Kevin J. Anderson, I’m naming you as the first official villain of this blog. Last night I wrote up the Darksaber rant and you know what, I’m still going! But I haven’t read Darksaber in fifteen years, so I’m ranted out on it. Don’t get me wrong, I am certain that there’s more there to rage about, that post was just what I remembered. This is a new rant. It’s still a Kevin J. Anderson rant, but it’s now about a different series that he wrote, the Jedi Academy trilogy.
I would like to go ahead and preface this by saying that while I loath this book, I must also give it some respect if for no other reason than it had to exist and that it established some very important things about the Star Wars Expanded Universe that shaped the future of the series. The best thing I can say about this series is that Michael Stackpole gave it some help with everybody’s favorite Mary Sue, Corran Horn.
Now, are you ready for a rant that might even be more vitriolic than the Darksaber diatribe? Again, too bad!
Jedi Academy… guess what this one’s about! Luke decides, you know, it has been literally five years since the Jedi, apparently, Returned. So in his opinion, he really ought to get around to making sure that there are more than one “master” and one half assed padawan (because apprentice is just too darned silly of a title, amirite?), Luke and Leia respectively. So he finally gets off his mystical rear and decides that he’s going to establish himself a school for Jedi, an Academy, if you would!
But how does he determine who has potential? Why, he finds a piece of technology that shows him the visual aura a force wielder has and he uses that! So, after an exhaustive search of set pieces from across the galaxy, including an abandoned skyhook on Bespin. You know, where Cloud City was. One guy, chillin’, by himself, on a city sized skyhook. Just him and his space vultures, because, you know, animals that evolve on a planet with literally no land mass would develop with a need for a place to roost, right? By the way, how does he sustain himself? Does he have a skyfarm? Did he have dirt imported to his abandoned skyhook from a neighboring planet so he could make the aerie garden?
I’m not even wound up yet… Anyway, Luke scours the universe and finds about twelve dudes. Staggering, right? Whatever, he’s one guy without much support (aside from the backing of a galactic government…) he found a starting class. Start small, sure. Anyway, if you were Luke, where would you want to establish your base? Somewhere with a close support structure? A place he has a history with and a strong tie to the force? Dagobah sounds good to me. Nope, the old rebel base on Yavin 4. Because apparently when the Empire made their counterstrike against the Rebellion for destroying the first Death Star, they didn’t scour these ruins from the face of the moon. Whatever.
Anyway, he seems to think there’s a really strong tie to the force here so it’s a natural place to establish the base. I dig that, it makes sense. Just one problem, it turns out that the entire series of pyramid-esque temples were established by an ancient (now dead) race that was controlled by a Sith Lord, Exar Kun, back in the age before everyone and their brother was a ‘Darth,’ it just seemed like a name to us. So, apparently Luke’s ability to sense a place’s taint from the Dark Side, a la Dagobah, is only in effect when it’s convenient. Entire system of temples built specifically to draw and focus dark energies? No, I didn’t notice, should I have?
Okay, I’m getting there, this is all wind up for the knock out, remember that this is three agonizingly stupid books long. Meanwhile, IN SPAAAACE, someone accidently discovers that deep within the Maw near Kessel, a series of closely spaced black holes that spell instant doom to anyone dumb enough to get close them, the Empire established a secret base twenty years ago. Alright, I can deal with that, too. Grand Moff Tarkin placed a young admiral in charge of it and made it a research base for the development of the Empire’s favorite thing ever.
“What’s that?” you might be asking. Well, I’ll give you a hint, it’s an early Star Wars book written by Kevin J. Anderson. Of course the answer is that this is a base that exists for the sole purpose of creating… SUPER WEAPONS!!!! Again.
I would like to add that Han and Chewbacca literally accidently find the place after the run away from Kessel. Kessel, where the drug spice (original, right?) is mined. By the way, it turns out the spice comes from SPACE SPIDERS!!! So they run away and just happen to follow the one, single, incredibly treacherous path through the singularities that literally cannot exist in the physical universe without collapsing in on the themselves and creating a single super giant black hole.
So, after stumbling upon the Maw facility, our heroes find the aforementioned young admiral, Daala, running the institution. Now, Daala gives us a new problem. According to Wookieepedia, Daala was assigned to the Maw eleven years prior to the story of this book. So that sets her assignment just prior to the Battle of Yavin. When she is depicted on the cover of the books and comics, Daala is an attractive young woman who looks to be maybe in her late twenties or somewhere in her thirties. Hmmm, she’s been there for eleven years and been an admiral the whole time. Tarkin must have been darned confident in her. I’m not kidding you when I say that all the backstory we get on this woman is that she enlisted in the Imperial academy in Carida, was discriminated against for her gender until Tarkin decided he liked the fit of her breeches and took her under his wing. And by wing, I mean sheets. And then she was an admiral.
That’s it! No, That is IT.
Okay, that was dumb, but, sure, favoritism and whatnot, right? It’s a good thing there’s no oversight or accountability in the Empire, like a well informed leader who has his hands in all the pies that has a vested interest in having experienced and proven commanders, right? Like some kind of Imperial leader, an Emperor you might call him.
So, how old is Daala? No idea, never established, not important. We know that she continues to be active in the Expanded Universe for literally the next thirty years when she becomes the leader of not just the Empire but also the Star Alliance (don’t get me started). So, what, did Tarkin decide this broad he was railing at the age of eighteen really had what it takes to be in charge of a fleet of Star Destroyers and a facility creating the most dangerous weapons in reality?
Fine, whatever, Admiral with no experience leading the research facility. Whatever. The Maw, let me tell you about the Maw. So, apparently, when Tarkin died on the first Death Star, he was secretive about the existence of this station where the Death Star was developed, nobody knew about it. Nobody knew about it, not even the Emperor. Okay… it’s a secret facility that nobody knows about continues working without any knowledge of the outside without ever wondering why nobody ever comes by to check on their progress. It has enough material not only to continue to function but to continue all of its research and development of new weapons.
Heck of a thing, ain’t it? I mean, aside from the station itself, there are four, not one or two or three but four Star Destroyers defending this place. The personnel here have no idea that the Empire has fallen, the crews of these ships haven’t had any shore leave in better than a decade. Put all of this together, do you know what we can extrapolate from all of this? There are no supply runs being made to this incredibly remote station. It’s entirely self sufficient. Food, water, fuel, Max Reebo .mp3’s, blue milk, they have everything they need. Apparently.
So, what all is in the Maw? A new super-weapon, of course! The Empire being the Empire, the name of the new weapon tells you exactly what it does. The Sun Crusher! It crushes suns!
Alright, the Sun Crusher… Let me tell you about the **** Sun Crusher. It’s a ship, not a capital ship, not a corvette, it’s a ship about the size of the Millennium Falcon if it’s that big. Tiny little ship relatively speaking. What makes it a super weapon? Well, the ship itself really isn’t the weapon. The Sun Crusher carries some torpedoes that it can launch in a system that are launched at the local stellar body and cause it to immediately go nova. It’s a glorified fighter than can blow up entire systems. Geez, overachieve much?
You know what, fine, it’s science fiction, I’ll accept the existence of these torpedoes, that’s a hell of a thing. This is where my problems start with the ship. Now, a normal person would say to themselves, “Self, we have a torpedo that blows up stars, all we need to do is plop it into a plain looking, not suspicious at all looking ship. We get ready for a hyperspace jump, let the computer run all of its calculations and, right before we leave, we launch the torpedo.” You know, that way nobody ever knows what’s coming and you don’t have to worry about a special delivery system and the weapon is outrageously more flexible.
So, what do we do instead? We build a ship that has armor on it that can withstand the force of an exploding star…
What? They can do that? Now, I’m not going to go the obvious route and say, “Well why don’t we just plate everything with this armor?” Let’s assume it’s really expensive and move on from that. It’s got really rad armor! It can withstand that kind of force! It’s so awesomely 90’s!
What about heat? Is it the perfect insulator? No heat passes through the armor and literally bakes its crew (by the way, you can pilot this thing with on person. Real good way to make sure nobody ever goes rogue with it, right?). No radiation passes through and kills everyone from instant overexposure to a sudden, stupid amount of cosmic rays?
Why does this thing exist?! Why did the Empire need this easily stolen and misused weapon? By the way, that’s exactly what happens, the heroes steal it and fly off! The Maw administrators decided that the best way to store this thing was fully armed, fueled and ready to freakin’ go!
So, the heroes get the thing and fly off. If you were in charge of this piece of technology developed by an enemy, what would you do with it? Reverse engineer that armor! Figure out how it works and find out how to mass produce it! Unstoppable fleet!
Therefore, Anderson writes in the obvious course of throwing it into the heart of a gas giant.
Call this the end of part one, this is getting ridiculous.
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