To clean up Raa's story thread a little, I bring you this thread. I ranted on my thoughts of the EU there:
On those notes, I have a Star Wars fic planned. It's been in the planning stages forever now, but the basic concept was that Palpatine knew of Vader's offer to Luke in the ESB because he had Mara spying on him when she wasn't on assasinations. This story has him changing her orders to spy on Luke after the first time Luke and Vader meet after ANH.
Here is some fanfiction for you though:
A Path of Your Own Choosing: http://boards.theforce.net/The_Saga/b10476/18289295
Wake Up Little Padawan:
http://boards.theforce.net/The_Saga/b10476/14387834/?12
Padawannabe With Me:
http://boards.theforce.net/the_saga/b10476/24100600/p1/?0
Destiny Of The Skywalkers: Book 1:
http://boards.theforce.net/The_Saga/b10476/19044518/
Legacy of Light:
http://boards.theforce.net/The_Saga/b10476/18055139/?13
In Love and War (this also has two sequels if you enjoy this one):
http://boards.theforce.net/message.asp?top...54893&replies=1
Aside from the original Thrawn Trilogy and the early Rogue Sqadron series, the EU sucked monkey ass.
Luke turning to the dark side to try to find a way to defeat the clone Palpatine was horribly forced and just a stupid plot twist.
The Jedi Academy trilogy butchered the characters and killed off Leia's jedi training (which was half done by the Thrawn books, and just about finished by Dark Empire.)
Truce at Bakura, all of the Calista books, and the dark fleet, were forced attempts to give Luke a love interest (and none of them was nearly as interesting or as cool as Mara.)
By the Corellian Trilogy, it had just gotten bad but the Thrawn dualogy was amusing to go through to find where Zahn made fun of the rest of the EU.
The NJO pulled too much crap out of the plothole in its ass to be taken seriously, and killed off characters for no good reason. Not to mention that it dragged obscenely and became all but unreadable by the middle. The Vong had potential to be the best villains since Thrawn (which isn't hard though considering the rest) but failed because of the same problems I mentioned above. Not to mention that giving them every advantage militarily (their weapons, shields, armor, ships, and ground weapons all had an advantage over the traditional tech) was a horrible plot device that was unbelievable.
In conclusion, when I do the Star Wars fic that has been kicking around in my head, the only sources I'm using are the OT and the Thrawn trilogy. I'll make everything else the fuck up.
Luke turning to the dark side to try to find a way to defeat the clone Palpatine was horribly forced and just a stupid plot twist.
The Jedi Academy trilogy butchered the characters and killed off Leia's jedi training (which was half done by the Thrawn books, and just about finished by Dark Empire.)
Truce at Bakura, all of the Calista books, and the dark fleet, were forced attempts to give Luke a love interest (and none of them was nearly as interesting or as cool as Mara.)
By the Corellian Trilogy, it had just gotten bad but the Thrawn dualogy was amusing to go through to find where Zahn made fun of the rest of the EU.
The NJO pulled too much crap out of the plothole in its ass to be taken seriously, and killed off characters for no good reason. Not to mention that it dragged obscenely and became all but unreadable by the middle. The Vong had potential to be the best villains since Thrawn (which isn't hard though considering the rest) but failed because of the same problems I mentioned above. Not to mention that giving them every advantage militarily (their weapons, shields, armor, ships, and ground weapons all had an advantage over the traditional tech) was a horrible plot device that was unbelievable.
In conclusion, when I do the Star Wars fic that has been kicking around in my head, the only sources I'm using are the OT and the Thrawn trilogy. I'll make everything else the fuck up.
The problem is exactly that DNG, she restarted. During the Thrawn trilogy she was at around the same level Luke was in The Empire Strikes Back and at worse just slightly behind him. He progressed from there to become a full jedi in a year with no master to train him. From the Thrawn trilogy Leia progessed to defeating Palpatine with Lukes help within two years (and that wasn't a case where she just lent power to Luke and he did all of the work, she was just as or more responsible for keeping him from inhabiting her unborn baby.) The trials Leia faced and overcame in Dark Empire were equivalent to Lukes in Return of the Jedi, and that is the point where she should have become a jedi. Kevin Anderson ignored that completely and turned her into nothing more than a politition, something that was continued in later books.
As for NJO, I haven't been in or seen any arguments about it to know how people are when discussing it. It's been awhile since I've read it and my memory about it isn't perfect, but I do remember my feelings while I read it. There were quite a few things that annoyed me, some that disgusted me as a fan, and some that made me go wtf.
Probably the first thing to get such a reaction from me (and it garnered all three I just mentioned,) was Fey'la becoming Chief of State. In the Thrawn trilogy, he committed political suicide during the second book when Leia tricked him into turning his military supporters against him. For every other book, he was struggling to regain his former prominence and failing. During the Thrawn duology he had a last hurrah by trying to scrounge up the navy to save his homeworld, which Han nicely killed by leaking the info to half the planet and getting them all to involved. His ascendance in NJO was out of left field and was improbable bordering on impossible. I remember my thought as I was reading, that Salvatore couldn't have read the rest of the EU books closely if at all and that he was just doing what he wanted.
Then you had Mara's ascendance to Jedi Master. Don't get me wrong, Mara is one of my favorite characters and I like her as much as any of the OT cast. She had it in her to be one of the top jedi of all time, but rest of the EU writers besides Zahn couldn't do write her correctly or just didn't use her and screwed her just as much as Leia (Anderson forgot about her liason job that she was taking right after the Thrawn trilogy and the authors following him emulated him.) Back to the point however, Mara had 5 years as a jedi only, at least 3 that she spent removing herself from her business. At most, she spent only 2 years completely dedicated to being a jedi and some of that was spent sick! Her promotion to master reeked of Luke just doing it just because she was his wife. Which is OOC for her, she wouldn't accept such a thing. Most importantly, the books read like the authors didn't know what to do with Mara or how to write her.
The reason I hated the NJO is that I noticed a lot of crap like that. Salvatore started it, but the authors continued to try to use EU material and using it wrong. And badly too, but that is just my personal opinion.
As for NJO, I haven't been in or seen any arguments about it to know how people are when discussing it. It's been awhile since I've read it and my memory about it isn't perfect, but I do remember my feelings while I read it. There were quite a few things that annoyed me, some that disgusted me as a fan, and some that made me go wtf.
Probably the first thing to get such a reaction from me (and it garnered all three I just mentioned,) was Fey'la becoming Chief of State. In the Thrawn trilogy, he committed political suicide during the second book when Leia tricked him into turning his military supporters against him. For every other book, he was struggling to regain his former prominence and failing. During the Thrawn duology he had a last hurrah by trying to scrounge up the navy to save his homeworld, which Han nicely killed by leaking the info to half the planet and getting them all to involved. His ascendance in NJO was out of left field and was improbable bordering on impossible. I remember my thought as I was reading, that Salvatore couldn't have read the rest of the EU books closely if at all and that he was just doing what he wanted.
Then you had Mara's ascendance to Jedi Master. Don't get me wrong, Mara is one of my favorite characters and I like her as much as any of the OT cast. She had it in her to be one of the top jedi of all time, but rest of the EU writers besides Zahn couldn't do write her correctly or just didn't use her and screwed her just as much as Leia (Anderson forgot about her liason job that she was taking right after the Thrawn trilogy and the authors following him emulated him.) Back to the point however, Mara had 5 years as a jedi only, at least 3 that she spent removing herself from her business. At most, she spent only 2 years completely dedicated to being a jedi and some of that was spent sick! Her promotion to master reeked of Luke just doing it just because she was his wife. Which is OOC for her, she wouldn't accept such a thing. Most importantly, the books read like the authors didn't know what to do with Mara or how to write her.
The reason I hated the NJO is that I noticed a lot of crap like that. Salvatore started it, but the authors continued to try to use EU material and using it wrong. And badly too, but that is just my personal opinion.
http://www.theforce.net/timeline/sequel.asp
http://www.theforce.net/timeline/sequel2.asp
http://www.theforce.net/timeline/njo.asp
The Thrawn duology was 20 years after Yavin, Survivors Quest was 22 years after (which showed Mara still extracting herself from her business,) and Vector Prime 25 years after. And while she was around since 9 years after Yavin and Zahn's original trilogy, she didn't become a jedi till the duology 11 years after. Anderson didn't have her stay at the Academy, and until the duology everyone had her drop in for a few days at a time at most. Even when she made her sacrifice and became a jedi, she was still under trained (she commented at the end of the duology that she still needed more training.) With her poisoning before Vector Prime, there just isn't enough time for her to become a master with just her own merits.
My problem with Fey'la is that he wasn't waiting in the shadows to return. He was always there trying to maneuver his way back into influence, there wasn't enough time between his last failure and embarressment (which was huge, the destruction of Caamas was a huge hit against the bothan race had half the galaxy looking to commit genocide on them.) With that as debacle happening to him right before, its ridiculous that he'd be able to win the top spot in the government. That big of a turnaround just doesn't happen in under 5 years.
@GH: The cartoon was the only good thing to come out of the prequels period. The movies sucked completely, including any ties between them and the cartoon. Grievous ended up a joke, as did the rest of his characters including the Emperor and Vader
http://www.theforce.net/timeline/sequel2.asp
http://www.theforce.net/timeline/njo.asp
The Thrawn duology was 20 years after Yavin, Survivors Quest was 22 years after (which showed Mara still extracting herself from her business,) and Vector Prime 25 years after. And while she was around since 9 years after Yavin and Zahn's original trilogy, she didn't become a jedi till the duology 11 years after. Anderson didn't have her stay at the Academy, and until the duology everyone had her drop in for a few days at a time at most. Even when she made her sacrifice and became a jedi, she was still under trained (she commented at the end of the duology that she still needed more training.) With her poisoning before Vector Prime, there just isn't enough time for her to become a master with just her own merits.
My problem with Fey'la is that he wasn't waiting in the shadows to return. He was always there trying to maneuver his way back into influence, there wasn't enough time between his last failure and embarressment (which was huge, the destruction of Caamas was a huge hit against the bothan race had half the galaxy looking to commit genocide on them.) With that as debacle happening to him right before, its ridiculous that he'd be able to win the top spot in the government. That big of a turnaround just doesn't happen in under 5 years.
@GH: The cartoon was the only good thing to come out of the prequels period. The movies sucked completely, including any ties between them and the cartoon. Grievous ended up a joke, as did the rest of his characters including the Emperor and Vader
On those notes, I have a Star Wars fic planned. It's been in the planning stages forever now, but the basic concept was that Palpatine knew of Vader's offer to Luke in the ESB because he had Mara spying on him when she wasn't on assasinations. This story has him changing her orders to spy on Luke after the first time Luke and Vader meet after ANH.
Here is some fanfiction for you though:
A Path of Your Own Choosing: http://boards.theforce.net/The_Saga/b10476/18289295
Wake Up Little Padawan:
http://boards.theforce.net/The_Saga/b10476/14387834/?12
Padawannabe With Me:
http://boards.theforce.net/the_saga/b10476/24100600/p1/?0
Destiny Of The Skywalkers: Book 1:
http://boards.theforce.net/The_Saga/b10476/19044518/
Legacy of Light:
http://boards.theforce.net/The_Saga/b10476/18055139/?13
In Love and War (this also has two sequels if you enjoy this one):
http://boards.theforce.net/message.asp?top...54893&replies=1