Star Wars

Because adding a new superweapon to each new story-arc is so last millenium.

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Localized conflicts, ones that aren't allowed to spiral to galaxy-spanning crises are best. Course, those plots have given us stuff like Planet of Twilight and The Crystal Star, but shorter, more self-contained stories would be nice.

So, I've finally gotten to Star By Star in my 10 year-ish retrospective of The New Jedi Order, and it's just as gory as I remember it from way back then. I had to put it down for a few moments in the very first chapter after visualizing some Fingore one character got hit with. {{Fingore's}} one of those injuries I'm especially squeamish to.

edited 18th May '12 6:28:18 PM by ComicX6

What the SWEU needs is to draw back the focus. Instead of the main characters being government elites and Jedi higher ups, focus a story on a squad of marines in the Alliance Navy, where one of them happens to be a Jedi, if at all. When your principal character is the president of a space republic and the leader of an organization of space knights, the stakes have to be high to justify them kicking ass instead of sitting in an office with paperwork. This can be entirely blamed on a need to feature the trio in every story, even though Luke is a Physical God and Han is pushing 80.

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."

God, yes. That's the other problem with the EU — they've got an entire galaxy to play with, and they insist on using the same handful of characters instead. Seriously, the timeline gets utterly ridiculous almost immediately.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Well, don't despair! Some of the latest upcoming books are going to focus on different characters and some earlier times. It should be just what the doctor ordered.

Oh, Equestria, we stand on guard for thee!

So, I found a copy of Fatal Alliance at the library, so I picked it up. It's a tie-in to The Old Republic that takes place after the Treaty of Coruscant but before TOR itself (which, to those unfamiliar with TOR, means during a cold war between the Old Republic and the Sith Empire). I was pleasantly surprised to enjoy it the whole way through — it avoids most of the pitfalls that movie-era EU stuff falls into. The fact that it takes place thousands of years before the movies helps with that, naturally, but I still appreciate it.

Worth checking out if you're at all interested in the Old Republic era, or just want something Star Wars without all the baggage of the New Republic era.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

In case you've forgotten, half The Crystal Star was about Hethir or whatever his name was who wanted to use brainwashed jedi kids to rebuild the Empire. It's kind of like a single-novel version of some of the trilogies, only with an even more incompetent enemy, hence why the plot got resolved in a single book, and involved only basically the central characters, and not even all of them.

Truce At Bakura was okay for that IMO, the danger was only local.

I think that if or when the live-action series finally premieres, EU writers may start writing novel tie-ins to the series and those could prove to be interesting books that don't have that "galaxy-in-peril" thing so prevalent in the Star Wars EU, considering the fact that the live-action series is more about the seedy underworld of Star Wars than the actual wars.

Sony fan here.

Of course, George Lucas being George Lucas, the look into the "seedy underworld" of the Star Wars galaxy will end up being another narmy production centered around The Family for the Whole Family.

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."

Three new books have been announced.

Hmmm, another post-ROTJ novel with Luke, Han, and Leia? Why am I not surprised?

Sony fan here.

Eventually they're going to release a book about the Force-ghosts of Luke, Leia, and Han fight in the afterlife to prevent an army of dark side dead guys from invading the realm of the living and possessing the bodies of their great-great grandchildren. Either that or they all get their minds transplanted into droids somehow and we get to read about the eternal adventures of LU-K3, L3-1A, and H-4N saving the galaxy over and over again, forever.

It's the logical endpoint of the direction they've been taking those characters for the last 20 years.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Get the trio to a retirement home already. I'm sick of them.

And, of course, it's being written by Troy Denning. God, is there no one else?

edited 16th Jul '12 11:00:36 PM by CrimsonZephyr

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."

Nope, they all realized how repetitive the whole thing is, and stopped writing Star Wars novels.

Well, Timothy Zahn is still writing the occasional Novel. His next sounds fun. Think Ocean's Eleven with Han Solo.

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Heh, heh. They probably don't have retirement homes in Star Wars. Naw, I bet SW works on a "You're only retired when you're dead!" philosophy.

I can't deny that the Expanded Universe has gotten repetitive lately. It would be pretty nice if Han, Leia and Luke went out with a bang, but I doubt George Lucas would ever let that happen.

At least the second Knights Of The Old Republic pretty much gave the problems with the EU the middle finger!

Oh, Equestria, we stand on guard for thee!

Except that Luke appears to Cade, so even that doesn't hold true for Jedi.

I don't know. Star Wars Legacy takes place pretty far off into the future. In fact, Fate Of The Jedi seems to hint that Legacy is a just a hypothetical Bad Future, and it may have been successfully averted. I don't know that for sure, though, and I bet the writers are not going to say anything about it one way or the other.

Oh, Equestria, we stand on guard for thee!

I would be so pissed off if Star Wars Legacy was retconned out like that. It's pretty much the best thing in the EU of the past decade at least.

Fate Of The Jedi is pure excrement compared to it.

edited 21st Jul '12 11:56:27 AM by CrimsonZephyr

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."

Normal humans can live to be around a hundred-and-thirty in the Star Wars universe, and human Jedi even longer under the right circumstances, so I'm not really surprised if Luke, Han, and Leia have many more stories ahead of them.

Legacy... Even if it is better than the recent novel outings (which frankly shouldn't be much of an accomplishment) I just can't get over the premise. If there's anything that undermines and renders the characters' accomplishments worthless, it's the Sith regaining control of the galaxy and going right back to their atrocity-committing ways.

edited 21st Jul '12 5:03:17 PM by ComicX6

Well, TECHNICALLY its a new fraction of Sith which never HAD control of the galaxy, so its not regaining...The Darth Bane Order was ended by Luke.

edited 21st Jul '12 6:21:03 PM by 3of4

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The Sith come back plenty of times, though, and at the end of Legacy, they're pretty soundly defeated. And frankly, aside from reviving the Jedi, the Solo-Skywalker clan made a big mess of the post-ROTJ years. Luke created an order which is dysfunctional without his involvement, Leia governed the New Republic very passively, allowing the Empire and various factions of the week to undermine her government again and again, then left it in incapable hands. And she and Han later betrayed the Alliance by assisting a government led by Thrackan Sal-Solo. Anakin died before his time and no one nearly as good ever took his place. Jaina spent most of her time being Jag Fel's irritable, bitchy, snarky squeeze and not enough time being a real leader among the Jedi (unless it involved undermining civilian authority). Jacen went off the deep end, chewed up the ruins of his family's legacy and shat out something far worse. Then there's Ben, who eagerly joined a State Sec when he was 13.

With a legacy like this, are you really surprised the Sith returned? More importantly, with the steady descent of this family, are you really surprised its most recent scion is a jerk, a mercenary, and addicted to space meth?

edited 21st Jul '12 6:22:37 PM by CrimsonZephyr

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."

Well, I'm still of the opinion that by now the only way to help the GFFA is to summarily execute everyone in the Imperial Palace and then the next Million people who say "but". Followed by sending the Moffs a High-Definition Hologram of the Events with a Greeting Card which plays an 8-bit version of "Every Breath You Take".

And nuke Mandalore. Then salt it. And nuke it again.

A lot what holds it back is that most Writers seem to assume the population of the galaxy are morons.

edited 21st Jul '12 6:35:20 PM by 3of4

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A lot of what holds the Star Wars galaxy back is actually its love of one galaxy order, monolithic, all-encompassing governments. If there were like 20 or 30 major powers out there, yeah wars would be more likely, but so would balance of power arrangements. Sovereign regions could band together. And let's say the Sith took, say, Bastion, when it only controls a couple sectors. That's all they get, and immediately, they're dogpiled by their neighbors. Contrast what happens every time the Sith take galactic capital Coruscant when it heads the dominant power. Suddenly, the entire Galaxy, in one swoop, is theirs.

Also, nuke Bothawui. You can't trust any of them. Any culture that approves of Chronic Backstabbing Disorder and encourages it should be wiped away.

edited 21st Jul '12 6:34:32 PM by CrimsonZephyr

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."

Step 1: Fracture the GFFA beyond any salvation Step 2: Wait for the inevitable wars to break out (Bothawui problem solves itself) Step 3: Profit?

Seriously, that galaxy needs help only the Shadows could offer.

edited 21st Jul '12 6:39:10 PM by 3of4

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Eh, wars make people tough. It keeps them on their toes and drives technological development. The tech stasis present in the GFFA would never have happened if there was a threat of war at any possible moment.

"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."