Lit Best and Worst EU Eras?

i was mainly just addressing the immediate five to ten years after ROTJ, but there's that too.

 

In terms of eras in which things were written; generally, the material written up to 2005 is far more good than bad, the material written after 2005 is far more bad than good. IMHO.

For more specific eras; the Bantam era, what someone called the "OT-centric" era of the EU, will always be my favorite. Specifically, the Thrawn trilogy, the Thrawn duology, the X-wing series (including I, Jedi), the Han Solo trilogy, the Han Solo Adventures, and the Lando Calrissian Adventures... all that's probably the heart of the EU for me, and my favorite era.

The NJO, as crowning achievement... well, yeah. Most of it's already been said. I'll just add that I love the way it built on the previous era and let you see how all the different corners of the SW universe you'd learned to love in the Bantam era were reacting to this radical event. And I love that, to me at least, it never felt pointlessly dark - it's dark in an "earn your happy ending kind of way," the same way Empire Strikes Back makes the OT dark, in a way that understands that your heroes need to have really major obstacles to overcome to come to a happy ending. (As opposed to the post-NJO, which felt like it was just doing darkness for darkness' sake). I still sentimentally prefer the Bantam era, but I'll concede that the NJO is probably the best of the EU.

Worst: well, do I really need to say it? Post-NJO. As much as Mercy Kill breathes life into it, it is literally the only thing to do so.

The one era I've never really explored much is the Old Republic era, apart from one Bane book (which I didn't mind). It was just too far removed from the characters and setting I loved for me to have given it too much attention, especially when there was always stuff to read closer to the era I wanted. Now that the EU's dead ( ) I finally am getting interested in it. Read "Knight Errant" for Christmas last year (book not comic), and freaking loved it. Had never heard of "Jedi vs. Sith" until this thread, but I think that's going to be next on my list (especially since it does sound much more interesting than Path of Destruction). And I want the rest of Kerra Holt, too.

 

Death Star isn't just the weapon, it's super powerful base and it got tons of elite troops/officials on it, with two of them gone plus the Emperor and his right hand, plus the massive fleet in EP VI. The empire surely would be in big chaos for such big loss and being headless. None of them could fill the Emperor's place.

With the Emperor, his massive fleet and the 2 Death Stars(which contained a lot of the Empire's elite forces) gone, it won't take more than 10-15 years to finish the Empire with the New Republic's strength. Then the galaxy should have peace. A lot of hero's saga ends in their 20s or 30s, they are still great people, they just don't keep saving the galaxy again and again and again until their 70s.

 

first off, the fleet left, barely taking any losses. so no, that's not particularly accurate. (you do remember in the movied how as soon as the shield went down everything turned to fighting executor and the deathstar II? yea.) then they also have other entire fleets. not mention the other ships that are out protecting convoys and so forth. i mean, the empire's a really, really big place, and even losing that fleet as well wouldn't have put too terribly big of a dent in their actual strength.

second, most of the deathstar II wasn't even finished, and didn't even remotely have a full crew on it, mainly housing construction. so... again no.

deathstar one, actually didn't have very much in the way of elite forces if you read the novel deathstar, i wouldn't know about nucanon, but we aren't talking about that one.

also, they weren't known as the new republic even remotely at that point. they didn't have coruscant, didn't take that unti lthe rogue squadron novels nearly five years later. they didn't even have a government in place, as they were a loose collection of worlds opposing a power that was STILL greater than them, as that wasn't even the only fleet that the empire had. the empire still had more ships than them, and a more shipyards. i mean, that was literally everything the rebels had at the end of ROTJ. they couldn't have even taken out the rest of the imp's fleet there, because they were still out numbered and completely outgunned. that's why they never really tried to do a mass battle in the first place. so with what strength are they going to just waltz in and overtake a still much bigger, stronger, larger military that can out produce them?

so again, they lost not many troops in the second one, the really, really important one since that's when palps left. the leader of the fleet, upon seeing DSII blowing up, immediately pulled the entire fleet out. now, with that being the case, and in the novels there was someone that stepped in. i believe it was armand isard who basically immediately stepped into position as emperor and kept everything from even remotely falling apart.

and then you have heroes like superman, batman, iron man, etc, etc that keep saving the world/galaxy over, and over and over and over again. you have army officers that are still very important moving forward, in real life, and in dwight d. eisenhower's case became president of all things. dunno about you, but that seems like a higher point than everything he'd done before that in his "saga".

and you kind of ignore the completely unique situation that luke is in. he's, as far as anyone knows, the last of the jedi and need to learn more and start rebuilding (or so everyone else thinks, and given the way that the stories went it was a pretty good thing that he did). given that how many of the jedi council were still involved during the clone wars into their later years, in yoda's case MUCH later, i don't think you really even have precedent in universe on your side here. then there's the rest of the history of the galaxy as well, again not exactly giving you precedent... but instead giving examples of the exact opposite. and these people weren't even remotely the last of the jedi.

so i'm still really, really having trouble seeing how what you would have preferred happen actually fits the facts of what we are given.

 

No, their flagship was gone, more than half of the star destroyers were gone. The Death Star II also got many crews as we saw. Again, don't use Legends material since we are talking about its quality.

Coruscant was even celebrating while Imperial forces were still there. With such a heavy loss and most of the top leaders gone, it's just a matter of time for the Empire to lose. The SW GOD before Disney era, George Lucas had the same idea like he said in the interview. Sure it would still take years to finish the job, but that's all.

Superhero comics are a good example of how silly things could go if you don't let the heroes retire, they never care about consistency and even reboot sometimes. Glad even the old EU don't keep the big three forever young to save the galaxy weekly.

Yeah, he is the last Jedi, he could restore the Jedi Order, but that has nothing to do with saving the galaxy over and over again. His saga is already magnificent even if we end up with the OT movies, keep adding "new Imperial Warlords/Mega threat" and "new superweapons" would only ruin the story.

 

it's pretty clear that we're never going to agree on this, even though there is no way that something as big and with as much production capacity as the empire would be dead and done, especially given that not even remotely all of the leadership was on the DSII (moffs, grand admirals... both canon). i just don't see how it's anymore more than a chapter in a bigger story that it doesn't make any sense for any of the main characters to be done, because they're all still very young, and very much needed.

 

The Empire was not "totally done" after Endor yes, but surely it was surely going to lose soon.

Why didn't we have more OT movies? Why did Lucas add those planet scenes in the end of the movie? Because the main story is over here. It would still take a couple of years to totally free the galaxy, but nothing more, not like we are going to face countless major threat in the next few decades. They did it simply to sell their stuff with the big three's name on it.

 

i still very much hate the additional scenes that lucas added. they have never made any sense to me in the slightest, especially the ending of ROTJ. the only places that would actually be overtly happy would be the rebel worlds, for everything imperial? they just lost one of the main sources of their power. why're they happy about this exactly? other than now there's an opening at the top. even a lot of the populace (humans anyway) were happy being imperial, because it meant that they got preferential treatment. it just doesn't actually make any logical sense. it never has to me in the slightest.

and if you'll note, the EU was originally built off of the original ending, where it wasn't the galaxy celebrating, but a band of rebels that still had a mighty big fight ahead of them, but had just put a pretty sizable dent into it. the only person who's saga ended in ROTJ was anakin skywalker. luke's was just beginning.

 

The answer - even so-called "Imperial worlds" are tyrannically ruled - with the populace hating and resenting their rulers - thus, the death of the Emperor being greeted with joy even on Coruscant.

 

You know Jello's never going to agree with this idea of yours, right?

 

Yes - but that's not Jello I was replying to. The "it's just a small group of rebellious Coruscanti teenagers that's celebrating" rationale is probably what he'd use.

 

The joke was that he's going to see it at some point....

 

And I suspect I've already guessed how he's going to describe that Coruscant celebration scene.

 

Ah, but what if he has already worked that out so placing you both in a game of move and counter-move?

 

Going back to the topic - I'd say that the "worst period" of the Legendsverse, for me, would be the TOR era. It seems to be getting more and more overcomplicated and fitting in less and less with the rest of the EU.

 

given that the rest of the EU doesn't even exist anymore, it's not really a huge issue for them, is it? why does it have to be cohesive when legends, which it's considered to be far as i know, is no longer something that actually has any reason to be cohesive?

and a lot of people actually thought the empire was good. how long do you think until the celebrations were cracked down on anyway, by the planetary governors, moffs, grand moffs. imperial intelligence, military, the police who answer to a lot those people... if it was really that eroded at the bottom, then the rebels wouldn't still be facing such a ridiculously uphill battle. that's the thing that those of you who think it should just fade into peace after the DSII destruction, something as big as the empire doesn't just crumble and die. there is nothing even remotely inevitable about the rebels ultimate victory, as they're still severely outgunned, out fleeted, have no actual political power compared to the empire, are hopelessly out manufactured meaning that the losses sustained by them are ultimately far more costly than those that the empire suffered... i mean, by every metric you can use the rebels are still in a very, very bad position.

all of that is why i just can't wrap my head around how it's the end of a saga for luke. end of a quest? sure. the quest to redeem his father. a second quest to see the emperor fall. but that's not the end of a war. and like i said before, it's the end of anakin's saga, something that was really a saga, taking place over decades for him. luke? he's not even thirty yet. he's still very much in a beginning for his life. same for leia, and even han isn't particularly old yet.

 

I don't have a problem with this-the celebrations were just local insurrections/happy dances once news reached other parts of the Galaxy of the empire's defeat and they were quickly put down. The legends after explanation showed yeah people hate the empire but the empire still has teeth.

Also I don't see why the celebrations on Coruscant for example couldn't have been primarily in the non-human districts, on Naboo-well in Legends the 501st had already suppressed an uprising and the naboo monarchy played a double game of loyalty to empire/secret support for the rebellion. On world's like Bastion and Carida people were probably not happy in the slightest that the emperor was dead.

 

Iron Fist expands on this. One of the new Wraith's was there on Coruscant for the celebrations, and the Imperial reprisals.

 

if it was mainly in the non-human sector that would make a lot of sense, but based on what we can actually see it seems to be a lot of humans to me. in all of the celebration scenes. i get what lucas was going for, the big bad evil is gone, now hope and peace can reign, etc, etc... but logically it just doesn't ring true unless literally everyone in the empire was only there because of fear of palpatine and none of them were in it for personal gain or power, and the higher ups certainly would have been.

per slowpokeking we can't use the EU to discuss the merits of how it expanded into the EU... for some reason. but yes, that does make a lot of sense. as does the celebration being among the downtrodden and aliens, not the elites. but it sure looked like one of the expensive parts of coruscant celebrating to me.

 

Iron Fist

 

The Empire was pretty much done after the Battle of Jakku in the new canon, only 5 years after Endor.

 

I hate that, Legends made waaaaay more sense in terms of the length of the civil war.

Oh and it was one year after Endor which if you think about it is incredibly stupid.

 

Why? It was meant to end soon. There is no reason that "Hi after the movies there are still more and more imperial fleets, countless superweapons and major threats coming!" The movies should be the backbone of the story of the big three especially since the OT is mainly about the war, the EU should be "additional material" of the saga.

Even before Disney, Lucas made it damn clear about it, if he ever thought about making a post-Endor movie/TV series, he would not care for these countless EU struggle at all.

 

Lucas changed his opinion so many times and had such a mixed influence on the franchise he frankly needed to be divested from participating-ideally letting people like Luceno, Pablo Hidalgo and the rest run Lucasfilm and the franchise. Also Legends makes way more IU sense which I guess you don't care about-much like JJ Abrams AKA the the author of ANH 2.0.

I haven't read any of the NuCanon and I'm not planning on it. Legends is better. Period.