Are there any online projects, groups, etc. trying to continue the “Star Wars Legends” timeline?

Question

As a long-time fan of all Star Wars media, I became very attached to the old Expanded Universe. I wanted to get behind the new Disney-approved timeline as well, but everything from The Force Awakens to the new Battlefront reboot has fallen 100% flat for me, and none of it holds a candle to the old in my opinion.

With that in mind, I've been hoping that Disney would give in to the small but persistent fan base asking that "Legends" stories continue to be created, though that doesn't seem to be going anywhere. The next best thing I can think of, then, would be some sort of fan community that seeks to continue the pre-Disney timeline through their own fanfiction or films.

Does anyone know of any fan groups or websites attempting to do this? Or are there any other attempts with a similar goal in mind?

Answer 1

Fan Communities

There appear to have been a few online communities that have tried to continue the Legends timeline through fan works. The ones I can find are:

• Star Wars Expanded Universe "Legends" Unofficial Continuation (via Facebook)
• SWExpandedUniverseContinues
• Star Wars Legends Wiki

However, none of these appear to me to be active. I imagine that there are fan-continuations of Legends scattered across the web, but it does not appear that there is an active online community unifying it.

New, Officially-licensed Legends Content

While not part of a fan community, there is new officially-licensed Legends content being created. New releases from the Star Wars games produced by Fantasy Flight Games have continued the Legends continuity since the creation of Disney canon. Notably, the X-Wing miniatures game has created several ships, which are part of Legends continuity. Similarly, The Old Republic MMO (which is definitely in Legends) has had new releases since the Disney canon policy, such as the 2015 Knights of the Fallen Empire expansion.

In both cases, these are new releases to games there were canon (technically, C-Canon) at the time of their initial release. In other words, they were canon before Legends existed. Continuing to build off of this in future releases means older products in the line are not invalidated. I guess you could say that these releases were "grandfathered in".

It's worth noting that it's usually to their advantage for these games to be set in Legends, since it is very rich with existing material that works well with their games, and are already recognizable to Legends fans. Want to shake up X-Wing with a new TIE Fighter that has a gimmick? How about the TIE Phantom, which has a cloaking device. Need an underworld villain for an Edge of the Empire scenario? Tyber Zann is an excellent choice.

Note that although they are adding new content, both Bioware and Fantasy Flight Games aren't telling ground-breaking new stories. They aren't revealing what Luke and company did after the events of the last Legends novel. They are creating content to support their game lines first and foremost, building off of prior work in the rich Legends continuity. But it is indeed a continuation of the "Legends" timeline, and probably the last continuation from a licensee that will happen.

Answer 2

Technically: No. There will be no more releases under Legends canonicity.

According to Lucas Licensing's (LL) Holocron (which contains all that is known about Star Wars past, present and future), there were 5 levels of canonicity, in descending order of canon-ness (i.e. where contradictions exist, the higher ranking one overrides all):

1. G-Canon: George Lucas. The movies and any Word of G when it does not contradict the movies.
2. T-Canon: Television. Star Wars The Clone Wars animated film and television series, and Star Wars Rebels

3. C-Canon: Continuity. The EU - From this level onwards, LL has the final say. An internal policy exists but it is unknown to the public. What we do know is that releases at this level will belong to a singular timeline that also consists of the upper canon levels, as opposed to being unrelated standalones:

   "Our goal is to present a continuous and unified history of the Star Wars galaxy, insofar as that history does not conflict with, or undermine the meaning of Mr. Lucas's Star Wars saga of films and screenplays." - Sue Rostoni, Managing Editor, Lucas Licensing

   In general, the G himself is involved to some degree in the production of works at this level to ensure consistency with the overall universe. However, he does not micro-manage and he permits some degree of independence and creative freedom, so inconsistencies of some details with GT-Canon can and do exist.

4. S-Canon: Secondary. Whatever's not accepted as EU. The last level of canon.
5. N-Canon: Not Canon.

The problem is that:

• The guys dealing with G & T-Canon are separate from the guys managing C-Canon. So whenever something new comes out at the upper levels, a lot of retconning happens in the EU because of the policy of how the EU must be as consistent as possible with GT-Canon.
• That's the whole reason Disney sets up the Lucasfilm Story Group (LSG). Henceforth, there will only be one organizational unit managing the Star Wars universe: One Holocron to rule them all. They started over from scratch, there will only be two (three if you count the former N-Canon) levels of canonicity, and they will develop a singular plan spanning decades which will define canon, ensure consistency and remove the need for future retconning.

I digress, but with that in mind and back to your question, the logic goes like this:

• There used to be LL who decides what is part of the EU and what is not.
• There have always been fans/online communities creating their own stories, but unless they were specifically licensed by LL to do so, those stories are explicitly N-Canon.
• When Disney created LSG to replace LL, the role is redefined. LSG isn't responsible for producing works at different levels of canonicity like LL was. Anything they produce is strictly Disney canon. Legends is just "everything that used to be canon in the old system that we aren't accepting as canon anymore". That's unaccepted stuff in TCS-Canon, which is a superset of the EU.
• For something new to be EU/Legends, LSG must license it as such - but LSG is strictly responsible for producing and licensing new releases that qualify as Disney canon only.
• Therefore, you are left with fans/online communities whose works have always been considered as N-Canon even by LL, and will continue to be considered as such by LSG. Without access to the Holocron, they have no effective means of ensuring the consistency needed to tie their future works in with the EU/Legends timeline, access to the policy that differentiates C and S-Canon, nor the G's very own original vision of the Star Wars universe that defines all these works in GTC-Canon.

Therefore: No. There will be no more releases under Legends canonicity.

Your only solution is to train a Skywalker in the ways of the Force, have him seek out the first Jedi Temple, find the First Holocron, and take it back from the Empire who took what does not belong to them.