Star Wars Rebels Season Two (spoilers)

[Skywalker]

"It's only relatively recently that they've officially slid back to the idea of the order being older than that, though I don't think they've ever explicitly brought up the 25,000 year timeline thing again."


Where have they mentioned this in a newcanon story? Im actually curious...

I think the "hundred years darkness" by way of Sith rule was referenced briefly in the Tarkin novel and there's some stuff in TCW that makes oblique references to that period like the lightsabre master builder droid who's been on that Jedi ship (which spots the Old Republic seal from the SWTOR MMO no less) for *over* a thousand years and the Mandalorian Deathwatch bloke who's name I forget (Vizlar?) bragging about how the darksabre was looted from the Jedi Temple "during the fall of the Old Republic". Sidious also mentions how the old Sith Empire was built on the backs of slaves in the two or three parter that dealt with the race of slavers.

It's mostly oblique references so far, but it looks like the official canon is that there was an "Old Republic" and it fell, followed by a century of Sith rule. From what's said in the PT about the Sith having thought to have been "extinct for a millennium", the Republic not having fought a war or had a standing army in a thousand years and so forth we can safely intimate that the Jedi eventually defeated the Sith and helped restore the Republic.

That all makes sense to me, and it's less convoluted than the old EU's idea that while pockets of Sith-controlled regions sprang up across the galaxy, the Republic never truly "fell," and all the "thousand years" references in the PT referred to a reformation of the Republic after the destruction of the old Sith.

There were also lines of dialogue in Episode III that can support your inference. After going full-Sidious, Palpatine said something like "Once more, the Sith will rule the galaxy!" and during their duel Mace Windu said "The tyranny of the Sith will never return!" So clearly the galaxy (or a significant portion of it, anyway) was under Sith domination for a time.

I do remember some of the clone troopers in TCW referring to "the Old Republic," too.

 

[JD]

So the Old Republic is considered a different thing than the Republic that turned into the Empire at the end of RotS? I'd always thought Old Republic was simply another name for Republic.

 

[Skywalker]

By the time of the OT, "Old Republic" probably became a catch-all term for both/all iterations of the Galactic Republic that existed prior to its transformation into the Galactic Empire.

 

[P0sitr0nic]

I like this idea... it allows for the 1000 years Palps mentioned, yet we have an older Republic that is quite well known and mentioned many times, including the KOTOR/TOR games.

 

[Reverend]

By the time of the OT, "Old Republic" probably became a catch-all term for both/all iterations of the Galactic Republic that existed prior to its transformation into the Galactic Empire.

Actually, if you read Kenobi's line and take it at face value:-

"For over a thousand generations the Jedi Knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic. Before the dark times. Before the Empire."

You could take it to mean that the "Dark Times" he refers to is a separate period then the current Imperial regime, referring instead to the century of rule under former Sith Empire.

For clarity, another way the phrase it might be: "The Jedi Knights were the guardians of the Republic for over 25,000 years. They were there before the "hundred years darkness", they were before Empire."

Even Tarkin's line ("the last remnants of the Old Republic have been swept away") could be taken a similar way, as if the Republic-come-Imperial Senate was a remnant of the pre-Dark Times "Old Republic", not just the Republic he once served.

At least that's one possible interpretation that seems to neatly reconcile the two concepts. The term could indeed just as easily be interchangeable.

P.S. Just to add to my previous post: in the interests of completeness I should probably point out that I think Lucas has said it was mostly in-fighting that brought down the ancient Sith Empire, or at least weakened and splintered it enough for the Jedi to finally be able to take them apart. Hence the whole thing with Darth Bane and the Rule of Two.

P.P.S. Just in case anyone was wondering, this is where the Old Republic seal showed up in TCW's 'A Test of Strength', along with a comparison to the in-game logo.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

^ lol, no.

It's a total retcon.

 

[Set Harth]

Well technically it was never canon, nor was *anything* else in the EU. That whole "tiered canon system" nonsense seemed like it just there to keep the fanboys happy. Because woe betide anyone who tells a rabid fanfan they just spent all that money on a 32 issue comic series, or hardback novel, or video game or pack of fecking trading cards and it's not even a *little* bit canon.

So yeah, there was no "de-canonisation" at all but a canonisation of TCW, Rebels and everything new from that point onwards since before then, only the movies were actually canon

You're thinking of Star Trek. Star Wars had a different policy. That stuff was considered canon before it wasn't. Authors were told they were creating canon. If you want to use "canon" as a code word for "only the movies", that's fine, but if you apply this only to the period preceding the franchise sale but refuse to apply it afterward, you're trying to have it both ways. If the franchise can designate non-film material as canon now, surely it also had the ability to do so in the past.

It's only relatively recently that they've officially slid back to the idea of the order being older than that, though I don't think they've ever explicitly brought up the 25,000 year timeline thing again.

It's not at all clear that they actually intended to change the timeline in the first place, given that Palpatine's dialogue is somewhat open to interpretation and that doing so would have meant trashing Ben's ANH dialogue. But there were various references to the 25,000-year timeline during the EU of the prequel era and afterwards. It was part of the premise of the Dawn of the Jedi comic series.

 

[Reverend]

You're thinking of Star Trek.

I'm really not.

It's not at all clear that they actually intended to change the timeline in the first place...

They didn't "change the timeline" since there was never a specific timeline to begin with. Furthermore the "a thousand generations" line is much more open to interpretation than "a thousand years". At least the latter is a specific unit of measurement whereas the former is decidedly ambiguous.

 

[Ithekro]

Something I sort of noticed, but needed a closer look. Ahsoka's new lightsabers have a slight curve to them. And are not round cylinders like most lightsabers we see.

 

[ALF]

Something I sort of noticed, but needed a closer look. Ahsoka's new lightsabers have a slight curve to them. And are not round cylinders like most lightsabers we see.

I think you're right - I was watching FotF again last night and noticed it but thought maybe I'd had too much rum and eggnog so - wait until someone else brings it up!

For tonight's viewers: this is actually the midseason finale. We are already halfway through the season (but hopefully not the series) after this episode airs, Legacy. There were previous reports that we were getting another episode Saturday, The Prisoner of X10, but a Lucasfilm rep on Twitter clarified that the two were the same episode.

Anyone else expecting a clash between Vader and Ahsoka - ending with her capture? I do think we'll see this and I have three reasons why:

• Dave F is particularly terrible at keeping secrets. He's been hinting at this confrontation giddily for months now. Apparently the final 5 pages of tonight's script were kept under wraps.
• The poster reveal for Ahsoka vs Vader earlier this year (in which they depict the much discussed confrontation) does appear to be in the snow. Will they duel on frosty Garrel?
• Vader may be the connective tissue that leads Rebels into The Force Awakens. So far I haven't seen anything else to suggest what that connection is... but we are expecting to see something Vader-eqsue in TFA.
  

I can certainly live without a Vader/Ahsoka duel just yet anyway... just arguing in its favor. Anyway, we'll know in a few hours.

 

[Christopher]

I thought Ahsoka's original sabers had curved hilts, but I looked it up, and apparently not. I'm sure I've seen someone who had twin lightsabers with curved hilts. Was it Ventress?

 

[Stephen!]

I thought Ahsoka's original sabers had curved hilts, but I looked it up, and apparently not. I'm sure I've seen someone who had twin lightsabers with curved hilts. Was it Ventress?

Yes, similar to Dooku's own lightsaber.

 

[Reverend]

Dooku's & Asajj's hilts had a much more pronounced curve, like certain types of real world cavalry sabre hilts and I think some scimitars. While Ahsoka's does have a curve, it's much more gentle What I feel is a much more distinguishing feature is it's cross-section, which appears to be flattened on the sides, like a rectangle with the corners rounded off.

The only other hilt like what we've seen in the "dark sabre", which was itself a relic from the old Old Republic. This seems to be consistent with the idea that Ahsoka got her new gear and weapons from some ancient, long forgotten and abandoned temple, not unlike the one Ezra & Kanan found on Lothal.

 

[DimesDan]

One is curved, the other, not.

 

[Mr Light]

Is Aksokha doing a Force mind-rub on us? She looks all blurred out!

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

Naw, we're on a Trek forum, so the camera automatically focused on the characters in the background.

Mark

 

[Reverend]

Looking at a freeze-frame of when she shuts them off, it's pretty clear that they're both curved, only (as with her old sabres) one hilt is slightly longer than the other, which makes the curve more pronounced.

 

[Ithekro]

Starwars.com has the costume guide here that shows her new hilts.

http://www.starwars.com/news/star-wars-rebels-costume-and-lightsaber-color-guide-for-ahsoka-tano

It is slight curve rather than Dooku or Ventress's bent hilts.

 

[Mr Light]

"Legacy" was a cool episode, but I was suffering from plot whiplash the way the story was only briefly about the Empire attacking the Rebel base and it became about Ezra looking for his parents, something I don't think they've even mentioned this season thus far. Reminded me of the Dr Who finale where I was a lot more interested in the story they quickly danced away from.

I was very surprised to learn that

Spoiler

Ezra's parents just died off screen. Unexpected narrative choice.

Which again is just like on Agents of SHIELD where

Spoiler: SHIELD winter finale

they go back to rescue to Will only to discover he died off-screen while Gemma was gone.

 

[Christopher]

Starwars.com has the costume guide here that shows her new hilts.

http://www.starwars.com/news/star-wars-rebels-costume-and-lightsaber-color-guide-for-ahsoka-tano

It is slight curve rather than Dooku or Ventress's bent hilts.

And interestingly, they're rectangular in cross section rather than circular. I don't think we've seen that in a lightsaber before.