33 BBY: Prelude to Rebellion

The Rise of the Sith Omnibus is a Star Wars text that has yet to disappoint me. Every story I’ve read has been highly enjoyable, and if you, my reader, have ever considered buying this comic collection but have hesitated because if its price fear not, it’s a book that is worth the price of admission.


Like all the other stories contained in this Omnibus, Prelude to Rebellion, a story with Ki-Adi-mundi as the protagonist, does not disappoint.

What I found to be the most interesting aspect of this story was Ki-Adi-Mundi himself, and the fact that he has multiple hot wives. Who knew Ki-Adi-Mundi was a polygamist, and has a harem of super-hot Cerean wives that walk around in lingerie at home? Holy Crap! A little known fact of Cereans is that the men age faster than the women, and therefore there are fewer males than females. On Cerea Polygamous marriages are a necessity in order for the species to survive, and each male usually has one primary "bond-wife", and between four to ten "honor-wives". Ki-Adi-Mundi is therefore exempt from the Jedi vows of celibacy (and how!). One might think this is a great set-up, but I felt sorry for Ki-Adi. There’s this great scene at the start of the story where his bond-wife is busting his chops for not having enough sex with her, and that’s why she’s not pregnant: “ ‘I have to go look for Sylvn, but when I get back, we’ll talk about it.’ ‘Talking isn’t the problem! We do plenty of talking’ (Ki-Adi’s wife slams the bedroom door in his face) ‘Then what?’ ‘If you can’t figure it out, ask your Jedi Master!’” My heart broke for him in this scene. All of a sudden one wife seems like plenty enough. Still, he might have it good. He gets to return to Cerea from Coruscant, engage in marital relations with his harem, to which afterwards he can easily declare “Ah yeah, I gotta go, Master Yoda is paging me (checks a beeper that’s not there)….official Jedi business and whatnot….see you all in a few months”, and then he boards the next star freighter for the core worlds. Man that’s funny in my head.

All kidding aside, this was a great story where Ki-Adi-Mundi operates in most of the narrative without his lightsaber. I’m always impressed by a Jedi who does not need to rely on their lightsaber to solve their problems. Plus, there is this great brawling scene where Ki-Adi gets to kick some serious butt.

Besides being an overall great backstory to Ki-Adi before he was elected to a seat on the Jedi Council after Micah Giiet’s death, I thought Ki-Adi’s all droid starship crew was really was humorous as well. I was most impressed with FLTCH-R1, a merc droid originally sent to kill Ki-Adi, but was later reprogrammed to assist the Jedi in his mission to find Ephant Mon. My immediate reaction after coming across this droid was the thought that this was the type of droid the Trade Federation should have been building as part of its militarization. I always wondered why the Trade Federation even bothered with those B1 battle droids. Granted, in large numbers they’re not completely useless, but at the rate they got cut down by the Republic later on during the Clone Wars, at some point someone had to consider to stop making them and focus exclusively on commando droids. Surely commando droid’s cost could have been reduced if made in large quantities.

Notably, this is the first time Ephant Mon enters Star Wars history, and I think this is the first time Jabba the Hutt enters Star Wars history as well. Both are characters worth mentioning.

For my next post I’m going to have to backtrack all the way to 88-67 BBY. I totally forgot to look at Vow of Justice. I’m not sure how I missed that. Anyway, until then my friends, may the Force be with you.