How Powerful Were The Vong?

[18-Till-I-Die]

This is a question (several questions) from someone who hasnt read any New jedi Order novels, i intend to get most and read the series but i dont care about spoilers so feel free to spoil away:

How powerful, militarily, were the Vong? Did they have millions of ships, or thousands, or were they so powerful they needed only a few ships.

How would they compare to Palpatine's Empire in it's prime?

What were their weapons? Did they have like turbolaser firepower or more, and if not how'd they beat up on the New republic and Remnants?

I heard someone mention 'worldships' when discussing them, and it struck me as prety interesting. Are they literal mobile planets, like ine Lensmen or something, or are they just ships as big as a planet, like a 4th Empire planetoid? And could something that big be destroyed, without a Death Star or superweapon i mean, or was it like a superweapon in itself.

Like i said feel free to spoil away, i'd aprecieate it.

[NecronLord]

How would they compare to Palpatine's Empire in it's prime?

According to one of their leaders, they would have been crushed in the first week.

[Crazedwraith]

World ships arn't moblile planets. But massive galaxy colony shaped ships the size of Death Stars.

Their weapons were varied they had: Plamsa spitters. Magma missles. and Grutchin (giant insects that eat through metal)

They used Dovin Basals as well which genertaed gravity to propell the ship, inderdict vessels, yank down enermy shields and protect themselves by generating Black holes.

The firepower of these weaposn varies throughout the NJO series early on
(Vector Prime) they were weak by NR standards and only weight on numbers and the shield grabbing schtik allowed the vixtory. Later on though the plasma was describted as dealing heavy damage.

They're ships number at the very least in the thousands.

It's stated though they only get as far as they did becuase the exploited NR poltics against the empire they would have been squashed,

[18-Till-I-Die]

Even if those magma guns could hurt SW shields, i imagine they must be very impressive. Triple digit gigatons at least, probably just to HURT them, but causing 'heavy' damage would require much more i'd think.

It's interesting that they built a fleet of DS sized planetoids to reach our galaxy (what little i know is that they come from some other galaxy). That says something about their industrial capacity. Prety much jives with SW though, since the Empire built the DS-II in a few months.

Thousands of ships makes since. I always thought the 100-million and up estimates for the Imperial Starfleet was so rediculous. With SW wepaons, 100s of thousands is sufficient, maybe a couple million. I'd imagine the Vong having about the same...maybe less...

Sounds prety sweet, i gotta' start reading the books. I already got Star By Star as a Christmas Present, never really read any though. I'll have to find the other books somewhere.

[Lancer]

they used the Dovin Bassals to strip shields and augment the magma-gun damage.

[Crazedwraith]

Just so you know the overwhelming opinion on most on the NJO books is that they arn't very good. Star by Star is consider one of few exceptions.

[NRS Guardian]

According to one of the Agents of Chaos books, the Vong plasma guns have HTL firepower. One worldship was destroyed while still under construction by a few capital ships and their fighters, and one was rammed and destroyed by the Lusankya in the Vong counter-attack on Borleias.

[Praxis]

I wouldn't say overwhelming. I find the NJO books to be some of my favorites (excluding Vector Prime, Balance Point, Dark Journey, Traitor, and the Force Heretic books, which just plain sucked). And I know several people who feel the same.

[Darth Fanboy]

It's interesting that they built a fleet of DS sized planetoids to reach our galaxy (what little i know is that they come from some other galaxy). That says something about their industrial capacity. Prety much jives with SW though, since the Empire built the DS-II in a few months.

Keep in mind that the Vong are one of those "''organic-tech" races and they actually grew those ships as opposed to constructing them.

[Lord Pounder]

Grown ships still need to be shaped and sculpted. From what i gathered the process of growing a Vong ship is as indepth and lengthy as NR type ships.

[Praxis]

Grown ships still need to be shaped and sculpted. From what i gathered the process of growing a Vong ship is as indepth and lengthy as NR type ships.

Yep, we saw them building a worldship at Sernpidal, they had large capship size constructor creatures that were mining material from asteroids and using it to construct/shape the worldship.

[The Spartan]

I know you said you didn't mind spoilers but this one is a hell of a spoiler (and one that pissed me off when I read the book) so continue at your own risk.

The Vong are actually from the SW galaxy. They were flung away by a living planet as punishment and over the centuries developed organic tech similar to what was available to them on their homeworld and expanded upon it. As to the living planet, it has a conscious and can communicate with the Jedi and with the sentients who now live there.

I didn't mind the Vong so much. While I don't care for the idea of organic technology, the culture they have was fascinating to me in a morbid sort of way; but the above spoiler irritated the crap out of me.

Otherwise I did enjoy the books. When I read Star Wars I usually turn my brain off for some mindless escapism so the things that really annoy many of the others just flies right by me.

[Praxis]

It's time for:
PRAXIS' CONSPIRACY THEORY OF THE WEEK


The galaxy the Vong lived in, wipe out, and left was, in fact, the Milky Way!

The reason the Vong hate technology so much is because they fought the Borg. They eventually wiped out all the Borg, the Federation, the Dominion, and every race in the Star Trek galaxy, and then headed to the Star Wars Galaxy. Because they were travelling so long at FTL time around them was distorted and they ended up going back in time (you know how they say, if you travelled at near-light-speed time slows down for you?) and ended up a Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far, Away...after having wiped out all of Star Trek.

[disclaimer: everything above this line is a product of my deranged imagination]

[Crazedwraith]

I know you said you didn't mind spoilers but this one is a hell of a spoiler (and one that pissed me off when I read the book) so continue at your own risk.

The Vong are actually from the SW galaxy. They were flung away by a living planet as punishment and over the centuries developed organic tech similar to what was available to them on their homeworld and expanded upon it. As to the living planet, it has a conscious and can communicate with the Jedi and with the sentients who now live there.

Umm nope, You've msiunderstood. Actually spoilers away.
The Vonmng originated in another glaaxy along time ago. They lived a living world. It gave them their organic tech but got pissed at them when they stared pillaging and conquering and striped them of the force and threw them of to boot. This planet was killed but seeded the stars Zonama Sekot was a descendant of this planet that lives in the SW galaxy.

[18-Till-I-Die]

BEWARE...spoilers...

This 'living planet' thing sounds cool. I always loved the idea of a space ecology and wished someone would explore it in a series. This isnt exactly teh same thing but it sounds interesting to me. I'm curious into how it's executed in the story.

Anywho, the Vong always sounded cool to me. I liked teh idea of these guys coming and beating the holy Hell out of the SW powers. I wish they were more on Empire power though, but still it's very interesting, and something new.

I also find the Vong more menacing. They aint the Sith, they dont want to conquer us, they want to KILL us and pave over our civilization. Thats a lot higher stakes, IMO.

[The Spartan]

Umm nope, You've msiunderstood. Actually spoilers away.
The Vonmng originated in another glaaxy along time ago. They lived a living world. It gave them their organic tech but got pissed at them when they stared pillaging and conquering and striped them of the force and threw them of to boot. This planet was killed but seeded the stars Zonama Sekot was a descendant of this planet that lives in the SW galaxy.

I stand corrected. Nevertheless, I still find it annoying. Probably the whole organic tech thing, but I still find their culture to be, as I said, morbidly fascinating.

[Crown]

I didn't mind the idea of the Vong, you know one dedicated enemy over the course of many books, to flesh out and really put the squeeze on (one wonders why the Empire couldn't have been given the same treatment) as opposed to the usual 'crisis of the week syndrome'. But it just went downhill fast. I didn't mind that they were 'outside the Force' (okay I did, but I could live with it), but somehow, somewhere, the writers went waaaaaay fucking south with that.

Suddenly the Jedi couldn't even fucking use TK on them I mean right?

Errr.

[Lord Pounder]

I think that idea gets clarified in The Unifying Force.

Luke knew that he could use the Force to levitate Harrar, to pirouette him about the cabin, but he couldn't see him in the same way he could see Mara, Jacen Saba, and Jabitha - as a luminous being;.....

Also Tahiri was able to use the Force to create a vacuum arround a Shapers head when she was captured.

My theory is that it's easier to use the Force on someone if you get a "grip" on their mind but the lack of a force presence makes it harder and in a battle situation impractical.

[Crown]

I think that idea gets clarified in The Unifying Force.

Luke knew that he could use the Force to levitate Harrar, to pirouette him about the cabin, but he couldn't see him in the same way he could see Mara, Jacen Saba, and Jabitha - as a luminous being;.....

Also Tahiri was able to use the Force to create a vacuum arround a Shapers head when she was captured.

My theory is that it's easier to use the Force on someone if you get a "grip" on their mind but the lack of a force presence makes it harder and in a battle situation impractical.

I'm sorry, I don't mean to reply like I'm flamming you or anything (I'm flamming the writer's rationalisation), but that's just stupid.

A rock doesn't create the Force, it is between the rock and the Jedi (Yoda TESB), a rock doesn't have a conscience, neither do droids, nor metal parts stuck to a wall on Cloud City. The writers made it FUCKING STUPID and should be shot and killed.

Even of the Vong force in-aptitude was Yslamari like, then what's stopping them from throwing rocks at them like C'baoth did to Mara in DFR, or - you know - Vader did in TESB?

I'm serious, the writers just fucked up Jedi to the point that they were stupid. It took them a looooong time to get past that.

[Lord Pounder]

They had to hamper the Jedi someway. For a long time Luke has been the shiney green line between good and evil, single handedly saving the galaxy more times than i've been laid. But now in NJO there are atleast 100 active Jedi, some like Kyp Duron more powerful than Luke, so they had to give them some handicap or it'd be over in round 1.

My solution would have been for Nom Anor to discover yassalamir(sp?) and have the Vong shape them in as an integrated part of their armour while they where shaping the Voxyn.

[Crown]

They had to hamper the Jedi someway. For a long time Luke has been the shiney green line between good and evil, single handedly saving the galaxy more times than i've been laid. But now in NJO there are atleast 100 active Jedi, some like Kyd Duron more powerful than Luke, so they had to give them some handicap or it's be over in round 1.

Kyp. Isn't. More. Powerful. Than. Luke. (Seriously though, he isn't)

My solution would have been for Nom Anor to discover yassalamir(sp?) and have the Vong shape them in as an integrated part of their armour while they where shaping the Voxyn.

That would have been a waaaaay more plausible solution to the Jedi neutering problem, but even then, 'it's raining rocks, halleluja it's raining rocks'!

[Darth Fanboy]

Even of the Vong force in-aptitude was Yslamari like, then what's stopping them from throwing rocks at them like C'baoth did to Mara in DFR, or - you know - Vader did in TESB?
.

you answered your own question, Vader and C'baoth are dark-siders and thus use the Force aggressively. Jedi aren't supposed to use "dark side" techniques. And apparently (at least in the EU so it seems) if you use TK to throw a rock at someone you're being aggressive with the Force. Course if a rock fell on your buddy and you used TK to lift it off that isn't agressive. This might fall in with what Luke THINKS should be Jedi thinking (though I bet Qui-Gonn or MAce Windu would have plenty to teach these bums)

It sounds like such bullshit but it holds with the second-rate thinking behind the NJO.

[Crown]

Even of the Vong force in-aptitude was Yslamari like, then what's stopping them from throwing rocks at them like C'baoth did to Mara in DFR, or - you know - Vader did in TESB?
.

you answered your own question, Vader and C'baoth are dark-siders and thus use the Force aggressively. Jedi aren't supposed to use "dark side" techniques. And apparently (at least in the EU so it seems) if you use TK to throw a rock at someone you're being aggressive with the Force. Course if a rock fell on your buddy and you used TK to lift it off that isn't agressive.

*wiggles finger unaprovingly*

Ah-ah-ha

Your assuming that it needs to be fatal. It doesn't. A good sized boulder crushing their shins and arms would suffice. After all if Obi-Wan can cut arms off when threatened, why can't they do that? The intent is the same.

This might fall in with what Luke THINKS should be Jedi thinking (though I bet Qui-Gonn or MAce Windu would have plenty to teach these bums)

It sounds like such bullshit but it holds with the second-rate thinking behind the NJO.

Oh I whole heartidly agree. Hence my dislike for the NJO.

[Kurgan]

It's time for:
PRAXIS' CONSPIRACY THEORY OF THE WEEK


The galaxy the Vong lived in, wipe out, and left was, in fact, the Milky Way!

The reason the Vong hate technology so much is because they fought the Borg. They eventually wiped out all the Borg, the Federation, the Dominion, and every race in the Star Trek galaxy, and then headed to the Star Wars Galaxy. Because they were travelling so long at FTL time around them was distorted and they ended up going back in time (you know how they say, if you travelled at near-light-speed time slows down for you?) and ended up a Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far, Away...after having wiped out all of Star Trek.

[disclaimer: everything above this line is a product of my deranged imagination]

You are correct! They were a slave race under the control of Species 8472 that rebelled and conquered.

I smell a wanktastic fanfic in the making...

[Spanky The Dolphin]

The Vong effectively destroyed Coruscant, the beacon of galactic civilisation for nearly one-hundred thousand years.

For that the sons of bitches can fucking go to Hell for all I care...