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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Legacy - posting for a new fanfic author who I think is very good. Please read!

Discussion in 'Fan Fiction Stories--Classic JC Board (Reply-Only)' started by p_stotts, Jul 25, 2001.

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  1. p_stotts

    p_stotts Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 21, 2001
    Hi everyone! This is a story by Marnie Goodbody. I'm posting it here to get her started. I think she's a very good, imaginative fanfic author. Please give her a warm welcome and lots of feedback!


    Legacy

    Author: Marnie Goodbody
    Rating: G
    Summary: Luke Skywalker finds an abandoned holocron at Ben's house, but the past has a life of its own.
    Disclaimer: I don't own any of GL's Star Wars characters. I'm just doing this for fun.
    Feedback: Please be generous.

    Part 1

    Sand had drifted through the seals, sifting like salt over the rough floor. Smiling faintly, Luke rose, stretched from toes to
    fingertips, and reached for the brush.

    Carefully, starting with the very furthest corner of the small house, Luke got down on his knees and brushed the small piles of tawny powder towards the door. He wondered what his students would say if they saw
    it. Was it undignified? Beneath him? Surely the great Jedi Master should not be shovelling sand with his hands like the meanest slave on Tatooine?

    But it was good - good honest work. The pressure on knees and back, the scrape and sssh of tiny grains across the packed floor were a reaffirmation of the immediacy of life. Call it a meditation, he
    thought, not entirely ironically.

    The door hissed open and he swept the sand across the threshold with a satisfied flourish. Night air ruffled his hair, metallic with dryness and cold as the far off stars. He stood, traced the stone
    lintel with his one remaining hand and breathed in, oddly sad.

    How many years, he wondered, had Ben stood here, watching the small tracks in the dust, looking out at the hostile galaxy overhead,
    shielding Luke's life as if it were a single votive candle against the darkness?

    "Oh, Ben, why did you leave?" He wasn't sure if he spoke to the man or the ghost - both were equally gone from him now. "I don't know how to do this..."

    In his head, Ben had carried the knowledge of 25 millennia of Jedi tradition. Tested answers to the questions that racked Luke's
    academy now. Answers Luke's students might have to waste lifetimes rediscovering.

    "I know you had to make me a warrior first. But afterwards, when I really needed you, why did you leave?"

    It was bone-chillingly cold, and the light of the open door would attract Sandpeople. He turned away from the sharpness and went
    back inside.

    After several retreats here Ben's presence had begun to fade from the house, to be replaced by Luke's own. That scuff on the table was from his lightsabre. The blackened mark over the cooker was where
    3PO had shorted out, trying to communicate with the air conditioner. That hollow beneath the pallet...

    That hollow...

    There was something in it.

    All senses hyper-alert, he reached out to the Force. Had someone been here, during the day? No. I would have *smelled* it!

    The little wink of opal in the darkness under his bed. What was it? An
    Imperial bomb? A bug? The spike of betrayal was keen. Had this final
    sacred sanctuary too been breached and violated? It was not...fair?

    He caught himself and laughed. Then, kneeling, he formed the thought of
    himself simply reaching into the hole and closing his gloved fingers around the shimmering thing.

    He expected either the red anxiety of danger, or neutrality, reassurance. Not the wave of sheer joy that came.

    A present! A gift! Something of Ben's, long hidden, long forgotten. He pulled it out eagerly and was irritated at his mechanical hand, because it didn't tremble.

    The object lay against the black leather like a huge unfacetted gem, nacreous and mysterious in the house's prosaic light.
    "Aah...Force!"

    Ben! Why didn't you tell me you had a holocron!

    Ben had buried it. Entombed it in the ground, like his past. The thought clutched at Luke's throat, like a cry of pain heard
    across years of silence.

    He took the miracle into the kitchen and set tea to brewing; afraid now, that it might be empty or broken. Fear is the mind killer. But it was good
     
  2. Jairen

    Jairen Manager Emeritus star 4 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 1, 2000
    Excellent beginning. I was drawn into the world really easily and could visualise what you were writing about.

    I spotted the little line from Dune :D I like the idea of Luke finding one of the old Holocron's and the twist that Ben had it is good.

    Looking forward to why Ben would bury it, or whether he did. Keep it coming, this story looks very promising.
     
  3. ApprenticeM

    ApprenticeM Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 10, 2001
    Wonder what was so important Obi had to bury it........Post soon!
     
  4. MoonScribe

    MoonScribe Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    Apr 8, 2000
    Excellent beginning! Wonderful details and lovely writing. Can't wait to read more!
     
  5. p_stotts

    p_stotts Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 21, 2001
    Thanks for the feedback. I've let Marnie know and hopefully she'll be by soon to post her own reply. She's new to tf.n and unsure how to make her way around. I've tried explaining it as best I can.

    I'll be posting more of Legacy tomorrow, so be sure and check back then. ;)
     
  6. DarthIshtar

    DarthIshtar Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Mar 26, 2001
    This is a good fic and a good author; I'm trying to remember where I've read her work before. Hmmm...
     
  7. greencat336

    greencat336 Jedi Knight star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 27, 2001
    A good start! I'll be looking for the next post.
     
  8. Sarah_K

    Sarah_K Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jun 10, 2001
    I agree with... //Drat my memory// whoever said that you could see the whole thing; it was very well described.

    Bits I especially liked: 3PO trying to talk to the air conditioner. Luke sweeping. Luke getting irritated with his own hand.

    All together an excelently written post! :)

    Sarah >^,,^<
     
  9. Artemis_Silverbow

    Artemis_Silverbow Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Jun 9, 2001
    I'm really liking this so far :) Am I wrong, or is the "Fear is the mind killer" line taken from "Dune?"
     
  10. DarkATX

    DarkATX Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Sep 14, 2000
    Nice introspective writing here.
    I have a feeling Qui-Gon is already making an appearance in this tale.
    ;)
     
  11. Marnie

    Marnie Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    Jul 25, 2001
    Oh, dear, I didn't expect this to happen. I thought I'd be replying individually to each person who gave me feedback. How do I do that? (I really don't know how this stuff works?)

    Anyway. If I can't figure out how to do that then I want to say *THANKYOU* for the feedback on Legacy. (Peggy - thanks for doing all the hard work, and posting the fic for me, and giving me a really nice header!)

    It makes a big difference to know that people are reading and liking it. Hope you continue to do so!
    Marnie :)
     
  12. Maija Darklighter

    Maija Darklighter Jedi Youngling star 2

    Registered:
    Feb 3, 2000
  13. p_stotts

    p_stotts Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 21, 2001
    Okay folks, here's some more of Legacy:

    Even the clothes have lessons to teach me, Luke thought ruefully, as he glanced at his own military black. This man was dressed
    like Ben, but Luke looked like an Imperial moff. Like Vader.... He would
    have to think about that. Why had he instinctively clothed himself like
    a soldier, as though his proper place was at the head of an army?

    The image lifted its chin, shifted its illusory weight comfortably and
    watched him, waiting. Presumably, Luke thought, it could not initiate a
    conversation - it was, after all, only a recording. Still the small movement surprised him, like a sign of life on a barren moon.

    With the clothes, the resemblance to Ben ended. Like Yoda, the old man had carried, with his age, a sense of faint fragility that Luke had learned to associate with - how had his mentor put it - "A more
    civilised age." But there was none of that here; only a treelike solidity, a relaxed awareness and calm, smooth power that could
    only be described as 'Forceful'.

    The eyes that watched Luke's face were tranquil as the dawn sky, seemingly content to wait indefinitely for Luke to speak.

    It was a strange face on which to find serenity. A face which nature had made harsh - all sharp planes and bones, with a grizzled beard and the broken nose of a fist fighter. It seemed a fitting contradiction
    that all this hardness should be topped with a fall of long hair the colour of silvered oak.

    The steady regard was beginning to unnerve Luke. It was too much like meeting a person. He felt that further silence would be rude. "Who are you?"

    "I was Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn." Perhaps he had imagined the stress on the word 'was', since it was now speaking as formally as a hologram should. "Padawan to Yoda, Master of Perpetuity Oser, Xanatos
    of Telos, and Obi-Wan Kenobi."

    Obi-Wan. The name sounded so natural coming from the tall man, reminding Luke sharply that he had never learned to even think
    of Ben by his true name. This was Ben's teacher?

    The image was looking at its sleeves; studying the slight flicker there
    with what seemed like mild curiosity.

    For a moment Luke knew a sense of rightness like the suns rising. How he had wanted this - the knowledge that had been cut down so cruelly under Vader's blade, leaving Luke's new Jedi orphaned from their
    past. But the contradiction nagged at him, until he had to say it. "Obi-Wan told me that Yoda was his teacher. He never mentioned you."

    The face lifted and narrowed, and the eye-colour seemed to modulate subtly. An effect of the hologram, or an accurate representation of how this man really looked when he was hurt? "Yoda taught him, as
    he taught all the initiates. But I was his Master."

    How strange.

    As if to distract itself, the image was now reaching out, passing its insubstantial hands through the walls. It rested one in the boiling kettle, frowning slightly. The sight made Luke feel odd, in a way he
    had never imagined the absence of pain could.

    It caught him looking and turned with a small, wintery smile. "If I clasp my hands I feel...the memory of touch. But this...I don't feel anything at all."

    "You're a hologram." And you've obviously never been accessed before, Luke thought, with a prickle of something dark. Not a warning; a kind of delicacy that didn't seem appropriate in dealing with
    a machine. Ben's teacher. And Ben buried it. He never spoke to it once.

    "I know. I'm trying to find out what that means."

    "You're recorded information. You're supposed to answer my questions."

    But still Luke wondered, thinking of his student Nichos. Slowly dying of an incurable disease, Nichos had been gradually moved into a wholly mechanical body. The result had not known itself whether it was
    a duplicate or the original, human or droid, alive or dead. How much information did it take to replicate the spirit?

    "I would be a very inaccurate copy if I only did what I was supposed to do."

    Humour? It was nice to know that even
     
  14. BOBAFETISH

    BOBAFETISH Jedi Knight star 5

    Registered:
    Feb 19, 2001
    Good stuff...
     
  15. Daath666

    Daath666 Jedi Master star 3

    Registered:
    Jul 25, 2001
    more, please...
     
  16. Jairen

    Jairen Manager Emeritus star 4 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Sep 1, 2000
    Wow... this is excellent work. I find myself drawn in deeper and deeper each time I read this. I never thought of a meeting between Luke and Qui-Gon, but I think this has some serious potential. Again, your writing style is well-paced and descriptive, without becoming long-winded. I look forward to reading more of this.
     
  17. Sarah_K

    Sarah_K Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jun 10, 2001
    I like this! I always wanted Luke to find out about Qui-Gon and now he not only has, but he's talking to him! I can't wait for more. :)

    Sarah >^,,^<
     
  18. greencat336

    greencat336 Jedi Knight star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 27, 2001
    Marnie this is a great story. I love the personality of the hologram Qui-Gon. Good interaction between Luke and Qui. Great line when Qui said he'd be a poor copy if he only did what he was supposed to do :D

    As you can see from the date under my name, I haven't been on the boards all that long, either. It can be intimidating at first, but everyone here at the Force Net is very helpful and nice. The more you post the easier it gets. As for your wondering if you reply to each individual or just do a general thanks, that's up to you. Check out other authors for examples. Most do both.

    I'm looking forward to Luke explaining to Qui what happened to Anakin and Obi-Wan. Poor Qui. Even if he is a hologram. By the way, when is this story set? Obviously post ROTJ, but how long after?
     
  19. Artemis_Silverbow

    Artemis_Silverbow Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Jun 9, 2001
    I always wondered what would happen if Luke were to meet Qui-Gon-even in holographic form. So far, it's been better than I imagined :D Keep up the great work!
     
  20. ApprenticeM

    ApprenticeM Jedi Padawan star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 10, 2001
    Whoa....Luke talking to Qui?? Man, I gotta bookmark this......
     
  21. MoonScribe

    MoonScribe Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    Apr 8, 2000
    Wondeful work! I too am being drawn into this story. The interaction between Luke and Qui-Gon was quite touching; poignant and sad. I am looking forward to more. And your writing is simply beautiful.
     
  22. I love Sci Fi

    I love Sci Fi Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 21, 2000
    Wow! good story, I like, kind of makes me wonder if somehow Qui-gon let his spirit go into the holo for some reason, you know kind of like he's trapped.
     
  23. Broken-Sabre

    Broken-Sabre Jedi Youngling star 2

    Registered:
    May 13, 2001
    What a great start. I'll always read a story that had Qui-Gon in it somewhere, I think he is the best Jedi. :) Please can we have another post?
     
  24. Marnie

    Marnie Jedi Youngling star 1

    Registered:
    Jul 25, 2001
    Thanks everyone for your feedback, Particularly those people who I couldn't thank personally, cos their email addresses weren't shown. It's great that you're enjoying the story! Thanks :)
    Oh, and Broken-Sabre, I liked your icon so much I nicked it! Qui-Gon's the Man! (Sorry - going a bit stir crazy over the summer holidays!)
    Marnie.
     
  25. p_stotts

    p_stotts Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 21, 2001
    Okay, nice long post today to wrap up the story. Thanks for being so generous in your feedback! The authors and readers at tf.n are the best! :D

    *****

    Luke poured the tea and settled onto the bench. Honey and truguu thorn filled the room with tart sweetness. It's supposed to be answering me, he thought, without ire. But I suppose it can't, until it's
    established the context of my questions.


    Was that all the apparent curiosity was? A drive for coherence, which would make its answers more apt? Could it be nothing more than part of the programming?

    Well, perhaps putting the past into some kind of story would be good. Seeing what it looked like when told to someone utterly
    uninvolved might help him clarify it himself. He began to tell the image about
    growing up under the Imperial threat. About the holocausts and disappearances,
    the engineered plagues, and the terror which, even on Tatooine, stalked every word and thought.

    He reached the firefight in the bright sky, from which the droids had fallen like comets; portents of destiny. A pause, and he
    glanced at the rough face - it showed regret, sympathy, but none of the
    indignation for which he had hoped. Doesn't this make you angry? And he
    couldn't decide if what he saw was the perfection of Jedi discipline, or
    simply a result of it not being quite human.

    In the break the hologram knelt; a fluid, practised movement so simple and so appropriate that for a moment Luke didn't register what had happened. Wait! It shouldn't be able to do that.

    Luke's glare caught the flicker of satisfaction that just lifted one corner of its mouth.

    "How did you...?"

    "I modulated the input going through the projector."

    "Yes, but how?"

    It thought a while, then shrugged. "The control codes of this thing are patterns of energy, and so am I. It...felt possible."

    Someone had placed into the holocron a program that replicated the wisdom and personality of a Jedi of old. A mind trained to master both itself and its environment. Was it so surprising that it was now exceeding its parameters?

    Luke rubbed his gloved hand, feeling the metallic bones, the fine articulation of wires under synth-skin. He thought of
    Vader...Anakin... 'More machine than man'. But man enough to repent. Man enough to destroy the Emperor, in order to save his son.

    "You're not giving me your full attention are you?" Luke asked, caustically, trying not to be unnerved.

    "Are you giving me yours?"

    And of course, he wasn't. Some part of him was on alert, listening to the rumours of movement outside the door, monitoring the heat signature of the generator and the reassuring thrum of the coms terminal.
    Another part was appreciating the tea - green acidic flavour, the fact that it
    had gone slightly cold.

    It's testing its surroundings *subconsciously*? Can a hologram have
    a subconscious?


    Luke took up the tale again, "Well, this is where it really starts..."

    He told it about Princess Leia's message; seeking out Ben here in the hermitage in which he had spent the greater part of his lonely life; the deaths of Vader and Yoda and Palpatine. When he had finished,
    it was late. He could sense the great blaze of the Galactic Core rising in the
    barren sky outside; could picture it slicking all the dunes to the colour of snow.

    Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn had bent his insubstantial head, and was studying the empty hands that rested powerless in his lap. He was silent for a long time.

    Luke went to reheat the tea. It was oversteeped and bitter, like his memories. What would be the man's response to a story like that? Did it touch him at all?

    He was unprepared for the look of desolation that was raised to meet his gaze. "Obi-Wan encouraged you to kill your own father, out of revenge?"

    What a bizarre thing to focus on! Anger rushed to fill the space left by incredulity. It wasn't this man's place to criticize Ben! "I didn't know* he was my father."

    "Exactly. He deceived you and used you, Luke, and he encourage
     
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