@Alpha-Red , Yes, Yomin Carr poisoned the atmosphere of Belkadan, but there still was an atmosphere after the Dweebits did die. At Ithor, it was not. And I also didn't hear about the Yuuzhan Vong to settle at Ithor afterwards. There weren't any things to get reversed - at least not in a short time. That's why Tsavong Lah didn't likewise with Coruscant. He didn't kill every life there. And even at Duro there were things, the Yuuzhan Vong could base upon. At Ithor meanwhile the Yuuzhan Vong deemed that bio-levelling necessary in order to annihilate the Baffor polls at any cost - even at the price that the planet will be lost for a long time - even for themselves. And by the doom of Legacy of Torment, the experiment did go much too far.
Why? It's not like we can easily reverse the radiation after we have easily bombed a area with a atom bomb.
@Sinrebirth, it took them four years, but there is a reason, why they did not with Ithor, though Ithor was far away from the core and thus less likely to be threatened by re-conquest or even sporadic assaults.
I don't think the Yuuzhan Vong considered any of their pre-Duro conquests to be all that important. They were just war fodder. Dubrillion and Obroa-Skai get prominence due to being staging grounds/forward bases but even then Dubrillion's moment in the sun is momentary; Obroa-Skai ends up seemingly the most important system in the Yuuzhan Vong Empire pre-Yuuzhan'tar. It does seem that the Yuuzhan Vong population was really only large enough for Coruscant and a few other systems, but it was simply insanely militarised. They could never have won against the sheer numbers of the galaxy. I'll give them 10,000 capital ships and 90,000 escorts in their initial invasion fleet, but as incredibly lopsided the war was against the New Republic initially, the galaxy was very demilitarised by 25 ABY.
Yeah, because we don't have the technology to do so. I don't think there's any way to speed up the decay of radionucleotides. Changing the composition of a planet's atmosphere though, is just a matter of chemical reactions, and the Yuuzhan Vong have already shown they can do it.
I think the Vong banked hard on the blitz and then raising new ships and Yorik coral slave species armies on captured worlds to multiply their strength a thousandfold within 1-2 years. But I do worry how bad the intel of Agents like Nom Anor must have been that they underestimated the Jedi greatly. Luckily Centerpoint cut Vong numbers in half,... and population-wise, they must rely on slave fighters a lot despite those hardly being mentioned anymore in the later years. It's like the Clone Wars and numbers with too few clones spread too far and thin galaxywide and all offscreen action using slaves rather than warrior caste members. No wonder the Vong tactic engulfted basically the Tarkin Doctrine of spreading fear while still unknown, mysterious and technologically different, then decapitating the enemy by striking Coruscant for they know they can not win a war by numbers or territory held. And ultimately clinging to that one world, Coruscant, till the end of the war with all they had, with all other worlds just collateral or diversion. I mean, after the first half of the NJO was a blitz from Rim to Core the second half of the NJO was focussing on holding Coruscant and moving forces towards it to hold it. It never was about domination but getting a foothold from which to push outward again and spread chaos enough to behead enemies and have them run circles uncoordinated.
Centerpoint destroyed half of that fleet there, not half of the armada. The Runaway Prince fleet had a single worldship and it was a single Supreme Commander out of up to 36. So it's a blow, but not an immense one. My estimates put a 10,000 capital ship and 90,000 escort fleet arriving, and a similar amount raised before the march on Coruscant. I say this because the Ebaq 9 and Dac armada's have tens of thousands of ships and 5,000 capital ships, which puts the comparable Coruscant fleet at 5,000 capital ships and 45,000 escorts - and by the end of the Battle of the Black Bantha, half the offensive force Lah had for Coruscant is gone. So 100,000 ships phase one, to Duro, 100,000 ships during the advance of Coruscant, and 50,000 raised anew for Ebaq 9 and at least half of that raised to send to Dac. They're big numbers, but not for the galaxy at large. 25,000 capital ships and 225,000 escorts over four years is nonetheless impressive construction, even if the escorts are horribly weak compared to their NR analogs.
Wasn't necessarily bad intel. Could just have been that the leaders or warriors didn't listen to their spies. Happens all the time in real life, and we saw what low regard the intendant caste was held in by a lot of warriors.
I recall Qurang Lah's wrong decision to withdraw the forces from yag d'hul despite Nom Aneor 's right counsel, that Kyp' s raid Was just coincidence while the ship womb at sernpidal Was lost , anyway.
I pity these missed opportunities: - A Jedi riding a huge group of Exogorths into a Vong fleet to give them new asteroid(ships) to munch upon -Vuffi Ra returning with the Silentium to help defend some friends and scaring the Vong in the process like "f... they are in this galaxy, too?" or even better if the Vong encounter an Abominor like the Great Heap on Ord Mantell or some trash planet. -A group of Neti/Zelosian/Ithorian/etc. biology and biotech experts infiltrating and biohacking Vong-tech to turn it on the Vong... Vong Commander: Sir, the ship is not responding to our commands. It says it has a new master that treats it better. Vong Leader: What? How could this... -sister technologies to Vong tech we saw exist... meet the Embrace of Pain's sister: "The Embrace of Love"... you'd never want to leave it once you are hooked up! -Vong babies, families and children and Vong teaching them about history, culture, and else. -Vong teenagers rebelling by refusing to be tatooed or mutilated and shaped prefering their clean skin and beautiful natural form -A Vong perspective on the gffa by setting foot on a world that has been ravaged by tech partially and to the Vong screams for help as he/she understands the plants and communes with them, interpreting their signals and basically hearing metaphorically the worlds scream in pain from techabuse of nature. -a love story where a Vong and a Droid fall in love despite opposite cultures and ideals. bonus points if it is a Vong whose ooglith masquer used to impersonate a hightech species mimicking their techlifesuit with biology and the droid in question is a HRD designed to look like a plant-based species on the outside.
On the issue of population: Do we know how many Vong there were? I believe I read somewhere that the casualties for the war were over 1 trillion, though I'm not sure if that includes both sides or just the GA. Since they occupied an entire galaxy, it is reasonable to assume that they had quite a large population, though it may have declined en route. Does anyone have a definite number?
There were enough Vong to be alledgedly able to conquer and hold the entire galaxy, but then few enough that most of the survivors fit onto a single word, with only a few minor settlments elswere recieving the barest of mentions, without causing any overpopulation problems. So either like 95 percent of them died in the war or their numbers make no sense.
Yeah, I agree on that. The Vong are kind of like the Elves in Warhammer, they are said to be races in decline but can loose thousands of soldiers on a regular basis without that dooming them completly. There are always just as many as the story needs right now.
How many Elves are there? As many as the plot needs. I guess they just drafted anyone by the end and so those died even faster.
Funny thought on that matter... What if the Vong put ooglith masquers on billions of Yorik Coral enslaved beings from the GFFA and had them thus turned into Vong lookalikes via the masquer? Boosting their slave armies but pretending to be Vong to scare the enemies... Fake it till you make it!
Something interesting just entered my thoughts. What if instead of Vector Prime being set in 25 ABY, why not move it down the timeline to 30 ABY? So instead of 16-year-old pain-in-backside Jacen, we have 21-year-old pain-in-backside Jacen? Anakin dies at the age of 22 instead of 17? Everyone gets aged up 5 years and the distance between the GCW and the Vong War could help with the buildup to those events instead of 6. Perhaps, as a surprise, Ben Skywalker was already born by this point (being 5-or-6 in 30 ABY) and instead of his birth being the key to Mara's cure but instead accidentally figures it out through like a story or Force vision at the age of 6-or-7? This would make the timeline: 30-34 ABY: NJO. 40-41 ABY: Dark Nest trilogy. 44-45 ABY: Legacy of the Force. 47-48 ABY: Fate of the Jedi. 49 ABY: Crucible. Note: I'm not one-canon for this one.
@Noash_Retrac , of course you could do this, but then you have a likewise gap between SQ and NJO. I also think that the authors wanted the events to have a much heavier impact on the audience because Anakin died that young and Jacen came into Vergere's custody. And I wonder if Jacen would had been willing to submit to her harsh teachings being five years older unless he'd become wise enough to see behind all the Fosh's ulterior motives then. By skipping HoT neglectingly, I really was surprised that in SQ Luke and Mara already had been married, while in TTT they were just not enemies anymore after the Grandadmiral's death. So having Ben around suddenly would be an interesting feature, crying for a prequel for sure. Just because you mention Crucible in the end: Are there two Crucibles? One volume of LoTF and a later one? Or do you just place the Crucible events by Troy Denning much later? Balance Point: Any ideas why Jacen didn't recognize Nom Anor in Leia's office? I mean, he was together with his mom and his sister before he went out to save his mom - and she and his twin-sister didn't tell him about what happened to Mara and Jaina in that deep cave and who was responsable for the almost death of both women?
Dying age 22 is still rather young. And Jacen being just as gullible to the insane bird creature at age 23 as he was at 18/19 is really part of his NJO character in my opinion (whether its the "real" Jacen or the "clone" Jacen from my working theory on the matter). Human brains don't mature until they are 24 anyway so...shrug. Funny enough, in my rewrite planned for NJO, Ben is already five years old at the time it starts in 25 ABY (I amalgamated Vector Prime and Dark Tide I: Onslaught so I could have the first story end with a battle over and on Dantooine instead of Helska). I haven't found or read Survivor's Quest so no idea how I could fit Ben in. But Mara's absence in JJK and YJK wasn't really explained either so...I just have the idea they're around but just...not around in the scenes. I'll see what happens when I find a copy of Survivor's Quest but like most of the Junior Jedi Knights and Young Jedi Knights books, they are hard to locate in Australia. Crucible by Troy Denning. Weren't LOTF titles -- Betrayal, Bloodlines, Tempest, Exile, Sacrifice, Inferno, Fury, Revelation and Invincible?
Rebel Dream by Aaron Allston: He mentions only for short, how Viqi Shesh came aboard Tsavong Lah's flagship. Troy Denning mentioned before, that she was rescued by some helpers (not Yuuzhan Vong apparently) when she escaped Leia and Han at Coruscant. It is not clear if they were from the Peace Brigade for exactly that scenario after Ben's abduction was thwarted, or if they were her two telbuns, mentioned in Dark Tide. It they were her two Telbuns I can imagine clearly Tsavong Lah having them break-neck-executed by his guards and Viqi is put into that prison cell afterwards. Perhaps she is recalling Danni Quee's fate on Helska IV then, when the latter had to watch Bensin Tomri and Cho Badelek being killed by Prefect DaGara, before she was brought to that ice-dome. Viqi heard Danni's testimony before the senate and she read the reports too, I presume. And no Jacen to help Viqi out of this misery.
I like how Han Solo remembers Bria Tharen during the NJO and that Ylesia appears during the NJO and that Kyle Katarn only appears until the End of the Novels
Currently about to finalize a deal that will finally complete my NJO book collection. Considering doing a complete reread once I have all the books in my possession.
