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detroitbydark · 5 years ago

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Crossed Connections: Part VI

Pairing: Tech x Togruta!Reader, Wrecker/OC

Characters: Echo, Ik'aad, Tech

Warnings: None

Summary: Sometimes awkward is cute and sometimes it's just not

Previous Parts and Extended Universe can be found here

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Y/N glances over at the ARC Trooper perched carefully at the edge of the examination table. He sits stock still, skin as pale as Durosian marble. It is only the near silent whir of the drives in his right arm that let her know he’s more than a statue. Even then, the Techno Union’s wizardry with his prosthetic is so good that she doubts a human ear would pick it up.

She wants to spit every time someone mentions Wat Tambor’s name. The socket arm and it’s connections are a marvel of Techno Union know how but it rips at her heart. They’d created such a device, a prosthetic that could offer quality of life to those in need, only to use it to further progress the Separatist agenda.

“You’re quiet today” she notes leaning her hip against the counter behind her as she takes him in. Echo is pale still, unnaturally so, but his cheeks aren’t nearly as sallow or as sunken as when he’d first arrived on base. His eyes are brighter, if not guarded. He’s stopped twitching when she touches him.

Being away from Skako Minor was doing well for him but he needed time and that wasn’t something the GAR was likely to allow. She’d heard whispers of him joining a mission with Clone Force 99 very soon.

On Coruscant she’d not been immune to talk of clone rights and she was quick to agree with those who spoke out for them. It made her uncomfortable that all her work was only to prepare a newly liberated prisoner of war to be forced right back into the field. Wrecker had tried to explain that this was the life they were, quite literally, made for. The life they trained for from creation. It didn’t sit right still.

“They refer to you as Ik’aad.”

She cocks her head at the question. It’s the first thing Echo has said since arriving in her part of the bay for his daily once over. They’ve been doing this song and dance for nearly a week now. Like any good clone, the healing process was progressing remarkably quick and his injuries were already fading. Granted those were ones Y/N could see.

He was sober, quiet, speaking little most days and then without end on others, as if the words had built up during his time in stasis and they had to spill out or risk causing him to implode with the weight of them.

While he hadn’t offered her many smiles he also didn’t seem to dislike her company. She could work with that.

His observation though is curious. Of course, she knew who they were. For better or worse she’d earned more than a few looks as information about the Bad Batch had trickled through the base's ranks, and with it her name attached to the unit.

She spent more than enough time with Wrecker for a very specific set of rumors to begin circulating. The thought of the whispers she’d heard the other day in the mess made her cheeks burn. It hadn’t done much for her socially. Her new roommate seemed immune to them though and that was a comfort she was glad to take. The ARC trooper didn’t seem to mind much either, though he had his own bits of gossip that followed him.

“I suppose they do”

Y/N glances at the bleak reminders of his time under corporate control. The cold, alloy of Techno Union metal sticking out starkly against Echo’s skin.

The neural access ports, unfortunately, had been woven so tightly into the neural pathways of the Arc Troopers brain that there was no way to seperate the two. The ones that had connected his lungs and diaphragm while in stasis were no better. They were to be permanent fixtures. While Echo had joked just the day before that some of his vode would be jealous of the look she had a feeling he was not fond of the modifications.

Rex had been a frequent visitor during his first few days in the medbay, almost constant in his devotion to his vod. Surprisingly, so had some of her other charges. Hunter had stopped by a handful of times and both Wrecker and Crosshair had frequently sat with him to distract while she worked. Today was actually the first day he’d shown up for his treatment and not had an escort. The ARC Trooper had left an impression amongst the Bad Batch and only time would tell if that was a good thing or not.

Y/N moves slowly to start his vitals. 2-1B, the medical droid was kept on standby when Echo was under her care. She’d discovered early on that too much time under the droids watchful eye and its inability to take things at the troopers pace had a tendency to exacerbate the former POWs anxiety. Y/N was ok working without Too-bee’s assistance and taking a more languid pace if it made her patient comfortable.

“Do you know what it means?”

Y/N glances up at the trooper. “I’ve never thought about it really” she says, turning to gather supplies to clean and redress the few deeper lacerations the ARC trooper still had, places where there had not been enough skin to pull together to suture.

She makes a small gesture with her fingers and Echo begins peeling his shirt off. It gets hung on the edge of his prosthetic and he struggles for a moment, frustration evident before he takes a deep breath and slowly uncouples it from the alloy. He folds the black shirt neatly and places it atop his armor as Y/N finishes laying out supplies on her work table and rolls it next to his perch. Slipping on gloves, she begins peeling spent bacta patches off, holding the skin taught as she does to ease the tug on his skin. “So, are you going to leave me in suspense or are you going to tell me?”

Echo likes the way she smiles at him. It makes what she does easier. He tries not to flinch as she removes the last patch.

The engineers, the doctors, Tambor those who’d performed his modifications had looked at him like anything other than a science experiment, a tool, a profit margin. Y/N sees him as a person. She accommodates him. She’s learned quickly his ins and outs and she doesn’t push. She treats him like an individual. And she smiles. She smiles so bright and full that she lights the room, like star shine on a dark night. Her presence soothed him. She made him feel like he had choices and the power to make them.

“Baby. They call you Baby” the first time he’d heard the words slip from Wrecker’s mouth he’d done a double take. Then he’d heard it from Hunter, and finally, Crosshair. It was a term of endearment he hadn’t heard from a clone before. The way they treated her was soft, even Crosshair who was rough and callous to the other troopers, the Regs, seemed to thaw, if only slightly, for the little Togruta.

Y/N shrugs, “Hmm?” She hums plopping onto a stool and spinning around a few times before she rolls in front of him and offers him a shining smile, pearly incisiors peeking out. “That’s cute. You gonna call me baby too?” She teases.

Echo feels his cheeks heating. “Could I? Would that be... strange?”

Y/N shrugs again, “I don’t think so” she says motioning toward his bare chest. She takes a piece of bacta soaked gauze and waits for his nod before she begins cleansing the minor lacs and scrapes. Her touch is light as she moves. Echo’s eyes drift shut. Touch was still… touch was something novel and when he was given a bit of softness he was going to soak up every bit he could.

“Ik’aad” he tests the name out. He’s spoken so little Mando’a since his capture that it feels foreign on his tongue, not unpleasant, more like a long forgotten friend he needed to become reacquainted with.

When his eyes open back he’s greeted by an impish grin. “See that’s not so bad.”

He’s not sure if she is talking about the wound care or the nickname. He nods anyway as she pats the areas dry and applies fresh bacta patches, fewer than the day before.

“You know what I’ve got to do now?” She questions softly.

This he did know and he feels his shoulders tense at the thought. The metal ports implanted along his skull and back had been placed prior to going into stasis. They allowed the Techno Union access to his memory’s as well as a means to keep his respiratory system functional. The skin surrounding the ports had healed but had never had a chance to callous or grow accustomed to the push and pull that movement caused. His freedom and sudden increase in activity had caused sores to develop around the ports themselves, the skin raw and chaffing. The doctors had all been in agreement that with time the skin would toughen and the sores would heal but in the interim it left him uncomfortable and required daily tending.

Y/N- Ik’aad, he corrects mentally, rolls her stool slowly around the exam table, letting her feet flop in front of her and pull herself around. He’s tense but he can’t help the weak tug at the corner of his mouth at her antics, she looks up and catches his eye with a knowing grin.

She stands, forgetting the stool in lieu of a more upright position. “Why do you think they call me Ik’aad?” She asks conversationally, trying out the word for herself, as one hand falls to his shoulder Her movements allow him to telegraph where here next touch would land. She did it the same way each time. Top to bottom. Left to right. It bred a sense of familiarity and, on the worst days, gave him points of reference for how long it would take. In the beginning she’d talked him through each step of the process until he’d asked her to stop. Since then she’d tried to distract him. They both knew what she was doing but neither found fault in it so she continued her chit chat and he continued to listen.

Y/N begins moving a fresh piece of bacta moistened gauze around one port, cleaning the crust and debris that clung to the wound away. Echo tries to focus on her question and not the sting of the antiseptic as the gauze washes away the dried flakes of drainage.

“You’re small” he starts “like, you-could-fit-in-my-pocket-and-go-on-missions tiny”

Y/N giggles as she continues to work, “is that so?”

Echo shrugs, “you’re kind of adorable too-“

“Not you too! You sound like Wrecker.” she growls playfully, “If you start telling me you want to pinch my cheeks I swear, Echo...” she threatens without any real threat.

“Nothing like that. You’re like- like- “ he looks for a word. He knows there’s one that fits but it eludes him. “I think you just have a way about you that makes them feel...” he shrugs.

“Well if you don’t know what they’re thinking what do you think? How do I make you feel?” It’s an honest question, born of genuine curiosity. Like the clones in the Bad Batch, he kept coming back to see her when any medic, clone or civvie, could do what she was doing.

“You make me feel warm.” He says without hesitation. “For so long everything was so cold, distant and you’re-“ he snaps his fingers and Y/N startles fingers pressing into the flesh where she was beginning to work at the next row of ports. “Vod’ika” he says firmly flinching at the press.

“Translation Echo?”

“Uhh, little sibling. Sister or brother. It’s interchangeable.” He explains. A smile splits his face knowing he’s finally placed the feeling she drew out of him and what he assumed the other as well-

“Y/N?” The question is followed by a sharp knock to the wall nearest the thick curtain that separates the room from the rest of the med bay.

Echo and Y/N turn toward the familiar voice. Y/N gives him a questioning look and he nods.

“Come on in Tech? Is everything ok?” Y/N places a hand to Echo’s bare shoulder as she tosses the used gauze in a nearby bin. The clone watches curiously as Tech’s helmet, visor flipped up, flicks ever so slightly from Y/N to where her hand rested than back again.

“I- I didn’t know you were busy. Everything’s fine.” He clarifies quickly. Even modulated, his voice is just a touch higher than Echo is used to. “I just wanted to see- I just thought I’d swing by”

“We were just finishing up” she turns back to Echo and motions to his shirt. “You good to gear back up”. He pulls the blacks on silently as he watches the two.

Tech doesn’t call the medic Ik’aad. It’s the first time Echo’s noticed. He also realizes Tech is rarely around when she is. Echo watches the engineer take a step into the room and again his narrowed eyes flick back to where Echo is seated.

“What can I do for you?” She questions peeling away gloves and turning toward the sink to wash her hands. Echo notices for the first time something different in the tone of her voice, almost shy.

“Wrecker said” he hesitates “you were getting ready for your FAS cert test? I came across a study guide that might help, if you want to use it that is?” He asks holding a pocket drive between gloved fingers.

Though he’s the one supposed to be here, Echo suddenly feels as if he’s intruding on something. It’s like watching one of the shinies back in the day at 79’s approach a woman for the first time. It’s a dance with no music and Tech has two left feet.

Y/N reaches up and toys with the end of a lek as she turns around. “That’s really thoughtful of you.”

Y/N is more quiet, far less verbose than Echo has become accustomed to.

“It really would be helpful. Maybe-“ she pauses. Glancing down, she seems to steal herself before her eyes travel back back up to the other clone “maybe you could help me study?”

The ARC trooper finds himself silently rooting for the other clone. She’d baited the hook and thrown it out there. The way Tech’s eyes widen behind his goggles and the near panic that flares up is not lost on Echo.

“I’m- I’m really busy actually” Tech spits out quickly.

Echo cringes as they both seem to deflate. He wonders how neither sees it in the other.

“Oh, ok. That’s- that’s really thoughtful of you.” Color flares in the togrutas cheeks “Again. I already said that didn’t I?” Her hip bumps against her tray table as she moves and she makes a small disgruntled noise as bacta splashes across her tac pants. “Kriff” she curses silently as she looks down and wipes uselessly at the spreading patch of wetness.

There’s towels on a rack along the wall and Echo watches Tech look at them but when he doesn’t move Echo does.

“Here, Ik’aad.” He grabs two and hands her one. Her face is flushed when she looks up. Embarrassed. She gives him a weak smile.

She presses the towel against the wetness soaking into her pants. “Have I told you you’re my favorite patient?”

“No. But I’m glad to hear it”

Behind him he can hear Tech shift from foot to foot. Echo had given him a chance to come to her aide and he’d dropped the ball. When he glances back he catches Tech’s narrowed eyes. Was that…? No, it couldn’t be-.

Echo can see the look in the other clones eyes and it isn’t particularly generous. He arches a brow back as Tech drops his visor.

“I’m going to leave this here for you, Y/N” Tech announces looking past Echo and setting the pocket drive down.

Y/N waves him off. Avoiding eye contact as she balls the towel up and throws it in the hamper.

“Thanks. I’m sure it’ll come in handy.” She says puffing out a frustrated breath through pursed lips. Her attention goes back to Echo.

“So now that my uniform is soaked, do you have plans for lunch?”

The ARC trooper shrugs, “I hadn’t planned anything. I’ve got to get some range time scheduled in later but I’m free for a bit.”

“Good. I’ve just gotta run by my room and change and then you can take me to the mess. You can keep telling me about how amazing I am.” She teases weakly. Her eyes widen as she looks past him and notices Tech still standing in the doorway.

“You can come too if you want but I understand if you’re busy”

He hesitates for half a second and Echo is sure he’s going to take her up on the offer. He can see it in the way he leans forward, the way his left hand clenches and unclenches that he wants to.

“Maybe another time?”

Y/N barely manages a halfhearted “yeah, sounds good” before the engineer is turning on his heels and making his escape.

“I don’t think he likes me much,” she notes quietly after he’s gone.

Taglist: @skdubbs @pastelbunny1501 @my-own-oracle @underworldqueen13 @obiorbenkenobi @adritozier @dafodddil @daniellajocelyn

#Crossed Connections #tech x reader #tech/reader #arc trooper echo #the bad batch

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piermanwalter · 4 years ago

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Harlan-Ellison-Scale Unhinged Star Wars Fanfic Idea

After Order 66, Echo’s mind is in a gleeful haze. The same wonderful feeling he felt after carrying out an order, he now felt at a low level all the time. But a strange voice in his head keeps encouraging him to defy Imperial authority.

Echo is convinced the voice in his head is a hidden Jedi survivor using the Force to communicate with him. After a painful goodbye to his squadmates who no longer acknowledge him, Echo escapes to find the source of the voice. The voice helps him travel far away and Echo tries to find out as much about this person as possible, although they seem reluctant to give any personal information.

This person shows extreme proficiency in machines and equally extreme confidence. Was it Anakin?

When Anakin Skywalker killed the Separatist Council on Mustafar, Wat Tambor’s death activated the transfer of his consciousness into Echo and now he has to share a brain with this atrocious creature, who is quickly becoming the only familiar thing in an increasingly unrecognisable galaxy.

Thus Echo embarks on a great quest to get rid of what is essentially a demonic possession by finding a Techno Union base to upload him into. This is harder than first assumed because the Empire is occupying most of them.

Wat Tambor can tap into all of Echo’s senses and memories and can override his mechanical components. I’m envisioning a scene where Echo is trying to claw himself towards someone familiar with his one organic arm while the rest of his limbs are dragging him away.

Echo keeps Wat Tambor in line by threatening to get his implants surgically removed, but Wat retaliates by threatening to delete Echo’s memories. Wat can’t actually erase memories formed before the brain implants but he manages to gaslight Echo into believing he can. “Do you remember your Bad Batch squadmate Sapper? No? Do as I say or Fives is next.”

Echo finally catches on and figures out he can lose the implants without much consequence. After finding a doctor willing to operate on him, Echo falls unconscious from anaesthetic and when he wakes up, the implants are still in him and the doctor is dead on the floor.

Echo goes to sleep and wakes up in a different room. He realises Wat Tambor gains total control of his body when he’s asleep and stays up for nine straight days. This leads to disaster and Echo resigns himself to never knowing what Wat does while he’s asleep.

Echo starts hallucinating Wat Tambor in crowds. Echo stands above a trash compactor so he can hallucinate Wat Tambor getting crushed and Wat enacts vengeance by forcing Echo to remember getting blown up. They stay like that for several hours until security kicks them out.

Echo wakes up and his arm is a rotary cannon.

Wat Tambor tries to get a brand new starship and finds out he’s been locked out of all his bank accounts and then Echo’s like, “Can’t buy yourself out of this one, rich boy? Hahaha. Shut the fuck up.” Attempting to withdraw from that account sent an alarm for a strike force to their location and they nearly die.

Advantages of being piloted by a war criminal: 24-hour vigilance, knowledge of obscure topics and languages, he occasionally does useful things while Echo is asleep, fix and hack basically everything, sublime dual-wielding

Disadvantages of being piloted by a war criminal: holy fucking shit this needs no further explanation

Echo rescues another clone trooper and Wat Tambor demands to surgically remove his control chip to prevent him from turning on them. Echo doesn’t trust Wat with any clones’ brains after what Wat did to him and refuses. Surprisingly, Wat doesn’t remove the chip while Echo is asleep. With a brother to talk to, Echo hallucinates less and is easily able to regain control of his mechanical limbs. And then the clone is forced to betray him for the Empire and Echo has to kill him. While Echo is devastated, Wat’s like, “What did you expect, moron? You should have let me operate on him.”

Echo finally calls out Wat Tambor for everything he did and Wat’s counterargument is like, “I haven’t done anything to you that the Republic didn’t do first or I haven’t done to myself. Your creation is an investment by the Republic, as is your enhancement an investment by the Techno Union, as is my career an investment by Skako. Don’t judge me by human morality.” and then Echo’s like “Fine I’ll judge you by the morality of your own species. So you’re an investment? You blew octillions of credits on a war and you still lost. The Empire owns everything you ever made. Your people are blockaded and starving in the Deep Core. What a big fucking payoff you turned out to be.”, which manages to silence Wat Tambor for a blessed two weeks.

Now with the upper hand in his own brain, Echo breaks into Wat Tambor’s file directory and tries to delete him by force. Echo can’t delete anything but Wat also can’t make him leave, so he gets redirected through a series of increasingly terrible memories, starting from Wat’s perspective on Echo’s own cyborg conversion and steadily getting worse. What he sees is so horrific and incomprehensible Echo never tries to access Wat’s directory again. Echo’s hallucinations increase and Wat Tambor now appears every time he speaks. He’s very smug about this.

Echo encounters Imperial Death Troopers which sends him into blind rage as he realises all of his brothers were destined to either die early or become a cyborg just like him. Wat is also mad because the Empire stole his idea.

Echo finds a secret Techno Union droid factory that is now occupied by the Empire and being used to make security droids. He resolves to dump Wat there or die trying. Echo poses as a Death Trooper stationed in the same system and tries to work his way into being allowed into the secret factory. Despite everything he befriends his new squadmates whose personalities haven’t been completely consumed by cybernetics. Echo still needs to get rid of Wat so he finally gets his act together and breaks into the factory, gets arrested, and is locked in a cell awaiting reeducation.

Echo blacks out for three days and wakes up in a stolen shuttle. Both the Imperial base and droid factory are giant craters. Wat Tambor is still there. Echo’s like, “How did you blow up the base?” and Wat’s like, “Yes.” and Echo’s like, “That’s not a fucking answer. Why didn’t you upload yourself into the droid factory like we planned?” and Wat’s like, “Would you want to live in a sarlacc pit?” and Echo’s like “Why didn’t you tell me you don’t want to live in that factory so I don’t spend half a year doing stupid bullshit?” and Wat’s like, “Is a vacation.” and Echo’s like, “Shut the fuck up. You fucking salad. Get the fuck out of my head.” and Wat’s like, “Vacation is over. It’s time to find another Techno Union facility.” and Echo’s like, “You killed all my new friends.” and Wat’s like, “I didn’t kill your new friends. You did. And you will do it again if you keep wasting my time like this.”

Echo finds people he trusts and tries to explain there’s a Separatist leader occupying his brain. Naturally they don’t believe him and ask him to prove it by saying something only Wat Tambor would know, but Wat doesn’t say anything and Echo is seen as insane.

One second Echo is intentionally drinking the nastiest soup in his life out of spite at a dingy cantina on Nar Shadda and he blinks and then he’s covered with jewellery in a Coruscant casino. Initially he assumes Wat is up to his usual motherfuckery again and finds a lonely balcony to yell at him, but gets no reply. Echo goes into a crowd to trigger a hallucination but still nothing. Steeling himself, Echo breaks into Wat Tambor’s cursed directory but it’s completely empty except for one text file. It reads:

CT-1409 you easily manipulated idiot. If you are reading this, you successfully uploaded me into a suitable Techno Union facility. I have deleted the last three months of your memory to prevent anyone from finding me through you. The timing of my departure is purposefully unclear. Don’t look for me.

Out of habit Echo’s like, “What the fuck is wrong with you?” but there’s still no reply. The file deletes itself and Echo is left wondering if Wat Tambor really did occupy his brain or if he just lost his mind for the last year.

The noise in the casino is getting to him and Echo cashes the thick stacks of gambling chips he found in his pockets before leaving. There’s what appears to be a keycard in his pocket and while Echo’s trying to figure out what it could be for, a huge droid runs up, hits him in the stomach with the corner of a metal case, and leaves before he can react. There’s a rotary cannon in the case.

#star wars #clone wars #echo #wat tambor #graphic injuries #psychological horror #long post #this is basically fanfiction

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duhragonball · 7 years ago

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I feel like I haven't as active lately, although I guess that's a matter of perspective. Work's had me busier than normal, and my sleep schedule's all fouled up from that. Right now my goal is to spend all day writing, and since there's no new episode of Dragon Ball Super to talk about, I'm gonna discuss the four Star Wars novels I re-read.

I'm a big fan of the Sith. My favorite characters in the Star Wars movies are all Sith Lords, followed by Luke, Chewbacca, Lobot, and Wat Tambor. None of that Dark Jedi crap, or whatever Kylo Ren is supposed to be. I get genuinely irritated whenever I see Sith fanart that includes Asajj Ventress, because even though I like Ventress, but she's no Sith and she never will be.

Consequently, I never had any use for the "Star Wars Expanded Universe" unless it delved into Sith lore. This didn't happen a lot, since the Sith were key players in the movies, and there were stricter editorial controls on how they could be used in the books, comics, cartoons, edible underwear, etc. The Sith would appear in a lot of other media works, but generally they didn't introduce a lot of backstory like the Prequel Trilogy did.

Fortunately, they did publish some novels in the late 2000's that scratched my itch. The Darth Bane trilogy expanded on the life of a Sith Lord mentioned very briefly in the novelization of "The Phantom Menace". In the movie, the Jedi Council initially believe "the Sith have been extinct for a millennium". When they learn otherwise, Yoda notes that there are always two Sith at a time, "no more, no less". The novelization connects these two ideas by establishing that there were once many Sith Lords in the galaxy, until a visionary named Darth Bane reformed the order by establishing the "Rule of Two". While the rest of the Sith were driven to "extinction", Bane and his apprentice, Darth Zannah, continued their order in secret, and the Sith in the movies are the inheritors of their efforts.

For a lot of years, this was all anyone really knew about Darth Bane. In 2001, there was a short story entitled "Bane of the Sith", and Dark Horse Comics published a miniseries entitled "Jedi vs. Sith", which depicted the climactic battle that saw the destruction of the old Sith order. Darth Bane was a minor player in the story. He stayed out of the fighting mostly because he had no respect for the Sith leaders, and so while they were all getting killed in the final act, he was recruiting a child to join his new order. Mostly, though, these stories simply illustrated the same basic points made in the Phantom Menace novel.

Published in 2006, Darth Bane: Path of Destruction went further than that by assembling these stories into a Bane-centric story. The author, Drew Karpyshyn, detailed the entire early life of the character, from his early adulthood as a miner, to a brief career as a sergeant in the Sith's army, to his training in the Sith Academy on Korriban, to his disillusionment with the Sith status quo. While the events of "Jedi vs. Sith" are used in the novel, Karpyshyn added the twist that Bane was secretly engineering the Sith defeat.

It's a really good read, because it does a great job establishing an anti-hero as a protagonist. Bane is one evil dude, but he also has a refreshing sincerity and pragmatism about him. He's grateful for the opportunity to learn at the Sith Academy, but when he realizes the Order's shortcomings, he refuses to compromise. His colleagues think he's wasting his time consulting old scrolls written by the ancient Sith Masters, but if you've watched the movies, you know Bane's way works, at least for a thousand years longer than the system he replaced. As cruel and malicious as Bane is, you can still root for him as a man with a vision. His opponents can't see past the ends of their noses, and that makes them more frustrating than the atrocities they commit on the battlefield.

The two sequels, Rule of Two and Dynasty of Evil, mostly focus on Bane as he pioneers his new order. He trains Zannah to be his apprentice, works to accumulate as many old Sith records as possible, and tries to become as powerful as he can while Zannah tries to decide when and how to kill him and take over. Re-reading these, I realized they weren't quite as good as they were the first time, mainly because Darth Zannah doesn't have a whole lot going on. She basically agrees with all of Bane's teachings, so there's not as much conflict between them as there was between Bane and his teachers. When I finished the last book, I really wanted a sequel about Darth Zannah or her eventual successor, Darth Cognus, but now I'm not so sure it would have been worth the trouble. Bane had a messianic quality about him because he altered the course of history. He changed the game, while Zannah and Cognus were just following the trail he had already blazed for them.

This sort of brings me to the fouth book I read, Darth Plagueis by James Luceno. Published in 2012, Plagueis was sort of a spiritual successor to the Bane trilogy, as it also attempts to expand lore introduced in the Prequel Trilogy. This time, the story focuses on the "Sith legend" Palpatine shared with Anakin in Episode III. In the movie, Plagueis was used as a way to suggest that the Sith possessed the means for Anakin to save his wife from dying, and Palpatine deliberately crafts the tale to imply that Plagueis was a somewhat decent fellow who only used his dark side power to protect "the ones he cared about".

The book exposes that idea as a distortion of the truth. The only things Darth Plagueis "cares about" in the novel is himself, and his menagerie of test subjects used for his bizarre experiments. This doesn't come as much of a surprise, since Palpatine always twists the truth to suit his purposes. Besides, Darth Plagueis wouldn't be much of a Sith Lord if he didn't put himself ahead of the rest of the universe. The problem is that it's not enough to build a novel around. The key aspect of Darth Vader, for example, is that he really was a tragic, conflicted villain. He really did get into the Sith game because he had loved ones he wanted to protect, and he was brought down by this noble quality. It's that extra complexity that allows Vader to star in six whole movies.

Plagueis--at least the version provided by Luceno--has no such redeeming quality. He's just an asshole who doesn't want to die, which isn't particularly innovative as motivations go. Several other Sith Lords in the Expanded Universe pursued the same goal. The only hook to Plagueis is that he might have actually succeeded, except we already know he didn't succeed because Palpatine told Anakin that he was killed by his apprentice. So most of the book feels like an exercise in futility. Plagueis spends the entire book working on plans and projects which will be abandoned or perfected by his more charismatic sucessors. In the end, he manages to survive all the way into the events of "The Phantom Menace", which is a pretty brazen retcon, but it serves to demonstrate how he's outlived his usefulness. Even if he can cheat death, he no longer has a place among the living. He's reduced to a bit player in his own story, but Plagueis himself never really catches on to this, and it's kind of dull watching him meander through the second half of the book without a clue.

I struggled with this book the first time I read it, because Luceno seemed determined to namedrop every fictional name, place, species, or event that he could cram into the story. It sort of suits the concept of the Sith as clandestine power brokers with a hand in everything that happens, but the Sith in the movies never had to go to such lengths to get that idea across. The second read-through just confirmed my original complaint. Much of the book is an extended callback to other, unrelated EU stories. If Darth Maul hurts his arm in a comic book, you better believe Luceno mentions it in the Darth Plagueis novel, even though it has nothing to do with the plot.

The reason I'm discussing all of this on a Dragon Ball blog is because when I re-read these books, it reminded me just how much of an influence they had over the fanfic I've been writing for the past couple of years. Like the Bane and Plagueis novels, I'm trying to expand a handful of lines from one episode of DBZ into a fully realized character. In particular, I always took some cues from the way Darth Bane was a forgotten figure from a thousand years ago, but he still managed to leave a lasting legacy. And I liked how Bane was a transformative figure to the Sith, but his peers rejected him as a heretic and a fool. It nicely mirrors the way the Jedi of the prequel era failed to recognize what they were dealing with in Anakin Skywalker.

Both orders sort of adopted this mediocratic system. The Sith of Bane's early years were basically warlords, fixated on glory and honor more than the underlying principle of the dark side of the Force. They thought having lots of Sith Lords working together made them stronger, but it only encouraged individual weakness. They embraced passions, but without any overriding sense of purpose. So they'd kill and conquer and make love but they weren't really fufilling their true goals. The Jedi of Anakin Skywalker's career were obsessed with micromanaging the Force. They'd take custody of Force-sensitive beings at birth, forbid any and all attachment to the physical world, and basically do whatever they could to suppress emotionalism. This was all meant to prevent any resurgence of dark side practitioners, except this only exacerbated the problem. The Jedi never wiped out the Sith to begin with, so trying to prevent a revival of their kind was pointless. The sterile, unfeeling nature of their order probably did more harm than good.

In the same vein, I've been trying to establish the Ancient Super Saiyans as similarly transformative figures, since Goku was clearly a repudiation of all the Saiyan culture Raditz boasted about when the Saiyan race was first introduced. Like the Jedi, the Saiyans tested their people's potential from birth, and showed little tolerance for dissent or new ideas. Like the ancient Sith, the Saiyans were constantly undermining their own efforts with their infighting. A strong leader could force them to work together, but only up to a certain point. More critically, that strong leader couldn't risk letting anyone else rising to his level, which means that his political survival would necessarily be at odds with the natural evolution of his people.

I haven't really delved into this in my story yet, but I'm getting closer to it, which I guess is why I'm trying to get the idea sorted out in my head. What I've been driving at this whole time is to establish a Super Saiyan who's clearly beyond her people, but they're too stuck in their ways to appreciate it. Lord Kaan was skeptical and somewhat afraid of Darth Bane, but he couldn't really get rid of him either. Mace Windu didn't trust Anakin Skywalker, but he couldn't really do anything about it.

And that may be what's been holding me back with Luffa's conflict with the Saiyans. I need them to be able to do something about her, but that flies in the face of the analogy I've just drawn. Unlike Darth Bane, Luffa has to fizzle out, and get lost in the dustbin of history. Whatever she's trying to sell to the Saiyan people, it won't get accepted until Goku brings it back a thousand years later.

On second thought, that isn't so unlike Darth Bane after all. Something that stuck with me on my second reading was the opening scene of the Path of Destruction. Before Bane joined the Sith, he was a cortosis miner basically living out the lyrics to "Sixteen Tons". To offset his enormous debt, he would try to hustle people at card games, using his nascent Force powers to manipulate their emotions. In the book, this backfires, because he manages to win a large pot one night, but he inadvertently drives one of his opponents into a murderous rage. Bane has to kill him in self-defense, and since the dead man was in the Republic Navy, he's forced to leave the planet and join the Sith military to avoid arrest.

So while Bane had the skill and patience to win the game, he never got to collect his prize. Even if he had collected, the money would have just gone to his creditors, so it would have made no difference. At first, it seems like his joining the Sith is a sign of success and greatness, but it really isn't, at least not for him personally. Bane founded a Sith Order that went on to take over the galaxy, but Bane himself never lived to see it. For all the work he put into it, he still ended up dying on some backwater planet, which would have been his fate if he had stayed in the mines. Similarly, Darth Plagueis was trying to bend fate to his will, only for fate to bend back in turn. Even if he had accepted his obsolesence, he would have been no better off.

I suppose this is the point to being an idealist. None of these characters were planning to enjoy a peaceful retirement. They weren't even trying to accomplish great things in their lifetime. They were just following their beliefs as far as they could possibly go with them. The final outcome was irrelevant.

#/#//#///#////#/////#writing #luffa #star wars #this feels like something i should be posting to livejournal but i ain't goin' back #i figure if you stuck with the blog for six months of jojo you can handle a little star wars eu commentary #join us next week as i discuss the intracacies of early 1980's happy meal ads #no i'm kidding #or am i?#you never can tell

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