Era I: DAWN OF THE JEDI – overview

[00:00:00] OK, David. This is where we're supposed to choose a side. Green or black? John, my soul is as black as night. 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.

[00:00:24] Don't worry. I'm sure we'll find plenty to disagree about on the pod. 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 Lorehounds.

[00:00:36] And since we just finished recapping season one, we couldn't be more ready to defend our black queen in the Dance of the Dragons. And with the season pass option and supercast, listeners can get early, ad-free access to

[00:00:47] each weekly scene by scene deep dive, plus our custom show guide with all the characters and connections. See you in the Lorehounds podcast feed each week for our dragonfire hot, but probably positive, takes. The Lorehounds House of the Dragon covers is also safe for team green consumption. Side

[00:01:03] 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. Hello and welcome to the Star Wars Canon Timeline podcast. I'm your host, Alicia,

[00:01:36] and I am here with your co-host for today, Jedi Jedi Bob. Now just a small note before we get started, this episode was recorded on May 6th, 2024. So if you found this podcast later on in our own real world timeline, this might not actually be the first

[00:01:51] episode you're listening to, but it is the first full episode that we're recording. The content of this podcast was accurate up to the date that it was recorded, May 6th, but that might change as more content is released. We will cross those bridges when

[00:02:04] we get to them and we will make sure to issue corrections as retcons force us to. Make sure that you do listen to the quick intro episode that was released before this, which lays out how this podcast is going to work and introduces you

[00:02:21] to key terms like legends versus Canon and the Star Wars dating system. Yeah, so definitely go back and give that a listen if you haven't yet. So Jedi Jedi Bob, massive Star Wars fan. So glad to have you here. I'm a massive Jedi Jedi Bob fan. Welcome.

[00:02:39] Thank you very much. Now, listeners to Lorhounds and Walsh, if dust might have heard you before, but for people who are meeting you for the first time, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you earned this

[00:02:52] moniker? Well, as you said, I've been a Star Wars fan for decades and I am totally blind. Can't see a freaking thing. So I mean, I thought that I Jedi Bob would be a fun moniker to adopt. So that's how it happened.

[00:03:12] Yeah. And that's also the name of your YouTube channel, which is linked in the show notes. Awesome. I think definitely people when they hear you're blind, they're like, what? But he watches Star Wars. Yes, you have several interesting Q&As on your site about that.

[00:03:27] I recommend people check out. Yeah, definitely. I call you the walking wookie pedia because you've read a bunch of the books, both canon and legends. Do you have a preference between legends and the new canon?

[00:03:41] I always say that I don't know if I've come across a piece of Star Wars that I haven't liked. I've always associated Star Wars with this massive buffet of sorts, because if you don't like something from one column, you can always wander over to the other column.

[00:03:59] And I think there's bound to be something that you like. I think I love it all. What's your favorite era? I would say. That varies right now. I'm really into the old republic era, things that I can't necessarily read

[00:04:18] about in comics, I try to learn as much as I can online. So I think right now that would probably be the old republic as well as the high republic. Yeah, I mean, I think I like the old republic because it is it's new in the canon side.

[00:04:37] It's not so new on the legend side. It really has a lot of rich stories there. So we're going to have some fun in the next episode after this one speculating on what legend stuff they might pull over to canon. I cannot wait for that one.

[00:04:53] Yeah, so I've also read a lot of Star Wars books, not as many as you Bob, but will definitely be reading more as we prep the rest of the series. We're going to be doing this for quite a while. Bob's going to help fill in the gaps.

[00:05:06] And we're also going to use his incredible memory to help us dig up important characters and links that might be important to the overall story. And I will be picking up comics reading duty since those, as you said,

[00:05:18] Bob are rarely, unfortunately in an accessible format other than Wookie PDS summaries. So I will do my best to bring key comics moments to life for, especially our visually impaired listeners and just have to take a moment

[00:05:32] here to call Star Wars out on accessibility because corrects me from wrong Bob, but how many accessibility features do they have on their games? Like brand new games like the Jedi games? They they're trying to catch up.

[00:05:48] They did say they were going to add text to speech to their menus, but that hasn't happened yet in Jedi Survivor. So we do have a bit of directional assists, but I mean, it's been a year since the game came out and it's kind of it right now.

[00:06:03] Hopefully it will be added as time progresses. I'm not sure though. Well, yeah, we will also be I have Margin joining for an episode after the next one who's played pretty much all the Star Wars games. So he'll be repping that side.

[00:06:19] And again, I've played some, but it's just completely impossible for anyone to do it all. It's so much. Yeah. And in this episode, though, we're going to start at the very beginning. We're going to do a super quick run through of eons of galactic history,

[00:06:34] talking about the origins of that galaxy far, far away. So yeah, I was going to do a double episode with the Old Republic. But then I asked myself, why are you creating that extra work for poor future? Alicia, what did she ever do to you?

[00:06:48] So I decided to make my life easier by splitting it into already now. So Dawn of the Jedi today, you'll get the Old Republic overview in a few days, leaving some room to back date some future Dawn of the Jedi movies into this part of the episode list.

[00:07:05] We can for now, though, consider this a stub episode of sorts because Star Wars content is almost certainly going to fill in the history and lore of this era and the years to come. Hopefully starting with the announced James Mangold, Dawn of the Jedi film,

[00:07:18] which we'll talk about more this episode after our Old Republic overview, where we'll be diving deeper into the legends lore in this era of the timeline and also with the Knights of the Old Republic and Old Republic MMO games.

[00:07:31] These are games that are kind of in gray area of Cannondesity. We'll talk about that, what that means as we go. The episode after that will also be a stub of sorts, which will it'll be a brief

[00:07:43] overview of the High Republic era and we'll explain the difference between the Old Republic and the High Republic, of course. And basically we're prepping you for the new Star Wars TV show, The Acolyte, which takes place at the end of the High Republic area,

[00:07:57] starts on Disney Plus on June 4th. And we're going to be covering it weekly on this podcast. So before that, we'll make sure Bob and I explain the High Republic on a high level, but we will save the deep dive from there's for anyone who doesn't know.

[00:08:11] There's massive series of books and comics and interrelated audio dramas that have been released in three phases. So we'll talk a little bit about what those phases are in the High Republic era and the highlights, you know, the world building and plot points

[00:08:30] and characters who might or definitely will turn up in the Acolyte. But we're going to save the deep dive into the books or later after the Acolyte when because we have a feeling that people are going to start picking up these

[00:08:45] books a lot more once that show begins and they get more curious about this era of Star Wars history. And yeah, we're all a bit behind because the books are still releasing right now. So. And then finally, the last planned pre Acolyte episode will be a quick

[00:09:01] look at the first season of the preschool series, Young Jedi Adventures, which is also set during the High Republic. So that's a lot this month, Bob. Yeah. I'm looking forward to it. Yeah. Thank you for agreeing to join on this journey. You're very welcome.

[00:09:18] So OK, so this we are now officially in era one of our nine eras of Star Wars. So this era is called Dawn of the Jedi, although that's actually the last thing that happens in this era. First, just running through what happened.

[00:09:34] There are some things confirmed in canon. And again, the dating system we're using is BBY so before the Battle of Yavin. So that's the Battle of Yavin is an event that took place in the original Star Wars movie that was released in 1977.

[00:09:49] So we're just saying BBY years before the original movie is set in a timeline. And we're going to move quickly through this era because everything about this period confirmed in canon comes from information we learn later in the timeline.

[00:10:06] So we're going to discuss these revelations more when we get there. For instance, the Clone Wars animated series in era four is especially one of like the greatest sources of Star Wars lore and world building. I think you're also a fan of that one too. Oh, very much.

[00:10:24] I think that's actually one of the first things we bonded over was the Clone Wars, if I remember correctly. I think it was too, actually. Yeah. But yeah, so going back to the very, very beginning,

[00:10:35] the galaxy far, far away where we will be spending by far most of this podcast was formed eons ago, BBY around a black hole. And so there was basically this wellspring of life, which was a sort of force planet.

[00:10:54] It's also called a planet in legend where all life was born and the energy of all life. There's two types of force. There's the living force, which is the energy of all life. And that's what people mean when they say, may the force be with you.

[00:11:07] And there's the cosmic force, which is the force of the universe around it. And there in this I'm about to bring up something very controversial. I'll say a word that some people consider a curse word, the midichlorians.

[00:11:22] They were apparently birthed from the wellspring of life and they are microscopic symbiotic organisms in all living things that connect this living force to the cosmic force. So this allows the force to communicate with life forms.

[00:11:37] And it turns out some people are born with more midichlorians, which makes it easier for them to talk to the force. So, Bob, what do you think about the big midichlorian controversy? What's your thought on midichlorians?

[00:11:51] I remember when episode one had come out, I was around 15 and I heard that concept for the first time and I was just fascinated by it because it was something none of us had any idea about. And I just let George tell his story.

[00:12:08] And I was certainly open to learn more about it as I still am to this day. I think it's a fascinating concept. Yeah, I like that is they basically the reason why it's controversial is because

[00:12:21] on the scale of sci-fi to fantasy, Star Wars has always been considered more fantasy, like the Jedi or Space Wizards, a lot of people say, which is fair. And the midichlorians is then trying to apply scientific logic to that fantasy.

[00:12:37] But I don't understand why people are so bothered. I kind of like it. It doesn't say that people. I think one of the problems is that they think that people are not

[00:12:47] who are born with a low M count, as it's called, that they won't be able to access the force. But I think that's actually the opposite. What do you think, Bob? I think that we're seeing more and more weak forced people learning at least some some things.

[00:13:01] Yeah, I. I feel the same way as you. I think they're they're trying to give us a bit more information in terms of how it all works. But at the same time, I wonder if they're wanting to leave a bit of mystery in. In the franchise as well.

[00:13:21] Yeah, I mean, I guess they're kind of leaving the door open to fill in the gaps later with different stories, which like maybe this Don of the Jedi movie, yeah. Or definitely or also from the Clone Wars, we get a lot of this information.

[00:13:38] We learn about the also at this dawn of everything. There were three entities called Celestials and Legends, but they haven't officially been called that in canon. As far as I know, yeah, as always, if anyone at home was like, no, actually, you're missing

[00:13:57] this reference book X, Y and Z. Please always let us know. And the email address, you'll find that in the show notes. It's SW timeline podcast at gmail.com. Always want to hear your feedback.

[00:14:09] Yeah, so they with the father, son and daughter and they live in a I don't know. What do you think more to says Bob? You think it's like a planet or a dimension? I wonder if it's more of a dimension.

[00:14:25] It's I feel like it's still very much open to the viewer's interpretation. I feel like you could spend hours talking to to fans about this. And you're going to get so many different answers. It kind of reminds me of the old story

[00:14:44] about different blind folks seeing an elephant and having different views as to what it might look like. What do you think an elf looks like? The elephants. Oh, I thought you said elf elephants. OK, I guess there are different interpretations to that too.

[00:15:05] And not because like are we talking about the rings elf or are we talking like a Kebler elf? Yeah, exactly. No elephants, I get it. Yes. OK. Yeah. Do you hope that they keep it ambiguous? What mortises or do you hope for answers?

[00:15:21] I do love that air of mystery that that mortis gives off. Although I do like learning little tidbits about it here and there. I think I would like to know more, but at the same time. I do love speculation. So yeah, a little bit of both.

[00:15:40] Yeah, but this that's also this world is so rich. It does leave lots of room for speculation. I think that's because we're talking about literally millennia of history. They could they could milk this IP until we all die. And I hope they do, honestly. I hope so too.

[00:15:59] In a quality way, you know, in a story conscious. Yeah. So yeah, maybe some people at home hear father, son, daughter and are wondering if there's a mother. Legends, there is. But this is a figure still only in legends.

[00:16:16] So we're going to talk about her in a minute. But running through our canon history. We have planets forming, of course, including one important one is a planet called Illum, which ends up forming something called Kyber crystals. How would you describe Kyber crystals, Bob?

[00:16:35] I feel like the Kyber crystals are I mean, they're crucial to to the formation of lightsabers. I love the the relationship between the Jedi and the Kyber crystal. I almost see Kyber crystals as living entities themselves. Yeah, definitely. Can you elaborate on the relationship with the Jedi?

[00:17:02] Well, I feel like it's it's rather like working as a team when a Jedi decides to create his or her or their lightsaber. It's I think it's a relationship that's all about equality. And I think it's I think it's a very important relationship when when a Jedi

[00:17:26] decides to create the lightsaber. Yeah, we'll see this as we go through especially the Clone Wars. But basically when Jedi choose their Kyber crystals, they kind of call to them that there is some sort of living

[00:17:44] entity in connection and only the Jedi being called can see the crystal shining. There is some symbiotic relationship, which brings me to creatures. Of course, creatures and sentient beings of all different varieties form. We're definitely going to be talking about all the different creatures and

[00:18:01] species we meet throughout this entire Star Wars universe. There's always new ones being added. Bob, do you have any favorite creatures or species in the Star Wars universe? I feel like one of the ones that really made me turn my head were

[00:18:18] introduced in rebels and they would be the purguel, which yeah, well, I'm sure we'll be getting into them more as we go along. First, I was like, what the heck are these guys about? I was going to bring them up right now, actually, because they are.

[00:18:32] Yeah, they play an important role in the history of hyperspace travel. And certainly do when it comes to hyperspace. I feel like there's a very little info about them outside of the TV shows. But yeah, they're they're certainly crucial to hyperspace travel.

[00:18:52] It's actually doing a bit of research on that earlier this weekend about how all that's come into being. And I mean, it's still really new to me too, because this franchise is always in motion. So right. Yeah. Well, so the pergola, they're basically space whales and they could

[00:19:13] travel through hyperspace and early beings studied them and learned how to make hyperspace travel for, you know, for humans and the rest of us. And they in legends that's the ricotta are credited with that. We're going to talk about the ricotta more in the next episode

[00:19:33] because they play an important role in the legend side of the old republic. But we don't have any confirmation of that in canon. But basically, Pergola are confirmed to have been the inspiration for traveling through hyperspace. And so how would you describe hyperspace?

[00:19:50] Well, lightspeed, I guess you're going insanely fast to get to where you need to go. That's always that's how I've always seen it. I'm sure it looks visually amazing. Star Wars has implemented audio description tracks over the past.

[00:20:09] I'd say seven to ten years on one of the things they really haven't described in terms of a visual look would be, you know, the way hyperspace looks when a ship jumps. OK. And I'm certainly interested in knowing about that because it's something that I feel is unexplored.

[00:20:25] I can answer that question right now because it always looks exactly the same. And it's because it's an effect that's easy to replicate in animation because, you know, the first time they did it was in 1977. So it's a pretty simple effect where they just show stars streaking by.

[00:20:41] So there's like stripes of starlight as you travel through this sort of midnight blue darkness, and that's basically that's basically what it looks like. And you just stay like that. But it's it's kind of like a wormhole.

[00:20:57] So you take these hyperspace highways of sorts so that you don't pop. And it's like hyperspace is like a fifth dimension that's around and also within all the four dimensions we experience with the fourth dimension being time.

[00:21:13] And so you kind of can slip into this extra dimension and take a shortcut somewhere and pop out in a place that's safe and not like the core of a planet or something. Definitely. Apparently, George Lucas borrowed this concept of hyperspace from the foundation

[00:21:34] books, which I have not read. But if anyone has, I really want to hear what you think of the comparison. And then, of course, another they had to discover eventually that they need hyperfuel to travel through hyperspace.

[00:21:48] And the biggest hyperfuel we'll be coming back to talk about later is coaxium, which is mined in a place called Kessel, potent and unstable and causes strife because it's very valuable strife. Valuable and dangerous.

[00:22:06] And so something we're just starting to learn about in a show set in the seventh era, much later in the timeline is a group of humanoid who eventually become known as the death, Mary, come to this galaxy from the Peridia Galaxy around this time, too.

[00:22:23] So yeah, that's that was an exciting. That's my favorite part of the well, I'm not going to say the name of the series because I'm not sure if that's a spoiler to it's a character name. We don't want to say that character still lives.

[00:22:35] But you know what I'm saying, right, Bob? Oh, yeah. Because yeah, it's the death mirror is a planet where well, we'll be spending some time there. But one of the groups that ends up living there is a group known as the Night Sisters, which are basically four switches.

[00:22:52] And those are my favorite. Those are my favorite group in Star Wars. I've loved them since I first read about them in Legends continuity years ago. They are, yeah, they're they're certainly one of my favorite groups in Star Wars. Do you have any other favorite groups?

[00:23:10] We talked about the creatures with the Pergol, but what other cultures do you really love? Well, I probably shouldn't like them as much as I do, but I'm quite fond of of Sith culture. There's just something about a great, a great antagonistic group that that's always fascinated.

[00:23:30] I tweeted about it the other day. I could watch or read about characters in planets steeped in the dark side for quite some time and still not get bored with them. Yeah, why is it always the nicest people I know who love villains? I love villains too.

[00:23:48] We are we are going to talk a lot about the Sith in the about the formation of the Sith in the next episode, because that was they are at the event, the center of the strife of the Old Republic. Yes, indeed.

[00:24:02] And another ancient species I want to mention here is they seem to have been working with the deathmere as a species called the Zefo. They kind of look like walking hammerhead sharks. And you especially learn about them more about them in the Jedi games in the fifth

[00:24:18] era, but it seems like these are going to be coming back more. We're going to be learning more about them, hopefully around this early dawn of the Jedi era too. And then so around 100,000 BBY. This is when the first levels are being built on a planet that will

[00:24:37] eventually become known as Coruscant and Coruscant is basically by the time we get to year zero Coruscant is a giant city planet in the region known as the Core Worlds and it's the capital of the galaxy for much of its history.

[00:24:53] So you're going to see a lot of this planet, something it's the home world of humans, but that's not confirmed. Do you what do you prefer Bob? Do you prefer like a city planet like Coruscant or do you prefer,

[00:25:06] you know, a desolate planet like Tatooine the Desert Planet or Hoth the Ice Planet? I have always loved Coruscant. I've loved it since reading about it in the old Legends Continuity Thrawn trilogy.

[00:25:19] And it's it's going to, I think forever be one of my favorite locations in Star Wars, just bustling with people and various cultures. And like you said, I mean, by the time we get to future events in the timeline,

[00:25:34] it is level after level of just gobs and gobs of people and culture. Yeah, that's that's a cool thing is there's so much to explore. Because of all the levels later in the timeline, like we're talking now, they're just starting the first level on the ground floor.

[00:25:51] And I don't think we've seen the first level even ever. Like even when you're at level 30, you're in the low levels and later in the timeline. Yeah. And yeah, later in the timeline, it's of course the poor people who live down

[00:26:05] in the dark levels and now we'll see who lives on top. Definitely. The Dawn of the Jedi film is expected to be set around 25,000 BBY. So that's, you know, 75,000 years after after Coruscant is founded. So we should see that already starting to bustle.

[00:26:26] Also around this time, there's a religious group called the Dai Bendu that will be attributed with the first holocrons. So holocrons, that's one that we need to touch on. Of what would what would you how would you describe holocrons? Well, I feel like

[00:26:44] they could best be compared to. I would say artificial intelligence. They possess, I would say, reams of information about Jedi events, past events and. I believe holocrons, they've got these things called gatekeepers, which are, you know, basically the.

[00:27:13] AI that pops up and answers any questions that you may have concerning Jedi events in the past, how to form lightsabers, things like that. I first heard about them in the expanded universe, dark empire, comic book adaptations and loved them ever since.

[00:27:37] Yeah, I think that's a good way to put it, that they they're like repositories of knowledge with AI gatekeeping. Yeah, yeah, that's a really good way to put it. And we're going to talk about what the Dai Bendu with the Bendu part of that means in a moment.

[00:27:53] But it is the Dai Bendu monks. They were known for studying numerology. And yeah, so the later on we'll see the symbol of the Galactic Republic that the Jedi Knights wear. It's actually calling back to the Bendu's studies of numerology.

[00:28:11] We're the number nine, which we see with like eight spokes joined to a central disc. It signifies the benevolent presence of the force in the United Galaxy. And Bendu Day is, by the way, one of the official days of the week in it's the

[00:28:30] and final day. So they five day weeks in Coruscant, you know, because of course, Coruscant decides everything. How all the rest of the galaxy is timed and run. And yeah, Bendu Day is their fifth and final day of the week.

[00:28:43] Star Wars timelines, that's that's a good canon source, which, you know, good companion to this podcast, I would say. And it's one of the we're pulling a lot of these, especially early references from there and there are other canon reference sources that we'll cite as we go through.

[00:29:01] But tells us that in pursuit of preservation of peace and justice, an individual who came to be known as the Prime Jedi founds the Jedi Order on Ach-Tu about 25,000 years ago. So Ach-Tu is a location that becomes important much later in the timeline.

[00:29:21] But I always thought like that that Tithon was where Jedi came from, but I guess that's legends now. Yeah, yeah, Tithon was huge in terms of legends continuity. And I love the name of that planet too. I know I like it too.

[00:29:38] That and there was another contender for for being founded was Osis. And apparently those are just now two of the first places that the Jedi went. And they were founded on Ach-Tu Ach-Tu. Maybe I'm saying it wrong.

[00:29:51] I should re re listen to the movies where it's an important setting, which I'm not going to say because spoilers. But so how would you describe the Jedi in in general, Bob? Um, I feel like I feel like Jedi are a very selfless group of individuals.

[00:30:13] Well, at least they should be anyway. I feel like they do their best in theory. I feel like they do their best to put the needs of others before their own. But at the same time, they, you know,

[00:30:26] they don't allow themselves to be attached to much of anything that they try to put the will of the Force before everything if they can. Yeah, we'll talk a bit about what they gave us a bit more information

[00:30:44] about this in legends, but yeah, they are basically the original literal social justice warriors with, you know, laser swords. But they are. And we also get at this point in the timeline a character who will be relevant for a long time, Professor Huang Hu Yang, Hu Yang.

[00:31:04] How do you pronounce that? I usually say Hu Yang. Hu Yang, OK. Professor Hu Yang is he's actually a robot. So he powers up around this time and he's played by David Tenet. It's his voice, so you will get to meet him later in the timeline.

[00:31:22] But this is around when he was formed at the beginning of the Jedi. And this is also when the Galactic Republic is formed with the core founders, 22 core worlds, including planets like Alderaan, which I already mentioned is the home of a character named Leia.

[00:31:40] It remains an important diplomatic planet for millennia. And it's also part of the core worlds, which will eventually expand to the outer rim and beyond that, the unknown regions and wild space. So according to the legends of the Chis ascendancy, and we'll just pause here

[00:31:58] and tell the people who the Chis are. Well, the Chis are a very I would say strategic species. I'm not sure how much I should say because I don't really know. Yeah, well, we don't want to say plot, but we can say that

[00:32:18] if you've heard of a character named Thrawn, then he's a Chis blue. Blue strategy, yes, strategic character. The greatest military minds of all time. Absolutely. And so his people are the Chis and they are from the unknown regions.

[00:32:36] So later in the timeline, these unknown regions are a collection of constantly shifting pathways and twisted hyperspace routes. And it's just it's a difficult place to navigate. So and this is where the Chis come from. But the Chis say that it wasn't always like that.

[00:32:54] They say at the beginning of space travel around this time, it was actually pretty easy to get around. But then there was a series of supernovas that caused a chain reaction. And they threw a huge masses of all this matter and I guess dark matter

[00:33:12] and antimatter, just devastating entire planets, demolishing asteroids. And this with a cause a heavy electromagnetic flux in a number of regions. And it brought about this, you know, wildness in this area known as the unknown regions, which I shouldn't use

[00:33:30] the word wild because it's not to be confused with wild space, which is basically what they called any region of the galaxy that hadn't been with uncharted planets and star clusters. So it was that was the wild space is a stuff off the map.

[00:33:46] Unknown regions, it's on the map, but it's largely unexplored because it's really difficult to get around after this whole supernova chain reaction. Do you think I did I miss anything, Bob? I think you did a fantastic job.

[00:34:01] Just say I'm throwing a lot of vocab ads at people just to lay the foundation. So we won't bug you down with too many species names and stuff at this point, we're going to be getting to know a lot

[00:34:12] as we go. But yeah, that leads us to the formation of the Galactic Republic. That is, of course, the old republic that we'll be talking about in the next episode, so we're going to pause the canon conversation there. Do you have anything to add on the canon side?

[00:34:28] Well, I wish there was. But I think, you know, this era, there's still so much to fill in when it comes to canonical, the canonical side of things. And I look forward to hopefully experiencing, be it some kind of audio comic adaptation or, of course,

[00:34:48] Don of the Jedi coming out in a few years. So yeah, I think it's a fascinating time period. I think it's fascinating for me because there's just so much that. That is yet to be written. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:35:05] And we're going to talk about what we might see in Don of the Jedi right after a quick commercial break. OK, and we are back and we're going to dive into what we think we might actually see in this film, Don of the Jedi, that's coming out.

[00:35:41] As Bob said, in a couple of years, question mark. Question mark. Yeah. We know very little. We know that it's already been on a journey before I got to this point. Originally David Goyer, who did Batman Begins, A Man of Steel,

[00:35:59] he did some early development work, which is by the way, not this. He was going to do another film directed by Guillermo Routoro, but both of them were shelved and he left behind his work with Lucas Films and eventually James Mangold stepped in.

[00:36:13] And he's the one who did Logan and the Wolverine, so the Good Wolverine movies. And as well as films like Girl Interrupted, 310 to Yuma and maybe less impressively, more recently, he co-wrote and directed the Indiana Jones in the Dial of Destiny. Did you see that one, Bob?

[00:36:32] Still haven't and I need to. Are you an Indiana Jones fan? I've loved all of the movies so far. I've been distracted by a lot of new Star Wars stuff. Yeah, no, I mean, I'm kind of so Indiana Jones is also Lucas Films.

[00:36:51] So you see like a lot of Indiana Jones Easter eggs in Star Wars stuff and vice versa. So we'll talk about that a little bit as we go through, although I have to admit I'm not personally a huge Indiana Jones fan. I like the original movies growing up.

[00:37:07] The newer ones are fine. I don't know. OK. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And also originally it was going to be David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. So a K.I.D. and D who are known for Game of Thrones. What do you think of that?

[00:37:21] Would you have been happy about that, Bob? I would have definitely given it a watch. I wonder if I wonder if it would have been quite quite a bit more. Well, I don't want to say violent because I mean, there's quite a lot of that in

[00:37:35] Star Wars, but who the heck knows what that would have been like? Yeah, absolutely love Thrones. So I would have certainly watched their film. Yeah, I mean, I love Thrones, but of course, a lot of people are unhappy with where things went once they were off book.

[00:37:52] You know how it things ended on. They had scheduling conflicts. I think it was the three body problem, which is a new Netflix show. They just did, which I haven't watched yet for personal reasons. But I've heard mostly good reviews about it.

[00:38:07] But David Goyer, he says he said about his plans for the movie. I thought about a biblical epic like a 10 commandments and the drawing of the force. Where did the force come from? When did we discover it? When did we know how to use it?

[00:38:21] And the story just started developing. So that's what he said about his inspiration for this. So I'm excited. I'm very excited for it. When you put Star Wars on the big screen, I mean, it's amazing to watch it on the on the small screen.

[00:38:36] But there's something about going to a theater, especially nowadays for people like me, because you get an audio description headset and it just brings. Going to the theater into a whole new light. And I absolutely cannot wait for Dawn of the Jedi.

[00:38:55] Yeah, it's it's nice, especially with these big Star Wars properties to get to experience that with other fans live. Hear all the reactions and be excited about the same things. Yeah, I think one of my favorite

[00:39:10] aspects of Star Wars is the fandom because you can ask one person, one question. Like, what did you think about this or what did you see when you were observing this scene and you're never going to get the same answer?

[00:39:23] And I don't think you're ever going to get a wrong answer because, you know, people look at Star Wars through so many different sets of eyes. And that's one of the parts of Star Wars that excites me the most is its fandom.

[00:39:36] And you could just talk to people for days and still, you know, you're not going to get done learning new things because you're always going to be shown something new from various fans. Such a fascinating aspect of Star Wars. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:39:53] And of course, we're going to on this podcast, largely ignore what's called the fandom menace. Yeah. We're here to love on Star Wars and it's not not like we're going to say that it's flawless, you know, we're going to pick our nits and, you know,

[00:40:10] talk about where we think their plot holes are what bothers us or things like that. But we're coming from a place of love for sure. Exactly. OK, so this is what we know. Shifting gears to what might be.

[00:40:25] So suggestions of things that might be brought over from can from legends. Sorry, that are not canon yet, but have a good chance of becoming canon. I think in the new film, as I said, we'll get the confirmation that Arcteau is really where the I started and

[00:40:45] that they like maybe at the end of the movie, they are going off to populate other planets like Tithon in legends they have before the Jedi are the Jedi. They're the Jedi. So the spelled J E apostrophe D A I.

[00:41:03] Oh, no wonder my screen reader was having problems pronouncing that word. OK. So yeah, this was an ancient organization that was that was unified by its belief and observance of the force. And so again, in legends, they were on Tithon.

[00:41:20] So their focus was on maintaining a balance in the force. So they saw the force as having three aspects of a whole. So there is the ashla, the light side, Bogan, the dark side and the bendu balance in between that keeps it to in check.

[00:41:39] Hello, editor, Alicia interject from the future here because I realized that I forgot to describe the emblem that is used for the dawn of the Jedi age. So each age has a little circular emblem that's like this symbol of it.

[00:41:56] And the dawn of the Jedi one has a silhouette like the outline of a silhouette of what I suppose is a Jedi warrior looks like there's a sort of cape on or and perhaps a helmet and they're holding in front of them.

[00:42:11] They're a lightsaber, but it's you don't see their hands. You just see a star where their hands would be. And one side is white on black and the other side is the opposite black on white. So this is emphasizing the balance of the Jedi.

[00:42:27] And we'll actually see this emblem show up in the floor of a building much later in the timeline. So I think we will start to see it worked into more movies as well. OK, back to your regularly scheduled conversation.

[00:42:42] More and more in modern Star Wars storytelling is about how the it's really about balance between the light and the dark. Would you agree or do you think that that goes back to the very beginning? Yeah, I think we have been seeing a lot more about

[00:43:00] how to maintain balance on the force, not just to bring balance to it, but to maintain it. I feel like when George started referring to balance in the force and in episode one, it's just kind of grown

[00:43:14] since then. And I think it's a it's a very intriguing concept and one I'm hoping to explore more of, especially in. Well, I don't want to call them ancient times. Don of the Jedi era, I should say. Yeah, we live in the ancient times in this very moment.

[00:43:34] Yeah. So yeah, so the Jedi, they apparently Tithon, so again, this is legends. Everything basically we're going to talk about for the rest of this episode is legends, just FYI. So when they in the night sky of Tithon, there are two natural moons basically.

[00:43:52] So one ash lies bathed in light and bogan is shrouded in darkness. So that's where they got those names from. And they if either if the Jedi fell too far from either the light or the dark,

[00:44:06] they were exiled to the respective moon to meditate until they could return themselves to balance and return back to Tithon. So they were given a time out. They were given a time out. You think about what you've done. Yes.

[00:44:23] I think actually I want to come back to this point in the timeline and do an episode about Star Wars visions, which is legends. But they have some episodes that seem to be set in ancient times like this and also talking about this balance between dark and light.

[00:44:41] So so maybe by the time you're listening, you'll see that like next in the timeline or something. So it's also around this time around the dawn of the Jedi when the lightsaber was invented. So we've referred to the lightsaber.

[00:44:56] But how would you describe the lightsaber other than it using the kyber crystal? It is the weapon of a Jedi knight as a as a wizard Jedi master once called it. I feel that it helps them keep the peace.

[00:45:14] He also called it a more elegant weapon for a more civilized age. I won't get into who this character is for spoiler's sake, but. Yes, we will definitely be quoting that eventually. Yeah. Um, yeah, I mean, it's like I said, it's like a laser sword basically.

[00:45:31] So the kyber crystals in the hilt. And then when you turn it on, it goes, you know, I'll cut in the sound. And they. So a plasma blade emerges and the color depends on we're going to talk about

[00:45:53] what the color depends on as we go because that's evolving. You know, it's one thing in legends and they're sort of figuring out how that works in Canon now, but there are a few different color plasma blades that you can have.

[00:46:06] I know people who engineers who have made them in real life, but in real life, you need to have like a cap at the end that zooms out so that it, you know, it bounces back the laser so it keeps it contained.

[00:46:21] So you're not just shooting laser off into the distance. And so in legends, there was the the rickato who I've mentioned and I said, we'll talk about next time. They kind of look like they're like gray muscular aliens with like two half

[00:46:38] stocks of eyes on their sort of triangular head and they're very militant species. We'll talk about them in the next episode, as I said, but they had something called the force saber. So that was the precursor to the lightsaber.

[00:46:52] And then the Jedi, I guess they invented the lightsaber. I guess we're going to find out in the dawn of the Jedi, hopefully. Hopefully, yeah. I'm kind of hoping dawn of the Jedi will turn out to be a trilogy. I think there's enough content for that.

[00:47:06] But yeah, they seriously should think about making that a trilogy. There's just so much only one movie can cover. And I think there's grounds for a trilogy. I mean, we have to admit that the Star Wars movie side of things has been kind

[00:47:24] of a mess lately. Any time we think a movie is coming, it ends up getting canceled. So I think that they're past that. What do you think? I would think that they are too. They seem to have together. I would say we're on the right path.

[00:47:43] The way that they're able to, they have this pipeline of content for Disney Plus going strong. So I think that they I think we're at the end of this like stuff getting canceled. I mean, not that nothing's ever going to get canceled

[00:47:57] because let's be frank, that's as Hugh Howie always says. We talk about this in World Shift dust. You know, and it's always a miracle when something does get made. Definitely. OK, so another group from Legends. We already referenced the Celestials.

[00:48:14] So in Canon, they've only been mentioned in a land O'Carmic and passing where he says apparently they sing quite well. And yeah, yeah, he says something like somebody sings as well as the Celestials or something like that. But in Legends, these are the the mother.

[00:48:34] Sorry, the father, daughter and son. So representing Ashla Light is the daughter. Bogan Dark is the son and Ben Dube balance is the father. So you might be wondering, as I said, where's the mother? Well, there was a mother in Legends and

[00:48:56] she was actually brought into the Celestial family as their servant with the capital S. And she was basically helping to keep the peace between the two kids, you know, the light and the dark always warring against each other. So she ended up becoming her.

[00:49:15] She changed from the servant to the mother. She became a mother figure. But the problem was they were immortal and she was not. And so she thought, I'm going to die and I'm going to leave them. There's going to be war and I must be immortal too.

[00:49:31] So she ends up going to she drinks from the font of power, which is a nexus of dark side force energy located on a planet called Abeloth and she bathes in the pool of knowledge, another force nexus in an area called the mall.

[00:49:48] And she becomes the self styled beloved queen of the stars known as the bringer of chaos and the destructor. And yeah, again, she did these things for noble reasons because she wanted to be immortal like the rest of her family.

[00:50:02] But once she did it, she kind of went completely power mad. And so her children end up working together to entrap her in the mall. And so the mall cluster is it's an unstable and mostly unnavigable cluster of black holes located near the planet Kessel.

[00:50:23] And theory suggests that this is the source of the spice. So Kessel is Kessel is not only where they manufacture the coaxium, the hyperspace fuel, but it's also manufacture something called the spice, which do in fans, I'm sure you're laughing and you should be.

[00:50:42] We are definitely going to talk about that more, especially on desert planet Tatooine. What do you think about the? I I think the mother is one of my absolute favorite characters from the old timeline. She's one of the creepiest characters,

[00:51:01] I think I've ever come into contact with in Star Wars. And when we learned of her ties to the father, the son, the daughter, I just I think I cheered. And you can read about her in the in the fate of the Jedi series.

[00:51:18] It's one of my favorite series from Legends continuity. She is she's very was she reminds me of somewhat of an HP Lovecraft character. And she's just very, very unsettling. And I think that's one of the things I like about her.

[00:51:31] You never know what to what she's going to do. She's she's quite quite mad, I think. Yeah, I mean, I'm hoping that she's going to be pulled over into canon. I think that there's a good chance just because she's such an epic character

[00:51:45] that people are really interested in, but I don't know. We'll see. Yeah. But she, yeah, indeed, the books that you talk about, they are legends books. But we can't when we get to that point in the timeline when they take place,

[00:51:58] which is like right after the original trilogy kind of. We're going to have to talk about these legends books because there's some really iconic storytelling characters. I made an offhand reference to someone named Marjade. Whether or not this stuff ends up in canon,

[00:52:13] you need to know about this. These characters, including Abeloth. Oh, definitely. So yeah, Abeloth, she would escape from the maw and then the daughter and the son would catch her again and then the cycle repeated for millennia. And this is not the end of her story.

[00:52:30] We'll pick it back up later in the timeline. And of course around this time, we also have the invention of hyperspace, as we mentioned, so in legends, it was the ricotta who figured this out from the pergola also have to mention the quaw or another ancient species

[00:52:49] native to the outer rim world of Dathomir. And this is in legends again, they built something called the infinity gates and star temples during the pre-Republic era. And they fought with the ricotta and eventually ended up shutting those

[00:53:03] infinity gates down because of the ricotta to stop them from spreading. And another group that's relevant in this is the gree, which is like a cephalopod type species and they're known for supernatural space navigation abilities and also they're credited with having founded Tithon, which is

[00:53:22] not the head home world of the Jedi, but one of the first ones. And the gree, by the way, have been mentioned mentioned in Ken reference books, so it seems that they are in Canon now. Such an amazing point in terms of where we are in the timeline.

[00:53:40] I think both in Canon and legends. Yeah, no, very interesting. I guess one wish that we would get planets with more than one ecosystem. That's sort of a weakness of Star Wars is that if you have a planet, it's an entirely desert planet.

[00:53:59] It's an entirely ice planet, which, OK, the ice planet is especially realistic in the desert one too, I guess, because I suppose Mars is like that. But there should be planets also like Earth, which have more different climates and all the different.

[00:54:14] But it's so hard when you're working at that scale, I guess, to think about all the little details on so many hundreds of planets. Anything else, Bob, that you're hoping will make the leap from the early founding of or that you're hoping you'll learn about that hasn't ever

[00:54:34] been written about before in this dawn of the Jedi or in the very beginning of the galaxy? Hopefully there's going to be stuff that I mean, we haven't even figured out yet that we will get. I mean, there's no telling what they're what they're planning. I like how

[00:54:53] they're so far managing to keep things very close to their chests. Yeah, it's just rumors. But it's it's hard to say what exactly they're planning. We just get whispers here and there and have to piece together until the next

[00:55:11] the next big Disney day or something when they make their announcements. All right, well, so this has been our overview of Dawn of the Jedi. Thank you to Jedi Jedi Bob again. You should definitely check out his YouTube channel. You'll find that link in the show notes.

[00:55:27] This episode is produced by me, published by the Lorhounds. The Lorhounds is a network and a podcast, a mother feed with lots of other content that will appeal to Star Wars fans and including Star Wars content itself.

[00:55:42] Lots of other science fiction fantasy, other things, books, games, all the works. I'll tell you more about this in the episode that we're going to release in a few days since this was supposed to just be a mini part one of two.

[00:55:56] So I'm going to say goodbye for a second. Live listeners, Bob and I will be back here in about three days for the old Republic overview. OK, David, this is where we're supposed to choose a side, green or black? John, my soul is as black as night.

[00:56:39] 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. But we seem to agree on one thing.

[00:56:53] We both really like the show, the politics, the drama, the lore. It was made for the Lorhounds. And since we just finished recapping season one, we couldn't be more ready to defend our black queen in the dance of the dragons.

[00:57:07] And with the season pass option and supercast listeners can get early, ad free access to each weekly scene by scene deep dive, plus our custom show guide with all the characters and connections. See you in the Lorhounds podcast feed each week for our dragon fire hot,

[00:57:22] but probably positive takes. The Lorhounds House 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 led by George R. R. Martin.

[00:57:34] Dragon seeds may experience burning.