Lit Solving EU inconsistencies

Hello, there. I´ve been an avid SW fans from quite some time, so now and then I´ve found some inconsistencies that are not that easy to make sense in our beloved galaxy. The great thing about these forums, is that there is someone here that will probably be able to give you a new perspective on things.

This happened recently to me when Blackhole E Snoke gave me a great answer to a long time question I had, about the role of Agent Blackhole as Director of Intelligence in relation with the Isard´s roles. So maybe there could be more long standing doubts here that can´t really be solved by searching original sources or wookiepedia, but can indeed be answered here! At least I know I have some more. Ask away if you feel like it!

 

What was concluded about Blackhole? Here's my theory: Blackhole was indeed Director for a while. During this time Ysanne could've been Deputy Director.

 

That makes a lot of sense. From what we talked, apparently there was a retcon making Cronal an Interim Director, and in this period he would use his position and being in Palpatine´s good graces to pull resources from Imperial Intelligence to make his own shadow agency, even if it was still part of Imperial Intelligence as a whole... which explains why he had such resources at his disposal when Luke first faced him!

 

I figure Cronal was the secret director. Isard merely thought she was running Intelligence.


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Ah, nice, I remembered what we were talking before about inquisitor Hydra, and that it wasn´t really clear to me if she was force sensitive at all!

 

That´s a pretty sound theory. Even if Cronal was the Director, he was so reclusive that he talked to almost everyone by hologram. Isard could have been the visible head of the Department.

Ohh, right! Jude Watson Inquisitors were a curious lot indeed. I imagine Hydra was Force Sensitive, if she was Grand Inquisitor, but it wasn´t that clear. Besides, she is categorized as human in most online media, but in the stories she was described as a humanoid, having a shinny bald head with a thin layer of hair and silver eyes, and a pretty humorless personality. Sounds inspired in Sly Moore to me!

 

Lot's of muggle Inquisitors probably ran around, but I'd say the force sensitives would rack up all the promotions. I highly doubt a non-force user could ever become Grand Inquisitor, with all the competition.

 

I think it was pretty clear that Isard was running Imperial Intelligence and took over from her father. Blackhole just didn't exist anymore in the early 90's period of EU. I don't know exactly when it was decided to explain the strange 80's Star Wars comics in the EU, but yeah at some point they had to explain why in 1ABY there were two Directors of Imperial Intelligence and why one of them completely disappeared from history and character's knowledge. Only way to do that was to say Blackhole briefly took control between Armand Izard's death and Ysanne Isard's directorship, but didn't relinquish his intelligence resources once Ysanne was Director. So he was like a secret director, working from the shadows.

I like to think of Imperial Inteligence as like a hacked computer, and Blackhole the hacker. He could see everything I.I. did and could take control and give orders whenever he liked with no ones knowledge that they came from him.

 

Absolutely! That takes me directly to another big mystery of mine, Laddinare Torbin! The Grand Inquisitor that went from ambushed by a gorgeous woman and almost drowning to defeating Arden Lyn in combat! He was Director of Information of the Judicial Department (a fairly bureaucratic position) and yet he was able to single handedly drive a cult of a planet (which finally ended in his demise).

It may be just me, but I feel all these almost contradictory traits end up making such an interesting character! It´s a shame there was never an official image of him... I suppose he´s the kind of character that was an early image for Ep. I Palpatine, or a younger version of Dooku, perhaps?

 

That´s the deal, but of course, Cronal was originally presented as THE Director of Intelligence. One wonders how much time he spent in the role if he was just meant to be a bridge between father and daughter. Hence the theories...

Oh, and another thing I don´t quite get, back to Torbin: he was indeed the first Grand Inquisitor, but was later retconned into being third after Malorum and Hydra... he is said to serve the Inquisitorius for years, yet his demise is dated in 16 BBY (I suppose that at this point, there wasn´t really a date established for the origin of the Empire).

Then we have Evasive Action, which references no Malorum, Hydra nor Torbin, and shows Tremayne as the Grand Inquisitor in all but name. Were they simply rebooting the Inquisitorius origins (that was being established as different almost simultaneously by another source material) or there was indeed some kind of explanation for this?

 

Since Tremayne is never identified as a Grand Inquisitor let's assume he isn't. We only see what I assume is the first batch. Maybe Inquisitorius wasn't yet a formal entity. I'd guess when the department was formed Malorum got the job.

 

That is a very sensible perspective. It still sounds weird to me that every other Padawan/Agricorps got killed when Vader selected those 4, and that Malorum was nowhere in sight even if he used to work with Armand Isard, but to think this was merely a proto-Inquisitorius and that it would get bigger pretty soon works well if an attempt to make a coherent origin for them was made.

Of course, we are just a couple of months away to get a fresh start to canon Inquisitorius in the Darth Vader comic, so soon we´ll see what matches the old ideas and what new ones the writers come up with...

 

Eh, retcons don't always fit!

I do think Tremayne became Grand Inquisitor because he's the archetypal one!

 

Well I'd say he could easily be GI later on. The Remnant always needs force users! Plus Tremayne never died.

 

Yes, it´s funny that Tremayne never officially got that rank (because he didn´t, right?), since he was like the template for many inquisitors to come...

 

I always thought the Inquisitors were just a part of Imperial Intelligence. A very powerful, Force using branch that could almost be considered its own organisation but nominally still answers to the Director of Intelligence.

 

Maybe Cronal's job was to secretly monitor Isard? Basically he was to keep her and the rest of Imperial Intelligence in line? Though Isard and Co. would not have been aware of this.

 

It´s interesting, right? most of the Grand Inquisitors are described as answering only to the Emperor, Darth Vader and the higher echelons of the Empire. I can certainly see them reporting to Cronal... perhaps Isard would be a little off the loop there. In fact, in Evasive Action Armand Isard is forced to devote great resources from Imperial Intelligence to assist Tremayne (mainly because Vader told him so), so it seems like it was a somewhat uneasy collaboration.

Certainly!! and even more curious, that Malorum, Hydra, Torbin, Ya`ce Yiaso, and later Jerec and Halmere as Zenithal InQuestor of Judgement, all got to hold the rank, and yet Tremayne apparently never did. He did join Hethrir´s Empire at some point, so maybe he held a significant rank there...

 

So a question regarding TFU 2 and the original battlefront 2.

How long did Vader spend in rebel captivity? Assuming as I have been told that TFU 2 is at least 2 years to 1.5 years before ANH and that Vader was tracking and hunting rebels for most of this time it must have been a brief captivity. Fett and the Dark apprentice probably rescued him mere weeks later at best. We have to assume Starkiller and Eclipse perished in these events and the dark apprentice was disposed of.

After the destruction of the first Death Star the 501st launches a retaliatory invasion of Yavin IV. How much time passed after the battle in ANH? Days? Weeks? Obviously some capital ships with the best of the imperial army arrived soon after. I'm guessing Luke and Co. fled as well to the next base with the residual forces on Yavin displayed in the game buying the main rebel leadership time to flee.

 

When it comes to the seeming overlap between Cronal and Isard heading Imperial Intelligence, I've always been partial to the interpretation that Cronal was part of the Dark Side Shadow Government (the Hierarchy, per Publius) that Palpatine had set up to eventually transition the Empire into a Dark Side theocracy, gradually infiltrating his own Empire the same way he and his trusted minions infiltrated the Republic to transform it from within. The examples of Sarcev Quest, Janus Greejatus, and Sim Aloo on the Ruling Council come to mind, as does Lord Hethrir's role as the powerful but largely hidden Procurator of Justice.

Isard was an Agent who seems to her credit to have worked her way up from the ranks (in spite of being the Director's daughter) to Director of Intelligence and, per the description of her coming to oversee the entire Imperial security apparatus eventually head of the Ubiqtorate governing body/society as well. Blackhole/Cronal may have simultaneously served as Director, but it was in a largely hidden and different capacity, as his main power came from his position within the "Hierarchy", not any sort of regular Rank or Position within Intelligence. Ysanne may well have been unaware of his presence altogether.

 

The idea that Vader was to have been taken to Dantooine after being "captured" on Kamino per the ending of FU2 might have been a red-herring the developers had so as to have a lead-in to TFU3 that would not actually turn out to be the main story. As Slave1 was seen following them closely, he could have been rescued very soon thereafter. There had to have been a rescue before any reached Dantooine, as per ANH Vader never seems to have even known that the Rebels were even there, and per Cass' report to Tarkin the base there had been deserted for "some time" by the time Imperial Scout forces reached it. It wouldn't surprise me if Vader really wasn't captured at all, but was merely playing a part in an even larger deception, or at best him and Fett were carrying out a contingency plan.

As for the Battlefront II attack by survivors of the 501st on Yavin, one has to accept that not all of the 501st would have been aboard the Death Star in the first place. A large chunk, certainly, but not all. Of those that were, they likely fell under Vader's direct authority, not that of the regular Death Star forces, just as the Black Squadron answered directly to Vader. Numerous sources make it clear that it was only Vader's personal fighters that launched to join in the battle, and Vader likely gave orders for the pilots of the 501st (ultra elite units such as them might have troopers cross trained as pilots) to do the same- how else could the game be accurate? As it indicated, 2/3rds perished in the explosion, but the remaining third were what attacked Yavin. At this point is where they either immediately attacked Yavin and managed to destroy several Rebel transports and get just enough of a surface foothold to kill some Bothan Rebel leaders (which they then managed to hold against an entire planet full of Rebels without being wiped out, until reinforcements arrived, or retreated back onto their landing ships and left Yavin), or more likely these survivors retreated into Hyperspace to link up with other Imperial and 501st units and struck at Yavin later.

What they did NOT do was link up with Vader, and nor did Vader try to contact them. Both the surviving third of the 501st present in the Yavin system and Vader himself must have assumed the other had perished in the explosion or had fled in the immediate aftermath (tellingly, not even the game takes enough liberty to have Vader as a playable character on either of the Yavin levels) and done the same.

The survival of at least some of the 501st actually present an opportunity to explain another EU mystery that was never fully answered: who were the Imperials that survived Yavin, as multiple sources have indicated that there were some beyond Vader himself? Tagge and Bast were retconned into having been killed on the Death Star, and Veers is never explicitly said to have ever been aboard- only that his shuttle was rendezvousing with the battlestation in the Yavin system. Niclara Varnilian had already transferred off the station, the scouting force sent to Dantooine had likely not returned, the designers aboard had been dropped off at Carida, and the deserters from the Death Star novel likely were not considered Imperial afterwards. So who else besides the 501s could be counted among the very few Imperial survivors of the Battle of Yavin?

 

How much time do you think passed between the destruction of the Death Star and the 501st retaliatory ground invasion?

Days? Weeks? Months?

Personally I think it had to be weeks to months-the surviving imperials who escaped probably were in shock and trying to fend off rebel operations to destroy the last of them. So I figure it takes them some time to link up with the nearest SSD quadron, regroup and punish the rebels for their transgressions.

Veers? I didn't think he was ever on the Death Star or if he was it was only briefly.

There is another issue that bothers me-Shadows of the Empire take place around 3 ABY according to Legends dates. With Endor a year later. However Luke has a lightsaber he uses to engage Guri with. It doesn't work that well with the end of ESB. Unless of course they got sidetracked from tracking down Fett.

 

At least a few days likely passed between the destruction of the Death Star and the retaliatory strike, perhaps as much as two weeks. Not likely any longer. Vader himself isn't involved in the strike seen in Battlefront II, which involved at least one Star Destroyer and two Imperial II Frigates. Vader might not have even returned to the Empire yet- if he had he would surely have led the attack himself, and bought a much greater force. My take is that they were either forces located nearby belonging to the Bright Jewel Oversector (which would later form a core of the Yavin Blockade), or the Star Destroyer in question is the Devastator and accompanying frigates that must have either been on the way to link up with Vader and the Death Star or nearby the Yavin system- close enough for the surviving 50st to reach them. We don't actually know where the Devastator was during the rest of ANH leading up to the Battle of Yavin- last we saw it was still near Tatooine, though Vader presumably took it to bring Leia to the Death Star. Where it went afterwards is anybody's guess.

 

Another inconsistency comes to mind: Lt. Daine Jir- he is called a Commander, but clearly has the insignia of a Lieutenant in ANH. The simple explanation is that he would have been promoted to Commander after the successful capture of Tantive IV, but is he even known to have been alive after the Battle of Yavin? Vader had a lot, but not all, of the 501st stationed aboard the Death Star, and if Jir was among them it would explain why he wasn't ever actually seen alive in any story set after the Yavin disaster

If he did survive Yavin, or was simply never aboard the Death Star, his promotion to Commander likely came about as a result of the sudden leadership vacuum created by the loss of so much of the 501st. If he was still aboard the Devastator, he could easily have been responsible for coordinating the retaliatory strike against Yavin that involved the 501st. I rather like the idea that he was behind that, even he wasn't a Death Star survivor.