Star Wars concept 50th anniversary

[Starbeard]

It just recently occurred to me that Star Wars is having a big golden jubilee this year.

We missed the true Star Wars Conception jubilee last year, 50 years after Lucas drafted The Star Wars as a story synopsis and Fox greenlighted it for a script.

Still, we can still celebrate this year. The actual scripts—the rough draft, first draft and second draft (i.e., the 'Starkiller' and/or 'Utapau' scripts)—were all finished in 1974. I think that's close enough to celebrate a Star Wars Conception jubilee.

I suggest that if you've pipe dreamed about playing or running or creating anything based on Starkiller or Utapau-themed Star Wars, now is the year to do it!

Still thinking on exactly what I'm going to do to commemorate, of course.

[Starbeard]

So upon rereading some of the drafts, synopsis, etc, I think an OD&D Star Wars mashup would be loads of fun. It wouldn't be "Utapau" Star Wars of course, since I think that was the Tatooine planet's name only for the second or third draft. The synopsis and first draft I now remember revolved around the planet Aquilae, so really I should've called it "Aquilae Star Wars."

The Aquilae of the original 1973 story synopsis (which was revised from a "Journal of the Whills" pitch someone has recently shown was formatted around the opening chapter of Fighting Man of Mars—cool!!) is not the Tatooine desert world of all the drafts, however. This Aquilae is what eventually became the inspiration for Naboo in Phantom Menace, and would be an awesome location to base an OD&D game. An "eerie blue-green" planet with a gargantuan defensive space fortress in orbit, with ambiguous information regarding whose side it's on or whether it is still operational and inhabited; a world of adventure full of wastelands, wild plains with giant roaming beasts, terrifying storms, ruins of ancient religious temples, and suspicious Imperial patrols stationed along desolate rest stops. The Lawful feudal monarchy has been dissolved by the evil Empire, but royalists continue to wage isolated, uncoordinated guerrilla warfare from hidden camps in the wilderness. Aside from the main human population, there is a downtrodden race of aliens who are Neutral, isolationist and fearsome, but the royalists must strike an alliance with them against their common enemy the Imperials. Great stuff.

Another bonus is that the first draft has two versions, one with alternate names for everything, almost none of which got used in the other drafts or movies. So Aquilae in Draft 1 rev2 is "Townowi." I can call my planet of adventure the Townowi System, and still keep Aquilae as it appears in Draft 1.

Other things to ponder, also based around the naming and renaming of things throughout the drafts:

The Jedi Bendu are also at times called Jedi Bendu of Ashla, and at times the Dai Nogas. I don't think they're ever referred to as Knights, but they are certainly warriors and almost always military officers or at least heroes. The Knights of Sith at one point are named the Legions of Lettow, and there are "The Sith One Hundred," the most feared evil knights in the galaxy. I figure all of these variations can be different mystic orders—with the Jedi being the coolest of course.

[thecube]

Mar 29, 2024 13:17:45 GMT -6 Starbeard said:

The Aquilae of the original 1973 story synopsis (which someone has recently shown was formatted around the opening chapter of Fighting Man of Mars—cool!!)

That was me. I was researching how phrases from Donald Richie's book The Films Of Akira Kurosawa ended up in George's Star Wars Synopsis of May 1973. And then I wondered if the Richie book also inspired any lines in the earlier mysterious two page Journal of the Whills fragment from Early 1973, the first known attempt at a Star Wars story. So I popped some random phrases from the Whills fragment into the Internet Archive search function (because they have a copy of the Richie book) and I was very, very surprised to see that some of the lines came from the Burroughs novel A Fighting Man of Mars. And also surprised that in all these years no one had ever noticed.

You can see my Reddit post here:

www.reddit.com/r/MawInstallation/comments/qy496c/ive_discovered_that_the_earliest_known_star_wars/

[Starbeard]

Yeah, it is surprising. On the one hand, it is the seventh Barsoom novel and pretty obscure, even among Star Wars fans of any age (most haven't read any ERB, and while I consider myself a fan of Barsoom I haven't even read that far into the series); but on the other hand, there's probably a lot of overlap between serious ERB fans who have read them all multiple times, and serious fans of 1977 Star Wars who are specifically fascinated with its gestation and influences. I can think of a few just on these boards who fit that description.

Anyway, well done, I never would have thought to go phrase hunting on the document. I am now even more excited to run Star Wars with OD&D, and even bring in some of the Warriors of Mars game into it.

Edit: and of course in my haste to get posts out I keep mixing up my terms. There's the 1973 Journal of the Whills pitch, which is drafted from AFMOM, and the subsequent 1973 Story Synopsis for The Star Wars, where Aquilae/proto-Naboo shows up. I'll fix my last post.

[Starbeard]

Here's what I've come up with for Force warriors:

"Ashla": Law
"Nogas": Neutrality
"Bogan": Chaos

Jedi Bendu of Ashla are Lawful Fighter-Clerics with a special combined spell list. From 1st through 6th level as a cleric, Jedi are Padawans and must advance in level only under the tutelage of a master (at least 7th level and 3 levels higher). Upon reaching 7th level they become full Jedi Bendu and may advance on their own.

Dark Knights of Sith are Chaotic Fighter-Clerics with a special combined spell list. They are much more organized than the Jedi. From 1st through 3rd level as fighters they are Lettow in training (no henchmen, but otherwise unrestricted); the Legions of Lettow are extremely plentiful compared to the other orders. After reaching hero status, they are knighted and join the full ranks of the Sith. There are many Sith Lords, but the most feared are the Sith One Hundred, a select group of Lord-level Sith who act as the personal paladins of the Master of the Bogan; they are led by the First Knight of the Sith.

Dai Nogas are Neutral Magic User-Clerics. They use the normal magic-user and cleric spell lists, and spells must be prepared to their own class spell slots. They cannot go higher than 6th level as clerics, but may advance normally as magic-users. Those under their maximum level as clerics are considered Juwo, who cannot take henchmen and may only advance under the tutelage of a full Dai Nogas master.