A Knight to Remember

Interference

Author: John Jackson Miller

Medium: Short story

Publication Date: September 2008 on StarWars.com (republished on Unbound Worlds)

Timeline Placement: 3,963 BBY

This short is formatted as a series of propaganda transmissions in the vein of those broadcast by Tokyo Rose during World War II, sent by unseen spokesmen for the Republic called “Captain Goodvalor” and “Commander True.” Goodvalor attempts to demoralize the Mandalorian troops with descriptions of the Republic’s massive warships and the inhospitable worlds the Mandalorians are set to invade. The story also contains broadcasts made by Mandalorian warrior Koblus Sornell as she reassures her uneasy troops and fails to wrap her head around Goodvalor’s offer of peace in exchange for tribute in the form of planetary taxation, illustrating the impenetrable cultural divide between the Mandalorians and the Republic.

This is a cool premise for a story but it’s too brief and self-contained to do much justice to the idea of psychological propaganda broadcasting in Star Wars. The point of the story, that there is no way for the war to end peacefully because the Mandalorians and the Republic are too different ever to come to terms, is an important one, but anyone familiar with any stories featuring the Mandalorians already knows how they’re going to respond to Goodvalor’s peace offer.

Pretty much non-essential in every way. 1/5 Death Stars.

Knights of the Old Republic #22–24: Knights of Suffering

Author: John Jackson Miller

Artist: Dustin Weaver

Medium: Comic

Publication Date: November – December 2007

Timeline Placement: 3,963 BBY (with flashback to 3,988 BBY)

Series: Knights of the Old Republic

When the first image in a comic is Mandalorian Neo-Crusaders riding Basilisk war droids through the skies of a conquered planet, you know you’re in for a good time. The Moomo Williwaw returns to Taris posing as a captured ship. Zayne jetpacks down to the planet in the suit of Mandalorian armor Rohlan threw out in the last story, and lands in the midst of a skirmish between Mandalorian invaders and the Black Vulkar crime gang. One of the Mandalorians calls over to him for help but Zayne is like “Nope” and runs away down an alley.

Just around the corner, Zayne’s old friend Gryph is holed up with several KotOR NPCs, including Brejik, Zaerdra, Griff Vao, and Gadon Thek, leader of the Hidden Beks gang. They have a large spider droid standing guard at the entrance to their hideout, and Zayne quickly cuts it in half with his lightsaber without giving them a chance to have it stand down. Way to make a good first impression. Despite what we were told in the previous comic, Gryph is not running the Taris Resistance. In fact, they won’t even consider him and his criminal cohorts for membership.

After Zayne joyfully reunites with Gryph and Del Moomo, Gadon Thek happily informs him that he’s still a wanted fugitive and they’re going to turn him over to the Taris Constable in exchange for medical supplies. I guess Zayne has just gotten used to being conned and betrayed because he doesn’t seem to care that much.

♪ Mission: Impossible music plays ♪

Also hiding out with the Beks is Mission Vao, a recruitable party member from Knights of the Old Republic. She’s about seven years old at this point, and takes Zayne to see her brother’s secret. It turns out that Brejik and her older brother, Griff, have kidnapped the Constable’s children and are keeping them in a pit where they occasionally feed them leftovers. Zayne and Gryph report this to Gadon, who chastises his high-spirited proteges for abducting the Constable’s family after he explicitly told them not to. I’m more amused by the fact that all five NPCs in this room have the potential to die at your character’s hand over the course of the game.

The Hidden Beks travel to the Resistance’s headquarters to return the Constable’s children. This buys them a ticket through the front door, where Zayne is thrilled to see Shel Jelavan, the hot blonde he was crushing on back in Jedi school and sister of his dead best friend Shad, a victim of the Padawan Massacre. He runs up to her and she shoots him with a blaster, which is conveniently deflected by the briefcase he’s holding. Insane Jedi Master-turned-murderess Raana Tey materializes behind her and urges Shel to finish the job.

For some reason Raana Tey doesn’t immediately do it herself, which gives Gryph and Del Moomo time to leap to Zayne’s defense. Haydel Goravvus, the green-skinned senator of Taris and leader of the Resistance, steps in and orders the Jedi back into line. Gryph explains that the real reason he returned to Taris after escaping the destruction of Serroco back in issue 15 is because he was hired by Jervo Thalien of Lhosan Industries to find the senator. Goravvus and Thalien previously appeared in the series’ first arc, Commencement, casually discussing the political situation in play here as Zayne fell screaming past their speeder during his escape.

Gryph activates the holotransmitter in his briefcase and contacts Thalien, who announces that the case is actually a bomb and he’s going to kill them all to protect his political future. Thanks to Zayne’s overly enthusiastic former crush, however, the bomb fails to detonate and this subplot dies a merciful death. Meanwhile, Zayne and Raana Tey each try to convince Shel that the other is responsible for murdering her brother.

Back aboard the Moomo Williwaw, Jarael is still disconsolate over Camper leaving. Rohlan suggests that she work out her issues the Mandalorian way: by hitting something with a stick. Zayne’s Jedi friend and Dark Lord-to-be Alek is all too eager to take off his shirt and wave his ‘saber at her. He loses their sparring match when he trips over some garbage. If you’re keeping score at home, so far in this series the future Darth Malak has gotten his ass handed to him by some Mandalorians, Mandalore himself, and a girl who can’t use the Force. Alek kind of sucks.

Having impressed Jarael with his flawless choreography and fancy footwork, Alek decides to make his move, and in the process confirms that the no-attachment doctrine of the prequels isn’t yet Jedi dogma (although certain parties have been pushing for it since the Sith War). Due to her recent experience with Arkoh Adasca, however, Jarael can never trust men again. She freaks out and bolts. Because he hasn’t embarrassed himself enough already, Alek calls after her, “Is it not now or just not me?” Jesus, no wonder this guy falls to the dark side.

Do you even know how to neg, bro?

Elsewhere, Cassus Fett, Mandalore’s top war strategist, has come to Taris to oversee the invasion and taken up residence in the abandoned Jedi training academy. The Resistance gets wind of this and decides to destroy the entire tower with Thalien’s bomb, which Del Moomo has adopted as his son. “I love bombs. I mean, really. You have no idea . . .” he explains. It is decided that Zayne and Shel will infiltrate the tower to make sure Cassus is really there, then Raana Tey will meet up with them for some reason. Somehow no one realizes that this is a terrible plan.

Raana Tey secretly gives Shel the crystal from her brother’s lightsaber and tells her how to reassemble it so she can kill Zayne once they’re alone in the tower. He’s standing right there, just kill him yourself, you psycho broad! Zayne dons his Mandalorian disguise again so they can sneak past the guards by pretending Shel is his prisoner. He puts her in handcuffs, but disappointingly that’s as close as we get to Fifty Shades of Zayne.

Predictably, Shel can’t keep her mouth shut (why did she even volunteer for this mission?) and starts bawling out Zayne for killing her brother right in front of all the Mandalorians. They demand to know what’s going on, to which Shell replies by pouncing on Zayne and shoving her tongue down his throat. Satisfied, the Mandos give Zayne a thumbs-up and move along. Once they’re gone Shel knees Zayne in the groin. It’s funny because he didn’t deserve it!

Once they make it inside the tower, Zayne is reminded of old times and starts crying about how much he misses Shel’s brother. This makes Shel reconsider stabbing him in the face with Shad’s lightsaber. Zayne heads up top and finds that the only Mandalorian left in the building is Cassus Fett’s hapless aide-de-camp, Gormer Pyle. Thinking that Zayne is a new recruit, Gormer helpfully explains that Fett moved his headquarters an hour ago and is currently attacking the Resistance base, then gets bisected for his trouble by Raana Tey.

A short flashback to Raana Tey’s childhood shows her overhearing a prophecy made by Lucien’s mother, Krynda Draay, about five unknown individuals who would play an important role in the next great conflict between the light and dark:

And in the time of tribulation to come, there will be five.

One for the darkness, and one for the light.

Another from the darkness stands in the light, while one from the light stands in the darkness.

The last one stands apart from all.

And between them, all that has been built will fall.

Don’t worry, the eventual explanation is even less interesting than you’d think.

Raana Tey attacks Zayne and beats the shit out of him, slashing him with her lightsaber, throwing him against walls and into the fractured skylight overhead. Her face lacerated with shards of broken glass, Raana Tey taunts Zayne as she closes in for the kill, laughing about how many Padawans she’s killed. Then Shel impales her from behind with her dead brother’s lightsaber. In tears, Shel falls into Zayne’s arms and admits that she finally believes he didn’t do it. Yeah, real gracious of you, sister, seeing that the real killer just confessed right in front of you.

In the midst of the Mandalorian assault on the Taris Resistance, Gryph is determined to rescue Zayne from the Jedi tower before the Mandos reach it, so Gadon Thek flies him up to the building’s roof on his swoop bike. They toss a cable down to pull Zayne and Shel to safety, but Zayne refuses to leave Raana Tey to die. Uncharacteristically touched by this act of selflessness, Raana Tey chooses to accept Zayne’s help, but her hand becomes caught in the tower’s broken window. She draws her lightsaber to cut herself free, but Gryph misinterprets this as an attack on his friend and triggers the detonation of Del Moomo’s bomb.

The base of the tower explodes and Raana Tey falls away from Zayne as the entire structure collapses. As she falls she asks him to tell Krynda that she’s sorry. Gadon and Gryph fly away from the destroyed academy with Zayne and Shel dangling beneath them. Shel is sorry that Zayne lost his chance to get a public confession out of one of the Jedi, but Zayne replies that he has something even better now: a name.

Elsewhere in the galaxy, we cut to blind Miraluka Jedi Q’Anilia, Shad Jelavan’s former Master, in the process of getting it on with Zayne’s former Master, Lucien, when she feels Raana Tey’s death in the Force and senses that Krynda’s identity has been revealed. This is the worst thing that could ever conceivably happen, she cries. Realizing that he won’t be getting any tonight, Lucien agrees.

She’s fine, don’t even worry about it.

Meditations

Finally, another really good KotOR arc. I’m not even the biggest Gryph fan (he’s a funny character, but his humor sometimes feels like the author is trying too hard), but it can’t be coincidence that things picked up again the moment he returned from the grave. There are no bankers, space slugs, or boring mad scientists around to louse things up this time, and the only wardrobe change Jarael does is when she takes off a badass leather jacket that frankly she should be drawn wearing more often. Yeah, that Alek/Jarael scene was kind of cringey, but still . . . it’s Darth Malak, man! I’m just glad he’s here.

This comic has everything that made previous arcs like Flashpoint and Days of Fear such successes, on top of basic good storytelling and illustrations by Dustin Weaver: memorable secondary characters, Mandalorians being demonstrably evil, back story from KotOR playing out in meaningful ways, interpersonal character stories set against the backdrop of the evolving galactic conflict. Most importantly, the main plot finally advances in a big way: Raana Tey is dead, and Zayne finally knows about Krynda, the puppetmaster allegedly pulling the Covenant’s strings.

It’s easy to make fun of Zayne for being an idiot and doing everything wrong, but Gryph’s description of him to Gadon Thek rings true: “The kid saves people’s lives—whether he knows them or not. Whether they deserve it or not. Without being asked and without being paid.” After Xesh and Ulic, it’s refreshing to follow a protagonist who’s genuinely good. Zayne doesn’t brood and he isn’t moody, he just tries to do what’s right, at least most of the time. The trade-off for this is that he’s utterly incompetent at most things, but he’s invested enough points in his Luck stat to compensate.

I don’t much care for Shel as a character. All she really brings to the group dynamic is a connection to Zayne’s past before he lost everything to his Masters’ paranoia and fanaticism. I didn’t care about that part of his life when we wasted two issues on the Moomo brothers trying to capture his father and I don’t care about it now. Zayne isn’t that person anymore and was at his least interesting by far when he was. I’m not sure if Miller is attempting to set up some future love triangle plot here, but everyone reading this series knows that Jarael is way more awesome than Shel and we don’t need any more obstacles retarding our characters’ personal growth.

I have nothing negative to say regarding the art. Tragically, this is Dustin Weaver’s last contribution to Knights of the Old Republic, and we still have 31 more issues to go. While his artistic style is not as hauntingly gorgeous as Chris Gossett’s, it’s completely appropriate for the tone and style of this comic and I deeply regret that the creative team didn’t have him stick around longer. His soft-lined, big-eyed, almost cartoonish designs are a perfect match for the light-hearted adventures of Zayne and his wacky crew of misfits and their series’ video game roots. I could overlook a lot of the flaws in this comic’s lesser issues more easily if Zayne always looked like this rather than this. I’ve been dismissive of Brian Ching in the past but I have the feeling I’m quickly about to gain a new appreciation for his work.

A very worthwhile installment in this series, and coming none too soon. 5/5 Death Stars.

Next: Vector Vol. 1: Knights of the Old Republic Vol. 5: Vector Chapter 1

Dazed and Confused

Knights of the Old Republic #19–21: Daze of Hate

Author: John Jackson Miller

Artist: Bong Dazo

Medium: Comic

Publication Date: August – October 2007

Timeline Placement: 3,963 BBY

Series: Knights of the Old Republic

Last time on Knights of the Old Republic, some dumb shit happened.

Picking up where we left off, the various representatives of galactic powers wArkoh Adasca has invited to bid on his army of space slugs arrive on Adasca’s ship, the Arkanian Legacy. There is Admiral Saul Karath, representing the Republic; the Jedi Knight Alek, representing the Revanchist Jedi; and Mandalore the Ultimate and his entourage, representing the Mongol horde attempting to burn down and enslave the galaxy.

Things go about how you might expect. Alek tries to fight Mandalore and gets his ass kicked immediately. Mandalore shows Karath the giant battle-ax he recently built from the wreckage of Karath’s ship, Courageous. Saul Karath feels inadequate and has Adasca’s army of HK-24 assassin droids guard his prisoner, Zayne Carrick, in another room somewhere until they get all this sorted out. Jarael pounces on Zayne and shoves her tongue down his throat so she can warn him about what everyone else has already figured out, that Adasca is clearly evil.

And Mandalore’s is clearly bigger.

Rohlan Dyre comes in to catch up with Mandalore and observes how all of his troops have finally converted to the Neo-Crusader armor, the outfits worn by all the Mandalorians you encounter in the videogame that inspired this comic. Mandalore says, “Yeah even though you betrayed our people and our way of life and cost us our Jedi-research station and top scientist, I was able to spin it so everyone thinks you died with honor and repented your rebellious nature and now they all do whatever I say all the time so we’re cool, bro.” They high-five and Mandalore gives him a new set of Neo-Crusader armor to put on, which Rohlan promptly throws in the garbage dump.

[Continuity Note: After Mandalore the Indomitable’s death on Dxun, the mantle of Mandalore was taken up by another Taung warrior, as the Mandalorians were composed exclusively of the Taung species at this point in Star Wars history. This Mandalore never received an official name in the EU, but author notes from Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide reveal that he was almost called “Mandalore the Unknown,” so that’s what we’ll go with.

[Mandalore the Unknown’s reign would be brief, as he was soon supplanted by another Mandalorian, a puppet of the hidden True Sith Empire used to fight a proxy war against the Republic while the Sith rebuilt their strength in secret. With his people broken and scattered after their defeat in the Great Sith War, he took the name Mandalore the Ultimate, reuniting the Mandalorians with a vision of one final crusade that would consume the galaxy.

[Mandalore the Ultimate took a different tact than his predecessors, relying on politics as much as brute force. Under his rule, the Mandalorians ceased to be a single species and opened their doors to anyone willing to follow their way of life. To cement his powerbase, Ultimate curried favor with fringe movements of radicals who were dissatisfied with the path the Mandalorians had taken since submitting to Sith rule in the last war.

[All of this background lore from roleplaying guides and obscure articles is more interesting than anything that happens in this comic.]

Now this is podracing!

Zayne’s former Jedi Master and architect of the Taris Padawan murders, Lucien Draay, drops in unexpectedly to reminisce about the good old days with his childhood friend, Adasca. Adasca gives him roofied wine that Lucien willingly drinks because he’s so in tune with the Force. He wakes up to find himself surrounded by assassin droids and tied back-to-back with Zayne Carrick. Neither of them says, “Well, looks like we’re back together again.”

Back in the Arkanian Legacy‘s observation dome, Jarael has been contacted by Camper via the transceiver in her bracelet. He tells Jarael she has to escape, because Adasca is clearly evil. She whines about how she can’t escape because of all the worthless droids standing around, but fortunately Zayne and Alek are here to save her. Adasca bitch slaps her and takes away her cell phone, but white knight Alek promises Adasca that if he hits Jarael again, Alek will kill him dead no matter how many times he has to get shot by droids. Adasca cools it with the domestic violence but keeps groping Jarael for the rest of the comic, which Alek is apparently fine with.

Mandalore promises to make Adascorp the sole supplier of weapons and materiel to the Mandalorian forces and the only Republic corporation that will survive their conquest of the galaxy. Although Karath and Alek have nothing to offer that can compete with Mandalore’s bid, for some reason Adasca decides to keep drawing this out and tell the Mandalorians that they will have to pay tribute to him and be his own personal army. Mandalore starts getting a little sick of his shit. Adasca, bro, this rap battle’s clearly been won. What more could you possibly be holding out for?

Meanwhile, Lucien and Zayne help each other escape and kill all the droids with a plastic lunch tray somehow. Lucien immediately turns on Zayne and tries to murder him, but Zayne blocks his teacher’s lightsaber with the phrikite vambraces Camper gave him. Then, although Zayne is still unarmed and Lucien could easily kill him on the follow-up blow, Lucien’s like “Sorry, I had to try lol” and they team up again to put a stop to Adasca’s plans.

Sneaking around the ship, they run into Carth Onasi, who returns Zayne’s lightsaber. Zayne deduces that Jarael is being held hostage to keep Camper working on the space slugs, so Lucien proposes that they just kill her and remove Adasca’s leverage. But then Rohlan also randomly shows up and announces that he has pledged himself to protect Jarael and will shoot Lucien in the face if he tries to murder her. So they all come up with a different, less fun plan.

He’s not even in the room, Zayne.

Zayne and Lucien infiltrate the auction and announce that the Jedi have been in league with Adasca all along and this whole sham has been a trap to apprehend Mandalore. Alek rushes over to confirm their story and the three Jedi move against the Mandalorians, while Adasca wails ineffectually on his throne. The Mandalorians beat a retreat while Camper escapes in the The Last Resort, leaving the droid Elbee (who I keep forgetting is even a character because he hardly ever shows up) sadly calling after him in the Arkanian Legacy‘s docking bay.

Camper, now controlling all the space slugs with his laptop, turns them against Adasca’s fleet. Three of them crash through the observation dome and bear down on Adasca as Camper informs him of his resignation. The whole dome is destroyed and Arkoh Adasca dies screaming. Jeez, Camper, I hope none of your friends were in there, seeing as that’s exactly where they were two seconds earlier. Maybe you should have checked first?

But somehow Zayne, Jarael, Carth, Rohlan, Lucien, Alek, Karath, and Dallan Morvis, Karath’s lover, all conveniently teleported out of the dome before it was eaten by space monsters. As Karath and Morvis make a beeline for their ship, they tell Carth to be sure to bring Zayne along, since he’s still a prisoner and all. “Whoops,” Carth tells Zayne once their backs are turned, “you escaped,” which is cooler than anything he does in the videogame he was created for.

Jarael is on the phone with Camper again and he tells her that he can’t rejoin the group because he has to lead the mind-controlled exogorths out into deep space in the The Last Resort and remove their hyperdrives so they’re no longer a danger to the galaxy. Jarael cries and begs him not to leave but Camper is steadfast in atoning for his sins. Really though I think he just wanted to ditch her for turning him over to his sworn enemies despite knowing that they were his sworn enemies.

Lucien tells Zayne he will take the rest of them to safety if Zayne promises to go back with him to be murdered, I mean to stand trial. Although Lucien is vastly outnumbered and they could probably just take his ship by force (and I don’t mean that kind of Force, I mean choke Lucien while Zayne grabs the ship and they all fly out of the hangar), Alek can only cluck his tongue in disapproval that Lucien would let them all die just to capture Zayne.

Fortunately, at that moment Dob Moomo flies his ship through the wall (Adasca’s ship has more holes in it than Sonny Corleone, how is there any atmosphere left on board?), cutting Lucien off from Zayne and his friends. The door opens and out hops Slyssk, the galaxy’s twee-est Trandoshan, who is not dead after all and reveals that Gryph isn’t either. In fact, Gryph is back on Taris, where this series began, leading a resistance movement against the Mandalorian invasion, and he needs Zayne’s help! I guess that is the only reason he finally decided to let his guilt-stricken protege know he was alive.

Zayne, Jarael, Alek, Rohlan, Elbee, Slyssk, and Dob escape the Arkanian Legacy and set course for Taris. Meanwhile, Lucien has somehow overheard their entire conversation despite being separated from them by a wall of fire aboard an exploding ship. He escapes in his own craft, vowing that the hunt for Zayne Carrick will finally end where it began! TO BE CONCLUDED . . . in about fourteen more monthly issues.

Whoops.

Meditations

Now that this tedious filler arc is over, it’s finally time to get the plot back on track. Daze of Hate is marginally more tolerable than its predecessor, as Zayne, Carth, Alek, and Mandalore are much more fun and intriguing characters than Jarael. That improvement is almost entirely undone, however, by the horrific decline in art quality. I mentioned in the Nights of Anger review how the art was serviceable but not particularly good, but that crap should be framed and hung on a wall compared to the art in these issues.

Zayne looks about forty, and everyone is perpetually constipated. Everything is so ugly, it’s hard to believe this was a professional production released by a real company that legally had the rights to publish Star Wars comics. The characters look like some Mickey Mouse or Bugs Bunny knockoff you’d see stenciled on the side of a hot dog stand in a traveling carnival.

As for the actual story, I still don’t care about Arkanian science or the stupid exogorth gambit. The most important things that happen in this comic are just setups for future storylines, some of which won’t even come into play until after the Covenant plot has been resolved. Zayne and his friends are fun characters, but this series is best when it’s showing us major events through the eyes of minor players. Hopefully getting the gang back together again and returning to the Mandalorian front will give things a little more juice, especially now that Zayne has recruited the future Darth Malak as a traveling companion.

2/5 Death Stars, Jarael doesn’t change her clothes enough times.

Next: A Knight to Remember

The Mandalorians

“Perhaps there will be no new age, Mandalore, no great Mandalorian crusade. Perhaps your people fought their last battle at Malachor V, and you have been dying ever since, a quiet death that will last centuries. And perhaps all that remains will be what I see before me: a man, wounded by a Jedi, encased in a Mandalorian shell, haunted by the thought of being the last of the Mandalorians.”
    —Kreia, Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords

The concept of the Mandalorians dates back to the original Star Wars trilogy, specifically the character of Boba Fett. A 1979 issue of Bantha Tracks, the official Star Wars Fan Club newsletter, identified Fett’s armor as that of the Imperial Shocktroopers, mysterious warriors who hailed from the far side of the galaxy and were defeated by the Jedi Knights during the Clone Wars. The following year’s novelization of The Empire Strikes Back dropped the term “Imperial Shocktrooper” but kept the description. 

Note that prior to the release of Attack of the Clones in 2002, with one exception, Boba Fett himself was never identified as a Mandalorian, but merely as an unaffiliated bounty hunter who wore their armor. The exception was a 1982 story arc from Marvel’s Star Wars comic, in which Princess Leia encounters two Mandalorian Supercommandos named Fenn Shysa and Tobbi Dala. In issue #68, “The Search Begins,” Fenn Shysa not only claims that Boba Fett led the Mandalorians during the Clone Wars, but also describes the wars as taking place when Leia was already a young adult. 

This comic soon became an outlier source and was mostly ignored by later lore for more than two decades (although Boba Fett: Twin Engines of Destruction referenced Fett’s past with Shysa and Dala in 1996), though it was eventually reincorporated into EU canon by “The History of the Mandalorians,” an article in Star Wars Insider #80 (2005).

Otherwise, most sources from the ’80s and ’90s were largely in agreement on these basic points: 

A) The Mandalorians were a mysterious group of warriors who fought the Jedi during the Clone Wars and lost. 

B) By the time of the movies all that remained of the Mandalorians was battered pieces of their armor. 

C) This armor was a rare and expensive commodity, worn only by a handful of underworld figures that included Boba Fett (Star Wars Holiday Special, 1978), Jodo Kast (Tatooine Manhunt, 1988), Alfreda Goot (Scoundrel’s Luck, 1990), and Feskitt Bobb (Star Wars Miniatures Battles, 1991). 

In 1995, the Mandalorians finally appeared in their full glory in Tales of the Jedi: The Sith War, a comic set almost 4,000 years before the movies. Following Tales of the Jedi’s incongruously primitive technological aesthetic, these Mandalorians more closely resembled a barbarian horde than an elite force of supercommandos. A race of gray-skinned aliens reminiscent of the Predator, they wore mismatched, almost organic-looking armor covered in spikes, but the mask of their leader, known only as Mandalore, still bore the unmistakable T-slit visor made famous by Boba Fett’s helmet.

And for a long time, that was basically it for the Mandalorians. They were enigmatic and extinct, and the fact that we knew almost nothing about them was what made them awesome. All we had to go by was Boba Fett (and three Boba Fett cosplayers from obscure RPG books), who was extremely popular despite only dressing like a Mandalorian. How awesome, then, must the real thing have been?

Of course, we eventually got our answer, and that was where it all went wrong.

Mandalorian history began with an alien race called the Taungs, one of two sentient species indigenous to the planet Notron, known millennia later as Coruscant. The other species was the Battalions of Zhell, the prehistoric ancestors of humans. The Taungs and the Zhell warred for hundreds of years, but eventually the Taungs were defeated and expelled from Notron. They limped to the planet Roon in the Outer Rim, where they stayed for several thousand years for some reason.

Eventually, however, they were led by their great warrior-king, Mandalore the First, to a lush jungle world populated by giant dinosaurs. Under Mandalore’s leadership, the Taungs drove these “mythosaurs” to extinction and named the newly conquered planet Mandalore in their leader’s honor. Adopting the image of a mythosaur skull as their insignia, the Taungs reorganized as the Mandalorian Crusaders, a roving band of space barbarians who lived for battle and conquest.

Whenever the ruling Mandalore died, a Mandalorian warrior would take up his mask and rename him- or herself as the new Mandalore. Among them were Mandalore the Conqueror, Mandalore the Destroyer, Mandalore the Binder, and Mandalore the Hammerborn. At the time of the Great Sith War, however, it was Mandalore the Indomitable who led the marauding horde, and we already saw how his story turned out. 

The reign of his immediate successor was short-lived, as “Mandalore the Unknown” was quickly supplanted by a usurper who took the name Mandalore the Ultimate. Secretly a pawn of the Sith Empire-in-exile in Unknown Space, Ultimate was responsible for starting the Mandalorian Wars, which saw the extinction of the Taung species and the dawn of a multi-species Mandalorian people united by culture instead of race. Thus the time of the Mandalorian Crusaders came to an end, replaced by the more formally regimented, multi-species Neo-Crusaders.

The Mandalorian Wars, the Neo-Crusaders’ great campaign to conquer the entire galaxy, dragged on for several long years, but it finally came to an end when the Mandalorian forces were lured into a trap at the ancient Sith world of Malachor V. Mandalore the Ultimate was slain in personal combat with Revan, the leader of the Jedi war effort, and the bulk of his fleet and soldiers were destroyed by the Mass Shadow Generator, a superweapon activated by the Jedi Exile, the player character from Knights of the Old Republic II.

Thoroughly defeated, stripped of their weapons, armor, and Basilisk war droids, the Mandalorian Neo-Crusaders went into diaspora. Most hired themselves out to the highest bidder as bodyguards or assassins, becoming known as the Mandalorian Mercs. The Taung species was all but extinct, with the only known survivor being the former Mandalore the Unknown. In the power vacuum that existed after the war, he tried to reclaim his rightful place as Mandalore, but because Revan had taken Mandalore’s traditional mask when he killed Ultimate, Unknown was unable to rally the full support of the Mandalorian clans.

He sent warriors to the Kashyyyk Shadowlands to test a new personal cloaking device, and survived an assassination attempt by HK-47, Revan’s personal assassin droid, when the droid was reprogrammed by one of his own disloyal followers, but ultimately his accomplishments were few. Ailing and near death after the Jedi Civil War, Unknown was visited by Canderous Ordo, a former Neo-Crusader, during his quest to reunite the clans. Seeing that Canderous had already reclaimed the mask of Mandalore, Unknown bequeathed him his armor and his clan, asking him to preserve the old Mandalorian ways before he died.

Taking the name Mandalore the Preserver, Canderous successfully reunited the Mandalorians during the Dark Wars, when they fought alongside the Jedi and the Republic against a resurgent Sith threat.

 

Later, some other things happened.

All My Nights Are Full of Anger

Knights of the Old Republic #16–18: Nights of Anger

Author: John Jackson Miller

Artist: Brian Ching (issue 16), Harvey Tolibao (issues 17 and 18)

Medium: Comic

Publication Date: May – July 2007

Timeline Placement: 3,963 BBY

Series: Knights of the Old Republic

Sadly, we’ve reached the end of Knights of the Old Republic‘s high school-themed titles (Commencement, Homecoming, Reunion, Days of Fear, etc.). Instead, we spend a few minutes with Zayne as he helps Carth Onasi and Admiral Karath escape from the Republic flagship Courageous while it is overrun by the Mandalorians. Then we spend the other two and a half issues watching Jarael play dress up.

Camper is now apparently dying of craziness or something so Jarael takes him back to their species’ homeworld of Arkania to find a treatment. Arkania is a racially segregated hellhole run by amoral eugenicists who have genetically engineered offshoot breeds of their own species to perform the undesirable functions of their society. An offshoot herself, which finally explains why she’s a hot elf instead of a yellow weirdo with claws, Jarael is soon found out by the Arkanian authorities and brought before Lord Arkoh Adasca, Wall Street CEO and King of Science.

Fortunately, Adasca has the hots for her, just like every other male character in this series, and he agrees to cure Camper’s cancer. Although Camper explained repeatedly to her that he is on the run from Adasca’s company, Adascorp, and would rather die than be found by them, Jarael turns him over to his sworn enemies without a second thought because Adasca seems like a pretty keen guy. Five minutes later, Adasca explains that Camper has been afflicted with a disease called “Balinquar’s Virus,” but his miracle medical staff have worked their magic and Camper is now completely cured. Jarael is like “Okay cool” and stands around posing in flimsy low-cut dresses for several weeks.

There has been an awakening . . . [in my pants.]

Since Jarael is an idiot and WebMD doesn’t exist in Star Wars apparently, she doesn’t realize that Adasca is clearly evil and Balinquar’s Virus is a completely made-up disease. Really there was just mold or something growing in their ship’s air vents and Camper got sick from breathing that shit. Sure, why not.

The truth is that Camper, or should I say DR. GORMAN VANDRAYK, used to be one of the top scientists at Adascorp, specializing in the study of space slugs. You will of course remember a space slug almost eating the Millennium Falcon in The Empire Strikes Back and another one being mutated by Naga Sadow to become the feared Sith wyrm. Oh, you don’t remember one of those?

Camper, now completely sane again, has been forced back into Adasca’s service by his power over Jarael, who is too stupid to know she is being held hostage. Camper must continue the work he abandoned when he went into hiding many years ago, which unfortunately involves revealing that the true science fiction-y name of the space slug is the exogorth. Sure, why not.

Adasca invites Jarael to a romantic candlelit dinner for two, then immediately starts coming on to her with dirty talk about genetic purity and racial cleansing. “This is the worst dinner I’ve ever had,” Jarael complains. Adasca assures her that he won’t let their future children bear her Mudblood shame. Arkoh Adasca, I present you with the Completely-and-Totally-Understands-Women Award. You’ve earned it, my friend, you’ve earned it.

He pulls open the curtain and reveals that his ship is parked right outside a giant nest of space slugs—sorry, “exogorths”—and that each of them has a hyperdrive duct taped to its head. He plans to weaponize the monsters and sell them to the highest bidder among the galactic power players, who can then use them to crush their enemies by sending them through hyperspace to eat everything in a given star system.

Sure, why not.

And it’s on this exciting high note that we end the comic. There was something in there about Mandalorian stowaway Rohlan Dyre getting chummy with Adasca and revealing himself to be a huge science geek all of a sudden, but we’ll get deeper into that later.

Why are all the pages in this comic book stuck together?

Meditations

This story marks the beginning of the, or at least a, low point of Knights of the Old Republic. It’s a fun, light-hearted series with likable characters, but there really isn’t much depth to it. Certainly not enough to warrant a six-issue diversion into some B-plot about a boring mad scientist trying to blackmail the galaxy with giant space monsters, especially when it’s soon followed by a four-issue B-plot about zombies and an editorially mandated title crossover. Don’t call your spinoff comic Knights of the Old Republic and then go off on a bunch of tangents unrelated to the back story of Knights of the Old Republic.

This arc isn’t exactly bad, per se, it just feels gratuitous because you know there are much more interesting things happening to much more interesting characters just off the edge of the page. Great, Jarael’s been kidnapped and held hostage again, now can we get back to the massive galactic war?

The art in this run left little impression on me. I still don’t care for Brian Ching’s style, but I appreciate that he at least has one. Harvey Tolibao, who we last saw penciling Reunion, doesn’t do his distractingly weird disembodied hand thing this time, but I really, really wish that they’d just paid Dustin Weaver enough to do the whole series. If he missed as many deadlines as Doug Wheatley, the series might still be running today.

This isn’t the worst but I don’t care.

2/5 Death Stars.

Next: Dazed and Confused

Let’s Catch Up On the Star Wars Cinematic Universe

Everybody wants to be Marvel. Universal wants to be Marvel. Sony wants to be Marvel. DC really, really wants to be Marvel. Disney, who owns Marvel, now wants Star Wars to be Marvel as well. In doing so, however, they’re hoping we forget that Star Wars was already Marvel before even Marvel was Marvel. The “cinematic universe” may be Hollywood’s newest favorite con game, but the concept has existed for decades, and Star Wars has utilized it almost since its inception. Forget about “canon” and all that meaningless promotional jargon, and let’s use the remaining two months before The Force Awakens hits theaters to catch up on the cinematic story presented so far, because it’s not like you have anything better to do.

The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones

 

Anyone who’s never seen a Star Wars movie would do themselves a major disservice by watching them in George Lucas’s preferred chronological order rather than starting with the original trilogy. But since no such person exists, we’ll assume anyone reading this has already seen those movies and is less interested in a thrilling cinematic experience than in a grueling slog through the gutters of continuity. And what more appropriate place to begin!

Star Wars: Clone Wars Volume One

Genndy Tartakovsky, creator of such cartoons as Dexter’s Laboratory and Samurai Jack, lent his unique style to the Star Wars universe in 2003 when Lucasfilm hired him to create a series of 20 three-minute animated shorts to chronicle the events between Episodes II and III. Notable for introducing such characters as Asajj Ventress and General Lou Grievous, the first two seasons were edited into a 69-minute feature. Unfortunately, that DVD is now out of print, but if you can watch only one hyper-stylized children’s cartoon about the Clone Wars, this is the one to go with. Or you could do something cool and read the new Twilight book instead.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars Animated Movie and TV Series

Star Wars: The Clone Wars, not to be confused with Star Wars: Clone Wars, followed in the footsteps of its spiritual predecessor by telling anthology stories about various characters during the Clone Wars. It focused most frequently on Anakin Skywalker’s newly introduced apprentice, kid-appeal-girl-power-Rule-34 character Ahsoka Tano. The Clone Wars ran for 121 episodes across six seasons, preceded by a theatrically released animated film that was actually four separate episodes glued together and therefore sucked.

For no discernible reason, the show’s episodes (now available on Netflix) were produced and aired wildly out of chronological order, leaping back and forth across the Clone Wars timeline. The correct narrative sequence is as follows:

Season 2, Episode 16
Season 1, Episode 16
Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008 animated movie)
Season 3, Episodes 1 and 3
Season 1, Episodes 1–15 and 17–21
Season 2, Episodes 1–3, 17–19, 4–14, and 20–22
Season 3, Episodes 5–7, 2, 4, and 8
Season 1, Episode 22
Season 3, Episodes 9–11
Season 2, Episode 15
Season 3, Episodes 12–22
Season 4, Episodes 1–22
Season 5, Episodes 2–13, 1, 14–20
Season 6, Episodes 1–13

Star Wars: The Clone Wars Legacy

 

The Clone Wars Legacy is a series of eight unfinished episodes intended to air in future seasons of Star Wars: The Clone Wars before it was canceled following Disney’s acquisition of the franchise. Existing only as rough story reel animatics, the following episodes were released on StarWars.com as the official continuation of the Clone Wars storyline: “A Death on Utapau,” “In Search of the Crystal,” “Crystal Crisis,” “The Big Bang,” “The Bad Batch,” “A Distant Echo,” “On the Wings of Keeradaks,” and “Unfinished Business.”

Star Wars: Clone Wars Volume Two

The third season of Genndy Tartakovsky’s Clone Wars cartoon consisted of five 12-minute episodes depicting the events immediately leading into Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. Like the first two seasons, it was also edited into an hour-long film, which is now also out of print!

Revenge of the Sith

According to the commercial prophecy, the dark side will be doing something dark.

Droids: The Adventures of R2-D2 and C-3PO

A kickass 1985 cartoon that, along with a Marvel comic series, a Dark Horse comic series, and various children’s storybooks, chronicled the adventures of R2-D2 and C-3PO in between Episodes III and IV. Tragically, Lucasfilm has only released a handful of select episodes on DVD, cobbled together into Frankenstein features with no plot or pacing. Worst of all, they don’t even include the opening theme.

 

Star Wars: Rebels Shorts

Currently airing on Disney XD, the cartoon series Star Wars: Rebels was preceded by four animated shorts that introduced and established several of the show’s main characters. In chronological order, the shorts are “The Machine in the Ghost,” “Art Attack,” “Entanglement,” and “Property of Ezra Bridger.”

Star Wars: Rebels TV Series

 

Set five years before Episode IV, Rebels tells the story of the formative days of the Rebel Alliance through a new cast of characters, including Jedi Knight Freddie Prinze, Jr. Despite the timeframe difference, it features multiple returning characters from The Clone Wars, as well as much of the same creative team. Following the aforementioned shorts, Rebels kicked off in 2014 with the TV movie Spark of Rebellion, which led into the show’s first season. Season two, which premiered in October 2015, was preceded by a second film, The Siege of Lothal. 

 

A New Hope

 

The Star Wars Holiday Special

 

The most infamous entry on this list, the Holiday Special was a feature-length made-for-TV variety show that aired the year after the original Star Wars was released in theaters. Featuring musical numbers performed by both Bea Arthur and Princess Leia, Harvey Korman cosplaying as a four-armed Julia Child, the first appearance of Boba Fett, and Chewbacca’s father watching softcore porn, this is the most highly respected film ever released in the Star Wars canon. For some baffling reason it has never been officially released on home video, but if you’re a true fan you won’t let that stop you.

 

The Empire Strikes Back

 

“Empire committed the cardinal sin of not actually ending. Which at the time I was appalled by and I still think it was a terrible idea. . . . I go to movies expecting to have a whole experience. If I want a movie that doesn’t end I’ll go to a French movie. That’s a betrayal of trust to me. A movie has to be complete within itself, it can’t just build off the first one or play variations.”

~ Joss Whedon, television auteur/professional feminist

 

Ewoks

 

The sister show to Droids, Ewoks aired for 35 episodes over two seasons and at long last revealed the highly anticipated back story to all the memorable Ewok characters in Return of the Jedi. Follow along on their mystical adventures as they battle a witch, run afoul of swamp hillbillies, befriend giants, and learn sorcery from their tribe’s elderly shaman. Oh and in the series finale the Galactic Empire shows up to build a Death Star or something but who’d be interested in that?

 

The Ewok Movies

Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure and Ewoks: The Battle for Endor, released in 1984 and 1985 respectively, are a duo of made-for-TV movies that tell the surprisingly dark story of the Towani family, whose spaceship crashes on the Forest Moon of Endor. It’s like Swiss Family Robinson in space, except a lot more depressing. I don’t even remember if these movies are actually any good, but the second one co-stars the guy from the Liberty Mutual diabetes commercials, so that probably makes them worth a trip to your local Blockbuster. Oh . . . wait, no.

 

Return of the Jedi

At last, the long-awaited conclusion to the saga of the Ewoks. Also features a brief cameo appearance by Luke Starkiller or somebody like that.

Some Common Complaints About 'BioShock Infinite' (and Why They’re Wrong)

BioShock Infinite, as I’ve said before, is one of my favorite games of all time. It is also a game rife with problems. How can we reconcile this discrepancy? Despite the game’s critical and financial success, it’s no trick to find the same handful of criticisms repeated over and over again, blown up out of all proportion, and left to stew in some concoctive regurgitant of gaming journalism. And some of them are even true!

Those that are less so often feel like they’re coming from the wrong place to begin with. Take for instance the complaint that you can’t interact with most of the game’s non-player characters, despite the token dialogue they occasionally offer you. What were people expecting on this front? BioShock Infinite never advertised itself as an RPG. When I play Halo, I’m neither surprised nor upset that Master Chief can’t have a conversation with any of the nameless Space Marines standing around in Sergeant Johnson’s briefing rooms.

The first BioShock was not only completely devoid of dialogue trees, but the protagonist was also mute. If anything, someone looking for their player character to be more interactive with the game world should praise Infinite for delivering an FPS protagonist with extensive scripted dialogue and a personality more defined than “player surrogate.” If I wanted to know the life story of every generic NPC standing on the street corner I’d play a BioWare game.

Moreover, parts of the game that do offer greater interactivity are often met with indifference or derision. When the player has the option to play a guitar he or she might come across, it’s ridiculed as pretentious, annoying, too on-the-nose. The ability to buy food from vendors on the boardwalk bears no consideration, nor does Elizabeth plucking a rose and wearing it in her hair while you explore the next area.

It’s even possible to trigger a scripted dialogue sequence with some NPCs just by walking up to them, but because BioShock Infinite is a shooter without selectable dialogue options—just like almost every other mainstream shooter—it supposedly fails to establish an immersive game world. I’m all for integrating RPG mechanics into shooters, but why blame the game for lacking something its genre, developer, franchise, and marketing all suggested it wouldn’t have?

This same frustration extends to things as mundane as not being able to free two men in Shantytown from their imprisonment in a pair of stocks. You have a gun and a hook-hand, so why can’t you get them out? Terrible game design! I would guess that the reason is probably because it isn’t feasible to code every possible action the player could take that isn’t connected to the main plot or its side quests. You also can’t shoot the lock off a door, break open a vending machine, or escape Columbia by constructing a parachute and leaping over the side of the city. Should the specific action of freeing these specific prisoners have been coded into the game? I don’t care, but the game is full of people in jails, and it wouldn’t have hurt to be able to help some of them. Really, though, it’s just an example used by critics to illustrate their discontent with the game’s interactivity, a complaint that is due more to the limitations of video games in general than to any shortcoming unique to BioShock Infinite.

That said, it’s true that the game didn’t completely live up to its pre-release marketing hype. Elizabeth’s unscripted tears can do little more than spawn turrets, weapons, ammo, health, and, more rarely, environmental hazards. It’s a great help, but not exactly a highlight of the gameplay. Furthermore, this is a far cry from the wide variety of tactics and applications the tears were talked up to have while the game was in development. I gladly would have waited through another year of development if Irrational Games had been able to implement her powers to the full extent they discussed in the demos, creating doorways to escape from combat and forcing the player to use Elizabeth’s ability more tactically by giving it a recharge timer.

One demo showed Elizabeth being accosted by a homeless man begging for food, and I wish the developers had been able to make the environment come to life and interact with the player in little ways like this. I’m just as disappointed that the final game doesn’t allow you to interfere with the actions of the Vox mob, and it’s completely fair to feel a little cheated that these advertised aspects of gameplay didn’t make the final cut.

Elizabeth mourns a victim of the Vox Populi uprising in a scene altered in the final game.

 

But only a little. The fact is that few games fully incorporate everything their overambitious developers want to include. It’s disappointing, certainly, and arguably even slightly dishonest not to admit which advertised features didn’t make the cut, but it’s hardly a game-breaking flaw. Would BioShock Infinite be more fun if Elizabeth could summon a freight train from another universe to run over enemies? Yes, definitely. Does the lack of this ability impair the gameplay in any way? No more than the absence of any kind of tears in the first BioShock impaired that game.

Speaking of absence, what about the puzzling critiques of the game’s civilian AI during combat sequences? If you’ve played the game, you may have noticed how anyone who doesn’t want to kill you hightails it off the map when the bullets start flying. Apparently this was a confusing programming choice that needed to be singled out for censure. Did it really, though? These aren’t enemy types, they’re just civilian NPCs. When the fighting starts, they run away to avoid being shot, set on fire, blown up, or pecked to death by crows. Is this really such an unusual game mechanic? It makes more sense than programming them to run around haphazardly in the middle of a firefight.

Certain criticisms of the characters ring similarly hollow. Critics often compare Infinite’s dramatis personae to that of the original BioShock, and end up looking down their noses at Columbia’s villains for not writing any poetry about rabbits. While it’s true that the first game’s supporting characters did tend to be more flamboyant and memorable than those in Infinite, it was because they had to be. The main character of BioShock, Jack, has almost no personality or character of his own. He is intentionally left as a blank slate, a pawn of the game’s allegorical meta-commentary on video games. BioShock is more about the city, the madmen who live there, and what they represent than it is the story of any one character.

This is not the case in BioShock Infinite. Booker DeWitt is no stand-in for the player; he is a fully fleshed out and realized character with a detailed past. The player may control his actions, but his identity is his own. Some will argue that comparisons between BioShock and BioShock Infinite are fair game because they both take place in decaying dystopian societies, but this isn’t an apt criterion.

The heart of BioShock Infinite is the relationship between Booker and Elizabeth. While the game is packed to the brim with big ideas—perhaps even bigger ideas than filled its predecessor—the narrative is blatantly character-focused. Jeremiah Fink and Daisy Fitzroy, while interesting characters in their own right, are no Sander Cohen or Dr. Steinman, and Zachary Comstock is certainly no Andrew Ryan—but they don’t need to be, and it’s a mistake to expect something old from a game that’s so obviously doing something new. BioShock Infinite is Booker’s story from beginning to end. Which type of narrative is better is a matter of opinion; that they are intended to be different is not.
 

The relationship between Booker DeWitt and Elizabeth is the heart of BioShock Infinite.

Regarding combat, some will assert that the game provides few opportunities for strategy more complex than shooting enemies in the face until they die, and that your variety of vigor powers doesn’t come into play at all. This is not entirely accurate, however. On lower difficulty levels, it’s true that the different vigors function as little more than fun ways to switch up your method of execution.

On hard difficulty or 1999 Mode, however, the tactical advantages of different vigors against different enemy types do come into play. The best way to stop a rampaging Handyman in his tracks is with Murder of Crows, for instance, and the massive battle at the end of the game is nigh-unwinnable unless you’re able to chain lightning between Motorized Patriots with an upgraded Shock Jockey. Possession in particular becomes invaluable when used tactically to clear rooms full of enemies without engaging them yourself.

But by and large, BioShock Infinite’s combat is not the high point of the game. While the vigors are fun, the weapons are mostly interchangeable and offer no interesting upgrades. The ability to carry only two weapons at a time discourages the player from experimenting with different combinations once they’ve secured something as powerful as the Hand Cannon or paired the shotgun with the vigor Undertow.

This raises the question, however: is combat really one of the main draws of a BioShock game? The answer is almost certainly no. At their most basic level, the games are shooters, but thematically, philosophically, contextually, they’re much more than that, and fans of the series expect much more than that from them. Was the combat in the original BioShock particularly revolutionary? Not really; while perhaps more complex than Infinite’s, it was a pretty standard strategic FPS in a survival-horror environment, plus the ability to shoot magic from your hands. The basic shooter portion of its gameplay may not be particularly inspired, but with its implementation of sky-lines and tears, BioShock Infinite has really only evolved and streamlined the combat mechanics of its predecessors.
 

A Motorized Patriot, part of the game’s “Heavy Hitter” class of enemies.

Perhaps BioShock Infinite’s most hyped advancement was the AI for Elizabeth. And for the most part, her AI is extremely impressive. She almost never behaves in ways that break game immersion or that make her a burden to the player. In a strange catch-22, however, her coding sometimes calls attention to the fact that she’s not calling attention to the fact that she’s a video game companion. While assertions that she is a weak character couldn’t be further from the truth, Elizabeth’s inability to be detected by enemy AI is a bit of a programming oversight.

I suspect this was done to prevent her from inadvertently sabotaging the player’s attempts to use stealth or drawing in a hoard of enemies the player wasn’t yet prepared to face, but it does sometimes detract from the experience. Given the alternative, however, it’s a fair tradeoff. More distracting is when she is occasionally hit by stray enemy fire but has no reaction because she isn’t coded to register hits. I’m glad that you don’t have to protect Elizabeth on the battlefield, but there must have been a way to make her invincible without having her shrug off direct missile strikes to the face.

Despite my objections, however, certain analyses hit the mark more often than not. Columbia’s vigors, for example, are not very smoothly integrated into the game. They made sense in Rapture (well, as much sense as magical sea slugs can ever be expected to make), a society guided by the virtue of selfishness and the unending quest for self-improvement. In a society based around religious fervor, racial supremacy, and good old-fashioned American exceptionalism, however, they just don’t feel like an organic part of the world. But it’s a BioShock game so they had to be there.

Other points stretch from a lack of world-building in the voxophones to the tedious boss battle with Lady Comstock. And why couldn’t we look into the past through any of the scripted tears we encounter? We can hear people talking, but that’s functionally no different from a voxophone. This is such an obvious trick, it’s amazing no one at Irrational thought to put it in the game.

It bears considering, however, that many, if not most, of these and other commonly cited issues don’t appear or affect the game until the final third or so of its length. The point at which the characters start hopping through parallel universes is also the point at which both story and gameplay suffer the most.

Once you enter a world where every faction is trying to kill you, both the previous enemy types and your erstwhile allies, the interactivity issues mentioned above are finally noticeable. Elizabeth becomes less chatty, non-hostile NPCs become less commonplace, and for some reason it seems like the environment itself becomes less organic. You’ll be walking down long, elaborate corridors that, although beautifully rendered, feel like they should be brimming with lootable items or at least stuff that you can knock over or interact with in some way. But it’s all just scenery, and the result is a sense of hollowness and sterility incongruous with the gorgeous graphic design.

I understand it wouldn’t have been feasible for Elizabeth to maintain long-running conversations with you during gameplay, including combat, as she did in the E3 demo, but I also don’t see why she had to shut up completely. In Battleship Bay, she skips stones on the lake, comments on the city’s quantum engineering, and delights in a gift of cotton candy from a vendor. By the time she’s abducted by Songbird and taken to Comstock House, it’s rare to hear her talk outside of combat or cutscenes, and that’s a shame.

So it’s not as if the game is without its flaws. But just because they become more apparent as the narrative enters its home stretch, they don’t retroactively apply to the gaming experience prior to that point. For each disappointing or inconsistent element of gameplay, there are a dozen positive accomplishments to balance it out, and everything that follows the final battle on Comstock’s flagship is as strong as everything that preceded your first journey through the tear. Oh but I guess none of that matters because parts of the magic flying city seem more like a combat arena in a videogame than a place where people would realistically live.

Therein lies the real problem with this flavor of criticism. Instead of evaluating the game for what it is, it condemns it for what it is not. Such points, while cogent, frequently come off as so pedantic, so nitpicky, that they brush aside all the good the game achieves, everything special, memorable, or unique, because it fails to be either the same game as its precursor or a perfect simulacrum of reality. In the Internet age of undeserved negativity and thoughtless criticality, it’s disheartening to see BioShock Infinite, a game that tries so hard and offers so much, be so easily dismissed just because it isn’t perfect.

“The problem with BioShock Infinite,” one critic summarized, “is it’s a game that wants to blow your mind rather than encouraging you to use it.” Ignoring how trite an analysis that is, why can’t it do both? How many people, upon completing the game, immediately started looking for answers, looking to discuss their experience, looking to understand? And yet the game didn’t make them think? Are all of the clues, the foreshadowing, the thematic structure and repetition, the allegory and symbolism, the social and historical commentary so simplistic and obvious as to preclude any consideration from the player? Maybe BioShock Infinite isn’t the greatest game ever made; it has plenty of faults to criticize. But so does the greatest game ever made, whatever it might be—and that doesn’t stop it from being the greatest.

It’s Sneak King, by the way.

Days of Labour Pains

Labor Pains

Author: John Jackson Miller

Medium: Short story

Publication Date: April 2008 on StarWars.com (republished on Unbound Worlds)

Timeline Placement: 3,963 BBY

This first-person story, a rarity for Star Wars fiction, is an excerpt from the memoirs of Marn Hierogryph, narrated by the Gryph himself. Gryph and Zayne run a con on two art collectors on the planet Ralltiir: a gullible Muun and his “father,” a morbidly obese Rodian in a hoverchair.

I love these guys. Someone should have given them their own series.

There’s some weird moral obfuscation where Zayne objects to this swindle (the alleged “art” they are trying to pawn off is just junk they stole from Camper’s workshop) but Gryph convinces him to come around because the fact that their marks are buying what they think is stolen art makes it okay to rob them. Whatever helps you sleep at night, I guess.

This story is completely inconsequential fluff but it’s funny. 3/5 Death Stars.

 

Knights of the Old Republic #13–15: Days of Fear

Author: John Jackson Miller

Artist: Dustin Weaver (issues 13 and 15), Brian Ching (issue 14)

Medium: Comic

Publication Date: January – April 2007

Timeline Placement: 3,963 BBY

Series: Knights of the Old Republic

We meet up with our less-than-intrepid heroes on the planet Ralltiir, where we left them at the end of the preceding short story. Zayne spars with Jarael outside the The Last Resort to test the vambraces she’s given him. Gauntlets laced with phrikite, a lightsaber-resistant ore, the vambraces prove to be fully functional when Jarael steals Zayne’s lightsaber and attempts to cut off his hands while he screams for her to stop. No means no, kids.

[Continuity Note: Phrik, the alloy produced from phrikite, dates back to the mid-‘90s EU, originating in the videogame Star Wars: Dark Forces, where it was used to construct the robotic dark troopers. One of several lightsaber-proof substances in the EU, phrik eventually fell largely out of use among Star Wars authors in favor of cortosis. Of course, cortosis ore was introduced as a very brittle material that caused lightsaber blades to temporarily short out instead of being outright energy-resistant armor. As is the nature of the EU, in most of its appearances, including the KotOR games, cortosis was written to function more like the previously created and underused phrik.]

Flush with cash from Gryph’s bank account on Telerath, Jarael and Camper prepare to take the The Last Resort and go back into hiding from their mysterious pasts. Zayne is forlorn about Jarael leaving with no apparent reluctance. She tries to make up for her indifference by saying she’s glad she didn’t kill him when she had the chance. For some reason that doesn’t do the trick though.

“’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”
– some stupid guy

The The Last Resort makes orbit, where they find the Republic fleet massing in preparation to meet the Mandalorian invasion. Jarael says she hopes Zayne and Gryph will be able to sneak past without getting caught. Camper tells her to mind her own business. Meanwhile, in the ship’s hold, a cargo container pops open and out steps assassin droid HK-24.

[Continuity Note: HK-24 is, of course, meant to be a precursor to HK-47, a companion character in both KotOR games. Although the games established that HK-47 was personally constructed by the Sith Lord Darth Revan, later sources introduced a whole line of HK-series assassin droids mass produced by Czerka Corporation. The first was HK-01, a prototype model who was retconned to be the instigator of the Great Droid Revolution mentioned by Arca Jeth in Tales of the Jedi. So we’re left with a Darth Vader-building-C-3PO situation where apparently instead of designing some kind of unique robot from his own imagination, Revan just opted to buff the specs of some manufacturer’s product line. Isn’t continuity great?]

HK-24 shoots poor Elbee and overwhelms Camper and Jarael, but they are saved when Rohlan Dyre steps out of a different cargo container and shoots HK- in the head. I guess he’s just been hiding in this box since the end of Flashpoint, presumably surviving on space cockroaches and his own urine.

Meanwhile, Gryph secures a new ship by hiring the galaxy’s worst starship thief, a Trandoshan named Slyssk, who is also the most twee Star Wars character since that dog dressed as an AT-AT.

 So kawaii!

Slyssk decides to hold out for more money than Gryph had hired him for so Zayne uses the Force to endanger his life by collapsing a giant pylon on him. Gryph pretends to save him by pushing him out of the way, causing Slyssk to name Gryph his “grakhowsk” and swear a life debt to him. Our heroes!

The original crew of the Little Bivoli, the stolen ship, shows up looking for their craft. Zayne, Gryph, and Slyssk escape under a hail of blasterfire, realizing once they are aboard the Little Bivoli that it is a military provisioning ship. They make it to orbit and run smack into the Republic fleet, where they are hailed by newly promoted Admiral Saul Karath’s warship Courageous and ordered to fall into formation. Flying as inconspicuously as possible, the Little Bivoli tags along with the fleet as it makes the hyperspace jump to the planet Serroco.

Gryph puts a chef hat on Slyssk and they quickly gain a reputation among the Republic soldiers for having the best food in camp. Zayne disguises himself by wearing goggles and goes to work as a dishwasher, in which capacity he makes the acquaintance of the fleet’s most talented pilot and the first recruitable party member in KotOR, Lieutenant Carth Onasi:

Carth strikes up a conversation with Zayne about Serroco’s native intelligent species, the Stereb, when they see one picking through the trash for leftovers. Carth is moved by Zayne’s kindness in offering the alien a free meal and tells him about the practical jokes he used to play on the dimwitted aliens back when he was stationed on the planet’s orbital watchstation. Using the Republic’s communications network, he would broadcast tornado warnings and send the Stereb scurrying for shelter below ground. He used to think it was great fun, until he went down to the planet and met its people in person.

Zayne wonders if the Republic is endangering the Stereb by placing their military encampments right next to the natives’ stone cities, but Carth explains that Republic command ordered them here against Saul Karath’s better judgment. Zayne wanders off by himself and unknowingly falls into a trance, in which the Force grants him a vision of the future: the Mandalorians will destroy Serroco in one day. “I see what they’re doing,” he hears Mandalore say. “I see a defense without honor. Let them see what such a defense deserves. Let them burn.”

He runs to tell Gryph to pack up and take off immediately, then stows away on Carth Onasi’s ship to warn Admiral Karath aboard the Courageous. Carth catches him but Zayne reveals that he is a Jedi, leading Carth to trust his clams of precognition and agree to take him to the admiral. Meanwhile, Gryph and Slyssk talk about how they should probably get the frak out of there, then nonchalantly continue serving breakfast because I guess they’re stupid or something.

Carth takes Zayne before Admiral Karath, who immediately recognizes him as the Jedi killer of Taris and, he believes, a Mandalorian spy. As Zayne is put in handcuffs, he tries to explain that the admiral has to move the Republic forces away from the Stereb cities to avoid insulting the Mandalorians’ sense of honor. He suggests they call his good friend Squint for a character reference, but the fact that he doesn’t even know his friend’s real name puts the kibosh on that.

Just as the Republic expected, the Mandalorian fleet suddenly arrives in the system, but for some reason they don’t advance and hold position outside their enemies’ weapons range. Zayne continues to plead with Admiral Karath, who ignores him, and the Mandalorians fire a spread of nuclear missiles. To the surprise of everyone but Zayne, however, the missiles avoid the fleet entirely and head for the planet.

“Maybe we shouldn’t have served seconds . . .” Gryph muses, looking up from his pile of gold-pressed latinum, and then the entire planet is consumed in mushroom clouds. Across the galaxy, various characters sense Serroco’s death through the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

Oh hi Malak and Revan.

“The people! The people!” screams Zayne. Morvis, Saul Karath’s second in command, reports that Serroco’s human settlements have sustained heavy damage, while the Stereb cities have been completely wiped away. Only eight Republic ships managed to escape the planet’s surface. Zayne, still reeling from the mass deaths, asks if the Little Bivoli was among the survivors. Carth calls up its burning hull on the monitor and is like NOPE.

Admiral Karath vows that he will personally hand Zayne over to the Jedi Masters from Taris, then has him locked in the brig. That night, Carth Onasi stops by and tells Zayne he had decided to prank the Stereb for old times’ sake and called in tornado warnings to seventeen of their cities. The Republic has yet to hear from any survivors, but given the depth of the planet’s catacombs, Carth believes that some Stereb have a good chance of making it.

He wasn’t sure if he should trust Zayne’s vision, but says he hopes someone would play the same joke on his family if the situation arose. (This is a reference to how Carth will eventually lose his wife and son when Saul Karath bombs their homeworld during the next war.) “Hang in there, Zayne,” says Carth, and closes the door.

Meditations

So this story is really good but before we get into that let’s talk about the massive, gaping continuity error! The Mandalorians’ destruction of Serroco originated in Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. “I heard about Dxun. Everyone has. I heard about Serroco, and I sure as hell know about Malachor V. What makes you think you’ve got the right to interrogate me on anything? You’ve got plenty of lives to answer for—all you Jedi do,” party member Atton Rand Paul tells the player character. The implication here is clear: the Jedi were somehow responsible for Serroco’s destruction.

Except the event as depicted in the comic has nothing to do with the Jedi whatsoever. The Mandalorians were provoked not by the Jedi, but by the Republic command’s decision to use the Stereb cities as shields.

KotOR II also establishes that the player character was present on Serroco during its destruction. Days of Fear just barely covers its ass regarding this, giving Carth a brief line about rogue Jedi rumored to be investigating the front. Galactic Republic Defense Ministry Daily Brief #KD0092, the in-universe news supplement included with Knights of the Old Republic issue #24, also makes reference to a lone Jedi escaping the planet’s destruction. So they remembered that your character from the game was supposed to be there, but not that you were supposed to have somehow played a role in the bombing. Whoops!

Minor continuity hiccups aside, though, this is a pretty good little installment in the series. Unlike in Flashpoint, half the cast doesn’t get much to do, since Jarael, Camper, and Rohlan are missing from much of the story. I would still rank it above that earlier arc, however. This series’ original characters are great but I’ve always regretted how underutilized the characters from the actual KotOR games were, so having Carth show up here and actually be a pretty cool guy instead of the paranoid whiner most people remember from the game was a nice little surprise. The entire sequence from Zayne’s vision of the future to the moment that vision comes true is the most intense in the series so far.

Although we don’t know Serroco and its people that well, we spend just enough time there to appreciate the shock and pain its destruction causes in our characters, Jedi and Republic alike. One of the nice things about having a cast this large is how you can use them to jump across the galaxy just for a moment and get a snapshot of what’s happening in the part of the story you’re not seeing at the moment. Revan and Malak “The Revanchist and Alek” only show up for a single panel but it’s one of the highlights of the issue. It’s cool seeing how everything fits together, how Zayne slots into the parts of this war we’ve only heard about, and the parts we’ve yet to see.

5/5 Death Stars.

Next: All My Nights Are Full of Anger