The Rise of Skywalker (novelization)

Originally posted by Galan007
Still a gargantuan feat, considering both the sheer scale of his lightning barrage and the ridiculously precise manner he was using it(ie. only targeting Rebellion ships that were scattered among the tens of thousands of Star Destroyers hovering above.)

I guess, but you'd think with all the power of every Sith ever, at least some ships would just end up being obliterated. It is a nice control and accuracy feat though.

Originally posted by Galan007
Ah, gotcha.

Yeah, the implication is that Plagueis discovered the ability, and taught it to Palpatine. No indication that any of the previous Sith were capable of doing so.

I do like that Sidious is the only Sith in canon history who actually became immortal in a sense. 😄

Originally posted by Sheev
You've got to wonder how they would discover an ability like that. It's not like they could practise it lol.

I do like that Sidious is the only Sith in canon history who actually became immortal in a sense. 😄

Not the only Sith. The way Momin preserved his essence and resurrected himself was far superior, imo.

To be honest I kind of like these methods of revival, they seem quite limited, although of course, I wished we didn't have any revival at all at least Palpatine can't just switch to anybody, Palpatine definitely must now be dead I guess. Although I'm confused about why Palpatine wants Rey dead at the start of the movie, can he still switch to her body if she's dead and if so why didn't he just kill Rey instead of having Rey kill him?

I think Palpatine having all the Sith might have something to do with Exagol. I wish they expanded more on the planet, I would have liked it if it were the strongest dark side nexus in the universe and Palpatine landing on it was able to access Chaos itself and absorb all previous Sith before him within him. His final goal would have been absorbing Exagol itself and become a God of the Dark Side like the Son. Maybe Exagols backstory is when the Ones of Mortis were trying to create Mortis, their first attempt was Exagol. But, instead of creating a planet where balance is natural, they accidentally made the strongest dark side nexus ever.

Question Galan, does the novel say anything about the Final Order's Star Destroyers and how many? Is it still hundreds or was that changed too?

Tens of thousands, Zen.

Originally posted by The_Tempest
Tens of thousands, Zen.

Not talking about the vision. Also it's not specified that all those tens of thousand of ships are the XSDs, the wording in the passage seems to indicate they are separate altogether.

I'm more inclined to go with the OOU sources that cover the XSDs specifically to be in the hundreds, rather than a vision that seems to suggest the XSDs among the tens of thousands, in which case the VD and Databank wouldn't be contradicted.

But I'm just wondering if there's anything else about numbers in the fleet for the XSDs.

Yeah, you're right about that. The "tens of thousands" of ships Kylo saw in the vision is likely counting ALL ships in the Sith fleet, and not *just* the Star Destroyers.

The only clear(ish) quotes we have about the number of Star Destroyers comes from the RoS VD and the SW Databank, which states there were "hundreds" of them. I'd go with that.

The context of the passage for Kylo's "vision" clearly refers to Star Destroyers. He sees a Star Destroyer emerge from the ground and then immediately notes "more ships" rising. Not more types of ships, just more Destroyers - which coincidentally is all we see in the film. The transports and TIE Fighters are inside the Destroyers until deployed during the Battle of Exegol.

Additionally, note Sith Star Destroyer Captain Sabrond's thoughts:

She notes that there are ten thousand Star Destroyer Captains at least.

Good point.

Unless each SD required hundreds of captains each, then the number of captains mentioned there should correspond to the number of Star Destroyers in the fleet.

Obviously a massive contradiction to the VD and Databank, though.

There are more than just Captains for Destroyers, how do we know it’s not just talking about other Captains aboard other ships or for ground forces or whatever? It’s not being specific.

Sabrond was the captain of a Star Destroyer, and wanted to make sure she stood out among the thousands of other SD captains. That is what the dialogue Tempest posted implies, imo.

But again, it would definitely be a sharp contradiction to the VD and Databank.

Originally posted by Zenwolf
There are more than just Captains for Destroyers, how do we know it’s not just talking about other Captains aboard other ships or for ground forces or whatever? It’s not being specific.

You're being deliberately obtuse.

In the beginning of the book, Kylo observes tens of thousands of Star Destroyers emerging.

Later in the book, Sabrond, a Star Destroyer Captain, laments that captaining a Star Destroyer was not enough to distinguish her in the eyes of Pryde and the Emperor and immediately notes there are thousands - tens of thousands of captains.

Contextually from the paragraph alone, she's referring to Star Destroyer Captains... which is also corroborated by the number given earlier in the book by Kylo.

Use your critical faculties here.

So if the Databank and Visual dictionary say one thing, and the novel says another which do we go by? Isn't it all supposed to be canon now? 😕

As long as it doesn't directly contradict the films, the most recent info is always going to be the most canon info.

What's a pain in this particular case is that the novel heavily implies one thing("tens of thousands"😉, but the official SW Databank says something completely different("hundreds".)

So I guess we're just gonna throw caution to the wind now and any writer can just retcon something whenever they want?....Tch, ok then, so much for the Story Group. I mean come on, the novel was released in the same month as both the VD and Databank imputs.

Canon may not have as many continuity discrepancies as Legends, but it's still rife with error.

For whatever it's worth, Matt Martin of the Story Group had this to say a few months ago:

They apparently play fast and loose with numbers. To them, "hundreds" and "thousands" aren't a contradiction because thousands are comprised of hundreds.

😂

They may as well have just said "dozens", then. Technically no contradiction, amiright?

Matt clearly seem confused himself there, I dunno if I'd trust that. This is the same guy who didn't know Palps had a son...or was it Rey being his granddaughter?