Lit The Official Fate of the Jedi: Apocalypse Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

From what I understand, the Jedi are asked to leave Coruscant. Which they were already planning to do, because the Jedi feel their presence on Coruscant only makes it a target for attacks, like what happens in this book when Abeloth causes volanic eruptions all over the planet. But as for the overall state of Jedi-GA relations, from what I understand (haven't read the book myself, just heard spoilers) it is left unsaid, so future authors can do with it what they want. So it seems the Jedi have more distance from the GA, but that doesn't mean they've totally split, they're just less entangled... and it will be up to future stories to detail their relationship and level of involvement with each other. At least that's what I've heard.




Lt.Cmdr.Thrawn , from my understanding of the Mortis episodes: the Father, the Son, and the Daughter are just hyper-Forceful beings. They were already powerful, at or near Anakin's level, in the larger galaxy.

On Mortis, the entire Force flows through that planet, which amplifies their powers even further.

It's my theory that, since the entire Force flows through Mortis, the beings on that planet (of course) influence the Force around them. And that influence on the Force is then spread throughout the entire galaxy. So a dark act on Mortis, like a dark act on Coruscant or Tatooine or Korriban or Ossus, will taint the Force around it. But unlike a dark act on Coruscant/Tatooine/Korriban/Ossus/etc (which might be vaguely felt by Forceful beings, depending on its severity), a dark act on Mortis will be carried by the Force to influence the entire galaxy. Even a small dar kact on Mortis could have huge ramifications for the entire galaxy, and the same with an act of goodness. Since the entire Force flows through Mortis. The Father, Son, Daughter are already powerful, but since they're on Mortis they are able to control the dam, if you were to think of the Force as a river, but that doesn't make them the personification of the Force, it just means they hold unordinary sway over it. My theory, anyways.

 

Yeah, that's my general understanding of the basic elements too. However, if they hold that much power over the Force, or if indeed anyone can hold THAT much power over it... and if "the whole Force" flows through one specific area of spacetime... these just seem like really significant ideas in understanding what the Force is and how it operates. Oddly, then, those concepts are completely absent and not necessary for any of the film stories, which are the thing that set up the whole setting. For example, why didn't Palpatine try to take over Mortis, if it can influence the whole Force? Even if it turns out that he did, why wasn't this shown in the films - it seems super important? Of course the reason is that the concepts have changed over time. A new way of looking at things could be valid, but because it seems totally divorced from the parts that built the setting while simultaneously wanting to portray things that probably should have had some impact in those stories, it feels weird to me. It sounds like a conspiracy theory in the real world. "The pyramids and Stonehenge were really built by UFOs who came from Deneb and liked potato salad. They didn't leave any evidence, but they're foundational to the world as we know it."

If the realm of Mortis is understood as a vision of the future or experience of fate or something, filtered through the consciousness of the humans Kenobi and Skywalker - sort of like the end of 2001, I guess - I could more easily get on board with it. The Mortis characters might be real entities, but more like Q than anything else, and their realm would be a simulacrum of the real galaxy, in order to specifically show Ben, Ahsoka, and Anakin something.

 

Those hoping to see the GA Marines in action are in luck, myself included. From the Amazon preview it seems the Jedi rendezvous with Marine defectors on coruscant and they work together to attack the Jedi Temple. Eventually after battling many sith the marines track Abeloth to Pinnacle Platform; the temple's roof. From there it seems Abeloth evades GA forces to escape to another part of the city. It's unclear what happens to the Marines, however.

This is awesome in my books. All the cool hints and ideas and places introduced throughout the series are coming together nicely . Count me in as excited!

 

They need to stop letting Denning write closing books of these series.

After reading these spoilers, I think I may simply end my personal canon at The Unifying Force, as it is all downhill from there. And with 9 of the 22 books after TUF, I blame Denning for the decline.

 

I believe it said that the marines even though they were very helpful, groups of them weren't even a match for a Sith Saber and were killed easily. At one point in the book, the Jedi have killed 22 Sith but lost 15 themselves.
Whomever said that Abeloth is not truly dead is correct, the Jedi get reports of her making one last attack on a jedi in the outer rim with a tentacle but it evaporated or disappeared. Luke and the other masters guess that she will be back, maybe not in their lifetime, but that the future jedi need to have knowledge of her and they surmise that they do need the dagger so we may possibly see a plotline with them trying to find Mortis. The very final passage that I saw was like the very beginning one in Outcast with a female talking about the dark, but in Apocalypse she now has a light and is not quite so alone and desparate. Luke almost dies and is pronounced dead by a medical droid, but Ben knows better, Luke is trying to tell Ben that he knows Vestara is a traitor, she is the one who led an attack on Allana on the Falcon that failed. Also, Vestara escapes in the end with Ship and Ship tells her about more Sith in the galaxy and that they have need of her!

 

That's it; the post-ROTJ EU is dead to me until it gets a reboot of some kind. If that won't happen, then my personal canon stops after TUF.

Troy Denning is a huge factor in how terrible everything has become. He needs to stop writing, or as others have said, at least needs to stop being allowed to write the final book in these nine book cycles.

 

Funny thing is, I just read a spoiler on another site that said that we will see a "continuation" of the Mortis episode, that will clear up "who these guys are". And I take a bet that the FotJ guys did not even talk to them and that the "Ones" will be retconned into a being a dream or vision by Anakin´s mind or something. And then it will totally make no more sense anymore . . .

 

The sith hit the fan.

And I won't tell or correct the typo in above sentence.

 

Typos? I´d say those might very well be mistakes. Well, probably I made them wrong because I can´t do it any better. Not my first language and my spelling-check of my MS Office is gone without an explanation.

 

I didn't mean your typos - I won't edit my deliberate typo in "The sith hit the fan.". Sorry for confusing you.

 

Seriously, that book is kinda silly. A friend bought it and I actually gave it a quick read, but when I read this Mortis connection I took it and really needed to make sure that was serious. So I read the whole thing and it made me hate myself a bit. This is really everything into one pot and then mix it! I was surprised nobody resurrected the Sith Emperor for the finale!


And the whole Mortis inclusion . . . man, . . .


To me it appears as if they read Wookieepedia and took that stuff for granted, although the Episode is intentional vague on The Ones nature. And just like most SW fans theorizing on it they oversaw the MAIN hint at where Mortis is. MORTIS. It´s latin for dead. So I guess at some point in the future of TCW we will return there and find out it is afterlife. That´s why QuiGon was there and so on . . .


And then they will retcon Abeloth into having returned from the dead and . . . she is also Andeddu! Or God knows what . . .


Seriously, with all respect to the people who like the novel and actually dig as many references as possible . . . how did SW become something like that? Where a guy from another franchise shows up in the end and helps the hero?


And yeah, what Jacen did know is amazing. But why did he never mention it? Do they realize they had a lot internal thoughts of Jacen in Legacy? And he never spend a single one on Krayt? Despite knowing about him all along? He did not even try to make sure allana was save from him? He did not look for him? Man, didn´t he think he was the last Sith actually after Lumiya bit the dust? He never told anybody?


And WHEN do the jedi actually properly check Korriban? Never in 90 years they looked there for the obviously existing Sith? Argh.

 

Source on this? I guess we could always say the Killiks got it all wrong. But I also would find it surprising if Lucasfilm licensing allowed NEW EU works to so greatly overwrite TCW material without at least first collaborating between the two parties indirectly. I know the show often messes up the EU, but how often does licensing allow NEW EU to mess up the show?


I highly, highly doubt Mortis will be nothing more than a symbolic dream though. It obviously occurs on a higher plane outside of time, but I've always believed the Father/Son/Daughter exist on some level. They're avatars of the force who can influence it, but the force does exist separately from them. Then again, the novel claims at their death and Skywalker's rejection threw the entire force out of balance all the way until the novel's time, seemingly ignoring even Lucas' prophesy statements. I still await more commentary from someone who's actually read the entire book.

 

Two cloaked figures meet....

"It is time, he will fall."
"Indeed, his overconfidence in his continuity skills knows no limit."
"Can Apocalypse destroy him?"
"It will. Not even Sinrebirth is equal to it. All is proceeding as we have foreseen."

(Sinny, I do really enjoy reading your continuity explanations but, from what I've read of the spoilers, you've really got your work cut out for you this time! )

 

I'm just going to say, with this Mortis stuff, it goes very much against Lucas' "vision" of the film saga, and I won't be surprised if TCW contradicts it should it revisit Mortis. Do a search on the Amazon preview for "balance" and you shall see. Certainly it's possible that it's a matter of Luke being fallible and completely off base in his beliefs, but why would you write it that way? I guess Anakin didn't bring balance to the Force, folks. He should have stayed on Mortis!

 

I really enjoyed Darth Plagieus, if you haven't read it yet, you should.

 

Well, I guess they called this book Apocalypse for a reason...

 

I read some previews on amazon. In one scene luke needed Vestara to so called save luke against one sith infiltrater. how stupid. From what i read, the situation did not even call for luke to need any help. it is stuff like this that pisses me off.

 

Argh....

Glad I have no plans to pay for this book.

 

Well, I finished Apocalypse this morning and not only did I enjoy every single page; I also take my hat off to Denning's accomplishment! Yes, the Mortis are brought in - but nothing indicates that's a last minute decision - on the contrary! The pieces just fall neatly to their places, and that without long methaphysical discussions (a fact that I value very much ). As far as I can tell, this has been carefully planned for a long time! I really enjoyed the book; from the many excellent (and different) character moments to the elegant turn it takes the GFFA. The Jedi no longer look like fools for what happens in Legacy, Jacen's fall is made human, Luke is established as the firm guardian of Light and Abeloth is explained, as is her appetite for his ex-girlfriends. So many small pieces move neatly both towards Legacy and to a setup for a well of smaller scale stories that can take place in between! Also, Apocalypse gets an extra thumbs up for actually living up to its title; the end of GFFA nearly takes place.

Only thing I still wonder about is what happens to Pocket between the end of Ascension and this one.

 

Alas, I forgot the drama of the online section of the fandom when spoilers out of context are brought in. Denning the herald of the end of the EU? Nonsense. He has always delivered, and let us read the novel to see how this works within the structure of the novel.

 

This is a great point. Denning and Allston combined have 15/22 of the "essential" post-NJO novels (excluding the two Jaden novels.) While I don't think either are terrible writers, this shows a surprising lack of diversity in developing the main story of the Star Wars EU. Bantam had atleast 10 authors work on the Post-ROTJ era, and the New Jedi Order had about the same for its 19 book series. Now we have 10 years of history, 22 books, explored by only five authors. More voices would probably be a good thing considering how bad things have been since at least legacy (and probably dark nest.)

 

I admit I'd like to see a little more variety amongst the authors in this time period. I think we can agree on one thing, though. If any future novels set in this time period involve the Chiss, Zahn should be the only author to write such books, since he'd be the ideal choice for the job.

 

I'm honestly aghast at how someone can believe that what Denning tried to pull here was either pulled off well or not done at a spur of the moment to make this outright tragedy of a series seem more cohesive than it was. Considering that there's been no hints whatsoever, not in any true sense, as to the the connection of Abeloth to Mortis, outside of fan theorizings and no previous expression of the idea that Mortis was actually even real, Denning usage comes off as an amazingly transparent to smartly use canon but it fail so utterly because a smart use of canon isn't simply taking something or someone from somewhere else and going "Look!".

I've less of a problem with the arrival of Krayt, insofar as it has the wider implications of giving the Jedi a degree of vigilance following this which I admit I enjoy but there are issues with him being the Dark Man that don't line up with previous books and make it just as clear that, as with the Abeloth revelation, it was not planned. And as such, it really comes off as absurd.

Worse yet is the conclusion Luke makes regarding balance and the Force. Not only does it completel undermine everything we've known about the IPs cosmology, but it shatters Anakin's worth as a character because it takes Mortis so literally. And it also continues Denning's character assassination of Luke by making him essentially acquiesce to the idea of the Jedi as peacekeepers, philosophers, diplomats, and more in favor of turning them into little more than hyper vigilant, overly military minded soldiers on a never ending, metaphisically necessary crusade which doesn't seek to redeeem or understand their foe but rather destroy them outright or, worse yet, continually engage in a tunnel visioned eternal battle because that conflict is now somehow necessary.

And beyond this, we are now suppose to be lead to believe, contrary to every other piece of information and canon anywhere else, that the Sith themselves are cosmologically necessary. That their evil is not representative of excess nor is it even tragic. How can it be? They are just acting according to their nature and in a way which the universe actively needs. This attitude begins to undercut themes of redemption and compassion which have been a large part of the IP's moral framework (at least until LOTF and now). And for what purpose? What reason? What is being accomplished or achieved here other than the baseline justification of the Sith's actions, the glorification of contstant violence, and the continued desire to remove any degree of nuance from the moral dichotomy of the setting?

"Compassion is for those who deserve it." was the start of something which culminated the mystification and happy, dutiful acceptance of eternal war with one's enemies.

 

I hope you're right. I'm still planning on buying and reading the book myself, but these spoilers seem crazy.

 

Say Alyx, what do you mean by IP? As I read that as Intellectual Property but I'm not sure that is how you're using it.

To me, I can't help but read this information as rendering FOTJ into a giant reversal of what LOTF did. Had it been thought they could have got away with shuffling away LOTF, as they did NJO's consequences, I suspect DR would have tried it. They couldn't so cue FOTJ.

It's this failure of confidence that perhaps irks the most. NJO came and when it was done, despite the reception given to TUF, DR still swept it away. Instead of continuing, with new confidence they could win the fans over to their vision - TUF being the proof - they instead shrank away. That lack of confidence edged its way into DN-LOTF, as they couldn't simply turn Jacen into a full villain, save perhaps for Invincible - where they killed him. Then decided to undo it.

I can't help but wonder if DR have looked to Marvel and DC in how they do these big arcs, but they haven't got the arrogance of Marvel - who do whatever they like, convinced they'll win over enough fans to make it worthwhile, those thery don't? They may get them back later with the right story. For all that it infuriates me from time to time, I can't deny its effective and that, if I read a story I love, it improves my perception of the stories that led to it. Having the full picture can sometimes improve an entire set of stories.

What if it doesn't? Well, there's the big challenge for Apocalypse - if it pulls off its magic trick, the audience is both fooled by it and wants to be fooled, then success. If it doesn't and the audience rip away the curtain or see through it all to the mechanisms that power it, then there be problems. TUF can be seen as the SW example of a successful finale that is so good it elevates earlier volumes of the series. Invincible is likely the opposite. Apocalypse? Who knows, but generally, the more volumes a conclusion has to pay off, the harder the job. Due to that Apocalypse probably has an even harder job than TUF had.