Trejiuvanat

I agree with Kryt here, I'd think of Winter with a more aristocratic look, the one you used had the look of a courtesan of the Imperial Palace... Fett's cool though.

Arien and at'Veg returned to their quarters immediately after their run-in into the Skywalkers. Their presence here came to slightly balance the bargaining situation, or take it into a whole new level of complications even so. Arien felt better knowing that she had an ally in this hellish world. They had four hours before dawn and she intended to use them in the most efficient way, she had had at'Veg come up with all possible meanings of the phrase 'trivial technology'. They had come up with dozens of interpretations for the phrase going from the very literal -which resulted in at'Veg constructing a complete pre-hyperspace tech tree to be analyzed- to the most sarcastic in which trivial technology had the completely opposite meaning which resulted in analyzing the highest and most secret technologies developed by the Empire -from Death Stars and anything made in the Maw Facility to other handful of projects developed by Emperor, Moffs, or Warlords-. Arien looked forward to the meeting if only to compare notes with Skywalker, and ask him what it was that Durron did here, what he bargained with. The Imperial knew in the back of her mind that whatever that trivial bit of technology was it was directly related to Durron's doings. "One hour for dawn," at'Veg said as he looked into his chrono. "You should get ready." Arien nodded and wnt to get changed. She took a quick shower and replaced the olive green standard uniform for one more fitting for a Moff's funeral. As dark as Vader's soul and as black as a Defel's shadow the black uniform had advantages over the usual uniform. Especially because it was an uniform tailored for her by Imperial Intelligence. "I never got what was so special about that suit," at'Veg commented in between a yawn. "I guess they wanted some kind of compromise between the cut of the usual uniform and the more formal Dress Uniform," Arien added and shrugged. "Plus it makes more of an impression." Both comments had been for no other purpose than to distract and confuse all that where listening to the exchange. "I think I should go," Arien said and left the room. Off to meet the Skywalkers. The Arkanian then sat back on the table with his handful of datapads continuing his analysis of the phrase 'trivial technology'. In another datapad the small compilation of the Rapora vocabulary, including a phrase Valar had uttered during the dinner when the Aklasp appeared. Sidieie'nej.

Yeah, I have some chars to send to their own expeditions. Oreton and his Imperial Bunch - Balance of the Empire Arien Yage - The Vaathkree Affair (Which I am already in). And it's time for Ulan to go visit his family and get clear of voices in his mind. Ulan Shai - Cycle of the Force.

I like the one in the bottom more, there's some color problem as E pointed out. Also perhaps it's just because of the angle, but I think she might need a slightly longer neck...

The corridor seemed to grow larger and natural light seemed to come out at the end of a sharp left turn, they were finally in the Falcon's Berth. "Leia!" Ulan called as he recognized the familiar figure handling the fuel pumps near the hangar. The woman turned to the Yuuzhan Vong. "Quick! Get on the ship, we are about to go," she answered and the soldiers ran up the ramp. "Kyp," Ulan said as he helped Leia with the fuel pump. Leia looked at him and then heard the faint sounds of a terrible battle coming from the corridor. Ulan drew out his lightsaber and ignited it and stepped closer as the sound of lightsabers grew louder. "Han, she should be already filled up." Leia spoke into her comlink and ignited her lightsaber. "We are waiting for Kyp." *** "Captain Solo!" Kyle said as Han sat down in the cockpit. "Leia has said that the Falcon has been reloaded with fuel." "Good, now where is she? We should get going now." "Ulan and she seem to be waiting for Kyp in the hangar." "What?" Han looked at one of the screens for the external views of the Falcon. There were both of them, lightsabers raised waiting for something to come out the corridor. "Kyle, get into the turret, shoot anything unfriendly that comes out of the Eastern Corridor." Han sat down in his chair and got the Falcon started. The fuel's been loaded, and all he was waiting for was for all to get on the Falcon. A feeling of dread took hold of him and he found it very hard to keep his eyes off the screen where Leia and Ulan where waiting. *** Ulan took a step closer, the sound of lightsabers and of blaster fire had not stopped nor had it grew louder nor had it quiet down. For some reason Kyp had not been able to continue his run for the Falcon or else he had decided not to. Either way Ulan was anxious and wanted to run back into the tunnel, give in to his Yuuzhan Vong battle rage. Leia's soft but commanding voice halted him. "Stop," Ulan stopped and started to listen again. The sound of lightsaber and fire had increased in intensity and grew louder. A reflection of Kyp's lightsaber blade could be seen reflected in the metal plating, just before a Rapora warrior was sent flying into the wall. Out of the corridor Kyp jumped out his back turned to Leia and Ulan looking at whatever would come out of the tunnel, holding the lightsaber in one hand, his other kept close to his chest. Not daring to look sideways, Kyp timidly backstepped. Ulan was about to jump five meters ahead and grab his companion when the Rapora came out of the corridor. The warrior that had done so much harm to the Imperial lines had chased them all the way here. He had escaped and outlived the shadowbombs Horn had thrown in his direction. From the belly turret of the Falcon Kyle Katarn opened fire, but the Rapora rolled to his left as rubble closed off the corridor. Immediately following the roll, the Sith Rapora leaped towards Kyp who parried his block and sent him pushed him away. Leia and Ulan jumped ahead to aid Kyp, the Jedi frowned at them. He extended his wounded hand and sent both Ulan and Leia flying to under the Falcon's ramp. "Away!" Kyp cried as the Rapora once again jumped on him. And backed off as Kyp held off his attack, as a hungry predator the Rapora began to circle the human. Wounded, Kyp did his best to offer the Rapora his less vulnerable side. They were both entangle in a deathly dance. The Rapora would try Kyp's defenses with quick strikes but none got through. Ulan got on his feet again and felt the Force boiling, both, Sith and Jedi were drawing enormous power from the Force gathering it around ech of them. In all the mayhem of battle Ulan could feel a certainty in Kyp's mind but the exact thought evaded him. "Oh no," Leia said beside him. Ulan then saw where slowly Kyp had lead his opponent. Still holding his own against the warrior Kyp was now towering near the controls of the fuel pump. Ulan wanted to jump forward, but Kyp prevented him, he struggled against him trying to open a way to get to Kyp. "You cannot help him," a disembodied voice cried to him. Next to him, Leia grabbed him by his arm and dragged him on the Falcon. As soon as he put up a foot in the ramp the Falcon began to hover. Off he saw Kyp with his lightsaber in his hand preparing to strike at the warrior. Ulan could feel an explosion in the Force, the anger and hatred of the Rapora came to a catharsis. The Jedi had opened his defense in a foolish and slow move. Then came the triumphant joy of Kyp, his satisfaction outpowered the pain and a spiritual smile perdured in the Force as a sense of danger overcame the Rapora who instinctively leaped several meters back. In this instant Ulan though of jumping off the Falcon and running for Kyp when it struck him that the instant was gone, the Jedi's saber had fallen over the fuel pump. The moment was part of the past: The Falcon hovered dozens of meters over the inferno.

An interesting idea Stellar, the spinoffs also good pretty good and they can be very well tied together at the end. I like it...

I wish Maul had had an even more premature death, somewhere between the first draft of Episode I and the final version of it. He was completely useless to the plot and to anything. Sure he has some fancy fights, but other than that he is completely useless. He's a mindless villian with a cute lightsaber... He goes to the "Useless Ideas that made the prequels suck" Category, aka Episode I.

I haven't seen the film yet, but the previews for it did not seem all that impressive. I have read the book and found it pretty good, at times it seemed naïve but that was understandle because it was written over a century ago (back when the solar system didn't have 9 planets). From the trailer I found two huge turn-offs one being Tom 'Ego' Cruise and the other being Spielberg. From what Stellar wrote, this seems a typical Spielberg movie, a family (or some adult-child pairing) with considerable internal problems tossed into an all-to-terrible catastrophe and in the end re-emerge as a happy family. The rest (be it invading martians or cloned Dinos) are just there to annoy the good fatherly figure for two hours until some sort of rescue arrives. On the other hand there are some other good things I've heard, the SFX seemed pretty good it didn't have the videogame feeling of SW Preqs, and the John Williams score. And Dakota Fanning who had a good performance in Taken (yet more Spielberg Aliens!) seemed a good choice for the cast and one of the few non-annoying child actors (she's just spooky). In short: I'm not sure I'd go to see this movie, I'd probably wait till I hear some more reviews of it, but I am not too thrilled about this one.

That's what I do when I watch AOTC and TPM, to prevent associating Hayden/annoying-kid-whose-name-eludes-me with Vader. As for the continuity thingie, comic books have rarely been truthful to continuity, and when transferred over to movies they lose much from its comicbook equivalents. As another example, the new Superman movie, I gather, will be ignoring other movies. (especially dreadful Superman III and IV).

Hm... An intriguing question... The days I have to go to Uni I usually don't have breakfast, I prefer to buy something-anything and eat during class. (An apple, a fruit, a sandwich, something of the sort). When I don't have Uni and I have time to spare I usually make 'Gallo Pinto' which is 'fried' rice and beans and onions, cellery, etc. Plus Eggs and sausage or something of the sort. Of course it's been a while since I had the time to prepare one for me.

In won't be out here still for a month or so...

I usually don't care for NBA, but since the olympics I've loosely followed Ginobili's career. One great player. A well deserved win!

I'm still playing and getting attacked, so i went into vacation mode until semester's end.

Nice picture, GAT! Probably not my choice for some Photoshopping. But still an interesting Jedi, better looking than most... I remember trying my hand at similar pictures... I'll see if I find them somewhere in my HDD. Finding good pictures for it is hard, but you'll find some and then some...

Ah, the infamous FrankenVader scene (I half expected Palpy to cry: "It's alive! It's alive!" . I think that an inhuman growl would have been better for this scene rather than the now.

I believe we all think that...

Hayden is for me the worst actor. Sure, the lines were already bad, but even the few scenes where he has good lines he makes nothing of them. And he's definitely to one-dimensional for a role such as Anakin Skywalker. He does not add depth to a complex character, he shows no conflict, no nothing, he just looks mean. And though bad script and Lucas's lack of directing abilities may have something to do with it, we all must admit that Hayden acted badly in SW. He might become a good actor doing other movies, but this role was too big for him. He improved slightly but the Darth Vader suit is too big for him. Jake Lloyd, Daniel Logan take the price for annoying little actors. But they are kid actors in kiddy roles. Hayden is a kid actor in a 1.9 body and in the most complex role of the saga.

Your comments has just given me a clear simple insight on bad SW books. There are two kind of bad books (three if you want): The first being the poorly written books, the ones where the style is crappy, or huge plot-flaws and they are simply a waste of paper and ink. Darksaber, Truce of Bakura, etc. The second category is for the books that do not feel like SW books. Their style is directed at something else, either too Sci-Fi and too un-mythic... BFC, Crystal Star which feels like a Trek episode. And the third category is for the ones that comply with both of the above categories, the really bad bad bad books that along with the Holiday Special should be boxed up and sent to be burned in the Sun.

I think that SQ was a giant short story, the building-up-for-the-action part was too bloated with little hints to the great revelation (which gave the books it's mysterious aura), but it all could have been made much shorter. Lucasbooks, I think underused Zahn in this one. In past novels Zahn showed how good he can handle multiple storylines of multiple characters and spread them over multiple books and then tie it all together. That's partly what made him a fan favorite. The book is very enjoyable, but I think most of us will miss the grand scale of things we were used to in Thrawn Trilogy and Hand of Thrawn Duology. I hope that Outbound Flight will be written to form a loose duology with Survivor's Quest and that it doesn't go off in another direction...

It's a Luke - Mara novel with some convoluted Chiss plot underneath it all. As Thrawn said, not Zahn's best job...

Nice to have you back, AA.

Aye, both Unfinished Tales and The Silmarillion are both great reads. The Silmarillion is a tough read because it's like a Bible, it deals with lots of names and lineages and events spread out over thousands of years, but it is a very rich book, the unfinished tales could be considered the 'missing chapters' of the Silmarillion as they deal mostly with the events of that book. Prob is that you can notice that both are 'unfinished' actually these two and the other many books dealing with Middle Earth are compilations made by JRR's son based upon the lots of textes his father left behind when he passed away. I think that's why most people prefer The Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, as they are really finished, there's no holes or unifinished chapters around and the story is far smaller than the one told in the other books.

Luke, and no char for that matter, can switch sides...

If the Empire had been in charge, I think, the Yuuzhan Vong War would not have been as long as it was. The Empire would have taken swift action and prevented the Vong from getting to the Mid Rim. There would have still been some nasty battle near the Outer Rim, and in Chiss Space, but they wouldn't have gone past that. Thrawn even may have found Sekot before that and convinced the Emperor in a super-convoluted plan to allow the Vong to settle down in exchange for some technology or information or something...

Yipee!! Are you here to free the slaves? Are you an angel? You are right, he's very annoying... But again ep I is filled with all sorts of annoying characters. The Obi-Waqn characterization in TPM was also annoying, as was Watto and essentially everyone on Tatooine, and on Naboo for that matter.