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In this article, I postulated (not only because of historical considerations, but because IMO it can make for a boffo plot with the attention that Lucas wouldn't give it), that the Rebel Alliance of the Star Wars universe can't restore the Republic. Leia Skywalker-Solo ends up as the new Palpatine, a lonely, embittered old woman, pulling the political strings in a regime that is a Republic in name only. Her brother, Luke, hasn’t found the New Republic (which is really just the Empire dressed up in lace panties) kind to his vision, either. The last Jedi Master (in fact, the last Jedi Anything) had planned on reviving the Jedi Order, creating another stabilizing force in what at the time, like Leia, he truly hoped would be a genuine revival of the Republic. Unfortunately, that was not the case. That Luke and Leia are brother and sister is an acknowledged fact (with the icky stuff about her kissing him safely buried in their memories). That Luke’s father was the infamous Darth Vader is not publicly acknowledged – but widely known nonetheless. Potential recruits stay away in droves, fearing that Luke has been tainted by the Dark Side of the Force. Those recruits that do apply are mostly tainted by the Dark Side themselves. They don’t want to become Jedi; they want to learn a few mind tricks and a few flashy lightsaber moves, and then go back to the ‘hood, seducing women, terrorizing civs, and becoming petty gang lords or crime bosses. They have all the potential that Jabba the Hutt did, but without Jabba’s ambition. The now-aged Leia is entering in on her final days. Her daughter Hana has long since become an alcoholic wastrel. Her children, among them Leia’s hopes, have mostly died prematurely; the only ones remaining are her son Bobo Agrip (Boba Fett without the charm) and her daughter Malrissa (Amidala without the sex appeal). Hana and Bobo have long since been exiled to the desert planet Fangali; Leia has made it a capital offense to land on the planet without her permission, or to bring any alcohol there. (It will be obvious now where I’m going with this. I’ve always found that the best thing to do is to take a historical situation and drape it with enough blasters and spaceships to hide its origin. You can’t make this stuff up…nor would you want to be able to.) Her younger son, Druso, died years before in a meaningless speedster accident. Her only remaining available child is her elder son Tibo, an embittered, middle-aged man. He adored his younger brother, and was struck by Leia’s apparent coldness towards his death (Han had died shortly before, and Leia was in fact still mourning the death of her beloved consort). Moreover, Tibo knows that Leia has turned to him to become her heir only out of lack of a suitable alternative; all the other members of the Solo family are dead, worthless, or too young to hold power. Tibo, however, has a Cunning Plan…or thinks that it’s his. The midi-chlorians are in fact influencing the Solos. They are symbionts…which means that they have their own agenda. To them, humans are like a pack of unruly, deaf dogs; most of us can’t hear them, and those who mostly can’t manage very well. In Anakin Skywalker, they were so numerous that they could influence him; he brought balance to the Force…at an incredible cost in human death and suffering, but the midi-chlorians don’t care about that. Tibo actually has a higher concentration of midi-chlorians in him than his grandfather Anakin had; they can influence him more, with a greater degree of detail. Tibo thinks that it’s his idea to admit that the New Republic is an empty joke, to openly declare the New Empire, and to make the Solo dynasty a breeding experiment to produce the Kwisatz Haderach…oops, sorry, wrong series. I mean to produce the perfect balance of man and midi-chlorian. Actually, it’s the midi-chlorians’ idea to do this, and their goal is to produce a human-shaped shell moved solely by the will of the midi-chlorians. (No, the midi-chlorians aren’t really sapient, or even sentient the way humans are. It’s an unconscious will to produce a perfect host.)
John "Akatsukami" Braue Monday, May 20, 2002 |
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