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There is quite a bit of fan fiction from the Star Wars universe out there. Most of it is pretty bad. Some of it is quite good. As best I can tell, Star Wars fan fiction has been around for quite a long time. Have any notable elements from any fan fiction stories made it into actual Star Wars canon (C-Canon or higher)?

Also related: did any Star Wars authors write fan fiction before becoming a canon author?

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What's the Story? counts, I think:

What's The Story? was an exclusive feature on the Star Wars fan club website, Star Wars Hyperspace. It gave Hyperspace members a chance to leave their mark on the Star Wars Expanded Universe by allowing them to provide the backstory for certain aspects of the saga; usually obscure background characters or vehicles from the films. Winning entries became official Star Wars lore: published in the Databank and added to the Holocron continuity database.

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  • That certainly does count, though I was looking more for something that made it into a book, TV show, or game. But if no one else can come up with any examples, then I'll accept. +1
    – The Fallen
    Commented Jul 1, 2013 at 13:44
  • SFF.SE actually had a Q&A that listed one example of the "What's the Story" thing. I think it may have been related to Yoda but fail to recall details now
    – DVK-on-Ahch-To
    Commented Jul 1, 2013 at 15:04
  • @DVK - I think I recall that - something about Lucas vetoing any Yoda-related "official" fan fiction
    – The Fallen
    Commented Jul 1, 2013 at 15:51
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Yes

While “What’s the Story” comprised a planned official contest by which winning entries would become canon, there is at least one element that was purely pre-existing fan-fiction that was brought into EU as a major element: the Coruscant Knights “Teepo Paladins.”

Wookieepedia says this:

Behind the scenes

Coruscant Nights I: Jedi Twilight was the first, and as of this writing, the only official source to describe the Teepo Paladins and their background. However, they were created by fan, Peter Skanes, and collected in an unofficial fan-made supplement to West End Games' Star Wars roleplaying game called "The Jedi Handbook".

Since I was a member and active on the list at the time, the Teepo Jedi may have been sent to the SW-RPG Mailing List by Skanes even before being compiled in the Handbook. The Jedi Handbook included the Teepo Paladins as far back as 1997.

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Cygnus Spaceworks

The creator of the Lambda-class shuttle, Cygnus Spaceworks, was first named in an unlicensed set of blueprints published in 1984. According to a now-archived blog post by jSarek, the author of The Written Word, a Legends-canon StarWars.com article about in-universe writing systems:

The Cygnus Star Empire may be familiar to some folks. It originates with the fan publication Book of Imperial Shuttle Plans: Cygnus Spaceworks, originally released by "Lawrence Miller Design" in 1984. Cygnus Spaceworks, which also first appeared in that work, was made canonical over a decade ago. A Cygnus B star system dates back to 1979, when it appeared in the "Cantina Communications" article in Star Wars: Official Poster Monthly #16. Given all these references to Cygnus, it seemed reasonable to make the Cygnus Star Empire a canon location.

A scan can be found on theforce.net, confirming that it identified the shuttle's manufacturer as "Cygnus Spaceworks":

Scan of Lambda-class shuttle blueprints

Since then, Cygnus Spaceworks has appeared in both Legends and Canon material.

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