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PainRack wrote:Oh, it gets WORSE. Its the JEDI who are the ones driving for the personalisation of the Clone troopers and proclaiming their "human" value, as opposed to treating them as just products/units. We're introduced to this straight from G, well, High C canon itself when Obiwan reacts badly to the unit comment.

And we see this repeated in literally every major story arc, the first episode of TCW for example Ambush shows Master Yoda illustrating each clone individual personality, we had Obiwan driving for Commander Cody to be named.

Even funnier, there was nothing stopping Traviss from writing the same kinds of stories. A lot of that material was already out before she started writing for the EU, so there was already plenty of precedent. Instead, she made the bizarre decision to break with already established canon to write the Jedi as unfeeling monsters and the clones as saints, even when said clones adhere to the same "only following orders" cant commonly associated with the very Nazis she compares her critics to.

The only example we have where Clones were treated "worse" off than Jedi/humans was the Battle of Geonosis...... where the entire Clone Army was sent in to rescue 2 Jedi and a Senator. And of course, the surviving Jedi. Given that was one of their primary mission objectives, I see no problems with the Clone Army forming a perimeter around the defeated Jedi force while they evac.

Even then, that might have been more of a "grunts less important than military/political leaders", which while unfortunate would also be a fairly routine priority in a rescue op.

If one applies the premise of her article -- that how one responds to fictional characters illustrates one's personality -- then how does it make her look to have written numerous revisionist history hagiographies about a group with a several millennia-long history of brigandage and mercenary service to the worst scum in the galaxy?

That is some grade-A batshit insane cognitive dissonance and hypocrisy.

(Bonus Quiz for KT: Given your concern for the the treatment of clones as slaves, please explain why their wholesale massacre of droids, many of which we've seen have at least the potential for personalities as rich as human beings but are still almost all slaves with no rights kept down in part by erasing their minds on a regular basis, is a non-issue. Additional credit given for continuing to use the same condescending dismissals and violence-laden imagery which you accuse your critics of employing while you are in fact the worst -- and in many cases, sole -- offender.)

About the bonus quiz...
her characters actually do wonder about the morality of destroying droids. Occasionally.

Idiotic, but meh.

Anguirus wrote:There is a bit in the third quarter of the book [Death Star] where it started to sound just a bit like the authors were wanking their own RPG characters (there are about seven main characters and three of them have high midi-chlorian counts)

Wait... three? Nova I remember. Who were the other two?

Anguirus wrote:Conversely, I didn't like that the novel stuck one of its midichlorian-laced main characters in stormtrooper armor just in time to have him cock up opening the blast door and deliberately give Han a better chance of getting away. That bit was contrived, and not especially important for the character or his arc. In fact, the novel seemed to be dropping hints that he would be one of the detention block guards that Luke and Han encountered, but instead he's suddenly a stormtrooper for all of one chapter.

I think the author failed to/decided not to draw a distinction between the stormtroopers and various other Imperial security forces.

While I recognize how much EU canon there is to support that, I can sort of see why. The distinguishing feature of the stormtroopers isn't their elite organization, it's their body armor. You see someone in the white armor, you assume they're a stormtrooper. But there's no obvious reason why only members of an elite unit would be issued heavy body armor, if another force's mission called for it.

For prison guards, having heavy armor makes some sense: it makes it hard for prisoners (even prisoners with superhuman strength) to hurt you if they're unarmed, and provides some protection even if they manage to wrest a weapon away from you. Likewise for a platoon of troops being held ready in a central location to handle any disturbances in a large sector. They might very well armor up when they go on watch because if anything crazy does happen, the armor will help them deal with it.
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Again, I know that there's a lot of canon to the effect that stormtroopers are an elite special forces/shock troop organization within the larger Imperial military, and thus that the only people who'd ever be wearing the armor are the aforesaid elite. But I can see why that might not be so in a reasonable universe, and I'm inclined to forgive that sort of breach of canon.

Wait... three? Nova I remember. Who were the other two?

Nova is the one Vader notices. Stihl is also a definite...heck, he's the one who blacks out when Alderaan is destroyed and has prophetic dreams. Ratua is the one I may not be able to blame on Reaves and Perry...but they did give him "super speed" and the Star Wars Encyclopedia shortly thereafter decreed that he had a high count. (From Wookieepedia.)

I can deal with it, as the DS has a million people on it and these are just the special ones that get written about. Still, there are bits in the book when it feels slightly author-wankish. They just can't seem to resist those Force-sensitives.

Again, I know that there's a lot of canon to the effect that stormtroopers are an elite special forces/shock troop organization within the larger Imperial military, and thus that the only people who'd ever be wearing the armor are the aforesaid elite. But I can see why that might not be so in a reasonable universe, and I'm inclined to forgive that sort of breach of canon.

I thought it was only illegal for civilians and that other branches of the imperial forces had access to it.

Anguirus wrote:

Wait... three? Nova I remember. Who were the other two?

Nova is the one Vader notices. Stihl is also a definite...heck, he's the one who blacks out when Alderaan is destroyed and has prophetic dreams. Ratua is the one I may not be able to blame on Reaves and Perry...but they did give him "super speed" and the Star Wars Encyclopedia shortly thereafter decreed that he had a high count. (From Wookieepedia.)

Nova Stihl is one guy. That's his name. The person you think of as Nova is probably the architect lady, whose name is... Teela. Looking at that scene, and at Vader's recollection of it (p. 118):

"Amazing, Vader reflected, how many highly ranked naval officers did have weak minds. They were good at following orders, but he could read them easily, even without the Force. The language of their bodies spoke volumes about their inner thoughts.

Not everyone here was weak-minded, however... He couldn't feel the Force flowing in her- she was no Jedi- but her mind was strong..."

Yes, kind of wankish, all told. But it raises a question I've wondered about for a while. Our best primary source on the Jedi mind trick is Obi-Wan, who says that "The Force can have a strong influence on the weak-minded." Does "weak-minded" mean "not a Force adept," "lacking the potential to become a Force adept," or "lacking some mental quality such as willpower or discipline?"

Clearly, you could have someone with no genetic predisposition to Force use who had mental virtues that gave them disciplined thoughts. Would such a person be a more resistant target to the Jedi mind trick, or more difficult for a Jedi to read? We know that there are certain species that are unusually resistant to the mind trick, but how much individual variation is there in the mundane population?
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As for the third guy, as I recall Ratua wasn't really described as having high midichlorians in the book. He's just fast, or at least capable of bursts of exceptional speed. But it's a metabolic thing, not a Force sensitivity thing. You've got to figure that in a galaxy full of intelligent species, at least some of them will be freakishly fast by baseline human standards without being "Planet of the Jedi."

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Samuel wrote:

Again, I know that there's a lot of canon to the effect that stormtroopers are an elite special forces/shock troop organization within the larger Imperial military, and thus that the only people who'd ever be wearing the armor are the aforesaid elite. But I can see why that might not be so in a reasonable universe, and I'm inclined to forgive that sort of breach of canon.

I thought it was only illegal for civilians and that other branches of the imperial forces had access to it.

Maybe I'm wrong about canon. I'd expect to be if the canon were fully logical, but I've heard weird things about the stormtroopers such as "no organic logistics tail."

Woops. Point conceded...I did indeed mix up Nova and Teela, and missed the passage about the Force not being in her. Still, it's pretty odd that she drew Vader's attention like that, and then did so again during a pitched space battle.

Are you actually expressing surprise that an EU product seems like fanfiction?

Anguirus wrote:Woops. Point conceded...I did indeed mix up Nova and Teela, and missed the passage about the Force not being in her. Still, it's pretty odd that she drew Vader's attention like that, and then did so again during a pitched space battle.

I don't consider it so odd for her to draw Vader's attention, at least initially; as Vader mused at the start of the scene in question, so many officers of the Galactic Empire were weak-minded and he clearly had the same opinion about the rest of the people around him. It was surprising for him, then, when one turned out to have such a strong mind. Since Vader's interest in the issue was just a passing one, it's nothing truly important (especially since Vader didn't detect any Force-sensitivity in her). Just something that momentarily piqued the Dark Lord's interest.

Since fanfiction usually doesn't have editors, yes.

I would expect the wank to be toned down.

Are you actually expressing surprise that an EU product seems like fanfiction?

More like regret. It's the only lame thing about a good work of EU.

I once wrote a fanfic when I was 9. It had the Empire training Gorax and equipping them as giant storm troopers.

By now I'm honestly surprised nobody's tried that in the EU.

^ I wish I had your brilliant mind, sir.

CaptainChewbacca wrote:I once wrote a fanfic when I was 9. It had the Empire training Gorax and equipping them as giant storm troopers.

By now I'm honestly surprised nobody's tried that in the EU.

There was a Marvel Comic along those same lines, but the giant stormtroopers weren't Gorax.

I wouldn't get too happy; supposedly, her Imperial Commando books are still coming out. It'll probably have them hunting down the last of the Nazi-Jedi who continue their reign of terror against the lawful, morally upright government, and on their days off teach good olde time Mando'a values to impressionable young women after sweeping them off their feet.

And people wonder why I gave up on the EU novels during NJO.

Balrog wrote:I wouldn't get too happy; supposedly, her Imperial Commando books are still coming out. It'll probably have them hunting down the last of the Nazi-Jedi who continue their reign of terror against the lawful, morally upright government, and on their days off teach good olde time Mando'a values to impressionable young women after sweeping them off their feet.

Are you kidding? Didn't the one ComMandalorian marry a Jedi or something? I'll bet we see them fight off Vader and a bunch of non-clone stormtroopers in an epic struggle before leaving the galaxy to form their own Force-powered mando colony or something.

The Jedi who had a baby with the Clone Commando was killed during order 66 when she stepped in between a lightsaber and a bunch of clones who were trying to murder Jedi.

Now the uber-mandos have devoted themselves to tracking down the remaining jedi and avenging her death.

No, I'm not kidding.

Darksider wrote:The Jedi who had a baby with the Clone Commando was killed during order 66 when she stepped in between a lightsaber and a bunch of clones who were trying to murder Jedi.

What was her motivation, trying to stop the Jedi or the clones?

Darksider wrote:The Jedi who had a baby with the Clone Commando was killed during order 66 when she stepped in between a lightsaber and a bunch of clones who were trying to murder Jedi.

Now the uber-mandos have devoted themselves to tracking down the remaining jedi and avenging her death.

You're fucking kidding right?

No, I'm not kidding.

Karmic Knight wrote:

Darksider wrote:The Jedi who had a baby with the Clone Commando was killed during order 66 when she stepped in between a lightsaber and a bunch of clones who were trying to murder Jedi.

What was her motivation, trying to stop the Jedi or the clones?

Stopping the Jedi. Clones are people too!

Samuel wrote:
Stopping the Jedi. Clones are people too!

And Jedi aren't! They have no right to defend themselves and not be murdered to the last!

Perhaps this whole thing can be rationalised as psychotic delusions brought on by clone madness.

Or we can pretend it's an alternate universe

Samuel wrote:Stopping the Jedi. Clones are people too!

What?! That makes no sense. So the Jedi should just lay down and die? Fuck, Traviss is stupid.