Do you support/like the EU?

[His Divine Shadow]

Yes, but don't you need to have read all the other books to know what the hell is going on?

Nah, I reccomend starting with SbS, because thats when the most interesting stuff seems to happen.

[Kuja]

Dark Joruney, Shadow. Come on, the whole book was a dumbass trip about Jaina falling towards the dark side, and then the next books *fuck, I can't remember the name* totally ignored it and cast her as being all right.

[Kelly Antilles]

Yes, but don't you need to have read all the other books to know what the hell is going on?

Nah, I reccomend starting with SbS, because thats when the most interesting stuff seems to happen.

But then I will have to read every book since. I just don't like their reasoning for doing the whole series anyway.

[His Divine Shadow]

If they contradict the movies in one breath and say stuff that is not in the movies in the next, what does that tell you about the stuff that is not in the movies?

Nothing really, subjective viewpoints aren't viable arguments.

[His Divine Shadow]

Yeah Enemy Lines was good I can agree on that one, only thing I didn't like was Nyax. He really did serve no purpose and was completely over the top.

I liked Nyax, what I didn't like was that he died.
He'd made a great villain

[His Divine Shadow]

Dark Joruney, Shadow. Come on, the whole book was a dumbass trip about Jaina falling towards the dark side, and then the next books *fuck, I can't remember the name* totally ignored it and cast her as being all right.

Actually as I remember it, at the end she dragged herself up out of it and just became detached, and I really liked the way Aaron Allston brought her back, there's no reason to make the whole NJO a totally negative experience for the NR.

[Highlighter of Errors]

Which is that they are worthless? No. They're canon except where the movies overrule them.

That exactly, is the problem. How can they, with any hint of crediblity, have something to add if they can't get the basics straight?

[His Divine Shadow]

But then I will have to read every book since. I just don't like their reasoning for doing the whole series anyway.

The books after them are good, Dark Journey is only ok though and DY was too short and not fleshed out enough.

Their reasoning is to make money, whats wrong with that?

[Crazy_Vasey]

Yeah Enemy Lines was good I can agree on that one, only thing I didn't like was Nyax. He really did serve no purpose and was completely over the top.

I liked Nyax, what I didn't like was that he died.
He'd made a great villain

Comes down to personal taste I guess but I thought he was kinda pathetic and really we already have a whole cast of villains with the Vong to deal with, why would we need a random dark sider to join in? Serves no purpose.

[Kuja]

Which is that they are worthless? No. They're canon except where the movies overrule them.

That exactly, is the problem. How can they, with any hint of crediblity, have something to add if they can't get the basics straight?

You're trying to paint it as an "all or nothing" principal, which is not how the EU operates. Think of it as steps on a ladder. The EU is one rung, the movies are a higher rung.

[Highlighter of Errors]

Nothing really, subjective viewpoints aren't viable arguments.

No, but evaluation of source matter is.

[Kuja]

How is the EU evaluation of source matter? The novels are books written from a SUBjective viewpoint for entertainment, not OBjective essays analyzing the movie material. That's what ICSs are for.

[Highlighter of Errors]

How is the EU evaluation of source matter? The novels are books written from a SUBjective viewpoint for entertainment, not OBjective essays analyzing the movie material. That's what ICSs are for.

I interpreted HDS comment as relating to my previous comment, not the EU.

[Highlighter of Errors]

You're trying to paint it as an "all or nothing" principal, which is not how the EU operates. Think of it as steps on a ladder. The EU is one rung, the movies are a higher rung.

The books I've read didn't come with any such instructions or disclaimers.

[Kuja]

You're trying to paint it as an "all or nothing" principal, which is not how the EU operates. Think of it as steps on a ladder. The EU is one rung, the movies are a higher rung.

The books I've read didn't come with any such instructions or disclaimers.

No shit. It's not a massive system that force writers to confine to it (obviously) but it is Lucasfilm policy. Most fans don't want to read through several pages explaining the canon/noncanon policy to get to the story, but it doesn't change policy.

[His Divine Shadow]

No, but evaluation of source matter is.

Noo, it follows that if something is contradictory it is ignored, or rationalized, anything that isn't, is valid, even if it's the same book or right next to each other.

[Highlighter of Errors]

Noo, it follows that if something is contradictory it is ignored, or rationalized, anything that isn't, is valid, even if it's the same book or right next to each other.

And that is one of the reasons i dont like it.

[Kelly Antilles]

You know, Lucasfilm wouldn't let the books be written if they didn't confirm to the "writer's bible for Star Wars".

[Mr Bean]

Indeed, plus Lucus adds several ideas to every single book written though not all obvious


Such as

Ahh writting a book? Hmm about time, kill two major charaters while your at it

Plus Lucusarts checks the manscript before publisment so somthing the book where Luke goes nuts and Dices up Chewy and Anakin then Raps Jania and blows up Han and the MF does not make it to market for bloody obvious reasons

[Highlighter of Errors]

The term "bible" seems utterly apropriate, concerning both canon and contradictions...

[Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi]

I really don't like replying ot smething when it's in it's 7th page, because by then, the subject has completely changed.

Anyway, for the first question, if it's consistent with canon, a good read, and without sci-fi chic, then I support it. If it isn't, then I don't support it. Books that are more consistent, IMFUO, are higher on the ladder of canon than books that aren't.

[Darth Wong]

If in doubt, resort to real life methods for a model. These methods have been refined over a very long period of time; far longer than geeks like us have been messing around with Star Wars.

In real life, you can determine how tall the Empire State Building is by reading a book. Alternatively, you can look at pictures of the New York skyline and compare it with other objects of known size, or perhaps even people (if your picture is good enough, or if you have enough comparative pictures). The latter method overrides the former. Similarly, if you want to know how D-Day went, you can look at all of the documents, or better yet, video footage, with the latter overriding the former once again.

But how do you know, for example, what happened during the War of 1812? You certainly can't watch the war take place. There are no videos. There are forts and other scraps of evidence left behind, but certainly not enough to construct a concrete picture. So you resort to treating literature, ie- historical records as the prime source. You really have no choice. Does this mean that our ability to study the War of 1812 is inferior to our ability to study the height of the Empire State Building, or D-Day? Of course. Does it mean that errors can creep in? Most certainly. Does it mean that all historical documents are useless and we should disregard any form of history for which we lack direct observation (analogous to "onscreen canon" for SW?) Of course not. That would be a hideous black/white fallacy.

As I've said before, once you accept that LFL wants you to acknowledge this stuff (which is basically a given, unless you follow Darkstar's bizarre "logic"), and if you apply a lot of the EU-detractors' arguments, you end up in a bizarre situation where your "reasoning", if applied to real life, would eliminate most of history.

[Guest]

"But how do you know, for example, what happened during the War of 1812? You certainly can't watch the war take place. There are no videos. There are forts and other scraps of evidence left behind, but certainly not enough to construct a concrete picture. So you resort to treating literature, ie- historical records as the prime source. You really have no choice. Does this mean that our ability to study the War of 1812 is inferior to our ability to study the height of the Empire State Building, or D-Day? Of course. Does it mean that errors can creep in? Most certainly. Does it mean that all historical documents are useless and we should disregard any form of history for which we lack direct observation (analogous to "onscreen canon" for SW?) Of course not. That would be a hideous black/white fallacy."

Written sources are considered primary if they were written during the time period of the events that are being studied, or by a person involved in the time period. If they are written after the fact by people who were not involved in the incident they are considered secondary sources. Unless the document consists of interviews with eye-witnesses. The problem with the EU novels is that they have often proved to be contradictory with themselves and with the absolute canon. For example, in DarkSaber, Daala's Super Star Destroyer was attempting to destroy the Jedi base on Yavin. She was able to destroy a lot of jungle with her turbolasers and not much else. Does that contradict what has been established previously? The answer is yes. There are more contradictions as well. I believe the EU has a few books that describe the origins of Boba Fett. Those have all been proven false by the absolute canon.

The reason historical documents are given credibilty in modern historical study is because they are at least partially verifiable by archeology, diaries, and usually other written documents. The EU books are only verifiable with how well they conform to the absolute canon, being the movies. We can place EU books within the Star Wars Universe because they contain similar terminology and characters, etc... However, we cannot verify the specific content of the books. In fact, that is impossible to do. That being the case, we can't treat the EU books as historical fact. They are stories from the Star Wars Universe, that is all. They may have some basis in canon, but it is not verifiable. The only "true" sources are the movies. Any written documents based on the movies would be verifiable historical sources. A book written by GL would be a primary source. A book written about Star Wars would be a secondary source.

The best we can assign to the EU would be a secondary source and not a primary source. That is why the farther you go from the movies the more speculation there is.

[Darth Wong]

How is that any different from what I said, apart from differing use of the term "primary"? I define "primary" simply as the first source you refer to, since you have no choice in the case of the war of 1812.

Historical sources, by the way, are HIGHLY questionable compared to any sort of direct observation, and methods of "verification" generally rely upon consensus, ie- if a lot of people say the same thing, then we assume it's true. I don't see the difference between that and the way we look at the EU.

[Guest]

The only point that I wanted to make was that the EU is not a valid historical source. The EU can't be verified at all in any way shape or form, except for what it shares specifically with the absolute canon. Therefore, it is meaningless as a valid historical source because nothing new can be accurately gained from it. For example, do scholars and historians accept the apocryphal tales of the Bible as historical fact? In many cases, there is no supporting archaeological evidence. When there is no corroborating evidence of any kind those documents have no authority whatsoever.

I can see this discussion going towards the EU debate with Darkstar, so I'd rather avoid that.