Nitty-Gritty Details and other Sad Time-Sucks

CANON
According to Ali:

The universe revised and edited as necessary for sanity.

Ok, I guess the logical first place to start would be in defining "time suck." No, I don't have any ulterior motives in doing so (suspicious person!). I simply realized after I wrote it that not everyone is/was/lives with a debator. Time-suck is an often used debate term. Debate speeches are broken into 8 or 5 minute segments, and an opposing team will frequently run arguments that are ridiculous or only thinly related to the topic at hand. If your team doesn't answer these args, they can kill you. If you do, you're forced to waste precious moments of speech time to refute the fact that your case will not cause, say, increased hemorrhoids in cattle (your case, of course, is all about creating midnight-basketball leagues for inner-city youth, a case I once ran in high school... cattle were not prominently figured). Your main recourse in this situation is to look pleadingly at the judge and bellow "THIS IS NOTHING BUT A TIME-SUCK!"

You're assuming that the judge is a caring individual who will be deeply offended by the callous use of argumentation in this, the highest pinnacle of intellectual sport: the policy debate league (high school and college level).

Wait a minute, what am I saying? There's no such judge. YOUR judge is a former debator who is highly amused at the inventive use of bovine hemorrhoids and is just waiting to see how you can wriggle out of it...

Anyway, since this canon IS NOT intended to be a time-suck of your valuable surfing experience, allow me to get to the point.

If you've read my first canon, you'll remember allusions to things that bug me. In re-reading the article, I realized that I've never really developed said topics of conversation. Ladies and gentlemen, I'll now attempt to rectify such a grievous mistake.

(Isard's Revenge--Wedge is being badgered by Hobbie and Wes about his date with Iella. Wedge instructs them to go to the roof. Janson responds: "not the personal vehicles hanger?")

Ok, so let's review... Young Wedge Antilles loses his parents in a tragic explosion, scrapes together the insurance money and buys a freighter, with which he tramps around the galaxy until he joins the Rebellion. He then blows up a Death Star, hides for a while, blows up some AT-AT's, hides a while longer, blows up another Death Star, blows up some Ssi-Ruuk, blows up random Imperials, captures Coruscant, creates a new squadron, hides with them for a while, and THEN, mysteriously acquires a personal vehicle. (I'm assuming that the NR doesn't appreciate pilots keeping their valuable X-Wings in the personal vehicles hanger. Maybe I'm an idiot (no, I'm not inviting emails to comment on that), but it seems a little sketchy to me that Wedge has had the time, money, or storage space for a skimmer. The man doesn't even take leave, to the best of our knowledge!

(During the Coruscant assault in WG, Tycho is assigned to the computer complex rather than flying cover in the Headhunters)

Well, for a second I thought I had this one figured out. I was typing the heading and realized, "You ninny! It's obviously far more difficult to navigate the streets of Coruscant in a blinding rainstorm with lightening bolts sizzling about your ears than to blithely flit through the skies shooting at eyeballs. Clearly Wedge appreciates Tycho's superior knowledge and experience and thus wants him flying the speeder." Then I remembered: Tycho wasn't flying the speeder, either. Inyri Forge (a denizen of Kessel who had chosen to come to Coruscant with Black Sun baddie Zekka Thyne), and who had no proof of her flying experience besides being the kid sister of slain Rogue Lujayne Forge, was picked for that after being refused Headhunter duty.

Tycho hasn't shown himself to be particularly brilliant on the ground (The Phantom Affair being a case in point). He is, above all, a pilot. Long and elaborate thought leaves me with two equally unsatisfying theories.

1. Softie Wedge believed that everyone would end up captured/killed by the Empire, and he wanted Tycho and Winter to spend their last moments together, allowing Tycho to protect the Alderaanian beauty.

First, Winter needs protection like Corran needs a hole in the head (hmm... bad similie but captivating idea). Second, if Wedge thought they were all going to fail he wouldn't have signed off on the plan to begin with.

2. Realizing that he would be out of contact in the construction droid, Wedge needed a point man to command the vital computer mission. Tycho was the logical second choice.

Ok, maybe this one works, but it's still a little suspicious. I'm open to ideas.

(Aaron Allston is firmly convinced that Hobbie only has one expression: mournfulness. Can this be a joke taken too far?)

I'm an understanding person. I value "inside jokes" and good, solid character development. I think we can all agree that Allston's writing gives us that in spades. However, is everyone else as sick as I am of Hobbie's persistent note of pessimism? It's the one element of Starfighters that really truly drove me crazy.

(In Solo Command, Wedge seizes command of the Mon Remonda(?) and tells Myn Donos to send his droid to have a good time, saying something to the effect of "Astromechs are the hardest working beings in the galaxy and the backbone of the New Repubic Fleet.")

I guess my beef here isn't so much with what happens (I agree wholeheartedly with the statement... astromechs are COOL), but with the glaring (some would even say whopping) inconsistency it creates in the X-Wing books. In the second scene of Rogue Squadron Wedge fights to have Tycho as his XO. Ackbar agrees over Salm's vehement protests, but assigns Emtrey to help with the squadron. We are told Wedge feels that taking care of pilots is difficult enough without caring for droids, too. Then, as the series progresses, we often see Wedge reacting to his personal R5, Mynock, in battle, a reaction that results in a memory wipe... something every droid fears. Hmmm. That about sums up my feelings on the matter.

(In the NJO, Wedge and Tycho are assigned to act as traffic cops during battles... unit coordination and such.)

I'm not sure just what makes me so upset here. I'll concede that that forty is a little old for a combat pilot... but it seems to me that using Tycho to play coordinator with the Rogues in battle is a gross underuse of his unique talents. Wedge at least ends up in a x-wing, albeit a recon vehicle. What's next? KP? Potato peeling, anyone?