obi wan before the fall of the republic is sooooo fun and flippant and quippy and he's so full of life and even though he's experienced so much pain and loss, he has so much love in his life, and even though he's fighting in a war he never wanted to be a part of, and even though this war goes against who he wants to be, he fights it because it's his duty and he's proud to be a jedi, he loves to help and has a bleeding heart for all the pathetic lifeforms of the galaxy. and he's so confident, so sure, that one day this war will end and he can go back to his life before, where they will he at peace and his family will be with him and even though he's suffered so much, it will be time to heal.
and then it never comes. and everything he loved is gone, burned and destroyed beyond recognition, the republic in shambles, his friends all massacred, and all that's left of his best friend, his brother, his closest companion throughout this terrible war are his newborn children. and obi-wan can't even know them. and he retires to a shitty desert planet - the same one anakin came from - and all the grief hits him at once and it is fucking overwhelming. it's like he's drowning in it. there's no way out. his only lifeline is occasionally getting to see luke from afar. he has lost everything and even then still has more to lose - he just doesn't know it yet
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here is a fun little star wars scenario that has been pinging around inside my head like a screensaver:
so let’s say there’s some very zealous, very low-ranking fresh young Imperial officer on duty the day they take the Senator from Alderaan into custody.
and he is very very nervous because a) he’s been here for like a week and b) none of that week required him to be in a room with Darth Vader. which he now is. so he is trying to focus very very hard on Doing Everything Exactly According To Protocol, as a means of not focusing on the seven-foot evil wizard standing fifteen feet away.
and part of the protocol for processing new prisoners is to make a new file for them in the prisoner database, and enter all their biographical details and vital statistics and a gene sample and their known associates and the nature of their terrible crimes against the Empire and so on. which he does! very meticulously!
except the computer keeps throwing an error message. the stupid thing keeps beeping at him, this awful grating little noise that makes his shoulders ratchet up tighter and tighter every time it honks at him, and he can’t fix it and Darth Vader is right over there—
except oh god oh fuck the beeping noise must be annoying Darth Vader, too, because he’s coming over here and our poor junior officer is convinced he’s going to die before he even lives long enough to send his first paycheck home to his poor widowed mother —
he stammers out an apology. Vader just stares at him. he swears he’ll figure out the problem right away, sir, it’s probably a bug in the system, it’s just that for some silly reason it keeps saying this gene sample doesn’t match the one on file for the Senator so he can’t get her logged as a new prisoner just yet —
“Dismissed,” says Vader. the poor kid flees, gratefully.
Vader considers the matter. in fact, his underling was correct: the gene sample, which he saw taken through his very own helmet lenses, does not match the official record of Senator Leia Organa, heir to the throne of Alderaan. so: perhaps the sample on record was falsified. not impossible, but very, very difficult. and ordinarily a crime attempted by the lowly and desperate. he cannot see any need for it, in the daughter of a queen.
another possibility presents itself. Alderaan has no history of using royal doubles, as some worlds do. but Bail Organa has worked closely with royal houses where the practice is long-established. perhaps he was inspired. perhaps the girl they captured is not Leia Organa at all.
Vader runs the gene sample against the ship’s database. it is woefully incomplete, of course, containing only a fraction of the Empire’s billions of citizens: the ship’s own complement, a selection of known criminals and Rebels they might encounter, high-ranking officials whose identity must be confirmed should the Emperor require their presence. unlikely that this girl, whoever she is, would have a record here, or even a partial match—
the computer beeps at him. it’s a cheerful beep, this time, not the error message that stymied the junior officer. the computer reports that the gene sample is a partial match for Pooja Naberrie, the Senator from Naboo. they are, with eighty-nine percent probability, first cousins.
and Vader just. kind of stands there. for a minute.
when he goes to Leia’s cell, there’s no interrogation droid with him. he goes in. he shuts the door behind him. he stands there, silent, for frankly a worryingly long time, until Leia has run through her entire stockpile of “how dare you, I’m a member of the Senate on a humanitarian mission” and “whatever you want, you can’t possibly think I would be of any help” and “well, if you’re going to interrogate me, get on with it already” and “are you even listening to me?” and falls silent herself.
Vader has been listening to her. he has also been listening to the Force, which seems to think that she’s not lying. obviously the humanitarian mission part is bullshit, that goes without saying. but the “I’m Senator Leia Organa” parts and the “I won’t help you” parts? yeah. he searched his feelings. he knows them to be true. the Force is singing in his head, bright and clear, in a way it hasn’t for nearly twenty years.
there’s still Tarkin to deal with, though. Vader turns and leaves the cell without a word.
Tarkin wants to blow up Alderaan. this is unacceptable, obviously, and Vader forbids it on the grounds that the Queen and the Viceroy possess vital intelligence, not disclosed to their daughter, that must be acquired. said intelligence being, not that he’s saying this out loud, how the fuck Bail got his hands on his daughter, and who else knows about it.
“the fate of the galaxy rests on it,” is what he does say out loud. from the way the Force harmonizes with his words, that might even be true.
so the Death Star just. parks there. in an incredibly threatening orbit around the planet. they issue a demand that the Organas surrender themselves, or else, but apparently the happy couple just left for a low-tech weekend retreat in the mountains, what awful timing, they’re sending someone to fetch them right away. Vader shuts himself up in his quarters, to seethe and watch the surveillance feed from Leia’s cell. he’s not really paying attention to much else.
and it’s not like a random freighter getting tractored in for being an incredibly obvious smuggling vessel is the kind of thing you’d alert Darth Vader over, anyway.
so he’s still sitting there, one great big thought filling up his whole entire head, watching Leia take a frustration nap, when her cell door opens.
and a trooper comes in.
and the trooper takes off his helmet.
and he says, “I’m Luke Skywalker. I’m here to rescue you.”
(continued here)
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Really think we should start looking at a “Bail Antilles won the election over Palpatine” AU.
Like, I know Palpatine probably would’ve tried to kill him or make him appear weaker or would’ve just bided his time, but the whole series would be so funny because Bail Antilles is like, nigh unkillable. Dude only died because the planet he was on exploded, they had to blow up Alderaan to kill Bail, this man is immensely powerful.
But also, just imagine??? Palpatine would be like “Chancellor, we’re friends :) you can ask me for advice :)” and Bail would be like “oh yeah sure definitely if I ever need advice I will go to you first” but then just.. never do that.
Because! Bail’s wife is a queen! He would go to Breha first and everyone else second! Everyone would be like “it’s so hard to manipulate our new Chancellor :/“ because Bail just does not ask anyone for advice. Bail offers advice, he does not get offered advice.
Palpatine would’ve tried to kill Bail, but Bail is friends with literally so many Jedi. Bail would just be like “Hey, Obi-Wan, remember that time when you were eighteen when you-“ and Obi-Wan: “I will do whatever you ask without question if you shut the fuck up.” Bail would have Jedi with him all the time, just for funsies and because he’s pals with them. Bail would be like “oh, someone has tried to kill me again… this is an opportunity to spend more time with my dear friend Obi-Wan :)”
Palpatine would try to make Bail appear weaker and Bail would just not fall to the bait. He’d just be like “oh something is going on? Hold on a moment, I’m busy making sure the Trade Federation doesn’t do anything stupid, then I’ll be showing the Senate my fifteen-hundred page slideshow that explains why I’m being nice to the Trade Federation and how helping them will ultimately help the Republic, then I have lunch with Obi-Wan and after that I have tea with Obi-Wan and then I’ll have dinner with Padme, Breha, and Obi-Wan, so I’ll get to it after that- wait, no, Breha threatened to take over the Republic if I was home late again, so I guess I’ll have to get to that thing tomorrow ¯\ _(ツ)_/¯ “
I just… feel like we should discuss the world in which Valorum was cut from Supreme Chancellor only for Bail Antilles to replace him.
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