The Death Star Human Resources Department: September 29, 2023
There's a new savior, there's also a new episode of Ahsoka, we get trolled again, plus all the usual nonsense
Hello there
Good morning and welcome to this week’s edition of the Death Star Human Resources Department newsletter. Just a heads up, this is going to be a shorter newsletter. By the time you read this, I will have been out of town for several days and needed to finish this Wednesday morning before catching a plane. So there’s less hot takes and more finishing up drafts of things I started and saved for exactly this purpose. We’ve got the second to last episode of Ahsoka, another visit to the Death Star HR book club, and we have a thought about the World Between Worlds from my wife AKA Emperor Palpatine’s Number 1 Fan.
As always, if you like what I’m doing please subscribe and tell a friend. Now, let’s get to it.
This Is Where the Fun Begins
Obi-Wan Kenobi has Jesus has been a meme for a while. It was even in the second Death Star HR newsletter way back when. I got this from my cousin the other day. Now we have a new savior.
Are there Ezra Bridger prayer candles on Etsy yet?
Ahsoka Episode 7: The Band is Mostly Back Together
Episode 7 of Ahsoka happened largely in a manner that you could have seen from watching Episode 6. Ahsoka finally meets back up with Ezra and Sabine. Thrawn continues to be 3 steps ahead of everyone, masterminding his plan to keep Ahsoka and company busy while he gets everything loaded up on his Star Destroyer to head back to the main galaxy. There’s more lightsaber duels. Sabine uses the Force. None of that was really a shock.
The real question is, well, there are actually two. First, what’s in the crates Thrawn is loading to take back to the main galaxy? It appears from the reference to the catacombs last week and the size of them that they are coffins. My best guess is they are deceased Nightsisters, and Thrawn plans to take them back to the main galaxy, reanimate them with Dark Magick and then have an army of Witches he can use against the New Republic. Remember, Ahsoka takes place during the Mandoverse which means there just aren’t many Jedi. And there’s very little in the way of the Jedi Order that Luke is starting back up. There’s Luke. Grogu who doesn’t stick with the Order. Ahsoka who isn’t part of the Order. I’m racking my brain to think of anyone else and am coming up blank. It seems unlikely a Force-sensitive clone of Moff Gideon would join the Jedi Order.
But the more immediate question is, what is Baylan Skoll’s plan? There are basically two competing interests in Ahsoka. You’ve got Thrawn, who would very much like to leave Peridea and go back to the main galaxy. And you’ve got Ahsoka Tano who would prefer Thrawn stay in the current galaxy, which is a galaxy even farther away. Baylan is the wild card. He’s not a Sith bent on ruling the galaxy by fighting the Jedi and using the Dark Side. He’s not an Imperial, it seems fairly clear to me that he considers Thrawn and Morgan Elsbeth means to achieve his goal. I discussed last week that he may have a similar goal as Kreia in KOTOR II, he wants to essentially kill the Force and free the galaxy and it’s people from relying on it. And he thinks something on Peridea will achieve that. I don’t think we got any closer to figuring it out this week. The only real wrinkle from this week was he saw that Shin Hati doesn’t share his goal, her ambition is more Sith-like so he let her go to join Thrawn and company. It seemed like last week Shin wasn’t completely on board with whatever Baylan was rambling about.
There’s only one more episode to go, and I’m not entirely sure what’s going to happen. If I had to make a guess, we’re going to finally see Ahsoka confront Thrawn. How is Thrawn going to get away? Obviously he’s going to survive. Killing Thrawn would easily be the biggest misstep and waste of a character in the Mandoverse.1 Shin and some beat up Stormtroopers aren’t powerful enough to stop Ahsoka. Neither is Morgan Elsbeth. It’s unlikely Baylan will come riding to Thrawn’s rescue. No, if I had to guess, I think it will play out like this. Ahsoka, Ezra, and Sabine go confront Thrawn. Shin and Enoch don’t survive. Thus carrying on the Disney Star Wars tradition of characters in cool masks not really doing much. The Nightsisters come to Thrawn’s aid. Sabine has to use the Force to save Ahsoka and Ezra, but in doing so it gives Thrawn enough time to get the Eye of Sion powered up and jumps to the main galaxy. The show ends with our hero’s looking up into space, with no way to get home or to warn Hera and the New Republic that Thrawn is on his way.
The Star Wars Click Bait Economy Strikes Again
I’ve had a working theory for a while now that Dave Filoni enjoys trolling Star Wars fans. Not in a mean way, but the guy is one of us. He knows the way we think. So he knows how he can push our collective buttons.
First example of this I really talked about was Marrok. Remember him? The very first article in the very first edition of Death Star HR was about the speculation around the idea that Marrok, who did not have a name at the time, was actually Ezra Bridger. There were numerous articles about just who Marrok could be. All the nerd-related fan sites would publish posts. People discussed it on Reddit. Weirder and weirder theories were floated. The tiniest bit of information was taken as the smoking gun that Marrok was Ezra, or Mara Jade, or whoever.
None of it was correct. Did anyone have Marrok as a Nightbrother on their bingo card? Nope.
There was probably one guy on Reddit who suggested it and got downvoted into oblivion and is now holding a huge grudge.
Last week, we finally got to see our blue buddy Thrawn. Stuck in Peridea with a beat up Star Destroyer and some weird witch buddies. He’s got his army of Stormtroopers but the really look like crap. Their armor is beat up and held together with red thread. And Thrawn refers to them as Night Troopers.
Wait a sec. The Nightsisters wear red. They often refer to threads. We’ve already seen one reanimated Nightbrother. This can only mean one thing. Thrawn has an army of undead. The Night Troopers are the reanimated corpses brought back to “life” through Dark Magick. The first time one gets slashed with a lightsaber blade, it will burst into a cloud of green smoke just like Marrok. There were plenty of references to the book Death Troopers.
This week we finally got to see the Night Troopers in action. They were about as effective as normal Stormtroopers. And when one of them met the business end of Sabine’s lightsaber, he died the normal bloodless Stormtrooper death. No puff of green smoke. Nothing. Just a regular Stormtrooper in patched up armor.
All this to say, there is zero chance that Dave Filoni and company didn’t know that the internet would be set ablaze with speculation about the Night Troopers. All the articles, all the speculation, all the going down the rabbit holes. And in the end they were just normal, boring Stormtroopers. There’s no way Filoni isn’t yanking our collective chains. Well played, Dave. Well played.
The Death Star Human Resources Book Club
The “Tales” books were a bit of a mainstay back in Legends, or Expanded Universe as us old heads would call it. They all more or less had the same idea. Pick a theme, assemble your crew, and you get a bunch of stories that really let you get into the weeds of Star Wars. I think the first one I ever bought was Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina (TFTMEC), which I believe was the first piece of media to really give a back story to every single character, human or alien, that got a half-second of screen time in the cantina scene. I actually wasn’t sure if TFTMEC was the first to give the back story or if the Star Wars Collectible Card Game came out first. Readers will be shocked to learn I had the Star Wars CCG as well. The book beat the CCG to the shelves by about six months.
Title: Star Wars: Tales from the Empire
Editor: Peter Schweighoffer
Year published: 1997
Pages: 324
Status: Legends
Summary in less than 20 words: Stories about characters you don’t know and only some of them take place during the Empire.
There were five books in the Tales of/from series. Mos Eisley Cantina, Jabba’s Palace, Bounty Hunters, Empire, and New Republic. I’ve read all of them but the last one. I thought I owned all of them but according to my spreadsheet2, I actually don’t own Mos Eisley Cantina. Anyway, Tales From the Empire is really a book for the sickos. At least Cantina, Jabba’s Palace, and Bounty Hunters all have characters that get some screen time in the movies, even if it’s just half a second while the camera is panning. Tales From the Empire is either new characters or ones that you have to have read a bunch of books to know.
Tales From the Empire is a mixed bag. For starters, we have what looks to be Boba Fett and Slave I on the cover, but we find out it is actually Jodo Kast. And wait it’s not really even Jodo Kast, it’s our blue friend Grand Admiral Thrawn disguised as Jodo Kast. So we’re already starting off on the wrong foot. I’m sure the good people at Bantam Spectra figured readers would be more likely to buy the book if they thought there was a Boba Fett story in it.
And while my initial reaction when I started reading was a bit of disappointment, I think it’s a little more fun, or maybe just requires less brain power to read a story about a Weird Little Guy from Jabba’s Palace that you already know than it does to invest in brand new characters. It also makes a little more sense once you read the much longer than normal intro from the editor. The stories were taken from the Star Wars Adventure Journal, a montly magazine that had original Star Wars stories and stuff for the Star Wars RPG. My understanding is you can’t just show and write a story about Luke or Vader. Those were reserved for A-List authors. But if you had your own story with original characters or minor characters you could get published. As far as I know, nothing like that exists to day. I’d subscribe if it existed.
What Works:
Although the book is non-screen characters, there are several stories that focus on what I like, the little people in the Star Wars universe.
Retreat from Coruscant by Laurie Burns was my favorite of the stories. A space courier gets roped into helping the New Republic sneak past an Imperial Rement blockade to let the rest of the New Repulic Fleet know that Coruscant is under attack.
Along the same lines, Do No Harm by Erin Endom is the story of a Rebel doctor on a mission to break a Rebel being help captive by the Imperials. She tells her commander she won’t kill anyone, but has to shoot a Stormtrooper during the escape.
What Doesn’t:
I really was excited to get two Timothy Zahn stories. Neither of them really did anything for me. The first one felt way too forced to get Mara Jade in. The second, more of a novella than a short story with Thrawn going undercover could have been good but it felt like there were too many characters and too many attempts and plot twists.
I still feel lied to with no story about Boba Felt despite the book’s cover.
Wild Card:
Erin Endom, referenced above, is a doctor and professor of pediatric medicine. And per Good Reads this is her only published work.
Things My Wife Has Said About Star Wars, Pt 3
After a discussion of Ahsoka episode 4 and explaining the World Between Worlds:
Me: …so then Ahsoka wakes up in the World Between Worlds…[discussion of what WBW is]…and guess who she sees?
Her: Grogu??
Me: Grogu?!? [I may have said this with an extremely indignant tone.] No. It was not Grogu. It was Anakin!
Her: Wait. Isn’t Darth Vader dead?
Me: Yes, but this is the WBW so it’s Anakin from another timeline. Or maybe as a Force ghost.
Her: Whatever. Look, I want it on the Death Star HR record that I said Grogu with enthusiasm.
From the Depths of Wookieepedia
The Beldons. When these popped up, I wondered if they might be related to everyone’s favorite Giant Hyperspace Whales and current TV stars, the Puurgil. But that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Unlike the Puurgil who can travel through hyperspace and even between galaxies, the Beldons stayed in the atmosphere of Bespin. The creatures were important since their bodies would absorb space plankton and other chemicals and they would convert it to tibanna gas and then uh, excrete said tibanna gas which could be then collected and converted to fuel. If you remember from Empire Strikes Back, Lando says that Cloud City is tibanna gas mining operation.
I know Lando was a gambler and loved taking a risk, but I’m not sure basing your economy around combustible space whale farts is the best idea.
News From the HoloNet
Is Disney Trying to Retcon the Weirdest Music Genre in Star Wars?
Cancel culture comes to a galaxy far far away.
Ahsoka may have answered the mystery about Yoda’s species
It actually may not have but the headline is solid click bait.
Star Wars’ improvement in writing mental health stories
I wanted to be snarky but it’s actually a good observation.
5 Years Later, Star Wars Is Finally Walking Back Its Dumbest Mistake
Not gonna lie, I enjoy being able to watch Mando’s weekly adventures, but it’s tough to beat Star Wars on a big screen.
That’s it for this week. If you like what I’m doing, please subscribe. I’ll catch you next week, and may the Force be with you.
The current biggest waste of a character is killing off Cad Bane in Book of Boba Fett.
Is anyone surprised to learn I have a spreadsheet of all my Star Wars books? Didn’t think so.
"Jodo Kast." <Adopts faraway look.> "Now that's a name I've not heard in a long time."
I've fallen out of the habit of reading Star Wars novels, but I still have quite a collection, and at one time I too used a spreadsheet to track it.
Baylan Skoll remains my favorite part of Ahsoka. Though I'm pleased that Thrawn is suitably menacing and conniving.
This was a fun read! Glad I happened across it in Notes. Subbed.