Three years ago I made the leap from fanboy to continuity contributor with my first What's The Story entry for General Yavid. Recently I was given the far greater opportunity to make the leap from occasional WTS contributor (General Yavid, Diva Shaliqua, Ottegru Grey, Teyora Rekab) to official paid Star Wars author, with the Hyperspace source article Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Praji, posted February 5, 2009.

A great deal of the article's material is, of course, mine, but a larger portion is woven together from existing novels, comics, RPG guides, and more obscure sources, and I post this series of endnotes to explain some of those links and show some of my creative process behind the article. I like to think it's the kind of source article that yields up more and more obscurities and connections and symmetries the more you look at it.

The page numbers refere to the 13 pages of the article as posted.


BACKGROUND:

The title does come from the classic mystery Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré. I haven't read the novel, nor seen the Alec Guiness miniseries, but it sounded catchy and fit the differing roles the family played over time. (Although to be really honest, the immediate inspiration came from the tagline "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Droid" on the back cover of the original Essential Guide to Droids. ) And I have just learned that the phrase actually comes from an even older children's rhyme which apparently makes mine a reference to a reference to a reference. Yikes.

I gladly give credit for the basic building blocks to Zack Bossan, who wrote the backstory for Tannon Praji. (Actually this was the very first of the What's The Story entries.) For the primary sources I worked with, check out the original WTS databank articles on Tannon Praji and Ottegru Grey (the latter co-written by "magicofmyth2" and titled by myself, although the backstory itself doesn't incorporate anything from the one I had submitted). And the name "Praji" itself comes from the Decipher CCG card for a certain ANH Imperial commander ... but more on that in a later installment.


PAGE 1:

Byblos Journal of Historical Science is new, although Byblos is from WEG. "Historical science" is actually a term from Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, which I'd been reading around the time I wrote the article.

352:10 is not a date but signifies the year and volume numbers of the BJoHS. The article was published 104 ABY so apparently the first issue was published in 248 BBY.

Kuat. Tagge. Valorum. Draay. Humbar. Phoenix. Vanicus. Fg'wz. The first four are preexisting and fairly self-explanatory. Humbar is a back-formation from the planet Humbarine; I figured the planet was named after this family (maybe the original colonists?) but that was as much thought as I put into it. Vanicus is from TOTJ's Captain Orley Vanicus. Phoenix and Fg'wz are both new. Fg'wz is composed of the leftover letters that don't appear in any of the other seven.

Kaikielius' location and its invasion during Operation Shadow Hand are from the Dark Empire Sourcebook. Basically everything else about it is new, including the connection with the Prajii.

The Esselian Empire is from, I believe, Coruscant and the Core Worlds. The Durosian Sodality is new.

The Great Manifest Period, Pius Dea Crusades, and Alsakan Conflicts are from The New Essential Chronology. The Alsakan Conflicts originally were mentioned in Han Solo and the Corporate Sector Sourcebook.

Prajii, Vahalii, and Juonii are the plural forms for the members of House Praji, House Vahali, and House Juoni.


PAGE 2:

Corellian Interregnal: I realized afterward that this should logically be the Corellian Interregnum, since Interregnal is the adjectival form. Originally I had it as the Corellian Interregnal War, but I shortened it and forgot to change the form.

This information on the Pius Dea Crusades is expanded from The New Essential Chronology. The section's title, The Goddess Wills It, is a reference to the Latin phrase "Deus vult" ("God wills it"), the rallying cry of the real-life First Crusade, and a reference to to the Pius Dea cult's name which means "dutiful to the goddess" in Latin. The theology and cosmology of this female deity have yet to be worked out since they were well beyond my mandate for the article.

Chancellor Pers'lya is new and yes, he's supposed to be a Bothan.

That the first target was the perennially unpopular Hutt Empire is new, but it makes sense since they had been a problem since before the Republic even began. Sections 4 and 5 also refer to the Hutts as a foreign enemy government and make mention of all those wars that had been fought to keep the kajidics out of Republic affairs, furthering the idea that the Hutts had been a troublesome "third wheel" for most of the Republic's history.

and "cold" and "hot" wars alternated for a thousand years
Since a full millennium of balls-out warfare is not really feasible.

while the Republic flagellated itself with inquisitions
See Joseph McCarthy, the Spanish Inquisition.

until Pius Dea rule met its end in that famous encounter which hardly needs retelling here.
Thus leaving the story open in case it ever gets developed into a novel or comic.

I don't know Dan's thoughts on this, but my own notion which I was trying to get across is that the Pius Dea weren't so much racists per se, but because aliens tended to follow their own native religions instead, the cult was able to play on existing humanocentric philosophies and enlist homegrown racists for their crusades. (I have other theories, but they wouldn't even qualify as cut content so I won't waste your time with them.)

Zarracina III is new. Nolaa Tarkona's Diversity Alliance is from the Young Jedi Knights series.


Volume 2: The Tales of the Jedi/KOTOR era