Lit Star Wars Insider Original Fiction

Just read The Tenebrous Way. Very interesting...

The two things that stuck out most in my mind were the facts that 1) Plagueis was not the first to discover a way to create life from nothing, it was actually Tenebrous, who kept the ability secret and subtly goaded Plagueis into figuring it out for himself, and 2) The sugggestion that the "shadow" killed Plagueis before he could create Anakin, creating the notion that it could have in fact been Sidious who did so...

 

Plus Tenebous as a heretic to the Rule of 1 who has a vision of Darth Krayt and The One is interesting. I have to say, this one five page story was freakier than Deathtroopers and Red Harvest combined. Haunting.

 

Yeah, I thought Krayt was the shadow Tenebrous was seeing until the shadow killed Plagueis. Seriously, I'm loving the ambiguity of this!

By the way, what exactly happened to Tenebrous? I know his experiment backfired, but what happened to the maxi-chlorians? And why is he experiencing the dark side's equivalent of Groundhog Day, reliving his death over and over?

 

Would make the psychological battle in ROTJ take on new meaning, with grandfather vs. father vs. son.

It appears Tenebrous' Force-powers are making him relive it due to the mutation of the retrovirus on the parts of his cells that control the foresight, making him see the future blended in with the moment of his death. Which would be interesting, if it could somehow be detected by some other Force-user at some point in the future. If Tenebrous' maxichlorians are still hanging around his mummified remains and he still has some Force powers left to move around, he might try to change the eternal cycle if there's ever a living creature he encounters once his consciousness catches up with itself. I guess, from his perspective, it would only take a few seconds before the vision resets. Maybe he could manipulate the landscape, piece by piece, as time moves on, and send himself messages in the future?

 

Yeah, I'm hoping it isn't Sidious who created Anakin. Besides, if Palpatine knew all of Plagueis' secrets all along, it wouldn't make sense for him to transfer his essence in Dark Empire. I always assumed he was lying about knowing the secret to life in ROTS just to seduce Anakin, and in reality was still trying to figure it out for himself.

 

Well, far as I can figure it, the maxi-chlorians were keeping him in that state. I had also taken the shadow to be one of two things, Palpatine or a mystery figure. I think the reason it's a shadow to Tenebrous is because he sacrificed his ability to clearly see the future. I would rule out the "shadow figure" completely except for the fact of the way the book is being advertized. That all is not as cut and dried about Plagueis the Wise as Anakin was led to believe.

Also there is the shadow figure Luke sees in Betrayal...or was a dark man. Either way both visions were blocked.

I think the problem with this is that unbenounced to Tenebrous, all of it is in his mind. It won't matter how many times he builds upon his realization at the end of the loop, he'll still always reset.

 

Depends on what keeps his mind going and if there's a disturbance of some kind that disrupts the flow of events as recorded, could even be internal, if the maxichlorians decay over time. At least the site wasn't disturbed by the battle during the CW, we know that much.

 

How one could write a Tenebrous story and not call it REVENGE OF THE BITH is beyond me.

 

I read it for the Stover story (beautifully written) but, y'know, Jason Fry's article, "Family Tradition" was pretty damn good, too.

I disagreed with a substantial part of it. I think the "Yoda and Ben trained Luke to be a Jedi weapon" angle is superficial and misses a lot of nuance and, personally, tend to view Obi-Wan's role in his and Luke's RotJ conversation as that of devil's advocate. Luke must be prepared to kill Vader for the right reasons or his refusal to do so in the climax carries no weight. Obi-Wan only ever outright says that Luke must face Darth Vader again. If Luke can't kill his own father, then he can't decide not to.

What Luke has to do, ultimately, is choose and act.

And that was the doom of Anakin, I think. IIRC, his POV in the RotS novel when it comes between choosing the Sith and his wife's life, or the Jedi and her death is: "It wasn't even a choice".

That being said, I really liked one of the observations made at the end:

"I am a Jedi, like my father before me"

That line has sat ill with me for a long time. Anakin is, after all, hardly an example worth mentioning when you've just rejected the dark side. But the idea that Luke is acknowledging that he is a Jedi who, uniquely like his father amongst the Post-Ruusan Order, is motivated by his emotional attachment and love for others is pretty awesome.

So yeah, if you're around: good article Jason. Enjoyed it.

 

IMHO: He is anchored there, forever.

Spoiler Alert:
In the Plagueis novel, Hego-D muses that Rogess Nome(Tenebrous) is dead and his body might never be found. With the short story ending the way it began, but with mummified Bith remains... I can only conclude that unless someone comes stumbling along that he can take over, Tenebrous is bound to that spot for eternity..

 

IMO, "One Sith" actually seems to be a refrence to Sidious rather than Krayt despite hte obvious name connotations. This is mainly due with the fact that it appears that the shadow, which is undoubtedly Palpatine, equates with the "One Sith".

 

Except that he foresees a Sith Lord rising to such power that he has no need of an apprentice. I don't think Krayt technically had an apprentice. Palpatine had at least one.

 

Bingo.

 

Thanks Ulicus, glad you liked it. I don't see the nuance you do from OBW, but that's OK -- these kind of disagreements are what make storytelling and reacting to it fun.

Certain Point of View is a pretty cool new feature, and that one was really fun to write. I've got another one in an upcoming issue, as well as some other stuff coming up. Nice to be back in Insider!

 

I second this! While I didn't agree with how far the statements condemning the Jedi Order went, I have always thought that their rigidness and inflexibility was a large part of their downfall. To be honest I didn't like the first two Certain Point of View articles at all. They were mostly superficial and said things many fans already think/know. This one, however, knocked my socks off. If every new issue of Insider has articles as awsome as this, I will definitely renew my subscription.

 

No the shadow is Palpatine. In Stover's ROTS novel, Palpatine as Sidious is referred to as "the shadow" multiple times.

1) Palpatine didn't need an apprentice. He was functionally immortal. He only took on Anakin because he was the most powerful force user.

2) Anakin was not part of the initial future that Tenebrous foresaw of the "one sith" aka the shadow. It was only when he looked deeper that he saw that sith's possible defeat at the hands of the chosen one and arranged all the events that eventually occurred (the creation of Anakin by Plagueis etc).

And you seem to have missed the first part that the shadow would mark the end of the Sith and Jedi as the Galaxy knew them. The New Jedi Order and the New Sith Order would arise following the end of Palpatine. There is nothing comparable to what anything like that in Legacy with Krayt

 

I'll third this. It was a great piece, although like Ulicus I did disagree with parts of the opinion. What I enjoyed was that it felt more like an opinion piece, a place to start a conversation or to get people thinking about the storytelling, rather than a pitch-the-franchise bit. I hope to see more of it.

This Insider from top to bottom - Dee Bradley Baker's interview, Cat Taber's article, Stover back writing Star Wars - was one of my favorites.

 

Uh. Ok. I did say that the vision was possibly Palpatine. See above. There is also mention of a One Sith. That's Krayt. It's a purposely vague vision with some facts that are on the nose. I'm still a bit confused about the part I missed.

 

It says he didn't need an apprentice that doesn't mean he could't have one. At least that's how I view it.

 

I'll be sure to check it out, then!

Ditto.

Yeah, actually. It was really well put together. I was impressed.

 

I loved The Tenebrous Way! It opens up so many future EU possibilities...Tenebrous' consciousness lives on and surely it will only be a matter of time before someone does what Legacy did with Andeddu and brings him back to life...Andeddu's return was extremely short lived though, hopefully Tenebrous will return to all his former glory!
And why use the term 'One Sith' if it wasn't a reference to Krayt? And does the description of this Sith Lord as being so powerful and ruling forever mean that maybe we haven't seen the last of Krayt? We didn't see him die his final death after all Or maybe the One Sith will soon return to power with someone else in charge?

 

What did people think about the implication that specific types of midi-chlorians are responsible for certain abilities (or groups of abilities, I should say, assuming that Tenebrous lost all his precognitive senses, right down to being able to predict the path of a blaster bolt) anyway? That was probably the one thing I was less than thrilled with.

Though I suppose it might help explain, in genetic terms, how you get Jedi like the Halcyon/Horns.

 

You forget the future will always change whenever it is perceived. That's the thing with foresight in SW, it either tells only parts of the story or alters the timeline when people decide to act upon their visions. "Always in motion is the future..."

 

I took that to mean Tenebrous had to sacrifice something in exchange for hard-wiring his consciousness the modified midi, cum, maxi-chlorians and his foresight was the only logical conclusion since he thought he had the future all worked out. It was a face-value deal for me all the way. If there wasn't a precious toll to counterbalance the science, then there wouldn't have been a reason for the big brained Bith to panic. His fear of the unknown was his own undoing.

 

My gut feeling is that it's not a good idea and not really consistent with the spirit of TPM. But I'm confident that I can just ignore it if necessary and enjoy all the other EU material that doesn't mention it or depend on it.