Alternate character ages and # of years between films?

[Whill]

So the canon timeline is a little less than 36 years from Ep I to VI, and mine is now 40:

I (10 years) II (5 years) III (20 years) IV (3 years) V (2 years) VI.

I use the 10-month calender created by WEG and used for the news feed feature of the Adventure Journal that gives the in-universe dates for ANH and TESB. In that system, ANH happened in Year 35, but in my timeline that works out to be 35 years after TPM. That means that I can use those dates for the classic trilogy era events as is, and TPM happened in Year 0. As an in-universe dating system it makes perfect sense to me that why Empire would use that. After the Empire formed, I can see Palpatine wanting the calender to reference when he first came to power, which was his election to Supreme Chancellor in TPM. It was sometime in the middle of the year, so that year became Year 0. The first full year of Palpatine as Chancellor was Year 1. Palpatine was elected to his second term in Year 4. The Separatist Crisis and and extension to his second term began in Year 8. The Great Clone War began in Year 10, and the Empire was formed in Year 15. Palpatine and Vader died in Year 40.

Of course these things don't happen every January 1st or otherwise even on the year. Thanks to an excellent article in Star Wars Insider (that went through the EU continuity guru Leland Chee), we now have the exact dates in that WEG system for Palpatine's birthday and the events of the prequels films. I only have to perform minor adjustments before Ep IV and after Ep V to account for the extra four years I've added to the timeline between Eps II and VI.

To me, now it makes the most sense for both in-universe and out-of-universe for the dating system surrounding the time of the classic trilogy be based on Episode I as the starting point. I never liked using ANH as Year 0. For the novels taking place after ROTJ, I thought ROTJ should be used a reference point (they did at the very first but that didn't last long). I just like having a positive counting system for all the movies themselves, and my adding three years before ANH into WEG's system makes that work out right. Palpatine's egomania is a good excuse for having it be the offical Imperial dating system. In my canon, he kept the previous month/day system and only started over the years. The previous Year counting was based on the Rusaan Reformation and so was historically reflective of the Jedi's defeat over the Sith 1000 year ago. So Palpatine would also have that motivation to start the years over based on the Sith return to power.

And I guess I should add that in my canon, the defeat of the previous Sith Order and the formation of the modern version of the Rebublic was about 1000 years before Episode 1 instead of IV, so those thing happened about 1035 years before ANH. Based on the dialogue in the prequels it makes more sense to me that way.

And my extra three years before Ep IV makes Obi-Wan 60 in ANH, instead of only 57 as he is supposed to be in offical EU canon!
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[Bren]

[Whill]

Yeah, I can see the Emperor starting over the calender with the establishment of his Empire (ROTS) too. That also makes a lot of sense to me from an in-universe perspective.

But making his election to Supreme Chancellor the starting point adds finesse and simplicity to my real-world out-of-universe chronology as well. And with my additional 3 years before ANH, it also salvages WEG's system filled with dates between including and between ANH and TESB as is. This swings the balance in favor of TPM as the starting point over ROTS. It is easy for me to make simple arguments for the case of TMP. It publically makes Palpatine seem more established as a galactic ruler by adding 15 years to the "Years of Palpatine". By including the the Seperatist Crisis and the Great Clone War in the calender, it suggests to galactic citizens a reminder that it was Palpatine's leadership (of his clone army) that saved the galaxy from the corruption of the Jedi and the Republic.

I realize that may not work for everyone but it works for me!
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[Whill]

[Bren]