#i think the amount of quotes and visions and weird things like finding the ancient cube with pictures of jedi vulcano and so on

[cienie-isengardu]

Episode I: Journal of Anakin Skywalker by Todd Stasser

I also had a secret. But mine was private. It had to do with the dreams I had. My dreams were different from the dreams of other kids I knew. Take my friends Kitster and Seek, for instance. They both wanted to be pilots like me. But they dreamed of leaving Tatooine forever and never coming back. I dreamed about leaving, too. But I would come back. As a Jedi Knight. I dreamed about leading a slave rebellion here on Tatooine. I dreamed of holding a lightsaber, and of driving every last Hutt, criminal, and bounty hunter off this planet. But I had another secret as well. A dark secret. It was about the way my dreams always ended. It was a secret that frightened me, one I could never tell.

Star Wars Episode I Adventures #5: The Ghostling Children by Dave Wolverton

He stopped at a pile where an old Jawa silently leaned on a crooked stick. Its gloves were wrapped around the staff.

At its feet was an odd assortment of items - shiny blue stones from the edge of the Dune Sea, polished bones of Krayt dragons, a rope woven from bark. Among some pieces from old blasters Anakin noticed a very strange cube that looked to be far, far older than any piece of equipment that Anakin had ever seen.

He picked it up. The cube was small enough to fit in the palm of his hand, like a large dice. Intricate designs showed on its face, but the designs were so worn that they could hardly be recognized.

On one side of the cube, it looked like a picture of two Jedi Knights, fighting with lightsabers.

Another side of the cube showed a volcano. A third side was so worn that he couldn't tell if it had ever had a picture. A fourth side revealed a star map, with instructions on how to land on a certain moon. The fifth side was also worn smooth. A last side showed a lamp with a knife blade through it, the symbol of forbidden knowledge. All along every corner of the cube was writing in some language that he couldn't decipher.

Anakin imagined that tens of thousands of people must have touched this cube over hundreds or thousands of years.

He hefted the cube, thinking that it was some sort of storage container. But it was so light that it had to be empty.

Yet, when he squinted, he could feel… well, there was something inside. Something … evil.

The cube had no latches on the outside, no locks or hinges that he could see. Anakin could almost imagine that the cube wasn't a box at all, but some component to a machine whose purpose was forgotten ages and ages past.

"For you, very cheap," the old Jawa said to Anakin.

"What?" Anakin asked haltingly. The Jawan language was very hard to understand.

"Very cheap."

"But I don't want it," Anakin said. "I was just looking." He glanced toward home. It was getting late.

"Three wupiupi," the Jawa offered, twisting the knob of his cane. It was exactly the amount that Anakin had in his pocket.

"No," Anakin said. "I don't even know what it is."

"Three wupiupi is a small price to pay for knowledge," the old Jawa said. Under his gray-black hood, the Jawa's eyes gleamed.

"No," Anakin said. He started to put the cube down, but couldn't. What if it really was evil? What if it was dangerous - like a bomb or something? By just leaving it, he could be setting a trap for some unsuspecting person. It really was better to take the thing. Maybe Watto would know what it was.

In the deepening shadows, he took out his last three credits and handed them over to the Jawa.

Star Wars Episode I Adventures #6: The Hunt for Anakin Skywalker by Dave Wolverton

Anakin rolled over on his bed and felt the strange cube in his pocket. He took it out and laid it in the cubbyhole above his headboard.

He fell asleep with his clothes on.

In a dream, he was in a huge room, shouting for help. He banged on the walls, trying to get out. He thought it might be Gardulla's fortress, but the high walls were square, and the roof had no transparent dome overhead. He wasn't at Gardulla's. He was inside the cube!

He could see no doors or windows, no way to escape his prison. "Help me!" he cried. "Help me get free!" He pounded on walls of cool gray metal.

"No one can help you," an evil voice whispered. "No one can help you. You must open the cube!"

"How?" he shouted. "How do I open it?"

"From the inside," the mysterious voice whispered.

Anakin started, found himself awake on his bed. It was late at night. The mysterious voice was ringing in his ears, and his heart was pounding.

He'd heard the voice, he felt sure. It wasn't a dream. It had been too real to be a dream.

But in the darkness he couldn't detect any movement nearby. No one was in the room with him, hovering above his bed.

From memory, Anakin tried to recall where the sound had come from.

The voice had spoken to him from above his bed, he was sure. It had come from the cubbyhole.

He reached up, felt for the strange cube that lay there. He grasped it in the dark and felt its square edges. Somehow, he was disappointed. He'd thought that maybe it would have opened itself, like a flower blooming. But it was still closed.

"Did you say something?" he whispered to the cube. "Did you talk to me? Are you trapped in there?"

He listened hard, and this time he thought maybe he could hear the voice answer. Or maybe it was more of a feeling that there was an answer. Yes. I called to you.

"How can I let you out?" Anakin whispered.

From the inside, the voice seemed to whisper.

Anakin held the box up and squinted at it. He wasn't sure if he really felt an answer. Was it possible that he could open the box, that he could find a way to open it from the inside?

And if so, what would the box contain? A tiny alien perhaps, some creature so small that it could live for a thousand years trapped in that box, trying to get out.

It seemed only barely possible.

I'm going crazy, Anakin thought. That is what's giving me these dreams. I'm caught in a trap, and Pala and all my friends with me. No wonder I'm dreaming about being trapped inside of boxes.

Yet even as he considered these doubts, he noticed that the cube was warmer than the night air, as if it generated a tiny amount of heat.

Live creatures give off heat, he realized.

Rogue Planet by Greg Bear

Anakin dreaded sleep. It seemed, in his dreams, that something inside was testing him, something very strong, and it did not care whether it was loved or feared.

***

"I seek to escape pain," Anakin said. "My mother-"

Mace lifted his hand, and Anakin instantly fell silent. "Pain can be our greatest teacher," Mace said, barely above a whisper. "Why turn away from pain?"

"It… it is my strength. This I see."

"That is not correct," Obi-Wan said, placing his hand on Anakin's shoulder. The boy looked between them, confused.

"How is it wrong, teacher?" Mace asked Obi-Wan.

"Lean upon pain like a crutch and you create anger and a dark fear of truth," Obi-Wan said. "Pain guides, but it does not support."

Anakin cocked his head to one side. He seemed slight and even insubstantial among these Jedi Knights, all this overwhelming experience. His face collapsed in misery. "My most useful talents are not those of a Jedi."

"Indeed, you throw your spirit and your anguish into ma chines and useless competitions, rather than directly confronting your feelings," Mace said. "You have cluttered our Temple halls with droids. I stumble over them. But we are away from the crux of our present matter. Try again to explain your error."

Anakin shook his head, caught between stubbornness and tears. "I don't know what you want me to say."

Mace took a shallow breath and closed his eyes. "Look inward, Anakin."

"I don't want to," Anakin said breathlessly, his voice jerking. "I don't like what I see."

"Is it possible you see nothing more than the tensions of approaching adulthood?" Mace asked.

"No!" Anakin cried. "I see … too much, too much."

"Too much what?"

"I burn like a sun inside!" The boy's voice rang out in the chamber like a bell.

***

Anakin felt as if he were inside a gigantic colony of myrmins.

Then he felt the voices of the seeds. They are afraid. The heat is baking them. Their shells are crisping.

Most of the heat rose in rippling sheets of air, but as the fuel blazed and embers settled out, the seeds were being roasted like sugar hulls in a campfire.

Perversely, Anakin shivered as if with cold.

Obi-Wan put an arm around his shoulders. Anakin saw that his master's face was beaded with sweat. He, too, could feel the seeds in the fire.

"Something wrong?" Vagno asked, his face glinting and flowing in the yellow light from fire, as if he were part of the blaze, a stray ember given human shape. He walked around them critically.

"We're fine," Obi-Wan said.

But Anakin did not feel fine. He wanted to curl up and hide, or run, but he knew the seeds no longer had legs, no way of escaping, even if they wanted to.

"I've never lost a client. No fear, no fear," Vagno said.

The seeds were afraid but did not move under their burden of embers and flame. Theirs was courage, and also an awareness of fate or destiny.

The seeds were not nearly as intelligent as a human-they did not really think for themselves-but inside of each was the potential for awareness and intelligence. The fire was bringing that awareness to the fore.

This will happen to you.

Anakin gasped. He was not dreaming.

This is your destiny, your fate.

Obi-Wan had said nothing. Anakin knew where the voice was coming from, whom it belonged to, but could not believe what he knew.

There will be heat and death and resurrection. A seed will quicken. Will it burn or shine'? Will it think and create or be ruled by fear and destroy?

And then the voice fell silent.

Obi-Wan's arm tightened around Anakin, as if he would protect the boy. "The wave is not what we expected," he said.

Anakin stared into the flames, his inmost self suddenly calm. The seeds were changing. They were no longer afraid.

Clone Wars (2003)

Anakin's Vision on Nelvaan

The Clone Wars (2008)

Anakin's Vision on Mortis

[storyunrelated]

Full Metal Princess

As I was walking home I was daydreaming, and I daydreamed about Full Metal Princess which is that half-baked idea I had which was basically “Heh, it’d be funny if you took, like, a stereotypicall princess in a big poofy dress and stuck her in a mech. That ‘d be funny.”

So I thought about that and this is what I came up with.

Princesses in poofy dress and also Titanfall 2 and also weird headless monsters kind of?

I don’t know. Here’s a cut.

-

The King and Queen

The benevolent rulers, formerly of the flesh, now a merged entity of pure thought. Presently engaged in solving what is said to be 'An intractable problem'. Thus occupied, they have passed the running of things over into the more-than-capable hands of their many, many daughters.

Colossi

Colossi are a vital everyday feature of the Kingdom, and indeed emblematic of the Kingdom itself and its people.

Machines in the shape of people, to put it bluntly. Mechanisms imbued with a crude sapience - a little less than animal, and far more loyal - and able to function brilliantly under capable direction. Better still, those larger ones are capable of taking a pilot, enhancing the abilities of those inside to superhuman degrees.

Most stand a little taller than a grown adult and are designed to be worn, to boost strength, provide protection in battle and so on and so forth. They are found the length and breadth of the Kingdom, in all walks of life.

Royal Colossi are the only true Colossi, though, being as how they have the size to match the name, but to reach such a size requires a prohibitively large amount of precious Cavorite, hence their reserved usage for the royal personages. The lesser Colossi of the Royal Army and the civilian types remain formidable and useful, but not quite as breathtaking or awe-inspiring.

Dresses

The sheer profusion of lace and ruffles stopped the blade long before it reached her. Foolish of their foes to think they could ever hope to penetrate the dress of a Princess.

Princesses wear dresses. Their poofiness reeks of regality and their fabric can turn bullets and blades alike.

Indeed, these days, those dresses often conceal equipment of alarming potency...

Princess First

"I've seen this sort of thing before. Again. I mean, when have I not?"

The eldest Princess, and the one with de facto seniority by dint of experience rather than anything else. She has seen the most, her sisters know, and therefore always has something of value to offer no matter what it is they might be up against.

Her personal Royal Colossi is the singular, legendary Colossotron. First of the Royal Colossi. Family heirloom, revered relic and all-round national treasure. A machine of sublime beauty and majesty - suitable for the first Princess.

Laid low on the field of battle more times than can be counted but always recovered and rebuilt, Colossotron serves as a walking reminder and symbol of Royal solidity and might - every inch of its armoured plate inscribed with stories of its valorous past, its cloak woven from the shattered weapons of countless foes.

Princess Ignition

"Might I suggest fire as a solution?" "That's always your solution." "If I did not suggest it, you might all think there was something wrong with me."

Diminutive and pugnacious, Princess Ignition is the Princess who spends the most time out with the Royal Army. They are rightly glad to have her, for her regal bloodlust is tempered with a surprisingly cool sense of tactical planning. Fights are fun, she is quick to point out, and funner still if you know you'll be the one winning.

Her Royal Colossi, the pyromaniacal Salt The Scorched Earth, is a veritable nightmare of a machine, festooned with blades and capable of turning whatever Princess Ignition might encounter into a blazing inferno before they've even realised she was upon them.

Princess Mechanism

"That new irrigation system we've been rolling out is set to improve crop yields by at least twenty-five percent over the next ten years. Twenty-five percent! That's crazy-talk! Can we talk about that? No? Alright..."

Were it up to Princess Mechanism, she would spend her time making things for the sheer thrill of it. As it stands, she makes things for the benefit of the Kingdom, which works out just as well for her, and so she is happy.

An inveterate tinkerer and adjuster and inventor, Princess Mechanism is forever designing and building machines and devices for the benefit of her subjects, not to mention the occasional tweak or improvement for the Colossi of her sisters. She just can't help herself. If she goes too long without making something run a little better she gets twitchy.

Her Royal Colossi - the ever-changing Get The Quotes In - is the least combat-capable of all of those possessed by the Princesses, but this is by choice. It is an engineering machine first and foremost, designed to assist in construction projects and to aid her in the deployment and setup of any one of her myriad devices and projects.

If push does come to shove, though, she is far from helpless, and what with Princess Mechanism's endless tinkering and upgrading and adjustments the odds that Get The Quotes In might be carrying something both surprising and deadly are usually fairly high...

Princess Range

"..."

Not really one for talking, Princess Range is a Princess of action. Then again, all of her sisters are Princesses of action, often making her seem to fade into the background somewhat, especially given her proclivity for silence.

This is, of course, by design. The background is where Princess Range prefers to be, as the background is often at a distance, and in the distance she can pass unnoticed, observing problems and, indeed, solving them before those problems even realise that they are problems at all.

Her Royal Colossi is the comparatively svelte and famously quiet It Must Be Rats, which has a far greater ability to pop up in places people wouldn't expect than a thirty-foot machine made out of metal has any right to. Also, it has a whacking great gun. Princess Range likes her whacking great gun, but won't tell anyone it's name.

Princess Devastation

"Far be it from me to be the voice of moderation - again - but have we considered diplomacy?"

Despite her aptitude - and great talent - for wanton destruction and mayhem, Princess Devastation dislikes violence in a general sense, viewing it as wasteful and ultimately self-defeating, creating only further problems down the road.

Often this has led to fairly heated arguments between herself and Princess Ignition over the nature of conflict as a driving force for change and societal improvement, but such debates tend to remain civil and productive.

Her Royal Colossi is the frankly outlandishly big We Should Have Tried Talking, a lumbering heap of armour and missiles that somehow still manages to walk. Slow to manoeuvre and easily outflanked and outrun, it compensates by being more than capable of immediately and irresistibly flattening anything that happens to be unlucky enough to stand in front of it.

For while she may find violence distasteful, Princess Devastation would be the first to point out the way making a problem simply disappear can often provide a stopgap in lieu of a proper solution.

Enemies

Giants - Inscrutable beings of living flint who live in the far North. Rarely seen, thankfully. A potent and devastating race, where even the smallest individual is a veritable force of nature. The larger members, though loathe to descend to lowlands, are rightly feared, for they are as mountains that walk, capable of destroying armies with little effort should they be so roused.

Their vigil keeps all from venturing North, almost as if there is something there they are protecting...

Slaughtermen - Belligerent and curious creatures of living clay that rise spontaneously from most of the (many and widespread) ancient, long-forgotten battlefields spread throughout the Kingdom and beyond. Self-described as having a diplomatic disposition of 'unpleasant', they merrily murder one another and anything else they happen to come across, building odd monuments to individuals and events they themselves cannot even remember.

Every so often one of particular size and vision - a Slaughterking - will emerge and suddenly the whole mass of Slaughtermen will take on a different character. Now, they will have a goal, and a leader with the will to push them towards it. That Slaughterkings often rival a Royal Colossi in size and strength only makes things worse.

Anthropophagi - The curious, corpse-farming headless men lurk at the fringes and do their best to keep out of the sight of honest citizens, and for this the people are profoundly grateful. They tend nowadays to give humans a wide-berth - having learnt that particular lesson several times now - but those persons living on the very edge of the Kingdom do have a tendency to go...missing...sometimes.

It may come to pass that the Anthropophagi require the lesson taught to them again.