Just finished Thrawn Alliances - spoiler warning.

An enigmatic species known as the Grysk have observed the galaxy and its denizens since before the Clone Wars in preperation for a massive invasion.

Think Ssi Ssi Ruk 2.0 but with more emphasis on espionage and a shadow war.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Grysk

They have a navy with many ships of varied sizes including a class on par with a Star Destroyer.

They're perfect for a third faction in Armada...eventually.

~~~~~~~~

There are a few problems.

1) We don't know what their ships look like.

2) They've only just been introduced. Their story has yet to play out.

3) As of right now they're an exclusively book based antagonist (unless they feature in the Disney park which the book covers a bit.)

~~~~~~~

I for one have always loved the idea of the malevolent oberserver race.

Alien ships would be a pretty cool counterpoint to the rebel and Imperial designs and give the designers some freedom.

Thoughts?

No.

No. Please...

As you say, there isn't enough information yet.

In 10 years, after the story line has had a chance to develop; if its good, and their ships are cool, and they gain in popularity, sure. But for now, there isn’t anything to add.

I'd rather have first order vs resistance (or even... clone wars) sooner than these Yuuzan-vong 2.0.

I get what they're doing- the idea of extragalactic invaders is enticing. I also happen to like the idea of the Silentium, which has a connection to the Yuuzan-Vong of Legends. But the scars are too deep I think, I'd rather them not go anywhere near the Yuuzan-Vong's old grounds and instead show us something new. The First Order as being a neo-empire does feel new, since at this time in Legends the Imperial remnant was bitterly stuck in RotJ-era stuff with warlords endlessly bickering themselves into destruction.

if these Grysks turn out to be inhabitants of the unknown regions, and not extra-galactic invaders, then at least that's something new. Apart from the Chiss, Killiks, Rakata, and I think the Ssi-ruuk there weren't a lot of civilizations in this area of space.

Why not, Canon to me is too far gone because of the Last Jedi anyways.

Honestly this new species sounds interesting.

No.

No.

I think we can safely assume any large-scale expansions to the game will always be kept to content recognisable to people only vaguely familiar with Star Wars, just to ensure sales/interest.

I'm down. But, you know, not until they actually have ships to add to the game.

Make a movie or a video game about them and I'm super in.

@Norsehound

So I think even mentioning the Yuzzahn Vong poisoned the water a bit.

The Grysk are NOTHING like the Vong other then that they're a mysterious species potentially capable of being a threat to the Empire.

They use regular old mechanical tech, no bio stuff. Their strategy is infiltration and stirring division in their enemies.

So for instance the Chiss Ascendency is in civil war by the end of this book and the Grysk are fanning the fire. They're likely to be involved with helping the Rebellion as well.

If anything they're actually more like the Ssi-Ssi Ruk.

2 hours ago, Forresto said:

@Norsehound

So I think even mentioning the Yuzzahn Vong poisoned the water a bit.

The Grysk are NOTHING like the Vong other then that they're a mysterious species potentially capable of being a threat to the Empire.

They use regular old mechanical tech, no bio stuff. Their strategy is infiltration and stirring division in their enemies.

Eh, sounds Vong-ish enough to me: a mysterious and unknown enemy that has been observing from outside the Galaxy and invades, inevitably forcing an "enemy of my enemy" alliance between the "Good Guys" and the "Bad Guys." The fact that they are mechanical instead of bio-based is better, and their lack of Force Snuffing is better too, but still too similar.

Like, why couldn't this be something the Hutt Cartel or the Trade Federation or the Black Sun or [develop new but plausible organization within the known Star Wars databanks] does? The "ex nihilo" Big Baddy from outside is a pretty lazy trope, in my opinion.

A big problem with Star Wars, especially modern Star Wars , is that they make the universe feel soooo small and empty. Like, in Solo , it's a huge deal that they know a guy who has a ship (because apparently this crime organization doesn't have their own ship...Beckett didn't have his own ship... like how rare are ships now?). In the TLJ, they say that the entire Resistance is 400 people spread amongst three ships... really... a Galaxy-Wide Resistance? The First Order is able to take control of the Galaxy in a few days because the entire Republic Navy was at their core system? Like, wtf? In TLJ, we don't even see any capital ships beyond one First Order Resurgent class... there is no sense of scale or scope for these powers that are vying with one another. On one of Jakku's biggest space ports there are precisely two space ships, and one hasn't flown in years.... ? On Earth, we collectively have thousands of operable naval vessels in the water at this very moment, each with an average crew count tens-of-times larger than the entire Resistance...? There are millions of operable automobiles on the planet, one measly planet (a better analog for ships of the Star Wars universe, perhaps). Yet this multi star system space faring Galaxy that is thousands of years along their cultural and technological development is like starved for actual ships.

Like, if these navies are so puny and so small and so isolated to singular systems (e.g. the Republic Navy)... it just makes the lived-in world of Star Wars feel insanely empty. Like, no f---ing wonder Finn notes that the First Order all know of the Falcon and hate that ship, since it's apparently like one of a handful of personal freighters in the entire galaxy... (yea, that 'cheap laugh' line just further makes the world feel so small and empty, like they all know about this one pickup truck that they've never personally encountered).


So feeling like the only way to have a threat emerge to the Empire/Rebellion is to bring in some ex nihilo threat just adds to the tiny small empty world feeling that has been really doing a disservice to Star Wars. Surely each remotely autonomous organization has a fleet of ships, for both shipping and defense purposes, one would have thought. Planetary defense forces? The Mandalorian Navy, the Correllian Navy, the Hutt Navy, the Trade Federation Navy, the navies of organizations like the Black Sun ... these were all independent forces that felt significant and could, if organized and patiently managed, could each pose a meaningful threat to the operations of the galaxy. And back in the glorious 80s-90s EU explosion the sense that was being painted was that ships were ubiquoutous in the Star Wars world, lots of people had their own ships and it helped make the world feel more plausibly flushed out.

Like, we know that the Mon Cals were able to build a massive navy that took down the Empire, even while being occupied by the Empire. Were they really the only frickin planet in the entire galaxy that thought "Hmm... in a space-faring galaxy you know what would be useful... star ships!" Surely so many other planets, governments, or organizations could have built comparable space forces.... I mean there's got to be a reason the Empire needs thousands of ISDs to maintain the peace, and why occupations of some worlds took so long and was so hard and why so many aren't yet occupied. Defense forces would have made sense.

Given how small TFA and TLJ make the galaxy feel, you'd think the vast majority of planets could be subjugated with a Gozanit and four TIEs...

SUMMARY : Disney/LFL continuing to not develop existing planets and powers in the universe in order to bring in the "outside enemy" continues to further make Star Wars feel small, empty, and boring (in my opinion).

3 hours ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Eh, sounds Vong-ish enough to me: a mysterious and unknown enemy that has been observing from outside the Galaxy and invades, inevitably forcing an "enemy of my enemy" alliance between the "Good Guys" and the "Bad Guys." The fact that they are mechanical instead of bio-based is better, and their lack of Force Snuffing is better too, but still too similar.

Like, why couldn't this be something the Hutt Cartel or the Trade Federation or the Black Sun or [develop new but plausible organization within the known Star Wars databanks] does? The "ex nihilo" Big Baddy from outside is a pretty lazy trope, in my opinion.

A big problem with Star Wars, especially modern Star Wars , is that they make the universe feel soooo small and empty. Like, in Solo , it's a huge deal that they know a guy who has a ship (because apparently this crime organization doesn't have their own ship...Beckett didn't have his own ship... like how rare are ships now?). In the TLJ, they say that the entire Resistance is 400 people spread amongst three ships... really... a Galaxy-Wide Resistance? The First Order is able to take control of the Galaxy in a few days because the entire Republic Navy was at their core system? Like, wtf? In TLJ, we don't even see any capital ships beyond one First Order Resurgent class... there is no sense of scale or scope for these powers that are vying with one another. On one of Jakku's biggest space ports there are precisely two space ships, and one hasn't flown in years.... ? On Earth, we collectively have thousands of operable naval vessels in the water at this very moment, each with an average crew count tens-of-times larger than the entire Resistance...? There are millions of operable automobiles on the planet, one measly planet (a better analog for ships of the Star Wars universe, perhaps). Yet this multi star system space faring Galaxy that is thousands of years along their cultural and technological development is like starved for actual ships.

Like, if these navies are so puny and so small and so isolated to singular systems (e.g. the Republic Navy)... it just makes the lived-in world of Star Wars feel insanely empty. Like, no f---ing wonder Finn notes that the First Order all know of the Falcon and hate that ship, since it's apparently like one of a handful of personal freighters in the entire galaxy... (yea, that 'cheap laugh' line just further makes the world feel so small and empty, like they all know about this one pickup truck that they've never personally encountered).


So feeling like the only way to have a threat emerge to the Empire/Rebellion is to bring in some ex nihilo threat just adds to the tiny small empty world feeling that has been really doing a disservice to Star Wars. Surely each remotely autonomous organization has a fleet of ships, for both shipping and defense purposes, one would have thought. Planetary defense forces? The Mandalorian Navy, the Correllian Navy, the Hutt Navy, the Trade Federation Navy, the navies of organizations like the Black Sun ... these were all independent forces that felt significant and could, if organized and patiently managed, could each pose a meaningful threat to the operations of the galaxy. And back in the glorious 80s-90s EU explosion the sense that was being painted was that ships were ubiquoutous in the Star Wars world, lots of people had their own ships and it helped make the world feel more plausibly flushed out.

Like, we know that the Mon Cals were able to build a massive navy that took down the Empire, even while being occupied by the Empire. Were they really the only frickin planet in the entire galaxy that thought "Hmm... in a space-faring galaxy you know what would be useful... star ships!" Surely so many other planets, governments, or organizations could have built comparable space forces.... I mean there's got to be a reason the Empire needs thousands of ISDs to maintain the peace, and why occupations of some worlds took so long and was so hard and why so many aren't yet occupied. Defense forces would have made sense.

Given how small TFA and TLJ make the galaxy feel, you'd think the vast majority of planets could be subjugated with a Gozanit and four TIEs...

SUMMARY : Disney/LFL continuing to not develop existing planets and powers in the universe in order to bring in the "outside enemy" continues to further make Star Wars feel small, empty, and boring (in my opinion).

Your rant is pretty deep into why i find star wars in general so "meh". I love 40k lore and have always loved star trek lore(though the new movies and STD are rough). I wish they would hire someone that had some general idea to actually world build to create a galaxy that didn't feel like its existence fully changes shape with every movie.

2 hours ago, dominosfleet said:

Your rant is pretty deep into why i find star wars in general so "meh". I love 40k lore and have always loved star trek lore(though the new movies and STD are rough). I wish they would hire someone that had some general idea to actually world build to create a galaxy that didn't feel like its existence fully changes shape with every movie.

For all the hate it receives the Prequels did make the galaxy seem like a bigger setting, especially compared to the Disney films.

8 hours ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

In the TLJ, they say that the entire Resistance is 400 people spread amongst three ships... really... a Galaxy-Wide Resistance?

...Yet in the... cutaway guide I think, it says there are many more Nebulon-Cs in the resistance than just one. I took that line from Holdo to mean that the 400 was what was left of the leadership. Kind of like how in the Rebellion tabletop there's one rebel base space that, when crushed, ends the rebellion (yet you could have any number of fleets/ships on the board and still lose if the "base" is destroyed). I find it easy to accept the Resistance being far wider than what we see on screen.

After all, 'no ship that small has a cloaking device' didn't stop The TIE Phantom from becoming a thing.

8 hours ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

TLJ, we don't even see any capital ships beyond one First Order Resurgent class...

Wait, what? You're talking about The Last Jedi? The one that gave us the Mandator IV and the Supremacy? The one that gave us four resistance ships that would be perfectly at home in Armada? I get that TLJ isn't popular but come on!

You must have meant the Force Awakens, which is kind of true. We do see some craft in the distance in some shots at Starkiller base to imply more, much like the Rebel fleet in Empire Strikes Back. Then again the only capital ships we see in ANH are a corvette and a Star Destroyer.

In regard to "tone" and "population"- I think Disney is aiming to do something different with the universe as a marked contrast to how the universe was in Legends around this time. There is no creaky New republic plagued by political bickering front-stage to the Imperial holdouts in the back, which were slowly becoming less evil as Pelleon gained more leadership. No greater statement does this than taking the galactic capital away from coruscant and putting it on a rotational basis.

I also get from the books that there's a conflict between whether the Republic/Imperial model of a strong, omnipresent government is really good for the universe. Seems the new Republic decided to not be so centralized, and in the absence of one strong central planet to rally around, the universe feels more like small pockets than one steady whole.

It's remarkable... but it hasn't been capitalized on yet. I'm still waiting to hear some tale of some independent nation-cluster state in the galaxy that retained all their Imperial equipment and declared themselves a sovergin state. Maybe these guys declared allegiance with the First Order when they rushed out of the unknown regions... maybe not.

28 minutes ago, Norsehound said:

Wait, what? You're talking about The Last Jedi? The  one  that gave  us the Mandator IV 

Please don't mention that... horrible ship. If the Resurgent-class battlecruiser is the First Order fixing all the flaws of the Imperial-class , then the Mandator IV is an attempt to make the most poor design in all of galactic history.

The only good thing about the Mandator IV is that it Canonized the Mandator line and possibly the Bellator-class Star Dreadnought .

2 hours ago, Norsehound said:

I'm  st  ill waiting to hear some tale of some independent nation-cluster state in the galaxy that retained all their Im  perial equipment a  nd declared themselves a sovergin state. 

Now THAT would have been an interesting story for the ST to follow instead of simply rebooting the OT.

3 hours ago, Norsehound said:

.Then again the only capital ships we see in ANH are a corvette and a Star Destroyer.

Well, not true. We see at least three ISDs: the Devastator and another pair of them at Tattooine, which included the Conquest . Already, that makes the Empire feel "bigger" than the First Order looked in TFA (especially since so many characters are constantly alluding to the Imperial presence and the cruisers and the "big Corellian ships" that people get entangled by all the time while shipping stuff. For all of Lucas' later faults, he was an expert at world-building with filler dialogue to enrich the audience's imagination (something Disney and the ST has entirely abondoned in lieu of the "SHOW Don't TELL" policy of modern blockbusters, so we get pointless scenes of bewildering nonsense like Rathars eating two different pirate crews we could care less about who just happen to conveniently stumble onto Han at the same time mere moments after Han picks up the Falcon -- how convenient!).

And of course, the lack of actual ships on screen in ANH was laregely budgetary and practical limitations of the time, but even this was addressed with later additions like the Outrider and other ships being added to the Mos Eisely Spaceport and Rogue One flushing out a big Rebel Fleet that was largely wiped prior to Yavin. And by ESB and RotJ the films littered the screen with ships, truly creating the sense of a richly filled galaxy. But that practicality and budgetary limitation is not an excuse at all for the modern ST stuff where it's relatively trivial to add more ships into scenes compared to the Herculean minutia that was overlaying 200 different rolls of film with different elements on them into single several-second scenes as was done for the space battle of Endor....

1 hour ago, Piratical Moustache said:

Please don't mention that... horrible ship. If the Resurgent-class battlecruiser is the First Order fixing all the flaws of the Imperial-class , then the Mandator IV is an attempt to make the most poor design in all of galactic history.

The only good thing about the Mandator IV is that it Canonized the Mandator line and possibly the Bellator-class Star Dreadnought .

Poorest design goes to, and forever will be, given to star wars galaxies' contributions to the lore. Nothing will ever beat how shoddily assembled the TIE Oppressor is. That's literally a third grader made tie fighter.

The mandator Iv at least looks like an interesting new age take on star destroyers. I want to see one variant if they removed the honking cannons and made it a more conventional ship. But, I really dig how mold-breaking the first order designs are, anyway.

1 hour ago, Forgottenlore said:

Now THAT would have been an interesting story for the ST to follow instead of simply rebooting the OT.

They go too close, you hate the force awakens.

They stray too far, you hate the last Jedi.

How is Disney supposed to win this one?

43 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Well, not true. We see at least three ISDs: the Devastator and another pair of them at Tattooine...

And of course, the lack of actual ships on screen in ANH was laregely budgetary and practical limitations of the time, but even this was addressed with later additions like the Outrider and other ships being added to the Mos Eisely Spaceport and Rogue One flushing out a big Rebel Fleet that was largely wiped prior to Yavin. And by ESB and RotJ the films littered the screen with ships, truly creating the sense of a richly filled galaxy. But that practicality and budgetary limitation is not an excuse at all for the modern ST stuff where it's relatively trivial to add more ships into scenes compared to the Herculean minutia that was overlaying 200 different rolls of film with different elements on them into single several-second scenes as was done for the space battle of Endor....

I was talking designs, not individual craft...

Have you balanced an effects budget before? I don't think adding a ship is not that easy. Part of the reason Rogue One got away with it is by reusing models from Rebels . They probably used some of that freed up funding to make a proper ISD-I, which went on to be reused in Solo.

Besides, TLJ has plenty of new ships and vessels, too. Three new resistance smallcraft, a new FO craft, two new FO capital ships, FOUR new resistance capitals, a new skimmer, all the crap on canto bight... It adds up. There's enough in this era now to run proper armada games.

As for where Rian decided to spend his budget, that's a matter of debate. Maybe he or LFL were not satisfied with kitbashing junk together to show a fuller FO fleet.

10 minutes ago, Norsehound said:

They go too close, you hate the force awakens.

They stray too far, you hate the last Jedi.

How is Disney supposed to win this one?

I don’t hate TLJ. Enjoyed it significantly more that TFA (which, admittedly, is still not much)

Want to watch it again to evaluate the common complaints for myself, in the theater I was just reveling in it not being a direct clone of empire.

I do have issues with RJ apparently nuking the overall story that had been planned out for the ST. That alone is reason to remove him from the franchise.

That said, I am talking about the overall ST story as a whole. The OT was toppling the Empire and reestablishing the Jedi, the PT was the fall of Anakin and the rise of the Empire. Having the story of the ST be a balkanized galaxy, with the reestablished Jedi perhaps not welcome everywhere, even if needed, with the New Republic trying to undo the Tyranny of the empire without becoming just as bad or failing entirely. That would have been interesting and paid homage to what came before without being derivative it.

11 minutes ago, Norsehound said:

I was talking designs, not individual craft...

Uh, I was pretty clearly talking amount of ships not unique designs.

22 minutes ago, Norsehound said:

Poorest   design  goes to, and forever will be, given to star wars galaxies' contributions to the lore. Nothing will ever beat ho  w shoddily assembled the TIE Oppressor is. That's lite  ral  ly a third grader made tie fig  hter.

You have have been proven wrong.

51 minutes ago, Norsehound said:

They go too close, you hate the force awakens.

They stray too far, you hate the last Jedi.

How is Disney supposed to win this one?

Not all original writing is good writing. So git gud, Disney.

That said, TLJ will always loom over TFA (unoriginal) and AOTC (because it's AOTC) for me. R1 rocked and Solo was good, so they can do things right.

Really though my problem is never seeing the New Republic, the Rebellion's primary goal, having any positive effect on the galaxy. There's nothing in the films that shows us it's worth it; Canto Bight sure isn't inspiring. The storyline focuses on the fight itself, and what they're fighting against, but not what they fight for .