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ALL the Lost Tribe stories — and a new novella — in the new collected edition!
Star Wars: Lost Tribe of the Sith
Part 6: Sentinel
The sixth part of a companion eBook series to the Fate of the Jedi novel line, this story is now only available in the collected edition, in print and eBook form. Click here to find it at online retailers.
The original eBook included a preview of Aaron Allston's novel. Fate of the Jedi: Conviction.As with all my "production notes," consider a Spoiler Warning attached. Please read the story first.
The idea of a Jedi/Sith romance may seem unthinkable on its merits.
Impossible, right? Yes, and no. The philosophies may be antithetical,
but people are more than the collections of beliefs they adhere to —
and few are perfect in their adherence. In reality, we’d find some Jedi
following to the rules better than others — and we’d find all of
the Sith interpreting teachings in their own ways, just on general
principle.
Would purists even survive their first conversation? Almost certainly
not — the tension between Jedi selflessness and Sith utilitarianism
would end most blind dates pretty quickly. But Ori is not a very good
Sith and Jelph is not a very good Jedi, and the story knows that. And
now more than any other time, they’re questioning the paths they were
on in their previous lives.
While there were story reasons for not dwelling on the aftermath of the fall of the Covenant during the Knights of the Old Republic comics
series, I had always felt there was more to say someplace. Lucien may
have been duped by Haazen, but the footsoldiers in the Covenant might
not have found that out at all. There would still be believers out
there, wondering what the heck had happened: Jelph was one. And yet,
the sectarian divisions in the Jedi Order must have contributed to the
Jedi Civil War. By setting the story as we did, Jelph was allowed to
fast-forward and see the bitter fruits of those divisions.
On Ori’s side of the equation, we already know what a raw deal it is to
follow the Sith ways on Kesh; Jelph puts a fine point on it for her in
this story. They can’t all win. And we hear what the Sith know about
the Jedi now: not much, and not much that’s accurate. They’re the
boogeymen. But the reference to the Republic being a tool of the Jedi
hits close to home, given how Jelph’s organization was playing the
Republic.
It all adds up to both Ori and Jelph feeling freed from their past
allegiances; each cut off from their former communities, they’re able
to find a third way. Are they kidding themselves that they can exist on
their own? Maybe. But Purgatory/Sentinel
provides some momentary hope in the middle of what is a fairly dark
series — and perhaps false hope is the best you can get on Kesh.
And going back to our elemental themes, we get the power of manure for
real in this episode: Jelph, as an offworlder, has an understanding of
chemistry and how to make explosives from fertilizer. There wasn’t any
way Jelph wasn’t going to booby-trap his strikefighter — but what he’s
built here is a heck of a Lojack!
TRIVIA
- It was tempting to make Jelph’s lightsaber yellow, given the name of this story and the connection between the Sentinels of the game and yellow lightsabers. But a blue lightsaber made for a better contrast with the red ones that Ori had known, and I thought of him as starting out much more in Lucien’s Guardian role.
- We don’t hear a lot about bad weather on Kesh, but it clearly rains a lot in the jungle uplands. We hear about “monsoon rains” in this episode.
- I love that the Sith hauled all the animals out of the zoo and killed them for sport. Not much of a tourism bureau in Tahv…
- I’ve written combats in a number of different settings, but the elevated-aqueduct fight is one I’d love to see drawn or otherwise depicted some day.
- Jelph’s macrobinoculars were another high-tech artifact that wouldn’t survive for the Sith to find them. (Fortunately, the Keshiri are pretty good at optical devices, given their work with glass.)
- “The Confidence of the Dead End” is something that comes back again in Sentinel, when the entire area at the end of the road falls in after the bomb goes off.
- We don’t learn who the admiral was that Jelph heard the warning from. But it’s clear what’s going on, back home.
- One of the more fun Wookieepedia entries focuses on the Unidentfied Keshiri Bartender that serves Jelph. When I did revisions on the story for the prose collection, I thought seriously about giving the dude a name — but why spoil the fun?
