Talk:Star Wars: Ryloth Under Siege/@comment-5148107-20191001010634

Finally found time to read through Ryloth Under Siege, so it's time for my review! Of course, as a heads up, my feedback will be completely honest.

Overall, the story is enjoyable. It definitely needs some polishing here and there to make things more plausible and allow the story to flow better. To name a few things...

- Han Solo's infiltration of the First Order base on Dantooine felt kind of random to me, I'm just not sure that's something Han would do so recklessly like that.

- Unless I missed something, that skirmish on Dantooine before they traveled to Kashyyyk was randomly ended prematurely without closure? You set it up as rather daunting, there being thousands of stormtroopers attacking the base, but it just suddenly stops as they travel to Kashyyyk

- The Kashyyyk scene was alright, although I feel like it could've been dragged out a little bit longer. The rebels pretty much arrived and were on their way to Ryloth immediately. Perhaps a little bit more negotiation between the two parties? (Unless they are all rebellion, which you ought to mention)

And I'll talk about the Ryloth scene separately. Right at the beginning, it seems like Scrape wishes to parley with the rebels. When they arrive, he just tells them to go away, essentially. Why? He could have lured them in a trap, or if he really wanted to deliver that message, he could have told them via the transmission. Next, I had a hard time following what was happening in the battle. (I had a hard time following most of the story, although I understand that being due to the writing being rushed.) The battle itself was fine once I was able to process everything, so description definitely needs improvement. I also thought the scene with the Twi'leks, while silly, was unnecessary and didn't add much of anything to the plot.

Now I will talk about the climax here, as it is quite character-driven. Now, I didn't read Blue Quartz so I am left out of what conflict there is between Fil and Ponds, which I think you just suddenly brought up right before the battle. I think you should've built more on that through the story in order to setup for that final scene with Fil and Ponds in the end. I also questioned the morality of Sergeant Leland as he dropped those bombs without question, I feel like there should've at least been some hesitation as he is about to kill his commanding officer. But otherwise, I applaud you for killing off a major character, and appreciate the attempt at making it meaningful and heartbreaking--it just needed a little more. Also, Ponds's reaction felt a little unrealistic--he just lost his brother! He kind of just shrugs it off quickly.

Same with the Stone and Scrape scene in the end. I think it could've been so much more powerful with the proper buildup. Something simple like Stone flashbacking to the Clone Wars, to when he fought alongside Scrape, would've worked well for establishing the connection between the two. I also feel like the story was ended a little bit prematurely as it went from everything exploding to, "Guess they're dead, the end." Just a little more at the end would've been nice. What I did like there is you leaving the fates of Stone and Scrape ambiguous (although I know they survived since I looked at Stone's page and saw he's in future stories, and our conversations regarding our collaboration mention Scrape so he must have survived.)

Scrape, Scrape, Scrape. To me, he felt kind of like a typical Disney villain. I wasn't exactly intimidated by him, he just felt stereotypical and cliche. I know you've been criticized about your portrayal of Scrape before, but he definitely needs some work to make him a more believable character, and a proper motivation for doing what he does (because I haven't found that anywhere).

All in all, enjoyable story. It needs polishing here and there to turn it into something even greater, but it definitely has potential. Another complaint I have is that the story tries to focus on Ryloth, given its title, but they don't even arrive on Ryloth until the final act of the story. Instead, I think a majority of the story should've taken place on Ryloth, perhaps in a guerilla warfare style where the rebels are launching small attacks to poke at the First Order's occupation.

There are lots of other points I'd like to go over, but this post would become longer than it already is. If you have any questions, do ask them! I hope my feedback wasn't demeaning, that was not the intent; it was only meant to act as constructive criticism!

2 more to go!