A Trip With Jacen Solo : Part 5

[soloing]

Source - Canon Review with Trip & Havac!

Part XXXVI: Vector Prime
In which our hero wears a skirt

• OK, this has nothing to do with Jacen, but authors really should watch what they write: "Maybe Rodians are smarter than I thought." Leia Organa Solo, BLATANT RACIST.

• Anyway, when the story reaches Jacen, we open with Jacen accompanying his Master to speak before the Senate's Advisory Council. Luke wants to reestablish the Jedi Council, so he wants to talk to them about it. He does this by standing there and getting lectured by jerk politicians about these OUT OF CONTROL!!!!!!!! Jedi daring to STOP SMUGGLING!!!!!!!!!!, saying nothing about the Council until Borsk asks him and then stating, "Eh, I haven't made up my mind yet," and then leaving. Apparently we're trying to one-up Anderson early. Meanwhile, Jacen casually detests greedy politicians daring to attempt to control the Jedi. After the meeting, Jacen argues with Luke that they shouldn't have a Council, because the essence of being Jedi is a personal connection with the Force, and they need to direct themselves. A Jedi Council will lead to bureaucratization and politicking. Hilariously, Jacen now hates the Academy, since it was too formal, structured, rigid, and impersonal. Apparently those instructions, once, to levitate some leaves were just too much. Clearly, it was so stifling that he just had to take those vacations ALL THE TIME. In other words, much like in Ambush at Corellia, Jacen still hates the Man. It's spiritual, dude! It's personal! So Jacen's gone from clueless dip to hippie dip. Which, I guess, makes sense, since he's in Jedi College.

• Having accomplished absolutely nothing, Luke and Jacen treat themselves to a well-deserved break, visiting Han, Chewie, and Anakin at the docks. Jacen goes on the Falcon and starts arguing with Anakin. See, he's an incredibly self-righteous jackass. This is actually pretty much perfect characterization for a sixteen-year-old kid who discovered the existence of philosophy a couple months ago and suddenly thinks he's fricking Aristotle, but he's still an insufferable twerp. Being a pompous ass of incredible proportions, he immediately begins lecturing Anakin on how he's a foolish idiot for regarding the Force as a tool or a weapon, and how Jedi really should use the Force only internally, to arrive at harmony with the Force. They shouldn't run around being galactic police. "The Force is a method of serenity and truth, not an outward-projecting tool to be used to further any single person's perception of good." He picks a fight, acts enormously condescending ("You'll hear it until you learn the truth. That is my responsibility."), and gets Anakin, who's also pretty immature, pissed off to the point where they come to blows. They engage in a lightsaber duel to prove whose philosophy gives them better performance. You know, typical brother stuff. They get really freaking fierce before Jacen, who practices far less than Anakin, out-swordsmanships his brother and wins.

• Family trip to see Lando so they can investigate the New Republic leadership for corruption and ties to smugglers! Yay! During the trip, Luke comes up, and he's like, "Dude, you're fighting with Anakin again." Jacen's like "Crap!" and Luke's all "What's up with your views? It's not like I haven't heard them in the past year or so." So Jacen repeats the whole politicians-are-bad spiel, and Luke hits him with condemnation for being highly prideful in his attitude -- toward politicians, and presumably toward the views of others who have a lot more experience than he does.

• They get to Dubrillion, and Lando has this belt-running thing with magic off-ship shields and all kinds of fun, and the kids are all "Mommy, mommy, let me ride the roller coaster!" And Han and Leia are all "Kids should never do anything remotely dangerous ever!" and then they're like "OK, whatever." Jacen does it first, and does well enough to get on the leaderboard. Since Anakin and Jaina both do better, this clearly proves he's the worst pilot ever. Jaina pwns the hell out of the record, and Kyp Durron is randomly hanging around to congratulate her. Jacen decides to pick a fight with one of the most experienced Jedi in the Order and chastise him for daring to chase bad guys, thereby somehow demeaning the Jedi or something. It's all very self-righteous-teen.

• So, Lando is kind of an ass in this book. He leans on Han and Chewie to make a run for him doing deliveries, and Luke and Mara take off to investigate funny reports on Belkadan. As the reader we now know . . . hey, they're finally in the plot, halfway through! This is just like a YJK book! So, basically, the twins sit around drinking beer and playing sabacc with Lando or something while the adults and Anakin go do stuff.

• So, anyway, Mara fights a Vong, Kyp gets dominated by coralskippers, Nick Rostu dies taking out a dovin basal, so on and so forth. Moons fall, Wookiees die. Han comes back with some spectacularly bad news. Much crying occurs. Jacen manages to avoid being an ass by comforting Anakin and reassuring him that he did, in fact, have no other choice than to leave Chewie behind, and it's the choice he would have wanted. He finally sounds mature, rather than like a teenage kid trying to sound mature.

• Anyway, the Vong are coming! The Vong are coming! Time to prepare the defenses. The kids want to fly in Lando's fighters, which Lando, being Lando, has now armed. The parents again go "This is dangerous!" And the kids go, "We're Jedi, dammit! Besides, Uncle Luke let us do all kinds of stupidly dangerous crap all the time!" And Luke's like, "Dammit, shut up! No, nothing, Leia. They're lying brats." And the parents once again go, "Whatever. You're growing up, blah blah blah, can't control, blah blah blah." So the kids are going to be fighter pilots!

• So there's a battle, and Jacen and Company are instructed to stay in the atmosphere so they can get remote shields (go science!), but they're not all that useful, since the planetary defenses get most of the coralskippers. So they shoot up a handful of bad dudes, and then the remote shields fail, because the technology falls apart under plot pressure. Being Jedi, the kids kick ass anyway, and then Jaina's like, "Hey, let's go into space. It doesn't make a difference anymore without shields, since it's not like there's immensely heavier fighting up there or anything." And Jacen rolls his eyes but goes along, and then as soon as they get up there, everyone's like "Oh crap we're getting screwed retreat!" But Anakin's like, "Hey, let's run the belt unshielded! It's like the Force or something!" So they run the belt. Scaring the hell out of Han and Leia. But Anakin gets the bright idea to smush all their brains together in the Force or something, so they fly like one person and pretty much shred the Vong in Lando's Folly, which is an awesome name for an asteroid belt, or pretty much anything.

• This apparently takes out enough Vong to make them call off the attack. The kids go back to be greeted as heroes, and Jacen's beliefs are challenged, because using the Force so well, externally, in combat, means surely it must be meant to be used this way. Either this was an incredibly profound experience, or else Jacen changes his mind way too easily (who knows, maybe he was arguing that there is no dark side or something last week). In any case, surely this fascinating reevaluation of his beliefs will be followed up on, right?

• So, they defeated the attack, but there are still Vong out there! The story isn't over yet! But it almost is, since there's only about a sixth of the book left.

• Luke's got some idea he's going to go out to Helska 4 and take on the Yuuzhan Vong base himself, or scout it, or some thoroughly nonsensical and unexplained hero crap. Jacen and Jaina randomly decide that this is a horrible, horrible idea, since Mara's sick and will have a hard time picking his ship back up or something. Instead, they decide they're perfect for the job. Being idiot kids, they take off in the carry ship and iceborer like Luke was going to and leave a message. I see Salvatore is carefully following through on their YJK characterization. Luke gets the message, and he's like, "Yeah, dude, they were totally right! These sixteen-year-old kids definitely should be infiltrating the base of an incredibly dangerous and wholly mysterious enemy!" That's the Skywalker I know and love. Jacen has to spend the whole trip packed into the iceborer, wearing the ooglith cloaker and the skirt they took off a dead Vong pilot. I don't know why Salvatore couldn't have at least described it as a kilt or something. Jaina had to pack him in, while he was wearing the kilt but randomly refusing to just put the ooglith cloaker on. So, yeah, the YJK creepiness is alive and well.

• So Jacen's cylinder ship shoots out, and goes to punch through the ice into Helska's oceans, except he hears a distress cry in the Force or something and goes to check that out. So he punches through the ice in a slightly different spot. Then, conveniently, a bunch of Vong happen by, and assume he's one of them, and just make him get in their group randomly. Then, conveniently, they go to where Miko Reglia and Danni Quee are being kept. Jacen realizes it's Danni who sent out the Force vibes, and this is promptly not followed up on in the least. So, Jacen fights six Vong, and kills three, and Danni and Miko take care of the rest. Miko is all broken and despondent or some weak crap, and he takes two Viet Cong, or whatever, with him.

• Then Jacen runs away. With Danni. And crams into the one-person shaft with Danni, and takes off. And Jaina recovers them, and there's a big battle where haha cocky NR guy gets killed, and they go back to Dubrillion. And Jacen spends the whole trip with Danni, both of them wearing light, floppy, barely-clothes, and Jacen feels the need to take his ooglith cloaker off right away, because he really needs to up the awkward quotient. So he hold her and comforts her and crap, and makes excuses about how that's totally his lightsaber.

• So they get back, and Anakin and Danni have amazing brainstorms about how you can freeze the planet and kill the yammosk by . . . reflecting the yammosk's huge energy output back at the planet or something. Because yammosks apparently are producing enough microwaves to cook the Vong nearby like TV dinners or something. And if they shoot those back, it will make the ice evaporate, which will make the planet cold. I'm not going to attempt to break my brain fitting it around this. Junior Saxtonites, time to get out your pocket calculators! Figure out if it makes any sense at all!

• So they go, and Jacen hangs out on the guns shooting at bad guys, and they freeze the planet so cold it explodes. Figure that one out.

• Anyway, we would cheer or something, but Chewie's still dead, so we all have to be very quiet and respectful and possibly cry.

• Tune in next book, when Jacen channels his grandpa (bonus points to whoever actually gets the reference)!
• Part XXXVII: Onslaught
  In which our hero overthinks everything
  
  
  • The New Republic does not believe that this threat will continue. Because if you don't believe it, it isn't real. While Fey'lya attempts to win the war through willpower, Luke has it in mind to have the Jedi try a little more than that. So he calls a Jedi Meeting. Jacen comes, but being all philosophical and stuff, he is aloof, standing the back and aligning himself with neither faction (because the Luke-Kyp Jedi split up by faction when seating, because this is the French Revolution or something). So they talk, and Jacen the Montagnard butts in to point out to Kyp that the Jedi really can't carry the war out themselves. So Luke's like, "Yeah, all this talking is nice, but I'm going to assign you all to information-gathering missions along the invasion corridor that I've already planned out now." End of meeting.
  
  
  • At the end, Luke calls Jacen, Anakin, and Corran in to get their assignments. There's no real reason to have them all in a group, except these are the missions we'll be following, so we might as well get them all at once. Anakin's going to Dantooine to provide an insane amount of Marakin moments. Corran's going to go hang out with some Ganner dude (who insults Corran's kid and threatens Corran -- he's really a jerk. I hope they kill him off [between this and the Senate just jumping on Leia constantly and accusing one of the top galactic heroes of all kind of evil motives with ridiculous blatantness, it's clear that Stackpole's absolutely incapable of any kind of nuanced, subtle antagonism]) and grab some scientists and what could go wrong, and Jacen's going to hang out with Luke and go to Belkadan to investigate it. But first, Jacen has to get all angsty and talk about how he feels the need for something inside. No, not a Biscuit Baron Jolly Meal. No, what he wants is a fulfilling Force experience. Something epic, personal, etc, etc. He thinks he has to go off on his own and meditate. Morever, the Jedi may not be for him. They're just not doing it. They've lost the original spiritual component. Well, maybe if he'd spent more time in classes instead of off on damn vacation all the time . . .
  
  
  • Anyway, Luke's like, "No, it's the middle of a war. You've got to save the galaxy. You can meditate later." Yes, that's right. Luke convinces Jacen to put his moral qualms and personal principles aside for the greater good of galactic peace and stability.
  
  
  • So, he goes to Belkadan with Luke, and Luke lets him land the ship (yippee!). They land by the ExGal facility. Nothing there. Except smashed technology and a warning display featuring a skull! Cue ominous music! But they did feel some funny life, like it was all corrupted and dying or something while they were landing. And the world isn't all poisonous anymore! Something is up! Cue ominous music again!
  
  
  • So they put on their combat jumpsuits and go check out the area where they felt the lives. And look out, it's Yuuzhan Vong! With slaves with funny coral growths! Growing Yuuzhan Vong critter-tech! They watch a Vong kill a slave. This is upsetting. Except to Luke, who's like, "Eh, what can Jedi do? Let's just leave and get our information away. Not like we're superheroes or anything. Those guys are probably too far gone to save anyway. Seriously, Vong are scary." Jacen's response is basically "What the hell? Awwwwwwww, OK. You're no fun." But really, he wants to free the slaves. You see, Jacen believes in using the Force for meditation . . . until he finds someone to save. Instincts > abstract principles.
  
  
  • Jacen has a dream about freeing the slaves. It's very vivid. Is it a Force vision? He can't decide. Then he decides it is. Then he gets up and leaves. But he doesn't ask Luke, because mean Luke would say no. Fricking Solo kids. So he goes, and each step is JUST LIKE IN THE DREAM DUDE! Man, finally, some real heroism! He's striding off to a date with destiny, freeing the slaves, kicking Vong ass! So he shows up, and does his best Spartacus imitation, and the slaves get scared and run away. See, slaves want to be slaves. Don't try to free them. So Jacen's all confused, because this is TOTALLY NOT LIKE IN THE DREAM DUDE. Then he fights a Vong. JUST LIKE IN THE DREAM DUDE! Except the Vong outfights him, disarms him, and gives him a pond swirlie until he passes out. TOTALLY NOT LIKE IN THE DREAM DUDE!
  
  
  • Well, Jacen's been captured by the Vong. At least we've gotten that out of the way now, right? So he's in a torture device, and he can't do anything, and a critter puts a slave seed in him. But I'm not worried, because it's not like they'd really kill off one of their new generation of heroes or anything. But the tension really amps up, because Jacen is helpless in the Embrace of Pain! He tries to grab his lightsaber, but it zips out the door! The Force has abandoned him! Jacen takes to depression very easily. Wait, here comes Luke, wielding two lightsabers and kicking massive Vong ass. Oh, whoops, he's out of breath. All that . . . lightsaber combat. And . . . rock-lifting. Or whatever. It's really tiring when you're using the Force extra-special right. So Luke pops him out of the Embrace, and hey, it's time to leave. They're needed on Dantooine! Besides, all the slaves are dead now anyway. Way to go, Jacen.
  
  
  • So, after a couple weeks of hanging out with primitives and saying things which could later be interpreted romantically by people who find that kind of thing hilarious, Anakin and Mara are on the run from the Vong. On Dantooine. Because there were no relaxing planets outside the Vong invasion corridor where Luke could send his wife. Not in the whole galaxy. So Anakin's about to get killed, but Luke channels Anakin I and does one of his specialty come-out-of-absolutely-nowhere saves and kills a Vong, and Jacen takes down the other two Vong. Then they go back to the ship, but not off the planet, because it's Massive Coincidence Time and Leia and Jaina have a bunch of Dubrillion refugees who couldn't put down anywhere but Dantooine.
  
  
  • So Jacen talks with Danni. So, yeah, Jedi were wrong for him because he needed to meditate, then they were right because he needed to protect people, then the vision that made him think he ought to take action, then him sucking at protecting people and action in general, and now protecting the refugees which is good, and now dude, what's the deal? So Danni's like, "Dude, stop worrying about your path. Just take the one the Force puts in front of you. You do realize life doesn't have to be all-or-nothing ideological purity, right?" So Jacen just kind of agrees and goes, "Hey, that's not a bad idea. Do you have a boyfriend?" And Danni's like, "Dude, you're sixteen. I'm twenty-one. No." Except she phrases it all about friends and confusing times in her life and all that crap. But basically, yeah, you're a kid, kid.
  
  
  • Then the Vong attack. Jacen and Anakin go over in the corner and chop up some dudes. These dudes are actually Chazrach, some kind of slave soldier. I'm sure we'll see a lot more of these guys. Luke pwns Vong with a black hole. Which is pretty hardcore. I mean, when you're kicking ass by means of astronomic phenomena, that's a pretty high level of badass there. It's a big bloody messy hackfest, but they keep the first wave off and evacuate. And ahh, Vong fleet! They'll all die! Then Admiral Traest Kre'fey shows up with Ralroost and a VicStar and shoves a hundred missiles up the Vong capship's ass. And with Vong ships, they probably actually do have asses. So, yay, escape, good!
  
  
  
  • Two totally non-Jacen points which are too awesome to omit: one, Kre'fey, Colonel Gavin Darklighter, and Leia take political billyclubs to Borsk and get him to back a full war effort, without Senate interference. Not only is this badass, it's so hilariously anti-politicians pro-military worrisome-conception-of-democracy in that totally Bantamesque way of Stackpole's.
  
  
  • Two, and most importantly: GENERAL WEDGE ANTILLES AND COLONEL TYCHO CELCHU ARE BACK. VONG ARE GONNA GET JACKED UP.
  
  
  • Anyway, Jacen wander off to talk to Anakin, miraculously without being a condescending jackass. See, Jedi were wrong for him because he needed to meditate, then they were right because he needed to protect people, then the vision that made him think he ought to take action, then him sucking at protecting people and action in general, then protecting the refugees which was good, but then a bloody battle where he didn't do anything specially Jedi and why did they really need him there and how did it make him a better Jedi to slaughter mindless drones anyway, so dude, what's the deal? In case you haven't noticed, Jacen is flip-flopping like John Kerry on speed. He's uncertain, doesn't know his role, reconsidering every solution every time, and overthinking everything. He doesn't even know what his goal is. He just knows what it's not. Anakin points out that since he doesn't really know what the "more" is that he's after, he doesn't know meditation is how he'll get to it. Jacen starts wondering, thinking randomly about the possibility of life without the Force to realize who he is without it. Anakin suggests he walk all the paths he's presented with and pull together what he can from each. Didn't we just go through this with Danni?
  
  
  • Line of the day: "For now, I'm Jacen Solo." What I will be in the future, however, is anyone's guess.
  
  
  • Tune in next week, when Jacen learns from Corran. Presumably about macking on otters or something.
  • Part XXXVIII: Ruin
    In which our hero finally resolves his philosophical problems for good really no he means it this time
    
    
    • Jacen is on Coruscant. He's at home. But things just aren't the same. It must be the WAR! CHANGING EVERYTHING! NO ONE IS SAFE! OTHER BACK-COVER-BLURB-TYPE PHRASES! Jaina and Jacen hug fiercely, then kiss, then tell Anakin it's not his fault Chewie died. Is he still on about this two months later? That bastard got what he deserved from Drall! Han comes down and is drunk and morose. This is sad.
    
    
    • Luke calls a Jedi Meeting. Again. Good grief, man. Stop wasting the entire Order's time and just get a Council or something. People talk. Luke ignores them and does what he wants, just like last time. There will be no military missions. Just helping refugees and crap. But since that doesn't make for good entertainment, there actually will be one military mission. Just one. Because Corran got called up. Oh, that wily Kre'fey. So, because we need something for some more Jedi than just Corran to do, Corran gets to take two people along. Ganner is obviously along for the ride, since he worked with Corran last book. Never mind they hate each other. Jacen got his turn with Luke last book, so now it's Anakin's turn to be the impetuous sidekick in the Luke plotline. Jaina's still in the Rogues, so that leaves Jacen to hitch a ride. They're going with a bunch of Noghri. Best commando team ever.
    
    
    • We catch up with Jacen again aboard the Ralroost, where he's agitated about the mission. Naturally, he talks with Jaina, fulfilling the time-honored Stackpolean tradition of having people sit around offering a lot of advice to each other in the exact same voice all the time. This time, Jaina gets to chew Jacen out for spending so much time focusing on thinking about what kind of Jedi he wants to be when he grows up that he's not focusing on actually doing his job and avoiding, I don't know, getting half-drowned, captured, and implanted with a slave seed or something. According to her, during the only moderately dangerous wacky hijinks of the YJK, Jacen wasn't focused either, skating by on pure talent while he actually focused his mental energies on other things. Pretty typical teen stuff, except for the fact that his mental energies were focused on making horrifically bad jokes and looking at space ants instead of getting in Tenel Ka's lizard-hide panties.
    
    
    • She also points out that he's all focused on finding this new beyond-NJO-Jediness that he's looking for, but he has no idea what it actually is. So, basically, haha philosophy is useless. They then move on get some caf -- apparently they've given up the ale since graduation -- and run into Corran, who gets the requisite scene talking with Jaina so we can paper over the fact that the Rogue Jedi is going to be mentoring the wrong twin.
    
    
    • So, there's some kind of plan where they're going to secretly land on Garqi by blowing up their ship and landing in a littler ship from inside the ship that will look like more debris. It's secretest that way. This is being kept secret from everyone else, so they can be appropriately shocked and heartbroken and fool the Vong. You'd think someone might just be tipped off by the fact that the blowy-uppy ship is named Lost Hope, though. So they do the plan, and two connections fail with no real consequence other than ratcheting up the tension level, and then they land. Jaina is sad, but later she'll learn the truth, so it's OK.
    
    
    • They meet with the Garqi Resistance leaders. Nothing much happens, except an ominous scene-ender about "They're GROWING an ARMY!!!!!" So, we jump to a scene where they look at the Vong GROWING an ARMY!!!!! They've finessed their coral to allow them to grow coral-armor-protected slave soldiers. Wonderful. So they decide to grab a couple for samples to take home and study and maybe develop a counter or something. They think they'll just yoink a couple during a war game or something and no one will notice. Seriously? "Hey, did you just see six little gray guys and three dudes with glowy sticks pop out of a sewer, grab one of our slaves, and pop back down?" "No, I was looking the other way. Are you sure? Because that would be a big deal." "Well, I think so." "Well, a battle zone is just so confusing. Anything can happen, you know. All the fighting between slave soldiers, Chazrach, and us . . . sometimes you just gotta expect something that looks like New Republic commandos skulking around inside the fight. It's probably nothing."
    
    
    • So they carry out this really dumb plan. Jacen jumps out of some kind of conduit with the rest of the Jedi, without any attempt to conceal his presence at all, and immediately they get noticed by the Vong. Who have villips to report in. Yeah, this whole "They'll never know" thing . . . how's that going? Anyway, there are three Vong overseeing the war games. There are three Jedi. Corran and Ganner make their kills. Snipers take out the third one. Robbed. Oh, wait, after the Chazrach run away, here comes a coralskipper. Corran thinks he's going to hold it off or something, while Jacen just TKs a hatch cover up to cover the plasma nozzle thing and blow it up. Well, I guess that makes up for that.
    
    
    • So they send off the captives, while all the Jedi and Noghri randomly decide to doom themselves by serving as distractions, since they got caught like they should have known they would. Jacen suggested a nighttime grab. Who's the tactician now, Corran? Jacen's all badass in the rearguard with Corran or something, being harassed by Vong (don't worry, he dropped a card in the office complaint box), until they get to the Ithorian section of the Pesktda Xenobotanical Gardens, where they randomly decide to make a stand. The Vong file in in slow mo, with pollen falling in the air and sad-epic music playing in the background (this particular scene in the book appears to be directed by Peter Jackson), and issue their challenge. Ganner stand up to answer it before Corran! A random Noghri stands up in front of him! The music builds to a heroic swell, then an epic crest as both sides suddenly charge into battle! Forth Eorlingas! The Vong leader cuts up Ganner, and Jacen finally gets his big Vong kill by putting that guy down. It's the only Vong kill of the fight, since their armor swells up and kills them. Well, well. Looks like we got ourselves a weapon, boys! Now kill the sentient trees to cover it up and let's go home.
    
    
    • Well, they get to the ship and go up, and oh no, a Vong fleet! Then Pellaeon and Jag Fel show up out of nowhere and stiff-upper-lip the Vong to death and everyone runs to Ithor to protect it. Because they killed a bunch of sentient trees so that the Vong would figure out the secret three minutes later, apparently. So if the Jedi are going to fight on the ground, they need to be purified. They'll need some human sacrifice and a hermaphroditic statue . . . oh, wait. They just need to renounce some bad part of themselves. So everyone is rejecting pride and . . . well, they're all basically forms of pride. And Jacen's all, "Oh no, whatever will I reject? I'm so burdened with philosophical dilemmas! I don't know what I want! What will give me inner peace?" And so he finally has a space light bulb go off over his space head, and decides to renounce constantly worrying about philosophical issues and trying to figure out what he needs to be tomorrow. OK, seriously, it's for real this time, right? Because this is like the fifth damn time he's done that just in this series.
    
    
    • So, Corran wants an epic man-on-man DUEL FOR THE FATE OF THE WORLD! DUH-DUH-DUH! Jacen is upset, because he obviously wants revenge for the Evil Vong Leader having killed Peaceful Tapir Man. Corran's all, "Nuh-uh, I want to do it for perfectly dispassionate reasons related to saving Ithor!" Since he delivers it in the Universal Stackpolean Wise Advice Voice, we're disinclined to question his truthfulness.
    
    
    • OK, fighting time now. Jacen basically runs around behind Corran while they capture Shai's command center and issue a challenge. Fighting time is over now. Truce until the duel. Duel. Corran wins. The Vong kill the planet anyway. Jackasses. Righteously pissed, Pellaeon incinerates the treacherous Vong by bristling his mustache at them repeatedly. Moral victory. So, because this is a Stackpole book, idiot politicians and idiot media vilify the good guys, and Corran resigns to get away from it all. Jacen is idealistically pissed off that the Jedi are bowing to corrupt politicians and public pressure. Corran's all, "No, it's for the best, kid." So we get a sort of ominous-sad ending thing. DUH DUH DUH!
    
    
    • Keep watching for our next update, when Jacen takes a break from story duties so his dad can get drunk and kick hell out of the Vong.
    • Part IV: The Other
      In which our hero dresses like his dad, and learns that his mom is a raging psycho.
      
      • So... this story's not entirely canon (and can't be, because of timeline issues), but what the hell.
      
      • We open with Luke and Leia wandering along a Coruscant street, discussing Leia's upcoming inauguration as Chief of State. Luke's annoyed: she promised him she'd become a Jedi!
      
      • Leia's like, "well, we both know I hit some kind of barrier in my growth in the Force, so whatever." Luke doesn't seem to buy it, but he splits when they get to her apartment so he won't have to help her pack. What a guy.
      
      • While packing, Leia comes across her journal and starts writing in it. Turns out she's been lying to Luke about a "barrier" so he'll leave her alone about the Jedi thing, because he's an ass and won't take no for an answer. Why's she so opposed to being a Jedi, you ask...?
      
      • We flash back to a sunny day in a Coruscant park, shortly after Leia became Minister of State, and hey! Jacen! And Jaina and Anakin too, which is a bit of a problem, since a) they all ought to be on Anoth and b) they can all walk, which is a bit of a problem since Anakin should still be an infant.
      
      • Jacen's wearing a miniature version of Han's vest, which is kinda cute. Leia's wearing Padmé's white outfit from Attack of the Clones-- complete with bare midriff-- which is kinda random. And vaguely embarassing, though I guess the kids are too young to be horrified at their mother showing off cameltoe.
      
      • Anyway, long story short, Leia foils an ambiguous kidnapping/assassination attempt by ambiguously affiliated assailants, by going berserk and wailing on them with a lightsaber. Meanwhile, Jacen looks on in horror:
      
      
      
      
      • As best I can tell, Jacen's the one on the far left, mouth agape. The blonde is Anakin, making the red-headed kid Jaina, I guess. Which, look, I'm all for not confining kids to stereotypical gender roles, but c'mon now, Leia-- at least let her grow her hair out or something.
      
      • I can't tell if Jacen's ohcrap face is due to being attacked by blaster-wielding goons, or due to the fact that his mom's lost it and looks like a maniac. I prefer to think it's the latter.
      
      • Leia stands raging with her 'saber at the throat of the last goon, who looks like he's going to crap himself. Luckily for him, Leia snaps out of it before she can give him an impromptu tracheotomy. She shuts down the 'saber and wanders off muttering "Vader... father..." while some police come and arrest the bad guys. Don't forget the kids, Leia!
      
      • So yeah, that's why Leia doesn't want to be a Jedi: she's a crazy person and liable to fly into a murderous rage when her kids are in danger. Which, while not really that unreasonable, kinda makes the Ruusan Order's anti-attachment schtick make more sense, eh?
      
      • For those keeping track at home, this is Solo Kid Kidnapping Attempt #4, though it's only the third that targeted Jacen. Well, okay, it might've been an assassination attempt. Like I said, ambiguous.
      
      • Hmn, well, that was pointless from a Jacen standpoint. Ah well.
      
      • Tune in next time, when Jacen returns triumphantly from exile to teach his uncle that baby crap does indeed smell like... well, it smells like crap. Yeah.

Part XXXIX: Hero's Trial
In which our hero does not appear in the dramatis personae

• So, Chewie has a funeral. Except it's not really a funeral, since there's no body. And it's good there's no body, since it's six months after Chewie died. What a bunch of slackers. So we'll call it a memorial service. Message of the oration: Chewbacca was fricking awesome. Threepio thinks about death and grief. After the service, the Wookiees have a luncheon. Apparently, they come from the "treat it like a Memorial Day barbecue" school of funeral thought. So, Jacen's there, but he does absolutely nothing. Anyway, Han gets all unable to deal with his manly emotions, and takes off to wander the galaxy after the memorial service until he gets thing sorted out.

• He comes back to Coruscant, then takes off again. Which seems vaguely redundant. Cue the drinking, kicking of asses, and taking of names. And the actual plot.

• Luke talks with Mara about how Jacen might be right that the Jedi need to be more. The punk kid is such a wise philosopher.

• Han runs into Elan, and some goofy bird named Vergere. They're defecting. They want to meet with the Jedi. Luke calls a Jedi Meeting (he's inordinately fond of these . . . seriously, dude, get a Council) to talk about it. Ackbar rushes into the room, shouts "It's a trap!" and runs out. Everyone else agrees. Seriously, the person who brings up the point that it's got to be a trap? Cilghal. Various people continue objecting. Luke says he and Mara are going to meet, because they promise Mystery Disease knowledge. Jacen correctly points out that this is the height of idiocy. He volunteers to take on the risk and do the meeting himself . . . then volunteers Streen and Kam too. Everyone else is like "No, let me walk into the trap!" And finally, Luke's like, "Fine, let's just have every single Jedi out there walk into the Vong trap. Yeah, that's the way to go." We then learn Tenel Ka is here. This is the first time we have any mention of her existence post-YJK. Is she sitting by Jacen? Is she pissed off he's been making eyes with Danni? Will there be canoodling later? We don't know.

• Before the Jedi can get their collective Darwin Award, Han totally exposes Elan as a traitor, and Vergere runs off after giving Mara the cure to her disease. Hmm. Very mysterious, helping the heroes and then running off like that. She must be evil.

• Tune in next time, when Jacen completely screws over his dream girl's people.
• Part XL: Jedi Eclipse
  In which our hero basically advocates laying down and dying
  
  
  • Well, at least he's in the DP this time.
  
  
  • When we first see him, Jacen is arguing with Anakin offscreen, creating sufficient commotion to draw Luke and Karrde in from their lovely jaunt about the grounds of the Praxeum. A bunch of senior Jedi are just sitting around watching, presumably eating space popcorn and laughing at the Solo kids making asses of themselves. Anakin got the offer to go help them reactivate Centerpoint, and Jacen's all upset. It seems Centerpoint is some type of weapons, and the use of weapons for anything other than defense is bad. Well, OK. I can understand that. Jedi can't be aggressive. But, wait . . . Anakin can't go and reactivate it no matter what? What happened to only using weapons defensively? Anakin pretty much rips him apart as having no real standard or idea what he's talking about, since he's OK "in theory" and "in principle" with Leia recruiting the Hapans into the war and Jaina flying with the Rogues. But there's something about this that's just wrong. I'm going to give Jacen the benefit of the doubt and assume it's the superweapon issue, because otherwise he's a complete ninny. Jacen asks Luke, and he's like, "I voted against the reactivation before I voted for it." Apparently it's too powerful to reactivate, but they're obliged to do anything they can to prepare anything that could be used defensively. Wait, what?
  
  
  • So Jacen huffs, and says, "Well, fine, have it your way, meanie jerk! But I'm inviting myself along to observe and probably harangue people randomly for trying to defend the galaxy against an invasion due to my incoherent set of principles." And then Luke's like, "Hey, everybody, it's storytime! Gather around in a circle and listen to what Uncle Talon has to say!" And what does Uncle Talon have to say? "Drugs! We're tracking their shipments! By the Hutts! Maybe it can tell us where the bad guys will invade! Help me!" And everyone is like, "Ooh, good idea." Except Jacen, who's like, "This is a bad idea. It demeans us. And it is somehow like Centerpoint." And Anakin's like "You are an intolerable damn idiot. It's information-gathering that can help save lives, without harming anyone. It's not aggressive. You're supposed to like it. Shut up." And Jacen shuts up. But he can't resist a parting shot later about how he "can't believe" that the Jedi have come to engage in espionage. What the hell is your philosophical problem with espionage, kid? It's like Luceno doesn't really know what Jacen's consistent philosophical issues have been before, so he's just having him wet-blanket everything that might possibly be effective on vague philosophical grounds.
  
  
  • Next time we see Jacen, he's on Drall with Anakin, having stopped over for tea, crumpets, and social conversation with Marcha, Ebrihim, and Q9 -- who is sadly quiet. Marcha's Governor-General now, and angry people are protesting with hilarious "Solos go home!" placards, because the NR took over Centerpoint and Corellians are apparently the Deep Southerners of galactic politics. Also on a placard: "Corellia will live to see Coruscant die." I wonder if this antagonism will be followed up on? Anyway, the Drall bust out the rumors that the NR wants to lure the Vong to nice, underdefended Corellia and smack the hell out of them with Centerpoint. Which sounds like an awesome idea to me. But Jacen's all, "I knew it! Our government and military have evil and aggressive desires of protecting our galaxy and fighting back against the invaders!" And Anakin's like, "Well, let's just go and see what's up. Maybe I can just get it to work defensively or something."
  
  
  • Prose of the day: "Marcha was gentle in her ridicule."
  
  
  • So they go to Centerpoint, and oh, look, it's Jenica Sonsen, possibly the only BFC or CT character who hasn't made an appearance in this duology already! Oh, wait, one more hasn't yet. So Thrackan walks up. The best indignant comment Jacen can come up with? "You not only took us hostage, you forced our father to fight a Selonian female -- just for your amusement." Come on, you can do better than that. How about "Haha, remember when my sister and I were nine years old and we shot down your ship? BURN!" Thrackan kinda wanders back and forth between "I'm a new man" rhetoric and "Oh, haha, man, I'd forgotten about that aspect of my supervillain plot! Oh, dude, good times. Good times." And the people whose job it actually is to get stuff going are like, "OK, enough crap. Anakin, the system randomly imprinted on you. Make it go." And Anakin walks up to it and makes it go. Apparently, NR high command was cutting it really close with the request to help out some, because at that moment they get the message that the Vong fleet just left and they'll be there in a day and a half.
  
  
  • Except they're not there. They're at Fondor. Nas Choka pwned you, NR! Let's see Nas do his celebratory stripper dance.
  
  
  
  
  • And that's more than enough of that. Seriously, I can't believe WOTC paid someone to draw that. It looks like the artist got overloaded on his deadlines, and told his kindergartener to draw it for him. Look at that face.
  
  
  • OK, moving on for real this time. So, the NR is getting pwned at Fondor, and people in the Centerpoint control room put down their mugs of coffee to look up at the big screen, at which point, depending on what kind of movie you're watching, either an endearingly offbeat young whiz or a white-shirt-and-tie-sleeves-rolled-up supervisor, who has been adding color to the previous control room scenes, looks up from his screen and goes, "Oh, ****." It's also possible that the endearingly offbeat whiz will see it first, and say, "Harry, come over here. You've got to take a look at this," and the supervisor will come over and go, "Oh, ****." Twice the bang for the buck.
  
  
  • Thrackan says they have to shoot the big gun. Through hyperspace. To wipe out the fleet and Fondor. Everyone else is like, "Yeah, we gotta save the NR." Jacen's like, "No way, saving people would be aggressive! This is unconscionable, but I won't explain why!" Anakin knows he can make the shot. People are arguing. No one actually fights, though, because this is the war room and they know better than that. Anakin, because he's an idiot, is like, "Oooh, I have such a dilemma -- save people from the enemy, or do nothing for vague, incoherent, and unintelligible moral reasons? Jacen, tell me what to do and I'll do it. Because I am not grown-up enough for responsibility, and you're always telling me you know EXACTLY WHAT IS RIGHT LISTEN TO ME DAMMIT I KNOW IT ALL." And Jacen's like, "Oh, that's a good choice of advisor, because you don't know my answer in advance at all. Yeah, I thought about it some more. Go for it."
  
  
  • Haha, no. Jacen's actually like, "Saving people is definitely evil, because it involves the use of a weapon. Run away." And Anakin's like, "OK. I'll be an idiot. I won't mention that I know I can make the shot safely or anything. And I won't make the shot." And he doesn't. But Thrackan runs up to play with the big gun, and he just fires it off and shoots all over the fricking Fondor system, wiping out most of the Hapan fleet (oooh, sorry, Tenel!), less of the Vong fleet, some of Fondor's moon, and almost Fondor itself. Way to go, jackass.
  
  
  • So the next time we see Jacen, he's at home on the couch watching TV. Oh, Thrackan's on. The Corellians are calling him a hero for beating up on Vong. I hope the Hapan envoy gives them the finger, because that's like insensitive and a half. For some reason, Jacen's still proud of Anakin, and says so. And Anakin's like, "You know, I coulda made the shot. And it would have totally been defensive." WHAT THE HELL KID? WHAT THE FRICKING HELL? YOU ARE AN IDIOT AND SHOULD BE SLAPPED WITH TROUT REPEATEDLY. Jacen's like, "No, we should be able to find a way to respond to violence without violence." Have fun dying, pansy. Unfortunately, Han does not walk in and shout "Cut your hair, hippie!" to end the scene.
  
  
  • Tune in next week, when Jacen takes his philosophical dilemmas to new heights of idiocy.