History Comicbook / XWingSeries

*** Unlike most examples...he's still made pretty awesome. He's just not awesome at his 'nitch'.

* MacrossMissileMassacre: How you take down an 19-kilometer-long Super Star Destroyer if all you have is snubfighters, a 30-year-old frigate and some freighters? (That and a CrowningMomentOfAwesome when the ''Lusankya's'' SmugSnake captain is told that his ship has been painted with more than ''three hundred'' missile locks...) This is adopted throughout the books as a way for starfighters to take down capital ships. It is a sub-tactic of "Trench Run Disease," the tactics that killed both Death Stars.

* BadassPrincess: [[spoiler:Plourr Illo]] is practically this trope incarnate: a [[PrincessClassic fictional]] [[EverythingsBetterWithPrincesses princess]] who embodies the textbook pop culture image...of a ''[[SpaceMarine space]]'' ''[[SemperFi marine]].'' [[hottip:*:which she is close to literally ''being,'' given that Starfighter Command is a branch of the New Republic Navy that uses army-style ranks and the Rogues do an unusual amount of special operations-type work for fighter pilots...]]

* ComicallyMissingThePoint: Hallis Saper mentions that the reason she uses a modified protocol droid head mounted on her shoulder to record footage instead of an actual camera is because she read a study that people generally found protocol droids to be nonthreatening. Wedge is tempted to point out the potential of a two headed woman walking around. One who also wears opaque black goggles (which are connected to the droid head camera and make it look where she looks).[[hottip:*: It's eventually revealed that the ''real'' reason for that rather ridiculous setup is that everyone looks at and remembers the droid, not ''her'' face.]]

* UnwinnableTrainingSimulation: The first book starts with the pilots running [[ThatOneLevel the infamous Redemption scenario]][[hottip:* :This is based on a mission from ''{{X-Wing}}'' [[ThatOneLevel notorious for its difficulty]], and the strategies described are, in fact, the recommended tactics for that mission (also called ''Requiem'', for obvious reasons). Corran Horn legitimately manages to win the level, an impressive feat on it's own.

Written by Stackpole starting in 1996, these novels are collectively [[FanNickname and informally]] known as the Rogue Squadron series. It's a self-contained plot concerning members of Rogue Squadron, a starfighter formation famous for two things: achieving mission goals that are BeyondTheImpossible and losing a lot of personnel in the process. AscendedExtra Wedge "Look at the size of that thing!" Antilles rebuilds the squadron from the ground up, bringing in pilots from all walks of life, including EnsembleDarkhorse Tycho Celchu and [[CanonSue untrained Jedi]] Corran Horn. They have a crucial role in the [[TheAlliance New Republic]] strike to retake the Imperial capital of Coruscant, or [[InsistentTerminology Imperial Center]] as it is currently called. Their big enemy is [[TheChessmaster Ysanne Isard]], head of Imperial Intelligence and current leader of the Empire, whose tactics include [[BeingTorturedMakesYouEvil torturing/brainwashing people]] into becoming {{Manchurian Agent}}s, using TheMole, and [[GeneticEngineeringIsTheNewNuke designing the Krytos Plague]] to induce a major case of DividedWeFall.

* FridgeBrilliance: By ''Isard's Revenge'' Ysanne Isard is no longer affiliated with the legitimate Empire of Thrawn and Pellaeon. ''She'' claims it is by her choice but evidence in ''The Bacta War'' (where an Imperial warlord only very reluctantly loans her ship -- and then lectures her when it is destroyed) implies she has a acquired a reputation as a GeneralFailure and it may actually be the Empire that wants nothing to do with her.

* HoYay: The part in ''Starfighters of Adumar'' where Wedge reflects on how good-looking his fellow pilots are.

* AlternateCompanyEquivalent: Wraith Squadron's mechanic, Cubber Daine, is basically Scotty from ''StarTrek'' transposed into the ''StarWars'' universe, right down to his habit of multiplying estimated repair times.

* GoldenMeanFallacy: Specifically called the "Gray Fallacy" -- one person says white, one says black, everyone assumes gray.

* YourMoneyIsNoGoodHere: Edda Gast learned this the hard way. When (grudgingly) offered her reward money in Republic credits, she instead insisted on being paid in Imperial credits. [[spoiler:Hilariously, she was then arrested on the first planet she set foot on, as carrying such a large amount of Imperial credits was not just considered smuggling, but sedition.]] She was not amused. The fans were.

* ImprobablePilotingSkills: To be fair, while none of them are Luke Skywalker, some of the pilots can rely on TheForce. Rogue Squadron is deliberately composed of the best pilots the Alliance could find ''in the galaxy''. The Wraiths are merely pretty good, but they make up for it in other ways, most importantly their CrazyAwesome improvised tactics. This skill is {{Lampshaded}} by one of their superiors.

* UnwinnableTrainingSimulation: The first book starts with the pilots running [[ThatOneLevel the infamous Redemption scenario]][[hottip:* :This is based on a mission from ''{{X-Wing}}'' [[ThatOneLevel notorious for its difficulty]], and the strategies described are, in fact, the recommended tactics for that mission]] (also called ''Requiem'', for obvious reasons). That it's a simulation is stated up front, however.
** Corran actually ''wins'' the ''Requiem'' scenario, and not by pulling a Kirk.
*** Though, to be fair, this is only a partial example: It's specifically stated to BE winnable...just ThatOneLevel.

* ComicallyMissingThePoint: Hallis Saper mentions that the reason she uses a modified protocol droid head mounted on her shoulder to record footage instead of an actual camera is because she read a study that people generally found protocol droids to be nonthreatening. Wedge is tempted to point out the NightmareFuel potential of a two headed woman walking around. One who also wears opaque black goggles (which are connected to the droid head camera and make it look where she looks).[[hottip:*: It's eventually revealed that the ''real'' reason for that rather ridiculous setup is that everyone looks at and remembers the droid, not ''her'' face.]]

** Hallis Saper. Her initial stated reasons for wearing "Whitecap" (A 3PO droid's head with her holography equipment inside) were that 3PO droids were found to be reassuring to children. (Whitecap actually provoked [[AccidentalNightmareFuel other]] [[UncannyValley reactions]] in-universe.) [[spoiler:It turns out to be a cunning method of disguise; while she wore Whitecap, people paid attention to the droid head and not to Hallis's face. Hallis also had other, more covert methods of disguising her holography equipment, some of which were seen later on.]]

** Subtle one in ''Isard's Revenge''. Wedge, in disguise as Colonel Roat and pretending to be a standard Imperial racist, complains that the "wait-beasts" serving him on another planet once tried to serve him red wine with fish, very similar to a line from the James Bond movie ''FromRussiaWithLove'' in which a spy pretending to be an officer of culture drinks red wine with fish, which Bond notes as suspicious.
** ''Wedge's Gamble'' has one of the squadron's pilots tell a stormtrooper, "[[ANewHope You don't need to see her identification,]]" while offering him a bribe. [[spoiler: It works.]] ''The Bacta War'' has untrained Jedi Corran Horn mind trick another stormtrooper with the words, "I can go about my business." [[spoiler: It fails horribly.]]

* * DownerEnding: [[spoiler: The comics. It ends with Ibstim dead, Sage Pestage having fled, and being murdered, and Ysanne Isard in charge of the empire. AND quite a few of the comics characters are never seen again, though there's fortunatly no implication something bad happened to most of them.]]

* DyingAlone: When [[spoiler:Kirtan Loor]] is dying, he remembers that Corren once stated that there's nothing worse than dying alone, and realizes that he was right.

* UnwinnableTrainingSimulation: The first book starts with the pilots running [[ThatOneLevel the infamous Redemption scenario]][[hottip:* :This is based on a mission from {{X-Wing}} [[ThatOneLevel notorious for its difficulty]], and the strategies described are, in fact, the recommended tactics for that mission]] (also called ''Requiem'', for obvious reasons). That it's a simulation is stated up front, however.

** Subverted with Kell's first training scenario: The given objectives are failed before you start...the ACTUAL objective is simply to escape alive. It's a nice baitandswitch mission.

** The first part of one of Zsinj's plans hinges largely on Gotals and Twi'leks being viewed like this, so when brainwashed agents begin to act on his schemes, the overall plan is to ferment distrust of these two races precisely because of their Proud Warrior [[BuffySpeak Raceishness]]. And because he's just proven that they can be converted very quickly into {{Manchurian Agent}}s.

* NeverHeardThatOneBefore: Falynn Sandskimmer in ''Wraith Squadron'' is fed up of people mentioning Luke Skywalker when they find out she's from Tatooine. Unfortunately, her hot temper means her responses come across as insulting to Luke, which results in her being blacklisted in the New Republic military (the higher ranks being filled with people who for obvious reasons think very highly of Luke) before being rescued by Wedge's Wraith Squadron project.

** And a xenoarchaeologist named [[IndianaJones Henrietya "Corellia" Antilles]].

** And an in-universe example: During the Wraith books, despite both serving on the ''Mon Remonda'', Corran Horn and Han Solo are never seen at the same place at the same time (including one moment when Han leaves the pilots' lounge, and Corran enters moments later--then wonders why everyone's laughing), which naturally leads the rest of the pilots to conclude that, despite a significant difference in age and appearance, they must be the same person. (This particular joke goes metastatic in ''I, Jedi''--in which Corran and Han actually ''do'' meet, multiple times. One of those times, Han jokes that he once had a Horn, Corran's father Hal, chasing him. Later, Corran goes undercover with the false name of a man Hal had once pursued, who hadn't been seen anywhere for more than a decade, and not even Corran's KnowledgeBroker grandfather knew where he'd gone: [[SignificantAnagram Jenos]] [[IndianaJones Idanian]]. This also doubles as a CallBack to the ''Han Solo Trilogy''.)

** Wedge also does it in ''Rogue Squadron'' when an Imperial Lancer-class frigate, a ship specifically designed to take on starfighters and with a fearful reputation, appears.

* ItsAllAboutMe: Admiral Trigit is perfectly willing to throw his Star Destroyer and its crew at the Republic forces in a hopeless battle while he saves his own sorry ass. He insists that he's having them fight on rather than surrender so that the Republic wouldn't be able to add his ship to their fleet, but if he were less selfish he could have achieved the same goal by ordering everybody but his second-in-command to abandon ship and then self-destructed it.[[hottip:*: He couldn't both self-destruct it AND flee-- the novels establish that Star Destroyer self destructs are a two-key system ''with no time delay'']].

* {{Defictionalization}}: An in-universe example - the Ewok pilot Lieutenant Kettch started out as a RunningGag among the pilots in ''Wraith Squadron'', then in ''Iron Fist'' Face claims to Zsinj that he's real and Wedge has to fly his TIE interceptor with an Ewok puppet in his lap. (Wedge wears a black flight suit to blend in with the cockpit's black background, so that only people who looked in the cockpit very closely would notice that the "Ewok" was sitting on somebody.) Finally, in ''Solo Command'', Lara discovers that Zsinj has an actual Ewok pilot called Kolot.

Two more novels were released, one each by Stackpole and Allston. '''Isard's Revenge''' takes place directly after TheThrawnTrilogy and concerns the efforts of Rogue Squadron to bring justice to Stackpole's BigBad, who escaped -- twice -- despite her defeat in the Bacta War, and ties a few loose ends left after the end of the comics. '''Starfighters Of Adumar''', though marketed as a Rogue Squadron novel, is really about Wedge himself; this is essentially his [[ADayInTheLimelight Day In The Limelight]], focusing on his life, career, friends and love life (or lack thereof) during a diplomatic mission in which he attempts to bring the planet Adumar into the New Republic by winning a flying-duel-based popularity contest. ''So'' much BetterThanItSounds.