The following newspost will serve to help recap the latest chapter fiction update, answer some questions members had with competitions, and catch any post-launch errors that pop up because the Dark Council is human.

Chapter 1: Summary

This is going to be a light recap compared some of my other summaries. This is intended, but clans are free to use this recap as a way to help new or returning members understand what’s going on in the story.

Location 1: Governor's Office, Lyra Colony

• We are introduced to Jar’deon Blazio, the Governor of Lyra colony. He is an ambitious man that hopes that his success here will lead to him advancing politically in the Severian Principate.
• He’s a bit of an opportunist, and is not really equipped to handle things not just going his way.
• So, sure enough, something goes wrong as klaxons blare.
• Lyra Colony is under attack, but all we are able to find out is that pilot-chatter over comms reveals that it is most likely “Brotherhood” pilots.
• The “air quotes” around the Brotherhood will be applied a few times in this summary.

Location 2: Kyber Mines, Moon of Thillion*

• We learn that mining Kyber is risky business, just with less Tom Cruise.
• (Wally realizes too many members will be too young to get that reference.)
• We are introduced to M’eero Trippani, aka “Tripp”. Tripp is a Zygerrian Infiltrator for the Collective that was personally recruited by Rath Oligard when Tripp wanted to similarly defect from the Iron Navy due to prosecution from the hunt for Undesirables.
• Shout-out to Zygerrians, who are now live in the Brotherhood system. Yeet.
• Tripp essentially sets off his homemade explosives in a calculated manor to frame the Brotherhood’s loaned equipment to the mining company as faulty and insecure. In theory, this would make it very easy for the Collective to swoop in, offer security, and secure the mine.
• Tripp changes uniform and contacts Gwendolyn “Sparks”, and she indicates that the Collective’s plan is fully underway.

Location 3: Salvage Station at the Shipyards

• The Severian Principate hired an independent contractor to handle the restoration of Lyra-3K-a’s shipyards.
• They were given some light support for by the Severian Principate’s 5th Fleet to help with patrols, and were counting on some assistance from the Brotherhood as part of the goodwill negotiations.
• That of course goes out the window when the Collective launch another (more blunt) false-flag attack using stolen/captured Iron Navy TIE Fighters and brainwashed Iron Navy POW’s to fly them.
• Much chaos, very fire, wow.

Location 4: Lyra Colony

• We get to meet Amara Cirrus, Chief of Security for Lyra Colony.
• Amara was ambitious and a bit of a hot shot special forces soldier, and was punished for disobeying orders to do guard duty in Lyra-3K-a. She was bored and waiting for something to happen, and now, it seems like she will get that chance against the “Brotherhood”.
• She is a bad-ass combat specialist and I hope to see her factor in to both the main and member storylines. (I actually had fun creating her).

Location 5: Ninox, Severian Principate Diplomatic Ship

• Evant and the Brotherhood representative get a montage of video-footage of everything we’ve seen/alluded to happening previously.
• Clearly, the Severian Principate is not happy about the “Brotherhood’s” actions.
• Evant knows it’s clearly a ruse, but doesn’t have an easy way of proving it.
• Fake news is scary.
• Evant tries to use the Force to help him in someway, but realizes that he’s being “blocked”. He rationalizes that the reports of Avitus Oligard (Rath’s cousin and Chief Counselor) being a closeted-Force User that has a strong affinity for using Suppression
• Evant needs to figure out how to get the details of this message out to the Inquisitorius, so that they can coordinate with the Brotherhood Forces and the Clans to get help.
• I will explain some in and out of character reasons for this in the sections below. The obvious one, narratively, is that Evant founded the Inquisitorius originally and worked with Marick to create the intel-network they now use.
• Out of character, it’s a decent motivation for the Fiction Society prompts for the war.
• Violet D’slan, the Arcona representative that is the only Journeyman of the group and had no weapons on her, was allowed to keep her datapad. She is so unnoticeable and quiet that Evant encourages her to send out a secure message for him while he tries to stall and think of ways to stop the deal from falling through.
• This ploy, ultimately, works mostly because, as we revealed in past fictions over the past two years, the Inquisitorius uses a series of Listener ships to relay the Advanced Inquisitorius Network (AIN) securely across the Brotherhood’s internal comm channels. Think of this as pseudo space science for end-to-end encryption found in secure messaging applications like WhatsApp or Signal that use decentralized databases.
  
• Avitus ends the fiction with a smug reminder that the Brotherhood looks to be on thin ice while the Collective starts to look like the heros.

On the fictional background of the War:

From the Grand Master:

In past Wars, we have forced all of the Clans' fleets into a single system for one reason or another. This War is meant to be different - only some of your forces are likely to move on Lyra, and that is, in large part, a call the Clan makes fictionally and can work into their own fictions and run-on. Regardless of how plausible you think the scenario is (this is Star Wars ;) ), here are a few additional details :

1) The Collective is not shutting down all communication in and out of Lyra. They would actually love if the entirety of the Brotherhood showed up in the system. They are more than willing to cause communication blackouts where needed to achieve their objectives.

2) Speaking of the Collective objectives - they are largely similar to the Brotherhood. They see Lyra as having valuable assets they can seize, while blaming the Brotherhood. They also would welcome a demonstration to the Principate in what Force users are really like, by inviting chaos into Lyra.

3) The Principate has only the 5th Fleet in system (https://www.darkjedibrotherhood.com/items/65222-item-container). The Principate are unlikely to reinforce the Lyra system immediately beyond that fleet, but things can change depending on what members do in Fiction I

Right. So the Lyra system has a lot of targets of value, but outright war with the Principate would be bad for the Collective and the Brotherhood. The operations are smaller in scale this war than in the past. We are not laying waste to Nancora or sieging an ancient Sith world. Instead, the Brotherhood is engaged in smaller-scale confrontations across the Lyra system.

War Theme

The overall theme of this war is diplomacy and how fragile it can be. The “War” element refers more to the nature of the scale than it does major battlefronts where armies clash against armies. This war is about information operations, and how the very notion of peace can become an antithesis for war. The goal of the war is prevent escalation, and there are many ways that can be explored. How the war progresses, ultimately, will be determined by you, the members, in how you vote on the different objectives for the Fiction I competition.

GJW Storyline Questions

Question: Why are the Clans involved with the predicament that the Brotherhood has found itself in?

There a few reasons here.

1. To rescue their respective envoy they sent
2. They care about the Principate
3. They want the resources in the system and either (a.) want to help the Brotherhood get them or (b.) want to keep them for their clan / themselves 4) They thrive in chaos, want to burn it all down 5.) Step 5: Profit (lots to be had)

Question Why are the clans not bringing all of their ships and fleets?

1. Doing so would leave each unit technically vulnerable on their home fronts. With each units home system having its own issues, it would be unwise to send all of a clan’s respective forces and leave themselves exposed. This was alluded to in the fictions updates.
2. The Brotherhood, as well as the clans, do not want the attention of the New Republic. It’s the same reason we try to dodge the First Order. We don’t want to be involved in larger galactic politics or suddenly be drawn into wars that have nothing to do with or benefit us (IC) as well as avoiding overlapping with potential canon and leaving our sandbox where we get to operate and have a bit more freedom (OOC). This was also alluded to in the fiction updates.
3. OOC, as mentioned above, we wanted to do something different, narratively, for this storyline for the GJW.

Competition Clarification

As a reminder, if you notice any mechanical or technical errors in the NPC Character Sheets, Wiki documentation, broken hyperlinks, or you need clarity on a prompt /rule, please make sure to email the respective competition organizer. If you’re unsure of who to talk to, your best bet is to email the GM ([Log in to view e-mail addresses] ) and DGM ([Log in to view e-mail addresses]).

Team-Based Fiction (Event Long)

• Clan Run-On — Clan Summit can provide further guidance and instructions on these.
• Team Co-Op Fiction — Co-Op fiction that requires you to submit (2) versions of your entry.
  • One will be your standard submission.
  • The second will be a marked up version showing all the contributions and edits from each respective writer.
    

Fiction Bin (Phase I)

• Fiction I — Pick one of three objectives

Misc. Bin (Phase I)

• Venue Creation — Create an ACC Venue for the Lyra-3K-a system.

Member Questions

Question: Can we have other members proof read our entries for the GJW?

Members are allowed to have any entries that require written word to be proofread by others. This is strongly encouraged, actually in events like Fiction where we grade partially on syntax. You just want to avoid letting others re-write or write your entries for you.

Per the Justicar:

We are aware of the efforts of members to help each other in revising and polishing submissions. It is not against the rules to have a submission edited for grammar, spelling, and basic story comprehension. It is against the rules, however, for an editor to engage in wholesale rewriting of sections or to otherwise alter the submission to make it anything but an individual effort. This applies as well to run on posts that are created off-forum in a collaborative document. Be honest and be fair.

Make sure you check out Bubba’s GJW Report please remember that if something feels like it’s shady, or a violation of the CoJ, it probably is. It never hurts to ask a competition organizer a question (through email).

Question: Does the fiction have to be entirely based in Lyra-3K-a

As long as you can engage with one of the objectives it could be fine. We're not necessarily sure that's going to be possible if the story is set entirely outside Lyra-3K-a, but that's up to you as a writer to try. As long as the prompt is being used for the narrative of the story and taking into account the political tension established by the War's storyline, you should not have a problem.

Helpful Links

The Great Jedi War XIII Wiki page is your one-stop source for information. Fictional summaries will be organized here, as well as a list of locations, persons of interest, and links to any news post that we push out during the course of the event.

You can find a list of Bins, and their respective competitions here.

Theaters Clarified

Theaters of war have been detailed and can be found here.

The Wiki lists out the different theaters, and also has links to the sign up form, and the selection form.

Persons of Interest

I’ve created a section on the Wiki that should act as a cheat sheet for the NPCs used and utilized in the Fiction Updates or prompts. You can see it here.

Conclusion

Some quick hits before signing off:

• Phase I ends on 07:59PM EST / 11:59PM UTC on August 4th, 2019.
• There will be a few days off before Phase II begins.
• Event long competitions will continue to run during this break.
• Chapter 2 Fiction will be dropped with start to Phase II.

If you have any questions, please reach out the Dark Council through email. That will remain the best way to get answers to your questions :).

-W