[Review] The Politics of the Galaxy Far Far Away: The Aftermath Trilogy by Chuck Wendig
"All of life will be dead because politics is slower than a mud-stuck AT-AT."
- Aftermath: Empire's End
Politics. As mentioned in my prequels essay they are an important part of the franchise. The politics of the GFFA are complicated and offer further background on what we know today as the Original Trilogy. But they also show us well what happened after it.
The Aftermath trilogy is a fun and enjoyable ride, full with colorful characters, brilliant action, and also a nice dose of politics. This is the story of what happens after a rebellion won and how difficult it is to get a government back on track after long years of a fascist regime and a war that span most places.
All three books offer something new to the story. We get interesting new characters you will love and we spend some more time on a few planets we haven't seen before or we haven't spent enough time on. Wendig opens up the GFFA and paints us a picture of the difficulties of politics in a war torn galaxy and the complicated allegiances.
Aftermath
(light spoilers!)
The first book starts off with a scene showing the state of the GFFA in a simple but effective way. The rebels won but they haven't truly freed the galaxy from the Empire yet. It's never easy to bring peace to a war torn world and with this whole scene we immediately get a feeling for what this story will show us.
Aftermath introduced us to our crew of main characters for this trilogy. There is the rebel pilot Norra Wexley who is traveling back to her home planet Akiva where here son Temmin still lives. Temmin one might know as one of the X-Wing pilots from The Force Awakens where he gets called "Snap", a nickname given to him by Wedge Antilles in this book.
These two will cross paths with two more interesting people and work together, mostly reluctantly. One of them is a bounty hunter, a Zabrak called Jas Emari, who plans on getting the bounty for an Imperial, and the other is a former Imperial called Sinjir Rath Velus. Both of them end up working together as Sinjir being ex-imperial could help Jas with her job.
All of them have a lot of baggage they have to deal with. Norra's main baggage is her PTSD, Temmin has some abandonment issues because his father was taken from him when he was little and his mother left to become part of the rebellion, Jas has trust issues despite seeing her aunt working well with a crew, and Sinjir has a lot of guilt to deal with. We see everyone of them deal differently with this.
Norra basically just wants to take her son from Akiva to live a better life and maybe have some peace but she's also the first to jump head first back into the fight. Temmin built himself the last of the crew, a modified Clone Wars battle droid called Mr. Bones (and trust me, one will love this droid no matter what. Nothing better than a droid claiming almost happily "I performed violence" when saving his master) and tries to be as independent as possible. Jas looses herself in her work and tries hard not to get attached to people. And Sinjir spends most of his time trying to drink himself to an early grave.
The circumstances bringing our crew together are that a fragment of the Empire in from of a couple of Generals and the likes come to Akiva for a council of sorts to discuss the future of the Empire.
The future of the Empire is the other side of the trilogy's story and plays right into the overall politics. The few fragments of the Empire that still exist feel like they have to find a way to survive and secure their hold on the galaxy. An important character who will be the main antagonist for the story is Rae Sloane, a Grand Admiral of the Empire.
On the other side we have the newly formed New Republic which tries to stabilize the galaxy but often looses itself in long discussions. The suffering caused through that plays into the fear of people that maybe the New Republic might not be able to give them any stability and for some it's even more proof that the Empire did a good job.
Already the first book showcases how alliances to a certain form of government play an important role in influencing the story and world. It's not just good and evil but many different levels in between. And we can see that in the main story but also in small interlude chapters showing us scenes in other places. Some will play into others later on, some are just there to highlight the different opinions on the political state of the GFFA.
"Councils are how you slow the wheels of progress to an imperceptible crawl. The Galactic Senate was known for its inability to accomplish anything."
Aftermath: Life Debt
(light spoilers; also few light spoilers for the next book)
In Life Debt we see our crew who have now become hunters for imperials work together to hunt also for Sloane who escaped at the end of the first book. But their hunt gets stopped as Leia asks for them to find Han who has gone missing trying to find a way to liberate Kashyyyk.
Again get a few glimpses here and there about the way both sides of the conflict in the galaxy think. It also foreshadows a lot of elements we will later on see in the First Order, as well as a few elements about Jakku that might be interesting for Empire's End and maybe even in the future of the SW franchise.
Another important antagonists got revealed at the end of the first book and gets a bigger role now: Gallius Rax. A man who can think and plan like Palpatine did to secure his hold on the GFFA before the fall of the Jedi. This is where we also get to see another side of Sloane as she doesn't agree entirely with his ways but has to basically work as his puppet and somewhat-co-conspirator. Rax is a thinker, Sloane is a doer, and that's why their whole relationship isn't working well right from the start. It also doesn't work because Sloane's first experiences with the Empire was its military might and this is also something she herself focuses on the most. Rax on the other hand likes to deceive and work the world like his own personal chess set, something that isn't what Sloane considers to be effective.
On the other side we get the liberation of Kashyyyk plot and the reason for the title of this book as Han wants to do this because of his Life Debt to Chewie. The liberation of the planet is again an interestingly planned out idea with ups and downs, a lot of action, and insight into the difficulties of doing this when the new Senate doesn't want to spare any military personell for it. Again, this is something right for former rebels and general criminals with a conscience.
The difficulty of the Senate working for the people and not letting the galaxy down while trying to stabilize the government also leads to some very interesting parts and quotes that might even be nods to our world. At one point Wendig even uses the phrase "checks and balances" which made me laugh out loud to be honest. But one scene later on in the book really stuck with me because it's something we constantly see with politics.
"You want to negotiate something that is non-negotiable," Leia hisses. She holds up two hands, palms flat up. "Over here is the right thing, the good thing. On the other side is the wrong path. The evil path. We have long fought to be good. To be heroes! But now? You want to negotiate in this middle space. You want to dither about in the gray." - p. 335 Del Rey Mass Market Edition
While it's true that most things aren't black and white it's also understandable that former rebels who want the best for the galaxy have their issues with how politics handles that. These things are why many planets still haven't been liberated from the last fragments of the Empire, why other planets are taken over by crime syndicates or others who try to form their own government. The thing about the politics of war is that it will never fully reach what it wanted to achieve with a war and leaving places on their own afterwards will most likely always lead to a destabilization of that place. There are never winners of a war as it always is a tragedy and will always have problems clearing things up afterwards. And this usually leads to more issues, something that gets explored in this book in the interlude chapters and will have an effect on the reason for the Battle of Jakku happening in the last book of the trilogy.
But this book also intertwines these plots with a few romance elements which emphasize more aspects of the characters involved. One romance I find very well dealt with is the one of Sinjir, who we found out in the first book is gay. A gay main character in Star Wars is a great thing and even though he is the snarky bitch kind of character which is a bit of a cliché I enjoyed the hell out of that. Wendig does good by Sinjir's character because he has problems letting himself fall and it takes until the next book to do so. In this book we get to see him struggle with who he is and if that fits with him dating Conder Kyl. We often see this story played out of a character thinking they aren't good enough for someone else and it's handled well in the overall story of this trilogy in my opinion.
"//The Force was with me today,// she thinks. //But better yet, my friends were here.// And in this galaxy, maybe that's all one truly needs."
Aftermath: Empire's End
(light spoilers!)
Empire's End sees our heroes trying to work on their own supported by Leia on their path to find Sloane still. Especially Norra wants to find her because of things that happened in the previous book. For her this is vengeance. On the other side, Sloane wants to find Rax and get her Empire back from him.
Both sides of the conflict get more and more muddled, Rax's intentions don't become clear to anyone (though I have to say as a reader I did guess at some point what he might have planned. But it's interesting to see how and why so I don't mind) and we now find ourselves on the planet Jakku.
Some fascinating elements of the GFFA open themselves to us now in this book with talk about the Force in connection with this planet and I would like it if this plays a role maybe in the next movie or a future book. These elements leave questions not important to Empire's End necessarily but important to the galaxy itself so I would love to know more at some point.
It definitely also helps in some way to understand why the characters end up there and what Palpatine had planned for the planet. But it also shows us how Rax came to work for him and what Palpatine might have had as an ultimate goal. Something that might also play in the upcoming installments of the movie franchise.
We also get to know Hux from The Force Awakens as a kid and see the first glimpses of what he will later become. His father is definitely a reason for it to some degree, something Rax uses for himself. This is where the seeds for the First Order are laid out and it's very fascinating to me and underlines how this small imperial remnant could survive without people knowing.
This book also highlights the fact that Norra and Sloane are not so different in some ways. They are both driven and strongly connected to their side of the conflict. They both are people who easily get it into their head that they want revenge. I personally enjoyed seeing these two compared through the storytelling as it explains the sides of the war while showing us people who could have gone the same way if not for certain other experiences. While I'm not a fan of "Empire Apologism" (they are space nazis!) it's always good to see and understand how people would willingly follow a regime like this.
Empire's End is also a great end to the trilogy which leaves us wanting more and I personally want to reread Bloodline now because it works so well with how politics are left in this trilogy and are later on during the time of that book.
"War is about loss, yes. But when it ends, joy surges. How could it not? Burying the dead is a somber act, but the celebration that follows confirms that they did not die in vain. They died to make the galaxy free."
Overall there are so many more things to say about this trilogy and I marked a lot more pages and quotes than I talked about here but I can only recommend for you to read it yourself. I know Chuck Wendig isn't the greatest writer in terms of how he structures his sentences but he makes up for it in the way he portrays his characters, weaves funny elements into a story, and just makes us feel and enjoy the ride his books take us on.
People were very harsh back when the books were released and after reading this I can say that it's mostly bullshit. The Aftermath trilogy is fun, gives us many elements that are important to deeply understand the state of the galaxy now in the sequel trilogy, and just knows how to explain and show the different sides of the conflict as well as the people in between. And let's not forget that a lot of hate came for the books because of a gay main character and probably also a side-character using zhe/zher pronouns. Opposing those elements of the story is just weak and shows that you do not care for anyone who is part of a minority.
In general this is a book series for people who do enjoy various aspects of the GFFA but who also like to see how the politics in it work. We know this has been a huge factor for the hate people had for the prequels but I personally think the older we get the more interesting this is as it parallels our world in some aspects and this is a way for us to connect better to the story
Keep in mind though that this is a series for adults. The violence which is not just pictured in warfare but also in torture and such is definitely not suitable for people under the age of 16. Over 16 it depends on what kind of person you are.
Rating:
Aftermath - 3.5/5
Aftermath: Life Debt - 4/5
Aftermath: Empire's End - 4/5
Sometimes a family is a middle-aged fighter pilot lady, her teenage son with too much free time, a drunk and snarky former space nazi, a self-proclaimed loner, and a dancing murder bot. - me
Disclaimer: This isn't sponsored in any way. All my opinions are my own and do not have to be the same as that of Disney/Lucasfilm nor of the author himself. All the quotes are from the Aftermath trilogy!
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