ATMachine

Brilliant.

Episodes VII-IX: Three Tangled Tales

Once again, I shall reiterate that most of this must remain untold for the moment, for fear of spoilers.

Yet I think 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.

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.

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

Right, Rusty?

Episodes x-xii: Three Days in the Lives

Just as I described them before, really. Not much to say here.

Epilogue

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 hooded mantle of purple, and a bronze crescent crown, and she covered the burned side of her face with a silver half-mask, through which her blind eye peered out. She was not ashamed of her scars, but she did not wish to scare children.

(Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera a decade early, or Luke on Hoth post-Wampa in a deleted scene from ESB?)

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 now had a burn scar on one side of his face, and his crippled left hand was replaced by a bronze prosthesis; but this only added to his rakishly handsome appearance.

He married Heda Horus, now Ambassador Plenipotentiary to the Second Galaxy, who forgave him for shooting her down. She was, in fact, impressed by his abilities as a pilot.

TENNO

Heda wore a Dwarven-forged wig of red hair (since she had always hated her own yellow locks), and the white face paint traditional for the queens of Organa Major. And she replaced her lost eyes with new ones of metallic silver. But her teeth were still natural, though a few were missing.

/TENNO

TOMOE

Heda wore a Dwarven-forged wig in her natural hair color (black), and the white face paint traditional for the queens of Organa Major. And she replaced her lost eyes with new ones of metallic gold. But her teeth were still natural, though a few were missing.

/TOMOE

Mara Lamiya dwelt with them, as the captain and chief pilot of Heda’s ambassadorial starship.

As a wedding present, Chancelloress Mina bestowed on the couple one of the mind-transfer devices that had hitherto been restricted by Guild monopoly to use on Ton-Muund only.

--

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 a regnal name, but it is not recorded in any text yet known.

The Order of Gray Jedi 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 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-3PO 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.

Lando did not replace his missing right hand with a new prosthesis. He wished, by learning at last to duel with the left arm, to give Annikin Starkiller the due he had denied him in life. Luke, for his part, covered his new robotic hand with synth-flesh, to honor the independent mind of old Ben Kenobi.

TENNO

Leia took to wearing elaborate Dwarf-forged wigs, alternately red and gold and black in color, according to her daily whims.

One of her eyes, the one with a scar above and below it, was blind and milky blue. She had no wish to replace it, however. After all, her mismatched eyes were a famous feature of her likenesses on the old Rebel propaganda posters. Even now, she didn’t wish to change something so defining about her own face.

Her silver right hand had been burned black by the fires of Condawn. Nor did she replace it. She considered it as worth keeping, because it still worked.

Her golden teeth, however, remained in perfect condition.

/TENNO

TOMOE

Leia took to wearing elaborate Dwarf-forged wigs, alternately black and startling blue and green in color, according to her daily whims.

One of her eyes, the one with a scar above and below it, was blind and milky blue. She had no wish to replace it, however. After all, her mismatched eyes were a famous feature of her likenesses on the old Rebel propaganda posters. Even now, she didn’t wish to change something so defining about her own face.

Her silver right hand, and silver teeth, had been burned black by the fires of Condawn. Nor did she replace them. She considered them as worth keeping, because they still worked.

/TOMOE

Her queenly attire consisted of a golden cloak, a loincloth of woven metal discs, 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.

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

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

In the mirror, she saw herself as she normally looked. Usually.

But, just occasionally, when Leia looked into the mirror out of the corner of her blind eye, she had a surprise; for the reflection shown was not her own.

At those times, she beheld in the mirror an eerily pale-skinned woman, dressed almost exactly like herself. But this woman was almost, yet not quite, human.

TENNO

Her eyes were empty sockets; her nose was missing. Her head was bald, and her ears were pointed.

/TENNO

TOMOE

Her eyes were empty sockets; her nose was missing. Her head was bald, and her ears were pointed—though one of them had clearly had its point sliced off some time ago.

/TOMOE

Most strikingly of all, her doppelganger had three tall horns growing out of her head, just above her forehead.

Whenever it appeared, Leia pondered what this apparition could portend. Was it a specter of the past? A vision of the future? A glimpse of a future that would never be? Or a version of the present, one which was not hers, or her reflection’s, but which existed alongside them both?

And she asked herself… if she smashed the mirror, would she meet this woman? Or, perhaps, would she meet someone else entirely?

But she stayed her hand, and did not try the experiment… for the moment.

And they all 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 wizened Jedi Master Bunden Debannen breathed a sigh of relief… for the time being.

Episode VI, Part IV

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 Death Stars using the stolen codes.

The two Sith Lords guarding the entrance were no fools, and they had orders to attack any strangers on sight.

C-3PO and R2-D2 distracted them, and so allowed the heroes to overpower the Sith Lords. But the two droids were badly damaged. R2 in particular was wrecked almost fatally, and 3PO lost his left arm. (Think of Kane Starkiller having lost three of his limbs, all but the right arm, in the 1974 rough draft.)

Imminent death awaited R2-D2 if his mind was not transferred to another body soon.

Still, the guards 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.

But Marcus Whitsun was not deceived, for he knew that Imperial pilots had different tactical approaches to dogfighting than Rebels.

He fired on the X-wing’s engines, even as she fired at him. But, taken off guard, she only sheared off one of his starfighter’s wings.

And Heda Horus, her craft irreparably damaged, plunged toward the surface of Ton-Muund below.

She survived. But her hair was singed off, and her eyes blinded, in the crash; and she lost several teeth.

Old Annikin, back in the Third Clone War, had been smarter. In her childish vanity, Heda was proud of her hair, and refused to muss it by deigning to wear a helmet. Annikin, however, had seen enough battles by then to know it was worth following the Republic regulations for pilots, and so he came through his crash on Utapau with few facial scars to show for it.

(Remember GL's own car crash?)

Heda had not realized that the Rebels, with their increasing paucity of resources, could no longer even find enough parachutes for their pilots. But nor would she have cared overmuch, had she known; for the Imperial mentality held that starfighters were more precious than personnel.

As Heda plummeted to the planet below, Marcus flew into the core of the Death Star.

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

--

The reborn Lando Kadar, who now realized the true goodness of Luke’s heart, was enraged at Leia’s attack.

He was weakened, and had lost his right hand. But he still had one lightsaber left, and one hand to wield it. So, even as Leia swung with her lightsabers at Luke, Lando used his own saber to block the blow.

A second duel resulted, one which Lando had no heart to fight. In an attempt to force Leia to back off, he swung his saber high at her. But, as he had hoped, she dodged the blow. Now Leia pressed on, and Lando knew he had no hope of out-dueling her in her madness. So he charged at Leia, and used his weight to fling them both bodily through the great glass window, down toward the lava fields of Condawn below.

But they did not die; instead, they landed on a rocky precipice overlooking the vast lava fields below. Lando was protected from the searing heat by his armored suit. But Leia’s clothing caught on fire, and her remaining hair was burned off.

Still, Lando had saved Leia from herself, and because they held fast to each other, they both lived. Even as she burned alive, he smothered the fire with his own cloak—though she bore the scars of it on her body to the end of her days.

And they realized their folly at last, and laughed at themselves. And Luke Starkiller, by now standing on his own two feet, extended his hands through the shattered window to help them both.

Luke’s hair and beard had not yet begun to whiten. But Lando’s hair was already beginning to go gray at the temples.

--

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.

TENNO

She was still beautiful, and her red hair (in a Sith topknot) was not yet gray. After all, she had been given the finest life-extension treatments which the Emperor’s scientists could devise.

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.

/TENNO

TOMOE

She was still beautiful, and her dark hair (in a Sith topknot) was not yet gray. After all, she had been given the finest life-extension treatments which the Emperor’s scientists could devise.

Now Alana bore a broken nose, and the Mark of the Sith was a livid brand upon her forehead—for she had, in truth, never resisted, even long ago on Sullust X.

/TOMOE

(Basically, she’s Padme AND Thea von Harbou: Fritz Lang’s wife, author of the novel version of Metropolis, screenwriter of the film—and, subsequently, a Nazi Party member during Hitler’s rule. But, additionally, this whole scene is based in large part on Kriemhild/Gudrun’s intervention to stop Siegfried from fighting her brother Gunther in the Nibelungenlied, a moment memorably dramatized in Fritz Lang’s silent film Die Nibelungen.)

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.

R2-D2, whose old body was fast dying, was uploaded into the unused shell of a silver protocol droid, which allowed him at last to speak in a human voice.

--

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

TENNO

But on the way out, his spacecraft was shot and badly damaged by an Imperial fighter: the last of Heda Horus’ crack squadron. It was piloted by a droid, an ace even more talented than Heda—Mara Lamiya.

The Emperor had wanted a clone of the man he deemed the finest pilot in the galaxy: Luke Starkiller. But not enough of Luke’s DNA had come into their hands until his encounter with Vader on Kashyyyk.

It took several years to grow a clone body to maturity properly. So, rather than miss out on having a Luke of their own to fight in the Galactic Civil War, Lord Pestage ordered Darth Vader to do the next best thing: reconstruct Luke’s personality matrix, and put it into a droid.

It amused Vader to insert the matrix into a silver-plated, feminine-bodied protocol droid. But the newly christened Mara did not mind.

(In the 1975 second draft, C-3PO is one of the four-person crew in Luke’s starfighter when it destroys the Death Star.)

Faced with this new threat, Marcus returned the fire, and dealt a crippling blow—even as she did the same to him. Their spacecraft now spiraled down together toward the surface of Ton-Muund far below.

Marcus, using his own parachute, bailed out before the crash. He survived mostly unharmed—save for a badly burnt hand and a lesser burn on one cheek.

Mara did not fare as well in her crash as Marcus or Heda had.

She would have been destroyed in the inferno; but with the Emperor’s surrender, technicians were freed to get to her in time. They could do nothing for her broken chassis; but they uploaded her mind into a new golden body.

/TENNO

TOMOE

But on the way out, his spacecraft was shot and badly damaged by an Imperial fighter: the last of Heda Horus’ crack squadron. It was piloted by an ace, one in fact even more talented than Heda—Mara Lamiya.

The Emperor had wanted an equal to the man he deemed the finest pilot in the galaxy: Luke Starkiller. Mara was the pilot who best fitted the bill.

For Mara herself was Luke’s twin sister, hidden by Annikin Skywalker so many years ago. She had grown up on Ton-Muund, hidden among a noble family. But they failed in their charge, and went over to the Empire. Young Mara, innocently following her parents' lead, did likewise.

By virtue of her great skill in dogfights, Mara Lamiya earned a place second only to Admiral Horus in the Imperial starpilots’ battle roster.

Her heroism at the Second Battle of Yavin IV led to Mara becoming the youngest pilot ever to be decorated with the Golden Cross of the Empire.

She went to Kashyyyk in Lord Vader’s retinue, and there piloted one of the fighters that harried the Millennium Falcon in its escape. But she failed to stop them, because she was shot down.

She survived, thanks to her Ring, and walked away with few injuries, thanks to her helmet and her good sense to keep her golden hair boyishly short in pilot fashion. But her goggles had been pierced by a piece of shrapnel, and she lost an eye—which she replaced with a metallic silver one.

For her failure, Vader had taken away her Golden Cross, to “encourage” her and her fellow pilots to do better.

Now, she was determined to prove that she could. She wanted her medal back.

--

Faced with this new threat, Marcus returned the fire, and dealt a crippling blow—even as she did the same to him. Their spacecraft now spiraled down together toward the surface of Ton-Muund far below.

Marcus, using his own parachute, bailed out before the crash. He survived mostly unharmed—save for a badly burnt hand and a lesser burn on one cheek.

Mara’s crash was worse.

She would have been destroyed in the inferno; but with the Emperor’s surrender, medical technicians were freed to get to her in time. They could do nothing for her broken body; but they uploaded her mind into a bronze protocol droid body of feminine shape.

/TOMOE

Akira Valorum did not fare as well as Marcus, or Heda, or even Mara. Han Solo’s beloved ship, the Millennium Falcon, died that a galaxy might live.

Episode VI, Part III

I have already recounted the essentials of the tale of Han and Mina in the depths of Ton-Muund. Thus, I shall simply pass over the whole episode in brief:

Han was captured by the Sith, and found Mina already among their ranks, herself a prisoner in a drugged waking sleep. A young dark-skinned slave boy, Mace Windom, restored Mina to her wits through the application of fire. The liberated Rebels released the slaves of the Sith, and, having unleashed the planet's ancestral waters, began to conquer the Imperial capital from below.

--

Meanwhile, overhead, Akira Valorum piloted the Millennium Falcon in the space battle.

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.

(This first name is a combination of Hedda Hopper, the famous gossip columnist of Old Hollywood, and Leda, mother of Helen of Troy in Greek mythology. Heda’s surname comes from Mara Horus, the Tarkin-style Imperial bureaucrat character in the 1974 first draft.)

TENNO

Heda Horus was, in fact, the officer who had recognized Luke and Leia on Alderaan earlier, and who had blown their cover. This was what had earned her a promotion to Admiral.

For Heda herself was a clone of Leia, made from DNA Vader had taken years ago on Alderaan. And she had grown up at the greatly accelerated rate natural to clones raised in laboratories.

/TENNO

TOMOE

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 Japanese.

In reality, Heda herself was a clone of Leia, made from DNA Vader had taken years ago on Alderaan. And she had grown up at the greatly accelerated rate natural to clones raised in laboratories.

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

/TOMOE

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.

--

TENNO

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 white lightsaber from Vader’s left 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 purple lightsaber, and she instead took up the blue sword of one of the fallen Stormtroopers. (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 (as the combatants did not), he or she would have noticed something odd.

In the mirror, there were only two combatants; for Darth Vader stood aside, and the stormtroopers had retired after bringing in Luke, and were not present at the duel.

But instead of the two empty thrones on the dais, there was a wizened old man in a purple hooded robe, sitting on the sole chair in the center of the room. (Or was it a man? All that could be made out of his face, beneath the cowl, was a pair of glowing yellow eyes…)

To the left and right of the seated figure (and not counting Vader), there stood four other men—each one almost as ancient as the Sith Master—in robes of blue and red, and black and white. Six Sith, all told…. looking for a seventh to complete their ranks.

Thus, only Luke and Leia fought, one on one, and they each used a red blade. While the mirror version of Luke had short blond hair and no beard, Leia’s hair was shorn to a brown topknot, and she wore the brown robe of a Sith novitiate.

And in the throne room’s other mirror, the gong of summoning, the scene was different yet again. Now Luke and Leia had switched places. Leia’s brown hair was long, and it was Luke, the golden-haired Sith Lord in training, who wore a brown robe.

Both of them used two blades. Luke had in hand two blue lightsabers, but Leia’s were green. The hooded man on the throne, moreover, wore blue robes, and his deputy wore purple instead.

But in the third mirror, the polished floor, the scene was still more changed.

Though Leia was once again robed and tonsured as a Sith Knight, now both Luke and Leia looked quite Japanese in features. However, Luke’s beard from the ordinary world remained. Each of them wielded two lightsabers; one white, one purple.

--

Luke could, perhaps, have defeated both his foes. But he knew, as if by instinct, where the greater threat lay.

To stop Leia’s furious assaults, he slashed at her face, blinding her in her normal eye. But she could still see perfectly, thanks to the Force. And she kept fighting.

Next Luke cut off her left hand. To his great surprise, what was revealed was not the stump of a living arm, but rather the wires of a prosthesis hidden beneath synthflesh. This shocked Luke, but he had no time to ponder it. Leia was still on her feet.

So Luke struck at Leia’s leg, bringing her down and leaving her with a permanent limp. And at last he turned his full attention upon Darth Vader.

Ultimately, Luke cut off Vader’s right hand, with his red lightsaber still clutched in it. Thus he exposed the wires of the prosthesis beneath Vader’s glove. At this last revelation, Luke shrank back. He vowed inwardly that, come what may, he would not kill them. For at last he realized the peril of the path he now walked: that, simply by fighting them, he might someday himself end up like Vader and Leia.

He flung down his lightsabers, and turned to Leia, who now urged Luke to finish off his father, and join the Sith in earnest.

“Never,” he said.

“You’ve failed, Leia! I am a Jedi, like my father before me, and like his father before him.”

(That line actually comes nearly verbatim from Lawrence Kasdan’s first revision of the ROTJ script.)

Luke stretched out his left hand to Darth Vader, offering to forgive him and embrace him. And Lando Kadar, perceiving mercy for the first time in his life, lowered his lightsaber, and stood in silence, and considered taking the hand.

But Leia, still in the first flush of Sith madness, was enraged. And she lashed out at Luke, whom she now despised as a weakling, with her lightsaber.

/TENNO

TOMOE

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 the red lightsaber from Vader’s left 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 golden lightsaber, and she instead took up the red sword of one of the fallen Stormtroopers. (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 (as the combatants did not), he or she would have noticed something odd.

In the mirror, the stormtroopers had retired after bringing in Luke, and were not present at the duel.

But Luke and Leia together faced off against Darth Vader, and five other men in variously colored robes tailored for dueling: six of the seven Sith Lords, who had foolishly sought to increase their numbers by two.

While the mirror version of Luke had short dark hair, and was clean-shaven, Leia’s long red hair gleamed in the fiery light, and they both wore gray robes. All of the combatants, save Luke and Leia only, wielded just one lightsaber; and every blade was blue in color.

And instead of the two empty thrones on the dais in the real world, there sat on the sole chair a wizened old man in a white robe. (Or was it a man? Nothing could be made out of his face, beneath the cowl…)

And in the throne room’s second mirror, the gong of summoning, things were largely as they appeared in the first mirror…

Except that the seated figure wore a robe of endlessly changing and morphing colors; and although Luke was clean-shaven, as in the first mirror, now he and Leia both appeared quite Japanese in features. And all of the lightsabers were red.

But in the third mirror, the polished floor, things appeared for the most part as they would have to normal sight.

Only, this time, Luke and Leia were white-haired albinos, with strange golden eyes. And all of the lightsabers too were white in color.

--

Luke could, perhaps, have defeated both his foes. But he knew, as if by instinct, where the greater threat lay.

To stop Leia’s furious assaults, he slashed at her face, blinding her in her normal eye. But she could still see perfectly, thanks to the Force. And she kept fighting.

Next Luke cut off her left hand. To his great surprise, what was revealed was not the stump of a living arm, but rather the wires of a prosthesis hidden beneath synthflesh. This shocked Luke, but he had no time to ponder it. Leia was still on her feet.

So Luke struck at Leia’s leg, bringing her down and leaving her with a permanent limp. And at last he turned his full attention upon Darth Vader.

Ultimately, Luke cut off Vader’s right hand, still holding Ben Kenobi’s white lightsaber. Thus he exposed the wires of the prosthesis beneath Vader’s glove. At this last revelation, Luke vowed that, come what may, he would not kill them. For at last he realized the peril of the path he now walked: that, simply by fighting them, he might someday himself end up like Vader and Leia.

He flung down his lightsabers, and turned to Leia, who now urged Luke to finish off his father, and join the Sith in earnest.

“Never,” he said.

“You’ve failed, Leia! I am a Jedi, like my father before me, and like his father before him.”

(That line actually comes nearly verbatim from Lawrence Kasdan’s first revision of the ROTJ script.)

Luke stretched out his left hand to Darth Vader, offering to forgive him and embrace him. And Lando Kadar, perceiving mercy for the first time in his life, lowered his lightsaber, and stood in silence, and considered taking the hand.

But Leia, still in the first flush of Sith madness, was enraged. And she struck at Luke, whom she now despised as a weakling, with her lightsaber.

/TOMOE

Episode VI, Part II

Luke had had his new lightsaber taken from him when he was captured.

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 black leather jumpsuit. The red Mark of the Sith, the honor of the twice-recalcitrant, was tattooed upon Leia’s forehead.

TENNO

She had taken the tonsure given to the hardiest of Sith women—a half-shaved head, with one side of her golden hair left long and flowing.

Her blind eye had been extracted and replaced with a false droid prosthesis, outwardly normal except for its purple iris. In fact, her damaged eye 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 unlike the Jedi, who viewed the Kiber Crystals as a necessary evil, the Sith, who craved absolute power, never relinquished their Kiber Crystals—except at need.

To cement her status as a Sith Knight, Leia had willingly undergone further wounds: her teeth were extracted (replaced with golden ones), and her right hand was removed (replaced with a silver prosthesis).

/TENNO

TOMOE

She had taken the tonsure given to the hardiest of Sith women—a half-shaved head, with one side of her black hair left long and flowing.

Her blind eye had been extracted and replaced with a golden prosthesis. In fact, the eye 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 unlike the Jedi, who viewed the Kiber Crystals as a necessary evil, the Sith, who craved absolute power, never relinquished their Kiber Crystals—except at need.

To cement her status as a Sith Knight, Leia had willingly undergone further wounds: her teeth were extracted (replaced with silver ones), and her right hand was removed (replaced with a silver prosthesis).

/TOMOE

(Think of a combination of Emma Peel from the old British TV Avengers and Brian De Palma’s Phantom of the Paradise.)

And, at last, Leia had built her own lightsaber, which she wore in addition to the one Ben Kenobi had willed 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 told Luke that Han was a better lover than he would ever be; for Han had slept with her as well, during their desperate flight from Yavin, and again after Luke’s capture on Alderaan. And Leia further said that she was now Vader’s willing mate—and, she already 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.

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

Leia and Vader taunted Luke by dangling his lightsaber in front of him. He did not take it via the Force, for he did not think he could master his own anger. 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 heirloom by the Force grew much stronger. But again he feared to fall to the Dark Side.

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!

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

--

TENNO

Tapping into the Force, Luke summoned his father’s red-hued lightsaber, and his own white blade. He lashed out at Vader with them.

Leia blocked the blow, using Ben Kenobi’s lightsaber with its new purple crystal.

Vader too drew his red lightsaber to defend himself.

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 blue lightsabers.

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

Then Leia activated her own new-built lightsaber. Its blade was golden.

(Perhaps there was a reason for the fact that GL appears to have sought a blanket ban on yellow lightsabers?)

Battle was joined.

/TENNO

TOMOE

Tapping into the Force, Luke summoned his father’s red-hued lightsaber, and his own golden blade. He lashed out at Leia with them.

Vader blocked the blow, using his own red sword.

Leia in turn ignited Ben Kenobi’s lightsaber, with its new golden crystal.

(Perhaps there was a reason for the fact that GL appears to have sought a blanket ban on yellow lightsabers?)

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 red lightsabers.

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

Then Leia activated her own new-built lightsaber. Its blade was green.

Battle was joined.

/TOMOE

TENNO

Episode VI: Revenge of the Jedi

/TENNO

TOMOE

Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

/TOMOE

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. (Think of Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind—GL has often compared Han to Rhett Butler.)

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.

--

I have related before the overall story of Han Solo and Mina Whitsun. It changes little in this variant of the tale, so therefore I shall omit it for the sake of brevity.

As Han embarked on his journey to Bail Whitsun's hidden palace beneath the waters of Acquis, events went on in the lenticular Galaxy Far Far Away we know so well.

On the Rebel base on the grass planet (let’s call it Ibbana, since that’s the name used for it in The Making of ESB), Ben Kenobi was dying.

Before he died, he told Luke that the Kiber Crystal was in truth no longer needed; it had already served Luke as well as it could, and his continued reliance on such a crutch would now be a hindrance rather than a help.

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

TENNO

Luke did this, and was pleased with the result. At Ben’s bidding, he had put in a new color of lightsaber crystal—white—so as to signify that he had at last become a true Jedi Knight.

/TENNO

TOMOE

Luke did this, and was pleased with the result. At Ben’s bidding, he had put in a new color of lightsaber crystal—golden—so as to signify that he had at last become a true Jedi Knight.

/TOMOE

For that was 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.

TENNO

Afterward, Ben entrusted Leia with his own second lightsaber, so Luke in turn could instruct her in the ways of the Force. Leia followed Ben’s advice, and chose her own color of crystal: purple, to signify her independence.

/TENNO

TOMOE

Afterward, Ben entrusted Leia with his own second lightsaber, so Luke in turn could instruct her in the ways of the Force. Leia followed Ben’s advice, and chose her own color of crystal: golden, to signify that she and Luke would never be divided.

/TOMOE

Ben also told Luke the truth about his parentage—about his “aunt” Beru, and their true relationship.

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.

--

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

In the 1975 third draft, remember, 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. (This disturbing scene was later bumped up to the first film, likely because GL feared he would never get to make any sequels.)

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

He buried his mother and foster-father, and Ben Kenobi, in plots next to his aunt’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, where he heard the message of grave importance relayed from Han.

It was imperative that the Rebels steal the activation codes of the new Death Stars' shields from the central computer on the prison planet of Alderaan. If they failed, the Galaxy would remain under Imperial domination, and the Rebellion would be crushed.

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.)

TENNO

To better disguise herself, Leia dressed as a male officer. She concealed her long golden hair beneath a uniform cap, and wore gloves to hide her droid fingers. She pretended that her hands had been burned in battle.

/TENNO

TOMOE

To better disguise herself, Leia dressed as a male junior officer. Junior because, given her facial features, which our own planet would call Japanese, the racist bureaucracy of the Empire would likely never promote her very highly.

She concealed her long dark hair beneath a uniform cap, and wore gloves to hide her droid fingers. She pretended that her hands had been burned in battle.

/TOMOE

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

(She’s essentially dressing up as Claus von Stauffenberg, the chief architect of the July Plot to assassinate Hitler in 1944. But the overall idea of Leia dressing in a German-style military uniform to disguise herself as a man comes from the 1926 silent filmBeverly of Graustark, a comedic riff on The Prisoner of Zenda starring Marion Davies.)

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.

TENNO

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 their wounds and their familial resemblance were too obvious to conceal entirely. A high-ranking Imperial captain recognized them.

/TENNO

TOMOE

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 their wounds and their well-known facial features were too obvious to conceal entirely. A high-ranking Imperial captain recognized them.

/TOMOE

A terrific firefight ensued. Leia was shot in her right hand, and it was badly burned.

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. (Luke is actually captured by the Emperor’s troops right after Han’s rescue from Jabba in the revised rough draft of ROTJ.)

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 Solo 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.

--

Though his friends escaped in the Falcon, thanks to the aid of Akira Valorum, Luke remained behind to slay Jabba the Hutt, which he did with venomous relish.

Then he went to confront Darth Vader.

This scene 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.

In the duel, Luke used his Dark Side rage to fight Vader, hoping to defeat evil with evil. He almost won—but he stabbed Vader in the shoulder, and Vader groaned in a great outcry of pain. And Luke hesitated to finish him off.

But Vader had deceived him. He cut off Luke’s right arm at the elbow, and Annikin’s lightsaber went along with it.

And he tore Luke’s Kiber Crystal from around his neck, and crushed it in his hand. Luke was terrified, for he believed that all power had fled from him, and in so thinking, he made it so.

Vader took off his mask, revealing his own face: that of a red-haired, pale-skinned man, with metallic golden droid eyes. The brand of the Sith he wore upon his left arm instead of his forehead—the tradition for those who first became Sith Lords secretly, or in pectore.

He told Luke the truth about his father’s death, heretofore unguessed: that Vader had been the one to kill him upon the fields of Condawn.

Vader said that he admired Luke’s dueling prowess. He had the heart of a Sith indeed. But, if Luke would not ally himself to the Empire, he would have to be destroyed, even as his father had been.

Nevertheless, if Luke accepted, the rewards would be substantial.

Vader extended an invitation to Luke to join the Sith, so that they might jointly rule the galaxy… but Luke jumped off the balcony.

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

--

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

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

Darth Vader honored his worthy opponents, even those he had slain… if only in secret.

--

At the new Rebel base—quite likely on a grass planet, an idea considered for a Rebel headquarters in ROTJ—Luke and Leia and Han all received medical treatment. Han opted for illegal clone parts, grown by Akira Valorum, to replace his losses. But Luke opted to wear his wound with pride. He now had a golden prosthetic right arm.

Leia, whose lost hair was just beginning to grow back, once again opted for well-crafted false teeth, indistinguishable from real ones. However, she replaced her missing fingers with outwardly visible droid parts.

And she did not bother to replace her blind eye. It would, she knew, make a good effect on the Rebel propaganda posters.

C-3PO was offered new legs, 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.

(The idea that “Han splits at the end of the second [film],” leaving Leia alone with Luke, goes all the way back to GL’s conversation with Alan Dean Foster in 1975.)

“Same story, different versions! And all are true.”

“Time can be rewritten.”

--

“I have heard two variants of the saga of The Star Wars; one in the day and one in the night. It is rather like how ancient Fricanian storytellers were said to tell two different versions of the tales of their greatest heroes, one to the men-folk and one to the women.

"But recently, I have discovered that there are other versions, as well.

“While I was doing research at Woonsocket Technopological Institute, I made a great discovery.

“Pressed between two leaves of The Fabulous Treasure of Big Whoop (volume IIIa of The Secret History of the Monkey Planet), I found a fragmentary, but neatly folded, series of papers, written in a fine yet spidery hand.

“These hold the secrets of a third, heretofore lost, version of the ancient epic of The Star Wars. This version is more fantastic than any yet told… and yet, perhaps, more true.

“And yet, this new telling itself is divided in twain. The pages on which it is written contain two columns, whose content is similar, yet not identical. One might, perhaps, call them… synoptic.

“Who knows? The manuscript may be a forgery. I already know what I think. But you must judge with your own eyes.”

--Preface to The Mercury Diaries, by C. Trottier

--

“The left-hand column of the Woonsocket Manuscript gives an entirely different account of the origins of Luke Starkiller, one sure to be of much interest to scholars of The Star Wars.

“The manuscript concurs with previously known sources in stating that Annikin was restored to health by a girl of the Thorpe family of Utapau after a starflyer crash. Where it diverges, however, is in the question of precisely which woman he loved—rather like the tales of Sigurth of Old Norway, and his two wives.

“By this account, Annikin fell in love, not with Beru as is commonly said, but with her sister Breha—and it was she who had the kindly brown eyes that ensnared Annikin so. But Beru was the elder sister, and she was jealous of her sibling’s easy familiarity with men. So, with her father’s connivance, she seduced Annikin by aid of a potion poured into his drink, which addled his wits.

“And Annikin slept with Beru… and thus he, not Lando Kadar, was the true father of Luke Skywalker.

“Before Annikin departed Utapau for that time, he told Beru that it would be wiser to raise the boy in ignorance of her true relationship to him. For, should anything happen to Annikin, young Luke might thus be spared the wrath of a corrupt Republic in turbulent times.

"To this deception Breha, who had badly wanted a child of her own from Annikin, also agreed.

“Lastly, to protect his son further, Annikin gave Luke a parting gift: a new surname that was also an alias. Luke Starkiller. In this telling, the Starkiller name was not, it would seem, an honorific of battle.”

--The Mercury Diaries, pp. 5-6

--

“….the left-hand column of the Woonsocket Manuscript adheres to the traditional assertion that Leia Organa was the daughter of Annikin Starkiller.

“The right-hand column, however, tells a different story. After all, Queen Alana was a very beautiful woman, and Annikin Starkiller was not the only Jedi in her husband’s service who loved her from afar.

“As a direct corollary, the right-hand variant of the manuscript relates that Luke Starkiller had a twin sister, born like him upon Utapau. But Annikin took his own infant daughter away, to be raised on Ton-Muund, among a noble household of the Republic.

“Already, he feared that the Republic was in danger of passing away, and that it needed well-protected heroes if it were to survive. And in his heart, Annikin guessed that a young woman would have the resilience to survive in the Republic’s capital, whereas a young man might wither and die as his dreams shattered before his eyes.”

--The Mercury Diaries, p. 9

--

“It must be stressed that neither column of the Woonsocket Manuscript makes reference to an element of the received tale which many scholars have taken as a later interpolation: the magic Rings, stemming from the whole episode of the Elves and Dwarves on Bestine.

“Although it is quite likely that the Elves and Dwarves (or, to give them their proper Old High Galactic names, the Sith and Boma) were part of the tale from the outset, the extreme antiquity of the Woonsocket Manuscript makes it probable that Annikin’s fabulous magic Rings were not in fact originally part of the saga of The Star Wars.

“The overall consequences for the story may be summarized thusly:

“Darth Vader is no longer the changeling child of an Elf, but simply an evil and corrupted Jedi; the minor character of Laif Organa, who is often judged to be extraneous, disappears entirely; and Annikin Starkiller’s own parentage remains mysterious.”

--The Mercury Diaries, p. 11

--

Here follow excerpts from the lone surviving copy of the first edition, suppressed by decree of the Third Republic, of Friar J.A. Humbert’s controversial treatise The Secret Mysteries of the Whills:

Perhaps I might pause here to describe what this long-lost ritual of initiation is. I have learned of it only imperfectly, but that there was one, there can be little doubt. It is, shall we say, self-evident, to one who knows something of the Elves.

It was not, as is even now commonly believed among laymen, a method of torture by a cruel and capricious order of Dark wizards—those impostors who falsely arrogated to themselves the name of Sith. Rather, it was meant as a revelation of sorts.

The true Sith, the Elves, wished only to cause pain in small doses, so as to bring about far greater pleasure. For their motto was that of the Heroic Serpent, the Brother of Angels: “An it harm none, do what thou wilt.” To that end, they wished their ordeal of initiation to encompass their philosophy in itself.

Four times would an initiate be asked to submit to the rule of the Sith. For each of the first three refusals, a series of seven physical punishments would be administered, with intervals of several days (the exact number, I know not) elapsing between the stages of punishment.

Upon the fourth refusal, the punishment (or reward?) for one so obstinate was the ultimate sanction: death.

(Of this last part of the ritual one cryptic descriptive phrase has survived: “He will knock four times….”)

There were seven steps in the initial ordeal, of which each had three stages.

They were as follows:

I.        Injury to the hair:

a.       A lock of hair clipped

b.      The head (and beard, for men) shaved

c.       The head shaved, and part of the hair permanently removed (the beard sans mustache, for men; most of the head hair, for women, in a fashion subject to personal taste)

II.      Injury to the right eye:

a.       The right eye blackened and swollen shut

b.      The right eye blinded

c.       The right eye cut out

III.    Injury to the nose: broken once for each refusal to submit

IV.    Extraction of the teeth:

a.       One tooth removed

b.      Nine teeth removed

c.       All teeth removed

V.      Physical violation, in increasing severity

VI.    Injury to the trunk:

a.       Flogging on the back

b.      Flogging on the chest front

c.       Asymmetrical removal of one organ of reproduction

VII.  Injury to the right hand:

a.       The right ring finger removed

b.      The last three fingers of the right hand removed

c.       The right hand removed in toto

Once an inductee submitted, they received the Final Stage of initiation, the Seven Seals of the Sith:

I.        Drinking of a secret Sith liquor that brings on madness and ecstasy, an exalted state referred to as the Red Draught of the Sith (cf. the Black Sleep of Kali in the Silver River Galaxy)

II.      Application of the Mark of the Sith to the forehead, in such a way as to show the rank of the novitiate:

a.       For the once-resistant, a black triskelion tattoo

b.      For the twice-resistant, a red triskelion tattoo

c.       For the thrice-resistant, a triskelion of molten gold poured into a cicatrix carved on the forehead

d.      For those who never resisted, a triskelion brand on the forehead, assuming the natural color of the skin (a “proper” blazon, in the language of heraldry)

III.    The application of wounds willingly undergone by the initiate: one for each prior refusal of submission, plus another in addition. These take the form of rituals left undone, and at least one of them must be done to the ultimate degree. However, those who refused to submit three times are spared this final seal, as they have already done all that is necessary and proper.

IV.    A banquet, at which—

Here, sadly, the sole surviving manuscript breaks off in a lacuna.

A later page tells more:

To hide the marks upon their foreheads, most Sith Lords wore masks, for they did not wish it to be widely known, even within the Empire, that they served a master greater and more powerful than the Emperor—whose emblem remained the arrowhead of the still-venerated Old Republic.

Yet in truth, some Sith initiation candidates were drawn from the Imperial officer corps. These, who had already given their sworn word to submit, instead wore their marks upon their left forearms, where they might be easily concealed.

These secret Sith Lords were held in pectore, or “in the breast,” until such time as they were ready to be received openly as Sith Knights. At that point they would have completed their training, in public and in private—the full details of which even I have not yet uncovered.

--

Excerpted from the Woonsocket Manuscript text of The Star Wars, as published by C.  Trottier:

Episode III: To Duel in Hell

By the time of the Third Clone War, Annikin too had grown: he was now a mature man, with gray just beginning to touch his hair. He held the rank of Second Master in the Great Council of the Jedi Order. He was second only to Bunden Debannen, the wizened and shrunken Grand Master of the Order—who instructed all younglings when they first joined the Jedi, regardless of their age.

(Remember, at this early stage, it seems that anyone could be a Jedi. But, just like learning a new language, I’m sure that youthfulness greatly helped new candidates to be mentally flexible.)

Naturally, by virtue of his own great age, Bunden (who was playful, and preferred the nickname “Buffy”) was the one most experienced in helping new students unlearn what they had learned in their prior lives.

--

When Annikin disposed of his daughter with a foster family on Ton-Muund, and retired to Utapau as a moisture farmer, Ben Kenobi took up his place as the second-in-command of the Jedi Order. However, there were many in the Great Council who spoke against his appointment, fearing that Ben was too tempted by the lure of the Dark Side.

But Bunden Debannen, ancient yet still hale, said it was a good choice, and this swayed the doubters. And old “Buffy” whispered secret words of counsel to Ben, which no one else heard. For Ben did not yet reveal them.

--

As the darkness gathered, Grand Master Debannen took shelter on a remote asteroid base. Here he struggled mightily for the cause in his own way. But he was no warrior, and he did not wield a lightsaber. Instead he pitted himself against a vast, unseen darkness: a black void of a spirit, insubstantial and devilish, only barely glimpsed by the Sith themselves through dark mirrors.

He did not win… as yet. For the Empire and the corrupted Sith Order were still in the ascendant.

--

Choose Your Own Adventure time!

>TENNO

>TOMOE

You chose: TENNO

The night before the Battle of Condawn, Annikin slept with Alana one last time.

Nine months later, Leia Organa was born. She would grow up to be a beautiful, golden-haired child, the very image of her dead father.

You chose: TOMOE

The night before the Battle of Condawn, Ben Kenobi feared that his own death was imminent. So he at last gave in to long-standing temptation, and slept with his beloved Queen Alana of Organa Major.

Nine months later, Leia Organa was born. She would grow up to be a beautiful, raven-haired child, the very image of her absent father.

--

Few Jedi, even those already committed to the Sith, ever used any lightsaber color other than red.

But Ben Kenobi, the most unorthodox of the current-day Jedi, had done something no other Jedi would have dared. Ben’s lightsaber blade shone white.

So, on the day of their their great duel, Ben and Vader’s contrasting white and red lightsabers scintillated against the red flames of Condawn.

--

During their battle, 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 cut off Lando’s right hand, and stabbed him in the chest with his lightsaber. But Lando, despite his grave injuries, still lived—which surprised even him.

As Lando lay on the ground, Ben Kenobi taunted him, and ordered him to yield.

But Lando was not one to give up so easily.

Snatching up his fallen lightsaber in a sudden movement, Lando rose and attacked Ben Kenobi. In an instant the tables were turned. Now Lando had cut off Ben’s right hand, and it was the Jedi who lay fallen upon the blackened ground.

Cruel in victory, Lando stole Ben’s unique sword, his Kiber Crystal, and Laif’s damaged saber hilt, 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.

(Ben mentions his lost Kiber Crystal at one point in the 1975 third draft. The idea of a Kiber Crystal dissolving when its possessor dies comes from a trait of the magical Lenses in Doc Smith’s Lensman books.)

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.

--

I might pause to point out here that, as far as I’m aware, the earliest known mention of Vader being pushed into a lava pit in The Duel is actually in the 1977 Rolling Stone interview with GL. The text of GL’s 1975 discussion with Alan Dean Foster, however, says only that Ben and Vader have a "big battle where Luke’s father gets killed.”

Also, here I’m pulling in an additional comics history reference, to Dr. Doom of the Fantastic Four.

The common story, the original canon of the Marvel universe, is that Dr. Doom was horribly burned in a lab experiment, and hid his features behind iron armor as a result. But the artist, Jack Kirby, himself believed that Doom only had a small facial scar, and hid his handsome face behind a mask out of pure vanity.

--

Bunden Debannen went off into seclusion in the wake of Condawn, to live on an unknown and yet-uncharted planet at the edge of the galaxy, shrouded in fog and mist. Here he would strive against the greatest evil, as yet unseen by Men—the Dark Side itself—in privacy.

He was not seen by any Jedi again, nor any human, for many years afterward.

Back to the titular topic of this thread (which is rather an oxymoron, I suppose):

Here's a riddle that I suspect Lewis Carroll would like.

"Why is an astronaut like a Ring of Power?"

The Silent Star (Der schweigende Stern, 1960)

Released in the US as a cut-down, badly dubbed version called First Spaceship on Venus (which you might remember from an episode of MST3K).

This is actually, however, an East German film from the Soviet days. It concerns an international crew of astronauts in the then-near future (the 1980s!), who set out to the planet Venus when Earth scientists discover artifacts from a crashed Venusian spacecraft.

Upon landing, however, the crew finds that Venus is totally deserted.... though there is evidence of a powerful civilization, and its machinery still works.

The original German cut is a very interesting film, as much for the portrayal of the crew as for the still-impressive visual effects.

The international makeup of the crew (German, Soviet, Chinese and Japanese, Indian and African--and co-ed, to boot!) clearly reflects the optimistic brighter side of Soviet ideology. In that respect, it's leaps and bounds ahead of Forbidden Planet, and very much an anticipation of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek, just a few years later.

Surprisingly for Soviet propaganda, one of the crew is an American. But then again, he was one of those who worked on the atomic bomb--which is mentioned frequently so as to get as many jabs in as possible against the capitalist menace.

(In the American dub, however, all of the Soviet scientists became Westerners, and the American became a Russian. The references to the atom bomb were cut--which also deprived the film of some important character moments.)

The film was adapted from The Astronauts, an early novel by famed Polish SF author Stanislaw Lem. Lem grew to dislike the novel in later years--with the unfortunate result that there is no English translation available.

The DVD of the original cut of The Silent Star is currently quite expensive, so try to get it from a library if you're on a budget. But it's probably better not to watch First Spaceship on Venus until you've seen the film in its proper form.

4 Venusian skulls out of 5.

Cartoon Boba said:

ATMachine said:

"Victory? Victory, you say? Master Obi-Wan, not victory!"

I think there has to be something left for Luke et al. to fight.... otherwise we wouldn't have the ST.

Yes, but is there any reason that it has to be close relatives? It's just history repeating itself ad infinitum. Not only does in perpetuate the annoying 'small universe' syndrome but it defeats the poetry of Luke's victory over the Darkside.

I assume it'd be for essentially the same reasons that King Arthur ends up fighting Mordred in Le Morte D'Arthur.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go listen to Die Walküre again.

Really, though, I hope you didn't think this particular story was the only possible outcome.

Far from it.

I think the time is almost upon us for greater revelations.... they are looming in the wings of the stage, so to speak.

I prefer grosgrain.

In his 1977 story conferences with Leigh Brackett, GL said something about wanting to create a fantasy film where all the knights rode around on giant lizards.

Then he made Willow and completely failed to pick up on that idea.

(Or maybe he just realized how hard it would be, thanks to all the stop-motion Tauntauns and AT-ATs used in ESB.)

Pity, in my view. I'd really like to see on screen a fantasy world where heroes ride on sauruses in the vasty desert, Lawrence of Arabia style.

I read Holes once. I've forgotten pretty much all of it, though. And I never saw the movie.

Yeah, Marion was quite clearly jailbait when she first hooked up with Indy.

According to the Raiders script, she's 25 during the film itself, and the affair was ten years beforehand. So she was 15.

However, the later chronology in stuff like the Ultimate Guide (by the way, is it still canon, what with all the SW universe shenanigans?) fudges Marion's age at the time.

She's bumped up to age 17, in an effort to wipe away this unpalatable fact as much as possible--while remaining unnoticed to the casual observer. GL really is devious when it comes to subtle alterations to his work.

At the risk of inviting ridicule, I'm going to resurrect this thread.

(Here's hoping it takes to new life better than Ludger Brink.)

Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Ur-Willow is, without suffering a serious case of teal deer.

You have to see it for yourself... on my thread at the TFN forums, I'm afraid.

Hold on to your butts, it's 13 pages long and still growing. And that's almost entirely me talking.

(Feel free to read it and come back to comment here, though!)

In brief:

Just as there was evidently an idea for a SW Sequel Trilogy from waaaay back when, I suspect that GL in fact came up with an outline for a whole trilogy of fantasy films back in the mid-1980s... of which only the first part, Willow, was ever made.

I've noted previously that the original version of Willow was apparently much more mature in content (in terms of both explicit violence and sexuality) than the final film.

There were also considerably more fantasy tropes--Elves, fallen angels, ghosts, a trip to Hell, and even a Ragnarok of sorts in the third film.

Most surprisingly, it seems, GL actually shared his notes for the unmade Willow saga with several other writers... who went on to become household names in their own right.

It might seem crazy, but I'm pretty sure that certain extremely popular multi-million-dollar fantasy franchises owe a great debt to "Mad" Martigan and Sorsha Stormdaughter.

(Incidentally, as a result of this research, I'm forming a theory as to who will walk away with the Iron Throne... and also who will rule in Westeros at the end of Game of Thrones.)

It's occurred to me that the TAS episode title The Magicks of Megas-tu might be funnier if re-puncutated: The Magicks of Mega-Stu.

Long-lost brother of Disco Stu, no doubt.

Also, good health and long life to Leonard Nimoy. I don't want him to be Scotty quite yet.

What happens when you put the Sequel Police keycard in the Super Computer doorway?

I read Aldous Huxley's Brave New World in high school.

Does that count?

"Victory? Victory, you say? Master Obi-Wan, not victory!"

I think there has to be something left for Luke et al. to fight.... otherwise we wouldn't have the ST.

(As much as Lucas liked to deny its very existence for a good 15 years or so, during the "Tragedy of Darth Vader" era, the ST has clearly existed as a concept in the overall SW storyline for much longer than it didn't.)

I was quite hostile to the idea of Jacen turning into Darth Caedus when I first heard about it, but I don't mind as much now. It was, perhaps, foreordained.

Still, I really wish they hadn't killed off Mara. Reminds me too much of the motherless families in Disney films.

Tobar said:

*cough*

That technically counts. Still, I'd really like to see a prominent Asian actor in the new SW films, somebody with a significant role on a par with Samuel L. Jackson's in the prequels.

Or, heck, even somebody with a small but memorable role like Denholm Elliott in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

I like that these two characters actually stem from the same original prototype.

At the risk of indulging in a story with no point...

Jim Morrison went to my university. I had the fortune of taking classes from a Professor who actually taught him! Eighty-something years old and still smart as a whip, with a hell of a sense of humor.