LogFAQs > #939510799

Han Solo, from here gives us a recounting of who Zsinj is. After all, his campaigns over the last few years make him the most qualified person to tell Luke more about what Zsinj might be after. Through a flashback narrated by Han, we learn that Zsinjs goals have been to create a barrier of worlds between his loyal fragments of the Empire and the Rebellion-turned-Republic. Zsinj has used political influence to serve as bait, drawing out exposed parts of these planetary systems in order to exploit them. Zsinj, for example, promised an end to fighting with a planet by marrying his own daughter to that planets president. On the wedding day, however, after the vows, the daughter drew a knife from her wedding dress and stabbed the president in the heart. By law, she now governed that planet until the next election. Zsinj followed this up by murdering the two thousand guests gathered; a slaughter saw only a few escape. The skulls of the dead remain on the planet in two pillars of reminder to a newly oppressed people.

Zsinj and his daughter, known as the Ice-Heart by the Lower Arm planets, are far from the only key components to the Imperial loyalists. The Crimson Guard, his most skilled soldiers, are feared far and wide for the skills. And his fleet, some say, is run by the ghost of Admiral Thrawn, a brilliant tactician who disappeared in mid-warp decades ago.

So we have our setup. Find the holocrons, prevent Zsinj from initiating his plans, push him back, and placate key planets in the Republic.

A subplot of the movie follows a young girl, Rey, as she is inadvertently rescued on Actia by Luke during his run through the bowels of the city-island. Inspired by his skill, she follows him back to Coruscant, demonstrating some low-level Jedi abilities. She is able to manipulate transit authority workers to allow her into the hold of a transport, and she works her way through the street levels of Coruscant until she finds Threepio and R2. Shell eventually link up with Luke later.

We also get our first tastes of Zsinj - a foul, portly admiral-garbed leader, he seems to take no delight in failure. His Crimson Guard is punished quite brutally for their failure to collect a holocron. Ice-Heart, his daughter, vows to find said Holocron, and she travels to Coruscant as Han travels to deep into Zsinjs territory.

As Leia tries to hold her Republic together, Luke scolds Obi-Wan for lying to him. What becomes clear, quickly, is that Anakin has never visited Luke after his death, and this weighs heavily on him. Furthermore, Obi-Wans half-truths warped his perception of events. Hes not a farmboy on Tatooine anymore. Obi-Wan warns of the dangers of the legacy of this Holocron. He recalls that, in his final days, there were fears that, should these Holocrons fall into the hands of the Emperor, it would seal the doom of the Jedi. During Order 66, we get a brief sequence of Shaak Ti hiding one of Felucia before being killed. A similar scene with Ki-Adi-Mundi is alluded to. Luke scolds Obi-Wan, claiming this is yet another mess he has to clean up after his former teacher.

Han decides to go undercover in order to learn more about these Holocrons, but in order to do so, hell need help, and that help comes in the form of the unlikely meeting with a Crimson Guard who seems to be breaking from the rest, arguing. Enter Finn; when Finns questions result in violent responses, Han pulls his fat from the fire. We learn that the Crimson Guard is comprised of the young people of Zsinj-controlled worlds, kept in check with injections of nanobytes in the bloodstream. By pure happenstance, Finns nanites have been short-circuiting.

At the same time, the incident catches the attention of Admiral Thrawn, who moves his capital ship to inspect the business on a planet named Rododrun. Rododrun is a docking bay for the galaxy, its thick forests, littered with scuttled ships from centuries past. Old, out-of-commission military vessels are often scrapped by driving them into the surface of the planet. Often, unscrupulous generals would abandon their crafts and set them to land on the planet; however, thanks to the planets magnetic poles constant shifts, the ships would end up partially embedded in the surface. Flora would grow around them.

One of these ships, we learn, holds a Holocron.

Ice-Heart arrives on Coruscant. She finds Luke and the Holocron, and the two of them battle. Ice-Hearts ruthless abandon is, in the end, no match for Lukes skill, but Luke learns the value of the Holocrons. Ice-Heart, recognizing her potential capture, chooses instead to nuke the Jedi Temple with a seismic detonator vest, and the place goes down. The Jedi Orders last-standing monument is eradicated.


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"It is too easy being monsters. Let us try to be human." ~Victor Frankenstein, Penny Dreadful