True space opera and in the best meaning of the word.

Slow building action, lots of side information but fun to read and not spoiling impressions, presenting the continuation of the conflict over many months and constantly - sometimes even rapidly - changing circumstances. And presentation of many different points of view - especially Tarkin's - is just brilliant.

In short, one of the best fics, I've ever read. I look forward to the next chapters with great anticipation and I wish the author a lot of health.

My memories of the first version are very vague, but this is better. Dunno if I'll read half a million words of it, but I'll certainly head to chapter 2. Thanks for the free entertainment.

Another nice chapter. Esera is coming apart at the seams, it seems... hopefully she will have a bit of time to sort herself out in her new assignment. And maybe they will get a new Oceana to replace poor old Encounter, the tired old war horse that got them this far. It will be sorely missed.

Also, are Asajj and Kenobi FLIRTING with each other? I didn't know this story needed that until it happened, but boy am I glad I got to read it. I wonder if Kenobi and Shaak Ti are gonna get the hell out of dodge before or after it's too late, because the Jedi are a freight train with brakes that failed about 20 miles ago on a collision course with Tarkin and the ever-infamous Order 66.

A couple of typos I noticed; when the Caraamite spymaster arrives "...flagged a contact Invisible Contact picked up..." should obviously be Invisible Hand. Which, by the way, is probably one of my favourite spaceship names. It's very ominous and important sounding.

There was one more that jumped out at me while reading, but I can't find it again... maybe I will go through it again later and try to pick it out when it's not 4 in the morning.

Anyway, another great chapter. I read this one and 51 at the same time, but there's too much big brain activity going on for my durasteel smooth cranium to even properly parse, let alone interpret and extrapolate onto. Your story is really great at making me feel like I'm just along for the ride, because 90% of the time I really have no idea what the hell you're going to spring next or what the characters are going to do.

I stumbled across ASD about a week ago while looking for something to fill the Grevious hole in my heart. All I can say is that what you've made is absolutely amazing, I've steamed through all 52 chapters so far and you've got me begging for more!
I can't wait to see what happens with Purity especially, with mentions of her not being able to sense the force since she's a biodroid, it got me wondering if she might actually develop said sense. As she discovers more of her surroundings and the life in the Galaxy. That would be a massive turn of events and cause a stir, it would probably shake Esera quite a bit as well. Not that she needs it though, poor girl needs a break. Not a single chapter has been filler, at least not to me, but I feel like Esera's in desperate need of one!
Reeeally wanna know more about Aspar's new memories too, the way you wrote him afterwards made him seem like a completely different person and it's got me wondering if his ideals and agenda have changed at all.
And one last thing, I know it's not 'that' kind of fanfic but goddamn Sanya needs to get some already!
Can't wait for the next chapter, see ya there~!

[BEWARE, SPOILER AHEAD!]

A theme is beginning to crop up, especially around Caramm V. Going back and reading this chapter, I noticed that Aclinde was *very* interested in Esera. Namely, he seemed especially interested in keeping her away from the front and briefly became furious when Grievous pushed that idea off the table. So, I went back and began compiling the things we know about the Carammites, Eemon, his son, and Aclinde.

1. Boy Eemon was not Dictator Eemon's first choice for successor. Even now, Dictator Eemon appears dismissive and disdainful of Boy Eemon, making Boy Eemon's position as a Confederate officer all the more questionable, for both why and how it came to be. Were I to hazard a guess, Dictator Eemon does not want Boy Eemon as leader of his planet, something Boy Eemon appears partially aware of Immediately, there is some bad blood between them.

2. Boy Eemon recommended Aclinde to Grievous, despite obviously knowing and openly admitting the man was a rival and enemy to Dictator Eemon. In doing so, Aclinde's department has rapidly expanded its reach across the Confederacy, as has been hinted across the story since its introduction, making it comparable to the ISB of the Empire in its reach. Aclinde now as a position of power similar to or greater than the one he lost on Caramm V.

3. Dictator Eemon has established a connection with Esera, who in turn has a direct connection to Grievous. As was mentioned in an earlier chapter, the information provided to Grievous directly from Acline and indirectly from Dictator Eemon is sometimes contradictory, something Grievous himself makes note of. Sir Timewatch rarely does things without a specific reason, or so I believe, so why make a scene of Grievous learning about the differing sources of information?

4. Tarkin has a Carammite connection, though whether that is through Aclinde or Dictator Eemon hasn't been directly shown. If I recall correctly, the massing of fuel tankers at Umbara reached Grievous through Aclinde who in turn received his information from Tarkin. This does cast doubt on Aclinde's loyalties, especially since Dictator Eemon and Boy Eemon have never really been specific about why Aclinde was nearly purged. Sure, there was the joking "lmao, Dictator Eemon can't live without thinking someone is out to kill him", but given Timewatch's extremely in-depth writing? There are multiple narratives at play here, and they are not harmonized.

5. Aclinde appears to have taken an interest in Esera and her state only after she started using Dictator Eemon as an informant. Say what you will about Dictator Eemon, but he has a vested interest in the Confederacy winning. What does Aclinde have to gain? No one knows who he is, it would be easy to disappear if the war ended poorly, something helped by removing Grievous's most successful agent from the war.

5a. Going deeper into Aclinde, his interrogation of Esera was very well executed, especially given who he was trying to convince. Grievous really does know nothing about humans, and so was willing to believe anything Aclinde would say. At the end of the day, despite everything he has said to the contrary, Grievous has extremely limited faith in Esera as a soldier, especially when Aclinde plays up his own personal brutality. He commends Esera for destroying the Beskar mine, before saying he would do the same and sooner, playing up his decision-making and casting doubt on Esera's. He trashes her entire operation in front of Grievous, and Grievous seemingly buys into it. He plays down her successes thus far as pure luck, despite the fact that we have seen Esera succeeding through much of her and her crew's abilities. He plays to Grievous's lacking knowledge of humans while completely sidelining any counterargument Esera could make. He questions her rationalizations of the operation, a question Grievous had already been asking himself, despite the fact we have already seen Esera justifying how the operation went. His attacks make her emotional, playing to the idea of her fraying mental state, again to someone with almost no knowledge of human psychology. No matter what Esera might say or think, she is a far stronger person than she was at the beginning of this story.

Maybe Aclinde was looking at the situation objectively, trying to ensure that Grievous's best agent didn't cost them the war because she was worn down and using every tactic he could to that end. Maybe I'm looking too far into it, but there are too many question marks in Aclinde's allegiances for me to ignore.

What are the Carammites up to? What is Aclinde up to? Only time will tell.

Anyways, I can't wait to see the next chapter of this wonderful story. Whenever I see an update, I quite literally drop everything to read or listen to it. The next great shift of this story is coming, or so it appears, and I am as excited as can be to see it.

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

If you're burning meaningful amounts of fuel to stay in "orbit," then by definition you are not actually in orbit. How the fuck did you graduate high school without learning basic Newtonian physics?

You mixed up dorsal and ventral. Dorsal is top, ventral is bottom. Venators do not have a ventral hanger-they have a center line dorsal hanger and a secondary lateral hanger at the notch in their arrowhead profile.

I've been rereading this storylistening to it at work, reallyand I've only just realized we have not had sight nor sound of Poggle the Lesser since before the failed coup. We've somewhat seen Tambor and Gunray, but Poggle has MIA. It's a strange thing to point out, I know, but I was just wondering what happened to him? I realize that the old Archduke would be pretty irrelevant to the plot, but given how extremely well researched and planned out this story his, his absence is noteable. Maybe there will be a Geonosis arc where Poggle will relevantI'll have to wait and see, I suppose.

Speaking of absent figures, I've also noticed that Komara and her crew have not interacted with a regular Tactical Droid, but have several times with the extremely rare successor. Then again, they aren't ever on droid-heavy battlefields where the T-series and their ilk are typically present.

Finally came to the latest chapter (feels like a year of reading, maybe it is) and I have to say that I wasn't planning to invest myself into this but holy hell I am in too deep. I wish I wrote notes after every chapter because after 50 long ass (good) chapters I kinda have no idea what to exactly say, so I'm just gonna kinda talk unorganized about things that I can remember, so:

-For the OCs, Voyan, Murshida and Esera are great. Aclinde also good but I'm talking about the main ones here. I'm okay with others, all decent at the very minimum

-Grievous is good, he is competent at both warfare and fighting and that automatically makes your Grievous miles ahead of RotS or TCW. However I do think he could be improved upon. I feel like he isn't enough of a villain, and when you remove his brain control chips he kinda isn't. But still, I feel like he should slap a person's head off that maybe didn't really deserve it, or maybe they did but Grievous kills them so brutally that he can't feel like a good guy to us. Also think he needs to be more robotic in the way he thinks (don't know if you've read Labyrinth Of Evil but I think that he is best potrayed there). Anyway, Grievous is my favorite character (big surprise) so I'm very critical of how he is handled. But I seriously still enjoyed every moment with him in this fanfic.

-Zeltron arc was great, the way you described the planet made me really want to be there. Really like Voyan since then as well.

-Grievous getting religious is epic, also the entire Shaak Ti's idea about Grievous being this monster unleashed by the force onto the galaxy because of the Republic's injustice to the less important parts of the galaxy, epic. Also it nicely ties in with "the force balances itself" thing, you know after the chosen one dies here comes the force with a new plan, that was also kinda in place before he even died, pretty cool. You're gonna have Ti and Grievous meet again, right?

-Totally agree with your take on the clone war, from your reviews to what I got from your writing. The CIS and The Republic are both bad and good. Galaxy divided, the actual bad guys are hiding behind the fog of war.

-Electrostaff should hurt the big pirate droids, that thing was able to loosen Grievous' chestplate armor when Obi Wan was hitting him. I hate how they feel like big tasers in TCW when it's supposed to be super deadly. Don't know what's your take on Magnaguards, but in Legends one of these would probably be able to kill Esera. So I thought they went down wayy too easy against Potkin.

-where is crab-man, is he safe

-Agamar was awesome, really felt like hell.

-Yoda just holding Grievous with the force felt a bit over the top, I don't think anyone should be able to do that to Grievous with such ease and have a conversation at the same time, though the convo was pretty good, always wanted the two of them to interact. Murshida sending the grandmaster flying was the best part though.

-Rip Vos, wish you didn't kill him off but it's good he even appeared at all.

-Tarkin going with Maul and Aspar to that planet X was really good and it actually felt really sinister.

-Loved the Dooku holocron scene. The part at the end when Esera asks him why he turned to the dark side, and when she turns off the holocron and Dooku "flickers into nothingness". Probably the saddest moment in the entire fanfic and one of the reasons why I decided to buy Yoda Dark Rendezvous.

-I think you're handling OG characters well, overall I have no big complaints I think what you're doing is top tier SW content, especially with today's SW.

And that's all I have. Looking forward to the next chapter and maybe I'll rant some more then. Good luck, and don't bother with the Kenobi show unless you want to just see cool Vader scenes.

Coming from someone who's been into Warhammer 40K (a setting that has been butchered too many times to count) for years, you have to pick and choose when it comes to canon. Take what you like, discard or modify what you don't like and ignore the irredeemable shit, or you will stay mad forever and get burned out. There isn't much good Star Wars fanfiction out there, but your story got me invested and reading up on all the info I didn't know. Hope you'll do your story justice and ignore the garbage canon.

Every months I wait with impatience this amazing piece of narration, a story of such quality that it makes me stick to a franchise I have no particular passion to.
A new chapter of this story is always one the main highlights of the month for me and once I finally reach the bottom of the page I'm disappointed to have to wait to keep going but not as much as dread the day this story will reach its inevitable conclusion.

Keep going. You're doing an amazing job and I'm really thankfull for it.

love this chapter, struck me as sort of filler but in the context of the previous chapters it makes sense. i am incredibly excited for the next arc to start, now i am wondering, who does voyan get as a romance? Dont leave xim's simp out in the cold bruh

Well I mean if you hate the canon stuff just ignore it and delve into legends, that's what I and alot of people do anyways. Hope you change your mind about rushing this as that leads into both crap quality chapters and plot holes.

Great story

I think that the OCs are better characterized than most characters of the new trilogy. Of Disney’s series, I absolutey prefer Mandalorian for its view of normal life during the Galactic war.
After this beatiful story, what will you write?