I am running The Long Arm of the Hutt adventure for my local group, which takes place fairly close to the time of A New Hope and in this adventure it points out there is over 99 billion Geonosians on the planet. The adventure centers around Geonosis and the Geonosians. However, in the new Disney canon the Geonosians were sterilized by the empire and only 1 queen survived. She was ultimately unable to repopulate their species.

How can I reconcile this in the adventure to stay within official canon? How have you all handled it?

I've seen some discussions. An off-world Colony, or perhaps a surviving hive in a really, really, really, really isolated location.

Actually Star Wars rebels and any of the recent canon (Including the Force Awakens) does not apply to Edge of the Empire. This game does take place in the old "Legends" canon.

Actually Star Wars rebels and any of the recent canon (Including the Force Awakens) does not apply to Edge of the Empire. This game does take place in the old "Legends" canon.

I think some Legends canon stuff exists in the game simply because it came out originally before the Disney takeover. However, whether your individual game takes place in Legends canon or official canon would be entirely left up to the GM. I know my game would NOT take place in Legends.

Whether or not EotE takes place in Legends is irrelevant, the OP's question presumes he is running within canon and asks for advice on how to align the story to said canon.

In those interests, there is nothing in Long Arm of the Hutt that directly contradicts the extinction of Geonosians on Geonosis save the meeting taking place on Geonosis. Additionally, in the section "Teemo's Dealings with Geonosians" it cites a bullet point saying "Teemo collaborates with Empire." Below it is the explanation that 'The Geonosians are unhappy with their status as subjects of the Empire."

This can be extrapolated (as Blackbird mentioned) as the Geonosians being an off-world colony. The Disney canon is that the Queen of the Geonosians as being unable to repopulate with the only a single Queen can be absolutely true, as it pertains in all mention to the planet Geonosis. Nothing at all says they did so to any other planet's Geonosian population. As for a time Ryloth was under Separatist control, it stands to reason that they might have set up a droid factory on one of Ryloth's moons. In order to man this factory, they could have transplanted a single Queen and some Geonosians to man and protect this plant (as they did on Geonosis). You then can have these Geonosians as the ones in question for Long Arm of the Hutt and have the meeting take place on said moon of Ryloth. Swap out the references to Geonosis and replace it with one of Ryloth's moons. The PCs wouldn't need to go through hyperspace to the moon, instead taking a Sublight journey that still falls within the time given in the adventure (12 hours). Moreover, hearing of what the Empire did to their homeworld, they would naturally be extremely upset with Teemo's association with the Empire, providing a level of subtext to their disatisfaction.

If you've already used Geonosis as the name of their destination, simply adjust the moon of Ryloth to be called "New Geonosis" to the transplanted Geonosians (but still maintaining it's proper name to all other species). This would give Duke Paddock a quirk, fleshing out his personality, as he refuses to accept the proper name for the moon, only recognizing 'Geonosis' instead.

How can I reconcile this in the adventure to stay within official canon? How have you all handled it?

Eh, canon is overrated. Do what you think serves the story best.

In the words of Steve Winwood, "Roll with it, baby."

At first, I was concerned about much the same kind of thing when diving into a new campaign for the first time since the EU purge. But, as the dust has settled, I find that playing in the timeframe of the original or prequel trilogies doesn't really make it much of a concern. Most of the EU material was set after RotJ. What wasn't can still be easily used, perhaps with some minor tweaks. For example, the idea of the Emperor's Hand hasn't been invalidated. (In fact, the introduction of canon Inquisitors on Rebels might be used to reinforce the idea of Palpatine having his own little Force-wielding assassin(s) sitting around for special occasions.) Who's to say that Mara Jade still wasn't one of them? The new canon just suggests (so far) that she didn't end up with Luke...but that has no impact on her activities during the movies' timeframe.

So, I adopt the same approach to the EU's status that LFL itself used to use: until and unless contradicted on screen (large or small), it counts. And if contradicted, there's usually a way to reconcile what you've used with the new "reality."

Exactly. That's the problem with a constantly expanding universe - moving goalposts. Lets say that you've had a long running game now, with several trips to Geonosis. Your setting is well after Jedi, but this purge is set well before - and the comic/book/movie/bubblegum wrapper that details the event is publishes after the start of your game.

What do you do? Ignore it? Retcon your game? Try and cludge the events with some kind of patch? And what happens if further events change the status of the planet more?

Yeah, the best way - in my book - is to go "yeah, that's nice" and move on.

What do you do? Ignore it? Retcon your game? Try and cludge the events with some kind of patch? And what happens if further events change the status of the planet more?

Yeah, the best way - in my book - is to go "yeah, that's nice" and move on.

Or, you could choose to be mysterious about it. Just say “Hmm, that’s interesting. I wonder what happened?” and then explicitly choose not to fill in any details. Make the players sweat.

Maybe you could even turn that into an adventure, or part of one — so, how *DID* Geonosis come to be repopulated?

Even though the empire killed the queens doesn't mean that all the population was killed. Those remaining could simply be living on borrowed time, desperately searching for a way to get their last queen to lay eggs again.

Correct, in the new canon the last geonosian queen was infertile.

(These are spoilers for the Marvel "Star Wars: Darth Vader" comics.)

However,

Or move the genocide in time, after your group was there - and maybe made friends / allies? Maybe there is even a way for the events on Geonosis leading towards it? That could be a very powerful storyarc in any campaign.

Even though the empire killed the queens doesn't mean that all the population was killed. Those remaining could simply be living on borrowed time, desperately searching for a way to get their last queen to lay eggs again.

Slight clarification here: Star Wars: Rebels spoiler

I too ran Long Arm of the Hutt, however I had my timeline where we started play approximately 5 years before the Battle of Yavin, coincidentally it was set several months before Star Wars: Rebels, so I managed to luck out.

I would suppose the GM would need to make a decision on how closely they plan on sticking to canon. I myself am trying hard to stick to the new canon, though I admit of the Marvel Comic I find myself rather underwhelmed. The story line and how some of the characters interact I find just doesn't feel like Star Wars, but that's just my opinion.

Someone run an adventure where you learn a surviving Geonosis sought the help of a Kamino scientist to clone a Geonosis Queen who retains their fertility.

You then run a series of games where you help them evade the Empire until you want to run your version of the Long Arm where Teemo is close to discovering the Geonosians last fertile Queen.

They end up fleeing to a jungle world until after ROTJ when they begin plans to restore Geonosis!

How about the one from Beyond the Rim?

The important point is that as long as the new canon is important to your game there are plenty of ways to get round that until the next time they reveal something else that messes with your game!

I've headcanoned that rather than wipe out the entirety of the species, they specifically targeted any Geonosian queens and hives with Separatist ties and/or sympathies. Unfortunately that consisted about roughly at least 75-to-80 percent of the entire race, so it will take generations for them to rebuild to previous population levels.

IIRC the geonosian wipe happened at some point during the construction of the first Death Star as a way to "safeguard the secrets".

You could easily have this campaign happen =just before= the wipe.

As long as you provide players with an approximate timeline (rather than specific) players will be pretty lax about it.

Is it really that essential to use Geonosians? If canon is your concern, just replace the world and species with one of 100,000 other species; setting/location and costuming budgets are effectively unlimited in an RPG. Or, screw Canon and stick with the bugs living on.

I use the genocide. The planet is wiped out all Geonosians dead. However duke Dimock and Duke Pidock were off world when it happened. They are back. The imperial blockade, you get the codes from the Bothan to use to fly past the blockade, the blockade is there to hunt down the returning geonisians. The alliances with the hutts and weapons program is to gain allies to strike back at the Empire in little ways. It also allows you to create a modular encounter of avoiding tie patrols etc. makes the adventure more covert and underworld

I transposed the Geonosian section of the adventure to Xorrn, from Friends Like These. The two dukes were rulers of small rival hives in what's left of the CIS factories on the planet, and had formed a tenuous alliance with the Son-Tuul Pride when the Pride started salvaging wrecked starships in the debris field around the planet.

I made a post asking this question before seeing this one.

My take is going to be that yes, the genocide happened, but a good number of Geonosians were off-world at the time. With no queens left, they're the Last Generation. Their class system and their internal politics amount to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, but they're going to keep at it until they're gone because they have nothing else left to do.

The moment I start a game, be it a single adventure or long-running campaign for that matter, it is neither canon , nor legends . It simply is True .

If it is a free form story set in a well described time period, I might steer clear of iconic characters like Darth vader, Han, Luke, or Obi-Wan. Player characters actively seeking out such iconics may never meet them, or they may do and get disappointed, or they do and they meet that golden hero they always thought Luke to be. Some of those iconics, like Vader, don't have a character sheet or even stat block. Simply the mention of "they attack, they die. Horribly".

In prewritten adventures, such as the Jewel of Yavin, they might meet iconics like Lando Calrissian. I use the book entry as is. If they decide to kill him (even if just to see how Death Star II would be destroyed without him) he's dead. Neither canon nor legends , just True .

In short, when I play Star Wars RPG (regardless of which version, West End D6, Wizards D20, or FFG Narrative) I play my own Alternity.

On 2/20/2020 at 9:36 AM, Dafydd said:

I transposed the Geonosian section of the adventure to Xorrn, from Friends Like These. The two dukes were rulers of small rival hives in what's left of the CIS factories on the planet, and had formed a tenuous alliance with the Son-Tuul Pride when the Pride started salvaging wrecked starships in the debris field around the planet.

Awesome suggestion, thank you. I stumbled upon this thread since I have the same canon/Legends conundrum, and your suggestion seems to be the best fit for me.

So in the Legends of the Galaxy Roleplaying Community what we do is run it with the genocide having taken place and duke pidock and duke Dimock being from off world during the purge.

As seen in rebels after the empire moved the Death Star they left the construction yard abandoned.

However, after the Empire discovered that they were still alive they put a security group to hunt them down. This is why you need the codes to go to the surface.

I make the hives more of a hidden hive. You can even expand adding an encounter of getting past the Imperials.

Duke Piddock and Dimock are making weapons and looking to supply Criminals and Rebels as they want revenge for what the Empire did to their people. Which works well with if the Geonosians learn Teemo is working with the Empire it helps turn them against him.