Force Heretic III: Reunion Comments, Discussion (spoilers)

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-07-04 10:46pm

I finished this this afternoon. I'm happy to say that the Force Heretic trilogy is now a good one overall, despite having a weak 2nd book.

Just about every storyline of the trilogy comes to fruition here; Luke and company find Zonoma Sekot and convince it to join the war effort, Tahiri finally manages to come to terms with her darker half, Riina, in what I thought was an excellent conclusion to what started off as a somewhat lame subplot, Droma meets up with Han and we learn more about the Ryn network, Pellaeon plays an active role in the war at last, and Nom Anor's power continues to grow, as the Prophet of the new Jedi cult.

The minimalism is just as bad as usual. The GA has 2 X-Wing Squadrons and a frigate protecting a pretty important strategic location.

Comments?

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2003-07-04 10:52pm

Was ok. I though Remnant was pretty good, but these last two just went downhill. THe bits on hyperspace travel in the UR were interesting. IP, I already sent those quotes to Saxton, no need for you to copy paste what I am about to post here for him like you did last time.

Every hyperspace jump they’d made in the last couple of weeks had been fraught with danger and uncertainty. Not even with the detailed maps of the Chiss Expansionary Defense Fleet to guide them could they account for every hyperspacial anomaly. But if anyone could find a way through the rips and reefs on the other side of known space it was Mara

-page 14

“It could be dark matter,” Soron Hegerty said from behind them. The elderly professor of comparative religions-a specialist on exotic alien life- had come forward from the passenger bay, steadying herself with one frail hand against the transparent canopy covering the cockpit.
Luke turned to face her “Do you think so, Doctor?”
“Perhaps,” Hegerty said. She paused a moment, obviously trying to think of a way to condense all her studies on the subject into a few words. “Dark matter interacts only gravitationally with the rest of the universe. It pools into clumps like ordinary matter, forming clusters and galaxies similar to the one we inhabit. Some scientists believe our galaxy to be surrounded by a halo of such galaxies-completely invisible to the eye, but there none the less.
“Danni and I were talking about this just yesterday,” she went on. “She wonders if such an invisible clump might explain the hyperspace disturbance in the Unknown Regions. A dark matter cluster could be in the process of colliding with our galaxy right now, passing invisibly through it, detectable only by its gravity. Clusters aren’t uniform in density: they have dust lanes and empty bubbles-and stars, of course. The uneven distribution of dark matter might account for the difficulty we’ve had charting this region from the ‘real’ universe. It all comes down to a collision with another galaxy we can’t even see-a collision taking place over billions and billions of years.”
Hegerty looked through the forward screens, eyes glittering as though in wonder at the invisible worlds she imagined.
Mara brushed a strand of red hair back from her face. “That’s all very interesting, Doctor. Can we chart the dark matter somehow and work out how hyperspace is folded around here?”
Hegerty returned from infinity with a shrug. “Theoretically, perhaps. You’d need some sort of large-scale gravity detector, and a means of working out exactly how dark matter influences hyperspace.”

-pages 16 & 17

Cal Wright · Post by **Cal Wright** » 2003-07-05 02:17am

I haven't finished refugee up. it took my book store forever to get it. i didnt know this one was out!!! well, i guess i need to go to books a million tomorrow.

Dorsk 81 · Post by **Dorsk 81** » 2003-07-05 02:36am

I haven't finished Refugee either, I only got it a week or 2 ago.
Anyone have a clue when Reunion's guna be out in the UK?
*Mumbles something indignant about how long it takes a frigging book to travel a few thousand miles*

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2003-07-05 02:14pm

Ender wrote:IP, I already sent those quotes to Saxton, no need for you to copy paste what I am about to post here for him like you did last time.

I told him it was brought up here by you and discussed and I'd just grabbed the novel for verification. I included a couple other quotes but he didn't find them of interest.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2003-07-05 02:21pm

Ender wrote:It all comes down to a collision with another galaxy we can’t even see-a collision taking place over billions and billions of years.”

Wouldn't this significantly distort the GFFA?

Lonestar · Post by **Lonestar** » 2003-07-05 03:36pm

Illuminatus Primus wrote:
Wouldn't this significantly distort the GFFA?

The what?

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2003-07-05 03:54pm

The Galaxy Far, Far Away.

Darth Yoshi · Post by **Darth Yoshi** » 2003-07-05 04:13pm

Not necessarily, unless the two galaxies in question are extraordinarily dense. IRL, galaxies simply pass through each other. Although the dark matter galaxy could be extra-dense.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2003-07-05 04:19pm

Of course when galaxies collide there are few direct collisions between the particles that compose them (stars).

However, galaxies are quite massive, and the tidal forces rip galaxies apart when they collide, dramatically spraying stars throughout space.

This little cute diatrabe on dark matter sounds pretty stupid and pseudo-scientific, and the UR would better have been left "the galactic backwater ignored because of lack of interesting things until now" it was before.

Darth Garden Gnome · Post by **Darth Garden Gnome** » 2003-07-06 01:27am

"Dark Matter"? WTF is this Star Trek or something?! What the hell is fucking dark matter? That's the stupidest load of crap I've ever heard come out of SW in a long, long time.

I'm with IP; it used to be that nobody gave a shit about what was happening out of the GFFA--NOT that it was impossible to do so, and that the NR was going to start sending probes out there and stuff. God, that really pisses me off. I mean, damn, that pisses me off.

SPOOFE · Post by **SPOOFE** » 2003-07-06 04:08am

"Dark Matter"? WTF is this Star Trek or something?! What the hell is fucking dark matter?

Oh, go pick up a Scientific American for Christ's sake.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2003-07-06 12:31pm

Darth Garden Gnome wrote:"Dark Matter"? WTF is this Star Trek or something?! What the hell is fucking dark matter? That's the stupidest load of crap I've ever heard come out of SW in a long, long time.

Dark Matter is the term for the "missing" 90+% of the Universe's matter-energy content predicted by current theories of the universe's beginning.

Basically, based on the curvature (IIRC) of space-time and other clues from the current picture of the universe (in addition to explaining spiral galaxies), observable matter only accounts for about 10% of what should be out there. The missing quantity is known as Dark Matter, and there have been hypotheses that it could be composed of either WIMPs (weakly-interacting massive particles) or neutrinos or HALOs (don't remember this acronym).

But the idea of it clumping into invisible galaxies and crashing into the GFFA without tidal effects is pretty retarded.

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2003-07-06 08:57pm

Darth Yoshi wrote:Not necessarily, unless the two galaxies in question are extraordinarily dense. IRL, galaxies simply pass through each other. Although the dark matter galaxy could be extra-dense.

Well the Milky Way is gonna collide with andromeda eventually and the new M-W/A galaxy is not gonna be a spiral arm galaxy when it's done.

Ofcourse this dark matter does not have to be an entire galaxy or something, comet sized masses can interfere with hyperspace even, according to DFR.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2003-07-06 09:06pm

His Divine Shadow wrote:
Darth Yoshi wrote:Not necessarily, unless the two galaxies in question are extraordinarily dense. IRL, galaxies simply pass through each other. Although the dark matter galaxy could be extra-dense.
Well the Milky Way is gonna collide with andromeda eventually and the new M-W/A galaxy is not gonna be a spiral arm galaxy when it's done.

Ofcourse this dark matter does not have to be an entire galaxy or something, comet sized masses can interfere with hyperspace even, according to DFR.

DFR? And they must be helleva massive (nigh-stellar-mass) if they can distort that much hyperspace. And technically a non-interacting black hole is extraordinarily hard to detect and could be considered "Dark Matter".

And they SAID a "dark matter galaxy" if you read the quote.

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2003-07-06 09:08pm

Illuminatus Primus wrote:DFR?

Dark Force Rising

And they SAID a "dark matter galaxy" if you read the quote.

Yeah they discussed something to that effect, it wasn't like they had confirmed it, it also seemed kinda semi-serious to me, like a bunch of laymen talking about physics, a more liable explanation could still be put in.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2003-07-06 09:10pm

His Divine Shadow wrote:like a bunch of laymen talking about physics, a more liable explanation could still be put in.

I agree. I hope there's some explanation that will come to fruition.

Grand Admiral Thrawn · Post by **Grand Admiral Thrawn** » 2003-07-06 11:10pm

Is it another "lets completely forget about the war and focus on finding some stupid planet" book?