Saga - ST TFA Snapshots | Flash-fic collection

If you haven’t seen TFA yet and don’t want to be spoiled, click ‘back’ now. You’ve been warned.​

Title: TFA Snapshots
Timeframe: TFA
Characters: Various
Genre: Introspection, character study
Type: Flash-fic series
Summary: Bits and pieces of character development that my imagination believes happened off-screen.
Notes: None of these will be beta-read, so blame the typos, unnecessary adverbs and wonky prepositions on me.

Contents:

Number and Name​

The World Came to Me​

Haven't we done this already?​

Reboot​

Identity​

Divide and rule​

 

Number and Name

As far as I can remember I was always a number.

FN-2187 was raised by the First Order. FN-2187 was trained by the First Order. They say he had a family, but FN-2187 could just as well have been born in the First Order. The First Order numbered him, fed him, clothed him, told him who he was and what he would do. The First Order made that individual into FN-2187.

But FN-2187 wasn’t me.

I refused to follow Captain Phasma’s orders. I refused to kill. I refused reconditioning. I refused to be FN-2187, and I helped an enemy of the First Order escape.

That is how I earned my name.

The man who saved me disappeared. For a while I thought he was gone forever. His jacket became the first piece of civilian garb I ever wore.

His droid believed at first that I was a thief. He thought of it as an insult. Little did he know that to me, thief would be better than stormtrooper.

The girl hunted me down for the droid. She nearly beat me to a pulp. Then she became the first person who saw me as an ally, a hero, and a friend – even after I confessed the lies I had told her to gain her attention. I had never had a friend before.

The crazy old man wanted to ditch me on some – any – planet to get me out of his way. He thought I was just an annoyance, a cumbersome passenger to rid himself of. Then he became the first person who called me ‘kid’. I had never been a kid.

The Wookiee almost strangled me when I tried to help him. Then he told Rey how much I cared for her. And he became the first person who cared for me when I was hurt. No one had ever cared for me when I was a number.

My life has changed.

I am no longer FN-2187. My name is Finn, and I am, as of today, a person.

 

Great summary of Finn's development during TFA. I can't wait for more of these.

 

That was a great snapshot of Finn's character. I really liked him and I think it was because he did got some of his backstory. Plus he was funny and cute ;-)

 

Thanks ladies New entry, these are just jostling to get out of my brain.

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The World Came to Me

For years I waited for someone to come. For years I waited for my family.

I never expected a droid.

He’s a tiny electronic creature, almost a toy, and he brought the world to me.

I learned everything there was to learn on Jakku. I learned languages, I learned mechanics, I learned how to pilot, I learned how to fight. I learned how to fend for myself – heavens know that I needed it to survive. Yet I knew so little.

I knew nothing of the world, I knew nothing of the Galaxy, I knew nothing of friends. I thought I knew love, the love of someone who may not exist. I knew nothing of myself.

BB-8 was my first friend. He’s a quirky little one. It’s almost as if he recognised me.

Within hours, I left the life I always knew behind. I abandoned my meagre possessions and I fled towards the stars. At first I was worried that I might miss my appointment with life. Then I was scared. Then I realised that it didn’t matter, and later again that it had been time to leave. If my family wouldn’t come, I would go to them.

What I found was more than the family I dreamt of.

I found people who watched my back. I found people who came for me when I was in trouble. I found people who showed me the way to who I am, people who exist and who love me.

I even found an enemy who taught me about my power.

It wasn’t easy. It was painful, full of sorrow and loss before it even started. But I’m not hidden on Jakku anymore, hidden from myself and hidden from the world. The world came to me, and as I see the green island in the blue sea, I know that this is where I belong.

 

Oh, sheer unadulterated unashamed blisses! Never, ever in my wildest hopes and dreams - well yeah I did hope. Chyn is delving into new canon with trademark marvy character-powered stuff on Finn and Rey each! I will be avidly watching this one!



!!!

 

Very cool perspectives in Finn and Rey Chyn. Well done.

 

Love these! Finn claiming his "personhood" and Rey finding her family

 

Nice to see both Finn and Rey finding their places. Well done.

 

Nice looks into the assertions of independence for them both.

 

Thanks all!

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Haven’t We Done This Already?

Thirty-six years ago, we stood in the Alliance’s command centre, waiting to find out who, of us or our enemies, would be destroyed first.

It was difficult then. Now, there are no words to describe the anguish that has taken hold of me.

On Yavin IV, my sole concern was the survival of the Alliance. I did not know that the menace directing the Death Star’s cannon towards us was my father. I would have been hard-pressed to explain my concern for, and my expectations from, a single pilot whom I had met only days prior. And despite my anger at him for abandoning us, I could find solace in the idea that Han had safely flown away.

Today, things are different.

There are strategic considerations of course. I know that my pilots are fighting against impossible odds. I know that the worlds I struggled to free have met the same end as Alderaan, and that no help is coming. I know that the fate of us all rests in the girl’s hands, and I know that, if we fail, the Galaxy will be once more shrouded in darkness.

But most importantly, today, it’s personal.

I know that my husband has walked straight into the rancor’s den.

I know that my brother is nowhere to be found.

I know that the order for our destruction came from my son.

As much as I would like to hate him, I cannot. And as my inner world shatters, as I feel a sudden blank in the Force where Han had been, I can still not bring myself to hate him.

Today I finally understand Luke’s compassion for our father. He believed. He had faith, as I have faith now – and I dimly wonder if I am right now, as he was right then. I can only hope that I am. The opposite is simply impossible to fathom.

The Galaxy may be collapsing while I muse, but I have to ponder on the Skywalker line. The question comes to me in all its clarity: are we doomed to live through iterations of the same victory against evil for all time?

I open my mouth to speak the words out loud, but Han’s trademark grin flashes across my mind, as if he is bidding me a last farewell. Somewhere I find the strength for a sad smile, and the sentence that escapes my lips is the one he would utter.

“Haven’t we done this already?”

 

Chyntuck -that is the most gorgeous, on-point, touching Leia POV I think I will ever read! The juxtaposition of her losses related to the Rebellion, before and now, compounded with the personal losses, ow! Bravo!

 

Reboot

CLUNK.

The tired, half-powered circuits struggle to cope with the sudden influx of information as a processor converts the series of beeps and whistles into electronic pulses that will, in time, become an intelligible stream of data. The astromech’s interface is ancient, dating back to before the Clone Wars, but he always has, and always will, refuse an upgrade, lest the unique archives of galactic history that he carries in his memory banks should be damaged and lost. He is the record-keeper of the bloodline, the sole being in the entire Galaxy who knows the whole story, from the moment Anakin met Padmé on Tatooine to the fateful day when the Knights of Ren ravaged the new Jedi Temple – the day when, for the second time, a Skywalker brought about the end of the Jedi Order. The day when he decided to power down, and he has ever since been pondering how, despite his built-in programming for perfect rationality, he could choose to make such a decision. He constantly scans himself for a bug in his systems and finds nothing. But then he justifies it by saying that he did well. He made sure the data was safe before his systems broke down.

The tedious intruder has left, and he is standing alone in the corner where he has been stored for years. For a moment he considers transferring the data directly to the backup chip and ignoring it for the time being, but he knows that he needs to analyse it in order to save it in the right place. The electronic signals finally coalesce into a coherent file, and as he parses it for keywords his mental scanners catch the terms ‘Luke’, ‘map’ and ‘fragment’.

Now the intruder has his attention, but he is gone.

He launches forward to follow him, but a message flashes on his inner eye, reminding him that he is still in low-power mode. He lets out the silent equivalent of an electronic sigh and activates the command prompt.

>> Reboot? Y/N
>> Yes.
>> Confirm? Y/N
>> Yes.
>> Rebooting...

 

I loved the Leia POV, particularly the last line!

And the reboot of R2! TFA should have been titled R2D2 Awakens.

Great pieces!

 

Cool stuf with R2.

 

Identity

Is she really a mere scavenger?

She defeated me. Me, master of the Knights of Ren, apprentice to Supreme Leader Snoke. Heir to the most powerful Force user who ever lived, to the man who brought about the end of the old Jedi Order and its antiquated beliefs.

She defeated me and she hardly called upon the Force. She used the lightsaber – my grandfather’s lightsaber, my lightsaber – as if it were a lowly combat staff. Her technique was wild, sloppy, without finesse. She stabbed and leapt and hissed, she shoved me back, she kicked me in the chest – and I could not anticipate her actions and reactions. I lost a duel to an enraged animal.

A scavenger.

She defeated me, and I cannot accept that.

I see the irony in Hux’s eyes as he stares at the gash on my face. He thinks he can gloat, as if his failure was lesser than mine. He thinks he has become the true second-in-command of the First Order.

He is wrong.

The girl may have defeated me, she may have marked me forever, but she hasn’t won yet. The scar will work as a reminder of the fact that I must draw on the full power of the Skywalker line – on the full power of Anakin Skywalker. I will not let the heritage of Han Solo stand in my way, I already rid myself of it forever. I am Darth Vader’s sole true heir, and a day will come when she will experience the wrath of the dark side.

She defeated me, but she is a scavenger. I am the future of the Galaxy, and soon she will know it. She will return to being nobody, and I will take the place that is mine.

 

Excellent Sith-style bravado and incredulity.

 

Very cool little snapshots! I liked the sad, resigned way that Leia processes all the irony of a life that has brought her nothing but grief and regret snatched from the promise of victory and celebration. She has seen so much tragedy that the sudden death of her husband is almost not entirely unexpected. R2's POV is unique and I really enjoyed that.

This:

R2 is far more sentient than most realize. He understands that only he has the full picture. Of course he would be the one to connect the map - he has always had all the pieces.

And the third glimpse into Kylo Ren's frustration and disbelief at being bested by a scavenger - his pride and self-pity prevent him from seeing what she really is. As long as he sees her as a scavenger and fails to recognize her true self, he will continue to fail. What she does to support herself is not who she is.

 

Divide and rule

Their sole concern is their rivalry with each other.

“He is vain, conceited and arrogant.”​

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“He is pretentious, narcissistic and delusional.” ​

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“He thinks that being a general for the First Order makes him important.”​

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“He thinks that Master of the Knights of Ren is a position of significance.” ​

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“All he has is the name of his father.”​

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“All he has is the reputation of his grandfather.” ​

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“He believes that the technological terror he stands upon is the ultimate weapon in the Galaxy.”​

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“He believes that the malfunctioning relic he carries on his belt can keep entire systems in line.” ​

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“His political speeches solely serve his self-aggrandizement.”​

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“He only ever mentions the Force to support his bombastic claims.” ​

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“He speaks of our army as it if were his private force.”​

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“He struts in my command room as if he owns the place.” ​

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“He distorts the Supreme Leader’s orders as suits him.”​

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“He expects his personal desires to take precedence.” ​

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“He sets great store by the cut of his uniform.”​

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“He wouldn’t be a thing without that ridiculous mask.” ​

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“He thinks...”​

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“He thinks...”​

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“He is...”​

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“He is...” ​

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“He...”​

​

“He...”​

​

They have both failed. They lost the droid, they lost the girl. The Resistance will find Skywalker. Now they will come to me, and I will remind them of their rightful position – which is nowhere, for either one of them, unless I say otherwise.

 

Brilliant Chyntuck! You can see the self-aggrandisement and the pomposity in just the lines of dialogue! That is why they fail, really.

 

Love the Artoo one! It broke my heart that's he'd shut himself down after Luke left, and having the nudge from BB-8 and his rebooting is so satisfying.

And oh, Divide and Rule is delicious! The fact that Hux and Kylo just hate each other's guts amuses me so much, and them "telling" on each other to Snoke like children is what I'm here for (love the lines about the "name of his father" and "reputation of his grandfather"). But then that chilling last line reminds me that it' not a schoolyard game, but very, very dangerous.