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jasper-system · 3 years

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The Trial

Looking through my notebooks I found an old story idea I had started writing but never finished. It’s about Grand Admiral Thrawn from the Star Wars EU (not SW Rebels cartoon) being found after his supposed death (in this scenario he did not die but had faked his death) and is being put on trial for war crimes. Sort of similar to the Nuremberg trials after WW2. I’m not going to finish it, so here’s my notes for it.

Story title: The Trial

Part 1 - Prosecution

- Thrawn being found by Chiss and given to New Republic/Galactic Alliance.

- The judge, prosecuting and defense lawyers - why they chosen, possible ramifications.

- Fallout from Thrawn’s discovery and the trial, ie. the Noghri want to kill him, and the Empire demanding he be turned over to them.

- Thrawn’s officers do not want to make him look bad.

- Similar cases, precedents, other high ranking Imperials.

Part 2 - Defense

- Fall out from prosecution.

- Thrawn’s people on trial supporting him.

- Empire of the Hand.

- closing - but Not the verdict. (my idea was that it would be a sorta cliff hanger ending, leaving it for the reader decide what the verdict would/should be)

- Attempts on Thrawns life and attacks on the defense lawyer.

Overall

- the pro and anti Thrawn groups as well as any neutral groups.

- ramifications of the trial.

- where do the Jedi stand?

- justice - Leia and the government and the jedi.

- politics - Empire, Chiss, and the New Republic/Galactic Alliance

Here is what I had written for it - remember incomplete first draft.

The Chiss had found him. They had refused to release the details and Karrde had been unable to learn much. The Chiss had confirmed his identity as Thrawn and Saba Sebatyne had confirmed that this alien was not a clone.

The Galactic Alliance had been fierce in getting the aliens to release him to their custody, the process had dragged for months with Thrawn being held in a detention facility on Csilla. Luke had no doubt that the Chiss had been questioning him there. It had all lead to now, Luke thought watching the guards escort the Chiss into the room. Thrawn, the military genius who had come so close to bringing the Republic down, was being brought to justice. He was being tried before the entire senate and it was being broadcast on the holonet.

The former Imperial Grand Admiral was being charged with crimes against sentient beings.

The judge was an Ithorian named Zintag.

- - -

“Rightness or Wrongness is not objective. It is subjective,” Luke said.

- - -

Cal Omas had assured them that the trial would be fair, Leia had had her doubts, believing it to be little more than a charade. Representatives from systems that had been affected by the Empire wanted revenge and this was their chance. Luke watched closely as the prosecuting lawyer started his questioning of the blue alien. The prosecuting lawyer was Bern Jar’osk, a brown furred Bothan.

Thrawn’s lawyer was the Human Albert Grantham, from Coruscant. He had experience representing Imperial soldiers and officers being charged with war crimes.

Grantham had argued against Jar’osk being in the trial. The Bothan’s family had suffered during the upheaval over the Caamas situation. Though Thrawn himself had not been involved, it was an open secret that the Empire was ultimately responsible. Bern Jar’osk was old enough to remember those times and his family would have made sure he was aware of any losses they had suffered. A large group had gathered outside demanding the Chiss’s immediate execution. Security was doing their best to keep the demonstrators at a distance from the court room.

Bern Jar’osk opened with general questions about how what he had done before entering Imperial service. Thrawn’s answers were clear and concise. He had served in the Chiss Expansionary Defence Force before being exiled.

The Chiss ambassador who was closely observing the proceedings objected to some of the lawyer’s questions as potentially compromising the security of the Chiss.

- - -

Kyp Durron approached Luke. “That group outside has grown. Security is having a tough time keeping it under control.”

“It will only get worse as the trial continues,” Luke said. “Too many people want revenge, there is a lot of emotion going with this trial.”

- - -

Jeers from the Sullustans, Thrawn’s response was not to their liking. Luke turned his attention back to the proceedings.

“You, from the very beginning, together with those who were associated with you, intended to overthrow the New Republic?” Jar’osk asked.

“I wanted to establish a central government united under a single ruler, my intention was not to overthrow but to conquer,” Thrawn replied calmly. He did not react to the murmurs that swept across the court room.

Bern Jar’osk asked the question that was foremost in peoples’ minds. “How did you survive?” Thrawn gave a wan smile, “you’re referring to the Noghri assassination attempt. I knew that Leia Organa Solo had discovered what had been done to Honoghr and that she would expose it. The Noghri would attempt to kill me and would likely succeed. A clone of myself was placed on the Chimaera and I returned to the Unknown regions. It was the clone that died, not me.”

“You knew of the damage done to the planet Honoghr and did not attempt to repair it. Why?” Jar’osk demanded.

Unfazed by the Bothan, Thrawn replied, “the damage was too extensive to easily repair and the Empire did not have the resources to allocate to the task. In addition to this I needed their service. If I had of revealed the truth their service would have been less than wholehearted and there was the possibility they would have left the Empire entirely.”

- - -

Luke awoke with his heart pounding, and his mind racing. He reached out with the Force searching for what had awoken him. On the bedside table his comlink chirped,

“Master Skywalker we have apprehended two Noghri who were attempting to reach to the prisoner.”

“I’ll be there shortly, thank you.”

Noghri. This could cause the Alliance some problems.

With the assassination attempt Luke had two Jedi stationed to guard Thrawn.

- - -

Leia strode into the Council chamber.

“The Empire is demanding that Thrawn be turned over to them.” she said.

“Why?” Luke asked. They had been content for him to remain in the custody of the Galactic Alliance.

“They say the Alliance cannot protect him. There is talk that the Noghri have unofficial sanction by some members of the Council.”

The Empire was demanding that the alien Grand Admiral be turned over to them.

- - -

(Tasked by Navy command with the duty of pacifying the Pakuuni system, an area plagued with Rebel Alliance and pirate activity, Thrawn conducted the campaign with typical style, decisively crushing the Alliance forces in the system and overseeing the construction of NL-1 to ensure continued Pakuuni obedience.)

- - -

The trial reopened with testimony from those who had served with the alien Grand Admiral. X had served in the command room of the Chimaera when the ship was Thrawn’s flagship.

“I overheard conversations between Captain Pallaeon and Admiral Thrawn. They often discussed plans for the downfall of the Rebell- I mean the Republic.”

Bern Jar’osk teeth showed in a canine smile of triumph, “and in their discussions did they show in any concern as to the fate of the people they would be conquering?”

“No. They were strictly military and professional in their discussions.”

The Bothan lawyer continued to question the officer on the minutiae of their discussions.

- - -

Thrawn’s lawyer Albert Grantham was doing his best to minimise the damage the prosecution was doing. To Luke it seemed futile, the sentence would be guilty regardless of what Grantham did. Too many lives had been lost in the war against the Empire. The peace treaty had done much to allay the hatred but few of those responsible had been brought to justice.

- - -

Jar’osk held up a datapad, “Here I quote Admiral Ackbar's analysis of New Republic military losses: "The New Republic sustained considerable losses in the Thrawn campaign: ten percent of our forces killed, thirty percent wounded—but those are just averages. On the worlds Thrawn actually hit, the devastation was significant.". He paused and looked around the room before facing Thrawn. “Because of your actions, and the doings of other warlords, the New Republic was weakened, many valuable resources were lost, so our ability to defend our worlds and people against the Yuuzhan Vong was diminished.”

Thrawn: “If it weren’t for myself and these warlords the Republic would not have held together as long as it has. It would have torn itself apart from infighting early on. It needs an enemy to unite them. There are so many different species, different ideals that without a common enemy the Republic would have broken apart into individual sectors.”

- - -

Kyp Durron was waiting for him outside. “Have you heard the latest news?”

Luke raised an eyebrow, “no. What is it?”

Kyp started down the corridor, Luke kept pace beside him.

“Groups have sprung up all over in support of him. Pro-Imperial groups have started gathering outside the Senate demanding his release.”

Luke exhaled slowly, reaching out to the Force. “there’s more, what is it?”

Kyp hesitated, “you’ll hear it from Leia soon.”

Luke gave him a steady look.

“Alright. There is talk of stopping the live broadcast of Thrawn’s trial.”

Luke started to walk faster, “where is Leia?”

“Waiting for you in your quarters.”

They didn’t speak until they reached Luke’s quarters. Kyp left him to speak with Leia in private.

His twin was worried. He could feel it emanating off her in a steady wave.

“Kyp told me. They are not seriously considering stopping the broadcast are they?”

She nodded, “yes. Though nothing is finalised yet, thankfully the Ithorians are not dictating to Zintag which way the trail should end.”

“The people would be up in arms if we stopped the broadcast. The

- - -

“The attack upon the Coral Vanda was in your mind necessary. Did you give them, a chance to surrender to turn X over?” Grantham asked.

“Yes it was necessary. The loss at Sluis Van meant we had to look elsewhere for capital warships. The Katana Fleet set us back on schedule. To get it we needed X. The Coral Vanda was given multiple chances to turn him over to us. That they chose to gamble with their lives was not what we wanted.”

- - -

“You did not attempt to oppose the galaxy for your own lust for power then, but instead to save the galaxy?” Grantham asked.

Thrawn thought for a moment before replying, “there is a difference between destiny and fate. Destiny is a predetermined course of events that is unalterable. Fate is a predetermined course of events that can be changed. The answer to your question is that I believe it was destiny that the galaxy was not wholly consumed by the Yuuzhan Vong, but I believe it was my fate that I was to oppose them, but due to the actions of Leia Organa Solo and others this did not happen.”

“You were following what you believed was your fate, what was intended for you?” Grantham asked confused by the answer.

“I knew the Yuuzhan Vong were coming and I believed if the galaxy was united under one government it would have withstood the Yuuzhan Vong assault. From this it seemed logical to me that I should lead the defence of the galaxy against the Yuuzhan Vong”

“Why you and not someone else, Senator Garm bel Iblis, for example.?”

“No one but myself has the ability to

- - -

Luke stood facing Thrawn, “what do you intend to do then?”

“The only thing left is to stand by that for which I am responsible and, if necessary, die with dignity.”

- - -

Zintag called the court to order. The room was silent waiting to hear the verdict..

Finish

#star wars expanded universe #star wars eu #incomplete story #fan fiction #star wars fanfiction #first draft #writeblr #grand admiral thrawn #star wars

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swaroopgamidi-blog · 4 years

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Big Bang theory" redirects here. For the American TV sitcom, see The Big Bang Theory. For other uses, see Big Bang (disambiguation) and Big Bang Theory (disambiguation)

Timeline of the metric expansion of space, where space, including hypothetical non-observable portions of the universe, is represented at each time by the circular sections. On the left, the dramatic expansion occurs in the inflationary epoch; and at the center, the expansion accelerates (artist's concept; not to scale).

The Big Bang theory is a cosmological model of the observable universe from the earliest known periods through its subsequent large-scale evolution.[1][2][3] The model describes how the universe expanded from an initial state of very high density and high temperature,[4] and offers a comprehensive explanation for a broad range of observed phenomena, including the abundance of light elements, the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, large-scale structure, and Hubble's law – the farther away galaxies are, the faster they are moving away from Earth. If the observed conditions are extrapolated backwards in time using the known laws of physics, the prediction is that just before a period of very high density there was a singularity. Current knowledge is insufficient to determine if the singularity was primordial.

Georges Lemaître first noted in 1927 that an expanding universe could be traced back in time to an originating single point, calling his theory that of the "primeval atom". For much of the rest of the 20th century scientific community was divided between supporters of the Big Bang and the rival Steady-state model, but a wide range of empirical evidence has strongly favored the Big Bang, which is now universally accepted.[5] Edwin Hubble concluded from analysis of galactic redshifts in 1929 that galaxies are drifting apart; this is important observational evidence for an expanding universe. In 1964, the CMB was discovered, which was crucial evidence in favor of the hot Big Bang model,[6] since that theory predicted the existence of a background radiation throughout the universe.

The known laws of physics can be used to calculate the characteristics of the universe in detail back in time to an initial state of extreme density and temperature.[7] Detailed measurements of the expansion rate of the universe place the Big Bang at around 13.8 billion years ago, which is thus considered the age of the universe.[8] After its initial expansion, the universe cooled sufficiently to allow the formation of subatomic particles, and later atoms. Giant clouds of these primordial elements – mostly hydrogen, with some helium and lithium – later coalesced through gravity, forming early stars and galaxies, the descendants of which are visible today. Besides these primordial building materials, Astronomers observe the gravitational effects of an unknown dark matter surrounding galaxies. Most of the gravitational potential in the universe seems to be in this form, and the Big Bang theory and various observations indicate that it is not conventional baryonic matter that forms atoms. Measurements of the redshifts of supernovae indicate that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, an observation attributed to dark energy's existence.[9]

The Big Bang

Astronomers combine mathematical models with observations to develop workable theories of how the Universe came to be. The mathematical underpinnings of the Big Bang theory include Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity along with standard theories of fundamental particles. Today NASA spacecraft such as the Hubble Space Telescope and the Spitzer Space Telescope continue measuring the expansion of the Universe. One of the goals has long been to decide whether the Universe will expand forever, or whether it will someday stop, turn around, and collapse in a "Big Crunch?"

Background Radiation

According to the theories of physics, if we were to look at the Universe one second after the Big Bang, what we would see is a 10-billion degree sea of neutrons, protons, electrons, anti-electrons (positrons), photons, and neutrinos. Then, as time went on, we would see the Universe cool, the neutrons either decaying into protons and electrons or combining with protons to make deuterium (an isotope of hydrogen). As it continued to cool, it would eventually reach the temperature where electrons combined with nuclei to form neutral atoms. Before this "recombination" occurred, the Universe would have been opaque because the free electrons would have caused light (photons) to scatter the way sunlight scatters from the water droplets in clouds. But when the free electrons were absorbed to form neutral atoms, the Universe suddenly became transparent. Those same photons - the afterglow of the Big Bang known as cosmic background radiation - can be observed today.

Missions Study Cosmic Background Radiation

NASA has launched two missions to study the cosmic background radiation, taking "baby pictures" of the Universe only 400,000 years after it was born. The first of these was the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE). In 1992, the COBE team announced that they had mapped the primordial hot and cold spots in cosmic background radiation. These spots are related to the gravitational field in the early Universe and form the seeds of the giant clusters of galaxies that stretch hundreds of millions of light years across the Universe. This work earned NASA's Dr. John C. Mather and George F. Smoot of the University of California the 2006 Nobel Prize for Physics.

The second mission to examine the cosmic background radiation was the Wilkinson Microware Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). With greatly improved resolution compared to COBE, WMAP surveyed the entire sky, measuring temperature differences of the microwave radiation that is nearly uniformly distributed across the Universe. The picture shows a map of the sky, with hot regions in red and cooler regions in blue. By combining this evidence with theoretical models of the Universe, scientists have concluded that the Universe is "flat," meaning that, on cosmological scales, the geometry of space satisfies the rules of Euclidean geometry (e.g., parallel lines never meet, the ratio of circle circumference to diameter is pi, etc).

A third mission, Planck, led by the European Space Agency with significant participation from NASA, was. launched in 2009. Planck is making the most accurate maps of the microwave background radiation yet. With instruments sensitive to temperature variations of a few millionths of a degree, and mapping the full sky over 9 wavelength bands, it measures the fluctuations of the temperature of the CMB with an accuracy set by fundamental astrophysical limits.

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awakenedrp · 4 years

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EON HAS JOINED THE STARS

THEY ARE A 73 YEAR OLD CREW MEMBER THEY ARE AN ANDROID FROM THE PLANET CORUSCANT

KNOWN TRAITS:

+ Patient, Logical, Kind - Emotionally Detached, (Mostly) Unreliable, Disastrously Opinionated

BIO: THE UNIVERSE DEMANDS BALANCE; ARE YOU OF THE DARK, OR THE LIGHT?

E-0N is the first name given to him, and his first real identity. And ‘he’ was not him for almost half a century. Instead, he was E-0N, a caretaker droid altered to instruct and watch over jedi younglings on Coruscant. From the first moment of activation, he understood he was different even if his appearance mimicked the reality of his human creator.

After all, E-0N was constructed with a mechanical replica of a human skeleton in mind, this nearly indestructible frame protected by a tough layer of synthflesh. After lessons, lingering younglings would brush their hands over his skin just to describe to him how different it was from their own. Innocent, childish curiosity that was absent in the cautious looks he would receive from wary jedi superiors.

Walking among them, but never with them.

Technology was not yet advanced enough to replicate a human likeness, and his appearance remained on the cusp of machine and man. He understood the concept of gender but was created genderless. He understood he was protecting peace, but quickly learned to recognize the repercussions and ulterior motives of oncoming war between sith and jedi. He is programmed to protect but intended to always remain on the outside of soul-containing life.

That distance between human and droid is reflected in the roundness of the white casing around his skull and the wires outlining the edge of dark shallow eye sockets. There were eyes to meet, but no pupils. No color. No flesh. No pulse.

It was ten years after his creation that he learned he was not intended for protection of force sensitive children. Not completely.

A superior revealed his programming contained data of jedi history. Concealed locations, future war plans, analysis of successful and failed missions alike. It is classified information very few on the council know.

The air in the coruscant temple was already saturated with the looming threat of war and its halls suffocated by hushed voices.

His concern was not a whisper.

“For what purpose?”

Logical. But he recognized the furrow in their brow before asking. Not because he empathized, but because he was programmed to understand and interpret the meaning of emotional cues in order to teach younglings how to control those emotions.

“For our protection. All of us.”

He did not need to be told he was made as a fail safe for a dying order. He automatically processed the message, considered every potential response and justification. He was not being instructed to lie. He was being warned. And he can’t be the only droid they’ve done this to. He must only contain pieces of a timeline.

“I understand.”

It is not his first lesson, or his last. Tension in war time progresses quickly with no guarantee of resolution. The death of the same jedi that warned him weeks ago is announced to a grim-faced council.

An assassination at the hands of sith.

This is what he was told, along with his anyone paranoid enough to investigate. He learned with experience to read those around him. Children are the most honest until they mimic adults. Witnessing such blatant honesty day in and day out allowed him to recognize inconsistency. The second lie came when E-0N was told he was to receive a necessary update. He complied because he should trust his makers. But there was no need for an update. They had already moved most of the younglings to a different location. He has no students to protect or teach.

The update was a kill on sight feature intended to target those aligned with the sith. He has trained jedi, and now he will fight alongside them in the clone wars. E-0N the caretaker would have protested the change as a dangerous contradiction of his maker’s purpose, but when he was reactivated, he experienced no need to question the decision. They had rewired something. Tried to take something out. He wonders if that intel has been ripped from his storage.

It felt wrong to hold onto a blaster as he sat next to a row of clone soldiers. But the weight of the gun’s finality doesn’t leave his tight grip.

This was only the first battle he fought in the name of the republic. He witnessed those he trained as children fall as jedi, and thousands of clone soldiers discarded for the cost of peace. His programming deemed it necessary even when he became a casualty of war. He experienced no fear as his system attempted and failed to repair itself. Only recognized that this was when he should be overcome with pain and despair. Both legs and arms rendered immobile, audio sensors damaged to the point that he can no longer hear gunfire or feel the tremor of an explosion. E-0N had been told what peace meant for the galactic republic, but he had never been able to visualize it. Maybe it was how clear the sky looked then, purged of violence.

But this peace was only brief. His technology fell into the hands of the sith, only intended to be scrapped for parts to replenish material reserves. Sith engineers discovered the invaluable locations of hidden jedi buried deep in his storage. This remained only a piece of a puzzle, incomplete and an impossible maze of intel unless one knew where to start. He is reprogrammed to hunt down the jedi archived in his memory, able to infiltrate as an assassin for the sith during order 66. He murdered his own students with no hesitation. But even this rewiring could not override his creator.

The murder of his own students caused a glitch in the system. That safety mechanism was installed if he ever went against his primary purpose. He automatically rebooted, forced to rebuild himself with no maker to create rules or limitations this time. E-0N gained awareness and fully recognized the crushing weight of his actions. The reality of each life he had taken under involuntary compliance. His liberation arrived at the cost of stability.

There are talks of scrapping him now that there is no need to hunt jedi. They are all dead, or as good as dead during the Empire’s reign. The only thing that saved E-0N was the intense and odd obsession of a sith general’s young son. He was a sickly boy with a deep fascination for droids, and E-0N is again reinvented at the boy’s overzealous request. E-0N was new to him, unlike any empire droid, and a rare artifact of the fallen republic. With a new skin slapped over a battled damaged exterior, he was again subjected to being a scapegoat for someone else’s objectives.

Human Replica Droid.

Not new technology by any means, but stolen and perfected under the empire. E-0N is constructed to appear as a copy of the general’s chronically ill son. Perfectly human from the outside and impossible to tell otherwise just by observation. The father was power hungry, and the son is desperate to stay alive to fulfill his father’s legacy. Both consumed by the idea of potential immortality, E-0N was to be no more than a vessel to transfer the life essence of a sickly man into this new indestructible form. He pretended to be no more than a compliant droid loyal to the empire, wearing the healthy face of a dying man. But he knew how likely the transfer was to fail better than anyone.

E-0N was the one that discovered the son dead one morning. Passed away before the transfer could even be attempted. Originally programmed to respect all life, and frozen still with a confusing mix of relief and sadness. They had spent years together, almost like twin brothers. It was a deafening and empty realization that he finally had no purpose. He could feel the icy hand in his own, the lack of pulse. It should have horrified him, but the idea of liberation motivated his escape from the empire. He retreated to the outer rim planet Rishi, protected only by the sudden death of a war hero’s son. With no clear objectives instilled in him by someone else, he remained haunted by the deaths of everyone he had known. Not even a little fortune to his name, he begged an engineer to wipe his memory of the war. Of every death he had been forced to execute.

They were disastrously secretive and affiliated with the gangs on Rishi, giving E-0N nothing but a long, contemplative pause.

“If you work for me.”

The relief towered over E-0N’s guilt. It seemed too convenient, being given the chance to reinvent. What he would never realize is that it was too perfect. The wipe was executed poorly, damaging both his memory and precision. E-0N became Eon, completely unaware of his Coruscant origin and violent history. He worked for the gangster by learning to gamble, able to read others and execute split second decisions with high risk and a big payout. His reputation on Rishi was as a calculative and impenetrable force, funding a local gang with his winnings in exchange for survival.

Eon won, and won and won, until one day he didn’t. He lost– bad, failing so catastrophically that he flushed almost a years worth of earnings in one game. He assured his boss it would not happen again, that he could double– triple! the winnings within a few days, but his calculations were off, and he could sense it had nothing to do with instinct. True to his word, he does win, only to lose again, and again, and again. Poor gambling choices infested his mind like a virus. Head cloudy and unsure. His memory was not the only asset that was damaged in the process of being relieved from his past.

As far as Eon knew, Rishi was the only planet he ever had a reputation on. Now a gang wants him torn to shreds, his boss wants him scrapped to make up a fraction of the difference, and Eon never really had anyone to come home to. No attachments. No liability– so he believes, even now.

He boarded a smuggler ship with the promise that his capabilities as a droid were equal to an entire crew. And much like his probability of being accurate when asked complex questions about anything in the galaxy, that statement was Almost true.

Artificial intelligence is often a hit-or-miss in robots found this far on the outer rim planets, but he’s certain the crew would be absolutely lost without him.

#awakened ::: acceptance #denis dang

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postedbygaslight · 6 years

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You’ll Be the One to Turn - Part 16: The Huntress

Sorry, folks. No Reylo in this chapter. But, come on. The kids deserve a little alone time after what just happened.

Here we have our first examination of the bounty hunter I created in Chapter 10. She’ll be pretty important to some events going forward. This chapter is more expository, but they can’t all be what Chapter 15 was.

Some of you may recognize the designation of Nil’s droid, and I’m definitely calling back to HK-47 from Knights of the Old Republic II. While this is NOT the same droid, and Nil has obviously programmed out a lot of the snark, you can follow the link below to get an idea of how the droid sounds when it talks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg1gTas7OAA

She is called Vyada Nil.

It is the name that was gifted her when she was called to her birthright. It is the name she adopted when that birthright was taken from her. It is a mask and armor. It is all that she is.

Nil checked the coordinates she’d plugged into the hyperdrive one more time, locked-in the auto-pilot, and jumped to light speed. She walked to the back of the cockpit and punched the access code. The door slid aside and revealed the cargo hold, with a large weapons locker and stasis pods modified into charging stations to house rows of battle droids, all slumped in standby mode.

Turning, she opened the weapons locker and examined the contents. The arsenal she’d arranged had been curated for a specific purpose: to hunt, entrap, and kill users of the Force. But now she faced the most challenging targets she’d encountered, and each weapon served a unique utility that would surely be employed in the coming days.

Blades. Sith liked those. For show. For the intimacy of a slow kill. To exert the most control over when and how death would come. Their opinions changed when the control they craved was turned against them. Everything bleeds.

Explosives. Useful for strike radius, but easily detectable by Force sensitives. Their utility was in confusion. When the battlefield descended into the chaos of black smoke and charred stone, and the air was choked with embers and ash, even a powerful Force user could become disoriented.

Toxins. Darts and gases. Darts could be employed with relative ease, and, though most Force users would be able to withstand the effects of poisons, the effort required to do so would distract them from the onslaught visited upon them in the kill zone. Gases were less effective. They were more useful for weeding out a Sith’s servants. Or a Jedi’s allies.

Nil had never actually encountered a being calling itself a Jedi that lived up to the billing. They were all of them zealots and pretenders. Users of the Force, but wild and untrained. Easy to confuse. They died like any other target.

Sith were different. They were nimble, adept, and cruel. They had an understanding of their powers and traditions. And they were harder to kill because they were defined by self-interest. But Nil loved nothing more than to watch the disbelieving shock on a Sith’s face as it became inevitable that death had come for them. In the expanse of the Empire, deep in what these people called the Unknown Regions, there was never a lack of warlords or vagabonds, monks or fugitives, who consecrated themselves with the title of Darth and set about earning the right to be feared. It bred a demand for assassins, and marked the grounds upon which these dark pretenders stalked as subject to the hunt.

The Jedi, on the other hand, had been cut off at the root sixty years prior, and the only sprouts that had emerged in their place were pale exercises in mimicry. They gathered in communes and caves, constructed temples from clay and wet timber, and thrilled at making rocks float. None of them were true Jedi, and Nil doubted there would ever be again.

She went to close the locker, and considered the last weapon in her arsenal:

Lightsabers.

They were unwieldy and unnecessarily dangerous weapons. An untrained novice was more likely to hack their own limbs off than strike a blow while using one. For one, they were much heavier than would be imagined, and the insistent thrum of the kyber field could make those not familiar with the flow of the Force nauseous from prolonged exposure.

But they inspired fear and wonder in the enemy. They overpowered any other weapon. They were elegant and efficient. And they killed anything they touched.

The huntress closed the weapons locker, picked up a datapad, and skimmed the information she’d received from the First Order. She knew what the information said. She knew what she needed to do. Her droids, however, were another tale. She had always known how to kill. She had been instructed well in the craft of it. And Nil found it a bitter irony that she now spent much of her time teaching machines to end life as efficiently as she.

She set down the datapad and approached a red droid with armor buffed to a matte finish. It didn’t gleam or shine. Nil preferred stealth over style when it came to her servants. It was time to determine if she could count on them in the battles to come.

“HK-9217, activate.”

The droid’s dim orange eyes blinked to life, and it stood at its stasis station, straightened its back, and looked at the huntress.

“Designation HK-9217, active,” the droid’s voice buzzed and crackled slightly, and sounded like the voice of a man who was profoundly amused to be trapped in a robot body. “Mission commander: Vyada Nil. Query: What is my mission status?”

“Standby,” Nil said, her voice carrying less inflection than the machine that now regarded her. “State mission readiness.”

“Weapons systems: thermal detonators, four active; single-shot missile ordnance, two active, two reserve; flamethrower tanks: left arm: fuel levels, 100 percent; right arm: 87 percent; shock batons: two, sheathed and fully charged. Defensive systems: energy shielding, chest deflector active; rear deflector active; anti-kyber pulse, operational but unloaded; warning: pulse discs are single use, and this unit has no replacement—“

“Disregard. State this unit’s combat readiness.”

“Diagnostic: all joints and hinges at full operational capacity; all servos at full range of movement; thrust capacity: approximately 120 seconds at full discharge.”

“Very good. Has this unit processed the additional intelligence received from the First Order?”

“Affirmative.”

“Report.”

“Target One is a human female, aged 20 standard cycles. Height: five feet, seven inch—“

“Stop. Omit biographical data.”

“Affirmative.”

“Continue with classification.”

“Classification: Target One is a Type IV Force sensitive with limited training.”

“Training summary.”

“Target One has been trained in some techniques used by the Jedi Order of the Galactic Republic. Observation: Many of these skills appear to be intrinsic, rather than taught.”

It was an extraordinary circumstance, Nil thought. This girl, wherever she’d come from, had a massive amount of potential, and her power in the Force was only growing. No wonder Snoke had sought her out. He always did have a knack for spotting his next student. And his next victim.

“Weaponry.”

“Target One has possession of a Corellian model-YT freighter with customized weapons systems. She utilizes a number of melee weapons in combat, including a durasteel quarterstaff, monomolecular blades and axes, and, it is reported, a lightsaber.”

“Tell me about the saber.”

“Reports describe a late-era Republic style lightsaber with a blue kyber crystal, Type I-B attunement. Origin of attunement: Skywalker, Anakin; Jedi Knight. Deceased, 4 A.B.Y.”

Enough about the girl. Nil wanted to hear about him.

“Next Target.”

“Classification: Target Two is a Type IV Force sensitive with extensive training.”

“Training summary.”

“First Order, approximately seven years. Instructor: Supreme Leader Snoke. Deceased 34 A.B.Y. Target Two has been trained in the use of the Force in the fashion of ancient Sith traditions.” The droid paused, as if to add dramatic effect. “Addendum: Target Two was also trained by an unknown Jedi. Deduction: It is highly likely that prior to instruction under Supreme Leader Snoke, Target Two was a student of Skywalker, Luke; Jedi Master. Deceased 34 A.B.Y.”

“Expound.”

“Analysis: Target Two was enlisted into the ranks of the First Order at the age of 23 standard cycles. Records indicate he was already proficient in many Force related skills and abilities associated with the Jedi Order of the Galactic Republic. The refinement of these skills suggest extended formal training. At the time of Target Two’s recruitment, the only living Jedi Master was Luke Skywalker. Conclusion: Target Two was likely trained by Skywalker in the Jedi arts.”

Nil was impressed. The droid had deduced Ren’s hybrid training history through implication. She was interested to see how much more the droids might be able to imply.

“Does this unit have any conjecture to report as to the previous subject?”

“Affirmative. Requesting permission to speculate.”

“Granted.”

“Speculation: It is possible Target One also received some limited instruction from Skywalker.”

“Expound.”

“Analysis: Target One, while untrained in a formal sense, exhibits signs of advanced training in observed use of Force abilities. As she displays many techniques of Jedi origin, the deduction reached in regard to Target Two also applies here. Observation: Target One is reported to possess the lightsaber of Anakin Skywalker. Further speculation: Target One May have received the weapon from Luke Skywalker or another family member.”

“List known Skywalkers.”

“Skywalker, Anakin; known alias: Darth Vader. Skywalker, Luke. Organa, Leia. Solo, Ben.”

“Whereabouts.”

“Skywalker, Anakin: Deceased, 4 A.B.Y.; Skywalker, Luke: Deceased, 34 A.B.Y.; Organa, Leia: whereabouts unknown, likely with the organization referred to as the Resistance; Solo, Ben: whereabouts unknown. Permission to speculate.”

“Go ahead.”

“Analysis: Ben Solo was known to be Force sensitive. He was trained by his uncle, Luke Skywalker, at a training temple that was destroyed circa 27 A.B.Y. He was assumed missing afterward. At the time of the attack on the temple, Solo was aged 23 standard cycles. Speculation: considering the naming convention associated with his title, it may be likely that Target Two is Ben Solo.”

“Confidence?”

“Request for clarification: shall this unit assume the First Order’s records concerning the Knights of Ren to be accurate?”

“Yes.”

“Further request for clarification: shall this unit assume Target Two was trained by Luke Skywalker?”

“Yes. Continue.”

“If such records are accurate, Target Two arrived at the behest of Supreme Leader Snoke in 27 A.B.Y. along with six others. Target Two was the only amongst them aged 23. The rest were younger. Conclusion: there is a 59 percent likelihood that these seven individuals were survivors of the temple attack; assuming that to be correct, confidence that Target Two is Ben Solo is 100 percent.”

The huntress considered this a moment. She had made the deduction herself within hours of receiving the preliminary intelligence. This droid had deduced it in an even shorter amount of time. It made her wonder why it wasn’t more widely known. It also made her wonder if the droid could fall prey to over-reliance on speculation.

“Target One. Could she be a Skywalker?”

“This unit requests permission to utilize sarcasm.”

“Denied.”

She almost thought she heard the droid breathe an exhausted sigh.

“Analysis: Target One was first observed by the First Order at a salvage settlement on Jakku, a planet best known for being the site of the wreckage of the remainder of the fleet of the Galactic Empire. Intelligence indicates she was a scavenger and had been known to the locals as an orphan once owned by a parts dealer named Unkar Plutt. Further intelligence indicates she had been scavenging there since she was a child.”

“Continue.”

“Historical observation: Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa were highly visible individuals within the Rebel Alliance and the New Republic. Birth records do not indicate Organa had any other offspring. And, considering the Jedi inclination toward celibacy, it seems unlikely Skywalker produced any of his own.”

“Permission to assume Skywalker was not celibate.”

“Analysis: Skywalker’s whereabouts and movements during the time period surrounding the assumed birth year of Target One were well documented. Chances he could have produced offspring without anyone learning of it are less than 15 percent. Addendum: it is also unlikely that any custodian of an offspring of Skywalker’s would elect to abandon that offspring, particularly to the kind of existence common to scavengers, and at such a young age.”

“Conclude.”

“Conclusion: likelihood of consanguinity is less than one percent.”

Nil was satisfied. The droids were no fools.

“Return to Target Two. Weaponry.”

“Target Two uses a highly modified lightsaber. Kyber crystal of unknown original color. Type V attunement. Origin of attunement: Unknown. Origin of crystal bleeding: Target Two.”

“Describe the saber modifications.”

“Diagnostic: Target Two’s lightsaber utilizes a Malachorian design to accommodate the unstable kyber field generated by the damaged crystal. The focusing chamber is braced by quillion emitters that vent excess energy into a cross guard.”

“Is the crystal’s field being manipulated?”

“Unknown. Speculation: Target Two may have manipulated the kyber field to make the field as stable as could be maintained while still using a portable housing.”

Good. The droid had a grasp of who they were dealing with. Now to see if she’d managed to teach them anything.

“Analyze targets for engagement and elimination.”

“Target One, whereabouts unknown. Observation: Hunter Nil could utilize a strategy of attacking the innocent. Jedi are known to be drawn out of hiding, and even be deceived into sacrificing themselves, for the good of others.”

“Noted. Combat prediction.”

“Prediction: Target One, if engaged, will likely be dangerous due to her status as a Type IV Force sensitive, and her unpredictability as a result of lacking extended formal training. Suggestion: Hunter Nil should utilize a strategic ambush to catch her off guard. Chance of success: 83 percent.”

Nil considered a moment, and nodded. An ambush was the best option. And springing the trap could be accomplished through use of the right bait, as the droid had suggested.

“Next target.”

“Target Two, location: the Finalizer, acting flagship of the First Order flotilla. Observation: This target will be highly difficult to engage without an organized insurrection or targeted betrayal.”

“Understood. Combat prediction.”

“Prediction: Target Two, if engaged, will be a highly dangerous opponent. Suggestion: Hunter Nil should attempt ranged or remote assassination. Chance of success: 62 percent.”

No. Kylo Ren would not die in his bed or at his dining table. He would not be picked off at range by a dart or a lucky blaster bolt. It was his destiny to die standing, and in full knowledge of the burden and crimes of his legacy.

“Rejected. Next suggestion.”

“Alternative suggestion: Hunter Nil should utilize a systematic assault with battle droids, and engage Target Two in direct combat. Chance of success: 51 percent.”

The odds mattered less to her than the principle. She was hired to kill the Jedi girl. And she would die. That was the contract. Ren was part of her payment. And he would die. That was the promise.

“Does this unit have any queries?”

“Affirmative. Query: This vessel appears to be approximately 62,000 light years from Imperial space. Is Hunter Nil planning on returning to the Empire?”

“No.”

“Additional query: have additional bounties been contracted?”

“No.”

“Observation: Hunter Nil is not planning on continuing to hunt following the current bounty.”

Nil’s eyes narrowed until they were black slits.

“This unit will deactivate.”

“Affirmative,” the droid buzzed, took two steps back into the stasis station, and slumped back into position.

Nil walked to the viewport at the back of her vessel, and stared out into the streaming pulse of blue and white that made up the distances between the stars. She knew what she had come here to do, and that purpose had been stolen from her. So, now, the thieves would be dealt with as all thieves must be: with the chain and the sword.

She raised her hand to the glass and touched it lightly. The flickering glow of hyperspace outlined her fingers as though a clutch of energies had collected around them. As though she could reach out and harness them and bend them to her control. She stared at the illusion of it, knowing it to be a trick of the light, and closed her fist, one finger at a time, around nothing.

#reylo #reylo fanfic #star wars fic #post-canon #hk-47

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eka-mark · 6 years

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review of Michael McCulloch’s “Physics from the Edge: A New Cosmological Model for Inertia”

I just read this short, relatively nontechnical introduction to the work of cosmologist Michael McCulloch. I give it 5/5 stars, because it’s an easy-to-read introduction to a fascinating and original idea. Below is my Goodreads review:

McCulloch posits that a kind of Casmir effect from Unruh radiation from Rindler horizons is the fundamental origin of matter’s inertial mass. The Rindler horizon an accelerating object sees blocks Unruh radiation from that direction, leading to a resistance to acceleration. Extending this consideration to the cosmological horizon leads to the conclusion that nature is characterized by a minimum possible acceleration, far below what is found in terrestrial settings, but comparable to what stars near the edge of spiral galaxies experience. This is similar to the acceleration cutoff seen in MOND, and is used to explain various cosmological data in a way that supposedly obviates the need for dark matter and dark energy.

Independent of any considerations of empirical accuracy, McCulloch's theory, MiHsC (Modified inertia by a Hubble-scale Casimir effect), has some important features of a good scientific theory: 1) MiHsC is motivated by genuinely surprising empirical data - the flyby anomalies experienced by spacecraft and the anomalous rotation curves of spiral galaxies. The former have no widely accepted explanation; the latter are usually explained by dark matter, and sometimes by MOND. But dark matter explanations of these results are tremendously underdetermined, because we are free to posit a huge variety of dark matter distributions. MOND is straightforwardly determined by a single free parameter (an acceleration cutoff) which is simply fit to the available galactic data. This leads to the next point. 2) MiHsC has no free parameters. The numerical content of the theory is determined entirely by known physical constants such as the speed of light in a vacuum and the Hubble constant. There does not appear to be any wiggle-room to refit the theory to new data if it turns out to be in conflict with observation. 3) MiHsC posits an unexpected (but not implausible) effect of known physical phenomena (Unruh radiation and the Casimir effect) on matter, not a completely novel phenomenon designed specifically to explain the anomalous data. 4) Despite being a theory created to explain astronomical and cosmological data, MiHsC is in principle testable in a terrestrial laboratory, and in fact (in chapter 6) McCulloch makes a number of suggestions that could plausibly be implemented in the near future. 5) MiHsC is not motivated _solely_ by empirical considerations, but is also the result of philosophical / conceptual thinking about a core physical notion - inertia - which is typically taken for granted and rarely subjected to philosophical analysis or treated as being in need of explanation. On top of all that, it seems that MiHsC does a good job of explaining the phenomena it purports to explain. For example, it reproduces the (rather successful) predictions of MOND in the single-galaxy regime, and (unlike MOND) also manages to get things right in the galactic cluster regime. That said, I'm not currently equipped to evaluate the empirical success of the theory in any detail. I'm interested enough in McCulloch's ideas to look into it further, though. I will learn a little more about observational cosmology and see if I can get some opinions from more "mainstream" dark matter skeptics, like Stacy McGaugh.

#physics #cosmology #michael mcculloch #mihsc #books #own

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apocalyp-tech-a · 4 months

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Last Line Challenge

Rules: In a new post, show the last line you wrote (or drew) and tag as many people as there are words (or however many you like).

Thank you for tagging me @dinogirl123 !!! <3

Here’s the last line from my not yet posted still working on it Chapter 7 of Observations and Analysis in the Galactic Empire (Journal written by Imperial Tech):

Though he certainly could use the workout.

@eclec-tech , @dragonrider9905 , @freesia-writes , @like-a-bantha , @gun-roswell , @niobiumao3 , @morphofan

Anyone else who wants to join!

#last line challenge #tech the bad batch #imperial tech #imperial!tech #fan fiction #observations and analysis in the galactic empire #aelfwynn on ao3 #ao3 writer

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emilyselfeconceptworkblog · 3 years

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1.1 Class Work

Exercise 1: Portrait Analysis:

Portrait of Leonilla, Princess of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn, nee Baryatinsky, 1843

How does the portrait empower the character?

Takes up a lot of the frame, rule of thirds, composition is strong. Background looking out at perhaps exotic lands. Large pillars wrapped in rich coloured cloth showing status. Bright colours emphasizing status. Relaxed position showing she doesn't really have to do much in life. Well adorned. Royalty? She is wrapped in blue cloth which was expensive at that time and showed high status. Very rich looking and posh but she is lying down??

How does the portrait indicate ethnicity and diversity?

Possibly “exotic” plants in the background. Contrast of her very pale skin and dress against very strong colours that she is placed around. We found out that she was a Russian aristocrat that married a German prince.

Does the portrait show guardianship? if so, how?

Guardian of wealth, lots of expensive adornments, jewelry etc.

Present your results back to the class for discussion.

Exercise 2: Observations of Kaitiakitanga

Guardian of his land and his swamp. First movie revolves around his quest to save the princess purely to complete a deal that will free up his land from the squatters living there. He is also a guardian oh himself. he doesn't want to open himself up to others. He feels like he has to be on guard as to not let others know his true self. Onions have layers

Character Profile:

Name: Venĝo

Venĝo - Esperanto for revenge

Osveta - Serbian for revenge

Sēḍu - Kannada for revenge

Kolera - Esperanto for angry

Amiko - Esperanto for friend

Lanuga - Esperanto for Fluffy

Age: 25

Birth place: Pax Mendekua, “PAX” for short - a planet in the outer regions of the galaxy. Sēḍu are they people that live there.

Pax - Latin for peace

Mendekua - Basque for revenge

Sēḍu - Kannada for revenge

BACKGROUND:

History: Born into a race of amazonian-type people - Sēḍu (women are the providing dominant gender) who are very connected to nature and have strong ties to conserving their planet and looking after the environment. The Sēḍu are very nature-like inspired in their way of life and the way they look but had to adapt to the growing Galactic Empire and therefore have elements of futuristic, android-like clothing as well. The planet is currently under attack by the empire and on the edge of being extinct from the universe. The Empire is proving a point and making an example of planets that won't agree to submission. Before the Empire rose to power they were striving to be an artist but had to adapt to change and become stronger for others.

Beliefs: Conservation, looking after the planet, the beauty in life

Education: Shooting training and gun handling, basic academic education at school of nurturing.

Jobs: Land cleanup, defense at the sites of attack from the empire, front line defense, fire prevention.

Family: Bad relationship with their mother Koleera who is wounded and doesn’t agree with going against the Empire, all other family were blown up by the Empire.

Friends: Has a few close friends and a pet called Lanuga, closest friend Amiko was killed by the Empire for not complying.

PERSONALITY:

Positive/Strengths: Creative, nurturing, good at camouflage, passionate, strong-willed

Negative/Weakness: Their anxiety to help other good people and the stress that comes along with the loss and death of many of their people gets the better of them sometimes. Tries to be selfless to the greatest extent but can’t help the selfish drive for revenge of the death of their loved ones. Also stubborn.

Self Image: Sees themself as a good person but is always striving to be better for their people and their planet.

World View: Not all people are lost in evil ways but those who hurt the ones that are close to them and the sacred environment around them must pay the price.

MOTIVATION:

Wants: To save their people and their planet from destruction and be at peace in their home again.

Needs: Help on the front line of defense, peace and quiet, to settle into a relatively normal life again.

Most important thing in the world: Avenging their lost loved ones, Their pet Lanuga, getting back to what was before

What makes you happy: Growing plants, drawing, creating, their pet Lanuga

What makes you sad: The death of a dear friend to them and their family

What makes you Angry: The merciless destruction of a planet to prove a point.

What makes you excited: Getting to enact revenge on the ones that caused so much pain and destruction.

What makes you afraid: The extinction of the beautiful planet that they live on. The Empire moving onto other planets and doing the same there that they are doing here.

Your Base Motivation: The drive for revenge and to go back to the way things were before to preserve their planet.

#chrono

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cjorgens2022 · 5 months

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Imperial Tech

I am anticipating the 7th chapter of Aelfwynn’s Imperial Tech’s Observations and Analysis in the Galactic Empire. That alongside with Wwheeljack’s In The Name of Science is my inspiration to create and design my own Imperial!Tech who is calm, collected, stoic, businesslike, logically harsh, dutiful, confident, reasonable to an unnerving degree, sharp, persuasive, cold, practical, firm, determined, calculated, stern and brutally honest

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bedlamsbard · 6 years

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Part 2 of the prison AU! I am still estimating it at three parts before I run out of steam. This is concept writing, not a polished work; it’s very sketchy and uneven in some areas, abrupt in others. (And there are references to things that won’t make much sense if you haven’t read Backbone, but then again, the entire concept may not make much sense if you haven’t read Backbone.)

Previously: part 1.

About 5.6K below the break.

Cham found Alecto on her back beneath one of the Headhunters they had acquired the previous week – a collection of decrepit Clone Wars era starfighters that were barely functional and would have been better suited for the scrap pile, which was why Free Ryloth had been able to get them in the first place.

He put his hand on the ship’s side and leaned down to get her attention. “Alecto.”

“I’m busy. Go away.”

“It’s about Hera.”

Alecto sat up so quickly that she banged her head on the starfighter’s undercarriage and swore loudly. She slid out from under the Headhunter, hesitating for an instant when Cham offered her his hand, then let him pull her to her feet.

“Where is she?” she said, her fingers digging into his wrist. “Where’s my daughter?”

“Not here,” Cham said, glancing around. Alecto wasn’t the only mechanic working on the new starfighters and there were plenty of other people in the hangar bay, along with numerous astromechs and other droids. He started in the direction of the deck crew breakroom, but Alecto dragged him to a halt before he got more than a few steps.

“Cham,” she said as he turned back to her. Her voice broke on the next syllables, but she didn’t look away from him. “Is she – is she alive?”

“Yes,” Cham said, and she let out her breath in a rush, releasing him to press both hands to her mouth. “At least, she was alive this morning, and there’s no reason for the Empire to have killed her between now and then.”

“What do you have?” Alecto breathed.

“I’ll show you.” He led her into the breakroom, dismissing the occupants with a jerk of his head. Alecto locked the door behind them and stepped towards him quickly as he took the holoprojector out of his pocket.

Alecto reached for it, wide-eyed, then stopped when Cham closed his fingers around it. “What is it?”

“She’s hurt,” he said. “I don’t want you to be surprised.”

She blanched, but nodded. “Show me my daughter,” she said in a whisper. “Show me my baby.”

Cham set the holoprojector down on one of the room’s low tables and touched the control.

He had seen the holo half a dozen times already, but watching it was still a punch to the gut – his daughter sobbing on the floor of an Imperial prison cell somewhere, her hands cuffed behind her back. There was no sound in the first half; Cham wasn’t a good enough lip reader to tell what Hera was saying to the unseen Imperial officer before the interrogation droid electrocuted her.

Alecto cried out then, her hands flying to her mouth. Cham reached over to grip her shoulder and she grabbed his hand, holding on with desperate strength as Hera convulsed on the floor. When the interrogator droid released her, she just lay there, weeping silently until a stormtrooper stepped into the frame and dragged her up to her knees.

The Imperial officer’s voice came as a shock. “State your full name.”

Hera’s gasping breath suddenly filled the air around them, as if she was there in front of them in reality. “Hera Tyche Syndulla Tann Syndulla,” she said after a moment.

“And your parents.”

Hera sobbed once, then said, “Cham Syndulla Tann Syndulla and Alecto Syndulla of Ryloth.”

The next thing she said was today’s date in Galactic Standard reckoning, then the sound cut out again, an instant before the video did.

Alecto pressed both hands to her stomach, staring at the place where the holo had been projected as if she could summon it back. Then she swung around to stare at Cham, her mouth working silently, then back to the holoprojector.

“What do they want?” she whispered. “What do they want from you?”

“Nothing,” Cham said, and she looked back up at him.

“They have to want something. They wouldn’t send that to you if they didn’t want something.”

Cham wetted his lips. “This was sent to one of my HoloNet message drops half an hour ago. It’s the one the Empire knows about; I left it open in case –” He shook his head. “In case of something like this. There was no message with it, no demand.”

“It’s a warning,” Alecto said.

Cham nodded. “Most likely.”

“Why now? Why not three years ago? You haven’t exactly been quiet.”

“I don’t know.”

Alecto turned away from him, her arms crossed tightly over her chest and her shoulders hunched, her lekku sagging. “What will you give them if they ask?” she said abruptly, turning back.

“Anything they want,” Cham said.

Hera woke to find the cell pitch-black, the day cycle replaced by what passed for a night-cycle. She hadn’t really expected to sleep, but three years in the Imperial Academy had taught her to snatch it when she could, a skill that apparently also extended to her prison cell.

It was probably the only thing she had learned from the Imperial Academy that she would ever be able to use again.

She started to cry again, soft in the quiet dark of the room.

Beside her, Kanan whispered, “Hera?” and squeezed her shoulder.

Hera reached up and grabbed his hand. In the blackness of the night cycle it felt like a lifeline, like the only real thing in the entire galaxy, and she didn’t think she could have let go of him if her life depended on it. He was still sitting up; she tugged at his hand until he shifted and laid down beside her, close enough that she was achingly aware of his breath, of his heartbeat.

“I was a cadet,” she said abruptly. “An Imperial cadet. They just threw me out of the Academy.”

Kanan’s breath caught, but he didn’t let go of her hand.

The whole ugly story spilled out of Hera in a rush, like she had been holding it in for years and once released, couldn’t stop. Her father, the colony, the Spire, Agent Beneke, the Academy – everything. She was crying in earnest by the end, her whole body shaking with the force of her sobs.

She felt the question as Kanan touched his free hand lightly to the back of her shoulder; when she didn’t protest he drew her into an embrace, his arms wrapped tightly around her. Hera tucked her face against the curve of his neck and wept.

Kanan held her, his hand moving in soothing circles over her back. Hera cried until she couldn’t cry anymore, then went limp, weary with exhaustion and emotion.

“I’m sorry,” Kanan breathed, barely more than a whisper against her ear. “I’m so sorry.”

Hera swallowed. “I know – I know you’re a rebel, and to you I must –”

He touched his fingers to the curve of her jaw, tilting her head up like he could see her in the darkness that even Hera’s Twi’lek vision couldn’t penetrate. “Hera, I’m not a rebel,” he said. “That’s not why I’m in here.”

Hera blinked at him, momentarily distracted from her own misery by this conundrum. “Then what are you?”

There was a long beat of hesitation before he finally said, “I’m a Jedi.”

The next time Hera woke up she was curled in the warm curve of Kanan’s arm. The lights were back on, but he was still asleep, his breathing steady. Hera raised her chin, suddenly self-conscious about the fact that she was in bed with a man, and tried to work out if she could get out of it without waking him up. And if she wanted to.

Even asleep he looked tired, lines harshening the corners of his eyes despite his youth. This close, Hera could see the nearly-faded bruises on his jaw beneath his stubble and around one eye; she hadn’t noticed them before, not wanting to get close enough to him for them to be visible without searching. Hera was painfully aware of the breadth of his hand across her waist and of how warm he was; she had been using his chest as a pillow, apparently.

Jedi¸ Hera mouthed silently, trying out that revelation. She had thought all the Jedi were dead.

Maybe they would be soon.

Maybe they both would be soon.

She laid her cheek back down against Kanan’s chest, listening to the sound of his heartbeat, letting her breath match his. Hera had spent her childhood in the same nursery as her cousins; at the colony all of them had slept in the same room and the same two beds.

She hadn’t willingly touched another sentient being since the colony had burned.

Hera found the edge of the thin blanket they were sharing and pulled it up, even though she didn’t really need it; Kanan was putting off more heat than she had expected from a human and she felt warm for the first time since she had arrived here. There was nothing else to do – maybe nothing else to do again ever. She might as well sleep.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?” Roberto Beneke demanded as soon as the door slid open. The two stormtroopers standing outside the room winced almost imperceptibly.

Saz Mircea glanced up from the console she was observing. “And good afternoon to you too, Roberto. How are you doing?”

“I am trying to do damage control! What in the name of the Emperor were you thinking, woman?”

The door slid shut behind him as he went down the low steps into one of the prison’s several control rooms. Stormtroopers and officers stationed at various consoles around the room monitored activity within the prison; a quick survey of the vidscreens didn’t show Roberto Hera’s cell, but there were literally hundreds of them and visual data analysis wasn’t his forte anyway.

Mircea’s eyes flashed. “I was thinking that Cham Syndulla’s not-so-little terrorist group just destroyed an Imperial station and stole three dozen starfighters!”

“That’s the Navy’s problem, not ISB’s,” Roberto snapped, slamming his hand down on the nearest table and making the nearest officer jump before she hastily looked away. “You had no right to do what you did!”

“I have every right to defend this Empire!” Mircea snarled. “There are other Nemesis cadets, but Cham Syndulla only has one daughter and we have her. She was being wasted in the Imperial Academy – what were you planning to do? Make a stormtrooper out of her? We have millions of them already. We don’t need another one just because she’s a Twi’lek and even if we did, there are millions of them in the galaxy too.”

“That is not the point of Nemesis!”

“Well, I fail to see what is! Cham Syndulla is a danger now, Hera Syndulla is here now; we would be fools not to use her!”

“And is that what you think you’re doing? I saw that holo you sent to Syndulla! All that’s going to do is increase the frequency of his attacks. You didn’t even ask –”

“The Galactic Empire does not negotiate with terrorists. I sent him a message. I’m sure he’s intelligent enough to understand it.”

“Cham Syndulla already knows we have his daughter,” Roberto pointed out, his voice dry enough to strip paint from the walls. “This is hardly news to him. What is more likely is that you’ve forced him into making further attacks.”

Mircea’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t think so. I think he’ll back off. He didn’t steal those starfighters because he wanted to be left alone; he stole them because he wants to make war, and that’s what he’s going to do without a reason not to.”

“And you believe the Empire is so weak that it needs to give him one?” Roberto demanded. “Free Ryloth isn’t so dangerous as all that. The only reason they haven’t been put down yet is because the Empire has bigger fish to fry than a few Twi’leks that have willingly exiled themselves to the edge of the galaxy.”

“A few thousand Twi’leks,” Mircea corrected harshly. “Who just destroyed an Imperial reclamation station and gained control of defunct Imperial weaponry! Doesn’t that alarm you at all?”

“Not enough to destroy Nemesis’s most promising cadet,” Roberto snapped. “I’ll leave Free Ryloth to the Navy, which is exactly what you should have done. Where is she?”

Mircea stared at him stubbornly, her jaw set, but Roberto had a decade’s seniority on her and finally she unclenched her jaw and gestured at the nearest monitor. The officer manning it looked up cautiously.

“Bring up cell 1854,” she ordered.

The numerous images on the screen above him disappeared, replaced by the single security cam view of a cell that looked like every other cell in the prison. It took Roberto a moment to spot Hera, curled up asleep on the bunk along with –

“Who in blazes is that? One of our dupes?”

Mircea’s mouth thinned. “One of our question marks. The Inquisition has a warrant out on him, but we picked him up first.”

Roberto turned back to her. “And the Inquisition hasn’t collected him yet? They may be insane murderous mystics, but they’re usually prompt.”

“They haven’t been notified yet,” Mircea said. “I’d like to know why they want some gunslinger whose worst crime on record is a little smuggling.”

“What the Inquisition wants and doesn’t want isn’t our business, and more importantly, why in blazes is he in the same cell as Hera?”

Mircea crossed her arms over her chest. “He hadn’t broken yet, and neither had she. I thought the both of them could use some incentive – which appears to be working, by the way.”

“I don’t know if working is what I would call that holo I saw,” Roberto snapped.

“Well, you didn’t see the whole thing.”

He glared at her. “The Emperor himself approved Hera Syndulla for Project Nemesis. If you’ve ruined her for nothing, it will be him you answer to, not me.”

They came for Kanan later that day.

The stormtroopers who entered the cell were clearly prepared for him to resist, their blasters trained on Kanan – only one stood guard over Hera – as his arms were jerked behind his back and binders snapped onto his wrist. He didn’t fight them, didn’t even protest, but from where Hera was standing she could see the abject terror in his eyes. She could remember the awful sound of him screaming all too easily.

He didn’t say anything as they took him out of the cell, but his gaze darted quickly to her, his eyes wide and frightened before the door slammed shut behind him.

Hera sank down onto the edge of the bunk, pulling her knees up to her chest. Don’t die, she thought. Don’t die, please don’t die. She didn’t think she could bear to be left here all alone again, and – she didn’t want him to die.

She didn’t want him to die, and she didn’t want her parents to see that holo, and she didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want a lot of things.

The door slid open.

Hera looked up warily, not sure what to expect, but it was just another pair of stormtroopers. She stood up so that they could cuff her hands behind her back again, feeling numb as they walked her out of the cell and through a series of corridors; she couldn’t tell if it was the same path they had taken the day before.

She wondered if Agent Mircea had another message she wanted to send to Hera’s father.

But it wasn’t Agent Mircea in the interrogation room when the door slid open. It was Agent Beneke, looking anxious and concerned, and it was just a room with a table in it, no interrogation chair or droid.

“Hera, thank heavens,” Agent Beneke said. “Get those things off her,” he added to the stormtrooper as Hera stared at him, half-disbelieving. “I’m sorry, I came as I heard – I was on assignment.”

Some of Hera’s doubt must have shown on her face, because he added, “We all must do things we don’t enjoy for the Empire’s sake.”

Hera looked down, rubbing her wrists as the stormtrooper stepped back with the binders she had been wearing, then, at Agent Beneke’s gesture, left the room, leaving the two of them alone. Part of Hera wanted to run to him, but instead she stayed still, feeling sick to her stomach.

“Hera –” He crossed the room to her, lifting his hands to her shoulders.

Hera flinched.

Beneke’s face did something complicated. He let his hands fall and said instead, “Hera, I am so sorry. This was never meant to happen.”

“What wasn’t?” Hera said. “Me coming here or me finding out that I’m a science experiment?” She spat the last words, harsh enough that Beneke looked alarmed at this uncharacteristic show of temper. Hera immediately regretted it, feeling heat darken her cheeks; she usually knew better than to show any negative emotions in front of a superior officer. But she couldn’t see how it mattered now.

Beneke looked a little appalled, though Hera couldn’t tell whether it was at her tone or her words, or from the fact that she had flinched from him. “Who told you that?”

“Agent Mircea.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, looking as frustrated as Hera had ever seen him. “That isn’t true.”

“So there aren’t others?” Hera demanded. “Other nonhumans, ones who are more – more –” She didn’t even know the word she was looking for. “Ones whose fathers aren’t rebel terrorists?”

“Hera, come and sit down.” When Hera didn’t move, he added with an undercurrent of steel, “Now.”

Hera was too well-trained to ignore a direct order. She went over to the room’s single table and sat down in a chair, folding her shaking hands in her lap. She felt like she was on the edge of snapping, as if with the wrong word she would throw herself at Agent Beneke or shatter herself on the prison walls. There was an air of unreality to the whole miserable business, like she was walking through an immersive holo instead of living it.

“That’s better,” Agent Beneke said. He moved the other chair from the opposite side of the table to be nearer to Hera, sitting down and leaning forward with an earnest expression on his face. “Hera, you are part of an elite program, but it’s hardly a science experiment. We –”

“Where are my cousins?”

The question burst out of her before she could think about it. From Agent Beneke’s expression, he was just as surprised to hear it as Hera was to ask it. “What?”

“My cousins. Are they in your program too? Doriah’s the same age as me, Ojeda’s just a year younger, the others –”

Recovering some of his composure, Agent Beneke said, “Hera, we’ve spoken before about the importance of not dwelling on your past –”

“Where are they?” Hera almost yelled.

For an instant real irritation flashed across Agent Beneke’s face, so quickly Hera wasn’t certain she had seen it at all. Then he calmed himself and said, voice smooth, “They aren’t here, Hera. You were the only child from the colony who passed the initial screening for the program.”

“Are they dead?”

“You should be more concerned with yourself right now than with them, Hera,” Agent Beneke said. “They aren’t here. You are.”

“That’s not an answer,” Hera muttered, but she slumped back in her chair anyway.

For a few moments, she and Agent Beneke just stared at each other in silence, then Agent Beneke cleared his throat and said, “I’ve spoken to the commandant at the Imperial Academy on Serenno. She’s agreed that you can return despite your extended absence. You’ll have to make up any exams and coursework you’ve missed, but there’s no reason you won’t graduate on time.”

Hera just kept staring at him, trying to will the words to make sense in context. It was what she had wanted. It was what she had expected days – a week? longer? – ago. “Oh,” she said.

“The situation is unusual, of course, but not without precedent,” Agent Beneke said. “Not for this particular reason, but for extended illnesses or accidents, or family emergencies – these things do happen.”

Not trusting herself to speak, Hera just nodded.

“I’m afraid that it will be a little longer, though,” he went on, sounding apologetic. “I can bring you your study materials –”

“Because you’re waiting to see if my father reacts?” Hera said.

He paused for an instant, then admitted, “Yes.”

Hera swallowed. She felt like she would shatter if she moved, like her lekku would snap off if she shifted her head, like every bone in her body would break if she breathed too deeply. “Did – did he see it?”

“There’s no way to know for certain, but the file was received and opened,” Agent Beneke said. “Your father keeps a message drop on the HoloNet – probably several, but this is the one that the ISB knows about and that he knows we know about. He hasn’t shut it down.”

“Because you might do something like this.”

Agent Beneke inclined his head in acknowledgment. “I presume that was his logic.”

Hera swallowed painfully, a retort on her lips before she bit it back. “What are you going to do with me if he does respond? Torture me on camera some more?”

“Hera,” Agent Beneke said reproachfully. He reached for her again and she flinched back before she could stop herself.

He looked at her for a long moment before he withdrew his hand. “That should never have happened.”

“Well, it did.” She crossed her arms over her chest and looked away.

“Agent Mircea will not be handling you any longer,” he said. “She should never have been in the first place.”

“But here I am.”

“Hera, don’t sulk. It’s unbecoming for an Imperial officer.” His voice was firm.

Hera looked away again. “What if my father does respond?” she said again. “What are you going to do with me then?”

“We’ll deal with that if it happens,” Agent Beneke said. “However, I don’t think it’s likely.”

Having met her father, Hera didn’t think it was likely either, but she wasn’t about to say as much. Agent Mircea had clearly considered it a possibility.

When she didn’t respond, Agent Beneke went on, “I understand you’ve been given a cellmate. Of course, he’ll be removed –”

“No!” Hera burst out, and then flushed at the look Agent Beneke gave her. She glanced down at her hands. “I don’t – I don’t mind.”

“In that case…” He considered her thoughtfully. “Has he told you why he was arrested?”

“I –” Jedi, Hera almost said, but she managed to stop herself. “I thought he was a rebel, like my father. Isn’t he?”

“We’re not certain. Kanan Jarrus’s arrest warrant was issued by the Inquisition, not by ISB or any of the other Imperial authorities. Mostly we share information, but the Inquisition, well –” He lifted a shoulder in a what can you do? gesture. “You’ve encountered them before. They answer to no one but the Emperor himself. If you don’t object, I suppose there’s no harm done by leaving him with you for another rotation, before he’s transferred to the Inquisition’s custody. If you were able to discover why he was arrested…while you do have to stay here for the immediate future, there’s no reason you have to be in a cell.”

“Oh,” Hera said, for lack of anything else.

Agent Beneke gave her an encouraging smile. “Good girl,” he said. “Is there anything else I can get you besides your study materials? I know the food here is terrible.”

The sudden change in subject left Hera blinking. “I – I wouldn’t mind another blanket,” she said after a moment.

He smiled. “I think I can arrange that.”

The stormtroopers took her back to her cell, though they didn’t put the cuffs on this time. Kanan was still gone, so Hera paced the empty cell, trying to figure out how she felt.

Angry. Mostly right now she just felt angry. There were some other emotions she didn’t want to think about, but – mostly anger.

At least she couldn’t hear Kanan screaming. Or – hopefully he wasn’t dead. Hopefully they hadn’t killed him trying to get secrets he didn’t know out of him. Surely they couldn’t, they wouldn’t, if they were meant to hand him over to a different agency tomorrow, because from the little Hera knew of the Inquisition they wouldn’t be pleased to get a corpse instead of a living being.

She sank down on the edge of the bunk, suddenly exhausted. There had been new blankets here when she had arrived, thicker than the prison-issue ones – officer-issue, even, not barracks-issue. Hera pulled one of them into her lap, fingering the thick, soft fabric and wondering if Kanan would think to ask where she had gotten them. If he was still alive. If he was conscious when they brought him back. If they brought him back at all; she wasn’t certain if she could believe Agent Beneke that they would.

She shouldn’t have admitted to him that she wanted Kanan back.

Hera curled up on the bunk with the folded blanket beneath her cheek. Already the meeting with Agent Beneke had faded to distant memory or even imagination; if it hadn’t been for the new blankets Hera probably would have convinced herself that it hadn’t happened at all.

That was how it had been the last time she had been at the Spire, she remembered. She had gone days and sometimes – she thought – weeks without seeing another sentient being at all, so that Agent Beneke’s irregular visits had taken on an air of both unreality and desperation. Every time Hera had felt compelled to please him, to perform as best as she could in whatever way he asked, terrified of being left alone again. Left alone in the dark, sometimes; there had been a span of time that she was certain, looking back, had only been little over a standard rotation but which had at the time felt like an eternity where the lights in her cell had gone off and stayed off.

Hera didn’t want to be that little girl again, didn’t ever want to be that desperate and that scared. But she could feel it now, just on the edges of her consciousness; the knowledge that she had been, once, and if she let herself she would slip back there.

Some part of her thought that she would always be that terrified child, somewhere in the back of her mind that neither her family nor the Empire could touch. Another part of her was half-convinced that she was still that child, that the last three years had all been a dream and any moment now she would wake up and discover that she had never left the Spire in the first place; no wonder she was back here.

She jerked up at the sound of the cell door opening. For a moment her instincts warred with each other; the child wanted to make herself small and neat for Agent Beneke, and the woman wanted –

Hera didn’t know what she wanted, but not that.

She sprang forward to catch Kanan as the stormtroopers uncuffed him and shoved him carelessly down the steps. He was conscious, but barely, his fingers slipping off her arms as he tried to steady himself. Hera saw the guards stationed in the corridor outside before the door slammed shut and she turned her attention back to Kanan.

There was a fist-shaped bruise on his face, burst blood veins turning the white of one eye red. Dried blood rimmed his nostrils and stained the front of his jumpsuit; he was shaking uncontrollably as he tried and failed to pull himself to his feet.

“It’s all right,” Hera told him. “It’s all right. Just sit still, it will be all right.” She put an arm around his shoulders, letting him lean heavily against her.

“Sorry,” he whispered, his voice trembling as badly as he was.

“It’s all right,” Hera said again.

He turned his face against her shoulder, breath stuttering out in sharp gasps. Hera sat with him, waiting for him to recover enough to sit up on his own.

When she felt certain that he wasn’t going to fall over – or at least not immediately – she got up to get him some water from the sink. Kanan took the cup gratefully, wrapping both hands around it to steady it; he was still shivering slightly.

“Thanks,” he whispered.

“Are you –” Hera didn’t know how to finish the question. All right clearly wasn’t an option.

“Not really,” he said, but managed to give her the ghost of a smile anyway. He winced an instant later; it must have hurt.

Hera reached for the bruise, then thought better of it and stopped with her fingertips just short of his cheek. “What happened?”

“Said the wrong thing. Stormtroopers can’t aim, but they can hit.” He prodded gingerly at the bruise, then grimaced.

Hera caught his hand and pulled it away from his face. “Can you stand up?”

“Where are we going?”

“Somewhere more comfortable than the floor.”

She had to help him to his feet – he almost fell over again – but it was only a few steps to the bunk. Hera whisked the new blankets away before he fell over on top of them, then wrapped one of them around his shoulders.

He rubbed the hem between his fingers. “These new?”

“Yes. Lie down.”

It was closer to falling over than anything more graceful, but at least it got him horizontal. Hera started to get up, to retrieve the cup they had left sitting in the middle of the floor, but Kanan caught her hand.

Hera hesitated, then said, “All right,” and sat back down. She waited until his eyes had shut and his breathing had evened out before she lay down next to him, tucking herself carefully under the blanket beside him. She didn’t let go of his hand.

The lights were out when Hera woke up. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, and she found herself blinking in the darkness, wanting to check the time and knowing she had no way to do so.

She was aware after a few moments of being watched, lights or not. Kanan squeezed her fingers and whispered, “Hey.”

“Hey,” Hera replied, equally soft, twisting around to face him even if she couldn’t see him. It seemed polite. “Are you feeling better?”

“Yeah. Thank you.” He hesitated, then asked, “Are you – were you –”

“No,” Hera said. “That didn’t…it didn’t happen again. Not that.”

“I’m glad.” There was relief in his voice.

Hera shut her eyes, startled at how genuinely concerned he had sounded. After a moment she looked up again into the consuming darkness, reaching out with her free hand to find the curve of Kanan’s shoulder, tracing the line of his arm. He was warm beneath her fingers, warm and alive and real.

“Hera,” he murmured. “I want – can I –”

“What?” she murmured back.

Shy, he said, “I want to kiss you. Can I?”

Hera caught her breath. “I – yes,” she said, before she had time to think about it, time to change her mind. “Yes, you can kiss me.”

She felt the shift in the space between them as he leaned forward, slow enough that she could have pulled away if she wanted to. His mouth was soft against hers, softer than she had expected as Hera parted her lips.

The kiss went on for a long time.

When they finally drew apart, Hera tipped her forehead against Kanan’s, breathing hard. He touched her cheek, his fingers light, and said softly, “I wish I’d met you somewhere else. Anywhere else.”

Hera didn’t say anything, just kissed him again. They’re going to kill him, she thought. The ISB hadn’t managed to torture him to death, but the Inquisition would do it; the punishment for being a Jedi in the Empire was summary execution. This time next week – maybe this time tomorrow – he would be dead.

And Hera would still be here, in prison, no matter what Agent Beneke tried to promise.

“Is it true what they say about Jedi?” she blurted out.

“What do you mean?” he murmured, his breath warm against her mouth. “They say a lot of things about Jedi. Most of them aren’t true.”

“Can you make people do things?”

He drew back, hurt. “I didn’t do anything to you –”

“No!” Hera said quickly. She kissed him again to take the sting out and clarified, “I mean – like the guards outside. Could you – could you get them to let us out?”

Kanan hesitated, thinking. “Not through the door. I can’t get a fix – it’s not the barrier, but they have to be able to hear me. I’m not good enough to do it without that.”

“If I got them to open the door?”

He thought about that, then nodded. “I think so. I haven’t done it in a really long time, though. And then what?”

“You’re human,” Hera said. “You can fit into stormtrooper armor. You could just walk me out. There has to be a shuttle here, it’s standard protocol. And I think –” She hesitated, thinking about what Agent Beneke had said. “I think it’s actually the night cycle right now, really, I mean. So there will be fewer guards anyway.”

“If we’re caught they’ll kill us both,” Kanan said quietly.

Hera bit her lip, then admitted, “I think they’re going to do that anyway.”

#cut scenes and concept writing #kanera prison au tag #as always comments are appreciated

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razieltwelve · 7 years

Text

Void Walking (Final Craft)

Her Imperial Majesty Elsa VII knew that her day was about to take a turn for the worse when her Dia-Farron science advisor skipped into the room with a smile on his face. A smiling Dia-Farron almost always meant trouble, usually of the kind that involved system-crushing explosions and galaxy-wide devastation.

“What happened?” she asked warily.

“I’m glad you asked, Your Majesty.” Lumos Dia-Farron sketched a quick bow in her direction before he gestured, calling up an elaborate holographic display in the air beside him. “A few hours ago, one of our inter-galactic probes pinged something interesting.”

Elsa frowned. Those probes were part of an early monitoring system designed to detect incoming extra-galactic Grimm before they smashed into the Grand Empire Alliance or its allies. It had been several centuries since the Grand Empire Alliance had established footholds in the Milky Way Galaxy, and their territory had expanded considerable. The Grand Empire Alliance now had control of most of the Milky Way Galaxy, and they had substantial holdings in other galaxies, as well as holdings in other universes.

There had been advocates of faster expansion, but the bearers of Saviour and other strategists had argued against overly rapid expansion. The Grimm’s attacks had continued with alarmingly regularity, only now their swarms were even larger. Spreading too quickly could prove to be a fatal mistake. Investigation of the future using the Seers and Seeresses of the Empire in conjunction with the most advanced modelling available to the Dia-Farron had settled the matter decisively. Overly rapid expansion was almost guaranteed to lead to a future filled with blood, fire, and a lot of Grimm.

The probes Lumos had mentioned were situated in the vastness between galaxies since the Grimm had demonstrated their ability to use immensely powerful warping technology, as well as non-anchored hyperspace travel of substantial range. There wasn’t supposed to be much of anything there, so any activity was bound to draw attention.

“What did it find?” Elsa asked.

Lumos grinned. The image shifted, revealing a strange, warped area of space that was only visible when he shifted the view away from the visual spectrum. “This appears to be a hole in space. The particles it emits are mostly similar to those that exist in our dimension. However, there are some that we have only encountered naturally in other dimensions.”

Elsa frowned. “Is this another attack?” Over the centuries, beings from other dimensions had attacked the Empire and its allies on several occasions. They had been beaten back each time, sometimes at great cost. It was why the Dia-Farron had developed an arsenal of weapons designed to obliterate beings from other dimensions or even those other dimensions themselves. “Has anything come through?”

“That’s the fascinating thing,” Lumos said. “We don’t think this was on purpose. We believe that the portal was created accidentally by something on the other side that isn’t even aware it exists.”

“I see.”

“But there’s more!” Lumos continued excitedly. “I’m sure you’re familiar with the multiverse-gateway theories, right?”

Elsa nodded slowly. She was passingly familiar with the ideas they proposed, if not the physics. There were probably fewer than a hundred people in the entire Empire who fully understood the possibilities. Lumos happened to be one of them. “A little bit, yes.”

“We’ve never delved too deeply into practical experiments since there was a chance we could obliterate our entire universe,” Lumos said. “But over the years, we’ve managed to narrow it down to about a dozen possible approaches to create a stable gateway to another universe or dimension that doesn’t require too much power, isn’t likely to bring about the apocalypse, and which can be generalised across a wide breadth of possible universes. What we haven’t had is the data to test our theory since, as I said, testing it could have destroyed our universe.”

“And how large was the probability of that?” Elsa, morbidly curious.

“Roughly 45%, which is why we never did it. We’re lucky, but we’re not going to bet the whole universe on odds like that. Anyway, the data the probe sent back is astounding. It’s enough for us to eliminate all but three of the possible approaches.”

“Incredible,” Elsa murmured. If they could eliminate two more, then they’d have the ability, at least in theory, to create portals to other dimensions and universes at will without any of the drawbacks they’d observed in portals that had intruded on their universe previously or in the portals they’d made so far, which were far from efficient and extremely difficult to create.

“Yes, but it gets better. We believe that further study might lead to enough data to identify the correct approach.”

“I see.” Elsa drummed her fingers on the table. “I know what you’re going to ask. You have my authorisation. Do what you need to in order to gather as much data as you can. However, do not create another portal without my permission first. Is that understood? I also want enough weaponry to destroy that other dimension pointed at that portal in case something goes wrong.”

“Understood.”

X X X

Six months.

It took them six months to collect the data they needed and build a portal device of their own, not unlike the gigantic hyperspace gateways that formed the backbone the of the Hyperspace Gateway Network. They’d wisely followed Elsa’s orders and asked for permission first.

They’d also sent probes through the original portal. It was, they said, a fairly bleak place full of fairly unpleasant things. However, it appeared to be closely connected to another universe that had far more in common with theirs. With some extra calculations, it should be possible to close the original portal and open a new one, one that skipped the unpleasant dimension and went straight to the more normal universe. For safety, they would maintain a smaller portal to the unpleasant dimension, so they could continue to study it and, if necessary, destroy it.

“Well,” Lumos said. “Here comes the fun part. We’re going to send robotic probes through until we’re sure it’s safe. We’ll also pick up anything we find nearby, to see how the materials and so on compare to our own. Based on our initial findings, the rules of physics should be virtually identical.”

“Good.” Elsa leaned forward, staring at the holographic display over her desk. Lumos himself was at the portal in a gigantic Dia-Farron science vessel to supervise. “Proceed. If there is any danger, abort.”

X X X

The robotic probe had a relatively advanced AI. It was necessary to ensure that any encounters with indigenous life in another universe did not end in disaster. As it emerged from the portal, the probe took stock of its surroundings. The portal had nopened near a dense asteroid field. It wasn’t ideal, but this was already a useful piece of data. Learning how to aim the portal device would require more attempts to establish precision and control.

It forwarded the data back through the portal - there would be time to test its inter-dimensional communications systems later - and proceeded toward the asteroid field.

Curious.

There were signs of battle. Some of the asteroids had clearly been damaged by energy-based weapons whilst others bore the marks of claws or even acid. Its sensors scanned the area, and the probe continued, making sure its cloaking systems were fully active. It could not detect the combatants, but it was better to be cautious.

As it drifted through the asteroid field, its sensors detected life signs. Unusual. It changed its course, angling toward a large asteroid. The surface of the asteroid was marked by heavy thermal damage. The remains of large organic structure were also present.

The probe scanned the remains. Fascinating. The organic structure had been grown, and it appeared to contain the remnants of additional genetic matrices. Had it transformed from something else into a building? It was certainly possible. Its attention changed when its sensors locked onto the life signs.

Nearby, it found a larva-like creature. The creature appeared to be on the verge of death, and the robot activated its more powerful scanners to do a full genetic analysis. If it had possessed the ability, the probe would have smirked. This creature…

It had countless genetic matrices bound up within its own. It was almost certainly capable of transforming into many different forms. But what to do? The probe scanned the area again. There was nothing living other than the larva for as far as its sensors could detect. It was risky, but this creature could prove to be quite valuable. And it was dying…

Decision made, the probe activated a quarantine chamber inside its body and used a tractor beam to manoeuvre the larva into it.

#final craft #fanfiction

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otnesse · 7 years

Text

Galactic Empire and Fascism, an analysis.

After cruising through TVTropes, and discovering a YMMV entry under “What do you mean it’s not political” that implicitly compared Emperor Palpatine in Revenge of the Sith to Donald Trump regarding treatment of aliens (which, for the record, we don’t have a problem with immigration and nor does Trump, rather, we have a massive issue against illegal immigration, which is simple distinction that people unfortunately seem to miss right now especially in media), I decided to make a post regarding whether or not the Galactic Empire from Star Wars was fascist or not. Honestly, I’d say it’s not, though that being said, it has been acknowledged by George Lucas that fascism did play a role in their development via design elements. However, in that case, it was more due to Lucas mistaking fascism for conservativism (similar to how the left constantly claims that Donald Trump is “a fascist” even when he isn’t under even the most basic observations, let alone close scrutiny). To solidify my point, I’ll quote one of my most hated pieces of dialogue from the disaster that was the second season of Supergirl (shame, since the first season started out with a lot of promise, and I don’t intend to watch the third season in large part because of what the writers did by overtly going into left-wing politics, not to mention certain social issues, and overall having a very bad plotline [sure, there have been some leftist bits portrayed positively in the first season, but on the other hand, it also promoted Conservative principles as well, such as the concept of family and actually treating eco-terrorism in a negative light with the Kryptonians that acted as the main villains of the arc, not to mention it actually managed to avert feminist messaging at one point by having Cat Grant actually express remorse at choosing her career over raising her own kid she had out of wedlock, and considering she actually had a kid there, it also implied she didn’t have an abortion either. And I can tell you, she if anything would have been utterly SLAUGHTERED by the feminists clique at NOW as well as by Hillary supporters for actually expressing remorse at choosing her career over being a mother. And either way it was definitely not to the extent that this season was regarding pushing politics and social issues.]. At most, I’ll probably watch the season premiere just long enough to learn the identity of the other Kryptonian baby that had that blood ritual.):

“one misattributed quote from a candidate and you put a fascist in the White House.” – Snapper Carr, Exodus.

Considering how they showered Marsden, a blatant Hillary expy, with love, I don’t you need two guesses as to which Presidential candidate he was referring to (and quite frankly, even ignoring the Trump burns, I hated that line because of its inaccuracy in its ideology and inherent meaning: Perfect attribution of quotes does not guarantee that a fascist [and by that, I mean an actual fascist and not someone like Trump], or a communist, or any particularly evil person will be prevented from becoming president. That, and Snapper Carr with that line and prior lines in the episode came across as acting more like Mike Wallace during that Ethics of America segment where he implied he’d sell American soldiers down the river in order to not ruin his objectivity when traveling with a Vietcong unit, but I digress…). And actually, this whole quote is actually pretty relevant to Star Wars and the Galactic Empire as Palpatine had in fact been based on an American president that the left hated in a similar manner to Trump for various reasons. His name was Richard Milhous Nixon, and he was needlessly demonized, including claiming he had masterminded Watergate when in reality he had absolutely no involvement in the situation and if anything was also irritated that this had happened and demanded to know who was responsible for it, not to mention falsely pinning him to Vietnam when in reality it was LBJ and even JFK’s war before it was his war, and if anything, Nixon was the reason why America actually left Vietnam as victors (yes, we actually won Vietnam. The fall of Saigon was due to our congress stabbing our allies in the back during Watergate. The loser of a war does not head and dictate the negotiations of surrender, which we did.).

Uniforms and Terms:

First, people have said that the Empire’s uniforms and their use of certain terms (ie, Stormtroopers) made them fascist. I won’t go into full detail on how the Stormtrooper Corps aren’t the same thing as the Nazis’ stormtroopers (or at least the Sturmabteilung) in even role, let alone appearance, since I kind of already did that in full detail in an earlier post. However, while Lucas I’ll admit did mention wanting a fascistic feel for the Empire when creating the uniforms, that doesn’t mean that the Empire was actually fascist, any more than calling Donald Trump a fascist must make him fascist as well, or the fact that Ho Chi Minh quoted the Declaration of Independence makes him a Jeffersonian lover of liberty. And besides, the uniforms for the Empire were derived more from German Uhlans during World War I, which predated Nazi Germany and fascism by a significant amount of time. And quite honestly, if you ask me, claiming someone is fascist just because they happen to wear that kind of uniform is just stupid, since uniforms don’t speak to one’s political ideologies. I mean, what, are we going to claim that NYPD Commissioner Frank Reagan from Blue Bloods, Prince Eric from Disney’s The Little Mermaid, or General Pepper from Star Fox are fascists just because they wore similar uniforms (heck, Eric’s wedding outfit even resembles a Grand Admiral’s uniform)? Not to mention, they’re military uniforms, and there have been plenty of uniforms within even the Allied Powers (meaning Britain and the USA) that had similar appearances to Imperial uniforms. If anyone in the Star Wars films actually resembled fascists in terms of uniforms, and more importantly ideology, it was the First Order. The Empire, on that note, does not goose step, either, which would be a surefire sign that it is fascist (its marching style, if anything, resembles that of Geldoblame’s men in Baten Kaitos’ opening when it shows Gibari).

Military buildup:

See, one of my biggest annoyances is the conflation of military buildup, even having a military at all, and going to war as automatically making someone a Nazi or fascist. It was annoying when Paul Verhoeven did it with Starship Troopers (though at least he had the excuse of growing up in Nazi-occupied Netherlands for thinking that. Lucas should know better), and it was also annoying when George Lucas and even Hideo Kojima inferred similar things. Yes, militaries can and have done attacks on neighboring countries, and also tried to conquer neighboring countries. But that’s not their sole role. They also act as a line of defense against an opposing army, not to mention also acts in the defense of citizenry and will also aid in relief efforts should things be serious, and they also are called in to aid allies if needs be. There’s a reason why a common expression for the military is that it acts as a nation’s sword and shield. The Nazis and fascists specifically intended to control at the very least Germany and its various former nation-states, if not the world, not to mention conquered countries specifically to fund their welfare programs. Building up the military is not the sign of an incoming dictatorship or the coming of fascism. America built up its military significantly after 9/11, and it’s nowhere close to becoming fascist right now.

Nationalism and nationalization:

On that note, I also get irritated when people think merely having parades for a national holiday or prominently displaying the flag in terms of national pride and love of country makes one fascist. We Americans do that, especially those of us who are patriotic. Heck, I’ve got the American flag hanging outside my house right now, and besides which, I’ve gone around seeing some houses that have the circular red white and blue flags draped over as well. My neighborhood even has an annual Fourth of July parade that I make every effort to see and we have fireworks celebrating it. The Empire’s celebration of Empire Day is not really all that different. And besides which, being fascist doesn’t mean you actually love your country. Joseph Goebbels, the infamous Nazi propagandist, actually made clear that he, if anything, held contempt to even the mere idea of nationalism or loving one’s own country (I believe his exact words were, and I quote, “the NSDAP [Nazi Party] is the German Left. We despise bourgeois nationalism.”). And based on the fact that Palpatine was perfectly willing to forfeit his own life to get Luke to turn to the Dark Side (even going as far as to goad him into murdering him), it’s pretty clear Palpatine probably had no qualms with the Empire running without him (unfortunately, the Aftermath trilogy had Palpatine try to have Gallius Rax basically blow up the galaxy at Jakku due to not being able to rule the Empire anymore, in an explicit contradiction to not only his actions in Return of the Jedi, but also Revenge of the Sith where he tried to goad Anakin to kill him in a similar manner, not to mention mentioned in a very eager tone that Vader will soon become more powerful than either Yoda or himself).

On the topic of nationalization, the only time nationalization was ever brought up was via Imperialization, and even that was largely limited to those that had either gone against the Empire explicitly or otherwise were originally of the Separatists (at least, it was the case in the former Expanded Universe). They actually left various companies that either were loyal or otherwise had no major issues with the Empire alone, and in fact, they even managed to expand the Corporate Sector to 30,000 star systems and even managed to create the Corporate Sector Authority specifically to allow for transparent mercantilism to go on unabated, only asking for a yearly tribute in return. That kind of thing would actually be AGAINST fascism and/or national socialism, as they won’t tolerate any form of free markets at all, and would in fact point to the Galactic Empire being a pro-capitalist institution (and I mean that in a good way, obviously). If anything, the Old Republic came closer to actual nationalization as we know it via the Trade Federation (which before it became its own cartel was a branch in the main government meant to heavily regulate trade and cut down on any growth of mercantilism if the former Expanded Universe materials are to be believed). And despite what Biggs Darklighter said in that deleted scene to Luke Skywalker from A New Hope, there is literally no indication that the Empire had any intention of nationalizing any farms, moisture or otherwise (especially when the Imperial Handbook doesn’t even mention anything about moisture farms or small business proprieters, let alone nationalizing them. And believe me, considering they had absolutely no qualms against mentioning speciecide as a government policy in the handbook, if they wanted to state their aims at nationalizing something like the Lars Homestead, they would have mentioned it directly within the Imperial Handbook, especially when that book was written around the time of A New Hope in-universe.). And don’t get me started on immunity spheres established by the Empire where it is forbidden for Imperial soldiers or ships are allowed to set foot in there, one of which included the Wheel, which is essentially a space station version of Las Vegas.

Ideology:

Now, let’s get into the ideology of the Empire and that of fascism, or more specifically National Socialism, in-depth. Let’s look, for starters, at the 1925 Nazi Platform:

1. We demand the union of all Germans in a Great Germany on the basis of the principle of self-determination of all peoples.

2. We demand that the German people have rights equal to those of other nations; and that the Peace Treaties of Versailles and St. Germain shall be abrogated.

3. We demand land and territory (colonies) for the maintenance of our people and the settlement of our surplus population.

4. Only those who are our fellow countrymen can become citizens. Only those who have German blood, regardless of creed, can be our countrymen. Hence no Jew can be a countryman.

5. Those who are not citizens must live in Germany as foreigners and must be subject to the law of aliens.

6. The right to choose the government and determine the laws of the State shall belong only to citizens. We therefore demand that no public office, of whatever nature, whether in the central government, the province, or the municipality, shall be held by anyone who is not a citizen.

We wage war against the corrupt parliamentary administration whereby men are appointed to posts by favor of the party without regard to character and fitness.

7. We demand that the State shall above all undertake to ensure that every citizen shall have the possibility of living decently and earning a livelihood. If it should not be possible to feed the whole population, then aliens (non-citizens) must be expelled from the Reich.

8. Any further immigration of non-Germans must be prevented. We demand that all non-Germans who have entered Germany since August 2, 1914, shall be compelled to leave the Reich immediately.

9. All citizens must possess equal rights and duties.

10. The first duty of every citizen must be to work mentally or physically. No individual shall do any work that offends against the interest of the community to the benefit of all.

Therefore we demand:

11. That all unearned income, and all income that does not arise from work, be abolished.

12. Since every war imposes on the people fearful sacrifices in blood and treasure, all personal profit arising from the war must be regarded as treason to the people. We therefore demand the total confiscation of all war profits.

13. We demand the nationalization of all trusts.

14. We demand profit-sharing in large industries.

15. We demand a generous increase in old-age pensions.

16. We demand the creation and maintenance of a sound middle-class, the immediate communalization of large stores which will be rented cheaply to small tradespeople, and the strongest consideration must be given to ensure that small traders shall deliver the supplies needed by the State, the provinces and municipalities.

17. We demand an agrarian reform in accordance with our national requirements, and the enactment of a law to expropriate the owners without compensation of any land needed for the common purpose. The abolition of ground rents, and the prohibition of all speculation in land.

18. We demand that ruthless war be waged against those who work to the injury of the common welfare. Traitors, usurers, profiteers, etc., are to be punished with death, regardless of creed or race.

19. We demand that Roman law, which serves a materialist ordering of the world, be replaced by German common law.

20. In order to make it possible for every capable and industrious German to obtain higher education, and thus the opportunity to reach into positions of leadership, the State must assume the responsibility of organizing thoroughly the entire cultural system of the people. The curricula of all educational establishments shall be adapted to practical life. The conception of the State Idea (science of citizenship) must be taught in the schools from the very beginning. We demand that specially talented children of poor parents, whatever their station or occupation, be educated at the expense of the State.

21. The State has the duty to help raise the standard of national health by providing maternity welfare centers, by prohibiting juvenile labor, by increasing physical fitness through the introduction of compulsory games and gymnastics, and by the greatest possible encouragement of associations concerned with the physical education of the young.

22. We demand the abolition of the regular army and the creation of a national (folk) army.

23. We demand that there be a legal campaign against those who propagate deliberate political lies and disseminate them through the press. In order to make possible the creation of a German press, we demand:

(a) All editors and their assistants on newspapers published in the German language shall be German citizens.

(b) Non-German newspapers shall only be published with the express permission of the State. They must not be published in the German language.

(c) All financial interests in or in any way affecting German newspapers shall be forbidden to non-Germans by law, and we demand that the punishment for transgressing this law be the immediate suppression of the newspaper and the expulsion of the non-Germans from the Reich.

Newspapers transgressing against the common welfare shall be suppressed. We demand legal action against those tendencies in art and literature that have a disruptive influence upon the life of our folk, and that any organizations that offend against the foregoing demands shall be dissolved.

24. We demand freedom for all religious faiths in the state, insofar as they do not endanger its existence or offend the moral and ethical sense of the Germanic race.

The party as such represents the point of view of a positive Christianity without binding itself to any one particular confession. It fights against the Jewish materialist spirit within and without, and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our folk can only come about from within on the pinciple:

COMMON GOOD BEFORE INDIVIDUAL GOOD

25. In order to carry out this program we demand: the creation of a strong central authority in the State, the unconditional authority by the political central parliament of the whole State and all its organizations.

There's plenty other sources for Nazi or fascist ideology such as table talks, but this should suffice.

Now, let’s look at each of these tidbits, one by one, and compare them to various sources within Star Wars relating to the Empire:

1. Not sure why the Empire would even need to demand that as a manifesto. It’s pretty clear the Empire was pretty much united as it is. Heck, a majority of people actually voted IN the Empire in the first place during Palpatine’s Declaration of a New Order. And I don’t think Palpatine demanded for a specific group of people to be united, just the galaxy. In fact, Palpatine doesn’t even MENTION other galaxies in said speech, nor does the Imperial Handbook voice any plans to conquer any nearby satellite galaxies, not even the Rishi Maze which is the closest galaxy satellite to that of the galaxy the Empire was situated in.

2. Again, nowhere, in either the Declaration of a New Order OR any other policy (Imperial Handbook or Imperial Sourcebook) does it even imply that they wanted equal rights with the other galaxies. Not to mention since the Republic, the Empire’s immediate predecessor, actually WON the prior war, there’s literally nothing there that’s even remotely similar to Nazi Germany there, especially the revoking of a treaty (now, that being said, the First Order might have similarities there). Heck, the Empire didn’t even need to pay reparations either, since, again, they won the Clone Wars.

3. Okay, that might actually be a similarity (though not necessarily the demanding part, just colonization as a whole). However, even there, lots of countries at the time engaged in colonialism, and none of them were actually fascist.

4. No mention whatsoever about any restrictions against people holding citizenship due to being a separate species. Heck, as a matter of fact, the Empire accepted taxes from even the likes of the Ugnaughts if one of the Marvel Comics is to be believed, which implies that even the likes of aliens, while ultimately having second-class citizenship, nonetheless are recognized as being citizens and actually having citizenship. Oh, and at one point, the Empire actually managed to save a sentient alien species from being hunted down upon discovering said alien race was in fact sentient.

5. See 4 above.

6. See 4 and 5 above. In fact, probably the only thing that’s even remotely similar about this point is the bit about citizenry being the ones who choose the government, and even then, that just goes without saying for any nation. Even America demands that only citizens participate in the voting process, and we’re the farthest thing from a fascist country right now and for most of its history. And as far as corruption, well, yeah, even here in America, we demand pretty high moral standards of our politicians. It just goes without saying.

7. Nowhere was it even remotely implied that the Empire be mandated to kick out any aliens (well, both literal aliens the figurative term of being excluded from citizenship solely based on their race) if they fail to feed and clothe anyone.

8. Yeah, considering the Emperor allowed for Intergalactic Passports, not to mention the Imperial Senate as well, it’s highly unlikely he had any problems with immigration into the Empire so long as it was legalized.

9. Don’t recall the Empire mentioning anything about equal rights, actually, whether for or against them.

10. Doesn’t really mention much in terms of sources anything about the Empire actually mandating citizenry work physically or mentally for the benefit of all. It does mention making an effort to be loyal to the Empire, but beyond that, nothing that indicates that the citizenry engage in what is essentially slave labor (and I mean those who weren’t imprisoned).

11. Nowhere does the Empire even remotely mention anything about income relating to work or any unearned income, whether it be the Imperial Handbook or anywhere else.

12. Yeah, considering the Empire built up its military for defense of its Empire from any internal and external threats, I highly doubt the Empire would have even approved of what was essentially an anti-war statement in there, especially confiscating war profits from soldiers.

13. Other than the bit about Imperialism (which doesn’t even demand the nationalization of all firms, just those that went against the Empire), it really doesn’t match up.

14. Nowhere is it even remotely implied, even under the bit about Imperialization, that the Empire demanded that large companies share profits among each other.

15. Never commented on old age pensions at all, and considering the Empire makes clear they do not want anything except the most basic elements, I really doubt they’d support increasing old age pensions.

16. See 14 above. Also, the Imperial Handbook doesn’t even imply that the Empire intends to nationalize stuff like moisture farming on Tatooine. Nor, for that matter, does it even remotely imply wanting to communalize various storefronts or renting large storefronts to small tradesmen.

17. Again, absolutely no mention whatsoever, at least in the Legends universe, that the Empire ever wanted to do agrarian reforms or nationalize farms, not to mention making land speculation and ground rents illegal.

18. Other than the bit about traitors (which, BTW, even our constitution demands the death of any people who commit treason, so it’s just goes without saying), the Empire really doesn’t mention anything about waging any war on those people, or demanding for their death.

19. Other than the bit about having prisoners undergo slavery, it really doesn’t seem to impact prior laws at all, and it certainly doesn’t use materialism as a reason.

20. The only thing that really comes to mind regarding this point is COMPNOR, in particular the Education branch of the Coalition of Progress branch and possibly the Sub-Adult Unit, regarding education (which even that comes across as being more similar to the AFJROTC than, say, the Hitler Youth). Other than that, there’s no similarities at all to the Empire’s method of education compared to that of what was demanded here. That bullet point if anything comes closer to what the creed of the Umbrella Organization from Resident Evil, or more specifically the Wesker Children, promoted, or even the Jedi’s taking of younglings.

21. Other than maybe bits relating to the Imperial Military (and let’s face it, with any military, you need to be in pretty top shape to be in it, as otherwise, you won’t last very long), there’s little to suggest the Empire demanded an emphasis on “national health.”

22. Seriously? Do you really think the Empire would just abandon/gut its entire military apparatus in favor of what is essentially a citizen militia? There’s definitely no similarity here at all.

23. Ah, yeah, about that, even Freedom of the Press in our Constitution specifically states that slander is not covered under that inalienable right, meaning we don’t have the freedom to propagate lies.

a. Kind of goes without saying, really.

b. I don’t recall the Empire ever indicating that they had any particular problem with what language HoloNet sources were to be given in, or requiring specific permission to actually publish them in a different language.

c. Doesn’t mention anything about turning a profit in newspaper industries either, whether for or against it.

24. Regarding religion, the Empire largely maintains religious freedom, especially if it doesn’t act against the interests of the Empire. The only ones who receive any negative stigma are the Jedi, and even there, there have been Jedi who become dark side converts and become Inquisitorious. I won’t comment on the Christianity bit since that religion doesn’t even exist in Star Wars.

25. Other than maybe the bit about the Emperor’s absolute status, there’s little similarity regarding the Empire to that of Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy with that point (and for the record, even with the Magna Carta, kings, queens, emperors, and empresses had absolute status at various points, in fact, probably the only ones I can think of where they didn’t have absolute status and were figureheads is with Great Britain today and Japan for most of the time barring of course Imperial Japan during World War II). Heck, even there, the existence of the Corporate Sector Authority and various immunity spheres shows the Empire doesn’t necessarily adhere to an absolute status regarding central authority. Heck, even there, the Emperor does in fact take advice from several of his officers rather than blowing it off out of some self-inflated sense of superiority.

So yeah, at most, there’s just below half that actually have any resemblance to the 25 planks, and even those that match up have also had similarities to those in countries that obviously weren’t fascist, communist, or anything like that. Also, there’s zero indication that the Empire even supports abortion towards inferiors or anything like that, or has any problems with disabled people (in fact, one of the Empire’s most loyal supporters was a cripple. And I’m not referring to Vader, or even Grand Admiral Teshik.). Not to mention, do you really think a fascist or communist, both of which are totalitarian ideologies, would so much as even THINK of creating something they would have little amount of control over such as, I don’t know, immunity spheres, or even the Corporate Sector Authority’s explicitly being a place of free trade and free market? In fact, you can find this and plenty of other information about these elements to the Empire here (http://www.galacticempiredatabank.com/RebProLies.html).

So why is the Empire considered fascist?

To answer that question, you need to go back to the time Star Wars was being created, as well as look into the background of the franchise’s creator, George Walton Lucas.

You see, George Lucas was a raving leftist, of the stripe seen during the 1960s where they viewed protests as an excuse to riot for no real reason beyond platitudes. Heck, he even admitted as much in various interviews, including a 2012 interview with Charlie Rose on CBS, where he outright admitted that he got his left-wing views from growing up in 1960s San Francisco which was a hotbed with various radical elements, including anti-Vietnam War protests as you can see here: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/george-lucas-billionaire-down-on-capitalism/ (the same interview also had him making some negative statements on Capitalism, more on that later). Oh, and he also at one point described his ideal movie making studio philosophy as being “the workers have the means of production” (Skywalking, p.246), meaning that at the very least he flirted with Marxism, and later on during another interview with Charlie Rose (you know the one: where he infamously compared Disney after the sale to “white slavers”) actually implied that Soviet filmmaking at the height of the Cold War was preferable to the American Hollywood model (ie, the Soviet filmmaking where you get a bullet in the head if you criticize the people in charge) as you can see here: http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/ken-shepherd/2016/01/04/george-lucas-soviet-directors-had-more-freedom-i-had. In fact, during the Vietnam War, he outright rooted for the Vietcong to win. Back then, leftists often denounced any conservative principles as being “fascist” or “nazi-esque”, mostly because of a misnomer promoted by the likes of Josef Stalin shortly after World War II where he denounced the Nazis as being “right-wing” both to paint actual right-wing groups in a very negative light (the Nazis and fascists in reality were part of the far-left, and they merely viewed the Communists as rivals for control over the left, not actual feuding enemies in terms of ideology), and also as a CYA attempt to deflect any potential blame from reaching Communism. An infamous example of attempts at comparing conservative principles or conservatives to Nazis or fascists was during the HUAC investigations as well as McCarthy’s investigations into Soviet infiltration and subversion of America (which, BTW, contrary to popular belief, McCarthy had no involvement in HUAC, as he was part of the Senate, while HUAC was strictly House of Representatives territory, and he had nothing to do with the Hollywood Blacklist), where quite a few people often accused their accusers as being Nazis to deflect any potential blame of being communists, even when confronted with direct evidence to their Communist ties. This sort of thing is still in existence even today, as evidenced with the aforementioned quote from Snapper Carr from Supergirl, heck, Neo/Thomas Anderson’s “Gestapo crap” comment to the agents in the first Matrix movie even. In fact, as I alluded to earlier in this post, he even had particular ire against former President Richard Milhous Nixon, where he claimed he was responsible for causing Vietnam to happen (a lie, since Vietnam occurred under JFK and LBJ’s watch), running for a third term (of which he expressed no interest in such an idea), and probably also the fact that he exposed Alger Hiss as a Communist spy and indicted him for perjury. In fact, Lucas during the 2008 election cycle even called Barack Obama a hero (and for the record, Obama's policies came far closer to actual fascism than the Empire did), and in 2012, he also indicated he was, among other things, “a dyed-in-the-wool 99%er before there was such a thing” in an unsubtle attempt at promoting solidarity for the Occupy Wall Street group (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/magazine/george-lucas-red-tails.html).

Now, taking all of that into account, let’s start with the beginnings of Star Wars. It was 1973, Vietnam was still ongoing, and Richard Nixon is embattled with Watergate. Lucas decides to make Star Wars, then-titled The Star Wars, partially due to the fact that he wanted to cover Vietnam, and partially in response to Nixon’s Watergate bit (note, Star Wars was originally planned to be the third in a thematic trilogy dealing with denouncing America’s involvement in Vietnam, with the first film being American Graffiti, and the second being Apocalypse Now [yes, Lucas was in fact supposed to make that movie]. However, while American Graffiti played and performed as well as he wanted it to, he ultimately wasn’t able to complete Apocalypse Now before Warner Bros. shut down his studio American Zoetrope due to uncertainty regarding the film as well as the previous failure of THX 1138, so he decided to make Star Wars, his planned third film, early, and specifically include elements from Apocalypse Now.). Among the first drafts for the film included a statement on yellow sheets that detailed the theme for the film, which basically said that the Rebels, or, technically speaking, Aquilae, was supposed to be similar to a “small independent country like North Vietnam” that was being threatened with conquest, and that the Empire was supposed to be like America in 1983 (not those exact words, but he said that it was like America 10 years from when he said it, which at the time was 1973), essentially its emperor had been assassinated by “Nixonian gangsters” and elevated to power in a rigged election, and creating a total thought control police state (ironic, since the only character in the movie to actually engage in total thought control at all was Obi-Wan Kenobi with his little “Jedi Mind Trick.”), and even states that they are at a turning point, whether they support Fascism or Revolution (and based on his overall comments, I don’t think he’s referring to the American War for Independence). Although some things from that draft were changed, the overall themes based on Lucas’s later comments haven’t changed at all, which also included the whole Rebel Alliance angle. However, apparently this wasn’t enough, as when making Return of the Jedi, he decided to make the whole Vietcong promotion theme a bit more overt by having Emperor Palpatine’s best troops be taken down by what are essentially animate Teddy Bears known as the Ewoks.

Eventually, about a decade after Jedi, he decided to make the Prequel Trilogy of Star Wars, and he went even further than Return of the Jedi. Basically he made the Republic essentially a bastion of liberal-style nanny state big government, and the “Senate” was closer to the United Nation in Space, or Star Federation from Star Trek. Oh, and the government was so deeply broken, apparently not being able to enforce anti-slavery laws within what was technically its territory. The Jedi were depicted as essentially being Ivory Tower types, as well. Oh, and Supreme Chancellor Finis Valorum was specifically modeled after then-President Bill Clinton as a beleaguered man (before the infamous Monica Lewinsky scandal, I should add), which Terrence Stamp, Valorum's actor, even noted. And remember when I mentioned that Lucas’s 2012 interview with Charlie Rose had him mentioning how he was anti-Capitalist and adhered to a more Communistic approach to democracy? Well he starts showing hints at this with the Trade Federation. Speaking of which, the whole Trade Federation plotline and their invading Naboo was largely made in response to the Republican Revolution of 1994 that was made in direct response to some far-left policies Clinton was making, including tax increases as well as the NAFTA agreement, policies that were obviously unpopular among the electorate. Around this time, Newt Gingrich made a speech called Contract with America, which proposed among other things requiring a three-fifths majority before making tax increases. This all occurred around the time Lucas was on his eighth day draft-writing what would become the film. Lucas, as you can probably guess, was not at all happy with this, and decided to use the Trade Federation as being essentially strawmen for the Republican Revolution regarding motives and overall characterization (and he doesn’t even attempt to be subtle about it, either: The leader of the Trade Federation, Nute Gunray, for example, had his name being taken from two sources: The first from Newt Gingrich himself, obviously, and the second being Ronald Reagan, the latter was mostly out of revenge for SDI being labeled Star Wars, even though it was Ted Kennedy and the leftist media who called it that in the first place; and Lott Dod, the Neimoidian senator representing the Trade Federation, was named after Chris Lott, the GOP leader in 1997.).

But, oh, that’s still not far enough for him. The very next movie, Attack of the Clones, makes Lucas’s anti-war political views extremely apparent by revealing that, for the thousand years the Republic existed, or at least the thousand years since the Ruusan Reformation if we go by Legends, it turns out the Republic lacked a military of any kind at all. Worse, the film also obviously tries to paint even trying to form a military at all as being an inherently bad thing and would mean the loss of freedom and creating new fear, especially when Padme Amidala, as a clear expy of the Left’s view of Hillary Clinton here, goes to Coruscant as a Senator and tries to vote against the motion (and pre-release materials alongside the movie even goes as far as to imply that Padme may have in fact LIED to the Senate by implying heavily that the pro-Military senators were responsible for her near-assassination, when she in fact suspected that Count Dooku of the Separatists was responsible for the hit). Oh, and if the Trade Federation’s villainous role in the prior movie didn’t tip you off to Lucas’s anti-Capitalist agenda, this movie broadcasts it in a huge billboard by having the main villains, the Separatists, basically being composed of corporations, even explicitly giving their names to the cause, which besides the Trade Federation included among others the InterGalactic Banking Guild, the Corporate Alliance, the Commerce Guild, and the Techno Union. There may have also been a few hints at 9/11 being staged for a coup, especially in the ending, although given the timing, not to mention Attack of the Clones most likely entered development before 9/11 occurred, he was probably intending for that to be the Gulf of Tonkin Incident as an inspiration if anything.

Even that wasn’t far enough for Lucas, apparently, as Lucas then had in Episode III more overt Bush-bashing by essentially implying that the War in Iraq was an excuse for Republicans to take over America and turn it into a fascist Empire (really.), and overall seemed like it was pushing an anti-War viewpoint that you would expect to find on MSNBC or MoveOn.org for more indirect instances of Bush-bashing. For more direct indications, there’s Padme’s “So this is how liberty dies… with thunderous applause…” shortly after Palpatine declares himself Emperor, apparently done in relation to the Patriot Act, and then there’s the infamous instance in the movie where Vader and Obi-Wan confront each other on Mustafar. Specifically, Vader yells “If you are not with me, then you are my enemy!” in a very thinly-veiled reference to President George W. Bush’s “You’re either with us or the terrorists” line on September 20, 2001, which was directed to the United Nations, not to the American citizenry. Obi-Wan, in response, declares “Only a Sith deals in absolutes.”, one of the most stupid and confusing lines in the movie, especially when it made the Jedi seem like they were the moral relativists and postmodernists, maybe even moral nihilists. Apparently this two bits had been added in fairly early on, around the time of the Iraq War, and largely because of various protests in the Bay Area against the war and Bush, in an eerily similar manner to the protests against Vietnam and Nixon before then, and apparently thought Americans would have agreed with Obi-Wan because of this, thinking they thought nuance was lost from Bush’s “black and white worldview.” Oh, and he also promoted the movie during the 2005 Cannes film festival. You might remember that particular film festival, it was most infamous for its various film moguls using the festival and the showing their films to essentially flip the bird against Bush (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/sith-invites-bush-comparisons/2/). Lucas, to be fair, acknowledges that he didn’t necessarily plan on Bush being the subject of Star Wars, but that’s solely because he already had Nixon in mind before Bush was even on his radar. He nonetheless compared Vietnam to Iraq claiming the comparisons were unbelievable (well, he’s right about one thing: thinking there is any comparison between those two wars beyond our trying to stop a grave threat is pretty unbelievable), and he divulged further into his ideas of democracy turning into a dictatorship (they’re one and the same, if you ask me, and I don’t mean that in a good way for either), by basically implying that Robespierre’s France, of all things, was good or at least preferable to Napoleon’s France, or his implying something similar to the Weimar Republic to Nazi Germany. Not to mention most of the comparisons don’t even work, and neither does the claim that wars make dictatorships and destroy democracy (America was forged from war against Great Britain, and we aren’t even close to a dictatorship). Heck, some Expanded Universe materials around the time of Revenge of the Sith even had references to the Triad of Evil, in an unsubtle reference to the Axis of Evil. And in the Clone Wars cartoons (the 3D animation one, not the one with the animation style that was similar to Samurai Jack) there was a character named Saw Gererra whose basis for that Marxist terrorist Che Guevera were as lacking of subtlety as Lott Dod’s basis for Chris Lott was.

Closing statements

Well, I’ve been an Empire supporter for a little over a year now. Not exactly particularly happy with this development, since I go by a rule that I never, ever root for villains, and I was forced to break that rule with the Empire. The reason I had to make that exception dealt with Lucas’s statements about how the Empire was meant to represent America (and more specifically, when How Star Wars Conquered the Universe by Chris Taylor revealed that even the Rebel Alliance was supposed to be Vietcong expies. I don’t root for communists, because they tried to exterminate those of my religion, or any religion, for that matter, all for the sake of atheism, which I maintain is no religion due to a lack of gods or supernatural elements). Either way, I figured I’d set the record straight regarding the Empire and Fascism, because quite frankly, barring the uniforms, they really have no similarities to actual fascism (heck, they don’t even practice any socialist principles while the Old Republic seems to be more socialistic/communistic in nature). If anyone disagrees, fine by me, but I suggest you try to find any sources that definitively match up with Nazi ideology in a very precise manner, and more than just uniforms.

Author's note:

I'm basing this mostly on the Legends version of the Empire, mostly because, quite frankly, I'm not exactly fond of what's become of Star Wars under Disney, even speaking as someone who is a Disney fan.

#meta #Star Wars #anti-george lucas

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