Lit The Official Fate of the Jedi: Ascension Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

That's one of their specialties. Hide in the force.....

 

Well, Palps successfully hid from an entire order of Jedi in plain sight, and not even the masters (including Yoda) had any clue just who was standing right in front of them.

 

That really made them seem dumb, Hidning in the force no problem with that.

No sense of danger comming from him? Comming from the senate? there is such thing has being too standardized, too regimented in thinking and perception.

 

Oh-oh. Stupid girl, oh-oh.
All you had you wasted, all you had you wasted

Amazingly enough, that seems true.

 

I'm betting Vestara will appear to be "killed" in the last book... just like how it appeared like Zekk was killed in INVINCIBLE... just like how it appeared Jag and Alema died in THE SWARM WAR.

 

as i have said before, the one sith could easily weave a complex illusion like the jedi did on yavin 4.

 

I hope not. It would be such a cop out. I'm hoping they either put her in one camp or another. Either she's a Jedi or a Sith or a future IK or a renegade. Faking her death would be so...unoriginal. Therefore it would fit in brilliantly with this series.



On a side note, where the hell is a review thread? Are we just giving up at this point with even trying to quantify or judge this series?

 

Personally, I find "that" scene in Ascension reminiscent of Cold's "Stupid Girl" song too. So we can apply two "stupid girl" songs to Vestara.

I don't think that's a good thing.

 

Just had a thought... what if Luke decides in a future series to come back alone and search the catacombs and discovered One Sith. Him vs. Krayt would be an epic battle, though Skywalker would have to be killed for Legacy to still work. If it could work, I think it'd be awesome.

 

Without going through the whole thread, I have to say, the editors really phoned it in. I caught 4 glaring errors:

1. Jacen is called Ben's uncle.
2. The Bwua'tus were identified as cousins, when they're uncle/nephew.
3. A TIE Defender is called a TIE Destroyer
4. An Interdictor cruiser is called an Interceptor.

 

The first one is not an error, just confermation

 

How did McEwok manage to sneak that in?

 

I think the strongest section of the book was the "Meanwhile, on Kesh" opening, which was told from the Sith point of view and had some spectacular pagentry. In a way, it's a shame that Abeloth has now creamed a large part of the Lost Tribe. One thing I didn't understand is why Vestara didn't sense the deaths of thousands of Sith through the Force?

To me, the rest of the book felt rushed as it had to bring several plotlines to a head. I felt that perhaps the structure of the series could have been planned better.

Lecersen's torture of the alien delegate who knew about his involvement in Freedom Flight was pretty nasty. It was made worse by the fact that we see the aftermath rather than the torture taking place. However, describing the alien as a bipedal, squat and feathered species did make me think that it resembled a turkey.

One that annoyed me was the use of call-signs "Little Boy Blue" and "Red Rider". These phrases, from our world, seemed completely out of place in the GFFA.

Presumably the Barabel Jedi are responsible for the teams of Sith disappearing when they explore the Jedi Temple. However, Abeloth and the Sith don't seem overly concerned about the disappearances, which seems inconsistent with their plan to run the galaxy.

It also seemed to me that the book implies that Ben and Vestara's relationship is now sexual. There is the scene which ends with them lying together on Vestara's bed, followed by a lot of references to hand-holding after that. They are even referred to as "lovers" near the end.

 

I do not believe that is correct, in fact it is stated that all Ben and Vestara did was hold hands and kiss. It say's that Ben is too much of gentleman and a Jedi to try anything else while Vestara is in such a vulnerable state.

I wonder if anyone else has found this to be interesting, but Dromund Kaas seems to be much stronger in the Dark Side than Korriban. The Dark Side nexus there is said to be overpowering and and more evil than what was found on Korriban. Also, Luke mentions the Dark Force and the Prophet's of the Dark Side. I wonder if there were any left on Dromund Kaas. Either way, it strikes me as quite interesting that Korriban's power pales in comparison to the homeworld of the Dark Force.

I see the Sith worlds as ranked in power, Ziost, then Korriban and then Dromund Kaas

 

That was a great scene. I was picturing Tesar and Wilyem in the shadows watching the Sith's every move. I could just see their eyes narrowing and tails thumping in anticipation, like a pair of velociraptors getting ready to move in for the kill.

That was one of the stronger scenes in Ascension.

 

As I was reading this book I was see the way that it models the prequels. Ves is the Anakin of the series, she is given the choice between attachment and the right thing to do and chooses the attachment to Ben. She chooses the sith answer and the dark side over the light. Ben is the Obi Wan of the series. He wants to see someone he loves to turn from their darkness and embrace the light, but in the end, he is going to be forced to kill them for the greater good (That is my prediction).

I thought that this was the best book of the series so far. It has so much to offer. All of the politics was actually interesting. Jag and Daala were really good and the use of Tahiri was nice to see; she has had so little to do, I am hoping that she will be used more. In all, I thought that this book used all the set up well, except as has already been mentioned the "Jacen going bad" answers. Luke setting a trap that could really backfire was huge; what a risky move, bold and one I cannot wait to see play out. Hoping that the last book is a little longer to give time for everything to be set up well for the future. With there not being any more long series coming up, there does seem like there needs to be a good base for the rest of the books to build off of.

 

And here is one of the main problems with Golden: she can write utterly fantastic scenes with zero errors, while other parts of the book suffer of clunky dialogue and out-of-character moments. Her world-building of Kesh, the Barabel scene, the battle between Jag and Daala, and the missions to Dromund Kaas and Upekzar were all excellent. Most of what was in between was good, but every once in a while you hit a scene so stupid, implausible, badly written/cheesy dialogue, or out-of-character that it just completely pulls you out of the book. Allston and Denning (for the most part) don't suffer from that, and have consistent writing throughout their books.

 

And we don't know anything about the Bwua'tus.

As for 3, no, no, no, a TIE Destroyer is what a TIE Defender turns into via mecha power. You get five TIE Defenders and you can FORM VOLTRON!

 

Then again, Dromund Kaas also has a heavy Sith connection, and not just the Dark Force. We've had this since the Mysteries of the Sith expansion to Jedi Knight, and of course with TOR making the homeworld of the Sith Empire for the millenium after the Great Hyperspace War, we've got that connection as well.

Maybe they're playing up the TOR connection. I don't know. *shrugs*

 

Is anyone else upset about Grand Lord Vol's death? After reading his little fight with Abeloth i was looking forward to seeing him in action; specifically a little Grand Master v. Grand Lord. I think that could have been enough to make up for some of the disappointments in the FOTJ series, if done properly. But not only are we denied what could have been an epic battle on par with some of the best in the EU, but we're denied Grand Lord Vol's final moments, which could have not only made Ascension better, but added to Abeloth's character by making her scarier, which has been seriously lacking in this series.

 

After a marathon read today, I'm surprised and oddly pleased.

High Lord Vol's death did indeed throw me for a loop. I expected him to die, but I also expected him to die at the hands of one of his Sith, rather than Abeloth. Also, Abeloth. Such a well-done villain.

The battle between Jag and Daala was also very well-done. I was surprised- I didn't expect an awesome space battle out of Golden, but it was well-handled and I loved all of the plotting and scheming overall. The politics and plotting really drew me in, due to their omniprescence and that they were fairly well-done. Throughout this whole book, it seemed like Golden has gotten a lot better in the Star Wars universe- I still think she does better in World of Warcraft, but this was a very well-done book and held my attention better than most of the others without a doubt. Kind of makes up for Allies.

Also, Ben and Vestara. *headdesk* I feel bad for both of them and the mess that's going to become later on; they would have made a pretty awesome pair. Things like this make me wish there were grey orders of Force-users who were actually well-known- not constrained by Jedi beliefs but also not sinking to the depths that the Sith easily do. Speaking of Sith, getting a view into the Sith culture so well was awesome, and really set the scene for all of the complications later on. The Lost Tribe are fascinating, and now I'm actually going to have to read the story series about them.

 

Sadly, I probably spoiled much of my possible enjoyment of the book by reading into spoilers. Humans are so shortsighted, aren't we?

It's hilarious how lacking in common sense the story seems to be going. How were a bunch of fresh, naive sith able to infiltrate the highest levels of government on a whim, something that took Palpatine two decades of scheming to accomplish? Why would Luke even consider luring spaceship-armed sith into a planet of trillions of innocent civilians? Why is the Galactic Alliance so ridiculously incompetent at everything?

But I haven't read the book yet, and there have been some positive reviews of the book; it seems to be a love it or hate it read. Given my healthy interest in everything Star Wars, I'll probably enjoy reading it.

 

The GA may be incompetent, but is that really any different from real-world politicians and governments? You only have to look at the current financial state of the world and the history of recessions, wars and corruption.

It seems that most eras in the GFFA have their share of wars, corruption and turmoil. For example, how many times has Coruscant been attacked/conquered in the EU? I've lost count!

Of course, if stories in the EU were all about peace, love and understanding, the sales figures would drop like a sky-diving Hutt.

 

On the other hand Vestara wandering in the galaxy (with possibly Ben on her heels) could be the basis for a bunch of spin-off stories. Most characters ever becoming a regular member of the Jedi (or other high-profile organization) usually became boring details soon after.

Don't forget Vader chose his attachment to Luke and it brought him back from the dark side.

The depiction of Vol's severed head and the fact we have no idea just how she pulled that feat with such ease gives us all the scare we need.

 

Not at all. The image of a smiling, nonplussed Abeloth holding up Grand Lord Vol's head like she just returned with a bag of groceries will go down as one of the most nightmarish moments in the entire Star Wars EU.