Last Person to Post Wins

[Lord Xizer]

Well Jerec had watched Katatn fight his way through his Dark Jedi and stormtroopers to reach him. Kyle won but had trouble with each one, unlike Rahn who basically took on all six at once and bested them easily and Jerec beat Rahn effortlessly even before gaining the valleys power so it is easy to understand why he underestimated Katarn.

[Revanchist]

It says in the novel that he was reinforcing the bonds trapping the spirits and anchoring them to his will. Essentially he was using them like a massive booster while planning to rip each one's knowledge from the spirit for his own.

Well in that case I'd say it was only a matter of time before the spirits all conspired together to screw him over. I highly doubt they'd been sitting there resting on their laurels for those thousands of years. They'd have had plenty of time to plan how to escape.

[Lord Xizer]

Well in that case I'd say it was only a matter of time before the spirits all conspired together to screw him over. I highly doubt they'd been sitting there resting on their laurels for those thousands of years. They'd have had plenty of time to plan how to escape.

Well the thing is none of them were sentient anymore. The actual spirits were shredded remnants of their former selves  with a few scattered and fused memories. They were not capable of cohesive thought and action anymore. Kyle was able to extract a memory from one and also via Rahn's Force Ghost and the ancient knowledge gained the technique to defeat jerec, but the Valley's spirits were not capable of independant action other than occasional thoughts and words.

[Pali]

It's worth keeping in mind that remaining as a thinking, sentient Force entity after death was a pretty rare thing - the vast majority of Force users did not achieve this, or at least not the ability to remain as such for more than a very short time after death.  Yoda only ever once manifests to Luke, at the end of RotJ, and by the time Thrawn showed up, Obi-Wan no longer could stick around, and both of them had been taught a specific way to maintain themselves via Qui-Gon.  Anakin/Vader only ever manifests twice that I can recall, once in RotJ, and once in Truce at Bakura to Leia (at most a couple weeks after his death), and even then it was through a dream.  Palpatine knew essence transfer, so he wasn't actually spending much if any time outside of a body - he was just jumping from one to the next when his current one died, and when he was trapped in a dying body and unable to do so, that was the end of him as far as we know.  The one that lasted the longest that I can recall would be Exar Kun, and he needed a set of temples set up specifically to capture and focus his power to do it, and we never see him influence anything physically removed from Yavin's moon (maybe Kyp, don't recall the trilogy that well, but even then Kyp needed to get to Yavin before Kun could sink his tentacles in at the start).

Unless, of course, we include whatever that pool or lake was in the Fate of the Jedi books - but even there, the spirits are trapped within the lake, not at all the kind of Force ghosts Kun or Kenobi were.

[kucsidave]

still better safe than sorry.
You should never underestimate your enemy

[Lord Xizer]

still better safe than sorry.
You should never underestimate your enemy

As Jerec found out to his great regret

[Revanchist]

Here's another interesting question related to all this. Palpatine no doubt knew what Jerec's true ambitions were. Why then, did he authorize (through his agents on Byss) sending Jerec to discover the source of power he needed in order to put his plan into action?

[kucsidave]

Because if Jerec could find it when the empire still stood he would have led Palpatine there wether he wanted or not.
Palpatine was no fool and I believe he wanted that power for himself. I am sure there were some agents on Jerec's ship whom would report directly to palpatine in case the got even suspicious that Jerec did found the Valley.

[Lord Xizer]

Because if Jerec could find it when the empire still stood he would have led Palpatine there wether he wanted or not.
Palpatine was no fool and I believe he wanted that power for himself. I am sure there were some agents on Jerec's ship whom would report directly to palpatine in case the got even suspicious that Jerec did found the Valley.

Oh i have no doubt, but that was where Jerec outsmarted old Palps(who granted wasn't on his A game after the whole falling into a reactor thing), he sent the Vengeance to Byss to 'prove his loyalty' while sending the three ISDs he had back to the Pentastar Alignment, which would have no contact with the Reborn Emperor until four years later. Apparently Jerec also had sole control of the coordinates and had the other ships slaved to his flagship for the jump. Afterwards he no doubt wiped the coordinates to prevent any unwelcome Imperial interference until he had fully absorbed the power there. Unfortunately...this also badly weakened the defensive forces he had in place which made it easier for Katarn to get down there and throw a wrench into Jerec's plans.

On another note of the Katarn aspect, I liked that rather than kill Jerec out of revenge or let him go out of pity he gave him his saber back. He wasn't letting Jerec go, but he wasn't going to kill him out of hate either. He personified what Luke said to Nyax in the YVW.
"I stand in your way. What you see...you will not achieve."
Jedi like Obi Wan, Kota and Katarn, the guys who aren't the top of the Orders, but they do the right thing because it needs to be done and someone needs to do it.

While Jerec is my favorite Dark Sider in that I relate the most to him of the Dark Siders in that his passion was knowledge and history-in many ways he reminds me of Saruman from lord of the Rings-Kyle is easily my favorite of the New Jedi. He is the very personification of the everyman who becomes extraordinary but is still relatable.  He's that rock upon which the ambitions of the ruthless are wrecked while also being very believable in his personality and sarcasm.

[Pali]

While he's not quite as relatable as Katarn, Corran Horn's always been my favorite NJO Jedi for similar reasons.

[Helix345]

Horn is pretty awesome

[tlmiller]

Can't say I'm a big fan of any of the "light side" jedi.  I was a big fan of Jerec because I also hate (most) Sith, but Jerec was incredibly powerful without doing the "I have to follow these stupid rules and be megalomaniacal and stupid due to being a sith lord" thing.

[kucsidave]

Yeah. Jerec was cool. He also had such an amazing ship which added much for him

[Lord Xizer]

Can't say I'm a big fan of any of the "light side" jedi.  I was a big fan of Jerec because I also hate (most) Sith, but Jerec was incredibly powerful without doing the "I have to follow these stupid rules and be megalomaniacal and stupid due to being a sith lord" thing.

Also talk about a genius at playing everyone against each other for his benefit. The Pentastar Alignment, the Prophets of the Dark Side, the Reborn Emperor all funding and supporting him thinking he was doing their work while he was using them. He's also ranked as second only to Vader in terms of power of the Emperor's Dark Siders, meaning he was stronger than Tremayne, Hethrir, Cronus, and Sedriss. That is quite a feat because it was before he got hold of all the techniques the Emperor kept from him. After he got those...

[Pali]

And then arrogance struck down yet another over the top villain.

[Lord Xizer]

And then arrogance struck down yet another over the top villain.

true but I can respect him in that he didn't beg for his life and went down fighting unrepentant to the end

[kucsidave]

Jerec had many good qualities, he just used them for his own purpose. It was HIS honor, HIS ships, HIS plans and HIS power.

[Revanchist]

Jerec had many good qualities, he just used them for his own purpose. It was HIS honor, HIS ships, HIS plans and HIS power.

Very true. Always a breath of fresh air to come across a villain that isn't Chaotic Stupid. Funny that almost all of them came from the EU, whereas our villains from Ep VII are some of the worst I have seen. A true shame.

[tlmiller]

Very true. Always a breath of fresh air to come across a villain that isn't Chaotic Stupid. Funny that almost all of them came from the EU, whereas our villains from Ep VII are some of the worst I have seen. A true shame.

Ah, I'm guessing from the Chaotic Stupid reference you're a D&D player?  Would get SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO pissed when someone wanted to play chaotic stupid.

[Lord Xizer]

Jerec had many good qualities, he just used them for his own purpose. It was HIS honor, HIS ships, HIS plans and HIS power.

Well as a fellow high functioning sociopath...I suppose that is why he appeals to me.