Yhuuzan Vong Infiltration

Axis Kast · Post by **Axis Kast** » 2003-07-15 08:06pm

How significant was Yhuuzan Vong penetration of the galaxy prior to their invasion? How lengthy was such reconnaissance?

We know the Yhuuzan Vong once visited Zonama Sekot. When? With how much force? How did they evade detection?

By the way, did anybody else catch the reference in Force Heretic III: Reunion to an Imperial vessel - the old Relentless - launching "hundreds" of fighters at once?

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-07-15 08:25pm

The Yuuzhan Vong reconaissance was apparently quite significant. There was Nom Anor, obviously, who was instrumental in assuring the success of the invasion, and there was Yomin Carr, who set up Belkadan as the first target of the invasion. In addition to this the Yuuzhan Vong spy network appears to be quite extensive, penetrating into the upper levels of both the New Republic and the Imperial Remnant (in FH1, the Empire still had not excised Yuuzhan Vong spies from very high levels of the Imperial bureaucracy).

We know the Yhuuzan Vong once visited Zonama Sekot. When? With how much force? How did they evade detection?

A small but significant expeditionary force, IIRC. It would have seriously endangered the planet had Vergere not used the Force to trick the Vong into believing Zonoma Sekot to be a greater power than it was. As for evading detection, this certainly did not happen; Vergere left a message warning about the Vong, which after her departure was received by someone (maybe Obi-Wan and Anakin; I don't know, I never read Rogue Planet) and transferred to the Old Republic. I also recall Timothy Zahn stating that this warning eventually reached Palpatine, so he had foreknowledge of the invasion.

Admiral Johnason · Post by **Admiral Johnason** » 2003-07-15 08:30pm

Durran Korr wrote:
We know the Yhuuzan Vong once visited Zonama Sekot. When? With how much force? How did they evade detection?
I also recall Timothy Zahn stating that this warning eventually reached Palpatine, so he had foreknowledge of the invasion.

Did he do anything to prepare for the attack?

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-07-15 08:37pm

Admiral Johnason wrote:
Durran Korr wrote:
We know the Yhuuzan Vong once visited Zonama Sekot. When? With how much force? How did they evade detection?
I also recall Timothy Zahn stating that this warning eventually reached Palpatine, so he had foreknowledge of the invasion.
Did he do anything to prepare for the attack?

He vastly increased the size of the military. Granted, this may not specifically have been for the Vong but the Imperial military at its height could have squashed the Yuuzhan Vong (and the Chiss, and the Ssi-ruuk, and anyone else in the Galaxy looking for trouble) without much difficulty.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2003-07-15 11:14pm

I believe there is something disproving Zahn's revisionism (which is just a cheap excuse to try and take credit and connect Thrawn with the Yuuzhan Vong, although we know the House Phalanx never knew of the YV thanks to Dark Journey).

Nom Anor precipitated the destruction of the Galactic Empire after the death of all of Palpatine's clones and the dissipation of his consciousness.

Jadeite · Post by **Jadeite** » 2003-07-15 11:27pm

Zonama Zekot? Is that the living planet from that Young Jedi Knights book? The one that absorbed people into it?

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-07-15 11:31pm

Jadeite wrote:Zonama Zekot? Is that the living planet from that Young Jedi Knights book? The one that absorbed people into it?

Zonoma Sekot is from Rogue Planet, a prequel-era novel.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-07-15 11:33pm

Illuminatus Primus wrote:I believe there is something disproving Zahn's revisionism (which is just a cheap excuse to try and take credit and connect Thrawn with the Yuuzhan Vong, although we know the House Phalanx never knew of the YV thanks to Dark Journey).

Nom Anor precipitated the destruction of the Galactic Empire after the death of all of Palpatine's clones and the dissipation of his consciousness.

I find it to be retarded too. It hasn't actually been put into a book yet, as far as I'm aware, so hopefully this will be stopped by the higher-ups.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2003-07-16 12:49am

Durran Korr wrote:I find it to be retarded too. It hasn't actually been put into a book yet, as far as I'm aware, so hopefully this will be stopped by the higher-ups.

Zahn's ego and one-up-ism over the EU in general is nothing short of astounding. His arrogance has made me deride him.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2003-07-16 12:52am

Illuminatus Primus wrote:
Durran Korr wrote:I find it to be retarded too. It hasn't actually been put into a book yet, as far as I'm aware, so hopefully this will be stopped by the higher-ups.
Zahn's ego and one-up-ism over the EU in general is nothing short of astounding. His arrogance has made me deride him.

You have to admit that he has SOME reason to be arrogant, he wrote most likely the finest EU work ever with the Thrawn trilogy, the rest of the EU disgusted me to the point where I just walked away from it.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2003-07-16 01:10am

Stravo wrote:You have to admit that he has SOME reason to be arrogant, he wrote most likely the finest EU work ever with the Thrawn trilogy, the rest of the EU disgusted me to the point where I just walked away from it.

Stravo, it isn't his saga, and he has no right to treat it as such. And Dark Empire was a far more epic story that was much more in line with the feel of the movies.

The Thrawn Trilogy is warped. Thrawn staples down Clone Wars details and dates (he was told no dates) and helps bring about many EU screw-ups with the new Prequels.

The entire story revolves around some ubermensch and neutering some of the characters--Luke is either paralyzed by not being able to figure out the psycho old man throwing lightning is a bad guy, or by magic lizards.

Zahn couldn't figure out that the Empire just might have more than six ISDs leading a conquest (he has no excuse--Marvel and WEG both pinned down a better picture of the Fleet and scale--not to mention the Death Star II is worth 24 million ISDs). The idea of a second-in-command, consulting his government, and actually having a staff seemed beyond the military logic of the resident Gary Sue.

Zahn believes that most of the galaxy for some reason is just not explored, despite having terrifically fast drives for thousands of years.

Worse yet, Dark Empire was supposed to take place 5 years after Endor or so, and the Thrawn Trilogy would've fit better afterward. But he outright refused to cooperate with Vietch, and thus made everything like very strange when all of a sudden the Empire was back and invalidated the fight against Thrawn, all because Zahn couldn't be bothered to work with another writer because he didn't like their concept.

He later has the audacity to shoe-horn other writers' works into Queen Mara's point of view, and even takes pot shots against Dark Empire, which trivialized Thrawn because of his own stubbornness.

The Hand of Thrawn was little more than Thrawn and Chiss wanking.

The fact that TTT is better written than most EU does not make Zahn not a prick who fouled a lot of stuff up and tried to behave as if he could dictate and control the EU.

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2003-07-16 02:31am

Durran Korr wrote:A small but significant expeditionary force, IIRC. It would have seriously endangered the planet had Vergere not used the Force to trick the Vong into believing Zonoma Sekot to be a greater power than it was.

Actually no, Zonama Zekot's military forces beat the Yuuzhan Vong force back, Vergere however went up to talk diplomacy with the invaders, and y'know, stuff happened.

Tribun · Post by **Tribun** » 2003-07-16 08:38am

The Dark Empire comic series was really cool and in my opinion much better than the written EU-Books.

Post by **Vympel** » 2003-07-16 10:50am

Dark Empire is the greatest work from what I hear- unfortunately, I have never had the good fortune to read it. If someone could let me know where I could get it, PM me (nudge nudge wink wink).

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2003-07-16 11:02am

Illuminatus,

I agree that it is not his saga and while you and I disagree on Dark Empire we now agree that he is a dick. I didn't know much about Zahn's behavior towards other EU writers and from what I've read so far I can't say that the man sounds very nice. I was just pointing out that Zahn will always hold a special place in many fans hearts as it was his work that got me interested in SW again.

As to Dark Empire being better...I won't get into that debate again.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2003-07-16 12:38pm

And Vymp, I warn you reading Dark Empire, it will seem extraordinarily strange that this takes place after the Thrawn Trilogy and Isard's Revenge.

The continuity oddity is Zahn's fault. Dark Empire was in the works before Bantam even got the novel license. It hit the shelves later, but that is immaterial.

It would've made infinitely more sense in the Thrawn Trilogy's place, with the Thrawn Trilogy (with scale errors corrected) following up on Dark Empire.

Cal Wright · Post by **Cal Wright** » 2003-07-16 07:39pm

Funny how all the fans wank off to Zahn. I remember when I was doing the chat sim on AoL, just before I started reading the novels. That's all they woul do. Talk about Thrawn/Zahn this, Thrawn/Zahn that. It was so irritating. Finally, I started reading the books. I first found the Jedi Academy Trilogy. (I had a friend years ago when it came out told me about it, so that's why I picked it up first). You would think everything afterwards would be great. Bah. Now I've read the Thrawn Trilogy a number of times, and the Hand Duology twice, both sort of let me down. Zahn is very minimalist, and it never truly feels like Star Wars. The end of the Thrawn Trilogy was a let down. It was a battle for some damn radar to detect cloaking. Fuck me. Either way, I didn't start with Zahn so I'm not like fan whored to him or his works. In fact I'm preturbed most of the time, because it seems like a slap in the face to the Original Trilogy at times. Real bull shit. Either way.

Admiral Johnason · Post by **Admiral Johnason** » 2003-07-16 08:59pm

Stravo wrote:
Illuminatus Primus wrote:
Durran Korr wrote:I find it to be retarded too. It hasn't actually been put into a book yet, as far as I'm aware, so hopefully this will be stopped by the higher-ups.
Zahn's ego and one-up-ism over the EU in general is nothing short of astounding. His arrogance has made me deride him.
You have to admit that he has SOME reason to be arrogant, he wrote most likely the finest EU work ever with the Thrawn trilogy, the rest of the EU disgusted me to the point where I just walked away from it.

You didn't care for Stackpole's work?'

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2003-07-17 02:09am

Stackpole
*sticks fingers in throat*

Now anyway, Stravo is doing himself a GREAT MISFORTUNE by not reading anymore, the Enemy Lines Duology and Traitor where the three best books I've ever read, I rate them above Zahn's work even(don't kill me)

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2003-07-17 10:42am

Star by Star was much better than anything ever written by Zahn. In-scale, gritty, moving, epic. It has all the right ingredients and finally made New Jedi Order seem like Star Wars again.

Stravo · Post by **Stravo** » 2003-07-17 10:49am

I see Star by Star mentioned ALOT as one of the best SW books in recent memory. Would I have to have read most of the NJO to truly enjoy the book or can I just pick it up off the rack and start reading it tonight with what I've gleaned from here?

Also HDS I hear odd things about Traitor, the general consensus seems to be that either you'll love it or hate it. I personally don't like to take those chances on a book.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2003-07-17 11:16am

I have yet to find someone who thinks it was badly written.

Those who don't like it don't like the message for the Jedi and about the Light/Dark Side.

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2003-07-17 11:59am

Illuminatus Primus wrote: Stravo, it isn't his saga, and he has no right to treat it as such. And Dark Empire was a far more epic story that was much more in line with the feel of the movies.

Not according to George Lucas who when pressed about a possible Eps VII to IX, he said he would probably make ones based around the Thrawn trilogies as they were 'most in line with the movies'.

Your personal opinion about the Thrawn Trilogy and Zahn aside, I would think that statement alone should say a lot.

The Thrawn Trilogy is warped. Thrawn staples down Clone Wars details and dates (he was told no dates) and helps bring about many EU screw-ups with the new Prequels.

Of which he had no idea about when he was writting the trilogy. He was told two things; No clone of Obi - Wan, and no definate dates. He didn't do the former, and besides specualtion he didn't do the later either. Zahn fully knows that Lucas could and did at any time over write any part of the EU (see Splinter of a Minds Eye).

The entire story revolves around some ubermensch and neutering some of the characters--Luke is either paralyzed by not being able to figure out the psycho old man throwing lightning is a bad guy, or by magic lizards.

You must be fucking kidding right? Like Dark Empire was any better? We had instead of a Luke fully complete his own trial of fire in RotJ (by not falling to the Dark Side), but also re-claim his father to the light; we get in Dark Empire, the sacrifice that Vader made in RotJ, and Luke's own right of passage, swept aside as never having happened. You thought that was a more accurate description of Luke after RotJ? Did you completely miss the point of the movie?

And you completly ingore the fact, of which is easily discerned from the novels, that the yslamari aren't there to neutralise Luke (or stop the 'Superman' effect), they are there as an intricate part of Thrawn's overall strategy. It was fucking stated as such in the novels, and by Zahn himself. Luke is constrained by his light side/dark side moral argument.

Zahn couldn't figure out that the Empire just might have more than six ISDs leading a conquest (he has no excuse--Marvel and WEG both pinned down a better picture of the Fleet and scale--not to mention the Death Star II is worth 24 million ISDs).

If we applied the same harsh reasoning to the original movies, we also get that the Empire apparantly can build 2 DS, 1 SSD, and few other SD, because that's all that we see. Honestly. Did it ever occur to you that we are being shown just one part of the Empire's fleet, much like, oh I don't know, in TESB?

The idea of a second-in-command, consulting his government, and actually having a staff seemed beyond the military logic of the resident Gary Sue.

Did you not watch ANH?

'How will he (the Emperor) retain control without the bureaucracy?'
'The regional governers will now have a direct control in their territotries.'

Zahn further expanded upon this in the duology, once Palleon had recieved a mandate from the Moff council, he no longer needed their input as to how fullfil said mandate. Not the best scenario, but one which once again fits perfectly with the movies.

Zahn believes that most of the galaxy for some reason is just not explored, despite having terrifically fast drives for thousands of years.

The Milky Way Galaxy contains 200 billion stars. Lets assume that the SW Galaxy has the same amount of stars, now lets pretend that it takes half a day to completely map a Star System, and then another Half a day of travel to move onto the next one. Which means one Star System completely mapped per day, how many years would it take to map 200 billion stars? Well 200E9 / 365 = 547,945,205.5 years.

Honestly dude, think about that for a second.

Worse yet, Dark Empire was supposed to take place 5 years after Endor or so, and the Thrawn Trilogy would've fit better afterward. But he outright refused to cooperate with Vietch, and thus made everything like very strange when all of a sudden the Empire was back and invalidated the fight against Thrawn, all because Zahn couldn't be bothered to work with another writer because he didn't like their concept.

Oh well, I would have thought that it would take longer to write a novel, than a comic book. But boo - hoo for Dark Empire, I wouldn't even use that rag to wipe my ass with. You want talk about going against the totally point of the OT then look no further than that, that ... thing.

He later has the audacity to shoe-horn other writers' works into Queen Mara's point of view, and even takes pot shots against Dark Empire, which trivialized Thrawn because of his own stubbornness.

God forbid that he might actually try and rationalise the various high - low limits of SW, by one characters subjective point of view. Do you understand that? That is Mara's point of view, not fucking gosspel. And frankly the characters he has introduced have been mutilated by other hacks, I don't blame him.

The Hand of Thrawn was little more than Thrawn and Chiss wanking.

No it wasn't, the fans are doing the wanking. In the book it is described perfectly. In the Unknown Regions, where Thrawn was for quite a few years under the Emperor's mandate, he managed to open up a huge region for the Empire. But it wasn't stated that this region would magically boost the Remanent back to pre - RotJ levels, it just said that it was a big region, with a few garrisons. Where is the evidence that it was Thrawn or Chiss wanking? None, the rabid fans did that erroneously.

The fact that TTT is better written than most EU does not make Zahn not a prick who fouled a lot of stuff up and tried to behave as if he could dictate and control the EU.

No it doesn't, you are correct. However the fact that Zahn might be a prick, does not invalidate the credibility of his work.

Personally I don't care if you don't like Zahn's work, after all these things are subjective, but your personal crusade to discredit his work at every opportunity by attacking him is getting close to Enlightenment's behaivour against JMS. I for one am getting rather sick of it. Besides the notable point of him being un - coperative with other writers, the only major offence that Zahn has comitted is by being a minimalist, and that is only a problem if you refuse to try and rationalise it as just focusing on on story out of a potential plethora of situations.

Really, let it go.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2003-07-17 07:35pm

Crown wrote:Not according to George Lucas who when pressed about a possible Eps VII to IX, he said he would probably make ones based around the Thrawn trilogies as they were 'most in line with the movies'.

Your personal opinion about the Thrawn Trilogy and Zahn aside, I would think that statement alone should say a lot.

Citing please?

Crown wrote:Of which he had no idea about when he was writting the trilogy. He was told two things; No clone of Obi - Wan, and no definate dates. He didn't do the former, and besides specualtion he didn't do the later either. Zahn fully knows that Lucas could and did at any time over write any part of the EU (see Splinter of a Minds Eye).

He was told not to include them and did so anyway.

Star Wars Insider 36, Timothy Zahn wrote:Also off limits-for reasons now perfectly clear-was any discussion of the Clone Wars and Anakin Skuwalker's fall to the dark side of the Force.

Also, Leia caught the clear date for the Honoghr's collapse, which had to occur after the beginning of the Clone Wars. Hence the awkward "different Noghri year" fix in the Essential Guide to Alien Species. If the date wasn't a problem, why did they make a continuity fix?

He obviously put down a flawed date.

Crown wrote:You must be fucking kidding right? Like Dark Empire was any better? We had instead of a Luke fully complete his own trial of fire in RotJ (by not falling to the Dark Side), but also re-claim his father to the light; we get in Dark Empire, the sacrifice that Vader made in RotJ, and Luke's own right of passage, swept aside as never having happened. You thought that was a more accurate description of Luke after RotJ? Did you completely miss the point of the movie?

The point was that Luke was a Jedi. Vader sacrificed everything for the son he loved. But Yoda himself says, "once you start down the Dark Path, forever will it dominate your destiny." Luke paid for his hatred. Throughout the EU we can see this--Luke will always be haunted by the Dark Side, and it will affect his decisions always: it destroyed his father, and nearly destroyed him.

If you read the Dark Empire Tradepaper Back, or if you read any of the Sith Wars comics, you would recognize the parallels driven between Ulic Qel-Droma and Luke Skywalker. Luke willingly surrendered to Palpatine to co-opt him from within. It was a contest of wills. Palpatine believed that in his own sacrifice to destroy him (who represents the timeless and immortal personification of evil) he would sucuumb.

It wasn't about Luke falling to the Dark Side again. It was about Luke attempting to destroy Palpatine from within. And he succeeded. Leia and Luke finished what their father started when he balanced the Force and precipitated the collapse of Palpatine's Empire.

Crown wrote:you completly ingore the fact, of which is easily discerned from the novels, that the yslamari aren't there to neutralise Luke (or stop the 'Superman' effect), they are there as an intricate part of Thrawn's overall strategy. It was fucking stated as such in the novels, and by Zahn himself. Luke is constrained by his light side/dark side moral argument.

What? Ysalamiri were clearly put there to bring Luke and other Force Users down to everyday guys again. They also helped clones. So?

As for the rest--Zahn is the one who has paralyzed Luke with the most philosophical junk. In the Hand of Thrawn duology he gets lectured by Mara of all people and why he can't use the Force too much or he won't hear the will of it. Yet action is clearly the path in the NJO, which invalidates most of that speech.

Crown wrote:If we applied the same harsh reasoning to the original movies, we also get that the Empire apparantly can build 2 DS, 1 SSD, and few other SD, because that's all that we see. Honestly. Did it ever occur to you that we are being shown just one part of the Empire's fleet, much like, oh I don't know, in TESB?

Of course we have to accept there are more than just that. But shouldn't there ever have been joint assaults? References to other Admirals? Anything?

Crown wrote:Did you not watch ANH?

'How will he (the Emperor) retain control without the bureaucracy?'
'The regional governers will now have a direct control in their territotries.'

Zahn further expanded upon this in the duology, once Palleon had recieved a mandate from the Moff council, he no longer needed their input as to how fullfil said mandate. Not the best scenario, but one which once again fits perfectly with the movies.

The Imperial Remnant is not the Galactic Empire and it cannot be used to prove anything about the Galactic Empire.

I cannot stress this enough. The Galactic Empire ended when former Guardsman Kir Kanos executed "Emperor" and former Interim Council Chairman Xandel Carivus.

Just because Zahn has a bunch of governors sit at a table with the highest ranking naval officer doesn't make that a real government. The Administration, the Emperor's advisors, the Grand Vizier, the Ruling Circle, the Imperial High Command. The Galactic Empire had a central government even after the Moffs took control.

Crown wrote:TheMilky Way Galaxy contains 200 billion stars. Lets assume that the SW Galaxy has the same amount of stars, now lets pretend that it takes half a day to completely map a Star System, and then another Half a day of travel to move onto the next one. Which means one Star System completely mapped per day, how many years would it take to map 200 billion stars? Well 200E9 / 365 = 547,945,205.5 years. Honestly dude, think about that for a second.

It suddenly is not difficult to see how WEG made its mistakes when there are people who base calcs on how long it would take one ship to map a galaxy.

Curtis Saxton wrote:Even before the attainment of faster-than-light propulsion, interstellar colonisation is an essentially non-linear, self-propagating process. Consolidated colonies master their local resources and are eventually able to deploy their own starfleets and interstellar probes. In any year, the rate of further colonisiation is proportional to the number of mature colonies. Even if a new colony takes centuries to develop enough wealth to spread its own colonists, the long-term growth of the civilisation is exponential. It is rather like the reproduction of bacteria: i.e. only limited by the available territory and (metaphorical) food. Mathematically, even if an average settled world produces only ten new colonies of its own in every thousand years, the civilisation will double in size roughly every 69 years. If there exist worlds that are even more effective at producing colonists then the doubling time will be much shorter.

Clearly, the settlement of the entire galaxy must have been finished in a very short time compared to the age of the Galactic Republic, let alone the recorded span of pre-Republic history. The only regions that can remain unsettled are those that are physically unattractive for settlement.

...

Sublight Exploration
There is plenty of time for the mainstream, human-dominated civilisation to have propagated throughout the entire disk of the galaxy. Sublight travel is sufficient to explore all reaches of the galaxy. Manned scouts are not necessary; probes have the virtue of being cheaper and more expendable.

Coruscant has been urbanised, to the extent of blocking sunshine to the lowest levels, for over 90,000 years [The Courtship of Princess Leia p.43]. The radius of the galactic disk [Shield of Lies] is only 60,000 light years. Therefore the entire galaxy is easily within human reach even if travel was exclusively sublight.

The literature contains references to other starfaring human cultures that are on the order of hundreds of thousands of years old. SWAJ#8 says that the Gree recognised humans as an interstellar (but not necessarily hyperdrive-using) species, and their peak was several hundred thousand years ago. At least several hundred thousand years of isolation are necessary to produce offshoot human species such as the Chiss, Zabrak, Yoda's species etc.

Hyperspace Exploration
Using hyperdrive, a starship can travel from the Core to the Outer Rim in a matter of days (as demonstrated by Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace and the occupants of the Millennium Falcon in A New Hope.) This mode of travel is innately fast enough to put the entire galaxy within easy reach, and there are only a few conceivable practical limitations to travel. Firstly the number of possible destinations is so large that no individual is likely to see more than a tiny fraction of the galaxy's systems in a lifetime. However a modestly organised bureaucracy could easily catalogue every star or other major object, and a basic database could easily fit in a hand-held computer.

The second practical criterion is that travellers should be able to reach their destination without crashing into anything during the trip. Physical obstruction is a major concern, according to Han Solo in A New Hope, and in the elaborations in the rules developed for the roleplaying games. However the games and the literature indicate that any obstacle can be avoided if a sufficiently circuitous route is mapped by a living or artificial surveyor.

How hard is it to establish a route to any particular destination? How much time does it take? It evidently doesn't take much effort at all, providing that someone has an incentive to reach the particular part of space. The Dark Empire Sourcebook documents that the Deep Core was charted within just a few years, using merely "thousands" of probots, at the behest of Senator Palpatine. This exercise is trivial compared to the galaxy's total industrial capacity, which is capable of building a moon-sized battle station in secrecy. In fact this number of probes is many orders of magnitude less costly of materials than a single star destroyer. Furthermore the reported survival rate of the probes is respectable, considering their disposability.

Since the Deep Core is the central, densest part of the galaxy*, the exploration of any other region must be far cheaper and safer. The halo, being the emptiest region, is likely to be easy but unattractive to explore. The disk of the galaxy is both more penetrable and relatively richer in resource systems than the Deep Core. Therefore if there were any unexplored regions in the disk, they could and would be filled within years, with much less than a Palpatine effort. One part of the disk is as good as any other. It is ludicruous to suppose that huge arcs of the disk could remain neglected when they have the same average density of desirable resources and emerging or advanced native civilisations as the rest of the disk. On the timescale of the history of the Galactic Republic, the circumstance of an entire sector remaining unknown can only be explained by a poverty of physical resources and/or physical remoteness from the galactic core and disk.

More conclusively, The Empire Strikes Back provides canonical proof that a survey of extensive regions of the galaxy is practical. If the Unknown Regions were seriously impenetrable and constituted a huge portion of the galaxy, then the Rebel Alliance could have hidden there in complete security. They would need only to survey a route to a single new system. Conversely, Lord Vader was able to order thorough inspection of a vast number of remote systems, with reasonable confidence of success. Open space was big enough to hide a rebel fleet forever [Return of the Jedi], but the Empire was able to send probot scouts to a statistically significant proportion of all the galaxy's habitable planets.

And most of that is from the canon. It isn't hard for US to find stars that would likely have terrestrial planets. There are quintillions of them, and they can build 900 km battlestations in secret and travel across the galaxy in days. It is obvious from TESB that huge-scale probe droid exploration of even the most remote systems is feasable and a choice made by the Empire looking for a tiny Rebel base.

Crown wrote:Oh well, I would have thought that it would take longer to write a novel, than a comic book. But boo - hoo for Dark Empire, I wouldn't even use that rag to wipe my ass with. You want talk about going against the totally point of the OT then look no further than that, that ... thing.

Which is why George Lucas bought a copy for each of his employees for Christmas that year? Because it shit on his baby? Right.

Zahn's still a prick. If he didn't want to cooperate and write in LFL's territory as they said so, he should've found another job.

Crown wrote:God forbid that he might actually try and rationalise the various high - low limits of SW, by one characters subjective point of view. Do you understand that? That is Mara's point of view, not fucking gosspel. And frankly the characters he has introduced have been mutilated by other hacks, I don't blame him.

He chose his own character, a brutal killer to lecture Luke about how wrong he was and for Luke to kindly agree and end up loving her. He tried to set the bar for everyone about the Force, which was exceedingly arrogant. And for Luke to fall before the advise, its obviously there to be true. How else was it going to be presented by Zahn?

Crown wrote:No it wasn't, the fans are doing the wanking. In the book it is described perfectly. In the Unknown Regions, where Thrawn was for quite a few years under the Emperor's mandate, he managed to open up a huge region for the Empire. But it wasn't stated that this region would magically boost the Remanent back to pre - RotJ levels, it just said that it was a big region, with a few garrisons. Where is the evidence that it was Thrawn or Chiss wanking? None, the rabid fans did that erroneously.

The whole Vision of the Past is about Thrawn's fanatics coming out of nowhere and bragging about the threats they fought (with no navicomputers and puny ships, mind you, with a 29-planet industrial base). How about that a political aide was replaced by Mara, Thrawn, and Vader? Vader was the Sith Apprentice, Thrawn was another Grand Admiral who ended up killed at Palpatine's whim. Mara was another Emperor's Hand (apparently one who needed to be deluded that she wasn't the one and only, because the others apparently dealt with it).

That's not even touching on all the Senators screaming and pissing themselves because Thrawn was rumored to have been seen.

Crown wrote:No it doesn't, you are correct. However the fact that Zahn might be a prick, does not invalidate the credibility of his work.

He still misinterpreted the scale and minimalized the Empire so you'd wonder if there was anything besides Thrawn and his fleet. There are some big holes, and some cheap tricks (the magic threat from nowhere, the magic leader from nowhere, the magic lizards from nowhere, et cetera).

Crown wrote:Personally I don't care if you don't like Zahn's work, after all these things are subjective, but your personal crusade to discredit his work at every opportunity by attacking him is getting close to Enlightenment's behaivour against JMS.

Zahn is an alright author and I enjoy his short-stories a lot. I enjoyed the TTT a lot, despite a couple things he did with it. I did not enjoy the duology.

My dislike for him is his belief that he can dictate the overall EU. His pattern of arrogance with his characters (which are really LFL's) is annoying. He refused to work with Vietch, subtlely took pot-shots at it with Mara, took shots at everyone else's characterization of Luke, and even tried to take credit for the YV with his "great threat" of the Chiss. He treats the EU like he has the moral rights to it, when he overrode other works written well before his.

Not to mention Thrawn is based on a Marvel character (General Sk'arr) and Mara is eeriely similar to Shira Brie.

He also insulted the comics before as well. He's needlessly beligerent and uncooperative and I think he's made too many unproductive moves with Star Wars for me to ignore.

Crown wrote:I for one am getting rather sick of it. Besides the notable point of him being un - coperative with other writers,

Over and over again, even trying to mess with their work (which is the great irony of the DESB, which make Thrawn much more insignificant and a traitor).

Crown wrote:the only major offence that Zahn has comitted is by being a minimalist,

He was the first EU writer to do so--I think a lot of responsibility for later problems falls on that. Marvel didn't have that problem so much. And WEG's scale isn't so bad (though their fucked up when it came to ships).

Crown wrote:and that is only a problem if you refuse to try and rationalise it as just focusing on on story out of a potential plethora of situations.

Really, let it go.

Oh its rationalizable. The point is, I'm happy and elated when a piece of EU work doesn't require these "fixes" and rationalizations. If they need to be made, its usually because someone messed up. And I think Zahn messed up.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2003-07-17 08:45pm

Also on Gary Kurtz: Indeed, the original intention was for Luke and his sister to have a final confrontation with the Emperor in Episode Nine. Dark Empire thematically and in plot reaches into the depths of Star Wars.