Star Wars: Agent of the Empire; new series by John Ostrander

It sounds like a challange but honestly, should the lines between good and evil is SW be utterly distinguishable at this point? If there is one thing this 21st century has taught me, it's good and evil are very blurry.

And we'll always have Del Rey to simplify stuff for us. I like my DH edgy. No risk, no reward.

 

I anticipate this doing very much the opposite of Legacy.

In Legacy, we had a Jedi hero is most not the cliché Jedi hero.

In AotE, I expect we will have an evil spy who is not the cliché evil spy.

Nearly all of JO's characters are stereotype breakers. Maybe most Imperial goons fall into the Isard and Pestage mould, but not all Imperials are evil monsters -- see Crix Madine or Soontir Fel.

Or even a certain Lieutenant Han Solo.

 

Not to mention Tycho Celchu, Hobbie Klivian, Biggs Darklighter, even Gilad Pellaeon...

(and cough Mara Jade)

 

I wouldn't exactly call those characters stereotype breakers. Every last one of them defects from the Empire (or in Pellaeon's case, reforms the Empire, folds it into the GA, and becomes a GA character, which is narratively the functional equivalent). Perpetuating the stereotype. All the "good Imperials" with any narrative weight defect. Teren Rogriss. Ranulf Trommer. Nova Stihl. The Hand of Justice. Pter Thanas. Sair Yonka. Sixtus Quin. Brenn Tantor, Dellis Tantor, and Beri Tulon. Even your Voss Parcks and Dagon Nirizes and competent TTT/HOT supporting cast end up in kinder-and-gentler versions of the Empire, which isn't the same thing, narratively, as being characters who are just loyalists to Palpatine's Empire and also good people.

The only "good" character from the Empire (not the Imperial Remnant or Fel Empire) who hasn't defected yet, that I can think of, is Sunber. And he's fake-defected and started to have doubts, and become less and less good the longer he's held onto his Imperial loyalty, so he's not exactly a sterling example. And arguably Kir Kanos, but he left the Empire because he was too Imperial for the Empire, and then started working with the NR and having doubts, so he's not exactly a clear-cut case. The only real "good Imperials" you actually get are the occasional half-glimpsed decent-bloke-low-in-the-bureaucracy tertiary supporting characters.

Which is why I'm a bit skeptical that we're going to get a "good Imperial" character here who never leaves the Empire or starts to work against it.

 

Now's a good a time as any.

 

Well there's Grand Admiral Osvald Teshik (my personal favourite character), Tan Maarek Stele and to a lesser extent Xamuel Lennox.

 

Ah, Stele. Though he does end up with the Remnant, and is thinking of leaving the Empire before Fel pulls him in . . . he's a pretty good example of a good Imperial. Teshik and Lennox are decent examples, but again, they're D-list supporting characters. They're not actually major characters in anything.

For actual protagonists, I did realize that we have the characters of What Sin Loyalty -- TK-622 and Akobi. They're pretty much perfect good Imperials. And General Ziering in To the Last Man. So Empire managed to fit in a handful in one-off situations, and they all died right away.

 

I'm hoping for a loyal Imperial with a moral code of some sort. He/she needn't be a good guy in all regards.

Look at John's last main character, Cade Skywalker. He wasn't a good guy in a pure sense, yet his story was still fairly compelling, with him just being him. Something like that would be fine with me.

 

That's basically what I was getting at yesterday, yeah.

Cade is a Jedi hero but he's far from your average Luke or Qui-Gon.

So by a similar token, I'm anticipating AotE's protagonist to be an Imperial agent who isn't your typical Imperial agent.

Think of the GCW equivalent of a player choosing the light side options in TOR's Agent storyline. You won't be able to change factions in TOR, but you'll be able to champion what you see as the noble, benevolent virtues of the Sith Empire. I'm kinda expecting a similar thing here, with the lead character doing for Imperial Intelligence what Cade did for the Jedi Order, i.e. showed not everyone is a WOTC archetypical stereotype.

 

I'm really excited about this. I love Imperial-themed Empire stories, and always wanted to learn more about the Imperial agents, spies, and undercover guys!

On a related note...I hope Mara makes an appearance!

 

You read my mind! I was just thinking that as I read through the thread! Ha!

 

What I'm really hoping to see is some of the less well known parts of Imperial Intelligence.

For example, I'd love to see COMPNOR and the Imperial Security Bureau, simply to explore the rivalry between them and Imperial Intelligence. It'd also be fun to see this new agent being ordered around by some shadowy operative who we initially knew nothing about (think the representative of the Secret Order of the Emperor in TIE Fighter), and it leading to a crisis where the agent eventually learns how the whole Intelligence Division is a sham, and little more than a front being ruled by the Inquisition as the shadowy dark side puppetmasters whom we so seldom hear about in the EU these days. (It'd be absolutely awesome if we got to see Cronal!)

There's so much creepy stuff to Intelligence that they really have a potential goldmine of unexplored material (at least, unexplored in anything except for ancient WEG stories and things).

 

I'm not of the mind that everyone in the Empire either has to defect or be truly evil at heart for the sake of fitting into the Empire=enemy viewpoint. The spy could feel that the work he's doing is for a just cause and he's doing his own part for the side he believes in and believes is right, which I admit is in the same vein of Mara's limited background/mindset.

On another note, no one ever said that the main character of the story had to be a hero.

 

You've summed up a lot of the reasons I'm looking forward to this.

And one thing you mentioned that's particularly interesting -- Cronal. If Blackhole showed up in his old guise once in a while, or even just once, just to hand out some shady orders like he did in the Classic SW comics, that would really be kicking it old school.

 

This sums up pretty much everything I want to see really. ISB and II rivalry, Inquisitors, COMPNOR, fall of Armand Isard, rise of Cronal leading to the eventual rise of Ysanne, Emperors Hands, Noghri! It would be awesome if Cross goes on a mission where Vader assigns some Noghri to assist him. There is just so much potential to see on the II side of things.

 

By the Force, if this comic features the Inquisitorius, I would be a HAPPY fanboy!

Seriously, though, I've got to agree that this comic is an excellent opportunity to explore some of these shady, lesser-known elements of the Empire, to flesh them out a bit more. For being supposedly the single greatest existential threat in the history of the Galaxy (by dint of Palpatine being the only one who so unbalanced the Force itself that it necessitated a Chosen One), the Empire has some essential parts of its function that are suprisingly underdeveloped. This is a perfect opportunity to rectify that.

Seriously, though- Inquisitors! I would LOVE to see more of them!

 

Live and Let . . . There Is No Death, Only the Force.

You Only LIve Three or Four Times, Depending on How Much Fans Like You

From Ruusan with Love (and Reformations)

Bactapussy

Quantum of Sullust

Yes! Agreed. CF "Evasive Action" webstrip for great use thereof.

Edit: Actually, maybe just COMPNOR was featured in Evasive Action.

 

Done right, this could go a long way to showing why we so rarely hear of them.

In the X-Wing or Commando books, we're following the front line forces, whether up in space or on the ground, so all the creepy work of the ISB or II is behind the scenes, off the record, need to know, and Mr Fel and Mr Skirata, you guys don't need to know.

It's why I always loved By the Emperor's Hand, as we saw some really humorous scenes with Mara just marching in places and initially being treated like dirt for having no official rank, then just waving her top secret codes around, and everyone suddenly jumping to her every wish. I'd love to see more of that darker side of the Empire... the stuff the average joe, both civilian and in the military alike, never see or hear, other than in hearsay about whether you've heard the rumour about that disused building across the street, where the woman down the road said she heard screams the other night, some say it's a spook house, but the spooks don't really kidnap people and interrogate them, do they, it's just a rumour right? The Jedi are all gone. Their funky old religion is no more. But you say you heard lightsabers coming from inside? Nah. You must be hearing things. Nobody uses lightsaber anymore apart from Vader. I've never heard of this "Inquisition" thing. You must be making it up. It's an urban myth.

 

I just can't contain my excitement for this series. I hope we get some kind of cover art, or concept illustrations in advance. I need to go dig up "Shadow Stalker"...I seem to really remember loving that. Or maybe it was just Jix's abs.

 

Cover art? No way! It's a spy story, dude; the covers should all look like this:

[image=http://images.defensetech.org/archives/images/z01.jpg]

 

(seriously)

I was also disappointed by the omission of "That's No Moonraker".

 

CBR interviews Ostrander about AotE

The agent in question, inspired by both James Bond and Jason Bourne, is named Jahan Cross and he works directly for Armand Isard, the Director of Imperial Intelligence.

!!!

 

I'm calling it now: Death Star plans!

 

Ooh, maybe we'll get to see Facet and Druth Anamor.