What is the Setnin sector? For a simple analogy, take Jabba the Hutt and Prince Xizor and spread them out across dozens of planets.<\/p>\r\n
In 1982 Mark Newbold created the character Jan Lomona, initially a short and gruff character who morphed through rewrites into a towering smuggler who oversaw the welfare of Ecaps city on the peaceful planet of A-Desando in the 1982 story Quest for Freedom, a peace soon disrupted by the arrival of Lando Calrissian and Chewbacca as they searched for their friend Han Solo. In 1984, Jonathan Hicks created Goah Galletti, a na\u00efve trader who threw himself in the deep end by offering his services to Jabba the Hutt, laughing him out of his audience chamber. These two characters were created so that Mark and Jonathan could creatively interact with the Star Wars galaxy; after several years of being thrilled by the adventures of Luke Skywalker and friends they wanted to create stories of their own in a similar vein.<\/p>\r\n
The characters travelled and had adventures in the form of written stories which started with Quest for Freedom and were followed by many audio recordings. Twenty hour-long dramas recorded between 1986 and 1986 were sadly lost in a house move, although snippets survived featuring Newbold as Jan Lomona and Hicks as Goah Galletti. They also performed the many voices of supporting characters, the numbers of which grew and grew. In all these stories, as well as visiting the primary worlds of the Star Wars galaxy, they visited newly created worlds and, as time went on, spent more time on these new worlds than they did on the established ones. The characters, planets and locations increased and records were kept of the new creations for ease of reference.<\/p>\r\n
It was apparent early on that the majority of the adventures the two characters were having were mainly in the underworld of the Star Wars galaxy. The stories were based around their dealings and confrontations with the undesirables of the universe. This was mainly borne from the fact that the galaxy at large, embroiled in a huge civil war, was already being addressed by the movies. It was the glimpse of the underbelly \u2013 the cantina in A New Hope, the bounty hunters in The Empire Strikes Back and Jabba\u2019s Palace in Return of the Jedi \u2013 that caught their attention. More and more of the stories revolved around this slice of the Star Wars galaxy, and they became darker than the explosive exploits of the films.
With so much of their own material set apart from the rest of the Star Wars galaxy they needed a place to put it all. It was originally scattered throughout the established Star Wars setting but they had another idea; why not consolidate it all and give it a location of its own, much like the Corporate Sector Authority that Brian Daley written about in the original Han Solo trilogy? This would be an area of space especially created for their characters to play in, so they could have their own adventures without interfering with official Star Wars canon. This way, they could write and create and feel that they were actually part of the Star Wars galaxy without contradicting or interfering with it.<\/p>\r\n
The Setnin sector was born.<\/p>\r\n
In 1987, Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game hit the shelves and a whole new avenue of creativity opened up. Both Newbold and Hicks played their characters of Jan and Goah in the game and with that the number of supporting characters and locations exploded. Two or three gaming sessions a week gave birth to so many new names and places that many have been long forgotten about or lost. In 1989, overwhelmed by the sheer number of new creations, a tome was create to store them in, a huge ring binder sectioned off into easily referenced sections. This tome became known as The Folder, and was passed around the group as required.<\/p>\r\n
This created a fantastic central reference for all the players. Should any single person want to create something for Setnin or run a roleplaying session there, then they were passed The Folder. This had everything they needed to run a game in the sector. It also became apparent that Setnin had taken on a life of its own; because there were no limitations on what could be created, both design and story-wise, people were free to come up with what they wished as long as it fell within the realities of the Star Wars galaxy. There was only one strict rule when creating material; anything created should not contradict or overshadow established Star Wars canon, be it from the movies or the then new Expanded Universe.<\/p>\r\n
The Expanded Universe grew from seeds planted by the sourcebooks for the West End Games roleplaying game, and helped catapult Star Wars back into the public eye with Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire novels. Between the roleplaying game material and the slew of new novels there was always the possibility that something created for Setnin would be pushed out or contradicted, but the benefit of Setnin was that it was so separate from the rest of the Star Wars galaxy that everything that went on outside its borders had very little effect on it.<\/p>\r\n
Characters from Setnin could go into the official galaxy any time they wanted and interact with the established setting, as long as they didn\u2019t contradict or overshadow anything. Meanwhile, back in Setnin they could pretty much do as they pleased. This was true of all the new Expanded Universe material, through the Star Wars prequels, the Clone Wars cartoon and beyond. Even though material had been created detailing tens of thousands of years of Setnin history, and even forty years beyond A New Hope, it didn\u2019t contradict anything and only minor changes were required to fit in with any unavoidable galaxy-spanning changes made by canon.
Many things changed during what became known as the roleplay years (1987 – 1995). The primary ganglord Glann Cipple changed from a huge, hulking multi-legged slug (Setnin’s version of Jabba the Hutt) to a paranoid, angry, reclusive human being. Tunille Fulle, originally designed as a Rodian gunman, became a T-headed Entallian sharpshooter. Goah Galletti, through many personal tragedies, changed from a happy-go-lucky smuggler to an embittered, cynical assassin. Locations also changed. The lush, jungle world of Cawbate became a bland, barren location, and Dressle, the world\u2019s local ganglord, moved from a mountaintop fortress to a constantly moving tandem of sail barges and changed his name spelling to Dressel. Leogard, once a pleasant grassland world was taken by prospectors and became a strip-mined nightmare. The whole sector was in upheaval as new stories were crafted.<\/p>\r\n
The characters were also instantly recognisable. Jan Lomona\u2019s casual swagger, Mr. Spyte\u2019s deviousness, Gern Omik\u2019s insanity, Arkin\u2019s loyalty, Latti Tellex\u2019s cynicism. Each character was so well defined that they were easy to write for in stories and portray in roleplay games. They became solid, believable characters and their likes, dislikes, loyalties and rivalries played huge parts in the development of the sector. Although the majority of them were criminals in one way or another, they could be likeable rogues and sometimes even heroes in their own right. As well as the Star Wars films, there were other movie influences on the direction the sector was taking; The Godfather, Goodfellas, Casino, Once Upon a Time In America, The Untouchables, even The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy\u2026 as classic serials had influenced the official Star Wars, gangster movies influenced Setnin.<\/p>\r\n
All this was fan fiction. As none of it was official, why worry about contradicting or influencing official canon? Newbold and Hicks were conscious, almost from the very beginning, about how they would interact with the official universe. It was one part respect for the canon and one part a calculated intention; there was a worry that if creations had no limit on their progress and do what they pleased then things would get out of control. By limiting the abilities and influences of the characters and locations, and their influence on the Star Wars galaxy as a whole, then everyone creating material worked on a level playing field and Setnin could exist in line with canon. This gave the sector a level of reality unheard of in almost all other fan created material as it co-existed alongside the official Star Wars universe and, while not official, felt like a solid part of it.<\/p>\r\n
The games continued throughout the 1990s and players came and went. The number of planets and characters increased and it became apparent that The Folder wasn\u2019t enough to contain everything being created. This was mainly Hicks\u2019s fault as he couldn\u2019t stop adding to the already mountainous amount of creations and every new roleplaying session added even more to the pile. Other folders, notebooks and pads piled up and the sheer amount of material became overwhelming, almost impossible to use.<\/p>\r\n
In the late 1990s, Newbold began a project that would take several years to complete. He decided to transfer every piece of data in The Folder and the accompanying notebooks and put it all onto computer. All the characters, planets, locations, starships, creatures, alien races\u2026 everything would be put in digital format so that it could be easily referenced and transported. Little did Mark know how much work would be involved transferring and cross-referencing everything. In fact, the project became so large that not all the information was moved over.<\/p>\r\n
Another thing that came of this was that it was decided that the place was far too big to be called a sector. The Setnin sector became part of the Setnin Region, and was broken down into smaller quadrants of space within Setnin\u2019s borders.<\/p>\r\n
In 1999, Setnin found a new home, the Lightsabre website. Every piece of information was put online for the world to see and short stories were written to support the material. These few stories became dozens of adventures, snapshots of life in Setnin and to contain all this a timeline was created. The Setnin sector, after many long years, felt truly alive.<\/p>\r\n
Now this huge, expansive slice of the galaxy had even larger exposure to the public. It was also realised that the sheer size of it was overwhelming. Such a massive piece of the Star Wars galaxy surely couldn\u2019t be ignored for so long, so another choice was made; why not separate the sector from the galaxy as a whole and place it above the galaxy. The Setnin sector became part of the larger Sedapard Cluster, a globular cluster three thousand parsecs above the galactic disc where Setnin and six other long-established sectors could exist, setting the scene for gang wars, invasions and the Ki-Ki\/Setnin wars of the New Underword Age.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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