The first and last chapter of Revenge of the Sith were quite awesome. And framed the Anakin fall really well.
In the first chapter they describe the people of Coruscant seeing the battle above, and feeling embolded because soon Obi-Wan and Anakin would be there and they were the unbeatable team. By the way I love Stover's writing style. Here's the first chapter
Spoiler!
Quote:
INTRODUCTION: The Age of Heroes
The skies of Coruscant blaze with war.
The artificial daylight spread by the capital's orbital mirrors is sliced by intersecting flames of ion drives and punctuated by starburst explosions; contrails of debris raining into the atmosphere become tangled ribbons of cloud. The nightside sky is an infinite lattice of shining hairlines that interlock planetoids and track erratic spirals of glowing gnats. Beings watching from rooftops of Coruscant's endless cityscape can find it beautiful.
From the inside, it's different.
The gnats are drive-glows of starfighters. The shining hairlines are light-scatter from turbolaser bolts powerful enough to vaporize a small town. The planetoids are capital ships.
The battle from the inside is a storm of confusion and panic, of galvened particle beams flashing past your starfighter so close that your cockpit rings like a broken annunciator, of the bootsole shock of concussion missiles that blast into your cruiser, killing beings you have trained with and eaten with and played and laughed and bickered with. From the inside, the battle is desperation and terror and the stomach-churning certainty that the whole galaxy is trying to kill you.
Across the remnants of the Republic, stunned beings watch in horror as the battle unfolds live on the HoloNet. Everyone knows the war has been going badly. Everyone knows that more Jedi are killed or captured every day, that the Grand Army of the Republic has been pushed out of system after system, but this --
A strike at the very heart of the Republic?
An invasion of Coruscant itself?
How can this happen?
It's a nightmare, and no one can wake up.
Live via HoloNet, beings watch the Separatist droid army flood the government district. The coverage is filled with images of overmatched clone troopers cut down by remorselessly powerful destroyer droids in the halls of the Galactic Senate itself.
A gasp of relief: the troopers seem to beat back the attack. There are hugs and even some quiet cheers in living rooms across the galaxy as the Separatist forces retreat to their landers and streak for orbit --
We won! beings tell each other. We held them off!
But then new reports trickle in -- only rumors at first -- that the attack wasn't an invasion at all. That the Separatists weren't trying to take the planet. That this was a lightning raid on the Senate itself.
The nightmare gets worse: the Supreme Chancellor is missing.
Palpatine of Naboo, the most admired man in the galaxy, whose unmatched political skills have held the Republic together. Whose personal integrity and courage prove that the Separatist propaganda of corruption in the Senate is nothing but lies. Whose charismatic leadership gives the whole Republic the will to fight on.
Palpatine is more than respected. He is loved.
Even the rumor of his disappearance strikes a dagger to the heart of every friend of the Republic. Every one of them knows it in her heart, in his gut, in its very bones --
Without Palpatine, the Republic will fall.
And now confirmation comes through, and the news is worse than anyone could have imagined. Supreme Chancellor Palpatine has been captured by the Separatists -- and not just the Separatists.
He's in the hands of General Grievous.
Grievous is not like other leaders of the Separatists. Nute Gunray is treacherous and venal, but he's Neimoidian: venality and treachery are expected, and in the Viceroy of the Trade Federation they're even virtues. Poggle the Lesser is Archduke of the weapon masters of Geonosis, where the war began: he is analytical and pitiless, but also pragmatic. Reasonable. The political heart of the Separatist Confederacy, Count Dooku, is known for his integrity, his principled stand against what he sees as corruption in the Senate. Though they believe he's wrong, many respect him for the courage of his mistaken convictions.
These are hard beings. Dangerous beings. Ruthless and aggressive.
General Grievous, though --
Grievous is a monster.
The Separatist Supreme Commander is an abomination of nature, a fusion of flesh and droid -- and his droid parts have more compassion than what remains of his alien flesh. This halfliving creature is a slaughterer of billions. Whole planets have burned at his command. He is the evil genius of the Confederacy. The architect of their victories.
The author of their atrocities.
And his durasteel grip has closed upon Palpatine. He confirms the capture personally in a wideband transmission from his command cruiser in the midst of the orbital battle. Beings across the galaxy watch, and shudder, and pray that they might wake up from this awful dream.
Because they know that what they're watching, live on the HoloNet, is the death of the Republic.
Many among these beings break into tears; many more reach out to comfort their husbands or wives, their crèche-mates or kin-triads, and their younglings of all descriptions, from children to cubs to spawn-fry.
But here is a strange thing: few of the younglings need comfort. It is instead the younglings who offer comfort to their elders. Across the Republic--in words or pheromones, in magnetic pulses, tentacle-braids, or mental telepathy -- the message from the younglings is the same: Don't worry. It'll be all right.
Anakin and Obi-Wan will be there any minute.
They say this as though these names can conjure miracles.
Anakin and Obi-Wan. Kenobi and Skywalker. From the beginning of the Clone Wars, the phrase Kenobi and Skywalker has become a single word. They are everywhere. HoloNet features of their operations against the Separatist enemy have made them the most famous Jedi in the galaxy.
Younglings across the galaxy know their names, know everything about them, follow their exploits as though they are sports heroes instead of warriors in a desperate battle to save civilization. Even grown-ups are not immune; it's not uncommon for an exasperated parent to ask, when faced with offspring who have just tried to pull off one of the spectacularly dangerous bits of foolishness that are the stock-in-trade of high-spirited younglings everywhere, So which were you supposed to be, Kenobi or Skywalker?
Kenobi would rather talk than fight, but when there is fighting to be done, few can match him. Skywalker is the master of audacity; his intensity, boldness, and sheer jaw-dropping luck are the perfect complement to Kenobi's deliberate, balanced steadiness. Together, they are a Jedi hammer that has crushed Separatist infestations on scores of worlds.
All the younglings watching the battle in Coruscant's sky know it: when Anakin and Obi-Wan get there, those dirty Seppers are going to wish they'd stayed in bed today.
The adults know better, of course. That's part of what being a grown-up is: understanding that heroes are created by the HoloNet, and that the real-life Kenobi and Skywalker are only human beings, after all.
Even if they really are everything the legends say they are, who's to say they'll show up in time? Who knows where they are right now? They might be trapped on some Separatist backwater. They might be captured, or wounded. Even dead.
Some of the adults even whisper to themselves, They might have fallen.
Because the stories are out there. Not on the HoloNet, of course -- the HoloNet news is under the control of the Office of the Supreme Chancellor, and not even Palpatine's renowned candor would allow tales like these to be told--but people hear whispers. Whispers of names that the Jedi would like to pretend never existed.
Sora Bulq. Depa Billaba. Jedi who have fallen to the dark. Who have joined the Separatists, or worse: who have massacred civilians, or even murdered their comrades. The adults have a sickening suspicion that Jedi cannot be trusted. Not anymore. That even the greatest of them can suddenly just . . . snap.
The adults know that legendary heroes are merely legends, and not heroes at all.
These adults can take no comfort from their younglings. Palpatine is captured. Grievous will escape. The Republic will fall. No mere human beings can turn this tide. No mere human beings would even try. Not even Kenobi and Skywalker.
And so it is that these adults across the galaxy watch the HoloNet with ashes where their hearts should be.
Ashes because they can't see two prismatic bursts of realspace reversion, far out beyond the planet's gravity well; because they can't see a pair of starfighters crisply jettison hyperdrive rings and streak into the storm of Separatist vulture fighters with all guns blazing.
A pair of starfighters. Jedi starfighters. Only two.
Two is enough.
Two is enough because the adults are wrong, and their younglings are right.
Though this is the end of the age of heroes, it has saved its best for last.
The last chapter is Anakin's feelings on the operating table.
Quote:
Spoiler!
This is how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker, forever:
The first dawn of light in your universe brings pain.
The light burns you. It will always burn you. Part of you will always lie upon black glass sand beside a lake of fire while flames chew upon your flesh. You can hear yourself breathing. It comes hard, and harsh, and it scrapes nerves already raw, but you cannot stop it. You can never stop it. You cannot even slow it down.
You don't even have lungs anymore.
Mechanisms hardwired into your chest breathe for you. They will pump oxygen into your bloodstream forever.
Lord Vader? Lord Vader, can you hear me?
And you can't, not in the way you once did. Sensors in the shell that prisons your head trickle meaning directly into your brain.
You open your scorched-pale eyes; optical sensors integrate light and shadow into a hideous simulacrum of the world around you.
Or perhaps the simulacrum is perfect, and it is the world that is hideous.
Padme? Are you here? Are you all right? you try to say, but another voice speaks for you, out from the vocabulator that serves you for burned-away lips and tongue and throat.
"Padme? Are you here? Are you all right?"
I'm very sorry, Lord Vader. I'm afraid she died. It seems in your anger, you killed her.
This burns hotter than the lava had.
"No... no, it is not possible!"
You loved her. You will always love her. You could never will her death.
Never.
But you remember...
You remember all of it.
You remember the dragon that you brought Vader forth from your heart to slay. You remember the cold venom in Vader's blood. You remember the furnace of Vader's fury, and the black hatred of seizing her throat to silence her lying mouth—
And there is one blazing moment in which you finally understand that there was no dragon. That there was no Vader. That there was only you. Only Anakin Skywalker.
That it was all you. Is you.
Only you.
You did it.
You killed her.
You killed her because, finally, when you could have saved her, when you could have gone away with her, when you could have been thinking about her, you were thinking about yourself...
It is in this blazing moment that you finally understand the trap of the dark side, the final cruelty of the Sith—
Because now your self is all you will ever have.
And you rage and scream and reach through the Force to crush the shadow who has destroyed you, but you are so far less now than what you were, you are more than half machine, you are like a painter gone blind, a composer gone deaf, you can remember where the power was but the power you can touch is only a memory, and so with all your world-destroying fury it is only droids around you that implode, and equipment, and the table on which you were strapped shatters, and in the end, you cannot touch the shadow.
In the end, you do not even want to.
In the end, the shadow is all you have left.
Because the shadow understands you, the shadow forgives you, the shadow gathers you unto itself — And within your furnace heart, you burn in your own flame.
This is how it feels to be Anakin Skywalker..
Forever..
The sub chapters, this is what its like to be . . . where they get into each character, Dooku, Grievous, Anakin, Obi-Wan etc. But they don't do one with Sidious, because basically in this book for example Dooku explains Sidious as the embodiment of the Dark Side of the Force. A storm of darkness.
I loved the Darth Bane series, because you could learn to understand why the Sith belief system is so powerful, and it goes towards the line that Paplatine spit out. That good and evil are narratives taken up by the weak. Bane was basically a child slave with a brutal father, who had no control or power in his life, and the Sith taught him how to break his chains. The Jedi in the book really weren't much better, they used child soldiers, and didn't care all that much about civillian casualties. They were general's and warriors who had a need to destroy anyone that didn't agree with their religious beliefs. They were crusaders in the book.
The Sith were brutal murderers consumed by power for powers sake, and there were basically thousands. Bane saw them as a perversion of the Dark Side and that's why he wiped them out, took his apprentice and went into exile, and created the rule of two.
But Bane was exceedingly powerful in the book. From basically being able to drain life out of everyone around him turning them into dust, to being able to use the Obelisk armor that would have killed an ordinary man. While both Bane and Sidious hid in the shadows. Sidious when confronted would charm you and then kill you. Bane would just flat out destroy you.
He was ruthless but at the same time had an odd set of principles.
__________________
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Last edited by CaptainCrunch; 05-02-2022 at 11:32 AM.
There's a series of three books that you have to read, that are almost like the twilight of the republic, rise of the Empire
Labyrinth of Evil
Takes place immediately before the events of Revenge of the Sith, and is the story of the Jedi trying to track down Darth Sidious. On Coruscant Mace Windu leads a search through the undercity tracking clues to who Sidious is. Meanwhile Obi-Wan and Anakin pursue their own search for the identity of Sidious and this leads them into a confrontation with Dooku. Meanwhile Sidious continues to manipulate the republic and choke off freedoms in the republic in the Senate. A great well written book
Starts at the end of the Clone Wars and the betrayal of the Jedi by the Clones as it follows two Jedi who narrowly escape the Clones. Meanwhile it shows the trial of Anakin as he transitions into Vader and faces his choices. We also get to see how much of a real bastard Palpatine is. Especially in a throne room encounter with Bail Organa Mon Mothma and other senators.
First time ever watching the holiday special because why not?
What in the name of all that is holy is going on? Like what the actual ####? I’m not even 5 minutes in and it’s astounding.
What we really need is a proper documentary with behind the scenes footage detailing how this monstrosity was made.
Also, I no longer feel like the prequels are the worst Star Wars media I’ve ever seen.
You have to have a certain mindset to watch the Holiday Special (High). Because to me its almost a joy to watch.
Chewies dad watching porn. Bea Arthur hamming up. A really stoned Carrie Fisher putting words to the Star Wars scene. Harrison Ford looking like he wants to be anywhere but there. Luke telling Chewie's mom to turn her frown upside down.
It did give us a great Boba Fett introduction though.
But its actually so unintentionally hilarious that part of me loves it.
__________________
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Personally, I hope we get another deep dive into Tusken Raider culture. Boba Fett really left me with more questions than answers on that and there's just a lot more to flesh out.
Personally, I hope we get another deep dive into Tusken Raider culture. Boba Fett really left me with more questions than answers on that and there's just a lot more to flesh out.
Not sure if serious....
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Personally, I hope we get another deep dive into Tusken Raider culture. Boba Fett really left me with more questions than answers on that and there's just a lot more to flesh out.
Origins of moped gang is what I’ve got fingers crossed for.
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