Admiral Daala - Good? Bad? Indifferent?

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2002-07-19 09:24pm

I agree, she was a great organizer and planner. But I still think circumstances screwed her every time.

Agreed she had the worst luck of things

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2002-07-20 03:32am

I think that her introduction was just a lot of bad timing really. I mean as the next books to come out after the Thrawn trilogy, she just lacked and credible threat. I also believe that we should pay attention to what Grand Admiral Thrawn posted:

Making a KJA novel.

1.Super Weapons. They were in the movies!
2. Imperial "tactical genuis" yep, original
3. Make Imperial EVIL cause they are
4. Make Imperial superforces and superweapons
5. Make Imperials lose somehow cause they always do.

I think that KJA writting style was really not aimed to any sophisticated readers like Zahn's. I mean lets face it, the differences were the same as those between Ep I and Ep V. One was just a frieken kids movie. Also this is probably a cop-out. But as for the Source guides, I would submit that they were created after the book and it's characters were being slammed by the general public, as a reason as to why it was soooooo bad.

Spare · Post by **Spare** » 2002-07-21 05:46pm

In my opinion, admiral Daala is just plain STUPID. KJA screwed this character up. Let's see what do we have: she had a hard time in the Imperial Academy, untill Tarkin noticed her. She won some simulations using "brilliant tactics" (in the light of her ideas in KJA trilogy I find that hard to believe that she invented any "brilliand tactics"). Then she was Tarkin's...bed chew toy? And what do we have next? A BRILLIANT tactician (referring to Daala) is given command of an entire fleet of ISD (wow, four of them), and is given a very responsible and dangerous assignement - guarding a space lab, which can be only reached through a dangerous "minefield" of black holes - navigating through requires very accurate navigational data OR a pilot with Jedi skills. Daala has received four ISDs to guard an almost impossible to reach piece of space, and has to guard a bunch of scientists. Such a waste...but maybe Tarkin knew that she was a perfect person for that job - not very brilliant and loyal to death (even past death as we could see). And I severely doubt that KJA thought about that this way. Anyways, lets move on. Kyp Durron and Han Solo came, tossing Daala's perfect world upside down. She disobeys direct order of her superior (okay, he was dead) and launches a private vendetta agains the NR. Her attack on the colonists on Dantooine proved that she had guts to attack unarmed and cutted off the rest of the galaxy civilians. The only good side of that attack (which she described as a first step to victory) was that the pilots of AT-AT's and landing crafts could refresh their skills in operating their hardware...but that could be also done on an uninhabited planet - they could release some training drones (at least they would be a MOBILE target) - here we can speculate, that if she had used a more "stealthy approach" that would maybe grant her any better success. Maybe, I dont want to speculate. Attack on Dantooine IMHO sucked. But lets move on. She launches an attack on Mon Calamari. Uses and old Tarkin's tactic and loses, because Ackbar recognizes what is going on. And her plan of sacrificing a ship just to kill millions of innocent civilians on Tatooine...gosh, thats not a very brave tactical success. Thrawn would have laughed his ass off. The way Daala loses...she attacked a bunch of Jedi students, when Skywalker was "incapacitated". And she still lost. If I were her. I dont want to speculate about the chance of success if she had made a better plan. But truth is, that she lost. And then she suddenly remembers that someone in the past had given her an order. So she comes back to the lab discovering that her lack of competence has enabled NR to attack her guard post. "Oops, I trashed daddy's new car, killed the cat, made microwave explode in the kitchen, so I better go upstairs and back to doing homework - pretending nothing has happened" - I thought of Daala being a little teen who wanted to use some of that "freedom" thing.
The only thing Daala was good at, was driving her troops and commanders to action. She had talents for improving the fleet's morale. Alright, but B. Spears and M. Jackson also made some people scream (and in the good way). Ten thumbs down to Daala. I want Thrawn to be reincarnated (i wonder how he would hande Yuuzhan Vong).

Incompetence, lack of imagination, disobedience (she deserted the place she was supposed to guard.
I have read the rest of the books featuring Daala, but because I dont want to write an 20 kb essay, I wrote only about KJA original trilogy (which was crap btw).

Tolya

RayCav of ASVS · Post by **RayCav of ASVS** » 2002-07-21 06:36pm

Who cares? She's sexy! Isn't that the only thing that matters?

And does anybody know where Raven Ford and Marian O'Leary are?

Spare · Post by **Spare** » 2002-07-22 05:52am

She was described in the book as "sexy". But she was also described as a tactical genius ;) And some depictions of her...well, 2.95 burger looks better.

Eleas · Post by **Eleas** » 2002-07-22 06:33am

"Who cares? She's sexy! Isn't that the only thing that matters?"

Not according to the pics I've seen...

"And does anybody know where Raven Ford and Marian O'Leary are?"

Raven lurks still, mesa thinks. Marina... I'd guess she's got a commitment elsewhere or something. She'll be back though. No one leaves ASVS.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2002-07-22 11:22am

In the new Essential Guide to Characters, she looks a bit severe, but hardly unattractive, I think.

Spare · Post by **Spare** » 2002-07-22 06:08pm

Many Daala depictions there are, clouded her real appereance is.

Daala - Monkey style
http://www.theforce.net/swtc/Pix/cg/rebellion/daala.gif

Daala - severe, cold, but good looking
http://www.starwars.com/databank/charac ... /curve.jpg

Take your pick. She's Tarkin's pocket-mobile screwtoy anyways.

Mr. B · Post by **Mr. B** » 2002-07-22 07:06pm

She's a half decent Cmdr. Better at politics though. If she was a good cmdr she wouldn't have been stuck in the Maw. And the only reason she got Admiral was because she was banging Tarkin(bad image)

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2002-07-22 07:33pm

Mr. B wrote:She's a half decent Cmdr. Better at politics though. If she was a good cmdr she wouldn't have been stuck in the Maw. And the only reason she got Admiral was because she was banging Tarkin(bad image)

Let us never speak of this again.

Mr. B · Post by **Mr. B** » 2002-07-22 07:51pm

Master of Ossus wrote:
Mr. B wrote:She's a half decent Cmdr. Better at politics though. If she was a good cmdr she wouldn't have been stuck in the Maw. And the only reason she got Admiral was because she was banging Tarkin(bad image)
Let us never speak of this again.

I love the way people respond to these kind of posts.

Gives me a good LOL.

Darth Gojira · Post by **Darth Gojira** » 2002-07-23 07:46am

Could you cut it out with the Thrawn comparisons??? That guy bugged me immensly. Daala got her but kicked as well, but she's(as the other guys said)is a McClellan(sp?) Thrawn would be........Lee? Tactical genius but got screwed by common pirates(!!!!!) Zahn can be sooooo irritating.......

Spare · Post by **Spare** » 2002-07-23 09:55am

Who is comparing? I have only said I prefer Thrawn over Daala. That's not comparing, that's simply a personal opinion. Comparing would be "Where Daala failed, Thrawn would do <description>" or "Thrawn was better than Daala <BECAUSE HERE>"

And I dont remember Thrawn being "screwed" by common pirates (maybe because I read the trilogy last time few months ago, I'll have to check). Everyone loses sometime (even Thrawn as we could see) - but who knows what would happen if Rukh wouldnt have killed him?

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2002-07-23 03:05pm

Thrawn was usually beaten by a combination of factors that he could not foresee ahead of time. Daala made mistakes when given reliable information. Thrawn was clearly a better strategist/tactician than Daala, but Daala also appeared to be a very capable commander at organizing and motivating troops. While, perhaps, not fit to lead a fleet action, she was certainly capable of controlling an R&D facility.

Darth Yoshi · Post by **Darth Yoshi** » 2002-07-23 03:21pm

Actually, Thrawn was killed by his own bodyguard, not by pirates. That only happened because the probot in DFR was careless, allowing Leia to win the Noghri over.