[SD.net EU Database] Aftermath

[DarthPooky]

Ok so there are some hear that didn't like the book but despite that lets talk about any new revelations.

Interlude Sevarcos P 200
An Imperial in mechanized battle armor wheels on him, turning a heavy handheld cannon toward him. But Greybok has speed and surprise and gets under his attacker and flings the heavy trooper into a crevasse

OK mech armor haven't seen that before cool.

[Sgt_Artyom]

I think it's existed before for some of the Stormtrooper variants (At least it looks like some kind of mechanized suit)

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Zero-G_a ... ormtrooper
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Hazard_stormtrooper

Not sure as to their status in the new canon.

[Galvatron]

I haven't read it yet, but I enjoyed the interview with the author here.

The fans have been a little...adamant...would be the nicest word about their reactions to you personally coming into homes and burning their copies of the EU.

CHUCK: I have. Have you looked at Amazon?

No. Should I not?

CHUCK: It'll soon have a one-star review on Amazon. There's 50+ reviews and well over half of them are one-star. The reviews are all very similar. Half these people I'm not even sure they bought the book. But their complaints boil down to these. Number One: It's not the EU. Number Two: It's now Disney canon. Number Three: They hate my writing style. Number Four: I don't tell them enough details. Which to me is an interesting complaint because I'm not an information delivery system. I'm trying to tell you a story, not spin facts.

[Mange]

At least to me, it's really a horribly written novel (and minimalist to boot). One thing that really got me scratching my head was a passage about a comet in the Outer Rim that was destroyed by the Jedi because it surely would have destroyed a planet in the Core (and something about it not having reached the Mid Rim due to the Jedi action. I don't have my e-reader close by at the moment). I wonder what propelled that comet...

[Galvatron]

That's a fast comet. Maybe it had a hyperdrive, like Zonama Sekot.

[Adam Reynolds]

At least to me, it's really a horribly written novel (and minimalist to boot). One thing that really got me scratching my head was a passage about a comet in the Outer Rim that was destroyed by the Jedi because it surely would have destroyed a planet in the Core (and something about it not having reached the Mid Rim due to the Jedi action. I don't have my e-reader close by at the moment). I wonder what propelled that comet...

What morons are editing this crap? An FTL comet

In any case, there is no way a simple comet would penetrate SW planetary shields, which I would expect the overwhelming majority of core worlds to possess.

[Galvatron]

Devil's advocate here, but maybe terrorists equipped a comet with a hyperdrive and aimed it at a core world that wouldn't detect it and raise its shield until it was too late.

[Mange]

Devil's advocate here, but maybe terrorists equipped a comet with a hyperdrive and aimed it at a core world that wouldn't detect it and raise its shield until it was too late.

The text doesn't suggest anything to that effect

[Galvatron]

I'm sure it doesn't. I'm just suggesting a possible scenario to explain an FTL comet. Does the text say anything that might rule it out?

[Mange]

I'm sure it doesn't. I'm just suggesting a possible scenario to explain an FTL comet. Does the text say anything that might rule it out?

Here's the passage:

In the deep well of Outer Rim space [...] The debris: the pulverized remnants from the comet Kinro, a celestial object once predicted to carve a path clean through the Core Worlds many eons ago, sure to destroy one or several planets and the people on them. The history books suggest that it was the Jedi who banded together, and several gave their lives (some, just their minds) willing the comet to break apart before it ever even punched a hole through the Mid Rim.

I had forgotten the "many eons ago"-part, but I don't think it makes it any less dumb.

[Galvatron]

They should have made it a rogue black hole if they really wanted to impress us with Jedi prowess.

[Balrog]

I will get some of my quotes up later this week, but I want to echo the complaint that the writing is just not that good. And not the author's complaint that he isn't being "encyclopedic" enough or whatever. The style itself is often inconsistent in structure, the characters feel more like caricatures than people, and the plot was just uninspired. It suffers from minimalism, but not in the truly terrible sense of "3 million clones!" or shit like that. I hesitate to label it the worse of the new EU, because it's still serviceable unlike some of the really terrible books from the old EU, but I would not recommend actually buying this book at this time. Maybe when you can get it at a discount or it becomes available in your library.

[Batman]

They should have made it a rogue black hole if they really wanted to impress us with Jedi prowess.

Would 'still' take eons to reach the Core Worlds but at least it would be a credible threat. A comet is something a corvette could casually turbolaser out of existance.

[ZOmegaZ]

And how does a comet destroy one or several planets? Is this some sort of malevolent planet-seeking comet?

[Batman]

Supermassive hypermatter comet, obviously.Will blast planets into hyperspace or something on passing.

[Adam Reynolds]

They should have made it a rogue black hole if they really wanted to impress us with Jedi prowess.

Would 'still' take eons to reach the Core Worlds but at least it would be a credible threat. A comet is something a corvette could casually turbolaser out of existance.

In fairness, I feel like that quote is referring to a time before proper SW weapons were developed.

[Esquire]

Still, though - it reeks of an author with more knowledge of Deep Impact than actual science. Who writes science fiction without a basic understanding of... well, science?

[Adam Reynolds]

Still, though - it reeks of an author with more knowledge of Deep Impact than actual science. Who writes science fiction without a basic understanding of... well, science?

Most "science" fiction authors. I recall seeing an interview with a technical advisory for Star Trek TNG who stated that he would receive scripts from writers that had insert science written in them and he was supposed to come up with the terminology without changing the plot. It is hard to be realistic when the plot has already been decided. Especially if said consultants have no veto power over the writers. For every author like Andy Weir, whose attention to detail was what made The Martain such an engaging read, there are dozens of lowest common denominator authors that don't care at all. This is made worse by demanding production schedules that force bad ideas to go to press or be filmed regardless of quality.

This is especially true in series like Star Wars with no pretensions of being accurate. The majority of SW fans don't care about any sense of accuracy. Look what happened on a forum like SW.com. I recall one of the moderators commenting about the scrolling text and sound in space negating any analysis that could be done for the setting at all. So I guess any movie about historical events or documentary that puts text on the screen must be a useless source.

[SilverDragonRed]

The author of Aftermath is begging people on Twitter to give out free 5-star review for the book on Amazon.

[Adam Reynolds]

The author of Aftermath is begging people on Twitter to give out free 5-star review for the book on Amazon.

I love how he blames it on a mix(a Venn diagram at that) of an anti-SJW crusade and petty fanboys rather than admitting that his writing simply wasn't very good.

[FedRebel]

Still, though - it reeks of an author with more knowledge of Deep Impact than actual science. Who writes science fiction without a basic understanding of... well, science?

Writers desperate for a paycheck.

If somebody is more into Jane Austin style fiction, but can only get a Sci-Fi gig. They'll do the Sci-Fi thing and hate it...trying to inject what Jane Austin they can to make things bearable (ie. Voyager.)

If one isn't Sci-Fi inclined, one will not do the research.

Other side of the spectrum is that producers don't want writers, they want CHEAP writers. For books, one mediocre author beats a cabal (character artist, tech adviser, astrophysicist, and for something like SW...a canon historian) by a wide margin.

[Balrog]

So rather than chronological this entry will be all the technical-related quotes I found, or at least found interesting, reading the book. The others such as political and Force-related I'll get to at a later date.

That means: Time to plot a course out of here.

That'll take a few minutes, though - heading inward from the Outer Rim isn't as easy as taking a long stride from here to there. It's a dangerous jump. Endless variables await: nebula clouds, asteroid fields, floating bands of star-junk from various skirmishes and battles. Last thing Wedge wants to do is pilot around the edge of a black hole or through the center of a star going supernova.

Minimum amount of time it takes to plot a hyperspace jump, at least when going from the Outer Rim towards the Core.

The shuttle appears to her left out of nowhere. Another Lambda-class Imperial transport. Black window glass above the nose cone.

Implacable and uncaring.

The cannons begin to fire. Jas sucks in a breath and tightens her body up. She pulls herself close to the cable. Her muscles burn. She brings her legs up tight to her body, knees tucked into her stomach. All in an effort to make herself as small as possible as the blaster cannons spit lasers-

They sear the air in front of her. Behind her. Below and above. She knows she's making a sound - a long, steady scream of rage and fear - but she can't hear it. All she hears is the wind and the cannons.

Good news is, the blasters under each wing of that shuttle aren't meant to hit relatively tiny targets like herself. Unless the person piloting that thing has Force sensibilities - a Jedi or some Dathomirian Nightsister - hitting her would be an act of pure cosmic providence.

Bad news is, whoever is operating those things just figured that out.

The shuttle turns just slightly-

And fires at the tower behind her.

The target in this scene against which a Lambda shuttle's cannons have a snowball's chance in hell of hitting is a human-sized being clinging to a cable which is strung between two structures. On the one hand, it can be understandable that a shuttle would not have its weapons geared towards hitting a relatively small target like that if its primarily geared towards fighting off its more likely opponents, such as starfighters. There might even be some sort of physical restriction, i.e. the cannons might not be able to converge to hit a target so small and so close. On the other, it's still a rather silly notion that it would be so incapable of hitting a figurative sitting duck. While the weapons might be shitty, the pilot at least wasn't, and quickly decided to shoot at something they could hit, the tower holding the cable up.

In the deep well of Outer Rim space, a Carrack-class light cruiser - the Oculus - sits quiet and still amid a field of debris. The debris: the pulverized leftovers from the comet Kinro, a celestial object once predicted to carve a path clean through the Core Worlds many eons ago, sure to destroy one or several planets and the people on them. The history books suggest that it was the Jedi who banded together, and several gave their lives (some, just their minds) willing the comet to break apart before it ever even punched a hole through the Mid Rim.
...
Right now, though, the only thing Deltura cares about regarding this comet field is that it provides him and the cruiser perfect cover.

The previously-mentioned super-comet, whose exact composition apparently can keep a light cruiser from being spotted by the Imperials.

"Probe launched," Deltura says.

"Excellent," Ackbar answers. "See you again in six hours, Ensign." Six hours: the time it will take for the probe droid to enter the space around Akiva. Though even now he can see the planet: just a small marble floating out there beyond the debris field.

Akiva is an apparently Earth-sized planet (given its Earth-like characteristics), so if one were to calculate how far away you'd have to be for the planet to appear the size of a marble you could estimate how fast the viper probe droid is traveling. This would assume however that Ensign Deltura is looking at the planet with the unaided eye and isn't seeing it "marble-sized" through any sort of visual enhancement.

"No sign of Imperial ships, Admiral."

"But you did find signs of our own."

"Just debris. Nothing you'd find with the human eye, but the viper is a surprisingly effective probe droid. It found molecular remnants indicative of our own ships, yes, sir."

"The A-wings," Ackbar hmms. "Something shot them down."

An idea of the sensitivity of a (formerly) Imperial viper probe droid's sensors.

Sergeant Major Jom Barell of New Republic Special Forces (SpecForces) looks to the five men and women standing to the right of him at the open door. On their torsos sit carbon-lace armor, the shoulders marked with the sigil of the New Republic: the Alliance starbird, now inside a starburst. The symbol of a changed day, a new dawn. The phoenix, truly reborn.
...
Especially a suborbital drop.

Well, it is what it is.

Barell jumps after Durs, the last in the line. It feels like it always does - his guts sucking out through his hind end, his heart left somewhere behind in the sky above him, the panic, the terror. And then-

The air rocks. A concussive wave hits him. His body spins like a spun top and above him he sees it - the side of the transport, blown open, black smoke bellowing as flames flash and sparks shower. The ship lists and starts to tilt as it goes down-

He tries to comm, but it's no good, he knows that. There's a comm blackout. Nothing he says is going to go anywhere.

Best he can do now is drop and try not to die.

But that's a far trickier task than he expected - because below him, he sees Corporal Kason at the front of the line disappear in a flash. Something comes up from the ground: a blinding streak from a turbolaser. One minute, there's Kason, and the next he's just a red spray and a torn-up tatter of carbon-lace armor spiraling through the clouds.

We're dead, Barell thinks.

Another blast and Stromm is next - a flash and he's gone. Barell dives down through the space where Stromm was just two seconds before.

Barell signals the others: "We're pigeons to hunt up here. We need to be falcons - engage para-wings." It's too soon, they're too high up. The winds up here could kill them. But what choice do they have? Below him, the other three snap out their arms and legs - and their wing-suits engage.

It's too late for Gahee'abee - the moment the Kupohan's para-wings extend from wrist to ankle, he's gone. Another searing blast from the surface of the planet and he's just ragged wing strips caught on the wind.

"As you know, there has been an incursion into Akivan space. We discovered a rebel transport in the atmosphere above Myrra. We eradicated that transport with one of the suborbital ground-to-orbit cannons. That is the end of our present concerns."

Besides making canon again Rebel SpecForces, this scene is hilariously juxtaposed with the previous one involving the Lambda shuttle, as apparently a ground-based turbolaser has absolutely no problem not only hitting human-sized targets but ones who are in the midst of a free-fall. The cannon only goes five for six though, as the Sergeant Major does manage to reach the ground.

Bones shrieks: "ROGER-ROGER." Then the battle droid jumps up in the air, tucking arms and legs together, forming a cannonball-

And crashing through the TIE fighter's front windshield.

A heavily-modified B1 battle droids (it's heavy enough to crack the pavement when it falls to the ground) manages to bust through a TIE's windshield. Sure the B1 was up on a structure, but for the fighter to be flying low enough for it to happen at all is embarrassing. Also puts something of a limit on the strength of physical impacts the windshield can resist.

Thing is, those wasps fly a certain way. Individually, they're hard as anything to catch or kill, because they fly up, down, left, right. They can zip forward, then stop in midair and hover before zipping back the other way. (And usually that's when they go in for the sting - and one stick from a redjacket's stinger can leave your whole arm numb for an hour.)

Flying a TIE fighter reminds Norra of those wasps.

It's incredible. Such maneuverability. She can do just as the wasps do: thrust forward, then retroboost to a stop, then streak to the left or the right. On a lark she gives the whole thing a spin - literally corkscrewing the ship as she flies it over the city that was once her home.

Of course, the trade-off is this: The TIE is a suicide ship, isn't it? To get the speed and maneuverability, the Empire sacrificed safety and sanity in the rest of the design. The whole thing is brittle like a bird skeleton.

A Y-Wing pilot's opinion on the TIE fighter.

"And how many troops?"

"A single company, besides what's here in the palace."

"A hundred, hundred fifty stormtroopers? That's it?"

"And their attendant officers. Another twenty or so."

"So, one hundred and twenty Imperials for a city of - how many?"

Here, Shale speaks: "About a million."

The estimated size of a given Stormtrooper company.

She lunches in, knees him in the gut. Her hands lash out, catch his wrist, and she gives it a twist - she's practiced in self-defense, having trained in the Imperial martial arts: a combination of Zavat, echani, and good old-fashioned ICE - Imperial Combat Exercises, the same training that every stormtrooper and officer gets. The blaster drops out of the pilot's hand.

Description of the type of hand-to-hand combat Imperials are trained in.

"Un-huh. I mean, front-line soldier. Gun up. Taking blaster fire. Look - thermal detonators don't go off until you activate them." She picks up the box and gives it a shake. He winces, waiting to be blown to his constituent molecules. "They don't go boom if you jostle them. I could kick one and it wouldn't go off. Until you prime them, these things are basically just shiny rocks."

The stability of thermal detonators.

[DarthPooky]

When he springs back up on the other side, he spins around-and his particle array gun is in his hand. Ready to scatter Mercurial's atoms across the flashing billboard.

Interesting a disintegrating gun though the legends had things like that before this but this is the first we've seen in the new canon apart from that line from vaider in TESB. I wonder if that was the kind of weapon vaider was thinking of when he Sayed that.

[Balrog]

When he springs back up on the other side, he spins around-and his particle array gun is in his hand. Ready to scatter Mercurial's atoms across the flashing billboard.

Interesting a disintegrating gun though the legends had things like that before this but this is the first we've seen in the new canon apart from that line from vaider in TESB. I wonder if that was the kind of weapon vaider was thinking of when he Sayed that.

I would avoid taking that too literally, since it just as easily could be hyperbole on the part of the character.

Anyways, last of the quotes I found interesting/applicable/etc., though if anyone sees one I missed please add it.

He's been to, let's see, five so far. Florrum. Ryloth. Hinari. Abafar. Raydonia. This planet, Akiva, is the sixth on the list of many, too many.

It was his idea, this run. Somehow, the remaining factions of the Empire are still fueling their war effort even months after the destruction of their second battle station. Wedge had the notion that they must've moved out to the Outer Rim - study your history and it's easy to see that the seeds of the Empire grew first out here, away from the Core systems, away from the prying eyes of the Republic.

Sense of time when this book takes place.

Her new pilot friend ducked out the back. Would've been a considerable jump. Jedi? No. Couldn't be. Only one of those out there - and zero chance the rebels would send their golden boy, Skywalker.

As far as the Imperials are concerned, at least high-ranking ones like Admiral Rae Sloane (a name you'd recognize if you've read Rebel Dawn), there exists one Jedi. Which brings up the question of how they'll handle the three of them in the Rebels series.

Akiva has always had Imperials. Just not the occupying ones. As with many worlds on the Outer Rim - wheeling on their axes at the edges of known space - Imperials used the planet but could never, or perhaps would never, stake an official claim. These exoplanets were beasts too rough, too wild, too strange to ever be brought under the Galactic Empire's yoke. When the Imperials came here, it was for reasons often personal: the drink, the spice, the smoke, the gambling, the black-market goods. Or maybe just to sightsee the wild faces and unmet aliens that cross paths at this outpost of miscreants and deviants.

Self-explanatory, Imperials like their booze and broads just like the rest of us.

A woman. Regal bearing. Chin lifted high and even in the fuzzy hologram, he can tell her eyes are bright, flickering with keen intelligence. Of course, maybe it's because he alread knows who she is:

Princess Leia Organa. Once of Alderaan. Now: one of the heroes and leaders of the Rebel Alliance.

The recorded image of the princess speaks:

"This is Leia Organa, last princess of Alderaan, former member of the Galactic Senate, and a leader in the Alliance to Restore the Republic. I have a message for the galaxy. The grip of the Galactic Empire on our galaxy and its citizens is relinquished. The Death Star outside the forest moon of Ender is gone, and with it the Imperial leadership."

Here the hologram changes to a sight all too familiar to Sinjir:

The Death Star exploding in the sky above Endor.

-snip-

"The tyrant Palpatine is dead. But the fight isn't over. The war goes on even as the Empire's power diminishes. But we are here for you. Know that wherever you are, no matter how far out into the Outer Rim you dwell, the New Republic is coming to help. Already we've captured dozens of Imperial capital ships and Destroyers-" Now the image becomes three-dimensional footage of Imperials being led off a ship's ramp in cuffs. "And in the months since the destruction of the Empire's dread battle station, we have already liberated countless planets in the name of the Alliance." A new image: rebels being greeted as saviors and liberators by a cheering crowd of-where is that? Naboo? Could be Naboo. Back to Leia: "Be patient. Be strong. Fight back where you can. The Imperial war machine falls apart one gear, one gun, one stormtrooper at a time. The New Republic is coming. And we want your help to finish the fight."

One last flickering image:

Alliance fighters with fireworks exploding in their wake.

An example of how the Rebels transmit their victory at Endor and how much progress they've made in the months since (i.e. Naboo is now liberated).

"Then perhaps that is what the council will discover," she says. Her eyes flit down to the rectangular bands across his breast. "I see you are elevated to grand moff. A self-proclaimed title, I'm guessing."

That wicked grin. "If one wants power, one must take it."

"True, perhaps."

"Not perhaps. And you know it in your bones. I know that you have wrested control of not only the Vigilance, but of the Ravager, too. And likely the fleet that goes with it. Imagine that. Little Rae Sloane, manning an entire Super Star Destroyer all by herself. Our last, isn't it?"

She says nothing. All she does is stare, stone-faced.

He goes on: "That was the fleet admiral's ship, wasn't it?"

"It was."

"Was. So he's truly gone?"

"Truly. And sadly. He was one of the best of us."

Sad state of affairs for the Empire if it's already down to just one SSD after only months of fighting since Endor, though it might only be the last one this group of Imperials which have gathered have access to. Also we get a sense of how rank played out in the Empire: an admiral wouldn't necessarily have command of a SSD, but a fleet admiral would.0

The ensign says, "The five closest worlds to Raydonia offer a glimpse of where Captain Antilles could have been heading next." On the screen: a list of five planets. Mustafar. Geonosis. Dermos. Akiva. Tatooine. Any of them could make sense - they know the Empire has gone to ground.

More minimalism nonsense, because of course this new world would just happen to be close to three of the worlds which prominently make an appearance in the movies. I get that when people are looking for Star Wars-related media, they want it to contain things familiar to them for the movies, but this is a little silly.

Tashu looks up once more as if all this is a distraction. "Hm? Oh. Yes, yes. Of course." Tashu was a close adviser - and a friend, as much as one could be, apparently - to the former Emperor Palpatine. The man who was once senator, and then chancellor. And the man whom rumors said was also a dark Sith Lord. Amid the Empire, the presence of the Sith was less a fact and more a myth: A few spoke of it as being possible, but most believed it to be a concoction. Palpatine would not be the first ruler to invent stories of himself as if he were of cosmic import...

The viewpoint of the Imperials regarding Palpatine, whose dark side connection was never publically known (and given what we know from Lords of the Sith, there's a good reason for that).

He says, "You chastise the dark side as if it is an evil path, laughable for its malevolence. But do not confuse it with evil. And do not confuse the light as being the product of benevolence. The Jedi of old were cheats and liars. Power-hungry maniacs operating under the guise of a holy monastic order. Moral crusaders whose diplomacy was that of the lightsaber. The dark side is honest. The dark side is direct. It is the knife in the front rather than one stuck in your back. The dark side is self-interested, yes, but it is about extending that interest outward. To yourself, but then beyond yourself. Palpatine cared about the galaxy. He did not wrest control simply to have power for himself - he already had power, as chancellor. He wanted to take power from those who abused it. He wanted to extend control and safety to the people of all worlds. That came with costs. He knew them and lamented them. But paid them just the same because the dark side understands that everything has a cost, and the cost must always be paid."

The "unique" viewpoint taken by some of Palpatine's devotees. No idea how much of this Palpatine actually believed himself though.

Tashu offers a beatific, self-assured smile. "What I mean to say is that Palpatine was a smart man. Smarter than the combination of all of us here. We must emulate his path. The Emperor knew the dark side was his savior, and so we too much make the dark side ours."

"Hnnh," Shale grumps. "And how do we do that? I don't think any of us are trained in the ways of the Force."

"No Sith remain," Tashu says. "And the lone Jedi that exists - the son of Anakin Skywalker - possesses an untouchable soul. At least for now. We must instead move toward the dark side. Palpatine felt that the universe beyond the edges of our maps was where his power came from. Over the many years he, with our aid, sent men and women beyond known space. They built labs and communication stations on distant moons, out there in the wilds. We must follow them. Retreat from the galaxy. Go out beyond the veil of stars. We must seek the source of the dark side like a man looking for a wellspring of water."

Two things going on here. The first it seems is that this is foreshadowing the upcoming movie, that whatever Sith or dark Jedi or whatever which our heroes fight against were probably those who went "into the wilds" and found the "source" of the dark side. The second is that, according to those at the very highest levels of Imperial leadership, there is only a single Jedi left, Anakin Skywalker. At a guess this suggests that something will happen to the Rebels-series Jedi to take them out of the picture. I mean, it's possible they're still alive or still fighting or whatever and Tashu simply doesn't know because Palpatine loves to compartmentalize everything, but it seems this is only reinforcing Yoda's words of Luke truly being the last.

Mon Motha speaks: "We must be cautious. Inroads to the Outer Rim are slow. Further, this is a time of relative peace, but that peace rests uncomfortably on very unstable ground. An incursion of that magnitude could be seen as overly aggressive. We must be seen as friends, not intruders. Occupying the airspace over Akiva could be trouble."

Revelation that, although the Rebels are still fighting and pushing the Imperials back, there is apparently a pause in the fighting, probably as both sides are catching their breath and making ready for their next moves, and Mothma is being very cautious.

The man's spooky smile never wavers. "I know. I can see that. I can see your vitality will never waver." He thrusts up a finger, as if having an epiphany. But the epiphany is not his own - rather, he seems to wish to deliver one. "Did you know that Sith Lords could sometimes drain the Force energy from their captives? Siphoning life from them and using it to strengthen their connection to the dark side? Extending their own lives, as well, so that they could live for centuries beyond their intended expiration?"

Tashu re-confirming the Drain Force ability as being canon.

Everything's foaming over now. It's not just from this one moment. Not just from the occupation. The Imperials have long toyed with planets like this one. Though never formally occupying them, they imposed tariffs and taxes on law-abiding establishments while letting black markets and criminal syndicates go about their business as long as they tithed back to the Empire. That was one of the striking things about seeing the Imperials fighting alongside Surat Nuat's thugs: It exposed the alliance bold-facedly, revealing what everyone always suspected but few ever really knew.

More fuel for the Imperial-hate fire, the Empire working alongside gangsters to oppress the good people of the galaxy.

"Are you aware of the responsibilities of an Imperial loyalty officer?"

"I confess that I'm not."

"Oh, it's a truly charming role. I was trained to sniff out weakness in my cohorts. I learned how to read body language, how to detect lies, how to use people against one another, all in order to discover where my own people had committed trespasses against the Empire. Anything from small breaches of conduct to outright treachery against the throne. I was the shadow they couldn't shake. You put me in a base or battle station or office and they knew they were on notice. I'd scare up what they'd done like a hunter flushing prey from the brush. And I'd hurt them to earn a confession and correct the errors. Oh, it wasn't just physical pain I caused, thought that was certainly part of it. It was emotional pain."

All they need is a bolter and a peaked cap and these loyalty officers could be proper commissars.

"Best guess given his psych profile? Parents often sent their troubled children to the Imperial academies. An act meant to be corrective, as they assumed we could shape their sloppy, insubordinate progeny into something resembling a proper galactic citizen. The reality was often that those types were washed out. Forcibly so. The Empire wanted its own heroes, not its own freak show. I suspect Rilo was like that."

The Imperials do have some standards about who they will accept into their ranks.

[Abacus]

I'm having the hardest time getting through this book. The writing is just...just so, so hard to chew through.