181st Imperial Discussion Group: Tales of the Bounty Hunters!

One of the various game books /sourcebooks actually revealed that, indeed, Kast was a nobody - a failed Alliance operative that stole the armor off a dead bounty hunter.

 

All right, but only if my Wookiee Jedi Guardian gets retconned in! She was awesome before Lucas ever made confusing statements about giving giant walking carpets glowing swords!

Honestly dude, even the replication stuff falls short of the mark and is ridiculous in its execution, cool as the initial idea may be. I'm never really in favour of making things non-canon because the fact that I can, with a straight face, inform people that that crying mountain from the Ewoks comic is TOTALLY AS REAL AS LUKE SKYWALKER will never stop amusing me, and giving me an odd sense of respect for the entire EU endeavour (no, I can't really explain why), but seriously, this story almost made me revise my position...

As to Kast, I feel like a total n00b in that I only ever knew him as Knock Off Boba Fett from the Masters of Teras Kasi game, which I refused to play unless my husband (well, boyfriend at the time) set it up with the cheat that gave everyone comedy bobble heads. It was awesome. Except the bit where neither Kast nor Fett could actually reach beyond their tiny helmets to punch anyone.

...

I'll get my coat...

 

Just to keep the Kast stuff vaguely on-topic, an interesting bit of trivia: the events of Twin Engines of Destruction are referenced in The Last One Standing, about a month before the former was released.

 

I much prefer HK-47 to IG-88 as the "kill all humans" type.

Dengar's story was aight. Not great, but good.

Bossk's was decent.

Zuckuss and 4-LOM's could've been better, but the idea of a Jedi droid intrigues me, for about five seconds.

Boba Fett's was character derailment. Fett is Jabba and Vader's agent, killing for money. But the EU has tortured Fett far more than the sarlacc ever could already.

 

eventho IG-88's story is ridiculous beyond measure, this book holds a special place for me. it was the first SW book i ever got (followed shortly by the New Rebellion. i can sure pick 'em can't i)

Dengar, Zuckuss & 4-LOM's, and Bossk's are good but i haven't read them in a looong time. Boba's, on the other hand, i reread whenever i get the chance. only story about him that is better is from the Tales of Jabba's Palace imo

 

Okay! Bossk's Tale!

This is by Kathy Tyers, who seems to get mixed reviews based on Truce at Bakura and Balance Point. What do we make of this story? A few points that occurred to me -

- Tyers makes the choice to keep Bossk as a villain rather than try to humanise him as other stories have done. Thoughts?

- Really, this story is as much about Tinian and Chen as it is about Bossk - how do you respond to their part of the story?

- What did you make of the writing and worldbuilding additions?

Shoot, people!

 

One thing about these stories is that they all hinge around the bridge scene -- because that's when we see these people, and so of course that has to be fitted into the story somehow. But, only Boba Fett brings in Han, and of the rest, there's only that IG-88 shell on Cloud City to suggest that he has any actual further role in the film. So we've got three stories that have to decide what these bounty hunters were doing during the film, and how they weren't the one to snag Han. With the Dengar story, Wolverton chose to basically write Dengar into the seams of the story, having him fool around in the asteroid field and then show up at Bespin.

Tyers does something that's a little more interesting by choosing to use that scenario as a launchpad for a "Bossk is run off the trail" story that essentially becomes a separate adventure that's not slavishly built around TESB. So it's a bit more of an adventure than IG-88's capsule biography or Dengar's love life.

On one hand, it's a bit annoying that the Bossk story is built around Bossk getting shown up by Tyers's AJ OCs. It's sort of the prototype story for turning Bossk, this fierce-looking Tyrannosaurus Rex in a flight suit, who could have been built up as something really cool, into a sort of cruel, dim bumbler. On the other hand, it is an entertaining story, he's not that much of a bumbler in this story, and it's good to see one of the bounty hunters, at least, treated as a villain and antagonist instead of the protagonist of the story. It certainly helps add a little variety to the collection (which, as one of only two straight stories, rather than time-skipping mini-bios, it's also doing on another level). I can't really object to treating him as a villain, because he makes a great villain, and not every bounty hunter needs to have some sort of sweeping humanizing backstory attached to them. There are a lot of bounty hunters; Bossk doesn't need to have an arc. He can just be a menacing recurring antagonist. The universe needs those too.

One thing that I like about Tyers is that she tackles religion. Maybe it's because she's religious herself, but she understands that religion is common, rather than uncommon, and isn't afraid to depict it. Her created religions tend to be a bit simplistic (as is a bit necessary when conveying something in the background of another story), but they're not Space Christianity or Space X, and they're handled as what they are -- important parts of people's lives that don't just occur on primitive backwater tribal planets. So Bossk gets a religion that's based around death and personal accomplishment, a brutally simple scorekeeping affair. On one hand, it's silly in its simplicity, but on the other hand, there's wonderfully direct, brutal characterization of the Trandoshan people in establishing their bare-bones religion -- this a people that believes it literally gets points for killing other beings (someone really needs to make the retcon that this is some sort of cargo cult quietly introduced by unscrupulous fur traders millennia ago). So I like her willingness to introduce religion as a motivation.

Ultimately, I think this is the middle-ranked story of the five in TOTBH. It's a pretty fun little adventure, nothing more than that but also nothing less.

 

Speaking of religions from Tales Of...don't the Niktos from Tales From Jabba's Palacepretty much worship a Magic Eight ball?

 

The Weequays. Actual sample exchange:

Weequay 1: "Is the killer in this room?" [dirty look from Weequay 2] "It is the necessary first question."

Quay: "Concentrate and ask again."

Weequay 1: "Is the killer in this room?"

Quay: "Better not tell you now."

Weequay 1: "You see! It is you!"

Weequay 2: "No! I swear! The Great God Quay did not identify me! Ask him a third time!"

Weequay 1: "We beseech you, O Great God Quay! Is the killer in this room?"

Quay: "Very doubtful."

This is why we need to do the other Tales from books.

 

AHAHAHA, dude, somehow I've never actually read that tales book, but now I see I must.

As to the story, yes, I'm largely of a similar mind to you.

I enjoyed it far more than I thought I would, mainly because Bossk as a character disinterested me fairly strongly and I had only vague memories of it from the first time around, but a lot came back to me as I went through it. Because I haven't read the Adventure Journal stories, my knowledge of Tinian, Daye and Tam mostly comes from this story and mentions in later material that I wook'd up. So I actually read it not knowing that it was her OCs from the AJs and assumed this was Tinian's introduction. Knowing that it is a little entertaining, but also, why not use them - continuity is a wonderful thing.

However, I did end up quite enjoying it - and I think partly that's down to Tyers not trying to get me to sympathise with Bossk but rather providing him with antagonists with whom I could sympathise. I think making Bossk a more multidimensional character could have worked well, and I'm wary of my own disinterest in him because it's a fairly stereotypical thing - to assume the Rubber Suited Guy is boring because he has no facial expressions, but also, it's a book about the freaking bounty hunters and at least one of the non-robotic ones should escape while still being a total badass, dangerous jerk.

I think that had Tyers not only made him the villain but also made him incompetent it really would have started seeming like lazy writing, but Bossk is actually portrayed as frighteningly competent until the end. Tactically he had the upper hand the entire time, and Tinian and Chen were backfooted and trying to improvise as all three of their plans fell apart. Flirt came through in the end, and I suppose, if I were being incredibly critical I could comment on the convenience of the timing of that, but I'm not sure, in a story this short and structured as it is, that wouldn't be overkill. The point is, they really do survive, Han Solo style, on luck rather than skill in this novel. Which means even though Bossk is captured he manages to retain his aura of menace. I'd be afraid of him escaping and coming back after me whereas if Tinian and Chen had taken him for a ride, I think that would not have been the case.

I also thought the decision to basically skip over the bridge scene entirely and reference it in flashback and then just head off in a new direction was a good one. With Dengar and IG-88 already hovering around the edges of the movie, even with good reason to be there (hunting the same quarry), it's beginning to get crowded.

As to Bossk's religion, I do agree it's nice to see that sort of thing referenced and it's something that could be done more in Star Wars. Though I guess, more than, say, Star Trek, I kind of understand why it isn't, in that the Force is a verifiable mystical phenomenon that I guess I then subconsciously allow that more Buddhist religious leanings are common in the GFFA. But even so that's not going to account for the diversity of that area that will stem from sheer variety of species and cultures.

I want, therefore, to say that I enjoyed Bossk's religion. Unfortunately, I can't say that because of how distractingly simplistic it was. I think the goal was to mix religious trappings with a more updated "scifi" sounding idea, like a game scoring system. The result, though, is distractingly 70s. The idea is nice, the execution less so.

Ultimately, I wish I had more to say o

 

It's brilliant like their Jar Jar. As is the inevitability of "You just got Bossked!" entering canon somehow.

I like the deadly sand. I'm surprised it hasn't been used in anything else or the planet. There's a Most Dangerous Game feel about it. It certainly makes for a different kind of prison planet instead of the usual industrialised grime.

 

I would probably say the same thing, except that now I've got myself convinced it originated in some fast-talking fur trader going, "Yeah, see, you get . . . points . . . for turning in pelts. From . . . a god. You, uh, can't get to heaven without turning in pelts. It's a real religion, man. Trust me, you don't want to piss off, uh, the . . . Score . . . keeper." Which is just so delightfully hilarious that I find it irresistible.

 

So, moving on to Of Possible Futures: the tale of Zuckuss and 4-LOM by M. Shayne Bell.

Again, what did you guys think? Some brief points:

- The treatment of intuition and whether it is the same or different to the Force?

- 4-LOM's treatment as a sentient droid? Compared to IG-88's story? Do you believe he could work out intuition or did that need more underpinning and explanation?

- Zuckuss and 4-LOM end up defecting to the rebels partly out of necessity but with some other motivations, both practical and emotional. Did you feel it was genuine or just desperation and the desire for convenient new lungs?

- Toryn Farr's character and the treatment of the Rebellion?

Shoot!

 

4-Lom and Zuckuss are actually the stand-outs from this book and it irritates me that "Boba Fett: Last Man Standing" gets all of the attention by comparison to be honest. I think part of my distaste for the thing comes from the fact that both characters get hideously mangled as a result of the bad writing and even worse retcons that followed the Bounty Hunter trilogy.

Bossk got it bad in the BHT, being turned into a complete moron who Darth Vader would hire to wash his car let alone seek out the most dangerous terrorists/freedom fighters in the galaxy. However, poor 4-Lom and Zuckuss have their entire personalities rewritten and rearranged in that series to obliterate all the interesting development that occurs here.

I think what I like most about 4-Lom and Zuckuss' story is that they're not particularly nice people but they're not evil in the same way that I generally prefer Boba Fett to be. In many ways, they fit Jango Fett's "just a simple man trying to make my way in the universe" better than most. 4-Lom is a remarkably self-interested being while Zuckuss is an interesting Force Sensitive character. The Gand findsmen are never really touched on again but the idea of Vader sending a Force Adept after Han Solo is sort of brilliant when you think about it.

Maybe it's the bad writing in other works but 4-Lom and Zuckuss seem about 1,000x more intelligent than everyone but Boba Fett in this book. They also work well as a team and it's interesting to see their oddball relationship of Science and Sorcery at play. The fact that Zuckuss seems to think of 4-Lom as a friend while 4-Lom is just using Zuckuss to try and learn the ways of the Force at the start is a interesting dynamic that changes to genuine friendship at the end.

My disgust over the treatment of Zuckuss has soured me eternally against this series as I can only note that he's now apparently a multiple personality schizophrenic "faking" being a Gand Findsman with his wise, mystical personality here being something that is apparently just one side of an otherwise cowardly being. There's also the fact that, in a weird way, these two achieved one of the more believable redemptions in Star Wars.

No, they didn't magically become nice people overnight but they decided that their paths were better forged with people who were decent and noble than the soulless exploitation of the Empire. I'm sorry to see it didn't work out for them because it really should have.

I also like the general idea that 99.999999999999% droids are not sentient, just really sophisticated video game programs. It's just 4-Lom, IG-88, the droid from Medstar, C-3PO, and R2-D2 are.

 

I just realized my review wasn't very helpful, so I'll restrict my opinions of Zuckuss and 4-LOM to what was actually in the short story.

Overall, I very much enjoyed this take on Zuckuss and 4-Lom. They're two very interesting characters that are seemingly competent enough that you figure Darth Vader would choose them out of the millions of Bounty Hunters out there in order to go bring back Han Solo and Princess Leia. As I mentioned above, the idea of a Force Adept being teamed with a being of pure logic gives the team an exceptional edge that you know could end up being vital in finding Han Solo.

However, given Zuckuss isn't necessarily a Dark Sider, I had the impression from the story that the "Will of the Force" was guiding both 4-Lom and Zuckuss away from their current path. Thus, they never found Han Solo but they found something infintely greater. 4-Lom would eventually be the first Jedi Droid (in a very long time at least) while Zuckuss would probably go on to teach at the Jedi Academy his particular tradition's view of the Force. Overall, as happy endings go, it's a surprisingly poignant one.

There's some unbelievable elements to this story such as the fact that 4-LOM is apparently force sensetive. This isn't something that the EU has ever shied away from. I-5YQ and his "soul" is something Jax Pavan and Barriss Offee have both commented on. Likewise, we've seen other examples of droids totally going away from their programming. IG-88 wasn't a very good example but I always liked 'I think, therefore I am' was actually a malfunctioning program rather than genuine logical awakening to self-will.

Still, it was a subject maturely handled as 4-LOM goes from scanning every face he passes by in the bounty hunter registries of the Empire to embracing his new role as one of the first Rebel Alliance sympathetic bounty hunters. In many ways, 4-Lom is extremely more logical than IG-88 who essentially handles himself like a low-rent Skynet and does things like playing pranks. 4-Lom is much more logical in that he's totally devoted to self-improvement and sees no reason to engage in essentially large-scale genocide for the evulz.

One thing that rang false to me during the story was the fact that Zuckuss and 4-Lom were essentially able to free a Rebel Alliance transport by just asking the Empire to let it go. That seems to be something that wouldn't go over nearly as easily as it did. Call me crazy.

 

Ugh, the stuff you tell me about their later stories, and their poor treatment in later novels makes me sad, Charlie, because I really liked the characters in this tale.

Well, perhaps like is too strong a word, because I didn't think either of them were all that nice, but that in itself was quite intriguing. When they join the Alliance at the end, there's a sense of possible redemption, certainly of understanding that there is value in a kinder mode of existence, but also 4-LOM is primarily motivated by the logical longhaul possibility of a New Republic that is kinder to Bounty Hunters than the Empire, although there is also the spectre of his old hospitality programming, choosing to try and help organics. Zuckuss is also surprised and perhaps a little moved by the welcome he receives, but again, there is the new lungs he desires are being provided to him here, for free, and leaving would likely kill him. (Just as you found the release of the Rebel transport overly easy, I found the sudden development of heretofore impossible medical technology by a fleeing, oppressed group of rebels to be a little hard to swallow - honestly I would rather have simply had them willing to clone him lungs because they sometimes needed to resort to illegal medical procedures to keep their people alive).

It left me with a feeling of hope but not entirely of resolution an I liked that.

I wasn't entirely sure I understood exactly how 4-LOM was making the jump from logic to intuition. It wasn't the best example I've ever seen of droids being written as developing sentience. That said, it was interesting and an absolute masterpiece compared to the simplistic nature of IG-88's story. And I found the Gand Findsmen tradition extremely interesting and would really like to know more about how it ties in with other Force-using traditions.

I would agree that they were led out of the galaxy to the Rebels because Zuckuss' intuition was hijacked by the Will of the Force.

In any event, it saddens me to hear that they weren't treated that well in later appearances. This was a good story, I thought.

 

I wish that I had more to add to the discussion, but it's been eight years (exactly --- August '02) since I've read this book. I don't remember tooooooo many specifics about Bossk's or Dengar's tales, while the nitty-gritty of IG-88's and Boba Fett's tales do still stand out in my mind today, on account of respectively being unforgivingly bad and unabashedly good. I think I must have liked Zuckuss' and 4-LOM's tale a bunch, too, as I remember quite a bit from it.

When you're writing a novel or a short story that's primarily about one (or in this case, two) person, having a parallel sideplot running that's independent of the main narrative until the two cross paths at the climax isn't always the best choice. Daniel Keys Moran obviously did fine without it; James Luceno misfired hugely with it in Dark Lord, aka the Book where I wanted to punch Roan Shryne in the face on every page that featured him. However, in Zuckuss and 4-LOM's tale, it ended up working out pretty well. If Lucasarts has taught us anything, it's that fans love the Battle of Hoth --- rebel escapees from Echo Base are an instantly likable bunch, and hey, one of them was that girl from the movie who wasn't Leia but still had a line or two. Cool! And not only was the rebel subplot permeated with a rag-tag-bunch-of-freedom-fighters-fighting-for-their-very-existence feeling that you often get when reading the old Marvels, but it dovetailed thematically with Zuckuss and 4-LOM's own plight and ended up turning them into good guys at the end, hooray!

Zuckuss and 4-LOM were both interesting characters to me, and the former is one of the reasons why I've held off having a go at the Bounty Hunter Wars for so long. I mean, when your characterization of someone is so bad that a multiple personality retcon is introduced... Anyway. I always got the badass, hunter-killer, no-personality-just-a-killing-machine vibe from 4-LOM, but was pleasantly surprised when the author (can't even remember who it is) went another route, rather than making the guy a clone of IG-88. And hey, he was able to predict the existence of a New Republic!

I'll agree with what a few people have said about Bossk --- I liked that in the end, he was still a bad dude, and would continue on with his hunt for years to come. Made for a cool cameo in Hero's Trial. Didn't go with the "He was in the movie, so his redemption and new outlook on life MUST come immediately afterwards in the chronology" route of Dengar, Zuckuss, and 4-LOM. Not that that's intrinsically a bad thing; good to have variety.

 

That reminds me. Bounty Hunter Wars would be a great 181st topic.

Anyway, the stories in TOTBH are in ascending order; this is the second-best story in it, a great piece that takes 4-LOM and Zuckuss through a cool and believable arc that sets them on the road to redemption without being overly soppy about it. The extreme yin and yang dynamic of the two characters is a bit cliche, but as the team was constructed by Jabba for precisely that purpose, and it sets up a great dynamic for the story, it's hardly a problem. Anything that plays intelligently with droid issues is generally gold, and 4-LOM's quest for the Force is no exception.

 

Bounty Hunter Wars affects me like the Glove of Darth Vader effects other people.

Personally, I really enjoyed seeing the adventures of Ion Cannon Girl. She was quite impressive as making the kind of decisions the Rebel Alliance had to do with no Big Three guarantee these decisions will work out. I especially like her ejection of all the rebels onto Hoth was completely pointless.

 

Hey guys, just to let you know, with apologies, that I'll be catching up on this thread and responding properly in a few days. A minor emergency has kept me largely off-net the last day or two and now I have to make a quick trip down to another city til Thursdayish - don't worry, nothing enormously horrible, just...ugh, real life stuff. I'll be back sooooon!

 

Incheon?

Come back to Incheon! I renewed my contract for another year.

And hey, it looks like this tale was the first source to give Toryn Farr a name. Although I kinda like "Ion Cannon Girl"...

 

[image=http://i97.photobucket.com/albums/l209/Hells_Angles/Hoth.jpg]

 

Hooray for Ion Cannon Girl! I did remember her from the film when reading this and I do think it's one of the better attempts to do the whole, "What's this guy's story?" thing. She has an important story, she is an important person, but she's not secretly the saviour of all, she's not independently remarkable. She's a good average-girl perspective, someone to balance out our empathy for Zuckuss and 4-LOM while they're still the bad guys and to ultimately provide the tool for their potential transformation into good guys.

I think I like her use because it feels, to me, thematically appropriate to the theme of possible futures and probabilities, moth mathematical and mystical. Her ship and her crew are haphazardly turning in space, thrown as a random element into a wider battle, and it affects the lives of Zuckuss and 4-LOM similarly.

I would also agree that it's intriguing that 4-LOM is a merciless killer, and the story makes no pretense about this. He really has no moral qualms and operates purely on logic. But it shows a degree of skill magnitudes larger than KJA that when faced with this sort of character, the author chose not to focus on the lack of morals to use it as justification for making him a monster, but rather on the rigorous logic, and slow exploration of methods of deduction beyond logic, to allow 4-LOM to come to a reasoned conclusion that the New Republic was a better governmental option, but a conclusion that was not, in any way, based in morals and ethics. I mean, Good Guys vs Bad Guys is at the heart of the OT - I'd never change that, but it's interesting to throw in a guy who comes to the same conclusion as the rebels for completely different reasons.

As to the Bounty Hunter Wars, having never read them, I have no strong feelings either way, so throw them into the suggestion pot for post-X-Wing stuff and I'm sure we can fit them in somewhere? I will be honest though, I do feel a little bit of trepidation from what I've heard. I came to really like Zuckuss here - the retcons and characterisations it seems are in store for him make me kinda sad.

Ultimately, I liked the story. It didn't blow my mind, but I'd agree with Havac that the stories are pretty much in ascending order of quality.

 

I honestly thought Toryn WAS Leia when I saw ESB as a kid. I had the old VHS tapes that filled my whole TV screen, and you couldn't see Leia standing off to the side of that scene on that version. Her story about being stuck aboard a dying transport is interesting, but I didn't like the subplot of sending survivors in escape pods right back to Hoth. Did they not notice a whole mess of troops descending on the place that would immediately capture any who returned to the planet?

 

Actually, the Hoth set of the CCG came out a month before this story, though the longer lead time on book publishing means the name probably was created for the tale.