(Originally posted by KillMeNow): i agree its been taken to far aswell - main complaints are the vong armour being resistant to lightsabres - never going to ahppen lightsabres cut through anything - other complains are what the hell happened to the fleet? the new repulic seesm to have decomissioned rather large number of warships hell they are lucky if they can find 1 ISD and there used to be hundreds in ever sector admitable during the imperial rule but if they had that many the nr should ahve that many to to inforce peace
KMN, The Empire only maintained soo many ships so that it could keep the galaxy under its thumb through threat of force. The New Republic realized that to maintain the peace, it doesn't need nearly so many ships. In fact, that was one of the Rebels' main complaint with the Empire: Palpatine made
many more ships than he needed to simply "maintain the peace" and created such a large fleet simply to keep everyone in line through terror. The reason the New Replic decommissioned all those ships was because it was too expensive to keep them running when the galaxy was not at war. And remember, the New Republic had already signed a peace treaty with the Empire Remnant six years before the Vong invaded and no one knew the Vong were coming to invade then.
Wow, it seems
of people here don't like the NJO books. Me, I enjoy them immensely. Yeah, killing off Chewie was a blow, but in my mind, he always seemed like the most insubstantial character. He was always just
there and didn't really do much of anything in the other books. (The movies were a different story, but I'm only talking about the non-NJO books.)
The whole storyline about the Jedi being thrown into disarray because of the appearance of the Yhuuzhan Vong and their "invisibility" to the Force is a VERY nice touch in my opinion. Before the Vong, all the foes the Jedi faced throughout their history all were connected to the Force in some way. Examples include the Sith, fallen Dark Jedi, the Massassi and others. Even the Empire fits this description when you take Darth Vader and the Emperor into account; they were Force-users as well and they were the heart of the Empire. And don't forget about the Emperor's Hands and Inquisitors and other Dark Jedi types that worked for the Empire.
But the Vong are different. Because they are from outside the Galaxy, they also seem to be outside the Force as well. This makes them more dangerous to the New Republic and the Jedi than any "home-grown" enemy could ever be. And since the Vong are "outside" the Force, it actually
makes sense that their armor and weapons would be impervious to lightsabers, which are Force-weapons.
This is a storyline that I've been waiting
years to see because for the first time, the survival of the Jedi (at least as they have been throughout history) is thrown into real doubt. Certainly, the Jedi are never going to be the same; to confront the Vong, the Jedi will
have to change.
And with the Jedi split into two opposing camps (a passive one led by Luke Skywalker and an aggressive one led by Kyp Durron, one of Luke's most powerful students), enormously important questions arise: Can the Jedi afford to remain only passive defenders in the face of the Vong threat? If the galaxy is too survive, doesn't that mean resorting to tactics that would be considered morally questionable? If the inhabitants of the New Republic are being exterminated, doesn't that mean that the Jedi have to do everything they can to save them, even if engaging in aggressive behavior risks falling to the Dark Side? Can the Jedi afford
not to take that chance?
The Vong despoil whole planets by the day and routinely sacrifice the New Republic's citizens by the thousands. Many Jedi in Kyp's faction feel that they can't just sit idly by and let this happen; they know they
have to take the fight back to the Yhuuzhan Vong. The cost of fighting a defensive war is just too high.
Kyp even sums it up nicely in the novel
Edge of Victory: Rebirth:
"There's a pit on Dantooine. I've seen it. It's two kilometers across and full of bones."
This pit Kyp refers to is the result of
hundreds of thousands of sacrifices of sentient beings to the Yhuuzhan Vong gods taking place
on the planet Dantooine alone. These sacrifices are taking place on
all the worlds that Yhuuzhan Vong have captured. Who wouldn't become enraged by the fact that your fellow citizens are being slaughtered by the millions?
Osama bin Laden killed 3000 people on American soil and started a war we didn't want. The Yhuuzhan Vong killed many more and brought a war the New Republic didn't want. In our case, we have to resort to tactics we'd rather not do, but we do anyway because it was forced on us. It's the same with the Kyp Durron and the Jedi who follow him.
Come to think of it, I see a number of parallels between the Yhuuzhan Vong and the al-Queda terrorists...
Here's a tough question for you all: In order to stave off the extinction of your people, will you risk falling to the Dark Side?
I would. And without a moment's hesitation, too.
And with Chewie's death, we realize that
no major character is safe from death. This is war, after all, and people die in war. This is reinforced after
another major character dies in the novel
Star By Star. (I'm not going to say which one dies; that you can find out by reading the novel if you haven't already.)
I can't wait to read the forthcoming NJO books. This storyline is going to continue until 2004 at least. WHOO HOO!
