I'm writing this blog on what is to me a truly remarkable occasion: I've won the What's the Story contest (or at least one-forty-eighth thereof) and got my entry submission, Dornean Gunship, published. So this blog will be divided into a couple of sections: 1) My (hopefully not too) egotistical nergasm, 2) Thoughts about why and what I wrote (as per Abel G Pena's suggestion) and 3) the two mistakes I've found and the insight that gave me. You should really skip to part 2, cause part 1 is pretty boring.

Part 1:

Yes! I feel . . . so validated, really. The gods of Star Wars have proclaimed me worthy . . . etc. and so forth. (I got bored with it too. It was just really a remarkable high)

Part 2:

I've always thought of What's the Story as an opportunity for fans to help connect and revive abandoned or obscure elements of the EU with background elements of the movies, and that pretty strongly motivated all of my submissions. Thus, I tried to explain the backstory of 1) the favor Kiles owes Etahn, 2) a little bit of the Dornean Navy, an untapped gold mine of 80 completely unseen ships, and 3) a Carrack-class cruiser (but we'll get to that later)

Some minor thoughts:

I'd envisioned "Braha'tok" and "Torktarak" as some sort of mythical reference, either to a pair of Dornean brothers, gods, or monsters, but I was unable to fit that in with the flow of the entry.

When deciding upon the technical statistics of the gunship, I looked towards the Black Fleet Crisis material more than anything else, if only to mesh with the feel of the Dorneans and A'baht in particular. I don't mean to identify myself as a BFC junkie, and I like to think that I'm rather well rounded, but I do feel that the BFC is one of the largest loose ends, stylistically and otherwise, in the Star Wars Saga. The size I got from exhaustive comparisons with the Millenium Falcon in the fly-by shot.

The idea that the Rebellion would be shopping around for more ships from other groups came from the more recent Han Solo trilogy, where Bria Tharen does pretty much the same thing.

There were also a couple more references (such as to Sprint-Class rescue craft) I think I included, but which I may have added after submission, or which may have been cut for one reason or another.

Part 3: My Errors

I have, thus far, noticed two errors, one implicit and one explicit (not profane ) in my submission:

My first error is that I believed Etahn A'bat would be at a lower rank at the time of the battle of Endor, considering that the BFC takes place 12 years later after a period of numerous wartime promotions. However, previous sources make it clear that he was the commander of the entire Dornean Navy. If I may suggest a retcon, it would be that his promotion was a complete publicity stunt, capitalizing on the victory at Endor: as though Eisenhower in the wake of WWII was promoted from Supreme Commander to Ultra Supreme Commander. Furthermore, while it is unlikely that an Fleet Officer, even a minor one, would command a single ship, I would suggest that A'baht insisted on doing so, because of how vital the battle would be to the war. And I'd finally like to suggest that while the Dornean Navy was 80 ships strong it is probable, given my entry, that none of them exceeded 300 meters at the outside, and that the Braha'tok was among the most powerful of the ships.

My second error was with the Carrack-class Cruiser. I strongly wished to find a previously-known one, but it was hard to find one that was not recorded as surviving after Endor. I chose the Eminence because it was the name of the Thon-Boka fleet flagship, and the Essential Chronology depicted the Thon-Boka fleet as being composed of Carracks. However, it turned out that the Eminence was actually an Imperial Star Destroyer, a fact which I uncovered after I submitted my entry. So now there are two Eminences. I suggest that this discrepency be simply ignored, or, if it is possible, the name of the Eminence be quietly changed to the Integrity, the Carrack of the Coruscanti fleet from the Revenge of the Sith novel, the name I tried to attach in a repeated submission.

This has also shown me how hard it is to adhere to continuity, even with compulsive research and a not-inconsiderable knowledge of the subject. So I'd like to give a big mea culpa, mea maxima culpa to any authors I have badmouthed for continuity errors, in private or in public, by word, thought or deed, or in fact in any way shape or form whatsoever. You guys are all supermen for doing what you do so well. After all, I had an error every 1000 letters! I respect you more than ever.