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Decius posted:Do you mean that Palpatine did all his evil, fascist, racist stuff only for *~*The Greater Good*~* to protect the galaxy against the Vong? Because that's the worst thing to have come out of the whole EU in my opinion. Can't have an evil guy just being evil for evil's sake. No, he has to have some greater reason to overthrow a democracy. And Genghis Khan killed dozens of millions to foster more trade between Europe and Asia. Grey man shades of grey anti-heroes no good or evil just different sides  I loved Traitor but dear lord does that route turn to poo poo in the hands of hack writers
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Jan 30, 2013 17:53
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Conquering the Republic to present a united front when the Yuzhaan Vong arrive is a workable plot when somebody like Thrawn is the one trying to execute it, but it doesn't really fit with what had been established about Palpatine, whose main motivation was self-interest.
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Jan 30, 2013 17:58
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Look, if you just took a thousand years to bring about the culmination of some long Xanatos gambit to rule the galaxy, your self interest is going to involve also defending your new conquest against external threats. (But yes, also loving hacks)
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Jan 30, 2013 18:07
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WhyteRyce posted:Grey man shades of grey anti-heroes no good or evil just different sides This is why KOTOR II is actually a terrible game with terrible unlikable characters.
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Jan 30, 2013 18:58
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Longbaugh01 posted:Does it ultimately weaken Palpatine's through-line as a character, or make it stronger when taking the entire...canon into account? It's laughable to imagine that he foresaw a universe-ending catastrophe that he strove to avoid, and yet died because, despite him knowing that Vader was trying to use Luke to overthrow him, he brought both those people alone to his throne room, with no guards anywhere, and then died when Vader literally picked him up, walked across a room, and dropped him down an elevator shaft. Epi Lepi posted:This is why KOTOR II is actually a terrible game with terrible unlikable characters. KOTOR II had hack writers?
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Jan 30, 2013 19:43
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Decius posted:Do you mean that Palpatine did all his evil, fascist, racist stuff only for *~*The Greater Good*~* to protect the galaxy against the Vong? Because that's the worst thing to have come out of the whole EU in my opinion. Can't have an evil guy just being evil for evil's sake. No, he has to have some greater reason to overthrow a democracy. And Genghis Khan killed dozens of millions to foster more trade between Europe and Asia. Right. The two-part Clone Wars episode about the Godzilla-esque monster is perfect for doing Palpatine right. Everything he does in that episode he does because it's evil and he loves it. It has some of the best Palpatine moments in the whole EU; scientific research on an intelligent being, forcing a scientist into unethical research, making the Jedi kill an innocent, and of course turning a giant monster loose in downtown Coruscant. All pure evil, all done for the love of the game.
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Jan 30, 2013 19:54
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Palpatine is all about RULE THE EMPIRE EVERY DAY, hitting on chicks as well as loving with the Jedi. Nothing more deeper than that with him.
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Jan 30, 2013 19:56
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It's a little known fact that the real reason Palpatine quarantined Dathomir was that he was afraid William T. Riker would discover it and use it to challenge his title as the universe's number-one space pimp.
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Jan 30, 2013 20:53
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So basically, it may have been a much better concept if it had had better execution by capable writers, and had been divorced from the character of Palpatine.
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Jan 30, 2013 22:27
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Longbaugh01 posted:So basically, it may have been a much better concept if it had had better execution by capable writers, and had been divorced from the character of Palpatine. The entire concept itself doesn't really exist in the EU. The closest thing that comes to it is that one sourcebook suggests Palpatine used the possibility of extra-galactic invasion as a bogus reason to justify building up the Empire's military during the peacetime after the Clone Wars. The recent Essential Guide to Warfare outright states that the "Palpatine created the Empire to defend against the Yuuzhan Vong" is a fringe neo-Imperial piece of propaganda/conspiracy theory. Other than those two things, the theory more comes from fans than anything in the actual EU itself. There's a lot of poo poo in the EU, but I do think this is one area where it takes flak for something that, for once, it doesn't actually do.
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Jan 30, 2013 22:56
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I think a lot of people make the presumption based on the fact that Palpatine was in contact with the Ssi-Ruuk before The Truce At Bakura and told them they could have a bunch of planets in the Outer Rim if they shared their entechment technology with him.
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Jan 30, 2013 23:41
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Metal Loaf posted:I think a lot of people make the presumption based on the fact that Palpatine was in contact with the Ssi-Ruuk before The Truce At Bakura and told them they could have a bunch of planets in the Outer Rim if they shared their entechment technology with him. As was noted in the lets read thread, those yahoo's didn't have the military power to break a backwater colony, much less challenge anyone on a larger scale.
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Jan 31, 2013 03:33
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They sure could whistle a tune though.
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Jan 31, 2013 03:38
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SeanBeansShako posted:They sure could whistle a tune though. Hmmm?
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Jan 31, 2013 06:26
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That's one good thing the NJO did; sweep away a lot of the stupid poo poo, like the yevetha and ssi-ruuk.
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Jan 31, 2013 07:24
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Chairman Capone posted:The entire concept itself doesn't really exist in the EU. The closest thing that comes to it is that one sourcebook suggests Palpatine used the possibility of extra-galactic invasion as a bogus reason to justify building up the Empire's military during the peacetime after the Clone Wars. The recent Essential Guide to Warfare outright states that the "Palpatine created the Empire to defend against the Yuuzhan Vong" is a fringe neo-Imperial piece of propaganda/conspiracy theory. Other than those two things, the theory more comes from fans than anything in the actual EU itself.
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Jan 31, 2013 11:54
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Nessus posted:Didn't the end of the second series of Thrawn books by Zahn basically imply that Thrawn was preparing for some drat thing which was curiously undefined but was probably ruled, in retrospect, to be the Yuuzhan Vong? Of course Thrawn wasn't the Emperor. Thrawn was preparing for it, but he was established in his first appearance has having been "banished-but-not-really" to the Unknown Regions, and there's inferences about the Chiss knowing either about the Vong or other varied extragalactic hostile species as far back as slightly-post-Episode-1. That said, if that entire Thrawn compound was meant to be an early warning system for Vong, they really dropped the ball on it.  Or, more likely, the writers that Zahn pissed off in the HoT duology just wanted to ignore every Zahn book, given that he basically handed a giant extended middle finger to everyone who had written anything involving Luke Skywalker during the pre-Vong EU. One of the two.
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Jan 31, 2013 12:09
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Ursine Asylum posted:Or, more likely, the writers that Zahn pissed off in the HoT duology just wanted to ignore every Zahn book, given that he basically handed a giant extended middle finger to everyone who had written anything involving Luke Skywalker during the pre-Vong EU. One of the two.
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Jan 31, 2013 12:40
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The EU never said that Palpatine formed the Empire to deal with the Vong. In fact, all he knew were some vague rumors of them in the Uncharted Regions that he didn't really concern himself with. They were just some little thing to keep an eye on as he dealt with far more important things. Basically they were just one of countless little mysteries and potential threats that he may or may not ever have to worry about. He had absolutely no idea of how dangerous they really were. Thrawn on the other hand did do his things because of the Vong. So that was kind of a retcon.
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Jan 31, 2013 13:05
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Nessus posted:How'd he do that? I just looked at the wiki page for those drat books, it says Luke was trying to go ten days' cold turkey on "Using The Force To Wipe His Own rear end" or something. It wasn't really every author, just a couple. One author tried to link Mara Jade with Lando (in one book, I forget which one, Luke called Lando, and Mara answered wearing nothing but a shirt and seeming embarrassed), and Zahn made a point to mention that moment and kill it, having Mara get kind of pissed and making sure Luke knew absolutely nothing happened between them. Also, Dark Empire got called out. Mara mentioned something about that time, and Luke got cold and said, "The Emperor Reborn". Mara replied with a doubting, "Yeah, sure. I never really believed that was him, but whatever." It was kind of hilarious. In that one line, Zahn took what was accepted fact and allowed another possibility, that someone else had made clones and pretended it was Palpatine, basically making GBS threads on Dark Empire. I think those were the only two specific call outs. But the whole book had a feeling of ending the bullshit that had been going on for a long time, and bringing the series to a new starting point for something new to come. Too bad it was the NJO. But that's not Zahn's fault.
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Jan 31, 2013 14:39
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VaultAggie posted:That's one good thing the NJO did; sweep away a lot of the stupid poo poo, like the yevetha and ssi-ruuk. I'd love to have seen those battles.
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Jan 31, 2013 14:43
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Nessus posted:Didn't the end of the second series of Thrawn books by Zahn basically imply that Thrawn was preparing for some drat thing which was curiously undefined but was probably ruled, in retrospect, to be the Yuuzhan Vong? Of course Thrawn wasn't the Emperor. Even if it wasn't the Vong themselves, Survivor's Quest and Outbound Flight suggest that there are some nasty things lurking in the Unknown Regions that represented a more immediate concern to Thrawn and the Chiss.
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Jan 31, 2013 15:06
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Metal Loaf posted:Even if it wasn't the Vong themselves, Survivor's Quest and Outbound Flight suggest that there are some nasty things lurking in the Unknown Regions that represented a more immediate concern to Thrawn and the Chiss. Nasty. They had no idea this meant bugnest orgies.
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Jan 31, 2013 15:08
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Yeah. Thrawn died trying to forestall the encroachment of giant randy insects.
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Jan 31, 2013 16:10
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thrawn527 posted:It wasn't really every author, just a couple. One author tried to link Mara Jade with Lando (in one book, I forget which one, Luke called Lando, and Mara answered wearing nothing but a shirt and seeming embarrassed), and Zahn made a point to mention that moment and kill it, having Mara get kind of pissed and making sure Luke knew absolutely nothing happened between them. Also, Dark Empire got called out. Mara mentioned something about that time, and Luke got cold and said, "The Emperor Reborn". Mara replied with a doubting, "Yeah, sure. I never really believed that was him, but whatever." It was kind of hilarious. In that one line, Zahn took what was accepted fact and allowed another possibility, that someone else had made clones and pretended it was Palpatine, basically making GBS threads on Dark Empire. To add to it, Mara goes on a huge rant about how Luke really hosed up with the way he setup the Jedi academy, was selfish, declares himself Jedi master, etc. honestly, Zahn called out every book as being terrible.
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Jan 31, 2013 16:14
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Duckman2008 posted:To add to it, Mara goes on a huge rant about how Luke really hosed up with the way he setup the Jedi academy, was selfish, declares himself Jedi master, etc. honestly, Zahn called out every book as being terrible. Oh yeah, I forgot about that part. Vision of the Future is just the best.
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Jan 31, 2013 16:20
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Did he not treat The New Rebellion more favourably than some of the other EU books?
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Jan 31, 2013 16:28
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Metal Loaf posted:Did he not treat The New Rebellion more favourably than some of the other EU books? I think he just called "Kueller" or whatever just some troubled youth, so it was kind of a put down. I think the author of TNR wanted to half play it up as a small part of more widespread fuming resentment of the New Republic.
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Jan 31, 2013 16:31
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thrawn527 posted:It wasn't really every author, just a couple. One author tried to link Mara Jade with Lando (in one book, I forget which one, Luke called Lando, and Mara answered wearing nothing but a shirt and seeming embarrassed), and Zahn made a point to mention that moment and kill it, having Mara get kind of pissed and making sure Luke knew absolutely nothing happened between them. Also, Dark Empire got called out. Mara mentioned something about that time, and Luke got cold and said, "The Emperor Reborn". Mara replied with a doubting, "Yeah, sure. I never really believed that was him, but whatever." It was kind of hilarious. In that one line, Zahn took what was accepted fact and allowed another possibility, that someone else had made clones and pretended it was Palpatine, basically making GBS threads on Dark Empire. He also threw dirt in the face of the authors who were straw-manning characters creating a villain who is treated like every other author treats Thrawn, and then having him be taken down pretty easily. Borsk Fel'ya is also given a promotion, and is shown not to be captain-total-dick because all he ever does in most stories is just say "Leia wants that? Well, I say gently caress that then and will never let it pass!"
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Jan 31, 2013 17:47
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Borsk Fey'lya was a Zahn creation, wasn't he? I can't remember if he'd appeared in anything before Heir To the Empire.
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Jan 31, 2013 17:59
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Metal Loaf posted:Borsk Fey'lya was a Zahn creation, wasn't he? I can't remember if he'd appeared in anything before Heir To the Empire. He was in the X-Wing comics in the NR advisory council. Those were created in the same timeframe, so it's likely that he's one of the characters Zahn created and Stackpole, collaborating with Zahn, put him in the comics (which are set prior to the Thrawn trilogy).
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Jan 31, 2013 18:09
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Calax posted:Borsk Fel'ya [...] all he ever does in most stories is just say "Leia wants that? Well, I say gently caress that then and will never let it pass!" And then they went back to the same loving well in NJO. But at least they had the good graces to kill him off in the middle of it.
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Jan 31, 2013 18:14
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Calax posted:Borsk Fel'ya is also given a promotion, and is shown not to be captain-total-dick because all he ever does in most stories is just say "Leia wants that? Well, I say gently caress that then and will never let it pass!" Looking at the US Congress this seems like a realistic description of a career politician though.
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Jan 31, 2013 18:32
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He was a such a little poo poo but drat did he go out like a badass. Not as good as ganner though. 
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Jan 31, 2013 18:33
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VaultAggie posted:He was a such a little poo poo but drat did he go out like a badass. Not as good as ganner though. Ganner's death was literally the best death in NJO. And given how many deaths NJO had, that's saying something. e: Nessus posted:How'd he do that? I just looked at the wiki page for those drat books, it says Luke was trying to go ten days' cold turkey on "Using The Force To Wipe His Own rear end" or something. In addition to all of the above, they make a point of saying that all the ubershit Luke was doing (I recall there being one book where he reconstructed Vader's seaside fortress on Coruscant from a pile of rubble using only the power of his mind) was basically shitfucking him, his interpersonal relationships, his ability to use the Force, and was sending him on a straight line long term course to the dark side. They use a couple specific examples, like the fortress-rebuilding thing and having him gently caress up people's minds at range, but it was so prevalent in the pre-NJO EU that it felt like a bunch of old Superman writers and their propensity towards giving him "super face-mushing" or "super emblem throwing" powers. And then Zahn showed up and said "No, you're stupid." 
Alliterate Addict fucked around with this message at 19:40 on Jan 31, 2013 |
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Jan 31, 2013 19:33
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Ursine Asylum posted:Ganner's death was literally the best death in NJO. And given how many deaths NJO had, that's saying something. ... At least they didn't actually hit supermans level of stupid powers. At one point he blew out a star... with his breath... in SPAAAAAACEEE. Although it seems like they mostly forgot that entire thing in NJO as I distinctly remember Luke basically holding a black hole in place during a ground invasion.
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Feb 2, 2013 02:13
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Calax posted:... At least they didn't actually hit supermans level of stupid powers. At one point he blew out a star... with his breath... in SPAAAAAACEEE. I'm willing to give it a little more of a pass, given that the "black holes" are actually bugs that run around and create black holes but somehow don't damage themselves, so  But yeah that and another jedi managed to kill a ship by himself by inverting the black hole bug as well, although I think those are the only 2 times they do that in the series.
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Feb 2, 2013 02:39
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Longbaugh01 posted:Probably well-worn territory for this thread, but in light of the connection between Palpatine and the Vong: It's been a decade, but I thought Outbound Flight had Thrawn and Palpatine both knowing about the Vong flat out (and calling them by name) circa the prequels. So it's Zahn's fault.  Though I don't think there's anything wrong with Palpatine using the threat of them to recruit Thrawn and just continuing with his master plan anyway. It is open for interpretation but seems like it is keeping in character. yronic heroism fucked around with this message at 02:53 on Feb 2, 2013 |
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Feb 2, 2013 02:49
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Ursine Asylum posted:Ganner's death was literally the best death in NJO. At first I read this as "EU" and I was about to go all Garik "Face" Loran passing away while looking up into the night sky at the Iron Fist in orbit.
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Feb 2, 2013 04:08
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Jedi Knight Luigi posted:At first I read this as "EU" and I was about to go all Garik "Face" Loran passing away while looking up into the night sky at the Iron Fist in orbit. That wasn't Face, it was Phanan. (Is that okay to leave unspoiled at this point?  )And best death in the EU, I think I'd have to say Gariel Captison, but EU is pretty sparse character-death-wise overall. Allston's X-Wing books probably account for a big chunk of hero deaths prior to NJO.
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Feb 2, 2013 04:26
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