The Clone Menace

Lately I've been putting together an alternate Episode I. It's the result of some examination of the Internet's views on what the prequels could have been. Below is the summary of where the movie begins. Hopefully I'll be able to make it to the end in further posts. I will continue to make edits to existing posts in order to streamline this outline as much as possible.

The galaxy has three parts. They are the Core Worlds, the Colonies, and the Outer Rim.

Most of the Core Worlds are members of the Old Republic, the major exception being the Kingdom of Alderaan. Alderaan lies at the meeting of many hyperspace lanes leading into the Core Worlds.

The Colonies have a minority population of Republic outposts. The rest of its systems have historically belonged to other polities such as the Tionese Hegemony.

The Outer Rim is a vast expanse of space controlled by despotic rulers (such as Greater Mandalore) and crime syndicates (such as the Hutt Cartel).

War has enveloped the galaxy. The Colonies have been subjugated by clone warriors loyal to the Outer Rim dictator Jaster Mereel, leader of Greater Mandalore. Years ago he purchased cloning technology from a mysterious benefactor rumored to be from the Republic. Now his forces stand poised to make a decisive strike against the Core Worlds, the heart of the Old Republic.

Just as foreign clones threaten to conquer the Republic, so too do domestically grown clones enact guerilla warfare against their former masters. The Republic Defense Force, a professional military organization composed entirely of volunteers, is stretched across many systems at once, putting down uprisings of once-servile Republic clones.

The Jedi Knights have used their mysterious powers to eliminate Mandalorian raiding parties in the Colonies. They have kept the Core Worlds safe from Mereel, but there are those in the Republic Senate, such as the wealthy aristocrat Theo Palpatine, who warn that even the powers of the Jedi will not be able to ward off the Mandalorian clones indefinitely.

It is in this climate that we witness the events of Star Wars Episode I: The Clone Menace.

The start of the film occurs in the throne room of Alderaan's royal palace. It is an expansive room with a high, arched ceiling. Murals adorn the walls and between each of the tall windows stands a unique sculpture made of the finest Alderaanian marble.

Fearing an imminent invasion, King Bail Organa meets with his daughter Marya, his friend and honorary general Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Kenobi's Jedi colleague Templar Jinn. He orders Kenobi to coordinate defensive operations against the incoming Mandalorians, then he asks Templar Jinn to use the diplomatic cruiser in a nearby hangar bay to spirit young Marya off of her home planet. Marya protests this but Bail insists that if the Mandalorians decide to execute him, then Marya must live to continue the royal bloodline. She and her guardian Jinn part ways with Bail and Obi-Wan.

Wipe cut to Marya's diplomatic cruiser being escorted away from the planet. The fighter escorting her is a Z-95 Headhunter piloted by one Grant Lars and his droid counterpart Q4-M9. They share some banter and reminiscence that clues in the audience that they recently ended a romantic relationship, but that the fire between them is not entirely extinguished yet.

The ships get a report that Mandalorian battleships have encroached on Alderaanian space. Grant turns his Headhunter away from Marya's cruiser to join the defense. Marya and Jinn make the jump to hyperspace towards Kessel.

To be continued.

On the bridge of the Mandalorian flagship Kyr’Amudh, General Jaster Mereel peers out a window towards the lifebearing world of Alderaan. His gray-skinned face is flanked by fleshy tendrils emanating from the top of his skull, marks of the long-feared Taung species. The tendrils end just past his armor-plated shoulders. A silver cape is draped over his traditional Mandalorian armor, which is covered in amulets and carvings that indicate his apex position on his homeworld’s military-social hierarchy.

The smaller battlecruisers of Mereel’s fleet form an advance guard in front of the Kyr’Amudh, These ships resemble blood-colored battleaxes flying through space. The Kyr’Amudh looks like an enormous beetle, its precious cargo housed in the “thorax” of the beast.

A Taung subordinate greets Mereel with the Mandalorian salute. He has the exact same features as countless other beings on the ship. The clone informs Mereel that a diplomatic cruiser has been spotted leaving the system under the protection of Alderaan’s Home Guard.

Mereel says, “What of our cloakship? Is it in pursuit?” The clone replies with an affirmative. Mereel offers a twisted smile and turns around to face his other subordinates. They heed their honored leader. “My brothers, Alderaan will soon be ours. May the Core Worlds fall to the might of Greater Mandalore!”

Cut to the planet Kessel. The dismal world is a pockmarked sphere hewn from unforgiving metals and packed to the brim with glitterstim spice, one of the most ubiquitous commodities in the galaxy.

The diplomatic cruiser makes an approach for the spaceport at the world’s equator. But from behind appears the Mandalorian cloakship, deactivating its cloaking device. This catches Marya and Jinn off-guard.

Marya takes the helm and Jinn taps into the Force. The cloakship lets loose a barrage of concussion missiles.

To be continued.

The diplomatic cruiser veers off-course to avoid the missiles. Jinn stands behind Marya, who is focused on piloting the craft. His hand rises and he closes his eyes. The first salvo of concussion missiles fired by the cloakship scatters in many directions, some of the warheads being set off in impacts with each other. Marya makes a hard swerve. As the cloakship lets loose another volley of missiles and then closes in for the kill with its keel-mounted turbolaser, Jinn clenches his outstretched hand into a fist. The missiles explode in close proximity to the cruiser, knocking off one of the wings. The dismembered wing strikes the Mandalorian cloak ship, which catches fire and explodes. 

Unable to maintain their course towards the starport or even extend the landing gears, Marya crash-lands the cruiser into a barren, sandy area utterly devoid of civilization.

Cut to Alderaan. 

Inside the war room of the Royal Palace, General Obi-Wan Kenobi takes his seat at the command chair. He is clad in the traditional plate armor vest and pads of the Jedi Knights, studded leather stretched between the hard blaster-resistant plates. Surrounding him are officers tapping at displays, orbital maps and diagrams displaying predicted avenues of attack. Kenobi orders his number one, Raffe, to provide a situational report. Raffe tells Kenobi that the flagship is protected by a screen of battlecruisers and that the fleet’s trajectory is directed at the Royal Palace; all ground defense cannons are charged and ready for battle and Home Guard fighters are in formation in the upper atmosphere.

Kenobi contacts Bail Organa via hologram. Bail sits on his Throne surrounding by his blue-robed, blaster-armed Custodians. Kenobi tells Bail to join him in taking the secret passage leading from the Royal Palace to the Redoubt in case the clones mount a ground assault on the capital. Bail agrees and switches off the hologram. Kenobi contacts Grant Lars, leader of the Home Guard fighter squadron, who tells his General that the Mandalorian battlecruisers have unsheathed their turbolasers. At the back of Grant's fighter, Cufour chirps an affirmative. The time for battle has come.

To be continued.

Grant issues an order to his fighter wing, Home Red, to circumvent the battlecruiser screen while the other wings (Home Blue, Home Green, and Home Gold) advance towards the battlecruisers under the cover of ground defense cannon fire. He relays the coordinates of the incoming battlecruisers to Raffe. Kenobi issues the order to fire salvoes of cannon bolts at the Mandalorian fleet. Glowing red lances of energy strike out towards the Mandalorian battlecruisers, just barely skirting the flight paths of Home Blue, Green, and Gold. The three swarms of Z-95 Headhunters open with laser fire at the undersides of the Mandalorian battlecruisers. Turrets on the battlecruisers swivel to meet the incoming fighters and let out bursts of effervescent particles. The hulls of the large ships are pockmarked with hot craters, most from blaster impacts but also some from flaming Headhunters crashing headlong into their havod alloy plates.

Jaster Mereel surveys the battle from the bridge of the Kyr’Amudh, witnessing colorful streaks zip across the darkness of space. Three Headhunter wings dart about in confrontation with his battlecruiser force. He orders his Taung lieutenant to provide the location of the fourth Headhunter wing, but the officer says they have dropped out of the fleet’s subspace scanning range. Mereel says that such a thing is impossible, only to have his suspicion confirmed when the ship’s sensors detect an incoming fighter wing approaching from the flagship’s aft section. Mereel realizes that these fighters masked their subspace signatures in his ship’s engine exhaust. He orders the nearest two battlecruisers to assist in destroying Home Red.

Piloting his Headhunter with white-knuckle determination, Grant Lars’ Home Red wingmates strafe the Kyr’Amudh’s bridge with blaster fire. The local shields absorb the blows, strings of electricity dancing across the straining defensive field.

Grant dives towards the Kyr’Amudh's to inspect the ship’s cargo. Grant sees a large mechanical assembly with a flat foundation and a series of landing legs clasped against each other in a folded position. Grant contacts General Kenobi, telling him that the flagship is carrying some sort of prefabricated structure designed to be dropped onto the planet’s surface from low orbit.

Down in the Palace’s war room, Kenobi swivels around to face the primary tactical display, manned by an emancipated clone and officer of the Home Guard ground crew named Covis. Covis tells his General that Home Red’s sneak attack on the Kyr’Amudh has delayed the progress of the Mandalorian fleet; the other three fighter wings are drawing the fire of the battlecruisers, but at the cost of heavy casualties. Kenobi directs an order to the ground defense cannon crews to consolidate their fire on each battlecruiser one at a time.

To be continued.

How is it so far? We're in the middle of the movie's first major battle sequence.

One of the Mandalorian battlecruisers is critically damaged by a ground cannon salvo. It erupts in flames, hundreds of clones aboard rushing to their damage control stations. They are completely unwilling to spare their own lives lest they lose their place in the warrior’s afterlife. A thruster nacelle snaps off and disappears in an explosive flash due to the pressure change in re-entering a planetary atmosphere. 

In the Palace war room, General Kenobi receives a report from Lieutenant Raffe that the falling Mandalorian cruiser is on a collision course for the Palace. The war room is nested deep underground and is thus secure from such an attack, but King Bail and his Custodians residing in the Palace above will surely be obliterated in the impact. 

General Kenobi abruptly departs from the war room. He makes his way to the lock separating the war room from the Palace and then arrives at an open air vista showing the lush greenery of Alderaan. Lumbering herd creatures feed on the reed fields west of the capital complex. To the east lies the face of a gleaming lake, wide enough that it appears to be an oceanic shore. Kenobi bounds upward along the crenellations of the Royal Palace, his Jedi sensory abilities allowing superhuman proficiency in climbing the tall structure. He reaches a viewing platform at the tallest spire of the Royal Palace and beholds an apocalyptic sight in the sky.

A half-dozen Mandalorian battlecruisers drift in the distance, the flashes of light surrounding them indicative of the raging celestial battle. But one of the battlecruisers is so close that Kenobi can feel the life signatures of the crew members onboard.

Billowing smoke lines mar the baby blue sky, trailing from a durasteel hulk propelling itself at full throttle towards the Alderaanian seat of government. Kenobi calls on the power greater than himself to imbue his hands with the strength to move mountains. The stone tiles under his feet develop cracks just when Kenobi brings up his outstretched hands in the direction of the falling starship. The metallic mass audibly creaks and strains as its course is redirected by Kenobi's mystical abilities. The immolating craft shifts its vector a few more degrees before Kenobi reopens his eyes and collapses to his knees. 

The ship zooms past the Palace complex and descends into the large lake. Kenobi hears a loud crash. Massive waves heave upward upon impact and the ship's aft compartment tips upward like a whale, the axe-like structure resembling the tool of an executioner. The once placid waters are now churning with activity and littered with bits of starship debris.

Winded and nearing collapse, Kenobi hears the voice of Raffe in his commlink. The lieutenant tells his General that the ground defense cannons have expended their energy reserves and the Mandalorian ships are closing in for a ground assault on the capital. Kenobi gathers himself and makes a leap to a ledge many meters below. Before signing out he tells Raffe, “This is the day we save Alderaan.”

To be continued.

From a majestically tall window in the throne room, Bail peers through a pair of elegantly adorned binoculars usually used for the viewing of chariot races. The King beholds a force of Mandalorian landing craft deploying their troops just inside the city’s perimeter walls. These ships resemble the tower shields used by legionary swordsmen of Alderaan’s pre-industrial era. Shafts of light in the crafts’ bellies disembark squads of heavily-armored clone soldiers, where they whip out their blaster rifles and form up for battle.

One of the Custodians advises Bail to step away from the window. Bail replies with a question of how long the Custodians can hold off the Mandalorians. Only long enough for the King to retreat to the Redoubt, the guard replies. He then says that the explosive charges lining the secret passage have been armed; as soon as the King has reached the other side they will be detonated. This will cause a cave-in which will prevent the Mandalorians from finding the Redoubt. 

Bail decides that the people of Alderaan need a committed leader, even in a state of occupation. His abandonment of the Palace for a safe hiding spot outside the city would sap his people’s will to resist. Whatever the outcome of the ground offensive, Bail will stay in his Palace. The Custodians exchange stunned and apprehensive looks...then they resolutely declare that they will carry out their protective duties onto death.

At the open-air entrance to the Palace, Obi-Wan Kenobi arrives upon a platoon of Custodians taking cover within strategically-placed alcoves and behind fine sculptures. Their weapons are trained at the locked gate which is being slowly burned away from the other side by a Mandalorian siege laser. The soldiers’ nervousness is palpable. Obi-Wan draws his blaster pistol.

The locked gate finally breaks down into an ashen pile of debris and dozens of armored Mandalorian soldiers storm through, their blaster rifles loudly firing into the group of Custodians. Obi-Wan lands a bulls-eye on the first clone to emerge through the opening. The blue-robed men return fire and fell a handful of clones for each man they lose, but morale amongst the defenders starts to decline when a Taung clone brutally drags a Custodian aside and slices his arm off with a vibro-knife. The entire group of Custodians opens fire on this clone soldier; he falls down as a smoldering pile of flesh and armor. The Custodians falter in the pace at which they return blaster fire. 

Kneeling behind a broken pillar and ducking to avoid lasers, Obi-Wan warily darts his eyes back and forth amongst his embattled comrades. The Jedi Knight shuts his eyes and calms his breath. He calls upon the Force to form a web of pathways between his mind and those of the men around him.

To be continued.

Here are the dramatis personae that have appeared in The Clone Menace so far. I used a simple browser-based fantasy-themed avatar generator; if you know of any better generators feel free to let me know.

Obi-Wan Kenobi: A Jedi Knight tasked with the defense of the Alderaanian Kingdom from a clone invasion.

Templar Jinn: An elder Jedi and respected colleague of Obi-Wan. He is one of the few individuals alive aware of the existence of another, darker aspect of the Force.

Marya Organa: The only child of King Bail Organa and heir apparent for the Alderaanian throne. Her independent spirit is matched only by her devotion to the ancient Kingdom.

Grant Lars: A star pilot hailing from Tattooine who volunteered to defend Marya's kingdom, hoping to win her back.

Jaster Mereel: The supreme overlord of Greater Mandalore and veteran of countless wars of conquest. Mereel seeks to expand his holdings with the use of a clone army.

Bail Organa: Reigning monarch of the Kingdom of Alderaan and prominent advocate of clone abolition. Ironically he has now fallen under attack by a group of marauding clones from the Outer Rim.

The Custodians are animated by an unseen presence. Mounting a counter-offensive against the Mandalorians, they emerge from their cover spots and fire a concentrated volley of shots against the invading clones. Blaster bolts crash against the ornate armor plating covering the attackers’ bodies. The clones fall like sheaves of wheat against the reaper’s scythe. Hollers of anguish are the last cries of the suicidal warrior zealots, their armor suits clanking knee-first against the hard tiled ground.

After a few tense moments of silence it is clear that the enemy’s reserves in this sector have been exhausted. Obi-Wan severs his battle meditation by re-opening his eyes. The other men look around in momentary bewilderment, as if awakening from a vivid dream. Kenobi asks to use one of the Custodians’ commlinks. He communicates with Raffe, still performing his duties in the war room. The lieutenant tells Obi-Wan that Bail Organa refuses to leave the Palace, even though a Mandalorian gunship has landed on the balcony outside the throne room.

Kenobi scowls at this news. The warlord can now do anything he wants to the King. “Mereel will not stay”, Obi-Wan declares. “We will continue our fight from the shadows. We will strike at the occupiers from below, as did the Killiks of old.” Kenobi informs Raffe to initiate the backup protocol. The tunnel leading to the Redoubt will be caved in by detonation packs when the General and his party of Custodians makes it to the fallback position.

In the throne room, Bail Organa stands in front of his guards with his arms spread out to his sides. The Custodians have their hands on their heads in a gesture of surrender. Bail implores the aggressor to destroy him alone and let his people go. A bead of sweat travels from his tussled hair to his prominent brow.

Facing the King stands Jaster Mereel, the great conqueror from Mandalore. Cape flowing in the breeze from the open balcony doors, Mereel lifts up his heavy repeater rifle. The weapon is carried aloft on a harness chained to hooks on the outer shell of Mereel’s armor. Its heft enforces the gravity of the steps Mereel takes towards the captive King. His Mandalorian honor guards stand at the ready behind him, deadly sharp vibroblades unsheathed and ready for slaughter. Mereel tells Bail, “You may yet prove useful in my designs.”

Bail tells the conqueror through a harsh whisper, “Might does not make right.”

Jaster Mereel smiles. “When I dine from the skull of the Chancellor, perhaps you will change your mind.”

To be continued.