Saturday 24 November 2007

Star Wars Legacy - The New Jedi Order part 2

I will get around to doing Power Trip soon honestly, but it needs a little more research and thought before I get started so I thought I'd hit you with another reveal into the world of Star Wars Legacy this time discussing those Jedi who are no longer active members of the order for various reasons.
There should be a fair bit less to say in this so I'll just get it out and then move on to another topic.

With the Sith in power the galaxy is not a safe place for the Jedi who used to defend it. At the end of the war, the Sith and the Empire assaulted both the Jedi temple on Coruscant and the academy on Ossus. This brought the Jedi down to around half their strength and scattered them. The Sith hunt them as well as eager bounty hunters so their numbers have been reduced further and it is hard for them to fight back or make their presence known at all. We will look at some of the Jedi who have not survived the changing galaxy.

Inactive Jedi

Kol Skywalker

Species: Human
Sex: Male
Homeworld: Unknown
Position: Jedi Master, Council member
First Appearance: Legacy #1 (Broken, part 1)







Kol was a leading member of the Jedi Council and heir to the Skywalker name, despite being proud of his heritage Kol did sometimes feel trapped by his anscestry, never more so than when he fell in love with an Imperial agent named Morrigan Corde, who bore him a son, Cade. Knowing the council disaproved Corde left when she was called for duty, leaving Kol to raise his son alone. Kol remained a leader among the Jedi until one of his ideas gave the Sith their opening. Showing the compassion of a true Jedi Kol devised a plan to let the Yuuzhan Vong become a part of galactic society, but the Sith sabotaged the project and when the Jedi tried to defend the Vong war broke out - and the Jedi lost. Kol fell battling Sith at the academy he called home, sacrificing himself to let the young padawans escape.

Rasi Tuum

Species: Cathar
Sex: Male
Homeworld: Cathar(?)
Position: Jedi Knight (maybe master)
First Appearance: Legacy #2 (Broken, part 2)








Little has been revealed about Rasi Tuum. He met reluctantly with Wolf Sazen of Daluuj to discus his plan of finding Cade Skywalker, Rasi believed Cade to be dead and wasn't sure of the plan. Soon afterwards he was attacked and killed during a Sith ambush, only Sazen and Vao survived.

Hosk Trey'lis

Species: Bothan
Sex: Male
Homeworld: Bothawui (?)
Position: Jedi healer
First Appearance: Legacy #2 (Broken, part 2)








Hosk is a Jedi healer who got caught up in unfortunate events in a darker galaxy. Hosk had managed, like many Jedi, to blend into society and escape the Sith for many years. But when he was in a safehouse Cade's crew of bounty hunters burst in after a mark. Thinking they were after him Hosk revealed his Jedi powers and tried to escape, but was brought down by the crew. Hosk was handed over to Rav, the former pirate who kept Cade and crew in his debt, who then turned him in to the Sith. He was tortured into revealing Cade's identity and was even forced to attempt to heal Darth Krayt due to his abilities, but he failed. Cade attempted to rescue him, but was himself captured and now Hosk remains in the hands of the Sith.

I've mentioned Cade enough times so I don't need to explain his situation again. We don't know much about the Jedi in this era, what with them being scattered and in hiding, but who knows more may appear some day.

Wednesday 21 November 2007

Power Trip - announcement

Whenever I do something new on my blog then the introduction has a habit of crowding most of the space of the first post so I have decided to introduce my latest venture in a seperate post. The series I hope to do "power trip" will, using the television series Heroes as a jumping off point, track the use and development of superpowers in verious genres and hopefully track down their roots in less contemporary materials. On a regular basis I will take a different character from Heroes, examine their superpower, compare it to other superheroes and then try and see where the idea for that gift came from.

My idea was initially based on the self promotion and self awe as shownb in the behind the scenes "Heroes Unmasked" shows where the cast and crew constantly praise the show on it's amazing originality. In terms of superpowers, most of the main cast have well established powers already familiar to the comic book community so i wanted to show them up, but since Heroes has turned out to be amazingly good and there are some truly out of the box featured in supporting characters I will do these articles in a more positive light.

They will no doubt regurgitate a lot of Wikipedia content, I would love to do more indepth research, but unless this blog becomes massively popular overnight or someone starts paying me to write this stuff (dream on!) then research will have to be fairly cursory.

I'm also gonna start tagging to try and increase readership, my first article will be out soon, along with another Legacy update and more things I've been meaning to write!

Friday 16 November 2007

Star Wars Legacy #17: Updates and Review

The latest issue of Legacy has arrived and so I will update my articles as necessary as well as giving an overview of the plotline. So updates on sith and active Jedi to follow then a basic story overview of what else is included in the issue.

Sith Updates

Darth Krayt

More of his story was revealed in this issue. After his defeat by Kenobi he became a bounty hunter, until he chased one prize to Korriban where he discovered the holocron of XoXaan one of the founders if the Sith order. He agreed to follow her teachings, but it was some time before he truly embraced the Sith ways. In present times he is following Cade's training, convinced that he will eventually fall to the dark side and heal him.

Darth Maladi and Nihl

These two continue to serve the dark lord, but grow suspicious of his plans for Skywalker and closer to each other. Nihl has been observing ancient Sith holocrons that differ from Krayt's teachings.

Darth Talon

She is now Cade's instructor and has taught him combat and Sith history. She taught him passion, and to strengthen his connection to her and the dark side she slept with him. However she remains totally loyal to Krayt, and has expressed suspicions of Cade's loyalty. She revealed that her master, Ruyn, willingly accepted death to help her connect to the dark side.

Cade Skywalker

Cade has been training with the Sith for around a month, he hasn't truly been converted to the teachings of the Sith, despite forming a close bond with Talon. But his feelings may not be as deeply hidden as he would like.

Jedi Updates

Cade's teachers remained in hiding on Ossus, escaping Sith patrols. But Darth Stryfe still suspects their presence and ordered the temple to be destroyed from orbit. Whether the Jedi and their Yuuzhan Vong allies survive.

Well that covers a good chunk of the action, but Cade's former crew and some unusual allies are plotting to rescue him and have already infiltrated the Sith temple to gain intel and are ready to make their move, whether Cade wants to be rescued or not.

That's it for now - another article coming soon

Friday 9 November 2007

Doctor Who - New Series, new species part 6

First an anouncement - I'm abandoning the species of the week for the moment as it is not fulfilling it's purpose and is halting me from more rewarding posts like this one.

OK, so it's actually the Sarah Jane adventures but it's based in the same 'universe' so I'm quite happy to shove it under the same banner as it stops me having to make up new titles every time a spinoff comes around. For those of you unfamiliar with the series it is a show specifically aimed at children, rather than the "family" show Dr Who and "adult" Torchwood. Like Torchwood it is based on Earth along a linear timeline where the cast have to solve alien based mysteries with the help of a few alien gadgets. The characters are Sarah Jane, a former companion of the Doctor, her adopted son Luke, her neighbour the young Maria and her friend Clyde. Together they investigate and interact with the oftentimes dangerous visitors that come to our world.

So I will cover in two articles the new alien species encountered in this new series - which shows 5 o clock on Mondays on BBC 1 if you're interested.















Bane

I actually really like the Bane species, despite their obvious "we are the bad guys name" it was actually one of the most credible CG aliens I've seen in Doctor Who it seemed to have a real physical presence as well as a cool look. And despite enacting one of the great Sci-Fi crimes of "ooh we've defeated the enemies now the building we're in will blow up for no concievable reason" they still manage to be a respectable creation in my book.

The Bane were a dangerous species characterised by a mass of tentacles and one looming eye. Little is known about them other than that they came to Earth and tried to conquer it by somewhat unorthodox methods. Disguised as humans using technology that masked their larger bulk, but limited their abilities, such as mind reading, they set up a company called BubbleShock, marketing a new drink that soon became hugely popular. The drink in fact contained enzymes secreted by the Mother Bane and enormous specimin housed in a warehouse that later allowed them to manipulate the humans that drank it to do their bidding. They were susceptible to cellphone transmissions and when amplified by alien technology a phone signal was able to defeat the Bane and bring an end to their scheme. It is unkown if this group was representative of the whole species or just one Mother and her young.

The Archetype


Now known as Luke Smith, this boy was artificially created by the Bane to help them perfect their techniques in manipulating humans. He was combined from samples of thousands of humans, especially those who rejected Bubble Shock. While he is a human being he is notable for having a much greater intelligence, memory and rections than most people. He also has no belly button! While very intelligent he is still very inexperienced and finds it hard to adapt to the world.

A later adventure involved a Slitheen plot, but since Raxicoricofalibatoriands have previously appeared in Doctor Who I don't mention them here.











Gorgon

The Gorgons were ok as a species, I like the touch of removing the snake heads and putting that down to Greek embellishment. Otherwise I thought they were ok, but I wasn't particularly bowled over by them. I especially didn't like the whole mind control aspect of the Gorgon with the nuns as it came out of nowhere and the nuns, especially Helena gave a very convincing performance of someone dedicated to serving a more powerful being.

The Gorgons are a powerful parasitic species with deadly abilities. Three came to Earth several thousand years ago. They need a host body to survive on Earth, and need to move on to another after the host's life expires. Their deadliest weapon is to be able to turn a victim to stone simply by sight. They bided their time, waiting for the right moment to bring their entire species to Earth for conquest. But one was killed by the Greek warrior Perseus early after their arrival, another was felled by an archaeologist in the 1950s. The archaeologist's wife kept a hold of the talisman a device needed to open access from the gorgon world. Sarah Jane eventually foiled the plot and Maria halted the Gorgon by using a mirror to turn her to stone, the same technique perseus had used.

Well that's it from me, but SJA is well under way so expect more soon.