Reviews Books The JC Lit Reviews Special OUTBOUND FLIGHT (Spoilers)

Average score: 336.7/37 = 9.10

 

9/10

Zahn is teh haxxorz.

 

Average score: 345.7/38 = 9.10

 

Ahh, while this is back on the main page I'll give it the 9.9 it deserves. Honestly, this was pure joy for me.

 

Average score: 355.6/39 = 9.12

 

7/10.

The depiction of Jorus C'Baoth and Lorana Jinzler is compelling and interesting and raises all kinds of interesting questions about the nature of the Jedi's relationship to civilians.

The first contact story with the Chiss is cute, but the plot threads are wrapped up a little too neatly, and Thrawn's seeming omniscience begins to grate.

And I think Kinman Doriana just ticks me off -- it almost feels like Zahn doesn't know how to write a genuinely unsympathetic character, even when by all rights he should be. It's almost like his role as Darth Sidious' dark disciple with plans to crush and overthrow the Republic and kill trillions of innocents in the process is just a plot role he's forced to fill in order to justify his presence, but he otherwise has the same basic noble, upstanding, for-the-greater-good attitude as everyone else. Which is annoying. (Same with having to shatter Maris' -- and, by extension, the fanbase's -- belief in Thrawn's virtuous heart by having Thrawn kill Outbound Flight... only to have Thrawn *not actually do it*. But even then when Doriana does it he still somehow comes off as a basically decent guy. Strange.)

 

Average score: 362.6/40 = 9.07

 

I remember thinking this was a return to form for Zahn after being disappointed by SQ. Loved the expansion of Thrawn, Jorus, Jorj, and many others. 9/10

 

Average score: 371.6/41 = 9.06

 

One thing that I didn't get: What made Thrawn say to Stratis that his name wasn't Stratis? How could he possibly have known that?

 

I am a fan of Zahn. This book was pretty good.


7.5/10

 

7/10

 

8.5/10

Loved it, although Obi and Ani felt a little shoehorned in, and some of the early bits with Car'das and Thrawn dragged on a tiny bit. Good characterization all around, especially Jorus.

 

Average score: 394.6/44 = 8.97

 

10/10

Outbound Flight is a novel of the Old Republic, which, in tandem with its sequel, Survivor’s Quest, tells the tale of the Old Republic exploration and colonization project of the same name.

Outbound Flight is a tale of space battles and philosophy. A tale of Jedi and aliens. A tale, ultimately of good versus evil. But at its core, this is a story about the evils of hubris. A cautionary tale about the dangers of those who grow drunk on power and become obsessed with their goals.

The greatest antagonist of this tale isn’t Sith agent Kinman Doriana, or even the vicious and greedy Vagaari aliens. It’s Jedi Master Jorus C’baoth. The man who champions Outbound Flight and single-handedly obtains approval for it. The Flight sets sail because of C’baoth’s actions and it ultimately meets its demise because of the Jedi Master’s stubbornness and sheer arrogance. But more on that later.

Outbound Flight is a very underrated novel which tells a very compelling story. Timothy Zahn uses a spare handful of POV characters to tell this tale. Each of these characters has a foil in the story, which, overall, is done very well.

Lorana Jinzler and Chas Uliar are our two main windows into life aboard Outbound Flight, with Obi-Wan Kenobi serving as a third, impartial POV.

Kinman Doriana is Darth Sidious’s primary agent in this novel and it’s through his direct machinations that Outbound Flight undertakes its maiden voyage and it’s through those same schemes that the vessel meets its end. This is perhaps the only book of Zahn’s in which Sidious plays a supporting role. He only appears a handful of times, but he is the ultimate guiding force behind all the major events in the tale.

Through Doriana, Sidious arranged for 50,000 colonists and crewers to join C’baoth’s grand project and subsequently arranged for their deaths. The cold-blooded genius of Sidious’s plans is quite terrifying to behold. He wants Jorus C’baoth removed as an obstacle, so he encourages the man’s obsession with extragalactic colonization and even gives him a huge colony ship and tens of thousands of support personnel to crew it. All so he can use his minions to intercept the vessel and destroy it. Thus, ridding the galaxy of C’baoth and seventeen other Jedi along with many of their sympathizers.

That’s the true tragedy of this book. Not C’baoth’s fall or Thrawn’s alliance with the Sith Lord or even Lorana Jinzler’s brave sacrifice to save fifty-seven people. The tragedy is the death of fifty thousand people who believed in Outbound Flight and the Jedi, only to have their faith betrayed by Jorus C’baoth. Because that’s ultimately the person who dooms Outbound Flight.

C’baoth and Doriana are the two beings responsible for dooming the very project they worked so hard to build. The former brought ruin unwittingly, by refusing to turn away despite being given repeated opportunities to do so. The latter always intended to destroy the entire project and, in the end, was the one to press the button that killed all crew aboard.

And yet, despite Doriana’s actions, C’baoth is the one who holds much of the blame for what happens to the Flight. It’s C’baoth who refuses to turn Outbound Flight around to avoid Chiss territory. It’s C’baoth who refuses to heed Thrawn’s warning to turn back or face destruction. And, ultimately, it’s C’baoth who forces the destruction of Outbound Flight by Force Choking Thrawn across the void. Because Thrawn, who's still a noble man at this point, goes out of his way to avoid destroying Outbound Flight, mainly to spare the tens of thousands of civilians aboard.

Thrawn takes great care to only destroy the weapons blisters on board the six Dreadnaughts-inadvertently killing all the Jedi aboard in the process. It’s this, more than anything else, that pushes Jorus over the edge and he lashes out in fury at Thrawn. It’s this petty and vindictive action that incapacitates Thrawn long enough for Doriana to push a button that sends deadly radiation bombs against all six Dreadnaughts. The blasts kill everyone aboard the six ships including the enraged C’baoth.

Jorus’s death isn’t a tragedy, however. It’s merely a footnote to the true calamity, which is the end of all those innocent lives. Doriana may have killed them, but it was C’baoth, with his incredible hubris, who brought about the circumstances that ended in their deaths.

Outbound Flight takes a long hard look at the idea of the Jedi and their place in galactic society. It examines their purpose, their power, their morality, and their perception in the eyes of the common folk.

Zahn does an excellent job of adding Obi-Wan and Anakin to the story. Their presence ties the other characters into the wider Star Wars narrative and gives us some excellent moments of action and amusement. Darth Sidious’s reaction to Anakin joining the mission is darkly amusing. We see a hint as to Sidious’s long-term plans involving the boy when he personally intervenes to remove Kenobi and Skywalker from Outbound Flight.

There’s a small interlude in orbit over Roxuli, just after Palpatine’s shuttle is ferrying Obi-Wan and Anakin to the surface, where Outbound Flight departs Republic space without them. For someone who's read the entire book and the rest of the saga, it’s a chilling moment where the reader realizes that Outbound Flight is on its way to be destroyed. All of these people that Obi-Wan and Anakin spent weeks getting to know, are about to die. And the only reason the two of them have been spared is because the Sith Lord arranging the carnage wants Anakin alive. So that he can enlist him in his plans one day to wreak even more death, betrayal, and destruction.

In a way, it’s as if the removal of Kenobi and Skywalker takes away the last protection Outbound Flight had. Without those two aboard, the entire project is doomed. Speaking of ruin and betrayal, let’s look at Kinman Doriana for a moment.

Doriana is a perfect minion for Darth Sidious. He feels little to no remorse for betraying anyone and is happy to use whoever he needs to in order to fulfill his goals. It takes a certain type of cold-blooded schemer to arrange for the passage and provisioning of fifty thousand people, knowing all the while that they’re going to die soon after setting sail. It takes an even colder snake to do so when you’re planning to destroy them yourself. Doriana’s not quite in the same boat as Tarkin or Isard, but he’s up there.

Even before he meets Thrawn, Doriana is planning to destroy Outbound Flight and everyone aboard. All so he can destroy Jorus C’baoth and the other seventeen Jedi on the mission. It’s quite amusing on a personal level, because in their one and only meeting, C’baoth snubs Doriana and insults him. On a meta level, Doriana gets his revenge and then some, when he pushes the button that kills Jorus and all his companions.

Jorus never learns of Doriana’s betrayal, even though the latter is there at the scene of battle. There’s a moment where C’baoth could have learned of it, when Thrawn first contacts Outbound. But Doriana remains out of camera view and thus Jorus dies never having learned of his betrayal.

The death of Outbound’s people isn’t the only tragedy of this book. A subtler, yet poignant tragedy is Thrawn’s slow corruption and fall. He begins this book as a man who abhors slavery and slavers. Yet, eventually, decades from now, Thrawn will die aboard his flagship at the hand of his own indentured servant, who learned of Thrawn’s deception regarding his poisoned homeworld and his impressed people.

Thrawn goes from being a man who saved the Geroons from the vicious Vagaari slavers to keeping the Noghri in perpetual servitude to the Empire. An action that eventually causes his own death when Rukh stabs him in the back-literally.

The common denominator here is, of course, Darth Sidious. Just as Palpatine corrupted Jedi Master Dooku and Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, the future Emperor manages to persuade Thrawn to destroy Outbound Flight and will eventually convince him to join his Empire.

Going back to the topic of the Jedi, C’baoth shows the worst side of the Jedi Order here, as an arrogant, egotistic, and overbearing tyrant who believes his connection to the Force gives him the right and duty to rule over all others. And yet, despite his moral failings and flaws, this C’baoth does retain some glimmerings of nobility and sense. He is not a full-blown Dark Jedi as his clone Joruus C’baoth will become in thirty years.

C’baoth saves the lives of everyone present at the negotiations on Barlok when he uses the Force to halt a missile. He does it again aboard Outbound Flight, when he catches a falling panel in the Force, protecting the crew members below it. Even after he’s become drunk on power and assumed total control of Outbound Flight, Jorus still retains some innate goodness. He melds with his fellow Jedi to attack the Vagaari ships, being careful shoot between their living shields.

Make no mistake, Jorus C’baoth was a Jedi and a decent one at that. He was arrogant, superior, dismissive, and overbearing. But he still cared about the lives of innocents and did his best to save them. He only completes his fall to the dark side when all his fellow Jedi die-save Lorana- and he lashes out at Thrawn in revenge. Jorus’s fall is an illustration as to why Jedi are not permitted to rule over others, as he so deeply wanted to.

Because such desires and actions are a slippery slope towards to the dark side of the force. Because the Jedi, at their core, are servants of the Force. Guardians and protectors, yes, but not kings or overlords. That is not the Jedi Way and it’s clear that ruling over others is something C’baoth secretly craves. He lies to himself and justifies his selfish desires by claiming it’s for the greater good. That the Jedi can see things more clearly than any others and because of that, they must rule over the lesser people. Perhaps he even believes that on some level. But it’s clear that Jorus C’baoth craved power and domination and supremacy. Outbound Flight was his way of achieving this and up until he met Thrawn, he was well on his way to establishing a Jedi theocracy over the people of that ship.

One wonders just how much of C’baoth’s true character Darth Sidious divined and whether he felt genuinely threatened by that. Because a primal desire to rule is something Sheev Palpatine would understand very well. That quality in a powerful, dark-leaning Jedi Master would be something that would concern the Dark Lord of the Sith.

But C’baoth isn’t the only Jedi featured in this book and while he fails to hold up their high standards in the end, there are other Jedi who do not fail to do so. Obi-Wan Kenobi is present on the Flight, and he constantly watches and counsels C’baoth to change his ways. He even plans to stay aboard the ship for its full journey right up until Palpatine himself diverts him off. One wonders how the encounter with Thrawn would have gone if the Negotiator had been present. Perhaps Outbound Flight would have withdrawn from Chiss space and all aboard lived on.

Lorana Jinzler is another Jedi who sees C’baoth’s darkness and eventually realizes how wrong he is. She doesn’t have the strength to stand up to him the way Master Ma’Ning does. But in the end, after they all die, Lorana Jinzler does the opposite of what her Master would do. She sacrifices her life to save those of Chas Uliar and the fifty-six other people who were part of the conspiracy against C’baoth. She chooses to die so that others may live instead. This utter selflessness and sacrifice are at the core of what a Jedi truly is and it’s something Jorus C’baoth never understood.

Lorana isn’t the only Jedi who sees what C’baoth is becoming. Justyn Ma’Ning and the other Jedi eventually decide that he’s overstepped his bounds and declare a Judgment Circle to be convened. Doriana’s attack kills them before they can, but the moral is that though the Jedi may have a few bad apples, the majority of their Order is fundamentally good. Justyn Ma’Ning spend the last of his energy saving Lorana Jinzler so she in turn can save others. After an entire book of C’baoth steamrolling other people and being the worst kind of Jedi, it’s very refreshing to see other Jedi acting as they should.

There’s one character I haven’t touched on yet, and it’s the Watson to Thrawn’s Holmes.

Jorj Car’das.

Car’das doesn’t change or even accomplish much in the book, not on the level of the other characters I’ve discussed. But he, too, makes some significant contributions. He aids Thrawn in several battles, he teaches him Basic, and he lures the Vagaari into Thrawn’s trap. Yet by doing so, Car’das loses a bit of himself, his youthful naivete and some of his optimism. By the end of the book, Car’das has become more cynical, more calculating and ends the tale by joining Kinman Doriana, in unwitting service to the Sith. It will take decades for Car’das to even realize how much of a mistake this is and even longer for him to untangle himself from Darth Sidious’s web.

Outbound Flight is an excellent novel and one of my favorites from the Expanded Universe. I’ve always known Tim Zahn was an excellent author, but it’s only as I re-read his novels as an adult that I realize just how gifted he really is. I’m looking forward to reading more his works in the coming years and I hope deeply that he gets another trilogy soon.