A.H. – Page 22 – Living History in the Star Wars Galaxy

Hindsight strikes again!

While I’m settling into my choice to refocus my Rebel ‘partisan’ persona on Naboo, this really just means a change of backstory and some items of clothing. I figure I can still use the Sulon-based impression for more in-depth opportunities, such as events with more adults (haven’t seen a lot of those yet, but ‘if you build it they will come’), who can grasp the concept that there are more planets out there than just what’s been seen onscreen.

Looking back in my notes, I was tickled to see that just like I did in deciding on my first Middle-earth persona, I actually briefly considered—and then talked myself out of—basing this persona on Naboo!:

“I’m from (and most likely to operate in) a temperate, deciduous biome, so I knew I wouldn’t be picking a desert or ice planet, but unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of planets in the GFFA that resemble eastern North America! The only deciduous-biome planet from the six films is Naboo, and we just don’t have enough details on it after about 19BBY for my confidence.”

For future reference: any time you think there are not enough details about a subject, this is just an opportunity to do some research! And boy, have I found some interesting tidbits since I started digging!

Building the Outer Persona: a three-season pack

While I’ve been humping my Bergan external frame pack around for almost a decade (and I’m very pleased with it!), I’ve been starting to wonder if maybe it isn’t…overkill. As an aspiring minimalist, I like to try and pare my outdoors kit down to the bare essentials, and a large frame pack with lots of attachment points—in a gear version of Jevon’s Paradox (as one’s pack increases in capacity, the expanded space cannot help but be filled)—only makes it too easy to throw in everything but the kitchen sink.

I realized then that while the Bergan is perfectly suited to be a winter pack—able to carry a tarp, sleeping pad, and blanket/sleeping bag, plus a drybag of spare clothes and other seasonal necessities—I might need something a bit more modest for the rest of the year. Continue reading “Building the Outer Persona: a three-season pack”

The Cure for Temporal Headaches

Whenever you begin putting together a new persona (in any setting, fictional or historical), it always helps to firmly ground yourself in a specific time. This is simply Good Living History—the narrower the range, the more focused your research can be, contributing to a more accurate impression. If you’re portraying a ‘longhunter’ (an 18^th century market hunter), you don’t want to be drawing your ‘outer persona’ (aka clothing and accoutrements) from the 1720s or 1790s (even though they’re technically still in the 18^th century); rather, you would focus on the 1750s through 1770s, since that’s the period in which these folks operated. If you have enough information from primary or secondary sources, you can even pin your impression down to a specific year, month, or week (this becomes easier to do the closer to the present one gets, as the amount of raw information (and therefore, potential sources) increases exponentially).
Deciding on a specific span of time makes your persona more authentic, especially if you’ve done your research.
Continue reading “The Cure for Temporal Headaches”

In Good Company

At the same time as I was struggling with my Naboo-rebranding dilemma, I was eagerly awaiting the arrival of copies of the 20^th Anniversary Editions of James Gurney’s Dinotopia books. (Yes, I know these editions came out like, six or seven years ago…suffice to say that I’m thrifty, a laggard in more than just technology, and always wary of reissues with extra features…I tend to wait until I’m sure that the new edition will be worth it, find the best possible (usually secondhand) price, and then gift the old edition to a niece or nephew).
It was a particularly ironic bit of serendipity, since, as I touched on earlier, Naboo’s capitol Theed was maybe/maybe not influenced by Dinotopia’s Waterfall City.

Theed_youth_freedom — Source: *Star Wars* Art: Visions (2010)

Imagine my surprise then, when I began reading the added Foreword to the second volume, The World Beneath, and came across the following passage:
Continue reading “In Good Company”

Image Analysis: Ruusan lookout

Dorman - Ruusan lookout

“The statue that had occupied the platform off to his left had fallen hundreds of years before. The remains of it were scattered down the forward slope and pointed toward a skillfully sculpted hand. The palm was blackened where signal fires hand burned, beckoning travelers from many kilometers away. It must have been something to see.” Star Wars: Jedi Knight (William C. Dietz) 1998.

I’ve always liked this piece from the Jedi Knight novella. Actually, Dave Dorman’s photo-realistic paintings have always been very influential in terms of how I imagine the GFFA. This vignette just happens to be one of the few EU depictions of an isolated cell of commoners on the run from Imperial forces – and so is very useful for my purposes.
Here we see a familiar mishmash of gear that is very inspirational for those of us who portray fringe-y Rebel personas:
Continue reading “Image Analysis: Ruusan lookout”

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?
beechTPM
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…
Continue reading “Location, location, location!”

Image Analysis: Taxi Ride

This will be a short post, as there’s not a lot in this vignette (from page 109 of Wizards of the Coasts’ Galactic Campaign Guide) to talk about, just some buildings, a lot of ships, and a few non-humans (a Duros taxi driver, two Cereans, and an unknown). However, one of those speeders is very familiar:
lavaskim2 Don’t recognize it? How about now?
Boba's_airspeeder_model

That’s right, we finally have an appearance of Boba Fett’s toy airspeeder in situ – it’s no longer just a prop made up for a Visual Dictionary, it’s a legitimate vehicle!

Event debrief: May the Fourth 2018

Location: local indoor Astroturf park

: This gives a pretty good sense of the event.

Event type: ‘Star Wars Day’: kids activities, Chewbacca contest, costume contests, dodgeball, lightsaber ‘academy’; etc.
Although the event wasn’t really a good fit, if I had thought ahead of time, I could have reserved a table and laid out a display of survival gear. Ah, hindsight!
A few local organizations that did have tables:
Continue reading “Event debrief: May the Fourth 2018”

Event Debrief: 17 March 2018

As a borderline hermit, meeting and conversing with celebrities isn’t something I have a lot of experience with. So when I learned that the prodigal Dr. David West Reynolds was going to be returning to his hometown library for a screening of his film-archeology documentary “Journey to Tatouine’ and that the event was being advertised as ‘Star Wars Day’, I knew I was going to have to make an appearance.
31718 This would be my second ‘Stars Wars at the library’ event, and since the first, I’ve had several other events with the public to help me focus and refine my approach. This time, I knew what to expect and was somewhat prepared with a rudimentary engagement hook—a thick stack of facsimiles of the Declaration of Rebellion to distribute.
Continue reading “Event Debrief: 17 March 2018”

Event debrief: 14 July 2017

When I wasn’t working at the zipline, getting merchandise and materials ready for an earthskills festival, and taking a three-day Middle-earth trek in Wisconsin, every spare minute of the first half of July 2017 was spent finishing gear for a second survival presentation at the Frazier Museum’s summer camp—after the first session, I had told my facilitator that I had a Rebel militia persona in the works, and couldn’t go back on my word!
Therefore, I spent the entire two full days (July 12&13) before the camp finishing my Pepakura RFT helmet (which, as discussed earlier, came out looking surprisingly decent considering it was my first attempt with fiberglass), converting the last of my green army dress shirts to bib-front RFT-style, and getting my DH-17 retool in mostly-presentable condition.

After staying up til 0100 for multiple nights in a row, I managed to get everything done and was finally ready to debut my Rebel partisan impression, ‘Citizen Olis’, to a group of 10-13 younglings in grades 3 through 6!
reb assemble DSC05059 Continue reading “Event debrief: 14 July 2017”