The General Star Wars Thread

The internal fallout from the Death Star’s destruction is a big plot point in Kieron Gillen’s delightful Darth Vader comic. Vader gets the official blame for it, and as a result Palpatine strips away his rank as ultimate head of the military and gives it to General Tagge - you may remember him from the movie as the officer who correctly predicted the station wouldn’t work. Tagge in turn allies with a deranged geneticist to create artificial Force sensitives and render Vader completely redundant.

…except turns out that the good doctor doesn’t just want to replace Vader with one of his test subjects, he wants to replace Palpatine himself! For single-handedly dismantling the conspiracy Vader gets his old job back; for failing to foresee it, Tagge gets a one-way-ticket to crushed-windpipe-ville.

The Godfather-style rampage Vader goes on at the end against everyone who’s even slightly pissed him off during the story is a master class in pitch-black comedic beauty.

Edited by HamburgerTime on May 13th 2024 at 12:29:33 PM

Vader: What the hell, Palpatine? You can’t blame me for the Death Star. This was all Tarkin’s fault.

Palpatine: I know, but unfortunately, he’s dead. And I can’t demote him so I’m demoting you.

Now that I think about it, how did they build a new Death Star so quickly.

The first one took years to make, and was done entirely in secret, which probably made the time take longer.

The price isn't a thing for me. They got prisoners to help build the first one, so they likely did the same with the second, along with any other methods they used for the first Death Star to cut down on tax (you can save a lot of money when you don't pay your workers).

But how did they manage to build the second one so quickly? Even considering they probably knew what to do this time because they'd already built one, that would only cut down so much time.

Palpatine was already planning to build multiples and one happened to be near-functional in the span of a few years?

How did they build Starkiller Base so quickly?

These are questions that will never be answered in a satisfying way. But will continue to be asked.

From what we learn in new canon it seems their biggest hundle was figuring out how to create planet killing super laser, which would probably result in need to build around it given how vital part that is. There is also fact that second one was specificaly unfinished while having ready super laser and not having to compesate for not knowing how much space it would take.

Legends had self replicating droids being used to make it much quickier that first one.

They had around thirty years for that and unlike Death Star didn’t need to build whole skeleton since they it was built in planet.

Edited by EmperorGeode on May 13th 2024 at 1:43:16 AM

We see the skeleton of the Death Star at the end of ROTS, presumably set within a couple weeks after the rise of the Empire. It's canon that the original designs were Geonosian but passed through numerous redesigns as blueprints never perfectly match what the engineers need to actually build it. The Death Star II was basically "Get the superlaser functional, we'll do the racquetball courts later." It also can't be understated that 30 percent of the outer shell was not finished and the most time consuming stuff is always after the framework is done. The Emperor was also likely exaggerating its functionality, it might not have had a working hyperdrive as they baited the Rebels into attacking.

They didn't re-show PM here so I decided to do it myself.

People complained about "too much galactic politics" but in hindsight it all made much sense and its widespread effect was felt.

I still say they should have justified all the Offscreen Villain Dark Matter by revealing they had a Star Forge. But neither of the directors involved in the sequels cared much for Legends, so they weren't going to recanonize that.

It's been proven repeatedly that people will absolutely watch a show about fantasy or sci-fi politics. Hell, in Star Wars, the Clone Wars cartoon had quite a bit of that, as did Andor. But the prequels stumbled at the start, since they did a terrible job of explaining the "legal blockade" thing, and then all the wooden acting (because of the poor directing) didn't help.

> How did they build Starkiller Base so quickly?

they used cheat commands to instantly build

The actual answer: the Empire had already built the base itself to strip-mine Ilum for Kyber, the FO just strapped a big gun to it.

That kinda highlights a weird and somewhat sad thing about how a lot of EU material nowadays is now entirely devoted to trying to set up the Sequels so shit like Starkiller and Palpatine coming back no longer feel like huge ass-pulls. Mandalorian, Bad Batch, Ahsoka, Fallen Order, the Vader comics... more and more entries in the series are getting their plots derailed to focus on Project Necromancer and the First Order coming about and the New Republic sucking. Is Acolyte gonna end with the reveal that the Sith were actually all along just agents of the First Order and also the Republic was already under the First Order's control? Is Young Jedi Adventures gonna reveal that it's events were all actually part of Project Necromancer?

What's crazy is that I usually LOVE these kinds of stories all about Arc Welding - I loved Shadows of the Sith for instance -but the way they're daisy-chaining all this stuff together seems very half-formed and piecemeal at best. Like, we still don't even really know what Project Necromancer even entails beyond "Dark science. Cloning. Secrets only the Sith knew."

Ilum was already getting to the point of the trench we know five years after the Clone Wars ended according to Fallen Order.

It's one of the weaknesses of the new canon in general. Where it is doubling down on certain plot points that just shouldn't be retained. There are certain plot points you can salvage by giving them time and attention, such as providing character arcs to plot points that didn't really get development (Clovis Arc for Anakin and Padme as an example, the Umbara Arc bringing the war element into focus and the finale of Clone Wars emphasizing the apocalyptic feeling of the end of the war where everything crumbles apart as Ahsoka and Rex find themselves up against odds they can't beat.) Hell, Ahsoka herself got salvaged and redeemed into an actually important and fun character. While I would argue she has overstayed her welcome, I can't deny that when used well she allowed for better stories to be produced (Darth Maul is suffering from this too but to a lesser degree.) What saves these plot points though is the expectation that it can lead to new stories, or at least enhanced stories, that allow for more depth than you would see otherwise (give or take.)

However, certain plot points deserve to be dropped and/or downplayed to allow for the universe to recover again. Making it so that the New Republic is already fascist from the moment it got reorganized just feels inherently uninteresting and kind of boring. We saw this exact same arc happening before in the Clone Wars, who Filoni also helmed for the record. You are just doing the same general arc, twice. All we need is a character to say "The New Republic has already fallen, you just don't see it." It leads to an uninteresting universe.

But even beyond this, even if we wanted to say "Let's deconstruct how a Republic is hard to build with full circle revolution" which is not deep by the way as it has been done before in better stories, the end result is just inherently.... reductive. It feels cheap. All this intrigue of the New Republic getting its due just feels like a waste when the First Order war lasts a year. Yes, one, year. Correct me if I am wrong. So what we are doing is doubling down on a plot point that doesn't even require being doubled down upon. This was not a decision born out of actual worldbuilding interest or for the sake of drama. (Poe/Holdo's plotline not being at all attached to this concept of a fascist New Republic, and instead her trying to say "restore the beauty of this lost republic" is testament enough." This was made for convenience. It was made because JJ and Rian to a degree clearly weren't interested in actual worldbuilding or consistency. They wanted the cheapest narrative possible.

You wanna make this interesting? Make it turn out that Hera isn't justified in taking the law into her own hands. Maybe Thrawn won't be returning to validate her "gun ho, break procedure attitude." Maybe Hera's fascist tendencies become intentional character seeds by the writers. Maybe, you are supposed to root against her. Instead of saying the corrupt government needs to be saved by the rebels, maybe those damn rebels are the ones creating problems and overthrowing a government that doesn't do things "fast enough." But I get the feeling this isn't happening. It just leads to me asking over and over "why do all these people think the New Republic deserves saving when we keep doubling down on it's evil this much?" And you can say "Oh, well it's a good government that just got mishandled" I don't care!!! If it is so prone to falling that within the first few decades of winning its war, it turns into this secret fascist organization which commits suicide in a year.... then the Jedi don't have to help it out. It's as simple as that. The way things are presented, there are probably better government structures that are way less prone to fascism that you can build from the ground up. Hell, just create a monarchy or a communist enclave. Alright, it will probably work.

And if this isn't the intent? Downplay this plot point.

Edited by Patar136 on May 13th 2024 at 6:55:40 AM

Tbf a lot of EU stuff before the ST was about filling in gaps between ROTS and ANH. Heck, The Clone Wars filled in gaps between Aof C and ROTS.

If it is a flaw in storytelling, it is not a new one.

Edited by M84 on May 13th 2024 at 9:59:33 PM

Yeah, and as I noted, I'm perfectly fine with stuff like that. When it's done well. And when it doesn't get in the way of telling more varied stories.

The old EU had like three or four different stories for how the Rebellion got the Death Star plans.

Yep, the Legends EU was not really an example of it “done well”.

It was a mess. Some of it was good, but it was all over the place.

Edited by M84 on May 13th 2024 at 10:07:04 PM

I would argue that's actually one of Legends EU's strengths. The fact that there was such a variety of different stories that often explored the same concepts. Reading the Republic comics doesn't give the same experience as reading the Republic Commando novels, or the X-Wing novels, or watching Genndy Wars or playing Empire at War. Somehow, it felt like the stories were diverse and the authors had styles.

Maybe it is a me problem but I feel that the stories of the new canon don't feel all that distinct from one another, except maybe Andor and Visions. Sure you can say that there were plenty of stories from the EU that were alike storywise, with similar tropes used in many of them, but that didn't mean that the stories themselves were stale. Reading Dark Empire is not the same thing as playing KOTOR and seeing the story behind the Star Forge. There was flare. There was personality.

Edited by Patar136 on May 13th 2024 at 7:16:46 AM

Fallen Order, Visions, Andor, Bad Batch, Lost Stars, the Vader comics...it all feels pretty different.

I'm actually worried it's starting to repeat the Legends EU flaw of being a mess.

Edited by M84 on May 13th 2024 at 10:27:54 PM

Fallen Order I can give you story and presentation wise (gameplay wise it's Dark Souls knock off, but that's another discussion.). Lost Stars I have no real opinion on but I will give benefit of the doubt on it being good if not original. Vader comics I have read and they don't seem too different from older comics featuring our Sith Lord in black. Not that it's a bad thing, good is better than being bad.

But as for Bad Batch? No. This just feels like a slightly better version of Rebels, and Rebels was itself a poor man's (or poor child's) Clone Wars successor. Plus, it doesn't help that tacking on Omega into what might have been the spiritual successor of the Republic Commando books/game adapted into a show makes the show itself yet another Mandalorian premise (old grizzled guys protect child.) Okay, maybe they aren't "old" and there are more than one, sort of, but storywise it lacks anything that really grabbed me (and I tried, believe me. I tried giving it the blessing.)

Oh yeah is the Trade Federation gone? I know Anakin killed the ones in PM.

It is, as far as I know.

Heck, Neimoidians in general are somewhat hard to find in Star Wars media set after the prequel trilogy. The only time I can clearly remeber seeing one isn't even a canonical appearance of one, but just that you can set one as your default Resistance soldier in EA Battlefront 2.

If we just go by the movie there's a good explanation for why Death Star 2 took less time; they could relegate more finances to it. When Death Star 1 was finished they had eliminated the senate and fully centralized power into even more of a military dictatorship. So all the bureaucracy that would've gotten in the way of making Death Star 1 wouldn't be an issue for Death Star 2. In addition, since they already have proof of concept and 19 years of technological development, making a second one should be easier

YOU CAN?!?

I never knew you could play as the Neimoidians in EA Battlefront 2? I have played so many times and I just never noticed. That's kind of awesome.

I'm strangely a fan of Nute Gunray as a character. Flaws and all. And yes, I know there are many problems.