Jason Fry's Dorkery

OK, actually I’m going to Hollywood Studios and I’m working, but still.

About to get on a plane to sign books at Star Wars Weekends. Here’s my signing schedule:

Friday 12p-2p Darth’s Mall
Saturday 12p-2p Writer’s Stop
Sunday 11a-1p Darth’s Mall

Plus I’ll have Del Rey’s Erich Schoeneweiss riding shotgun. If you’re around, come say hi! 

This is cross-posted from TheForce.net — I wrote it in the middle of an argument about fleet sizes, sector group capabilities, etc. It’s a reaction both to that and to other message-board discussions of The Essential Guide to Warfare, as well as reviews/conversations about other Star Wars books over the years.

If you’re not a pretty serious Star Wars fan, it will be impenetrable to you. And it’s a little emo. But I wanted to get it off my chest:

Hope you’ll allow me a little essay of my own, about what Star Wars authors like me can and can’t do.

The argument above (and soon to be below) will never be won: Either side will always be able to “prove” its point by citing specific, out-and-out contradictory information and different interpretations of/extrapolations from conflicting info. And when the argument is as civilized as it generally is here, that’s a good thing. Though we should all remember it’s an odd form of argument. This morning my kid and I had a brief discussion about who was the greatest baseball player in history. In the real world you can discuss that without the complications of record books that show Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb and Jackie Robinson with very different career stats, and their teams having won or lost variable numbers of World Series. Star Wars continuity is a lot cleaner than that of a lot of other franchises, but you’re still stuck with some of those complications. We’re taught to argue in the real world, but Star Wars arguments don’t follow the real world’s rules of evidence.

I suppose I could have tried to put an end to this weird situation by submitting hard numbers for all the relevant things, but I didn’t want to do that for reasons discussed earlier in this thread and in various interviews, and think I was wise not to. Besides, the counterargument would just be that Warfare is lower on the canon rung than novels/the Clone Wars show/the movies, and so round and round we’d keep going.

Anyway, I like reading all these passionate, well-informed arguments, even when they’re aimed at me. But the one thing that’s a bit frustrating when that happens (in hot-tempered criticisms/one-star reviews/etc.) is that a lot of the arguments people make aren’t actually about Warfare (or the Atlas, or whatever the title) but about the underlying continuity — their beef is really with Tim Zahn or West End Games or Curtis Saxton or Karen Traviss or somebody else. What those passionate folks don’t understand or won’t accept is that as a Star Wars “non-fiction fiction” author, my job is to make as much of the EU continuity work as I can, not to overwrite it or discard it wholesale. And I do mean EU continuity, which includes how the movies are interpreted within that framework. Sure, there are contradictions so big that I have to pick and choose, and minor things that can be sliced away/tweaked when they don’t fit, but for the most part I must work with what’s already established in the EU, and with the general practice/preponderance of evidence when what’s established doesn’t perfectly fit together. (Which it rarely does.)

I’m not complaining at all — it’s usually fun, and part of one of the greatest jobs in the world. But it means I have to work with 3 million clones, a large Unknown Regions, 25K years of galactic history that’s remarkably static in terms of technological advancements, and other things that drive some people crazy. I can’t invalidate big chunks of the Expanded Universe because I disagree with them or they don’t seem to make sense for a galaxy-spanning civilization, or by invoking an interpretation of the movies that Lucasfilm doesn’t share as it applies to the EU. Do I play a role in some smaller pieces getting overwritten/ignored/reinterpreted? Yes — but it’s as a last or nearly last resort, at the margins, and subject to LFL’s approval. It’s the exception, not the rule.

I came to the Atlas with a bit of an established POV in terms of the structure of the galaxy, but the job Dan Wallace and I had was to weigh the EU evidence, which clearly included a galactic disk with large unsettled areas; a hyperspace barrier west of the Core; 1,024 Republic sectors; and a majority of maps that were in agreement about the location of settled areas of the galaxy, trade routes, etc. We made some calls where canon was hopelessly contradictory (galactic diameter), offered some hard numbers where we had hard numbers to extrapolate from (settled systems etc.), fixed some clear errors (location of Lorrd) etc., but departing from the EU basics wasn’t an option available to us, even if we’d wanted to go that route.   

Same with approaching the maximalist/minimalist question, about which I had no preconceived notions, or at least none I’m aware of. I weighed the evidence and interpreted it based on where I thought the bulk of EU practice lay, and fit in the other stuff as best I could within a depiction of Republic/Imperial/NR power that I felt was coherent and logical. Nick quoted my conclusions above, so I won’t go over them again, but I want to emphasize that I didn’t see them as a compromise between maximalist and minimalist camps — there are chunks of both philosophies that are supported in the EU (even if they don’t fit together well) and that I found persuasive. 

I think the Atlas and Warfare are pretty clear about their depictions of these things. What I try to avoid in those depictions, however, is absolutist language. The main reason for this is I don’t want to tie future authors’ hands — the Essential Guides exist to support and hopefully spur good storytelling. A secondary reason is I try to at least preserve the spirit of stuff that just doesn’t fit. And finally, I just don’t like using canon to ram arguments down people’s throats, particularly when their own different view of the galactic settlement/fleet composition/etc. might be a big part of why they love Star Wars.

If a byproduct of this approach is that the same old arguments continue ad infinitum, and I take some flak for the EU itself, I can live with that. 

Anyway, I know — TLDR. But I feel better anyway. Thanks.

Here’s Part 9 of endnotes for The Essential Guide to Warfare.

Previous installments:  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7  | 8   

CHAPTER 12: IN THE EMPIRE’S SERVICE

The intro here is one of the more tactics-focused sections of the book, helped immeasurably by Paul Urquhart and resurrecting material from the Imperial Sourcebook. I was happy that the end result discussed tensions between rival camps of Imperial strategists, particularly with regards to the proper role of starfighters and carriers, and explored the technological thrusts and parries of the Galactic Civil War. That was a lot to pack into two-thirds of a page, but I think we pulled it off.

Armory: TIE Fighters: Can I just say how irritating it is that T.I.E. fighters and TIE fighters are different things? Speaking of which, we capitalized TIE/LN, TIE/AD etc. to eliminate the confusion between ln (el-en) and In (eye-en). Stop thinking about all that and look at Bruno Werneck’s awesome painting of Rebel forces in a whole mess of trouble.

More seriously, it was fun to trace the evolution of the TIE from the basic model through Vader’s prototype to the TIE interceptor, with a nod to the ancient Sith and their designs. Note here that the TIE’s evolution after Episode IV becomes the latest iteration of the aforementioned ideological clash within the Imperial military about the value of fighters and how best to use them.  

War Portrait: Baron Fel: Fel’s one of the more interesting EU characters, and I struggled with how to do justice to him, worried that a recitation of his career would be flat and dull compared to Dark Horse’s X-Wing #25, which I think is one of the greatest tales of the EU. I cracked the puzzle – or at least I hope I did — with the by-now-familiar tactic of taking a step back and seeing him through other eyes. Wedge was the logical choice to tell Fel’s story, as he’s not only a fellow pilot but also a fellow Corellian.

Han Solo’s Military Service: This section was one of the first things I knew I wanted to write once Warfare became my project — as a sucker for Navy pomp and circumstance, I always loved the scene in which Han gets his saber broken and his dress uniform shredded. (It’s in The Hutt Gambit, though the first references to it are way back in Brian Daley’s awesomer-than-awesome Han Solo at Stars’ End. Plus I seem to recall it’s somewhere else too.) Anyway, Warfare’s account of Han’s career is woven together from multiple sources, with a few retcons and some new material I hope will be a treat for Solo fans. It’s also something of a bookend to the explanation of the sometimes-tortuous Academy system. It was fun trying to capture the voice of Voren Na’al, narrator of many a West End Games sidebar. Dean Wyrmyr is indeed a reference to the despised authority figure from Animal House, but I can’t claim credit: The gag dates back to the Dark Empire Sourcebook.

By the way, I know Han’s said to have graduated at the top of his class, but I’ve never felt it was right for the character – Han’s no fool, but he’s far more likely to impress you behind a stick than behind a desk. (For a time-lapse look at how Chris Scalf’s awesome illustration came to life, go here.)

Fighter Pilot Slang: A mix of existing EU lore, real-world pilot slang given a Star Wars twist, and stuff I made up. I used a liberal helping of this stuff in “The Guns of Kelrodo-Ai,” the Shea Hublin story in Star Wars Insider #132.

War Portrait: Shea Hublin: Ah, there he is. I was always intrigued by Hublin, who appears briefly in the old Russ Manning comic “Princess Leia, Imperial Servant” bearing the ominous title of the Rebel Destroyer. For the Insider story, I wanted to accomplish two things: 1) have the protagonist be a bad guy who doesn’t know he’s a bad guy; and 2) tell a story where pilots can only succeed by flying slowly.

Here’s the rest of Hublin’s tale — the story of a man whose reaction to being shunted aside was to compartmentalize his disappointment and stay loyal to those who’d been loyal to him. I can imagine him putting on his old medals, kissing Eris goodbye and hopping on the Eriadu-Phelarion shuttle. He settles into his seat, sighs, and hopes this fete of Lady Tarkin’s isn’t as boring as the last one.

CHAPTER 13: THE ORIGINS OF REBELLION 

The Formation of the Rebellion: There’s a story here that hasn’t really been told – of an early, armed rebellion against the Empire that was fought conventionally and crushed, setting the stage for the clandestine revolution we see in the movies. I also liked the way the ruin of the Secession Worlds sets up the never-ending tensions between Mon Mothma and other Rebel leaders, as explored in the EU.

Alliance Command: A mix of government stuff from the Rebel Alliance Sourcebook and military stuff made coherent by Paul. Note the nod to The Clone Wars TV show and its Separatist parliament, used here as a part of the explanation for why Mothma rejected the idea of a government-in-exile. Throughout Warfare, I tried to stay aware of how the Rebels were or weren’t like their Separatist predecessors. Imperial propaganda would have hammered on any similarities between the two, creating repeated political traps for the Rebel leadership.  

War Portrait: Juno Eclipse: A section added very late in the project, at the insistence of super-editor Erich Schoeneweiss, over my objections. As usual, Erich was correct. Imagining it as a conversation between Admiral Ackbar and his niece unlocked it for me: Ackbar’s experiences and our knowledge of Jesmin’s fate give it a sorrowful resonance that I think a straight retelling would have lacked.

Separatists, Imperial Defectors and Other Rebels: A lot of material along these lines got cut from the book, but I’m glad this piece survived – as I mentioned above, the likely links between the Separatists and the Rebels have long struck me as an intriguing subject. I think the sharply different positions and philosophies of Mothma, Organa and Bel Iblis are all believable and consistent with their characterizations elsewhere. Most of the former Separatists here are new creations, though the tensions between Rebel leaders are well-established, as is the bloody fighting in Atravis sector. On further review, the Navy generationals who became Imperial defectors or “benign neglectors” really deserved their own section. 

Debriefing: Rebel Troopers: The discussion of the Rebels’ outfits and those of Alderaan’s defense troops is a mild retcon, my attempt to walk back any idea that they were one and the same. In-universe, that would have been a political disaster for Alderaan, for which the Empire was quite literally an existential threat; out of universe, I’m bothered by things that make the Star Wars galaxy seem smaller than it should be. I hope the ironic note about the Empire effectively outfitting Rebel irregulars elevates this from a crabby retcon to something more intriguing.

This fall, the New Orleans Times-Picayune will cease publishing print papers daily and move to three print days a week, stepping up 24-7 operations on its web site. According to the New York Times’ David Carr, editor Jim Amoss will leave once the transition is complete, along with two managing editors. There will be staff cuts, size to be determined, at a paper that’s already seen its newsroom shrink in the aftermath of Katrina.

Which makes this a sad day for newspapers, and for me personally.

I’ll get the me stuff out of the way first: My first professional journalism job was at the Times-Picayune as a summer intern in 1989, and I may possibly have been the greenest intern in the history of green interns — not to mention one of the most mouthy, arrogant and generally obnoxious.

I was redeemed, to the extent that was possible, by attention and instruction and firm correction from a lot of folks at the Times-Picayune: Besides Jim, who took a chance on me, there were Peter Kovacs, Bruce Nolan, Jed Horne, Keith Woods, Paul Bartels, Jeannette Hardy, Chris Cooper, John Pope, Jonathan Eig and others I’ve shamefully neglected to mention because of age and time elapsed. Most of all, there was Kris Gilger, my first bureau chief and the kind of mentor every kid should pray to get. Kris was formidable and not to be crossed — I was terrified of her — but she also had your back, no matter what.

My two summers at the Times-Picayune put me on the right road as a journalist, and I’m forever grateful to the folks who pointed the way and taught me to steer. It’s heartbreaking to think of that newsroom being much reduced, particularly in a city whose peculiar institutions need aggressive, tough, full-time watchdogs.

Yet at the same time, I object to the reflexive view among news observers that fewer days in print is the same as the death of the Times-Picayune. That’s unfair to those who must keep the paper going as more of its operations shift to digital, and it’s unwise given the tidal wave of change remaking the news industry.

The signs of trouble for the newspaper industry have been abundantly clear for years. The print business is disappearing, to be replaced by a flock of digital experiments whose most optimistic outcome still guarantees smaller newsrooms. I wish it were otherwise, but it’s not, and that’s been obvious for a long time. Yes, I mourn the news about the Picayune. But that isn’t the same as thinking Newhouse is wrong — in broad outline — about what needs to be done. 

The question, then, is exactly what Newhouse will do. And that makes me worried all over again. The Times-Picayune was profitable — which doesn’t exempt it from the overall industry’s future, but ought to have argued for less-radical surgery. Instead, that surgery reportedly will follow the procedure Newhouse used in Ann Arbor, Mich. It’s a plan I thought was unfortunate but sound when announced, but I had to revise that once I saw how thin and generic AnnArbor.com felt — it’s journalism on the cheap, with crummy materials making the blueprint irrelevant. NOLA.com, the Times-Picayune’s website, has always looked and felt cookie-cutter despite repeated redesigns — a crying shame given it represents America’s liveliest city. And the disrespect shown for the Picayune’s staff, most of whom learned about their paper’s future through the New York Times, is deplorable.

Given all that, I can’t think of any particular reason for optimism that Newhouse will get it right this time. And that’s a double dose of unhappiness.