Lit (certain type of villain) of the week

This has been a major problem throughout the EU in my opinion. In the Bantam era we had Imperial of the week. Now we have Sith of the week.

 

It is a consequence of the EU's tendency to betray itself as spinoff fiction that pastiches the source material instead of trying something new.

 

We need something new to spice things up a little, like poorly named alien invader of the week.

 

Yeah the Tofs sucked.

 

As long as the Hiromi get a second chance at galaxy-conquering.

"Let's hear it for not getting hurt!"

 

I think villain of the week charges are to some degree unfair. EU works largely have to stand on their own, whether as a single novel, a multi-novel series, a comic series, or a single video game. They have to establish and then provide for the defeat of their own specific antagonists, and said defeat is usually fatal. Villains who run away only to return more ridiculous than before (Grievous, Daala) have a tendency to not be taken seriously.

It is also worth noting that, prior to our current Amazon.com era, the publishers could not expect anyone to have the entirety of the EU to chose from at once. A prospective reader went to a bookstore, or their local library, and chose from whatever happened to be on the shelf (this was, to some extent also true of video games, given the nature of changing technologies). The EU material has to be accessible without prior exposure. That was a problem with something like the NJO - it does no good to a new reader if the only books on the shelf are from the second half of the run.

 

I have to disagree with you

 

Well, they're no Hiromi.

 

It'll change when the sequels come out. Darth Vader and the Empire were the bad guys in the OT, so the bad guys of the Bantam era were all Imperials, Vader-knockoff Dark Jedi, or Imperials led by Vader-knockoff Dark Jedi. The bad guys in the PT were the Sith, so of course the villains in most of Del Rey's and Dark Horse's stories have been Sith. Whenever the ST comes out, whoever the bad guys are in that will be the new bad guys in the EU. You can say the Yuuzhan Vong were derivative of other franchises all you want, but at least for that brief window of transition between the OT and PT, they were something new for Star Wars.

 

With the occasional Bantam-era exception. The Black Fleet Crisis trilogy, for example- the Yevetha were very Vong-like.

 

Yeah there are several exceptions but for the most part they were the "main" bad guys of that era. You had Thrawn, Paaaalpatine, Carnor Jax, Isard, Zsinj, Daala, the Second Imperium, and a ton of Dark Jedi like Kueller, Hethrir, Brakiss, Lumiya, C'baoth, etc.

 

Yup. Even when there is a non-Sith non-Imperial faction, there's usually some kind of Force-user associated with it in some way.

The Ssi-ruuvi had Dev Sibwarra, Leonid Tavira had the Jensaari, the Nagai and Tofs both had Lumiya, and so forth.

 

'Course, if you want to get technical, the Vong had Onimi, though his true nature wasn't revealed until the end of TUF (though it was heavily foreshadowed from Shimrra's first appearance that he somehow had Force powers, and the end of Destiny's Way made it clear Onimi had some kind of hold on him).

 

And don't forget about superweapons.

Yuuzhan Vong: hijacked by a Dark Sider (to use Zelda terminology)

 

There needs to be a new villain or group for an extended time to get away from the Sith.

 

I wouldn't mind if they just had something like the Krath. I mean, just calling them something other than the Sith and having them be otherwise unfamiliar to the protagonists would be a switch. Bring back the Kashi Merr somehow. Make it a rival sect that isn't evil but is pursuing its own interests which run counter to that of either the Jedi or the Galactic Alliance -- though I understand in the case of the latter that isn't really relevant to the Jedi.

The problem with the cutting edge of the timeline (minus Legacy) is the way that they've set it up, despite claiming that it's for future storytelling, is it's extremely restrictive. First, the protagonists that we have: Ben, Jag, Jaina, Allana, Tahiri, etc., are all loyal to the Jedi more than the Galactic Alliance, and seem to be pretty much detached from the Galactic Alliance. Throw out your Thrawn trilogy or Hand of Thrawn duology style stories, and throw out any story that involves the Galactic Alliance being threatened. Really, that reduces it to the Jedi Order itself being threatened, and who else would threaten it besides either the Galactic Alliance through another rehashing of the prequels/Destiny's Way/Fate of the Jedi or the Sith? Plus now there are the Lost Tribe of the Sith running amok in the galaxy with Kesh being unknown to the Jedi or Galactic Alliance and there's the One Sith running amok as well.

They've completely handcuffed the storylines to Jedi vs Sith barring a reboot.

 

The SIth don't even seem like a real threat anymore. You know they're going to kill each other.

 

Considering we had the Knight Errant Sith, the TOR Sith, the Lost Tribe, Jacen, and the One Sith practically all at once I'm at Sith fatigue. I'm cool with the One Sith since they were before all that and they were different but add the rest and no. An entire planet of Sith might be feasible but Lumiya in the Marvel days should be the last Sith before Darth Krayt. Jacen falling was a terrible idea since we've already had Anakin and Luke fall.

 

I say the Tof!

 

Or even a teamup of the Tof, Nagai, Trandoshans, Ssi-Ruk, Yvetha, etc.

 

Heh. Seems to me if you get a bunch of species whose core ideology boils down to "we're superior and our species alone deserves to rule the galaxy" together, the end result wouldn't be a team up, but a lot of dead aliens- pretty much the treatment the Vong gave the Yevetha in FHI, honestly.

 

Well, we've had Space Aztecs already, so how's about we follow that up with Zulu in Space? And since the Zulu were fond of using encirclement tactics in their wars, they could start their invasion by entering the GFFA from every direction at once. They're all around us, we just don't know it yet...

 

Been there, done that.

 

I thought Fate of the Jedi had some promise before it introduced Abeloth, and perhaps for a short while after Abyss. The Hidden Ones on Kel Dor thought bad stuff was about to go down, and the Aing-Tii were anticipating the return of Those Who Dwell Beyond the Veil. It was this millennial end of the world type angst with there being a heavy implication of the return of the Celestials, and the possibilities for what the Celestials could be were endless. They could be an even worse version of the Rakata. They could be a progenitor race that has returned and doesn't like what the galaxy has done in their absence, or views them as ants and just don't care. They could be the Reapers from Mass Effect. Vuffi Raa could have betrayed us!

But nope, they were the Ones. The significance of this in Apocalypse? Well, none really, because Luke just beat up Abeloth and the problem went away. You could cut that exposition out of the story and it wouldn't change a thing. The insight into Abeloth's past had no relevance to solving the problem because the storyline was just deferred to the future, because I guess hinting at stories is more interesting to Del Rey than actually telling them.

 

I think FOTJ suffers from Legacy taking place after it.