A More Civilized Age: A Star Wars Podcast - 99: The Last Command Pt. 1 (Ch. 1 - 10)

Episode Date: November 20, 2024

This week, we crack the spine on the final book of Timothy Zahn's franchise-extending Thrawn trilogy, and wow, what a doozy it is. The Dark Force is no longer Rising, it's risen, and that means the pedal is down and the plot is going full speed. Talon Karrde is meeting with smugglers. Luke bounces all across the galaxy. Lando's walking city is in ruins. Han and Leia's kids are here, and they have visitors, invited and otherwise? And Mara Jade? Well, she's wide awake and getting ready to do the things she does best: Pout and kill people. Support the show by going to Patreon.com/civilized! Next Time: The Last Command Ch. 11-18 Follow us on Bluesky   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 at Star Wars podcast. I'm Rob Zakeney, joined by Aliaqampora, Austin Walker, and Natalie Watson. We are, as always, supported by you, our listeners, by patreon.com slash civilized. So head over there. He'd like to support the show and get access to all our Q&A episodes and other various special editions. This week, we start The Last Command. reading chapters 1 through 10. Next week, chapters 11 through 18.

Or two weeks. We're not going weekly. Well, next episode. Yeah, okay. Next episode. There we go. Probably next week for us as we record. I mean, yes, that's true.

Ideally. But next episode, chapters 11 through 18. But again, today is chapters 1 through 10. So, I know this comes out long before nights of the Old Republic. And so two things shouldn't remind. mind me of each other. I should have no concerns about what they imply. And yet

one can't but notice this story opens on them just talking about how when they took Mara Jade out of the disabled ejector seat, they had to do a little neural reconstruction

on Mara. Yeah. And so she's kind of, when we meet her in this book, is kind of like coming back to her like whoa how much time is passed what's been going on and if one feels like a vibe shift happens with mara in this book uh it does feel it also feels a little bit like maybe the way raven is introduced to us in knights of the old republic now admittedly we could also say that you know we were we were due now for new mara we've had uh you know i'm so ready for

new mara oh my god we i mean we've had like moody meth abuser Mara Jade we've had angry former intern Mara Jade now we've got traumatic brain injury Mara Jade so you know

we they never stopped giving us new Mara's and the one thing that's consistent is she will continue to be annoying as hell forever so I am so happy we got that scene with Leah and her in

reading, which is an all-time. So good. I think winter is the one who knives are the hardest, though. But we'll come to like Mara needing to be checked a couple times in this, in this opening section. You know, it was not being checked is Grand Admiral Thrawn. So the opening of this book, the opening 10 chapters, Grand Admiral Throne, is just rolling. We start with his grand offensive to reclaim the ground the empire is lost over the years.

He reveals his master plan, his devious master plan, to make use of the cloaking shields that he's got. And he has more warships and more ability to occupy planets than anyone expected because, of course, he has all those clones. Now, to make all this go, is Jedi Master, clone Jedi Master, Joris Sabio. And that relationship is awful and continues to be wretched. And the opening chapters, it is clear that things, he has already firmly slipped his leash. Thrawn is not really paying attention to how bad this is. He has Palion go take a one-on-one one-on-one. with Sabayov and doesn't give him the force blocking lizard what are you doing you have a bunch

of them you couldn't give a one to Pelion to your boy are you kidding what did you think was gonna happen and so Sabiof gives him some ambiguous commands and then is like don't tell don't tell thron about this and it seems to work uh the last we see of Pelion is like wasn't I supposed to warn Thron about something gone. Oh, well. Into the ether. Yeah. I do love that the entire time he's thinking about it and he's like, I'm not going to do that, but that he like is forced to via force powers?

Yeah. Terrified. It's so good. Yeah. Meanwhile, Luke Skywalker, trying to backtrace those clones. Where are they all coming from? Where is the secret imperial cloning facility? So he's just out there looking around for where shipping containers full of

full of clones might pass through and while he's out there he runs into concerned smuggler citizen Talancard who also would really like to know where are those clones

coming from Lay Organa has kids What are their names Jason and Jaina Yeah it's the 90s It's the 90s

The most 90s ass names, I could imagine. Wait, how? That's extremely 90s. Jason and Jane. Jason with a C, too. Sure. Jason, J-A-C-E-N. Like, I always say like

J-N is not a name real people had probably until this book. It's not true. There's probably some people named Jena out there. But it has everything that a 90s name has. Yeah. Like, it's like Jennifer but Star Wars. Like, it has. has like it's like Casey it's like it's like all of those 90s names do you know what I mean

most popular 90s girl names let's see the names of the 1990s Jessica Jessica's the first one Jaina is just Jessica but but Star Wars but on Chorus on I don't know Jaina Jane Janet Jane sure yeah there's just Something about it. Jason is just Jason. Jason is. Jason with a scene. Jason was like a, was a popular, I feel like, a sound in naming conventions in the 90s.

Well, and really, Jason. I guess actually. Jason. It's actually 80s babies who would have been the 90s names, right? So you get Jason there. Yes, yes. Both of the top female names. in the 80s, R.Js. It's Jessica and Jennifer. They dominate hundreds of thousands. It's wild.

According to, oh, according to the Social Security website, which is what I want. Yeah, fuck it. Okay. I mean, that makes so much sense now because when I found out the names, I was like, is this a reference to someone? Should I, like, know a character and Leah's name? Redding to Zahn for not having Leah do that, where it's like, you know who I loved Anakin Skywalker? Well, yeah, other writers would not be able to restrain themselves, Rob. It is sort of a reference to something, but very, very, very lightly. It's twins with the same letter name like Luke and Leia, and it's one letter away. They're J's instead of L's.

You know? Okay. Leia. And Luke instead of Jason and Jaina. I want the scene that we didn't get, which is like Han Solo and Leia, like, sitting down to decide this, because they had those names. Yeah, I want to know the baby names. I want the list. It was decided.

I need the list. I need the top ten. Yeah. What did we veto? I guess the parents. There's no, like, they didn't have to worry about what their parents would think, unfortunately. Oh, that's true. Did they get a baby name advisor?

Yeah. Do you think Han? You know, that's a thing now? You can hire someone to give you baby names. They should let me do this. Someone should pay me for this. I've seen this on the TikTok. Yeah.

I'd be good at it also. Yeah, thank you. From the table listeners, know this. But you know, Han's going to Lando and being like, well, Jada, I mean, Leah thinks Mark is a good at a name, but I don't really know about it. And then Leah's going to winter and being like, Han really wants to name him Chad or something. And Lando's like Lando's a pretty good day. Yeah, that's right.

That's right. If you considered Lando. I think Han is like, what if we name him, Bell Iblis Jr.? I think that's where he's at. What is, yeah, what if it's Lando and Calrissa? And if it's a girl, Bella. Bella Calrissa. Bella Calrissa.

Oh boy. Incredible. Oh my God. Yes. Anyway, Rob, where were you? Sorry. Yeah. You know, they're dealing, the New Republic is basically dealing with them getting rolled up by, by Thron.

But Leah has to take a, has to take a break from those meetings because she has the kids. Meanwhile, Mara wakes up back at Imperial, in the Imperial Palace and is assigned guest quarters there. And it's sort of stewing over the fact she's, she's at the heart of the new Republic. back at the place where she used to be somebody, back where she used to be the emperor's hand in his very own palace, and all these interlopers are here. And all she's got now

is this nerdy little smuggler, this little slicer who's hanging out with her, Ghent. And she knows where to find another tiny gun. I do know, but she finds a gun. And she finds the secret passageways. She knows her way around the Imperial Palace. She was the emperor's hand.

She doesn't like that to get around. It's basically being the emperor's headmaid. You know, you know all the secrets of the palace. But she has like a mind connection with him too. We'll get to do it later. Well, get into it. Hell yeah. Meanwhile, Thron needs more war material for his war effort.

So he goes and robs Lando's war material depot. Remember in the first book where Lando's like checking his little e-trade accounts. and being like, hmm, the price of Tabana and Hefraedium is still low. But I'm holding on to a big stockpile in case the market goes up. And Thrawn's like, you know who's enough of an asshole to hold on to a big stockpile, a fradium and Tivana gas, Lando Calrizian. So poor little Cloud City, not Cloud City, a nomad city. Yeah, the Walker City.

Yes, yes. Is attacked and disabled in the ongoing onslaught. and that sends Lando heading back to Corrassant to try and ask for aid Luke ends up once again a semi-stranded

needing emergency repairs on his ex-wing he goes to Onager to see if the Nogri can help him they can but he's stuck there while he gets a terrifying vision of Leia and the twins

under threat making a last stand against a horde of enemies as a mysterious force user stalks toward them. Who could it be? Who's the most mysterious character in this story? An enigma wrapped in a mystery. Let's see. And we also, so we go back to a lot of things happen on Corrassan in this edition.

we get the kidnapping attempt, basically. Mara is still stewing late at night. She has a conversation with Leia that leaves her a little bit shaken. And right after that conversation, a bunch of commandos enter the palace to try and kidnap the twins. Mara springs into action, foils the attempt using her force sensitivity and ability to communicate with Leia. She works with Lando and Garmbell Iblis to foil the attack and saves the day, but the Imperial Commando was told to let the New Republic know if he got captured, that Marajade was his inside woman, the person who let the commandos into the palace, and so she's implicated at the end of this. Meanwhile, Carr still going around, trying to see if he can gather

information. He loves information. He's trying to gather information. on uh thron the clone pipeline and he decides he's going to try and get all his smuggler buddies to see if they can they can help them out well we get an exciting uh you get an exciting meeting that is pretty much a miserable failure but is kind of saved at the last minute by an imperial where about 50 armed smugglers just massacre a bunch of imperials uh and then are like fuck these guys and so now car is leading sort of a militant smuggler wing against the empire. But Niles Ferrier has shown up in the middle of it.

And he arrives just ahead of the imperial raid. And at the end of our section, we discover that he is the one who leaked the meeting to the imperial garrison so that he could insert himself among the smugglers. to which Thron says that is the stupidest fucking idea I've ever heard in my life. Are you kidding me? Well, let's see if we can somehow salvage this situation using Ferrier's position

and Thron begins to think I know just how I'll be able to hoist Card with his own petard and Pallion's like I think maybe we obsessed too much about Talen Card around here and Thron's like so right maybe we should go pay attention to the war Yeah, dude

Yeah, maybe Telecard is We love Talent Card And maybe that's the problem Maybe Talancard's incredible charisma Has captured The attention of Thrawn as well He is Luke Skywalker

To Thrawn's Marjade Truly, yeah God damn it He's just so Insightful I hate him Oh, I got to settle the score with him Oh, there's a war going on

Oh, whoops It just doesn't make any sense that like he is the one who keeps foiling Thron, right? Like he should be bested. He's prime to be bested. Yeah. Well, the thing is... Because he's he's a fellow connoisseur.

That's right. And I feel like this is this is... No one else is a connoisseur in this galaxy other than Thron and Talen Card. Do you think if Thron simply knew... It's a meeting of the minds. What planet and what

what culture Talancard was from. He could suss out a strategy to meet him, but he doesn't know. He doesn't know. Yeah, that's exactly it. That's exactly it. He's so mysterious. Psychology of cards, peoples are.

He can't figure him out because he doesn't know the kind of art that his people make. He just, that man just, it befuddles him. I don't know, actually, where is talent? Do we know where Talent card is from? He hasn't said that, right? No.

I don't know what we do. Smart. We're a P. I might know, That's probably a later edition. I bet it comes. He's so mysterious. He's a man from no.

He's a man from the ship he's on. Yeah. Wow. Man on the move. A man from nowhere. Love it. Except for all the places that he loves and the friends that he has and the town's all over the guys. He's a man from dinner party.

Yeah. Which dinner party? This one. The one you're at right now. He's here. The one you're sitting at. It's drilled. Oh.

Uh. Oh. Uh. Let's get into it. So much happens in this set of, like, we sometimes do readings where, like, nothing happens in terms of plot, where it's like, Leah is on this planet for three weeks and has three conversations. And that's four different chapters. This is every chapter is like new plot development. Things are moving.

Everyone has to get places. Time has passed as well. You know? Sorry to say that's like two months since the Katana battle. Yes. Yes. Okay. So, like, I, we come into this first chapter and a lot is just being said out loud that I feel like wasn't said out loud in the previous book, but maybe I feel like I missed a chapter almost of everyone being like, yeah.

So the thing happening, the thing we're doing is clones. Like, we're, we are super doing clones. Like, it was always sort of gestured at, but now it's just. and Joris is like referred to as the Jedi clone Joris like everyone is just like we're all in the same page that what we're doing is making a shift ton of clones on Wayland and that's what's happening right like it might was that did that catch anyone else off guard the how like out there that was I think so the thing is like I feel like what Zahn does for the first like two books, two and three quarters books is like, what's the, what's the clone facility going to be used for, right? Like, what, like, we, at the start, he plays, the first book, he's like, oh, and there's that other technology we found at Wayland. Right. We don't need to talk about that. And it's revealed, like, it becomes more or more open through Dark Force Rising, you know,

send your best soldiers to Wayland for the, for the special project there. And then at the end, the big reveal is when Luke and Han are looking at all the stormtroopers that they killed in the battle, they are all the same stormtrooper. And that is the, that is sort of the, like, you know, coin-dropping moment of, oh, that is, this is the game plan, because they're comforting themselves, well, there's no way he can crew 200 dreadnoughts. So like it'll be years before the Imperial Fleet can even make use of what they've got. And that last thing we see, of Luke and Han being like, oh, they're using clones. Is the, all the math the Republic's been using to like say this isn't a disastrous defeat is now out the window.

And implied in all this is in this version of the timeline, the clone wars were about Blade Runner-esque clone uprisings or something or clone masters, going berserk and being like, you know, we can just kill everyone. Yeah. So that's the other part, is Thron is playing with something that came close to, like, destroying the galaxy the last time it was used as a technology. So I feel like it's kind of your book three are catching up in the middle of this stuff, but just because of the way it's situated, I think the impact of the way book two was supposed to leave you. And then you're supposed to kind of wait before you get into book three. Well, and you're talking for a year with your friends about this and are going like, oh, what do you think is going to happen with the clones that they found?

And someone else is like, well, that he's going to use all of those to pilot the ships. And they must have hundreds of thousands. Like, he must have a ton of them if he is going to be able to pilot or, you know, man all those ships or whatever. So I think that there's like, when you think about the rhythm of the books coming out and the online fan community, even then, or maybe the online fan community, we're really the bulletin board fan community. You know, people are, people are sharing theories about where it's going to go for sure. Though I will say one of the things that comes up pretty quickly, not in this first chapter, but as they're talking about the clones, is someone did message Thrawn, or Thrawn Jesus. Someone did send a letter to Zahn and say, no, wait a second, buddy, how long do you think it takes a clone to become adult-sized?

because we are in the middle of a cloning revolution in this world. We're about to have Dolly the sheep. Genetics is big in the news in the 90s. It's like one of the things that bubbles up throughout science fiction stories about cloning are like really hot in the 90s. And cloning doesn't mean like rapid growth and becoming a full-sized being quickly. You know, that's a very science fictional version of it.

And even inside of the science fictional version of it, there's, like, fast, and then there's fast. And so even in here, there's a bit, I forget if it's Lando or Bell or somebody is like, okay, but clones take a while to grow up. And someone is like, not these clones, these clones. Well, it seems to have taken a very short amount of time. Sorry, I'll leave that something. This was Cardin Luke. That's what it is. Yes.

Yeah. Yes. Well, everyone returns to this, though. And the thing I like what they're doing about the math is Nobody really knows what happened with the Clone Wars. They know they were bad, yeah, yeah. But the fun thing here is that, yes, initially it's like, well, clones take a while to grow,

but you have some adjustment over like the slider, the maturation period. But there's always been a theory that if you start trying to mass produce clones too quickly, that's what leads to some of the reasons you had Clone Wars. And so that is why there was like the, well, the one year thing is kind of the hard limit like nobody can do it faster and i think in this in the section it's like well luke tells card right uh from the examination of the bodies

right this this batch took 20 days and everyone's like well that's that's literally that's insane that can't look one could it even be done two you're pushing the limits of it's this is this is this is thrown playing with the army of like if you found a necromancer right right And it's like, what can go wrong with the army of the dead? That's kind of the thing. Like, Thrawn is like, I want troops and just creating a potentially like galaxy ending threat, like turning out, like using a clone factory. You know, he's playing it like you play a game of civilization where you're like, if I just get to the win, it doesn't matter that my whole empire is about to collapse under the terrible economy I've set up and all of the like all the negatives that are about to hit me on turn 11. those don't matter if I win on turn 10 you know so let me just hit the button and give me all

it's like Rob and Natalie you're just playing king of the castle Natalie this is like when you printed all that money it's like I just need it now let me just get it now there what's wrong I still don't why can't we just print money I don't understand we're gonna move on on this on this one it's okay it's fine but anyway so they're doing that they're printing more money they and basically printing more clones fast. Well, and Austin, to your point about Thron being like, I'm going to win before any of this catches up with me,

when Pellion has to go talk to Thron, there's a few things Pellion notices. Not Thron. Or Sabiof. Yeah. Sabiof appears to have gotten way, way better at doing the thing Thron brought up a board to do. Side note, I love the limitations.

Zon introduces into this. Star Warships cannot do long-range communications once their deflector shields come up that is a cool like once forces are fully engaged in battle they are now out of control they're they're blacked out so communication becomes a real problem it's an interesting limitation to place

you can't just call someone on the satellite phone and be like pull those Star Destroyers out of there that once they're in they're locked in unless you have a Jedi master who can allow now you see like why it's something powerful for Thrawn to have a Jedi master. And it's like, for us, how is the Republic, how did the Republic expand? Oh, well, you have these special people who can communicate over long distances instantly in a way that nobody

else can. And they are aligned with the state. And they're the only people who can do this thing. Like, yeah, no wonder the Republic was able to become the de facto, you know, state in the galaxy. Like, it's, it had this huge communications, uh, a technology that nobody else did called the Jedi. I'll add to that the fact that we talked about this a couple of books ago, but when Luke is doing the like traveling across the galaxy and putting himself in stasis, the Jedi can also travel faster than everybody else, not because they're literally traveling faster because they have to stop or resupply less often and less frequently. It's like, oh, okay. And they come out ready. And they come out ready, right? As long as they do it right and they're not

interrupted. That's like, oh, there's like a weirdly material reason for the Jedi to be so important to the functioning of an expansionist, you know, you know, proto empire in the, in the form of the, the old republic. It's really fun to have Zahn line those things up here, you know? He also gives us. Oh, go ahead. Cloaking shields, like, blind and mute you. You cannot, you cannot see out.

You cannot hear or speak out. Like, they are completely, they conceal you perfectly, but also you have no situational awareness. So again, how do you make use of a super technology like that with those huge downsides? A Jedi certainly helps. But you have a Jedi on your side. Yeah. But Pallion notices, you know, the first time we saw Sabaov do the sort of like, I'm going to coordinate the various forces and fleets and all that. First time we saw him do that in book one, it was like max effort. He was, he was dying up on that bridge. Just basically telling the captains of different ships like do here the go here do this really simple stuff here he's

like marionetting with like perfect timing uh he's he's sinking up like the way they're taking this like breadbasket planet away from the republic is the chimera is going to shoot at its planetary shield and then just as that laser blast hits the shield a cloaked ship is going to shoot along the same trajectory and it's going to look to everyone like it just blew through the planetary shield and the empire has a super weapon again but it's Sabaev doing that and also coordinating like

six other fleets right at the same time which again is as a reminder the thing that Thron said was wrong with the old empire was you needed the emperor to do all of that you know and Pellion is like he's gotten so much better at it and then he's like but now all our ships are increasingly crude by like a handful of variations on the same mind.

Like it's just where we're starting to like run clones. Is that easier? Is this? Yeah. Is it easy for Sabia off to like do this? Are we creating a clone empire that the clone Jedi master can just like effortlessly command? It's like if you had to, if a Jedi has to build a or a force user has to build a key for every mind they want to influence, well, if all of the minds are the same. or thereabouts because they're all clones, it's a lot easier to reuse that same key.

You don't have to mass print. You don't have to make a new one each time, which is a very fun little metaphor. I also like, Robbie, you just explained the sort of trick that Thron is using the shooting at the shield and then having a secret ship just under the shield, shooting at the shield or shooting at the ground underneath it or the shield generator underneath it. And I do like in the first chapter, like right away, Zahn is like. like, all right, here is the state of intergalactic war. Here's how it works.

Maybe you saw the Battle of Hoth in Empire Strikes Back and intuitive all of this, but just in case you didn't, planets have big shields from shield generators. You can't shoot those from space normally. You have to go in and blow them up. Or you have to land a huge amount of people and do a ground battle everywhere all at once, and that takes forever and is super deadly. so no one wants to do that. And so the thing you normally do is you do a targeted ground attack at the shield generators

at which point once you take the shield generator out, boom, you have an armada in space, you have a fleet in space. You've won, you've taken over the planet because otherwise they can do to the planet what we saw, you know, in Cotor happened to Taurus, right? I don't know why Taurus's shields are down. I would have kept those shields up. Did we lower the shields? I guess the Imperials had them.

taken it over. Right. They just had them. So they lowered their own. They lowered the shields. Right. Of course. So yeah, like I like laying all that out just to be like, here's how it works. Here's why you don't see in Star Wars. Huge battles between hundreds of thousands of people is like there's a more efficient way to do it. And that way sucks. The primary way sucks. You know, the old the other way sucks. So like do the targeted shield fight, which is what we see in Return of the Jedi and what we see in. empire right and what makes thron's like plan here so scary is that it does become zero sum it's not like you know think of like the nazis invading russia or something like you know in the fighting a factory gets destroyed it's not like german tanks are rolling off that factory uh any any time soon right like that's just like the the the resources and the infrastructure you're you're taking over

is largely being destroyed it takes a long time to spin it up to be anything useful for you. Thrawn is his plan is to take planets and then, you know, day one, Occupy Planet, day two, its resources are now being turned seamlessly against the new republic. And so, like, anything he takes is immediately becoming part of his arsenal. It's, it's a very, like, real-time strategy game model of like, yep, like this factory, mine now. This, you know, this resource patch, mine. Like, it's just going to be modified to imperial ends. So everything that, Like, you know, the Republic controls a lot of territory. And here in the opening, it's like, this can go against them very, very quickly.

Yeah. Do we want to talk more about the Pellion Sabayov exchange? I like them needling each other. Yeah, go on, Natalie. I think being in Pellion's head for this interaction was fascinating. it's like there's I find Pellion pretty funny

like he often is doing things that are making me laugh in that he just is constantly glazing up Thron but also like as soon as he doubts him and is proven wrong he's like how could I ever have doubted Thron like that's the last time

I will ever second guess anything Thrawn ever thinks or says ever but he's just he's a really funny character but to be in his head while Sabayoth is manipulating him

and his adamancy at like oh I will not be forced persuaded like I know you're telling me this and for some reason I'm saying exactly what you want to hear and I don't know why but in my brain

I am saying the right thing that is correct and for Surely when I return to Grand Admiral Tron, I will also say the correct thing. It's just, it's, uh, there's this one bit where he says, um, I will do nothing of the sort is in italics. And then the quote is, yes, Peleon heard himself say instead. The sound of the word shocked him, but certainly he didn't mean it. On the contrary, as soon as the battle was over, he'd be reporting this little incident. directly to Thron and then to have the like the perfect uh ending of the end of this chapter being

Pelion like kind of stopping himself for a moment as he like leaves Thrawn's side and is like hmm I feel like I'm forgetting something oh well and then like leaves the room it's it's extremely good but it is also it is kind of freaky how how you know to experience what what being force-persuaded is like. Because it's more than just these are not the droids you're looking for and then and Pellion saying these are not the droids I'm looking for.

He has thoughts that are, you know, it's not Sabayoth saying out loud what he wants Pellion to say. Pellion is automatically responding in a way without being kind of prompted in the way that Sabiyoth wants him to while still thinking something different. It's not as if his thoughts have changed as well.

So it's just an interesting sort of force persuade. Yeah, it's scarier that he's semi-conscious and that he's able to think dissent, but not speak it, and then later forgets the dissent entirely, you know? Yeah. creepy creepy what do we

go ahead well just we've seen how like gentle luke tries to be anytime like he comes up to the line of influencing someone's thoughts he's like ooh I'm not even sure I want to even like send a vibe someone's way

that might be that might be too intrusive and you have Sabayoth out there being like I ain't just Manchurian Canada day literally anyone I want to I'll just look at them and just reprogram them and have them like, oh, and you're going to do this

like really, you're going to execute a series of complicated instructions and then you'll never remember this happened. And like we've seen Pollyon is a, is, you know, a smart man pretty, you know, pretty insightful and he is just like helpless against this. Yeah. And specifically he's being asked to do something, like, is there a creepier thing to ask someone or make someone do for you in a way that they'll forget it, than to say, uh, I need a very special clone.

I need you to go make me a very special clone. I merely wish a servant, someone who will be waiting there for me when I return. Who is this? I wonder who it is. It's a, he, he names a specific number. Sample B233254. Who could that be? Is it Mara?

I think it's Mara. I think it's a good guess. you think she's a clone? No. I think she has, I think they like collected specimen of probably all the leit, you know, hands. Very true. Uh-huh. And so, honestly, but I would not go with Mara if I were, if I were, if I were saving out.

I think like, I'm sorry to Mara. It's not like, I wish you were, you would take. Less L's, but you are incapable of that. And I wish you, I wish you the best. I wish for you success and, and all that, but you kind of are blowing it consistently. The exact quote for those who want to play along at home and who don't know who this is,

though I will say I think you do have all the clues culturally. For and from one of the emperor's prized souvenirs, sample B233254, I believe it was. So, prize souvenirs. Wait, wait, is it? Wild, I don't know. Could it be Anakin? Oh, that could be wild.

Oh, wow. Because, like, Anakin is kind of something that I like to imagine in my head that the emperor won. Like. Interesting. Some won, not something. Right, right. A big carnival prize. Yeah.

Anakin was like the level four stuffed animal at the top of the carnival. I mean, that's so true. One of the wild things about reading this book is like, we have no idea what the emperor and Anakin slash Vader's relationship was outside of the movies in this continuity. It's so fun to think about. Yeah. So we'll see. Maybe that. Maybe that.

Rob, do you remember who this is or what this is? Okay. the secret keeper I also just dig there's just a little aside here that Pelion notes that some of the junior officers in Imperial Service

are being like I'm getting kind of Jedi pilled that Sabaev is telling anyone who listens that real power flows from the force and Thron you know really he's kind of an apostate like he's refusing to acknowledge that the force is legitimate and really it's only the force that's going to lead us to victory And, you know, Pelion notes that, well, obviously the senior staff like him, obviously they are 100% on board.

They believe in, in Thron. But like, some of the junior officers are starting to really, really warm up to the idea of just like, what if we just had the Jedi, the Jedi Master in charge? And, but again, Thrawn's like, turn 11 doesn't matter. Turn 10, Jedi Master is going to, who's going to put this thing in the back for me. even though he's completely out of control. Yeah, it's, he's played a card that says, like, in five turns,

this card kills every other active card on your side of the board. And he's like, it was turn for now, baby. Like, I don't need to worry about terrifying. This thing is, it's going to be done.

We get five more HP to the, to the enemy, you know? They're in the middle of this, like, perfectly coordinated attack. And Sabias, like, everyone shut the fuck up my Jedi are at and then it's one of the places they're doing a diversionary attack and we get an image of like what this means we see it from like lay in hans perspective aboard the of board the falcon and there's a point where hans gets on the radio to wedge and it's like

are you seeing what i'm seeing are you seeing what i think i'm seeing and wedge is like the entire imperial task force breaking off to come after us and it's like sobayal is now just whipping entire fleets like car keys right just shiny objects he's like gotta go get it it's wild I really love the maneuver

hon and wedge pool here classic this is classic Star Wars like you know smugglery shit where it's like the something maneuver it's the crack and twist the crack and twist where what they do is

they do a fancy flight maneuver they say let's do the crack and twist I'll see you at coordinate 55721 and they do a fancy flip and the thing is the 55721 is wrong you have to like increase each of those by two and that's the real destination coordinate but the twist makes it look like there's some sort of maneuver is the the crack and maneuver is the crack and twist is the new formation you're flying in not the fact that you are hopping over the the fucking five on the pay phone like you're in the first season of the wire

you know it's it's great very fun yeah it's uh it's it's it's cool it's cool bit uh we get a little adventure with Luke

on just a cool Star Wars place a city made of crystal that everyone was ever people are like people are gonna love our crystal city we're gonna we're gonna go all in on tourism funny and we get a few of these yeah we get all time our locations

in these chapters and they're both specifically people going all in on being tourist destinations and one works and one kind of works out but not really and the other totally doesn't the one completely doesn't yeah but i i love this like just the visual of like everything has this weird blood red as the like setting sun is hitting the crystal city and it's just like weird and kind of crazy to be there it's it's a neat setting uh luke is trying to track down clones he's he's trying to sense like, uh, you know, strange, strange unnatural minds out there on the margins. He's in, he's incognito.

Nobody could possibly he's doing, he's a, he's a new republic, uh, intelligence operative. Nobody's going to, nobody's going to tumble to what he's doing here deep behind enemy lines. Talancard medley comes up to him as like, dude, what are you doing here? Oh man, you're at the crystal, I'm at the crystal city. How are you doing? How you been? You've been all right?

Come on out. Every time Luke tries to be like maybe I can do something sneaky and cars like that's not remotely sneaky It's not the thing you do just come on come on. You didn't know you have no points in prowl come on out It's fine. We're gonna talk up. We're just gonna hang out. Oh, it's so funny It's a it's a it's a very fun bit We also get yeah, go on I was gonna say you know and we get the like the update that kind of primes us for the rest of it because card is like well how's Mara? is, you know, she's at Khorasan, okay, cool, like, okay, how's it, how's the fleet going? And it's just like, it's so, the idea, Star Wars, we complain often about it being too small and, like, too much happens on Tatooine.

It has never been smaller than Talancard and Lou Skywalker are in the same city on the same former tourist planet that's sort of kind of a trade hub now. they bump into each other in the city. And to their credit, Talancard and Luke Skywalker, just having it up that I don't care. It's great. I'm happy to see them both. I'm happy they ran into each other. Well, they're following the same lead. You're right.

They're both investigating clones. They're both investigating clones. That is what it is. It's like, what are you doing at this warehouse? Yes. The two guys investigating clones. You're right. That is the thing that's happening.

So. Yeah. Card just has chemistry with everybody. He does. He does. He does. He does. Hey, man, what's up?

Yeah. Let's hang. Yeah. And this is where we get the thing, Al, you pointed out, it was this conversation where Luke and Carr talk about how long it takes to make a clone and the thing of like, normally it's a year, but maybe it's 15 to 20 days. And then the thing that we didn't actually mention is, CART is also like, I mean, that's what they said.

That's how it was before the Clone Wars, at least. Who knows? We don't know how things developed during the Clone Wars. Maybe it's been, maybe it was weird even then. Who could say? you know um it's good do we have an idea of what like i mean i guess the empire makes it not public knowledge but it feels like like you know it's almost missing history or something right i also think uh a thing to remember is i think it's they're further back in this continuity than they

were for than they are in our minds as being something that was only 20 years ago they happen like 40 years ago in this continuity so like you know a lot of people just weren't around for it in in that direct way so which is interesting like it's zon looks i think it's genuinely it's uh alit Guinness is like 75 or whatever when he makes the movie it's like well him in his prime you know 45 years ago thereabouts you would have had uh the clone wars happening and yeah it's a long time Yeah. And the implication here is that the wars were so devastating. It's like an, you know, like an asteroid hit the galaxy in some ways, right? And it's just like nobody knows anything about what the clone masters were up to by the time the clone wars were ended.

I do just like this little detail at the end of that chapter, the shitty little imperial governor being like, oh, you know, let's make sure. sure everyone knows that Luke Skywalker was here on planet and his little aide being like, what about the other guy, sir? Oh, him, you don't have to worry about him. He's nobody. And for a split second, he's like, my nerdy little aide seemed to key onto that and then forgets about it. And of course, the nerdy little aid is an imperial intelligence operative who's just keeping an eye. He's like the political officer looking over this governor. He's the guy who's going to probably shoot him at some point for disloyalty. Just a fun little bit. Um, a little glimpse of just like how, you know, how the empire actually works, right?

And in some ways makes you understand like the role of the hand, which is that there's tons of people who are like, I'm untouchable, I'm a big important person and like, I have all this discretion. And there might just be somebody closer than you think who has a direct channel to the actual, like, you know, to the actual throne, basically. And is there just to just to keep you in line and remove you if need be. This guy sucks. I like his little creep. And, and, you know, I love the imperial remnant as like a storytelling device, the idea of like, yeah, there are just still some planets that have imperial governors who are all like little petty tyrants, little, you know, Napoleonic complex ass guys who are like, this is my domain and I, Thron doesn't need to know what I'm doing here.

And the reason for it is actually so good, which is basically he likes talent. Talent card gives him things sometimes. He smuggles and contraband for him. He brings him his movies and his wine or whatever. You know what I mean? Like, no one needs to know that I have a pet smuggler who sells me fun stuff, sells me my weed, you know. I like my fun stuff, guys. Yeah.

Meanwhile, his little worm-tongued dude is just going to report back to Thron about all this. You want me to kill this guy? Nah, not yet. All right, but I'm looking forward to when I kill him. Yeah. Yeah, I know you are, buddy. This is the job that Luke took away from Mara. Right.

Can you blame her for being angry? Yeah. You used to just be sending little messages. This guy, hey, want me to kill this guy who's? sucks and she'd get a little message back yes from the emperor right in her right in her head and she's cool and now i can see why she's so sad yeah now later she's waking up in a new republic hospital and oh allie i just i just i will get to the lay of conversation but it's like it's just so funny to be how like i have nothing nobody cares about me

I used to be powerful. She's oompy right outside of the door watching her. Like, she has people around her. Just open up your heart. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know.

Like, you're nerdy little, like, it's the 90s. Do you have any idea how annoying your nerdy little computer brother might have been? Like, can you imagine you wake up from a spaceship crash? And it's like, so where's, where's dad? Where's the whole organization I was with? Where? Oh, they're all gone. but I'm here

I hope you're doing okay I'm running I'm running code it is giving little bro on the computer out in the other room it's very it's very funny I've been protecting you he's been there he's been there for her he's been waiting and like

I mean he's probably been just playing games on the computer for the past month but like he's been there waiting for Mara to wake up he didn't abandon her you know he could have fucked off he could be at the fucking you know arcade

computer lounge yeah that's the vibe he's at the land center for sure oh but he's in the family room computer he's moving on

slower speeds that thing does not have a good graphics card do you know it no it's terrible it's terrible I also love that he's like technically doing work for the Republic but not making a big deal out of it

because they gave him like the Rubik's Cube that he cares about Well and like he cleared Akbar within 30 seconds Like card was like I wanted somebody to look at Akbar's accounts that showed he was a traitor And Gens like yeah that was easy Now I'm on to some other stuff

You're about this Delta source thing They can't figure it out I'm gonna go work on that A little bit I'm running some code. Meanwhile, Winter shows up.

And so for me, this is the first, it's not exactly Amara L, but there's this bit where she's sort of getting caught up on how things have been

going and winter reveals that they lost the race to the Katana fleet and the Katana fleet was taken by Throne before they even got there. And she's like, great.

So I almost got myself killed for nothing. And Winter just gives you this cold little smile and it's like, well, if it helps, so did a lot of other people. Just,

it's brutal You know probably a bunch of other people died in that battle You know people died like all the war Probably not everyone had a Jedi a Jedi knight come and be like I gotta find their ejector seat And like get them to a hospital as quickly as possible It's wild I Mara I love you

You have to do better We winter has so little patience for the pity party We need you to think about how there are other people alive and dead in the galaxy. Yeah, like the emperor who the hand I was. The finest man in the history of the galaxy. Bro, every time she talks about the emperor, I just think of sheave. And I'm like, this is your man, this is your guy that you're like, when he was like, in the beginning of this, she's like describing his eyes. And I was like, this is so, you, you, please, please stop, please stop thinking about the emperor in this way.

It is so weird. She just to like pluck him from her head. She needs to like do a thing. You know what I mean? Yeah, she, yeah, she needs to like cut out the part of her brain that the emperor lives in. He's put a little version of himself in there. He's dancing around. He's like, you know, whispered all sorts of shit in his brain.

He's Ratatoui in her brain I mean literally Yes Oh my God Her hair is kind of like Linguini's hair Just the color In Ratatoui

Those are bright shiny red Uh huh But Yeah the Although actually That makes something occur to me as well Just something

Like I was thinking about With the last book A lot of What Mars story particularly centers on is reliability of memory

and I think like one of the big turning points for her comes with when Thron is like your memory fails you and Burr's hand like actually she's like I was somebody I was super important you know when I spoke everyone had to listen

and he was like that's not how it was at all like you were again you were a very special career but like you weren't you weren't important and it's ridiculous that you think you were. And it's not lying, which we talked about, right? He's not, it doesn't feel like him maneuvering or like trying to like insult her out of, from a place of fiction.

You know, he's not lying to her about what her position is. That's genuinely what his perspective was. Yeah. Like, get real with yourself. Right. Like, it's time to face facts. Like how it was is how it was is not how you thought it was. And what's funny is like later.

in that book, when she first sees Sabayov, she has this, like, flicker of memory of him waiting in the darkness, and she remembers Palpatine, like, waiting at the end of, like, the gate, like, by her family house or something, just the night he came for her as a kid. And the memories jogged after the Thrawn conversation. There's this memory of, like, Palpatine, not at his moment of death, but as he exists in her memory, which is a menacing figure, you know, come to take her from. you know, wherever she was, she was growing up. And then a few minutes after that, like,

when Sabayov has that, like, one of his tantrums, Mara feels this, like, cold chill. And she's like, it's like hearing Palpatine speak. Yeah. And she does not mean that positively. And so already, I think it's an interesting thing has happened there, which is there is this, like, Palpatine, like, living in her head. But then there is also this, like,

especially in light of Thrawn kind of, like, puncturing her, her narrative, her, per ego about the entire thing. There are little cracks of awareness beginning to come through it. Like when Sabath is going like, I'm an insane dark Jedi. She hears Palpatine. She's like, that is, oh, this is it. And it's like, she hasn't gotten there yet, right? But like, once you've drawn that connection of like, yeah, dude, he was an insane Jedi master.

Like, that's how they roll. Like, the difference between Sabiof and Palpatine is not as great as you would hope. Well, and it's fascinating to me because the thing that, one of the things that separates Theron and Mara is this series opens with Theron saying, I'm really loyal to the empire. The empire, I'm going to fight and die for the empire. You know the problem with the empire? It was the emperor.

We fucked up by letting that. guy be at the center of all of this thing. And for her, it's extremely the other way, right? She serves and respects and loves and would die for the emperor. It's very clear she does not have much. The empire is important because of its connection to him, not the other way around. And both of the extremes of that position, you know. She doesn't really have like an ideology. Like, she doesn't really have anything. What is the empire supposed to look like other than be ruled by the emperor? What even when she...

There's no... Like, what is the empire... What are the values of this empire? There is an answer. It's faith and loyalty. Like the card notices it earlier. Like, she begins to, like, melt down in the first book when it's like, we're going to cancel a shipment because, like, it's too hot.

We can't get there. And she's like, but we said we would. And, like, this is her, the thing that turns around Thron is, like, Thron broke his word. Right. It's the broken word. He deceived her and, like, didn't give him the time he promised. And she was like, the empire I never, I serve would never have done that.

We know that's bullshit. Like, like, and also in this book, what do we have? We have Sabaath talking to Pelion being like, now you're not going to remember this, but I'm going to have you go do a thing for me. And you're going to think it was all just, it's just going to disappear from your mind. So we have all the blueprints of a top-tier gas lighter, like right in front of us. And of course, so she's like, I absolutely believe that Mara believes that she never broke a promise to her, that he always delivered on what he asked or what she asked of him, that, you know, and he probably made her believe that.

Well, the people she had to destroy were people who were making liars of the empire. Exactly. They were breakers of faith for what we are doing here. Yeah. And so, like, but it's a child. child's loyalty. I think that's it. It's not a form of ideology.

It is a child's like, someone gave their word to me and they would never take that back and I'm safe in that promise. And that is how she regards Palpatine. And that's how she regarded her place in the world was as an enforcer of promises. Right.

And also someone who like, you know, once she was, once she gets a mission, it's like, I will carry it out no matter what. And you see it's carried to just ridiculous degree. Like, we can't cancel the shipment. Are you kidding? It's very funny.

She's so embarrassing. I mean, but, you know, you bring together that picture of her being, you know, taken as a child by Palpatine. You're like, oh, this is the last time her thoughts were her own. This is the last time she got to be a person without until after Palpatine's death. And even now, he's still in there echoing around, pushing her to do something that we don't know that she wants to do. We're kind of getting ahead of it now, but one of the big questions that comes up is, is that recurring chorus that we hear of Kill Luke Skywalker, something that originates in her, or is that something that has been placed there by Palpatine? Did it start as one and become the other, or is it completely artificial? But the important thing is Mar got a gun.

That is right. Because they stashed. Look, this is her home turf. And so she goes and she's like, everyone knows. The most boring planet in the galaxy is Corvus Minor. So this giant tome, the history of Corvus Minor, is a place you can put a fucking magnate and just keep it there forever. And nobody will ever find it.

We got these scattered around the palace. It's so funny. It's also funny because they're like, it's not one book. It's a multi, it's a multi. They say the describe it was a multi-card set. So it's like a big box of, of, you know, data disks about this, this planet. Love it. Good.

Great. It's, this is so, like, clue, coat. Like, this is so goofy. This is, like, this is, we're playing a murder mystery for my birthday, uh, coded for me. And I, it's just so, like, not. Star Wars, but it kind of fits into the silliness of Star Wars in a fun way. I really like it. She kind of straddles like different worlds of Star Wars, right?

Because like if Ham did this, or if Lando did this especially, we'd all be like, that's Lando, hiding guns and books. But she's been in the force, like, story path. Yes. But she is also a smuggler and a spy and an assassin or whatever. So, like, she gets to have a little bit of that also, you know? And she's awesome, but all of it. Well, you know, well, hmm. But what really fucks me up is, like, I mean, like, okay, the Republic takes over.

They take up a corosant. They're in Palpatine's house. They're fine with that for some reason. Luke lives there. Palpatine has all these guest rooms. We're going to use them as guest rooms. It's obvious. But they're not going to take his decorations down.

They didn't search this for, like, bugs or, weapons. They didn't have a crew go through and find all the, like, hidden doors. We're looking for Delta source actively. Y'all didn't open the books to be like, is there a microphone in the place we're always talking our business at? No, we did not do that. Need to invent a metal detector. Need to invent bug frequency device. Their shit is not together. I, like, the one I think I find really convincing it is so clear they are just not like they moved in here because of the seat of government and Luke in the first time we meet him is like I don't think we should have done this. And it's like, but it's the seat of government. It has everything we need. Well, how big is the government? Okay, it's Mademothma and like her six friends. But we're going to have that Senate back up and running at some point. But right now, right now we can all just meet in Anteroom B and just like pull up some chairs. someone message me by the way to say that's not true it does say there's a bigger group of people leading the the Senate or whatever the new republic it's just that there's a special higher level more condensed group that we pay more attention to that the books are actually about and to that I say show us the other group I believe you I've seen I would like to see them we're not familiar with the Supreme Soviet versus the Polar Bureau yeah yeah yeah Yeah. Okay. That's great. Oh, you're having meetings? That's adorable. Let us know. Hey, guys, how do we feel about freedom and mammothma? Yeah. All right. So the Provisional Council is going to go back into this room and have our little AA meeting where we coordinate the entire war effort.

Oh, it's so funny. Yeah. There is not one person who matters enough in that other group to be mentioned once. Once. But I think some of it Like the reason like You know The Imperial like why couldn't they sweet They don't have It's like they took over like The Empire is all this like state and infrastructure right

And this is a guerrilla army That has like a lot of pilots And shit But like they don't have The ability to be like We need to go through With a fine tooth comb Super Washington DC

That's what the Imperial Palace is It's not like the White House It's like the entire, it's like everything between like Richmond, Virginia and like decently north of Baltimore. And presumably some of the people who are employed there are just still employed there. They weren't all, you know, some of them were there cleaning the hallways. They really, they fire everybody.

There's some people around who are just like, oh, yeah, well, this is the person who knows that the computer works. And they swore fealty to the republic. and we're going to keep them around. This is the evil woman plot from season three of the Mandalorian. This is the evil woman plot for season three of the Mandalorian. But like, I mean, I do understand this. I understand the like shallow thinking of like, well, we're a government.

We're going to use the White House. But like if R2D2, is it R2 unit who could be like, I'm in the swamp two miles from now. There's a weird key that we don't talk about again. Like, you could be like there's a gun in this book. Or like, why even have Palpatine's book around? Isn't it like bad vibes? Like, wouldn't you just You didn't write the book?

Throw everything out. Get to rugs. Like, I know. Well, okay. I will say, I do think part of this, weirdly, this is stupid, the thing I'm about to say, is that it isn't a book. It's a data card. Because there's no paper in Star Wars.

And books are... Sorry, no, sometimes there is flimsy. There is flimsy, you're right. Yes, but it's not worth... If they were a books, if this was not... library. If this was Sheave's secret library, they'd be like, well, torch all this shit. This could

be ancient Sith magic. We've got to get this shit out of here. But it's a dated disc. It's just, it's a data disc. It's in Carta. You know what I mean? Are you going to throw away Microsoft and Carta 98? Just because it's the emperors? It's a classic. Why would you do that? Why would you do it out?

And the same thing goes for like so the thing about for instance, like sweeping for weapons, right? Easier to control weapons coming in at the point of entry than it ever is to find them once they're through. Right. And so to an extent, like trying to track that everything might be, like, it'd be, again,

it's a huge space. And they're just like, this looks like guest quarters. I don't know. It's probably fine. Like, let's just move on. And it's easier to be like, well, do we trust the people who we let in here? Because if so, if they find a gun, they'll also be like, oh, hey, we've had another gun. And then we'll toss it in the pile.

all. But nobody ever finds a gun because it's the most boring book in the galaxy. Right. Exactly. But like, but you know, that's the way they're doing security. Who gets access to this place? Are they people we trust? Are they people who are on the side of the republic? Which is why it's so bananas that Luke Skywalker didn't tell anyone that Mara used to be the Emperor's hand. He's cute and nice. It doesn't even matter because Mara will hit, Mara, We'll take care before you. You're right. Can we just have the conversation

about the Leia conversation right now? I'm dying to because it was just, it was, I couldn't believe what I was reading at a certain point. I was just like, what chapter is this actually? This is like chapter 10 or chapter nine.

Chapter nine. Is it really? Because it's right before the raid. It's like literally to have a conversation. Like Leia is like bored of like being stuck with the twins. You're right. And winter, because Mara is like,

she's like, wait, Winter, the one of the perfect memory, you were Targeter. And Winter's like, yeah, it was one of my code names. And, uh, right. Again, cool character we don't see a ton of it. Like, Winter's cool. The woman with a perfect memory that the rebellion was using to just like go through a place.

And it was like you had a laser scan of the floor, the, like the floor plan and like perfect information about what's inside. Right. Awesome. backstory would read an entire like again Disney fucking it up you know everyone loves Cassie and Andor like guerrilla super spy you could so do it Lecarre-esque uh like winter and Andor season two please yeah that would be so sick she deserves her own suits you're right she deserves

five seasons yeah but like but you got to introduce her and then do the spin off sure because we already we already know they're not I'm sorry you say she deserves her own suits her own suits her suits capital S you know the show the show the show wait are you suits filled

oh my god wait are you also you also think like life is like this but you like you like this yeah that's me too Ali has been suits filled

for a for 15 years wait suits come on Ali is the only person I used to tell me oh I can't hang out because suits is on. Did I say that? I don't know that I said that because suits is not a lie.

It's a little bit of a lie. But it's a little bit of a lie because it's funny. I discovered suits at a time in my life where I was very, like, I found myself in a challenging office environment. And I realized somebody was coming from my neck. And I was like, I don't know. And then I stumbled across suits. And I was like, yes, yes.

What are you going to do about someone? like Hardman coming back. What are you going to do about that? Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah, okay. There was a time we don't know who that meant, but now everybody in the country is suits pill

because it came on Netflix once. I, you know. I was in on suits before that. Okay. I was in its prime video era. I was all over suits. I was late to it. I missed it on USA.

I don't know why Gabriel Mach isn't in more things. I just don't understand it. I know. Yeah, I was burn notice and then I became a suit. I went to suit. That is what it was. You were a, you were burn notice. That's right.

I forgot. Shut out. Anyway. So the point is, I'm with you. Winter deserves her suit spinoff. And hopefully it will have a better, it would have a better outcome than Pearson. Point is, I would watch that series about her doing spy shit. But she tells Leia.

So, oh, sorry, right, Winter tells Lola you're saying. Winter first gives, yeah, gives Leia the crucial clue

where she's like, but I only had that code name for like two weeks. And the two weeks that that overlaps with is, what does she say? The whole group got rated basically. Like one group, near by Targeter,

and they all end up in jail. Mm-hmm. means for Mara to know that she said well I don't think Mara was part of that group or was in was in rebel intelligence she must something's going on be careful you know yeah she didn't need to be careful talk to her yeah yeah laya thank God Leah is one of the few people who just goes and speaks to someone because we don't get enough of that in in Star Wars honestly we don't enough of it. In fiction. We like, period. You know, like, lay a rare character who's like, oh, there's like a miscommunication happening. I'm going to go talk to the person.

And then the plot will hinge not on failure to communicate or a misunderstanding, but instead actual real difference in character positionality. And so she goes and is like, hey, uh, what's up? What's your, what's your, what's your fucking deal? And Mara She's like, don't you know what my fucking deal is? Haven't you heard what my fucking deal is? Haven't you?

Didn't Luke tell you what my fucking deal is? And she's like, no. I don't know what you're talking about. What are you talking about? Why are you being like this? And then Leia's like leaving the room. Which is just so funny. Leah's like, all right, I guess if you're not going to tell me anything, I'm going to leave.

And then she like comically, in my mind is like slowly reaching for the hand. I'm going to read it. I need to read this out loud. I need to read this out loud. I need a dramatic reading, please. All right. So again, the setup here at this point is they've talked a little bit about Thron. She's explained that Thron has no weaknesses.

And she theoretically could be saying that because she's engaged with him. him with Card's crew before. So it's not like they haven't, it's not like she couldn't know something about Thron from all of that stuff. And so they finished talking about Thron. And so, so Leia's like, you know, you know, hey, you know what, thanks for your help. You're welcome, Mara said. The words coming out automatically. Was there anything else? No, I don't think so. Organa Solo said, stepping away from the window and heading for the door. I need to get back and get some sleep before the twins wake up again. And you'll probably want to be going to bed soon too. and I'm still free to move around the palace

Organa solo smiled again Of course Whatever you did in the past It's clear you're not serving the empire now Good night She turned to the door Reach for the handle I'm gonna kill your brother

Mari told her Did he tell you that What the fuck is wrong with you And Leah Is like No he didn't May I ask why Yeah like what's up with that

He destroyed my life, Mara told her, feeling the old ache deep in her throat and wondering why she was even telling Organa Solo this. You're wrong. I didn't just serve with the empire. I was a personal agent of the emperor himself. He brought me here to Corrassant in the imperial palace and trained me to be an extension of his will across the galaxy. I could hear his voice from anywhere in the empire and knew how to give his orders to anyone from a stormtrooper brigade. all the way up to a grand moth. I had the authority and power and purpose in life. They knew me as the emperor's hand, and they respected me the same way they did him. Your brother took all that away from me. And Organisela says, or Flaya says, I'm sorry, there was no other choice.

The lives of freedom of billions of beings. I'm not going to debate the issue with you, Mara Cutter off. You couldn't possibly understand what I've been through. A shadow of distant pain crossed Organa Solo's face. You're wrong, she said quietly. I understand very well. Mara glared at her, but it was a glare without any real force of hatred behind it. Leah Organisolo of Alderan, who'd been forced to watch as the first Death Star obliterated her entire world.

Now, here's the thing. There's an off ramp here. You get off the highway. Mara could have been like, right, of course. And instead, she says, at least you had a lot. life to go back to afterward, she growled at last. You had the whole rebellion, more friends and allies than you could even count. I had no one. And Leah says, it must have been hard. Nuclear bomb versus baby. Fucking, the nuclear blasts going on at the beginning of Terminator 2.

This is absolutely. Steph Curry hitting the three over those tall French guys, like boom, it's done bang like it must have been hard you are nothing to me you're a baby you're a child yes your drawing is very nice i'll put it on the fridge go away incredible but that it's like mara literally is a baby because she doesn't even understand that she just got nuked and she's like i survived it uh-huh so now what it's like do you like do you want me to put you in jail because like I don't I don't need to put you in jail I don't even believe that you want to kill Luke because you had all these times you could have killed Luke and you didn't kill Luke and Marr said but I wanted to I just oh he kept I need him

alive for my reasons I kept needing him and like and needing him alive to help me and then of course sounds like you don't really want to kill him sounds like maybe somebody else does Maybe somebody else in your head, by the way, because remember Leah also heard the emperor that one time that she was out in Endor flying around, she heard his voice. And so she's like, maybe you got a little voice in there. Maybe there's like a little, I don't know. You ever seen Ratatooey? You ever see Ratatooey? And then Mara is like, Mara's like mouth goes dry.

She's like, no, you're wrong. And it's like, come on. Am I? Organizola asked softly. You said you could hear the emperor's voice from anywhere in the galaxy. Mara's like, is it, it's so hot in here.

I need water. It needs water to drink. I think you are getting mind controlled by the emperor Mara Jade. You are getting mind controlled by the emperor. And she's like, Can you hear me, Marra Jay? I'm just hearing his voice.

It's not mind control. It's normal stuff for girls like me. I just, it's like, it's like a domino effect of L's here. Like, I don't understand how, like, even from the start of the conversation with Winter, like, I don't understand how Mara was in the position that she was and does not, and this is like the third time she's done this, does not understand that having information and withholding it is a point of power. Like, it is a way to enact power on people.

So she could have thought to herself, wow, I think Winter was that target person. I'm going to keep this to myself, so nobody knows this about me. But she keeps doing this outward, like, especially in the beginning of the lay a conversation where she's like, well, I guess I'm going to jail now because you definitely want to send me to jail

because you don't trust me. Like, she just wants someone to acknowledge her as the person that she thinks that she is. And like, she's just looking for it from anybody. She wants someone to be like, you're the emperor's hand. Because it feels good to be the emperor's hand. That's what she remembers being. It's what she wants to be.

And she isn't that anymore. And every time someone refuses to take that seriously is like another twist of the knife of what she feels she lost. No one ever recognizes her. And she's literally like the meme of the guy standing in the corner of the party. That is like, nobody even knows that. I'm the emperors hand. But she's also saying

out loud. You see the emperor's hand over there? She could hear his voice from anywhere in the galaxy. Stormtrooper, stormtrooper, stormtrooper, for gays and grandmoss had to listen to her.

But the thing is like, it is also Natalie, maybe this is where you're going, a version of that meme where the guy is in the corner but he's going, I'm the emperor's hand. And everyone is like, cool party. And everyone's like, you hear that? Yeah, this party rules.

That girl's weird vibes. But I do like the thing I love here too is like The also thermonuclear force of someone who has never encountered the least bit of introspection in like any sort of context or much less a therapeutic one Being just having the most basic questions returned to you like So do you think you want to do that? Or do you think you were made to want to do that? Huh? What do you mean? It's like, well, sometimes we think we want to do things, but really, that's a response to some other drives that we're trying to satisfy.

Which one do you think it is? What? No, I don't, I don't, that's not even possible. You're insane, Leah. Morrow would be destroyed by Eliza, the first chatbot therapist from the 1960s that just repeats the thing you say back as a question. The emperor can talk to me from anywhere in the galaxy. Why do you believe the emperor can talk to you from anywhere? in the galaxy.

It was important that I was the emperor's hand. Why was it important that you were the emperor's hand? Devastated. Destroyed, no answers. I really wanted to get past this. I'm rooting for you, Mara. I'm ready. I really want her to be cool, but she's constantly being not cool.

At least she's extremely funny. To us, not to. Like she doesn't realize she keeps slipping on the banana peel over and over again and she I love a clown you know but she is the clown and now we are so why was the shipping force so strong with her and Luke why did this character like I'm fascinated you can look it up no other character there is no other heterosexual pairing around Luke Skywalker that like anyone gives a shit about there other love interest introduced no one gives a shit.

So why is it Mara? I think part of it is in some ways this like I'm baby like encountering first like Luke is like Sorry which one of those was that Luke or was that Mara?

Well that's kind of ties me together right? Is that Luke is sort of like the perpetual innocent like openhearted like you know just cannot cannot will not become cynical

to the world, no matter how, like, he gets burned by that. And Mara, in some ways, somebody who's like, I'm super hardened against the world. I've had a hard life. Nobody's ever had it worse than me because of, like, these traumatic experiences. But also has not really had, again, has not had any sort of ability to introspect or think about it. And I think that's part of, like, what the pairing becomes interesting because it's, like, endless open-hearted decency

encountering like perpetual like very first time something really bad happens to you and you just live in that like emotionally scarring moment. Yeah. And I think it's very relatable for people. But also it becomes kind of a funny like Felix and Oscar kind of thing

that makes them kind of fun to see bounce off each other because she's she's like seething in so many scenes and he's just like these warnskers are neat don't you think and there's there's a little something there but the bit with Leah here too is

her ability I don't even think he's trying to own Mara when she's like it must have been hard it is the most again it's therapist voice right here you are just whining just the again very Skywalker trait just like just complete one just whining

your way through this conversation and Leia could destroy her, right? She could have actually voiced the thing Mara realizes, which is like, you know he blew up my planet in front of me. Like, she could have just demolished her. But instead she's like, that must have been really hard. And it was, and that's kind of the problem. It's like it was hard.

It was hard. It really was. Because that's the frame of reference that Mara has for everything in life. because she was raised by Palpatine. You know? Yeah. This is what happens when you give Palpatine a baby. Yeah.

Now, think about all those plots that, uh, from, from Clone Wars or he wanted to get a bunch of babies to raise. You know? They would all turn out like this. And retroactively, by the way, this is what he wanted them for. We, like, we couldn't say outright at the time that like, oh, he wants inquisitors and emperor's hand agents and all these future visions. of what the force users under Palpatine would look like because we just hadn't gotten there yet.

But at the time, I was like, oh, they're like, those are going to be emperor's hands, you know, or they're going to be inquisitors or they're going to be whatever if he had gotten all those force-sensitive babies. Or they'd be dead so they couldn't grow up with a Jedi, one or the other. Yeah. There is also a bit of like, this is the loneliest woman, whoever, like, Like, the other part of this, like, I just can't stop telling you my life story.

Oh, you're right. There's a bit of, like, no one ever talks to this person. Yeah. And so it, like, kind of can't stop coming out once it starts, which, again, isn't maybe the, like, here's this badass woman of mystery. It is a little bit more like, whoa, okay, huh? It's kind of a lot. It is kind of. One person to talk to.

Maybe Eliza would have. been good for her. Just one person to talk to. Yeah. She's a droid. She doesn't even have a droid. Oh, sure. Oh, a droid would be great. Yeah. She has dinner parties to go to every fucking week.

I know. But maybe that's why she ended up with cards. Because deep down inside, she's like, I need to find a dinner party guy so that I can start to associate with people. Except he's like, I want to have dinner parties. And I know you hate those. So I'm going to go up my dinner party. And you don't have to be at my

dinner party. And you don't have to be there. you could run my organization while I'm at dinner. You're right. So there's a little bit of like, she's the workaholic, and he's like, great. I'm going to go, I'm going to go meet with my business associates. You can hang out here on the bridge doing smuggler things. Yeah, it's very funny. I do think, I do think, Ellie, the most incriminating thing about where Luke is at with this is he didn't tell anyone what her whole deal is.

Send a memo out. At least tell Leia. But he's not threatened. And if he's not threatened, there's like no reason to like bother everybody with this fact. Like she's so kitten in his mind. You know, like there's just nothing. She came and saved him. Like there's not.

Yeah, you're right. It's fine. Yeah. I think that is the moment. Two babies on the way. Hans about to be a father. Landau's business is falling apart. Like this weird woman is just, I'll deal with it.

It's fine. It's very true. Meanwhile, Luke, have an adventures, chasing across the rooftops, besting imperial intelligence, running away from Thrawn, using a clever ruse, sort of repeat of the previous encounter,

but now he's got a trick, that he can blow apart into a ton of like chaff clouds the tractor beam can't get him but we see what a great military leader Thron is now because instead of executing the tractor beam operator

for blowing it Thron's like nobody could have hey kid there is no countermeasure for that but you came up with a really good idea it didn't work but none of the ones we've tried so far do I'm promoting you

and everyone's like woo thron's the best you know she's right on this one I mean this is like him commanding fleets and stuff really good at all the other stuff I don't know man

I don't know I mean that's the that's the rub that's the problem he's the best the empire has so I yeah I'm I still don't know what to think about Thron

I'm like, I want to get through this book so bad because, like, all of the art stuff, it feels like I'm just being told it. There have been scenes and opportunities where he could, like, act on it beyond, like, Thron is at this planet and he understands it, and he's doing it. Like, Natalie brought up the, like, he should have noticed that C3PO was in the important art to the scene. So I just, like, I don't know, Thron has yet to impress me. We'll see. I just want him to do something that, like, in, I feel like in Rebels, when Thron pulls out some art, there is actually some legitimate, like, there's, I can see an argument that he's making. It's not a good argument, but I can see how he's like, oh, because, you know, the, the, I forget what we had. we had the like

it was mostly the big the total the what was the like the little family like the family the family heirloom thing yeah yeah thing and there was like actual information

derived from that piece I feel like we haven't really gotten a lot of the opportunities where we've been in spaces I come back to a Thron being in the no gree

family center. I don't know what else to call it. I forget what the name was. Where there's like the big wall. Yeah, the murals of like. Yeah. And doesn't like seem to remark on that at all, which was surprising to me. I'm just waiting for the like the art analysis to hit and also be wrong, both of them. Because I guess what we get is. him saying what he learned from the art, but we never see the art that he's, we never see him come to that conclusion. So at the beginning of this book, for instance, he says, ah, the people of this planet fear the impossible, or things that feel impossible. So I'll show them something impossible and they'll give up right away. And then he later in the, our section of the reading, says, like, this wouldn't work against humans because they don't have that same fear response to the impossible. This is the trick with the,

the spaceships shooting at the shield and then having a second cloaked ship underneath shit. The Yukians are so, will be so terrified of that that they like give up right away because they're like so overawed by what seems impossible. But we don't know how he got to that conclusion based on whatever piece of art that he looked at, whatever, whatever pieces he looked at. Like, where did he arrive at that reading of their psychology through? was it a painting that he looked at? Was it a collection of movies he, like, how did he arrive at they really are afraid of the impossible? And he even says like a different, it would work on another species who's kind of similar. But we don't get the, we don't get like even the abstract,

you know, like right up of why that's the case for their culture. Only that it's true. And I do think that that's like a big gap in this whole analogy of the art thing is like, if you can't at least give me a little something. If you can't let me, he should be pointing at paintings for Peleon and being like, do you see here where the, you see how chasms appear in all of their work? They're really, they're obsessed with gaps between thing A and thing B or, you know, something. Like, give me some weird armchair psychologist, you know, or armchair critic shit that at least fake it for me. And I kind of feel like the reason why we don't is because it's ridiculous. this is because like the second you do it for real, he comes across like an idiot for acting

like there is one true interpretation that could cash out in a psychological profile of an entire species of people or entire culture. But, you know, maybe we'll get one. Yeah, I guess I feel like it feels like it works in rebels because, you know, that example, it's tied to Hera and we know Hera and we understand Hera and, you know, since the audience understands her. Thrawn understanding her makes sense. But like in his position in these books, he is arriving into a scene with perfect knowledge or he, like the heroes, quote unquote, are the actors against him. So like they're the ones figuring out things as they're happening. You know, he's either getting foiled or he's winning. And there's not like that process for him.

So it just seems like, I don't know. I don't know. Well, and the thing with Hara ends up being more about her and her relationship to a place than it is about, like, the all Twylex or something, right? It's like about her relationship to her home and her, like, literally her home. Yeah, 100%. He does the Sherlock Holmes thing of like. Right, right. And mind you, this is the benefit of 15, 20 years to think about Thron. And this character

and how you bring him the screen. But with there, it makes more sense because it's like, hey, if you see this thing, and there's a twilight who shows up

out of nowhere trying to get at it, that's not coincidental. That is like, they're here for this thing because it's super important. And that's the, that's the leap throng makes.

Is like, if you understood the significance of this thing to Twilac families, then you know the person who just happens to be caught with it. Right. there's no like there's zero chance it's not this woman and then the fact that knowing that

she then does the operation that destroys the entire era of like a state at the end of that that uh thing he then like derives more he's like ah now i understand her even better because of this action she took like all right awesome guy who's like engaged with the psychological makeup of his rivals is like it does work completely and i think he also has the other thing in the in one of those episodes about like the collection of the rebels artwork like he has he's like ah yes all of these things all these people are tied to they're inside of a particular cultural thing there's like the mandolorean mural and then sabine's artwork there's the stuff that's like from the loathal like local loathal resistance for ezra i mean yeah yeah the sabine's paintings

yeah exactly and he's like okay i'm going against these five people here's the artwork that helped shape them or that they've been producing, what can I, what can I feel about what they are? And it's still goofy, but it's at least grounded in particular people, where you can kind of get to, he's basically doing FBI profiler shit, like, but he's basically doing Will Graham shit, but with rebels. But it's awesome. No one here's seen Hannibal. I forgot no one's seen Hannibal. I mean, you know the original. I mean, but yeah, anyway, this is my design. but and I do think so I mean the thing that like I think you're supposed to get like to what's so amazing about Thrawn is like that dude could look at like a Vermeer and a

Kandinsky and all this shit and somehow put together like this is how humans roll and it'd be like but those they have nothing to do with one another it doesn't even but Thrawn's like no no no it's that fear of the unknown exactly and somehow it kind of works But I do think if you showed it more, yes, it becomes more and more ridiculous because, yeah, it's too. Well, it bumps up against the thing about Star Wars, right, which is like, oh, all of the species are also singular or like monocultural and they have one planet and it's the wheat field planet. And on the wheat field planet, they do wheat field dances and that's all and they do wheat paintings and like that's all there is. And, like, I mean, if that's the world you live in, maybe it would work. Maybe it would be like, they're obsessed with food.

And they're like, oh, damn, all right, yeah, you know what? You got them. Maybe attacking their wheat will prove. If we threaten their wheat, they'll give up instantly. Like, oh, yeah, okay. I get it. That makes sense. You could have also gotten there by understanding that the planet's whole thing was just, like,

wheat import, export or whatever. But, like, all right, yeah, your way of looking at paintings also works, my guy. cool. It's wild that you became a grand moth off that. Or a grand admiral. Sorry, not a moff. You're not a governor. You're a military. I get it. Sorry. Please don't kill me. Anyway.

The wheat thing reminds me that we kind of brushed over how funny and actually smart and hilarious it is. The opening of this book is him getting food for the clones because there's so many of them. He's going to the planet that produces food good to feed

the clones. That's important. And implied in this is like, hey, he's getting, like, the Galaxy and of Thrawn is going to be some 40K shit. Like, this is an agricultural planet, but it's like, it's like California, right? It's like, yes, they grow a lot of things there, but it's gorgeous. There's a lot of, like, gorgeous natural beauty and all that. And he's like, what if you were Iowa? Like, we are going to, we are going to grow, like, mass crops off every inch of this planet that we possibly can. goodbye like Central Valley like you know fruit all this shit like done gone we are clear

cutting get those vineyards out of here yeah wheat we need bread you need we need to make oatmeal like we need come on we are getting we are getting protein farms up and running and they're going to be the type of protein farms that run on bugs and algae and you're going to have to deal with that because we need food so yeah it's great plan's about to be devastated oh yeah And, like, Pellion sort of, as he listens to them, like, you know, do, like, issue the surrender orders. Pellion's like, well, that plan is not going to be recognizable in about five years' time. Which is, like, again, this is the, like, Thrawn's the enlightened Imperial Admiral and all this. But, like, just down to the foundations of the project, you can't, you can't leave stuff alone.

Like, it's got to be bent to the war machine. It's still a colonial project, and it's still that exactly. exact type of, that's the type of empire it is. It's the type of empire that says, hey, what do you do over there? All right, do more of it. And you're just an outpost of the empire that produces this thing for us now, which, which again is part of what we learned about the old republic via watching Clone Wars. It's like, that's also sort of like that. But he's pushing it even further here. And I love that negotiation with the guy from that, from, is it Yukio, Uki, Ukio, Ukio, where he's, Yugo, Ukio, where he's like, okay, just as long as you don't, like, totally fuck up our, our, the way that our entire planet works, and he's like, no, no, no, don't worry. Like, we're not going to kill any of you. Like, cool, cool, cool. We're going to let you stay in charge, you know, as long as you're like, do a good job. All right, cool, cool, cool. And we're going to fuck up the way your planet totally works. And the guy's like, well, two out of three ain't bad. I guess that's fine. I guess we have to say, yeah.

to that. I also love the mirror of the way that we get more of this information later on. I think we're up to this point in the book, so this is a segue. But like, car to talking to another smuggler guy that he meets in space, question mark. Yeah. And he's like, yeah, I was going to

retire this really nice house with the wonderful view in California. But the fraud came and he's starting into Iowa, so I had to go. Oh, you know the property value. Gone. He was like he bought himself again Like maybe not even a farm

It might have just been like a beautiful view of the fields But I'm not growing anything I'm just retiring there And it's like And the wheat and wheat farm A will be over here And where you're gonna put that pool in That's wheat farm B And yeah he pieces out

Also we get the little side of he's like I don't like these clones man And we don't get more detail than that But he's just like you should have seen the guys working in this checkpoint and we don't something tells me it ain't like fives in the gang just yucking it up like hanging out like who clone bros like Gillespie saw some shit he does not want to talk about oh yeah for sure the clone vibes is extremely are extremely bad well and yeah I mean we're gonna get into the conversation between the smugglers I'm sure but people have there are people out there

who are afraid the clones are going to take their jobs, even though their jobs are smuggling. So lots of clone feelings to talk through as we get deeper in. Well, also like, I also dig that. And this is, you know, Thron makes this point later with Farrier where it's like, mostly I just want the smugglers to just be chill and continue to be what they are, which is kind of like selfish businessman who just want to make money

and get fat off both sides. and because we get a taste of Cardin Gillespie having a little conversation and two Imperial frigates see them and start to engage them and it turns into them one-upping each other about what bad asses they are about their smuggler fleets

which are effectively paramilitary fleets right? These two frigates come to engage them and it's like Fasten the Furious where like well I got a little I got a little something special in the, in the engine here. Cards like, get out of here, Gillespie, we got you. 15 ships are attacking one of the Lancers for it against the Gillespie.

Well, that's funny because I got people here too. And suddenly, like, there's a smuggler fleet just beating the shit out of, like, two Imperial Patrol ships. And it's like, yeah, in Star Wars land, the state doesn't have anywhere close enough to a, like, monopoly on military-grade hardware. That does not cause major problems of people with a lot of money decide to start turning their guns. They can buy the same guns that, like, you put on your ships to kill other ships. They can buy those two. Not as many. Right.

But enough to cause problems. As enough to cause problems is supposed to get like two of them and their friends together suddenly. So, which is kind of Card's whole realization in some ways as he seems to start to, excuse me, as he seems to start to hammer. Hmm. Which is Carrant's whole realization. it seems, as he starts to realize that he could, like, hammer together a little smuggler rebellion. I mean, it's not quite there yet, but at this point, he's still just focused on intelligence sharing. But, you know, we see twice in a row that the smugglers can hold their own against at least parts of this new, even clone-powered imperial army.

Yeah. So, which, you know, it's... Sorry, go ahead, Rob. No, no, no, before. I was just going to say, which plays, it could have been, you know, foiling Thron's plans, but actually ends up fitting nicely into his schemes and such

as Niles Ferrier comes to deliver the news to him. He's trying to make lemonade out of it. But his reaction to Ferrier is, Like, you know, if you just leave them alone, they're not going to do any. We just want to talk about this section here quickly. Yeah, new tourist location dropped. That's right. Whistler's Whistlepourle Cafe.

Yes. Really detailed description of the backstory in this place, but I kind of love it. And where is it built? What's the natural formation it's built around? Oh, the drinking cup on Whistrope. I love it. Yeah. I want to go to there.

A bowl-shaped. rock pit open to the sea at its base okay I mean it's awesome yeah like you watch the tide just like a hell yes it's like you're by the ocean but you're watching like the tides roll in is this an island

or is it a like peninsula I think you're an island in the middle of this bowl and the water is at the bottom and it comes up through the middle but it like yeah it like it sloshes all around you so you're kind of like My vision of it was, like, you're this floating orb in the, in the middle of this, like,

I'm seeing it the other way. I think it's a, I think it's a bowl that fills with water from a hole in the middle that the ocean is under somehow. I'm going to read it. Okay, yeah, read the description. Yeah. The Whistler's Whirlpool had been built around a natural formation called the drinking cup a bowl-shaped rock pit, open to the sea at its base.

Six times a day, Trogan, that's the planet, Trogan's massive title shifts, sent the water level inside the bowl, either up or down, turning it into a violent whitewater maelstrom in the process. With the tap cafe's tables arranged in concentric circles around the bowl, it made for a nice balance between luxury and spectacular natural drama, a perfect drawing card for the billions of humans and aliens enamored of that combination. Or so the designers and their backers had thought.

Oh, so the whirlpool tap cafe is along the rim of the bowl. Like the whole rim of the bowl is the tap cafe. And then it looks into the bowl which fills up with water and becomes. Because it must be on like cliffs where there's like above the. ocean where like the tide is rushing in and it's rushing under the cafe right which is built around the drinking cup which like stares down in this vortex a great amount sides and no one is coming here which allows it sucks to rent it out or is it abandoned well it just it seems like a good place to have a private conversation now because it's really loud like the way that it's

written is like it was kind of popular for a while but people got kind of tired about it so now criminals go there to have conversations that people get over here yeah it's a it's abandoned specifically though he opens by being like i keep expecting someone to buy this place and refurbish it you should do it oh yeah this should be like i i think the note i made here was what do i think i said you you you should do this run a cafe here turn it from an a u to a you you Which, I don't know what I meant by that, but Y-O-U, you, you universe, please, I need this card. Well, and like, the detail given, son does the ship,

but I kind of love it every time he does it, which is the, like, so it turns out it'd actually be kind of annoying to be eating by this natural phenomenon because, like, it's just deafening, it's just deafening, like, wave noises. I'd go there, I want this. And then, like, they're like, well, okay, So people get a little tired of the wave noises in the drinking cup.

So what if we put like a band standout? Well, the problem is the drinking cup is so loud. We can't really, you can't have live entertainment. Uh-uh. So they just, yeah, it's just abandoned now. Smuggler, smuggler meeting place. And Gillespie is like the OG. You know, Carter's like, can you bring some of the gang around to this?

And Gillespie's like, yeah, I'll let some people know. And it brings everyone. Like the who's who. Yeah. All sorts of people we've never heard of that. Yes. Yeah. There's, it's so funny.

There's like a real, there's like a real key and peel sketch thing happening here of like going around the table as each new, like, weird ass alien smuggler shows up and they all talk in different ways. And it's like, oh, I guess, I guess, I guess parta is here. And so is brask. also here is is this brub and you know like and just oh cling oh is cling gun here cling gun here too and what about magic did magic show a masick showed up also uh is the is there is a hebra here like it's just every you've never heard of the types of aliens who show up to this thing they're all cool i looked them all up star wars is filled with a bunch of weirdos i love just the the inversion here of like book one hans solo

was going around hat and hand to smugglers being like, have you ever thought about working for the new republic? Shut the fuck up. This is weak solo. Get out here. No one wants to do this. And cards like, yeah, nobody, obviously no one's going to want to do this. Like cute offer, but like, no, none of us want to get involved.

Book three, talent card. So what if we all work together on intelligence matters and gave that information to the new republic? That's right. And everyone's like, yeah, no, still sucks. Like, we don't want to, we don't want to do it. This sounds, this sounds shitty. And they're mostly like, this is good for business.

Like, it's going to be, it's going to be fine. And they also don't really like each other. Well, some of them have real heated arguments, but like, which of us is a slaver? That's right. And it's like, well, how do you define slave? And they're about to get to, two of the people, two of the smugglers, which was very clear, hate the idea of, like, slaving. One of them might dabble in something similar to it, but we'll take great. Abrage at the implication.

Yeah. Yeah. It's like the black domite. Ideal and honest indentures. That's right. Yes. Yes. Ah, it's great.

And of course, they're all like, no, fuck you. Absolutely not. Bang. Farrier is there. Well, I guess first, I guess Miles Farrier is there. And you expect him to be like, you know, well, why would we work against the empire? Because, you know, he's been doing work for the empire. And instead,

he's like, you guys keep saying that people get paid well by the empire. That's not how it went for me. They fucking kidnapped me and put a bomb on me and all my ship and made me do stuff for them. And, you know, it was, they're going to blow me up. And they're not very nice. And then, and everyone's like, okay, that's not how we heard it went, but okay, if you say so. And then as soon as, you know, the group is about to leave, bang, here come 50. it's funny because it's not 50 stormtroopers it's like 30 there's four stormtroopers and 30 or 40

like imperial army like people son really likes this idea of like the stormtroopers were the varsity they he really does and they keep taking ls so the varsity team sucks too I guess I think your whole soldier program here at this school is not working out maybe you should try I mean they're trying clones so uh and then yeah huge gunfight in the tap cafe well and the problem is the smugglers live for this shit right it is the it is the uh like the police show up to like an outlaw convention yeah basically it's it's it's just everyone pulls out military grade hardware uh man smuggler mazick and that decorative vacant-faced woman that was next to him oh no sorry, it's yet another

like assassin lady who's hanging out there. The elaborate braided hair those pins aren't pins. They're assassins needles. Yeah. Everyone goes crazy. Someone mentions that there are vehicles and someone else

is like, oh word, good idea. Let's blow up the vehicles. They're having a good time out there. Well, I love that like Aves and whoever cardhead guys down on like grappling harnesses to just like winch them up on the drinking cup with like heavy rifles

and like all the imperial slaughtered and all the smugglers are like that was fun but like some of our guys got God and we do not we do not take that shit and yes we do have a great moment like Mazix buddy and his aide to camp gets killed

and cards like oh that's a shame I've always liked the goadle people And it's like, hell yeah I don't know anything about that guy But if he's a goadle Good enough for me Do you think those are like goat people?

Yeah, it's the dudes of the two horns That makes sense But not a Devereonian Right, different You're right, not a Devereonian They're the furry guys with the two horns Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course But yeah, so the smugglers are like

All right, let's sign on the cards plan and then Mazik's like I'm gonna do some worse stuff than that to the Empire I'll be I'll be back Check back with me later And Thron's like yeah we didn't I didn't want to do this this is this is gonna be a headache But maybe we can put the two

Maybe we can use this to discredit Thron But this is Farrier Freelancing out there Really really stupidly And he's such an idiot Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I haven't liked him yet. And also, I don't know why Card didn't just kick him out immediately.

Like, get the fuck out of here. Go home. Well, especially because you already know something suspicious is up, right? Because Card had checked the nearby Imperial Garrison for movement. There hadn't been any. And so here they are. They show up. You know someone leaked something. Farrier, perhaps. And maybe he does know. Let's give card some time because Niles thinks he's like pulled a fast one on card here. We already talked about how he gets a double fast one. Yeah, maybe there's a double fast one here.

Because we know that Niles goes to Thron and Thron is like, why did you fuck with this? Let the smugglers be. That's what you should have done. Now they're a problem. I need you to go try to deal with it. Go, go, you know, I feel the exact order he ends up giving him. But maybe Card is, maybe card is planning. on that. Maybe Card is like, if it's Farrier, he'll go back to Thrawn and start feeding Thrawn

bad information. I don't know. We'll see. I'd like to believe Talent Card is one step ahead of Niles Ferrier in my heart. That's, that's the very least to be true. It has to be. Or at the very least, when it all blows up, Card will be ready for it in a posture sense, like ready to deal with it. I mean, I would assume that he has some fail safe. Like, he's also, dealing with a group of smugglers who I mean I would assume that he has something intact for at least one of these individuals selling them out to the empire like that is there is a non-zero chance of that with this group of people I think he's betting on the fact that all of them have enough of a stake in in the version of of the universe or the version of the galaxy that exists with like with the republic in command rather than the empire

and like that the empire the version of the galaxy with the empire at the helm is in their not in their best interest but yeah I have to imagine that he's like okay one of you is going to try and fuck me over I got plans for you I got plans for whoever that is

It's like doing a heist You know you want to make sure If someone on the rest of the crew If someone on the rest of the crew goes around He's Danny Ocean He's the wow He's the Danny Ocean of Star Wars finally He's literally Danny

This is how many people are here This is this is you know Can you be Danny Ocean without a wife Great for it You know That's the thing talent card needs Talent card wife guy era Please

Could happen to you I don't think it's, I don't think it's 11. I think it's, unfortunately, I was just looking at the full list and I think it's more like eight. Though there are, you know, it does say end others, so. Yeah. Cards eight plus. Gillespie is his like Brad Pitt character.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I love it. I love this for them. Get that soundtrack going. How is this not the Star Wars that we're getting on Disney Plus? Steven Soderberg's Talancard. Done.

Three movies? Is that even enough? Oh, we can have better things. The world can be different than it is. I'm so mad that Ferrier has the cool, the cool race. I wish, I'm so mad that he has. has a cool pet. Maybe, I mean, first of all, that's a person.

I know sometimes that the writer forgets about that. I know that sometimes... Wait, card says Farrier's pet deffle. Yeah, pet, like, in the colloquial sense. You know what I mean? Like, your pet strong man. You know what I mean? Okay.

Yeah. But also, Farrier's extreme, like... I mean, yeah, I get it. A dude like Farrier and a crime movie. of course there'd be some really interesting badass meathead that is like why are you working for this guy oh I thought his name

I like Defel Thefell is the species Yeah I would like to apologize to DeFellians everywhere Wow No tap apology for Being racist against the weird Werewolf void people

Did we talk about how we know we've seen defals before I thought we talked about them why who are you who is your defal that you're from from the comics we read

I believe that I would believe that there's some defels in there sure there it's it's the the the his name isn't this there are so many people in those comics and there's so many comics which comics

specifically isn't this the hot the hot couple like um hot the cap people no these are not the cap the the like lion people no I remember this image though why do I remember this image let me see the image I posted the image

oh that's because I linked this image three weeks ago when we recorded the previous episode of this podcast. I believe Is that a, is that a, I believe if you scroll up, yeah, those are defile. If you scroll up to, no, no, no, I'm not getting owned. You will say that I linked this

less than a month ago, three weeks ago. We read this. Yeah. Oh, you're right. Yeah. And then we're like, oh, that guy seems cool. And they're like, oh, that guy actually doesn't seem cool. Yeah.

We've watched solo before That's right That's right Solo could have been this So it could have been this If they just You know what If they'd just been cool

If that had just been You know what's cool A movie about him Being mentored by Woody Harrelson And Agent Gunslinger And we don't need to explain Lando Or why they call the Falcon

Her We can just leave that That could be a different movie Yeah If the people like this And they like these characters a little bit, then we'll do a follow-up. And then we can explain why people call the ship her instead of... You don't understand.

We all really care about how Darth Mall, Darth Mall created the Crimson Dawn. Contemporary Star Wars is all about that. We're talking about it all of the time. It's, yeah. It's very funny. Meanwhile, though, I think we get the... So a couple things. Thron is like, all right, Master Sabeoff, chill.

I'm going to get you your baby Jedi. They're babies. They're easy to steal. And Sabeas's like, your Nogri can't do it. And Thron's like, yeah, that's when I'm going to use the Nogri. I'm going to use Imperial Intelligence. It's going to be fine. I'm going to use a guy...

The Pileon looks at the Nogri in the room. Oh, you know. And all times. You know? It's a little, oh, Paul, have you heard about the Nogri's need to complete a mission? Have you heard about this? No, Dave. So what's up with the Nogri?

So the Nogri, the no gree, the one thing about him, so I've heard. is once they're given a mission they don't they don't want to be taken off that mission it's incredible uh they uh who

yeah I've fallen into a hole watching all of Dave Letterman stuff around when Conan O'Brien was getting screwed out of the and he had his disassociation flashback to when Jay Leno

and took with Did I show away from it? He just psychically relived the greatest professional trauma of his life every night on TV for like three weeks. It was amazing. Yes. I'm sorry for our country, but this is great content. The bit where he's like, Paul, do you remember that book The Night Shift, the bit about Jay hiding in a closet to listen to a meeting? Uh-huh.

It's great. I literally just rewatch that bit. like three days ago. Anyway, so half of our listenership is too young to remember the thing that we're talking about, I think. Okay, so John...

No, we can't. So, Tron's like, we're going to send Imperial intelligence to do it. And Pallion just has one note, which is like, are we sure we want more Dark Jedi running around trained by Savioth?

This is Ali. And Dron's like, They're babies. It's what he said. This has been Ali's argument since day one with this motherfucker. It's so good that Pellion finally says it out loud. It's a bad idea. He's getting stronger.

You're going to give him babies? Stop it. It is bizarre the degree to which it's like when they find the aliens shed skin in alien. And it's like, oh, it's gotten bigger. Like, it's like this thing is like rapidly increasing in size. Pelion's like Sabiof is just like getting vastly like from what we

from what we picked up on Wayland to now it's huge like the the growth curve is just nuts and Thron's like somebody give this guy two moldable Jedi minds

so you can fuck off and stop bothering me who can we send on this Major Himron go get us two babies I'm just deeply amused that this dude's name is Himron. That's all.

It's a funny name. You can't just name a guy, Himron. It's close to both him and Nimrod and, I don't know how he thought he was going to. And Himbo and Rando. There's just a lot of great sounds in there. And he's going to go do it. He's going to go to Corrassant, to the Imperial Palace undercover to go kid that. And here's the thing.

Just do this to kill people. they got in no problem we didn't even see them come in that's how easily they came in they were already inside by the time we realized they were in like it was done their job was to like plant some explosives and just kill

there's a ball going on downstairs one of the mama is gathered with like all the grandes of the republic just kill them all just kill them all stop it this is over tomorrow no Thron wants to do his big plan. He wants to do his big, big plan with all of the dreadnots. He wants all of the dreadnots there. And you know, because you remember this series opens with Leah being like, if it wasn't for me, the whole new republic would fall apart. At the time, I was like, wow, a little self-important. And now I understand like, oh, actually, this is completely true. Not because of any particular skill set that Leah has, but because she is by volume one set.

of the emperor of the collective new republic. So like, even if you just assassinate the three people in that room instead of trying to do kidnapping. You'd get a lot done. And also, like, Mahmothma just keeps overloading. She's like a toxic boss.

Yes. Well, everyone's like, so, is she mad at Carmel Eblis? Because, like, she sent him away immediately. But he appears to be fighting. every battle simultaneously. He is just whipping around the perimeter of the Republic fighting Thron like every single day.

We get this glimpse of like wedge fighting one battle among many. And they're still getting rolled, right? Like he turns around in the middle of the dog fight, he turns around like, how'd that go for us? Well, the dog fight went well, our fleet got it's asking. We need to, we need to flee. We need to get out of here, yeah. And everyone's like, yeah, she like sent him away from the seat of power.

Like she seemed super mad at him and everything. but he also appears to be the only admiral that the Republic has to actually go fight this invasion and that brings him in contact with Lando who's all his shit gets jacked up

Nomad City busted we don't even see that we just show up to the wreckage of it we get we get like the lead in that Theron needs that stuff and then we show up and it's already done I really like this Lando

again every time I spend time with this version of the character the fact that he's like a dreamer, right? That, like, he's actually really hurt by the fact that, like, this genius get rich quick scheme that actually is going to pan out, right? Like, he is kind of, he's kind of a genius. Yeah, they're going to need these, these supplies. Unfortunately, you live in the world with Grant Adderallon, who needs them more and needs them now and is not going to pay you for him. The real question is, do you? And the Republic kind of sucks. Yeah, the Republic kind of sucks. And the Republic is filled with people who are refusing to do what the Republic

needs, which is they should have bought this stuff from him. You know, I think it even comes up in conversation, right? Pellion, it might be Pellion. It might be somebody else. But what if someone bought them from him like a week ago? Like, what if they realized they needed that stuff? And they just didn't do that because they don't have anyone there who's understanding that what they need is a bunch of material, even though Lando is on their side and willing to sell to them.

That same scene, Pellion's like, look, he might sell it any minute, though. You want to get ahead of that. And Theron's like, I did it 10 minutes ago. Yeah. And it's like, you watchman asshole. Yeah. Like, he's even blue. Yeah, he's even, he's even blue.

He's a combination of all of the most pretentious watchman characters. All the Osamandias and Dr. Manhattan, here we go. Great. God, I do wonder if there was an influence there specifically. I'm curious. I'd see it. But Landau sitting there in the ruins of his dreams. bellib list shows up and is like yeah the republic's not going to help like i can do what i like i will

help you but like if you send them if you send them an email you're not going to hear no one's listening to that so let's just go back to corassan and see what we can do maybe with me there uh we can we can talk some sense into into them so we get all our major characters back on corassan just in time for major himron to begin his attack mara is awake because she why wanted to get into her feelings with Leah and be like no no I love no I love no and I loved being the hand it was great so she's awake when she's like hmm something seems I've got a bad vibe yeah does she say I've got a bad feeling about this she doesn't right she she never does Yeah, good

But her danger Somebody has said this somewhere I remember seeing it somewhere Somebody said it I think it was Luke to Han I think that makes sense Somewhere in Brooklyn It doesn't

They don't go back to it too much They don't But and Mara wouldn't say it Because there's no one to say it too She's alone In every scene But she opens She cracks her door open a bit

Only Imperial Intelligence Commandos Walk down a hallway this way and she starts stalking after them and then click hands up jade

nice and easy cut to lando and garbella embell eblis being like can we rebuild nomad city and admiral drason or ever being like no yeah new character who I don't know we've ever met this guy

maybe we have I don't remember he's popped up as a name okay yeah just some functionary it's just like Absolutely not. Sorry, no, we're not moving on this. And, and, you know, maybe if Akbar agrees to it, but he's fucking not around. So too bad. And we just get a great scene of Lando and Val Iblis walking around the palace being like,

Hey, is it? Aren't this just me security guys? While bitching about how much the government sucks. Oh, yeah, 100%. Where Landa's like, well, this wasn't very helpful. And Garms like, well, actually, it's probably because I was there. They really hate it. I really hate me.

Maybe you should try to just talk to act by yourself. And then they're just kind of like, Akbar hates me. Yeah. They're great. They're fantastic. Oh, dude, Garm's like,

I'll walk you back to your room. Yes. That mini bar was going to be empty. It was, I will walk you back to your room was like, all right, then back to my room for my mini bar.

That's right. And then we'll see if any places are still open. And then they're like, they're, Star Cruiser. Oh, yeah, we need to go back. we would do so much better this time for so many reasons not least of which is we would go as characters inspired by this trilogy we'd have the energy of lando and talent card in us you know um anyway yeah they're like there were guards here earlier did they all right go get your gun i'll go get my gun we'll meet back up and then they get the drop on mara which is another l

I actually, I, I should like this less because Zahn does the same trick twice in both of these chapters, but I do love how like tense and cinematic it makes it feel that like you end the Mara scene with Mara getting caught by somebody. And then in the next chapter, it's like, oh, it was just Bell and everything's okay now. And they do that again later and I was just like, yay. Yeah, they do it again with Mara again just with Leah. It's good. It works. It works. It's a fun trick. And also, her danger sense wouldn't have gone off because they weren't a threat.

She's not in danger. Yeah, they're friends. Yeah. And they work with her. Like, you know, you could, again, I think a worst book would have had them immediately, like, doubt her or something. But they have any reason to fucking doubt her. Luke didn't tell anybody. As far as they know, she's part of Talent Card's crew, which is, like, loosely allied with them. All right, cool.

Well, they immediately recognize, like, there's two major threats. Right. all the important new republic people down the stairs and Lando's like the kids because that's where he's at he's here to see that he's the one of the things he was excited about leaving Nomad City was like look it all goes bad I can still meet the kids

that's right and so he's he's like no no no they might be here for them kids and then Mara says that's right Sabiaf is obsessed with the kids and now we got to rescue them kids now Mara is there anyone else else who kidnapped kids to make them do their force bidding that comes to my no no one else no they loved it the children just needed to find their purpose yeah sobbing out's hands you know get out of

here grow up well we'll get to that uh but yeah like i love the entire like race to save lea mara like starting to lean into her force abilities and like i'll just i'll just mind link i'll just mind link with Leah and just like yell at her like wake up yeah just we got real problems here all this action is actually really well choreographed and like it's just from really fun like motions like moving through the palace and how they're like stationed in different places and taking pot shots at Mara and you know there's from the from the sort of bedroom where Leia and the Leia Winter and Han are, and they're like safe behind the security doors, but the security doors are going to get blown open. Like, they also talk about how they've probably stationed people

above and below them in the room so that they can't cut their way out from there. And there's this whole mini arc of, you know, Chewbacca and Landau are going to get into the falcon and kind of, like, fly up to try to, like, rescue them from the window, basically. And it's like good tense kind of, You know, it's funny, you mentioned Washington, D.C. that, like, the Imperial Palace is D.C. or is, like, the kind of central kind of government corridor of the D.C. metro area. And, like, there is something almost, like, Tom Clancyish about this stuff. And I mean that in a complimentary way in terms of the way Clancy could write the style of, like, secret ops, special ops action that just kind of, like, flows quickly. It's pretty discernible in terms of where people are. They're, like, fun. Like, like, um, action beats, but at the heart of it is the relationships between these characters and this thing that we come back to, which is Mara, reaching out to Leah, to be like, hey, do this thing, wake up, and then later the kind of big turn is she tells Leah to surrender, which gives her the time to sneak through the secret hallways that she knows about when she was the emperor's

hand, so she can get the drop on the ones who are like a little bit behind the kind of outside fighting line and like shoot them in the back before they can take the kids and she should have just killed himron because if kimron was dead him run couldn't say oh yeah mara let us in well they tried to kill all of them but just one of them like it doesn't seem like they were going for non-lethal uh hits with any of these guys himron just had like an upgraded armor kit or whatever yeah and then gives the most transparent it was Jade who let me into the palace Said the name was Jade

The Emperor's hand And everyone's like She was to kill Luke She was really important She's so sad She demands to moths And anyone else She was basically an extension of the Emperor's will

And everyone's like Well no questions You're under arrest Well, like, the thing is, it's actually, I kind of got the impression that everyone was like, well, that's probably bullshit, but he said it out loud. And we have to, we have to arrest it. We can't pretend he didn't say that. That's right.

We all know it's bullshit. So it's going to be fine. Yeah. Uh-huh. But we do have to take you off the board for a second, which sucks. Sorry. Before we move off of the scene, I do want to call out one of my favorite Landau lines. I didn't highlight it for some reason, so I don't know the exact thing.

But when he sees, like, he comes into the room where Han and Leah are, and Han's like, thanks for coming through. And Landau's like, yeah, I'll send you the bill or something like, equivalent. He's good. They're best friends. They're best friends. They're best friends. The other thing Lando does, finally, is he places Mara Jade. He remembers, she was that dancer at Jabba's palace.

Oh, yeah? Yeah, he's, you remember, I remember her. That's right. He's got an archive up there. That's it, he said quietly. That's where I saw her before. She was one of the new dancers at Jabba. Not only just one of the dancers.

I don't know. She was a new one. She was a new dancer. I hadn't met her before. Jabba the Hudson Palace on Tattoo and where we were setting up your rescue. Hunt frowned. At Jabba's? Yes, and I'm not sure

But in all that confusion Before we left the great pit of Kharkoon I seem to remember hearing her asking Jabba let her come along with us on the sail barge No, not asking Begging was more like it Ells, Elles, Elle That's why he thought she was new

Like, did not see the girl get eaten Just like, why are you talking to this guy? It's so funny That he remembers her begging To come on the sandbar on the sail barge bro I thought you were an extension

of the emperor's will you couldn't convince Jabba the Hut to let you come to the end of mind control I guess so yeah that's right I'm embarrassing I isn't also

the response from Han here is like well Luke didn't really say anything weird about that she saved my family yeah she killed those guys it's fine let's go make sure Lay is okay and then we can look into the rest of this

which is right but it is funny that Lando finally placed her. God. Everyone starts tumbling the hand situation here. Yeah. I guess one of the things that we have not, we did not talk about is Luke on.

No agree. I love that scene. Oh, God. It's so fun to see him interact with them after we got all the, so much in the last book was Leah being there, you know. I love him landing in the little like ravine where the real grasses. I love him realizing, like, you know, this place might be doomed.

Like, we might not be able to fix all of this. That is not enough. There's two things that jump out for me there. And it's like, it kind of gets it maybe like why the dark side is always closer than you might like to think. Like, there's a moment where he says, oh, like, is this what you're taking me to or something? And the no greg is like, yes, it's true what they say.

You read the heart of the no greg people. and Luke's like it was just a guess it was a lucky gas like it was just kind of a but we've seen Sabayov who just walks around this cloak of like omnipotence and like loves that shit

loves the fact that people look at a Jedi and will be like you did that because you're a Jedi because you're special and Luke is constantly like it's just I'm just a guy here I'm just like it just sort of seemed like you were taking me to place and I made a guess and the other bit where

Cabarock asks he says like they're looking at this beautiful little Eden they've created in this devastated planet and Cabrach says like it's not enough is it and it looks like I don't think it is I don't think Onager can be saved and it occurs to him he he doesn't know if Leia knew this and I don't know either like because the thing is she knew she had to walk this line between like leveraging what the no gree believed about vader and her and all this to get them to the right side and like being too honest but there is that bit of she she's not like she's not doing with the emperor did she's not going to bullshit this way but would she let them

sit in false hope because it serves her purposes at the moment and luke doesn't continue down that thought that line that train of thought too much but it does occur to him like does leia see the same thing I do here, which is this planet can't be brought back. They hope it can be, but it's obvious it can. Right. And he thinks it's open the possibility that maybe she sees something or know something that he doesn't know, but, but, you know, kind of ends on this thought of like, oh, she was she was just trying to, was she just trying to survive and using the tools at her, you know, at her disposal to find that survival by way of bargaining and coming with ideas and saying, okay, what if we could save you, you know? And like, yeah, you're

right. He doesn't get to stick with those ideas because he's seeing the attack on Corrassant in his mind. But it is really interesting to see him have to confront that idea that like, wait a second, do I lie to these people to get out of here? Now I'm here. And I just said, I don't think this place can be saved, you know? Interesting. Really curious to see how some of the Noggi stuff wraps up. There's stuff here that I remember and there's stuff here where I'm like, I remember some individual character beats, but I don't remember what happens to Hanager, you know?

Yeah. So I'm excited. So, yeah. I think that's kind of it, right? Is that everything that happened? I think so. I think that's it. I think that is it.

It's so interesting to, I said at the beginning that, like, this is such a boom, boom, boom, like plot beat, plot beat, plot beat book compared to the last one where there was a lot of, like, sitting in, not that nothing happened in the last one, but there was a lot of, like, there was a lot of vibes in the last one. There's a lot of slow exposition about details and plots that were opened up in the first book. I'm really curious to see if it keeps the same rhythm going forward or if we slow down towards the middle before picking back out. It does feel like breakneck compared to book two in particular. But it's also like the table setting is all done. All these places like Nomad City was introduced. We go back to it to get this in motion to see how like I am kind of pleased how often stuff that comes up here was was set up in advance. And that's one of the big differences between like a Kevin J. Anderson story is stuff just happens. like the plot requires people move in such a way they will move in such a way

was it established in the character they will do that no shut the fuck out yeah it's it's kind of it's just kind of how it rolls yeah the there's like connective thoughts through lines between like location settings characters interests that sort of tie things together it's pleasing to see how much stuff

here is paying off stuff that comes up earlier uh and you know That's why it's often it's like, I think this is more of what Star Wars needed as a franchise. It's just like to have story flow from an internal logic. And here in Last Command, you can see you're getting all the action. It's a breakneck story, but it all flows from like something rooted in the story that's happened elsewhere.

We will see what happens next again in chapters 11 through 18. Yep. The chapters are longer in this book. More is happening in this. 1118 gets us pretty close to what you regard is like the third act of this story. But with that, we've reached another episode, at the end of another episode of a more civilized age. Our shows produced by Ricardo Contreras and supported by our listeners at Patreon.

dot com slash civilized. So next time around. Really quick, are we doing a Q&A episode on the previous book? Yeah. Because this comes out this Wednesday. Yes. Pull back the curtain a little bit.

And the next thing we record will probably be the Patreon Q&A for this month. Yes. So where can people send questions about the second, not the third, I guess through this recording, actually, of material? Yeah, because they will have heard it. And you send it to a more civilized age at gmail.com. Thank you. And we're now in blue sky.

We are now on blue sky. We did. We did jump over. A lot of people who suck, unfortunately. But that's not us. Well, yeah. We're the good ones. I heard blue sky was a utopia where only good people posted.

Read this 13 tweet thread about all the rules you need to follow over. I'm sorry. people get it's the golden days of the blue sky elders though oh my god we can't we can't a lot of way more civilized age this page on Q&A is about blue sky lore I just think it's cool to have a place I'm on a post

I'm happy to be posting in a place however the arrival of the sports people showing up is like because this was the thing showing up was like it's gonna happen yeah that was Twitter for me it was be real with you uh huh yeah fucking hated blue sky for the last year.

Yeah, dude. I fucking hated the people who were like, you're still on Twitter, you're complicit, and everything. It's like, you're the reason I don't want to be on blue sky. It's like,

I'm just here to talk about the fucking bears and like read about like trade rumors and see good highlights, which the other site can't fucking do. I, if I can be my, listen, there were no black people on that site for like a year,

man. It was, what's, what? You know, Tyler the creator announced a new album and no one posted about it for like 45 minutes. And that was weeks ago. Then the election happened bad. And, but now people are, people are finally making the jump.

Like, there needed to be a critical swell of more people. You need normies. You fucking need normies. You need people who just want to like, I like sports. That's like, thank God. Thank God. You need funny posters. You need funny people

Yeah You can't just You can't just post about blue sky And blue sky You have to talk about something else But yeah The fact that wrestlers Were still tweeting

Is the reason that I was on Twitter And now they're moving to blue sky And that's just This is what it is But I do think one key piece Of blue sky culture I think it also just marks The vibe shift

Between like when Twitter launched And this People just block And doesn't necessarily mean It's just like you do not amuse me in my feed I never wish to think about you again and it's like you just execute people it's just like guards seize him yeah there would be times there would be times I'd see jemal bowie post something and I just like I wonder how those replies are going

and that would be like I think those people could just be blocked never need to hear from these people again because I don't care what your politics are this ain't acting right I never want I just don't we're just going to call the herd that is the thing that I think needs to be preserved because you got these little dwebes being like blue skies is a liberal echo chamber

and as people are like you should be mandated to read what Brett Stevens thinks every day for the rest of your life and it's like no no I do not need that I never need to think

what that guy scrapes together I could do his job better than he could you want to like are you kidding me like I could be a conservative columnist I'd be a damn good one

Because I fucking read Oh God Don't get people ideas So you listen They'll come to you with an offer You can't refuse raw You'll be a neocon like this Oh I think

I think it'd be quite fun To just be like How easy this is Yeah Look how easy this is I mean that's Isn't that the way With a lot of us

Is like there But by the grace of God We would be The most successful con artists In culture in the world It would be very easy to... It would be dangerous. They keep gaining hacks.

They keep gaining more and more hacks who are just like... Yeah, I guess I'll do it. If you're like kind of smart and capable, you're competing just with tons of, like, brilliant people for gigs, all this stuff. But if you're like, I could write the conservative point of view. You're competing with Megan McArdle. Yeah. It's just a different league out there, man.

Yeah. It's just that is, that is it. Anyway, point is. We're a blue sky now. We got sports now. What's the, what is our thing? Is it just a more civilized age? It is more civilized.

Oh, we know underscore. We got the regular more civilized. We're not competing with a different, more civilized. Great. We did. Oh, people found us. Oh, shit. Yeah.

Now we just need our beautiful. host audience to start, like, doing weird shit. Making me. Because Blue Sky, pro weird shit. Yeah, I mean, generally, it's a less post, it's a less, co-host was better for weird posts because of just the format availability. And for art. This is true.

Yeah. But still. Hey. Point is, show produced by Ricardo Contreras. That's right. It's part of my listeners at patreon.com. slash civilized we're on blue sky now

it's neat block away make yourself happy live your live your best life don't block us over there please follow the the skeets

the skeets that's what they call that's what they're saying I know that's what they are that's what they are every once in a while that discourse wears its head and it's like no we're not

sorry it's it's done it's that's just what they are Until next time, please rate and review us on your podcast platform choice. Follow us on Blue Sky. Post away. Sorry, skeet away. So true. That's that scene from signs, right?

Mm-hmm. He's skeet away. Post. I'm clapping. I'm going to get out of here. I don't know. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.