Lit The Official Fate of the Jedi: Apocalypse Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

Ben has to be at least 18 by series end, as he was born in 26.5 ABY, and the series ended somewhere from 44.5 ABY to 45.5 ABY, as Sue Rostoni had said a while back Allies.moved the series into 44 ABY, a lot of stuff happened between Allies and Vortex, and Tendon Ia States it was about six months since the events at Klatooine from Conviction, and since the GFFA has ten months, it's definately past 44.5 ABY, most like within 45 ABY, and since 26.5, plus 18, equals 44.5, it means he had to have been at least 18, about to turn 19 due to Jag's comment that he's survived almost 4 years as CoS, and as he took over in 41.5, his comment would put the year at about 45.5 ABY, when Ben's about to turn 19. Finally, Allana's referred to as nine years old, and as she was born in 36 ABY, her age would put the year sometime in 45 ABY, meaning Ben has to be at least 18, not 16 or 17.

 

Somebody needs to edit the Wook then. Got my info on months there.

Well, no matter what, six months would still put it at least at 44.5 ABY, and add Allies/Vortex would put it past 44.5 ABY.

 

So since this series is titled, "Fate of the Jedi", I guess it was the Jedi's fate to be thrown off of Coruscant; hated and feared by the general populace; and doomed to spend forever fighting tons of Sith and Abeloth.

 

ROFLMAO

er i mean PANTS!!!! LOTS and LOTS of pantaloons.

 

This is just another piece of proof behind Cade Skywalker's rant in the Legacy comics about how it is that no matter how many times the Jedi saves the galaxy, it turns against them.

 

Man Ben and Allana are growing up fast. i swear they will be in their 30's in no time.

 

One reason I hated the NJO was that they make the kids fight the Vong where the adults were moping, "Oh man, if I fight this war, I'll turn to the dark side."
9 year olds have no business holding any weapon.
Do they think having a toddler kill a handful of adults make said kid cool or something? If I wrote that in a fanfic people would scream Mary Sue! before I can type up the term.

I reserve my undying hatred for Jaina Solo. And her shenanigans in that asteroid where she beats Wedge, Luke, and a handful of other experienced (like a decade more experienced) pilots. I was not impressed,

 

Which ties in nicely to how Legacy is well foreshadowed by Fate of the Jedi, and really deals with a lot of the issues facing the Jedi philosophy. One of the best lines in the book was Krayt telling Luke that the dark man has only be "delayed" - and reading Fate of the Jedi gives even more weight to the awesome Legacy comics. I just finished Apocalypse and totally dug the Mortis tie-in, I much prefer things being literal than all the metaphysical kark. Luminous beings are they, but still fallible, comprehensible, and mortal. I was disappointed by Invincible and was glad to see Denning deliver an epic 450-page climax instead of the sputtering confusion of LOTF's ending. And I'm excited to see the arcs of the surviving characters in coming duologies, trilogies, and oneshots.

 

After sitting and thinking about this book for a few days after reading it, I still have mixed feelings about it. There were some truly awesome parts (Jaina and Luke in the Temple battle, for instance). There were also a ton of things that strained credulity (How do a few thousand Sith control all ports of entry into a city planet of trillions??? That's insane. Jedi spice cartel was the best idea to discredit the Jedi? I know it was force suggestion (or assume), but that's still crazy).

I guess, in the end, I am tired of the multi-author book series. This story (FotJ) shifted in focus and idea between the first book and the last. I wouldn't mind the different authors focusing on different aspects of an over-arching story if they didn't continually drop plot lines!

But hey, I got to read a preview of the new X-Wing book, and I'm really looking forward to that.

 

From an interview on the Random House site: link

So there you go.

 

Finished this last night. Overall, I actually really enjoyed it. I had a few complaints, but they are very minor in my own opinion. It didnt tie everything up as well as The Unifying Force did, but what the heck can? It did a pretty good job setting up the Star Wars universe in a new exciting direction!

What I did enjoy was how Mr. Denning step up several storylines that will hopefully be picked up later by other authors that could make them into single books, duologies, or trilogies. We have Allana now out in the limelight and her group of Hapan protectors -- Jag and Jaina and how they make their way back into the Empire somehow -- The ten Jedi Knights seeking out the Force sword that killed The Ones (which I think would be awesome group of books) -- and a ton more stuff!

Some people may not have liked the Mortis trilogy being included in this book, but I think that if were going to have The Ones in continuinity anyway--we should use them. I was very satsified with how they were tied in actually. I even enjoyed the cameo by Darth Krayt. The only thing with that is that it makes the Jedi Order look incredibly foolish when it is overthrown in Legacy, because they knew they were out there! So thats kind of frustrating.

I also thought they missed a good oppruntiny to deal with Luke Skywalker -- he could have taken the Father's place, and sat on the Throne of Balance and do what Anakin could not. That way its as if Luke never truly dies, but is in someway always protecting the galaxy against Chaos (Abeloth).

Other than the fact that Troy denning's descriptions almost always confuse me, I throughly enjoyed the book!

 

It seems perfectly logical to me that the Mother is in fact, well, the Mother.

Remember the Killik bas-reliefs: Abeloth joined the family and for a time became the Mother. But there had to be an Original Mother before that - otherwise Killik wouldn't point to what was missing from the pictures.

As it stands, Abeloth is tied to the Ones from an almost completely unrelated piece of media, but has no connection with a very similar in all aspects entity actually called "Mother" - which is from an almost concurrently happening story to boot.

Also, I now remember Kemp's interviews from when Riptide came out. It seems extremely weird that Chee went through all the trouble to get Filoni's approval to use Mortis mythology, but totally overlooked the fact that Kemp basically came with the very same premise in the same time period, only for them to decide to keep them unrelated. There is a major potential for retcon lying here, I am telling you. Especially with Kemp writing more books and already including One Sith within his storyline.

 

I was not happy either with eveyone hating on Ves for throwing a grenade (that had been slapped in her hand by the Sith without the safety) at the Falcon. If she would have done the noble Jedi thing and try to use the grenade against the Sith, they would have force shoved her away to blow up by herself. And the Sith still would have attacked the Falcon.

With Vestara dead, Ben (already captured) would have been alone and helpless against Abeloth. And without Vestara to be a part of Abeloth's fantasy Celestial family, Abeloth may just have decided to use Ben as her next avatar. Abeloth would still be alive and multiplying thru the galaxy and billions more people would die. Luke would be clueless what to do and would finally snap, and the Balance of the Force would be destroyed.

HERE IS THE WHOLE DESTINY OF THE FORCE KICKER (FOLLOW ME)

On the other hand, if Vestara had been able to escape the sith by making it to the undercity, the same scenario as above would play out.

The only way Abeloth would be defeated was if Vestara ended up with Ben at the end // The only way Vestara could end up with Ben is if she lived but did not escape // The only way Ves could live without escaping was to "prove" her "loyalty" to the Sith //
The only way Ves could "prove" her "loyalty" to the Sith was to throw the grenade at the Falcon // The only way she could throw the grenade at the Falcon is if it was there in the hangar in the first place // The reason the Falcon was in the hangar instead of half a galaxy away is that Allana had a vision of her lizard friends in peril and was determined to save them.

ALLANA, THEREFORE, FULFILLED HER "THRONE OF BALANCE" DESTINY BY THE FALCON BEING IN THE HANGAR WHEN VESTARA ARRIVED AND SETTING THE CRUCIAL SEQUENCE IN MOTION

Just too bad Vestara got the bad rep for her part in a twist of fate.

 

The Star Wars Essential Reader Companion has a nice little revision concerning Apocalypse.

It says the grenade thrown by Vestara towards Allana in the Temple hangar was botched on purpose, which was not noted in the novel.

Hopefully this positive twist is the result of a change in heart by the powers-that-be concerning Ves, and maybe opening a path to redemption in future novels.

 

didn't notice that... hmm any others in other summaries?

 

Hmm. I seem to remember her botching it right at the cockpit where Han was still sitting.

 

The book fell flat for me, it was a while ago since I read it and I felt it was indistiguishable from the rest of FotJ. There was no character development everyone stayed the same, Allana goes on a murder spree with no psycological poblems!

Thanks to her grand parents incompetance she has killed people BEFORE she even reached the begginings of puberty. Parents in the middle of Somalia would have done a better job!

Everything else was basicly forgetable. They had some small reconciliation with bobafett, Because Starwars version of Deathstroke the termenator needs a happy ending? They guy who recognised form the Magic of new reports was happening to Jacen, warned no one just to spite the galaxy, and was screwed by the fall out should get out of the consequences of he spite based inaction.



The picture can sum up my thoughts on that.

I have been Reading I have been reading Start Trek: Destiny, Vangaurd, and the Typhon pact series. In memerobility character complexity and motivation, and universal and literary logic this series and this novel falls far behind any book in the recent trek line up, even far behind John Ringo's Hot Gate series.

Hell Tyler Vernon, the conservative mouthpice/cheerleader whos knows jack-poo about history has been eaiser on my afro-caribbean-american sensabilities Luke, Leia and Han and thats saying something.

 

But who Force-rolled it in that direction? Vestara or one of the Last Tribe that had captured her?

 

As someone who has not yet seen Avatar, I don't get that picture

 

Guys... wouldn't it be interesting if, like, Yoda was actually Luke and Leia's "special" baby? And Luke was actually a girl, and Leia was actually a guy, they were just switched at birth? And Luke gave birth to Yoda on Dagobah, then had a weird hallucination that Yoda was actually some really old dude after learning Leia was her brother? Like, like, wouldn't that be interesting????

 

I believe the giant Jedi Barv redirected it to the cockpit.

 

Sooo... Force Resurrection!

Finally got finished with the FotJ series(got sidetracked by A Song of Ice and Fire for a while), and overall, I like it. But there's something about my reaction to the story that I have to confess. Now, I'm a grown man. I'm not particularly emotional, nor am I the sort to weep. That said, I'm not a stone. Sometimes a story or situation can get past my stoic exterior, dragging out an involuntary emotional response not commonly seen by my peers. And I'm here today to tell you that the floodgates opened, and I shed a manly tear...

...at how horribly Troy Denning handled Vestara Khai in Apocalypse.

Okay, I get it. This couldn't have ended well, if only because Ben is still a teen, and it's too soon to tie him down for good. Something had to happen to make Vestara fall back to the dark side or otherwise break it off.

But did everyone involved have to look so stupid to make it happen?

Fail #1(No, Ms. Golden you don't escape entirely blame free here)...wait. Do I really need to declare spoilers for the book preceding the one for which the thread was intended? Eh, better safe than sorry. Maybe there's some weirdo that reads the books in reverse or something. After all, I'm starting to read the Thrawn trilogy after having read NJO, LotF and FotJ. And X-Wing: Rogue Squadron. Don't think that one matters though. Anyway... *ahem*

Spoiler: SPOILER FOR ASCENSION! YOU HAVE BEEN (probably unnecessarily) WARNED

Where was I? Oh yes. Fail #1: So Luke takes the whole bloomin' Jedi Order to Dromund Kaas. He excludes Vestara because he believes that putting her in contact with that strong a dark side aura would be setting her up to fail. So what does he do with her instead? Why he sends her, the biggest emotional attachment she has(Ben) and a Crazy-gone-scholar Jedi knight into the Sith Nightmare Vision Tunnels. On Dromund Kaas. Without a master(all of whom are on the planet). But hey, what are the chances that the dark side bugs of terror could still be hanging around the dark side infused tunnels after all these thousands of years? I mean, that's about as unlikely as finding Sith death dogs still guarding millennia old Sith tombs on Korrib-

Oh wait. That happened. What was that about setting her up to fail again?

Fail #2: After experiencing a near death situation of the darkside kind, why on earth did no one talk to Vestara about it? Okay, Ben gets a pass here because he's a teenager and in love. But Luke? His father fell to the dark side. He fell to the dark side for a bit. His son only narrowly avoided doing the same. Luke Skywalker above anyone should know just how dangerous the dark side can be, and he thinks that a Sith gone light can go through that sort of experience and be able to just walk it off with no support? It's a small wonder Vestara gave up on her quest to become a Jedi... No one gave her even the slightest bit of counseling, so how is she supposed to know that failure doesn't have to be final?

Fail #3: Okay, this is less the characters, and more the writing itself. I think Troy Denning hated Vestara. Or maybe he just hates good pacing. Because when Vestara learned about Allana, it was easy to predict that she(Vestara, that is) would inevitably run into a situation where she was forced to divulge that secret to save her skin. That foreshadowing has been stretching since... Conviction, I think? What I could not have predicted is that after giving up that information and convincing(rather cleverly I might add) the Sith that she really was on their side, she would run smack into Allana after the very next door. Come. On. Really? Why don't you just put some babies behind the door so she can inadvertently smash them as she tries to escape while you're at it? As idiot-ball filled as the Dromund Kaas scene was, at least Vestara's actions were a clear choice on her part. This scene never gave her a chance at all. It ripped me out of my suspension of disbelief, as it was a clumsy and obvious device meant to give someone damning testimony against Vestara to ensure Ben would have some reason to give her up at the end.

Fail #4: This is probably the worst bit. So Vestara leaves with ship. Fine. Predicable, but fine. What isn't fine? Once again, we come to Ben and Luke being idiots. "I can't believe it! She was playing us! She was Sith the whole time!" Really, Grand Master? Really? You wisely treat her with suspicion for most of the series, but when you actually become convinced that she genuinely wants redemption, what you do, oh Jedi Master? You ignore her. Obiwan couldn't keep your father from falling even with years of companionship and constant guidance, and Anikan's only hurdle was that he started training too late(well that and that he was being secretly groomed for Sith-hood by Palpatine). You find an actual Sith that wants a chance at redemption, and you figure your 16 year old son has it covered because they're in love? How could you even claim to be surprised when that didn't work out according to plan? But no, she was Sith the whole time, and it didn't matter that she was in love, because that's just what Sith do.

Vestara's fall(or relapse) was entirely the fault of the Skywalkers. They were inattentive and stupid, and Vestara suffered because of it. She went the final book believing that she had no chance... that she was doomed to oppose the one she loved becase she killed someone despite the fact that falling to the dark side and doing something you regret is practically a prerequisite for getting the membership card. And you know what? Even that would be fine if future Skywalker/Khai stories acknowledged Luke and Ben's failure. But no, Luke will be "right," and Ben will have half a dozen equally short lived romances because he's a Skywalker and that happens, and we'll be lucky if Vestara is handled as anything more complex than a Saturday Morning Cartoon villain whose love has turned to hate and she acts like the Evil Sith that Luke always knew she was.

Ugh.