The First Victory against the Evil Galactic Empire....

Here follows a reimagining of the space battle from Rogue One.

The Empire’s base on Scarif is on high alert. Rebel spies are attempting to escape with stolen plans to the Empire’s terror weapon. Base director Krennick storms into the command center. “Raise the planetary shields” he barks to the nearest officer. “Lock down the base, nobody gets in or out.” He spins on his heel. “You and you, follow me!” Two stormtroopers fall in behind the director as he goes in search of the rebel spies.

Two daring agents race through the sterile halls, blaster fire ricocheting inches from their heads. The man stumbles, shot in the side, a box in his hand clattering to the floor. The young woman beside him scoops up the precious data tapes and with with her other hand, pulls him into an open elevator door and smashes the control panel. The doors close on the group of stormtroopers who flood the smoking hallway. “They’re going up in the elevator!” A trooper exclaims, attempting to call back the car in vain. “Don’t worry, we’ve got them trapped. There’s no way out of the spire.”

Inside the elevator, the man gasps for breath. “The communication beacon at the top of the spire…it’s our only hope.” The woman holds the box close. “They must have closed the shield by now. There’s no way to get this data through.” The man rolls onto his back, eyes closed. “The Rebellion knows we are here.” A look of hope on the woman’s face. “They will send the ships?!” The man smiles, breathing his last.

The shield gate of Scarif hovers far above the spire of the base below, its shield surrounding the base in a blue shimmer of light. “Shield secure, director” The commanding officer reports from the shield gate. “Sir!” a junior officer shouts “ships incoming at 67.4!” The commanding officer moves to the window. A group of over twenty spaceships emerges from Light Speed and closes in on their position. “Not to worry” The commander says, “Our shield will protect us. Inform the director that we have visitors.”

The sleek cross-wing shapes of a dozen X-wings and at least that many sturdy Y-wings streak towards the disc of the shield gate. “This is Gold Leader, all wings report in.” A chorus of affirmatives greets him, and the Y-wings move into a delta position in front of the X-wings. “Red Leader, give us cover. Our target is the shield gate.” The X-wings break off. “I hear you Gold Leader, all wings draw fire from the bombers.” The space lights up in green blasts of light as the turbolaser batteries on the shield ring open fire. “They can’t get a good lock on us!” Gold Leader crows. “Alright, let’s hit that shield!” The Y-wings strafe the ring, lasers firing and explosions glancing harmlessly off of the blue shield.

“Sir, we have enemy contact.” The officer reports from the base. “I am unable to reach director Krennick.” Suddenly an alert sounds on his console and a voice comes through. “This is regional governor Tarkin. I have received reports of a rebel incursion in your sector. Do you need assistance?” The officer scrambles to respond. “There is a group of Rebel fighters above us, but we can handle them.” The response is quick. “Where is director Krennick?” In the silence that follows, Tarkin continues. “In any case, I have sent reinforcements to mop up this Rebel disturbance. They should be arriving within minutes.”

“Red Leader, we’re unable to breach their shields with conventional lasers.” The Y-wings regroup after their attack run, joined by the X-wings. “They must have ray shielding. We’ll have to use proton torpedoes.” Red leader pulls up his inventory. “We don’t have enough torpedoes between us to destroy that ring. We need another answer.” Gold Leader’s copilot swivels in her seat, viewing a schematic of the ring. “Sir, we don’t have to destroy the entire ring, we just have to disrupt their shields.” Gold Leader nods. “Send to all ships. We have new targets. Three shield emitters on the equator of the ring, five meters across.” Red leader glances at the schematics appearing on his screen. “Our computers can’t hit a target that small, Gold Leader. It’s up to you.” Suddenly a voice cries out on the radio. “Gold Leader, we have incoming!” From the blackness of space, dozens of sleek TIE fighters appear, led by a modified fighter. Red Leader turns his ship. “Gold Leader, make your run. We’ll hold 'em off until then.”

The elevator reaches the top of the spire, the young woman stepping out onto the empty platform. Above her, the vast communications array sits waiting. Above her, she sees distant blasts of light of a battle engaged. “They did come after all!” With renewed hope, she rushes over to the console and attaches the leads to the precious box in her hand.

Pursued by several TIE fighters, an X-wing spins out of control and crashes into the shield. Another breaks formation and is shot down by the modified TIE fighter. “Gold Leader, their ships are closing on you. We can’t hold them off forever!” A trio of Y-wings flies low over the shield, approaching the glowing emitter. A streak of light from the lead Y-wing impacts close to the emitter and flashes out. “A miss! Gold Two, take your shot!” A second streak of light, and this one hits. “Group two, Group three, are you in position?” There is an answering chirp. “Gold Four, reporting. We are almost in position.” Gold Leader looks around at the curve of the ring where the other group should be. “Group three, where are you?” There is static. Suddenly from that direction an explosion and a squadron of TIE fighters swoop around the curved structure at the Y-wings, the modified TIE in the lead. “This is Gold Leader, I’ve lost Gold seven, eight, nine…” The comm goes dead as Gold Leader’s ship explodes in a fireball.

The young woman looks into the sky. “Message ready to transmit.” The computerized voice intones. But the shield is still up. From the elevator shaft come sounds of grinding machinery and she readies her blaster for a final stand.

“Torpedoes away!” Gold Four shouts, striking the second emitter. It goes dead and they cheer, a celebration cut off by the appearance of the TIEs. “Gold Four, get out of there!” Red Leader moves in behind the TIEs. “We’re out of torpedoes, Red Leader. I’m sorry.” The Y-wings swing away from the ring, heading for the safety of deep space. Red Two and Three fall in behind their leader. “Looks like it’s up to us, Red Leader.” The man nods. “Just keep them off me for a few seconds, and pray my computer can hit it.”

In deep space, Gold Four turns to see several TIE fighters in pursuit. “We have to get out of here now, Gold Four!” Shouts Gold Six. “No. Draw them out as long as we can.” He winces as Gold Six explodes into a million points of light.

“He’s got me!” Red Five shouts as his engines go dead, shot out by the modified TIE. He spirals out of control, lost to space. “Damn!” Red Leader swears. “That TIE pilot is a machine! Red Two, stay on me!” He swerves in and out of support structures on the ring, followed by Red Two and three pursuers. “Almost there, Red Two. Three, two…” Red Two flames out, crashing into the side of the ring, another casualty of the modified TIE. Red Leader takes his shot. The final emitter goes dead and Red leader engages his Hyperdrive. “All wings, we’ve done it! Retreat!” The surviving ships turn into streaks of light as the shield fails. The TIE fighters shift their flight path, their leader moving straight toward the exposed dish of the spire.

The young woman pulls the lever to transmit and the message goes out into the universe. She stands free of the dish, observing the dark shapes that are approaching from above. Streaks of green light impact all around her, severing the dish and destroying the top of the spire. “You’re too late.” She says, as the structure falls around her. “This is our victory.”

The TIE fighters leave the planet, headed for the menacing arrowhead shape of the Star Destroyer now in orbit above the damaged base. The fighters dock in the landing bay, its pilots exiting their ships and removing their helmets. The pilot of the lead ship emerges, a cloak billowing out behind him as he leaps down onto the metal deck. A turbolift takes him to the bridge where he is greeted by the captain. “Lord Vader, we have the trajectory of the Rebel transmission. Should we investigate?” The voice that emerges from the mask of the pilot is not fully human. “No. Send to the Senate, and inquire as to the location of the princess of Alderaan.” The captain looks troubled. “You think they sent it to her?” The caped form moves to the star-speckled window. “I know that wherever the plans were sent, she is their eventual target.” The information goes through, and in a moment the response. “She is headed back to Alderaan, detouring through the…Tatooine system.” Vader turns in recognition. “You have your heading, captain.” He strides away from the bridge, his mechanical voice echoing through the space. “This victory by the rebels shall prove to be their final defeat.”

It has long bugged me that the Rebellion could field a fleet in ANH similar to the one from ROTJ. This was my look at how the battle could work with only the ships seen in ANH. The emitter plot was just the first one that came to me, but it establishes elements like the targeting computers, abilities of the various ships, and attitudes of the flight leaders that will become important in ANH.

Another change was to imply that the spies couldn’t escape the facility because they were trapped and using the only method of delivering the plans that was now available to them, whereas the film made it sound like there was some great strategy in broadcasting the plans through the shield instead of stealing a ship, despite later realizing that the shield must come down for either method to work.

Vader is now introduced by his methods as an effective and ruthless pilot. There needs be no other scene with him, and this gives us some good Vader action without the gratuitous lightsaber nonsense.

Finally, since the Tantive IV is never seen at the battle, Leia has plausible deniability when she is intercepted at the start of ANH and her detour to Tatooine makes sense because she truly believes that she was not tracked. Vader’s mission also comes into focus as there is now an implied history of him tracing the movements of the Rebellion for quite a while.

Ha, I’m always just as surprised when anyone reads things in this part of the forum 😉

This was just a thing knocking around in my brain one night and wouldn’t leave until it was written, so it ended up as a very stream-of-consciousness thing. You may have noticed that Nev just sort of forgot about Krennick.

But yeah, I would in no way try to replicate this in an actual edit, other than your suggestions. I actually like the big space battle in RO in isolation, it just feels too big compared to the stakes of ANH. The original trilogy was very simple and organic in how it built the Rebellion through the trilogy, starting with small stunt fighters and adding a few support craft in ESB, only bringing in capital ships in ROTJ. I think a RO with just a single capital ship and perhaps some support craft would have worked better in this regard, or just having the ships we see in ANH.

I know a lot of people like the Vader hallway scene, and absent Vader in a TIE it makes sense to have that scene. A prior thought I had for that handoff was to imply that the plans were automatically downloaded onto a disc after being received. Just cut the shot of the plans being downloaded onto the disc and repurpose that shot at the end of the hallway scene as one where the Rebels needed to get the data from the receiving station to the long range transmitter, then cut to a shot of the Tantive IV already in deep space or on the other side of the planet.

But that’s a film edit idea.

Rewriting this ending as a smaller conflict is sort of a microcosm of how I would have approached the prequel trilogy in general. For example, in stories small elements build on themselves to create bigger elements in sequels, so a prequel would need to reverse-engineer the smaller elements in order for the story to appear organic. So if Luke begins ANH as a decent mechanic and a good pilot, and Rey begins TFA as a good mechanic, a great pilot, and emergently Force sensitive, then Anakin in a prequel would need to be just a pilot or just a mechanic in the beginning of the story. Since Obi-wan says that Anakin was a great pilot when he met the man, that would mean that Anakin would have to learn how to interact with machines through his adventures, which makes sense in a story that heavily features droid battles.

Similarly, since Force abilities tend to be added with each new installment, the first prequel would need to backtrack and make the discovery of the Force by Anakin a monumental event in itself. It is a time where everything is fresh and new, and everything that is gained is treasured. This works with Obi-wan’s abilities as established in ANH since they are quite low-key. He creates sounds, uses mental manipulation, distraction, and so forth. In fact, he’s more like a heightened samurai than a space wizard. So when Anakin meets this man he may think that Obi-wan merely has a high skill with a blade and the ability to charm people with his cleverness and wit. It is only after beginning his adventure that he begins to suspect that the Jedi are more than merely martial artists with a flair for the dramatic. And so he begins to delve into this ability, and perhaps it is he who comes up with the mind trick on his own, a trick which Obi-wan learns from Anakin since it is tinged with darkness.

Anyway, you see where this is going. Someday I might actually write the entire reverse-engineered trilogy down somewhere.

I realized that BOBF was just people trying to put their Jabba The Hutt palace playset back together, and didn’t waste a thought on it after that. I think that’s most of the Disney stuff, when you get right down to it, even the ST. I recall starting the TFA edit in the lead up to TLJ’s release and the hype surrounding it. Would I have started an ST edit after seeing TROS? No way. But what keeps me coming back is the community, not the stories. If I only ever make one edit, that’s fine with me. I have plenty of ideas for TLJ, but it isn’t strictly necessary. Part of me just wants to make the best TFA edit possible and leave the rest to people with more energy for that sort of thing, and I bet that there will be younger people who will have grown up seeing this trilogy and wanting to make it even better.

I guess this has gotten away from RO, huh. Just goes to show that the universe so big that there’s no way to change all of it, or even see all of it, and that will only get more true with time. Perhaps the only reason I rewrote the RO ending was for someone else to read it, and I don’t think that’s a waste of time 😉

Go for it! RO is one of those movies I keep coming back to due to its proximity to the OT, so I’m always happy to talk ideas for it. I still think there’s a way to flip the first and second acts for a more compelling story, I’m sure you recall that thread.

No, I never got that far, and never really intended to. I’d love to see if it would actually work though, so feel free to try it 😃