Star Wars...What If?

[rando1000]

I started thinking about a Sci-Fi campaign yesterday, and I started along my usual "Star Trek but not Star Trek" line, where I have humanity just starting to reach out to the galaxy early 21st century, with some alien allies like Grays, etc.

Then I got to thinking, what if I went a different direction? What if the galactic Federation/Empire/etc. had already existed, but was destroyed in the distant past, and humanity in the modern era somehow stumbled on it.

After reviewing the Xenu story from Scientology legend, it seemed like a great myth: an ancient human(oid) civilization that was destroyed long before our humanity started civilizations of their own.

And then, it hit me. There's already an "ancient" Empire of humans in our own mythology: Star Wars! It happened "a long time ago," in a galaxy far far away. And everything that happened in the SW universe could be long gone by now. Hell, the whole SW galaxy could be but a distant memory. Now, what if some artifacts from that far away galaxy made their way here (who knows how, timey-wimey stuff)? What if humanity (Earth humanity) happened to be in deep need of technology, maybe a large ship to escape solar destruction? A Star Destroyer could carry thousands of human refugees into the stars, into the unknown...

[Cyrad]

That's kind of Numenera in a nutshell. Medieval societies living in the ruins of civilizations that died off millions of years ago and gradually rediscovering their technology that is so advanced that it's almost like magic. And their tech blows anything seen in Star Wars out of the water. Nevermind blowing up planets - these civilizations could warp time and space and move stars. That would have made a more interesting superweapon than a Death Star 3.0 - a weapon that pulls your enemy's planet out of orbit and hurls it out of the star system.

[rando1000]

Cyrad wrote:

...a weapon that pulls your enemy's planet out of orbit and hurls it out of the star system.

That certainly would ruin one's day.

[Imbicatus]

Actually the superweapon hurled a meteor at the planet, sank a continent, and caused 1000 years of darkness.

[Aralicia]

Cyrad wrote:

And their tech blows anything seen in Star Wars out of the water. Nevermind blowing up planets - these civilizations could warp time and space and move stars. That would have made a more interesting superweapon than a Death Star 3.0 - a weapon that pulls your enemy's planet out of orbit and hurls it out of the star system.

I'd like to counter with a few other Starwars Legends superweapons :

- Centerpoint Station, a space station able to move around planets anywhere within the galaxy
- the Sun Crusher, a starfighter capable to turn a sun into a supernova
- the World Devastators, ships made to harvest a whole planet, destroying in the process
- The Orbital Nightcloak, a satellite network preventing all sunlight to reach the surface, creating complete darkness and turning the world to ice.
- The Visual Electromagnetic Intensifier was another satellite network focusing light onto the planet, which would pretty much cook the whole surface.
Bonus note, all but the first of those superweapons were made by the Galactic Empire. These guys have a bunch of vicious scientists.

That said, if the goal is to have only a few techs from Star Wars able to arrive to the players' world, you only need to have a one-way passage from the SW galaxy to the player's world in another galaxy. The Star Wars galaxy is surrounded by an hyperspace disturbance that block both hyperspace travel and hyperspace communication. A ship out of the galaxy would be unable to go back home, or even communicate with home. The only known exception is Vector Prime, the path used by the Yuuzhan Vong to invade the galaxy, two decades after the death of the Emperor; the problem is, no one know this path anymore.

A simple explanation for the arrival of a Star Wars ship could be :

Quote:

The starship was preparing to enter hyperespace for its intended destination when the either hyperdrive or the navicomputer had a malfunction (battle damage ? sabotage ?) and sent the ship careening through hyperspace on a uncontrolled path. Luck (or the Force) being on the side of the crew, the ship didn't met a planet or a star, but was sent through a rift in the hyperspace disturbance, and reappeared in another galaxy, close enough from the player's world to be detected by the planet's satellites. Due to the malfunction, the route used couldn't be recorded, and thus the crew has no reliable way to go back home. They'll have to trade favors with to locals to ensure their survival. However, since the players don't talk Basic, there will be communication issues between them and the ship's crew.

Alternatively, the malfunction could have had other side effects, like :

- disabling the life support, killing all the crew, forcing the players to find their own way to the stranded ship, and to try to understand and alien technology.
- destroying the hyperdrive upon re-entrance in normalspace, and thus forbidding any FTL travel without researchers studying the remnants of the drive.

[rando1000]

My thought was a destruction of a portion of the SW galaxy that sends a bunch of junk, along with a rogue neutron star maybe jammed in a weird hyperspace bubble, heading for our solar system. Earth realizes they're about to get wiped out when debris stars slamming into them, and somehow a lone star destroyer is detected and boarded.

This will set into motion an evacuation of refugees escaping Earth (BSG style) except they'll have cool Imperial tech; have them jump a few places in our galaxy and find out that Earth was at the quiet end of a cosmic cul de sac, and there's a lot going on out here. Maybe something like a Yuuzhan Vong invasion. Except the loan Imperial ship is much better tech than the rest of our galaxy, so humanity ends up playing an important role in the battle.

Just kind of a loose idea. I'm not sure it's the best iteration; I'm still mulling the concept over. But it's certainly interesting to think about.

[Rub-Eta]

I'm a bit confused, you want to house rule Star Wars into IRL canon?

@Aralicia: Never heard or seen those things in the movies, are you sure you're talking about Star Wars?

[Val'bryn2]

@Rub-Eta: Those are from the Expanded Universe books, if I recall, CenterPoint Station particularly was from Legacy of the Force

[Orthos]

Yep, that's why Aralicia specified "Starwars Legends", that's the "official" term now for stuff formerly cataloged under "Expanded Universe".

[Rub-Eta]

Ah, so it's not Star Wars. Sorry, was confused.

[Val'bryn2]

Still Star Wars, just not movie-verse. It was all Star Wars before Disney decided what was and was not canon.

[Imbicatus]

Rub-Eta wrote:

Ah, so it's not Star Wars. Sorry, was confused.

It is Star Wars. It just didn't appear in a movie. Most of it is still canon, because it also appears in reference books that are canon.

[Orthos]

Rub-Eta wrote:

Ah, so it's not Star Wars.

Please don't start this. It will only end badly, and only serves to derail the conversation from what Rando is actually wanting to discuss.

[GarnathFrostmantle]

rando1000 wrote:

Then I got to thinking, what if I went a different direction? What if the galactic Federation/Empire/etc. had already existed, but was destroyed in the distant past, and humanity in the modern era somehow stumbled on it.

That's the entire plot of Warhammer Fantasy..

[rando1000]

Rub-Eta wrote:

I'm a bit confused, you want to house rule Star Wars into IRL canon?

Kind of. I want some tech from a galaxy far far away, a long time ago by very definition, to find its way to Earth centuries later (ie our modern Earth) and that said technology could be used in Earth's time of need and launch a whole new adventure.

Oh, I guess I didn't specify, but I'd have to assume that "Star Wars" the movie franchise never happened on this "Earth"; the Star Destroyer and other tech would be completely foreign to the world.

It wouldn't even technically have to be Star Wars, it could be any generic empire, I just thought players might like to be able to run around in Storm Trooper armor with TIE fighters and blasters, while interfacing a totally different social structure (ours) with those items.

[rando1000]

GarnathFrostmantle wrote:

That's the entire plot of Warhammer Fantasy.

There are similarities, I'll admit, although the conceptual implementation would be much different. Warhammer Fantasy is by nature Fantasy, this would be much more Space Opera. Even the magical elements of the Star Wars galaxy (ie the Force) would be immediately present, since there would be no Jedi teachers. The most a human might hope for would be some limited Psionic levels to mimic untrained Force use.

[Chris Lambertz]

Removed a post and reply to it. Folks, the Homebrew forum isn't the place to debate what is/is not cannon in the Star Wars universe, and baiting comments about another user's forum activity isn't OK either.