This post is so great. Love the fanart and fluff. While I'm more a Rebel fan, I know that the X-Jocks and A-Wing Test Pilots already have their fluff (called the X-Wing series, natch), so I love seeing parallel development for the Eyeball drivers. Do you have any other fanart?

I always called Echo a she. Don't know how I came up with the Idea it just seemed to fit. Dat barrel roll and all. I will use the FAQ to back that opinion until it's clarified whether or not the guest editors were told anything about their genders or as previously mentioned just defaulted to 'he' in ye olde classic culturally in-built habit. As for Whisper I liked the Idea in my head-cannon that their Identity was top-secret and nobody had ever seen anything other than a fleeting glimpse of what surely must be a cloaked Imperial spy, likely male, super clone female, or possibly droid, perhaps Sith.

This post is so great. Love the fanart and fluff. While I'm more a Rebel fan, I know that the X-Jocks and A-Wing Test Pilots already have their fluff (called the X-Wing series, natch), so I love seeing parallel development for the Eyeball drivers. Do you have any other fanart?

I do. It's kind of a hobby of mine - I can't draw well, but I really enjoy having my creations brought to life by others. Does that make me the artistic equivalent of a sleazy john? Maybe. But hey, it's cheaper and less detrimental to my health than blow...

..I had a whole series of illustrations made up from memorable moments from one of the Old Republic Era PnP campaigns I ran for four of my friends:

They had a really cool idea actually - they had rolled sort of a bizarro world OT main cast, where the "Han" character was still cynical and kick-ass, but had Luke's commitment to a higher cause, and the "Luke" character was still naive and optimistic, but had Han's smuggler background and devil-may-care attitude. "Leia" was originally a player controlled NPC, and was a bit of a trope to be honest but when one of the guy's girlfriends wanted in she really made the character her own and de-disney-princess-ified her, and actually dumped her IRL boyfriend's smuggler-Luke for a crafty Ithorian Scoundrel with a heart of gold...

...which of course had to be immortalized in picture form.

Edit: Hmm...this might be too racy for the forum, not sure. If this image offends you let me know and I'll replace it with a link.

When it came around again to my turn to play instead of GM I had a pretty cool duo of scoundrels, a no-nonsense mature, adult, strong-independent-woman Togruta (I was going through a major Ashoka-hate phase) bounty Hunter and her Twilek Mechanic/co-pilot (who was pretty much just Mission Vao fan-fiction) who Disney clearly stole for their new Rebel's show. Sadly I never got past the concept stage into full colour art:

As for Whisper I liked the Idea in my head-cannon that their Identity was top-secret and nobody had ever seen anything other than a fleeting glimpse of what surely must be a cloaked Imperial spy, likely male, super clone female, or possibly droid, perhaps Sith.

And that's a completely valid, interesting and lore-consistent head-canon to hold to, despite it's incompatibility to my own. I'd love to see a take on Sigma Squadron where they are all Sith, mostly because according to LORE the original Phantom prototype (the one in my picture) had a "double blind" effect when clocked, I.E. your ship was invisible, but you couldn't see anything either - it was more of an emergency escape device, used in short bursts to shake an enemy who was on your tail. And that being the case, it would be PERFECT for a SIth who can use the force to guide them even when they are blind.

Nice idea, and very relevant to your name, ForceSensitive!

Good ideas and some fun art... dig the twilek mechanic..

Good ideas and some fun art... dig the twilek mechanic..

She's a bit too "pin-up/sexualized" for my tastes now. It wasn't entirely intentional on my part, it just sort of happened. I actually like Hera Syndulla's look a lot more. I think she's a great character, and is one of the reasons I keep giving Rebels a chance, although episode 3's slapstick overload pushed me to the limit of my patience.

Slapstick is just too overdone. Tell a good story dang it. One with some moral ambiguity and real fear dang it. Grettings

I agree episode 3 left me a bit unsatisfied, too much 'odd couple' for my taste.

Nice arts... like it... keep posting

Thanks for sharing more! I admit I love the Tano, but I understand why others didn't. Togruta are such a cool species - I wish more of them got storylines or roles - one of my favorite plots in TOR was the Togruta Sith Inquisitor companion Ashara Zavros.

Its the wesley crusher effect, kids know its stupid when the child is always right and solves all problems and so do adults.

FFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUU WEEEEEESLEY!!!!!!!

Except that Tano is not always right - far from it. I think a lot of it was the attitude she had, which had no real match in the previous Star Wars films - but they toned it down a bit after the first season.

I didn't even get to the end of the first season, such a let down after the 2D clone wars they did i'm told it got better but the first season killed my interest.

Bakura made something great and inclusive and some people always find a way to make absolutely any article about Echo about her gender. This is about a really creative post that enriches the game. The way it always ends up about Echos gender is absolutely misogyny. Now I'm sure those men will try to make this my fault and try to burn me at the stake. It's all here, it's all online for people to see.

Bakura did good.

I'd jump in to save you but my white armours in for repair after slaying that Dragon the other week so your on your own.

You know I actually got quite an indignant private message about how I was wrong and the guest writers were right echoes a man, sad that in the 21st century some people are so dead set against female characters in their games.

Now someone will cause me of being a sjw because I'm so obviously a brainwashed feminist

Stare into my feminist crystal. Lol.

I'd jump in to save you but my white armours in for repair after slaying that Dragon the other week so your on your own.

You know I actually got quite an indignant private message about how I was wrong and the guest writers were right echoes a man, sad that in the 21st century some people are so dead set against female characters in their games.

Now someone will cause me of being a sjw because I'm so obviously a brainwashed feminist

Pah, who hasn't sent you an indignant private message?

The thing is, I don't care what gender a character is, but I do feel the need to know. Simply out of a love of lore and wanting to know as much as possible about everyone.

And I'm not really keen on seeing the misogyny aspect of the Empire's lore disappear, because it adds a great dynamic to the universe. If everything is all egalitarian puppies and rainbows there is nothing for the character to overcome.

I liken the OT era Empire to the Soviet Union. Technically there is gender equality, and in some ways a particularly driven woman can achieve anything (including even taking the throne), but there is also a passive chauvinism that's at work. Some are unaffected by it (Mara Jade is a good example), some use it to their advantage (Ysanne Isard), some actively fight against it (Maj. Gen. Corvae).

The ratio of men to women in the Empire is so slanted its reputation for sexism is still well in tact.

There are some of us who like a bit more diverse group of pilots. Aside from the info Vanor gave us, I'm still a fan of Echo being a female. I feel the FAQ is more an official document than some guest writers opinion, and possible normal deferment of the masculine noun.

Everyone seems to try to make a big deal out of it, and it doesn't need to be.. call your pilots what you want, and I'll call mine what I want... as long as they are in my control they will be what I call them. Simple enough...

There are some of us who like a bit more diverse group of pilots. Aside from the info Vanor gave us, I'm still a fan of Echo being a female. I feel the FAQ is more an official document than some guest writers opinion, and possible normal deferment of the masculine noun.

Everyone seems to try to make a big deal out of it, and it doesn't need to be.. call your pilots what you want, and I'll call mine what I want... as long as they are in my control they will be what I call them. Simple enough...

Why does everyone say that FAQ is better opinion than guest writer, when in an FFG article THEY wrote, they called "it" a man. I'm not gonna argue, because I don't really care whether Echo is a man or a woman, or androgynous, but FFG has called "it" both a man, and a woman. IDC though so don't start yelling at me.

I'm not gonna yell at ya Ace, I dont recall the article FFG did that calls Echo a male.. if it's there, I guess we'll all just have to decide on our own...

The point is its not relevant to the cool writee up Bakura did. Echo being a girl didn't need to be a point of contention. The reasonable response would be to applaud the work.

It was some good writing, I must admit.. and good research as well.

I'm not gonna yell at ya Ace, I dont recall the article FFG did that calls Echo a male.. if it's there, I guess we'll all just have to decide on our own...

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=4795

Here, we illustrate a few of the many different locations in which “Echo” can end his movement after decloaking and performing a right turn maneuver with a speed of “1.” (Click on the image to view a larger version.)

"it" is mentioned as a he in a few other places in the official Phantom article which is what Vanor has been saying all along. But again I guess I don't really care what Echo is. I'm just gonna say it is some new HK series droid.

The point is its not relevant to the cool writee up Bakura did. Echo being a girl didn't need to be a point of contention. The reasonable response would be to applaud the work.

I didn't think it was a bone of contention, he said, post why you believe differently below or something to that effect. It was more of a debate than an argument.

As for the work, it is pretty good.

I did some research and decided to head-canon that "Whisper" took her call sign from the Whisper Birds that populate the forests of her home planet of Null, and that her fierce opposition to rebellion came from her suffering through the Separatist take-over of her home world as a young child. I imagined her to be tall, lithe and elf-like, fitting in with her weak gravity arboreal home planet.

Huh interesting, I think of Whisper as an emperor's hand. She is a master of using the Force to deceive, and even fool the eyes. Few people see her. One might believe she is a ghost but for the lasers that rip through Rebel fighters. One might not even see her walking down an empty hallway. The ways one would know her passage is by hearing the footsteps, smelling another being walk by, feeling a stray strand of hair brush across you, a whisper of breathing. She is enslaved by the emperor. Inside her heart, she is warrior, but a just warrior, more suited in a Rebel, or Mandalorian environment. No one knows her name, not even herself, save emperor.