Coruscant Nights II: (w/Spoilers)

[Darth Fanboy]

I think enough time has passed that we can begin a discussion on the second book in this trilogy with spoilers.

I liked it, this is the kind of story I don't mind shelling out for at all. I liked how the mystery Jax Pavan and company were working on wasn't too far reaching and the Vader/Aurra Sing interaction was just how i'd expect it to be. Very well written.

Although I would have loved to see the reaction on Typho's face if he had learned the actual truth behind Padme and Anakin's fate.

[JME2]

Same here; I liked the MedStar duology, but I'm not really keen on spending any more money on EU novels (thanks to LOTF) unless it's really worth it.

[Connor MacLeod]

Wel its one of the guys who wrote the Death Star Novel, and I liked MedStar and "Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter" before it, so I'm gonna pick it up.

You know, if you like a writer you should pick up his books unless the series he's in is shit (which is why I haven't bothered with LOTF despite having Denning and Allston in it, becaues you'd need to buy Traviss.)

But this is a good one, and I intend to get it.

Edit: actually looking up on it, it looks like it might be good, since this is the Post-ROTS Empire era. Its got the droid from Shadow Hunter and Medstar (Who I like) and the reporter from Medstar, and its (I think) the Jedi son of the guy who got killed in Shadow Hunter by Maul. Yes, that sounds contrived, but it also sounds pretty cool. I'd been hoping to have more resoluation about that storyline.

And to be blunt, Reaves was IMHO the better of the two. I remember STeve Perry from "Shadows of the Empire", and while it wasn't a bad book, I didn't care for it as much as I liked Shadow Hunter.

Double edit: I don't understand why you would be worried about this. People whined about Death Star before it came out, and that was a great read, so we have EVERY reason to believe this guy's work will be good (until proven otherwise.) I'm not going to let lousy authors or lousy series concepts (Which focus on the far END of the timeline, and get further and further way frrom the movies as it is) prevent me from reading potentially other good books as well. I'll probably be picking up Luceno's book eventualyl as well.

[Darth Fanboy]

I only asked because I saw that the book had been released back on the 17th and I figured someone on this forum might have read it by now.

[Darth Fanboy]

Just bought the book and am not far into it, I'll post a spoiler free review though as I have a feeling i'm going to take this entire thing down in one or two sittings.

I had my brother pick it up at borders today, and he says he only saw it in paperback. I don't know if that's news to anyone or not but if you didn't already know, now you do!

[Connor MacLeod]

Well I picked up the book. I read a little of it today, mostly skimming it for interesting details, and there are some. I have to say it looks quite good.

Much of the book takes place on Coruscant. It involves a number of characters: The Jedi son of Lorn PAvan, the kickass droid from Shadow Hunter and Medstar (I forget his name I5 something), the sullustan journalist Den Dhur (Again who I also liked), and a few others. One of the characters from Shatterpoint also makes an appearance, so that was an interesting suprrise.

Vader is also in it, as is Xizor and Black Sun, sorrt of as a subplot involving (I think) some political manuvering. The main plot involves the hunt for some partticular droid, which ends up throwing all the aforementioend characters together. From what I read, ,it actually looked interesting and enjoyable. The characters are familiar (and at least ones I care for) and it does some elaboration on Coruscant, the Jedi, the situation as a whole, and so on and so forth.

There are also a number of interesting technical tidbits, for example:

1.) The "one trillion" popluation for Coruscant is generally treated as a lower limit estimate, including only the "officially" permanant residents (who may very well be mostly human.) It explciitly mentions that it doesn't include transients, people living or workign their temporarily, the "unofficial" populace, people living on skyhooks or orbital facilities, etc.

"supposedly" some census takers estimated that the actual population could be nearly triple the one trillion figure, but even then Reaves implies that its just an estimate, not a concrete figure. He gives alot of hints that it could be much MUCH greater than trrillions. At one point he uses the explicit term "trillions", and then much later a database search of the coruscant population turns up some 600 million male humans all possessing the exact same name (which doesnt include females, because its said some females can have the name.. and doesn't include all the other human and aliens WITHOUT that name...)

He does mention "hundreds of thousands" of stormtroopers on Coruscant, but in the context it is quite evidently just a guess or "off the cuff" figure, not a precise one.

2.) Stormtroopers use slugthrowers. They can also survive close range grenade detonations and blaster fire unharmed (except at maximum output and point blank range.)

Stormtrooper accuracy is also such they can shoot a grenade in mid-air to detonate it from a ragne of a few tens of meters.

3.) There are sects of Jedi that eschew the use of lightsabers and actually prefer to use other weapons of all kinds, including blasters. They also favour martial training rather than relying wholly on the Force. Some of the kickass feats of this subset (who are deemed heretical by other Jedi) include shooting blaster bolts in mid air to deflect them using blasters.

4.) Mace Windu is noted to be officially dead in the novel. Even Rostu believes it.

5.) The Separatists bombarded Coruscant during the assault in ROTS. Its noted that some of the craters appeared to be parttly molten ("glassy smooth" IIRC) and one was 7 kilometers across.

Generally, what I read looked to be as enjoyable as Death STar, so I might suggest it. Its certainly nothing like what Traviss writes, anyhow.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Are they any figures for how common a moderately common male first and last name combination are in the United States versus its total population? Maybe we could apply that ratio to find the number of total individuals on Coruscant (definitely lower limit, given that Coruscant is much less homogeneous and monolingual than the U.S., even the most common human names will should be proportionally rarer than John Smith in the U.S.).

Otherwise, sounds pretty interesting.

[Darth Fanboy]

Ok I started the book a little over four hours ago, and I just finished eating it all in one sitting.

Damn good. Suffice it to say that this book maintains the quality of Reaves previous SW books. I have a few unfounded suspicions as to where the rest of the Coruscant Nights trilogy might be headed, but posting said speculation would be spoilers.

I will however say that this is how a book with previously used characters SHOULD be done. Death Star introduced us to a few characters that were new to accompany the old, but this book is a shining example of how to continue a plotline.

[RogueIce]

So how important would reading those other books be to this? The only two Prequel-era books I've read are Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter (a looong time ago) and the RotS novelization.

Would I need to read the MedStar books to really appreciate this, or could I pick up what I need to pick up from the book itself?

[Connor MacLeod]

With regard to plot, not really. The only connecting things are the characters who show up, and while they may reference past events, its not really neccesary to understand the plot in any great deal, IMHO.

(For example, the MedStar books didn't share a whole lot in common with DMSH save the fact that Pavan's father and his droid partner are in it. In fact, the droid is the main connecting thing throughout the books)

[Connor MacLeod]

Are they any figures for how common a moderately common male first and last name combination are in the United States versus its total population? Maybe we could apply that ratio to find the number of total individuals on Coruscant (definitely lower limit, given that Coruscant is much less homogeneous and monolingual than the U.S., even the most common human names will should be proportionally rarer than John Smith in the U.S.).

Otherwise, sounds pretty interesting.

No idea, and I'd have no idea where to look OTOH, but do you really need that? Its a signle name, and there must be millions of permutations of names alone (millions of worlds and millions of different alien races guarantees that). Thousands if not tens of thousands at a bare ass minimum. Hell, that prbaobyl only still covers census records....

Another, although more obscure, hint that the Trillion figure is a drastic underestimate is that a single perosn is said ot be able to stay on Coruscant for the lifespan of a star (or something like that) and still remain safely anonymous.

If I get time away from my 40K analysis I may do some quotations from the novel of interesting tidbits. Another thing I forgot to add is that coruscant construction droids make an appearance - apparently they make extensive use of "nano-droids" or something like that to break materials down and reassemble them inside the factories.... neat stuff.

There's another passage where it notes VAder threatens to exterminate Nick Rostu's tribal clan on Haruun Kal if he doesn't cooperate, and that Nick indicates that "Any Star Destroyer" could msuter up the firepower to scour a plateau. Given a Nomadic, tribal clan like many on Haruun Kal are, this probably can mean quite a large territory (thousands if not millions of square kilometers, I'd imagine.)

[Darth Ruinus]

2.) Stormtroopers use slugthrowers. They can also survive close range grenade detonations and blaster fire unharmed (except at maximum output and point blank range.)

Stormtrooper accuracy is also such they can shoot a grenade in mid-air to detonate it from a ragne of a few tens of meters.

3.) There are sects of Jedi that eschew the use of lightsabers and actually prefer to use other weapons of all kinds, including blasters. They also favour martial training rather than relying wholly on the Force. Some of the kickass feats of this subset (who are deemed heretical by other Jedi) include shooting blaster bolts in mid air to deflect them using blasters.

4.) Mace Windu is noted to be officially dead in the novel. Even Rostu believes it.

5.) The Separatists bombarded Coruscant during the assault in ROTS. Its noted that some of the craters appeared to be parttly molten ("glassy smooth" IIRC) and one was 7 kilometers across.

Generally, what I read looked to be as enjoyable as Death STar, so I might suggest it. Its certainly nothing like what Traviss writes, anyhow.

If you can, can you post quotes? This stuff sounds fucking kickass.

[Connor MacLeod]

Some of em. Including some of hte one son the population bit. Posted without comment for now.


Page 10

It ws a Blastech SE-14, a pistol that packed the highly concentrated beam power of an energy rifle into a weapon half the size. Even (Piell) knew that the crystasteel tubing couldn't stop the burst of charged subatomic particles.

...

Too late, EVen realized the other's tactic. The blast sturck the tube at the juncture between the ceiling and the lift, melting and fusing it together into an impassable mass. Even barely managed to stop hias ascent in time. A second later the trooper fired again, this time turning the tube's base below the Jedi's feet into molten slag.

Page 23

But even as he wondered at their naivete, another object hurtled at him. The pattern of ripples it made in the force told him it was a ntoher small round object, most likely another grenade- and this one, he sensed, was impact sensitive.

...


And one of the stormtroopers fired another blaster bolt, but not at him. The energy pulse struck the grenade arcing toward him, and detonated it.

He'd been sucker-punched Even realized. The luma had been meant to distract him, to let them get inside his guard with their real attack. The shock wave hammered him, lifting him and hurling him back. He collided against a support column with a terrible impact. The Force had protected him from immediate vaporization, but the pillar had been a surprise. He felt his bones snap and his organs burst when he hit the unforgiving fibreplast.

Page 24

He squeezed off a blast of his own, and one of the troopers was hurled back. His armour protected him from anything except a point-blank hit at maximum power, but th eimpact would leave him stunned for a time.

PAge 33-34

The last planetary census pegged the population of Coruscant at upward of one trillion - and that was only the full-time registered residents. The census didn't include commuters from skyhooks, Hesperidium, an dother offworld communities. Nor did it include the hundreds of thousands of stomrtroopers stationed planetside. And it most certainly did not - could not - account for the teeming multitudes living off the grid, in the depths of the urban slums. Estimates including those groups led some statisiticans to determine the population to be nearly three times the official count. given that, it seemed a single sentient could theoretically exist on Coruscant for the life span of a main-sequence star, and still remain virtually anonymous with a minimum of effort.

Page 58-59.

Nick had taken a hypertrain for the first part of the journey, one of the big mag-levs that rocketed through a sealed tube at two thousand kph. Inertial dampeners protected the passengers from the high-g forces and torque, and the near vaccuum in the tube reduced friction to almost zero. The result as a comforttable trip, in a little more than two and a hlaf hours, that had taken him nearly an eighth of the way around the planet, even allowing for a detour past a large blast crater.

..

The Bypass had slowed the hypertrain long enough for the passengers to get a good look at the devastation. The crater was seven kilometres wide, its walls and floors fused to black glass. The remnants of structures rose from here and there around its edges, like melted candle stubs. There were a grerat many such craters pocking the urban surface, Nick knew; ghastly evidence of the Seperatists' carpet bombing of Coruscant in the final days of the war.

PAge 97

THe temple was sacked and empty. And he was alone.

Alone among trillions of people.

Page 111

There were many, many humans on record with the name Jax Pavan, both male and female.

...

There were approximately 582, 797, 754 human males named Jax Pavan on Coruscant at this moment.

Mind, it does indicate that other alien races aren't nearly as numerous on Coruscant (or in the Galaxy) as humans, but humans alone can lead to staggering figures.

[Darth Ruinus]

And one of the stormtroopers fired another blaster bolt, but not at him. The energy pulse struck the grenade arcing toward him, and detonated it.

Nice. Stormtroopers are crappy shots eh?

His armour protected him from anything except a point-blank hit at maximum power, but the impact would leave him stunned for a time.

These are just normal stormtroopers right? Nothing special about them? So basically, can I assume that most of the stormtroopers we see in the movie dont really die? They are just knocked out or something?

[Darth Fanboy]

Going to change the thread title and pave the way for talk including spoilers.

These are just normal stormtroopers right? Nothing special about them?

Normal in the fact that they are the standard Fett-Type Clonetrooper turned Imperial Sotrmtrooper.

So basically, can I assume that most of the stormtroopers we see in the movie dont really die? They are just knocked out or something?

I hate to sound like Bill Clinton but I suppose that depends on what your definition of point blank is. The Tantive IV was a pretty close firefight.

EDIT:

Let me clarify myself, on that last bit. On the one hand there are numerous examples of stromtroopers being killed by blasters despite armor. Which means its pretty obvious one does not need to jam the barrel of a blaster right up against the armor to kill him. But if the term "point blank" isn't being used quite as literally then it makes more sense.

Yikes i'm scatterbrained today.

[Darth Hoth]

So we can discard the New Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology, then, which says that Stormtrooper armour is worse than the clone variant and can only take glancing hits?

[Darth Fanboy]

So we can discard the New Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology, then, which says that Stormtrooper armour is worse than the clone variant and can only take glancing hits?

I don't believe so. The events of this story take place in the aftermath of RoTS, so it could be said that the clones are probably still using the standard model of armor that they used during the latter stages of the war itself. The change to the stormtrooper armor we see in the OT has not taken place yet I believe.

[Darth Ruinus]

I hate to sound like Bill Clinton but I suppose that depends on what your definition of point blank is. The Tantive IV was a pretty close firefight.

Thats true. Reading over Wookieepedia and stuff like that, SW guns do have ridiculous ranges, the DC-15 had a range of 10 kilometers from what I remember, so point blank is probably different for these people.

[Connor MacLeod]

Nice. Stormtroopers are crappy shots eh?

Except that someone will probably make some vague reference to the movie canon showing them as lousy shots and say that's contradicted, so that won't solve anything.

The real problem is that weapon/trooper accuracy is difficult if not impossible to analyze in any meaningful way in sci fi. For the most parrt, it comes down to statistics (measuring hits vs misses and doing perceentages.) and evne then it is largely a situational/conditional figure and those variables (range, enviroment, target nature, etc.) have to be addressed.

And if that weren't enough, there's also the issue of statistical samples - most "examples" in movies and novels simply aren't "large" enough to actually extrapolate (either way) any real, definite conclusions about accuracy. Especially on a scope like Star Wars.

As far as I know, noone's ever actually gone through the movies, counted hit/misses across an entire battle, and actually did an actual analysis to show good (or bad) accuracy. This means that while we can consider the above sample to be "true", it doesn't mean much in a larrger scale. All you could claim is "we have an example or examples of stormtroopers who ARE quite accurate.."

And lastly, while we know that the Fett stormtroopers WERE clones, we also know that they were trained/created in specializations as well . For all we know, the stormie in that example was the Squad's designated marksman, so of course he'd be a good shot.

These are just normal stormtroopers right? Nothing special about them? So basically, can I assume that most of the stormtroopers we see in the movie dont really die? They are just knocked out or something?

As far as the movies go, its kinda impossible to judge the lethality of blaster hits because we never actually see the results under the armor. Sometimes (at worst) we see somewhat bigger holes (TESB and ROTS come to mind) but that may or may not mean anything either. They may be dead, incapacitated, or just wounded to some degree. Or maybe stunned.

There's also the issue that Stormtrooper (OT) armour isn't the same as ST (ROTS/AOTC) era armour at least in terms of durability, the fact that it doesn't account for the type of blaster or power settings (according to some sourecs, ,there is no known armour that can resist the highest settings of blasters, which will vaporize any material it hits.) and other factors.

Given the context, I figure Nick was using either a regular blaster. Possibly a heavy blaster, ,but I havent yet read enough to determine either way, and we dont know setting aside from "it wasn't maximum power", and that these are stormtroopers wearing EP-3 ROTS era armour, which is (of all known ST armour types) probably among the best in terms of durability (short of Katarn armour or ARC armour, that is.)

[Connor MacLeod]

Let me clarify myself, on that last bit. On the one hand there are numerous examples of stromtroopers being killed by blasters despite armor. Which means its pretty obvious one does not need to jam the barrel of a blaster right up against the armor to kill him. But if the term "point blank" isn't being used quite as literally then it makes more sense.

Yikes i'm scatterbrained today.

Out of curiosity, how do you determine they're neccesarily "dead" - the stormtroopers that is. For all we know they're just knocked out or badly wounded (its not as if Vader or his minions are known for kindness.. they're supposed to be Bad Guys after all, so kicking the unconcisous or incapacitated aside makes perfect sense.)

there's still the issue of settings and whatnot, but at best we could figure some might be killed due to lucky shots. Going by tyhe EGW&T, a heavy blaster is needed at least to "reliably" penetrate OT stormtrooper armour, and even then that doesn't say "guarnatee a kill" either. The blasters used in ANH on the T4 were known to be "able" to penetrate stormtrooper armour (IIRC the same EGW&T entry) but its not a guaranteed or certain thing.

So we can discard the New Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology, then, which says that Stormtrooper armour is worse than the clone variant and can only take glancing hits?

Why? I fail to see why the fact that body armours might provide differing levels of protection is a problem. The same is true of real life body armours, and there can be lots of reasons for this . Trading off protection and comfort, bulk/weight, concealability, flexibility, cost, so on and so forth.)

going by the NEGW&T entry, OT ST armour was less durable against blaster fire (which could mean its more lightweight) but still good against projectile weapons. Given what I said above, and that alot of blaster weaponry was restrticted/outlawed, this makes perfect sense. And it traded off some of its protection for other features. I would assume its more lightweight as being better "equipped" in other ways.

Plus, we can simply conclude (which there is ample evidence for) that there are many different "grades" or Kinds of ST armour, even in the OT era. Some may be more effective than others (which again makes sense and can duplicate RL)

[Darth Fanboy]

Except that someone will probably make some vague reference to the movie canon showing them as lousy shots and say that's contradicted, so that won't solve anything.

Which is hilarious given Obi Wan's appraisal of Stormtrooper shooting accuracy at the wrecked Sandcrawler. But then again what would he know?

[Connor MacLeod]

Except that someone will probably make some vague reference to the movie canon showing them as lousy shots and say that's contradicted, so that won't solve anything.

Which is hilarious given Obi Wan's appraisal of Stormtrooper shooting accuracy at the wrecked Sandcrawler. But then again what would he know?

Well, he''s been out of touch for two decades for the most part. And no longer in the military. It can be argued that since its merely dialgoue, it could be overriden by visuals (or by the fact Obi-Wan isn't neccesarily the most competent person to make such judgements.)

Not that I'm discounting his statement, but I've gotten quite used to the "devil's advocate" role.

And that still doesn't change the fact that most "accuracY" related arguments are subjective bullshit anyhow. I'd simply just ask them to provide the requisite analysis to demonstrate crappy accuracy.

[Darth Fanboy]

Not that I'm discounting his statement, but I've gotten quite used to the "devil's advocate" role.

You almost have to anymore in SW-related debates, because it's the only way to anticipate the kind of wankery that fanboys are capable of.

[Darth Hoth]

So we can discard the New Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology, then, which says that Stormtrooper armour is worse than the clone variant and can only take glancing hits?

Why? I fail to see why the fact that body armours might provide differing levels of protection is a problem. The same is true of real life body armours, and there can be lots of reasons for this . Trading off protection and comfort, bulk/weight, concealability, flexibility, cost, so on and so forth.)

going by the NEGW&T entry, OT ST armour was less durable against blaster fire (which could mean its more lightweight) but still good against projectile weapons. Given what I said above, and that alot of blaster weaponry was restrticted/outlawed, this makes perfect sense. And it traded off some of its protection for other features. I would assume its more lightweight as being better "equipped" in other ways.

Plus, we can simply conclude (which there is ample evidence for) that there are many different "grades" or Kinds of ST armour, even in the OT era. Some may be more effective than others (which again makes sense and can duplicate RL)

Well, yes. It is not unreasonable in and of itself, it just does not appear to mesh with what has been shown on-screen (from what I recall of the prequels, Clones dropped every bit as quickly after being hit as Stormies did). This is assuming standard forces on both sides as seen in the films, not specialists or wank-armours. Or were infantry weapons in the Clone Wars of much higher power than those of the OT?

[Darth Ruinus]

Or were infantry weapons in the Clone Wars of much higher power than those of the OT?

In generel werent the CD-15 the clonetroopers use a bit stronger than the E-11 the stormtroopers use? Besides that, I know that A280s the Rebels used in the Battle of Hoth can supposedly cut fully armored stormtroopers in half.

EDIT: grammar mistakes.