STAR WARS:
The Emperor's Mages.
Chapter The First:
In Which Our Journey Begins
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far, away:
After the Rebellion's crushing defeat at the Battle of the Yavin, the Galactic Empire, under the wise and benevolent rule of Emperor Palpatine, began an unheard of period of expansion. First, the Corporate Sector, long a thorn in the Empire's side, was crushed the battle of Kiegvhin's Folly, named after the fabled platinum-rich asteroid that was said to exist in the region.
Once the Corporate Sector Authority had been shattered beyond repair, its corrupt leaders rounded up and justly tortured and executed, and the Imperial Governors set firmly in control, the Empire had few places left to expand. This situation, if left unresolved, would cause the Galactic Empire to fall into the self-same corruption and avarice that had riddled the Republic. The Empire, deprived of the continued conquest that has fed tyrannical empires of its ilk for millennia, would consume itself like a serpent eating it's own tail.
There was only one solution that the Emperor's advisers could see. Expand into the Outer Rim, a place long bereft of civilization and law.
To this noble purpose, the Imperial Outer Rim Scouts were formed, given uniforms, ships, and accolades galore, and politely ordered to get the hell out of the government's sight and start making news-worthy discoveries.
One scout, on what he cynically believed would be a one way trip to the Cloak of the Sith region to investigate a, quote, 'anomaly in the fabric of space-time', made a discovery which would change his life, and the fate of the Galactic Empire, forever…
- From Shattered Wands and Rattled 'Sabers: an Informal But True History of the Wizard-Imperial Alliance, By Albus Dumbledore.
Unnamed Sector, Cloak of the Sith Region, Outer Rim. 3 Octander, 2 ABY.
Imperial Outer Rim Scout Lieutenant Jareth Rand swore loudly, and slammed his hydro-spanner against the hyper-drive manifold.
The thrice be-damned piece of kriffing coro-slime that had repaired this ship last would have a great deal of explaining to do, and Lieutenant Rand swore to himself that the void-breathing idiot would do so to the highest authorities.
The blasted thing had been on the fritz ever since he had left Ord Mantel. He'd spent half the trip buried in the thing, leaving the piloting to his droid, R2-A3.
"Beep boppity bleep booboooo." A metallic whine drifted from the scout ship's cockpit. Jared translated it to mean something along the lines of 'Come quick, you have to see this!,' although substantially less emotional in its deliverance.
Jareth, being an emotionally mature individual, jerked in surprise at the noise, slammed his head against the low ceiling, dropped his hydro-spanner on his foot, and turned red in the face. Slowly, and with great deliberation, he informed the universe in general and R2-A3 in particular precisely what the both of them could do with the ship, technical malfunctions, and the recently dropped tools; and this was most emphatically not an instruction to utilize the latter to repair the particular examples of the middle item that currently plagued the former.
"Beep boop pidooooooo!"
"Oh, fine!" he screeched, "But if this isn't good, I'll have you melted down for spare parts."
As it turned out, it was good.
They had entered a certain region of space that I'm sure will be very familiar to my devoted readers. Lieutenant Rand could do nothing but stare in awe. There was a whole solar system out there, right in the middle of the… time-space distortion thing. He had thought that that was impossible.
"A3," he called softly, as if to speak louder would be to blaspheme against the miracle before him, "Take us down."
And so Imperial Outer Rim Scout Lieutenant Jareth Rand discovered the world of Earth. This world had long gone undiscovered due to the odd time-space distortion that most reputable scientists had declared would obviously render such a world uninhabitable.
But time and space, as Lieutenant Rand would discover, were not the only things that were distorted by the region. The Force, also, was changed by the area, as were those who wielded it. The alteration was almost undetectable in the Force, but the Force-wielders had changed beyond recognition.
They had become wizards…
- From Shattered Wands and Rattled 'Sabers: an Informal But True History of the Wizard-Imperial Alliance, By Albus Dumbledore.
Hogwarts Castle, Scotland. October 10, 1996.
Albus Dumbledore sat in his office, his backside firmly planted in his thinking chair.
The chair, which had originally belonged to Godric Gryffyndor, had been the traditional seat of the Head of Gryffyndor House. It has gone out of fashion during the reign of Queen Victoria, being considered far too plain and humble for a professor of the greatest institute of magical learning in the Western world.
But, as the current Headmaster had discovered in his fifth year, (after finding it in the Room of Requirement while trying to dispose of a bottle of smuggled Scotch) it made an excellent chair in which to think about, variously: esoteric methods of Transfiguration, the affairs of the world, and how the Hell one was going to explain being in the Room of Requirement with a bottle of whiskey in hand when the Caretaker arrived in the morning to undo the lock-spell he had recently installed.
But even his hard-won thinking chair couldn't help Albus Dumbledore figure out what he was going to do about this scout from the stars. The story that he had told Minister Fudge before passing out in his bed at St. Mungos had been utterly fantastical, but they had been forced to believe it when a metal… thing had whizzed into the room, beeping loudly enough to wake the dead.
Hadn't woken Rand, though.
Fudge, of course, thought only of his own popularity. If he was the one to forge an alliance between the Galactic Empire and Wizarding World, an alliance that could take his people into the stars, he might never have to leave the Minister's office.
Albus was less than sanguine about the idea. Reading between the lines of what Rand had told them and the propaganda pamphlets in his ship, the Empire was a tyrannical government ruled by a sorcerous despot who put Voldemort to shame.
"'And nine rings'," he quoted ruefully, "'were given to race of Men, who –above all else- desire power.' And, of course, those rings were magic."
A soothing crooning purled in Dumbledore's right ear. Fawkes, sensing the Headmaster's distress, had landed on the chair's back.
"Well, old friend," Dumbledore murmured quietly, "We'll find some way to stop this. We have to." He smiled slightly as he remembered another muggle book.
"We wizards must be the magic against the magic; and against the steel, too."
A noble sentiment indeed, but one that was ultimately thwarted by the specter of politics. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if the Alliance had not… no, this is untrue. I always wonder what would have happened. In the end, as it turns out, it was a necessity of the highest order, but… the costs were almost too high. May the Light preserve me, they were too high!
-From the diary of Albus Dumbledore.
Department of Secrets. October 31, 1989.
"All the Empire wishes, Minister Fudge, is to exist in harmony with our brethren of Earth, and to freely exchange culture and information."
The words flowed as slickly as greased mud over ice from Moff Tarkin's lips, and had approximately the same foul taste, as far as Dumbledore was concerned. He wanted desperately to speak up, to denounce the Empire and its tricks, and to hex the lithesome Moff out of this world and into the next. But to do so would be to face death himself, he knew, and so he kept his peace.
"Well, of course, Ambassador," Fudge agreed obsequiously, head nodding so hard it almost fell off. "This is some that we greatly desire, also. Perhaps, one day, we might even petition to join your noble Empire."
Emperor Palpatine, in his wisdom, was unwilling to wait upon the foolish Minister Fudge for permission to bring Imperial enlightenment to the benighted wizards of the planet Earth. And so, with blessings of the people of Earth and the Galaxy at large, our beloved and fearless leader authorized Operation Terran Freedom, a police action designed to free the Earthlings from the grip of a thousand petty governments.
A challenge was made by traitors in the Imperial Senate on the basis of some supposed violation of the War Powers Act, but this was solved by the just dissolution of that archaic and inflexible body, and the righteous execution of the traitors.
A Defense of the Just and Righteous Actions of the Galactic Empire Concerning the Wizarding Matter. Essay by Melk Saab, Chief of the Imperial Propaganda Dissemination Department.
Various locations. December 29, 1989 or Decander 29, 2 ABY.
At number 10 Downing Street, the muggle Prime Minister gazed down at the latest report from the military. It wasn't good. The alien ships had landed only three hours ago, and they had already taken half the country!
He picked up the phone, dialed the number they had provided over loudspeaker, and said the words he had never thought that a Prime Minister of England would ever say.
"We surrender."
At the same time that the British Prime Minister was signing England's surrender papers with the Queen watching sadly on, the President of the United States was in a seedy hotel room, a young intern keeping him… company. He was dozing when the Imperial troopers blasted in the hotel's front door, and was pulling up his trousers when they tore the door from his own room. He had just done up the fly when they stunned him and hauled him outside, to be taken to some Force-forsaken prison asteroid.
In orbit, the Emperor sat in his throne on his flagship. Shadows cloaked the throne and its occupant, and the officer who was making his report seemed to be speaking into a bottomless abyss.
At least, that was Vader's small fancy, as he looked at the stammering fool with a contemptuous expression that was hidden by his mask.
"In summation, m-m-m-my l-l-lord, the invasion g-goes as planned."
"Excellent, Lieutenant. And the Wizarding Governments?"
"C-cooperative to the point of obsequiousness, my lord," the Lieutenant drawled.
Vader quashed a chuckle. At least he doesn't stutter so much when he's being ironic, he thought.
"They shall make an excellent addition to our forces, master," he intoned in sepulchral tones. "This magic may have less sheer power and range than traditional uses of the Force, but it's flexibility and structured nature could make a powerful asset indeed."
"I noticed this," Palpatine hissed in his eerie voice.
"But first, these young wizards must be trained in the ways of the empire, My Lord, must they not?"
And so it was that Hogwarts underwent the greatest change in its history. For the first time, her Headmaster was driven out by a foreign power. For the first time, Hogwarts served a foreign lord. And for the first time, Hogwarts taught the Dark Arts.
And, of course, it was no longer called Hogwarts.
- Hogwarts: A History.