ATMachine

It depends on what the meaning of the word "Sith" is.

"Only a Sith deals in absolutes!"

SilverWook said:

Damn it, now you've made me sad.

I'd rather prefer to keep this image in mind:

How very German.

Episode VII: A Republic Divided

Episode VIII: Twelve Star-Crossed Lovers

Episode IX: The Garden of Utapau

As I have said before, so I shall say again:

I think that I can guess some of what was originally intended here.

The children of Leia Organa, and of Han and Mina, would be the principal protagonists, along with the fully-grown Mace Windom.

Oeeta Kadar would at last come into the tale in her own right, and would find a suitable husband.

The continued existence in exile of the Pestage dynasty on Alderaan, and its connections with the Republic’s conservative nobility, would bear bitter fruit.

Space Oddities would be important.

Dagobah would be seen on screen at last.

The chronology of the three films, taken together, would be extremely unusual, and rather un-filmic.

Annikin Starkiller’s cursed Lone Ring would at last be destroyed—in an unexpected fashion.

And, perhaps, one might also expect to see early versions of Jacen and Jaina Solo… and of Anakin Solo, or perhaps Ben Skywalker… and even, just maybe, a Darth Caedus under another name.

For, in truth, if Chaos be benevolent, one should not seek to destroy him…… rather, to befriend her.

Right, Bobbin?

“Dat’s right, boss!”

And that, I think, is a truth well worth digging deep to uncover.

PS:

Episodes x-xii: Three Days in the Lives

Not much to see here.

The remaining three episodes of the “12-film plan” (if ever there was such a coherent plan) were likely going to be three “day in the life” stories, about ordinary folk in the SW galaxy. Most probably, the films in question would respectively have concerned Wookiees, droids, and bounty hunters.

Really, there's not much more to say.

You can go about your business. Move along.

("But what about Boba Fett?!?")

Epilogue… and Prologue

In the end, the Republic was restored. Not entirely as it had been, but, its people hoped, rather better.

Mina Whitsun became the new Chancelloress. She wore a mantle of white silk embroidered with gold, and red shoes, and a diadem of true-silver and gold interwoven. She was not ashamed of her scars, and did not fear to reveal the burned side of her face, with its blind eye, and the area over her ear where her red hair did not grow.

Following the fashion of the ancient Republic in the days of its founding, which she admired, Mina chose to wear asymmetrical dresses, usually in purple, which exposed her one breast. (This detail borrows from Catholic iconography of the Virgin Mary. But it also suggests a Roman toga, and perhaps anticipates the dresses worn by the women of Qarth in the book version of A Song of Ice and Fire.)

Han Solo, Mina’s husband, became the new President of the Transport Guild—which turned a blind eye to smuggling in a way it had not under the Empire. Han now habitually dressed in the elegant black furred robes of Guild traders. Together he and Mina raised Mace Windom as an adopted son.

But Han still occasionally glanced at Leia. And Leia glanced back. And Mina, who was no longer as sheltered as she had once been on Acquis, exchanged glances with her as well.

--

Marcus Whitsun became Lord of Acquis, ruling in his underwater city—which now could float freely on the surface, without fear of discovery by the Imperial fleet.

He married Mara Lamiya, now Ambassador Plenipotentiary to the Second Galaxy, who was quite impressed by his abilities as a pilot.

Mara, in her new office as ambassador, took to wearing elaborate Dwarf-forged wigs, in alternate colors of gold and black, to match her outfits. (She had not minded her original brown hair, but she was ready to try something new. Perhaps one day, she mused, she would wear a brown wig.)

Her lost eyes she replaced with new droid facsimiles, which were distinguished by their purple irises. But Mara’s teeth were still natural, though a few were missing.

Heda Horus dwelt with them, as the captain and chief pilot of Mara’s personal flagship.

As a wedding present, Chancelloress Mina bestowed on Marcus and Mara a legal dispensation, granting the rights of inheritance and succession to any children of the Whitsun bloodline born out of wedlock.

--

Lord Pestage was stripped of his imperial title, and he and Alana were exiled to Alderaan, where he might have a kingdom of his own—the one he had always possessed.

Alana felt guilt in her heart for having abandoned her husband to die on Organa Major. And so for several years she refused all attempts at ameliorating her condition, instead going about in a silver wheelchair like Carl Organa’s. Eventually, however, she yielded to Leia’s entreaties, and received silver prosthetic legs which restored her power of walking.

--

Leia Organa became Queen of Utapau, which began to blossom, gradually, under her rule. The surviving expatriates of Organa Major were invited to settle there, and to recreate something of their former happiness.

She took the regnal name of Nellith.

The Order of the Jedi-Templers was re-founded, with two bases. One was on Utapau and one on Ton-Muund—now a beautiful planet with palaces rising from a world-spanning ocean, Venice writ large. (This of course comes from the two Foundations, on Terminus and Trantor, in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation book series.)

The Templers had two mottos. The first, emblazoned over the doors of the Temple itself, described the ethos of the Jedi Order: Servants of the Servants of the Republic. But the second, kept within the private lore books of the Jedi and recorded in Old High Galactic, was this: Omnia mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis, et ergo nihil interit. Quia quod mortuum est, hoc non morietur numquam, nisi sola per se mors.

The Jedi Council had three co-leaders: Luke Starkiller, Leia Organa, and Lando Kadar. Lando usually remained on Ton-Muund, whereas Luke and Leia preferred to remain on Utapau.

But they visited often, and Leia’s droids, C-4PO and R2-D3, invariably went with her. However, the droids liked it best when Leia visited Acquis, though that happened less frequently.

Lando had a small life-support device implanted in his chest, so that he no longer needed to be encased in armor.  (Think of a combination of Marvel’s Tony Stark and Isaac Asimov’s portable nuclear reactors from Foundation.)

He took off his mask, and revealed his face openly. After all, he wished to show that even a Sith Lord could be redeemed.

There was now no shame in the Mark of the Sith; the bad Lords had been dealt with, and the repentant ones were welcomed into the folds of the Jedi.

And he shaved his mustache, which he had always hated. But Luke, who himself disliked his beard, kept his own mustache.

Lando replaced his missing right hand with a golden prosthesis—for he now realized that even his revered father, Annikin Starkiller, could make mistakes of judgment. Luke, for his part, replaced his missing hand with a robotic one covered with synth-flesh, to honor the independent mind of old Ben Kenobi.

Leia took to wearing elaborate hairdresses of woven metal discs, alternating from gold to red to jet in color, according to her daily whims. She even had a wig made of stones of lapis lazuli, for special occasions (rather like Vivien Leigh in Caesar and Cleopatra).

Her eyes were gone, but Leia had no wish to replace them. After all, thanks to the Force, she had all the vision she would ever need—although she still tripped sometimes on the steps before her throne.

Nonetheless, she found that the sight of her empty eye sockets disturbed visitors to her court. So she filled them with two dazzling jewels—star sapphires, her favorite gemstone—which, under the supervision of Fourpio and Artoo, were grown in the span of a week.

Her silver hands, and silver teeth, had been burned black by the fires of Condawn. She kept them, however, because they still worked. And her other false teeth, of gold and crystal, remained in perfect condition.

Her queenly attire consisted of a blue silken cloak, a filmy white loincloth, a beautiful royal necklace, and little else. She sometimes wore the silver shoes traditional for queens of Organa Major; but she usually went barefoot, for she limped, and she could no longer see as ordinary men did. And she disdained too much clothing, for the heat of the fires of Condawn never entirely left her.

--

As the ruler of Utapau, and the popular face of the victorious Rebellion, the newly crowned Queen Nellith set fashion trends across the wider Galaxy.

On the watery world of Clementias, red seas reflected the purple-red of the skies, and strange lichens clung to rocky spires protruding from the world-spanning ocean.

Here the new Prince and veteran intelligence officer—brown-haired, gray-eyed Simon Ritter—felt best comfortable in his old Rebel Navy uniform of tan and blue. But Princess Rosanna habitually wore a skirt of silver fringe, ornamental silver vambraces and greaves, and a thin cape of pale blue silk.

In the silver towers of Raghusa’s royal palace, King Kim and Queen Winter, and Viceroy Fredericks, looked out upon a vast sea of red dunes, beneath an emerald sky in which two large moons were invariable sights.

Kim, the tall, short-haired blond, and Lloyd, dark and mustachioed with curling hair, both wore the white tunics and black trousers of Devil Squadron. Queen Winter, though, wore a loincloth of woven gold-metal discs, and a brassiere of sable mesh.

Meanwhile beneath the blue skies of Acquis, Mara Lamiya and Heda Horus wore elaborate robes of state which covered them almost from head to toe.

Leia did not mind not being the cynosure of every eye; variety was the spice of life, after all. Rather, she admired Mara and Heda for setting their own course.

But, as the old saying goes: “When on Byssia, do as the Byssians do.”

So, when she visited Acquis, Leia wore full-body gowns, though hers were made of the lightest possible fabrics. Conversely, on trips to the First Galaxy, Mara and Heda reciprocated—though they made sure to maintain a modicum of decency in their attire.

--

Luke Skywalker, the Grand Master of the New Jedi Temple, wore the purple cloak and white robes of a triumphant Jedi general, as did Lando. All three Starkillers now had destroyed their Kiber Crystals. And all three wielded a lightsaber (or two) with skill and grace.

Luke and Lando each gave their magic Rings to Leia, as a sign of their devotion to her, and their confidence in their own skill as warriors. However, having lost her hands, Leia had to wear her three Rings in a different fashion from ordinary people.

--

One day, a merchant from a far-away land arrived at the court of Queen Leia on Utapau, carrying a nondescript box of plain dark wood. The man was wizened and shriveled with years, and shabbily dressed, and in spite of his kindly face and keen eyes, few of the courtiers (a species closely related to lawyers) would have paid him the slightest attention.

But Lando Kadar happened to be visiting Utapau at that time, and it was he who asked the traveler what he bore.

“Fruits from exotic lands,” was the fellow’s reply.

Lando paid the man for a sample of his wares.

The merchant reached into his box, and produced a yellowish fruit, covered in a hard rind. It was like nothing anyone in the court had ever beheld.

“This is only a small sample of the many delights I can procure for you.”

The strange food mesmerized Lando—for he now recalled having seen its like, years ago, on a tree in the white-haired sorcerer’s garden.

At the merchant’s instruction, Lando peeled the rind from the fruit, and ate of the flesh inside.

It tasted good, in a way Lando had never experienced before… yet its savor was also somehow strangely familiar.

Lando asked the man what he called this new and exotic fruit.

“An orange, Sire.”

At her father’s advice, Queen Nellith bestowed upon the merchant a royal commission in the new orange trade. She asked only that he sell his wares at a fair price, to which he agreed, because he was a reasonable man.

And soon, exotic fruits of all kinds—principally oranges, but by no means solely—began to grace the dinner tables of the Galaxy, and were enjoyed by lowly and highborn alike.

--

With Lando’s permission, Leia had the ancient bronze gong moved from its old home on Condawn to the throne room of her new palace on Utapau.

In the gong’s dull reflection, others saw Leia as she normally looked. Usually.

But what Queen Leia saw reflected on the face of the gong, she revealed to few—and it is not said in the surviving manuscripts.

And, across the galaxy, people shared and shared alike.

And peace and love reigned in the Republic.

And, on a remote, swampy planet on the uncharted edge of the galaxy, the Jedi Master Bunden Debannen, living under the assumed name of Minch Yoda, laid down his burdens, and breathed a sigh of relief… for the time being.

Episode VI, Part III

Han and Mace and Mina, who by now had rescued C-3PO and R2-D2, went to the central computer room of the Imperial Palace, where they sought to disable the shields of the two Death Stars using the stolen codes.

Four Super Stormtroopers guarded the entrance, the finest of the new elite force raised by Lord Pestage. There was no hope of distracting them; for the Emperor himself had overseen their training.

They put up a fierce and deadly fight with their lightsabers. In the battle, Han lost his right hand, and one of Mina’s breasts was severed.

C-3PO and R2-D2 then rushed in, and distracted two of the guards, and so saved the heroes’ lives. But they were severely damaged, and put out of action. Imminent death awaited them if their minds were not transferred to other bodies soon.

(Rather like a certain Professor Jones in a certain movie about a certain Holy Grail?)

Yet the soldiers were slain, and the room was breached, and the codes transmitted.

--

With the shields lowered, Akira Valorum, piloting the Millennium Falcon, and Marcus Whitsun, in his own silver starfighter, each respectively approached one of the half-finished Death Stars.

Marcus found some unexpected opposition: a Rebel starfighter, approaching fast, with its guns trained on him.

Heda Horus, knowing that the Death Stars would soon be destroyed if she did nothing, had decided to emulate her mentor and hero, Darth Vader, by taking personal command of a starfighter to intercept the Rebel pilots. She did Vader one better: she used Leia’s own X-wing to disguise her approach, while the rest of her squadron used ordinary Imperial craft.

And Marcus Whitsun was deceived, for he was not experienced enough a pilot to know that Imperial fighters had different tactical approaches to dogfighting than Rebels.

But just as Mara prepared to fire, Marcus was saved. Another X-Wing fired on Heda’s own, spoiling her aim, so that she only sheared off one of the wings of Marcus’ craft.

This was flown by Mara Lamiya, a brown-haired Rebel pilot, who had become one of the Alliance’s top fighter aces, second only to Luke Starkiller himself.

She had fought valiantly in the Second Battle of Yavin IV, where she had been shot down and forced into a crash landing. Thanks to her piloting skills, and good fortune, she lived to fight another day. But the goggles of her helmet were shattered, and she lost an eye. Afterwards Mara took to wearing a black eyepatch—and avoided wearing helmets.

As Heda turned her attention to this new and unexpected foe, Marcus flew into the core of the Death Star.

Across the raging void of disputed space, Akira Valorum had already done likewise.

--

Luke had barely enough time to conjure a shield from the Force, to protect himself against Darth Vader’s unexpected attack.

He struggled valiantly, but Vader’s barrage of fury was the greater. It would only be a matter of time before Luke was overwhelmed, and fell before his father’s might.

Leia, standing painfully on a mangled leg, saw this and wondered how she might help her brother.

Then she remembered the Magic Mirror, and its visions.

Limping painfully over to the mirror, Leia looked in its glass once more. The shadow still stood in the place of Darth Vader—it was this eldritch being, not her father, who sought to electrocute Luke.

Leia took a deep breath, and extended both hands….

…and smashed the mirror.

The explosion that followed caught both Vader and Luke by surprise. Luke dropped his guard—but Vader, equally, cut off his surge of Force lightning.

He no longer wished to continue it. For now he was Lando Kadar once more, in body and spirit.

--

Long ago, young Lando had been filled with pride and thoughts of vengeance against his father. To that end, he had pursued every resource available to him, plumbed depths of depravity deeper than any known by the Sith and the Boma.

He had become a master of astral travel, in space and in time, to places it was dangerous even to behold, and lethal to visit in the flesh.

There, on one of these worlds, he had met his true master. Not Emperor Pestage, or Aubra or Zeno, or even a Sith at all.

No, this man was a jovial fellow with white hair, outwardly ordinary, who was dressed in red and sat in the overstuffed armchair of a book-lined study.

“Who are you?” Lando asked.

“I have many names,” came the reply. “Yen Sid is one. Henry Walton is another. But you may call me Palpatine, if you would like.”

“What is this place?”

“Some call it Xanadu, others Hearst Castle. It is my home, and the farm where I make my living. Is that not enough?”

Lando felt curiosity rising within him. “What do you grow here?”

“Many wonderful fruits. Look out that window, and you will see them.”

Lando looked at the tall glass window indicated, and beheld, outside, trees fruited with produce of unimaginable variety. Back in the caves of Ttaz, his mouth began to water.

“May I taste of them?”

“No. I keep them for myself.”

This puzzled Lando, and angered him somewhat. “Why?”

“It is not for you, Son of Annikin, to know my reasons for doing as I do. It is merely for you to accept.”

“But—”

“I will offer you something else instead: something greater, in my view. Will you take it, and accept my word, and endeavor to forget these worthless fruits?”

“Yes, gladly. What is this gift?”

“Power. Unlimited power.”

--

Lando Kadar did as Palpatine bid, and held out his right arm. Palpatine pricked his index finger with a needle, and blood (funny how black it looks, thought Lando) fell onto a parchment. This paper Palpatine promptly filed away in a chest of drawers.

Afterward, Lando went back to his home place and time, with little reason to doubt the wisdom of this great sorcerer. But unbeknownst to him, he had been the victim of a spell, a magical geas of sorts which enslaved his spirit and caused him to work evil.

The mirror, sent long ago to Condawn by the sorcerer’s minions in that galaxy, was the agent of that spell. And now, with its shattering, Lando’s true inner goodness was reborn once more.

--

Lando and Luke ran to help Leia, who sprawled upon the floor among the shards of the mirror.

Her silver hands had been burned black by the explosion—and her cloned eyes had been melted out, so that she was blind in ordinary terms. But, thanks to the Force, Leia could still see perfectly… and she greeted her father with a bear-like embrace.

Her beloved brother, however, she thanked with a kiss.

--

In the throne room of the Emperor, the slaves, led by Han and Mace and Mina, confronted Lord Pestage. They asked him to yield, so that they would not have to kill him and his kin.

The Emperor was unwilling to go out gracefully. He was angered by what the Rebels had done to his beloved homeworld; and in truth, he feared the wrath of the planet’s liberated underclass.

Lord Pestage’s finger hovered near a button on his throne—a red button, long hidden behind a secret panel, which in direst emergency would set in motion a chain reaction to destroy the entire planet.

The fingers of the former slaves tensed on their stolen guns.

Just as doom was about to fall on Ton-Muund, a woman appeared from a secret entrance, crying for mercy: Alana Organa, sister of Zunia, the Emperor’s most beloved concubine.

As one close to the Imperial royal family, Alana had been given prior warning of the impending destruction of Organa Major. So she spirited herself away, to live in seclusion with her brother-in-law, the Emperor, on Ton-Muund. 

She was still beautiful, and her golden hair (in a Sith topknot) was not yet gray. After all, she had worn one of Annikin’s Rings for many years—and her Dwarven slaves had since fashioned another for her in its likeness.

Now Alana bore a broken nose, and the Mark of the Sith was a black tattoo upon her forehead—for she had resisted only once, long ago on Sullust X.

One of the startled Rebels fired at her, shooting for the heart. But because he was unaccustomed to wielding blasters, he shot her in the stomach, paralyzing her.

(“That’s not funny… that’s not…”)

And, as the Emperor saw his beloved sister-in-law lying wounded and in pain on the floor before his throne, his heart began at last to melt. He yielded to the Rebels, and gave up his signet ring, and let mercy reign for Alana’s sake.

C-3PO and R2-D2, whose old bodies were fast dying, were hastily transferred into two unused robot shells lying readily at hand: protocol droids. R2 was uploaded into a gold-plated droid, which allowed him at last to speak in a human voice, and C-3PO was put into a silver-colored droid. Ever afterward he complained loudly about the color of his new chassis--but secretly he was thrilled.

--

Overhead, the torpedoes of Akira Valorum and Marcus Whitsun found their marks, and two Death Stars exploded.

Marcus Whitsun escaped from the exploding space station with his life intact.

But Heda Horus and Mara Lamiya, who had continued their dogfight even as the other Rebels flew into the heart of the Death Star, shot each other down. Both of their craft plummeted to the surface of Ton-Muund far below.

Thanks to her skill as a pilot, Mara Lamiya escaped once more with her life. But all her hair was signed off, and her eyes were blinded; and several of her teeth were knocked from her jaw.

Heda Horus, meanwhile, managed to guide her damaged fighter into a harrowing crash landing, from which she was very fortunate to walk away. At least, that was what ordinary folk said—but in truth, Heda, as a favorite of Darth Vader, was one of those who had been privileged with the gift of a Dwarven Ring.

Bowing to the inevitable, Heda promptly surrendered to a squad of Rebel troops, newly landed on the planet surface.

Her greatest injury from the crash was the loss of an eye. She refused to have it replaced afterward, however, saying that a pilot who needed two eyes was no pilot at all.

In the days following the Battle of Ton-Muund, Heda began to let her hair—formerly cut short in pilot fashion—grow out once more. Thanks to the stress of the battle, it now came in white.

--

Akira Valorum did not fare as well as Marcus, or Heda, or even Mara. Han Solo’s beloved ship, the Millennium Falcon, was never seen again after the battle, and men said that the Clone King had perished that a galaxy might live.

But Han Solo himself remembered Akira Valorum's sharp sense of humor; and he thought ruefully of his large unpaid debt to Akira from their last sabacca game, which he had lacked the funds to make good.

--

Many other tales of heroism came out of the great Galactic Civil War…. only some of which are recorded in full in the surviving sources.

On the icy planet of Arpentis, site of an Imperial labor camp, the dashing Rebel spy Simon Ritter infiltrated the hellish prison fortress of black iron, and successfully liberated the golden-haired Princess Rosanna Clementias.

She was the daughter of a royal House that had remained officially neutral in the War. But Rosanna had been seized as a hostage on the orders of Lord Pestage, “to encourage the others,” after Imperial spies reported that King Salvor Clementias was secretly selling arms to the Rebels.

After her rescue, Rosanna quickly emerged as one of the Rebels’ greatest leaders of ground forces.

Likewise, the star-pilot whose heroism won the Second Battle of Hoth for the Alliance, Kim Sunbearer of Byssia, wooed Lady Winter, the niece of King Andricus of Ophuchi.

Andricus had reluctantly declared for the Rebellion after his brother’s mysterious death was revealed to be a false-flag operation masterminded by Imperial agents.

Kim was on a diplomatic visit to this new ally of the Alliance when he first beheld Lady Winter’s raven hair and green eyes. She reciprocated his affection, and approached her father about a possible marriage.

But, ever the patrician, King Andricus would not agree to grant his daughter’s hand to one of common birth… especially a man making war against his sovereign lord. Byssia was, after all, still loyal to the Empire.

To rid himself of this "turbulent pilot," Andricus told Kim Sunbearer that he could marry Lady Winter only when he had procured a kingdom of his own.

That, he thought, would be the end of the matter.

Far from it.

Later in the war, Kim and his most trusted friend, the former Imperial officer Lieutenant Lloyd Davidson, liberated the planet of Raghusa V, whose unpopular King, the Imperial lackey Hamish the Bald, had placed it under martial law in defiance of popular sympathy for the Rebellion.

A craven at heart, King Hamish fled into the Unknown Regions almost as soon as Kim and Lloyd landed. A few months later he returned, at the head of an unimpressive force of mercenaries and vagabonds. Kim’s troops swiftly routed Hamish once more, and the former King fled back to his new home in exile, never to return.

The descendants of Hamish (who, for reasons known best to philologists, are called Jamesites by historians) made occasional attempts thereafter to recover their ancestral kingdom. But they came to nothing, and the Sunbearer dynasty was secure.

Andricus, impressed despite himself, agreed to let Kim and Winter marry at last.  Kim took up his new throne on Raghusa, and appointed Lloyd Davidson his viceroy and lord chamberlain. The wedding and coronation feast was the talk of the Third Quadrant.

But I’m woolgathering. Let’s get back to the story you expected.

Episode VI, Part II

Luke had had his Kiber Crystal, and his new lightsaber, taken from him when he was captured. He feared that now he was powerless, for Ben had never told him that, once he had opened his mind to the Force, the Crystal was in truth no longer needed.

He languished in prison on Alderaan for some time, and there was tortured, suffering the first ordeal of the Sith. But he had not yet submitted, and he knew, from what Leia had told him, that death loomed before him if he remained obstinate.

Yet suddenly, he was taken from his cell, and brought by shuttle to Condawn. Here, on a craggy mountaintop overlooking the searing fields of lava, Darth Vader had built his castle, on the site of his victory over the old order.

Luke was taken to Vader’s throne room, with its highly polished Dwarf-wrought floor of stone, and its giant glass windows overlooking the lava fields. On one side wall hung the lightsabers of Jedi whom Vader had defeated: trophies of victory. On the other side stood a large glass mirror, also of Dwarven make, whose purpose even Darth Vader did not fully understand.

The two unusually well-armored stormtroopers who had escorted Luke into the room remained standing by the entrance, guarding it. But they advanced no further.

Upon the dais before the central window there was a brass gong, which was used to orchestrate proceedings during meetings of the Sith Order.

At the center of the room, seated on his throne, was Vader, still wearing his mask with the pride of a fierce knight. And by his side, in a newly installed throne, there sat one other: his new consort, and co-ruler of the Sith Order. Leia.

--

She was dressed in a scarlet battle jumpsuit. One of Annikin’s magic serpent Rings hung on a chain around her neck. (Vader, a prudent man who had already lost one arm, wore the second the same way, beneath his armor.)

The triple-armed Mark of the Sith was etched in poured gold upon Leia’s forehead; for she had, in truth, resisted thrice.

Her eyes, both the blue-hued original and the one of metallic bronze, had been extracted and replaced with matching cloned prostheses, outwardly normal except for their green irises. In fact, her organic eye had been used to make her own Kiber Crystal, which she kept in a secure crypt, deep below the throne room.

The Sith knew the secret of the Crystals’ making, as the Jedi never did. It was a dark secret, and had they known, the Jedi would have found other ways to open their minds to the Force. For there were, in fact, other ways.

But no Sith, except Vader only, realized how limited in truth the Kiber Crystals’ power was; nor how utterly useless they were after one’s first contact with the Force. So they coveted them, and often tore out their own eyes, or the eyes of their enemies, to make them, in the belief that such personalization granted greater power.

And Vader, too, knew the wisdom of not sharing this secret before its time.

Leia had taken the tonsure given to the hardiest of Sith women—a permanently bald head, saving only a short stubble of golden hair.

And, to cement her status as a Sith Knight, Leia had willingly undergone further wounds: the extraction of numerous teeth, and a third breaking of her nose. Her robotic hands, both the hand of synth-flesh and the damaged hand of crystal, had been replaced with silver prostheses; for the True Sith value honesty.

But her missing teeth were replaced with a chaotic medley of gold and silver and crystal; for the True Sith love life, and they love uniformity best when it is melded with variety.

And, at last, Leia had built her own lightsaber, which she wore in addition to the one Ben Kenobi had given to her.

--

She had drunk of the Red Sleep (or Red Draught) of the Sith, the drink that brings madness and ecstasy in equal dose, and she was now a willing participant in the deeds of Vader and his ilk.

She taunted Luke with the fact, which he had never known, that Han had slept with her first, during their desperate flight from Yavin. And she had given herself to him again, after Luke’s capture.

She told him that Han was a better lover than he could ever be. And she could judge, for neither Luke nor Han had been the first to lie with her. And Leia further said that she was now Vader’s willing mate—and, she knew, she was pregnant.

But Leia would be gracious in victory. She asked him now to join them. She offered him one-third of the Empire for his own, and the gift of Annikin Starkiller’s third Ring, which as yet slumbered deep in the vaults of the palace, next to Leia's own Kiber Crystal.

Luke refused. But some part of him, deep down, wanted to accept.

Leia and Vader taunted Luke by dangling his lightsaber, and his Kiber Crystal, in front of him. He did not seek to take them via the Force, for he did not think he could, if the Crystal was not already his own, by right of gift or right of might. But he was tempted to try.

Next, they held before him his father’s lightsaber, lost years ago on Kashyyyk. They offered it to him freely, if he would only join them. His urge to seize his rightful heirlooms by the Force grew much stronger. But again he was unsure if he dared try, and in trying, fail.

Then they linked into the secret Imperial military HoloNet, to show him how the battle was unfolding over Ton-Muund.

The Emperor and Vader had withheld a secret: the Death Stars were fully armed and operational!

Luke was angered and enraged, and wished fervently to attack them with his bare hands. But, using all his self-control, he overcame the impulse.

Finally, frustrated by his refusal to accept their generosity, Leia smashed Luke’s Kiber Crystal before his eyes. By this act she wished to depower forever such a pathetic dullard, who in her eyes would never make a proper Sith Lord.

And now Luke’s fury could no longer be borne.

--

Tapping into the Force, forgetting his perceived need for the Kiber Crystal, Luke summoned his lightsaber, and his grandfather’s blade as well. With them he attacked Vader.

Leia countered the blow, using Ben Kenobi’s second saber given to her by Luke.

Vader too drew his own lightsaber.

Luke used the Force to take control of the two guards at the entrance to the hall, the ones who had escorted him in: elite Stormtroopers.

Vader had begun training this cadre of well-disciplined troops at the Emperor’s request. Even Lord Pestage had begun to fear that the Sith might turn against him one day, and that Vader might, in the fullness of his power, seek to supplant him. But Vader knew this; and the Emperor knew that he knew it.

Now the two well-armored stormtroopers, doing Luke’s bidding, advanced and drew their own lightsabers.

In response, Vader fetched down Ben Kenobi’s old blade from where it rested on a wall of the throne room, long dormant, as a rare trophy in a place of honor.

And Leia activated her own new-built lightsaber.

Battle was joined.

--

Meanwhile, as Han Solo and Mina Whitsun made their way up from the depths of Ton-Muund, Akira Valorum piloted the Millennium Falcon in the gigantic space battle raging overhead.

The Rebels were losing. Their ships were pinned between the defenses of Ton-Muund and the Imperial fleet, which had made a sudden, but not entirely unanticipated, appearance.

--

The Imperial ships were commanded by a newly minted Admiral, but one who was already a shrewd strategist and a skilled leader of men: a woman, in fact.

Let’s call her Admiral Heda Horus.

Heda herself was an extremely intelligent woman, and thus a favorite of Darth Vader. She was, in fact, the officer who had recognized Luke and Leia on Alderaan earlier, and who had blown their cover.

Thanks to her brainpower, she rose high in rank, despite the racist tendencies inherent in the Imperial bureaucracy: for her features were what Tellurians would call Arabian.

Vader himself had asked the Emperor to promote her to Admiral, as a reward for her capture of Luke Starkiller. The Emperor, grudgingly, agreed.

Now Heda was grown to womanhood, at least in body, and by virtue of her great intelligence, she commanded the Imperial battle fleet. She hated the Rebels, and her green eyes burned with fury when she saw them; for her idol was her mentor, Darth Vader.

And, childlike, she had eagerly absorbed his invective against the “seditious foe.”

Children do not know when their parents are lying.

Even to themselves.

--

And then, unexpectedly, Bail Whitsun’s fleet appeared too, and began fighting alongside the Rebel ships. He and his son Marcus (piloting his own silver starfighter) had come to rescue Mina.

But Bail’s capital ship was destroyed by the lasers of one Death Star, and the Rebel flagship, commanded by General Dodana, was blown up by the other. This was the first revelation of the ultimate surprise Vader and the Emperor had planned. And the shields had not yet been downed.

--

On Condawn, Luke and his two mind-controlled elite Stormtroopers now did battle against both Leia and Vader.

Luke managed to hold them both off, quite adeptly, for Ben had trained him well in lightsaber combat.

However, his elite Stormtroopers, though well trained by Vader himself, ultimately proved of little account when subjected to conflicting mental commands from three warriors at once.

During the duel, Luke knocked Ben Kenobi’s lightsaber from Vader’s hand, and it plunged into one of the ventilation shafts that cooled the throne room. But he shrank from pressing his advantage.

Leia tossed Vader her own lightsaber, and she instead took up one of the fallen Stormtroopers’ swords. (This idea comes from the finale of Hamlet.)

--

If a spectator had been present, and had bothered to look into the magic mirror at this moment, he or she would have noticed something odd.

In the mirror, each of the combatants wielded two different colors of lightsabers; but in the world as seen by ordinary mortal sight, there was only one color, shared by all the blades.

More strangely still, Darth Vader was not present in the mirror. In his place stood a monstrous black shadow in the shape of a man.

Luke and Vader did not notice this. But Leia did.

--

Luke could, perhaps, have defeated both his foes. But he knew, from the evidence before him, where the greater threat lay.

Leia cut off Luke’s right arm at the elbow, but he simply carried on, attacking her with his left arm and his remaining lightsaber, learning by instinct what Annikin had mastered through training years ago.

The duel was not yet over. But Leia was still attacking furiously.

So Luke struck at Leia’s leg, bringing her down and leaving her with a permanent limp. And he cut off Vader’s right hand, revealing its true nature as a droid prosthesis. But at this last revelation, Luke shrank from killing them. For at last he realized the peril of the path he now walked: that he might someday himself end up like his father and sister.

He flung down his lightsaber, and stretched his hand out to Darth Vader.

“I cannot kill you, father. I am a Jedi, like my father before me.”

Behind Luke, Leia dragged herself painfully to her feet.

Across the throne room, Vader stood up in silence.

A moment passed without words or movement.

And then Darth Vader struck out at his son with Force lightning.

Episode VI: The Good Jedi

Han had come back to the Rebels one year ago. Even as the Rebels lost more and more ground, he became ever more regretful of his foolishness in doubting the wisdom of the cause.

Upon his return, Han did not woo Leia, for she and Luke had, by common consent, not yet told him about the truth of the Skywalker dynasty. And Han thought that she preferred Luke in her heart.

And, deep down, she did—even with her current knowledge.

--

In the Second Galaxy, Han Solo met with the powerful trade baron Bail Whitsun. Bail had two children, among whom Han himself had been fostered as a teenager. Now he asked for Bail’s help for the Rebel cause, by adding his massive fleet to their dwindling armada of warships.

Bail Whitsun was remarkable for his red hair and green eyes. If one had not known better, one would have assumed he was a clone of the Valorum lineage.

In fact, he was—but Bail rejected the clones’ taboo against sexual reproduction, seeing it as baseless and unnecessary. So he denied his fathers and refused his surname, taking on a new last name to honor the star of his chosen homeworld.

As an adopted son of sorts, Han Solo was one of the very few who were privileged enough to know his secret—which itself was one of the major reasons for Bail Whitsun’s extreme reclusiveness.

And Bail’s daughter, Mina, looked essentially like a young, female version of her father.

--

As Han embarked on his journey to Acquis, events went on in the lenticular Galaxy Far Far Away we know so well.

On the Rebel base on the grass planet Ibbana, Ben Kenobi was dying at last.

Before he died, Ben Kenobi entrusted Luke with the last secret of the Jedi, one wrested at great cost from the Dwarves: how to build his own lightsaber.

Luke did this, and was pleased with the result.

For this was the symbol of the secret wisdom which Bunden Debannen had whispered in Ben’s ear, years ago: that a true Jedi, a Gray Jedi, goes his own way. He adheres neither to the strictly white nor the strictly black, but simply along the path that is best for the overall Pattern of the Force.

The only true rule of a Gray Jedi is this: “First, do no harm.” Even the Jedi of the Old Republic, in their own way, had forgotten this, and thus fallen into unwisdom.

Afterward, Ben gave to Luke his own second lightsaber, so he in turn could instruct Leia in the ways of the Force.

As a last request, Ben asked Luke to take his body to Utapau (Tatooine) and bury him there, for his home on Organa Major (what we now call Alderaan) had been destroyed by the first Death Star.

But Ben did not mention the true secret of the Kiber Crystals. Some things are best learned by doing, after all; and this truth Master Debannen had thought it best for Ben to learn on his own, in life or in death.

--

Luke traveled to Utapau with Ben’s body, and was shocked by what he found there.

In the 1975 third draft of the first SW movie, Luke simply ran away from home. But now, in the third film, Luke would see that in his absence, the Lars homestead had been destroyed by the Empire. Owen and Beru had been slain, and their bodies left for the carrion birds.

For the first time in his life, Luke felt sorrow at having left Utapau behind.

He buried his aunt and uncle, and Ben Kenobi, in plots next to his mother’s grave. He vowed to come back one day, when he had time, to rebuild the family farm better than ever.

Then he returned to the Rebel base on Ibbana, and heard the message relayed from Han.

Luke and Leia knew what they had to do.

--

Using a stolen Imperial shuttle and “borrowed” Imperial uniforms, they dressed up as officers and infiltrated once more the cloud city of Alderaan, the ancestral seat of Emperor Pestage. (If you haven’t figured this out yet, it’s basically a riff on the Padishah Emperor’s planet of Salusa Secundus from Dune, combined with King Vultan’s Sky City from Flash Gordon.)

To better disguise herself, Leia dressed as a male officer. She trimmed her long golden hair into the short flat-top haircut favored by Imperial officers, and wore gloves to conceal her crystalline right hand. She pretended that her hands had been burned in battle.

Leia also wore an eyepatch, to hide her bronze droid eye—that distinctive feature in Rebel propaganda posters.

Luke, however, did not have too much difficulty fitting in. He had already grown a beard in order to bolster his disguise on prior reconnaissance missions.

Luke and Leia successfully retrieved the codes from Alderaan, and copied them into R2-D2 for the Rebels’ use. But their disguises ultimately failed, for Leia’s wounds, and their familial resemblance, were too obvious to conceal entirely. A high-ranking Imperial captain recognized them.

A terrific firefight ensued. Leia was shot in her crystal hand, and it began to malfunction. She knew it would need a replacement, sooner or later.

In the end, Luke stayed behind, sacrificing himself to make sure Leia got away with the codes. He was captured, and taken to the prison cells out of which he had rescued Leia years ago.

Leia returned to the Rebels, where she met up with Han. They exchanged sorrows, and talked of the very possible defeat of the Rebellion in the coming battle. After all, the Rebels’ resources were already stretched thin, and Ibbana could not remain undiscovered forever. They had to strike now, or risk losing all.

Han (along with C-3PO and R2-D2) went to Ton-Muund, heading a secret commando mission, which sought to infiltrate the Imperial Palace from below.

And Leia, who still loved Luke, determined to save his life—by fair means or foul.

She took her lightsaber, and flew off in a starfighter (for she, too, was a good pilot at need).

None of the Rebel generals—not even her favorite general, the warrior priest Grand Mouff Tarkin—knew where Leia meant to go. Nor did they mind overly much, for she was a wise leader in their war councils, and they trusted her.

Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

…On Kashyyyk, Luke and Akira went into the dungeons of the Silver City, and found Han and Leia in separate cells. Han’s wounds grieved Akira, but the sight of Leia angered and sickened Luke. Once again she lay unconscious and bloody, but now even worse, for one of her eyes was blinded, and her beautiful hair had been cut off. Luke awoke her with a kiss, and she clung to him, and cried from mingled pain and joy.

And, as the Clone King and Chewbacca helped Han and C-3PO toward the landing pad of the Millennium Falcon, Akira Valorum wondered why Luke tarried.

--

Though her friends escaped in the Falcon, thanks to the aid of Akira Valorum (whom she had to forgive, grudgingly), Leia remained behind to slay Jabba the Hutt, which she did with venomous relish. She had borrowed Luke’s lightsaber and Kiber Crystal. At her first touch of the Crystal, the Force leaped within her to heights she had never before attained.

Now, lightsaber in hand, she went to avenge herself upon Darth Vader.

The climactic duel no doubt took place in some sort of dangerous environment, as in the final film—perhaps the edge of a balcony opening out into empty sky.

--

Of course, Leia had been trained to use a lightsaber, as all children of noble families of the Old Republic were. Even in 1977, GL said that anyone could use a lightsaber—Leia just happened to prefer blasters.

In fact, there was likely a good reason for this. No doubt she had a secret phobia of lightsabers.

Why?

Leia used to be left-handed, you see.

(“I am not left-handed!”)

Not now, at any rate.

--

Just as with Tenel Ka in the Young Jedi Knights book series, there had been a training mishap one day on Organa Major, and young Leia had lost her left arm at the elbow.

Few knew this, because she had always been fitted with the finest prostheses money could buy, covered in perfectly matching synth-flesh. But, with Organa Major destroyed and the Rebels on the run, that time was over. And synth-flesh wears out eventually… and sixteen-year-old girls (as Leia was in the 1975 third draft) are not done growing.

But the time for that fear was over. The time for vengeance, she judged, was at hand.

Now, fighting like a woman possessed, Leia opened herself to the Dark Side, using her pain and shame as fuel to fight Vader, hoping to defeat evil with evil. She almost won—but she stabbed Vader in the shoulder, and Vader groaned in a great outcry of pain. And Leia hesitated to finish him off.

But Vader rallied, and cut off Leia’s right arm at the elbow, and Annikin’s lightsaber went along with it.

Vader took off his mask, revealing his own face: that of a fair-haired, pale-skinned mustachioed man, with purple droid-facsimile eyes, and the brand of the Sith upon his forehead.

He told Leia the truth: he was her real father. Lando had cuckolded Carl Rieekan years ago, by coming to Alana in Annikin’s shape on the eve of the Battle of Condawn.

Leia, her mind flashing back to the dungeons of Alderaan, screamed.

But Vader did not stop at that revelation.

He said further that, in his youthful hatred of his father, he had determined to deny him any vestige of memory in the waking world—even in flesh and blood. And so, he confessed, he was Luke Starkiller’s father as well.

This last revelation horrified Leia even more, though she did not show it—for she now knew she had, of her own will, committed incest. (I don’t think that would actually have been mentioned on screen, except via implication. But of course Siegfried does the same thing with his aunt, the Valkyrie Brunnhilde, in Richard Wagner’s operas.)

But what horrified her most was that deep down, like Wagner’s Sieglinde or an Olympian goddess, she did not really regret it.

Vader extended an invitation to Leia to join the Sith, and jointly rule the galaxy… but Leia jumped off the balcony.

She was rescued by a passing flying creature, a winged steed of the Wookiees—ridden by Luke and Han, who had come to rescue her at her subconscious call. The Millennium Falcon escaped, as in the final film, with Vader left to ponder why Leia did not accept her father’s generous offer of half the Empire.

Leia, in turn, wondered something herself: why had Vader not seized Luke’s Kiber Crystal?

--

But Vader did make one more stop before he left Kashyyyk: to the forest floor, far below the balcony where he and Leia had dueled.

There, after long searching, he found the thing he had been looking for: Annikin Starkiller’s lightsaber, clutched in his own daughter’s lifeless, partially decayed hand.

Darth Vader was not one to give up easily.

And, before he left Kashyyyk, he gave the severed arm a proper burial. It was the right thing to do, after all.

--

At the new Rebel base—quite likely on a grass planet, an idea considered for a Rebel headquarters in ROTJ—Leia and Han both received medical treatment. Han opted for illegal clone parts, grown by Akira Valorum, to replace his losses.

Leia, whose lost hair was just beginning to grow back, once again opted for well-crafted false teeth, indistinguishable from real ones. But she replaced her missing right hand with a crystalline prosthetic, crafted by grateful Dwarves liberated from Imperial slavery by the Rebels. She did, after all, want a visible war wound—if only to remind herself of her own desire for revenge.

And she replaced her blind eye with a droid prosthesis of a distinctive bronze color. It would, she knew, make a good effect on the Rebel propaganda posters.

Luke, to whom alone she disclosed Vader's words, forgave Leia for losing his grandfather’s lightsaber; after all, she had suffered far more on Kashyyyk than anything he had ever borne.

C-3PO, who lost his legs on Kashyyyk, was offered replacements, of the wrong metal—silver. The Rebels’ resources were not limitless. He protested about the mismatch, but accepted one of them, thinking it a great honor. Though, for his other missing limb, he preferred to use a carved wooden leg instead. He said that it was a fitting memento for a brave droid like himself, even though it had to be replaced frequently.

In the finale, the Rebels received a coded message from Han Solo's stepfather, the powerful trade baron Bail Whitsun. He refused for the moment to talk of an alliance, or even to deal with the Rebels at all. With that, Han decided to depart, since he feared that their cause would ultimately be lost without Bail’s aid.

"In accordance with the traditions of Starfleet and of Article 184 Starfleet Regulations, we are assembled here today to pay final respects to our honored dead.

"And yet, in the midst of our sorrow it should be noted that this death takes place in the shadow of new life, the sunrise of a new world, a world that our beloved comrade gave his own life to protect and nourish. He did not feel that sacrifice a vain or empty one -- and we will not debate his profound wisdom, in these proceedings."

For Leonard, and De, and James, and Gene and Majel

--

Now, with the proper ceremonies completed...

“The healing power of the Grail is the only thing that can save your father now. It’s time to ask yourself what you believe.”

"I am the doer who undoes, the creator who un-creates. And yet I would gladly be the destroyer who un-destroys, the dangerous one who protects."

"Thank you, John Dee."

--

“…So the Grey Weaver, ignorant of the consequences of his act, cast the magic spell that sealed shut the upper rim of the Third Sandglass, forcing its white sands to run their course unaided.

“But even as the Weaver did so, the Master Glassmaker heard the sound which, though he knew it must happen occasionally, nonetheless filled him with dread upon each new hearing: the shattering of glass.

“Goodmold the Glassmaker, running swiftly despite his age, traced the distasteful sound to its source: the Great Hall of Crystalgard, with its maze-like series of passages and stairs, all wrought of scintillating emerald glass.

“There in the center of the room, on a hallowed pedestal, the marvelous crystalline chalice, the Chromax Conundrum, still stood… But two chips had fallen from the rim of the goblet, and now they stood at the base of the emerald pillar.

“The purpose of the Chromax Conundrum was at last revealed.

“And Goodmold, the thirty-first Master of the Noble Guild of Glassmakers, was, for the first time in his long life, deeply afraid.”

Sir Joseph Holmes, Book of the New Loom, 21:3-6

--

“…So the White Mage, ignorant of the consequences of his act, cast the magic spell that sealed shut the upper rim of the Third Sandglass, forcing its crimson sands to run their course unaided.

“But even as the Mage did so, the Master Glassmaker thought he heard the sound which, though he knew it must happen occasionally, nonetheless filled him with dread upon each new hearing: the shattering of glass.

“Goodmold the Glassmaker, running swiftly despite his age, traced the distasteful sound to its perceived source: the Great Hall of Crystalgard, with its maze-like series of passages, whose very layout defied the ordinary laws of space-time.

“There in the center of the room, on a hallowed pedestal, the marvelous diamond chalice, the Chromax Conundrum, still stood, as perfect as ever in its shining clarity.

“But, high in the Tower of Secrets far above, one of the ropes binding the Great Scythe had snapped, and the blade’s arc now tilted crazily downward.

“And Goodmold, the thirty-first Master of the Noble Guild of Glassmakers, was, for the first time in his long life, truly joyous.

“For he knew, or guessed, the secret of this omen: that the Glassmakers’ centuries of laboring under an immense burden would soon draw to a close.”

Sir Joseph Holmes, Book of the New Loom, 71:6-8

--

“The surviving portions of the Uxbridge Fragment suggest that there is a germ of truth in both the ‘ordinary’ versions of The Star Wars, and the variants recorded by M. Trottier in the Woonsocket Manuscript.

“Once again, the issue hinges on the crux of paternity. To put it baldly, when speaking of Luke and Leia, which of these two Starkillers were really the offspring of Annikin, the former Skywalker; which were the children of Ben Kenobi, the renegade Jedi; and which were in truth the bastards of Lando Kadar, alias Darth Vader?”

“The received wisdom has it that Luke was Lando’s son, while Leia was Annikin’s daughter. However, the two columns of the Woonsocket Manuscript tell different stories, which are mutually contradictory.

“There, in the left-hand variant, Luke and Leia are both Annikin’s children by blood; but in the right-hand variant, Leia is the daughter of Ben Kenobi. Moreover, in both halves of the manuscript, Lando Kadar is not related to Annikin at all!

“From what remains in the surviving text, though, it is clear that the author of the Uxbridge Fragment had his own take on the material, one which diverges from all previously known accounts.”

--Omar Al-Azrad, The Lost Books of The Star Wars, p. 12

--

“Surprisingly, in view of the wisdom that has become commonplace since Trottier’s book was published, the Uxbridge Fragment—itself undoubtedly older than the Woonsocket Manuscript—incorporates the whole matter of the Magic Rings, and their attendant consequences.

“Thus, Laif Organa returns as a secondary character in the story, and Lando Kadar—Darth Vader—is once again Annikin’s child by Aubra the Sith.”

--Omar Al-Azrad, The Lost Books of The Star Wars, p. 14

--

Excerpted from the Uxbridge Fragment manuscript of The Star Wars, as edited and translated by Omar Al-Azrad:

Episode III: To Duel in Hell

....Thus at last, only two Jedi were left standing upon the fields of Condawn: Lando Kadar and Ben Kenobi.

(Translator’s note, p. 47: at this point, where the tale normally describes the laser-sword of Ben Kenobi, there is a lacuna in the Uxbridge Fragment. Most editors believe this may be filled by reference to the Woonsocket Manuscript, but see chapter VI for evidence to the contrary.)

At last, Ben Kenobi saw an opening, and pulled Lando’s Kiber Crystal from its chain around his neck, hoping thus to depower him. And Lando, not yet knowing the truth about the Crystals’ power, thought that he had indeed been rendered powerless.

Ben stabbed Lando in the heart. But Lando survived, thanks to his magical Rings. Lando cut off Ben’s right hand, and cast him down, and forced him to yield.

Cruel in victory, Lando stole Ben’s unique sword, and his Kiber Crystal, as trophies for the new Sith Order. Annikin’s and Laif’s Kiber Crystals, however, had disintegrated with their owners’ demise, for they had not been passed on beforehand.

(Translator’s note, p. 48: The reference at this point to Laif Organa in the Woonsocket Manuscript, which Trottier takes to be an interpolation by a later scribe, in fact appears here too, in this plainly earlier source. This is a point of evidence casting doubt on the previously accepted scholarly consensus.)

But in recompense for taking away Ben’s sword, Lando left Annikin’s sword for him to have, that Ben might pass it on to Luke. After all, what good had it done its original owner?

And so, Lando walked off, triumphant, leaving the wounded Ben Kenobi to grieve by his fallen King and his dead friends.

He was all the more triumphant because, when he defeated Ben Kenobi, he had felt the Force stirring still within him. Now he knew that he no longer had any need for the Kiber Crystals, and he rejoiced in his new freedom.

But Lando kept this knowledge secret, since not even the Jedi knew this as yet—save one only, who thought it best for other Jedi to learn this for themselves.

Why can't it be both?

A question yanked from its improper place in the Random Thoughts thread:

Are there any NJO novels that people here actually like?

I read an excerpt of the first book, Vector Prime, in the SW Insider magazine years and years ago when it first came out.

The thing I remember most was that Leia had contracted some disease that made her hair fall out. Somehow I suspect GL himself provided that idea--maybe a holdover from his THX 1138 days?

AntcuFaalb said:

ATMachine said:

So.... just out of curiosity, does anyone else suspect that Kylo Ren is going to be basically a film version of Darth Caedus?

Who?

 You know, that guy whom Jacen Solo became in a parallel universe.

Sorry, I forgot this was the Random Thoughts thread.

TheBoost said:

ATMachine said:

A thought:

I think perhaps the best way of understanding the Trinity is by reading The Lorax.

 ?

 Sorry, I think I put an extraneous "the" in there.

How very Blazing Saddles of him.

Very sad news. I'm going to miss him.

I still remember the issue of the old Star Trek Communicator which announced DeForest Kelley's passing back in 1999. Sixteen years haven't made the death of one's favorite actors much easier to bear.

Here's to you, Leonard Nimoy.

So.... just out of curiosity, does anyone else suspect that Kylo Ren is going to be basically a film version of Darth Caedus?

True enough.

On a totally unrelated subject: are there any NJO novels that people here actually like?

I read an excerpt of the first book, Vector Prime, in the SW Insider magazine years and years ago when it first came out.

The thing I remember most was that Leia had contracted some disease that made her hair fall out. Somehow I suspect GL himself provided that idea--maybe a holdover from his THX 1138 days?

As a geometry student quondam et futurus, I might as well say that Boost's argument has a bit of a flaw of its own.

Namely: If you skip over the intervening stages of a mathematical proof, you can end up in entirely the wrong place.

Still, even a broken sword can be reforged, as George knew. And Sigurd used his father's formerly broken sword to slay Fafnir the dragon... who used to be a dwarf.

The path of metamorphosis is not always clear to the naked eye. That's where imagination must come in. But of course doing your background research helps tremendously.

Let's hope for his sake that Threepio doesn't encounter any Sphinxes then.

Or at least kill stray robots whom he finds crossing his path on the road.

It just occurred to me that in that image, C-3PO's eyes are Photoshopped so that he's looking down at the magazine--an act normally impossible, given the fixed expression of Tony Daniels' mask.

Kind of an unsettling realization, like peeking behind a theater curtain.

Still, it makes for a pleasing overall result.

A thought:

I think perhaps the best way of understanding the Trinity is by reading The Lorax.

I grew up playing LucasArts adventure games on a Mac. Those versions came with their own inbuilt graphic filter to smooth out the pixels. (It later went into much more widespread use under the name of Advanced Mame 2X filtering.)

Now that I've switched to PCs, I prefer the chunky pixels of the original versions.

But I suppose I can't blame people for liking smoother graphics... as long as the option to switch back and forth is readily available.