Lit Reading NJO...Again

That is awesome to know, thanks! Has really been bothering me.

As is this streaming site for the Arsenal match, so slow.

 

Really appreciate the scene where Corran and Ganner first scout the YV more now having done recon patrols since my last read. There is always that one dude.

Going with Vergere's choose and act doctrine here, but I am reading Onslaught, at the point Jacen follows his "Force vision" to free the slaves on Belkadan. What do you make of that?

 

Merged double posts

 

Hero's Trial is widely regarded as one of the highlights of the NJO. I personally think that Jedi Eclipse is highly underrated --- it's various storylines are all connected by one overarching theme (I'll talk more about that theme once you've read it), and Luceno's prose is at its best. I love this duology. Let me know your thoughts as you go through it.

 

One thing you tend to notice in the NJO is how it dabbles in ideas before rolling out the solid continuity.
AoC in my opinion is still in that "testing the water" phase, and not every one of its ideas regarding the Vong turns out to be of significance later - but it shows how the authorial team were being creatively bold from the start.

Highlight of the NJO? I'd still argue those as being Hardbacks + Traitor. Luceno is great, and I love the contrast between his style, and say, the more punctual style of Greg Keyes.

 

I realized today that while I've reread the series before- and some books more than one reread, I never reread SBS.

One thing this series does is hit me every damn time tho when events of Anakin's death are spelled out. I don't cry over any other series reread, even with rough deaths. But I feel physically nauseated, like I'm feeling what Leia and Luke and any other Jedi do.

That's a highlight too, I guess-that the emotions roil inside and you are there experiencing this galactic horror with the characters

 

I still can't help but be awed of Jacen's nirvana. It just is so fascinating is there a plane beyond mortal existence that for a few moments Jacen entered?

 

Yeah, NJO really excelled at provoking emotions; Chewie, Mara's illness and the strike team at Myrkr. SbS was rough, but I really liked it, second only to Traitor. Very much an ESB type of installment. And the mission to Myrkr had devastating effects for the order. Really, the SW universe hinged on it, the following novels all had to deal with the consequences of that mission. The Jedi exist because the team succeeded. Jacen ended the war. Tahiri was broken. Alema Rar was twisted afterward.

But why send kids? I mean, I understand the rationalization in the series, that the YV would have taken massive precautions if it was Luke, Mara, Kyp etc, but was that enough to justify the choice to send kids? Jedi, sure, but still kids.

 

They were mostly teenagers and teenage Jedi at that so I imagine Luke and co. were more confident in them than if they weren't.

 

Yeah, and as Jedi the group was exceptional despite their age, but it just rubbed me the wrong way because I just did not buy the rationale. The war would come to them, no need to throw them at it.

***edited because I type poorly

 

This part has bugged me since I reread it and looked at it from the perspective of an adult instead of a teen. It would've been better if Luke had created a strike team based around adult Jedi (Ganner Rhysode would've still been part of it). Sure, it'd have been less believable in smuggling 17 adult Jedi into Yuuzhan Vong space but the death of Anakin Solo and pretty much an entire generation of Jedi might've been avoided.

 

Power of the plot and all, since that mission really drives all the following works, but even Anakin's justification rings hollow. Well, going off memory here, but I am pretty sure he's the one that convinced Luke that he had to send the kids.

 

Could also be akin to the trials of Jedi apprentices in the days of the Republic. I can't remember now but did Jacen, Jaina, Tahiri, TK, etc. officially become Knights after this?

 

Yeah, in Destiny's Way there was a big knighting ceremony, where Luke told Jaina that she was the Sword of the Jedi, iirc.

Tahiri's story really tears the heart.

Bollocks, should really be more careful with this kind of stuff, if I know it for fact then I'll say it, but if not I should stay quiet. Don't want to spread possibly wrong info.

Merged posts - PG

 

Luke felt exactly what you are thinking after Anakin's death - he regretted the logic of the entire mission, and blamed himself, i.e. the order for the kids to be sent. So there was in-universe rationalization but also doubt going on.

 

True, but Luke is always beating himself up. The Myrkr mission was a mistake, though. The voxyn had to be killed, but not for that price. Of course it is easy to say that with hindsight.

 

Ignoring the fact that sending such a large team of teenagers on such a mission was cosmically stupid -- I really had a tough time believing that the Vong only had ONE voxyn queen. Surely they would have back-up pups or eggs in stasis somewhere? This is an entire race of very smart, very aggressive beings...and they make only ONE queen for their Jedi hunter-killer? That alone just sounded dumb and implausible...and Anakin's argument was just the icing on an already dumb idea.

 

Since the other voxyn were clones, maybe all the clones for whatever reason had a mutation that caused them to only be males, thus foiling the cloning plans.

 

Wasn't the reason for sending Anakin and company something to do with the strength of the Force melding, which Anakin had apparently redeveloped and introduced to the Jedi?
So they wanted that skill available on the mission.

Because they were artificially engineering the Voxyn, they doubtless wanted a method of population control - that was the likely purpose of a single queen.

 

Yeah the Voxyn were vicious beasts and the Vong as good as they were with biological engineering didn't want crazed Voxyn running around throughout there worldships.

 

Why weren't you a fan of the Jacen/Tenel relationship?

SiouxFan I don't think are feudal so much as they have a wealthy aristocracy that controls the major industries, posts of government, etc... A class of nobles that runs the show and spends its days in court intrigues. Hapes is also very isolationistic and somewhat anti jedi. At the same time I suppose space opera does enjoy portraying nobility and aristocracies. You have the queen mother who is the focal point of the government and society-the father and mother who run the show while she grows up and influence her development, the nobility who presumably have stakes in major industry and own either entire planets or large continent sized sections of land, the security services whose loyalties are to the queen(though there was that confederation coup in LOTF). They kind of remind me of Amazons mixed with Saudi politics(feudal veneer over modern society), with pirate descendants-maybe I don't know Swiss or Swedish comparisons in international(or intra galactic affairs) given their neutrality.

But the Hapans if you ask me are quite fascinating-I mean they are basically a reverse of the Salic law with Amazonian and some other influences.

 

Didn't the Barabels start that meld thing? Not that it matters. I would argue that a smaller team would make for a better meld...less people to muddy up the works.
But the voxyn weren't really a threat to anybody else, just Jedi. I'm sure they wouldn't be a treat to deal with, but they really only pursued Jedi with that sort of ruthlessness.

I see what you're getting at, but the 'palace intrigue' and infighting that is portrayed (largely off-stage) seems to be all-consuming. With that style of politics, it would be almost impossible to set up any sort of workable civil service. The Saudi or Emirati comparison makes a bit of sense, but the ruling families aren't constantly trying to kill each other. I agree that the Hapans are interesting, but I wish they were better written with a deeper explanation of society. Of course, that can be said for all of the SW universe.

 

I wouldn't say it's all consuming violent to be sure and the Hapan nobility probably view their power games in a zero sum either I win or I die manner yet at the same time Hapes has competent security forces, an apparently happy populace, and a strong(relatively speaking) position in galactic affairs.

 

Not sure what to make of Jacen's vision in Onslaught. Seemed real, yet he was captured. Why would he have that vision?