#michael a stackpole

Star Wars is so stupid. I love it.

Isard's Revenge - Michael A. Stackpole

Star Wars: X-Wing Book 8

Read: Jul 2024

Another entry for the X-Wing novels, Rogue Squadron is back in action. Set in the aftermath of Thrawn's campaign against the New Republic, we find everyone's favourite director of Imperial Intelligence is still alive. And once again the Rogues are caught in her web.

This was a lesser entry in the series for me. I didn't enjoy it as much as the others. I think it was just the plot, because I did enjoy getting back together with some of my favourite characters. There were some presumed character deaths that should have been actual deaths in my opinion. Sometimes Star Wars writers are too afraid to kill off characters, especially if they're "good guys." I especially liked the end with Mirax and Iella though, that was so juicy haha. I think in the end nothing happened, like net zero gain for the timeline, just a small adventure that doesn't matter to the bigger picture.

This is something of a follow-up/companion piece to my most recent post.

The core of the Jedi ritual for creating a lightsaber came down to charging the power cell that first time. My grandfather ridiculed the popular superstition that a Jedi channeled the Force through the lightsaber. He suggested that this was a misunderstanding of what it took to charge it initially and tie it to the rest of the weapon. The Jedi, carefully manipulating the Force, bound the components together - linking them on something more than a mechanical or material level, so they worked with unimagined efficiency. Without this careful seasoning and conditioning of the lightsaber, the blade would be flawed and would fail the Jedi.

- Star Wars: I, Jedi, by Michael A. Stackpole

That’s what we in the business call foreshadowing. 

In the interest of of providing some much-needed context for those who may not know: 

Corran Horn was a character created by Michael Stackpole for the X-Wing Series, premiering in 1996. Initially focusing on the reformed Rogue Squadron, Corran was ostensibly the main character for the first four novels in the series. Starting his life as a Corellian Security officer, Corran would go on to discover his burgeoning Force sensitivity and eventually become a venerated Jedi in his own right by the time of the Legacy Era.

A dual-phase lightsaber is essentially any lightsaber that contains more than one crystal, with the most common setup consisting of three. This permits the user more direct control over the properties of the blade, allowing adjustments to length and/or width and intensity, typically to catch an opponent off guard. They’re more complex than your bog standard lightsabers obviously, and though they are relatively obscure, several notable Jedi & Sith were known to use them, such as Corran Horn, but also Exar Kun, Darth Vader, Count Dooku & Gantoris, however briefly.

Whether intentional on the part of the various writers, the fact that those specific characters use dual-phase sabers, speaks volumes to their unique qualities. 

These characters were each of two minds, as it were; each with one foot on the path of the light - sometimes for decades - while the other walked a tightrope between light and dark. In many cases, the character fell from that razor’s edge, only to be consumed by their own internal darkness. Exar Kun was a powerful Jedi whose thirst for knowledge slowly morphed into a thirst for power, which inevitably led him to the dark side and the ultimate ruin of the galaxy. The same fate would, of course, ultimately befall the Chosen One, Anakin Skywalker so many generations later. Count Dooku was a respected Jedi, who even sat on the High Council in the twilight years of the Republic, before ultimately falling. Gantoris, though - Gantoris was different.

Much like Corran himself, Gantoris was a member of the inaugural class of students as Luke Skywalker’s Jedi Praxeum. On his native world of Eol Sha, Gantoris was a respected chieftain who used his precognitive abilities to help his people survive their harsh, geologically unstable home - but how? Gantoris followed Luke to Yavin IV under one condition - that the Jedi Master help him uncover the truth of the “Dark Man” who haunted his dreams. Gantoris’ position of leadership prior to arriving at the Academy often lead to him being headstrong and difficult, something which was only heightened once he began to properly hone his Force abilities. This would also lead him into a rivalry with Corran, who is deficient in some of the more common Force abilities, like telekinesis. 

As his training begins, Luke offers Gantoris the chance to find the answers he seeks, but it isn’t long before Gantoris hears someone else whispering to him - the dark spirit of Exar Kun himself, trapped within the very walls of the Massassi Temples of Yavin IV. With Kun’s help, Gantoris constructs a dual-phase lightsaber and challenges Luke to a duel, where the Master bests his misguided student. Realizing that he has become a pawn of the long-dead Sith, Gantoris refuses to accept Kun’s offer of power and knowledge - and pays the ultimate price. Kun kills Gantoris by immolating him from the inside out with the Force, reducing him to a blackened husk. 

This development initially led to further division within the group as Corran grew frustrated with Luke’s reluctance to properly investigate the death (remember, Corran was a CorSec officer & thus expected a certain degree of procedural adherence) and Luke himself questioning his ability to effectively teach his students. It was shortly after this that Kun sought out another pawn, this time an angry young man, named Kyp Durron. With Kyp’s help, Exar Kun was able to sideline Luke by suspending his spirit from his body. By removing the Jedi Master, Kun hoped to corrupt all of the Academy’s students. Though he did succeed in turning Kyp for a time, the remaining students banded together and defeated Exar Kun, banishing his spirit to the void.

By plying Gantoris with the advanced techniques required to build a dual-phase lightsaber, Kun was able to further stoke the embers of contention between Gantoris & Corran, which led directly to Corran building himself a dual-phase lightsaber right out of the gate as well. 

Here’s that handy little feature in action, in another excerpt from I, Jedi:

I rotated my right wrist, twisting the throttle up, and whipped the lightsaber around in a slash aimed to slice the deadHutt switch in two. With the twist I turned the lightsaber’s emerald out of the way and I brought the diamond into line with the Durindfire beam. This extended the blade from 133 centimeters to 300, narrowing it, but bringing the Hutt’s hand easily into striking range. Quick flick of the wrist, cleave the control in two, and the day would be saved. That would be the easy way.

(The blade looks blue here, but in person - and canonically speaking - it’s actually a shade of purple.)

Easy is not for a Jedi.

With a puff of smoke, the lightsaber’s blade sputtered and died.

See what I mean by foreshadowing? To be fair to Mr. Horn, the failure of the diamond wasn’t actually his fault - not entirely, anyway:

I screwed the high energy flux aperture back on the head of the lightsaber and pitched to Elegos the blackened, misshapen lump that had been the diamond I’d put into the weapon. “Gone. Completely gone.”

“It worked fine when you tested in initially.” He snatched the melted gemstone from the air, sniffed it, then rubbed a thumb across it. “Synthetic?”

I nodded. “Kubaz xurkonia. The crystalline lattice handled the energy while we tested it, but was probably ready to go down anytime. (...) Actually, serves me right for trying to make a complicated lightsaber my first time out.”

 Elegos frowned. “Why did you make one with variable lengths?”

I shrugged uneasily. “Well, I guess it was ego. Gantoris made one with two lengths and I wanted mine to be as good as his.”

“I thought you said he had a Sith Dark Lord instructing him at the time.”

“Sure, now you bring that point up.“

Okay, look, I really want to address one thing - even though it’s a completely pointless thing to talk about here - 133 cm for a standard blade is absolutely insane. Never mind the fact that you literally cannot buy blade material over 40 inches (101.6 cm) long, but swinging around a blade with that kind of reach would be so dangerous to yourself, let alone others, that no Jedi wouldn’t survive a single sparring session. 

In reality, lightsaber blades are typically 32 to 34 inches long. This makes them much more manageable to swing around without smacking them into the walls or ceiling of your house. The dual-phase feature is handy only for surprising people/causing a ton of collateral damage, if the situation calls for it. 300 cm is just under 10 feet, in case you were wondering. 

Moving swiftly along; I really love this little exchange between Corran & the eventual New Republic Senator, Elegos A’Kla. With the possible exception of his wife, Mirax Terrik, Corran’s relationship with Elegos is by far his most important. Elegos is a Caamasi, a race known for their compassionate & peace-loving nature, as well as their ability to share Memnii - essentially, extremely vivid memories - with other Caamasi & Force-sensitives. Elegos’ grandfather was also a Jedi & friend to Corran’s grandfather Nejaa Halcyon, even witnessing his death at the hands of Nikkos Tyris, founder of the Jedi Order splinter group, the Jensaarai. 

Throughout their relationship, Elegos would become a surrogate parental figure for Corran, and serve as a kind of spiritual guide, often sharing advice and insight through his memnii. 

The passage above illustrates that even though Corran has come into his own in accepting his Jedi destiny, he’s still the same character at heart - a smarmy, cocksure fighter pilot. And it further establishes the friendship & bond between the two characters - something that would go on to be very important just a few years later in the Dark Tide Duology, part of the New Jedi Order series. 

TL;DR - The Star Wars galaxy gets invaded by Warhammer 40K Rejects, AKA the Yuuzhan Vong and the Jedi are put on the back foot for the first half of the series.

Fortunately, Mike Stackpole wrote the Dark Tide novels, and they’re excellent. In the first novel, subtitled Onslaught, he gives us this scene, where we see Corran more effectively utilizing the dual-phase feature, this time with a true diamond in that third slot:

(...) Corran squared off with him, presenting his left flank for attack. He held the lightsaber’s hilt up near his right ear, with the blade pointing straight forward. He leveled it at the Vong’s eyes, then gave the alien a nod. “You want me, come get me.”

The Yuuzhan Vong took a step forward, and Corran cranked his right wrist around. The throttle assembly twisted, swapping an emerald for a diamond in the lightsaber’s interior assembly. The energy beam narrowed and went from silver to purple, then more than doubled in length. The blade’s tip stabbed deep through the younger Vong’s left eye socket.

The Yuuzhan Vong jerked and bounced as his limbs snapped straight. He fell back, slipping from the blade’s tip, with smoke rising from his skull. He clattered to the shell floor, his limp limbs rebounding from the hard surface, then he twitched once and lay still. 

And Ganner ridiculed me for having an old-style, dual-phase lightsaber.

(Quick aside: I will forever stan Ganner Rhysode aka “The Ganner” - Rest in Power, King - he damn well earned his redemption arc. ✊)

This action is relevant to Corran’s characterization and the ultimate fate of Elegos because the Vong that Corran kills in this very scene is a member of the Domain Shai, the same creche as the current leader of the Vong, Shedao Shai. When Shai learns of this, he would go on to murder the Caamasi out of vengeance, sending his body back to Corran in a sign of disrespect. Vowing vengeance himself, (not a very Jedi thing to do, if you haven’t been paying attention) Corran would go on to duel Shai in single combat, partially couching his motives as a fight for the fate of the planet Ithor. 

There are many, many layers of plot & intrigue beginning to interweave  themselves at this point in the story, but Ithor - being the source of a specific plant spore that the Yuuzhan Vong’s Vonduun Crab Armor is allergic to - serves a double meaning here. The Vong lay waste to everything they come into contact with, and by taking a stand on this vibrant, beautifully forested jewel of a world - essentially saying “Not One Step Back” - it serves as a narrative foil. 

Corran & Shai finally face-off at the tail-end of the second novel, subtitled Ruin:

He bore an amphistaff, which he stabbed tail-first into the ground. He raised a gauntletted hand, the dying sun glinting from his bracer, then pressed the hand back over his heart.

“I am Shedao Domain Shai. This is my subordinate, Deign Domain Lian. He will stand as witness to this combat.”

Corran remained seated. “I am Corran Horn, Late of the New Republic Armed Forces, a Jedi Knight. This is my Master, Luke Skywalker. He will stand as witness to this combat.”

(...) “You are the murderer of Neira Shai and Dranae Shai, my kinsmen.”

Corran stood, slowly and deliberately. Luke could feel the Force gathering in him, swirling around him. “And you murdered my friend, Elegos A’Kla. It is not over the past we fight, but to win the future.”

“You, perhaps.” The Yuuzhan Vong drew himself up tall and straight, then bowed his head toward Corran. “I fight for the honor of the Yuuzhan Vong and Domain Shai.”

The Corellian returned the nod. “So much risk for such a paltry gain.”

Amphistaff spun and lightsaber rose. A slash blocked high, a low cut burning grass but not leaping legs. Combatants slipping past each other, turning, striking, blocking. The amphistaff’s hiss rivaling that of the lightsaber. Weapons flashing forward, retreating, then reposting. 

(...) Corran closed and lunged at Shedao Shai’s upper chest. With two hands on the amphistaff, the Yuuzhan Vong parried the argent blade high, then ducked his head and whirled around in a circle. The amphistaff snapped straight against Shedao Shai’s right forearm, then he lunged.

Pain exploded from the Jedi as the amphistaff’s tail stabbed deep into his guts. (...) Corran curled around the holes in his right flank, drawing his knees up. His lightsaber lay smoking on the grass.

(...) Shedao Shai drew back several steps, then tugged off his mask and tossed it aside. He raised the gore-streaked amphistaff to his lips and harvested incarnadine fluid with his tongue. His lips closed for a moment, his eyes following, then he nodded.

“I vowed I would taste your blood as you die, and now I have done that.”

Corran coughed once, pain flaring through the Force, then rolled up to his knees. “Good for you, pal, glad you’re happy.” He winced as he scooped up his lightsaber and staggered to his feet. “Had I been in your boots, I would have vowed something else.”

“Oh?” The Yuuzhan Vong’s eyes opened a slit. “And what would that have been?”

“I’d have vowed to taste my blood after I was dead.” All sense of pain vanished from the Jedi as the Force again enshrouded him. Corran waved the invader forward with his bloody left hand. “So, is this inability to make a clean kill a Yuuzhan Vong thing, or just a Domain Shai thing? You’re so sloppy those bones won’t want to come home with you.”

Shedao Shai’s eyes snapped open. Though Luke could not read him through the Force, the fury and hatred coursing through the Yuuzhan Vong was unmistakable. The warrior darted forward, bringing the amphistaff up and around in a two-handed overhead blow. He smashed it down on Corran’s upraised lightsaber, driving the Jedi back a step.

(...) Shedao Shai towered over him, rising up on his tiptoes to deliver that final blow. The amphistaff rose and crashed down, set to bash the lightsaber back into its wielder, slaying the infidel with the blasphemous weapon he embraced.

With a flick of his thumb, Corran killed the blade and sagged forward.

Overbalanced because his weapon met no resistance, Shedao Shai buried his amphistaff deep in the ground and stumbled a half-step forward. The surprise registering on his face widened his eyes, then his lips peeled back in a feral grin as Corran pressed his lightsaber against the Yuuzhan Vong’s stomach. The lightsaber hissed. Argent light poured from Shedao Shai’s mouth a second before he vomited black blood and collapsed to the ground, his spine severed, his belly smoking.

(...) “Wait, just a second.” Corran pointed at the mask Shedao Shai had discarded. “I want that mask.”

“Why?”

Corran’s eyes closed for a moment as pain washed over him. “Elegos’s bones. They’re watching something. That mask will show him that the Vong are not invincible, and for Ithor at least, there will be peace.”

The best part of this confrontation is the fact that it doesn’t work. The Vong still destroy Ithor - further demoralizing the New Republic - and one of the most influential Jedi in the Order bears the full weight of the public outcry and is basically forced into self-imposed exile on Corellia. And Elegos is not avenged. In seeking out the fight with Shedao Shai, Corran allowed his personal feelings to cloud his thinking and color his motives. In so doing, he brought shame on Elegos’ memory, and he says as much afterward:

The Jedi sank back on his heels and looked up into the jeweled eyes of what had once been his friend. From inside his robe he drew the mask Shedao Shai had worn. He rubbed a sleeve over its black surface, erasing a smudge, then reverently set it in Elegos’ lap.

“Your murderer is dead.”

Corran wanted to say more, but his throat closed and the glowing image before him blurred. He covered his eyes with a hand, smearing tears against his cheeks, then swallowed hard. He wiped away more tears, then took a deep breath and set his shoulders.

“His death was supposed to save Ithor. It didn’t. I know you’d be horrified to think I killed for you. I didn’t. I did it for Ithor.”

The gold skeleton stared down at him, cold mercilessness glinting from the gems in its eye-sockets.

Never any fooling you, was there, my friend? Corran screwed his eyes shut against more tears, then opened them again. He looked away, unable to stand Elegos’ dead gaze. 

“That’s what I told myself. It was for Ithor. That’s what I told everyone. Managed to fool some of them - most of them, I think. Not Master Skywalker. I think he knew the truth, but the chance to save Ithor had to be taken.”

He glanced down at his right hand and could again feel the weight of his lightsaber in it. “I had myself convinced, I really did, until...there was a point in the fight. I’d turned my lightsaber off; Shedao Shai had overbalanced himself. His staff was buried in the turf. I shoved my lightsaber’s hilt against his stomach.”

A shudder quaked through Corran. “There was a moment there. A nanosecond. I hesitated. Not because I thought of life as sacred and that taking any life was horrible - the way you would have, my friend. No...no, I hesitated because I wanted Shedao Shai to know he was dead. I wanted him to know I knew he was dead. If he was going to see his life flash before his eyes, I wanted him to take a good look at it. I wanted him to have a nice long look at it. I wanted him to know it was all for nothing.”

(...) “In that one moment, Elegos, I dishonored your sacrifice. I betrayed you. I betrayed the Jedi. I betrayed myself.” Corran sighed. “In that one moment, I crossed the line. I walked on the dark side.”

He raised his head and met Elegos’ bejeweled stare. “You Caamasi had a saying: If the wind no longer calls to you, it is time to see if you have forgotten your name. The problem I have, my friend, is that I heard the dark side calling to me. Without your help, without your guidance, I’m not sure how I can deal with that.”

This admission is made all the more shocking, because this is the first time we truly see Corran brush with the dark side. Yes, he’d faced many difficult choices in the past - being tempted to “take the quick and easy path” to free his wife from captivity comes to mind - but this was different. It’s important to know, Corran is a forty-three year old man at this point. He’s not an impatient kid, or an old fool - he’s a flawed human being. And in this particular instance, it cost him - and the New Republic - dearly.

This is undoubtedly the most interesting aspect in the nature of dual-phase lightsabers for me; they're an allegory for the choices we all make everyday. They represent the capacity for both great good and great evil with such crystal-clear prose that it’s genuinely baffling to me how some people can claim Star Wars isn’t all that deep. If you look past the pop sci-fi trash of the Disney Canon and dig around in the old Expanded Universe, you can find some real gems. 

44/50, je vois doucement la fin du tunnel de ce challenge... Un deuxième tome tout aussi brillamment mené que le premier, avec un excellent équilibre entre tension, action, humour et tendresse familiale. Hâte de lire le suivant ! "It is a perilous time for the New Republic. Just when unity is needed most, mistrust is on the rise. Even the Jedi feel the strain, as rogue elements rebel against Luke Skywalker's leadership. When alien invaders known as the Yuuzhan Vong strike without warning, the New Republic is thrown on the defensive. Luke must wield all the awesome powers of a Jedi Master to defeat the gravest threat since Emperor Palpatine. As Leia Organa Solo and Gavin Darklighter lead desperate refugees in a fighting retreat from Yuuzhan Vong forces, Mara Jade Skywalker, Jedi apprentices Jacen and Anakin Solo, and Jedi Knight Corran Horn find themselves tested as never before by a faceless, implacable foe determined to smother the light of the New Republic forever beneath a shroud of darkest evil."

Some things I would love to see in the Rogue Squadron movie, not all together, but any of them on their own:

Some of the EU/Legends characters brought back in new form. Hey, they brought Thrawn back, we absolutely can get Corran and Face and any/all of the others. (Yes, I know, Face &co were Wraiths, not Rogues, but CLOSE ENOUGH.)

As with Corran and Tyria, a Force-user pilot who is not interested in becoming a Jedi, who is happy with the extra edge the Force gives him/her for flying, but does not want to develop it further.

Set during the original trilogy, so we get the rugged and desperate Rebellion we saw in Rogue One.

Set after the sequel trilogy, so we get a sense of where the galaxy is now and who the Rogues are fighting, and so that we get a chance to see all-new characters.

Wedge! Wedge and Hobbie and Wes (and Sebastian Stan as Luke, popping in for a cameo?), but most of all Wedge. My favorite “I’m not anybody special, just one guy doing my best to make the galaxy a safe place for other people’s kids to grow up in” character of all time. Also my favorite “I don’t have special abilities but I can still fly circles around you all” character. I don’t know exactly how his character has been developed in the new canon, but EU/Legends Wedge was The Best. (Yes, I cried when he flashed on the screen in TROS.) And if we get Wedge, I really want to see Iella, even as a brief cameo!

A Rogue Squadron that is 100% female pilots.

Exploration of concepts of honor, and what separates the good guys from the bad. They touched on that in Rogue One, but I’d like to see it given a bit more depth.