#Legends: njo: Star by star

[corelliaxdreaming]

Oh my god, Jacen. Oh my god. You literally had a shot at one of the top Vong responsible for all of this bullshit. And you didn’t take it because “I’m mad at him and therefore it’s murder :(((” I KRIFFING HATE THIS ASSHOLE KID.

[saphronethaleph]

The Second Order

Ben looked up at the sound of voices.

“...just saying,” someone was just saying. “Why Ossus? I get that it’s not a bad place to be sited, but Yavin Four was right there.”

“I considered both,” Uncle Luke replied. “And several other places. But there was… so much to learn, on Ossus.”

“I’m just too used to Yavin Four, I guess,” the other person replied, as they rounded a corner, then glanced up. “Oh, good… uh, is it morning? I’m not sure if it’s morning.”

“It’s the afternoon,” Ben said, putting down his calligraphy set. “Who are you?”

“Master Katarn,” the man introduced himself. “Or, Kyle, I guess. Kyle is probably better, really, it’s just… you know. Jedi Temple.”

“This is my nephew, Ben Solo,” Luke said. “He’s a fine apprentice.”

“Nice to meet you,” Kyle said, holding out his hand to shake, and Ben took it hesitantly.

Much to his relief, the strange Jedi Master – and how did that work? Ben thought he knew everyone who could even try to claim that title – didn’t try the old crusher-grip trick, instead giving him a firm handshake before letting go again.

“Master Skywalker, who is this?” Ben asked. “How don’t I know about him?”

“I’ll let him explain,” Luke invited.

Kyle had looked faintly confused, for a moment, then shrugged it off.

“So there’s this thing called flow walking,” he said. “And I was doing it to try and get out of a Vong ambush, and I ended up here. Fortunately it looks like they didn’t manage to follow me here.”

“...what are Vong?” Ben said.

“If you haven’t heard of them…” Kyle began, then frowned at Luke in an assessing sort of way. “What year is it?”

“You think you might have travelled in time?” Ben asked, realizing what that meant. “It’s, uh, 8004 CRC… um, the New Republic calendar is based on years after the Battle of Yavin, did that happen in your world?”

“Yeah, that happened,” Kyle agreed. “Your uncle destroyed the Death Star, right?”

“Correct,” Luke said. “It’s currently the year twenty-seven, by that reckoning.”

“Great, so I only travelled between universes,” Kyle said. “So… that means the Vong probably aren’t a problem for you, unless they’ve been delayed… have you had any other serious crises that we haven’t? The Yavin academy was assaulted several times, but we’ve always bounced back… did you have the Empire Reborn? Or the Cult of Ragnos?”

Luke and Ben exchanged glances.

“I… don’t know what those are,” Ben admitted.

“I’ve never heard of such a thing either,” Luke agreed. “The only real crisis we’ve faced was the Knights of Ren, but fortunately they didn’t take the lives of any young Jedi.”

“Lucky you,” Kyle said, sounding like he meant it sincerely.

“How are you a Jedi Master?” Ben asked, suddenly.

“It took me a while to accept the title, believe you me,” Kyle replied, with a chuckle. “I’m about… thirty, forty percent self taught, Mara did another twenty percent, and the rest was reciprocal learning from the rest of the Academy. Ultimately Luke’s… counterpart, I guess, named me the Academy’s Battlemaster, but it’s still a struggle to convince myself that I deserve the term.”

He shrugged. “Still, you must have the same kind of problem here, right? Though you didn’t have any of those attacks… any sign of Dark Jedi or rival Sith academies?”

Uncle and nephew both shook their heads, and Kyle seemed to be doing some internal calculations.

“You started your academy in, what, eight to twelve ABY?” he asked. “If you’re much like the Master Skywalker I knew.”

“Eleven,” Ben provided. “Though I didn’t join at that point, I was only six.”

Kyle nodded.

“That means… you must have, what, a hundred and sixty?” he asked. “Two hundred?”

“...um,” Luke began. “Two hundred what?”

“Jedi?” Kyle replied, looking confused.

Ben coughed.

“We have twenty-three,” he said. “I’m one of them, in case it wasn’t clear.”

Kyle just kind of stared for a moment.

“...with all due respect to a fellow Jedi Master,” he began. “What have you been doing with the last sixteen years?”

“I have no idea how to teach!” Luke countered. “I don’t know what your Luke’s training was like, but my training was half an hour with Old Ben in a starship blindfolding me and shooting me with a remote, then I went to a swamp and got… a few months of training, but it was a few months of training from a man who I have now realized was probably crazy before he spent two decades alone in a swamp.”

Kyle nodded along. “Yeah, that’s about right,” he said. “You learned how to touch the Force, and a lot of the rest is just instinct. Most of the education that takes place in a Jedi Academy is when to use the Force – and when not to use the Force.”

He shrugged. “It’s honestly more important that someone learn how to honestly self-assess themselves and how to resist the temptations of the Dark Side than it is to make sure they know exactly how to perform a lightsaber form. If someone needs training on a specific kind of Force skill, teach them at that; don’t feel that someone’s training has to be complete before they’re graduated as a Knight, or even able to be a Master. Learning is continuous.”

Luke looked like he was trying to work out which of several different emotions to be, including embarrassed, offended, contrite and mid-revelation.

“Actually, about a year ago I was in a meeting with the temple management, on how to deal with the war,” Kyle went on, rummaging in his pockets. “We were discussing the best way to implement viable recovery procedures… do I have it on me…”

“I don’t know what those are,” Luke admitted.

“The Vong war on my side of the divide has been causing a lot of casualties,” Kyle explained. “They’ve been going after Jedi especially, and it’s the first time the New Jedi Order’s numbers have contracted… and after what happened before, with the Purges, we were talking about the best way to make sure that the New Jedi Order could flourish and rebuild more quickly. Calista said that she was aiming for the ability to double the Order’s size every four years on average from incoming students… aha!”

Pulling a small cube out of his pocket, Kyle held it up – heedless to the astonished reactions of both Ben and Luke to that statistic.

“I’ve got another one of these back on my ship,” he explained “Calista is pretty sure that these are basically the same as the old Holocrons, and the idea is to share information among all of them to make a distributed archive of knowledge for the New Jedi Order. This one’s… probably mostly up to date.”

He tossed it to Luke, who caught it.

“Feel free,” he said. “Like I say, I’ve got another… I can probably stick around for a bit to help, it should take a few days for the Vong back home to decide that I’m missing and I want to take at least that long before I try going home.”

Ben was trying to recover from everything he’d heard over the last few minutes.

“...actually, now I come to think of it, have you heard of me before?” Kyle asked, most of his focus on Luke. “Because I might need to borrow a starship and take a quick trip to Ruusan to avoid giving you a very serious problem at some point… is there anything that would stop me getting there? I’m not really very clear on politics here.”

“Where’s Ruusan?” Luke asked, tearing his eyes away from the holocron.

“Teraab sector, mid-rim,” Kyle replied. “P-11 on the grid square map.”

“That should be fine,” Ben said. “The First Order isn’t anywhere near there.”

Kyle frowned. “What’s the First Order?”

Ben did his best to explain.

By the end of the explanation, Kyle looked like he was planning on using the starship he planned to borrow to fly into First Order space and look for a fight.

Ben had the oddest feeling that Kyle might well win.

“Did you learn anything from it, yet?” Ben asked, some hours later, after Kyle had left in a borrowed shuttle. “I’ve never actually seen a modern Holocron.”

“Neither have I,” Luke replied, looking up from his study of the little cube. “And, for some reason, this one keeps interfacing with me using a face I’ve never seen before. But I have the strangest feeling she knows me.”

He sighed. “And… I don’t know what I’ve been doing wrong, not yet, but I’m now quite sure I’ve been doing something wrong. I’ve been too afraid of getting things wrong, to do them right.”

After a moment, Luke caught Ben’s eye.

“Ben, I want to tell you something,” he said. “It’s a secret that your parents asked me to keep, and I agreed, because… when I learned it, I was about the same age you are now. And I didn’t take it well.”

“You… didn’t take it well?” Ben repeated, trying to reconcile that with his uncle the Jedi Master.

“Well, I did try to jump into a gas giant not long afterwards,” Luke said. “So I’d say I didn’t take it especially well, yes… but you have to learn some time. I can’t shield you from the painful truth forever.”

He sighed. “So… I’m going to tell you about my father, your grandfather. About who he was, and who he became, and who he still was, deep inside, all but suffocated under the lies of an evil man who wanted to use him as a weapon. I’m going to tell you the full story of Anakin Skywalker.”

(Legends New Jedi Order:

Foundation of the Praexum 11 ABY

Relative peace 11-25 ABY, with several major crises they had to deal with (which caused casualties)

By 25 ABY, there were at least 100 Jedi, with several of the students now Masters in their own right and actively training new Padawans.

The resultant force was very robust, managing to handle serious casualties (they got cut in half in the Vong war of 25-29 ABY, but rebounded to over 200 by 35 ABY) and had mastered rapid recovery - by 44 ABY they are up to over a thousand, despite another war in the interim.

Disney Canon New Jedi Order:

Foundation of the Academy around 10-11 ABY

Almost total peace 11-28 ABY

Then Ben Solo turns to evil and destroys the whole thing in one go, leaving about three survivors who hadn't been present at the time.)

[krisslegacy]

my thoughts are consumed with queen mother tenel ka djo

[holonetwork]

Airing on October 19, 1999 on Sci-Fi Channel and F/X across the country, this TV spot introduced the New Jedi Order to millions of viewers, with Mark Hamill briefly reprising his role as Jedi Master Luke Skywalker.

[magnetarbeam]

I feel like Wes hitting on Jaina over squadron comms, not knowing who she was, is another good comparison for why Allston is so much better of a writer than the people he worked with in Star Wars.

Because when Wes does find out, his reaction is "I guess I'd better apologize to her and then throw myself on her lightsaber." It's fully called out, and in pretty short order.

Like, Stackpole would have done that and then just glossed over it.

Denning would have actually tried to get them together.

[tahiriveilasolo]

Just posting to scream this:

STOVER I SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE IN SHATTERPOINT

THAT NIGHTMARE OF WINDU??? ISN’T THAT KRIFFING BATTLE OF CORUSCANT DURING THE YUUZHAN VONG WAR???

[unknownunseenunheard]

Was anyone gonna tell me that there was honestly a real legitimate possibility that several members of the NJO were swapped out with clones and that the 'It was Jaacen all along' joke by Timothy Zhan might have been spot on?

[elli-incarnate]

This is a snippet from NJO: Balance Point from Mara Jade Skywalker's point of view and - watch out, I have very strong opinions about Luke Skywalker characterization.

Because I absolutely do not buy this.

Mara would not think that except sarcastically, Luke has never and should never be written as lawful good, he is absolutely an unstoppable force of chaotic good. This half-feral Tatooine child spent the years immediately following his sudden great political awakening involved in an armed rebellion to overthrow the galactic government and before that lived his entire life on a planet whose laws were designed and enforced by the Hutts.

Laws are abstract suggestions that get in the way of heroism up until the moment they unexpectedly and thoroughly kick his ass in FotJ. Luke Skywalker lives his life based on vibes, doing what's right, and the will of the Force.

I'm halfway convinced he got all these flight certifications mentioned in Balance Point out of passive aggressive malicious compliance when he realized he needed a driver's license to drive a speeder on Coruscant. Why the hell should he need a driver's license, they're not a thing on Tatooine, and he can fly a starfighter just fine - they didn't even make him take any tests before jumping into an X-Wing to take down the Death Star, what's the point of a driver's license that's so arbitrary.

I need a license, Leia? Fine, have it your way - I'll collect all the licenses. Including this forklift certification. How do you like that?!

I fully believe that he would have taught Ben how to drive a speeder as soon as he could reach the pedals, and only Mara stopped him, and it was hard even for Mara. 

Mara is the one who cares about legal and square. Not all the time, but WAY MORE than Luke. She grew up within the Empire, her character journey takes her from lawful neutral to neutral good; she spends most of her arc in Survivor's Quest getting over her nostalgia about her troubled respect for the Imperial Remnant, because they had their house in order.

But the Skywalkers are by definition chaotic. He does not care about legal systems and laws when there's heroing to be done.

People (including the professionals they hired to write these books) write these characters backwards, and it STILL BOTHERS ME all these years later.

Luke Skywalker is chaotic good with a temper.

Mara is neutral good with deeply repressed emotions.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

[legends-expo]

We are so excited to announce that beloved author Matthew Stover will be attending LegendsCon! He will be available to meet with fans, sign autographs, and appear on panels all weekend!

Buy tickets now on Eventbrite, and join us for a celebration of all things Expanded Universe at the Marriott Convention Center in Burbank, California on September 9th-10th 2023!

[unabashedllamamusic]

Clearly, you haven’t been introduced to “An Apology”, Timothy Zahn’s magnum opus. I can’t seem to find a copy, but for the uninitiated, it’s a satirical short story from Luuuke’s perspective where basically everyone is a clone with increasingly ridiculous names, and all of galactic history from the Thrawn Trilogy to Fate of the Jedi is actually done by these clones rather than the originals. It was an April Fool’s Day story for 2012, you can also find it in the last FOTJ book. It’s hilarious, I highly recommend it. Legends was also goofy and very 90s and camp at times, and it was self aware about it sometimes too. Canon vs Legends arguments always cover the same half dozen points and none of them are ever described accurately, it drives me insane. While I’m here: NJO being convoluted and long isn’t a good reason for legends to be worse than canon, because the high republic is even longer and more convoluted, it’s just easier to read because it’s in the process of being released. Canon hasn’t respected the new books’ lore any more than legends did the old ones’, there’s a new retcon every time a show drops atp.

I love The High Republic and NJO alike. Legends and canon both have highs, lows, strengths, and weaknesses. If we all just consume the media we like we’ll be happier for it

people in the star wars fandom: the sequels are so dumb and stupid i miss the eu, which was badass and cool and not stupid

the eu:

[corelliaxdreaming]

Han finally offering to replace Chewie’s copilot seat with a Leia-sized one is no joke the realest character development in this series. 🥲

[randomwritingguy]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: New Jedi Order Series - Various Authors Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Danni Quee/Jacen Solo Characters: Jacen Solo, Danni Quee, Zonama Sekot, Onimi (Star Wars), Shimrra Jamaane, Chewbacca (Star Wars), Anakin Solo, Jaina Solo Additional Tags: Canon Compliant, New Jedi Order (Star Wars), Yuuzhan Vong War (Star Wars), Yuuzhan Vong Species (Star Wars), Grief/Mourning, Acceptance, Canonical Character Death, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship/Love, Romance, Feelings, First Kiss, Goodbyes, Hopeful Ending Summary:

After years of bloodshed, the Yuuzhan Vong War ends in peace. The Galactic Alliance has reclaimed Coruscant and the extragalactic invaders will relocate themselves on the world they previously saw as the omen of their destruction: Zonama Sekot.

On the living world, where reunions occur and the future is being decided, an enlightened Jedi Knight and an ambitious young scientist talk.

[krisslegacy]

do i think luke skywalker is a gay man? yes.

do i also love him and mara jade together? also yes. i will not elaborate.

[tahiriveilasolo]

Alema’s story…was tragic.

You don’t want to see your sister being disintegrated in front of you. You don’t want to see the friends you’ve just met and become acquainted with got perished in a mission that you’ve come along. You don’t want to see the devastation of a relentless species continuing their conquest in the galaxy. You won the war eventually, but the price is high. You’ve payed your sanity.

What would another war do to you, Alema Rar? Will you ever again see the light?

Alema Rar: Jedi Knight, Dark Jedi

[magnetarbeam]

You know, for all the very good reasons to shit on Denning, I do think some credit is due for how much his writing manages to make me laugh, even though it's usually when he's trying to be completely serious.

Here's a top five list:

5: Fey'lya pulling up file holos to convince the Senate that he's having an Important Discussion With The Generals.

4: A Hapan household servant insulting Jaina and Zekk's flying, based on alleged simulator experience with N-1s and vulture droids.

3: Aurra Sing, of all people, getting her ass kicked by Jacen's five-year-old daughter.

2: Wynn and Gavin and Bwua'tu being in the room when Luke learns Abeloth's origin story. No amount of pay would be enough for this.

1: Lando and Booster using a celebrity sabacc tournament as collectively willing hostages.

(Honorable mention: Daala telling Jag "a Sith is just a Jedi who's gone off his meds.")

[tahiriveilasolo]

*NJO moment*

Edge of Victory II: Rebirth: ships Anakin Solo and Tahiri Veila

Star by Star:

Dark Journey: not to worry. We’re still flying half a ship