X1 and X2 Thoughts

No Vader statue that I recall; the level just takes place on X1's (Lord X1's? ) little base that if I remember right was built above a volcano or something. I think in terms of timeline placement all I remember was that it was "After the Battle of Endor". Undoubtedly the developers probably intended for that to mean right after the Battle of Endor, but there's absolutely nothing I can remember that says it has to mean that. Heck, if we go back to the earliest sourcebooks, the dating system was ABE rather than ABY, so ABE could put it anywhere.

Random schmuck finds Sith Holocron. Random schuck declares himself Sith Lord. That's pretty cliched these days, but nothing overly problematic. I don't particularly buy him capturing Luke very easily, but we never see that happen as it's just told to us before the final level, so who knows, maybe he needed a whole army for all we know?

Personally, I rather like the idea that Luke just allowed himself to be captured, hoping X1 would see that he didn't have to be like this but could become a good person like his "brother", but that's just me talking my own personal wishes. In any case, while the capture is incredibly lame, there's enough untold about it that depending on however it actually happened, I imagine it "could" make sense either early in Luke's Jedi days as well as later on when he was more powerful.

"Jedi Master"... that irked me at the time, though I'm tempted to regard it the same way as during the prequels with Jedi Knights who have a Padawan being "Jedi Masters" in a sort of "half-way-there-mentoring" fashion (think Anakin and Ahsoka), without holding the formal title itself. Or something. So I'm nonplussed whether it's pre-JAT or not, really.

Jedi with the Rebellion was perhaps the biggest "WTK?" at the time, though I suppose it wasn't the Rebellion, as that was only formally founded much later. Given X2 briefly operates under Kota on one mission to break into the under construction Death Star (More Death Star plans FTW!), I guess it's debatable exactly which "rebellion" he was working for, and/or whether this took place after TFU (so, putting X2's involvement post-Starkiller and Kota already showing up).

But, yeah, like you say, as awful as I found the storyline, I don't actually think a lot in it doesn't mesh with continuity, it just meshes in a very garish "Don't tell me they really went and did that? They did? Lame." kind of way. I feel bad knocking it really, as of all the Battlefront games I actually thought it was rather fun, and I actually felt the story was more well told than BF2 (never played the other two PSP games). Just... yeah...

 

I'm amused Sinre thought of the Vader statue too.

As to the timeframe, there are three basic options:

1. Exwun is working with Warlord Zsinj: the combination "SSD. Dathomir. Nightsisters" is almost irresistably Zsinj-y. The problem with this is the idea that Extoo was leading Rebel commandos on Dathomir - this has to be during the novel, which is a slight headache...

2. Exwun is doing this during the time around Dark Empire and Darksaber: this fits a bit better with Luke's status; there's an Imperial presence on Dathomir during this timeframe ("Nightsaber"); and Mustafar was in the rimward part of Harrsk's fiefdom; the SSD would be Night Hammer[/b] or Reaper, depending on the exact timeframe; the main problem is that there should be no active "Nightsister" group on Dathomir between Courtship and c. 22 ABY...

3. Exwun is working for the Second Imperium: this actually fits best with the continuity - Luke is a Jedi Master, and there are Nightsisters active on Dathomir; the problem is, it also implies that the Second Imperium had a Super Star Destroyer and an army of Luke Skywalker clones... this is crazy; but then again, the Second Imperium is crazy...



I really like the idea that Extoo is Kenth, incidentally; although I'm disappointed that Sinre is passing off the Second Galactic Civil War scene on the Starship Battles box-art as something in 25 ABY.

- The Imperial Ewok

 

I want to compare to another similar case of OT-related continuity threat out of nowhere. You know I'm talking about the Zahn Consortium.

Back in 2006 I played EAW, which included a variety of EU planets and land vehicles. I enjoyed it, but it wasn't nearly as good as Battlefront II, so abandoned it after a few weeks. I was of course surprised by the Imperial campaign ending, but the folks on the forum said it was non-canon, and the rest I could live with. Then I heard of an expansion being made and became rather excited by it, but as soon as it was released, people on the forums I visited expressed numerous examples of why it cannot be canon. A criminal syndicate large enough to compete with the Empire, a crime lord stealing the Eclipse from Kuat, Ewok wranglers being the replica of Malakili, Millennium Falcon destroyed in the last campaign - you name it. I believed it was a non-canon story and decided not to waste time on it.

Of course some years later I found the Wook and learned that it was indeed canon, much like nearly anything else (no guys, Energizer Bunny commercial still doesn't count), and it not only fitted in the timeline, but was referenced in other works, like that Insider article and, most recently, Rebellion Era Campaign Guide. And finally, two weeks ago I was bored and thought: "Hey, why I won't give that one a try?"

I got a disk from a friend, installed the game exactly a week ago and finished the Consortium campaign in two days. Guess what? It wasn't nearly as bad as some described it. Yes, from the gameplay point of view it was still the same not-too-exciting EAW with some new units, yes, Consortium was way too overpowered to play Galactic Conquest normally and yes, there were some pre-patch bugs, but the game didn't seem to cause that many continuity problems.

I actually dug out some old threads about the game, including one in the lit forum. Back then there were some people demanding to declare it entirely non-canon and some people who argued that Consortium's uberness was mostly game mechanics and that we should simply treat it as a criminal organization that made several bold moves during the war. And that is exactly how it is currently treated. It was even referred to on multiple occasions in RECG and even a brief mention in Millennium Falcon. Guess the case wasn't that bad at all, huh?

That's where I am leading to. We survived that, surely we can survive Elite Squadron storyline as well. There are ways to describe things as game mechanics, the story placement can be adjusted to make sense etc. It's not even so bad to begin with - it has some EU elements like Kota or Vjun, as already mentioned. Sure, he helped the Rebels steal the DS plans, but who didn't? Just wait until some other source references the game, then few would remain who will still doubt its canonicity.

What I am much more worried about is not how the game contradicts the larger EU (it really doesn't), but how it contradicts... itself. I admit to not having playing it, but judging by what Nathan Butler said and the X2 article on the Wook, there are some pretty big inconsistencies between different versions of the game for different platforms. I really hate that recent thread from the Lucasarts: making multiplatforme games is fine, but not when each of those versions contradicts another! Elite Squadron, Republic Heroes and even TFU, which was supposed to be the next chapter in the Saga, but in the end had much more inconsistencies within itself that even with the rest of the EU. Come on, is it so hard to at least check what various departments are doing? Or you can just keep the major characters but tweak the story any way you like it, is that how things are being done now?

 

I think that X2 needs to give himself a decent name. X2 sounds cool and all, but I always think of X-men when I see it.

 

All this mention of Dathomir had confused me (and did the last time we discussed Elite Squadron), so I've just gone over to the Wook...and discovered the DS and PSP versions have different levels, which would explain why I don't remember there being Dathomir.

So... that either complicates things, or offers options when it comes to: "Do we address the Nightsisters or do we go with X1's Vjun base instead of X1's Dathomir base?"

Yeah, you pick up "Force powers" rather slowly during the game. If I recall correctly, since it skips from Grey's death at the end of the four Act I (PT) sometime after the rise of the Empire, you don't get access to Force powers until the game resumes in the four Act II missions set around the OT, and you don't get a lightsaber until the four Post-ROTJ missions (at least if I'm remembering all this right). So, yeah, his training is very slow. He barely understands what he's even doing at first.

Post-Byss would account for it quite easily really, given the giant previously unknown fleet we saw there. Albeit most of it is presumed to be blown up by the Galaxy Gun, could simply be X1 picked the ship up there and was one of the few people who actually made it out alive.

 

Well, on Mustafar he falls into a volcano and dies... no idea what happens in the Dathomir final level?

 

I don't like it when a game has different levels on different systems.

 

Yeah, X-1 and X-2 were cloned from the Jedi. Who said that jedi could not be cloned and develop force powers

 

Cloned Jedi have been around since the Thrawn Trilogy.

 

Don't they show up quite a bit over the years?

Is it ever clear whether it's the cloning process or something else that drives them insane?

Sais Crus' clones from the Traviss short stories don't seem flat-out insane so much as intent on overthrowing the man who got the template killed, but I suppose they weren't exactly stable either.

I do wonder if the Sith ever considered mass cloning force using shock troopers at any point. Or did they and it's a story I missed?

 

Katarn and Shira are non-issues. Kyle didn't know he was Force-sensitive. No one did. Shira was an agent of the Empire and didn't broadcast her Force-sensitivity to everyone. Luke was still, for all intents and purposes, the last of the Jedi.

It's characters like Rahm Kota and X2 that take a dump on the original trilogy. Luke being the last of the Jedi is so, so essential to the OT both thematically and logically, and having a former Jedi Master and some random dumb Force-sensitive clone trooper running around and openly fighting for the Rebellion... well, it honestly makes me suspect if the game writers actually ever saw the original trilogy, or if they simply skimmed summaries after watching the prequel trilogy first.

Video games are video games. As a medium, they're worlds apart from books and comics. You play them for the gameplay, and you enjoy playing them because they offer a fun experience. Would the average gamer lose any enjoyment at all if there was an Infinities logo slapped on the box? The average gamer doesn't give a crap about the EU, and people who do actually give a crap about the EU hopefully have enough sense to recognize that Elite Squadron is better as Infinities. You would probably get cheesed off if you played through a 30-hour Metal Gear Solid game and then found out it was non-canon, but a dumb SW game about some Force-sensitive clone being part of the original trilogy? Nah. You still had fun shooting things and using a lightsaber.

Do you think that a book or a comic would be able to get away with this kind of crap? Their continuity advisors seemingly actually do their jobs. The lax approach to continuity that Lucasarts continually takes is well, dumb, and I honestly don't see why there's hesitation to simply slap an infinities logo on some of the games. Because at the end of the day, nobody would care. And continuity would make more sense.

 

I second the motion.

 

Considering that some of my favourite EU fare comes from video, or computer games... I'd have to say no to the whole "make 'em infinities" thing.

The laughable idea of the EU paying proper respect to the films, and maintaining their integrity died with Dark Empire. Which was a while back. When I'm watching the films, I don't think about the EU at all. It doesn't exist. But taken into consideration, the EU has already changed the colour of Star Wars as a whole far too much for me to care about that anymore. There have been Jedi surviving the Purge for a long time now, whether it be Rahn or Shelvay, or whoever.

The baby's already been thrown out, essentially, so additions like X1 and X2 don't really annoy me in the slightest. Dumb? Sure. But... that's all part and parcel of the whole EU game.

 

Done properly, games can tell just as comprehensive stories as any book or comic, and in some cases can tell certain types of stories better... it's just the same as anything. There's more trash literature than there is award winning, there's more Z-rate movies than there are Oscar winners, and there's more FPS action games for the masses than there are BioWare and Squaresoft storytelling epics.

My hope for Kota is that he'll die in TFU2.

X2? Well, during the OT since the most he does is basically discover he can jump really high, he doesn't train as a Jedi until Luke takes him on as a student after Endor, so there's not much that's wholly inconsistent if one just regards his OT Force usage is just raw instinct, so largely able to be written off in much the same way as some of the other then-undiscovered Force-sensitives who probably benefited from good reflexes and things, even if they (and we) never knew they were Force-sensitive at the time.

Even Kyle, for instance, I've always regarded as probably always benefiting from the fact he'd have been a good shot and things thanks to the Force, even if nobody had any idea back during Dark Forces that he was a future Jedi.

 

Gameplay certainly supports this. In Dark Forces, made in the days of DOS games that had poor or no mouse support, Kyle automatically "corrected" for slightly-off aiming on the player's part. ;-)

 

I don't think that all Lucasarts products should be non-canon, by any means. But if they did jettison the facade of having continuity to follow, they could get away with a lot more, and gameplay could be a lot more fun.

As I said in another thread:

Creating an original storyline set in a lesser-used era with interesting characters facing their own challenges = good.
Creating uber-Force-using characters and shoehorning them into the events of the OT = bad.

Doesn't his dad reveal to him "I am a Jedi and you are my son" before even Yavin IV?

 

Don't really think that way, personally. Sure, exploring Dark Side Options in KOTOR games can be a lot of fun, but that because everything in the game is new and nothing as set in stone it time of the game's release (subsequent sources canonize some choices, but that's for later). "Free" scenarios like in EAW or Rebellion can also be entertaining, but the blatant disregard of the movies by the Ultimate Sith Edition of TFU left a bad taste in my mouth. Killing Vader in DS ending is bad enough, but slaying Boba Fett, Ben Kenobi and taking Luke as Starkiller's Sith apprentice... They didn't even had to come up with the new story, they could have just release for PS3/X-box/PC versions the level absent from them but present in PS2/PSP/NDS version! But instead they went the Infinities way and I did not find the experience to be particularly present.

 

Sinre: I assume so. In the PSP version (which I played), X1 only has an ISD not SSD, and I seem to recall the ISD getting destroyed.

So... ISD or SSD... that itself is debatable. The Vjun and Dathomir alternate missions is quite easy to do, as we can just say "X1 had two bases and X2 raided both of them". Harder to explain how X1 had two flagships destroyed at the same time?

 

I think we should only take either the PSP or the DS version as definitive. I don't see people trying to reconcile the mobile phone version of TFU, in which Vader utterly kicks Rhett's ass and the last boss fight is about holding him off as long as possible but you always get the sith kicked out of you. I wish they would.

I do. I'd have much more fun with Infinities games that used the Star Wars environment but had next to nothing to do with the established history. Mainly because LucasArts rarely pay much attention to canon anyway. At least, not beyond "what can we stripmine it for!"

Games based on the early scripts would be fun, too.

 

TIE Fighter is much, much better than your favourite piece of EU.