BTS The SW Saga of 1975: ATM's Take

OK, I know I promised a thread on this, so here goes.

I think at this point I've learned enough overall, from my own research and the guesses of other people, to put together much of what was in GL's mind at the time he began seriously to work on SW in 1975. Notably, a lot of this is much more mature in tone and themes (both explicitly and implicitly) than what was ultimately made. It's also a lot more fantasy-oriented in general, like the second draft as a whole.

In particular, it's pretty clear in my view that GL always intended some Wagnerian influence on SW. After all, in his 1975 interview with Alan Dean Foster, he describes the basic form of SW in the form of a trilogy with a lone prequel--a "trilogy with a prelude," in the manner of the four-opera series Der Ring des Nibelungen. But I suppose it wasn’t long before he realized he really had to make three prequels, to fit everything in that he wanted to. And it’d rhyme with the OT, after all.

In reconstructing this, I’ve realized that perhaps the best way to tell it, and to gather ideas at the same time, is to write it like a book. After all, that’s what GL himself apparently tried to do in 1973 with the Journal of the Whills outline.

Forgive me if I don’t explain all the reasons behind this narrative. But do feel free to question me if anything seems out of place, and I’d be happy to explain my reasons for thinking as I do. (Some insights, though, just come naturally to a storyteller. Great minds think alike, after all, and I’d like to think that GL already thought up the majority of this stuff himself.)

OK, are you ready? Here goes.

Episode I: The City of Gold

Know, O Prince, that...

*ahem*

Sorry. Too much Robert E. Howard, I think.

Once upon a time, there was a great Jedi, who was also the Prince of a great and powerful world....

*ahem*

Sorry.

I think, given the known fact of the Clone Wars, this story must begin properly with the Clones.

Prologue to the First Episode

“Another galaxy, another time.”

It’s probable that, given GL’s interest in history and historical names, there was likely an ancestral homeworld of the Clone Clans, rather like ancient Israel before the Babylonian conquest.

As with the Corrino Empire of Frank Herbert’s Dune, there was presumably a ruling Clone Clan, and other lesser clans. There were, after all, said to be 12 noble families of the Empire in the 1975 third draft—analogous to the Twelve Tribes of Israel.

This ruling clan was, I’d guess, named House Valorum, and its leader, the Clone King, would perhaps have been Alexander Valorum. These names come from the notes associated with the 1973 Journal of the Whills text.

It’s almost certain that the Valorum clan was distinguished by a set of genetic traits. Let’s say, perhaps, red hair and green eyes—features common to the MacDougall bloodline of superhuman Lensman candidates in EE “Doc” Smith’s Lensman series.

This clone homeworld probably had a numeral in its name, as a reference to Wallach IX, home of the evil cloners, the Bene Tleilax, in Dune Messiah. Very probably it was called Sullust X. This world, the farthest out of ten planets, likely had three suns in its solar system—like Abydos in Stargate. You’ll see why momentarily.

Anyways, the Prince of Organa Major—let’s call him Carl Organa—had come to this homeworld for diplomatic reasons. Jedi, like Doc Smith’s Lensmen, would naturally have to be great diplomats as well as great warriors. Perhaps the negotiations were about slavery, and the Republic’s wish to end it with compensated emancipation. At any rate, the Clones themselves must have kept slaves; and, if that was his purpose in the mission, Carl’s negotiations failed.

Except in one thing: Carl bought a slave child whom he liked, a fair-haired ten-year-old boy. This boy was Annikin Skywalker, so named because he had no father. After all, even in the rough draft of TPM, Shmi Warka and Anakin Skywalker have different last names.

In truth, though, Annikin did have a father: an incubus of sorts. Perhaps we might call this creature a Sith, or in fantasy parlance, an Elf. (Think of Alberich the Dwarf, who sired Hagen Tronje on the Queen of Burgundy in Wagner’s Ring Cycle.)

Carl bought Annikin because he could see the young boy had great innate Force power. (Although it’s plain that anyone at this early stage could be a Jedi with the right training, genetic talent always helps—as Luke admitted in ROTJ.) In fact, Annikin was already winning podraces for his master at the age of ten. Essentially, he was Young Ben-Hur in Space.

Like Bruce Wayne, Carl Organa likely had a young ward: presumably the child of one of his father’s greatest knights, who was slain in battle. This child would’ve been Ben Kenobi, who must’ve been only a few years older than Annikin himself. Carl knew Ben was lonely, and wanted to give him a playmate of his own age.

Carl wanted to free both Annikin and his mother, but despite all the Prince’s efforts to bargain, their wealthy owner would only sell one slave. In fact, he secretly hoped to sire another Annikin on her; for he thought that he himself was the father, and had reason to do so. And isn’t that what slaveowners do in their hypocrisy?

So Carl bought Annikin from his master at a great price, and took him home, not realizing what weighty consequences for the future this one act would have.

Ten Years Later

War now loomed on the horizon between the Republic and the Clone Clans—who wished to secede, like the Separatists of the final prequels, but here likely on account of their desire to retain slavery. To make the breach complete, and consummate the war both sides so devoutly wished, something must have happened… some catalyzing incident.

Perhaps, in a replay of the opening of the Trojan War, Alexander Valorum stole the bride of Prince Carl Organa, out from under the noses of the guards on Organa Major. If so, probably her name was Alana, as in “Helen of Troy.” (Alana is the name of one of Leia Aquilae’s handmaidens in the 1974 rough draft.)

The First Clone War had begun!

(Ever wonder why they were always the Clone Wars, in the plural? This is likely why.)

Annikin was a young man, and just as in the prequels, the fear of death would doubtless have disturbed him. He would've wanted to save his own life, and the lives of his friends. But in his heart he wanted vengeance on the Clones, who had treated him as a piece of chattel, and then betrayed his good friend and foster father, Carl Organa.

In short, he wanted magical shields and wonder weapons.

So he went to the best smiths in the galaxy: the inhabitants of the sinkhole world of Bestine. Here lived the Sith and the Boma: what one might call, in another galaxy and another time, Elves and Dwarves.

(In the third act of the 1975 second draft, Luke gives Han his lightsaber and sword-belt as a parting gift, saying they were wrought by the “Bomer-wrights of Sullust,” i.e., the Dwarf-smiths of Utapau/Tatooine.)

--

I would guess that the Elves of Bestine were uniformly lovely to look on: tall and golden-haired. But the Dwarves were not. Most probably, their womenfolk were beautiful redheads, but their red-haired men were short and stunted, like Wagner’s Dwarves in the illustrations of Arthur Rackham. (This dimorphism is shared by the people of the Lost City of Opar in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan novels.) All of them, however, would likely have had golden eyes and pointed ears—and they could interbreed, with each other and with Men.

But through centuries of too much inbreeding, and proud refusal to marry outside their own lineages, the Elves and Dwarves had both greatly dwindled in numbers. At last there was only one family left on Bestine, of Elves and Dwarves who had mixed together out of pure necessity: the Oxus-Kadar family.

There were three Elves and three Dwarves, and one child, making seven in total. (How’s that for a Disney homage?) Three Elf sisters: Amber Oxus and her two sisters, Aurelia and Aubra. Three Dwarf brothers: Renard, Roland, and Oliver Kadar. And the youngest, the sole child: an infant half-Elf, half-Dwarf girl-child—Oeeta Kadar (who does not come further into this tale).

Almost all of these names are found in GL’s early drafts and notes from the 1973-74 period. “Renard,” though not found there, is mythological (as in the medieval legends of “Reynard the Fox”).

These were the greatest smiths in the galaxy: makers of lightsabers, of Kiber Crystals (the magical artifacts that opened the Force to new Jedi), and of the Clones themselves. But the Clones had overpowered their masters, and only those few who had not been enslaved remained on their home planet of Bestine.

At present, the Sith and Boma were feuding, and begged Annikin to divide the world between them, so they might share it and still each have their own spaces. Annikin was a Jedi, after all, and Jedi were known for their abilities as fair arbitrators.

But Annikin was no ordinary Jedi, nor was he an ordinary man. He judged the Sith and the Boma according to his own immature heart. For the Sith, who resembled him, were pleasing to him, but the Boma, with their red hair and their stunted bodies, were not—they reminded him of the pain of the lash, and the red hair of his former masters. And he wasn’t yet truly wise, and he saw only skin deep.

So Annikin told the Boma that they had to depart Bestine forever. They resisted him, but Annikin killed Renard in a show of force. The rest went, grudgingly, into forced exile, taking Oeeta with them.

(This whole bit with the two warring clans comes from the story of Siegfried’s adventure with two feuding Dwarves, guardians of a great hoard of treasure, in the medieval Nibelungenlied.)

Now, Annikin had still to deal with the Elves. He loved them so much that—well, I think I’d better not say too explictly.

Suffice it to say that, when Annikin was done with Amber, she killed herself. Aurelia, for her part, wished to go on living, but, feeling the insult to her family too much to bear, Aubra slew her own sister in an honor killing. (Titus Andronicus, anyone?)

At last, only Aubra was left.

She’d sought to protect her own sisters, and herself, by giving Annikin gifts to buy him off. It didn’t work.

First, for Amber’s sake, Aubra gave Annikin a magic ring, forged of two serpents interwoven, which would save his life if worn in battle. It’d have been very much like King Arthur’s magical scabbard.

Then, to ransom Aurelia, she gave Annikin a pair of magic rings, each in a serpent’s shape. These would save the lives of both wearers—as long as each of them remained loyal to the other, to the point of giving up their own life, each for each. (This idea comes from Poul Anderson’s 1974 fantasy novel A Midsummer Tempest, whose hero and heroine are given just such a pair of rings by the Elves, Oberon and Titania.)

And, in a vain attempt to protect herself, Aubra gave him another thing: a Black Sun. This was a portable magical bomb, analogous to Saruman’s “blasting fire” of gunpowder in The Lord of the Rings, which had been specially crafted for Annikin’s own needs. Naturally, as magical beings, Elves and Dwarves were quite capable of foresight.

But none of these things swayed Annikin from his dark desires. And afterward, Aubra still wished to remain alive, to wreak her own vengeance upon him.

So, as Annikin left Bestine, Aubra gave him one thing more: her own curse. She told him that the Two Rings would never bring good to their wearers, unless first purified with fire and blood—and that ultimately, to end the curse, the Lone Ring would have to be destroyed.

(The Dwarf Andvari lays down a very similar curse on the Ring stolen by Loki, and ultimately inherited by Sigurd/Siegfried, in Norse myth. It is this curse which brings about Sigurd’s own downfall, and the fall in turn of the Burgundians who slay him and steal his gold.)

Armed and prepared, Annikin traveled to Sullust X, held under siege by the war fleets of the Republic.

--

Annikin snuck into the Golden City of Sullust himself, and found and rescued Alana. But he also found another prisoner: his own mother, who had been given over to the torturers when the war broke out. Most likely, in fact, he would’ve found her in such pain that he’d have been forced to give her a merciful death. (Basically, an even worse version of Anakin’s last meeting with Shmi in AOTC.)

In the fullness of his anger, Annikin detonated the Black Sun. Now he saw what it was truly meant to do, since Aubra had not told him the details.

It extinguished the third sun of the Sullust system, making it into a harsh desert world, placed as it was right next to the two other suns. (Imagine the power of the Genesis Device in Star Trek II—but here used to put out a sun.) And the resulting shockwave completely destroyed the first nine planets of the Sullust system.

Sullust X survived—but the blast ruined it, leaving a post-apocalyptic, radioactive wasteland where a world of golden cities and flowing rivers had once been. Annikin and Alana, and the Republic fleets, barely got away in time. The First Clone War was over almost before it had begun.

(Does this remind you of anything yet? “This is Ceti Alpha V!” perhaps?)

For this great and terrible deed, Annikin Skywalker very likely received a new surname: Annikin Starkiller. Think of the Roman general Scipio, the victor of the Second Punic War, who defeated Hannibal of Carthage, and afterward was named Scipio Africanus. (Or, for that matter, the Starkiller lineage of the 1975 second draft, whose ultimate founder was a man called “the Skywalker.”)

Carl Organa, whose father, the King, had been killed in the raid on Organa Major, now became its new King, and resigned as an official Jedi. Annikin and Ben, both blooded in the war, entered his service as Knights. It’s likely that such valiant Jedi were permitted to have the posting of their choice; after all, it’d explain how Ben Kenobi had “served” Leia’s father.

Like Aragorn Elessar in The Lord of the Rings, Carl probably took a regnal name: Rieekan. This name, later used for a Rebel general, is based on the French word for “shark,” and is a reference to Charles Martel, grandfather of Charlemagne, as well as to King Kala of the Shark Men from Flash Gordon.

And Annikin and Queen Alana, who had escaped the jaws of Hell together, fell in love.

--

But not all the Clones had been killed in the fall of Sullust X.

Some escaped, and some perished, as did Alexander Valorum. But those who survived lived on as mutants, in the ruins of the City of Gold.

The new world of Sullust, once a sun, received settlers, who nicknamed it Utapau. This name had two senses, one ironic and one straightforward. It was a harsh world to live upon, but its denizens gave thanks for its creation, which ended the First Clone War with minimal loss to the Republic.

But some of the resentful mutant clones traveled to Sullust, and settled in secret camps in the desert. They resolved to make life as difficult as possible for the settlers on the new world whose birth destroyed their own. They hid their damaged faces and patchy red hair in bandages. The people of Utapau, who never perceived the secret beneath their masks, gave them a new name: the Tusken Raiders.

After all, Dwarves and Elves and Clones, the makers and the made, all had long memories… and they did not forget slights, and rarely forgave. And Aubra’s undying hatred of Annikin Starkiller and the Jedi Order would bear bitter fruit in future years.

Already, she was pregnant. And she had great plans for the twin children born to her.

 

Small note: the Sith being essentially Space Elves would explain the idea in the 1975 second draft that the Sith were a pre-existing group, originally independent of Dark Side users. The draft in question states that a renegade Jedi apprentice named Darklighter taught the "para-Force" or Bogan/Dark Side to a "clan of Sith pirates."

Elven space pirates, I'd guess. Funny thought.

 

Episode II: The Sorceress of Ttaz

Ten years passed; ten years in which the Republic slept at peace. For under the leadership of its wise Chancelloress, Irina, little had happened to disturb its slumbers. Annikin, for his part, mellowed greatly in this interval, having seen much good and much evil done in the name of the Republic during his years as a Jedi. Ben Kenobi, however, discovered within himself a thirst for power, and he began to take an interest in the dark arts.

(In the earliest stories of King Arthur, Sir Bedivere was a wizard himself, and was often accused of dark sorcery. And Ben of course fulfills not only the role of Merlin—who himself was said to be the son of the Devil—but also that of Bedivere, since he passes on Annikin’s sword to Luke.)

But the times of peace were waning. Rumors spread of a secret Clone Army being made by fugitive exiles on an unknown planet. As yet, though, there was no hard evidence… only rumors.

--

The Second Clone War began suddenly, when the good Chancelloress Irina was assassinated by a bomb planted in the Senate Chamber. (In fact, just such a bomb was thrown by an anarchist into the midst of legislators in France’s Chamber of Deputies in 1893. Adolf Hitler was also nearly killed this way twice—the second time by Count von Stauffenberg in 1944, the first in a speech at the Munich Beer Hall in 1939.)

Irina’s hastily elected replacement was not a commoner, but a noble of the Republic: Lord Manx Pestage of Alderaan, the King of the Cloud City.

(The surname Pestage of course comes from early drafts of ESB. The first name Manx refers to a cat with no tail—an “emperor with no clothes” of sorts. I picked it out myself, though I’m sure it’s the sort of name GL would like—so don’t accept it as canon on my account.)

The newly invested Chancellor Pestage immediately assumed to himself the temporary war powers requisite to such an emergency: the authority vested in a long-dormant office of the Republic, the Consul or War Leader.

(The Emperor is also referred to as “Consul of the Supreme Tribunal” in the 1974 rough draft. The idea of the Consul here comes from the Roman notion of the temporary dictator in times of crisis, an appointed war leader who was expected to lay down his power once the immediate emergency had passed.)

Consul Pestage fulminated against vaguely defined villains, and vowed to bring the perpetrators to justice. But already the Jedi knew who was responsible for this terrible crime. The hearts of the exiled Clone Clans still burned with fury and with thoughts of vengeance against the victors of the great First Clone War. And none burned more fiercely than the hearts of Clan Valorum, whose leader Alexander died in the fall of Sullust X.

In truth, Alexander already had a successor: Xerxes Valorum, who had begun to clone an army of his own in secret on the Ice Planet of Norton III. (This name for a proto-Hoth appears, with different variants of the numeral, in both the 1973 notes for the Journal of the Whills and the 1974 rough draft.)

As befitted a Jedi in these perilous times, Carl Organa doffed his royal mantle and his regnal name, and tracked the rumors of the Clone Army to their source. He went in secret to Norton III to scout out the factory which was cloning Xerxes’ army. But he was captured, and held prisoner, and subjected to the secret ordeals of the Sith: for the Clones, after all, were not made by human hands.

So Carl's faithful knights, Annikin and Ben, then went to Norton III after him. They brought C-3PO with them, in case they needed a translator, but they left behind Alana on Organa Major.

---

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT FOR THEFORCE.NET READERS!

I believe I've guessed something of the initiation rituals of the Sith. After all, given the connection with the Sidhe, they’d have to be sort of… Elvish… in nature, wouldn’t they?

Here I think that, rather than spend too much time worrying about sources, it’s best to go into full narrative mode.

I shall quote from The Secret Mysteries of the Whills, by “the Mad Priest,” Friar J.A. Humbert (subset XVII, book IV, to the Encyclopédie historique de l’ancienne empire):

Perhaps I might pause here to describe what this long-lost ritual of initiation is. I have learned of it only imperfectly, but that there was one, there can be little doubt. It is, shall we say, self-evident, to one who knows something of the Elves.

It was not, as is even now commonly believed among laymen, a method of torture by a cruel and capricious order of Dark wizards—those impostors who falsely arrogated to themselves the name of Sith. Rather, it was meant as a revelation of sorts.

The true Sith, the Elves, wished only to cause pain in small doses, so as to bring about far greater pleasure. For their motto was that of the Heroic Serpent, the Brother of Angels: “An it harm none, do what thou wilt.” To that end, they wished their ordeal of initiation to encompass their philosophy in itself.

Four times would an initiate be asked to submit to the rule of the Sith. For each of the first three refusals, a series of seven physical punishments would be administered, with intervals of several days (the exact number, I know not) elapsing between the stages of punishment.

Upon the fourth refusal, the punishment (or reward?) for one so obstinate was the ultimate sanction: death.

Of this last part of the ritual one cryptic descriptive phrase has survived: “He will knock four times….”

There were seven steps in the initial ordeal, of which each had three stages.

They were as follows:

I. Injury to the hair:
a. A lock of hair clipped
b. The head (and beard, for men) shaved
c. The head shaved, and part of the hair permanently removed (the beard sans mustache, for men; most of the head hair, save a topknot, for women)

II. Injury to the eye:
a. The right eye blackened and swollen shut
b. Both eyes blackened and swollen shut
c. The right eye cut out

III. Injury to the nose: broken once for each refusal to submit

IV. Extraction of the teeth:
a. One tooth removed
b. Nine teeth removed
c. All teeth removed

V. Physical violation, in increasing severity

VI. Injury to the trunk:
a. Flogging on the back
b. Flogging on the chest front
c. Asymmetrical removal of one organ of reproduction

VII. Injury to the right hand:
a. The right ring finger removed
b. The last three fingers of the right hand removed
c. The right hand removed in toto

Once an inductee submitted, they received the Final Stage of initiation, the Seven Seals of the Sith:

I. Drinking of a secret Sith liquor that brings on madness and ecstasy, an exalted state referred to as the Red Sleep of the Sith (cf. the Black Sleep of Kali in the legends of the Silver River Galaxy)

II. Application of the Mark of the Sith to the forehead, in such a way as to show the rank of the novitiate:
a. For the once-resistant, a black triskelion tattoo
b. For the twice-resistant, a red triskelion tattoo
c. For the thrice-resistant, a triskelion of molten gold poured into a cicatrix carved on the forehead
d. For those who never resisted, a triskelion brand on the forehead, assuming the natural color of the skin (a “proper” blazon, in the language of heraldry)

III. The application of wounds willingly undergone by the initiate: one for each prior refusal of submission, plus another in addition. These take the form of rituals left undone. However, those who refused to submit three times are spared this final seal, as they have already done all that is necessary and proper.

IV. A banquet, at which—

Here, sadly, the manuscript breaks off in a lacuna.

A later page tells more:

To hide the marks upon their foreheads, most Sith Lords wore masks, for they did not wish it to be widely known, even within the Empire, that they served a master greater and more powerful than the Emperor—whose emblem remained the arrowhead of the still-venerated Old Republic.

Yet in truth, some Sith initiation candidates were drawn from the Imperial officer corps, and these, who had already given their sworn word to submit, did not have to receive the marks of ordeal until they were fully inducted.

They were held in pectore, or “in the breast,” until they had completed their training, in public and in private—the full details of which even I have not yet uncovered.

---

Actually, let me break out of the narrative for a second. In one of John Mollo’s 1975 costume sketches of Darth Vader, he’s plastered all over with Imperial arrowheads—no doubt a remnant of the Old Republic, and meant to resemble the Starfleet arrowheads from Star Trek. But Vader’s cloak clasp shows a triskelion, which was very likely meant to be a secret Sith insignia.



---

And now back to the normal course of the story.

---

In the ten years since the First Clone War, Alana had given Carl twin sons, Crispin and Corwin, as well as a daughter, Lexa. Crispin and Corwin took after their Japanese-featured father, Carl, but Lexa was blonde like her mother—and her father.

(Remember Lancelot and Guinevere in the stories of King Arthur? By the way, none of these names are chosen at chance. They’re taken from the sort of stories—Narnia, Shakespeare, DC Comics—that GL clearly likes.)

I might note in passing that the Clones probably preferred golden-haired slaves, like Annikin’s own mother; they must have reminded them of the Elves. Likewise, in Dark Age Britain, among the usually dark-haired Celts, golden-haired children were believed to be potential changelings.

At any rate, Annikin left the twin mate of his serpent ring with Alana. The Lone Ring of intertwined serpents Annikin gave to young Lexa, to protect her in case something dire should happen. But after Annikin’s departure, Alana secretly switched rings with Lexa, hoping thereby to increase her daughter’s protection. After all, she could defend herself as a shield-maiden, but Lexa was too young to wield a Ring in battle. And wouldn’t Annikin be true to his lover?

--

Meanwhile, like the Thuggee cult in the movie Gunga Din, the Clones held three Jedi warriors as prisoners, with whom they planned to entice the Republic’s army, and its Jedi generals, into a trap on Norton III.

Each of the trio was subjected to the tortures of the Sith. All of them refused to submit. C-3PO, meanwhile, had a leg removed, in order to hobble him.

They were freed by a Clone woman, who offered to release them on the condition that each man have relations with her. They agreed, and did what she asked. In addition to releasing them, she told them how to evade the trap that lay in wait for the Grand Army of the Republic, which even now was landing upon Norton III.

(The reason for her request? Rather like the society in THX 1138, the machine-born Clones were likely forbidden by a religious taboo from reproducing sexually. The particular detail of the captive heroes’ seduction derives from The Ill-Made Knight, the third book in TH White’s series about King Arthur.)

So, after a dangerous descent down a mountainside (an inverted nod to General James Wolfe’s assault upon Quebec in the Seven Years’ War), the three heroes were reunited with the Republic’s army, and foiled the Clones’ plan.

As in Sergei Eisenstein’s film Alexander Nevsky, a great battle was joined on the ice plains of Norton. In the battle, however, although Annikin and Ben slew many foes, the Jedi probably failed to defeat Xerxes himself. Much like Count Dooku in the ending of AOTC, Xerxes must have fled to a remote hangar, and the heroes would've pursued him there.

But Xerxes held them off with a show of force. He’d have cut off Annikin’s right hand with a lightsaber, and disabled Carl Organa with a blast of Force lightning that turned his hair white. (This latter detail derives from Joh Fredersen’s whitened hair in the ending of Metropolis, a twofold symbol at once of his impotence to help his son Freder, and his newfound goodness of heart.)

The heroes survived because of the intervention of Ben Kenobi, who, in a burst of rage, drew on Dark Side powers to force Xerxes to flee the scene in a swift spaceship.

The trio rejoiced in their victory, the opening battle of the Second Clone War—but they had a surprise in store waiting for them at home.

--

In the throne room of Organa Major, Akbar Valorum, lieutenant of Xerxes, was holding Alana and Lexa hostage. For he had gone on a secret mission at the behest of his master, to deliver a measure of vengeance should fortune turn against the Clones once more. (Think of Saruman reappearing in the Shire at the end of the book version of The Lord of the Rings.)

Ben was paralyzed by fear, and Carl was still too weak to save his wife and daughter. But Annikin acted, as quickly as he could.

But not quickly enough. Weakened by the loss of his right arm, Annikin failed to stop Akbar from slaying Lexa before he could kill him. The ring failed to protect Lexa; for Annikin hadn’t been true to Alana, the ring’s intended recipient.

--

Meanwhile, on the rocky, cavernous planet of Ttaz (which no doubt looked very much like Geonosis), dwelt the embittered exile Aubra—on whom Annikin had pronounced banishment as well, in revenge for her curse. Here she raised her twin children, Zeno and Zara Kadar, with the memory of their father’s crimes ever present in their minds.

They grew up hating Annikin Starkiller, and his name, and his deeds, and the Jedi Order which he served. And now they were grown to full strength, and Aubra deemed the time proper to strike.

--

With the great sorrow of Lexa’s death upon their shoulders, Annikin and Alana grieved separately, for each could hardly bear to look at the other’s face. But they realized this must be done, if they were to endure each other’s presence at court. So each of them went, by separate corridors, to the other’s room in an effort to make up. (Rather like a certain scene in Temple of Doom.)

Yet each one thought they found the other where they looked first. For Zara Kadar, in Alana’s shape, inhabited her room; and Zeno Kadar, in Annikin’s guise, rested in his.

And so, unknowingly, each of them was seduced by an Elf. Zeno fathered a child on Alana, and Annikin impregnated Zara.

Afterward, Zara asked Annikin to promise to yield his Rings to her son, should he ever ask for them. Annikin assented readily, not knowing the true meaning of the promise. And, for his part, Zeno asked Alana to give him Annikin’s ring, “for a friend’s protection.” To this Alana agreed, thinking of Ben Kenobi.

Before the Elf siblings departed, Zeno visited Ben Kenobi, who also grieved. For he too loved Alana, if only from afar. Zeno passed Alana’s ring on to Ben, with the caveat that it, too, must be given up, should Annikin’s child ever request it. To this deceptive request Ben, too, pledged his agreement.

In the morning, none of the humans knew what had happened, and they went on with their lives.

--

Nine months later, Alana gave birth to a child: a sickly fair-haired albino, perhaps named Laif Organa. The child grew young, but never too strong. But always he had Annikin’s example before him, and he dreamed of becoming a Jedi himself one day, in order to honor the man he called “Father” in secret.

(Like King Arthur with Lancelot and Guinevere, Carl Rieekan would have known as much as Annikin knew, and he wouldn’t have minded. After all, much of his own vitality would likely have been drained from him by the dark power of the Force lightning.)

Annikin did not replace his lost arm, for this was considered uncouth among Jedi. Instead he learned to duel with his left hand. (In the ROTS novelization, Count Dooku says that if Annikin were a true gentleman, he’d have done exactly that. Sketches for the film also show Mace Windu with one arm, and Ki-Adi-Mundi with an eyepatch—so that probably really was GL’s idea.)

But C-3PO replaced his lost golden leg with one of silver, to show off a war wound of which he was very proud.

--

Zara Kadar, back on Ttaz, also gave birth to a child: Lando Kadar, the future Darth Vader. She died in the birthing, and her strength passed into him, and though he too was a fair-haired albino, he grew stronger and healthier with each passing year.

And Lando, a young and innocent child, eagerly lapped up the poison dished out from the mouths of his uncle and his grandmother.

At his grandmother’s knee, he listened to Aubra’s tales, grossly exaggerated (but not entirely), of the terrible deeds of his father.

At his uncle’s forge, he heard Zeno weep for the beauty of Bestine which he could never know, and curse the name of Annikin Starkiller with every blow of his hammer.

And, as he slept, Lando dreamed of joining the Jedi Order, and destroying it from within, and so bringing his father to ruin. And a smile crept across his face in the night and the darkness of the caves of Ttaz.

 

Episode III: To Duel in Hell

Eighteen years had now passed since the Second Clone War began. It had dragged on for several years, but the end came eventually, for the largest portion of the Clone armies had been defeated at Ttaz.

After the peace treaty was signed, Ben Kenobi wrote a book, a classic of Jedi military strategy and well-turned prose alike: “Diary of the Clone Wars.” This is clearly based on Julius Caesar’s Commentaries on the Gallic War. (Luke mentions the title, and says that he knows it by heart, in the 1975 third draft.)

Annikin Starkiller, for his part, watched Laif Organa grow to manhood, and took great delight in the boy’s progress. Although Laif was frail, he had a sharp mind and a quick wit, and often thought in unorthodox ways. But this made Annikin love him all the more. On the day of Laif’s induction into the Jedi Order, Annikin gave him one of his rings willingly, so that Laif might be protected in battle; for he still was weak in body.

Annikin, too, had grown. He was now a mature man, and the Grand Master of the Jedi Order, presiding over the Privy Council or triumvirate which governed the Knights. For Bunden Debannen, the ancient and wizened Master of the Order, was at last ready to retire.

(Anakin Skywalker in the prequels, in contrast, craves the title of Jedi Master, but is denied it.)

Carl Rieekan’s sons, Crispin and Corwin, were also now grown to full strength, and were themselves Jedi Knights. (Think of them as a combination of the Christian brother-saints Crispin and Crispinian, made famous by Shakespeare in Henry V, and the twin sons of Elrond, Elladan and Elrohir, in the book version of The Lord of the Rings.)

Meanwhile, another Jedi had been inducted at the same time as Laif: Lando Kadar. No one knew where he came from, for he kept his parentage a mystery to all. He himself claimed not to know who his father was, and said only that he was the child of a slave.

--

The peace of the Republic was increasingly disturbed by fearful bombings, like those which had claimed the life of the beloved Chancelloress Irina. Consul Pestage, whose firm leadership had saved the Republic in the Second Clone War, had not yet lain down his war powers, and was never asked officially to do so.

Now a Third Clone War broke out. The last remnant of the Clones staked all upon a decisive, make-or-break battle, akin to Robert E. Lee’s army at Gettysburg in the US Civil War. They struck at Organa Major (i.e., the planet called Alderaan in today’s SW) with an assault fleet, commanded by Xerxes Valorum.

As the orbital combat raged, Annikin and Ben Kenobi took to starfighters and disabled Xerxes’ command ship. The heroes repulsed the assault with minimal losses, thanks to the timely arrival of a Republic fleet, but Xerxes escaped once again in a small shuttle. (The battle strategy here comes from Ulysses S. Grant’s victory at the Battle of Shiloh, with the help of a relief force led by Don Carlos Buell. General Lew Wallace, author of Ben-Hur, also fought at that battle.)

Annikin went after Xerxes, and tracked him to the desert planet of Utapau. In orbit there, they had a dogfight. Annikin’s starship was damaged, and he crash-landed. (Think of Howard Hughes’ near-fatal airplane crash in 1946.)

Annikin survived the crash due to his magic Ring, and was rescued by a young farm-girl named Beru. (Let’s say her full name was Beru Thorpe—which, besides appearing in the 1973 Journal of the Whills, is also the surname of a famous multiracial American athlete, Jim Thorpe, and thus suggests the kind of mixed heritage commonly found in the American West.)

Beru Thorpe nursed Annikin back to health. They fell in love, and got engaged. Annikin, by now thoroughly sick of the slaughter inherent in war, decided to retire from the Jedi Order—once he had found and slain Xerxes Valorum
.
But first he had to find him. Xerxes was in hiding.

So Annikin rode across the desert plains for months, following his trail, seeking him out. At last he found him in the back streets of a small seedy town—perhaps Mos Eisley itself.

They had a gunfight, since Xerxes had no sword at the time, and Annikin had at last matured into a gentleman. Annikin was wounded in the shoulder, but he survived, while Xerxes fell.

--

Meanwhile, though, something sinister was happening back at the Thorpe farm.

Beru probably had a sister, who was jealous of Beru’s intimacy with Annikin. Let’s call her Breha—the name of Leia Aquilae’s mother in the 1974 rough draft.

Beru, I’d guess, had brown hair and brown eyes, which the older and more mature Annikin now admired precisely because they were different from his own blue eyes. But Breha, though she shared Beru’s brown hair, had flinty blue eyes. Men shrank from them, and feared to wed her, and she was lonely.

On the very day Xerxes fell, Breha was surprised when she met Annikin, seemingly returned from his wanderings. He flirted with her, and kissed her, and she gave herself to him. In truth, though, this was Lando Kadar in a disguise of Elvish glamour. Lando, who had already given himself in secret to the Dark Side, and begun to create a shadow cult, the Sith Order, within the Jedi.

The resulting child was Luke Starkiller.

When Annikin returned, Breha knew she was pregnant, and her father urged Annikin to make an honest woman of her. As a noble man, Annikin agreed, and married Breha instead of Beru. (This whole storyline, right down to the sisters with different eye colors, derives loosely from the tale of the Biblical patriarch Jacob and his two wives, Rachel and Leah, in the Old Testament.)

Beru, meanwhile, married a suitor whom she had earlier rejected. He was another farmer, a bit of a dullard, but respectable—Owen Lars. (Basically, think of Lucy Westenra’s barrage of suitors in Dracula.)

With Annikin now retired as a moisture farmer on Utapau, Ben Kenobi took up his place as the Grand Master of the Jedi Order, though there were some in the greater Council who spoke against his appointment.

But Bunden Debannen, now on his deathbed, said it was a good choice, and this swayed the doubters. And, as he lay dying, old “Buffy” whispered secret words of counsel to Ben, which no one else heard. For Ben did not reveal them.

Four Years Later

The bombings continued, despite the decisive end of the Third Clone War. In truth, now, they were almost invariably perpetuated by Lando’s cabal of Sith Knights within the Jedi themselves.

Lando had made a secret pact with the Consul, Lord Pestage: the Sith would establish and support his rule as a monarch, and serve as the power behind the throne he craved. In return, Lando would be made the head of the New Order. As a result, thanks to Lando’s lobbying, the Senate invested the Consul Pestage with a new title: the Emperor of the Galaxy.

This was widely popular in the Senate, and among some, though hardly all, on the street. One might perhaps say that liberty in the Old Republic died with thunderous and tepid applause at the same time.

Only one vote in the Senate was cast against the motion: the vote of the Senator of Organa Major—Alana. (She’s basically Padme.)

Emperor Pestage was not a Sith Lord. In fact, he’d really have been the “Nixonian bureaucrat” whom GL envisioned as the Emperor before he came up with the evil sorcerer Palpatine in ESB. Still, Pestage did command a loyal legion of secret Sith Lords within the Jedi Order—or, at least, outwardly loyal.

But, under Ben Kenobi’s leadership, about one-third of the Jedi—those who were willing to take a stand against evil—plotted in secret to overthrow the Emperor and restore the Republic, though they would commit treason in the process. The majority of the Jedi, however, resisted. Another one-third did so because they were secretly Sith or Sith sympathizers, or hoped to profit from Sith rule. But the rest simply feared to commit treason.

(These figures are based on John Adams’ famous educated guess about overall American opinion on the merits of the War of American Independence at the time. In the 1974 rough draft, after all, GL put words from Adams’ diary, describing his feelings about the Boston Tea Party, nearly verbatim in the Emperor’s mouth.)

It’s actually possible that, just as in Rome (where there had been Kings in the pre-Republic days), there had been Galactic Emperors, once, long ago.(This could explain the thinking behind the reference to “the later corrupt Emperors” in the SW 1977 novelization.)

The result was the Jedi Rebellion, which culminated in the Battle of Condawn.

The war did not go well for the insurrectionist Jedi. They lacked the resources of the Empire, upon which the Sith, now openly declaring themselves, could draw freely. Moreover, there were traitors among the Jedi and their friends, some of whom were not discovered until years later.

But the Jedi had one great hope. Annikin Starkiller put down his hydrospanner and took up his lightsaber, and went forth once more to help his beloved Jedi Order.

The night before the final battle, Annikin slept once again with Alana. Nine months later, she would give birth to Leia Organa, who took after her father in mind and body.

--

In the battle on the fiery world of Condawn, most of the Rebel Jedi died. Crispin and Corwin perished before their father’s eyes, and Carl Organa himself lost both legs and one arm. Ever afterward, he glided about in a silver wheelchair, dressed in mourning black. In his great grief, he would not deign to receive prostheses.

(Think of him as a combination of Davros of Skaro from classic Doctor Who; the crippled Christopher Pike in “The Menagerie” from Star Trek TOS; and the wheelchair-bound father of the secondary hero in the 1927 silent film about WWI air aces, Wings.)

At last only three Rebels were left standing: Ben, Annikin, and Laif Organa, the bearers of the three magic Rings.

Using a clever dueling move, Lando Kadar rendered Laif Organa’s lightsaber inoperable, and took him hostage. He demanded that Annikin order Laif and Ben to give up their Rings, and that Annikin himself do likewise. Thus Lando revealed his true origin, and the real meaning of their long-ago promises.

But to reassure his father, Lando swore that no harm would come to Laif from his hand if they obeyed.

Annikin gave up his own ring to Lando, and begged Laif and Ben to do likewise. They did.

Then Lando killed Laif.

Annikin, grief-stricken, took up his sword and fought with Lando. He cut off Lando’s right hand, but his mind was clouded with sorrow, and his strength was ebbing. Lando overpowered him, and cut off both of Annikin’s hands, rendering him helpless.

Now, to twist the knife further, Lando revealed Luke’s true parentage to them both. And then, Lando beheaded his own father.

Furious, Ben Kenobi charged Lando with his lightsaber.

--

Their duel was magnificent to see, set against the backdrop of lava.

Few Jedi, even those already committed to the Sith, ever used any lightsaber color other than blue. But Ben Kenobi had always been unorthodox. So, after his elevation in rank, he had chosen to use a red lightsaber. And Ben and Vader’s contrasting saber blades shone against the fiery setting.

At last, Ben Kenobi saw an opening, and stabbed Lando in the heart. But Lando survived, thanks to his Rings. Lando cut off Ben’s right hand, and cast him down, and forced him to yield.

Cruel in victory, Lando stole Ben’s unique sword, and his Kiber Crystal, as trophies for the new Sith Order. Annikin’s and Laif’s crystals, however, had disintegrated with their owners’ demise, for they had not been passed on beforehand.

(Ben mentions his lost Kiber Crystal at one point in the 1975 third draft. The idea of a Kiber Crystal dissolving when its possessor dies comes from a trait of the magical Lenses in Doc Smith’s Lensman books.)

But in recompense for taking away Ben’s sword, Lando left Annikin’s sword for him to have, that Ben might pass it on to Luke. After all, what good had it done its original owner?

And so, Lando walked off, triumphant, leaving the wounded Ben Kenobi to grieve by his fallen King and his dead friends.

Afterward, Lando took a new name, to mark his victory over death: Darth Vader. He wore a life-support device to sustain his ravaged heart, but he had no need of a mask, except insofar as it hid his Mark of the Sith. After all, he didn’t wish to remind the Emperor constantly of the true power behind his throne.

--

I might pause to point out here that, as far as I’m aware, the earliest known mention of Vader being pushed into a lava pit in The Duel is actually in the 1977 Rolling Stone interview with GL.

The text of GL’s 1975 discussion with Alan Dean Foster, however, says only that Ben and Vader have a “big battle where Luke’s father gets killed.”

Also, here I’m pulling in an additional comics history reference, to Dr. Doom of the Fantastic Four.

The common story, the original canon of the Marvel universe, is that Dr. Doom was horribly burned in a lab experiment, and hid his features behind iron armor as a result. But the artist, Jack Kirby, himself believed that Doom only had a small facial scar, and hid his handsome face behind a mask out of pure vanity.

Here is Kirby’s version of the True Face of Doom:



--

Luke Starkiller was raised on Utapau/Tatooine, in ignorance of his true parentage. Ben Kenobi watched over him from a distance—occasionally going back to Organa Major/Alderaan to check on Leia.

As seen in the 1975 third draft, Ben replaced his lost right hand with a mechanical prosthesis, covered with fragile synth-flesh (since, as with the taboo against machine-brains in Dune, clone parts were likely outlawed in the wake of the Clone Wars). After all, even if his infirmity was discovered, he reasoned, who would expect a real Jedi to have a robotic hand?

But then, Ben had always been an imperfect Jedi at best.

Ben also built a new lightsaber for himself, with the standard color for a blade. For such elegant weapons were increasingly uncommon in that increasingly barbaric age. And a saber blade as distinctive as Ben’s old one had been would make any Imperial stormtrooper worth his pay think instantly of the old Commander of the White Legions.

On one of his visits to Organa Major, Ben noticed that Alana had a new child: a boy named Puck. Seeing this, he finally got over his own inhibitions (for she was very beautiful). Soon Alana had another son, a boy named Bink.

(Both of these children’s names come from the 1974 drafts. Even as late as 1977, GL is on record as stating that he thought Leia had two younger brothers of different ages, an idea that also goes back to 1974.)

Darth Vader was inducted as the new Head of the Sith Order, whose knights all wore fearsome masks of similar shape. He hoped one day to supplant Emperor Pestage, who was, in his view, only a noble and a politician, though very cunning.

In fact, Vader secretly dreamed of becoming immortal via his Ring, and ruling over an Eternal Empire. For the grant of longevity was one of the Rings’ powers. Already, his lifespan was beginning to stretch. In the seventeen years after the Battle of Condawn, he aged only half that, as ordinary men would reckon time.

Little did he know what would happen in the years ahead... and of the hopes that yet remained in the galaxy.

The Story So Far (the good parts version):

Annikin Skywalker/Starkiller: father of Lando Kadar (Darth Vader) and Leia Organa

Luke Starkiller: son of Lando Kadar, presumed son of Annikin Starkiller, and nephew of Leia Organa

Lando Kadar/Darth Vader: father of Luke Starkiller, half-brother of Leia Organa

Leia Organa: half-sister of Darth Vader, aunt of Luke Starkiller

No quiz afterward, just remember.

Extra Credit for history and/or literature nerds: does Luke and Leia's new familial relationship remind you of anything? Make sure to sing your answer in time to the leitmotif.

 

Hmm.... I think this particular quotation might be relevant to the story.

“One other matter must be mentioned, in connection with the events of the Battle of the Ice Plains of Norton: the true name of Annikin and Alana’s first child. The hitherto lost manuscript has it as Lara—for it could not in truth be Lexa, as many scholars have come to agree, citing reasons of continuity.”

--Myths and Legends of Glorianna, vol. 6: “The God-spell of Noah,” p. 9

 

Episode IV: A New Hope (or, simply Star Wars)

For most of what is relevant here, I refer you to the 1975 third draft.

I might as well elaborate, however, on some of the visuals intended.

--

Ben Kenobi was apparently meant to look like Toshiro Mifune in The Hidden Fortress as an older man, with dark eyes and white hair. Basically, imagine Mifune wearing the sort of old-age makeup used on Max von Sydow in The Exorcist.

It’s quite likely that, on Utapau, Ben Kenobi would have worn a simple settler’s outfit, similar to Luke’s but with a pocketed utility vest. (This idea appears repeatedly in John Mollo’s 1975 costume sketches.) But once on board the Millennium Falcon, he would have donned his old Jedi robes and brown hooded cloak once more.

Also, keep in mind that in the 1975 third draft, Luke merely ran away from his home on Utapau/Tatooine; the Empire did not destroy it on screen, nor as yet kill Owen and Beru.

C-3PO was meant to be bronze-colored, like the Robot Maria on the set of Metropolis, instead of the gold sheen he has in the final film. It’s a subtle difference, but true; the scripts from ESB onward drop the “bronze” descriptor and use “gold” instead. R2-D2, meanwhile, was at this stage apparently silver in color, as in Ralph McQuarrie’s paintings (or like the Maria robot on film).

As for Leia, most of Ralph McQuarrie’s sketches show her as a blonde, but a few show Leia with dark hair. Still, perhaps her hair could have been brown, or even red, like that of like Leia Aquilae in the 1974 rough draft.

When Leia was discovered unconscious in the prison cells of Alderaan, the Cloud City, she would have been subjected to torture—in fact, she’d have undergone the first stage of the Sith ordeal of initiation. As such, she would appear bloody and bruised, and would likely be in a state of extreme déshabillé, wearing a tattered dress or even simply a loincloth. (This is actually evident in several of Ralph McQuarrie’s thumbnail sketches for the chasm swing painting.)

In the finale, Leia’s wounds would be shown as healed. For instance, she’d have likely lost a tooth, and replaced it with a seamless dental bridge. Her right ring finger, perhaps cut off during her torture (in a nod to The Lord of the Rings), would have been replaced with a droid prosthetic beneath synth-flesh.

Notably, John Mollo’s costume sketches for the final scene show Leia wearing an altered version of her earlier nun-like dress: apparently one with a largely transparent top, with only a pair of crossed fabric straps across the chest to preserve her modesty.

Meanwhile, Luke’s farmer outfit would have included a white cloak, instead of his brown poncho. He’d probably give this to Leia to cover her partial nudity once they had escaped from Alderaan. As in the scene where TE Lawrence wears a borrowed an army uniform in Lawrence of Arabia, the blood from the lash marks on her back would visibly seep into the cloth.

Han’s overall outfit wouldn’t have changed much—but it’s possible that his shirt would’ve been black, or even slightly transparent. This last idea is indicated in some of Ralph McQuarrie’s costume sketches, and it derives from the transparent snowsuits worn in Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon comic strip.

(Didn't I tell you there was originally a more mature tone to SW overall?)

--

Additionally, there is the matter of the Kiber Crystal.

The crystal appears to have little relevance to the film’s story, and so it was cut out in the fourth draft. But Luke’s sword wasn’t initially relevant either, and it went on to have major importance in ESB.

So it’s almost certain that the Kiber Crystal was meant to have some sort of greater relevance in the sequels which we know GL was already planning.

Most probably, the Crystals (plural, in the third draft) served as a gateway of sorts. They would’ve been a means to open up one’s latent Force potential, and bring it into the open, so it could be further developed by the explicit use of Force powers. (Rather like a gateway drug… or the spice melange, which opens up one’s mind to prescience in Dune.)

This activation presumably happened when a Jedi first touched a Kiber Crystal with his or her bare hand. In just the same way, the Lensmen in Doc Smith’s books first gained their superlative mental powers when they were granted their Lenses. But the best Lensmen grew out of their need for this crutch, though they still used them as supports in times of greatest mental strain, as when doing mind-to-mind battle with a powerful foe.

In other words, that scene where Luke is wearing the blast helmet on the Millennium Falcon wasn’t originally about Ben training Luke to use the Force—at least, not in the way he imagined. It was merely an exercise of willpower, to give him confidence in his own latent abilities.

Therefore, the real moment where Luke first truly taps into the Force in the 1975 third draft comes during the Death Star trench run—when he grasps the Kiber Crystal in his hand, just as he prepares to make his first of two runs at the exhaust port. And even then, he still has to make the approach twice before he succeeds.

Note also Vader’s dialogue during this scene: “You’re next, Blue Five… I have this feeling I know you.” (Actual verbatim quote!)

We really ought to ask—in what way?

 

Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

Forget what you know about the opening on Hoth.

According to his own words in The Making of ESB, GL appears to have originally planned for the Rebels to be still housed on Yavin IV when he began to plan out the sequels to SW 1977. This means that much less time would have passed between the two movies than is allotted by current canon (three years). Perhaps only a couple of months, let’s say.

Most likely, the original reason for this different opening was because the Rebels were making hurried preparations to evacuate, and had selected a new site, but had not yet cleared out everything from their old base.

As in the finished film, the Empire must have taken them by surprise.

Darth Vader’s fleet—no doubt hastily assembled from across the galaxy--appeared unexpectedly in the skies over Yavin, and poured a rain of fire down upon the jungle planet, turning it into an inferno much like Condawn. The Rebels barely escaped: Luke and Ben together with R2-D2, and Han and Leia with Chewbacca and C-3PO, separated into two groups by the chaos of the evacuation.

Small side note: It’s very possible that this second film is where Leia would have originally worn the famous cinnamon-bun hairstyle inspired by Flash Gordon. After all, it doesn’t show up in any of Ralph McQuarrie’s concept art sketches for the first movie, nor, as far as I know, in the drawings of anyone else.

--

Instead of Dagobah, Luke and Ben would have traveled to the rocky, cavernous planet of Ttaz, where Ben worked to train Luke in the ways of the Force.

GL told Leigh Brackett in 1977 that he’d wanted to show such a place in his earlier, discarded ideas for the first SW sequel. Here Luke was supposed have scary visions in the desert, reminiscent of The Exorcist, or Jesus’ temptation by Satan in the Bible. I think I can guess what that vision was.

At Ben’s bidding, Luke entered a dark cave, but he defied Ben’s advice by taking his weapons with him.

There Luke saw a vision of a man and a woman. To be precise, he saw spectral versions of Han and Leia, as lovers, who taunted him for his failure to win the heart of the Princess. (Think of Ron Weasley and the visions he receives from Voldemort’s locket in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Ever notice that the giant-size Wizard Chess scene at the end of The Philosopher’s Stone appears to come straight from Edgar Rice Burroughs?)

Luke used his lightsaber to slay both of the specters. And they fell dead—resolving themselves into their true shapes, Aubra and Zeno Kadar. Luke began to cry, for he had done murder out of the jealousy in his heart.

Ben told him that they were evil Sith creatures, but little else of the truth at present. After all, some part of him still feared the consequences of giving Luke the true knowledge of his paternity. (Who knows? Maybe there really was a reason for that strange look Alec Guinness gets in his eyes in SW 1977.)

In fact, Ben knew in his heart that Luke still needed to face one final test: to confront Vader, and the evil within himself, and decide whether to accept or reject it.

--

After a harrowing space voyage, Han and Leia eventually made their way to a refuge—not Bespin but Kashyyyk, the Wookiee Planet.

There Han had been born to a settler couple long ago. But his father and mother were killed by the Wookiees, and young Han himself was raised among the creatures, until a friendly trader found him and brought him back to civilization. (Think of the literary Tarzan, or Leigh Brackett’s Eric John Stark and his boyhood on Mercury.)

That trader was now the powerful head of the Transport Guild: a recluse, and a man reluctant to get involved either way in the Galactic Civil War, but an old friend and one to be counted on in Han’s hour of need. Han hoped to contact him here, on his old home base of Kashyyyk, where he’d gotten his start in the Guild. He would likely offer Han protection; he might even, if asked nicely, commit his powerful fleet to the Rebel cause.

This guy really needs a name. Perhaps we can call him Bail Whitsun—combining the names of two characters from the 1974 rough draft, who meet in a metropolitan nightclub to discuss Imperial restraints on trade.

But the new trader in town was not a friend of Han. He was Jabba the Hutt—the humanoid (not slug!) smuggler whom Han had wronged in the 1975 rough draft, by stealing the Millennium Falcon (whose construction Jabba financed) out from under his nose. And Jabba had already been tipped off to watch for visitors matching the description of Han Solo and his friends. But even Jabba had an Imperial minder: his ostensible servant, Akira Valorum, the secret King of the Clones.

Han and Leia went to Jabba, not suspecting his treachery. Han apologized to him, and Jabba pretended to forgive him. Leia probably used a pseudonym—perhaps Ethania Eredith, as in the Leigh Brackett draft—but Jabba surely knew who she was on sight.

They were both tortured, in the Sith fashion. For Vader had arrived there already. And as in the finished film, he wished to lay a trap to snare his son.

--

On Ttaz, Luke heard his friends’ cries of pain through the Force. Ben Kenobi told him that if his friends needed him, then he ought to go—as long as he came back afterward. For his part, Ben would go on to the new Rebel base. Ttaz was a world whose heart had been poisoned by its denizens, and no one should stay there too long, at least until it had healed.

Luke and R2-D2 made it safely to Kashyyyk, but feared to go straight into the Imperial traders’ base, high in the treetops. So Luke landed on the ground to reconnoiter, and encountered the Wookiees there. He rescued several of them some from Imperial fur trappers. Luke was taken to their village, and there bested the Wookiees’ greatest warrior in fair fight, receiving a scar on one cheek in the duel.

Luke was inducted as an honorary member of the clan. He was all the more beloved because he was a friend of Chewbacca, the long-absent son of the Wookiee chief, and he could already understand their language in part.

The Wookiees helped Luke sneak up into the Silver City in the treetops: the lofty palace of the traders, built by Bail Whitsun years ago. (This concept is based on Prince Barin’s forest kingdom of Arboria in the Flash Gordon comics.)

--

Luke came into the dungeons of the Silver City, but there he was discovered by Akira Valorum. Like the Prince Valorum of the 1974 rough draft, this Valorum was an honorable man, and he was sympathetic to Luke’s plight. For Vader had already forced him to break the greatest of the Clones’ religious taboos.

Akira Valorum freed Luke, and together they went to rescue Leia and Han, and Chewbacca and C-3PO.

As in the final film, 3PO would have been blown apart and partially reassembled—though here, given the more mature overall tone, at least one of his body parts would likely never have been found. Most probably, he’d have lost his legs, explaining why he’d have had to be carried by Chewbacca.

(Forget what you’ve heard about C-3PO having a silver leg at the start of Episode IV. That’s not true, OK? Look at Ralph McQuarrie’s pre-1977 art and see for yourself.)

Luke and Akira went into the dungeons of the Silver City, and found Han and Leia in separate cells. Han’s wounds grieved Akira, but the sight of Leia angered and sickened Luke. Once again she lay unconscious and bloody, but now even worse, for her beautiful hair had been cut off. Luke awoke her with a kiss, but she could recognize him only by his voice and his touch, because her eyes were swollen shut. Nonetheless she knew him, and she clung to him, and cried from mingled pain and joy.

--

Though his friends escaped in the Falcon, thanks to the aid of Akira Valorum, Luke remained behind to slay Jabba, which he did with venomous relish.

Then he went to confront Vader.

This scene no doubt took place in some sort of dangerous environment, as in the final film—perhaps the edge of a balcony opening out into empty sky.

In the duel, Luke used his Dark Side rage to fight Vader, hoping to defeat evil with evil. He almost won—but he stabbed Vader in the shoulder, and Vader groaned in a great outcry of pain. And Luke hesitated to finish him off.

But Vader had deceived him. He cut off Luke’s right arm at the elbow, and Annikin’s lightsaber went along with it.

And he tore Luke’s Kiber Crystal from around his neck, and crushed it in his hand. Luke was terrified, for he believed that all power had fled from him, and in so thinking, he made it so.

Vader took off his mask, revealing his own face: that of a fair-haired, pale-skinned man, with one eye missing, and the brand of the Sith upon his forehead. He told Luke the truth about his parentage, and about his kinship with Leia.

This last revelation horrified Luke even more, though he did not show it—for he now knew he had committed incest. (I highly doubt that would actually have been mentioned on screen, except via implication. But of course Siegfried does the same thing with his aunt, the Valkyrie Brunnhilde, in Richard Wagner’s operas.)

Vader extended an invitation to Luke to join the Sith, and jointly rule the galaxy… but Luke jumped off the balcony.

He was rescued by a passing flying creature, a winged steed of the Wookiees—ridden by Leia and Han, who had come to rescue him at his subconscious call. The Millennium Falcon escaped Imperial pursuit, as in the final film, with Vader left to ponder why Luke did not accept his father’s generous offer of half the Empire.

--

But Vader did make one more stop before he left Kashyyyk: to the forest floor, far below the balcony where he and Luke had dueled.

There, after long searching, he found the thing he had been looking for, clutched in his son’s lifeless, partially decayed hand: his own father’s lightsaber.

Darth Vader, too, wished to honor his father’s memory, if only in secret.

--

At the new Rebel base—quite likely on a grass planet, an idea considered for a Rebel headquarters in ROTJ—Luke and Leia and Han all received medical treatment. Han opted for illegal clone parts, grown by Akira Valorum, to replace his losses. But Luke opted to wear his wound with pride. He now had a golden prosthetic right arm.

Leia, meanwhile, once again received well-crafted false teeth, indistinguishable from real ones. But she replaced her missing fingers with silver droid parts, as a visible war wound of her own to match Luke’s. One of her eyes, the one previously injured on Alderaan, now had poor vision and a misshapen pupil, like David Bowie’s. It would, she knew, make a good effect on the Rebel propaganda posters.

C-3PO was offered new legs, of the wrong metal—silver. The Rebels’ resources were not limitless. He protested about the mismatch, but accepted one of them, thinking it a great honor. Though, for his other missing limb, he preferred to use a carved wooden leg instead. He said that it was a fitting memento for a brave droid like himself, even though it had to be replaced frequently.

(Really, forget what I said about C-3PO already having had a silver leg by the time the first Star Wars film opened.)

In the finale, the Rebels received a coded message from Bail Whitsun, refusing for the moment to talk of an alliance, or even to deal with the Rebels at all. With that, Han decided to depart, since he feared that their cause would ultimately be lost without Bail’s aid.

(The idea that “Han splits at the end of the second [film],” leaving Leia alone with Luke, goes all the way back to GL’s conversation with Alan Dean Foster in 1975.)

 

Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

Four years later…

In deep space, the Millennium Falcon arrived at a rendezvous point. There Han Solo berthed the Falcon within a second, much larger ship: a cargo vessel of Bail Whitsun, Lord President of the Transport Guild. (It would’ve been similar to a Dune-style Heighliner, a colossal Spacing Guild cargo ship that transports private ships—because in the Dune universe, private hyperspace travel is illegal, and the Guild has a monopoly.)

--
Han had come back to the Rebels one year ago. Even as the Rebels lost more and more ground, he became ever more regretful of his foolishness in doubting the wisdom of the cause. (Think of Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind—GL has often compared Han to Rhett Butler.)

Upon his return, Han did not woo Leia, for she and Luke had, by common consent, not yet told him about the truth of the Skywalker dynasty. And Han thought that she preferred Luke in her heart.

And, deep down, she did—even with her current knowledge.

--
Through a series of encrypted back-and-forth messages, the Rebels had gotten Bail Whitsun to grant permission for Han Solo to meet with him in his secret base. But only Han would be allowed to go—no other Rebel would be permitted to accompany him. With a heavy heart, Han set out, wondering if Bail too was setting a trap for him.

Now, the Guild cargo ship, carrying the Falcon, went through a long and deliberately arcane series of hyperspace jumps, finally arriving at the well-hidden planet of Acquis—located in another galaxy, largely unexplored, a neighbor of that known to the Empire.

Here, Han was conveyed beneath the watery surface of this world, to the underwater city where Bail Whitsun now ruled his great Guild from afar. (Think of Otoh Gunga crossed with Kamino, and Captain Nemo’s Nautilus from the Disney film of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.)

Han met with Bail, and his two children, among whom he himself had been fostered as a teenager. He asked for Bail’s help for the Rebel cause, by adding his massive fleet to their dwindling armada of warships. (Imagine Bail basically as Henry Fonda—dark hair, blue eyes.)

But Bail advised him sternly to forsake his friends, for in his view the Rebels were doomed.

Bail warned Han in confidence that the Empire was even then building not one, but two new Death Stars in orbit over Ton-Muund, the city-planet capital of the regime (later renamed Coruscant).

The Death Stars were protected by two shield generators on Ton-Muund, which could only be deactivated by separate codes. These codes could only be learned by hacking into the two highest levels of Imperial security—the computers on Ton-Muund, and those on the prison world of Alderaan—and they could only be executed from within the walls of the Imperial palace itself.

(“Reliant’s prefix code is 16309.”)

Han relayed this information in secret via hyper-radio (e.g., an ansible) to the Rebels. But Bail detected his transmission, and was angered by this breach of trust. He told Han to depart from his sight forever. (This idea comes from an incident in Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon comic, where Princess Aura betrays the position of Flash Gordon’s armies via a radio call to her father, Ming the Merciless.)

Bail’s son Marcus, who was about Han’s own age, reluctantly endorsed the judgment of his father, and turned his back on his foster brother. So Han left, and went back to the Rebels, to prepare for what seemed to him a suicide mission: to go to Ton-Muund, and try to crack the shields of the Death Stars beneath the Emperor’s very nose.

But one of the Whitsun family did not agree with Bail’s judgment—Mina Whitsun, Marcus’s younger sister, who had always carried a torch for Han in her heart. (Mina would have looked basically like a young, female version of her father. This cements the Dracula reference; Mina Murray is usually depicted as a brunette, but Lucy Westenra, like Ralph McQuarrie’s Leia, is almost invariably a blonde.)

When Han had departed, Mina stole a sleek silver spaceship, heading for Ton-Muund. She vowed that she would save Han from death, even if it cost her own life.

(Mina’s hairdo was likely going to reuse the one apparently worn by Leia Aquilae in the 1974 rough draft: long hair in the back, and twin braids in front, one over each ear. This was the hairstyle worn by the heroine Kriemhild, AKA Gudrun, in Fritz Lang’s film Die Nibelungen.)

--

As Han embarked on his journey to Acquis, events went on in the lenticular Galaxy Far Far Away we know so well.

On the Rebel base on the grass planet (let’s call it Ibbana, since that’s the name used for it in The Making of ESB), Ben Kenobi was dying.

Before he died, he told Luke that the Kiber Crystal was in truth no longer needed; it had already served Luke as well as it could, and his continued reliance on such a crutch would now be a hindrance rather than a help. After this, he entrusted Luke with the last secret of the Jedi, one wrested at great cost from the Dwarves: how to build his own lightsaber.

Luke did this, and was pleased with the result. For at Ben’s bidding, he had put in the proper color of lightsaber crystal—blue, like his father’s—so as to signify that he was at last a full Jedi Knight.

Afterward, Ben gave to Luke his own second lightsaber, with a blue crystal of its own, so he in turn could instruct Leia in the ways of the Force.

As a last request, Ben asked Luke to take his body to Utapau (Tatooine) and bury him there, for his home on Organa Major (what we now call Alderaan) had been destroyed by the first Death Star.

--

Luke traveled to Utapau with Ben’s body, and was shocked by what he found there.

In the 1975 third draft, remember, Luke simply ran away from home. But now, in the third film, Luke would see that in his absence, the Lars homestead had been destroyed by the Empire. Owen and Beru had been slain, and their bodies left for the carrion birds. (This disturbing scene was later bumped up to the first film, likely because GL feared he would never get to make any sequels.)

For the first time in his life, Luke felt sorrow at having left Utapau behind.

He buried his aunt and uncle, and Ben Kenobi, in plots next to his mother’s grave. He vowed to come back one day, when he had time, to rebuild the family farm better than ever.

Then he returned to the Rebel base on Ibbana, and heard the message relayed from Han.

Luke and Leia knew what they had to do.

--

Using a stolen Imperial shuttle and “borrowed” Imperial uniforms, they dressed up as officers and infiltrated once more the cloud city of Alderaan, the ancestral seat of Emperor Pestage. (If you haven’t figured this out yet, it’s basically a riff on the Padishah Emperor’s planet of Salusa Secundus from Dune, combined with King Vultan’s Sky City from Flash Gordon.)

To better disguise herself, Leia dressed as a male officer. Though she at first wanted to conceal her long hair beneath a uniform cap, she decided to play it safe, and cut it short for the sake of the disguise. And she wore gloves, to hide her droid fingers. She pretended that her hands had been burned in battle.

Leia also wore an eyepatch, to hide her misshapen pupil—that distinctive feature in Rebel propaganda posters.

(She’s essentially dressing up as Claus von Stauffenberg, the chief architect of the July Plot to assassinate Hitler in 1944. But the overall idea of Leia dressing in a German-style military uniform to disguise herself as a man comes from the 1926 silent film Beverly of Graustark, a comedic riff on The Prisoner of Zenda starring Marion Davies.)

Luke and Leia successfully retrieved the codes from Alderaan, and copied them into R2-D2 for the Rebels’ use. But their disguises ultimately failed, for their wounds and their familial resemblance were too obvious to conceal entirely. A high-ranking Imperial captain recognized them.

A terrific firefight ensued. Leia was shot in her right hand, and it was burned. She hoped it would not get infected.

In the end, Luke stayed behind, sacrificing himself to make sure Leia got away with the codes. He was captured, and taken to the prison cells out of which he had rescued Leia years ago. (Luke is actually captured by the Emperor’s troops right after Han’s rescue from Jabba in the revised rough draft of ROTJ.)

Leia returned to the Rebels, where she met up with Han. They exchanged sorrows, and talked of the very possible defeat of the Rebellion in the coming battle. After all, the Rebels’ resources were already stretched thin, and Ibbana could not remain undiscovered forever. They had to strike now, or risk losing all.

Han (along with C-3PO and R2-D2) went to Ton-Muund, heading a secret commando mission, which sought to infiltrate the Imperial Palace from below.

And Leia, who still loved Luke, determined to save his life—by fair means or foul.

She took her lightsaber, and flew off in a starfighter (for she, too, was a good pilot at need).

None of the Rebel generals—not even her favorite general, the warrior priest Grand Moff Tarkin—knew where Leia meant to go. Nor did they mind overly much, for she was a wise leader in their war councils, and they trusted her.

--

Luke had had his new lightsaber taken from him when he was captured.

He languished in prison on Alderaan for some time, and there was tortured, suffering the first ordeal of the Sith. But he had not yet submitted, and he knew, from what Leia had told him, that death loomed before him if he remained obstinate.

But suddenly, he was taken from his cell, and brought by shuttle to Condawn. Here, on a craggy mountaintop overlooking the searing fields of lava, Darth Vader had built his castle, on the site of his victory over the old order.

Luke was taken to Vader’s throne room, with its highly polished Dwarf-wrought floor of stone, and its giant glass windows overlooking the lava fields. On one side wall hung the lightsabers of Jedi whom Vader had defeated: trophies. On the other side stood a large glass mirror, also of Dwarven make, whose purpose even Darth Vader did not fully understand. Upon the dais before the central window there was a brass gong, which was used to orchestrate proceedings during meetings of the Sith Order.

The two unusually well-armored stormtroopers who had escorted Luke into the room remained standing by the entrance, guarding it. But they advanced no further.

At the center of the room, seated on his throne, was Vader, still wearing his mask with the pride of a fierce knight. And by his side, in a newly installed throne, there sat one other: his new consort, and co-ruler of the Sith Order. Leia.

She was dressed in a black leather jumpsuit. One of Annikin’s serpent rings was on her finger. (Vader, a prudent man who had already lost one arm, wore the second beneath his armor, on a chain around his neck.) The red Mark of the Sith, the honor of the twice-recalcitrant, was tattooed upon Leia’s forehead.

She had taken the tonsure given to the hardiest of Sith women—a permanently bald head, saving only a topknot of her golden hair. After all, the art of regrowing shorn hair, or permanently depilating it, was one of the secrets of Elvish magic. And, to cement her status as a Sith Knight, she had willingly undergone further wounds: her teeth were extracted (replaced with silver ones), and her right hand was removed (replaced with a silver prosthesis).

(Think of a combination of Emma Peel from the old British TV Avengers and Brian De Palma’s Phantom of the Paradise.)

And, at last, Leia had built her own lightsaber, which she wore in addition to the one Ben Kenobi had willed to her.

--

She had drunk of the Red Sleep (or Red Draught) of the Sith, the drink that brings madness and ecstasy in equal dose, and she was now a willing participant in the deeds of Vader and his ilk.

She told Luke that Han was a better lover than he would ever be; for Han had slept with her as well, during their desperate flight from Yavin, and again after Luke’s capture on Alderaan. And Leia further said that she was now Vader’s willing mate—and, she already knew, she was pregnant.

But Leia would be gracious in victory. She asked him now to join them. She offered him one-third of the Empire for his own, and the gift of Annikin Starkiller’s third Ring, which as yet slumbered deep in the vaults of the palace.

Luke refused. But some part of him, deep down, wanted to accept.

Leia and Vader taunted Luke by dangling his lightsaber in front of him. He did not take it via the Force, for he did not think he could master his own anger. But he was tempted to try.

Next, they held before him his grandfather’s lightsaber, lost years ago on Kashyyyk. They offered it to him freely, if he would only join them. His urge to seize his rightful heirlooms by the Force grew much stronger. But again he feared to fall to the Dark Side.
Then they linked into the secret Imperial military HoloNet, to show him how the battle was unfolding over Ton-Muund.

The Emperor and Vader had withheld a secret: the Death Stars were fully armed and operational!

And now Luke’s fury could no longer be borne.

--

Tapping into the Force, Luke summoned his blue-bladed lightsaber, and his grandfather’s blade as well. With them he attacked Vader.

Leia countered the blow, using Ben Kenobi’s saber given to her by Luke.

Vader too drew his own blue lightsaber.

Luke used the Force to take control of the two guards at the entrance to the hall, the ones who had escorted him in: elite Stormtroopers.

Vader had begun training this cadre of well-disciplined troops at the Emperor’s request. Even Lord Pestage had begun to fear that the Sith might turn against him one day, and that Vader might, in the fullness of his power, seek to supplant him. But Vader knew this.

Now the two well-armored stormtroopers, doing Luke’s bidding, advanced and drew their own purple lightsabers.

In response, Vader fetched down Ben Kenobi’s red blade from where it rested on a wall of the throne room, long dormant, as a rare trophy in a place of honor.

And Leia activated her own new-built lightsaber. Its blade was red.

Battle was joined.

--

In the depths of Ton-Muund, Han Solo and his team of commandos sought to get into the Imperial Palace via its sewer system.

But they were captured, because the Emperor had been forewarned of their coming. The team of commandos was slaughtered, and C-3PO and R2-D2 were pressed into the Emperor’s service. Han was taken to the prison cells beneath the palace, where he was once again tortured.

This time the torturer was Mina Whitsun.

She had traveled to Ton-Muund ahead of the Rebels, and tried herself to break into the Imperial computers. But she was caught, and willingly submitted to the judgment of the Sith, in order to position herself as a mole in their mighty machine.

Yet Mina had had to drink the Red Draught of the Sith as a result, and the proper brand of the willing Sith was applied to her forehead. And now she did not care if she hurt Han, so long as she got him to join her in ecstatic frenzy.

Even as she tortured him, Mina grinned madly at him with golden teeth—her chosen wound to mark her initiation.

Han was saved by a young slave boy, black of skin and smart as a whip: Mace Windom. (Let’s call him an alter ego of Short Round in Temple of Doom.)

Ten-year-old Mace knew from experience that the best way to counteract the Red Sleep of the Sith was through the application of fire. He threw boiling oil into Mina’s face, leaving her severely scarred on one side. But she was cured of her madness. (This is based on what happens to the gangster’s moll, Debby, in Fritz Lang’s 1953 film noir The Big Heat, as well as the way Claude Rains is scarred in the 1943 Phantom of the Opera.)

Han and Mace and Mina—with an improvised bandage on her face—began to liberate the slaves of the Sith Sleep. They freed the underclasses of Ton-Muund, and urged them to go up into the surface, to overthrow their Imperial masters.

(Mace’s story is essentially a repeated version of Han Solo’s own character journey. After all, GL did seriously think about casting Han Solo as black, in the vein of Leigh Brackett’s pulp hero Eric John Stark. And it’s no accident that Mace is black. The subtext is that the Empire is seriously racist, against both aliens and humans. In fact, it’s quite possible that we’d have seen Mace’s father—perhaps named Victor, as a nod to Victor Fleming, director of The Wizard of Oz—in a minor role, but one of greater social standing, in the prequels.)

Before going up themselves into the Palace, Han, Mace, and Mina broke the water pipes that ran beneath Ton-Muund, so that any reluctant slaves would be forced into joining the uprising against the city above. The great city-planet began to flood from beneath. (Remember your Metropolis, kids.)

--
Meanwhile, overhead, Akira Valorum piloted the Millennium Falcon in the space battle.

The Rebels were losing. Their ships were pinned between the defenses of Ton-Muund and the Imperial fleet, which had made a sudden, but not entirely unanticipated, appearance.

--

The Imperial ships were commanded by a newly minted Admiral, but one who was already a shrewd strategist and a skilled leader of men: a woman, in fact.

Let’s call her Admiral Heda Horus.

(This first name is a combination of Hedda Hopper, the famous gossip columnist of Old Hollywood, and Leda, mother of Helen of Troy in Greek mythology. Heda’s surname comes from Mara Horus, the Tarkin-style Imperial bureaucrat character in the 1974 first draft.)

Heda Horus was, in fact, the officer who had recognized Luke and Leia on Alderaan earlier, and who had blown their cover. This was what had earned her a promotion to Admiral.

For Heda herself was a clone of Leia, made from DNA Vader had taken years ago on Alderaan. And she had grown up at the greatly accelerated rate natural to clones raised in laboratories.

Now Heda was grown to womanhood, at least in body, and by virtue of her great intelligence, she commanded the Imperial battle fleet. She hated the Rebels, and her green eyes burned with fury when she saw them; for her idol was her mentor, Darth Vader.
And, childlike, she had eagerly absorbed his invective against the “seditious foe.”

Children do not know when their parents are lying.

Even to themselves.

--

And then, unexpectedly, Bail Whitsun’s fleet appeared too, and began fighting alongside the Rebel ships. He and his son Marcus (piloting his own silver starfighter) had come to rescue Mina.

But Bail’s capital ship was destroyed by the lasers of one Death Star, and the Rebel flagship, commanded by General Dodana, was blown up by the other. This was the first revelation of the ultimate surprise Vader and the Emperor had planned. And the shields had not yet been downed.
--

On Condawn, Luke and his two mind-controlled elite Stormtroopers now did battle against both Leia and Vader.

Luke managed to hold them both off, quite adeptly, for Ben had trained him well in lightsaber combat. However, his elite Stormtroopers, though well trained by Vader himself, ultimately proved of little account when subjected to conflicting mental commands from three warriors at once.

During the duel, Luke knocked Ben Kenobi’s red lightsaber from Vader’s hand, and it plunged into one of the ventilation shafts that cooled the throne room. But he shrank from pressing his advantage.

Leia tossed Vader her own red lightsaber, and she instead took up one of the fallen Stormtroopers’ purple swords. (This idea comes from the finale of Hamlet.)

--
If a spectator had been present, and had bothered to look into the magic mirror at this moment (as the combatants did not), he or she would have noticed something odd.

In the mirror, only Luke wielded two lightsabers; the stormtroopers had retired after bringing in Luke, and were not present at the duel.

The mirror version of Luke had black hair in long plaits, while Leia’s hair was red. Vader’s lone sword was red, and Leia’s was blue; but Luke’s two blades were both red in color.

And instead of the two empty thrones on the dais, there was a wizened old man in a golden hooded robe, sitting on the sole chair in the center of the room. (Or was it a man? All that could be made out of his face, beneath the cowl, was a pair of glowing red eyes…)

But in the other mirror, the gong of summoning, Luke and Leia had switched places, and it was she who dueled two foes at once.

Seen in the gong, Leia appeared quite Japanese in features; but Luke had short golden hair. The seated figure on the throne, meanwhile, wore black robes instead of gold. There also, Luke’s blade was red, and Vader’s was blue. Leia, on the other hand, wielded two blades, both purple.

And in the third mirror, the polished floor, everything was as it appeared in the second mirror… even down to the placement of the duellists.

Except that here, Luke had brown hair and a beard to match, while Leia was a fair-skinned blonde. And Leia’s two lightsaber blades were white and gold in color.

--

Luke could, perhaps, have defeated both his foes.

He slashed at Leia’s leg, bringing her down and leaving her with a permanent limp. And he cut off Vader’s hands, revealing their true nature: the one a droid prosthesis, and the other organic. But at this last revelation, Luke shrank from killing them. For at last he realized the peril of the path he now walked: that he might someday himself end up like his father.

He flung down his lightsabers, and turned to Leia, who now urged Luke to finish off his father, and join the Sith in earnest.

“Never,” he said.

“You’ve failed, Leia! I am a Jedi, like my father before me, and like his father before him.”

(That line actually comes nearly verbatim from Lawrence Kasdan’s first revision of the ROTJ script.)

And Lando Kadar, perceiving mercy for the first time in his life, stood up in silence, and considered.

But Leia was enraged.

And she dropped the lightsaber in her own left hand, in a feigned show of acceptance. But then she struck at Luke, whom she now despised as a weakling, with Force lightning.

--

Han and Mace and Mina, who by now had rescued C-3PO and R2-D2, went to the central computer room of the Imperial Palace, where they sought to disable the shields of the Death Stars using the stolen codes.

The two Sith Lords guarding the entrance were no fools, and they had orders to attack any strangers on sight.

C-3PO and R2-D2 distracted them, and so allowed the heroes to overpower the Sith Lords. But the two droids were badly damaged. R2 in particular was wrecked almost fatally, and 3PO lost his left arm. (Think of Kane Starkiller having lost three of his limbs, all but the right arm, in the 1974 rough draft.)

Imminent death awaited R2-D2 if his mind was not transferred to another body soon.

Still, the guards were slain, and the room was breached, and the codes transmitted.

--

With the shields lowered, Akira Valorum, piloting the Millennium Falcon, and Marcus Whitsun, in his own silver starfighter, each respectively approached one of the half-finished Death Stars.

Marcus found some unexpected opposition: a Rebel starfighter, approaching fast, with its guns trained on him.

Heda Horus, knowing that the Death Stars would soon be destroyed if she did nothing, had decided to emulate her mentor and hero, Darth Vader, by taking personal command of a starfighter to intercept the Rebel pilots. She did Vader one better: she used Leia’s own X-wing to disguise her approach, while the rest of her squadron used ordinary Imperial craft.

But Marcus Whitsun was not deceived, for he knew that Imperial pilots had different tactical approaches to dogfighting than Rebels. He fired on the X-wing’s engines, even as she fired at him. But, taken off guard, she only sheared off one of his starfighter’s wings.

And Heda Horus, her craft irreparably damaged, plunged toward the surface of Ton-Muund below.

She survived; for, as a high-ranking Imperial officer and a favorite of Darth Vader, she too had been given the gift of a Dwarven ring. But her hair was singed off, and her eyes burned out, in the heat of the crash; and she lost several teeth.

Old Annikin, back in the Third Clone War, had been smarter. In her childish vanity, Heda was proud of her hair, and refused to muss it by deigning to wear a helmet. Annikin, however, had seen enough battles by then to know it was worth following the Republic regulations for pilots, and so he came through his crash on Utapau with few facial scars to show for it.

(Remember GL's own car crash?)

Heda had not realized that the Rebels, with their increasing paucity of resources, could no longer even find enough parachutes for their pilots. But nor would she have cared overmuch, had she known; for the Imperial mentality held that starfighters were more precious than personnel.

As Heda plummeted to the planet below, Marcus flew into the core of the Death Star.

Across the raging void of disputed space, Akira Valorum had already done likewise.

--

The reborn Lando Kadar, who now realized the true goodness of his son’s heart, was enraged at Leia’s attack.

He was weakened, and had lost his hands, and had no way to duel with his younger sister. So, even as Leia flung lightning bolts at Luke, Lando stood up and charged at her, and used his weight to fling them both bodily through the great glass window, down toward the lava fields of Condawn below.

But they both survived. For Leia and Lando had exchanged rings, and they had been true to each other in spirit; each was willing to die to save the other, though in different senses and from different perils.

Lando’s suit was badly damaged by the lava, but it protected him from injury.

Leia was more badly wounded. All her hair was burned off, and her eyes were melted out. But she could still see, via the Force (like Paul Atreides in Dune Messiah). And her skin, having been immersed in the lava, remained ever afterward eerily pale.

So at last, they realized their folly, and laughed at themselves. And together, they reentered the palace, and Leia helped up the fallen Luke Starkiller.

Luke’s hair had turned white under the barrage of Leia’s lightning bolts; but Lando’s was just beginning to go gray at the temples.

--

In the throne room of the Emperor, the slaves, led by Han and Mace and Mina, confronted Lord Pestage. They asked him to yield, so that they would not have to kill him and his kin.

The Emperor was unwilling to go out gracefully. He was angered by what the Rebels had done to his beloved homeworld; and in truth, he feared the wrath of the planet’s liberated underclass.

Lord Pestage’s finger hovered near a button on his throne—a red button, long hidden behind a secret panel, which in direst emergency would set in motion a chain reaction to destroy the entire planet.

The fingers of the former slaves tensed on their stolen guns.

Just as doom was about to fall on Ton-Muund, a woman appeared from a secret entrance, crying for mercy: Alana Organa, sister of Zunia, the Emperor’s late wife.

As one close to the Imperial royal family, Alana had been given prior warning of the impending destruction of Organa Major. So she spirited herself away, to live in seclusion with her brother-in-law, the Emperor, on Ton-Muund. She was still beautiful, and her hair (in a Sith topknot) was not yet gray. After all, she had worn one of Annikin’s Rings for many years—and her Dwarven slaves had since fashioned another for her in its likeness.

Now Alana bore a broken nose, and the Mark of the Sith was a black tattoo upon her forehead—for she had resisted only once, long ago on Sullust X.

(Basically, she’s Padme AND Thea von Harbou: Fritz Lang’s wife, author of the novel version of Metropolis, screenwriter of the film—and, subsequently, a Nazi Party member during Hitler’s rule. But, additionally, this whole scene is based in large part on Kriemhild/Gudrun’s intervention to stop Siegfried from fighting her brother Gunther in the Nibelungenlied, a moment memorably dramatized in Fritz Lang’s silent film Die Nibelungen.)

One of the startled Rebels fired at her, shooting for the heart. But because he was unaccustomed to wielding blasters, he shot her in the stomach, paralyzing her.

(“That’s not funny… that’s not…”)

And, as the Emperor saw his beloved sister-in-law lying wounded and in pain on the floor before his throne, his heart began at last to melt. He yielded to the Rebels, and gave up his signet ring, and let mercy reign for Alana’s sake.

R2-D2, whose old body was fast dying, was uploaded into the unused shell of a silver protocol droid, which allowed him at last to speak in a human voice.

--

Overhead, the torpedoes of Akira Valorum and Marcus Whitsun found their marks, and two Death Stars exploded.

Marcus Whitsun escaped from the exploding space station with his life intact.

But on the way out, his spacecraft was shot and badly damaged by an Imperial fighter: the last of Heda Horus’ crack squadron. It was piloted by a droid, an ace even more talented than Heda—Mara Lumiya.

The Emperor had wanted a clone of the man he deemed the finest pilot in the galaxy: Luke Starkiller. But not enough of Luke’s DNA had come into their hands until his encounter with Vader on Kashyyyk.

It took several years to grow a clone body to maturity properly. So, rather than miss out on having a Luke of their own to fight in the Galactic Civil War, Lord Pestage ordered Darth Vader to do the next best thing: reconstruct Luke’s personality matrix, and put it into a droid.

It amused Vader to insert the matrix into a silver-plated, feminine-bodied protocol droid. But the newly christened Mara did not mind.

(In the 1975 second draft, C-3PO is one of the four-person crew in Luke’s starfighter when it destroys the Death Star.)

Faced with this new threat, Marcus returned the fire, and dealt a crippling blow—even as she did the same to him. Their spacecraft now spiraled down together toward the surface of Ton-Muund far below.

Marcus, using his own parachute, bailed out before the crash. He survived mostly intact—save for a badly burnt hand and a lesser burn on one cheek.

Mara did not fare as well in her crash as Heda had; for she was only a droid, and thus not worthy enough in Imperial minds to merit the grant of a Ring. She would have been destroyed in the inferno; but with the Emperor’s surrender, technicians were freed to get to her in time. They could do nothing for her broken chassis; but they uploaded her mind into a new crystalline body.

But Akira Valorum did not fare as well as Marcus, or Mara, or even Heda. Han Solo’s beloved ship, the Millennium Falcon, died that a galaxy might live.

--

Epilogue

In the end, the Republic was restored. Not entirely as it had been, but, its people hoped, rather better.

Mina Whitsun became the new Chancelloress. She wore a hooded mantle of purple, and a bronze crescent crown, and she covered her burned face with a silver mask, through which her good eye and her blind eye peered out.

(Phantom of the Opera, or Edward Norton as the leper King, Baldwin IV, in Kingdom of Heaven?)

Han Solo, Mina’s husband, became the new President of the Transport Guild—which turned a blind eye to smuggling in a way it had not under the Empire. Han now habitually dressed in the elegant black furred robes of Guild traders. Together he and Mina raised Mace Windom as an adopted son.

But Han still occasionally glanced at Leia. And Leia glanced back. And Mina, who was no longer as sheltered as she had once been on Acquis, exchanged glances with her as well.

--

Marcus Whitsun became Lord of Acquis, ruling in his underwater city—which now could float freely on the surface, without fear of discovery by the Imperial fleet. He had a burn scar on one side of his face, and his crippled left hand was replaced by a bronze prosthesis; but this only added to his rakishly handsome appearance.

He married Heda Horus, now Ambassador Plenipotentiary to the Second Galaxy, who forgave him for shooting her down. She was, in fact, impressed by his abilities as a pilot.

Heda wore a Dwarven-forged wig of her natural hair color (golden), and the white face paint traditional for the queens of Organa Major. And she replaced her lost eyes with silver prostheses. But her teeth were still natural, though a few were missing.
Mara Lumiya dwelt with them, as the captain and chief pilot of Heda’s ambassadorial starship.

As a wedding present, Chancelloress Mina bestowed on the couple one of the mind-transfer devices that had hitherto been restricted by Guild monopoly to use on Ton-Muund only.

--

Lord Pestage was stripped of his imperial title, and he and Alana were exiled to Alderaan, where he might have a kingdom of his own—the one he had always possessed.

Alana felt guilt in her heart for having abandoned her husband to die on Organa Major. And so for several years she refused all attempts at ameliorating her condition, instead going about in a silver wheelchair like Carl Organa’s. Eventually, however, she yielded to Leia’s entreaties, and received prosthetic silver legs which restored her power of walking.

C-3PO was rewarded for his heroism with a replacement arm of gold, and a new leg of crystal. Although 3PO made a great show of hating the color of his new arm, he was secretly thrilled.

--

Leia Organa became Queen of Utapau, which began to blossom, gradually, under her rule. The surviving expatriates of Organa Major were invited to settle there, and to recreate something of their former happiness.

She took the regnal name of Nellith.

The New Jedi Order was re-founded, with two bases. One was on Utapau and one on Ton-Muund. (This of course comes from the two Foundations, on Terminus and Trantor, in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation book series.)

The Jedi Council had two co-leaders: Luke and Lando Starkiller. Luke and Lando alternated between the two respective headquarters, though Queen Leia usually remained on Utapau. But Luke’s droids, C-3PO and R2-D3, invariably went with him. However, the droids liked it best when Luke visited Acquis, though that happened less frequently.

Lando had a small life-support device implanted in his chest, so that he no longer needed to be encased in armor. (Think of a combination of Marvel’s Tony Stark and Isaac Asimov’s portable nuclear reactors from Foundation.)

He took off his mask, and revealed his face openly. After all, he wished to show that even a Sith Lord could be redeemed. There was now no shame in the Mark of the Sith; the bad Lords had been dealt with, and the repentant ones were welcomed into the folds of the Jedi.

Leia had elaborate black wigs fashioned by the Dwarves, since she had always wanted hair of that color. As well, she replaced her burned-out eyes with metallic bronze prostheses. These provided vision in superhuman ranges—but could not replace ordinary mortal sight.

Her silver hand, and silver teeth, had been burned black by the fires of Condawn. But she did not replace them. She considered them as worth keeping, because they still worked.

Her queenly attire consisted of a golden cloak and a red loincloth, a crown, and little else. She sometimes wore the red shoes traditional for queens of Organa Major; but she usually went barefoot, for she limped, and she could no longer see as ordinary men did. And she disdained too much clothing, for the heat of the lava of Condawn never entirely left her.

Luke wore the red cloak and white robes of a triumphant Jedi general, as did Lando. All three Starkillers had now destroyed their Kiber Crystals; and each of them bore a Ring, and wielded a lightsaber (or two) with skill and grace.

With Lando’s permission, Leia had the magic mirror moved from its old home on Condawn to the throne room of her new palace on Utapau. Always when Leia looked into it, the reflection shown was not her own. This ceased to surprise her, after a while—and yet it never truly did, deep down.

In the mirror, she saw herself—largely as she used to look, before she flew to Condawn in her quest to rescue Luke. But she had a bronze right hand, and a burn scar on one cheek. And while one of her eyes was blind, the other was a purple eye of droid make.

She wondered sometimes if this was a reality where she had been the one who destroyed one of the Death Stars over Ton-Muund, instead of Marcus Whitsun. She was an excellent pilot when she needed to be, after all.

And she asked herself… if she smashed the mirror, would she meet her second self? Or, perhaps, would she meet someone else entirely?

But she stayed her hand, and did not try the experiment… for the moment.

And peace reigned in the New Republic... for the time being.

 

Episodes VII-IX: The Unwritten Page

Most of this must remain untold for the moment, for fear of spoilers.

Yet I think I can guess some of what was originally intended here.

The children of Leia Organa, and of Han and Mina, would be the principal protagonists, along with the fully-grown Mace Windom.

Oeeta Kadar would at last come into the tale in her own right, and would find a suitable husband.

The continued existence in exile of the Pestage dynasty on Alderaan, and its connections with the Republic’s conservative nobility, would bear bitter fruit.

Space Oddities would be important.

Dagobah would be seen on screen at last.

The chronology of the three films, taken together, would be extremely unusual, and rather un-filmic.

Annikin Starkiller’s cursed Lone Ring would at last be destroyed—in an unexpected fashion.

And, perhaps, one might also expect to see early versions of Jacen and Jaina Solo… and even, just maybe, of Darth Caedus.

PS:
Episodes x-xii: Three Days in the Lives

Not much to see here. The remaining three episodes of the “12-film plan” (if ever there was such a coherent plan) were likely going to be three “day in the life” stories, about ordinary folk in the SW galaxy.

Most probably, the films would have concerned Wookiees, droids, and bounty hunters.

(After all, where is Boba Fett in the above outline?!?)

 

You Win!

You scored 800 out of 800 points.

Remember to load a saved game after the credits to store your Jedi Quotient.

---

But of course, that's not the only way the story could have unfolded... far from it, actually. And this particular version was rather a long-shot anyway.

"Would you like to know more?"

 

You do know already, you see.

But not fully.... not yet.

You shall have to content yourself with the stories you have already ransomed.

Others may unlock their own paths at their choosing.

"Physician, heal thyself."
--James T. Kirk, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

 

Really, though, I hope you didn't think this particular story was the only possible outcome.

Far from it.

I think the time is almost upon us for greater revelations.... they are looming in the wings of the stage, so to speak.

 

“Same story, different versions! And all are true.”

“Time can be rewritten.”

--

“I have heard two variants of the saga of The Star Wars; one in the day and one in the night. It is rather like how ancient Fricanian storytellers were said to tell two different versions of the tales of their greatest heroes, one to the men-folk and one to the women. But recently, I have discovered that there are other versions, as well.

“While I was doing research at Woonsocket Technopological Institute, I made a great discovery.

“Pressed between two leaves of The Fabulous Treasure of Big Whoop (volume IIIa of The Secret History of the Monkey Planet), I found a fragmentary, but neatly folded, series of papers, written in a fine yet spidery hand.

“These hold the secrets of a third, heretofore lost, version of the ancient epic of The Star Wars. This version is more fantastic than any yet told… and yet, perhaps, more true.

“And yet, this new telling itself is divided in twain. The pages on which it is written contain two columns, whose content is similar, yet not identical. One might, perhaps, call them… synoptic.

“Who knows? The manuscript may be a forgery. I already know what I think. But you must judge with your own eyes.”

--Preface to The Mercury Diaries, by C. Trottier

--

“The left-hand column of the Woonsocket Manuscript gives an entirely different account of the origins of Luke Starkiller, one sure to be of much interest to scholars of The Star Wars.

“The manuscript concurs with previously known sources in stating that Annikin was restored to health by a girl of the Thorpe family of Utapau after a starflyer crash. Where it diverges, however, is in the question of precisely which woman he loved—rather like the tales of Sigurth of Old Norway, and his two wives.

“By this account, Annikin fell in love, not with Beru as is commonly said, but with her sister Breha—and it was she who had the kindly brown eyes that ensnared Annikin so. But Beru was the elder sister, and she was jealous of her sibling’s easy familiarity with men. So, with her father’s connivance, she seduced Annikin by aid of a potion poured into his drink, which addled his wits.

“And Annikin slept with Beru… and thus he, not Lando Kadar, was the true father of Luke Skywalker.

“Before Annikin departed Utapau for that time, he told Beru that it would be wiser to raise the boy in ignorance of her true relationship to him. For, should anything happen to Annikin, young Luke might thus be spared the wrath of a corrupt Republic in turbulent times.

"To this deception Breha, who had badly wanted a child of her own from Annikin, also agreed.

“Lastly, to protect his son further, Annikin gave Luke a parting gift: a new surname that was also an alias. Luke Starkiller. In this telling, the Starkiller name was not, it would seem, an honorific of battle.”

--The Mercury Diaries, pp. 5-6

--

“….the left-hand column of the Woonsocket Manuscript adheres to the traditional assertion that Leia Organa was the daughter of Annikin Starkiller.

“The right-hand column, however, tells a different story. After all, Queen Alana was a very beautiful woman, and Annikin Starkiller was not the only Jedi in her husband’s service who loved her from afar.

“As a direct corollary, the right-hand variant of the manuscript relates that Luke Starkiller had a twin sister, born like him upon Utapau. But Annikin took his own infant daughter away, to be raised on Ton-Muund, among a noble household of the Republic.

“Already, he feared that the Republic was in danger of passing away, and that it needed well-protected heroes if it were to survive. And in his heart, Annikin guessed that a young woman would have the resilience to survive in the Republic’s capital, whereas a young man might wither and die as his dreams shattered before his eyes.”

--The Mercury Diaries, p. 9

--

“It must be stressed that neither column of the Woonsocket Manuscript makes reference to an element of the received tale which many scholars have taken as a later interpolation: the magic Rings, stemming from the whole episode of the Elves and Dwarves on Bestine.

“Although it is quite likely that the Elves and Dwarves (or, to give them their proper Old High Galactic names, the Sith and Boma) were part of the tale from the outset, the extreme antiquity of the Woonsocket Manuscript makes it probable that Annikin’s fabulous magic Rings were not in fact originally part of the saga of The Star Wars.

“The overall consequences for the story may be summarized thusly:

“Darth Vader is no longer the changeling child of an Elf, but simply an evil and corrupted Jedi; the minor character of Laif Organa, who is often judged to be extraneous, disappears entirely; and Annikin Starkiller’s own parentage remains mysterious.”

--The Mercury Diaries, p. 11

--

Here follow excerpts from the lone surviving copy of the first edition, suppressed by decree of the Third Republic, of Friar J.A. Humbert’s controversial treatise The Secret Mysteries of the Whills:

Perhaps I might pause here to describe what this long-lost ritual of initiation is. I have learned of it only imperfectly, but that there was one, there can be little doubt. It is, shall we say, self-evident, to one who knows something of the Elves.

It was not, as is even now commonly believed among laymen, a method of torture by a cruel and capricious order of Dark wizards—those impostors who falsely arrogated to themselves the name of Sith. Rather, it was meant as a revelation of sorts.

The true Sith, the Elves, wished only to cause pain in small doses, so as to bring about far greater pleasure. For their motto was that of the Heroic Serpent, the Brother of Angels: “An it harm none, do what thou wilt.” To that end, they wished their ordeal of initiation to encompass their philosophy in itself.

Four times would an initiate be asked to submit to the rule of the Sith. For each of the first three refusals, a series of seven physical punishments would be administered, with intervals of several days (the exact number, I know not) elapsing between the stages of punishment.

Upon the fourth refusal, the punishment (or reward?) for one so obstinate was the ultimate sanction: death.

(Of this last part of the ritual one cryptic descriptive phrase has survived: “He will knock four times….”)

There were seven steps in the initial ordeal, of which each had three stages.

They were as follows:

I. Injury to the hair:
a. A lock of hair clipped
b. The head (and beard, for men) shaved
c. The head shaved, and part of the hair permanently removed (the beard sans mustache, for men; most of the head hair, for women, in a fashion subject to personal taste)

II. Injury to the right eye:
a. The right eye blackened and swollen shut
b. The right eye blinded
c. The right eye cut out

III. Injury to the nose: broken once for each refusal to submit

IV. Extraction of the teeth:
a. One tooth removed
b. Nine teeth removed
c. All teeth removed

V. Physical violation, in increasing severity

VI. Injury to the trunk:
a. Flogging on the back
b. Flogging on the chest front
c. Asymmetrical removal of one organ of reproduction

VII. Injury to the right hand:
a. The right ring finger removed
b. The last three fingers of the right hand removed
c. The right hand removed in toto

Once an inductee submitted, they received the Final Stage of initiation, the Seven Seals of the Sith:

I. Drinking of a secret Sith liquor that brings on madness and ecstasy, an exalted state referred to as the Red Draught of the Sith (cf. the Black Sleep of Kali in the Silver River Galaxy)

II. Application of the Mark of the Sith to the forehead, in such a way as to show the rank of the novitiate:
a. For the once-resistant, a black triskelion tattoo
b. For the twice-resistant, a red triskelion tattoo
c. For the thrice-resistant, a triskelion of molten gold poured into a cicatrix carved on the forehead
d. For those who never resisted, a triskelion brand on the forehead, assuming the natural color of the skin (a “proper” blazon, in the language of heraldry)

III. The application of wounds willingly undergone by the initiate: one for each prior refusal of submission, plus another in addition. These take the form of rituals left undone, and at least one of them must be done to the ultimate degree. However, those who refused to submit three times are spared this final seal, as they have already done all that is necessary and proper.

IV. A banquet, at which—

Here, sadly, the sole surviving manuscript breaks off in a lacuna.

A later page tells more:

To hide the marks upon their foreheads, most Sith Lords wore masks, for they did not wish it to be widely known, even within the Empire, that they served a master greater and more powerful than the Emperor—whose emblem remained the arrowhead of the still-venerated Old Republic.

Yet in truth, some Sith initiation candidates were drawn from the Imperial officer corps. These, who had already given their sworn word to submit, instead wore their marks upon their left forearms, where they might be easily concealed. These secret Sith Lords were held in pectore, or “in the breast,” until such time as they were ready to be received openly as Sith Knights. At that point they would have completed their training, in public and in private—the full details of which even I have not yet uncovered.

--

Excerpted from the Woonsocket Manuscript text of The Star Wars, as published by C. Trottier:

Episode III: To Duel in Hell

By the time of the Third Clone War, Annikin too had grown: he was now a mature man, with gray just beginning to touch his hair. He held the rank of Second Master in the Great Council of the Jedi Order. He was second only to Bunden Debannen, the wizened and shrunken Grand Master of the Order—who instructed all younglings when they first joined the Jedi, regardless of their age.

(Remember, at this early stage, it seems that anyone could be a Jedi. But, just like learning a new language, I’m sure that youthfulness greatly helped new candidates to be mentally flexible.)

Naturally, by virtue of his own great age, Bunden (who was playful, and preferred the nickname “Buffy”) was the one most experienced in helping new students unlearn what they had learned in their prior lives.

--

When Annikin disposed of his daughter with a foster family on Ton-Muund, and retired to Utapau as a moisture farmer, Ben Kenobi took up his place as the second-in-command of the Jedi Order. However, there were many in the Great Council who spoke against his appointment, fearing that Ben was too tempted by the lure of the Dark Side.

But Bunden Debannen, ancient yet still hale, said it was a good choice, and this swayed the doubters. And old “Buffy” whispered secret words of counsel to Ben, which no one else heard. For Ben did not yet reveal them.

--

As the darkness gathered, Grand Master Debannen took shelter on a remote asteroid base. Here he struggled mightily for the cause in his own way. But he was no warrior, and he did not wield a lightsaber. Instead he pitted himself against a vast, unseen darkness: a black void of a spirit, insubstantial and devilish, only barely glimpsed by the Sith themselves through dark mirrors.

He did not win… as yet. For the Empire and the corrupted Sith Order were still in the ascendant.

--

Choose Your Own Adventure time!

>TENNO
>TOMOE

You chose: TENNO

The night before the Battle of Condawn, Annikin slept with Alana one last time.

Nine months later, Leia Organa was born. She would grow up to be a beautiful, golden-haired child, the very image of her dead father.

You chose: TOMOE

The night before the Battle of Condawn, Ben Kenobi feared that his own death was imminent. So he at last gave in to long-standing temptation, and slept with his beloved Queen Alana of Organa Major.

Nine months later, Leia Organa was born. She would grow up to be a beautiful, raven-haired child, the very image of her absent father.

--

Few Jedi, even those already committed to the Sith, ever used any lightsaber color other than red.

But Ben Kenobi, the most unorthodox of the current-day Jedi, had done something no other Jedi would have dared. Ben’s lightsaber blade shone white.

So, on the day of their their great duel, Ben and Vader’s contrasting white and red lightsabers scintillated against the red flames of Condawn.

--

During their battle, Ben Kenobi saw an opening, and pulled Lando’s Kiber Crystal from its chain around his neck, hoping thus to depower him. And Lando, not yet knowing the truth about the Crystals’ power, thought that he had indeed been rendered powerless.

Ben cut off Lando’s right hand, and stabbed him in the chest with his lightsaber. But Lando, despite his grave injuries, still lived—which surprised even him.

As Lando lay on the ground, Ben Kenobi taunted him, and ordered him to yield.

But Lando was not one to give up so easily.

Snatching up his fallen lightsaber in a sudden movement, Lando rose and attacked Ben Kenobi. In an instant the tables were turned. Now Lando had cut off Ben’s right hand, and it was the Jedi who lay fallen upon the blackened ground.

Cruel in victory, Lando stole Ben’s unique sword, his Kiber Crystal, and Laif’s damaged saber hilt, as trophies for the new Sith Order. Annikin’s and Laif’s Kiber Crystals, however, had disintegrated with their owners’ demise, for they had not been passed on beforehand.

(Ben mentions his lost Kiber Crystal at one point in the 1975 third draft. The idea of a Kiber Crystal dissolving when its possessor dies comes from a trait of the magical Lenses in Doc Smith’s Lensman books.)

But in recompense for taking away Ben’s sword, Lando left Annikin’s sword for him to have, that Ben might pass it on to Luke. After all, what good had it done its original owner?

And so, Lando walked off, triumphant, leaving the wounded Ben Kenobi to grieve by his fallen King and his dead friends.

He was all the more triumphant because, when he defeated Ben Kenobi, he had felt the Force stirring still within him. Now he knew that he no longer had any need for the Kiber Crystals, and he rejoiced in his new freedom. But Lando kept this knowledge secret, since not even the Jedi knew this as yet—save one only, who thought it best for other Jedi to learn this for themselves.

--

I might pause to point out here that, as far as I’m aware, the earliest known mention of Vader being pushed into a lava pit in The Duel is actually in the 1977 Rolling Stone interview with GL. The text of GL’s 1975 discussion with Alan Dean Foster, however, says only that Ben and Vader have a “big battle where Luke’s father gets killed.”

Also, here I’m pulling in an additional comics history reference, to Dr. Doom of the Fantastic Four.

The common story, the original canon of the Marvel universe, is that Dr. Doom was horribly burned in a lab experiment, and hid his features behind iron armor as a result. But the artist, Jack Kirby, himself believed that Doom only had a small facial scar, and hid his handsome face behind a mask out of pure vanity.

--

Bunden Debannen went off into seclusion in the wake of Condawn, to live on an unknown and yet-uncharted planet at the edge of the galaxy, shrouded in fog and mist. Here he would strive against the greatest evil, as yet unseen by Men—the Dark Side itself—in privacy.

He was not seen by any Jedi again, nor any human, for many years afterward.

 

Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

…On Kashyyyk, Luke and Akira went into the dungeons of the Silver City, and found Han Solo and Leia in separate cells. Han’s wounds grieved Akira, but the sight of Leia angered and sickened Luke. Once again she lay unconscious and bloody, but now even worse, for one of her eyes was blinded, and her beautiful hair had been cut off. Luke awoke her with a kiss, and she clung to him, and cried from mingled pain and joy.

--

Though his friends escaped in the Falcon, thanks to the aid of Akira Valorum, Luke remained behind to slay Jabba the Hutt, which he did with venomous relish.

Then he went to confront Darth Vader.

This scene no doubt took place in some sort of dangerous environment, as in the final film—perhaps the edge of a balcony opening out into empty sky.

In the duel, Luke used his Dark Side rage to fight Vader, hoping to defeat evil with evil. He almost won—but he stabbed Vader in the shoulder, and Vader groaned in a great outcry of pain. And Luke hesitated to finish him off.

But Vader had deceived him. He cut off Luke’s right arm at the elbow, and Annikin’s lightsaber went along with it.

And he tore Luke’s Kiber Crystal from around his neck, and crushed it in his hand. Luke was terrified, for he believed that all power had fled from him, and in so thinking, he made it so.

Vader took off his mask, revealing his own face: that of a red-haired, pale-skinned man, with metallic golden droid eyes. The brand of the Sith he wore upon his left arm instead of his forehead—the tradition for those who first became Sith Lords secretly, or in pectore.

He told Luke the truth about his father’s death, heretofore unguessed: that Vader had been the one to kill him upon the fields of Condawn.

Vader said that he admired Luke’s dueling prowess. He had the heart of a Sith indeed. But, if Luke would not ally himself to the Empire, he would have to be destroyed, even as his father had been.

Nevertheless, if Luke accepted, the rewards would be substantial.

Vader extended an invitation to Luke to join the Sith, so that they might jointly rule the galaxy… but Luke jumped off the balcony.

He was rescued by a passing flying creature, a winged steed of the Wookiees—ridden by Leia and Han, who had come to rescue him at his subconscious call. The Millennium Falcon escaped Imperial pursuit, as in the final film, with Vader left to ponder why Luke did not accept his generous offer of half the Empire.

--

But Vader did make one more stop before he left Kashyyyk: to the forest floor, far below the balcony where he and Luke had dueled.

There, after long searching, he found the thing he had been looking for, clutched in Luke Starkiller’s lifeless, partially decayed hand: Annikin’s lightsaber.

Darth Vader honored his worthy opponents, even those he had slain… if only in secret.

--

At the new Rebel base—quite likely on a grass planet, an idea considered for a Rebel headquarters in ROTJ—Luke and Leia and Han all received medical treatment. Han opted for illegal clone parts, grown by Akira Valorum, to replace his losses. But Luke opted to wear his wound with pride. He now had a golden prosthetic right arm.

Leia, whose lost hair was just beginning to grow back, once again opted for well-crafted false teeth, indistinguishable from real ones. However, she replaced her missing fingers with outwardly visible droid parts.

And she did not bother to replace her blind eye. It would, she knew, make a good effect on the Rebel propaganda posters.

C-3PO was offered new legs, of the wrong metal—silver. The Rebels’ resources were not limitless. He protested about the mismatch, but accepted one of them, thinking it a great honor. Though, for his other missing limb, he preferred to use a carved wooden leg instead. He said that it was a fitting memento for a brave droid like himself, even though it had to be replaced frequently.

In the finale, the Rebels received a coded message from Han Solo's stepfather, the powerful trade baron Bail Whitsun. He refused for the moment to talk of an alliance, or even to deal with the Rebels at all. With that, Han decided to depart, since he feared that their cause would ultimately be lost without Bail’s aid.

(The idea that “Han splits at the end of the second [film],” leaving Leia alone with Luke, goes all the way back to GL’s conversation with Alan Dean Foster in 1975.)

 

TENNO

Episode VI: Revenge of the Jedi

/TENNO

TOMOE

Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

/TOMOE

Han had come back to the Rebels one year ago. Even as the Rebels lost more and more ground, he became ever more regretful of his foolishness in doubting the wisdom of the cause. (Think of Clark Gable in Gone with the Wind—GL has often compared Han to Rhett Butler.)

Upon his return, Han did not woo Leia, for she and Luke had, by common consent, not yet told him about the truth of the Skywalker dynasty. And Han thought that she preferred Luke in her heart.

And, deep down, she did.

--

I have related before the overall story of Han Solo and Mina Whitsun. It changes little in this variant of the tale, so therefore I shall omit it for the sake of brevity.

As Han embarked on his journey to Bail Whitsun's hidden palace beneath the waters of Acquis, events went on in the lenticular Galaxy Far Far Away we know so well.

On the Rebel base on the grass planet (let’s call it Ibbana, since that’s the name used for it in The Making of ESB), Ben Kenobi was dying. Before he died, he told Luke that the Kiber Crystal was in truth no longer needed; it had already served Luke as well as it could, and his continued reliance on such a crutch would now be a hindrance rather than a help.

Then Ben entrusted Luke with the last secret of the Jedi, one wrested at great cost from the Dwarves: how to build his own lightsaber.

TENNO

Luke did this, and was pleased with the result. At Ben’s bidding, he had put in a new color of lightsaber crystal—white—so as to signify that he had at last become a true Jedi Knight.

/TENNO

TOMOE

Luke did this, and was pleased with the result. At Ben’s bidding, he had put in a new color of lightsaber crystal—golden—so as to signify that he had at last become a true Jedi Knight.

/TOMOE

For that was the secret wisdom which Bunden Debannen had whispered in Ben’s ear, years ago: that a true Jedi, a Gray Jedi, goes his own way. He adheres neither to the strictly white nor the strictly black, but simply along the path that is best for the overall Pattern of the Force.

The only true rule of a Gray Jedi is this: “First, do no harm.” Even the Jedi of the Old Republic, in their own way, had forgotten this, and thus fallen into unwisdom.

TENNO

Afterward, Ben entrusted Leia with his own second lightsaber, so Luke in turn could instruct her in the ways of the Force. Leia followed Ben’s advice, and chose her own color of crystal: purple, to signify her independence.

/TENNO

TOMOE

Afterward, Ben entrusted Leia with his own second lightsaber, so Luke in turn could instruct her in the ways of the Force. Leia followed Ben’s advice, and chose her own color of crystal: golden, to signify that she and Luke would never be divided.

/TOMOE

Ben also told Luke the truth about his parentage—about his “aunt” Beru, and their true relationship.

As a last request, Ben asked Luke to take his body to Utapau (Tatooine) and bury him there, for his home on Organa Major (what we now call Alderaan) had been destroyed by the first Death Star.

--

Luke traveled to Utapau with Ben’s body, and was shocked by what he found there.

In the 1975 third draft, remember, Luke simply ran away from home. But now, in the third film, Luke would see that in his absence, the Lars homestead had been destroyed by the Empire. Owen and Beru had been slain, and their bodies left for the carrion birds. (This disturbing scene was later bumped up to the first film, likely because GL feared he would never get to make any sequels.)

For the first time in his life, Luke felt sorrow at having left Utapau behind.

He buried his mother and foster-father, and Ben Kenobi, in plots next to his aunt’s grave. He vowed to come back one day, when he had time, to rebuild the family farm better than ever.

Then he returned to the Rebel base on Ibbana, where he heard the message of grave importance relayed from Han.

It was imperative that the Rebels steal the activation codes of the new Death Stars' shields from the central computer on the prison planet of Alderaan. If they failed, the Galaxy would remain under Imperial domination, and the Rebellion would be crushed.

Luke and Leia knew what they had to do.

--

Using a stolen Imperial shuttle and “borrowed” Imperial uniforms, they dressed up as officers and infiltrated once more the cloud city of Alderaan, the ancestral seat of Emperor Pestage. (If you haven’t figured this out yet, it’s basically a riff on the Padishah Emperor’s planet of Salusa Secundus from Dune, combined with King Vultan’s Sky City from Flash Gordon.)

TENNO

To better disguise herself, Leia dressed as a male officer. She concealed her long golden hair beneath a uniform cap, and wore gloves to hide her droid fingers. She pretended that her hands had been burned in battle.

/TENNO

TOMOE

To better disguise herself, Leia dressed as a male junior officer. Junior because, given her facial features, which our own planet would call Japanese, the racist bureaucracy of the Empire would likely never promote her very highly.

She concealed her long dark hair beneath a uniform cap, and wore gloves to hide her droid fingers. She pretended that her hands had been burned in battle.

/TOMOE

Leia also wore an eyepatch, to hide her blind eye—that distinctive feature in Rebel propaganda posters.

(She’s essentially dressing up as Claus von Stauffenberg, the chief architect of the July Plot to assassinate Hitler in 1944. But the overall idea of Leia dressing in a German-style military uniform to disguise herself as a man comes from the 1926 silent film Beverly of Graustark, a comedic riff on The Prisoner of Zenda starring Marion Davies.)

Luke, however, did not have too much difficulty fitting in. He had already grown a beard in order to bolster his disguise on prior reconnaissance missions.

TENNO

Luke and Leia successfully retrieved the codes from Alderaan, and copied them into R2-D2 for the Rebels’ use. But their disguises ultimately failed, for their wounds and their familial resemblance were too obvious to conceal entirely. A high-ranking Imperial captain recognized them.

/TENNO

TOMOE

Luke and Leia successfully retrieved the codes from Alderaan, and copied them into R2-D2 for the Rebels’ use. But their disguises ultimately failed, for their wounds and their well-known facial features were too obvious to conceal entirely. A high-ranking Imperial captain recognized them.

/TOMOE

A terrific firefight ensued. Leia was shot in her right hand, and it was badly burned.

In the end, Luke stayed behind, sacrificing himself to make sure Leia got away with the codes. He was captured, and taken to the prison cells out of which he had rescued Leia years ago. (Luke is actually captured by the Emperor’s troops right after Han’s rescue from Jabba in the revised rough draft of ROTJ.)

Leia returned to the Rebels, where she met up with Han. They exchanged sorrows, and talked of the very possible defeat of the Rebellion in the coming battle. After all, the Rebels’ resources were already stretched thin, and Ibbana could not remain undiscovered forever. They had to strike now, or risk losing all.

Han (along with C-3PO and R2-D2) went to Ton-Muund, heading a secret commando mission, which sought to infiltrate the Imperial Palace from below.

And Leia, who still loved Luke, determined to save his life—by fair means or foul.

She took her lightsaber, and flew off in a starfighter (for she, too, was a good pilot at need).

None of the Rebel generals—not even her favorite general, the warrior priest Grand Mouff Tarkin—knew where Leia meant to go. Nor did they mind overly much, for she was a wise leader in their war councils, and they trusted her.

 

Episode VI, Part II

Luke had had his new lightsaber taken from him when he was captured.

He languished in prison on Alderaan for some time, and there was tortured, suffering the first ordeal of the Sith. But he had not yet submitted, and he knew, from what Leia had told him, that death loomed before him if he remained obstinate.

Yet suddenly, he was taken from his cell, and brought by shuttle to Condawn. Here, on a craggy mountaintop overlooking the searing fields of lava, Darth Vader had built his castle, on the site of his victory over the old order.

Luke was taken to Vader’s throne room, with its highly polished Dwarf-wrought floor of stone, and its giant glass windows overlooking the lava fields. On one side wall hung the lightsabers of Jedi whom Vader had defeated: trophies of victory. On the other side stood a large glass mirror, also of Dwarven make, whose purpose even Darth Vader did not fully understand.

The two unusually well-armored stormtroopers who had escorted Luke into the room remained standing by the entrance, guarding it. But they advanced no further.

Upon the dais before the central window there was a brass gong, which was used to orchestrate proceedings during meetings of the Sith Order.

At the center of the room, seated on his throne, was Vader, still wearing his mask with the pride of a fierce knight. And by his side, in a newly installed throne, there sat one other: his new consort, and co-ruler of the Sith Order. Leia.

She was dressed in a black leather jumpsuit. The red Mark of the Sith, the honor of the twice-recalcitrant, was tattooed upon Leia’s forehead.

TENNO

She had taken the tonsure given to the hardiest of Sith women—a half-shaved head, with one side of her golden hair left long and flowing.

Her blind eye had been extracted and replaced with a false droid prosthesis, outwardly normal except for its purple iris. In fact, her damaged eye been used to make her own Kiber Crystal, which she kept in a secure crypt, deep below the throne room.

The Sith knew the secret of the Crystals’ making, as the Jedi never did. It was a dark secret, and had they known, the Jedi would have found other ways to open their minds to the Force. For there were, in fact, other ways. But unlike the Jedi, who viewed the Kiber Crystals as a necessary evil, the Sith, who craved absolute power, never relinquished their Kiber Crystals—except at need.

To cement her status as a Sith Knight, Leia had willingly undergone further wounds: her teeth were extracted (replaced with golden ones), and her right hand was removed (replaced with a silver prosthesis).

/TENNO

TOMOE

She had taken the tonsure given to the hardiest of Sith women—a half-shaved head, with one side of her black hair left long and flowing.

Her blind eye had been extracted and replaced with a golden prosthesis. In fact, the eye been used to make her own Kiber Crystal, which she kept in a secure crypt, deep below the throne room.

The Sith knew the secret of the Crystals’ making, as the Jedi never did. It was a dark secret, and had they known, the Jedi would have found other ways to open their minds to the Force. For there were, in fact, other ways. But unlike the Jedi, who viewed the Kiber Crystals as a necessary evil, the Sith, who craved absolute power, never relinquished their Kiber Crystals—except at need.

To cement her status as a Sith Knight, Leia had willingly undergone further wounds: her teeth were extracted (replaced with silver ones), and her right hand was removed (replaced with a silver prosthesis).

/TOMOE

(Think of a combination of Emma Peel from the old British TV Avengers and Brian De Palma’s Phantom of the Paradise.)

And, at last, Leia had built her own lightsaber, which she wore in addition to the one Ben Kenobi had willed to her.

--

She had drunk of the Red Sleep (or Red Draught) of the Sith, the drink that brings madness and ecstasy in equal dose, and she was now a willing participant in the deeds of Vader and his ilk.

She told Luke that Han was a better lover than he would ever be; for Han had slept with her as well, during their desperate flight from Yavin, and again after Luke’s capture on Alderaan. And Leia further said that she was now Vader’s willing mate—and, she already knew, she was pregnant.

But Leia would be gracious in victory. She asked him now to join them. She offered him one-third of the Empire for his own.

Luke refused. But some part of him, deep down, wanted to accept.

Leia and Vader taunted Luke by dangling his lightsaber in front of him. He did not take it via the Force, for he did not think he could master his own anger. But he was tempted to try.

Next, they held before him his father’s lightsaber, lost years ago on Kashyyyk. They offered it to him freely, if he would only join them. His urge to seize his rightful heirloom by the Force grew much stronger. But again he feared to fall to the Dark Side.

Then they linked into the secret Imperial military HoloNet, to show him how the battle was unfolding over Ton-Muund.

The Emperor and Vader had withheld a secret: the Death Stars were fully armed and operational!

And now Luke’s fury could no longer be borne.

--

TENNO

Tapping into the Force, Luke summoned his father’s red-hued lightsaber, and his own white blade. He lashed out at Vader with them.

Leia blocked the blow, using Ben Kenobi’s lightsaber with its new purple crystal.

Vader too drew his red lightsaber to defend himself.

Luke used the Force to take control of the two guards at the entrance to the hall, the ones who had escorted him in: elite Stormtroopers.

Vader had begun training this cadre of well-disciplined troops at the Emperor’s request. Even Lord Pestage had begun to fear that the Sith might turn against him one day, and that Vader might, in the fullness of his power, seek to supplant him. But Vader knew this; and the Emperor knew that he knew it.

Now the two well-armored stormtroopers, doing Luke’s bidding, advanced and drew their own blue lightsabers.

In response, Vader fetched down Ben Kenobi’s original white blade, long dormant, from where it rested on a wall of the throne room, as a trophy in a place of honor.

Then Leia activated her own new-built lightsaber. Its blade was golden.

(Perhaps there was a reason for the fact that GL appears to have sought a blanket ban on yellow lightsabers?)

Battle was joined.

/TENNO

TOMOE

Tapping into the Force, Luke summoned his father’s red-hued lightsaber, and his own golden blade. He lashed out at Leia with them.

Vader blocked the blow, using his own red sword.

Leia in turn ignited Ben Kenobi’s lightsaber, with its new golden crystal.

(Perhaps there was a reason for the fact that GL appears to have sought a blanket ban on yellow lightsabers?)

Luke used the Force to take control of the two guards at the entrance to the hall, the ones who had escorted him in: elite Stormtroopers.

Vader had begun training this cadre of well-disciplined troops at the Emperor’s request. Even Lord Pestage had begun to fear that the Sith might turn against him one day, and that Vader might, in the fullness of his power, seek to supplant him. But Vader knew this; and the Emperor knew that he knew it.

Now the two well-armored stormtroopers, doing Luke’s bidding, advanced and drew their own red lightsabers.

In response, Vader fetched down Ben Kenobi’s original white blade, long dormant, from where it rested on a wall of the throne room, as a trophy in a place of honor.

Then Leia activated her own new-built lightsaber. Its blade was green.

Battle was joined.

/TOMOE

 

Episode VI, Part III

I have already recounted the essentials of the tale of Han and Mina in the depths of Ton-Muund. Thus, I shall simply pass over the whole episode in brief:

Han was captured by the Sith, and found Mina already among their ranks, herself a prisoner in a drugged waking sleep. A young dark-skinned slave boy, Mace Windom, restored Mina to her wits through the application of fire. The liberated Rebels released the slaves of the Sith, and, having unleashed the planet's ancestral waters, began to conquer the Imperial capital from below.

--

Meanwhile, overhead, Akira Valorum piloted the Millennium Falcon in the space battle.

The Rebels were losing. Their ships were pinned between the defenses of Ton-Muund and the Imperial fleet, which had made a sudden, but not entirely unanticipated, appearance.

--

The Imperial ships were commanded by a newly minted Admiral, but one who was already a shrewd strategist and a skilled leader of men: a woman, in fact.

Let’s call her Admiral Heda Horus.

(This first name is a combination of Hedda Hopper, the famous gossip columnist of Old Hollywood, and Leda, mother of Helen of Troy in Greek mythology. Heda’s surname comes from Mara Horus, the Tarkin-style Imperial bureaucrat character in the 1974 first draft.)

TENNO

Heda Horus was, in fact, the officer who had recognized Luke and Leia on Alderaan earlier, and who had blown their cover. This was what had earned her a promotion to Admiral.

For Heda herself was a clone of Leia, made from DNA Vader had taken years ago on Alderaan. And she had grown up at the greatly accelerated rate natural to clones raised in laboratories.

/TENNO

TOMOE

Heda herself was an extremely intelligent woman, and thus a favorite of Darth Vader. She was, in fact, the officer who had recognized Luke and Leia on Alderaan earlier, and who had blown their cover.

Thanks to her brainpower, she rose high in rank, despite the racist tendencies inherent in the Imperial bureaucracy: for her features were what Tellurians would call Japanese.

In reality, Heda herself was a clone of Leia, made from DNA Vader had taken years ago on Alderaan. And she had grown up at the greatly accelerated rate natural to clones raised in laboratories.

Vader himself had asked the Emperor to promote her to Admiral, as a reward for her capture of Luke Starkiller. The Emperor, grudgingly, agreed.

/TOMOE

Now Heda was grown to womanhood, at least in body, and by virtue of her great intelligence, she commanded the Imperial battle fleet. She hated the Rebels, and her green eyes burned with fury when she saw them; for her idol was her mentor, Darth Vader.

And, childlike, she had eagerly absorbed his invective against the “seditious foe.”

Children do not know when their parents are lying.

Even to themselves.

--

And then, unexpectedly, Bail Whitsun’s fleet appeared too, and began fighting alongside the Rebel ships. He and his son Marcus (piloting his own silver starfighter) had come to rescue Mina.


But Bail’s capital ship was destroyed by the lasers of one Death Star, and the Rebel flagship, commanded by General Dodana, was blown up by the other. This was the first revelation of the ultimate surprise Vader and the Emperor had planned. And the shields had not yet been downed.

--

TENNO

On Condawn, Luke and his two mind-controlled elite Stormtroopers now did battle against both Leia and Vader.

Luke managed to hold them both off, quite adeptly, for Ben had trained him well in lightsaber combat. However, his elite Stormtroopers, though well trained by Vader himself, ultimately proved of little account when subjected to conflicting mental commands from three warriors at once.

During the duel, Luke knocked Ben Kenobi’s white lightsaber from Vader’s left hand, and it plunged into one of the ventilation shafts that cooled the throne room. But he shrank from pressing his advantage.

Leia tossed Vader her purple lightsaber, and she instead took up the blue sword of one of the fallen Stormtroopers. (This idea comes from the finale of Hamlet.)

--

If a spectator had been present, and had bothered to look into the magic mirror at this moment (as the combatants did not), he or she would have noticed something odd.

In the mirror, there were only two combatants; for Darth Vader stood aside, and the stormtroopers had retired after bringing in Luke, and were not present at the duel.

But instead of the two empty thrones on the dais, there was a wizened old man in a purple hooded robe, sitting on the sole chair in the center of the room. (Or was it a man? All that could be made out of his face, beneath the cowl, was a pair of glowing yellow eyes…)

To the left and right of the seated figure (and not counting Vader), there stood four other men—each one almost as ancient as the Sith Master—in robes of blue and red, and black and white. Six Sith, all told…. looking for a seventh to complete their ranks.

Thus, only Luke and Leia fought, one on one, and they each used a red blade. While the mirror version of Luke had short blond hair and no beard, Leia’s hair was shorn to a brown topknot, and she wore the brown robe of a Sith novitiate.

And in the throne room’s other mirror, the gong of summoning, the scene was different yet again. Now Luke and Leia had switched places. Leia’s brown hair was long, and it was Luke, the golden-haired Sith Lord in training, who wore a brown robe.

Both of them used two blades. Luke had in hand two blue lightsabers, but Leia’s were green. The hooded man on the throne, moreover, wore blue robes, and his deputy wore purple instead.

But in the third mirror, the polished floor, the scene was still more changed.

Though Leia was once again robed and tonsured as a Sith Knight, now both Luke and Leia looked quite Japanese in features. However, Luke’s beard from the ordinary world remained. Each of them wielded two lightsabers; one white, one purple.

--

Luke could, perhaps, have defeated both his foes. But he knew, as if by instinct, where the greater threat lay.

To stop Leia’s furious assaults, he slashed at her face, blinding her in her normal eye. But she could still see perfectly, thanks to the Force. And she kept fighting.

Next Luke cut off her left hand. To his great surprise, what was revealed was not the stump of a living arm, but rather the wires of a prosthesis hidden beneath synthflesh. This shocked Luke, but he had no time to ponder it. Leia was still on her feet.

So Luke struck at Leia’s leg, bringing her down and leaving her with a permanent limp. And at last he turned his full attention upon Darth Vader.

Ultimately, Luke cut off Vader’s right hand, with his red lightsaber still clutched in it. Thus he exposed the wires of the prosthesis beneath Vader’s glove. At this last revelation, Luke shrank back. He vowed inwardly that, come what may, he would not kill them. For at last he realized the peril of the path he now walked: that, simply by fighting them, he might someday himself end up like Vader and Leia.

He flung down his lightsabers, and turned to Leia, who now urged Luke to finish off his father, and join the Sith in earnest.

“Never,” he said.

“You’ve failed, Leia! I am a Jedi, like my father before me, and like his father before him.”

(That line actually comes nearly verbatim from Lawrence Kasdan’s first revision of the ROTJ script.)

Luke stretched out his left hand to Darth Vader, offering to forgive him and embrace him. And Lando Kadar, perceiving mercy for the first time in his life, lowered his lightsaber, and stood in silence, and considered taking the hand.

But Leia, still in the first flush of Sith madness, was enraged. And she lashed out at Luke, whom she now despised as a weakling, with her lightsaber.

/TENNO

TOMOE

On Condawn, Luke and his two mind-controlled elite Stormtroopers now did battle against both Leia and Vader.

Luke managed to hold them both off, quite adeptly, for Ben had trained him well in lightsaber combat. However, his elite Stormtroopers, though well trained by Vader himself, ultimately proved of little account when subjected to conflicting mental commands from three warriors at once.

During the duel, Luke knocked the red lightsaber from Vader’s left hand, and it plunged into one of the ventilation shafts that cooled the throne room. But he shrank from pressing his advantage.

Leia tossed Vader her golden lightsaber, and she instead took up the red sword of one of the fallen Stormtroopers. (This idea comes from the finale of Hamlet.)

--

If a spectator had been present, and had bothered to look into the magic mirror at this moment (as the combatants did not), he or she would have noticed something odd.

In the mirror, the stormtroopers had retired after bringing in Luke, and were not present at the duel.

But Luke and Leia together faced off against Darth Vader, and five other men in variously colored robes tailored for dueling: six of the seven Sith Lords, who had foolishly sought to increase their numbers by two.

While the mirror version of Luke had short dark hair, and was clean-shaven, Leia’s long red hair gleamed in the fiery light, and they both wore gray robes. All of the combatants, save Luke and Leia only, wielded just one lightsaber; and every blade was blue in color.

And instead of the two empty thrones on the dais in the real world, there sat on the sole chair a wizened old man in a white robe. (Or was it a man? Nothing could be made out of his face, beneath the cowl…)

And in the throne room’s second mirror, the gong of summoning, things were largely as they appeared in the first mirror…

Except that the seated figure wore a robe of endlessly changing and morphing colors; and although Luke was clean-shaven, as in the first mirror, now he and Leia both appeared quite Japanese in features. And all of the lightsabers were red.

But in the third mirror, the polished floor, things appeared for the most part as they would have to normal sight.

Only, this time, Luke and Leia were white-haired albinos, with strange golden eyes. And all of the lightsabers too were white in color.

--

Luke could, perhaps, have defeated both his foes. But he knew, as if by instinct, where the greater threat lay.

To stop Leia’s furious assaults, he slashed at her face, blinding her in her normal eye. But she could still see perfectly, thanks to the Force. And she kept fighting.

Next Luke cut off her left hand. To his great surprise, what was revealed was not the stump of a living arm, but rather the wires of a prosthesis hidden beneath synthflesh. This shocked Luke, but he had no time to ponder it. Leia was still on her feet.

So Luke struck at Leia’s leg, bringing her down and leaving her with a permanent limp. And at last he turned his full attention upon Darth Vader.

Ultimately, Luke cut off Vader’s right hand, still holding Ben Kenobi’s white lightsaber. Thus he exposed the wires of the prosthesis beneath Vader’s glove. At this last revelation, Luke vowed that, come what may, he would not kill them. For at last he realized the peril of the path he now walked: that, simply by fighting them, he might someday himself end up like Vader and Leia.

He flung down his lightsabers, and turned to Leia, who now urged Luke to finish off his father, and join the Sith in earnest.

“Never,” he said.

“You’ve failed, Leia! I am a Jedi, like my father before me, and like his father before him.”

(That line actually comes nearly verbatim from Lawrence Kasdan’s first revision of the ROTJ script.)

Luke stretched out his left hand to Darth Vader, offering to forgive him and embrace him. And Lando Kadar, perceiving mercy for the first time in his life, lowered his lightsaber, and stood in silence, and considered taking the hand.

But Leia, still in the first flush of Sith madness, was enraged. And she struck at Luke, whom she now despised as a weakling, with her lightsaber.

/TOMOE

 

Episode VI, Part IV

Han and Mace and Mina, who by now had rescued C-3PO and R2-D2, went to the central computer room of the Imperial Palace, where they sought to disable the shields of the Death Stars using the stolen codes.

The two Sith Lords guarding the entrance were no fools, and they had orders to attack any strangers on sight.

C-3PO and R2-D2 distracted them, and so allowed the heroes to overpower the Sith Lords. But the two droids were badly damaged. R2 in particular was wrecked almost fatally, and 3PO lost his left arm. (Think of Kane Starkiller having lost three of his limbs, all but the right arm, in the 1974 rough draft.)

Imminent death awaited R2-D2 if his mind was not transferred to another body soon.

Still, the guards were slain, and the room was breached, and the codes transmitted.

--

With the shields lowered, Akira Valorum, piloting the Millennium Falcon, and Marcus Whitsun, in his own silver starfighter, each respectively approached one of the half-finished Death Stars.

Marcus found some unexpected opposition: a Rebel starfighter, approaching fast, with its guns trained on him.

Heda Horus, knowing that the Death Stars would soon be destroyed if she did nothing, had decided to emulate her mentor and hero, Darth Vader, by taking personal command of a starfighter to intercept the Rebel pilots. She did Vader one better: she used Leia’s own X-wing to disguise her approach, while the rest of her squadron used ordinary Imperial craft.


But Marcus Whitsun was not deceived, for he knew that Imperial pilots had different tactical approaches to dogfighting than Rebels.

He fired on the X-wing’s engines, even as she fired at him. But, taken off guard, she only sheared off one of his starfighter’s wings.

And Heda Horus, her craft irreparably damaged, plunged toward the surface of Ton-Muund below.

She survived. But her hair was singed off, and her eyes blinded, in the crash; and she lost several teeth.

Old Annikin, back in the Third Clone War, had been smarter. In her childish vanity, Heda was proud of her hair, and refused to muss it by deigning to wear a helmet. Annikin, however, had seen enough battles by then to know it was worth following the Republic regulations for pilots, and so he came through his crash on Utapau with few facial scars to show for it.

(Remember GL's own car crash?)

Heda had not realized that the Rebels, with their increasing paucity of resources, could no longer even find enough parachutes for their pilots. But nor would she have cared overmuch, had she known; for the Imperial mentality held that starfighters were more precious than personnel.

As Heda plummeted to the planet below, Marcus flew into the core of the Death Star.

Across the raging void of disputed space, Akira Valorum had already done likewise.

--

The reborn Lando Kadar, who now realized the true goodness of Luke’s heart, was enraged at Leia’s attack.

He was weakened, and had lost his right hand. But he still had one lightsaber left, and one hand to wield it. So, even as Leia swung with her lightsabers at Luke, Lando used his own saber to block the blow.

A second duel resulted, one which Lando had no heart to fight. In an attempt to force Leia to back off, he swung his saber high at her. But, as he had hoped, she dodged the blow. Now Leia pressed on, and Lando knew he had no hope of out-dueling her in her madness. So he charged at Leia, and used his weight to fling them both bodily through the great glass window, down toward the lava fields of Condawn below.

But they did not die; instead, they landed on a rocky precipice overlooking the vast lava fields below. Lando was protected from the searing heat by his armored suit. But Leia’s clothing caught on fire, and her remaining hair was burned off.

Still, Lando had saved Leia from herself, and because they held fast to each other, they both lived. Even as she burned alive, he smothered the fire with his own cloak—though she bore the scars of it on her body to the end of her days.

And they realized their folly at last, and laughed at themselves. And Luke Starkiller, by now standing on his own two feet, extended his hands through the shattered window to help them both.

Luke’s hair and beard had not yet begun to whiten. But Lando’s hair was already beginning to go gray at the temples.

--

In the throne room of the Emperor, the slaves, led by Han and Mace and Mina, confronted Lord Pestage. They asked him to yield, so that they would not have to kill him and his kin.

The Emperor was unwilling to go out gracefully. He was angered by what the Rebels had done to his beloved homeworld; and in truth, he feared the wrath of the planet’s liberated underclass.

Lord Pestage’s finger hovered near a button on his throne—a red button, long hidden behind a secret panel, which in direst emergency would set in motion a chain reaction to destroy the entire planet.

The fingers of the former slaves tensed on their stolen guns.

Just as doom was about to fall on Ton-Muund, a woman appeared from a secret entrance, crying for mercy: Alana Organa, sister of Zunia, the Emperor’s most beloved concubine.

As one close to the Imperial royal family, Alana had been given prior warning of the impending destruction of Organa Major. So she spirited herself away, to live in seclusion with her brother-in-law, the Emperor, on Ton-Muund.

TENNO

She was still beautiful, and her red hair (in a Sith topknot) was not yet gray. After all, she had been given the finest life-extension treatments which the Emperor’s scientists could devise.

Now Alana bore a broken nose, and the Mark of the Sith was a black tattoo upon her forehead—for she had resisted only once, long ago on Sullust X.

/TENNO

TOMOE

She was still beautiful, and her dark hair (in a Sith topknot) was not yet gray. After all, she had been given the finest life-extension treatments which the Emperor’s scientists could devise.

Now Alana bore a broken nose, and the Mark of the Sith was a livid brand upon her forehead—for she had, in truth, never resisted, even long ago on Sullust X.

/TOMOE

(Basically, she’s Padme AND Thea von Harbou: Fritz Lang’s wife, author of the novel version of Metropolis, screenwriter of the film—and, subsequently, a Nazi Party member during Hitler’s rule. But, additionally, this whole scene is based in large part on Kriemhild/Gudrun’s intervention to stop Siegfried from fighting her brother Gunther in the Nibelungenlied, a moment memorably dramatized in Fritz Lang’s silent film Die Nibelungen.)

One of the startled Rebels fired at her, shooting for the heart. But because he was unaccustomed to wielding blasters, he shot her in the stomach, paralyzing her.

(“That’s not funny… that’s not…”)

And, as the Emperor saw his beloved sister-in-law lying wounded and in pain on the floor before his throne, his heart began at last to melt. He yielded to the Rebels, and gave up his signet ring, and let mercy reign for Alana’s sake.

R2-D2, whose old body was fast dying, was uploaded into the unused shell of a silver protocol droid, which allowed him at last to speak in a human voice.

--

Overhead, the torpedoes of Akira Valorum and Marcus Whitsun found their marks, and two Death Stars exploded.

TENNO

But on the way out, his spacecraft was shot and badly damaged by an Imperial fighter: the last of Heda Horus’ crack squadron. It was piloted by a droid, an ace even more talented than Heda—Mara Lamiya.

The Emperor had wanted a clone of the man he deemed the finest pilot in the galaxy: Luke Starkiller. But not enough of Luke’s DNA had come into their hands until his encounter with Vader on Kashyyyk.

It took several years to grow a clone body to maturity properly. So, rather than miss out on having a Luke of their own to fight in the Galactic Civil War, Lord Pestage ordered Darth Vader to do the next best thing: reconstruct Luke’s personality matrix, and put it into a droid.

It amused Vader to insert the matrix into a silver-plated, feminine-bodied protocol droid. But the newly christened Mara did not mind.

(In the 1975 second draft, C-3PO is one of the four-person crew in Luke’s starfighter when it destroys the Death Star.)

Faced with this new threat, Marcus returned the fire, and dealt a crippling blow—even as she did the same to him. Their spacecraft now spiraled down together toward the surface of Ton-Muund far below.

Marcus, using his own parachute, bailed out before the crash. He survived mostly unharmed—save for a badly burnt hand and a lesser burn on one cheek.

Mara did not fare as well in her crash as Marcus or Heda had.

She would have been destroyed in the inferno; but with the Emperor’s surrender, technicians were freed to get to her in time. They could do nothing for her broken chassis; but they uploaded her mind into a new golden body.

/TENNO

TOMOE

But on the way out, his spacecraft was shot and badly damaged by an Imperial fighter: the last of Heda Horus’ crack squadron. It was piloted by an ace, one in fact even more talented than Heda—Mara Lamiya.

The Emperor had wanted an equal to the man he deemed the finest pilot in the galaxy: Luke Starkiller. Mara was the pilot who best fitted the bill.

For Mara herself was Luke’s twin sister, hidden by Annikin Skywalker so many years ago. She had grown up on Ton-Muund, hidden among a noble family. But they failed in their charge, and went over to the Empire. Young Mara, innocently following her parents' lead, did likewise.

By virtue of her great skill in dogfights, Mara Lamiya earned a place second only to Admiral Horus in the Imperial starpilots’ battle roster.

Her heroism at the Second Battle of Yavin IV led to Mara becoming the youngest pilot ever to be decorated with the Golden Cross of the Empire.

She went to Kashyyyk in Lord Vader’s retinue, and there piloted one of the fighters that harried the Millennium Falcon in its escape. But she failed to stop them, because she was shot down.

She survived, thanks to her Ring, and walked away with few injuries, thanks to her helmet and her good sense to keep her golden hair boyishly short in pilot fashion. But her goggles had been pierced by a piece of shrapnel, and she lost an eye—which she replaced with a metallic silver one.

For her failure, Vader had taken away her Golden Cross, to “encourage” her and her fellow pilots to do better.

Now, she was determined to prove that she could. She wanted her medal back.

--

Faced with this new threat, Marcus returned the fire, and dealt a crippling blow—even as she did the same to him. Their spacecraft now spiraled down together toward the surface of Ton-Muund far below.

Marcus, using his own parachute, bailed out before the crash. He survived mostly unharmed—save for a badly burnt hand and a lesser burn on one cheek.

Mara’s crash was worse.

She would have been destroyed in the inferno; but with the Emperor’s surrender, medical technicians were freed to get to her in time. They could do nothing for her broken body; but they uploaded her mind into a bronze protocol droid body of feminine shape.

/TOMOE

Akira Valorum did not fare as well as Marcus, or Heda, or even Mara. Han Solo’s beloved ship, the Millennium Falcon, died that a galaxy might live.

 

Epilogue

In the end, the Republic was restored. Not entirely as it had been, but, its people hoped, rather better.

Mina Whitsun became the new Chancelloress. She wore a hooded mantle of purple, and a bronze crescent crown, and she covered the burned side of her face with a silver half-mask, through which her blind eye peered out. She was not ashamed of her scars, but she did not wish to scare children.

(Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera a decade early, or Luke on Hoth post-Wampa in a deleted scene from ESB?)

Han Solo, Mina’s husband, became the new President of the Transport Guild—which turned a blind eye to smuggling in a way it had not under the Empire. Han now habitually dressed in the elegant black furred robes of Guild traders. Together he and Mina raised Mace Windom as an adopted son.

But Han still occasionally glanced at Leia. And Leia glanced back. And Mina, who was no longer as sheltered as she had once been on Acquis, exchanged glances with her as well.

--

Marcus Whitsun became Lord of Acquis, ruling in his underwater city—which now could float freely on the surface, without fear of discovery by the Imperial fleet. He now had a burn scar on one side of his face, and his crippled left hand was replaced by a bronze prosthesis; but this only added to his rakishly handsome appearance.

He married Heda Horus, now Ambassador Plenipotentiary to the Second Galaxy, who forgave him for shooting her down. She was, in fact, impressed by his abilities as a pilot.

TENNO

Heda wore a Dwarven-forged wig of red hair (since she had always hated her own yellow locks), and the white face paint traditional for the queens of Organa Major. And she replaced her lost eyes with new ones of metallic silver. But her teeth were still natural, though a few were missing.

/TENNO

TOMOE

Heda wore a Dwarven-forged wig in her natural hair color (black), and the white face paint traditional for the queens of Organa Major. And she replaced her lost eyes with new ones of metallic gold. But her teeth were still natural, though a few were missing.

/TOMOE

Mara Lamiya dwelt with them, as the captain and chief pilot of Heda’s ambassadorial starship.

As a wedding present, Chancelloress Mina bestowed on the couple one of the mind-transfer devices that had hitherto been restricted by Guild monopoly to use on Ton-Muund only.

--

Lord Pestage was stripped of his imperial title, and he and Alana were exiled to Alderaan, where he might have a kingdom of his own—the one he had always possessed.

Alana felt guilt in her heart for having abandoned her husband to die on Organa Major. And so for several years she refused all attempts at ameliorating her condition, instead going about in a silver wheelchair like Carl Organa’s. Eventually, however, she yielded to Leia’s entreaties, and received silver prosthetic legs which restored her power of walking.

--

Leia Organa became Queen of Utapau, which began to blossom, gradually, under her rule. The surviving expatriates of Organa Major were invited to settle there, and to recreate something of their former happiness.

She took a regnal name, but it is not recorded in any text yet known.

The Order of Gray Jedi was re-founded, with two bases. One was on Utapau and one on Ton-Muund—now a beautiful planet with palaces rising from a world-spanning ocean, Venice writ large. (This of course comes from the two Foundations, on Terminus and Trantor, in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation book series.)

The Jedi Council had three co-leaders: Luke Starkiller, Leia Organa, and Lando Kadar. Lando usually remained on Ton-Muund, whereas Luke and Leia preferred to remain on Utapau.

But they visited often, and Leia’s droids, C-3PO and R2-D3, invariably went with her. However, the droids liked it best when Leia visited Acquis, though that happened less frequently.

Lando had a small life-support device implanted in his chest, so that he no longer needed to be encased in armor. (Think of a combination of Marvel’s Tony Stark and Isaac Asimov’s portable nuclear reactors from Foundation.)

He took off his mask, and revealed his face openly. After all, he wished to show that even a Sith Lord could be redeemed.

Lando did not replace his missing right hand with a new prosthesis. He wished, by learning at last to duel with the left arm, to give Annikin Starkiller the due he had denied him in life. Luke, for his part, covered his new robotic hand with synth-flesh, to honor the independent mind of old Ben Kenobi.

TENNO

Leia took to wearing elaborate Dwarf-forged wigs, alternately red and gold and black in color, according to her daily whims.

One of her eyes, the one with a scar above and below it, was blind and milky blue. She had no wish to replace it, however. After all, her mismatched eyes were a famous feature of her likenesses on the old Rebel propaganda posters. Even now, she didn’t wish to change something so defining about her own face.

Her silver right hand had been burned black by the fires of Condawn. Nor did she replace it. She considered it as worth keeping, because it still worked.

Her golden teeth, however, remained in perfect condition.

/TENNO

TOMOE

Leia took to wearing elaborate Dwarf-forged wigs, alternately black and startling blue and green in color, according to her daily whims.

One of her eyes, the one with a scar above and below it, was blind and milky blue. She had no wish to replace it, however. After all, her mismatched eyes were a famous feature of her likenesses on the old Rebel propaganda posters. Even now, she didn’t wish to change something so defining about her own face.

Her silver right hand, and silver teeth, had been burned black by the fires of Condawn. Nor did she replace them. She considered them as worth keeping, because they still worked.

/TOMOE

Her queenly attire consisted of a golden cloak, a loincloth of woven metal discs, a beautiful royal necklace, and little else. She sometimes wore the silver shoes traditional for queens of Organa Major; but she usually went barefoot, for she limped, and she could no longer see as ordinary men did. And she disdained too much clothing, for the heat of the fires of Condawn never entirely left her.

Luke wore the purple cloak and white robes of a triumphant Jedi general, as did Lando. All three Starkillers now had discarded their Kiber Crystals. And all three wielded a lightsaber (or two) with skill and grace.

With Lando’s permission, Leia had the magic mirror moved from its old home on Condawn to the throne room of her new palace on Utapau.

In the mirror, she saw herself as she normally looked. Usually.

But, just occasionally, when Leia looked into the mirror out of the corner of her blind eye, she had a surprise; for the reflection shown was not her own.

At those times, she beheld in the mirror an eerily pale-skinned woman, dressed almost exactly like herself. But this woman was almost, yet not quite, human.

TENNO

Her eyes were empty sockets; her nose was missing. Her head was bald, and her ears were pointed.

/TENNO

TOMOE

Her eyes were empty sockets; her nose was missing. Her head was bald, and her ears were pointed—though one of them had clearly had its point sliced off some time ago.

/TOMOE

Most strikingly of all, her doppelganger had three tall horns growing out of her head, just above her forehead.

Whenever it appeared, Leia pondered what this apparition could portend. Was it a specter of the past? A vision of the future? A glimpse of a future that would never be? Or a version of the present, one which was not hers, or her reflection’s, but which existed alongside them both?

And she asked herself… if she smashed the mirror, would she meet this woman? Or, perhaps, would she meet someone else entirely?

But she stayed her hand, and did not try the experiment… for the moment.

And they all shared and shared alike.

And peace and love reigned in the Republic.

And, on a remote, swampy planet on the uncharted edge of the galaxy, the wizened Jedi Master Bunden Debannen breathed a sigh of relief… for the time being.

 

Episodes VII-IX: Three Tangled Tales

Once again, I shall reiterate that most of this must remain untold for the moment, for fear of spoilers.

Yet I think I can guess some of what was originally intended here.

The children of Leia Organa, and of Han and Mina, would be the principal protagonists, along with the fully-grown Mace Windom.

The continued existence in exile of the Pestage dynasty on Alderaan, and its connections with the Republic’s conservative nobility, would bear bitter fruit.

Space Oddities would be important.

Dagobah would be seen on screen at last.

The chronology of the three films, taken together, would be extremely unusual, and rather un-filmic.

For, in truth, if Chaos be benevolent, one should not seek to destroy him… rather, to befriend him.

Right, Fleece?

Episodes x-xii: Three Days in the Lives

Just as I described them before, really. Not much to say here.

 

"In accordance with the traditions of Starfleet and of Article 184 Starfleet Regulations, we are assembled here today to pay final respects to our honored dead.

"And yet, in the midst of our sorrow it should be noted that this death takes place in the shadow of new life, the sunrise of a new world, a world that our beloved comrade gave his own life to protect and nourish. He did not feel that sacrifice a vain or empty one -- and we will not debate his profound wisdom, in these proceedings."

For Leonard, and De, and James, and Gene and Majel

--

Now, with the proper ceremonies completed...

“The healing power of the Grail is the only thing that can save your father now. It’s time to ask yourself what you believe.”

"I am the doer who undoes, the creator who un-creates. And yet I would gladly be the destroyer who un-destroys, the dangerous one who protects."

"Thank you, John Dee."

--

“…So the Grey Weaver, ignorant of the consequences of his act, cast the magic spell that sealed shut the upper rim of the Third Sandglass, forcing its white sands to run their course unaided.

“But even as the Weaver did so, the Master Glassmaker heard the sound which, though he knew it must happen occasionally, nonetheless filled him with dread upon each new hearing: the shattering of glass.

“Goodmold the Glassmaker, running swiftly despite his age, traced the distasteful sound to its source: the Great Hall of Crystalgard, with its maze-like series of passages and stairs, all wrought of scintillating emerald glass.

“There in the center of the room, on a hallowed pedestal, the marvelous crystalline chalice, the Chromax Conundrum, still stood… But two chips had fallen from the rim of the goblet, and now they stood at the base of the emerald pillar.

“The purpose of the Chromax Conundrum was at last revealed.

“And Goodmold, the thirty-first Master of the Noble Guild of Glassmakers, was, for the first time in his long life, deeply afraid.”

Sir Joseph Holmes, Book of the New Loom, 21:3-6

--

“…So the White Mage, ignorant of the consequences of his act, cast the magic spell that sealed shut the upper rim of the Third Sandglass, forcing its crimson sands to run their course unaided.

“But even as the Mage did so, the Master Glassmaker thought he heard the sound which, though he knew it must happen occasionally, nonetheless filled him with dread upon each new hearing: the shattering of glass.

“Goodmold the Glassmaker, running swiftly despite his age, traced the distasteful sound to its perceived source: the Great Hall of Crystalgard, with its maze-like series of passages, whose very layout defied the ordinary laws of space-time.

“There in the center of the room, on a hallowed pedestal, the marvelous diamond chalice, the Chromax Conundrum, still stood, as perfect as ever in its shining clarity.

“But, high in the Tower of Secrets far above, one of the ropes binding the Great Scythe had snapped, and the blade’s arc now tilted crazily downward.

“And Goodmold, the thirty-first Master of the Noble Guild of Glassmakers, was, for the first time in his long life, truly joyous.

“For he knew, or guessed, the secret of this omen: that the Glassmakers’ centuries of laboring under an immense burden would soon draw to a close.”

Sir Joseph Holmes, Book of the New Loom, 71:6-8

--

“The surviving portions of the Uxbridge Fragment suggest that there is a germ of truth in both the ‘ordinary’ versions of The Star Wars, and the variants recorded by M. Trottier in the Woonsocket Manuscript.

“Once again, the issue hinges on the crux of paternity. To put it baldly, when speaking of Luke and Leia, which of these two Starkillers were really the offspring of Annikin, the former Skywalker; which were the children of Ben Kenobi, the renegade Jedi; and which were in truth the bastards of Lando Kadar, alias Darth Vader?”

“The received wisdom has it that Luke was Lando’s son, while Leia was Annikin’s daughter. However, the two columns of the Woonsocket Manuscript tell different stories, which are mutually contradictory.

“There, in the left-hand variant, Luke and Leia are both Annikin’s children by blood; but in the right-hand variant, Leia is the daughter of Ben Kenobi. Moreover, in both halves of the manuscript, Lando Kadar is not related to Annikin at all!

“From what remains in the surviving text, though, it is clear that the author of the Uxbridge Fragment had his own take on the material, one which diverges from all previously known accounts.”

--Omar Al-Azrad, The Lost Books of The Star Wars, p. 12

--

“Surprisingly, in view of the wisdom that has become commonplace since Trottier’s book was published, the Uxbridge Fragment—itself undoubtedly older than the Woonsocket Manuscript—incorporates the whole matter of the Magic Rings, and their attendant consequences.

“Thus, Laif Organa returns as a secondary character in the story, and Lando Kadar—Darth Vader—is once again Annikin’s child by Aubra the Sith.”

--Omar Al-Azrad, The Lost Books of The Star Wars, p. 14

--

Excerpted from the Uxbridge Fragment manuscript of The Star Wars, as edited and translated by Omar Al-Azrad:

Episode III: To Duel in Hell

....Thus at last, only two Jedi were left standing upon the fields of Condawn: Lando Kadar and Ben Kenobi.

(Translator’s note, p. 47: at this point, where the tale normally describes the laser-sword of Ben Kenobi, there is a lacuna in the Uxbridge Fragment. Most editors believe this may be filled by reference to the Woonsocket Manuscript, but see chapter VI for evidence to the contrary.)

At last, Ben Kenobi saw an opening, and pulled Lando’s Kiber Crystal from its chain around his neck, hoping thus to depower him. And Lando, not yet knowing the truth about the Crystals’ power, thought that he had indeed been rendered powerless.

Ben stabbed Lando in the heart. But Lando survived, thanks to his magical Rings. Lando cut off Ben’s right hand, and cast him down, and forced him to yield.

Cruel in victory, Lando stole Ben’s unique sword, and his Kiber Crystal, as trophies for the new Sith Order. Annikin’s and Laif’s Kiber Crystals, however, had disintegrated with their owners’ demise, for they had not been passed on beforehand.

(Translator’s note, p. 48: The reference at this point to Laif Organa in the Woonsocket Manuscript, which Trottier takes to be an interpolation by a later scribe, in fact appears here too, in this plainly earlier source. This is a point of evidence casting doubt on the previously accepted scholarly consensus.)

But in recompense for taking away Ben’s sword, Lando left Annikin’s sword for him to have, that Ben might pass it on to Luke. After all, what good had it done its original owner?

And so, Lando walked off, triumphant, leaving the wounded Ben Kenobi to grieve by his fallen King and his dead friends.

He was all the more triumphant because, when he defeated Ben Kenobi, he had felt the Force stirring still within him. Now he knew that he no longer had any need for the Kiber Crystals, and he rejoiced in his new freedom.

But Lando kept this knowledge secret, since not even the Jedi knew this as yet—save one only, who thought it best for other Jedi to learn this for themselves.

 

Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

…On Kashyyyk, Luke and Akira went into the dungeons of the Silver City, and found Han and Leia in separate cells. Han’s wounds grieved Akira, but the sight of Leia angered and sickened Luke. Once again she lay unconscious and bloody, but now even worse, for one of her eyes was blinded, and her beautiful hair had been cut off. Luke awoke her with a kiss, and she clung to him, and cried from mingled pain and joy.

And, as the Clone King and Chewbacca helped Han and C-3PO toward the landing pad of the Millennium Falcon, Akira Valorum wondered why Luke tarried.

--

Though her friends escaped in the Falcon, thanks to the aid of Akira Valorum (whom she had to forgive, grudgingly), Leia remained behind to slay Jabba the Hutt, which she did with venomous relish. She had borrowed Luke’s lightsaber and Kiber Crystal. At her first touch of the Crystal, the Force leaped within her to heights she had never before attained.

Now, lightsaber in hand, she went to avenge herself upon Darth Vader.

The climactic duel no doubt took place in some sort of dangerous environment, as in the final film—perhaps the edge of a balcony opening out into empty sky.

--

Of course, Leia had been trained to use a lightsaber, as all children of noble families of the Old Republic were. Even in 1977, GL said that anyone could use a lightsaber—Leia just happened to prefer blasters.

In fact, there was likely a good reason for this. No doubt she had a secret phobia of lightsabers.

Why?

Leia used to be left-handed, you see.

(“I am not left-handed!”)

Not now, at any rate.

--

Just as with Tenel Ka in the Young Jedi Knights book series, there had been a training mishap one day on Organa Major, and young Leia had lost her left arm at the elbow.

Few knew this, because she had always been fitted with the finest prostheses money could buy, covered in perfectly matching synth-flesh. But, with Organa Major destroyed and the Rebels on the run, that time was over. And synth-flesh wears out eventually… and sixteen-year-old girls (as Leia was in the 1975 third draft) are not done growing.

But the time for that fear was over. The time for vengeance, she judged, was at hand.

Now, fighting like a woman possessed, Leia opened herself to the Dark Side, using her pain and shame as fuel to fight Vader, hoping to defeat evil with evil. She almost won—but she stabbed Vader in the shoulder, and Vader groaned in a great outcry of pain. And Leia hesitated to finish him off.

But Vader rallied, and cut off Leia’s right arm at the elbow, and Annikin’s lightsaber went along with it.

Vader took off his mask, revealing his own face: that of a fair-haired, pale-skinned mustachioed man, with purple droid-facsimile eyes, and the brand of the Sith upon his forehead.

He told Leia the truth: he was her real father. Lando had cuckolded Carl Rieekan years ago, by coming to Alana in Annikin’s shape on the eve of the Battle of Condawn.

Leia, her mind flashing back to the dungeons of Alderaan, screamed.

But Vader did not stop at that revelation.

He said further that, in his youthful hatred of his father, he had determined to deny him any vestige of memory in the waking world—even in flesh and blood. And so, he confessed, he was Luke Starkiller’s father as well.

This last revelation horrified Leia even more, though she did not show it—for she now knew she had, of her own will, committed incest. (I don’t think that would actually have been mentioned on screen, except via implication. But of course Siegfried does the same thing with his aunt, the Valkyrie Brunnhilde, in Richard Wagner’s operas.)

But what horrified her most was that deep down, like Wagner’s Sieglinde or an Olympian goddess, she did not really regret it.

Vader extended an invitation to Leia to join the Sith, and jointly rule the galaxy… but Leia jumped off the balcony.

She was rescued by a passing flying creature, a winged steed of the Wookiees—ridden by Luke and Han, who had come to rescue her at her subconscious call. The Millennium Falcon escaped, as in the final film, with Vader left to ponder why Leia did not accept her father’s generous offer of half the Empire.

Leia, in turn, wondered something herself: why had Vader not seized Luke’s Kiber Crystal?

--

But Vader did make one more stop before he left Kashyyyk: to the forest floor, far below the balcony where he and Leia had dueled.

There, after long searching, he found the thing he had been looking for: Annikin Starkiller’s lightsaber, clutched in his own daughter’s lifeless, partially decayed hand.

Darth Vader was not one to give up easily.

And, before he left Kashyyyk, he gave the severed arm a proper burial. It was the right thing to do, after all.

--

At the new Rebel base—quite likely on a grass planet, an idea considered for a Rebel headquarters in ROTJ—Leia and Han both received medical treatment. Han opted for illegal clone parts, grown by Akira Valorum, to replace his losses.

Leia, whose lost hair was just beginning to grow back, once again opted for well-crafted false teeth, indistinguishable from real ones. But she replaced her missing right hand with a crystalline prosthetic, crafted by grateful Dwarves liberated from Imperial slavery by the Rebels. She did, after all, want a visible war wound—if only to remind herself of her own desire for revenge.

And she replaced her blind eye with a droid prosthesis of a distinctive bronze color. It would, she knew, make a good effect on the Rebel propaganda posters.

Luke, to whom alone she disclosed Vader's words, forgave Leia for losing his grandfather’s lightsaber; after all, she had suffered far more on Kashyyyk than anything he had ever borne.

C-3PO, who lost his legs on Kashyyyk, was offered replacements, of the wrong metal—silver. The Rebels’ resources were not limitless. He protested about the mismatch, but accepted one of them, thinking it a great honor. Though, for his other missing limb, he preferred to use a carved wooden leg instead. He said that it was a fitting memento for a brave droid like himself, even though it had to be replaced frequently.

In the finale, the Rebels received a coded message from Han Solo's stepfather, the powerful trade baron Bail Whitsun. He refused for the moment to talk of an alliance, or even to deal with the Rebels at all. With that, Han decided to depart, since he feared that their cause would ultimately be lost without Bail’s aid.

 

Episode VI: The Good Jedi

Han had come back to the Rebels one year ago. Even as the Rebels lost more and more ground, he became ever more regretful of his foolishness in doubting the wisdom of the cause.

Upon his return, Han did not woo Leia, for she and Luke had, by common consent, not yet told him about the truth of the Skywalker dynasty. And Han thought that she preferred Luke in her heart.

And, deep down, she did—even with her current knowledge.

--

In the Second Galaxy, Han Solo met with the powerful trade baron Bail Whitsun. Bail had two children, among whom Han himself had been fostered as a teenager. Now he asked for Bail’s help for the Rebel cause, by adding his massive fleet to their dwindling armada of warships.

Bail Whitsun was remarkable for his red hair and green eyes. If one had not known better, one would have assumed he was a clone of the Valorum lineage.

In fact, he was—but Bail rejected the clones’ taboo against sexual reproduction, seeing it as baseless and unnecessary. So he denied his fathers and refused his surname, taking on a new last name to honor the star of his chosen homeworld.

As an adopted son of sorts, Han Solo was one of the very few who were privileged enough to know his secret—which itself was one of the major reasons for Bail Whitsun’s extreme reclusiveness.

And Bail’s daughter, Mina, looked essentially like a young, female version of her father.

--

As Han embarked on his journey to Acquis, events went on in the lenticular Galaxy Far Far Away we know so well.

On the Rebel base on the grass planet Ibbana, Ben Kenobi was dying at last.

Before he died, Ben Kenobi entrusted Luke with the last secret of the Jedi, one wrested at great cost from the Dwarves: how to build his own lightsaber.

Luke did this, and was pleased with the result.

For this was the symbol of the secret wisdom which Bunden Debannen had whispered in Ben’s ear, years ago: that a true Jedi, a Gray Jedi, goes his own way. He adheres neither to the strictly white nor the strictly black, but simply along the path that is best for the overall Pattern of the Force.

The only true rule of a Gray Jedi is this: “First, do no harm.” Even the Jedi of the Old Republic, in their own way, had forgotten this, and thus fallen into unwisdom.

Afterward, Ben gave to Luke his own second lightsaber, so he in turn could instruct Leia in the ways of the Force.

As a last request, Ben asked Luke to take his body to Utapau (Tatooine) and bury him there, for his home on Organa Major (what we now call Alderaan) had been destroyed by the first Death Star.

But Ben did not mention the true secret of the Kiber Crystals. Some things are best learned by doing, after all; and this truth Master Debannen had thought it best for Ben to learn on his own, in life or in death.

--

Luke traveled to Utapau with Ben’s body, and was shocked by what he found there.

In the 1975 third draft of the first SW movie, Luke simply ran away from home. But now, in the third film, Luke would see that in his absence, the Lars homestead had been destroyed by the Empire. Owen and Beru had been slain, and their bodies left for the carrion birds.

For the first time in his life, Luke felt sorrow at having left Utapau behind.

He buried his aunt and uncle, and Ben Kenobi, in plots next to his mother’s grave. He vowed to come back one day, when he had time, to rebuild the family farm better than ever.

Then he returned to the Rebel base on Ibbana, and heard the message relayed from Han.

Luke and Leia knew what they had to do.

--

Using a stolen Imperial shuttle and “borrowed” Imperial uniforms, they dressed up as officers and infiltrated once more the cloud city of Alderaan, the ancestral seat of Emperor Pestage. (If you haven’t figured this out yet, it’s basically a riff on the Padishah Emperor’s planet of Salusa Secundus from Dune, combined with King Vultan’s Sky City from Flash Gordon.)

To better disguise herself, Leia dressed as a male officer. She trimmed her long golden hair into the short flat-top haircut favored by Imperial officers, and wore gloves to conceal her crystalline right hand. She pretended that her hands had been burned in battle.

Leia also wore an eyepatch, to hide her bronze droid eye—that distinctive feature in Rebel propaganda posters.

Luke, however, did not have too much difficulty fitting in. He had already grown a beard in order to bolster his disguise on prior reconnaissance missions.

Luke and Leia successfully retrieved the codes from Alderaan, and copied them into R2-D2 for the Rebels’ use. But their disguises ultimately failed, for Leia’s wounds, and their familial resemblance, were too obvious to conceal entirely. A high-ranking Imperial captain recognized them.

A terrific firefight ensued. Leia was shot in her crystal hand, and it began to malfunction. She knew it would need a replacement, sooner or later.

In the end, Luke stayed behind, sacrificing himself to make sure Leia got away with the codes. He was captured, and taken to the prison cells out of which he had rescued Leia years ago.

Leia returned to the Rebels, where she met up with Han. They exchanged sorrows, and talked of the very possible defeat of the Rebellion in the coming battle. After all, the Rebels’ resources were already stretched thin, and Ibbana could not remain undiscovered forever. They had to strike now, or risk losing all.

Han (along with C-3PO and R2-D2) went to Ton-Muund, heading a secret commando mission, which sought to infiltrate the Imperial Palace from below.

And Leia, who still loved Luke, determined to save his life—by fair means or foul.

She took her lightsaber, and flew off in a starfighter (for she, too, was a good pilot at need).

None of the Rebel generals—not even her favorite general, the warrior priest Grand Mouff Tarkin—knew where Leia meant to go. Nor did they mind overly much, for she was a wise leader in their war councils, and they trusted her.

 

Episode VI, Part II

Luke had had his Kiber Crystal, and his new lightsaber, taken from him when he was captured. He feared that now he was powerless, for Ben had never told him that, once he had opened his mind to the Force, the Crystal was in truth no longer needed.

He languished in prison on Alderaan for some time, and there was tortured, suffering the first ordeal of the Sith. But he had not yet submitted, and he knew, from what Leia had told him, that death loomed before him if he remained obstinate.

Yet suddenly, he was taken from his cell, and brought by shuttle to Condawn. Here, on a craggy mountaintop overlooking the searing fields of lava, Darth Vader had built his castle, on the site of his victory over the old order.

Luke was taken to Vader’s throne room, with its highly polished Dwarf-wrought floor of stone, and its giant glass windows overlooking the lava fields. On one side wall hung the lightsabers of Jedi whom Vader had defeated: trophies of victory. On the other side stood a large glass mirror, also of Dwarven make, whose purpose even Darth Vader did not fully understand.

The two unusually well-armored stormtroopers who had escorted Luke into the room remained standing by the entrance, guarding it. But they advanced no further.

Upon the dais before the central window there was a brass gong, which was used to orchestrate proceedings during meetings of the Sith Order.

At the center of the room, seated on his throne, was Vader, still wearing his mask with the pride of a fierce knight. And by his side, in a newly installed throne, there sat one other: his new consort, and co-ruler of the Sith Order. Leia.

--

She was dressed in a scarlet battle jumpsuit. One of Annikin’s magic serpent Rings hung on a chain around her neck. (Vader, a prudent man who had already lost one arm, wore the second the same way, beneath his armor.)

The triple-armed Mark of the Sith was etched in poured gold upon Leia’s forehead; for she had, in truth, resisted thrice.

Her eyes, both the blue-hued original and the one of metallic bronze, had been extracted and replaced with matching cloned prostheses, outwardly normal except for their green irises. In fact, her organic eye had been used to make her own Kiber Crystal, which she kept in a secure crypt, deep below the throne room.

The Sith knew the secret of the Crystals’ making, as the Jedi never did. It was a dark secret, and had they known, the Jedi would have found other ways to open their minds to the Force. For there were, in fact, other ways.

But no Sith, except Vader only, realized how limited in truth the Kiber Crystals’ power was; nor how utterly useless they were after one’s first contact with the Force. So they coveted them, and often tore out their own eyes, or the eyes of their enemies, to make them, in the belief that such personalization granted greater power.

And Vader, too, knew the wisdom of not sharing this secret before its time.

Leia had taken the tonsure given to the hardiest of Sith women—a permanently bald head, saving only a short stubble of golden hair.

And, to cement her status as a Sith Knight, Leia had willingly undergone further wounds: the extraction of numerous teeth, and a third breaking of her nose. Her robotic hands, both the hand of synth-flesh and the damaged hand of crystal, had been replaced with silver prostheses; for the True Sith value honesty.

But her missing teeth were replaced with a chaotic medley of gold and silver and crystal; for the True Sith love life, and they love uniformity best when it is melded with variety.

And, at last, Leia had built her own lightsaber, which she wore in addition to the one Ben Kenobi had given to her.

--

She had drunk of the Red Sleep (or Red Draught) of the Sith, the drink that brings madness and ecstasy in equal dose, and she was now a willing participant in the deeds of Vader and his ilk.

She taunted Luke with the fact, which he had never known, that Han had slept with her first, during their desperate flight from Yavin. And she had given herself to him again, after Luke’s capture.

She told him that Han was a better lover than he could ever be. And she could judge, for neither Luke nor Han had been the first to lie with her. And Leia further said that she was now Vader’s willing mate—and, she knew, she was pregnant.

But Leia would be gracious in victory. She asked him now to join them. She offered him one-third of the Empire for his own, and the gift of Annikin Starkiller’s third Ring, which as yet slumbered deep in the vaults of the palace, next to Leia's own Kiber Crystal.

Luke refused. But some part of him, deep down, wanted to accept.

Leia and Vader taunted Luke by dangling his lightsaber, and his Kiber Crystal, in front of him. He did not seek to take them via the Force, for he did not think he could, if the Crystal was not already his own, by right of gift or right of might. But he was tempted to try.

Next, they held before him his father’s lightsaber, lost years ago on Kashyyyk. They offered it to him freely, if he would only join them. His urge to seize his rightful heirlooms by the Force grew much stronger. But again he was unsure if he dared try, and in trying, fail.

Then they linked into the secret Imperial military HoloNet, to show him how the battle was unfolding over Ton-Muund.

The Emperor and Vader had withheld a secret: the Death Stars were fully armed and operational!

Luke was angered and enraged, and wished fervently to attack them with his bare hands. But, using all his self-control, he overcame the impulse.

Finally, frustrated by his refusal to accept their generosity, Leia smashed Luke’s Kiber Crystal before his eyes. By this act she wished to depower forever such a pathetic dullard, who in her eyes would never make a proper Sith Lord.

And now Luke’s fury could no longer be borne.

--

Tapping into the Force, forgetting his perceived need for the Kiber Crystal, Luke summoned his lightsaber, and his grandfather’s blade as well. With them he attacked Vader.

Leia countered the blow, using Ben Kenobi’s second saber given to her by Luke.

Vader too drew his own lightsaber.

Luke used the Force to take control of the two guards at the entrance to the hall, the ones who had escorted him in: elite Stormtroopers.

Vader had begun training this cadre of well-disciplined troops at the Emperor’s request. Even Lord Pestage had begun to fear that the Sith might turn against him one day, and that Vader might, in the fullness of his power, seek to supplant him. But Vader knew this; and the Emperor knew that he knew it.

Now the two well-armored stormtroopers, doing Luke’s bidding, advanced and drew their own lightsabers.

In response, Vader fetched down Ben Kenobi’s old blade from where it rested on a wall of the throne room, long dormant, as a rare trophy in a place of honor.

And Leia activated her own new-built lightsaber.

Battle was joined.

--

Meanwhile, as Han Solo and Mina Whitsun made their way up from the depths of Ton-Muund, Akira Valorum piloted the Millennium Falcon in the gigantic space battle raging overhead.

The Rebels were losing. Their ships were pinned between the defenses of Ton-Muund and the Imperial fleet, which had made a sudden, but not entirely unanticipated, appearance.

--

The Imperial ships were commanded by a newly minted Admiral, but one who was already a shrewd strategist and a skilled leader of men: a woman, in fact.

Let’s call her Admiral Heda Horus.

Heda herself was an extremely intelligent woman, and thus a favorite of Darth Vader. She was, in fact, the officer who had recognized Luke and Leia on Alderaan earlier, and who had blown their cover.

Thanks to her brainpower, she rose high in rank, despite the racist tendencies inherent in the Imperial bureaucracy: for her features were what Tellurians would call Arabian.

Vader himself had asked the Emperor to promote her to Admiral, as a reward for her capture of Luke Starkiller. The Emperor, grudgingly, agreed.

Now Heda was grown to womanhood, at least in body, and by virtue of her great intelligence, she commanded the Imperial battle fleet. She hated the Rebels, and her green eyes burned with fury when she saw them; for her idol was her mentor, Darth Vader.

And, childlike, she had eagerly absorbed his invective against the “seditious foe.”

Children do not know when their parents are lying.

Even to themselves.

--

And then, unexpectedly, Bail Whitsun’s fleet appeared too, and began fighting alongside the Rebel ships. He and his son Marcus (piloting his own silver starfighter) had come to rescue Mina.

But Bail’s capital ship was destroyed by the lasers of one Death Star, and the Rebel flagship, commanded by General Dodana, was blown up by the other. This was the first revelation of the ultimate surprise Vader and the Emperor had planned. And the shields had not yet been downed.

--

On Condawn, Luke and his two mind-controlled elite Stormtroopers now did battle against both Leia and Vader.

Luke managed to hold them both off, quite adeptly, for Ben had trained him well in lightsaber combat.

However, his elite Stormtroopers, though well trained by Vader himself, ultimately proved of little account when subjected to conflicting mental commands from three warriors at once.

During the duel, Luke knocked Ben Kenobi’s lightsaber from Vader’s hand, and it plunged into one of the ventilation shafts that cooled the throne room. But he shrank from pressing his advantage.

Leia tossed Vader her own lightsaber, and she instead took up one of the fallen Stormtroopers’ swords. (This idea comes from the finale of Hamlet.)

--

If a spectator had been present, and had bothered to look into the magic mirror at this moment, he or she would have noticed something odd.

In the mirror, each of the combatants wielded two different colors of lightsabers; but in the world as seen by ordinary mortal sight, there was only one color, shared by all the blades.

More strangely still, Darth Vader was not present in the mirror. In his place stood a monstrous black shadow in the shape of a man.

Luke and Vader did not notice this. But Leia did.

--

Luke could, perhaps, have defeated both his foes. But he knew, from the evidence before him, where the greater threat lay.

Leia cut off Luke’s right arm at the elbow, but he simply carried on, attacking her with his left arm and his remaining lightsaber, learning by instinct what Annikin had mastered through training years ago.

The duel was not yet over. But Leia was still attacking furiously.

So Luke struck at Leia’s leg, bringing her down and leaving her with a permanent limp. And he cut off Vader’s right hand, revealing its true nature as a droid prosthesis. But at this last revelation, Luke shrank from killing them. For at last he realized the peril of the path he now walked: that he might someday himself end up like his father and sister.

He flung down his lightsaber, and stretched his hand out to Darth Vader.

“I cannot kill you, father. I am a Jedi, like my father before me.”

Behind Luke, Leia dragged herself painfully to her feet.

Across the throne room, Vader stood up in silence.

A moment passed without words or movement.

And then Darth Vader struck out at his son with Force lightning.

 

Episode VI, Part III

Han and Mace and Mina, who by now had rescued C-3PO and R2-D2, went to the central computer room of the Imperial Palace, where they sought to disable the shields of the two Death Stars using the stolen codes.

Four Super Stormtroopers guarded the entrance, the finest of the new elite force raised by Lord Pestage. There was no hope of distracting them; for the Emperor himself had overseen their training.

They put up a fierce and deadly fight with their lightsabers. In the battle, Han lost his right hand, and one of Mina’s breasts was severed.

C-3PO and R2-D2 then rushed in, and distracted two of the guards, and so saved the heroes’ lives. But they were severely damaged, and put out of action. Imminent death awaited them if their minds were not transferred to other bodies soon.

(Rather like a certain Professor Jones in a certain movie about a certain Holy Grail?)

Yet the soldiers were slain, and the room was breached, and the codes transmitted.

--

With the shields lowered, Akira Valorum, piloting the Millennium Falcon, and Marcus Whitsun, in his own silver starfighter, each respectively approached one of the half-finished Death Stars.

Marcus found some unexpected opposition: a Rebel starfighter, approaching fast, with its guns trained on him.

Heda Horus, knowing that the Death Stars would soon be destroyed if she did nothing, had decided to emulate her mentor and hero, Darth Vader, by taking personal command of a starfighter to intercept the Rebel pilots. She did Vader one better: she used Leia’s own X-wing to disguise her approach, while the rest of her squadron used ordinary Imperial craft.

And Marcus Whitsun was deceived, for he was not experienced enough a pilot to know that Imperial fighters had different tactical approaches to dogfighting than Rebels.

But just as Mara prepared to fire, Marcus was saved. Another X-Wing fired on Heda’s own, spoiling her aim, so that she only sheared off one of the wings of Marcus’ craft.

This was flown by Mara Lamiya, a brown-haired Rebel pilot, who had become one of the Alliance’s top fighter aces, second only to Luke Starkiller himself.

She had fought valiantly in the Second Battle of Yavin IV, where she had been shot down and forced into a crash landing. Thanks to her piloting skills, and good fortune, she lived to fight another day. But the goggles of her helmet were shattered, and she lost an eye. Afterwards Mara took to wearing a black eyepatch—and avoided wearing helmets.

As Heda turned her attention to this new and unexpected foe, Marcus flew into the core of the Death Star.

Across the raging void of disputed space, Akira Valorum had already done likewise.

--

Luke had barely enough time to conjure a shield from the Force, to protect himself against Darth Vader’s unexpected attack.

He struggled valiantly, but Vader’s barrage of fury was the greater. It would only be a matter of time before Luke was overwhelmed, and fell before his father’s might.

Leia, standing painfully on a mangled leg, saw this and wondered how she might help her brother.

Then she remembered the Magic Mirror, and its visions.

Limping painfully over to the mirror, Leia looked in its glass once more. The shadow still stood in the place of Darth Vader—it was this eldritch being, not her father, who sought to electrocute Luke.

Leia took a deep breath, and extended both hands….

…and smashed the mirror.

The explosion that followed caught both Vader and Luke by surprise. Luke dropped his guard—but Vader, equally, cut off his surge of Force lightning.

He no longer wished to continue it. For now he was Lando Kadar once more, in body and spirit.

--

Long ago, young Lando had been filled with pride and thoughts of vengeance against his father. To that end, he had pursued every resource available to him, plumbed depths of depravity deeper than any known by the Sith and the Boma.

He had become a master of astral travel, in space and in time, to places it was dangerous even to behold, and lethal to visit in the flesh.

There, on one of these worlds, he had met his true master. Not Emperor Pestage, or Aubra or Zeno, or even a Sith at all.

No, this man was a jovial fellow with white hair, outwardly ordinary, who was dressed in red and sat in the overstuffed armchair of a book-lined study.

“Who are you?” Lando asked.

“I have many names,” came the reply. “Yen Sid is one. Henry Walton is another. But you may call me Palpatine, if you would like.”

“What is this place?”

“Some call it Xanadu, others Hearst Castle. It is my home, and the farm where I make my living. Is that not enough?”

Lando felt curiosity rising within him. “What do you grow here?”

“Many wonderful fruits. Look out that window, and you will see them.”

Lando looked at the tall glass window indicated, and beheld, outside, trees fruited with produce of unimaginable variety. Back in the caves of Ttaz, his mouth began to water.

“May I taste of them?”

“No. I keep them for myself.”

This puzzled Lando, and angered him somewhat. “Why?”

“It is not for you, Son of Annikin, to know my reasons for doing as I do. It is merely for you to accept.”

“But—”

“I will offer you something else instead: something greater, in my view. Will you take it, and accept my word, and endeavor to forget these worthless fruits?”

“Yes, gladly. What is this gift?”

“Power. Unlimited power.”

--

Lando Kadar did as Palpatine bid, and held out his right arm. Palpatine pricked his index finger with a needle, and blood (funny how black it looks, thought Lando) fell onto a parchment. This paper Palpatine promptly filed away in a chest of drawers.

Afterward, Lando went back to his home place and time, with little reason to doubt the wisdom of this great sorcerer. But unbeknownst to him, he had been the victim of a spell, a magical geas of sorts which enslaved his spirit and caused him to work evil.

The mirror, sent long ago to Condawn by the sorcerer’s minions in that galaxy, was the agent of that spell. And now, with its shattering, Lando’s true inner goodness was reborn once more.

--

Lando and Luke ran to help Leia, who sprawled upon the floor among the shards of the mirror.

Her silver hands had been burned black by the explosion—and her cloned eyes had been melted out, so that she was blind in ordinary terms. But, thanks to the Force, Leia could still see perfectly… and she greeted her father with a bear-like embrace.

Her beloved brother, however, she thanked with a kiss.

--

In the throne room of the Emperor, the slaves, led by Han and Mace and Mina, confronted Lord Pestage. They asked him to yield, so that they would not have to kill him and his kin.

The Emperor was unwilling to go out gracefully. He was angered by what the Rebels had done to his beloved homeworld; and in truth, he feared the wrath of the planet’s liberated underclass.

Lord Pestage’s finger hovered near a button on his throne—a red button, long hidden behind a secret panel, which in direst emergency would set in motion a chain reaction to destroy the entire planet.

The fingers of the former slaves tensed on their stolen guns.

Just as doom was about to fall on Ton-Muund, a woman appeared from a secret entrance, crying for mercy: Alana Organa, sister of Zunia, the Emperor’s most beloved concubine.

As one close to the Imperial royal family, Alana had been given prior warning of the impending destruction of Organa Major. So she spirited herself away, to live in seclusion with her brother-in-law, the Emperor, on Ton-Muund.

She was still beautiful, and her golden hair (in a Sith topknot) was not yet gray. After all, she had worn one of Annikin’s Rings for many years—and her Dwarven slaves had since fashioned another for her in its likeness.

Now Alana bore a broken nose, and the Mark of the Sith was a black tattoo upon her forehead—for she had resisted only once, long ago on Sullust X.

One of the startled Rebels fired at her, shooting for the heart. But because he was unaccustomed to wielding blasters, he shot her in the stomach, paralyzing her.

(“That’s not funny… that’s not…”)

And, as the Emperor saw his beloved sister-in-law lying wounded and in pain on the floor before his throne, his heart began at last to melt. He yielded to the Rebels, and gave up his signet ring, and let mercy reign for Alana’s sake.

C-3PO and R2-D2, whose old bodies were fast dying, were hastily transferred into two unused robot shells lying readily at hand: protocol droids. R2 was uploaded into a gold-plated droid, which allowed him at last to speak in a human voice, and C-3PO was put into a silver-colored droid. Ever afterward he complained loudly about the color of his new chassis--but secretly he was thrilled.

--

Overhead, the torpedoes of Akira Valorum and Marcus Whitsun found their marks, and two Death Stars exploded.

Marcus Whitsun escaped from the exploding space station with his life intact.

But Heda Horus and Mara Lamiya, who had continued their dogfight even as the other Rebels flew into the heart of the Death Star, shot each other down. Both of their craft plummeted to the surface of Ton-Muund far below.

Thanks to her skill as a pilot, Mara Lamiya escaped once more with her life. But all her hair was signed off, and her eyes were blinded; and several of her teeth were knocked from her jaw.

Heda Horus, meanwhile, managed to guide her damaged fighter into a harrowing crash landing, from which she was very fortunate to walk away. At least, that was what ordinary folk said—but in truth, Heda, as a favorite of Darth Vader, was one of those who had been privileged with the gift of a Dwarven Ring.

Bowing to the inevitable, Heda promptly surrendered to a squad of Rebel troops, newly landed on the planet surface.

Her greatest injury from the crash was the loss of an eye. She refused to have it replaced afterward, however, saying that a pilot who needed two eyes was no pilot at all.

In the days following the Battle of Ton-Muund, Heda began to let her hair—formerly cut short in pilot fashion—grow out once more. Thanks to the stress of the battle, it now came in white.

--

Akira Valorum did not fare as well as Marcus, or Heda, or even Mara. Han Solo’s beloved ship, the Millennium Falcon, was never seen again after the battle, and men said that the Clone King had perished that a galaxy might live.

But Han Solo himself remembered Akira Valorum's sharp sense of humor; and he thought ruefully of his large unpaid debt to Akira from their last sabacca game, which he had lacked the funds to make good.

--

Many other tales of heroism came out of the great Galactic Civil War…. only some of which are recorded in full in the surviving sources.

On the icy planet of Arpentis, site of an Imperial labor camp, the dashing Rebel spy Simon Ritter infiltrated the hellish prison fortress of black iron, and successfully liberated the golden-haired Princess Rosanna Clementias.

She was the daughter of a royal House that had remained officially neutral in the War. But Rosanna had been seized as a hostage on the orders of Lord Pestage, “to encourage the others,” after Imperial spies reported that King Salvor Clementias was secretly selling arms to the Rebels.

After her rescue, Rosanna quickly emerged as one of the Rebels’ greatest leaders of ground forces.

Likewise, the star-pilot whose heroism won the Second Battle of Hoth for the Alliance, Kim Sunbearer of Byssia, wooed Lady Winter, the niece of King Andricus of Ophuchi.

Andricus had reluctantly declared for the Rebellion after his brother’s mysterious death was revealed to be a false-flag operation masterminded by Imperial agents.

Kim was on a diplomatic visit to this new ally of the Alliance when he first beheld Lady Winter’s raven hair and green eyes. She reciprocated his affection, and approached her father about a possible marriage.

But, ever the patrician, King Andricus would not agree to grant his daughter’s hand to one of common birth… especially a man making war against his sovereign lord. Byssia was, after all, still loyal to the Empire.

To rid himself of this "turbulent pilot," Andricus told Kim Sunbearer that he could marry Lady Winter only when he had procured a kingdom of his own.

That, he thought, would be the end of the matter.

Far from it.

Later in the war, Kim and his most trusted friend, the former Imperial officer Lieutenant Lloyd Davidson, liberated the planet of Raghusa V, whose unpopular King, the Imperial lackey Hamish the Bald, had placed it under martial law in defiance of popular sympathy for the Rebellion.

A craven at heart, King Hamish fled into the Unknown Regions almost as soon as Kim and Lloyd landed. A few months later he returned, at the head of an unimpressive force of mercenaries and vagabonds. Kim’s troops swiftly routed Hamish once more, and the former King fled back to his new home in exile, never to return.

The descendants of Hamish (who, for reasons known best to philologists, are called Jamesites by historians) made occasional attempts thereafter to recover their ancestral kingdom. But they came to nothing, and the Sunbearer dynasty was secure.

Andricus, impressed despite himself, agreed to let Kim and Winter marry at last. Kim took up his new throne on Raghusa, and appointed Lloyd Davidson his viceroy and lord chamberlain. The wedding and coronation feast was the talk of the Third Quadrant.

But I’m woolgathering. Let’s get back to the story you expected.