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Featuring Star Wars Legacy of the Force authors: Aaron Allston (Betrayal, Exile, fury); Karen Traviss (Bloodlines, Sacrifice, Revelation); and Troy Denning (Tempest, Inferno, Invincible).

Random House: Okay, let's cut to the chase: the death of Mara Jade at the hands of Jacen Solo. Who came up with this idea, and how was it received by everyone in the initial story conferences?

Troy Denning: That's your first question? You make us sound like a hit squad.

Aaron Allston: The idea came up at our late 2004 meeting at Big Rock Ranch, but I resist saying who brought up the idea first. I'm not going there.

Karen Traviss: I'm afraid it was me who suggested that Jacen had to kill someone he loved. But I'm the Brit, remember. We're always the bad guys.

AA: The idea was, if I recall correctly, met with mixed feelings. Everybody recognized the dramatic possibilities surrounding Mara's death. But not everybody was happy with the thought of seeing her go.

TD: But there were no fistfights, nothing like a deadlocked jury. We knew the storyline demanded a crisis that would shock Ben to the core and really make him think about what he was becoming. Nobody killed Mara just for the heck of it.

KT: I mentioned a test that the German SS (or it might have been the Gestapo) used: trainees were each given a puppy-a German Shepherd, I think-and were encouraged to bond with the dog, compete it against other cadets' dogs, and generally love it. Then, once they were totally devoted to the dog, they were told to strangle it. If they couldn't obey that order, they were out. I said that would be a typical Sith test-to be so loyal to the Sith ideal that you'd obey orders and kill someone you loved to prove you could put the job first. There's even an allusion to that in Sacrifice, where Jacen thinks about the nosito pups.

RH: Given fan response to the deaths of Chewbacca and Anakin, did you feel any hesitation about killing off another popular character?

AA: Definitely. For that reason and others, it's the event I've looked forward to least out of the entire series.

KT: Well, nobody lives forever. In fiction, it's often better that they go out in a blaze of glory than incontinent and senile in the Coruscant Old Folks' Home. Readers are sad to see much-loved characters die-we wouldn't be doing our jobs right if those deaths left them unmoved- but very few fans resort to threats and abuse.

TD: Good stories have tragedy as well as triumph. My first concern when writing is always to build a story that's both suspenseful and logical (so I'd never terminate a character arbitrarily). Overall, the reaction I received after I wrote Anakin's death was fine. People were sad (so was I)-and a few were angry-but most readers agreed that Anakin's death was the kind of thing that has made the NJO a powerful and engaging story.

KT: Fiction should make us feel strong emotions. It enables us as readers to "rehearse" difficult emotional events in a safe environment, so deaths in fiction have a real function in human psychology. And, frankly, the idea that heroes can never die isn't good storytelling as far as I'm concerned. If the reader knows nothing can ever happen to them, where's the drama, the risk?

RH: One objection I've heard to the deaths of popular characters is that if readers want realism, they'll pick up a book by Updike. How do you respond to this?

AA: A lot of fans have that reaction, and a lot don't. It's not a universal thing. Those who object to the deaths do tend to be more vocal about it.

TD: You wouldn't be trying to stir up some controversy, would you?

AA: I keenly remember, as a kid, reading a novel about Robin Hood in which he dies. I was shocked. "Robin Hood can't die. The story can't end." But the truth is, putting characters in danger and then never killing any of them, or at least any of the important ones, robs a series of any tension. Oh, dear, Luke is in danger again, hohum.

And sure, we could have tension by threatening to make characters unhappy without actually killing them. But note that I said "putting them in danger." Physical danger, danger of imminent death, has been a part of the Star Wars series since A New Hope. So either we have characters in danger, and make that danger meaningful, or we don't have danger at all, which constitutes a major change to the way the universe is portrayed.

KT: Star Wars is a broad church, and there's plenty of escapist material already out there that folks can read if they want that, but there are also many, many readers who want something that resonates with the issues they face in real life. Like Aaron says, there comes a point where the story gets stale if the protagonists face no real threats and risks.

RH: What were your feelings about the online contest to supply Jacen's Sith name?

TD: I thought the contest was a good idea, a fun twist. Of course, we'll have to see how the fans like the winner they picked.

RH: Luke has gone over to the dark side before. Will Mara's death push him in this direction again?

TD: You must know we can't answer that.

RH: Hey, you can't blame a guy for trying! Come to think of it, Han didn't handle Chewbacca's death very well, either. Knowing that his son has turned to the dark side, and is responsible for the murder of his best friend's wife-it's hard to imagine even Leia being able to hold Han back after that....

AA: That's a weird perspective, actually. That's the perspective of someone to whom Luke, a canon character originating in the movies, is far more important than Jacen, an Expanded Universe character. But it makes no sense from Han's perspective. Luke's his best friend. Jacen's his son. He loves them both and would be devastated to lose either one. Instead of strapping on his blaster holster and rushing off to shoot his boy, he's got to feel horribly conflicted.

RH: Was Jacen's turn to the dark side something that was only decided with this series, or was it a plot development slated for some time? Is there an "liber-plot" stretching far into the future?

AA: As I recall, it was settled upon for this series, though that determination was made early enough that Troy was able to foreshadow it in the Dark Nest trilogy.

TD: Yes, the kernel of the idea occurred to me while I was writing that trilogy, trying to think about what Jacen discovered on his journey to learn more about the Force. When I learned that the editors at Lucasfilm and Del Key were looking for ideas for the next series, I told them what I'd been thinking about, and it became the seed for Legacy of the Force.

AA: I'm not aware of any liber-plot, though. We've coordinated a little bit with the Dark Nest and Legacy series to maintain consistency, but we're not setting up their plot-lines in our series.

RH: Is there something about the parenting style of Han and Leia that contributed to the dark path Jacen has taken? Do they bear any of the responsibility?

KT: I wonder if any of the Skywalker/Solo kids had a good upbringing? If Coruscant had a decent social services department, they'd have taken them all into care, I think-the risks they were exposed to as little 'uns were shocking. Ben's found his own way-which isn't easy for him. The offspring of the A-list can go nuts pretty easily trying to live up to legendary parents, as we know in real life.

AA: It's the generation gap, plus lightsabers.

TD: Jacen was captured by the Yuuzhan Vong and brainwashed by Vergere, so he's been through a lot that wasn't his parents' doing. Ultimately, though, the only person responsible for what Jacen has become is Jacen himself.

KT: Right. I agree that his experiences of the Vong with Vergere did freak him, and distorted his perspective on his own fallibility. But Jacen is actually just a very smart guy with an excessively high opinion of himself. Like so many of those in power, especially the most able, he edges toward the bad stuff a slice at a time, and it's all too easily done, all too easy to self-justify. He doesn't start out psychiatrically iffy, but power corrupts and also warps, and there's no doubt that power can seriously unhinge people. But there's no inevitability about any of it: many, many people who undergo terrible trauma and nightmarish family lives don't end up being conniving killers, and sometimes, despite their best efforts, the most decent, responsible parents produce appalling brats. In the end, the only person responsible for what we do is ourselves.

RH: How did you decide the order in which you would write the novels of the Legacy sequence?

AA: Our editors, Shelly Shapiro of Del Rey and Sue Ros-toni of Lucas Licensing, decided that.

RH: How involved are Sue and Shelly? And how do the roles of these two editors differ?

AA: They're really involved, very aware of everything going on with the series. And their roles do differ. Shelly is a bit more focused on the writing merits of the novels, the coordination between the writers, the internal logic of the storylines outside the context of the Expanded Universe. Sue is a bit more focused on continuity, on the needs of Lucasfilm, on the meeting of fan expectations and fidelity to the characters. But if these different responsibilities ever put them at odds, well, they've never let me see it.

KT: It doesn't matter in how much detail you plan (we do forty-page outlines for each book) and how much you talk to your fellow authors, you can't possibly know everything that the other guys are doing. That's why we need Sue and Shelly. Having two people with a more detached overview, and who aren't writing it and so can see the wood for the trees, is crucial.

TD: They're the grease that gets things moving, and the glue that holds things together. They probably work the hardest to make sure that all the minor-but-inevitable differences of interpretation in our initial story notes get ironed out. It would be hard to overemphasize their role in the series.

RH: How often do you three talk? And do you communicate mainly by phone? E-mail?

KT: E-mail. I'm in the UK in a wholly different time zone, so phone calls aren't convenient, and I like things in a retrievable, checkable format anyway. We have spurts of communication and then go silent for weeks. The books have to be written, after all.

RH: What do you do when disagreements come up?

TD: Luckily, we share a brain, so we all agree. But seriously, it hasn't been a problem.

KT: Everyone's focused on what's best for the series, not individual interests.

RH: How has your understanding of the light and dark sides of the Force changed in the course of writing these books?

KT: Not so much the Force as the nature of Force users. It strikes me as more and more sectarian every day. As Boba says, it's a small religious schismatic war within a tiny unelected elite that drags in trillions of folk. The reader obviously sees most of Star Wars with a heavy Jedi perspective, but I'd bet that the average galactic citizen knows no more about the Jedi Council and what it gets up to than most folk in the real world know about the World Bank.

TD: I've always felt that when Yoda taught Luke about the light and dark sides, he was talking about the light and dark sides within ourselves, not in the Force itself.

RH: The Jedi of Yoda's day believed that romantic and family relationships between Jedi could only lead to disaster. Hasn't that view been pretty well borne out by the history of Darth Vader and his children and grandchildren?

AA: I think that the Republic-era Jedi belief that attachment leads to disaster is on-target, but I hope we're going to show that not all love matches constitute that sort of attachment. My belief is that any number of Jedi could marry and have kids without invoking tragedy. I think part of the problem is that the Skywalker family is as important as, and about as lucky as, the house of Atreus from Greek mythology. That is to say, they're very important.... but not very lucky.

KT: No, I'm inclined to think Yoda got it right. Jedi shouldn't be allowed to have families. These people are superweapons, and once they lose the ability to detach- however much moral decline that so-called detachment got them into in the late Republic-then their family feuds will end up dragging in the whole galaxy. The Legacy of the Force saga is basically a family spat involving an ex or two that creates galactic war. Do they see the irony? I don't know. But like all people with vast power and a sense of dynastic entitlement, they take their eye off the ball and-whatever they think they're doing- make decisions based on what's good for the people they love, not for the majority. They're only human. Trouble is, their powers and their influence aren't....

TD: Let's not forget that a lot of good came from Anakin Skywalker's line: Luke, Leia, Anakin Solo, Jaina.... We'll have to see about Ben, but even Jacen was responsible for ending the Yuuzhan Vong war.

RH: Each of you is known for creating or enhancing a specific character: Allston-Wedge Antilles; Traviss-Boba Fett; Denning-Alema Rar. It must be a blast to be able to weave them all into Legacy's multi-book tapestry! Are they your favorite characters to write?

TD: I enjoy writing most characters. If I can get inside their heads and really understand what they want and what they're willing to do to get it, then I can connect with them on a subconscious level, and they just come alive inside my head. When that happens, whatever character I'm writing at the moment becomes my favorite.

AA: Wedge is my favorite character, true. I've said in other interviews that he interests me because he's an ethical killer. The killer part isn't that interesting-from that perspective, he's a guy who always has a means, a motive, and an opportunity. No, it's the ethics that are interesting, his struggle to make each choice to kill a correct one, one that will not lead those he commands or inspires down some slippery slope. Like the one Jacen is following, for example.

But I enjoy writing a lot of the characters, and I find it creepily easy to slip into Jacen's mindset when writing him. We're not so very different, he and I. Except he's better-looking and has superpowers and is even more evil.

KT: I love writing Boba, and expanding his hideously dysfunctional family and his total alienation from his own culture was right up my street. (And inevitable-I find it amazing that the man is even sane, given his upbringing.) He's incredibly complex, and that means there are plenty of stories to tell about him. But I enjoyed crazy Alema and Lumiya too-it was fascinating to write the scene with them together in Sacrifice, especially at how differently they handle disfigurement. I like the challenge of getting into characters I don't know all that well. I think the one I really savored writing was Admiral Niathal, though-no idea why, but when a "hawkish" Mon Cal admiral was mentioned in Aaron's outline for Betrayal, I was captivated by the idea and she just rolled out onto the page.

And, sick as it sounds, I enjoyed writing Jacen. I feel better knowing that all those years I spent working with politicians actually came in useful.

RH: Lumiya first appeared in the Star Wars comic books, then made the jump over into novels. Whose idea was it to bring her back for this series? How closely integrated into the official Star Wars universe is all the old comicbook material? My impression is that in those early days, there was a lot less attention paid to timeline continuity and so forth.

AA: Prior to Lumiya being chosen, we had a character role, Jacen's Sith mentor, who was referred to only as "the wizard." At some point, someone had the idea to make Lumiya into the wizard, and she was a really good fit.

KT: I think it was Sue Rostoni's idea, actually.

AA: Lumiya's presence doesn't mean that every event from the comics can be considered a part of the current EU continuity, however. It just won't all fit.

KT: Continuity is always a challenge in a thirty-year-old franchise, but as long as people stay sensible about it, recognize the constraints and that it won't ever be perfect, and treat it as fiction and not a religion, then we can all have fun. When the continuity matters more than the stories and themes, the saga will be over.

RH: I know you can't give away any spoilers, but maybe some hints about what may lie ahead in the remaining books of the Legacy series?

AA: Hints without spoilers? That's tricky. How about this: "There will be pages. Lots and lots of pages. Most of them will have letters on them, and the vast majority of those letters will be in the Roman alphabet." Aah. Now I feel better.

TD: You'll definitely see some grand space battles and classic lightsaber duels.

KT: Boba doesn't grow a heart of gold.... I can tell you that.

RH: In addition to Star Wars, each of you also has his or her own projects. How do you keep the balance?

AA: By working all the time!

KT: I split my time 50/50 over the year between tie-in work and my own copyright novels. I'm pretty dull-I'm a business, and I run on spreadsheets.

TD: I tend to work like crazy on one project, then come up for air and dive into the next one. I've heard of writers who work on two-or even three-books at once. I can't imagine how-when I'm in the middle of a project, I have a hard time thinking about anything else. Phones go unanswered, the mail stacks up, my hair gets long...

RH: Troy, you look good with long hair! Thanks to all three of you for taking the time to answer my questions with such patience and good humor-may the Force continue to be with you!

"You make us sound like a hit squad."

Cause you are a hit squad you Mara killing bastids

Wow talk about keeping up appearances, everyone knows KT sabotaged half of the ongoing books at the time.

She would routinely make small edits and hand in her books so late that Lucas Publishing had no choice to pass it despite the content.

She isn't roundly hated only because of Mara Jade, the amount of Jaina ployholes she created were clearly absent of any research.

No, she's hated because she said people who like Jedi are Nazi supporters.

That's just a few cards shy of a deck.

Believing the Gestapo told people to kill puppies? I buy that. Buying a Sith Sacrifice is the same as a puppy killing? I'll buy that too.

But what do JEDI have to do with Nazis?

The clones are a slave race in her eyes. That the Jedi help perpetuate.

...The clones were created by Palpatine (and Dooku, and to an extent, Jango Fett) for his exclusive use. And having a slave race is entirely in Sidious's character. As is the racism he also had.

It's just one more of those things the Jedi kinda missed in their general 'damn, why can't we figure out who this Sith Lord guy is...'

The Jedi still signed off on it and used them in the war as disposable soldiers. That makes them irredeemable bastards who are totally worse than payed murderers and a race of people who declared war on everyone else because "shit be fun yo" and almost genocided entire species and bombed hospitals.

To be fair, that bit the jedi in the ass when Order 66 came around. For most of them, signing off on that nonsense was their last mistake.

But even so, the Jedi were, in general, very kind to their clone troopers. There's a story or two about jedi even forming attachments with them. The jedi did their best (with battle meditation, mostly) to keep their clone troopers alive and healthy.

Originally posted by Angelalex242
But even so, the Jedi were, in general, very kind to their clone troopers. There's a story or two about jedi even forming attachments with them. The jedi did their best (with battle meditation, mostly) to keep their clone troopers alive and healthy. Exactly.
Pretty much all Jedi respected the troops under their command and cared for them.

Yes. Compassion is a HUGE thing for Jedi. It was, in general, too late for the jedi to stop the clone army from being built, so they tried to be as nice as possible to the already existing clones. Obi Wan found them on Geonosis in Ep 2, but it was really too late by then. And before that, Dooku deleted the relevant planet from the temple archives.

"Lost a planet, Master Obi Wan has. How embarassing."

Originally posted by |King Joker|
Exactly.
Pretty much all Jedi respected the troops under their command and cared for them.

Yeah, that is of course, unless we're talking about Pong Krell

Was thinking the same thing LOL.

He doesn't count, lol.

Well, every organization has a bad apple. Can't be helped.

At least he didn't sacrifice the lives of thousands of soldiers in a greater display of terror then his enemies ever did...
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