A/V Tales of the [Jedi, Empire, Underworld] series

What planets were in the main segment of the second two Barriss episodes? Or are they new / not named yet?

 

Not sure if it was mentioned already, but I've seen people speculating that Barriss was giving away her life force since she was a healer, which might have aged her significantly.
I like that interpretation, because it highlights her selflessness and a desire to atone for her past actions, knowingly giving away her vitality to help others.

Also, I'd like a book about Barriss and Lyn when they were Jedi. Clearly, there was a strong relationship there, which wasn't explored enough due to the format of these shorts.

 

I know a lot of people are sick of the clone wars, but honestly the inquistors make me want more stories with them in the clone wars and not just Anikan, Obi-Wan, Ahoska, and occasionally jedi council member stories. Baylan as well.

Heck, even some of the imperial officers. Like, what jedi was Rampart working for?

 

Honestly, it really depends on what circles you travel in sure on this site. People want them to do something original other than just a spin off of the bad batch or something else semi related to the clone wars but if you go on Tumblr or YouTube and see the polls there so many people want more clone wars adjacent, or just straight up clone wars.

I think from a realistic perspective, they are going to stick with the dark times era as they have the most assets for it. So it’s just cheaper to use then say doing something in the high republic or hell even the sequel trilogy.

all I want at the end of the day is good stories whatever characters you used to tell those good stories that’s fine. Just make sure they are good stories.

 

I agree. I actually did not like Inquisitors that much in Rebels. They were just kinda goofy and not a threat. But in TOTE, I found Lyn an intriguing character. I am also currently playing Jedi: Fallen Order for the first time and I love Trilla. Also started reading Inquisitor: Rise of the Red Blade now, hopefully I'll like it. But TOTE definitely sparked my interest in Inquisitors, where there was originally none. So props for that.

I also wonder if the Elite Troopers from Bad Batch S1 that we've seen in TOTE at Fortress Inquisitorius were supposed to be stand-ins for Purge Troopers? I wish they'd made a clone paratrooper design, like in Jedi: Fallen Order. Clone Paratroopers and Galactic Marines are one of the few ROTS clone designs that we still haven't seen in animation, and they happen to be the coolest, too.

 

We need another season of Clone Wars just to see the Galactic Marines in motion

 

Episode 3: The Path of Hate was just nonsensical to me. The NR sends an ambassador and 6 guards to ask an Imperial war criminal to surrender? I get the NR is supposed to appear incompetent...but this goes beyond that.

I think the Barriss stuff could have been more Tales of The Jedi.

 

Yeah, I get the intent of what they were trying to do: give Morgan one last chance to turn away from her dark path, take responsibility for her actions and face justice. But the logistical process of getting there was rather convoluted:
1) The NR delegation arrived to invite Corvus to NR;
2) The NR lady then decides to arrest Morgan after talking to Wing and, I assume, witnessing people in cages?
3) She decides to go with a handful of lightly armed troopers, despite being completely outnumbered and at a disadvantage with many guards on the roofs and such.
If Corvus was not a member of the NR in the first place, do they even have the authority to arrest Morgan? It's one of those interesting conundrums that the PT was full of: the Jedi had no jurisdiction on Tatooine, and they simply could not do anything about slavery there, or they had to act covertly on Onderon, because the planet was not in the Republic, and so on. It created these interesting dilemmas, that this episode did not address. But I guess a member of the NR can just arrest Morgan?

I also felt like the animosity between Wing and Morgan was just there from the get-go, and the way Wing and the people hated her, despite her honest, best efforts to secure the contract with the Empire, didn't exactly paint them in good light, especially when they were watching her getting attacked by Rukh and did nothing. The second episode did not make me feel sympathy for the people of Corvus and Wing. Morgan episodes had some excellent action and set pieces, like Grievous' attack on Dathomir and Rukh duel, but they were rather weird. Although I did enjoy seeing Thrawn in this animated style. The best he's ever looked, IMO. Very close to the book covers. But I am not sure what to think of Morgan designing TIE Defenders. I guess she did design the Eye of Sion, after all. But it's kinda funny how a witch became a genius ship engineer all of the sudden, especially given the fact that Nightsisters were known to never leave Dathomir, and thus having no need for ships or fleets of any kind in the first place...

 

I wondered about what authority the NR would have as well. If they had taken Morgan into custody it seems like it would have been a hostage situation rather than an arrest.

 

The first one looked pretty generic Ord-Mantelly, so could be anything. The second resembled Zeffo with those glacier walls. That would be odd though... not crazy since people live there and it's got the Force history, but weird to have two exiled Jedi hanging out there after Order 66. Unless Barriss arrived after Cal left. Maybe to help after what the Empire did.

 

As for the timeline of Grievous' Dathomir massacre...

Even though the episode never explicitly stated when it occurred, but it makes most sense for it to be in the aftermath of The Son of Dathomir. It just makes too much sense and doesn't require creating many entities to shoehorn it into the first massacre. There is simply no place for it in the original Massacre episode. We witnessed its beginning, middle and end. Grievous has all four arms intact, Grievous has a cape, and the most important of all - droid gunships that first appeared chronologically in Season 5 Onderon arc, which were denoted as a new weapon. Placing it into the first massacre requires too much work, namely that Grievous had to go back to orbit to his capital ship, fix his hand, and then there is the question of why he didn't use the droid gunships outright if he had them all along, if he sent even the Defoliator tanks in action. He wasn't holding back.

But if this happens in the aftermath of The Son of Dathomir, it fits in seamlessly. Grievous is just allowed to go and wipe out any remaining Nightsister clans after he killed Talzin. Although it does feel like the episode tried to heavily imply that this was the first massacre... But I am still not sure if Morgan and her mother were supposed to be from the Talzin clan? They looked rather differently and had different outfits. And then there is this whole thing with Morgan's Nightsister tattoos fading away, even though Ventress' and Merrin's didn't. For me, it's easier to assume that the attack happened after The Son of Dathomir and that Morgan and her mom were adopted by a different clan of Nightsisters and imbued with their powers akin to Savage Oppress and Morgan herself in the final episode of Ahsoka, which explains her normal skin color, fading tattoos, and her never using any Nightsister magicks.

Actually, nvm, I just remembered that she did use Nightsister magicks in Ahsoka. Morgan is a weird character. You can't honestly tell if she was always intended to be a Nightsister or not. Although the original Mandalorian episode stated that "during the Clone Wars her people were massacred", but her being a Nightsister creates so many oddities... I remember way back in the day when people speculated that she was from that village that Pre Vizsla massacred, lol.

 

Despite being the introduction of the Inquisitors, Rebels probably uses them the least effectively, especially in season two. In hindsight, they are very underdeveloped, especially the fact that they are former Jedi who fell to the dark side. I think they only acknowledge that with the Grand Inquisitor... after his death.

 

Spoiler

The Morgan Episodes were boring for me the only thing i liked was seeing the New Republic soldiers in TCW animation

 

The best part of the Morgan episodes was the conversation with Thrawn, and the duel before it.

 

I don't think you really needed to know who 4th Sister was before seeing this. She could have been introduced for the first time here, and it would have made little difference (except for all the pointing Leonardo DiCaprios out there).

It's sort of cool how the six episodes have a running theme of "dying character passes message off to survivor" (always putting the hand on the other's). Singing Mountain Clan girl does this to her mother, Corvus alien ambassador lady does this to the old dude, Jedi-on-the-run in the mountains does this to Barriss, and Barriss does it to Lin. The first two are in episodes heading to the dark side, while the last two are in episodes heading toward the light. While I'd like to see Barriss again, I appreciate how they handled it ambigiously, following that pattern. Her redemption wasn't just based on her survival and helping a Jedi on the run. It was based on helping a former Jedi who had fallen worse than she had (who at least made the attempt to save her; whether she succeeded may not be the point).

 

I didn't recognize her and had no idea I was supposed to.

 

To be fair, though, its not like Nightsisters working for the Empire and rejecting their original nomadic culture is all that new. Gethzerion wanted a ship out of there, and we had a Nightsister working in the Shadow Academy, whose name escapes me. Just make them part of the same clan.

 

It is certainly weird in case of Morgan. Consider that the most advanced piece of technology she had encountered for the first 15+ years of her life was the Nightsister laser bow. For all intents and purposes, Nightsisters were fairly primitive when it comes to their technological development and STEM education. In just ten years, she'd become a genius engineer of complex space craft and an expert industrialist. I definitely have to suspend my disbelief here, big time. Couple that with her weirdly normal human appearance. Looking through The Art of the Mandalorian S2 book, it was never stated that Morgan was intended to be a Nightsister, and early designs were just regular Imperials with Japanese-inspired aesthetics. It seems to me that the character was originally just an Imperial industrialist, and then, very late into the game, Filoni decided to make her a Nightsister on top of that, after having finalized her look, which is nothing like the Nightsisters that we know.

Spoiler: Big Images

Notice that only one of the concept arts resembles anything Nightsister-ish, but it isn't explicitly stated. Maybe the intent was to make her Geisha-looking, since the whole episode was very Japanese-inspired. While red is the color palette of the Nightsisters, it's hard to tell if that was the intent, considering the other factors.

TOTE then attempts to justify this by having her Nightsister tattoos disappear for some reason, a very flimsy reason, a reason that does not make much sense, since both Ventress and Merrin, the actual Nightsisters, look as you'd expect them to look after the Massacre, and their tattoos didn't disappear... And TOTE wants us to believe that Morgan was from the same clan as them, and that episode was that exact TCW episode where Grievous massacred Talzin's tribe.

The only way I could reconcile this is by Morgan being a normal human child that was adopted and then infused with Nightsister magicks, but that's clearly not the intent of the TOTE and Ahsoka, and it was not explicitly stated, and therefore it's just my headcanon - that isn't even working all that well, given that she still can use Nightsister magicks before getting super-infused by the Nightsisters on Peridea. How can she do that, if the power of the Nightsisters had been broken, according to TOTE, which is why her pale skin turned normal and her tattoos disappeared? How can she wield Magicks with the starmap?

It's just really clumsy and doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. It feels like Filoni regrets the fact that Nightsisters were supposed to be wiped out entirely, so now we have a whole bunch of them in another Galaxy returning to Dathomir again, and Morgan is one, too.

 

The New Republic seems to be really bending over backwards to not be the Empire, to the point where it's inadvertently hampering their ability to be fully effective. Sending an ambassador with lightly armed guards feels like a PR move more than a tactically sound approach.

I like to contrast the New Republic's arrival on Corvus with the Imperial arrival on Desix in the Bad Batch. It's very much an occupation in the Bad Batch. The decision has already been made by the central authority, the opinions of the locals are pointedly ignored, and the local ruler is deposed by force in favor of the Imperial authority.

In Tales of the Empire, the New Republic seems to be operating under the belief that the ambassador they sent is in touch with the "will of the people" on Corvus, and that most of those people would favor membership. The ambassador was originally from Corvus, so that makes sense. The guards are just guards, not an occupying force, and they seem to think that they can pressure Morgan into surrendering. It's a decided contrast to make themselves appear less oppressive.

As for what their actual plan was, maybe they thought they could bluff her, or at least make membership so appealing to the average person that Morgan could be pressured into relinquishing power. Maybe they expected Morgan to reject their ultimatum. Perhaps it was only made just so they could honestly say they'd given her a chance. After that maybe they would have planned to use economic pressure/incentives to force Morgan out.

Unfortunately for them Morgan chose violence and escalated things before they could apply diplomatic pressure.

At least, that's how I choose to see it.

It is a tricky situation. The New Republic really can't afford to establish a reputation for overthrowing planetary leaders in military coups at this point in its development if they're trying to convince everyone they are not the Empire. Regime change is messy.

As for jurisdiction, maybe since it was a Civil War they see any territory still under an Imperial's control as a moral gray area where they can intervene. Then, once the Imperial presence is gone, the locals can decide whether or not to sign on with the New Republic or go independent.

 

I get trying not to appear like the Empire...but going after a war criminal would require some show of force. For example a cruiser in orbit and drop a ground force (3x larger than the city has) to surround the city. Give them a short interval of time to come out peacefully and if they don't go in and drag them out. After that leave the people to their own devices to set up their own government but offer NR assistance.

 

I definitely agree with you. Your approach is the approach I'd take if I was in charge. There should have been at least one "warship" even if it was just a frigate. I guess they severely underestimated just how tight Morgan's grip was on the planet. The ambassador probably thought the New Republic showing up would be enough incentive for the citizens to kick the Magistrate out on their own. Which kind of makes sense. The ambassador was from that planet and she seemed to think everyone hated Morgan.

The question is whether or not Corvus is important enough for a task force of the size you suggest. Morgan alone feels like she warrants the task force you recommend, since its implied she's a major war criminal.

There are some dangers in sending a ground force that large though. Landing a couple battalions of soldiers might immediately escalate matters into a hostage situation. I imagine Morgan would use the people as hostages to keep the New Republic Army at bay.

But if you wanted to avoid that sort of hostage situation, then why not send in a commando team to assassinate her Seal Team Six style?

I get wanting to avoid extra-judicial killing, but when you have an imprisoned population like this that could be used as hostages and a dictator holding on long after the rest of the Empire's gone to pieces, your options are fairly limited.

 

What, you don't like Vague Wars?

Inexplicably, we don't even have a birth year for Saw Gerrera yet, despite the fact that we could probably narrow it down to within 5 years based on contextual information alone.

 

I just feel that everything has a story behind it plus where it falls in a calendar year. And official media's vagueness after ten years isn't fun.