Comics Tales of the Jedi

I prefer the idea that lightsabers never changed since the Jedi began.

 

I could see the Jedi first using corded lightsabers maybe for a couple of centuries, but definitely not for twenty millennia. Someone should have realized how impractical that whole thing is during all that time and tried to come up with something better. I know technological progress does not work in SW as in real life, but that seems too ridiculous for me to suspend my disbelief.

 

This actually may be what the new canon goes for. It's not canonical in and of itself, but the Art of TFA book contains a picture of the first lightsaber, which resembled a 'modern' lightsaber hilt but made of wood, with more of an exposed crystal.

 

Okay thanks for the info

 

I’ve been thinking about this series lately, and especially about how it relates to the KOTOR games. Was there any one story that stood out from all the others?

For some reason I read Dark Lords of the Sith first, and though I know it’s not the first one released, it somehow felt like the ANH of TOTJ. Maybe that’s just me.

But I have started to suspect recently that Golden Age and Fall are not necessarily considered on the same tier as the other stories. Is this somewhat accurate? I did like them when I read them when I was younger, but they do sort of rush things and reinterpret what was introduced in the stories that were released earlier. Though even the Sith War had the issue of rushing things a bit.

In relation to KOTOR, a game I’ve long admired but never actually played, I’m wondering how much the writers based their story on the lore established by TOTJ versus having their own ideas of Jedi/Sith history that were later retconned to fit with TOTJ. Of course, there are a lot of shared elements, so it does seem like they took the comics as history to some degree, even if they took liberties with it, which is natural.

And then we have Kotor 2, which also takes things in a different and interesting direction. And the unmade Kotor 3, whose writer has dropped hints at what could’ve been that sound very interesting, and different enough from what TOR became, though they shared similar ideas (namely, the True Sith being the remnants of Sadow’s Empire).

 

@Sauron_18

I found the concepts of KOTOR 3 quite fascinating if done well and their idea of the Sith infinitely fascinating. Lovecraft Sith aka Darth Chthulu ;p

 

I currently entertain the idea of a KOTOR 3 set AFTER the TOR MMO to round things up and end this mega-era finally one day which TOR never truly will I fear. But that'd be not the originally envisioned KOTOR 3 then, which is near impossible thx to TOR. But one might salvage elements from it, even if the characters are different.

Also a KOTOR mock-off called Knights of the High Republic I do consider happening one day...

 

This was the pitch

 

I always wanted to pitch a “Knights of the New Republic” RPG set between the Hand of Thrawn trilogy and the Vong War that could be a spiritual successor dealing with some loose ends from the other two games.

 

How would you explain everybody having lightsaber-resistant swords in the New Republic era?

 

Good question. How was it explained in the first place? Was cortosis in abundance in the Old Republic?

 

I think Trask just mentions that your sword is made with cortosis, and by implication all swords are as well. Which I guess could make sense since there's more Force users around during that era.

 

Cortosis was a nice retcon but gets overused. Lets go to the movies, we have energyweapons that can block lightsabers like the energy staffs of Grievous guard droids and the like. Hence any energized sword might be able to do the same. Not vibro-weapons but energyfield covered blades with a power pack. Kinda the tech version of ancient force-imbued blades.

But to make this not massmarket weapon ready I'd build in a catch like it is energy-draining and only works for short duels or the energy field collapses and you only wield a regular blade against a lightsaber.

@Golbolco Given I liked how Dark Empire nicely tied into the TOTJ era, I am all for a Knights of the New Republic. Even JAT tied well into Kun. But how would you do it to tie into KOTOR? Easier done before the NJO came along, but not undoable now.

I'd like Revanites to still be around as a minority cult in the shadows right into the NR era. Maybe under another name? (like my old Knights of Re(va)n theory). One might even merge them with the Genoharadan for some nice conspiracy shadow politics angle. With the fall of the Empire and ascent of the NR a secretive group behind any government might actually contact specific NR individuals to take continued influence. I kinda get Secret Order of the Empire vibes from that setting, but now reinventing itself as a Secret Order of the New Republic pocketing Senators and military and business folks for their purposes.
With the political setting thus being their outing and Leia and co working against the shadow government, Luke might follow crumbs from more ancient holocrons and times to discover the same group from another angle where they present themselves as a nice force cult trying to influence him like Jorus, Akanah, Snoke or Vergere used to. (Force Guru of the week a new theme?). A post Dark Empire Luke trying to set up his academy and still coping with his Dark Empire actions and decisions might be right up the Revanite alley of a middle path. And given his experiences with this story then would add to his doubt about Vergere later on... until Jacen convinced him by example to try the concept with the entire order post NJO.
Throw in some rogue Imperial elements dabbling in long lost Rakatan tech in the UR and the Empire of the Hand taking them out to the NR's puzzled mystery who did it and done.

 

Yes! I've been tracking down past interviews, and I was able to find some additional hints that Avellone has dropped over the years about his vision for the True Sith. Here are quotes from two additional interviews:

From an interview with Kotaku:

"They were survivors of Naga Sadow’s empire. Much like the Shadows in Babylon 5, they were orchestrating the collapse of the Republic from behind the scenes, interfering with key events to cause echoes through the Force and leave it ripe for invasion – hopefully without a shot even being fired. In essence, they were changing the shape of the galaxy through manipulation of specific people and conflicts, much like Sidious did, but on an even larger scale than Episode 1 through 3.

The idea was that in Knights of the Old Republic II, Revan slowly became aware of this underlying threat (because Revan is a tactical badass) and went off to seek out the true source of the threat to the galaxy. This was why he was trying to keep the Old Republic infrastructure intact so he could use it against the Sith. Anyway. Fairy tales and legends and what might have been, but that was the intent, yes."​

And from a podcast with Eurogamer:

"For the third game, you're able to track Revan's path, whether you encounter him or not, just in case it ever happens in the future, I don't want to give any spoilers or anything. But the idea was that even before the more 'modern-day Sith' came into being in the Old Republic--which is kind of ironic, because that is the old days--but in the Star Wars universe there was even far more distant Sith Lords that were sort of considered the true Sith, and the idea that they were still lurking out there in the galaxy looking for their chance to strike, kind of like the Shadows in Babylon 5, I thought would be a cool finale for that Old Republic trilogy.

They were related to ones that existed in the canon, but part of the fun with designing them was, if you have these incredibly powerful Force users, and they have their whole hidden domain out in the distant reaches of the galaxy, what would that Sith empire really look like at the hands of these things. And that was really fun to explore from a design perspective, it was the idea that if they could shape entire planets or galaxies or nebulas, and they had all these slave races at their disposal, how cool would that be, to sort of go into the heart of darkness and you're the lone Jedi or the new version of the Sith confronting these guys, what would that be like. I thought that'd be pretty epic."​

This is all pretty intriguing to me. And re-reading some of the TOTJ comics, this reframes the nature of the ancient Sith. It doesn't fit too well with what we see of the Sith Empire in Golden Age of the Sith and Fall of the Sith Empire, but those two comic series themselves don't fit perfectly with what was said of the Sith Empire in the earlier TOTJ comments. In Dark Lords, we are told that:

"Naga Sadow was a magician of pure Sith blood, who was in rebellion against the Sith rulers, those fallen Jedi who wore the title Dark Lords of the Sith… Freedon Nadd said that Naga Sadow was sentenced to die by the reigning Dark Lord… The magician Sadow and his followers hid on the fourth moon of Yavin, where he practiced alchemy undisturbed."​

Yet the two later prequels seem to flip this around, by making the Sith people an alien race and flipping Sadow's role so that his bloodline is closer to that of the human Dark Lords. Which is fine and all, but it does somewhat erase the fact that what made the Sith people different wasn't so much their species as it was their culture, one steeped in dark-side lore that went even further than the Dark Jedi had seen before, and most of which was lost to the ages. Certainly, the Massassi in Dark Lords were no longer human, but the comic seems to imply this is a result of alchemical experiments by Sadow in the distant past.

And of course, the elements of Sith alchemy and dark-side spirits trying to reclaim their flesh has renewed relevance now that the ST is over and we have Exegol in the Unknown Regions. But that's not surprising considering TOTJ and Dark Empire both come from the mind of Tom Veitch, whose ideas seem to have found quite a few parallels in the ST.

 

@Sauron_18

It will be interested to see what gets recycled for NuCanon. High Republic did show some concept art of things that seems to refer to those ancient Sith that Kotor 3 might have gone for.

Also interesting. How does Golden Age and Fall of the Sith Empire contradict earlier TOTJ?

 

The only contradiction I remember was the (perhaps minor) one I mentioned, which is that TOTJ portrayed Naga Sadow as being a pureblood Sith magician, whereas Golden and Fall have him be the opposite, with his rival Ludo Kressh being the pureblood Sith. There’s also the implication that the notion of pureblood went from being something related to an almost familial bloodline of power associated with unique Sith magic to something related to species, and more racial instead of familial. I’m sure there’s other minor contradictions that come from making a prequel, but this one struck me when considering the question of what really are the ancient Sith.

And I agree with your comment on the High Republic! I’m curious to see what role the nameless end up having. They are certainly monstrous-looking and Lovecraftian.

 

Not only High Republic but NuCanon in general has been building up the Unknown Regions as this big mysterious place with big mysterious evils.

So who knows what might be set up in the future in any rumored or announced series and or projects that may or may not happen. (Cough possible Rebels Sequel Series Cough) ;p

 

try this link which shows issues available on Comixology.co.uk

https://www.comixology.co.uk/search/items?search=Tales+of+the+Jedi&subType=SINGLE_ISSUES

https://www.comixology.co.uk/search/series?search=Tales+of+the+Jedi

 

speaking of Tales of the Jedi, look what is coming in December

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Wars_Legends_Epic_Collection:_Tales_of_the_Jedi_Vol._1

It is only Dawn of the Jedi but I think the title is a good sign.

 

@Sauron_18

With High Republic concept art and I guess the ST in general i do wonder if Lucasfilm has some ideas on what they wanna do when it comes to the Aesthetic of the Ancient Jedi/Sith conflicts,

Sure their were a few things mentioned about Sith Empire in Thrawn Book but outside that it's been very vague

Like what ideas are gonna get recycled

Also I do wonder reading KOTOR 3 and seeing some of the stuff in the TOTJ comics, I feel ike the DarkSide is portrayed...differently...But I can't put my finger onto how?

Good too see these coming out, hope we get to Tales of the Jedi stuff soon.

 

The switch seems to have been made as soon as Veitch left. In The Sith War, Exar says, “One of my predeccesors, the Dark Lorr Naga Sadow...”

 

@Jid123Sheeve I'm curious about what impression you get of the dark side from those comic stories. It does seem a little different from where it stands right now. Nowadays my impression is that the dark side is treated very psychologically, almost like something that could be understood in terms of regular human psychology. But in the comics it seems like something that people get infected with, something that clouds their judgment the more they use it or tap into it. I do like the idea of there being an element of mutation in the mind of the dark-side user, where using the dark side actually changes the way they see things.

@darklordoftech I agree, I think those elements changed when KJA became the only writer. I know both he and Veitch corresponded with GL to some degree, so I wonder what he told them. I posted in the Saga In-depth forum’s Sith thread about some aspects of earlier SW drafts that related to the origins of the Sith. One of those which might relate to the idea of “pureblood Sith” is that both the Jedi and the Sith may have been at one point conceived of as actual families/clans. That would explain why bloodlines would come into play in Naga Sadow’s rebellion. Of course, GL’s ideas are different from Avellone's for KOTOR. But interestingly, they seem to match up with some of the developments in the ST, especially in relation to the shift in focus to bloodlines.

 

@Sauron_18

It's hard to put in words per say but I guess you are right in terms of something that people get infected with. Like how when Exar Kun uses the Dark side on the Sith worm its like he tuns on a light switch or something. In Dark Empire it sometimes feels almost like mind control.

Reminds me of those ooooold Force Awakens rumors of how we''d find out that Palpatine's ancestor Ruin was the founder of the Sith . Granted those leaks were highly uncertain and old

 

Geonosian Brain worms? That is the vibe I got from these sith wyrm...

Even when Holocron smashing releases spirits to take over Jedi with ancient Sith (god I still want to know WHICH ancient Sith those were and why they obeyed him)... I think posession, mindcontrol via poison or worms or mindcontrol via Forcepower are more common back then.

 

@Sauron_18 My headcanon is that the Tales of the Jedi comics are the contents of the Jedi Holocron seen in Dark Empire and Jedi Academy: Dark Apprentice.