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George Lucas is a busy guy. He’s got a thick slate of movies to produce this year – including some flicks that Steven Spielberg brought to him that he’s sure are going to be smash hits – as well as a wealth of hands-on creative day-to-day work to do with Industrial Light and Magic and THX, two companies he founded.

His daily planner is packed to the brim with meetings, lunches, and benefits. Every day some new project demands his attention. Every day he has difficult decisions to make. Every day there’s some fire to put out. Running an empire is a lot of work.

There is one thing that George Lucas wont be doing anytime soon: heading over to BioWare West headquarters in Austin to give some input on the new Star Wars MMORPG they’re making, Star Wars: The Old Republic.

“You can’t tell him,” the lead developer on the game, Gordon Walton, tells me over the phone. “Please. Please. Please. Please. Please.”

Apparently, this treachery has been going on for some time. As far back as Knights of the Old Republic 1, which BioWare also created. This news may no surprise many of you, who long ago realized that something that good probably had nothing to do with George Lucas.

But George Lucas keeps a tight leash on Star Wars – and for good reason. After that disastrous Christmas special where Chewbacca farted the tune to Happy Birthday on Bea Arthur or something, not much in the way of the Wars is released without Mr. Lucas’s stamp of approval.

Star Wars has always been George’s baby. It’s the movie that launched his career, put food on his table, and gave Carrie Fisher a reason to fuck him. When one thinks of George Lucas, one immediately thinks of Star Wars. And then one immediately thinks about how much effort he has put in the last decade into completely fucking ruining it.

Gordon Walton explains the unique development process BioWare has chosen for this particular game:

“Keeping those first two games out of sight was hard enough, but it was manageable because we have a small team. When we were asked by Lucasfilm to do another Star Wars MMORPG, we were very hesitant. For one, an MMORPG is a much bigger beast than a regular RPG, therefore harder to hide – kind of like the difference between a Star Destroyer and the Death Star.

Secondly, Star Wars Galaxies, a game in the same vein that you’ve probably never heard of, was not exactly making sales records. But that particular game failed was because that team was ignorant and let George call the shots. He was like, Less Jedis please! And they had to do it. As if people were playing the game to be anything but a Jedi.

So we said, is there any way we can make a Star Wars game this big without George knowing about it?“

The answer was yes. At least, so far. “It took a lot of wheeling and dealing, but once we promised his closest aides starring roles, they promised us that they would keep him in the dark, at least until the game was released. It’s amazing how much stuff those aides are being paid to hide from that guy. Did you know that he thinks The Phantom Menace won Best Picture in 1999?”

So you’re not afraid of George reading this article and coming at your game with his mediocrity hammer?

Gordon Walton laughs. “I don’t think he reads Hardcasual, no.”

Yeah? Well fuck you, Gordon. We’re calling him.