Actually, in one of the two Han Solo trilogy books, (I believe it's Hutt's Gambit) they tell you how Han Solo was drummed out of the Imperial navy for saving Chewbacca from a spice mine or some such approximate. So you can imagine all them brave wookiees ended up losing the battle for their homeplanet and were enslaved by an oppressive human regime... again. And the two do do some smuggling for quite some time.
Originally posted by Darth_Janus
Actually, in one of the two Han Solo trilogy books, (I believe it's Hutt's Gambit) they tell you how Han Solo was drummed out of the Imperial navy for saving Chewbacca from a spice mine or some such approximate. So you can imagine all them brave wookiees ended up losing the battle for their homeplanet and were enslaved by an oppressive human regime... again. And the two do do some smuggling for quite some time.
They don't have to lose the battle per se; the war was over. They were probably enslaved by the new Empire, which posed a bigger threat than either side in the Clone Wars.
Originally posted by Darth_Janus
That's a more straightforward way of saying it, really. But since the Republic became the Empire under Sidious, and the Separatist Army was secretly under Sidious, either way they lost that battle. So I didn't make much of a distinction. But yes, they may have won the fight, but lost the war.
But with that simplification, there really wasn't a "war" then; it was all two sides of the same Palpatine coin.
To be accurate, I would mention that it's very probable they repelled the invasion, but were enslaved because of the Empire. You are correct though, that it is irrelevant to his fate.
As mentioned, it's almost certain that he met Han Solo, had a debt to him, and the two of them became smugglers and old buddies (where we see them in ANH).