The Death Star Human Resources Department Newsletter: April 4, 2025
Get ready for the Underworld. No, not that one.
Hello there
Welcome back once again to the Death Star Human Resources Department Newsletter. It’s April 4th which means we’re only a month away from the high holy day of May the 4th. And along those lines, there’s a big announcement for a new animated series for May 4th. We take a look at the Tales of the Underworld trailer, I talk a bit about my rewatch of The Acolyte, a family member spent some money at Galaxy’s Edge, and I’m getting closer to finishing up the New Jedi Order books.
This Is Where The Fun Begins
The YouTube algorithm doesn’t seem to understand that just because I watch something once, it doesn’t mean I want to see nothing but that topic. For example, I once clicked on the a video from the metal band Clutch doing a cover for “Fortunate Son.” For weeks, YouTube thought I was the world’s biggest Clutch fan. Or, in this case. I clicked on one video about restoring a Star Wars poster and now YouTube thinks I want to to spend a good 17 hours a day watching restoration videos.
This one is kind of cool, it’s a poster I’ve never seen before. The whole story of Star Wars before it was released is pretty interesting and it’s not something you hear a lot about. The normal story is Star Wars was in Uncle George’s head. He made a movie. It became a worldwide phenomenon. When there was a year of hype, or trying to hype up the movie. I’ve mentioned this before but the novelization of Star Wars came out around six months before the movie. This would never fly in today’s spoiler averse culture.
Tales of the Underworld: It’s Officially a Streak
I’m of the belief that in sports it’s not a winning or losing streak until you’ve hit three games one way or the other. Now that have our third “Tales” series, it looks like we can say there’s a streak. First was Tales of the Jedi in 2022. Then a year off. Then Tales of the Empire last year. And now the trailer just dropped for Tales of the Underworld.
Like the other two Tales series, we’re getting the stories for two different characters, each one will be 3 episodes long. The first story is going to be Asajj Ventress. You remember Ventress. She was a main character in The Clone Wars cartoon, a Nightsister who was Count Dooku’s assassin and had smoldering sexual tension with Obi-Wan Kenobi. Up until the third season of The Bad Batch, it was assumed that she was dead. Most people assumed this because in the canon book “Dark Disciple,” she died and Obi-Wan and Quinlan Vos bury Ventress on Dathomir. That’s pretty dead. But death isn’t really permanent in the Star Wars universe. It’s more of just a minor inconvenience.
Given her yellow lightsaber and hairstyle, this is clearly Ventress in her Lightside Era. It looks like the show is going to be more or less in the same timeline as The Bad Batch, immediately or pretty close there after from Revenge of the Sith. And that looks like it’s Ventress protecting a Padawan or young Jedi from an Inquisitor. Maybe it’s Caleb Dume aka Kanan Jarrus? I’ve watched the trailer a few times and haven’t decided. Discuss among yourselves.
I’m leaning towards they’re different people. But it would be very much how Star Wars currently operates to give us Caleb Dume again. I assume the Ventress story will also explain how exactly she managed to stay alive. My guess: Nightsister Magick. But really, the only magic you need is Dave Filoni saying “you know what, I really think we should bring Ventress back.”
The second story line is everyone’s favorite cowboy hat wearing bounty hunter, Cad Bane. I had just assumed that Bane was a Filoni creation who just designed a character with a cowboy hat, because we all know Dave loves a cowboy hat. Or as we just call them in Texas, hats1. But per his page on Wookieepedia, Bane was an Uncle George creation. Or at least mostly is. I mean, I’m not accusing George of anything but when you’re sitting at the top, you can more or less claim any creation you want.
It feels fairly safe, although not completely safe, to assume that Bane’s story will take place in the same post-ROTS/pre-AHN era that the Ventress story will. Bane’s storyline overlaps the Original Trilogy since he meets his untimely (but probably not really) end in Book of Boba Fett. It looks like his former best friend and Bane have some beef and they’re going to settle it…with blasters!
I think, although am not positive, that Bane’s friend is a new character. If I’m wrong, please let me know. Everyone knows you can’t be wrong on the internet. Maybe Bane’s former BFF is the target? Maybe they’re both bounty hunters and going after the same target. Who can say? I guess we’ll find out on May the 4th.
Not for nothing, it is interesting that the series is called “Underworld,” the same name as a long lost Star Wars series that popped back up in the news lately and that I have been meaning to write about but it’s a deep dive and these days all I have time for is swimming in the shallow end.
All Roads Lead Back to Brendok - Or Rewatching The Acolyte
Over the last weekend I went back and rewatched The Acolyte. One might think that rewatching Andor would make more sense, and I am going to that before season 2 comes out, but I did have a reason. Another writer here on Substack and I are going to do a podcast about the show. Who is it and when we doing it? You’ll just have to wait and see. This is what we in the biz call a “teaser.”
Actually, it’s friend of Death Star HR Shane Elliott who writes the nerd-centric and very clever Feats N Faults. If you like Star Wars, Marvel, GoT, and all the rest, make sure you check out what Shane is doing.
Also, when I told her why I was rewatching the show, Emperor Palpatine’s #1 Fan asked “why are you doing that, didn’t everyone hate that show?”
See, she pays attention. Whether she admits it or not.
Obviously this is not going to be an episode by episode breakdown of the show. That’s already been done, if you want to read what I thought then, you can go back and start with the June 7th Death Star HR and go from there. When I got done with the final episode, my thought was The Acolyte was both better and worse than I remember it. You get a different perspective on shows when you watch them in one or two sittings. When The Acolyte was doing a weekly release, I’d watch the show when it came out and then I’d usually watch it again the next day before writing about it. It hits a little differently when you watch all the episodes and see how they flow together, even if there are two flashback episodes to break the story up.
I said this when the show ended and I stand by it after rewatching it. The Acolyte is not the best Star Wars show. It’s in the middle of the pack. But it’s the most daring. There’s very little order Star Wars media that openly criticizes the Jedi. It’s not the only reason, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the two pieces of media most critical of the Jedi, The Last Jedi and The Acolyte, are also the ones that faced the most backlash from the loud and shouty section of Star Wars fans.
Since I’m not sure yet what exactly Shane and I are going to talk about, I’ll save a review and just leave it at this, streaming shows need to do one of two things. Either commit to multiple seasons or write your shows as one and done. I know I know, this is far easier said than done. But I say this because when I got done with The Acolyte, it was very clear that the show needs a second season. There are too many loose threads to tie up. What’s Darth Plagueis up to? Was that the same island as the Darth Plagueis book? What’s going on with the Senate investigation into the Jedi? Will Osha become a Sith and will Mae get her memory back? And most importantly, the biggest unanswered question in my book, what happened to Mother Koril? If you remember from last year, I thought it made far more sense to have Mother Koril be Darth Smiley’s Sith Master than Darth Plagueis.
The Acolyte was done in thanks to less than stellar streaming numbers, a high budget and while Disney would likely never admit it, the show being thrust into the all consuming culture wars was probably a headache they didn’t want to deal with. Just give The Acolyte a second season but in animated form. You can cut costs, the animated shows don’t have the high expectations for streaming numbers that the live-action shows do, and without those higher expectations and profile, it’s likely the people who live off of rage-clicks will find another target. So come, John and Dave, give us season 2. I need to know the outcome of Senator Rayencourt’s attempts at investigating the Jedi!
Great Moments in Star Wars Merchandising
Got word that my Sithter, brother-in-law, Red Leader, and their younglings were at Disney this week. And they didn’t invite me.
Given that Disney is efficient at extracting money from the suckers at the park their valued guests, there’s no shortage of Star Wars merch available. I have the build your own lightsaber workshop on a bucket list. And while it’s not a lightsaber, the build your own astromech workshop looks pretty cool.
These three are coming home with the Younglings and no doubt will be helping the Rebels.
The Death Star Human Resources Department Book Club: New Jedi Order #16
It’s always nice when you can reuse some text. Remember that goal of finishing up the New Jedi Order books by February March? Well, it’s April, so it didn’t happen. But hey, we’re still on the right track.
Title: Force Heretic II: Refugee
Series: New Jedi Order. Book #16
Author: Sean Williams and Shane Dix
Date published: May 5, 2003
Pages: 397
Status: Legends
Summary in 20 words or less: We’ve reached the beginning of the end. The final missions are being telegraphed. And there’s accidental genocide by a Jedi
Don’t worry, we’ll get to who the hell is on the cover.
One thing I have found pretty interesting about these books is just how quickly they were cranking them out. I don’t mean to imply this was some kind of assembly line product, but three books were released between February and July. Obviously, or at least I assume it’s pretty obvious that Williams and Dix wrote the three books and then sent them off to the editor. It seems unlikely they started the second book after the first one was published. But maybe? I don’t know, I don’t know a lot about how book publishing works. There is a documentary on YouTube about the New Jedi Order books that I’m planning on watching once I finish the series.
Star Wars: New Jedi Order: Force Heretic II: Refugee feels like a classic Star Wars Expanded Universe Legends book. You’ve got the A and B plots as the focus with a C plot that gets some time, but not what the main plots get.
The A plot finds Luke Skywalker, Mara Jade, Jacen Solo, Saba Sebatyne, Danni Quee, Tekli, and some of our old friends in the Imperial Remnant have made their way into the Unknown Regions looking for Zonama Sekot, the living planet. They’ve made their way into Chiss space, who aren’t very happy to see our heroes. While some of the Chiss would prefer to just kill them and call it good, eventually Luke and company are granted access to what I’m calling the Library on Con-Chiss. Eh? Why are you booing me? Unlike the rest of the Star Wars universe where information is stored on computers and holoscreens and I don’t know, galactic thumb drives; the Chiss are decidedly more low tech. The Chiss archives are a library like paper books. Which honestly warmed my heart. I love the library. And just when our team thinks it’s hopeless and they’re never going to find the living planet, Jacen Solo has a revelation that maybe just maybe Zonama Sekot is disguising itself as a moon. Sure enough, he’s right! Next book, maybe we’ll finally make it to Zonama Sekot.
The B story involves Han, Leia, Jaina Solo, Jagged Fel, and Tahiri following the Ryn spy network to the planet Bakura. As I mentioned in the last Death Star HR Book Club, Bakura is a planet out in Wild Space and was introduced in The Truce at Bakura, a Legends book from many years ago. In that one, what’s left of the Empire and the newly formed New Republic had to work together to stop the invasion of the Ssi-ruu, who were religious fanatic and racist Space Dinosaurs hell bent on conquering humans (and probably other species as well) to use them as a power source in their entenchment process. Basically, think of the Machines using humans as batteries in The Matrix, that’s what entenchment was. The Truce at Bakura came out 6 years before The Matrix. Did the Wachowskis read the book and “borrow” the idea of human batteries? I don’t know.
Anyways…back to the B Plot. There’s a lot of shit going down at Bakura. There’s an element of the citizens who don’t want the Galactic Alliance there, because every time Han and Leia and company show, bad things happen. Like the Prime Minister being kidnapped, Jaina getting caught up in breaking the (alleged) kidnapper out of prison, the returned Prime minster being a human replica droid, yet another invasion by the Ssi-ruu, and oh yeah, it turns out the Yuuhzan Vong are actually behind the invasion anyway. That’s a lot!
In the C plot, there’s been less from the Vong in the past few books. They are there, but haven’t been the focus of attention. Old friend Nom Anor, the very first Yuuhzan Vong introduced way back in Vector Prime, has fallen from grace. No one really likes him in Vong world anymore. He’s been skulking around the remains of Coruscant, now renamed Yuuzhan'tar, cursing both his Supreme Overlord Shimrra and his fate. And as luck would have it, he stumbles into a group of Shamed Ones, Yuuhzan Vong who have basically been cast out of society. So what does a down and out Vong executor do? He basically starts a cult dedicated to the Jeedai heresy. The idea among the Shamed Ones that the Jedi, or Jeedai as they called them, could redeem the Shamed Ones and bring the back into proper Yuuhzan Vong culture. I also have loved the idea of the Jedi as a religion. If you encountered a group of people that could say move things with their minds or shoot lightning from their fingertips, it seems pretty likely that’s a good group of people to start a cult around.
The Good:
Sometimes you just want a Star Wars book that’s nothing more than a Star Wars book. And like I said at the start, this really felt like just a classic Star Wars book. The good guys get in trouble but get themselves out of it.
The Bad:
It’s clearly a setup book. That’s not to say nothing happens, but the purpose of this book is to get to the next book. Not to really resolve anything. And I should know better by now. The description on the back of the book says this is where Luke and company go looking for Zonama Sekot. And while that technically happens, it really doesn’t. Shame on me for not knowing better.
Wild Card:
OK, so while I get that’s clearly Jaina Solo on the cover fighting a Ssi-rru, that really doesn’t look like any version of Jaina I’ve seen before.
I was not expecting a “BOTH SIDES ARE EQUALLY BAD” hot take in a Star Wars book.
Not respected on both sides
Only one more book in the Force Heretic trilogy and only 3 more books in total to go. The end is in sight!
This Day in Star Wars History
Three entries to touch on for April 4th. Although if you’re interested, it was a big day for High Republic publishing in 2023.
Warner Brothers was founded on this day in 1923. When I saw this entry, I thought it was an interesting factoid but wasn’t sure what it had to do with Star Wars. WB distributed Star Wars: The Clone Wars (the movie), making at the time, the first movie that wasn’t distributed by 20th Century Fox. Warner Bros also distributed Uncle George’s 1971 movie, THX 1138. A combination of letters and numbers you might be familiar with.
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story was released on blu-ray and DVD in 2017. Given that we’re less than 3 weeks away to the reason of Andor Season 2, might be time to go back and watch Rogue One.
In 2020, actor Jay Benedict died from COVID-19 complications. Benedict played Deak in A New Hope, one of Luke’s loser friends that just hung around Tosche Station. Benedict was credited as “Rich Twit” in The Dark Knight Rises, I’m assuming that’s a description of the character and he’s not actually named Richard Twittington.
From the Depths of Wookieepedia
It’s spring. Or at least it is here in Texas. For some of you, it’s still winter. But as it’s spring, love is in the air. Which is why this week’s entry is the Ja’Fai. What is the Ja’Fai and what does it have to do with romance? Well, it was described as a “mating race.”
A female who finished her rite of passage into adulthood was given an early start, and she was pursued by adult bachelor males. The first male who caught her, won her and the pair were mated for life. However, Abyssin females were the faster runners, therefore a female's feelings for a given male had an influence on the race.
So, that’s, uh, something. It is a literal mating race. Pretty risqué for the Star Wars universe.
News From the HoloNet
John Boyega says 'Star Wars' was 'whitest,' most 'elite space' while reflecting on racist backlash
I am going to try to write more about this next week. Doesn’t seem likely Finn is coming back for the Rey movie.
Patty Maloney, ‘Far Out Space Nuts’ and ‘Star Wars Holiday Special’ Actress, Dies at 89
RIP Lumpy. The costume was made out of human hair. Better than a costume of human skin, I suppose.
I love that the nerd-news industrial complex can turn “we’re working on it” into a story. But hey, I clicked on it and am linking it. So I guess it worked.
Groom Brought to 'Immediate Tears' When Bride Surprised Him with Star Wars Wedding Twist
Sending this to Emperor Palpatine’s #1 Fan for when we renew our vows.
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.
Coincidentally I am finally drafting on first chapter on Brendok Massacre in The Decline and Fall of the Galactic Republic. It is proving to be a lot more complicated than I anticipated, as The Acolyte is one of the more complex stories in SW lore. The basic questions of what actually happened on the ground and what the people in question wanted to accomplish remain very murky. Why Qimir was originally on Brendok and whether the Nightsisters were aware and/or approved of it is especially sticky.
We must also consider that Dathomiri historians undoubtedly held up the massacre as evidence of an alleged galaxy wide Jedi pogrom against religious minorities, and Confederation historians likely held that it was the first shot fired in the Clone Wars.
Regarding Ventress...she's a Nightsister by upbringing, regardless of her training later in life. Death is not exactly permanent nor bad to that basket of religions in all of its depictions in SW.