So a couple things about Coruscant, circa roughly right before Order 66 and probably during the whole Empire too but I like the Prequel era as a backdrop so bear with me:
Most of Coruscant’s population technically lives in the sam building as the rich and powerful but MUCH lower down and the levels aren’t necessarily easily acessible.
Padme mentions in an episode of TCW that power rationing in the lower levels had gotten to the point where her senatorial aides only had power and running water once a week.
Coruscant’s police department is underfunded and too small for the sheer masses it’s supposed to patrol, so a lot of “crime” occurs in the form of “Normal business transactions but we ain’t paying taxes for services we’ll never see”
It gets more dangerous the farther down you go not necessarily because of crime but because the lower levels are full of things like Giant Mutant Rats, Escaped Monsters From The Pet Trade, and Monstrous Eyeless Humanoids That Might Have Been Normal People Several Centuries Ago Until They Stopped Being Able To See The Sun And Also Might Like To Eat Toes
But between food shortages, a lack of regulation and Lots of large Animals Down There, you can’t tell me there aren’t people who are effectively
Ecumenopolis Bush-Meat Hunters. Owing to the lack of actual Bush and the Rule Of Cool, we’ll call them Dark Meat Hunters.
Anyone willing to brave The Deep Dark and come back with fresh* meat for thier hungry communities and maybe also some cool tusks the size of your whole leg is probably a very respected member of thier community**, and with the proliferation of military-grade weapons in Star Wars it’s probably not that difficult to get your hands on the appropriate gear*** So there’s probably an entire collective of Dark Meat Hunters. Some of them might have even made firends with the Eyeless Humanoids**** and formed cooperative You-Return-Any-Lost-Eyed-People-You-Find-And-I’ll-Smuggle-Some-Vaccines-Down relationships with them.
*Well, it was killed today and is free of any visible parasites at least. You should porbably have your steak well-done though. As a precaution.
**Not Canon, but heavily suggested by canon: If there aren’t enough cops and it’s a beauractic nightmare anyway, it might not be that hard for say, an entire city block to stop paying taxes and turn themselves into an autonomus commune if they didn’t actively pick fights.
***Drive your friend’s crappy speeder at the truck hard enoug and you could LITERALLY knock an arms dealer over.
**** Hunter 1, new on the job: “WHAT IS THAT HIDEOUS CREATURE???” Hunter 2: “What? Oh, that’s Eyeless Bob. Say Hi Bob!” Bob: *Throaty, wet gibbering noises and flailing* Hunter 2: “HA! You’re hilarious.” Hunter 1: “You can understand him?” Hunter 2: “Sure, it takes a bit to get used to his accent but he’s a riot at parties.”
Aw man this has potential for a short story/RPG characters/Art, but its 3 AM and i oughtta go to bed.
But like, imagine an AU where for once not all the moms die and Beru actually survives:
Beru was at the market when the Stormtroopers came. She leaves when she has a bad feeling, and when she sees smoke rising from the farm, she starts running
she arrives just in time to see Luke staring at the skeleton that used to be her husband
(she doesn’t really… realize it, at first, what the skeleton in the charred ruins of her home means, but then she looks at Luke, at the utterly frozen look in his eyes, and something just… breaks inside of her)
Old Ben shows up soon after, and Beru tells him that he better have an idea to get them of the planet
Beru has never left Tatooine before, but if the Empire killed her Owen this openly, than Luke and her are next on the list, and she’s not going to stand for that
and anyway, Old Ben is a Jedi. That’s got to be good for something
the Falcon is dirty and dinged up, but it’s flying, so she’ll take it
she’s not sure what to make of this Han Solo guy, he seems a bit too much like the Hutt’s lackeys for her taste, but his partner seems trustworthy
Luke is so exited to see the galaxy, it hurts Beru a bit to watch it
especially the idea of helping a princess is very exciting to her boy, and Beru can’t help but remember his father, not her Owen, but that young and angry boy who loved that offworlder lady. Beru had often wondered whether Padme had been royalty, because she sure seemed rich enough to be
Old Ben teaches Luke some jedi things, and the thought of Anakin disappears as quickly as it came, because that is her boy, sweet and curious and endlessly fascinated with the universe
Alderaan is… gone, and for a moment, Beru can’t breathe, thinking about all those poor people, while the others are still trying to grasp what happened
then they’re on the Death Star, and she stays with those strange little droids, because someone with a blaster should, and because Luke is already scared enough
he doesn’t need to worry about losing her, too
over coms she follows those boys misadventures, and wonders when exactly Han Solo became someone she worried about
then everything happens incredibly fast, and the princess is safely with them but Old Ben is dead
(coward, Beru thinks rather unkindly, leaving just like that when things get difficult)
All these people sneering “well how would YOU have done it better?” to people who hated TLJ like there isn’t a simple answer–focus on the stormtroopers.
Keeps Finn center stage. Puts Phasma in a key position for a bigger role. Not to mention it puts Star Wars in the unique position of not relying on the default “blow it up and we win” position. What if the Resistance, with nothing to blow up, focuses on the people? What if it decides to undermine the First Order that way–by attempting to liberate the very people trained to kill them? And who would lead the charge? Finn.
Finn wakes and there is a doctor who rushes in and calmly answers his questions, who helps him extricate himself from his suit with dignity and informs Poe and Leia immediately. They sit him down and talk about their plan–starting a stormtrooper rebellion. It was Poe’s idea, but he wouldn’t have thought of it if he had never met Finn. Leia looks at him critically, and takes his hand. With that touch, they can both feel how powerful the Force is in him.
“You’ll be a symbol of hope,” she says, and Poe beams. There could be no greater compliment from the general. They spend a little time preparing, but they need something else. They need Luke.
Luke Skywalker, in this version, did not run away, did not even consider running away, but rather went looking for the Jedi’s beginnings find the balance of dark and light–Luke Skywalker felt Rey and Finn awaken across half the galaxy, and settled on Ach-To, and waited. And when Rey came to him, he taught her the way he himself had been taught. He had her run. He had her face her demons (in this version, it is less her longing for her parents and more her fear of abandonment), and when she is ready, he lifts his X-Wing out of the sea. She didn’t need to. She already has faith. She started with the trust Luke worked so hard to find.
They leave when she has a vision about Finn being in trouble, because she needs to help her friends. Luke smiles. He knows that feeling.
Meanwhile, there’s another young stormtrooper feeling the stirrings of rebellion inside them. Perhaps it’s Rose. Perhaps she’s a lowly mechanic and kept to herself, kept her head down, just trying to survive. Perhaps her older sister (unrelated by blood, perhaps, but they knew what they were to each other) was still killed as battle fodder and she’s had enough. He didn’t know her but she recognizes him. Pulls him aside to a corridor and hisses “traitor” but she says it with a degree of awe, not condemnation. By the end of the conversation she’s nodding and saying she’ll help. By the end of the conversation, Finn catches himself asking her name and she says “R0S-E23” and he thinks of the flowers Poe showed him on Yavin and he asks if he can call her “Rose”. She beams.
And somewhere out in hyperspace, Luke and Rey and Poe are speeding toward their location–Phasma’s caught the scent, and they’re in danger. Rey could feel it.
They manage to get enough stormtroopers on their side to start a rebellion and symbolically blow up the ship in the process (because they have to blow up something), but Phasma confronts them in a huge hangar bay. Brothers and sisters, face off against each other and Finn has had enough. He walks right in the middle of all the shooting and calls for a cease-fire, his eyes flashing, his stance tall and proud. Everyone knew FN-2187. Everyone knew how high his aptitude was, and of his escape. He’s legendary among the stormtroopers, envied and hated and revered. Phasma screams at them to keep firing but all of them stop and listen. Several of the stormtroopers on Finn’s side forcibly wrestle her to the ground, disarming her and ensuring she doesn’t move.
“My name is Finn!” he calls out, and it echoes through the hangar bays. He is a person. He has a name. He was not born for this, being cannon fodder and less than nothing, and neither were they, he tells them. Some of them shift, unsure of what to believe. Rose, who was wearing her helmet, takes it off and goes to stand by Finn. “My name is Rose,” she says proudly. Another takes their helmet off. And then another. And then another. “There is still hope,” Finn says, looking every single person in the eye that he can. “For a life beyond this. There is still light beyond the darkness.” He turns to Phasma where she is being held on the ground. “Even for you.”
“TRAITOR!” Kylo Ren screams from where he has arrived, one cue, at the end of the hangar bay. Finn, without a lightsaber but still armed, goes to fight him and is losing ground fast, and just as Kylo goes to strike the killing blow, he is intercepted by none of other than Rey. She had built a double bladed lightsaber during her training, and untwists it now, handing one half to Finn. He lights it, and they charge together.
At one point, Kylo Ren escapes to the upper levels of the hangar, and spots Luke, who has been evacuating as many stormtroopers as he can to Leia’s ship. They take Phasma with them as a hostage. Poe, meanwhile, has been coordinating a separate assault as a diversion. “I DESTROYED YOUR ORDER!” Kylo screams, pointing an accusing finger at Luke. “THERE IS NO HOPE LEFT FOR THE JEDI!”
“Wrong,” Luke says, dropping his cloak and striding forward, gripping his father’s lightsaber in his hand, going to stand by his students (for Finn, he knows, will be among the greatest of his pupils). “The word ‘Jedi’ means hope. These two are Jedi, but so are all of those people back there, who you took as children and corrupted. Every spark of light that is still left inside you is the Jedi.”
“Hope is like the sun,” Leia says, striding up in front of her brother and his students and standing, her old lightsaber finally in hand again, blue as the sky of Alderaan. “If you only believe in it when you can see it, you’ll never make it through the night. And they all will,” she says, nodding back to the stormtroopers. “So can you, Ben. Come with us.”
Kylo hesitates, but ultimately bares his teeth and charges toward his mother, rage radiating off of him like a tidal wave. He never makes it within five feet of her–Luke Skywalker Force-pushes him so strongly he flies a hundred feet down the corridor. Before the hangar doors close, we see his face contorted with rage, and possibly confusion.
They all make it out, and Rey is wondering what they do now, since they didn’t defeat Kylo. Luke puts his arms around both her and Finn’s shoulders, and says, “Now the real training begins.”
Man, one characterization of Vader that I love but rarely see is: Vader as deeply religious.
Because from an in-universe perspective, that’s so weird! Vader and the viewer know that the Force is not a matter of faith, and that it does in fact give him powers up to and including the ability to accurately see the future, but the galaxy at large doesn’t know that and his fellow Imperials definitely don’t. I think the point of Motti, besides introducing Vader’s ruthlessness toward even his own faction, is to demonstrate that Force use is not just a known factor of the Star Wars universe.
In that context, Vader is inexplicable. Not only does he have uncanny and inscrutable powers, like those the murdered Jedi are rumored to have had, but he is the only figure in the Imperial military who seems to talk about his religion. At least among the military leadership, he’s not secretive about it; if he’s got to leave a conversation to hunt down Obi-wan, he’ll just come right out and say that he has supernatural knowledge which he needs to go address now. He wields a banned, antique Jedi weapon. He has several times invoked the Force while speaking to his officers.
In-universe, the general public doesn’t know why he’s like this! The Empire isn’t a theocracy; besides banning the Jedi religion, Emperor Palpatine doesn’t really seem to make a lot of overtly religious policy choices, and I don’t think the general public knows if he subscribes to any specific faith. Except for people who know what the Sith are, Vader just seems like an extremely devout sole adherent to a religion that is all but dead, its other practitioners hunted for treason. He’s like if the president had a weird murder pet who was a Catholic nun, only Catholicism was banned and all other church officials had been murdered by the government.
also like if catholicism was banned because it was DEFINITELY fake lunatic bullshit that so-called ‘catholics’ made up specifically to seize power from the former government, except the murder nun has just turned your manager’s blood into wine right in front of you and you’re both just standing there watching him die horrifically in the middle of your fucking office
so evidently normal guns exist in star wars (called “slugthrowers” because of course) and they’re apparently super broken and extremely useful because they go right through shields designed to deflect energy weapons and if a jedi tries to deflect them with a lightsaber the bullet just melts and turns in to an equally lethal spray of molten metal
imagine you’re the most badass sith in the universe and Some Dude With A Handgun challenges you and you’re just like “heh… primitive weapons… bring it on” and he shoots you and you suddenly get splattered with a shower of molten metal and you fucking Die
Clone Troopers who would eat raw meat, since the Kaminoans cloned them with very hearty immune systems for a reason and it would save time: Keelie, Hardcase, Fives, Hevy, Cody, Cutup, Comet, Boost, Boil, Dogma, Bly, Gregor, Oddball, 99
Clone Troopers who would not eat raw meat unless it was absolutely necessary no matter what we were cloned with: Rex, Stone, Ponds, Droidbait, Echo, Tup, Gree, Neyo, Sinker, Appo, Waxer, Kix, Thire, Colt
Clone Trooper who refuse to answer this question: Wolffe, Fox
Jedi who would eat raw meat: Ahsoka, Shaak-Ti, Anakin, Quinlan, Kit, Qui-Gon
Jedi who would not: Mace, Depa, Yoda, Aayla, Adi, Stass, Plo, Ki-Adi, Ima-Gun, Barriss, Luminara, Oppo
Jedi who are about to lecture everyone who isn’t a Togruta: Obi-Wan
Star Wars Character who would eat bugs: Anakin
Star Wars Characters who need Anakin to stop:Everyone else.
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