Lit Obscure Legends question - Kam Solusar's abilities

Not sure where to post this (if there's a better thread, mods, please redirect); the Wook wasn't much help.

There's one OOC panel on the Wook of Kam Solusar during the Second Battle of Onderon from DE II; am I right in assuming that was just Kam aboard the Falcon, and he wasn't actually a starfighter pilot?

From what little I've seen on Kam, he was a competent lightsaber duelist (and presumably a pilot of some skill), but not a "Jedi pilot" in the same mold/same level as Luke, Jaina, or Kyp. I'm just trying to make sure I'm interpreting things correctly. Thanks.

 

Does moody design scheme count as a superpower?

 

Not particularly, IMHO, but that's a good point. I sort of blamed that on the DE artwork, tbh ...

Like many of Luke's first class, the Solusars sort of faded into the woodwork of the new Order (I don't say that contemptuously - it was, IMHO, a healthy growth, the first students taking positions of responsibility and passing on what they'd learned).

I've long had this mental image of Kam being the NJO's (less-grumpy) version of Cin Drallig, sort of the gym teacher to Tionne's history/Force esoterica teacher (she's far more than Jocasta ever was, but take that FWIW. )

OTOH, it's possible that since Kam spent time on the run before Vader caught him, he might have a few scoundrel-esque skills. His father, Ranik Solusar, was a Purge survivor, an (unorthodox) OJO member, and a capable pilot (we do know that Ranik flew a Jedi starfighter at the first Battle of Geonosis).

I suppose it's open to interpretation. I was just wondering if anyone had ever seen any greater specifics on Kam's specialities, if he has any.

 

I saw Kam as the kind of NJO Cin Drallig, too.

 

Kam Solusar's abilities in Dark Empire would likely be comparable to the rest of the Dark Side Elite, such as Vill Goir and Executor Sedriss. Solusar was likely less skilled than Sedriss, as the Executor was the leader of the Elite. I'd say attributing moderate piloting skills along with significant combat skills would be appropriate for Solusar at the time. With that being said, it seems that Jedi Master Kam Solusar wasn't overly powerful or skilled, given that the Galactic Alliance Guard nearly killed him on Ossus during the Second Galactic Civil War.

 

@Onderon1 and @Revanfan1
Cin Drallig features in the EU?
I thought he was but a named character.
Is there actually stories with him in?
I loved playing against him and his apprentice in the ROTS game.

 

Black Knight-esque abilities to shrug off losing multiple limbs.

 

Actually Solusar didn't lose any limbs during the attack on Ossus. He was shot in numerous vital organs, but it was his wife, Tionne Solusar, who lost an arm and both legs to the vicious Major Salle Serpa.

 

Kam flew a fighter throughout DE II and EE. He got around in a Howlrunner. It's true that he's likely not a pilot on the level of Luke, Jaina, or Corran (or Kyp, who suddenly turned out to be a great fighter pilot), but the ability to pilot a combat craft appears fairly common throughout the galaxy. At least among those portions of it that might expect to have need for that sort of thing -- fringers and anyone with military training, or as with the Jedi, pseudo-military training. So Kam was probably at least a competent pilot, capable of jumping into a fighter cockpit and doing reasonably well if needed, on the level of your Kyle Katarns and Jacen Solos. It's just that going forward from DE, that was never really a role he gravitated to.

 

Where can I find my Jaxxon action figure?

 

Right here.

 

IIRC, Kam was the Battlemaster in Luke's Order until he went over to teaching younglings full-time; which argues for a fair amount of all-round skills. He was replaced in that role by Kyle Katarn.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Jedi_Battlemaster

 

Kam becoming this homely old man was pretty out of left field, IMO. Like all Bantam Jedi, he disappeared after Darksaber, but that book portrayed him as this cocky and powerful Jedi student who could easily destroy AT-STs and yawn while he was doing it. Couple that with what he did in Dark Empire and you have yourself a warrior in the making. Then Edge of Victory rolled around and they were like "Crap, we forgot to use Kam in the NJO before now. Um... he's married to Tionne, right? Let's make them the Owen and Beru of Yavin IV because why not." I was never a fan of that character transformation. It wasn't so much development as it was a repackaging. Streen, who they weren't using in the NJO anyway, would have been better for that role. Kam could have been out on missions with Kyp and Ganner.

 

Lack of Kam being cool or good post-NJO basically due to him not being a Denning/Allston pet-character IMO

 

When did Kam and Tionne get put together, anyway? Was that an NJO invention?

I was always upset that Streen got so sidelined after the BFT, given the setup of him being chosen as a leader by Luke there (albeit one that was a kind of left-field choice from Kube-McDowell) and him taking the role again in The New Rebellion. Incidentally for years I actually thought that Streen and Kirana Ti were in a relationship, for some reason. It was very strange to suddenly realize from the Jedi vs. Sith sourcebook that she was married on Dathomir.

 

Tionne mentions that she's married to Kam during Mara's bachelorette party in Union, but she and Kam are both still far from having morphed into Jocasta Nu at that point. And yeah, I liked that scene with Streen at the beginning of Before the Storm, too --- when I was reading the BFC trilogy, I was still naive enough to hope that the NJO Jedi would continue to feature throughout the rest of the New Republic era. Then I got to the end of Vision of the Future and was like "Huh. How 'bout that."

 

I thought Streen and Kirana Ti were kind of a thing too...

Wait, JVS says Kirana is married? I never knew that before now.

 

According to Wookieepedia, the first source to mention it was the Jedi Academy Sourcebook - rather than the much later JvS:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Kirana_Ti's_husband

 

Wow. I had no idea.

 

It was a little out of left field but I don't really mind it. It's not an obvious continuation of the original characterization but I think Stackpole took the character in a direction that worked. And it was Stackpole, because he really took over Kam's characterization with the trio of I, Jedi; Union; and Dark Tide. With I, Jedi, Stackpole took Kam, warrior badass and reformed Dark Jedi, and let that dark past inform his characterization as a guy who's sort of regretful about his misdeeds but puts his experience to use training his fellow trainees. With Union and Dark Tide, Stackpole married Kam off to Tionne and characterized his older self as a pretty peaceful teacher who had largely left his warrior side behind. It's sort of the classic reformed-gunslinger character type, the guy who's still good at this thing but doesn't really want to do it anymore. He just wants a peaceful, positive life. It's a very Jedi kind of arc, from warrior to guy who just wants to teach kids. And he still lays a beatdown on a bunch of the Peace Brigaders in Conquest, so it's not like the later books took his skills away from him. He had just changed as a person to where he had higher priorities than being out in the field using them.

 

Wasn't Kam already established as middle-aged in Dark Apprentice?