Lit Reading 'Young Jedi Knights' and 'Junior Jedi Knights'

Well, pretty much none of the grimdark storyline after NJO would have worked if anyone believed in redemption and forgiveness, and the Powers That Be really wanted lots and lots of grimdark. I'm not opposed to 'dark' storylines, but darkness for the sake of darkness is...not good.

Good grief, who else was she supposed to kill? The Jedi DO realize that dedicating your life to nothing but killing is not healthy, right? TBH, I think that the whole 'Sword of the Jedi' thing Luke bestowed on Jaina in Destiny's Way was one of the many, many dumb things he did during the New Jedi Order series. Telling an eighteen-year-old that she will 'never know peace' is highly questionable. Ugh.

 

At the end of Legacy of the Force i had to go read Warhammer 40,000 to cheer up.

It wasn't star wars, at least not to me. If it ended with jacen redeemed, or at least alive and working towards it, it would have been better.

At the End of Fate of the Jedi, I just gave up.

Fight the Sith. I guess. I mean that is what everyone says, or Abeloth or whatever.

I REALLY don't like the prophecy. Even though I like DW as a whole, I hate that part. And renaming the New Republic.

Not in the Denning verse, jedi who, kill, kill and kill are GOOD. If you don't want to solve your problems with violence and murder then your a bad jedi.

 

If we are generous so could it be a case of: "We will spend our lives fighting to secure this Republic, and then I fear we will spend the rest of our days fighting to keep it intact. There is such involving darkness amongst the stars. Even when the Republic is complete, there will be no peace. We will be obliged to fight on to preserve what we have fought to establish. Peace is a vain wish. Our battle may one day adopt another name, but it will never truly end."
- SW-ified misquote originally by First Captain Sigismund of the Imperial Fist Legion, from Horus Rising by Dan Abnett,

 

To be fair though that is from warhammer 40,000. So that fights.

But it does sound like, peace is a lie.

 

Gods. This is a wonderful plot line idea.
Could you imagine a Legacy comic series where Cade and Darth Krayt were visited by Force Ghosts of Jacen and Tahiri?
So, would Darth Krayt send an agent or something after Tahiri when she is on Dagobah, and work his magic after that?
Then maybe tie her into Alema's plotline?
Or maybe she chances upon the Lost Tribe. And tie her to Vestara's plotline?
Then throw something in with Anakin's message from FOTJ
Did we ever get an encounter between Tarc and Tahiri?

They are not, but there is an option on Amazon that you can request an ebook option.

 

This would be fantastic. Heck, even a 'lost' memoir of a previous ruler of Alderaan would be an interesting read...give us more depth the culture that was exterminated.

Whoa, I can almost feel the sarcasm dripping across the floor! You're right, of course, that the authors do tend to do a 'wand wave' when it comes to actual school.

 

Luke and Leia were born on the same day, obviously, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they celebrate their birthday on the same day. Keep in mind, they were both adopted.


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I think it is an interesting difference between Legends and canon that in canon Luke raised Ben Solo as if he was the next Choosen One, according to Visual Dictionaries, aware of lineage power of the bloodline, whereas in Legends, Luke deliberately kept the Solokids despite their power quite limited among their peers without any special treatment. Of course they all got chosen as his and Mara's Padawans in early NJO, which might be considered elite training, but I still feel the Visdics convey a more special treatment for Ben, who was in the know of being beyond everybody. In Legends, Jaina didn't care and was chasing spaceships, Jacen loved his lightsaber but only until he found a redhead and cut her arm off, that set back his lightsaber dreams in favor of his other endeavors with critters and chasing girls. Anakin was torn between his fear of Dark Empire Palpatine riding along in his body and saving the world but also had no delusions of grandeur.

JAT makes it clear the Solokids are special but keeps the focus of strongest student on Kyp. YJK/JJK has the Solos integrate into their peers and only the NJO and onwards returns them to stewardship roles as their innate talents and power levels shine through in practicality rather than nepotism.

Regarding Tahiri: One can still retcon Krayt--Tahiri scenes into the Legends we got as others said, Dagobah and other missing scenes aplenty. Of course she would not tell the Jedi after those meetups and only confide in Jacen maybe. Jedi were in a complicated infighting place back then anyway and Jacen gave her stability. Later on afterwards, she like Ben Skywalker with Vestara and others with ties to Dark Side users may have interesting tales beyond the Legends we know. With Tahiri and Anakin's Dyad coming fully into play, a dyad transcending life and death as they on both sides of the veil work together.

Regarding Tenel Ka: If Tahiri gets a Hett Legacy, one might resurrect some old Redhead connective tissue that pulls Sunrider/da-Boda/Dathomir/Hapes connections and give Allya or one of her fellow human Witches some Sunrider blood! (detailed working nicely theory I put of elsewhere already on TFN)

Now if you One Canon Solokids and Ben Solo... there are several ways to do this but Ben being a shadow child still is the most likely option. It fits his story so much more, given all the abductions he is kept secret to the public mostly which reflects on his social skills a lot and to compensate his lonelyness they tell him he is special, a Choosen One, yadda, which complicates him further down the line obessing him with Vader and all once he knows. I kinda see paralells between him and Severus Snape in Harry Potter. Same kind of upbringing and fall as well as redemption. Would have been epic, had Ben Solo lived post IX, to have him played as an adult by Snapes actor in another Sequel... but yeah that actor is dead already sadly I know.
I still pity we never got a story of Ben Solo having had a girlfriend, even if briefly.

 

Dagobah would be the ideal time for Krayt to try to 'turn' Tahiri--she'd been exiled from the Order and was lonely and isolated. Or she could simply leave the Jedi Order after Luke 'exiled' her and she could chance upon his One Sith on Korriban or the Lost Tribe on Kesh. I've not read FOTJ, so I don't know if Tarc and Tahiri ever encountered one another--I don't think it would have served much purpose. LotF had already done the 'manipulate Tahiri with Anakin' plotline anyway.

True, I suppose they could have picked different 'birthdays' since they were raised by different people. I just thought they would celebrate on the same day since they KNOW they are twins.

I have a LOT of problems with the way Luke went about mentoring/raising the Solo kids in Legends, but that was one of his better ideas. I think not giving the Solos any special treatment was why they all ended up quite humble about their abilities. Obviously in training the fact that they were the strongest in the Force at the Academy would have become obvious, but it's not focused on all that much. I think that raising Ben Solo as the 'special one' was quite detrimental...I've not read any material with him in it though, so my knowledge is limited. I really have very little interest in Disney-canon.

That's how it's supposed to be, in my opinion. Nepotism rarely ends well. The way Luke did things, the other Jedi respect the Solos because they SEE they have abilities and personality traits that make them worthy of leadership, rather than simply having accolades and leadership positions handed to them. Although, the Jedi did become something of a monarchy after a while with the Grand Master/Leader always being a Skywalker...Luke Skywalker, and then presumably Ben Skywalker until Kol Skywalker in the Legacy comics...Cade was a 'chosen one' figure but didn't seem interested in leading the Jedi Order, at least as far as I've read in the comics.

A 'shadow child' Ben would be kind of interesting...but I like to think Han and Leia would be better parents than that...their parenting was already incredibly questionable at times in Legends. I could never understand the obsession with Vader though...Vader was a terrible person and murdered countless people. Even Caedus, to my knowledge, knew better than to idolize Vader, of all people. I could definitely see a 'One Canon' Ben Solo being a bit lonely, however, given that he would be significantly older than the twins and Anakin, and maybe end up feeling isolated from and jealous of the 'Solo three'. *shrugs* Personally I don't find Ben Solo all that interesting as a character, but I'd be down to read a fanfic or two in which people tried to integrate all the Solo kids (both Legends and nu-canon) into one story.

 

Do you mean Dagobah during NJO (the final Prophecy) or did she go there during Dark Nest as well? (I haven't read Dark Nest, just the abridged Audio books)

Yeah post NJO Luke seems to become the jedi King with the expectation that his own son will take over after him. Which I hate. I like Ben Skywalker. But he is not grand master material, he is a good person and a good jedi, but I can't see him as a leader.

 

DNT. Tahiri, Lowie and Tesar were banished to Dagobah.

 

Oh, ok.

Why them and why there?

 

Don't fully remember the specifics but they were dealing with after-effects of the Joining and slipped to Raynar Thul's parents that Raynar (in a sense) was still alive.

 

So Luke sent them into Exile?

Sounds right surprised he didn't kill Tahiri and Lowie.

 

But why would he kill them? Also, he should NOT have sent them into exile...they didn't do anything wrong. But of course Luke is the Jedi King and cannot stand to have anyone do anything he doesn't like anymore. *disgusted face* I hate what Luke became after NJO...wasn't the biggest fan of him in NJO either, TBH.

 

From his perspective, they'd been brainwashed by the Killiks and needed deprogramming.

 

I meant it made sense for post-NJO Luke, who is judgemental, inflexible and callous with lives.

He should have put them in holding in a jedi facility. Not thrown them to the wolves.

Luke is the Jedi King post-NJO and honsetly if Jacen had rebelled against that it would have made more sense for his fall than what we got.

 

In my headcanon, within a couple generations of Luke, the Solos and Skywalkers have roughly the same relationship with the Jedi Order that the Kennedys do with American politics:
- Yes, of course they're still in it.
- Yes, of course, they probably have it easier than a person with the same abilities but a different last name does.
- But no, none of them are the movers and shakers that Jack and Bobby and Teddy were. (Or Luke or Jacen or Jaina as the case may be).

And that's okay. With them, with the Jedi, and with everyone.

(I should probably mention that in my headcanon, almost nothing after The Unifying Force is canon).

But... yeah; the fact that a hundred years after the Yuuzhan Vong War, the fate of the galaxy is still turning around a Skywalker is one of the biggest reasons I rolled my eyes so hard at the Legacy comics when they came around. Although it's not the worst offender. I think the worst is when I picked up either the Official Atlas or the Official Chronology and found a quote towards the beginning from an "Organa" of Alderaan who's supposed to have helped found the Republic. I mean... 25,000 years of distance between that time and the movie era, literally five times longer than all of recorded human history, and still you can't think of any name to assign to Alderaan besides "Organa"? Just how much stasis is there in this universe?

 

That's not so different from earth actually...

After 2000 years people still cling to whatever a dude from Nazareth once said.

They still retell and remake the same stories for over 6000 years, be it adventures and history turned into legends and myth, into fairy tales or various versions of the same gods living the same lifes under different names in different cultures.

Or, if going beyond scientifically accepted history, over 10-20000 years of history before the ice age and great flood of which the knowledge of times before it only survived as such myth and legends.

True, we do not have a family tree going that far back that is traceable. But for ages and to this day many religious people and many monarchies trace their bloodlines back to blue blood or holy blood and the lineages mentioned in the bible going back to the real or fake origin of humanity.


I know not all of it is scientific here, but it is the precedence SW is taking and running with. SW is myth, legend, history, religion, all and more. Not just science but science fiction, fantasy, space opera! And as that, it is no stretch to do what it did there, nor unreasonable even to believe it is possible in a spacefaring advanced tech galaxy that transcended our techlevel over 100000 years before the saga already actually!

 

So had Jaina, Zekk, and Ben...yet they weren't 'deprogrammed'.

I find their lack of imagination disturbing. This is what happens when trying create a history on the fly and in a rush.

 

*Chosen

 

First of all…I hope everyone and their families and friends are staying safe from the Death Seed Plague…oops, I meant COVID-19…and that the required social distancing hasn’t gotten you all TOO down.

Now, about Diversity Alliance. This was a fun book for the most part, although it did suffer a bit from trying to integrate/reconcile a whole lot of different storylines.

Ever the practicality nitpicker, I was glad to see a mention of a New Republic flotilla protecting the Jedi Academy near the beginning of this book…although I could see that ruffling some NR politician’s feathers: ‘…why do we have a bunch of ships protecting an academy that has under 100 students? What makes THEM special?’ Really again calls into question the strategic wisdom of putting the Academy on Yavin 4 in the first place.

So Nolaa Tarkona (leader of the Diversity Alliance) suspects that Boba Fett may not be human or may be a woman…I think this storyline was later retconned so that it was actually Ailyn Vel (Boba Fett’s daughter) dressed up as Boba Fett in the ‘Diversity Alliance’ arc…and not actually the real Boba Fett. Interesting.

On a happier note, I got a real chuckle out of the line, ‘If Jacen ever suspected that she (Tenel Ka) actually enjoyed his jokes, he would really worry.’ The whole J/TK thing is really cute…too bad they didn’t get a happy ending. But then again, none of the Young Jedi really did anyway…except Jaina and Lowie (?). Sort of. If you can count having half your family dead after years and years of endless war as a ‘happy ending’, anyway. Which I don’t.

I also got a laugh out of Jacen’s remark that Raynar’s jokes ‘weren’t too bad, but he needed to work on his timing and delivery.’ Ah ha ha ha! Look who’s talking.

I guess I kind of had a rose-colored view of the Alderaani people (from the Organas and Tycho Celchu), because I was surprised by how much I disliked the self-important Thul family. Oddly enough, Raynar has an uncle named ‘Tyko Thul’, a pompous tool who runs a droid works facility. His name is very similar to that of the pilot Tycho Celchu—who’s an awesome character and not at all an arrogant fool like Tyko. I mean, Tyko even says he is ‘certain Raynar surpasses most of your other students in sheer Jedi ability’ to Luke Skywalker’s face…like, NO. The area in which his nephew surpasses the other students is the area of horrible, garish fashions. Although maybe I should go easy on Raynar since he gets turned into a bug later in life. Oh, how fortunes change!

We do get a rare peek into Alderaani culture during the Ceremony of the Waters that the Thul family holds—which involves drinking water and sprinkling water and talking about the qualities of water. Apparently it’s not something the Organas do, because Jacen is unfamiliar with it and finds it reminiscent of the boring state functions he and his siblings are occasionally obliged to attend as children of the Chief of State. What I wouldn’t have given for more stories of the Solo kids doing ‘normal’ things like getting into trouble at state functions and being forced to sit through etiquette lessons with tutors and C-3PO.

Another ‘continuity’ thing—according to this book, apparently Han Solo was on Alderaan at some point before ANH and tried to romance Aryn Thul? I’ll admit, my response to that was ‘What?!’ The more you know…anyway. In any case, the Bonaryn merchant fleet gets attacked…the kids help fight…then run off to a deserted planet to look for clues about Raynar’s missing father. Because that of course will not lead to trouble.

Meanwhile, Zekk has embarked upon his career as a bounty hunter and tries to track down someone with a connection to Bornan Thul, all the while Nolaa Tarkona keeps gathering more alien species to her in her anti-human alliance. While it’s obvious she has some pretty nefarious intentions, one also can’t help but sympathize with her cause—the Empire DID treat non-humans abominably and it’s both normal and natural that many of those species now want revenge on their former/current oppressors. Pretty good job at portraying a villain whose cause seems ‘right’ in a certain light.

The deserted planet turns out not to be so deserted, naturally…there are giant combat arachnids who sounded worse than horrible (I’m deathly terrified of anything bigger than a fly, so seeing a spider bigger than me would probably give me a heart attack), but Jacen, ever the empath, tries to find a non-lethal solution at first: ‘…do we have to kill them?’

The Young Jedi are saved by Raaba, Lowie’s sister’s best friend, who turns out to be rather not-dead just in the nick of time. Turns out she faked her death out of shame over failing in her coming-of-age quest and has been working for the Diversity Alliance all along…as evidenced by her aversion to the human Young Jedi. Jacen, however, tries to make friends with her, even though ‘there was a great deal he did not understand about Wookiees or women…this made Wookiee women a doubly difficult challenge’. Rather funny. Of course things to go hell later as, after Tyko Thul arrives, the Young Jedi are attacked by assassin droids led by IG-88 and Tyko is kidnapped.

Zekk finds his bounty…dead after a horrible plague wiped out the human colonists on Gammalin (hard to read about in light of the coronavirus pandemic) and also runs into ‘Boba Fett’ before having an encounter with another person who gives him a bounty…and who turns out to be Bornan Thul in disguise. And thus the plot thickens…

Now onto Delusions of Grandeur…

 

yeah it would have been really fun to see. Shame we never really got anything like that.

Han did get to Alderaan a couple of times, we see his first experience in The Han Solo Trilogy: Paradise Snare and he also ends up there in Shadow Games.

YES, this is what I love about the DA. They are wrong and vengful, but it makes total sense. I wish these types had more screen time rather than reusing the same old space-nazis Empire- types we keep getting. (The Sith are better, but often just end up as empire-lit.)