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Lightsabre refers to two websites, the first of which being a UK-based fansite launched in 1999 at Lightsabre.co.uk. The site's predominate historical focus was interviews. Originally known as Star Wars - Lightsabre, the website was initiated by two Star Wars fans from England: Mark Newbold and Louis Turfrey. Paul Squire, Jonathan Hicks and Jason Brown were also major contributors. The second site was Lightsabre.org.uk, which was scheduled for a Thursday 12th August 2010 launch. However, a major announcement will instead be made on that day referring to the future of the site.

The Legacy site, designed for historical reference purposes, went live on the new http://legacy.lightsabre.org.uk domain on Friday 26th February 2010. Paul Squire, Jonathan Hicks and Jason Brown were again to be among the future contributors for Lightsabre.org.uk, along with a growing team of new contributors.

As of 2010, Lightsabre was recognized to contain one of the world's largest repository of fan authored Star Wars related interviews.

Lightsabre History
Following a number of small sci-fi related sites that operated from 1995 to late 1998 (including The Q-Continuum, Fanta War and Wirezone), Lightsabre.co.uk launched in late June 1999 and went through nine design changes under the stewardship of Mark Newbold and Louis Turfrey. Site content altered accordingly.

The site was initially based upon role-playing material generated from Star Wars role-playing scenarios and sessions, set in a fictional region of the Star Wars galaxy known as the Setnin Sector, based in the Mid Rim. These sessions, spanning a twelve year period, were recorded in folders of information by Jonathan Hicks, Paul Squire, Louis Turfrey, Mark Newbold and Jason Brown. They existed as the Guides section on the website.

Over the intervening years the site became predominantly known for its interviews, with other sections including audio podcast Setnin Radio, the fan artwork based Setnin Select, general Star Wars news, fan fiction and fan artwork - set in it's own EU-style setting.

Lightsabre interviewed such names as Kenny Baker, Peter Mayhew, Phil Tippett, Kevin J Anderson, Jeremy Bulloch, Rena Owen, Rick McCallum Lorne Peterson, Kenneth Colley, and Irvin Kershner as well as webmasters of other fan sites and artists of fan based artwork. Setnin Radio, launched in October of 2005, was a radio show hosted by Mark Newbold and Louis Turfrey that discussed Star Wars topics, site news and general sci-fi happenings and was joined in April 2008 by Setnin Video. Setnin Video was discontinued after just two episodes. Setnin Radio will relaunch in a new format (and with a new brand name) in 2011 as part of the transition from Lightsabre.co.uk to Lightsabre.org.uk. Mark Newbold will reprise his role, with future announcements expected with regard to who will co-host.

Setnin Select, launched in 2001 was inspired by the George Lucas Selects that were used to give sneak peaks into the development of Attack of the Clones. Now far outstripping the 57 Lucas Selects, Setnin Select reached its 349th edition by late summer 2009. Fan fiction, starting with Quest for Freedom back in 1982, was broken down into 20 eras with stories largely set in the Setnin Sector, a sector in the Mid-Rim designed by Jonathan Hicks in 1986 to house the stories. With stories by Mark Newbold, Paul Squire, Louis Turfrey, and Jonathan Hicks, all the guides and images are based on characters and locations from the Setnin Sector.

For the 25th anniversary of Quest for Freedom Lightsabre launched it's first comic strip adaptation, drawn by Richard Skidmore from a script by Mark Newbold with covers by Craig Burt. This is due to be followed by its sequel, the Lydon Legacy in 2011. Lightsabre has contributions by Jason Brown, Neil Baker and Chris Gereke, artists Tim Wann, Richard Skidmore, Dan Biesel and Craig Burt and Matthew Turvey who designed the new menu structure and new front page for version 9.0 of the site in May 2008.

It was announced in November 2009 that Lightsabre.co.uk had been put on indefinite hiatus, with news of a large scale site re-design and re-launch. As of January 2010, Lightsabre announced record website hits of 788,500 hits for the year of 2009.

In February 2010, it was officially announced that Lightsabre would be relaunching at the new domain Lightsabre.org.uk on May 20th 2010, a date that was later changed to 12th August 2010.

On March 5th 2010 it was announced that a deal had been agreed that brought Louis Turfrey onto the new site, with Turfrey redirecting Lightsabre.co.uk and a number of other related URL's towards the new Lightsabre.org.uk address.

On May 24th 2010 the first promo video for the Lightsabre site was released. With animation by Neil Baker and music by James Semple, the video hit both the Lightsabre fan page and YouTube, as well as a number of fellow Star Wars sites across the world.

On 12th August 2010, the date originally given for the official relaunch of Lightsabre, a major announcement will be made regarding the future of Lightsabre at Celebration V by James Burns of Jedi News, the UK's premiere Star Wars fan site.

Staff Profiles
Mark Newbold was first published in Star Wars Insider #90 dated September 2006 with an article on the Hasbro Artoo's ceremony.

He was published again four years later in the Empire Strikes Back 30th anniversary issue Star Wars Insider #119 dated August/September 2010 with a number of Empire Strikes Back related interviews.

He was published on the Official Star Wars website with a fan report of Star Wars-A Musical Journey