So I feel like Disney is just giving authors free reign to just write whatever the hell they want with minimal policing or coordination.

Thrawn is canon now, and apparently he was a Grand Admiral before A New Hope. This is awesome, but at the same time It's terrible because that means he is either likely to be short-lived, or will fail miserably and be unworthy of even being mentioned. I say this because other books are mentioning former military leaders fairly often, and when someone huge gets their first appearance in the PAST, well you can't retroactively add them to books that already came out but are set in the future.

Additionally I'm seeing multiple explanations for the same things, and several inconsistencies so far in the few new books I've read. In this case I'm going to talk about Bloodline and the Aftermath books (including Aftermath: Life Debt).

Summary - it's like the authors aren't even talking to each other on who's gonna cover what. I wonder if they are even aware that other people are ALSO writing books?

It also makes me worry about what's gonna be in Zahn's new "Thrawn" book. Are they gonna say that there were also 3 previous Death Stars and Luke blew up 2 of them and Biggs Obi-Wan blew up the third, and had the plans all along?

Not all children are biological.

The double-dipping on general stuff is a little annoying, but Life Debt is so close to rotj that I don't think she separates this time from her Jabba-strangling days.

Well I'm pleased to hear that I'm not the only one disappointed with the new canon materials. That all just sounds so sloppy (as sloppy as Wendig's writing style).

Umm, you know that Life Debt is about 2 years after Endor, while Bloodline is 6 years before TFA, right?

Umm, you know that Life Debt is about 2 years after Endor, while Bloodline is 6 years before TFA, right?

ummmmmmmm, yes???? curious what would even cause you to ask this?

Umm, you know that Life Debt is about 2 years after Endor, while Bloodline is 6 years before TFA, right?

ummmmmmmm, yes???? curious what would even cause you to ask this?

Umm, you know that Life Debt is about 2 years after Endor, while Bloodline is 6 years before TFA, right?

ummmmmmmm, yes???? curious what would even cause you to ask this?

Because bloodline points out that she USED to be a general-type. So there's no inconsistency there.

Hmmm, strange. I don't seem to remember it saying that, but I suppose I could have missed it. Either way it felt like both books were trying to tell the same story.

Bloodline, in and of itself, is inconsistent with the movies.

In TFA both Han and Leia indicate returning to the only thing they knew how after Ben fell to the dark side. Yet Bloodline not only tells us Han was a very successful racer and racing coach, Leia started the Resistance well before Snoke seduced Ben.

While I had good hopes for the quality control in stories, after a few books I've had to let that hope go.

Bloodline, in and of itself, is inconsistent with the movies.

In TFA both Han and Leia indicate returning to the only thing they knew how after Ben fell to the dark side. Yet Bloodline not only tells us Han was a very successful racer and racing coach, Leia started the Resistance well before Snoke seduced Ben.

While I had good hopes for the quality control in stories, after a few books I've had to let that hope go.

I think the big thing is that they were truly separated. Bloodline, while they aren't physically together, they very much are in the marriage.

I just really hate stories being developed out of order. you have to just throw consistency out the window.

I mean hell, just look at Rogue One. Were gonna see all new ships that somehow disappear.

Look at the Prequels - Obi wan first met Anakin and immediately he was amazed at how the force flowed through him..... yeah nope not even slightly. Oh and he was already a great pilot? No he'd never flown a ship before ever.

So then we have to stretch the story and play apologists for it all... "Well you see, technically, driving a pod-racer makes you a pilot", and "When obi wan counted the midiclorians remotely, that was him "meeting" Anakin and then he decided at that moment he was going to take it upon himself to train Anakin and it was just a coincidence that Qui Gon insisted that Obi Wan train him....."

Same goes for these new entries into canon. Oh yeah the Imperials have these new cool TIEs that are sleek and awesome... but ummm, they had to send them to the edges of the galaxy immediately after the Death Star plans were stolen because they ummm, didn't want them to be filmed for any of the movies.

and "Leia often like to switch between being a rogue general and a diplomatic politician. She had gone rogue seventeen times and received a full pardon each time. People said they were fine with it because she has such a cool dog".

It just makes me think they are going to ruin Thrawn. He needs to be a truly EPIC character, but if he is so epic, then why is he never ever ever mentioned in any of the films or in any of the books? How are they going to "erase" him at the end of Rebels season 3? When people like Tagge, Yularen, and Motti are famous enough to get mentioned throuought Imperial history, yet Thrawn, who (supposed to be) arguably the third most badass person ever to wear an imperial uniform is never mentioned.... how are they gonna explain that?

That is the kind of OCD'ness that can really ruin stories, though. Who cares if X is never mentioned again, or was never mentioned before they were created.

It leads to the most insane Rey/Snoke theories.

He was a secret, unknown Grand Admiral in the introducing books as well, where the Rebellion had thought they knew them all. The beginning of the Heir series was rife with rumours of a GA on the loose and that alone was terror inspiring. GA's were all military geniuses.

GA's were all military geniuses.

The EU eventually downplayed this - suggesting that some were relatively undistinguished (Declann, Grant, Makati, Syn) or more known for research than command (Zaarin, Batch) or for fanaticism (Il-Raz, Pitta).

Thrawn is gonna end up being Snoke..... OMG could you imagine? That would be cool.

I think we should call this problem the "Mangler" Canon.

Thrawn is gonna end up being Snoke..... OMG could you imagine? That would be cool.

I could go for that.

Any inconsistencies between Legends and Canon doesn't really matter.

I haven't started Life Debt yet, so I'll see how I feel after I read it, but I don't have high hopes.

Though the whole point of the Story Group is to eliminate any inconsistencies between all canon stories and I haven't really encountered anything major as far as that goes.

From your nit picks about Leia's children plural, it seems more likely that that's something that will make sense after the next book, or after we have more information, rather than just accusing it of being weak storytelling. (Even though Aftermath 1 was very weak).

All in all the Story Group seems to be doing a decent job so far of keeping everything in line for such a massively expanding universe that Star Wars is.

So I feel like Disney is just giving authors free reign to just write whatever the hell they want with minimal policing or coordination.

Thrawn is canon now, and apparently he was a Grand Admiral before A New Hope. This is awesome, but at the same time It's terrible because that means he is either likely to be short-lived, or will fail miserably and be unworthy of even being mentioned. I say this because other books are mentioning former military leaders fairly often, and when someone huge gets their first appearance in the PAST, well you can't retroactively add them to books that already came out but are set in the future.

Additionally I'm seeing multiple explanations for the same things, and several inconsistencies so far in the few new books I've read. In this case I'm going to talk about Bloodline and the Aftermath books (including Aftermath: Life Debt).

Finished Life Debt today. Honestly it was much better than Aftermath, but what bothers me about it heavily was the fact that it's attempting to explain the origins of the Resistance. Leia goes rogue and takes a bunch of strike fighters and the Home One on an assault against the Empire at one point and she is now "General Leia", and that's what they call her for the rest of the book. She does this after Mon Mothma says "Oh you can't do that it's political... but maybe we can back you under the table in secret".... But there is no need for any of that because the entire origins of the Resistance are already detailed in Bloodline.

So now we have an official Canon, where Leia goes rogue, becomes "general leia" and leads an underground resistance.... but THEN, ends up forgetting that entire mess, and 8 years later in Bloodline she's back to Princess Leia, and has to gradually invent the idea of having a resistance over the course of an entire book... forgetting the fact that she already did the exact same thing in the course of only half a chapter of Life Debt.

Second big problem:

Chuck Wendig is trying to tease us with Leia's force visions. She is having visions and determines that her baby is a boy (She's pregnant during this book). She has multiple visions of her child and has visions of her "Children", and she gasps because she knows she'll have multiple children.... what?

The problem is, that in Bloodline she only has ONE child. She couldn't possibly have Rey at this point because Rey would be like 11 yrs old by the time of TFA -

So it's like Wendig wants to tease us with the possibility that Rey is Leia's daughter, but we already have ruled that out because other books have come out that contradict that as even a possibility. And if Leia somehow DOES turn out to have another child, well then that completely invalidates the entire book of Bloodline, because her relationship to her ONE child was a pretty important theme in that book.

Summary - it's like the authors aren't even talking to each other on who's gonna cover what. I wonder if they are even aware that other people are ALSO writing books?

It also makes me worry about what's gonna be in Zahn's new "Thrawn" book. Are they gonna say that there were also 3 previous Death Stars and Luke blew up 2 of them and Biggs Obi-Wan blew up the third, and had the plans all along?

I hear you. Windig is a major problem for the franchies, there very few things that are good, the rest feel like they are made by monkeys and Warhammer 40k fans that have infiltrated the series and are adding as much low tier things at they can so they can win any debate they have against SW.

Spoiler

Wendig is shown comparing the Empire to people who are "anti-gay", he doesn't like those type of people, so I have a bad feeling thats why he is writing them as super *** stupid and weak.

GA's were all military geniuses.

The EU eventually downplayed this - suggesting that some were relatively undistinguished (Declann, Grant, Makati, Syn) or more known for research than command (Zaarin, Batch) or for fanaticism (Il-Raz, Pitta).

Zaarin was also known for being an outstanding starfighter strategist.

That is the kind of OCD'ness that can really ruin stories, though. Who cares if X is never mentioned again, or was never mentioned before they were created.

It leads to the most insane Rey/Snoke theories.

I care.

I could handle more inconsistencies if the writing was better. For at least the first several series in the old EU, LucasArts tapped not just good Sci-Fi story-tellers, but also good writers. There's such a difference.

There only 13 mother *** Super Star Destroyers! This is unexceptionable! Remember Han Solo in ROTJ comments on Vaders command ship too Luke when they are in the shuttle, "Don't worry theirs lots of Command ships..." 13 isn't a lot.

It's more than the number of ships unambiguously identified as Executor-class in the old EU. 20-odd was the estimated total number in The Essential Guide to Warfare - to allow for new stories to add some.

I just really hate stories being developed out of order. you have to just throw consistency out the window.

I mean hell, just look at Rogue One. Were gonna see all new ships that somehow disappear.

Look at the Prequels - Obi wan first met Anakin and immediately he was amazed at how the force flowed through him..... yeah nope not even slightly. Oh and he was already a great pilot? No he'd never flown a ship before ever.

So then we have to stretch the story and play apologists for it all... "Well you see, technically, driving a pod-racer makes you a pilot", and "When obi wan counted the midiclorians remotely, that was him "meeting" Anakin and then he decided at that moment he was going to take it upon himself to train Anakin and it was just a coincidence that Qui Gon insisted that Obi Wan train him....."

Same goes for these new entries into canon. Oh yeah the Imperials have these new cool TIEs that are sleek and awesome... but ummm, they had to send them to the edges of the galaxy immediately after the Death Star plans were stolen because they ummm, didn't want them to be filmed for any of the movies.

and "Leia often like to switch between being a rogue general and a diplomatic politician. She had gone rogue seventeen times and received a full pardon each time. People said they were fine with it because she has such a cool dog".

It just makes me think they are going to ruin Thrawn. He needs to be a truly EPIC character, but if he is so epic, then why is he never ever ever mentioned in any of the films or in any of the books? How are they going to "erase" him at the end of Rebels season 3? When people like Tagge, Yularen, and Motti are famous enough to get mentioned throuought Imperial history, yet Thrawn, who (supposed to be) arguably the third most badass person ever to wear an imperial uniform is never mentioned.... how are they gonna explain that?

Disclaimer: I have neither watched Rebels nor read any of the new books as of yet, so this is speculation based purely on the movies and Legends books (which aren't canon, but obviously inspire some of the authors).

Anyway, whether Thrawn lives or dies in this continuity, he's a brilliant strategist and people should remember him as such, right? Unless he is discredited somehow, and Imperial propaganda all but erases him from history (ascribing his successes to other officers, Photoshops Holoshops him out of old holograms, etc.) In disgrace, Thrawn is sent off into Exile in the far, Unknown Regions to serve in some thankless capacity until recalled. This could even leave open the possibility that he could return in one of the next movies to join the fight against the Resistance and/or the Republic (not sure, yet, how important the Republic will be to the overall storyline).

Bonus points of Snoke is involved and somehow orchestrated both Thrawn's discrediting and his exile, anticipating the need to recall him in some sort of ultra-long-term contingency plan (Force Prophecy? That always works out so well!)

Anyways, I got to the part of Leia's vision in Life Debt. I think it is clear she is having a vision of her mother. Because she is clearly never going to be dying during childbirth. And the surprise of children instead of child does come with how they set it up in ROTS.

There only 13 mother *** Super Star Destroyers! This is unexceptionable! Remember Han Solo in ROTJ comments on Vaders command ship too Luke when they are in the shuttle, "Don't worry theirs lots of Command ships..." 13 isn't a lot.

It's more than the number of ships unambiguously identified as Executor-class in the old EU. 20-odd was the estimated total number in The Essential Guide to Warfare - to allow for new stories to add some.

Yes but its annoying that none of the other types of SSS are mentioned. People not following legends will discount them, and in turn only count their being 13 Super SSD.