Star Wars

Star Wars is an American epic space opera franchise, centered on a film series created by George Lucas. It depicts the adventures of various characters "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away".

The first film in the series, Star Wars (later subtitled Episode IV: A New Hope), was released on May 25, 1977 by 20th Century Fox and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon. It was followed by the similarly successful sequels The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983); these three films constitute the original Star Wars trilogy. A prequel trilogy was later released between 1999 and 2005, which received a more mixed reaction from critics and fans, compared to the original trilogy. All seven films were nominated for or won Academy Awards, and were commercial successes, with a combined box office revenue of $4.38 billion, making Star Wars the fourth highest-grossing film series. The series has spawned an extensive media franchise—the Star Wars expanded universe—including books, television series, computer and video games, and comic books, resulting in significant development of the series's fictional universe. Star Wars also holds a Guinness World Records title for the "Most successful film merchandising franchise." In 2012, the total value of the Star Wars franchise was estimated at USD $30.7 billion, including box-office receipts as well as profits from their video games and DVD sales.

Clone Wars

Clone Wars may refer to:

Star Wars

Animation

Video games

Clone Wars (Star Wars)

The Clone Wars are a galaxy-wide conflict that forms a major part of George Lucas's space opera/science fiction franchise Star Wars. The conflict is first mentioned in the film Star Wars (1977), but no details are given (except for the implication of clones being involved) and the wars themselves are not featured until Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002), which shows the beginnings of the conflict, and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005), which shows its conclusion.

The 2D animated microseries Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003–2005) and 3D CGI animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008–2014) expand on the war and chronicle some of its major campaigns. Additional events and stories are detailed in a multimedia campaign that ran from 2002 to 2005, consisting of Star Wars literature and video games. Many of the events featured have parallels in history, politics, and mythology from which Lucas and other writers drew inspiration.

Within the Star Wars narrative, the Clone Wars begins when thousands of systems seceded from the Galactic Republic to form the Confederacy of Independent Systems (CIS). The first battle occurs on the CIS planet Geonosis, where the Republic's new clone army, led by Jedi generals, combats the Separatists' battle droids. War quickly spreads across the galaxy and eventually reaches the Republic's capital planet, Coruscant. The entire war is orchestrated by the Republic's chief executive, Supreme Chancellor Sheev Palpatine, who uses the Clone Wars to manipulate the Republic's Galactic Senate into granting him emergency powers, which he then uses to turn the Republic into the Empire.

Theodore L. Thomas

Theodore Lockard Thomas (born April 13, 1920 - September 24, 2005) is an American chemical engineer and attorney who wrote more than 50 science fiction short stories, published between the early 1950s to the late 1970s. He also collaborated on two novels with Kate Wilhelm, as well as producing stories under the pseudonyms of Leonard Lockard and Cogswell Thomas, and has been nominated for a Nebula award and a Hugo Award.

Bibliography

Collaborations with Kate Wilhelm

Short stories

War

War is a state of armed conflict between societies. It is generally characterized by extreme collective aggression, destruction, and usually high mortality. The set of techniques and actions used to conduct war is known as warfare. An absence of war is usually called "peace". Total war is warfare that is not restricted to purely legitimate military targets, and can result in massive civilian or other non-combatant casualties.

While some scholars see war as a universal and ancestral aspect of human nature, others argue that it is only a result of specific socio-cultural or ecological circumstances.

In 2013 war resulted in 31,000 deaths down from 72,000 deaths in 1990. The deadliest war in history, in terms of the cumulative number of deaths since its start, is the Second World War, from 1939 to 1945, with 60–85 million deaths, followed by the Mongol conquests which was greater than 41 million. Proportionally speaking, the most destructive war in modern history is the War of the Triple Alliance, which took the lives of over 60% of Paraguay's population, according to Steven Pinker. In 2003, Richard Smalley identified war as the sixth (of ten) biggest problem facing humanity for the next fifty years. War usually results in significant deterioration of infrastructure and the ecosystem, a decrease in social spending, famine, large-scale emigration from the war zone, and often the mistreatment of prisoners of war or civilians. Another byproduct of some wars is the prevalence of propaganda by some or all parties in the conflict, and increased revenues by weapons manufacturers.