While the new-home renovations continue, I am still at least a month from having a functional crafting studio or workshop again, and so in the interest of avoiding a lull and having to overcome the inertia to resume publishing (and to get some pieces out of my drafts!), I thought this would be a good time to check in with the state of some of my galactic impressions. Links to each of these breakdowns will all be collected at the Personas and Impressions page ^above^!
Seeing as how I’ve continued to rework this impression in the years since its ‘first draft’, I want to show how things have progressed, and also serve as a benchmark for any changes I make in the future. Since Naboo pretty much drops off the galactic stage after about 18 BBY, this impression required a large amount of ‘frog DNA’ to extrapolate and create a complete kit from a specific time and place. However, as I hope will become clear, this method of taking the truth of my own life and ‘translating’ it to an in-universe context works very well for creating a fleshed-out but believable persona that stays within the bounds of the setting. (Numbers in [brackets] refer to reference sources in end notes.)
Naming:
As I’m partial to Tuckerization (versus something like a ‘random name generator’) and my first, middle, and last names give a limited selection of letters to play with (A-H-I-L-N-O-S-T-U-Y – most of which are very ‘soft’ sounds), I have always struggled with coming up with in-universe names for GFFA purposes. Especially as I prefer to have my personas’ names include elements of my real name as a way of better connecting with the individual; I like to avoid picking a random name just because it sounds cool.
My first step was to browse the Wook’s list of Naboo characters and look for males with names similar to my own (I didn’t find any). Next, I tried plugging my given name into Google Translate: with Naboo’s prevalence of Indian-esque names (Pooja, Ruwee, Ryoo, Padma/Padme, etc.), I wanted to see if there were any Hindi translations of my name’s meaning (august/respected/venerable) that started with A or sounded similar. I wasn’t having much luck, so I widened my search and put in a derivative ‘augustine’, which didn’t produce a translation as much as a Hindi pronounciation: agasteen. It still sounded a lot like Augustine or Agassi, but written phonetically I thought –steen could be a decent in-universe name… I checked the Wook, and sure enough found two examples, one of which Steen Morwinn was even a male Human from Naboo! What a perfect precedent! (Now there’s a takeaway for you – whether it’s naming, clothing, personal vehicles, or equipment, the more you can reference existing in-universe examples instead of cooking up something custom, the more realistic and believable the overall impression will be! If everything in your impression is custom, is it still Star Wars anymore, or has it become just your own fanfic universe?)
What’s even more amazing: as it turns out, my family’s surname is a known surname among the Naboo! It’s a great coincidence, but I am always leery of associating with known/heroic characters – plus, unmodified generic Earth first names feel ‘Swarzier’ to me than unmodified Earth surnames in the GFFA, so instead of having to be Reyé and Lutin Hollis’ intellectual cousin or something, I simply cut it down to Olis. I might wield Occam’s Razor and change my mind on this, we’ll see.
So:
Steen Olis is the son of Arjun Olis and Mariek Leeoni; these are simply my parents’ names run through a ‘Naboo lens’: Arjun is conjectural as a male Naboo name, taken from Arjuna of the Mahabharata; it preserves the J-n of John, while invoking the Indian-esque Naboo naming style. Mariek preserves the root Mary, and is also name of Captain Panaka’s wife[i].
Age:
Steen was born 31 BBY (4 GrS), part of a hypothetical (though logical) baby boom following the Invasion, Battle, and liberation of Naboo the year before.
As I’ve noted before, I like to ‘anchor’ my personas around an corresponding real event from my own life, so this age scheme is anchored by September 11, 2001 as analogous to the Battle of Coruscant in 19 BBY (an enemy surprise attack rapidly followed by an ominous regime change— the start of Bush II’s Indefinite War on Terror/Palpatine’s Declaration of the New Order), which occurred in my early teens. As someone in his mid-Thirties, this puts Steen’s ‘present’ a couple years ABY, which is post-Declaration of Rebellion and post-Battle of Yavin! (In other words, The Onion reported on December 8, 1941: “HOT DOG! NOW WE CAN FIGHT!”)
Basic Biography:
Steen’s family is from a farming district 90 kilometers downstream from Theed [ii]. True to Naboo’s culture of arts and learning, the people in Steen’s life come from a variety of hands-on arts and sciences. Steen’s grandfather was a doctor, his father is a historian, mother a housewife and potter, one uncle raises shaaks, and another is a weaver. One of his cousins is a textile artist, and another an engineer who works on cloudscrapers; his best friends include arborists, metallurgists, herbalists, artists, poets, and a starship mechanic at the Theed spaceport!
Steen attended Theed University [iii], originally to study philosophy but (inspired by his parents’ long interest in indigenous Gungan history and lifeways) switched to xeno-anthropology and archeology, and collected artifacts from galactic history and cultures during his University years and during postgrad travels. In accordance with Naboo’s focus on community service for young citizens [iv], Steen volunteered with organizations devoted to a number of causes, including disaster relief, refugee resettlement, endangered species rehab, and habitat restoration. [v]
After returning to Naboo, Steen moved closer to Theed’s bazaar [vi] as an artisan—since there’s no market for handmade goods out in the backwater! He lived for a few years in a small village on the Solleu (19 km upstream of the Falls); then moved to Theed proper to teach galactic history. Inspired by the publication of Mon Mothma’s Declaration of Rebellion, however, Steen decided to join a group of discontents from his home village and form a partizan band to take up arms and harass the Imperial forces occupying their home district as best they can. After becoming more organized and formally joining the Alliance’s SecForce for the Chommel Sector, the group received materiel and additional training from Rebel SpecForce advisors.
So there we have it! As none of these details are untrue, and have at least some basis in my own life, I am able to interpret them confidently without feeling like I’m trying to be something I’m not! Now, whether or not I ever get a change to actually share these details depends on the level of interaction of a given event (and events at any level are pretty much nonexistent in my sector!), but hey, it’s better to be over- than underprepared!
Notes:
[i] from the Queen’s Peril/Queen’s Shadow books—which I only realized after reading are post-Disney NuCanon titles. I don’t mind new stuff if it helps to flesh out blank spaces (and as far as I know, there’s no suggestion in the EU that Panaka was married), but where I get leery is when new stuff directly contradicts existing info.
[ii] my family’s farms are located in rural Kentucky a similar distance below the Falls of the Ohio
[iii] this comes from the Episode I Complete Locations; also the same initials as my undergrad alma mater!
[iv] per The New Essential Guide to Characters, community service was mandatory for all Naboo citizens between the ages of 12 and 20.
[v] During this time of my life I organized or worked on service projects which addressed all of these issues, and interned with the Student Conservation Association and Forest Service between undergrad and grad school.
[vi] Theed bazaar: The Artist of Naboo, in Star Wars Visionaries, since republished in Dark Horse Omnibus, Volume 30.
Living History in the Star Wars Galaxy 