Fall of the Sith Empire

Review by me, “No one”

Star Wars Fall of the Sith Empire
By Kevin J Anderson
5000 BBY


Synopsis:

Naga Sadow prepares to lead his Sith forces into Republic space to achieve the Sith dream of galactic conquest! Meanwhile, Jori Daragon makes her way back to warn the Republic and Empress Teta of the impending doom. But doing the right thing for once won’t be easy, to do so she must avoid arrest for the list of crimes she committed before leaving Cinnagar. Before beginning the battle, Sadow makes preparations for war (see Star Wars Crosscurrent also) by rallying the Sith Empire to his cause, and training Gav Daragon in the ways of the Sith.

Sadow leads his banner across several Republic worlds unleashing the horrors of war, enhanced by his use of a meditation sphere and Sith Battle meditation. Several Jedi aid the Rpublic’s defenses but even that is barely sufficient. Luckily an embittered Gav Daragon has seen the error of his ways and disrupts Sadow’s meditation, turning the tide of battle in favor of the Republic.

As the Sith forces are in retreat, Naga Sadow flees to Yavin Four, where he bides his time and begins constructing some mysterious temples. Jav Daragon rebuilds her life by starting a repair shop in honor of her fallen friend Aarrba the Hutt’s name.



Review:

This one was a lot better than the first half of Golden Age of the Sith, and about the same as pt2 of the same story. For one, the art as a whole was better, Dario Carrasco Jr.’s pencils be thanked for this. Though overall the art was better, I still don’t care for most of the fashion of this era. I don’t exactly get what they were going for. It looks kind of Roman, but kind of Egyptian, and pretty raggedy.

Despite the fact that Fall was better than Golden Age in parts, I still get a feeling that it’s more or less just a Tales of the Jedi potboiler. I don’t know why. Outside of Odan Urr and Yavin Four, there’s not much that connects this to later TOTJ stories. I guess those two are fairly critical to TOTJ but still. There are connections to later stories with Korriban, ZIost and the meditation spheres, but those are fairly recently. More like they’re going back here to make this seem like less of a potboiler by taking a few good things.

It was also cool to see the ancient Coruscant. Even 5000 years before the movies, the senate hall exterior looked somewhat familiar.

Storywise, the action was a lot better, though kind of messy. There was a lot of battles being fought and it was a bit overwhelming having that many battlefronts. Coruscant, Kirrek, Cinnagar come to mind, though there may have been more.

There are a few events which I would like to point out. The first is the parallel to Order 66. Naga Sadow has the Massassi slaves kill the commanding Sith lords on each ship. It seems the Sith seem to reuse some of their strategies. At least they waited 5000 years.

We also we here Odan Urr’s passion for old knowledge has a twofold part to play. One, he creates the library of Ossus. And Two, he has the Sith Holocron that will ultimately lead to Exar Kun’s reign of terror. Regarding Ossus, I realize that there are thousands of years between TOTJ and the prequels, but wouldn’t the prequel era Jedi have known about Ossus? I guess we’ll find out more once we get further into the TOTJ.

Another key thing that appears is the Sith Meditation sphere ship. It’s good to see it in use so that’s easier to visualize in the Legacy of the Force series. Though it brings up the question, would a starship still function after 5000 years?

Not much else to say regarding the review as it’s a comic and kind of hard to review the way a novel is. Not say that it’s less of a story, it’s just easier to critique a 300 page novel than 50-100 page comic. Also, 5000 years BBY is not exactly my favorite era. Even the old TOTJ series isn’t that good until Dark Lords of the Sith. Though that is the case, I have more to say about it. TOTJ was more exciting for me because there was more anticipation. Maybe it’s my attitude, or the fact that I’ve grown, but I’ve always had a hard time getting into Golden Age and Fall.

Overall this one wasn’t bad, but certainly not essential reading, sorry KJA. I guess it was good to read this, and Golden Age once, but once you know the essentials it’s OK to put that in the back of your mind and let it just have a pleasant rest as just back story. I’d say the biggest take away would be that Naga Sadow basically was a true Sith, he tried to achieve his goals and failed miserably because he didn’t have a decent plan. He was no Palpatine. The other thing to take away from this is that the Sith had some downright dangerous knowledge, but most of them didn’t seem to know how to use most of it. It wasn’t until Exar Kun and Darth Revan that the Sith started becoming more dangerous. They seem to have uncovered and built upon the knowledge that these Sith forgot.