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Je n'aime pas dans les vieux films américains quand les conducteurs ne regardent pas la route. Et de ratage en ratage, on s'habitue à ne jamais dépasser le stade du brouillon. La vie n'est que l'interminable répétition d'une représentation qui n'aura jamais lieu.

Star Wars Expanded Universe Chronology: The Essential Guide to Warfare: Dha Werda Verda

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*Okay, so Dha Werda Verda is a short little section in The Essential Guide to Warfare.  It comes at the very beginning of the book.  Yeah, it’s Chapter One, Pages 3 – 4. 

*Mmm, before we jump into the thing itself, let me talk about its placement here.  The only timeline this appears on is DinoJim’s.  He places it at the very beginning of his timeline, with a dating of Unknown.  However, he does give some indication of the dating.  The second entry on his timeline, a flashback from Dawn of the Jedi, is dated at 36,453 BBY.  So, this Dha Werda Verda takes place sometime prior to that.  So, the most conservative dating one could give this event/story is around 36,500 BBY.  Which is frigging insane.

*Remember the good ol’ days when I started this project and I was flabbergasted about the Tales of the Jedi stuff taking place 5,000 BBY.  Well, this takes place more than seven times as many years BBY. 

*So, just for fun, let’s make the Battle of Yavin a stand-in for the present day.  I thought it might help us kind of get a grip on just how long this actually is before the Battle of Yavin and our adventures with Luke and Han and Leia to take a look at what was happening here on planet Earth 36,000 years ago. 

*So, 36,000 years ago, even the scientists are kind of just doing best guesses and estimates, if you know what I mean.  But here are a couple of things.  The last great Ice Age was most likely going on.  Humans had probably just crossed the Bering Strait into North America.  And a Neanderthal in France was killed with the earliest example we have of a stone weapon. 

*Alternately, it was still going to be 30,000 years before God created the Universe. 

*But seriously, yeah, 36,000 years is a long dang time.  Now, we have nuclear bombs; then our ancestors were kind of figuring out about hitting people with rocks. 

*Some of the articles I looked at were kind of old, so some of that info may be outdated by now.  But you get the idea. 

*Also, in doing some more research on the DWV (Dha Werda Verda), I discovered that this is actually considered to happen a lot longer ago than that.  I saw someone estimate it at like 200,000 BBY.  Yeah, 200,000 BBY.  That’s insane.

*So, 200,000 years ago on this planet?  Homo sapiens had just achieved what scientists call Anatomical Modernity.  Homo sapiens sapiens had just arrived on the scene.  Our ancestors?  Finally were starting to look somewhat recognizably human.  That’s a long ****** time ago. 

*In other words, put Luke and Han and Darth Vader out of your head.  We’re at a place on the timeline so far removed from them as to be ridiculous.

*And when I say to be ridiculous, that’s exactly what I mean.  But let’s give the pertinent details before I start beating up on the story, right?

*Okay, so the Dha Werda Verda . . . you know, I get angrier every time I have to type that.  So stupid.  But, anyway, I did some research on Wookieepedia and I guess this is some kind of thing with the Mandalorians and they use parts of it as a war chant or something much later on the timeline.  I dunno. 

*Anyway, it’s an epic poem.  The Guide to Warfare gives some background on when it was composed and why and then we get a few paragraphs from one of the stanzas. 

*Okay, so I’m going to skip all this stuff about the Rakatans and hyperdrives and all that nonsense.  The pertinent info is that there’s the Taungs and the Zhell.  The Zhell are the ancestors of humans in the GFFA.  The Taungs and the Zhell are fighting each other on a little planet that would later come to be known as Coruscant. 

*That’s the Taungs in the foreground of the picture above.  I think.  Maybe. 

*Anyway, the Taungs were getting their butts kicked when suddenly a huge volcano erupted and destroyed Zhell, the capital city of the Zhells.  This turned the war around, of course, and the Taungs were triumphant.  The Dha Werda Verda was composed as an epic poem about the war and the Taungs’ victory.  Oh, yeah, it means The Shadow Warriors. 

*Oh, yeah, good job naming your city too, guys. 

*Anyway, this is very, very short.  This post is already longer than the actual excerpt we get from the poem. 

*Right, so the poem just basically tells us that the Taungs were horribly outnumbered and nearly defeated.  Some general named Rexetu (or something) rallies them to, you know, die like men.  They bravely assemble themselves and prepare to sweep down on the city of Zhell, spending their lives in one last hopeless charge against their enemies.  And then a volcano erupts and Zhell gets blasted and the army is scattered.  The Taungs charge down into the valley, cloaked in the shadow of the ash cloud, and, you know, kill everybody.

*So, I’m not being flip here; I’m honestly curious.  Does anyone actually care about this?  I would love to hear from someone who really enjoyed this story.  I mean, it’s just . . . it’s not even Star Wars.  I mean, it takes place so long before the stories that I know and love that it’s just . . . well, it could actually take place in any sci-fi/fantasy universe that you wanted to plop it down in.  I guess I just don’t get it and it seems to fall, for me, squarely into the category I most hate: Timeline Clutter.  Just adding stories that are meaningless and not very good for the sake of growing the timeline.  I mean, there’s so much stuff on the timeline that no one could read it all in a lifetime.  We really don’t need nonsense like this making it bigger for no reason at all.    

*Anyway, I didn’t give a ****.  If you did, I’d love for you to talk about why and explain why this is good or whatever.  I certainly can’t. 

*CANONICAL STATUS: While the events chronicled in Dha Werda Verda more than likely happened in some form or another, the poem itself is more than likely a much later fictionalization.  The DWV, as it stands, is only notable for the wonderful & striking musical pieces it has inspired.  This work is NOT RECOMMENDED as a historical resource. 

Jason Fry, Paul R. Urquhart

0 out of **** stars

*Okay, next time, it’s a repost of one I wrote . . . last year, I think.  It’s the story that the four timelines I’m using disagree about the most.  We’ll take a huge jump in time and talk about The Fourth Precept. 

Star Wars Chronology!