Lit The Dark Dark Lord Trilogy aka the Luceno/Stover Prequel Trilogy Read through and dicussion

Hello there!

For those of you who came in late, the Dark Lord Trilogy is the semi-offical name for three Books released around the release of Revenge of the Sit, though not called a Trilogy at the time they were named and sold as such after the fact.

These books are;
1. Labyrinth of Evil, by James Luceno, set just before Revenge of the Sith

2. The Revenge of the Sith Novelisation by Matthew Stover, covers the events of the movie

3. Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader by James Luceno, starts in the second half of Revenge of the Sith and then moves on to cover the aftermath.

With the structure established, time to talk about the books themselves. This is a read through so feel free to follow along or even over take me.

here we go.

The first novel opens with the assault on Cato Neimoidia. Luceno sets the stage of the assault in a very poetic way describing the inter play of light created by duelling laser batteries. It also establishes WHY we are on this planet, Nute Gunray is here, looking to clean out his place before the Republic take it. We then swiftly meet Anakin and Obi-wan, they fight and exchange banter "Your fears are only in your mind master" "Without a head I wouldn't have much of mind left now would I?". Cody joins them and the heroes plan their assault.

Sneaking in hiding under the bugs is a neat plan, it also mostly works, kinda, for a while. Then things go wrong and a trooper is injured. THEN an avalanche of Destroyer Droids, who are taken out by an EMP and artillery, in an anti-climax I find illustrates how things have changed in the course of the war, what used to be a massive threat now aren't, always.

So the Jedi and some clones make it into the base and Anakin and Obi-wan split up, Obi goes to draw guards (aided by Cody and some clones) while Anakin goes to Get Gunray.

This is when the 'time on Cato Neimoidia, that doesn't count' happened. Anakin gets discovered by a protocol droid and loses Gunray. Obi-wan gets traped by bad luck and ends up high on spores. Anakin sort of saves Obi as he uses what I feel is drunken master style of lightsaber combat.

And so Gunray live to die another day. As we fellow his escape, he remembers the chair that Sidous used to call him and realises it was left behind. panicking (but they have a planakin, a plan they plan to tell it to blow itself up) they then do tell it to arm it self and blow up, but Anakin and Artoo stop it in the process revealing the 'face' of Darth Sidous.

Tune in next time for some of the fallout of this revelation and a look at how the war has changed life on Coruscant.

 

Anything Stover or Luceno always has my attention.

 

Earlier today I opened LoE a bit and I was tempted to do a rereading, so count me in - since usually readthroughs on boards are quite slow, it wouldn't be a problem.

 

I loved this trilogy! Just did a re-read a couple months ago. Looking forward to the discussions that will ensue!

 

I only really read two days a week. So the read through won't be done in a week, but it (hopefully) shouldn't be too long, though also a lot of down time.

Let me say that while I love these books, they, particularly Labyrinth of Evil, are products of their time.

Speaking of LoE, we now see how the war has changed the Capital through the eyes of Bail Organa. It is interesting to see how the incresed security is affecting him, needed extra id just go somewhere (I guess to the speeder rank?), but in this case I don't think the details matter so much as what is happening. He needs this extra id just to get around, there clone troopers all over the place, who are stopping and searching based on 'training'. It gives a feel that the war has affected the people more than we got from the movies. Bail continues to the senate for an 'audience' with Palpatine, he reflects on how things got this way, making the book a good jumping on point for new readers, this is also an advantage of books, where you can just have a character remember a bunch of back story. We see more signs of the coming Empire, Commission for the Preservation of the Republic; non-humans need not apply. And that kind of says it all, since non-humans make up the majority of the CIS people hate them. It reminds me of the way people thought about Japanese people in ww2.

Bail arrives meets Mon Mothma "An audience with Palpatine". We also see how Padme isn't as close to their views. The senators meet Sate Pestage who is a an @$$ to them, so they wait.

Meanwhile, back at Cato Neimoidia Yoda and Obi-wan talk about confirmation of Sidous being the second Sith. This is a good scene it gives us a look at what the jedi have been doing to fins Sidous before now and an interesting view into Dooku from Obi "I think he couldn't help but reveal himself to us even if he regretted it later". The flaw of arrogance and power is the need to show it off. This comes back in a big way I think (Don't try it). It also shows some of the flaws in Yodas thinking, he still expects, still can only imagine the Sith coming at them head on. Yoda even says "if in charge of the Senate this Sidious is would not the war already be lost?", even at this moment Yoda still can't see that the Sith have a deeper plan, that martial victory isn't a concern for them.

Also something I forgot from last time. Anakin using rage to fuel his force, not only does this show him moving to the dark but it also shows us how the war has affected him, he mentions Jabiim and other battles. Now if this your first book then those are just names, but if (like me) you had been following the story you would know what those names are all the friends he lost all the pain he suffered at these places. It is the best kind of call back, one that needs no context to make sense to a new person but one that someone who knows gets a lot out of.

Next time, the hunt begins and a senator blushes

 

I'm not sure whether the title of this thread is typo or not, but I just wanted to say that I'm totally here for it as it makes me think of this.

 

I recently reread these too, mostly because I half-remembered a very exciting investigation on Coruscant during which they got awfully close to finding Sidious... (and also because I was curious if any media showed us what Sidious was doing during / immediately after Order 66). IMO Legacy of Evil is the perfect lead-in book - and knowing that you can jump right into the amazing RotS novelization afterward just makes it even better.

I also think Kenobi makes for a great and satisfying followup to this trilogy, seeing as Obi-Wan is almost as much a protagonist of the first two books as Anakin. LoE -> RotS -> Dark Lord -> Kenobi is an excellent, atmospheric ride.

 

LOE is probably hands down the best lead in prequel novel to a movie. Regardless of legends, this trilogy is one that should be on everyone's book shelf and to some, the real bridge for ROTS. The endgame for the clone wars and its finality can be attributed to this trilogy of books.

 

Just going off Wookieepedia, I always thought of Dooku's motivation as being that he was disillusioned with the Republic, and he also wanted to find the Sith Lord responsible for Qui-Gon's death. He sees the Jedi as not doing enough on either count, so he leaves, and in his anger he falls to the dark side and ends up serving the very Sith Lord he wanted to kill. So Dooku hates the Jedi, the Sith, and the Republic...but somehow he deludes himself into thinking he's still in control, hence why he tells Obi-Wan about Sidious controlling the Senate and tries to recruit him.

As for the Yoda and Obi-Wan conversation, I thought it was showing that Yoda has sensed that Sidious is playing both sides of the war. He knows the war is a farce, but he has no choice but to play the game until the Jedi have the opportunity to expose Sidious. I think this is an important exchange, because a lot of people here attack the Jedi for blindly serving a corrupt Republic during the Clone Wars...well no, I think Yoda knew exactly what he was doing, and he had a plan for stopping the Sith and ending the war.

 

The Clone Wars multimedia project is my favorite EU material. That includes Dark Lord and the Dark Times comics that immediately follow ROTS to me.

 

I love this trilogy. I have it as one big paperback. I really need to re-read these books. Revenge of the Sith is my favorite Star Wars novel.

 

Well going from the books (mostly RotS so I will say more there) Dooku is fully on board and wants Obi to join him as he likes Obi. By "revel himself" Obi means 'as a Sith', as if Dooku had not the jedi would have kept looking for Sidious.

Yoda says the war is a Labyrinth of Evil (title drop) later on, once the hunt gets going, but now he refuses to believe the Sith could plan to do anything but come at them with an army. "looked at the sente we did and risk much in doing so." This comes up more in RotS, but Yoda is a big reason for the Sith victory, as wise and powerful as he is he keeps the jedi fixed in place not changing not evolving, fixed, strong, brittle.

@cthugha Oh good idea, I think I will read that after these, then I will do Cloak of deception and Darth Plagy.

Now on with the story

Anakin wants respect and feels he doesn’t get it at his age despite his accomplishments. "Looking at me, as they should". He gets praise from palpatine. Recalls jabiim. This all goes into showing Anakins flaws, flaws which the war has made worse, he wants respect and hates people not respecting him, he is very sensitive about it. He is a young man looking for more respect and he gets it from Palpatine but few others.

List of future famous names. The loyalist committee, a good call back to AtoC. Padme plays good cop.


Palp makes good points about letting the cis keep systems. James Luceno is one of if not the best political writer of Star Wars, it is simple but not dumb. Palp is dangerous even without the force. This also shows us WHY people don’t doubt when the Jedi are killed, they already don’t like or trust them. People mostly see Jedi now in battle and even before that they were fighting the war. The Jedi defended the weak and the powerless, if you could look out for yourself the jedi didn't help you. This makes them few friends who can help them, since people who had to get by on there own resent them for not helping (or worse as we see later).

C3po calls palp majesty, is he being smart?

And Padme blushes at the mention of Anakin. So he knows.


Back at CN Anakin asks about Jedi isolating themselves and unintentionally hits on the flaw of the PT Jedi. They try to have it both ways, they try to isolate themselves and surrender themselves to the force, but they are also bound to the Republic while remaining aloof from the people. In tales the Jedi married and were less isolated. Even SWTOR has the Jedi balance this better by letting them marry and work with the Republic not just for it and those Jedi have their own planet.

We then meet Dyne a view character later on.

Some more references, Illum from the 2003 cartoon, the gas from the comics neat things.

Padme deliberately misremembering how she meet Anakin. That is interesting shame nothing comes from it.

Now we meet Grevious. We see he is smart has respect for bravery and hates Gunray. I think he represents the future Vader in this book better than else where, the conflict between the former brave hero and ther cold killer comes into play, but that is later, now he blows up some hyperspace rings and some droids to teach gunray a lesson. He then lays a bit of his backstory how his people where invaded beat the invaders back then the Republic and Jedi came and attacked his people. This really shows how bad the Jedi were even without the war, they didn't look at the history of the conflict or try to bring peace, thye just drew their lightsabers and went in. We also see that he is very alert and has good attention to detail.

Then the twist he will call using the chair the Republic captured.

Next time the hunt begins.

 

Funny enough, I am re-reading these books. They are so good!

 

feel free to comment here!

 

Hmm, just went back through Labyrinth of Evil a bit...and maybe I did misremember it. The specific line I had in mind was:
"Carefully balanced this war has been. Republic victories, Separatist victories... In prolonging it, a part the Sith may play." But Yoda says it to Palpatine, not Obi-Wan, and it takes place later. So perhaps I was incorrect about Yoda knowing about Sidious's plan all along, and that he only started to figure it out later.

 

Could be that he knows that there is something rotten in Danmark but don't know what. My impression of the SW media was that the Jedi (at least the upper levels) know that there was something fishy going one but not what and they could not at the same time allow the separatists from attacking/conquering planets so they had to do their investigations while also fighting the war + normal Jedi duties.

 

Will say for me this really falls appart in Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader because it gives us even more Jedi surviving order 66(not that these survivors would ever really do anything in other stories or later show up at Luke´s Jedi order). It´s really one of the worst aspects of the old EU that most of the named Jedi all survived.

 

Not really as it gives people something to do for the 23 years until the Empire is defeated.

 

At least most of the Jedi who survived Order 66 die off anyway, or go deep into hiding and so aren't involved with the Rebellion much (if at all), so it doesn't mess up Luke's story in the OT. Though certain stories were really stupid in that respect (such as TFU) but that's not relevant to this thread.

I fondly remember these novels, LoE and the RotS novelization are some of my favorite Star Wars stories. One of my favorite aspects is how LoE ties everything together, references so much and sets the stage for RotS. How Gunray leaving behind that transmitter accelerates Palpatine's plans and leads to the Battle of Coruscant we see in RotS.

LoE especially shows how far the Republic has already fallen. The Jedi are trying but they're too busy to realize just how bad things have gotten (which is partly Sidious' fault too of course) and Anakin's teetering on the edge too already.

Another of my favorite aspects is how much screentime Bail gets in these novels, as it helps set up for the Rebel Alliance later on (since those scenes were cut from the movie unfortunately).

I hope someday there's enough nu-canon material to have a novel like LoE again, but that's still many years off (at the rate the nu-EU is developing). Ah, those were the days, back when LoE came out.

 

Some may have had suspicions, but the Sith gave the jedi exactly what they were expecting. A Sith lord with an evil army coming to take over the Republic, to the Jedi, trained by Yoda to refight the last war, this checks out. The Sith played into the jedi's preconceptions. They trapped them.

Yes that comes MUCH later "I don't want to repet the mistakes of Genosis" "New ones we will make",With Palpatine the forces wasn't last it wasn't even on the agenda." Yes I can quote this book cold, I think I may have read it too much.

@Nobody145 yeah LoE is great. But I think that is a theme of all the books (and even the PT in general), the good guys didn't lose the physical fight they lost the spiritual one for their nation. The enemy didn't come armed and armoured to their gates, they slipped in quietly, they didn't attack from without, the evil came from within. I mean just look at Grevious's back story, his people were attacked and they win, then the jedi come in and attack them! It's crazy.

But back to the story!

The ship is the same type as the on from the start of tpm. It is a good metaphor for the start of the Republic now, gone are the diplomats now only war.

Obi thinks about some other Jedi missions, some I know some I don’t, as well the Jedi are becoming more paranoid and insular.

We get more about the Xi Char and their work ethic, the deity is in the detail. A neat reverse on the maxim devil in the detail ( read the fine print), and one extolling good quality work.

That this is a religious duty explains their zeal to fix the ship.

TC plays diplomacy well. It is interesting. Between this and C3PO calling Palpatine Majesty

We also get some back story for Raith Sienar of all people and an exciting one at that, what book/comic was this from?

And a mention of ZS this story I remember. A world with more to offer the galaxy than just ships as it turned out.

We then meet the signer of the chair and TC plays this well, but then a chase ensues. And then they have the next link in the chain. In enemy territory.

Now a briefing more info about Sienar and also a call back to events of cloak of deception. And the 2003 clone wars cartoon.

Now the choice let grevious strike to keep the secret or reveal it and save lives. They are still Jedi so it is no choice at all, they fight, but don’t tell the chancellor.

Grievous dreams of his old life, like Vader I feel. He is a tragic figure, a freedom fighter who saved his people then they were dames by an uncaring Republic and an uninterested Jedi. I cannot help but think how if the Jedi had looked more they could have made an ally of his people, but they did not and they were not. Now they belong to the IBC and the CIS. Grevious mentions the Krath I wonder how much that history is still taught.

But now comes battle he takes charge and issues orders caught unaware but not undone, then he sees them the evacuation and he knows.

Survive first then deal with other issues.

Now the battle, it’s good fast paced and clear to follow. Anakin is Anakin, even Grevious can tell. Grevious thinks he could win the fight but he sees that fighting at all here is a lose so he leaves. He kills innocents in the evacuation as a distraction and then just leaves. I wonder if this further damages the jedi reputation, since the evacuation was what tipped of Grevious off and gave him a target.

Obi muses on Anakins mortality.

Yoda and mace talk about the battle 27 Jedi killed in once act. And how they need to stop defending palpatine, yoda saws wait win the war first.

Next time Grevious pays gunray a visit.

 

Prequel-era Jedi were often clueless enforcers of the Republic.

In the Huk-Kalee war, which began as Huk the aggressors, the Republic sided with the Huks because of commercial interests. And the Jedi go there and help demolish the Kaleesh. No questions asked, or, perhaps, not a lot. No wonder Grievous despises them so much.

On Galidraan, Jedi swallow the lies of the Death Watch, who massacred innocent civilians and framed Jango's Mandalorians for the crime. Dooku and other Jedi go there and proceed to wipe out Jango's troops, themselves suffering losses in the process. While the Death Watch laugh at them all. When facts become clearer, Dooku is disgusted with what they've done.

On New Plympto, the Republic totally wrecks the Nosaurians' economy and also denies them representation in the Senate. They have no choice but side with the CIS. Of course the Jedi-led Republic troops go there too, and a bloody war ensues. Jedi Master Dass Jennir does not even know why the Nosaurians fight the Republic. The fact that they fight against the Republic is enough. Afterwards, when he learns the truth from Bomo Greenbark, he is mortified.

There may be other examples I'm forgetting.

 

I don't think we can blame the Jedi for that one since they asked Jango's Mandos to disarm and the later reacted by attacking them and continued to attack until only Jango was left. And Jango in turn decided to tell nobody that he and the his had only done parts of the war crimes the Jedi was there to investigate, or that they hade done it while in the governor's pay.

 

The Mandalorians did not attack the Jedi. It was the Jedi that walked up to their camp to basically tell them surrender or die. All the while blissfully unaware what was really going on. The Mandalorians also didn't know what the hell was going on. Given their traditional distrust of Jedi, they decided to resist. It was the Jedi that kept attacking because the Mandalorians wouldn't obey and surrender.

Also, all of the war crimes there were commited by the Death Watch. We don't have any evidence suggesting that Jango's men took any part in them.

Maybe it was foolish of Jango and his men to fight. But if they were unwise, the Jedi were complete dupes. And then they allowed Jango to be sold into slavery, too.

 

We seems to remember different comics, can anybody look up which one of us is right?

I think it was established that Jango's people had attacked and killed political opposition in ways that was not kosher by Republic standard under the orders of the governor. They had not just committed the really bad stuff that Death Watch did.

Just wondering what should the Jedi, lead by Dooku, have done? A group of Mandos have committed crimes, they go to the camp with Mandos (who know that the governor have betrayed them) tell them to drop their weapons (which is their right) the Mandos react by shooting at them, ounce the snow settle the only survivor decide to not tell anybody about the governor that had betrayed him or the Death Watch. And if he had actually done honest work so should there be a contract with the governor that he could point to. By his actions Jango makes it appear that he is the bader guy that he has been painted as.

Do we know that? I mean I don't remember that part but it could be that Dooku and the his just handed over him to the governor for what they believe should be a just trial.

 

I recently reread the comic. Yes, the Jedi walked to the Mandalorian camp and demanded surrender.

By all the evidence, Jango's troops only attacked the opposition military they were hired to fight. By the same governor who was legitimate enough that the Jedi easily believed his lies.

The last time we saw Jango he was surrounded by the Jedi. They left him to the same governor who had betrayed Jango too. By that time the Jedi should have known that the Governor was in on all this dirty stuff. They did not. Or they just didn't care, or were told by their leaders on Coruscant(Jedi as well as politicians) to leave the matter. And then that governor sold Jango into slavery. That is all we know. No further details. But we do know that Dooku was disgusted by the whole fiasco when he learned the truth.