The Mandalorian Season 2

[Peelee]

Liability insurance retained to protect against lawsuits prompted by limb amputations is a write off.

Travel by bantha and giant gecko can allow for deductions per mile and per vat of food pellets, but receipts have to be retained and stamped by no less that two (2) Jedi Masters before being filed along form 130(c), section (non-horse/non-horse-proximate organic conveyances).

That day, she was amazed to discover that when he was saying "Jedi business," what he meant was, "I have filed articles of incorporation again."

[Fyraltari]

" I have brought order and simplicity to my new tax system!
-Your new tax system!?"

"Anakin, the Chancellor is guilty of tax evasion!
-In my point of view, the Jedi are guilty of tax evasion!
-Then you are lost!"

[Tyndmyr]

The tax code thing does honestly sound amazing.

I'd look forward to the reveal that Yoda's species normally has a mane of hair, but that 800 years of doing taxes have left him with none.

[Peelee]

The tax code thing does honestly sound amazing.

I'd look forward to the reveal that Yoda's species normally has a mane of hair, but that 800 years of doing taxes have left him with none.

Yaddle was quite well coiffed. So I think we can safely assume she used an accounting firm.

[Sapphire Guard]

I could see a legal drama on Nute Gunray's four trials.

[pendell]

Looking forward to the a prequel episode where Qui-Gonn and Obi-wan get tagged with a minder droid whose job is to ensure all their expenses are properly filed and helps them to get the best possible breaks on the final return

Obi-wan: Landspeeder fuel is a business expense , right? Because we're using it to catch a criminal? Do I have to put in the exact amount?
ACCT-0: Oh, just round to the nearest credit. Only the Sith believe in absolutes.

In other news, Benedict Cumberpatch rejected the role of Thrawn, which implies they are casting for it.

I have mixed feelings. While the Zahn trilogy was extremely well-written, I'm not sure the creative team that gave us Hux and Kylo Ren is up to giving the Grand Admiral the treatment he would need to live up to his role in the novels.

There's also the problem that we're still trying to tell a story for children, and children aren't really big on nuance. The original Zahn novels seem to be written for adults, and they portray Thrawn as a charismatic anti-villain who did the wrong things and fought for the wrong side for the right reasons. I'm not sure you can put "charismatic anti-villain" into a children's story. Either you make him too likeable, in which case the audience forget he's the villain, or you make him a muhahah mustache-twirling villain no different than any of those the SW universe is already chock full of. Or, option 3, you make him affable, evil, and dumb, making his "military genius" an informed ability talked about but never actually seen on screen.

Speaking as someone who's lived through all the generations of fandom, I think there was a wee bit too much sympathy for the Empire in the 1990s era when Legends had its birth. It looks to me as if both George Lucas in the prequels and the current Disney team have tried to correct the other way, and in so doing made a series of cartoonish villains such as Snoke who are two-dimensionally evil and rather uninteresting. Darth Vader was a villain with class back in the day. He was intimidating. He was commanding. He was sarcastic. He was a villain that both demanded to be taken seriously and one that was extremely satisfying to see finally beat in Ep. VI. It'd be nice if Disney could create an original villain cut from the same cloth as Ian MacDiarmid or James Earl Jones or even Peter Cushing, but I haven't seen one yet.

Oh yes. Why why whywhyWHY haven't we seen Mara Jade? If the current Disney team wants a strong female character who can totally dominate the screen, why not the former Emperor's Hand? Show her adventures either after the events of the Zahn trilogy where she can strike out on her own as a heroine, or maybe a prequel where she does the Emperor's dirty work in a light-sided way that foreshadow their eventual parting of the ways. In a universe which wants more strong female characters, I'm flabberghasted she's been left on the bench.



Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Fyraltari]

In other news, Benedict Cumberpatch rejected the role of Thrawn, which implies they are casting for it.

Cumberbatch isn't mentionned once in this article?

I have mixed feelings. While the Zahn trilogy was extremely well-written, I'm not sure the creative team that gave us Hux and Kylo Ren is up to giving the Grand Admiral the treatment he would need to live up to his role in the novels.

Lucasfilm has more than one creative team, hasn't it?

There's also the problem that we're still trying to tell a story for children, and children aren't really big on nuance. The original Zahn novels seem to be written for adults, and they portray Thrawn as a charismatic anti-villain who did the wrong things and fought for the wrong side for the right reasons.

They do not. In the Thrawn Trilogy, he's just a space-fascist. One that happens to have more than two brain cells, but competency aside his character is presented wholly negatively. His presentation in The Hand of Thrawn Duology isn't as villainous, but that's mostly because Pellaeon is very biased in favor of his late mentor (and is a fellow space-fascist), the heroes still don't like Thrawn one bit. Can't say for the other Legends Thrawn novels
I haven't read them.

I'm not sure you can put "charismatic anti-villain" into a children's story.

Spoiler: I am

Show

It'd be nice if Disney could create an original villain cut from the same cloth as Ian MacDiarmid or James Earl Jones or even Peter Cushing, but I haven't seen one yet.

Yeah, I feel like that's what they're trying to do with Moff Gideon but for some reason it just doesn't take.

Oh yes. Why why whywhyWHY haven't we seen Mara Jade? If the current Disney team wants a strong female character who can totally dominate the screen, why not the former Emperor's Hand? Show her adventures either after the events of the Zahn trilogy where she can strike out on her own as a heroine, or maybe a prequel where she does the Emperor's dirty work in a light-sided way that foreshadow their eventual parting of the ways. In a universe which wants more strong female characters, I'm flabberghasted she's been left on the bench.

I think that in the lead-up to (and including) the ST there was a ban on exploring Jedi characters in the post-RotJ Era and now there's just a lack of interest? Also, I think they're traying to avoid Luke having a romantic partner.

[Keltest]

Yeah, I feel like that's what they're trying to do with Moff Gideon but for some reason it just doesn't take.

I like Gideon actually. He feels like an appropriately scaled villain. He isn't a petty warlord rising to topple the New Republic, but within regions of space outside their control he could plausibly be hell on wheels.

[pendell]

Cumberbatch isn't mentionned once in this article?

My mistake. Here.

ETA:

They do not. In the Thrawn Trilogy, he's just a space-fascist. One that happens to have more than two brain cells, but competency aside his character is presented wholly negatively. His presentation in The Hand of Thrawn Duology isn't as villainous, but that's mostly because Pellaeon is very biased in favor of his late mentor (and is a fellow space-fascist), the heroes still don't like Thrawn one bit. Can't say for the other Legends Thrawn novels
I haven't read them.

A space fascist but not a space Nazi, if you see the difference. What's more, Thrawn is rational. While being bang on with the idea of terror as a weapon he doesn't casually commit mass murder or blow up planets simply to prove a point. You could imagine him as the antagonist in a Horatio Hornblower novel. Not on the side of the angels, but for the most part fighting a war without unnecessary bloodshed. Someone you could conclude a peace treaty with and have it stick, as opposed to someone like the Emperor with whom no peace is possible.

Perhaps my recollections of TTT are colored by the later novel , Outbound Flight.

Spoiler

Show

We meet Thrawn as a commander in the local polity, the Chiss Ascendancy, in the Unknown Regions. The Galactic Civil War comes to his doorstep in the form of a Jedi exploration ship and Palpatine's goons who are sent to destroy it. After defeating the goons, he attempts peaceful contact with the Jedi but the commander, one Jorus C'baoth, goes full Dark Jedi with force lightning et al. Thrawn defeats him, and Palpatine's people then scout him for the Imperial Navy. He joins because he is persuaded that only a union of all military forces can defeat the external threat to the galaxy (the Yuuzhan Vong, an extragalactic threat about to invade) and that only unity under a single military commander can accomplish this. This brings him into the Imperial camp.

In this novel he is the out-and-out hero of the story, which colors the chronologically later books into anti-villain territory.

He wants to save the galaxy. The threat is real.And while he's on the wrong side, it's hard to argue that the New Republic, under President Borsk Fey'la, does little to inspire confidence.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Mechalich]

Speaking as someone who's lived through all the generations of fandom, I think there was a wee bit too much sympathy for the Empire in the 1990s era when Legends had its birth.

Nah. While Thrawn's a classically competent fascist, the rest of the Imperial rogue's gallery from the Bantam Era is a bunch of crazies. Warlord Zsinj? A complete megalomaniac. Ysanne Isard? A sadistic misanthropic manipulator. Palpatine Reborn? Absolutely in it for the evulz. Natasi Daala? Oh god, just...why?

The issue was actually not that the Empire looked too good, but that the New Republic was portrayed as an absolute disaster of an enterprise. Bantam Era novels set later in the timeline such as The Crystal Star, the Black Fleet Crisis, the New Rebellion, and the Corellian Trilogy all portray a New Republic that can't even get itself together to properly respond to minor, regional-level threats. The Hand of Thrawn duology cements this impression, as the government struggles to manage its thousands of competing viewpoints in the face of an emergent historical scandal and a nasty disinformation campaign. Zahn, by the end of those novels, offered a path forward towards greater stability, but it didn't take.

Del Rey had the Yuuzhan Vong invade the galaxy and rather than come together in the face of an external enemy - the common response of democracies in such circumstances - the New Republic fell apart completely and did more damage to itself via backstabbing and infighting than the invaders did themselves. And then in the post NJO-Era the rechristened 'Galactic Alliance' successor government was reduced to a bad caricature of a democratic state, culminating in the events of FotJ where the Seante voted to make a Lovecraftian Horror (Abeloth) the Chief of State.

Meanwhile the Empire churned along in the background as an increasingly functional fascist enterprise. Yes it was a totalitarian military state, but it wasn't abusive about it anymore and things were stable and most people were doing pretty well. And of course, in the far-future Legacy comics series the Galactic Alliance collapses completely in the face of Darth Krayt's Sith Empire, while Emperor Roan Fel leads a principled Imperial government in exile in resistance to his tyranny.

Ultimately, totalitarian military states are significantly less complicated than democracies, especially democracies that are multi-cultural and lack strong traditions and norms to support civic cohesion. If there's a 5% of the population that represents a fringe element that simply refuses to comply with the government's program, the totalitarian solution is simple: they get utterly crushed and everyone moves on. This is horrible, but if it happens off-screen then it's easy for the audience to ignore. Meanwhile, if a democracy is crippled by a fringe movement that continually disrupts government operations it becomes extremely complicated. So it's easy to portray, in fiction a highly functional totalitarian state, and one can even be portrayed as surprisingly pleasant in the present, if all the pesky purges that allowed that to happen occurred in the past.

It should be noted, it looks like the Disney canon is going down a similar road. The Mandalorian has the discussion with the Imperial officer in the mining base who notes 'the New Republic is in disarray' before getting shot by Bill Burr's character. And, honestly, this is the only way to make the ST at all logical. For the First Order to emerge with the kind of power it possesses the New Republic has to fail in all sorts of important ways.

I like Gideon actually. He feels like an appropriately scaled villain. He isn't a petty warlord rising to topple the New Republic, but within regions of space outside their control he could plausibly be hell on wheels.

Gideon's a fine villain, for Mando and his crew. I think he worked great in Season 2 and if he gets sprung from custody for some reason he can go on being a villain for The Mandalorian. What he isn't, however, is a villain properly scaled to take on Ahsoka Tano and her crew (which will presumably include Sabine Wren and eventually Ezra Bridger). That's what Thrawn's needed for.

I suspect that Thrawn's appearance in Mandalorian season 3, if he has one, will be short. Perhaps he'll be the one to spring Gideon and give some nasty speech to the effect that 'You failed me by losing the Child, you will not survive failing me by allowing a new Mandalore to rise' before flying off to deal with off problems.

[pendell]

The issue was actually not that the Empire looked too good, but that the New Republic was portrayed as an absolute disaster of an enterprise. Bantam Era novels set later in the timeline such as The Crystal Star, the Black Fleet Crisis, the New Rebellion, and the Corellian Trilogy all portray a New Republic that can't even get itself together to properly respond to minor, regional-level threats. The Hand of Thrawn duology cements this impression, as the government struggles to manage its thousands of competing viewpoints in the face of an emergent historical scandal and a nasty disinformation campaign. Zahn, by the end of those novels, offered a path forward towards greater stability, but it didn't take.

I think my point is, that because Bantam and Del Rey showed the New Republic as being completely dysfunctional while the Imperial Remnant "made the trains run on time", therefore these novels are effectively pro-fascist propaganda. That wasn't the intention, obviously, but the message being sent is that democracy doesn't work while fascism does.

It doesn't help that the single best starfighter videogame ever came out in that time period, and it portrayed an Imperial pilot. It's one of my favorite games, but that doesn't mean I fail to recognize the issue.

Ultimately, totalitarian military states are significantly less complicated than democracies, especially democracies that are multi-cultural and lack strong traditions and norms to support civic cohesion. If there's a 5% of the population that represents a fringe element that simply refuses to comply with the government's program, the totalitarian solution is simple: they get utterly crushed and everyone moves on. This is horrible, but if it happens off-screen then it's easy for the audience to ignore. Meanwhile, if a democracy is crippled by a fringe movement that continually disrupts government operations it becomes extremely complicated. So it's easy to portray, in fiction a highly functional totalitarian state, and one can even be portrayed as surprisingly pleasant in the present, if all the pesky purges that allowed that to happen occurred in the past.

While I would agree with your point, I think I have to point out that purges are not solely a feature of dictatorships. I'm trying to think of a good fictional example , but the first thing I think of is BSG's Litmus episode, in which a hunt for Cylons turns into a fleetwide witch hunt.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Sapphire Guard]

I think that's just the needs of narrative at work, where they need the threat to be be threatening, rather thatn being able to say 'eh, the Republic's got this'.

I don't think Thrawn will work onscreen. He makes a giant speech in every scene, and because he's so popular, it's difficult to make him lose fairly without the fandom getting upset. The more screentime he had in the novels, the sillier he became. 'I know more about cloning than the cloners, more about the Force than the Jedi/Palpatine, more about droids than the Trade Federation, and more about Interdictor fields than the people that invented the technology, and incidentally, I would have won the battle of Endor'

As a long term threat, sooner or later either the schemes work or Thrawn starts failing and loses his edge, but in the short term he doesn't have time to build his reputation.

Gideon in concept was fine, but he had to rely on stormtroopers that presented no threat, which meant he ended up a talker with nothing to back it up.

[Peelee]

My main issue with Gideon is I've already seen Gustavo Fring.

[russdm]

Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!

Don't be getting your NuCanon all up in my Legends canon.

In Legends: The New Republic worked and defeated Imperial threats until Thrawn showed up who they had problems with. Afterward, the New Republic keep on taking space from the Empire, until the Treaty by Pellaeon happened. After that, things started going south as the New Republic, which had by united by fear of the Empire and what it could do, had no outlet. (In metagame/metaplot) our rebel heroes and the empire's remnants were longer at war, so new plots and enemies had to be created. that slowly soured things, and frankly without the New republic splitting up, the yuuzhan vong are a brief issue at best, considering how other one offs went which the Vong would have turned into.

The New Republic had an effective military and was committed to defending its space and take more from the Empire. There were real efforts made to provide a better reality for people to experience. To be a viable option than losing everything they had left, the Remnant had to change to become like the New Republic more or the Empire would stop existing in any way.

In NuCanon: The New Republic won at Jakku then cut its military down significantly and then promptly decided to abandon any real war plans. When the Imperials fled into the outer rim and beyond, the New Republic simply shrugged in response and was not particularly concerned. They also decided to try setting up a government.

Unlike Legends, this New Republic had Mon Mothma weaken the leadership, making the New Republic incrediably dysfunctional where the Senate divided into Populists and Centrists. The Centrists want good government, while the Populists want free people?? and no central authority.

To use the best example, it is the condition of the New Republic that it is experiencing the same as the United States of America while under the Articles of Confederation and no constitution. The Centrists want a constitution and a strong leader in the Senate, the first speaker position,; while the populists like things how they are.

When Leia is ousted (In the Bloodlines novel) the New Republic is now going with the usual business and no effective leadership and with as been shown, no effective military or law enforcement.

That means no rule of law nor anything of the sort. That basically means the New Republic is simply one of many factions as opposed to a ruling faction that the others must serve. The centrists and the First Order will exploit that for their benefit.

The New Republic, or at least Mon, stripped away everything the Empire provided without looking at what needed to be removed and what needed to be kept.

The Old Republic provided authority that was backed by the Jedi Order with no questions asked about what was being done to preserve the Republic was right or the best.

The Empire was Tyranny but order, cruelty but law, horrible stuff, but for some they had food on the table to eat and their kids weren't starving or whatever. It was not the best system but it was not always as bad as the Republic had been.

The New Republic was worse off than the Old Republic, and worse than the Empire because it allowed all the wrongs of the Empire but no support. The New Republic abandoned its responsibility to provide good governance and good government.

So I say, no real loss there.

This is probably one of the main issues I have with NuCanon: It completely undermines the entire Rebellion's goal, if the New Republic we got that was destroyed in Episode 7 was actually what the Rebellion was fighting for. It makes me really question if the Rebellion giving up would not have been better.

NuCanon New Republic gave the galaxy Freedom with Anarchy/Chaos which is not Freedom.

[Fyraltari]

A space fascist but not a space Nazi, if you see the difference.

I do not want to go there. For the purposes of discussing SW, I use space-nazi and space-fascist interchangeably. Though in truth, the Galactic Empire's coding tends more towards the Nazis than the Fascists, what's with the stormtroopers and the Wehrmacht uniorms.

What's more, Thrawn is rational. While being bang on with the idea of terror as a weapon he doesn't casually commit mass murder or blow up planets simply to prove a point.

That bar is so low it's freaking undreground. Also he casually bombed the Noghri settlement to make a point.

You could imagine him as the antagonist in a Horatio Hornblower novel.

I can't. But that's because I've never read those books.

Not on the side of the angels, but for the most part fighting a war without unnecessary bloodshed. Someone you could conclude a peace treaty with and have it stick, as opposed to someone like the Emperor with whom no peace is possible.

Perhaps my recollections of TTT are colored by the later novel , Outbound Flight.

Spoiler

Show

We meet Thrawn as a commander in the local polity, the Chiss Ascendancy, in the Unknown Regions. The Galactic Civil War comes to his doorstep in the form of a Jedi exploration ship and Palpatine's goons who are sent to destroy it. After defeating the goons, he attempts peaceful contact with the Jedi but the commander, one Jorus C'baoth, goes full Dark Jedi with force lightning et al. Thrawn defeats him, and Palpatine's people then scout him for the Imperial Navy. He joins because he is persuaded that only a union of all military forces can defeat the external threat to the galaxy (the Yuuzhan Vong, an extragalactic threat about to invade) and that only unity under a single military commander can accomplish this. This brings him into the Imperial camp.

In this novel he is the out-and-out hero of the story, which colors the chronologically later books into anti-villain territory.

He wants to save the galaxy. The threat is real.And while he's on the wrong side, it's hard to argue that the New Republic, under President Borsk Fey'la, does little to inspire confidence.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

But that's the thing, his wanting to prepare the galaxy to fight the Vong just doesn't square with his actions in TTT. If that were the goal, now that he's in control of the Imperial Remnant, he should be making that information public. Warn the Republic of the coming invasion and sign a peace treaty so that they can work together against the common threat instead of fighting each other. But that's not what he does, instead he fights to restore the Empire to power because, as far as TTT is concerned he's a true believer even if the Empire discriminates against his kind. Also it doesn't escape my notice that the only person he seems to lose his temper with (as noted by Pellaeon) is the one who constantly refuse to defer to his authority, C'Baoth. Thrawn the anti-hero is a retcob that doesn't mesh very well with his original character (hardly the worst retcon in this franchise though).

Also, I'm not really familiar with this era of the Legends continuity but in what way are the Vong worse than the Empire, exactly?

Nah. While Thrawn's a classically competent fascist, the rest of the Imperial rogue's gallery from the Bantam Era is a bunch of crazies. Warlord Zsinj? A complete megalomaniac. Ysanne Isard? A sadistic misanthropic manipulator. Palpatine Reborn? Absolutely in it for the evulz. Natasi Daala? Oh god, just...why?

Wow it's almost like fascism is a garbage ideology for garbage people! Who couldnahve guessed!? Like I'm all for not demonizing people, but let's not swing the pendulum too far the other way. The pop culture image of the fascist as this (sometime) suave, reasonnable, disciplined and efficient man has kess to do with reality and more with actual fascist propaganda. Looking at the people in power in fascistic regimes throughout history is like looking at a collection of sadists, megalomaniacs and sycophants with a handful of actually competent people who look like they wandered in by accident.

The issue was actually not that the Empire looked too good, but that the New Republic was portrayed as an absolute disaster of an enterprise. Bantam Era novels set later in the timeline such as The Crystal Star, the Black Fleet Crisis, the New Rebellion, and the Corellian Trilogy all portray a New Republic that can't even get itself together to properly respond to minor, regional-level threats. The Hand of Thrawn duology cements this impression, as the government struggles to manage its thousands of competing viewpoints in the face of an emergent historical scandal and a nasty disinformation campaign. Zahn, by the end of those novels, offered a path forward towards greater stability, but it didn't take.

Del Rey had the Yuuzhan Vong invade the galaxy and rather than come together in the face of an external enemy - the common response of democracies in such circumstances - the New Republic fell apart completely and did more damage to itself via backstabbing and infighting than the invaders did themselves. And then in the post NJO-Era the rechristened 'Galactic Alliance' successor government was reduced to a bad caricature of a democratic state, culminating in the events of FotJ where the Seante voted to make a Lovecraftian Horror (Abeloth) the Chief of State.

Meanwhile the Empire churned along in the background as an increasingly functional fascist enterprise. Yes it was a totalitarian military state, but it wasn't abusive about it anymore and things were stable and most people were doing pretty well. And of course, in the far-future Legacy comics series the Galactic Alliance collapses completely in the face of Darth Krayt's Sith Empire, while Emperor Roan Fel leads a principled Imperial government in exile in resistance to his tyranny.

Basically the Imperials had political plot armor while the good guys get a hold of the stupid medicine so the heroes can hero to their hearts' content.

Ultimately, totalitarian military states are significantly less complicated than democracies, especially democracies that are multi-cultural and lack strong traditions and norms to support civic cohesion. If there's a 5% of the population that represents a fringe element that simply refuses to comply with the government's program, the totalitarian solution is simple: they get utterly crushed and everyone moves on. This is horrible, but if it happens off-screen then it's easy for the audience to ignore. Meanwhile, if a democracy is crippled by a fringe movement that continually disrupts government operations it becomes extremely complicated. So it's easy to portray, in fiction a highly functional totalitarian state, and one can even be portrayed as surprisingly pleasant in the present, if all the pesky purges that allowed that to happen occurred in the past.

Nah. The lack of accountabilty and strict hieraechy of totalitarian regimes make them prime fertile ground for corruption, abuse of power backstabbing and infighting. The quality of life in all of those regimes in real life was consistently much, much lower than in contemporay democracies even if you're part of the people the government doesn't hate and actively tries to eliminate. Totalitarian regimes are inherently dysfonctionnal, they do not make the trains run on time unless the supreme leader or one of his friend happens to need the train. And this is true of all branches of governemnt including the army and secret police and what not. Because in a pyramidal system like that, you don't need to be good at your job to have a career, you need to appear good enough for your boss to feel like you'd be more useful to him (and it's always a "him") with more authority but not appear good enough that your boss feel you could take his place. Or have the right connection.

The Mandalorian has the discussion with the Imperial officer in the mining base who notes 'the New Republic is in disarray' before getting shot by Bill Burr's character.

Okay but considering this guy doesn't register that said character did not enjoy all his friends being murdered by him I think he has a "special" relationship with reality. Besides accusing the other states of being inefficient regardless of fact is fascism 101.

And, honestly, this is the only way to make the ST at all logical. For the First Order to emerge with the kind of power it possesses the New Republic has to fail in all sorts of important ways.

True.

Gideon's a fine villain, for Mando and his crew.

I dunno he feels to eager to have his own men die. Like why did he have The Client gunned down exactly? Kinda wish that guy had been the big bad guy, he felt kind of wasted.

I think he worked great in Season 2 and if he gets sprung from custody for some reason he can go on being a villain for The Mandalorian.

Oh, he definitely will.

What he isn't, however, is a villain properly scaled to take on Ahsoka Tano and her crew (which will presumably include Sabine Wren and eventually Ezra Bridger). That's what Thrawn's needed for.

I suspect that Thrawn's appearance in Mandalorian season 3, if he has one, will be short. Perhaps he'll be the one to spring Gideon and give some nasty speech to the effect that 'You failed me by losing the Child, you will not survive failing me by allowing a new Mandalore to rise' before flying off to deal with off problems.

Not convinced,Gideon and Thrawn are working together.

[Peelee]

The Mod on the Silver Mountain: Let's keep things rooted in a galaxy far, far away.

[pendell]

Also, I'm not really familiar with this era of the Legends continuity but in what way are the Vong worse than the Empire, exactly?

...
......
.........

Tyranids from Warhammer 40K is a close analogue. 'Nuff said.

If you're not familiar with that faction, they terraform -- excuse me, Vongform -- every planet they capture to suit themselves. While I'm a bit hazy on the details, as I recall those intelligent species which do not evacuate or become extinct in the first few hours of the capture will be subject to the same pressures their planets are -- adapt to become serviceable to the Yuuzhan Vong and their way of life (which among other things, mandates the destruction of all manufacturing or machines, such as droids) , or become extinct.

Yeah, the Empire is the softer deal, just as it is in the WH40K universe, where the Imperium of Man is even more of a dumpster fire than Lucas' , but it's still a better choice for humans who don't relish being eaten, chaos-shaped, possessed, or simply outright killed by the other factions.

Basically the Imperials had political plot armor while the good guys get a hold of the stupid medicine so the heroes can hero to their hearts' content.

Pretty much , yeah. And I'm saying it's really not hard to have good guys hero it up in service of a functioning and effective democratic government. That's what the old Westerns were about, after all -- heroing it up on the frontiers of society where the arm of the law doesn't reach. I wish the Legends authors had taken that path.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

[Fyraltari]

If you're not familiar with that faction, they terraform -- excuse me, Vongform -- every planet they capture to suit themselves.

That sounds ridiculously overkill. How many of the ****ers are there even? Do they all get their own personnal planet or what?

[Keltest]

That sounds ridiculously overkill. How many of the ****ers are there even? Do they all get their own personnal planet or what?

As i recall, they were fleeing the destruction of their own galaxy or something in biotech ships, and intended to raise a new galaxy wide culture once they claimed their space.

[Tyndmyr]

and incidentally, I would have won the battle of Endor'

While I generally agree with you on the importance of keeping domain knowledge reasonably, the battle of Endor really shouldn't have been lost, and the fact that it was kind of reflects poorly on the Imperial forces.

They had at least somewhat of an edge in space forces, and the death star/shield system should have been largely unwinnable, until all their ground forces got ruined by ewoks.

If a commander didn't think he could do better, I'd have concerns.

Part of the problem is that Stormtroopers have become such a ridiculous joke over time. Sure, you need something for your heroes to punch, but at a certain point of incompetence, you can no longer generate much tension using the guys that always lose.

I do concur that the Empire is better than the Vong, even if not by a great deal, and an Empire under Thrawn would be...somewhat nicer than an Empire under the Emperor/Vader. He's unambiguously evil, sure, but he's at least efficient at it. He's not gonna do evil for the lulz, only in order to win. It's a marginally lighter shade of very dark grey.

[hamishspence]

Also he casually bombed the Noghri settlement to make a point.

The hills near the settlement, were blasted with turbolasers, not the settlement itself.

Spoiler

Show

"Your interpretation?"
Pellaeon braced himself "I can only see one, sir. Khabarakh didn't escape from the Wookiees on Kashyyyk at all. They caught him : and then let him go."
"After a month of imprisonment." Thrawn looked up at Pellaeon. "And interrogation."
"Almost certainly," Pellaeon agreed. "The question is, what did he tell them?"
"There's one way to find out." Thrawn tapped on the comm. "Hangar bay, this is the Grand Admiral. Prepare my shuttle; I'm going to the surface. I'll want a troop shuttle and double squad of stormtroopers ready to accompany me, plus two flights of Scimitar assault bombers to provide air cover."
He got an acknowledgment and keyed off. "It may be, Captain, that the Noghri have forgotten where their loyalties lie," he told Pellaeon, standing up and stepping out around the displays. "I think it's time they were reminded that the Empire commands here. You'll return to the bridge and prepare a suitable demonstration."
"Yes, sir." Pellaeon hesitated. "Do you want merely a reminder and not actual destruction?"
Thrawn's eyes blazed. "For the moment, yes," he said, his voice icy. "Let them all pray that I don't change my mind."

.....

"Khabarakh has been a traitor to the Empire. By Imperial rules will he be judged and condemned."
"The clan dynasts will demand-"
"The clan dynasts are in no position to demand anything," the Grand Admiral barked, touching the comlink cylinder pocketed beside his tunic insignia. "Do you require a reminder of what it means to defy the Empire?"
Leia heard the faint sound of the maitrakh's sigh. "No, my lord," she said, her voice conceding defeat.
The Grand Admiral studied her. "You shall have one anyway."
He touched his comlink again-
And abruptly the interior of the dukha flashed with a blinding burst of green light.
Leia jerked her head back into Chewbacca's legs, squeezing her eyelids shut against the sudden searing pain ripping through her eyes and face. For a single, horrifying second she thought that the dukha had taken a direct hit, a turbolaser blast powerful enough to bring the whole structure down in flaming ruin around them. But the afterimage burned into her retina showed the Grand Admiral still standing proud and unmoved; and belatedly she understood.
She was trying desperately to reverse her sensory enhancement when the thunderclap slammed like the slap of an angry Wookiee into the side of her head.
She would later have a vague recollection of several more turbolaser blasts, seen and heard only dimly through the thick gray haze that clouded over her mind, as the orbiting Star Destroyer fired again and again into the hills surrounding the village. By the time her throbbing head finally dragged her back to full consciousness the Grand Admiral's reminder was over, the final thunderclap roiling away into the distance.
Cautiously, she opened her eyes, squinting a little against the pain. The Grand Admiral was still standing where he'd been, in the center of the dukha: and as the last thunderclap faded into silence he spoke. "I am the law on Honoghr now, maitrakh," he said, his voice quiet and deadly. "If I choose to follow the ancient laws, I will follow them. If I choose to ignore them, they will be ignored. Is that clear?"
The voice, when it came, was almost too alien to recognize. If the purpose of the Grand Admiral's demonstration had been to frighten the maitrakh half out of her mind, it had clearly succeeded. "Yes, my lord."

[Psyren]

My main issue with Gideon is I've already seen Gustavo Fring.

We need more Fring though! And more Stan Edgar for that matter

Yes, Giancarlo tends to get roles where he is the quiet yet intense evil mastermind, but it's only because he's so damn good at it.

[Peelee]

We need more Fring though! And more Stan Edgar for that matter

Yes, Giancarlo tends to get roles where he is the quiet yet intense evil mastermind, but it's only because he's so damn good at it.

Imean, he absolutely is. And I'm loving him in Better Call Saul. Buts it's weird to see him be the exact same character in Star Wars. I'm with Fyr, I wanted more of the Client.

[Fyraltari]

Imean, he absolutely is. And I'm loving him in Better Call Saul. Buts it's weird to see him be the exact same character in Star Wars. I'm with Fyr, I wanted more of the Client.

Yeah, it's like they had this perfectly serviceable generic Imperial villain and they killed him off to replace him with... another perfectly serviceable generic Imperial villain, so I'm just here scratching my head and wondering why.

[Ronnoc]

Yeah, it's like they had this perfectly serviceable generic Imperial villain and they killed him off to replace him with... another perfectly serviceable generic Imperial villain, so I'm just here scratching my head and wondering why.

Were I to go out on a limb they replaced the Client because Werner Herzog isn't the sort of person you can pin down for a long term project.

[Mechalich]

Were I to go out on a limb they replaced the Client because Werner Herzog isn't the sort of person you can pin down for a long term project.

Werner Herzog is also not the sort of person who you can convince to fight Darksaber duels with. The ability for the villain to go one-on-one with the hero is considered important for shows like this, especially for the younger portion of the audience. In Rebels, they made Thrawn into a martial arts master - a trait he absolutely did not need added to his character - specifically so he could throw down in person.

An awful lot of the people who've appeared in the show so far have been actors and actresses with a considerable amount of experience in action-heavy shows who are up for doing their own stunts and who know the business of action shoots. Having a cast with this sort of pre-training is extremely important towards keeping a show like this on schedule and the costs down. I mean, they didn't bring Fennec Shand back from the dead because she represented some grand opportunity for character development they brought her back because Ming-na Wen is an absolutely top tier option in terms of gun-fu capability.

[hungrycrow]

Werner Herzog is also not the sort of person who you can convince to fight Darksaber duels with. The ability for the villain to go one-on-one with the hero is considered important for shows like this, especially for the younger portion of the audience. In Rebels, they made Thrawn into a martial arts master - a trait he absolutely did not need added to his character - specifically so he could throw down in person.

An awful lot of the people who've appeared in the show so far have been actors and actresses with a considerable amount of experience in action-heavy shows who are up for doing their own stunts and who know the business of action shoots. Having a cast with this sort of pre-training is extremely important towards keeping a show like this on schedule and the costs down. I mean, they didn't bring Fennec Shand back from the dead because she represented some grand opportunity for character development they brought her back because Ming-na Wen is an absolutely top tier option in terms of gun-fu capability.

I feel like they could have given him a second-in-command that could fight if that was the only issue.

[Yanagi]

I just like it when all my preferred character actors get Star Wars parts. It's a paycheck they deserve.

When does Margo Martindale get to terrorize the Galaxy Long Ago and Far Away?

Werner Herzog is also not the sort of person who you can convince to fight Darksaber duels with.

My brain is now broken because I keep imagining Klaus Kinski as the apprentice and Herzog as the master.

Sithcaraldo.

[agustin1987]

I thought it was a huge disappointment that served as fanboy service while abandoning everything that made the first season great.

It was almost all identical episodes, and all based on the classic western or “Kung Fu” which was also a western, not ironically.

[False God]

That sounds ridiculously overkill. How many of the ****ers are there even? Do they all get their own personnal planet or what?

Billion upon billions, and yes. They literally travel the space between galaxies on planets. Living, mobile, hyperspace-capable semi-sentient planets!

There's a sort of silliness to the Vong that I really hope never returns to Star Wars. We complain about JJ Abrams having zero concept of just how big space is but then we have things like the Vong. An enemy I could never take conceptually seriously, and the fact that the Republic beat them just makes it even more laughable.

IMO, Star Wars would do well to dial things back down. Local conflicts between a couple of systems. More localized (a few star systems) governments and empires.

I think that's why Moff Gideon works. He's small. Big in comparison to the lone Mandalorian, but small in comparison to everything else. I hope the other TV series keep to a similar tone. It does wonders for worldbuilding.