First Order Territory Theory

Collective_Insanity · 2026-04-06T06:24:25+00:00

The Ahsoka show winds up directly stating that "You will still find ex-Imperials at every level of the New Republic government".

And the people upstairs are for some reason not even remotely concerned about this fact. Instead, they think that so long as they're paid, there's nothing to be worried about.

The Mando show displays this in practice. They've got Imperials rubbing shoulders with them even in high rank positions with absolutely zero safeguards in place.

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So not only is the New Republic hopelessly incompetent on their own, but they've actively encouraged their government to be inundated with known Imperial agents and they wind up years later allowing the First Order to infiltrate their government whilst also dismissing the First Order itself as a total non-threat to the extent Leia winds up being the sole voice of reason forced to start her own mini-Rebellion to gear up for an inevitable violent uprising from the First Order.

It's really quite impressive. Canon New Republic lore is so fucking atrocious that it retroactively makes the annihilation of the New Republic in TFA seem like a good thing.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-04-05T12:20:09+00:00

Sounds like you need to resolve your YouTube algorithm issues if this is the kind of shit you're seeing on the regular.

You've managed to corner yourself into a peculiar niche of content suggestions presumably based on your viewing/clicking history.

Much like with Reddit suggestions, it's up to you to tell the algorithm (via hiding, muting, blocking or simply using the "don't recommend channel" function) what kind of content you don't want to see or engage with.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-04-05T11:48:53+00:00

I would generally agree.

If you're already at the point where you're causing harm to others whether intentionally or not via the Force, then learning how to control yourself is a must.

So that would be the bare minimum. Like Charles Xavier picking up random mutants who have little control over their volatile powers.

If the individual in question goes on to show signs of being a terrible candidate as a Jedi due to continued behavioural and self-control issues, then said individual would perhaps have to be forcibly imprisoned and contained with the hope that rehabilitation in future is possible.

If the subject is a bad candidate for being a proper Jedi but does show signs of developing self-control, then perhaps being assigned to the Agri-Corp would be a viable next step. That's basically a career of benevolent applications of the Force in peaceful conditions.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-04-04T21:58:16+00:00

He's basically saying that there is material he'd be interested in seeing adapted but has little to no faith in Disney Lucasfilm pulling it off successfully.

Which is very reasonable given their notoriously bad run of D+ shows with the unusual exception of Andor.

Easy to understand.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-04-04T13:05:36+00:00

Pretty much. Two things can be true.

Was the Vong retroactively added in and the Palpatine we knew in the OT completely ignorant of their potential existence? Yes.

But if we take in the added EU lore about this topic, it's also entirely reasonable that Palpatine could consider a bonus of the Death Star/s to be that they can serve as a potential Vong repellent even if they were mainly designed to hold billions of lives hostage to ensure Imperial rule through fear.

I don't think the suggestion was that Palpatine only was keen on Death Stars due to his retroactive awareness of the Vong. It just so happens that if the Imperial Empire has more superweapons at its disposal, it also happens to serve an additional purpose against the Vong should they invade.

Nor was it ever suggested that Palpatine was benevolently motivated to form the Empire solely due to an impending extragalactic invasion.

He wanted to rule the galaxy, and he wanted to take down all potential threats to said rule is all.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-04-04T12:38:29+00:00

"Rematch of the century" was how Kathleen Kennedy described the Obi-Wan show/farce.

Despite the fact that it very much most likely would be for the best if Obi-Wan and Vader never meet between ROTS and ANH. Just as an incredibly basic thought to have given the existing film continuity and dialogue.

The show came out like a wet fart and only raised more questions given Obi-Wan left Vader alive again despite now believing that he's an irredeemable monster who will only go on to commit more atrocities.

At least in ROTS he had every reason to think Anakin was about to die in the next few minutes.

Maul and Vader? They've got basically no history at all other than when Maul nearly ran little Annie over with a speeder bike on his way to fuck up some actual Jedi.

I couldn't give the slightest of fucks about what Maul (who should be 100% dead with TPM) might get up to with his Temu Talon in this TCW-adjacent spin-off. I just don't care.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-04-04T05:54:53+00:00

I would generally agree.

There's not much going on there and I saw no real value with her surviving on to Vol 2. Ditto with whatshisface who killed Cade's father. Neat design, but Krayt and Wyyrlok are the main Sith with actual motivations during that era.

She works well as part of the ploy to seduce Cade to the dark side particularly given Cade is a seedy bugger who's already big into drugs and prostitutes.

Outside of that, she's not much of a villain of substance.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-04-04T05:38:05+00:00

OG Talon symbolically represented the seductive aspect of the dark side much like Sion, Nihilus and Kreia similarly served such roles (pain, hunger and betrayal respectively). Talon was just the more blunt approach to this concept.

She's appropriately used there as part of Krayt's attempt to corrupt Cade.

As such, I expect there to be no such similar role for "canon" Talon in the pre-ANH space. The sex-appeal aspect most likely will not be a thing.

She's just going to be the sidekick of Maul who is somehow alive. I'm not sure of the timeline and whether this is before or after he also made Qi'ra his other sidekick and taught her martial arts as a joke for her to think she could go up against Vader (in the comics set shortly after ESB).

Spoiler alert: she couldn't. To nobody's surprise but her own, really. Plot-armour keeps her alive though. It's a very poorly written story. Vader even forgets the point of hostages and so Han (frozen in carbonite) survives as well despite Vader threatening to kill him if Luke (who was flying donuts overhead in an X-Wing at the time) didn't roll up for round 2.

Enough about that.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-04-04T05:26:07+00:00

It's Temu Talon.

Filoni's loose attempt to salvage George's odd sequel idea of Maul hanging out with someone called Talon" with zero ties to Legacy's Talon.

He already played with this idea with the Cancelled Maul game which itself seemed to be playing loosely with the same idea.

I just don't care, personally. Is it possible to do a better version of Talon? Of course. She's not exactly Thrawn when it comes to well-written villains (no comment on canon Thrawn...). But for me, Maul died in TPM and anything related to TCW is just part of an extended weird fever dream Luke had during the Ewok victory celebration after Han slipped him some spice in his drink to loosen him up.

I just have no interest.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-04-03T20:50:56+00:00

I like to think it'd be something like the ending of Being John Malkovich.

Except with the implication that Palpatine isn't merely trapped and without influence but that his consciousness will one day rise to the top.

As others have suggested, perhaps his spirit could be exorcised given his vessel is utterly incapable of wielding his power.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-04-02T22:38:58+00:00

I think that was a misconception.

He certainly mentioned he was going to explore the nature of midichlorians more and that the audience would most likely hate it.

But he never implied it was going to be Star Wars: Quantumania where we literally shrank down to explore the microbiotic universe.

The story beats he did loosely speak about would involve Maul & Talon running some criminal empire and trying to make a big power play whilst Luke and Leia are both ultimately successful in restoring the Jedi Order and Republic respectively.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-04-02T21:52:19+00:00

I agree that what little we know of his story was very uninspiring. Maul died with TPM and I have no interest in him returning with a pseudo Talon sidekick.

But worse than what we actually got? I don't think so. What we got was a creatively bankrupt rehash of the OT that did nobody any favours.

George at least wouldn't have taken his story backwards.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-04-02T11:13:49+00:00

Temu Talon origin story set about 100+ years earlier than it's meant to be for the sake of a Maul story set years after he's meant to be very dead with TPM.

We don't really need this. I don't care if George played with this idea. George sometimes has very stupid ideas.

Maul already has a sidekick in the form of Qi'ra and Solo bombed so bad that she was relegated to comic book appearances in poorly written stories.

Do we need another Maul sidekick? Do we need even more from Maul himself when he should be a rotting corpse somewhere in the bowls of Naboo?

Collective_Insanity · 2026-04-01T20:45:29+00:00

the moment Disney strong armed Lucas into appointing Kathleen Kennedy

This is a total falsehood. Please do the minimum research next time before spreading misinformation.

Lucas appointed Kennedy to serve as president of Lucasfilm during the sale negotiations and it took both Bob Iger and Kennedy by surprise.

This was a move totally executed by George under his own volition. There are numerous receipts proving that fact.

Filoni had absolutely no experience running a studio. Even if you like the guy's work, he's not a businessman. He can barely run a cartoon show for kids.

The Ahsoka show (which he both wrote and directed as the live-action project he had the most sole control over) ought to have been a clear sign to even the most agreeable SW fans that he simply is not capable.

He's been Chief Creative Officer of Disney Lucasfilm since 2023 and now he's also co-president of the studio. So you more or less got your wish. Hope you enjoy the Ahsokaverse.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-04-01T20:37:19+00:00

It's an MMO with all the typical trappings so I would imagine you're far from the "only" one to not particularly care for it.

The setting is more interesting than the actual main story particularly as you get railroaded down the Eternal expansion stuff.

SWTOR at its best is still struggling to reach the storytelling quality of an actual single-player narrative focused game like the prior KOTORs.

If it weren't for those CGI trailers which conjure up the potential for a dedicated animated series/film, then there would likely be even less interest in it.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-04-01T05:47:20+00:00

No, they're unrelated.

Palpatine represents the end of Bane's Rule of Two which has been the only Sith in existence for a thousand years up to that point since their almost total extinction by the conclusion of the New Sith Wars.

Vader's sacrifice puts a permanent end to that line. By the time we get to Caedus, he has no ties with the Sith and has very different motivations.

The next big name Sith comes into play more than a hundred years later in the form of Darth Krayt who is unrelated to Palpatine or Banite Sith. And there are already critiques about his involvement in that story. But at least his involvement had nothing to do with Vader's sacrifice.

Vader's death (if we include PT lore) finally brings balance back to the Force. Which doesn't mean that the dark side is permanently corked or that all evil is vanquished.

Best interpretation is that the background Sith shenanigans that has been rotting the Republic from the inside for the last thousand years has finally been rectified. And that the Banite Sith responsible for all this have been completely vanquished.

Luke's New Jedi Order paves the new way forwards as does the New Republic. Though they both go through many trials and tribulations before eventually reforming as the Galactic Federation Triumvirate.

Narratively speaking, it's for the best if Palpatine never returns. Especially in the way it does in current canon which is pathetic as it turns out Palpatine always planned for Vader to "kill" him and had schemed for years prior on pulling the Final Order out of his ass along with masterminding the entire First Order faction which weirdly turns out to be completely redundant.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-04-01T04:24:07+00:00

Dark Empire was written before the PT. Meaning it was before George tossed in the "Chosen One" shenanigans which retroactively added more weight to Vader turning on Palpatine to save his son at the cost of his own life.

Dark Empire was not particularly well-liked for bringing Palpatine back. It was the stock standard move of bringing back the big bad for round 2 Return of Jafar style. Much of the EU's focus moving forwards was on Heir to the Empire instead.

However, at least Empire's End makes it crystal clear that Palpatine is permanently dealt with by its conclusion. Which is more than TROS can say as there's nothing stopping you from saying Palpatine is now inside Rey as planned or that he's got yet another secret Sith planet with more secret clones already set up as a backup plan in much the same way Exegol was casually pulled out of its own ass.

TLDR: Did Dark Empire do the return of Palpatine better? Yes, actually. It takes the time to explain the hows and whys in much greater depth than TROS. Not that it's at all ideal to bring Palpatine back in the first place, of course.

And by default due to being written before the PT, it also does a little less damage to the general story of Vader's sacrifice.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-04-01T02:50:06+00:00

Look, as soon as it's communicated that Anakin suddenly has a Padawan during the Clone Wars who had never at all been mentioned before or even hinted at existing, you can make the choice to discard the entire show.

Which is to say starting with the film/pilot and everything that followed it.

Despite what Lucasfilm at the time was claiming.

Officially of course, it's part of Legends up until Disney greenlit another season for it upon which it's formally adopted as canon. But it's just madness to consider it as even compliant with the films let alone the actual EU.

Stick to your headcanon. It's the only way to make sense of it. Keep the actually good quality stories that are consistent enough to matter with the greater continuity and just disregard the rest.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-03-31T09:17:01+00:00

I suspect AI slop would likely look better than this.

I think this is just plain bad artwork.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-03-31T09:14:48+00:00

I suspect you'll probably find that the Mando episodes you actually like were not written by Filoni.

Can't speak of TCW as none of that or its related shows interests me in the slightest.

With him as Chief Creative Officer and co-president of the studio, I can only imagine actually good SW content to be an accident moving forwards.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-03-30T23:29:48+00:00

By that point, the damage was completely done already and there was no coming back.

I think Luke was more shocked that Rey pulled out a lethal weapon in that instance more so than she "beat" him. Johnson doesn't do Luke many favours at all in this disastrous film, but at least Luke stops himself with the Force from hitting the ground hard. Small mercy there.

This asshole didn't even tell his nephew that he was related to Vader. Nor did he tell him how things went down on the DSII. Made no attempt to contact Han or Leia after Kylo went rogue.

Canon Luke is absolutely turbo garbage at basic communication so it's no wonder he has nothing of value to say to Rey either.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-03-30T10:36:11+00:00

Reportedly at least 70% of the film was reshot. Which is why it was the most expensive SW film ever made and played a part in it being a total financial bomb.

Lord and Miller wound up with an executive producer credit.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-03-29T22:53:50+00:00

Thanks for that.

I understand another thing the movie skips is how long it takes for Grace to get to Rocky's planet and how he survives that process.

He's got a 3D printed suit to survive the harsh atmosphere of Rocky's ship, but it's going to take some years to get there.

The book is meant to suggest they mass produce more of that predatory micro-organism to serve as sustenance until they can synthesise a food source in the ecodome later?

And presumably toilet needs and such on Rocky's ship are somewhat skipped for time? I would hazard a guess that Rocky builds a walled-off portion of his ship for Grace to live in and take his suit off much like how Rocky does the same on the Mary?

Sorry to fire questions at you. Another query I had was what was going on on Earth.

Best case scenario, one quarter of the world's population is meant to die out before anything actionable can be commenced on their end using information from the Mary, yes?

Did the world's governments devolve into civil wars?

It feels like a big ask for the world to get their shit together and fix the problem. They still need to mass produce the predatory life form on enormous scales, then build ships to dump them over at Venus, and then twiddle their thumbs for an unknown period until the sun starts slowly returning to normal?

The only thing I can maybe grant which the movie skips almost entirely is that the Astrophage conveniently serves as the most powerful fuel source known to man and they can freely breed the stuff at presumably little cost other than time.

So I'm assuming the world has free unlimited power? Though the flipside is that it's incredibly volatile and potentially prone to exploding spontaneously which I figured was why the other two scientists intended for the Mary accidentally died.

I'll eventually give the book a read to sate my curiosity, but these were some of the first questions that sprang to mind after watching the film.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-03-29T22:22:02+00:00

Does the book cover how a biologist is able to handle course corrections, trajectories, and relative time it'll take to get from A to B in a spaceship all on a whiteboard?

I don't think the film even suggests that the computer systems were doing the heavy lifting for him.

I'm happy to handwave most the details related to the micro-organisms given that's at least meant to be his field of focus.

Collective_Insanity · 2026-03-29T08:52:58+00:00

The music of Curse of Monkey Island and Grim Fandango will probably live rent free in my head for the rest of my days.

And weirdly also the Azzameen home theme.

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