Wookie Sheering
By Josh Jacobs
EPISODE VIII
The empire has taken over much of the galaxy. Wait, imagine that this is written in those famous into-space-scrolling letters with the classic John Williams music. Actually, if you want to get really accurate: first picture the Twentieth Century Fox thing with the fanfare and… Ok ok, I'm getting on with it.
The empire has taken over much of the galaxy. After Darth Vader and the Emperor died in what has come to be known as the Great Ewok Embarrassment, The Imperial Empire still had an enormous army, millions of Storm Troopers and Star Destroyers and 3 more Death Stars in progress. There was even talk among the rebels that the Emperor had planned for the first Death Star to be destroyed in a crazy conspiracy. The rebels got a win that day and celebrated on Endor that night. Chewbacca got his first Ewok girlfriend, no one judged him. Life was good.
But destroying one Death Star did not destroy the empire. A new Sith was ready to take his place. And after the second Death Star was destroyed, Darth Akbar quietly and swiftly rose to power. Yes, Admiral Ackbar was actually a Sith traitor. Why didn't anyone bother to find out how the Emperor knew about the rebels plans? There was definitely a mole… and it was Admiral Ackbar. He knew it was a trap the whole time; he wasn't fooling anyone. Do you think it was a coincidence that, even though he was in the central command ship, the Death Star didn't blow him up first? Think about it, son! Check yoself.
Darth Ackbar was even crueler than the previous Emperor. He imposed sanctions on the planets who didn't cooperate with his growing empire and destroyed those that tried to up rise. Darth Ackbar ran his empire with an iron fin and only took prisoners when he fancied sushi; he had his massive kitchen staff prepare him feasts using the meat of every prisoner who managed to stay alive long enough to be cooked raw. Akbar was as cunning as he was cruel and as cruel as he was strong and as strong as he was ruthless and as ruthless as he was cunning and as cunning as he was fantastic at painting with water color (but it was "only a hobby" he would say in a tone that was a little too defensive). He was a master in the dark arts, an unbeatable lightsaber dueler, and a fearsome lover. He once fertilized four hundred larva-implanted eggs in one evening (and we're talking Hoth evenings), since that is how his species made the love. He once dark-side-of-the-force-throat-choked 14 Jawas at the same time, two of whom he could only see via hologram.
The planet of Kashyyyk was a special case for Darth Ackbar's massive galactic takeover. Upon arriving, he noticed a perfect terrain and natural environment and he had the Darth smarts, a Sith Sense if you will, to recognize a planet worth utilizing. Kashyyyk was also in the Mid Rim region and the Mytaranor sector which was practically an ideal location for Akbar, who had to be in Coruscant two times a week for meetings with the Joint Chiefs (more on them later, if I remember. Which I probably won't). Kashyyyk was the perfect mixture of forested land and tropical beaches and oceans. He especially liked the amount of water, being an amphibious Mon Calamari, so he decided to turn the planet into a secret Sith retirement home planet.
He built a beautiful nest in the water and had an enormous storm trooper outpost built where a newly bulldozed forest used to stand. The only problem was, and it was a sizeable problem, that more than half the land was wild, untamed forest. Or to put Kashyyyk more eloquently:
"[Kashyyyk] is wild and untamed. It stirs the blood and makes one feel…alive."
―Juhani
Darth Ackbar's army could bomb the crap out of the forest, and they did, but the trees were ancient and enormous and the cutthroat Wookie armies in the forest were allusive and impossible to track. This made them dangerous and the guerrilla-like (but what is a guerrilla but a tame Wookie?) armies delayed every Imperial building project and interfered with every cargo delivery and Imperial investors visit. The rebel Wookie forces disrupted Akbar's expansion to the point where young storm trooper trainees were dying of starvation due to lack of transport ships arriving, and not dying of friendly fire like the survey from the year before suggested was the leading cause of Imperial troop fatalities.
Darth Ackbar hated the Wookies. He hated all creatures with fur and any species that had hair made him sick. Some of his generals speculated later, as they drafted the late Ackbar's biography ***insert funny name***, that he developed a hatred for the mammalian species at a young age. His father was the head of the Confederate Calamaries, an extremist group fighting Frojongs at the time, a south Kashyyyk mole-like creature who the Confederates eventually hunted to extinction under the political propaganda which preached womb births and mother's milk to be signs of the Wookie-devil (who is terrifying and makes the Christian Devil look like a beautiful Unicorn in comparison).
Young Ackbar became obsessed with Aikbag Ragabong, a radical Mon Calamari author whose extreme political stance on hair being "demonic" and "The skin which is that of the sinner" was legendary. Akbar's father had been jailed for being linked to Ragabong's terrorist lice unleashings and mass mammal murders. Before he was fifteen years out of the egg, Young Ackbar found himself jailed as well, joining his father and surrounded by extremist Fishlike Inmates. Ackbar had been found guilty of four counts of mole murder, a more serious crime than molesting, but many postulate that he wanted to get into the jail from the beginning. Ackbar poured through extremist journals and was exposed to confederate Calamari propaganda, and most importantly: in jail, Ackbar was introduced to a young Darth Vader, who was working as a jail guard; putting in hours for his Dark Side of the Force Annual Evaluation. They developed a friendship, Vader found a true friend and Ackbar found the dark side of the force, if you know what I mean… like, he became a Sith…
Years pass, Ackbar gets out of jail, moves to Alderan, gets a job in the army, and avoids being blown up on Alderan thanks to Darth Vader's anonymous tip, if you know what I mean. Ackbar rises in ranks in the rebel forces, reporting to the Emperor the whole time and yada yada yada "you can see here the Death Star orbiting the forest moon of Endor" yada yada yada… "it's a trap" …yada yada yada… all the crap I've written so far in this story …yada yada yada.
Darth Ackbar, now a Sith overlord and enforcer of more than 4/5ths of the known universe, had a new problem. How was he, an aging fish who was about ready to settle down, going to deal with an unstable retirement planet, namely Kashyyyk? There are two types of high metaclorian bearers in this universe: The kind that loses a couple battles and then gives up in defeat and hides in the Dagoba system for years before halfheartedly trying to stop the only person who could possibly defeat the emperor and Darth Vader when he clearly wasn't ready, and then there's the kind of force-masterer who brushes himself off and goes back in there and kicks some ass. Darth Ackbar turned out to be the ladder. The ladder for which the spirits of the dark side climbed down to the planet of Kashyyyk and took control of their nature and their lives. (See how I changed what "the ladder" meant and turned it into a beautiful metaphor? Not every fan fiction author could pull that off. There's nothing like a good metaphor. And that was nothing like a good metaphor.)
Darth Ackbar brought troops from all over the galaxy, nay, from all over the universe to aid in the destruction of the beautiful Kashyyyk forests and to capture all of the Wookie rebels. Brigades of clones, legions of Jar Jar Binx creatures, 400 Hutt soldiers, two garrisons of those Yeti snow monsters from The Empire Strikes Back, that purple elephant who plays the piano thing. Even Lando Calrizian, who felt connected to Darth Ackbar immediately, since they both grew up dealing with a lot of speciesism, answered the summons to aid in the taming of the wilds of the dark forests of the planet of Kashyyyk. The war was brutal. The war was bloody. But Darth Ackbar, Sith lord of the known universe, finally won.
The Wookie armies were wiped out, the forests all but destroyed. Now, where the forests had been, concentration camps and jails had been assembled, containing millions of Wookies from all over the planet. Mother Wookies, father Wookies, hypoallergenic Wookies. Wookies of all shapes and sizes and hair colors and eye colors and teeth lengths and laser crossbow skills. The jails were inescapable and the camps were guarded night and day by disgusting clones of a General Grieves and Pig Face Bar Guy's lovechild. It was awful.
Darth Ackbar, still committed to fully retiring and assured that the planet was now fully secure, left the job of emperoring to his son Xenu, with whom he and Lando had raised together and who would later become the patron saint of science and founder of the shockingly accurate real history of the universe as conveyed by the Church of Scientology. Xenu moved to Corsucant to rule the universe and Admiral Ackbar settled down in his villa on the beaches of North Kashyyyk.
Years passed and Xenu ruled the galaxies with an atomic fist. He began emailing his father less frequently and eventually stopped responding to Papa Ackbar at all, even though he definitely got the messages because he posted other things online and wrote on Jabba the Hutt's wall so he definitely got the messages but chose to ignore them but definitely got them. In the end, the only messages Ackbar received from Xenu's office were from the Imperial budgetary sector, which sent continuous warnings that the Wookie internment camps were very costly and in danger of losing all Imperial funding.
Ackbar, acting King of the planet, was fed up. As we've established earlier, he is the kicks ass and takes names type of Sith lord and he wasn't going to be snubbed and disrespected in his later years of life. Ackbar made a kingly decree that all Wookies were to be completely shaved and, if no hair was found on their bodies, they would be set free. He included a provision that stated that all Wookies of fighting age would be forced to enlist in Ackbar's Kashyyyk Military Army.
The Wookies were shaved and assigned shanty towns and then, after shoving all of the warrior-aged Wookies into a ship destined for the capitol city, the shaved Wookies, some whose skin was dark, some pink and pasty, looked lanky and awkward, naked in their newly sheered skin, and were left alone for the first time in years. The Wookies were in shock and depressed, but they were somehow able to survive. They lived in caves, they made fires; they helped the planet life regrow. They killed other haired animals to stay warm in the winter because, even though their hair started to grow back in certain places, it was thin and splotchy and fell out easily. Maybe it was the shock of the internment camps and losing their families or maybe it was just what happens to Wookies when they are sheered, but whatever it was, the Wookies were never able to grow their Wookie manes long again.
Ackbar's army, now large with the addition of the shaved fighting Wookies, declared war on Xenu and the Empire. There was a ruthless war. Xenu's storm troopers and Death Star fleet overtook the planet. War waged. It was terrible. Ackbar's great capitol city of Ackbaristan was nuclear bombed. Ackbar was killed. Kashyyyk's land was ravished into a barren wasteland and its large oceans were violent and savage.
CHAPTER TWO: The Meaning of Life
It is modern day. We have iPods and Taylor Swift and other fun pop culture references that will unnecessarily make this writing dated. A man is walking down the street. He is late for work. He is in a suit and talking on the phone. There's a lady drinking coffee. There's an older lady crossing the bustling streets. There's a stoplight turning from red to green and cars going in fast motion. There's a guy selling hotdogs and an exterior shot of a skyscraper with some poetic clouds in fast motion passing in the sunny reflection. Aren't you feeling like it's a normal busy day in a modern city? If you aren't yet, go watch the opening credits of the latest movie starring Kathrine Hagel and you'll get in the mood.
It's a normal sunny day, a taxi drives by and pulls over for a black guy, breaking the stereotype and hoping to someday change the world with its gesture. A little girl is licking ice cream that is ridiculously large for the tiny cone it is teetering off of.
SUDDENELY… Vroom! Blam! Boom! Crash! Thump! Screech! Ahhh! *)#%*(# +!
Something comes slamming at rocket speed leaving an enormous hole in the street, taking up a full three lanes. Cars come screeching and crashing to a halt, smoke is streaming from the hole. A woman screams! The Evangelical taxi driver thinks it's a sign from God that racism is warranted! The little girl dives for her ice cream in slow motion, symbolizing something to someone who's deep.
Finally all of the noise stops. The cars have all crashed or stopped in shock. The shouting has quieted and all that is left is the smoke pouring out of the massive hole.
All of a sudden, a large dark brown shape appears grabbing the sidewalk from below. A couple of seconds pass and another identical shape comes up next to it. Smoke exuding from the pit.
Slowly, a creature pulls himself up from the places it has grabbed until a 7 foot tall Wookie is standing on the street facing the hundreds of on looking people.
The Wookie looks around, just as bewildered at the sight of humans as they are of him.
Everyone is silent. Speechless. Staring at the massive creature. Taking pictures with their iphones and trying to upload them to various social networking sites.
He stumbles forward and the crowds part instantly. He continues on, frantically looking around, picking up speed.
He gets to the beach and stops before he hits the water. There are some people sitting on the beach, but mostly older folks and gang members working on their tans, since everyone else has to be at work or school. The Wookie, who has traveled for centuries in a carbonated state (or maybe a carbonited state, I'm not sure) and who had awoken from thousands of years of space hibernation just minutes before, looks out upon the beautiful San Francisco Bay and out to Alcatraz island and a tear comes to his enormous bloodshot eye.
Our Wookie drops to his knees, now completely overcome to crying. He throws his head back, reaches both massive arms to the Wookie heavens and cries out in that classic Wookie way.
"*******Cgagagaaaaa***.
And thanks to google translate, we know that that is Wookie for, "Oh my god. I'm back. I'm home. All the time we finally really did it. You maniacs. You blew it up. Oh, damn you. God damn you all to hell!"