Outbound Flight [Spoilers]

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Outbound Flight [Spoilers]

Post by Chris OFarrell »

I just finished reading the book that was an attempt by Zhan to bridge his Outbound flight deal with the Pr equal Trilogy.

And to be frank it's not a half bad attempt. It stays true to the facts in 'Survivors Quest' as well as that in the Thrawn saga/duology.

I'll write a more complete review tommorow some time. But for now there are a few interesting tech points:

An agent of Sidious (who is amusingly an aid of Palpitine and thinks he is helping Sidious take down Palpys Government) is sent with a unit of Trade Federation and Techno Union ships to take down Outbound Flight.

The fleet consists of 2 Larwahk class Battleships fully loaded with Vulture droids, 9 of those smaller Techno Union shuttle things seen on Geonosis that Anikin had their LAAT blast on the ground and six patrol ships. Thrawn has three small cruisers and nine fighters.

Thrawn is able to crack the encryption codes the Trade Federation use to control their droids. He uses this to tell them to tell the first wave of fighters to head off into deep space. The encryption then changes. He then has the fighters launch Connor Nets, which have been rewritten to act like ion cannons now, shutting down fighters which then slam out of control into even more, opening up a hole.

At this point a Techno Union ships opens fire with missiles at the Chiss fighters, the description makes me think this is the type of missile used against Obi-One and Anikin in ROTS in the opening battle. The Chiss fighters simply dodge them for long enough to come right back at the Techno-Union ships, drop a Connor net out of their back launchers which completely disable the missiles....which impact the Techno-Union ships and damage or destroy them, detonating even though the missiles are apparently completely disabled.

At the same time, Thrawn is able to completely jam all spectrums of communication bar LOS lasercomms, the droid fighters automatically shut down and go dormant, apparently lacking the individual programing of the AOTC era Trade Federation droid technology. The Trade Federation ships can't activate anywhere near enough droids via LOS lasercomms, so there goes the fighter screen. Though this was only able to be done because Thrawn's actions forced the fighters into a very small area. At least in part.

A gravity well projector Thrawn stole from some raider species (the republic is explicitly unable to build them at this point) keeps the fleet pinned in place. At the same time, the second Trade Federation BB dies from internal explosions as the droid fighters inside the hangers that had been active, then shut down when the jamming started, all start to automatically self destruct as 30 minuites without external contact passes for them.

Then the battle ends when Thrawn maneuvers one of his cruisers to have its missile racks pointing at point blank range directly at the bridge of the TF BB, forcing the surrender of the completely undamaged ship.

For the record, shields were never even mentioned in this battle. The fact that the TF BB could sit there and Thrawn wouldn't even be able to scratch it thanks to its absurd shielding and reactor outputs isn't even mentioned.

Thrawn comes on board to investigate and Sidious's agent quickly tries to convince him of the evil of outbound flight and the Jedi (and frankly he aint half wrong), then introduces him to Sidious via the holonet. Sidious is pissed of course, but highly impressed with Thrawn's abilities...

More tommorow about C'baoth...who just about as insane as he was in the Thrawn Saga.
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Post by Vympel »

So what happened to the first TF Battleship?
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Post by Burak Gazan »

So basically, Thrawny does everything right, and the Seppos do everything wrong? :shock: Sounds a wee bit convenient to me :wink:
And the 2nd TF Battleship, what, did its turbolasers suddenly go offline or did the Neimoidian captain wet himself with fear and surrender :P (funny, I'd have thought the fear of failing Darth Sidious would have been a bigger factor....)
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Post by FTeik »

Puts a whole new light on Parck's description of the battle in HoT.

"A squadron of Palpatine's best ships with handpicked crews" - my ass.

I have to read the novel for myself, but so far it looks like Zahn went a long way since TTT. In the wrong direction.
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Post by Anguirus »

At the same time, Thrawn is able to completely jam all spectrums of communication bar LOS lasercomms
Why can't the Republic, or for that matter the Naboo, manage this?

Ah, well, Zahn deserves the benefit of the doubt from me. I'll surely give it a read.
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Post by Ghost Rider »

I'll give it a read, but some of what Chris is hinting at is not sounding good, and really sounds too much Thrawn wank.

Thrawn is good, that was established in actions of the first trilogy, but this is sounding akin to "Thrawn iz the r0x0rz!!!"

But I do like they go into Jorus and he's a fucking nut sounds interesting.
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Post by nightmare »

I'll just point out that with that kind of numerical disadvantage, Thrawn pretty much have to be "wanked" for the story to work out. I believe it was said to be 8:1 before this book. That said, I don't like some aspects of what was mentioned of it, though I would say it still rates above the average EU novel.
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Post by Illuminatus Primus »

That was one of the shittest, most contrived battle plots I've ever heard of.

I also don't like that of course we can't use any starships not seen frequently in the movies. Creativity? What's that?
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Post by Vympel »

Illuminatus Primus wrote: I also don't like that of course we can't use any starships not seen frequently in the movies. Creativity? What's that?
Actually, that he used the Techno Union ships we saw for just a little bit in AotC is commendable. We never saw them in RotS, after all. And the patrol ships, I can't think of anything we've seen in the films to match them.
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Post by Illuminatus Primus »

Vympel wrote:
Illuminatus Primus wrote: I also don't like that of course we can't use any starships not seen frequently in the movies. Creativity? What's that?
Actually, that he used the Techno Union ships we saw for just a little bit in AotC is commendable. We never saw them in RotS, after all. And the patrol ships, I can't think of anything we've seen in the films to match them.
No, its not commendable, because those are cargo transports.
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Post by Vympel »

Illuminatus Primus wrote: No, its not commendable, because those are cargo transports.
Which source says that?
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Post by President Sharky »

The despicable and untrustworthy New Essental Guide to Vehicles and Vessels. It says they're unarmed ships, but then again, the standard Lucrehulk is probably supposed to be unarmed as well. These Techno Union ships could have easily been modified like the LH's to become light pickets.
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Post by Publius »

One wonders, then, how Mr. Zahn proposes to explain the following passage from "Darth Maul: Saboteur," set before The Phantom Menace:
They had started out as legitimate rescue workers and salvagers, using a powerful Interdictor ship to retrieve ships stranded in hyperspace. By mimicking the effects of a mass shadow, the Interdictor had the ability to pull endangered ships back into realspace. While the rewards for such work were substantial, they were never substantial enough to satisfy the desires of the clan, and over the course of several years, the group had launched a second career as pirates, employing their Interdictor against passenger and supply ships, or hiring themselves out to criminal organizations to interfere with shipments of spice and other proscribed goods.
Interdictor technology was commonplace enough that it could be used by legitimate rescue workers and salvagers in the antebellum Republic. It is neither novel nor unique, and certainly the technologically backward Chiss would not have an advantage over the technophilic Separatists of the Techno Union and Trade Federation, whose material resources were such that they could fight a war against a galactic superpower. The very idea betrays an offensive lack of research on Mr. Zahn's part, and a blatant desire to aggrandize and exaggerate the communist Chiss.
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Post by Anguirus »

Worse yet, the Republic had Interdictors 4000 years ago, according to KoTOR.
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Post by Noble Ire »

Zahn is a decent writer, and can create better characters than most other EU authors (at least the older ones) but his tendancy to ignore other EU precedent is really starting to piss me off. Honestly, if he doesn't want continuity, he can go write for Paramount.
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Post by FTeik »

Concerning the Interdictor-technology, didn't the older EU claim, that this technology was developed by the empire?

I remember hearing about Interdictor-fields in KOTOR and thought WTF?

And how safe is hyperdrive-technology, if Saboteur is to be believed?
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Post by Anguirus »

didn't the older EU claim, that this technology was developed by the empire?
It certainly did. It's been sort of reverse-retconned, like the cloaking device. On one level, I can't blame Zahn for not having the patience to go through all of EU and check everything, but on another, he should know it's not his sandbox he's playing in.

Of course, it's may be less Zahn's fault than the editors'. The writer's job is to tell a story...the editor's is to make sure it all fits together, especially in cases of background text that are a) wrong and b) not necessary to the story. Of course, if Zahn was told about the problem and fought to keep it in, that's his mistake and he deserves to be called on it.
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Post by PainRack »

FTeik wrote:Concerning the Interdictor-technology, didn't the older EU claim, that this technology was developed by the empire?

I remember hearing about Interdictor-fields in KOTOR and thought WTF?

And how safe is hyperdrive-technology, if Saboteur is to be believed?
The EGWVT that stated that always felt odd..... Right, the Empire suddenly develops a brand new technology that never existed before, despite the fact that we know they have tractor beams, can manipulate artificial gravity on a moon scale and etc etc etc...... all so just to catch Rebel starfighters and weak capital ships.

Its been retconned to the level that the Interdictor gravity wells represent a revolution in interdiction technology, giving it more flexibility.

As for being unable to build it, one can probably retcon it by saying the Republic was unable to build an exact copy or something.......
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Post by Chris OFarrell »

Ok, lets see now. A more in depth analysis of the book. This is a complete rundown so if you don't want to know, stop reading.



I have to say my earlier thoughts about this book have been tempered by re-reading 'Survivors Quest'. Frankly I think Outbound Flight works much better if you consider it the first half to that book. One half taking place in the Prequel era, one in the EU era just before the NJO era. In that context the book works well and you can see how hard Zhan has tried to keep the two books connected.

That said, the Thrawn wanking still grates :)

The first part of Outbound Flight deals with Car'das and a smuggling group who are trying to dodge a rival Hutt gang. Attempting a long hyperspace jump, they arrive on the edge of the Unknown regions, the Hutt follows them and both blunder into a CEDF patrol led by one Commander Mitth'raw'nuruodo...

Back in the republic (this is set a little before AOTC BTW) C'baoth and his Padawan Lorana make a horse trade with Palpitine. He will push Outbound Flight funding (for the tens of thousands of civilians needed for any possible colony building) through the senate committees if C'baoth will solve some dispute between a regional government and the Corporate Alliance (which is actually a big enough dispute to require Palpitine to send someone. We also start to see the start of C'baoth's view of the universe here. Even just in his body language, he has a clear feeling of superiority to non-jedi. He believes it is the jedi that hold the republic together, not the senate, not Palpitine, he wants respect or fear from all.

Kinman Doriana is an aid to Palpitine who is secretly working for Darth Sidious, but does NOT know they are one in the same. He is the one who publicly suggests to Palpitine and C'baoth that C'baoth will be sent to resolve this dispute in exchange for Outbound Flight getting off the ground, on the instructions of Sidious. Quite funny actually.

Windu sends Obi-Wan and Skywalker to quietly (but not secretly) tail them and just make sure they don't do anything explosive. They all get together in the middle of a situation that is wrapped in local politics and the dispute, but is actually engineered by Doriana on the orders of Sidious to make sure C'baoth gets so much publicity and PR that the senate and Jedi Council will green light the mission. Again through this we see a reflection of the Thrawn Saga C'Baoth and his ideas about 'justice' and how a Jedi rates to 'normals'.

We find out at this point that Doriana knows all about Darth Tyranus as well.

Obi-wan is sufficiently worried about C'baoth that he gets permission to accompany outbound flight to the edge of the unknown regions (part of the reason it is going through said regions is also another attempt to find out what happened to Vegree) with Anikin, who of course gets on quite well with C'Baoth, having a good deal of respect for him. In the wake of the PR stunt C'baoth pulled, the council has no choice but to assign 6 Jedi Masters and 11 knights, far more then they wanted.

Windu and Yoda, thinking the whole thing stinks assign Obi-Wan and Anakin to the project, though they'll get off at the edge of the unknown regions, simply to keep an eye on everything on board for the first few weeks as they slowly hop across the Galaxy and make sure everything is all functioning.

Meanwhile Thrawn all this time has been keeping Car'dis and his friends as half prisoners half guests, on the promise of far more loot down the line as compensation to their employers for the late delivery. At this point, introduced the Vagaari. A nomadic race of aliens who live in the border zone between wild space and the unknown regions. Thrawn forces a pretext to let him engage in battle (remember the 'they must fire first' ROE of the CEDF) and steels a gravity well projector from them. This of course sends up a storm of argument in the Chiss higher up's about if Thrawn exceed his authority, but they let it stand for now....

Just in time for him to stumble upon Doriana and his buddies from the Trade Federation that had been sent to ambush outbound flight and completely destroy it. The main attack force was to be the 3000 droid fighters, armed with lasers and energy torpedoes, simply to swamp the dreadnaughts when they came out of hyperspace and crush them with overwhelming numbers. It also comments a single TFB with limited fighters can’t possibly hope to face the six Dreadnaughts of outbound flight.

Thrawn as you know is able to win the engagement almost exclusively by out 'EW-ing' the Trade Federation ships droids, destroying one TFB and it's fighters as well as all the lesser picket ships. Then he simply parks his cruiser in front of the TFB bridge with its missile racks pointing in, apparently shields don't exist anymore in the SW universe, let alone the absurdly powerful ones on the dounuts. He prevented the battle group from fleeing by using the gravity well projector he captured from the Vagarri. So he captures this TFB and liberates much of their droid technology, which is something that doesn't exist in the unknown regions apparently.

Doriana introduces Thrawn to Sidious, he is very impressed by this young commander (BTW Thrawn is the youngest Chiss to hold the rank he holds). Doriana paints a picture of the Jedi as arrogant control freaks who lord over normal people without a care in the world, despite their claims that they are supposed to serve and assist, not rule. The Sith he says are in a power struggle with them...but that it's for the good of the Galaxy.
This description of course proves rather apt when he and C’Baoth meet later.


THIS PART is where the book took a ninety degree right turn for me. I'm sure people here won't like it....but....


Doriana tells Thrawn that the reason for all of this is because Sidious who stands in opposition to the Jedi, has information they do not, information critical to the survival of the Galaxy.

That is, the coming of the Yuzzahan Vong.

I'll quote word for word this, just so we are all clear.

"A Sith Lord is ... ?"

"A being who stands against the Jedi and their control over the Republic," Doriana explained.

"Ah," Mitth'raw'nuruodo said, a faint smile touching the corners of his mouth. "A power struggle."

"In a way," Doriana conceded. "But on a plane far different from the one where beings like you and I exist. What's important right now is that Lord Sidious has access to information sources that the Jedi don't have."

"And what do these sources tell him?"

Doriana braced himself. "There's an invasion coming," he said. "A massive assault force of dark ships, shadowy figures, and weapons of great power, based on organic technology of a sort we've never seen before. We believe these Far Outsiders, as we call them, already have a foothold at the far edge of the galaxy, and even now have scouting parties seeking information on worlds and peoples to conquer."

"Stories of mysterious invaders are both convenient and dif­ficult to disprove," Mitth'raw'nuruodo pointed out. "Why do you only now tell me this?"

Doriana nodded toward the door. "Because Vicelord Kav and his associates don't know," he said. "Neither docs anyone else in the Republic. Not yet."

"When will Darth Sidious tell them?"

"When he's turned the Republic's chaos into order," Dori­ana said. "When we've built an army and a fleet capable of deal­ing with the threat. To announce it before then would do nothing but create panic and leave us open to disaster."

"How does Outbound Flight fit into all this?"

"As I said, we believe the Far Outsiders are currently still gathering information," Doriana said. "So far, there's no indica­tion that they even know about the Republic." He felt his throat tighten. "Actually, that's not entirely true," he corrected himself reluctantly. "One of the Jedi, a being named Vergere, disap­peared in that region some time ago. That's one of Outbound Flight's private agendas, in fact: to try to learn what happened to her."

"I see," Mitth'raw'nuruodo said, nodding slowly. "And while a single prisoner can give only hints of his or her origin, an entire shipful of them can provide all that would be needed for a successful invasion."

"Exactly," Doriana said. "Not to mention all the data files I and technology they would be able to examine. If Outbound Flight blunders into their bridgehead, we could find ourselves facing an attack long before we're ready."

"And the Jedi do not understand this?"

"The Jedi think of themselves as the masters of the galaxy," Doriana said bitterly. "Especially the chief jedi Master aboard Outbound Flight, Jorus C'baoth. Even if he knew about the Far Outsiders, I doubt it would make any difference to him."
So there you have it. Bear in mind this guy was apparently quite a minion of Sidious if he was trusted with the knowledge of his existence, of Doku before he publicly went rogue and a mission of this importance. But at the same time he didn't know Palpitine and Sidious were one in the same.

Take this as you will.


Sidious who found out that Anikin is on board the Outbound Flight with Obi-Wan is understandably pissed and makes a trip as Palpitine to one of the last stop off points for the project, gets them both off under the pretext of them being needed for emergency negotiations and preserves the Chosen One. Obi-Wan had been about to ask Yoda for permission to stay on for the 10 year trip because he thought C'Baoth was getting out of hand and didn’t want him returing with a large number of fallen Jedi because his teaching methods suck, but it is not to be.

With them out of the way, C'Boath starts working on his own New Jedi Order. A lot of the families on the ship have force sensitive children (they were screened and assigned as such to the project) and C'Baoth starts his own Jedi school, forcibly taking those children whose parents don't actually want them to go. Discontent builds slowly as more and more C'Baoth starts to elevate the Jedi as a new order of people. Technically there is a military officer in command of the ship, but C'Baoth keeps edging in more and more. Even taking children in the middle of the frigen night from their parents!

Obi-Wan had disputed all this saying that the code explicitly forbids Jedi from ruling over anyone, C'Baoth simply declares he will ignore rules he thinks is erroneous. After all people in touch with the force are by definition much closer in touch with the universe itself and by definition knows what’s best, QED.

Especially him of course.

When the rules for outbound flight disagree with him, he just rewrites them, declaring himself the final legal authority (which is completely false, the Captain *was* explicitly the final legal authority) because this is a Jedi project. Discontent through some of the crew as C'Baoth pushes them aside for Jedi to take their places and learn how to do just about every damn job on the ship.

At this point, Thrawn starts one of his amazingly intricate overwhelming plans that brings the Outbound Flight and Vagaari together at the same point manipulating the Vagaari, Car'dis, C'Baoth and just about everyone else as part of his plan.

C'Baoth's super Jedi meld reaches out and starts frying the brains of the Vagaari (because their ships are covered with domes filled with hostages, so a direct assault at long range isn't possible) until they reach a range at which the Jedi gunners on the Dreadnaughts Turbolasers can disable the enemy ships. When Thrawn see's this happening (complete loss of co-ordination and control and so on) based on advice he had received from Sidious, he sends in the captured droid fighters to start attacking the Vagaari warfleet while activating some Battle Droids and Droid’dikas he had aranged the Vagaari to recover. The droids cut down the war leaders of course and leave the fleet leadeless at that point, while C’Baoth and his people keep mindfucking the rest of the Vaagri.

The deaths of the Vaagri leaders thanks to the droids backfires into the meld and shatters them. The Jedi of course were all at the weapons stations because they can do everything so much better and thus outbound flight is completely undefended. Thrawn then takes his ships while the droids keep ripping the Vaagri ships up (but leave the hostages alive thanks to droid precision), passes his ships through the Dreadnaughts shields with a slight bump (you heard me) then his ships at point blank range vaporizes the weapons blisters and shield generators...where of course all the Jedi are.

C'Baoth at this point falls to the dark side in rage and starts force choking Thrawn slowly to death. Doriana at his side without any other options presses the big red button Thrawn had put onto his command board as an emergency contingency.

The Vulture droids then break off their attacks and swarm at the dreadnaughts. Waves of them fire all their weapons then crash into the dreadnaught opening up huge breaches which radiation bomb carrying droids crash into, killing all but about fifty or so people on board out of the fifty thousand. Including C'baoth (who had finally had the rest of the Jedi on board standing upto him and about to call a judgment circle on him before the battle).

However because of this, a significant portion of the Vaagri fleet escapes the gravity field generator and gets to hyperspace.

The chiss are pissed beyond belief at this point at Thrawn and are about to exile him on the spot. However several factors contribute to him being spared.

* Outbound flight gets away thanks to Jedi Loorna, Thrawns brother and some survivors who would form the colony later and crash into the location we would later find it in. Meaning the advanced military technology on the ships is now beyond the Chiss, many factions of which wanted it badly.

* Blackmail over the fact that if Thrawn is forced to step down, the whole incident will have very high ranking people being dragged down along with him.

* Blackmail over who gets the gravity well projector.

And the possibility of fighting a two front war....
"You and your Master, Darth Sidious, told me of a people you call the Far Outsiders gathering at the edge of the galaxy," he said, turning the weapon over in his hands. "Have you ever actu­ally seen these beings?"

"As far as I know, we haven't," Doriana admitted.

"I thought not," Mitth'raw'nuruodo said, suddenly intense. "But we have."
A cold chill ran up Doriana's back. "Where?"

"At the far edge of the Chiss Ascendancy," Mitth'raw'nu­ruodo said, his voice dark and grim. "It was a small reconnais­sance force, but it fought with a savage ferocity before it was finally repulsed."

"How many ships were there?" Doriana asked, his mind kick­ing into high speed. Darth Sidious coveted information of this sort. Enough of it might even persuade him to forgive Dori­ana the loss of his Trade Federation task force. "What sort of weaponry did they have? Do you have any combat data?"

"I have some," Mitth'raw'nuruodo said. "Admiral Ar'alani was in command of the force that ultimately drove them away. That's why she came personally to investigate Car'das and his companions. We wondered if the Republic they spoke of might be allied with the invaders."

"And that's also why she was willing to look the other way while you dealt with the Vagaari," Doriana said as a final nagging piece of the puzzle finally fell into place. "A two-front war would be exceptionally nasty."
And there you have it.
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Post by Vympel »

Well that certainly muddies the accepted version of the creation of the Galactic Empire, it's military, and the purpose it served. Of course, we all know that the Galactic Empire would have steamrolled the Vong in a matter of moments, but oh well.
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FTeik
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Post by FTeik »

Interesting. C'Baoth seems to the same kind of Jedi-Master Dooku was. At least the C'Baoth from HttE isn't a clone of Dooku. :D

Actually a pity, i somehow was hoping OBF would show the original C'Baoth as a decent guy - it would have made it more tragic, what happened to "him". Do you think it possible, that Palpatine has been influencing (as in "putting strange ideas in his head") C'Baoth like he has done with Anakin? They were said to be friends, after all.
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Eframepilot
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Post by Eframepilot »

Well, that was certainly unusual. I found the idea of Palpatine and Thrawn knowing about the Vong more acceptable than I thought I would at first; it does make sense that they would have known something given the "great threat" Thrawn was preparing for in Vision of the Future (though evidently Baron Soontir Fel was either out of the loop or plain forgot :roll: ). Still, it's odd that Palpatine never used the threat of an extragalactic invasion to consolidate his power. Maybe he thought it was too shadowy and after a decade or so decided that the Vong probably weren't coming after all.

It's a pity that the editors wouldn't allow Doriana to know Palpatine's dual identity, as I'm sure Zahn would have liked. The idea that one of Zahn's pet characters was in on the secret is a little annoying, but it makes more sense than Doriana being a double agent working for the same guy on two sides without knowing it. After all, it's likely that other aides such as Sly Moore and even Mas Amedda knew about Sidious by ROTS; Mas Amedda notably calls Palpatine "Master", an unusual way to address a fellow politician.
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Burak Gazan
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Post by Burak Gazan »

I think Timmy has jumped the shark on this one :P Why is it that authors feel the need to tie every single thing(tm) together? Ah well :?
And the certainty that Mas Amedda knows exactly who and what Palpatine is, would be 100%++ -- he was standing there when Sidious blasted Yoda across the room with hurt-me-plenty -level force lightning :twisted:
"Of course, what would really happen is that in Game 7, with the Red Sox winning 20-0 in the 9th inning, with two outs and two strikes on the last Cubs batter, a previously unseen meteor would strike the earth, instantly and forever wiping out all life on the planet, and forever denying the Red Sox a World Series victory..."
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Ender
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Post by Ender »

Eframepilot wrote:Well, that was certainly unusual. I found the idea of Palpatine and Thrawn knowing about the Vong more acceptable than I thought I would at first; it does make sense that they would have known something given the "great threat" Thrawn was preparing for in Vision of the Future (though evidently Baron Soontir Fel was either out of the loop or plain forgot :roll: ). Still, it's odd that Palpatine never used the threat of an extragalactic invasion to consolidate his power. Maybe he thought it was too shadowy and after a decade or so decided that the Vong probably weren't coming after all.
He did use it though. Read the ROTS ICS. Extragalactic barbarian invaders are one of the justifications used for continual buildup of the Imperial Starfleet.
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Doctor Doom
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Post by Doctor Doom »

That also explains why the Imperial Remnant had such a relatively easy time dealing with the Vong, as compared to the New Republic. They were using a fleet that was more or less designed with the Vong in mind.
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