Lit The Official StarWars.com Blog Thread - That's right, I went there

You can sort of go with the "Loyalist" companies thing there, at least afaik the way the Atlas tried to explain it, but yep TCW makes little sense there from what we see in Ep 2 and Ep 3, which already make little sense.

Hmm... it actually looks a lot more like they just feel "small business" is bad, as, like you pointed out they clearly do not mind megacorps. Could be some really insane believe in economies of scale, which would certainly go along with the whole megalomania theme of the Empire.

 

Though Viraxo Industries seemed to be pretty impressive in size. As they had bases in several pretty far spread systems, whole fleets of ships and used to be part of the Trade Federation as well as Black Sun. The Azzameens by contrast have 2 star bases and an odd dozen light and medium freighters?

 

How do some authors attempt to make the Imperials Space Republicans?

 

Possibly by having Palpatine refer to three Confederate worlds as an "axis of evil" during the Clone Wars.

 

More warlords: http://starwarsblog.starwars.com/2014/01/07/the-imperial-warlords-despoilers-of-an-empire-part-3/

Edit: was that an oblique Atha Prime reference?

 

Interesting. Looks like the Silentium continued to play a role after their last major appearance in the Lando trilogy.

Makes me wonder what else they could have ended up doing.

 

Interesting work on the Cronal stuff. Too bad they're doing it now, and not when EU was in danger of being wiped out.

 

Omg, how many characters have been combined into Cronal now?

 

Same Karnak as founded the Sorcerers of Tund?

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Karnak_Tetsu

Indeed.

 

By their powers combined, he is Captain Creepy!

 

Some thoughts:

Shadowspawn:
Cronal was "ripped from his mother's chest", a possible Dathomiri witch, at an early age. I'm sure this could be a reference to a specific nightsister...could explain why she tried to kill her own mother perhaps?
So either "Atha Prime" from the cancelled toy line IS "K'am'ir Zaarin" (why Zaarin as a last name?) Or it's just identifying the genetics master from "Aliens in the Empire" who fought in the Battle of Skye? Very confusing.
The army of clones led by a clone of Grand Moff Tarkin is straight out of the proposed idea for the toy line, but this paints it as possibly just a rumor from TriNebulon News. I always like that approach. Not totally ruling it out, but obliquely referencing that it was cancelled.
So Sariss IS his daughter. And he had sex with her to serve "The Dark". That is dark alright.
Cronal becomes interim Director of Imperial Intelligence after Armand Isard's death. That helps resolve the, "why would they immediately promote the last director's killer?" problem.
We get a pseudo-explanation for Cronal's existence post-Mindor. Called back from the void by Nightsisters or perhaps by Sate Pestage (reference to his dark side experiments perhaps?) or even perhaps throwing his consciousness into Otherspace (Nice, I love it.)
Only Cronal's head survives, using mechu-deru to reconstitute his body (compared to Maul's return)
The Monsters from Cronal's first appearance are definitely tied to mechu-deru creations.
Although the darksider in "Enemy Lines II" who helped transform Irek was stated as killed. It is explained that he used his mechu-deru creations to barely escape.
HO-LEE SITHSPAWN. Cronal ends up being the weird old cyborg man from that freaky Star Wars Tales story, "Collapsing New Empires"!
We also get an explanation for why Luke's hand went haywire in that story, as it was mechu-deru infested when Palps replaced it in Dark Empire.

Drommel:
We get a final fate for Drommel, fragged by his second in command. Also an explanation for why "Guardian" didn't fight in later Imperial campaigns.

Foga Brill:
Peccati Syn originally from Taris, huh. Weird. But it ties in well to the Anti-Alien prophet seen on that world.
Full name for Yzu, Malfkla Yzu. That's a mouthful. Also for Gann at Cinzero Gann.
Hah, shout out to the Order of Pessimists. Indicating that "Supernatural Encounters" is in the pipe maybe?
Nice to see that Lando still had ties to Vuffi Ra and the Silentium, recruiting them into Lando's Commandos to fight Foga Brill. (Well, Vuffi's not explicitly mentioned, but come on.)

 

Which doesn't invalidate her point. Actually kind of strengthens it - there would have been no Rebel Alliance had the Empire not been so thoroughly dedicated to ****ing things up.

I've heard that before. Though I also heard that the Empire was a lot more Orwellian in the Core Worlds, whereas the Outer Rim had a lot more freedom due to neglect.

The majority has no more right to oppress the minority than the other way around.

Yet I can think of far more instances of the Empire working with Pirates and other dangerous criminals than the Rebels ever did.

I think it is better to say that the Empire favored a handful of pet corporations at the expense of their competitors, a practice for which there is plenty of precedent and which, in my opinion, is a lot more realistic than having such a massive institution be 100% consistent on anything.

Seriously.

That would have been an interesting topic for Agent of the Empire to explore.

Seems a tad overkill.

 

Drommel on his own is Mike Vilardi from Wanted by Cracken. Drommel and Niovi is from AJ 15 by David Day. Both were originally black and white, now colourised.

 

Hey folks. Happy New Year! Hope everyone had a great holiday.

This was Rich's doing, and I loved it. It was *meant* to be strange, otherwise no one would get the joke. It's one of those things you don't overthink. Like Jaxxon. The justification is easily overlaid ... it's just not that important when you realize the reference is there for humor.

Yeah, it was the ugly appearance of the ship from Cracken's Threat Dossier that grabbed my little heart and inspired its inclusion in Viva Space Vegas. I'm not sure how the wasp Defender works in continuity now, but I figured with its appearance in the Invasion series, it was fair game to keep that reference in there.

The vignette West End Games had originally written about the sissies seemed to heavily imply that they were Lando's motivation for betraying Han in The Empire Strikes Back, given that the latter had hired them to play a trick on Old Smoothy, toying with his affections. The justifiability for Lando turning Han over to Vader on that basis always seemed somewhat absurd, and I admit I was happy to see it supplanted by A. C. Crispin's much more emotional and believable betrayal of Lando by Han in Rebel Dawn (Underworld: The Yavin Vassilika notwithstanding). Mentioning that the Tonnika Sisters had partaken in a mission with Lando's Commandos was a way to reference that earlier vignette while also pulling some cool characters (and a cool scenario) back into continuity, suggesting Lando had let bygones be bygones.

Thanks, Greg. Yeah, they still haven't fixed that byline. *grouse grouse*

This was a passion project with which Greg approached me about a year ago. Though excited about it, at the time, I actually bowed out, because I thought it would be way more trouble than it was worth. But after Greg got the greenlight, we went back and forth about continuity concerns, and I realized that my Star Wars works had created an unintentional minefield of the era immediately following ROTJ. Greg had already written the lion's share of the project, and I joined him for all the tricky continuity. There ended up being some significant challenges in that respect, but that only made my participation in the project feel fun and worthwhile.

It seemed one of the most natural fits for Dagobah Tech, especially if no one else besides Luke and Ken are supposed to know that this was the homeworld of Yoda (per Heir to the Empire) despite the fact they were on a mountain called, uh, Mount Yoda. The Arrandas had interacted with Yoda, of course, so the three of them could trade secrets between them like little school girls ... and boys.

I agree. I believe that's mostly all Greg, there.

We see more than one of these in the Clone Wars TV series, and those technically have Twi'lek-type "angels" on top, IIRC. Hence the parenthetical aside here.

From a certain point of view, yeah. This was mostly a pulling together of the implications from most of my post-ROTJ work. Note that Bill Slavicsek's Polyhedron #103 article on the Prophets of the Dark Side states that the Church of the Dark Side prophesied the return of Palpatine. At the time it was published, this was an obvious reference to Dark Empire, and I had always worked with that presumption in mind. This was simply connecting the dots for anyone that might have missed it.

That had been set up back in Who's Who: Imperial Grand Admirals, which revealed that "During the Trioculus affair, Kadann became trapped in the Lost City of the Jedi. He escaped with the help of his slave Triclops" (referring to the sneaky implant in the mutant). Having Triclops then come in and bust up Han and Leia's wedding seemed to me a natural payoff to the cliffhanger of the Glove of Darth Vader series. Of Triclops, the last book says "something strange overcame him," and then he writes that note to Ken and "suddenly changed from a passive gentle person to an angry maniac with superhuman strength," busting out of jail. (Hence, that is, in essence, when Kadann activates the implant/mind-control.) In the note, he also tells Ken that "the things I must do in the days ahead will surely shock you." Combined with how strongly the false Kadann's escape from the Lost City of the Jedi was telegraphed, the idea he mind-controlled Triclops into freeing him and breaking up Han and Leia's wedding seemed to me the most obvious direction to take the story in combination with continuity concerns.

In fact, many years ago, I pitched Wizards of the Coast on an rpg adventure called "A Murder, a Mutant and a Marriage" (an homage to Mark Twain's long-lost 1876 "blind novelette" A Murder, a Mystery, and a Marriage, which purposely did not include an ending so that authors of the day could compete to complete the story). So, you guys got the short-short version of my ending for the "incomplete" GDV series.

Sort of, if I'm making sense of your wording, Jeff. Blackhole is never referenced in the Dark Empire Sourcebook. However, I referenced him repeatedly in the Dark Forces Saga. That became problematic after Shadows of Mindor, which made it almost impossible for Blackhole and the reborn Emperor to have been playing on the same team. Either Blackhole had to have been an idiot to go against the Undying One (an interpretation which would have diminished him as a villain significantly in that novel) or/and Palpatine and Pestage would have to be fools for taking Blackhole back into their confidence once he had demonstrated his selfish ambitions and disloyalty so brazenly.

So, in a nutshell, the "Blackhole" in the Dark Forces Saga is not Lord Cronal but rather Sate Pestage via distorter ... a retcon to something almost nobody even read about or remembered. It's what I do.

Thank you. Greg had the vision for the piece and SPIN's role, and I did my best to make the integration seamless. I think it made for a fine mashup.

Many thanks, AdmiralNick! We did our best.

There wasn't much room for us to go. Reinforcing the idea of an extent New Republic Senate at this time would likely cause lots of headaches. Plus, the "looseness" of the names used to refer to the New Republic in this time frame (Alliance of Free Planets, Rebel Alliance) have already been interpreted as being loose. There's no reason such logic wouldn't extend to some of its governmental institutions like the Provisional Council, which will, after all, become the New Republic Senate.

I think that was our exact description when we submitted it for publication. Someone must've accidentally deleted it.

We had to work out the timing of Shadows of Mindor in order to get that to work. I was partial to Dan's original lining up of events in the New Essential Chronology, but that's not the progression Matthew Stover decided on, and the novel's internal dating made that original formulation all but impossible to follow. The Imperial Warlords: Despoilers of an Empire, Part 3 thus takes the same chronological route as SPIN Declassified.

I think I'll stop here so as not to write TOO long a post. I know I have a tendency toward that.

For now, please enjoy part 3 of Despoilers! And if you have a moment tomorrow, around 1 pm PST, please check out the reddit AMA ("Ask Me Anything") I've been invited to host! (I believe this is the link.)

Thanks guys!
Abel

 

Wow, Cronal... you ***. And I used to think you were cool. Pft. Should have suspected you were a major creepster when we learned you actually looked like GoT's Pyat Pree.

And Brill is another Tarisian will delusions of Promised Land grandeur? What's up with the people on that planet?

 

GrandAdmiralJello

I suppose I was ignoring the judgmental terminology to focus on it as a pure statement of fact.

After all, people due tend to prefer moderate leaders when times are good, so delegitimizing political opponents by improving the economy is certainly a legitimate if difficult to pull off tactic.

Plus, I don't think populism/demagoguery is entirely a black and white issue - just because you do something on populist grounds doesn't mean you have to support everything ever done by someone using populist justifications - just like just because one is loyal to their king doesn't mean they have to like or support everything ever done by any other king.

That does clear that up pretty well. Thanks for that.

Given the Tarkin family's long history in Republic politics and the military, why doesn't he count as a generaltional?

Fair enough.

Well, I am not as good as you when it comes to remembering details, but I always got the strong impression that the Empire worked with a lot of unsavory types, either to cover their tracks or for more profit.
-Xizor was apparently some kind of big shot in the Empire even though his criminal activities were an open secret.
-A strong working relationship with the Hutts, especially Jabba. Or at least that is the impression I get from Boba being pretty open about what he needed Han, even though such a bounty is technically illegal.
-Selling Azzameen station to a rather ruthless pirate band
-Large scale buying and selling of slaves
-I could have sworn there was a Rogue Squadron story about some Empire funded pirates, but I am still looking for that.

In any case, most of the criminals the Rebels used were "rogues with hearts of gold" types. While it would be easy to just chalk that up to simple black and white morality, but at least some sources say or show that the rebels were picky about their allies, and willing to fight those who hurt innocents - In X-Wing Alliance at least, they turned on some pirate allies for attacking civilians.

Well, I got the impression that you were saying that the Empire was given conflicting "bad" traits as a result of simplistic and inconsistent writing, and I was trying to say that it could make sense from a big picture in a fairly realistic way.

But yeah, pretty much. You are usually pretty analytical and good resources and thus right in most circumstances.

That does sound pretty interesting.

I particularly like the idea of his big enemy not being some criminal, terrorist, or foreign agent, but someone in his own department.

And to tie this back into the Warlords discussion, it would also have been great to see Cross meat Blackhole and bump up against the ISB some time - maybe even do a joint mission with Rajah Ubooki.

 

I just love reading the phrase pinpoint orbital neutron dissembler ray, awesome. Nice name dropping on Karnak and the Silentium.

 

Agreed. It's an awesome idea that Vuffi Ra and family temporarily joined up with Lando's Commandos.

 

That's a hell of a trump card.

TC

 

When I woke up this morning, opened up Wookieepedia and saw a coloured image of Drommel, I just knew the blog was back for 2014! Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, where do I begin on this one?

Shadowspawn
- That reference to The Epic Continues is just sublime, but I'm not convinced that a sensationalist news source could make that up without there being some grain of truth to it somewhere... Unless TriNebulon has been the GFFA equivalent of The Onion this entire time. Which naturally leads me to believe that the entire Atha Prime K'am'ir Zaarin affair happened, and is 100% canon. MONGO BEEFHEAD TRIBESMAN LIVES!!!
- Is there anyone that Cronal isn't? I don't mean that in a bad way. I love the masterful linking of him with obscure characters. It's just that I'm starting to suspect that he's some kind of deity and each and every one of us has a little bit of Cronal inside of us. I'm officially announcing the formation of the Church of Cronal, and since he, like Jacen Solo, studied under countless Force traditions, I'm officially retconning Darth Caedus as the third(?) coming of His Waruness, Our Lord and Saviour, Lord Cronal.
- A nice explanation of Cronal's role as Director of Intelligence, and his subsequent installation as the head of the ISB instead. I had a retcon of my own that he was appointed to the ISB a while back, so it's nice to see my suspicions vindicated... Even if I'd admittedly forgotten about that idea.
- Did the name of Shadowspawn's fiefdom - the Shadow Realm - originate in Shadows of Mindor or is that new?
- I like the dramatic change in Shadowspawn's philosophy and abandonment of the way of the Dark. I remember in Shadows of Mindor that he had such absolute confidence in the Way of the Dark that he couldn't possibly fathom his defeat, only for the self-assurance to turn into complete horror as he felt Skywalker reaching into his mind with the Light side. It's nice to see a villain reexamine things upon being defeated, instead of cackling madly in his castle while shouting "I'LL GET YOU NEXT TIME!", only to do the exact same thing over and over again.
- Even though I like the Pestage and Otherspace explanations for his survival most, the Nightsisters explanation offers some nice insight into how Darth Maul potentially survived - or didn't - long enough to get resurrected and 'borged.
- I can't help but suspect that the emphasis on "Cronal lived," is a reference to the running gag of "SAN HILL (and other characters) LIVES!!!" Well played.
- Nice to see the placement of his actions on Trailia being properly locked down in the timeline, along with an explanation of how he survived against Irek Ismaren. Unfortunately this invalidates my theory from SPIN Declassified that Pestage had survived and trained Ismaren instead.
- I'd never heard of Perek before, but now that I've looked it up I'm glad he got tied in with that Tale, removing its ambiguously canon status. Well played, gentlemen!

Gaen Drommel
- I have to be honest with this one. I really hate to complain, since I admire the authors and these articles have been pure masterpieces, but since I've had nothing but compliments so far, I feel those statements are only reinforced if I can prove I'm also capable of making minor criticisms. I just don't feel like the Drommel piece pulled its weight in comparison to the others. It's definitely no fault of the authors. Drommel fought a few early battles and then languished on a backwater world without a hyperdrive, so there isn't much to tell. I just wonder if someone more deserving could have taken that slot, such as Lankin whose fate has never been resolved despite his increasing mentions in recent sourcebooks. Of course, with the sheer number of potential candidates that people have mentioned, this is just one of those situations where it's impossible to please everyone without spending ages doing bios on every single warlord, and there were definitely some interesting parts.
- I particularly liked the fleshing out of his pre-Endor history, including his role in a number of pre-existing battles and the elimination of known Rebel bases. Finally, we get to see what happened to that base at Randa.
- Probably one of my favourite things about the Blog is giving colour to old black and white images. If I may ask, who does the colouring? Where the images originally commissioned in colour and printed in black and white to save money, or is it a diferent artist touching up the old artist's work?

Foga Brill
- When you used the image for Darth Andeddu on this one, I was expecting Foga Brill to get possessed by his spirit or somehow be his reincarnated form. Shame on you for getting my hopes up!
- Peccati Syn has a homeworld! And it isn't Aduba III! I'm glad to see you didn't take the lazy route and just assume he came from there solely because that's the only place we've seen a Pera.
- THE ANCIENT ORDER OF PESSIMISTS! You know, given the Blog's penchant for reviving old, unreleased articles that have been in deep storage, the fact that Handley is a contributor, and the hints that some of the content was inspired by Cult and Supernatural Encounters, I'm seriously holding out hope that the Blog will finally release them. If this doesn't happen, there's a considerable risk that I might cry...
- I'm really glad to see Yzu being fleshed out, rather than him just being one of the randoms killed by Daala. I'm also glad to see an explanation of why Brill and Gann aren't included in the thirteen major Deep Core warlords, despite being active in the area at that time.
- Wow! We really need more stories of Lando going on epic revenge arcs. That guy can bring some serious heat to bare when he's peeved off!

All in all, another fantastic article and a great way to start 2014! As always, once these articles end, I'm filled with a slight sadness that I have nothing left to read and no idea what's coming next, but the certainty that, no matter what it is, it's going to be amazing and well worth the wait. Excellent work, guys. Keep it up!