Yeah, Stackpole repeatedly refers to Yavin as 7 years earlier, which was never correct for those books. All of those references were in error originally, so we completely discounted them when coming up with the Atlas dates.

*It's a duration. 6 - 7 ABY. In other words, all of the events on that map come between 41:3 and 42:3.

Really? So if I was making a timeline of events in the 2008 election, ending at November 4th, it would make sense to entitle it "The Presidental Race (2008-2009)"?*

You'd likely still use only 2008 because "2008" is colloquially used as a year's name, so to speak. As much as people use "A.D." to mean "after death," it's the Latin for "in the year of our Lord," which is a year number, not a duration.

So a duration would, perhaps, say 2008 - 2009 (or, hell, 2007 - 2009 these days), but only if dealing in duration. It would just be 2008 (or 2007 - 2008) if dealing in year numbers.

In Star Wars, the BBY/ABY dates are durations before or after the Battle of Yavin, as the acronym implies. The only year "names" we have are the digital ones. Thanks to the Battle of Yavin not being on January 1, though, we're left with two calendars (one duration, one name) that are off in their alignment by about 3 months.

*We were talking before a month or two ago on the CW thread about whether the BBY/ABY year began and ended in month 3 in-universe. *

I've discussed this to the point of absurdity over the last month or two, but let me put it in simplest terms.

If you were thinking in terms of BBY/ABY, then the month from the Battle of Yavin until that same day the next month, would be Month 1. We'd say an event at that point was "One month ABY." (Just like we'd say something a month after Geonosis is "One month ABG" or one month after the Treaty of Coruscant would be "One month ATC.")

However, that's like saying that if today is the "Question Day," we could have an event on October 25 and call it "One month AQD." That would be on a BQD/AQD calendar, like the BBY/ABY calendar. However, we would still know that on the modern calendar, as we use it in America with leap years and such, that "first month" is actually, for us, "September 26 - October 25."

It isn't that the BBY/ABY calendar is some kind of renaming or relabeling of the digital calendar that began in the WEG materials. It's that they are totally different calendars, and people can't get straight sometimes, so they start assuming that you can just swap out a year number on the digital calendar for a year number on the BBY/ABY calendar without taking into account how the two vary in terms of starting points. That's when errors begin to emerge, like the one I corrected for Mrisst over on Wookieepedia.

The Galaxy Guides are S-canon?

Unless you've heard otherwise, they would fall under Leland's blanket statement from a while back about WEG material being initially designated S.

+> It went with the S-canon version over the C one?!

Well, it was first.

Mr. Chee,

Galaxy Guide 4: Alien Races and* Cloak of Deception* show two different versions of the Ossan. The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia says that the former is correct. Is it?

All right, here, better example: on page 197 it shows "THE ROAD TO CORUSCANT (6-7 ABY)" yet all of the dates occur before 42:3, with the seizure of Coruscant itself occurring on 42:2:17.

Leland, will Republic Heroes for the DS contain the "full" storyline of the game, while the other versions contain a shorter version? Or will the versions vary slightly ala TFU? And if so, which is considered the definite version of events in the Holocron?

Mr. Chee
I'm wondering if you can give an official answer as to what happened to the leaders of the Fromm Gang. In the 4th episode of Droids Sise and Tig Fromm, along with Vlix, were captured by Boba Fett and were going to be turned over to Jabba. But in issue 2 of the Droids comic series Tig and Vlix again appear but at supposedly a later time period (reference: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_Droids_(Marvel)), but the actual timing of this comic has never firmly been established. While it is often speculated that the Fromm Gang leaders would have been executed by Jabba, the whole timeline issue with the comic raises the possibility that perhaps they either escaped, were set free by Jabba or liberated by other members of their gang. Personally, my feeling is that since the Fromm Gang was a serious power in that part of the galaxy that the rest of the gang would have gone all out to set their leaders free, even if it meant a fight with Boba Fett or Jabba's gang.

This month, Tokyopop will release a Star Wars Manga anthology filled with uniquely bold tales set in a peculiarly Japanese incarnation of that galaxy far, far away... For their daring plots and offbeat directions, these stories are definitely "Infinities"-that is, they don't actually fit into Star Wars continuity. Nonetheless, they are rich in character, detail and action and are definitely worth a look. This anthology, which is a mix of black and white comics with a few color spreads of original illustrations, will only be available initially in Japan.

-from the publishers' summary

Leland didn't seem to imply that the status was changed once informed of the English versions when first asked.

Question I had from reading Wild Space that relates to the saga as a whole:

Bail Organa hadn't heard of the Sith at the beginning of the book. Why wouldn't he be aware of the Republic's opponent in every major war for the past 7,000 years? Is there some kind of massive conspiracy cover-up that only the Jedi are in on, or is Bail just not much of a history buff, especially for a congressman?

Hello, Leland. Does the Holocron specify the year in which Jedi Apprentice: The Fight for Truth takes place? A simple calculation based on Obi-Wan's age of 13 in the book would place it in 44 BBY, but I have seen claims that it is in 43 BBY, presumably the early part of the year before Obi-Wan's 14th birthday. Is there an official date?