What's So Bad About the Republic Commando Novels

[General Mung Beans]

I know the Republic Commando novels by Karen Traviss have virtually been universally penned here. But what's bad about it exactly? I know she gives outrageously idiotic minimalist numbers but if I'm reading a Republic Commando novel such mention would be minimal at best (pun intended) and not detract from the main plot? Or is the plot horrid too?

[Darth Fanboy]

You will find that even KT haters on this board thought Hard Contact wasn't a terrible story, but her works get progressively worse as she wanks out the abilities of her favored Commandalorians. Meanwhile, according to her, the Jedi and Palpatine conspire to fool the entire galaxy into believing the Clone Wars are a full blown conflict when in reality they are just small isolated conflicts and the armies for each side are not terribly large.

Then there is her hard-on (yes I do believe she is a dude) for demonizing the Jedi, to the point where a female Jedi Knight falls in love with one of her Commandos and forsakes her Jedi teachings so she can bear his child because Mandos are SUPER NEAT.

She is a shitty writer for Star Wars with no respect for the franchise and prided her self on having little to no Star Wars background at all when she started.

[General Mung Beans]

You will find that even KT haters on this board thought Hard Contact wasn't a terrible story, but her works get progressively worse as she wanks out the abilities of her favored Commandalorians. Meanwhile, according to her, the Jedi and Palpatine conspire to fool the entire galaxy into believing the Clone Wars are a full blown conflict when in reality they are just small isolated conflicts and the armies for each side are not terribly large.

Then there is her hard-on (yes I do believe she is a dude) for demonizing the Jedi, to the point where a female Jedi Knight falls in love with one of her Commandos and forsakes her Jedi teachings so she can bear his child because Mandos are SUPER NEAT.

She is a shitty writer for Star Wars with no respect for the franchise and prided her self on having little to no Star Wars background at all when she started.

The Jedi? What would they get out of fooling the people 1984 style? I see now, thanks.

[Adam Reynolds]

There have been several threads revolving around these novels. Here is one describing Order 66:
http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=127782

[RogueIce]

Then there is her hard-on (yes I do believe she is a dude) for demonizing the Jedi, to the point where a female Jedi Knight falls in love with one of her Commandos and forsakes her Jedi teachings so she can bear his child because Mandos are SUPER NEAT.

This culminates in said Jedi stepping in front of another Jedi's blade to save a random 501st trooper from being killed. During Order 66 (the novel and the event itself)

That's right, she gets killed trying to save a clone who would've gunned her down had he known she was a Jedi herself. Shouting, "Don't kill that man!" (or words to that effect) in the process. Because it's not like that Jedi was defending himself from being killed or anything...

Sadly enough, that's basically one of only two actual instances of "Order 66" we see, in the book named for it! The other is some Clone Commando Captain killing his Jedi General (said Jedi General had basically given up on life and took it). Although, apparently in Imperial Commando, we find out he didn't actually do it for real. So that doesn't count for much WRT Order 66, does it?

[Ritterin Sophia]

You will find that even KT haters on this board thought Hard Contact wasn't a terrible story, but her works get progressively worse as she wanks out the abilities of her favored Commandalorians. Meanwhile, according to her, the Jedi and Palpatine conspire to fool the entire galaxy into believing the Clone Wars are a full blown conflict when in reality they are just small isolated conflicts and the armies for each side are not terribly large.

Then there is her hard-on (yes I do believe she is a dude) for demonizing the Jedi, to the point where a female Jedi Knight falls in love with one of her Commandos and forsakes her Jedi teachings so she can bear his child because Mandos are SUPER NEAT.

She is a shitty writer for Star Wars with no respect for the franchise and prided her self on having little to no Star Wars background at all when she started.

To add to this she's outright called anyone who likes Jedi akin to a Nazi, not in a heated argument but as an article on her blog.

She brags that she's never read a Star Wars novel and it shows in Legacy of the Force, especially with her character assassination of Jaina. In the New Jedi Order series Jaina makes a name for herself as a member of Rogue Squadron, in one of Karen's novels Mando trained Ben Skywalker has to instruct her on how to use a helmet comm system. In New Jedi Order Jaina also fought force blind Yuuzhan Vong Warriors with lightsaber resistant armor, but in training with Boba she muses how she doesn't know how to deal with lightsaber resistant armor and somehow Mandalorians are able to make themselves invisible in the force. Some more are Luke not knowing the difference between a Dark Jedi and a Sith, thinking in Mandalorian, and sending Jaina to learn a completely new style to fight Jacen when she could've simply tightened up her lightsaber skills by training with Luke who already beat the shit out of Jacen and only stopped because the Force told him if he killed his nephew Ben would fall to the Dark Side. Pellaeon saying Daala would make a good first female Moff despite Adria Reyn (her picture suggests she may even be a Grand Moff) and Leonia Tavira (also the youngest Moff ever at 16-22 years old and may have been a Grand Moff). Ben lamenting he wasn't born Mandalorian. Han Solo suggesting Daala be made Chief of State of the Galactic Federation; this one is the funniest ones because later authors recognized it and needled it in a novel as temporary insanity brought on by grief.

[Stofsk]

God I hate Karen Traviss. What a no talent hack.

[recon20011]

I know the Republic Commando novels by Karen Traviss have virtually been universally penned here. But what's bad about it exactly? I know she gives outrageously idiotic minimalist numbers but if I'm reading a Republic Commando novel such mention would be minimal at best (pun intended) and not detract from the main plot? Or is the plot horrid too?

I never really realized how minimalist she was until I started thinking about it, and I mean really thinking about it. At the time I never thought it detracted from the storyline too much. I'm one of those few people who enjoys reading military history but what really fascinates me isn't the battles, its the maintenance and organization of the armies involved in those battles that I find fascinating. I read Hard Contact and that is what got me fascinated about the Clone Wars, which, strangely enough, made me realize how wrong she's been. I've never read nearly as much EU stuff as many other posters on here, but even within her novel (Triple Zero I think, correct me if I'm wrong) she describes vaguely the logistics/replenishment system (as run out of the department that Wennan has infiltrated) and it seems vastly over-estimated to service only 3 million troops. The US has supported millions of troops overseas before. That's one nation on one planet[/] that can support 3 million troops. Yes, the distances involved are greater, but the travel times actually appear to be a lot shorter. At the time I wondered why it was so extensive, and how people wouldn't notice enough money to support an entirely new cloning program was being siphoned off. Presumably the replenishment of the armies costs a lot, but I have to think that creating a clandestine cloning program costs a lot too.
One thing that I did like about the novels was her emphasis on the clones. I agree that she goes overboard on the Mandalorian stuff but giving a clone's perspective on the war (Hard Contact) was rather refreshing, as opposed to seeing it from the view of Jedi and politicians. Plus at the time I was taking a philosophy class where we spent a lot of time discussing the morality of cloning. That made the book a little more interesting, because it did really bring up the issue of freedom, on the one hand the individual freedom of the clones, and on the other hand the freedom of the Republic as a whole.

[Darth Fanboy]

Again, Hard Contact is considered even by some KT haters to not be a bad read because she is writing about a small unit of clones and she apparently can write a commando book decently. It's when she took on aspects of the SW universe outside of her ability she starting fucking things up.

[Oskuro]

I know the Republic Commando novels by Karen Traviss have virtually been universally penned here.

Holy cow! Not only is she/he/it a horrid writer, but stoops so low as to steal from our fanfiction section?

I just wonder, if this author is so universally reviled, and apparently has such a disregard for established canon... Why is she being comissioned to write SW novels? (I have no idea how SW licensing works)

[Srelex]

I just wonder, if this author is so universally reviled, and apparently has such a disregard for established canon... Why is she being comissioned to write SW novels? (I have no idea how SW licensing works)

Because I guess it would appeal to casuals who don't know much about canon or don't give a shit, and she does have a group of dedicated fans who swallow up her Mandofuck bullshit and buy two copies of all her books, or something.

[Ritterin Sophia]

I just wonder, if this author is so universally reviled, and apparently has such a disregard for established canon... Why is she being comissioned to write SW novels? (I have no idea how SW licensing works)

Because the only thing Lucasfilm Licensing asks for are basic outlines and specific characters killed. She left some time before the Mandalorian Arc of The Clone Wars aired in the middle of writing Imperial Commando II, citing discontinuity issues due to the movies. Specifically the problems were that the Mandalorian Warrior Culture was nearly extinct like George Lucas had intended since mentioning them in TESB simply as the source of Boba's armor and instead some form of pacifistic constitutional duchy was established, and most importantly the most prominent last vestiges of the Mandalorian Warrior culture was a bunch of terrorists.

[Guardsman Bass]

Han Solo suggesting Daala be made Chief of State of the Galactic Federation; this one is the funniest ones because later authors recognized it and needled it in a novel as temporary insanity brought on by grief.

This one gets me the most. Why can't they just kill her off*, or have Daala fuck up and be removed from power? Judging by her appearances in the books before this that Traviss never read, Daala was practically born to lose.

*I mean, it's not that difficult. Just have one of the Spoiler

insane Jedi kill her by accident in the first book of the new series.

[Stofsk]

I just wonder, if this author is so universally reviled, and apparently has such a disregard for established canon... Why is she being comissioned to write SW novels? (I have no idea how SW licensing works)

Because the only thing Lucasfilm Licensing asks for are basic outlines and specific characters killed. She left some time before the Mandalorian Arc of The Clone Wars aired in the middle of writing Imperial Commando II, citing discontinuity issues due to the movies. Specifically the problems were that the Mandalorian Warrior Culture was nearly extinct like George Lucas had intended since mentioning them in TESB simply as the source of Boba's armor and instead some form of pacifistic constitutional duchy was established, and most importantly the most prominent last vestiges of the Mandalorian Warrior culture was a bunch of terrorists.

That is probably the best thing the Clone Wars has ever done, other than actually make Anakin likeable.

[Connor MacLeod]

The latter novels had a grain of potential. The problem was that we got a writer doing them who was basically allowed to wander down the path of her pet topics and ideas with little or no constraint (and they should have been constrained) and whose online encounters (and her pride) basically coloured much of her latter work. The Clone wars numbers are the latter, the Mandalorian fangirlism an example of the former, and people had varying attitudes to both (but I'd say its the Mandalorian obsession that really did her in.) The former problem isn't wholly her fault since she's hardly the first writer to ever do something like that (Terry Goodkind, Robert Jordan, timothy Zahn and Thrawn, Stackpole and corrna horn, etc.) but a decent editor would have done much to curb that problem. THe latter is more directly attributable to her (Although I suspect she had "input" from others online, so again it may not be wholly her fault.), but insofar as story goes isn't really all that important (SW has been and always will have inconsistencies like that, it can be worked around and again a good editor would have helped here.)

What it always boils down to is: Traviss had her idea of Star Wars and wanted to imprint that heavily in the universe, and wasn't willing to compromise on that. And ultimately, it degraded the quality of her work (how rapidly or if at all depending on who you asked) and pushed her out of SW for good (as we saw with her reaction ot the Clone Wars series depiction of Mandalorians. Again a certain element of pride can be argued to be at work here.)

[Darth Fanboy]

The things you learn when you browse Wookiepedia, did she really create a KAMINOAN Jedi?

Don't the events of Episode II make that extremely unlikely?

[Ritterin Sophia]

The things you learn when you browse Wookiepedia, did she really create a KAMINOAN Jedi?

Don't the events of Episode II make that extremely unlikely?

Well clearly Dooku erased the Jedi Master Kina Ha's existence from the minds and records of the Jedi Temple.

Bet you feel a bit ignorant'ika now, don't you dumb'ass'doa.

Seriously Karen has shown she has no regard for canon, Hell in one of her novels she has Jacen Solo muse how easy it is to forget his twin sister and then another hundred pages lament how difficult she is to forget about, she can't even remain consistent in her own books. Why would she care what the movies say?

[Srelex]

Well clearly Dooku erased the Jedi Master Kina Ha's existence from the minds and records of the Jedi Temple.

Bet you feel a bit ignorant'ika now, don't you dumb'ass'doa.

Seriously Karen has shown she has no regard for canon, Hell in one of her novels she has Jacen Solo muse how easy it is to forget his twin sister and then another hundred pages lament how difficult she is to forget about, she can't even remain consistent in her own books. Why would she care what the movies say?

Hell, she even farts in Lucas's face--compare his preface to Shatterpoint to her bushfire war crap. I suppose in fairness to Lucas given the crap already out there he's probably given up caring except when it suits him.

[Darth Fanboy]

Well clearly Dooku erased the Jedi Master Kina Ha's existence from the minds and records of the Jedi Temple.

Even funnier if she were in the room when Jocasta Nu was all "Hurf hurf hurf if it isn't in the archives it don't exist" on Obi Wan.

"Hmmmm? What? OF course there is such a planet. Just take the westbound hypserspace lanes, then take exit 216. You'll go past Rothana Heavy Engineers and Czerka Corp Outlet Store, turn right at the Dunkin Donuts and you're there!"

[Ugolino]

Well, the Kaminoan jedi was from several centuries earlier, and had been on an expedition for most of that time...

Doesn't really help much though.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Well, the Kaminoan jedi was from several centuries earlier, and had been on an expedition for most of that time...

Doesn't really help much though.

No she wasn't, she joined the Mandalorians on Mandalore after Order 66 in order to act as another mouth piece for some more of Traviss' anti-Jedi screed.

"Your prowess with a lightsaber is childish vanity.Your physical Force powers are no more than a conjurer's trick, sleight of hand to dazzle the ordinary beings you should be serving. You profane these powers by using them as weapons in war. And you fail to grasp the single, simple, uncompromising duty of the true Jedi. The Jedi is the rock-lion at the gate who says, "I will defend these beings with my life, and that is the sum of me." Etain Tur-Mukan died to save one life, a man she did not even know, but felt compelled to save, and that is what made her stronger in the Force and a truer Jedi than any of you acrobats, tricksters, and specious, empty philosophers."―Kina Ha

Note the Jedi she is singing the praises of was killed defending a clone from a Padawan who was trying to defend himself against said clone and his friends in the execution of Order 66.

[Ghost Rider]

Aside from the Mandalorian wank she slathered in each of her books, as well as the inept numbers that she purported to calculate, one of the biggest if not the biggest things is her direct contradiction of Lucas in what the Jedi were and motivation.

She claims them to literally be SW 1-900 psychics. When we've seen that the universe and some of their most wealthy and knowledgeable being, with all of their resources they have, not only not denouce said beings but actively support said ideas of the Force and it's use and ability to be used as such. That along with the Jedi were working with Palpatine color her work immensely.

So this means two things:

A. Jedi are spoon benders who conned the galaxy for the last 4000-5000-6000-whatever number of years.
B. The entire Clone Wars was a brush war affair that was propped up to con the galaxy by both the Jedi and the Sith.

Because that's what we see when we saw the prequels, right?

Take all that into account and add what others have said, and think how much it goes against what the entire series is about and ask yourself what sort of fucked up mindset can this woman honestly have. Her latter books just continue this until literally the current Clone Wars TV show directly showed she was wrong and that her stories mattered to Lucas as much as 99.9% of the EU does to him.

[Ritterin Sophia]

Oh, the recent big argument by the fantardlorians is the clones were slaves of the Jedi. Yeah those episodes where Yoda talks about how they are all important individuals, the comics where Obi-Wan and Anakin are the root cause of the clones taking on individual names, and the scenes in the television show mentioning shore leave are all lies.

[Darth Fanboy]

Oh, the recent big argument by the fantardlorians is the clones were slaves of the Jedi.

I did actually appreciate though that one of the Clones back in S1 did defect to the Separatists because he thought the same thing. It was a nice touch that demonstrated the conflict between moral issues and the need to fight the war against the droid armies of the CIS.

Fandos take it way too far though. I mean, Jango Fett willingly provided himself as a template, he didn't give a shit so long as he got paid. So it has to be asked, if the honorable Jango Fett agreed to do it, knowing full well what he was doing, wouldn't he and the Sith be far more culpable than the Jedi for the clones' predicament?

[Ritterin Sophia]

Oh, the recent big argument by the fantardlorians is the clones were slaves of the Jedi.

I did actually appreciate though that one of the Clones back in S1 did defect to the Separatists because he thought the same thing. It was a nice touch that demonstrated the conflict between moral issues and the need to fight the war against the droid armies of the CIS.

Fandos take it way too far though. I mean, Jango Fett willingly provided himself as a template, he didn't give a shit so long as he got paid. So it has to be asked, if the honorable Jango Fett agreed to do it, knowing full well what he was doing, wouldn't he and the Sith be far more culpable than the Jedi for the clones' predicament?

Well the problem with using that one clone is an example is that it according to statements from other clones, he's defective if he doesn't want to fight for the Republic, either figuratively or literally. But I agree, they blame the Jedi when they Jedi didn't really make the decision to use the clones, opposed every attempt by the Republic to treat the clones as thoughtless automaton, and the Mandalorians themselves helped train the clones to be used as troops. However, to the Fandos the Mandies are blameless.