In A New Hope, the Yavin 4 temple fortress which housed the temporary headquarters of the Rebel Alliance was nearly destroyed by the Death Star. Today, these ancient temples at Tikal which inspired Lucas — as well as other ancient, historical and cultural sites throughout the world — are threatened by the ravages of time and by our actions and conflicts as well.

To preserve these sites for posterity, Cyark has created 3D virtual snapshots utilizing advanced laser technology. Here’s the link to the Tikal record:

• Cyark: Tikal 3D project page.

Historical sites are in a continual state of decay. What exists today may not be around for future generations to experience. Using the latest laser-scanning technology, CyArk collects the most accurate 3D model of cultural heritage sites, stores them safely and provides them freely to the world.

Amazing. All things Huttese. Every single line of dialog in the films, in the EU, in the comics, in the video games, even in multimedia CD-ROM guides. I found it, the most thorough, the most exhaustive catalog of Huttese words and phrases ever assembled by man at The Complete Wermo’s Guide to Huttese.

Now I don’t envy the Trekkies, with their harsh Klingon dictionaries and the foreheads. I’ve never been so proud.

• Transcripts

According to recent developments James Luceno’s upcoming novel about Darth Plagueis by Del Ray books has been canceled. Luceno has written many Star Wars books like Cloak of Deception, Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader, and Labyrinth of Evil among others.
The book was scheduled for release in October 2007 and Del Ray initially decided to put it on hold. Publishers eventually canceled the release since (for the time being) they didn’t want to reveal more information about Emperor Palpaltine’s instructor Darth Plagueis.

Related Links:

1. Wookiepedia news

2. Del ray upcoming releases

The content is still a little out of date, but the basic functionality is complete enough for me to re-post Steve’s Star Wars Timeline. Yes, the timeline that just won’t die resurfaces once again!

I’ll be phasing in a few more updates to get it back to its former state, and hopefully add new features from there. As always, I appreciate your feedback and hope you find the timeline to be a useful resource.

A little Sith droid wandered into my house today and brought my attention to this interesting article:

Inspired by this neat little project, I decided I wanted to reimagine the Star Wars universe in a steampunk context. I know, whenever anyone reimagines anything, they either make it a) adult and edgy (99%) or b) steampunk (1%), so I’m not getting any originality points, but it’s still a pretty exciting idea for me. Meaning I’ll be bored of it in a week and start drawing dogs wearing hats or something.

Lord Vader
More machine than man, Vader is the Empire’s most decorated General and a very powerful practitioner of the Force’s dark arts. He is obsessed with communicating with the spirits of the dead, spending every sleepless night trying in vain to contact his lost love. Twisted and broken in body and mind, Vader is driven with sadistic passion.

He is a master with the traditional weapon of Force champions, the
Phlogisticated Aether Torch, more commonly referred to as the phlogisabre.