Before I delve into commenting on James Luceno's two Agents of Chaos novels, Hero's Trial and Jedi Eclipse, I must delve into a little heresy: speaking about "Star Trek" on a Star Wars blog.

Since I left the United States for the Middle East in mid-July, I've been watching "Star Trek: Voyager." I thought ahead to what I'd do on my downtime (when I'm not reading Star Wars novels) and figured I'd give this series a try. Mind you, I'm a huge fan of the original "Star Trek" series as well as "The Next Generation." I also grew to love "Deep Space Nine." But I never did get into "Voyager" for some reason. But having just finished watching the first three seasons, I can't seem to stop watching it. But I digress ...

"The Scorpion," a two-part cliffhanger of "Voyager" which aired in 1997 as a bridge between the third and fourth seasons, featured an interesting unnamed alien species more powerful than the Borg. Strangely enough, Species 8472 (as the Borg designated them) have a lot in common with the Yuuzhan Vong, so much so that I wonder if they served as an inspiration for the Vong. Species 8472 is extra-galactic, merciless in their desire for conquest, view the species of our galaxy as impure and in need of purging, and sport "organic spacecraft and a biogenically engineered weapons technology."

The fact that the episode aired about the same time the Lucasfilm folks would have begun plotting out the NJO series makes the possibility of a connection highly likely. Then again, I've been known to be wrong ... from time to time.

PS - Screw the old Star Destroyer vs. USS Enterprise arguments. I'd like to conjure up a discussion on the Yuuzhan Vong vs. Species 8472!