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What do you think of the Vong ? Do you think they are good or just another badly designed EU creation ?

The Vong were silly. The more I know about them, the happier I am that I payed very little attention to that part of the EU.

By the time of NJO, it seems as if the writers got desperate for an enemy that could actually cause the NR damage. The NR is essentially a new Empire, but without the political unity (if you can call wiping out all the politicians "unity"... ). And since they're the good guys, or are supposed to be, they can't have a rebellion to fight, so they make extra-galactic aliens. At first, they were kinda neat. You're thinking "At last! How sucky can a masive extra-galactic invasion fleet be?!" Then they pull out all the bio tech and it goes downhill.

"Sir, sir, they're shooting hot rocks at us!"
"Hot rocks?! Our shields which can absord blasts measured in gigatons will be useless against them!"

I've read most of NJO, and the battles are pathetic. Some of the stories aren't too bad, but those are driven by characters and silly things like that, not fancy bio-tech and big mean masochistic space aliens.

No, I don't like the Vong. Their backstory was elaborate, but I don't like anything about them.

Thematically, the Vong had nothing in common with Star Wars. Therefore, even if they had been written well, they wouldn't have fit in. And as they were badly described to boot, they grated.

What do you mean they had nothing thematically in common with Star Wars? Just curious.

Stofsk wrote:What do you mean they had nothing thematically in common with Star Wars? Just curious.

Well, thematically Star Wars is the archetypal knight's tale, set in space. Whether by traditional western mythology or the japanese, it features dark fortresses (Death Star), evil bandits (Jabba the Hutt), rebels against a tyrannical oppression (the rebels and the empire), shining knights (the Jedi) and the dark knight and sorceror (Vader and Palpatine).

The inclusion of the Vong here is as wrong as adding rampaging Huns to the tale of Cinderella.

Despite a bad start(Praetorite Vong!!!!), the YV promised to be an interesting enemy, with a strange culture and mysterious weapons and capabilities. They were brutal, but justified in their brutality.

Then Jacen had to be "taught" by Vegere...............................

Vicious wrote:By the time of NJO, it seems as if the writers got desperate for an enemy that could actually cause the NR damage. The NR is essentially a new Empire, but without the political unity (if you can call wiping out all the politicians "unity"... ). And since they're the good guys, or are supposed to be, they can't have a rebellion to fight, so they make extra-galactic aliens. At first, they were kinda neat. You're thinking "At last! How sucky can a masive extra-galactic invasion fleet be?!" Then they pull out all the bio tech and it goes downhill.

"Sir, sir, they're shooting hot rocks at us!"
"Hot rocks?! Our shields which can absord blasts measured in gigatons will be useless against them!"

I've read most of NJO, and the battles are pathetic. Some of the stories aren't too bad, but those are driven by characters and silly things like that, not fancy bio-tech and big mean masochistic space aliens.

This for me, sums it up perfectly. In fact I made a similar post, all those many years ago when the board first opened. My first post to be exact ... ah yes, here it is

My first post wrote:First of all, high Newbie here!

Okay into the reasons why the NJO is a children's series;

1. Lets forget the ABSURDITY of any out side power being able to subvert and entire GALACTIC civilation, without any palces of power.

2. Lets forget that our own galaxy contains 100 billion stars, and imagine that if the SW galaxy is the same size then, the YV can concur one quater of it in what one, two years? That's 250million star systems, assuming of course that each system is made of one star.

3. It took us till the 11th book to see a FUCKING orbital bombardment! Who the hell comands the bloody fleet?

4. Space is too bloody big to mine with slugs that control gravity! And I would like to know what exactly they are eating to stay alive in deep space!

5. The Jedi are PATHETIC, so what if the YV aren't apart of the FORCE, neither are combat remotes or battle droids, and yet the Jedi never seem to have a problem with blocking their attacks.

6. The Force is more than clairvoyance, it can also be used to augment physical abilities, ie jumb real high, run real fast, and much, much more.

Those are a few of the reasons that I can think of tight now, but need I really go on?

Ah, brings back memories ...

Where else could the authors have gone with the Star Wars universe prior to the Vong invasion? Not too many places in their minds. I treat the entire Vong invasion as an excuse to "seed the fields" for more adventures they'd like to write. In other words, I didn't care for it but I see a possible reason for it.

Despite a horrible start (Vector Prime sucked and made them out to be very, VERY corny), it really wasn't that bad. They're better then a lot of ST villans.

Ive only read the excerpts from here, and in my gaming completely ignore the vong. they piss me off.

"you lost a quarter of the galaxy?? what kind of dumbasses are you??"

The problem as I see it is that the Empire was Star Wars' first (in production order, not chronological) and most popular foe. The Sith equally fall in line with them, but they both suffered in the Bantam run from pretty much appearing every week. It got boring.

In that vein, I felt that the Yuuzhan Vong were a welcome change from the Imperial/Dark Jedi threat of the week. I like alien cultures and found the Vong to be fascinating, especially their lack of apperance in the Force. I also partially disagree with the statement the Vong have no thematic link to SW. The culture illustrated something that saved for the Jedi/Sith really hadn't been discussed in SW: Religion.

Their blind faith and devotion to tradition came at a time when the religious right-wing took a head-start in real-world politics. Most importantly, we saw their inflexibility to change was what brought down their faith and way of life. This serves as a warning to what can happen to religions that refuse to adapt to the times and permitt. While this may seem like a ST message, I feel it ties into one of the SW saga's main points: It is up to the next generation to correct the mistakes of the previous generation, a process that the first of the post-Invasion Vong will have to begin.

Oh, and let us not forget Nom Anor. While I have a habit of rooting for the bad guys and while he's no Vader, Palpatine, or Thrawn, the Yuuzhan Vong Executor was still a fun character, especially after his exile following Destiny's War. Is it any wonder I've utilized him in my crossover?

Anyway, that's my two cents on the villains of the NJO.

I absolutely and completely abhorr the Vong and everything related to them, they are the only case of Book Burning that I would support.

You are telling me that a lightsaber can cut through a military-grade bulkhead door but can't cut through Vong armor or their silly amphistaffs? Volcano cannons...why would SW shields care about incoming magma?

Silly, stupid, writing.

Steven Snyder wrote:I absolutely and completely abhorr the Vong and everything related to them, they are the only case of Book Burning that I would support.

You are telling me that a lightsaber can cut through a military-grade bulkhead door but can't cut through Vong armor or their silly amphistaffs? Volcano cannons...why would SW shields care about incoming magma?

Silly, stupid, writing.

You obviously haven't read the books. It actually explains about the Vong armor and amphistaffs, which produce an energy field (EM? Don't remember exactly) that works like a shield, protecting them from the lightsaber for a few seconds at least.

As for magma...it's not. Plasma > Magma.

Praxis wrote:

Steven Snyder wrote: Volcano cannons...why would SW shields care about incoming magma?

Silly, stupid, writing.

As for magma...it's not. Plasma > Magma.

nd any way at least in the firts few books the plasma weapons of the vong were completely useless against sheilds but since dovin basals allowed the Vong to easy negate said shields...

Praxis wrote:
As for magma...it's not. Plasma > Magma.

They use magma as well as plasma.

The Vong suck. Plain and simple. They're like the Klingons of the Star Wars universe. Except thier effective in battle because thier given ever damned gimick in Sci Fi in order to win, and then somehow get beaten by the dumbest fucking way possible. Btw, crab armor and organic staffs that block lightsabres are fucking pathetic. I want Star Wars, not Trekcapades.

Crown, that's hillarious btw. I even posted in that, and I was even crying 'Klingon' in that post. LoL!!!

How does a creature make Magma anyway?

The NJO was plauged with bad writing and silly plot devices. They felt like an episode of ST.

The Vong were a disappointment. They were nowhere near as formidable as they were cracked up to be.
What would have been good maybe would be the ancient Sith empire. Seriously. I mean, the Sith were supposedly exterminated by the OR thousands of years ago, right? But what is some Sith retreated to isolated parts of the galaxy and rebuilt. The Republic/Empire controls 54 million planets and the SW galaxy as a whole is 400 BILLION systems, so there'd be plenty of room for this hypothetical Sith Empire to hide.
Hell, maybe Palpatine's rise was engineered by them, and they were planning on eventually having Palpy merge the Empire with the Sith.
I mean, it couldn't have been worse than what they did with the Vong .

I liked the Vong.

Until I started visited here. My suspension of disbelief is far less tolerant than it use to be.

The thing the Vong had going for them was there backstory. They had the own, very different yet also fractored politic system, and the whole "exiles from another galaxy" part of their of history could had made for an excellent novel or two. But the bioships, pitiful troop count and outright author error made the entire series flawed from the beginning.

Had the Vong been done correctly, they would had come in with a fleet of world ships that dwarfed the Death Stars and an escorting armada that would have equalled the Empire at its height. While first presenting a unified front, the NR would had appeared to be doomed; that would be when the Jedi or military intelligence learns about the Vong's internal clan/caste tensions, and turns them upon each other. No bioships, no outrageously fanatical religion, no impotent Jedi or NR.

I like them. I think they are interesting, but sometimes they take the Vong a little too far. Overall though, I didn't like the war, I think that was the main let down, not the Vong themselves.

I haven't read the series but I intend to indulge myself at the Library when I get back and read the NJO. I am pre-disposed favorably towards them simply because they aren't the "leftover Imperial super-weapon of the month" club.

Vector Prime even sounds like something from bad ST. Vong are the lamest villains this side of Team Rocket. Another reason I avoid EU like guests at a Jewish wedding avoid chitterlings.