Hello there
Since I’m typing this on February 1st, by the time you see this you’ll likely know if my boy Punxsutawney Phil has said six more weeks of winter or we get to pass go and head to the increasing short spring here in Texas. Lately our temps seem to alternate between Hoth and Tatooine. It’s not great. Every once in a while it’s OK though. Thursday afternoon I sat on my front porch with a drink and typed away about Space Wizards with laser swords. I could take six more weeks of this.
We’ve got a fun one today. Some random Legos showed on at my door. There’s the Star Wars metal band I didn’t know I needed. I finished the first book from the New Jedi Order series. And Emperor Palpatine’s #1 Fan weighs in on drink ware.
As always, I appreciate you reading this and it would mean a lot if you told any of your Star Wars loving friends that there’s a guy who writes a weekly newsletter with grammatically questionable hot takes and they should subscribe. Now, let’s get to it.
Death Star HR Team Lead note. If for some reason you did not get the January 26th newsletter in your email, it can be viewed here. This was some kind of glitch with Substack where emails weren’t going out. I saw other authors saying they were hearing from subscribers they never got an email, and looking at the Death Star HR dashboard, the opens and views for the Jan 26th newsletter are way below average. And my writing last week wasn’t that bad. Definitely not any worse than it is on any other given week.
Death Star HR has put in a ticket with the Death Star IT Department, but you know how those IT guys are. Any ticket that’s not from the Death Star Giant Ass Laser Installation Department is classified as low priority.
This Is Where The Fun Begins
So I mentioned a while back that one of the fun things about writing Death Star HR is people send me Star Wars memes and news stories and tag me with funny stuff. And I love it. If you sent me something and I haven’t posted it, it’s not because I don’t like you or didn’t like what you sent, it’s that I can only post so much. This isn’t a Star Wars meme newsletter as much as I’m tempted to turn it into one. But up until a couple weeks ago, I never received anything that wasn’t a link or a photo.
So I picked up the Amazon1 package up off the front porch and tossed it on the coffee table without looking at it. I knew I didn’t have any outstanding Amazon orders so I just figured it was one of the many packages Emperor Palpatine’s #1 Fan2 had ordered. The package sat on the coffee table for four or five days until she asked me “what did you get from Amazon?”
I replied I didn’t get anything, I just assumed it was something she ordered. After a somewhat rude suggestion that I ought to try to looking at the address label, I opened it up and found this.
Very cool! And very confusing as I hadn’t ordered it. I love Star Wars Legos, I used to have a pretty decent collection but I sold them years ago. Kinda wish I didn’t, but at the same time, storage space is at a premium in my house. I have one Star Wars Lego set that I talked about last summer. On the rare occasional that I do any kind of in-person shopping at Target, I wander down the Lego aisle, and dream about how great a giant Star Destroyer or AT-AT would look in my office. But I know it’s a habit I can’t afford to get into.
Anyway, it turns out the Millennium Falcon Holiday Diorama was my from cousin Julia. Her and her husband, Brian, are Death Star HR readers and sent the Lego set as a way to say thanks and that they like Death Star HR. With that, I threw a Star Wars album on the turntable and got building. There is a Lego Star Wars Holiday Special on Disney+, but I decided to save it for Life Day this fall.
That was fun to put together. So much fun that I once I finished, I was browsing the Star Wars section on Lego’s website. I’m not saying I put the AT-AT and the Venerator Attack Cruiser in my cart and hovered over the “checkout with Apple Pay” button before realizing that I cannot spend $1500.00 on Legos3 and closed the browser window. But I’m not not saying I did that either.
Anyway, Julia and Brian, thank you so much for the Legos. It is truly appreciated.
Heavier Than Jabba on a High Gravity Planet
A while back I shared a good Star Wars/heavy metal meme and wondered why there aren’t any metal bands in Star Wars. I’m still looking for a metal band in the galaxy far, far away. But here in our galaxy, we’ve got Galactic Empire.
This rocks. No other way to put it. The only thing I’m confused by is how I’ve never heard of them before. I only found out when the droid Vid3-O FL-O hipped me to them. Because I have no will power, I immediately ordered their first two albums and have been playing them not quite nonstop, but pretty close.
Did you know your life wasn’t complete until you listened to a power metal version of Duel of the Fates? Trust me, it wasn’t complete. But it is now.
I often think about the hellscape that is the modern internet and social media in particular; the articles I linked above certainly emphasis the hellscape nature of it. And I think about how I was fortunate enough to be online when it was still fun and felt like endless possibilities. Finding bands like Galactic Empire or Star Wars cumbia band Iluzol or having someone else find them online and tell you about them feels like the early days of the internet. Maybe that’s too introspective for a post about a metal band dressed in Star Wars costumes.
Plus, pretty sweet looking vinyl. Give ‘em a listen.
Death Star HR Book Club: New Jedi Order #1
As I mentioned in the January 5th Death Star HR, one of my newsletter goals for the year is to read and review all of the New Jedi Order series. I finished up the first book last week but not in time to make the newsletter, so we’re getting it this week. I also realized I’m going to have to pick it up. There’s 19 books in the series. One a month isn’t going to cut it. 2023 was the first year I didn’t hit my target on Goodreads. I think Death Star HR cuts into a lot of the time I would have spent reading.
One book down, 18 to go. And I realized I still need to pick up the last book in the series so I suppose yet another trip to Half Price Books is in my future.
Title: Vector Prime
Series: New Jedi Order. Book #1
Author: R.A. Salvatore
Date published: October 5, 1999
Pages: 398
Status: Legends
Summary in less than 20 words: A terrifying and kinda boring new enemy from another galaxy emerges and some bad stuff goes down.
As I mentioned a while back when I started this “project” the New Jedi Order books were something of a bold step for Star Wars. 19 books and several related novellas and comic books by a bunch of different authors. And they were all released over 4 years. That’s a Marvel movie rate of popping stuff out. Previously the books might be a trilogy, at most. NJO went big. I remember when the books came out, but never read them. I’m not sure why. These were released fall of 1999, 5 months after The Phantom Menace came out. Star Wars fever was high. I was certainly into Star Wars. Yeah, I was in college but it’s not like I let something silly like classes get in the way of something I enjoyed. It’s not like I felt I was too cool to read a Star Wars book after seeing TPM an embarrassing amount of times.
Anyway, the gist of NJO is that Star Wars decided to shake it up. I think they thought things had gotten a little stale. There’s always a threat from some former Imperials or the Dark Side. Luke, Leia, and the whole gang band together and save the day. Rinse. Repeat. Move on to the next book. Interestingly, it’s pretty clear that Lucas was hedging their bets. The first book wraps up nicely with our hero’s vanquishing the threat from beyond the galaxy. So just in case the Star Wars book buying public reacted with a “meh”, Lucas had an escape hatch.
Just as a note, I generally think the statute of limitations for spoilers is one year. But just in case you’ve been waiting to read the NJO books and haven’t gotten around to them yet, maybe skip my reviews. I’m going to talk spoilers. You’ve been warned.
On to the book. It’s noted for its introduction of the Yuuzhan Vong. I’m going to have to learn to spell “Yuuzhan” or just copy and paste because it’s going to get mentioned, a lot. The plot starts out like a lot of the Legends4 books. There’s a conflict brewing out in the galaxy between to factions on two planets. Rhommamool and Osarian are about to throw down. Rhommamool is lead by a charismatic firebrand of a leader, Nom Anor who hates droids and wants to start a war. But why? We’ll have to keep reading. The crew goes out to try to mediate. Things don’t go well.
Meanwhile in the Outer Rim at a research station on Belkadan, Yomin Carr - a Yuuzhan Vong who is deep undercover cosplaying as a human - sees the Vong invasion ship and let’s Nom Anor (what he’s a bad guy too????) know that everything is proceeding as planned, and it’s about to real in the galaxy.
And the third kind of plot line is Luke is trying to rebuild the Jedi Council. He and Jacen Solo and Anakin Solo all have a fundamental disagreement as to the role of Jedi in the New Republic. There’s a bunch of Jedi out there already, some doing kinda good things. Some a little suspect. I had forgotten about Borsk Fey’lya, whose main job in the Legends books was to be Leia’s political rival. He’s not a fan of handing power back to the Jedi. Eventually everyone decides they’re going to go find Lando because you know he’s up to some shady stuff and he might know what’s happening in the Outer Rim. Because that’s where shady stuff happens.
At this point, it’s more or less revealed that the galaxy is about to have a Yuuzhan Vong invasion on their hands. The TL;DR on the Vong is the are a warrior race of aliens from outside the main galaxy. The hook with the Vong is A) they hate technology and consider it unnatural, B) have their own their living technology; their ships and weapons were organic and genetically engineered. For example one of their invasion ships was mistaken for a comet. And C) most importantly of all, they existed outside the Force. You couldn’t use the Force to know what they were thinking or try the old Jedi Mind Trick on them. Scary!
In the interest of moving this along, let’s just say some stuff happens and eventually all our heroes figure out they’re up against some weird enemy they’ve never seen before. After meeting up with Lando, Han, Chewie, and Anakin load up the Falcon for a trip to the planet Sernpidal. Strange things are afoot on Sernpidal. The moon is a lot lower in orbit than it should be. They figure out that something is pulling the moon closer to the planet and that it’s going to fall out of the sky.
The moon does in fact fall out of the sky. Right onto Chewie.
Can’t imagine being the room when that one was pitched. We’re going to kill off Chewie and we’re going to drop a freaking moon on him. Go big or go home.
There’s no time for mourning Chewie though, because there’s still a lot of Vong out there. Our hero’s figure out that the Vong have something called a yammosk, or the war coordinator, and that’s why the Vong are so effective at battle. They have a big genetically engineered brain telling them what to do. And if they can get rid of that, the galaxy might just have a chance.
I’ve been going on way too long so we need to wrap this up. The yammosk is down in the center of the planet Helska IV. The plan is to freeze then explode Helska IV. It works. The yammosk is toast and without their war coordinator, the New Republic are able win the battle and defeat the Vong…for now.
What works:
Killing Chewie. It was a gut punch even thought I knew it was coming. But it was about time someone died. Star Wars wanted to up the stakes and they did in a major way.
The disagreements between Jacen and Anakin. The philosophy of the Force and the roll of the Jedi in New Republic society is an interesting topic. Jane and Anakin have different ideas for the Jedi, but they manage to work together, both drawing strength from their ideals. Dare I say it, bringing balance to the Force. At least between the two of them.
What doesn’t:
Honestly, I’m not super impressed by the Vong so far. I’m sure we’re going to get way more into them and what makes them tick, there are 18 more books after all, but at least point they feel a little one dimensional. It’s just technology bad, galaxy domination good. Ho hum.
Wild card:
Chewie is such a badass the only way he can be killed is by dropping a moon on him. That’s quite a way to go out.
Up next is Dark Tide I: Onslaught by Michael A. Stackpole.
Things My Wife Has Said About Star Wars. Pt 7 (I think)
Emperor Palpatine’s #1 Fan got a Stanley for Christmas. The transformation of the Stanley from something construction workers used to the must-have accessory for Gen Z and Millennial women has been…something. I hope someone in the Stanley marketing department got a huge bonus for figuring that one out.
I had a trip to Whole Foods for an Amazon return last week and was wandering around the store looking for a snack when I saw a wall of Stanley cups. So of course I had to text her.
Turnabout is fair play, I suppose. The tumbler she sent me is awesome. But not $175 worth of awesome. I’ll have to turn on paid subscriptions if I want one.
From the Depths of Wookieepedia
This week we’ve got a very special Clanker. Unidentified OOM command battle droid 3 (Ryloth). A single battle droid from a single episode of The Clone Wars manages to get themselves a Wookieepedia entry. I think I said this last week but I remain constantly amazed who and what gets their own Wookieepedia entry.
I know debates between Wikipedia editors are a thing. I wonder if there are among Wookieepedia editors as well. Was there a long debate if this Clanker was deserving of its own entry rather than just a mention on a more general Clone Wars page or the page for this episode? I want to know, but at the same time I’m kind of terrified to know.
News From the HoloNet
Star Wars Creator Sued Government For Stealing Ideas
I bet George would be a difficult client.
Star Wars Actor Defends Sabine's Controversial Force Use In Ahsoka
I go back and forth with how I feel about this. Will ponder it more.
All hail Gungi!
Wes Chatham goes behind the (creepy) mask of Ahsoka villain Captain Enoch
Bring him back for season 2.
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.
Despite the number of times I’m going to say “Amazon” they are not a sponsor. But they could be. I’d take some Bezos Bucks.
It’s way more awkward and clunky to continue to refer to my wife as Emperor Palpatine’s #1 Fan than…I don’t know, use her name. But I’m sticking with it.
There was free shipping, it was a bargain!
While the books are now in Legends, it was Expanded Universe Canon when they were released.
I read NJO as it was coming out and the books are still on the shelf. If I remember correctly it felt like there were 3-4 books that were tent poles and the rest were closer to filler.
The series worked well enough there were two more lots-of-books series after.
Always such a fun read. I, also, didn’t stay up on NJO, even though a certain set loved them!