What's The Story?

What's The Story? was an exclusive feature on the Star Wars fan club website, Star Wars Hyperspace. It gave Hyperspace members a chance to leave their mark on the Star Wars Expanded Universe by allowing them to provide the backstory for certain aspects of the saga, usually obscure background characters or vehicles from the films.

Winning entries became official Star Wars lore: published in the Databank and added to the Holocron continuity database. This feature was launched June 24, 2005 and concluded on January 4, 2008, as first hinted by Pablo Hidalgo of Lucas Online. The feature began with the backstory for Tannon Praji, a character from the (then) recently released Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith, and, somewhat appropriately, the final entry was Bane Malar, a character from Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi, chronologically the (then) final Star Wars film.

In October 2008, new stories from What's The Story? authors began to be published on Hyperspace. As of March 2010, Edward M. Erdelac, Nathan O'Keefe, Adrick Tolliver, James McFadden, Gregory Walker, and John Hazlett have authored Hyperspace articles.

The process

The submission form was regularly updated presenting a new subject for fans to write about, originally weekly, then in a fortnightly period and finally on the first Friday of every month. Entries were be based on the information and criteria given, and all had to be under 2000 characters in length. Every submission received was read by a panel of judges, with the best marked as finalists. Pablo Hidalgo then selected the winning entry, or merged several entries and edited them into the final product. The Databank was updated with five or six winners at a time or, sometimes, individually.

Later Legends appearances and references

A list of What's The Story? aspects that have since appeared in later Star Wars Legends material.

Direct references

References in other What's The Story? entries

Entries reprinted in Star Wars Insider

Indirect references

Cut references

  • Bal'demnic: Abel G. Peña mentioned Bal'demnic in Underworld Appendix: Swoops, Spice, and Wretched Rogues, but Lucasfilm cut the reference.

Minor elements introduced

Other elements introduced (or first identified) into continuity through What's The Story? include:

Author legacy

Beginning in October 2008, new articles and stories authored by What's The Story? writers have been published on Hyperspace.

Sources

Hyperspace:

Databank:

Forum threads:

Blog entries:

Appearances