Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor: Difference between revisions

 

{{quote|''None of the stories people tell about me can change who I really am.''|Luke Skywalker}}

 

 

It's been six months since [[Return of the Jedi]], and the Rebel Alliance has become the New Republic while the Empire is in the early stages of splitting into rival factions. Luke Skywalker is now General of the Rapid Response Task Force, a small fleet that the Republic sends as needed to patch up the front and execute special missions. Their current assignment- to track the forces of a theatrical and megalomaniacal Imperial warlord with the unlikely name of [[Meaningful Name|Lord Shadowspawn]] to his home base and bring him to justice. This base turns out to be on Mindor, a former vacation world devastated by repeated meteorite impacts.

When Luke tracks Shadowspawn's forces there, he gets drawn into a trap, as do Han, Leia, and Rogue Squadron who come after him, and Lando Calrissian and the gang of [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|Mandalorian]] mercenaries who come after ''them''. It turns out that a dark presence has been waiting on Mindor to make its move with a scheme that threatens not only Luke's life, but his very soul...

 

* [[Action Girl]]: Leia (of course); Aeona Cantor

* [[Adaptation Decay]]: Luke frequently bemoans the fact that he is the subject of numerous over-the-top adventure holodramas in-universe that bear little to no resemblance to his actual life. {{spoiler|One of these, Luke Skywalker and the Jedi's Revenge, turns out to be [[Not So Harmless]]. Ironically, the [[Framing Story]] produces ''yet another'' in-universe example of this, due to the [[Unreliable Narrator]]. Who Luke hired to do exactly the opposite, but who found it more profitable to give Luke his money back and instead sell an over-the-top version to the holodrama producers.}}

* [[And I Must Scream]]: How Cronal prepares Luke to be broken so he can [[Grand Theft Me|take over]]; make him live through an eternity of The Dark, the time after [[The Stars Are Going Out|all the stars go out]], until he gives up. Luke escapes, and {{spoiler|Cronal tries it on Leia, but makes a more personal effort.}}

{{spoiler|[[Heroic Resolve|She just wouldn't give up]].}} }}

* [[Artifact of Doom]]: Shadowspawn's Sunset Crown and {{spoiler|Cronal's Shadow Crown}}.

* [[Becoming the Mask]]: After his [[And I Must Scream|exposure to the Dark]], Luke becomes incredibly jaded and nihilistic. But he's still ''Luke'', and he can't and won't stop trying to save everyone. He consciously decides to act exactly like he would have before seeing the Dark and the "true" nature of the Force, in the hopes that if he does it for long enough, it won't be an act anymore.

* [[Beware the Nice Ones]]: After Luke lets himself get captured, he asks too many questions and a stormtrooper clubs him with a blaster rifle, telling him to be quiet. Luke says "Please don't hit me" and is smacked again while the stormtrooper says "Didn't you ''hear'' me?" Luke says he did, but didn't see any particular reason to obey. The stormtrooper tries to hit him a third time, and Luke catches the blaster rifle and shatters it. Another stormtrooper tries to shoot him; Luke catches the blaster bolts.

* [[Big Damn Heroes]]/[[The Cavalry]]: We actually get ''nested'' BDHs, when a few of the people who rescue other heroes get caught in traps themselves.

* [[Biting the Hand Humor]]: When we first see Han and Leia, they're in the middle of negotiations with Mandolorians, whom Han snarkily thinks of as thinking they're better than everyone else, ever. The book is dedicated, in part, to Mando fangirl Karen Traviss.

* [[Body Horror]]: Cronal does ''nasty'' things with meltmassif. ''ROCKS DO NOT BELONG THERE!''

** Geptun, {{spoiler|Nick Rostu, and Kar Vastor}} were all used in Stover's earlier SW novel ''[[Shatterpoint]]''.

* [[Call Forward]]: On the very last page of the book, Luke asserts that he {{spoiler|doesn't like redheads. He eventually marries the very redheaded Mara Jade.}}

* [[Foe Yay]]: Cronal's motives can be summed up as "With my powers and Luke's young, handsome, sexy body, I can control the universe until the end!" (He doesn't actually say "sexy", but everything else is 100% true.)

* [[Disc One Final Boss]]: {{spoiler|Shadowspawn, or at least the physical Shadowspawn "played" by Nick Rostu}}

* [[Gambit Roulette]]: {{spoiler|Blackhole}} has a ''very'' elaborate one built up around Luke- basically, he's lured Luke to Mindor, {{spoiler|and created the over-the-top Shadowspawn as a fitting nemesis for him to kill, with the idea that he will do so, but be captured by Blackhole's men. Blackhole will then transfer his consciousness into Luke's body and return to the Rebellion as its greatest hero, from where he will be in a position to seize control of the galaxy with no one the wiser}}. And of all things, the only reason it failed was because {{spoiler|Blackhole couldn't resist giving his most visible pawn a [[Punny Name]]}}.

* [[Good News, Bad News]]: Han Solo, arriving into the situation at Mindor and being filled in, reflects that it's like an extended good-news-bad-news joke. Bad: gravity-well projectors keep them from escaping. Good: too many for the enemy to protect them all. Bad: Because there are thousands. Good: They're little things on asteroids and can't stay powered for more than four days. Bad: the asteroids have destablized orbits and will start falling into the sun in two days. Good: Most of them are on little dinky asteroids which will just burn up. Bad: Some of them are on massive ones which will trigger solar flares which will kill pretty much everything in the system. Worse: Each projector destroyed hastens the process.

* [[Grand Theft Me]]: {{spoiler|what Blackhole planned to do to Luke}}

* [[Ho Yay]]: A little bit between Wes and Hobbie, of the cliché "Your lips say no, but your eyes say yes." variety. Actually, ever since a [[Yaoi Fangirl]] found Aaron, Wes and Hobbie have been designated as [[Ambiguously Gay]].

* [[The Messiah]]: Even when he's in terrible shape, Luke is amazingly compassionate.

* [[Mind Rape]]: After Cronal puts him through an eternity of The Dark, Luke escapes and is depressed for quite a while. {{spoiler|Then we see this [[Neon Genesis Evangelion|Instrumentality]]-like world, where Cronal is a black hole at the middle, Leia is a bright and supermassive star tide-locked with him, and everyone else is stars. Luke realizes that Cronal is trying to do the same thing to ''her'', but unlike Luke she doesn't have an avenue of escape. Cronal's POV has him trying to break her, and ''nothing he tries works''; when he breaks through her resistance he finds her mind shining with light that "stabs him like a knife in the eye". Then Luke finds them, physically rescues Leia, and informs Cronal that a very angry ally is on his way to Cronal's real body. Cronal jumps to hyperspace, which can't interact with realspace - and in the Force, Luke follows him, bright with enough Light to deserve a capital letter. In The Dark, Cronal becomes a colossal black hole and swallows Luke effortlessly, and with a mixture of contempt and relief he thinks that Luke's trick had done nothing to him whatsoever.}}

** {{spoiler|The opposite of a black hole is a white fountain; the theory is that what falls into a black hole passes into another universe, and the matter falling into another universe's black holes passes into ours as pure, transcendent energy. Luke becomes one of these.}}

* [[Mythology Gag]]: Far too many to list.

* [[Not Quite Dead]]: {{spoiler|The end of the novel suggests that Cronal's mind survived his body's destruction. Other EU material confirms it.}}

** {{spoiler|It was a bit of a [[Foregone Conclusion]], as said material was published years before this novel.}}

*** {{spoiler|Assuming this novel isn't meant to be a [[Retcon]], since this novel's [[Nietzsche Wannabe|Cronal]] doesn't really jibe with the Palpatine loyalist who survives up to the NJO. Wookiepedia says that he was mentioned in later books, but not featured.}}

** To give you an idea, ''Luke Skywalker and the Jedi's Revenge'' is about a ''[[Star Wars]]'' where [[Draco in Leather Pants|Palpatine is actually good but Vader steers him wrong]], Anakin and Vader really ''are'' separate people, Anakin as Palpatine's loyal knight and Vader as his [[Sixth Ranger Traitor|traitorous knight]]. Vader [[Evil Plan|convinced the Jedi Council to assassinate Palpatine, and then executed Order 66 himself]]. Anakin rescued Palpatine, and then [[Heroic Sacrifice|died trying to save the Jedi younglings]]. Anakin did, however, have a son that even ''he'' didn't know of: Luke Skywalker. Darth Vader tried to convince Luke Skywalker [[We Can Rule Together|to join him in overthrowing Palpatine]], but Luke refused. Palpatine was convinced by this that the son of his most loyal general would be the ideal Emperor, further confirmed when Luke went out of his way to rescue Han Solo, and when Vader captured Luke, Palpatine offered him the chance to be the new Emperor. Before Luke could [[Jumped At the Call|agree to be Emperor]], Vader attacked Palpatine, but Luke [[Heroic BSOD|was still trying to process all that had transpired]]. With Palpatine dead, Luke eventually snapped out of it to kill Vader. But, since he couldn't save his benefactor, he felt himself only worthy of living among Rebels and pirates.

* [[Old Soldier]]: Group Captain Klick has been around since the Battle of Geonosis, and is damn well proud of it. He's not too fond of non-clone troopers, either...

* [[Religion of Evil]]: The Way of the Dark in a nutshell.

* [[Self-Deprecation]]: Stover pretty much describes the entire EU as tripe. Or at least fanfic as tripe. Or [[Alternate Universe Fic]] as tripe. Or maybe all of them.

* [[Shown Their Work]]: Stover has read other books in the EU - even primarily EU-based characters act like they should. [[X Wing Series|Wedge]] makes complex decisions after a second's thought and will cheerfully defy orders; Tycho is more solemn and follows his lead. [[Marvel Star Wars|Fenn Shysa]] is an idealist and doesn't have the standard degree of Mandalorian arrogance. The other Mandalorians all believe themselves to be the bees' knees, but other characters find this annoying rather than agreeing with them.

* [[Slave Mooks]]: The Pawns

* [[Space Is Cold]]: Averted except in the dream Cronal [[Mind Rape|forces on Luke]], which takes place over countless millennia anyway, and the description actually mirrors what's been done to him with meltmassif.

* [[Space Is Noisy]]: Also averted, most notably in the dream, in which he's floating bodiless in space.

* [[The Stars Are Going Out]]: Part of the dream of the Dark has this happening.

Almost. }}

* [[Take That]]: The book appears to take a rather amusing shot at the particularly gratuitous levels of [[Hold Your Hippogriffs]]/ [[Pardon My Klingon]] in the early decades of the [[Star Wars Expanded Universe|EU]]

* [[That's No Moon]]: [[Incredibly Lame Pun|It wasn't a rock. It was a rock monster! Rock monster! Rock monster! Rock monster! Rock monster! Rock monster!]]

* [[Wild Card]]: Aeona and her crew of Mindorese rebels, who hate the Empire, but don't really have much use for ''anyone''. {{spoiler|They wind up fighting for the Republic by the end, but not before some rough spots and Luke making a very understated threat.}}

 

{{reflist}}