X-Wing Rogue Squadron: Difference between revisions

The books are written by [[Michael Stackpole]] and [[Aaron Allston]]. Most of those run directly from the end of one book to the beginning of the next, but ''Isard's Revenge'' starts just after the last book of the [[The Thrawn Trilogy]], and ''Starfighters of Adumar'' is set years later. Each book is prefaced with "Star Wars: X-Wing", but we're trying not to develop [[Colon Cancer]] here. The books are:

 

'''The Bacta War''' }}

 

Written by Stackpole starting in 1996, these novels are collectively [[Fan Nickname|and informally]] known as the Rogue Squadron series. It's a self-contained plot concerning members of Rogue Squadron, a starfighter formation famous for two things: achieving mission goals that are [[Beyond the Impossible]] and losing a lot of personnel in the process. [[Ascended Extra]] Wedge "Look at the size of that thing!" Antilles rebuilds the squadron from the ground up, bringing in pilots from all walks of life, including [[Ensemble Darkhorse]] Tycho Celchu and [[Canon Sue|untrained Jedi]] Corran Horn. They have a crucial role in the [[The Alliance|New Republic]] strike to retake the Imperial capital of Coruscant, or [[Insistent Terminology|Imperial Center]] as it is currently called. Their big enemy is [[The Chessmaster|Ysanne Isard]], head of Imperial Intelligence and current leader of the Empire, whose tactics include [[Being Tortured Makes You Evil|torturing/brainwashing people]] into becoming [[Manchurian Agent|Manchurian Agents]], using [[The Mole]], and [[Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke|designing the Krytos Plague]] to induce a major case of [[Divided We Fall]].

 

'''Solo Command''' }}

 

* [[And Now for Something Completely Different]]: The first four books are relatively straight military SF in Stackpole's [[Beige Prose]], which revolves pretty resolutely around Corran Horn; all other characters are secondary. The next three are along those lines, but Corran is absent and a good deal of humour and personal issues creep in. The eighth is another Corran book, but the ninth is almost entirely Wedge's personal story about duty versus doing the right thing, as well as having more jokes than any other book in the EU.

* [[And This Is For]]:

* [[Anyone Can Die]]: Except for Wedge. Or anyone else who made appearances in earlier books set chronologically later.

* [[Artificial Limbs]]: As a plot point -- {{spoiler|Nawara Ven}} gets an artificial limb that reduces his piloting skill enough to drop him out of the squadron. He still stays on as the Executive Officer, however. And, of course, there's Ton Phanan.

*** His defense against the false charge that got him in the Wraith selection pool -- striking a superior officer -- is that none of the people he ''did'' hit (during well-moderated challenge matches) were able to speak coherently within a half hour, the time it was filed.

** Wedge himself. He's a good guy with a sense of duty that outweighs everything else, he's very accepting of Imperial defectors, he has survivor's guilt and doesn't lessen his opinion of someone when they dislike a friend of his. But he can be pressed too far. Remember "The Phantom Affair" and "Mandatory Retirement"?

<br />

* [[Neck Lift]]* "[[Parenthetical Swearing|Don't make me go Vader on you]]. {{spoiler|Ibtisam}} was a pilot and a friend and she died to save your sorry hide." }}

** The Adumar situation even caused Hobbie ("The Dour One") to snap. When Wedge suggested that a pilot go ahead and ambush the Cartann pilots, Hobbie was astoundingly the first one to volunteer.

** In ''Wraith Squadron'', after the titular group was ambushed by a group of pilots that Zsinj was trying to ally himself with (resulting in the {{spoiler|death of Jesmin Ackbar and a [[Heroic BSOD]] for Donos}}), he walks in on the pirates with a terrifying glare on his face. The pirate leader tries to bluff him by saying the battle had taken place in an unclaimed star system and so there were no laws there and they had the right to defend themselves. Wedge agrees and says in that case they were free to go -- but of course if there were no laws that also meant there were no laws against the Wraiths killing all the pirates and looting their supplies. The pirate leader changes his mind about if there were any laws in the star system.

** Tyria Sarkin. Apparently the most stable member of Wraith Squadron. Nice lady, mild manners. Punched three hells out of Eurrsk "Grinder" Thriag when a proposition he made in jest was taken too seriously.

* [[Big Damn Gunship]]: While escorting a bacta convoy in the Alderaan Graveyard, Rogue Squadron is ambushed by a ''Victory''-class Star Destroyer and an Interdictor Cruiser. Suddenly, an ancient, automated Alderaanian frigate appears and starts blasting away at the Imperials, tipping the battle into the Rogues' favor.

* [[Bizarre Alien Biology]]: Ooryl Qrygg sees in the far-ultraviolet, 'talks' by vibrating his exoskeleton and, well. His race doesn't sleep much and can in fact "store" rest for later, and some Gand can also regenerate lost limbs, too. It's admitted that even the Rebel medics are just as surprised by all this as Ooryl's squadmates. He also kills a stormtrooper at one point by... punching him in the back through his armor. Ow.

'''Inyri Forge:''' What?<br />

'''Ooryl Qrygg:''' [...] Ooryl gets the metabolic ingredients Ooryl needs through ingestion, not respiration. [[Deadly Gas|Fex-M3d]] will not affect Ooryl. }}

** In ''Rogue Squadron'' Corran bitterly reflects that the old Corellian Security Force of his youth has been turned into the [[Secret Police]] organisation called the Public Security Service, which will appear in [[The Corellian Trilogy]].

* [[Captain Crash]]: Hobbie and his much joked about tendency to spend long periods of time in Bacta tanks after spectacular crashes. Despite this, he's unquestionably an [[Ace Pilot]].

* [[Captain's Log]]: Taken a few steps further in ''Wraith Squadron'', where the [[Ragtag Bunch of Misfits]] captures the starship ''Night Caller'' and find that the [[Small Name, Big Ego]] Captain stores his Captain's Log in hologram form. We're talking ''hours'' of holo-footage here. There's so much of it that the Wraiths are able to use it cobble together a CGI Captain to mess around with the [[Big Bad]] of the novel in a rather delicious [[Indy Ploy]].

* [[The Chains of Commanding]]: Every time a pilot dies, Wedge has to write the letter to the family. [[It Never Gets Any Easier]]. On another note, his loyalty to the New Republic is such that if it's for the good of the Republic, he'll do it. No matter how he feels about being jerked around to serve. He has some survivor's guilt. By the last book, Wedge at least briefly ponders resigning his commission when asked to do something he views as unethical. (He [[Take a Third Option|takes a third option]], however.)

* [[Chekhov's Gun]]: In ''Bacta War'', there is an offhand comment how Tycho decided to use an old Alderaanian IFF code for his fighter. Later in the novel, the squadron goes into the Alderaan debris field to escort some freighters. Tycho keeps receiving anomalous pings to his IFF, but just assumes it's some leftover satellite. {{spoiler|Then it turns out his Alderaanian IFF just summoned a Alderaanian War Frigate, which [[Gunship Rescue|arrives just in time to fend off an Imperial ambush]], and even starts using Tycho's targeting data to attack the Imperial ships.}}

* [[Clear Their Name]]: Tycho is framed for being an Imperial sleeper agent and causing the death of a teammate ({{spoiler|Corran}}). His friends have to track down the real evidence and defend him in court. {{spoiler|The murder trial, of course, is called off in short order when the supposed victim arrives to provide testimony.}}

* [[Comically Small Bribe]]: Face offers an imperial guard ''an entire credit'' while [[Obfuscating Stupidity|pretending to be an Agamarian stereotype.]]

* [[Continuity Nod]]: Mostly in the Stackpole books, which have lots of bits referring to characters and situations from the comics. ''Wedge's Gamble'' also has two nods to Timothy Zahn's [[The Thrawn Trilogy|Thrawn Trilogy]], with Winter Celchu being code-named Targeter and mention of ''[[Punctuation Shaker|ch'hala]]'' trees on Imperial Center/Coruscant. For those who've read Zahn's trilogy it also explains some of how Isard knows Rogue Squadron is on planet.

** And there's the hold-out blaster [[Book Safe|found in the datacard file]] for Corvis Minor, which also started as a Zahn thing. The two authors have collaborated together and don't come to blows in person, so perhaps it's not surprising. Some fans like it, some find these Zahn nods to be unnecessary or contradictory (for example, Winter was supposed to use the Targeter codename only while with one cell on a single planet, and it wasn't for the taking of Coruscant).

** Zahn later repaid the favour by giving several of Stackpole's characters substantial roles in his ''[[Hand of Thrawn]]'' duology.

* [[Corrupt Corporate Executive]]: Basically the entire Xucphra bacta cartel ''Bacta War''. During the ''Wraith Squadron'' arc, Zsinj has secret deals with a number of corporations in unaligned and even Republic controlled systems in order to supply his fleet.

* [[Crazy Cultural Comparison]]: Discussed in ''Starfighters of Adumar:''

'''Janson:''' Well, what if their usual greeting for visiting dignitaries was to throw paint? }}

** In the same book, Wedge hopes a handshake is an appropriate response to an outstretched hand and they don't expect him to "kneel on the floor and put the hand on his head" or something.

* [[Ejection Seat]]: Used frequently.

** In ''Starfighters of Adumar'', it even makes it into an anecdote about the 'official' ambassador to the Adumari, a former Rebel Alliance pilot named Tomer Darpen. Apparently when he crash-landed on a low-gravity planetoid, his [[Ejection Seat]] malfunctioned and ''he achieved escape velocity''. He was stuck with the moniker "Ejector Darpen" for the rest of his career.

* [[Emotional Torque]]: Allston's writing is composed primarily of [[Crowning Moment of Funny|Funny]], [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|Awesome]], [[Tear Jerker|Tearjerkers]], and [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|Heartwarming.]] It borders on [[Mood Whiplash]] sometimes. In the later books the emotional torque itself is a large part of the plot. Since so many bad things keep happening, Wedge is constantly trying to find ways to keep the mood and morale up, but Zsinj or just his own pilots keep on bringing it down.

* [[Enemy Mine]]: In the Allston books, Han and an Imperial commander hatch a secret plan to combine forces against Zsinj. Then there's ''Isard's Revenge'', in which several Rogues die and the others end up having to work with an old enemy.

* [[Fragile Speedster]]: A-wing fighters; most of their pilots are consequently speed-obsessed.

** In one instance in ''Wraith Squadron'' where two of the Wraiths actually beat two A-Wings [[Airstrike Impossible|in an impromptu race]], the A-Wing pilots laugh it off with this line:

** Tycho Celchu, having a background in TIE fighters and A-wings, uses this kind of piloting style. When they were stuck in big, slow Blade fighters on Adumar, Hobbie beat him in a simulated dogfight (it's usually the other way around). Even regular TIE fighters are this in the hands of good pilots, as seen for instance in ''Starfighters of Adumar'' where Tycho, despite being an excellent pilot, is unable to shake one that's on his tail.

* [[Former Child Star]]: Garik "Face" Loran used to be a child actor in Imperial propaganda holodramas. [[The Atoner|He regrets his involvement]], and now uses his piloting skills and considerable acting ability to help the New Republic.

* [[Genius Bruiser]]: Voort is a [[Pig Man|Gammorrean]] whose brain chemistry was altered, making him intelligent and stable enough to become a very good pilot. And he has a habit of being able to knock out any human in one punch.

* [[Genre Savvy]]:

** Also, Tyria.

** And in ''Iron Fist'', after Castin's plan to sneak aboard Zsinj's ship gets shot down by Wedge, the Wraiths going on the mission are savvy enough to check their ship for a stowaway. {{spoiler|Too bad they don't look hard enough...}}

* [[Gentle Giant]]: ''Wraith Squadron'' had a Talz try out for the squadron. He did well during the simulation (a replay of the Battle of Endor) but his adrenaline and heart rate were skyrocketing all the way through, showing that he wasn't comfortable even against simulated targets.

* [[Gilligan Cut]]: Wedge's escape plan in ''Starfights of Adumar''.

'''Hobbie:''' Boss, please tell me you're not putting us in women's clothing.<br />

'''Wedge:''' Very well. [[Blatant Lies|I'm not putting us in women's clothing]].<br />

* [[Heroic BSOD]]:

** Donos starts ''Wraith Squadron'' with his sanity hanging by a thread, loses it twice during his time with his new squadron (slipping into an [[Angst Coma]] in one case), and comes perilously close an additional time. Near the end of ''Solo Command'', he thinks he's about to lose it again... {{spoiler|but realizes the truth in time to save most of his fellow pilots from a dangerous trap.}}

** Kell gets a couple of smaller examples during ''Wraith Squadron'', especially after failing to save Jesmin. Nothing quite up to Donos standards.

* [[Heterosexual Life Partners]]: Face and Phanan. {{spoiler|Phanan, who has no family, made Face his emergency contact and the beneficiary of his will. We learn this ''after'' his [[Tear Jerker]] death. Then there's [[Tear Jerker|his last message]] [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming|to Face]], and his will, which forces Face to acknowledge that he doesn't have to be [[The Atoner]] for the rest of his life because of what he did as a child.}}

* [[Humongous Mecha]]: Part of the Rogues' [[Crazy Awesome]] plan for disabling the Coruscant shield network involves hijacking a giant construction robot and rampaging around a section of the city.

* [[Hurricane of Puns]]: Talking to a documentarian with a camera <s>in the shape</s> made out of a droid's head:

Wedge looked at them, appalled. }}

** You know something's too good to resist when [[The Stoic|Tycho Celchu]] gets in on that action.

* [[I Like Those Odds]]:

'''Wes''': Not too bad. }}

* [[Impossibly Cool Weapon]]: On Adumar, Red Flight is introduced to blastswords, [[Sword Beam|dueling weapons that deliver an energy blast upon hitting with the tip]].

'''Tycho:''' Don't give him a new kind of weapon. It would be like giving a lightsaber to a two-year-old. }}

* [[Improbable Piloting Skills]]: Rogue Squadron is made up on some of the best pilots in the galaxy including several Force Users. The Wraiths are merely pretty good, but they make up for it in other ways, most importantly their [[Crazy Awesome]] improvised tactics. This skill is [[Lampshaded]] by one of their superiors.

** Crespin and his A-Wings count as well, even being referenced in-universe. Given that A-Wings are the [[Fragile Speedster]] type -- not quite as bad as [[Zerg Rush|TIE Fighters]], but still pretty dinky -- his wing's pilots must be very good to keep consistent numbers (though the battle in which both units see action for the first time ends with five dead and several wounded in Crespin's Blue Squadron where Wedge's Wraith Squadron only sports a few scratches -- both squads technically aren't operational, so that's no excuse).

* [[The Infiltration]]: Many, many times in many, many disguises.

** The top example is the entirety of the ''Wraith Squadron'' book, where the Wraiths maintain a disguise as Imperial operatives for several weeks without even being suspected, despite having their cover blown fully during a battle. They manage to keep the information from leaving the battlefield. It reaches [[Refuge in Audacity]] levels. Their cover is blown during a battle, so they take out everyone else on the other side, and turn around and tell the boss that they were ambushed and escaped, the only survivors, and the enemy BUYS it!

* [[Informed Ability]]: Tycho is probably the second best X-Wing pilot in the New Republic, behind Wedge, and is in command of Rogue Squadron by the time of ''Starfighters of Adumar''. And yet, in said book, he gets shot down ''three times''. Allston [http://www.aaronallston.com/factpages/faqswars.html mentions why] in his FAQ. Part of the fairly long answer about why Tycho didn't do so well:

** Long story short, as Hobbie explains after the first test fight in Blade-32s, Tycho's a [[Fragile Speedster]] pilot stuck in [[Mighty Glacier]] hardware. This also may fall under [[Worf Effect]].

** Second, and perhaps even more minor, example of this is Kell from Wraith Squadron. He does relatively little on-screen with bombs, despite being demolitions. His best example was slapping charges into place to damage structures, and slapping a charge onto a probe droid. However, he DOES do a good bit of off-screen bomb defusal, puts together some small explosive charges for Shalla's infiltration of the ''Razor's Kiss'', and manages to design a bomb in his head. He's on the border, but it's interesting.

** And again in ''Solo Command'' (Allston really likes this trope) as part of the [[Evil Counterpart]]/[[Shadow Archetype]] between Han and Zsinj: At the battle of Comkin Five, Zsinj and Han each are eager for the other to bring in their flagship, actually speaking to the viewscreen "Come on, bring in [''Mon Remonda''/''Iron Fist'']". When the New Republic fleet gets away, Zsinj has a near [[Despair Event Horizon]] where he bemoans, "I can't kill him, I don't know the formula, I don't have the plan" which is then echoed by Han at the battle of Vahaba: "I can't beat him."

* [[It Never Gets Any Easier]]: Observed during a funeral in ''[[Rogue Squadron]]''.

* [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold]]: Bror Jace of Rogue Squadron and Ton Phanan of Wraith Squadron both receive [[Character Development]] that turns them into this eventually. Castin Donn, too, although {{spoiler|his development came right before his death}}. Wraith Squadron's first slicer, Grinder, is just a relatively harmless [[Jerkass]], but gets a {{spoiler|[[Redemption Equals Death]]}} moment. Booster Terrik is a [[Jerkass]] in general (and to Corran Horn in particular), but is ''very'' protective of his daughter Mirax, and his adopted son Wedge.

* [[Kick the Dog]]: Zsinj and his crony General Melvar are entertaining, but we're not allowed to forget that they're the bad guys.

* [[La Résistance]]: The Ashern are a Vratix [[Badass Army|badass resistance group]] dedicated to freeing their fellow Vratix from virtual slavery under the bacta cartels. They're later joined by remnants of the Zaltin cartel after Xucphra stages a hostile takeover.

* [[Large Ham]]:

** Also, [[Small Name, Big Ego|Captain Darillian]] of the ''Night Caller''. Until they had to scrape him off the ceiling. And Face, especially when he's impersonating him.

** Zsinj and [[The Dragon|Melvar]]. Possibly a case of Obfuscating Ham-osity.

** Finally averted in ''Isard's Revenge'' and ''Starfighters of Adumar'' when they face enormous odds (six-to-one in the former case) and lose. In the first case, several Rogues are killed and the rest only survive due to being rescued by Imperials, while in the second Wedge's flight is forced down to the ground, although they do ''really'' well against the Adumari -- four against thirty, and they kill the thirty -- before the odds finally get them.

** Happens as early as the first novel.

* [[Limited Advancement Opportunities]]: Wedge repeatedly passes up promotion, preferring to be a Commander. Forming Wraith Squadron was actually part of a bet -- if he couldn't get them functioning as a full-fledged squadron within three months, he would be forced to accept promotion to General. He wins the bet, of course, but eventually he takes the promotion, mostly because his pilots have been refusing promotions too.

* [[Little No]]: Iella's use of this trope is what clues {{spoiler|Ysanne Isard}} into the fact that [[Villainous Breakdown|things are about to go to pot, quickly.]]

* [[Meaningful Name]]: ''Rogue'' Squadron. As an adjective, one definition is "no longer obedient, belonging, or accepted and hence not controllable or answerable; deviating, renegade." The squadron once leaves the New Republic.

** Invoked with ''Wraith Squadron'' where the name is picked to represent the squadron's (supposedly) stealthy nature.

'''Tyria:''' Something I heard about in my childhood. Dark things that come in the night for you. That's what I think we are. For the Empire, for the warlords, we're the phantoms under the bed, the monsters in the storage cubicles. }}

* [[Medal of Dishonor]]: The accidental kind, concerning Kell's Kalidor Crescent. He received it for pulling off a series of crazy maneuvers trying to save a fellow pilot's life, and he's disgusted with it because he failed. And in the comics, Fel is given an ugly one for following stupid orders.

* [[Mildly Military]]: Both Rogue and Wraith squadrons are noted to be far less rulebound than most squadrons, though the Rogues at least follow military discipline in-cockpit and during formal brief/debrief sessions. The Wraiths... [[Ragtag Bunch of Misfits|Not so much]].

* [[Military Maverick]]: Wedge is one of these, while in book four the Rogues go, well, ''rogue.'' The Wraiths, however, surpass them by several orders of magnitude.

** He really has no one but himself to blame, since this was why he put together the unit in the first place.

* [[The Mole]]: {{spoiler|Erisi Dlarit}} in the first four, Lara Notsil in the next three. Lara starts out the series as a bad guy [[Mook]], is portrayed sympathetically, has ethical dilemmas about her role, and eventually makes a [[Heel Face Turn]]. The other is a perfect mole whose secret is kept from the characters and the reader until [[The Reveal|the end of the third book]].

* [[Mookmobile]]: TIE Fighters. Wedge absolutely ''loathes'' them because of this:

* [[Moral Dissonance]]: The New Republic picking a fight with the neutral (if admittedly pro-Imperial) Ciutric Hegemony in ''Isard's Revenge''. Prince-Admiral Krennel is obviously not a nice man, but the best pretext the New Republic can come up with for starting the war is Krennel's execution of a defecting Imperial several years previously, during the comics, before Krennel himself left the Empire, a cynical justification which even the Rogues admit is "pretty thin". Even the generally saintly Admiral Ackbar more or less confesses that going after Krennel is as much about New Republic sabre-rattling to frighten bigger warlords like Teradoc as it about "liberating" the people under his rule.

** And that's before considering the fact that [http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Sate_Pestage Sate Pestage], the Imperial in question, was a total scumbag (basically a less cool, non-Sith version of [[Complete Monster|Emperor Palpatine]]), and only defected to save his own hide. While Krennel's murder of Pestage's family counts as a [[Moral Event Horizon]], his murder of Pestage is, at the very worst, [[Kick the Son of a Bitch]]. Wedge notes that he was sorely tempted to kill Pestage himself, even though he was an unarmed prisoner at the time, because the man was so repulsive.

* [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast]]: Ysanne Isard is nicknamed 'Iceheart' (similar to the pronunciation of her last name) by both her own subordinates and her Rebel enemies. Analogously, her Rebel counterpart Airen Cracken is nicknamed 'Kraken' by Imperials.

** And, as usual, the names of Imperial ships. Wedge has a discussion on the subject with Teren Rogriss in ''Starfighters of Adumar'':

* [[Never Found the Body]]: Even when Corran Horn is actually really dead, they won't find his body.

** In ''The Krytos Trap'', Wedge [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshades]] this by noting that every once in a while he half-expects dead squadmates to walk through the door because they [[Never Found the Body]]. (The body having gone up with their starfighter, admittedly.)

** Quietly subverted with Wedge. He jokes about it, but he actually ''does'' care about the odds.

* [[No-Holds-Barred Beatdown]]: Janson challenges an Adumari to a blastsword duel, quickly discards his weapon, and proceeds to treat the royal court to a display of down-and-dirty knuckle-brawling, ending with [[Cherry Tapping|a humiliating bitch-slap]]. Janson being Janson, he also works a [[Crowning Moment of Funny|CMOF]] into this [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|CMOA]] by drawing stick-figures in the air with his weapon beforehand.

* [[Noodle Implements]]: The notorious [http://img243.imageshack.us/img243/7309/swrsmr413.jpg lanvarok]. All the books mention is that it's a weapon, it's built by the [[Complete Monster|Sith]], and it's a distinct advantage to be left-handed when using it. [[Squick|Draw your own conclusions]]. [[Don't Explain the Joke|Sadly, other sources ruined it by explaining exactly what it is.]]

* [[Not Quite Dead]]: No one ever comes back from ''actual'' death, but there are many times when a character is believed dead and isn't. Corran Horn is king of this. If you count the number of times his friends have thought him dead, his enemies have thought him dead, and the reader has thought him dead, it actually amounts to more times than he has appearances in the X-Wing series, if each novel featuring him counts as one appearance. This went noticed [[In-Universe]] and gave birth to a joke: the day Corran really dies, everyone will just assume [[He's Just Hiding|he's alive somewhere and will reappear soon]].

** Hallis Saper. Her initial stated reasons for wearing "Whitecap" (A 3PO droid's head with her holography equipment inside) were that 3PO droids were found to be reassuring to children. (Whitecap actually provoked other reactions in-universe.) {{spoiler|It turns out to be a cunning method of disguise; while she wore Whitecap, people paid attention to the droid head and not to Hallis's face. Hallis also had other, more covert methods of disguising her holography equipment, some of which were seen later on.}}

* [[Oh Crap]]: In ''Iron Fist'', when the Wraiths have been playing pirate against a nonaligned system to try and bring Zsinj in as their protector -- and succeed ''a little too well'', with a ship's silhouette appearing over the horizon:

([[Gilligan Cut]] to narration) "It was a Super Star Destroyer, by name ''Iron Fist''..." }}

** The look on Grinder's face when, after trying to cover up a fight that happened, Wedge tells him [[Genre Savvy|that he doesn't believe it was a 'boxing accident' that caused the injuries he sees.]]

** Zsinj is able to command a dazzling array of invective in multiple languages, considerably impressing his nemesis Han Solo. [[Pass the Popcorn|Han actually has the ten minutes of cursing directed at him recorded, so that all the insults can be translated later.]]

*** This is also a [[Call Forward]] to a brief passage in ''[[The Courtship of Princess Leia|Courtship of Princess Leia]]''. "Did you know he really is a genius? He can swear fluently in sixty languages."

* [[Pass the Popcorn]]: In ''Wraith Squadron'' Wedge asserts his authority over Falynn by challenging her to a race in creaky old ore haulers. The other pilots watch via a screen and, after a while, start taking bets on the outcome.

* [[Pet the Dog]]: In ''The Bacta War'', the captain of a Star Destroyer with the unfortunate name of Sair Yonka (the captain, not his Impstar) fusses over which outfit his lover would prefer to see him in, and has a gift for her, not knowing about her Rebel sympathies. The Rogues bribe him into switching sides.

** Agamar is seen as the planet of stupid hicks, though that's really just a stereotype (although it is a [[Single Biome Planet|mostly agricultural world]]). At one point, three Wraiths plan to go undercover as Agamarians and ask the captain of their ship, who actually ''is'' from Agamar, to help them flesh out the stereotypes. {{spoiler|Said Captain is a [[Mauve Shirt]]...he doesn't make it}}

** Adumar appears to be the planet of blood sport, pilot-worship, and melodrama, but as it turns out only one country is that obsessed, and its people can be coaxed into seeing the problems with how they're thinking. Alderaan was always labeled as the planet of pacifists, and in the comics Tycho liked to respond to hearing that by [[Berserk Button|swinging a punch]] at whoever had spoken. Worth noting is that the mentioned planets are human-populated, so it's less a species thing and more of a culture or perceived culture thing.

** The Twi'leks are thought of as a race of merchants and smugglers, which tends to piss off their warriors, as seen in ''The Krytos Trap''. Zsinj then takes advantage of this in ''Solo Command'' - it's become common knowledge that there are touchy Twi'lek [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|Proud Warrior Race Guys]] around, so people will take his using Twi'leks as killer [[Manchurian Agent|Manchurian Agents]] as being a real radical-militant development in the race.

** Lorrd, Face's homeworld, is a relatively straight example of this trope (it was introduced in earlier books). Lorrd's hat is observation and control of body language, but this is [[Justified Trope|justified]] by backstory - the planet was once enslaved by aliens who forbade verbal communication, so the Lorrdians were forced to develop complex body and sign language instead.

** In a nice subversion, or at least [[Lampshade Hanging]], quite a bit of detail is put on how many people were TOO messed up for this trope. Props goes to the pilot accused of stealing, who is sure things will turn out okay. Wedge notices his family portrait is missing as the guy walks out.

** And while the pilots brought in to make up the numbers don't seem to have issues, it is quickly found that all of them are just as screwed up. Also, the actual real life implications of having such a team are [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]]/discussed by Wedge and Wes in a pretty serious moment.

'''Wes:''' It's true. Wedge, you asked for misfits. You had to know that even with the ones who made the grade, they were going to takes losses that were heavier than in a normal unit. }}

* [[Reasonable Authority Figure]]: Wedge and at least some of his superiors, including Admiral Ackbar.

** Also in ''Iron Fist'', Allston had to modify Warlord Zsinj's personality in ''[[The Courtship of Princess Leia]]'' of being a generic frothing-at-the-mouth-when-things-go-bad Imperial into a character with actual panache that could pull of victory after victory against the New Republic for novels at a time. He does this by making Zsinj into a skilled actor who pretends to be overly evil and angry on occasion either to impress and mislead his viewers or for his own amusement. The only disadvantage to this otherwise very successful reinvention is that it makes Zsinj's final defeat in the chronologically later ''Courtship'' seem very dissappointing in retrospect, considering he is barely even a character in that novel.

* [[Rummage Sale Reject]]: Some [[Hawaiian-Shirted Tourist|truly hideous tourist clothes]] worn by the Wraiths during an infiltration, as well as Hobbie's outfit on Adumar:

* [[Running Gag]]: Lieutenant Kettch, the fake Ewok pilot. This becomes something of an [[Ascended Meme]] or [[Defictionalization]] [[In-Universe]]: after their enemies/employers overhear the Wraiths' comm chatter, in which Wedge's voice was modified to sound like an Ewok, some ad-libbing and improvisation culminated in [[Crowning Moment of Funny|Wedge having to fight a battle with a stuffed Ewok in his lap]] to keep up the illusion that Kettch was real. To say nothing of Kolot...

** And an in-universe example: During the Wraith books, despite both serving on the ''Mon Remonda'', Corran Horn and Han Solo are never seen at the same place at the same time (including one moment when Han leaves the pilots' lounge, and Corran enters moments later--then wonders why everyone's laughing), which naturally leads the rest of the pilots to conclude that, despite a significant difference in age and appearance, they must be the same person. (This particular joke goes metastatic in ''I, Jedi''--in which Corran and Han actually ''do'' meet, multiple times. One of those times, Han jokes that he once had a Horn, Corran's father Hal, chasing him. Later, Corran goes undercover with the false name of a man Hal had once pursued, who hadn't been seen anywhere for more than a decade, and not even Corran's [[Knowledge Broker]] grandfather knew where he'd gone: [[Significant Anagram|Jenos]] [[Indiana Jones|Idanian]]. This also doubles as a [[Call Back]] to the ''Han Solo Trilogy''.)

* [[Stop Having Fun Guy]]: What Grinder claims to be, when commenting on the 'immaturity' of the pranks going on in ''Wraith Squadron''. {{spoiler|Turns out he's actually [[Not So Above It All]], except he deflects people's suspicions with his [[Hypocrite|claims]] of [[Serious Business]]. [[The Dog Is the Mastermind|Which is why no one suspects him of actually being the culprit]].}}

* [[Stuff Blowing Up]]

** This one actually becomes Wraith Squardon's motto:

* [[Suicide by Cop]]: In ''Solo Command'', a brainwashed {{spoiler|Tal'dira}} intentionally lowers his shields just before being able to complete his mission of killing Wedge Antilles. This enables Corran Horn ([[Fridge Brilliance|who used to be a cop]]) to place a killing blow, thus saving Wedge.

* [[Suicide Mission]]: This is Rogue Squadron's bread and butter, and because they're elite, they always manage to make it out alive (minus the [[Red Shirts]] and [[Mauve Shirt|Mauve Shirts]] in the squadron). Lampshaded by Xarcce Huwla; she was given the honor of being assigned to Rogue Squadron, and immediately asked for a transfer. When Wedge asked her why, she stated that the death toll of the squadron was far too high for her liking.

* [[Super-Persistent Predator]]: The Storini Crystal Deceiver. A notable subversion in that {{spoiler|it's not real}}.

* [[Sure Why Not]]: An in-universe version of this is used in ''Starfighters of Adumar''.

'''Hobbie:''' "Oh, that's simple. Do to them what you do to us at times like that."<br />

'''Wedge:''' ::frowns:: "What do you mean?"<br />

* [[You Can't Go Home Again]]: Some pilots in Rogue and Wraith squadron can't return to their home planets due to various reasons. Wedge and Tycho's homes were blown up, and Corran is (falsely) accused of murder in Corellia. The most tragic example, however, would be Tyria's home planet. Her people helped pass along the Death Star plans to the Alliance, and as punishment, the Empire bombed their planet to the Stone Age and enslaved the survivors.

* [[You Don't Want to Catch This]]: The Wraiths, undercover posing as the crew of one of Zsinj's ships, have to figure out how to swap cargo with genuine Zsinj counterparts without the latter noticing anything is amiss. Someone suggests using this trope so they'd all be in containment suits, but it's pointed out that Zsinj is suspicious and would investigate something like that. So instead they concoct a [[Zany Scheme]] to infect the ''other'' ship with a disease, inverting the trope.

* [[You Killed My Father]]: Wes Janson was forced to shoot Kell's father during a mission. This makes things very awkward when they're on the same squadron.

* [[You Have Failed Me]]: Isard is the Queen of this trope, whose murderous punishments for failure were known to go as far as Familicide. Isard's love affair with this trope is skewered in one of Allston's novels, where the slightly more [[Benevolent Boss|benevolent]] Admiral Trigit notes that anyone working for a [[Bad Boss|capricious psycho]] like Isard had nothing to look forward to except either death by the Rebels, or death by ''her''.