While some may not like his writing or certain characters of his, one thing Timothy Zahn generally did was keep Luke within the general realm of what we saw the Force be used for in the original movies.

I liked that even Thrawn was fallible. He was brilliant, clearly, but wasn't omniscient or perfect.

I read those back in the days the EU was starved of product, and it was pretty much the last SW books I enjoyed.

Mind you, the reason they needed some form of kryponite was because they had inflated the abilities of jedi to the point where they were supermen.

Agreed.

Most authors seemed to confuse the Force with typical fantasy magic and that it could do anything the plot required. While some may not like his writing or certain characters of his, one thing Timothy Zahn generally did was keep Luke within the general realm of what we saw the Force be used for in the original movies.

Well it's not like Lucas ever put down any concrete rules about what the Force could/couldn't do. And he frequently used it for anything the plot required too. I mean, I agree with your statement, but there's hardly a "Force Powers for Dummies" book out there that is canon that they are disregarding or something

If you look at the ewok movies, I would say GL used the force pretty much as generic fantasy magic. Shapeshifting wizards/witches and magical rings included. People often forget that the jedi are just one out of thousand traditions, and if we look at the canon nightsister magic …

People often forget that the jedi are just one out of thousand traditions, and if we look at the canon nightsister magic …

...you'll see it's not the Force. Admitted as much by Mother Talzin in season 6, and Mace's comment "magic is an illusion". What "magic" actually is they never delved into, but its users are not just another Force tradition.

People often forget that the jedi are just one out of thousand traditions, and if we look at the canon nightsister magic …

...you'll see it's not the Force. Admitted as much by Mother Talzin in season 6, and Mace's comment "magic is an illusion". What "magic" actually is they never delved into, but its users are not just another Force tradition.

It is the same Mace who called force ghost impossible and assumed Yoda was going crazy . On top of that was Mother Talzin collecting the living force from force sensitives to gain strength for her battle with Palpatine.

"Magic is an illusion, there is only the force", sounds like something a Jedi would say. And isn't this exactly what Luke told Teneniel Djo?

While some may not like his writing or certain characters of his, one thing Timothy Zahn generally did was keep Luke within the general realm of what we saw the Force be used for in the original movies.

I liked that even Thrawn was fallible. He was brilliant, clearly, but wasn't omniscient or perfect.

I read those back in the days the EU was starved of product, and it was pretty much the last SW books I enjoyed.

I liked this in Thrawn, too, but I liked that he was amazing. He didn't have the Force, personally, and certain stuff hints that the Chiss, as a whole, even living next door to the place filled with Jedi, Sith, their wars, and the myriad Force traditions that often got tossed around by them, really didn't know what the Force was, so Thrawn was a bit in the dark. Even then, he was able to outthink, outplan, and basically show up various people who literally could see the future, at least in glimpses, and he was able to work around it, form contingency plans for it, and even bend it to his will, through another. Thrawn might be the coolest Star Wars villain who isn't also a Force-user, certainly is, in my opinion.

And yeah, with the Sith using "Sorcery", various other factions doing weird crap, and such, it's not so weird that "magic" snuck its way into things, through the Force. Hell, there are whole veins of the Force the Jedi just ignore, filled with alternate styles of things even they know next to nothing about, out of fear it will bring them to ruin. Granted, some of them are ridiculous, and a few are only cool as a one-off; the plot piece of a single, epic bad guy, but some of them make you look right back at X-Men, and say "wait, something in your DNA lets you just 'do that'?" At one time, they were mostly believable, but then there was weather control, a howitzer cannon for a head, time travel, and the list of absurd "I can because I'm a mutant!" powers goes on. Star Wars fell into it, too. Various things, I like to think, they might've seen in various other science fiction serials, and said "well, the technology for that doesn't exist in Star Wars, and if it did, various past events would've gone much differently, but I want to see__________, so I guess I'll say the Force is how, and the relative rarity of the Force, coupled with the plethora of people in that group who refuse to study their abilities much, keeps some powers ridiculously rare. Also, if Warhammer 40,000 is any stick to measure by, the combination of myriad writers, and an overall lax uppermost authority, trying to retain the essence of what, at its heart, the source material means, left us open to lots of weird, sometimes contradictory, crap. George Lucas had a huge universe, but he didn't Tolkien it full of every detail, and didn't maybe want to have to keep doing stuff with it, right at the time, so he let other writers do so, and got paid royalties. Then again, some of his later work made me feel worse than some of the lamest EU stuff, so he's not always the best medium to follow.

"Magic is an illusion, there is only the force", sounds like something a Jedi would say.

Probably because the Sith used the Force AND Sorcery. There is a distinction - The Book of the Sith tells about it, Darth Zannah uses Sorcery (which Bane doesn't seem to have any talent for) ...

So, taking the Jedi's conservative PoV on the Force into account, it's only natural for them to call it an illusion. But it doesn't mean that it's not just another way to use the Force - to the Jedi, ANY other way is wrong, anyhow.

I really disliked the whole idea of the Vong, because they're just another form of kryptonite.

I agree; this was the other thing that was wrong with them.

By this point, the interesting, flawed Jedi of the movies had been transformed into superhuman Asgardian gods, and the writers had essentially painted themselves into a corner because they were overpowered.

So the Vong felt like a bad GM introducing broken foes to try to correct PCs that he'd let get out of control.

But the concept of a new enemy, a galaxy-wide invasion by beings that truly felt alien to what we'd seen... that wasn't necessarily bad in concept, just execution. At that point, the stories needed a shake-up, something more than the tired old tropes of another superweapon, another new incarnation of the Empire, another jedi 'falling to the dark side'.

(Nonetheless I opted to do away with them in my game - I could reworked them into something cool like D&D's githyanki, but they had too much baggage...)

For some reason, if I were to have the Star Wars universe invaded by a hostile, unknowable, alien force, I'd go with something a bit different than the githyanki...

Definitely wasn't expecting the Alhoon image. **** undead mind flayers, sneaking in everywhere, looking for our brains. Sorry, I just felt the little nerd-need to identify that, as I've used them in D&D.

Problem with the Illithids is they would have the Force, and probably just be ANOTHER race that views Humans (everything else, really) as inferior "cattle", and wantonly use the Force to enslave them, which we had. And, like I whined in the Morality thread, they'd either all be obvious Dark Side (no compunctions about "squashing bugs" with their powers, or have to have some special thing that let them not wither under the Dark Side's wasting embrace (though the Illithilich, above, certainly seems to have wasted; he's undead, though.) One of the nice hings about the Vong, initially, was they weren't the Force, at all, and they actually fought it. In game, I've had people argue that every war the Republic ever had was brought about, to some degree, by the Jedi who claimed to protect it. Whether creating the Sith, as we know it, by their split, having Exar Kun (insert your own choice, at later dates) fall to the Dark Side, and assault the Republic, or Revan, or the Emperor rise to power, to conquer everything, it's always the Force that brings them about; even the Rakata, before the Republic, used their Force powers to enslave, and to create weapons of mass terror. I liked the Vong because they weren't just another Sith/Fallen Jedi, though they certainly outlived their welcome, and those books went to really strange places, before they came to a conclusion.

Despite people like me, who felt that, prior to this line of FFG Star Wars, they were trying to downplay the Force, sort of make it take a back seat to the rest of the game, in the stories, it's so important to the very fabric of the universe that it's almost obviously going to be the crux of the dilemma of the week. The top good guy will have it, the top bad guy will, and they'll fight over whose use of it is right. The Vong were a nice "pull the plug", if you will, while they were still fun.

I think it's a bit unfair to blame the Jedi for every war, simply because every writer who put their hat in the Published Fan Fiction market that was the EU, decided to incorporate the Force into their big galactic opera. I mean come on, the Force is the single unique trait about Star Wars, that differentiates it from other scifi IP's out there. To expect various writers to ignore it, is kind of unfair. So yeah, of course it's going to be at the root of all the conflicts, but that's not the Jedi's fault. That's the fault of the writers all retelling the same story without much in the way of deviation from the norm.

Of course the bad guy is a Sith, and of course the Jedi are going to fight him. And of course he's going to have a huge fleet of death, most likely with some kind of Planet Killer device. Why? Because it's Star Wars.

Don't confuse writers with constantly using the same story elements with "those story elements are incompetent war mongers".

I agree that at least the Vong were a change from the norm. I never read their stuff, so I can't really comment on how well they were implemented, but I can at least appreciate the attempt to bring in something new.

Definitely wasn't expecting the Alhoon image. **** undead mind flayers, sneaking in everywhere, looking for our brains. Sorry, I just felt the little nerd-need to identify that, as I've used them in D&D.

Problem with the Illithids is they would have the Force, and probably just be ANOTHER race that views Humans (everything else, really) as inferior "cattle", and wantonly use the Force to enslave them, which we had. And, like I whined in the Morality thread, they'd either all be obvious Dark Side (no compunctions about "squashing bugs" with their powers, or have to have some special thing that let them not wither under the Dark Side's wasting embrace (though the Illithilich, above, certainly seems to have wasted; he's undead, though.) One of the nice hings about the Vong, initially, was they weren't the Force, at all, and they actually fought it. In game, I've had people argue that every war the Republic ever had was brought about, to some degree, by the Jedi who claimed to protect it. Whether creating the Sith, as we know it, by their split, having Exar Kun (insert your own choice, at later dates) fall to the Dark Side, and assault the Republic, or Revan, or the Emperor rise to power, to conquer everything, it's always the Force that brings them about; even the Rakata, before the Republic, used their Force powers to enslave, and to create weapons of mass terror. I liked the Vong because they weren't just another Sith/Fallen Jedi, though they certainly outlived their welcome, and those books went to really strange places, before they came to a conclusion.

Despite people like me, who felt that, prior to this line of FFG Star Wars, they were trying to downplay the Force, sort of make it take a back seat to the rest of the game, in the stories, it's so important to the very fabric of the universe that it's almost obviously going to be the crux of the dilemma of the week. The top good guy will have it, the top bad guy will, and they'll fight over whose use of it is right. The Vong were a nice "pull the plug", if you will, while they were still fun.

Illithids would definitely be force users, yeah. Doubt they'd embrace the mysticism of it, however, and would stick to the "our brains are just better than yours" approach where they don't recognize either the light or dark side and treat it all as just their ability to control reality with their thoughts.

So far as "just another" race, Mindflayer reproduction would probably throw most people for a loop if they weren't familiar. Not to mention the elder brains.

I would definitely give the campaign more of a Spelljammer feel and have them flying around in those nautilus ships.

I think it's a bit unfair to blame the Jedi for every war, simply because every writer who put their hat in the Published Fan Fiction market that was the EU, decided to incorporate the Force into their big galactic opera. I mean come on, the Force is the single unique trait about Star Wars, that differentiates it from other scifi IP's out there. To expect various writers to ignore it, is kind of unfair. So yeah, of course it's going to be at the root of all the conflicts, but that's not the Jedi's fault. That's the fault of the writers all retelling the same story without much in the way of deviation from the norm.

Of course the bad guy is a Sith, and of course the Jedi are going to fight him. And of course he's going to have a huge fleet of death, most likely with some kind of Planet Killer device. Why? Because it's Star Wars.

Don't confuse writers with constantly using the same story elements with "those story elements are incompetent war mongers".

I agree that at least the Vong were a change from the norm. I never read their stuff, so I can't really comment on how well they were implemented, but I can at least appreciate the attempt to bring in something new.

The illithds wouldn't build some planet killer device. That's totally not their modus operandi - they're more of a "resistance is futile - you will be assimilated" race.

I think it's a bit unfair to blame the Jedi for every war, simply because every writer who put their hat in the Published Fan Fiction market that was the EU, decided to incorporate the Force into their big galactic opera. I mean come on, the Force is the single unique trait about Star Wars, that differentiates it from other scifi IP's out there. To expect various writers to ignore it, is kind of unfair. So yeah, of course it's going to be at the root of all the conflicts, but that's not the Jedi's fault. That's the fault of the writers all retelling the same story without much in the way of deviation from the norm.

Of course the bad guy is a Sith, and of course the Jedi are going to fight him. And of course he's going to have a huge fleet of death, most likely with some kind of Planet Killer device. Why? Because it's Star Wars.

Don't confuse writers with constantly using the same story elements with "those story elements are incompetent war mongers".

I agree that at least the Vong were a change from the norm. I never read their stuff, so I can't really comment on how well they were implemented, but I can at least appreciate the attempt to bring in something new.

I certainly overgeneralized with it, and I admitted it, then, but the people saying it were people in the universe, and it seemed plausible to them. Even the Vong, the anti-Force, were partially there to destroy the Jedi, and kill the Force. In some of the material, they actually offer the Republic peace, if you will, if they hand over all the Jedi, and the Republic "strongly considers it", since the Jedi are often such a problem; even if we sort of ignore that many of the biggest threats are at least somewhat of their own devising, when such threats aren't around, they become meddlesome, nosy people to everyone else. Borsk Fey'lya being in charge doesn't help, as he dislikes the Jedi for his own reasons, being the paranoid super-spy, yada yada.

Yeah, if they aren't using the Force as a central plot bit, one can sort of wonder why not. Having the Force seem to take a back seat, in some of the other materials, gave me that feeling, when Edge was new, though I decided that they wanted to stabilize the system everyone was using, prior to introducing all the magic into it, that only some people were using, and wanted to keep it from rendering other choices folly. In the end, I'm glad they've done it. In the books, though, it's another reason I liked Thrawn; he figured out the Force, and how to implement, and combat it, but without having any, himself. He couldn't pull away from it, entirely, because Hybridium cloaks are so terrible, you NEED the Force to actually make them practical, but other than one rogue, luna-clone, he did pretty well against everything, just having genius, know how, and the things that made the Empire strong.

Definitely wasn't expecting the Alhoon image. **** undead mind flayers, sneaking in everywhere, looking for our brains. Sorry, I just felt the little nerd-need to identify that, as I've used them in D&D.

Problem with the Illithids is they would have the Force, and probably just be ANOTHER race that views Humans (everything else, really) as inferior "cattle", and wantonly use the Force to enslave them, which we had. And, like I whined in the Morality thread, they'd either all be obvious Dark Side (no compunctions about "squashing bugs" with their powers, or have to have some special thing that let them not wither under the Dark Side's wasting embrace (though the Illithilich, above, certainly seems to have wasted; he's undead, though.) One of the nice hings about the Vong, initially, was they weren't the Force, at all, and they actually fought it. In game, I've had people argue that every war the Republic ever had was brought about, to some degree, by the Jedi who claimed to protect it. Whether creating the Sith, as we know it, by their split, having Exar Kun (insert your own choice, at later dates) fall to the Dark Side, and assault the Republic, or Revan, or the Emperor rise to power, to conquer everything, it's always the Force that brings them about; even the Rakata, before the Republic, used their Force powers to enslave, and to create weapons of mass terror. I liked the Vong because they weren't just another Sith/Fallen Jedi, though they certainly outlived their welcome, and those books went to really strange places, before they came to a conclusion.

Despite people like me, who felt that, prior to this line of FFG Star Wars, they were trying to downplay the Force, sort of make it take a back seat to the rest of the game, in the stories, it's so important to the very fabric of the universe that it's almost obviously going to be the crux of the dilemma of the week. The top good guy will have it, the top bad guy will, and they'll fight over whose use of it is right. The Vong were a nice "pull the plug", if you will, while they were still fun.

Illithids would definitely be force users, yeah. Doubt they'd embrace the mysticism of it, however, and would stick to the "our brains are just better than yours" approach where they don't recognize either the light or dark side and treat it all as just their ability to control reality with their thoughts.

So far as "just another" race, Mindflayer reproduction would probably throw most people for a loop if they weren't familiar. Not to mention the elder brains.

I would definitely give the campaign more of a Spelljammer feel and have them flying around in those nautilus ships.

I think it's a bit unfair to blame the Jedi for every war, simply because every writer who put their hat in the Published Fan Fiction market that was the EU, decided to incorporate the Force into their big galactic opera. I mean come on, the Force is the single unique trait about Star Wars, that differentiates it from other scifi IP's out there. To expect various writers to ignore it, is kind of unfair. So yeah, of course it's going to be at the root of all the conflicts, but that's not the Jedi's fault. That's the fault of the writers all retelling the same story without much in the way of deviation from the norm.

Of course the bad guy is a Sith, and of course the Jedi are going to fight him. And of course he's going to have a huge fleet of death, most likely with some kind of Planet Killer device. Why? Because it's Star Wars.

Don't confuse writers with constantly using the same story elements with "those story elements are incompetent war mongers".

I agree that at least the Vong were a change from the norm. I never read their stuff, so I can't really comment on how well they were implemented, but I can at least appreciate the attempt to bring in something new.

The illithds wouldn't build some planet killer device. That's totally not their modus operandi - they're more of a "resistance is futile - you will be assimilated" race.

Yay, more living ships! though they might just be that shape; I haven't seen Spelljammer in ages, so I can't remember if they are built that way, or built out of actual nautoli, possibly even a still living one, since they have mind control. But yeah, the Illithids certainly won't be destroying too many worlds, when they need the populaces for food, work, and entertainment. They might also be just arrogant enough to actually never think they'd need to, either. They might whip out something like the Orbital Night Cloak, or the World Devastators, which certainly could destroy a world, over a long span of time, but which primarily function on terror, and demoralization. The Mind Flayers also don't really like bright light, so the Night Cloak could serve two purposes (if the Defel ever wanted to seize a world...) They like the torment slavery causes, so I doubt they'd jump for the "mobile factory" aspect of the WD's, but oh well, and now I've babbled more about Mind Flayers than I have in D&D, for several years.