Books The Official Outbound Flight Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

No way. A once through was pain enough. And a Katana fleet of the Republic before the Army creation act, spaarti cylinders and mad clones, cloned Jedi masters and the like are all deadend in the wake of the PT.

 

Have you read SURVIVOR'S QUEST?

 

Not in the least. Not in the least.

 

Is SQ Zahn, or someone else? I just found that Car'das, Doriana, Maris, and Rak all being able to return to the Republic with the tale of the OF a bad idea. I was under the impression from the TTT that no one (save for Sidious and Thrawn) knew what happened to the OF. And while reading it, I had forgotten about SQ. I just feel a little less enamoured with Zahn's writing now than I was before. Somewhat like Luceno's writing. I feel like they come up with some off the wall characters,dash a little plot, slap Star Wars across it, and let it go.

 

Sorry to drag up an old topic, but I just read this over the last couple of days. Excellent book. I loved it. Of the Zhan books I've read (TTT, HOT, and about half of SQ), it's one of my favorites. Loved the characters, the tie-ins to SQ, the token PT character appearances, expansion on minor characters like Doriana and Car'das, and the mention of the future invaders. More than anything, though, I liked the background we get on Thrawn and the further development of the Chiss. I don't know what role they play in other novels, but from what I've seen I like them. I would love to see more development on their culture and their government. Do they make any other appearances beyond SQ and the Dark Nest trilogy?

I was a little thrown off on the origin of gravity well tech. I would have thought that technology would be widespread by now and, IIRC, it contradicts KOTOR since I think they were supposed to have it back then. But here no one's seen anything like it. That was odd.

I also liked Zhan's throwaway explanation on why the droideka shields can't be used by organics and thus aren't used by the Empire later on. Still makes me wonder why they didn't just get some destroyer-like droids with their kick ass personal shielding.

 

I am currently reading Outbound Flight and came across this quote:

Prior to this, he implies that this information is coming from Palpatine. This confuses me. If Palpatine knew about the Yuuzhan Vong, why didn't he do anything about them?

 

He did do something about them. He got ready for them. That's one of the reasons he was having superweapons built and why he never reduced the Imperial navy to peacetime levels.

 

I haven't read Rogue Planet in a long time but I seem to remember Tarkin either wanting to capture or destroy Zonoma Sekot in that book, so Palpatine could have had some knowledge from that. I think the idea was that Palpatine was preparing to face the invaders with the massive imperial army. It's a bit of a stretch for me but they do like to stick these events all together even if they really shouldn't be connected.

 

Bumping for discussion.

 

So I just finished reading this. I'm a huge Timothy Zahn fan, I love what he's done with the Star Wars universe. I have to admit though, this book left me a little less than satisfied. I liked, over all, the first half, but then the second half, or rather last quarter, just felt rushed and anti-climactic to me. The book I read right before this was Dark Force Rising, and even though this book came out YEARS after the Thrawn trilogy, there was so much talk about about Outbound flight and such that I wanted to read it before going to the last command. So a lot of my not being satisfied may come from considering this like a "prequel" to the Thrawn Trilogy. Here are some things I had an issue with:

- We find out about Outbound flight, but what about the Katanna Fleet? Not even mentioned
- Thrawn and Palpatine never get buddy-buddy, I was expecting to see that relationship develop in this book.
- We don't see Jorus C'baoth get cloned or anything implied that he was cloned before hand.
- Maris and Dak, as well as Lorana's brother are kind of forgotten about half way through the book, very clumsily put together story arc with those characters.
- Obi-Wan and Anakin are also forgotten about. Obviously they got the ship before all the drama happened, but considering they were one of the main point of view characters for the first half, it would have been nice to have gotten their reactions to Outbound flight blowing up or whatever, if they even knew. Just some sort of resolution would have been nice.
- Obi-Wan, and most of the Jedi, while annoyed with C'baoth's actions I think are still way too complacent with the kind of power he's exerting and the way he behaves. It's pretty clear he doesn't follow the Jedi code that closely, and every still gives him this respect.
- I'm not entirely clear what the heck happened at the end.

Anyway, some of the complaints I had about the book... one thing I did LOVE however was the portrayal of young Thrawn, that was the saving grace of the novel. No one writes Thrawn like Zahn happy

 

We see Palpatine get genetic samples of all the Jedi on the ship. Including C'baoth. It's a clear cloning nod.

 

Right.

Also, it coincidentally (?) ties in with Zahn's original idea for C'boath, which was to have him be a clone of Obi-Wan. Since Kenobi was aboard, Palpatine should have his sample as well...

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v155/machineman/YodaFP.jpg

I totally didn't make the connection!!!

But how about the Katanna fleet? I may just very well be forgetting how it was described in TTT, but wasn't the katanna fleet launched WITH Outbound Flight? Also, at the end of the book, it seems like they crashed outbound flight... but then isn't it found in unexplored space in Dark Force Rising? This could all just be bad comprehension on my part, but I'm having a hard time connecting the dots.

 

No, the Katana fleet wasn't launched with Outbound Flight. It was a separate project. The only real link is that they were both mentioned as these big Old Republic naval projects that happened in around the same timeframe. So it would be easy to get them confused, but no, no link.

In DFR, I don't recall any references to Outbound being found in unknown space. It's just said that Thrawn destroyed it in HTTE. You may be thinking again of the Katana fleet, which is found lost in deep space as the major action of DFR.

Just to clarify what TTT establishes: Outbound Flight was a major Old Republic exploration project under the control of Jorus C'baoth which traveled into the Unknown Regions and was never heard from again. Thrawn reveals to Pellaeon that he personally destroyed it at Palpatine's orders, and that's part of how he knows Joruus C'baoth was a clone. The Katana fleet was a major Old Republic project to fit Dreadnaughts with automation and slave rigs that would reduce the necessary crew complement to run them. It was a big showpiece, but it went all wrong when the crew of the fleet caught a hive virus and went insane together, jumping the fleet blind to god knows where. It became a lost-treasure ghost-ship legend before Talon Karrde and his old captain rediscovered it by sheer luck sometime between the Clone Wars and the just-pre-ANH period and kept it a secret, and in DFR the location gets out to the New Republic and the Empire, and they race to take control of the ships of the fleet.

 

Ahhh ok, it all makes sense now, lore wise

However, just on a writing/story telling front, the arcs for Maris, Quentto and Lorana's brother were really half-assed by Zahn, which sucks because he's usually a really good writer.

 

Thing is, Outbound Flight is the second book in a de-facto duology, the first part of which - Survivors Quest - is set something like 40 years after the events of Outbound Flight and features Lorana's brother in a large role - so his arc isn't "half-assed", you just evidentally haven't read the rest of it yet.

 

Darnit, I wish I knew that, I would have read that first. Oh well...

 

I'd simply suggest to read it now. It is set later in the timeline and ties a lot together, even though they were originally released in the opposite order. Outbound Flight is much more about Lorana while Survivors Quest is her brother's part of the story. I like them both, particularly how they fit together with each other.

 

Robimus : Outbound Flight is much more about Lorana while Survivors Quest is her brother's part of the story. I like them both, particularly how they fit together with each other.

I really liked both of them too. It is too bad that you didn't read Survivor's Quest first, because I think you'll miss out on some of the mystery of SQ by having read Outbound Flight first, but I hope you'll enjoy it anyway. In Survivor's Quest the characters try to unravel the mysteries of what happened on Outbound Flight. Some of the questions aren't completely answered in SQ, but the reader learns everything after reading OF. After reading OB, I remember that I reread SQ again and enjoyed it even more the second time. Happy reading!

 

Does anyone here know exactly what changes were made to Mist Encounters for the paperback version? Is it just a bunch of changes in nomenclature, like President->Chancellor, or are there significant additions or alterations?

 

Talk about a blast from the past...

To contribute, I still feel like this is one of Zahn's best-written Star Wars works.

I think it was just a few names altered to fit the prequel names.

Also funny to think that Mist Encounter is probably the Star Wars story that has come the closest to the film experience: we had the original, and then the special edition for Outbound Flight, then the adaptation into the first chapter of Thrawn, and then the adaptation of that to the first issue of the Thrawn comic which copied the art of the original story.

 

Hi,

I did enjoy the novel very much. All of Zahn's characters were memorable and inspite of some posts here I didn't found Obi-Wan's and Anakins inclusion into the story shoe-horned in any way. It gaves the characters an additional mirror to look upon them and that was funny sometimes.

The only thing which did bug me, was C'baoth's reaction to Thrawns information, that an alien species is lurking in the shadows outside the galaxy, prepared for invasion. C'baoth told Thrawn that he doesn't believe that story, which would frighten children only. But we know also that C'baoth's second driving motion for OBF was finding Vergere. Didn't he talk to Obi-Wan and Anakin during the long journey about their mission to Zonoma Sekot just four years ago in "Rogue Planet"? Didn't tell Obi-Wan C'baoth about Vergere's last message that she did go with the very same Far Outsiders, Thrawn is warning C'baoth of? Even C'baoth could not be so stubborn to ignore such signs on the wall.

I realize though that Zahn wanted to have Outbound Flight Project to be destroyed and perhaps that's why he did not let such talks happen. I would have found it more credible though, if Outbound Flight would had been destroyed by the Yuuzhan Vong after Thrawn would have let them go. It took some years until he joined imperial service. So I think Palpatine would have forgiven Thrawn that disobedience if OBF would had been destroyed anyway due to C'baoth's challenging behavior towards everyone. I doubt that Krazhmir or Czulkang Lah would had been impressed by C'baoth's demeanor.

It is ironic that unconsciously C'baoth came the new location of Zonama Sekot that near and still was so blind to draw the necessary conclusions.

 

There is a LOT in this novel I'd like to revisited at some point in relation to canon.

 

One thing I found interesting in this novel was that C'baoth completely dismisses Thrawn's warning about a Sith Lord named Darth Sidious. He declares the Sith as having been long since removed from the Galaxy, despite the fact that Qui-Gon was killed by Darth Maul. Ki-Adi-Mundi's declaration of the Sith having been extinct for a millennia, makes sense at the time. But after Naboo, the Jedi Order has undeniable proof that the Sith live. Yet Jorus completely disregards this evidence when presented with the name of the second Sith Lord. I wonder if there was something more to this denial, perhaps some sort of hidden association with the Sith. We never did get a clear answer as to why Darth Sidious wanted Jorus C'baoth dead.