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So, I have been wondering a few things concerning several events that are chronologically suppose to happen in the EU but have never fully been expanded on, except in the Essential Chronologies, etc. My main beef is that I would like to see a few books written about the following topics below. Feel free to debate them and/or add your own.

There should be a book about:

1) The rise and fall of the Pentastar Alignment and the general career of Grand Moff Ardus Kaine.

2) The campaign waged by Admiral Gilad Pellaeon that culminated in the Battle of Orinda, where the SSDs Lusankya and Reaper fought it out in the first and perhaps last known battle between two such ships.

3) Fall of the Empire of the Hand, either due to the Far Outsiders or amalgamation with the Chiss Ascendancy or Imperial Remnant. (Extrapolating upon how Parck dies would be nice)

My only requirement for SW EU books is that they don't suck. That requirement isn't going to be filled anytime soon, so...

Abacus wrote:1) The rise and fall of the Pentastar Alignment and the general career of Grand Moff Ardus Kaine.

Who?

2) The campaign waged by Admiral Gilad Pellaeon that culminated in the Battle of Orinda, where the SSDs Lusankya and Reaper fought it out in the first and perhaps last known battle between two such ships.

What?

3) Fall of the Empire of the Hand, either due to the Far Outsiders or amalgamation with the Chiss Ascendancy or Imperial Remnant. (Extrapolating upon how Parck dies would be nice)

If it gets Tim Zahn writing more SW books, I'd read it.

If it gets Tim Zahn writing more SW books, I'd read it.

As long as there's an editor to be rid of his insufferable Vader bashing and Thrawn/Jade aggrandizement.

I'll take Thrawn and Jade and Vader-bashing over any of the crap that's in the rest of the EU.

(What Vader-bashing are you talking about?)

Stofsk wrote:

Abacus wrote:1) The rise and fall of the Pentastar Alignment and the general career of Grand Moff Ardus Kaine.

Who?

2) The campaign waged by Admiral Gilad Pellaeon that culminated in the Battle of Orinda, where the SSDs Lusankya and Reaper fought it out in the first and perhaps last known battle between two such ships.

What?

My point exactly.

Stofsk wrote:I'll take Thrawn and Jade and Vader-bashing over any of the crap that's in the rest of the EU.

It's not an either/or proposition. There's plenty of authors who don't elevate their pet characters above main villains of the classic trilogy.

(What Vader-bashing are you talking about?)

Oh, Thrawn's snide comments about what a crap leader Vader was in the Thrawn trilogy, and some crapola about Mara Jade actually being at all relevant to Vader's life in the slightest in Allegiance, I think it was. I don't care for it. Its only slightly better than KJA's Kyp Durron nonsense.

I don't remember any snide comments by Thrawn regarding Vader dude. I know he mentioned him, but I don't recall him being snide.

Even if he was, so what? Not everyone on the same team has to get along.

As for Allegiance, it's the one Tim Zahn book I haven't read. I might pick it up in the future. Please don't spoil it.

Actually, it was an opinion by Pellaeon first in HttE when he opinioned that unlike Vader, Thrawn would not callously throw his men away or give in to emotion. Then in TLC we have Thrawn saying that he was not the Lord Vader and would not sacrifice two squads of troopers for the sake of framing somebody.

Neither is Vader-bashing, I think, but actually pretty fair criticism given the command styles of both Pellaeon and Thrawn, who are very hesitant to throw away their man.

The Pentastar Alignment as well as Moff Ardus Kaine has a whole section write-up (and was first featured) in one of WEG's old Star Wars Adventure Journal periodical. Lots of original artwork by Chris Gossett went along with the article.

There's still a lot about the collapse of the Empire that isn't filled in. The new Atlas did a very creditable job sketching out the outlines, but no details. There's pretty much nothing about what happened to the Empire's military after Endor, which is a shame, really, because the kind of fighting necessary to whittle that force down would make for some epic storytelling. The broad strokes are there: Empire fragments several times, major infighting every time, defections to the Alliance, Core Worlds become independently minded, major fighting in the Core implied before and during Shadow Hand, then we're back to ISDs suddenly being individually important somehow.

I await the Essential Guide to the Star Wars Military with barely suppressed terror, to be honest.

Stover's newest book was the product of what was, originally, a few throwaway lines in one of the sourcebooks. And since people have been asking for a book on the Orinda campaign for years and years, there doesn't seem to be any reason not to do one.

fractalsponge1 wrote:I await the Essential Guide to the Star Wars Military with barely suppressed terror, to be honest.

Given that Traviss has gone, at least the author will be an unknown quantity at worst, rather than a known idiot.

TC Pilot wrote:Stover's newest book was the product of what was, originally, a few throwaway lines in one of the sourcebooks. And since people have been asking for a book on the Orinda campaign for years and years, there doesn't seem to be any reason not to do one.

Are you implying that one is in the works?

fractalspongue1 wrote:I await the Essential Guide to the Star Wars Military with barely suppressed terror, to be honest.

When is it set to release?

Captain Seafort wrote:Given that Traviss has gone, at least the author will be an unknown quantity at worst, rather than a known idiot.

What is your beef with Karen Traviss? I personally liked her commando books.

Abacus wrote:What is your beef with Karen Traviss? I personally liked her commando books.

From what I've heard she's a pretty decent author, when she isn't peddling her numbers and/or Mandos. However, I refuse on principle to buy any book by someone who reacted to mild criticism with "they all need garrotting" and "ripping someone's trachea out of their pitiful unworthy neck".

Captain Seafort wrote:

Abacus wrote:What is your beef with Karen Traviss? I personally liked her commando books.

From what I've heard she's a pretty decent author, when she isn't peddling her numbers and/or Mandos. However, I refuse on principle to buy any book by someone who reacted to mild criticism with "they all need garrotting" and "ripping someone's trachea out of their pitiful unworthy neck".

That second part I can agree with. In regards to the Mandos though, I think she was an author that finally put them into the place they should have always been: bad-ass but still not infallible.

Like fractal said though, I really want to see more books that go into deep detail concerning the erosion of the Imperial military.

Abacus wrote:That second part I can agree with. In regards to the Mandos though, I think she was an author that finally put them into the place they should have always been: bad-ass but still not infallible.

Excuse me? She wanked them to oblivion and disregarded canon in order to further her anti-jedi agenda.

Abacus wrote:In regards to the Mandos though, I think she was an author that finally put them into the place they should have always been: bad-ass but still not infallible.

Oh really. Wasn't it Traviss' Clone Wars novelisation that described Obi-Wan Kenobi as "he's not unstoppable - he couldn't beat [Jango] Fett"? This being the fight from which Fett, quite sensibly, ran away. The way she writes it it's as if Fett outfought Kenobi.

To be fair, Hard Contact was a very good read. Things went downhill really damn fast afterwards though.

I was cheered to hear Miss "3 million man army" wouldn't be doing the military Essential Guide, but I still can't shake the nagging feeling it's going to be a horrible hack job. Though, I didn't have a lot of expectations for the Atlas, and was more than pleasantly surprised. I suppose we will see.

Thanas wrote:

Abacus wrote:That second part I can agree with. In regards to the Mandos though, I think she was an author that finally put them into the place they should have always been: bad-ass but still not infallible.

Excuse me? She wanked them to oblivion and disregarded canon in order to further her anti-jedi agenda.

I wouldn't say that she had an "anti-jedi agenda," nor that her portrayal of the Obi-wan vs Jango fight was entirely accurate, but I felt that her depiction of the Null ARCs was spot on. And I really liked Kal Skirata. I'm not entirely sure of which bit of cannon she violated, but I don't think it was anything too major; but then I haven't read into any of it.

fractalsponge1 wrote:To be fair, Hard Contact was a very good read. Things went downhill really damn fast afterwards though.

I was cheered to hear Miss "3 million man army" wouldn't be doing the military Essential Guide, but I still can't shake the nagging feeling it's going to be a horrible hack job. Though, I didn't have a lot of expectations for the Atlas, and was more than pleasantly surprised. I suppose we will see.

I agree with you there. The 3 million man army bit was way too low. But even then, it would be simple enough to re-write a bit of her stories to fix that.

Abacus wrote:Are you implying that one is in the works?

No.

Captain Seafort wrote:

Abacus wrote:In regards to the Mandos though, I think she was an author that finally put them into the place they should have always been: bad-ass but still not infallible.

Oh really. Wasn't it Traviss' Clone Wars novelisation that described Obi-Wan Kenobi as "he's not unstoppable - he couldn't beat [Jango] Fett"? This being the fight from which Fett, quite sensibly, ran away. The way she writes it it's as if Fett outfought Kenobi.

This all depends on how she was writing the scene.
If she is relaying it as the omniscient narrator as fact, then yeah... big issue. However if she is relaying through a character, especially a Mando, then it is perfectly fine and even correct, because that is how they would talk about the situation.

Abacus wrote:I'm not entirely sure of which bit of cannon she violated, but I don't think it was anything too major; but then I haven't read into any of it.

"The Jedi were in league with Palpatine to hide the fact that the Clone Wars were just a low-level brushfire conflict." From Odds. The same Jedi who deeply distrusted Palpatine even before he was revealed as Sidious. The "brushfire war" contradicts both Lucas' introduction to Shatterpoint and the opening crawl of RotS.

Abacus wrote:What is your beef with Karen Traviss? I personally liked her commando books.

Let's make a list of things she did:

Wrote a story about how the Yuuhzan Vong view the Mandalorians as on equal terms with the Jedi and the Sith.

Made the Mandalorians into peaceful farmer Soldiers, all self-sufficient and manly to a one.

Gave said Mandalorians a magic metal that only they could forge despite not even a fraction of a percent of the resources the galactic governments (Republic and Empire) put into their chemical and metallurgical science divisions.

Made Ben Skywalker wish he was a Mandalorian.

Wrote that Jaina Solo, ace pilot of the legendary Rogue Squadron, needed instructions from Mandalorian trained Ben Skywalker in how to use a helmet commsystem.

Wrote that Boba Fett was the greatest Jedi Hunter in the galaxy despite Luke having fought and killed more Jedi than Boba had ever seen.

Wrote that Jaina Skywalker, Sword of the Jedi, could not comprehend how to deal with an opponent (Mirta Gev, Boba's granddaughter) who had lightsaber resistant armor. Despite having made her reputation as a war hero fighting Yuuhzan Vong.

Writing the Imperial Commando 501st Book, which was only tangentially related to the Imperial Commandos and the 501st.

Wrote that Luke Skywalker didn't know what made a Sith different from a Jedi.

Wrote that Jaina Solo needed to learn a completely new style of fighting to beat Jacen from Boba Fett. At the insistence of her uncle who had refrained from killing Jacen because he foresaw that it would cause his son to turn to the darkside.

Pellaeon saying that Daala would make a good first female Moff. Daala was an incompetent and there's already been a female Moff, said Moff was also the youngest one ever.

Wrote the retarded 3 million clone army bullshit and tried to, ineptly, defend it in her novels.

Wrote in her blog that anyone who like a Jedi was akin to a neo-nazi.

Shit all over Abel G. Pena's previously written canon and then whined about her canon being overwritten by Lucas.

Gloats about how she's never read a Star Wars novel in her life.

Thinks there's some underlying story that only her journo skills will let her get at.

Writes the most retarded characterization of Soldiers I've ever heard.

Abacus wrote:I wouldn't say that she had an "anti-jedi agenda," nor that her portrayal of the Obi-wan vs Jango fight was entirely accurate, but I felt that her depiction of the Null ARCs was spot on. And I really liked Kal Skirata. I'm not entirely sure of which bit of cannon she violated, but I don't think it was anything too major; but then I haven't read into any of it.

Excuse me? What were you saying?