Lit The Legendary 181st Imperial Discussion Group: The Force Unleashed! II!

I bid you dark greetings, my friends and enemies. This month, we'll go for a novel that I actually find really obscure, since it's "only" the adaptation of a game; which is "only" a reportedly not-so-satisfying sequel to another game; which in turn was highly controversial in the literature community. So, yeah, who actually got the book? In hardcover, to boot?

Hardcover or not, DigitalMessiah got it, read it (also played the game, as far as I remember) and somehow found extremely redeeming values in this volume. DM, I hope you're ready to be a shiny beacon of TFU-love this month, even shinier than usual. The game is on: We're discussing The Force Unleased II by Sean Williams.

- Not having played the game and only knowing bits about it, I can still see how the book tries to expand the story by showing more of Juno's side of the adventure, especially the events happening before Starkiller is even on her trail. Other scenes truly read like a description of a game avatar hacking through "waves" of enemies and walkthrough-like description of what actions must be taken in what order. We already discussed a game tie-in by Williams this year, Fatal Alliance. What's your take on what a writer can do with game material, and how does Williams succeed in the field?

- Is it to the book's advantage that TFU 2 aims for a very cinematic story, having the main character(s) move through different clear phases deliberately set on different planets to mimic the SW movies' template?

- Now, the important bit. In preparation for this, I browsed old threads on TFU 2 and found this gem - a look at possible connections between the then upcoming TFU 2 and Dark Empire, based on the clone concept. Basically, weird thoughts in the minds of EU lovers (and I hope you'll join me, DM) include the Starkiller cloning program being conneced to Palpatine's immortality quest; and if you think this through, why not make Starkiller a Palpatine clone while you're at it? They even got the same voice actor in the games. What are the last necessary tweaks to make this theory come to life?

- How does Starkiller's quest for individuality shape up? The lingering question whether he's no the man he thinks he is? And how is it tied into SW/EU cloning, with the clone army and Khommites being mentioned? Is the question all the more important because...

- ...TFU turns into a story of individuality now that it's a story about star-crossed lovers acoss the stars? Rebellion and Empire are in here, obviously, but they aren't important for Starkiller. His mantra is "For Juno" as he rips stuff apart; and Juno is introduced as more loyal to Kota, and especially loyal to Starkiller's memory, than to the Rebellion's leadership. Bail being an exception since she also knows him on a personal level. Could you say that she's mostly still in the Rebellion because it's Starkiller's Rebellion, and because it's revenge against those who were his enemies? And how does the story hold up next to TFU 1 now that it's a story of individuals trying to get to the place in the universe they think is the right one?

- This leads me to the controversial Yoda meeting... in which Yoda simply affirms Starkiller on his way and lets him go. Possibly because he knows that there's not much to get from him? As much as Kota says Starkiller is a Jedi at heart, this only goes to show that Kota isn't a Jedi anymore at this point of time. Is Starkiller simply a force of nature that's levelling the playing field at this point, leaving destruction in his wake like when he cuts his way through the Dagobah swamp? And how does Kota hold up to very similar Jedi survivors like Jennir and Kanan?

I think I'll leave it at that for the moment. More to come! Please add your own thoughts, suggestions and any other business.

Next month, it's the beginning of the end, starting with Vector Prime.

 

'Kay, I'm just going to go ahead and get this out of the way.

Except for the final chapters of the first story (basically, everything from the time Starkiller brings down the Star Destroyer to the end), I like the second one better. Not many hold that opinion, I know.

So, I think what always intrigued me about this story is how stubborn Starkiller is about I'm not Galen Marek, I'm just a clone. He knows it; he isn't deluded into thinking otherwise. When Kota tries to call him Galen, he shuts him up because that's not him. But at the same time, he somehow seems to be unable to separate himself from his predecessor: is his love for Juno his own, or is it just a side effect of flash training? It's not a question that I feel is completely answered in the story; I think that it's ambiguous enough to get a pass, or perhaps they planned to go more in depth on the matter in the (cancelled) third game.

One thing that I noted about the book vs. the game is that Starkiller's plans are clearly somewhat different. It's been a while since I've either read the book or played the game, but from what I recall, in the game, Starkiller expressed a bland disinterest in helping the Rebel Alliance other than to achieve his own goals; if they could help him find Juno, great, but if not, then they could rot and he'd do it himself. This isn't to say he didn't identify with them, he just had other priorities and that was that. But in the book, even though his actions are much the same and he basically tells Kota "I only care about Juno," it's less cavalier than in the game, and in fact he actually says (and thinks, so we know he's not lying to Kota to get what he wants) that once he finds Juno, then he will certainly stick around and help the rebellion.

Also, am I the only one who never understood why they teased him through all the trailers and stuff (and even on the covers of the game and book!) in this Kyle Katarn-esque gray outfit with a pauldron on one shoulder...and then he didn't wear it once through the whole story? What's up with that?

 

Oh man pressure's on now.

I can't do it credit from my phone. I'll have to unload my novel length post later this evening.

 

Any special reasons for that? I'm asking mostly because I identified this difference of the first one being about these huge missions - kill Jedi, create rebellion, help rebellion, destroy Emperor - and the second one being about Starkiller wrecking the world in order to get closer to Juno.

The thing that really makes me go "errrr does not compute" is how everyone is calling him Starkiller, except for that one moment Kota has. Juno is madly in love with him but still thinks of him under his "blowing **** up with the Force" codename. That he himself might be happy with the name - especially if he's truly a conditioned clone - is another thing entirely. But the rebels and especially Juno not calling him by his true name is a bit, well, harsh. Thinking about it, it could even have been a good way in for Juno to pull Starkiller through - same as with... errr... what was he called again? Alphabet boy in DOTJ who whispered his true name to his girlfriend who then was able to make a thing out of that.

Regarding the clone issue, I was intrigued by Vader mentioning that he'd messed with the Starkiller clones to the degree that they were motivated by different things, and the one who's got Juno-love dialed up to eleven is the only one who truly gets going. Which is especially fascinating when you can hardly see Starkiller as a character anymore since he's astonishingly obsessed with this woman. It's probably been supposed to one-up Anakin, who went to great lengths but wasn't this guano crazy when it came to Padmé (and didn't manage to not become completely evil). It does really work towards him being modified, coded into being obsessed about Juno in order to give him a motivation to get things into motion - and it does seem as if Vader's still got a few cards up his sleeve at the very end. Everything going as he, or Papa Palpatine, forsaw it? Makes me wonder if a third game had been bold enough to tell the gamer that he'd played a total tool in the last volume, but then again, I guess they do that from time to time, don't they.

One more thing about Juno: once we wonder if Starkiller's love is really all that natural, who's to say she isn't into him for some weird reason, either? Vader implies that there's something going on with her; while he reconstructed (cloned?) Starkiller after that little thrown-into-space episode, could he possibly have done something with her, as well? My favourite would be that she's as connected to Starkiller as Mara might be "force leeching" off Palpatine's and Luke's powers. Or if you make something really metaphysical out of the Anakin/Padmé destiny relationship, ending with her "unexplainable" death. Here, I could see some unleashed Force effect that ties her to this guy because that's what needs to happen. And that's also how he can bring her back from the dead "with his voice": there's something weird, unnatural going on.

Coming fresh out of the book, I don't think I got the impression that he's really all that interested in the rebellion. He seems like a guy losing his focus in the end, just wanting to stick around Juno. If the rebellion (and the mission to subdue Vader) is where Juno's at, that's where he'll be.

And that's also what I meant with the Yoda scene: Yoda's not an agony aunt that helps Starkiller get his girl back; to me, he seems as if he's easing the flow of this force of nature, but doesn't interfere at all with what will happen. Because he knows that this Starkiller isn't helping the galaxy a bit. When he identifies that Starkiller is missing a part of himself, I'd read that as Starkiller needing Juno; but at the same time, Yoda sees that once all the parts will be there, he won't be greater than the sum of them. I don't think that this has been intended - they probably wanted the Dagobah level for the ESB connection or something - but the way I see this, Starkiller is a very wrong element in the SW galaxy. Not necessarily OOU, but IU - he might be one of the really, really weird Sith experiments. What's the weirdest I can come up with? Palpatine clone infused with Skywalker DNA in order to check out the limits of creating immortality clones, with Palps stringing Vader along and telling him he'll get cloned (and thus healed) eventually once the process is safe while creating a Anakin-level version of himself. Including giving one of the original clones to a couple of fugitive Jedi for some serious lulz - they might not even have been a couple (which would eliminate the forbidden attachment thing) if they weren't the force-talented kid's parents. Top this off with some strange effects that make him a Force nexus, drawing in Juno (like described above)... he's just such a weird factor in the SW galaxy that he seems even more out of tune with reality than the Yuuzhan Vong invasion corridor.


EDIT Oh, one more thing, DigitalMessiah - while you're at it, why not switch your avatar back to the "deal with it" Starkiller pic?

 

Me. I remember being excited about getting the Dark Empire/Empire's End Collection and The Force Unleashed 2 in short sequence.

it was hardcover

yay

Yeah I thought there was a potential connection before the game came out, but my theory was that the Palpatine clones in Dark Empire were actually Starkiller clones inhabited by Palpatine. Anyone can look like a wrinkled old man.

I think the central question of the game is whether Starkiller is a clone or not (spoiler: he's not), but the real answer is that it doesn't matter because existentialism and stuff. I don't think Juno is in the Rebellion because Starkiller created it but because it gives her a purpose and she saw first hand how fair the Empire is, both to others and herself. It's not like she can go back to the Empire after the first game. The game was billed as The Empire Strikes Back of a trilogy (which sadly was never completed) and I think that's true in the sense that it's much more character driven in Starkiller's search for himself.

I think the Dagobah sequence is because this story is Starkiller's katabasis much like Mortis is Anakin's, TESB is Luke's, and Traitor is Jacen's. Missed opportunity that Starkiller isn't the other Yoda spoke of, but prior to Legends there's no reason it couldn't be, given the fact that Yoda had already given up Luke's friends (including Leia) for dead -- that particular loose end wasn't tied up all that well by Return of the Jedi. The whole point of the story is for Starkiller to know thyself. In the first game, and prior to it, he was born to be a Jedi, or shackled to Vader as a Sith. Even when forming the Rebel Alliance, he was doing so at Vader's behest. It's at the end of the first game that he finally had agency, and he chose to use it to save the Rebellion. Now he has agency again, what will he do with it?

I think the two games are a lot like Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, and in a narrative sense they're very much apples and oranges which is why it's hard for me to pick a favorite between the two. The original has a tight narrative that's excellent, good character arcs for Starkiller, Kota, and Juno, and a great ending. The biggest flaw TFU2 has is the same flaw TESB has: it has no ending. And it didn't have the first act of TFU3 to compensate for that flaw like TESB had the first act of ROTJ.

I don't think Starkiller is consistently stubborn that he's not Galen Marek. His opinion slowly changes over the course of the story. At the conclusion, he tells Vader:

"You tell me I'm a clone -- a failed clone. But I chose to spare you. Does this prove you right or wrong? Maybe Kota is right. Maybe everything you told me was a trick. Maybe you were trying to get me so confused I'd forget who I really am and become your slave again. "

I think that's a function of the medium, but it's implicit that once he finds Juno that given she's a member of the Rebellion that he would necessarily also be a part of it as per her wishes.

pixplz

The reason why he's called Starkiller is purely an out of universe one. His name codename in TFU1 was Starkiller, and his real name was Jacob Nion. The revelation of his name was cut from the game, presumably to preserve this sense of self-identification with the protagonist. The novel then gave him the name Galen Marek, which Haden Blackman and Sam Witwer weren't happy with, as they thought of the character as Jacob Nion. Not being like certain Star Wars authors, rather than just change the name arbitrarily, they went with the name they did create and which was canon, Starkiller. The fact that he believes himself to be a clone plays into this choice, and it's the moniker he adopts in his existential "I'm my own man unchained to my history" thing.

If Starkiller was a clone (which he wasn't), the reason why the Juno obsession is made pretty clear at the end. "As long as she lives, I will always control you. "

I don't agree with any of this. You're insane.

The protagonist of TFU2 is the original Starkiller, revived again as he was after his defenestration, unbeknownst to Palpatine, to achieve the ostensible objective which Starkiller had: help Vader overthrow the master. Palpatine knew about Starkiller almost immediately and everything Starkiller did up to the Treaty of Corellia was Palpatine's plot. With Starkiller ostensibly dead at the Death Star, Vader can now actually use him as a secret apprentice to overthrow his master. There's no real reason why Vader would tell Starkiller he never intended to overthrow the Emperor "not with you, no." It's not as though he already knew about Luke, or that Starkiller was lacking the necessary power. There was simply no element of surprise.

Vader revived Starkiller, pulled the Revan style mindwipe, and put Starkiller in the set dressing that is the Kaminoan cloning labs to sell the deception, all for the purpose of control. Starkiller was an obedient dog until he found Juno and his own reasons to live other than what Vader told him. The mindwipe was meant to eliminate that stuff so he went back to being an obedient dog, with the added belief that he was a disposable clone. The mindwipe wasn't effective, so plan B was to use Juno a la Padme as the chip to force Starkiller to be an obedient dog. If Vader could mass produce Starkiller clones, why so much effort to recover this one clone? If he had this huge grand plan some people have come up with that costs entire cities on Kamino including the Imperial fleet guarding it and gives the planet to the Rebels, just to find the Rebels, why?

Why not just cook up another Starkiller clone, a la Dark Apprentice, and have him do it himself the way the original protagonist was supposed to? There was absolutely no need for any scheme surrounding Starkiller if Vader had the Dark Apprentice.

 

Grey1, like DM said, it's apples and oranges. The stories are different, and I guess I like the second just because it's more...I don't know, character-driven? I can't really think of the word for it, but it's more focused on who these characters are rather than what they do. The first was important because Starkiller broke the mold of what Vader expected him to be, but also because he helped form the Rebel Alliance, and was kind of why the story existed. As interesting as that was, and it was, Starkiller is only important to it by chance. The second story is his because he seized initiative.

To me, the story has always been a lot simpler than what you're saying: the facts to me were just that Starkiller was a clone of the original, maybe with the personality of the original even, depending on who you believe, and he loved Juno, and was obsessed with getting her back...that's it. It wasn't some kind of metaphysical Palpatine-influences-all-things and this-is-one-of-his-tests kind of thing, to me–in fact, I think it's not a coincidence that Palpatine is completely absent from the story. This is all Vader, what he wants. It doesn't really make sense with some of the "weak pet of Palpatine" characterizations he got in the old EU, but I think it's actually a more proper characterization of Vader than some of those–surely, at this time, he must've begun to realize Palpatine had played him. Even if he's not fully ready to betray him yet, he is entering into that rebellious phase, and he's clinging to Starkiller as a kind of twisted child figure, like Starkiller suggests in the first book. Vader didn't get his own child, or so he believes–so he'll create one. That's as far as it goes, to me.

DigitalMessiah, oh yeah, I forgot at the end that he was less certain about not being Galen than he used to be. I know that "I let you live" scene gets a lot of flak for that specific line...and so that's all I tend to think about from that scene. But I do think Starkiller may've been having a kind of realization about himself or something, I don't know. It may have been a moment of truth we'll never understand because the third game was cancelled.

I think it's interesting in the (apparently considered Legends-canon) Distant Thunder cinematics, the "real" Starkiller's body is dressed in his original apprentice garments rather than the Jedi robes he died in. Was this a trick by Vader? A continuity error? A hint? A simple art decision? It definitely doesn't seem that any of the clones remember the moment of death (even Starkiller doesn't see that in his flashbacks, but it doesn't mean he doesn't remember it, I guess). They remember various things about Galen's life...but never his death, that we know of. And Starkiller...he's the only one who remembers Galen's mother. Since she wasn't even mentioned in the first game or book, or the second game, I wonder if this was another hint that Starkiller is Galen.

As to the outfit: in the trailers and covers, we see the costume in your avatar:



But in the game, he only wears:







And in the book, he apparently wears the same black jumpsuit from the first game through the whole thing, or that's what he's described as wearing. I don't know, it's just a thing. I really liked the trailer outfit and was a bit annoyed it was just a bonus costume in the game that you never actually wear.

 

I knew we were going to have fun this month!

Your theory sounds legit, but it hasn't convinced me that mine isn't. When I went out of my way to paint a weird picture above, there's a thing I didn't include that I found even weirder: reviving dead people over and over again. That scene in TFU 1, when Starkiller is impaled on a lightsaber (I always hate it when someone gets impaled by a lightsaber and doesn't die from it, and that does include Shatterpoint) and then thrown through a pretty solid starship window and then has to float in space before getting brought back in - that one was probably the most over the top scene for me. Pulling down star destroyers, okay, if you must (although I'd put more thought into the "Force unleashed" concept by having extraordinary feats happening on Force-rich planets, not over a junkyard). But eliminating all consequence of death when standing right next to Sidious, Vader and their quest for immortality? Especially if Vader might just as well have dropped the subject since it would bring up memories of that one person he actually wanted to be immortal? So, basically, I think it's quite interesting to go into both directions: What if Starkiller isn't a clone at the beginning of TFU 2, and what if he has been a clone all along. The "conventional" idea of Starkiller being cloned for the second game because you need the character back is bit too shallow, to be honest.

The question of existentialism is still there when it's not just a guy getting wish-fulfillment - "I'm uniquely unique and all those ther slim shady Starkillers are just imitating" - but when the entire concept of this person is out of whack. If there hasn't been a "true" Starkiller ever, he doesn't really belong into this world. And as much as there's all possibilities of names in the SW galaxy (and fictional characters like Mulder and Scully will probably still reduce themselves to their last names if they're married), I think this "Starkiller" name doesn't work as a complete identity, most probably because it lacks a naming convention context like the original "Annikin Starkiller". Names like Skywalker existing or not, Starkiller is a bit over the top. You agree that it's okay for a guy believing he's "just a clone" - but that doesn't explain all the other characters reducing him to a codename.

It's very much an OOU thing, definitely. Be it that someone involved hated the name given in the first one's novel, or that they were coasting on the name that's actually recognizable from the first game. It's difficult pulling off the "get free from Vader" plot of he keeps using his slave name, though. And if the name was a thing from the novel, why would the second novel shy away from it? There's a lot of introspection stuff in which the real name could be used. BTW, I don't like the real name, sounds way too mundane.

Just had a look at it. While I think it's artistic stuff getting in the way, it could of course be a hint. But not having been cleared up, it could also mean that "the original Starkiller" never had any Jedi robes, eh. As for the memories? If it's a memory flash from the original person (and all subsequent incarnations on top of that), of course everyone would have the repressed memories concerning the mother.

What's more interesting, and this where I get a bit whackier again, is whether flash memory would work this way - and this is helping DM's side of the argument: Where would Vader have obtained enough flash memory to make clone Starkiller remember all the later rebellion stuff right up to the kiss? Is this game designers, especially Blackman, mistaking the game's autosave and the audience's knowledge with what makes sense? Is it Blackman deliberately pandering to the audience's knowledge, since cliché gamers who only want to blow up **** with the Force and not think too hard wouldn't understand why their character is basically a much earlier savegame? Is it proof that this is the original non-clone man? Can you get flash memory from a corpse? Or can I get as whacky as it gets and connect the dots to Dark Empire again, asking whether this is some technical memory flash or rather this Sith essence transfer thing that Palpatine is keen on trying out, so that we have a lot of potential autark clones (like the Dark Apprentice) but also one true Starkiller who's forced to hop from cloned and altered body to cloned and altered body? Which would, wait for it, make this guy both the original and the clone? Which would really make an unsuspecting person's head spin since they should obviously be dead but aren't. Seeing this here in line with Dark Empire's cloning - and it's not that much of a stretch since HTTE's C'baoth cloning is at least on William's mind - you'd get the true essence concept on top of it. It's not just clone troopers wondering how much Jango is in them, and it's not the Khommites creating a society that simply has very few faces. Palpatine's goal that he eventually does reach is providing a body to force an identity into before said identity vanishes in the Force.

 

Why exactly did Blackman leave the TFII project, that is never a good sign. I rather enjoyed much of his work on SW.

 

I think you killed the thread.

I guess that's the most compelling argument outside of mine, especially considering that in the first novel, when he wakes up after being defenestrated, his scars are all gone. This would suggest some sort of Bevel Lemelisk style cloning at work. And it would tie into the Distant Thunder with the dead "original" Starkiller wearing his training uniform which he was wearing when he got wrecked by Vader. On the subject of Distant Thunder, briefly, I've never seen it explicitly stated to be (Legends) canon myself, by Leland decree or anything. The way I took it was as a necessity to explain the absurd dark side ending of the game, where based on a mental decision made by Starkiller (he never actually does anything different in either ending where he enacts a choice, merely makes one in his head):

A) The Imperial fleet wins the battle
B) Dark Apprentice somehow reads his mind and chooses to impale him, or in my reading of the two endings, actually exists
C) Vader spends a lot of time, effort, and Imperial resources trying to turn Starkiller to the dark side and back to his service only to have him killed when he succeeds

Since the dark side ending was non-canon, I figured thus so was Distant Thunder. It's absolutely silly. Vader's motivation in the game makes no sense to me with the Dark Apprentice being a thing. Why capture Juno? Why not have Fett just assassinate Starkiller? And going on another tangent, if there's all these iterations of Starkiller clones and Vader is pumping them out, why is recovering this one so important?

Back to the cloning stuff, the overall problem with it, and I suppose this is inherent from onset with Bevel Lemelisk, is why didn't Vader just clone himself and transfer to a non toasted body if this was possible? It's the same issue as the resurrection one. The thing about the resurrection is actually discussed in The Art and Making of The Force Unleashed in some of the earlier story concepts, in stating that Vader has invested considerable effort and research into reviving people using science because of Padme's fate. Thus it's my contention that Starkiller isn't being revived through the Force, but through mundane means. The scientists found the cure for 17 stab wounds in the back and not just 15.


This isn't really the same thing as the Sith seeking immortality, it's Anakin seeking his original goal to save someone from dying prematurely, rather than eternal life.

I think the name situation is all OOU. Haden and Sam both said in interviews why they used Starkiller, and perhaps it's an instance of artistic whim overriding logic. You can try to twist it as Starkiller making it his own. Also consider that through most of the game, Starkiller isn't really trying to forge an identity for himself and is resigned to being a clone. It isn't until he has a conversation with Kota when they reach the Rebel fleet that I think he starts to question the truth (or perhaps in The Cave on Dagobah), and I think he doesn't really accept the truth that he's the original until he makes the choice not to kill Vader at the end. It's possible they would have gone with him going "Oh well I'm not Galen Marek, and I'm not Starkiller, I'm Jacob Nion" in the third game/novel/comic.

The flash memory stuff never made sense because the way it functions in Zahn's novels is that flash memory can be selective. A clone could be produced of Starkiller with all his skills but none of his other memories. That's exactly how the sleeper cell on Patrik Minor worked in Vision of the Future. They were Baron Fel clones but they didn't have his memories, only his skills with a starfighter. They flash trained Fel's starfighter training but eliminated everything else. Vader could selectively choose what Starkiller remembered. Even in the game itself, under the premise of there being multiple iterations of clones, it was said that each one had certain memories that were higher priority, e.g. the Rebellion, Juno. I don't remember if that was supposed to be intentional to find the right "blend" for Vader's purposes or just supposed to be a quirk of the cloning process.

The only way it really works in a way that makes sense is the Bevel Lemelisk method, that Starkiller's Atman/soul/essence is being transmigrated into new clone bodies. But that still wouldn't explain why the different clones had different sets of priorities, unless this "uniquely unique" thing is at play where the protagonist Starkiller is the only clone that actually received the transmigration and the earlier clones did not. I suppose the novel hints at that, but I think that evidence is a toss up between OG Starkiller or transmigrated Starkiller and just supports those two without supporting one more than the other.

 

I always figured the original Starkiller's soul had transferred into the player character's body, too. So he is a clone, physically at least, but he's also the original in soul.

 

The problem I have with that interpretation over this being the OG Starkiller is the whole memories thing. I have to think the whole cloning situation is a Plan A turned set dressing sham. I think Vader wants to clone Starkiller and wants to do the flash memories where he can just erase memories of Juno and Kota and have his old apprentice reset back to where he was before TFU, but with all the talent he picked up along the way. But it doesn't work. And he has the OG Starkiller revived through medical science and mindwiped like Darth Revan. Since he can't get the real cloning to work, he's trying to fool the OG Starkiller into believing he's a clone, but the memories always override the mindwipe.

Vader's whole motivation throughout the game makes absolutely zero sense to me if he's able to produce Starkiller clones on command, even if they're to this point faulty in that their priorities don't make them ideal apprentices. Because he can just keep trying!

No, I think all he's been able to make are these guys:


The book has a whole chapter devoted to the fact that you can't clone Jedi because the midi-chlorians or whatever cause the clone to mess up. Vader can't figure that out. OG Starkiller is his Plan B. Or, Plan A, since he's so "special" that Vader goes to such great effort to recapture him and control him with Juno.

 

Well, all theories aside, the Starkiller in the narrative is indeed special. He's the only one to escape Kamino. So Vader might want him back because he's indeed his best shot at a complete Starkiller. Or...

Once more going with the clone theory, and with Vader dabbling in the clones' personalities - I think Vader not wanting to clone himself back to full strength without getting rid of certain emotions and/or memories makes sense. Vader wants to find out how much of himself he can remove, especially the love bit (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind comes to mind) and still function. It's a bit embarrassing, though, that the love clone conquers all, so maybe Vader indeed wants him back just to demonstrate the futility of love. Putting Juno, Starkiller's greatest weakness, in a trap, breaking him, possibly killing her anyway to mock him further. In this scenario, the Dark Apprentice would make sense as the perfect henchman; this henchman wouldn't be the answer to happy Vader cloning, though.

And while the C'baoth issue of non-clonable stable Midichlorians (let's face it, that's what it probably boils down to) is brought up, it's still said to be possible; only with the known drawbacks. And Starkiller might appear more than a bit nuts with his "For Juno" routine. Riding a starship through a planet's atmosphere is pretty bonkers if you ask me. If you add in that the guy doesn't commit to any social convention beyond "true love" and "revenge", he might indeed be a bit on the psychotic side - just not as destructive as C'baoth. Another issue that comes into this is that the Palpatine clones are still there, and their only weakness is breaking down more quickly through dark side use or something. By the way, two months ago we should really have included the GOF book in which Vader does get cloned but the clone is all kinds of guano crazy, putting himself in wooden Vader armour or something.

I must admit that essence transfer and clone recoding doesn't entirely mix, but then again, someone more powerful than our imagination might create an entirely novel problem: what if the essence transfer isn't a ghost flying into the next body but something that ends up as a multiple copying process, with everyone being "the true person" because the essence ends up in all those bodies at the same time (a great movie with magicians comes to mind), only that some of them aren't equipped for him to reach enough conscience to let that out? The other possibility would, of course, be that Vader's body modifications can alter the way any given Starkiller acts on street level, but the essence doesn't diminish and in another body, he might react differently according to his physiology. By the way, essence transfer was the first thing on my mind when Vader essentially opens discussions with "this time you lasted two weeks without respawning, you're getting better" which might well have been meant differently, but it could mean that he's letting Starkiller hop through bodies Groundhog Day style (but without alowing for new memories). Mad stuff, I know.

One more thought about the Dark Apprentice - while the dark side ending sounds like something that doesn't need to be taken seriously, even though it's referenced in a vision here (which might be metaphysical - his dark part being the death of him), I could attribute some of the changes to a general change of rules of the cloning game. If Starkiller turns out dark even in his best version, that means that Vader would keep the DA up his sleeve for Kamino's endgame (while he might be out and about or dead in the tower clone battle in the canon version) because darkness works so good in this iteration of the universe. In the non-mirror universe where Starkiller turns out to be good, dark clones don't work out, thus the DA isn't the ultimate weapon in the end. It's overinterpretation, of course; the designers simply wanted a WTF style non-canon ending, that's why the good guys are in danger of getting killed by a kitchen sink that somebody put in.

The most interesting thing is, however, what TFU 3 would realistically have needed to adress. And somehow I'm sure that the "is he clone or isn't he" plot would have gotten another twist, otherwise he would finally become a simple avatar without a deeper story. Maybe they could have concentrated on his influence on the Rebellion again, but it wouldn't have been a political game; it would have been an action game, and it would have had to refer to the mythical core of the TFU, to why he was so special, and in the vein of modern trilogies it would have elevated him into an epic character in an epic campaign with an epic fate that finally takes him out of the game (unless they planned for him to raise his and Juno's babies while Luke showed up to save the galaxy for real). Think Pirates of the Caribbean or The Matrix, especially The Matrix (you know, the one in which the final Chosen One breaks the cycle because he's totally into the female main character, who somehow isn't called Juno). He doesn't get out of this alive because allowing himself to die is the only way to get to the bottom of the problem. Would that have been great? Probably not, but that's in the nature of modern action blockbuster trilogies, and TFU definitely went for the blockbuster audience.

 

My fanon/fanfic/whatever for TFU3 would have Starkiller faking his death and going into hiding to protect Juno in order to resolve his non-involvement in the OT (why Luke is a "new enemy," a sort of implication that Starkiller is gone or dealt with as far as the Sith know IMO, while Yoda knows he's still around as "another"). In TFU2, the character is very much Anakin in Revenge of the Sith. TFU3 would be him transcending the attachment and realizing that his wanting to be with Juno is actually dangerous to her, because "as long as she lives, I will always control you." Thus, out of love for Juno, he can either sacrifice himself (which I find to be undesirable because I think the character has a lot of potential future growth and stories), he can fake his death out of love for Juno to protect her (which could also conceivably end his arc), or he can do a flawed development where he transcends the attachment through a dark act: he's shown he will do anything for Juno, so if he kills innocents (or Kota) in some elaborate Joker-esque gambit set up by Vader in order to save Juno, he's learning the self destructive nature of his attachment, which sends him into hiding after faking his death for Juno's sake while also giving him something to atone for in a future story and further growth.

Once Vader is gone after Episode VI, Starkiller can stroll back on scene and become bros with Luke and atone for his sins, and perhaps earn back Juno. Or perhaps she died during the GCW and that gives him another go round of existential angst. I actually find that to be a really interesting concept, a post-ROTJ Starkiller devoid of both his past and his purpose. It permits a sort of western style of storytelling, at least until he meets with Luke or another Jedi, and finds purpose. But I suppose it could also be argued that Juno is stuffed in a fridge in his version.

But I like to think of the directions that the Starkiller could be taken in the Dark Empire storyline and the New Jedi Order storylines especially, if they were either rewritten to include him, or he had his own side stories in each. But then I spend a lot of time pondering what sort of wacky adventures Kyle Katarn and Starkiller might be having during the Yuuzhan Vong War.

EDIT: Revanfan1

I just looked it up and the costume you're referring to is Arena Combat Gear and it's unlocked after completing the game. I haven't played the game in a long time so I forgot.

 

I always imagined Starkiller coming to the forefront post-ROTJ too and being involved in those stories, too. I definitely figured Kota would've died by some point before then (he was in that one Battlefront game with the clone Jedi–which presents its own set of problems and conflict with TFU 2, BTW–so he obviously was still alive by ANH, at least), but Starkiller and Juno could've stayed alive. The final battle of the third game probably would have been Starkiller vs. the Dark Apprentice, with Starkiller finishing off the DA and then probably destroying the vessel he was on in the process, leaving everyone to assume he died. Then, after the credits, we get a scene of an escape pod hitting the ground of the planet below, and Starkiller emerging and throwing his lightsabers away. "I'll be back, Juno...when you're safe," he says.

 

My personal preference is for Starkiller to find himself in a similar situation as at the end of TFU2 where Vader has Juno and orders Starkiller to kill Kota and he does it. Then Vader is like "whelp my work here is done," because he's put Starkiller in a similar position that Anakin was in at the end of Revenge of the Sith: the goal here is that Juno rejects Starkiller like Padme "betrayed" Anakin and Vader is hedging on Starkiller killing Juno or otherwise sulking into deep despair where, rejected by his love, he has nothing left to live for except service to this dude that's a huge dick but at least he's always been a constant in his life, just like Sidious was for Anakin.

But Starkiller develops the other way. His love for Juno is selfless, because he's martyring himself by killing Kota. He knows he's destroying what he has with Juno, but he's saving her at his expense, and having ensured her safety, he pulls a Luke instead of an Anakin:


But then the Dark Apprentice doesn't exist in my mind. Plus I don't see the narrative value in the character, because really, it isn't a character, as its sole trait is that it hates everything. There's no growth or payoff to be achieved by a final duel between Starkiller and the Dark Apprentice.

 

True that. The only reason I really care about the Dark Apprentice is because I like the idea of a fair, blow-for-blow Starkiller vs. Starkiller fight. In the dark side ending, DA cheap-shots Starkiller. A full-blown fight would be epic. But it's not necessary for a good story, and yeah, what you describe would probably be really compelling. It works for me.

On the subject of the Dark Apprentice, the vision Starkiller has (combined with the "Distant Thunder" cutscenes) imply to me that the Dark Apprentice does exist, however I'll grant that even the vision could've just been "what could be"–always in motion is the future, and all that–and the Dark Apprentice was just a possibility if Vader had had more time to work. But I'm not a fan of the idea that if Starkiller just makes one bad choice, suddenly this perfect evil version of Starkiller magically happens to exist to stab him in the back so Vader doesn't die. Like, how does that even happen? If the dark side ending is supposed to be an AU, why not go full-on crazy and have Starkiller kill Vader, turn and kill Kota and the others in a fit of rage over Juno's death, and then run and hide himself to wallow in despair forever? Oh right, because there has to be a DLC where you can play as evil!Starkiller again and fight Leia.

 

I love the trailer for TFU2

 

Well, I'm not a fan since I know next to nothing about these games, but what I described above explains stuff a bit more metaphysical than the classic Kyle good/evil choice. In my theory (and it's all moot since dark is Infinities anyway), it's not simply a choice in that moment. It's all connected (in an all-is-one mumbo jumbo way not unlike what Vergere made us learn), so a reality in which Starkiller turns dark and comes this far is one in which evil generally triumphs - the Mirror universe. The Empire is victorious and the DA is stronger, plus he's at the right place at the right time. But as I said, that's just an interesting thought experiment, the reality is the need for a WTF ending.

I'm pretty sure the TFU crowd would, to your dismay, have used the DA as a metaphorical villain Starkiller has to overcome: his own dark side. Now physical enough to kill the **** out of it with the Force! Starkiller's path to the light side is still very sketchy; and he's okay with killing whatever to get what he wants, which is only vaguely different to Anakin's story. Apotheosis would have been leaving his "career" behind by realizing that life is really about other things. I would have been pretty unhappy with him surviving, though; him and Juno should be in for tragedy to boost Vader's street cred right before ANH. Having Vader as this bumbling menace in direct comparison to the ever more awesome Starkiller sabotages the OT; ending on a bittersweet note that shows Vader in complete control of the game again would help the "trilogy" come full circle and establish Vader as an even more credible threat.

While we're in the fanon wish hour, I'd like to propose this little piece I just came up with: What if Starkiller loses his memories one by one, making him more and more estranged to the world around him, until he doesn't even remember how to use the Force? Maybe with a bittersweet ending in which Juno decides to stay around even though she's stranger to him (I know the Denningverse approach would have him kill her because she finally means "nothing" to him and seems to be a threat in a tragic moment). That could even work as a game concept, with him losing abilities so you have to get more proficient at playing what you've got (well, that would never have flown with the TFU audience for sure), and with him losing himself in some ever stranger unknown worlds, a bit like Yoda's TCW journey without real aim.

I like Starkiller being the "old enemy", but I'm not too keen on Yoda being retconned into seeing Starkiller as the other. "There's another, one who's already fully trained, really blows **** up with the Force, didn't need a lot of advice from me and has kicked Vader's Pants(TM) several times already... didn't I tell you, Obi-Wan? We'll get back to him if monomyth farmboy doesn't turn out okay."

 

The problem with that is since games have become less nuanced, it is ultimately one choice within the game itself, regardless of choices made. I much prefer the Dark Forces 2 system where you don't even make "one choice," but your cumulative choices through killing or sparing innocents and utilizing the dark side through "dark powers" decides which way the story branches. The dark side ending in TFU2 was just garbage.

It's possible, but I think that's tremendously poor storytelling given the Dark Apprentice's absolute non-impact on the story in TFU2. Starkiller's dark side manifests in the first game in a DLC where he explores the Jedi temple and encounters his evil doppelganger a la The Cave. The thing is with the evil apprentice, if Starkiller has a dark side in TFU2, it's his selfish love, much like Anakin's. His character is largely defined by this obsession with Juno, and it's this balance between selfish and selfless love. The Dark Apprentice doesn't fit that. He just hates everything Starkiller loves.

But maybe the storytelling would be awful. Most people seem to think it was for the first two games!

What would be the cause of this though? The problem in the second game is that he regains his memories against Vader's will. Also this feels too nuanced from a character perspective for Star Wars, let alone for Denning to even comprehend.

I feel like Leia being the other was a sloppy retcon given Yoda is basically giving her up for dead by telling Luke to stick around. There's a possibility that Luke totally blows it at Bespin and both Skywalker twins end up dead and then Yoda looks really dumb. Starkiller works for me because he's obviously not someone Yoda would want to rely on.

 

Thing that bugs me about TFU II is how easily Juno is able to leap into the arms of a clone of her dead boyfriend. It just seems wrong.

 

Tragic clone memory degradation. A fault in the memory flash process, if it were a memory flash process. The Force erasing his identity for Forcey Wimey aka Force lulz. And regarding Denning, I don't think it's too nuanced because you can just copy it from any tragic Alzheimer story and be smug about having copied.

Well... Yoda didn't give her up for dead; he said Luke won't be of help. Seeing how Leia escaped on her own and actually had to go back again to save Luke, he might simply have had a lot of confidence or even foresight. Yes, foresightseems counterintuitive when he says that the future is in motion; but I'd willingly retcon that into Yoda gently teasing Luke in a "don't be so sure what you saw, I saw what happens fifteen minutes later", or maybe a "as soon as your POV has moved, your insight into the future will have changed, so what you saw is actually that your friends will be in danger because you stupid moron will hang upside down from a weather vane and they have to go back to get you". "Always in motion, the future is" definitely has been dealt a few blows since the PT essentially lets the audience know that "the future is set but your knowledge and your perspective on the info you have is constantly in motion".

And it always maks me wonder if Leia replacing the unknown sister really didn't have anything to do with Leia having a Force connection with Luke, conveniently shortly after we're told that there's another card in the deck. Could it be that Luke forces the connection onto Leia because they're such good pals? Could be; but setting up another Jedi hope and then showing Leia in a Jedi context is way more obvious than "we'll quickly tease something that won't have any payoff at all until the next movie". And btw, since we're at it, Yoda was simply talking about hope to save the galaxy; he wasn't explicitly referring to someone who could be trained to hack at Sith with a lightsaber (or at least be a total lightside saviour). So he could talk about Han shooting reborn Palpatine for all we know.

 

She doesn't know he's a clone. As far as she knows, they just left him behind, and I think Kota said he died because he couldn't sense him in the Force. But similarly, she was told Starkiller died after being thrown out a window on the Executor, but he was still alive. I don't remember if the subject of him being a clone is ever brought up in front of Juno, so correct me if I'm wrong here.

I just don't see Denning even being interested enough in that sort of story to write it. Like it isn't even on his radar. Hell, I don't even know what Denning's radar is. When he was given command of the post-NJO, everything he came up with seemed to be motivated by a desire to bulldoze or subvert everything he didn't like, but there wasn't really anything he came up with on his own, besides the Squibs or that Ewok guy or other stuff that's better suited to the West End Games roleplaying game. He doesn't do character stuff because he's the GM damnit. Even his one character arc, Leia in Tatooine Ghost, was cribbed from Barbara Hambly.

That is incorrect. No one escapes without Luke bringing Artoo to Bespin. Vader's men deactivated the hyperdrive on the Millennium Falcon, and their escape would have ended in the Executor's hangar bay. If Luke turns to the dark side or is killed in his fall or by Vader, well, Leia's now in Vader's hands and maybe her secret comes out, or maybe she's executed for being a rebel now that Vader doesn't need her to bait a trap for Luke anymore. Although that presupposes that Artoo doesn't help them escape, which was really the only useful thing that Luke did.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here, if you're suggesting that the Leia being the sister was discussed in TESB, or you're saying it's a happy coincidence. Yoda is definitely talking about Leia, at least per the retcon, given the dialogue is couched where Luke explicitly says "Yoda spoke of another," after Obi-Wan says Luke was their last hope, calling back in a meta sense for the audience that Yoda said "there is another," when Luke is in fact talking about Yoda saying "there is another Skywalker." I mean I guess theoretically it could be anybody. My money's on Wedge.

I don't think that as written that particular scene with Leia was supposed to insinuate that Leia had powers of her own, simply that Luke was capable of projecting telepathy to others a la Jedi mind tricks through his training on Dagobah. It certainly seems to have inspired this "twin bond" that Jacen and Jaina had in the EU. Which is one of my EU pet peeves: this idea that Jacen and Jaina have a twin bond, or that as children they have all these innate Force powers they can use, when as far as we see in the films, Luke and Leia have absolutely no twin bond at all nor is there anything to ever suggest that Luke or Leia did anything special prior to receiving training.The first instance we got of that was with Anakin being the only human that can race pods, which retroactively seems to apply to Luke's piloting ability. But that's still relatively mundane as far as Force talent goes in comparison to some of the stuff which the EU has the Solo children do, or likely other Force talented children that I can't think of off the top of my head.

And in my mind, Anakin's superior reflexes through subconscious limited precognition is like the ceiling for untrained abilities, since Anakin is simply the most raw talent that there will ever be in the galaxy, and that's the extent of what he could do. So it doesn't make sense to me that these midi-chlorian count scrubs could do better untrained. I can buy it helping Luke as a pilot and it's not quite as impressive that Luke is merely a talented pilot versus Anakin being the only human that can race pods at the age of 9. Tangent over.

 

He could give the DA white eyes. Problem solved. That's masterful, connecting LOTF and TG to TFU in that way.

Could even tie into Caedus-Jacen being a clone...

Okay... but maybe Yoda didn't see the full picture, either. And if he did, maybe he was about to send Artoo on his own - way more competent, and no more obstacles when going for the snacks.

 

So Dark Apprentice is white eyes. MYSTERY SOLVED FOLKS

On that subject though, I don't like this idea of someone's dark side manifesting as a separate entity, whether it be the whole

Spoiler: SWTOR Spoilers

Revan thing

or if a hypothetical TFU3 would have had Dark Apprentice represent Starkiller's dark side. It's completely missing the point. The dark side isn't this "other," it's in you. And it's not a demon, or some entity separate from you, that's possessing you, it's an integral part of your essence, your ego, just like the dark side is an integral part of the Force. It is you. And overcoming that isn't through defeating it in combat, because denial of the shadow only makes it stronger as it blinds you to it in yourself.

Metaphorically, on the other hand, it works rather well, since that's the role that Vader plays in the OT for Luke. Luke "projects" his own shortcomings and failures onto Vader, or rather they're already present in Vader, and in so doing is blind to them in himself, until cutting off Vader's hand, he realizes that he has that capacity too, that he has that anger, that he's not this faultless paragon battling the angry guy but he also can become the angry guy if he ignores his shadow and in so doing gives it power over himself. We see this again in Destiny in which Yoda literally battles his shadow, and ultimately "defeats" it by recognizing that it's a part of himself.

You can't pull this off with a clone. I mean what is Starkiller going to do, embrace his clone as a bro?