The First of too Many Part Ones: Meaningless Reviews in a Galaxy Even Further Away
Before Disney rebooted the Star Wars Universe, there were a bunch of dog-eared paperbacks describing the adventures of Luke, Leia, Han, etc in the years following the events of the movies. This is a review of one of these stories, which is itself one of nineteen in a series. For the rationale behind such an ill-advised quest, click here. For part one of the series, follow this link here. In this edition, the forces of the New Republic encounter the Yuuzhan Vong for the first time….
The links I use for these posts are all from the official Star Wars wiki page. Depending on how you feel about puns, it’s either excellently or terribly called Wookiepeedia. All of the pages on it are way too long, so be warned before clicking on any of them.
What is this book called?
Oh, hi there, rhetorical device, I didn’t think I’d be using you again.
What?
Never mind. The book is catchily titled The New Jedi Order: Dark Tide 1: Onslaught. If you’re wondering why there’s a numeral in the title, it’s because there are two books that comprise a mini-event within the larger series. The whole thing is structured like that. It’s weird and annoying and it makes it very difficult to organize these reviews and I wish the minds behind the series had —
Are you okay?
Sorry. Anyways, that’s the title of the book.
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Can you describe the events of the story in 140 characters or less?
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Who’s in this?
The original crew of characters from the movies are automatically included unless otherwise stated. The characters listed below are post-movie inventions that are featured in some way to this particular story. Characters I’ve previously described are marked with an asterisk.
The Jedi:
Jacen Solo (The Worst!)*
Kyp Durron* (albeit briefly, see below)
Ganner Rhysode: A Jedi who came of age with Jacen and Jaina. Ganner is arrogant and subscribes to the aggressive mentality of the new generation of Jedi. He’s also powerful and described as handsome repeatedly. I imagined a dumber Robert Pattinson every time.
Corran Horn: One of the first Jedi to appear after the events of Return of the Jedi. Corran is a skilled pilot as a result of his force powers and flew for Rogue Squadron in the war against the Empire. He trusts Luke and backs him in the power struggles of the Jedi.
The New Republic:
Borsk Fey’lya: Chief of State for the New Republic. Self-serving and ambitious, Borsk spent the twenty years of time in between the movies and the books busy backstabbing, conniving, and otherwise slithering his way to the top, arriving just in time for the war with the Yuuzhan Vong.
Elegos A’Kla: A New Republic senator. Elegos is a pacifist, and also a close ally of Leia, the Jedi, and parts of the New Republic Military. He is especially close with Corran Horn
Traest Kre’fey: Commander of the New Republic cruiser Ralroost, Kre’fey is a Bothan related to Fey’lya and the first admiral to realize the threat posed by the Yuuzhan Vong.
Gavin Darklighter: Leader of Rogue Squadron at the outset of the war, Gavin is the cousin of Luke Skywalker’s friend Biggs. Unlike Biggs, Gavin never had to fly against Darth Vader, and was thus spared a grisly death.
The Yuuzhan Vong
Shedao Shai: Shai is the Yuuzhan Vong commander behind all of the actions of the Yuuzhan Vong in this story (and the next), though he’s only introduced by name at the end of this novel (seriously, ban duologies).
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Important things that happen in this installment:
The Yuuzhan Vong push into the galaxy and win a series of early victories in the Outer Rim, including the capture of Lando Calrissian’s planet Dubrillion, which was successfully defended in the previous novel.
Leia presents a case to the New Republic Senate regarding the threat posed by the incoming aliens, and the leaders in that body, led by Fey’yla, accuse her of anti-human sentiment and conspiring to seize power for herself, as well as denying the existence of the Yuuzhan Vong at all, a response that will play out in various forms a tedious amount of times in the first half of the series.
Traest Kre’fey and Rogue Squadron conduct early missions against the Yuuzhan Vong, evacuating refugees from Dubrillion and defending them at Dantooine from an assault, although over half of the refugees die in the course of that defense.
Luke holds a meeting of the Jedi (there are, at my count, something like four and a half million meetings of the Jedi over the course of the series, so get used to that sentence). Kyp Durron and a group of the younger Jedi advocate for a head on approach to fighting, which Luke and the older Jedi object to, as it would put the Jedi on the path to the dark side.
Jacen (lol) has a vision of himself as a liberator of slaves and instead finds himself captured immediately. He’s rescued by Luke.
Anakin destroys an entire company of Yuuzhan Vong warriors, all while keeping Mara Jade on her feet. It’s pretty spectacular, even though Anakin almost dies and requires the intervention of Luke and Jacen to walk away unscathed. Anakin’s lightsaber is violet colored, which is cool and dope and something I hope they incorporate in some of the new movies.
Jaina fights with her mom some more and gets to join Rogue Squadron, flying well in her first outing. Jaina’s totally carrying the Solo Twins at this point.
The end of the novel sees the New Republic military confront Fey’yla and other high ranking members of the government about the Yuuzhan Vong invasion and threaten a complete defection unless Fey’yla and the other politicians agree to step away from the prosecution of the war, which the politicians reluctantly do.
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Things I want to talk about:
Kre’fey and Fey’lya are both Bothans. You know, the Bothans. Take it away, Mon Mothma:
That throwaway line, used to cover a potential plot hole in the story of Return of the Jedi, had a surprisingly long life in the expanded universe. As a result of that mission, the Bothans were granted positions of high access in both the military and in the government of the New Republic.
Fey’lya was around from the inception of the expanded universe and was always portrayed as a scheming, self-interested politician. I would say that his character is almost unrealistic in his desire for political power, but it’s 2017 and so sadly he’s become almost quaint: not self-interested enough to be realistic. In the New Jedi Order, his self-interest and mustache-twirling (in space!) scheming is one of the major reasons for the success of the Yuuzhan Vong in the first half of the series
Onslaught marks the start of one of the major threads of the series, which is the issue of refugees fleeing Coreward against the advance of the Yuuzhan Vong. The refugee groups are beset by disaster, preyed on by opportunistic profiteers, used as hostages by the invading aliens and as a political football by the politicians in the New Republic. Other books in the series make it more of a central issue, so I won’t dwell on it too much here, other than to say it’s a good thing that this is a fictional story and that there isn’t anything at all like this happening right now in real life, right guys? Guys?
By this point in the expanded universe, Luke is a full on master, and uses uses the force to warp gravity in order to swallow a Yuuzhan Vong troop ship in a black hole of sorts (it’s a long story). That’s the sort of thing that I hope they include in the new Star Wars movie, though if they wanted to run with this Twitter thread as a plot point instead, I wouldn’t be that mad about it.
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Death Star Watch:
Because it isn’t Star Wars unless a planet is destroyed.
The novel before this one, Vector Prime, kicked the series off by going absolutely buckwild and destroying three planets. Or so I thought. One of those planets, Belkadan, was consumed by an atmospheric storm caused by modified beetles (another long story). As it turns out, the planet was not completely destroyed but rather transformed by the insects. Jacen and Luke visit it and find it has become a factory planet for the Yuuzhan Vong to grow the ships, weapons and communications necessary to sustain the war effort. I will therefore remove the planet from the count. No other planets were destroyed in this installment.
Death Star Count for Onslaught: -1
Death Star Count for The New Jedi Order: 2
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Should I read this part of the series?
Meh. It’s not that important just yet to jump into the story, but the second half of this duology has the first serious implications for the series as a whole, so it might be worth it if you want the context for that one. Onslaught was written by Michael Stackpole, who was one of the better recurring writers for the expanded universe, and this book is happily free of anything approaching Jar Jar Binks territory. I’d say read it noncommittally.
This has been Meaningless Reviews in a Galaxy Even Further away, In which I read through the entirety of The New Jedi Order and write about it.
