#galactic bonds

[housebaylor]

2023 Books. ⋙ Only Bad Options by Jennifer Estep

“Once again, I was in a situation where I had only bad options. Sometimes I thought that was the sad story of my life. No good, easy, simple choices, only those that ranged from bad to worse to catastrophic.”

[sandythereadingcafe]

DUAL REVIEW

ONLY COLD DEPTHS (Galactic Bonds 4) by Jennifer Estep at The Reading Cafe:

'The premise is detailed, dramatic and inviting; the characters are animated and energetic

[thereadingcafe]

[nzbookwyrm]

October 2024

[nostalgiaknight]

Weeks later…

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

i want nothing more than for Ezra & Thrawn to be not enemies, not friends, but a secret third thing - roommates

[seadolph]

In my head these three were friends before everything went down with Team Galactic. Obviously Flint and Volkner are closer friends - they met each other first, were in the same class, etc etc, but Cyrus is the unfortunate older student that got assigned the pair of friends for buddy reading and then ended up with a pair of inseparable trouble making ducklings constantly following him around. (Please, give him coffee. He needs the caffeine to keep up. But hey, it's better than hanging around at home, right?)

Cyrus starts drifting apart from them as they get older - Flint and Volkner are often in their own world and it's kinda hard to keep in touch, you know? Cue massive betrayal when the Team Galactic arc rolls around.

[magnetarbeam]

I think my preference for Mara Lives AUs would be to have her stay on Coruscant in Outcast through Conviction, and help deal with the political bullshit. I seriously do think she could do more good there than by going on the quest.

But I'm trying to figure out how much sense it makes for Daala's criminal charges against Luke to extend to Mara too.

On the one hand, Mara being on Coruscant is a significant threat to the government's plans to bring the Jedi in line. I'd need to plot out more of the details about which meetings Mara's at and why, but I'm currently working on the assumption that Hamner's appointnent as Acting Grand Master still happens. Mara would not put up with any of this bullshit, and she can absolutely command more respect from the Order than Hamner, especially because of her and Luke's bond, which they're famous enough that the government has to know something about, and which is a potential means of contact between Luke and the Order than the government can't monitor or inhibit, as long as Mara runs free (of ysalamir bubbles, etc).

The problem for Daala would be justifying it. Mara doesn't hold any formal position above the other Masters. If they can implicate her because she's family of Luke, why not charge Han and Leia at that point? Jacen was their kid.

[cgear]

penny: oh teams from other regions name themselves after space stuff too maybe we can be friends maybe we can bond over a shared interest

team rocket and team galactic: *exist*

penny: 😶 nevermind

[tiredassmage]

[roblox oof]

[eorzeashan]

I know every agent after the class story makes that joke about how they're jobless and homeless, but it only settled in for me how Eight feels about it after I finished Secrets of the Enclave as well.

He was definitely bouncing between masters and jobs, with the latest being the SIS and the CEDF (mostly Saganu), which I like to joke that Saganu is like his foster stepdad who lets this delinquent crash on his couch with an open-door policy when he gets fired from his job or his latest adventures don't pan out despite being 10 years older than him max, but he's on the fence about whether either of these places are really where he wants to stay. I also like to picture Eight laying down on a fancy chaise lounge like he's seeing a shrink whenever he visits Saganu who is also sitting in a nearby chair and tiredly asking what he wants to do with his life from here, lol.

The SIS...has been lackluster. It's been interesting getting to work for them and better with encouragement from Theron, but he can't see himself doing it long term and he's already pissed off every Sith in 2 square miles after about 2-3 jaunts in Imp space. The war was never very meaningful to him, and he gets the sense that it'll die down soon if it gets left alone without him fanning the flames.

The Chiss are home too, but that's complicated, and he knows he's not one of them. He'll never be despite all that he's done for their people. Theirs is a proud race and even if Saganu and Nosta swear House Miurani will always hold him in high esteem, he sticks out like a sore thumb amongst their populace and the intricacies of their society elude him. Not to mention someone with such a violent past as his doesn't quite fit in their non-confrontational policies, and he only does private hits to get around loopholes for Saganu. (I'm still livid I didn't record the stupid little blaster twirl and grin he did after shooting Syndic Zenta point blank as if he didn't just kill somebody in cold blood. Stop showing off.) As much as he could peacefully eke out his days in their service, it's dull to him and neither he nor Nosta have gotten over their psychological traumas enough to face each other fully.

The Alliance in his storyline is also effectively disbanded immediately after the Traitor Arc, so he has no home there in the first place-- along with mostly negative connotations. Lana and Theron will always nab him if given the chance, but all three of them need space after the garbage fire of an alliance they made.

So what is he doing now besides having an identity crisis?

This doesn't help the growing list of random jobs he's hopped on and off, but I actually feel as if...he could be recruited by the Imperial Reclamation Service. By temporary contract of one Talos Drellik, because if there's one thing those archaeologists are in short supply of, it's muscle. Eight would be shocked too when given the offer: "do I look like a researcher to you?" and Talos would cheerfully deflect by pointing out his thirst for understanding Sith like Jadus and his own affinity with the Dark Side, to which Eight has no rebuttal.

It's true; he does secretly dream of a world where everyone can communicate and connect with one another through the Force, or non-Force users can co-exist with Force-users without being shut out from one another. Jadus' protection allows him to be incorruptible from places steeped in the Dark Side, and he's a rare and capable agent who would be better protection than a Sith who would most likely steal artifacts for their benefit rather than help the Service reclaim them.

And, Talos would add, you might find that preventing and safekeeping relics of untold power is not unlike saving the galaxy from conspiracy, my friend. The Reclamation Service battles entire legions of separate armies in a relic arms race each day! You'll never want for excitement and bloodshed, if that is your calling.

Eight would harumph, but he'd cave; he's rather weak to the thrill of adventure that means something to him for once. And if it helps him reconnect or eventually reunite with Jadus, who is out there somewhere...well, he'll take any chance.

[sandythereadingcafe]

DUAL REVIEW

ONLY HARD PROBLEMS (Galactic Bonds 3) by Jennifer Estep at The Reading Cafe:

'fast paced, intriguing, imaginative, captivating'

[thereadingcafe]

[sw5w]

Ki-Adi-Mundi Looks to Master Yoda

STAR WARS EPISODE I: The Phantom Menace 01:25:48

In Legends, Ki-Adi-Mundi was originally the only Jedi Knight elected to the High Council, but it appears that’s been changed in Canon to him being a master as well.

With his prominence in the Star Wars (1998) comic from Dark Horse, there was a lot of backstory for Mundi and his species that is unlikely to be developed as thoroughly in Canon now, so these details aren’t currently contradicted by anything new - yet.

[modgod200]

What if Earth’s biomes are considered stupidly diverse by galactic standards?

You often see in science fiction planets having one biome with little to no temperature variation (forest worlds, snow worlds, desert worlds, ect.), so from their perspective Earth is a chaotic clusterfuck of wildly different worlds all stitched together into one planet. You can’t even go 100 miles on the planet without shifting between like 3 different biomes. The desert aliens could live in the Mojave Desert, but would freeze to death the moment they went north, and the ice planet aliens would feel right at home in Siberia, but anything below upper Europe and they die of heat exhaustion. The fact that humans can not only survive these extremes, but thrive in them blows their minds. We would be considered the galaxy’s expert survivalists, able to drop onto any planet with an atmosphere we can breath and dominate it like it was our cradle world. This would also terrify them to no end, because these durable, hyper-intelligent, apex pack predators could invade any one of their worlds if they wanted to. Everyone is super relieved that we pack bond with anything, and try their absolute hardest to elicit that instinct in us.