Celebration III EU News

This **** is going to rock so hard.

 

So this X-wing trio is going to be a prequel to The Rebel Opposition and not a sort of "replacement intro" for The Phantom Affair?

 

Rad - thanks for the update 2Q; there'd been almost no other Dark Horse news out of CIII so far.

 

>>So this X-wing trio is going to be a prequel to The Rebel Opposition and not a sort of "replacement intro" for The Phantom Affair?<<

Thats how I understood it.

Yep -- that's the idea.


And, yeah, other than that, we didn't announce very much. We have big plans for 2006, trust me, it's just too soon talk about them yet?

 

Ah, I see the pattern!

First we had the X-Wing: Rogue Squadron series, now we have X-Wing: Rogue Leader, and I'll bet that X-wing: Rebel Strike will be next.

 

-Zahn's Classic-era novel's working title is Allegiance, is set shortly after ANH (hopefully more than 6 months after ) will focus on Luke, Han & Leia. Vader will have a small role in it

let me guess: it's a Zahn book, so Vader's role will probably consist of him wearing a KICK ME sign on his back while all the other Imperial leaders laugh at how stupid he is.

curious about the Legacy era books. they've got a good team for that series.

 

Quest: Zahn hates the idea of using cloning to bring back villians (he brought it up in HOT only because Thrawn would have taken advantage of any technology available to him) however did discuss one scenario where he'd be willing to break that stance: if at some point there was a threat to the galaxy only Thrawn could stop, there would be a clone of Thrawn made- but the idea that inetrests Zahn most is that the clone would know he was a clone and have to deal with his own doubts of being able to do what everyone expects of him (Zahn called it the "big brother" syndrome as in "Oh, your Jimmy's little brother? I had him when he was ins chool"). This concept could potentially be connected the aforementioned Luke/Mara/Ben idea.

Hmm... I need to listen through the MP3 here - because I'd say you could read the Thrawn of the Thrawn Trilogy in exactly the terms described here...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

So, am I to take it that Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader is different to Luceno's story with the same half-title? It seems that they are different, which causes me to wonder why the same title will have been used twice. This is the part where Excellence comes in and adds another "Dark" title to the ever-growing list...


Actually, it's ironic. This is the only "dark" that's really fitting. Since, of course, Vader's title, IS Dark Lord.

I'm glad I'm not reading anything post TUF. It all sounds like poodoo. It's so completely ridiculous that Thrawn (just stop beating that horse's skeleton, will ya) would be needed for anything after the defeat of the Yuuzhan Vong. No threat will ever come close to what the Vong were. It's just impossible.

It looks like Del Rey is going the way of Bantam now.

Zahn's Classic-era novel's working title is Allegiance, is set shortly after ANH (hopefully more than 6 months after ) will focus on Luke, Han & Leia. Vader will have a small role in it

let me guess: it's a Zahn book, so Vader's role will probably consist of him wearing a KICK ME sign on his back while all the other Imperial leaders laugh at how stupid he is.

Whatever. It's just the pEU.

Of course, MARA has soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much more allegiance to the Empire than Vader, who only gave up his family, wife, kids, destiny as the Chosen One, and killed all his friends and allies for the Empire. But Mara is what? A murderer, with no conscience that has never done a single thing for anyine is her miserable life. But she's so loyal. Yeah, my @ss......


Zahn's Classic-era novel's working title is Allegiance, is set shortly after ANH (hopefully more than 6 months after ) will focus on Luke, Han & Leia. Vader will have a small role in it and Mara will also be in it "at the height of her powers" as an Emperor's Hand. Thrawn likely won't appear at all given his circumstances.

Ooooh. I shake in my boots at this 14 year old terror....NOT!
Let me guess, at the lofty height of her powers, she actually can lift a small rock with her unparalleled ability to leech force off her host, Palps. She can "hear" him. (Along with his 50 other "only" hands, that is.)

Of course, Luke is a sorry second later on, but beggar's can't be choosers.

 

TF: oh, sure - but, inasmuch as that was addressed to me, does Zahn say that there'd be a clone Thrawn in the hypothetical Skycrawler novel, or just that it would tie in with the clone Thrawn idea...?

- The Imperial Ewok

 

Shame on you.

 

You know he is. He always comes back, all horrible ideas come back, it is part of this little thing called stupidity

 

There's a writeup at the OS for the Zahn panel now:

http://www.starwars.com/community/event/celebration/f20050419/indexp31.html

With his watershed trilogy of novels beginning in 1991, author Timothy Zahn created two of the most enduring characters of the expanded universe: Mara Jade, Grand Admiral Thrawn. Both will return in his forthcoming novels from Del Rey Books. The next one scheduled is Outbound Flight, due out this October, but as Zahn explained during a panel on Sunday, it was a long path before reaching this point.

In the year 2000, LucasBooks approached Zahn about finally telling the story of Outbound Flight, the ill-fated Jedi-led expedition to explore for intelligent life beyond the borders of the galaxy. "Of course, I said yes," recalled Zahn. During these initial discussions, the book was slated to come out just prior to the release of Episode II. This was roughly where it also happened to fall in the in-universe timeline, just prior to Attack of the Clones.

"I said 'this gets better and better,'" described Zahn. "I started on the outline, but word came down that for some reason, it would have to come late in '05. So I put it on the shelf for the moment. A year or two later, they came back to me and said, 'we're doing this book, Tatooine Ghost, which is kind of a Han and Leia story and we thought it'd be nice to do a Luke and Mara story. Would you be interested?'"

Zahn was interested, and while he was working on what would become Survivor's Quest, he saw the opportunity to link both the prequel-era Outbound Flight and the New Republic-era Survivor's Quest. "So, for those of you who think I left a bunch of plot threads lying around because I lost interest, no. They're all in [Outbound Flight]."

Zahn produced both outlines simultaneously, with Outbound Flight As Zahn described in his author's panel, the Chiss mastermind Thrawn will feature heavily in the book. "There's a certain amount of Jedi action," he said. "Jorus C'baoth is there. I also have Anakin and Obi-Wan for the first half of the book. A large amount of it, though, is Thrawn and tactics and how he's going to actually destroy Outbound Flight, defeating a whole bunch of Jedi in the process." Zahn also confirmed that Jorj Cardas would figure prominently in the story.

Zahn also gave a glimpse at another book in early development. "It's working title is Allegiance. I like that because we have three different people and groups with allegiance issues in the book." Zahn plans to begin writing the book in August and is currently making adjustments to his outline. It set right after the events of A New Hope. "It is set right after A New Hope," he revealed. "So I have all the major characters. Han and Leia are still sniping at each other, Luke is not a Jedi (hopefully he's not whiny), I'm going to have to find a good role for Chewbacca, and Mara is at the height of her powers as the Emperor's Hand." Zahn also confirmed that Vader will have a minor role, Thrawn is not likely to appear (he's out in the fringes of the galaxy, after all) and stormtroopers will be featured.

Through the course of questions and answers with fans, Zahn answered two frequently asked question. One was on the possibility of the Thrawn clones revealed in the Hand of Thrawn duology returning in the future. "To be honest, I hate the idea of bringing back a dead villain. It's so comic book," he said. "Unfortunately, with cloning technology I'm stuck with the possibility, because Thrawn is too good not to have considered the option. There is one scenario I would consider bringing back a clone, and that would be if we were in very serious danger yet again, as we always are in the GFFA, and the clone Thrawn has to come and save the day, except that he knows he is not Thrawn."

Zahn described his interest in the potential identity crisis and inferiority complex inherent in that scenario. "They're all sure he's capable of great things, only he's not sure that he can. I think that would be a very interesting character to write."

At the end of the pa

 

Well it's good to have that "Coruscant" business officially laid to rest.

But when I read "It is set right after A New Hope...So I have all the major characters" I couldn't help but hear an evil "Mwuhahahahaha!" following it. But seriously, that "right after" bit worries me. Please man, just give our Rebel heroes a few months!

 

Oh great another story about how Mara was a saint even though she went around killing people for her pimp Palpy while Luke is nothing but a whiner who can't do anything. I'll pass.

 

Yay for agendas!

 

I really hope he wouldn't elevate Mara into sainthood further and degrade Vader even more..

 

Its nice to be back on the boards after a couple months hiatus....


Has there been any plans to detail to the prophecy of the one who will bring balance to the Force? I really want to see the origins of this.

I think it would be cool if a once powerful and respected Jedi had this vision (the prophecy). He would then reveal it to the order and some would believe him, others would think he is crazy and thus would give some explanation to why some Jedi don't believe in the prophecy.

Regardless of how it goes down, I really want the prophecy to be fleshed out.

 

wasn´t the prophecy forged around the time of KOTOR? or was it before the TOTJ era?

if it was during the KOTOR Era, it would be nice to tie it into the games and sourrouning EU, comics, tales, etc. depicting the era.


EDIT: keep in mind: the sith had a similar prophecy of a perfect being in the force, a sithari as they called it, who will lead them to victory over the Jedi and bring balance of the force. the sith believed themselves in the balance, but interpreted it in their favor, like the Jedi did in their own favor. each side believed to be perfect.. though neither was.

if the prophecy is depicted in any material, they should tie this sith prophecy into it as well.. which one was first there? was it from the same person who went dark? who knows..