I really enjoyed this chapter, if only because I got to do some of my favorite scenes to write. Dogfights are always fun to do, coming up with moves and attacks in an open environment is very creatively stimulating. Of course, a lot of the moves I wrote down have to come from somewhere. Usually its from a documentary I watched about real dogfights. Sometimes it comes from something I did in a game. Overall, inspiration came come from anywhere and if done well it can be a lot of fun.
While writing this chapter, I was watching SWAT Kats for some inspiration. That series featured a lot of animated Dogfights. In one episode there was a fake death roll used to trick the enemy and get behind them. I decided to use something similar here because I liked the move and thought it would be something Moira or one of her pilots would pull. I think it translated well and I added my own spin on it of course by having Moira renew her attack from below. If I’m proud of anything at least, I’m proud of how the dogfights turned out here.
If there was one challenge, it was showing that the TIE pilots were formidable. If not so much for their skill, then their numbers. I sprinkled in a number of superior Imperial Aces because it would get boring otherwise. They kept the fights fresh instead of making them all turkey shoots. I don’t want to paint them as incompetent or anything, it’s just they’re all flying unshielded, poorly armored tin cans that exist to win through sheer numbers then anything else. The Interceptors and other variants are tougher of course, but they’re not around yet. I still think the forces were evenly matched though, considering Moira’s people are flying older starfighters. Still think I could’ve made a few of them a bit more menacing. But there’s more TIEs to shoot down at a later date, I can always do it then.
The bomber stuff with Baraz in the turret was also pretty cool to do and I borrowed a bit of inspiration from an early Clone Wars episode for it. Also done with a Y-Wing by the way. I love turret sections for some reason, I think I just have a soft spot for rail shooters and plane turrets are the ultimate rail shooters to a degree.
I was glad to find out that there are Imperial Naval Ships. I was so worried those didn’t exist period in this time period. Thankfully they do. The Maritime Division is a very obscure bit of Star Wars lore, Wookiepedia barely mentions much of its history or use in fact. Mainly because in a world of spaceships, boats become redundant I suppose. But I was glad to see they weren’t completely absent. Some of the best Godzilla movies have at least a few open sea battles. I didn’t want the only one I did to be in the prologue. The only Imperial ship I made up was Slaan’s Command Ship, which I modeled after a Trade Federation Battleship from an old Star Wars game. I just spruced it up to make it a bit more of a threat to Big G. Wish I could’ve used it more though, but I realized that battleships of any size don’t last long against the king. Seriously, it would be silly if it gave him more trouble then it already did.
Speaking of Slaan, his name is a bit of an easter egg. Think of another Kaiju film... but not from Japan. It’s set in Europe actually. You’ll figure it out. I have faith in you. Just like I know some one is going to figure out a special little thematic secret involving Moira’s Raiders. And if you haven’t figured out what the chapter titles are referencing by now you soon will.
Enough Easter Egg hints, let’s get back to the chapter. Today we delved a bit more into Godzilla’s mind and bothered to have one of his attacks almost entirely take place from a neutral Imperial perspective. The latter is because I feel I need to put you guys down on the deck with them for once instead of riding on the King’s shoulder.
The more controversial bit is probably me trying to give more motivation to Godzilla when historically most of that had been fan speculation. He’s not exactly an easy monster to pin down. In fact, knowing more about why he does what he does kinda takes away from the mystique in some respect. I’ve tried to keep it ambiguous, but it’s taking on a specific form more and more. More or less, Godzilla has a very low opinion of humanity for a number of reasons and finds a lot of their attempts to kill him insulting. Specifically Kiryu, because it’s them trying to copy his look and act like their machines are superior to anything from nature. You can understand why a monster that embodies the natural disasters of the world like Godzilla wouldn’t be too happy about that. He’d look at the idea of the Jager from Pacific Rim fighting and winning against a hurricane as arrogant bluster, more humans acting like they’re above nature’s fury and, by proxy, him.
In some respects you can see this as the humans not owning their mistakes, their actions caused him to rise and now they want to kill him and ignore the fact they’re at fault. In some ways, Godzilla probably feels that without him they’d just turn all these weapons on each other and kill themselves. So really, him being around keeps their ambitions for power in check. The humans are only trying to get rid of him so they can get back to the business of killing each other. That’s how Godzilla sees things at least and that’s why he has no sympathy for them. Course, why protect them sometimes knowing that? Why defend them some days, punish them the next? A mystery for another time I suppose.
An interesting little theme that developed in this chapter is the valor among the villains of a sort. I mean, Kamo, Arch and Devo aren’t exactly evil or anything, but they are technically the bad guys. They are supporting a regime that is creating the Death Star after all. They’re just not the assholes we see in your typical Star Wars film or TV show or book. They’re going to come into conflict with the Rebels after all, so there’s that. However, despite their alignment as antagonists, they still can be heroic in their own way. Malness is a straightforward Imperialist, but he’s willing to risk his own life in a head-on final attack to thwart the Rebel Fleet’s landing. Slaan is brave enough to stand his ground against Godzilla and stay on his ship, continuing fire, accepting he’s about to die. And Kamo of course is his usual old geezer trying to re-discover his latent heroism in saving as many people as he can throughout this endeavor.
I think it’s important to keep your villains layered, they need to be believable, that their motivations make sense. In my other stories, the bad guys aren’t really cackling jackasses, they have their own moral codes and agendas which they feel are good. They may be self-serving, racist, oppressive or the like, but most of the bad guys don’t think they’re horrible people. They’re fine with who they are and what they’re trying to do, feeling it is necessary. That’s not to say a few of your regular “I love being evil” villains have no place in stories, I like those too. But when you’re dealing with something like Godzilla in this context, black and white is hard to do.
So I try to keep my Imperial characters human, save for Darth Vader. Until Luke shows up, any trace of humanity in him is gone. He has to be pure evil, with no sense of empathy, remorse or anything that he used to be as a Jedi. Vader has to be a wall of pure hatred until he finds out his son is alive and Anakin starts to resurface. Everyone else can, in turn, be more human. Slaan, Kamo, even friggin Malness who uses the classic phrase “Rebel Scum”, they don’t have to be faceless bastards, they can have layers that are more apparent. Every great villain has a sense of complexity to them. So while you’re cheering for Kamo, remember, he did march into the Jedi Temple and slaughter the Republic’s defenders. Whether or not he was unable to ignore the order to do so, he still played a hand in it. Remember that, because it’s going to come into play very soon.
Well, I think that’s all for now. Next time we’ll probably get deeper into Godzilla himself as well as Ahsoka, Kanan and Ezra. Should be fun. I know I’m looking forward to it myself.
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