EUC S.O.S. Save Our Skywalker (Temp Edition)

I don't think it's definitively spelled out in sufficient detail to decide the matter, so I suppose there remains room for positive and negative interpretations. We do have the images in the Emperor's throne room of the attack on Mon Calamari in progress when Luke is confronting him, with the attack in progress and the planet being hoovered, what need for Luke to do anything?

I suppose so, I think I'll go with the intrepration that Palps made the attack/ oversaw it and once Luke came in one of his first acts for his protege is to take over the lead(or supervise) afterwards and then we get to Luke sabotaging the World Devastors. This allows Palps to have Luke believe he's under control while Palpatine slowly seduces him to the DS.

No- Mon Calamari civilians (and possibly others) would have been attacked under Luke's orders (because he took command of the Imperial war machine- same role as Vader).

He would have been trying to kill as few as possible- but he would have had to issue some orders- for him to believe he was deceiving Palpatine successfully at all.

At least, that was the impression I got, and that that was one of the reasons why Han was so angry.

Its debatable how much Luke would have needed to done to maintain the ruse. If there was a ruse at all. Sure, we saw Imperial officers reporting to Luke, but its doubtful Palpatine ever really believed Luke would have turned that quickly or easily. And Palpatine doesn't really care if Luke blew up every World Devastator at Mon Calamari, the longer Luke keeps up the ruse, the greater the risk to Luke himself, that's half the point of these big moments. Like at Endor, Palpatine tempts Luke that the only way to save his friends and the whole Rebel fleet is for Luke to turn to the darkside, or even just to take a swing at a "defenseless" old man. Luke couldn't resist, and then Vader was there to meet him. Although even if Vader didn't block that first blow, Palpatine possibly could've just sent Luke flying with Force lightning (like he did to Mace Windu). Or Vader needed Palpatine's help to turn Luke, something like that.

When Luke was brought to Byss, it was sort of the same thing- Palpatine had emerged from the Deep Core with a huge fleet, even dying had only slowed down Palpatine's plans for a few years, so the only way to win was to submit- temporarily. Although that is often the Sith dynamic- "Sure, let's work together until we've both fulfilled our goals and then we'll see who kills the other first". Which was sort of what Palpatine did at Byss, offered Luke a chance to sabotage the Imperial war machine, he'd just have to step into the darkside to do it, and Luke pretends to agree but starts taking out clones the first chance he gets. Which is why Palpatine then just falls back on breaking Luke, forcing him into submission, which is the state we see him in at the end of Dark Empire until Leia can reach him.

Electric Judgment would be cool to see more often, but basically, Force lightning, whatever color, is seen as a darkside power, as the films show it. It would be nice if the Sith got one color while the Jedi got another, just like lightsabers, but can't ever let the Jedi have that much useful stuff, right? TCW doesn't help like one episode Anakin Skywalker loses his lightsaber and he's not that useful without it, whereas like in another episode where Dooku is ambushed and nearly assassinated but he starts throwing lightning around. At least lightsabers negate Force lightning pretty easily. It'd be nice if there was a Jedi skill to redirect or block Force lightning, but we've only seen Yoda do something like that (and Kyp in one mostly forgettable NJO book). The Last Airbender did some nice things with that idea too (the good cartoon, not the horrible live action movie of course), and so that kinds of unfortunately limits it to Jedi Master level at least, instead of being a Jedi counter to Sith. Although even in the TOR game Force push tends to be the Jedi equivalent of Sith lightning, but in actual combat outside of game mechanics, we usually see everyone hurling everyone else around. Basically it falls under the "too convenient for the heroes" rule. Which is probably why we only see Luke use in TUF, where all the shackles and sideplots and contrived excuses and useless government plots are finally moved to the side so the Jedi can just save the day. Sadly the following book series have done the exact opposite, almost enshrining all those annoying elements of a weak plot stretched out far too long while barely having any conclusion before rushing to the next attempt. Writing for powerful Luke can't be easy but they can't just keep falling back on the same excuses to keep him out of the final battle for five books.

Oh yeah, I remember that Star Wars Tales comic, that was a good one with how many holograms Artoo has collected over the years. One of Artoo's metaphysical roles is to be a witness, since at some point he's supposed to relate the whole saga to a Shaman of the Whills or something like that. Which is why his absence from FotJ when Luke left on his journey was annoying, at least let him tag along, but since so much of the books spend a lot of time as just running battles, there's no place for Artoo. Unless you count kiddie adventures with Allana, but those aren't exactly riveting. Although I sound like a broken record by now, but it'd be nice if Luke could add some toys to Artoo. In the OT we only saw Artoo do so much since those movies are old, but we saw a lot more from Artoo in the prequels (flying for instance). Most of the nicer tech has probably been stolen or lost over the decades, but they're not just a ragtag rebellion anymore so upgrading Artoo shouldn't be that hard. Artoo can't even fly into battle alongside Luke anymore- since Luke wasn't really doing much starfighter flying in FotJ, stuck with just the Jade Sabre and basically no support from the Jedi (they would, but for some reason GA security is so much better than Imperial security was). Although in Inferno, I think Luke faked his death but still brought Artoo along with him onto Jacen's Star Destroyer, right? I haven't looked at a copy for a while, but I think I vaguely remember Luke saying Artoo was getting an escape ship while Luke rescued Ben or something like that? Too bad they didn't even bother with that for FotJ.

oh ok, I see what you're saying but as JB pointed out the order was made by Palps before Luke became his apprentice and Luke took over sometime after as a supervisor. Hence why the World Devastors were being sabotaged and turning the battle in favor of the NR afterwards. To say Luke bears the responsibility of killing civilians doesn't fit since at worse he took over for the guy who already started the attack and cause the bad guys to lose and at best he saved the day for the NR and civies.I'm not saying your necessarily wrong but Luke has blame himself in the past for things he couldn't control which is a typical trait of Luke, putting the fate of the galaxy on his shoulders. Him being responsibile is another story.

Nobody

It'd be nice if there was a Jedi skill to redirect or block Force lightning, but we've only seen Yoda do something like that (and Kyp in one mostly forgettable NJO book).

actually Luke has done that a few times, but we haven't had a "proper" onscreen performance for it. Bear with me as I know that doesn't make sense. In ROTJ novelization he manages to block the Emperor's Force lighting for a while which saids a lot for Luke's power who's barely an apprentice at this point, in Dark Apprentice when he's fighting Kyp/Kun he manages to defend himself against the dark lighting when his saber was defused by Kun/Kyp. It doesn't get more descriptive in the text but Force blocking seems to be implied since his saber was shutdown. Then there was Inferno where Luke battles Caedus and he thinks that Jacen will blast him with Force lighting so he creates a Force shield around his arm to prepare to block it but Jacen does a different attack. Finally in Conviction Luke gets hit by regular lighting from a Nam Chorios storm but instead of blocking it(he had to restrain force use due to the planet's aftereffects) he Force transfers the energy to the ground. so he is fully capable as mention but we haven't had a proper moment where he block force lighting.

as for doppleganger I think it has been retcon as a neutral ability, since really Fallnassi illusion/force cloak are at the core the same power.

Possible. One of the reasons I thought Luke must have "killed innocents while under the sway of the dark side" at least once, somehow, is that The Essential Guide to the Force (page 130) mentioned it as something Luke, Anakin, and Kyp all did: page 130.

Whether Doppleganger got retconned to being neutral or not, Leia called it a "dark side technique" that Luke was using in Dark Empire. Maybe it is to the other illusions, as Sith Lightning is to Electric Judgement- a dark side version of a neutral ability.

the thing is with Anakin and Kyp you can say they were directly responsible for killing younglings and Carida they did it with their own hands, with Luke he came after the guy who already ordered the attack and sabotage to a NR win. Did civies died under Luke's "command"? probably but as we see it wasn't much of Luke's command in reality but one of Palpatine's excercises to the DS.

that book might be listing Luke's killing of Lumiya instead of DE, it fits the scenario to what they're addressing and Luke became tainted with the DS after Sacrifice. The Essential Guide of The Force came out after Inferno IIRC.

Lumiya's definitely not an innocent though- even if she "was innocent of that particular crime"

It was an addendum by Tionne to the "Four stages of the Dark Side" section- she'd described the actions of Luke, Kyp, and Anakin to the Holocron gatekeeper- and it answered the same way in all three cases. And she suggested that, possibly, either it was wrong, or the common belief that Luke, Kyp, and Anakin had all been "redeemed" was wrong.

not attention-greedy, but i would ike child or someone to respind to my accusation so fluke's behavior in the black fleet crisis

Luke's rebuilding Vader's fortress (and then destroying it later) all on his own may have been one of the things that led to Zahn suggesting Luke was "using the Force too much".

If he used mind tricks on ordinary people with much less justification that normal, that might also support the notion that he's gotten a little arrogant and lacking in respect for others.

yeah. as much as i dislike the series, i may have to re-read it to get more concrete info for my posts

I actually liked the Black Fleet Crisis trilogy on reading it (the Drayson bits, and the Chewie bits in Tyrant's Test, in particular).

yeah chewie and all that was ok, but i did not like the big chunk that lando and the droids took. Not interesting to me.

It did drag a bit at times- Lobot felt like the most interesting character in that particular arc.

But then I tend to find something to enjoy in most SW books- even the poorly written ones. Very broad tastes in that respect.

hmmmm i'm stumped I'm going to wait and see if perhaps if Child can dig for some info in the audio drama.


though I wouldn't be surprised if The Essential Guide to the Force is using the Lumiya duel as the example of Luke killing an "innocent".

Iron_Lord: Luke is strong, stronger than he knows. And Luke has a single purpose. I suppose you could say that he has a pure heart. Luke doesn't hunger after power. In some ways I don't think he understands those who do."

That's a good quote from Callista... I like it! And I agree with it. Luke has never sought power, fame, glory, prestige, or financial gain. He's never been ambitious. He's a humble guy. He just always tries to do the right thing; he tries to help others.


we're still waiting on the canonical reasons why Luke allowed the practice of Vergere's view.

I still think it's because Denning either didn't understand Luke's philosophy at the end of TUF, or he just deliberately chose to ignore it in order to write the story the way he wanted to write it, whether it followed continuity or not.






Iron_Lord: It is a bit inconsistent. Maybe blame Denning for that one.

Believe me, I *do*! For that and a whole lot more! I'm not a fan of most of Denning's Luke characterizations; nor am I a fan of the direction in which he has taken the post-RotJ SW story, characters, or universe.

EDIT: There might be limitations on how much Force spirits can stay on the material plane though. The opening of Heir to the Empire has Ben stating he's stayed too long and can no longer put off the journey to what lies beyond.

Which may or may not have been the case. He may have just felt that it was time for Luke to stand on his own two feet without relying on a Force ghost for the rest of his life, so he said that to Luke. Ben isn't exactly a stranger to "Truth from a certain point of view", you know.







Nobody: Well, sure, Luke was fighting at Coruscant, but there was still that nagging detail of whether it counted as darkside to counterattack a Force-void species. It was like Leia wondering if she killed someone while near a yslamiri counted... dragged out for 10 books!

Yes, that got old very fast! It was way overdone, and passive, do-nothing Luke was very annoying.






JediMatteus: Can you give an example of when we saw Luke do this, JM?
i admit, much of this is offscreen, mentioned in SOTP and VOTF,

And see, that's annoying because, as you said, we really didn't see much evidence of this in the books, and it's like Zahn made this up in order to bolster Mara's claims and lecture in that duology because it was something he wanted to write and he didn't have much evidence in other books to back up her negative comments about Luke. I mostly like Zahn as a writer, but I really feel he was wrong to do this to Luke.

i did see luke do some of this in the Black Fleet Crisis, and i don't care that Akanah was manipulating him, he still messed with peoples minds casually and took the most violent course to save Akanah's life.

How did Luke "mess with people's minds"? I honestly don't remember. Even so, that was in one story out of many dozens. Luke *is* human and therefore can and does make mistakes. I don't think that's enough to say that Luke overused or abused the Force. As I've said, when I think back to those Bantam books, there were many times where I wanted to shout, "Use the Force, Luke!" just like Obi-wan, because I often felt Luke didn't use it enough!







Iron_Lord: By being. "a guy who used Dark Side powers".

But WHAT dark side powers did we see Luke use in DE? Doppleganger was the one that most people claimed, but as MS said, that has been changed. Not only is it similar to a Fallanassi skill, but it was used by Jedi in the Old Republic times with no problem. (I think this may have been mentioned in that Jedi master book that came in that special case.) Plus, Luke used it in the lightest possible way: to save Leia and Han and get them safely off of Byss.
Also- In Jedi Vs Sith: The Essential Guide to the Force, it mentions, with respect to Vader, Kyp, and Luke- that one of the main Old Republic Jedi theorists argued "A Jedi who kills innocents while under the sway of the Dark Side cannot be redeemed. They can only atone, or attempt to atone.

Sorry, but we already know that that Old Republic Jedi's theory was WRONG. George Lucas himself says that Luke redeemed Vader, and we saw that Anakin Skywalker attained "Jedi Heaven" (became a Force ghost) after he returned to the Light. So Jedi CAN be redeemed.

And I maintain that Luke never intentionally killed innocents. (He may have killed a few innocents on the Death Star along with the Imperial military, but it was unintentional.) I also maintain that Luke never truly fell to the dark side (confirmed by Leland Chee), and therefore, never "killed innocents while under the sway of the dark side".
My guess is that Luke ordered at least one Imperial Fleet attack, during his time as Supreme Commander, and that's what's being referred to.

I don't believe he did. The Emperor had already sent the Imperials on the attack before Luke ever got to Byss, and Luke started to sabotage Imperial plans as soon as he was able to take over. Now might some Alliance lives have been lost in the short time between the time that Luke got the title of Supreme Comander and the time he was able to give his own first commands that sabotaged the Emperor's plans? Yes, that's possible, but that wouldn't have been Luke's fault. Those people died because the Emperor started the attack, and they and many others would have died if Luke hadn't gone to Byss and sabotaged that attack and turned it into a defeat for the Empire and a victory for the Alliance instead.


Still, each time he ordered an attack on a Calamari city during that operation, even if his goal was to sabotage the operation as much as possible- he might be qualifying as "killing innocents".

As I said, I don't think Luke ordered an attack on the Calamari cities; Palpatine did. Luke stopped them.

I wondered why Han leapt to the conclusion that Luke had turned traitor- given that he knew about the poorly handled Calamari operation. You'd think he'd have gone "So that's why it was so badly done."

I think Han believed that Luke was a traitor because Luke wanted Han to believe that he was a traitor for two reasons: 1. Luke wanted Han and Leia to leave Byss so they would be safe. If Han believed that Luke was a traitor, it was more likely that he wouldn't try to stick around to try to "save" Luke and take him away from Byss and back to Coruscant. 2. Luke wanted Palpatine to believe that he had really joined him. Having Han believe that Luke had gone bad and turned traitor made Luke's pretense seem more credible.







Jedi Ben: DE doesn't really give that level of detail though - by the time Luke gets to Byss and is confronting Sidious, the attack on Mon Calamari has already begun!

Exactly! Luke never ordered the attack; Palpatine did. Luke sabotaged the Devastators and gave the Alliance the codes to destroy the other Devastators, which helped the Alliance and saved lives.


More tomorrow....

actually I'm more than convinced that The Essential Guide to the Force is referencing Lumiya's death as a an "innocent" that Luke killed. The prologue in the book is from Tionne's POV and she mentions Luke made a mistake and killed Lumiya out of revenge tainting him with the DS. while she isn't innocent at all, the book and the holocron might qualify her as one since she wasn't Mara's murderer.

It might be the fault of Kevin J Anderson- who had Luke saying to Kyp, in an attempt to make him come back "I went over to the Dark Side- and I came back. it can be done if you're strong and brave enough. Are you?"

and several authors- including Zahn & Stackpole, took a similar approach to Dark Empire's events.

The same author- Ryder Windham, shows how Anakin became a Force Ghost- Obi-Wan gave him the secret before he faded:

The Rise & Fall of Darth Vader
Knowing he was beyond redemption, Anakin said: "But Master ... why me?"
"Because you ended the horror, Anakin.," Obi-Wan said. "Because you fulfilled the prophesy."

Obviously he didn't order the attack of the planet- but he would have issued some orders to the Imperial commanders. Horrible, tactically bad orders- but still orders.

Iron_Lord : ChildofWinds said: ↑
Sorry, but we already know that that Old Republic Jedi's theory was WRONG. George Lucas himself says that Luke redeemed Vader, and we saw that Anakin Skywalker attained "Jedi Heaven" (became a Force ghost) after he returned to the Light. So Jedi CAN be redeemed.

The same author- Ryder Windham, shows how Anakin became a Force Ghost- Obi-Wan gave him the secret before he faded:

Well, I believe George Lucas over a guy who plays in Lucas' sandbox. The RotJ story of redemption is certainly a whole lot more compelling,... not to mention... hopeful, positive, optimistic, and satisfying,.... than a story in which one is hopelessly lost and and forever condemned, even if he/she repents and is truly remorseful.


Obviously he didn't order the attack of the planet- but he would have issued some orders to the Imperial commanders. Horrible, tactically bad orders- but still orders.

The orders Luke issued were actually tactically great orders, as they were orders which were meant to help the Alliance and save lives... which they did. Mission accomplished!


More another time...

instantdeath: I'm sure all those recordings R2 showed Luke were taking up free memory, as well).

I would certainly think so. Didn't most droids get regular memory wipes, but Luke didn't want to do that to his? I really miss the Luke/Artoo interactions. I'm really annoyed that the authors have kept them apart for so long. I don't even remember the last time that Luke and Artoo were together....

"I wanted to say thanks. For saving me. I never once believed sitting in that cell on the Death Star that anyone would ever come for me. But you did. There's so much light around you not even Vader's darkness can dim it."

That's a very nice quote from Leia about Luke. Thanks for sharing it!







MasterSkywalker86: so really Luke didn't even commanded the attack himself then he just took over after Palps directed his troops to Mon Cal ?

That's the way it seemed to me. As JB said, we know that the Mon Calamari attack was already in progress when Luke arrived. And it seemed as though Luke caused the Devastators to be sabotaged as soon as the Emperor wasn't paying attention.







Iron_Lord: At least, that was the impression I got, and that that was one of the reasons why Han was so angry.

As I said in an earlier post, I think the reason Han was so angry was because Luke was being a good actor and was trying to make Han believe he had gone bad so Han would leave and take Leia with him so they would be safe. And if Han was genuinely angry because Luke's outward behavior (He did take a punch at Han or verbally fight with him, didn't he?) made Han believe Luke was going darkside, then all the better, as it would perhaps convince Palpatine that Luke was going dark too. I think Luke wanted Han to be angry.







Nobody: Its debatable how much Luke would have needed to done to maintain the ruse. If there was a ruse at all. Sure, we saw Imperial officers reporting to Luke, but its doubtful Palpatine ever really believed Luke would have turned that quickly or easily.

I think it even says that in the endnotes that Palpatine is aware that Luke is sabotaging his plans and equipment.


Which was sort of what Palpatine did at Byss, offered Luke a chance to sabotage the Imperial war machine, he'd just have to step into the darkside to do it, and Luke pretends to agree but starts taking out clones the first chance he gets.

Right.


Writing for powerful Luke can't be easy but they can't just keep falling back on the same excuses to keep him out of the final battle for five books.

I agree that they can't keep falling back on the same excuses to keep him out of the battle for five books. The solution though is simple: Don't make such a long, drawn-out, badly-padded series that require you to handicap your heroes so they don't solve the problems too soon. Write one or two book stories so your heroes can be portrayed as the competent, smart heroes they should be.

And I guess I don't understand why authors keep saying that it's so hard to write for a "powerful Luke". I don't see why that should be so difficult. They are authors. Creativity is part of the job description for writing novels. As I said, I think a big part of the problem has been that Del Rey wants to put out too many long story arcs, and then it IS hard to explain why a powerful, resourceful, bright character like Luke can't accomplish anything for 4 or 5 or 6 books.

Which is why his absence from FotJ when Luke left on his journey was annoying, at least let him tag along, but since so much of the books spend a lot of time as just running battles, there's no place for Artoo.

Luke and Ben were in a ship or planetside for most of FotJ. There was no reason that Artoo couldn't have been with them.



it'd be nice if Luke could add some toys to Artoo.

I agree. And Luke is good with fixing and tinkering with droids and ships, so there's no reason why he shouldn't have been able to "upgrade" Artoo or give him some new capabilities.


Although in Inferno, I think Luke faked his death but still brought Artoo along with him onto Jacen's Star Destroyer, right?

Yes, I think that's about right.






MasterSkywalker86: Luke has blame himself in the past for things he couldn't control which is a typical trait of Luke, putting the fate of the galaxy on his shoulders. Him being responsibile is another story.

Exactly, MS!