A New Sith, or Revenge of the Hope

[Niemz]

A New Sith, or Revenge of the Hope
Reconsidering Star Wars IV in the light of I-III

If we accept all the Star Wars films as the same canon, then a lot that happens in the original films has to be reinterpreted in the light of the prequels. As we now know, the rebel Alliance was founded by Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Bail Organa. What can readily be deduced is that their first recruit, who soon became their top field agent, was R2-D2.

Consider: at the end of RotS, Bail Organan orders 3PO's memory wiped but not R2's. He wouldn't make the distinction casually. Both droids know that Yoda and Obi-Wan are alive and are plotting sedition with the Senator from Alderaan. They know that Amidala survived long enough to have twins and could easily deduce where they went. However, R2 must make an impassioned speech to the effect that he is far more use to them with his mind intact: he has observed Palpatine and Anakin at close quarters for many years, knows much that is useful and is one of the galaxy's top experts at hacking into other people's systems. Also he can lie through his teeth with a straight face. Organa, in immediate need of espionage resources, agrees.

For the next 20 years, as far as 3PO knows, he is the property of Captain Antilles, doing protocol duties on a diplomatic transport. He is vaguely aware of the existence of the princess but doesn't know much about her. Wherever 3PO goes, being as loud and obvious as he always is, his unobtrusive little counterpart goes with him. 3PO is R2's front man. Wherever they land, R2 is passing messages between rebel sympathisers and sizing up governments as potential rebel recruits - both by personal contact and by hacking into their networks. He passes his recommendations on to Organa.

Yoda is out of the picture by this stage, using the Force-infused swamps of Dagobah to hide himself from Vader and the Emperor. Or something. He is meditating on the future and keeping in touch with Obi-Wan via the ghost of Qui-Gon Jin, which as comm systems go has the virtue of being untappable. Obi-Wan, on Tattoine, keeps in touch with Bail Organa and the other Rebel leaders by courier, of which more later.

As Star Wars opens, R2 is rushing the Death Star plans to the Rebellion. R2, not Leia. The plans are always in R2. What Leia puts into him in the early scene is only her own holographic message to Kenobi. Leia's own mission, as she says in the holographic message, is to pick up Obi-Wan and take him to Alderaan - or so she thinks. Actually, her father just wants her to meet Kenobi, which up to this point she never has. There's a reason for that.

Obi-Wan has spent the last 20 years in the Tattoine desert, keeping watch over Luke Skywalker and trying to decide on one of the three available options:
A) If Luke shows no significant access to the Force, then leave him alone in obscurity
B) If Luke shows real Force ability, then consider recruiting him as a Jedi. The rebellion needs Jedi. Now.
But, if Luke shows any signs of turning out like his father, then C) sneak into his house one fine night and chop his head off. With great regret but it'll save a lot of trouble later on.
Knowing this to be the case, Bail Organa (perhaps at the insistence of his wife) has found excuses not to send Leia to Ben for assessment of Jedi potential, largely for fear of option C.

To be fair to all concerned, Leia has shown no overt signs of a link to the Force. Luke on the other hand has. In his home-built hotrod aircraft, with no formal fighter pilot training and no decent instrumentation, Luke can regularly score centre-hits on 2-metre targets in complicated zero-altitude maneouvres. Until he attends the briefing on Yavin, Luke has no way of knowing that hardened combat pilots would consider that nearly impossible. To him it's easy. Obi-Wan, who saw Anakin's performance in the Pod Race, is nervous.

Much of Obi-Wan's behaviour in this film, and Yoda's in the next, can best be understood if they are frankly scared to death of what Luke might become. (Ben is also scared that he himself will make all the same mistakes he made with Anakin.)

Now, with the existence of the rebellion at stake, Bail Organa has finally told Leia to go see Obi-Wan and has sent her along with R2. The original plan would then be for Obi-Wan (with optional Luke and/or Leia in tow) to leave his exile and take the Death Star plans to Yavin, where they can be put to use. R2 (with Leia if Ben doesn't want to take her) would then carry on to Alderaan to maintain the cover story. The original plan does not survive contact with a large Imperial Star Destroyer.

R2 and 3PO bail out in an escape pod, landing in vaguely the right area of Tattoine, where R2's first priority is transport. He arranges to be captured by a group of Jawas and, once on board their transport, he makes a deal with them (possibly using emergency funds stored about his person) to take him where he wants to go. The Jawas refuse to go directly to Kenobi for fear of marauding Sandpeople but they agree to R2's second request : transport to the Skywalker farm. They even get to keep the purchase price if they can sell R2 and 3PO there. The Jawas shake on it and go through with the plan.

Seeing 3PO fail to recognise the farm where he worked for 10 years gives r2 a moment's amusement but, as soon as possible, he gets away and heads for Kenobi. Luke and 3PO follow, which may or may not have been part of the plan.

[Niemz]

On first seeing R2, Obi-Wan has a twinkle in his eye and calls him "my little friend". Well, he is. However, when Luke wakes up and says that R2 claimed to be owned by an Obi-Wan Kenobi, he blandly says "I don't seem to remember ever owning a droid." Ben has in fact owned several but the remark is aimed at R2 and translates as "You keep quiet. I'm not about to tell him everything just yet." Obi-Wan thinks fast and tells Luke a version of his past that does not involve a father who became a dark lord of the Sith. He wants to examine Luke a lot more closely before he risks telling him the real truth.

Although the Death Star plans need to get to Yavin as soon as possible, Obi-Wan needs to make one more diversion first. If the Empire knows that Leia is a Rebel leader, then they also know about her father and the whole Organa family may need immediate evacuation. Fortunately, before coming to Tattoine, R2 had already arranged transport, which is waiting at Mos Eisley, under the command of the Rebellion's other chief field agent and espionage asset. Chewbacca.

20 years earlier, Chewbacca was second in command of the defence of his planet. He's there in the tactical conferences and there on the front lines and is a personal friend of Yoda's. When he needed reliable people to join the embryonic Alliance, who else would Yoda turn to but his old friend from Kashykk? Given his background, there is no way that Chewie would spend the crucial years of the rebellion as the second-in-command to (sorry Han) a low-level smuggler. Unless it's his cover. In fact, Chewie is a top-line spy and flies what is in many ways the Rebellion's best ship.

The Millenium Falcon may look like a beat-up old freighter but it can outrun any Imperial ship in normal space or hyperspace, hang in a firefight with a Star Destroyer or outmaneouvre a dozen top-of-the-line TIE fighters. It's a remarkable feat of engineering and must have cost a colossal fortune to build. How does Han come to own a ship like that? He only thinks he does, actually it's Chewie's. Half-way through RotS, we see the Falcon landing at the Senate building on Coruscant. If it's the same ship (which of course it is) then it was the personal transport of one of the senatorial delegations - a much more likely source to commission its design. That delegatino must have later joined the Rebellion and given it the use of the Falcon. In fact, if the delegation is the one from Kashykk, then the ship may have belonged to Chewbacca as early as RotS.

Han is Chewie's front man. It's much better, and safer for him, if he doesn't know what's really going on. Chewie used to work with Lando Calrissian in a similar way but Lando wanted to settle down, so Chewie arranged for him to lose the Falcon in a card game to Han Solo, an even better choice as partner. Han and Chewie's working method is pretty much what we see in the cantina scene: Chewie make the contacts and sets up the deals, then turns them over to Han who haggles over the price and gives the final yea or nay. This lets Chewie wander the seamy underside of the galaxy pretty much at will, making contacts, gathering and passing information with no-one was the wiser, especially not Han.

[Niemz]

Chewie persuaded Han to do business with Jabba the Hutt so he could make regular runs to Tattoine, where Chewie could pass messages between Kenobi and Organa. When R2's urgent message came through only days before, the only way for Chewie to get back to Tattoine in time was to make the "mistake" that forced Han to dump his cargo to avoid capture. As a down side, this led to Solo's getting a death mark out on him from Jabba the Hutt. Chewie was a bit upset about the need for that but figured they weren't going to be dealing with Tattoine for much longer.

En route to Alderaan, R2 and Chewie play stop-motion chess. This is the latest in a series of games they've played over the year in the back rooms of space stations and cantinas across the galaxy, but this is the first time they've done it in front of their respective straight men, so they put on a big show.

Then it all goes wrong again. Alderaan is gone and the Falcon is caught and brought aboard the Death Star. Only Han, Luke and 3PO don't know just how much trouble they're in but Obi-Wan has a plan and seems confident (but Jedi always do). Soon afterwards, R2 finds Leia in the detention cells and shouts that they have to rescue her, to which Chewie can only agree. If Vader learns he has a daughter, then they're all in deep trouble, so Chewie does his bit to persuade Han to go along with Luke's plan.

Then, on the verge of escape, Vader himself turns up only yards from both of his children, one of whom is leaking Force all over the place. Obi-Wan stages a distraction by letting himself die and go into the Force while the others escape. At this point, Chewie suddenly realises that he's been left in charge, not only of the Death Star Plans and the survival of the Rebellion but of the secret son and daughter of Darth Vader. With the Organas and Kenobi all dead, only Chewie, R2 and Yoda know who Luke and Leia are. And only Ob-Wan knew where Yoda has been hiding. Chewie is stressed out by the responsibility and R2 (who keeps making crude jokes about the whole affair) is being no help at all.

Chewie's first problem is what is happening between Luke and Leia. With a psychic link they can feel but don't understand, thrown together in a life-or-death escape, they are looking at each other with a sparky intensity that Chewie gradually recognises as Romantic Tension. He's no expert on human relationships but Chewie is fairly sure that that's Wrong, so he does the only thing he can under the circumstances - he throws Han at her. Han is at first not interested but after a while starts to warm to the idea with an intensity that gives Chewie new worries.

When they reach Yavin, Han decides to take the money and run and Chewie decides to go with him. Looked at in cold light, it's for the good of the Rebellion. Even if Yavin is destroyed, there'll be one agent who knows what's going on who can try and put something back together, but he doesn't feel good about it. When Han decides to turn around and join the attack, Chewie is all for it.

Han and Luke get medals but Chewie doesn't. Actually, Leia offers him one but Chewie turns it down. He got one of those things from Yoda about 20 years ago, but there's no way he can tell her that.

As the film ends, the three founders of the Rebellion are all gone. Bail Organa is dead, Yoda is out of contact and Obi-Wan's ghost can only talk to other Jedi. (So that would be Yoda then.) Thus, the field leadership of the rebellion has just been turned over to the daughter of Darth Vader. Chewie is really hoping that someone with an official rank greater than hers will get here real soon before he has to think really seriously about option C.

© Keith Martin 2005

[earthcrusher]

GOOD READ!!!

[Mortalas]

Some misconceptions, but still a great inturpatation.

[earthcrusher]

AH fooey, keep it a new hope.

[Mortalas]

The part about chewie being the owner is one such misconception, chewie, (if you have read the Han solo trilogy) was a slave rescued by Han, lando actually owned the ship, but lost it to Han in a sabbic game. It was by chance that Han saves chewie and chance that they happened on Luke and Obi, It was a random game that they were playing nothing more or less.
The rest is more or less true, to my knowledge.

[earthcrusher]

What was the sabbic game?? CARDS??

[Mortalas]

Kind of like cards yes, I'll Niemz it up for you.

Deck
Sabacc is played with a deck of 76 card-chips. The deck is divided into four suits of fifteen (staves, flasks, sabers, and coins), with two each of eight "face" cards added. All of these cards have a numeric value, either positive or negative. The four suits contain eleven numbered card-chips, along with four "ranked" card-chips (Commander, Mistress, Master, and Ace). The card-chips are designed to change value, or "fluctuate", at random intervals, provoked by electronic signals from a central randomizer. Card-chips can be placed in the "interference field", locking in their value, but revealing their value to the other players.

Card-chips designed to fool an interference field, or shift value at the command of the player, are known as 'skifters' and are illegal.

According to Droma, the sabacc deck was originally developed by the Ryn as a fortune telling device, similar to Tarot. The sixteen ranked cards, along with the sixteen face cards, are used.


Winning
To win the hand, the player must achieve the total card value (between the player's hand and interference field) closest to, but not outside of, positive or negative 23. To win the game, the player's total card value must equal positive or negative 23 (pure sabacc), or the player must be holding only three cards, with the values of 0, 2, and 3 (idiot's array or literal sabacc).


Rules variations
There are several different versions of sabacc; the standard rule set is known as "Corellian sabacc". The rules have been changed countless times to fit different species and different mindsets all through the galaxy.

The simpler rules variants grant different suits precedence over the others when declaring a hand, or state a one hand beats another hand (i.e. a two-card 23 beats a three-card 23). More complicated variants involve the random trading of cards between players, using the interference field to cause the change in card value, or the use of any arithmetic sequence, in combination with any form of number (including, for example, irrational and transfinite numbers) to produce the total card value. (Under this particular rules system, designed for the mathematically-adept Givin, Han Solo once achieved a cubic pure sabacc).

The most complicated and challenging form of the game is "random sabacc". While all forms of sabacc are randomized due to the card fluctuations, random sabacc takes this a step further by also changing the rules during the course of the game. At random intervals, the dealer announces the new rules. A winning hand under one set of rules might be a losing hand under another, and thus this version of sabacc requires a player to have knowledge of all major sabacc styles.


Notable Games
The ownership of the Millennium Falcon has been contested on several occasions by Han Solo and Lando Calrissian; each time the vessel changed hands between the two, it has been the result of a two-player sabacc tournament.
Lando Calrissian originally became Baron Administrator of Cloud City through a rigged game of sabacc with the previous Baron Administrator.
Dessel (Darth Bane) won a sabacc pot on a multiple round of sudden demise after he, and another player both drew the Idiots Array. After Dessel won the sabacc pot, the bar became violent, and was evacuated by the owner, with only Dessel remaining behind, waiting for it to be safe to leave. Upon leaving Dessel was jumped, and the brawl resulted in Dessel killing a Republic ensign (the other player). Dessel then turned to the bar tender, a good friend for help, who in turn got him on a ship which smuggled him off the mining world of Apatros, and on to become a member of the Sith army. His induction into the Sith army lead to his becoming a Sith Lord, and member of the Brotherhood of Darkness.

[Mortalas]

This is the full han solo story niemzed for you.

In his youth (described in Expanded Universe material) Solo was a beggar in the streets of Corellia. He was discovered by Garris Shrike, captain of the Trader's Luck. Seduced by promises of a better life, Solo followed the man to his space ship, a relic of the Clone Wars. Unbeknownst to the young Corellian, the Trader's Luck was little more than a slave ship, where the rule was "Everyone works." After spending most of his childhood pickpocketing and scamming at the whim of the abusive Shrike, Han came under the care of Dewlanna, a widowed Wookiee "indebted" to the ruthless captain. At some point in his youth he was in a swoop race with Dengar, who was severely injured during the course of the race. Dengar sought revenge on Solo ever since. Solo at the age of 19, escaped the Luck on the droid-controlled vessel Ylesian Dream in pursuit of his piloting career. In the process, an enraged Garris killed Dewlanna, Solo's foster mother.

In response to an ad for good pilots and the events aboard the Trader's Luck, circumstances which provided a free ride to the Hutt-controlled jungle planet Ylesia, Solo braved the planet's storm-ridden atmosphere. There he discovered a religious conspiracy, led by Ylesia's High Priest, Teroenza, to attract slaves to process illegal glitterstim spice. With the help of his friends Muuurgh the Togorian (a feline humanoid) and Bria Tharen (his first love, whom he discovered as a mindless drone in the factories and deprogrammed), Solo stole a significant portion of Teroenzas private art collection, worth hundreds of thousands of credits. The trio also destroyed the spice factory, adding insult to injury by hijacking the T'landa Tils private yacht. On Coruscant, Bria disappeared from Solos life, engendering in him a "Love 'em and leave 'em" philosophy towards women. He then enlisted in the Imperial Navy and was nearly killed by Garris Shrike on the night of his induction ceremony. Shrike had intended to collect on the bounty placed on Solo for his Ylesian sabotage. Hungry for vengeance after the murder of Dewlanna, Solo turned the tables on the captain and nearly killed him. Amidst their savage battle, a second bounty hunter gunned down Shrike in order to claim Solo for himself, only to be killed himself by a desperate Han.

Solo spent about five years in the Imperial Starfleet, first at the academy on Carida where one of his classmates was fellow Corellian Soontir Fel, who later became a top Imperial fighter-ace, and then on active service. At some point he won the Corellian Bloodstripes, represented by the dotted-red line running down the sides of his pants; this was the only honor not taken from him during his later court-martial and discharge. (Exactly why he was awarded them has never been revealed, though the Expanded Universe novels have alluded to the circumstances through which he won them, which apparently took place over several days.) A scheduled rendezvous with a slaving vessel revealed that an adult Wookiee had overwhelmed the crew and released the Wookiee children that were to be sold. Leading a TIE fighter squadron, Han boarded the damaged ship and found a barely conscious Wookiee, Chewbacca, in the pilots seat. Commander Nyklas ordered the young lieutenant to skin the Wookiee; Han refused to do so. He later lost his lieutenants commission and was dishonorably discharged. In this way did Chewbacca swear a life-debt to his rescuer, and from then on the two were inseparable.

The duo's early career was spent doing smuggling runs for various masters, including the Desilijac clan of the Hutts, in their barely-functional ship Bria. The ship was rendered inoperable soon after the Battle of Nar Shaddaa (where a combined smuggler's fleet fought off an Imperial attempt to raze the moon), and Han had to seek a new vessel.

Solo, down on his luck, won the Millennium Falcon from fellow gambler Lando Calrissian in an intense sabacc tournament on Bespin, whereupon he embarked on his not-so-famous smuggling career, based, at various times, in Corporate Sector Authority space, Smuggler's Run, and Nar Shaddaa.

Solo's bravery during the Battle of Nar Shaddaa earned him the attention of his old flame Bria Tharen, now an agent of the Rebel Alliance. Hardly considering himself the heroic type, he was reluctant in aiding his former love, who was planning an all-out attack against the slaving colonies on Ylesia, now twice as strong. Promised appropriate compensation, Solo, Calrissian, and Chewbacca embarked on the mission. In the aftermath of the battle, Tharen's troopers turned their blasters on Calrissian and the rest of Solo's friends, confiscating all valuables in the name of the Rebel Alliance. Angered, Solo threatened to kill Tharen if he ever saw her again. Defaced and branded a traitor back on Nar Shaddaa, Calrissian refused to believe Solo was not involved in the swindle, punching the Corellian in the jaw.

At the beginning of A New Hope, Solo and Chewbacca are well-known smugglers. However, during one Kessel Run, the Imperial Navy intercepts and boards the ship, forcing Solo to jettison his cargo to avoid arrest. This results in a large and mounting debt to his former employer, Jabba the Hutt. Hutt puts a bounty on Solo, who becomes desperate to find any way to pay his debt off. The situation was so dire that that they accepted a charter to take Luke Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi to the planet of Alderaan for 17,000 credits and no questions.

[earthcrusher]

Good read!

[Mortalas]

Yes, quite.
If you get the chance, read the han solo trilagy, it clears alot of miss conseptions up.

[earthcrusher]

I like Star Wars and Star Trek But I dont have too much time to read Sci- Fi.