Dark Forces: Soldier for the Empire
Author: William C. Dietz
Illustrator: Dean Williams
Medium: Novella
Publication date: February 1997
Timeline placement: 1–0 BBY
A blessedly, wonderfully brief novella interspersed with beautiful full-page illustrations, Soldier for the Empire isn't a novelization of the Doom-like Star Wars shooter Dark Forces, but rather a prequel to it, revealing the backstory of player character Kyle Katarn and how he came to join the Rebellion. A stormtrooper officer cadet in training at the Imperial Academy on Carida, Kyle has no great love for the Empire but even less for the Alliance, until he has a run-in with Rebel hottie Jan Ors. He jeopardizes his command by sparing her life during a raid on a Rebel base, only to learn after graduation that his father, Morgan, has been murdered by Rebels. On his way back to his family home on Sulon, a moon of Sullust, Kyle encounters Jan once again aboard the luxury liner Star of Empire. She reveals the truth: Kyle's father was a member of the Rebel Alliance and he was killed by the Dark Jedi Jerec, an Imperial Inquisitor, who then had Morgan's head mounted on a pike over the gates of the city to feed the space crows. Kyle joins the Rebellion on the spot and is tasked by Mon Mothma with infiltrating the Imperial research facility on Danuta and stealing the plans for the Death Star. If you've played the opening mission of Star Wars: Dark Forces, you know he succeeds!
The first book in a trilogy (the other two of which actually are video game novelizations), Soldier for the Empire is not a particularly brilliant piece of writing in and of itself, but is more remarkable for the fact that it exists at all. I'm not sure why the Dark Forces games (at the time consisting of the original game and its sequel, Jedi Knight) were singled out for this treatment: a prose prequel, illustrated novelization, and audio dramatization. The Force Unleashed I and II received novelizations, the Shadows of the Empire novel and video game tell different parts of the same story, and X-Wing, Republic Commando, Galaxies, and The Old Republic all got tie-in novels in name only, telling original stories about mostly original characters. Where's my KotOR prequel novella about the Battle of Malachor V?
Anyway, it's just cool that this book exists at all. The prose is easy to read without being gratingly simplistic, and William Dietz does a good job writing believable military jargon. Primarily a sci-fi and video game tie-in author, Dietz may be best known to modern readers for writing Mass Effect: Deception, a novel reputedly so hated by Mass Effect fans that BioWare issued a public apology and promised to publish a revised edition correcting the book's many canon errors and discrepancies.
This was, of course, a blatant PR lie and the new edition never materialized, but Dietz, who passed away in March of 2026, was no stranger to being thrown under the bus by his publisher, deserved or not. He had previously returned to Star Wars to write Escape from Dagu, a Clone Wars novel about Shaak Ti intended for publication in 2004. Despite being completely finished, including cover art and direct continuity references in other published work, the book was never released and was replaced on the publishing schedule with the newly commissioned Yoda: Dark Rendezvous. Naturally, this stoked much fan speculation over what had become of Escape from Dagu, a small fire on which Pablo Hidalgo dumped gasoline by saying, "Out of curiosity, if Crystal Star had been cancelled in 1994, would you be so eager to read it?" The Crystal Star, of course, is infamous in the Star Wars EU community as "the worst book ever!!!!" so the rumor quickly spread that Dagu had gotten the ax because it was just too unreadably terrible to publish. Two years later, on a different forum, Pablo eventually clarified that he had never actually read Escape from Dagu and hadn't intended to draw a comparison between the two things he compared, but nobody saw that.
Whatever the truth of Dagu, Dietz's work on Soldier for the Empire is nothing to write home about, but that cuts both ways. It's solid, workmanlike tie-in writing that gets the job done, and the final chapter, which is just an extended description of Kyle mercilessly gunning down Imperials like he's the player character in an FPS, is memorably hilarious. The biggest issue with Dietz's writing is his tendency to head-hop between multiple characters' points of view within a single scene without transition, which can make for a jarring, disorienting reading experience.
The real highlight of the book is the illustrations by Dean Williams, which look great. They don't always necessarily depict what I would have chosen as the most interesting part of the accompanying text, but they're awesome and it's a real shame that Marvel didn't release an Epic Collection of the Dark Forces trilogy. This exclusion has never made sense to me, as their Aliens Epics included Alien: Tribes, an illustrated novella published by Dark Horse the same as Soldier for the Empire and its sister volumes.
But whatever.
For the continuity nerd, Soldier for the Empire is a rare treat, featuring a rare pre-Jedi Knight appearance by Jerec, whose personal Star Destroyer is commanded by a certain Captain Thrawn, and General Rom Mohc, the main villain of Dark Forces, is a speaker at Kyle's graduation. They don't have a huge amount of page-time, but Jerec's murder of Morgan Katarn is the catalyst behind Kyle's entire journey, and even though these characters rarely appear outside the original works that created them, it's always cool to get these little reminders that they are still active in this universe even during events they don't play a major role in.
Jerec in particular is a fun and sadly underutilized villain. Canonically the
third most powerful darksider in the Empire, after Palpatine and
Vader, this is his earliest appearance in the Expanded Universe, although he was mentioned by name in the Clone Wars comic Republic #69. Jerec was a member of the Jedi Order, beginning his career as the Padawan of that old witch Jocasta Nu. He achieved the rank of Jedi Master upon training his own Padawan, Ameesa Darys, to Knighthood. Like her Master, Darys would also survive the Jedi Purge to serve the Empire as a member of the Inquisitorius, eventually dying at the hands of the Arden Lyn when she and her fellow Inquisitors awakened the Follower of Palawa from her 25,000-year Force-induced morichro stasis. We are really down the rabbit hole now, boy.
As a Jedi archaeologist, Jerec was frequently away from Coruscant in search of ancient artifacts. Due to such an absence, he missed the entirety of the Clone Wars and the Jedi Purge, returning to Coruscant only to be captured by High Inquisitor Tremayne, another fallen Jedi in the Empire's service. Given the choice between death and the dark side, Jerec unhesitatingly chose the latter, quickly becoming one of the most feared of all the Emperor's servants. Unfortunately for us, though, besides his original appearance as the final boss in Dark Forces II: Jedi Knight, he's relegated to a brief appearance in this Dark Forces prequel and a guest spot in Galaxy of Fear. Oh well, I'll take what I can get.
Speaking of which, there's also a quick cameo appearance by Lando Calrissian, who's prowling the Star of Empire looking for unwary marks to deprive of their money in a friendly card game. But we'll get back to him later.
Soldier for the Empire (1997) also puts in the vital work of deliberately clarifying, for the first time, the difference between the Death Star plans stolen from Toprawa in the Star Wars radio drama (1981), Jedi Dawn (1993), and, later, Rebel Dawn (1998) and the Death Star plans stolen from Danuta in Dark Forces (1995). Dark Forces had previously paid lip service to the earlier plans theft by name-dropping Operation Skyhook, but Soldier for the Empire codifies the "separate plans" retcon in EU canon: "While the Toprawa plans include the battle station's hull design, and life support infrastructure, the Danuta plans include additional engineering schematics, and ... a complete map to the offensive and defensive weapons emplacements. We need both sets to ensure success."
Perfect. They could have just left it there, but no, everyone and their mother needed to put their own little spin on how the Death Star plans were stolen. (Of course, there's still the issue of Mon Mothma claiming that the reason the Danuta research facility has the Death Star plans in the first place is because that's where the station was designed. I thought bugs made it.)
But I digress. If you can find it, Soldier for the Empire is moderately worth reading, mostly for its unique status in the Expanded Universe, but especially for fans of the Dark Forces/Jedi Knight games.
Dark Forces: Soldier for the Empire, the Official Audio Drama
Author: John Whitman
Medium: Audio drama
Publication date: 1997
Timeline placement: 1–0 BBY
The audio dramatization by Galaxy of Fear author John Whitman. Like Whitman's adaptation of the early Tales of the Jedi arcs, this is my preferred version of the story. Unlike with TotJ, however, the voice cast here does a consistently good job delivering the material. Particularly notable is Allen Hamilton as Jerec, whose slow, overwrought line delivery oozes exaggerated villainy, a perfect match for Christopher Neame's portrayal of the character in Jedi Knight's live-action cutscenes. The depiction of Kyle's awakening to the Force during his encounter with Jerec at his graduation ceremony is also notably well done, showing the sudden expansion of Kyle's senses and consciousness as he takes his first step into a larger world.
Mostly faithful to the novella, with a few welcome narrative additions for context and characterization. Lando's cameo is slightly reduced, but improved by the fact that the audio drama has him accompanied on the Star of Empire by Vuffi Raa! But wait, you say, The Lando Calrissian Adventures take place years before this story, and they end with Vuffi Raa leaving Lando to return to his people. That's right, you hyper-observant continuity nut, but also remember that Vuffi Raa promised he would return to visit his friend. That must be what's happening here!
This adaptation also introduces an unnecessary inconsistency regarding the character of Major Horst, an Imperial officer at the Danuta research facility. Created by William Dietz for the novella, he plays a brief role during Kyle's invasion of the base, ending with his death when Jan Ors, piloting Katarn's ship the Moldy Crow, blows up Horst's command car. Major Horst also appears in John Whitman's adaptation of the story, but here he is shot to death by Kyle so the latter can obtain his keycard. Wookieepedia resolves this discrepancy by assuming that there must have been two different characters named Major Horst working the same assignment on the same night.
While I do like the audio play and prefer it to the novella overall, it's close enough to the book that there isn't a whole lot more to talk about, so I'll point out that Morgan Katarn definitively states that Sulon is the only moon of the planet Sullust. For some reason, though, Wizards of the Coast's Geonosis and the Outer Rim Worlds sourcebook for the Star Wars Roleplaying Game added a second moon, Umnub. Way to make Kyle Katarn's dead father look like an idiot!
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| "If you will not use your head, Katarn... THEN I WILL!" – Lord Jerec as he decapitates Morgan Katarn |
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