If FFG does release a Mandalorian book, and it's based in any way on Karen "Travesty" Traviss' work, it may be the first book in this line I won't buy. Given their limited resources, spending their time on anything else would be far more welcome.

Actually I would think if they do draw on anything it will be the Clone Wars cartoon.

That would be fine, as long as the word "beskar'gam" never sees print

May I ask what's wrong with that?

Is it because it's a fantasy language? Do you dislike Fantasy Language in general then or specifically this one?

And no this is not condescendnig this time, I am genuinely interested.

I'm sure, if a Mandalore themed book were to be released (in the vein of Lords of Nal Hutta or Suns of Fortune, that it would be based on the lore being set in The Clone Wars and Rebels series.

As i see it there are, in this time period, three types of humans from Mandalore:

The Satine Regime pacifist

The imperial loyalist - those that go to the academy and become troopers and officers

The 'warrior' past the ones that, have rekindled the old ways after Pre Vizla took control (before his and Satine's death). He made a speech that asked for this. These are the interesting ones - those that reject pacifism AND serving the empire as per the usual homogenization that the empire demands of its troops/officers (Read Lost Stars for examples)

Now the first two can be done with the default human - which admittedly the third can as well, but to represent the Mandalorian way, a human variant would work. All it needs same human xp and stats. Instead of one rank in any two non career skills, make it this: one rank in Ranged light, Heavy, brawl gunnery or melee. Choose one of those, the skill can also be trained to three ranks.

Easy Peasy, Mandalorian squeezy.

The rest of the book, add in some other 'warrior' races such as Gammorean and Noghri or barabel.

Call the book Blood and Honour.

It suits being an Edge book because the mandalore culture is suited to mercenaries, rather than the imperial occupation of Mandalore that an Age of Rebellion book would focus on. That line of game should have a book about crewing a capitol ship like an mc80 or equivalent large size craft.

If FFG does release a Mandalorian book, and it's based in any way on Karen "Travesty" Traviss' work, it may be the first book in this line I won't buy. Given their limited resources, spending their time on anything else would be far more welcome.

Actually I would think if they do draw on anything it will be the Clone Wars cartoon.

The short section on Mandalorians in the EotE core book suggests FFG would indeed follow Lucas and Filoni's version from the canonical Clone Wars series.

That would be fine, as long as the word "beskar'gam" never sees print

May I ask what's wrong with that?

Is it because it's a fantasy language? Do you dislike Fantasy Language in general then or specifically this one?

And no this is not condescendnig this time, I am genuinely interested.

Nothing really, I should shut up and let you guys have your fun Being a Tolkien fan, and having read all the poems too, I have no problem with made up fantasy languages, I just really really really despise Karen Traviss' work and the whole Mandos-are-so-special mythos.

But FFG has a pretty good track record, I'm sure if they did it it would be worth something. So I'll be quiet now.

I think of it less as something to satisfy the fans so much as something that's desperately needed. You've got material dating back to Marvel's original comics, all throughout the Dark Horse era comics, novels galore (especially Karen Travis' works), novels that contradict Travis' interpretation, KotOR/TOR. The Clone Wars and Rebels and on and on. I think there's a need to reconcile or clearly define what's what. As FFG is currently in the 'who knows if it's canon or not?', I'm interested on their take and how they would include it in their material.

It's been my experience that as soon as a discussion board starts to adopt a policy of stifling discussion of any kind, it begins it's slow decline into irrelevance, and the least strictly controlled are often the most lively.

Heh. Only with some topics. In my experience, you can't mention the words "Final Fantasy" without setting off an atomic warhead. Some subjects just turn everybody involved into monsters that can only spit caustic venom.

I agree. Mandalorians have been the subject of so many EU works it seems a shame to let all of that lore lie fallow. Plus, as I mentioned earlier, even if you wouldn't use the book for mandalorian-specific campaigns, it would be very useful to have everything in one place.

Besides, who would have thought that corellia would be so interesting? There is definitely more about mandalorians; such a book would be (to me at least) something I could hand to players who might be interested in a more exotic human, or just want some bit of lore to add to their backstory.

I think Mandalorians deserve their own species entry as much as Corellians, which is to say not at all. The Human species entry is plenty diverse and can cover both of these cultures. That's not to say we won't see a Mandalorian, but I'm totally uninterested in seeing it.

That would be fine, as long as the word "beskar'gam" never sees print

May I ask what's wrong with that?

Is it because it's a fantasy language? Do you dislike Fantasy Language in general then or specifically this one?

And no this is not condescendnig this time, I am genuinely interested.

Nothing really, I should shut up and let you guys have your fun Being a Tolkien fan, and having read all the poems too, I have no problem with made up fantasy languages, I just really really really despise Karen Traviss' work and the whole Mandos-are-so-special mythos.

But FFG has a pretty good track record, I'm sure if they did it it would be worth something. So I'll be quiet now.

Interesting, I never got the "Mandos are so special" vibe from her books. I really liked the idea of a warrior culture, that made powerful enemies join them and took the whole brothers-in-arms concept to the next level.

From a historians point of view that would also explain why the culture did endure, since cultures with extensive value put on family tend do endure even harshest conditions. Just look at Judaism. They pride themselves to wich tribe of Israel they belong to, you know Juda, Levi, Benjamin, Ruben, Asser etc. This family bond knits them together and makes them strong to this day. Modern Israel hasn't lost a single war.

But I digress. I can understand if you don't like the writing of some authors. I have some of my own *cough* R.A. Salvatore *cough* which I really despise.

In her defense though she just build upon what was already there. Mandalorian Iron and it's properties had been established since the Hyperspace War and Exar Kun crisis, the recruiting of other species was touched upon in the KotOR Tie-In comics as well as the proud warrior cliches. When you write a story with a focus on that particular culture it's bound to make them look more awesome than the rest, especially when characters in the story feel compelled to become Mandos. But when you look at the group described in the books at a grand, nay galactic scale, then suddenly they are but tiny spots considered among the grand scheme. And all they did was to try keeping their own people safe from the empire.

Again, if you dislike her writing thats okay, but it's not all her fault. Same thing I had to learn about R.A. Salvatore and the Effing Yuuzhan Vong. Wasn't bred on his manure alone either.

Interesting, I never got the "Mandos are so special" vibe from her books. I really liked the idea of a warrior culture, that made powerful enemies join them and took the whole brothers-in-arms concept to the next level.

Travis is a military-fiction writer. Her novels - and not just her Star Wars novels - emphasize conflict and military thinking as being the noblest pursuits a person can engage in. Protagonists in her SW novels have gone so far as to demonize the Jedi - a group of people who, while being so stuck in their ways that it led to their downfall, at least tried to do the right thing and keep the peace before drawing a lightsaber.

Some assertions from her books include the Jedi being pro-slavery, that the Sith and the Jedi are the same thing, and that the Mandalorians are a Klingon-like honorable race of wise warriors, despite behaving like butchers in the Mandalorian Wars (see the Knights of the Old Republic video games) who only respect the notion of might being right.

I'm completely okay with people having different views on Star Wars , and gamers wanting to play villain campaigns, but there are some central tenants of the fictional universe that need to be held intact. Travis's views are so weirdly "shades of gray" and divisive in what's supposed to be a good vs. evil morality play, that they don't work with the franchise.

I am sorry if I ticked you off, but when you wrote the thing about Revan I just assumed (and you can't write assume without ass and me) that you only know about the Old Republic stuff.

I again agree with Blackbird888 here, though. I'd rather see it truly fleshed out than as a sidenote.

I'm not ticked off, but I did find your response condescending. I think that's been addressed and it's water under the bridge now.

While I'm not personally interested in an entire book devoted to Mandos, I am excited to see some material about them. We can probably just agree to disagree on how much material is warranted.

Interesting, I never got the "Mandos are so special" vibe from her books. I really liked the idea of a warrior culture, that made powerful enemies join them and took the whole brothers-in-arms concept to the next level.

Travis is a military-fiction writer. Her novels - and not just her Star Wars novels - emphasize conflict and military thinking as being the noblest pursuits a person can engage in. Protagonists in her SW novels have gone so far as to demonize the Jedi - a group of people who, while being so stuck in their ways that it led to their downfall, at least tried to do the right thing and keep the peace before drawing a lightsaber.

Some assertions from her books include the Jedi being pro-slavery, that the Sith and the Jedi are the same thing, and that the Mandalorians are a Klingon-like honorable race of wise warriors, despite behaving like butchers in the Mandalorian Wars (see the Knights of the Old Republic video games) who only respect the notion of might being right.

I'm completely okay with people having different views on Star Wars , and gamers wanting to play villain campaigns, but there are some central tenants of the fictional universe that need to be held intact. Travis's views are so weirdly "shades of gray" and divisive in what's supposed to be a good vs. evil morality play, that they don't work with the franchise.

My Gadgeteer in our EotE game is a Mandalorian, and I wrote a pretty extensive backstory for him. I pillaged through all the articles on Wookieepedia and came up with a sort of... amalgam of the various sources - Clone Wars, Rebels, comics, video games, ect. - to set our in-game canon for Mandalorians. I don't particularly like Traviss' ideas that were presented in the books that you mentioned, so we discarded most of them, but kept the honorable warrior-race idea, though they still had the past of bloodthirsty conquerors.

I actually have Kandar admiring the Jedi and the Republic in a lot of ways, and he is in Sabine's field of rejecting pacifistic and the Empire. My original conceit for him was "what if the Rebellion had a Boba Fett?", and I intend for him to seek out the Rebellion eventually and join the fight.

Interesting, I never got the "Mandos are so special" vibe from her books. I really liked the idea of a warrior culture, that made powerful enemies join them and took the whole brothers-in-arms concept to the next level.

Travis is a military-fiction writer. Her novels - and not just her Star Wars novels - emphasize conflict and military thinking as being the noblest pursuits a person can engage in. Protagonists in her SW novels have gone so far as to demonize the Jedi - a group of people who, while being so stuck in their ways that it led to their downfall, at least tried to do the right thing and keep the peace before drawing a lightsaber.

Some assertions from her books include the Jedi being pro-slavery, that the Sith and the Jedi are the same thing, and that the Mandalorians are a Klingon-like honorable race of wise warriors, despite behaving like butchers in the Mandalorian Wars (see the Knights of the Old Republic video games) who only respect the notion of might being right.

I'm completely okay with people having different views on Star Wars , and gamers wanting to play villain campaigns, but there are some central tenants of the fictional universe that need to be held intact. Travis's views are so weirdly "shades of gray" and divisive in what's supposed to be a good vs. evil morality play, that they don't work with the franchise.

You bring up an interesting point that I did not notice in her writing either, perhaps because I know nothing about her besides her Star Wars novels. It is true that she does all that gray area, which I don't really like either in Star Wars, where it's pretty strictly black and white which is refreshing imo.

But what I didn't get about Mandos was that they are all strictly wise warriors with hearts of gold. I got that only from Skirata. All the others were pretty much still bastards and I am okay with that. I know that they slaughtered billions, perhaps trillions during their time. It's part of the lore, but tell me this:

Why can't a batch of rotten tomatoes contain one good? I don't like to always play Species after their tropes, I do it most of the time, but every character is distinct and has something that elevates him among his people. Sabine Wren is a kindhearted Mando but still loves Boom, Dakka and colorful armor. That is unique. For that regard have you ever heard of Blotus the Hutt? A Krayt Dragon ca change it's shorts.

The problems KT has are the fact she didn't actually watch all of the movies, before or after being hired to write (only Ep. II and III), and didn't read any other novels beyond an editor's summary (so when she involved characters that originated in other authors' works, they were in name only at best), and then reacted to criticism like a child. And she killed off some fan favorites. Then TCW rolls around, and she freaks out because the Mandalorians there aren't in line with her vision, so she quits. Good riddance, but all of that material is just floating there. It's an elephant in the room. Either teach it too do something useful, or get it out, because it's kind of stinking up the place.

I'm sure any potential Mando book will heavily dip into TCW, but will probably make all sorts of references and mergers with dozens of different sources. It needs to be distilled.

The problems KT has are the fact she didn't actually watch all of the movies, before or after being hired to write (only Ep. II and III), and didn't read any other novels beyond an editor's summary (so when she involved characters that originated in other authors' works, they were in name only at best), and then reacted to criticism like a child. And she killed off some fan favorites. Then TCW rolls around, and she freaks out because the Mandalorians there aren't in line with her vision, so she quits. Good riddance, but all of that material is just floating there. It's an elephant in the room. Either teach it too do something useful, or get it out, because it's kind of stinking up the place.

I'm sure any potential Mando book will heavily dip into TCW, but will probably make all sorts of references and mergers with dozens of different sources. It needs to be distilled.

Okay wow that totally went past my head. I just enjoyed some novels...

Puts all that in a completely different perspective for me.

Well as far as Fantasy Languages go, Mando'a isn't that bad, and it wasn't created by her either but by that soundguy from Republic Commando, so that's cool I guess.

My Favourite Mando-related material has always been the comics about Jango's life though.

That and she allowed established characters to become mouthpeices for her personal opinions and ignored parts of the setting's lore that disagreed with her views plus some utterly insane scenes in some of her books like the death of the primary female Jedi in the Republic commando series. And this isn't just in Star Wars because similar issues come up in her Halo books. There was a woman involved in something that would be considered a crime against humanity today. I agree what she did was wrong but according to KT she was solely responsible for what happened and the UN organizations which condoned and did much of the work for the project have no blame. Also the woman gets arrested for crimes committed trying to aid some of the victims of her work but KT claims she feels no remorse for what she has done.

Interesting, I never got the "Mandos are so special" vibe from her books. I really liked the idea of a warrior culture, that made powerful enemies join them and took the whole brothers-in-arms concept to the next level.

Travis is a military-fiction writer. Her novels - and not just her Star Wars novels - emphasize conflict and military thinking as being the noblest pursuits a person can engage in. Protagonists in her SW novels have gone so far as to demonize the Jedi - a group of people who, while being so stuck in their ways that it led to their downfall, at least tried to do the right thing and keep the peace before drawing a lightsaber.

Some assertions from her books include the Jedi being pro-slavery, that the Sith and the Jedi are the same thing, and that the Mandalorians are a Klingon-like honorable race of wise warriors, despite behaving like butchers in the Mandalorian Wars (see the Knights of the Old Republic video games) who only respect the notion of might being right.

I'm completely okay with people having different views on Star Wars , and gamers wanting to play villain campaigns, but there are some central tenants of the fictional universe that need to be held intact. Travis's views are so weirdly "shades of gray" and divisive in what's supposed to be a good vs. evil morality play, that they don't work with the franchise.

You bring up an interesting point that I did not notice in her writing either, perhaps because I know nothing about her besides her Star Wars novels. It is true that she does all that gray area, which I don't really like either in Star Wars, where it's pretty strictly black and white which is refreshing imo.

But what I didn't get about Mandos was that they are all strictly wise warriors with hearts of gold. I got that only from Skirata. All the others were pretty much still bastards and I am okay with that. I know that they slaughtered billions, perhaps trillions during their time. It's part of the lore, but tell me this:

Why can't a batch of rotten tomatoes contain one good? I don't like to always play Species after their tropes, I do it most of the time, but every character is distinct and has something that elevates him among his people. Sabine Wren is a kindhearted Mando but still loves Boom, Dakka and colorful armor. That is unique. For that regard have you ever heard of Blotus the Hutt? A Krayt Dragon ca change it's shorts.

Her novels which include Gears of War and Halo do have a certain skewed view. The view is that of someone from a military background, which she draws from her own personnel background. I am not saying that everyone with a Military Background shares her viewpoint, but that is where it has a basis.

As for the assertion of using the the KOTOR Games as reference to Mandalorians being butchers, it really is not the best reference. There is one reference to Mandalorians being butchers in the first game, that is Carth talking about the battle of Serroco. If you go that route that is fine, but you do ignore another character's view point. The view of a Mandalorian, Canderous Ordo who joins the players party. As a counterpoint to Carth, Ordo References that Revan was just as ruthless as the Mandalorians during the war. Not to mention in the second game "The Sith Lords" Ordo and his Mandalorians back the player the Jedi Exile against the Sith.

As for the shades of gray, I think it works well within the franchise as does the black and white side of things. Not all characters are as simple as good or bad. Characters who are not the Jedi or Sith often start in the Shades of Gray till they ultimately fall to one side. Han Solo is the perfect example of this in ANH. Then you have those who stay in the Shades of Gray. Looking at TCW and Rebels, you get other characters like Hondo.

The problems KT has are the fact she didn't actually watch all of the movies, before or after being hired to write (only Ep. II and III), and didn't read any other novels beyond an editor's summary (so when she involved characters that originated in other authors' works, they were in name only at best), and then reacted to criticism like a child. And she killed off some fan favorites. Then TCW rolls around, and she freaks out because the Mandalorians there aren't in line with her vision, so she quits. Good riddance, but all of that material is just floating there. It's an elephant in the room. Either teach it too do something useful, or get it out, because it's kind of stinking up the place.

I'm sure any potential Mando book will heavily dip into TCW, but will probably make all sorts of references and mergers with dozens of different sources. It needs to be distilled.

Okay wow that totally went past my head. I just enjoyed some novels...

Puts all that in a completely different perspective for me.

Well as far as Fantasy Languages go, Mando'a isn't that bad, and it wasn't created by her either but by that soundguy from Republic Commando, so that's cool I guess.

My Favourite Mando-related material has always been the comics about Jango's life though.

When it comes to the Traviss hate it stems from the Legacy of the Force Novels she did. A lot of it is very understandable, but as for her attitude toward the fans. It is not all as many people make it, she did not come out of the gate lashing out. Prior to the backlash from Legacy of the Force she was actually one of the most active Authors towards fans. She was very pleasant in the beginning and had some fun discussions with fans. When it got ugly it was not just her. The fans got ugly as well. In the end she did Apologize for her Behavior. So I would take that into consideration.

As for her Legacy of the Force books, I do not place all the blame on her .. I throw in the Editors on that too and the person who decided to add her to that 3 Writer Team. (It seems like an interesting idea, but should have been scrapped earlier when they got the first drafts)

As much as I really enjoyed her take on the Clones in the Republic Commando Series and her articles in Star Wars Insider. She should have been kept away from some areas.

I guess I'm weird when it comes to how I like my EU.

Personally, while I wasn't a fan of her specific plot lines (speaking of the RC series only), I really loved her style, especially the whole "shades of gray" morality...something that I feel that Star Wars really, desperately needed (if you boil it down to black & white, it's nothing but a Jedi vs Sith story being told over and over again, at which point, we might as well only have one movie and no EU, since you're just retelling the same tired old dead horse of a story, with absolutely no depth, nuance, or really anything to make it stand out from every other boring fairy tale aside from spaceships and lasers).

Naturally, based on my reception of her writing, I absolutely tend to take her side in the falling out with Lucasfilm. She was careful to select what was pretty much a sandbox, lore-wise, within the EU, and really made it her own. Once that started to gain traction with the community, and others took interest, most of what she'd done was just casually tossed aside, including future writing within the setting. I don't blame her a bit for knocking the dust from her shoes and never looking back, and I really hope that nothing else like that happens on Disney's watch.

I guess I'm weird when it comes to how I like my EU.

I guess everyone of us is.

I really hate the Yuuzhan Vong. When it was announced that the old canon was basiclly gone I cried out overjoyed: "Chewbacca's alive! He's alive! Alive! And no more Vong! Weeeheeeee! I could forgive George for Jar Jar right now!"

EDIT: I think what we all can agree on is, that if this book comes FFG is gonna make it good, and condense the gold from the Bantha Dung.

I guess I'm weird when it comes to how I like my EU.

I guess everyone of us is.

I really hate the Yuuzhan Vong. When it was announced that the old canon was basiclly gone I cried out overjoyed: "Chewbacca's alive! He's alive! Alive! And no more Vong! Weeeheeeee! I could forgive George for Jar Jar right now!"

From the first time I heard of the basic premise of the Vong series, my reaction was, "Okay...so we've got an entire galaxy full of all kinds of alien species, and we have so little imagination that we're *still* falling back on "Alien Invaders from Outer Spaaaaace!!!"...that's it, pack it up boys, Star Wars is officially out of ideas." The whole Chewie thing didn't even faze me because I was totally done with the SW material that came out from Vector Prime onward in that direction, timeline-wise.

On the other hand, I find the concept behind the Vong highly interesting and an neat change of pace, and I think the tech is neat, but trying to slog through the first book in the series wasn't worth it. Who's idea was it to start a long-running series with a dozen writers? Without a lot of cooperation and lead writer with a banhammer, you're practically asking for an incoherent mess.

Yeah well I didn't like the whole "immune to the force" thing. That sounded like something a bad GM would think up to pose a challenge for the group. We have already the Ysalamiri with their force-jamming field.

It pretty much read like: "We've written ourselves into a corner, where there's absolutely no obstacle in the galaxy that cannot be overcome by sufficient application of force plot-magic. So let's introduce something from out of the galaxy, more or less impervious to technology, immune to the force, and let's make it creepy, to boot."

Sorry, but if you can't come up with any compelling story arc ideas when presented with an entire galaxy...you can't expect me to take it at all seriously. From what I heard of the books, it seemed more like a sci-fi/horror series that the character IN Star Wars might have read...and considered somewhat cheesy/campy at that.

It pretty much read like: "We've written ourselves into a corner, where there's absolutely no obstacle in the galaxy that cannot be overcome by sufficient application of force plot-magic. So let's introduce something from out of the galaxy, more or less impervious to technology, immune to the force, and let's make it creepy, to boot."

Sorry, but if you can't come up with any compelling story arc ideas when presented with an entire galaxy...you can't expect me to take it at all seriously. From what I heard of the books, it seemed more like a sci-fi/horror series that the character IN Star Wars might have read...and considered somewhat cheesy/campy at that.

You know what it reminded me of? The Zerg from Starcraft.

It pretty much read like: "We've written ourselves into a corner, where there's absolutely no obstacle in the galaxy that cannot be overcome by sufficient application of force plot-magic. So let's introduce something from out of the galaxy, more or less impervious to technology, immune to the force, and let's make it creepy, to boot."

Sorry, but if you can't come up with any compelling story arc ideas when presented with an entire galaxy...you can't expect me to take it at all seriously. From what I heard of the books, it seemed more like a sci-fi/horror series that the character IN Star Wars might have read...and considered somewhat cheesy/campy at that.

You know what it reminded me of? The Zerg from Starcraft.

Actually, the alienesque Zerg would have been a better choice. Creatures immune to the mental aspects of the Force due to their alien nature. Doesn't stop Force users from tossing stuff but that basically amounts to blaster or laser sword at the end of the day anyways. My own Legacy campaign idea was the galaxy being invaded by Sith returning from being gone about 5000 years (had this idea back before the Lost Tribe showed up). Their cannon fodder troops and more specialist troops would be droids modelled on nightmares. The idea stems from an older miniature game called Legions of Steel .

I guess I'm weird when it comes to how I like my EU.

Personally, while I wasn't a fan of her specific plot lines (speaking of the RC series only), I really loved her style, especially the whole "shades of gray" morality...something that I feel that Star Wars really, desperately needed (if you boil it down to black & white, it's nothing but a Jedi vs Sith story being told over and over again, at which point, we might as well only have one movie and no EU, since you're just retelling the same tired old dead horse of a story, with absolutely no depth, nuance, or really anything to make it stand out from every other boring fairy tale aside from spaceships and lasers).

Naturally, based on my reception of her writing, I absolutely tend to take her side in the falling out with Lucasfilm. She was careful to select what was pretty much a sandbox, lore-wise, within the EU, and really made it her own. Once that started to gain traction with the community, and others took interest, most of what she'd done was just casually tossed aside, including future writing within the setting. I don't blame her a bit for knocking the dust from her shoes and never looking back, and I really hope that nothing else like that happens on Disney's watch.

The addition of a Star Wars story with a strong, distinctive, culture, and multitudinous shades of grey, was actually refreshing compared with many of the Sith vs. Jedi retellings.

While I agree that not all of her books were fan favorites, she definitely sparked an interest in mandalorians, and gave us a wealth of lore on them. I'm not sure of any other Star Wars culture that can claim actual speakers of its language like mando'a can.

Mandalorians add another dimension to the 'good vs. evil' in Star Wars, and while not everyone likes them, they are as much a part of the saga as the hutts are, or the rebellion.

Actually, the alienesque Zerg would have been a better choice. Creatures immune to the mental aspects of the Force due to their alien nature. Doesn't stop Force users from tossing stuff but that basically amounts to blaster or laser sword at the end of the day anyways. My own Legacy campaign idea was the galaxy being invaded by Sith returning from being gone about 5000 years (had this idea back before the Lost Tribe showed up). Their cannon fodder troops and more specialist troops would be droids modelled on nightmares. The idea stems from an older miniature game called Legions of Steel .

I agree. Droids would've been a better in universe choice than making up outside invaders. Either as a droid rebellion or as some evil guys creating the droids in a bid for power.