Rebels: "Steps Into Shadow -- Part Two" (Ep. 3.02)

-- "Get ready for another demotion."

More Hondo! And he speaks Ugnaught!

heh

So... Last episode, Ezra was promoted and given his own mission to command. Let's just say that the promotion ends up being short lived. Let's just say there's some Dunning-Kruger effect going on here, as Ezra thinks he's got it all under control. You know, on his first command mission. Though I'm pretty sure it didn't go as badly as Ahsoka's first mission.

Also, I learned something in this episode!

Most everyone is familiar with the y-wing fighter as they appeared in the original Star Wars trilogy:

It's one of the reasons everyone preferred the x-wings, right? I mean, besides the fact that Luke flies an x-wing. Y-wings just look kind of junky.

But y-wings are also prominently featured in The Clone Wars and, in Clone Wars, they look like this:

I've always just assumed that the ones in the movies were a later model, like with the changes in the x-wing between the original trilogy and the current trilogy. Turns out there's a completely different explanation for the different look. Which I'm not going to tell you.

Anyway, while I was having my ah-ha! moment, my kid looks over at me and says incredulously, "You didn't know that?"

Yeah, well, I don't know everything about Star Wars. Even less so these days as I actively avoid material which may contain spoilers.

And/or horrible Star Wars fanboy trolls.

"When were you going to share that information?"

"Well, of course, I just did."

"They fight so hard to gain so little."

Clone Wars -- "Shadow of Malevolence" (Ep. 1.3)

-- Easy is the path to wisdom for those not blinded by ego.

"Shadow of Malevolence" is one of the best episodes from season one. I say that from the stance that I still strongly remembered it (before I watched it again) more than five years after my original watching of it. My younger boy did, too. As soon as it started up, he said, "Oh! It's this episode!"

Visually, it introduces the Neebrays of the Balmorra Nebula, large manta-like creatures that fly through space. When I say large, I mean large. Like star cruiser size. They dwarf the squardron of y-wings that Anakin is leading so much so that Ahsoka is worried about being eaten. It's a brief scene, but it's very impressive.

Most of the episode features Anakin being cocky. He's come up with a plan to defeat Grievous and the Malevolence, and he's sure he will succeed. He's the leader of Shadow Squadron, a group of elite fighter pilots, and they have never failed in a mission or even lost many of their members. It's not just Anakin, then, who is cocky but the whole group of them. It's not that they believe they will succeed; it's that they believe they cannot fail.

Ahsoka, who has seen what the Malevolence can do, isn't so sure, but she's just a Padawan, so Anakin brushes aside her concerns as unimportant. However, Plo Koon, who also isn't as sure as Anakin (and who also has seen the Malevolence at work), comes along as an escort to keep an eye things.

Side note 1: We see that the Jedi are not as familiar with which other as we might have thought. Plo Koon is largely unfamiliar with Anakin other than in reputation. He doesn't actually trust Anakin's judgement despite the fact that Anakin is a Knight and a general. The lack of familiarity gives us a vague sense of how large the Jedi organization is and how much the individual Jedi spend working alone (or only with their Padawans).

On the other side of things, we see Grievous being just as cocky as Anakin. He has supreme confidence in his ship and its inability to be defeated. He takes no precautions against the raid Anakin is leading against the Malevolence despite being tipped off by Sidious via Dooku.

Basically, it comes down to whether either of them will see that clinging to their individual beliefs that they cannot fail is what is leading them to failure.

Side note 2: At one point, Grievous knocks the head off of one of his gunner droids for failing to hit any targets, and Dooku tells him that the droids are expensive. Grievous asks, sarcastically, if he's expected to start caring for the droids the way the Jedi care for their clones. A brief philosophical discussion ensues that, again, reveals the belief by the Jedi that the clones are valuable individuals, a belief the Sith believe will be the downfall of the Jedi.

This episode is an excellent example of how seemingly small things are added into the shows that reveal the larger picture of the Star Wars universe.

How To Be... a Fighter Pilot

The dad of my best friends when I was a kid was in the Air Force. Every so often, I would get to go to the base with them, the base being Barksdale Air Force Base. It was the coolest place. Except for one thing: no fighter planes. Oh, there were some, but Barksdale was a bomber base, so, mostly, it was full of B-52's. I never did get to go in one, but, man, are they big. I don't know if this is still the case, but, in the 80s, Barksdale had the largest strategic bombing force in the nation and, at need, could "bomb Russia" without the need for refueling. It was great, because it made Barksdale in the top 3 on "Russia's" nuke list. But I digress...

As cool as the bombers were, they were never what we were interested in. My friends (3 brothers (and a sister)) had books and books about fighters, and that's what we wanted to fly. My favorite was, and has always been, the F-16. To put it in Star Wars terms, the F-16 would be the A-wing, as it was designed out of a need to have better air-to-air fighters. Basically, it was a plane designed around dog fighting. The things can pull 9-g maneuvers! Let me just say that when everyone was busy being enamored of the F-14, a Y-wing at best, after Top Gun came out, I was never dissuaded from my love of the F-16, the far superior plane (as attested to by the fact that the F-16 is still in production and the F-14 is not). But I still digress...

The F-16

Although I never wanted to be a fighter pilot, every boy wants to be a fighter pilot. I mean, how cool is that? Unfortunately, it's not the kind of career you can just decide to do and spend your life working toward it. There are physical limitations on the job. Like basketball but in reverse. Yes, there really is a height limit to being a fighter pilot. For the Air Force, that's 77 inches (6'5"). I suppose, above that, there's no way you're cramming yourself into one of those cockpits. There's also a height minimum: 64 inches, along with a sitting height requirement! Between 33 and 40 inches. How many of you have ever thought about how tall you are while sitting? Yeah, that's what I thought. Me, either. So it's not just about height but about body proportion, which is pretty specific.

And we haven't even gotten to the part about the vision yet! Vision requirements are somewhat easier to meet these days. When I was in high school, you had to have at least 20/20 uncorrected vision. Now, as long as it can be corrected to 20/20 vision, you can have vision as low as 20/70. See, my vision, which is in the 20/30-40 range, was the only thing that kept me from accepting an invitation to the Air Force Academy after high school. I'm not a good fit for the military because of that lack of respect for authority thing I have going, that and my tendency to use that word which is the bane of parents everywhere: "Why?" However, I would have gone if it had meant a chance to fly fighters. It's all just as well, I suppose.

But why was the Air Force Academy after me to begin with? Test scores. Even though I never applied there or anything. And I'm not talking flyers in the mail kind of stuff, either, although they did send me stuff in the mail. And call me. A lot. And even sent someone to my house to talk to me. So, yeah, you have to be smart. Although, after looking at their requirements on the their website, the current academic requirements don't seem that stringent. At any rate, you have to have pretty high scores to get into the Academy, and you have to have even higher scores to be considered for flying.

And then there are all the physical shape requirements...

So, then, how do you get to be a fighter pilot?
1. Don't be too tall.
2. Don't be too short.
3. Have the right length torso.
4. Have good vision.
5. Be smart or study hard enough to seem like you're really smart,
6. Be in excellent physical condition.
One you've taken care of those basics, you might get the shot at being a fighter pilot.

Into the Trench

As I've mentioned before, I'm teaching a creative writing class at me younger kids' school. It's an elective course in the middle school. What I don't think I've mentioned is that my younger son (the middle child) is in my class. This has been both rewarding and frustrating. It's rewarding in that my son is, actually, an excellent writer. He has great ideas, and he's able to relate them in a manner that is actually readable. Not to mention that his writing has great voice.

It's frustrating, though, in that he writes like I do. Not in the same style as me (although, I do see similarities), but by the same process as me. What that means is that it's hard. Writing is not something that I am able to just sit down and do. It's a struggle. Every time. I often feel like it's equivalent to having a huge mass of hard clay and having to beat it into shape with my fists. The good side of this, though, is that I don't really have to do huge amounts of editing afterward. I tend to get it the way I want it the first time. My son writes like this, so it can be painful for me to watch him needing to write for an assignment. The blank page is his greatest enemy, and he can sit and stare at it for, literally, hours without putting down a single word. Having to motivate him to work on assignments for class is a nightmare.

What I'm about to share with you is something special. Well, it's something special to me. But, first, why I'm sharing it:

Briane Pagel has been running The 100-Day, 100-Question Great Star Wars blogathon. That's pretty much what it sounds like, and I've mentioned it a few times at this point. Recently, however, in order to motivate more writers to get involved, he added a twist to it to make it a bit more interesting. You can go here to find the links to the various rules and stuff, but the gist of it is that there are now writing challenges along with the trivia questions. All of you should go sign up, write your piece and get involved. [Remember to say I sent you :)] The current writing challenge has to do with writing a piece of fan fic. Personally, I'm not a big fan of fan fic. However!

See... I'm breaking all the rules with my entry. The first one I'm breaking is that I didn't write this. My son did. I'm sharing it, because it's like a piece of double fan fic. It's fan fic based on The House on the Corner and Star Wars! And, if you've read The House on  the Corner, you'll know just how perfect a melding this is. The entry is also too long, but this is a great little story by my son, and I just couldn't cut it in half. And, well, Briane seems to think it's cool for people to break the rules, but I think that's just because he's a lawyer. The more people break the rules and get caught doing it, the more business he gets. heh

Anyway... This is what my son turned in for his very first writing assignment this year in the creative writing class, and I feel privileged to share it with you. As I said, this is special to me, and I hope you all enjoy it. Oh, I did do some editing on the piece, but that was mostly confined to punctuation and paragraph formation. I suggested one word change and one spot where I thought he needed to move a word, so, really, my input was very minor. What you're seeing here is what he wrote. He was 10 at the time. Just to throw that out there.

Into the Trench

I was bored. There was nothing to do. I thought about what I could do, but I didn't feel like building with my Erector sets or going outside to play. Suddenly, I had an inspiration! I would go to the Imagination Room. Why hadn't I thought of that before? I would invite Tom, too.

As I was looking for Tom, I thought about what we were going to do. I decided we were going back to the scene in Star Wars when Luke blew up the first Death Star. I had been daydreaming all the time I had been looking for Tom. Leading Red Squadron, flying in the trench, tar... I'm sorry, using the Force to target the gas exhaust. And flying from the wreckage of the Death Star.

When I finally found Tom, he accepted with an “Are you kidding? Let's go!”

Before I knew it, we were in the Imagination Room, and I was thinking about Star Wars as much as I could. Then, suddenly, we were in the hangar at the base on Yavin 4! There were so many ships to choose from! From A-wings to B-wings to Y-wings to X-wings, we just couldn't choose! I finally settled on a nice Y-wing, and Tom chose a trusty X-wing.

Somehow, we knew how to fly the ships. I didn't really care how we knew. We must've gotten the skill when we crossed over to this world.

A few seconds after I left the hangar, I was hurtling through space. I saw Yavin looming over me. It was big. Very big. Maybe even bigger than Jupiter. Of course, I had never seen Jupiter up close like this.

I turned on the telecommunications, and immediately hailed Tom, “Tom, are you there?”

“Yeah.”

“So what's our plan?”

“We were supposed to make a plan?”

“Well, duh, stupid-head, what did you think?”

“Oh...”

A new voice crackled in the radio, “Lock s-foils in attack position.”

That's when I finally saw it: the Death Star. A large gray spot on a black background. The battle had begun.

* * *

It was barely three minutes until we got to the Death Star, now a 1000 ton ball of metal right there in front of my face. I admit it. I was unprepared. And scared. Very scared. No, Jedi do not have fear, I thought. It was too late for fear, anyway.

Then, there was the trench. “This is it,” I breathed to myself. I didn't realize that my communicator was still on.

“Oh, stop whining, Sam.”

“Tom?”

“Yes... I mean, no, an Imperial TIE fighter come to destroy you all.”

“Tom, the TIE fighters don't even come at this point. We're not even in the trench yet.” I had started to lighten up a little.

“Yes, we are. Have you looked up at all?”

I looked up. “Oh, crap,” I thought.

There was laser fire blasting all around me. From the corner of my eye, I saw an X-wing explode. It went down in flames; then, just before it crashed, I heard a horrible, bloodcurdling scream, and the pilot died. That's when I realized the full danger of the assignment. Okay, it wasn't an actual assignment, but it was still dangerous.

There was blaster fire all around me, and I was trying desperately to dodge it. As I swerved madly about the trench, I heard something on the communicator, “All units, approaching TIE fighters coming up fast.”

I felt a sudden jolt as something exploded behind me...

And I knew it was my own ship. I spun out of control, careening straight for the wall. I was going to crash!

Fortunately, reality chose that moment to reassert itself, and I landed with a thud on the floor of the garage apartment. “Darn!” I shouted, as Tom tumbled past me. He looked angry. I probably pulled him out the second the Death Star was about to blow up.

“Definitely darn,” he grumbled.