Traviss quits SW

[Thanas]

Faceless masses of cloned killers who gleefully exterminate whole populations, to boot.

Who did the clones exterminate in the prequel era? Was it something from one of the cartoons?

Well, seeing as they immediately became the stormtroopers, they were of course the centerpiece for the following subjugation campaigns.

[Darth Hoth]

But by then they used inferior non-Wankalorian clone templates who had no Honor'rea! Real Mandos would never exterminate anyone . . . except people who are obviously elitist and evil, of course!

[Tiriol]

But by then they used inferior non-Wankalorian clone templates who had no Honor'rea! Real Mandos would never exterminate anyone . . . except people who are obviously elitist and evil, of course!

I think that there is one incident in the series Dark Times where pure Kaminoan-bred clonetroopers exterminate surrendered prisoners some time after the official end of the Clone Wars.

The prisoners were probably Mandalorian-haters or some such, or would be, had Ms. Traviss written that particular story.

[Elfdart]

Wow. What a long-winded way to answer, "Yes. But I don't want to say yes with my boss listening. All you people suck."

She's deranged, and has a persecution complex. She wanks to the Mandalorians and Clonetroopers, so who's the real Nazi? You can't love Warrior-monks with ascetic virtues, but you can love faceless masses of cloned killers with guns.

She's a total lunatic with some serious projection issues.

She's also channeling David Brin's bullshit assertion that the Jedi are "sinister".

[Elfdart]

Who did the clones exterminate in the prequel era? Was it something from one of the cartoons?

Did you watch Revenge of the Sith?

[Elfdart]

Problem is Lucas DIDN'T (directly) authorize most if any of the EU. He delegated that job to LFL, who made a complete mess of it. At best you can blame the man for not making sure the guys at LFL would care about continuity as well as sales. And since he apparently doesn't particularly care about the EU anyway...
Yes, the mess that is the EU by now (probably has been since there WAS such a thing as an official EU) is a disgrace. But if you want to blame someone, blame the people at LFL who apparently didn't even to bother read the garbage they declared canon.

I agree. The notion that Lucas should have taken time out his busy schedule of making Star Wars, Indiana Jones or Red Tails to worry about secondary characters in a spinoff dime novel or comic book is absurd.

[Solauren]

If I recall correctly, the only EU that George Lucas even carried about was the original Thrawn Trilogy (which he had to green light, then let LFL take over), and the Dark Empire comics trilogy (which he gave to people as presents).

You'll notice the EU went downhill AFTER that... (With the odd exception)

[Darth Hoth]

Who did the clones exterminate in the prequel era? Was it something from one of the cartoons?

Did you watch Revenge of the Sith?

Um, yes? What population did they supposedly wipe out there, the Utapauans? If you were referring to the Jedi, they are not what I would describe as a "population".

I agree. The notion that Lucas should have taken time out his busy schedule of making Star Wars, Indiana Jones or Red Tails to worry about secondary characters in a spinoff dime novel or comic book is absurd.

Yes, I am sure that he works day and night to give us quality entertainment out of the goodness of his heart. Just like Santa Claus. The poor, misunderstood genius.

No one forced him to approve any secondary material at all; if he was so busy that he could not be bothered, he could have refused to release anything. But now that he has approved it, I can and will hold him responsible for its quality.

[PainRack]

Her entire stupid screed is nothing but a vapid strawman / false dilemma attack- I highly doubt anyone ever said the deaths of clones was somehow more acceptable than the death of anyone else, it's just her invented bullshit. It merits no serious response, since she's not responding to any real claim. She proceeds from "Jedi had no choice but to lead the Clone Army" to "Jedi are obviously villains of the story". She's a fool.

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.

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.

Indeed, its the Republic itself who denied the individuality and the human value of the clonetroopers, from the Mon Calamari Admiral who had no qualms in a high casualty rate for training exercises and the Senate who had no qualms with testing advanced bio-droids against Clone Troopers and ARC troopers.

[Thanas]

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.

Also, Aayla Secura risked her life many times over and over for her clones, both in comis and in TCW. Furthermore, we see one Jedi even sacrificing her life in a comic so that more clones do not die in an attack.

[Elfdart]

Um, yes? What population did they supposedly wipe out there, the Utapauans? If you were referring to the Jedi, they are not what I would describe as a "population".

How convenient.

I agree. The notion that Lucas should have taken time out his busy schedule of making Star Wars, Indiana Jones or Red Tails to worry about secondary characters in a spinoff dime novel or comic book is absurd.

Yes, I am sure that he works day and night to give us quality entertainment out of the goodness of his heart. Just like Santa Claus. The poor, misunderstood genius.

Are you really this dense?

No one forced him to approve any secondary material at all; if he was so busy that he could not be bothered, he could have refused to release anything. But now that he has approved it, I can and will hold him responsible for its quality.

Fair enough, but do you also give him credit for the DK books and other spinoffs that aren't an embarrassment?

[NecronLord]

I'm actually looking forward to Mandalorians in the new series of Clone Wars now. I think they're probably what made her throw her toys out of the pram.

[Darth Hoth]

How convenient.

What? The question I asked was specifically what "populations" they had wiped out. A religious order does not under any definition that I am aware of constitute a "population".

Are you really this dense?

No. But I am sure his schedule is not so terribly "busy" that he could not waste the minutes necessary to read a couple of story outlines before they are approved, should he choose to. You are confusing "can't" with "won't".

Fair enough, but do you also give him credit for the DK books and other spinoffs that aren't an embarrassment?

I give credit where it is due. Him being in charge, he is ultimately responsible for the good as well as the bad, and sometimes more directly responsible as well (for example, his involvement with the Tom Veitch/KJA comics runs).

[Havok]

Oh knock off the semantics Hoth. The clones wiped out a religious order numbering almost 10,000. Just because it doesn't fall under Merriam-Webster's definition of 'population' or whatever, doesn't make it any better.

Also, I am sick of people citing Dark Empire as something Lucas took an 'interest' in, when to my recollection, all that happened was he read it after it was done and decided it would make a nice office X-mas present or some such.

[Elfdart]

What? The question I asked was specifically what "populations" they had wiped out. A religious order does not under any definition that I am aware of constitute a "population".

Judaism is a religious order.

[Samuel]

What? The question I asked was specifically what "populations" they had wiped out. A religious order does not under any definition that I am aware of constitute a "population".

Judaism is a religious order.

You are confusing the ethnicity with the religion- they are two seperate things.

[Darth Wong]

Since when is the word "population" so narrowly defined?

[Elfdart]

Since when is the word "population" so narrowly defined?

When Hoth wants to talk out of his ass.

You are confusing the ethnicity with the religion- they are two seperate things.

Judaism is a religion; Jewishness is an ethnic and cultural group.

[Connor MacLeod]

Um, yes? What population did they supposedly wipe out there, the Utapauans? If you were referring to the Jedi, they are not what I would describe as a "population".

For fuck's sake, you can't be bothered to do a simple 5-second google search on the definition of population?

S: (n) population (the people who inhabit a territory or state) "the population seemed to be well fed and clothed"
S: (n) population (a group of organisms of the same species inhabiting a given area) "they hired hunters to keep down the deer population"
S: (n) population, universe ((statistics) the entire aggregation of items from which samples can be drawn) "it is an estimate of the mean of the population"
S: (n) population (the number of inhabitants (either the total number or the number of a particular race or class) in a given place (country or city etc.)) "people come and go, but the population of this town has remained approximately constant for the past decade"; "the African-American population of Salt Lake City has been increasing"
S: (n) population (the act of populating (causing to live in a place)) "he deplored the population of colonies with convicted criminals"

There's also this one

1 a : the whole number of people or inhabitants in a country or region b : the total of individuals occupying an area or making up a whole c : the total of particles at a particular energy level —used especially of atoms in a laser
2 : the act or process of populating
3 a : a body of persons or individuals having a quality or characteristic in common b (1) : the organisms inhabiting a particular locality (2) : a group of interbreeding organisms that represents the level of organization at which speciation begins
4 : a group of individual persons, objects, or items from which samples are taken for statistical measurement

It's amazing you can lecture me on "how I can't do analysis and how I behave like a Trektard" in one thread and then do something like this in another.

[Ritterin Sophia]

But by then they used inferior non-Wankalorian clone templates who had no Honor'rea! Real Mandos would never exterminate anyone . . . except people who are obviously elitist and evil, of course!

Don't forget that the Empire replaced all those great clonetroopers equipment with the inferior and dirty equipment of the Empire (even though the E-11 looks like a more refined version of the DC-15, it's obviously worse because it looks shoddy, not because it would be well used )

PS: Have I mentioned how much I hate most of the non-Tech side of the fandom?

[Anguirus]

Well, I picked up Death Star and quite enjoyed it. Spoilers for a book that's been out for awhile:










There is a bit in the third quarter of the book 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) but by the end it all comes together pretty well (as the Force-sensitive characters and their friends are the ones that are so upset by the destruction of Alderaan that they engineer a plan to defect, and their escape shuttle distracts Vader for long enough so that he doesn't sense the presence of Skywalker and shoot him down right after he leaves the docking bay). The humor in the book is great, and the pathos works decently well. Such topics as the mistakes that lead to the construction of the fateful exhaust port, the delays suffered between the proto-DS at the end of RotS and the construction of the real one starting not terribly long before ANH, the mysterious repeated "Stand by" that delays the superlaser blast that would have destroyed Yavin 4, the reason why they didn't just point the superlaser at Yavin as soon as they flew into the system, and the brain damage that explains virtually everything about the character of Admiral Daala are covered.

Why isn't more Star Wars like this?

[Bounty]

the mysterious repeated "Stand by" that delays the superlaser blast that would have destroyed Yavin 4

what

That is perhaps the stupidest thing you could want to "explain" in a novel. It's a big piece of machinery operating with a complex startup procedure; is that so bad it now needs "explaining"? What, should every planet-sized death beam have nothing more than a start and stop button?

[Anguirus]

^ You misunderstand. Every time the superlaser is fired during the book there is a long, complex start-up procedure...in fact, they have to abort due to errors in all of their early tests.

What it refers to is the fact that there is no "stand by" command during the destruction of Alderaan, plus it seemed to take a much shorter time overall. However, during the Yavin sequence the gunner (who has no idea that the torpedoes have just been fired, of course) is having a crisis of conscience (due to, well, just blasting Alderaan) and with the firing sequence complete, and just as everyone is expecting him to pull the lever, he desperately tries to come up with some excuse to delay firing. So he just starts saying "Stand by..."

There's no NEED to "explain" that, of course, but as the end of a major character's arc in a 400+ page book, I thought it was kinda cool. And I must have thought 20 times as a kid that the superlaser ought to have had time to fire on Yavin at the end of the trench run, and was perplexed by the "stand bys" so it was cool that an author had had the same thought.

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.

[Steel]

As far as I know in a military context "stand by" actually means "imminent". As in:
"how long?"
"2 minutes"
"how long?"
"1 minute"
"how long?"
"Stand by"

[Dooey Jo]

the mysterious repeated "Stand by" that delays the superlaser blast that would have destroyed Yavin 4

what

That is perhaps the stupidest thing you could want to "explain" in a novel. It's a big piece of machinery operating with a complex startup procedure; is that so bad it now needs "explaining"? What, should every planet-sized death beam have nothing more than a start and stop button?

Don't you know that every single thing that happens in the films is hugely important? Like the red droid Luke wanted to buy instead of Artoo; why that was a Jedi droid that committed seppuku to save the galaxy by making Luke buy Artoo! (Though that story might have just taken the piss with the whole idea of fleshing out even the most minor of details.)