Dark Horse invasion storyline

"Personally, it's difficult for me to look objectively at any of the NJO stuff, because I only see how "wrong" it all is (in comparison to what we had planned)."

- Randy Stradley

Prior to the publication of Del Rey’s New Jedi Order series, Bantam and Dark Horse Comics had been planning their own alien invasion storyline.

History
There are rumors that Brian Daley and Jim Luceno developed a plot for an extra-galactic invasion storyline prior to Daley’s death in 1996 (and prior to Luceno’s involvement in Star Wars). Lucy Wilson first came up with the idea of an extended story-arc spanning more than just a trilogy worth of books in 1997. In March, 1998 a Bantam story conference was held at Skywalker Ranch, with a follow-up that May (with Luceno attending both). However, Shelly Shapiro claims no knowledge of any of those events.

On September 1, 1998, Bantam published Vision of the Future, in which it was revealed that Thrawn had encountered an unimaginable threat to the galaxy within the Unknown Regions. Shortly afterwards, on November 11, Dark Horse began to publish Crimson Empire II: Council of Blood. The authors, Mike Richardson and Randy Stradley, intended it to be a prologue into Dark Horse’s planned invasion storyline.

Shortly after, Del Rey took over from Bantam as the Star Wars book publishers, and Lucasfilm cancelled the Crimson Empire III comic, which was expected to continue the run-up to their invasion. Del Rey and Dark Horse representatives met to discuss their respective invasion ideas, and the majority of the storyline was given to Del Rey, who took it in directions that Dark Horse did not intend. Stradley and Dark Horse reportedly refused any participation in the storyline, save the tie-in Chewbacca comic.

Plot points
The storyline shared some elements with what eventually became the New Jedi Order:
 * Chewbacca would have died early on in the story.
 * Nom Anor would have been an advanced scout of the aliens.
 * Thrawn’s Unknown Regions threat would likely have retconned into being the invasion.
 * The invaders would have been armed with a type of bladed weapon that would have allowed them to fight Jedi; this possibly became the amphistaff.

However, other elements were different:
 * The invaders would not be humanoid; rumors had them being possibly liquid- or energy-based (although Stradley denied the latter part). This was changed on the insistence of Lucasfilm.
 * The invaders may have been dark side users. This goes along with a rumor that the Yuuzhan Vong were originally planned to be exiled members of the Sith race.