(Extended Edition)
Episode X: The Phantom Menace
Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
che' la diritta via era smarrita.
--Dante Aligheri, Inferno, canto I, lines 1-3
Four years had passed since the end of the Second Clone War, and the decisive defeat of the Republic’s foes. Nonetheless, the promised peace had not materialized, for a campaign of terrorist bombings was even now being waged by Clone guerrillas.
The current Chancellor of the Senate, Sate Pestage, the Lord of Alderaan, fulminated against these “evildoers” in bellicose speeches, and vowed to bring them to justice, either dead or alive.
Chancellor Pestage had been in office since before the Second Clone War. He rose to the Chancellorship on a wave of dissatisfaction with his predecessor’s public image as a coward, more interested in having peace at any price than in defending the interests of the Republic from hostile outlying systems.
The outbreak of war had allowed Pestage to gain an unprecedented second term in power. Now, faced with this new threat, the Chancellor’s supporters in the Senate had engineered his election for a third time, so that this strong leader could deal with the Republic’s enemies as they deserved.
It was little known, however, that most of the “terrorist” bombings were actually the work of the Chancellor’s own agents, running false-flag operations in order to provide excuses for cementing the Emperor’s authority.
Already the Emperor had passed new laws criminalizing dissent and placing sharp restrictions on the rights of petition and assembly. Some in the Jedi Order, including Annikin Starkiller, Ben Kenobi, and others high in the Council, looked on alarmingly, and wondered if they should intervene.
But one Jedi, Darth Vader, had made a secret pact with the Chancellor Pestage: he and his friends among the Jedi Order (and he did have them) would establish and support his rule as a monarch. They would serve as the power behind the throne Lord Pestage craved, in exchange for Vader being made the head of the New Order.
In turn, Vader, who remained in contact with the shadowy Bogan Lord of Dagobah, promised his other Master that when the time came, they would become the true rulers of a great galactic Empire.
Because of Vader’s treachery, when the Jedi began in secret to plan for an insurrection, their plans were known to the Chancellor already, and their efforts were undone from the beginning.
A small party of Jedi went to the Republic Chancellery in an attempt to arrest Chancellor Pestage. But Darth Vader, his face concealed by an armored Sith mask, defended his new master, and slew them.
The Chancellor came to the Senate the next day, and related what had happened. He declared that those Jedi who had backed the treasonous plot against his life would be hunted down and defeated. But those who had served him loyally would be rewarded.
The word “Jedi,” whose original meaning had been lost to history, would be abandoned, and stigmatized henceforth as the name of a band of traitorous criminals. From now on it would be replaced by an Old Galactic word for “disciple.” Thus Darth Vader would become the new head of the renamed Sith Order.
The Senate exploded in rapturous cheers of applause. A shout went up to the effect that the benevolent Chancellor Pestage should become Chancellor for life. A vote was taken, and it was done.
The surviving Jedi loyal to the Republic fled, regrouping on Organa Major under the protection of King Carl. Among these were Ben Kenobi and Annikin Starkiller.
But Darth Vader bore down on Organa Major, leading an army of Sith Knights, and backed by a large force of Republic troops. The regular army had swelled in size enormously during the two Clone Wars, and it had been politically impossible to turn out so many veterans at once.
Now they would find a new use for their talents: massacring the Jedi who opposed the New Order.
Carl Organa knew that if the Old Jedi remained on Organa Major, they would be surrounded and quickly defeated. Therefore he proposed that they should give battle on a terrain of their own choosing, one far less friendly to a hostile invading force: the rocky lava world of Condawn. Even then the Jedi had small hope of victory, but they had little alternative.
Thus, with heavy hearts, the Jedi Knights set off for their last battle.
The night before the Battle of Condawn, King Carl of Organa Major slept with his wife, Queen Alexa, in what would be his last night as a whole man.
The next day’s battle could more aptly have been termed a slaughter. Against the Sith Knights, who wore black masks to inspire fear in their enemies, the Jedi would have been faced with an even match. But the presence of massed armies of Republic troops, fighting against their former allies, turned the scales.
King Carl lost his legs, and his twin sons Crispin and Corwin were slain. At last only two Jedi remained standing: Annikin Starkiller and Ben Kenobi. Together they faced off against Darth Vader.
Vader offered Ben Kenobi safe-conduct, if he would join the Sith. But Annikin Starkiller must die, he said, for he had his own grievance with him.
Ben refused to stand by and let his friend be killed. But Vader knocked him down with a painful lightsaber slash, and he struggled to catch his breath.
Vader and Annikin dueled, and Vader cut off Annikin’s left arm.
With Annikin lying helpless at his feet, unable to wield a sword, Darth Vader spoke the words that had so long burned within his heart:
“Look upon your handiwork, Father!”
Then Darth Vader decapitated his father, Annikin Starkiller.
Fueled by rage, Ben Kenobi rushed at Vader and stabbed him in the heart.
But Vader marshaled all his Force power to sustain his vital functions, and thus managed to save his own life. Yet he was still wounded grievously, and afterward he turned to machines to sustain his ravaged body, since to use the Force consciously for this task all the time was nigh impossible.
Still, with the desperate strength of a man afraid to die, Vader fought on. And he severed Ben Kenobi’s mechanical right hand, defeating the last Jedi standing on the battlefield.
Vader took Ben Kenobi’s sword as a trophy, as well as his Kiber Crystal, a Jedi’s token of power. But he left behind Annikin Starkiller’s sword where it had fallen. Perhaps, Vader said mockingly, Ben would want to keep it as a souvenir. It held no danger to Vader, surely; after all, what good had it done its original wielder?
Laughing painfully in triumph, Vader left Ben Kenobi to his grief, where he sat weeping beside the bodies of his dead friend and his fallen lord.
In the wake of the Battle of Condawn, Chancellor Pestage assumed the title of Emperor, to thunderous applause in the Senate, and more muted expressions of public approval.
Ben Kenobi went to Utapau, settling there as a hermit and watching from afar over young Luke Starkiller, who was being raised by Beru Highsinger and her husband, Owen Lars.
Breha Thorpe and her daughter Nellith went into hiding with a noble house loyal to the Old Republic, on the far reaches of the galaxy, where the Emperor’s troops would have little power to enforce their will. Another surviving Jedi Knight, Bunden Debannen, went to watch over them.
A few years later, Breha died—apparently of natural causes, though many said it was grief which killed her. Not long afterward, Ben Kenobi stopped receiving reports from Bunden Debannen. This alarmed him, but he did not dare leave Utapau for as long as it would take to investigate matters on the other side of the galaxy.
Nine months after the Jedi were defeated at Condawn, Alexa Organa gave birth to a dark-haired, grey-eyed baby girl: Leia Organa.
Carl Organa now went around in a silver wheelchair, refusing to replace his lost legs, according to the Jedi traditions of old. His hair had turned snow-white, and he always wore mourning black, in memory of his dead sons.
The Sith Knights made their official headquarters in the former Temple of the Jedi Order on Ton-Muund. However, Darth Vader built a castle of steel and glass upon the lava world of Condawn, to mark his victory over the Old Jedi, and this served as an additional center of operations for the Sith.
Here on Condawn the hooded Bogan Lord, taciturn and sinister, came to dwell in secret, revealing his presence only to the innermost Lords of the Sith. It was his counsels which ruled Vader and the Sith Order, and which in turn shaped the destiny of the Empire, though Lord Pestage on his golden throne knew it not.
Darth Vader believed that he had achieved his vengeance at last, and could rest easily at night.
He had forgotten that, more often than not, vengeance begets further vengeance.
