Books Aftermath: Empire's End (book 3) by Chuck Wendig

What about Tarkin? That novel was pretty short.

 

Spoiler

I've always seen Sloane as a possible First Order supporter and I'd hate to burst peoples' bubble but I would not be surprised if she becomes a prime architect for the First Order. It is implied in the end of the epilogue: the first order of business is to start over. Why is she rabidly anti-Rax? Read a few pages before. She says she wants to start an Empire free of backstabbing and inbreeding( which I don't take literally but assumes she's poetically referring nepotism) Sloane has no problem with wiping out recalcitrant populations. Order is her highest priority. In er mind those who oppose order are evil and therefore nuking their planet is something she could probably find to be a-ok!

What was evil to her was the dishonorable backstabbing and the advancing of position not through competence but by sucking up.

She hated how Rax manipulated people and advanced those who were sycophants. She actually hated his hypocrisy: he claimed to want a streamlined Empire, and yet turned out to be more of the same.

Don't for a moment think she would not pull the trigger on on Starkiller Base. She plans to fulfill the ideals that Rax claimed before all to have while she hated the man and how he truly operated. That does not mean she would not use whatever means she had at her disposal to eliminate the "true" enemy.

She should have expected his hypocrisy though. Look at his teacher.

 

Spoiler

I think I see SLOANE as a principled survivor. She does what she needs to do to survive AND to be the most effective in doing what needs to be done. I actually kind of see what she's doing as slightly being akin to Galen Erso's plan. Stay, but while using one's subversive influence in planting seeds to further their own greater agenda For The Greater Good.

 

Spoiler

So...Empire's End. Euh

Thoughts in no particular order (or are they?):

1. Palpatine's Contingency is somewhat like his post Endor Legend's operations. The Dark Empire Sourcebook stated that Palpatine would rather let the galaxy burn than let anyone else rule it. It also said that the Imperial Civil War was partly punishment for failing him.

However, the similarities end there. Dark Empire is a better sequel to RotJ because it actually picks up themes touched upon in Revenge of the Sith: Palpatine discovered a type of eternal life and he did not just plan to ravage the galaxy should he have died at Endor but he actually planned to return and rule. In the 24 years after RotS, he actually found a form of eternal life.

What has the new Canon Palpatine been doing for 24 years? Besides funding a project that could lead to a type of cybernetic eternal life with Cylo, he does not seem to have worked on finding out how to live forever. His post Endor plan for the galaxy seems a little lackluster. Just burn everything. Well, yeah. You would kind of expect more from Palpatine but whatever.

Dark Empire Palpatine would have had everything burn as well....but only after his spirit transfer plan was stopped. He did attempt a little bit more and that actually tied into a plot point established in Revenge of the Sith. As of now, no other new canon material has touched upon Palpatine's quest for eternal life( except obliquely as in Darth Vader)

Also, while it is clear in Empire's End that the Contingency involves the destruction of the Rebellion and the Empire, it was not made clear if Rax's plans for establishing a new Empire were part of the Contingency or if that was something Rax just added onto Palpatine's plan. Knowing Palpatine, Rax probably took the initiative in laying the foundations for the First Order. All in all the Contingency seems like an extension of Operation Cinder; possibly it is Operation Cinder and Jakku is just the culmination of the plan.

2. It is funny that the Unknown Regions has become a focus of the new canon. So Vision of the Future's intentions are now canon. The irony.

3. The Eclipse survives. As I said, I hope it turns out to be more like the Dark Empire Eclipse...yes, I know the ending description implies a regular SSD..but one can hope.

4. What we saw of the space battle in EE was well done for the most part. It goes with previously established canon that the Empire had the upper hand at first...thogh IIRC, previous canon said that was because the Empire outnumbered the New REpublic at Jakku. Empire's End states that the Empire had the upper hand simply because Ravager provided the firepower of an entire fleet. The space battle was not how Star Wars battles are typically portrayed: close range slugathons such as what we see in Revenge of the Sith and Return of the Jedi. I'll give Wendig credit for using Ravager realistically: it sits in the middle of a Star Destroyer screen while taking out New Republic ships at long range. Not only does its particle cannon have range, but even at long range they apparently must still be powerful enough to swat New Republic ships. It is what you would expect from a power source of a ship that large and shows some of the logic behind Super Star Destroyers: fair fights are the other guy's problem.

She is only taken out through a fluke. One of the SD captains breaks the Star Destroyer screen and allows a Starhawk through. That is where I had a problem though. First, I do not know why the Starhawks were so close to Punishment. Up until that point the battles were long range. However, that was not my main issue. How big are these Starhawks? It was implied they were made from regular Star Destroyers...MULTIPLE STAR DESTROYERS? Surely not just one. I do not care how upgraded those tractor beams were, I cannot believe that a single kilometer long ship could drag down Ravager. That would make tractor beam technology to seem like magic. Yes, the strength might be influence by the strength of charge but you need a large power source to get that charge...especially if you need a charge that can take down something the size of a SSD. So, I am thinking that Starhawks might be the new canon's Star Defenders.

Also, I wonder if Rax intended for the captain of the Punishment to have his breakdown. The Empire may have won if its Star Destroyer screen was not breached.

I would really like to see a story that goes more in depth into how Executor was destroyed at Endor. Perhaps SSDs are not good at close range battles?

5. The revelations about Jakku were kind of a let down. As I said, I would guess that the movies will never make anything big out of the planet besides the fact it is where Rey came from. That's nothing different from Tatooine's position in canon.

Jakku seems to only be important from the point of view of the novels and comics. I knew that was going to be the case when TFA did not even mention it as the site of the final battle between the Empire and New Republic. I am disapoointed to see that confirmed.

6. Finally, Sloane finding the foundation of the First Order in thew Unknown Regions is what I expected. Unlike what some are hoping, I fully expect she will be very complicit in helping design the First Order. The first order of business? Starting over. I cannot emphasize that this is exactly what I expected from someone like Rae Sloane.

 

Spoiler

Finished the book today. I was reticent to read the first one based on reviews and decided to jump in when I read and excerpt from Life Debt. I really enjoyed Empire's End as well. SInjir seemed to have the most character development and is definitely one of my favorite characters along with Sloane and Rax. Nice to have Han back in the action again and Dengar too. Of the characters that didn't make it I think I felt most sad for Bones.

This book felt the most like Star Wars to me of the three. The cutting back and forth between what was happening with each set of characters kept the pace up and helped build tension. The political stuff in SW is something I love and I thought Wendig did a great job keeping that storyline interesting.

Of the old EU I only ever read Shadows of the Empire, which should be released as a canon novel IMO. I tried to read a few other thing but could never get into them. I've read a lot of the new canon novels and most of it is really good and captures the spirit of the films.

 

Spoiler

That's a point, do we know what Sloane's view of the Death Stars is? Don't recall seeing it.

Sloane seems to dislike sneak attacks in favour of overwhelming force, hence her desire to command the Ravager. So I'm not sure it'd be that she would use Starkiller Base in the way that Hux does. Threaten the Republic with it? Certainly, but not destroying planets first then revealing it.

She does love the idea of taking over a region that would not be inclined to rebel against her Empire ever. Starkiller Base might well be the means of keeping order, but most of the time we saw Sloane not liking the outlook of Vidian, Tarkin or even the Emperor, which is why I'm curious as to how she sees planet-killers.

 

Spoiler

But the thing is... ROTS Palpatine is NOT interested in eternal life. He uses it as a lure for Anakin, and then tells him "oh, I don't really know about it, let's talk about it later." When Yoda confronts him, he seems confident that Darth Vader would take the reins and become more powerful than either of them. New-Canon Palpatine just seems like someone who's much more willing to accept his own mortality... in the best way any Sith could, anyways. He still has a vague "wouldn't it be great if I could live forever" opinion, but he seems to mostly know that it is folly. This makes him more dangerous, and a more realistic evil, in my opinion.

 

Spoiler

He seems to know it's folly? Where is that indicated in?

We can make that assumption about him only because no one has picked up the plot bunny and used it.

I'm arguing that from what we have seen of Palpatine, it is not like him to not explore that avenue of the Force. So, even though the idea has not been explored yet, I do expect it to one day be picked up in the future.

After all, Empire's End implied that he planned to do A LOT of conquering.

The Contingency plan without the cloning is just...eh. Generic bad guy "If I cannot rule no one can" kinda stuff.

 

Spoiler

Tashu seemed to think that Palpatine still had a role to play, while everyone else in the story (including Rax) discounts him as completely out of his mind, he has been pretty much right about everything he cryptically rants about.

Spoiler

As for Sloane, while I have no doubts she would be willing to destroy a planet if she felt it suited her purposes, I also kind of feel she would be more like Tagge as far as her overall opinion of super weapons go. IE a colossal waste of time and resources that would have been better spent building up the fleet.

 

Spoiler

With all the political intrigue, Sloane being a Fascist hardliner and now at the forefront of the regime and military, she would likely meet her end any number of ways, including medical complications. While its possible she may yet side with a different faction of Neo-Imperials against Snoke, or she may be usurped by Snoke and Hux and could be eliminated that way., or maybe she's just like the rest of them, allied to a powerful god-like supreme leader. Palpatine(Sidious) as a typical Sith Lord, seems to have a lingering presence post death, is he truly dead, all the stories seem to be throwing hints and teases or just red herrings. But its very feasible, he would naturally play all the angles and both sides and would have something mapped out as far as to the winner goes the spoils, winner being the one left standing.

 

I have to say,

Spoiler

despite not being as invested in canon Wedge as I am in his Legends counterpart, I'm really glad he survived this book. I think "oh, he's not coming back for the movies so let's just kill him" would have been a terrible, wasteful precedent to set.

 

Spoiler

I was looking at the galaxy map and I noticed that two of our New Canon planets, Jakku and Jedha are very close to the Unknown Regions. The next plant closes to them is Rakata Prime. I wonder if they're doing that on purpose.

 

I just don't get why someone would read an entire book in a store, BC if you read an entire book in a store in Sweden people would not only look at you funny and think you're weird. But they would most likely throw you out. It's considered really rude and disrespectful

And to quote Jedi Ben
IT'S A STORE NOT A LIBRARY

 

Yeah the travel times annoyed me. Like I said in my notes, the distance between jakku and Chandrilla is massive and would take even longer cause they need to go around the deep core.

 

I know Tarkin didn't have a massive page count, but it felt pretty substantial!

Spoiler

I got the impression that retreating into the Unknown Regions, having crippled the NR fleet and wiped out the lesser elements of the Empire, to recover and ultimately retake the galaxy was part of Palpatine's Contingency, rather than Rax's idea. He just didn't really believe in the role of the Force or that a dark side being (Snoke?) would be there to take over.

 

Spoiler

I mean the travel for Temmin back to Chandrila after first seeing imps. I doubt the Halo was fast enough to make the flight that quickly. There being waves of the NR fleet showing up with time between makes a lot of sense for the final battle.

 

I just finished it this morning and I noticed something interesting:

Spoiler

Admiral Ackbar was contemplating how underdogs did against larger foes, and included was a mysterious Ghosthunter (or Ghostfinder) fleet vs the Sith armada. Perhaps a clue as to the pre-saga Sith's downfall?

 

RE: Fleet sizes at Jakku

Spoiler

Lost Stars says "hundreds" of capital ships. Depending on one's perspective, that can be as low as 200 and as high as 900.

In terms of the New Republic, if we assume the "three times Endor" quote was specific to the fleet amassing to attack Jakku (which I do, as Ackbar notes that ships are in place to defend Chandrila and Nakadia if it was a trap), that pegs the number of large capital ships (MC80's & Starhawks) as being in dozens. We see 14 MC80's in the final shot of the fleet in ROTJ alone, so triple that. Then consider that we see zero MC80 Liberty-type cruisers in that shot, even though there are dozens of that class alone shown in the sky above Jakku in Battlefront.

If I had to wager a guess, I'd say minimum 50 MC80's, the trio of Starhawks, and a large number of escorts. At the minimum, if we take "dozens" of Star Destroyer to mean like 36 (Endor level) with the SSD, for the NR to outnumber and outgun the Empire you'd have to have at minimum 50 large warships and a few hundred smaller ones. That's my low end minimalist estimate, the high end battle could consist of 600-900 warships depending on ones perspective.

I know this is a lot smaller than some folks hoped for, but there is a distinct minimalist approach to battles, especially in this trilogy.

--Adm. Nick