Lit Too many ORDER 66 survivors in EU?

There were a bunch of them survived and died in the Jedi Purge, then the Empire still left a lot of them. I think too many survivors reduced the importance of Luke and made Yoda/Obi Wan less tragic.

 

The only ones I really have a problem with are K'khruk and Tra'saa still being around in Legacy.

 

If there were so many survivors, why didn't they march on the Imperial Palace?

 

Conservation of Ninjitsu. The last time there was an army of Jedi, they couldn't even handle battle droids. What hope would they have against clones when they gathered in the dozens or hundreds? At least on their own they could have vaguely memorable last stands against Vader or whoever.

 

It's a natural consequence of the EU's allowance for anyone to tell basically any story they want, coupled with its hyperinclusionist "Why not?" attitude. While I usually love the "Why can't this be canon?" attitude that allows for the events of the Holiday Special and Star Tours to exist, as well as Stuart Zissou, the lack of editorial oversight does constantly allow new O66 survivors to pop up, many of whom are running around during the Rebellion era (if not openly part of the Rebellion --- one, two, three, four, five, the list goes on). What was that about Luke being the galaxy's last hope again? Sure, it's easy to ignore the fringe EU, but there's always that nagging voice reminding you that all c-canon is equal. As much as I love seeing references to Jedi Prince and whatnot in modern works, you sometimes have to admit that a more streamlined EU with better oversight would be nice.

 

I don't think there's too many, the Jedi Order at the height of the Clone Wars was, what, at least in the 1000s? I don't think it's entirely plausible every single one of the super-powered magical Samuari got shot in the back by the Clone Troopers and that was it. Heck, the movie itself even mentions "survivors". But, for the purposes of the film series, it's down to Obi-Wan and Yoda. Kick over a rock and you find an O66 Jedi Survivor in the EU, though. As for them mobilizing, there probably weren't a lot of them (and the one-shot "Purge" basically shows how well THAT turned out for them when they tried it.)

I do, however, think it's plausible that by the time the OT rolls around the total number of old Jedi Order members is down to barely dozens scattered across the galaxy and the only real old school "true Jedi" are basically Obi-Wan and Yoda and then Luke. So he is the galaxy's last hope because everyone who is still around is basically retired.

 

Everyone except these guys, that is.

 

The number of survivors is around 200-300. The number of Jedi Masters, Knights, and Padawans prior to the Clone Wars is ~12,000. Even if they suffered 50% losses during the wars, Order 66 still killed over 96% of the remainder. You try to conduct an organization that suddenly losses 96% of its membership and see how it goes.

Additionally a large number of known survivors were either quickly eliminated, were not actively part of the Order (in stasis, in the unknown regions, voluntarily in exile, etc.), or fell to the dark side and joined the Emperor. Many of the current survivors are inhabitants of the EU's active waveform, like Dass Jennir, and Jax Pavan, they are only still considered survivors because their deaths have yet to be written. Some survive because the products that would have depicted their likely deaths were canceled (this applies to Rahm Kota and a number of Jedi in the Republic Commando series).

The number of Rebel Jedi, defined as Jedi able to actively help the Rebel Alliance (which actually does not include Yoda) listed on Wookieepedia is 23 - and includes Luke Skywalker and Galen Marek and his Clone. Almost all of the remainder are characters with tiny roles traceable to early RPG supplements or video games.

The Jedi who played a significant role in helping the Rebel Alliance is tiny: Rahm Kota, Ferus Olin, Ylenic It'kla, and Rachi Sitra. Of those, only Rachi Sitra has any real chance of being alive by ROTJ (and a proper resolution of her story would probably involve her dying in a duel with Namman Cha).

The number of survivors lingering in the galaxy doing non-Jedi things is irrelevant. There were likely thousands of times as many Force Adepts wandering the galaxy than there were Jedi survivors, but without a commitment to fight the Empire, they weren't meaningful.

 

Shouldn't the majority be in the Temple? The war was about to over so there shouldn't be too many Jedi commanders in other planets.

 

From an in-universe standpoint, the problem isn't that there's too many of them - it's that too few of them were ever heard of again.

 

Your scale is off. Even in the final stages of the Outer Rim Sieges the GAR was engages on more planets than there were Jedi. While a fairly large percentage of Jedi were on Coruscant when Order 66 were issued, and probably a very large percentage of trainees, there were plenty of scattered members.

The reality of how Order 66 worked is that any Jedi not on Coruscant and not in the immediate vicinity of Clone or other military forces had a rather good chance of surviving in the short term. That a single digit percentage of the Order was on assignment or retreat beyond Coruscant and not engaged in military activities is actually more believable than the alternative.

It's worth noting that Palpatine did not get to execute Order 66 under ideal conditions - ie. holding an awards ceremony for every Jedi and then blowing the place - he issued the Order in reaction to Mace Windu's actions. Palpatine undoubtedly anticipated those actions, but still, no combat plan is perfect.

 

How many planets total? Since usually one just need 1-5 Jedi to command.

 

I personally agree with the sentiment that there have been too many survivors depicted, but that is mostly in light of the fact that too many have not had their canonical deaths.

It makes perfect sense for there to be a lot of Order 66 survivors. Ignoring episode III entirely, the implication was always that VADER hunted and destroyed the Jedi. Singlehandedly wiping out the survivors. Not the clones. Heck, that was what I expected to see when we got to Episode III (and he did wipe out the temple's entire populace, to his credit).

What is tragic is that we have not yet seen Vader tie up enough loose ends in even the EU. We've gotten a few good purge comics, but even those mostly employ new characters who quickly die. At some point, Vader really should take down Jax, Dass, Quinlan and a great many other survivors (though it would pain me to see it in one sense, especially Quinlan).

Again, it is not the Jedi survivor Order 66 that doesn't make sense. Frankly, it's miraculous that there weren't 'more' survivors of the Order. Rather, it is at times surprising how many seemingly survived the purge... but then again, that number decreases more and more the closer you get to episode iv. How many known Jedi truly survived by the time of Yoda's death?

 

The Jedi didn't know the war was about to be over. Hell, the galaxy at large didn't know that the war was about to be over. It was still on when Grevious was killed, and Order 66 happened only hours after that. The vast majority of active Jedi would, therefore, still be out fighting the war.

Even if they did know the war was about to end, you don't start recalling your forces from the front lines until it's actually ended.

 

You're right on the money --- it's not too many Order 66 survivors that are a problem, it's too many purge survivors. Vader hunting down a bunch of Jedi in, say, 15 BBY isn't a problem, but a crapload of Jedi running around during the Rebellion era is just dumb. Every lost OJO Jedi that Luke discovers in a new story compounds an already troublesome headache, and every new Jedi that was actually part of the Rebellion the whole time is another slap in the face to the original trilogy. Corwin Shelvay was a Jedi who led Alliance Special Forces team? The hell? Rachi Sitra was a lightsaber-wielding Jedi who fought on the front lines? Give me a break. And don't get me started on X2. Ugh. Whether they're characters from early RPG supplements/video games or not is irrelevant; all c-canon is equally canonical. Seriously, there needs to be someone in charge who actually understands the point of the original trilogy and whom automatically vetoes any rebel Jedi (or, in the case of video games, sticks a non-canon tag on it. The Force Unleashed would have been fine if they hadn't decided that it needed to be canon for some reason). When Episode VII comes out, there will definitely be some EU whose lost canon status won't cause me to shed any tears.

 

The thing is, there have been Purge survivors since before there was any understanding of what the Purge really was. Corwin Shelvay was written into a West End Games supplement in 1993. Qu Rahn showed up in Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II (which in terms of greatest cultural exposure at time of release is probably the #1 EU product) in 1997. Episode I as released in 1999, but we still didn't really understand how the Purge was going to work until Revenge of the Sith in 2005, at which point Star Wars Galaxies had already been out for two years.

You can't lament people letting a genie out of a bottle they didn't know existed.

Yes some of the Rebel Jedi represent interesting quandaries and challenges for existing narratives, often because their stories are so poorly developed overall - Rachi Sitra for example, just kind of miraculously springs to life within the context of the Rebellion as a fully realized Jedi Archeologist. Her story, and that of similar characters has opportunities for easy rationalization that makes that minimizes any issues, but it has not been done. The real problem is not that these characters exist, but that they've been let linger in such a state. The inability to properly tie up lose ends is becoming a hallmark of the EU, and its only going to get worse. The Rachi Sitra is an obscure character almost no one other than Wookieepedia browsers and lingering Galaxies fans have heard of - just wait until the unresolved fate of Ahsoka has a few years to sink in.

 

And then there's Vima and Brand, in the Dark Empire series.

 

Nah, you're way off. The problem is indeed that the characters exist. Tying up their narratives doesn't change the fact that they're openly-Force-using Jedi (sometimes with lightsabers) that fight on the front lines of the Galactic Civil War for the Alliance, which is intrinsically a terrible idea that slaps the OT in the face. Especially if they're around post-ANH (X2, I'm looking at you). Pre-1999 characters don't get a free pass, either, as it's not the prequel trilogy they're contradicting, but the original trilogy. If nineties authors didn't know the bottle existed, then they should have watched the three classic films again. Luke was the last Jedi --- it really isn't any more complicated than that. Corwin Shelvay being a Jedi openly leading Rebel SpecForce units was as dumb an idea in the nineties as it is today. And again, the obscurity of characters like Rachi is irrelevant --- all c-canon is on a level playing field.

 

Luke isn't the last Jedi though - he's only ever labelled the "last hope".

Stover's Revenge of the Sith novelisation (which I'll remind you as a novelisation of a film is afforded G-canon status) expands on this - Yoda's realisation during the fight with Sidious in the senate that the Jedi Order had been training Jedi to fight the old Sith from a millennium before, and that no Jedi that existed at that time, not even Yoda, would ever be able to defeat Sidious is important in this regard. Other Jedi can exist, but only someone trained under the new ways could ever help vanquish the dark side. He's the "last hope", being the last known untrained being with that level of force potential. He's not the last Jedi.

I'm not saying that the amount of Jedi active in the rebellion didn't produce nonsensical results - for example Leia being helped by two Jedi masters in the year before calling for Obi Wan's help (Rahm Kota, Echuu Shen Jon).

It's no less annoying than the amount of people getting about wearing black and menacing people with lightsabers working for the Empire dubbed 'acolytes' or 'apprentices' or 'agents' or 'Emperor's Hands' or whatever because there now can only be two Sith at a time.

 

"When left this world I have, the last of the Jedi you will be." - Yoda in ROTJ.

 

For me, the problem is specifically centered around however many Jedi survive the Purge/Dark Times era leading up to A New Hope. I don't care if it's 300 or 3,000 Jedi that live beyond Order 66, by the time of the movies that number should have dwindled to Obi-Wan, Yoda, and maybe 2-3 others. When you have Jedi living beyond that, and then coming out later during Luke's time and beyond (Looking at you Tra and K'kruhk) the question pops up as to where the heck they were when the Empire needed to be dealt with, and makes them look like jerks in my opinion.

 

Saying that having a Force-user openly aid the silence 'slaps the OT in the face' is an extremely strong, and highly arbitrary statement. The Galaxy's a big place, the Rebel Alliance is a huge organization. A handful of Jed here or there is not such a big deal. More importantly, the OT's message regarding the Jedi, especially viewed in light of the Prequels - which does matter because the PT radically alters the meanings of certain OT events - is not so extreme.

Obi-wan comes out of exile and aids the Alliance in New Hope, and wields his lightsaber openly while doing so. Leia begs him for help in the expectation that he will help her, something that her have previously encountered other Jedi survivors actually reinforces, not opposes.

And while all c-canon is officially equal, that does not mean it has an equal impact on fan understanding of canon and the overall themes of the EU. Believing otherwise is absurd. There's absolutely a reason why LFL can, and almost certainly will, ignore Rachi Sitra's very existence, and all the questions it raises, more or less in perpetuity, but will ultimately be forced to address the Ahsoka issue some time in the next few years (and almost certainly will during Rebels at some point).

 

Jedi who aren't Luke Skywalker just shouldn't be Rebels. I don't care if Order 66 didn't take out any more Jedi other than those shown in the RotS montage, but I do agree that Jedi openly working with the Rebellion at the time of the Battle of Yavin is a slap in the face to the original trilogy. Sure, Kota and whoever else can be there at the beginning, but please have them all killed by the time ANH. How hard can it be?

 

But Obi-Wan said to Luke "I was once a Jedi knight same as your father"! Was once! Obviously they regard all the OJO Jedi as no longer Jedi. Ergo: Luke is the last of the Jedi. If the PT teaches us anything. it's not to take things to literally.