Beyond - Legends Atonement- a Jacen Solo Fanfic

Sorry, I am still way behind! Just finished page 2...I love the hawk-bat story. "Everyone can be saved; we just have to continue trying..." Nice line.

Gaven is an interesting character...I keep thinking there is much more to his story than we've seen so far...

 

SiouxFan I´m glad you still have fun with it.
Yeah I liked that line too, I really hate how quick everyone gave up on Jacen in the books.

I´m glad you like Gaven, in the second part there will be a few flashbacks for him.

 

Finally finished! Good stuff...I like how we got a bit more of Gaven's backstory. And I liked the flashbacks with Jaina. Wish the trip to Asterian would have gone better...I was starting to like Briala and Thorne.

Looking forward to the next installment. One thing: when writing dialogue, it is customary to start a new paragraph for each new speaker. I know it makes the story seem longer, but it really makes it easier to read. Good luck!

 

SiouxFan I´m glad you liked it. Yeah the flashbacks with Jaina where nice to write, it was a quiet spontaneus idea to include them.
I´ve just stared the second part of the fic, if you are interested:
http://boards.theforce.net/threads/forgiveness-a-jacen-solo-fanfic.50041915/

The prologue also revels a bit about that two characters...

 

Just finished - that was so good!! I like the way you write Jacen, he feels like himself. Also, it took me around 5 chapters to realize Gaven was an OC. That is a good OC, because he was in the story so seamlessly, melding with the characters and universe so well I didn't know the difference. Same goes for Nev and Thorne. I really liked Thorne, the old republic jedi being the only (master) who would know Jacen was working for the light was great, and I hope he didn't die. I was grieved when Briala died, I liked her much. Probably my favorite part was when Jacen saw Anakin, and Anakin forgave him.
I will now read the sequel!

 

Thanks, I´m glad you enjoyed reading and my take on Jacen´s characterisation.

That´s a huge compliment, I tried my best to make my OCs fit into the established universe. I´m glad you like them. Yeah its kinda ironic that Thorne believes in Jacen, while the new Jedi oder, sans Gaven, does not.

Thanks for the nice review.
I hope you enjoy the sequel.

 

Hello!

As you saw I was all over this thread for the past few days, and I really liked what I read. I'm not going to elaborate too much here because I still have one-and-a-half stories to read in this series before the OTP challenge deadline, but here are three aspects I really liked.

The flashbacks to Jacen's prison cell. This was very well handled: who came, who didn't come, what they said or didn't say, what Jacen himself said and how he slowly revealed his visions about Allana, in parallel to his reveals in the present time to Gaven and Thorne. I really enjoyed how you developed him here, how he is going back to his old self – and the moment when you brought in Anakin's Force ghost was the icing on the cake. He couldn't come to the prison cell, but he did meet Jacen however briefly in the netherworld.

Gaven and Nev. These are such wonderful OCs you created, and we had a lot of time in the story to discover them and get the complete grasp of the depth you gave them. I am very curious about Nev, in particular – there must be a reason she never uses her full name, and I'm sure it will be revealed in the sequels. And, speaking of OCs, I'm curious to know more about Thorne too. I sense that there is more to him than what has been revealed, and I'm sure that I'll find out too.

Lastly, the Lost Sons. This is such a great concept and, beyond the gut-punching reminder to Jacen of all the terrible things he has done, it created such a fantastic storytelling opportunity in this fic and (I hope) in future ones. The idea of brutal, leaderless soldiers roaming around the galaxy looking for "a way out" is chilling and very realistic at the same time. Again, I'm curious about the man who appeared to be their leader, and I wonder if we'll be seeing more of him in the future.

See you in the sequel thread

 

Thanks I´m glad you enjoyed the story.
Yeah my idea with the flashbacks was to have them be kind of a parallel to what is happening in the present time and his interactions with Gaven. I´m glad you enjoyed how I evolved Jacen over time with him going from being completly broken to his former, uncorrupted, self. Seeing Anakin again defenetly helped him with that as well.

Thanks, nice that you enjoy these two. Originally I planned for them to have much smaller roles but they really grew on me while I wrote the story. With Nev´s real name, yeah I will reveal that at some point in the future. There is also more to Thorne then he lets on.

I´m glad you like my idea with the lost sons. I felt it strange that in SW we only ever see the main villians get killed or redeemed but its rarely ever looked at what happens to the common soldiers under their command. Given how many wars are fought in the GFFA I think there are probably many soldiers like them, especially on the loosing side. The leader or ideal they fought for is gone and they are hated for having stood on the wrong side of the war, which can lead them to become mercenaries like the Lost Sons, and do terrible things to survive or as you said "find a way out" of the mess their lives have turned into. Its freightening and sad at the same time.

Thanks for commenting, I hope you will enjoy the sequel as well.

 

I have read the first seven chapters a couple of days ago and, while formatting and other things are (still) messy - and yes, I know this has changed in the meantime...the story itself has so far been striking, poignant and it's easy to follow even for us who have not grown up with the Legends novels.

From everything I know (and I don't know all that much) I don't think that Jacen can be exactly redeemed for having killed Mara and I can see how this topic could be controversial. At the same time, I'm somewhat of a fan of his Disney canon counterpart and Anakin Skywalker as well, so I think that I will like him in my own little way as well. Plus, hey, he was once lectured by a birdwoman - another cool thing right there.

For one, his pain is incredibly strong here. He is clearly conflicted after the time he spent in jail and, while not torn between his two former identities, it almost appears that he's searching for a new one. And there are a million roads to take, millions of hyperlanes. The total redemption might not be possible, but there are things he can do to ease his mind and to make his burden more bearable. Perhaps even make the Galaxy a slightly better place for his lover and their love child, as well as many others?

But he's got a great man by his side, one who does not judge him.

Gaven is an amazing, amazing character and his and Nev's story seems to be hinting some unresolved issues and something written between the lines already. The fact that they're not these super-young cuties meant to be poster children, rather two people closer to the middle age than adolescence is something I really like. And Nev is more mysterious than Gaven. Hmmm, will fill that for later.

Reading more whenever I have the time.

 

Thanks, I´m glad you like it.
I will defenetly rework the formatting in the first part at some point, sorry that its still somewhat messy right now.

Yeah its true, that Jacen will probably never be able to truly put his dark past and the shadow of Darth Caedus behind him, but he defenetly can try to attone for his sins and find some peace and comfort in that. Like you said, helping other people and trying to heal some of the wounds he has caused, as good as he can. As Gaven said it might not be enough, but its at least something.

Yeah, Gaven is defenetly the companion/friend Jacen needs as he doesn´t hate or judge Jacen and is able to see and accept Jacen´s genuine desire to attone for his sins, same with Nev. I´m glad you like them.

Thanks for commenting.

 

Read this one some time ago and have been late in commenting, but I just got to the end of Forgiveness the other day. So it may be about time.

I really like how nothing about Jacen's road to recovery -- of whatever sort he can find -- is quick or easy in this series. He's had literal years to sort out Caedus from himself, and is determined on that front. But the idea of a way forward is really difficult for him to even think of, and that's especially true in Book 1 here.

As with the later installments, Gaven and Nev are the best! I really like that Gaven isn't some kind of perfect Jedi and has his own flaws and past mistakes. But that gives him a perspective that others may not have -- and in the case of this mission, he's better suited to dealing with Jacen than the Jedi who were more directly hurt by Caedus's actions. And with the events around the Lost Sons, we get to see a bit of the difficulty that Gaven himself has with the dark side. But there's also the side of him that's willing to climb out of the despair over his failures and look to others, as seen in his rescue of Leah. Anyway, yes -- seconding all the Gaven fans!

Nev is great in her willingness to be along for this worst of roadtrips. It's fun to see more and more of her relationship to Gaven develop as the story moves along; they obviously mean the world to each other but of course it's not simple because their lives haven't been simple.

And Thorne is such a fascinating, multi-layered character. I really like how it was so difficult to know what to think of him throughout. He has a lot of good traits, but also some really suspicious behavior. The windstorm of death also gives one a bit of pause.

Briala was also really likable in the little while that we got to know her, and I can see why the other characters were so devastated to lose her.

Anyway, had a great time reading this. I don't usually go in for this era of Legends, because a lot of the choices that were made really disappointed me. So it's really nice to find a good kind-of-antidote for all that grimness.

 

Oh, okay. Thanks for commenting now then.

Yeah that was always the idea. There are many fanfics that bring back characters but I feel they often make things too easy. I really wanted Jacen to struggle, to suffer on his way to healing. Make it clear that what he did, what he became still lingers, that his time as a Sith and near death has left permanent pysical and mental scars on him.

Glad you like him. Was inthially thinking about takeing a canon character for that role but there simply isn´t one who would work, they all have a grudge against Jacen, suffered under his actions. Gaven wasn´t involved in the second galatic civil war so he had a more neutral attitude towards Jacen, was able to give him the benefit of the doubt. And yes he has a dark side as well, triggered by his repressed anger and frustration at the injustices of the universe and his own inability to do anything about it, but as you said looking to others helps him stay in the light, most of the time.

Funny thing is Nev was inthially not supposed to have a large part at all, she would have just given Jacen and Gaven the information they needed and that´s it. But I tough takeing her along for the ride would offer some fun perspectives, she is after all the only non force user in the party and defenetly the most down to earth member, even moreso in the second part I would say.

Thanks, really tried to get Thorne pretty ambigous, especially at first. To have the reader wonder wether he is truly what he seems to be. Go a bit deeper into his character in the sequels where he has PoV chapters.

Yeah that´s a dark moment. Originally Nev was actually supposed to die there, but I just couldn´t bring myself to do that. So in a sense as a replacement Briala was born.

Glad you´ve enjoyed it. Yeah the post YJK Ledgends really becomes very dark and depressing at times so it was nice to add some light into it with my story. Thanks for your comment.