The Official Riptide Discussion Thread (Spoilers Allowed)

<center>Star Wars
Riptide
by Paul S. Kemp
Paperback
October 25, 2011

<img src="http://images.wikia.com/starwars/images/c/c0/RiptideFinal_bg.jpg" width="500">

When a ship full of Sith warriors arrived in Galactic Alliance space, the fight to destroy it accidentally uncovered a deadly menace: a long-hidden group of clones, secretly created as insidious weapons capable of wielding the Force and heedless of the differences between light side and dark side. Now the clones have escaped -- and evidence suggests they are flawed by genetic disease and violent madness.

Jedi Knight Jaden Korr pursues the clones, hoping to heal them but prepared to destroy them. What he doesn't know is that Sith agents are hot on his heels, determined not only to recover the clones for their Master but to capture Jaden for their own dark-side purposes. In a life-or-death battle, Jaden will confront a shocking reality that will rock him to his core and bring him face-to-face with the question of what makes a man... and a Jedi.</center>

 

This is an expanded and more spoilery version of what I posted on the last thread:

One of the things I really liked was the mix of evils here, there was a considerable variety but neither crowded the other - from the clones' madness to Rakatan technology to the One Sith and their agents, it was carefully balanced. I'd add the One Sith are very scared of being exposed too, so it all works very well. Where the Rakatan tech was concerned, this was new to me and I wonder if other EU books in terms of stories have done much with it? I like the concept, it's creepy and fits in with SW very well while being distinct from Vong biotech.

The other thing that the story did very well was explore the line between good and evil and whether one is always committed to one or the other, Marr questions Jaden's intent to kill all the clones while Soldier struggles with the other clones too, as they all suffer from amped-up dark-side abilities.

As has been the said, Kemp doesn't hold back on the action and violence, which isn't a bad thing - fights should be vicious but Riptide rarely overdoes it if at all.

I don't recall reading of Umbarans before, if they're new they're a good addition making for an innovative enemy for Force-users, but if they've turned up elsewhere I'd like to know.

All in all, the book has a good sense of pace, it doesn't waste time and you always have a clear sense of who to root for, who to suspect, who to despise - a good SW book tends to work better with that sort of clarity, SW and murk don't go. I found it had a real hook and found myself wanting to finish the book. I'd agree there's the prospect of a sequel and I'd like to see that. Jaden's outlook is of interest, he sees the Force as a tool but also knows there is a dark side to it as well. Equally, some of the things done here are new to me - like cleansing a dark-side lightsaber and then re-aligning it to the light side of the Force. Similarly the Rakatan tech that has a malevolent Force presence - it all ramps up the mystical aspect of the Force without ever becoming dumb and simple.

I also greatly liked how the final confrontation went down and its resolution. There's been a tendency to set the heroes up against a more powerful enemy who then collapses or falls apart somehow, but that doesn't happen here - here the good are utterly outclassed by their adversary, but instead find a way to win by methods other than fighting it directly. Instead Jaden takes a page from the 'run like hell and blow it up' manual of villain destruction. I also have to give credit for the sheer creepiness of the Rakatan station.

Finally, this book is an example of how to use Luke Skywalker in his role of Boss Jedi without him dominating or taking over the plot. Jaden has one scene with Luke, who, following Jaden's report on what went down in Crosscurrent, supports his decision, offers some cautionary advice and then trusts him to take care of it all. At the same time the One Sith do not ever want to get Luke's attention! We see Darth Wyrrlokk, presumably the first, instructing his agents and above all, exposure is to be avoided, so Wyrrlokk decides against checking out the moon because he knows Luke will be sending an investigative team there. The two scenes make the point about Luke's importance in a quiet, understated way that is far more effective by being being so.

Flaws? Very few, save for the fact I never quite got the full sense of what Thrawn's plan with the clones actually was, but maybe that's being kept for the next book, especially as the One Sith have cloning technology! They also have Rakatan mindspears, which we only find about at the end of the book, that allows for some intriuguing possibilties for future stories.

All in all, excellent fun!

 

These guys?

 

Hmm, thanks, interesting, don't recall spotting in some of the works cited, but maybe they weren't main characters.

 

Hmm sounds pretty good, but whats up with the Rakatan tech with a "malevolent Force presence"? Is it the entire station that gives off the presence or something inside of it?

 

My take is it's both. Rakatan technology is powered by the dark-side of the Force, but the space station at the end also hosts the malevolent entity called Mother!

 

Oh they're using Umbarans! Heh heh heh. Hope they didn't establish too much on their species, because they're about to be TCW'ed in two weeks...

 

mmm... loving all these little bits about the novel... loved the first one. is this Mother the same Spaarti cylinder Mother the clones refered to in Crosscurrent? were they influenced by it, like Abeloth did with the Jedi in FOTJ? and do you get to know exactly which force users were cloned?

 

It's the same Mother. You get a few identities, Katarn, Jade, Lumiya and... Korr. Which is a big revelation.

 

As I hinted in the other thread, I got the impression that Mother was very similar to Abeloth. The attack by the zombies reminded me of Death Troopers and Red Harvest. I'm not sure if Riptide was influenced by those books, but it feels like it.

 

ooohhh. nice. but something isn't right. Jaden went to the Academy in 14 ABY, so how could Thrawn, who died in 9 ABY, comission a clone of someone who wasn't know as a force user then?

 

Quite so, that's precisely the point the characters discuss in the book and I don't think it's answered as to the how of it, but there may be another book to come...

 

mmm... if that's the case, i'm quite relieved that Mr. Kemp addressed it. Continuity preserved! at least for now.

 

can't wait for my copy to arrive

so Katarn, Lumia and Mara as clones? I so hoped for that yeeeha
PS: the clones had kids with each other... who with whom? I so hope for Mara/Katarn. well but any other females aside the redheads cloned?

calling it now, the Lumiya and Mara are clones theory gets more proof with this

also about the issue of Thrawn cloning people that only got prominent after his fall... got an idea about it: Remember the Thrawn clone from Hand of Thrawn duology that was not yet ripe? I bet he was not the only one! Thrawn is alive and running the Show from the shadows with Soontir Fel knowing it but keeping his survival secret. Imagine while fake thrawn in HoT roamed the galaxy, the real one deep in the UR returned to life... too busy with the UR terrors that profited from his death, to care for the known space governments. even during the Vong crisis he fought Vong in UR or was busy with Vagaari and others like Killiks. And I wonder if Joruus Caboth also stems from this cloning hive, with only his gene samples coming from Mount Tantiss.

 

Eek.

I wouldn't think a lightsaber would be aligned to a particular side of the Force. A lightsaber ( like ROTS Anakin's ) would theoretically work just as well as it did before in the event that its wielder turned to the dark side, for example. I mean, from the KOTOR games we have things like the Solari crystal, but that would just be a simple matter of switching the crystals out.

 

Arawn you are the very last person I'd expect to object to the notion that places or objects can be stained by a particular Force alignment.

 

So is "Mother" just a Spaarti cylinder cloning machine or an actual Entity?

 

For those who have read this: as much as I enjoyed Crosscurrent, there was something missing in Jaden's characterization, as if except for all the angst, we didn't really get to know him the same way we did with Corran in I, Jedi, Jax Pavan in CN or Mace Windu in Shatterpoint.

So, how does his characterization come across?

 

One of the mysterious elements of Crosscurrent during Jaden's revelation that Thrawn had obtained DNA from various Force-wielders, was the twice-mentioned hint of Palpatine's involvement. It was never explained if his was among the DNA collected or if the experiment was conducted to combat him or whatever.

For those who have read Riptide, is any further information offered on this subject?

 

If the DNA came originally from Darth Sidious, then what about the DNA samples from the passangers of Outbound Flight? Anakin Skywalker, Obi-wan Kenobi, C'Baoth and the rest...

 

Well, if the details matter, it is the crystal that was aligned to the dark side that Jaden then cleanses and then re-aligns, the result being a red Sith blade becomes a yellow Jedi one! He takes the lightsaber held by Alpha, disassembles, deals with the crystal and then rebuilds.

It's never made that clear! What we do know is she qualifies as: Mad, bad and all round... well, mad.

I think perhaps there is a critical difference between Crosscurrent/Riptide and the books you cite, which is they are more character-based and introspective, while Jaden's story is more of an action tale. Difficulty for me is that Crosscurrent was the first time I'd come across the character so I had nothing to compare him to in terms of characterisation.

Nope, don't think so.

 

That's... weird.

Interesting, I guess, but there's no precedent for red being an "evil" colour for anything other than arbitrary reasons, or "red wuns go fasta, so we Sith use 'em, waaaaaghh".

Hmm. Unless you count what imagery we have of the Force Wars.

 

Picked this up on Sunday and loving it so far. It's been a while since I read Crosscurrent so it took me a while to remember who each character was (aside from Jaden of course). I'd also completely forgotten that Alpha was a clone of Kam.

I was hoping to be spoilt rotten coming in here but not much has broken out so far which I guess is good really.

The cleansing of the saber crystal was a bit odd and is a bit of a continuity flub, surely? Unless it's to illustrate that the NJO are dependent on synthetic crystals now and it's these synthetic crystals which can be <vong speak> shaped? </vong speak> I know that during the formation of synthetic crystals when the Sith were cut off from the galaxy at large they used to pour their hatred into making their synthetic versions, right?

I know crystals such as the Exile's shift but that was a special case, surely?

I want to know who all the clones were, up to the point I've read it's only Runner, Soldier, Seer and Alpha which I'm aware of. If Mara is in there I take it she was Hunter? Also, those Umbarans, ugh. Just ugh.

 

I've still not finished this yet, but the discussion about Mother has sparked my interest as I'd forgotten all about that. Could it be related to the "Mother-Machine" in TOR?

If this is confirmed later in the book, then ignore me, as I'll obviously get to it in a few days.

 

I wonder if it has anything to do with Jaden's affinity for lightsaber construction. IIRC, he created his very first lightsaber without any kind of training or tutelage whatsoever.

And all we ever learnt from Jedi Academy was: "Well, it's kind of a long story, I found myself o-"

As for the "Mother" I, like Zor, must wonder if it may be related to the "Mother-Machine".