Lit From Endor to Exegol - The State of the Galaxy Discussion Thread (Tagged Victory's Price Spoilers)

I just love imagining a bunch of these guys cheering when New Republic forces liberated their planet.




--Adm. Nick

 

Spoiler

Between the rest of the war, and Operation: Cinder, that would provide even more reasoning for some to call for a reduced military.

 

Spoiler

I'm curious if Rax was monitoring the people were loyal to Cinder and that determined if they were chosen to go to the UR. This and the overall contingency I think played the biggest role as to why the Empire quicker than it did in Legends, can't wait to see how Alphabet Squadron shows the Rax stuff in the second and third book...hopefully.

 

One throwaway line from Alphabet Squadron that I'd love to see more on...

Spoiler

Discussing Imperial threats that need to be addressed, Hera says "So does the berserker fleet carving through Hutt space".
I will not rest until we get this story!

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

 

Random thought.

Since the NR voted on there Capital do you think Corsucant ever got a chance to be Capital again? Or do you think because you know...It's Coruscant they had a bill or law saying "Any planet BUT Coruscant can be capital in the New Republic"

I remember seeing somewhere comparing it to a city getting the Olympics....Is it really a good thing when you have to build all that infrastructure and get a bunch of high level politicians coming.

 

Probably be like if the United Nations was mobile...sure you get all the construction jobs and all the economic activity all the delegates and their staffs would bring...but then you got to put up with all the diplomatic immunity nonsense. "Sorry officer...you can't ticket my speeder...I have diplomatic immunity." times 1000.

 

Well I guess the capital would be screwed and not the other cities (At least the planet with more than one city ;p ) but I mean....if Jakku was a New Republic member and it got answered ...It would be a disaster....Or a economic boom...i mean i'm sure planets can opt out if they can't.

 

Do you guys think after Alphabet Squadron III is released we'll get a Fully Formed Timeline of the year between Endor and Jakku? I know Matt Martin said that even Galaxy's Edge and the new TROS Tie-Ins were worked on closely and he would even give us a timeline for that.

 

I can't wait for Galactic Calendar from the creators of Galactic Atlas and Alien Archive. With good and proper 12-month dates since that's the calendar that Pablo Hidalgo seems to be using.

 

re: Timeline

I really don't know. For all that there will be the argument that they no longer need to hedge because Ep IX is done, keeping it hazy allows far more flexibility which could be a hard habit to break.

 

If the Alsakan Conflicts are still a thing...and if some of that old feeling about Coruscant is still lingering around on Alsakan...could the Galactic Concordance be a way for Alsakan to maybe rise to more prominence after the Battle of Jakku? Map a hyperspace bypass from Alsakan to Ixtlar and give people who may not want to deal with the former Imperial Capital a way of not having to deal with it?

 

I'm always fascinated for what the Post Ep 9 EU will look like, for I feel like (At least when it comes to the period between Episode 1-6) we are starting to see a far more fleshed out EU with far more to reference part from the original Six films and the TCW TV show.

Though I will be curious how much of the Thirty Year Time Gap between 6 and 7 they will fill out and keep just vague...Because development is one thing but there is also over development which causes problems of its own.

Sometimes I want every little detail...But other times I kinda hope they keep the vagueness or at least leave some gaps

 

Though I do wonder if her authority within the FO was "SUPREME" ;p or she was more First Among equals a council of the various loyalist who made up the first generation of FO leaders before Snoke wiped them all out and became SUPREME LEADER.

 

Most definitely, especially since I'm starting to go with the idea Snoke might have been there from the start and not just someone they randomly met in the UR during the voyage.

Still who knows.

I cannot wait to see this First Order game of thrones and how it all played out.

 

You're missing the whole point of what I'm saying about the epilogue (maybe I didn't make myself clear, so I'll try again) - yes, Sloane is there at the rendezvous in the Unknown Regions with Brendol, Armitage, and the other "Imperials considered loyal", but she is only there because Rax needed someone to start the engine on the yacht.

In that context, there is no guarantee she actually does anything important after the yacht arrives at the rendezvous.

I wasn't aware of the reference in the Dawson novel (which I haven't read properly), but this doesn't actually tell us anything about Rae's position in the First Order. Commander Cardinal, while trying to persuade General Hux to investigate his chrome-plated rival, evokes the name of "Admiral Sloane" in support of his own argument to cautiously explore the known unknowns ("if Admiral Sloane were here")... this provokes Hux to shift from idle dismissiveness to a "snap" of emotion, and he suggests that there have been "threats" in what Cardinal has said.

Now, we don't know what the implied "threat" is, and whether that relates to Sloane or to the rest of what Cardinal is saying, or even if Hux's reply is actually coherent; but we do know (from the Wendig novels) that Rae tried to protect Armigate from his father on the yacht - she was nice to Hux. She was his babysitter. And Cardinal was one of the other kids aboard the yacht.

Cardinal was the boy who Brendol Hux took most under his wing, in fact, while Rae tried to sort out the mess that was Armitage. A child-soldier introduced to a Grand Admiral, who is, also, basically the cool stepmom of his privileged scout leader. Cardinal knows that she's someone Hux respected. Cardinal probably thinks of her being to Hux what Hux's dad was to him. Cardinal thinks, apparently, that she'd agree with his precautions.

That tells us nothing about events after the Wendig books. Perhaps Rae, against all expectations, became the head of the First Order. Perhaps she became Hux's personal mentor and military instructor. Perhaps she taught kindergarten. We don't know.

The difference between them is that Pellaeon makes his own decisions.

Rae Sloane was simply given a costume and a script by Rax, built up by his propaganda aparatus as an essentially-fictional "Grand Admiral who would save the Empire", purely as a three-dimensional recruiting poster to get as many Imperials as possible enveigled in Rax's plot; she was supposed to command at Jakku, which is to say she was supposed to stand on the bridge of a command ship in a fixed orbital perimiter performing no important actions at all - but she then went off-script, was fired by the writer and had her role hastily rewritten for Moff Randd, and wandered through the novels committing various murders with her service-pistol (which is the entire strength of the force she actually commands herself in those books), and Rax, in a final twisted joke, sent her off to Jakku with the rest...

She fulfilled her one necessary role for the Contingency by starting the autopilot of the Imperialis, then started to babysit Armitage. The only thing we know for sure about her service to the First Order is thus that she was his Emotional Support Warlord, and her replacement in that role is Millicent.

Now, possibly, Rae Sloane may go on to do something interesting and important in the First Order, and in that context, she may actually get back some of the agency as a character that she had in JJM's REBELS novel, but I think the points I made still stand:

1. Rae Sloane, as written by Wendig, functions entirely as a dupe and figurehead for Rax (except when she's wandering aimlessly on her own shooting people with a pistol); although this is essentially subtextual, as her scenes are told from her own POV and she is not self-aware about how she is being played, I take this to be an entirely deliberate narrative choice by the author... heck, Rax teases her about the fact he's using her in practically every scene they share.
2. Snoke's POV about her having once been regarded as a potential leader for the Empire refers quite explicitly to the period between Endor and Jakku (i.e. in, not after, the Wendig trilogy)...
3. The only role we canonically know she performed for the First Order was as Hux's Emotional Support Warlord, and this is sufficient to explain the reference in the Dawson book.

I still basically like Rae Sloane as a character. I think Captain Sloane deserved better than to become a cosplay warlord. But as things stand, that's where she is. And as of her arrival at the rendezvous, the joke would be on Rax if she actually took charge.

- The Imperial Ewok

 

Yeah, especially since at least in terms of my head canon Sloane played a big part in helping the FO's rise to such heights in 30 years.

Also I think in the Phasma novel Cardinal mentions that Sloane was part of a meeting of first generation FO leaders happening a few years after Aftermath, thought I might be wrong about that.

 

To what you are saying

Sloane spent all of EE as her own agent, and the very foundation of the FO was, as far as any of us know, her of her own accord using what had been sent out to the UR by Rax and Palpatine. Their equipment, her dream, her orders......a first order if you will

 

@vncredleader

Where is the actual quote from the book about this moment in Phasma ???

 

Couldn't find it. I was beholden to the Wook

 

@vncredleader

FOUND IT

Page 311-312

And this scene takes place on the Absolution which is a Resurgent class Star Destroyer

Now...LETS HAVE FUN WITH DATES

Okay....So...the Battle of Jakku was 4 ABY

Phasma is 15 years before TFA in terms of the stuff with Phasma's past so...19 ABY. All the Present day stuff is like a few months before TFA so Snoke is more less in charge since Kylo is around.

So Rae Sloane has a period of 4-19 ABY with Brendol being alive since Brendol dies rather soon after Phasma arrives.

So we at least know that Sloane has 15 more or less years as part of the FO "First Set" of leaders. Give or take that she outlived Brendol Hux or not.

 

That's what Sloane thinks. But we're still seeing her from her own POV here, the POV that Rax has always played so well. She still thinks she's a Grand Admiral, which is one of Rax's jokes. She has shown no independent action, and no ability to take command of anything bigger than her pistol. She briefly takes command of one stormtrooper, then randomly murders him.

She stumbles around Jakku for a whole novel, amusing the local Hutt (rather than, you know, unpacking her uniform, finding a shuttle and getting aboard her flagship, then obliterating Rax from orbit, which might seem a more Grand Admiral thing to do), and finally - largely thanks to other people - manages to shoot Rax; then Rax sends her off to activate the autopilot, and she does exactly what he wants.

And Rax has always regarded the Contingency as requiring improvisation. This is made clear in his conversations with her.

Read that quote again. Sloane's "I serve no-one" is pushed aside by Rax, who concludes by playing her, yet again, with the idea that she's Palpatine-class leadership material, a frankly ludicrous idea that was entirely the construct of his propaganda and which she spent the first two novels believing herself, even while she was simply reading off his scripts in fancy dress.

Is that Rae Sloane's idea of leading the Empire?

She's the butt of Rax's joke, again. The same joke. That's not even funny...

What Rax wants - to "serve the Contingency" - is to get Brendol Hux and his child-soldier-training project out to the rendezvous, where another twelve "Imperials considered loyal" by Palpatine will then show up. Earlier in the trilogy, Rax made clear that Brendol Hux was the one he regarded as truly indespensible for the project. And he needs someone to start the autopilot, nothing more.

As I said, we know nothing of what happens to Rae Sloane after that.



If she does actually regain her agency, then I'd certainly not complain, but if she does, all she's really doing is giving Hux delusions of grandeur, and prepairing an army of brainwashed idiots for Snoke.

EDIT:

Yay!

Okay, so Sloane continued to attend meetings with Hux and the other leaders at least until the Resurgent-class was in production. Well, that's something after all.

This is "long before Phasma came along", though. And we don't really know what her precise role was at all.

- The Imperial Ewok

 

@Thrawn McEwok

Well...I'll say one thing, it reminds me of something that was stated in Solo

Also

Spoiler

Well....Maybe not Snoke, since he was a unexpected leader.....But maybe Palpatine ;p