Category: Opinion

An Autopsy for Agent of the Empire

Posted on August 26, 2013by Obiwomble's Outlook

This was a truly illustrious series, cruelly cut down in its prime! That Dark Horse Comics felt unable to continue with one of the strongest creations in years is a damning indictment of the comics marketplace, but also of consumer patterns and outlooks.

What made this series so good? For me the answer is a simple one – actual moral complexity and ambiguity!  No, this was not the wearying, easy cop-out attitude of: Oh, it’s all so grey and complex, can’t decide anything.  No, this was smartly mixing up the good and evil, forcing the reader to question what they consider the terms to mean and at what level – for instance, is the good of the individual always supreme when set against that of states and worlds?

At the same time, in only its second story, it took its lead character, the coolly calculating and pragmatic, though not entirely amoral, Jahan Cross and set him on a collision course with the worst aspects of his employer.  It’s interesting to note the common attitude embodied by both Rodas Borgin, who Cross was sent to support in his attempt to become the leader of Serenno, and the Isards, towards those they consider their lesser and, as such, entirely disposable – people like Cross!

Cross’ resolution of the dilemma he ends up in is creative, smart and quite, quite convoluted.  It is a great shame that we will probably never get to see the consequences of his actions here for, though Cross believes he has constructed a perfect scheme, there really is no such thing!  This is particularly true when your boss is Armand Isard and you work alongside his terrifying daughter, Ysanne!  If anyone was going to put two and two together to get four, it would be these two.

That said there is a counter-argument that doing such would place Cross on the road to rebellion and that is a too well-trodden road.  There’s a great deal of persuasive force to this outlook.  Especially as it’s that ambiguity that makes the character work so well. Well, that along with being freed from simple heroic shackles.  It’s the same appeal that Han Solo taps, especially after shooting Greedo. (Yes, I subscribe to that side of that debate.)

So, we have smart, well-spun stories depicted in excellent art – I haven’t always been a fan of Fabbri’s art but it’s flawless for the Hard Targets arc – so what on earth went wrong?

Part of the story is in the cost of comics relative to other entertainment options.  For instance you can likely buy a hardback book for the cost of a standard-size comic collection, termed TPB, or a DVD series or even a Blu-Ray disc! This is what comics are up against.  At the same time the greater sales and different economies of scale mean these rival options can be cheaper while offering more!  Books? Only have to pay for author, agent, publisher, printing.  Movies? They are not cheap but if you know it will sell enough, the price can be adjusted accordingly.  In contrast comics have the writer, artist, inker, colourist, editor and printing – far more to pay for and a much smaller consumer base.  And then there’s the price of comics, now regularly $3-4 per issue!  If you are to spend $15-20 on 5 comics or a TPB, it has to be worth it.

Then there is the strange perception, which began on superhero stories, that if a story has no immediate impact on continuity it does not count!  Might this have played a part in Agent of the Empire’s fall? Certainly.  It’s set 3 years before A New Hope, the Empire is on top and it’s staying there.

Might the lower profile and social perception of comics played a role?  Highly likely.  Comics are still, despite the success of graphic novels and films based on comics, seen as a lesser narrative option.  While people have no objection to audio-visual entertainment, there’s a strangely dismissive attitude to comics: Word and pictures, isn’t that for kids?

Yet, even if those were all overcome would it have succeeded? If there had been a big marketing campaign, perhaps playing on the Bond element, would it have done better? Hard to say, not least as the Bond tag is a double-edged one.  It would attract some but repulse others, if only on the basis: Star Wars does James Bond, what’s so special about that?

So, what would be my final conclusion as to the cause of death? I would place it to be a combination of low sales and consumer neglect.  Clearly, there is but one remedy – tell other people to buy the collections.  Obviously volume 1 didn’t sell that well either, but first stories are tricky.  Agent of the Empire improved immensely in its second volume, but lo! The axe had already fallen!  But, what if both volumes were to sell well? Who knows? Perhaps a resurrection might be on the cards.

Beware of Tionese Bearing Gifts: A Long Time Ago, Part 2

Posted on August 21, 2013by This Belongs in a Museum

Who are the Tionese?Lost_Legacy_Cover

An ancient human culture, the Tionese first appeared indirectly in Brian Daley’s Han Solo and the Lost Legacy. The Tionese inhabit the Tion Cluster, in the Outer Rim just north of Mon Calamari Space. Aside from mentions in Geonosis and the Outer Rim Worlds and The New Essential Chronology, the Tionese were mostly forgotten by the EU at large until 2009, with the publication of the Essential Atlas. The Atlas greatly expanded on Tionese history, particularly the conquests of Xim. Further work was done on the Tionese during “Xim Week”- particularly Jason Fry’s The History of Xim and the Tion Cluster– and John Hazlett’s  The Written Word.

It’s All Tionese to Me

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Much like the Latin Alphabet, the Greek Alphabet has been canonized within the GFFA, this time as the written language of the Tionese. According to The Written Word, the Tionese language was devised as an administrative tool by Jansari (A powerful group within the Livien League of the northwestern Tion Cluster). While it has been largely superseded by Aurebesh (and to a lesser extent in recent times, by High Galactic), the Tionese language remains in use in the Tion Cluster- most notably by several starship companies. Cygnus Starworks (Cygnus, the Latin word for ‘swan’, comes from the Greek ‘cycnus’, which refers to several characters in Greek mythology who were transformed into swans) produced various spacecraft in cooperation with the famous Sienar Fleet Systems for the Galactic Republic and Galactic Empire- spacecraft whose designations rather conspicuously utilize Greek letters, such as the Lambda-class shuttle piloted by Han Solo in Return of the Jedi, or the Theta-class shuttle which Palpatine utilized as a hyperspace-capable ambulance in Revenge of the Sith. Sienar Fleet Systems was headquartered on Lianna in the Tion Cluster, while Cygnus Starworks was based in the nearby Cygnus Star Empire. The Tionese alphabet was also utilized by various militaries in the GFFA—Delta and Omega Squads from the Republic Commando series bear such designations, and Luke Skywalker orders Rogue Squadron to adopt Attack Pattern Delta during the Battle of Hoth.

A Divided Tion

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After the decline of the Rakata, the human culture that came to inhabit the Tion Cluster repurposed old Rakatan technology to develop the hyperdrive independently of the Republic. The Tionese formed a cacophony of independent states within the Tion Cluster, constantly warring and allying with each other without any one faction gaining dominance over the rest. While the Tionese shared elements of a unified culture, the Tionese did not unify into one state of their own. Multiple alliances existed between independent Tionese states- the Livien League, the Kingdom of Cron, the Ihala Spiral, and the Three Allied Kingdoms. The political state of the Tion pre-Xim greatly resembles classical Greece. While all sorts of intercity alliances were formed (such as the Delian League and the Peloponnesian League), and some states even gained the upper hand in a region for a time (for example, Athens gaining control over much of the Aegean), no one Greek city-state gained complete control over Hellas.

Xim the Despot: Alexander’s Less-Successful Fanboy

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First mentioned in the 1979 Han Solo and the Lost Legacy, Xim languished in the dustbin of the EU until the mid-2000s, when the New Essential Chronology and Xim Week greatly expanded upon his career. As a result, Xim the Despot has come to resemble a less successful Alexander the Great. Xim’s career owed much to the exploits of his father, Xer VII, whose conquests in the northern Tion provided a base of power from which Xim could conduct his raids and subjugations throughout the Tion. Xer conquered much of the Tion Cluster proper, and upon his death was succeeded by Xim, who finished what Xer had started and expanded beyond the borders of the Cluster. At its height, Xim’s Empire extended from the Radama Void to Kessel, and attempted to push into the Hutt Empire, that early bogeyman of humankind in the GFFA. Xim’s diplomacy and tactics were ruthless, yet he met his match in the form of the Hutts, led by Kossak the Great. After a series of three ritual battles over Vontor, Xim was thoroughly defeated by Kossak; accounts differ as to whether he died at Vontor or rotted in Kossak’s dungeons. Xim is described in some sources as egotistic, even megalomaniacal, with his vision of a large empire outstripping the practicalities that the resources at hand lent him. Xim picXim’s career resembles that of Alexander, had Alexander been crushed repeatedly at the Battle of Issus by Darius III of Persia. Like Alexander before him, Xim owed his initial powerbase to his father, who died under suspicious circumstances—regardless of whether or not Alexander’s mother actually poisoned Philip II, the rumors surfaced nonetheless, and no doubt helped to inspire Xim’s mother/wife, Queen Indrexu. Both Alexander and Xim, after unifying their normally fractious cultures (who in fact regarded them initially as barbarian foreigners), made war upon their cultural bogeymen, be they the Hutts or the Persians. Xim’s story differs in the conclusion—Alexander crushes the Persians and goes on to carve out a massive empire, while Xim’s momentum comes to a wrenching halt in orbit above Vontor. The empires formed by both figures fell apart upon their deaths- Xim’s conquests were gobbled up by the Hutts or simply broke off from his Tionese Empire, while Alexander’s generals (often called the Diadochi) scrambled to carve out the corners of his empire as their own personal kingdoms.

War with the Republic, Galactic and Roman

After the fall of Xim, the Tion Hegemony returned to its previous fractious state. Xim’s outlying conquests were conquered, declared independence, isolated, or sterilized by the Hutts. Circa 24000 BBY, scouts from the Tion encountered traders from the fledgling Republic- among whose member cultures several regarded the Tionese as their cultural antecedents. Sensing an opportunity to expand, the Tionese formed the Honorable Union of Desevro and Tion and invaded the nascent Republic along the Perlemian Trade Route, Tionese_Raidersfission-bombing multiple Republic colonies. While the war initially went in favor of the Tionese, the Republic rallied, constructing its first real navy and enlisting the aid of the Jedi Order. The Republic then took the war to the Tion Cluster, devastating multiple worlds and bombarding Desevro. The Tionese War resembles the Macedonian Wars, conducted from 190-146 BCE by the Roman Republic against the Antigonids, rulers of Macedonia. Like the Republic—particularly the planet Alsakan– the Romans viewed the Greeks as their cultural forbearers, even as they went to war with them (the Roman Republic pushed the narrative that they were ‘liberating’ the Greeks from the ‘tyranny’ of the Antigonids). The onus for starting the war differs- the Tionese outright invaded Republic Space, whereas the Romans engineered a cause for war in order to invade Greece. As I mentioned in “Senatus Populusque Res Publica Galactica”, the devastation of Desevro at the end of the war echoes the sack of Corinth at the end of the Third Macedonian War- a war fought against a recently-formed league of Greek States meant to drive the Romans from Greece. Like the Tionese, the Greek were incorporated into the Roman Republic after the Macedonian Wars, as the provinces of Macedonia, Graecia, Thracia, and Achaea.

Decline post-Tionese Wars

xim empire

Following the defeat of Xim, the Hutt expansion into former Xim-controlled territories, and the Republic conquest of the Tion Hegemony, the Tion gradually became a backwater on the Outer Rim. The momentum of expansion fell to the Republic, and that expansion for the most part was directed away from the Tionese, into the Slice and the Northern Territories. The Tion Cluster did experience a brief resurgence during the Clone Wars. Count Dooku announced the formation of the Separatist movement from the surface of Raxus Prime, and the Tion supported the CIS during the Clone Wars, even hosting the Separatist Council for a time on Raxus. After the war, the Empire further divided the Tion into several sectors in order to prevent the formation of any potential power blocs in the region. They need not have worried, as by this point in time the glories of the Tion lay far in the distant past. Xim and the Tion describes the worlds of the Tion circa-GCW as almost uniformly backwater worlds who cling to notions of past glory while being home to little more than subsistence farmers and tourist attractions- the Tion has become the statue of Ozymandias in the eponymous poem. Like the Tion Cluster, Greece and Macedonia were divided into several provinces by the Roman Empire. After the death of Alexander, the momentum of expansion in the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia shifted away from Greece itself. In the East, the Seleucid Empire (founded by one of Alexander’s generals and encompassing much of the old Persian Empire’s territory) and the rest of Alexander’s successor states fought over the remnants of his empire, while the Antigonids of Greece tried their best to simply hold onto Greece. In the Mediterranean, Rome’s star waxed as Greek power waned- first with the Romans taking the Greek colonies in southern Italy and Sicily, and then with the Macedonian Wars. While it didn’t exactly suffer under the Roman Empire, and indeed the Eastern Roman Empire later used Greece as its base of power, the Hellenes cannot be described as the masters of the Mediterranean during the era of Roman dominance.

Tune in next time, as Tyler explores the Vikings, the Mongols, and the Celts, and how they all exerted an influence upon those lovable, overrated psychopathic mercenaries, the Mandalorians.

The Clone Wars: 2002-2005 – Looking Back at a Unique Experience

Posted on August 20, 2013by Obiwomble's Outlook

With Episode II: Attack of the Clones released and the much mentioned but little known about Clone Wars begun, the summer of 2002 saw the start of a unique piece of the EU. But in order to recognize just how revolutionary this was, we need to look at what had gone before. Previous bridge stories had been done but only in very limited fashion – The Approaching Storm gave little away of what Episode II would be about, while Splinter of the Mind’s Eye betrays a pre-Empire Strikes Back origin.

No, the best bridge stories up until this point were done retroactively, after the film had come out then there were stories filling in the gaps. Thus for Episode I there are the Darth Maul stories and Cloak of Deception. More significantly, the much praised Classic Star Wars run by the great team of Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson bridged Episodes IV and V, but ran 1982-1984! It could take full advantage of knowing what pieces needed to be set for Episode V to begin! The 1996 Shadows of the Empire project operated on similar grounds.

What Lucasfilm (LFL) seemed to realize is that they had a unique opportunity here, to tell the stories of the Clone Wars, to greatly expand and show the full scale of this vast galactic conflict. A twin track strategy was deployed – Del Rey (DR) would do a series of books, each focusing on particular aspects of the conflict, while Dark Horse Comics (DHC) would spin their own ongoing tale.

Of the two, I would judge DHC to have been the more successful. This is due to the two stories it told – one continued the story of Quinlan Vos, ultimately concluding it post-Episode III, while the other was on Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker. The latter was of particular importance given the disastrous portrait that was established by Episode II. The tragedy of Anakin Skywalker only works if the audience has reason to care and want him to do well – in both respects Episode II failed completely for me. Where the film failed, however, the Expanded Universe would succeed.

At the same time what has since come to be known as the Vos epic took the character deep into dark territory as he attempts to do an inside job on Dooku’s operations. This evoked the likes of Dark Empire but it took advantage of the far greater space to spin a deeper tale. It looked far more closely at how a person like Dooku would work, what he would require of his minions and then showed why that was so perilous for a Jedi. In doing this it also drew fully on all manner of EU lore, with the planet Korriban making an appearance and dark-side creatures featuring.

DHC adopted a split focus; their Republic title would do a story of Anakin and Obi-Wan, then one on Vos, then something else, just to add variety – like the story of what happened to ex-Chancellor Valorum. There was one final, additional strand running through the entire set of stories and that was the corrupting effect of the conflict. That it was being used, in part, to kill Jedi but there was more to it. The greater part of the design was to subtly shift the galaxy towards a more martial, more militaristic, more imperial mindset. For instance, one early highpoint saw the Republic using AT-ATs!

DR’s books took more of a scattergun approach: Stover’s Shatterpoint was highly praised – for myself, it took the notion of being as brutally honest as possible about war while still being an entertaining read. In terms of showing the brutality of war, it still only likely scratched the surface but it went far enough to make the point that some pools are not to be dived into! The Cestus Deception was an interesting but not too successful attempt to breathe life into the clones. Jedi Trial was to be the story of how Anakin Skywalker becomes a Jedi Knight, but many saw it as more military manual than story. The Medstar books were a success, but then riffing on M*A*S*H in a SW setting was a great starting point. They were also a neat continuation by stealth of a couple of characters previously established by Michael Reaves.

Following this initial set, there were a few further works done, some bearing the A Novel of the Clone Wars tag, some not. One was Republic Commando: Hard Contact by Karen Traviss, a book that remains her best work by far. More significant still was Yoda: Dark Rendezvous, a tale of Dooku and Yoda with each trying to convert the other to their way of thinking. Alongside Shatterpoint, Dark Rendezvous consistently tops lists for best Clone Wars book. In a way it’s fitting as Shatterpoint was first and Yoda: Dark Rendezvous the last. The next book was a lead-in to Episode III, Labyrinth of Evil and it built further on the continuity the Clone Wars stories had built.

As DR brought their set of stories to a close with an eye on Episode III, so too did DHC. Vos’ infiltration, subsequent corruption and return formed the main spine of the overall tale, which culminated in a major battle on an outer rim planet. These Outer Rim Sieges continued into Episode III and were a major part of Darth Sidious’ plan to spread out and isolate the Jedi, so as to enable their killing to be much easier.

And then, in 2007, it was decided to re-set the Clone Wars, to tell the story again! In doing so, much of what was done here effectively got steam-rollered! But, far more importantly, is what this shows about the corporate mindset. The corporate mind is blind to things being unique, to things being one-off, to things being unrepeatable!

And Clone Wars 2002-2005 was all of this! We got a continuing story from one film to the next across 3 years! The whole time it was new territory, it had this mythic sense of momentum to it, that this would take us all the way into Episode III. While that film did what it could to show Anakin Skywalker’s better aspects, it was still a botch job. The real reason Episode III had an edge to it for me? Because I’d been reading the Clone Wars work, because I had a greatly expanded portrait of the friendship between Anakin and Obi-Wan – watching that fall apart was sad. Equally sad was the sheer blatant artifice of it too.

Reading it was quite, quite superb and it’s not going to happen again, not like that. Part of the fun was the surprise factor, that a project of such ambition was sprung on the fans out of the blue. I’m sure there’ll be attempts to re-engineer this, but like the attempts to re-create a character like Boba Fett, it’ll fail. Why? Because you only get to catch lightning in a bottle rarely. The years since have only emphasized this sense, only increased the sense of having seen something special. At the time it felt like this would be a real one-off and so it has proven.

Episode VII and the Death of Luke Skywalker

Posted on August 19, 2013by Halcyon Days

259px-LukeSkywalkerNEGTCLet’s face it and bring it out into the open now. History is going to repeat itself and Episode VII is going to bring us the death of Luke Skywalker. Shall we review? In Episode IV we see the death of the Force-using mentor to the protagonist (Ben’s death to Luke as the hero). In Episode I we also have the death of the Force-using mentor to the supposed hero or heroes (Qui-Gon Jinn to Obi-Wan and Anakin as the heroes). This is a classic move that enables the up and coming hero to actually become the hero. In each instance the Force-using mentor died at the hands of a Sith opponent and if you read the roundtable discussion on who we think the antagonists for the ST will be we pretty much agreed that a Star Wars movie is not a Star Wars movie without the clash of the red lightsaber with a variety of different colored lightsabers.

I see no reason why Episode VII won’t follow along the same lines to begin the hard journey for the next set of Jedi. If we toss out the Expanded Universe and for those that do read it we realize that the majority of fans out there are movie fans then Luke Skywalker is the only Force user (technically we’ve never seen Leia use the Force) and it makes the most sense for the mentor death to be him. From a shock value standpoint it would also be the biggest shock to the viewers. I remember how I felt when Obi-Wan Kenobi “died”. Hearing his voice tell Luke to run did little to console me while watching the movie for the first time.

337px-SoloTwins_EGttFIn order for the death of Luke Skywalker to be a viable option for Episode VII the creators need to be ready with a likeable, believable second mentor to fill the hole caused by the death of Luke Skywalker. This would actually be a good fit for several Expanded Universe characters to be included or even a child of Han and Leia (provided that the movies go along with them being together still). Luke was able to keep training because he was told to go to Dagobah where he found Yoda. Anakin was able to train because Obi-Wan Kenobi was there to step into the mentor role. The next generation of Jedi is going to be no different.

They’ll need the freedom to get into their own sorts of trouble and I firmly believe one of the failings of the Expanded Universe in developing new Jedi is that Luke Skywalker is always there looming over the characters and it is difficult to believe, in universe, that the most powerful man in the galaxy wouldn’t go deal with the problem himself. I don’t want to see the OT all over again, I want to see new characters and I believe in order to get that Skywalker has got to go. With the rumored time jump for Episode VII and the previous history of using older adult Jedi in the Clone Wars and the Prequels there needs to be a good reason for Luke to not be the one out saving the galaxy. Mark Hamill himself said he would like to play an “Obi-Wan type of role”. In the EU we make jokes that started with 60 is the new 40 and continued on with 80 is the new 40. I don’t want to see the ST make the same mistakes as the EU and attempt to think this will be believable for the fans. Or even that this is what the fans want. This isn’t what the fans want, right?

What better way for the new antagonists to be taken as a serious threat than to off the Jedi who took down Darth Vader and the Emperor? I am having a hard time believing they are going to be able to create a villain that I will hate as much or more than the Emperor. However, if they had said villain take out Luke that would probably do it for me. I need that. I need to hate the villains in the movies. I love that part about books and movies. I’m pretty sure the reason I still don’t like the Empire is because of the burned bodies of Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. 640px-X-wing_SWGTCGStar Wars is violent. Wars bring death and destruction. I expect nothing less from Episode VII.

Disney is excited about the Star Wars franchise and they are already hinting that these movies are going to spawn side movies. They need to have young, intriguing and compelling characters to further the franchise with. We need to move past the Big 3 and I believe this will start with the death of Luke.

Escape Pod: The Bothan Species

Posted on August 14, 2013by Scotch Tape and Popsicle Sticks

Welcome to Escape Pod, a new series here on Eleven-ThirtyEight, wherein a staff member picks one character or element from the Expanded Universe—independent of existing stories featuring said element—that they feel is vital to the Galaxy Far, Far Away and should survive a hypothetical continuity reboot. Rather than focus on the Sequel Trilogy specifically, the goal of Escape Pod is to detail the subject’s inherent value to the Star Wars setting itself.

Bothans occupy an interesting position in Star Wars continuity. Despite dating back to the Original Trilogy, they’re one of the last things the OT added to the galaxy before its completion—and as far as George Lucas is concerned, they never came up again.

As it happens, it’s not even clear from the dialogue in Return of the Jedi that they are in fact an alien species. Speaking for myself, I remain unconvinced to this day that in Lucas’ mind, “Bothan” isn’t just some special GFFA spy title—he certainly had plenty of opportunities to demonstrate otherwise, but between six hours of prequel films and over 100 episodes of The Clone Wars, he never felt the need.

Luckily, the EU has taken the most meager of balls and run very, very far with it.
By sheer coincidence, just this morning I happened to read the first instance of the word “Bothan” outside of RotJ in issue #80 of the Marvel Star Wars comics; alas, once that brief tie-in to RotJ was out of the way it looks like Marvel didn’t have anything to add on the subject either.
Enter Timothy Zahn. In 1991 Heir to the Empire unveiled Borsk Fey’lya, one of the earliest members of the Rebel Alliance, pillar of the New Republic government, and perhaps most interestingly, gigantic douche. Fey’lya added new depth to the “ambiguous bad guy” role invented by Boba Fett by undermining the heroes at every turn—including getting Admiral Ackbar arrested—while simultaneously being a figure of great significance to the Rebel cause and, frankly, not a totally-unreasonable dude.

I think the true genius of Zahn’s interpretation of the Bothan species is that he circumvented one of Star Wars’ hoariest tropes—OT character x has this job, therefore their entire species has that job—while still rationally extrapolating from what little info the films had given us. The Bothans were famous for their Spynet, sure, but that was basically an outgrowth of their true love: politics.

The Bothans rejected the Empire because when your business is politics, tyranny is bad for business. For his part, Borsk Fey’lya wasn’t really a dishonorable being; his actions came from a cultural understanding of chicanery that seems dickish to humans, but at his core he only wanted what was best for Bothan Space, and therefore, the New Republic.

That kind of moral complexity can be hard to find in Star Wars; it’s all over the place if you know where to look, but more often than not it’s well below a surface littered with guys in white hats and black helmets. By their very existence, and complicated status as protagonists, the Bothans are the perfect species to represent the Rebel Alliance in the popular imagination—as an organization that pulls together all sorts of divergent beings and ideologies, and is too often portrayed as only marginally less homogeneous than the Empire. And did I mention they’re crazy-looking horse-dogs?

Which brings me to my next point: the aesthetic value of Bothans. Another all-too-common trope in Star Wars is alien species that look like rejected Ninja Turtles characters—cat people, spider people, killer whale people (okay, that one is kind of awesome), and so on. Bothans are that rare breed (heh) of alien species that feel familiar, or at least plausible, without being a real animal hastily stapled onto an anthropomorphic frame. It’s actually become a bit of a running joke in EU fandom that two different prose descriptions of a Bothan can give rise to two totally different interpretations.

The plus side of this relative inconsistency is that if some seven-figure screenwriter felt like putting Bothans in a movie down the line, they’d have a fair bit of leeway to tweak the design to their tastes; after all, even a slavishly EU-faithful movie Bothan wouldn’t match all the existing imagery.

And speaking of which, my final point is one that even I don’t fully understand: in a galaxy dominated by humans, the Bothans, for whatever reason, have been consistently portrayed as one of the alien species most likely, and most willing (on both sides) to couple with humans. Well, part of that I do understand—one of those aforementioned lazy alien designs that comes up every so often is basically Puck, the half-goat faun character from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Despite Bothans not having horns, well, ever, the EU has retconned a whole half-human, half-Bothan species into existence purely to explain the presence of things like this:

Furthermore, even in the far-less-flighty “modern” era of the films, regular Bothans have been depicted on more than one occasion to be romantically involved with humans. First in Requiem for a Rogue, as a brief fling for Rogue Squadron pilots Hobbie and Janson (movie characters, no less!) that notably comes and goes without anyone in the story so much as raising an eyebrow, then later in the Rogue Squadron novels as the really-quite-poignant relationship between Biggs Darklighter’s cousin Gavin and Bothan agent Asyr Sei’lar. Even better, the star-crossed lovers—literally!—end their relationship due to Bothan prejudice against humans, not the other way around, once again nicely subverting the expected treatment of a human/alien love story.

Only Rogue author Michael Stackpole, I suppose, could say exactly why Bothans have filled this particular role so often (second only, if I don’t miss my guess, to female Twi’leks), but given their distinctively nonhuman appearance, it speaks to a species that’s been integrated with humans longer than anyone can remember; one with a progressive mentality—political considerations notwithstanding—that both makes sense for the GFFA and would be absolutely vital for any 21st-century reimagining of such. For these reasons and more, it is utterly criminal that “higher” canon has avoided the Bothan species for so long, and were they to appear in a rebooted continuity, I’d be hard-pressed to think of anything about them that bears improvement.