In the Beginning, there was Total Annihilation, and all were happy.
Total Annihilation was released in 1997 by an unknown company that called themselves Cavedog. Voted Game of the Year by a number of institutions, Total Annihilation was a real-time-strategy game that advanced the genre far past what games like Command & Conquer and Warcraft achieved. But despite its advancements (or because of them), the game failed to develop a huge following common to the C&C and Warcraft series. The game's (arguably) saving grace was its ease of modification. Once Cavedog's "HPI" file archive system was cracked, nearly every part of the game was found to be modifiable.

It is only natural, that two Good Things be merged into One.
The idea of a Star Wars conversion for Total Annihilation was launched in late 1997, before even the most rudimentary unit-creation tools were available. MekDragon and Wedge, both fans of Star Wars and TA, founded the original incarnation of SWTA. But the lack of creation tools hampered progress; thirty or so members joined the new team (including current leader HANSOLO), but not much occurred other than brainstorming sessions. Once the right tools were finally developed and released, a number of Star Wars units were created and released for Total Annihilation, built by the TA plants. But internal fighting cause a vast majority of the team to resign, leaving the "First Generation SWTA Team" -- MekDragon, Wedge, Hawkman, Boba Fett, Growler, and HANSOLO.

Sadly, however, everyone but HAN eventually went AWOL. HANSOLO was forced to recruit a new team, the Second Generation Team, consisting of himself, Hawkman, Boba Fett (both who were "barely about"), Cheese, and Jer_of_LD.

A SWTA Conglomerate
Around this time, two separate teams decided to produce their own Star Wars conversion for TA, being fed up waiting for SWTA to produce. The two teams, known as The Force and Star Wars Total Conversion, rivaled SWTA for support for some time. Eventually, however The Force and SWTA merged, sharing members and files and planning to finally finish the project. SpUtNiK and current design lead Element115 joined the team, and much progress was made.

On June 19, 1999, the Cheese Spaceport Pack (designed almost entirely by member Cheese), was let loose to the admiration of fans. SWTA's first major release featured spacecraft for each side and could only be played as missions; no skirmish or multiplayer was supported. The Cheese Pack was the first of its kind, showing off the glory of Star Wars in the beautiful Total Annihilation engine. The pack itself wasn't the highest-quality piece of work ever conceived, but it gave SWTA fans a thoroughly enjoyable pack to play with.

Despite the success of the Spaceport Pack, the SWTA Plague was again let loose sometime later, and nearly everyone on the team faded away, except for the vigilant Element115 who continued to rally the remaining members.

Rebirth of a Legend
When all seemed lost, as Element115 was the only member in contact with the rest of the world, HANSOLO reappeared, signaling the newest surge in SWTA development. HANSOLO and E115 worked diligently on a new Starter Pack, which was to form the base of SWTA. During September of 2000 current member Influenza joined the team, but quickly went AWOL while finishing up the remainder of his high school career. SOLO and E115 released the Starter Pack and two additional re-releases during first-quarter 2001, and SWTA hit the prime-time. Fans poured onto the forum to express their admiration and support, and give their feedback. The team congratulated themselves on a job well done and quickly set off to work on the next pack.

That pack, the Fighter Pack, was released September of 2001, giving SWTA fans a taste of what they really wanted: Imperial and Rebel fighters! Players basked in the glory of TA dogfighting, something they hadn't enjoyed since the Spaceport Pack. The excitement of the pack even managed to awaken Influenza, who had just arrived at his university, to rejoin the team alongside new member Locust99. The team immediately set out on their next endeavor, Imperial and Rebel walkers.

A new look for a new age
As work progressed on SWTA's third pack, the Walker Pack, the team decided it was time for a new look for the website. HANSOLO and Influenza knew the Walker Pack would be a huge success and wanted to make the most of the opportunity to promote SWTA it provided. With countless crashes from SWTA's former host TAUniverse expediating the decision, the team elected to move its website to current host PlanetAnnihilation. The move was coupled with a new website (designed and coded entirely by us ^_^) and unveiled one week prior to the Walker Pack's release. Attention and anxiety jumped as countless visitors read about the upcoming pack on PlanetAnnihilation and its parent sites, GameSpy and StrategyPlanet. The Walker Pack was released on the 24th of February, 2002, and was one of the most successful releases in Total Annihilation third-party history. To this day, over 6,000 copies of the Walker Pack have been downloaded!

And that brings us up to the present :-).