Opinion on the Yuuzhan Vong?

[Pentastar Enforcer]

Personally, I've always disliked the idea of the Yuuzhan Vong, what with their living ships and moving planets and things, not to mention their immunity to the force (correct me if I'm wrong) and just this whole idea that this inter-galactic species comes out of deep space on space plants and manages to devastate the galaxy in a period of 5 years is just too much for me.

How they just easily slaughtered everything and how they were in the EU just really didn't feel like Star Wars. I was okay with the Killiks because they fit more, but these guys are just beyond over the top in my personal opinion. I stopped reading the books after these guys showed up because it just got so far fetched for me, but what's your opinion on these Galactic Conquerors? Are they worthy to be within the world of Star Wars or not?

(the Xenophobia thing was already covered by the Yevetha too, which I thought were more interesting as well)

[Corey]

Writing on my phone, so may be a little scattered:

From a purely content perspective as far as the Yuuzhan Vong Empire, I think they're decent. Not the best, but decent. They're certainly more well-developed and even less one dimensional than most groups, the later into the NJO you go and the more you learn about their culture, and more importantly dissent within it. Biotech is definitely an interesting thing, and I don't have any real problems with how it was used; mass manipulation as a propulsion mechanism isn't any worse than any other tech in Star Wars. The stuff that chased them out of their galaxy is absolute crap, though.

Pretty much every post I've done in this subforum says this, but I've always felt the NJO series was the overall best arc in Star Wars, mostly because there was actually some emotional depth to it; decisions and actions stuck. Everything previous to that had just been about different Warlords doing weird stuff and the heroes always coming in to save the day without any real challenge, nobody learned anything, nobody lost anything, and nobody ever had to reflect on why they did what they did. Sure, the Vong were clearly the bad guys, but the situations they put the galaxy in had actual impacts. You started to see all the different groups in the galaxy react to a single threat, and interact with each other in the context of that. It also prompted what in my mind was the logical conclusion of the Rebellion by re-uniting the "Empire" in the Galactic Alliance. The exception to this being that the remainder of the invasion force just piled onto a single planet and flew off at the end. That was dumb. Altogether though, it's the best series to tie together all of Star Wars, from KotOR to LotF, and it broke Star Wars out of a somewhat stale mold. Jacen Solo is by far my favourite Star Wars character, because he pretty much embodied this.

[Pentastar Enforcer]

I do agree that the Empire and Rebellion uniting against a single threat thing was pretty awesome, and it was an enjoyable part of it though. I just don't like how they're immune to force powers, have their own force powers thing (Vong sense or something) I just don't like the sense of being able to use plants/animals as star ships, and I feel like the 'Ultimate Bad guy role' could have been played by someone else. (Perhaps the Sith or something like they're trying to do in the new movies? I heard rumors that the Empire and Rebel Alliance might unite in the end against this new Sith Empire or something like in the Legacy era)

I also don't like the story of the Vongs' original galaxy, weren't there like Transformers and floating eyeballs or something there that fought in a huge war?

I mean I can see why they scrapped the EU, as good as it was, it was really messy and had a lot of weird stuff in it, good for people like us but too far fetched for an average Star Wars fan, I guess..

[Vulcanus]

From a purely content perspective as far as the Yuuzhan Vong Empire, I think they're decent. Not the best, but decent. They're certainly more well-developed and even less one dimensional than most groups, the later into the NJO you go and the more you learn about their culture, and more importantly dissent within it. Biotech is definitely an interesting thing, and I don't have any real problems with how it was used; mass manipulation as a propulsion mechanism isn't any worse than any other tech in Star Wars. The stuff that chased them out of their galaxy is absolute crap, though.

Pretty much every post I've done in this subforum says this, but I've always felt the NJO series was the overall best arc in Star Wars, mostly because there was actually some emotional depth to it; decisions and actions stuck. Everything previous to that had just been about different Warlords doing weird stuff and the heroes always coming in to save the day without any real challenge, nobody learned anything, nobody lost anything, and nobody ever had to reflect on why they did what they did. Sure, the Vong were clearly the bad guys, but the situations they put the galaxy in had actual impacts. You started to see all the different groups in the galaxy react to a single threat, and interact with each other in the context of that. It also prompted what in my mind was the logical conclusion of the Rebellion by re-uniting the "Empire" in the Galactic Alliance. The exception to this being that the remainder of the invasion force just piled onto a single planet and flew off at the end. That was dumb. Altogether though, it's the best series to tie together all of Star Wars, from KotOR to LotF, and it broke Star Wars out of a somewhat stale mold. Jacen Solo is by far my favourite Star Wars character, because he pretty much embodied this.

Quoting this because this was beautifully written and very much resonates with my own thoughts on the subject, even if I still like the post-ROTJ Warlords of the week just as much, mainly because the first novel I ever read was the combined Thrawn trilogy followed by the JA trilogy.

Legacy could have been equal to or better than the NJO series if there had been any novels to expand on the comics and they had bothered to give the first volume more time to come to a less rushed conclusion than the six-issue War was. So much wasted character potential there that could have been explored in multiple novels.

[Pali]

If you dislike the idea of organic tech in general, which is far from a new idea in sci-fi, then yeah, the Vong will give you some issues - there's not much that can be done to help you there, except perhaps point out that it was one of the very, very rare moments in Star Wars where both sides weren't just using the same toys (ships have different designs, but they're all still using pretty much the same tech).  I liked how the early NJO books emphasized the newness of Vong tech and how off-guard it tended to catch everyone, because they're all used to fighting enemies with ships that work the same way their own ships work, and the slow evolution of new tactics and technologies until a degree of parity was built.

As for the Vong being Force-immune... well, truthfully they're not really Force-immune (even something like an ysalamiri isn't).  They couldn't be directly sensed, sure, so grabbing a Vong in the Force or reading his intent to attack wasn't doable, but that hardly makes them immune to Force-hurled objects, or even Force lightning (a bit more imagination in Force use would've been nice, but that's a recurring peeve of mine that isn't unique to the NJO).  Again, I tended to like this - given that Jedi were guaranteed to be coming up in numbers, given that Sith vs Jedi is a storyline that has a thousand iterations already printed, given that droids tend to make boring characters... something that is fairly Force-resistant was about the only option left for challenging the Jedi, as normal people are hardly anything to them in a fight.  This meant that the Jedi, like everyone else, had to face an enemy that their traditional methods didn't equip them to fight, which meant there was an actual sense of threat regarding the fate of the Jedi in the storyline that is usually lacking.  However, the Jedi evolution is rather minimal compared to the general change in galactic affairs, which I view less as disappointing than as a missed opportunity; "The Force is One, so we can use a little bit of anger and emotion now instead of none at all" was pretty much the new thing for the Jedi, and it got rolled back almost instantly in the Swarm War.  More could've been done there.

Haven't read Vong stories outside the NJO, so I don't know much about their original galaxy - but yes, the explanations we were left with regarding it and the Vong departure/expulsion were rather thin and unfulfilling.

[Lord Xizer]

I think as far as character development goes the NJO had the best. You had time to evelop both the heroes and the villains. Nom Anor's personal development is one of the best all around in the EU, the Vong also handily beat the Heroes multiple times in ways that were both inventive and brutal. There was no magic fix(save for the ridiculous Deus Ex Machina at the end)
I was actually rooting for the Vong to take it to the rebels until they attacked MY Empire. After that I loved watching the united forces push the scarheads back.
Behind Enemy Lines I and II, Force Heretic I, II, III and Star by Star are some of the most moving and well written of the EU.

That being said I felt the Warlords could have been a lot darker and more moving if they had been allowed to follow the path the NJO did, but I love that time period. Zsinj, Thrawn, the Deep Core Warlords and the PA had a great place

[Slornie]

Personally, I've always disliked the idea of the Yuuzhan Vong, what with their living ships and moving planets and things, not to mention their immunity to the force (correct me if I'm wrong) and just this whole idea that this inter-galactic species comes out of deep space on space plants and manages to devastate the galaxy in a period of 5 years is just too much for me.

How they just easily slaughtered everything and how they were in the EU just really didn't feel like Star Wars. I was okay with the Killiks because they fit more, but these guys are just beyond over the top in my personal opinion. I stopped reading the books after these guys showed up because it just got so far fetched for me, but what's your opinion on these Galactic Conquerors? Are they worthy to be within the world of Star Wars or not?

See, for me it's the other way around.  I can't stand the Killiks and think the EU went downhill from the Dark Nest trilogy onwards (the Legacy of the Force novels were essentially just a rehash of the Clone Wars 60 years down the line).  The Yuuzhan Vong brought something inherently different to the table,  a threat that no-one (Rebels or Empire, Jedi or Sith) had come across before.  That and the long storyline really allowed for a great deal of depth to characters and events.

In terms of their technology - is that so different to Ship from Legacy of the Force, or any more unbelievable than the concept of the Force itself?  As for coming from another galaxy, wasn't that Outbound Flight's ultimate mission objective (albeit voluntarily not a forced exile)?

[Pentastar Enforcer]

Well, I gotta say you guys have certainly changed my view point on the whole situation. I never actually read the NJO series of books because I immediately thought the Yuuzhan Vong were ridiculous, and to an extent they still are, but you guys have brought a light to this for me, and I really appreciate it.

They did bring something quite different compared to the rest of Star Wars, and I like that, I just wish it wasn't SO odd, I like the whole idea of the galaxy uniting under one banner though.

I'd agree with Corey after what you guys have all said. I'll have to give the NJO series another chance then.

[tlmiller]

I agree with the general sentiment here.  Fairly well written, not as many plot bunnies as most books, no gross stupidity, and generally a good storyline with actual heroism.  And a stupid way to end it, but that was to be expected.

[CaptainPogo]

I thought the Yuuzhan Vong were decent. While suddenly a tad jarring due to how vastly different they were...I soon realize that made the NJO series very interesting. For one, this was growing into a conflict that wouldn't be solved in short time like all the other conflicts, and the way the Vong have fought in this war was drastically different (you just can't see the Empire or any Sith Lord of the past willing to kill up to the trillions for reasons that are utterly alien to others in terms of understanding) left impact on the entire galaxy thus no planet away from the conflict is truly safe.

The fact it left a lot of desperation from the heroes to salvage whatever they can to make any sort of counter attack left me rather interested in the get go.

Yeah, the ending was pretty dumb but I guess I can throw the heroes a bone since they took one heck of a beating that was mainly bleak for them most of the time.

[Pali]

The Vong could've done with a bit more character focus on a few of their own ranks, honestly.  I wish we'd gotten more of Czulkang Lah, Tsavong Lah's father - he was presented as being essentially the Garm bel Iblis of the Vong (pretty sure that's an explicit comparison in the books, now that I think about it), and while Tsavong got a lot more exposure, I felt his father was by far the more interesting character and would have served as a more imposing nemesis for the early NJO.  Nas Choka similarly didn't really get enough exposure, despite from all accounts also being a far superior strategist to Tsavong Lah and, minus plot bunnies, probably would've been able to win the Second Battle of Coruscant at the end of the war.

[Lord Xizer]

The Vong could've done with a bit more character focus on a few of their own ranks, honestly.  I wish we'd gotten more of Czulkang Lah, Tsavong Lah's father - he was presented as being essentially the Garm bel Iblis of the Vong (pretty sure that's an explicit comparison in the books, now that I think about it), and while Tsavong got a lot more exposure, I felt his father was by far the more interesting character and would have served as a more imposing nemesis for the early NJO.  Nas Choka similarly didn't really get enough exposure, despite from all accounts also being a far superior strategist to Tsavong Lah and, minus plot bunnies, probably would've been able to win the Second Battle of Coruscant at the end of the war.

I very much agree here. Czulkang Lah was directly compared to Bel Iblis by Tycho in the book, "Actually we know his name now. Czulkang Lah. He's an old terrifying warrior...kind of the Garm Bel iblis of the Yuuzhan Vong."
Nas Choka also was a good character, we get highlights into him throughout the series and I did like in the NJO minor characters at the start later became major ones and were not simply forgotten. Nas Choka and Czulkang were both superior strategists and tacticians to Tsavong Lah but it was pretty apparent Tsavong had the Warmaster post due to his fanatical loyalty to the Supreme Overlord Shimrra's Invasion plans. Both Choka and Czulkang were more pragmatic and didn't just dismiss their enemies as inferior, in some cases even worthy of admiration and that type of thought process was considered borderline heretical in the early invasion before the Vong realized their mistakes in that regard. Had Choka or Czulkang been in charge the conquest of the galaxy would have been slower but with significantly less Yuuzhan Ving casualties.

[Jesse220]

I'm cool with the Yuuzhan Vong. So hy not make a mod about the Vongs? they could be awesome

[tlmiller]

I'm cool with the Yuuzhan Vong. So hy not make a mod about the Vongs? they could be awesome

They will eventually be in Ascendency.

[Jesse220]

They will eventually be in Ascendency.

Oh yeah

[Pentastar Enforcer]

Great. As if I didn't fear the EotH enough, now I gotta deal with the Vong.

Help.

[Revan0123]

I was okay with the Yuuzhan. They had their moments but overall they were mediocre for me. I can see why Disney and Lucasfilm scrapped the EU because of crazy things like this.

[Lord Xizer]

They were far preferable to the Crystal Star and Children of the Jedi or the Correllian trilogy