To make Star Wars less "been there, done that" than most of the players in my group (who I've been gaming with since 1986) were expecting when I said I wanted to run FFG's game, I told them that, while most of the setting would be familiar, it would be an alternate timeline.

My game is still taking place about 20 years after the reorganization of the Republic into the Glactic Empire but, at least so far, there's no Death Star so Alderaan still exists. As a result, there's been no rallying cry to draw membership to the Rebel Alliance. Rebels are still splintered and most people see them as terrorists because the Empire isn't really the over-the-top mustache twirling evil entity that it's portrayed as in Rebels, for instance. There's still corruption, of course but much of the Empire's bad behavior has a rational explanation that seems to make it not bad.

The Empire didn't enslave Wookiees, for example. They interred them after the Wookiee leaders declared independence from the Empire and called on wookiees all over the galaxy to join the Rebel Alliance. In truth, the wookiees were manipulated to do this so the Empire would react exactly was planned and people would simply accept it as a necessity to protect the safety and stability of the galaxy... just as Palpatine had promised.

There was never a Darth Vader. The man in the black suit was called Lord Vader. Perhaps it was because Palpatine realized that any historian would know the implications of "darth". Lord Vader died a couple of years ago helping to protect the Empire and he received a hero's ceremony and his death was commemorated by the creation of the first Imperial Holiday after Unification Day.

The whole explanation for the changes gets complicated but, in a nutshell, Yoda was the Sith Lord who manipulated events in an attempt to destroy the Jedi from within and to take control of the Senate and rule the Republic. Palpatine was the last member of an order that had splintered from the Jedi many years ago because they could sense the complacency developing within the Jedi Order. Even this group had no idea that the Jedi were being manipulated by a Sith Lord sitting on its Council so, for that, Palpatine was unprepared.

So everything is flipped. The "bad" things the Empire does are far less harsh than they are in canon. Palpatine isn't the master manipulator that he is in canon so he's playing catch up with Yoda... who is. Yoda will, for example, cause a disaster and propaganda will be set and ready to blame the Empire. The EMpire will move in and try to contain the issue (and capture the rebels responsible) by establishing martial law only to get painted as even more oppressive for it.

Incidentally, the Separatists started building the Death Star... and Yoda currently has control of it but it was never completed. Eventually, I'm hoping my PC's will be engaged with the idea that they can help destroy it when that becomes a necessity...

Anyone else playing in an alternate timeline?

I was considering...

...a hyperdrive accident (perhaps on a Despair or two) shunts the PCs into an alternate dimension where Dooku killed Palpatine and the Confedaracy won the Clone Wars. If the swap happens when Despairs are rolled on Astrogation, then it would feel more like some kind of freak occurrence happened instead of it being just a mcguffin.

What would be different? Mostly cosmetic things. Dooku would be Emperor and the Sith Master, and Asajj Ventress would be the Sith Apprentice. The military of the Empire would be droids instead of stormtroopers, and they'd be commanded by Lord Grievous aboard the Deathstar. "Remember Coruscant!" would be the rallying cry of the Rebel Alliance instead of "Remember Alderaan!" The dsign of star destroyers would be based on Separatist ships instead of Republic ships - perhaps something akin to the Malevolence .

Life would probably be more oppressive since Dooku acted more as an aggressor and conqueror than Palpatine, whose rise was more subtle and manipulative. Both Empires are just as crushing, only Dooku's has less humanity because the armies are all droids. Between the Zygerrians and Trandoshans, slavery runs rampant instead of spice smuggling. In short, the PCs would feel like it's all very similar but somehow worse than where they came from.

It's the sort of thing that's probably best for a Rebellion-centric campaign. If the swap to the Dooku dimension happened in the middle of an important Rebel mission in the Palpatine dimension, then the PCs might be at odds of what to do. They could feel like Dooku Dimension definitely needs help, but the mission they were on in Palaptine Dimension was vital.

And how do they get back anyway?!

I've been in many, many Star Wars AU's in RPGs.

The longest running so far is one where Anakin arrived too late to save Palpatine. This led to an election for Chancellor between Organa who supported pardoning Mace, and Tarkin who wanted to prosecute him and impose major limitations on the autonomy of the Jedi Order. Organa wins but Tarkin claims the Jedi rigged the election and leads his supporters to form a Republic in Exile which leads to a pattern of hot and cold wars between the two Republic factions and the CIS that lasts decades.

We've also had ones where Palpatine, Anakin, ObiWan and Grievious all died at the ROTS Battle of Coruscant along with Dooku, where the Empire won at Endor and Palpatine survived, one where the Empire lost at Endor and Palpatine and Vader died but the Rebel fleet was crippled and the Imperial fleet at Endor was all but destroyed. There the Empire fragments into civil war but the rebels are only able to secure a few systems with their remaining forces while trying to rebuild their fleet and keep the Inter-Imperial conflicts going, and one where the Vong invaded while the war between the New Republic and the Empire was still raging.

I ran a long Star Wars campaign where I rewrote the Clone Wars to more resemble the hints and rumours we had about it during the dark times between the original trilogy and the prequels. It became even more AU as the characters killed Lord Vader and destroyed the first Death Star as it was nearing completion. They then went on to start there own more balanced version of the Jedi order to prevent the mistakes of the previous order.

I am thinking about running a Firefy like campaign next and am thinking of making the Battle of Endor an Imperial victory that sees the Rebel Alliance destroyed. The surviving rebels drift to the Outer Rim territories to avoid Imperial entanglements and lay low. Where a ship will get you a job and a blaster will let you keep it.

I am thinking about running a Firefy like campaign next and am thinking of making the Battle of Endor an Imperial victory that sees the Rebel Alliance destroyed. The surviving rebels drift to the Outer Rim territories to avoid Imperial entanglements and lay low. Where a ship will get you a job and a blaster will let you keep it.

While I love this idea, the signature quote I just picked out is a complete coincidence.

They then went on to start there own more balanced version of the Jedi order to prevent the mistakes of the previous order.

I am curious, what was your player's version of a more balanced order? I have always felt that part of the key was going back to the earliest form of the jedi code...

Emotion, yet peace.

Ignorance, yet knowledge.

Passion, yet serenity.

Chaos, yet harmony.

Death, yet the Force.

One of my favorite AU point of divergences spawned from Luke's encounter with Vader at Bespin.

When Luke leaped from the platform, Vader pulled him back and dragged him to his shuttle. From there Vader forced Luke's fall to the Darkside and began training him as a tool to defeat the emperor.

I am thinking about running a Firefy like campaign next and am thinking of making the Battle of Endor an Imperial victory that sees the Rebel Alliance destroyed. The surviving rebels drift to the Outer Rim territories to avoid Imperial entanglements and lay low. Where a ship will get you a job and a blaster will let you keep it.

My group did a Firefly style campaign soon after EOE came out but ours was a post Clone Wars campaign rather then an AU where the rebels lost Endor, though I remember one scene in I Jedi where Corran basically sees one of the pirate bands that make up the Invids as what the surviving rebels would have become had they lost the war.

Our Empire wins Endor the Empire fell into a massive civil War because Luke and Vader kiilled Palpatine. While the war raged Garm bel Iblis rallied his forces and what was left of the rebellion. Palpatine loyalists sabotaged the Death Star II so it jumped into a black hole the first time it went to hyperspace.

Ckobbe - he based it on the Minbari from Babylon 5, the order consisted of equal parts force users, warriors and workers. That way no one ideal would have complete power. The non- force users would also keep the mystics in touch with the real world, something his character felt lead to the fall of the Jedi order.

Thought, its a game, why not do something balls to the wall (GM said no but I still like the idea)

1940s earth-

Red Skull has his duel with Cap, presumably "dies" using the tesseract, but as in Avengers, its a portal. Gets to this galaxy shortly after the battle of endor and quickly climbs the ladder in the Imperial Remnant. Creates a unit of storm commandos (aptly called hydra commandos) and hid end goal is to synthesize the tesseract. Doing such, they cause terror on the worlds where they are trying to find the materials needed. Players, in turn can help stop him (or not). Thoughts? I know its crazy, but who said we had to be serious?

Thought, its a game, why not do something balls to the wall (GM said no but I still like the idea)

1940s earth-

Red Skull has his duel with Cap, presumably "dies" using the tesseract, but as in Avengers, its a portal. Gets to this galaxy shortly after the battle of endor and quickly climbs the ladder in the Imperial Remnant. Creates a unit of storm commandos (aptly called hydra commandos) and hid end goal is to synthesize the tesseract. Doing such, they cause terror on the worlds where they are trying to find the materials needed. Players, in turn can help stop him (or not). Thoughts? I know its crazy, but who said we had to be serious?

A portal between the Marvel universe and the Star Wars universe? If the X-Men can end up on the Enterprise helping Captain Kirk , I see no problem with this.

My players were not immediately happy with me pulling out another Star Wars RPG to play. When I explained EotE to them, they got a bit more interested. They were unhappy with the whole "we're rebels opposing the Empire" idea. They would not have wanted to play AoR for that reason.

This could be an interesting way to inject some wild newness to the rebels vs. Empire campaign.

You can go full-fledged Alternate Reality altogether. Like, everything is Star Wars universe in flavor, but everything is different in details.

I had this idea of a Star Wars verse where the Galactic Empire is basically the Fel Empire, with thousands of Imperial Knights as his agents roaming the Galaxy, leading the Stormtroopers against pretenders, and the hunting the dangerous cults of the Jedi and Sith, always trying to.. Gather Force Sensitive to their "cause".

An AU/AR I would love to see is if Tarkin (one of the best characters by far,I mean, what other non force user has the balls talk to DV like he's his b***), grew discontent with how the Emperor ran things and decided to make his own splinter faction of the empire. So rather than Imperials/Rebels (who really have inferior supplies/numbers/weapons with superior morale and what I call "Screenwriter ex-machina") you have two Imperial factions duking it out for control. One side has the great manipulator Palpatine at the helm and the other has SW's greatest strategist leading it. It would be a cool concept, and I thought about starting a fanfic for it until I saw the community of FanFics to be filled with the hipsters and the fandom girls and puked in my mouth

When did Tarkin become SW's greatest strategist? Fair sure but even discounting Legends characters I have yet to see anything showing him as a particularly gifted strategist.

Also while the rebels certainly have inferior numbers you shouldn't underestimate their equipment. Remember the meeting on the Death Star where Motti points out that they are equipped well enough to be a threat and those who disagree with him don't claim that the rebels aren't well equipped they just feel that they are a danger to the fleet but can't harm the Death Star.

When did Tarkin become SW's greatest strategist? Fair sure but even discounting Legends characters I have yet to see anything showing him as a particularly gifted strategist.

Also while the rebels certainly have inferior numbers you shouldn't underestimate their equipment. Remember the meeting on the Death Star where Motti points out that they are equipped well enough to be a threat and those who disagree with him don't claim that the rebels aren't well equipped they just feel that they are a danger to the fleet but can't harm the Death Star.

Tarkin was gifted for his application of terror, the fact that he was grand moff and blew up an entire planet shown that he was extremely capable at his job of making the kind of decision that would horrify and suppress the population. However, I saw him as merely highly experienced rather then outright gifted tactician, but he was competent unlike many that served under him. Just his ultimate flaw was that he didn't know that a mere farmboy would pull off a 1 in a million shot that would ultimately kill him.

Basically, he was the guy in charge of the largest sector, but after the clone wars he never really partook in serious conflict again, his role was more of a managerial role.

Well I am planning and talking to some people about a campaign set 50 years before the Battle of Yavin. At first it will largely be a reshufllng of elements from the movies and Legends, but later on things will take a different turn. I am drawing from some things that have been "apocrypha" since the time of the prequels, including the idea of the Clone Wars being the Republic vs Clones.

Well I am planning and talking to some people about a campaign set 50 years before the Battle of Yavin. At first it will largely be a reshufllng of elements from the movies and Legends, but later on things will take a different turn. I am drawing from some things that have been "apocrypha" since the time of the prequels, including the idea of the Clone Wars being the Republic vs Clones.

How does Republic vs Clones even work? O.o

In my game, Anakin rule the galaxy with Padme instead of the emperor

Well I am planning and talking to some people about a campaign set 50 years before the Battle of Yavin. At first it will largely be a reshufllng of elements from the movies and Legends, but later on things will take a different turn. I am drawing from some things that have been "apocrypha" since the time of the prequels, including the idea of the Clone Wars being the Republic vs Clones.

How does Republic vs Clones even work? O.o

The war is what most people assumed it would be before Lucas crapped all over:

A group of warlords who perfected Cloning technology are exploiting it to conquer the Galaxy, and go on a full rampage. The Republic has to hastily muster its army and fleet through Volunteers at first, and eventually obligatory service.

That probably includes the Jedi. Some joined the war voluntarily early on, but as the war extended the Republic must have started to force them to participate. Which must have been rather devastating to an order of pacific monks.

Well I am planning and talking to some people about a campaign set 50 years before the Battle of Yavin. At first it will largely be a reshufllng of elements from the movies and Legends, but later on things will take a different turn. I am drawing from some things that have been "apocrypha" since the time of the prequels, including the idea of the Clone Wars being the Republic vs Clones.

How does Republic vs Clones even work? O.o

The war is what most people assumed it would be before Lucas crapped all over:

A group of warlords who perfected Cloning technology are exploiting it to conquer the Galaxy, and go on a full rampage. The Republic has to hastily muster its army and fleet through Volunteers at first, and eventually obligatory service.

That probably includes the Jedi. Some joined the war voluntarily early on, but as the war extended the Republic must have started to force them to participate. Which must have been rather devastating to an order of pacific monks.

I see... I am so glad I didn't care about star wars until the clone wars happened. That sounds like nonsense to me. But by all means, do you.

When did Tarkin become SW's greatest strategist? Fair sure but even discounting Legends characters I have yet to see anything showing him as a particularly gifted strategist.

Also while the rebels certainly have inferior numbers you shouldn't underestimate their equipment. Remember the meeting on the Death Star where Motti points out that they are equipped well enough to be a threat and those who disagree with him don't claim that the rebels aren't well equipped they just feel that they are a danger to the fleet but can't harm the Death Star.

Tarkin was gifted for his application of terror, the fact that he was grand moff and blew up an entire planet shown that he was extremely capable at his job of making the kind of decision that would horrify and suppress the population. However, I saw him as merely highly experienced rather then outright gifted tactician, but he was competent unlike many that served under him. Just his ultimate flaw was that he didn't know that a mere farmboy would pull off a 1 in a million shot that would ultimately kill him.

Basically, he was the guy in charge of the largest sector, but after the clone wars he never really partook in serious conflict again, his role was more of a managerial role.

Yeah I think he was a competent strategist and tactician, though I think it would have been nice if The Clone Wars had shown his activities on the battlefield rather then demoting him to intelligence, staff, and behind the lines work on screen. However there is a huge difference between being competent and being the best there is and I just don't see any proof to support that leap.

Well I am planning and talking to some people about a campaign set 50 years before the Battle of Yavin. At first it will largely be a reshufllng of elements from the movies and Legends, but later on things will take a different turn. I am drawing from some things that have been "apocrypha" since the time of the prequels, including the idea of the Clone Wars being the Republic vs Clones.

How does Republic vs Clones even work? O.o

The war is what most people assumed it would be before Lucas crapped all over:

A group of warlords who perfected Cloning technology are exploiting it to conquer the Galaxy, and go on a full rampage. The Republic has to hastily muster its army and fleet through Volunteers at first, and eventually obligatory service.

That probably includes the Jedi. Some joined the war voluntarily early on, but as the war extended the Republic must have started to force them to participate. Which must have been rather devastating to an order of pacific monks.

I see... I am so glad I didn't care about star wars until the clone wars happened. That sounds like nonsense to me. But by all means, do you.

The original movies established nothing about the Clone Wars and even the pre-PT Legends material left it mostly alone. The whole warlords using clone armies against the Republic idea came from a few small sections of the Thrawn trilogy which later Legends material retroconned to refer to CIS efforts to create a clone army of there own, and Kamino rebelling against the early Empire.

Well I am planning and talking to some people about a campaign set 50 years before the Battle of Yavin. At first it will largely be a reshufllng of elements from the movies and Legends, but later on things will take a different turn. I am drawing from some things that have been "apocrypha" since the time of the prequels, including the idea of the Clone Wars being the Republic vs Clones.

How does Republic vs Clones even work? O.o

The war is what most people assumed it would be before Lucas crapped all over:

A group of warlords who perfected Cloning technology are exploiting it to conquer the Galaxy, and go on a full rampage. The Republic has to hastily muster its army and fleet through Volunteers at first, and eventually obligatory service.

That probably includes the Jedi. Some joined the war voluntarily early on, but as the war extended the Republic must have started to force them to participate. Which must have been rather devastating to an order of pacific monks.

I see... I am so glad I didn't care about star wars until the clone wars happened. That sounds like nonsense to me. But by all means, do you.

If I had been told that a Jedi managed to fund a whole clone army without anyone noticing, on a planet outside the galaxy, and that the soldiers would be mentally conditioned to kill their former Jedi commanders by remote control, I would have said that it sounds like nonesense too.

It's Star Wars. Premises are often rather iffy, it's all about how cool you make it sound/look.

Well I am planning and talking to some people about a campaign set 50 years before the Battle of Yavin. At first it will largely be a reshufllng of elements from the movies and Legends, but later on things will take a different turn. I am drawing from some things that have been "apocrypha" since the time of the prequels, including the idea of the Clone Wars being the Republic vs Clones.

How does Republic vs Clones even work? O.o

The war is what most people assumed it would be before Lucas crapped all over:

A group of warlords who perfected Cloning technology are exploiting it to conquer the Galaxy, and go on a full rampage. The Republic has to hastily muster its army and fleet through Volunteers at first, and eventually obligatory service.

That probably includes the Jedi. Some joined the war voluntarily early on, but as the war extended the Republic must have started to force them to participate. Which must have been rather devastating to an order of pacific monks.

I see... I am so glad I didn't care about star wars until the clone wars happened. That sounds like nonsense to me. But by all means, do you.

I have no idea what you mean.

I see... I am so glad I didn't care about star wars until the clone wars happened. That sounds like nonsense to me. But by all means, do you.

I dont see how this is any less nonesense compared to the *********** we have had.

Just starting with the name. We rarely name a war based on your own army, but we rather define it as the opposition. It should have been something like "The Separatist War" or "the Corporate Insurrection" since the sponsors of the bad side of that war were all big megacorporations.

No. Instead we had a silly war involving disposable armies that had zero emotional involvement. Just the same soldiers copied thousands of times on both side.

Plus, the Republic Army was build in secret without its own freakkin' knowledge. I mean, COME ON. Thats stupid and riddled with plot holes all over. Who paid for that army? Its not just a random planetary garrison that was paid for. It was a Galactic-scale army, equipped with a full combat fleet. Nobody asked about it?

The original movies established nothing about the Clone Wars and even the pre-PT Legends material left it mostly alone. The whole warlords using clone armies against the Republic idea came from a few small sections of the Thrawn trilogy which later Legends material retroconned to refer to CIS efforts to create a clone army of there own, and Kamino rebelling against the early Empire.

I can concede that nothing was ever established. I was just trying to draw a general picture of the overall imagined thematics before Lucas changed it.

Originally, everyone thought the Clones were the bad guys ('cause.. You know, you rarely call a war about your own soldiers, but as the ennemy). We knew that Jedis fought in it (Kenobi and Skywalker), and.. Thats about it.

Seeing the amount of resentment against clones, id have to figure the clones did pretty bad things to the galactic population. Even if was just sacrificing an entire generation in a war against an opponent who replaced their losses by just more cloning, so THEIR soldiers were disposable.