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Starfleet Corps of Engineers-Spacecraft Division
www.geocities.com/Area51/Nebula/9266

I know Lucasfilms made a bunch of restrictions for the comics and novels, and I know they wanted Zahn to use material from West End Games (Dreadnaughts, Victory-class, etc. . .). I can't say how much Lucasfilm made these restrictions to try to make the stories fit together with the movies.

Star Wars is interesting in being a big universe where vast ideas can be made to fit nicely within the whole, and it would be a shame if Lucasfilm totally upsets the whole. I can't say it isn't Lucas' perogotive, but it seems weird to set groundrules for the expanded universe and then violate them. I'm willing to wait a few months to find out just how much this all might be resolved with the release of the movie, but I can speculate.

Is anyone here expert enough (possibly you Frank) to be able to supply information as to whether the comics seem to violate or adhere to the Sith information we have from Episode I? Lines from the movie I'm thinking of are Yoda's line that there are always two: master and apprentice, Mace Windu's line that he does not believe the Sith could return without the Jedi Council knowing, Maul's line that they will at last reveal themselves (the Sith) to the Jedi and have revenge. Has any Dark Lord of the Sith from the comics taken the title Darth as have Vader, Sidious, and Maul? We can ignore the information in my initial post because I describe its biggest problem below.

The biggest direct conflict the above information has to the comics is the time factor. If the above number were larger, then the comics could take place between the founding of the Sith and the restructuring by Darth Bane. Since 2000 years doesn't give enough time for the comics though, we have a significant problem.

Since I don't know if this little factoid is actually from Lucas, I certainly can't see anyone saying it is the only fact, so I'm just bringing it to our attention.

If Lucas actually made this up as background information but won't put it in the movie, we may never read it. I suppose it is entirely possible that Lucas put this information in an earlier draft of The Phantom Menace, but the nearly agreed upon tenets of what is and isn't canon will disallow its being strictly canon based on early drafts. So the information will be interpreted by two schools (unless I'm missing one) until and unless it is actually put in a Star Wars movie (and even then we will not agree). 1) The information doesn't conflict anything in the actual movie, and therefore falls under the canon unless contradicted clause. 2)Its not being put into the movie doesn't set it in stone, so since it contradicts the comic, it is balogna.

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Starfleet Corps of Engineers-Spacecraft Division
www.geocities.com/Area51/Nebula/9266

If the information about Darth Bane is going to be used in any way as official tie-in material (like the Dark Horse comics, Bantam books and Lucasarts games), then it is probably going to be under a similar contract-if not the same contract as the comics. These sources maintain a continuity that this new information would be countering (massively). So, the comics and this new material would be equal in terms of official if not "canon" (in terms of which they would probably also be equal). The problem is, while the comics and this new tie-in material would be equally sanctioned by Lucasfilms, they contradict each other greatly. So, the question: which should be believed more?

Which is most accurate: the comics or this new material? The comics have been around longer, but my question to Frank is whether there is enough in the comics to shed doubt as to their accuracy. I've only read a bit of the comics, but I've never heard much that seems to sync with actual stuff from Episode I. I was wondering if he had heard of comic Sith being called darths, of there being only two, etc. Since the new information seems to work better (though I'd figure the Sith would have been older than 2000 years), I'd be partially inclined to believe it. As posted above, it's always possible this new information may be Lucas' thinking on the subject, though that is speculation.
Lucas' numerous drafts on the movies included much information that he is later recycling, especially names and the sort. These drafts also inlcude a lot of things that he seems to hold as accurate, and this information might be part of his backstory for the Sith.