Books CRUCIBLE by Troy Denning: The Official Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

Yep, makes total sense.

 

goddamn sith teachings

 

Explains why Jedi under Denning are so bitter and devoid of emotion. Love is a Sith thing, guys! The Old Jedi didn't go far enough, they should have killed any Jedi who fell in love, before they could destroy us all!

 

Those filthy hippies.

 

The only emotions a true Jedi feels is anger and smugness. Anything else is of the dark side.

 

nah thats just Joruus C'boath, and Jorus C'Boath

 

I think Traitor gave a ballpark figure of 100 billion for the number of people that had died on Coruscant between the start of Star By Star and the events of Traitor.

There are still 900 billion people left over.
Nine. Hundred. Billion.
Survivors can be a weapon too.

 

I love that passage!

 

Now Han, Lando, and Omad Kaeg are at a casino trying to have the supposed contact of Dena Yus's boyfriend whom Vestara told her to blame as the saboteur for the attack meet them. There are two things I don't understand here: why the hell would his contact meet Han and Lando just because they're at a casino, and how the **** is there a fancy-ass formalwear casino on a backwater planet in the middle of nowhere that's impossibly dangerous to get to and is populated exclusively by mom-and-pop-operation miners? Are there a lot of intergalactic diplomats just passing through or something? Could Jahan Cross find no other place to build his retirement dream business?

Then a woman shows up who is very very muscular but dressed sexy. Yep, it's Mirta Gev, "show[ing] flashes of muscular thigh." Also Leia is dressed as a sexy alien again. Of course. But this time, she's playing . . . Luke's . . . sexy alien girlfriend. I'll just let that sit there.

Anyway they talk and Han's suspicious of Dena and his plan is to create suspicion between the brothers by having Lando offer to go halfsies with Craig if he cuts Marv out of the deal and then also to plant a tracking device on the contact's ship. But the Qrephs bought the casino because they're RICH MASTERMINDS and they have a bunch of Mandalorians dressed as security guards and Mirta's like, "Haha, I'm taking you in as a bounty because they put a bounty on you." SUCH SOPHISTICATED GENIUS PLOTTING, QREPHS. Also the Qrephs straight-up murdered Wuul because he was going to get the GA involved in the Rift and also because we're not allowed to have semi-decent people in government. So Han goes along

But then Umad Bro is too stupid to figure out Han's plan to get the drop on them later like Lando, Luke, and Leia do, so he starts hitting people with a chair. So Han starts fighting Mirta, and Luke and Leia start using the Force without moving from their table, which is pretty clever, so they keep their cover. And then Han gets to Dena and gets her purse she was totally suspiciously handed over after it was "found" but she never came in with it and goes for the weapon that's obviously inside except wait, no, there are exploding spiders inside instead. I don't know either. They blow up, chaos, Han gets captured anyway. I remain unclear on how twelve unarmored Mandalorians apparently won a fight with Luke Skywalker and also a whole bunch of other people.

 

Did Denning think he was being funny?

 

In our tenth chapter, we observe Vestara and Mirta bickering over who deserves the bounty for capturing Han, which involves rolling tape of the bad guys' escape from the hangar when Luke and Leia attacked. Flooding the place with Mandos and cyborg lizards was enough to stop them from saving Han, but not from placing a tracker on the ship, which is our end note for the chapter. I will say that I enjoyed seeing the action scene as a hologram rather than reading it in real-time; it was a creative way to mix action and post-action exposition.

Anyway there's a lot of bickering and Lando's deal gambit actually works because Craig didn't tell Marv and Marv finds out. He was considering it! Murder almost ensues until Vestara steps in! So far it seems like there are an awful lot of chapters of people just talking exposition at each other.

 

This is so much more entertaining than when I actually read the book, thank you Havac.

I thought the "Galactic Neutrality Act" was a low point of the Galactic Alliance (its only times like now that I'm glad they changed the name, its easier to separate the better earlier stories from the rotting corpse that rules the galaxy post-NJO), but then they have to go and kill Wuul too, just because. Off-screen at that, and we just lost another recurring character. A very minor one at that, but still.

 

Why did they don that?

What was the in universe excuse for this?

Also what did it accomplish? (though this could be asked of EVERYTHING in the book)

 

You know, for that Neutrality Act, they deserve a book where the Sith attack, the GA stand back and let them overwhelm the Jedi or something (because we're neutral, this ain't our war) and then the Sith attack ad take out the GA. Who of course go "But why? We're neutral!" and the get the obvious response "Because we're evil and want to conquer the galaxy, you nerfs".

 

No, no, you're giving the Galactic Alliance too much credit, the GA would blame the Jedi for not defending them and saving them from the Sith, or at least for not stopping the Sith sooner. Sadly I think the GA already did this in FotJ, with Luke being brought up on charges of dereliction of duty for the whole Caedus mess, while the person who actually helped him take over the GA got to retire quietly.

Its basically the same as if City Hall declared itself neutral in a battle between the police department and the gangs or an invading army, withdraw all support from the police... then blame them when they're conquered.

Its hard to explain it at all, its just another random stupid moment of this book. What really irks me is how unnecessary it is. This bookcould have simply been Luke, Han and Leia on vacation to visit Lando and then leading to bigger things, yet its brought up as a reason for why Luke can't just call Wuul (apparently the name of Luke Skywalker, hero of the Rebellion, is mud with all non-Jedi these days). Then Wuul is killed off shortly afterward anyway.

Cade Skywalker from the Legacy comics isn't my favorite character, but hearing about plot elements like this really justifies his "let the galaxy take care of itself" motto.

 

Oh lords, Cade read FotJ and Crucible in advance - it's why he used that motto.

 

Still doesn´t beat when they end joking about bondage the reunion discussing Jacen´s elimination plans.

 

No idea what you're talking about. Please leave it that way.

 

I just...I...I...kark it, Denning!

 

I feel this best represents my feelings toward the Denningverse and can reasonably be used in reaction to any aspect of it:

 

I love how the brilliant mastermind plans could have stopped dead in their tracks just by the villains losing it and killing eachother.

Makes me wonder whether Denning is just screwing with us at this point.

 

I love how the evil masterminds can't stick with one plan for more than five minutes before deciding to do something completely different. Didn't they want to take over Lando's mining operation? They don't actually advance any effort in that direction after he says no. They should consider getting their ADD treated at some point, before we start confusing them for protagonists or something.

 

Umad Bro totally needs to be a character in Star Wars. Maybe as the nemesis of Bass Ackwards.

 

Does it matter? It's never 100% fatality and there's always more of them for an author to kill off!