Lit Outbound Flight and other questions (spoilers)

As a big fan of the Thrawn trilogy I recently went back and read some other Timothy Zahn novels, namely:
* Allegiance
* Choices of One
* Outbound Flight
In that order. Right before that I reread Dark Force Rising and the Last Command... Heir to the Empire wasn't at the library, which leads to the questions:

1) I was under the impression that the C'baoth clone was the way he was in the Thrawn trilogy because he was rendered semi insane by an old tech cloning process. Outbound Flight makes it a point to show that even the original was an arrogant and prideful person that looked down on everyone. I mean he was so flawed in Outbound Flight that I have to question how he rose thorough the ranks to Master and how he stayed in that position. I always assumed that the original C'baoth was a normal Jedi - like one that at least attempted to abide by a portion of the Jedi code.

2) I found it interesting that Thrawn had intimate dealings with C'baoth before the Thrawn trilogy. I don't really recall any language in Heir to the Empire where Thrawn goes "Crap, not this guy again!!!" but then again it's been forever since I've read HttE. Did that happen?

I suspect that it's all just Zahn just trying to extend the mythos of the characters he's created. Still I think I would have had less reservations with the book had there been more than just extensions of established character traits. Ie C'baoth as a normal Jedi, maybe saving Thrawn for some other book.

Still a good book. I probably enjoyed it the most of the new three I read, raking them from best to "worst."

Outbound Flight, Choices of One, Allegiance.

 

1) I agree with you, but I loved it anyway. I thought that Joruus was insane because of the cloning too, I thought all cloned Force-sensitives would go insane, but when I read Outbound Flight I reconsidered it. I believe C'baoth was either grown too fast, causing the same madness that any Spaarti clone gets when grown too fast without interference from a ysalamir, or he was insane simply because the original C'baoth was insane and whatever caused that was physiological and carried over to the clone. C'baoth in Outbound Flight is clearly a dark side character from the get go imo and I too found it bizarre that seemingly no one in the Jedi Order noticed, but I guess the part about C'baoth declaring himself a Jedi Master that dates back to TTT was a definite sign of C'baoth extreme arrogance (and perhaps insanity), so perhaps we should have seen this coming. C'baoth is such an outrageous character that I don't really mind, in fact I love it.

2) It's been a few years since I've read HttE, but I think there were a few hints that Thrawn had some familiarity with C'baoth, but nothing overt as "not again". Perhaps someone else can help us out here.

I don't have any problems with Thrawn running into the old C'baoth. In fact, Thrawn's shock at being Force choked by C'baoth was a great moment in Outbound Flight and I think perfectly sets up Thrawn's caution around Jedi in TTT, e.g. ysalamir.

Outbound Flight is my favorite Zahn novel, all because of C'baoth.

 

I think everyone did. There didn't seem to be anything off about him when he appeared in Cloak of Deception.

 

Thanks for the replies. I guess I wasn't completely crazy after all.

Other than comics the Thrawn trilogy and the other three books I mentioned are pretty much all I've read of the EU. Any recommendations of where to go to next? Cloak of Deception?

 

If you like the Zahn mythos you could always just finish up the rest of his books. There's still Scoundrels, Specter of the Past, Vision of the Future, and Survivor's Quest, to which Outbound Flight was the prequel. All of them except Scoundrels feature Thrawn and/or Mara as main characters. Timothy Zahn also has a few short stories in Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina, Tales from Jabba's Palace, Tales from the Empire, and Tales from the New Republic.

Outside the Zahn-verse, Cloak of Deception is a good place to start if you're interested in the prequel era, as Luceno intentionally wrote it to be like the Hobbit to the PT's Lord of the Rings. C'baoth just has a cameo role, though, so I wouldn't read it just for that connection. The Thrawn Trilogy is the go-to starting point for post-ROTJ stories, but since you've already read it I would recommend Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, which is a great old-fashion Star Wars adventure story set about a year after Return of the Jedi. Another popular recommendation is the 10-book X-Wing series and I, Jedi. You can also check this thread.

 

1. As I recall, TTT does establish him as something of an atypical Jedi, someone who's arrogant and loves the spotlight, but it was the definitely the cloning process that turned him mad. Outbound Flight kicked him up a notch, but he didn't go off the deep end until everything he worked for was destroyed in front of him.

2. Thrawn does tell Pellaeon that he was the commander of the force that killed the Outbound Flight. But in all likelihood, Zahn had only created the basics of the event until he actually wrote the OF book.

As for where to go next, the rest of Zahn's books are good. The X-Wing series is also a fun read. If you want to stick to just one author, Stover's books (Revenge of the Sith novelization, Shatterpoint, and Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Minor) are all great, although you'll want to hold off on his inaugural SW book (Traitor) until you read the rest of the New Republic period and go through the previous New Jedi Order books.

 

Outbound Flight shows that the original Jorus wasn't the perfectly normal Jedi we would have assumed -- he too had a massive ego, much like Joruus, which was a twist I liked. But Joruus was definitely additionally insane as well -- he was mentally unstable, paranoid, delusionally arrogant beyond even Jorus, and prone to memory lapses and confusion. That's the clone madness at work.

When Pellaeon wants to know how Thrawn knows that Joruus is a clone, Thrawn essentially says, "Well, there's the mispronunciation of the name, this and that, but most importantly, I know he's not Jorus C'baoth because I killed Jorus C'baoth." So his past does come out.

I second Catherine's suggestions of the rest of the Zahn books and short stories, as well as the X-wing books, which tie more heavily into Zahn's stories and use his characters more than others, and Mindor and COD as good era-starting choices. I, Jedi, by Michael Stackpole, who wrote half the X-wing books and collaborated very closely with Zahn, is also worthwhile once you've gotten into the X-wing books, as it expands on a lead character in them. The X-wing comics by Stackpole are also great, and Zahn and Stackpole co-wrote a comic entitled Mara Jade: By the Emperor's Hand if that interests you. You mentioned that you've read comics: which ones have you read?

A few other good beginning points outside the Zahn-centric universe are Shadows of the Empire, if you're interested in what happened between TESB and ROTJ; and the Han Solo Trilogy and Han Solo Adventures, two different trilogies that tell Han's adventures before the movies -- the HST is an overarching story of his life, with specific spots to fit the HSA books into the reading, while the HSA is a set of classic adventure stories just telling fun, swashbuckling adventures with Han and Chewie. If you're interested in the Clone Wars, the comics do the best job of giving you the overall picture, but Shatterpoint is an excellent standalone adventure about the costs of the war from Mace Windu's perspective; Yoda: Dark Rendezvous is a tremendous novel following a pair of young Jedi finding themselves introduced to the war that explores the natures of Yoda, Dooku, and Asajj Ventress better than any other work; and Labyrinth of Evil is an immediate setup for ROTS that does a great job of giving you a big-picture idea of the war and setting the stage for ROTS.

 

Actually, it is directly stated in HttE that Thrawn encountered Jorus C'baoth, when Thrawn said he was the commander who destroyed Outbound Flight on page 55 of the paperback edition, and another little indicator of their past history was Thrawn getting angry at Joruus C'baoth on page 44 of the paperback edition, which is something he rarely does, both of these things happened in chapter 4 of HttE.

I am seriously starting to think Havac and I think on the same wave length or something, because I seem to agree with virtually everything he says and I definitely appreciate what he says even if I do disagree with him.

 

I think the book addressed that - he was good at politics, fairly charismatic, and he got **** done.

I mean, I know it was intended to show his heavy handed arrogance, but I have to admit I practically cheered for him when he called both sides of that mining dispute out on their stupidity and childishness, and actually made them agree to a fair compromise.

I think this may give him significantly more successful at diplomacy than most jedi.

 

As I once said, C'baoth is the greatest negotiator of all time.

But it really bends suspension of disbelief that anyone would put up with the guy. It's impossible to miss the dark side in him. He's got a ton of anger and even hate in him that he doesn't bother hiding, he's arrogant to the point of truly believing that everyone is inferior to him and casually voices this opinion, he makes commands like he's the recognized undisputed ruler of the universe, he casually dismisses all opposing arguments no matter how reasonable as if he found their puny arguments amusing and threatens and intimidates anyone who takes a stance against him on any matter, no matter how trivial. One would think the Jedi would be capable of spotting a bully that doesn't try to hide his bullying.

He simply commands other Jedi Masters (actual Jedi Masters, unlike C'baoth) and they obey even the most questionable orders without objection, IIRC. How did they get to be Jedi Masters if they don't have the spine to stand up for themselves? I kept waiting for Obi-Wan to smack him.

All of this being said, I love his behavior, so outrageous. That he actually manages to pull it off just adds to the amusement, Zahn must have had a lot of fun with C'baoth in Outbound Flight.

 

I think there's a sort of implication in Outbound Flight that C'baoth doesn't have a ton of contact with the main Jedi establishment; he's mostly off running around by himself. We do know that he was trained at a satellite Jedi Academy, and I wouldn't be surprised if he's been mostly roving around doing his own thing. Add that to a long list of accomplishments and a reputation for getting stuff done, and you can understand how the Jedi Council might say, "Well, we don't really care for what we've seen of Master C'baoth's manner, but he's an accomplished Jedi Master and we haven't seen anything that makes us think we have to dictate to him exactly how he has to act." Heck, maybe Yoda tried to counsel him about his attitude a couple times, a censure or two when he really stepped over the line and some mandatory meditation, whatever, and it never really took, but he's not running around stabbing anybody or shooting Force lightning, so what are they going to do, lock him up for having a grating personality?

 

I also think that part of C'baoth's arrogance and domineering manner in Outbound Flight is meant to reflect poorly on the Jedi Order as a whole. The post-Ruusan Jedi Order had major problems with seeing itself as smarter than everyone else and being overly deferential to authority. C'baoth is an older man, he has 'seniority' in whatever Jedi sense over the others he encounters.

C'baoth is still sort of the worst of the batch, but his deviance really isn't that far from what we commonly see.

 

Dooku, even pre-turn, seemed a bit like that in the Secrets of the Jedi/Legacy of the Jedi duology.

 

Lol. Mandatory meditation time. Still though, once we learn that the real life C'baoth is the pill that he is, why clone him? So many Jedi to choose from and he picks the most prickly and and borderline of the lot.

 

How about for holding a negotiation hostage with a missile in mid-flight? Didn't Kenobi put that together? I don't remember atm. Still, I doubt that was the first time he's done something like that.

From what I remember, it wasn't even close to C'baoth. It's so far short it's not a fair comparison.

 

I just finished Outbound Flight. I don't know how I felt about it. I liked Jorj Car'das's backstory though - that was probably the best part.
And I've read all the other books - the trilogy, the duology and Survivor's Quest. This was the last one.

 

At first, I was a bit disappointed by the portrayal of Jorus. I did expect an arrogant guy, but that was a bit too ... much. However, I think I can understand why other Jedi tolerate his behavior: he's incredibly efficient, and perhaps he was not always that borderline dangerous. As someone noted, he appearede quite normal, if a bit teasing, toward Qui-Gon in Cloak of Deception. My impression is that he was always a Dooku-like character, but his descent into insanity may have something to do with the Outbound Flight Project, the development of which only started in 29 BBY, three years after Cloak of Deception.

As regards his self-appointment as a Jedi Master, we do know how it happened exactly, even though that piece of canon has been mostly forgotten. A few years before the invasion of Naboo in 32 BBY, the Elrood sector was plagued by a band of marauding Dark Jedi, but they were ultimately defeated by a small Jedi strike team under the command of Jorus C'baoth. C'baoth proclaimed himself Jedi Master. The Council did not oppose that because they were too happy with the defeat of the Elrood Dark Jedi, and they considered C'baoth had earned that right.

Oh, and another thing that disappointed me a little was the portrayal of C'baoth relationship with Palpatine. They were meant to be friends... I know that Sidious doesn't have any real friends, but at least this could have been acted out. I'd have liked to see them discuss some things with a common mind. After all, they're both veterans of Ando Prime*, and C'baoth had been his personal adviser. This should be appearant.

*Which, by the way, *should* be explicitely linked with the Andoan Wars mentioned in The Essential Guide to Warfare.

 

I just finished reading Outbound Flight. I loved it, yet found it funny how Zahn at every single chance he had made George Lucas's characters and concepts seem stupid compared to his creations.

 

I kind of find it lame when a clone turns out to basically be an exact replica of the original, not just in biology but in personality, behavior, etc. I'd have found Jorus more interesting if he'd been less exactly like his future clone, just like I kind of yawned at the revelation that Boba Fett, the greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy, was a clone of Jango Fett, the greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy.

 

Well, to be fair, Joruus was pretty much Jorus but AMPLIFIED TO THE EXTREME, like yeah, Jorus was pretty much one of those firefighters who has to subtly brag about being a firefighter every five seconds, but Joruus was like a firefighter who brags about being a firefighter every five seconds, who is also a homicidal maniac who starts fires

 

They're both homicidal maniacs

 

The only time Jorus struck out and actively tried to kill someone was Thrawn. Which in my opinion is kind of justified considering Thrawn apparently just murdered 50 thousand men women and children in one stroke. Not like he's creepily toying with people's minds and erasing them.

 

Actually, no - Thrawn's own attack only hit the weapon blisters of the Dreadnoughts.

The vast majority of the 50,000 people were killed by the radiation bombs - which were directed at Outbound Flight by Doriana, when Thrawn was not able to do anything due to being Force choked at the time.

 

I know, but Jorus understandably believed it was Thrawn.

 

The point being that, at the moment he starts choking Thrawn, the vast majority of the 50,000 people are still alive - only a few (all in or near the weapon blisters) are dead or injured.