Star Wars: Knight Errant Pre-release Q&A, Part II

Star Wars: Knight ErrantLast weekend, I opened the digital floor to questions touching on the Star Wars: Knight Errant material that’s appeared so far as it relates to the novel, due out Jan. 25. The first batch of answers is here; and now, here’s another bunch:

Darth Malachi asks: “Is Lord Bactra featured in the novel, or is he only alluded to and will be reserved for the next comic arc?”

Sith Lord Bactra, neighbor to both Daiman and Odion, was mentioned in the Atlas Supplement. With hours to go until the general release, I probably spoil nothing in saying that, yes, we definitely meet Lord Bactra in the novel. Among others!

Shey Tapani asks:Could you give as a list of species featured in Knight Errant #4? There are some really rare ones in that one — I could not recognise anything expect the obvioius ones.”

There are many cases where I do not give the artist specific instructions as to which species to use in crowd scenes; this was one of them. So that question really would go to Ivan — he would know better than I would. It’s possible that some species may be appearing for the first time; all sorts of refugees wind up stuck in Sith space.

Star Wars: The Essential AtlasSithoid asks: “Star Wars: The Essential Atlas states that during the dark age the Republic had to face the outbreak of devastating Candorian Plague, and the Holonet was disabled. In Knight Errant, we can see the consequences of the latter, but are we going to learn anything about the very events that made both disasters possible or at least any precise dating?”

Under the same principle mentioned earlier about not pinning down things that happened a long time before the events of the novel, no, there’s no precise dating. But we do get more deeply into some of the ramifications those historical events had.

Rudy Alapag asks: “Who taught Kerra a long time ago?”

We’ve already established that Vannar Treece did, among others: “Influx” tells of how the Jedi, low on personnel, shared duties in teaching students. She was not being trained as a Jedi prior to her meeting with Vannar.

Shawn asks: “Will characters introduced in the novel show up in the comic series?”

Yes. Sooner than you may think!

Heimir asks: “Are all the Sith in this timeline concentrated in the sector the four mini-empires occupy on the map? With the infighting in this sector I was wondering if there are more -ites out there?” The Atlas clearly shows there’s a lot of real estate under Sith control, far more than the Grumani sector — and the Atlas Supplement only showed a very small portion of that sector. There are many more out there; Vannar only mentioned in the briefing the ones he knew that he thought might be relevant to Operation Influx.

My own map has many more of the blanks filled in, and differs from the published one because, as the map notes, Vannar’s information wasn’t up to date. Once you read the novel, you’ll have enough details for a map that looks a lot closer to mine.

Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide (Star Wars Roleplaying Game)Hirogen Hunter asks: “Will the different ship classes be named in this book that were shown in the comics? Will there be an online update on ships and military units and all kind of other stuff a la the Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide?”

Not all the same ships appear, although I do get into more detail on some of the vessels. I don’t know about the possibility of a guide to vessels and units, but I will say that the novel gets into quite a lot of operational detail, especially when it comes to artillery units. This was something I got interested in while working on the Campaign Guide, as a matter of fact: I wrote the section on Republic ground forces, and that started the process that resulted in Rusher’s Brigade from the novel.

But we will get some additional detail about Rusher’s carrier, Diligence — watch for a special bonus to be announced here soon!

One last batch of answers to come! In the meantime, click to preorder the book from the following outlets:
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