Lit A Chronological Journey Through the EU: Currently Disc. Interference

Xim Week: The Despotica: Xim at Vontor



15,609 BBY

*So, we previously looked at The Pirate Prince, which was Part II of The Despotica, a Hyperspace series. This is Part III.

*As you might notice, Xim at Vontor dates at over 10,000 years after the last post. We’re making time now!

*Let’s see what was going on here on earth between 15,000 and 16,000 years ago, shall we?

*Okay, a few interesting details here. The wooly rhinoceros went extinct right around this time period.

*As an art lover, I really loved this one. Clay sculptures date from this period. Researchers have discovered a clay sculpture of a wisent, a type of bison found in Europe during this period. That’s awesome. Art!

*Last but certainly not least, the invention of bacon! Or, well, the domestication of the pig really. But I’m going to call it the invention of bacon!

*OK, this big jump in time brings something up. If you’ve read previous iterations of this project, you may note that we skipped a couple of things. There are two brief stories in Jedi Vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force that take place between The Pirate Prince and Xim at Vontor. The first, which takes place at around 25,000 BBY is called Dark Jedi and the second, which takes place around 24,500 BBY is called the First Dark Legion. The first is the story of a kid that’s kind of the first Dark Jedi or whatever. Cope Shykrill. I really didn’t think I would remember that name. The second is a brief story about Danzigoro Potts, a padawan who dies in the First Schism, which is when the Jedi Order has a big war and splits into two groups over some kind of doctrinal thing about the Force. I forget the details.

*So, those appear on DinoJim’s timeline, right? And I previously even wrote up brief posts about both of them. So why am I skipping them now? Well, hopefully this will help you guys clear up the way I’m using the four timelines.

*So, the Wookieepedia Timeline of Media is my primary timeline, right? And on that timeline, Jedi Vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force appears, but rather than appearing broken up into many different pieces, as it does on DinoJim’s and also Joe Bongiorno’s timeline, it appears as one discrete entity, dated to the Legacy Era (or whatever) when it was in-universe compiled. So, I’m going with the Timeline of Media as my primary source; so even when I come to actual entries on a secondary timeline that aren’t specifically on the primary one, I’m still going to skip them if I’m going to cover them later on the primary timeline. So, because I’ll be talking about both of these stories later, when I read Jedi Vs. Sith in its entirety, I’m not going to put them here. Does that make any sense? No, “Dark Jedi,” the story isn’t on the Timeline of Media as its own entry, but it will fall under another entry later. Cool? Well, whatever. It makes sense to me.

*I will probably just kind of note things I’m skipping in this way, just to kind of help us keep the history of the galaxy straight, at least for a while. I mean, I guess you might kind of be interested to know that the First Schism is a thing and that it’s happened. No? Well, okay then.

*Anyway, back to Xim at Vontor. A brief introduction notes that it’s been over 10,000 years since Lyechusas wrote The Pirate Prince. Xim at Vontor is written by a guy name of Peshosloc, who was a writer/director of holodramas. We are told that Xim at Vontor is still considered a great holodrama.

*We are only given excerpts, not the whole thing.

*So, whereas The Pirate Prince was written in the Greek Tragedy style, this one is written in screenplay format.

*So, as our story begins, we are reintroduced to Xim, Indrexu, the consort he took from his own father at the climax of The Pirate Prince, and Oziaf, Xim’s assistant/companion. The Third Battle of Vontor is just winding down; Xim is stomping the living hell out of the Hutts.

*Then we discover that Jaminere, Xim’s aide de camp (or something) is having an affair with Indrexu. They are plotting to kill Xim at this big victory banquet. All of Xim’s ‘allies’ are in on this as well.

*So, the banquet arrives and I was really sort of expecting the whole point of this story to be that Xim was aware of their treachery and he was going to turn the tables on them in some fantastic, clever way.

*But I was wrong about that. The treachery blindsides him and, long story short, Xim gets shot in the head by Jaminere. Jaminere and his fellow traitors take their leave.

*The wounded Xim drags himself to Oziaf’s workshop. One eye has been completely destroyed by Jaminere’s blaster shot.

*Then, in what would obviously rival a scene from the Saw series were this actually filmed, Xim forces Oziaf to replace his destroyed eye with a droid’s eye. The scene description is fairly graphic. Xim remains conscious throughout the operation.

*Xim remarks on how wonderful it is to see as his war droids see. He tells Oziaf he wants the other eye replaced. Oziaf says the other eye is perfectly healthy and does not need replacement.

*Xim frigging pulls his good eye out of its socket and squishes it in his hand. The scene description tells us that ‘vitreous humor’ squirts in all directions. Oziaf replaces the other eye.

*I could see this being a movie.

*The final scene is of Xim and Oziaf arriving at Lord Tion’s secret lair. Xim is aware that Jaminere, Indrexu and the other traitors are inside the lair. Xim vows that this very day, he will have his vengeance. And then the story ends.

*What the . . . .

*Okay, well, I guess it’s just the excerpts and maybe we get the story of his vengeance later or something.

*Well, this one was quite a bit better than The Pirate Prince. As I say, it was in screenplay format, which works better than Greek Tragedy, as you may recall from my savaging of The Pirate Prince’s faulty premise.

*Anyway, this story actually surprised me a couple of times. I was shocked that Xim was entirely taken in by the treachery of his underlings. And then the eye replacement scene was pretty well a shocker since I really didn’t know any details about Xim prior to reading these two stories.

*The last scene is oddly grafted on. It is obvious to me that Xim at Vontor should have ended with the replacement of Xim’s second eye. His final line in that scene, “Their world is my world now,” is a great climactic line for a story about how Xim’s humanity began to be subsumed by electronics. It would have been a killer ending.

*Now, I recently read The Essential Guide to Warfare and so I’m kind of trying to fit this into the context of the larger story of Xim. If I’m remembering the Xim sections of the Guide, Xim is about to get horribly defeated by the Hutts. Which seems a little weird. I mean, at the end of this story, I genuinely did want to see Xim overcome and get his vengeance. It’s kind of anti-climactic if he goes to get revenge and just . . . loses again.

*Am I getting the chronology wrong here? Some Xim historian needs to fill me in on this. Actually, definitely someone who’s up on the Xim stuff give us some closure here because this story ends on a cliffhanger of a sort and we’re not going to be officially reading anything about Xim for a really long time, so how about kind of giving us some indication of how his story goes from here? Anybody?

** out of **** stars.

Michael Kogge

*Next time, we’ll be taking another big 10,000 year jump. We’ll talk briefly about a few things that happen in between, but we’ll be jumping up to 5,000 BBY and get the larger story proper really going. Join me next time for Tales of the Jedi: The Golden Age of the Sith!

Star Wars Chronology!

 

Yeah this one is a whole lot better than pirate prince

 

The way the fan timelines put the Xim stories in their in-universe writing period instead of the time when they happened in-in-universe bothers me a little (actually not at all but I don't have anything else to say about this one). I think they should all be in 25,000 BBY period. They are dramatized versions of the events, yes, perhaps there is some in-universe holo critic who says that the Xim film is not at all historically accurate and is just a wardroids-and-sandals cliche-fest. But the last story of the Xim Week was written in 600 BBY, so in chronology it would be a long way away even though the events described happen soon after this one.

 

Maybe this was already addressed and I just missed it, but why have you skipped over the Dawn of the Jedi comics, novel, and short story?

 

I find that weird also to be honest. But that's kind of the way they're moving on texts that are "officially" in-universe, I guess. Jedi Vs. Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force is on Wookieepedia's timeline in the Legacy Era, when it was compiled in-universe, instead of being broken up with all the little sections where they actually happened. Interestingly, DinoJim's timeline, which is the one that breaks up the Xim stuff by when it was "written" actually breaks up JvS by when it "happened." Hard to be consistent, I suppose.

2ndQuest is correct. I simply hadn't read them yet and I wanted to go ahead and start the project, since I have a lot of reviews I've already written. The first book in the DotJ era has been ordered and I will be reading it once it arrives. So, yeah, it shouldn't be too awfully long until I get to those.

 

Tales of the Jedi: The Golden Age of the Sith



5,000 BBY

*Editor’s Note: Okay, so first things first here. I began this chronological project quite a few years ago now; when I first began this project, this particular work, The Golden Age of the Sith, was the earliest work on the timeline, so at this point we get into some dicey territory, namely some very old reviews written by me back when I was *ahem* not so excellent a writer as I am now.

*Editor’s Note: There was also some confusion on my part about the formatting/style/intent of the reviews. At the time I wrote the old review that I’m posting (with copious new comments), I wasn’t really giving summaries of the works at hand, so I’ve taken in hand to expand the review a bit with Editor’s Notes.

*Editor’s Note: I can hear you now: “Well, then why are you posting this ancient review if it has so many problems?” Well, first of all, it is an official review I wrote for this very project and I hate to go back and just wipe it off the map. Secondly, I get into a groove fairly quickly – the reviews start getting longer, better and more like my current writing fairly quickly. So, this is a way to get a quick review of the work at hand and also to see the way I evolved as a writer. Enough preface; let’s get to the review. Expect to see lots of editor’s notes though.

*Okay, five thousand years?!? Is this trip really necessary?

*Editor’s Note: As already mentioned, when I first started this project, I thought it was kind of stupid that the EU would expand as far as it did; I thought that 5,000 years before the movies seemed a little extreme and pointless. Of course, now the EU has expanded to maybe like 200,000 years before the movie; I stand by my opinion that this is kind of dumb. Of course, what do I know?

*Okay, but since we got a big jump here, let’s once again kind of orient ourselves to how long ago this would be from us, counting Year 0 on the Star Wars timeline as the present day. Again, this is all very rudimentary research by me, so please correct me where I’m incorrect.

*Anyway, 5,000 years ago, the last ice age had definitively ended. Our ancestors and the ancestors of the animals we now know were expanded into territory previously covered by ice caps, including a lot of the plains areas of the planet.

*Now, this I find particularly interesting. The melting ice caps had raised sea levels quite substantially and so a huge flood probably hit the Mediterranean Basin really hard. A lot of historians believe that this is flood was so large that it would have seemed to be something approaching a “universal flood.” You see where this is going. This is probably the flood that created the different myths of a universal flood in the people of this geographic area, as in Epic of Gilgamesh, Book of Genesis, etc. These stories of this cataclysmic event would have been passed down orally, of course, for quite some time before they were ever written down.

*Interestingly enough this kind of corresponds to the date given to the universal flood by Biblical literalists, doesn’t it? 3,000 BCE? Like a thousand years after the earth was created in 4,000 BCE? Though they wouldn’t put the “E” on those dates.

*Couple of other things. In the Fertile Crescent, agriculture and domestication of animals was in full swing with it also going on at several other places all over the planet. This had developed slowly during the 10,000 year gap between this and the last story we looked at.

*Anybody want to add anything there? Or correct anything?

*And right out of the box, a work by Kevin J. Anderson. This is not going to be easy.

*Seriously, the time period is this work's biggest strength. It realistically takes the movies and says, "Now. Let's go back in time a LONG ways. How do things look?" This book definitely gives us a GFFA that looks very different from the films, yet remains recognizable.

*Editor’s Note: Revisiting this story not too long ago, I was struck by just how great the art really is. The story is a load of stupid, but the art is really absolutely incredible: finely detailed, esoteric, strange. Anyway, the point needs to be made, I think, that nothing else in Star Wars has ever looked this primitive. Works that came after this, some even taking place before this one, would steadfastly refuse to acknowledge that the GFFA was ever really this backwards. Stuff like Crosscurrent and The Lost Tribe of the Sith seem purposely calibrated to make it appear that the GFFA of 5,000 years before ANH actually wasn’t that different from the GFFA of the movies. I think this is a mistake, frankly; like I say, it’s the strange, primitive nature of the GFFA at this point that is really the only good thing about these comics.

*Editor’s Note: So, as this story begins, the Empress Teta is putting down some rebellious planets. Or the rebellions at least. We’re introduced to our main characters, a pair of flighty siblings name of Gav & Jori Daragon. Their parents are killed running supplies through a war zone, but ultimately, Empress Teta is victorious and the galaxy seems poised to entire a period of peace & prosperity.

*Cue running and screaming, right? Right.

*Okay, so Gav & Jori are flighty siblings who map hyperspace routes after their parents die. Needing money fast, they do a quickie that results in the loss of a supply ship. This could just as easily been a passenger freighter or something . . . We're supposed to like these people?

*Editor’s Note: So, they need this money because they’re having their ship repaired by Aarba the Hutt. He refuses to give them the ship back until they actually pay him.

*It is nice to see a Hutt that isn't greedy and even extends credits. He's the most likeable character in this book. How often can you say that about the Hutt?

*Why do all female characters in this universe wear evening dresses slit up to their thigh all the time?

*Editor’s Note: It strikes me, going back over this review, that the correct question is actually “Why don’t all women in this universe wear evening dresses slit up to their thigh all the time?”

*Editor’s Note: Okay, so this ship that was destroyed because of Gav & Jori’s horrible job at mapping hyperspace lanes . . . unfortunately for them, it’s a ship that belongs to Ssk Kahor, a Trandoshan crime lord. So, he sends some thugs after them to beat them up or maybe kill them. Couple of Jedi names of Odan Urr and Memit Nadill intervene and drive off the thugs.

*Okay, so at this point, the lightsaber is powered by a pack that you carry on your belt? Interesting . . .

*Okay, Odan-Urr is probably the most likeable character here, if only because he seems a lot like me. For one thing, he'd rather just stay with his books.

*Editor’s Note: So after that close call with the thugs, they decide to get off planet. So, they steal their ship back from Aarba and, under hot pursuit by the bad guys, they take a wild stab and leap blindly into hyperspace with no idea where they’ll end up.

*Just once I'd like to read a story where someone takes a blind leap because they have nothing to lose and then they fail utterly, dying in the process.

*Editor’s Note: Seriously, how awesome would that be? Like the main characters like take a desperate leap and then they just die and you realize that they’re not actually the main characters. What a trip.

*Editor’s Note: Okay, so, Marka Ragnos, Dark Lord of the Sith, has died. In his honor, the Sith have turned out for a huge funeral procession. During said procession, two of the other Sith Lords start arguing about which of them is going to take Ragnos’ place as supreme Dark Lord. This would be Naga Sadow and Ludo Kressh.

*Editor’s Note: Yes, the name of one of the Sith Lords is Ludo Kressh. I’m just going to let that stand.

*Naga Sadow: to be played by Ralph Fiennes.

*First Blue Glowing Spectre Alert!

*Uh, okay, so the dead Sith Lord appears to his feuding students and tells them . . . NOTHING! The scene ends with each of them saying that the cryptic remarks the Sith Lord spewed obviously mean that they are right and the others are wrong. How did this help exactly? And why did they even stop fighting?

*Editor’s Note: At this point, I really have to bring up the art, which is just fantastic. I’m no fan of the story stuff here, but this is some amazing art. The Valley of the Dark Lords, where the funeral is being held, is just breathtaking. It’s given a full two page spread and I think I could look at it for like half an hour without getting tired of it. And keep seeing new details too probably. It’s just a gorgeous, strange piece of artwork.

*None of the other characters are that great, but Naga Sadow is an interesting villain. He's a slightly more liberal Sith than the others and he's pushing for expansion. The debates are nicely rendered and are probably the best scenes in the book.

*I don't particularly like the designs of the Sith. They're too obviously Satanic in appearance, if you ask me.

*Editor’s Note: So, just when we most expect it, Gav and Jori arrive. They’re strangely optimistic upon confronting a race of beings that has all the accoutrements of the devil except the pitchfork.

*Okay, so Odan-Urr’s master is basically a brain in a jar. One of the most powerful Sith Lords is basically a head in a jar. That’s two too many 1950s B-Movie villains for me, thanks.

*Okay, I’m cutting all this Editor’s Note on every other paragraph nonsense. Just know I’m adding things and revising things, okay? That’s out of the way now, right?

*I guess Naga Sadow’s plan is workable. He breaks Gav & Jori out of the Sith prison and leaves evidence to make it appear that they were rescued by the Republic; so, he argues that this is an act of war by the Republic, which mobilizes the Sith. Meanwhile, he lets Jori escape in her ship, on which he has planted a tracker. So she’ll run back to the Republic and then Sadow and the rest of the Sith are going to follow. It’s . . . about ten times more complicated than it really needs to be, but I guess it’ll work.

*So, Sadow kills Simus, the Sith Lord that’s just a head on a plate. How? Well, he shoots him in the head of course.

*I question the efficacy of this, however. I mean, if the head has managed to survive being totally severed from the body, would shooting it really kill it? This is a pretty tough head is all I’m saying, given that it can survive without oxygen from the lungs and blood from the heart. Wouldn’t shooting it in the brain just give it a traumatic brain injury?

*NOTE TO SELF: Brain-damaged Sith head as comic side character in next fanfic.

*So, the battle scenes are well done. In terms of the art.

*So, Sadow starts training Gav in creating little illusions with the Force or something. Has there been any indication to this point that Gav is Force sensitive? They might have slipped something in there about being a hyperspace mapper and how preternatural his talents are or something. Does “preternatural” mean what I think it does? I don’t know. I really don’t know.

*Nice cliffhanger ending.

*All in all, this one is really only interesting for its historic element. It definitely shows us a galaxy very different from the films. Given that we now have Dawn of the Jedi and all that, I’m not sure that really justifies this series at all.

*The characters are pretty awful and the dialogue is risible. The comic rides right on the line of stupidity the whole time and occasionally, as in Dark Head of the Sith Simus for instance, just charges right into stupid for a little detour. Only Naga Sadow and Aarba the Hutt are really interesting at all.

* ½ out of **** stars.

Kevin J. Anderson

*Next time, we’ll move on to the first issue of the follow up series as we see how Naga Sadow fares against the Republic. Join me for The Fall of the Sith Empire 1: Desperate Measures.

Star Wars Chronology!

 

I love Aarba. And actually, I rather like this series, too. Then again I like a lot of Anderson's work in SW. *Ducks behind flame shield*

 

I liked Tales too, but most of the criticisms are genuine, I think. Very curious what you'll have to say about the 4000 BBY era...

 

I don't care for the Daragons, but I love Naga and Ludo. Ludo is actually a sane Sith for once! When one already has so much power, why risk it for more? Who cares about "being a true Sith?" Naga, meanwhile, began the Sith's rivalry with the Republic and Jedi and remained prominent well into the TOR era, training Freedon Nadd and possessing Eison Gynt. Naga's manipulations seem to forshadow Palpatine's. I love this sort of manipulation.

 

Dare I ask why?

 

I like Ludo and Naga. Plus Sadow thought the Sith Empire was stagnating and thus needed an external threat - that happened in history so why not here as well? It also makes sense why he had that false flag operation.

 

Why I like it? It feels like a real piece of Star Wars history, and has a genuine ancient aura about it. The art is wonderful. More importantly, Ulic is a wonderful character, and I really like the Naddists as villains.

 

I think Golden Age of the Sith (and Fall of the Sith Empire) would have worked better if it took place close to 25,000 BBY. Hyperspace still seems new with the constant dangers and it would make the Sith that Kun discoveres and that Vitiate leads the remnants of truly ancient.

 

Cha'a crime lord. Psh, dang Humans, thinking all the reptilian races look alike!

 

Hey, with the varied appearances the Trandoshans received in Republic Commando, I don't think its that hard to confuse most reptilian races with a Trandoshan.

 

The Sith Kun discovered were different from the ones that Vitiate led?

 

Dang, my bad. I will go read at least two pages of the Diversity thread as a penance.

Oof. Uh, well, brace yourself, because I feel, um, differently. But definitely stick around so you can give some pushback.

You'll like my review of Redemption. That one you'll like. The others . . . not so much probably.

 

Haha, well, I respect opinions. Looking forward to a solid debate here.

 

I'n also excited for those reviews. I just bought the comics after Fall of the Sith Empire. I look forward to reading the opinions here.

 

So, I was messing around last night, trying to figure out how to parse the canon status of something like The Fall of the Sith Empire, where a lot of the events happened, in my opinion, just not in the way portrayed. And I decided to change up the way I'm doing the canon stuff. I'm going to go back and hit the ones I've already done. I think you'll catch on to my idea from the one I post below. Let me know if you think this "in-universe historian" stuff is cool and fun or if it's just stupid. But here's the one I just wrote for the Dha Werda Verda.


*CANONICAL STATUS: While the events chronicles in Dha Werda Verda more than likely happened in some form or another, the poem itself is more than likely a much later fictionalization. The DWV, as it stands, is only notable for the wonderful & striking musical pieces it has inspired. This work is NOT RECOMMENDED as a historical resource.

Not recommended as a historical resource means don't bother reading it.

 

Golden Age of the Sith and Fall of the Sith Empire weren't strong additions to the TOTJ saga. Most of the faults actually lie with the latter arc --- GAOTS could have been a good setup if it had actually set something worthwhile up --- so I'll save my criticisms until after Halfie has posted his review of Fall. I remember his old review of it and I think we basically feel the same about it.

What I like best about these two 5,000 BBY comics is their legacy. Not in the way you'd expect --- what I mean is I love that "KRESSSSHHH" became SW comics' go-to lightsaber sound effect, while "SA-DOW!" became a common one for blaster shots. An easter egg I've always enjoyed.

 

for some reason I'm reminded of

 

Interesting addition. A little sorry if this delays further reviews, but not too sorry.