Stellar_Magic

Well I just realized I haven't posted much from the action sequences (There won't be all that many in this book but hey, you've got to get some action) This is from the climax of the story. Luke, Mara, and Ben are stuck at Nirauan while the Rapora systematically destroy the facility. With the Jade Shadow destroyed they try and help the evacuation as best they can. Imperial Admiral Baros Oreton arrived to assist in the evacuation and found himself in the fight of his life. In the midst of the battle the UDA cruiser Shield of the Free would arrive to evacuate the last personnel including Luke, Mara, and Ben. This scene is from the Raporan attack on the evacuation ships... The whine and scream of ion engines rent the air above the group as they ran. Overhead the dark shapes of starfighters flashed too and fro above the barren red rock of the Nirauan. The occasional green flash of turbolaser fire reflected through the darkened clouds overhead. The dark silhouettes of the enemy fighters were illuminated by the brilliant flash of weaponry. Their claw shaped wings spat brilliant gold fire before them as they jockeyed into firing position on the chiss clawcraft which had once ruled the skies. The dying whine and explosion of a tumbling chiss fighter crashing into the rugged hills reverberated around the group of Hand personnel racing out of the caverns and tunnels which led back to the complex. Luke stood at the tunnel entrance, his lightsaber ablaze. He urged them on with the force and his presence. His voice echoed down the cavern, “Come on, move it. Hurry up. Help that man.â€

Technically the Ohka is a suicide rocket plane not a jet, but by the time of the invasion the Japanese had produced nearly as many jet aircraft as the Germans had. They held these units in reserve however and they didn't see combat. Japanese plans indicate the invasion would have met thousands of rocket, jet, and kamakazi aircraft in the first few hours. Some historians have gone so far as to openly say that such an invasion would have failed.

No, JI is right. A standard MC80 (MC80s include the following vessels Liberty, Defiance, and Independence) can carry four squadrons. Check out the Star Wars Technical Commentaries... The Home One is a ship over twice the size of an MC80 and has many more hanger bays. Its only logical that it can carry more.

I agree, James Earl Jones did an awesome job playing Admiral Greer. He's been in so many other films, I mean he's done some excellent work since Star Wars.

Interesting, but I think it would make more sense for both sides to be able to loose morale at the death of a hero, maybe having a randomizer so there's a small chance that units morale will increase in order to avenge the death.

I've decided to make it so Jag is intentionally being kept int he dark, General Fel wouldn't be pleased if he talked to freely with Jaina.

I'm amused, this is pretty close to what Thrawn does in the story. He has his own faction, (Two if you count the Empire of the Hand) that has been designed specifically to police the unknown regions. The chiss may not have wanted to take him back but they're forced to call on his aid, (I'm going to play off the Survivor's Quest hints as to Thrawn's relations with the Chiss. I'm betting that Fombri sp? is something of a go between for the two.) Thrawn's motives remain a mystery throughout Zahn's work, perhaps we can glean something from Outbound Flight... In VotF Thrawn is portrayed by his agents as being somewhat more of a guardian figure then a conquer. There is still so much we don't know. Did he have family or children? What was the specific instance that forced Thrawn into exile? What was his position within the Chiss hierachy? One of my aims was to give Thrawn a new dimension and I think I know how to do that without conflicting with Zahn's portrayal... Another aim has been to reconcile the portrayal of the Chiss in Survivor's Quest to the one in the NJO, here's an excert that helps to explain. Jaina sighed as she stepped out of the line in the mess hall with her bantha steak, ribenes, and golden-plate fruit. She glanced back at the pilots that shuffled past and shook her head. The combined fleet exercises which Admiral Kre’fey had put together were something more thanks to Cal Omas, it had become something of a diplomatic event. Units from the Hapes Consortium, the Chiss Ascendancy, Imperial Remnant, and the Galactic Federation of Free Alliances could all be displayed in the line waiting for food. To Jaina the seen was all too reminiscent of the desperate struggle of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion. She recognized many of the pilots amongst the group and could easily pick out some of the old war heroes which had come along for the show, Wes Janson, Tycho Celchu, and Wedge Antilles. Though none of them were any longer frontline pilots they had an important role to play here. The three acted as referees and advisors for those that were engaged in the fleet exercise and each one felt the importance of passing on what they’d learned to the next generation. A mission that Jaina herself knew all to well from the war. A group of twelve pilots in green on green uniforms stood huddled around Tycho and Antilles. Jaina smiled as she watched Antilles gesture a scissors maneuver with his hand while Tycho chuckled softly to himself. The Rogues remained an elite formation, and to each of the twelve young pilots in their classic green uniforms, they were the best. Jaina smiled to herself as Tycho glanced over to her and grinned, “Hey Sticks, the Rogues want to know when they can get a Jedi for their squadron.â€

If you tried that against me you'd see just a single muzzle flash from me before you were dead. You just have to know how to aim without the cursors.

I loved the game, there was nothing like setting it on license to kill mode and turning off all the aiming cursors along with autoaim. That really made it clear who were the real good players in the game. I squashed um flat with a pistol.

Sorry about the double post... Just finished Dark Nest I and I'm pretty angry, but hey I guess you have to work with what information you can get... It's also complicating the plot somewhat. In the original plot I was going to have Jacen's search for the Fallanasi come to an abrupt end when he finds that they have suffered from some form of attack. Unfortunately this doesn't fit with Dark Nest so I've decided that the incident will occur while Jacen is attempting to rejoin them after the events in Dark Nest. I'm going to have Zekk's and Jaina romantic relationship die due to seperation from the Killik nests. Cilghal will have created some form of antidote to the pheremonces which caused their mental bonds and its administration will break their romantic relationship. It was the hive that made it after all. This all will have happened before the book start and act as back story. Jaina will have rejoined Twin Suns squadron, and linked up with Jag again during combined flet exercises. Thats where that first intro starts. The plot is complex and I've yet to plot it out completely but suffice to say that some things about it are pretty set in stone. The Empire of the Hand will be reactivated by General Fel early in the book, and you'll spend quite a bit of time trying to puzzle out why all these seperate pieces are linked together. A note to RPGers: The UDA will make their first appearance in this book at the very end, and it'll be something of a surprise I guarantee you that.

Okay I just finished the book and have decided that The Joiner King now tops the list of the worst Star Wars novels. There are enough continuality errors in the plot to make the story bleed... I'll now list some of them. 1: During the ending of the Yuuzhan Vong War its made quite clear that the Jedi Knights would be withdrawing from their role as Guardians of the GFFA and become more of a religious order then police force, Joiner King reverses this. 2: At the end of the Yuuzhan Vong War its equally clear that Jaina Solo retains her rank in the military and plans on pursuing a career as a fighter pilot. 3: The Jedi Knights are led by a High Council, half Jedi, half nonjedi. This arrangement has been replaced in the Joiner King by a Council of Masters, something which the High Council was created to avoid. 4: Where is Danni Quee? At the end of the Yuuzhan Vong invasion there is at the very least a close friendship between her and Jacen yet the author doesn't even mention her. The book contains numerous other errors, omissions, and clear oversights... Also portions of the text are written in a way that makes it quite uncertain as to what is actually happening. There is some question as to Jacen's relationship with Tenel Ka due to the way its written, is Jacen helping a friend keep suitors off her back, is it a romantic relationships, or a matter of mutual convience? We don't know from how its written.

I'm not sure but I think in Dark Forces the Phase I darktroopers were droids.

Huh? I've played ST:Armada and you can order ships to move above and below the 2d grid. I've done it, its 3d.

About time it fell...

I doubt its a Dauntless or Assault Frigate, it's far to short... We'll just have to wait and see.

That would work, but I think Homeworld 2's solution was the most inovative. A 2d plane which allowed for positive and negative positions above and below, once you were at one of those positions you could just click and move and be 'locked' into another 2d plane.

Making the movements only along a 2 dimensional axis seems pretty restrictive to me, I'd prefer 3d simply so you could have more tactical options in game. I believe that if they made a sequal we'd be given the ability to have ships move and engage in 3 dimensions.

In style and basic design it reminds me of the Bulwark from Star Wars Rebellion, maybe a vessel manufactured by the same company.

I'm tempted to ignore it completely, its just so bad... Unfortunately I was also going to use Ben anyway, maybe make him five-six if I ignore Dark Nest, or ten if I accomodate it. Remember the Star Forge in KOTOR, thats basically equivalent to a Raporan Replicator in manufacturing capability (But the Rapora can move a Replicator like a starship and use one to build another Replicator). Raporan technology makes it possible to instantly replicate or build a droid. If Luke and Mara destroy those two droids, two more will simply appear and so on...

Don't blame me, I'm trying to reconcile my work with the Dark Nest trash, and in Dark Nest, Ben is eight years old. I said I was only posting excerts, and this is just an excert. The Skywalkers are trying to rescue an archaeologist that disappeared in the caverns. The section also delivers a major clue on how the Rapora are so dangerous. All I'm going to say is that you ask yourself this question, where did the droids come from? Brilliant!, but thats not going to be what happens...

I agree that screwing up the chiss is inexcusable. Though screwing up the chiss is not an exclusive thing to this book, several of the authors in the NJO series made some problems but that was probably partially due to a lack of understanding of the dynamics between the Empire of the Hand and the Chiss Ascendancy. This author however has screwed up in a rather royal way, he makes the chiss appear the aggressors which they are not allowed to be by their own moral constraints... argh. Edit: Well the classic chiss error has appeared again, how many times do I have to say this. Chiss Clawcraft are not ships used by the Chiss Ascendancy, they're fighters made by the Empire of the Hand. Read Survivors Quest! Edit:2 Okay the Author tried to reconcile this by saying the Empire of the Hand has disbanded and become incorporated into the Chiss Ascendancy.

Well Thrawn was always polite, and calculating but so far I can't recall one instance beside this book where a Chiss has yelled. For more information on the Chiss and their nature please read Survivors Quest.

I've just started reading and well... ugh is the best response I can give. This author just murdered the chiss, I mean his depiction is all wrong, and he doesn't use the correct clan names... (He writes Mitt where it should to Mitth, has the chiss carrying hidden weapons, and doesn't give them the politeness all other chiss have demonstrated, in short its just wrong.)

I probably won't use all of them, and I'm tempted to completely remove most of the sith... But the story will pretty well follow along with the first couple pages of the RPG. I'm beating the end for the waking foe will be Nirauan sp?, anyway there will be alot more pieces of a puzzle about this new foe (The Rapora) coming together before the action kicks off. Here's another scene from later in the story (I write wierd, working up scenes out of sequence and only cutting them together later, it works pretty well though.) The chamber was dark, lit only by the soft light of their glowrods. The soft pitter patter of cascading water drops echoed in across the darkness. Mara felt cold, icy cold, but she wasn’t sure if it was the dampness of the cave or from the force. Slowly she cast her glowrod’s beam down to the floor below. A thick layer all but obscured the design in the tile, a star or compass with hundreds of points which interwove, around its edge was a circle of cut marble which glinted brightly in the light of her beam. Above her Luke tightened his grip on the repelling line and glanced down at her, “What do you see?â€

That attack will be Tuvax's assignment. Darth Avarice will launch the attack on Garos IV while Darth Fury will sieze Anobi and Ylix.