How Old is Depa Billaba?

[extrapenguin]

While looking up something completely unrelated on Wookieepedia, I discovered that in the Legends continuity, Mace Windu and Shmi Skywalker share a birthyear – 72 BBY. (In Disney canon, Mace is still the same age, but no-one's pinned down an age for Shmi.) For reference, Obi-Wan was born in 57 BBY and Anakin in 41 BBY (when Shmi was 31).

Oh huh, I thought. Mace is a few years younger than I'd have guessed. But wait – didn't he raise an entire padawan whom he rescued from pirates at a young age? Where did they slot Depa Billaba, anyway?

Turns out, Depa has no canonical birth year. Instead, we have the assurance that Mace rescued her from the pirates who killed her parents when she was less than a year old. So assuming that Mace rescued her on his very first mission as a bright-eyed 13-year-old, she would've been born in 59 BBY. Amazing! Except that she was on the Jedi Council in 32 BBY as a 27-year-old, while Obi-Wan was 25 and still a padawan. And that makes no sense. Also, she doesn't look 27, but more like in her 30s.

My solution is to headcanon that she was actually born after Obi-Wan in ~56 BBY, so Mace can be slightly less of a baby when he rescues her, Knighted at 21 or something, and went on some amazing time travel adventure, so she's chronologically ~24 in TPM but 30+ with some unique life experiences that are also the reason Sidious arranged for her to spend most of the war unconscious. (You could have her be a 27-year-old wunderkind who got just placed on the Council, but that requires a number of very precise assumptions. And I'm not sure if the canon is written in a way that supports them.)

Comments

[annathecrow]

Oh lol, so that's where Arla Fett's missing ten years went! XD

BTW, Legends-wise, Mace Windu was already on the Council in 44BBY according to Jedi Apprentice. So either he was 28 at the time or the birth date is wrong. Which I'd say would be more likely, given the way he's written.

Honestly, I kind of love doing these kinds of timeline puzzles in Legends continuity. You find the weirdest shit, and at the end you get to handwave everything and pick a version that does fun things for whatever you're writing, because none of it really matters if it's all wrong anyway. :D

[extrapenguin]

Mace on the Council at 28 is ... well, he is characterized as a progidy IIRC, so having him on the Council at age 28 doesn't make me want to do time travel contortions. But yeah, Star Wars worldbuilding is very much about timeline puzzles and ending up sobbing and crying and tossing out half the details.

(Though in this case, the plot idea I sort of got – the Republic falls a generation earlier, under Plagueis, and Mace and his padawan Depa free Shmi and baby Anakin while they're running away from the blast zone. No idea what the ending would be, though.)

[annathecrow]

"Republic falls a generation earlier" -- ooh, that's a funky idea! TBH what immediately draws my attention is the worldbuilding, because while I have no idea what Plagueis was like (not a part of canon I've read or researched yet), I bet his coup would be different from Palpatine's.

You could probably cook up a plot from the Sith looking for Anakin, while Mace & Depa are running from them, and Mace & Depa running into Shmi & Anakin because the Force says so. They opt to protect the Skywalkers at the probable cost of their lives, there's a stand-off, and they win because... uhh... something. Plot. You know. XD

[extrapenguin]

Some of the Sith plot was planned over a millennium, but yeah, the final trigger event and the resulting Empire would look different with a different Sith running the show. I think Plagueis has his own novel, which I'd probably have to read if I were to write this.

A non-negotiable bit of my idea is that it last long enough that Anakin grows up calling Mace "Dad", because that was part of the draw, so, uh, no Sith immediately looking for Anakin. (They were also not aware that he existed in canon.) Of course, that just makes my job harder..

[annathecrow]

I thought that since in Legends Anakin's birth was somehow caused by Plagueis and Sidious, it meant that they knew he was out there somewhere... but you're right, that isn't really implied.

It is apparently all from the Darth Plagueis novel though, so, hey, convenient research-wise!

Anakin calls Mace "Dad" -- oh, nice. I like that idea! I haven't thought about that before, but hmm, dad!Mace is definitely Relevant To My Interests.

[extrapenguin]

I think the canon is that the Force reacted to Plagueis's experiments by creating Anakin, but while they felt the Force react, they didn't know what the reaction was? At the very least they did not know the Chosen One was Anakin Skywalker of Tatooine. But yes, I'd have to read the novel.

IIRC Mace canonically considers Depa the daughter he never had. He's just getting her a sibling!