So this topic is pretty self explanatory, there are some rare and very rare circumstances in the game that will throw everything you know out the window. For instance the natural disasters that are supposed to be very rare for them to happen even once per game. (Currently I'm on 6 for the game that I am playing now lol.)
Another ever rarer situation is where han solo is captured by the bounty hunters and sent to jabba the hutts palace. Which I'm currently going through. Chewi and Leia both left immediately to go and save the sorry sod.... both failed and havent come back. Luke bless his soul was on daggaba with Yoda, since he finished his training he left immediately, he also failed to free han and was also captured.. this happened back around day 430, I'm on day 870, I've been playing as if they wont come back. I've read that they are all supposed to be transferred to the emperor on corrisant at some point but dang I've never played with out the main stars and have never actually had a game going so well for the point I'm at in the game.

Has anyone else had anything like this happen to them?

Hi LordBlacktide,

according to my manual, natural disasters can occur once in 400 days. So, more often than once per game, but if you're on day 870 and already had six of them, this is considerably above average ;-)

I have never seen the bounty hunters capture Han Solo, and I play this game since 1999, so ...

Wait...Chewie as a diplomat?? Isnt his diplomacy score below 20?

Haha yeah i usually start all my begining characters as diplomats, and by the end of this game i had his diplomacy around 80 though he never did develop force sencitivity... yeah i know that isnt the right spelling but phonics worked for me. oh yeah i finished the game at around 3300 or so rounds. yes I knew the natural disasters were abnormal but it was a challange when my most developed plantes became barren wastelands. though i will say that it was great when a few of the other planets would pick up an extra to make up for it.

and yes i have the orginal disc still aswell, i never had the manual as i lost it moving along time ago, so i never even thought that Han could be kidnapped, was a different thrill after almost 18 yrs of playing that it still gave something new and challenging.

To get captured characters back, you need to FIND them first. Launch lots of espionage missions and wish yourself luck.
IIRC I think Luke can break out of his own from Coruscant, but only if he's successful enough in facing the Emperor, something like that at least.
And yeah i see now you had kept Chewie away from rescuing, that tends to work as well, but worst case, that CAN also fail.

Natural disasters is a pain the rear. Until you figure out that they nearly always happen ONLY on planets where you have used up all energy slots for buildings. Leave one slot unused and the probability of the event becomes near zero instead.

Also, the more energy slots you leave open(or preferably ALL of them) on any colonised planet(not just controlled, it must remain yours even if you remove all troops and characters from it), the more you increase the chance of getting the opposite event, "New resources found" that INCREASES either energy or mining slots. Nah, i've seen it happen way more often than that, so i'm pretty sure the manual is completely wrong about it.

I've even tested the above, by setting up 50 planets to have zero energy slots open, IIRC i got the Natural disaster on at least 2 of them in first 365 days that i tested.
Likewise, setting up 50 planets to have all energy slots unused, gave similar numbers of the opposite event. Eh, unless i misrecall, Chewie has a 0% chance of becoming jedi. Though if you want otherwise, get RebEd and change it. Very easy modification to do.
Personally i prefer to increase chances that all characters are jedi by 5-15%, getting maybe twice as many doing the kooky old religion thing, hehe.

The rarest I've had are:
2 natural disasters on Coruscant
All characters becoming traitors. The number of failed missions was quite spectacular!

On a Hard game I had both the Emperor and Vader captured, which I thought would have ended the game. But, as it turns out, there were a couple of Imperial officers (I forget their names) who were still flying through space on a superstar destroyer. The end animation showed that ship being destroyed, and then whatever other animation kicked in to show that the game was over.

But I didn't just have Vader and the Emperor captured, but a lot of other Imperial officers and agents, all stuffed on corvette. I would send it to where there was a known Imperial character, have Luke capture them, and then send that corvette across the galaxy as I continued to take planets after destroying most of the supporting Imperial economy.