The Celestials used to be cool. The idea of strange, unspeakable Force gods controlling and shaping the Galaxy in its infancy was a cool one. Then they just became the completely undefined, generic substitute for actual explanation.

 

my bold

I thought that was the Force

 

No, the Force is the GFFA God substitute, as well as the Magic substitute. Which means that the Force, as generic as it is in outline, in practice often has a lot of specificity and interest built into it. At its best, the Force allows you to explore all kinds of personal, religious, moral, and philosophical stuff, to delve deeply into the core of characters and how they view the world and each other. At its worst, it at least suggests all kinds of interesting things.

The Celestials, at this point, are basically just what you use when you want to explain something about the Galaxy without actually investing any meaning or significance in that thing.

If "the Force did it," at the very least it brings up all kinds of interesting questions about the nature of reality, the supernatural, character, morality, etc.

If "the Celestials did it," it's just "hmm, I guess those generic beings from a ways back liked the furniture arranged this way." For a while, TPTB made half-assed suggestions that the Celestials had some kind of grand design that was going to be really significant, or at least that they had some kind of non-generic characteristics that were going to be really interesting; but at this point, it's pretty clear that nothing specific will ever be revealed about the Celestials. Thus, we're left with a total black, soulless void of genericness that happens to be responsible for everything in the Galaxy.

 

Malkovich Malkovich.

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again:











As for the over-predor, wouldn't it be a Rakata? It's the ruler of the Infinite Empire, after all.

 

In all likelihood, the Over-Predor is going to be a Rakata. It makes sense... plus, DotJ hasn't done much in referencing the Celestials. More the Kwa. So, it wouldn't be surprising to see that the Tho Yor might be Kwa constructs. I'm still hoping the Tho Yor were Celestial machines with the Kwa ensuring the mysterious plan of the Celestials was kept in motion namely the creation of the Je'daii.

 

Over-Predor = Emperor? Sounds a bit lame if he/she is.

 

Question: isn't the Rakatan word for emperor "daritha?" So, does Over-predor=emperor=daritha? Or maybe daritha actually translates to a bunch of emperors and Over-predor is the emperor of the...uh..emperors.

 

Potentially, it could be different dialects? I must confess, Over-Predor is a bit bland to me as well and perhaps it should be another more grander title. But that's what it seems to suggest so far... unless Over-Predor is more like Grand Moff or something and there is another title above it.

 

The Over-Over-Predor. What's with this predor ranking system, anyways? It's getting so bizzare. So far we have Sub-Predor, Predor, Over-Predor. What's next? Middle-predor? Sort-of-not-really-Predor? ..........Party-Predor? The Infinite Empire needs a Party-Predor! Who's gonna be responsible for all the victory-buffets?

 

Moving on, here is something interesting that might be of discussion:

from DOTJ we also know that Rakata cannibalize their own offspring....Why is this important? Well, you'd think that this would lead them to extinction, especially after the plague wipes out a good chunk of them. Yet...they survive in the Unknown Regions even into the "modern" era.

This got me thinking that they either have a high reproductive rate(they either have lots of offspring at once, or have offspring more often), or are just naturally hardy. Maybe the whole "eating your weak kids" was a birth-control policy of the Infinite Empire that later descendents no longer practiced? Since their population went down so fast after the plague, I wonder if their cannibalistic tendencies changed at all.

Also.. compare this to the Kwa, who basically "de-evolved" into the Kwi on their homeplanet...This strikes me as bizarre. Why would a species just devolve into a primitive state? I wonder what conditions led to this...

And the Gree: I think they are still around in the "modern" era..but they are few and mostly isolated on their world.

And we obviously don't know anything about the habits of the Celestials

 

Still a lot of them around in the Gree Enclave but only the less technicily inclinded castes, since at some point they lost the ability to create Crafters and Researchers

 

This is from the article "Diagoras Sector: an interstellar warzone" by Kenneth Hite, which is about the Peloponnesian war re-imaged in our distant future, in Fenix #4 2012. I thought that it might be of some interest. Sorry about the small size EDIT: Fixed

 

http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb234/warlordkang/av85_zps094ea7b4.jpg

 

Thanks but I think I have fixed it

 

Are there any "modern" Gree in any sourcebook? I know the Unknown Regions sourcebook talks about Rakata descendents running rampage, but it doesn't say anything else about the other ancient species. Wasn't there a mention of Gree in the TCW or something?

 

WEG had a rather awesome article (which also introduced the race) in Adventure Journal 8, talking about history, technology, worlds, current politics etc.

 

As Gorefiend said, WEG had an article about them and I think it was the first mention or at least in-depth mention of them. They are a bit different though... like how they don't like droids as they are not Gree technology yet TOR has droids running around everywhere for the Gree. The HoloNet News articles for the Clone Wars mentions that the solar sail of Dooku's was from the Gree and the Republic were talking to the Gree Enclave about them. The New Essential Guide to Droids book has the A-series assassin being employed by Gree clans. And the Unknown Regions book says that on the planet where the Mgnaal-Mgnaal (sp?) has a Gree sailship crashed on the surface. These are more modern mentions of the Gree at least

 

Well, this thing got pushed back way into the infinite. Here's a question to anyone interested in answering: Is there any reason why, out of the ancient races, only the Rakata are actually trying to get back into their former glory?
Afterall, apparently they're making mini-Star Forges in the Unknown Regions while the Kwi are devolved blue dinosaur-things and the Gree don't seem very interested in restoring their former Empire.
Are there any other races that are actually trying to rebuild their past history to some extent?

 

Apart from laziness, I'm not sure how that has anything in common with this thread.

 

Celestials/The Ones. Post-singularity beings.

 

The quoted article is about ways for SF writers to cop out on the Singularity (hence my jab about "laziness), though. It's almost the direct opposite of the topic.

 

The article gives some suggestions to why we don't see so many Post-singularity beings and some small suggestions to why the technology needed to get to the singularity don’t seem to appear in GFFA

 

The Sharu seems to be trying to get back into their former glory

 

The GFFA has all the technology levels if not better, needed for a singularity. They have AIs and genetic engineering, and FTL and hypermater reactors with the power output of Stars. In many ways they are beyond singularity level tech but have decided not to use those droids and AIs to govern themselves, they seem to prefer their own form of leadership.

They seem to have all the tech, they just prefer to use it on their own terms instead of it using them.