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Author	Topic: Half-Life - OC one-shot, just post-ROTS - Replies & cover art, 23/11
JediNemesis Registered: Mar '03	Date Posted: 8/10/06 7:32am Subject: Half-Life - OC one-shot, just post-ROTS - Replies & cover art, 23/11 - Date Edited: 11/23/06 7:05am (4 edits total) Edited By: JediNemesis
	Title: Half-Life Author: JediNemesis. Yours truly. Genre: Er . . . search me Characters: OC. Various canon characters mentioned in passing. Timeframe: just after ROTS. A/N: Written at work, which just goes to show what a hive of activity a university office is during the long vacation. Cover art [done by the author] DISCLAIMER: I haven't been paid for this. Actually, since I wrote it during working hours I suppose I have been paid for it but certainly not by Mr. Lucas. My name is Aud, and I have lived too long. I was born more than seven thousand years ago, before the dark times, before the taint of the Sith touched the galaxy. I was tiny and malformed, and born too early; my mother, unable to carry me to term, all but died herself. The medical droids, certain in their hopeless machine minds that I would not live unaided despite my near-miraculous lack of brain damage, grafted me into a mechanical support-body until such time as I would be strong enough to endure corrective surgery. They did not consider the possibility that when the time came I would not want to leave. But why would I have wanted it? My machine shell was warm and cosy, like a second womb, and piped air to my lungs and liquid food to my stomach without my lifting a finger. Imaging goggles let me see in more colours than the cramped human spectrum allowed. A vocoder unit let me speak, where before I had been mute. And the machine let me move. Spidering along on its six slender legs, its linkage to my nervous system let me enjoy the sensation of walking and running. When I was older I learnt to dance. My machine needed repairing like all machines, and every so often the shell needed expanding to fit my growing body, but after the first two or three times I learnt how to repair it myself. My mother told me how wonderful and unreal it was to see me do it: standing on four legs, the other two becoming arms as I undid fastenings and replaced components. She saw how dextrous I had become and taught me how to embroider the old-fashioned way, holding the material in one hand and the needle in another. I made blankets and quilts for the family; I draped a sheet over myself and played ghosts with my baby cousins. When I was a teenager I went to Coruscant, even then the shining centre of the galaxy, hitching a ride with a freighter captain in exchange for helping out in the galley. On the journey I made friends with two Jedi; their vocation seems to make them gravitate towards the isolated and the hurt. Technically I was both, although I seldom thought of myself as hurt and never as isolated. My machine was a layer of cushioning, not insulation, from the rest of the world; I had never known anything else. The Jedi told me long, dazzling tales of the worlds they had seen; the young one had an artistic streak and drew an intricate pattern of stars and dots over my outer shell. I worked and learned on Coruscant, eventually getting an official diploma as confirmation of the skills I already had. Say what you like about the city-dwellers, but they truly do accept anyone and everyone as one of themselves; the rush of life in the galactic capital is so frantic that there is little time to worry about the age, species, race or sex of those you deal with. When I set up my tiny repair business in the district they called the Strata, my first customers were attracted by the promise of fast, cheap work rather than the freak-value of something stuck on the boundary between human and droid. I fixed broken speeder guidance systems, float-cams, even rewired the occasional weapon. Most of the work was legal, which is about as much as any Coruscanti worker can swear to. It is sentimental of me to linger so over my oldest memories, but vast as my memory is, they still stand out clearer and brighter than most of the centuries since. I was young, the galaxy-spanning coalition that would become the Republic was in its infancy and growing stronger every day, and it was a time of hope and ambition. There have been so many dark times since; I can hardly be blamed for trying to pass them over. I suppose I was nearing eighty years old, my shell weathered but outwardly unchanged, when I had to confront the unpleasant question of my own mortality. My machine had kept my brain healthy as I aged, keeping it properly supplied with nutrient-rich blood even as my heart began to fail. It seemed only logical to let the machine do the job on its own, and so I let the misshapen organic body be degraded. Afterwards I was able to reduce the size of my shell again, becoming smaller and nimbler, as if I was a child again. Forty years after that the brain itself began to weaken. But a hundred and twenty years of tinkering with droid brains and instruments of dubious legality had given me an idea as to how to deal with it. I reconfigured a mind-wiper to map the brain patterns it extracted into an unformatted electronic synapse net, tested it on a half-psychotic astromech I had given up trying to fix, then installed the electronic neural structure into my shell and went under the wipe myself. As the memories were erased from my brain they were remapped into the machine network, with only a tiny delay. The blank brain quietly dissolved a little later. After that I suppose I was technically no longer human, but I never thought of myself as anyone or anything other than the same Aud I had always been. I carried on my repair business, dealing with customers who were mostly the children of my original patrons, then later I worked for their children and grandchildren as well. Time seemed to pass me by. Ageing and death were something that happened to other people. People have asked me: how did I survive so long a lifetime without succumbing to insanity? I can only answer that I lived it one day at a time. Things changed, but so gradually that I did not notice. I remember that the Sith emerged early in my life, and grew steadily more powerful over the centuries; I do not remember looking back and thinking how different things were. Reflection is a recent development for me. And how could I ever have wished to end my life then? There is so much left to see. I marvel at the contentment of normal humans, normal sentients, who know at some instinctive level that they will never see more than a tiny portion of our galaxy and yet do not die bitter or resentful. How could one lifetime ever be enough? Every so often I closed my little shop and went adventuring, spending some of the credits I had accumulated. I visited Alderaan, beautiful garden of the Middle Core, and Naboo, where I became fascinated by the weird geology of the planet and the holes that riddled its interior. I went caving, a light strapped to the top of my shell and a rope hitched to my waist, following the labyrinth of passages that lie just below the surface of the entire planet. I visited Cerea, and found it even lusher than Alderaan, but without the formalised intricacy of that world. I visited Ossus and the Temple of the Old Jedi Order; I remember being shown round the outer gardens and cloisters of the Temple by an awed apprentice who had studied the Jedi I had once befriended in his history lessons. Ossus was beautiful then, a haven of tranquillity dedicated to the Jedi Knights and their study of the Force. I visited Bespin and fell in love with the hallucinatory loveliness of its cloud systems, infinitely detailed and ever-changing. I worked there for a time, with the teams of technicians servicing the whale-bellied tankers that pump rethin from the gas giant’s compressed core. I have seen few things more awe-inspiring than a Bespin sunrise: curving whispers of cloud suddenly edged in incandescent gold and bronze as the sun crests the horizon. I saw the towering spires that rise from the Geonosian plains, hundreds of metres high, clouds clustering around the tips of the very highest. Regardless of the barbarity of their arena battles and the tyranny of those who rule, Geonosis remains an extraordinary world, whether seen from the surface or from space, behind its veil of glittering rings. I was back on Coruscant when the Sith War reached its peak. First devastation, as Ulic Qel-Droma’s Mandalorian army overran the city surface, then deathly quiet as the planet waited for a verdict in Qel-Droma’s very public trial. It was the first time in recorded history that the Senate-created designation of ‘crimes against civilisation’ had been invoked. It has only been invoked three times in the war-torn millennia since. Two of those charges were for the same atrocity, the war of Haruun Kal, in the past year . . . but that is another story and one I will not tell here. I was one of billions watching when Exar Kun walked into the Senate Rotunda like the king of the galaxy, holding a thousand Senators spellbound with the perversion of the Force the Jedi call the Dark Side. I remember the news of the Cron Nebula’s explosion and the lethal shockwave that scoured space clean for light-weeks around. Ossus was abandoned then, millennia’s-worth of history left behind as the Jedi Order scrambled to evacuate the planet. They succeeded, and few lives were lost, but I will never forget the real-time projection of the wavefront boiling through space and the image of Ossus blasted into sterility. Exar Kun killed himself rather than face capture, trial and execution by the Jedi and the Republic. There were rumours that something of his life-force remained, enshrined in the temple he had built to the glory of the Sith. If the rumours are true, then may his spirit spend many more aeons in limbo; few crimes can match the Sith War that he perpetrated and perpetuated. After the end of the Sith War, and the near-recurrence prevented by the sometime Jedi called Revan, I thought I had seen the worst that the galaxy had to offer. A thousand years ago, when the Battle of Ruusan saw what seemed to be the final eradication of the Sith, I dared to hope that there could be peace - real peace, not just the interval between wars - at last. I was wrong. How could I have been right? Peace and war, good and evil, light and dark; in each case the one is defined by the other. Compassion exists because there is suffering, mercy because there is wrongdoing, pity because there is loss. So I come at last to the present. My account is incomplete; how else could I pass over seven millennia in scarcely more time than it takes to say? Forgive me. My memory is failing; even the hardy, primitive technology that hosts my mind, far more durable than the quicksilver processors they use now, was not designed to last for longer than the half-life of the fissile material which powers my machine body, and I passed the half-life mark fifteen centuries ago. The present. The Clone Wars. The Republic, which remained solid in the face of Exar Kun, of Malak, of Bane, of generations of Dark Lords and centuries of war, has torn itself apart at last. From its ashes has risen the monstrosity that is the Empire, a cancer as twisted and as hideous as the man who rules it. Even the Empire’s genesis I could have outlived, had it not been for the lie that the Emperor chose to cover his atrocities. He put the blame on the Jedi Order – the most ancient, most sacred institution of the galaxy, older than the Republic itself. It pains me even to think the words, let alone write them, but I must: the Jedi are no more. Every last Knight and Master is dead for a crime that was never of their committing. Perhaps a few survive, in the remote backwaters of the galaxy, but they will not survive long. It may take weeks or years, but the Emperor has vowed to hunt them down. The galaxy cheered him when he said that. It was the final nail in the coffin; the final proof that I do not belong in this age. I have lived alongside the Jedi for seven thousand years, and seen them fight and die for the safety of others. It is a struggle not to feel guilty for having lived insolently on when so many innocents are dead. I have decided that it is time for me to die. This is not an attempt to justify what many cultures still see as a mortal sin. It is merely a record I leave behind of some little portion of what I have lived through, and a small act of defiance in the face of a tyranny worse than any I have seen in my long life. I have no debts. I have no children. That, if I regret anything, is what I regret. My name is Aud. And I have lived too long. Feedback, as always, much welcomed. It's good to be writing again. Nem -----signature----- BeTS Best Author '08 NEW Eleven Summers - http://boards.theforce.net/a/b1/29657584 Lightning and Diamonds - http://boards.theforce.net/a/b1/29251762 Into The Shining Day - http://boards.theforce.net/a/b1/29224914
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VaderLVR64 Title: Fan Fic Manager in Combat Boots Registered: Feb '04	Date Posted: 8/10/06 7:40am Subject: RE: Half-Life - OC one-shot, just post-ROTS
	Possibly one of the most powerful and touching things I've ever read. Period. Anywhere. I have decided that it is time for me to die. This is not an attempt to justify what many cultures still see as a mortal sin. It is merely a record I leave behind of some little portion of what I have lived through, and a small act of defiance in the face of a tyranny worse than any I have seen in my long life. I have no debts. I have no children. That, if I regret anything, is what I regret. My name is Aud. And I have lived too long. All I can say is WHOA! and -----signature----- Someone who loves me carries an M16. My baby boy wears combat boots.
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EmpressJade Registered: Sep '05	Date Posted: 8/10/06 7:46am Subject: RE: Half-Life - OC one-shot, just post-ROTS
	Wow, JediNemesis you've certainly have a great knowledge of the legendary Sith and the times of the Sith War, I was also fascinated by your OC Aud, the way you describe her is very moving and yet similar by that of Darth Vader with the artifical life systems supporting her. Haunting also but very touching story. Great work! -----signature----- "The Force, does indeed have a sense of humour." - Leia Organa (Allegiance) ~~~~~ Follow your dreams, you'll never know where they might lead you. ~Proud Master of SithGirl132
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JadeSolo Title: NSF managing NSWFF Registered: Sep '02	Date Posted: 8/10/06 4:02pm Subject: RE: Half-Life - OC one-shot, just post-ROTS
	It's good to be writing again. And you better write more! I'm always in awe of your work and even more so when it comes to your OCs. They're so different and with such rich backgrounds. Not to mention your style, which seems to combine a clinical archivist's tone with sadness and a creep factor that I can't even put into words. It is merely a record I leave behind of some little portion of what I have lived through, and a small act of defiance in the face of a tyranny worse than any I have seen in my long life. Loved this. I really hope to see more from you soon! -----signature----- "If you expect a kick in the balls and you get a slap in the face, it's a victory." "May God bless you and keep you always...I mean that in a civic deist way." -Prof. Siegel "No guaranteed money, but all guaranteed fun!"
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JediNemesis Registered: Mar '03	Date Posted: 8/11/06 2:46am Subject: RE: Half-Life - OC one-shot, just post-ROTS
	Hello! VaderLVR: Possibly one of the most powerful and touching things I've ever read. Period. Anywhere. [...] All I can say is WHOA! and What am I supposed to say to a review like that? Thanks, Vadey. It means a lot. It really does. EmpressJade: Wow, JediNemesis you've certainly have a great knowledge of the legendary Sith and the times of the Sith War, Our school library had a solitary copy of Tales of the Jedi: The Sith War, which I must've read about sixteen times. It's great stuff - pure SW. I was also fascinated by your OC Aud, the way you describe her is very moving and yet similar by that of Darth Vader with the artifical life systems supporting her. Even in a galaxy as advanced technologically as GFFA, there'd still be some cases that couldn't be cured straight off. Hence life-support. I'm glad you liked her Haunting also but very touching story. Great work! Thanks for reading! Hope to see you around the boards in future JadeSolo And you better write more! I've got several stories under construction I'm always in awe of your work and even more so when it comes to your OCs. They're so different and with such rich backgrounds. I really enjoyed creating Aud. No problems at all with her - she just seemed to come to life off the page. Not to mention your style, which seems to combine a clinical archivist's tone with sadness and a creep factor that I can't even put into words. I suppose there's something intrinsically creepy about a character whose life spans more than 7000 years, more so as she's not from a species who live that long naturally - she hasn't got the instinctive machinery to cope with that kind of lifespan, hence the somewhat detached tone. Trying to encompass the concept that you've lived through seven thousand actual years day by day might well drive you mad . . . Loved this. I really hope to see more from you soon! Thanks! My Muse seems to have woken up again . . . promise there'll be more along in the near-ish future Thanks everyone for reading and replying Nem -----signature----- BeTS Best Author '08 NEW Eleven Summers - http://boards.theforce.net/a/b1/29657584 Lightning and Diamonds - http://boards.theforce.net/a/b1/29251762 Into The Shining Day - http://boards.theforce.net/a/b1/29224914
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JediNemesis Registered: Mar '03	Date Posted: 8/14/06 2:22am Subject: RE: Half-Life - OC one-shot, just post-ROTS
	I'd forgotten how fast Saga moves. C'mon baby. Up we go! -----signature----- BeTS Best Author '08 NEW Eleven Summers - http://boards.theforce.net/a/b1/29657584 Lightning and Diamonds - http://boards.theforce.net/a/b1/29251762 Into The Shining Day - http://boards.theforce.net/a/b1/29224914
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Healer_Leona Registered: Jul '00	Date Posted: 8/14/06 3:15am Subject: RE: Half-Life - OC one-shot, just post-ROTS - Replies 8/11
	Wow!!! Incredibly powerful Nem. Wonderful descriptions. Amazing how fics can just feel so intense, how you can even feel their beauty. This is why I love fanfic. I know this is only a one shot, but any chance you can lift another one or dozen memories from Aud? -----signature----- To me, you're strange and you're beautiful, You'd be so perfect with me but you just can't see, You turn every head but you don't see me.
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Gina Registered: Jun '03	Date Posted: 8/14/06 4:00am Subject: RE: Half-Life - OC one-shot, just post-ROTS - Replies 8/11
	Forgive the brevity of this review, but you have left me absolutely speechless with this stellar piece. Bravo!! -----signature----- A long time ago in a house far away, there was a mother who was strong in the ways of the Force. She "forced" her sons to clean their room, she "forced" her sons to behave. - Part of a story written by my 9 yr. old sons I found while cleaning their desks
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JediNemesis Registered: Mar '03	Date Posted: 8/15/06 2:50am Subject: RE: Half-Life - OC one-shot, just post-ROTS - Replies 8/11
	Hello again Leona: Wow!!! Incredibly powerful Nem. Wonderful descriptions. Amazing how fics can just feel so intense, how you can even feel their beauty. This is why I love fanfic. Don't we all? Seriously, thanks I suppose it is intense . . . maybe that's the effect of trying to convey seven millennia's worth of experience in a couple of thousand words. I know this is only a one shot, but any chance you can lift another one or dozen memories from Aud? It's crossed my mind. After all, she has lived through most of the major events in galactic history, so there's some great possibilities. Gina: Forgive the brevity of this review, but you have left me absolutely speechless with this stellar piece. If I've left you speechless, that's as good as a rave feedback essay I'm flattered that you enjoyed it so much. Bravo!! Thanks! Thanks for reading, everybody Nem -----signature----- BeTS Best Author '08 NEW Eleven Summers - http://boards.theforce.net/a/b1/29657584 Lightning and Diamonds - http://boards.theforce.net/a/b1/29251762 Into The Shining Day - http://boards.theforce.net/a/b1/29224914
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the_wandering_shadow Registered: May '05	Date Posted: 9/3/06 4:43pm Subject: RE: Half-Life - OC one-shot, just post-ROTS - Replies 8/15
	This is the most unique thing you've ever written and that's saying a lot. Very imaginative and touching. It's always a pleasure to read your work. Compassion exists because there is suffering, mercy because there is wrongdoing, pity because there is loss. How very true. Great job, Nem -----signature----- Daniel Paul Harms (1958-2007) Yesterday I bought Harry Potter y Las Reliquas de la Muerte (Deathly Hallows in Spanish!) lordmaul13's PIC The new writing contest: http://boards.theforce.net/science_fiction_and_fantasy_books_and_comics/b10749/28279838/p1/?2
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JediNemesis Registered: Mar '03	Date Posted: 9/11/06 2:54am Subject: RE: Half-Life - OC one-shot, just post-ROTS - Replies 8/15
	Hello T_W_S This is the most unique thing you've ever written and that's saying a lot. Very imaginative and touching. It's always a pleasure to read your work. Interesting that several people have commented on the 'uniqueness' of this. And thanks so much for 'always a pleasure'. [i]Great job, Nem[i/] Thanks for stopping by, TWS Upsies we goesies . . . Nem -----signature----- BeTS Best Author '08 NEW Eleven Summers - http://boards.theforce.net/a/b1/29657584 Lightning and Diamonds - http://boards.theforce.net/a/b1/29251762 Into The Shining Day - http://boards.theforce.net/a/b1/29224914
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Pandora26 Registered: Apr '05	Date Posted: 10/14/06 7:42pm Subject: RE: Half-Life - OC one-shot, just post-ROTS - Replies 11 Sep - Date Edited: 10/14/06 7:45pm (2 edits total) Edited By: Pandora26
	To me, this feels as though Aud is trying to make a statement to sum up her centuries long life, but she has only a tiny space to fit it into. Her tone as she describes her life is both detached, clinical, and intense. The intensity comes from the fact that this is, well, a suicide note. It's just easy not to realize that. I also get the impression that Aud has seen more of the galaxy than most people, but that much of it, she has forgotten. Seven thousand years is a long time. And it's true, she isn't from a species that lives this long, but in a way she not only hasn't been truly "human," for a long time, she was in many ways never that to begin with. Because she was born with such severe deformities, I think Aud could never have a "normal" human life. Her shell was able to give her a life that was more than that. The shell itself is both droid and animal like--particularly the fact that it has six legs. But it interests me that her only regret is that she didn't have children, and I presume, probably never could have had them. (I doubt her biological body would have been capable of carrying a fetus to term, or maybe even conceiving one in the first place.) What interests me the most is what Aud has learned. That though eternal peace is a nice concept, it's not possible. And how light is not the same, without the dark to define it. -----signature----- Dante the Pilgrim/Virgil is my OTP
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JediNemesis Registered: Mar '03	Date Posted: 11/23/06 7:04am Subject: RE: Half-Life - OC one-shot, just post-ROTS - Replies 11 Sep
	Hey, a reader! And a wordy one at that . . . Pandora26 To me, this feels as though Aud is trying to make a statement to sum up her centuries long life, but she has only a tiny space to fit it into. Her tone as she describes her life is both detached, clinical, and intense. The intensity comes from the fact that this is, well, a suicide note. It's just easy not to realize that. Exactly. While life under the Empire could well be considered not worth living, it'd be practically a crime to leave no record of a life seven thousand years long - particularly a life that's spanned the birth of the Republic, the Sith War, and everything up to the Jedi Purge. At least Aud would consider it so. I also get the impression that Aud has seen more of the galaxy than most people, but that much of it, she has forgotten. I think it'd be fair to say that she's forgotten more about the galaxy than an average human would ever know. And who wouldn't regret that? Seven thousand years is a long time. And it's true, she isn't from a species that lives this long, but in a way she not only hasn't been truly "human," for a long time, she was in many ways never that to begin with. [...]I think Aud could never have a "normal" human life. Her shell was able to give her a life that was more than that. The shell itself is both droid and animal like--particularly the fact that it has six legs. I liked the six legs. In purely mechanical terms, it's eminently practical; three in a triangle can give stable balance, and then there's three to use as hands left over. But it does give a somewhat insectoid aspect to Aud's mode of moving. But it interests me that her only regret is that she didn't have children, and I presume, probably never could have had them. (I doubt her biological body would have been capable of carrying a fetus to term, or maybe even conceiving one in the first place.) Certainly not bringing one to term; I don't know about conception. But there's always adoption, and possibly even (given a little black-market biotech) genetic children, given the technology available in GFFA. What I was thinking of more is that even though children are plausible, Aud's never had a family out of choice. Because what human child would want to be mothered by a metal-shelled insect? Aud's shell is one-way; she can see faces, body language and so on, but others can't see hers. I think Aud would have loved to have children, to be able to show them the marvels of the galaxy - but chose not to, for their sake. What interests me the most is what Aud has learned. That though eternal peace is a nice concept, it's not possible. And how light is not the same, without the dark to define it. If there was no war, people wouldn't appreciate peace for the wonder it is. In the words of Joni Mitchell, you don't know what you've got till it's gone. Thanks for the reply; most appreciated. On a side note, I've been doing cover art for my fics for quite a while now, but only today have I got round to putting them up. One of the first batch to get done was this story, and so I've edited the cover art into the first post. Enjoy Nem -----signature----- BeTS Best Author '08 NEW Eleven Summers - http://boards.theforce.net/a/b1/29657584 Lightning and Diamonds - http://boards.theforce.net/a/b1/29251762 Into The Shining Day - http://boards.theforce.net/a/b1/29224914
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