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Author's Notes on |
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The first notes of this alternate universe take on Star Wars were dated for May 12, 2016. I forget if it was a comment on one of the movie essays or if it was on one of the book reviews for the Extended Universe Legends line, but it was a comment in Tor.com's Star Wars collection. The conversation was on how nobody really tried all that hard to hide Luke Skywalker from Vader/Empire. The comment said: "Now I want a Star Wars AU where Luke went to the Imperial Academy and his name set off all kinds of alarms." And my muse wanted that too, and added "What if Luke became the damsel in distress; the one who needed rescuing from the Death Star?"
The plot bunny started hopping and damn, this idea had the potential of fixing the prequels and being so much better than the fix-it fanfic I wrote in high school. (I blame that story on Kevin J. Anderson's Jedi Academy Trilogy.) So I began plotting. Ultimately, I surprised myself by how close it stuck to movie’s canon. I have pulled elements from the EU Legends because I can. ;) I’m using West End Games RPG Force powers as my base of what can and can’t be done with the Force. I played that system and it still feel right when it comes to what Star Wars is.
But enough about all that, let’s have the opening crawl.
I started the first draft on June 8, 2016 and finished that draft on May 17, 2018. I ended it up posting it on Ao3 on March 17, 2019, and finally put it up on the Library on February 5, 2023.
So I didn’t plan on directly referencing Fialleril’s awesome metas on Tatooine Slave Culture and its relevance on Luke’s life and her Amatakka language. I initially thought the references would be like in this chapter a blink and you miss it suggestion that Luke was stealing slaves from Jabba by helping with the freedom trail. But more direct reference sneaked into my text as I kept writing.
“E chu ta. Whao kae kark D’emperiolo dotkohu killee mah whoka, Jee hatkocanh killee hoohah.” Translation thanks to the Coruscant Translator: “Fuck you. If any fucking Imperial bastards kill my brother, I will kill them.” So not surprising Threepio is objecting to that language in front of a Princess.
33°43’26.68” north and 7°46’44” east: are the Earth coordinates for where the Lars homestead exterior scenes were filmed. I couldn’t resist using them.
“Privileli” means privileged in Olys Corellisi. “Spitfire” did not have a translation in the Coruscant Translator, so it’s a nickname that carries on in Basic. Greedo is speaking Huttese, and I used the transcript found on the Complete Wermo’s Guide to Huttese (and other Star Wars languages) that was created by Ben Burtt.
When I quoted the movie while using the scene dialogue, I tried to keep it as accurate as possible to the screen version. However, Han’s line about what time they would reach Alderaan didn’t match up with my travel math. I should have remembered about that estimate when I was building the timeline, but since I didn’t, it was easier just to change Han’s words.
“Elfosahaj” means “fossil” in Olys Corellisi, and picked as Obi-Wan’s nickname from when Han called him “an old fossil” in A New Hope.
“Uumakkar-upan” is Amatakka for “storm-brother” (at least best I can figure out how it should be formed). Amatakka is the language of Tatooine Slave Culture created by Fialleril. If two individuals survive a sandstorm together, the desert has bonded them together as family. Biggs and Luke went through a sandstorm in their childhood and consider themselves storm-brothers.
So surprise, in this AU the prior events do not match what we saw in the prequel films. The major deviation in Vader’s flashback was based on an observation from the film (Palpatine had that suit ready to stuff Anakin into it) and a popular fan-theory (Padmé did not die from a broken heart but rather Darth Sidious stole her life force and put it into Vader). Palpatine’s plan would have ended Padmé, a dream he has had since she ruined the Naboo Invasion and delayed that start of the Clone Wars, weakened Anakin and kept him dependent on Palpatine for life support in the suit, and put Anakin’s child in his grasp to mold as Palpatine saw fit. Obi-Wan’s interference kept the third part from happening at all, but Palpatine believed the falsified autopsy reports that the baby died with Padmé. Read Rescue the Farmboy: Prequels Changes for more details on what other events changed before the current geneations adventures began.
“Wermo” is Huttese for “stupid,” and the mean kids in Anchorhead based Luke’s nickname “Wormie” from it. I don't care much for those kids in Luke's past.
By the time I posted Chapter Fourteen on Ao3, we lost Peter Mayhew so that chapter is dedicated to him. We are going to miss you.
“I’m helping free her, not gilding her chains!” — Another metaphor I borrowed from Fialleril’s meta on Tatooine Slave Culture found on this Tumblr post: http://fialleril.tumblr.com/post/157047093686/i-had-an-idea-for-a-tatooine-slave-culture-saying
The Honored Fallen medal image was made by JadeDjo.
Artoo's crazy stories: In one of the few episodes of the Clone Wars I’ve seen, Artoo was captured by General Grevious and partially dismantled to learn the military secrets of the Grand Army of the Republic. He escaped, put himself back together, took out the droid traitor that had endangered Anakin and Ahsoka, and resumed his duties. I decided to keep it in his back story as just another one of Artoo’s crazy Clone Wars stories.
"Calyarnr" is Mando'a for "bastard." I have headcanoned that a lot of Mando'a has become stormtrooper slang as the original clone troopers taught the new enlistees. Mara picked it up from stormtroopers in the Imperial Palace and her training.
May the Force be with you, and thank you for reading and commenting.
