****The Official NEW ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO CHARACTERS by Dan Wallace Thread****

Dan,
if the antenna in Aurra's head is not a species trait but rather part of a unit added to her later in life, why does her mother have one too?

 

...I love this book.

 

Okay, finished reading it. Very good. The only real complaint I have is the amount of blank spaces that could have been filled by Mike Sutfin's beautiful artwork.

But anyway, a few questions for Dan (I reposted the questions from my previous post to make things easier for you ) :

- About Xizor... Would you by chance have details about his rise in Black Sun power structure ? And you mention he was a rival of Vorru, but how exactly ? And was Vorru's removal from power the last obstacle in Xizor's rise to leadership ? And finally (pheww), if Vorru was the head of Black Sun before he was arrested, when did he reach that rank ? Right after Alexi Garyn was murdered ?

- In Palpatine entry, you wrote "Height : 1.73 (in Jedi) meters". What do you mean by that ? (Probably 'in Return of the Jedi', as Mastadge pointed out, but I guess there's no wrong if I ask nonetheless. )

- Liked the way you wrote Jar Jar's entry... I wondered, what's your personal opinion on the character, if I may ask ?

- And the question everyone has always wanted to ask, but never dared to... Does the fact that a lot of characters have a height of 1.83 come from the infamous 1138 ???

- Nil Spaar : why the eye in the hand ??? Was that in the novel ?

- In Kyle's entry, you wrote "Jerec's six underlings [...] proved no match for Katarn [...]. He cut them all down except for Yun and Sariss, whom he spared. In gratitude, Yun saved Kyle from Sariss's blade, but died at her hands."

I'm fairly sure I killed Sariss when I played JK... Was I wrong ??? Did she survive ?

(BTW, I loved the "Katarn was a one-man wrecking crew, sometimes lugging five or six weapons at once." )

- Did you come up with the Djinn Altis' Chu'unthor being a ship named after the original Chu'unthor, or was this already referenced in COTJ ???

- About the Ssi-ruuk. You mentionned in more than one entry that they battle the Sssi-Ruuk, but shouldn't it be the Ssi-Ruuvi (when referring to the species), Ssi-Ruuk refers to an individual only, IIRC. However, you wrote that Thrawn decimated the Ssi-Ruuvi Imperium, which is as I remember it was called.

- About Karrde recognizing the modified name 'Celina Marniss'. Was that a "fix" you made ??? I always got the impression from 'First Contact' that Karrde didn't even think one second it ressembled the name of 'Melina Carniss' that appeared in the RS series, and which is supposed to happen before. It felt just like he was just dumb... Anyway, I'm thankful to see this differently now, since this had bothered me since I read that short story.

- In Rendar's entry, you said he delivered food to echo base, but in SOTE (the game) opening video, it is said that Dash was going to deliver assault blasters... So... Well, which is correct ? ?

- Finally, about Veers. There's a mission in Galactic Battlegrounds where Colonel (IIRC the rank) Veers introduces Vader to his brand-new invention, the AT-AT walker. Vader then promotes Veers to the rank of General, after witnessing the power of the vehicle in combat. However, the text in the NEGTC contradicts this. Does this mean the mission in GBG should be considered AU, even if it's not part of the 'bonus missions' of the game ?

And again, thanks in advance for your answers !

 

Sarris is killed in the novel as well as I recall.

So why couldn't dash rendar delivered both food and blasters?(I see no problem both can be correct, and often times smugglers will carry more than one type of shipment in a load)

Xizor, about veers in GBG he unveiled a new version of the at-at, there are plenty of other EU sources that have AT-AT's that appear many years before that event. Also read the veers entry in GBG in-game databank it also points out that he was unveiling a new more powerful model of a previous vehicle. There are AT-Ats in the short story known as Pax Emperica, inside the GBG sourcebook.

Only thing about veers was he was overly enthusiastic about the new modifications.

 

Xizor : Did you come up with the Djinn Altis' Chu'unthor being a ship named after the original Chu'unthor, or was this already referenced in COTJ ???

I think that this was a error made by Barbara Hambly when she wrote Callista's RPG bio for "Murder in Slushtime" in Adventure Journal # 14. Dan smoothed it out.

 

Okay, Val. But what about his promotion to General ?

 

What about it...?

Veers isn't promoted to General in the game.

It just so happens that the next level is the Hoth level and he's a general.

 

Well, according to TNEGTC he gets it when he replaces a General that was on board the Executor. But in the game he is promoted after showing his new AT-AT *prototype* to Vader.

EDIT : At the end of the AT-AT mission, Vader says 'Congratulations... General Veers', much like he promotes Piett.

EDIT 1 : Yes he is.

 

No he isn't...

Hmm,are you sure of this? I don't remember that at all.

WEll,then say he was promoted to Major General... like General Corvel in TTT.

EDIT:Well,there's no continuity mistake at all, now that I think about it. Thrawn tells Vader that Colonel Veers would be an excellent choice to replace Vader's last general. Vader tells Thrawn he'll think about it.

Obviously Vader has just made up his mind in the game.

(NOTE:Veers is not part of Executor when Vader executes the General before him . He's a colonel on a garrison. He's transferred to Zaloris before Vader finally decides to take him as his general)

 

Yes, I'm fairly sure of that. But maybe I should check with the help of my friend Simon the Ewok Killer and his 9 clones...

Yeah, maybe Major General could fix it... [roll_eyes]

 

EDIT:Well,there's no continuity mistake at all now that I think about it. Thrawn tells Vader that Colonel Veers would be an excellent choice to replace Vader's last general. Vader tellsThrawn he'll think about it.

Obviously Vader has just made up his mind in the game.

(NOTE:Veers is not part of Executor when Vader executes the General before him . He's a colonel on a garrison. He's transferred to Zaloris before Vader finally decides to take him as his general)

 

I just checked it.

In-game, the walker is supposed to a brand new vehicle (unless Vader has never seen an AT-AT before and hasn't a clue about what it could be), but in the database, as Val said, it's supposed to be a prototype. I'll go with the DB version.

As for the promotion, as you said, it may just be Vader making up his mind, and the effective promotion taking place only a little later.

 

Maybe Vader acted so surprised cause he noticed a few additions to the AT AT.

Who know what an AT AT looked like before ESB. Maybe it didn't have those side head cannons or maybe it's armor wasn't as thick looking.

 

In the the game veers thinks of it as a brand new vehicle cause he's overly exitable about his new design changes. It's kind of like how a car designer might be overly excitable about his 2003 model car even though it generally might look exactly like last years model. Apparently vader liked these changes as well.

 

Hey maybe he added the high powered chin cannons that we see in ESB

 

Val, he says 'we've nicknamed it the walker'... He wouldn't say that if it was an old design that was recently updated...

 

I don't think it was called a "walker" in events before GBG that previous model at-at's showed up, they were just given by the formal title, just AT-AT. So veers created a nickname so what?

 

He speaks to Vader as if was a brand new thing. Go play the mission again if you don't believe me. And as I said, I go with the databank entry taht it is only an upgraded version. But in-game, I maintain it is supposed to be like a brand new vehicle.

 

Like I said, and am saying for like the 3rd time, the explanation is that veers was overly excited about his upgrades thinking of them as the brand new thing. Kind of like some car designers are about their new year model cars.

 

And again, for the 3rd time too, I tell you he doesn't sound like an overexcited car seller, but like an designer who just came up with something brand new.

But I feel we won't agree about this, so I stop argueing here before we take this too much off-topic.

 

I didn't say overly excited car dealer, I said and for the 4th time he sounded like an overly excited "car designer" there is a big difference. I honestly mean it, there are car designers like that as I've seen on the learning channel on some show about cars a few times. There is hardly any change to a previous model except to add a few new components and the designer seems to be overly excited and act like the new year model is a brand new type of car. I mean they say things like, "This new vehicle has so many safety features that will benifit those on the road, making driving a safer thing to do.", and other similer phrases.

Also, the usual definition of "new invention" found in historical textbooks is something that has never existed before, or improves on a previous technology.

 

Okay.

 

Up. I hope Dan hasn't decided to stop answering questions here...

 

I am sure that he will be back!

 

Meesa back!

PrinceXizor wrote:
- Borsk : I don't really like this Bothan look. They should have kept the one like in the TTT comic. Oh well.

I'm just glad that an official Bothan look is finally coming into common usage, what with Galaxies and all. Interestingly, Mike Sutfin's first version of this portrait was the "elf Borsk," based on the first edition of the EGC.

- Nil Spaar : why the eye in the hand ??? Was that in the novel ?

I dunno! It's not from the novel. I think Mike was just going for something creepy.

- Guri and Nomi Sunrider could definitively have been mentionned in the Appendix, but you've probably heard that a thousand times, so I won't repeat it... Woops, too late. (Well, Nomi's in the old one, so it's not really a problem... Guri, though... )

I seriously considered Nomi, but decided that her bio hadn't significantly expanded since the first edition of the EGC. One of my missions, in order to give readers the most bang for their buck, was to cram in as much new info as possible. True, TOTJ: Redemption was new since the first edition, but that was really more the story of Ulic and Vima (whom I included in the appendix).

- About Xizor... Would you by chance have details about his rise in Black Sun power structure ? And you mention he was a rival of Vorru, but how exactly ? And was Vorru's removal from power the last obstacle in Xizor's rise to leadership ? And finally (pheww), if Vorru was the head of Black Sun before he was arrested, when did he reach that rank ? Right after Alexi Garyn was murdered ?

I tried to include as much info about Xizor as we had available in the EU, and wanted to avoid introducing too much "new" history of my own devising (leaving the door open for possible future exploration of Xizor). The chief pieces of the puzzle were the Darth Maul comic (introducing & killing off former Black Sun chief Alexi Garyn), Wedge's Gamble (which mentions Flirry Vorru but doesn't explain the nature of the rivalry between him and Xizor), and SOTE itself. My interpretation is that Vorru was not a part of Black Sun, but rather an independent rival to Black Sun interests in the Corellian sector. Xizor, rising rapidly in the power structure after Alexi's death, got rid of Vorru and gained even more power. I don't think Xizor became head of Black Sun until about 4-6 years before ANH.

- In Palpatine entry, you wrote "Height : 1.73 (in Jedi) meters". What do you mean by that ??? (And assuming Sidious = Palpatine, does that mean Sidious is wearing high heels ? )

Hmmmm. I didn't write that -- the editors must have added it after the fact. What I think happened is that there are two different heights for Palpatine in the official record, 1.78 being his TPM height and 1.73 being his ROJ height. As Mastadge points out, he probably shrinks a bit as he gets old and hunched-over.

- Liked the way you wrote Jar Jar's entry... I wondered, what's your personal opinion on the character, if I may ask ?

I like Jar Jar. If he's screaming he can be obnoxious, but in quieter, more reflective moments (like in AOTC) he can be a very endearing character. I wrote the entry to give Jar Jar his due, but also to express the frustrations people have over him, expressed from an in-universe perspective. For example, his sudden promotion to General must have irritated every career military officer in the Gungan Grand Army. (In fact this reminded me so much of Lando's sudden promotion that I wrote the opening paragraph as an in-joke homage to Lando and Han's conversation in ROJ.)

- And the question everyone has always wanted to ask, but never dared to... Does the fact that a lot of characters have a height of 1.83 come from the infamous 1138 ???

1.83 translates exactly into 6 feet. A pretty average height for male characters.

Valiento wrote:
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