Lit General post NJO Discussion thread.

But there's not a clear line from that (feeling vindicated about the worldview he came to... which is about surrender of control) and it therefore being inevitable he'd want to rule the galaxy.

 

So your fine with murder as long it is done for what the murder wants?

Vortex is such an aweful book.

 

Kyp also got pardoned for murder in Jedi academy (hell he technically committed genocide given that these guys were mostly killed off. https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Caridan_(species)


I’d forgotten about vortex. In other stories she’s fine so I pretend vortex never happened.

 

Kyp was controlled by Exar Kun i guess so those deaths are not his fault

 

I bet Daala used the same excuse... Emotional trauma thx to Tarkin, indoctrination since a young age, etc.

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It was still partially his fault for allowing Kun to control him, but i agree that he shouldn't be judged as if he did those things without any external influences.

It's not the same as Daala because she was never possessed like Kyp was when she killed innocent people for fun, even if you count trauma/indoctrination i bet being a slave in the mines of kessel as a pre-teen is far more traumatic than what Daala went through or at least on the same level.

Also even when he was possessed he was never as evil as Daala, he never killed for the fun of it, he killed for revenge.

 

He still deserved at least a few years in jail

 

IIRC, Luke told Corran in I, Jedi that Kyp being a Jedi is going to count as life-long community service.

 

Pretty sure he can do more good for the galaxy being a Jedi than in jail, punishment is one thing but why waste a good asset to a recovering Republic? Especially since he was still very immature when it happened, giving him proper support amongst the Jedi and other people that know him is the best move instead of locking him up for crimes that weren't entirely his doing, that will not help him heal.

Also every other time Jedi became corrupted by the Dark Side and recovered they were sent to the Jedi Temple to heal their minds, a prime example was Depa Billaba, who i would say had more agency than Kyp in what she did, but you also get the Jedi that were brainwashed by the Sith Emperor in SWTOR, heck even Revan was sent to the Jedi instead of prison after he got captured by Bastila.

I don't see why it should be different with Kyp, on top of that, even if he were to turn back to the Dark Side, it is more safe to keep him among the Jedi, as they have a much better chance to stop him if he goes crazy again.

 

And then Kyp turns up for Vector Prime after clearly going on a rampage against smugglers and probably killed members of the Smugglers' Alliance and Talon Karrde's group.

 

That just shows that the efforts to properly heal him were unsuccessful (for various reasons, primarily his self-loathing), not that in principle they were the worst choice, but he was still vital in defeating the Imperials at the Maw, destroying the Sun Crusher almost at the cost of his life, and discover Daala's plot during Darksaber before she could destroy both the Jedi and Republic, i'd say his contributions after his return to the Light are worth the forgiveness, he effectively crippled the Imperial Remnant.

His failures in Vector Prime are still not significant enough to discard his good deeds.

 

Tell that to our missing comrades of the Smugglers' Alliance who likely got blasted by Kyp for no reason: Aves, Chin, Wadewarn, Mazzic, Griv, Amber, Clyngunn the ZeHethbra, Par'tah, Dravis, Billey etc etc etc

 

I miss them. And a lot of Bantam era characters. I miss the dynamics of the Senate and Council and a military that created the Fifth Fleet for a reason.

 

A lot would say he deserved a medal.

Effectively yes, this is what it amounted to. Likely why Mon did it. Also his actions had a net positive effect and got a lot of imp holdouts to give up and Garm wanted to use the suncrusher when they found it.

Not to mention the extreme emotional distress (being told his brother died) AND being attacked by enemy fighters (sent by the planet government). I think anyway half way decent lawyer could get him a very reduced sentence, not to mention the politics of jailing someone for "paying the Empire back in kind", would be hard.

 

Except he exterminated almost an entire species in the process as well as a lot of non combatants. That’s never okay EVER.

If the empire committing xenocide is wrong so is Kyp committing xenocide.

 

Oh, i think they are just written out, not dead especially Aves, he was my favorite, way too smart to be taken out by some Kyp fanboy Padawans.

Garm seems to agree with you on that

The situation with his brother is also another example of why his situation is nothing like Daala, he was controlled by a Sith Spirit and ALSO was in a fit of rage much like when Anakin killed the sand people, it's nowhere near Daala's cold blooded killing.

@Sinrebirth I feel that's just an effect of the universe expanding and the cast becoming way too big to get spotlight for everyone, especially when you have to take into account the potential new readers who just picked up in that particular series (be it LOTF, DNT, etc.), but also that the post-NJO is too focused on large scale conflicts so characters like those simply stop appearing after a while.

 

So any time innocents get caught in the crossfire it makes the good guys as bad as the bad guys?

Kyp gave the government of the system a chance to free his brother, they refused and attacked him. THEY SHOT FIRST.

Kyp went in to rescue his brother, got attacked fought back and innoccents got caught in the cross fire, tragic. But NOT at all comparable with what the Empire was doing. The Empire set out to commit mass genocide, Kyp did not. He attacked a legitimate military target. Is it wrong to bomb a base in a city?

Kyp destroyed a major evil hold out of a monstrous regime. It is tragic innocents were caught in the crossfire, yes of course. But to compare it to what the Empire did is just wrong.

 

Besides, who's to say the Caridan species were in high numbers in terms of population or were even settled in their home system anymore?

 

Considering how the imperials normally treat aliens, i am sure that after the establishment of the Academy they were mostly either dead or enslaved, given that the system was a valuable holdout for the Empire, it makes sense they wouldn't want many locals around to potentially raise a resistance group.

@AusStig While i won't go as far as to say that what he did wasn't terrible, it is definetly not as bad as the Empire's genocides, regardless, it is not how a Jedi would act, hence why Kyp needed to atone for it.

 

Furgan himself is a Caridan. Leia sees the Caridans as allied to the Empire rather than enslaved by the Empire:

The chronometer told Leia that the ambassador had made his transmission a full six minutes past the time he himself had insisted on. Furgan made no attempt to apologize for his tardiness, and Leia studiously avoided calling attention to it.
Furgan was a barrel-chested humanoid with spindly arms and legs. The eyebrows on his squarish face flared upward like birds’ wings. Despite the Emperor’s known prejudice against nonhuman species, apparently the Caridans had been acceptable enough to secure the Emperor’s business, since Palpatine had built his most important Imperial military training center on Carida.

Kyo began with threats of mundicide, then carried them out as revenge for the (perceived) death of his brother. (and the attack on him). Very terroristic.

"Carida, if you do not answer within the next fifteen seconds, I'll fire a torpedo into the heart of your sun. I think you're familiar with the capabilities of this weapon. Do you understand?"
He began counting out loud. "One ... two ... three ... four ..." He got up to eleven before a brusque voice came through the comm system.
"Intruder, we are transmitting a set of landing coordinates. Follow them precisely or you will be destroyed. Relinquish control of your ship to the stormtroopers immediately upon landing."
"You don't seem to understand what's going on here," Kyp said before he bothered to stop laughing. "Let me talk to Ambassador Furgan now or your planetary system is going to be the galaxy's newest bright spot. I've already blown up a nebula to wipe out a pair of Imperial battle cruisers — don't you think I'd destroy one minor star to get rid of a planet full of stormtroopers? Get Furgan, and give me a visual."
The holo panel flickered, and the wide, flat face of Furgan appeared, shoving aside the comm officer. Kyp recognized the ambassador by his heavy eyebrows and fat purplish lips.
"Why have you come here, Rebel?" Furgan said. "You are in no position to make demands."
Kyp rolled his eyes, losing patience already. "Listen to me, Furgan. I want to find out what happened to my brother, Zeth. He was conscripted on the planet Deyer about ten years ago, and he was brought here. Once you have that information, we'll discuss terms."
Furgan stared at him, knitting his heavy spiked brows. "The Empire does not negotiate with terrorists."
"You don't have any choice in the matter."



"This will take a moment," the comm officer said. Kyp watched the data scroll across his screens. He thought of Exar Kun, the ancient Lord of the Sith who had shown him many things that Master Skywalker refused to teach. The news of Zeth's inevitable death was like severing the remaining threads of Kyp's fragile restraint. Nothing could stop him now.
He would show murderous Carida no mercy. Kyp would remove this Imperial thorn from the New Republic's side and then move on to topple the big Imperial warlords gathering their forces near the galactic core.



The wall of anger rose and strengthened in him, increasing his reservoir of power. He had already given more warning than the Caridans deserved. Kyp had stated his ultimatum, and Furgan had sent out attack ships.
"That's the last mistake you'll ever make," he said.


There's a reason why the presence of large amounts of civilians makes the Death Star's destruction of Alderaan so revolting, even to Imperials who see the Rebellion as a genuine military enemy:

Death Star
The man gave his report, and Nova kept his face stolid as he listened. So the girl that the doctor had spoken of in the cantina had given Tarkin and Vader a false lead. Brave, but not very smart, since Tarkin was now irritated enough to tell Vader to execute her.
Once upon a time, Nova would have shrugged that bit of news away. It wasn’t his business how the higher-ups behaved; he just followed his orders and did his job, a good and loyal soldier. But if blowing up Despayre had been terrible, killing Alderaan was several orders of magnitude more horrifying. Billions of innocents had died there, not hardened and convicted criminals—billions of civilians of all ages—and how could you in good conscience serve somebody who thought that was the way to wage war?
It had rocked him to his core, maybe more because of the whole Force thing. But he hadn’t been the only one. Sure, there were always some kill-’em-all types who said they must have deserved it, else it wouldn’t have been done; but there were a lot of people on this battle station who couldn’t accept these actions as things even to be contemplated in a sane and rational universe. It wasn’t supposed to have gone this far. From everything he’d heard it was to be merely the threat of mundicide. Blowing up a planet—killing everything that lived on it—just to make a point?
This was his last tour, Nova decided; he wasn’t going to stay in a military that would commit such atrocities. And if there was anything he could do to help prevent it from happening again, he ought to seriously consider it.
Killing civilian populations on a planetary scale was evil beyond comprehension. Nova could fight a room full of men straight-up, face-to-face, and if he had to kill half of them to survive, he’d do it. But he hadn’t signed on to slaughter children asleep in their beds.

The problem with "immediate promotion to Jedi Knight" and "no visible sanctioning" is that it makes it look like they condone his actions.


I, Jedi
"In fact, the news about the Sun Crusher's destruction is pure disinformation. No one who had a weapon that was indestructible and capable of annihilating whole star systems would destroy it. No, they're waiting until they discover where I keep the Invidious, then they will obliterate it."
I pulled back, smacking my head on the headboard. "Ouch. Are you sure the New Republic would do that? They don't seem to have the guts to do such a thing."
"Carida is gone, isn't it?" She patted me on the other knee. "They blame its destruction on a rogue, a child, yet you notice he is lauded as a Jedi now. Since when are promotions given to people who fail to carry out orders?"
I shivered. "I'd never have thought of that."



"You know us Corellian Jedi - notoriously contrary and bent on going our own way." My conversation with Elegos flashed through my mind. "I owe you an apology, by the way. I never put aside my expectations for the academy, so I never really gave you a chance to train me."
"Accepted but unnecessary." Luke gave me a nod. "I didn't make it easy for you. I've got to remember that parallel tracks are not better or worse, just different. We're still heading in the same direction."
"True, but that still doesn't mean I'm entirely comfortable with things like Kyp's track. Tavira has it all worked out that Kyp killed the Carida system on orders from the New Republic, and there are going to be a whole bunch of folks who believe her."
"I know, and I understand how you feel."

 

Kyp's actions caused a slippery slope that would've made the New Republic no better than the Empire.

 

Mon Mothma was pretty outspoken about how she viewed the Sun Crusher's use as unjustifiable, when Bel Iblis opposes destroying it.



She paused to take a long breath, and Wedge worried that she might lose her nerve. But Qwi straightened her slender form and spoke again. "I urge you to destroy the Sun Crusher. A weapon of such power should not be trusted in the hands of any government."
Mon Mothma looked weak and weary as she gazed down at Qwi. Below and to her left, old General Jan Dodonna spoke up. "Dr. Xux, according to reports from our engineers, this weapon cannot be destroyed. The quantum armor makes it impossible for us even to dismantle it."
"Then you must find some other way to dispose of the Sun Crusher," Qwi said.
Sounding flustered, Senator Garm Bel-Iblis, Mon Mothma's old nemesis, rose to his feet. "We cannot allow a weapon of such power to slip out of our grasp," he said. "With the Sun Crusher, we have a tactical advantage available to none of our Imperial enemies."
"Enough," Mon Mothma said in a quavering voice. Her cheeks were flushed, which served to highlight the pallor of her skin. "We have debated this many times," she said, "and my opinion stands unchanged. A weapon of such hideous destructive power is a brutal and inhuman device. The Emperor might have been monster enough to consider using it, but under no circumstances will the New Republic be party to such barbarism. We have no need for such a weapon, and its presence only serves to divide us. I shall veto any attempts to study the Sun Crusher further, and I will fight to my last breath any of you who suggest using it against any foe, Imperial or otherwise."