Plot Updates Info & F.a.q.

Plot Updates

Concept
The intent to implement a continuously evolving story and plot for the Brotherhood came about during the planning and creating of the Rite of Supremacy (RoS): Second Darkness and the Eighth Great Jedi War (GJW) in early 2007. Until then, the club had no living story beyond a series of start-and-stop vendetta plots that hurled the DB into turmoil in one month only to see it emerge miraculously unscathed, and oddly unchanged, the next despite the tumultuous events described. We know even minor events leave worlds and characters drastically altered let alone ones bearing the title of "War," so we went after something new.

We decided to use the RoS as a dry-run to set up a story involving the Yuuzhan Vong (something member feedback asked for) and to rehearse how we would run the subsequent GJW. We took what we learned from the RoS and had some pretty good success with the GJW as a result. The key elements we wanted the Eighth Great Jedi War to have, as far as the story went, were a sense of gravity and permanence. We wanted the story to have a lasting effect on our characters and fiction and for it to have an impact felt beyond what had been done before: Character deaths, destroyed vessels, ravaged worlds, etc. We learned quite a bit about what worked and what didn't and it further shaped our thinking on what to do next.

The GJW story Incursion left the DB finally changed, weathered, and open to new possibilities and interpretations for follow-on events. We didn't just conveniently snap-back to pre-war conditions as if nothing had happened. The DB was altered and set adrift literally. The story also tied us more closely to Star Wars Expanded Universe (EU) events which was something long talked about and desired. So to follow-up on what we started, we developed a series of plot points that will take us into the future. Around these we've developed some ideas for both the story and how we present it.

Implementation
The updates will follow a cycle much like what they do with the EU novels where a series is developed like The New Jedi Order (NJO) and falling under that series are several titles telling that story. We've finally seen this now with Fall of Antei: Movement to Contact, the first of a series of short updates to tell the story of the Brotherhood proper as it relates to the Iron Throne, Dark Council and NPC's already introduced and on the way. The thing to bear in mind here is that this will be a serialized release of events over a lengthy period of time. In order to get the story, you'll need to tune in and follow it in the manner of a television series like Deadwood or a comic like Star Wars Legacy. Most of your questions will be answered in time.

We're not going to be telling you what your individual characters or clans are doing. That will be up to you with the usual regard for canon, the official plot, and approval from the Grand Master, etc. One of the things we learned in the last GJW story was that it's too difficult to feature member characters as major moving pieces to advance the overall story be it specific to their clan or the Brotherhood as a whole. People quit their club jobs, change positions, alter their characters, and perform any number of other actions that make it problematic at best and impossible at worst to use them to tell a fictional story like one would if writing something where he owns and controls everything that happens.

The Eighth Great Jedi War story had something like 30 major revisions just dealing with people quitting their posts or otherwise making a major change to their character halfway through the GJW that forced the numerous rewrites. What we want to do is bring in quality NPC's developed by ourselves and the members to help tell our stories. You've seen some development on this front already. These we can control, enable with power, depose, kill, resurrect, and use in every way it's too difficult to do with a member's character. Member characters will still appear, but not in the way they did with GJW 8.

Inevitability
As far as a service goes, the Brotherhood is generally considered free-of-charge but this isn't quite true. It will cost you some patience from time to time. It has me, Sarin, Muz, Jac, and everyone else who works very hard to produce this environment. So it will cost you too. We all have to pay this price in denominations of patience because nearly all of us have families, work, school, lives, and other things that get in the way of a hobby. As a result you get things for the club that are delayed, problematic, unexpected, disliked, etc. Almost no one on this end is a professional in the area in which they work for the club. Muz would be the exception to this rule. This is as much a hobby for the rest of us as it is for you, the end-user.

The point here is that this process won't always run as smoothly as any of us would like. We're essentially content developers, game designers, authors, IT managers, etc., at this stage of the game and we have all seen that even at the highest professional levels of these fields the products delivered to us consumers are faulty, late, of poor quality and we're expected to trade our hard-earned money for them. A little patience here is buying a lot and you're getting more for your "money" than ever.

An example of this process not running smoothly: I wrote the plot update you just received in December of 2007.

I know, I said the same thing.

But this is another case-in-point of something we wanted to do, but that ties into the other myriad projects we're working on to improve the club. What you got was essentially what I had down almost six months ago. There were some rewrites due to the member character problems I mentioned earlier, but we wanted the release of the evolving story to coincide with several projects under development. The story so far connects with three different major projects I can think of off the top of my head. Obviously, none of these projects are ready yet so we went with what we had: a story, for now.

So this should give you all some idea of what we're doing to improve things and offer up what we've never had before. It's a labor of love, but lately seems mostly labor. For me personally, the work is the reward; as it is with many of the good people I'm fortunate enough to work with here.

FAQ (as of 5/22/08)

1. Q: Is this going to tie up loose ends and setup a return to Antei?

A: The Antei occupation is obviously a major plot point. Read the updates as they come out to learn what happens.

2. Q: Why does DB time go by faster than real time?

A: Each real-life year equals two fictional Star Wars years. It's been like this since I got here. Something to keep in mind though is that the club can control and dictate the timeline as necessary. We don't have to stick to this if it's not working for us.

3. Q: What do I do with my clan/house/team related fictions?

A: The same thing you always have. Read the stories and updates, use them for a frame of reference and work yourselves in. The DB is fighting a guerrilla war against the Vong. The Vong are spread throughout the galaxy. How does this affect my clan in xyz system? How is this affecting the Dark Council and other clans? Follow the various Star Wars, club, clan canon and check with Sarin and Muz and all should be well.

Thanks for the explanation and update.

<3

Yay for Raken!

FAQ (as of 5/22/08)

1.  Q: Is this going to tie up loose ends and setup a return to Antei?

    A: The Antei occupation is obviously a major plot point.  Read the updates as they come out to learn   
        what happens.

2.  Q: Why does DB time go by faster than real time?

    A: Each real-life year equals two fictional Star Wars years.  It's been like this since I got here.     
        Something to keep in mind though is that the club can control and dictate the timeline as necessary. 
        We don't have to stick to this if it's not working for us.

3.  Q: What do I do with my clan/house/team related fictions?

    A: The same thing you always have.  Read the stories and updates, use them for a frame of reference and 
        work yourselves in.  The DB is fighting a guerrilla war against the Vong.  The Vong are spread       
        throughout the galaxy.  How does this affect my clan in xyz system?  How is this affecting the Dark 
        Council and other clans?  Follow the various Star Wars, club, clan canon and check with Sarin and   
        Muz and all should be well.



So going off this - Are we going to slow down 29 ABY to involve ourselves more with the Vong?
Why do I ask such a question? Well the war ends in the year 29 ABY (what portion of the year I'm not sure enitrely), and when the war ended all of the yuuzhan Vong surrendered - it was eluded to that their might be stragglers who wouldn't observe this, but they were never mentioned in any books after the NJO series to my knowledge.

You said we can control the timeline as dictates so I'm just wondering.

Well the war ends in the year 29 ABY (what portion of the year I'm not sure enitrely), and when the war ended all of the yuuzhan Vong surrendered - it was eluded to that their might be stragglers who wouldn't observe this, but they were never mentioned in any books after the NJO series to my knowledge.

You said we can control the timeline as dictates so I'm just wondering.



We could go Vong-hunting. Yay!

So going off this - Are we going to slow down 29 ABY to involve ourselves more with the Vong?
Why do I ask such a question? Well the war ends in the year 29 ABY (what portion of the year I'm not sure enitrely), and when the war ended all of the yuuzhan Vong surrendered - it was eluded to that their might be stragglers who wouldn't observe this, but they were never mentioned in any books after the NJO series to my knowledge.

You said we can control the timeline as dictates so I'm just wondering.


I've made my own silent enquiries about this on the TFN boards to ease my conscience since its been a concern with the two major CNS run-ons I've put together this year. Short answer, it shouldn't be necessary, long answer, there are matters that will need to be taking into consideration when putting the GJW together, but then, aren't there always?

The canon timeline for the Vong War has bounced back and forth between 25-30 and 25-29 several times since they seem to change their minds every time they put out a new sourcebook. The general concensus I've found discussing it with people on TFN is that most people treat this as meaning the "official war" concluded in 29 ABY with the recapture of Coruscant but that fighting continued until 30 ABY, particuarly throughout the Outer Rim to deal with any lingering Vong hold outs -- rather like how the Galactic Civil War ended long before fighting between the Republic and Imps stopped.

The Dark Nests series did allude to the idea fighting continued for a while and there is a blank page between 29 ABY and 35 ABY so in theory its entirely feasible there were still small Vong bases that needed to be eradicated throughout that period. Again, taking the GCW example, peace was declared with the Remnant in 19 ABY, but there were still problems with lingering Imperial loyalists up until 25 ABY, e.g. the Second Imperium crisis, Shadow Academy, etc.

Now... when does the war end in 29 ABY? Good question.

What you will find if you read that site is that even the books and sourcebooks don't tie up -- to the extent that the sourcebooks have Mara Jade being pregnant with Ben for only about six months, which really says all that need be said about their timekeeping skills. That, honestly, means there isn't really much sense worrying about the fine details.

Alas, I'm a nerd, so I like to still try and get things right anyway. I treat the novels themselves as the primary source material and the chronology sourcebook as secondary, so going on the novels, Coruscant is recaptured in roughly the third month of 29 ABY (so, basically, early in the year).

Oh no! I hear you say.

What is totally unclear though is when the epilogue scenes and such take place since there simply isn't anything in the text that says so. There are people who dislike the idea the Vong just all downed tools so quickly, so I've seen some try and retcon the 25-29 and 25-30 problems into saying Coruscant was recaptured but some of the scenes of the Vong all going off to live in the Unknown Regions and play nice from now on may have happened later in the year or early 30 ABY.

Other random points to keep in mind is how much cool stuff was introduced in the final book for those three months of the year. Slayers, for example, are the uber Vong who are immune to lighsabers and such, which I'm sure are the kind of thing that would be neat in the GJW but would be impossible to feature on such a tight timeline. On that basis, saying the war continued for a while after is more fun, since it gives us a whole year or eighteen months or so to play with Slayers, not just three months which is rather dull.

All in all, the view I've basically come to is that Coruscant may have been recaptured in early 29 ABY but fighting, especially in the Outer Rim since a general theme in LOTF is that all the Galactic Alliance cares about is the Core and the Outer Rim can rot and they wouldn't notice, probably continued until 30 ABY, if not beyond in the case of particular warlords. Ultimately, Antei seems like a good location for a particuarly devout Vong commander to dig in and refuse to surrender. So, while Shimrra probably would be dead by the time we get to a GJW, that shouldn't actually matter. If anything, I'd argue it'd make the story appreciably different to the last GJW since the Vong would be behaving very differently this time, struggling just to hold off rebellion inside their own ranks and whatever else, which would give the next GJW a unique flavour of its own.

Anyway... Star Wars geek essay over.

Well this looks like a good development. Kudos to the creators and lets just kick some Vong butt.

As for Tron, the War ends in like...mid-29 ABY I believe and they do surrender and mostly vanish till 130ABY till they are allied with the Jedi. Thats how I remeber it and percieve it

[Insert stuff here.]
I'm a nerd.
[Insert stuff here.]


We love you though, Goat. I mean, you may be our resident canon fanboi nerd and all, but you're still much, much better than Nitemare.

Here's a question for all of you, though. How much do we honestly have to adhere to canon for, anyway? Let's think about this. In the novels, there's piss all for Sith, pretty much nada for Krath, and zilch for Obelisk (they don't exist). The whole "Dark Side Empire" thing doesn't exist, and while there are Sith on Korriban, we are not them, and we don't even have Antei anymore. We don't have to wait until 29-35ish ABY to do what we will with the Vong. We have creative liberties. And I'm sure Sarin, Muz, Raken and more are taking those liberties. So, do we really need to worry about that?

Here's what I say. Forget about Antei, and leave it to the Vong for a while. The Clans who choose can meddle with the Vong on their own level. I say we look forward to the next great chapter of Brotherhood history, and prepare for an onslaught of...









You know you want it.

Oh, I totally agree, BF. That was basically what I was getting at: Antei could be held by the Vong for as long as we like and it wouldn't really matter. Its natural to assume we need to get the GJW done before the war 'officially' ends in 29 ABY but with a bit of creative licence that needn't be the case, especially as the canon itself shows the fighting continued until at least 30 ABY.

There are plenty of fish in the sea. Personally, I'm all for milking the cash cow that is the Legacy comics and seeing a Sith Civil War between the Star Chamber and One Sith or something, but that's me. I feel when we recapture Antei is immaterial, it all just ultimately depends what the story we want to write is, since the canon can be interpreted widely to suit our needs.

Ok. I vote that the Star Chamber goes to war against Goat. Hands, anyone?

Sounds like fun, I'm in.