Zaarin's Capture of Palpatine

I concur. TIE Fighter is the finest game ever published under the SW banner, the only ones that come close are the other Lawrence Holland X-wing games and the Dark Forces series (though more the first and third than the second, IMO).

 

I've heard KOTOR is very good, but it's a RPG, not a flight sim or anything, and it's on the X-Box, unfortunately.

And I haven't been able to find Clone Wars here in Taiwan.

Incidentally, I've heard rumors (think the NEGtC mentioned it) that Arden Lyn was luring Zaarin into a trap on the orders of presumably Palpatine. Though like many in-universe rumors, it should be taken with a grain of salt.

 

KOTOR hits PC in November, I believe. I managed to resist buying that particular console for a while, I figure I can hold out another 2 months.

In any case, it wasn't much of a trap, if a TIE Defender squadron led by Maarek Stele containing Lord Vader couldn't stop Zaarin, then someone screwed up. The Majestic was disabled, and the Glory managed to escape.

 

Off topic, but still refering to TIE Fighter.... (greatest. game. evar)


Maarek Stele. Random Speculation: Anyone think there could be an interesting story about how he was cloned from Marek Stele? (Yes, have read the TF strat guide, so I know his backstory, but, hey, ya never know....)

 

Wouldn't surprise me if he were made into more than a few clones that are now in EU limbo, like the thousands of Baron Fel clones that Thrawn turned out. I've said for quite a while that if their sons were half as good as their fathers, then the NR (or Empire) would not need any more pilots for about a generation.

 

There was no such character of "Marek Stele", .

A clone of Maarek Stele, if it was a Spaarti clone would be, Maaaareek Steelee, . Actually probably either of Maaarek Stele, Maareek Stele, Maarek Steele, etc as a name.

 

"Maareek Stele" seems the least ridiculous, to me anyway.

 

While looking into the backstory of Stele a bit, I noticed that somewhere along the way he earned the title 'Tan'. Formally, you would address him has 'Tan Maarek Stele'. What exactly does that mean? None of the other Emperor's Hands have such a rank, and as far as I know, Stele was the only one trained in the Force by the Secret Order/Prophets of the Dark Side. So is 'Tan' some Secret Order rank? If so, what does it signify?

I wouldn't be surprised if some clones were made of Maarek Stele. I would imagine that Thrawn and Stele got along pretty well together. They worked closely together going after Zaarin, so they got a chance to know each other pretty well. Thrawn liked loyal servants of the Empire, and Stele admired men with a sense of honor and military dignity. Damn, imagine an entire squadron of Maareek Steles...

This also makes me wonder how much of a role Stele played during Thrawn's return from the Unknown Regions five years after Endor. I would imagine Stele took the first opportunity he could get to be reassigned to the Chmaera, and him being a Hand and all, I'm sure he coulda pulled a few strings to make it happen.

 

In one of the old newspaper strips, Anakin Skywalker, was referred to as Tan Skywalker. Maarek shares that rank with Anakin Skywalker. Tan Maarek Stele is actually an obscure refrence to back cover of one of the earliest editions of the Tie Fighter strategy guide (pre collector's cd-rom edition), where he was referred to as Tan Maarek Stele.

It's a honorary pilot title. Only the best of the best pilots receieve it. We only know of two so far that have received it, Anakin Skywalker, and Maarek Stele.

Actually if Maarek "was entirely loyal", he would have headed to byss, to continue to be an Emperor's Hand of the Emperor there, as that is where most of the Hands went after the Battle of Endor, if the Emperor's Pawns article, and Dark Empire sourcebook is any indication.

 

Actually, the Emperor's Pawns article says Stele served under Soontir Fel after Endor, as he saw in Fel a semblance of what military service should be. Honor and devotion.

Which, now that I think about it, leads me to believe that Stele did indeed fly for Thrawn after his return from the Unknown Regions, as Fel's 181st Squadron allied with Thrawn.

Somewhere along the way Fel and Stele parted ways, as Fel went on to work with the Chiss Navy, and Stele stayed with the Remnant, perhaps under Pallaeon.

Anyway, so Tan is probably some thing Palpatine came up with, as it seems only he can say who's Tan and who's not. I wonder if it has some ancient Sith meaning or something.

 

"Actually, the Emperor's Pawns article says Stele served under Soontir Fel after Endor, as he saw in Fel a semblance of what military service should be. Honor and devotion."

You answered the question yourself, as I was trying to lead you to doing, that "he wasn't entirely loyal". Infact in the novelization in the strategy guide his loyalty is questioned over and over, because the empire has his parents arrested, and he doesn't trust the empire very much, and he only helps the empire in hopes that they release his parents someday.

 

For all those talking about how great TIE Fighter is, yeah, it's good. But I found it much easier than X-wing was when it originally came out. X-wing gave me a real challenge on both the gameplay and the controls. The controls on TIE Fighter seemed a lot easier than the X-wing controls had been, which made gameplay easier. And gameplay itself seemed easier. Combined with the controls, I didn't find the kind of challenge I was after.

 

Damn shame, that Tie Fighter doesn't run in windows XP, they really should decide to release them again with XP happy compatibility.

 

I agree, Knight, X-wing was a LOT harder than TIE Fighter. XvT and XWA were easier though, probably a little tougher than TIE Fighter with the improved AI, even if it did include the newer advantages.

Also Val, I too had that problem about 6 months ago and looked into it again. Not too long ago, they rereleased both games in a Win95 native format, and I believe I ran XP's compatibility mode to get them to run correctly.

I was irritated that I had to shell out 20 dollars for two games I've already purchased (twice, floppy and the first CD, plus three expansion packs), though.

 

If you got them working good for you, but Lucasarts on their site says that tiefighter doesn't function in xp, and I was never able to get it to work fiddling with the win 95 emulation modes.

Though X-wing worked but cutscenes were buggy IIRC.

more here

 

The world's not fair, isn't it?

*I can't get some of my old games to run, either*

 

It's worth a shot, anyway. I can run them both without issue, and all cutscenes work great. Combatibility mode is one of the few good things Microsoft has done lately.

 

Maarek wasn't entirely loyal while his dad was still an Imperial prisoner, yes, but once his dad was released his faith in the Empire seems to have been renewed. In the post-Treachery at Ottega part of the strategy Guide, he even berated himself for trying to second-guess the Rebels, ashamed that he would even consider putting himself in the shoes of the Rebellion.

However, it was after Palpatine's death that Stele felt his loyalty wavering again, once he saw all the chaos and backstabbing of the Imperial ruling elite. He became a loyal Imperial again once he met up with Fel again, though. He may be an on-and-off Imperial, but it seems he is now quite loyal, as he's sticking with the Remnant even in it's now-weakened state.

Somewhat off topic, but oh well: Could someone tell me if Thrawn knew of the Emperor's death while he was in the Unknown Regions? I hope it doesn't sound like a stupid question, but I haven't been able to find anywhere if he had any contact with the rest of the galaxy during his five year 'expedition'.

 

When was his father freed? I haven't read all of the strategy guide, mostly only the Stele Chronicles novella. I wasn't awhare that he was freed in the Strategy Guide ?, If it was freed in the strategy guide which section?

Palpatine was in contact with Sate Pestage, actually, while he was on Corusant. Dark Empire sourcebook, implies that he contacted most of his Hands, and other forces, IIRC.

 

For configuration issues with DOS games in XP, you should have more faith in jp-30...

 

Now if someone could just get old dos wing commander games working in win xp, .

 

Val - that fix should work for those too, if I understand it correctly...

 

Yoda Stories?

 

He's right about VDMS being a lifesaver, and ScummVM is fantastic.

 

Personally, if they're going to rerelease X-wing and TIE Fighter to be XP combatible, they should add some new TODs to go along with all the TODs that already exsist for those two. And with new TODs, either give use the original strategy guides expanded to not only include strategy info for the game but extra story material to cover the new TODs or simply new novellas (or even regular novels) to cover the new TODs. Any more info on Farlander and Stele would never be a bad thing.

I mean, after the last add-on to X-wing and prior to the NJO, when was the last time we heard about Farlander? And I believe it's been mentioned that Stele appeared either in the Dark Side sourcebook or an issue of Gamer. But would it realy be all that bad to see exactly some of what he was up to after Endor? Or even his reactions upon learning what had happened at Endor? Would be nice to see both of them post Endor and pre-NJO.