Star Wars Media 2: Revenge of the Stupid Questions [Archive]

pendell

2009-05-26, 01:33 PM

It was also the first official work I saw which acknowledged the obvious flaw of the ending of RotJ: killing the Emperor doesn't get rid of the massive administrative and enforcement apparatus of a galaxy-wide Empire which rules tens of thousands of worlds.

I suspect the events at the end of ROTJ were more in the nature of a coup than a revolution -- sort of like the one in 1991 that ended the Soviet Union. You don't have to kill everyone; you push out the leadership, the armed forces swear loyalty to the new regime (which in this case would be Senator Mon Mothma -- remember that the 'Rebel Alliance' was originally a conspiracy of senators), and life goes on pretty much as normal. That's why you see Stormtroopers acting as policeman as Coruscant in the end credits of ROTJ. Nothing's really changed for them except the signature on their paychecks.

That actually could work... the novelization of EP. III showed the Petition of Ten Thousand being a group of dissident Senators which eventually became the rebel alliance. So after the Emperor dies, they simply step in as the 'legitimate senate in hiding' while the Emperor had 'illegally seized power'. It all works out as long as there are enough people willing to go along with the changeover.

So I think that the continued existence of the galaxy-spanning machine is central to the Lucas ending. The good guys step in at the driver's seat of the machine and steer it in a new direction. And they lived happily ever after, because this is after all a fairy tale.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

SmartAlec

2009-05-26, 05:31 PM

Mr. Scaly

2009-05-26, 09:28 PM

Any of Zahn's books of course, like everyone else says. :smallwink:

I always very much enjoyed Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter. It's well written and shows the less affluent side of life in the galaxy, plus Maul gets some very interesting characterisation.

Death Star surprised me by being pretty good and following the movie very closely, even in the dialogue used by some characters.

I read a couple of the X-Wing series. Isard's Revenge, Wraith Squadron, and Iron Fist. I liked them and it was a nice change of pace but the characters started getting too perfect for me.

Anderson's Jedi Academy. Daala's not a very smart villain but I liked the series just the same.

Path of Destruction and Rule of Two are chillingly good.

STAY AWAY FROM CRYSTAL STAR.

Before the Storm has potential but it's been a long while since I read it.

What I want to know, is the Dark Nest Crisis trilogy any good?

Tyrant

2009-05-26, 09:38 PM

I always very much enjoyed Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter. It's well written and shows the less affluent side of life in the galaxy, plus Maul gets some very interesting characterisation.
I thought this one was good as well. It is also something of a sequel to the Darth Maul 4 issue comic series if I remember correctly (or it may be the other way around, it's been a while since I read it).

Path of Destruction and Rule of Two are chillingly good.
I was browsing Amazon the other day and found out there is a third book, Dynasty of Evil, due out in December. The same author is writing it so I am looking forward to it. If it matters, the cover art is far more like the first book (I would guess the same artist actually) and not the terrible cover art on the second book.

Aotrs Commander

2009-05-27, 06:08 AM

I shall parrot the rest when I say: any of Zahn's books; though I think the Heir trilogy are still the best. Stackpole and Alston's books were good (the latter characterised with a bit more humour, which I liked.)

So not a lot of love for the NJO, then?

Not from me at any rate. I read the first three, and then gave up, as they were going in a direction that I disliked, i.e. 'darker' and 'edgier', or as I like to say 'naff'. The Vong I found to be bad guys I just couldn't like, as with the bad guys in most anime (whom to be fair, they strongly resembled...) i.e following the BVD 'Evil is teh ugly' principle. I am also not a fan of the 'screw the heroes as much as possible' vibe running through current media, so I was utterly put off. I've tried the latest batch set thereafter (the civil war or whatnot, i forget what it's called), but after a book and a half, I started to lose interest, and I lost it all when I discovered they knobble umpteen other major and minor characters throughout the series, including several I rather liked. Again. So I doubt I'll bother with that either.

(I find it telling whenever Zahn's done a book recently, he's set it before the NJO...and even Stackpole has occasionally given the impression he didn't especially like th NJO and he wrote two of the first books! Actually, that was the clincher for me; after I read his duology, I realised if Stackpole couldn't make me like the series, the remaining, often variable quality, authors stood no chnace!)

pendell

2009-05-27, 06:21 AM

Canonically, the 'Imperial forces' that fought on after the Emperor's death were rather fragmented, led by military officers with their own agendas, counter-revolutionary and otherwise, rather than being the unified block they had been under the Emperor. Perhaps a better real-world parallel for the post-Palpatine Empire might be the White Army during the Russian Civil War?

That's an excellent analogy .. for the EU.

My understanding is that the movies and the EU exist in parallel universes, similar but not identical. For instance, in the movie-verse Boba Fett died when he went into the Sarlacc, but in the EU he not only survived but went onto a long, illustrious career of badassness. In the movies, everything ends neatly with Endor. In the EU, the Galactic Civil War rages on for another 15 years until the events of 'Vision of the Future'.

I actually like the movie ending a little better, simply because another 15 years of civil war, followed by an intergalactic invasion, followed by another Jedi civil war ... great Scott, hasn't the galaxy had enough?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Mo_the_Hawked

2009-05-27, 10:39 PM

Hand of Judgement was decent.

And as the X-Wing went, what you didn't like the Evil Ewok pilot with prostitic(I just plain suck at sounding out words) limbs?

Darth Bane just seemed like Grrr... I am captian evil bad ass, the sabertooth of star wars, sans the wolverine foil!

Kosmopolite

2009-06-24, 08:01 AM

Thing is, the EU started to feel samey after the Jedi Academy series (having read most of the stuff between there and the films). I read the Calista books, and they were okay, but really the same again. Is there anywhere I can go where it isn't just the same characters doing the same things?

hamishspence

2009-06-24, 12:21 PM

When the focus is away from the main cast, it can get interesting.

Zahn's Allegiance focuses on Mara and some not-so-evil stormtroopers- Luke and company are more secondary to the plot.

Steve Perry & Michael Reaves's Death Star takes the first movie- and shows events around it, from the point of view of the "ordinary people" on the battle station.

UltraDude

2009-06-24, 01:35 PM

I'll just throw in a little more love for Shatterpoint, except it made me like Windu even more just to see him thrown out a damn window.

Mitth'raw'nuruo

2009-06-24, 11:21 PM

:smallbiggrin: Read the Han Solo trilogy by A.C. Crispin, as Hawriel said. Because of when it was published it has not gotten a lot of mention on this board. But it is a key book that explains who Han Solo is; how he grew up; how he got into the Imperial Fighter Corps; how and why he got thrown out; why he threw away the only dream he had ever had to save the life of a worthless wookie slave; how he was blackballed as a pilot and forced into the life a smugger; how he earned he Corrlian blood strips. Once you pick it up you are going to finish it.

There are no annoying quotes from the movie in the book. There is no attempt to write the characters a certain way because that is what everyone else has done.

Every author who has written anything worth reading references these three novels. If you only read six Star Wars novels; (three of them would of course be by Zahn) these would need to be the other three.

This book also perhaps the definitive work on the Hutts; and how they were able to rejected the Empires power.

Read I, Jedi. It is perhaps Michael A. Sackpole's best work.

TheThan

2009-06-24, 11:39 PM

Yeah the Han Solo series is very good. It’s a little fuzzy in my head but I remember Crispin made the Hutts quite cool (and quite scary when they are young, fit and… mobile).

If you want a brain trip you can read the Lando Calrissian trilogy. But I kid you not when I say it’s a brain trip.

Mitth'raw'nuruo

2009-06-24, 11:40 PM

IF you can ever find an Audiobook copy of "Dark Lords of the Sith" listen do it. It is from the Dark Horse Comics of the Same title; set ~ 4000 years before the Battle of Yavin. Simply Amazing.

Other works that are worth your time when you get the chance:
The best stand alone book is Shadows of the Empire by Steve Perry set (3.5 ABY)

The Jedi Academy Trilogy by Kevin J. Anderson is not bad.

The Bounty Hunter Wars. It you like Fett; or Bounty Hunters in general. Great books. Even if you don't K.W. Jeter writes unique people very well. These books for great if you want something other then I am more awesome then you because I have Jedi super powers.

The Black Fleet Crisis Trilogy. Like Lucas Michael P. Kube-McDowell Knows nothing about Star Wars. Unlike Lucas he tries really hard; and introduces several things that were long in coming; link new fighters. the E-wing (which gets some play by other authors) and the K-wing (Heavy bomber) which everyone seems to avoid - a shame since it should have replaced the Y-wing/ and B-wing.

His work was good enough to get by West End Games; so I think it deserves mention. He had least tried to show progress. Unlike most of the other authors; who continued to write about Y-wings and X-Wings 25 years AFTER the battle of Yavin. Y-wings were hopelessly outdated then; who would have even thought about using them against the Yuzzhan Vong? The only Y wings that should have still been around should have been in Museums.

Death Star could have been ok if the author had even tried to do some homework before writing. When the Death Star was attacked with 400 X-wings; and they all got killed; it ruined the book for me. At the time of the battle of Yavin; you would be hard pressed to provide data that suggested that the Rebels had 400 Xwings. The Battle of Yavin was a last ditch; everything we have; on our largest and most important base and they only have perhaps 3 dozen fighters.

Renegade Paladin

2009-06-24, 11:42 PM

Zahn tells a good story, but damned if he isn't a minimalist. If the idea of a handful of Star Destroyers, far less than a standard Imperial Sector Fleet, being a galactic threat (Thrawn or not) doesn't wreck your suspension of disbelief, then by all means, read and enjoy.

Karen Traviss, on the other hand, is both a minimalist and a hack (who likes to threaten the fanbase with bodily harm when this is pointed out). Star Destroyers used cleverly being a problem I can buy; the clone army having fewer men than the armed forces of the United States and yet somehow fighting a war spanning an entire galaxy makes my head hurt.

Mitth'raw'nuruo

2009-06-25, 12:25 AM

Kosmopolite

2009-06-25, 08:01 AM

I do like my Jedi, I just like them not to be the same couple of Jedi, y'know? My objection is with the character-focus as much as anything, and the unwillingness to allow change.

mangosta71

2009-06-25, 08:56 AM

Well, consider the fact that Luke was the only Jedi left at the end of the movie story arc. Lucas certainly gave the impression that the Emperor and Vader were also the last Sith. So any new Jedi characters would have to be set far enough into the future for them to have been trained, or prior to the Empire. The EU focuses a lot of attention on the couple decades following Yavin, so it's not surprising that they don't introduce any new Jedi characters. Everyone would wonder where they had come from.

RE: Y-wings: They were outdated at the time of the first Death Star. Pieces of junk were hopelessly outclassed by TIE fighters.

The thing that irks me most about SW is that the Force, which is supposed to be all about balance, forces morality upon the universe. "These are the good guys, so they always win!" is a bit lame and unrealistic.

Closet_Skeleton

2009-06-25, 09:07 AM

Cristo Meyers

2009-06-25, 09:09 AM

Personally I found Shadows of the Empire to be a letdown. Maybe it's a case of being over-hyped, but nothing about the book really did anything for me.

AstralFire

2009-06-25, 09:18 AM

The thing that irks me most about SW is that the Force, which is supposed to be all about balance, forces morality upon the universe. "These are the good guys, so they always win!" is a bit lame and unrealistic.

That's because he chose to use both the terms 'balance' and 'light/dark'. More accurately, the sides of the Force are Balance and Unbalance. Even Jedi call on the dark side at times in the EU - it's considered dangerous, not wrong. (Wrong is when they don't leave the dark side.) Your emotions are a good tool, they just cannot rule you.

The later EU isn't getting enough play, IMO - and I find it kind of unbelievable that people are complaining that Thrawn was being beaten by happy circumstance. Yeah, well, he's already kind of a walking happy circumstance to begin with. Every other strategist in the EU is much more believable - Mister "I pay attention to sculpture" just reads too many Pop Psychology magazines. Zahn's a good writer, but I don't care for the characters he originates when he's writing them. He makes it obvious which ones he favors.

While I don't like the Yuuzhan Vong themselves, I felt they put a nice, credible threat on the universe. And they begin the series of books focusing on Darth Caedus's development, who is one of the most unexpected and interesting villains the franchise has had. (His identity below:)
Darth Caedus is Jacen Solo

Where I draw the line is Legacy of the Force. If you look at the EU as a whole, it looks like every time someone decides they want to purge the Jedi, it begins to happen in a cycle every 60 odd years for a while, and the Republic also gets repeatedly dissolved and recreated with the same frequency in those trouble points. You think people would get tired of that. If they ever decide to definitively link Legacy (with its Darths that what, number over a hundred in total?) and the book timeline and say "this is not an alternate future, this is what really happens", I'll probably stop reading then. The galaxy deserves some peace, and so does poor Luke.

They can keep writing, they just have to realize it's okay to let go of continually bigger and more apocalyptic events and do more arcs about small conflicts.

mangosta71

2009-06-25, 09:54 AM

KnightDisciple

2009-06-25, 10:03 AM

Obi-wan said specifically that Anakin would bring balance to the Force (which he did by slaughtering all of the Jedi on both sides), so I don't know where the idea that light = balance and dark = unbalance comes from. The Force as a universal power that's waiting to be used by anyone capable of doing so would be fine. But SW attributes motives and actions to it. By doing so, the Force itself takes on sentience and becomes a character in its own right. An invisible, omnipresent, and omniscient character that wants everyone to be good.

Um, they get that idea from George Lucas (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Chosen_One).

"In an interview, Lucas compared the difference between the light and dark sides as being like the difference between a symbiotic relationship and a cancer. A symbiotic relationship is one which benefits both parties and in which neither is harmed, whereas a cancer takes without giving back, eventually causing the death of both parties."

So I'd say it's not unfounded.

AstralFire

2009-06-25, 10:04 AM

He brought balance to the Force by slaying the last active Sith and leaving his son, the last of the Jedi, alive. If balance included the idea that there was too many Light Siders, the Jedi wouldn't have been as big on the Chosen One or as strongly Light Sided as they were.

Closet_Skeleton

2009-06-25, 11:31 AM

If they ever decide to definitively link Legacy (with its Darths that what, number over a hundred in total?) and the book timeline and say "this is not an alternate future, this is what really happens", I'll probably stop reading then.

They were linked from the begining. It's all canon and both series have referenced each other.

The galaxy deserves some peace, and so does poor Luke.

That's not Legacy's fault. If they stopped publishing (post RotJ) books and left Legacy as it is then there'd be 100 years of peace and problems wouldn't start again until Luke was dead (of natural causes).

Renegade Paladin

2009-06-25, 10:03 PM

Renegade Paladin: Point; but the counter point is something called Manoeuvrability, which Grand Admiral Thrawn (I) had. The terrorist government of the so called New Republic did not.
As you correctly point out, Grand Admiral Thrawn controlled a relatively few number of ships; however.
A sector fleet needed to be huge to effectively defend. The Empire devoted the necessary resources to protect its citizens and their worlds from attack. Throughout the history of the New Repbilic it was demonstrated time and time again that they felt no such compulsion about protecting their "citizens".

But to attack you do not need a massive fleet. Keep in mind that ONE Imperial class Star Destroyer could execute Base Delta Zero in less then a day

Base Delta Zero is the Imperial codename for what is often referred to as "burning off" a world. As described in the Imperial Sourcebook, "it is the systematic complete destruction of all 'assets' of production, including factories, arable land, mines, fisheries, and all sentient beings and droids." This operation has been referred to as reducing "a civilized world to slag"1, reducing "a planet's surface to smoking debris in a matter of hours"2, and "the Imperial code order to destroy all population centres and resources, including industry, natural resources and cities."3 The timeframe is known to be less than a day, although it is not known how much less.

http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tech/Beam/BaseDeltaZero.html
I am aware of the Base Delta Zero order, thank you very much. I am also aware that the Empire devoted massive resources to oppressi... I mean, protecting its populace; this does nothing to obviate the fact that Thrawn was so massively outgunned that no amount of tactical brilliance should have permitted him to be anything more than a raiding nuisance; the Katana fleet was especially incongruous as a threat, because the ships comprising it were grossly obsolete and relatively few in number.

Zahn would have done much better to give Thrawn a proper flagship rather than a line destroyer, just for starters. I can understand limiting the part of the fleet that sees direct "on-screen" action to a small number of named ships (it's a lot for the writer to keep track of all the ship names otherwise), but the he should have had a heavy cruiser at least; after all, the mission the Emperor dispatched him on took him deep into the Unknown Regions without resupply. A cruiser's ability to do what it's name suggests would be invaluable, to say nothing of being closer to a proper command ship for one of his rank. The problem here is author minimalism; if you want to discuss this in terms of suspended disbelief we can do that, but that wasn't the point of the post you respond to.

TheThan

2009-06-25, 10:29 PM

Personally I found Shadows of the Empire to be a letdown. Maybe it's a case of being over-hyped, but nothing about the book really did anything for me.

I am so relieved that I'm not the only one that that Shadows of the Empire was a let down. Up til now this was such a huge burden to bear, and I was bearing it alone...

Hawriel

2009-06-25, 11:05 PM

Dash Rendar the token red shirt Han Solo stand in was a let down. I liked the rest of the book just fine.

Jade_Tarem

2009-06-25, 11:25 PM

Allow me to state that the following is entirely my personal opinion, as someone who has gone through most of the EU, minus some of the Clone Wars Stuff. Your mileage may vary.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Shadows of the Empire was a letdown, largely due to the whole... everything. Mostly Dash Rendar-sue, if I remember correctly. It did give us what might be Darth Vader's best line in the EU, though. I can't remember it verbatim, but it's on TV tropes somewhere...

I liked the X-Wing Books, although Stackpole's dialogue is a bit stilted - nearly everyone (Fighter Pilots, Fun-Loving Smugglers, Evil Overlords, Imperial Agents, Alien Admirals, Hardened Criminals, Insect Medics, you name it) in his story talks the same way - like a failed English major who decided to throw some contractions into their dialogue for giggles (Ok, Ooryl and Emtry were exceptions). The books are pretty good despite that, though, and I recommend you read them anyway - especially the ones written by Aaron Allston, because his dialogue is usually hilarious.

Actually, anything by Aaron Allston is probably worth your time.

If you're tired of the same characters doing the same things with the same results, then read the following:

Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina
Tales of the Bounty Hunters
Tales from Jabba's Palace
Tales from the Empire
Tales from the New Republic

Those five are compilations of short stories concerning completely new characters doing original things - and not all of them win in the end. Granted, the stories are not created equal, and the writers are not completely on the same page in terms of Star Wars pseudotech, but the books make for a good read nonetheless.

Also good, as was already stated on this page, was the trilogy about the bounty hunter wars:

The Mandalorian Armor
Slave Ship
Hard Merchandise

K. W. Jeter rather ambitiously writes two stories in the space of one (one in the past, one in the "present"), and actually (IMO) pulls it off nicely - the two stories integrating at the end. It does a bit to expand Boba Fett as a personality (or lack thereof) and definitely gives more life to relatively minor characters like Zuckuss, Dengar, and Bossk. You might have to read it a couple of times to get the plot straight, though.

The Zahn books have already been mentioned.

Which brings me to the rather sore point of NJO, where the storyline begins to get dark -

They kill Chewie in the first book, in the stupidest way possible.

- and after reading the series through I'm convinced that the writers didn't quite know what to do with the Yuuzhan Vong for the first few books. Yes, it was cool to have a new bad guy race, but the lengths that they went to in order to make the Yuuzhan Vong into a credible threat to the galaxy quickly skyrocketed to the ridiculous.

Real Spoiler, Seriously!
For the first umpteen battles, the New Republic literally cannot win. It doesn't matter what their tactics were, or how innovative they could be, or what allies they call, the Yuuzhan Vong just whip out their newest "I Win" critter and call it an afternoon - oh, and their standard warriors (y'know, the faceless mooks?) were roughly equal in skill to a Jedi Master or Noghri Assassin, remember that? Finally, they (the writers, I guess) seemed to realize that at that rate NJO was going Shimmra would be top dog of the universe in a couple of months, so they finally decided to give the Yuuzhan Vong *gasp* FLAWS! Better still, they managed to work those flaws in as being downsides to the Vong's supposed strengths, and they played up the stagnant nature of Vong society to allow the Heroes to play catch-up in terms of tech, and the series got a lot more enjoyable from there since the "good guys" had some realistic chance of winning, even though the "bad guys" still had the upper hand.

Although they never did answer how we went from Mara Jade barely holding on against one random warrior to Luke plowing through thousands of them in the last book...

Then we get to Legacy of the Force, which took my favorite character before NJO and made that character the Evil Overlord. Then they killed Mara Jade, apparently to give Luke something to brood over for the next two books, because his Nephew going Sith Lord wasn't enough.

That said, the series is pretty good, and you get to see Jaina kick some *** in the last book.

And you get to see Centerpoint implode, which is definitely a good thing, since other than the part where they started shooting fleets with it the EU hasn't managed to produce anything about that station that wasn't boring.

Which takes us to the most recent installment, Outcast. I'm beginning to wonder when the Jedi Order will get tired of defending a population that turns on it every time it (the population) has nothing better to do.

So that's my 2 cents' worth. Other good reads include the Clone Commando novels, if you can stomach Traviss's rewrite of the Jedi Order into a bunch of hypocritical blowhards who are vastly inferior to the wacky and lovable Mandalorians in every way. Shatterpoint was also good, since it essentially boils down to Mace Windu vs. the Jungle from Hell and the People that Live There.

Hope that provides you with some good reads. :smallsmile:

Callos_DeTerran

2009-06-26, 12:21 AM

I'd say the newest (in terms of actual progression in the Star Wars timeline) series looks pretty darn interesting what with the One Sith and all.

TheThan

2009-06-26, 12:30 AM

Ok so here’s what seems to be the “definitive” list of starwars books worth reading. Not these aren’t required reading, but if your going to pick up a starwars book, pick one of these.

The Zahn series
Heir to the Empire
Dark Force Rising
The Last Command

Specter of the Past
Vision of the Future

Survivor's Quest
Outbound Flight

The X-wing series
X-wing: Rogue Squadron
X-wing: Wedge's Gamble
X-wing: The Krytos Trap
X-wing: The Bacta War
X-wing: Wraith Squadron
X-wing: Iron Fist
X-wing: Solo Command
X-wing: Isard's Revenge
X-wing: Starfighters of Adumar

The Han Solo trilogy (not to be confused with the han solo adventures)
The Paradise Snare
The Hutt Gambit
Rebel Dawn

I, Jedi,
Tatooine Ghost

if you feel I'm missing anything feel free to add to the list but keep in mind I'm trying to keep the mindless dribble off the list.

Dispozition

2009-06-26, 12:42 AM

Ok so here’s what seems to be the “definitive” list of starwars books worth reading. Not these aren’t required reading, but if your going to pick up a starwars book, pick one of these.

The X-wing series
X-wing: Rogue Squadron
X-wing: Wedge's Gamble
X-wing: The Krytos Trap
X-wing: The Bacta War
X-wing: Wraith Squadron
X-wing: Iron Fist
X-wing: Solo Command
X-wing: Isard's Revenge
X-wing: Starfighters of Adumar

Can not agree enough. I own all of these and I cannot think of any other books that may have been read more times, nothing else on my shelf even comes close. There's a perfect balance of humour, action, romance and what else have you. The best ones are Solo Command and Star Fighters of Adumar, in my opinion.

Jade_Tarem

2009-06-26, 01:37 AM

if you feel I'm missing anything feel free to add to the list but keep in mind I'm trying to keep the mindless dribble off the list.

The Mandalorian Armor
Slave Ship
Hard Merchandise

Even if Boba Fett is not your favorite character (goodness knows he isn't mine), you'll like them. It's worth reading the books just to see Boba Fett's trick with the self destruct. Those of you who have read Slave Ship know what I'm talking about. :smallamused:

Also, Aaron Allston's stuff from NJO and Legacy is probably worthwhile too - you might even be able to get away with not reading the other books in those series.

Kaez

2009-06-26, 04:11 AM

Han Solo Trilogy..... a great set of books, and as previously mentioned, a great veiw into Han's past. I have few places in the books that are particular favorites. In Paticular in list format in which I need to pull the book off my shelf :P

Working on Ylesia and meeting Bria, who to me actually seemed like a proper love interest.

The Battle of Nar Shaddaa, do I have to go on about this :P

Seeing Bria again, as well as winning the Millennium Falcon in a Sabacc tourny, pissing Lando off cause of it :P. Priceless

There are others, but I excluded Chewie simply becuase as a character, I don't like him. Not here, not in the EU anywhere else, and not even the movies. Sorry if people don't agree, but that's what an opinion is :P.

I have read some of the Bounty Hunter Trilogy, the first book in fact. Whoever said it was hard to follow timeline of the book was correct. It was still good :P.

The Thrawn books, seen em, never had interest. Maybe it's because I'm young, or maybe just not interested in Thrawn... I dunno. Someday I'll give it a try :P.

Closet_Skeleton

2009-06-26, 04:46 AM

Zahn would have done much better to give Thrawn a proper flagship rather than a line destroyer, just for starters. I can understand limiting the part of the fleet that sees direct "on-screen" action to a small number of named ships (it's a lot for the writer to keep track of all the ship names otherwise), but the he should have had a heavy cruiser at least; after all, the mission the Emperor dispatched him on took him deep into the Unknown Regions without resupply. A cruiser's ability to do what it's name suggests would be invaluable, to say nothing of being closer to a proper command ship for one of his rank. The problem here is author minimalism; if you want to discuss this in terms of suspended disbelief we can do that, but that wasn't the point of the post you respond to.

An Imperial-class Star Destroyer IS a heavy cruiser. It's just a multi-use generalist warship as well. Star Destroyers have never been "destroyers" in the naval sense. There are bigger warships that might work better as flagships but an Imperial-class is still one of the heaviest Imperial warship classes.

I'm beginning to wonder when the Jedi Order will get tired of defending a population that turns on it every time it (the population) has nothing better to do.

The so-called "protagonist" of the Legacy comics makes pretty much that exact point to justify being a self-obsessed loser.

AstralFire

2009-06-26, 08:46 AM

Jade Tarem's analysis of NJO (and everything else) is pretty spot on, damn.

Renegade Paladin

2009-06-26, 10:45 AM

An Imperial-class Star Destroyer IS a heavy cruiser. It's just a multi-use generalist warship as well. Star Destroyers have never been "destroyers" in the naval sense. There are bigger warships that might work better as flagships but an Imperial-class is still one of the heaviest Imperial warship classes.
Incorrect. Star Destroyers function as destroyers in every engagement we see them employed in, working in interdiction and escort roles; the one time they were forced into a line engagement with heavier cruisers, at Endor, they actually did fairly poorly when their vast numerical superiority is accounted for. The Empire has much heavier warships, of which the Executor class is but one variety. The novels sometimes reference ships of other classes, but usually don't do a good job of conveying exactly what they're talking about; the comic books do a much better job of illustrating the Imperial battle fleet.

Edit: To illustrate my point, see the following images. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/RenegadePaladin/Star%20Wars%20evidence/Turbolaser1.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/RenegadePaladin/Star%20Wars%20evidence/Turbolaser2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/RenegadePaladin/Star%20Wars%20evidence/Turbolaser3.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/RenegadePaladin/Star%20Wars%20evidence/Turbolaser4.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/RenegadePaladin/Star%20Wars%20evidence/Turbolaser5.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/RenegadePaladin/Star%20Wars%20evidence/Turbolaser6.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/RenegadePaladin/Star%20Wars%20evidence/Turbolaser7.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/RenegadePaladin/Star%20Wars%20evidence/Turbolaser8.jpg
I used to have an animated GIF of that somewhere; in any case, the Star Destroyer takes two hits from a heavy turbolaser and just blows itself to bits.

TheThan

2009-06-26, 11:09 AM

That is because the empire has a nasty habit of not using the appropriate ship for the task at hand. They are in love with their big scary warships, they also love fear tactics (there are instances of star destroyers pacifying entire worlds by its mere presence). Imperial bureaucrats also love big impressive looking ships. So many of them have gone out of their way to push out and stifle research smaller warships and even fighters. Why should we bother advance our fighter designs when we can just build a warship?

Kaez

2009-06-26, 12:29 PM

Why should we bother advance our fighter designs when we can just build a warship?

That explains so much on why Tie (Insert type here) suck a lot. Interceptors we're good, but only becuase they had four blasters on the tips of their pointed wings and we're much more maneuverable then the standard TIE fighter, but had the same drawback as all TIE versions. I.E. No Shields. Only crazy people our hella good pilots got to be TIE pilots.

Sadly, the technology of star fighters prior to The Empire taking over seemed way better than the current tech (I blame Lucas for that, but we could blame him for a lot of things....)

Talkkno

2009-06-26, 12:55 PM

Mr. Scaly

2009-06-26, 05:00 PM

The X-wing series
X-wing: Rogue Squadron
X-wing: Wedge's Gamble
X-wing: The Krytos Trap
X-wing: The Bacta War
X-wing: Wraith Squadron
X-wing: Iron Fist
X-wing: Solo Command
X-wing: Isard's Revenge
X-wing: Starfighters of Adumar

if you feel I'm missing anything feel free to add to the list but keep in mind I'm trying to keep the mindless dribble off the list.

I sort of have to disagree with this. I've read Wraith Squadron, Iron Fist, and Isard's Revenge (hardly all of them I know) and by the end I was getting bored as heck out of it. The squadron members all feel the same, the villains never felt credible, and the good guys always win via some convoluted scheme. Or maybe I just read the wrong books, I don't know.

Anyway, I know that I'm in the minority here. :smallwink: But I enjoyed the Jedi Academy trilogy more.

Thrawn183

2009-06-26, 05:20 PM

1) One thing I've never understood, and I think is a serious error on the part of the authors, is why the empire doesn't have more TIE fighters.

I mean, they did a good job showing that the Empire, and later the New Republic, has to devote the vast majority of their forces to quelling local disputes before they can blossom into full out wars. At the same time though, an x-wing costs ten times as much as a TIE fighter; yet, most of the time we only see roughly even numbers of imperial and rebel forces. Sure a 1 on 1 match up between an x-wing and a TIE fighter is pretty one sided, but that really shouldn't be happening very often. Another example of this is how Star Destroyers are designed primarily for ground bombardment from space (getting back to their primary role being suppression of planets, not space combat), it's why star destroyer's keep going down in flames against matchups against comparable rebel ships (well, that and they generally have the same number of star fighters, just theirs suck, see above)

Think about how rogue squadron does whenever they go up against an entire wing of TIE's (yes, I know that this includes interceptors, which makes things a little wonky), it's pretty ugly. So why don't the authors ever describe rebel pilots going up against ten times as many TIE's?

2) Star destroyers being used as "destroyers." How many times do we see this where the star destroyer isn't one of: the flagship of someone important, then currently involved in putting "diplomatic" pressure on a planet, or in pursuit of someone important like Luke or Leia (or occaisionally all of the above)? Even if you work under the assumption that star destroyers don't function like true capital ships, and do too much smuggler intervention, have you seen the smugglers later on in the EU? They occaisionally put together groups of 20 ships all armed with captial ship level weapons and just go to town on imperial forces. Yeah, the empire needs that kind of fire power to stop the smugglers and the pirates (who are often even worse.)

3) The strengths and weaknesses of the rebels. Ok, before the battle of yavin, the rebels were really, really weak. It was everything they could do to get their hands on on corvettes and the type, and they basically had to pirate them all away from the empire. On the other hand, after the destruction of Alderaan, the rebels grew vastly more powerful. I mean, in addition to planets declaring their independence and joining or rebels or just declaring neutrality in the conflict, entire imperial units defected outright, bringing along with them all of their equipment. By the time of the battle at the Endor, the rebels were well trained, well equipped, well led and better motivated. Yes they were outmanned and outgunned, but that basically ended up being countered by the death of the emperor.

4) The differences in how strong the jedi are portrayed. Zahn did a good job of trying to retcon this by saying that the reason our examples of early jedi appeared weak is that they didn't use their power to better recieve guidance from the force, and that Luke had appeared to be getting really powerful when really he was slipping towards the dark side. On the other hand, sometimes jedi struggle to lift small objects, and sometimes they are strong enough to toss around capital ships. I mean, seriously?

Dispozition

2009-06-26, 05:38 PM

I sort of have to disagree with this. I've read Wraith Squadron, Iron Fist, and Isard's Revenge (hardly all of them I know) and by the end I was getting bored as heck out of it. The squadron members all feel the same, the villains never felt credible, and the good guys always win via some convoluted scheme. Or maybe I just read the wrong books, I don't know.

Anyway, I know that I'm in the minority here. :smallwink: But I enjoyed the Jedi Academy trilogy more.

Considering you read it out of order, it doesn't help. All the characters get significant development throughout the series, and the villains are pretty credible in a Star Wars sense, maybe not in real life :<

1) One thing I've never understood, and I think is a serious error on the part of the authors, is why the empire doesn't have more TIE fighters.

I mean, they did a good job showing that the Empire, and later the New Republic, has to devote the vast majority of their forces to quelling local disputes before they can blossom into full out wars. At the same time though, an x-wing costs ten times as much as a TIE fighter; yet, most of the time we only see roughly even numbers of imperial and rebel forces. Sure a 1 on 1 match up between an x-wing and a TIE fighter is pretty one sided, but that really shouldn't be happening very often. Another example of this is how Star Destroyers are designed primarily for ground bombardment from space (getting back to their primary role being suppression of planets, not space combat), it's why star destroyer's keep going down in flames against matchups against comparable rebel ships (well, that and they generally have the same number of star fighters, just theirs suck, see above)

Think about how rogue squadron does whenever they go up against an entire wing of TIE's (yes, I know that this includes interceptors, which makes things a little wonky), it's pretty ugly. So why don't the authors ever describe rebel pilots going up against ten times as many TIE's?

This is explained to some extent in a few of the X-Wing novels...What you're saying is instead of making it 12:72 in favour of the empire, make it 12:720 in favour of the empire...Now, say that's dog fighting? Who's going to have more targets? The rogues would be racking up kills like no tomorrow. Yes, they may eventually be beaten, but the empire would suffer massive, massive casualties, and probably quite a few friendly fire kills as well. Would you like to be one of 720 ships trying to take down 12 enemies? You'd be so worried about not hitting friends that you'd have to place shots perfectly. The Rogues on the other hand could literally just shoot randomly and still get kills with little to no fear of hitting friends, and even if they did they have shields so it's not instantly lethal.

Jade_Tarem

2009-06-26, 09:50 PM

The so-called "protagonist" of the Legacy comics makes pretty much that exact point to justify being a self-obsessed loser.

Assuming we're talking about the same person...

EDIT: Sorry, I just now realized that you said Legacy Comics and might have meant Cade Skywalker, but now I've made this long post, and I kinda don't want to take it down. It's still pretty relevant to what you said. END EDIT

Jacen Solo, I hope. And if not, then please tell me who else you feel is a self-obsessed loser. Chances are you're right about that guy to, but I'm having a brain fart and can't think of anyone else but Alema Rar who fits the description.

Then this is true, although he also goes into a rant about destiny and the silliness of people wanting personal freedom and a government that might not include him. He goes from questioning how he could possibly be right to sincerely believing that he couldn't be wrong.

He can't even believe that Jaina could be a threat to him, even though she's his twin and by definition has the same potential he does - or more, at the end of the series when he's missing an arm.

That said, our self-obsessed loser may have a point. Observe, if you will...

1. Palpatine Rises to power. The population turns on the Jedi.

2. New Jedi Academy is founded. The population turns on the Jedi.

3. Right Before the Yuuzhan Vong Invade. The population turns on the Jedi.

4. The Jedi win the Duel on Ithor, but then Ithor is destroyed by the Vong-Sue "F--- you, we WIN" bioweapon. The population turns on the Jedi.

5. The Yuuzhan Vong say they want Jedi and will go away if the galaxy hands over enough of them. The population turns on the Jedi.

6. The Jedi (actually, just Vergere, the Jedi weren't responsible) stop the deployment of the Galactic Alliance's "Well, we tested it a couple of times and we *think* it won't backfire" bioweapon. The population turns on the Jedi.

7. The Killiks go nuts. The population turns on the Jedi.

8. The Killiks go nuts again. The population turns on the Jedi. (Apparently anything the Killiks do is the Jedi's fault).

9. Corellia rebels against the GA. The population turns on the Jedi.

10. Jacen Solo goes nuts. The population... turns in favor of the Jedi.

11. Jacen Solo goes nuts, but with less style. The population turns on the Jedi.

12. And finally, the population turns on the Jedi pretty much because Daala tells them to, in the most recent incarnation of the loop. Note that between 3-5 the population never really backed the Jedi before the next downturn, essentially making it open season on Jedi for a long period of time. One of my favorite parts of Betrayal was the offhanded narrative line that while the population (of Corellia, this time) was hunting for Jedi whenever it could, the Jedi had gotten so used to it (and so good at hiding from them) that there weren't any casualties. By the end of Outcast, they're talking about implanting tracking devices in all the Jedi to make hunting them down easier in the future, ironically showing the same disrespect for personal freedoms and due process that Daala accused the Jedi of having at the beginning of the book.

While Daala makes a few good points about the Jedi Order's cavalier attitude about bypassing those inconvenient, trivial "law" things that other people worry about so much, and an especially good one about the continued lack of punishment for Kyp "I one-upped the Death Star" Durron, the fact is that the general population of the SW universe seems to have a remarkably short memory when it comes to the latest galaxy-consuming threat that the Jedi played a critical role in defeating. You'd think they would at least teach this stuff in current affairs classes or something.

"Wait a minute, professor. Who saved us from certain doom a few months ago?"

"The Jedi, Mr. Johnson."

"Lies! The Jedi are all evil! The Internet told me so!"

So I wouldn't be surprised if at some point we end up with a galaxy spanning cage match: the Jedi vs. Everyone Else.

Talkkno

2009-06-27, 05:14 AM

Considering you read it out of order, it doesn't help. All the characters get significant development throughout the series, and the villains are pretty credible in a Star Wars sense, maybe not in real life :<

This is explained to some extent in a few of the X-Wing novels...What you're saying is instead of making it 12:72 in favour of the empire, make it 12:720 in favour of the empire...Now, say that's dog fighting? Who's going to have more targets? The rogues would be racking up kills like no tomorrow. Yes, they may eventually be beaten, but the empire would suffer massive, massive casualties, and probably quite a few friendly fire kills as well. Would you like to be one of 720 ships trying to take down 12 enemies? You'd be so worried about not hitting friends that you'd have to place shots perfectly. The Rogues on the other hand could literally just shoot randomly and still get kills with little to no fear of hitting friends, and even if they did they have shields so it's not instantly lethal.
The Tie defender is vastly superior starfighter then any rebel starfighter, and in the vastness of space, the chance of freindly fire is minsuicle..

Dispozition

2009-06-27, 06:19 AM

The Tie defender is vastly superior starfighter then any rebel starfighter, and in the vastness of space, the chance of freindly fire is minsuicle..

The TIE Defender was never fielded in any more than a squadron at a time, certainly never a wing of them, let along 720 of them. Hell, there probably weren't even a total wings worth produced. Also, the X-Wing gives them a very good run for their money. The Defender was superior, but not vastly.

Also, when you're dog fighting, things get close, and combat isn't always in space. Have you read any of the novels with star fighters as the main theme, or played any of the games? They're actually a pretty accurate representation of how close things get.

Mr. Scaly

2009-06-27, 07:51 AM

Considering you read it out of order, it doesn't help. All the characters get significant development throughout the series, and the villains are pretty credible in a Star Wars sense, maybe not in real life :<

Hehe. Yeah, I did but I only actually own Wraith Squadron on my own and had to borrow the other two. I did like WS to be honest and I thought it seemed like a cool new idea. Plus I was curious about Zsinj and the threat he posed, but the other two just kind of felt too similar. Especially Iron Fist ironically. :smallwink: Though that's a bad example because I hate Lara Notsil.

Closet_Skeleton

2009-06-27, 09:42 AM

Incorrect. Star Destroyers function as destroyers in every engagement we see them employed in, working in interdiction and escort roles; the one time they were forced into a line engagement with heavier cruisers, at Endor, they actually did fairly poorly when their vast numerical superiority is accounted for.

Endor was a trap, the Star Destroyers there were not forced into anything. The rebels didn't have any heavy cruisers at Endor, only normal cruisers converted from passanger liners.

Every EU source clearly states that an Imperial-class Star Destroyer is more powerful than any of the rebel ships that appeared in the films (the only rebel ship stronger than an Imperial-class has only ever appeared in one game and one novel). The Vindicator-class Heavy Cruiser (which has never appeared unmodified) has weaker guns than the Imperial II-class.

The Empire has much heavier warships, of which the Executor class is but one variety. The novels sometimes reference ships of other classes, but usually don't do a good job of conveying exactly what they're talking about

There was only one Executor-class at Endor and I haven't heard of a single fleet battle that contained more than one. There are quite a few Imperial ships heavier than an Imperial-class Star Destroyer, but most Imperial ships are smaller and weaker. The only reason they're "much heavier" is that there isn't much middle ground between the 1.6 km Imperial-class and the 19 km Executor-class.

the comic books do a much better job of illustrating the Imperial battle fleet.

The comic books also draw everything out of scale and you sometimes have no idea what ship is being depicted.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/File:MonCalshipyards137aby.jpg
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/File:Mon_Calamari.jpg

Both those images show the same planet. The first is from a comic book, the second represents what the planet actually looks like. The orbital ring in the first and all of the ships around it are clearly out of scale.

The EU doesn't necessaraly make perfect sense of everything you see in the films, but it is official and canon in every way, so ignoring it is pointless. There is a canon pseudo-hierarchy with the films at the top, but it's pretty much meaningless except for contradictions that haven't been explained properly yet.

Just because that Star Destroyer blew up after two hits doesn't mean it wasn't already damaged off screen. It's shields must have fallen quite a bit even if it didn't have many holes. The Imperial II-class has pretty weak shields in exchange for its massive fire power. Ships in Star Wars also tend to blow up quite easily anyway unless they're massive. From a cinematic/pacing perspective, it wouldn't really be interesting to show the Star Destroyers being pounded until they explode, so they only show the last few shots once its shields are dead.

EDIT: Sorry, I just now realized that you said Legacy Comics

Yeah, I don't read novels.

Dispozition

2009-06-27, 05:36 PM

Hehe. Yeah, I did but I only actually own Wraith Squadron on my own and had to borrow the other two. I did like WS to be honest and I thought it seemed like a cool new idea. Plus I was curious about Zsinj and the threat he posed, but the other two just kind of felt too similar. Especially Iron Fist ironically. :smallwink: Though that's a bad example because I hate Lara Notsil.

I didn't mind her, but I've read the books more than 5 times now, so I kinda know what coming :P

If you liked the WS ones, read Starfighters of Adumar, same guy, same writing style. Aaron Alston has a more comedic approach in his writing than Michael Stackpole.

hamishspence

2009-06-27, 05:40 PM

some things are more consistant than others.

Most dramatic example was the series of younger-age books beginning with The Glove of Darth Vader. Apparently some people have managed to fit it into continuity, but the fact that it ends with Han and Leia getting married (which also happens in The Courtship of Princess Leia) leads to problems.

Renegade Paladin

2009-06-28, 11:56 PM

That explains so much on why Tie (Insert type here) suck a lot. Interceptors we're good, but only becuase they had four blasters on the tips of their pointed wings and we're much more maneuverable then the standard TIE fighter, but had the same drawback as all TIE versions. I.E. No Shields.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/RenegadePaladin/Star%20Wars%20evidence/TIE-Shields.jpg
2) Star destroyers being used as "destroyers." How many times do we see this where the star destroyer isn't one of: the flagship of someone important, then currently involved in putting "diplomatic" pressure on a planet, or in pursuit of someone important like Luke or Leia (or occaisionally all of the above)? Even if you work under the assumption that star destroyers don't function like true capital ships, and do too much smuggler intervention, have you seen the smugglers later on in the EU? They occaisionally put together groups of 20 ships all armed with captial ship level weapons and just go to town on imperial forces. Yeah, the empire needs that kind of fire power to stop the smugglers and the pirates (who are often even worse.)
For your first question, the two-part answer is all the time and not often but only because the movie follows the important characters. You don't pull out heavy battleships to pursue a fast fleeing small vessel no matter who is on board; you use something that can actually catch them, which is one of the roles that naval destroyers are designed for. Considering Star Destroyers have demonstrated acceleration at least comparable to the Millennium Falcon's, I'd say they fit the bill. They're used to escort actual heavy battleships (their role in the Death Squadron), to pursue fleeing lighter vessels (the Devastator), and on blockade and containment duty (Hoth, Endor). For your second question, yes. The fact that civilians can amass enough firepower to seriously threaten a Star Destroyer again contraindicates classing it as a capital ship; it is entirely conceivable to do this to a warship designed for light armor and high speed, i.e. a destroyer (see the USS Cole), but try punching holes in an Iowa class battleship with civilian-obtainable weapons and see how far you get...
Endor was a trap, the Star Destroyers there were not forced into anything. The rebels didn't have any heavy cruisers at Endor, only normal cruisers converted from passanger liners.
"Yes, I said closer! Move as close as you can and engage those Star Destroyers at point blank range!"

Every EU source clearly states that an Imperial-class Star Destroyer is more powerful than any of the rebel ships that appeared in the films (the only rebel ship stronger than an Imperial-class has only ever appeared in one game and one novel). The Vindicator-class Heavy Cruiser (which has never appeared unmodified) has weaker guns than the Imperial II-class.
Home One ring a bell? Mon Calamari-built warships are consistently clearly stated to be much more durable than Star Destroyers, as well as physically larger.

There was only one Executor-class at Endor and I haven't heard of a single fleet battle that contained more than one. There are quite a few Imperial ships heavier than an Imperial-class Star Destroyer, but most Imperial ships are smaller and weaker. The only reason they're "much heavier" is that there isn't much middle ground between the 1.6 km Imperial-class and the 19 km Executor-class.
Black Sword Command had at least three, if the Black Fleet Crisis is to be believed, and it was a simple sector fleet. The Executor and her sisters were designed in the role of fleet command ships rather than dedicated battlewagons; their armament was very light in relation to their size. There would be precious little need for more than one in a real fleet engagement, which Endor was not meant to be in the first place; I remind you that the role assigned to the Imperial fleet was to prevent the Rebels from escaping while the Death Star did all the heavy lifting. The tactic of charging into a point blank engagement was not anticipated.

In fact, we have never seen a planned pitched space engagement in all of the Star Wars movie canon. The Battle of Endor was a chaotic melee caused by the Rebels using an unorthodox tactic to spoil the Imperial plan. The Battle of Coruscant was a panicked affair on both sides, with the Republic fleet charging into the midst of the CIS invasion fleet in an attempt to rescue Palpatine. We have seen no other multi-ship battles in the movies.

The comic books also draw everything out of scale and you sometimes have no idea what ship is being depicted.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/File:MonCalshipyards137aby.jpg
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/File:Mon_Calamari.jpg

Both those images show the same planet. The first is from a comic book, the second represents what the planet actually looks like. The orbital ring in the first and all of the ships around it are clearly out of scale.
I don't know; what kind of ships were they building in 137ABY? :smalltongue: More seriously, as long as we're not suspending disbelief, it's perfectly understandable to illustrate Mon Calamari that way if the purpose is to illustrate the shipyards; drawn to scale, they would be barely visible at that resolution. However, there is no earthly reason to intentionally draw this cruiser (http://theforce.net/swtc/Pix/comics/de/cruiser5.jpg), just to name one example, in such grossly exaggerated disproportion as you seem to say must be the case.

The EU doesn't necessaraly make perfect sense of everything you see in the films, but it is official and canon in every way, so ignoring it is pointless. There is a canon pseudo-hierarchy with the films at the top, but it's pretty much meaningless except for contradictions that haven't been explained properly yet.
I am aware of the canon policy and hierarchy. I simply have less tolerance for contradiction than most, especially when it clearly derives from brainbugs persisting from the unresearched West End Games RPG stats.

Just because that Star Destroyer blew up after two hits doesn't mean it wasn't already damaged off screen. It's shields must have fallen quite a bit even if it didn't have many holes. The Imperial II-class has pretty weak shields in exchange for its massive fire power. Ships in Star Wars also tend to blow up quite easily anyway unless they're massive. From a cinematic/pacing perspective, it wouldn't really be interesting to show the Star Destroyers being pounded until they explode, so they only show the last few shots once its shields are dead.
A given, but the ship's structural integrity still failed spectacularly, to say the least. You can say all you want about cinematic perspective, but capital ships are generally well armored enough to not do that. :smalltongue:

Yeah, I don't read novels.
A sad state of affairs. I can understand not reading Star Wars novels, as all too many of them are literary garbage, but not reading any at all?

Kosmopolite

2009-06-29, 06:15 AM

So NJO - is it what I'm looking for, or am I better off going down the KOTOR route?

Renegade Paladin

2009-06-29, 09:42 AM

So NJO - is it what I'm looking for, or am I better off going down the KOTOR route?
New Jedi Order, from what I've read of it, is kind of hit and miss. The books were written by several different authors of wildly varying degrees of skill and hackery, and unfortunately one of the biggest hacks in modern literature got to go first, constraining later and often better authors to adhere to what he'd already written in the series. I never finished the entire NJO series, though, so it might have improved drastically after the fifth (I think) book.

KIDS

2009-06-29, 10:24 AM

It's probably been mentioned before, but I really liked the idea and the first few novels from New Jedi Order, starting with R.A.Salvatore's "Vector Prime". Apart from Zahn's triology, that was one of the best SW books I've ever read.
After that, the series continued with a hit and miss, and I gave up on it after stumbling on several really bad books in row (for example, Troy Denning's series, "Star by Star" and others).

But note that overall I dislike the massive production gizmo that the SW novels series have become (or always been?). They're surprisingly good for such a spammable set of novels, but they're still spammed over and over, frequently leading to bad works.

Jade_Tarem

2009-06-29, 12:33 PM

The books were written by several different authors of wildly varying degrees of skill and hackery, and unfortunately one of the biggest hacks in modern literature got to go first, constraining later and often better authors to adhere to what he'd already written in the series.

Not quite. There was an interview with a bunch of the authors where they talked about the creation of NJO. The general plot of NJO was decided well in advance by a sort of joint meeting of all the authors involved. They came up with a nifty plot involving the return of the Sith, or something, and Lucas nixed it completely (he also hands them a list of Charcters that Cannot Die).

So they went back to the drawing board, and read over a lot of fanmail and criticism that came in over the last few years of EU production, and realized that the fans had two major complaints:

1. The good guys always win, generally with relatively little loss of life or even property, and it's getting kind of predictable.

2. For frak's sake, the Empire/Sith have been the bad guys long enough!

So the authors for NJO decided to come up with an entirely new race of villains, an extragalactic race, and managed to stick with Lucas's "no dark force users" edict by going one-eighty and removing the Vong from the force entirely. Then they came up with the name Vong, decided it wasn't long enough, went out for dinner (I am not making this up), looked at a restraunt menu and saw the entry for Yunan Beef. They liked the word Yunan, decided to make the bad guys the Yunan Vong, then to make it a little more fantastic they changed it to Yuzan, then Yuuzhan Vong.

Then came the part where they got to making the overaching plot. They decided that they wanted to kill a major character in the first book, to show that Star Wars was taking a darker turn and that the plots would be less predictable. They looked over Lucas's Do Not Kill list and found that Chewbacca wasn't on it. They made a general plan for the division of the books and who writes what, and R.A. Salvatore (and I'm not sure I'd call him the biggest hack in modern literature, I kinda enjoyed the Legend of Drizzt books, for starters) wound up going first, and thus, was more or less forced to kill you-know-who. He didn't want to, and it kind of shows. Then Salvatore received mountains of hate mail (and even a couple of death threats) from the same fans who complained about good guys never dying. Oddly, when Denning killed Anakin later, he didn't get nearly as much hate mail as Salvatore, but that's understandable from my perspective, since Anakin was an annoying Mary-Sue.

Also, they planned to kill...

Jacen Solo, about halfway through, and have Anakin be the hero of the remainder of NJO. Once again, Lucas stepped in and said that there wouldn't be another hero named Anakin (apparently he felt that the readers would be too dense to keep them straight), so the authors hastily wrote in Anakin's death and made Jacen the hero instead.

So Salvatore didn't strong-arm the other authors into coordinating with his opus. Kind of the opposite, in fact.

Also, (IMO), the series does get better after the fifth book or so, although as was said before, it's not a universal trend. Also, everything I just put down was my memory of a recorded interview with the authors, so take that as you will.

Mr. Scaly

2009-06-29, 02:40 PM

I didn't mind her, but I've read the books more than 5 times now, so I kinda know what coming :P

If you liked the WS ones, read Starfighters of Adumar, same guy, same writing style. Aaron Alston has a more comedic approach in his writing than Michael Stackpole.

I may check it out then. A change from Jedi now and again is always good in my book. It adds new view points and such.

In the meantime though, do you know if the Kilik Crisis trilogy is any good? I've asked but I guess no one's read it.

Jade_Tarem

2009-06-29, 03:07 PM

In the meantime though, do you know if the Kilik Crisis trilogy is any good? I've asked but I guess no one's read it.

I've read it. It... depends on what you like. The Killiks are different from the kinds of threats common to the EU. A bit like the zerg, but not as malevolent - in fact, the Killiks are probably the least "evil" bad guy in all of Star Wars, much to the consternation of the rest of the galaxy. There's quite a bit of politics involved, both inside the Jedi Order and in the Galaxy at large, and another big part of the series focuses on the odd psychology of the Killiks and the influence that a certain group of dark Jedi has on it...

It does a fantastic job of fostering the "shades of grey" mentality and showing how the Jedi Order deals with (or fails to deal with) a situation wherein the choices presented to them don't have neon signs marking them as right and wrong - they continue this for a while in Legacy of the Force, but then abandon that about the time that a certain someone bites the dust. They appear to be reviving it in the Fate of the Jedi series. We'll see how long that lasts.

That's about all I can say about it without giving anything away. It's actually a unique challege for the heroes, and it goes in detail into the workings and flaws of the New Jedi Order (ironically more so than NJO). On the other hand, some people take exception with Denning's writing style, although it seemed to me that he did a good job with the Killik Crisis. My advice is to go for it. Some of the backstory is rooted in Star By Star, but they explain everything you need to know within the trilogy, so don't worry if you haven't read that book.

Although, if you're looking to get away from the Jedi perspective, look elsewhere. This is mostly about Jedi Order stuff.

Mr. Scaly

2009-06-29, 03:38 PM

I've read it. It... depends on what you like. The Killiks are different from the kinds of threats common to the EU. A bit like the zerg, but not as malevolent - in fact, the Killiks are probably the least "evil" bad guy in all of Star Wars, much to the consternation of the rest of the galaxy. There's quite a bit of politics involved, both inside the Jedi Order and in the Galaxy at large, and another big part of the series focuses on the odd psychology of the Killiks and the influence that a certain group of dark Jedi has on it...

It does a fantastic job of fostering the "shades of grey" mentality and showing how the Jedi Order deals with (or fails to deal with) a situation wherein the choices presented to them don't have neon signs marking them as right and wrong - they continue this for a while in Legacy of the Force, but then abandon that about the time that a certain someone bites the dust. They appear to be reviving it in the Fate of the Jedi series. We'll see how long that lasts.

That's about all I can say about it without giving anything away. It's actually a unique challege for the heroes, and it goes in detail into the workings and flaws of the New Jedi Order (ironically more so than NJO). On the other hand, some people take exception with Denning's writing style, although it seemed to me that he did a good job with the Killik Crisis. My advice is to go for it. Some of the backstory is rooted in Star By Star, but they explain everything you need to know within the trilogy, so don't worry if you haven't read that book.

Although, if you're looking to get away from the Jedi perspective, look elsewhere. This is mostly about Jedi Order stuff.

Oh, I like the Jedi point of view. I just like a change now and again so that things get mixed up now and then.

It does sound pretty interesting...and the local library happens to have the first one in stock, in fact. So it won't cost me anything to check it out at least. I've always been a fan of shades of grey and inner politics and stuff like that...hehe.

hamishspence

2009-06-29, 03:59 PM

I thought it was Tatooine Ghost that had a bit on the Killiks, and the painting Killik Twilight?

Jade_Tarem

2009-06-29, 05:02 PM

I thought it was Tatooine Ghost that had a bit on the Killiks, and the painting Killik Twilight?

The Killiks are mentioned as a mysterious lost race. Briefly. Most of that story is about attempting to recover the painting, and the good guys' first encounter with none other than...

Grand Admiral Thrawn. Yes, they never say it out loud, but that's obviously who it is.

Closet_Skeleton

2009-06-30, 06:36 PM

Home One ring a bell? Mon Calamari-built warships are consistently clearly stated to be much more durable than Star Destroyers, as well as physically larger.

In what source? I only have the latest Starships of the Galaxy in my possesion (this is the extention of an RPG board after all) but an MC80 cruiser is clearly stated to be 400 meters shorter than an Imperial-class Star Destroyer and only tougher due to its better (regenerating) shields. If you want another official source there's Star Wars.com (http://www.starwars.com/databank/starship/moncalamaristarcruiser/index.html). That's probably an average since no two MC80s are the same, but whatever. Home One is more powerful, but atypical.

They're bigger than other kinds of Star Destroyer, but not the kind that actually appears in the films (okay, they're about 60 meters longer than a Venator SD, which is about the same since that length can only be an average).

In fact, we have never seen a planned pitched space engagement in all of the Star Wars movie canon. The Battle of Endor was a chaotic melee caused by the Rebels using an unorthodox tactic to spoil the Imperial plan. The Battle of Coruscant was a panicked affair on both sides, with the Republic fleet charging into the midst of the CIS invasion fleet in an attempt to rescue Palpatine. We have seen no other multi-ship battles in the movies.

I don't see the logic in saying that the Battle of Coruscant isn't a good example of a pitched space battle because it wasn't planned.

Is it wrong to believe that the Star Wars universe works the way its shown and there aren't tons of super space ships that only exist off screen that do the "real" work?

I simply have less tolerance for contradiction than most, especially when it clearly derives from brainbugs persisting from the unresearched West End Games RPG stats.

Define "unresearched". They were making stuff up because they were told they could. Is examining the movies frame by frame in a way they were never meant to be and bringing up science no member of the original creative team cared about research?

A given, but the ship's structural integrity still failed spectacularly, to say the least. You can say all you want about cinematic perspective, but capital ships are generally well armored enough to not do that. :smalltongue:

That's just because making it vapourise was cheaper than a more realistic and detailed destruction.

The Death Star blows up in an equally stupid manner. The only satisfying destruction of a star ship is the Executor.

A sad state of affairs. I can understand not reading Star Wars novels, as all too many of them are literary garbage, but not reading any at all?

I read very little, I tend to give up if a book doesn't grab me in the first few chapters and tend to be reluctant to start anything. I also have the bizare belief that any novel over 400 pages is obviously a bloated pacing disaster and that saying something that could be said with one word with three words is not more artistic. So I tend to look at most books and decide I can't be bothered.

So NJO - is it what I'm looking for, or am I better off going down the KOTOR route?

There are only two "KotOR" novels right now and both are about a villain Sue. A few more will be published later this year or next year. If you want the old republic you need video games (which you've probably already played) or comic books (which I'd guess you're not looking for).

2. For frak's sake, the Empire/Sith have been the bad guys long enough!

Except that before Legacy of the Force, the only actual Sith villain in a Star Wars novel was Exar Kun in the Jedi Academy Trillogy, so they were hardly "over exposed".

Cristo Meyers

2009-07-01, 09:27 AM

I am so relieved that I'm not the only one that that Shadows of the Empire was a let down. Up til now this was such a huge burden to bear, and I was bearing it alone...

Late reply, but still...

I'm more surprised that there aren't more people that thought the book was a let-down. Between planting the seeds of whiny-Vader that would eventually blossom into what we would see in Ep 3, a bad Han Solo stand-in (Rendar's Heroic BSOD was a high point of the book for me, it meant he would finally shut up), and having just about every other chapter mid-way through the book be about Xizor either lusting after or actively trying to get into Leia's pants I damn near gave up. There were some high points, to be sure, but all in all I just couldn't see what was so good about this book.

Mr. Scaly

2009-07-01, 09:44 AM

Except that before Legacy of the Force, the only actual Sith villain in a Star Wars novel was Exar Kun in the Jedi Academy Trillogy, so they were hardly "over exposed".

Nitpick: you forgot Joruus C'Baoth, but he was more of a Dark Jedi, so...

Jade_Tarem

2009-07-03, 01:30 AM

Except that before Legacy of the Force, the only actual Sith villain in a Star Wars novel was Exar Kun in the Jedi Academy Trillogy, so they were hardly "over exposed".

The majority of Star Wars fans (at least, those who write letters) are not nearly so discerning about what makes a "real Sith." The EU keeps calling Palpatine and Vader Sith Lords, all these Darth-somethings show up in the Prequels (ok, two, but they get *lots* of screen time at the movies and even more in the EU), and Since Palpatine and Vader were the leaders of the Empire, everything Imperial seems to have a bit of Sith with it as well - never mind that none of those villains was very Sithy.

On top of that, it wasn't entirely clear (until Lumiya drops a big heap of irritated exposition in Betrayal, which may or may not have been a load of BS to convince Jacen to go dark - for all her talk about how Sith =/= evil, there's not much supporting evidence for that statement) what the difference was between Sith and Dark Jedi - a number of sources use the terms almost synonymously, and since every other major villian in New Republic Era EU (except in certain cases, like the X-wing novels) is a Dark Jedi (and the rest are Imperial and connected to Palpatine, who happens to be a Sith Lord or something close to it), the writers received a lot of mail urging them to write about something else. Thus, we have Yuuzhan Vong.

Closet_Skeleton

2009-07-03, 06:01 AM

Nitpick: you forgot Joruus C'Baoth, but he was more of a Dark Jedi, so...

If you count Joruus as a sith then there are plenty of dark jedi who are sith too. Except that they aren't.

Who is or isn't a sith was never defined by the novels, but there's more to Star Wars than the novels.

Mr. Scaly

2009-07-03, 09:08 AM

If you count Joruus as a sith then there are plenty of dark jedi who are sith too. Except that they aren't.

Who is or isn't a sith was never defined by the novels, but there's more to Star Wars than the novels.

I'm aware of the differences (Dark Jedi being Jedi who've turned to the Dark Side for whatever reason and Sith being Force users whose ideology and training is specifically meant to handle the Dark Side) but they're capable of pretty much the same thing so I usually lump them in the same category. Under the 'Bad ass' heading.

mangosta71

2009-07-07, 09:50 AM

I lol'd so hard. (http://hijinksensue.com/2009/07/06/a-well-reasoned-argument/)

Mitth'raw'nuruo

2009-07-21, 02:39 PM

For the record; EVERYTHING that Renegade Paladin has posted is 100% correct. I am planning to steal his library in the near future.

I only disagree with him accusing Zahn of being a minimalist. As a Grand Admiral he should have had several proper capial ships; I propise the reasion he did not are. Everything he did was hit and run tatics; he never tried to hold territory.

He was working deep in the uncharted territories. He was doing exploration (largely) and development. Destroyers would be a boon, a heavy cruiser or a dreadnought less so.

Also when T. Zahn wrote his novels starting in May 1991 there was extremely little EU content out there. And most of what was out there was extremely bad. Bad enough to make everything else even mentioned on this board as horrible look like it came from the pen of Frank Herbert.

hamishspence

2009-07-21, 02:43 PM

The comics, possibly the Glove of Darth Vader series, the first Han Solo trilogy, the Lando Calrissian trilogy, Splinter of the Mind's Eye, and various Droids and Ewoks works.

I read the first Han Solo trilogy, and while it wasn't exactly great, neither was it completely dire, as far as I could tell.

Renegade Paladin

2009-07-22, 11:41 AM

In what source? I only have the latest Starships of the Galaxy in my possesion (this is the extention of an RPG board after all) but an MC80 cruiser is clearly stated to be 400 meters shorter than an Imperial-class Star Destroyer and only tougher due to its better (regenerating) shields. If you want another official source there's Star Wars.com (http://www.starwars.com/databank/starship/moncalamaristarcruiser/index.html). That's probably an average since no two MC80s are the same, but whatever. Home One is more powerful, but atypical.
Home One and her sisters (no less than three of the class can be seen in the background during the Battle of Endor) were approximately three kilometers long. The 1200m length was pulled directly out of WEG's rear end, and doesn't even come close to being supported by the films, scaling from which yields a lower limit of 2.5km for Home One.

They're bigger than other kinds of Star Destroyer, but not the kind that actually appears in the films (okay, they're about 60 meters longer than a Venator SD, which is about the same since that length can only be an average).
Watch the Battle of Endor. For reference, here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGMvadAFqLQ) is the entire space battle cut together with the ground battle and lightsaber duel edited out. They're not all that much smaller, though the lack of perspective cues makes scaling impossible for some of the ships.

I don't see the logic in saying that the Battle of Coruscant isn't a good example of a pitched space battle because it wasn't planned.
Because it makes the battle unrepresentative of normal tactics. Neither fleet had "destroy the other fleet" as its objective. The CIS was attempting to escape with the Chancellor, and the Republic fleet was attempting to penetrate the CIS formation and rescue the Chancellor while keeping the enemy from escaping in such a way that wouldn't kill Palpatine; i.e. the "They can't escape because we blew them up from across the system" approach would be counterproductive. We know for a fact that Star Wars warships are capable of pinpoint weapons precision from hundreds of kilometers at minimum (see Thrawn employing the Chimaera's turbolasers to disable but not sink the submarine Coral Vanda from orbit while the submarine was submerged), so there is no reason to presume that chaotic, point-blank melees are the norm for starship combat.

Is it wrong to believe that the Star Wars universe works the way its shown and there aren't tons of super space ships that only exist off screen that do the "real" work?
Morally wrong? No. :smalltongue: Factually? Yes and no. The existence of the Imperial strategic fleet in the deep core is indisputable if you accept the EU at all. But it wasn't doing much, mainly because there wasn't much for heavy ships to do; the Empire's enemies didn't have any ships of their own heavier than cruiser weight after the CIS was crushed as a conventional threat. The Old Republic canonically possessed heavy warships in the form of the Mandator and Procurator classes; I see no reason why the Empire would scale down. Supposedly, Palpatine knew of the Yuuzhan Vong and was preparing the strategic reserves to deal with them.

Define "unresearched". They were making stuff up because they were told they could. Is examining the movies frame by frame in a way they were never meant to be and bringing up science no member of the original creative team cared about research?
Yes. Your editorializing notwithstanding, the movies show what they show, and later contradictions by a game company are not grounds to throw them out.

That's just because making it vapourise was cheaper than a more realistic and detailed destruction.

The Death Star blows up in an equally stupid manner. The only satisfying destruction of a star ship is the Executor.
Possibly. Or maybe the Star Destroyer was a destroyer taking fire from guns far over the caliber it was meant to repel, and the Death Stars had gigantic hypermatter reactors at their cores generating power in excess of that of a Class G star (such as our own sun) that had just eaten proton torpedoes. :smalltongue:

Closet_Skeleton

2009-07-22, 02:04 PM

Home One and her sisters (no less than three of the class can be seen in the background during the Battle of Endor) were approximately three kilometers long. The 1200m length was pulled directly out of WEG's rear end, and doesn't even come close to being supported by the films, scaling from which yields a lower limit of 2.5km for Home One.

It's still canon. It's overturnable canon, but until a canon source states a definate length other than 1200m, it's undisputable (at least by random geeks on the net).

Because it makes the battle unrepresentative of normal tactics. Neither fleet had "destroy the other fleet" as its objective.

That implies that there's such things as "normal tactics". Tactics differ based on your objective. The Battle of Coruscant may have had normal tactics for the kind of objective required.

Morally wrong? No. :smalltongue: Factually? Yes and no. The existence of the Imperial strategic fleet in the deep core is indisputable if you accept the EU at all.

Accepting parts of the canon and ignoring others is called fanon, even when a canon has so many inconsitancies that it's impossible not to do so.

Yes. Your editorializing notwithstanding, the movies show what they show,

The movies show the Home One's interior hangers being completely incompatible with the model representing the outside of the ship. Is it canon that the Home One is a TARDIS?

and later contradictions by a game company are not grounds to throw them out.

A games company given express permission to define whatever they wanted.

Possibly. Or maybe the Star Destroyer was a destroyer taking fire from guns far over the caliber it was meant to repel, and the Death Stars had gigantic hypermatter reactors at their cores generating power in excess of that of a Class G star (such as our own sun) that had just eaten proton torpedoes. :smalltongue:

One of those is contradicted by some canon sources, the other isn't.

I frankly find the idea that a spaceship in a fictional galaxy in a fictional past should confirm to modern day naval terminology rediculous.

hamishspence

2009-07-22, 02:07 PM

Dervag

2009-07-22, 02:23 PM

For the record; EVERYTHING that Renegade Paladin has posted is 100% correct. I am planning to steal his library in the near future.

I only disagree with him accusing Zahn of being a minimalist. As a Grand Admiral he should have had several proper capial ships; I propise the reasion he did not are. Everything he did was hit and run tatics; he never tried to hold territory.

He was working deep in the uncharted territories. He was doing exploration (largely) and development. Destroyers would be a boon, a heavy cruiser or a dreadnought less so.Yes, but since he was working deep in a fairly large uncharted territory, you'd think that if all he had was destroyer-weight ships, he'd at least have a lot of them. If there were only a handful of Imperial officers at his rank, you'd think he'd have at least a few percent of the overall fleet's tonnage under his command. If all that tonnage is divided among star destroyers, I'd expect him to have at least a few dozen given the known territorial size of the Empire and a rough estimate of its manufacturing capacity.

Renegade Paladin

2009-07-22, 02:24 PM

"canon" evolves- Super star destroyers have gone from 9.9 km in some sources (novels, Ship Guides) to 19 Km in the most recent source (Starships of the Galaxy)

Mon Cal cruisers, however, have remained consistantly the same size (1200 m in every source)

Home One is described as very slightly better than a normal MC60 cruiser, but still roughly same size.
Because the Executor class was victim to the same rear end pulling as the Home One. The movies show roughly 19km (16.5 is absolute bare minimum); the difference is that someone bothered to pay attention and correct WEG's blatant error. Someone way back when they were making up numbers for the games decided that the Executor was five times as long as a Star Destroyer right out of thin air, even though it is clearly much larger than that in every shot it's shown in, from its introduction in TESB right up until its destruction at Endor.

Here is the first full-length shot of the Executor in The Empire Strikes Back.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/RenegadePaladin/Star%20Wars%20evidence/sw_executor_01.jpg

Note how one of the Star Destroyers is superimposed over the Executor, meaning that we know for a fact it is closer to the camera view than the capital ship it is escorting. This means that there can be no trick of perspective making the Executor seem larger in relation to that vessel than it actually is (although the reverse might be true).

Now, this doesn't involve paying minute, frame-by-frame attention. You can look at it and easily tell with the naked eye that it is not a mere five times the one-mile length of its escort. I have to question if the person who came up with that figure even watched the movies at all.

hamishspence

2009-07-22, 02:32 PM

the games, the encyclopedia books, etc.

16.5 km fits the Eclipse (described in the comic as 10 miles long).

Jerec's ship in Dark Forces 2 is considered an Executor class, despite its slightly nonstandard appearance, and certainly fits the size.

Renegade Paladin

2009-07-22, 02:36 PM

See my edit. The movies irrefutably put the lie to the shorter figures.

hamishspence

2009-07-22, 02:41 PM

yes- only way to justify it would have been if they were Victory Star destroyers- which they are not.

Are there any good pics showing Home One as "clearly much larger" than the standard MC80 at the Battle of Endor? Or the MC80 as "clearly bigger than 1200m" by reference to a Star Destroyer?

I'm a bit more skeptical about the "160 km Death star- 800 km Death star 2" argument from the films- seems a bit implausible for the size to jump that much.

Renegade Paladin

2009-07-22, 03:12 PM

Well, Endor had Earth-like atmosphere and gravity, meaning that it has to be at least roughly the size of Earth. We know the rough orbital altitude of the Death Star, so it can be scaled against the Forest Moon. *Shrug*

As for the MC80, not that I have. Home One, however, was not an MC80, or if it did carry that designation, then the Mon Calamari must have a very loose definition of "ship class."

In the video of the Battle of Endor I linked to, at 4:17 you can see two star cruisers, one of them the "winged" Liberty type, in the background moving into the Imperial fleet. (Incidentally, this is also the point where the Falcon buzzes a ship that is clearly of a different class than the Imperial Star Destroyer, possibly the communications ship mentioned in the RotJ novelization.) Since they're viewed from bow-on and the Star Destroyers are viewed from the stern, there is no way to scale length from this point, though their beams (width) appear to be at least comparable to the Star Destroyers they're closing on. They appear to be more distant than the two Destroyers (the Liberty's port "wing" tip appears to be eclipsed by one of them, though it's hard to tell at YouTube's resolution), though how much farther away is hard to tell.

Overall, it is more difficult to scale Mon Cal ships in general than it is Imperial warships, mainly because Lucas was trying to impress upon the audience how fearsome the Imperial armada was, and so gave it long shots that the Rebel fleet never received. Dr. Curtis Saxton (http://theforce.net/swtc/mcc.html) has done about as thorough an analysis as can be accomplished from what we've given.

mangosta71

2009-07-22, 03:21 PM

Death Stars had gigantic hypermatter reactors at their cores generating power in excess of that of a Class G star (such as our own sun) that had just eaten proton torpedoes. :smalltongue:

I'm still not clear on how those proton torpedoes made the abrupt 90 degree turn to go down the exhaust pipe that they had to do.

I frankly find the idea that a spaceship in a fictional galaxy in a fictional past should confirm to modern day naval terminology rediculous.

Seconded. I've always thought of the Star Destroyer designation as meaning "a ship that can destroy stars" rather than the small escort vessels that bear the destroyer designation in modern navies. Remember, among the Imperials, it's a capital warship. Modern navies, not so much.

hamishspence

2009-07-22, 03:22 PM

Given the presnce of giant Gorax on the Forest Moon (and the fact that large moons can hold atmospheres) I might put it as quite a bit smaller.

Similarly, depending how far away they were in the short where they come out of hyperspace near the moon, the Death Star can look bigger than it is.

According to Starships of the Galaxy, they do have a fairly loose class, and it is listed as an MC80. Question was, is it much bigger than a normal one?

Renegade Paladin

2009-07-22, 03:29 PM

I'm still not clear on how those proton torpedoes made the abrupt 90 degree turn to go down the exhaust pipe that they had to do.
You mean this turn?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/RenegadePaladin/Star%20Wars%20evidence/Protontorpedo.jpg

:smallbiggrin:

Seconded. I've always thought of the Star Destroyer designation as meaning "a ship that can destroy stars" rather than the small escort vessels that bear the destroyer designation in modern navies. Remember, among the Imperials, it's a capital warship. Modern navies, not so much.
Your interpretation is a little off, due to the simple fact that a Star Destroyer can't destroy stars, or come even close. If they could, there would be no need for the Death Star; they could just send in a commonplace warship and take out the entire solar system. :smalltongue:

mangosta71

2009-07-22, 04:06 PM

You mean this turn?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/RenegadePaladin/Star%20Wars%20evidence/Protontorpedo.jpg

Yeah. It's pretty clear that they're skimming along the surface of the Death Star up to that point. The exhaust port runs straight down to the center. It's been a while since I saw the movies, so my memory is a little fuzzy, but as I recall the port looked like it was on the side of a bit of structure that was standing up from the surface, and the torpedoes had to turn after they passed through the opening whereas in the picture they appear to turn before going through, but either way there's certainly a 90 degree turn involved. If it was an opening on the surface of the roughly spherical surface, why was the trench run necessary? Why not go straight in? Or, better yet, use that precision that warships were capable of to send a few turbolaser bolts down it?

Your interpretation is a little off, due to the simple fact that a Star Destroyer can't destroy stars, or come even close. If they could, there would be no need for the Death Star; they could just send in a commonplace warship and take out the entire solar system. :smalltongue:

But the point was that it's a capital warship. Granted that it's not literally capable of destroying stars, but KotOR makes it pretty clear that the weapons on a standard warship are capable to pulverizing a planet's surface. The Death Star cannon simply took step of blowing the whole planet into dust. Either way, the world is uninhabitable, and for all intents and purposes destroyed.

pendell

2009-07-23, 01:27 PM

Guys,

I continually read modern non-fiction press -- mainstream press, like the washington post -- which refer to naval vessels at sea as 'battleships'. Despite the fact that the last battleship was deactivated .. ten years ago? More?

I note further that George Lucas is neither a naval strategist a la Mahan nor a hard SF guy like Larry Niven. He is a spinner of myths, a teller of tales to entertain young and old alike.

This is further confirm if you listen to his commentary on the EP III DVD where he tells us that the battle of Coruscant in Ep. III is what future space warfare would be 'really like', instead of little fighters as in Ep. IV. And of course any hard SF fan listening to that will spit out whetever beverage she is drinking, because hard SF fans know that Napoleanic slug fests by monsters in visual range is REALLY unlikely.

Consequently , I suggest he chose the name 'destroyer' not because it connotes an escort or small multi-purpose craft in modern naval parlance, but because it sounds badass. The name was chosen for the effect on the audience. "Star Destroyer" is the name of the vessel, which, according to the EU, is supposed to be an all-in-one planetary subjection package, combining the functions of an aircraft carrier, a battleship, and a troop transport all in one hull. Players of the X-wing, Tie Fighter, and X-wing Alliance games know that the traditional destroyer role in those games is filled by the corvette, while the Star Destroyer is typically the centerpiece of an Imperial task force, and is usually the end boss of a level.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Mitth'raw'nuruo

2009-07-24, 01:36 AM

Ahh Star Wars Technical Commentaries. Have not seen anyone cite that in a long time....:smallcool:

And don't hate on WEG to much; sure they messed up badly on the large things; Misjudging the length of a ship; but on a whole they were much more away of the nuances of Star Wars then WotC is. It is sad that two editions later, I still go back to use their stuff because it ties into the EU material much better. (WoTC ties into...X Box games).

Alot of their books are actually a very good read; if you like picking up random bigs of SW trivia. The Complete Unofficial SW Encyclopedia would look much less complete without WEG.

Used to be alot of good information out there; but now with Wookiepedia; and re-editing to make it fit the new cannnon (which I do not understand because Lucas washed his hands of EU; so IMO all EU should tie together like it was intended and leave rewriting of history to historians)

Renegade Paladin

2009-07-24, 11:39 AM

Given the presnce of giant Gorax on the Forest Moon (and the fact that large moons can hold atmospheres) I might put it as quite a bit smaller.
The apparent gravity was in the vicinity of 1 G, and Earth used to support dinosaurs as well as many other terrestrial creatures much larger than the largest specimens of today. Neither thing you cite is conclusive.

RabbitHoleLost

2009-07-24, 12:05 PM

Cristo Meyers

2009-07-24, 12:15 PM

mangosta71

2009-07-24, 12:17 PM

Timothy Zahn, the Thrawn Trilogy: Heir to the Empire and two others that I can't remember off-hand.

Dark Force Rising and The Last Command.

This trilogy constitutes the entirety of my EU experience.

Zevox

2009-07-24, 01:19 PM

Erm.
I'm sorry to just interject in the thread, but I've recently gotten myself back into my old childhood obsession that is Star Wars, and, while I've been touching here and there in the EU, I'm really not all that knowledgeable of it.
I've skimmed through this thread, but I'm still at a loss.
Is there any particular place or series or author that I should seek out first, or is it fine to start anywhere?
I'm sorry for being almost completely unknowledgeable, but any prodding in the right direction would be much appreciated.
The Thrawn Trilogy is definitely the place to start with the EU, in my opinion.

Anything else by Zahn is also good. The Hand of Thrawn Duology (Spectre of the Past and Vision of the Future), Survivor's Quest, and Outbound Flight are the ones I'm aware of. (Zahn also writes non-Star Wars scifi books. I've read and enjoyed his Conqueror's Trilogy and The Icarus Hunt myself.)

The X-Wing series is also good, unless you only care about the Jedi, since it doesn't really bother with them (though that's a big reason why I liked it - it went beyond the constant focus on the Jedi or the original movie characters that the rest of the EU generally has). Books in it are: Rogue Squadron, Wedge's Gamble, The Krytos Trap, the Bacta War, Wraith Squadron, Iron Fist, Solo Command, Isard's Revenge, and Starfighters of Adumar. Roughly, the first four and the three after those constitute their own two sub-series within the overall series, and the last two are stand-alones, but ones that you really have to have read at least the first four to enjoy.

It's been a while since I read most other pre-New Jedi Order Star Wars novels, but I remember that the Corellian Trilogy (Ambush at Corellia, Assault at Selonia, and Showdown at Centerpoint) deals with a fairly major event that does come up in later books. The Young Jedi Knights and Junior Jedi Knights series may also interest you, as they deal with the training of Han and Leia's children as Jedi. There are a number of others, but they're generally not terribly important, and in my opinion mostly uninteresting.

After those, you get into the more recent, huge events. The New Jedi Order series is the biggest the EU has ever had, around 20 books long, dealing with a galaxy-altering event (one other book you may want to read before that, as it becomes relevant during it but is not itself part of the NJO series, is Rogue Planet). After that you have the Dark Nest Trilogy and the nine-book Legacy of the Force series, the biggest event of the EU other than the New Jedi Order. I'm aware there's also another nine-book series currently being written, but I haven't gotten into that one just yet myself.

Chronologically, the books I mentioned in this post go like so:
<Episode 1>
- Rogue Planet, by Greg Bear (I'd recommend reading only as a prequel to the New Jedi Order series.)
- Outbound Flight, by Timothy Zahn (I'd recommend reading only after the Thrawn Trilogy and Hand of Thrawn Duology, as some of it's most central characters are ones Zahn introduced in those.)
<The other movies.>
- X-Wing series (through Solo Command), by Michael Stackpole and Aaron Allston.
- The Thrawn Trilogy (Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, and The Last Command), by Timothy Zahn.
- X-Wing Series (Isard's Revenge and Starfighters of Adumar), by Michael Stackpole.
- The Corellian Trilogy (Ambush at Corellia, Assault at Selonia, and Showdown at Centerpoint), by Roger Macbride Allen.
- The Hand of Thrawn Duology (Spectre of the Past and Vision of the Future), by Timothy Zahn.
- Survivor's Quest by Timothy Zahn.
- The Young Jedi Knights series, by a couple of different authors.
- The Junior Jedi Knights series, by a couple of different authors.
- The New Jedi Order series, by many authors.
- The Dark Nest Trilogy (The Joiner King, The Unseen Queen, and The Swarm War), by Troy Denning.
- The Legacy of the Force series, by Troy Denning, Aaron Allston, and Karen Travis.

Zevox

Renegade Paladin

2009-07-24, 01:28 PM

Beware the Corellian Trilogy; while the events therein are indeed referenced in other books, as written they're mind-blowingly stupid. The entire New Republic is caught with its pants down and has to borrow four dinky system patrol craft from Bakura to save the day because for some reason the local government was working on assault technology designed to defeat interdiction fields even though their navy rarely even leaves their own system and as such has little use for such a capability in the first place. Because as we all know, a galaxy-spanning government wouldn't have warships at a major sector capital to deal with the problem themselves. Oh wait.

13_CBS

2009-07-24, 02:11 PM

Renegade Paladin

2009-07-24, 11:05 PM

Oh, it's a pretty well-written story. Better than a lot of other EU, actually; it just completely ignores the implications of a nation of the scope and power of the Republic to make the story work. It wasn't necessary to do so, but it was easier, and MacBride Allen took the easy way out.

Spoilers for the Corellian Trilogy follow.

There were any number of ways to neutralize the Republic fleet that should have been at Corellia. Manufacturing an emergency elsewhere requiring the sector fleet's attention before raising Centerpoint's interdiction field would have been the easiest by far. Subverting the entire fleet would have been extremely unlikely and would have ruined the plot in another way by leaving a large conventional force in the terrorists' hands, which would radically alter their behavior, but with the planetary repulsors as weapons they could conceivably have caused major damage to fleet assets in a surprise attack. But instead, he chose to have a sector capital and major shipyard undefended. :smallyuk:

RabbitHoleLost

2009-07-25, 01:17 AM

Thank you all, but especially Zevox.
I'll start my hunt soon :smallsmile:

hamishspence

2009-07-25, 02:50 AM

Death Star apparently won the "best star wars book" content in Star Wars magazine.

It is a pretty good book- shows why "relatively decent people" can support the Empire, and what they might do when it proves itself very evil to them.

Dervag

2009-07-25, 02:58 AM

I'm still not clear on how those proton torpedoes made the abrupt 90 degree turn to go down the exhaust pipe that they had to do.Very good inertialess drive.

Seconded. I've always thought of the Star Destroyer designation as meaning "a ship that can destroy stars" rather than the small escort vessels that bear the destroyer designation in modern navies. Remember, among the Imperials, it's a capital warship. Modern navies, not so much.Another possibility, since it's fairly clear that Star Destroyers cannot in fact destroy stars (which would make the Death Star superfluous):

"Destroyer" comes from the term "torpedo boat destroyer," because the first destroyers were small, very fast gunships designed to chase down even smaller, not-so-fast torpedo boats before they could torpedo a fleet's line of battle. Likewise, Star Wars ships classified as 'destroyers' might be the simplification of another class that was a 'something-or-other destroyer' many years ago, so long ago that the original mission of destroying something-or-others has been forgotten in favor of making the ships generalized fighting platforms.

A second possibility:
Perhaps "star destroyer" is etymologically equivalent to "dreadnought." At some time in the past of the Star Wars galaxy, a revolutionary new ship was built using new core design principles such as the wedge-shaped hull, command tower, and so on. The ship was named Star Destroyer in the same sense that someone might name a ship Invincible; simple bombastic overoptimism.

This ship was cruiser-strength, in the classical sense of a "cruiser:" large enough to operate independently of fleets, long-ranged enough to strike deep into enemy territory for missions like commerce raiding and reconnaissance, and fast enough to avoid clashes with the enemy's heaviest units. Cruisers are what you send to cruise around disrupting the enemy's shipping lanes and logistics; battleships are what you send to fight a major pitched battle.

But Star Destroyer was such a revolutionary cruiser class that it changed everything; the fundamental capabilities of the cruiser increased by a factor of two or more. Now, all cruiser-weight ships built to that general design pattern are known as "star destroyers," just as for years all capital ships armed with an all-big gun armament in three or more turrets were known as "dreadnoughts."
___________

If it was an opening on the surface of the roughly spherical surface, why was the trench run necessary? Why not go straight in? Or, better yet, use that precision that warships were capable of to send a few turbolaser bolts down it?The trench run was necessary because they couldn't fly slow enough for precise targeting in the very unfavorable EW environment around the Death Star. They needed to get within a distance of several kilometers (maybe tens of kilometers) to line up their torpedo shot, and they needed the trench for cover because the trench was the only place within twenty kilometers of the exhaust port not covered by overwhelming defense fire.

But the point was that it's a capital warship. Granted that it's not literally capable of destroying stars, but KotOR makes it pretty clear that the weapons on a standard warship are capable to pulverizing a planet's surface. The Death Star cannon simply took step of blowing the whole planet into dust. Either way, the world is uninhabitable, and for all intents and purposes destroyed.When the Empire does what Darth Malak did to Taris, they call it a "Base Delta Zero," and it's a lot more thorough. But while a star destroyer clearly has enough firepower to do that, it doesn't have enough firepower to do anything to a star.
________

Spoilers for the Corellian Trilogy follow.

...But instead, he chose to have a sector capital and major shipyard undefended. :smallyuk:To make matters worse, that's in a context where we know that various powers like to go in for deep strikes; the fleet of your enemy could turn up anywhere, as demonstrated by the CIS fleet attack on Coruscant or the Death Star's ability to singlehandedly dominate the galaxy by swiftly crushing rebel planets wherever they may be.

In Star Wars, it is impossible to defend anything except by leaving your forces sitting right on top of it. Hyperspace travel is just too fast and too hard (impossible?) to intercept.

Mitth'raw'nuruo

2009-07-25, 04:24 AM

Timothy Zahn as also recently written Allegiance which IMO is his best non-Thrawn Star Wars book.

A.C. Crispin wrote the Han Solo Trilogy; perhaps the 2nd best Trilogy in EU. It is the only work (to my knowlege) where no Jedi appear - it shows how effectively the Jedi were removed from the public consiouseness.

Death Star was.... disappointing. It has some very good moments, and some of the best charters written in a very long time. But it has some massive; glaring flaws. (at one point during the construction, 400 X-wings attack the Death Star. It is doubtful that the entire Rebel allaince possesed 400 X-wings. IF this however, does not bother you; then yes; it one of the best stand alone books.

I, Jedi. by Micheal A. Sackpole is also a very well written book.

Renegade Paladin

2009-07-25, 10:38 AM

I agree on I, Jedi. A lot of people hate it because the character of Corran Horn is perceived as a Mary Sue for the author, but I've never really seen it.

Philistine

2009-07-25, 01:00 PM

I agree on I, Jedi. A lot of people hate it because the character of Corran Horn is perceived as a Mary Sue for the author, but I've never really seen it.

I didn't hate the book, but it did irk me. That's mostly because I didn't see the necessity, or desirability, of making Corran Horn a Jedi in the first place - I thought the X-Wing books had been rolling along just fine up until then, with not a single Jedi in sight.

Dervag

2009-07-26, 08:39 PM

Zevox

2009-07-26, 09:17 PM

Timothy Zahn as also recently written Allegiance which IMO is his best non-Thrawn Star Wars book.
Ah, I'd forgotten about that one, but I do have it now that you mention it. It is pretty good too, though I'd disagree on how good compared to his other work. Mostly because some of the things he had Mara doing seemed rather over the top for her age and (presumed) level of skill/training (unless she somehow lost a lot of skill between then and her later appearances).

I didn't hate the book, but it did irk me. That's mostly because I didn't see the necessity, or desirability, of making Corran Horn a Jedi in the first place - I thought the X-Wing books had been rolling along just fine up until then, with not a single Jedi in sight.
I can understand that. At least he did stay only minimally trained as a Jedi for a long time, though. And even after reaching the status of a Master, he still can't do telekinesis.

Zevox

Philistine

2009-07-26, 10:44 PM

Yeah. One of the most significant problems with the Star Wars setting is the tendency to glorify Force users and make them the center of the universe to an even greater degree than their powers would normally indicate. Of course, since the whole thing started as a sort of heroic tragedy/hero's journey centered around a family of Force adepts, that's probably to be expected...

Oh, absolutely. And when I'm in a mood to be fair, I recognize that the Force is THE unique, setting-defining feature of the entire franchise. It's only natural then that EU writers want to incorporate it into their own tales.

On the other hand, much of the existing material (basically the entire OT as well as quite a bit of EU stuff) is set in time periods within the setting where the Jedi (and possibly other Force users) have been hunted nearly to extinction. And the greatest figure I've ever seen for Jedi numbers, even at their height, is about ten thousand - which is significantly fewer than one Jedi per inhabited star system in the Galaxy Far, Far Away. So there must be an absolute ton of stories in that universe that don't revolve around Jedi, because even in the good times a lot of people will go their entire lives without ever seeing a Jedi in the flesh.

pendell

2009-07-27, 08:10 AM

Oh, absolutely. And when I'm in a mood to be fair, I recognize that the Force is THE unique, setting-defining feature of the entire franchise. It's only natural then that EU writers want to incorporate it into their own tales.

On the other hand, much of the existing material (basically the entire OT as well as quite a bit of EU stuff) is set in time periods within the setting where the Jedi (and possibly other Force users) have been hunted nearly to extinction. And the greatest figure I've ever seen for Jedi numbers, even at their height, is about ten thousand - which is significantly fewer than one Jedi per inhabited star system in the Galaxy Far, Far Away. So there must be an absolute ton of stories in that universe that don't revolve around Jedi, because even in the good times a lot of people will go their entire lives without ever seeing a Jedi in the flesh.

Quite. That's why I like Karen Travis' Republic Commando franchise. Because although Jango Fett is an amoral sociopath who really deserves a bullet to the head, the fundamental fact remains that he -- an unmodified human -- took on Obi-Wan Kenobi, no average Jedi, in single combat and came off about even. He later fought him in space where the Jedi seem to have less of an advantage and pwned him quite thoroughly. That's freakin' awesome.

RC also addresses some other issues that don't come up to the front often elsewhere -- for instance, do the Jedi ever really think about the fact that they're leading a slave army? An army of beings who have had their lives and futures stolen taken from them, destined to die on an alien battlefield for a society they have no stake in?

I found it very thought-provoking, not least because the Jedi are not the all-wise, all-powerful Mary Sues some writers have made them out to be. I grant that the Mandalorians get a bit Mary-sueish themselves, but given what they're having to be counterpoints to, I believe it's forgivable in this case.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Renegade Paladin

2009-07-27, 10:01 AM

Philistine

2009-07-27, 12:08 PM

I, on the other hand, don't like Republic Commando, because of Traviss' bizarre idea that a force smaller than the current U.S. military can be a credible fighting force on a galactic scale in a galaxy with over a million inhabited star systems and quintillions of inhabitants. And her tendency to threaten people with bodily harm over the Internet when this small discrepancy is pointed out. :smallannoyed:

I don't understand your problem with this. The current US military isn't Mandalorian-trained; the clones are. So of course they're enough - the only mystery is why they need so many.
/snark

pendell

2009-07-27, 02:28 PM

Renegade Paladin,

This may be so, but did you read Triple Zero? That is an *excellent* urban counterterrorism thriller, SW 'flavor' notwithstanding.

What's this about her threatening people with bodily harm? Did she do this to you, personally? Or did you read it somewhere?

I don't give SW numbers any credence in any case. How many ISDs in the imperial navy? 25000 at it's peak? And just how many inhabited stars are there in the GFFA? Millions? Billions? And yet the defeat of just a small number of those at Endor -- if I'm reading the canon correctly, the rebels actually lost more ships -- was enough to tip the entire galactic balance from Empire to New Republic?

It's a story. I enjoy RC as stories about soldiers engaged in small unit actions, in counterterrorism, and in other things around the world. The big picture stuff is hosed anyway, and that's not Travis' fault.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Renegade Paladin

2009-07-27, 02:44 PM

What's this about her threatening people with bodily harm? Did she do this to you, personally? Or did you read it somewhere?
I have observed her to do so; it's not like only the threatened party can read public forum posts.

Mitth'raw'nuruo

2009-07-27, 03:07 PM

Zevox: Mara Jade did lose a good bit of her force related skills when the Emperor died.

Philistine

2009-07-27, 06:22 PM

Quite. That's why I like Karen Travis' Republic Commando franchise. Because although Jango Fett is an amoral sociopath who really deserves a bullet to the head, the fundamental fact remains that he -- an unmodified human -- took on Obi-Wan Kenobi, no average Jedi, in single combat and came off about even. He later fought him in space where the Jedi seem to have less of an advantage and pwned him quite thoroughly. That's freakin' awesome.

RC also addresses some other issues that don't come up to the front often elsewhere -- for instance, do the Jedi ever really think about the fact that they're leading a slave army? An army of beings who have had their lives and futures stolen taken from them, destined to die on an alien battlefield for a society they have no stake in?

I found it very thought-provoking, not least because the Jedi are not the all-wise, all-powerful Mary Sues some writers have made them out to be. I grant that the Mandalorians get a bit Mary-sueish themselves, but given what they're having to be counterpoints to, I believe it's forgivable in this case.

Respectfully,

Brian P.
Coming back to this.

See, this is exactly the sort of thing that gets my dander up. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6120979&postcount=10) Kenobi isn't just some Jedi mook, he's a Master - and what's more, he's considered one of the Order's better swordsmen. He is, quite literally, supernaturally fast and strong thanks to the Force, which also allows him to anticipate his opponent's actions. And yet Jango Fett can fight him to a draw in hand-to-hand combat, because he's a Mandalorian and Mandalorians are Just That Awesome.

Whatever. IMO, the films clearly establish that the Jedi are not all-wise and all-powerful. That even comes up in the OT; and in the PT... hoooo-eeee! If some EU writers can't seem to get their heads around that, well, they're probably crap writers and I wasn't going to bother reading them anyway. I really don't see why the setting needs another, even sillier bunch of Mary Sues introduced just to rail on the Jedi.

AstralFire

2009-07-27, 07:27 PM

I've never really liked the Mandalorians for this reason. It's not that non-Jedi can't be capable of giving a Jedi problems for me - it's just how it's presented. I've always subscribed to the viewpoint that the Force isn't magic, the Force is part of everything that lives - so anyone who is very good is relying on the Force somehow, in subtle ways. Subtle ways, which to me means a reliance on staying at range and using unorthodox tricks, not going toe to toe with a Jedi that exhibits supernatural strength, has the best melee weapon ever created, and can make the most of his intuition on your feelings.

Vong I excuse because They Use Different Rules. But Mandalorians are from our galaxy.

Thrawn183

2009-07-27, 07:53 PM

I don't give SW numbers any credence in any case. How many ISDs in the imperial navy? 25000 at it's peak? And just how many inhabited stars are there in the GFFA? Millions? Billions? And yet the defeat of just a small number of those at Endor -- if I'm reading the canon correctly, the rebels actually lost more ships -- was enough to tip the entire galactic balance from Empire to New Republic?

I think the key wasn't the number of ships the empire lost, it was the death of the emperor himself. We know from the x-wing series, that before the rebels even attacked Coruscant, Warlord Zsinj and Teradoc were already around and possessing significant power. Essentially, the empire started to break apart at the seams the moment the second death star blew.

Renegade Paladin

2009-07-27, 09:12 PM

Whatever. IMO, the films clearly establish that the Jedi are not all-wise and all-powerful. That even comes up in the OT; and in the PT... hoooo-eeee! If some EU writers can't seem to get their heads around that, well, they're probably crap writers and I wasn't going to bother reading them anyway. I really don't see why the setting needs another, even sillier bunch of Mary Sues introduced just to rail on the Jedi.
That's the other thing; Traviss hates Jedi to the point that she subscribes to a conspiracy theory stating that the Jedi were themselves manipulating events so as to depose the duly elected Chancellor and take control of the Republic... and only happened to be beaten to it by Palpatine. :smallyuk: She wrote some article about it in Star Wars Insider, I think; I'll have to find it.

Zevox

2009-07-27, 09:21 PM

Zevox: Mara Jade did lose a good bit of her force related skills when the Emperor died.
Why? I know Thrawn once speculated that the Emperor used Force Meditation or something akin to it to enhance the fleet at Endor - hence why they fell apart and lost so badly after his death - but surely he couldn't do that clear across the Galaxy, which he'd have to be doing for his death to have affected her that much.

Zevox

Dervag

2009-07-27, 09:22 PM

I don't understand your problem with this. The current US military isn't Mandalorian-trained; the clones are. So of course they're enough - the only mystery is why they need so many.
/snarkCautionary tale: remember what happened to the Spartans after they won the Peloponnesian War and effectively conquered Greece.

They were never the same again.

Yes, I know your tongue was firmly in cheek. I just thought it was relevant.

Coming back to this.

See, this is exactly the sort of thing that gets my dander up. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6120979&postcount=10) Kenobi isn't just some Jedi mook, he's a Master - and what's more, he's considered one of the Order's better swordsmen. He is, quite literally, supernaturally fast and strong thanks to the Force, which also allows him to anticipate his opponent's actions. And yet Jango Fett can fight him to a draw in hand-to-hand combat, because he's a Mandalorian and Mandalorians are Just That Awesome.Remember, Jango Fett was specifically chosen as the best non-Jedi warrior in the galaxy. The best humanoid fighter out of all those quadrillions of beings, equipped with some of the best weapons any humanoid fighter could use.

By contrast, Obi-Wan is a master of the Force, but a Jedi Master spends a great deal of his time and energy restraining darker impulses and studying things not directly related to fighting. He is a great warrior, but he is far from the deadliest warrior that someone with his level of Force power could be, if it were possible to master the Force without all that meditation and training.

In any situation but a melee in which Jango had the advantages of his equipment, Obi-Wan would probably have been far superior. But the situation on Kamino played right to Jango's greatest strengths, without activating Kenobi's greatest strengths.

Why? I know Thrawn once speculated that the Emperor used Force Meditation or something akin to it to enhance the fleet at Endor - hence why they fell apart and lost so badly after his death - but surely he couldn't do that clear across the Galaxy, which he'd have to be doing for his death to have affected her that much.

ZevoxA lot of it was the mental trauma she got after Palpatine's death, I suspect. That could have unbalanced her, confused her feelings, and filled her with a dangerous obsession for revenge... all of which would disrupt her Force abilities. Even Dark Siders need to be able to maintain command of themselves to use their power.

Reverent-One

2009-07-27, 09:25 PM

That's the other thing; Traviss hates Jedi to the point that she subscribes to a conspiracy theory stating that the Jedi were themselves manipulating events so as to depose the duly elected Chancellor and take control of the Republic... and only happened to be beaten to it by Palpatine. :smallyuk: She wrote some article about it in Star Wars Insider, I think; I'll have to find it.

Well, that's not how she puts it. (http://www.karentraviss.com/html/jedi.htm)

Zevox

2009-07-27, 09:34 PM

Even Dark Siders need to be able to maintain command of themselves to use their power.
That's not what I recall. Quite the contrary, maintaining strict control of yourself is purely a Jedi thing. For the "dark siders," giving in to their emotions is how they access the force.

Of course, I may simply be remembering Vergere's explanation of the Force without the Light Side/Dark Side stuff, which I've always thought was a more interesting, and frankly better way to work the Force. I'm still annoyed that the canon went back to the simplistic Light Side/Dark Side split there...

Zevox

Mando Knight

2009-07-27, 09:38 PM

Remember, Jango Fett was specifically chosen as the best non-Jedi warrior in the galaxy. The best humanoid fighter out of all those quadrillions of beings, equipped with some of the best weapons any humanoid fighter could use.

By contrast, Obi-Wan is a master of the Force, but a Jedi Master spends a great deal of his time and energy restraining darker impulses and studying things not directly related to fighting. He is a great warrior, but he is far from the deadliest warrior that someone with his level of Force power could be, if it were possible to master the Force without all that meditation and training.

In any situation but a melee in which Jango had the advantages of his equipment, Obi-Wan would probably have been far superior. But the situation on Kamino played right to Jango's greatest strengths, without activating Kenobi's greatest strengths.

Also, Obi-Wan wanted to apprehend Fett (what he intended to do with him afterward I have no idea), and doesn't have a killer's mentality, so he didn't use the Force as much as he could have to influence the fight.

Thrawn183

2009-07-27, 10:09 PM

Why? I know Thrawn once speculated that the Emperor used Force Meditation or something akin to it to enhance the fleet at Endor - hence why they fell apart and lost so badly after his death - but surely he couldn't do that clear across the Galaxy, which he'd have to be doing for his death to have affected her that much.

Zevox

When the emperor died he implanted a false vision into Mara Jade of Luke and Vader killing the Emperor together. She subconciously suppressed her connection to the force so that she'd stop being controlled by the hatred of the vision. (Beginning spoiler here!) When she first finds Luke floating in space, she's really unhappy that she used the force. She knew it meant that she was going to start having the nightmares and start to lose control again. She actually thought that she was going to have to stop working for Talon Karrde.

Zevox

2009-07-27, 10:12 PM

When the emperor died he implanted a false vision into Mara Jade of Luke and Vader killing the Emperor together. She subconciously suppressed her connection to the force so that she'd stop being controlled by the hatred of the vision. (Beginning spoiler here!) When she first finds Luke floating in space, she's really unhappy that she used the force. She knew it meant that she was going to start having the nightmares and start to lose control again. She actually thought that she was going to have to stop working for Talon Karrde.
Knew that first sentence, but I'd forgotten the rest. I recall it now that you mention it though. Makes much more sense now.

Zevox

Renegade Paladin

2009-07-27, 11:16 PM

Well, that's not how she puts it. (http://www.karentraviss.com/html/jedi.htm)
Ah, yes. But you see, "how she puts it" isn't putting it at all. Her entire answer deflects the question and launches into a massive ad hominem against the questioner.

Perhaps it's a misnomer to say she hates the Jedi, as she says, but saying that doesn't invalidate the intent behind the question; she has a problem with the concept even if hate is too strong a word, and rather than address the reasons behind this, she attacks the person asking the question. And to top it off, she's wrong even about her most basic assertion; the Jedi are consistently shown to treat the clones under their command as people to be cared for, protected, and to foster friendships with.

And she even does this in her novels. Let's take a look at page 161 of her novel Order 66.
The claim of quadrillions, quintillions, and even septillions of Separatist battle droids is so ludicrous that we'd rush to debunk it if someone didn't have a vested interest in making us believe it. Nothing adds up--literally. Do you know how big a quadrillion is? Let's use the Galactic standard notation--a thousand million million. A quintillion? A million quadrillions. A septillion? A billion quadrillions. Any coalition capable of producing even quadrillions of any machine could roll over the Republic in a few days. And the amount of materials and energy needed to produce and move even a quadrillion droids is immense--it would drain star systems. Either our government is composed of innumerate idiots, or it's inflating the threat way beyond the average citizen's math skills so that it can justify the war and where it's heading.
--Hirib Bassot, current affairs pundit, speaking on HNE shortly before being found dead at home from alleged abuse of contaminated glitterstim.
First, she's off by a factor of a thousand; a quintillion is a thousand quadrillions, not a million. Secondly, this is a transparent direct shot at real-world commentators and even other authors who use realistic production numbers for a densely-inhabited entire galaxy. Third, the attribution suggests a conspiracy to silence him, but it really makes sense; to be in the Star Wars galaxy and not realize your culture's own production capacity means you pretty much have to be on drugs. :smalltongue:

Reverent-One

2009-07-28, 12:08 AM

Ah, yes. But you see, "how she puts it" isn't putting it at all. Her entire answer deflects the question and launches into a massive ad hominem against the questioner.

Perhaps it's a misnomer to say she hates the Jedi, as she says, but saying that doesn't invalidate the intent behind the question; she has a problem with the concept even if hate is too strong a word, and rather than address the reasons behind this, she attacks the person asking the question.

I don't see it. She says she doesn't hate Jedi, or even people who just like Jedi, but she wants nothing to do with people that effectively worship them. And explains that's because said people would, to her, have to devalue the lives of some humans in relation to others. Seems to answer the question for me.

And she even does this in her novels. Let's take a look at page 161 of her novel Order 66.
First, she's off by a factor of a thousand; a quintillion is a thousand quadrillions, not a million. Secondly, this is a transparent direct shot at real-world commentators and even other authors who use realistic production numbers for a densely-inhabited entire galaxy. Third, the attribution suggests a conspiracy to silence him, but it really makes sense; to be in the Star Wars galaxy and not realize your culture's own production capacity means you pretty much have to be on drugs. :smalltongue:

When has Star Wars ever used realistic numbers? Minimalistic numbers seem to be the standard, not the exception.

Renegade Paladin

2009-07-28, 12:10 AM

I don't see it. She says she doesn't hate Jedi, or even people who just like Jedi, but she wants nothing to do with people that effectively worship them. And explains that's because said people would, to her, have to devalue the lives of some humans in relation to others. Seems to answer the question for me.
But it doesn't require devaluing the lives of some humans in relation to others, because the Jedi don't act the way she says they do. :smallyuk: She made that up specifically so she could compare her detractors to Nazis; she also invented the term "Talifan" to compare them (us, I should really say) to terrorists.

Reverent-One

2009-07-28, 12:18 AM

But it doesn't require devaluing the lives of some humans in relation to others, because the Jedi don't act the way she says they do. :smallyuk: She made that up specifically so she could compare her detractors to Nazis; she also invented the term "Talifan" to compare them (us, I should really say) to terrorists.

Except the Jedi do lead an army of purchased humans to battle in war that we're never seen (that I can remember) the clones being given a real choice in fighting in.

Renegade Paladin

2009-07-28, 12:27 AM

Except the Jedi do lead an army of purchased humans to battle in war that we're never seen (that I can remember) the clones being given a real choice in fighting in.
1.) The Republic commissioned the Clone Army; the Jedi did their best to deal with the situation, which was not of their making.

2.) The Sith commissioned the creation of the clones in the first place, and manipulated the war down to the last detail. In fact, nothing the clones did in the war even mattered in the end; they did not defeat the Separatists and the outcome was rigged from the beginning.

3.) Her precious Mandalorians are slavers themselves, so I don't see where she gets off taking shots at the Jedi, who at least treated the clones with respect.

Reverent-One

2009-07-28, 12:45 AM

1.) The Republic commissioned the Clone Army; the Jedi did their best to deal with the situation, which was not of their making.

2.) The Sith commissioned the creation of the clones in the first place, and manipulated the war down to the last detail. In fact, nothing the clones did in the war even mattered in the end; they did not defeat the Separatists and the outcome was rigged from the beginning.

Assuming I haven't missed some piece of canon that contradicts this, my understanding is thus:
-The clones were commissioned by the Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas
-Dooku found out about them, told Palpatine, who was going to use it in his planned war
-Obi-wan finds about about the army, tells the Jedi council.

At this point, Palpatine can't just pull knowledge of the army out of thin air anymore, as he'd have to explain how he knew of a plan a jedi master had kept secret from the rest of the council. And I think, though my memory is not perfect on the exact timing here, that at the time the motion to give Palpatine emergency powers and make an army was being made, Yoda was already gathering the troops and leading them to Geonosis. As far as the Kaminoians know, the Jedi Council owns the clones. I don't see how the clones would then fall straight into the Republic's hands without the Jedi's involvement.

3.) Her precious Mandalorians are slavers themselves, so I don't see where she gets off taking shots at the Jedi, who at least treated the clones with respect.

The Mando's really aren't held up as shining examples of morality though. Seriously, Skitara's a bad-ass, sure, but he's no role-model. And Vau? Worse. Even the more extreme Mando fanboy's seem to mostly worship their combat expertise, not their philosophical positions.

Philistine

2009-07-28, 01:49 AM

Except the Jedi do lead an army of purchased humans to battle in war that we're never seen (that I can remember) the clones being given a real choice in fighting in.
Depending on how "I" droid AIs in the SW universe are - and recall we've seen some pretty determinedly individualistic behavior from the two who've actually spent significant amounts of time on-screen - the Separatists' masses of disposable, cannon-fodder droids are just as thorny a moral problem as the Republic's masses of disposable, cannon-fodder clones.

In fact, the status of droids in the Galaxy Far, Far Away is pretty problematic. It's established (mostly in the EU, but there are some on-screen hints in this direction in the films too) that failing to regularly "wipe" a droid's memories will result in it displaying increasingly "aberrant" behavior. Basically, they start thinking they're people, and acting accordingly. So how are droids not slaves as well?

Assuming I haven't missed some piece of canon that contradicts this, my understanding is thus:
-The clones were commissioned by the Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas
-Dooku found out about them, told Palpatine, who was going to use it in his planned war
-Obi-wan finds about about the army, tells the Jedi council.

At this point, Palpatine can't just pull knowledge of the army out of thin air anymore, as he'd have to explain how he knew of a plan a jedi master had kept secret from the rest of the council. And I think, though my memory is not perfect on the exact timing here, that at the time the motion to give Palpatine emergency powers and make an army was being made, Yoda was already gathering the troops and leading them to Geonosis. As far as the Kaminoians know, the Jedi Council owns the clones. I don't see how the clones would then fall straight into the Republic's hands without the Jedi's involvement.

My understanding of the discovery sequence in AotC was somewhat different. Yes, the Kaminoans believe that the clone army was ordered by Sifo-Dyas for the Jedi Council... but when Kenobi calls back to check on that story, noone else on the Council has ever heard of them, and Sifo-Dyas himself died just after the purchase order was entered... or, maybe, just before. This suggests that someone else used his identity to order the clones, and got rid of him so that he wouldn't be available to tell people (honestly) that he had no idea what the Kaminoans were talking about. "Someone else" here obviously being a codename for Palpatine.

After watching all three prequel movies in succession (What do ya know? It turns out the first two in particular make a lot more sense this way than they do when seen separately.), it appears that Palpatine's original plan was for the Trade Federation's invasion of Naboo to grow into the spark that would launch him to Supreme Executive Power. When the intervention of the Jedi ended that conflict before it could trigger the sort of general unrest that he needed - and also killed off his then-current apprentice into the bargain - he had to pull back and retool his plans. Dooku and the Separatists became his new stalking horse shortly thereafter.

Now Palpy had a new problem: he needed to raise the stakes in order to keep moving up the ladder, which meant he was looking toward a galaxy-wide conflict. And sure, the Separatists had the means to produce battle droids en masse, but the Republic wasn't strong enough to fight them off. He really didn't want the Seps to win, though - he'd end up ruling only half the galaxy, no matter which half he chose. So Palpatine, under the guise of the slain Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas, ordered a clone army in the name of the Jedi Council, so that the Republic would have an army when Palpy was ready for the Rep-Sep conflict to go hot. As the time drew nigh, he carefully led Kenobi to Kamino, getting him there just in time to find the army so they could go to Geonosis, but not so early that anyone would have time to ask potentially embarassing questions like, "Did anyone on Kamino ever see Master Sifo-Dyas?" and "What did he look like?"

There's a reason why the Senate vote to create the Grand Army of the Republic took place at the exact moment that the conflict "just happened" to heat up and the first units of the clone army became available. Palpatine was running both sides. That's... kinda the whole point of the PT, really. Almost everything that happened on screen, especially in Eps 2 and 3, was stage-managed by the bad guys.

pendell

2009-07-28, 06:14 AM

I have observed her to do so; it's not like only the threatened party can read public forum posts.

Then I have only one more question.

Can you provide a link, please? I would like to see for myself.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

pendell

2009-07-28, 06:21 AM

Additional points:

And yet Jango Fett can fight him to a draw in hand-to-hand combat, because he's a Mandalorian and Mandalorians are Just That Awesome.

That's Lucas' screenplay, not Traviss.

Someone mentioned that clones had a choice to fight in the war. Where is that established? I watch the movies, I read the books, and I see human beings being genetically modified to have the 'why am I doing this' part of them removed, subjected from birth to Hitler-youth style indoctrination, then given guns and armor and sent off to die for a republic, and a lifestyle, they've never seen.

That seems to be an underlying theme in Lucas' works -- it's only the Rebel Alliance where the people of the GFFA actually do their own fighting. The Republic uses slave clones. The Separatists use droids. Because both sides are decadent, happy to send other people to die in their wars but not willing to do it themselves. Perhaps that's part of the reason the Empire happened.

Someone mentioned the sympathy and respect the Jedi had for the clones -- where was this established? I haven't read much EU fiction. What I've seen in the movies between Kenobi and Commander Cody had a very definitely feeling of noblesse oblige -- the relationship between a superior and a servant, perhaps like that between master and house slave in the bad old days. The master may very well believe they are on a footing of near equality. But get the slave alone and drunk ... you may hear a different story.

WRT Mando philosophy, there are three things I like:

1) They are loyal to their own. It's pretty obvious they're supremacists -- if you're not a mando, you're -- what is the word -- the word is similar to 'traitor'. It's obvious they don't believe all sentient beings are equal. If you're not a Mando, you're scum. If you are , you're family.

It's that 'we look after each other in a hostile galaxy' vibe I like. I don't like the contempt they show to outsiders. But I do like the love they can show each other within a family. I have to wonder; is contempt of outsiders a necessary component of family love? That if you have no strong hates you don't have any strong loves? I sure hope not.

2) Kal Skirata adopts stray jedi, clones, and other people who cross his path.
He's a scoundrel, and a murderer, and a hundred other things, but he's also a loving father, and he's more than willing to be a father to those who don't have one. It's hard to hate a man like that unconditionally.

Maybe it's something not everyone can understand ... but for the orphaned, whether that be literal or only emotional, the idea of being adopted into a family is among the single greatest desires, the single greatest drives a person can have. It touches down right to the bone. Perhaps that's why I like the books. When I see orphans adopted, and the love they consequently bear to their foster 'father' -- it rings very true indeed.

3) They do what needs to be done, without any illusions.
When Kal Skirata needs to torture a man, he calls it that. He doesn't justify it. He doesn't talk about the 'good of the galaxy' or what not. He doesn't fabricate all kinds of things. When he pulls Etienne into his world, he doesn't insult her intelligence -- he tells her just what needs to be done, and why. He's not a college boy with a head stuffed full of unrealistic notions. He knows exactly what he's trying to do, exactly what he needs to accomplish to get there, and he's refreshingly honest both about his means and his ends.

I like that in a character.

Vau .. well, the most that can be said is that somewhere under that harsh, dark brutality there just might be the makings of a decent man buried wayyy down inside. That comes out a bit in the third book. But no, I don't like him or his methods. I wouldn't want to serve under him, either. I suspect that when he dies, it'll be of a shot in the back.

That's the other thing; Traviss hates Jedi to the point that she subscribes to a conspiracy theory stating that the Jedi were themselves manipulating events so as to depose the duly elected Chancellor and take control of the Republic... and only happened to be beaten to it by Palpatine. :smallyuk: She wrote some article about it in Star Wars Insider, I think; I'll have to find it.

Actually, if I recall Ep. III correctly, there is a conversation when Yoda mentioned 'to a dark place they will take us'.

The thing is -- in that scene, Traviss is right. The Jedi high council is recognizing that they may have to move against the Supreme Chancellor, and if they do they're going to have to deal with the senate is well, since the senate is for all intents and purposes in the chancellor's pocket. In a very real sense, by that point in the timeline the chancellor *Is* the republic, so heavily tied to its institutions that you can't attack the one without attacking the other.

I think Chancellor Palpatine is actually *right* -- the Jedi were planning to remove him, and to do what was necessary with the Senate to make that removal stick. The reason he was able to do this is becuase Palpatine is as dark as a black hole. The Jedi, blinded by arrogance, complacency, and the confusion of the Clone War, were beginning to act a little dark themselves -- and in doing so played right into palpatine's hands. You can't outfox someone like Palpatine with lies, deceit, treachery and conspiracy. Darkness is his home. You're like a child to him there.

Someone like Palpatine -- like Sauron in LOTR -- can't be defeated by evil, but by good, by love, because that's something which is entirely out of their equation. Palpatine saw by the dark side of the force. He could see what the Jedi had in mind, and he could see the rebel trap at Endor, but he couldn't see Vader throwing him down the reactor shaft, because Vader's action was motivated by love, and that's a country so foreign to him as to be beyond perception.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Talkkno

2009-07-28, 06:33 AM

I don't give SW numbers any credence in any case. How many ISDs in the imperial navy? 25000 at it's peak? And just how many inhabited stars are there in the GFFA? Millions? Billions? And yet the defeat of just a small number of those at Endor -- if I'm reading the canon correctly, the rebels actually lost more ships -- was enough to tip the entire galactic balance from Empire to New Republic?

.

False, what tipped the tide for the New Republic was only that fact Paplatine was the only thing holding the Empire together, without it dissolved into civil war which enabled the fledging New Republic to take advantage. Even with the Civil war in Dark Empire Paplatine still managed to pull enough of the Empire's resources to steamroll the New Republic, not to mention Thrawn which only possessed a fraction of those resources proved to major threat to the New Republic. The Imperial Remenent even at its weakest always proved to a important player in Galactic politics, where in the current timeline, the Empire has resurged once again to the dominatant power in the Galeexy.

AstralFire

2009-07-28, 08:16 AM

That's Lucas' screenplay, not Traviss.

No, not really. The screenplay has Jango Fett actually keeping at range. The EU is where Boba Fett holds his own in a Lightsaber Duel with Vader and at 60 years old suckerpunches Jaina Solo.

Someone mentioned the sympathy and respect the Jedi had for the clones -- where was this established? I haven't read much EU fiction. What I've seen in the movies between Kenobi and Commander Cody had a very definitely feeling of noblesse oblige -- the relationship between a superior and a servant, perhaps like that between master and house slave in the bad old days. The master may very well believe they are on a footing of near equality. But get the slave alone and drunk ... you may hear a different story.

It's established very well. The Jedi were both effective leaders and good friends to the clones, in a LOT of the material - to the point that a handful of the clones were able to override their programming and not attack Jedi, and more than a few were left depressed or confused about the order.

Renegade Paladin

2009-07-28, 09:03 AM

Assuming I haven't missed some piece of canon that contradicts this, my understanding is thus:
-The clones were commissioned by the Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas
-Dooku found out about them, told Palpatine, who was going to use it in his planned war
-Obi-wan finds about about the army, tells the Jedi council.
You have missed a very important piece of canon, and that is this: Sifo-Dyas was killed before the clones were commissioned. Dooku rolled up to Kamino impersonating him.

pendell

2009-07-28, 09:13 AM

No, not really. The screenplay has Jango Fett actually keeping at range. The EU is where Boba Fett holds his own in a Lightsaber Duel with Vader and at 60 years old suckerpunches Jaina Solo.

Is that in one of Travis' pieces? Cause I gotta agree -- drawing a lightsaber duel against a jedi or sith is just absurd.

Normal people in GFFA defeat Jedi A) by surprise b) by saturation fire c) fire from multiple angles d) by fighting them on speeder bikes or starfighters where their advantage is less pronounced. Fighting one in a lightsaber duel would be like trying to wrestle a tiger. It's stupid.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

AstralFire

2009-07-28, 09:52 AM

This is my view as well. I firmly believe that normal people should and can present challenges to Jedi, but it's just stupid when it involves intentionally staying in their face.

Talya

2009-07-28, 10:42 AM

The "X-wing" series was the only EU stuff I liked at all. Admittedly, I stopped reading before most of the stuff was published, so I may have missed some good material.

I don't consider the anthologies "Tales of the Mos Eisley Cantina," "Tales of Jabba's Palace," or "Tales of the Bounty Hunters" to be EU material, since they mostly take place concurrent to the original trilogy, but those books are spectacularly woven together.

Jade_Tarem

2009-07-28, 11:16 AM

Is that in one of Travis' pieces? Cause I gotta agree -- drawing a lightsaber duel against a jedi or sith is just absurd.

Normal people in GFFA defeat Jedi A) by surprise b) by saturation fire c) fire from multiple angles d) by fighting them on speeder bikes or starfighters where their advantage is less pronounced. Fighting one in a lightsaber duel would be like trying to wrestle a tiger. It's stupid.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

The duel with Vader was in a comic book, I think (can't recall, and I don't read the comics). I did think that Vader beat him, though, after the shock of Fett pulling a lightsaber on him wore off.

The sucker punch did take place in one of Traviss's books, though. Revelation, IIRC.

Aaron Allston had Jag Fel (non Force user) beat Alema Rar (Dark Jedi) in a duel, though. He did it by virtue of superior planning and equipment, too. Why does no one ever remember that?

"Remember..."

"I will."

*CRUNCH*

Thrawn183

2009-07-28, 01:56 PM

I liked that in I, Jedi it showed that training as a Jedi doesn't make you all powerful. I mean, Corran Horn (already an exceptional pilot) got trained as a Jedi and still almost got flamed by Tycho Celchu.

As far as I'm concerned, the original idea behind Jedi was that they were respected for their wisdom rather than feared for their power. With a little enhancement of their strength and speed combined with a small bit of danger awareness they could succeed where a single normal person couldn't, but a one-man-army they were not.

Some books got it right, others... not so much.

Renegade Paladin

2009-07-28, 04:57 PM

Then I have only one more question.

Can you provide a link, please? I would like to see for myself.

Respectfully,

Brian P.
She has deleted the entire contents of her blog on starwars.com, so I can't directly. There are screenshots floating around, though the guy who archived them deleted the Star Wars portions of his website after a spat with Mike Wong, so it'll take some dredging. Of note was a threat to rip out somebody's trachea in a blog entry; Google searches to that effect will unearth numerous references to the incident.

She also suggested garroting fans who disagree with her in a blog entry dated April 14, 2006, which was thoughtfully preserved (http://www.skayhan.net/ASVS-HN/archive/2006/05/a_travissty_1.html) by Phil Skayhan before she could delete it.

Reverent-One

2009-07-28, 07:02 PM

Depending on how "I" droid AIs in the SW universe are - and recall we've seen some pretty determinedly individualistic behavior from the two who've actually spent significant amounts of time on-screen - the Separatists' masses of disposable, cannon-fodder droids are just as thorny a moral problem as the Republic's masses of disposable, cannon-fodder clones.

In fact, the status of droids in the Galaxy Far, Far Away is pretty problematic. It's established (mostly in the EU, but there are some on-screen hints in this direction in the films too) that failing to regularly "wipe" a droid's memories will result in it displaying increasingly "aberrant" behavior. Basically, they start thinking they're people, and acting accordingly. So how are droids not slaves as well?

They quite possibly are, droid treatment isn't something often focused on in the Star Wars universe, but some models do seem to be sentient. But then, the separatists aren't really portrayed as much better than greedy businessmen, at least in the movies.

My understanding of the discovery sequence in AotC was somewhat different. Yes, the Kaminoans believe that the clone army was ordered by Sifo-Dyas for the Jedi Council... but when Kenobi calls back to check on that story, noone else on the Council has ever heard of them, and Sifo-Dyas himself died just after the purchase order was entered... or, maybe, just before. This suggests that someone else used his identity to order the clones, and got rid of him so that he wouldn't be available to tell people (honestly) that he had no idea what the Kaminoans were talking about. "Someone else" here obviously being a codename for Palpatine.

After watching all three prequel movies in succession (What do ya know? It turns out the first two in particular make a lot more sense this way than they do when seen separately.), it appears that Palpatine's original plan was for the Trade Federation's invasion of Naboo to grow into the spark that would launch him to Supreme Executive Power. When the intervention of the Jedi ended that conflict before it could trigger the sort of general unrest that he needed - and also killed off his then-current apprentice into the bargain - he had to pull back and retool his plans. Dooku and the Separatists became his new stalking horse shortly thereafter.

Now Palpy had a new problem: he needed to raise the stakes in order to keep moving up the ladder, which meant he was looking toward a galaxy-wide conflict. And sure, the Separatists had the means to produce battle droids en masse, but the Republic wasn't strong enough to fight them off. He really didn't want the Seps to win, though - he'd end up ruling only half the galaxy, no matter which half he chose. So Palpatine, under the guise of the slain Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas, ordered a clone army in the name of the Jedi Council, so that the Republic would have an army when Palpy was ready for the Rep-Sep conflict to go hot. As the time drew nigh, he carefully led Kenobi to Kamino, getting him there just in time to find the army so they could go to Geonosis, but not so early that anyone would have time to ask potentially embarassing questions like, "Did anyone on Kamino ever see Master Sifo-Dyas?" and "What did he look like?"

There's a reason why the Senate vote to create the Grand Army of the Republic took place at the exact moment that the conflict "just happened" to heat up and the first units of the clone army became available. Palpatine was running both sides. That's... kinda the whole point of the PT, really. Almost everything that happened on screen, especially in Eps 2 and 3, was stage-managed by the bad guys.

Actually, while most of the events around the time of the prequels were manipulations by Palpatine, I don't think Obi-wan finding Kamino was one of them. The whole trail he followed seemed too unbelievably coincidental. If Palpatine wanted Obi-wan there, you would think he could have come up with a less contrived, but still believable trail for an inquisitive Jedi to follow, with less chances of them running into a dead-end.

You have missed a very important piece of canon, and that is this: Sifo-Dyas was killed before the clones were commissioned. Dooku rolled up to Kamino impersonating him.

Do you have a source for that? Because Wookiepedia disagrees with you. (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Sifo-Dyas)

But for the sake of the argument, let's say you're right and Sifo-dyas had nothing to do with actually putting in the order for the clones. That changes nothing at the end of the Clone Wars for the Kaminoians and the Jedi Council, both of them still believe that a Jedi Master did put in the order, whether one did or not. Because of this, the Jedi Council are the clients to the Kaminoians, not the republic, so they are the ones who have control of the clone army, Palpatine can't just pop in and grab them up. The Jedi would have to give them to him, which they apparently did, with no visible concern for the idea of a slave/clone army. Windu has concerns at the end of episode II about Jedi being peacekeepers, not generals, but not any moral dislike of the clone's situation.

This does show an uncharacteristic lack of concern for the clones, bred to fight a war, and thanks to their accelerated aging, not be able to live a full life even if they survive the war. That seems like a devaluation of the clone's rights to me, and shouldn't going along with this treatment be against the Jedi's moral code?

Dervag

2009-07-28, 07:13 PM

That's not what I recall. Quite the contrary, maintaining strict control of yourself is purely a Jedi thing. For the "dark siders," giving in to their emotions is how they access the force.My impression is that while they give in to feeling their emotions rather than suppressing them, on some level they must remain in command of their faculties. This is why Anakin Skywalker is so greatly weakened after Mustafar- he's got a lot more rage and other emotions than he did before, but his combined grief, angst, and disgust at himself reduce his ability to control all that power.

When has Star Wars ever used realistic numbers? Minimalistic numbers seem to be the standard, not the exception.Important actions often revolve around minimalistic numbers, but in the movies, there's always some noteworthy justification for them. The big stuff is clearly in the background.

For example: the Rebellion has small numbers and controls only a few worlds... precisely because they are a rebellion trying to overthrow a galaxy-spanning empire.

There aren't very many Jedi... because the Jedi were the guardians of a peaceful galaxy for centuries prior to the movies. They didn't need numbers, and they have no particular desire to obtain them. They're an order of monks, not a training center for conscripts.

The Battle of Endor was fought with small fleets on both sides...
____

And then you've got the stuff that is huge. For instance, the Death Star. It's the size of a small moon. It's made entirely of artificial materials. Its main gun puts out more power than a main sequence star- a lot more. And yet building this monstrosity is implied to be only a modest strain on Imperial resources, small enough that when it gets blown up, the Empire needs only a few years to build another one, larger and tougher... in secret.

They talk fairly casually about "a thousand systems" or "a thousand ships." The planet Coruscant is covered in factories and cities- think about how much industrial power and population that would represent. Coruscant alone would likely have a population of a trillion or more.

Traviss' approach to this is at best naive (and viciously defensive of its own naivete), and at worst arguing in blatant bad faith (and viciously defensive about that).
__________

WRT Mando philosophy, there are three things I like:

1) They are loyal to their own. It's pretty obvious they're supremacists -- if you're not a mando, you're -- what is the word -- the word is similar to 'traitor'. It's obvious they don't believe all sentient beings are equal. If you're not a Mando, you're scum. If you are , you're family.

It's that 'we look after each other in a hostile galaxy' vibe I like. I don't like the contempt they show to outsiders. But I do like the love they can show each other within a family. I have to wonder; is contempt of outsiders a necessary component of family love? That if you have no strong hates you don't have any strong loves? I sure hope not.I don't buy it for a minute, myself. I think supremacism is despicable, and not at all required for strong internal bonding. Certainly not to the level where your word for "not part of my group" is the same as the word for "traitor" or "subhuman."

Not to mention all the supremacist groups who were nasty to each other as well as to everyone else.
_______

2) Kal Skirata adopts stray jedi, clones, and other people who cross his path.
He's a scoundrel, and a murderer, and a hundred other things, but he's also a loving father, and he's more than willing to be a father to those who don't have one. It's hard to hate a man like that unconditionally.All right, but the quality of "loving father" is not unique to scoundrels and murderers. The fact that the villain pets dogs instead of kicking them does not make him admirable, and there's something deeply unhealthy about falling for someone whose only virtue is that they form strong bonds with their immediate in-group.

3) They do what needs to be done, without any illusions.
When Kal Skirata needs to torture a man, he calls it that. He doesn't justify it. He doesn't talk about the 'good of the galaxy' or what not. He doesn't fabricate all kinds of things. When he pulls Etienne into his world, he doesn't insult her intelligence -- he tells her just what needs to be done, and why. He's not a college boy with a head stuffed full of unrealistic notions. He knows exactly what he's trying to do, exactly what he needs to accomplish to get there, and he's refreshingly honest both about his means and his ends.

I like that in a character.Does he know what needs to be done? Or does he know what he wants done, what he thinks should be done to achieve his own ends? There's all the difference in the world. If my goal is "create a world with no left-handed people in it," what I would do to achieve the goal is simple and obvious... but why the hell would I want to do that? Is that something that needs to be done, or am I a self-righteous monster who can't tell between what I want and what the universe needs?
__________

Do you have a source for that? Because Wookiepedia disagrees with you. (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Sifo-Dyas)Wookieepedia also appears to disagree with itself (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Jango_Fett). Count Dooku hired Fett to act as the template for the clones in the first place; whether Sifo-Dyas was involved or not, it's clear that the Clone Army's creation was orchestrated by the Sith... if the existence of Order 66 wasn't proof enough by itself.

Moreover, Sifo-Dyas wasn't acting on behalf of the Jedi order even if it was really him, as demonstrated by the fact that the Jedi Council had no clue the clone army even existed. You'd think Yoda would know about Kamino and that there was an army there.
______

This does show an uncharacteristic lack of concern for the clones, bred to fight a war, and thanks to their accelerated aging, not be able to live a full life even if they survive the war. That seems like a devaluation of the clone's rights to me, and shouldn't going along with this treatment be against the Jedi's moral code?Should it? Tell me what the Jedi moral code is, and I'll tell you.

The Jedi are not necessarily twenty-first century Western humanists. The fact that they generally act honorably and kindly, and that they practice self-restraint, does not mean they believe everything you'd expect them to believe.

Moreover, what are the Jedi supposed to do about the clones? By the time the Order as an institution becomes aware of them, the army already exists, fully trained and equipped. They have an army, they have a war to fight. Even if the creation of the clones was itself unethical, what has been done can no longer be undone.
________

Renegade Paladin

2009-07-28, 07:25 PM

Do you have a source for that? Because Wookiepedia disagrees with you. (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Sifo-Dyas)
Admittedly, inductive reasoning. The Kaminoans would likely have noticed if "Sifo-Dyas" suddenly looked drastically different later into the arrangement, and no source that I'm aware of ever definitively establishes what exactly happened. We know what the Kaminoans think and we know what Dooku says, neither of which is guaranteed to be the truth and in the latter case is very likely to be a lie.

This would be weak induction, but for one factor: A Jedi would not have included Order 66 in his instructions for creating the Clones. The Sith? Would.

But for the sake of the argument, let's say you're right and Sifo-dyas had nothing to do with actually putting in the order for the clones. That changes nothing at the end of the Clone Wars for the Kaminoians and the Jedi Council, both of them still believe that a Jedi Master did put in the order, whether one did or not. Because of this, the Jedi Council are the clients to the Kaminoians, not the republic, so they are the ones who have control of the clone army, Palpatine can't just pop in and grab them up.
"This army is for the Republic!" - Lama Su, Prime Minister of Kamino.

The Jedi are agents of the Republic. If the Kaminoans think that a Jedi placed the order, then they think it was with the backing of the Republic, which the Jedi have.

The Jedi would have to give them to him, which they apparently did, with no visible concern for the idea of a slave/clone army. Windu has concerns at the end of episode II about Jedi being peacekeepers, not generals, but not any moral dislike of the clone's situation.

This does show an uncharacteristic lack of concern for the clones, bred to fight a war, and thanks to their accelerated aging, not be able to live a full life even if they survive the war. That seems like a devaluation of the clone's rights to me, and shouldn't going along with this treatment be against the Jedi's moral code?
The Jedi are charged with defending the Republic, above all. The clones landed into the Republic's lap just as it was being forced into a galaxy-wide war. Had they not gone along with it, what would you have them do? :smallannoyed: From where I sit, the Jedi did the best thing they could under the circumstances; fight the war that was forced on them and do their best to preserve and protect their troops.

Zevox

2009-07-28, 07:39 PM

My impression is that while they give in to feeling their emotions rather than suppressing them, on some level they must remain in command of their faculties. This is why Anakin Skywalker is so greatly weakened after Mustafar- he's got a lot more rage and other emotions than he did before, but his combined grief, angst, and disgust at himself reduce his ability to control all that power.
Er, how exactly was Anakin weakened after the Mustafar incident? The only time I ever recall anything that would even suggest that being mentioned was when Lumiya explained in the Legacy of the Force books that Force-wielders need their whole bodies intact to access their full potential, since the Force is generated by living things, and thus Vader was limited after so much of his body was replaced with machines.

Zevox

Renegade Paladin

2009-07-28, 07:40 PM

Well, he wasn't leaping around like a friggin' monkey while fighting after that. That's one way. :smalltongue:

Zevox

2009-07-28, 07:43 PM

That likely has to do with when the movies were made. The original trilogy doesn't feature anyone leaping around during combat, and even the few force-enhanced jumps Luke makes are nowhere near the kind of smooth leaps we see in the prequels. Probably a matter of the different levels of technology and special effects available when each trilogy was made.

Zevox

Reverent-One

2009-07-28, 07:47 PM

Wookieepedia also appears to disagree with itself (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Jango_Fett). Count Dooku hired Fett to act as the template for the clones in the first place; whether Sifo-Dyas was involved or not, it's clear that the Clone Army's creation was orchestrated by the Sith... if the existence of Order 66 wasn't proof enough by itself.

Moreover, Sifo-Dyas wasn't acting on behalf of the Jedi order even if it was really him, as demonstrated by the fact that the Jedi Council had no clue the clone army even existed. You'd think Yoda would know about Kamino and that there was an army there.

And I never said the jedi council did know about Kamino prior to Obi-wan finding it. Also, that the army was turned towards Palpatine's goals from near the beginning of their creation is pretty much common knowledge, so what are we arguing about?

Should it? Tell me what the Jedi moral code is, and I'll tell you.

The Jedi are not necessarily twenty-first century Western humanists. The fact that they generally act honorably and kindly, and that they practice self-restraint, does not mean they believe everything you'd expect them to believe.

Relevant wookiepedia link (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Jedi_Code). Parts that seem relevant:

Jedi respect each other, and all other life forms.

I don't think having an army of slaves counts as respecting them.

Similarly, a Jedi was expected to defend the weak from those who oppressed them, ranging from small-scale suffering at the hands of an individual to large-scale enslavement of entire species.

Again, enslavement seems to be something a Jedi should not condone, even if they can't do anything about it due to local cultures (say on tatooine).

Moreover, what are the Jedi supposed to do about the clones? By the time the Order as an institution becomes aware of them, the army already exists, fully trained and equipped. They have an army, they have a war to fight. Even if the creation of the clones was itself unethical, what has been done can no longer be undone.

The Jedi are charged with defending the Republic, above all. The clones landed into the Republic's lap just as it was being forced into a galaxy-wide war. Had they not gone along with it, what would you have them do? From where I sit, the Jedi did the best thing they could under the circumstances; fight the war that was forced on them and do their best to preserve and protect their troops.

How about treating them like real human beings and giving them a choice? And any that joined, which given how they were raised and taught would probably be most of them, would be paid for their services. The jedi could also have had the kaminoians turn off the accelerated aging, or at least get started on figuring out how to do so. And then the Jedi could not agree to serve in the army unless Palpatine agreed to not create anymore clones and make the rest of the army recruited citizens, letting the clones that joined serve as the backbone for the army to begin with and help train said recruited citizens. In short, not treat human beings like slaves.

"This army is for the Republic!" - Lama Su, Prime Minister of Kamino.

The Jedi are agents of the Republic. If the Kaminoans think that a Jedi placed the order, then they think it was with the backing of the Republic, which the Jedi have.

Yes, Lama Su was told by Sifo-dyas/whoever that the army was being made to fight for the Republic, but do you really think they would hold the Jedi Council to that if they decided not to support the idea? Do you think they really care what their clones are used for?

Renegade Paladin

2009-07-28, 07:57 PM

Yes, Lama Su was told by Sifo-dyas/whoever that the army was being made to fight for the Republic, but do you really think they would hold the Jedi Council to that if they decided not to support the idea? Do you think they really care what their clones are used for?
No, but I do think the Kaminoans would turn over the army to the Republic with or without the Jedi Council's consent, because that's who they think commissioned it and more importantly that's certainly who's paying them.

Reverent-One

2009-07-28, 08:01 PM

No, but I do think the Kaminoans would turn over the army to the Republic with or without the Jedi Council's consent, because that's who they think commissioned it and more importantly that's certainly who's paying them.

No, they think a member of the Jedi Council commissioned it. Yes, said member of the Jedi Council did mention that it would be used for the Republic, but why would the Kaminoians care in the long run? And who says the Jedi can't pay? They very well could have their own finances, as they're not that closely tied to the Republic, they help when asked, but they're not in the chain of command prior to the Clone Wars.

Renegade Paladin

2009-07-28, 08:08 PM

No, they think a member of the Jedi Council commissioned it. Yes, said member of the Jedi Council did mention that it would be used for the Republic, but why would the Kaminoians care in the long run? And who says the Jedi can't pay? They very well could have their own finances, as they're not that closely tied to the Republic, they help when asked, but they're not in the chain of command prior to the Clone Wars.
Yes, but the Jedi most certainly weren't paying, because they didn't know and as far as we can tell no vast amounts of money mysteriously disappeared from their accounts. Palpatine, however, had the ability to divert funds to the project. Alternatively, Dooku was independently wealthy in the extreme, heir to one of the ruling houses of an entire planet. He could have conceivably paid on his own (though if I were to take my guesses I'd say that would be a gigantic strain even on his resources), though even then it doesn't serve his purposes to actually turn over the clones to the Jedi if there's any risk the Jedi won't use them.

Reverent-One

2009-07-28, 08:20 PM

Yes, but the Jedi most certainly weren't paying, because they didn't know and as far as we can tell no vast amounts of money mysteriously disappeared from their accounts. Palpatine, however, had the ability to divert funds to the project. Alternatively, Dooku was independently wealthy in the extreme, heir to one of the ruling houses of an entire planet. He could have conceivably paid on his own (though if I were to take my guesses I'd say that would be a gigantic strain even on his resources), though even then it doesn't serve his purposes to actually turn over the clones to the Jedi if there's any risk the Jedi won't use them.

Assuming that the clones were already paid for (which I have my doubts about), who would the Kaminoians think had paid the bill? The Jedi council. Now, the Council would know they hadn't been, but who would show up to claim the clones, saying that they had paid for them, if the Jedi Council didn't just hand them over as slaves to the republic? Palpatine can't, Dukoo can't, so once more, why would the Kaminoians go over their heads and go straight to the republic if the Jedi didn't just hand them straight over to Palpatine? They have no direct ties to him, or the Republic, at this point .

Renegade Paladin

2009-07-28, 08:45 PM

Reverent-One

2009-07-28, 08:58 PM

:smallsigh: What part of "This army is for the Republic" is difficult to grasp? They believe the Republic commissioned the order, they believe the Republic is paying, they will turn the clones over to the Republic. The Kaminoans had exactly as many ties to the Republic as they had to the Jedi. If the Jedi don't pay them directly, they'll want to be paid and they'll go to the Republic, which, needing an army, would pay up and gladly, especially with Palpatine's influence.

Sources for these statements please. Yes, they know that the "Jedi master Sifo-dyas" said he was commissioning them because the Republic would need an army, but if they are paid why would they care what the Jedi do with them? The Kaminoians aren't great patriots of the republic. And on top of that, how would they know if the Jedi are or aren't going to give the clones over as slaves to the Republic unless the Jedi tell them, which they have no reason to do?

Renegade Paladin

2009-07-28, 09:49 PM

Sources for these statements please. Yes, they know that the "Jedi master Sifo-dyas" said he was commissioning them because the Republic would need an army, but if they are paid why would they care what the Jedi do with them? The Kaminoians aren't great patriots of the republic. And on top of that, how would they know if the Jedi are or aren't going to give the clones over as slaves to the Republic unless the Jedi tell them, which they have no reason to do?
Oh, for the love of God this is getting ridiculous.

If they believed the army was for the Jedi Order, they'd have said that when asked. Instead, they said it was for the Republic. This can't be much clearer. To be precise, "Of course. This army is for the Republic!" was Lama Su's response to Kenobi asking, verbatim:
Obi-Wan Kenobi: Tell me, Prime Minister, when my Master first contacted you about the army, did he say who it was for?

Lama Su: Of course he did. This army is for the Republic. But you must be anxious to inspect the units for yourself?
The Kaminoans were directly told the army was for the Republic; as far as they're concerned, Sifo-Dyas (whether it was actually him or not) was simply the purchasing agent.

Reverent-One

2009-07-28, 10:07 PM

Oh, for the love of God this is getting ridiculous.

If they believed the army was for the Jedi Order, they'd have said that when asked. Instead, they said it was for the Republic. This can't be much clearer. To be precise, "Of course. This army is for the Republic!" was Lama Su's response to Kenobi asking, verbatim:
The Kaminoans were directly told the army was for the Republic; as far as they're concerned, Sifo-Dyas (whether it was actually him or not) was simply the purchasing agent.

And just prior to that, Lama Su tells obi-wan that he can tell his Master Sifo-dyas that "his order will be met on time", and that Sifo-dyas "would have been proud of the army we've built for him". But, as we obviously aren't going to agree on the exact interpenetration of this exchange, may I suggest we just agree to disagree?

We've moved off from the original point we were discussing anyway. Which is whether or not the Jedi devalue the lives of some sentient beings (the clones) in relation to others. To which I say they did, because while we see some individual objectors to the war and the jedi are generally nice to individual clones, I have yet to see anyone from the Jedi Council try to convince Palpatine of the moral issue of using an army of slaves, nor do we see them push for pay for the clones, nor other benefits such as long term health care, nor getting the Kaminoians to even try to turn off the accelerated aging process, nor giving them a basic choice in fighting the war. They merely accept the idea an army of slaves, born and bred solely to fight and die for the Republic. That seems to put the clones on a much lower level than most other sentient beings in the galaxy.

Renegade Paladin

2009-07-28, 10:20 PM

AstralFire

2009-07-28, 10:28 PM

+1.

Making clones is unethical; however, there is a need for an army and the clones are already made. Not letting them fight at this point is being simultaneously cruel to them and shooting your war effort in the foot.

Reverent-One

2009-07-28, 10:30 PM

That is almost certainly a hole in the Jedi's perceptions in general, considering that they themselves are raised as Jedi from infancy and are themselves given little choice in the matter.

Besides, the Kaminoans had already thoroughly indoctrinated the clones before the Jedi found out about it. Let's say they asked the clones what they'd want to do. What do you think the answer would be? They're mentally conditioned to be loyal to the Republic. They are literally incapable of making an informed decision on the matter even if it was given to them.

But then at least they'd be treated like men, not slaves. And they'd be paid, and they could hopefully get their accelerated aging process slowed to where they could live their lives after the war, and hopefully the other little ways the clones were abused would have had a stop put on them. And what about the clones that were made after the war started? They weren't already indoctrinated, yet the Jedi did nothing to stop it.

+1.

Making clones is unethical; however, there is a need for an army and the clones are already made. Not letting them fight at this point is being simultaneously cruel to them and shooting your war effort in the foot.

I didn't say not to let them fight, I said give them a choice and all the rights other sentient beings would have.

Thrawn183

2009-07-28, 11:32 PM

Since when did the Jedi have control over the clones? Sure, they were high ranking officers in the war, but the clones didn't belong to them.

It's like saying the butler at a mansion is responsible for the slaves there. I'm pretty sure you should be getting mad at the people who own the mansion instead of the butler, even if he does tell the slaves/clones what to do on a daily basis.

Hmmm, can I get some help on finding examples of how effective stormtrooper armor actually is? I find a lot of conflicting evidence.
- Stops straight shots from "slugthrowers," though not to the neck or eye pieces - Tatooine Ghost
- Stops ricochet's, but melts - can't remember
- Stops stun blasts - Tatooine Ghots + many others.
- Does not stop Ooryl's fist (Talasea) - x-wing series.
- Does not stop a straight shot from a blaster rifle - every source I can think of.

Philistine

2009-07-29, 12:04 AM

Do we know that the clone troopers weren't being paid? From a non-Traviss source, I mean?

Jade_Tarem

2009-07-29, 12:14 AM

- Does not stop Ooryl's fist (Talasea) - x-wing series.

Nothing stops Ooryl's fist. That Gand was a freakin' badass. He punched through solid stormtrooper plating without any harm to himself. He doesn't sleep. Jedi can't read his thoughts. He can see into the ultraviolet spectrum. He can't be brought down by airborne toxins, and he eats poisonous eels for party snacks. He even lost an arm, but unlike that weenie Luke, he just manned up and grew a new one.

Don't get in Ooryl's way.

pendell

2009-07-29, 06:24 AM

They are literally incapable of making an informed decision on the matter even if it was given to them.

Actually, in Travis' works they do have the ability to make an informed choice in the matter, and do, once they actually start rubbing shoulders with normal sapients outside Kamino and controlled military settings. This is why by the end of the fourth book

Kal and Vau are running an escape network for clones who want more out of life than dying gloriously for the emperor. They have quite a few clients too, IIRC.

Making clones is unethical; however, there is a need for an army and the clones are already made. Not letting them fight at this point is being simultaneously cruel to them and shooting your war effort in the foot.

IMO, we could at least *ask* them. Get them to swear the oath. Those that don't take it get an actual discharge into actual civilian life, rather than whatever fate the Kaminoans give 'defective' clones. 'Reconditioning' in the books, which usually means 'termination'.

Honestly, if I were in the Jedi council's shoes I probably would have made the decision they made. Because you can't address all moral issues at the same time, and a galactic-scale civil war takes precedence over clone rights .. or droid rights, for that matter. At least while the war is being fought.

I also am not so certain that the Jedi did nothing about clone rights ... we're limited to a few hours on-screen, after all. Developing that story is what the EU is all about. No one has yet taken up the challenge, except in the RC books where it plays a significant subtheme.

Be that as it may ... creating a clone army of people genetically engineered to do nothing else to fight is a great wrong. I think this may have been addressed in the Ep. III novelization ... the Jedi had become too closely aligned with the Republic, and were participating in its evils when they should have been confronting and correcting them. The Republic was rapidly evolving from a democracy to an Empire based on force, fear, lies, and supremacist ideology. And for the most part the Jedi assisted in that evolution rather than stopping it. Not because they were evil. Because they were blindly defending a Republic, an ideal, that had ceased to exist in fact long before it ceased to exist in name.

IMO, the Jedi should not have been fighting the Clone War at all. They should have been trying to act as peacemakers when their services were wanted, and when they weren't let the Republic and the Separatists smash each other. By jumping in on the side of the Republic they became participants in its crimes, and they eventually became the Republic's victims. If they hadn't been fighting in the war, they might have been able to see clearly what was going on, and at least wouldn't have been in an ideal place to be ambushed by Order 66.
Respectfully,

Brian P.

Thrawn183

2009-07-29, 11:26 AM

Nothing stops Ooryl's fist. That Gand was a freakin' badass. He punched through solid stormtrooper plating without any harm to himself. He doesn't sleep. Jedi can't read his thoughts. He can see into the ultraviolet spectrum. He can't be brought down by airborne toxins, and he eats poisonous eels for party snacks. He even lost an arm, but unlike that weenie Luke, he just manned up and grew a new one.

Don't get in Ooryl's way.

He's also a findsman that was better at figuring out when and where to find Corran then Luke was.

pendell

2009-07-29, 12:03 PM

Do we know that the clone troopers weren't being paid? From a non-Traviss source, I mean?

Hmm .. I don't know of any sources of the type you're looking for that address those issues.

Reasonably, though, why would they be paid? The military supplies everything they need.

Seriously: In the Star Wars EU and films, in the era of the prequel trilogy, the impression I get is that, with the exception of the Jedi and a few notable others, the average citizen doesn't think much about clones one way or the other. As a result, they get sort of treated like disposable, organic droids as a rule.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Thrawn183

2009-07-30, 11:30 AM

Tyrant

2009-07-30, 03:57 PM

I definitely remember in one of the books, one of the clones actually desires a normal life. This is only after prolonged exposure to a Jedi, a woman and crazy force stuff.

Sadly, I get the feeling that most of the clones never desire a normal life just because they are so freaking insulated from it all. They fight, then they go rest on a ship and train for the next fight. That's about it.

Actually, I really wish I could remember the name of the book. It was about some group making combat droids that were just barely below the level of Jedi. 2 Jedi, some clone troopers and a Sith get sent down and... plot happens. Anybody got an idea what it was?

The Cestus Deception sounds like the one you are talking about. As I recall the woman actually knew Jango at some point. The clone in question took on a real name after talking with her quite a bit. Something like Jangotot (it's been a while). He bought it at the end using his own radio as the homing point for the orbital bombardment on a fortified bunker. The woman was pregnant though if I recall correctly. With his baby. I don't know if anyone ever did anything with that plot line, but it's there. Spoilered for anyone who hasn't read it.

Thrawn183

2009-07-30, 06:25 PM

The Cestus Deception sounds like the one you are talking about. As I recall the woman actually knew Jango at some point. The clone in question took on a real name after talking with her quite a bit. Something like Jangotot (it's been a while). He bought it at the end using his own radio as the homing point for the orbital bombardment on a fortified bunker. The woman was pregnant though if I recall correctly. With his baby. I don't know if anyone ever did anything with that plot line, but it's there. Spoilered for anyone who hasn't read it.

Yup, that's the one, thanks.

Dervag

2009-07-30, 08:31 PM

And I never said the jedi council did know about Kamino prior to Obi-wan finding it. Also, that the army was turned towards Palpatine's goals from near the beginning of their creation is pretty much common knowledge, so what are we arguing about?As I recall, you seem to be faulting the Jedi for working with the clone army, on the grounds that being indoctrinated for war and then pushed into combat is a violation of the clones' rights.

This would make sense if the Jedi order was institutionally responsible for creating the clone army, which it wasn't. Or if it was responsible for indoctrinating the clone army, which it wasn't. Or if it could have somehow undone the indoctrination of the clones after the fact, which it couldn't. The harm was done before the Jedi had any opportunity to fix it. The only thing they could have done to reduce their responsibility for the clones' plight would have been to refuse to work with them at all.

And if you're going to chew out the Jedi for choosing to take command of an army that appeared out of nowhere to back them up in the middle of the greatest crisis the galaxy had known in a millenium... you're going to be hard pressed to find anyone to not chew out.
________

That is almost certainly a hole in the Jedi's perceptions in general, considering that they themselves are raised as Jedi from infancy and are themselves given little choice in the matter.That's a good point, I think. The Jedi aren't "indoctrinated" as thoroughly as the clonetroopers were, but aside from that I doubt there's much difference. And since all "right-thinking" Jedi accept the legitimacy of the indoctrination they did go through, that is quite likely to be a hole in their perception of the rights of sentient beings. Interesting.

pendell

2009-07-31, 06:12 AM

The only thing they could have done to reduce their responsibility for the clones' plight would have been to refuse to work with them at all.

And if you're going to chew out the Jedi for choosing to take command of an army that appeared out of nowhere to back them up in the middle of the greatest crisis the galaxy had known in a millenium... you're going to be hard pressed to find anyone to not chew out.

Well, Jedi are Force-users. They're supposed to have the supernatural ability to know the right thing to do. Therefore I think it's appropriate to hold them to a higher standard than normal people in the GFFA, or 99% of the people you meet in the real world.

I will criticize them for their action in taking command, because the entire war was a dark side deception. Senator Amidala, who was not a Force user, managed to figure that out. But the Jedi order -- typified, perhaps, by "if it is not in our archives it doesn't exist" librarian, had allowed itself to become blinded. The Jedi lost by even fighting the Clone War in the first place .. something which is explicitly stated in the Ep. III novelization.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Zevox

2009-07-31, 06:28 AM

Well, Jedi are Force-users. They're supposed to have the supernatural ability to know the right thing to do.
Since when does force sensitivity grant you supernatural insight into moral decisions? I must really have missed that one, because it's always seemed to me that that's one area where they're no different from everyone else, save in that the decisions they get confronted with tend to be bigger.

Zevox

mangosta71

2009-07-31, 08:49 AM

As the old saying goes, the difference between a wise man and a fool is the wise man makes bigger mistakes.

pendell

2009-07-31, 09:50 AM

Since when does force sensitivity grant you supernatural insight into moral decisions?

Erm, it certainly does. Remember Ep II?

ANAKIN! NOOO!

Yoda certainly heard that.

And you remember in Ep. III when Order 66 happened? Yoda not only knew instantly that something had happened, but that it was utterly evil.

The Force is a supernatural thing, and it very definitely gives insight into morality. Sometimes those insights are misleading, which is where you get Dark Jedi. But a Jedi Master's job is to separate darkness from light, and to cleave to the light. Which seems to be in part sort of a gestalt of every light side sapient who merged with the Force on death, and those beings had very definite moral ideas. A very few such as Qui-Gon are able to retain their own identities as part of the Force, but you put billions of saints in a stew, you're still going to get sort of a generalized saintliness, even if the details of individual identity are forgotten.

You wind up becoming sensitive to that stew -- you BET it's going to be passing along moral information as well as more prosaic things like 'that guy has a blaster and he's about to shoot'.

Good and Evil ... Light and Dark ... are real, tangible things in the Star Wars universe. Those who are sensitive to the Force can at least perceive this about places (such as the cave on Dagobah) and probably could perceive the same about people as well. Palpatine evaded that because he was highly skilled in dark side techniques and was assisted by the Jedi's own blindness.

The Force -- among light-siders -- is for knowledge and defense. At the most basic, crude level, this is the act of foreseeing the actions of a bad guy with a blaster and moving yourself to deflect the harm coming to you. But that's only the basic form.

I imagine as you get better you start foreseeing the actions of whole groups of people , and can act as a negotiator between tribes -- between nations -- between planets.

By the time you're Yoda, you're foreseeing the events and actions that shape a whole galaxy, and acting to forestall it and turn it to the good. You probably never touch a lightsaber outside of the gym. Your weapons are words, diplomacy, and force meditation. Which is like battle meditation, except turning the fate of the galaxy towards the good.

Except that, in the time of the Clone Wars, the Jedi have completely fallen down in this area. Mace Windu said it himself in Ep. II -- they are totally blind. They couldn't foresee the coming of the clone army. They couldn't foresee the outcome of the clone war. They were blind leaders of the blind.

What that means is that the entire Jedi order needed serious fixing. The entire point of giving the Jedi a temple on Coruscant, the ear of the Senate in the running of the Republic, and transportation anywhere in the galaxy, is because they're supposed to be the Ones Who Know What's Going On. You bring them in to mediate your disputes because they are able to foresee the future, see the hearts of the combatants and propose a good solution that works for everyone.

The basis of the Jedi Order is their ability to foresee the future and shape it for the good. When they lose that, they turn into a bunch of silly people waving shiny sticks and doing parlor tricks. Time for the big pink slip. Which is what the universe gave them, in the form of Darth Sidious and Darth Vader.

So yes, I criticize the Jedi. They are mystics whose job is to foresee the future and assist people in following the right course of action. They had completely failed in this job, and this failure led directly to the Dark Side seizing control of the galaxy and their own deaths.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Zevox

2009-07-31, 10:15 AM

Erm, it certainly does. Remember Ep II?

ANAKIN! NOOO!

Yoda certainly heard that.
...no, actually, I don't remember whatever event you're referring to.

And you remember in Ep. III when Order 66 happened? Yoda not only knew instantly that something had happened, but that it was utterly evil.
That seemed to me to merely be like Obi-Wan sensing Alderaan's destruction in A New Hope. Lots of people die in a short amount of time, and he can sense it. More so in this case since those people were mostly Jedi/force-sensitives. Generally, most people would interpret such an event as a bad thing.

As for the rest, I can only say, as I believe I mentioned on the last page or so, that I preferred Vergere's explanation of The Force as One, with the Light and Dark sides as fictions created by the Jedi and the Sith, and am disappointed that canon decided to stick the black and white interpretation that it did. I really don't know what else to say to the remainder of your post, since most of it seems to be merely your view of that version of The Force.

Zevox

pendell

2009-07-31, 10:35 AM

...no, actually, I don't remember whatever event you're referring to.

Okay, that one happened in Ep.II when Anakin started butchering the sand people. You see on-camera as he kills the first two. Cut to Yoda in the temple. You have to listen
REALLY hard but you can definitely hear Qui-Gon saying 'Anakin! Anakin! Nooooo!'

I missed it myself, but had it pointed out in the novelization, watched the DVD again, and sure enough it's there.

Thank goodness for youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgGNoTGOwAA). Skip to 2:45-2:57, listen closely from about 2:52.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Dervag

2009-07-31, 11:04 AM

Well, Jedi are Force-users. They're supposed to have the supernatural ability to know the right thing to do. Therefore I think it's appropriate to hold them to a higher standard than normal people in the GFFA, or 99% of the people you meet in the real world.Yes, but I maintain that even by the appropriate standard of Jedi ethics, taking command of an army that already exists to deal with an enemy that one knows is supported by the Sith is a reasonable act.

I will criticize them for their action in taking command, because the entire war was a dark side deception. Senator Amidala, who was not a Force user, managed to figure that out. But the Jedi order -- typified, perhaps, by "if it is not in our archives it doesn't exist" librarian, had allowed itself to become blinded. The Jedi lost by even fighting the Clone War in the first place .. something which is explicitly stated in the Ep. III novelization.Also stated in the novelization is that the fact that in a real sense they were being jammed: their ability to perceive the outcomes of their actions was being interfered with by Palpatine. And that while they clearly made a bad strategic decision, that doesn't mean they made a bad ethical decision.
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Erm, it certainly does. Remember Ep II?
ANAKIN! NOOO!
Yoda certainly heard that.

And you remember in Ep. III when Order 66 happened? Yoda not only knew instantly that something had happened, but that it was utterly evil. The Force is a supernatural thing, and it very definitely gives insight into morality.What it gives you is the ability to sense death and emotions. Remember Alderaan? "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out and were suddenly silenced."

So Yoda can detect when someone close to him (another Jedi) is killed, or when hundreds of them are killed, or when a Jedi is going through a period of extreme emotional turmoil. Or if some terrible atrocity is going on. But that doesn't mean he can sit down and use his Force Powers (tm) to get a reliable answer to the question "Is it right for us to use the clone army to protect the Republic?"

Except that, in the time of the Clone Wars, the Jedi have completely fallen down in this area. Mace Windu said it himself in Ep. II -- they are totally blind. They couldn't foresee the coming of the clone army. They couldn't foresee the outcome of the clone war. They were blind leaders of the blind.What I think you're overlooking is that this was true in large part because they were dealing with a sudden upsurge in the Dark Side of the Force: lots of emotions, lots of anger throughout the galaxy, and Palpatine sitting right there, practically next door, screwing with their perceptions. To borrow a metaphor, during the Clone War era the Jedi were operating in a very bad "electronic warfare" environment.

They weren't just not seeing the future because they were undisciplined. They were not seeing the future because "hard to see, the future is." So I don't think the Jedi can be held morally at fault for their own failure to predict what the outcome of their actions in the Clone Wars would be. And in the absence of magical prescience, their actions were among the most sensible ones I can reasonably imagine.
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So yes, I criticize the Jedi. They are mystics whose job is to foresee the future and assist people in following the right course of action. They had completely failed in this job, and this failure led directly to the Dark Side seizing control of the galaxy and their own deaths.All right, but I think you should recognize that they failed not just because of their own weakness, but because their enemies were strong and well prepared.

The Jedi are supposed to uphold peace in the galaxy using foresight and mental discipline to promote right outcomes. But the fact that they failed to uphold peace in the galaxy against all possible opponents is not a moral fault, because the Jedi were never supposed to be omnipotent.

pendell

2009-07-31, 11:34 AM

Also stated in the novelization is that the fact that in a real sense they were being jammed: their ability to perceive the outcomes of their actions was being interfered with by Palpatine. And that while they clearly made a bad strategic decision, that doesn't mean they made a bad ethical decision.

Hmm .. I think you're at least partly right. But not wholly.

I contend that there are three factors contributing to the jamming:
A) Palpatine's actions.
B) The corruption of the Republic as a whole.
C) Their own arrogance and complacency, as exemplified first by Obi-wan's need to go outside the system completely and ask a guy at the local diner for directions. It's not just the fact that somebody erased the records. It was the unwillingness by the Librarian to even consider that the records might be anything less than complete.

It's exemplified also by their treatment of Qui-Gon. Given he's the first one to master the technique of preserving consciousness after death in generations, I'd say he was a pretty wise Jedi. Yet he had to defy the council again and again. That tells me something's wrong with the council, not with Qui-Gon.

When you repeatedly have to go outside the system to do the right thing, something is very, very broken. And if it's all down to the machinations of one Sith Lord who can overwhelm hundreds of the galaxies best Light Siders who are otherwise doing the best they can, the Dark Side is so much more powerful it should have always ruled the galaxy.

I don't believe that is the case. The two sides in GFFA seem roughly evenly matched. So to use sports terms, when two evenly matched teams play and one wins 100-0, something is really *wrong* with one of those teams.

I agree that they are not ethically accountable for A and B above. But they are accountable for C.

You use the analogy of a bad electronic warfare environment. You're military and I'm not. But it occurs to me that soldiers aren't responsible if the enemy tries to jam them. But they *are* responsible, if , say, you come in for inspection and the equipment's powered down while the operators are playing games because 'nothing ever happens'. I'll wager troops who had a CPO walk in on them would shortly regret they were ever born.

I'm not saying the Jedi were quite that bad. But to the extent they are responsible for their own jamming, they are morally culpable for that negligence. And I believe the films establish clearly that this was definitely a factor.

To what extent it was a factor is another question entirely. But I don't think it was an insignificant one either. Is Palpatine the first powerful dark side user the galaxy has faced in a thousand years? Is he the first person with a grand plan to make life miserable for lots of people?

Then why is he so successful when all the others fail? Is it because he's so good, or that his enemies are just so bad?

As I said .. there are multiple factors here, and the Jedi are only morally responsible for some of them. So the destruction was not all the Jedi's fault. But I contend that they are culpable *in part*.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Zevox

2009-07-31, 11:58 AM

Okay, that one happened in Ep.II when Anakin started butchering the sand people. You see on-camera as he kills the first two. Cut to Yoda in the temple. You have to listen
REALLY hard but you can definitely hear Qui-Gon saying 'Anakin! Anakin! Nooooo!'

I missed it myself, but had it pointed out in the novelization, watched the DVD again, and sure enough it's there.

Thank goodness for youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgGNoTGOwAA). Skip to 2:45-2:57, listen closely from about 2:52.

Respectfully,

Brian P.
Okay, but then that's just Qui-Gon's spirit sensing what Anakin was doing as not liking it at all. Not the Force itself providing some sort of insight into a moral decision.

Zevox

mangosta71

2009-07-31, 12:02 PM

It's exemplified also by their treatment of Qui-Gon. Given he's the first one to master the technique of preserving consciousness after death in generations, I'd say he was a pretty wise Jedi. Yet he had to defy the council again and again. That tells me something's wrong with the council, not with Qui-Gon.

I would have to side with the Council on the biggest matter that he defied them on. If Anakin hadn't been trained, Palpatine wouldn't have had a replacement for Dooku. Palpatine would have been executed when the Jedi finally found him out. Order 66 wouldn't have been given. The Empire never would have arisen.

Also, you imply that the fact that he was able to master a single ability makes him wiser than the Jedi Council. I point to Bastila of KotOR fame. She's the only Jedi at the time to have mastered Battle Meditation, and she's clearly still impetuous. She acts on her emotions on a regular basis. She's certainly no more wise than, for example, Jolee.

Cristo Meyers

2009-07-31, 12:06 PM

Also, you imply that the fact that he was able to master a single ability makes him wiser than the Jedi Council. I point to Bastila of KotOR fame. She's the only Jedi at the time to have mastered Battle Meditation, and she's clearly still impetuous. She acts on her emotions on a regular basis. She's certainly no more wise than, for example, Jolee.

She's also the reason Charisma should not be linked to physical attractiveness given form...

hamishspence

2009-07-31, 12:14 PM

I would have to side with the Council on the biggest matter that he defied them on. If Anakin hadn't been trained, Palpatine wouldn't have had a replacement for Dooku. Palpatine would have been executed when the Jedi finally found him out. Order 66 wouldn't have been given. The Empire never would have arisen.

Not necessarily. Assuming the Council stayed obdurate after the battle of Naboo, Palpatine would have been aware that a very powerful, untrained Force user existed outside the control of the Jedi Council.

Plus, events might have unfolded completely differently- we can't assume that with no Anakin, every other event leading up to the clone wars would have remained the same.

If Qui-gon had not taken Anakin off Tatooine, events might have been even more different- would the Trade Federation have lost?

Dervag

2009-07-31, 01:24 PM

When you repeatedly have to go outside the system to do the right thing, something is very, very broken. And if it's all down to the machinations of one Sith Lord who can overwhelm hundreds of the galaxies best Light Siders who are otherwise doing the best they can, the Dark Side is so much more powerful it should have always ruled the galaxy.One recurring theme in Star Wars fiction is the idea of a 'pendulum effect' between the Light and Dark sides. Each side tends to be its own worst enemy after any prolonged period of dominance. Without a credible external enemy, the Light gets complacent and falls prey to the Dark's gift for subversion, and the Dark wastes its time on internal struggles and falls prey to the Light's superior internal cohesion.

I agree that the Jedi Order of was flawed, but I think we're talking past each other. They're a human institution, of course they're flawed; it's unreasonable to expect perfection out of them. So we can talk about their failings without going "Jedi are immoral hypocrites!," which is the position I'm really trying to oppose here. We're talking about an organization that is sincerely trying to do the right things, but has no institutional memory left of how to do them properly because it has been so very long since they had to.
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You use the analogy of a bad electronic warfare environment. You're military and I'm not...Actually, I'm not military, I just have basic fluency in the language. And electronic warfare is just about the only thing in the real world that even compares to the kind of "magic" warfare we see in the Force or in fantasy novels.

As an interesting side note, when Churchill wrote his History of the Second World War around 1950, he used the term "The Wizard War" to describe the electronic warfare battles between Britain and Germany, with both sides trying to mess up the enemy's radar and communications and enhance their own... the serpent is biting its tail here.
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To what extent it was a factor is another question entirely. But I don't think it was an insignificant one either. Is Palpatine the first powerful dark side user the galaxy has faced in a thousand years? Is he the first person with a grand plan to make life miserable for lots of people?Sort of and yes, respectively. After their last major defeat, the Sith went into deep hiding, adopting the "rule of two" master-apprentice system. This was specifically intended to hide the fact that the Sith order had survived from the Jedi, and to allow the Sith to cultivate their techniques and bide their time until the Jedi appeared weak enough to overcome. It also marked a shift from brute force tactics to subversion by the Sith, and that was a smart call, because Dark Siders are good at subversion.

So for the last thousand years, there has not been a credible galactic-scale threat from users of the Dark Side of the Force. Palpatine, seeing that the Galactic Republic has decayed to the point where an astute politican may be able to bring the whole thing crashing down and set himself up as dictator, is the first person to try anything of the sort.

And it's not surprising that during those thousand years, the Jedi got complacent. Not even Yoda can remember the last major round of Jedi-Sith wars. Since those wars ended, the Jedi have been the preeminent Force users in the galaxy, and in most conflicts the only Force users actually involved, which gave them massive superiority in many ways. And for all that time, the Jedi have been running around the galaxy putting out small fires (planet-scale crises).

They've lost the institutional knowledge of what a major threat to galactic stability looks like and how to combat it, and they've lost the memory of the days when they had to dedicate considerable effort to countering Sith techniques. Which is why they don't realize what's going on when Palpatine starts messing with them.
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Then why is he so successful when all the others fail? Is it because he's so good, or that his enemies are just so bad?Both. Palpatine is a brilliant politician and immensely powerful Force user, he's got a situation much to his advantage (lots of dissent and confusion to exploit), and his enemies barely realize that he or anyone like him could possibly still exist. Remember that in Episode I, some of the Jedi refuse to believe that there are any Sith until the evidence up and impales a Jedi Master.
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As I said .. there are multiple factors here, and the Jedi are only morally responsible for some of them. So the destruction was not all the Jedi's fault. But I contend that they are culpable *in part*.Agreed.

Thrawn183

2009-07-31, 02:02 PM

There's also a pretty big deal made in some of the Episode 1 novels about how Palpatine didn't even come up with his plan entirely on his own. The Sith had been planning this (at least the general sweeps) for a REALLY long time and in the security of an enemy that doesn't even know they exist.

The Jedi were on the receiving end of a plot that had been in the works for potentially centuries, and they got a relatively short heads up about it. Even their warning was that their was probably still a Sith running around out there, not that the Sith had manipulated the course of the entire galaxy to take over and kill all the Jedi.

The Jedi we're like a sports team that never got to play in a real match coached by a guy who never played in a real match and was himself also taught to play by a guy who never played in a real match. Then they finally got to play in a real game, only to realize the referee was on the take. They lost, but they still came really close to pulling out a win, which is fairly miraculous.

Zevox

2009-07-31, 02:22 PM

There's also a pretty big deal made in some of the Episode 1 novels about how Palpatine didn't even come up with his plan entirely on his own. The Sith had been planning this (at least the general sweeps) for a REALLY long time and in the security of an enemy that doesn't even know they exist.
Oh yes. Palpatine's success was built on the plans that had been going on for nearly 1,000 years, first laid down by Darth Bane (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Darth_Bane), the Sith Lord who created the Rule of Two - the restriction of the Sith to only two members; one master, and one apprentice, with the expectation that the apprentice would one day kill the master to take his place and take on a new apprentice to continue the Order. It was he who transformed the Sith from the type of group we see in Knights of the Old Republic to what they were in Palpatine's day, it was he who managed to fool the Jedi into thinking the Sith had been completely wiped out, and it was his decision that they would act behind the scenes to destroy the Jedi and gain dominance of the Galaxy covertly.

Given that his version of the Sith were ultimately the most successful, actually succeeding in wiping out the original Jedi Order and establishing the Galactic Empire under their rule, he might very well be the most visionary man to have ever lived in the Galaxy Far, Far Away.

Zevox

mangosta71

2009-07-31, 03:16 PM

Not necessarily. Assuming the Council stayed obdurate after the battle of Naboo, Palpatine would have been aware that a very powerful, untrained Force user existed outside the control of the Jedi Council.

Plus, events might have unfolded completely differently- we can't assume that with no Anakin, every other event leading up to the clone wars would have remained the same.

If Qui-gon had not taken Anakin off Tatooine, events might have been even more different- would the Trade Federation have lost?

Anakin was taken off Tatooine before the Council ruling. After that, it would have been extremely irresponsible of Qui-gon to not provide for his care. So I don't see how the events of Ep.I would have been significantly altered if he and Obi-wan had decided to abide by the Council's decision to not train him. The reason I don't think the Empire would have arisen is that Palpatine was never able to have his apprentice onhand at Coruscant with the Council right there, so without Anakin there would have been nobody to interfere when Windu confronted him. He would have died before giving Order 66, so the Jedi would have survived as well.

hamishspence

2009-07-31, 03:28 PM

In Episode I, Palpatine and his previous apprentice (Maul) are shown on Coruscant.

And Palpatine managed to train Dooku as a Sith despite having a day job as Chancellor.

So, why would he have problems training Anakin if the Jedi Order didn't accept him?

If Qui-Gon had been a bit more like traditional Jedi, and chose not to take Anakin off Tatooine (remembering the "Too old" rulings) there are suggestions (in the novels) that Anakin would have made a big name for himself eventually anyway.

If Qui-Gon hadn't made it his dying wish that Anakin be trained, he'd still have been easy prey for Palpatine to work on (and possibly with no watching Obi-Wan- just being fostered out).

And, the Jedi only figured out Palpatine was the Sith lord because he told Anakin, and Anakin told them.

Had (for some reason) Anakin never become a Jedi, events might have unfolded differently, so the assumption that Order 66 could have only took place because of Anakin, may not be correct, since we simply do not know how different events would have been.

(There are also suggestions that Palpatine was faking, in the fight with Mace- on Wookiepedia- so, had Mace figured it out in a World Without Anakin, that still doesn't mean he would have won.)

You can probably think of dozens of ways events might have played differently. Dooku might have stayed on, and not been replaced. Obi-wan might have never become a Master till much later. Etc.

EDIT:
What could have happened?

Possibilities-

Qui-Gon leaves Anakin behind on Coruscant rather than taking him into a war zone. Jedi arrange for his fostering. Because Anakin didn't blow up the ship, the Naboo war goes badly.

Qui-Gon doesn't ask Obi-Wan to train Anakin when he dies, Yoda wins the debate over him being trained, and he gets fostered.

Either way, just because the Jedi don't train him, doesn't mean Palpatine can't arrange for him to be spirited away and trained.

pendell

2009-07-31, 05:22 PM

One recurring theme in Star Wars fiction is the idea of a 'pendulum effect' between the Light and Dark sides. Each side tends to be its own worst enemy after any prolonged period of dominance. Without a credible external enemy, the Light gets complacent and falls prey to the Dark's gift for subversion, and the Dark wastes its time on internal struggles and falls prey to the Light's superior internal cohesion.

I agree that the Jedi Order of was flawed, but I think we're talking past each other. They're a human institution, of course they're flawed; it's unreasonable to expect perfection out of them. So we can talk about their failings without going "Jedi are immoral hypocrites!," which is the position I'm really trying to oppose here. We're talking about an organization that is sincerely trying to do the right things, but has no institutional memory left of how to do them properly because it has been so very long since they had to.

I agree with this. I'm not trying to argue 'Jedi are immoral hypocrites'. Their portrayal in the prequels is mostly positive. Certainly Windu, Qui-gon, Yoda, Ki-adi-Mundi and the rest are neither immoral nor hypocrites.

But that doesn't mean they are perfect either. And that's why I criticize them to some extent. That doesn't make them immoral. It just makes them something other than flawless. Good people occasionally do immoral things. And the failures that the Jedi fall into are the sort of things good people typically fall into -- a bit of arrogance, a bit of blindness, an unwillingness to see other points of view. All of it well-meaning, all of it disastrous. I'm sure readers who have seen the movie Serenity are familiar with the concept.

Sort of and yes, respectively. After their last major defeat, the Sith went into deep hiding, adopting the "rule of two" master-apprentice system. This was specifically intended to hide the fact that the Sith order had survived from the Jedi, and to allow the Sith to cultivate their techniques and bide their time until the Jedi appeared weak enough to overcome. It also marked a shift from brute force tactics to subversion by the Sith, and that was a smart call, because Dark Siders are good at subversion.

So for the last thousand years, there has not been a credible galactic-scale threat from users of the Dark Side of the Force. Palpatine, seeing that the Galactic Republic has decayed to the point where an astute politican may be able to bring the whole thing crashing down and set himself up as dictator, is the first person to try anything of the sort.

The main point of disagreement I have is that not all Dark Side users of the Force are Sith.

The timeline (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_galactic_history) shows that you are indeed correct -- although isolated groups of Dark Side users existed (witches of wherever, Dark Side Prophets, etc.), the dark side did not start to stir until BBY 232.

I have a hard time believing that there were not a few of those dark side folks who got in touch with the force and would have loved to do a Palpatine. But they couldn't because the Light Siders could see clearly and nip them in the bud, so quickly and thoroughly they never made so much as a footnote in galactic history. Because the Lightsiders could see and they couldn't. It's hard to fight an enemy who has foreseen your every move and moreover has the resources of a galaxy behind it.

Then it all changed.

The dark side awoke, clouding the vision of the Jedi. Eventually the Dark Side became strong enough that it could throw up a champion which could destroy the Jedi.

So it wasn't just Palpatine. He was operating in an environment which favored him. Sith much like him had existed for centuries but were forced to remain in hiding because the Jedi were too strong. It was only when his own abilities combined with the dark side's strength combined with the Jedi's weakness that enabled him to overthrow the Republic.

To what extent the Jedi were victims of this clouding -- and to what extent they were responsible for it, however unwittingly -- well, I suspect that's a question without an answer.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Tyrant

2009-07-31, 08:48 PM

Anakin was taken off Tatooine before the Council ruling. After that, it would have been extremely irresponsible of Qui-gon to not provide for his care. So I don't see how the events of Ep.I would have been significantly altered if he and Obi-wan had decided to abide by the Council's decision to not train him. The reason I don't think the Empire would have arisen is that Palpatine was never able to have his apprentice onhand at Coruscant with the Council right there, so without Anakin there would have been nobody to interfere when Windu confronted him. He would have died before giving Order 66, so the Jedi would have survived as well.

Without the presence of Anakin, Obi Wan might not have even made it to the finale. Or, though it is far fetched, Obi Wan might have been tempted to the dark side by Dooku on Geonosis (perhaps he would have had a lesser apprentice who died in some type of rescue attempt and he would be brooding over that loss). Without Anakin, Padme may have died on Coruscant when the attempt was made on her life. Or she and Obi Wan could have died in the arena on Geonosis. Without Anakin, could Obi Wan and whatever other apprentice he had stand up to Dooku on Geonosis or above Coruscant? Would Palpatine have even ordered his own capture with Anakin not in the picture? If any of these events don't happen, what leads Mace to even confront Palpatine? Without Anakin there to kill him, what stops Dooku from being there to stop Mace (or at least back up Palpatine)? Anakin, and by extension since he owes him his life a few times over Obi Wan, were present for some critical steps that lead to the confrontation with Mace and their absence could massively alter how things turn out. Remember, one guy basically controlled the whole show and manipulated things to his own ends. Without the need to convert Anakin, why even prompt the fight with Mace?

Jade_Tarem

2009-07-31, 09:23 PM

The what ifs can go on forever. I've sort of lost track of what we were discussing, and reading back over the thread isn't fixing it. Can someone help me out?

Tyrant

2009-07-31, 09:44 PM

The what ifs can go on forever. I've sort of lost track of what we were discussing, and reading back over the thread isn't fixing it. Can someone help me out?
I believe that it has spun out of the idea that had Qui Gon not forced the Jedi to train Obi Wan (or had Yoda's wisdom prevailed) that a virtually identical chain of events would have occured to the point that the battle with Mace and Palpatine still would have happened and Anakin wouldn't have been there to prevent it. Personally, I think that is silly as Anakin, and by extension Obi Wan, were present at some critical moments and central to the plans of Palatine (who controlled every thing). At least that was what I was responding to. Other people may be out to prove/disprove other conclusions/ideas/whatever.

Jade_Tarem

2009-07-31, 10:05 PM

I believe that it has spun out of the idea that had Qui Gon not forced the Jedi to train Obi Wan (or had Yoda's wisdom prevailed) that a virtually identical chain of events would have occured to the point that the battle with Mace and Palpatine still would have happened and Anakin wouldn't have been there to prevent it. Personally, I think that is silly as Anakin, and by extension Obi Wan, were present at some critical moments and central to the plans of Palatine (who controlled every thing). At least that was what I was responding to. Other people may be out to prove/disprove other conclusions/ideas/whatever.

Ah, thank you.

Yes, something as big as removing Anakin as a power would have had a drastic impact throughout the Prequel era. Who knows, maybe he would have been trained in the dark side from early on, and become a male foil for Asajj Ventress?

Dervag

2009-08-01, 02:05 AM

The main point of disagreement I have is that not all Dark Side users of the Force are Sith.

The timeline (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_galactic_history) shows that you are indeed correct -- although isolated groups of Dark Side users existed (witches of wherever, Dark Side Prophets, etc.), the dark side did not start to stir until BBY 232.

I have a hard time believing that there were not a few of those dark side folks who got in touch with the force and would have loved to do a Palpatine. But they couldn't because the Light Siders could see clearly and nip them in the bud, so quickly and thoroughly they never made so much as a footnote in galactic history. Because the Lightsiders could see and they couldn't. It's hard to fight an enemy who has foreseen your every move and moreover has the resources of a galaxy behind it.It's hard to fight an enemy who hasn't foreseen your every move and has the resources of a galaxy, either.

OK, so a Jedi goes rogue, falls to the Dark Side, and starts trying to build a planetary empire on the Outer Rim. The Order sends six Jedi of roughly equal proficiency to stop him, problem solved. One Force-adept warlord with a native instinct for Dark Side-fueled Battle Meditation starts fooling around in some backwater sector, scrape together a fleet and several Jedi, problem solved. The key here is that unless a powerful, very skilled Dark Sider just happens to be trying to subvert the Republic through intrigue, and is very good at it, and the galaxy is already in chaos... the situation that led to the Clone Wars will simply not arise. Most threats will be easier to chase down, and the Jedi won't have a powerful Dark Sider sitting under their nose messing up their perception of the future, which makes them easier still.

Rogue Jedi won't have the right skill set to be deadly effective intriguers the way Palpatine was- and Palpatine had to spend much of his life working his way into position before he became a noticeable player on the galactic scale.

Therefore, as I said, any Dark Siders the Order had to deal with weren't a threat on the galactic scale. They were a threat on the scale of planets, or at most sectors, and the Jedi could still apply overwhelming force (both in Force adepts and in physical resources) to bring those threats down.