The New Jedi Order - A Look Back.

JME2 · Post by **JME2** » 2003-11-03 07:57pm

Tomorrow, the final book of the story-arc will go on sale (if is hasn't already in some areas; see http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic. ... highlight=). After four years, the long war that has brought those brave souls to the breaking point will end. It's at this point that I'd like for the Star Wars fans to look back and contemplate.

As we know, the year was 1999. Timothy Zahn's Hand of Thrawn duology had put an end to the weekly crisis for Coruscant and had left the slate clean for the future of the GFFA. We, the readers thought it was a chance for peacy to finally prevail after decades of war and rebellion. It should have been a new era filled with new hopes and new peace

But Fate was not ready to let the fires of conflict dissipate in that galaxy far, far away, and we saw the death of the Wookie in the pilot novel. From that point on, we knew that there could be no turning back, that this was a threat unlike any we have seen.

That was four years ago. Now, we are at the conclusion. The final battle is about to begin, with both sides, the Galactic Alliance and the Yuuzhan Vong. Sacrifice after sacrifice has been made. Characters that we have known and hate have kicked the bucket, from Anakin Solo to Borsk Fey'lya (I was so happy that he died in Star by Star, though I can't help but wonder what Timothy Zahn's response was to the death of his Bothan creation) and planets that we know and love are not as they once were, from Ithor to Coruscant itself.

Well, here's to a grand finale to a grand series.

May the Force be with them and with us.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-11-04 12:46am

My feelings about NJO are entirely mixed at this point.

The first few books were entertaining but ultimately forgettable. There was quite a bit of shitty writing, and the Anakin Solo at Centerpoint debacle from Jedi Eclipse was one of the lamest attempts at creating an Important Moral Dilemma I've seen in maybe ever.

Then came Conquest, and the series began to improve, and with the unfortunate exception of that awful book, Dark Journey, it didn't really falter for a long time. Traitor and Star by Star were the high points of the series.

Since Refugee, however, the books have felt like nothing more than pointless filler. Not enough has happened in them. The writers apparently forgot the transformation undergone by Jacen Solo in Traitor, and all and all I don't believe they've done a very good job winding things down for the end of the series. I hope for the best with the Unifying Force, but I'm expecting a very rushed conclusion.

Connor MacLeod · Post by **Connor MacLeod** » 2003-11-04 12:55am

Vector Prime had some interesting things, but was not really gripping (I did like the willingness to kill off Chewbacca, no matter how that pissed people off...) but it really wasnt til Agents of Chaos 1 and 2 that things got interesting... then it slacked off until Star by Star... which was when it got really good (except for the filler books like Traitor, or some such..) - the Allston duology was good, Destiny's Way was decent, and I suppose the Force Heretic trilogy was ok... as was Gregory Keyes's contributions (I loathed Stackpole's stuff and Traitor...)

I am anticipating a decent if not very good read, since Luceno is doing the final book (He did really well with Cloak of Deception, so maybe he'll pull off another thing like that in the upcoming book...) but relaly the High Point was Troy Denning and Allston's books.

Darth Fanboy · Post by **Darth Fanboy** » 2003-11-04 01:12am

Is that a creative misspelling in the thread title?

while Im somewhat willing tto overlook the whole "organic Tech" thing, It still sucks to think of Coruscant as destroyed. That would have been the greatest Backdrop for a final battle, since the only Battle of Coruscant I can recall was a Snore-Fest written by Stackpole.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2003-11-04 01:13am

I personally cannot forgive what they did to Coruscant. They might as well have just totally destroyed it.

No matter the outcome of the series, in my opinion Coruscant as a world no longer exists...

Icehawk · Post by **Icehawk** » 2003-11-04 01:37am

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:I personally cannot forgive what they did to Coruscant. They might as well have just totally destroyed it.

No matter the outcome of the series, in my opinion Coruscant as a world no longer exists...

Im afraid to ask, but what did they do to Coruscant? I havent read a thing of Vong saga and know only bits and pieces of the story.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2003-11-04 01:43am

Icehawk wrote:Im afraid to ask, but what did they do to Coruscant? I havent read a thing of Vong saga and know only bits and pieces of the story.

The Completely Unofficial Star Wars Encyclopedia wrote:During the Yuuzhan Vong invasion of the galaxy, Coruscant's defenses were augmented by the addition of a shell of orbital space mines. While these protected the planet, they forced all traffic to follow a handful of travel bands, causing massive traffic jams in the space over the planet. This ring of mines failed to stop the Yuuzhan Vong, some two years after their initial invasion, when the aliens used suicide bombers to eliminate the mines before launching an all-out attack on the planet. Borsk Fey'lya was forced to cede control of Coruscant to the Yuuzhan Vong, and the New Republic fled the system in disarray. When the Republic's forces were finally defeated, the city lights of Coruscant went out for the first time in many millennia. The Yuuzhan Vong then destroyed much of the planet's surface, using dovin basals to drag skyhooks and orbital satellites down and crashing them into the planet. This served two purposes: it eliminated much of the orbital technology, and it caused a widespread psychological fear into the planet's survivors. Within weeks, much of Coruscant was overgrown with fungus and algae. Those New Republic citizens who survived the initial attacks were faced several bleak alternatives: dying of starvation, as much of the food production system was destroyed; dying of thirst, since no open water sources were to be found; being killed over a cache of food or water; or dying at the hands of the Yuuzhan Vong. Within months, a large portion of the population was dead or dying, and massive Vongforming efforts were under way. The planet's largest moon was destroyed so that it's debris could assist in the reformation of the planet's surface. Immense dovin basals were used to drag Coruscant into a tighter orbit around its star, creating a more tropical atmopshere. Other dovin basals moved the remaining three moons into a new, complex orbit. Vast amounts of material, displaced during the destruction of the cities, was thrown into nearspace and allowed to form a ring, assisted by the tidal pull of the three moons. This ring of debris resembled a braided rainbow when seen from the surface, and was known to the Yuuzhan Vong as The Bridge. A dhuryam World Brain was installed deep in the planet's crust, and speciallized mosses and lichens were used to break down duracrete and other building materials. The Yuuzhan Vong had remade Courscant in the image of their long-lost homeworld, Yuuzhan'tar.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-11-04 02:12am

NJO, it for the most part sucked. It had hell of a lot of potential in the basic idea but the actual execution was sorely lacking.

So much of the series was so very mediocre, only Star By Star came close to a good novel and even then it was hampered by the simple fact that so much of the plot just plain sucked. It was mostly bad writing piled on barely concealed plot devices and needless and pointless character deaths. And the attempt at changing the atmosphere of the GFFA was poorly executed. The whole thing just didn't work for me.

After the utter low of Dark Journey I stoped reading the series and Star Wars in general, previous to that I had read faithfully every major adult Star Wars novel. I think that sums up my feelings about the NJO.

Icehawk · Post by **Icehawk** » 2003-11-04 11:26am

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:
Icehawk wrote:Im afraid to ask, but what did they do to Coruscant? I havent read a thing of Vong saga and know only bits and pieces of the story.

The Completely Unofficial Star Wars Encyclopedia wrote:During the Yuuzhan Vong invasion of the galaxy, Coruscant's defenses were augmented by the addition of a shell of orbital space mines. While these protected the planet, they forced all traffic to follow a handful of travel bands, causing massive traffic jams in the space over the planet. This ring of mines failed to stop the Yuuzhan Vong, some two years after their initial invasion, when the aliens used suicide bombers to eliminate the mines before launching an all-out attack on the planet. Borsk Fey'lya was forced to cede control of Coruscant to the Yuuzhan Vong, and the New Republic fled the system in disarray. When the Republic's forces were finally defeated, the city lights of Coruscant went out for the first time in many millennia. The Yuuzhan Vong then destroyed much of the planet's surface, using dovin basals to drag skyhooks and orbital satellites down and crashing them into the planet. This served two purposes: it eliminated much of the orbital technology, and it caused a widespread psychological fear into the planet's survivors. Within weeks, much of Coruscant was overgrown with fungus and algae. Those New Republic citizens who survived the initial attacks were faced several bleak alternatives: dying of starvation, as much of the food production system was destroyed; dying of thirst, since no open water sources were to be found; being killed over a cache of food or water; or dying at the hands of the Yuuzhan Vong. Within months, a large portion of the population was dead or dying, and massive Vongforming efforts were under way. The planet's largest moon was destroyed so that it's debris could assist in the reformation of the planet's surface. Immense dovin basals were used to drag Coruscant into a tighter orbit around its star, creating a more tropical atmopshere. Other dovin basals moved the remaining three moons into a new, complex orbit. Vast amounts of material, displaced during the destruction of the cities, was thrown into nearspace and allowed to form a ring, assisted by the tidal pull of the three moons. This ring of debris resembled a braided rainbow when seen from the surface, and was known to the Yuuzhan Vong as The Bridge. A dhuryam World Brain was installed deep in the planet's crust, and speciallized mosses and lichens were used to break down duracrete and other building materials. The Yuuzhan Vong had remade Courscant in the image of their long-lost homeworld, Yuuzhan'tar.

................................................

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2003-11-04 12:12pm

At the risk of inciting a mob:

Good.

I will be glad to see NJO go. It was like so many peices of bad sci-fi: Full of brainbugs, badly concealed plot devices, and desperate attempts to bend characters to fit some preconceived plan. A Round Robin of immense scale, it's high points are overshadowed by the crap that routinely seemed to drop into the other slots.

In short, I dislike the series. Let it die.

Post by **Kuja** » 2003-11-04 12:21pm

SirNitram wrote:In short, I dislike the series. Let it die.

You are not alone.

For me, the NJO had some high points and some low points, but overall, it sucked. Dark Journey and Vector Prime remain scars on my memory. Jedi Eclipse was lame, and so was the Force Heretics. Star By Star, Traitor, and Tatooine Ghost all made decent attempts, but they were working with damaged goods.

The NJO has driven a knife into my eagerness to buy SW novels and cut it to the bone. Now, I'm extremely suspicious of anything being sold by the EU.

Jason von Evil · Post by **Jason von Evil** » 2003-11-04 12:33pm

Be funny and nice is Lucas came out and announced that the NJO is non canon.

JME2 · Post by **JME2** » 2003-11-04 03:13pm

Aya wrote:Be funny and nice is Lucas came out and announced that the NJO is non canon.

Lucas says everything is non-canon - look at the Death Star in AoTC

Jason von Evil · Post by **Jason von Evil** » 2003-11-04 03:32pm

Edit: Nevermind.

PeZook · Post by **PeZook** » 2003-11-04 03:46pm

Spanky The Dolphin wrote:
The Completely Unofficial Star Wars Encyclopedia wrote:During the Yuuzhan Vong invasion of the galaxy, Coruscant's defenses were augmented by the addition of a shell of orbital space mines. While these protected the planet, they forced all traffic to follow a handful of travel bands, causing massive traffic jams in the space over the planet. This ring of mines failed to stop the Yuuzhan Vong, some two years after their initial invasion, when the aliens used suicide bombers to eliminate the mines before launching an all-out attack on the planet. Borsk Fey'lya was forced to cede control of Coruscant to the Yuuzhan Vong, and the New Republic fled the system in disarray. When the Republic's forces were finally defeated, the city lights of Coruscant went out for the first time in many millennia. The Yuuzhan Vong then destroyed much of the planet's surface, using dovin basals to drag skyhooks and orbital satellites down and crashing them into the planet. This served two purposes: it eliminated much of the orbital technology, and it caused a widespread psychological fear into the planet's survivors. Within weeks, much of Coruscant was overgrown with fungus and algae. Those New Republic citizens who survived the initial attacks were faced several bleak alternatives: dying of starvation, as much of the food production system was destroyed; dying of thirst, since no open water sources were to be found; being killed over a cache of food or water; or dying at the hands of the Yuuzhan Vong. Within months, a large portion of the population was dead or dying, and massive Vongforming efforts were under way. The planet's largest moon was destroyed so that it's debris could assist in the reformation of the planet's surface. Immense dovin basals were used to drag Coruscant into a tighter orbit around its star, creating a more tropical atmopshere. Other dovin basals moved the remaining three moons into a new, complex orbit. Vast amounts of material, displaced during the destruction of the cities, was thrown into nearspace and allowed to form a ring, assisted by the tidal pull of the three moons. This ring of debris resembled a braided rainbow when seen from the surface, and was known to the Yuuzhan Vong as The Bridge. A dhuryam World Brain was installed deep in the planet's crust, and speciallized mosses and lichens were used to break down duracrete and other building materials. The Yuuzhan Vong had remade Courscant in the image of their long-lost homeworld, Yuuzhan'tar.

What...you mean, Fey'lya ceded control and...that's it?

Trillions of inhabitants, many of them armed, a planetary police force outnumbering the goddamned Red Army, and all we got to see was a lame takeover?

Why didn't the population fight? Why weren't there a giant guerrilla campaign, where each citizen (by this point, knowing full well what the Vong do to the populations of captured planets) took up arms. Coruscant could be turned into a battleground from hell, compared with which Stalingrad was a walk in the park on a sunny day - and that would have made one HELL of an epic war image for the series. But no, the Vong landed, and the planet was theirs.

I'm glad I didn't buy a single one of the NJO books.

Wild Karrde · Post by **Wild Karrde** » 2003-11-04 04:23pm

PeZook wrote:What...you mean, Fey'lya ceded control and...that's it?

Actually as he let some of the Vong landing force into the Imperial Palace he was stabbed by one of the Vong with an ampistaff (sp?).

Anyway to make a long story short, he had the self-destruct set to his heart beat and after he slowly died from the posion He took the Imperial Palace out along with 25,000 Vong with him.

PeZook · Post by **PeZook** » 2003-11-04 05:50pm

Wild Karrde wrote:
PeZook wrote:What...you mean, Fey'lya ceded control and...that's it?
Actually as he let some of the Vong landing force into the Imperial Palace he was stabbed by one of the Vong with an ampistaff (sp?).

Anyway to make a long story short, he had the self-destruct set to his heart beat and after he slowly died from the posion He took the Imperial Palace out along with 25,000 Vong with him.

Hmm...I didn't expect that of him, to be honest

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2003-11-04 05:58pm

They did WHAAAATT to Coruscant!?!?!?!?!???

I hope someone drags that planet back to where it was and rebuilds that huge city that made Coruscant what it was.

Lord Pounder · Post by **Lord Pounder** » 2003-11-04 06:06pm

I'm still reading it. i'm onto part 2 of Force Heratic. I started reading them in August. They've had some good moments, Rebel Dream and Rebel Stand where very good. Reminant wasn't as good as i'd been lead to believe and over all it just left me cold. Pwoe and his fellow council was a fucking joke and don't get me started on Porkry Pellaeon.

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2003-11-04 08:08pm

I'm at chapter 10. It's no Star by Star, but I'm liking it better then Destiney's Way so far.

JME2 · Post by **JME2** » 2003-11-04 08:11pm

Darth Fanboy wrote:Is that a creative misspelling in the thread title?

while Im somewhat willing tto overlook the whole "organic Tech" thing, It still sucks to think of Coruscant as destroyed. That would have been the greatest Backdrop for a final battle, since the only Battle of Coruscant I can recall was a Snore-Fest written by Stackpole.

It's been fixed.

JME2 · Post by **JME2** » 2003-11-04 08:12pm

Icehawk wrote: FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was, especially considering that Star by Star came out right after 9/11.

JME2 · Post by **JME2** » 2003-11-04 08:14pm

Kuja wrote:
SirNitram wrote:In short, I dislike the series. Let it die.
You are not alone.

For me, the NJO had some high points and some low points, but overall, it sucked. Dark Journey and Vector Prime remain scars on my memory. Jedi Eclipse was lame, and so was the Force Heretics. Star By Star, Traitor, and Tatooine Ghost all made decent attempts, but they were working with damaged goods.

The NJO has driven a knife into my eagerness to buy SW novels and cut it to the bone. Now, I'm extremely suspicious of anything being sold by the EU.

Tatooine Ghost was not part of the NJO - it was a bridge novel for The Courtship of Princess Leia and the Thrawn trilogy, at the same time answering some of the prequel qustions.

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2003-11-04 08:40pm

Shinova wrote:They did WHAAAATT to Coruscant!?!?!?!?!???

I hope someone drags that planet back to where it was and rebuilds that huge city that made Coruscant what it was.

Why even bother? It's no longer Coruscant - just some twisted perversion of its former self. They might as well just leave it as it is or blow it up.

The eternally shining beakon of the Galaxy has finally been extinguished...

Darth Fanboy · Post by **Darth Fanboy** » 2003-11-04 08:48pm

Kuja wrote:
SirNitram wrote:Star By Star, Traitor, and Tatooine Ghost

Whoa, Tatooine ghost is NJO? But it takes place Prior to the Thrawn Trilogy...