User blog:Brandon Rhea/So what is the Alternative Star Wars Saga?

'''DISCLAIMER: This blog post was originally posted on my StarWars.com blog at Jun 20, 2009, 11:48 PM. It has been posted here because the StarWars.com blogs will be disappearing soon. This is NOT meant to be an up to date explanation of the Alternative Saga, but rather a way of saving the blog for sourcing purposes.'''

Well hello there! Wow, this is the first blog entry I'm making on StarWars.com. I've done blog entries using the Wikia blog system on Star Wars Fanon, the Star Wars wiki of fan invention, but this is actually pretty legit! =P

So for my first blog entry, I want to talk to you about something I addressed in the "Blog Information" section of my blog's page: what exactly is the Alternative Star Wars Saga, also known just as the Alternative Saga? To put it simply, the Alternative Saga is a series of fan fiction that re-imagines/reboots the Star Wars Saga. When I want to give an example of the type of reboot or re-imagining that I'm talking about, I tend to point to successful reboots like Casino Royale and Batman Begins that re-imagined their respective franchises with a brand new series. The Alternative Saga is done in much the same way; it essentially rewrites the saga, but I wouldn't be egotistical enough to suggest or presume that this series is in the same league as those two successful franchise reboots.

The Alternative Saga was founded in 2008 by Victor "Squishy Vic" Dorantes, Wayne "CurrentBigThing" Lipman III, and yours truly, Brandon "Jedimasterbac" Rhea, although Victor has since left the project. It was originally a combination of the Squishy Vic Series, written by Victor, and my own series which was also called the Alternative Saga. We decided to keep the name for our overall series, since it made the most sense due to the goal of the project: rewriting the saga.

Just as a note, right now I'm going to be talking just about the development of my part of the series. You can find out about the development of Victor's side at his blog, "The HoundStar Cantina".

Before any further explanation, let me leave you with the tagline of our series, a tagline that has now become a Star Wars Fanon cliche: interpretation is the key.

Brandon Rhea's Alternative Saga
My series was always focused on rewrites. I started it back in December 2004 along with Gregg Tasoulas, a fan fiction writer from Greece who I unfortunately haven't heard from in years. We started co-authoring what we were then calling the "Alternate Trilogy". The original plan was to keep the prequel trilogy intact and start rewrites after there, writing a new Episode IV, Episode V, and Episode VI keeping in mind how technology had advanced since 1977. The new episodes would follow the same basic premise of Luke Skywalker eventually redeeming Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine being overthrown in the sixth story, but the events leading to it would have been radically different.

Like what happens frequently when two people with ideas work together, the ideas conflict. I wanted to do six new stories, starting with Episode IV and going to Episode IX. My plan was to have an Episode IV, Episode V, and Episode VI that in no way, shape, or form resembled the original trilogy, with Episode VII, Episode VIII, and Episode IX being the stories based off of the classic films. Gregg was not in favor of this, so we mutually agreed to write our own stories rather than one. Gregg never got around to writing his episodes, but he did write a sizable chunk of a story called Stone Cold, which charted the beginnings of a character called Kane Starkiller. I also ended up using the Kane Starkiller character, just a different one than Gregg's, as the character was created prior to us starting our own storylines.

After Stone Cold, I never really heard from Gregg again, but I kept working on my own story. I eventually incorporated the character Ussej Padric Bac, my role-playing character on TheStarWarsRP.com role-playing website (which I'll take about in blogs in the near-future), into what I was now referring to as my Alternative Saga, where he became one of the main characters of the Expanded Universe of my series. I wrote a lot of drafts for a novel called Shadows of the Jedi: The Legend of Ussej Padric Bac, but I eventually put that on hold for my current project: Star Wars: Episode I - The Chosen One.

The merger
In early 2008, Victor and I decided to merge our continuities into one Alternative Saga. Shortly thereafter, Wayne, who'd worked with Victor in his series before, also joined the project. I had most of the major galactic events in my story, whereas Victor and Wayne tended to focus on characters that did not have a large role on the galactic scene. Eventually, Victor decided he wanted to stick to his own continuity, so his series was removed from Alternative Saga canon. Wayne and I still work together, with me working on The Chosen One and Wayne working on his novel, Star Wars: The Alderaan Affair.

The Chosen One
Set in 22 BBY, The Chosen One allowed me to abandon my original idea of leaving the prequels intact and instead start completely fresh with the film rewrites. The story chronicles the journey of Annikin Skywalker, a nineteen year old moisture farmer who lives with his family on Tatooine, from being a mild-mannered farmer to potentially being the prophetic savior of the galaxy. Along the way, he meets other characters such as Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi Master Jard Dooku, Ophuchi Clan leader Sarus, Queen Sabé Arcadia, and Jedi Padawan Padmé Naberrie, among others. It's a coming of age story where Annikin has to reconcile what he wants to do with his life with the fact that he may be destined to save trillions of people from the Dark Lord of the Sith, all while beginning the first steps of his training in the Jedi Order. It's a very personal story, along with action adventure as it begins the Clone Wars, and I'm very pleased with how it's turning out.

The Alderaan Affair
Set in 7 BBY, The Alderaan Affair re-imagines the early years of Princess Leia Organa on Alderaan and focuses on how she meets a young nerf herder named Epin Lanmaw. Although other characters and their feelings on various situations may be explored, Wayne devotes most of the novel to exploring the relationship between Epin and Leia. It also details Epin's relationship with his abusive father, as well as Epin's involvement in the Black Manka fight club and the effects that each has upon him. Epin also learns that he has sensitivity to the Force from Darth Traya, who is somehow connected to his family, by giving him guidance and focusing on what she tells him is his powerful family and the bloody history of his ancestors. The novel co-won the Best Fan Work Award in the Fourth Star Wars Fanon Wiki Awards.

Artists
One of the great things about this project is that we have a number of artists who help us make covers for our stories, and photo manipulations of characters, events, etc. for use in articles on Star Wars Fanon. Victor is one of these artists, who graciously decided to remain as an Alternative Saga artist despite leaving the project as a writer. Solus, a great user on Star Wars Fanon, also helps in creating photo manipulations, just as she does with these manipulations and book covers for the Force Exile series, a fan fiction series written by Star Wars Fanon user and Wookieepedia administrator Atarumaster88.

Influences
When Victor was still in the project, he was telling me that a lot of his influences were film and media driven. He was influenced in his work by The Godfather film series when focusing on family, as well as Selena, The Lion King, and Beauty and the Beast. Victor also said that themes like friendship were inspired by The Lord of the Rings, Titanic, and Starship Troopers. That's not to say that all of his influences were from movies, though. He was also inspired by canon works such as Knights of the Old Republic and the Darth Bane novel series. Some of those elements aren't in the series anymore because of Victor's departure, though.

Wayne was also influenced by media sources. He enjoys Stephen King novels because he likes horror stories, but the biggest influence comes from music. He listens to music like Slayer, DevilDriver, and Slipknot, which end up playing influential roles in the development of his work because of how they convey anger and aggression for the characters. He also feels that KillSwitch Engage's album "The End of Heartache" does a good job in influencing emotions of pain and loss to portray those emotions in a narrative.

As for me, I also have influences that are from a wide variety of sources. I use religion a lot, particularly Christian, Jewish, and Islamic ideas. For example, when Steven Alldis, the founder of TheStarWarsRP.com, and I were laying the groundwork for Ussej Padric Bac back in 2005, we named him Ussej specifically because "Ussej" is a respelling of "Jesus". I also have stories in the works that are based on Biblical stories such as the Book of Exodus. TheStarWarsRP.Com is also a major influence for me, due to how active I have been there since 2005, as is Smallville.

The future
There are a number of stories coming out in the future for the Alternative Saga. Along with continuing the story of Annikin Skywalker in stories such as Star Wars: Episode II - Dawn of an Empire, and working with fellow author Edward Oliver on the Trials of War series that will tell the story of the Clone Wars, I'll be working on a series called Chronicles of the Great War set about twenty years after the Jedi Civil War. This series will focus on Ussej Padric Bac before he becomes the Shaman of the Whills, as seen in The Chosen One. Wayne will be working on Veil of Darkness, a sequel to The Alderaan Affair that continues Epin's storyline, and Betrayal, which will be about Darth Traya and her connection to the Lanmaw family. Brent Krajewski, another Alternative Saga contributor, will also be working on a novel called Disciple about Obi-Wan Kenobi and Jard Dooku.

Another story I will be working on, which I am exclusively announcing here in this blog, is a short story called My Father's Dreams. Set a few years after the formation of the Galactic Republic in 25,000 BBY, the story will chronicle the life of Jonathan Bac, who has just recently retired from being the first Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic. Starting with his birth on Alderaan to Conrad Bac and Conrad's wife in 25,045 BBY, it will chronicle the major events in his life, such as Conrad's assassination on Onderon, Jonathan's time as an Admiral in the Organian Empire, his work with the Order of the Jedi Bendu of the Ophuchi, his time as an ambassador to the pre-Republic coalition of planets, his fight against the Anarchic Brotherhood of Planets in the final battle of the Unification War that founded the Republic, his work in helping to draft the Galactic Constitution, to his eight years as Supreme Chancellor. That sounds like a lot, but each event will only be shown in short snippets. Most of the chronicling will be through first person narration; the set-up for the short story is that Jonathan is recounting his life to an interviewer so the interviewer can write a story about him. Therefore, the narrative of the flashbacks is essentially Jonathan speaking to the interviewer.

In conclusion
I hope this helped to tell you a bit about what the Alternative Saga is. I think it's a great project and I've had a lot of fun with it for the last four years, and I hope to continue having fun with it in the years to come. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them in the blog comments!