START HERE – How this podcast works

[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 teen 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.

[00:01:30] Hello and welcome to the Star Wars Canon Timeline podcast or as I like to call it for short to swoot. You know, it really rolls off the tongue. No, no, I promise I won't call it that often.

[00:01:42] I am Alicia Brenner, writer, translator, podcaster, lifelong Star Wars lover and person you'll be gradually getting to know as we go on a journey through the entire Star Wars Canon, starting at the beginning through the new TV show The Acolyte dropping next month and beyond

[00:01:59] covering events in the order in which they occur in the timeline through each of the nine official eras of Star Wars Canon. And I'll explain what all that means in just a moment because this is a podcast that's not only for fans who want to experience their favorite

[00:02:14] world in a new order, but also people completely fresh to the series who want to get up to speed. I'll always let you know in advance what we'll be covering next, but it's up to you if you

[00:02:24] want to read, watch or play along or if you just want to listen to our episodes for a Cliffs Note edition of the key takeaways from anything that doesn't interest you or you don't have

[00:02:33] time for. We will never assume that you have seen or read the thing, but we will be adding deeper commentary for those who have. Either way, you'll not only be able to keep up with

[00:02:42] any Star Wars talk at your next cocktail party, you'll be the one leading the discussion. I'm doing this because I think it's hard even for the biggest fans of Star Wars to wrap our

[00:02:52] heads around the order of events in the Star Wars universe because the timeline is being filled in in a somewhat chaotic order. So this podcast is going to give us a chance to examine the history of this fictional universe to see how events of an earlier age create

[00:03:07] the key conflicts of later eras and how the characters we love are shaped and in turn shape this galaxy far, far away. And maybe some others as well, but we'll get to that eventually.

[00:03:17] This is a podcast, as I said, designed for both hardcore Star Wars fans like me, as well as people experiencing for the first time, so I really mean I'm going to assume zero knowledge. And I will work not to spoil any story twists until they're revealed by

[00:03:31] the timeline, even iconic twists from the original films. I might mention names most people know, like for example that the planet of Alderaan is where a character named Leia grew up. Most of you probably already know who this character is and we'll find it interesting

[00:03:47] to note that the planet we're talking about happens to be the one where she grew up. But those of you who don't know who Leia is, honestly, that's even better. I'm so excited for you to experience these stories with a fresh perspective. This means that you will be

[00:04:01] experiencing the big reveals and story elements of this saga based on when they took place in the timeline of Star Wars in universe history. And yes, this means if it's your first time experiencing the Star Wars story, you will learn some twists in a different order than people

[00:04:16] who watched the films and everything else when it released. And that's just part of the fun in this experiment. I for one love to experience stories in timeline order because you really

[00:04:28] get to see how it all holds together. We will definitely be examining that as we go along, but also just making sense of the events and what leads to what and why things are the way

[00:04:41] they are by the time we get to the original trilogy and beyond. But yes, in general I won't consider it a spoiler that a certain character exists. I promise not to tell you how they enter

[00:04:51] influence a story until you get to see that for yourself. And for those of you who already know the complete story but want to experience it in order, then great this is the perfect podcast for

[00:05:01] you. I hope you'll share your thoughts and insights along the way. So yes, I've been using the word we and I don't mean the royal we. I will be your host, but I'll be bringing in a

[00:05:11] range of guests and co hosts as we go different people with different perspectives and areas of expertise. So for example, if you're listening at the time of publication, the next episode will be with a dead eye Jedi Bob who that's probably someone you'll be hearing from a lot.

[00:05:26] He's a Star Wars superfan who's read an enormous amount of both canon and legends content in addition to watching everything. And an episode after that you'll meet Marchen who's played more Star Wars games than most fans have ever even heard of. So and that's just the first two

[00:05:41] episodes I'll be introducing more people as we go. Of course, no one can have watched and read everything this behemoth IP, but we're all big fans and will be at least mentioning every book,

[00:05:52] comic game, kid show, etc. etc. That's ID is part of the official timeline. And by ID, I mean, we're following the evolving timeline laid out on Wikipedia, which is the main wiki of Star Wars

[00:06:05] nerds and they do a good job placing things on the timeline. And it's the best place to look whenever you have questions. However, do be careful, of course, because spoilers, spoilers, spoilers. The episodes in this podcast will largely focus on the biggest properties. So that's the

[00:06:21] films and TV shows which occasionally will include live weekly coverage like with the acolyte coming up. And for shows that have already been released, we'll be covering them a few episodes at a time.

[00:06:33] In addition to that will also be dedicating episodes to the biggest games and key books and comics, while other books and games that are less important to the overall story will merely get a mention. It can't, of course, cover every detail of this expansive world as much as

[00:06:47] I would love to try. But of course we will make sure you know what's important and go back and fill in the gaps and timeline details as needed. You'll find a link in the show notes that will

[00:06:57] take you to a basic timeline of key movie shows books and games will be covering in more depth. We'll be fleshing out this reference as we release episodes. So you'll find this link

[00:07:07] in the show notes for every episode, giving those of you who like to plan ahead a chance to catch up on your gaming or reading as you like. But don't feel pressured to read and play everything yourself.

[00:07:17] So since we'll be talking about this in timeline order, starting at the beginning of The Star Wars Canon timeline and slowly working our way through, let me give you a couple pieces of key terminology that we're going to be using over and over and over again.

[00:07:30] So first of all, the Star Wars dating system. You're going to hear a lot of ABY and BBY. So everything we're talking about here at the beginning is BBY because what that means is

[00:07:42] before the Battle of Yavin. You don't need to know what the Battle of Yavin is. It's an event linked to the original Star Wars movie. So in the dating system that we'll be using,

[00:07:53] the original Star Wars movie is year zero. Anything that happens before is BBY and anything that happens after is ABY. Well, we might explain some other dating systems that exist in the universe as they're mentioned, but to keep things simple, we'll almost always use ABY and BBY.

[00:08:11] The other ones really aren't important. So this month, as I said, we're starting at the very beginning, thousands of years that means before the Battle of Yavin. And the Acolyte takes place around 132 BBY, so 132 years before the events of the original Star

[00:08:29] Wars film released in 77. So, okay, Star Wars dating system, BBY, ABY. The other important thing that we have to talk about right out the bat is Canon versus Legends. Now when Disney bought Lucasfilms, the creators of Star Wars, they decided that everything released before April

[00:08:47] 25th, 2014. So that's all of the books and games at least were no longer Canon. This was obviously a hugely controversial moment in Star Wars fandom. It still is. I'm not here to litigate that fact.

[00:09:00] I'm just telling you what happened. So all of these prior releases are now considered legends or sometimes called the extended universe. And the explanation is, you know, you can think of these stories as legends in Star Wars history and legends aren't always true.

[00:09:15] Some might turn out to be, others will not. So after that decanonization, only the movies and the animated series The Clone Wars remained Canon. As in, these were the only things at that time considered the true in universe history of Star Wars. And now of course any media,

[00:09:35] TV movies, comics, games, etc. released after April of 2014 is also considered Canon, with a few exceptions we'll talk about when we get there. The focus of this podcast is all the

[00:09:47] Canon material but we'll discuss key elements of Legends as we go so that you can hang with the real Star Wars nerds. Don't worry, you'll know who Mara Jade is and why she should care

[00:09:58] even if we never see her in Canon. And yeah, and one of the first episodes we're going to be doing is talking about the old Republic games, which these are officially legends but these are

[00:10:10] games that people are still playing today and there have been references to characters from these games in Canon. So it's most likely a lot of this will be made Canon. We'll explain all

[00:10:22] of that when we're talking about the stories of these games but just suffice it to say that a lot of Legends lore is being pulled into Canon. So when we think that there's a character

[00:10:32] that you just gotta know, we'll include that in the discussion and always make sure you know what's what. We will be talking through the nine eras officially identified by Lucas Films in order.

[00:10:43] I won't say most of the names of the eras until we get there because of spoilers, they're very spoilery names but I will say the first three which will be breezing through this month. So the first era is Dawn of the Jedi, second is the old

[00:10:56] Republic and the third era is the High Republic. Now these are the least fleshed out areas of Canon so we'll be giving you a good background going into the Acolyte which is set toward the

[00:11:06] end of the High Republic, the third era and as I said we'll be covering that weekly as episodes release. Future Star Wars releases won't necessarily be covered live in the main podcast feed unless

[00:11:18] we have already reached that point in the timeline in which they are set but for example when season two of the Acolyte comes out we will be going back in to fill that in on a live

[00:11:28] weekly basis and of course Star Wars releases out of order so when content from earlier in the timeline release so for instance you know when season two of the Acolyte comes out

[00:11:39] will probably be in phases four or five maybe so I'll backdate the episodes so that they appear in the episode list where they should be in the timeline so that when you look at your

[00:11:52] episode list it will always be a quick reference of the order of events and titles in the universe and we'll especially be going back to these early eras that we're talking about this month because these are the least fleshed out in Canon but with shows like the Acolyte,

[00:12:07] the High Republic books, the Dawn of the Jedi movie that's been promised us and other projects in the pipeline that's quickly changing but don't worry when I backdate episodes as long as you're a subscriber you'll get the notification and I'll explain things in more detail as we go

[00:12:22] I'll make sure that you're always notified when new episodes come out and I'll update this intro episode periodically to make sure everything is crystal clear. Some stories of course also play out at the same time the Star Wars universe and also some other stories include

[00:12:37] flashbacks to earlier points in the timeline I thought most of these through and we'll be handling it on a case-by-case basis this makes the most sense we don't want to get too sloppy

[00:12:46] in our watch order except for one weird watch experiment I want to do at the end of the fourth age. Anthology series like Tales of the Jedi and Tales of the Empire we will be covering

[00:12:57] out of order depending on when each episode is set and we will also be covering visions though that is legends it's some of the coolest animation and best storytelling in Star Wars and it's definitely you can't consider yourself you know a total Star Wars fan without having watched

[00:13:13] Visions this is obviously a living timeline this is an experiment in form I'm going to make sure there's plenty of reminders whenever this weird timing stuff actually happens but don't

[00:13:24] be surprised if you see a movie or a show breakdown in the episode list dated before that movie or show even came out I'll add dates to the episode titles when they're released out of order so

[00:13:33] that you know when they were actually released at a glance but ultimately our episode list is a slave to the timeline so to get us started this month if you're listening at the time of

[00:13:44] release you'll be getting a series of what's planned to be four episodes laying out the background of the beginnings of the galaxy far far away where Star Wars takes place and of course

[00:13:54] important to note that every Star Wars story begins with the long time ago in a galaxy far far away so we talk about Star Wars in the past tense so we'll be talking through the history

[00:14:04] of this galaxy far far away leading up to the events of the Acolyte and then after our weekly coverage when we're ready to move on from these early eras we'll jump forward a hundred years

[00:14:16] to the fourth era the time of the prequel trilogy of films in a massive animated series you might have heard of called The Clone Wars which rough as it starts by the end most will call some of

[00:14:26] the greatest storytelling in all of Star Wars I might not tell you the name of this particular era until the end of it though because it's a massive spoiler and after that we'll jump

[00:14:35] into the fifth era the time between the prequel and original trilogies one of the two points in the timeline most being filled in by new Star Wars content so this includes The Bad Batch,

[00:14:45] The Jedi Games, titles like Solo, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Rebels and or Rogue One and after that is the sixth era this is the time of the original trilogy but don't worry you'll meet characters

[00:14:57] like Darth Vader before that and this is also the era of the new Outlaws game you might have seen trailers for recently and the seventh era is the other era where we'll find most of the newest

[00:15:07] content like The Mandalorian and the other shows that crosses over with and the eighth era is the time of the sequel trilogy and finally the ninth era does have a name again spoiler I'll tell

[00:15:18] you later but we have no content for it yet other than a promise we're getting a movie starring Daisy Ridley but by the time we get that far we should know a lot more each

[00:15:28] era will be marked as a separate season in the episode list so there's going to be nine seasons in total but these seasons are going to be of wildly different lengths depending on how much

[00:15:36] content is in that era as a rough schedule after this initial blitz of releases and weekly accolade coverage episodes will be released about every two weeks and each episode will be linked in the spoiler free list timeline that you'll find linked in the episode notes just a couple

[00:15:54] general notes about language first of all fun fact that you should know about Star Wars is that while it sounds from our perspective like most of the characters are speaking English they're actually speaking basic so basic is the common language spoken throughout the galaxy and it's

[00:16:11] the language people speak to be able to understand each other but it's definitely not the only language you'll be hearing as we go through this there's many others as for language in this podcast there will be probably the occasional curse word or adult conversation but more importantly

[00:16:27] there will be regular discussion of traumatic topics like genocide because star wars storytelling never shies away from a genocide and it looks at the struggles between the best and absolute worst sides of humanity which is exactly what makes these stories so timeless and enduring

[00:16:41] so we'll be covering everything from kids content to very mature content without differentiating so please keep that in mind thank you for bearing through this little explainer intro app um i hope everything's clear but if you have any questions please do ask away just send

[00:16:57] an email to sw timeline podcast at gmail.com and you'll find that link in the show notes and of course i could really use your help getting the word out the two best things you

[00:17:07] can do are simple and free just share this feed with anyone you think is ready to take their star wars relationship to the next level and leave a five-star rating wherever you're listening

[00:17:16] this is not only how we convince the algorithm to recommend the podcast to other people who like this sort of listening but also helps people who are on the fence unsure of which podcasts to choose

[00:17:26] and see if so many podcasts helps them decide that this one might be doing something different and it's maybe worth a listen now this podcast is part of the lower hounds network you'll be hearing more about that and what else we're covering in upcoming episodes but that's enough

[00:17:42] of me talking for today now if you are ready to board this starship the first full episodes are coming fast as of may 2024 the next episode is an overview of the dawn of the jedi and the old republic

[00:17:53] with jedi jedi bob uh there's no watching or reading or whatever quote-unquote homework for the first overview episode but if you want to play around with the nights of the old republic games and or the old republic mmo that will be the next episode after that just make

[00:18:08] sure that you're subscribed to the feed and you'll be notified as soon as these episodes release and we'll make sure that you get the most out of the acolyte and the rest of the star wars universe as possible this is the way

[00:18:32] okay 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

[00:18:59] 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 we both really like this show the politics the drama

[00:19:09] the lore it was made for the lore hounds 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

[00:19:20] pass option in 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 lore hounds podcast feed each week for our dragonfire hot but probably positive takes

[00:19:37] the lore hounds house of the dragon covers 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

[00:19:44] urge to read the book fire and blood by george r r martin dragon seeds may experience burning