A&A The Official Walter Jon Williams Discussion Thread

I would have to agree with the others people's comments here Walter, deleted scenes would be awesome!

 

I'm waiting for them! =/

 

Walter, would LFL allow you to post such material?

 

I don't see why not. It's not of vital importance in the grand scheme of things . . . oh, wait, unless it in some way forewarns what happens in Remnant.

 

I've got another question. Is the emerald Force lightning really of the light side, or was Jacen incorrect?

 

Apologies again for my tardy reappearance. That holiday thing again. And Praxis II still isn't finished, and still hasn't got a title.

Alas, my posting any deleted scenes has been vetoed from On High. Lucasfilm owns those deleted scenes, apparently, even the ones that I cut from the book before Lucasfilm even saw it.

A pity, because there were no spoilers, some of the deleted scenes were amusing, and none of them would have reflected badly on LFL or Del Rey.

To answer some questions: the emerald Force lightning is something brand-new in the universe, and is not a dark side weapon.

As I said earlier, the Jedi/High Council and the Advisory Council have been merged. I was told that I'd agreed to this, but if so I failed to make a note of it.

The reason for this, so far as I can tell, is that the Lucasverse works on Hollywood rules, which are to combine, simplify, and merge characters and institutions whenever possible.

If the US government worked by Hollywood rules, for example, the Congress, Senate, and Supreme Court would all be the same body, and be shown on camera only by the same three people. There would be no Vice-President, because you have a President who embodies the entire executive branch within himself. And you wouldn't have the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard, but a single military wearing a uniform that looks really good on Tom Cruise.

Likewise, in the SW prequel films, we're told that the Senate has thousands of members, but only three of them seem to actually matter at any one time, currently Padme, Palpatine, and Jar-Jar.

 

That's a shame

 

To answer some questions: the emerald Force lightning is something brand-new in the universe, and is not a dark side weapon.

So if it's brand-new in the universe -- then it's not Force Lightning.

 

Since we're talking about Force powers, I got a quesion for you WJW. The power Jacen used to keep warm as the vacuum of space sucked out the heat - I know it's not a new one because he and Tenel Ka used it in their attempt to keep warm as they traveled across Ryloth's nightside in Jedi Bounty. My question is - did you come up with the name Tapas or did someone from LFL or DR? And if you did come up with the name, were you inspired by the references to Malacia, Morichro, and Crucitorn in The New Essential Guide to Characters?

 

Dammit. So can you just write the scenes, rename the characters and other code words that we would know...I'm grasping.

 

WOW it's so cool to actually talk to Walter Jon Williams. Rock of Ages kicked butt, hella funny stuff. Really enjoyed Destiny's Way, definently one of my two favorite NJO books. How do you like writing in the Star Wars Universe. I'm thinking of writing for a profession to. I'm writing a story right now about a former-Jedi turned Bounty Hunter who is hired by the Emperor to track down a rogue Jedi. There's a link to it in my sig.

I hope you had a great holliday! Happy New Year!

 

"To answer some questions: the emerald Force lightning is something brand-new in the universe, and is not a dark side weapon."

IIRC, there were green force powers used by the emperor in dark empire, that were cleary of the darkside, . Changing colors doesn't change the aspect of the powers or how powers are accessed. Since we saw that Jacen indeed accessed the power through "Anger", it clearly could not be of the lightside.


"Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to the darkside."

"But beware of the dark side. Anger...fear...aggression. The dark side of the Force are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will, as it did Obi-Wan's apprentice."

This of course would mean that green lightning "being good" is something that falls under what you said earlier,

"Another reason for the red herrings is more diabolical--- they =are= in fact red herrings, and we're deliberately misleading you. NJO is particularly thick with red herrings. We're messing with your minds, and we're doing it on purpose. (I don't know how to end this paragraph except with "heh heh heh.")",

Obviously, , , .

 

I agree, 'tis a shame.

 

..
I was hoping we could see those delete scenes

 

Warning: This is a rant about my interpretation of simple politics. I typed it up for my own amusement; nothing more.

Likewise, in the SW prequel films, we're told that the Senate has thousands of members, but only three of them seem to actually matter at any one time, currently Padme, Palpatine, and Jar-Jar.

This can actually be explained pretty easily.

For an extremely simple example, we could use the EUC Senate as an example (a thread in the EU community forum on the JC which supposedly helps with conflict management, and such). When the senate votes, the Jacen Solo FC and the Tenel Ka FC usually vote the same way (in fact, I can?t think of a time when that didn?t happen). Why? Because they have similar interests, responsibilities, and are also linked in various other ways. If I (the senator for the Jacen FC) state my case in favor of something, the senator from the Tenel Ka FC will naturally be pretty receptive to that opinion (and the same is true the other way around, of course). If one of our opinions were to change due to new information, (like finding out that the separatists had made a treaty with the Trade Federation? [hey, it could happen ]), then again, we would likely be very receptive to that opinion.

Now, in a real governmental situation, there is far more potential to have votes linked to one another (due to location, social status, trade, etc?). Being the senator from Naboo is obviously a very powerful position (as shown in the movies), for one reason or another, meaning that many other senators are very receptive to the opinions of Naboo. Obviously, Naboo had the sympathy of enough senators to tip the vote in the favor of War when Jar-Jar decided to vote that way.

Now, the movie did skip a few steps (like actually voting on the subject), but other than that, what happened is very plausible, IMO.

 

JJS, watch C-SPAN some time and see how a real government works. A mite more complex than the EU Senate or the various Republic and Imperial Senates of Star Wars.
Complex, but boring as Hoth.
Hollywood knows the average movie watcher (particularly an action/adventure fan) needs a fast moving plot with very little in the way of complexity.
Unfortunately DR and LFL seem to have (IMHO) forgotten that the average SciFi reader can take (indeed often wants) more complexity than a 2 or 3 hour movie can deliver.

 

It's disappointing that you can't post the scenes, Mr. Williams. Thank you for trying anyway.

I'm also very disappointed to hear that there's only one Council. It certainly didn't seem that way in the book, and it seems rather odd to have so many Jedi on the New Republic's Advisory Council. It also seems dangerous to have the Jedi under the leadership of a government politician. Your plan to have two was much better.

 

I have watched a bit of C-SPAN, Dewlanna Solo, and I think my whimsical musings still stand as what they are: extreme simplifications (just as I said).

Yes, each senator has a will of his/her own, but they still vote along party lines (or in relatable groups) a considerable amount of time. Why? Because a democrat will likely be more open to the opinion of a fellow democrat regarding certain things. A southerner will likely be more open to the opinion of a fellow southerner on some things?and so on.

The fact that Naboo was against the war so vehemently before added to the severity of the perceived situation when Naboo changed its mind. Politics is as much about perception as most everything else. Yes, the facts are supremely important, but one can still present the facts in unique ways to get a few more votes?

 

I wasn't aware the Jedi Council and Advisory Councils have actually merged into one! I was under the impression that the Jedi Council just had half its memeber numbers as political reps.

That can be seen as the New Rep going back to the days of the Provisional Council, where a select few councilors were the executive eladers of the Republic. 12yrs after Endor in Before the Storm, the books makes it clear the government had changed from that, saying the republic had grown too large to be administrated by that select few. Hence all the different councils and exec bodies.

The council has undergone many names: Provisional, High and Advisory Council. But how is the new council supposed to administer the galaxy now, with half of them as Jedi? They're too busy running around defending places and having adventures. That essentially leaves the other half-dozen non-Jedi as the day to day politicians.

 

Mr. Williams:

First off, I really enjoyed Destiny's Way. After Traitor (which I enjoyed), I had high expectations for this book, and was not at all disappointed.

No deleted scenes? . Could you tell us of some scenes you wanted to put in at first, but wouldn't fit in with how the novel ended up? I know Mr. Denning wanted to put an Anakin/Tahiri scene in the Myrkr mission, but couldn't make it work; were there any scenes like that for you?

A theme developed in this thread a while ago, that I will continue, on what guidance you were given so as to major events in the book. For Tsavong Lah's death, what were you told had to happen? Were you told that Tsavong Lah had to die, told that Jaina had to kill him, etc., or did you say to yourself "I want to have Jaina kill Tsavong Lah" and got that approved?

I find this new council revelation interesting. It seems to me that, considering the "The Jedi are not controlled by the government" attitude that Luke has had throughout the EU, that this sudden switch, putting the Jedi in the governments council, is odd. Perhaps Luke's new attitude towards aggression has also changed his opinion on this issue.

Thank you very much for your time in answering all the questions in this thread.

 

Mr.Williams was the Lightning that Jacen used like the Electric Judgement that is used by Ki-Adi Mundi and Plo Koon in Jedi Power Battles?its not a Dark Side power but it is very effective especially by when used by a Jedi Master,i think that one of the reasons his lightning didnt kill the Yuuzhan Vong was because jacens Vongsense and empathy for the yuuzhan vong made him reluctant to kill them so he controlled himself and stunned them instead.

 

Electric Judgement kills by the way. You use it to kill enemies in Jedi Power Battles(that game is the only source of that power by the way). Any force lightning can stun if the wielder of it chooses to limit the power flow of it, for instance Dooku using force lightning to stun his opponents in AOTC during the fight.

The fact that he used it to stun doesn't make it a "good power", as he accessed it through anger like any other form of force lightning.

 

if the lightening isn't of the force, is it of the vongsense?

 

Walter Jon Williams:

After reading Traitor, I was seriously disappointed with Destiny's Way. It seemed as though all of Jacen's character development from the previous novel was lost, and he was back to being his annoying (IMO) self. He was no longer the impressively cunning lad he became in Traitor.
His character seemed to regress.

Why?

Tsavong Lah, too, was not a mirror of the cunning character he was in Star by Star, but a pathetic, groveling idiot. Why did you reduce him to such? And why did he fail to even injure Jaina Solo when she was immobilized during their duel? I mean, he didn't score a single hit.
It was utterly ludicrious, IMO.

Moreover, I absolutely despised the style you used in this novel. I couldn't stand the fact that you used sentence fragments to describe expressions, like "Anxiously." and "Seriously."

It seemed to me as though you weren't even bothering to put effort into this book. The writing felt banal and dry, and the pace was horribly slow and boring.

My intent is not to rant, but to see if you can explain to me why the mentioned instances occurred.

Thank you.

 

ooOOoo...

Someone's call'n you out, Walter.