While the first volume set the groundwork and featured philosophizing about the Jedi Order’s relationship to the Galactic Alliance, “Dark Nest II: The Unseen Queen” (2005) puts its ideas into action in an uncharacteristically tight 333-page novel from Troy Denning. While it seemed the Dark Nest was defeated and peace prevailed in “Dark Nest I: The Joiner King,” we knew that wasn’t the case by the fact that this is a trilogy. But rather than padding out the story, Denning finds new angles to explore in “The Unseen Queen.”
These new angles are surprisingly pivotal for a trilogy that might seem at first glance like a side trip between the 19-book “New Jedi Order” and the nine-book “Legacy of the Force.” “The Unseen Queen” is the book where Leia takes up her Jedi training under Master Saba Sebatyne. We don’t get a series of Dagobah-style training scenes; rather, Leia learns on the job. When she tries to deliver an urgent sample of Fizz to Jedi scientists, Saba orders Leia to stop and meditate. Leia says that is unreasonable, and Saba notes that Leia already knows how to reason, but she has forgotten how to take orders.
That’s not the only way Leia has to step back in order to move forward as a Jedi. The GA rank and file treats her differently now that she’s Jedi Leia instead of respected ex-political leader Leia. The GA military is willing to imprison Jedi now that a Jedi-vs.-GA conflict has arisen, whereas it probably would not imprison Leia were she lacking that label.
After Leia survives a lightsaber duel with Dark Jedi Alema Rar, she’s bandaged up like a Tusken Raider, and Han thinks she’s never seemed more beautiful; Denning effectively shows that Leia’s first test as a Jedi apprentice was harrowing, but she now has a new – and some readers would say long overdue — aspect to her character.
Whereas it’s long been established that Luke and Han are best friends, it’s odd how few Han-and-Luke adventures there are. This book fills that niche as the old pals investigate the Fizz on Woteba, one of the planets the Galactic Alliance has gifted to the Killiks as a way of ending the conflict with the Chiss.
The Fizz is a clever development. In the same ballpark as Zonama Sekot, except without the sentience, Woteba and the other Killik settlements are living planets. When a toxic element, such as the runoff from the Killiks’ factories, enters the environment, the planet fights it off with Fizz, a substance that absorbs and destroys the toxins. The Killiks living in harmony with their planets is literally a life-or-death situation.
While “The Unseen Queen’s” emphasis on the Big Three will thrill movie fans, it doesn’t ignore EU-created characters. Alema attempts to drive a wedge between Luke and Mara by noting an old case where Mara, as the Emperor’s Hand, killed a corrupt Imperial accountant for Palpatine, thus causing hardship for the wife and daughter. At first, I thought this was a reference to Timothy Zahn’s short comic story “Mara Jade: A Night on the Town,” from “Tales” Issue 1; it is not, although that story will give a reader an idea of the tasks Mara used to carry out.
In a new twist on how the Force can be used, the Dark Jedi Lomi Plo – the titular unseen queen who rules the Dark Nest, and by extension the whole Killik Colony – is invisible to people filled with doubt. Hence her strategy to make Luke doubt Mara.
In addition to Leia becoming a full-fledged Jedi warrior, “The Unseen Queen’s” other major continuity point is the introduction of baby Allana Solo, the daughter of Jacen and Tenel Ka who is for some reason unnamed at this point. I had recalled that Jacen’s fall to the dark side begins in “Legacy of the Force,” but it actually begins here. The fact that he now has a daughter whom he must protect drives him to actions he wouldn’t have taken in the past. He destroys the brain of the evil Hapan Ta’a Chume, who certainly deserves it, having attempted to kill Allana, but it’s still a decidedly dark-side action from Jacen. That’s the same way Anakin Skywalker started down the dark path – he killed Tusken Raiders who deserved it – but if Jacen’s path seems similar, the way his mind works is quite different.
Later in the book, Jacen leads a strike on Chiss military emplacements and comes close to breaking the mission parameters and killing Chiss. In a succinct illustration of the newly strained relationship between the siblings, Jaina vows that she’ll never fly with Jacen again. That doesn’t bother him, because he knew that would be the case when he took the action. Jacen has become a bit of a one-track mind – “Do whatever it takes to keep Allana safe” – but a fascinating one, and a contrast to the anger-filled Anakin Skywalker. He’s also a contrast to Ulic Qel-Droma (“Tales of the Jedi”) and Luke (“Dark Empire”), who attempted to infiltrate the dark side. In part because of his wider view of the Force – courtesy of Vergere, Zonama Sekot and his five-year journey among various Force-using sects – Jacen doesn’t even think in terms of light side and dark side.
The “Dark Nest” books continue to smartly illustrate how a massive war can happen even if only a small number of people (in this case, Lomi Plo and Alema) actually want war. The Killik Colony can be manipulated rather easily, as it is a collective in the truest sense of the term; a strong mind like Lomi Plo can take over the whole hive.
Showing the flip side, the Galactic Alliance and the Jedi Order find themselves on the precipice of war not because of a manipulative leader, but rather because of the lack of a strong Jedi leader. Luke had previously thought the Jedi would be better off with several strong-minded and moral Jedi on a council, but as soon as Luke is distracted by the Woteba mission, GA Chief of State Cal Omas rather easily creates a rift in the order. His goal is to get the Jedi out of the way so the GA military can move against the Killiks. As with “Dark Nest I,” some of the Jedi believe the order should exclusively serve the GA, and some believe it should serve all sentient life, but now those aren’t merely contrasting philosophies, but opposing sides in a war.
I also like how characters talk about how certain actions by the Killiks, Chiss, GA or Jedi might spark a galactic war, and others note that the war has already started; it’s only a question of how much worse things are going to get. It’s a nice parallel to the modern Earth situation where people often talk about the danger of a potential World War III, yet it can be argued that humanity is already in the midst of World War III (even though it looks different from the first two world wars in many respects). Emotionally, it seems like there shouldn’t be another big war after the experience of the Galactic Civil War and the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, but the “Dark Nest” trilogy shows that just because people are done with war doesn’t mean war is done with them.
Several mysteries from the first book are deferred until the final volume, particularly the detailed backstory of the Killiks, along with the question of how Luke will be changed by his expanded knowledge about his father (in this book, he sees Artoo’s recordings of Anakin slaughtering younglings, but Luke is merely extremely flustered by it for now.) But there’s so much good character development and path-to-war analysis in “The Unseen Queen” that I was OK with waiting a bit longer.