Lit Third Essential Guide to Characters (formerly "Who would you want to see . . . ?")

I have been re-reading Shield of Lines and I have decided that there is an essential character we are overlooking.

Plat Mallar.

I demand a short story that has Plat Mallar training on Coruscant prior to his death that includes Cole Fardreamer.

--Adm. Nick

 

As the old story existed, Fenn Shysa didn't think he was following the kid. He was following a guy, Mandalore the Resurrector, who looked like Jango and was said to be Jango's heir, while Boba Fett the kid wandered quietly around the galactic underworld but had no connection to Mandalore or the Mandalorians, and no reason for Shysa to have known about him. Jango's heir disappears, and years later some (adult) guy named Boba Fett, who is rumored to be Jango's clone son, pops up wearing very similar armor, and Shysa goes, "Oh, that must be my old Mandalore." The old story has Shysa later (erroneously) making the connection himself, as it's the only way for the Marvels to make sense. Which isn't that much of a stretch.

 

Well, that supports my theory that the stories are currently incompatible. If you're talking about my proposed retcon, that's one of the details that would be lost, yes. As I said, I'd ditch the contradictory backstory established in the Traviss story in favor of saving the events of the old story to go along with the actual events of the Traviss story.

 

There's a saying about breaking eggs and omelettes that I think is applicable, here.

 

Something I would like to see explained in more detail is Darth Vader's status within the Empire.
I have always wondered how much power Vader had before the battle of Yavin.
Was he below the Grand Moffs or was he on an equal level with them?
Personally, I like to think of Vader as a Grand Moff without a territory.

Also, what was his official title before he became Supreme Commander and the second-in-command?

 

I'd speculate that Vader was above Grand Moffs in general, but still had to bow to Tarkin in some ways due to the mans political influence and his shiny space station.

Thats said if push came to shove Darth Vader was the number two man in the Empire, so it seems muddled to me.

 

The situation in ANH was that Vader, as the Emperor's representative, was a high-ranking person, certainly higher than anyone other than Tarkin, but was outside the Death Star's command hierarchy. Tarkin was the guy in command of the Death Star, and what he was doing was up to him. Vader was there as an observer. Now, as a high-ranking observer representing the Emperor, what he says obviously has a lot of weight with Tarkin, but Tarkin is the man in command.

Stuff like Tarkin telling Vader to stop -- that's just a guy telling another guy to stop. Vader isn't Tarkin's subordinate, but he and Tarkin have a good working relationship and he's willing to not kill Tarkin's subordinate when Tarkin tells him not to.

Neither Tarkin nor Vader are really superior to each other in general. They're both members of the large class of people who report only to the Emperor; they have no other superiors. Tarkin can't give orders to Vader and Vader can't give orders to Tarkin -- except when either is authorized by the Emperor to do so (when Palpatine tells Vader "Go help Tarkin on this operation," or tells Tarkin "Lord Vader has been authorized to deliver commands in my name").

 

I agree with the above couple of posts about the Vader/Tarkin work dynamic, to a point. But there is that one line Leia gives in ANH that, for me, always implied there was more to Vader and Tarkin's history than meets the eye: "Governor Tarkin, I should have expected to find you holding Vader's leash."

Although I have a feeling this might be answered soon in a certain upcoming comic series...

 

I think Vader lay outside that whole structure. As the Emperor's number two in Sith matters he wielded a lot of influence and power in general, but when he's somewhere governed by a specific command (such as the Death Star under Tarkin) he'll often defer to them. However, I suspect that if he needed to do something about Tarkin in that instance, any de facto rank wouldn't matter. We sort of see this in his military commands, where he'll alternately leave decisions to the formal military leadership, and take personal control when he doesn't like the job they're doing. Where he probably would have a more official rank is among the Dark Side Adepts (though the Hands seem to be under Palpatine's personal authority).

As an interesting digression, in general, he seems to hold a more fixed level of power in matters military. And when Palpatine finally merges secular and dark side authority under the Dark Empire, it's military positions that he primarily puts the Adepts into (while civilian institutions like the IRC continue to do their job unmolested). I wonder if the dark side and military aspects of the Empire had a freer flow between them than the civilian wing, so that we see adepts and Sith (though not Hands) often stepping into military leadership roles with impunity, and eventually, on Byss, becoming that leadership. Or perhaps there's simply a greater mixing of the military with all aspects of the Empire; after all, we often see military commands under civilian Moffs and a pretty thorough mixture of the two authorities. That's probably a discussion better suited for the EG to Warfare thread, though.

 

Well, Tarkin, historically, was one of the few Imperial leaders to willingly work with Vader, and they were known to some extent as a dual act.

It's a bit odd, though, as by this point we should expect Leia to know that Tarkin is in command of the Death Star, so the bit about "I should have expected" would need to be read either as her not knowing she was aboard the Death Star, and realizing that Vader was hunting down the Death Star plans at Tarkin's behest, or else her simply trying to get in a dig to piss off Vader by implying that he's on someone else's leash. Which would be a very Leia thing to do.

 

I was looking around on Wookieepedia and found two separacte articles. One was for an updated Essential Guide to Characters. But the other was for a "Star Wars Character Encyclopedia". This was supposed to be of the same design as the Star Wars The Clone Wars Character Encyclopedia, but contain 200 characters from all across the series.

Are these two different books? Or did the publishers change their minds, and are now structuring the new Essential Guide differently?

 

I'm fairly positive they're two different books, seeing is the new one you've mentioned only deals with movie characters apparently.

...Unless Dan Wallace has lied to us and has forsaken the EU...

 

That lying apostate!

 

Halfway into Conviction, I've had a brain flash that if this new guide does amount to The Essential Biographies, Ben Skywalker needs to be Luke's biographer. Pretty much because of this:

 

I like to think that Yoda's species just smells bad naturally.

 

I figured it was the swamp that did it. Swamp gas and all that. Flammable, makes things stink. Ever drive by a salt marsh? It's quite... aromatic. Not quite paper-mill malodorous, but it stinks. And if you live in a swamp, you can expect to take on its smell.

Anywho... While there's no doubt a whole slew of characters that I'd like to see either added or updated for the third EGtC, I can't think of any off-hand. Though, some elaboration on why Zuckuss ended up in prison would be nice.

 

I still suggest as much IU as possible. Maybe have major characters, then each gets something IU, varying for the character.

Take Zayne Carrack- Have an OOU page that gives his history, then opposite a picture of him that takes part of the other page, and say a wanted poster for when he was a fugitive, with a picture and short description of him, as well as his accomplices on the run- Gryph, Jarael, Rohlan Dyre, ect.

For Palpatine, have a couple- one an except from his Dark Side compendium, and one maybe a short editorial of him declaring himself emperor.

Darth Bane have a short lesson from his holocron.

Things like that. Break it up format wise, add IU stuff.

 

Hm, I concur with that. Do something similar to the IU bits that were added in the first EGtAS and the second EGtD.

 

They've been doing that. We need more IU. Way more.

 

I wouldn't mind seeing Nirama, the omnipresent-but-sort-of-polite-crimelord who had his alien fingers in every pie for six years of interactive RPGA gaming.
I wouldn't mind seeing one or more of the named, Wizards iconic characters given credit for the majority of the 10 years-worth of adventures and supplements printed by Wizards of the Coast.
I wouldn't mind seeing something similar for the 11 years of WEG stuff, either.

First couple of pages were like, "Hey, these guys from the novels!" "Hey, these guys from the comics!" "Hey, these guys from the novels and the comics" I just figure I'd be a little different and go, "Hey, this guy from the RPG!" It'd be nice tribute to dedicate one or two character slots (out of what, 50-60?) to something other than novels or thirty year old comics. I figure WEG and WotC had the courtesy to represent (or misrepresent) a bunch of the essential characters anyway, maybe the favor could be returned. Could just be me, though. Maybe Mr. Wallace has already had his fill of all-things RPG.

Also, I'd like to see a Kreia entry that confirms her past as Arren Kae.

 

Speaking of KOTOR 2, I'd love at least a mention of the Exile.

And also, I'm beginning to hope that Kerra Holt gets an appearance in this guide. Probably unlikely, given the timing, but still... a guy can dream.

 

I'm hoping this guide will deal with all corners of the SWU. The 2002 edition focused mainly on the films and novels. I'm hoping the new edition will include characters from Marvel, Dark Horse, TCW, etc.

 

Tyber Zann.

Dude beats Thrawn in space and steals from Palpatine. Only thing keeping him from being a Sith Lord was a lack of Force sensitivity. Also, Wookieepedia seems to source a lot of his background to a forum post, whose legitimacy I can't seem to confirm.

 

After some consideration, here's the list of characters I'd include, in chronological order of when they lived...

1) The Je'daii (Sek'nos Rath, Shae Koda, Tasha Ryo)
2) The First Sith (Ajunta Pall, Karnass Muur, XoXaan)
3) The Daragon Twins (Gav and Jori)
4) The Brotherhood of the Sith (Exar Kun and Ulic Qel-Droma)
5) Darth Revan
6) Darth Malgus
7) Darth Bane
8) Darth Plagueis
9) Quinlan Vos
10) Galen Marek
11) Kyle Katarn
12) Cade Skywalker

As you can see, I specifically chose to omit any characters featured in the movies. There already exists a plethora of stories and information about those characters; by highlighting less familiar characters, the Essential Biographies would hopefully point new readers to the gems of the Expanded Universe, in the same way that reading previous Essential Guides led me to read Tales of the Jedi.