend a sample article and pointed out the links to articles like [[Gender]], [[Human]], [[officer]], [[death]], etc. To which he replied "I wonder if it has to do with clumsy ways of incorporating automation", and for the more offensive sample "to repel the [[Blood/Legends|bloodthirsty]] [[Planetary assault tactics |invaders]]" (which was intended to reference a specific species) "That looks almost purposefully stupid. Like someone's messing with it to make a statement about users of this thing." I agree. It seems that many of these were done by scripts automatically create links regardless of them providing any sort of extra context, and in extreme cases like the 'bloodthirsty invaders' detracting from context.
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| ===Facilitate physical research===
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| While the goal on Wookieepedia is for all articles to be well sourced, a number of factors hinder the ability to use articles to find the information they collect in their sources. First, reference sources are often cited without note to which sections/articles/entries are being referenced. While the more modern ''The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia'' has a citation template that allows entry name, similar sourcing is disallowed/not supported for [[Star Wars: Essential Guides]] or West-End Games Sourcebooks. This means that if you are looking for something referenced in multiple entries or that there is no entry for it individually, it will be a long journey to find it.
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| Second, there is poor identification for when the content in one source merely duplicates the content found in another. Referring again to the article on [[Joralla]], you will see the updated sources compared to the Wookieepedia versions. Now the sourcing notes how one source contains all the information in the article and the other two are merely reprints of that which add no new information (If you want to know all there is about Joralla, you can pick up either of two books, you don't need all three).
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| TODO - Finish and polish this
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| ==Notes and references==
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| {{Reflist}}
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| <!-- Below is my original text document where I started keeping these ideas sometime around late 2020:
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| So, for many years, I've considered 'my Star Wars' all the materials prior to the prequels. I had, a few times, referred to this as " '99 Canon" since Episode 1 The Phantom Menace came out in 1999. I've thought, a number of times, about trying to codify and describe my thoughts on this. Perhaps this would lead to learning about other works after that date that follow the same 'feel' pre-prequel. But tonight I know I must make something of it because I found out that the novelization of The Phantom Menace came out on April 21st 1999. This means I could call it "420 Canon" or "SW420" and it could be striking enough to actually draw attention :P
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| *************************************************************************************************************
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| List of FAQ questions that illustrate the difference between SW420 and even Legends Canon:
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| 1) When was the Galactic Empire founded? In 420 canon it was sometime 10-20 years prior to Star Wars
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| 2) What were the Clone Wars? A conflict that spanned the change from Old Republic to Empire, perhaps fueling this shift.
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| 3) Who was Luke and Leia's mother?
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| 4) Who was Owen Lars? Obi-Wan vs Anakin's brother. Pg 66 RotJ novelization. Decipher card. Essential Guide to Characters.
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| 5) Where was Anakin from? Not Tatooine
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| 6) Can Jedi have families? Yes, how else were Luke and Leia born?
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| 7) At what age must Jedi begin training?
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| 8) Why are all sith lightsabers red? They aren't. Vader's is. Lightsabers are 'Jedi weapons' per the Emperor in RotJ. Exar Kun's Sith Lightsaber was double-sided white/blue.
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| 9) Why are all sith only in pairs? No, Rule of Two is stupid.
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| 10) When was Yoda born? 896 BBY? That is the *most pedantic* way to interpret his assertion of '900 years old'
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| *************************************************************************************************************
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| Examples of replicating out individual instances.
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| https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Jedi_funeral/Legends
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| https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Sith_lightsaber/Legends #8 above
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| https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Rule_of_Two/Legends #9 above
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| The 19 BBY Problem:
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| The last 10 minutes of Revenge of the Sith does not show all the problems of the prequels The ending takes place 18 years before Star Wars and made Luke and Leia's birthday the most important date in the Star Wars timeline. The Republic fell, the Empire was established, Anakin became Vader, Obi-wan becomes Old Ben, the Jedi are wiped out, the Death Star was being built, Luke was delivered back to his father's hometown to be raised by his *actual* uncle, Leia was given to a high profile political opponent of the Emperor's, their mother dies, R2 and 3PO are delivered to Captain Antilles on the ship they stay on for 18 years, Yoda fucks off to Dagobah, Padme spoils Return of the Jedi ("There's good in him ... still"), CGI Grand Moff Tarkin from Rogue One was spoiled, and Obi-wan learns to turn into a ghost.
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| There are three distinct (real world) time periods that make up the 420 canon. The borders around them are fuzzy due to asynchronous effects causing the shift, but the difference in character is palpable:
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| 1) 1977-1985: The OT and early years. This period of time is characterized by outlandish experimentation and a lack of self control. Outside of the OT, there was the Holiday Special, the Marvel and Newspaper comics, and the 'official' spinoffs in the form of the Ewok movies, and Ewok/Droid Cartoon shows. Only 7 full star wars novels were published in this time: Splinter of the Mind's Eye, the Han Solo Trilogy, and the Lando Trilogy. It was during this time that the original line of Kenner action figures were made and sold (ending in 1985). A few video games were made for the atari but they were unremarkable.
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| 2) 1986-1990: The Interregnum. The TV shows ended. The Marvel Comics ended. The big Kenner toy line ended. No new novels were written, barely a short story. Lucas was busy with other projects such as Willow, Tucker, and the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. It was now though that a lot of calming and restructuring took place. The Lucasfilm Fan Club Magazine began its run and Steven Sansweet quickly appeared in it. WEG began publishing the Star Wars RPG, which acted as the foundation for many of the details in the worlds found in the upcoming era's novels. WEG did a heavy legwork of detailing many of the mundane details of the Star Wars world that may have been shown but not explained prior. Where are ships made? How does a blaster work?
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| 3) 1991-1999: The EU. In 1991 Heir to the Empire was published by Bantam Spectra. It was the first Star Wars novel in 8 years and, building off the groundwork done by WEG, formed the basis for a total of 40 novels to be published by Bantam Specrta over the following 8 years. Shortly following came the first comic since the Marvel run ended: Dark Empire, which likewise began a series of comics published by Dark Horse. The in 1992 WEG marked this transition with the move to a 2nd edition of its RPG system. In '95 Decipher began publishing the Star Wars CCG, with details drawn from WEG and the EU.
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| This 3rd era ending is marked by the April 21st 1999 release of The Phantom Menace novelization. Contemporaneous with this, the publishing of Star Wars novels transitioned away from Bantam Spectra (though a handful of books, written without the influence of Episode I, were released through the end of '99). Late '98 had WEG stop producing Star Wars RPG material, and in '00 Wizards of the Coast started a new system. In '01 Decipher began releasing Star Wars CCG sets based on The Phantom Menace, and stopped production on the game by the end of the year.
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| Though they aren't 4/20 canon it may be worthwhile to try to describe the further eras:
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| 4) 1999-2006: The Prequels. The prequels were released. The EU became split between prequel-era novels that were weighed down with retconning the prequels into existing understood canon (and making sense of the prequels generally) and the New Jedi Order which used a galaxy-wide invasion as a means to cannibalize and integrate everything that had previously been in the EU. Wizards of the Coast put out the Star Wars d20 RPG and put out a ~20 books and a revised edition (the Saga edition belonging to the next era). "Clone Wars" ran on TV, the first TV show since Ewoks ended in 1986.
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| "Could there have been other Skywalkers from Tatooine? Vader allowed the possibility. After all, it wasn't an entirely uncommon name in the the galaxy." Vader's own thoughts. Rise and Fall of Vader, book in 07. Yea, so Legends. But I know I heard of it elsewhere.
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| Wiki goals:
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| -Provide more detailed/coherent source references. There are issues with different formats of the same being listed (such as the book and the unabridged audiobook), sources listed without note as to what content was used, and secondary sources cited when they contain no new info. To this aim, I would look to separate in some way the 'reference' materials that are not intended to supply new information such as the Guide to Star Wars, Star Wars Encyclopedia, and the Essential series.
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| -Reduce inappropriate citations. It is common in articles to have citations for auxillary info that follows from old sources but where the subject did not exist in those sources. https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Gort's_Casino is a simple example where The Essential Guide to Planets and Moons (1996) is used in the article on something from a decade later, only to clarify that Nar Shaddaa is in Hutt Space. Similarly 'Alderaan' as linked here: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Brith
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| -Properly identify the source of images, with as much detail as possible.
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| -Reduce spelling/formatting redirects. Currently Wookiepedia uses them all over to smooth incorrect naming, moved articles, and typos. There are things like "Star Wars - Name of Book", "Star Wars: Name of Book", "Name of Book (book)", etc.
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| -Move stubs into tables or lists on individual articles. This would be especially useful to reduce the vast amount of 'articles with conjectural titles'. https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Helska_1
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| -Aliases, monickers, nicknames, etc should never have their own articles.
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| -Re-evaluate and more firmly describe what constitutes a retcon. Currently it is used all over wookipedia in places where new information is provided that only supplements but doesn't contradict old. Samples can be found at https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Verpine/Legends#Behind_the_scenes ('Buggy' being identified as a Verpine is termed a 'retcon'), https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Nom_Anor (this character was later revealed to be a Yuuzhan Vong, instead of appearances of Yuuzhan Vong being called a 'retcon' in Crimson Empire II it should merely be 'not yet identified' or similar),
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| -Alongside more detailled references, attention will be taken to note real-world chronology more thoroughly via a section similar to 'Behind the Scenes'. That should allow for more comprehensive understanding of the development of the canon. Special notes will also be made to point out when something differs significantly from post-prequel Legends canon, or points of common misunderstanding.
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| -Add templates to make the wiki much more friendly as a resource for the WEG RPG. https://pathfinderwiki.com/wiki/Hadregash The pathfinder wiki or similar d&d ones would give good templates for how to include common stats for items/creatures/NPCs. | | A similar kind of duplication often happens between the paragraph-form content of an article and other sections. Most commonly this will be seen with Infobox contents being repeated directly in paragraph form in a 'Description' section of the article or, in articles for subjects where only basic details are known, the entire article may be made of a duplicated Infobox. This can also occur between the Appearances/Sources and Behind the Scenes section, where the latter is a paragraph form of the former. |
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Avoiding duplication of content
It is very common to find on Wookieepedia articles where the bulk of the content pertains to a different, but related, subject. This is very common in articles on Systems or Species where the system is only ever referenced in the context of one Planet, or the Species only has one representative. An example that has already been updated is the article for the Joralla system, which had been almost entirely a duplicate of the information in the article for the system's primary planet Joralla. It's my opinion that linking between the two articles sufficiently allows access to the information. Duplicating it out not only builds clutter but invites the content to drift apart when being updated.
A similar kind of duplication often happens between the paragraph-form content of an article and other sections. Most commonly this will be seen with Infobox contents being repeated directly in paragraph form in a 'Description' section of the article or, in articles for subjects where only basic details are known, the entire article may be made of a duplicated Infobox. This can also occur between the Appearances/Sources and Behind the Scenes section, where the latter is a paragraph form of the former.