Timothy Zahn Vs KJA

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2002-07-11 12:16pm

Hello! This is the first thread that I have ever started so, it's also kinda of an introduction thread as well!

Okay here is the scene;

Timothy Zahn and KJA have been given the powers to allow their thought to manifest. What ever one writes down, as in a novel, will be sorta real. They each write on the same book but on different sides. Make sense?
So who wins?

My theory:

Timothy starts off cautious, he takes great pain and care in introducing us to his characters, he makes them interesting, believable and viable. KJA ignores this and starts by introducing high ranking baddies, who we are led to believe are very competent, but gives us no proof. They attack and make a huge succes out of it, regardless of the fact that all they were doing was bombing a stone-age civilisation out of existance. They now are meant to be interpreted as infailable and the CANNOT be beaten.

Back to Tim, his vilians have also launched an attack, although not 100% succesfull, they achieve their major objectives, and the situation looks, grim. The good guys however are on the case and they begind to show some spirit and fight back, it's desperate, it's necessary and it's believable.

KJA meanwhile, his bad guys are nearly victorious, when he suddenly realises he is about to reach his word limit, so he allows the good guys to pull some trump card out of their respective areses and save the day. Thus totally negating your entire effort of reading 600 odd pages of drible just because the ending is stupid.

As a result, Tim's well crafted effort is short changed because he had the audacity to actually make this whole thing realistic.

Well that was a little bit longer than I thought it would be, but it at least shows you my view of who is the best STAR WARS EU author is...

Grand Admiral Thrawn · Post by **Grand Admiral Thrawn** » 2002-07-11 12:35pm

No contest.

Captain Cyran · Post by **Captain Cyran** » 2002-07-11 12:37pm

Zahn all the way

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2002-07-11 12:49pm

Yes I agree, Zahn is truely the better author... But does he have any defence against KJA's pull something out of my arse at the last minute trick?

David · Post by **David** » 2002-07-11 12:52pm

While Zahn is a better author, I still don't think KJA is as bad as most people think. So I'll vote for him out of simpathy.

Captain Cyran · Post by **Captain Cyran** » 2002-07-11 12:53pm

With characters like Thrawn...well, i think that's all i really have to say on the subject.

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2002-07-11 12:54pm

Zahn ofcourse.

Captain Cyran · Post by **Captain Cyran** » 2002-07-11 12:54pm

David wrote:While Zahn is a better author, I still don't think KJA is as bad as most people think. So I'll vote for him out of simpathy.

Stupid sympathy votes....ruined our perfect sweep of KJA.

David · Post by **David** » 2002-07-11 01:06pm

The monkey was feeling generous today.

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2002-07-11 03:06pm

The monkey voted aginst Thrawn!
It muuuuust diiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Zahn all the way to the Superbowl!

David · Post by **David** » 2002-07-11 03:11pm

That's even funnier with your pic!

I just get a kick out of it.

Zoink · Post by **Zoink** » 2002-07-11 03:20pm

I don't know who either is, so I voted for the underdog

David · Post by **David** » 2002-07-11 03:31pm

Where have you been the last 10 years?

Grand Admiral Thrawn · Post by **Grand Admiral Thrawn** » 2002-07-11 04:10pm

Ah! You voted against my character's creator!

BrianDavion · Post by **BrianDavion** » 2002-07-12 05:07pm

why even bother with this poll. Zhan is a skilled writer, he and Stackpole are IMHO among the best of the SW authors (well Alliston too. the X-wing books where a refreshing change from the overly political EU books of the time) KJA he's basicly just a hack writer. hell he doesn't even WRITE the things himself. he records it into a tape and gets some one to type it for him apparently.

Grand Admiral Thrawn · Post by **Grand Admiral Thrawn** » 2002-07-12 05:18pm

And copies. Daala is obviously a poor attempt at Thrawn.

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2002-07-12 05:25pm

Well acutal no Daala is a halfway decent charater I'll give him that much(And Maw instlation cool Idea, I should get one of my own)
Not a halfway Thrawn. More of a Pelleon who thinks shes a Thrawn

Grand Admiral Thrawn · Post by **Grand Admiral Thrawn** » 2002-07-12 05:28pm

Mr Bean wrote:Well acutal no Daala is a halfway decent charater I'll give him that much(And Maw instlation cool Idea, I should get one of my own)
Not a halfway Thrawn. More of a Pelleon who thinks shes a Thrawn

Halfway decent character?! She is the dumb "EVIL IMPERIAL OFFICER" standard, tries to be a tactical genuis, but kills some pirates, an imcomplete cruiser, a city and some fighters only while losing 3 ISDs and getting the fourth so damaged it was scrapped. Her only skill was in bed

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2002-07-12 06:05pm

Fighting on ten? Twenty year old information and likley SD MK I ships which had not be repleshed in quite awhile

She is of acdemic Tatics area. IE all those battles she so proud of where all Theoirtical. She was fighting with 100% Green troops and no real useful enemy intellgance to speak off What did you expect?

She did much better in Darksaber but thats after she got clued into how the world works oh and Zahn helped with that Book

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2002-07-12 11:53pm

Daala could have been a good character. Should have been. But she was doomed as KJA wrote her.

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2002-07-13 01:23am

Originally posted by BrianDavion
why even bother with this poll. Zhan is a skilled writer, he and Stackpole are IMHO among the best of the SW authors (well Alliston too. the X-wing books where a refreshing change from the overly political EU books of the time) KJA he's basicly just a hack writer. hell he doesn't even WRITE the things himself. he records it into a tape and gets some one to type it for him apparently.

Not an attack, but bother with this pole because don't you hate it when hack writters totally undo all the good work that good one's do? And really I think that Zahn is the best, however it saddens me to admit that KJA would probably win because he would use the old pull something ridiculous out of my arse trick at the last moment!

Originally posted by Mr Bean
Well acutal no Daala is a halfway decent charater I'll give him that much

So totally disagree with you there, she was a failure. All she acomplished were defeated vigilanty attacks and managed to piss pretty much everyone off with her stupidity!

Originallly posted by Mr Bean
Fighting on ten? Twenty year old information and likley SD MK I ships which had not be repleshed in quite awhile

She is of acdemic Tatics area. IE all those battles she so proud of where all Theoirtical. She was fighting with 100% Green troops and no real useful enemy intellgance to speak off What did you expect?

She did much better in Darksaber but thats after she got clued into how the world works oh and Zahn helped with that Book

Two things;

First don't you ever link Zahn's good name with trash novels! I would imagine that all Zahn did was tell KJA not to srew up Palleon too much or he would have had to kill him!

Second Garm Bel Iblis seemed to do a lot better with even older technology than she ever could hope to do with the latest! Garm had three Dark Force Dreadnaughts which were totally insignificant to Victory Star Destroyers and yet he managed to hold his own little private war without lossing three quaters of his bloody fleet!

Make sense, what I write does.

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2002-07-13 01:25am

Originally posted by phongn
Daala could have been a good character. Should have been. But she was doomed as KJA wrote her.

In total agreement we are.

Moonstone Spider · Post by **Moonstone Spider** » 2002-07-13 03:54am

Well I can't imagine voting for KJA when Zahn's available, but I'd like to mention a couple things in Daala's favor. Yes, she's incompetent but that doesn't really make her a bad character. C3PO isn't particularly good at commanding Star Destroyers either but he's a good character. Reading between the Lines it looks to me like Daala basically got her rank by screwing Tarkin and she's an excellent example of corruption and bad decision making in the ranks ruining things for the military. She's just bad if you want to use her in a Vs. Debate (unless you're pitting Daala in command of a Fleet vs. C3PO in command of a Fleet)

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2002-07-13 04:48am

Originally posted be Moonstone Spider
I'd like to mention a couple things in Daala's favor. Yes, she's incompetent but that doesn't really make her a bad character. C3PO isn't particularly good at commanding Star Destroyers either but he's a good character.

Yes but that is not what C3PO's job is! He droid. She Admiral.

Reading between the Lines it looks to me like Daala basically got her rank by screwing Tarkin and she's an excellent example of corruption and bad decision making in the ranks ruining things for the military.

No reading the actual lines we see that a lot of people believed that, that was the reason she was promoted and were spaced for expressing it! KJA tells us all wonderfull stories about how she came up with wonderfull and brilliant new stratagies in combat, that Tarkin ended up using and employing himself! What we are also told is that she was defeated because Ackbar recognised the tactic when she attacked Moncal, and defeated her. What does this prove, in all her time at the Maw, she couldn't think of a new tactic and when she realises that the Empire is defeated she assumes it was because no-one used her tactic and therefore she could use it safely.

Oh by the way, welcome to the Board!

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2002-07-13 07:29am

Second Garm Bel Iblis seemed to do a lot better with even older technology than she ever could hope to do with the latest! Garm had three Dark Force Dreadnaughts which were totally insignificant to Victory Star Destroyers and yet he managed to hold his own little private war without lossing three quaters of his bloody fleet!

But then agian what did Ben Iblis try and do?
Hit and Run Strikes aginst Targets he had loads of information on?

Like it or not thats like comparing a blindfoled man trying to hit some targets at 50 meters VS A normal guy with a Handgun
Sure one has more power but the fact is not enough information

Daala had little information on what she was facing
She attacked Mon Cal for Bob sake with only three Destroyers!
Her plan for attack Courscant acutal had a bit of Mert and would have been intresting to try it however I don't quite think they could have punched through both layers of shileding before she managed it(It was a Bright idea IMO, If you can BDZ somthing how about Kintecticly killing it?)

Face it sure she had better overall ships then Ben did but then agian Ben was not traped in a Black Hole Cluster Leading Green recruits and had no information on the outside world

Murphs Rules
1. Never let the enemy choose the battlefield
2. Always know where your enemy is and deny him the same ability to you

Today War is nearly 60% intellgance 30% acutal Strength and 10% Command Skill

Daala did not have the information she need so of course she made boned headed mistakes and blunders

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Timothy Zahn Vs KJA

Who is the better Star Wars author

Timothy Zahn Vs KJA