<\/div>Cordova’s logic makes no sense. “The Zeffo drew a picture of Wookiee trees on their temple, therefore a Wookiee chieftain must know all about Zeffo treasure that was hidden thousands of years ago!” That’s a complete non-sequitur. I once drew a picture of the Arc de Triomphe<\/a>, but that doesn’t mean French president Emmanuel Macron knows where I keep my prized comic book collection. <\/p>\n Also, I’m confused on the timeline here. As far as I can tell, he had a premonition of some vague coming doom. So he took this holocron of all known Jedi prospects. Then he decided to spend years(?) studying the Zeffo, while recording little travel vlogs for some unknown person in the future, addressing them as “My friend.” Then he hid the holocron and encrypted the memory of his droid so the droid could accompany this unknown person on this pilgrimage and play his vlogs back to them. And then if the pilgrim views enough of the vlogs, they’ll learn the location of the Astrum you need to access the Holocron?<\/p>\n It’s clear from the recordings that Cordova didn’t know if he’d find an Astrum on his journey. He recorded all of these vlogs, expecting us to follow in his footsteps. But he doesn’t know where he’s going to end up. He didn’t have an Astrum yet. Did he know ahead of time he’d be able to use it to hide the holocron?<\/p>\n I don’t know. I feel like this plot has more moving parts than is needed to justify the “Go to tomb, solve puzzle, get plot coupon<\/a>” story we’re doing here.<\/p>\n Whatever. We don’t have enough information to properly diagnose Cordova’s obvious drug problem, so all we can do is move on and hope for the best. We can go to the Wookiee homeworld of Kashyyyk, or we can go to DathomirOnce again, this is a false choice. Dathomir is still a dead end.<\/span>. I’m going to head to Kashyyyk next.<\/p>\n We’re headed for Kashyyyk, the Wookiee homeworld, which is lead by Tarfful and is famously the homeworld of Chewbacca. Did George Lucas spill Fanta<\/a> in his keyboard just before he wrote this stuffOf course not. He hand-wrote it and someone else typed it on a typewriter. It was the mid 70s, and word processing on personal computers was still a ways off.<\/span>? I mean, was it really necessary to have three<\/strong> consecutive Y’s in Kashyyyk? <\/p>\n As we arrive, we discover that (surprise!) the Empire is attacking the planet. We get a little set-piece where we climb all over an AT-AT<\/a>, get inside, take control, and then have an on-rails vehicle section where we blow stuff up.\u00a0<\/p>\n It’s… fine. I’m not super-happy when a game takes away the strong, polished, interesting central mechanics the game is built on and replaces it with some shallow disposable vehicle crap, but this AT-AT sequence is actually fairly short. The whole thing feels like a corporate mandated vehicle section, but at least it doesn’t overstay its welcome. And climbing around on the AT-AT was pretty cool.<\/p>\n We meet up with Saw Gerrera, who you might remember as Forest Whitaker’s character from Rogue One<\/a>. In the Star Wars timeline, Rogue One<\/i> ends just a few hours before the opening scene of A New Hope<\/i>. This game takes place in the years between the Prequel Trilogy and the Original Trilogy, so we’re meeting a slightly younger, less unhinged version of the character.<\/p>\n Gerrera explains that the Empire is here to “steal the planet’s resources”. If that’s not dumb enough, they’re also capturing Wookiees for some reason???<\/p>\n This actually got a laugh out of me. Kashyyyk is one huge forest. What is the Empire here to steal? The TREES? Are they planning on building the Death Star out of wood? And who in their right mind would endure the expense, hassle, and extreme danger of enslaving a Wookiee in a universe where droids exist?<\/p>\n Of course, none of this is new. This Wookiee-enslaving and planet-plundering business goes way<\/b> back in Star Wars lore. It’s never made any sense to me. Maybe one of the Extended Universe books lays the groundwork for this, but in every story I’ve seen it’s always just this nonsensical battle by cartoon villains who don’t seem to be getting anything out of subjugating the Wookiees.\u00a0<\/p>\n But then Gerrera explains that the Empire is here extracting sap from the trees, which has some useful properties that he doesn’t elaborate on.<\/p>\n Hey… you know, I like<\/b> that idea.<\/p>\n The sap gives the Empire a reason to want this place, which is more than Lucas could be bothered to do in Revenge of the Sith<\/i>KOTOR suffered from the same problem.<\/span>. Back in RotS, the only reason Kashyyyk was seen as a critical strategic location was because that’s where Chewbacca is from and the audience likes Chewbacca. But now we have a reason for people to fight over this huge untamed forest. Of course the Wookiees would take exception to this sap-harvesting, which creates the cool guerrilla warfare situation we see now.\u00a0<\/p>\n Using this information, we can extrapolate even further and come up with some reasons for taking Wookiee prisoners rather than just mowing them down. In this game, the Wookiee prisoners aren’t here to serve as a dangerously disloyal slave workforce. They’re just in cages. Those cages are positioned within the Empire’s various extraction facilities. The game doesn’t go out of its way to point this out, but it’s clear that the Wookiee prisoners function as hostages. The guerrillas can’t just blow up these facilities unless they’re willing to murder hundreds of their friends. This obliges them to come out of the jungle and assault the facilities directly, which is a much more comfortable fight for the entrenched and fortified Imperial Troops.<\/p>\n I’ve said before that Star Wars is drama first, not details first<\/a>, but this one little detail justifies this entire conflict and even retroactively makes earlier depictions of Kashyyyk less dumb. Even in a drama-first universe, it really is worth the time to fill in little details like this.\u00a0<\/p>\nKashyyyk<\/h3>\n
<\/div>Saw Gerrera<\/h3>\n
<\/div>Free the Trees!<\/h3>\n
<\/div>The Traveling Jedi Problem<\/h3>\n
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