Mara vs Lumiya in Gamer #5 (no spoilers)

I haven't been following up with Legacy of the Force as much as I should, so this question could probably be answered if I went back and searched, but Mara Jade and Lumiya met in a showdown on Caprioril years ago (Star Wars Gamer #5). Has this been addressed?

 

I don't have Sacrifice, but IIRC, it hasn't been addressed so far in the series.

 

Mara mentioned it at least once in Exile, pointing out that it wasn't just because of her past defeats by Luke that Lumiya might go after Ben.

There's also the possibility that there had already been some "history" between them before this point. We see their initial meeting when both were Emperor's Hands in Gamer #5, and it was pretty hostile...

- The Imperial Ewok

 

Was that because Luniya was still under Vader's control (not the Emperor) and Mara was under the Emperor's?

 

No... it's Palpatine and the two Hands - and the Emperor and Lumiya seemed to be sharing a private joke at Mara's expense.

It's just a quick prose-sketch, but it's an unsettling, effective bit of writing - Abel, I guess - because neither the POV character nor the reader knows what the joke is, and it also suggests unknown depths and twists to the continuity behind these characters....

- The Imperial Ewok

 

I thought Mara didn't find out there were more hands until DFR. Or didnt she realise at the time that Lumiya was a hand

 

The Lumiya as Hand thing has always bugged me because it seems stupid of Vader to hand her over to Palpatine, and I had been under the same impression as you that she didn't realize there were more Hands out there.

 

Lumiya's chief loyalty was to Vader. It's ironic, Palpatine never saw that he couldn't bend Lumiya to his will.

 

True, which makes me wish they had done something with that story instead of just "Vader handed her over and she became a Hand".

It just seems like the kind of useless tying together of things that serves no real purpose. Why Lumiya couldn't have just stayed out on her own is beyond me. Of course, the case could be made that Vader was putting someone loyal to him next to Palps, but nothing ever came of it, and as is the whole thing just stands as the kind of dot connecting that seems to serve no real purpose.

 

No, she doesn't. That's part of the joke - though I'm not sure that it's all of it...

The fact that Palpatine and Lumiya have that dynamic is what I like about the idea, personally. We don't know that much about her deep-seated POV from the comics, and I'm not sure how much we can trust her POV on Palpatine in the recent novels... do we ever get anything that's actually her opinion, or just her words prepared for Jacen?



She hasn't told Jacen she was a Hand, has she? And Karen sometimes seems to admire Palpatine, or pretends she does for fun, which could be just as significant in terms of plotting...

^^ On those two points, PM me if there's anything in Sacrifice...?

Also, Lumiya seems to have mislaid a small fleet at some point. And she had old connections with Nom Anor we've not heard much about, either...

Funny how these things haven't really been discussed much, perhaps?



- The Imperial Ewok

 

Assuming I remember correctly, I think Mara found out/realized that there were multiple Emperor's Hands during Children of the Jedi, when someone (maybe Leia, can't remember too precisely, haven't bothered to look at that novel for years) mentioned Roganda, and Mara realized that Roganda was a Hand like Mara, gets really mad, then starts speculating whether Palpatine had been playing them off against each other, or whether there were even more Hands. I can't remember why Mara realized it then, might've been something to do with how Roganda had been supposedly just a piece of decoration in the Emperor's court, which is exactly the same as how Mara was perceived by the public eye.

Though during Dark Force Rising, Thrawn mentioned off-handedly that Mara might've heard the Emperor's words more clearly than the rest of his Hands, but that didn't mean she was necessarily more important. That was probably the first reference. And it does seem in character for Palpatine.

While I'm glad that they pulled Lumiya out of limbo for LotF, haven't there been rumors for years that she had been behind some plots? Don't think they've mentioned them in LotF much. Then again, don't really expect them to keep that tight a continuity when there are still some problems between the individual books as well (though that's improved as the series has gone on).

And wouldn't it be on record Lumiya was a Hand? Or was it ever confirmed to the good guys for sure that she was a Hand? Its known that Shira Brie was an Imperial agent, that's for sure, and Luke probably put down her status as an evil Sith lady somewhere (which has been mentioned), but most people know Lumiya is evil and can't be trusted. Most people at least. Jacen's not that smart. Luke and Mara and most other Jedi know that she's a threat, and will probably always be a threat.

 

Maybe it's a little off topic, but I'd love to see Shira Brie in TFU.

 

Having not read Sacrifice yet I cannot help you with quotes from it. But I agree that its hard to tell whethe Lumiya is merely manipulating Jacen or she truly believes in the stuff thats coming out of her mouth. So far she hasn't told Jacen she was a hand just Vader's apprentice and that she believed Palps to be a poor misguided Sith. And thats all Jacen is going on. That and his feelings of what he is doing is right.

As to the fleet it may be in the care of the other Sith she mentioned in Exile?If they actually do exist and she wasnt spinning some story to Alema.

EDIT: Pretty sure thats my 1000 post

 

So it Mara one of the few people that knows Lumiya was a Hand? DOES she actually know? What is this joke you're referring to?

Abel has an entry about the Emperor's Hands on his SW blog, and mentions a "story" between Mara and Lumiya he and Joe Corroney have been wanting to telll...is this the first (and only) time we've heard about this?

So in LotF, Mara has NOT mentioned that she's already met Lumiya?

Mazz

 

in Exile she mentions that Lumiya has reasons to come after her just as much as Luke, that she's hurt Lumiya too. she doesn't give details about what exactly happened, or when, or why.

 

Abel Pena and Joe Corroney have been wanting to tell this story for a VERY long time, and have been pitching it whenever an appropriate opportunity arises. So far, it hasn't sold, but that could always change.

 

Not yet. Joe Corroney and I came up with this idea about seven years ago now, and as JSarek said, have been trying to sell it to various licensees since with no luck so far. Hopefully Sacrifice will mark a turning point in interest over this story.

Correct. The Emperor's Pawns documents their first encounter in a vignette, circa between Empire and Jedi. The Caprioril duel, also alluded to in the vignette and depicted as the "cover" for Emperor's Pawns, is technically Mara and Lumiya's second meeting, though their first fight.

Somewhat. At least, from Lumiya's point of view.

Well, it's not so simple. There is an element of that, to be sure, but Lumiya's loyalty is to Vader, IMO. So at the same time she's sharing a private joke with Palp at Mara's expense, she's also sharing a private joke with Vader at Palp's. At least, that's what they think.

Thanks! That's what I was going for. Parts of The Emperor's Pawns are sometimes hard for me to look at, but the themes of the short fiction intro have aged reasonably well.

That is true. Mara doesn't realize it in the Pawns vignette either, but she begins to suspect it. Dark Force Rising just exacerbated her suspicion, and the revelation of Roganda Ismaren's existence as a Hand in Children of the Jedi put the nail in the coffin.

The Pawns vignette essentially takes place immediately after that scene in Children of the Jedi, though the confrontation with Lumiya is a flashback.

While I liked the idea, I knew Lumiya as Emperor's Hand was going to be a tough sell, but the first edition of the Essential Chronology had already established a retcon that she was in fact a Hand, so when I pitched the Emperor's Pawns to Wizards of the Coast, I had to figure out how to make it work. I don't know how the undercover operation by Vader and Lumiya has come off in summary, say, on Wookieepedia or by word of mouth, but I think the way I wrote it was pretty good, in retrospect.

Indeed. Or maybe he didn't have enough time.

That's all that's been done with it so far, sure. I know loose ends can cause some fans frustration, but they're often there for a purpose. At least, when I create them, and I do it often.

 

It's not actually the loose end that causes me frustration, but the fact that authors and fans often want the kind of connections that such stories give. The Emperor had Dark Side Hands, Lumiya was a Dark Sider, thus she was a Hand of Palpatine and then explained away as being a gift or presented to Palpatine.

I would have been far happier with Lumiya as simply what she originally was, a loose end dark sider. Real life is full of loose ends, and the need to connect them in franchise fiction such as SW is often a mistake, imo.

However, that's obviously not any sort of commentary on your story of contribution to Gamer #5, but just a general statement on the need to tie everything and everyone together in a shared world.

 

So, does that imply no meetings in-between...?

Heh. You phrased it far better - more complicated, more clearly - than I ever could.

I think part of the reason it works well is the sense that there's more beyond the POVs...

Of course, that raises the question of what you do when you fill in that nebulous "sense of more"...?

Now, maybe I'm just too much of a fanboy, but I'm looking forward to more Mara/Lumiya backstory....

When you tie up a loose end, perhapps the trick is to leave a new one... or to create some sort of doubt...?

I agree with patch that a straightforward fill-in-the-blanks is often problematic... but that's often because someone is trying to create a different story in the gap, one that doesn't answer the readers' expectations?

As Abel said, the trick with a retcon like this is to make it both fit the space, and be convincing to the fans/readers as an explanation...

Or maybe it's way too late at night, and these thoughts will make no coherent sense when I read them in the morning...?

- The Imperial Ewok

 

I loved that reference in Exile. I had been wondering if their duel would be brought up at all.

I realize that the GIANT FLOATING TEXT at the top of the screen (and bottom) is difficult to see, but no spoilers.

 

The problem with a shared universe is everyone wants to leave their mark, and many times contributors to Star Wars are acting from different assumptions.

As I grow older, I'm becoming more a fan of the appearance of "random" or disjointed elements in Star Wars too. But again, the contributor base is just so vast, you can't control someone getting inspired and running wild with a seed you've planted--whether it was intended to be a seed or not. I've found the best outlook to have is, "Well, I didn't see that coming."

Unlike other fiction franchises, because of the vast interconnectedness of Star Wars across multiple media and decades, I think the phenomenon of the retcon has taken on a unique dimension, the ramifications of which contributors are still understanding and exploring.

You always ask the questions I consider pre-empting but figure, "Nah, no one will ask that."

Indeed, what I meant was their likely second encounter.

Always.

Almost always.

That makes two of us.

 

Well, you would say that...

I don't disagree, though...

Probably a better approach than confusing everyone else by pre-empting it.

Hah!

- The Imperial Ewok