I mentioned a week or so ago about the upcoming NJOE Editorial series (send 'em in!), and I've cranked the first one out, so here goes:

POSSIBLE SPOILERS...

Zonama Sekot: Behind the Living Planet

Message Board member Captain Parck recently made the following point: "Well after some careful thought I think I may have come to a decent conclusion as to the secret Nen Yim derives from the spaceship Vong operatives steal. I think that Zonama Sekot is also the original Yuuzhan'tar. The Vong's long lost homeworld, and it can't get more lost than jumping to another galaxy. Repeatedly throughout the series it is mentioned that Yuuzhan'tar was a lush and green world full of life and stuff. Also it just seems like something they would do, putting the two extreme ends of the Force together on one planet. This could probably also be how the Vong are finally united with the Force, or it may be that they become RE-united with the force." Now, for those that haven't read the small bio for "The Final Prophecy," here's just a small portion: "…Yuuzhan Vong operatives steal one of the world's organic starships for delivery to scientist Nen Yim. Yim's research not only uncovers the mysteries of the planet, but also long-forgotten secrets of the Yuuzhan Vong."

Now, it stands to reason that this makes excellent sense. It seems based on that blurb from TFP, that there is something that hasn't come to light yet regarding the Yuuzhan Vong and their connection to Zonama Sekot, something that we're going to find out. It's possible, I suppose, that the connection is something smaller, just a "coincidence" type of thing that is similar in both the Yuuzhan Vong and Zonama Sekot, but not in common, but with all the hype the New Jedi Order has gotten, I can't see the "major" connection being just a fluke; that there happens to be a planet in the Star Wars galaxy similar to the Yuuzhan Vong. The creators of this arc are very pleased with it, we don't need them to come out and say "we're happy with it" for us to know they are, the authors are excited; the editors and planners have been coming up with something big, something big that's about to hit us all in the nose.

Zonama Sekot has (will) become extremely important in the NJO, but before that the editors even slipped it into, and made it an important part of the arc, of a prequel novel (Rogue Planet, by Greg Bear). If Zonama Sekot were just a coincidence, as mentioned above, there is no way that it would have been integrated into the arc as much as it. The question is, Yuuzhan Vong or not, planets don't just jump around on their own, so how did it gain this ability? I could be mistaken about the nature of how the planet jumps, as I haven't read Rogue Planet for a while, but my theory is that the Yuuzhan Vong installed some type of huge dovin basal or something on the planet for a purpose. I can't actually see the Yuuzhan Vong wanting to have their capitol planet (homeworld) leap around from place to place, but I'll touch on that later in this editorial, so there had to be a purpose for the installation of the basal. Perhaps Yuuzhan'tar's moon was falling, but not by the Vong's doing (see Vector Prime), and the basal was installed to keep the moon in its orbit. Something had to occur then to make the planet get a brain of its own. This area is a bit grey for me; perhaps it's something due to the abundant life on the planet, or perhaps it's something in the structure of the core of the planet itself. But I think it's safe to say that once the planet developed a brain it gained control of whatever type of basal/propulsion system - perhaps a type of advanced world brain? - the Yuuzhan Vong lost control of their homeworld. Let us remember, that the Yuuzhan Vong haven't seen their homeworld for generations, so it's very easy that the entire world could have jumped galaxies.

Again, I don't really remember much about the inhabitants of Zonama Sekot and their appearance, but if the planet jumped around, that implies that the Sekotians would be descendants and evolved members of the Yuuzhan Vong race. This certainly makes a bold statement, and would make us look at the series, especially the parts involving Sekot, in a new light. Another thing to think about, is the fact that maybe, just maybe, the Vong, while they are invading of course, are actually in a blind quest to find their fabled homeworld.

Now, I promised that I would address another option of why the Yuuzhan Vong enabled their capitol planet to be able to jump around from place to place. Let us consider the fact that perhaps the Yuuzhan Vong are not the aggressors. With their conquest over the biological technology world, if a group of invaders set their sights on the Yuuzhan Vong galaxy, how best to protect their capitol planet and their leaders than by making it mobile? We know that the Yuuzhan Vong have been "galaxy-hopping" looking for a place to live while dealing with over-population, but what if, just to give another side to the issue, they weren't driving out of their original galaxy by population, but by invaders, much the same that the Yuuzhan Vong are doing to the inhabitants of the Star Wars galaxy.

This is, of course, all complete speculation and just my take on the issue based on the comments made by a forum member, but it's worth considering. Who knows whether this is all true or not; I suppose we'll find out in a few short months. But given the nature of everything we've been told to this point, it all seems to fit. Should "The Final Prophecy" leave us with a more gripping cliffhanger than the other books have, I think an excellent ending would have Mara looking at Luke and asked what Zonama Sekot translated into Yuuzhan Vong is. And the last words of this penultimate novel would simply be nothing more than, "Yuuzhan'tar."

Awsome; the cover for The Final Prophecy has been posted, have a gander:

Zonama Sekot holds the key to ending the bloody war between the Galactic Alliance and the Yuuzhan Vong invaders. As Luke Skywalker negotiates an alliance with the living planet, Yuuzhan Vong operatives steal one of the world's organic starships for delivery to scientist Nen Yim. Yim's research not only uncovers the mysteries of the planet, but also long-forgotten secrets of the Yuuzhan Vong. Elsewhere, General Wedge Antilles leads a three-pronged campaign to take the Bilbringi system, but becomes stranded in Yuuzhan Vong space. He must rely on his wits to survive long enough to continue one of the deadliest and most crucial missions of the Alliance. The Final Prophecy, the penultimate novel of The New Jedi Order series, is by Greg Keyes and has cover art by Terese Nielsen featuring the young Jedi Knight Tahiri Veila who plays an important part in the story. It is scheduled for paperback publication this October by Del Rey Books.

Now then, for a fair share of speculation on my part:

BEWARE POSSIBLE INCOMING SPOILERS...

Starting from the top down, under the word "Series" are two stars, and correct me if I'm wrong, but something springs to mind that Bilbringi has two stars. My question is however for the left side; whether the reddish-orange thing is a nebula of some sort, or perhaps some fleshy Yuuzhan Vong type skin/stuff.

Next we arrive on our two Yuuzhan Vong. On the left is Nem Yim, once again amazingly detailed. Her cloak has really nice fleshy/living patterns if you look close, but my attention is drawn toward her hands. Especially the thumb on the higher hand which seems to be covered in some type fleshy hair. And it looks like the other fingers on that hand seem to be joined together in some type of one fingered claw, perhaps? Perhaps it's just me, but it seems like she is manipulating the star, although it could be just coincidence. My feelings are that Yim is going to be playing a large part in the foreshadowed "Final Prophecy" and perhaps...pardon the pun, but holding the fate of a system in her hands. For Nom Anor, the only thing I can possibly say is that it's about time that he was given a cover shot. It might take some type of graphics program used to zoom in, but try and see the level of detail on his fake eye. I am surprised, I must admit, that a shaper and a shamed one dance across the cover of a book entitled as it is. This is no doubt some representation of the direction the war is turning; I would have expected to see Shimrra, or another high-ranking Yuuzhan Vong official on the cover.

Tahiri, while accurate based on previous covers, just doesn't fit with my mental image. And while I feel that her lightsaber seems a bit large (and I won't ask why there's a glow coming out of the end even though it isn't on...), Tahiri does strike me as someone who likes to get down and use her hands rather than tools, for which bigger and bulkier might be better. I wonder if the fact that she wears a camo-jump suit gives us more of an insight into Zonama Sekot's land covereage. And as a note to the side, this also tells us that we shouldn't be looking too deep into the Force Heretic trilogy for answers for Zonama Sekot; with negotiations just occuring (or at least finishing up) in TFP, maybe there isn't a real end for the FH trilogy. I'm guessing at this point that the entire goal of those three books is just to get our heroes to Zonama Sekot, and letting Keyes pick up the pieces from there.

After I zoomed in more, I am guessing that in the lower right we're seeing Nom Anor's chest and tattered clothing. So he remains a shamed one (for a high ranking person -- or at least a non-shamed one -- wouldn't have tattered clothing). Again, I wonder if this isn't another small hint at what the "Final Prophecy" is to mean. Time can only tell.

Just a few things;

1) Spoilers: Check out the dramtis personae from REFUGEE here at the Message Boards thanks to a poster on the TFN Jedi Council Literature Forums.

2) Check this thread out as well, for information on the new NJOE Weekly Editorial.

More coming in a future update, but I just got done with a bunch of testing at school (ACT and stuff).

It certainly is a great day! I'm still waiting to get writers involved, but while we wait, perhaps you'd like to check out our message boards for the revealing of a certain Big News...

Hey! Look who is still alive! Us! Well, basically we aren't sure what happened with OasisHosting.com, but they've been unreachable and unresponsive since mid-December, so we're back to our original host, DavidFry.com who has since upgraded his equipment, and hopefully we're back online for a long time now. You'll notice new at the top our Yahoo Group, subscribe to this if you want to have e-mail notification everytime NJOE is updated. Also, as a side-note, in the event we do have another long, long outage, it might be a good idea for you all to have bookmarked our Message Boards which were up the entire time during the outage. Now then, a huge list of updates:

• Major redo of the Archives, I got the page a lot smaller now by categorizing it.
• Updated the credits page: I need authors, dedication authors, for all New Republic Sections, IR/Chiss Characters, Jedi Characters. Please apply ASAP to njoe@njoe.com.
• Corrected Jagged Fell entry on IR/Chiss
• Added Universe of Chaos to the links section
• Destiny's Way summary!
• Correct an error in the Ylesia summary
• Added to the Coruscant Yuuzhan Vong battle section to get it up to date.

I'm still working (or I'm going to start working) on tracking down those things in the Yuuzhan Vong section that are down.