Books The High Republic: The Rising Storm by Cavan Scott

Yes it is hard to hear.
Thought the Sullustan is very loud also sounds like Kim from Team America.

Spoiler

I expected New Uri to last longer. Shame.

It is a good point that the Republic is having a party while a war is raging.

I wonder if Rao will awaken this 'thing' and then it gets out of his control, and kills him.

 

Yeah I figured it could just be the in-univere narrator bias but still seemed a bit overly-simplified. The politics portrayed in these 2 books have been reminiscent of something you would get in a young readers like "jedi apprentice" or "young jedi knights", where all the good guys have the same opinion and anyone opposing it is an idiot. A bit of nuance and more complexity would be nice but maybe I'm just being greedy

 

In all fairness, the Sith still existed during this time, and logically speaking they are doing something, even if we don't see it as readers and it was subtle enough to escape the jedi's notice.

...yeah, honestly I confess to being torn between my usual "we don't always need sith as bad guys" stance and just being really curious what the sith are up to while all of this is going on.

Well said. The New Sith Wars seemed downright apocalyptic, and the canon version also seems pretty bad from what we can tell, with the Republic spending centuries just focused on survival afterwards. That they would so strongly reject a centralized military is hardly unreasonable in the circumstances, especially since planets do have security forces of their own for protection against most threats.

Heck, the early US was strongly opposed to a centralized military for a while, and that was just out of a mistrust of its potential use as a tool of oppression even without an civilization destroying war to back that up.

(though, are the Nihil that big a threat? In Light of a Jedi, their leadership admits they are basically an upjumped band of pirates who could be pretty easily wiped out by a Republic taskforce in a straight fight despite its demilitarization. Even the Nihil's actions here, while shocking to the galaxy at large no doubt, were fairly Pyrrhic, losing a lot of people and resources to mess up a party essentially. It seems to me what the Republic needed was more an intelligence service to see the attack coming than a bigger military force.)

 

I'm a huuuuuuge fan of the Jedi v Sith Wars being this apocalyptic event.

Reminds me of the Time War from Doctor Who during the RTD era.

 

I dont think the Nihil are a threat that warrants a standing army. Once the Jedi and local defense forces get their ish together, they pretty handily spank the Nihil every time. The sheer dont give an ish-ness of the Nihil is shocking to them though, so they arent even prepared for what they are dealing with.

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Probably why the Nihil are gonna have a big impact.

Jedi are used to dealing with Sith, they know what the Sith are about...But the Nihil, that's a whole new ball game.

 

I'm not sure the Jedi of this era would actually be prepared for a Sith fleet or army. I think what the Nihil present is a foe that just doesn't care, and seemingly has no light in their hearts. They aren't Force-users, but they are so fanatically nihilistic that it's just shocking.

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I'm not so sure about that. The Sith have been "gone" for 8 centuries or so at this point. I don't think the Jedi were still on the "how to deal with the Sith" mindset that far after they disappeared. Maybe the first 100-200 years or so, but afterwards all ways of how to proceed against an enemy would be driven by what their are facing, not someone they faced a very long time ago. One also needs to remember what gets said in TPM: as soon as Qui Gon brings up the Sith, the whole thing gets rejected out of hand. From that I would conclude that they haven't been dealing with anything like the Sith, nor been on the outlook for someone who operates like the Sith. That's why I don't think the Jedi would try to deal with anyone as if they were facing the Sith, instead they would deal with issues according to what the recent past has been about.

I would assume that for the most part the Jedi deal with local issues or maybe some sort of pirate activity. The former is an entirely seperate issue, while the latter probably came from the "we try to benefit but we aren't suicidal" mindset. What would make the Nihil different, is their complete disregard for anything. Crime syndicates generally try to make money, they aren't into murdering or terrorizing people just for the sake of doing that. What's shocking to the Jedi about the Nihil, is their complete deviation from that. A normal criminal will likely take a step back if offered a path to get away or keep his life, a Nihil will rather try to bring down everyone with him in a final blaze of glory.

 

It is also like the Denningverse.

If you like nuance, then I would suggest NJO Destinies Way. (also maybe the rest of the series for context.

 

Agreed, and it sure helps to justify why the golden age of a 1000yr Republic is set in 300-82BBY.

A wrecked galaxy takes a long time to recover.

Maybe they can take some inspiration from the Vong War in the destruction levels wrought upon the galaxy in the final Jedi vs Sith War.

Making said war the most damaging conflict in Galactic History.

I hope we can see some distant flashbacks to the reconstruction efforts after the war. HR Yoda is a great candidate for that, even though he was born more then a century after the wars end. It would be interesting seeing a bit of the Early Republic. A Coruscant that still has some war ruins.

 

I mean considering the Vong were gonna be "The Sith" in early drafts just transfer the basic idea destruction of all and make that the big intergalactic invasion of the past.

 

Then the question becomes how Darth Bane fits into that history.

Maybe have the Sith ruling the galaxy by about 1200 BBY, but each ruling their own fiefdoms. Then Bane over the years manipulates them into fighting each other, until he is the lone survivor and ruler of the now-united Sith Empire. The Rule of Two is then established. The Sith Lord that the Jedi defeat to restore the Republic is not Bane, but an eventual successor.

 

Or maybe the Sith just sorta win more or less and RULE THE GALAXY as Sidious says in Episode 3 and then because Sith are gonna Sith start killing each other being victims of their own greed and Bane is the last survivor

 

Isn't that what I said? Except Bane is less directly involved in your version.

 

I prefer less involved Bane honestly

 

Either way has the Sith killing each other out of greed and envy. I think having Bane be more involved makes for a more interesting book/movie/tv show, and watching his schemes come together would be satisfying to see, rather than it being largely down to luck/the Force.

 

Maybe one of the reasons the Sith turned on each other was because they believed the Jedi were wiped out. An interesting twist on how the Jedi would later see the Sith.

We know there have been Jedi purges prior to Order 66. If the final Sith vs Jedi war was a long one (and Jedi had other enemies, like Mandos) the Jedi of that generation could have been extremely depleted, becoming small (though not OT era lvls). Maybe the survivors intentionally hid themselves, knowing that the Sith would likely turn on one another with their common foe “extinct”.

Then while the Sith Civil War is underway, the surviving Jedi rally with other remnants of the collapsed Old Republic to help finish off any left over Sith and their army.

Speaking of canon Darth Bane, I hope they don’t bring back the thought bomb.

 

Well I think that works for a number of reasons.

1. It will allow for storytelling to go back to classic Jedi Underdogs vs Sith Overlords narrative.

2. Not a lot of Jedi running around so they can keep that mystique about them.

Also as you say it's a cool reverse, with the Sith believing the Jedi being wiped out then they'll lose the common enemy and turn on each other. Showing how different they are from Jedi who even when their common enemy is gone they still work together.

 

Maybe a Jedi Order that has the numbers like Luke’s NJO during the Jedi Academy series.

But before jumping back to Jedi as the underdogs, I prefer if we get them more in large numbers against the Sith first.

Such as showing the beginning of the final Jedi vs Sith War.

Going back to an earlier era of Jedi vs Sith, such as the war where the Sith took Coruscant (for some time) and built a big shrine, or even the early era of the 100 year darkness.

 

Oh yes I've been through the whole NJO 5-6 times. Also read everything Luceno about the same number. Plagueis and The Unifying Force are about the peak of SW literature for me, hard to see that changing unless something drastic changes.

Having said that I still really enjoyed this book overall, exceeding my expectations which have generally been pretty low for new canon books. I loved the sheer diversity of alien characters and Jedi in particular. Some of the alien jedi characters (eg. Orba Lin, Buckets, Porter (?)) are very fascinating. I think Cavan Scott will be one to keep an eye on. Might get put along with Freed and Gray as the clear stand-outs for me so far in the new canon (not counting Zahn).

 

Maybe that's the reason why anti-Force cults (The Elders of the Path from HRA and

Spoiler

the one Marchion and Kufa belong to (whether these two cults are one or not)

) exist. It's a reaction to mass casualties caused by Force-users during the war.

 

I think that the

Spoiler

Nameless/Leveller

will tie into that too in a big way.

Spoiler

"Only through sacrifice of many Jedi will the Order cleanse the sin done to the nameless."

 

Honestly Zahn in NuCanon has been one of the weaker authors. The freshness is gone and his books read like something from a bygone age.

 

I kind of agree. His books have still been better than most of the new authors IMO but other than the first Thrawn novel they've been a bit meh.

 

I found the first one ok. I found Thrawn Alliances BAD, though treason was back to being ok.

But I am enjoying the HR, most of the books (and the main comics) are good. It reminds me of the old Clone Wars Multi media project, connected but seperate stories.