A More Civilized Age: A Star Wars Podcast - 98: Dark Force Rising Pt. 3 (Ch. 22 - 29)

Episode Date: November 6, 2024

We return on this... historic... day... to wrap up the second entry in Timothy Zahn's franchise redefining Thrawn Trilogy. And when you hit the final third of a Star Wars story, you know what that means: Revelations! Compelling heart-to-heart confrontations! And, of course, a giant space battle to put a button on everything.  Will Thrawn take another L, or have his ships finally come in? NEXT TIME: The Last Command Ch. 1 - 10 Show Notes   Hosted by Rob Zacny (@RobZacny) Featuring Alicia Acampora (@ali_west), Austin Walker (@austin_walker), and Natalie Watson (@nataliewatson) Produced by Ricardo Contreras (@a_cado_appears) Music by Jack de Quidt (@notquitereal) Cover art by Xeecee (@xeeceevevo)  

Let us return once more to a more civilized age, a Star Wars podcast. I'm Rob Zanning, joined by Aliaq Kampora, Austin, and Natalie Watson. We are, as always, supported by you, our listeners, via patreon.com slash civilized. So head over there if you'd like to support the show and get access to all our Q&A episodes and our various other explorations of the Star Wars universe. This week, we are concluding Dark Force Rising, book two of the Air to the Empire Trilogy. Next time, we will be starting off with The Last Command. Skimming through, I think, chapters 1 through 10 are the right lead-off chapters for the last command.

That gets through the first major plot arc of the book and sets up sort of the next leg of the action. So chapters 1 through 10 of the last command on the next episode. A little bit of housekeeping here up front You know I made a lot of comments about Ha ha ha you know Marjade former stripper for the empire and all that And we need clear the air on that There's nothing there's nothing stripper coded about this character There's nothing like you know a letter did someone write in

No I just like people commented on it And I just want to make sure there's nothing Elmore Leonard coded at all about Mars background Or you know things of that nature But let's just catch on what's going on in the story So Mara Jade, who works at the wild card, she was getting... Jesus Christ. Hello? You're going to see, like, the whole blueprint slipped together for a whole bit.

I mean, she was working at the wild card. She works the wild card. But she wasn't working there. She had to get her boss's car out of it. pound. Right. Uh-huh. And she drove it straight into another stop, another police stop. Uh-huh.

And so she had, she had a bright idea, though. She was going to talk her way out of that jam with the Imperials. And her plan was to tell them that Talancard had information that was of high value to them.

And that would get her card everyone out of trouble. Right. problem was it just made them want to arrest him more and so when she went back to get card they followed her back to the base and arrested him immediately so she confronted Grand Admiral Thron who knew her back in her in her handing days

don't call them that don't call them her handing days back when back when she was the emperor's hand yeah right a very big deal in the empire. She confronted him and she said you can't, you can't do that.

I was the emperor's hand. And he was like, that's not as big a deal as you think it was. Why are you delivering this like he's a character from Justified? I feel like you've really committed, Rob. No, it's just, I, you know what? It just kind of feels,

it kind of feels like it all makes a degree of sense. If you, if you shoot it through that Elmore Leonard's, lens again. So anyway, she kind of lost her shit at him and tried to choke him the way Darth Vader did.

But she's not in the shape she was when she was the emperor's hand and he just kind of shrugged it off and said if you do not behave yourself I'm not going to let you be the assistant manager of one of my dreadnoughts franchises. He didn't say that. You're going to have 200 of these things.

You're going to change the galaxy. So she was kind of left without any, without any options, except, except she's, she's sort of obsessed with this guy for a while, Luke Skywalker. He and his sister showed up at a club she was working at, like five years ago. And she killed, and she killed the club owner. Yeah. And then they burned down the club. They did.

And then him and his dad, though, she doesn't. No. She doesn't know. Vader was his dad, but him and his dad did kill her boss, like a week later. And so kind of, kind of in the space of week, like Luke Skywalker destroyed, destroyed her whole life. And she's been, she's been kind of sore about that ever since. But she's, she's been kind of obsessed with him since then.

He's the only person, though, she kind of knows after Cards organization. And he's kind of at loose ends. That's the good news for her. He's been, he's been kind of at loose ends because he's supposed to be getting the, the Jedi order back together but he didn't really finish Jedi school I'm not sure how everyone how much everyone

knows that he he dropped out and it's not really his fault he didn't finish he did go back he did go back but his instructor took one look at him and just died straight away just died said I have nothing more to teach you doesn't feel like getting a diploma

and Luke's not super sure so he's been like kind of marking time for five years being like Any day now, I'm going to start that Jedi order. But he's kind of just been thinking about it and saying, like, that's a big job. And then flying around in his spaceship, they just gave him after the war. He killed a whole bunch of Imperials in it. So he just flies it around, hangs out with her sister and, her sister and husband. So that's kind of, that's kind of where he's been at.

Anyway, he found him a mentor and spiritual guide. Joris Sabayov he went to the planet Joe Mark and he was going to he was going to learn ways of being a Jedi

from from Sabayov but Sabayov but Sabat seemed a little weird like he was like to show you I'm going to show you like how a Jedi how a Jedi administers justice in the galaxy but then it turns out that was just

electrocuting farmers in the nuts and Luke was thinking shit I knew farmers didn't like being shot in the nuts electricity. I learned that. I went back from the emperor back on the Death Star. And that kind of made Luke go, huh.

But then he thought, this is just a sick old man. He seems nice enough. I can fix him. So he's going to stick around and fix him. Mara showed up in the middle of that. Sabiaf tried to kill her. He was throwing rocks at her plane

as she came in. It was way scarier than it sounds. But he was like, he was on rocks at her plane and she came in for a landing Sabiof was there confronting her Luke walked in the middle of it and it was like I'm gonna I'm gonna go with Mara I got I got nothing I got nothing better do

now don't read anything into this now on solo took one look at them and thought like maybe there's a little something there but that's just Han being helpful because it's been a little bit of a dry spell for Luke ever since he found out Princess Leia's sister extenuating circumstance

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you take a pause after that. You take a pause after that. You take a pause. Yeah. So they had a big confrontation with Sabayov. Art two. He's the little fellow who flies around in Luke spaceship with him. Little fellow.

He took a pot shot at Sabiof and just knocked him out. And Mara was like, Skywalker, we just got to kill this guy right now. And Luke was like, that is going to be my mentor and spiritual guy. soon as we get him sorted out I'm going to have a mentor and spiritual guide he's going to help me

get the Jedi order back together oh the evil vibes are just temporary maro looked at him and it was like I don't know

this is mentor and spiritual guide material it kind of seemed like a sort of guy who might get picked up for peeing outside a playground

or something but Luke said we had to leave him so they left him and they flew off to the to the chimera to rescue card god the galaxies never seemed so small in backwater so that's where i picked things up uh-huh them on their way they're them landing on the uh on the star destroy chimera to to rescue talent card now i do to say we did skip

something in our last episode that's probably worth rectifying before we go forward because we talk now's fairier that's right talk about a backwater character. We did a lot of talking about how smart Lando was last episode in the last section of the book because he saw through some of Bell Iblis's stuff because he recognized that he was aboard a dark force dreadnought. But we left off the bit where at the very end he kind of overplace his hand a little bit with Niles Farrier, the cigarilla man, the man who's always smoking this.

Cigrella man, who has been, who has been picked up by Thrawn at this point and put back out in the world to go, again, real Elmer Leonard vibes actually on this guy, like, you know, guy who does car theft, basically, like high-scale car theft gets picked up by, you know, a powerful crime lord slash cop and told, you're going to work for me now. absolutely the sort of thing that would happen in a letter novel and he gets put out to go find the fleet basically on Thron's behalf and we get a we got an encounter that we forgot to mention at the end of

I guess it was like one of the last chapters before the Joris and Mara and Luke stuff he lowers them back to that like weird plant life planet new code where they all hung out before using that like code where it's like ha I'm pretending to be Luke It's like, Lando, meet me at the money-changing place. And to Lando's credit, he was like, that's not much of a code.

No. But obviously, it's something, because remember Nile's Sharer happened to be there. There's a real, the galaxy sometimes feels a little too small stuff happening with Niles. But here he is again. And how does this play out? Lander just like, he tries to cut a deal and Lando was like, fuck off repeatedly. Am I remembering this right? So I think, so what it is is, I think Farrier comes and he implies that like, hey, I got a sweet deal for you.

I'm on the trail of the Catana fleet. Right. Because Lando and Hahn are already on the trail of the Catana Fleet using the info, Baliblis has given them. Right. Yes. They don't have their Savick faces. Right. Exactly. That's what it is. Yes. The other thing is we know from the first, from the opening of the book, that Ferrier runs with this weird little alien we've never seen before. Yes. Who's like a, oh yeah. Like he moved like liquid shadow. The shadow rate.

The death rate. The defal, yeah. Yeah. We need, we need to know more about that guy. Like, immediately. I, we need to know more. The thing about it is when, when he is not doing, when the defel are not doing. their like shadow form thing, they're just, they're like werewolf guys. That's the fucked up thing. They're like the

werewolf guy from the canteen. What? Yeah. So like they can become... So it's like something they turn on? Yeah, it's like a mode they can activate. Because otherwise, they just look like this. This is like a classic canteen alien. It was like, why is there just a fucking werewolf in here? Well, that's weird because the um, because the werewolves, at least in In this timeline of the EU, they are identified as different species. Oh, are they?

Okay, so maybe they've been fell forward back in. Yes, you're right. Well, but, okay, but look, here's a legend defal. You're right. It's just slightly distinct, but they are. Oh, but that's like a more, that's like a more evil-coded werewolf. It's like a more evil-coded werewolf that has like a built-in weird visor eyes or glowy eyes. The dude above could just be any old werewolf, where he's like, I'm not just a werewolf.

Oh, my God. this comic image. I'm a raconteur named Shoto sorry is this character named Shoto Ifire is that real? Look at this

motherfucker this is now this guy's got it going on. Now we need to know more we need to know a little bit more about what's going on here. We got a man lounging in his jeans and his deep V

tank top you were able to smuggle so much much furry shit through the old Star Wars comics. Yes, you sure were. You were just able to no, that alien's just like that. And it's like, that's a dog with a rack. It's like next to him he's a dog with a rack. Yeah. I love her. Good for her. I love everything that she's got going on right now. She's in the damn laia outfit. She's got the gold bra on. Yeah. They went to the same, the same lingerie shop. They did. She was like, Let me get the layer.

Let me get the, yeah, let me get the hot special, please. Hold up. I got another picture of him with, like, armor on, about to do some gunfighting. He's a professional blast fighter and a criminal with a local reputation. It's a blast fighter. It's a professional gunman. He was a gunman. He was a professional.

A blast fighter? That sounds like you're trying to put your own speak. Try to put a little sauce on something, and you're just, you're kind of missing. Listener, I've now, I've linked three, two images so far of this guy, Shoto Eye Fire. the first is him lounging with his girlfriend presumably the second is him about to draw down as a professional blast fighter unfortunately this is an act of three plays or play in three acts as here's the third image him getting shot through both of his knee cats him losing dramatically oh that's too bad we need to patch felonian right now to retcon this and bring this guy back y'all Do you see the ridiculous gun this dude is shooting one? I sure do. It appears to be a three-barreled gun.

Uh-huh. Two of the barrels have, like, cut this guy off at the, like, knees, literally. Literally. And the third one is shooting the blast rod of his hand. That guy's name is Pinky. Um, and he does seem to have a... Oh, this dude sucks. This dude sucks.

Oh, fuck this guy. Yeah. You're telling me that professional blast fighter got killed by a dude, the super so. Oh, he's a, you know what it is? He's a, um, he is a, um, he is a, a Jedi is apparently. He's an undercover. Jedi Knight is what he is. What?

Unfortunately. This is all from Star Wars Tales 2 incident at Horn Station, a comic from the year 2000. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. I can't believe this. Wow. Deeply corny.

I don't like that. I don't like that blaster. No, I think I don't like this guy. I don't like Pinky at all. Yeah. He lived through. Do we have a year on when it's 2000?

The year is the 2000. Yeah, because he feels like he's at that cusp of like 90s. Like this is a cool badass. Like filing the serial numbers off Gambit. Yeah, 100%. You know what I love actually? If you click through that image and make it big, the one where he's getting shot in the kneecaps, and scroll up with the top right, there's just generic green alien with an assault rifle going like,

oh, gasp. Like a hover vehicle? It's great. On a floating platform. On a floating platform, yeah. dumb that's me that's you yeah anyway thank you for this me i'm i'm them thank you for us going into the the EU canon so yeah defel are these like werewolf looking guys who can also become darkness if they stand still is my understanding a bit like the no grand i think probably

to good effect the exact power is not described too well yeah because it does appear that like You can, you can make these things out. If they stand in the open kind of out of cover, like it's, it's a dude with fur. Right. But they're really good at if there's at all, like, some ambiguity in the light and they just sort of melt into the background. Yeah, yeah. God, apparently the lore on this is fun. They, um, their world is from like a world that's being bombarded by ultraviolet light.

Uh, and a thing that's apparently true is viewed under. ultraviolet light, their fur appears in colors ranging from yellow to blue. They're like super colorful. But when you remove ultraviolet light, they just look like brown werewolf people. That's fun. Hmm. Either way. So, uh, I like these guys. Ferrier's like shooting the shit with Lando and kind of lowers them off the ramp at the docking bay. And they just don't clock that Right. The Dethel is like snuck up the ramp and aboard the Lady Luck. Right.

And they end up placing two trackers on the on the lady luck. One and one on the outside which they find and one on the inside which they do not find until it is too late, right? Which we'll get to. But we left that bit out last time. We left the fairier bit out. So I wanted to make sure we're back on that one before we picked back up. Where were we, Rob? Mara Jade

Mara Jade and Luke had left Joe Mark had left Joe Mark yeah and and headed to well so we pick up we miss out on the part where they planned the heist

we just cut to them having stolen a supply shuttle and they're landing on the chimera so in this section they have a whole little jail break sequence with them getting card out of jail they find the Millennium Falcon

aboard the chimera because they were just at Dendor and they picked up the falcon in orbit The way that's all The way this all just comes together It's beautiful It's so beautiful It's so they're so lucky that

That they brought aboard the falcon And then later on When Leia is like Hansen murder me for not going back To get the falcon right now Very good So they stay So they break card out of jail

And card now sort of sees Luke having provided this this aid without any preconditions like you and Card need help I'm there that's when Carr decides to throw in at least this far the thing he wasn't willing

to like auction a deal with the empire he tries to give to the new republic emphasis on tries we'll get to that in the second meanwhile Leah is back on the planet Onager which is the home world of the of the no gree and last we checked in on them,

they were planning on busting Kabarok out of sort of the public shaming ritual he was in. It was probably going to lead with an execute, end with an execution at the empire's hands.

But before they go on that raid, there's a little translation issue that Leah stumbles across. Very easy mistake to me. These days, no agree these days. They got a bunch of weird names, strange names,

no agree baseball players these days. You know, this guy, we got first son of, on first base, obviously. I'm my first son on first base. I got two son on second base. Obviously, that's my first son's son.

And then on third base is my third son. That's my second son's son. That's my second son's son. So that's your grandson? No, no, no, no, no. That's my second son. So, Leah's, like, getting prepared for this jail break,

and she's in her feelings, and she has a real heart-to-heart with the matroch. And the matronk is like, yeah, I've lost all my children or lost the empire. All four of my sons have died. Wait, isn't Cabrach your third son? And the Matrix is like, yeah, that means he's my great-grandson.

And so what Leia had assumed was the devastation of their planet because the rebellion fought a space battle above their planet with those spaces. I said it was unambiguous last time. I was like, well, we now have a, we're certain about this, I said. An idiot. It was 44 years. in the past before Leo was born.

No, Rob, would you say that's 44 of a strange no-gris years or 44 of the galaxy's years? Very conveniently. Sorry, 44 no-gri years, 42 of your galactic standard years.

The calendars fortunately mesh up. The fucking... What can I say? They got her ass on that one. They got her ass with them. For reasons that, like, how could we I mean, actually, if you start thinking about it, it gets a little weird because we didn't, we couldn't have anticipated this because for us, the Clone Wars happened 20 years ago because they end 19 BBY because that's when Han, or sorry, that's when Luke and Leah are born to the, to the, to the, to the, the, the droid in the little, in the little spaceship as Natalie Portman gets flown away and she's dying of heartbreak, you know, the Ubububo droids are. choking the choking didn't help the choking didn't help we know that the choking didn't help

we recovered this material so for obi won being like just put it down his heartbreak he's still my friend uh i don't know like her esophagus seems pretty heartbreak a heartbreak uh obi won doing the press conference after the game saying some things in defense of a man he should not be defending i think personally um it's easy for you guys to criticize out there you don't know the pressures you're not on these fields unbelievable in my mind

the clone wars are 20 years ago so that it just lines up nicely but but she but also Zahn is drawing from the fact that how old I think so this is what's so fucking wild

how old is this suggests that Leia and Luke were born to Darth Vader not to Anakin Skywalker Walker. Yep. Do you understand? Because if this happened 44 years ago, Vader showed up here 44 years ago and helped them. And then 20 years after that, Luke and Lay were born. So I think there's a little bit of the thing that is giving him, that giving Zahn his timeline, I suspect, is Al-Ginnis, which we all would have assumed. Which makes sense. Alex Guinness is a 70, 75-year-old man when he

meets Luke. So you assume like back in his prime, right, when all this is going down, it's about 40 ago when all this would have gone right so this is actually the timeline makes a great deal of sense and you could argue that again like zan has the kind of like i bet this is kind of how would have played out is a little more satisfying in some respects than maybe lucas arrived at uh but sorry i'm getting a look from alley that's confused and i want to lay this out for the listener so they say 48 no gree years in the years of the emperor 44 so the the the destruction hit Noghri home 44 years ago, right?

As the story goes forward, we talk about that 44-year period as being more than enough time for the decondroids, the decontamination droids, to have successfully healed the planet given what their technological level is. And that instead it's been 44 years of

poisoning the planet through the deployment of this other different type of grass that replaces. We'll get there. But Vader shows up soon after the destruction of the planet, right? And that would have been 44 years ago, which means that Vader would have existed 44 years ago. Now, Luke and Leia at this point are at this point in the story are 25. We're five years after the Battle of Yavin at this point, right? And so, or maybe we're nine years after the Battle, somewhere in there, right? But like, that means that they, would have been born post-Vaderification because we don't know anything about how Vader became

Vader in this world. There ain't no, there ain't no, uh, uh, Princess Amadala in this story. No Hayden Christian. There's no Hayden Christensen. No nothing. This looks like, to me, I'm reminded of the, I think it was a trading card that was an Anakin Skywalker card from before we knew, I think it's, I think that's what it was. Like, maybe it's, maybe it was a comic cover where he's like a grown ass man, uh, who has like a wife and is like, he's living as Darth Vader with a wife and that is who the, yeah, here we go, where is this from? This is a 1993, um, canceled Tops card game, um, uh, image here, um, where you can see, Vader in the back

Anakin as Vader in the back before he's wearing the mask and stuff with like a woman holding a baby basically. That feeling when you realize you can't fix him. Oh, you can't fix him. Exactly. That is an expression that like look I knew I knew when I walked at the door maybe this was not the best

idea and I agree now. I love and like oh right like they didn't know they didn't know Lucas did not send a note being like no no no no no he's going to be kind of like a twinky little jumpy boy. We're going to cast him in 10 years

from now. Weirdly, Timothy Zahn didn't imagine that he would have been a little boy when he met his future wife and would actually be like little baby in the relationship and being a teen dad who turned evil. Weirdly enough, he didn't extrapolate that

from Obi-Wan's. We served together in the Clone Wars. He was my friend and like the greatest pilot. Yeah. Yeah. Well, his piloting day is, his great as piloting days, he was like nine, but you should have seen him. Very promising nine-year-old. Your mother thought so, too.

Wink. No. So I guess the other thing I would say about the timing that the Matroc lays out, though, is that in her telling, it might be a little ambiguous even about the timing of when Vader shows up, because in her story, it's like he shows up right after, but she also describes enough time passing for their entire ecosystem to die. Right, from the knock on effects of this. And everyone has gathered, remember, this is like a pre-spaceflight civilization,

but everyone has gathered at, like, the central truce grounds that they've always had because everyone's trying, everyone's realizing they are in the midst of existential crisis for their species. So it could also be that, like, what Zahn is leaving room for in the story is that Darth Vader comes back to a location that Anakin Skywalker knew about from the war from the war and is like I need to close the loop on this this one thing well and so I will

give a little current canonical answer on this which is because this was driving me crazy obviously I didn't thankfully I don't think I spoiled myself or anything special here but I went like but I did a search on just the internet for like, wait, how is what the year, how did the years add up on this? And they, of course, just write on this eventually, right? Because as a reminder, there's a large period of time where this pre-prequel stuff

has to coexist with the prequels. This legends was now called Legends material, the EU stuff, had to fold in the, the prequel stuff, meaning the Clone War. as we know them, had to suddenly match this. And so there is a comic that came out. I think it's the, it's issue 68 of the Star Wars Republic comic, which is about A. La Cicora and a driven to the dark side, Quinlan Voss, showing up on this planet.

Admiral Enigma himself. Admiral Enigma himself, would you believe that even earlier in Quinlan Voss's career, he got tempted by the dark side? It seems like it just happens again and again and again for our boy, Quinlan. But apparently in this issue, they show up at Hanager, and they, it's like they, that is where they kind of retcon it to having only happened. 28 years ago, and so the 44 years ago, and, like, tied to the Clone Wars, as we know are Clone Wars. Apparently, also, the same issue is the first, the same issue includes a Rakitan temple connecting the Rakitan ancient empire from Kotor to the continuity. So lots of beautiful gifts. You know, it is, it is the year 2004, and you were just trying to make it all

make sense. You were a continuity out of there somewhere, and you're like, we got to make Kotor lineup with the Thron books and also with the prequel movies. I think I've read this. I think I own this. I have a Quinlan Voss comic book Omnibus and I think that this is in it. I would

believe it. I will tell you, Allie, there is a... That dude has an omnibus dedicated to him. Also, you have it? It's over there. Yeah, I could see it. It's at my bedside. It's behind my Okada special sponge. All right. I can tell you, Allie,

Unless there are multiple different Quinlan Voss Omnibuses, which is possible, I guess. I don't think he's in, oh, maybe he, maybe, I don't think, I don't think. The years are, it being 2004, makes you think. Yeah, that it maybe it's not. Yeah, I think yours is 90, the 98 run of Quinlan Voss stuff. But it's, it's all. Oh, that's the one where he's tempted. by the dark side, it'll let him surf the biggest wave is ever seen.

So actually what I genuinely think is the case here is that is where that story happens originally with Quinlan Voss and Aela Sikora. And then this issue of Star Wars Republic is like bouncing off of that already established story, but from the perspective of clone commander Bly, Ala Secura's, Sikora's clone commander, you know, like that's like his vision, it's, it is his perspective. on that 1998 comics run is one of it is. So, but it is,

Ali, I will say, I feel like this is, to me, Alley-coded, um, the cover of this, which is just like, it's just a picture of a clone

with a gun over his shoulder and then AILA in the background. Like, this is, this is your aesthetic to me. Yeah. You know? Anyway.

Glad we got to talk about the confusion, Hanagar. and the years and the strangeness. Because I think it's one of the most appealing and interesting things about reading these books is like, oh, right, nothing is fucking settled. Like, the idea that Luke and Leia,

because I want to say Leia in the movies mentions of briefly seeing her mother. She remembers her mom. Right. She has a memory, not just of her mom being beautiful and sad, which I'm not entirely sure is something that even in the movie is something saying that like even a little Jedi baby

would like internalize in that moment. It was way more sense as like oh, I'm a, like I have a memory as a toddler that my twin does not because memory comes in spotting in that age. Someone might remember something vividly from when like they were three and you have no memories from

that year. I want them so bad to blow it all up and just be like we're doing legend or legends is true. We're doing air to the empire. We're doing air to the empire. We're recasting or we are recasting. we're doing Air and the Empire this is a new continuity

throw out the prequels none of that shit's real anymore we're gonna retell Star Wars Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on They can continue existing and let me tell you something it will gain power over a long period of time

because once it's put in the back seat all of the fans of the prequels will be ravenous for it to get its return again in 20 years prequel people will become legends people exactly These things should belong anyway, which is like the status of myth, where different cycles have different versions of the story.

Yes. We're falling astray from our real plight, the real AMCA, is to get Duku Jedi lost as far into the public consciousness of Star Wars as we can. That is our mission. I'm going to tell you the other day I was on YouTube.com and YouTube shorts, which are a bane, and no one should, no one should fuck with them. But they served me up a little video of a guy who's like a European sword expert getting his ducu lightsaber. And he was like, it just feels so elegant. It just feels so good to move around. And I was like, I should probably get a ducu lightsaber.

I should probably devote myself to this lifestyle. I should probably go back into studying the blade. This seems like the thing that will fix me. Oh, I see you admiring my Count Duku lightsaber. It looked so sick. Anyway. It's so cool. It's so cool.

So, Leah figures out the whole conspiracy now to keep the no-green bondage. And she arranged a huge confrontation with dynas of the no gree presents her case and at once the scandal and has basically like fractured the alliance between the nogris and the empire uh it's this grass right they replace the grass with grass that smells different more details like when we talk to her okay yeah yeah uh she flies off with cabarok uh they race back to corosan meanwhile han lando go to one of the coolest sequences i think i've ever seen in star wars uh they go to a submarine casino to go find Captain Hoffner, who was cards like captain when he was on that that smuggling

trip that found the Katana fleet. And so they're trapped aboard this like giant luxury submarine casino when it's attacked by the empire. And Farrier and his crew are there already. They try to, you know, they're trying to get Lando killed because Farrier's just gotten really sick of Lando always showing up and foiling his endeavors and treating him with with the disrespect that fear seems to detect from Lando. Han sets the defile on fire with with he tries to lock him up in the booze storage for the bar. There's a lot of there's a lot of like behind the bar sequences

in this book now I think of it. At least there's the there's the two. But Han keeps being like getting pulled into, like, the storeroom of a bar. And this time he fucking drops liquor all over this alien and sets him on fire. It's wild. It's just a little alcohol fire. Yeah. That's all. He'll be fine.

I mean, it hurts, but he'll be fine. Right. But long story short, like, the Empire gets, gets their guy. You know, Han Lando realized they've decisively now. lost this lead to the katana fleet it shouldn't matter as much as it will because

Card is back in Correscent trying to give them the Katana fleet but that Borch failure he's just playing politics he's trying to he is trying to turn these latest events to his advantage he's delaying the salvage operation

to get the Katana fleet Card sort of detects what is going on and has Leia authorized like a rogue mission to go out and get the to really see what's going on out of the Catana Fleet location and crucially Card also goes all in on bringing his organization now directly into the fight he has Mara go out to rally the troops

and get everyone to report to the Catana Fleet When the authorized republic salvage mission goes out aboard this frigate that Layas arranged to take her in card out to the Caton fleet, it emerges that it is full of Failure's loyalists. And so once the Empire shows up at the Catana Fleet, Phalia is like, well, just time to cut Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and everyone else loose. Oh, rogue squadrons out there fighting Try to save their lives Fuck them Fuck them But

And look Is it the most subtle thing in the world No Is it an oldy but goody It is The oldest king in the book Mm-hmm Card

Signals to Leia Turn on the intercom And then they're like Oh could you repeat the part You say Fuck Rogue Squadron And fuck Luke Skywalker Yeah, could you say that louder?

Did you say fuck the troops or fuck them troops? Can you repeat that for the microphone, please? Both. I met both. I meant both. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah.

Uh, so Phalia launches into his, like, his theory of politics, which is, like, people exist to serve you or be discarded and killed, uh, just, like, loudly into the intercom. And seconds later, his loyalists show up and, like, sir, you're undergris. rest, not quite, but it's like, hey, a big guy, why don't you enjoy the rest of this battle from your quarters, under lock and key? Yeah. And we'll go into the fight. Sauceless. Never has a dude been rendered more. You know, I, I've tried to, I've written characters like failure. I've tried to play characters like failure before. It's hard to be like, this is a guy that everybody loves, except the protagonists. And like, he's like a little

iconoclastic and like people you know but he has the heart of the like the every man aboard the fleet but you got to do better than this because this guy does not have the fucking sauce he doesn't have it at all I don't know why anyone likes him

and like I need to how did he get all these people on his side in the first place like what is he like is he like a fake union guy where he's like talking maybe we don't see any of that And we see him, we see him fumble the bag here in the biggest possible way.

The good version of failure would have been like, oh, word, we're going to get those ships. Like, all right, let's all aboard. Like, I know that it looks like it might give one of my enemy's power, but like it's too, too good of a thing for the Republic to turn down, like, you have to know how to play a situation like this if you're going to be this type of, like, slime ball. And he doesn't know how to play it. So we'll talk more when we get here in depth, but disappointing. failure, disappointing. So the fight goes pretty poorly for the Republic. Like multiple Star Destroyers come in.

They are rescued in the middle of this by Garmbell Iblis showing up with his full fleet and riding to the rescue. But it's still not enough to match what Thrawn has sent into battle here. But Han has a brilliant idea as we've repeated throughout the throughout these two books. far the katana fleet has a curious little quality which is that they can be centrally controlled from the flagship and they are on the katana the flagship of the katana fleet and so they just pilot one of the one of the dreadnoughts from the katana fleet straight into a star destroyer's bridge and just like blast that shit like blast the shit out of it it's it's like atomized

and then we get hey hey what's happening with Mara at this moment when she gets a little hot under the collar she's out there fighting with the Empire and she decides she's going to point she takes a hit and she's like well I can you know what I really stick to these bastards

though yeah I just stick the gas on Independence Day yeah I'm just going to stick the gas on and just fly this straight into their hangar bay that's going to be great yeah fuck them and then she jacked And she ejects She ejects herself into Yeah

Yeah So she she ejects it Into So the Star Destroy is the middle Battle with another ship And so it's been firing steadily Between This fire being exchanged

She ejects straight into the path Of its ion It's ion bolts And so her Her ejection chair Just launches into A giant like static discharge And just shorts out

All her gear This is some fucking Chris person highlight real shit. This is some like, if you did that in your multiplayer game, that shit would be on, you'd be passing that clip around your friend, your friend chat. Damn, I ejected right into the ion bolt. And let it be known that this is, uh, this was friendly fire. This was, this ion cannon. Oh, no.

Wasn't it one of the dreadnots? Oh, was it was, it was, uh, it was, um, it was the homies. Oh, is Garme Bell Atlas' ship? Yes. Oh, no. It was the homies who showed up. It was their ion cannon. I'm pretty sure.

I'm pretty sure. Oh, you're right, because those are the ones who do show up with the ion canons, I think. I think that that's right. Right? I think you're right. Oh, that's a bummer. Anyway, this is going on YouTube. I'm putting this on YouTube and I'm going to share it and we're all going to laugh.

Yet again, Amara. A common Mara L. Well, don't worry. Luke feels this happen. Rescues her. Yeah. Hands her off. We don't, this is, this is top tier fick writing because he saves her and you got to, oh, sorry,

you don't get the, they don't talk. He, he delivers her still knocked out. Oh, you wanted them to talk here? You wanted him to find, you wanted him to save her and her have to confront the fact that she was saved by him? Like, in the moment. And you have to read the next chapter. Not in this episode.

Not in this episode. You got to buy the next book. She's going to have to think about the fact that she was saved by Luke. Who didn't even rub it in her face? She would have rubbed it in his face 100% if she saved him. Who should be the one to tell her? I'm dying to know who is going to be the one to tell her what Luke did. So my favorite moment here, though, is that they do all that shit.

And it's like, damn, it's how. It's just a shame we had to crash that one dreadnought into the Startershire to win this battle. But I guess that's okay because we had all the other dreadnoughts, right? And Talon card is like, well, the parking lot is empty. Did y'all not run the scanners when you got here? Out of the 200 dreadnoughts, there were 15 left. They got to, they fought with the empires. The empire is coming to get the last of the dreadnoughts out of, out of there.

they they thoroughly lost that race but we get this great reveal at the end too aboard the katana where they've been fighting with the imperial boarding parties now if they're able to assess like Luke does some Jedi shit kills a whole bunch of stormtroopers like all in one go and when they are assessing the battle damage and they're taking helmets off they realize it's all the same guy under now I popped time was this is like how it would have been if you've got a glimpse under the helmet of dudes looking like stormtroopers. Like there's little clone wars happening here.

But yeah, so it is, it like scares the shit out of everybody to realize that Thron is using clones. Because one, their assumption has always been. And Landau says this one on the escape pod after the casino sequence. There's no way they can crew 200 dreadnots. And they realize now maybe they're, maybe they can. Maybe they can. Maybe they can crew them fast. This hits even with the strange Clone War. Like, this is, this is even better post-prequels when you can fill in what that face is.

And, like, I know that face, even though, again, we wouldn't, because that's not what the Clone Wars were when this book came out. But our Clone Wars fits in here so neatly. It would be a great reveal. It'd be a great reveal. It's like a face nobody has seen, or at least not this young in, like, 20 years. If this happens in whatever the upcoming Thron thing is, I think, which I think is still happening. I don't know enough of what happens in the Asoka show to know what that ends up being. We have so many secrets.

We do. I mean, this could fucking happen in rebels and it would hit. Do you know what I mean? If, like, it was revealed that Thron secretly, like, was cloning, was doing clone super soldier things. And it was our classic Django Fet clone. I don't know what they stopped making. I still don't know why they stopped making the clones. I still, I still don't know.

They seem pretty good. I suspect the bad batch may shed some light on that, it being a bad batch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes sense. But that could also mean, like, maybe there's some sort of road Caminoin, like, it's sort of a, you know, like a meth lab type situation. It's like, you're cooking up your own clones. And it's like, shit, they came out, they came out twisted. Yeah.

These clans, these clones broke bad. I'm, I'm, I'm reading this makes me want to get to the bad. batch because I think it's yeah I don't know why that it is but I think maybe the military focus of it and and the and the like scoundrel focus like it's like military but also like underworld yeah focus in the extreme yeah and then the end of the book the alliance between thron and sabayoff has completely fallen apart yes I love that sabayov just shows up to pitch To piss off Thron. It's like, it's, it's so good.

I love, I love Sabayoth as like Thron's foil as, as just, it's, it's so funny. He's like, Thron's getting ready to come over to the, to the giant battle going on. And Sabayat's like, uh, excuse me, can we, uh, we're meeting now. We're meeting now. We have to have a meeting right now. And then Thron's like, fuck. Okay, he's right. We do have to check it out of this one.

This is this meeting could not have been an email. Fine. Send a different Star Destroyer. I'll take the meeting with Sabayath. And then Sabayas, like, I'm going to take over your empire. Hope you don't mind. And that's kind of where things are left off. This was a great, I like this cliffhanger more than the first book's cliffhanger.

Like I was way more like. I felt like everything was happening, like from all sides. Like there was a, you know, all these loose ends. I was excited. I'm excited to pick up in the next one. How did the first one was just like. First one was like, Adler. Akbar gets arrested.

Yeah, yeah. Less stakes. Like, I mean, we love Admiral Akbar, but like, he's barely been in the story. And do we really mind? Yeah. Yeah. Who's we? I he at Rockbar

I'm not saying he didn't do good things for restoring the rebellion obviously he seems successful But now the Garmbell Iblis is here Yeah who needs who needs Ooh Garmbell Ebless is back everybody I was in command at Endor Where's he been?

Were you been buddy? Oh my God he's still got it folks Look hey do you flash us that trademark Bell-Iblis smile So the jailbreak sequence I cannot believe that Thron was just like

after insulting the shit out of Mara was just like we'll just take you back to the planet and leave that's that's fine I'm sure nothing's gonna nothing's gonna happen following this and she comes right back with with Luke and it goes shockingly smoothly it is

she's got central computer access It is a little bit of a 1V1 Like, Thrawn figures out fast That they are there But But it's the combination of Mara having The like deep state You know security access card

And Luke has played this game before Luke is like oh so have you run Have you run garbage shoot Garbage Shoot security detention hall before Because that's the strat I normally bring to this We're not going to do Stormtrooper armor this time It really lowers your attack accuracy, so we're not going to do that run. Like, he, like, has the game plan down from when he did this on the Death Star, actually, to begin with, to save Leia in a new hope.

And that's like, first we got to steal this black leather tie pilot outfit. That's right. Now, it's not a cat suit. Let's be very clear. They're not getting cat suited up. No. It's a light suit. The seats tailor totally differently.

Roomy. between their expertise and the gear they have like they kind of just run through this thing like it's not a problem which is very funny and i mean even the approaches is fun right like they they get the approach and the escape they've just they're kind of just expert at this which is fun going into what you know is going to end up being a failure at the end of this second book in the series because thron needs a fucking win so it's like let's let's have our heroes get there like let's see them work well together again Luke and Morrow working well is one of the fun things that recurs in the series. Let's get another instance of them just kicking ass. And you get little beats like

she's weirdly hesitant to have him do the garbage shoot thing. And partly it is sort of the vibe she thinks the plan is really gross and she would not want to do it. And so she's a little puzzle about that. But is there also an element of Luke has

that thought of like, she could just crush me with the garbage compactor. And I wonder if she's also like, I would really not, I would prefer not to be in a position where I could just not hit stop and he's dead and the whole planet's scuppered. God. Yeah, it's tempting. If I didn't know in my heart of hearts that she was already secretly in love with him, then I, it would be, it would be too much of a temptation, I think.

she's like she's too annoying to him in in the lead up to this moment to kill him now like the when when he's cutting into uh some part of the ship and they're like escaping i think they're going like vertically like they're moving between levels or something and he's cutting into the side of the ship um mars like standing over him like don't forget to bevel it so that they can't so that they can't see the whole. Oh, you're doing that Khorasan accent. You're doing a little like, Mara sounds a little bit like lay in the first movie or like my mock mom. Come on.

It's good advice, though. I wouldn't have beveled it. I would just cut the big circle. Yeah. I would never like to do it. That's how we see them doing it in Clone Wars and shit. They're always just cutting the big circle. Yeah.

And this is how, this is when you go to the secret agent training when you, when you're a hand. The hand training. It's like you bevel it and it just slots right in. Everyone's like, you don't have to leave a big glowing hole in the wall? No. Mm-mm. It kind of just looks like somebody sealed over a crack.

Yeah. Great. Incredible. Points are made. Points are made. I also like that she is in full like, oh, I don't know what the, we'll just kill everyone on that. Like here's the plan. Walk in the flight

The room I'll keep the flight I'll just walk in And shoot everyone Yeah And then we'll go to the Detention level I'll walk in

I'll shoot everyone And we'll get car Oh yeah And then we go to the hangar I'll shoot everyone I don't There shouldn't be people They'll shoot them

But there are yeah We'll just kill them yeah And Luke's like Looks like I put way too much time Into my to my mind stat To just Shoot everyone

You ever heard of Dup's Polo Yeah I said Luke Luke I mean, the maneuver he makes when he goes in to get the tie suits is really funny where he's like, he just, he like softly clouds their minds, like, because he's not doing. Yeah, he just suppresses their curiosity specifically, which I like, they're just, they're just, they don't give a shit. Right, they're just hanging in the locker room, basically. And two of them are like just kind of talking to one another and they're like, they're not curious enough to look at who came in. and the other guy kind of like gives him a look and he's like hey and just like goes and grabs the flight suits and leaves and it's like it's not all the way up to these aren't the droids you're

looking for you know or whatever it's it's like a soft like a mental cloak and it's such a funny image to me of Luke being like yo let me just get let me just get past you real quick to grab those those flight suits all right peace I also I love the description of he he like thinks to himself if he could just gently touch the imperial's minds instead of grabbing and twisting them. Like he's so self-conscious of engaging with people's minds and what that means. I mean, he also just got back from watching Sabayoth, like, just do some evil shit in people's heads.

And talk about how this is what it is to be a Jedi, is to control people. Right? Like, that's what authority is, and that's, you know. Because it is, that's a good point. Because, like, it is not clear that Sabaio fully realizes he's a dark Jedi. Oh. Like, he may still think he's on the side of the angels. And Luke is saying, like, yeah, this is how easy it is to just slip in. And, yeah, he's got this, like, he doesn't even want to do the Obi-Wan stuff.

He doesn't want to do, these are not the droids you're looking for. That scares him. Uh-huh. And so he just wants to do, like, just enough to avoid the conflict entirely. Mm-hmm. Which is like, you know, there's a, there is a real, and this is a pretty real conversations, the type of conversation I think we've had before on podcasts where we talk about things like police authority or whatever, but like the amount of access to violence and the sort of

authority you have to wield it comes with increasing amounts of, of responsibility for how you use that, you know, and he. The first evidence you're unfit to wield the power is wanting the power. exactly and he knows he is that guy right like Luke Skywalker is him and he knows that if he starts doing Obi-Wan like mine shit who knows where it stops because he's Luke Skywalker like he you know he and his dad beat the emperor up you know and it's like he had that taste he knows how bad it could get he knows if he starts going down that road where that could lead you to you you know um so i like him being really cautious here about how he uses his power especially again

like natalie just said coming right off of the the joris mentorship stuff shout out to luke shout out to luke he's cool yeah and also and this is also part of why we love lando and hans it's part of why star wars works is lando and hans don't have jeline mind trick and so it's sick when they lie to people and shoot them in the back because the capacity for how bad it could go is lower, you know, like, yeah, they might lie to someone and they might shoot someone in the back, but like they could not become the next emperor of the galaxy by doing that effectively, or even if they did, the amount of damage they could do in that position, pretty limited. Luke Skywalker, Darkside, pretty big, uh, damage potential there, you know?

I think like, yeah, it's too OP. It is. I think part of the joy of Star Wars is being able to like have your little goofy smuggler backstabbing fun with your little you're kind of like low cost unit guys who like oh well they're just having a little funny time in the dark alleys of the galaxy and then having this big mythopoetic you must always strive to be the better angel version of yourself or else you might get caught by the the terrible you know dark fate that beset your father like that stuff is like it being able to slide effortlessly between those two paths. You know what's from like Leah who like is moving between those two paths on the political spectrum is like really a fun factor in why Star Wars works so well. It can play in all

those different spaces. And Luke can hang. Like he fits in with the scoundrels and is in some ways like he is on the one level like he is Lance a lot. And on the other level, he's a character from American graffiti. Like he is still that like I just want to hang with my buddies and like I'm still figuring it out here on the last night of these like Lucas perpetually like and this is the my favorite thing the last Jedi gets right is when Yoda shows up and it's like you haven't really changed. You're still that guy always like gazed in the far horizon and that is always kind of the

moment he is in and so he is always like kind of like clinging to these last moments of what fears might be the last moments of adventure. and before, like, the walls close in of responsibility. But for now, he's on an adventure with his new smuggler friends. Cards sort of reaction, I'm like, holy shit, Luke Skywalker just showed up to rescue me. It's very funny. Because it's the, it's like, because this is the thing, he doesn't really owe Card very much. Like, Mara was coming in with her Hail Mary plan of, like, Card didn't turn you over to the Imperials.

But let's be clear She and Carr basically found him And we're like maybe this should be a kidnapping I don't know And then they just didn't know what to do with Luke Skywalker But like Again in the very Elmore Leonard Side of this thing

It was Well we'll just stun him and figure out later Like who we want to sell him to And then you realize you can't sell Luke Skywalker To anyone without there being big problems Not really a huge favor That he owes but he comes because

he does feel a sense of obligation and it's better than Sabayov. Better than Sabayov. Talon was pretty upfront with him despite betraying him and locking him in a place. As far as like people who've locked Luke Skywalker in a place,

I'd say this is higher than like Darth Vader, higher than Java the Hut. You'd make him fight a rancor, you know what I mean? Like, there are way worse shitheads that Luke has dealt with and talent's fun you know he's a good time yeah and his friends are settling down

right like talent's still out there like like like marr shows up and is like we need to go rob an imperial star destroyer that's just not happening every day with hon and lea anymore so true uh so thron intuits that luke and mara bore the ship and is like the chess match begins shut down the computer and Austin you made the point before that Thron

just doesn't fully seem to realize the difference maker the force is and I think this shows up so clearly in the sequence where he's like we'll bring the Salomiri out will herd them rook my bodyguard use your hunter's instincts to

flush the game toward a clever trap and this doesn't come close to working because there's a Jedi and a half aboard the star destroyer that like there's two force sensitives uh one of them with deep knowledge of the empire like you're just not like they can't even it's like in football when like an overmatched lineman gets bull rushed by a defensive end like they the empire never gets its feet under it uh in this in this whole sequence uh and even like thron divines that like they're going to steal the millennium falcon but it's such a weird coincidence

but it's the sort of weird coincidence that happens around force users that like Luke is like the fates are going to draw Luke to the Millennium Falcon and he's gonna escape with it that's just like there's not a lot throng can do to prevent that

what Thron needs to get to where Throne needs to get is when he sees the Lunan Falcon out in space he has to blow it up no we can't bring that shit inside that thing is gonna you know it's like a it's it's like he's in a sort of narrative simulation and if he brings that thing inside

events are going to conspire to put a Luke Skywalker or a Han Solo on board your ship to get that thing back someone maybe a wedge Antilles like maybe it's all the way up to the top but someone's going to get on that ship and steal it from you or it's going to be secretly filled with explosives and it's going to be tied to a story where Han is willingly blowing up the Millennium Falcon to save the day

something fucked up up is going to happen to you if you bring that thing on board blow it up over there or leave it either one then maybe if you leave it that's also a risk because you know maybe see really it's going to come back to haunt you it's going to haunt you in some way you have to choose the way in which it is least narratively compelling to haunt you and go that round these jedi don't fuck around they twist the world around them to where they're the the heroes of the story you just can't you got to think of different you got to think different you got to think different.

He says they will use it as a trap. We will, we will send a big stormtrooper squad down there to trap them by the Millennium Falcon. That'll work. Has that ever worked? It especially doesn't work because here Luke's like,

damn, we got to set up a clever ambush, but there's no way to talk to Mara. Oh, right. Yeah. And so then he's like, I wonder if we have telepathy. And they do. The answer is yes. At least enough to be able to be like, wait,

to attack until I say so, which is the most important amount of telepathy you have in a war situation. Yeah, and so they just wreck house. They fly out of there. We don't even see the space battle. He just goes into a fugue, demolishes the both Thai fighters, they leave.

And then cards like, hey, Mara, why don't you, like, I think my thing's in battle damage, why don't you just leave the cockpit and just check out, like that damage? And he's on the radio with Luke. Okay, so. I know where the Catana Fleet is. Don't tell Mara.

She'll be super pissed. But I'm going to give the New Republic Catana Fleet. Mm-hmm. Which, like, I think we were going to say also, like, the L's that Thrawn is piling up, like, making an enemy, like, the first book, Card is so determined to not get pulled into this show.

And, like, Luke's showing up and him being like, let's stun him and see what happens. Like, that is the first step in him being pulled in, but here in the second book, like Thron's decision to go on this vendetta and then humiliate and betray Mara Jade. It's like these are two people who really wanted to stay out of this.

And now here, you know, at this point in the book, Card is basically about to give away the greatest treasure he will ever like hold the keys to in his life for free. Not free, free, but like he's not auctioning it. That's kind of clear when we asked Luke like did Mara promise you anything? And when he realizes that it goes back

to that exchange you out with Mara where it's like we don't, you can't deal with this under duress. You can't use it as a bargaining chip to sort of get out from under anything. It has to be a choice. And what's clear that like Luke just showed up, that is the choice is made for card.

Like this is the person I'm going to deal with. So it's, yeah. The thing the thing that we talked about the other day or the other episode, but also just that you're pointing it now, is like, imagine Thron lets Mara have those eight days to talk to Carr and doesn't step on her toes. And, you know, let's say maybe the eight days happen and she doesn't come back and then he shows up and gets her and they attack and kidnap. But, but, you know, he says, listen, Card, I told Mara she could come

and try to talk you into this. I gave her her eight days. Her eight days are up. I'm coming to get you now. We know you have this thing. Give it to me and we'll call our debts settled. Card gives it to him. Done. Easy. And they move on and he gets the ships and there's, you know, like they're, the, they're thrown overplaying his hand again and again in this way. Partly because it's like, I don't, I don't know that, I don't know that, I don't know that Thron knows how to trust anybody, you know? I think Thron can't trust that anybody is playing the same game as him or is like able to play like he can't he's not engaging with them the way that the way that like bell iblis and han and lando are all playing a game around each other or even like failure's in

that game do you know what i mean like they're all in that same playing the same like tier of the same game making maneuvers and trying to one up each other and trying to like convince people and da da da da thorn feels like he's like he thinks he's so above all of it that he can't like ever make a move that isn't a faint, that he's going to immediately, like, crush you from above him, like, ha, ha, ha, you thought we were playing the same game, or not? Which is why it's so fun to have Joris show up at the end of this thing and be like, well, fuck, like, he can't ignore Joris. Sabriath is the one guy who is able to insist that they're playing on the same tier,

and they'll have to, like, he has to take him seriously, so, but yeah, because of that he keeps fucking up. Like, I think Theron would be, Theron is at his best when he is trying to engage at the same level and just making smart strategic plays instead of trying to like meta play his opponent and try to like trick them into thinking that he's making them do a and then really he's just going to do da da da da and there's a weird thing where you know when palia asked him like if he were going to give mara the eight days and he was like she's not coming back to the empire she may not even know that herself but she's she's not coming back we don't

know that we've been inside her head at this point in the book right she doesn't know that it is the betrayal that is, like, and he's going to come away from that being like, this is as I foresaw it. Like, this is, like, I knew in her heart of hearts, Mara Jade was no longer going to be loyal to the empire. And he puts things in motions that are going to guarantee that that is the outcome. She's almost desperate for an excuse to be loyal to the empire. She wants that structure again in her life. She's always talking about being the damn hand. Sure is. She's always thinking about it. Like, if you just give her the opportunity, she, she would do it if what she needs is somebody that like i was going to say she needs somebody that empowers

her like she needs somebody that is yeah she needs to be she needs to grow in the empire she needs she's got so much potential you know what she needs she needs some reports i think that there should be mara jade's hands you know fingers basically the finger right exactly yeah fingers of the hand Fingers of the hand You know, like She's her own little agents And she's sending out there In her, you know what I mean?

She needs to report up to her Do you think she could trust In the way that Thrawn can't delegate? I mean, right now what we're learning is that Delegate Sorry, sorry, What we're learning is Amara Jada Actually trusts deeply and lovingly

Her BFF talent card Her secret crush Luke Skywalker I get the impression She like likes all these other people In the rebellion In the weird way Even though, I mean, or like talent cards boys, like, you know, I think she actually really

likes a lot of people. She trusts the emperor. That seems hard to do. Well, what's not to love about cards organization? I know. He sat down on Jungle World and he was like, they got cool dogs around here. And then he, like, domesticated them. Yeah.

But he just kind of took two of the dogs inside his smuggler headquarters and then gave him a weird guy to be like, you're my dog walker now. And it's like, that's cool. It was like, I think if we docked the tail. they'll stop being like wild dogs and that worked no they appear to keep trying to take a little nip at mara but everyone's last probably just because they're they're they're force hunting sensitivities but uh other than that like i got these things domesticated for sure i'm waiting for that gun to go off like what is going to what are the what are the dogs what are they going to that there's got to be a

a payoff yeah for just that's that's the next book Oh, okay. He's just, just got to get into his menagerie of Orn's curse. Well, and like, you know, and the thing that makes Mara finally, like, turn here is that she, she has that realization of, like, the empire I served is dead. Yeah. And this is the most on-brand, imperial thing that has ever happened around Card is that he makes a deal that immediately goes back on it. Like, this is the first thing we see Tarkin do. in a new hope.

And she's like, that's not my empire. And the heartbreaking thing is it isn't. Like, she just has no idea. Zero is zero idea that this is how they rolled. Yeah, I get the feeling that,

that Mara's like slice of the empire was very catered to Mara and was not a representative experience of the empire. Like whatever Palpatine's missions were that he was giving to Mara or the general way in which he interacted with her, especially given the fact that she was completely

unaware that there were other hands in general, whether or not Thrawn's bluffing with that, it doesn't really matter because that is such a, that is such a, like you just said, is so definitive about the way that the empire worked was that there were all these sleight of hands and like, you know, betrayals and promises and and then taking those,

breaking those promises almost immediately after. And it doesn't seem like Mara under, or had that experience. Like she, she's so, dedicated to this idea of like integrity and like rule following or people's word and trusting people's word. I feel like she was in like, like, I don't know, like Palpatine's like a special program just for Mara. Popatine's like a Truman show situation. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Like it was Mara's

show and Palpatine designed it all around her and that there was I don't know it just doesn't seem like she engaged with I don't know

and especially thinking about like Mara saying like well I was given special code and I was I was the emperors you know I I gave orders

and I established policy or whatever and thinking back to throng you're right she did say I established policy. Sure. And Thron was just like,

you were just delivering the email in person, basically. I just, I get the feeling that she really, there was a, she was in her own universe, truly. And is being awakened to all of that now,

sort of. I don't know if she's really getting it, but yeah. But wouldn't she have been scamming for him because the emperor's a skipper at all and she's like in this meeting overhearing things like she's

she's the winter foil right like you would think so well I think doesn't this kind of highlight though Star Wars we now have it is like Sith and especially Sheve are so chaotically evil that all kinds of bonkers shit is happening

all around the middle times but she would have needed something more more like we see an Andorley professionalized apparatus, a lot of people who think they're on the, like, the gap between Mara J. and Cyril Karn is not as wide as we might hope for. Because I think there is an element of something like the empire needs loyal, trusted, capable people who believe absolutely they are on the side of the angels to carry it out, right? Like, you know, the Sith rule of two is like we all turn each other at the instant there's, there's an advantage we had in it. You're not build a, you can't build an empire on that. You need people who are like absolutely devoted to the cause.

And the Sith cause kind of sucks. That's what we sort of built towards is like, well, what would, why would you sort of invest yourself in this? I think here in the, you know, universe that Zahn is sort of imagining it's, well, this thing would run on, yes, you have like people like Vader and Tarkin and all that. But the thing that would make a lot of it go is people who are like true believers in the cause. and Marr would be your ultimate true believer because it is somebody who raised from childhood to think, how blessed am I

to serve such a worthy master? You're like an inspector general. But like spying on people in clubs. And then the other group that we have not brought into coverage, with the Emperor's hand is, of course, the Inquisitors that we've seen in various contemporary stuff, because they feel a little bit like an echo of that, or obviously they're an echo of like the Sith assassin in the model of Ventress or Savage. But like this idea of like, oh, right, like all of the Sith have their little people who they have running around

who are their secret secondary apprentices who they will potentially use to X, Y, Z. And you can imagine a world where, like, you know, you think about the way that Mara talks shit about Vader and calls Vader traitorous, like, you know the emperor was in her ear talking about, you know, if Vader betrays me, I need you to kill him. And then you can rise by my side as my apprentice, right?

Like, like, that's the thing that he's, and he's telling that to 15 people, you know what I mean? Like, and some of them might even know about Mara Jade, you know, and be like, you know, oh, by the way, like, you could be my Mara Jade if she betrays me and I have you eliminate her. And, like, that is just the way to sit roll. And it's, it's, I think we just got to build a whole new schema around Mara that gets her out of that way of thinking. And I think it'll be healthy for her. I think she just needs to get some hobbies, you know. Yes.

Get her to the pickleball court. get her to the knitting circle. I don't know what it is she needs, but I think she can heal. I think she can come back from this. I was just thinking before that the reason that Luke went on that Starter Story mission is because he doesn't have any hobbies or anything to do. Yeah, for real.

They're not saying. They can pick up quilting together. They'll do it great. You know, Han and Leia are married. They're about to have kids. Like, who else does Luke know? Who else does Luke know? He knows Lando.

Lando's always doing some business. shit. Luke isn't in the world of business. Luke doesn't want to invest. The idea of Luke being like, why don't you come down to the mining far as it? I can get you a really nice job. Like, that is 100%. I want to say it.

Now, though? Yeah, oh, same. Where it's like, you can always work at the factory, Luke. You know I can get you a spot at the factory. Maybe you'd get, I think Lando would get Luke a management role. I mean, I Landa might get Luke like a roll at the factory and Luke's like, great, so where do I start?

And Linda's like, kid, you're on the payroll. Just chill. Just chill. You know, like, what do I do? What do I do? Hopefully nothing. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. You sit there, you look pretty, you wear that lightsaber. And if anybody comes around, you help me talk to them, you know?

Luke, this is less a salary than is a retainer. Exactly. But your retainer comes with also nice digs on this mining planet. Like don't, you know, come here when you want, like, don't, no strings. Just like, enjoy. Oh, so I should take Luke Lando no strings into Luke Lando. Okay, I got you. Yeah.

But yeah, there is that, there is that element of, yeah, the guy just doesn't have a lot going on. And that leads him to fall into things like Sabayov, where it's like maybe this guy can show me the way for it. And it's clear that guy's not. And so, you know, suddenly hanging out with smugglers again kind of sounds better. Indeed, it's a fun adventure. Less fun adventure. Leah's time on Onager, it's been pretty fraught. But I love this chapter so much.

I am a sucker for the whole The detective reveals the whole mystery Gathers everyone together Yeah sure And unfolds the case The ace attorney Trial sequence But also I

I do I dig this so much from like What makes Leah a heroic character In this for like She's not going to be running around The Death Star shooting stormtroopers every every like story that's that's when we meet her she's a she's a spy and a diplomat uh she's sort

of like built for senator and and governance stuff and so what's she going to bring to the bring to the table here the ability to like connect with these with these people and figure out what the what the story is uh and then kind of knock out this pillar of the empire support and And the thing that the thing that triggers it is she realizes they've, they failed. Like they're going on a suicide mission to rescue Kabarak doesn't look promising. She does not feel good about the plan they've kind of come up with. The Matrox, like, so do you think the whole clan is about to get wiped out? And it kind of does feel that way.

And then they start talking about like anxiety and grief over, over their kids. And, man, it is brutal. The Matrock lost all her kids to the, to the empire. One came back, so grievously wounded, he died in, like, the no-grey, like, veterans hospital. Uh-huh. And that's it. But that's when Leah realizes, like, an entire, like, all her children, all the Matrox children dead. So who's Kabarok?

And we get the, it's been 44 years. Uh-huh. The timing has not been. You know, we have not, we've not dug into much with the sort of academic interest that we did with Andor, but let me just say, like, what a really great little illustration this whole section is on the sort of like imperial model of sort of, you know, not just thievery, not just, like resource extraction, but the way that this kind of like racial, racialized, you know, imperial, a group at the edge of the empire, right, is like incorporated, used up, spat out, locked up, caught in a loop, unable to break free from it. The only, the only method forward is to be part of the same machine that violently oppresses others. The only, the only way out is

to pay a debt that's ever growing. It's all here, all the same stuff that we get excited about, about Aldani, you know, and there's shades of disaster capitalism. All of that stuff. Yeah, 100%. Like, oh, your planet was completely destroyed and all your institutions were just wiped away. 100%.

Don't worry. We're coming in with technological solutions. And now your biome and your stability are going to be outsourced to us. Yep. 100%. Right. Like, there's not, oh, we're teaching you how to do this. and then, like, it will be under your own jurisdiction.

All that shit is here. It's really, it's really fun to see it illustrated so clearly. Because we don't, you know, the movies have the empire as a primarily a militaristic force and that's wrapped up in a sort of otherworldly cult. And so we get really scary moments like the emperor arriving with all the all red guard. And we get Vader choking people and we get the destruction of Alderon. It's like the military, that part of the military agenda, the empire is extremely clear, but in terms of like, well, what's it do to people? Like,

how does it interface with the imperial periphery? How does it interface with, like, its citizens? This is a really, really great illustration of it early on in the EU that helps you start to, like, oh, this is the type of shit they were up to, you know, that you don't quite get elsewhere. And it's great that that's part of, that to me is part of why it's Leia's story, right? is, like, Leia's the perfect character to frame the political stakes around. And also to be like, now the fucking New Republic better do better than this. Because even if it wasn't the rebellion's fault, like, if the New Republic wants to be a successful galactic power or whatever, it has to be able to do better than this for the people who have been wounded in the decades of conflict, you know, from even before the rebellion. and now like and the the the trick of it here is that she knows can't at this moment like they can't

swoop in and provide meaningful guarantees to to the no agree um like she can't really say you can you can change sides right now and it's going to it's going to work out but she does have to get them at least to realize that they're not uh that they need to stop serving me the empire uh quite so loyally and she could not do that her two companions in this quest C-3PO, who has a very firm understanding of propriety and what a droid ought do. And he's like, well, that's a very odd way for a decontamination droid to act. Very much like the head butler getting like, well, why would a footman be wandering around these areas of the residents? Why are you asking these questions about my master?

Coming to Leia and be like, one of these droids doesn't seem right. And Leia is like, that's how droids are. Don't sweat it. It's like, that's how your droids are. Not general droids. Doesn't heed the warning, but comes up. And then, Chewy, not just a ship's engineer, not just a mechanical or electrical engineer, also a chemical engineer

like he had I loved earlier in the previous chapter when they'd seen the decondroids doing the work and it's like how long should it have taken to fix all this up and she was like about eight years right something like that it would take a while to to straighten this all out and it's like damn I guess

that that tracks and then once they figure out like oh this planet's been they have not rebuilt this planet in despite 50 years of doing this basically Chewy is the one who bust out the chemistry set and I'm going to conduct

soil and plant analysis to figure out the secret of the empire's decontamination of Onygar but in the meantime we are so confident in the shot we're going to have a moonlit trip across the plains of

Onager to the big central city of Nistau and I'm a sucker for this shit I'm a sucker for like all the silent no gree coming out by the light of the moon and like joining the tide yeah heading to the heading for the big showdown like hell yes like I cannot believe that Faloni hasn't gotten hold of this because this is so like samurai movie coded maybe it's coming maybe we'll get we'll get some of this in

rebels who could say because again thron's here right maybe we'll get some of it it's not this era of thron it's not post post you know, war throng, but I, yeah, I truly don't know. We'll see. Yeah, they, they head down there and they have the confrontation. And then I love the, you've been told two stories. One, the empires. You've been told two stories is very good, yeah. It's so good.

There's a lot of paro here. There's a lot of, like, yeah, classic denouille, end of the, end of the detective story. You know, how do you, how, you know our hero has solved. But how does the hero get everyone on board? How does it become, you know, as sort of like incontrovertible? What's their, what's their secret piece of evidence? How do they lay it all out? And the not even guessing it parts the story just because she knows how the empire works.

The after Vader departed, other ships came. And they flew all over your planet. And you were probably told they were doing rescue operations or survey. but that's not what they were doing they were seating the planet and the whole like the fact that we had that that note from Matrock that the calm grass, their iconic like

prairie grass of the planet smelled a little different after the fact and her being like that's because it was going to breed like they sent down a modified version of the plant and it bred true with the existing flora

and it poisoned your entire world culminating in the they could have cleared this they could clean the shit up immediately they could they could fix it instantaneously with little eye dropper of

like plant killer and it just immediately reduces the columb grass to ash it's great like I love everything about the sequence I love and and we get

Leah is not Luke in terms of the Jedi shit right the thing that makes this go this is one of my favorite bits she can fake it she comes just like she plays up the there's a little bit of like there's a lot of showmanship here actually it is the she can't back up the like i am the air to darth vader i am a master of that she can't fully back that up but her insight and her instinct for showmanship here gets her out of this jam because the whole thing's like dangling by a thread and then she

Boris grabs the lightsaber has it lights it up floating in mid air and is like I am the Mallory and she can't do anything with that lightsaber she's very clear

she don't need to move it she has to hold it and like yeah she's like in in like static like freeze frame and yeah the little sweat beads are just like you imagine them just like

dripping down her face and she's like with all of her face. her power holding the lightsaber to control it, to keep it, keep it lit. And it, like, she's able to hold out just long enough for it to work. Um, but I, I love that detail. I love being reminded of the fact that to, to use a lightsaber does take genuine effort. It's just, it's a nice, they're fun details. And, and that Leah is, is, is, capable just just doesn't have the training that Luke has had and hasn't like spent

enough time with her her you know sort of premature force sensibilities for sure uh yeah it's great it's it's it's a it's a good moment you know she knows what she needs to know she knows what she needs to know. She knows what she needs to know to know it. You know what I mean? This is sometimes that's the power. In some ways, it's more compelling vision of the Jedi too, right? Where it's like this version of the Jedi order is a little more, like, if this is being founded on Luke and Leia, it's a little more compelling. It's like, she has some of the Jedi self-defense stuff and like knows enough to like be good a lightsaber in a fight. But she's not going to be like a warrior like Luke. But she can be this like, like,

world-class diplomat. And Luke, the flip side of that is he can navigate a tricky, like, bar fight and talk people down and around it and use his reputation as like, I'm a giver of laws and a bringer of peace. And, like, they can both end up in the zone of, like, you're a little bit imposterish. But just the inherent jedinness of it, plus your own actual expertise in the things you do know, they're going to get you there. And she, you know, has this sort of Jedi intuition.

She has a great deal of perseverance here. It's like, are those force-enabled things? Are those just natural aptitude she has in Star Wars who could say, right? This is always a classic, like, how many characters will get a little throwaway line in some comic about how actually they were tested. Their mid-chlorian count's actually extremely high. They just never went through any training, you know? but it's like her ability to stick this shit out is maybe the thing that solves it right like

she doesn't ever give up she never stopped talking to the the um it's not matriarch matroch uh she never stops she like can sense that something is off she can like sometimes it is like you just have to stick it out and wait for the the thing to pop that is going to blow it all open for you But actually, Austin, I do think, crucially, she was willing to give up. And I think that's also been part of it is, like, the essence of, like, when you mentioned, Vader being like is like, and Thron here. I don't take no for an answer. I'm going to get my way. Whether it requires, like, breaking you over my knee, I'm going to get what I want.

And Leah is like, my being here poses a threat to you, it harms you. Yes. I will give, I will acquiesce and leave. Yes, totally. And the willingness to be like, I will put your needs above mine. is the other thing. It's not outcomes-based. It is about, like,

what is the kindest, most responsible thing I can do here. Right. You could just imagine a version of that that then turns to her brooding and being sad that she didn't solve it and going and, like, sitting in the corner until they leave.

But instead, she remains open. She remains like, okay, tell me more about your kids. Tell me more about life here. I'm not negotiating anymore. I'm not going to bring you over. I see that my presence here is kind of fucked things up for you.

We're good. But like, let me remain an active agent in the world that is, like, open to possibility. And that's what it means to be a Jedi sometimes. It's like, you're waiting for shit to align right so that you can, maybe there's a chance. You know, this is the, the don't tell me the odds of it all is you got to keep flying the ship. You know, you can't, she didn't go back and just fuck off. She decided, okay, well, let's try to save your, let's try to save your kid at least. Like, we're not going to bring over your people, but, like, what's the most helpful I can still be while here for you individually, now that I've fucked your shit up, that I've thrown a wrench into your whole situation?

How do I still manage to be an aid in some minor way? Which is not, I mean, Thrawn would have demanded that you work for me, period, the end. And, you know, I think that there are a lot of other characters in Star Wars who would have just said, well, screw it, let's get out of here. You know, let's cut and run. Let's get out of here. Oops, I hit my microphone. Let's get out of here, you know, with, you know, immediacy and sorry about your third son or whatever, but peace. Well, and also in contrast, like, the kind of dismal vision of the old Jedi order in the, in the prequels and the Clone Wars and such. It is the fact that, like, the crucial breakthrough arrives in part because Leia is, like, in her feeling.

She is, like, has anxiety and fear and understanding. about like the impending birth of her children and like how that is going to like how her sense of responsibility has changed how it changes her like thoughts and fears around the future and that connects her to the matroch for that crucial conversation as like the matrox like oh you're you haven't been you haven't been a mom before like you're you're you've got you've got the jitters about like having a family and that and the breakthrough comes by that that that that that having now had this life experience, it provides that crucial augmentation for

lay it affords this authentic connection. Which, again, like a more compelling vision for the Jedi in a lot of ways than sort of we've seen in the prequel trilogy of like, here's some monks who parachute into the middle of stuff and are very high-handed. If I regret about like the acolyte not continuing is I think like,

you see like that is such the dark vision of how that can work out where it's like people who are unmoored not rooted in like human connections and completely in their own heads going into situations where they're trying to deal with people who have other anxieties and fears and needs that the Jedi just can't have any empathy for um RIP Acolyte right also apparently uh speaking of news from uh show things We did not mention this, but in passing today, I saw the Ray Star Wars movie no longer seems like it will hit its 2026 release date and the writer on it, Stephen Knight is no longer writing it.

So who knows, you know, this is stuff, you know, that has, has, you know, dripped out via rumor mills and and and stuff from Hollywood but some of that stuff ends up being true you know also like I can't I can't imagine anyone has to work on Star Wars at this point like it's not like they will let you be harassed by hate brigades and then apologize for the thing you made and say yeah it basically sucked and then cancel it's not they wouldn't do that to you um so yeah so like by the end of that like the no agree they can't change sides but like they all now know the score and it sort of ends with they're going to quietly begin getting the word out that the empire is their enemy to the no agree commando teams all this uh and when

the time is right uh you know they will they'll get out from under they'll get out from under the empire um I just want to shout out your truth is dreams as a recurring no greeism it's like you don't you're you're lying you're talking nonsense

your truth is dreams that's really good your truth is again dreams says vork forcork is wrong of course her truth is truth but you know I get it

good good phrase yeah it hits well And, like, I dig the, okay, when I send you the real, like, decontamination stuff and the seeds, like, don't just plant it anywhere the empire can see. And he's like, you're not serious. Like, don't tell a farmer how to farm. Yeah. But he's like, clearly there's aren't connecting and give each other shit.

Yeah. But also there's a bit of, it's kind of heartbreaking, right? The no-grary farmers, they just happen to be, like, preternaturally good hunters. But, like, it's not like they were a planetful of assassins waiting to be activated as a. assassins like they want to live in their villages and hang out look at the stars and and farm their land and instead they're like a race of killing machines it's it's it's good good stuff uh also good stuff it's I would just love to see like if I'd have a scene from the EU uh like filmed I do think it would be the Coral Vanda uh showdown oh it's so

good. First of all, the setting of the Pantoloman coral reefs, like, I want, I want to see that. I want to see these space reefs that the cruise, this giant gambling casino cruise ship is sailing through. And I love that Han and Landau are like, I guess we just got to, like, drop some huge bets to get this contact out of hiding. I guess we just got to spend some big money out here.

It's not just that, but it's like we got to look like we suck. We got to look like we're like new at betting. Like we are, we don't know how to make good bets. Like we're blowing through the cash that we have. We got to look like a good mark,

basically. And that is, like, you know, Han was like, but Lando, you're famous for being a good gambler. Like, are you for real? You're able to, like, suck it up for the team? And Lando's like, yeah, dude, I want to go back to my mind. I'm done. I'm so over this shit, dude. Let's wrap it up.

Yes, 100%. It's very funny. That detail, too, of, like, Lando is one of our heroes. But he really does have other business interests he needs to look after. Like he will help you out. But it's like one of those things where I thought I was helping you move a couch. I didn't know I was helping you move.

Yeah. Oh, God. Yeah, when it's like, oh, I thought we were going to move this couch up the stairs, but you're telling me to put it in the truck and then we're driving it somewhere. Oh, why is there all the rest of your shit in this? the truck. Wait, we gotta take it out. What are all these boxes up here? Yeah, yeah. Different county. Wait a second. Wait a second. Wait a second. You didn't close on this place yet. So we got to meet, we got to meet the guy. You're meeting of the Denny's. We're meeting at a Denny's.

You need a lawyer. Yeah. I mean, I took some classes, but I didn't. Okay, you lucked out here. I am a notary. That is true. That is true. Got me there. But you didn't know I was a notary. I'm kind of to piss that like it was this like this whole deal would have fallen apart so we get the whole like they're about to like go into their plan but then ferrier shows his face and lures them into a trap uh i just love the notion of this submarine uh like casino trying to make a break for it while being shelled uh by a star destroyer we get the brief uh throng like such a tragedy to shell the reef that they're making for it's kind of like art oh well fire

yeah but like it's just cool action sequence like it'd be a thing like really interesting I think to see filmed because just like the kind of cool shit you you like to see in Star Wars like things that give it a

a little bit of flavor they do burn the shit out of that death film fairier really it's interesting we get the recurring motif here of fairier dropping info that he shouldn't like he reveals the the captain's name that he's after

unprompted also I'm not clear like did you pick up that he hated Lando I feel like Lando's tried to be real fair with him throughout this whole no this is I think Lando has yeah he hates Lando and partly it's because that shit in the last chat with the last section of the book that we read where Lando was just so dismissive of this dude and so like you know this guy is small change to me. Yeah, he runs ships, like whatever. I don't think, I don't think Lander takes him seriously or thinks of him as like a fellow traveler the way he thinks about Han, you know? Yeah. And I think that it reads to me, like, it's like a chip on this guy's shoulder that he's like not, he doesn't get to

be in the cool kids club with Han and Talancard and he's not like a fun smuggler. He's like a thief, you know? He's a thief that has a gang instead of getting to be one of these like scoundrels of the galaxy. And it feels like he wants his credit. He wants his due, you know? He's going to get it however you can get it. He's not going to get it. This guy is doomed, you know?

Well, and he's got, again, like, in that Elmore Leonard vibe, he has a surprisingly large gang. Yeah. Like, when the gunfire, when the firefight opens up, he has a lot of dudes that aboard the ship, like a team to escort, uh, The captain out, like a large number of guys to shoot it out with Han and Landau. Surprisingly big gang, but yeah, just none of that. None of that comes with respect.

But, you know, long story short, like, they completely lose Lando. Han cuts bait. Battle is over. He's like, we're screwed. Let's get on these skate pods. Float around the damn ocean. So back on the, yeah. Everyone meets back up on Corrassette.

I was so happy about this. I think I made a note of it where it was like that page turn from them being like in the water to yeah, literally then chapter 26, I, what's this note say? It says, I love that everyone is just back together. Thank God. Yeah, I'm glad we didn't have to have like two chapters of everyone just getting home. Like, just get us home. Yeah. Well, the page count needed to be dedicated to a bro's heart to heart at the end of that transit.

You're right. You're right. God, I think I highlighted it with Lando being like, cheer up, buddy. I'm so important to the New Republic. It's so funny. That's his like silver lining is like, well, listen, pal, like, think about how much worse it would have been if I died. The Republic, the New Republic wouldn't know what to do without me. that does make con smile

you need homies then he turned back to the the portal on the ship and he's like the New Republic needed those dreadnots though we can't make it better even Lando's jokes can't cheer me up

damn no don't worry because you know who knows where those ships are is Talon card here at the the fucking new republic town council meeting the tiniest meeting in the galaxies here again the the senior you know uh senior year high school you know council where you have your your uh they're trying to figure out how they can fund the prom uh all those kids are together

once again mon mothma and failure and and they they got beef. Everyone has beef in this. Bailey is just like, this is all a big trick. All a big trick. We can't trust the smuggler. We don't know any about this, this ship. It's, I think we're all being, you know what? Card's probably an agent of Thron. He's probably sent to, to, to lure us astray. The degree of sabotage happening at this, at this meeting. And Card eventually being like, hey, if you want me to just leave. Right. And go put this shit on auction. I can. can do that. The bit where

failure is like, no, no, no, fine. We can, you know, we can send out a whole team and escort frigate and eight two X-wing squadrons from Khorisat tomorrow morning. I was like, tomorrow morning, what are you talking about tomorrow morning?

Like, get on the ship now. You can sleep on these ships. It's the fucking dark fort. It's the fucking Catana fleet. You don't want to go right now to go check out the katana fleet? We know it takes a long time to get places and there's a race. What do you do and wait until tomorrow morning?

You know tomorrow morning. And if we find the katana fleet, we might know what a katana is. That's right. Why is it named that? The mystery of the katana fleet might finally be solved. I feel like there, this is, it's very funny. I am so, I wonder if. the word katana ever shows up

in any of these EU materials as a sword retroactively because of the katana fleet. Ooh. So they just call them by it. Well, the dark saber is a katana. The dark saber is a katana. You're right.

So there's ideas. You're right. Maybe it'll just be like, oh, it's a mandoloring katana. Zahn did not do a fuck about not using various non-English language things as we talked about before. Tuchet. German Drong, touche.

Yes. Love it. The Catana fleet. It's so funny because it's also called the Dark Force. Like there was already another name for it that just works. And, you know, could have called it the Claymore. Could have called it any number of other already existent English sword names, which we assume get translated, you know?

No, Katana. Just the katana. Love it. Love it. Perfect. Yeah. The tomorrow, like the, the degree to which the new republic just does not have that sense of urgency, the rebellion did that. It is like, you know, Luke is sitting there with Sabeoff being like, man, I just feel so tired all the time. And it's not until he gets in that Salomir field that Mara shows up, that he's like, wait. I was just like in this miasma of like bad vibes. that's how the new republic feels

in this. This whole meeting feels like they're just pumping additional CO2 into into the room like everyone like the lethargy is maddening and I like and cards take on it like why is this all like when mama's just letting it happen

that everyone's just like well Faley is a really big deal now and we don't want to we don't want to piss them off like bizarre so our heroes do what we would expect which is they start arranging a separate salvage mission card is like

we're going to have the entire organization show up we're just going to go out there and get ahead of this thing Luke calls in Rogue Squadron let's go on a rogue mission make sure make sure that you're make sure that you're part of this and then they just light out early for for the fleet to get there you know not wait until the morning yeah and just just start the salvage operation and then like failure basically wants to have everyone arrested like the degree too

like this is not my mumma i will say yeah nothing is like zan is going off what's in those first movies yeah couldn't imagine what's not much to work man mama no but the degree to which when failure is like arrest them they've all they've all committed treason skywalker and solo don't have the security clearances to be on this mission and mon mohmah them is just like what the fuck but then kind of doesn't put her foot down it's bizarre it's why are you letting him do this i don't i don't understand any of the failure stuff in these final chapters like i said at the beginning like it's hard to make the guy who when the camera isn't on him the focus isn't there he's every he has everybody wrapped around his little finger

and then you have to show him do that. You have to show him. You have to show him. You have to show why he's effective. And none of this stuff seems effective. I don't understand why anyone listens to him at all. He doesn't have any sort of leverage over anybody. He isn't convincing or likable. And there are convincing and likable characters in this book.

So, like, he's just slimy, and the leverage he has is the loyalty of the soldiers. But I don't understand how he's earned that loyalty. because we haven't seen that happen on the page. We've only heard that it's happened through the Bothan stuff in Return of the Jedi. But like that was years ago at this point, right? So I don't know. And also, again, mostly he's swagless. He has no sauce.

Yeah, he has no reason. He's not. And like this comes after, what's the other? Was it Laelia? Ralea. Ralea? The other Bothens. like who similarly

Braley just choked and it's like none of your boys have it. What is your whole squad is soft. Honey goes up and it's like what are you doing man? Yeah. Like you realize and I guess the one thing that I do like in that sequence is does

sketch out a logic that Failure is following which is that by seizing on this attempt to discredit Akbar he's now like touched a third rail basically like he's He's like, he is, he is in danger. And now all he can do is, like, keep doubling down to try to get out of this jam he's in.

But as Han puts it, like, you only think you're in this jam because you think everyone, a bit like Thron. You think everyone else is playing by the same roles that they're looking for leverage and they're looking for the next opportunity to betray you. It's like, that's just not what is happening around you. Nobody has it in for you. But they will if you keep this up. And failure is like, don't talk about things you don't understand solo. I understand politics, says Guy, about to eat shit at politics. Yeah.

It's, well, the thing, the thing is, yeah, I don't know. It's very weird. Well, I think part of the thing that is, that doesn't land for me, like, truly doesn't land for me here is so much of these books is concerned with Thron being like, aha, I've deducted that this, that this whole species is limited by this psychological. capacity that they have, which I've come to understand by way of their art. And like, the, we don't get a lot of zooming in on that. Like, it opens in the first book where he believes that the, the commanders of a certain, uh, unit can't think abstractly. And then it turns out that they can't, right? And like, but it's zoomed out or it turns out that they fall for the trick that he's set up for them at the very least. We don't know what they can or

can't do. But it's still zoomed out enough. And so there's a lot of ambiguity as to like, and then we've seen Throne be wrong a number of key times, right? The most we've ever seen about like a particular species and their culture, and this is not coming from Thrawn, it's from everybody else. Bell Iblis talking about the Bothans, Han and Lando talking about the Bothans. They're like, yeah, the Bothans just are different. They're like just coded differently. They see the world differently. They have a different value set than us. They are, they are this kind of like, there's a sort of Byzantine like power game happening is the way. that they're described is like everything with them is a constant competition they're always trying

to backstab each other and and it's it's like built into who they are as a culture and Han is here being like bro it's not it doesn't have to be like that and our guy failure is like it does have to be like that that is the one way that it is and it's like ah but like isn't this is what thron believes is true about the bothens and what Han believes is true about the bothans and now it's true about the Bothans. Like, okay, I guess that that's just the world that we're in here. It's weird because it doesn't show up often inside of Star Wars. You know, inside of the movies, we get like the Jawa's exist in the sandcrawler and they're like little tech guys or whatever. But that's like a slice of one particular thing. Star Wars itself in the movies and the original

trilogy isn't often doing the like and here is the limits of this space race thing. I mean, it's the Ewox beat the fucking stormtroopers, right? That's the, that's the movie it is. The Ewox are not limited by XYZ and, you know, maybe there's some noble savage stuff happening there, but it's not, it's not, they have a particular in, you know, inborn view of politics that they can't escape from. but failure cannot escape from this shit in a way that's like it's just kind of a boring characterization for him when everyone has just spent eight chapters being like well this is what the

bothens think and it turns out yeah that is what the bothans think so i don't know i think it's like a rare miss for me inward is otherwise a really strong book and also it's not that exciting outside of what we talked about already which is the oldest trick in the book working on this guy you know It's like we spent that whole first book Building up Failure as a potential antagonist And it's like, okay, but he doesn't have the juice This is his play. This is his play, yeah.

The best thing he has is I'm going to arrest Han Solo. Yeah, get in line, pal. You know? Is this just going to like write? Is Failure no longer going to be a player in the third book? Great question. I'm curious if this, if we're, just like kind of removing him from

the equation for the third with this because I feel like this is pretty damning like he feels cooked he goes on the fucking PA system and and tells everyone tells the whole school he doesn't care about

homecoming he yeah and I don't like the football team at all actually They're smelly and I hate them And football's stupid anyway Yeah The only good thing about football Is the pep rallies

Is what he said A thing no one has believed ever Once all these football Once our team is devastated In our homecoming game People will finally understand That the math elites Are the true standard bearer

For our school And they will vote me Student President It's wild It's Like, it is funny the degree to which, you know, he's got them, sort of an inversion of the Empire Strikes Back where Luke is aboard the death star. He's watching, you know, the trap sprung on the rebellion. He's helpless to watch it. Now it's Card and Leia. Watching this all unfold as Phalia unpacks all this. But yeah, the intercom trick is so, is so good. And he says all the right things, just like kill all his supporters immediately. That is just, every one of mealy turns on him every group

it's like so bad the popular kid yeah the nerds the jocks yeah he's like oh it's it's bad but yeah

it's really good is the is the Akbar stuff going to get complicated to like keep him in the story in some way like I can't even think of a way that he comes back

from this I think he's terrible is relevant. I think this is it. I think he has to be, maybe he'll be in that third book. I think he's, I think he's,

I think his, the act works that has dealt with here. He's going to have to, like, be helpful in some way. Like, they're going to have to, and that's how he'll redeem himself. Because he's not,

smart. Maybe, wait, but we still have the open question of who is deltasaurus, by the way. So, right,

that doesn't get resolved here. Yeah. That doesn't get resolved. It gets brought up, uh, between Han and Leia before everyone sets out. Is our current theory that it's winter? No, because we dismissed that for some reason.

Because they'd be more effective if it was winter. I said it could be winter. I don't know anymore. I feel like the obvious thing is that it's either Phalia or Bralia. Maybe it's Bralia and Phalia is like unaware that it's like right under. him. Right. And Braille is playing failure to like get ahead. I don't know. Um, I could see, I could see that. But, uh, yeah, I was surprised that that, that we kind of, we don't get any further on that at all in this, in this book. But I'm excited for it. Uh, like, the battle

as it unfolds there's there's good stuff there's like the you know luke and han defending the bridge the katana uh using all the like i'm a sucker for ghost ships who doesn't love and in an eerily intact ghost ship uh where everything still kind of works but it's a little bit busted just from age there's the part where like they mow down the first wave of uh troopers using like the old walker in the uh you know in the hangar before i have to sort of fall back it's like sort of a star War's defense of Moria type situation as they increasingly get, get cornered. And then, yeah, you have all the, all the people who've been on the fence. Like, this hits so much better than when Rise of Skywalker tries the same bullshit, where it's like, look, everybody's here to rescue

our heroes. We heard the call. And the entire galaxy shows up in their, like, sedans and pickups to like go take on the star destroyer's dust star lasers. Yeah. It's so much better when it's like, cards grew is just now engaging in a space battle on behalf of the New Republic. Yeah. That Mara Jade's flying a starfighter around, uh, blowing up tie fighters. The Garmbell Iibles comes in and is like, aha, I'm riding to the rescue. I've, I've come just at the hour when mothma needed me and leah is like well actually i that was me i i like mimala didn't request this this was this was us yeah he was like i can't believe you i'm so glad you already told mod mothma about me and she's like uh yeah well i've done that yet uh we will we will

right now but i personally would really love it if you helped and me speaking as like a galactic Senator, I'm tied to the council. You know, that's, uh, it's a counselor request. So it's kind of like my mothma. And then Falia's handpicked captain, Captain Virgilio, uh, you know, being like, what are your orders, sir? And he's like, let's go, let's go take it to the empire, shall we? With that famous bell, Iblis charisma.

And everyone's like, I'll follow you to hell, sir. Oh, Captain, my captain. Friendship ended with Borsk, Phelia. Garand Bell Iblis is my new best friend. Yeah, Mara, sorry, Mara is out there in her Z-95 headhunter. Shouts to the Z-95 headhunter, by the way, an all-timer predecessor to the great early-level enemy in the Thai fighter video game. Great early.

Yeah, can we see it? Yeah, I got you, I got you. This was back in the old Star Wars mud that I used to play, the Z-95 headhunter. was the cheapest ship you could get. So I spent a lot of time in an all-text game flying this motherfucker around. It's like an X-Wrink without the X

is really what it is. Let me get actually, let me get a better one. I think that that image, that 3D image is fine. That's two X-1. I see them traditionally in yellow. Yellow and black is how I see them. Apparently the clones piloted of them. I've never seen this clone variation.

They're like a classic. That's cool. That's a neat one. That's a good one. Because that bridge is the gap between like Prequel era and Yeah, that's good one too. But it's got a little more of that like World War II Like tear drop canopy thing

Like the pilots are sitting in a glass bubble Versus like surrounded by armor. This is like the classic image of them. You know, it's a it's a spaceship. It's a space fighter is what it is, you know? And now that Mars crashed all the skip ray blast boats. That's right. She's down to the Z-95 headhunter.

And, you know, again, no judgment on Marjay. But I do wonder if her habit of taking all those methamphetamine pills, just doesn't matter of course, may have made it a little, like, remember in the first book? She spends the entire, like, week on Merker just popping, like, methamphetamine pills to stay away so she can fight off the wild dogs. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, yes, yes, yes. She's...

Yeah. Crushing monster energy drinks to stare at Luke Skywalker. Uh-huh. I can't go to sleep. I had to keep watch. Luke's like, hey, are you good? Do you think maybe those pills aren't helping you? And she was like, what are you talking about?

What are you talking about? I've taken... I've taken... I've been taking these regular. since I started handing. That's right. These keep me right. These keep me right.

Yeah. God. Oh, Mara. Oh, Mara. But she, yeah, so she ejects into the path of that ion cannon and sort of the inversion of how she met Luke. She sort of sits there and after she realizes she fucked up, another owl has been, she's had to take another L.

Sorry, I got to... The fact that she... We get this from her POV where she's like seeing herself like she's seeing herself fling towards the eye... Like she knows she's fucking up. Like she knows what she's about to take the biggest L of all time.

The last L. The last L she'll ever take. She thinks she's dead. She thinks this is it. Yeah, she thinks she's... Well, specifically, because, no one would ever come looking for Mara Jade like they would come looking for Luke Skywalker.

This happened to Luke and Luke got pulled out of space but no one would ever come for Mara. I can't stay at her. So many people love Luke. Even though he killed my boss. Nobody ever thinks about Mara. And then she sees him like briefly. Like she fades out just thinking about Skywalker and like fade to black.

And then we cut to Luke. be like blind panic felt a tingle yeah yeah in the middle of a fight being like ah shit mara well we get it from han's perspective right where he's like huh mara hates luke but he looks like he just lost his best friend interesting wonder what that's about weird jedi shit i guess who knows how they have how their feelings work hey i had an update on the z95 headhunter There is an official Lego kit for it, and do you want to know who is in it? What little mini-figs you get? What?

There's a retired set now. Wait, what? Uh-huh. This is the clone version of it, and so you get a 501st Legion clone trooper and a clone pilot, and Pong-Crell. No. They made a Pong-Crell minifig with his double, with his two double-bladed lightsabers and his big all face. I hate him. this is tired you can't get this anymore

but that's that's that's that's that's palm kraal right there I need to track this down and presumably you know that means that's that's I'll be honest it looked like for a minute there I was like they blow dried chewy yeah that's also what I thought

he does kind of look like a blow that's a good that's a good shot this is wild they made a pawn crown mini fig I can't believe it I'm furious about this They really figured out his chin in the Lego farm I'm shocked by that

They did, that's a good chin Yeah He looks, look, he looks good Who was it that Who has this on their show? Hopefully me, I didn't go on eBay And I need to find it, like I need this

This is unfortunately $300 on eBay Yeah, is there by now on it? No, there is not Or there is, there is But I don't I can't see what the price is I'm not logged in anyway Yikes Anyway yeah this fight

Mara alone in space Luke Feeling for Han being like weird Yeah the the fight that Han and Luke have On this On the katana Is so fun They're like fighting their way through

The Stormtroopers coming out them like getting the guns working for a second so they could take out half of the incoming stormtrooper drop ships with a big blast is fun and then them like fighting their way through the thing being pursued by the stormtroopers and then we unlock a new yeah yeah we unlock a new luke uh lightsaber skill yeah luca's super saan um and he's just like i'm no i got a one v ten it guys sorry yeah everybody get behind me i'm gonna do it And he does the lightsaber throw Which I thought he knew how to do already

But I guess maybe we hadn't seen him do it I don't know if we've seen him do it I think this is the first I think this is the first time And he shreds the side of They're in like this long corridor And he's got everyone behind him Standing near the blast doors

And he he throws his lightsaber And opens up the entire corridor into space Like just shreds the right wall and then like hops back behind the blast doors and all the stormtroopers get sucked into space. Yeah, yeah, space. They're just out there.

That's no place for a stormtrooper. No. I think they're going to be a bit of a pickle out there. We saw him do the lightsaber thing the first time they fought the nogray on Bimsaari. Oh, you're right. So he's done the, but like, I guess people didn't realize he could just like structurally

can opener the dreadnought also it's yeah I find this really interesting I'm it's it doesn't really matter but when Luke and Mara were breaking

card out of out of Thron's ship Thron makes a remark where he tells like the people looking for he tells Pellion or or whoever the stormtroopers that he's sending to go look for for Luke and Mara to check

the bodies of the crew the crew that they that have been killed for microscopic cuts with that have that are cauterized and so then fast forward to here and the cut that that I guess is it the the force of space that it would like pull this. open like a tuna can, like pulls open the cut. I don't know. I just found it really interesting. Because when I think of lightsaber, like, cuts, I think of, like, big burn marks. Yeah, weird that you're right.

Early on, Thron describes them as near microscopic cuts. Mm-hmm. With partial cauterization. Mm-hmm. Maybe we are, maybe, maybe Zahn has been briefed on the way lightsaber's cut differently than we would, you know. I don't think so. So I think part of it is,

memory serves in this era of like EU shit. Yeah. The beam we see is not the beam. Right. It's like, is like a tinier. The beam is like, yeah. So we see like the, the light around it. The growing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But actually there's a core of like, just like pure energy. And so it is like, it's really dramatic, for instance, when like, Obi-Wan cuts that dude's arm off because the arm goes flying off. Right. But the implication... When you're slashed just a stormtrooper,

it's just a tiny slice. Huh. That, like, so I think there's a bit of that going on. I also can't imagine you're a storm trooper. And it's like, we don't know, like, these guys got, these guys got cut in fucking half by something. Mm-hmm.

And Thron's like, look for micro-cauterizations and, and hairline lacerations. It's like, You tell me, we got, like, we had a way for, like, crossing Jordan to show up and do the entirely autopsy situation. Because, like, I just tell you right now, look at a dude's been cut in half. Well, I think, like, do we know a lot of weapons out there? It's just, like, cut dudes in half.

Yeah. I like, I like that idea of lightsabers, though. I like the, the idea that the, the cuts, the lethal cuts, the fatal cuts are, are, are, like, Missable. Like, there could be, one, one could, like, wonder at how someone was killed because they don't see these, like, the cuts from a Jedi's lightsaber. I don't know. I think that that's, there's something there with, like, how Jedi are meant, are, like,

are, like, peacekeepers, but also, like, have lethal, you know, lethal force authority. I don't know. There's something there that the between the minusculeness of the cut itself and how fatal it is. And how fatal it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Even just like the idea that like, oh, you need to check them for cuts as if a Jedi could come to town and kill a bunch of people and you wouldn't under, you know, first glance, no, what did it. because they've been so carefully, you know, cut down. Like, that's spooky a little bit.

Yeah, it adds like the sinisterness to like the way that a Jedi kills that is compelling. Yeah, you know, I think it's the thing that ends up breaking it is that shot of from episode one, Quigand cutting a hole in the wall, right? Where it's a big blade is causing this. huge like the melting door and obviously it's like a special door or whatever but in the prequels and in clone wars it feels like we see a lot of big gashes not that style of like tiny thin blade yeah yeah yeah interesting um also like i just you know we get the uh you know that the the imperials are feeling pretty good about how the battle's unfolding and then one of the

Dreadnoughts just comes and rams a star destroyer into in atoms. The whole, it's all battle's cool. You know, it's, it's a lot of cool little sequences. I think it's one of the better imagined space battles that we get in, not just in this book, but like probably in Star Wars, right? You have so many different parts of it where you have this like cool like running battle aboard the katana. You have a, you know, you got rogue squadron out there doing the star, the starfighter stuff.

And then a huge spectacular capital ship duel. ending in an ending sort of a catastrophic explosion. The you know in the in the aftermath of the fight

again like we're just not going to show you things that maybe people are curious about like it is dispensed with in the beginning of Luke's chapter where it's like the second the battle was over he was like have a ship waiting for me

on the flight deck I have to go out and rescue Mara Jade and then These, like, cards, people. Just take her to the Star Cruiser. And he's like, one. Wonder why I did that. Who could say?

Oh, the motivations of the heart. So, so mysterious. And it's like, is it that like, it kind of just seems like something Luke would do? Yeah. Being honest. No man left behind kind of vibe. Like, I feel like he would just, he, he wants to help people and save,

people and he also sees good in some of or wants to see good in some of the worst people and they just went on an adventure together so the the good meter is pretty high even though she's annoying so you know I would have expected him to do that for like anyone that was left out in space after this fight which we don't hear about especially someone he was just adventuring with we don't hear about him being like does anybody else need a pickup? Well, that is true. Anyone else out in an injector seat?

Maybe they're all fine. Maybe everything's just, you know. There's another, the second bus, the, the, you know, the next, the next bus comes around and picks everyone else up. Yeah. The duty of being a good boy is a very, very, very, you know, heavy one. Mm-hmm. He has to go out there.

Yeah. It wouldn't be right not to. is just the just the like trying to puzzle out his motivations maybe this is the last gas my youthful idealism it's like look we just saw you try to spare sabio because you think you can talk him back from the edge and he's out there torturing farmers because it's fun like he's like sabia's basically the kid with the magnifying glass like burning ants yeah and lu luke's like oh no we can't he's just sad and lonely. Oh, Luke.

He'll figure it out. I hope so. And maybe the Republic will figure out the mystery of these clones, which is where they do realize they're in deepshed. Because now they've lost the Katana Fleet chips, and those can be just turned around. Once the clone cylinders are up and running, uh-oh, good luck.

It's 180 ships or whatever. Hey, how big is a dread dot in? this universe? What are we, what are we talking about here? These are smaller than Star Destroyers. Smaller and older. So I think we had a taste of the math here where when the six show up to engage the first Star Destroyer, the fight begins to tilt toward the Republic. And then once that second Star Destroyer shows up, it doesn't immediately, like the fight doesn't immediately turn bad, but it begins to tilt dramatically away from the Republic. So it's like it does feel like there's a rough three dreadnoughts are not quite equal to one star destroy in terms of like firepower

so that's kind of the that seems like kind of the math so it's it's kind of like they they they got maybe like 60 star destroyers for free okay that's still a lot that's still a navy we've only heard like five or six star destroyers named in this the the throng is like using yeah so yeah that seems like a lot uh but you know trouble in i guess you know maybe paradise because sabiof and thron now uh it is they they are fully in each other's faces uh it is it is now

just outright contempt uh from from both sides and i am kind of curious how this isn't just the end of it for thron like if you got the solemnary like and this dude shows up I don't understand how you can now shut this down immediately because he arrives in the middle of the fight like Thron's about to run to the fight of the Catonocate. Well, he calls at the big, he calls before the Kibera is about to go, right?

And then what happens with the other guy who's like in the ship? Oh, the navigation officer? The navigation officer, yeah. Can someone remind me exactly of the details of that? Sabioth, Sabioth, like, Sabioth shows up. First, the chimera gets the call to, like, pull up to the Katana fleet.

And Thron is like, all right, nav officer, like, let's go. Like, let's go. And then the navigation officer just isn't responding. Yeah. And Sabioth, like, comes through and is like, hey, you're going to not, you're not going anywhere. And we're having a conversation. and it's not until after the conversation ends that I think Sabayoth releases the navigation officer and he's like gasping and like is unwell and Palian and Thrawn are like this is a problem

like the fact that Sabayoth has figured out one how to send messages over like light year distances, several light year distances, and can take control of people, like, from far away, from another ship. Yeah, yeah. Because at this point, I think he's in the system via the frigate that he'd taken over. Yeah, he stole the lancer. But he's not on the ship, and he has, it reads like he did the thing, the, the witch mom in Acolyte gave to that one Jedi, where she just like trapped.

him in his own mind for 10 minutes or whatever, yeah, that's dangerous. And if he can do that from a distance, like, to your point of like, why are we not just shutting this down? Like, he could do that to you, man, from a distance. You don't have enough of Salimiri to project into the whole space system, the whole sector or whatever. No, this is long, because I thought the Cameras bridge was safe, but maybe Thron's only keeping the Salimiri around himself? Maybe. Maybe that's enough, but no, because the nav officer gets

choked out of the distance. It's like, great, like, he's right there. They're next to each other. So like, yeah. You have to kill Jura Saviath the next time you have to. You have to. Right now. He's, like, he's

a liability in a huge way. But he's got, he's got some, some demands. One, one, one, one very specific demand of assuming command of the Mount Tantus project.

And that is his wish and he is going to get it. But that's the one thing Thron can't give up. That's the thing where like the second he's like Tantus might be compromised. He runs to Endor. It is the, yes, the degree to which

and this again like Pelion calls these things pretty early where he was like, I don't know that Thron realizes what he's awakened. The fact that Sabayov shows up in a ship that is not a transport ship. It's not like he hijacked a ship that was landing on Joe Mark, right? He just summons a ship to Joe Mark gets himself brought up there.

Right. So like already, it's like he shows up in a, in like, it's a Lancer frigate. So it's not like he shows up an aircraft carrier, but it is like he shows up in like a cruiser. And that wasn't even supposed to be there. He just summons it to him, and then comes and interrupts Thron and then takes control of the bridge. It's over. Like, this is the alliance is done. This isn't going to work.

And Thron is like, no, time to, let's have this discussion. We'll get in this battle of wills. Now, the funny thing is, this might actually save Thron's life. Because in the delay, he's like send the Star Destroyer peremptory to assist Captain Brande and the Judicator. and the peremptory is the one that is destroyed by Hans maneuver with the Catana fleet. Now you'd say like that never

would have happened to Thron. Throne would never have. Yeah, but you know. Sabayoth clocks that and says and like as doesn't he say to Thron like if I hadn't been here and you would have left that start because he doesn't he get the call

about how it all went as he's like talking to Sabayoth at the end here? And Sabayat's well is like well you're welcome yeah he says not sending you yeah for delaying you and now you're alive yeah he says perhaps perhaps it wasn't incompetence with the seal of the rebellion perhaps it would be you lying dead now if the chimera had gone instead you know yeah we need to we need to eliminate the target immediately immediately because with throng had even known he was like

fighting han solo with at that moment like no would you seen that coming he doesn't have main character sounds. We've learned this. So are you saying, Natalie? He had it to be able to and lost it at some point somehow. It's very weird because he's just, he doesn't know who he's up again. Sorry, Natalie, go ahead. No, I was just going to say, I wonder how Thron will deal with having two enemies now with, and like enemies with different motivations.

Like, it's not like, oh, I'm fighting. you know, I'm, I'm working against, I'm up against Han and Leah and Luke, and they're all kind of one, you know, one general unit of the Republic. Um, whereas Sabayoth is like, it's, he's like a free agent of terror that is, um, not in cohoo. Like, I, I, I'm, I just wonder, he's gonna have to. to delegate. I don't know. He's, he's, uh, I mean, he's straight up saying, I don't work for you. Yeah, he's saying like, you can join me. Right. While I rule the galaxy. Like, that's your offer.

You're giving me Mount Tantis and then you can come work with me. They're called, he's calling it our empire by the end of this book. Mm-hmm. It's not clear what the situation is. Even though he phrases it, uh, Thron says, don't forget that you're not in dispensable. to the empire. And Saviof's responses, as of now, I am all that is, I am all that is not indispensable to the empire.

It was kind of a weird way of phrasing it. It sounds like the line might be just written incorrectly. All that is not indispensable. Yeah. Unless the implication is that he encompasses, like everything Thron relies on like material for the war. Yeah. Like, it's all, it's all Sabiaths.

I showed up in a ship because I wanted it. Yeah. I think I think what he's saying here is like everything you have is yeah I guess you're right I'm all that is not indispensable to the empire yeah weird weird way of that yes but he does dovetail with like the nature of his power which is he is he increasingly is capable of puppeteering everything like just it is so far from what we thought there's like a I felt like a nuclear attack me too I was like what the That would change the light and like the whole thing.

The camera flared is it adjusted to a new light. And like gold. I was like, I like went out of the frame and then all of a sudden a white light and just took over my video box. Sorry. It got darking here. It was like an orange light. It was like.

Yeah. It was like you imagine like when the peremptory was hit by that dread. Like that's what it looked like if you were, you were on video call with with them. Okay. I'm just doing like immersive, immersive video chatting. Sorry. Right. There is not a miss right here. Sabayath is mad, right? Quote, So, take care, Sabayath, Thrawn warned. Posture all you wish, but never forget that

even you are not indispensable to the empire. Sabriath's bushy eyebrows lifted, and the smile which creased his face, set an icy shiver through Pelion's chest. It was the same smile he remembered from Wayland, the smile that had first convinced him that Sabriath was indeed insane. On the contrary, the Gemi master said softly, as of now, I am all that is not indispensable to the empire. He's crazy. He does not, he is not in control of this. He's shown up and has said, we kind of went over this very quickly. We didn't, like, slowly walk through what he says when he shows up, which is he shows up and says,

oh, when you first saw me, I was, I had the brain fog. I was under the long COVID. I didn't have my wits about me. So I had to leave Wayland. I had to go to this other place. But now I no longer need you to care for my sensitivities. I've grown in power and ability. And what we're being told here is, no, he hasn't.

He's convinced himself that he has control of his faculties, but he's speaking nonsense. And it's like, oh, my God, like King Lear Act 4 has shown up. He is not in control of his faculties. He's decided he's still in control of the empire at this point that he's going to co-lead it with Thron. This is the chaos that Thron is walking into. Yes, he's taken the dark force. Yes, he has the Katana Fleet.

But, like, good luck managing it with this weirdo around, you know. So because he's saying, I am all that is not indispensable, which means I am dispensical. It's gibberish. It's gibberish. He's saying, you could throw me. He's saying, I am the one thing you could throw away in this empire. And it's like, oh, right.

So we're like, oh, this guy's slush. Yeah. And I think specifically it's, it's the previous line, which is Pallion being like, oh, right, he's, he has the insane. He's the joker smile on. Right. Right, right, right, right. He's still joker-moded. He has not come back to us with his faculties, you know, reasserted.

Got it. That's, that is the way I now read this line. Uh-oh. that massive concussion our two left him with probably didn't help that did not help truly got his ass uh yeah it's it's not good and that does appear to be the like this probably should be the end of the sabayoth project for for thron this we've we've hit the end of the line because he is right he has grown more powerful like the fact that he can now just like at any time, you can't, there aren't enough

in Salimiri. Like, they will just need to be like, just grabbing these things off Mirker right and left because, like, you have to cover everything now in Salamiri and create, like, and that just can't be done. Uh, so you, you have this problem of like, how do you keep

this guy, how do you keep the leash on this guy? Uh, that's gonna be a problem for for Thron to solve in, in the last command. Dun, dun, done. Will, will, will, will they be able to, to, to, the rise of another

clone army will how will Mara Jade feel once she wakes up and realizes who saved her the original cover of the last command oh who is that

who is that who has a lightsaber pulled against Luke Skywalker but like kind of a gormless Luke Scott like bowl cut Luke Skywalker and why is she in like Cammo gear. Yeah.

Why is Merlin? Why is Sabayat's Merlin? He is very Merlin. Well, he's giving like hot Merlin. He has the deep V robe with no shirt on underneath.

He has that medallion. Remember he had that medallion. Oh, true, true. It's the 70s. I'm excited to read this. I'm very excited. Me too. Why is the window so imperial

and evil-coded? Because it's like a rerun of the end of It's just like the Yeah Just like Valim Endor Exactly Like in her mind

It's gonna be Oh the version of this The Essential Legends Collection Also has her on this cover Actually I hadn't seen this yet But it has Luke in like

The kind of red red face This is kind of all right This kind of goes This I can fuck with Yeah the reflection of the light on her body is really cool on the like cross-stitching

yeah this is fun all right Mars getting got the leather corset look is a choice battle corset type type situation there you gotta look hot when you

when you go out of this world when you're when you're an evil when you're an evil coded lady well maybe now that she's going to end up in a new Republic medical facility they'll be like hey why don't we get you off these stem pills

and just like let us know how you feel about things like this is like a few days let's just think about like let's talk about these dreams you've been having let's let's just chat about them any predictions for this final book before we wrap um Luke and Mara don't kiss

well Oh, I think they get, like, close, but they don't. Like, it feels like there could be a moment for it, but I think they don't kiss. And I think, I think she, like, she, like, she cuts him a little bit, like, or, like, push, harms him a little, like, you know, kind of, like. Yeah.

She causes some harm to come to Luke in some way. Sure. I have no idea how Thron's going to deal with Zabayoth. I hope it's ridiculous. I hope it's like an Isalamari like a horde that he like collects and just like sick. I don't know. They attack him directly. Oh, maybe the dogs.

Maybe the dogs will come after Joris. Because he's so evil force vibes. He is? For some reason when I finished this book, I thought that they were going to start cloning Sabayov Well he's Taken over the damn

Clown I don't too Well right now They're cloning Like their best Like they're cloning Stormtroopers To flesh out their

Stormtrooper ranks Now they're cloning like Pilots Yeah And it's the implication Nav officers and stuff So now we know What the Mountantis

Project was Like when we saw the start of the book General Coval was told Like who were the best like commanders And troopers on this mission send them to Mount Tantis.

We're going to get those guys rolling off the assembly line to fill out the ranks. So they're not doing the clone wars thing of like, let's find the biggest badass in the galaxy. Django Fet, just the best at everything. He's kind of like Batman. We're going to clone him.

And he's going to be unstoppable. Now these clones, they can get got by droids that aren't very bright and not very good at shooting. But let it not be forgotten. They're just elite awesome fighters. That's not what Thrawn is doing. Thrawn is like basically, hey, you're a good sergeant. what if there were 50 of you?

Yeah. That's the point. Yeah. Al, you have predictions for final book? Besides the clone thing, I think that maybe the, um, the, the Karelian guy, Bell. Yeah. I think that he is, there's either going to be something wacky happening with him and the boss in or him and Akbar. I think he's going to come into the mix

And then like Behind the scenes personality politics Are going to get weird Because he's anti-Montvah Because he doesn't trust Mahmothma Interesting Yeah Sure

I just realize how badly I would love it If in like They just blow up the continuity And in the version they do of this This dude's Perrin Oh my God It's Perrin rolling up It's

but parent can't be like oh hans solo i remember when you were a schoolboy and son solo being like i remember when the president came to talk to my school but tell me that the way bell iblis is introduced here where it's like let me tell you of my glories uh but can i get like three more of these here uh pronto no that's not for the table you guys want anything because i'm getting three more of these yeah there is a lot of overlap. You're right. Yeah. But I just want my family back. If I just bring a dreadnought fleet in. Oh yeah.

It's huge divorced dad energy. You're right. I can't go back unless my mom that. I can't go back unless my mom asks her ask me specifically. I just refuse. Wow. He did say that actually. Damn. And Leah as the sort of like surrogate child daughter. Lina, yep, yeah. Fuck. I'm sorry for Ander's season two.

Austin, you got, you got vibes about this. I think I actually remember too much from here. I think this is, this is, I think I have, there's stuff I don't remember, there's stuff I don't remember, but I have a few too many things that are ringing in my brain about how stuff with Joris wraps up

and about how stuff with, I mean, I remember how stuff with, Thrawn wraps up specifically. What I don't remember is there's details about the cloning. I don't remember at all. There's details about Mara. I don't exactly remember, but that's because there's stuff that happens after this,

and there's stuff that happens after this, and I don't know if it happens in this or if it happens later. So we'll wrap back around. And just the thing that we didn't mention, but worth mentioning, Han does draw attention to the fact that a lot of time passes in these first two books.

Yes, yes. Leia is now firmly third trimester. Lay is going to have these kids. Yeah, it's happening in this book. Yes. So that's the other, that's the other sort of crisis situation around to navigate is. Here we go.

Can I get guesses on the name? Have we said the names of these kids yet? I don't think they've said the names of these kids yet. No, we have not. Any guesses on the names of these children? Oh, well. One of them is Anakin, right? No way.

I was going to say that as a joke. I was going to say that as a joke. What I will say is there are more kids to come. So you may know some kid names that are not the kid names here. There's a, I believe, at least one other kid to come. So twins and then a third? Just the twins and then there will be a third later. Yeah.

Interesting, interesting. The twins' names are one of those things that it's like drilled into my brain because of being in the fandom in this era, where it's just like, boop and boop. Like, it's a very, yeah, you'll see. It feels like 1996 when you hear these names. Do you know what I mean? Rob, do you agree with what I'm saying? Oh, yeah, for sure, for sure.

I thought it was all like Harry Potter style, like the names were memories of people in their past. Like there was a Ben in there. Or am I just thinking of the, am I just thinking of Kylo Red? Yeah, they do. That actually should have our big clue that the new, the sequel trilogy was off the, off the rails. Oh, this is our son, Ben. A person that signified almost nothing to Han and Leah.

That's a great deal to Luke. Yeah. But not actually to, yeah. And to Leia, he was Obi-Wan. Yes. It's just a weird, like, the notion they'd be like, Ben Solo. There is eventually a Ben Skywalker in the EU.

Okay. But not a... Makes sense. It makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah Makes sense That

That makes sense Yeah Now that Now that makes sense I'm so God I ought to be in a universe Where you find the emperor

Like secret cloning chamber And it's not full of emperors Oh my god Oh thank God That was a close one folks Oh my God Oh we live in hell Hmm

wait to watch those movies with y'all where did the EU go wrong that's like sequel trilogy was like you know what everyone loved dark empire dark empire that had the most sauce we should read dark empire for a bonus at some point because that's the thing that's competing with this stuff as this stuff and the the comics we read as like early like setting up the EU material because like dark empire is the same is in the same next year basically or because when Jedi Traudemy trilogy comes out very shortly after. It's like, yeah, so between Thron and Luke starring the Jedi Academy, Dark Empire happened.

And I'm like, The Fuck. And then you start looking, I didn't write anything about it. So I'm just like looking up in source books. And then in Dark Empire, the Empire brought out this weapon. Yeah. And I'm like, Galaxy Gun, that fucking sucks. Yeah, Air to the Empire is May 91 in hardcover. Dark Empire is December 91. It runs for a year, runs until October 92. And we should find

an excuse to, maybe for a Patreon bonus when it lines up right in the future. Because I feel like it's, it really helps situate the, the trends of the EU that were pulling things in a different direction than this trilogy has been pulling it. I mean, there's some overlap for sure. but like inside of Star Wars there were two wolves and I think some of the ongoing EU novelizations along with comics would always lean towards Dark Empire more than this stuff and there's some shit in Dark Empire that I think is sick but not necessarily good if that makes sense so and it's a short read we would blow through it in a single episode so all right but with that we've reached the end of another episode

of a more civilized age. Our show is produced by Ricardo Contreras and supported by our listeners at patreon.com slash civilized. So once again, next time around, we are doing the first 10 chapters of The Last Command.

Until the next time, please rate, interview us on your podcast platform of choice. And remember, Luke Skywalker, he'll be there for you, no matter what piece of crap you are. Luke Skywalker has love in his heart

to rescue you. Even you. I believe in Luke. I believe. Have you heard the good news? God. Shit, wait. Thank you.