EI: ep 2 – Canon myths of ancient Batuu + DotJ updates & mailbag 1

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[00:01:11] Welcome to the Star Wars Canon Timeline podcast. I'm your host Alicia and I'll be joined later by Jedi Jedi Bob. And we'll hear from other members of the community as well in this four-part episode covering canon ancient myths of the planet Batuu,

[00:01:44] some movie updates, Error 1 feedback from listeners and some general lore to expand your understanding of the Force. For the record this episode was recorded July 1st and 4th, 2024.

[00:01:57] Everything discussed is to the best of our knowledge accurate at the time of recording, but things may change in the future,

[00:02:03] be retconned or clarified. Star Wars lore is ever-evolving, but we'll jump back to this part of the timeline again with more updates as needed as we go on. And by jumping back, this is actually the first episode to really lean into this experimental podcast format.

[00:02:20] I'm backdating it about two months from the time of recording so that it appears near the beginning of your episode list in the first era of Star Wars history. I know how this works on podcast addict, the podcatcher that I use.

[00:02:32] In that case, subscribers will be notified there's a new episode despite it being backdated, but I'm not sure how this will work on every pod app, so please let me know if it works differently wherever you listen.

[00:02:43] You can send this and any other feedback to SWTimelinePodcast at gmail.com and you'll find that link in the show notes. By the way, canon Padawan Supercast subscribers have access to an episode list in publication order as well,

[00:02:58] so in that list this episode will appear in the middle of the Acolyte Season 1 coverage. And since we're at the start of the timeline on the public episode list,

[00:03:07] this episode will have almost no spoilers for any of the major events to occur in all the eras to come, though I did make sure to collect some of Bob's spoiler-free thoughts on the Acolyte which you'll hear later on. As I mentioned, this episode is in four parts.

[00:03:22] First, I will talk you through two canon myths set actually before the Dawn of the Jedi titled The Silent Circle and the Skiff in the Gallions. These come from a hard-to-find special edition

[00:03:33] of the short story collection Star Wars Myths and Fables. I finally recently got my hands on a copy of the Galaxy's Edge edition of this book, so I'll be outlining and breaking down the lore

[00:03:44] from these stories which you might not be able to read yourself as they're set throughout the timeline, starting with these two. Then I'm joined by Dead Eye Jedi Bob to first talk about

[00:03:53] some rumors and updates about the movie about the Dawn of the Jedi we talked about in the overview episode for this era, after which we'll dive into the mailbag to cover the feedback that has come

[00:04:03] in so far about this part of the timeline. Then, to wrap it up, I share some passages about the nature of the Force in general that I came across recently while doing research for my Acolyte breakdowns. I know there have been a lot of questions about this,

[00:04:16] especially as we learn as we go on throughout this timeline about different groups with different names for and different ways of viewing the Force. But before we get into all that, let's start at the very beginning, like the extra very beginning. As a reminder,

[00:04:31] the Dawn of the Jedi, the founding of the Jedi Order takes place around 25,000 BBYs, so 25,000 years before the original Star Wars movie is set. And according to current lore that happened on the planet Achtoh in the Unknown Regions, for these two stories I'll be taking you

[00:04:48] through today, we're stepping back even further in the timeline on a very different but also very distant planet, this one in the outer rim, a planet that will come to be known as Batuu.

[00:04:59] Bob and I take a deeper dive into this planet and especially the episode about the first season of Young Jedi Adventures, an animated series set in the High Republic era, so I won't repeat myself too much here. But if you haven't heard that episode yet,

[00:05:12] and future listeners will and should listen to this one first, or if you have just to remind you, Batuu is also called Galaxy's Edge, which is the name of the Star Wars portion of

[00:05:23] the Disney theme parks. And it's also a popular game, both of which feature action set many many years later in the timeline on this distant planet that became a hub for trading in ancient times

[00:05:34] when hyperspace travel was still young before the hyperspace lanes were mapped out. We talk a lot about the invention of hyperspace travel in the Dawn of the Jedi overview, so I won't get into that now, but as a reminder it was invented around 30,000 BBY.

[00:05:49] So that means our first story, the Silent Circle, an origin myth of Batuu's distinctive petrified trees known as spires, it's set well before 30,000 BBY, as this planet has existed almost as long as the galaxy itself. Fun fact about Batuu, by the way, the planet orbits three

[00:06:07] suns called Ubot 1, 2 and 3, though through most of their year only the first is visible from the population center at Black Spire Outpost, their biggest settlement. Batuu also has two moons called Destra and Valara, and this is why the Batuuans greet each other with bright suns during

[00:06:26] the day and rising moons at night. And when they say goodbye they like to say something like, till the spire and may the spires keep you. These natural features of their world defined Batuuans in many ways which is why they sought to tell stories about them.

[00:06:43] As I mentioned at the top, both of these stories today come from the Canon short story collection Myths and Fables all written by George Mann, a regular Star Wars writer, especially the high republic readers might recognize. This collection of short stories is part of

[00:06:58] what's known as the Galaxy's Edge multimedia project, which also includes more stories, books, comics, games. Basically it's marketing for the Disney parks, but the stories are cool so I'm okay with that. Most of this stuff is set much later in the timeline so we'll talk through

[00:07:14] the rest of it as it comes up. The standard edition of the Myths and Fables book is easy to find wherever you buy books and it was published in 2019 and contains nine short stories. Then in 2020 they released a special edition exclusively sold at Target,

[00:07:32] a chain of American department stores which is always super annoying for fans abroad. Lucas Media please stop selling special editions of Star Wars books at stores that are only available in the US but anyway that target edition contained three additional short stories and then later in

[00:07:51] 2020 they released another special edition of the book called the Galaxy's Edge Edition which is sold only at Disney theme parks and on their website where batches of this edition are released very infrequently. This version of the book not only contains the three

[00:08:05] additional target stories but also three more stories on top of that as well including the two we're going to talk about today. I'm sure for many of you your next question is what are

[00:08:15] canon myths and how do they differ from what we call legends? And yeah this is an excellent question. To review when we say legends on this podcast we're generally referring to stuff that is also called the extended universe primarily books and games plus some animations and specials that

[00:08:33] were released before the Disney canon reset in April 2014 and of course that canon reset does exclude the films and the Clone Wars TV show which all remained canon. And we might also sometimes refer to modern special projects as legends like the Star Wars visions animated anthology

[00:08:54] series you'll be getting episodes for starting in the old republic era of the timeline. Basically legends just means that the lore of a particular story is not considered canon but those who write stories that are considered canon might and frequently do take approved elements of

[00:09:12] those legend stories and make them canon. We talk a lot about that on this podcast but as I said in the intro episode the legends are now seen like campfire stories that may or may not

[00:09:21] reflect reality to a greater or lesser degree. At which point you are likely asking but isn't that also what myths and fables are and um yes the distinction here is fine and while Lucas Media has slapped a canon label on these short stories we're talking about today

[00:09:39] they are also really just in universe myths. We should not take every detail of these stories as fact but unlike legends these are stories we can say are being told from a particular point of

[00:09:50] view which we'll be considering as we go. The two stories we have today one I would consider a myth one a fable and these would have been passed down amongst the settlers and later residents of this planet Batuu with the details perhaps morphing one generation to the next.

[00:10:08] Batuuans are residents of an isolated if lovely looking planet looking to explain the world they find themselves in. In the first story that means explaining the natural structure of their haven at the edge of space and the second is more about explaining how people like themselves

[00:10:25] found themselves on this distant outpost in the first place. As a general note I'm going to do my best not to use the word legends when referring to these stories but that might get

[00:10:35] even trickier when we cover canon myths of the old republic some of which come from a companion book called Dark Legends but hey it wouldn't be proper Star Wars if it weren't a little confusing and

[00:10:47] self contradictory. We'll sort through it all and seek out clarity one story at a time starting with the Silent Circle. So the Silent Circle is perhaps the mithiest of all the myths in

[00:10:59] these story collections it's set in a past so distant it's senseless to try to date it. It's a story the original storytellers claim to have heard from the trees themselves. The opening of the

[00:11:11] story sets it up like this on the planet Batuu close to the black spire outpost where the boughs of ancient trees tower like sentinels over the land there is one particular stand of trees

[00:11:23] close to the ruins of a forgotten civilization in the hills where the locals fear to tread these ancient petrified trunks form an almost perfect circle within which nothing grows and

[00:11:36] no one has ever sought to build it is said that inside the clearing all sound is deadened for the long extinct trees amid a pervasive aura from their blackened trunks that discourages the presence of life yet there are those amongst the colonists who speak of another truth that

[00:11:53] the trees though long dead retain a modicum of the spirit that once inhabited them and that if one is to visit them alone at night with pure intent the trees will weave the sorrowful tail

[00:12:06] of their downfall it is a woeful tale of the dim distant past from a time when the trees grew tall and vibrant reaching so high that their leaves almost brushed the stars according to

[00:12:19] those rare few who claim to have heard it it goes something like this and then it goes on to tell the tale i'll summarize for you now it begins with the line at first there was only the water

[00:12:30] and the light and the trees the tale tells us where the planets first inhabitants growing to great heights with all that abundance they had an intelligence of their own something similar to what scientists in our world call the wood wide web which is the tangle of roots and

[00:12:47] fungi and microbes that allow trees to communicate at at least some basic level by swapping nutrients communicating things like that there's danger in another part of the forest this is a real thing

[00:12:58] if not undisputed so do go ahead and google it if you're not familiar with this concept the wood wide web but so yes trees are unsurprisingly more intelligent than we give them credit for

[00:13:09] but the early trees of batu took this to another level according to this myth they started to intelligently nurture the development of animal life the first great product of their effort were the great beasts which the illustration of this story paints a bit like a hippo with tusks

[00:13:26] a sort of fantasy proto space dinosaur and later the trees also nurtured the creation of the fey and by fey i mean actual star wars fairies tiny humanoids with wings the trees of this great grove near what will later become the black spire outpost trading center

[00:13:45] as happy as they were with their family of fey they had become intelligent enough to be driven by curiosity they are tall and can see far and they wonder what life is like near the distant

[00:13:57] mountains they wonder what life is like on an island in the middle of a sea so they send their creations to go look carrying their seeds to start new forests near the mountains and

[00:14:08] they nurture the development of sea beasts and see fey to share the same fate and their creations go out into the world never to return multiple waves leave and don't come back with

[00:14:20] the information that the trees had hoped to gather from them until one day a contingent for the mountains does return crying of scarcity they make war trying to reclaim the land of their ancestors so that they can have its rich resources for themselves the denizens of the

[00:14:37] sea at first try to ignore the conflict between the other two groups until the sea colony decides the only way to end the conflict is to conquer both groups and enforce peace and the war becomes a three-way battle then driving the development of new war technology eventually

[00:14:53] the fey realized they can mine the living force present in the trees themselves to fuel ever greater war engines until the war destroys them all until all that remained were the petrified husks of the trees that had started at all with that boundless curiosity that crushed

[00:15:10] their contentment so this is this does have a downer ending a melancholy one will say this is obviously a story of warning so we have to ask ourselves why would the citizens of batu

[00:15:25] tell this story well first of all of course who doesn't love an origin myth to explain your natural surroundings but also the message in the story seems to be to be happy with your

[00:15:35] lot in life which is probably a comforting moral for people living in a pleasant climate where there are few opportunities as for how much of this might actually be true well for this one i'm going to

[00:15:47] let you be the judge so i originally asked our favorite tokin scholar marilin arpiquilla who by the way is also has a background in the study of um you know mythology and history um i had

[00:16:02] asked her if she would be able to take part in this episode but she is uh well i would say unfortunately for us but fortunately for her busy doing nice things at the moment she will be back

[00:16:12] joining us for the old republic episode of myths i believe but she did go ahead and read the stories and this is what she had to say about them hi alisha so i read both of these short stories

[00:16:26] i don't really have much to say about the skiff in the galleons it reminded me of elizabeth in times with captains carrying letters of mark as the only covering of their bald acts of piracy

[00:16:37] i also thought of the massive spanish galleons being outmaneuvered by the smaller english ships though the actual tactics of those of the two circumstances are quite different and yeah alisha interjecting we'll talk about this story next but indeed it is very much um it very much has

[00:16:53] the feel of an adventure on the high seas of space marlin continues as for the silent circle they appear to be offering a cautionary ecological tale but i'm not altogether certain that i agree

[00:17:06] with some of their premises the first paragraph was a great example of fairy tale mythic writing though it kind of disappeared after a time and rightly so this is most assuredly not a fairy

[00:17:16] tale because there is no happy ending i find the notion of parthenogenic fey to be somewhat interesting even knowing that the trees have the ability to tap into the small f force of life

[00:17:26] they're a little vague on the details of how they can actually turn that into beings entirely other than themselves so alisha interjecting here again i'm i'm not sure that the fey were parthenogenic i don't think they were that's not how i interpreted it um and by the way

[00:17:40] anyone doesn't know if parthenogenesis is when a species reproduces by just basically copying themselves but this seems in this story to be more of a case of guided evolution and also to

[00:17:53] be clear when we talk about the force of life in the story this is the same big f force that the jedi tap into in their exploits okay getting back to what marlin says she says in myth and fairy

[00:18:05] tale terms i realize that curiosity is usually considered dangerous and can produce unhappy ends of course i'm thinking here of pandora's box to my mind though curiosity is an excellent antidote to fear and it can bring about wonderful new discoveries i can certainly agree with the

[00:18:22] folly of hubris in quotes but i have a feeling they're leaning on it just a bit too hard in their desire to point out the disastrous environmental practices frankly i don't see how the trees could be accused of wanting to be gods since there is actually no reference

[00:18:36] to gods in any of the story that they want to be creators is quite clear but it seems to me that that is not a bad thing now i'm thinking of jr our tokin and his poem mythopeia which asserts

[00:18:50] the right of humans to create since we were created in the image of a creator god of course the minute we're told that the trees planted a quote unquote pioneering spirit in the fey

[00:19:01] we knew that the thing was doomed because of the damage usually done by pioneers and yet one can make an argument that this whole galaxy has been populated by pioneers perhaps the more

[00:19:12] subtle message is one of balance of respecting limits certainly power is not always a bad thing unless it is a power over or domination but all too often power of any description is usually

[00:19:24] depicted as only power over and so definitely a negative so on the whole the silent circle was an interesting story and struck me as being something of a passion project by someone who had

[00:19:34] a deep concern for ecology in the environment they may have let their concern and caring take them a bit too far in terms of how they describe the actions of the trees but given our own ecological

[00:19:45] state on this planet i can hardly blame the author for that all the best marilane so thank you marilane i love especially what you say about how curiosity is an antidote to fear

[00:19:54] and i completely agree with you on that i'll be curious to hear your thoughts on why you think the colonists of this remote planet might find this myth an interesting story for them especially

[00:20:03] to pass around and i can't wait to discuss the over public myths with you we'll even get to do a little night sister discussion uh so okay moving on to the other story marilane mentioned at the

[00:20:14] start of her letter the skiff in the galleons this is set in a more measurable time not long after hyperspace travel was invented around 30 000 bby when the technology was still in its infancy and hyperspace lanes were a thing of the future so we're probably still before the 25 000

[00:20:33] bby dawn of the jedi or as the story puts it itself long ago in the days before the galaxy was tamed when all of space was but a wild frontier and hyperdrives were still primitive and dangerous

[00:20:45] to use there lived a woman named ariana surabhat and this is a fable about the first settlers on the planet batu it's about a group of wayfarers which are the brave souls who scouted beyond the

[00:20:58] edges of the known galaxy and millennia past and indeed this group of wayfarers is led by human woman named ariana surabhat at the start of the story the rest of her crew consists of

[00:21:09] zekal a clatunian which uh this is a species that looks a bit like dog like humans and we have okbu a weak way and the weak way they look like lizard they look like lizard-like unwrapped mummies

[00:21:24] basically and we also have jgam a bit an insect looking species of humanoids we can talk more about these species as they pop up further on down the timeline because i won't be differentiating between these three characters further because in the story they essentially function as a

[00:21:39] Greek chorus together a storytelling trick to frame the actions of their captain surabhat highlighting her virtues and what's interesting to note about these species though is that the clatunians in weak way are most often associated with the criminal underworld and piracy in star

[00:21:55] wars and the bit they're more intellectuals and musicians but a couple very prominent sith bit from legends um by that i mean the extended universe this they kind of give the bit bad name

[00:22:09] so and also of course the the bit look a little bug like which makes us as viewers perhaps a little suspicious of them um but so they take these species that kind of have a bad reputation

[00:22:22] and they make them actually it's an extremely virtuous crew despite living in a time and engaging in a profession that often resorts to piracy this crew will never take a shady deal

[00:22:33] they are good at what they do and manage to make a lot of money through honest work but captain surabhat refuses to upgrade to a bigger ship preferring her small nimble reliable skiff

[00:22:43] named the raven star one day surabhat in the crew of the raven star offered the opportunity to enter a competition with a great reward their charge to be the first to set foot on a

[00:22:53] rumored temperate planets beyond the edge of the currently known galaxy a location that could and we as readers know will become a great outpost for explorers traveling to and from beyond the edge of the known world many ships had tried the feet themselves never to return

[00:23:11] but when the raven star met the captains of their current competition too much larger better equipped galleons surabhat could see that they did not have the right character for the job these captains and she was convinced her crew could succeed where others had failed

[00:23:25] so they all set off to quote the story for days the raven star sailed alone in the void following the trajectory provided by the stellar photographers not once did the crew so much as

[00:23:37] see the glow of the galleons engines or any evidence of their passing they joked and laughed amongst themselves sharing their usual camaraderie but in truth they were concerned for they had all heard the stories of lost ships and missing crew of ghost ships drifting in the void

[00:23:53] the spirits of those on board still searching for their elusive destination they begun to wonder amongst themselves whether that was what would become of them out there in the uncharted depths of space were they destined to disappear to run out of food and fuel and air

[00:24:08] to be cast adrift like so many others who had set out on that path before them how could they be the first to the new world facing such immense galleons to which surabhat

[00:24:19] had granted such a lead indeed even if they were to survive the trip would it all be for not for they would find themselves without a prize and having spent much of their existing funds and supplies for the journey leaving them ill equipped for further ventures

[00:24:35] so this passage obviously conjures up images of pioneering sea journeys in our world as Marilyn alluded to but it also reminds me of a very memorable part of the earth sea books by

[00:24:46] Ursula K. Le Guin where the wizard Ged travels past the edges of the known world in a boat and if you're not yet familiar with these books yourself but do like fantasy please

[00:24:58] do yourself a favor and get on them and listen to Marilyn break them all down in the book noke episodes of the Lorehounds feed but anyway the story here becomes a sort of nod to the tortoise

[00:25:08] and the hare asops fable with surabhat keeping her crew slowly and steadily on track despite their Greek choruses of fears and half-hearted protests always subverted to their love and trust for their captain at one point they passed one of the galleons that had left them in its wake

[00:25:26] it's now plundered floating wreckage in space the large wealthy ship too enticing a mark to the pirates roaming the wilds of space but surabhat insists on searching the wreck for survivors and finds one a human engineer named cret despite her crew's reluctance she takes him on their ship

[00:25:44] and they continue on toward their goal now a crew of five and to quote the story here life aboard the raven star grew hard for food and water were rationed and with an

[00:25:55] extra mouth to feed all of them went hungry fuel reserves too were growing low and despite surabhat's optimism the mood on the ship became solemn the crew had begun to fear that they would be stranded

[00:26:07] out there amongst the twinkling stars like so many of the other crews that had attempted the voyage before them never to be heard from again even cret at first so grateful for his rescue had grown fretful fearing that he had been saved from one terrible plight to only

[00:26:21] distumble into another nevertheless he put his engineering skills to good use tuning the ship's engines increasing the fuel economy and ecking out what little reserves they had left while still maintaining the constant speed and heading surabhat had set indeed aside from their brief

[00:26:39] pause at the wreckage of the first galleon they had not wavered from their initial settings a slow and steady crawl across the gulf of space creeping slowly toward their goal despite it all surabhat remained resolute in her conviction that they would soon arrive at the

[00:26:54] anticipated planet so as they get closer to their goal um we see the space around them becoming a graveyard of the many ships that had attempted this journey before and eventually uh eventually the

[00:27:08] raven star catches up to the second galleon that had left at the same time as them which had now squandered its sizeable lead to scavenge the shipwrecks that they kept passing

[00:27:17] that galleon could have made it to the planet long before but they had made the decision to put wealth above speed and they were now stalked with the picked over treasures from all the other

[00:27:28] pirate looted ships and now that the raven star had caught up with them the galleon was ready to get back on task so they were definitely looking down on the little skiff and the captain of the

[00:27:39] galleon offered a new bet the two ships would take off at the same time with the same terms of the original contest but now with the added terms that if the skiff got to patu first the galleon

[00:27:51] would hand over the treasure they had recently plundered but if the galleon won surabhat would have to hand over raven star over the protests of her crew surabhat agrees to these terms and

[00:28:02] the galleon again leaves the little skiff in its wake and surabhat and her team continue on at their steady pace sure enough the skiff eventually catches up to the galleon floating in space

[00:28:13] not plundered this time but out of fuel after their extra idling at shipwrecks and extra weight they had taken on but surabhat ignores their cries for help for the moment because she has a contest to win

[00:28:25] so her team lands on the planet not only winning the original contest but also winning the treasures of the galleon as well and of course they went back and rescued the crew after they crossed

[00:28:36] the finish line and they all lived happily ever after or something like that so the story ends swooping low into the atmosphere of the new world the planet that would later come to be known as batu

[00:28:47] the raven star discovered a verdant glorious land punctuated by the towering bowls of immense fossilized trees there surabhat set the raven star down in a beautiful valley and planted her

[00:28:57] flag and to the cheers of her crew was first to set foot on the new world in time the valley came to be known as the surabhat river valley in honor of her triumph and surabhat and her

[00:29:08] crew were able to make a home for themselves on the new world of batu trading with the denizens of nearby wild space rich from the spoils of their victory so how much of this story might be true

[00:29:22] well like any good fable it feels exaggerated for effect and i think that we should clearly assume that it is but there could have very well been a contest about 30 000 years ago

[00:29:33] to find the rumored planet that would come to be known as batu it does seem a lot less likely that the only ship to make it would be the little skiff that could because they put virtue

[00:29:42] above greed and that one out over speed so why would citizens of batu tell this story um well this would be a story that settlers tell them they're kind of talking about themselves when they talk about surabhat communicating their community's values and perhaps consoling

[00:30:00] themselves in their isolation by celebrating the steadfastness of their culture attributing it to a mythical sort of mother of them all so to speak uh it's a tale uh that promises rewards for those who do not stray from the path of virtue something that mild spoiler alerts will

[00:30:19] become all too common on this planet thousands of years later when it becomes neglected after hyperspace lanes offer a much faster and more convenient bypass around the planet to the

[00:30:28] worlds beyond uh so like all fables this is a morality tale about why are we here and what do we need to do to keep our community on the up and up and those are the two canon ancient myths

[00:30:48] we've been given so far by the star wars powers that be um both about the planet of batu on the galaxy's edge let's take a quick break here and then i'll be back with bob to talk movie updates and

[00:31:01] mailbag with a round of four slower to finish us off after that see you in a sec okay so i am here with dead eye jedi bob and bob i'm sure everyone has missed your voice these past few acolyte

[00:31:33] weeks yeah it's gonna be back so without any acolyte spoilers since we're earlier in the timeline how are you finding the show in general i'm really enjoying the show immensely i think it has

[00:31:48] just the right amount of action um we are as we record this five episodes in and i feel like there's still a pretty good bit of mystery to uncover uh several shocking events have shook

[00:32:02] me to my core uh so i mean i i can't believe we only have three episodes left as of as of this recording it's just flown by so i'm really having a blast with it yeah and i'm enjoying your

[00:32:15] breakdowns each week too on your youtube channel yeah it's it's crazy to try to get those done in time so they can uh pop up on the channel at least two or so days after after the episode i'd

[00:32:28] like to try and get them done earlier but with our wonky internet oh yeah true yeah oh trust me i understand that completely um but yeah it's um if anyone wants to check out uh bob's recaps there is

[00:32:43] a link to his youtube channel on the show notes so definitely do check that out um so we're jumping though today back to the very beginning of the star wars timeline even more beginning than than

[00:32:55] we've discussed before with with uh what listeners will have just heard which is my coverage of uh two myths of ancient batu but we also wanted to talk about some news that has come up for the dawn

[00:33:09] of the jedi film which actually it seems might be called jedi prime what do you think of this title bob i think it really makes me want to see the film uh even more uh it it of course

[00:33:24] reminds me of vector prime which is an old uh expanded universe novel but i mean it really makes me think of you know the the very first jedi and who knows what we're going to be uncovering and

[00:33:39] realizing in that film yeah exactly yeah so basically we're not a hundred percent sure that this is the title but one of the producers simon emmanuel he said during an interview with

[00:33:49] sfx magazine that uh he basically let's slip he said james mangled's jedi prime is set thousands of years before the original trilogy and i'm really excited to see what happens there so hmm yeah sounds

[00:34:03] like a good tip off yeah it seems like this hasn't been the first time in star wars uh interviews that things have kind of been let's slip accidentally i always find that kind of funny

[00:34:16] when that happens usually it's never anything big but um yeah i i always kind of giggle when that happens it's like it's like peeking at your christmas presents a little bit early

[00:34:28] yeah no i mean i think also because people anytime they changed the name from they said don of the jedi before so people are already like how could you change the name we hate change

[00:34:38] yeah but best guess right now is that jedi prime movie if it's called that will be released december 2027 and there will be that daisy ridley movie coming out at the very end of the star wars

[00:34:53] timeline in december 2026 we'll see but that's the best guess at the moment yeah um but i also asked you here because i wanted to go through some feedback that we got so we're only going

[00:35:07] through today feedback we've received so far about this earliest part of the timeline and uh the general setup of the podcast because then of course we'll be talking about old republic feedback in the

[00:35:19] old republic and so forth uh but so this is just our dawn of the jedi feedback got you so our first is from nancy m who says alisha and dead i jedi bob thank you for this podcast this podcast

[00:35:33] is a filler to my star wars black hole i was 13 in the summer of 1977 and my younger brother and i saw a new hope too many times to count i've seen all the movies but not the animated series

[00:35:44] when my son was young i read him a few books but those seem to have disappeared from my house your intro episode was excellent in laying down how the pod will work as someone with good

[00:35:53] but not excellent knowledge of the canon i found it useful as did other listeners i'm sure and all during e1 i found myself uh saying i didn't know that well that explains that

[00:36:05] and the biggest surprise for me personally is that with the disney first purchase there is now official canon and non-canon great job and can't wait to continue this adventure with you thank you nancy that's very encouraging we need to hear this definitely um roi jackson says just a

[00:36:25] quick thank you for your new star wars canon timeline podcast i'm only halfway through the era one overview but i'm already impressed i'm old enough to say i went to the premiere of the first

[00:36:34] star wars film in 1977 remained a fan for a number of years before life got in the way in terms of career marriage etc only in the last couple of years as i'm now retired have i come back and of

[00:36:46] course i'm completely overwhelmed by the content i'm more of a book reader and film tv watcher not into games or comics but even so there's a lot to take in as someone who loves reading

[00:36:57] historical fiction i thought the best approach to the canon was chronological so your podcast has come is just the right time for me to dive in thank you again and i hope you achieve the many

[00:37:06] seasons you set out to do regards roi jackson so yeah any i mean we have a it seems like we have a lot of og star wars fans coming back and you know reconnecting with the lore after

[00:37:20] yeah the the flood of content we in recent years yeah i think um one of my favorite things to to do is to listen to stories from the og fans because i mean of course i wasn't in existence

[00:37:37] in 1977 so whenever i hear oh i saw star wars during the summer of 90s or during the summer of 77 uh and this happened and this happened it's fascinating to me i could listen to stories

[00:37:48] like that for hours because it's a movie that change the way we look at movies as they say on the special edition vhs date before you start them and it's awesome to get whatever bits of info you

[00:38:04] can from people that were actually there experiencing star wars back in 77 so i really like uh emails like that from from nancy and roi yeah um i mean yeah you and i are the same age so we

[00:38:19] basically we grew up because our parents fell in love with the movie at those 77 screenings or whatever and um pass that on to us and so we we grew up knowing it was important already but

[00:38:30] it's i love to hear when people just discovered it you know i just can't imagine i would have i would have been even more obsessed i'm sure definitely i would have too so red zippy says can i just say congrats and brava for seeing your passion through this

[00:38:48] podcast i'm in awe as brian can confirm i'm always asking now where is this in the timeline canon legend universe so this podcast is right up my alley again congrats thank you thank you and um

[00:39:00] yeah we have a longer email from maryland who our favorite tokyan scholar maryland are pookila she's actually i think going to be joining me for the canon myths of the old republic episode that's

[00:39:11] going to be coming up in about a month um but she is not only a tokyan scholar but also has a broad background in um mythology and history and uh so it's always a great person to weigh in on lore

[00:39:25] um so she says hello alisha and bob i have so been looking forward to this podcast i often feel quite lost in the minutiae of the star wars galaxy and you both are so thorough in your

[00:39:36] knowledge and detailed to the nth degree mind you i doubt i'm going to pick up all the stuff you're telling us in a single episode all in one day but it's nice to know that it's all there

[00:39:45] to go back to anytime i want yeah i mean that's that's the idea you know i'm trying to find the right balance for the lore but it's also like i wanted to be a reference that um if people are like

[00:39:56] oh like cortosis came up recently and it's like oh yeah maybe you want to revisit an episode where we talked about cortosis in detail right so so you'll find all that in in the show notes there's

[00:40:10] always a link to a blog post that has uh that lists all the major lore topics that are touched on in each episode so you can search that to find uh any particular topic if you're interested in

[00:40:24] she continues some observations from your first episode concerning the mortis arc and the force in general it seems to me that there are so many conflicting descriptions treatments and theories that it's difficult to really get a comprehensive coherent view consistency would be really nice

[00:40:41] but perhaps not possible just consider how difficult it would be to explain quote unquote spirituality with its many interpretations and practices on our world to anyone from a galaxy far far away yeah i think that's exactly it that you know the force is very much a spiritual thing

[00:40:58] and different cultures interact with it and view it differently what do you think bomb i think so too and um when it comes to the way characters in the in the star wars galaxy see

[00:41:11] the energy field or the force or whatever you want to call it i like how several of them interpret it differently someone sees a river someone might see fire someone might see just light in terms of you know what they're looking at in terms of that energy

[00:41:29] field and uh i i wonder if they're going to leave a lot of that uh a mystery for for some time to come i wonder if the uh the fun and that is in the the imagination the speculation

[00:41:44] whatever but uh boy yeah the mortis arc that's something that i think a lot of fans keep coming back to because it was something we'd never seen before and right i mean i'm sure we'll be

[00:41:58] gaving about that for years to come because it was just so huge yeah well it's going to be very i mean because i guess any the creation of the you know the so the mortis arc for anyone who doesn't

[00:42:09] know um because i'm not just to remind people at least um mortis is the planet slash dimension whatever where the father the daughter and the son are the you know sort of incarnations

[00:42:23] of the force energies ashla bogan and bendu um that you know the light the dark and the neutral so uh yeah so father is the neutral daughter is the light son is the dark and um in the clomores

[00:42:40] when we talk about that we'll see you know there's it's a bit about the creation story of the force itself but that would actually of course be at the beginning of time so we're not going to see

[00:42:52] that in the dawn of the jedi movie but we will see how i guess how the jedi discover how to use the force right and then whatever this jedi prime is then they are kind of the person who sets what

[00:43:06] many thousands of jedis will do for thousands of years after that how the teaching is passed on from in that many generations yeah um and i guess people who use the force differently you know they just encountered it differently at first and uh so they have their

[00:43:26] own spontaneous figuring out how to interact with it and uh pull the threads as some later witches might say definitely that's exactly what i was thinking too um so merlin also said i asked about

[00:43:44] how similar the treatment of hyperspace in star wars was to uh foundation because apparently it was inspired by foundation and she says i also wanted to say that the star wars treatment

[00:43:54] of hyperspace is very different from foundation in the books she says because of course the tv show is very different from the foundation books um she says there is no traveling quote-unquote in hyperspace in the foundation universe rather you enter hyperspace at one jump point to come

[00:44:12] out at another jump point no quote-unquote spacers required by the way because spacers in the tv show there are spacers like people who help you do the jumps but she says in the books they're not required

[00:44:26] in the spacers in the books are remarkably different from what we see in the tv series really more like human astronauts um she says as i understand that these jump points are located sufficiently

[00:44:36] distant from planets and stars and other obstacles that they still uh that there is still some sub light speed travel required but this explanation is a lot closer to our current knowledge of

[00:44:47] physics on the other hand it is very safe to say that the city planet of coruscant in star wars of course is a direct descendant of tran tor which is the planet in um foundation um i think that star

[00:44:58] wars got its notion of hyperspace travel from star trek hmm i have to admit i don't even though i've started doing my like rewatch binge of star trek i don't know enough about hyperspace travel

[00:45:11] um so yeah so i was just reading coincidentally recently in one of the science publications i follow that they are looking at whether it's possible for uh you know extraterrestrial beings to have traveled faster than the speed of light using basically what they're calling warp

[00:45:32] bubbles and so the warp bubble um theoretically would create a little bubble around the spacecraft that would you know help you travel um through whatever whatever this uh you know travel faster than light travel through this wormhole this extra dimension whatever it works so i have to wonder

[00:45:56] if what we see in hyperspace bob you asked for the explanation of what hyperspace looks like before and it says basically like white lines streaming by i wonder if that's the view inside the bubble or

[00:46:07] something wow and pergoles can don't need the bubble apparently right space whales no anyway just just an idea tying back to real science not uh obviously this is a more recent scientific theory i think like dating back just about you know less than a decade so star wars

[00:46:29] is not based on that but uh i always find it interesting when star wars happens into science the science is not the key to star wars but sometimes it stumbles into science and it works right

[00:46:41] she's uh marilene says i wish they had not chosen to give an important plan at the name it reminds me too much of a chew yeah that's exactly what i think of too actually yeah it's

[00:46:53] true especially because they could have just kept tithon as the origin of the jedi but there you go yeah that's what i was thinking they were going to do but

[00:47:04] they went with arto so there we go and i don't know why i have to say it like i see it in dutch and i say it in dutch um i guess uh arch two i that's even worse isn't it

[00:47:15] what do you prefer achtow or achtu both my screen readers seem to pronounce it achtow so that's what i think okay all right i'm going i mean yeah it's star wars and you know george would

[00:47:28] pronounce different names differently depending on what he was feeling like on whatever particular day it was so you get every one fair enough that's true twi like twilight who cares yeah um which oh by the

[00:47:44] way i've been talked about that yet on this point the timeline that's a species we'll talk about them a lot more later um so marilene continues recently i've come to understand the light and dark sides

[00:47:54] of the force as a model for what some spiritual traditions would refer to as the familiar great love and great suffering in life suffering uses love to heal and grow compassion love uses

[00:48:06] suffering to gain wisdom darn it and it makes me wonder is balance simply another word for control hmm what do you think of that that is that's very very deep um yeah i like the sound of that

[00:48:20] quite a bit actually she says um it's usually can interpreted as stasis absence of motion but i think that is a misunderstanding the word balance comes from the same root as the word ballet to dance

[00:48:34] it seems that balance requires motion perhaps the ability to live with and recognize the cycles back and forth between the two is a better way and the absence of that could be a metaphor for what the

[00:48:45] jedi for where the jedi aired but i am altogether ignorant of how those early eons of jedi development are depicted something else for me to look forward to from your podcast series

[00:48:56] well yeah to tell you the truth fans especially with the foundation of the jedi in canon at least and um these early millennia of the jedi we are all kind of blind and lost in room to fill in that story

[00:49:14] i'm so glad you addressed the missing fourth the servant slash mother usually quote-unquote dead mother syndrome is a prime staple of fairy tales and folk tales it appears to me that the star wars universe has picked up on that think about how one later character

[00:49:30] the epitome of girl power when she's introduced winds up dead from an unsuccessful pregnancy and of course by unsuccessful pregnancy i mean to the world her pregnancy was presented as unsuccessful because if i recall correctly she was put in her open cough invisibly

[00:49:48] quote-unquote pregnant for her procession um yeah and we'll talk about much later very important what happened to a woman who died while pregnant yeah it's a very important part of the story don't

[00:50:00] worry we'll talk about it if you don't know who we're talking about um we do know that her pregnancy was doubly successful but that was kept hidden um and of course there's also the ever popular

[00:50:11] dark mother sometimes tropes can feel a bit old don't you think gone to the next episode all the best marilin um i well i think maybe like i i don't think we quite did avalott justice and

[00:50:27] but especially because she plays a more prominent role in stories that take place later in the timeline right she's kind of like this uh like celestial primordial power how would you describe avalott

[00:50:44] yeah exactly very primordial quite horrifying i would say and if she ever does show up in in live action i really hope that they go into that i hope that they don't water her down i hope that

[00:51:00] we get to see just just how uh very primordial she can be she's always been one of my favorite characters just because i think of her and as an eldritch chair always it it popped into my head

[00:51:16] what if she turned out to in some way be linked to a new um a new threat that's been talked about recently in the high republic part of the timeline called the nameless yeah that's very possible

[00:51:30] that'll be cool yeah if you don't know who the nameless are we talk all about it in the high republic episode yeah but yeah i don't know could i'm still waiting for it's one of those ones

[00:51:41] like in marvel mephisto you know mephisto is showing up sooner or later but we're all going to theorize that that he's going to show up in every single thing until it happens i see the same thing

[00:51:50] happening with avalott anytime there's a new show like well maybe yeah maybe she'll show up here well that concludes our feedback for the dawn of the jedi era and if anyone else wants to

[00:52:04] send in feedback as well we will have future mailbag episodes for this era and all the other eras you can send those messages to sw timeline podcast at gmail.com and you'll find that link

[00:52:15] in the show notes do you have any any more dawn of the jedi final thoughts bob i think we covered everything honestly we will any any more tidbits of news we will analyze them and juice them for

[00:52:30] information oh yes all right well thank you so much bob for joining me today and uh yeah i know that people will look forward to us planning another episode soon yeah no problem thanks for

[00:52:44] having me check out bob's youtube channel link in the show notes so that concludes the episode as it was planned but as i said i happened to stumble across some interesting descriptions of the force

[00:52:58] in general while doing research this week that i thought might be good food for thought for this earliest piece of the timeline where one of the primary focuses is learning to understand and

[00:53:07] harness the force this part will be quick um the first description comes from the star wars data bank the official encyclopedia of star wars knowledge on star wars dot com and their description of the force is the force is a mysterious energy field created by life that

[00:53:25] binds the galaxy together harnessing the power of the force gives the jedi the sith and others sensitive to the spiritual energy extraordinary abilities such as levitating objects tricking minds and seeing things before they happen while the force can grant users powerful

[00:53:42] abilities it also directs their actions and it has a will of its own which both scholars and mystics have spent millennia seeking to understand so this explains why the quote-unquote living force

[00:53:54] we talked about in the ancient trees of batu is the same force on which the jedi call when they are doing space wizard things this also raises a question i'll be thinking about going forward

[00:54:05] did the force in the silent circle help direct the trees actions how does it help direct the actions of jedi going forward and when and how does this fail i don't have easy answers to these questions but they're well worth considering as we continue through the timeline

[00:54:21] the rest of the force descriptions i will include here we're gathered together in an excellent stack exchange post by mark rogers so thank you mark rogers um the first passage comes from the novelization of the film revenge of the sith for the record the film is of course

[00:54:35] canon but this novelization including the description of the force and the abilities of mace window aka jedi samuel l jackson uh that's all legends now so um however i still think it

[00:54:48] it i still think this description tells us interesting things about the nature of the force so here's how it goes and while the sith lord answered mace window reached into the force to mace's force perception the world crystallized around them becoming a gem of reality shot through with

[00:55:04] flaws and fault lines of possibility this was mace's particular gift to see how people and situations fit together in the force to find the sheer planes that can cause them to break

[00:55:14] in useful ways and to intuit what sort of strike would best make the cut though he could not consistently determine the significance of the structures he perceived the presence of shatter points was always clear so we'll ignore what this description tells us about the character

[00:55:31] of mace window in general we'll get a chance to talk about him a lot and during era four when he lived but i love this description of the force as a web of possibility and and

[00:55:42] the way this particular character sees it as this strong rigid structure that he can uh break to his will so we'll talk about the rise of the sith mentioned in the first description a splinter

[00:55:57] group of the jedi um when we talk about the old republic and can continue to talk about them along after that but these descriptions give us our first glimpse in this part of how even amongst

[00:56:09] one group the jedi in this case the way each person visualizes and thus interacts with the force is different and although the jedi or the group we meet in this universe it is trained

[00:56:19] to use the force most consistently even they can't help but bring their own personal frames of perspective to the table and how they interact with it so contrast for example how mace perceives

[00:56:30] the force in the passage i just read with yoda's version in this final passage for today which comes from the novel labyrinth of evil which is also set in the fourth era and is also now considered

[00:56:41] legends so take the details of these final two passages with a grain of salt but think of them more as a way to illustrate the vast spectrum of force interaction and um for anyone who doesn't

[00:56:51] know yoda is the little green guy we'll talk about him a lot on this bud especially starting with the young jedi adventures season one episode in era three the high republic but for now just

[00:57:02] know that he is perhaps the most important jedi to ever live so this passage from labyrinth of evil goes yoda surrendered himself to the current of the force sometimes when the current was swift

[00:57:14] and steadfast he could see through the eyes of his fellow jedi almost as if they were the temple's remote sensors and sometimes when the current was especially forceful when it surged as if descending from great heights he could hear the voices of an era four jedi master name

[00:57:30] redacted for spoilers as clearly as if he were still alive master yoda he might say we still have much to learn the force remains a code only partially deciphered but another key has been found

[00:57:43] we will become stronger than we have ever been today was not one of those days today the current was interrupted by eddies and whirlpools hydraulic traps whose roar overpowered the voices yoda sought to hear today the currents was not pellucid but muddied by red soil eroded from

[00:58:01] distant shores treacherous with obstacles tainted though he was scarcely aware of it his eyes were squeezed tight his eyeballs dancing beneath as if incapable of focusing on any one thing he had an image of himself drawing aside a veil only to find another and another beyond that

[00:58:18] the dark side frustrated his every effort to see clearly the experience was still something new to him even though he'd had centuries to grow accustomed to foreboding he had lived far longer without it the dark side never completely disappeared it scratched at the surface like an insect

[00:58:34] crawling across the transparasteel panel and he had been able to sense its incremental increases in strength when the jedi aired or when the republic aired and soon the two were hand in hand

[00:58:47] so by the way anyone else who like me just had their belief in their extensive vocabulary shaken by the use of the word pellucid it means translucently clear easily understood basically just means lucid both lucid and pellucid derived from a latin word that means to shine through

[00:59:06] and basically pellucid is the more formal version more often used in scientific literature about say vision and transparasteel that is that is a star specific term it's a hardy and transparent material that was used to make windows and other parts of you know starships

[00:59:27] and things like that it was made primarily from something called lomite ore and it could be these windows could be made in a way that made them blaster resistant but usually not lightsaber resistant

[00:59:42] so they're not quite as effective as an as a material we'll be talking about later a metal called cortosis but transparasteel yeah it is to use the other word we just learned it is pellucid

[00:59:57] you can see through it light is can go through so very handy for starships but anyway vocab lessons aside this passage when contrasted with the mace window passage shows us how interpretations of the force vary as much as personality and show us a reflection

[01:00:12] of the persons who hold these points of view and this passage also shows us that the balance between light and the light and dark sides of the force is always a concern darkness has

[01:00:22] always been present will always be but it should not dominate a central concern of the a central concern of the Jedi will be discussing for many eras to come and if you're wondering what

[01:00:33] this republic mentioned is about well then you are in exactly the right mind space to move on to the era to overview the old republic the birth of the galaxy government for millennia to come

[01:00:45] close allies of the Jedi from beginning to end and i'll leave you to ponder that until next time um i'll keep the outro short for this one but if you're listening at the time

[01:00:55] of release the breakdown of the alkali episode six will be released right after this episode and also stay tuned to the star wars canon timeline podcast feed in the coming weeks for more flashback episodes revisiting the old republic first looking at sith legends shown in five

[01:01:10] episodes of the star wars visions animated anthology series and then marilane will be my guest to discuss more of these canon myths but these then set in the old republic check

[01:01:21] the link in the show notes to see the full episode timeline laid out in the blog post where you can see exactly which episodes and short stories will be covering in these upcoming episodes

[01:01:30] in the show notes you also find links to the email address for this podcast sw timeline podcast at gmail.com as well as a link to the lorhounds website where you'll find links to

[01:01:40] subscribe to any of the podcasts on the network on your podcast app of choice this includes the main lorhounds feed where john and david are in the middle of deep coverage of the house of the

[01:01:51] dragon season two as well as the radioactive ramblings podcast currently covering the boys new season and rings and rituals caught up and ready to talk you through season two of rings of power this summer uh plus properly howard movie reviews and my own wool shift dust the adaptation

[01:02:08] analysis podcast soon to be picking back up with our deep dive into all things dune if you're listening at the time of release i'll see you back on this feed for the next

[01:02:16] episode of the acolyte if you're listening to this later not at the time of publishing i recommend continuing to work through the timeline of episodes as they're laid out meaning your next episode

[01:02:26] should be the old republic overview or eventually there will be an episode breaking down the dawn of the jedi movie or i guess i should say jedi prime before that either way i hope you enjoy

[01:02:35] your star wars journey you're only at the beginning may the force be with you the whole way through okay david this is where we're supposed to choose a side green or black john my soul is as black as night

[01:03:12] your turn i am black for life so we're not fighting i thought this is where hbo wanted us to like pick sides and fight and stuff don't worry i'm sure we'll find plenty to disagree about on the pod

[01:03:27] but we seem to agree on one thing we both really like the show the politics the drama the lore it was made for the lore hounds and since we just finished recapping season one we couldn't be

[01:03:38] more ready to defend our black queen in the dance of the dragons and with the season pass option in supercast listeners can get early ad-free access to each weekly scene by scene deep dive

[01:03:49] plus our custom show guide with all the characters and connections see you in the lore hounds podcast feed each week for our dragon fire hot but probably positive takes the lore hounds house

[01:04:00] of the dragon coverage is also safe for team green consumption side effects may include a deeper understanding of dragon lore a hardened conflict with itself and an inescapable urge to read the book fire and blood by george r. r. martin dragon seeds may experience burning