Your Headcanons?

[Dînadan]

I won't really get into it, but I've written the Star Wars prequels out of my head. I have a vague outline of events that transpired in Obi-Wan Kenobi's youth and the fall of the Republic, and it bears no resemblance at all to anything that's ever been shown on screen.

The TLDR is that the Clone Wars were an extremely extended conflict (10+ years) between the Republic and an alien species on their fringe that used cloned soldiers, and the extended conflict strained the Republic. Sometime during that conflict is when Obi-wan, a Jedi Knight, meets a young and gifted pilot named Anakin Skywalker. The Jedi Order also isn't some cult of creepy monks who recruit 4-year olds and indoctrinate them, but something like an idealized version of the Teutonic Knights. And Emperor Palpatine bears a much stronger resemblance to Julius Caesar, as a military leader who built a political career out of his fame and the loyalty of his troops, rather than a civilian in a mucked-up bureaucracy.

Not my headcannon, but something I mentioned on the old forums about how I would have done the prequels which is similar to your thoughts; I'd have had the Clone Wars actually be Wars plural, with them being a series of escalating conflicts over, say, a century with clones being used on all sides with the wars initially being small affairs out on the outskirts of the Republic between the outer members with alliances being formed and reformed until eventually it gets to Episode I where this has drawn everyone into two sides and then the PT charts the course of this final war and how Palpatine came to power over its course.

[Robovski]

I prefer to think that everyone you see in the Next Gen/Ds9/Voyager Federation is of a personality type that either wants to be in charge of things, wants to play the most immersive high stakes game ever, or just can't accept living life in a holodeck for some reason because 90% of the population are there, at home, living out their post-scarcity lives inside their holodecks. Each side lets the other get on with what they are doing so long as it doesn't interfere.

[phantom000]

I won't really get into it, but I've written the Star Wars prequels out of my head. I have a vague outline of events that transpired in Obi-Wan Kenobi's youth and the fall of the Republic, and it bears no resemblance at all to anything that's ever been shown on screen.

The TLDR is that the Clone Wars were an extremely extended conflict (10+ years) between the Republic and an alien species on their fringe that used cloned soldiers, and the extended conflict strained the Republic. Sometime during that conflict is when Obi-wan, a Jedi Knight, meets a young and gifted pilot named Anakin Skywalker. The Jedi Order also isn't some cult of creepy monks who recruit 4-year olds and indoctrinate them, but something like an idealized version of the Teutonic Knights. And Emperor Palpatine bears a much stronger resemblance to Julius Caesar, as a military leader who built a political career out of his fame and the loyalty of his troops, rather than a civilian in a mucked-up bureaucracy.

Not my headcannon, but something I mentioned on the old forums about how I would have done the prequels which is similar to your thoughts; I'd have had the Clone Wars actually be Wars plural, with them being a series of escalating conflicts over, say, a century with clones being used on all sides with the wars initially being small affairs out on the outskirts of the Republic between the outer members with alliances being formed and reformed until eventually it gets to Episode I where this has drawn everyone into two sides and then the PT charts the course of this final war and how Palpatine came to power over its course.

My idea for fixing the prequels was that the Republic was being controlled by this secret society, sorta like a galactic version of the Illuminati. They created the Trade Federation as a way to control the galaxy through economics but as times are changing the Federation's power is fading. The Queen of Naboo, who is not Padme, succeeds from the Republic and launches a war to destroy the Federation hoping to break the hold on the galaxy, except this secret cabal creates the clone army hoping to fight a secret war against the separatists.

The fallout between Anakin and Obi-Wan is due to a disagreement on the duty of the Jedi Order. Obi-Wan is fighting for the Republic, while Anakin fights for what he believes are the ideals of the Republic. So that some of the regret you see Obi-Wan have in ANH is because he realizes that Anakin was right, the Jedi Order had become nothing more then the elite guard of a corrupt regime.

[bronnt]

My idea for fixing the prequels was that the Republic was being controlled by this secret society, sorta like a galactic version of the Illuminati. They created the Trade Federation as a way to control the galaxy through economics but as times are changing the Federation's power is fading. The Queen of Naboo, who is not Padme, succeeds from the Republic and launches a war to destroy the Federation hoping to break the hold on the galaxy, except this secret cabal creates the clone army hoping to fight a secret war against the separatists.

The fallout between Anakin and Obi-Wan is due to a disagreement on the duty of the Jedi Order. Obi-Wan is fighting for the Republic, while Anakin fights for what he believes are the ideals of the Republic. So that some of the regret you see Obi-Wan have in ANH is because he realizes that Anakin was right, the Jedi Order had become nothing more then the elite guard of a corrupt regime.

You kept entirely too much from the prequels. Trade Federation, separatists, Naboo, Naboo has a Queen.

The annoying thing is that Lucas never appeared to give much thought to what the Trade Federation even IS, or what it does, aside from something to do with trade and also having an army. So I can't think of them without cringing at how he attempted to write a story about political machinations and manipulations without providing any hints about the motivations of most of the significant players.

[FaxModem1]

I prefer to think that everyone you see in the Next Gen/Ds9/Voyager Federation is of a personality type that either wants to be in charge of things, wants to play the most immersive high stakes game ever, or just can't accept living life in a holodeck for some reason because 90% of the population are there, at home, living out their post-scarcity lives inside their holodecks. Each side lets the other get on with what they are doing so long as it doesn't interfere.

I'd buy that a lot of the Type A personalities are the ones who join Starfleet. The core worlds like Earth, Vulcan, Andor, Alpha Centauri, Tellar, etc., are almost completely confirmed to be filled to the brim with people who are content and happy.

I've long had the theory that the Federation works, even though most of their worlds are VERY comfortable for the common person, because anyone who needs adventure or wants to build a life for themselves does so by becoming a colonist/joining Starfleet, and making it to where they make their own perfect world. You get the occasional bad egg like the luddite dictator from DS9's Paradise, or the occasional oddballs like the settlers who wanted to 'remake Scotland' on Caldos II in 'Sub Rosa', but this just ensures that the UFP has a diverse enough culture from all these different kinds of people finding contentment either vegging out working as a restaurant owner/writer/holodeck LARPer/wine maker/whatever on a core world, or toiling the soil, building homes, terraforming the planet, and founding a new culture on a colony world.

The only problem with this approach is that eventually the UFP might run out of worlds to colonize, but that seems to be centuries in the future.

[Dînadan]

[

The only problem with this approach is that eventually the UFP might run out of worlds to colonize, but that seems to be centuries in the future.

To be fair the galaxy is a big place and by the time they run out of worlds, the controversy over Genesis will probably have died down enough for them to have worked out the kinks to make more, or they would have subsumed the Klingon and Romulan Empires, the Cardassian Union, etc. At by the time they've conquered the galaxy they'll probably be able to start expanding into other galaxies and have the tech to make intergalactic travel trivial.

[GandALF]

The annoying thing is that Lucas never appeared to give much thought to what the Trade Federation even IS, or what it does, aside from something to do with trade and also having an army. So I can't think of them without cringing at how he attempted to write a story about political machinations and manipulations without providing any hints about the motivations of most of the significant players.

It's a shipping conglomerate. Palps manipulates the Trade Federation into escalating its taxation disputes with the senate into a major crisis which makes Valorum look weak and/or corrupt, allowing Palps to manoeuvre his way to the chancellorship.

[bronnt]

It's a shipping conglomerate. Palps manipulates the Trade Federation into escalating its taxation disputes with the senate into a major crisis which makes Valorum look weak and/or corrupt, allowing Palps to manoeuvre his way to the chancellorship.

I don't want to get into a protracted argument about the prequels. Here, though, you basically proved my point: Everything we know about the motivations of the Trade Federation is summed up as a bullet point where the information is presented in a single scene. There's no depth to it, and you can't write a plot based on skilled political maneuvering when there's no depth, no rival factions.

That's not to say that every villain has to be depthful or their full character explicitly examined. But if you want a simple villain, just write a simple plot. If you want the plot to have layers to it, the characters and factions involved need also to have layers.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

I prefer to think that everyone you see in the Next Gen/Ds9/Voyager Federation is of a personality type that either wants to be in charge of things, wants to play the most immersive high stakes game ever, or just can't accept living life in a holodeck for some reason because 90% of the population are there, at home, living out their post-scarcity lives inside their holodecks. Each side lets the other get on with what they are doing so long as it doesn't interfere.

I'd buy that a lot of the Type A personalities are the ones who join Starfleet. The core worlds like Earth, Vulcan, Andor, Alpha Centauri, Tellar, etc., are almost completely confirmed to be filled to the brim with people who are content and happy.

I've long had the theory that the Federation works, even though most of their worlds are VERY comfortable for the common person, because anyone who needs adventure or wants to build a life for themselves does so by becoming a colonist/joining Starfleet, and making it to where they make their own perfect world. You get the occasional bad egg like the luddite dictator from DS9's Paradise, or the occasional oddballs like the settlers who wanted to 'remake Scotland' on Caldos II in 'Sub Rosa', but this just ensures that the UFP has a diverse enough culture from all these different kinds of people finding contentment either vegging out working as a restaurant owner/writer/holodeck LARPer/wine maker/whatever on a core world, or toiling the soil, building homes, terraforming the planet, and founding a new culture on a colony world.

The only problem with this approach is that eventually the UFP might run out of worlds to colonize, but that seems to be centuries in the future.

It reminds me of the discovery of the New Deal program, where they tried just giving out free money to the imporvershed, but found that most people would rather be paid for work, any kind of work, even if it was just scaring pidgeons off the white house lawn. Sure, pure leisure sounds attractive when you're balancing three part-time jobs, or at the end of a long day, but anyone who's been unemployed knows how grating it can get. Every day turns into one long, dreary, gray sunday afternoon, Douglas Adams's Long Dark Teatime of the Soul.

At our core, humans evolved to be active creatures. (Heck, so did a lot of other species, that's why zoo Animal Enrichment is a thing). We crave challenges, we crave stimulation, we crave something to do with our time, we crave to create and engage and produce. We don't need the lashing whip of poverty and scarcity to motivate us. All this post-scarcity future means is that people have more choice about WHAT they do to, and can put more energy into hobbies and things that would wind up on etsy rather than industrial and office busy-work. It's the opposite of the three men in Kino's Journey. A post-scarcity civilization means that there's a lot more time to hone and perfect one particular craft, so you can create the ideal grape for Picard wine or cook the best creole cuisine ever instead of slinging cheap cocktails at a dive bar or flipping burgers.

Sorry I think I have lost track of myself.

[phantom000]

My idea for fixing the prequels was that the Republic was being controlled by this secret society, sorta like a galactic version of the Illuminati. They created the Trade Federation as a way to control the galaxy through economics but as times are changing the Federation's power is fading. The Queen of Naboo, who is not Padme, succeeds from the Republic and launches a war to destroy the Federation hoping to break the hold on the galaxy, except this secret cabal creates the clone army hoping to fight a secret war against the separatists.

The fallout between Anakin and Obi-Wan is due to a disagreement on the duty of the Jedi Order. Obi-Wan is fighting for the Republic, while Anakin fights for what he believes are the ideals of the Republic. So that some of the regret you see Obi-Wan have in ANH is because he realizes that Anakin was right, the Jedi Order had become nothing more then the elite guard of a corrupt regime.

You kept entirely too much from the prequels. Trade Federation, separatists, Naboo, Naboo has a Queen.

I like a lot of the ideas presented in the prequels they just are not used to great effect like in the original. The Trade Federation is a neat idea because it is commerce, the third tier of power. It's not a corrupt politician like Palpatine or a warlord like Tarkin, this is a business man, a David Xanatos or even a Gordon Gecko. Separatists could have been a neat counter point to the Republic. I only saw a couple episodes of Clone Wars but if i wrote it it would be the Separatists continue to fight by honorable means while the Republic uses means which are less and less ethical, like bombing civilian targets and framing the CIS for the murder of important leaders.

And, you want to complain about Naboo having a Queen when Alderaan was supposed to have a Princess?