Lit Fate of the Jedi issues...

I thought how they made it look like the QLMP were the bad guys was real cool with the disguises and other places to throw off their trail....

sorry, maybe I was reading too fast, I just don't remember Piggy's reaction off the top of my head

they actually are back on Vandor-3 now though, and have infiltrated into the underground facility and I do admit, I'm starting to get a little frustrated bc I don't really get why the team are using "new ways" that go against the perfectly reasonable and seemingly better "old ways" that Piggy brings up to do things....like this infiltration, he's right, the smaller the team the better, this just seems like a bad decision just to create later drama, but I hate that trope and this team SHOULDN'T suffer from this issue

also, the fact Bhindi does the above and once they find the info, she's so "HEY, WE WON" already just seems like she's a total newbie/incompetent leader and she shouldn't be based off her background and her earning the leadership role in Wraith Squadron....

I must say the flashback chapter on why Piggy originally quit Wraith Squadron was gut wrenching and made perfect sense, and now it makes the present even more sad, he's been forced back in basically to a group he doesn't really know, and he really doesn't seem to fit in, he is constantly left outside the real group's actions, so I feel extremely sorry for him, and that is hurting the happiness this book seemed to have early on to me....

 

so I was thinking about something in regards to this book....

is Piggy actually a part of this group in regards to training them to be better, is this the whole point, they're "green" and Face needs Piggy there to observe and see their faults and show/teach them how to be a "great" Wraith....maybe Piggy knows this is Face's reason for him being there or not....but, this team isn't all rookies though is it???? so IDK

EDIT: second thought, since Bhindi has been the point person on this mission, jw, is she a mole, and Face needs Piggy to smoke her out, so her being a bad leader for the Wraiths is the evidence????? but that doesn't make sense since Bhindi has always been a good person before this point.....so IDK

just trying to make heads and tails out of why this Wraith Squadron seemed to make such a dumb choice....

also, I went back looking at Piggy's reaction to Ackbar City....
1) he seems to think it's drab
2) he hates the "Feyla" base name for good reasons
3) a few things highlight his intelligence/sophistication (orchestra, eat's, etc)

IDK what's really supposed to jump out at me over this, feel free to tell me what I'm missing....

 

Yeah I just fond it some neat jokes and characterisation.

As for why Piggy is there, well everyone but Bhindi is green, so he is there to be a good second

 

so there's a 2nd Wraith squadron on this mission????

awesome for mystery reasons!!!!

groan inducing for the problems I'm already disliking

still fun though overall and better than FOTJ!!!

 

No I mean second in command.

So if Bhindi dies then Piggy can keep them all going. It's mostly redundancy.

 

haha sorry for the confusion, actually I had read farther and was talking about the fact that Bhindi's squadron ran into a different Wraith squadron during the mission....

and further on that point, now I've read through the escape and chase up to the point where Bhindi gets shot....is she a total idiot??? I mean, she's a horrible leader it seems (as Piggy keeps reminding her as well I must add)….

the plan was for Myri to jump off and hide so she could send the info w/o the enemy realizing it (or at least that's the plan that makes sense), but Bhindi decides for her and the Wookie from the other Wraiths to jump off too and start firing on the enemy, like that doesn't immediately raise the awareness of what you are supposedly trying to hide?????? and Piggy points out how this is a bad plan and a bad idea for her (a planner not an infantry person) to take a role in.....this is extremely annoying...it's funny cool when Han (a rogue who doesn't listen to people) goes off script on half brained things and they work out (bc of his luck), it's asinine when a squad leader of the super trained spy group does it

EDIT: just read about Bhindi's death, Piggy taking leadership, and his argument with Scut….
1) Bhindi's idiocy led to her death, that just sucks, and doesn't seem to fit her training to me, still just annoyed by this, sorry
2) Piggy should take leadership, I'm so cool with this, he seems to be the most capable (possibly only) based off what's been presented on page, and he does have seniority like is pointed out
3) Scut's reasons for Piggy not being the leader are messed up, he basically thinks Piggy is horrible bc he cared that people died and moved out of spy work to not have to see that anymore, how is that so bad? even if he's right that Piggy mopes about it too much, that's Piggy's issue in a way that's got no bearing on Scut, and, it hasn't affected his ability on this mission there's no proof he can't lead this mission just bc of any of this, the only thing he'd do is just leave again afterwards, also, what a total jerk thing for him to think and hold against Piggy the way he has the entire book, also this is annoying to me bc I think they're really dropping the ball on integrating the Vong bc Scut is not likable at all with this attitude

 

It does make sense, but it is a millitary view, and scut has that, via a Vong way of thinking. It's about sacrifice, specifically sacrifice of others. As a commander the lives of your team are not the most important thing. The mission is. And sometimes you need to sacrifice one or two to complete the mission or even just save everyone else.

A leader who can't (or won't) make the call to sacrifice some members of the group could end up getting everyone killed or failing the mission.

And the book has shown that Piggy has difficulty with thinking of some of these new troops as troops.

So it makes sense, but a cold sense.

 

I get what you're saying but, I disagree with this book showing it....you seem to be making the same mistake Scut is, he's seeing "ways of thinking" he THINKS lead to certain actions but that's an assumption

tell me where Piggy's issues have affected his performance in any way on this mission, so what if he thinks the team is a bunch of younglings, he hasn't tried to prevent them from doing anything bc of it, it's a feeling, he still acts like a soldier and allows them too also, so what if he cares and feels pain about them being so young??? just like he was able to mercy kill Runt, he was able to use Bhindi's body for the good of the mission, and he hasn't balked at others being allowed to do things (just bc of their being young)...so I don't accept Scut's claims

EDIT: I do want to say though, that is a very cold military view....IDK if you're justifying it....and there are times you do have to make a decision like that, but it's very rare and not in every occasion, a leader who walks around with that view from the outset will get just as many killed to "win" the mission as the guy who "fails" the mission out of compassion bc he won't look for alternatives that accomplish both which is the earmark of a good leader

 

Well there was the time when he didn't want to live Wedges kid alone in Ackbar City, despite being ordered to. He went a long with it, but not with out resistance.

No, not looking for ways to sacrifice, but be willing to do it if it happens.

I don't know if we are meant to agree with Scut, just see his view.

Also Piggy is really racist towards Scut.

 

on Myri, yea Piggy didn't like it, but, as you said, he went along with it, the difference to me is that Scut is accusing him of certain actions based off "not liking" when Piggy has shown he can "not like" and still do said actions

I'm cool with the second line, I agree with it, but I also do think Piggy has shown he can, so why I feel it doesn't work in this case as a negative against Piggy

I actually agree with you here on Scut as well about "not agreeing", I just hate it since I was looking forward to seeing a good guy side of the Vong and while Scut is on the good guys side, he's being such a jerk it doesn't help endear him to me, and that sucks in my opinion and hurts the ability of what I was looking for to happen here

agreed Piggy hasn't been kind at all to Scut, and yea it's technically wrong, but realistically, that at least makes sense based off everything 99% of SW universe has seen, basically the entire Vong were genocidal maniacs (and in reality, even the Shamed were crazy too)

 

It reminds me of relatives who served in the war and how they feel about Japanese people (or cars or what ever).

 

Honestly the name Piggy always felt like an extreme anachronism to me. Yeah the Gamoreans have pig like snouts but we had never seen any pigs in SW so makeing that reference doesn´t really fit. I mean Zahn was kinda critized for a brief mention of, I think, hot chocolate.

And yeah I know they later handwaved that and said there is a species similar to our earthern swine´s called pigs in SW, but still that nickname felt extremly out of place to me.

 

Wow Sam, you actually made it all the way to XW:MK after crawling over the broken glass corridors of FOTJ!

 

well I think you do have to put context in it, we see it as "racist" or really wrong bc we're generations removed from it and grew up in a society where there were obvious reasons not to hold the current members of said race responsible.....

however, you're talking here about someone who first hand witnessed massed genocide on a galaxy level scale (way bigger than any war in all human history) and the events aren't that far removed in time either

on your example, think about what your relative experienced as a military person during the years of WWII and 10 yrs following, not about today and especially not about cars (that is out there), bc that's the time period we're looking at

 

Always made me wonder why Japan threw their lot in with Germany and Italy. What did Japan stand to gain? And how badly did it screw up? We in Australia just got lucky I suppose that America joined by our side when they did since most of our soldiers were in Europe at the time or had been captured at Singapore.

Back to Mercy Kill...

Scut represents everything in his appearance that Piggy (and I suppose other Vong War veterans) represents. He is part of a race that killed 365 trillion beings, devastated thousands of worlds and decimated the New Republic and turned it into the incompetent Galactic Alliance. But at the same time, Scut represents that not all Vong are bad and regret what they did to the galaxy, seeking their place in their new adoptive home. You should never forget but you can forgive. It's a practice we should do in this world, after all, how can I hate Germany when part of my family are German (albeit they left Germany prior to 1901).

 

Japan wanted China, British/French/Dutch Colonies and the Philippines for resources, so they could fight the war in China, which they were fighting to get resources. Enemy of my enemy and all that (ironically Germany supplied China more then any western power in the 20s/30s)

The more you know

 

Thanks for that.

 

There's plenty of examples of things like this (though annoyingly none I can think of off the top of my head), and isn't he named for Porkins or something similar? Not that that really helps things (why was PORKINS nicknamed Piggy etc.).

 

Can one really hold all the Vong responsible though or just the Vong leadership?

 

the whole lot of them seemed pretty into what they were doing...isn't like there was any considerations within on whether they should be committing this evil or not....

look I get in a perfect world, we shouldn't hold the individual accountable for the sins of the specie/race

all I was trying to say was in SW universe post NJO, where basically no good Vong have been present, someone probably is going to be suspicious of one whether it's right or not, probably especially if that someone is a military vet who fought in the NJO...

also, as poor as Piggy's attitude is towards Scut on that issue, it still has not bearing on Scut's "wrong" arguments towards Piggy's fitness to lead

 

The Vong were divided into castes-the warrior caste is most certainly responsible for the war crimes it committed, the Vong upper echelons-Shimmra, Drathul, Onimi are responsible for the war itself, plenty of Vong shapers likely performed horrific experiments, and Vong priests conducted mass sacrifices. Intendants like Anor stirred up chaos, spread propaganda, carried out assassinations,

The only caste that isn't responsible that I can think of in some way is the shamed ones.

 

I think it's a hard issue even for the shamed for 2 reasons...
1) IDR any sense that the Shamed were against the actions of the rest of the Vong in regards towards the inhabitants of the galaxy, that would go a long way towards your point
2) I think it is a lot to ask of the citizens of the galaxy to make this delineation in the early years after the Vong war even if that is unfair towards the Shamed ones

 

The Shamed Ones so named as they were didn't have much sway or influence over the vong society or its decisions. Also it was a shamed one revolt that destabilized the vong court on Coruscant and thus as that should be taken into account.

 

Regarding Piggy's attitude towards Scut, that attitude still exists even a century later which would allow the One Sith to manipulate the Fel Empire into war against the GA by sabotaging the Ossus Project.