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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Books New Novel! Maul: Lockdown by Joe Schreiber

Discussion in 'Literature' started by Force Smuggler, Jan 8, 2013.

  1. Starkeiller

    Starkeiller Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 5, 2004
    But Lockdown reveals that he knew Palpatine was going to bomb the place. So, as he says in Plagueis, he welcomed the bomb because he had come to feel that his love for Sojourn was dragging him down. He wasn't "constantly hopping around the galaxy", he went to Coruscant to make a point, the point being, "I know you're up to something, Sidious, despite the fact that for the last 20 years I seem to have barely even checked up on you. And soon, I'm going to end my years of seclusion and attach myself to you like a leech".

    Plagueis mentions: "For the first year following the attack, rumors swirled that Hego Damask was dead, but word gradually began to circulate that he was merely living in seclusion on Sojourn." When Sifo-Dyas meets him at the Perlemian Orbital Party, he says: "'Until your recent arrival on Coruscant, I was under the impression that you had retired.'" And: “'It seems I can’t view a news holo that doesn’t feature you and Senator Palpatine.'"

    Indeed, "our usual afternoon stroll" sounds wrong in Lockdown. But apart from that and the past tense used to describe the Eriadu Trade Summit assassinations, I see no real continuity problems.
     
  2. Darth_Calgmoth

    Darth_Calgmoth Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Jul 7, 2006
    I've finished the novel today, and I never got the impression that Plagueis was aware of the fact that Sidious intended to assassinate by having the Bando Gora nuke Sojourn. If that's the case, then I did not get it. In DP it's clear that Plagueis only learns of the Bando Gora/Veruna plot through Jabba. Afterwards he accepts that he has to let Sojourn go, but he does not know anything about Sidious' involvement in all that (and DP left it open whether Sidious was actually orchestrating the Sovourn bombing or whether he only watched the show and forgot to tell Plagueis about it...).
     
  3. Starkeiller

    Starkeiller Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 5, 2004
    Plagueis sends a package to Cog Hive Seven with orders that it be delivered directly to Maul. It contains a geological compressor, which is what Radique needs to finish his lightsabers. Then he tells 11-4D that it's not yet time to tell Sidious about the fact that he helped Maul finish his mission. The novel ends with Palpatine worrying that Plagueis has found out about the bomb. I assumed that, if Plagueis knows that much about Maul's mission, he would know about the bomb. Maybe I'm wrong. His portrayal so far is consistent with being outsmarted by Sidious in everything he ever did.

    Edit: Oh, and of course I forgot the part where Plagueis actually mentions that he has discovered the fact that Radique has bought depleted uranium from Black Sun. Page 122.

    Perhaps he thinks Palpatine sent Maul to Cog Hive Seven in order to kill Radique before the latter finished the bomb and gave it to Black Sun/the Bando Gora, and that is what he means when he talks of "strengthening their relationship" (as in, Sidious should have told him about this threat)? Is he that stupid? Maybe, I don't know.
     
  4. Darth_Calgmoth

    Darth_Calgmoth Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Jul 7, 2006
    I got all that about the geological compressor, but as you say, there is no hint whatsoever in the novel that Plagueis knew anything about Maul's true mission, nor about Komari's presence on the space station, or the fact that she did get Radique's nuclear weapon. And I don't think that Plagueis would have considered Sidious' involvement in an attempt on his life a good thing. Thus it's very likely that he didn't know anything about that. Although it's somewhat irritating that he should not since Hego Damask apparently had access to surveillance footage on Cog Hive Seven.

    And it would also make sense that Damask knew more about Iram Radique than Sidious since Damask was the one controlling/overseeing the IBC at this time (through San Hill, the son of his close confidant Larsh). I can't imagine that Radique could manage his actual arm deals without using the infrastructure of the IBC.
     
  5. Starkeiller

    Starkeiller Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 5, 2004
    The facts are: Plagueis knows Radique is making a nuclear weapon. He believes Sidious sent Maul to Cog Hive Seven in order to assassinate Radique. He knows Black Sun is providing Radique with the ingredients he needs to make the nuclear weapon. He knows nothing about the Bando Gora's involvement.

    I don't know what to make of them, but these are the facts.
     
    Sudooku likes this.
  6. Darth_Calgmoth

    Darth_Calgmoth Jedi Master star 2

    Registered:
    Jul 7, 2006
    Well, then his conclusion must have been that Maul came to late to prevent the Bando Gora getting the nuclear device. That is, if he made the connection that Radique's weapon was the one that targeted Sojourn later. We don't even know if he did that, since the novel breaks off suddenly.
     
  7. Starkeiller

    Starkeiller Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 5, 2004
    So, was I alone in getting the impression that Plagueis realized Maul was in the prison to get the Sojourn bomb when first reading the novel?
     
  8. Force Smuggler

    Force Smuggler Force Ghost star 7

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    Roughly 50 pages and not bad. Death Troopers was alright, loved Red Harvest and this one has potential.
     
  9. SithStarSlayer

    SithStarSlayer Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Oct 23, 2003
    The IBC lackey tripped my radar.

    I told you, then posted a screen-grab of the latest timeline straight from the book. [face_blush]

    I'm going to quote Han here, "Its not my fault.":p
     
    Revanfan1 likes this.
  10. Arawn_Fenn

    Arawn_Fenn Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jul 2, 2004
    It seems like the book implies the latter, since Palpatine apparently learns of the conspirators' intent from Veruna after things have been set in motion. Also, in light of the text's handling of the instance in which Palpatine unequivocally does decide to kill Plagueis at the end of the book, complete with Palpatine's internal thought process, it would seem odd for the narrative to intend that Palpatine made the same decision earlier in the text while not focusing on this decision at all.
     
  11. Starkeiller

    Starkeiller Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 5, 2004
    Palpatine's internal thought processes are entirely unreliable, which I found ingenious. There is, of course, another reading, but I did not see the instances of Palpatine's POV as being too genuine the first time I read the book, and this is reinforced for me with every reread. Now with Lockdown, of course, there is proof, for Palpatine as well as Plagueis.
     
  12. Arawn_Fenn

    Arawn_Fenn Chosen One star 7

    Registered:
    Jul 2, 2004
    I don't know if reliability has much to do with it in this instance. It's really indisputable that he decides to kill Plagueis at the end of the book, but if he intended the same thing on Sojourn my point was just that it's a little strange that the reader of the Luceno text got no Palpatine POV on that choice.
     
  13. Darth_Sidious_1983

    Darth_Sidious_1983 Jedi Knight star 1

    Registered:
    Jun 6, 2005
    Does Plagueis know that detail, or know only that Sidious is up to something?
     
  14. Starkeiller

    Starkeiller Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Dec 5, 2004
    It's not made clear. What is made clear is that he knows Radique is making a nuclear bomb with help from Black Sun.
     
  15. TOD-UK

    TOD-UK Jedi Grand Master star 3

    Registered:
    Mar 4, 2002
    Have any of my OCD time liners done a detailed breakdown of how the Darth Plaugeis novel, Ep I novelisation, Shadow Hunter, Lockdown and the Darth Maul short stories fit together. I'm thinking about compiling one big pdf to make one super epic novel
     
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  16. Sudooku

    Sudooku Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 31, 2014
    I enjoyed the book very much :D Especially I loved the scene when that Moon Vesto Slipher did tell Maul that his intellect is so much higher and more sophisticated than Maul's mind. Shortly before he is crushed by the transportation-droid manipulated by Maul for just this purpose:) A real Sheldon-Cooper-Moment in the book. Also the tense scenes between the Prison's director and Maul or between Komari Vosa and Maul. Very delicately handled. And also the Father-Son-Team Artagnan/Eogan Truax. How Maul saved the son and how the son saved him. The only thing I missed was Sidious cheering after Maul did complete his mission. I always wondered how and if Darth Sidous would have solved all that challenges in wheelhub-seven without using the force as Maul did so bravously and cunning. He's just so smart. :)

    And Joe Schreiber really did a great job with "Lockdown" :)
     
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  17. Havac

    Havac Former Moderator star 7 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 29, 2005
    This is the last EU book that I haven't read. I'm about a hundre pages from finishing it. I didn't expect greatness, but I was hoping for some energetic prison pulp.

    It's a disappointment. It's got plenty of lovingly, if unimaginatively, gory violence, but there's nothing behind the action. As narrative, it's garbage. The whole prison concept is nonsense, from the impossibly complex modular cells to the total absence of security. The place doesn't appear to be a prison so much as an industrial wasteland freely wandered by armed maniacs, which really robs it of any of the dynamics that make prison stories interesting or prisons compelling as a setting. Having thrown off the interesting restraints on Maul that prison could create, Schreiber has to impose the artificial, unmotivated ban on using the Force to keep Maul from waltzing effortlessly through a simple story. And though it's conceived as a mystery -- who is Iram Radique -- Schreiber unfortunately must be added to the rolls of authors who don't know how to construct a mystery. Maul's entire investigation of this dreaded, ultrasecret, omnipotent figure consists of walking around asking everyone he sees, "What do you know about Iram Radique?" And none of this can explain how the hell it makes any sense for an arms dealer to operate out of a restrictive galactic prison instead of, you know, literally anywhere else. Or how no one notices all the blind inmates who work for him. Surely at some point somebody would ask what's up with all the blind guys? And why can't Sidious just get a big bomb from anyone else anywhere? How does this prison even work, anyway? Who sends people here? Why is it overseen by the Galactic Gaming Commission? Are you telling me that legitimate Republic authorities are peacefully regulating prison death matches? It's like writing about an exasperated state inspector trying to get Michael Vick to run a cleaner underground dogfighting ring. "The oddsmaking on your illicit bloodsport is simply not up to par!"

    I never expected to be this bored by a book with "SPACE PENITENTIARY" on the back cover.
     
  18. jamminjedi23

    jamminjedi23 Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Feb 19, 2015
    Was looking over the thread titles on the front page and all of a sudden I see a thread saying new novel about Maul. My second long enthusiasm went away as soon as I realized this is an extremely old thread.
     
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  19. Jedi Ben

    Jedi Ben Chosen One star 9

    Registered:
    Jul 19, 1999
  20. Force Smuggler

    Force Smuggler Force Ghost star 7

    Registered:
    Sep 2, 2012
    Hey! At the time it was new.
    We didn't even know what it would be about. So New Novel was the best I could think of.
     
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  21. Sudooku

    Sudooku Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 31, 2014
    Lockdown is the evidence that Sidious did know of Veruna's plan to get rid of the grip of Magister Hego Damask. To that incident refers Palpatine's remark towards his master in Luceno's Plagueis-novel, that he (Sidious) did nudge him (Veruna) too far.

    Plagueis escaped from that assassination attempt with the Sith-Infiltrator, which he later gave to Sidious in order to hand it over to Maul finally.

    Well, when I red the book for the first time I didn't know about the Yuuzhan Vong. But now I know some comics about them. So there was already some contact between the YV and the GFFA even before Vergere's oblivion and the cancelled TCW-Arc about the YV.
     
  22. Daneira

    Daneira Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jun 30, 2016
    [​IMG]


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
  23. jamminjedi23

    jamminjedi23 Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    Feb 19, 2015
    Sudooku you have been doing some

    [​IMG]

    Today
     
    Daneira likes this.
  24. Sudooku

    Sudooku Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    May 31, 2014
    The one digging a pit for others may be trapped him- or herself in it!

    How petty-minded reaction! Is it wrong to read the novel for a second time and to tell how its perception changed? If you wann play Ghostbusters go elsewhere!
     
    Vorax likes this.
  25. Vorax

    Vorax Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jun 10, 2014
    Well we know who won this one:

    [​IMG]

    ;)