A soundtrack to listen to while reading if you so wish: https://youtu.be/lET5OZmJesA
The High Republic Panel
Hosted by: David Alexander King (ft. Darth Deacon, Plo Kool & XConmanJFO)
“I absolutely adore the High Republic comic... a great continuation from Light of the Jedi.” - David
“My second favorite era!” - XConmanJFO
“You can tell that each book is written by a certain personality.” - Darth Deacon
“It’s (fatalist) brilliance. The entire conflict of everything else.” - Plo Kool
With a crowd of almost 30 gatherers, David has his work cut out for himself. It’s a perfectly planned out interactive event that was made to revolve around keeping up a discussion of what is to come to the Star Wars: High Republic Era and the rest of the Star Wars universe.
“I know what you’re thinking,” David begins, “you’re thinking: the guy who’s doing the High Republic panel hasn’t read it all! But that’s why I got my amazing panelists here.” The audience is met with his amusement. David is instantly portrayed as a kind, relatable, and passionate person both eager to “fanboy”, as he says, and to inform the Padawans of the server with his wisdom.
The chat goes crazy with excitement and each panelist mirrors that same rush. The kind of feeling that one character from the Light of the Jedi points out, “That sugar candy rush!” The villains: Nihil, Drengir, possibly even Senators make up for an adventure of a lifetime for Star Wars fans like David and Conor.
“Being a Jedi is about choosing the Light over and over again.”
Conor’s words resonate through the voice channel like a wise Jedi Master teaching his young Padawans a new lesson. Better known as XConmanJFO on Discord, the panelist uses this quote in the last fifteen minutes to convey both a warning and a reminder of what it means to be a Jedi. It’s safe to say that everyone agreed with this statement.
Choosing to be a Jedi is choosing to follow your heart, do what is right, and protect lives at all costs. It matters, especially to yourself and to your own values, your understanding of this wisdom. Whether it be that you are a part of the Dark side, Light side, or in the middle (Bendu or Grey), it matters.
Naturally, the quote is said by a character (that will be kept disclosed for spoiler reasons) in the High Republic era’s second book installment: A Test Of Courage written by Justina Ireland.
The comments and discussion about the new upcoming show, The Acolyte, were all positive toward a Dark Side female perspective. One panelist hoped that it would lead into The Phantom Menace and that the tail end of the era would show the Dark Side (Siths being reintroduced) "creeping back in". Apparently, Russian Doll is a recommended source to watch to give you a taste of what's to come.
Darth Deacon’s Star Wars: The High Republic: The Visual Dictionary Volume II takes the floor next. The audience is shown sneak peeks of the cover, of ‘in progress’ villain sections, and Behind the Scenes of making the characters come to life. As can be seen in the images below, the new comics that have been released this year are a major influence on Mr. Deacon's work. He clearly loves what he does and is very passionate about it.
In this specific last image of Terec and Ceret, Mr. Deacon explains how he has to combine aspects and take pieces of other concept art like Stellan Gios's torso and legs and place them onto the twins. He also mentions how one of his favorite parts of making these visual dictionaries was making the Amaxine space station. Mr. Deacon is perhaps the most generous person we’ve all been lucky enough to meet through this event.
Later on, during the closing ceremony of day two, Austin announces a future visual dictionary in the works for the Blood Of Vader! Of course, it is made by yours truly, Mr. Darth Deacon. Austin (SWE) remarks to the small group, "He did an amazing High Republic visual dictionary and it's going to be so cool to see him do one for Blood of Vader Phase I." It'll include the first two comics of Blood of Vader, episode one and two, and maybe small snippets of the Captain Phasma novel being written by Megan D.
And so, all good things must come to an end. It was up to Austin to bring the panel to a close where the three hours to follow would be a memorable one thereafter.
Project Forgotten Panel
Hosted by: Josh (New Horizons) & Jacob (ft. Star Wars Editor)
“Project Forgotten.
Project what?
Dunno, I Forgot.”
Commentary jokes like the one above have been circulating the server ever since the well-known Jacob mentioned it back in February- exactly three months before the project would be announced publicly at SWE’s Virtual Celebration.
The project consists of six writers and six artists, a total of 12 creators, making it a huge team of very talented individuals.
The team came together and designed a timeline for a six-issue comic series, taking place in multiple eras of the Star Wars universe. Each issue has its own individual writer and artist working together to create either an exciting, frightful, or fluff-filled adventure with many recognizable characters (both new and old). As a delightful twist, the sixth issue will consist of all six writers/artists who will come together to top off the final chapter.
The number one goal of the team is to expand the SWEU (Star Wars Editor Universe) by including ALL eras of the Star Wars Universe.
Now formally named, The Forgotten One, the very first inclusion of this series is the LGBTQIA+ community with the Forgotten One being a Non-binary Force-Sensitive individual. Not only is it great first character development, but it also isn't forceable pushed onto the character. It's beautiful, fresh, and brings a sense of excitement to see what they will do once introduced to other Force-sensitives or aliens of the Star Wars Editor universe.
The most unique thing about them is that nobody remembers their existence or their encounters with them; which, in this case, could be seen as a sort of curse. Imagine being put in a position of peril, getting rescued by this mysterious Force-wielder and then forgetting them. However, considering that the Forgotten One has been going through this cycle for more than thousands of years, it's also a unique curse.
Good thing there is more than one way of looking at this! And a prime example is getting your first Kyber crystal or designing your first lightsaber. It's an amazing opportunity and it only happens once. While the people or creatures involved forget their firsts with the Forgotten One, the latter certainly does not.
One thing I'm certainly looking forward to is the coming together of all writers and artists for the final chapter. As shown in the image to the left... does this mean the reveal of the Forgotten One's childhood memories or past?
What a twist!
Post-TROS Stories
Hosted by: Josh (New Horizons) & Jamie (ActionKnight) (ft. Megan (Azantysa))
"She felt pride. But more than anything, she felt peace... she felt at ease." - TheJthunder45 (Jason) narrates Jamie's novel
"Petition for Jason to read the entire audiobook with music please." - Star Wars Dude
DROID NOISES!!!
The main stage chat went absolutely crazy when Jason acted out BB-8's sound base! Including the background sound effects that were incredible, it felt like I was listening to Marc Thompson read to me himself. Amazing job on the self-made droid noises, even when they could have added it in themselves! It screams hard work and late nights spent reading a couple of pages of beautifully written scenes.
Despite Project Forgotten and Kylo Ren: Blood of Vader being two of the outmatched panels during the celebration, Star Wars: Setting Suns is movie production-worthy. The moment was short-lived but surreal. It was like being a part of a movie panel- it was that good. Jamie wanted this exact reaction too: getting the crowd excited and making them feel like they were part of something bigger. And he accomplished that and so much more!
"Even now... the fine soldiers of the First Order were still fighting a grill of war in some of Coruscant's under levels." - New Horizons (Josh) narrates
Another book read aloud to us?! No way, right? Well, it was a surprise for sure, especially if you were there at the SWE's virtual celebration! "There is still elements of surprise to this trilogy that I want to keep," Josh states before revealing the title cover of book one of the reclamation trilogy: INSURGENCY.
Personally, I cannot wait to see what else the two of them will come up with. One of my fonder memories is just months before the big reveal, one of the two authors shared a document with the SWE server of their story, and I can say without a doubt that I did not expect those documents to have such a big turnout. When the panel was first announced, I expected little details about what the two of them would be working on and a little sneak peeks excerpts, and maybe more... but I didn't expect a trilogy of books, an audiobook (not one, but TWO), and a trailer!
The buildup of emotions, art, artificial sounds (THEJTHUNDER's DROID BEEPS!), and overall a moment where all of us came together to appreciate hard work. A great thrill and energy from fan projects like this are HUGE and make up for big adventures. It certainly gives me motivation for my own works in progress, haha! However, it goes without saying that I am immensely proud of their team, coming together and creating something for everyone to equally enjoy. The books (both Josh and Jamie's), the slide shows, and everything as a whole were very well done. And if TheJthunder somehow ends up reading and recording 400+ pages of immaculate work.... then that is not on me!
To end my review, Star War Editor's Virtual Celebration was a huge success and has even lead to the future planning of a second Celebration before the end of 2021! It's an ever-growing fanbase that builds on positivity and teamwork that I am glad to be a part of.
BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN.