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Chairman Capone posted:I mean, I think those aspects are true, but it's also true that she's said she stood up and cheered in the theater at the Order 66 scene in ROTS and that anyone who is a fan of the Jedi is a real-world Nazi, so if anything I think she was hiding her real views in those early books and let it come out more later on. Mandalorians are exactly like Klingons, in that the fact they're self destructive morons is part of the charm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfNe2uv-bHs
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May 14, 2024 18:16
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The best Mandalorian media is the stuff that shits on them constantly for being dumbasses. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgCw2WW1VsY
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May 14, 2024 18:27
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Arc Hammer posted:The best Mandalorian media is the stuff that shits on them constantly for being dumbasses. I think I read something from you in here talking about liking Carth? Figured you'd really like this,or remember it at least. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EK85sQyE5Ls I like both characters, but no doubt Carth got the better in this exchange. I played KOTOR 1 and 2 in 2015 after years of hearing Carth hate online. I don't get it, he was very good. And Canderous was so good, BioWare was just like "let's copy/paste his entire character for our unique IP." I mean, Wrex was hands down thE best character in ME1 so I can't blame them too much, but it's still funny to see him start off as a disillusioned survivor of a destroyed warrior race who is just scraping by as an unhappy thug until the sequel where he returns and starts to lead his people to their glorious revival. I guess the genophage kind of offers a different, unique aspect to the Krogan, but Wrex is still just Canderous 2.0 in a very unsubtle way.
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May 14, 2024 18:41
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I think one's fondness for Carth depends a lot on whether they played a male or female character
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May 14, 2024 18:55
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I think Carth gets the short end of the stick because most people who hated him encountered him as the character that just refuses to trust the player for no drat reason at all, until you suddenly realise he has a very good reason not to trust you... but also he didn't know what that was. He also suffers from being a pretty boring Human Fighter and all he really does is get better at shooting in different ways as the game progresses.
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May 14, 2024 18:56
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Replaying KOTOR nowadays it is nice that he's one of the rare few RPG companions that isn't constantly just kissing your rear end. Which is still pretty rare! It's especially fun to have Carth on a Dark Side run where he's like "i can't explain why exactly but i just don't trust you this is all too convenient" when he's around to witness you murdering several innocent people and just acting incredibly psychotic and self serving at every turn but will still open up to you about his son because we can't have players missing side content now can we? 
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May 14, 2024 19:08
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I like Carth because he's an idealist at heart who has been bruised by personal betrayals and loss but he never lets it deter him from doing the right thing. He's a normal dude in a galaxy of superheroes so it grinds his rear end when someone like Jolee starts talking about the march of history and how it's arrogant to assume that your personal struggle is the only thing that matters on the cosmic timeline. Meanwhile Jolee sat on a stump in a hell forest for decades rather than use his power to help people, because he was depressed. At least Carth was doing something from the start and didn't need to be convinced to join the fight. Also it's very funny when the party encounters Darth Malak and he immediately shouts "DOWN YOU GO!" and unloads on Malak with twin blasters.
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May 14, 2024 19:23
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Yeah, as an adult he is refreshingly direct.
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May 14, 2024 19:52
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Regardless of quality, are the Rogue Squadron books important to the EU lore? Most are right at the start of the New Republic Era in my list, before even Courtship of Princess Leia, and I was wondering if I should check them out. That'll be a sizable chunk of time to get through all of them.
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May 16, 2024 02:08
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NikkolasKing posted:Regardless of quality, are the Rogue Squadron books important to the EU lore? Most are right at the start of the New Republic Era in my list, before even Courtship of Princess Leia, and I was wondering if I should check them out. That'll be a sizable chunk of time to get through all of them. I would say so. They introduce and expand on a lot of characters who stick around, and have at least one big "galactic event" in them.
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May 16, 2024 02:13
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You should check them out because of their quality (the Stover books, the X-Wing books, and the Thrawn trilogy are the only EU books I've been able to bring myself to reread as an adult), but really a lot of what the X-Wing books are doing is playing between the raindrops and expanding on events from other books, rather than telling wholly original stories (as might be expected by them being released at the very end of the Bantam license). I'll always make an argument for publication order over chronological, but I know a lot of people like to read in the in-universe order. HOWEVER, you might want to make an exception for the Wraith Squadron books, because they do a great job of playing around with a character introduced in Courtship and giving him a whole new context. They take place before Courtship but you'll get a great deal more enjoyment out of them if you read them after.
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May 16, 2024 02:27
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the x-wing books were my introduction to the EU and yeah i think they are pretty foundational. if nothing else they do a lot to expand on the post-rotj pre-thrawn era that is imo the most fun section of the timeline, but the relatively strong writing and expansive casts means that a lot of the folks from those books are going to show up somewhere else eventually
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May 16, 2024 04:02
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NikkolasKing posted:Regardless of quality, are the Rogue Squadron books important to the EU lore? Most are right at the start of the New Republic Era in my list, before even Courtship of Princess Leia, and I was wondering if I should check them out. That'll be a sizable chunk of time to get through all of them. Yes. All the X-wing books flow along quickly, and none are particularly long (I think Wraith Squadron is the longest at 400~ pages, most are in the low 300s), which helps. As far as their place within the EU, the first 7 books (The first 4 cover Rogue Squadron, the next 3 are the Wraith books) start about 2~ years after Return of the Jedi, which puts them about 3~ years before the Thrawn trilogy, and I don't think there is much else that is set in that same gap. As Chairman Capone notes, they help develop movie characters like Wedge, and introduce or provide additional backstory for a number of others who will appear throughout the EU in roles of varying prominence and importance all the way through the NJO. The early books contain one event that is very significant in EU history (I think you already have some EU knowledge so this isn't a major spoiler but I'll tag it anyway) showing how Coruscant was taken by the New Republic, and just the general shift of the New Republic from the Rebel Alliance. Rochallor posted:I'll always make an argument for publication order over chronological, but I know a lot of people like to read in the in-universe order. HOWEVER, you might want to make an exception for the Wraith Squadron books, because they do a great job of playing around with a character introduced in Courtship and giving him a whole new context. They take place before Courtship but you'll get a great deal more enjoyment out of them if you read them after. Just to go a bit further on this, if you want to go chronologically, the Wraith books take place immediately after the first 4 books in the series which focus on Rogue Squadron, so you'd do those 7 in a row. The 8th book, Isard's Revenge, overlaps with the ending of the final book of the Thrawn trilogy, The Last Command, and serves both to show a bit of the aftermath of Thrawn's campaigns and as a sequel to some events from the X-wing comics. You don't need to be familiar with the comics* to understand that book at all, everything in the story gets explained perfectly fine. The 9th book, Starfighters of Adumar is set a few years later, notably after the events of the Jedi Academy trilogy and Darksaber (I think technically it overlaps or is set shortly after Planet of Twilight, but has nothing to do with the events of that, so you can thankfully stay the hell away from it). Really, you just need to know the broadest of strokes of what happened there, since the events aren't directly related to the plot, the book sets up everything you need to know. I mention this mainly cause I've seen people go and read the original nine X-wing books all together, not realizing the last two are essentially standalones that aren't as directly tied to the first seven. *That said, the X-wing comics are pretty good, if you ever want to check them out. They are largely separate from the novels, being set mostly during the first year after Endor, or about a year before the X-wing novels. Also, if you do want to go chronologically at any time for whatever reason, the timeline printed in later books is helpful. This one I had saved below also includes comics and video games and pretty much everything: 
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May 16, 2024 04:22
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I really love the X-wing comics, I feel like they don’t get a lot of love compared to the books, but I’ve always enjoyed them. The last third of the series, from when Baron Fel and Isard are introduced, is basically one long arc that’s extremely high quality. Other than Isard’s Revenge being a sequel to the comics, The Bacta War also has some comic overlap, but it’s nothing vital.
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May 16, 2024 11:36
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One thing that always stuck out to me about Traviss and her Mando fetish when it had gotten completely out of control was Jaina going to Boba Fett to learn how to kill Jedi because "nobody's killed more Jedi than you" which... when? Citation needed, lady. I also really recommend the X-Wing comics. Their only real problem is sometimes the art's not the best so it can be hard to tell who is who if they're not constantly name-dropping.
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May 16, 2024 13:34
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To be fair, with Vader gone the number of people who had recently killed Jedi was zero so... technically correct?
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May 16, 2024 13:39
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I don't know if it's been mentioned here already, but if you like podcasts you might be interested in the Star Wars Old Canon Book Club, where three dudes are attempting to go through all of the media in the old canon in publication order. It's not updated super frequently but the episodes are pretty long so it balances out. https://open.spotify.com/show/6g4V179CojjvrUgy5B62CY
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May 16, 2024 13:51
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Arquinsiel posted:To be fair, with Vader gone the number of people who had recently killed Jedi was zero so... technically correct? I guess they didn't count the Vong as individuals for their body count?
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May 16, 2024 13:56
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Yeah the Vong didn't kill people, they just fired the magic space beetles that did the killing for them.
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May 16, 2024 14:06
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I don’t remember if the Peace Brigade collaborators killed any Jedi, but I think at minimum they captured a few and could have but instead handed them over to the Vong.
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May 16, 2024 14:14
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I will def look into these books, then. Thanks for the help, everyone. I'll check out the comics, too. Hope they are on Marvel Unlimited. I was also trying to look into more Mara Jade stuff and saw she had a comic which I saw is on MU so I'll be sprinkling in some comics reading alongside my novel reading, anyway.
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May 16, 2024 14:15
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Radio! posted:I don't know if it's been mentioned here already, but if you like podcasts you might be interested in the Star Wars Old Canon Book Club, where three dudes are attempting to go through all of the media in the old canon in publication order. It's not updated super frequently but the episodes are pretty long so it balances out. I hope I don't find the hosts annoying, because I'm really into this idea. Subscribed.
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May 16, 2024 14:15
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I think the cover of Darth Vader 44 has crystalised why I am not enjoying the Marvel comics anymore. They've run out of good ideas and now they're just doing superhero comics, but in Star Wars. Look at the poses. A team of elite rebels with a catchy acronym nick-name based on some feature they all share, who shout that nickname as part of a battlecry. It's just so utterly tonally wrong for the universe. Guess they did alright lasting a decade before my prediction came fully true. Ah well.
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May 16, 2024 14:47
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That looks straight out of a 90s superhero teamup book.
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May 16, 2024 14:52
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I'm sure Doctor Aphra's still fine.
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May 16, 2024 14:54
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Doctor Aphra is over 
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May 16, 2024 15:39
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Arquinsiel posted:A team of elite rebels with a catchy acronym nick-name based on some feature they all share, who shout that nickname as part of a battlecry. Yeah if it's star wars you need your team to be called "X Squad(ron)" or sometbing.
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May 16, 2024 16:28
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Dawgstar posted:One thing that always stuck out to me about Traviss and her Mando fetish when it had gotten completely out of control was Jaina going to Boba Fett to learn how to kill Jedi because "nobody's killed more Jedi than you" which... when? Citation needed, lady. If we're counting Jedi as Force-users in general, I think Kyle Katarn and Jaden Korr are in the lead by an order of magnitude There's also a bit in that book where Jaina gets frustrated training against enemies that use lightsaber-proof armor and are hard to sense in the Force, which lol. lmao, even
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May 16, 2024 16:36
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Arc Hammer posted:Yeah if it's star wars you need your team to be called "X Squad(ron)" or sometbing.
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May 16, 2024 16:41
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ninjahedgehog posted:If we're counting Jedi as Force-users in general, I think Kyle Katarn and Jaden Korr are in the lead by an order of magnitude ...yeesh. And I was coming here to give her some praise for this quote I found from something she apparently wrote: https://legobiwan.tumblr.com/post/180880412563/qui-gon-jinn-is-such-a-fascinating-character-and quote:Dooku: "The Jedi Order’s problem is Yoda. No being can wield that kind of power for centuries without becoming complacent at best or corrupt at worst. He has no idea that it’s overtaken him; he no longer sees all the little cumulative evils that the Republic tolerates and fosters, from slavery to endless wars, and he never asks, ‘Why are we not acting to stop this?’ Live alongside corruption for too long, and you no longer notice the stench.” I thought this perfectly summed up the problem of the PT Jedi. But apparently, she just hates all Jedi, and that's a different thing.
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May 16, 2024 17:13
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To a point she's a forum poster after 9/11 who is interacting with a huge audience that have realised she'll rise to the bait. It's very easy to stake out a more and more extreme position until you end up saying clearly bonkers poo poo just because you know it'll annoy your posting enemies.
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May 16, 2024 17:23
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NikkolasKing posted:...yeesh. Yeah this is a good quote, and a better author could have done a lot with the fact that it's coming from the mouth of a dude who wants to enslave the entire galaxy. But it's KT, and her entire depth of understanding in Star Wars is "Jedi bad Mandos good" so she never bothers to interrogate this at all. Credit to her though -- she's not the worst author in Star Wars but she's probably the most interestingly bad.
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May 16, 2024 17:48
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Traviss was just obsessed with hard men, making hard choices or whatever and was obsessed with the Mandalorians. It's no surprise she went on to write Gears of War and Halo books and fit in perfectly for some reason. Couldn't be the fascistic overtones of both series or anything. That might be overly harsh but she definitely gave off that type of Baen, military sci-fi author vibes.
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May 16, 2024 17:49
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Just gonna remind everyone that her first writing gig was PR for the Royal Marines and that's why her Clone Commandos are all British.
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May 16, 2024 17:53
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She killed Mara Jade, therefore she is a trash person and all of her work, past, present, or future, is automatically poo poo.
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May 16, 2024 18:03
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Again I'll still go to bat for her writing in Gears 3. It knows that fascists loving suck and if it takes a bunch of roided-up meatheads, Michael B Jordan and Ice-T to beat the monster men then so be it.
Arc Hammer fucked around with this message at 18:10 on May 16, 2024 |
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May 16, 2024 18:08
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RocknRollaAyatollah posted:Traviss was just obsessed with hard men, making hard choices or whatever and was obsessed with the Mandalorians. It's no surprise she went on to write Gears of War and Halo books and fit in perfectly for some reason. Halo fans don't like her books either because she fixated on one character being very morally wrong (true, she's not great!) and sort of twisted the whole story to condemn her. Xenomrph posted:She killed Mara Jade, therefore she is a trash person and all of her work, past, present, or future, is automatically poo poo. I really don't like this kind of fanthink. This ends up with RA Salvatore getting death threats or authors being harassed into self harm/suicide/giving up their careers.
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May 16, 2024 18:13
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Someone correct me if I’m wrong, as I never read the Legacy of the Force series where this all happens, but isn’t there a lot of back and forth between her and Troy Denning basically going “Nah, that’s dumb” from one novel to the next, essentially loving with each others characters, and Mara Jade just falls in that clusterfuck too?General Battuta posted:I really don't like this kind of fanthink. This ends up with RA Salvatore getting death threats or authors being harassed into self harm/suicide/giving up their careers. FWIW, Wookiepedia claims the decision to kill Mara Jade was made by Lucasfilm, so just like the decision to kill Chewbacca was made long before RA Salvatore got involved with what became the NJO, it seems that’s one choice we can’t blame on Karen Traviss. That said, I don’t know the specifics of how Mara’s death plays out beyond Wookiepedia, so I can’t say if it was well written or fit the story or whatnot.
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May 16, 2024 18:20
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It doesn't matter if she wrote the worst book ever penned by man, it's just a piece of licensed fiction. Mara Jade isn't real. Making artistic decisions you don't like doesn't make someone a 'trash person'. I'm sure there are plenty of other reasons you can find to call her a trash person!
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May 16, 2024 18:22
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General Battuta posted:Halo fans don't like her books either because she fixated on one character being very morally wrong (true, she's not great!) and sort of twisted the whole story to condemn her. IIRC the stuff with Serin Osman and Halsey pissed off a lot of people who had only read Eric Nylund's halo novels and he very much wrote about the Spartan child soldiers in a completely straight "ends justify the means" way. It's still weird in a Traviss-specific kind of way. The story of Serin learning to hate Halsey and being egged on by Parangosky starts to take precedence over the rest of the story, which is ostensibly about morally questionable human black-ops soldiers loving over humanity's only postwar allies. The latter is an interesting story set in the Halo universe. The former is Karen Traviss grabbing the podium to recite a lecture that amounts to "hey Halo is pretty hosed up amirite? gently caress that Halsey bitch especially."
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May 16, 2024 18:24
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