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  1. - Top - End - #871
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    Default Re: Reading Heir to the Empire

    Quote Originally Posted by McStabbington View Post
    And yet, the only way to protect Covell would have been to stick a ysalamiri on the ship. And once there is such a ysalamiri on the ship, C'Boath isn't getting on.

    Losing Covell is a loss, but at this point, if Thrawn could take out C'Boath in the process, one general is an acceptable loss. And given that Thrawn knows how many ysalamiri he has at Mount Tantiss, and C'Boath does not? C'Boath's insistence that he take personal charge of the project is what's known in the business as "Oh no, anything but the briar patch, Joruus!"

    I have very little doubt that Covell had standing orders to kill C'Boath once he reached the base.
    You should have a lot of doubt about that. Because if they was the case, why not shove ysalamiri all up in the ship? Have an ysalamiri officer walk up to him, and he's no longer a powerful madman, he's an old man. They could very well make him get on that ship. But why? Why bother killing him there instead of here? Again, they have Wizard-Into-Frail-Elder generators, a race of assassin's, and unfettered access to the guy. It wouldn't be difficult. And, to top it all off, why would Thrown not mind him offing a General? If Thrawn wanted C'Baoth dead, then having him be not dead goes against his plan, and having his General for in the process is a waste of resources, as well as letting C'Baoth know he can act with impunity. None of which was in keeping with how Thrawn tended to bed.
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  2. - Top - End - #872
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    Pretty sure that, even when he send C'Baoth off, he's not trying to have him killed. He's trying to put him into a box where he can be stored safely until he might be needed again. For all the problems he causes, C'Baoth represents an irreplaceable resource. Thrawn doesn't have any other dark force users available and doesn't really have any prospect of getting additional ones. He's utterly loathe to waste the one he has, just as he's utterly loathe to discard the Noghri even when signs point to it being a good idea. Thrawn is very careful with resources that have strategic value - very much unlike the Emperor and the Empire in general that was profligate with them. And when his backstory is later revealed it becomes clear why this is the case.

    It's worth remembering that, for all the 'we are so screwed' vibes that are floating around Coruscant during The Last Command, Thrawn has, at best, restored the Empire's position to near parity with the New Republic. He has resources and momentum to fight, but the Empire is still at an overall strategic disadvantage and victory is years away at best.
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  3. - Top - End - #873
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    Default Re: Reading Heir to the Empire

    Quote Originally Posted by McStabbington View Post
    I have very little doubt that Covell had standing orders to kill C'Boath once he reached the base.
    Since C'Baoth is a mind reader, that would have been thoroughly stupid. Bring him and Covell into the bubble, than give Covell the order to kill him. It's easy. But I doubt Thrawn already made that decision. As I mentioned, he is hesistant about flat-out murder.

    I pretty much agree with everything also you said though.
    Last edited by Bavarian itP; 2018-06-24 at 01:26 AM.
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  4. - Top - End - #874
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    Quote Originally Posted by Bavarian itP View Post
    It's not about trust in this case, Thrawn clearly does not trust C'Baoth. But he thinks C could still be useful (for some reason). So he has to handle him with tact. Putting him in an ysalamiri bubble 24/7 is not tactful. If he does this, he could just shoot C'Baoth, because C is not going to cooperate anymore anyway.
    The point is not to put C'Baoth in a ysalamiri bubble, it is to put Covell in it. How hard would it be to tell C'Baoth that you're just sending the ysalamir back to Wayland as well because Thrawn now trust C'Baoth and doesn't need it orsome other lie?

    Quote Originally Posted by McStabbington View Post
    And yet, the only way to protect Covell would have been to stick a ysalamiri on the ship. And once there is such a ysalamiri on the ship, C'Boath isn't getting on.

    Losing Covell is a loss, but at this point, if Thrawn could take out C'Boath in the process, one general is an acceptable loss. And given that Thrawn knows how many ysalamiri he has at Mount Tantiss, and C'Boath does not? C'Boath's insistence that he take personal charge of the project is what's known in the business as "Oh no, anything but the briar patch, Joruus!"

    I have very little doubt that Covell had standing orders to kill C'Boath once he reached the base. If C'Boath kills him before he gets there? Eh, so what?
    Thrawn doesn't sacrifice his assets that lightly, especially not those who have been nothing but efficient.

    Quote Originally Posted by McStabbington View Post
    C'Boath is still neatly boxed in a force-free bubble, and can be disposed of at Thrawn's leisure. If he subverts Covell? Again, from everything Thrawn knows about the Force, eh, so what? Once Covell hits the ysalamiri bubble, he regains control, at which point he carries out Thrawn's orders. The only possible escape hatch was, as it turned out, exactly what C'Boath managed to do: subvert Covell through the Force in a way that simultaneously kept him alive long enough to order detonators planted, and would gradually kill him. But nothing about C'Boath's erratic nature or displays of power had, to that point, indicated that level of subversion through the Force was even possible. Heck, it's implied that even the Emperor didn't know it was possible.
    First, C'Baoth manipulations didn't gradually kill Covell, suddenly being sparated from it did.
    Second, nothing has evere indicated that stepping into an ysalamari field undoes what has been done to you through the Force. In real life i can't think of anything whose consequences would go away the moment the cause goes away.
    Third, it is simply more reasonnable that the uber-powerful Dark Jedi knows more than you do about the Force and how he can use it to subvert you. Hedging your bets is a better tactic.

    And everything about C'Baoth indicated that he would try something like that: all Trilogy long he has only had one obsession : getting utter control over others' minds and his usingthe force to manipulate someone is the only time Thrawn see him focus o something despite the obvious discomfort.

    And didn't Thrawn explicitly state he intended to murder Joruus and get working on Joruuus anyway?
    Maybe he wanted Joruus' mental scans but, if so, why?


    Quote Originally Posted by McStabbington View Post
    Same principle applies here. Would it have been theoretically better to send Covell separately from C'Boath, or find some super-savvy way of protecting him? Yeah, I suppose. But operationally, is Covell actually worth that much effort on Thrawn's part, especially if by using Covell to lure C'Boath in, Thrawn can, at minimum, neatly box C'Boath into a prison that he can't escape from? If I were in Thrawn's position, I'd take that trade a thousand times out of a thousand. I can train up another highly competent ground commander a heck of a lot faster than I can find another trap for a Jedi Master.
    Training a ground commander: years.
    Finding another Jedi Master: weeks using the cloning facility. (okay maybe one year if, and that's a big if, the clone has to be out of the ysalamir field to retain Force Sensitivity).
    Last edited by Fyraltari; 2018-06-24 at 02:50 PM.
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  5. - Top - End - #875
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mechalich View Post
    I don't believe the text ever states where the third one is located. Potentially it's much further behind enemy lines. For example, it could be at Bastion/Sartinaynian, which is extremely far out in the outer rim. Worse, it could have been in the Deep Core (ex, at Prakith), where navigational hazards made assembling a large assault fleet difficult and would have involved bringing Imperial forces not directly loyal to Thrawn into the conflict. It's also worth noting that there's a good reason to choose Bilbringi: it's Thrawn's primary shipyard (since the New Republic controls most of the Core World ones by this point) making it an ideal target for a major assault above and beyond the need to steal a CGT. Tangrene, by contrast, is an Ubiqtorate Base - an Imperial Intelligence asset, not a strategic military asset.
    I had thought that they had specifically ruled out the third one in the books, but when I looked it up they didn't. But the briefing essentially was that Tangrene is the easiest one, and is likely a trap, so they were going to hit Bilbringi, and it was indeed explicitly mentioned that a raid there would cripple Thrawn's ship building as well. And they explicitly stated that feinting at Tangrene would draw forces from Bilbringi which would make that raid easier, and Thrawn explicitly draws forces from Tangrene to reinforce Bilbringi, so it's likely that the third location is better defended or harder to attack than Tangrene and feinting at it or any of the others won't cause forces to be drawn from anywhere else to reinforce it against the attack. And as I suggested Thrawn's argument against investigating further is partly that he's sure and partly to avoid tipping them off.

    The interesting thing is that they seem to have the same idea of Thrawn's arrogance as Sapphire Guard does, figuring that if they look like they're falling into his trap then he'll bask in his own omniscience and not look further. However, Thrawn had never shown that sort of arrogance, and so it is even likely that those attempts twigged his suspicions: he knows they aren't THAT stupid as to fall that obviously into his trap, so they must be doing something else.
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  6. - Top - End - #876
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    Default Re: Reading Heir to the Empire

    Quote Originally Posted by Fyraltari View Post
    Finding another Jedi Master: weeks using the cloning facility. (okay maybe one year if, and that's a big if, the clone has to be out of the ysalamir field to retain Force Sensitivity).
    Thrawn does say that cloning a Jedi Master is too delicate a proposition for Mount Tantiss - that he envisages growing a child, and then letting the child spend the next 5 to 10 years growing up more normally.
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    Quote Originally Posted by hamishspence View Post
    Thrawn does say that cloning a Jedi Master is too delicate a proposition for Mount Tantiss - that he envisages growing a child, and then letting the child spend the next 5 to 10 years growing up more normally.
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    Thrawn actually did have a project to clone force users ongoing, he just based it in the unknown regions instead of Wayland. It didn't work out so well though, as related in the novel Riptide
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    Default Re: Reading Heir to the Empire

    Quote Originally Posted by Fyraltari View Post
    Training a ground commander: years.
    Finding another Jedi Master: weeks using the cloning facility. (okay maybe one year if, and that's a big if, the clone has to be out of the ysalamir field to retain Force Sensitivity).
    If the clone retains the skills and knowledge of the original, you can get both in the same amount of time, if not, I don't see how you'd get a Master in a matter of weeks....
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  9. - Top - End - #879
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    Default Re: Reading Heir to the Empire

    Quote Originally Posted by Fyraltari View Post
    Training a ground commander: years.
    Finding another Jedi Master: weeks using the cloning facility. (okay maybe one year if, and that's a big if, the clone has to be out of the ysalamir field to retain Force Sensitivity).
    Please edit your post. That last quote is not mine.
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    Default Re: Reading Heir to the Empire

    Quote Originally Posted by hamishspence View Post
    Thrawn does say that cloning a Jedi Master is too delicate a proposition for Mount Tantiss - that he envisages growing a child, and then letting the child spend the next 5 to 10 years growing up more normally.
    Oh. Well that doesn't change that he should have given the Ysalamir to Covell.
    Quote Originally Posted by Divayth Fyr View Post
    If the clone retains the skills and knowledge of the original, you can get both in the same amount of time, if not, I don't see how you'd get a Master in a matter of weeks....
    That depends on whose mental scans you have. Clones don't retain the knowledge and skills of the donor automatically you have to shape their brainto map the scan of the one you want them to mimic.
    Quote Originally Posted by Bavarian itP View Post
    Please edit your post. That last quote is not mine.
    Fixed. My apologies.
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  11. - Top - End - #881
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    Default Re: Reading Heir to the Empire

    I would like to point out that cloning Force users has a terrible track record, as they tend to go insane.
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    Default Re: Reading Heir to the Empire

    By the way I know Jorus C'Baoth appears in Outbound Flight but does it explains why and under what circumstances he was cloned? And if not wether that was explained at all?
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fyraltari View Post
    By the way I know Jorus C'Baoth appears in Outbound Flight but does it explains why and under what circumstances he was cloned? And if not wether that was explained at all?
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    It does not explain any of that, from what I can remember. However, I believe he was likely cloned due to his... particular disposition. Given that he has a view of Force User superiority and
    Spoiler: Outbound Flight Ending
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    near the final confrontation, he Force Chokes Thrawn, so he's definitely heavily skirting the Dark Side, if not beginning a plunge.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dark Shadow View Post
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    It does not explain any of that, from what I can remember. However, I believe he was likely cloned due to his... particular disposition. Given that he has a view of Force User superiority and
    Spoiler: Outbound Flight Ending
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    near the final confrontation, he Force Chokes Thrawn, so he's definitely heavily skirting the Dark Side, if not beginning a plunge.
    Seen from the point of view of his apprentice, who can sense his thoughts:

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    he outright took the plunge in that confrontation.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dark Shadow View Post
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    It does not explain any of that, from what I can remember. However, I believe he was likely cloned due to his... particular disposition. Given that he has a view of Force User superiority and
    Spoiler: Outbound Flight Ending
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    near the final confrontation, he Force Chokes Thrawn, so he's definitely heavily skirting the Dark Side, if not beginning a plunge.
    Spoiler
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    He's climbing the diving board at the start of the book. By the time the end rolls around, he's not talking a plunge, he's firmly underwater, and deep.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Peelee View Post
    You should have a lot of doubt about that. Because if they was the case, why not shove ysalamiri all up in the ship?
    . . . Because now that he knows what ysalamiri are, what they can do, what effect they have on him, and the barely-maintained and fragile detente he currently has with Thrawn, C'Boath isn't going to get on a shuttle that has even one ysalamiri on it. C'Boath can be tricked into a trap, sure, but he sure as heck isn't going to walk willingly into one.

    This isn't hard to parse out. C'Boath just declared himself the new emperor of the Empire that Thrawn has both operational and military control over. And he just said that as part of his attempt to assume control, he's taking direct, personal command of the keystone project in Thrawn's entire plan. Only the heir to the throne of a kingdom of idiots could miss the implications of this action, and how Thrawn may well react. And C'Boath may be crazy, but he's not an idiot.

    And, as it turns out, C'Boath isn't wrong, either.

    Thrawn will not recklessly throw away assets, that is true. But he's also pretty ruthlessly analytical, and very astute at figuring out cost-benefit calculations. And the simple fact is that now that Mount Tantiss is underway, now that the Republic is reeling, and that he's got the Dark Force, it's very apparent that the only thing C'Boath is really good for, namely, raising operational performance levels on specific critical missions, isn't something that Thrawn needs any more. He needed that to put the odds in his favor when the Republic could, at any given time, field more ships crewed by more experienced men, led by more experienced commanders than what the Empire could field. None of those disadvantages exist by the end of The Last Command. And that's true even before we count the fact that C'Boath is now actively countermanding Thrawn's orders, seizing control of Thrawn's men, and jeopardizing Thrawn's missions.

    You guys seem to forget that a) Thrawn is the villain, and b) Thrawn is always, always in command of the situation. There are a few things that he simply will not put up with. Seizing control of Thrawn's bridge crew? Foremost among them. The instant C'Boath did that, C'Boath became a greater liability rather than he could ever possibly be as an asset. There is no good that he could ever perform that compensates for the threat he poses insofar as he could seize control of Thrawn's bridge at a critical moment. And Thrawn does not allow liabilities to remain liabilities for any length of time.

    So, I repeat my initial formulation, with the correction, as astutely noted by Bavarian itP, that if he's trying to box and trap C'Boath inside Mount Tantiss, he's not going to give Covell any orders that suggest anything is out of the ordinary. If Thrawn had learned one thing he didn't know from the prior two books, it was that Jedi were so good at coming at you laterally, that if you get an opportunity to take them out, you don't miss your chance, and you don't think twice about it. If, at any point in the prior two books, Thrawn could have exchanged Covell's life for Luke Skywalker's? Thrawn would have made that exchange without a moment's thought, or a moment's regret. Same principle applied to C'Boath the instant he threatened Thrawn's command of Thrawn's ship.
    Last edited by McStabbington; 2018-06-24 at 05:13 PM.

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    CH29:

    Mara is standing on the roof of the palace, staring out at the skyline. Luke arrives for an answer. Mara hasn't really looked at the Coruscant skyline without an objective before. Luke has asked her to be the go between of the New Republic and Karrde's smugglers Also of note, his vornskyrs have recovered. That's nice.

    They're transplanting the Noghri to their new world as well,which is interesting. Someone other than Pellaeon might have decided to destroy Honoghr in retaliation, but apparently he didn't.

    Luke hands over his old lightsabre to Mara, the one Luuke was using. She wonders why, but her last link to the past was broken at Mount Tantiss.

    Sweet and simple. Ends where it started, roof of Palace at night.

    Overall:

    So that's it, the end of the trilogy. They're very well written books overall.

    Favourite new characters are Pellaeon and Karrde, I'd like to see Pellaeon when he doesn't have a superior contradicting every opinion. I'm not sure I want to see more of Karrde, I don't want to hear that he dies in a speeder crash three books down the line. I kept expecting a reveal that Karrde was a renegade imperial governor or something.

    Also expected C'Baoth to be the final boss of book 1, and he ended up being much more than that. Still miss a true Thrawn /C'Baoth confrontation, though.

    Noghri and smugglers were the most enjoyable arcs for me. Noghri homeworld was a difficult theme handled well.

    The reason I started this was because I disliked everything I'd heard about Thrawn, and wanted to see what the truth was behind it. And he was both better and worse than I was expecting. His command decisions were mostly fine, but the book suffers from not allowing him to get through a scene without one upping someone, and every other character, from Wedge to Karrde to Leia to Pellaeon, constantly thinking about how awesome he is and taking shots at other commanders for not being Thrawn. It's the weakness of an otherwise good trilogy.

    I might read other Thrawn books because Timothy Zahn can write well, but I won't ever be a 'yay, Thrawn's in it,' person. Newcanon Thrawn suffers from the same thing as far as I can tell.

    Thanks for reading this far, everyone. What did you make of this? Too whiny? Let me know. What would you recommend reading from here?

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    Quote Originally Posted by Sapphire Guard View Post
    I might read other Thrawn books because Timothy Zahn can write well, but I won't ever be a 'yay, Thrawn's in it,' person. Newcanon Thrawn suffers from the same thing as far as I can tell.

    Thanks for reading this far, everyone. What did you make of this? Too whiny? Let me know. What would you recommend reading from here?
    I'd suggest the Hand of Thrawn duology - which Thrawn is not, technically, in, though he gets referenced a lot and his reputation does a lot of heavy lifting in terms of the storyline. Most other books by Zahn involving Thrawn play up his genius to a significantly greater degree than the Thrawn Trilogy does (Choices of One and Outbound Flight being particularly egregious in this regard). Most of the other post-ROTJ EU novels are distinctly inferior writing compared to Zahn - though the X-wing novels by Stackpole and Allston are perfectly serviceable. Skipping from the Thrawn Trilogy to Hand of Thrawn allows you to skip over most of the low points of the Bantam-period novel line (you're not missing anything by skipping Jedi Academy, the Callista pseudo-trilogy, Crystal Star, The New Rebellion, or the Corellion Trilogy).

    However, if you do make the skip it might be work tracking down a copy of either The Essential Atlas or The Essential Guide to Warfare to read through and fill in the gaps in the timeline - since those reference books integrated material from several sources and chart the gradual downfall of the empire effectively in a fashion that otherwise requires tracking down old comics.
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    You disliked stuff that i usually didnt minded when i read the books myself, but who am I to judge what your personal preferences were? I liked your summaries and evaluation most of the times. I think we had a few spats in Book 1, but hardly something that made me redact my liking of your Lets Read.

    The only style of Lets Read/Watch that I actively dislike is those who keep thinking about the coming plot ahead, have a thousand theories running, and then when the Big Reveal occurs they are "oh, boring I called it" just because it was one of their 1000 theories.

    Thats hardly your case. I liked the few theories you threw out there, but you never seemed to be more interested in "getting ahead of the story", if you understand what I mean.

    All in all, ill happily read if you ever want to read Ghost of the Past/Vision of the Future (Hand of Thrawn Duology). This one makes a lot of backstory reference to the rest of the EU that occurs in the 10-year time period between, so if you wish, you could always ask the Hive Mind to fill you in on reference and plot points from other books as they are brought up.

    Trust me, it will generate a LOT of discussion about all relevant EU novels. Dont get me started on the Lando/Mara Jade shipping.

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    Quote Originally Posted by McStabbington View Post
    . . . Because now that he knows what ysalamiri are, what they can do, what effect they have on him, and the barely-maintained and fragile detente he currently has with Thrawn, C'Boath isn't going to get on a shuttle that has even one ysalamiri on it. C'Boath can be tricked into a trap, sure, but he sure as heck isn't going to walk willingly into one.
    Again, it doesn't matter. Ysalamiri make him a powerless old man. Meet Bob. Bob is an officer with an ysalamiri pack. Bob walks up to C'Baoth. It now sucks to be C'Baoth, because blasters work perfectly fine in ysalamiri fields, and he'll do whatever they tell him to so long as Bob stays near him, because how's he going to say no? As you say, this isn't hard to parse.

    Your "kill C'Baoth" theory makes zero sense, because they could just do that and have him at their mercy.
    Quote Originally Posted by Sapphire Guard View Post
    Favourite new characters are Pellaeon and Karrde, I'd like to see Pellaeon when he doesn't have a superior contradicting every opinion. I'm not sure I want to see more of Karrde, I don't want to hear that he dies in a speeder crash three books down the line. I kept expecting a reveal that Karrde was a renegade imperial governor or something.
    snip
    Thanks for reading this far, everyone. What did you make of this? Too whiny? Let me know. What would you recommend reading from here?
    Everything Cykomir said. I loved going through the trilogy with you, and would love going through the duology as well. Which, coincidentally, delivers exactly what you want! Also, it had probably my favorite character even over Pellaeon and Karrde (which are pretty hard to beat, IMO).
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    I just REALLY love the super heavy build up to him, and at the end,
    he's just a reasonable old guy. An old, even smarter version of Karrde. Also loved when they fleshed him out in Outbound Flight.
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  21. - Top - End - #891
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    Default Re: Reading Heir to the Empire

    Pelleon is a fantastic character and is quite loved by the EU fandom. I know theres a series where hes fairly prominent that deals with the Yuzhan Vong war.
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    Quote Originally Posted by hamishspence View Post
    Seen from the point of view of his apprentice, who can sense his thoughts:
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    he outright took the plunge in that confrontation.
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    He's climbing the diving board at the start of the book. By the time the end rolls around, he's not talking a plunge, he's firmly underwater, and deep.
    Ah, right. It's been a while since I read the book.

    Quote Originally Posted by Sapphire Guard View Post
    Thanks for reading this far, everyone. What did you make of this? Too whiny? Let me know. What would you recommend reading from here?
    I found it enjoyable. I'm really bad at actually thinking ahead and wondering what's going on when I read books, or play games - 90% of the time I just end up going along for the ride - so it was nice actually seeing the thoughts of someone doing that kind of postulation. I didn't find it too whiny - while hearing the same gripe over and over again did occasionally get tiresome, it was pointing out issues that you found that didn't get fixed by the end (even if I didn't mind them so much on my own readthrough).

    As for further readings, any of Zahn's other books are at least decent. The Hand of Thrawn duology has a lot of continuity with this series (at the very least referentially), and it doesn't have the issues that you had with Thrawn (at least, not that I can recall) - the antagonists don't need to be contrasted constantly to the movie Empire, because there was a lot more EU by that point, and the antagonist doesn't make the perfect in-contradictable decisions.

    Outbound Flight and Survivor's Quest I also found decently enjoyable. I read Outbound Flight first, but Survivor's Quest, though a (technical, though very, very time-separated) sequel, was released first - so, it might be better to read it in proper Star Wars fashion, with the second half first.
    (Not knowing how the stuff went down in one to affect the other probably makes for a more interesting read.)

    He also wrote also Allegiance and Choices of One - I've only read the former, and, while I found it weaker overall, it was still enjoyable (at least to me). There's some PoV from more traditional Rebellion main characters, but there's also a group of Stormtrooper main characters, and Mara Jade in her days as an Imperial Agent.

    Anyways, that's probably enough recommendations.
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    Default Re: Reading Heir to the Empire

    Seconding (more fourthing?^^) the Hand of Thrawn Duology.

    It has 2 of my 3 "Absolute Best Moments" in all Star Wars Novels in it, and continues the ...not so much plot but Theme of this trilogy without the "And then Thrawn Came Along and One Upped everybody".

    Not gonna say more because of spoilers, and you should read that one as unspoilered as possible to enjoy it fully.

    Maybe in a Thread on this site? ^^
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    Default Re: Reading Heir to the Empire

    Fifthing the Hand of Thrawn duology. If you like Karrde and Pelleaon, they are at their best in the series. This time, while the spectre of Thrawn looms over Pelleaon, in this story he really gets to stand on his own two feet.

    Is Thrawn really dead? That's a question all our characters have to grapple with.

    And of course Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade show up as well, my favorite couple in the EU. Han and Leia will be there as well, along with their twins Jacen and Jaina, now in their early teens.


    ETA: And I think you did a fine job reading through. I disagreed with some of your conclusions, but I can see how you came to them. You were a fair reader and an engaging one.

    Respectfully,

    Brian P.
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    Default Re: Reading Heir to the Empire

    Pendell, you might want to spoiler that.
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    Quote Originally Posted by pendell View Post
    Han and Leia will be there as well, along with their twins Jacen and Jaina, now in their early teens.
    A bit younger than that. HOT is Ten Years After TTT, and Jacen and Jaina were born in TTT. So they'd be ten, or eleven at most.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Yana View Post
    Pendell, you might want to spoiler that.
    I've rewritten; the intent is to tease without giving away.

    Respectfully,

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    Default Re: Reading Heir to the Empire

    Yeah you should definitely read the Hand of Thrawn.

    I also recommend Thrawn it's a new-canon book but Zahn was careful not to contradict anything from Legends. It follows Thrawn rising through the ranks of the Imperial Navy and allows us to hear his thoughts (so no excuse for poor deductions this time). however the parts with the Rebels character are weaker and there's a distinct lack of Pellaeon (Eli Vanto plays his role but it's not the same).
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    Quote Originally Posted by Fyraltari View Post
    Yeah you should definitely read the Hand of Thrawn.

    I also recommend Thrawn it's a new-canon book but Zahn was careful not to contradict anything from Legends. It follows Thrawn rising through the ranks of the Imperial Navy and allows us to hear his thoughts (so no excuse for poor deductions this time). however the parts with the Rebels character are weaker and there's a distinct lack of Pellaeon (Eli Vanto plays his role but it's not the same).
    I just read that a couple of weeks ago. I very thoroughly enjoyed it (but I very much enjoy Thrawn, period and have no problems with him being completely awesome - in my opinion, the real tragedy is he didn't win...!)

    Notable for the first time, I think, EVER, that we actually get some scenes from THRAWN's perspective, which is amazing.

    I am tentatively classifiying it as "close enough to Legends EU in counts as far as Bleakbane is concerned" - though I do actually have the short story in one of the Star Wars RPG supplements on which the first couple of chapters are based (Mist Encounter), too.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Aotrs Commander View Post
    Notable for the first time, I think, EVER, that we actually get some scenes from THRAWN's perspective, which is amazing.
    I'm fairly certain that you are correct in that regard, yes.

    I do actually have the short story in one of the Star Wars RPG supplements on which the first couple of chapters are based (Mist Encounter), too.
    That one's also, I believe, found at the end of paper copies of Outbound Flight, if I'm remembering correctly. Might be a different novel it's bundled with.
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