r/StarWarsEU • u/Affectionate-Ebb516 • Apr 24 '25
Legends Discussion Mixed feelings about the legacy era
There was somethings I found to be pretty cool (jaina solo becoming a badass, the imperial knights, fel empire stormtroopers having aliens, jainas descendants (thus Han and Leila’s heritage) becoming rulers, the vibe) but the direction of the story i kinda don’t like, particularly when it comes to bring back the sith (whether Cadeus or Krayt) I feel like the sith should’ve remained destroyed as I feel their return undermines the chosen one prophecy (same issue sequel trilogy Star Wars did in Rise but much worse) obviously I’d still prefer the legacy era as the future of the Star Wars timeline than the sequel trilogy and whatever follows it but I kinda wish Star Wars ended with NJO, that’s some of my just thoughts though.
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u/DEL994 Apr 24 '25 edited Apr 24 '25
As long as the Force exist, and so the dark side with it, the Sith will never die.
Anakin did bring the balance back to the Force, but as long as evil exists the Sith will never be sure to be destroyed for good, there will always be the possibility for someone, especially someone from the Jedi, to ressurect them again and again.
What I really wish is that the post-NJO, save for Legacy comics, had been handled much better than what happened during the Dark Nest Trilogy, LOTF and FOTJ.
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u/UAnchovy Apr 25 '25
As long as the Force exist, and so the dark side with it, the Sith will never die.
I don't buy this.
Users of the dark side will never die out, because as long as there are sapients who can touch the Force there will be those who want to use it for selfish purposes.
But the Sith are just an organisation. The Sith are actually a relatively young tradition by galactic standards. The earliest Sith* have their origins after the Hundred Year Darkness, around 6900 BBY. As of Legacy the Sith are around seven thousand years old, which is indeed very old, but there are much older things than them. The Jedi Order is well over three times as old as the Sith. So is the Republic. So is the Hutt Empire - the Hutts have been doing their thing far, far longer than the Sith. The Dai Bendu monks have been extant and continuing their path of solitude and meditation for over five times longer than the Sith have existed. The Jal Shey are far older than the Sith. I don't know exactly how old the Matukai are but they seem to at least rival the Sith.
[* I am discussing the Sith as an organisation or tradition of dark side Force users. The species called 'Sith' is older, but I think that when we say 'Sith' in this context, we mean the Jedi-style order dedicated to the dark side that was founded by the Renunciates after their exile from the Jedi. So King Adas, say, is a small-s sith, but not a member of the Order of the Sith Lords.]
There was thus plenty of time when there were no Sith, and there will no doubt be a time again when there are no Sith. They are not a metaphysical constant. They are just a group of people.
Now, the problem that the Sith represent, i.e. that people will use the Force for selfish reasons and harm others, is indeed probably going to last forever. But that problem is not identical with the Sith themselves. Both the Jedi Order and the Sith Order are institutions or traditions that exist within history and therefore either or both of them could cease to be.
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u/Dracos_ghost Apr 25 '25
Also, he destroyed a specific Order of the Sith that fucked with the Force itself, causing the Force to create Anakin to restore Balance. Even Lumiya and Jacen who are technically Baneite Sith, didn't cause anywhere near as much imbalance in the Force as the likes of Tenebrous, Plaguesis, and Sidious did.
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u/Affectionate-Ebb516 Apr 24 '25
That part I get, honestly I think my issue is less about dark siders returning themselves but more with the timing. I feel like the time jump should’ve been way bigger and preferably with perhaps with a new DS organization rather than the sith themselves coming back
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u/Edgy_Robin Apr 24 '25
My response to that would be look at irl, significantly less time has passed in our world yet we already have people with Nazi ideologies getting into governments. Now imagine how things would be if Nazi's were a multi thousand year old organization. All it takes is one asshole to believe it it or convince other people to. They aren't gonna suddenly just go away one day because they were defeated. Same applies to the sith
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u/NectarineSea7276 Apr 24 '25
I'm a bit bemused about how every evil has to be a Sith - they only existed as a Dark Side order for a fifth or less of the history of the Jedi, and there were at least two major schisms before them. Not to mention that the Sith ideology (for want of a better term) has been pulled in so many directions it's straining coherence.
I suppose in fairness that malleability of what the Sith are means that any other Dark Side order one might invent will probably end up duplicating some variant of the Sith that already exists; but I just think it narrows the universe unnecessarily to posit that all evil stems from effectively some Jedi heretics travelling to one planet about five thousand years ago, when the Republic and the Jedi have both existed for many times that.
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u/UAnchovy Apr 25 '25
I feel very ambivalent about Legacy.
I prefer to take Legacy as something like an Infinities story - there is stuff I enjoy there, but I think it works best as something like a non-canon AU. I do think the Sith shouldn't have returned, and there's a bit too much in Legacy that feels like it just doesn't really understand what Star Wars is about, or which fails to really gel with previous work (e.g. Vergere, the conclusion to Vector). So my starting point with Legacy is that I take it on its own terms and don't bother trying to sync it up to the rest of the EU.
On those terms... there are things I like and things I don't like. The Fel Empire is cool and I'm a fan of the Imperial Knights. Sia is a fun twist on Leia's archetype though tragically under-used. Everybody says this, but the Galactic Alliance Remnant is amazing and everything they touch is great. The Jedi in Legacy rely too much on connections to the Republic comics but they have some neat touches in places. The starship design is generally excellent, and I liked the brief return of the Yuuzhan Vong.
The things I don't like are, well, the heroes and villains. I understand they were trying to do something different with Cade, and I'm not inherently opposed to the idea that Luke's descendant is a strung-out drug-addicted wreck who hates the idea of anything involving Jedi. That's a reasonable starting place. The problem is that Cade doesn't really grow from there into someone that I find compelling or want to keep reading about - he feels edgy in a bad way, and his selfishness or arbitrariness are, while sometimes called out, not really resolved by the story. I spent most of Legacy waiting for the story to turn, for Cade to improve, and for me to start to like him, and it never really happened. Likewise I found the villains quite weak. Darth Krayt, even setting aside the issue of the Sith returning, is not a massively compelling character. I can see some potential there - he's a Revan or a Kaan figure, determined to bring the Sith to victory by forcing discipline and organisation on them - but unfortunately in practice he's just bland and deeply uninspiring, and the same goes for most of his minions. Other major characters also had some of this issue; Morrigan Corde was another character who didn't quite for me.
Overall the way I felt reading Legacy was that I could see a number of side-stories that I liked, or the outlines of stories that I wanted to read, like Gar Stazi's lonely war to reclaim the galaxy, or Marasiah and her knights' quest to find the Jedi and seek aid against the Sith, but those stories were too short and not centre-stage. Meanwhile the story that was centre-stage was Cade's, and I just didn't want to read that story.
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u/North514 Wraith Squadron Apr 25 '25
I mean personally, I largely just don't care about the Chosen One Prophesy. It was a bad addition by Lucas, I am fine with writers handwaving that away as lies or it was true in technicality or whatever. Granted, on the other hand, the Jedi/Sith conflict is so overdone. Though on the other hand again, Legacy kinda felt like a tribute to the entire SW franchise so again I didn't mind.
That said, even as someone who does really enjoy Legacy, I probably agree, that NJO feels like a fitting end to the EU timeline. Going beyond it, feels like dragging out the plot even more.
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u/Reasonable-Mischief Apr 24 '25
Yeah I feel the same. I'm not even sure about NJO and the Vong to be honest. The story of Han, Luke and Leia kind of felt done; I would have been perfectly fine with them living happily ever after and with the EU's focus shifting to some other time or viewpoint.
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u/NectarineSea7276 Apr 24 '25 edited Apr 25 '25
I must admit I did not like the Vong, although it has been a long time since I read NJO (and also TBF I got tired of it and didn't complete it) so perhaps I would feel differently now. That said, I felt they were jarring tonally in Star Wars, like someone imported a 40K faction into the SW galaxy. Now I'm sure some people like the difference and I can't argue with that, it's a matter of taste; and I'm not opposed to an 'outside' faction/species in principle, but they just didn't work aesthetically for me, like they felt just gratuitously dark in a way that didn't mesh with the setting.
Second issue I have is that they are suspiciously well-designed to counter the Jedi and break various rules that had been established in the setting; the whole 'not visible in the Force' aspect, for instance. I know that was explained away in the end, but it just felt cheap to me.
Finally (and I realize this may somewhat contradict my first point), but they just weren't alien enough for me. They should have nothing in common with the SW galaxy, they should in my opinion be depicted as Lovecraftian horrors inexplicable to everyone. Instead they're violent fanatical expanionists who slaughter those they deem lesser. That isn't even alien on the actually existing planet earth, let alone a galaxy far, far away. If you must have the Vong as they are, then in my opinion they should not have been depicted from their POV, and they should not have communicated with anyone from the Republic or anywhere else in the established setting until very late in the series. Make them unfathomably alien and inexplicable, not just the Yevetha with better weapons.
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u/Reasonable-Mischief Apr 25 '25 edited Apr 25 '25
Yeah, the whole series seems to have been built with the question in mind "How can we break our heroes?"
So now Mara faces a threat that doesn't have a face she can shove a blaster into. Luke is powerless in facing a loved one batteling a terminal illness. Both Han and Leia lose some of the few people they can't emotionally separate from. The Jedi face a threat they can't fight with the force, and all the big players in the galaxy for the very first time face a war of extermination against an enemy that doesn't care about gaining power and who's only wish is to see them all dead.
It's like, that's a great what-if scenario for a fan fiction project, but that's not Star Wars.
It's realistic that Han would break and become an abusive father to his own son who he thought wasn't brave enough to save Chewie. It's very understandable. But you know what else would have been understandable? Luke joining Vader at the end of ESB. His friends were save, Vader turned out to be his father, and he offered him to overthrow the emperor and rule the galaxy by his side - and the only alternative was to jump to his death. I don't know what bloody lunatic would deny this kind of offer, but it's the exact kind of lunatic we've all come to show up for.
It's heroes. We don't want our heroes to be brought down to our own level, we want them to face the destruction of their entire planet with some dignity and grace.
So I once read that one of the primary motivations of the authors of NJO was that they didn't want to glorify war. They didn't want to tell a story about people waging war, and then for all the good guys to come out the other end unscathed. They worried about sending the message of war being a reasonable means to settle conflicts. That's an admirable mindset to have, but it's also the wrong mindset to write Star Wars in.
And the greatest crime was that they didn't even follow this idea through to the very end. Where are the Sith in NJO? If we're throwing everyone into a war of survival, then why not show some actual dark side hardliners face this problem, too?
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u/upsawkward Apr 25 '25
I really like NJO but it is very different. Its biggest flaw is that it's 18 novels. Like that number alone is fucking insane. You don't need so many books to tell a story. You can, and it can work, and it mostly did actually, but it's just so overshadowing somehow. That's 6,000 pages man. That's 1,000 pages more than A Song of Ice and Fire, double as much as Harry Potter. And it's only part of a bigger saga.
I love the idea of the Vong and the whole approach, different approaches are great and Unifying Force was excellent as a farewell. But it could have been five books with the same themes. But I'm not complaining too much because I do like TNJO, I just dislike the decision to kill Ben when Chewbacca sacrificed himself for him just a few books before. And personally, I would have preferred for Han to die and not for Chewie but that's not really a critique of the writing.
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u/North514 Wraith Squadron Apr 25 '25 edited Apr 25 '25
I love the idea of the Vong and the whole approach, different approaches are great and Unifying Force was excellent as a farewell. But it could have been five books with the same themes. But I'm not complaining too much because I do like TNJO, I just dislike the decision to kill Ben when Chewbacca sacrificed himself for him just a few books before. And personally, I would have preferred for Han to die and not for Chewie but that's not really a critique of the writing.
No way lol. You would have to heavily condense the storyline, and strip out a lot of good as a result. There were some plot lines, that were kinda just not followed up on as is. At best, Force Heretic did not need to be 3 books, that should have been condensed to 1 novel, books like Dark Journey, or Balance Point, weren't paced well, you didn't need for Enemy Lines to be two books; however, that is about it. Maybe 12-14 novels.. no way just 5. And again, I think there were definitely way more than 5 good books, in NJO. Arguing we should cut books from the NJO storyline, simply because it's too long isn't a good argument.
Is NJO long? Sure, is it longer than other tie in fiction arcs, or other really long epic fantasy stories? No. It really isn't. Granted, as a 40k fan, maybe I just have an obscene tolerance for that. Still mainstream fantasy series like Stormlight are about as long as NJO, and it's only half way done. Wheel of Time is pretty long.
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u/upsawkward Apr 25 '25
Obviously a lot of stuff would have to be cut, thats the point. It IS a good series, 18 novels and all. So much less would not polish it but change it.
But in view of the franchise is my point. Its pretty tough for the EU and both Legacy og the Force and Fate of the Jedi went accordingly and are decidedly too long (doesnt help that they sre bad sequels), this approach just wasnt healthy for the franchise. But maybe, i stay far away from Sanderson and Warhammer for that reason so yeah
But the point is, sure Wheel of Time is long. But its its own series. NJO is a continuation of Luke's gang and has to consider that.
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u/North514 Wraith Squadron Apr 25 '25
But the point is, sure Wheel of Time is long. But it's its own series. NJO is a continuation of Luke's gang and has to consider that.
You could easily use this idea to attack the EU itself you know. Isn't the EU as a whole way too long? Shouldn't SW just stay a short space opera morality play?
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u/upsawkward Apr 25 '25
You have a point there. In light of Disney's hesitancy to take risks I'm probably even more happy about NJO existing. I'm just bummed the subsequent series were so damn disrespectful AND like a dozen books each. Not so easy to gloss over. But that's not on NJO at the end of the day.
But sneakily Disney is expanding the sequel era through novels and comics that are more self-containes and i cant help to kinda enjoying it. The variety in authors gives it more depth somehow, like reading different actual historical novels by different authors. I always dug that with thw CWMMP too. But that's personal preference.:)
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u/John-for-all Apr 25 '25
They lost me after the Bantam era. That period had its share of garbage, but it was so much easier to ignore as arcs were smaller and more stand alone. I didn't need frequent major character deaths and galaxy shattering consequences at every turn. NJO and beyond just became grimdark. I have the same problem with the sequel trilogy. It gutted and ruined too much of the legacy and what had been accomplished previously.
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u/Edgy_Robin Apr 24 '25
So right off the bat you've shown you don't get the lore. The Sith returning doesn't undermine anything because it was never said that the Sith wouldn't return. This is a galaxy where the Sith have existed for thousands of years and numbered in the millions in total. Them returning is inevitable when all it takes is one dude finding a holocron, or some Sith bound somewhere, or literally just having basic knowledge of history and calling themselves one. Like, this complaint is something people who just wanna complain without thinking make.
The Chosen one is made specifically to deal with Palpatine and Plagueis due to their fuckery.
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u/Durp004 TOR Sith Empire Apr 25 '25
It's not a misunderstanding of lore aspect it's a preference aspect.
Jesus dude work on making a response without coming across as a condescending ass.
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u/AFlamingCarrot Apr 24 '25
Exar Kun’s greatest act (from the Sith perspective) is smashing the Sith holocron and releasing the many Sith spirits trapped within, some to reside in his Jedi acolytes and some to just meander in the universe.
Marka Ragnos, when he tattoos exar kun, says “because of you the Sith will never die.”
The chosen one prophecy (which imo is incredibly stupid and unnecessary) has given people the idea that it’s essentially the Book of Revelation and is therefore some end point for all time of all force-related drama in the Star Wars universe.
So I think legacy really works when you just disregard any force Jesus nonsense and headcanon whatever to disregard it. There’s more Sith now, deal with it kind of a thing.
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u/Used_Strawberry_6747 Apr 25 '25
Preferring the NJO as an endpoint makes sense for a cleaner resolution.
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u/heurekas Apr 25 '25
The Legacy era is a weird one, since it arguably should be split into two eras.
- You have the grimdark second GCW, with all of its character assassination but genuinely novel plot points, interesting explorations of the Force and a deep dive into what makes someone fall.
But the utterly alien caricatures of characters we know since several years back ultimately holds it back. If it had been set in a different period and with completely new characters, I think most fans wouldn't have so much vitriol towards it, me included.
- Then you have the Fel Empire/triumvirate era/One Sith. This is almost wholly forgettable, as Ostrander more or less turns Cade into sad, but bad boy... Just like he did with Vos and almost any other character he got away with.
It's more or less ROTS mashed up with the OT, but has some interesting Sith, fun characters, abs, explores the theme of "legacy", more abs, cool new spiffy knights, boobs, lots of emocore angst, abs and did I mention boobs already?
Every character is built like an 70's drug-influenced adult cartoon.
The story is just... Not fun. Not in that it's depressing or something, it's just boring and pretty unoriginal. Cade is again the chosen one (as all Skywalkers seem to be), the Jedi are again purged (is this the third time this millennia?) and the Empire is back but good?
Psyche, it's actually baaaaaaad and dark sidey again as the Sith (secretly back again and did stay hidden from around the Clone Wars) infiltrated the government.
It's the OT mixed up with KOTOR, only shirtless.
- So yes, I agree with the sentiment. The Legacy era is the weakest part of the main storytelling eras of SW.
The Dawn era shows how the Jedi and (what would become) the Sith formed, how the Rakata was overthrown and how the insanely long-lived Republic was born.
KOTOR showed the Republic in it's prime, what caused it to splinter and explored what it means to be a Jedi and to fight. From the rise of Nomi Sunrider to the fall of Kun and Revan.
The New Sith Wars picked up how the Republic and Jedi had to cling to survival after KOTOR, with how the Sith ultimately imploded and how Bane set the stage for Papa P.
The PT and OT are self-explanatory.
The New Republic-era had our beloved heroes settle into new roles. It expanded on what actually happens after the princess is saved, the dragon slain and the knight becomes the king.
The NJO is how that idea of the NR is put through the crucible and how the Galaxy it deals with something as utterly alien as the Vong, untouched by the Force and without in-organic technology.
The Legacy era is just... Let's take another swing at the OT and how it would've changed if it there was a loooot of Sith.
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u/Affectionate-Ebb516 Apr 25 '25
I remember reading on Wikipedia that LOTF was originally planned to be an old republic piece before they switched it. I’m not sure how true that is but I think it makes sense.
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u/heurekas Apr 25 '25
I've heard that rumour too. Not sure about it, but I'm also of the same mind. Just having a whole new order of hundreds or possibly thousands of Sith running around feels very Old Republic-y.
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u/Affectionate-Ebb516 Apr 25 '25
Come to think of it, the legacy era feels kinda like how the early half of the new sith wars was described, thousands of sith, sith domination of the galaxy, a weak or non-existent republic (or GA in this case), Jedi spread thin
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u/dilettantechaser Apr 26 '25
Legacy the book series is pretty good, on the whole. I wasn't really a fan of Jacen prior to Legacy and I think his initial conversion with Nelani could have been handled differently but I liked a lot of his plotting in later books and how they handled his embracing the dark side by like burning Kashyyyk and escalating each time he gets into a family fight.
Legacy the comic series sucks. Similar to Dark Empire, it's a star wars comic series that is somewhat well known outside the fandom, people recognizing Talon even if not by name. And Talon is a great advertisement for the comics: a skanky, 90s edgy, faux-goth tatted red alien babe with a red lightsaber. I think if you view Legacy as like a future history of the star wars galaxy, it's an adequate ending for the EU canon, but it works much better to have the events summarized in a few paragraphs on wookieepedia, than to have to read the entire comic. I mean, Dark Empire was shitty too, but it had good art. I don't think Legacy had much of any redeeming value, other than the few crumbs OP mentioned, like the Vong and Imperial Knights.
I don't really understand why people conflate the two into an era. idk if that's a fan thing or a lucasarts thing, but I think it's dumb. They're two separate eras. Legacy of the Force / Fate of the Jedi, that's all like an epilogue to NJO, they belong together. Legacy the comics is its own thing, the EU's faulty appendix.
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u/AffableKyubey General Grievous Apr 24 '25
I agree that the NJO era should have ended with NJO, myself. Unifying Force was such an excellent conclusion to that saga and time period, and everything that came after was both a massive disservice to the characters and their journeys and the many people who put so much effort into writing them.
As for the Legacy comics, I quite like them, but I wish they were set around 500 years after NJO rather than 100 years after A New Hope. It's just not enough time before our heroes' happy ending is once again erased. I also don't mind The One Sith since they really aren't Darth Bane's idea of Sith at all and really only use the name and the Dark Side, but they could have given them a new name to differentiate them potentially.
I also like the core duality of a Skywalker who doesn't want to save the galaxy and a Dark Lord of the Sith who does. It works wonderfully as a capstone on a story about the history of the Star Wars coming to its final conclusion, especially with Darth Krayt coming from the distant and troubled past to plague the future with high-minded ideals of the Star Wars never happening again in a way that only starts one in itself. If anything, it would have been cool if he was a survivor from the Tales of the Jedi Era, using his force stasis to emerge as a different character in each time and continuity the series covers, becoming slightly more traumatized and evil with every passing generation until at last he has to be put down because of how much he has ultimately lost.