Kyle Katarn's Tale (Dark Forces Articles by Abel & Jason)

Ken Palpatine does deserve better, and GODV shouldn't be the reason he can't be used again. He was a kid then, an adult in the present timeline if still alive, and he's the son of Palpatine.

Great things can come from this character. However I think he should lose the name KEN. Perhaps Kenth like Kenth hamner, or Kenor.

 

Or Lord Shadowspawn

 

>>He's 90% better than most kid sidekicks.<<

He would be a lot better as long as they got rid of his know-everything-when-I've-been-stuck-in-a-hole-in-the-ground-for-my-whole-lifeness.

But I agree that his dramatic potential is great, especially in the Dark Empire timeframe...

 

It's not like it was a gigantic secret either. Yavin IV can pick up holobroadcasts. It's not exactly the hugest revelation in the history of the universe that Luke is Vader's son.

Obi Wan (or whoever) put Kenth Palpatine in there with a bunch of Jedi records (probably from the Jedi Temple or a place where the Jedi store backups) and put some minder droids plus some advanced communications equipment there.

 

The quoted ending of my blog, purposely smarmy and ironic, was taken a bit out of context. Here's the full relevant portion:

***I am absolutely certain that many people are wondering about this decision. Why did I choose to specify the student Desann kills in the game Jedi Outcast as the cool bloke Havet Storm from the U.K.-only released choose-your-own-adventure game books (called collectively The Lost Jedi series)? And why, Abel oh why, didn't you take this opportunity to kill off that annoying Ken, Jedi Prince and grandson of Emperor Palpatine according to the much-despised books collectively known as the Glove of Darth Vader series.

First, Ken Palpatine is well known (some would say infamous) enough as it is. I'm a strong believer in representing the underrepresented, and The Lost Jedi series, due to its rarity in the Americas, holds onto its place in the Star Wars universe by the thinnest of threads. Along these same lines, I gave obscure hero Havet Storm what in my opinion is not only a heroic death but a noble one: standing up to a bully, which is the type of person, not to mention one of the things, that I despise more than anything else in any universe. Any actor worth his or her salt will tell you that a heroic death scene is a role to die for. Any true hero would say the same thing.

But really, it always comes down to one thing: storytelling opportunity. The mere existence of a character that is a descendant of the Emperor, the most evil figure in Star Wars, screams out to be explored. The fact that the origin of Ken's character is from a "children's" novel does not preclude the development of a very interesting character arc. Author Greg Keyes proved this single-handedly when he took several characters from the equally juvenile books Junior Jedi Knights, and turned them into beautifully three-dimensional story elements for his New Jedi Order: Edge of Victory novels.

Simply, Havet Storm got what he deserved. Ken Palpatine deserves better. ~ Abel G. Peña

 

[image=http://www.mavericktimes.com/triumph.jpg]

"I keed, I keed..."

It's cool. Caught that whole entry before I wrote that; love ripping on the Davids' work once in a while.

(Might it be time to finally snip that "thread," though? )

 

Sorry about the context thing, Abel, but it was just too good. Not that I disagree with it, though...

C19: Yeah, I know; that's probably the best fix we could make. Here's my short version:

The Lost City of the Jedi was rediscovered around the Clone Wars by a group of Jedi (perhaps including Vergere's master... ) that foresaw the dark times to come. Acquiring a vast network of contacts, they set up an intel center rivaling that of the Republic Bureau of Intelligence. From accross the galaxy they gathered obscure equipment and rare devices, with the intent of helping and saving the Jedi. What they created was a long range comm/sensor nexus drawing feeds from everything from the Holonet to Sector and System NewsNets to Shadowfeeds to scouting dispatches. Because their numbers were few, they populated the city with droids meant to assist with data gathering and storage. In time, the library of the Lost City became huge, thanks to covert downloads from various data caches and libraries around the Republic. Then came the dark times and the Empire. As Force users were wiped out all over the galaxy, so too was the secret society of the Lost City. Only a few remained, including a Jedi Princess. When she bore a son--Ken--she instructed a fellow Jedi to take him to the Lost City to be cared for by droids. The droids, programmed to maintain the city's secrecy at all costs, cared for the boy. One day, it was hoped, he would take over the operations of the city and help restore the Jedi. Ken learned from the massive libraries and databanks, and the live comm/sensor feeds kept him up to date on all the latest news, scientific accomplishments, technology, and information on the black market. That is, until he became curious and one day wandered Topworld...

I've always thought that Electronic Freightways from WEG's Platt's Smugglers Guide could be run by the droids of the Lost City...

 

nice retcon idea, I really like it and have questions adding to it:

1) Ken is Palpatines son, how do you see the link between Palpatine and the Jedi Princess, his mother then? what happened between them how and why when? and how did palpatine know nothing of this lost city, when he knew the mother of ken and impreganted her? he might just read her mind.

2) It is known that Palpatine knows Yavin IV and its sith history: he collected the piranha beetles there that devoured Bevel Lemelisk and his clones as punishment. So I wonder why he didn´t find the city. Also, he had contact to the ancient sith lords (see dark empire on korriban), why didn´t Exar Kun contact him or tell him about the Lost City he must´ve known about?

 

weird thoughts just crossed my mind: WHAT IF...

KEN PALPATINE = Kenth Hammner?

well, Kenth was absent in the early EU, and is an adult in the NJO.

Ken is a childname, short version of Kenth.

Later Kenth Palpatine might have changed his name,because of people that were too frightened when he called himself Palpatine. so he took hammner. or maybe he married. Hammners great knowledge about strategy and stuff might come from the huge ammounts of military news he read in the lost citys archives. if the holonetsucking theory is right, most reports must have been about war.. that is what fills the news.

only question is, does Kenths age fit with Ken's age? I never read an age statement about Kenth so it might work.


edit: more off topic than my offtopic post above:

Or maybe Ken Palpatine just died during Dark Empire... somehow somewhere. or maybe he confronted his father offscreen, and turned darkside, dying later as one of the darksiders Luke and his Jedi hunt.

 

The Jedi Princess (Kendalina?) didn't have a child with Palpatine, but with Palpy's own son Triclops. She was captured by the Empire and forced to work as a healer on Kessel, where she met the three-eyed son of the Emperor and concieved a child. I don't remember what happened to her, but it was another Jedi (Ken thinks Obi-wan) that brought him to the Lost City. I don't think Palpatine ever met the Princess.

I don't think that we've ever had confirmation that Exar spoke to the Emperor or any other person before the JA Trilogy. Yavin is a fairly out of the way place and I doubt Palpatine ever ventured there at all, or very long if he did. Why would he go talk to just one Sith spirit, when he had dozens on Korriban? The beetles could have been captured by somebody for the Emperor, perhaps as a gift. Palpatine bug hunting is pretty . However, I have wondered whether Exar knew about the Lost City after his death. He probably slapped himself on the head when he found out. As to why he didn't tell, perhaps he knew that Luke already knew or (if someone before the JA Trilogy) he didn't want to give away that knowledge (it could be used as a bargaining chip, etc.) One other thing; the Lost City was also concealed because of the Dark Side nexus (nexi?) on Yavin IV, including the Temples, the Golden Globe, and various Sithy stuff. I think Luke said something similar in the Hand of Thrawn duology that Yoda used the Dark Side tree/cave to conceal his presence. It causes a negating effect that conceals Light Side users in the presence of darkness. 1 + -1 = 0

It also probably helped that the Lost City was considered just a myth or a rumor and nobody knew its location. Lost City, right?


I always thought it would have been cool for Ken Palpatine to confront the loyal Jeng Droga, but now poor Drogy's been killed by Kyle.

 

I like the Lord Shadowspawn idea. A fitting name for Ken to adopt, being the spawn of a shadowy kinda figure. And 'Lord' goes with that penchant of Imperial moustache-twirlers promoting themselves to exaggerated ranks and titles.

The timeline probably doesn't mesh favourably, though. I wouldn't have a clue, as I don't have the NEC.

 

Kenth Hamner being Ken Palpatine is a fairly awesome retcon. I also like the "Lost City is a Clone Wars communications center."

Basically, Ken's story if you take it at face value is pretty damn horrifying. The irony is not that his parents lived a magically happy Rainbow Bright life, its just no one dwelled on the circumstances of his conception.

Think of it this way....

Emperor Palpatine didn't need Anakin Skywalker to found a dynasty. He was a man, Palpatine had...appetites (A Twilek slave girl harem, Yssane isard, Roganda Ismaren, and believed to be many others). Triclops is actually a good reason why Palpatine never tried to create a son the old fashioned way but had Darth Mauls and RotS Spoiler Probably created Anakin with the midiclorien manipulation

Because of the fact that his children were born grossly deformed. It's in the books Triclops was hidiously mutated by the fact Palpatine's dark side energies had corrupted his seed. It's rather mythical really.

The very name is actually something that implies Palpatine didn't bother to give him a 'real name.' It's like an insult. He might as well have named his son 'Dirtball' or 'That THING'

Given the time frame, he might have tried several times.

We also see Palpatine try to experiment on his son. Maybe he wants to make Triclops into a "real Sith." Instead, his son is passive and calm.

The fact some poor Jedi (who was born a Princess on some planet) tried to comfort him and sired a child while hiding in a detention center as a Nurse (probably the whole 'in plain sight' thing) says a great deal.

Given she was taken by Imperials, its quite likely that she was allowed to give birth by the Emperor and somehow Obi Wan Kenobi (or another figure) stole the child.

In other words, by subtext alone, its one of the great Star Wars dramas. It also adds a disturbing subtext Ben might have intended to turn Palpatine's child against him too.

Re: The Lost City of the Jedi

It's not really a huge deal. The Jedi built a terraforming station to heal Yavin IV after they burned it to ruins following Exar Kun's destruction (or Naga Sadow used ANCIENT Jedi records to build his home there. I'm not sure which by the Chronology)

It's something palpatine would hardly care about. The Jedi built thousands of things.

If its a place they stored records or a "listening post" its possible that he never knew about it. Yavin is difficult to navigate even with high tech imperial equipment. Even then, Palps might view it as a 'war material' spot than something else entirely.

Given Ben (or whoever) hid someone there, he might have erased all knowledge of it on one of his now cannonized infrequent trips off Tatooine to screw with the Emperor.

 

NOOOOO! You've just stolen my theory!! Honestly, I was just thinking that yesterday!

Was looking at CUSWE entries and it says Kenth came from rich parents. Well, with Palpatine as your grandfather there would be alot of wealth in the family! Also Kenth was obviously a bit of a leader, both in the military and in the Jedi. Obviously some of ol' Palpy's charisma passed down to his grand kid.

[image=http://photos1.blogger.com/img/40/2888/320/Ken%3DKenth1.jpg]

 

They do look a bit similar..

 

thx for the replys, I am looking forward to Abels opinion... and to my Golden Ewok *gg*

 

Lost City of the Jedi... HQ of an extensive info gathering network.

Hand of Thrawn.... repository of an extensive info database


Could Thrawn have been colluding with those Jedi somehow? (someone needs to keep the HoT info up to date, and that would explain why Thrawn knew about ysmalmiri and Spaarti clone madness)

 

Indeed, both of them might be serviced by Jorj Car'Das (damn spelling ) who acts as a back-and-forth messenger who profits incredibly by this knowledge access. Now what obscure favours could he have performed for Yoda that put him in such a prime position ?

 

>?I can understand how that can be weird for casual SW fans. "A third Death Star...?" But then again, hey, George made Star Tours! ?
Did he actually direct it? In any case, I would argue, that in 1987, George wasn?t concerned with continuity. The concept is relatively new.<

This is one of my pet peeves. Continuity is never a "new" concern. True, there was no in-house Holocron tracking the spin-off stories back in 1987, but I don't think that this should be a consideration when talking about any given story and
how it relates (or might relate) to the rest of the EU. After all, much of the really important "early" EU pre-dates what we would think of as the "Modern Age" of continuity: the Marvel series, the WEG RPG, and the Thrawn Trilogy, for example, were all created before integrating all the published materials--maintaining continuity--was a major concern. Even so, the Marvel issues maintained continuity within the series, as did the WEG supplements. Maybe it wasn't much of a concern in 1987, but the fact that it was made in 1987 doesn't mean that we should just pretend it never happened (especially since the attraction is *still* running!)

And that's just talking about the EU. George Lucas *was* and *is* concerned about continuity. Not to the same obsessive extent we are, but as a director, Lucas has to maintain consistency from shot to shot, even if those shots are filmed out of sequence. This *is* continuity, the same sort we usually think about, just on a smaller scale. He's made two very popular trilogies now, which means he's also had to maintain continuity from story to story. It's shaky sometimes (particularly where the droids and Leia are concerned), but it holds together. Let's not limit our idea of continuity to whether or not two obscure spin-off sources agree.

>Kevin J. Anderson once gave a very similar defense of the repeated appearance of world destroyers in his Star Wars novels, that if a planet killer works, it only makes sense that someone would copy the idea. But while KJA is one of the nicest and genuine people I?ve ever met, and I actually enjoyed Darksaber thoroughly, I?m personally not a fan of ?logical? plot elements of this kind. Entertainment has a logic of its own, and too much of a good thing can be cloying.<

That's true, and this is why I would argue against creating *more* stories with superweapons. *However*, *all* of Kevin J. Anderson's superweapons have received background information and have been well documented in other sources. The fact is *not* that we're *adding* another Death Star superweapon to the EU--it's been there since 1987. It only doesn't make sense because we have no context for it. It's just like ignoring all the implications of "Darksaber" as a story because it has a superweapon in it.


>First, Ken Palpatine is well known (some would say infamous) enough as it is. I'm a strong believer in representing the underrepresented, and The Lost Jedi series, due to its rarity in the Americas, holds onto its place in the Star Wars universe by the thinnest of threads...Simply, Havet Storm got what he deserved. Ken Palpatine deserves better. <

Well put.

>maybe retcon some of them of being not actual jedi survivors but jedi that began training by survivors until those got slain by Vader and co? they are no real jedi then though have force training.<

That seems to be the case of most of so-called "Jedi" serving in the Rebellion. They are Force-sensitives whose parents were once Jedi--usually apprentices or Knights. If they've received any training, it was from these parents, but most of them haven't had any (Storm and Tredway, for example.) For the most part, this was usually established in the original source--no retcons are needed. The sole exception seems to be Rahn.


>Just so we're all clear about this. The "Secret Order of the Empire" is a bunch of Sith. This is a talkback so we don't have to 'quote fingers' say that they're only two Sith. They were trained by a Sith Lord in a Sith fashion in a Sith Temple and served a Sith Lord

 

I seem to recall that in discussions of the Classic era Jedi a few years back, it was determined that only Qu Rahn, Empatajayos Brand and Colonel Tyneir Renz were the only possible violations of Yoda's "Last of the Jedi" rule.

In earlier pages of the thread, a couple of fixes were mentioned for Rahn (since his death has finally been date-locked at after Yoda's).

Brand is slightly more problematic : from a certain Point of View since his body was sliced up real nice by Vader (perhaps out of frustration at Vader's similar experience ) he was 'dead' and is now more machine than man. There's also the fact that he was in an unusual cloud phenomena which may have prevented Yoda from sensing him.

I'm interested in hearing more about Renz, though. All i heard was that he was a 'Jedi' serving the Rebels, according to WEG. And before someone mentions Vergere, not only did she leave the galaxy (come on, give Yoda a break, he's not a god) but she arguably stopped been a Jedi when she started to put faith in the Potentium Heresy.

Also, have we heard if Tredway, Shelvay and the other Force-Sensitive Rebel made it back from the DSII sabotage mission, or should we presume they were executed in custody ?

 

I believe it was implied they made it not back and were killed, except one or two team members who escaped and reported back about the failure. But the final outcome was left open to gameplay up to date.

 

Two possibilities spring to mind.

1. Brand has set himself up as God-Dictator of the planet and thus isn't a Jedi as far as Yoda's concerns.

2. Rahn refuses to acknowledge Skywalker as a Jedi because he was trained in a different manner as a 'true jedi.'

He wants no part of Yoda's 'New Jedi Order' and thus ironically ceases to be a Jedi in his arrogance

 

Interesting articles. They are official, presumably? What about the rest of the stuff on the site, like this? I'm guessing they're official too, given that wizards is an official Star Wars licensee?

 

I believe it is wrong. if it is a child to kill a father or someone else to kill someone.. killing is always wrong.

In the end, balance wasn´t brought by fighting, killing. it was brought through love! Vader stopped Palpatine because he loved Luke and Leia. Luke stopped fighting because he loved his father and couldn´t kill him.

even in dark empire, the emperor dies through love, not killing. Luke and Leia turned his own darkness against him.. they didn´t attack him.. they let him destroy himself. in Empires End, the last clone was killed by a blaster shot, ok, but the soul moved to empatajoys brand, who captured it and contained him within his enlighened, loving body. Where the light/love shines, no shadows and darkness will prevail.

 

yeah all articles there are official and canon.