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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Lit Abel G. Peña's "Skyewalkers" and "Lone Wolf"

Discussion in 'Literature' started by jSarek, Mar 6, 2015.

  1. Halagad_Ventor

    Halagad_Ventor Star Wars Author - SWRPG Designer star 4 VIP

    Registered:
    Jul 3, 2001
    I'll take that as a compliment, Ms. Coffee.

    And that catch is actually impressive, since the reference got built out from not just The Phantom Menace video game but Evil Never Dies as well. [face_cow]

    I actually had several discussions with Ryder Windham while he was writing The Life and Legend of Obi-Wan Kenobi, and he was a gentleman about working references to Lone Wolf into his book.

    Yes.... That actually broke a promise I had made back in late 2009 (which just goes to show how far along this plot point developed in the writing of SkyeWalkers):

    "Is it possible that Halagad Ventor had some offspring hidden somewhere that survived into the post-Return of the Jedi timeframe and if so will they also look uncannily like you?
    Ha! Well, it’s possible, but I myself wouldn’t write hidden offspring into Halagad’s story. He joined the Jedi rather late, so he might’ve cast his genes around a bit beforehand, but I think that would be a cheap way to keep myself “alive” now that Halagad’s become my Star Wars alter ego. There are more than enough prequel-era Jedi Knights that have had children despite the ban on attachments. Halagad can die childless. It isn’t helpful to his story arc."

    Obviously, I now think differently. I also probably owe Valin_Kenobi an apology.

    Thanks a lot, Orman Tagge. Part of the way I developed Zeta Magnus was by interpolating from the Imperial Sentinels on Byss. The Dark Empire Sourcebook suggested it was a mystery whether they were clones or cyborgs, and this inspired my idea that the ATHAs were a kind of cloned army created by the Arkanians. It was also the reason I slipped just a bit of the Amorphiian DNA (or whatever passes for DNA with those guys) into Magnus' make up. The Imperial Sentinels were also described as "mute giants" whose brain functions were intentionally suppressed. This suggested to me that Magnus should be the categorical opposite of this: verbose and very intelligent. I figured Palpatine would've created the Imperial Sentinels as a mockery of Magnus.

    Also, since you mentioned Jerec: Magnus' monologue in the Interludium refers to the "eyes of my allies -- dead, red, dark, and tripled." Due to how things have evolved in Star Wars publishing, I feel fairly comfortable revealing that these were intended to be: 1) Jerec (dead eyes), given that the Dark Side Sourcebook has him out in the Unknown Regions around this time; 2) The Chiss (red eyes), or even Thrawn specifically, as the most calculated and brazen of them; 3) Blackhole (dark eyes), similarly because of the Rhandites' astrographical proximity to the Dark Worlds but also as a not to the bullet SkyeWalkers dodged when Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor *didn't* make Blackhole the same character as Atha Prime -- I was sweating bullets on that one (thanks, Matt); and 4) Ree-Yees (triple eyes) ... no, I'm kidding. Trachta. Most likely.

    Take care,
    Abel
     
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  2. Darth Dreadwar

    Darth Dreadwar Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Jan 26, 2010
    Halagad_Ventor, I had a couple of questions about some of the science behind Magnus' thoughts in the Interludium. "The laughable quantum postulation that prostitutes my duplication into a probabilistically false infinitude of realities" and "It is small, yes, but it is concrete, real and, most importantly, immortal" seemed, to me, to be a reference to quantum immortality and a certain viewpoint of the "deathless" quality of DNA (most famously postulated in The Selfish Gene), respectively, but there really was such a real-life science overload here, doubtless I missed plenty. I really loved how steeped in science and rational thought SkyeWalkers and Lone Wolf both were (and how this extended to fleshing out the mechanics behind midichlorians and cloning and other fictional science), and was really curious about what references were being intended and so on.

    Also, loved the origins given for the Magnus title. Are we to assume Darth Vitiate discarded his name(s) in favour of Magnus, and that's what's being referred to with the appellation "Sith Emperor?"
     
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  3. Halagad_Ventor

    Halagad_Ventor Star Wars Author - SWRPG Designer star 4 VIP

    Registered:
    Jul 3, 2001
    I love how *retcons* are considered worthy of a spoiler blackout here. :-B

    Your informed and articulate approval means a lot, TC. Thank you.

    As you eloquently stated, the modernizing of the various "Obi-Wan's brother Owen" texts was potentially the most difficult retcon I ever tackled in my Star Wars work. Mostly because it required an unusually deft rhetorical touch to sell, and I don't think I would have been able to pull it off in a non-narrative form. As it is, it took me *two* stories to do it, as SkyeWalkers sells the idea that Obi-Wan's "memories" in The Hidden Past might have been a Force vision relevant to his longing for a brother -- fulfilled in Anakin -- while Lone Wolf then emotionally extends the logic of that same metaphor to explain why Obi-Wan might have justifiably thought of *Owen* as a sibling (coupled with the specificity of the name "Owen" appearing in The Hidden past), bringing us full circle to Obi-Wan's statement to Luke in the Return of the Jedi novelization. It seems that while Anakin is a man perpetually in search of a father -- from Watto to Qui-Gon to Obi-Wan to Palpatine -- Obi-Wan, who had Qui-Gon after all, is a man perpetually in search of a brother.

    He did. He really did.

    Star Wars is over the top and silly often times, and that's part of what I've always loved so much about it.

    Or did the Mount Sorrow reference displease you as well? :_|

    Just a man who spent a far too much time with this stuff. But thank you, my friend. Where else could I be praised for such an inordinate indulgence.

    I will definitely fish out my footnotes for these stories, and I'll start posting them in manageable chunks this week.

    Yes, what I was getting at there was the idea that "Control Mind" (as used by Joruus in the Thrawn Trilogy) and the "memory wipe" (as used by Kyp Durron in the Jedi Academy Trilogy) are both clearly being used in a morally questionable manner -- something picked up on and further emphasized by West End Games in their companion sourcebooks, which specified that these were dark side powers within the game mechanics. Of course, Akanah in the Black Fleet Crisis really deconstructs the always-ambiguous fine line between these and the regular old Jedi mind trick (a.k.a. "affect mind"), a Force power we all know only too well and generally give a pass because, hey, Old Ben used it, right, and on bad guys no less, so what's the harm?

    So the scenes with Vima and Zegundis were meant to explain and further complicate these distinctions -- be they of degree or kind -- while adding dramatic tension, of course.
    "Lone Wolf" advances the idea that midi-chlorians "*never* failed to protest" the use of the Force to wipe memories not only to justify the designation of the memory wipe as a dark side power but because it's become a common enough popular perception that, barring empirical evidence for the soul, what we think of as most profoundly "who we are," our selves so to speak, *are* our memories. And that means whenever someone uses the Force to wipe someone else's memory, they might be destroying the equivalent of a piece of that person's soul. And, obviously, the midi-chlorians would be a conduit to the expression of such a violence.

    And so maybe Old Ben wasn't just pulling a harmless "trick" when he was using the Force on that stormtrooper in Mos Eisley -- and I think that's okay. As I said, "Lone Wolf" was intended as a celebration of A New Hope, but also a reflection and commentary on ossified elements of the story after 30 years. Maybe what Obi-Wan did in A New Hope with the mind trick was just as morally questionable as what Qui-Gon did to Watto with the chance cube in The Phantom Menace. Yeah, each act was relatively harmless, maybe even utilitarian, but even with their good intentions in mind, can we say these acts were ethical? I don't propose a definitive answer, and neither does "Lone Wolf" -- merely the question sharpened to a point.

    Take care,
    Abel
     
  4. Darth Dreadwar

    Darth Dreadwar Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Jan 26, 2010
    I thought that might have been what you were getting at! Again, really refreshing to see some novel and thoroughly scientific explorations and interpretations. It's one of the reasons Zeta Magnus has made my list of top 10 favourite Star Wars characters.

    And indeed, modern scientific understanding really highlights that death is a spectrum, not black-and-white, and any kind of memory wipe (even just getting blackout drunk) is, to varying degrees dependent upon how much is erased, a 'small death.' And it's really neat as one of the most common complaints against Jedi ethics is how they go around mind tricking people willy-nilly, but what you've done with Lone Wolf is leave open the interpretation that only in exceptional circumstances might they consider such.

    Well, I'm off to reread and glean as much info about the ancient Sith as I can. Garu... Magnus... Let's see... :-B

    Thanks again Abel!
     
  5. Vialco

    Vialco Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Mar 6, 2007
    This is Legends content so it really doesn't matter since none of it's canon anymore, but how does Obi-Wan know that C'Boath is dead? The destruction of Outbound Flight in the Legends universe was a closely kept secret, known only to Thrawn, Doriana, Car'das and Sidious. We'll probably never get an answer to that since Legends is finished, but that stuck out as an inconsistency. Outbound Flight's fate was never known to the Jedi, the whole point of Special Task Force One was for C'Boath and all the others to be killed quietly.
     
  6. vong333

    vong333 Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 18, 2003
    This stuff was way better than the Heir to the Jedi novel, no pun intended. The legends stuff still reins supreme even if it doesn't count anymore
     
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  7. Sinrebirth

    Sinrebirth Mod-Emperor of the EUC, Lit, RPF and SWC star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Nov 15, 2004
    Dreadwar and I have long been (him longer) of the opinion that the catalogue of Sith references that do not meet the Retcon that Abel created in Adas and his Empire (which was designed to acknowledge the references predating the Hundred Year Darkness caused by the Retcon of that as the foundation of the Sith Order), suggests very strongly that there was a prior Sith Order and Empire, and a wellspring of Sith deities that are behind the scenes. Much prior.

    Look at worlds such as Millinar, Onderon, Doan, Xo with pre-Corbos Sith references...Then at the monolith at Chiloon filled with incredibly powerful dark side spirits... Then the Sharu and Columni hiding from the Celestials... Separate Sith references on Ambria, Naos and Krayiss II outside the post-Corbos Sith regime... Then the perverse connections between Alsakan's monarchy and a world in the Hapes Cluster... The Verpine in the context of the Killiks being seeded down the Perlemian and living on the broken remnants of whole worlds... The fact that we have several gravitic anomalies around ancient, aggressive and/or dark side influenced races at Kathol, Roon, Korriban and Rhand, to name a few. The S-canon Sith Lord who was the architect of the Hundred Year Darkness... The hundred and four thousand year old Dark Holocron... The recent information that it is possible to pin a Sith spirit to a body and seal it away from TOR in the context of the Sith locked in carbonite circa 4000 BBY... The recent information that Sith were behind the third Great Schism which reads as Vitiate's scheme with Revan but with the Cosmic Turbine instead of the Star Forge... Let alone the connections between Soa and the Infernal Council which includes the 'Betrayer of Adas'... The seemingly random invasion of Korriban by the Killiks in 30,000 BBY and following this their removal from the galaxy at large...

    Do I *really* need to go on?


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  8. Cheerios4u98

    Cheerios4u98 Jedi Knight star 3

    Registered:
    Mar 4, 2015
    Wow, I didn't know about this until just now. I'm almost giddy with excitement about getting more "Legends" material. This is great news. Though, based on most of your posts, I don't think I'm nearly well-versed enough in the EU to catch all the references that are gonna be in this thing...
     
  9. Darth Zack

    Darth Zack Jedi Master star 1

    Registered:
    Nov 1, 2012
    Seems I have an excellent villain for my planned Force and Destiny campaign. Now all I need are some players.
     
  10. Darth Dreadwar

    Darth Dreadwar Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Jan 26, 2010
    Ha, indeed! Sinre and I were thinking the exact same thing for our planned ABYVerse RPG.
     
  11. Darth Zack

    Darth Zack Jedi Master star 1

    Registered:
    Nov 1, 2012
    I wonder if the title of Lone Wolf is a reference to the manga Lone Wolf and Cub, or the movies adapted from it?
     
  12. Halagad_Ventor

    Halagad_Ventor Star Wars Author - SWRPG Designer star 4 VIP

    Registered:
    Jul 3, 2001
    Thank you, Paxis. Your praise and vote of confidence are touching and gratifying in a very profound way. It's often been challenging to get the Star Wars projects I wanted to write approved, and often an unexpected additional hurdle to see them finally published. Nonetheless, it's always been worthwhile when I read responses like yours.

    Regarding the future, I think the scope of my interest in Star Wars fiction has become narrower than it used to be. I will say that, currently, the only Star Wars prose project that genuinely interests me is the story of Darth Ruin.

    I'm *very* happy and impressed you caught all that, Darth_Dreadwar. My thinking with Zeta Magnus was that, while the "mad scientist" has often featured in Star Wars -- Boborygmus Gog, Jenna Zan Arbor, Bevel Lemelisk being the most memorable types, maybe -- the versions attempted just never seemed to me credible threats when ultimately confronted by guys that wield magic. I knew Magnus would be physically large, but given how heavily I'd leaned on darksiders in my previous Star Wars work, I thought it would be too easy to take the villain for SkyeWalkers that route, too. I decided, therefore, Magnus had to be intelligent on a level that rivaled a Palpatine or a Thrawn, which I thought the story could only do convincingly if the character genuinely repped what he was supposed to be to even the most learned of Star Wars fans. Thank you for validating that decision, my friend. [face_peace]

    My view is that *Magnus* can conceivably do that, yes. That's taking the character's words and implications at 100% fidelity, of course.

    Well, I should say that I think Dan's work on Plagueis may be my favorite of my friend's works in its creativity. It blew my mind ... especially given how obscenely fast he wrote it. There's a reason Daniel Wallace is Daniel Wallace.

    More to the point,
    Magnus' (or, at least, the pseudo-Magnus of the Interludium) implicit view of the law of identity certainly owes much to Aristotle's formulation. This is exactly why he feels he *does* need the Dark Lord, after all: "I have little use for metaphysics, but none for stupidity. A thing *I* create which *thinks* itself me is *not* me." Magnus, as a number of scientists are wont, has an attitude of toleration toward formal philosophy, at best, with little interest in its nuances. Like many of us, the cloner engages in philosophical claims without thinking that that's the case. At any rate, in a compressed story like this, plot waits for no one, and you have to bite the bullet concerning character motives at some point. Nonetheless, the deep irony of pseudo-Magnus' position is only driven home by the revelation of the Postludium. I reserve judgment on whether the real Magnus would be similarly susceptible to such a lack of cross-disciplinary consideration. In any event, my thought was that only Magnus can outsmart Magnus.

    Yes, exactly my intention.

    I hope you enjoy it, amigo.
     
  13. Darth Dreadwar

    Darth Dreadwar Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Jan 26, 2010
    [face_praying]

    Well, I always thought that a true scientist would be so formidable as to pose a grave threat to Force-users, so thank you for validating that.

    That's what I got from it, as well, and entirely realistic, since generally only scientists working on mind uploading, brain emulation and other transhumanist concepts tend to ponder long on philosophical matters such as what constitutes personal identity. And given that Magnus is now my all-time favourite character of Star Wars (and in my top 10 list of any fictional character, genuinely and without exaggeration), I shall maintain in my headcanon that the real Magnus would not be similarly susceptible. ;)

    Now to get that Kickstarter/petition going for you to write the definitive Sith (and incidentally, Darth Ruin) origin story for the new canon... [face_whistling]
     
  14. Plaristes

    Plaristes Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Jul 2, 2007
    Who is this?
     
  15. Sinrebirth

    Sinrebirth Mod-Emperor of the EUC, Lit, RPF and SWC star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Nov 15, 2004
    Ku'ar Danar.

    Go Wookiee him and watch your mind be exploded. Admittedly mine was similar at the time.

    http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Ku'ar_Danar


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  16. LelalMekha

    LelalMekha Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 29, 2012
    I think he means Ku'ar Danar, from the French RPG magazine Casus Belli.

    Edit: Ninja'd.
     
  17. Sinrebirth

    Sinrebirth Mod-Emperor of the EUC, Lit, RPF and SWC star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Nov 15, 2004
    It is a fun little story, actually.


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  18. LelalMekha

    LelalMekha Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 29, 2012
    Oh, that I know! I've got all those Casus Belli stories, actually. Some of them are very entertaining, and some have very nice art too. If I had time and courage, I'd translate them all into English for everyone to see.
     
  19. Sinrebirth

    Sinrebirth Mod-Emperor of the EUC, Lit, RPF and SWC star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Nov 15, 2004
    Any Sith or ancient monster stories that we've missed out on? They always had a fair amount of them!


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
  20. Plaristes

    Plaristes Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Jul 2, 2007
    I was aware of that article, but I didn't know that it contained all that info, since I don't read French. Did whoever wrote that article for the wook read it in French, or is there a translation somewhere?
     
  21. Plaristes

    Plaristes Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Jul 2, 2007
    I've got scans of almost all the French rpg mags, but I can't read them, since I don't know French. I would love to have English translations. =P~
     
  22. LelalMekha

    LelalMekha Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 29, 2012
    The article in question was written by "Le Passant", who is a real francophone. Although I haven't read "Le Facteur X" in a long time, I seem to recall that the article is pretty faithful.

    I might try and tackle one or two of them some day, if people are interested.
     
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  23. Plaristes

    Plaristes Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Jul 2, 2007
    Well, at least one is interested. And I'm sure Eddie is, too. No doubt Abel, Jason, Dan, and Joe Bongiorno amongst the authors would be interested as well.
     
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  24. Darth Dreadwar

    Darth Dreadwar Jedi Grand Master star 6

    Registered:
    Jan 26, 2010
    If you want, PM me them; I can translate them and compile them all on a Word document or pdf and send them back. :D
     
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  25. Sinrebirth

    Sinrebirth Mod-Emperor of the EUC, Lit, RPF and SWC star 10 Staff Member Manager

    Registered:
    Nov 15, 2004
    For the love of the Force do this.


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