Location, location, location!

I was re-watching Episode I on its 19^th anniversary the other day, and I happened to notice something. Do you see it?

That’s right, Naboo has Beech trees! I did some digging, and as it turns out a lot of the outdoor Naboo scenes were filmed in England right outside of Leavesden Studios. And it got me to thinking…
We have limited views of Sulon, and based on them, my local environment doesn’t seem to resemble citizen Olis’ local environment very much…there’s a real shortage of red dirt plains and scrubby vegetation east of the Mississippi.

But Naboo, on the other hand, is covered in broadleaf forests, grassy plains, and freshwater lakes and rivers. It actually looks like a temperate biome!
This gave me the spark of an idea: what if I ‘rebranded’ my Rebel partisan persona to be from Naboo? What would be required to change—in terms of both ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ personas? And if so, what would be the pros and cons of this change? As usual, I like to give serious thought to possibilities like this (some would call it overthinking), and I wanted to share my process to illustrate the considerations one sometimes has to tackle when doing good living history.

Pros:
-Naboo actually appears on screen in all three prequels, so their culture is decently fleshed out, and audiences (esp. children or those who grew up with the Prequels) would be familiar with it. (unlike Sulon, which requires a fair amount of explaining)
-As noted above, more than just having a temperate climate, Naboo’s biome matches eastern North America much more than Sulon (which isn’t exactly well-defined)—so any photos I take in these ventures wouldn’t feel like quite a stretch. Beech trees and everything!

-Naboo society seems very much brains-over-brawn, so I can honestly integrate more of myself—as a scrawny intellectual—into the persona: overeducated anthropologist / artisan / teacher-turned-partisan son of a sociologist/gentleman farmer? Sounds like a much better fit for Naboo than Sulon, who always seemed a little rough around the edges to me.
-My affinity for indigenous peoples and animists can be tied into the local Gungan culture. Likewise, the environmentally-conscious philosophy of the Naboo aligns close to my own.
-And it would explain why I recently ordered a B1 battle droid forearm—it’s for archeology!

Cons:
-I don’t think we know much about Naboo life after the ‘regime change’ (BF2)–I definitely need to do more research on this front.
-The clothing. From what we’ve seen, the typical Naboo civilian costume is almost…Dinotopian*…and therefore pretty far from the militaristic GCW aesthetic…although that may just be a result of the Prequel era. The Complete Visual Dictionary describes Naboo’s clothing fashions as “elaborate” (36), which is the problem: it’s hard to be taken seriously as a guerilla fighter when you’re dressed like Cosimo de Medici.

However, between opening up for more trade and outer contact post-32BBY, and Imperial rule/regime change and the associated Dark Times militaristic trends in fashion, I would bet things probably got a lot more utilitarian. (More research will need to be done on this front as well).
-the gaffi stick on Sulon explanation works so darn well…but if I’m integrating a xenoarcheology element, then I’d be collecting artifacts from different cultures anyway. (true IRL as well!)
-As always when refocusing a persona, timeline headaches arise again. To paraphrase Wooderson’s conundrum: I keep getting older…the timeline stays the same.
-Ditto for naming headaches. ‘Citizen Olis’ works great on Sulon, but does it sound like Naboo as well? Or am I going to have to re-Tuckerize again to make something that fits better?

Hmmmm. Summer camp season is rapidly approaching, so I need to figure out what I’m doing.

*A comparison others have picked up on!