Greetings all,

Welcome to another preview of the upcoming Great Jedi War. Here, we will touch briefly on two additional aspects of the War: Clan Scoring and Theaters of War. First, as has been alluded to in various places, the event will take place across a little more than five weeks, and will contain three "Phases": Phase I, Phase II, and an Event Long phase. There will be a few day break between Phase I and Phase II, similar to how previous Great Jedi Wars have been conducted.

And please, do check our the just published Prologue Fiction, and our first GJW XIII preview!

Clan Scoring

Clans will earn points during the War, and at the end of the War, we will declare First Clan, Second Clan, and Third Clan. Following in the tradition of the Rite of Supremacy and the previous Great Jedi War, we will use a very similar scoring system to rank Clans that emphasizes Clans earning points primarily in two ways: From members participating in Bins, and from members placing in competitions.

At this point, the concept of Bins are familiar to many of you, but we wanted to reiterate what they are, and how they influence scoring:

• Bins in the Great Jedi War will be collections of competitions of a similar type within a particular Phase.
  
• Submitting a valid entry to any competition in a Phase's Bin for the first time will award participation points for that Bin. Subsequent competitions entered in a Bin do not grant participation points, but still can grant other awards for winning (Seals, Novae, placement points).
  
• Participating in all Bins in a Phase will grant an additional amount of bonus points.
• All three Phases will have four bins each... Unlike in the RoS, Fiction and Graphics will be separate Bins in the GJW.

This bin system allows us to offer a great deal of competitions throughout the War - more than 30! We do not anticipate most members will complete all - or even most - of them! But that is okay - even participating in a single competition will grant your Clan participation points and make you a valuable contributor to your Clan's struggle to reach the top of the Brotherhood!

While participation is important, placement is key to victory in a Great Jedi War. As in other Great Jedi Wars, this event is meant to award member skill. Novae are up for grab across all competitions for the top three placements. But that doesn't mean that only the top three participants will earn points - almost all competitions will have 10 placements, with each placement awarding points.

Finally, this event will also have three member Heroes. These members will be decided based on their total contribution to their Clan, in terms of total earned placement points and participation points. And of course, as with previous Vendettas, members completing all Bins will be featured in fiction related to the War, as will members that earn the most points in their unit. So give it your all - there is glory to earn for your Clan, and for yourself!

Theaters

Theaters are places particularly important to the Brotherhood - and the Collective - in the Lyra system. Some information is available about the locations themselves in the latest fiction update, but the purpose of this section is to explain how they will impact the War out of character. Each Theater will have an overarching objective the Brotherhood hopes to accomplish, but that is no guarantee the Clans have the same goals! More information will be released regarding each Theater at the start of the War.

A few days into the War, Consuls will be asked to pick a theater for their Clan, armed with more complete information on what they are, and what the objectives are for each. Choice of theater will influence run on locations and objectives, but will not directly influence other competitions. We are encouraging members to make use of these theaters in their fictions and other entries, but members of Clans are by no means restricted to being in the location chosen by their Clan in their own fictions. There will be extremely limited opportunities for Clans to change Theaters.

To encourage members to get involved with the Theater concept, and to incorporate characters from other Clans into their own stories, we will host a completely voluntarily list we are calling Theater Combatants. This list is not binding for members submitting their characters (you can write your character as anywhere relevant in the GJW), but the goal is to allow our members to volunteer their personas for usage in other member's fictions that are writing in a given Theater. Note that volunteering to be a Theater Combatant is no guarantee of safety, but you are also not bound by anything done to your character in anyone's fiction or run-on should you volunteer.

But Theaters are more than just plot locations with objectives... They also will offer opportunities for additional spoils! The top scoring unit at the end of the War in each Theater will earn an additional credit bonus... and perhaps something else shiny, as well.

Hopefully you are all as excited as I am for the start of this War! See you all soon,

Telaris "Mav" Cantor

Grand Master