[151] Manning the aerospace control tower is one of the various important jobs around the temple that unassigned padawans are given, as a gesture of respect for their accomplishments so far and as a way of accustoming them to new responsibilities.

[186] Sharp-eyed readers who lived in the late '70s may recognize this as, of all things, a WKRP in Cincinnati reference. In the original, it's a little misunderstanding with 147 Mexican cops, and is the reason why Dr. Johnny Fever can't go to Mexico.

[221] A seneschal is a person in charge of managing an establishment, such as a nobleman's estate (it comes from old Germanic words meaning "senior servant"). In the Jedi Order's case, the Seneschal to the High Council of Jedi Masters is essentially the council's deputy, handling such matters as require the attention of a senior master with the council's ear, but which are considered peripheral to the many responsibilities of the council itself.

[243] As Obi-Wan's return in the previous episode was, in large part, down to Ewan McGregor's performance in Revenge of the Sith, Count Dooku's appearance here has much to do with my general admiration for Christopher Lee, a man who (like another of my cinematic heroes, Sir Michael Caine) has probably never turned down a role on the grounds that the movie might be lame.

[394] Juyo, the original Form VII - believed to have died out in the Santovasku Pogrom.

[666] And here we finally get to the part where I became more than a sounding board. Having determined we were going to bring Obi-Wan physically into the UF-verse, we realized he was going to have some culture shock to cope with, and it would help if he had a native guide.

[712] ...and Gryph said, "Hey, what about Alaia?"

Alaia ner Ronor is my very first ever fanfic character - I wrote a whole saga about what happened after Return of the Jedi when I was 13-15. It was enormous. It involved a lot of me being cranky about the way everybody insisted on regressing Luke Skywalker to farmboy status by having him be devastatingly effective but startlingly overwhelmed, and having found this girl, and blah blah blah. But an even earlier draft had actually had her learning from the ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi, which worked out startlingly well for this story.

This Alaia and the original share the talents for psychometry, the ability to cut oneself off from the Force (intentionally or not), and the star-shaped eyes, as well as a few other artifacts that I'll note as we get to them.

[768] A nod back to the original Alaia, who had to make do on her own a lot. ALC

[782] Genetic engineering of colonists to compensate for adverse conditions on their destination worlds was a feature primarily of the first wave of Earth's colonial expansion, in the early 21st century. Colonization waves in later centuries tended to rely on the more advanced terraforming and habitat technologies available at that time.

[822] The So you've just... books have had a lot of play; I figured I might as well throw in the Guide for good measure. ALC

[847] Among espers (as noted above), this technique is known as psychometry.

[870] It's not physically painful for her to do this in the slightest, but it's like letting go of the ankle you just twisted - as long as you're clutching at it, maybe it's not actually broken, but if you let go, maybe the ambulance medic can give you a more expert opinion. ALC

[896] Master Nu is a retired Sentinel, and takes to something of an extreme the now-largely-discredited Jedi doctrine of detachment from all: In her it manifests as a near-total lack of empathy, bordering on active callousness. Tragically, this is because her arch-traditionalist master considered her dangerously compassionate as a young woman and took special pains to "correct" her in this regard. This may be why, though she long ago achieved the rank of Jedi Master, she has never had a padawan learner of her own.

[941] Fear is the path to the Dark Side, riiiight. Of course complete lack of fear is downright idiotic. ALC

[1115] By modern reckoning, the year 10,191 Before Standard Calendar marks the point in the history of the Second Epoch at which Paul Atreides, Duke of Caladan, founded the Fremen - an order of Force-wielding warriors who subsequently evolved into the Order of Jedi Knights.

[1160] Count Dooku is a highly respected Jedi Master and scion of one of the Outer Rim Territories' oldest noble families. The Counts of Serenno can trace their line back to the founding of Serenno by Atlantean explorers during the Atlantean Golden Age, ca. 5000 BSC, and many members of the family were Jedi Knights during that era. Obi-Wan would have known of, if not known personally, some of his ancestors. (The addition of a first name to the UF version is, of course, in honor of Christopher Lee's appearances as Count Vlad Dracula in a number of Hammer Films horror movies.)

[1211] Scaled up from the real episode of How It's Made concerning industrial baking, in which bread is shown to be made in one-ton lots.

[1235] When practicing with a lightsaber without the benefit of the Force - even if the lightsaber is shielded - it's a good idea to be Very Careful.

[1283] The lightdirk is another artifact of the original Alaia. Lightsabers are great, but not such good tools in tight quarters. Too easy to cut through a wall or a bulkhead - I never saw why the Jedi wouldn't have smaller ones as an option.

[1307] She was working on it more in the way a practitioner of kendo works on a form - it had minimal practical application in actual fighting, but it looks darn cool. Alaia doesn't gain any pleasure whatsoever from actual fighting. She's very much of the school of, "I know how to make this look cool and get a good workout from it."

[1361] "Din sha breth" is the beginning of a meditation chant that the original Alaia used as both an exclamation and a centering ritual. It started out as "Din sha," and then "Din sha breth," and then "Din sha breth orrai..." Gryph told me cheerfully one evening that the ever-increasing length of the exclamation was the reason Azalynn's "Dvhil nazhai!" kept increasing in length. ALC

[1404] Among Jedi, this is known as "the Morpheus look".

[1411] Especially with the pince-nez.

[1442] The Rim Republican is an opposition newspaper published on Nar Shaddaa. As its name implies, it's concerned primarily with happenings on the Outer Rim and agitates for Hutt-controlled space to become more republican (in the small-r sense).

[1489] "The deadliest woman on Taris" lasts about five minutes in an average fight with the player character and her buddy Carth in Knights of the Old Republic.

[1593] In the UF universe, the Cathar may be cousins of the Kilrathi - possibly an offshoot from a colony that Kilrah established very early in its spacefaring history and then lost contact with for centuries. They tend to be physically smaller and psychologically less furiously martial, though they do often have anger management issues.

[1607] Juhani also comes from Knights of the Old Republic, wherein, when you first meet her, she's under the (mistaken) impression that she's Fallen Forever to the Dark Side.

[1625] Also known as the Avenger-class dropship in the original X-COM: UFO Defense. The UF version was originally designed as a lance-level BattleMech dropship, a competitor to the Leopard class, but is often found in civilian service as a freighter. In such configuration it's one size class up from the classic Light Stock freighters such as the Corellian YT-1300.

[1741] Rei's blaster is a 21st-century-vintage Bryar Dominator military carbine, once standard issue to the Royal Salusian Marine Corps, that was cut down into a sidearm by the skilled hands of none other than Kei Morgan. It was one of a pair of such weapons carried by Gryphon during, among other missions, the liberation of Salusia following the Greub Usurpation in 2026. He's since given both of them away; as we saw in S4M4 Hunter Rose, Kozue Kaoru now has the other.

[1831] Talann took a lot of crap for losing her last lightsaber to Corwin in Road Movie, even if she was the only one of Darth Sidious's apprentices to come back alive from what was supposed to be a simple search-and-destroy mission. She's not eager to suffer that particular failure again, thank you.

Am I correct in assuming that a padawan could theoretically make it to Jedi Knight status without being assigned a master? (Under that assumption, assigning a master presumably shortens the time to reach Jedi Knight, as well as reducing the risk of falling to the Dark Side or getting killed.)

Peter Eng
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I'm only a Charter Member because of the DCForum upgrade, and because there's no rank below "Clueless F!wit."