Naja

Oh. Butt Fuck Egypt is just an expression. It's another way of saying "in the middle of nowhere." Try Eastern Washington State.

Hmm...depends on the type. I suppose for the most effective and repressive of police states, I would have a totalitarian theocracy. Just think about it: the average citizen has to not only watch what he does because Big Brother has an eye on him, but because God/Allah/who the fuck ever will smite him with unending fury for disobeying the state (or so he is conditioned to believe).

Do we know if we'll get our answers before the interview? Do we know if we'll get our answers before next week? Because personally, I'm going to be out in the middle of Butt Fuck Egypt in a tundra for a week, and I'm impatient for my answers!

At least the Coruscant Death Stars weren't nearly as dumb as the idea of Palpatine having a three-eyed son in the Jedi Prince series. *smacks forehead*

Uhhh, some of the EU is pretty damn good, actually. The main problems are when bad authors write corny, formulaic storylines, just like in any other series. Maybe once all this Episode 3 aftermath calms down, people will give less of a shit, and the novels will become good again?

Yeah, supposedly this game will be a cinch to mod, just like any other C & C scope of games. I mean, I've seen Imperial Assault. Hot damn!

I damn well better get my Lancer.

Use the Death Star on Mon Calimari. No more big ships for those treasonous Rebel scum...what with their...rhetoric about "liberty" this, and "peace" that...and their...lack of British accents...

I think he means the prototypes in construction in the Maw Cluster, too.

Yeah, as strange as it sounds, perhaps taking the profit motivation out of Star Wars novels will make the stories good again. After all, Shadows of the Empire came out before all that crazy Special Edition stuff, and look how fabulous a story that was. I liked the X-Wing and Wraith Squadron series. And is it really true that the Dark Nest trilogy postulates that the Killicks invented the Force?

Yeah, everyone knows it was Kenobi's.

Or at the bare minimum, a garrison requirement based upon some sort of variable. Maybe population?

The new interview said that indeed planets can rebel. Do you think this means that you will have to have a minimum garrison requirement for your occupied worlds, or what's the deal? How do you think that will play out?

Yeah, I never liked how the X-Wing type games made starfighters these uber-overpowered machines of carnage. Bombers and fighters are tactical units made to cripple specific parts of ships, enabling the capital ships to fight that much more effectively. Capital ships were still the main starship killers.

No, in the early X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter games, the Victory Star Destroyer had 2 main engines. Later adaptations (like EaW) gave it a third engine, like the ISD. I was wondering if anyone has a picture of the older style of the VSD, where it has the 2 main engines, and if that picture actually shows the engines.

Or maybe in that dark age, everyone becomes disillusioned with government, and with the Jedis' seeming ineffectuality, and abandons their faith in the Force.

Power! Unlimited power! Me? I'll take a flotilla of 25 Eclipse-class Star Destroyers. You still alive?

I know the feeling. I get it whenever I'm on battle.net.

Thats why I'm not getting on the chat, the first thing my fingers will end up typing is, "WiLL ThErE Be SsD, B-WiNG and TIe InteCEPTORS" in that noobish fashion. Honesty is a virtue... But oh yeah, I'm gonna grill them on my ship explosions tangent. Also, I'm gonna grill them about the Death Star planetary explosion: will they fix the glitch with the planet's shockwave going through the Death Star and surrounding ships? I'm gonna grill them about the SSD, the B-Wing, the Interceptor, and the Lancer Frigate. Finally, I'm gonna grill them about AT-ATs: are troopers just going to magically "appear" out of it, or will the stormies rapell out the sides in a really neat fashion? Sort of like how American Rangers rapell out of Chinook helicopters in Generals.

Thanks! Btw, are there any ones that show the 2 only engines on the VSD?

...yeah, sort of like in the Dune universe - Leto II's Golden Path, where the Great Human Empire balkanizes, unbeknownst to the fact that it is the only possibility by which humanity will survive. Setting the stage for a NEW Republic sort of government to come pick up the pieces, tens of thousands of years later, rinse repeat...

I'm wondering, do any of you know where I can find a picture of one of the oldschool VSDs? The ones you saw in X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter, when they only had two main engines. I've tried looking on Google Images, but the one image they have won't load.

I am also wondering how much the role of characters will figure into the objectives for victory. I mean, it's one thing to have heroes that kick ass in combat, that increase your revenue, that make your starships shoot that much more powerful. But what happens when they die? I can imagine that the war would go on if someone trivial like Veers or Garm Bel Iblis kicks the bucket by a stray blaster bolt. But if someone like the Emperor gets destroyed, I want something traumatic to happen to that side. I don't want the only penalty for losing your main heroes simply to be your loss of a good meat shield, or a good income-provider.

...until we get that interview. Argghh. Right. Where do you think the EU should go, now that the war with the Vong has ended? It seems that the novels are falling into the same pattern: - Something's not quite right - A disturbance in the force - Oh no! We have to defeat these new aliens/this new superweapon/the next incarnation of Palpatine/this new Imperial warlord/this Sith conspiracy! - Phew! Resolved! What ideas do you think would freshen stuff up for a post-Vong universe? - For one, besides avoiding the above formulas and not being dependant so much on the emergence/reemergence of a villain for a good storyline, perhaps some different perspectives would be in order? I mean, seriously, how many stories have there been from the perspective of an Imperial? Or of Palpatine himself? Or just regular denizens of the Star Wars galaxy, like they did in Tales of the Bounty Hunters & Tales From Jabba's Palace? The epic good v. evil stuff is fine in the movies - the movies are created for the sole purpose of the classic struggle between those two forces. But an expanded universe would benefit immensely by shedding some of it, methinks. - What's with this rapid shifting of governments? Rebel Alliance -> New Republic -> Galactic Federation of Free Alliances?! You've won. There is nothing left to piss your pants about anymore. Pick a goddamn name and stick to it! - And yes, it is possible to tell compelling stories without having to resort to a backdrop of an epic war, or anything like that. Mysteries of the Sith did that just fine! - There's also another span of time that hasn't been given much, if any, light. And that is the founding of the Republic. Before the Sith, before the Jedi, before any of that. That would be a very potential-laden area to write about.

Niles Ferrier, it's been said.