Origins of Anakin Skywalker
A short-story by Oancea Raul-Calin
Description:
Can the Force be used to create life when one is willing to tap into the forbidden reservoirs of dark side power?
Or maybe we are all mere conductors to the will of the Force and we are just too narrow-minded to realize it when we are blinded by our delusional view of the universe?
Tatooine.
The planet of the most wretched people and aliens.
And yet; it is more than meets the eye.
The light side surfaces even on planets like this. Even if they seem to be too inappropriate for a man to make his family.
But this is not about a man, but about a woman.
Her name: Shmi Skywalker.
She is nothing more but an ordinary human held as a slave by a Toydarian junk dealer named Watto. But her spirit was always impressive. She always impressed the vile Toydarian. He could never break her no matter what.
But that doesn't mean she liked the life she had. Shmi wanted something more than what Watto 'offered' her. She wanted something else. She wanted: freedom.
She was inside doing the things normally a slave would do. And then she hears a familiar voice,
"Shmi!"
She turned her head to the voice,
"Yes, master, Watto?", she said terrified.
"No, 'Watto', Shmi. Only, 'master' for you.", he added while his chest was puffing with superiority.
"Yes, master."
The Toydarian laughed,
"Good. I knew you are a wise woman."
Watto treated her always with superiority and irony. But even if he didn't like to admit it; he cared about her when there was no stake involved.
"I need you to visit a 'friend' of mine about some my own stuff and take it to me."
"Where more exactly?", she asked her Toydarian master.
"The Jundland Wastes.", he added firmly.
Her heart snapped.
"But that place is crawling with Sand People, master. They will kill me if I go there."
"Won't. I have managed to get three guards to accompany you, Shmi."
"So kind of you, master.", she said back to him with seeming humility.
Shmi Skywalker took her sandstorm clothes and stepped out.
"Shmi-"
"Yes, master?", she turned her head again,
"watch out, my daughter.", he said to her.
Daughter? She called her a daughter. That was something new even for the Toydarian. Shmi saw a glimpse of his empathy.
"Yes.", she replied back to her master.
Somewhere else in the galaxy. On Coruscant: two Sith Lords were experimenting with the dark side of the Force in trying to unlock the mysteries of the Force , to see if they could bend it to their will. One was the Master, a Muun, and the other the apprentice, a human. Both were yellow eyed beings with a taste for knowledge and power; dressed in traditional Sith robes.
Darths Plagueis and Sidious.
"Master will we be able to unlock the full secrets of the dark side?", Sidious added with doubt,
"It would take an eternity, Sidious. But-"
Plagueis hesitated,
"but if we just find the secret to immortality. Then time itself won't matter for neither of us."
"And when we gain the final knowledge: we will rule the entire galaxy. And we shall crush all those who oppose our commands.", confidently he added.
"You-"
"What, master?", Sidious could sense his bad mood,
"you have such a limited perception of the universe and the Force. When we will be gods: none of this will ever matter."
"We won't do the same mistakes as the Sith of the past had done.", Plagueis added focusing at their attempt of blinding the Jedi's foresight.
"But master-", Sidious responded with displeasure,
"The Sith must become life preservers. Not life destroyers as they were in the past."
"Only then the dark side will triumph when we will get past over our own tiny ambitions, Sidious."
"Only then the Sith Order will live forever. Only when we will become the Force itself and shape the galaxy as we please to."
"Nevermind, master Plagueis.", Sidious rushed in words.
Plagueis felt his apprentice's conflicting emotions too and stopped their experimenting with the dark side.
"Enough for today, Sidious. You can go in your room and rest.", the Muun added.
Sidious was already gone.
With his student gone—the Muun gently closed his eyes and began to meditate. He let anger and hatred to fester inside him—releasing waves of dark side energy. Unbeknownst the Muun; the apprentice was behind the door, concealing his presence with the Force.
After intense minutes of meditation, Plagueis' foresight was struck by vivid images.
He saw a woman-from the race of the humans—wandering in the desert with three guards.
"Hmm.", the Muun said, with curiosity, through his breathing mask.
"The perfect subject to my goal in manipulating the midi-chlorians and obtain the necessary element in destroying the Jedi.", Plagueis laughed in silence with irony.
Sidious, hearing all of this, wanted to burst out and attack the old sage alien; but it wouldn't be wise. Sidious knew that.
'He knew how to manipulate midi-chlorians: and all this time he pretended he does not know. I was nothing but a pawn to him?! Arrogant, bastard Muun. I will make sure of you. No one fools me and gets away with it.', Sidious cracked his teeth, but barely could one see them as he didn't raise his lips.
'You may hold the power, 'master'. But I hold the 'treachery'.', the angered man added. His heart filled with fury and wrath. So much: that if he were a star, he'd have exploded and kill everything in his path.
Plagueis stood up, called his lightsabre using the Force and set on a journey to find this mysterious woman she saw in his vision.
The green eyed monster saw his alien master boarding his Scimitar taking his flight. And the only thing he could do was but to wonder where would he go.
In the other corner of the galaxy, Shmi was already tired due to the road's length. There was still much sand to step.
"I have to take my breath. Wait a mom-", she gasped taking a bottle of water out of her bag.
"Are there three more for us?", one guard added.
"No. But I guess you can drink from this.", she said.
"Thank you, lady Shmi."
"No one called me, 'Shmi' 'till now.", she smiled.
"Well, no one ever served us with something if we asked to.", another interfered in Shimi's discussion.
"Oh. Okay.", she took her bag on her back and took it off again.
Many hours passed since she and the three men took it off. And the time was critical because the guy who had to bring Watto's precious stuff was about to come flying a Black Sun starship.
Thank to the Force they were already in the Jundland Wastes.
"Look. There. He' comin'.", one of the guards said with exaltation.
As the ship was ready to land and the man to give his stuff to the slave Shmi; a pack of Tusken Raiders, 'Sand People', as Shmi and others called them, were greeting them.
Shmi could hear them. She could hear that familiar roar. They were humming like bees and scream like pigs. It was in fact a mixture of both.
They assaulted them all.
Four Tuskens lashed at the guards. Shmi hit one with her bag; and he hit the dirt.
One Tusken jumped on a guard's back and strangled him; another guard tried to give them a death blow. He failed. The Tusken killed him.
And the last guard did one thing no man, with honor, would ever do. He fled. He ran as fast as he could and didn't look back.
While Shmi was fighting for her life 'till death, another spaceship was flying in the sky of Tatooine.
"Let me go! Let me go!", she cried out of despair.
"HELP!"
But there was no one who could help her.
Or it was?
The uncanny, quite imposing ship landed.
The Tuskens tied Shmi's hands and feet with rope and were about to take her when they heard the ship's door opening.
It was the Scimitar.
It was Darth Plagueis.
"Urrak!", Plagueis said on their language to stop,
"Oru uru kak.", he threatened them to put their spears and crossbows down.
"Ur er rre!", he said to leave her alone.
The Tuskens didn't heed the Dark Lord. And they paid the price.
Plagueis channeled his inner anger and hate—ready to burst out.
He Force-strangled a Tusken while lifting him up, and twisted his neck. Two others wanted to hit him with their crossbows' arrows; but Plagueis sensed their intention and Force-pushed them. The kinetic energy of the Force wave coursed through those two Tusken's bodies and caused their molecules to split apart.
Such was the power of the Dark Lord of the Sith.
The Tuskens' suffering was not at the end. Plagueis made sure of them.
Cracking his teeth as result of surrendering himself to the fire inside his being; Plagueis descended into the greatest depths of the dark side.
A huge barrage of red lightning burst forth.
All of the Tuskens-
in a blink-
were turned into ash…
Shmi saw the black figure and that awesome deadly lightning of red color. She even heard it burning the sand making the sand pebbles jump like the popcorn in a frying pan.
The Tatoo sun covered her eyes with its bright rays.
"You are the woman in my visions.", Plagueis added while his voice—'encrypted' by the breathing mask.
She heard him puffing,
"Who are you?"
The alien laughed in silence. She saw his yellow eyes 'smiling' with a sense of victory.
"Who I am is not important but who you are, human."
"I don't understand.", she added,
"You don't have to understand. You only have to obey and continue your life as if nothing happened to you. That is the purpose of the insignificant beings."
"What-", she noticed the change of tone in the alien's voice.
"Sleep.", Plagueis waved his hand as a Jedi and she fainted.
Plagueis Force-lifted the woman's body and took her to his Scimitar.
The alien pressed the engine button and gave to the Scimitar the command to take its fly.
Two hours passed and his teacher was nowhere to be found.
Maybe he failed. Maybe he is already dead.
Sidious could only wonder and amuse himself of his master's possible misfortune.
In the night, in the sky, he could sense the Muun's presence and see his ship by extending his eye vision with the Force.
The Scimitar slowly landed. And the student greeted him.
"Master Plagueis. I missed you."
He saw a woman on the Muun's right shoulder,
"What are we-
I mean what are you going to do with her, master?", Sidious smirked. And Plagueis hated Sidious every time he did that.
"I will conduct experiments on her. I want to see if I can increase the amount of the midi-chlorians inside her body; so we can strengthen our connection with the dark side. So we can become stronger in flesh.", he added slowly putting her down with the Force.
"And if you succeed? Will you teach me?"
Plagueis sensed a doubt from the apprentice. But why? What was he up to?
"When the time comes for you. I am going to consider that, Sidious.
Until then; you are still studying under my feet and will do as I ask of you."
Sidious sighed, but careful to control his emotions,
"Yes, master."
Plagueis ordered Sidious to take the woman and bring her inside his Sith laboratory.
"Put her there-
on the operation table."
Sidious pleased his master and did as he said.
"Now. You are free to go, Sidious."
Sidious nodded,
"Yes, master.", he added.
And now that his pathetic student left; Plagueis could finally begin to exercise for the first time his power on a sentient being.
The Muun Sith channeled his hatred and anger throughout his body and let these emotions to fester inside him again as he did on Tatooine.
Plagueis gently placed his left hand on the woman's head and his right hand on the woman's belly. This might have seemed strange to a neophyte of the dark side or of the Sith; but Plagueis knew this was the way to be done.
By placing his left hand on Shmi's head, he could fool her brain to think that the body is in an act of reproduction. On the other hand, Plagueis' purpose of placing his right hand on her belly was to manipulate the midi-chlorians' composition and make them to act as a one 'real' spermatozoid.
And the process began.
Shmi's body was shaking as if she was really reproducing; even if she was unaware of what was around her.
The midi-chlorian 'spermatozoid' was moving chaotically throughout her body trying to bond with the woman's ovaries. And it might have joined with an ovary after all.
After ten minutes, her body laid 'dormant' again.
Of course that Plagueis could have done it in less than a second. But that would have meant major risks to his goals. And he didn't want that. He didn't want to risk anything when he was now so close.
But one could only wonder what happened to her?
If the midi-chlorians inside Shmi's body acted as a sperm and coupled with one of her ovary; what would happen to Shmi? Since the Jedi know that the midi-chlorians are the driving force behind creation and are necessary to existence.
Plagueis expected, one day, to this outcome.
He knew that even in the driest places of Force; the Force would reclaim its influence when the midi-chlorians would re-appear and multiply again. And even if he did not possess the ability to multiply midi-chlorians, he could command the Force to make them to re-emerge.
One would ask why would the Muun create a being from the fabric of Force, if the midi-chlorians' number would be the same as to a non-sensitive like Shmi Skywalker? But Plagueis was aware of all this. He had experimented before on animals—when he was known as Magister Hego Damask II of the InterGalactic Banking Clan—on the forests of Alderaan. Though the animals died shortly after they gave birth due to flaws in the Muun's technique, Plagueis noted in his journal an increasing amount of midi-chlorians. Maybe twice. Perhaps thrice. Or even more than that.
The only thing the wise Muun had to do was to simply re-impose his will on Shmi and speed up the activity of her body—to bring the impigritas from its astral shapeless phase to the corporeal one—which where the midi-chlorians. The midi-chlorians were nothing more but the way of the Force to manifest itself on the physical plane. A transistor from energy to matter.
Still unsure if he really made it. Plagueis used his Force-amplified senses and heard how the 'spermatozoid' finally coupled with one of Shmi's ovaries.
"At last. The ultimate secret to eternal life has been discovered.", Plagueis' words puffed with pride and wry amusement.
He made it!
The first Sith Lord to ever discover a way to cheat death!
And the only thing he needed now was to bring Shmi back on her planet. Wait for his perfect Sith apprentice to grow up and one day converting him to his cause to destroy the servants of the light side—the Jedi. Or possessing him if that was the case.
"Now. You will return back to your miserable life, human, to grow my creation into the ultimate Apprentice of the Sith. So, I can finally get rid of the pathetic Darth Sidious."
Plagueis' enthusiasm was short-lived as the sneaky apprentice was eavesdropping his monologue.
'So not only that you don't consider me worthy of your knowledge, but also want to replace me?!
You, ungrateful, Muun. Without me, you were nothing.
Well, we shall see about that.'
"Sidious."
Plagueis raised his tone.
Sidious stalled for a few seconds pretending to be in his room—that was next to the Sith laboratory—and joined his Muun teacher,
"What is thy bidding, my master?", Sidious asked with humility,
"Make yourself useful and take this woman back to Tatooine near the Mos Eisley Cantina."
"As you wish, master.", Sidious nodded as he did before.
Sidious took her body and brought her outside.
The apprentice straightened his hands at her; ready to unleash potent Force lightning.
"If, I allow you to live. His creation will threaten my power and one day destroy me."
Sidious looked at her; ready to blast her into oblivion.
But a second thought struck,
"But if he dies; then his creation will be mine. And one day when he or she is growing strong enough in the Force to be a match for those like Grandmaster Yoda and Mace Windu. I will take over their body."
Sidious smirked and his chest puffed too like that of his teacher. But it was more to it. Not just a puff of ambition but of a monster. Sidious would be delighted in the destruction he would cause throughout the galaxy to impose his will upon the lesser ones.
Sidious embarked his mentor's ship and took it off to the woman's birthplace.
Plagueis was inside his Sith laboratory as usually, trying to discover what other secrets may the Force possess.
He was also curious of the nature of the light side. Could the light be bent to one's will? Was light the opposite of dark or just the absence of it?
Plagueis was interested about this particular aspect of the Force.
How are the Jedi able to draw their strength from controlling their emotions? When, actually, the real power was by unleashing your emotions.
Could the light offer as much as the dark does.
Or was there any light or dark for that matter?
Or maybe there was no light, no dark either; but just misconceptions of limited beings like the Jedi.
Maybe the Force could have been bent by the 'light'?
Could the midi-chlorians be manipulated by using the ways of the Jedi?
Could one exercise his influence on something by controlling themselves?
Plagueis' thoughts were scattered around in his head.
And then. Without meditating.
Another vision.
It was Shmi Skywalker with a blond boy. Definitely her child. Plagueis' creation.
The vision was like cut-scenes from a movie.
Next-
he saw a blond little boy standing next to a long haired man,
"You're a Jedi Knight, aren't you?"
"What makes you think that?", the man said.
"I saw your laser sword. Only Jedi carry that kind of weapon."
"Perhaps I killed a Jedi and stole it from him."
"I don't think so. No one can kill a Jedi.", the child added.
"I wish that were so.", the Jedi sighed.
The images ended only to be followed by others.
Plagueis saw Grandmaster Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi among other Jedi fellow members.
"Confer on you the level of Jedi Knight, the Council does. But agree with your taking this boy as your Padawan learner, I do not!", Yoda affirmed with fermity.
"Qui-Gon believed in him.", Kenobi added.
"The Chosen One, the boy may be. Nevertheless, grave danger, I fear in his training."
"Master Yoda, I gave Qui-Gon my word. I will train Anakin...without the approval of the Council, if I must.", the Knight said.
"Qui-Gon's defiance, I sense in you. Need that, you do not. Agree with you, the Council does. Your apprentice, Skywalker will be.", Yoda ended the conversation.
The Chosen One!
Plagueis' heart pumped faster and he was in complete awe.
He has created the Chosen One.
Second-
he saw the boy turning into an adult. And suddenly he was standing beside a lake of fire without an arm and his legs. Only to shout,
"I HATE YOU!"
He burned. The lava chewed upon his flesh.
Another image followed where the young man was encased into a black armor. And he screamed and reached out through the Force making every droid to implode around him.
In his vision he saw a monstrous figure accompanied by red guards and a half-machine Anakin who was puffing constantly.
At first Plagueis thought it was him the shadowy sillhouete.
It was not the case.
It was his weak-willed apprentice.
Darth Sidious.
These vivid images continued until Plagueis saw Sidious torturing a young boy with purple lightning torrents.
"FATHER! HELP ME!", he screamed in anguish as the dark power of the emperor coursed through his body.
"NOOOOOOOOOOO!"
And then the puffing half-machine took Sidious up and threw him in a facility's power core. Sidious yelled meeting his end foretold in prophecies. And with him; the end of the Sith.
In that blazing moment Plagueis realized that it was the Force's will all along. He might have been the creator. But in the end, it was the Force that permitted it to happen. Shmi's child was never his 'creation', it was the Force's.
In that blazing moment Plagueis learned the most painful and valuable lesson a Sith never had the chance. That even they are a part of the Force too.
Plagueis received a one last vision.
His death at the hands of his hateful apprentice while he was sleeping.
Plagueis never believed in hell anyway. And if it was all a part of the Force's will for him to die and his apprentice. Then he would gladly allow that to happen.
Plagueis looked at the sky, through his window, for the last time, and closed his eyes. Ready to embrace the cold inexistence.
Sidious arrived and visited his teacher's room. Sidious found him sleeping.
Now it was his chance. At last to dispose of him and take over the title of the Dark Lord for himself alone.
Sidious approached Plagueis—who was sleeping on his stomach.
Sidious had with him a viroblade instead of his crimson lightsabre—so the Muun wouldn't wake up.
"I have waited a long time for this, 'master'.
You have my respect as a teacher, yes. But as a, master, never.
Your journey ends here, old one."
Plagueis couldn't sleep at all.
He heard everything Sidious said.
As Sidious was ready to backstab him; the old Muun closed his eyes.
It hurt; it was painful. But the Muun took it.
He died.
The being that once guided Sidious to power. Was dead.
Sidious left the room throwing the viroblade and shut the door behind him with the Force.
After the new Dark Lord left the laboratory; a black aura enveloped the Muun's flesh and it was bursting in waves of dark side energy.
And it finished.
On a closer inspection:
Plagueis did not die.
It was a mere transition from the corporeal plane to the astral one. From death, to life.
Plagueis extended his astral vision to seek a vessel for his body.
Plagueis could only see a planet.
A planet shrouded in mistery and power.
And with that in mind:
Plagueis' spirit vanished in the vastness of the cosmic space, so one day he would return to claim back what is rightful his…