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The parts with Bane at the Harry Potter Sith School were okay, but the entire Rusaan battle was incredibly stupid. In no particular order...

* The Jedi are hiding in the woods from the superior Sith forces, who also have the planet blockaded, preventing Jedi reinforcements from arriving. The Sith use some crazy ritual to burn down the forest and flush out the Jedi. Uh... why not just evacuate and have the Sith blockade fleet BDZ the planet? Orbital fire isn't used at all.

* They go so far as to use the Thought Bomb ritual, killing most of the Jedi and all of the Sith, without anyone even suggesting they just use orbital fire instead. Seriously, what the fuck?

* The entire thing reeks of EU minimalism. The battle seems to consist of a few hundred Jedi and Sith chasing each other around in the mud for years on end, with an unknown but small number of conventional troops in play. Air power plays only the tiniest part in the battle, while artillery and armor seem to not exist at all.

* Bane goes from star pupil of the Harry Potter Sith School to being someone that even battle-hardened elite Sith leaders won't fuck with, more or less instantly. Seriously, killing a couple of fellow students isn't THAT impressive.

* What's with this Rain kid who turns up to become Bane's apprentice at the end? Am I supposed to already know who she is? Am I really supposed to buy that a ten-year old kid with no training can spontaneously kill a couple of full-blown sabers-and-robes Jedi with telekinesis?

* Speaking of which, what was she doing there? Her little recollection recalls a Jedi coming along and recruiting these kids because they were strong in the Force. Okay, fine, we know they do that. But they don't take the kids to the temple for a few decade of training. They take them DIRECTLY to Rusaan. What the bloody flying fuck?

LordShaithis wrote:The parts with Bane at the Harry Potter Sith School were okay, but the entire Rusaan battle was incredibly stupid. In no particular order...

* The Jedi are hiding in the woods from the superior Sith forces, who also have the planet blockaded, preventing Jedi reinforcements from arriving. The Sith use some crazy ritual to burn down the forest and flush out the Jedi. Uh... why not just evacuate and have the Sith blockade fleet BDZ the planet? Orbital fire isn't used at all.

I was thinking along the same lines and could come up with the following.

-Perhaps the Sith wanted to take the planet intact

-The Republic Fleet was nearby, should the Sith Fleet start engaging in Orbital Bombardment then the Republic comes in to engage. I interpreted it as the fleets were at a stand off while the guys on the ground went at it, with the Sith holding the orbit.

-Looking at Orbital bombardment in KOTOR, the orbital destruction of Taris was not the same sort of destruction we see during the PT/OT era. Granted KOTOR takes place about three thousand years prior to Path of Destruction, but perhaps the technology or weaponry just wasn't in place at the time.

-Perhaps Lord Kaan was as much of an idiot as Bane thought he was

* They go so far as to use the Thought Bomb ritual, killing most of the Jedi and all of the Sith, without anyone even suggesting they just use orbital fire instead. Seriously, what the fuck?

Sort of goes in with the previous response. Bane coming in and basically saying "get rid of the forest" shows a level of competence Lord Kaan didn't necessarily have. Plus, even though it is a "Brotherhood of Darkness" perhaps Kaan wants to grandstand and beat the Jedi in a straight up fight like this. Remember how they had that sense of honor that Bane loathed.

* The entire thing reeks of EU minimalism. The battle seems to consist of a few hundred Jedi and Sith chasing each other around in the mud for years on end, with an unknown but small number of conventional troops in play. Air power plays only the tiniest part in the battle, while artillery and armor seem to not exist at all.

The Battle of Ruusaan in the book was pretty much all Jedi and Sith. Lord Hoth's Army of Light was made up of only Jedi after all and The Sith Army was made up of Sith Lords and their lesser dark side warriors. There weren't many regular troops there at all save for on the fleets in orbit. And even though it seems minimalistic, this is during a period prior to the Star Wars we are all familiar with where large armies and large military starships aren't as common

* Bane goes from star pupil of the Harry Potter Sith School to being someone that even battle-hardened elite Sith leaders won't fuck with, more or less instantly. Seriously, killing a couple of fellow students isn't THAT impressive.

I think even as a fan of the book we can agree on this.

* What's with this Rain kid who turns up to become Bane's apprentice at the end? Am I supposed to already know who she is? Am I really supposed to buy that a ten-year old kid with no training can spontaneously kill a couple of full-blown sabers-and-robes Jedi with telekinesis?

* Speaking of which, what was she doing there? Her little recollection recalls a Jedi coming along and recruiting these kids because they were strong in the Force. Okay, fine, we know they do that. But they don't take the kids to the temple for a few decade of training. They take them DIRECTLY to Rusaan. What the bloody flying fuck?

Her becoming Bane's apprentice and their whole exploits are the the Tales of the Jedi, Jedi vs. Sith comic. Or something like that. Its not this book's fault that her backstory was already established.

Darth Fanboy wrote:I was thinking along the same lines and could come up with the following.

-Perhaps the Sith wanted to take the planet intact

There was absolutely nothing to that effect in the story. The Sith and Jedi were there to kill each other, and that was about it. Anyway, you don't need to really BDZ the place just to kill the Jedi.

-The Republic Fleet was nearby, should the Sith Fleet start engaging in Orbital Bombardment then the Republic comes in to engage. I interpreted it as the fleets were at a stand off while the guys on the ground went at it, with the Sith holding the orbit.

Even assuming a ship of this era has only a fraction the firepower of an ISD, a single blockade ship could easily break off and obliterate a few dozen square miles of forest while leaving the rest of the fleet to hold the defensive line.

-Looking at Orbital bombardment in KOTOR, the orbital destruction of Taris was not the same sort of destruction we see during the PT/OT era. Granted KOTOR takes place about three thousand years prior to Path of Destruction, but perhaps the technology or weaponry just wasn't in place at the time.

A couple of 1940's atom bombs could have done this job. The Jedi forces appeared to all be gathered in one place.

-Perhaps Lord Kaan was as much of an idiot as Bane thought he was

No one is THIS stupid. And Kaan was no Vader-style tyrant. His minions seemed to feel free to come up and make suggestions. Surely SOMEONE should have thought of orbital attack.

Sort of goes in with the previous response. Bane coming in and basically saying "get rid of the forest" shows a level of competence Lord Kaan didn't necessarily have. Plus, even though it is a "Brotherhood of Darkness" perhaps Kaan wants to grandstand and beat the Jedi in a straight up fight like this. Remember how they had that sense of honor that Bane loathed.

Yeah, but by this point they had been fighting for years and were exhausted and demoralized. You would think practicality would take over at some point. And anyway, no one even brought the idea up to be rejected.

The Battle of Ruusaan in the book was pretty much all Jedi and Sith. Lord Hoth's Army of Light was made up of only Jedi after all and The Sith Army was made up of Sith Lords and their lesser dark side warriors. There weren't many regular troops there at all save for on the fleets in orbit. And even though it seems minimalistic, this is during a period prior to the Star Wars we are all familiar with where large armies and large military starships aren't as common

It's still an entire galaxy with uncountable kajillions of inhabitants. Raising a preposterously large army shouldn't be difficult at all. And failing to do so was a mark of idiocy against both sides. As the prequels showed, normal people with sufficient firepower are quite capable of killing Force-users.

I think even as a fan of the book we can agree on this.

They could have at least had one scene where some more established Sith is like "Shut up Bane, you newb!" and then Bane beats his ass.

Her becoming Bane's apprentice and their whole exploits are the the Tales of the Jedi, Jedi vs. Sith comic. Or something like that. Its not this book's fault that her backstory was already established.

Did they explain exactly WTF the Jedi were doing bringing a ten-year old into a warzone?

So they just redid the comic book and added Bane at Hogwarts? Maybe I'll skip this one.

LordShaithis wrote:

Darth Fanboy wrote:I was thinking along the same lines and could come up with the following.

-Perhaps the Sith wanted to take the planet intact

There was absolutely nothing to that effect in the story.

If you knew enough about Ruusan, you'd know it's one of only a couple dozen or so planets that has readily available lightsaber crystals (The only one that remains by the Rise of the Empire era are the Ilum Crystal Caves), you could save a lot of materials and money with a readily available crystal source, instead of artificial lightsaber crystals (And whilst the crystals the Sith make are slightly stronger than the Jedi's natural and later synthetic crystals, that doesn't outweigh the cost).

Maybe the Sith were more honorable back then. They wanted to prove their superiority by beating the Jedi in light saber combat. Of course that stil seems pretty stupid idea for people like Sith lords. Their entire philolophy is built around treachery, betrayal and all kinds of other evil stuff. To throw away an advantage is out of character for them.

General Schatten wrote:If you knew enough about Ruusan, you'd know it's one of only a couple dozen or so planets that has readily available lightsaber crystals (The only one that remains by the Rise of the Empire era are the Ilum Crystal Caves), you could save a lot of materials and money with a readily available crystal source, instead of artificial lightsaber crystals (And whilst the crystals the Sith make are slightly stronger than the Jedi's natural and later synthetic crystals, that doesn't outweigh the cost).

So it's full of saber crystals that the Sith don't even use, but the Jedi do. Shouldn't that make the Sith WANT to destroy it? And even if they didn't, who cares? They don't NEED to destroy the entire planet just to turn the Jedi position into a crater.

Now, I have not read the book and hence do not know the situation, but it seems to me that a few weeks of sustained orbital fire would be preferable to this Thought Bomb ritual that wiped out virtually all your forces. Just from my point of view, mind. Do they address that at all?

LordShaithis wrote:Did they explain exactly WTF the Jedi were doing bringing a ten-year old into a warzone?

Child soldiers, effectively. I believe the justification was that if they didn't use them the Sith would. One of the more outstandingly stupid things in that comic book, I think.

Ar-Adunakhor wrote:Now, I have not read the book and hence do not know the situation, but it seems to me that a few weeks of sustained orbital fire would be preferable to this Thought Bomb ritual that wiped out virtually all your forces. Just from my point of view, mind. Do they address that at all?

There appeared to be maybe a couple hundred Jedi, all gathered within more or less the same area. Forget weeks of bombardment, a couple of TL bolts would probably have done the trick.

LordShaithis wrote: There was absolutely nothing to that effect in the story. The Sith and Jedi were there to kill each other, and that was about it. Anyway, you don't need to really BDZ the place just to kill the Jedi.

IF the Sith didn't want the planet intact to begin with, then why did they bother to take it to begin with?

Even assuming a ship of this era has only a fraction the firepower of an ISD, a single blockade ship could easily break off and obliterate a few dozen square miles of forest while leaving the rest of the fleet to hold the defensive line.

A couple of 1940's atom bombs could have done this job. The Jedi forces appeared to all be gathered in one place.

I have no argument against those particular points.

No one is THIS stupid. And Kaan was no Vader-style tyrant. His minions seemed to feel free to come up and make suggestions. Surely SOMEONE should have thought of orbital attack.

There are indications in the book that Kaan was the central figure that many looked to for deference. It's also stated that after the Jedi were wiped out Kaan planned on making some Sith "more equals than others".

The Idea of the Sith wanting to fight the Jedi in "honorable combat" is not entirely practical.

Yeah, but by this point they had been fighting for years and were exhausted and demoralized. You would think practicality would take over at some point. And anyway, no one even brought the idea up to be rejected.

Can't answer to that really.

It's still an entire galaxy with uncountable kajillions of inhabitants. Raising a preposterously large army shouldn't be difficult at all. And failing to do so was a mark of idiocy against both sides. As the prequels showed, normal people with sufficient firepower are quite capable of killing Force-users

The Republic was losing badly until Lord Hoth put together his all Jedi army and his fleet which is very likely to have had a fair share of Jedi commanders. It was a huge gamble but none of the Republic armies up to that point were able to stop the Sith armies long term. Hoth putting all of his eggs in one basket forced Kaan to do the same in a sense.

I would have liked to see both sides though throw everything they can into the battle though, making it a big clusterfuck in space with both sides preventing each other from having orbital dominance.

They could have at least had one scene where some more established Sith is like "Shut up Bane, you newb!" and then Bane beats his ass.

I think the scene where Revan defeats the swordmaster on the Unknown world fulfills that requirement, although I would have liked to have scene Qordis get put into his place more publicly.

Did they explain exactly WTF the Jedi were doing bringing a ten-year old into a warzone?

No, but since it's established canon it's what the author sorta had to work with.

LordShaithis wrote: So it's full of saber crystals that the Sith don't even use, but the Jedi do. Shouldn't that make the Sith WANT to destroy it? And even if they didn't, who cares? They don't NEED to destroy the entire planet just to turn the Jedi position into a crater.

If I remember Bane and most other Sith have lightsabers by 2000 BBY, so my point still stands, they're denying their enemies a resource and saving some of their own (No matter how small).

Your point is still pointless since a couple of nukes or maybe a flight of B-52's dropping napalm could have done the job. It's some guys hiding in the woods, we don't REALLY need to BDZ the joint.

Question, did the Sith know the EXACT position of the Jedi?

Closely enough to chase them out of the woods with some funky lightning ritual, then ambush them as they came running out.

EDIT: Shit, with that in mind, a single fighter ready to drop one proton torp on the ambush site (as opposed to attacking by ground) would have done the job.

This book sounds really dumb. THIS was the legendary Battle of Ruusan, the climatic confrontation between the Light and Dark sides which nearly wiped out the Sith and sent them into hiding for 1,000 years? It literally sounds like that "Jedi in the woods" crap you expect out of bad fanfilms.

Uh, you're about six years late to the party. Ruusan was heavily documented back in 2000 in the six issue series Jedi vs. Sith. The fact that it's underwhelming isn't really new information.

* They go so far as to use the Thought Bomb ritual, killing most of the Jedi and all of the Sith, without anyone even suggesting they just use orbital fire instead. Seriously, what the fuck?

I call this the 'Magic must defeat Magic' syndrome. It's quite a common issue with people who have powers beyond that of mortal men. "Magical" people tend to prefer "magical" solutions to a problem and will generally disdain more mundane solutions because of pride, arrogance and belief in their own abilities.

And hey, the Sith are all about pride in power and even the Jedi fall to arrogance. Which cost them both their respective wars...

This child soldier stuff reminds me of something.

Has it really struck anyone at the EU franchise, as well as Skywalker Ranch how warped the good guys and bad guys are in SW? The bad guys have this "always capture ppl" mentality, even their droids are inbuilt with this in the prequels. The EU has it worst. Despite supposedly making the bad guys bad, they just don't do any REAL bad things that normal, ruthless, heartless people will do. They just focus on the big bad things like slavery and senseless masscares, yet, when the good guys pop up, its always capture them, beat them in fair fights, reveal your secret plans.....................

PainRack wrote:This child soldier stuff reminds me of something.

Has it really struck anyone at the EU franchise, as well as Skywalker Ranch how warped the good guys and bad guys are in SW? The bad guys have this "always capture ppl" mentality, even their droids are inbuilt with this in the prequels. The EU has it worst. Despite supposedly making the bad guys bad, they just don't do any REAL bad things that normal, ruthless, heartless people will do. They just focus on the big bad things like slavery and senseless masscares, yet, when the good guys pop up, its always capture them, beat them in fair fights, reveal your secret plans.....................

Well, even from a non-SoD perspective, that's when it's mooks (stormtroopers, battle droids etc) dealing with good main characters. You don't seen the same graces extended to nameless good guys; Naboo peace officers, pilots and Rebel troopers all over get blasted without a second thought.

In-SoD, this is obviously because what we'd refer to as "main characters" would have value in terms of the information that can be extracted from them, as well as the negative morale effects that the capture of symbolic individuals would have on the enemy's will to fight.