Yea, I know, weird choice of topics to pair together. But I’ve been thinking about the new Thrawn books and (my fave topic ever) SW:TOR and I’ve had some thoughts™ that I wanted to discuss. Namely around a certain reveal near the end of the first Thrawn novel. Under a cut for discussion of spoilers for BOTH the first Thrawn novel (of the new series that is) AND for spoilers of p much all the swtor content post the base game so like if you haven’t experienced one of those yet and you wanna go in blind stop reading here. :D
So I guess I’ll start with why I’m talking about the Thrawn books on my old republic blog. No it’s NOT just because there’s Chiss in swtor (have i mentioned you can play as a chiss in swtor. because you totally can. it’s great!). Shameless plugs for my fave game aside, it’s because of a conversation Thrawn has near the end of the book with Nightswan, just before Pryce fucks over Batonn. Specifically, about Thrawn’s motives for joining the Empire. Now YMMV about exactly how honest he was being at that point, but this post is gonna operate under the assumption that he was at least telling the truth that there’s something out there in the Unknown Regions scaring the Chiss shitless. And like, the Chiss are fuckin COLD (pun intended), so whatever that is... it’s not smth good.
But Arden, what about the Yuuzhan Vong aka ya kno ‘the thing that was ALREADY in the unknown regions in the old canon’. Yea um sure, I guess Timothy Zahn could bring them back. But like.... that doesn’t mean he HAS to. No offence to hardcore Vong fans, but I tried to get into that era of star wars and well, failed. And sure, he could bring them back, and maybe he will, but imho there are much more interesting things out in the unknown regions for our heroes to face off against in the cinematic era. Such as Zakuul.
Because, and please don’t take away my swtor fan card for this, I think kotfetet was the weakest part of swtor. I also think that Zakuul was a wasted concept. Like, at it’s heart it’s actually kinda cool. It’s a society completely separate from anything the Empire or the Republic. It’s one of those paradises where everything is done by droids, including most of the military work while the citizens live in luxury, sitting above the shitty swamp area where dissidents flee to. It’s got an organisation of force users who don’t subscribe to either the light or the dark, and a fleet powerful enough to kick both the Empire and the Republic’s asses. It’s a genuinely neat concept. It was just... somewhat butchered by it’s introduction.
SoR (controversial for its treatment of Revan in and of itself) and Ziost after were both setting up a major plotline where the Emperor has separated himself from the Empire and is full on eating planets. (not in a ‘nom nom cronchy rocks’ sense more a ‘murder death leaving a desolate wasteland behind’ sense fyi). It was Going Places. And then kotfetet came outta left field, did a total 180 plotwise where “actually the emperor ISNT trying to eat everyone he’s gone off and started ANOTHER empire because reasons? and got married and had kids also because reasons? and now he’s dead but also hanging around in your head telling you to use his power? Oh and this game that was built around being able to play your own character has suddenly picked up this storyline that railroads you into playing either a Very Specific Light Side Character or a Very Specific Dark Side Character.
What I’m saying is. Come thru for us Timothy Zahn. Give us a Zakuul that we have a chance to explore in full as an interesting and complex threat rather than being a stupidly introduced excuse for a basic 1 fits all power fantasy plot. Because, and I recognize that I might be alone in this, I think there could be something really cool to salvage from the somewhat mess that was kotfetet.
