Howdy folks! At last, here is the third of four installments continuing the rundown of the various sources that contributed to the telling of The Story of General Grievous. Part 1 and Part 2 delved into droid general's origins developed exclusively for Star Wars Insider #86. Now in Part 3 we begin the examination of the Hyperspace supplement to Grievous' story, Lord of War--exploring the war psychology of the fearsome Separatist commander, his droid army, and closest allies.

So let's rock 'n' roll!


Introduction

The introduction largely summarizes the events related in its primary companion, "Unknown Soldier: The Story of General Grievous" in Star Wars Insider #86 (2006, IDG Entertainment), but there are a few new tidbits even here. Grievous' "burgeoning racism" is a reference to the attitude he displays toward other species, such as the Wookiees who he calls "filthy simians" in the Visionaries story "Deep Forest" (2005, Dark Horse Comics) and the Ugnaughts who he calls "miserable creatures" and enslaves in General Grievous #2 (2005, Dark Horse Comics). The ancient despot Xim to whom Grievous is likened is from the novel Han Solo and the Lost Legacy (1980, Del Rey), though the galactic warlord Zakrinand Minus is a new creation.

The cyborg's merciless treatment of his Neimoidian subordinates is seen in the Revenge of the Sith novelization (2005, Del Rey). In conjunction with the previous statements of Grievous' bigotry, this rhetoric is used to emphasize later in the article that once the former Kaleesh warlord becomes a cyborg, his intolerance straddles the line from racism to something like a generalized organicism. Life sucks when you get turned into a robot.

Grievous' Droid Army
That the Separatist military comprised the largest robotic army in galactic history is a fact that comes from the Visionaries story, "The Eyes of Revolution" (2005, Dark Horse Comics). The astronomical number of battle droids under Grievous' command comes from the Revenge of the Sith Incredible Cross-Sections (2005, Dorling-Kindersley), while the ultra computer language trinary comes from the book New Jedi Order: Force Heretic III--Reunion (2003, Del Rey).

Because the droid army statistic of "quintillions" made the ratio of Separatist droid forces to Republic clone soldiers (at a mere three million) something that would make even a Han Solo consider the odds (at least 600 billion to 1), "Lord of War" offers some perspective with the help of some Lucasfilm sources. With Lucasfilm adamant about retaining a clone army figure close to the low millions mark (a reference to a potentially much larger figure from Inside the Worlds of Episode II was rejected), some out-of-the-box thinking seemed in order. "Lord of War" points out that a number of these quintillions made up not only the ground forces of the Separatists but their naval forces as well. Combined with reference to a line in the New Essential Chronology (2005, Del Rey), which briefly mentions that the Republic army recruited non-clones, enough wiggle room emerges to bring into question A) The numerical division of Grievous' "droid army" into army and navy, B) How many Separatist "vehicles," many of them actually droids themselves, figured into the size of the droid army, C) How big the Republic army was beyond their clone forces, and D) How big the Republic navy was beyond their clone forces.

As an alternate solution, the short story "Odds" in Star Wars Insider #87 (2006, IDG Entertainment) tells of a pair of clone troopers who splice into the computer system of a Separatist droid factory, seemingly revealing to them that production of battle droids is in the hundred millions range rather than the quadrillions (or quintillions, as it were). These solutions are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Because the very theme of "Odds" is the prevalence of disinformation, the contrary discovery of its characters about the "true" quantity of battle droids can be taken at face value, or it can be interpreted ironically--this lower figure was perhaps planted by Count Dooku or Darth Sidious for the clone troopers to find, serving the Siths' own convoluted agendas. The fact that the droid number comes up as quadrillions rather than quintillions may even be considered evidence of this.

The Mandalorian Protectors' assault on the Kamino cloning facilities is a reference to the Second Battle of Kamino from "History of the Mandalorians" in Star Wars Insider #80 (2005, IDG Entertainment). Kaleesh tokin crabs are a new creation (inspired by one of my earliest memories tossing rocks with my father at small crustaceans on the beaches of Hawaii). The reference to hundreds of millions of battle droids in action in the Battle of Coruscant is a nod to the hyperbolic numbers of warbots invading the galactic capitol in the Clone Wars cartoon series, Chapters 22-25 (2005, Cartoon Network). The deadly Loedorvian Brain Plague was introduced in the Revenge of the Sith: Incredible Cross-Sections (2005, Dorling Kindersley).


Comrades

Ronderu lij Ku mmar
The character Ronderu lij Ku mmar was introduced in "Unknown Soldier: The Story of General Grievous" in Star Wars Insider #86 (2006, IDG Entertainment), though most of the specifics of her origin are told here for the first time, including the meaning of her name and the special nature of her connection to Grievous. Part of Grievous' original name, Sheelal, is revealed here as derived from an ancient Kaleesh parable about a dreamer who realizes he himself is a dream; this is an old philosophical motif most popularly suggested by Western philosopher René Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy and Eastern Taoist Chuang Tzu's dream of the butterfly.

The Izvoshra Khans (Grievous' Elite)
Mention of Grievous' Kaleesh elite was first made in the novel Labyrinth of Evil (2005, Del Rey), though their Kaleesh title, their duties, and make-up are all new. Their deaths aboard Grievous' shuttle The Martyr (a different vessel than his starfighter in Revenge of the Sith) is an interpolation of the events seen in "The Eyes of Revolution" in Visionaries (2005, Dark Horse Comics). The name of Grievous' ship is new.

The Battle Legionnaire droid first appeared in the Droids cartoon series (1985, Nelvana) and had its background expanded in "The History of the Mandalorians" in Star Wars Insider #80 (2005, IDG Entertainment) and The New Essential Guide to Droids (2006, Del Rey).

IG-138 refers to a particular MagnaGuard seen in the comic "The Eyes of Revolution" in Visionaries (2005, Dark Horse Comics): after Grievous pummels this droid in a duel, the malfunctioning warbot exclaims, "What's wrong? What's wrong? What's wrong?"--an homage to George Lucas' first feature film THX 1138. IG-109 appears in one of the illustrations for "Unknown Soldier: The Story of General Grievous" in Star Wars Insider #86 (2006, IDG Entertainment), named in the corresponding caption. Meanwhile, IG-101, who is named in the Revenge of the Sith novelization (2005, Del Rey), is said here to have been "terminated" aboard the ship Invisible Hand, a tongue-in-cheek reference to the Terminator movies' "Cyberdyne Systems Model-101" killer robots.

Grand Moff For-Atesee is an IG-series assassin droid from the book Star Wars Missions: Prisoner of the Nikto Pirates (1998, Scholastic), while IG-72 made his debut in the classic roleplaying game module Tatooine Manhunt (1988, West End Games). Finally, the Iron Knight Luxum was introduced in the in-universe essay, Droids, Technology and the Force: A Clash of Phenomena (2005, StarWars.com). ~ Abel G. Peña

Continue onto the grand finale: Endnotes for The Story of General Grievous, Part 4: Lord of Worlds and War!


BLOG INDEX

MYSPACE PROFILE