Chasing the Dragon

Just finished the latest Galaxy's Edge book, Chasing the Dragon.  It's book two of Contracts and Terminations, the spin-off series that is "prequel" in nature, dealing with the exploits of Tyrus Rechs that predates his appearance, of course, in book 2 of the Galaxy's Edge main series.

I also pre-ordered the last Galaxy's Edge main book yesterday.  Retribution is its title, and it says something new in the description; that it's the end of Season 1 rather than of the series overall.  Which isn't surprising, but it's new and it's not something that I'd been aware of before.

And I've got a slight bone to pick with Chasing the Dragon, quite honestly.  Near the end of the book, and this is hopefully not spoilerish to say, Rechs' big task that he takes on is preventing a war, because war is terrible.  While of course war is terrible, the people threatening war are enslaved by the Republic, really—under its boot heel completely.  And they want to go to war to regain their right to self-governance and to assert their right to sovereignty.  In other words; the cause of the people that Rechs wants to stop are more sympathetic than Rechs' goals himself are.  Anyone who's the descendant of an American Revolutionary who doesn't understand that... mystifies me, I have to admit.  A few quotes from the 16 Points:

5. The Alt Right is openly and avowedly nationalist. It supports all nationalisms and the right of all nations to exist, homogeneous and unadulterated by foreign invasion and immigration. 

15. The Alt Right does not believe in the general supremacy of any race, nation, people, or sub-species. Every race, nation, people, and human sub-species has its own unique strengths and weaknesses, and possesses the sovereign right to dwell unmolested in the native culture it prefers. 

16. The Alt Right is a philosophy that values peace among the various nations of the world and opposes wars to impose the values of one nation upon another as well as efforts to exterminate individual nations through war, genocide, immigration, or genetic assimilation.

To someone who believes in those principles, the idea that "war should always be avoided" doesn't make a lot of sense.  Now, the guy who's trying to start the war does so for his own reasons that are not necessarily related to securing the sovereignty of the... other nation involved, but that's an angle that if we're meant to accept that, is insufficiently explored to be convincing.

But that's a relatively minor quibble.  Or, well, maybe it's not, but it's not sufficient to affect my enjoyment of the series, I guess.