[Star Wars] Out ESB...ESB???

[takasi]

So a friend and I were having a conversation about the Empire Strikes Back the other day, which resulted in a little griping about George Lucas and the prequels. We laughed a little about stormtroopers on dewbacks (how often do we see soldiers in Iraq riding camels?) and as we often do we questioned just how much of the prequels, and even the original trilogy, was really planned out ahead of time. One topic involved the greatest retcon of all time:

"Obi-wan: A young jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil, helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights. He betrayed and murdered your father."

We started thinking about how good the first movie was, and this got me to thinking. We both love the Empire Strikes Back, but like all of the films that followed it started to humanize and 'unmask' Darth Vader. What if the other movies were never made? Would Darth Vader be considered more or less of a badass than he already is?

So I'm considering running or playing in a Star Wars game that assumes that NOTHING outside of A New Hope is canon. Darth Vader isn't Luke's father and didn't build C3P0, Leia can marry Luke and there are no Ewoks, no Jar Jar, no Yoda. What are some alternative story ideas using the elements from just the first movie? Assume that the players pick up after the Battle of Yavin, and they are running the main characters (Luke, Han, Chewy, etc).

 

[Azgulor]

I think you're on to a great idea. I'm amazed as I interact with Star Wars fans over the years at how many agree that A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back are really the core of the series and everything else is weak in comparison.

As to your question:

1. Look at the throwaway lines from ANH and go in unchartered directions.

Example #1: The reaction of the Imperials in the Death Star conference room to Tarkin's announcement of the dissolution of the Imperial Senate. Are Imperial Senators simply legislators? It doesn't appear so by the reaction. Are Senators more like the rulers of their respective worlds? Leia's father sure seems to be one if she's a princess. Do they have their own militaries? Would they ally with the Rebellion or start their own insurgency?

Example #2: The droids being refused service at the cantina. I always viewed that as a metaphor of slavery. Droids are the slaves of the galactic civilization. Are 3PO & R2 unique in their intelligence/personality or are their millions of subjugated droids being used as disposable servants/people?

Example #3: The Force as a "hokey religion" (as named by Han, I believe). Is there a spiritual role to be filled by the Jedi? Are there priests that the Jedi answered to? In other words, are the Jedi the Star Wars version of the Templars - the sword arm of the Faith of the Force? If it's a "hokey religion" was it a reclusive sect, a declining religion, or a cornerstone of the culture?

2. Tattooine is a backwater with a Wild West feel and we know Jabba likes hiring bounty hunters. How widespread is that theme? The galaxy is pretty damn big.

3. What about other Jedi? Obi-Wan was able to hide out (and Yoda, per ESB). They are the only ones? Doubtful.

4. Look at the internal politics of the Rebellion and throw strife into the mix. The Emperor oppresses everybody. Not everyone in the Rebellion is going to be a good guy, or even a reformed smuggler...

5. Focus on the war. Look at WWII movies for inspiration: massive battles, resistance movements, spies (both traitors within the Rebellion and agents within the Empire). Hell, even Hitler-obsessed occult stories (Raiders of the Lost Ark) work if they become Emperor-obsessed Force stories.

6. Define the Jedi Order your own way. Is Luke the only Jedi? Does he find other tutors? Does he try to rebuild the Jedi Order during the War instead of after?

7. Scrap the "Luke I am your father" bit. Make Vader a bad-ass again. Take inspiration from sources like The Force Unleashed video game where the Emperor has force-enabled warriors that aren't true Sith. Or have a Sith-equivalent to the Jedi Order - if you're only looking at ANH, who's to say it's only Vader and the Emperor? Chuck that Rule of Two crap.

8. Redefine the Clone Wars. Instead of going to the local Camino store and ordering a clone army, perhaps the Emperor rose to power as the Republic fought against an external threat that utilized a clone army. Does that threat still exist?


The ONLY way, I'd run a Star Wars campaign is to make it my own. Even if you only look at the 6 movies, there are too many inconsistencies IMO to make a sustainable long-term campaign. (We can sense living beings with the Force, graft cybernetic replacement limbs, travel faster than light but no one thought to create a sonogram? And don't get me started on the Chosen One and the mido-clori-whatchamacallits.)

 

[Charwoman Gene]

Good stuff... My current idea I have knocking around is weirder. I take the prequels as canon, up until Padme gives birth. Padme dies in child birth, as do her children. Anakin/Vader wins at the lava fight. The reimagined Vader is more powerful, although less visually imposing. The galaxy has only one hope... The PC's....

 

[Nebten]

I personally feel that Vader would actually be less powerful if he won the lava fight. It's through his physical & mental losses that he drives himself so deeply into the Dark Side to achieve powerful almost equal to that of the Emperor.

In any case, I like the idea of re-examining the Clone Wars. Before all the prequels came out, I had my own idea of what the Clone Wars were from Obi-Wan's discription. I always thought it was some failed experiment by the Empire to mass produce human slaves but brainwashed into their station. Then somewhere along the lines they gained self-recognition and went Skynet (The Terminator)/ I, Robot on the galaxy. The Jedi were never a huge orginzation or governing body. They were solidary individuals traveling the systems like fictional ronin or grouped together like gypsies. But they fought the clones because they were an abomination to the Force and the Empire needed them due to their exception abilities. The Jedi already were few in numbers do to the fact that people stop following the "old-ways." Then you can have it either the remaining Jedi died int he Clone Wars and/or they were betrayed by Darth Vader/Empire after the Clone Wars for fear of them uniting againt the Emperors attempts for absolute control.

Sorry for the rambling.

 

[jinnetics]

Are Senators more like the rulers of their respective worlds? Leia's father sure seems to be one if she's a princess.

Just for the record, Leia is a princess because Bail Organa married into the royal family of Alderaan. Queen Breha, I think her name was.

 

[jinnetics]

In my alternate Star Wars, Obi-Wan dies in the fight with Darth Maul, rather than Qui-Gon. Jinn helps Anakin grow into a good Jedi who leads the Knights in the Slave Wars to liberate the slaves of the Outer Rim (not called the Clone Wars, though the clones do exist). Queen Amidala becomes the wife of Emperor Palpatine and secret lover of Anakin. Yoda falls to the dark side instead of Count Dooku, who plays an Obi-Wan role to Leia in the later generation. Luke is Padme's assassin, whom she intends to kill Palpatine.

 

[arscott]

In order to preserve secrecy, David Prouse gave the line "Luke, Obi-Wan Killed your father." in climactic ESB scene. "I am your father" was only added when James Earl Jones's voice was dubbed in.

Imagine what the sequel would be like if the original line stayed intact?

For the Star Wars game I ran, I created a new setting entirely--much of which was based on earlier drafts of Star Wars screenplays--there's a lot of interesting stuff in there, even if it's clear why it was abandoned.

For example:
*Princess Leia has two kid brothers.
*Lando is a clone, and Leia doesn't trust him for that reason.
*Vader has a much lower standing in the empire, and is at the mercy of the imperial moffs.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

I personally feel that Vader would actually be less powerful if he won the lava fight. It's through his physical & mental losses that he drives himself so deeply into the Dark Side to achieve powerful almost equal to that of the Emperor.

I can see your point of view has merit, but I have my rationales. The "Uncanned" Vader suffering only emotional loss? Far more powerful. Canned Vader's machine-body limits his connection to the force. (Keep in mind I'm a "prequel canon") I will not pursue this further as it is not the OP's canon change. (I'm not even beginning to talk about the PC Jedi's mentor, "Old Cyborg Ben"))

For the OP's point... who says the Emperor is a force-user? What if he's just a man, and Vader has personal loyalty to him? What if after failing to defeat the rebels at Yavin, Vader takes the fallout for the loss of the Death Star and is disgraced and drawn out. What if he joined the Rebellion, solely for revenge on the Emperor, maybe trying to subvert it for his own goals. He could then offer training to Luke!

 

[takasi]

What if Darth Vader is actually a badass alien underneath his spacesuit (just one of many different sets of easily removable body armor)?

Around the time of ESB (1980) the movie Alien had just come out and people had no idea what 'Game Over Man, Game Over!' meant. So what if Darth Vader looked like a jet black Alien looking humanoid? And what if the canon for Aliens was totally ignored? What if the Empire Strikes Back was actually the Alien vs Predator cheeseball crossover of its day?

Coming in 1980...
Star Wars & Aliens

The Alien in the original Alien really did infect Ripley (it wasn't just a dream). Ripley lands on the remote snow planet Hoth. A small group of research scientists, led by a young Obi Wan, extracted the alien safely using drugs and genetic engineering. This saved Ripley, and ended up molding the surviving Alien into a more humanoid form. This original Alien is Darth Vader. Using face sucker technology, a group of these scientists were able to create clones of this form, allowing the small colony to build a huge Empire with clone slaves. This Human Empire fights against an alien Galactic Republic (with some of the humans rebelling against their homeworlds).

Obi wan is actually Luke's father. Ripley is the Emperor and is Luke's mother. She has super Force Unleashed powers and looks just as young as she did in the original movie. Luke ends up killing his mother, but not before being infected with one of Ripley's experimental syrums. He slowly degenerates into an Alien hybrid, losing his morals first. As heir to the throne he becomes Galactic King Luke.

Jabba the Hutt is Luke's sister, and her father is Darth Vader (one of Ripley's demented experiments, the original infection of the Alien turned her into a crazy maniac). Jabba looks more like the Alien Resurrection abomination. Han Solo and Leia team up with Jabba's alien/droid Tatooine gang to rebel against Luke (and look for a cure for him, if possible). Darth Vader joins them wearing Boba Fett armor. No one trusts him but he's taken even more Levels in Badass.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

I had a Star Wars alternate history idea once:

I've always been a little confused by an aspect of the Force: the Dark Side is Bad, but some of its components — anger, fear, agression, destruction — are quite natural things, and the Light Side is portrayed as intimately part of the natural world. So why not the Dark Side?

Some 100 years before the events of Episode 1 a Force-sensitive from a species that's naturally fearful is turned down for becoming a Jedi because his species is seen as too likely to slip into the Dark Side. However this individual meets a Jedi exiled for advocating touching the Dark Side as well as the Light because they are both part of the larger whole. The rejected alien decides to take this philosophy and founds an order of Force-users that practices this doctrine while eschewing Jedi asceticism (and lightsabers, which are seen as too deadly).

So we reach Phantom Menace, and this organization — known as the Greysiders — has grown so as to present a rivalry with the Jedi. Qui-Gon, being the maverick that he is, is friends with one of them and brings the Greysider along on the fateful mission to Naboo. Episode 1 follows as normal, except that when Anakin is rejected the first time by the Jedi Council Qui-Gon allows the Greysiders to train him instead. This leaves Anakin much better equipped to deal with the death of his mother and also to freely take up a relationship with Padme (and doesn't start down the path that leads to his frightening vision of her dying). Sidious/Palpatine does not see him as suitable for corruption.

What happens afterwards is hazier: I tend to assume that without Anakin's help Palpatine can't create the Empire as effectively or not at all. Neither, however, does he have the chance to clue the Jedi in to Palpatine being a Sith. I could see this being a good spot to insert the PCs (though they'd know too much): the Clone War is dragging on, and someone has to find out who this mysterious backer of the Separatists is to finally stop them.