It started out innocently enough.

One of the Star Wars fans who posts regularly in the literature section of theforce.net's Expanded Universe message boards, Rogue_Wookiee, supplied the premise:

"If ROTS was written solely for fans familiar with majority of the EU..."

What changes, the Rogue Wook asked, might have been made to the movie Revenge of the Sith had it been written and directed with an eye toward satisfying the tastes of those rabid Star Wars fans who have perused a great majority of the spin-off material that George Lucas's saga has produced? A reasonable fanboy fantasy. Being such a fanboy, I clicked on the thread.

...and stepped into the mouth of madness.

Within seven minutes, an element had been introduced into the thread with irrevocable consequences. Within an hour, all hell had broken loose. By day's end, I was declared a prophet.

What in God's name can cause such unremitting chaos?

Its name is Waru.

Introduced in 1994's Star Wars: The Crystal Star, written by Star Trek scribe Vonda N. McIntyre (check out her Star Trek book Enterprise, The First Adventure for a good read), this gelatinous slab of sentience defied nearly all classification devoid of the prefixes "meta," "trans," and "anti." An immense super-dimensional being with indefinable powers, Waru nearly succeeded in luring Luke Skywalker, now a Jedi Master, to his doom. In fact, Waru nearly succeeded in eating the entire starring cast of the Original Star Wars Trilogy, with which sustenance it would have had enough "anti-Force" to return to its own galaxy. Or universe. Or dimension...or wherever it came from.

The Crystal Star has often been maligned for its odd character. For those interested in a fair review, read my take on the novel, originally published at fellow Star Wars author Joe Bongiorno's website, Timeline Universe. Head on over there for chronologies of Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Swamp Thing, the Land of Oz, and other goodness! I'll also throw in the poem I contributed to the Expanded Universe Community's Waru Poetry thread:

Spanish
Querido, querido Waru
Te conoci sin haberte conocido,
Fuera de cuerpo y fuera de tiempo.
Tomaste mi alma,
Ahora eres mio.

Translation
Beloved, beloved Waru
I knew you without knowing you,
Outside of body and outside of time.
You took my soul,
Now you are my mine.

Italian
Avanti Waru! Bell'cosa, grasso é'terno!
Non c'é nessuno meglio che Lei!
(Ma il cappello di K'kruhk, freakin' liscio
Anch'é cosí cosí.)

Translation
Forward Waru! Beautiful thing, fat and eternal!
There is none better than you!
(But K'kruhk's hat, freakin' cool,
Also's so so.)

Sweet Jesus, I've lost it. ~ Abel G. Peña

UPDATE: These guys are insane.

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