And they don't have this why?

[General Soontir Fel]

What is your beef with Karen Traviss? I personally liked her commando books.

Let's make a list of things she did:

Wrote a story about how the Yuuhzan Vong view the Mandalorians as on equal terms with the Jedi and the Sith.

Made the Mandalorians into peaceful farmer Soldiers, all self-sufficient and manly to a one.

Gave said Mandalorians a magic metal that only they could forge despite not even a fraction of a percent of the resources the galactic governments (Republic and Empire) put into their chemical and metallurgical science divisions.

Made Ben Skywalker wish he was a Mandalorian.

Wrote that Jaina Solo, ace pilot of the legendary Rogue Squadron, needed instructions from Mandalorian trained Ben Skywalker in how to use a helmet commsystem.

Wrote that Boba Fett was the greatest Jedi Hunter in the galaxy despite Luke having fought and killed more Jedi than Boba had ever seen.

Wrote that Jaina Skywalker, Sword of the Jedi, could not comprehend how to deal with an opponent (Mirta Gev, Boba's granddaughter) who had lightsaber resistant armor. Despite having made her reputation as a war hero fighting Yuuhzan Vong.

Writing the Imperial Commando 501st Book, which was only tangentially related to the Imperial Commandos and the 501st.

Wrote that Luke Skywalker didn't know what made a Sith different from a Jedi.

Wrote that Jaina Solo needed to learn a completely new style of fighting to beat Jacen from Boba Fett. At the insistence of her uncle who had refrained from killing Jacen because he foresaw that it would cause his son to turn to the darkside.

Pellaeon saying that Daala would make a good first female Moff. Daala was an incompetent and there's already been a female Moff, said Moff was also the youngest one ever.

Wrote the retarded 3 million clone army bullshit and tried to, ineptly, defend it in her novels.

Wrote in her blog that anyone who like a Jedi was akin to a neo-nazi.

Shit all over Abel G. Pena's previously written canon and then whined about her canon being overwritten by Lucas.

Gloats about how she's never read a Star Wars novel in her life.

Thinks there's some underlying story that only her journo skills will let her get at.

Writes the most retarded characterization of Soldiers I've ever heard.

You forgot a couple of things:

Writes all her female characters to swoon over clones, including one who gets literally kidnapped by them and taken to Mandalore, and having another one get away with terrorism.

Made up a pet Jedi (Etain Tur-Murkan) who gets pregnant by a clone, gets killed by trying to stop a couple of Padawans from defending themselves from clones during Order 66, and then her clone lover blames the Jedi for her death.

Made up another pet Jedi (Bardan Jusik) who joins the Mandos, uses the Force to help them, and years later, lectures Jaina Solo that using the Force is wrong because you will use it to help your family.

Wrote half the books in Man'doa, a shitty "language" that is nothing more than a code for English with apostrophes and several quirks that are either dumb and make the "language" unworkable or get explained to the reader in the text, sometimes several times per book.

[Galvatron]

Actually, it was an opinion by Pellaeon first in HttE when he opinioned that unlike Vader, Thrawn would not callously throw his men away or give in to emotion. Then in TLC we have Thrawn saying that he was not the Lord Vader and would not sacrifice two squads of troopers for the sake of framing somebody.

Neither is Vader-bashing, I think, but actually pretty fair criticism given the command styles of both Pellaeon and Thrawn, who are very hesitant to throw away their man.

I also seem to recall a remark by Thrawn saying that he doesn't summarily reject an idea simply because it wasn't his own, as Vader supposedly did.

[Simon_Jester]

I also seem to recall a remark by Thrawn saying that he doesn't summarily reject an idea simply because it wasn't his own, as Vader supposedly did.

I think Vader became even more of a bogeyman than he really was after his death. To people like Thrawn and Pellaeon, he's as much the living, mechanically breathing Imperial archetype for "bad boss" as much as he is a real person.

[Havok]

I didn't think that Thrawn had any real contact with Vader?

[Thanas]

I didn't think that Thrawn had any real contact with Vader?

He did.


Vader stole his idea.

[Vympel]

Pfft, fuck Thrawn. It's easy to pish posh and belittle the achievements, temperament and skill of the supreme commander of the Imperial military when he's dead and can't defend himself from your scurrilous, jealous attacks.

[Azron_Stoma]

Pfft, fuck Thrawn. It's easy to pish posh and belittle the achievements, temperament and skill of the supreme commander of the Imperial military when he's dead and can't defend himself from your scurrilous, jealous attacks.

Call it a Character Flaw on Thrawn's part.

TZ also needs to do away with the minimalism, unless he has already in some of his more recent work (haven't read anything he had done since the original Thrawn Trilogy)

[Havok]

Pfft, fuck Thrawn.

Exactly.

Hey I look at art, I understand an entire species and their military strategy now! Hur hur!

[The Romulan Republic]

Pfft, fuck Thrawn. It's easy to pish posh and belittle the achievements, temperament and skill of the supreme commander of the Imperial military when he's dead and can't defend himself from your scurrilous, jealous attacks.

Obviously easier than when he was alive, as Vader would simply have Force-choked his critics.

Call it a Character Flaw on Thrawn's part.

Not really a flaw in my opinion. Vader did kill his men for rather little reason.

TZ also needs to do away with the minimalism, unless he has already in some of his more recent work (haven't read anything he had done since the original Thrawn Trilogy)

Well, he is the source for the 25,000 star destroyers number as I recall.

[Havok]

Not really a flaw in my opinion. Vader did kill his men for rather little reason.

I call bullshit on this. Not only for the fact that we only see Vader kill TWO guys, but that, based on what Vader said, Ozzel had repeatedly failed Vader. And Needa lost the Falcon when it flew RIGHT AT THEM. Neither of those are hardly 'no reason'.

Also, if he was just willy nilly killing everyone, why the hell didn't Piett get force choked out of the galaxy for losing Luke?

[Thanas]

Not really a flaw in my opinion. Vader did kill his men for rather little reason.

I call bullshit on this. Not only for the fact that we only see Vader kill TWO guys, but that, based on what Vader said, Ozzel had repeatedly failed Vader. And Needa lost the Falcon when it flew RIGHT AT THEM. Neither of those are hardly 'no reason'

He kills a lot more people in the Eu for little reason, his reputation is well-earned.

[Galvatron]

In other words, an character EU smeared Vader because the EU smears Vader?

[Formless]

Its not like those scenes of Vader killing his own subordinates was supposed to make him look menacing and evil or something.

Or...

They were, and to say that the EU is smearing Vader is like trying to burn a turd.

[Galvatron]

The point is that a case can be made that, while he may be ruthless and evil, Vader had a reason for killing his men in the movies. The EU takes it farther than that and reduces him to an 80s cartoon villain.

[Formless]

Fair enough. That wouldn't really count as smearing the character though, that's just what incompetent writers do when they like a character. See also: bad fanfiction.

[Havok]

Its not like those scenes of Vader killing his own subordinates was supposed to make him look menacing and evil or something.

Or...

They were, and to say that the EU is smearing Vader is like trying to burn a turd.

Yeah, we get that. Sith are evil, the Darkside etc. etc., if you fuck up you are going to be in deep shit. That doesn't mean that Vader just threw men away as Mr Art Critic claimed.

[Havok]

Just chalk it up as one more reason to dump the EU and start over from ROTJ.

[Formless]

Hav, I wasn't talking about Thrawn specifically, you know... I was talking about the accusation that the EU in general smears Vader's character.

[Havok]

Yeah, I know... Just chalk it up as one more reason to dump the EU and start over from ROTJ.

[Galvatron]

Formless...

He kills a lot more people in the Eu for little reason, his reputation is well-earned.

He didn't cite examples, but it sounds to me like I'm right on the money about the EU smearing Vader by portraying him as being casually sadistic and cruel. It's not unlike how the EU wanks Boba Fett or portrays Palpatine as a raving lunatic.

[Formless]

Again, how do you smear a character who was supposed to be a villain? You don't, although you can write it poorly.

[Galvatron]

Okay, then let's say that the EU Vader is a caricature of the movie Vader. After all, movie Vader doesn't "kill the messenger" unless the messenger just so happens to be the one who also failed him.

[Havok]

And even then, as I pointed out, he doesn't just kill willy nilly even if you do fail him.

[Stofsk]

TZ also needs to do away with the minimalism

Calling Tim Zahn a minimalist is hardly fair, given he's the source of the 25K ISDs number and while the Katana fleet was a big plot point in the Thrawn trilogy, that was because the Empire and New Republic forces were more evenly balanced in forces, and 200 fresh ships crewed by clones would have tipped that balance.

When I think of retarded minimalism I think of Karen Traviss and '3 million clones'. Zahn's nowhere close to that level of idiocy.

[fractalsponge1]

It's not as bad, but it's still pretty bad; 200 Dreadnaughts are worth maybe 20 ISDs. I thought the 25k number was around well before Zahn too. Even if it was him that came up with it, you can fault him for consistency given how completely worthless that number makes 200 Dreadnaughts sound. He can be a good author and still totally screw up his numbers.