I've dealt with this several times on ChronoRadio in the past, but it bears repeating in light of a recent debate raging on the forums here as to the use of both a 10-month and 12-month calendar by the writers of Star Wars stories. The concept in question is that of intellectual honesty, and how it is a required basis for any intelligent, prodcutive discourse.

Productive discourse requires a certain sense of common ground, shared factual basis, or a common "canon" if you will. That is precisely the reason why most debates that are grounded in religion tend to break down. Get a couple of people from different Christian denominations together to discuss their different interpretations of morality, and they can usually at least work from the common ground of the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth, but if you try to toss in Taoists, Muslims, Zen Buddhists, Atheists, or perhaps Agnostics into that same discussion on morality, then the entire discussion gets messy the moment Jesus of Nazareth enters the discussion. That common ground disappears and the discussion becomes one wherein very little progress can be made because everyone is working from a different, often mutually exclusive point of view.

Luckily, most issues in the real world aren't as subject to the whim of opinion or faith as religious issues. For instance, whether you are discussing calculus, geometry, algebra, trigonometry, physics, architecture, or aerodynamics, "two times two" is still four, as is "two squared" and "two plus two." No matter what type of dog you are studying and for what purpose, you're still dealing with a canine mammal. No matter what you are discussing from a policy standpoint of America in the late 1960s, John F. Kennedy was still killed in 1963 (no matter whom you believe pulled the trigger).

In situations like those, where there are actual documented facts to be relied upon, honest, rational discussion is not based upon discovering the truth (as in religious discussions), but in recognizing and accepting the truth, then building upon that factual basis to engage in intelligent discussion or perhaps solve pressing problems. You must do what we often argue that our government does not: accept reality and go from there.

In fandom, we are faced with an unusual predicament. Facts are not generally subject to the audience's interpretation. For instance, I might be looney and think that I'd prefer that it was Rookie One from Rebel Assault that blew up the first Death Star . . . but when I make that choice, that doesn't change that it was Luke that did it, and Rookie One's Death Star killshot has been wiped from Star Wars canon like crayon on a wall that's been subjected to a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. (Those things are great, by the way.)

Then again, facts are not entirely set in stone once they are presented. The Nagai, for instances, were introduced to us in the 1980s as invaders from beyond the Star Wars galaxy. In the 1990s, when the Yuuzhan Vong storyline began, it was determined that they were the first extragalactic invasion force, and the folks within Lucasfilm (the "creator" side, rather than the "creation" side) decided to change the Nagai to instead be a culture from within the Unknown Regions.

In other words, within Star Wars, we are presented with two sources of "truth." The first is what we find within the Star Wars stories themselves, such as an issue of Republic or a novel from the Corellian Trilogy. The second is information presented to fans by the creators or those given creative control over the license, which, in this case, would be Lucasfilm.

Most of the time, we tend to rely on the stories, as the vast majority of the stories work well together without major contradictions. The creative hand of Lucasfilm guides the saga, shapes it, and in those cases, just lets the saga grow. However, we have known for decades now that sometimes Star Wars sources will contradict each other. In those instances, the relatively hands-off creative staff steps back, examines the sitaution, and provides case-by-case answers to those contradictions. We are expected, as fans, to take those proclamations from Lucasfilm, usually in the form of a comment or two by Leland Chee (Keeper of the Holocron) as "the truth" and move on. In essence, while the stories present facts, those stories can sometimes be inconsistent, so the word of Lucasfilm, when being used to explain the truth of a particular situation, trumps whatever those sources said. Of the two sources of Star Wars "fact," the creators trump that which they created, which makes perfect sense, as that is how it almost always works between fictional universes and their creative teams.

Perhaps the greatest success ever achieved by Lucasfilm in terms of getting fans to both recognize their authority over matters of Star Wars "fact" and accept Lucasfilm's statements of fact about "how things are" as the honest foundation from which to develop discussion was when Leland Chee (and others) finally revealed to fans the nature of Star Wars "canon" by delineating so-called "G-," "C-," "S-," and "N-" levels of Canon to fans. It took fans a while to competely grasp the concept, and those who had already understood that general setup through watching Lucasfilm's previous decisions before such levels were given names sometimes took a while to accept the new, official nomenclature, but it all seems to have worked out for the best. Now, it is very rare to walk into a discussion of Star Wars "canon" without the "GCSN" terminology firmly in mind. It was a time when Lucasfilm spoke, the fans listened, and in doing so, the fans were able to have intellectually honest discussions about what was once one of the most contentuous issues in all of Star Wars fandom.

You see, actually understanding how the Star Wars saga is shaped requires more than just being a good little consumer and taking in everything of Star Wars that you can get your hands on. A thorough understanding requires also understanding how Star Wars, unlike the real world where facts are based in "what happens," is a fictional saga that is also shaped in large part by the decisions, policies, and official statements made by those who are in charge of the creative side of the saga. In a sense, a healthy understanding of the saga itself necessitates a healthy respect (or at least a begrudging acknowledgement) of the authority that Lucasfilm wields over the fictional universe that they and their licensees continue to develop.

And thus we reach the crux of the problem: There are some discussions and debates relating to Star Wars where intellectual dishonesty is the rule of the day. In these cases, fans create arguments and try to form discussions based on false, misleading, or mistaken assumptions of "fact."

For instance, there are now debates on some message boards as to how in the world a certain Legacy of the Force character manages to become Darth Krayt in the Legacy comic series . . . without any facts to support that the character *does* become Darth Krayt. (Without a shared assumption or a documented fact that X becomes Y, arguing over *how* X becomes Y is a debate based in intellectual dishonesty. Again, that is barring that shared assumption at the very least, which makes the entire debate hypothetical, but at least intellectually honest.)

There are also debates in some circles as to when the Droids cartoon takes place: 10 BBY or 5 BBY? That's another debate that is intellectually dishonest, as the fact of the matter, as stated by Lucasfilm's VIPs (Leland Chee, in this case), is that the Droids cartoon takes place 15 BBY. To debate otherwise, especially when both of the debated options are known to be incorrect, is not intellectually honest. (Now, if one were arguing when they SHOULD take place, rather than when they DO take place, that would be a different story, and perfectly within the bounds of intellectual honesty.)

Now, we have the current bickering and entrenchment on the issue of the Star Wars calendar (again). It is a debate that flares up every few months, and it seems to have done so for years, only to have grown more frequent in the wake of the end of West End Games' Star Wars RPG contract and the Clone Wars multimedia storytelling venture from Lucasfilm's various licensees.

Again, intellectual honesty demands an understanding and acknowledgement of what actually exists, rather than what one would like to exist. In the case of the Star Wars calendar, most fans would likely agree that the best case scenario would be for Star Wars to operate under only one calendar, whether it has ten months per year, twelve months per year, or ninety-nine teeny-tiny months per year. Alas, such is not the case.

Unfortunately for the "my way or the highway" crowd and the "only one calendar can exist" crew, Star Wars is not a perfect universe, nor is it ultimately fully consistent, nor is its galactic government a real decision making body in the real world, . . . nor has its materials been published with only one calendar in mind.

Instead (much to the confusion of many fans and the frustration of timeline compilers such as myself, the TimeTales team, and others), the powers that be have been less strict with Star Wars writers in terms of time references than they probably should hvae been. The roleplaying game and many of the earlier materials that were easier to keep track of (and which often worked hand-in-hand with RPG materials) were kept to a fairly consistent use of the 10-month calendar that was first described by West End Games' RPG and given extensive detail in their Lords of the Expanse boxed RPG set. However, as time went on, many writers didn't abide by that 10-month calendar, instead choosing to, for example, refer to half a year as six months instead of five.

This was obviously understandable from the writers' standpoint, as a 12-month calendar like the one we use in real life is much easier to relate to and write with than a fictional 10-month calendar that was created for an RPG more concerned with timing issues than the novels and comics were at the time (usually in the novels, timing was held to years before or after other events, rather than months, for instance). However, from a consistency standpoint, allowing this to happen was, at best, wishful thinking that materials using both calendars could co-exist without any confusion for the fans, or, at worst, a conscious effort to eradicate that earlier 10-month calendar in favor of a 12-month one that would be easier on readers.

References using a 12-month calendar were easy to deal with when there were relatively few of them and stories tended to be years apart. As time went on, though, stories became more and more condensed and compressed into less and less open storytelling space. Eventually, this reached its peak with the Clone Wars publishing venture, which utilized a calendar to cover the three years between AOTC and ROTS . . . which was marked off into 36 months, rather than 30. The 12-month calendar became the rule of the day for the Clone Wars era of publishing, and such was confirmed over and over again, especially in the early days of the Clone Wars timelines being printed in the books, by Lucasfilm representatives like Leland Chee.

So, the situation that emerged was one in which dates became somewhat messy, but in which the two calendars, as Karen Traviss put it, "can co-exist." Unfortunately, this now creates an intellectual necessity for fans.

Given the knowledge that some authors write using a 10-month calendar and others write using a 12-month calendar . . . given that some stories were planned using a 10-month calendar and others were planned using a 12-month calendar . . . it becomes incumbent for the intellectually honest fan to recognize this unfortunate dichotomy and remember to always take into account the context in which a date or time frame is given within a story. Otherwise, one could become quite confused and possibly patently incorrect if one were to, say, interpret one author's use of "60 months" to mean six years (on a 10-month calendar), when that author actually meant five years (because the writer was actually utilizing a 12-month calendar).

It's messy. It's ugly. However, it's also, quite simply, the way things stand. Star Wars no longer has one calendar during the creative process, and thus, thanks to in-story references made by writers using both different calendars, Star Wars no longer has one calendar for in-universe references either, unless one is to go through and convert date references from one calendar to another.

(This, by the way, is very simple. To convert a 12-month calendar date to a 10-month date, simply divide the number of months on a 12-month calendar by 12, then multiply the resulting decimal answer by 10. To covert a 10-month calendar date to a 12-month calendar date, divide the number of months on a 10-month calendar by 10, then multiply your answer by 12. Not that hard, right?)

Therefore, the challenge faces us, as fans, yet again. Will we be intellectually honest and acknowledge how things *actually* are, or go with what we'd prefer them to be? Do we accept and understand not just the in-universe fictional "reality" of the Star Wars saga, but also the real world issues of publishing, the editorial process, conflict-resolution, and, above all, creative control? Or, conversely, do we simply choose to throw intellectual honesty out the window and proceed from a basis of false assumptions, half-facts, and blinders on to the actual policies about which Lucasfilm and their VIPs so graciously bother to inform us?

I'd like to think that the answer for rational fans out there is intellectual honesty.

But then, what do I know? Perhaps intellectual dishonesty is simply more fun.