Star Wars just forgot about this guy and it's so stupid 

Sorry. Accidentally exported this one in 720p lol. Enjoy the saved bandwidth I guess.

I just wanna know what happened to Sloan. She’s put in charge of the entire true Imperial remnant in the Unknown Regions, has actual motivations besides being evil, and then just disappears by the Sequel Era.

I miss the good old days of the Imperial Civil War, where the Empire fought itself to death until the likes of Thrawn, Dala, and finally Pellaeon stepped in, stabilized, and reformed it into a power actually worth living in. I miss Pelleaon.

Honestly as a Legends fan I will say this, I really enjoy some of the Imperial characters amd the Empire in canon. I loved Krennic in "Catalyst" and Tarkin as well in his own novel of the same name .

They really should have gotten Timothy Zhan, Karen Traviss, or another established author in old EU to kick off the Disney era of books. It felt way too much like they were trying to purge everything that came before in those early post acquisition years. Now they're scrambling way too hard to go the other way they're practically recreating the Heir to the Empire storyline.

I didn’t know until recently how much controversy the aftermath trilogy had so I’d love to see a video about it Eck

Please make an Aftermath Autopsy video. These books are shoddy and made the shakiest foundation for the new expanded universe. The fact that they've essentially been bypassed for the TV shows set not long after the Battle of Jakku shows how poor in quality they are. Only you can really bring that to some people's awareness.

You're a better man than Chuck Wendig. He had no incentive to not say horrible things to random people. So much so, it got him fired from his own SW books.

Aftermath Trilogy was the first sign that there was no plan. The small scale of the story. The use of side characters from the films. The awful writing in sentence fragments and present tense. I’d love to see your postmortem a decade on from that misfire.

One of my problems with Disney Star Wars is the sheer amount of material they shove aside and relegate to novels and stuff. With the Legends EU, the books and comics did flesh out the stories in the movies, but I can't really think of a time when they were absolutely essential to understand what was on screen. With the Disney EU, you have some stuff like that, but you also have stuff where you absolutely won't understand how the galaxy got to be the way it is in the sequels if you haven't read seventeen separate 500-page novels. Say what you will about the prequels, at least they spelled out everything you need to place the OT in context so that mainstream fans can understand. If Disney is going to create a trilogy of movies where nothing is the way people expected it to be after the ending of Return of the Jedi, the least they can do is devote some screen time to fleshing out all the changes they made. And if they still insist on having the written material as essential supplements, then they can at least market them as that instead of just leaving them for the hardcore fans who have to consume literally every piece of media in the franchise or they'll explode. TLDR, sometimes a book should just be a fun story that explores more of the films' universe without having to prop up the next ten plus years of Star Wars movies

“Early 2010s tumblr post” is such a spot-on description.

David Benioff and DB Weiss meme from GoT, "We kinda forgot..."

I remember, early on, many people believed that Rax would turn out to be Snoke.

So this is basically how it went when Palpatine found Rax: Palpatine: Woah. Rax: Woah. Palpatine: You're hired.

I really liked the messed up chess notion Palpatine had where if he died the empire must die because he view them pawns. The Final Order plot line though doesn’t really fall in line with it.

I imagine Rax will get SOME kind of namedrop in Ahsoka if Brendol Hux is already confirmed. Hux himself will likely be the one to mention something. But really, I want them to explain why Sloane hasn't made any physical appearance in anything recently and hasn't even been mentioned lately. It's like they threw her out the window knowing Thrawn would bring in more viewers. Honestly wouldn't it make more sense to have Sloane be the one they have to hunt down? We don't even know if Thrawn NEEDS the Empire anymore now that he's technically considered defeated.

Also the whole plot regarding the Grysk empire from the recently concluded Thrawn trilogy has been seemingly ignored despite it setting up a major villain for the future. We don’t even have a photo of what they’re supposed to look like. What’s Lucasfilm waiting for? Lucasfilm’s strategy really doesn’t make any sense.

I feel it makes sense Rax fell through the crax. I mean he was a shadowy figure barely known in the sw galaxy itself, a puppeteer, not a frontline figurehead. In a sense, his obscurity is his character, not to mention he was really only a driving force for Sloane, not a truly pivotal character in the series

I'd love to know how Chuck Wendig basically started the NuEU in a dumpster.

The series was interesting, but the first book killed it for me. Spoilers ahead: The entire end of the book is friggin stupid. Oh no the main character or one of the side character dies! Oh wait they didn’t, oh wait they died, but guess what they didn’t! It’s cheap and stupid

I'd laugh at how the Extended Universe was wiped away in Kennedy and Star Wars' leadership's words to create a new, "consistent" timeline that would share equal meaning across all forms of media, only to completely and catastrophically fail on that aspect at record speeds the old EU WISHES it could rival... but honestly I'm just kind of sad about it. It's such wasted potential of Legends AND the new Canon, and how either no effort or incompetent effort went into actually attempting to utilize and maintain plot threads and characters across the various mediums Star Wars is told through.

Wait a sec!!! Isn't supposed that Shattered Points is the signature and only special and unique ability of Mace Windu

They forgot about pretty much every thing from this book. That's not Wesley or Cobb Vanth. I liked all the characters this series introduced and did little to nothing with, theres also that SSD that is supposed to be in control by a pirate queen in the Outer Rim. I thought The Mandalorian would touch on it, but they didn't.

Please do, Aftermath is full of issues and in an awkward spot give what filoni and favereau are up to

I read almost every Star Wars novel up to the second Aftermath novel. That was the last Star Wars novel I ever purchased. Worse than just bad, they seemed like an ATTACK on Star Wars itself.

I've heard that the creators of "extended cannon" material like games and comics are allowed to let rip with characters Lucasfilms has no plans to bring back but told to stay away from characters they have plans for. Could the spectacular lack of anything on Gallius Rax, even the lack of any image, be a signal that someone wants to keep the character 'clean' for some possibly future project ?

Here I was thinking "could this Rax chap be envisioned by way of AI?", and BAM!, I get flashbanged by AI-generated Rax. Question is, was this image generated through simply asking the familiar "make Gallius Rax", OR did someone feed the familiar descriptions of Rax's features based on the content of the Aftermath trilogy?

I feel the pain of the aftermath trilogy. I too cannot even get through them on audo books. I can read fanfiction more easily and feels more comptent. I don't know why

The idea of a seldom-seen "Fixer" manipulating the last of the Empire's forces into one last all-or-nothing battle should have been an interesting reveal if done right, problem with the new canon is that it's very confused as to whether its trying to make entertaining fiction or solid world-building, combine that with a company that really doesn't understand the thing they just bought aside from the happy noises their money graphs make and you get Aftermath.

Yeah I kinda wish we got more info or that he was somewhat referenced by the first order or in the mandlorian. Love your content.

The battle of Jaaku exists for two reasons: One, so the sequels don't have to world build a convincing and difficult end to the Empire Two, so Star Wars iconography can rust in the same shot on a desert planet, symbolizing how the sequels believe Star Wars died with the Original Trilogy and they're creating a new Star Wars out of the ashes of the old, without including anything else.

It might just be me, but Gallius Rax could've been a bigger villain for Star Wars. I know Thrawn was the main anatagonist of The Heir To The Empire trilogy, but this guy, ironically, seems worthy of the title given Palpatine more or less adopted him.

I dislike Jakku being that much of a planned conspiracy of defeat. The post Endor year of the GCW is already so disappointing. To take that victory from the New Republic robs it of one of it's only cool aspects in all of canon.

I think a lot of what held me back from enjoying the Aftermath books was visuals for any of the main characters. Not just Rax. Part of what helped my enjoyment of Alphabet Squadron was that we knew what all the main characters looked like since they were on covers and in promo art. I could picture them doing the things they were doing.

See that's the thing... they forgot _a lot_ of things. Like how jetpacks have existed since the clone wars...

I struggled with the Aftermath books because they were written in present tense. I am so used to novels being written in past tense. It was really jarring and hard to get past. He had some interesting ideas, but that could be the epitaph of the Sequels as a whole. Interesting ideas that never really got paid off and got swapped for unoriginal re-treads.

PLEASE cover the Aftermath era tie ins. The Wendig book in particular derailed my keeping up with the new canon novels. I've kept up with the comics because they're often very good (ie, Doctor Aphra) but the post-ROTJ works are a jumble.

I have a feeling we'll get more Rax content at some point. He's been referenced in passing a few times after Aftermath, to my knowledge. I think the more we explore the Imperial Remnant, the more chances we'll hear more about him in non-book media. Still, I really want to know what happened to Rae Sloane after Jakku! I'd love a political thriller or something of her leading her Remnant through the Unknown Regions with Hux, founding the First Order, and encountering Snoke.

I recently read the Aftermath series. Yes it kinda sucks and yes I'd love a video on the subject. The trilogy is screaming for a retcon. While the humor is Tumblr some of the formatting is Twitter.

Cobb vanth was the only character from aftermath I gave a shit about and even those sections were written infuriatingly, shit he was the only thing I read the books for and he's just in interludes

I feel whole destroying the empire and even more so - his private vaults - makes no sense when you consider that he had a plan to be reborn (even if in body of Rey) - why would he remove his stuff when he thought hed just return to rule the galaxy

Imagine Chris Farley’s Tommy Boy watching a cheesy sci fi move over and over again until he has it memorized and then reciting it scene by scene to you in his own words. That was Aftermath.

I'd love to see you go into this and deep dive how poorly the framework for the ST was going into it. In light of how well the MCU was received for the foresight that went into, it's kinda nuts that there was zero overarching storyline for the ST.

A casualty of the early Retconomicon days. Put into place in a book series that the author had barely any control over, and pushed aside alongside the others involved during one of the lore sweeps.

Kind of a tangent, but what would the ecological impact of a star destroyer or something like the executor crashing on a planet be? Like, if an asteroid hits a planet, the explosion from the hit could kill all life on the planet. Isn’t a star destroyer big enough to do that as well? Assuming that Its’ repulsor engines were non-functional?

I had to force myself through those books but I did so as soon as they came out fully expecting to be a step ahead (insofar as SW lore is concerned) of everyone who hadn’t read them. I wish I had those hours of my life back.

Rereading those books should be against the Geneva Convention. After a few pages I'd marked up so many grammatical errors I couldn't continue. I even threw it into a text analyzer and it thought it was at a Grade 4 literacy level Unreadable!

Hey, this was the first trilogy I couldn't make it through on audible. I agree this was interesting but I couldn't make it through because of how toxic everyone was, and how little growth the characters had. Rax(audible so idk spelling) and I'm not super down with it. But I was trying to give the sequel trilogy the same chance I did the prequels. Clone wars made starwars 1-3 great. I figured this might be the same. I was wrong. Sadly.

When first reading I was wondering if he wound up to be Snoke, but my theory sucked, just like the follow ups (or non-follow ups since there is no consistency) to this series. I would be interested in a deconstruction of this series and your thoughts on why it set us off on the wrong path.

The problem is you expected quality from modern Disney star wars

"Without being too offensive to Mr. Wendig" *Proceeds to destroy the guy's whole career*

Reading the Aftermath trilogy I had the impression that someone forced the author to put some things info the book. Like how thi ex ISB guy was in love with the Zabrak lady and in second tome - boom - he is suddenly gay ..

There is a potential strategy behind Operation Cinder that would have made a lot more sense than the Imperial temper tantrum rationale we got: 1. Salt the Earth: Practiced by retreating armies throughout history, you cause as much damage to infrastructure as possible, in order to sow chaos and burden the new government. 2. Punish the civilian population: if the hardcore loyalist Imperials are looking for a scapegoat/"Lost Cause" narrative, what more convenient victim than the people who didn't sufficiently support them? Again, we have seen real world examples of this when authoritarian regimes start to falter. 3. Create a military cult: Related to point two, Cinder effectively completes a process that the Empire had been working on for decades, building a military culture that viewed itself as separate from the people it ruled over. It lets them think that they alone represent the "true" Empire, and radicalizes them in a way that naturally leads to the First Order. And yeah, we as fans put way, way more thought into this than anyone at Lusasfilm ever did. But it's fun to speculate.

I actually liked that trilogy to be honest. Writing did not upset me but I really liked those interule parts from the point of view of random people. I loved Rae Sloane and all of the Remnans, that we got more informations about both Huxes. I like this trilogy. It might not be the best piece but I liked it more than I like Alexander Freed's alphabeth squadron and both battlefronts. That was the kind of writing that was making it hard for me to read at times with the ways he describes things and writes characters. It was not bad, I liked Moments from the point of view of the empire remnants in Aphabet Squadron, Fleshing out problems like Chass and the Cult or pacifistic Wyl, all oddballs from infantry in Battlefron and especially all four of the young agents in Inferno squad. It was fun to read but way of writing was making it hard for me to read. Aftermath trilogy not so much but you described it using Tumblr as reference and I'm on tumblr from almost the beggining of the platform so maybe that's my thing. Rae Sloane is perfect.

Palpatines Operation Cinder was such a stupid idea considering he was planning on coming back later. And even when it happened in the real world (Hitlers Nero order) many simply ignored it as they knew that they would need these facilities later, even high-ranking Nazis blocked this order (Hitlers' friend Albert Speer for one) Whilst the old E.U books were rough in areas overall they were pretty solid and didn't make the machiavellian Emperor an idiot.

Many people had a lot of influence in th declining Empire but Disney decided to discard all of that for their sub par trilogy

Disney doesn't care about canon. They only care that old extended universe is not canon.

when i was reading the aftermath trilogy, i was certain (and certainly naive) that rax would be revealed to be snoke at the end of the third book. instead, somehow palpatine returned and snoke was turned into nothing.

Just add this to the very long list of mishandled ideas, stories, and characters within canon.

We actually may have 2 images of Rax in cannon. He’s said to be on Garrick Versio’s ship during BF2 and seen briefly on the command deck.

God the new canon Disney went with is so damn stupid. I hate it. People say Operation Cinder was in character for Palpatine but not really? An arrogant dictator like him isn't going to be concerned with what happens if he loses because he thinks he won't lose. It's as simple as that. Someone like him might make a if I can't have it no one can kind of choice in his last moments out of desperation. But the idea that he'd entertain such a notion before he's lost speaks to a weird sense of insecurity almost that I don't think would exist in someone like Palpatine

I just finished them recently and I loved them, especially the team! Rax played his part…it’s Sloan I miss

Rax, Sloane, and arguably that homicidal droid with the bones are the only redeeming qualities of the aftermath books. All three are criminally underutilized.

Honestly the aftermath trilogy and the other content in that era is one of the biggest mistakes Disney ever made next to not having a coherent plan and story arc for the sequels and sticking to it. They should have never tried to fill the gaps between the two trilogies before the story of the sequels was even decided upon. It now limits what we can do in the mando era even with access to stuff like deep fake technology so so much

From the moment that Lucasfilm decanonized the Star Wars EU novels and recategorized them as "Legends," I knew that I would never have any interest in reading novels of the "new canon." Because if they did it once, they will do it again... and already have. There's already plenty of stuff in the "new canon" novels that has been ignored or even contradicted. The new novels don't matter. They are disposable. I've read and heard plot descriptions of Rax and Sloan, and I'm not impressed. That plot and their actions don't make much sense considering Palpatine's return in TROS. Of course the same can be said of the Sequel Trilogy as a whole. In my heart and mind, the EU is the true canon, the true Star Wars, aside from a few cherry-picked things like Rogue One, Mando, and Andor. The rest of the "new canon" I will continue to ignore, because it just isn't worth my time.

I feel like there's a scale from 6-7 where the closer you get to TFA the further you get from any comprehensible quality

For Palpatine to feel that the whole Empire should be destroyed due to his death since they couldn’t protect their Emperor is dumb as he didn’t want the Imperial fleet to fight the Rebel fleet at Endor that way he could show off the Death Star and only wanted them to prevent the Rebellion from being escaping and so he brought that on himself

Hmmm that AI-generated Gallius Rax looks an AWFUL lot like Garrett Hedlund. That's now my fan-casted actor.

Probably unlikely but anybody here have any ideas who could play Rax? he's honestly one of the more interesting characters in the new Canon that I've been able to find, actually saw photoshopped piece of artwork of the actor Edward Norton with a beard wearing a white military imperial uniform and with a red cape similar appearance that Rax has in the books.

God bless you if you try and read them again. I’m someone that has a difficult time holding books and tablets at times. So audiobooks are a must in life. I own the full collection of Marc Thompson works. For those that don’t know Mr Thompson is the best Star Wars voice actor of all time. He was so good they’ve had him do all of Zahn’s EU and Disney cannon. His latest works was the first four Rouge Squadron novels, books I loved when they came out when I was in college. Saying all of this, even he can’t make the Aftermath trilogy listenable, it’s not his fault. They are poorly written, to the point someone has a almost 3 hour video about how awful the first book is on writing errors and lack of storytelling. I couldn’t finish the second, and the third I skipped around to listen to the battle of Jakku ended up. All thanks to your coverage on the battle by the way. I don’t know what happened to Star Wars at all anymore? Vader was almost always untouchable when Lucas owned the brand. Since Disney they’ve added so much through comics that started alright, only to dive into a well of what can only be said as what they hell are they doing? Love your channel and work, by the way owe you huge debt of gratitude. It was watching you that finally made me get a older laptop and copy of Empire at War. I missed it at the time was out and I love it so much. I wish had more free time in life, because also finally have physical copies of KOTOR series on the go for Switch. Someday will get around to them. Take care and may the force be with you.

I just can't read books written in the present tense, and so I only got a couple pages into the first Aftermath book. Sounds like I didn't miss much.

Gallius was frequently speculated by a portion of the fanbase to have originally been the real identity of Snoke, which would explain why he was forgotten about if TLJ and TROS did away with Snoke and therefore, no more time to build up Rax if he actually was supposed to be Snoke.

I can't believe Star Wars forgot about Superman

I'd be interested in an Aftermath video just because I'd really love someone to explain to me why the books are bad. Mind you, I don't think they're GOOD, I just think they're a little boring and I never finished the third one, and so whenever I hear people saying they're completely awful and poorly constructed I have no idea what anyone is talking about because I literally just don't remember/never found out what happened in them. So a breakdown to help me finally figure out what the hell I'm missing would be really interesting to me.

I got as far as "Space Police" in the book. I was done. Seriously, they actually wrote SPACE POLICE! WTF!? Is this Buck Rodgers from the 1930's? Why not throw in some "Space Bucks" This was like 5 pages in.

"start the game over" so meta lol

To me, the "Aftermath" trilogy was an abysmal mess. It didn't feel like an organic continuation of the Star Wars universe. It felt very much written by people who have zero idea of what "Star Wars" was, or should have been. But then again, Disney-fied "Star Wars" have never been in the hands of anyone that truly understands it.....except maybe Favreau. And yes, am including Filoni, who's moved further away from Lucas' vision, and become a lackey for Kennedy.

I would love to see more of Gallius Rax.

I cant believe we taught computer algorithms to create Art. Stupidly good art too.

I'm pretty sure the James Franco fan art was for young Palpatine, not Gallius Rax. There's no way Palpatine had a plan for the event of his death. He was so arrogant in ROTJ and so caught off guard by Vader betraying him, that I seriously doubt he would have a convoluted scheme to destroy the Empire for "failing" him. In Legends, the Empire was perfectly capable of doing that to itself without such a bizarre contingency plan telling them what to do. The point that should've remained canon, was that without Palpatine the Empire falls apart. That's the only way the Rebellion can win, otherwise it would lose against a unified Imperial military. The story quality of Aftermath aside, I think we all knew some point after TFA but before TLJ that the filmmakers read NONE of it and wouldn't use any of it for the movies. You had the absolute tiniest bit in Rise of Skywalker where some of the First Order officers expressed skepticism at working with the Sith under Palpatine again (I mean come on, there could've been a civil war between Pryde and Hux once the puppetmaster was revealed, Hux being the proxy for Sloane and Pryde for Rax), but they just doubled down on being the Empire again. It's so weird, like the games and the books couldn't risk doing anything remotely restrictive because "canon", but when it came to the movies they just threw all caution to the wind and smashed a sledgehammer onto what everyone else was doing.

What I dont understand is the concept that only ONE year after Endor the Empire surrenders. In the EU it took YEARS, decades I think

The whole contingency arc of the Emperor makes no sense. He was already planning to be cloned and brought back. Why waste your loyal subjects and equipment, if you need them again anyways. The whole sequel trilogy is full of holes, and makes everything pointless.

Id love to see a review/breakdown of the Aftermath trilogy, personally. Especially as someone who isnt very interested in the canon post OT charazterizations.

I've said it before, and i'll keep saying it. Disney's Star Wars isn't canon. Maybe one or two good things have come out of it, but the collateral damage to get there is sufficient to warrant a complete shunning of Disney's Star Wars. They had gold. Solid gold, and they threw it away. Wasted it.

The Sithman in the thumbnail looked ready to shoot lightsaber blades out of his eyes

Rax will show up again in about 15 years when they make a new Star Wars sequel trilogy, where we will discover that Palpatine is still alive and now both Luke AND Rey's struggles were in vain. The young protagonist Jenerik Heeroh will have to face off against someone claiming to be a cyborgified Captain Phasma, but they'll have Ian McDiarmid's voice and clearly just be an old man in a bad silver costume. It'll be the result of the 14th reshoot after someone on Twitter guessed the twist, which they did to replace the previous cut after someone guessed the previous twist.

Why pretend that anything from Disney Wars has or was ever intended to have any sort of plan, coherence, or consistency? The "story group" is entirely populated by monkeys on typewriters.

Honestly it’s cool to think how the Empire had a plan to restart. But Disney really fumbled on the course they chose. I like the whole unknown regions bit but the way they dismantled the empire was god awful. Legends at least prolonged and detailed the empire’s fracturing.

I've long been disappointed by everything ignoring the aftermath trilogy, especially in light of episode nines poor writing "somehow he returned". Aftermath (with all its pros and cons) set the groundwork for that, but no it all gets swept aside

Wish we knew more about Gallius Rax. In universe his service record is stated to be kept scant and redacted, and from what is inferred its implied that his role was to serve as Palpatine's personal agent, who carries out important yet sensitive tasks that need to be kept secret on his behalf and could not be trusted to anyone else with, I think there may be a possibility he may have been an Emperor's Hand due to he knew of Palpatine's true nature and had some knowledge and ability in Sith Spellcasting. The fact that the guy was able to rally a large amount of the Imperial Navy under his authority despite Imperial Central authority had collapsed and gain effective control of a large amount of what remained of the empire despite not being head of state, and he coming from near obscurity before hand, is Remarkable. He gives off a very creepy Esoteric/Occult Nazi vibe as well, he's like Reinhard Heydrich meets Grand Admiral Nial Declann of SW Legends.

Gallius rax and rae sloan both sound like interesting characters.

He was in the Aftermath Trilogy? I can't recall him. But seriously given that he was supposed to be the primary villain in the Trilogy they should have used him more but I see that as reflective of how little an impact he had. His actions were dictated by the Emperor's final orders to him and Gallus' character never really developed beyond Imperial loyalist. Replace him with a stormtrooper and the differences would have been inconsequential. Hell if you replaced his name with [placeholder] it probably would have gone unnoticed.

Keep up the amazing work bro

I’d love to have a breakdown of the books. I listened to them a while ago, and can’t say they left a very vivid memory. Would be nice to be reminded of the important plot points in regards to the large universe. Also please talk about Mister Bones, my personal MVP. And he appears in the Aphra comics as well as the DV ones I think.

No matter how ood the chracter is, the whole plan and operations never made sense. It's sad the battlefront campain is ruined by operation cinder being in there

I never noticed the Eclipse is mentioned in the current Canon. Honestly, despite the flaws, I appreciate the moderate attempt to respect the older continuity. Shame it isn't better, but personally I like the idea of occasional easter egg to the old EU (rather than blatantly ripping portions like the Thrawn trilogy). Again, really cool to see they mentioned the Eclipse, its got to be one of my favorite dreadnoughts in all of Star Wars.

I met Chuck Wendig, and he did say that there were a few things that he would minorly change, but he was overall satisfied with his work, and I agree with him

The sequels era is such non sense they might just have to jettison it. Like Mass Effect the ending too 3 was so awful they abandoned the galaxy entirely to avoid dealing with the lore implications, not that it helped them.

I am so mad that the main characters have just been ignored. Only Snap appeared in the movies and that’s only because his actor is good friends with JJ.

We can't have competent, morally grey Imperials