Part II in a series of Blog entries

The in-universe frame story is a balancing act meant to cater to both sides of the silly vs. serious Star Wars coin. Voren Na'al-- the EU chroniclist's dream in that he allows a source file author the freedom to blame mistakes on shoddy journalism -- is tasked by Arhul Hextrophon to find out what really happened on Aduba-3.

So, let me back up - Voren Whosits and Arhul Whatsits? Both characters were created by West End Games to give editorial voices to an otherwise unattributed omniscient narrator in their source material. It was a brilliant convention, because it allowed the writer to interject bias and even unreliability into the text. Now, canonists and encyclopedia-writers hate this kind of vagueness, because it throws into question vast amounts of source material. But it's Essential for game writing, because game source material are just raw ingredients for game masters to use as they please. If they want to completely change the nature of Aduba-3 for the purpose of their game, they can simply say the article was wrong, and claim their home-brew version is the real deal.

So by having Voren Na'al be the invisible author motivating these entries, it allows for some fudging of facts for those who simply don't want to believe the events of Marvel Comics' Star Wars #7-10 occurred in their universe. But even in that approach, there's a bit of subversive fun.

See, Voren doesn't believe it either. The version of events that he's heard before embarking on his research expedition is one that matches the Marvel Comics. And he refuses to believe them. He blames the outlandish tale on TriNebulon Entertainment, a holo-media firm that WEG established as purveyors of sensationalist and outlandish entertainment. He says on page 42, "Unfortunately, that fanciful tale is all I have to work with, and it really has colored people's perception of the truth. My deadline has come and gone, and I'm nowhere nearer uncovering what really happened on Aduba-3."

The intimation I'm making here is that the most unbelievable version of the story - the pure undistilled Marvel camp from the '70s - is actually the truth. And Voren is frustrated because all his investigating keeps bringing up the campy story, and he doesn't understand why. You'll note on page 50, he finally gets a face-to-face interview with someone involved in the incident (the farm girl Merri) and he completely dismisses it because it matches too closely the Tri-Neb holo. ("I can't help but think it has tainted her memory...")

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