Full Series Star Wars the Clone Wars: Dark Disciple (SPOILERS)

I have a question about the first chapter of the book regarding the Jedi Council. Why is Depa Billaba on the council? After AOTC she took a seat off the council and Obi-Wan replaced her. The only solution I can think of is she comes back on the council after Adi Gallia's death. But then she would take another seat off the council because she is not on it and ROTS and we know she doesn't die.

 

She might be a temporary replacement until they elect someone else. I know in the EU there were differing levels of seniority, with some members being temporary, some leaving when they choose to, and some being there permanently.

Also, Todd the Jedi, it would probably be a good idea to add "SPOILERS!" to the thread title. Just so everyone knows what they're getting into.

 

Spoiler

Why does Ventress refer to Mother Talzin and all of the Nightsisters dead on page 54. I thought the first 4 episodes took place before SOD. Does Ventress know that Grievous killed Talzin? Or did she just assume that Mother Talzins mist form was her spirit?

 

Spoiler

Pretty sure the latter. And she may as well have been, since she couldn't even be bothered to bury the dead Nightsisters.

 

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Also, how is there any possible way the first half of this takes place before SOD. In SOD, the Shadow Collective leaders for the Pykes and Black Sun: Fife and Ziton Moj are aligned with each other, but in this the Black Sun is trying to merge the Pykes and The Black Sun together forcefully. And the Black Sun later comes to Oba Diah to fight with the Pykes.

And surely Mother Talzin would of reached out to Ventress at least once in her weakened form.

 

Spoiler

For whatever reason they omitted SOD(guess to streamline the storyline and the comic form of SOD was itself severley streamlined to where they may cause confusion with eachother in the two different forms these episodes were released in) and its basically a continuation of where Massacre left off with gaps missing. Talzin was very much around, and traveling onboard a personal ship back in Season 6's lost missions to her secret cultists but after season 4's arc it looked like she was done with Ventress or that her destiny followed a different path at this point on. Looks like after the Shadow Collective disbanded the Black Suns went back to warring with the Pyke cartel, probably stuff they been doing to eachother along with the Hutts for years and years before Maul united them as one family under his hand.

 

Spoiler

So do you believe this is after or before SOD Vorax?

 

SOD is set inbetween:

Dark Disciple Novel
130Lethal Alliance
131The Mission
132Conspirators
133Dark Disciple
Son of Dathomir Comic Series
134The Enemy of My Enemy
135A Tale of Two Apprentices
136Proxy War
137Showdown on Dathomir
Dark Disciple Novel
138Saving Vos Part 1
139Saving Vos Part 2
140Traitor
141The Path

http://www.starwars.com/news/star-wars-the-clone-wars-chronological-episodeorder?repeat=w3tc

 

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But I just don't see how that order is possible when the Shadow Collective is still intact in SOD and the Black Sun and Pykes are still alligned. But in this the Pykes and Black Sun are fighting.

 

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It's a complete mess. You'd think there would be just a little bit of animosity between Fife and Ziton Moj in issue 2, but there's nothing. In fact one of the Black Sun soldiers tries to rescue a Pyke who was caught by a grapple droid. No suggestion of tension in issue 4 either, and the two groups appear to be still separate from dialogue between Moj and the weird skeleton-like Pyke. And we still have the issue of exactly who's controlling the Pyke Syndicate after Lom's death. Is it Marg Krim, or is he just one of many Pyke leaders (which is the impression I got from the book)? Is he the mystery Pyke seen in hologram in issue 4, or is that somebody else? Hell, is Marg even still alive after Black Sun attacks him in Dark Disciple? If so, is Fife the new leader? If he was, then why would he willingly work alongside Moj, and again, who is the unknown Pyke in issue 4? Maybe Black Sun was only attacking Krim and not the greater syndicate, but then why would the rest of the Pykes continue to trust them, especially Fife? Did Fife sell out to save his own skin? Have the Black Sun and Pykes actually merged, and if so, why does their dialogue suggest differently in issue 4?

This is so needlessly confusing, and a good reason why showing these stories out of order and in different formats is doing the show a great disservice.

 

This always bugged me about the show in general; I'm sure less determined viewers lost interest when they were confused by the strange running order of the episodes. However, I am glad that these dangled plot threads are being tied up on some level.

By the way, here's my (largely spoiler-free) review of Dark Disciple:

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertai...rgets-sith-lord-book-review-article-1.2283261

Hint: it's essential reading for Clone Wars/Ventress fans!

 

Just seeing the title "Showdown on Dathomir" makes me really wish these episodes could have been animated instead of made into books. That would have been amazing. I guess the comics are better than nothing though.

 

Okay I finished reading the novel yesterday. It was very good and worth the wait.

II think a lot worked and some things didn't so I'll just go good and bad.

Bad: Aayla Secura, Vos' former Padawan isn't even mentioned, Tholme being killed off so casually and towards the end of the book Vos doesn't seem to really care what Ventress did (I get that they don't count those comics as canon anymore, but you'd think since George Lucas loved them so much the writers would treat them with a little more respect), the Mahranne aren't described very well (what are they? some kind of fox or dog species I would assume), the fact that the Jedi council and Anakin for that matter don't seem to remember what Ahsoka went through and they don't consider that Vos may be in a similar situation, in the first half you can't tell where an episode begins and ends though this does become less and less of a problem as the novel continues, and finally (and possibly the biggest offense) cutting out the fight between Dooku and the Bounty Hunters.

Good: The way it is written is very well done. The characters are spot on especially Obi-Wan, Dooku, Yoda, Ventress, and Boba, the fight scenes are very well described (something that's hard to do), the Sleeper was a incredibly well done creature and the way they just talk about it before we get to it made me dread it, Dooku is one hell of a villain, Vos' evolution is awesome: from a carefree maverick to one of the most horrifically scared and traumatized people in the Star Wars universe, the relationship between Vos and Ventress was very well handled (when I first heard about it I laughed, now all I can do is weep), the Blue protocol droid in the beginning was hilarious, reminds us to never mess with the Black Sun, the Pykes being portrayed sympathetically (makes me wonder if their arc with Ahsoka is before or after this), the description of Ventress in the dress did the hard task of making Ventress sound attractive, Ventress dying on Christophsis where she was introduced in the cannon, unlike some reviewers I didn't mind the triple agent thing Vos had going on, Obi-Wan fearing the dark places the Jedi are going, Plo Koon seeming to remember Ventress cutting out Wolffe's eye (still canon as far as most of us are concerned), and finally Ventress' funeral was beautifully done and I admit, I cried.

So do you guys have any negatives or positives about the book?

 

Wait, they cut the Bounty Hunter attack! But they showed the awesome animatic!

 

I just had an interesting interpretation of the issue. Remember the dinner scene from The Incredibles?

Basically, my explanation for the Pykes' and Black Sun's actions in DD can basically be summed up as this:
The fighting siblings in the video represent Black Sun and the Pykes going at each others' throats in DD, the parents struggling to keep order represent Death Watch trying to keep everyone in line (offscreen of course), and the ringing doorbell that forces everyone to pretend like everything is fine represents Darth Maul's liberation in SOD.

 

Well...

Spoiler

while I don't want to read too much into it and be cautious - I kinda get the impression Ventress may come back in a manner similar to Talzin with how Talzin is able to travel in and out've the spirit and physical realms . Her body turning the water into the water of life, the green stuff and the Nightsister temple and all being strong in the darkside could lend a good possibility we'll be seeing Ventress again in some capacity. Maybe Talzin foresaw it , that Ventress would be the replacement and she did say the Nightsisters would survive as they always have. In any case Ventress's body has brought the magiks back, and their appears to be spirit voices. But they claimed darksiders cannot pass on or retain their spirits within the physical realm, but the Nightsisters and Talzin do certain appear to .

 

I haven't read it yet, but this is almost exactly what I was thinking when I heard about the mob war. Maul's on Stygeon and leaves a temporary power vacuum in the Collective, so the crime syndicates use this opportunity to continue whatever petty grudges they had (and act like the Mandalorian Supercommandos have no say in this despite Maul earning their loyalty through more than just credits/threatening to kill them, a fact that carries over into SOD). Meanwhile, the Hutts simply broke off from the Collective. Once Gar Saxon and Rook Kast free Maul, Black Sun and the Pykes decide to play nice because Maul will kill them for not doing so being counter-intuitive to his goals (at least they could be honest about what happened to Lom in his absence since his death was outside the realm of the mob war).

 

As long as Fife and Ziton Moj didn't end up killing each other, it seems like a good theory.

 

Spoiler

Maybe two possibilities, Ventress becomes the next "Mother", or her lifeforce, by rejuvenating the water of life, could bring Talzin back as she may be a creature like no other in the Star Wars universe as so far she's one of a kind but Ventress does appear like a worthy second and as someone Talzin may of been semi-shaping for the role. It's unclear why they'd send Ventress away and Talzin would not send her own son away . They never explain much, even in a novel format would would be ideal where they do not have to worry about constraints as you would in a comic or movie with editing and time. Who was that weird tattoo guy that comes outve no where to take infant Ventress, and why? The Nightsisters and Talzin alone would've been enough to handle pirates, was there something else? We don't know and at after this book apparently not. Ventress and Maul both have to be around the same age even. Talzin was allied with Sidious atleast 15-25 years before TPM. Vos come to think of it looked like he was in his late 30's in TPM since they used that hobo looking North African Berber-looking guy as the character. IN SOD Talzin's true center of power was not the Nightsister fortress temple but rather in the Nightbrother camp, was some kinda grave complete with a monolith . We never learn what happened to that tomb, perhaps Sidious didnt realize it himself and never bothered destroying it but someone like if he did know would of course commit sacrilege by destroying it. While her death scene was meant to be similar to Vader's in a sense, as with Lucas everything has to be repetitive like poetry to where its supposed rhyme. She took the lightning meant for Vos while Vader took the lethal lightning meant for Luke. But Ventress' burial plot though could become like Talzin's in SOD. Nightsisters apparently only exist on Dathomir. But the Nightbrothers and Nightsisters are both wiped out supposedly.

 

This was a brillaint novel, although I would have preffered a comic series like SOD since it would have been nice to have seen what the new characters looked like and have a better idea of what was going on. A major shame that these scipts weren't produced in to episodes.

+ Brillaint development for Quinlan Voss
+ Ventress was a still villain and a pretty unpleasant person for most of the novel.
+ Finally we get a Koorivar even though it wasn't Passel Argente.
+ A speaking Gamorean Guard.
+ New Jedi
+ Raxus Prime again which showed how many people were supporters of Dooku and considered him to be a hero.
+ Ventress was killed off - if every major character survived TCW error it would be riddiculous.
+ Feud with Black Sun and the Pyke Syndicate, I love how they were reccuring villainous factions on TCW.
+ The Jedi were going down a really dark path.
+ Boba's Bounty Hunting gang appearing again tied in really nicely with Bounty.
+ This arc did a good job of showing Republic losses and that the war was not a walk in the park for them.

- The Bounty Hunter fight was cut out.

Here are a few things that got me thinking...

Grievous gives Dooku lightsabers as proof of the Jedi he has killed so Dooku can put them in a trophy cabinet, but I was always under the impression that Grievous kept all of his lightsaber trophies in his lair? He had his own collection right?

Was Dooku telling the truth when he said that he didn't order/want Tholme dead since the CIS had won the battle and he was an old friend?

I liked the idea that Dooku cared for Assaj and was genuinly upset when Sidious ordered him to kill her, but it looks like she was nothing but a pawn to him. I don't get why Dooku told her he betrayed her because she failed him for the last time... did he just think that sounded cooler than my Master demanded your demise?

I found the Black Sun and Pyke situation confusing too, I was under the impression Fife was the leader in SOD. Maybe the leader had been killed off by Black Sun along with his family and then Fife replaced him? TCW had a habbit of not filling in the blanks like with how Admiral Trench survived and it was never mentioned how he managed it.

Dooku said something like Palpatine is nothing but a pawn in a game of Corporate Monoply. I guess that the Corporations (Trade Federation, Techno Union etc) didn't give Separatist people much bother since they were secretly more in league with Dooku and the CIS anyway. To the Separatist citizens this would make Dooku look strong since he wasn't a push over to the Corporations and Palpatine look weak since he didn't have much control over them.

 

Well, Boba obviously got Slave 1 back from Hondo.

 

This.

 

These were a few of the great things about this novel, though I don't feel Ventress will return. I was sad to see her go, but the way she did didn't make me dislike the novel. Her passing brought the spirit ichor back to the dead water and transformed it into the Water of Life, which I believe is hinting that Dathomir and its Force magicks will always survive, as Talzin once eluded to. The whisper of "sister" leads me to believe that as I suspected, the Dathomiri are different than Sith, and some can indeed maintain the "self" after death. I believe Ventress was Talzin's insurance policy - even after the massacre, and the events of SOD, Ventress - alive or dead could return to Dathomir and seed life where it had faded.

 

Way I read it, the water of life is connected to Talzin. So either Ventress will become a being like Talzin now that Talzin is truly dead or the ichor stuff will rejuvenate Mother Talzin. Perhaps the water of life flows to Talzin's tomb which was in the Nightbrother's camp and the true source of her power and . Where she did not succeed with Dooku's blood, Ventress' blood would suffice. Both Talzin and Ventress are not strung up like the Nightsisters in cocoon sacks their burials are apparently much more unique. Nightsisters are truly wiped from what is apparent by Talzin's actions in later episodes or DD, none alive around. You could argue some fled off world of course. With Ventress and Talzin, both had good deaths, you know very dramatic and you felt something and fi you bring them back you don' t really want to lessen that however I think the opening is still present for either of them to return at some point in some capacity.