Writer's intro:
Like many members of the Star Wars fandom, I was thrilled when the sequel trilogy was announced, and for the most part I enjoyed The Force Awakens. I did however leave the cinema feeling just a bit empty. It wasn't the characters, the script or the overall look that was at fault (I mean, come on, that film had some serious visual flare, no pun intended JJ); honestly, those things all made Star Wars feel new and exciting again.
The plot, however, did not. I don't blame the big mouse house for going the way they did. They played it safe after the more ambitious prequels were badly received. But on a personal level I was disappointed with how Episode VII just plain REFUSED to push the story forward. What we got in Force Awakens was something very Star Wars, but stuck in orbit of the OT's plotline. We had an Empire again; we had a ragtag team of lovable heroes. We had nothing new.
So, my headcanon got firing, and earlier this year I started dreaming up my own sequel trilogy. What would happen if I got to decide where things went after credits rolled on Return of the Jedi? I started letting my mind wander down from Ep VII's opening crawl: what depths of the galaxy far, far away would we be plunged into? What would be our first glimpse of a whole new episode in the immortal saga?
So, enjoy a whole new Star Wars Sequel Trilogy! Starting with Episode VII: The Force (Re)Awakens.
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…
STAR WARS
EPISODE VII
THE FORCE AWAKENS
A NEW REPUBLIC has dawned! With the evil Empire fallen the JEDI have risen once again. Led by LUKE SKYWALKER, this new order trains in secret at the edge of the galaxy to protect its young Knights.
But evil stirs among the stars. Remnants of the old Empire, calling themselves the LOYALISTS, now plot to resurrect the dark days.
To protect the fragile peace, the New Republic's CHANCELLOR has ordered a galaxy-wide strike to root out this menace, and eliminate it at any cost…
SCENE I: The Derelict Destroyer
From the crawl, the camera pans to the trinary star system KRYSTALIS. Three white giants blaze against the cosmos, one just peeping round the edge of a planet. We zoom to the biggest sun and see a Star Destroyer in orbit. It is adrift, badly damaged; huge sections are missing, exposing its skeleton to space.
A small starship exits hyperspace some distance away. A hangar bay opens, and thirteen figures resembling Storm Troopers jump from the ship. These are the LOYALISTS. Their suits are equipped with thrusters, and they free-fly through space towards the Destroyer in formation. Taking point is a red trooper. This is Commander SORYN MAL. To her left is a black-suited trooper: FN-2187, known as FINN.
The squadron enters the Destroyer through gaps in the hull. In places, little more than twisted girders remain, and the three suns blaze through from behind. The troopers break formation and fly to different sections of the Destroyer, where they begin stripping it for parts with laser torches, magnetic gloves etc.
As they're working, Commander Soryn senses something. She stiffens. Her head turns slowly. We see the trinary suns reflected in her visor, and a huge starship pops out of hyperspace.
This starship is the SOVEREIGN, flagship of the NEW REPUBLIC. We cut to the bridge. Soldiers rush to take their posts, talking into earpieces. Through the forward viewscreen we can see the hulked Destroyer, and the Loyalists' ship nearby. A senior officer – COMMANDER SUNN – shouts an order: on her mark, they are to turn the Sovereign's cannon on the Loyalists' ship and fire.
Back to the Loyalists' perspective, several have now broken off from the hulk. They are speeding for their ship, when – BAM! – an energy bolt blasts from the Sovereign and annihilates their small craft. From the Destroyer, Soryn watches with clenched fists. The Loyalists regroup around her, steadying themselves in zero gravity with hand thrusters (a la Iron Man). She gives an order via headpiece:
SORYN: Hold your position. We won't let them take us alive.
Back on the Sovereign's bridge, Commander Sunn declares the Loyalist ship destroyed. A command chair is then seen from behind, an aged hand resting on the arm.
CHANCELLOR: Good work. They've got nowhere to go. Send word to the fighters to take them alive, if they can. But our priority is to eliminate that Star Destroyer. Flush them out, then turn that thing to dust.
A fight ensues in space. A fleet of X-Wing fighters exits the Sovereign and makes for the Destroyer's shell, where Soryn and her Loyalists assume a defence formation. The X-Wings cannot manoeuvre well inside the Destroyer, while the Loyalists are skilled at evading them. It is clear the fighters are not trying to hit the Loyalists, but to drive them out into open space as per the Chancellor's orders. The Loyalists, however, have no qualms about shooting the fighters. They use the Destroyer's 'terrain' to their advantage, leading the fighters into tight spaces, trying to crash them. Some use their own energy weapons to hit weak points in the X-Wings, one Loyalist even taking out one of this generation's versions of an R2 unit on a fighter's hull. Soryn herself takes out at least one fighter with a single, well-aimed blast.
On the Sovereign's bridge, the Republic soldiers report casualties. We see the Chancellor's fingers tighten on her armrest. She did not want this to be so hard, and what little body language we see suggests distress at losing so many fighters. She changes tactics:
CHANCELLOR: Recall the fighters; those are good people out there!
SUNN: Chancellor?
CHANCELLOR: Pull them out of that fuselage. Have them tow the thing instead.
SUNN: To where?
CHANCELLOR: The sun.
We see the X-Wing pilots acknowledge the order in their earpieces, then exit the Destroyer's shell and fire towing cables on the Destroyer. They burn their engines, and the hulk turns slowly then accelerates towards the sun. Close up on the Loyalists: we see them shielding their eyes as they are exposed to the glare. Soryn clenches a fist again inside her flight glove. Then she changes tactics too, ordering her squadron to make for the Sovereign.
On the bridge's viewscreen, we see Loyalists leaving the Destroyer's hull like wasps from a hive.
CHANCELLOR: Good. That flushed them out. Now have the fighters-
SOLDIER: Commander, they're heading straight for us.
SUNN: Why? What could they-
We see the Loyalists flying for the fighters. The lead pilot initiates a broadcast.
PILOT: This is Fleet Commander Jax Ura. You have nowhere to run. Surrender now and-
Suddenly Soryn and the others activate much more powerful thrusters, which emerge from hidden panels in their suits. They speed towards the lead ship faster than the pilots are prepared for. The Loyalists break clean through the line, some taking out a couple of the fighters on their way past. Most make it to the Sovereign, though at least a couple are caught by weapon-fire from the fighters, who hit them with EMP blasts, crippling their suits' propulsion systems rather than killing them. After all, these are the good guys.
Undeterred, Soryn's team attach onto the Sovereign's airlocks and start to laser their way in. On the bridge, Commander Sunn tells the Chancellor they are being boarded. Protocol now compels them to escort her to secure chambers. The Chancellor, irritated but acknowledging the danger, concedes. She is led off the bridge. At this point we have yet to see her face.
Outside, we see Soryn break in through the airlock's outer door. Republic soldiers have formed up to defend the airlock, but Soryn blasts the inner door open before the chamber is re-pressurised, and the defenders are all blown into space. Soryn and the others enter and magnetise to the ground, as an emergency forcefield activates to seal the breach. They deactivate their boots and proceed down the corridors, weapons drawn.
The fight continues in the corridors. Several Loyalists are taken down, but Soryn and Finn especially display incredible skill. They show diversity of kill method, utilising various gadgets from their suits, and give better than they get. Their strategies differ however: Soryn is focussed, on a clear kill-path for the Chancellor's chamber, while Finn in multiple instances defends his fellow Loyalists from blaster fire, pushing them aside as he takes down their attackers. In one lingering shot, we see a squad-mate stumble, caught in the leg by blaster fire. Finn stops to haul them up, only to have them collapse in his arms as they are shot dead from behind. Finn eliminates the attacker, takes a moment to observe the bodies filling the corridor. Then he raises his blaster and ducks down a side corridor as another wave of Republic soldiers appears, guns blazing.
Cut to the Chancellor's perspective. In her chamber, blast doors slam down to seal off the corridor, but Soryn begins lasering her way through these too. Much as in Episode I, the Chancellor's protectors are shocked by how easily Soryn is overcoming their defences. They suggest the Chancellor get behind them for cover. But she tells them to fall back instead. She can take care of herself.
Soryn breaks through the door. Blasters scream at her, but she dodges and returns fire, hitting each of the protectors until the Chancellor stands alone. Soryn enters the chamber through a cloud of smoke, advancing on the Chancellor. However, at this point the camera slips down the Chancellor's arm.
We see an unlit lightsabre in her hand. This she now ignites with a bright blue blade. Soryn fires on her, but the blasts are deflected, instead hitting other Loyalists as they advance up the corridor. Soryn, undeterred, keeps firing. But one of the Chancellor's deflected bolts strikes the blaster, which flies sparking from her hand. Soryn follows the weapon with a glance, then draws a couple of curved blades in either hand.
At this point, the camera finally shows us the Chancellor in a full-body shot. She's standing silhouetted against a large window, showing open space and one of the suns. But now she steps into the corridor's light, sabre brandished in defence. We see at last that the Chancellor is LEIA ORGANA.
There will be some cheesy line here:
LEIA: What do you want, Loyalist? That's what you call yourselves, isn't it? Well who the hell are you even loyal to? Your empire's long dead, I saw to that myself.
Soryn's blades are perfectly capable of contending with a lightsabre, energy crackling around them as she presses the attack. She says something like:
SORYN: The Empire's not dead, so long as we live. And you refuse to kill us.
They fight. Soryn attacks, Leia defends only. Both are skilled, and Leia despite her age is agile and strong. Soryn is hampered by her suit, but an elite combatant. She strikes with her weapons and even throws in some other bits of tech to try and take Leia down. In one or two shots, we see a necklace around Leia's throat, visible in the light of her sabre. Soryn sees this too, as she locks with Leia in a bind.
Eventually, Leia pushes Soryn back. She activates her thrusters as Leia deftly disables one of them with her sabre and forces her to land. Soryn then slices at Leia, the necklace is severed and falls to the ground. At this moment, with Leia stunned, another Loyalist (Finn) appears hovering at the window behind her. Soryn sees; Leia doesn't. Finn nods to Soryn, then attaches a bomb to the window. Leia, sensing this through the Force, grabs onto a bulkhead just as the bomb goes off, shattering the window and ripping the room's atmosphere into space.
Soryn is carried with the air rush, but she grabs onto the window's remains to save being pulled completely from the ship. We see the necklace catch on a piece of bent deck-plate, straining to be blown out too. Soryn too sees it, and catches it as it slips and flies towards her. Then, with Leia looking on, though shielding her eyes with her free hand against the sun, Finn takes hold of Soryn and flies the two of them away. Leia makes eye contact just as an emergency bulkhead comes down to seal the room. She collapses to the floor, breathing heavily as atmosphere is restored.
After a few moments, soldiers enter. She pushes past them and returns to the bridge.
SUNN: Chancellor-
LEIA: I'm fine. There were two, two who escaped. What happened to them?
SUNN: Finding out.
She then speaks into a headpiece. Intercut with this exchange, we see Finn and Soryn flying towards a Republic X-Wing. They force open the cockpit, kill the pilot, and commandeer it away into hyperspace.
SUNN: I'm sorry, Chancellor, they got away.
Leia does not let her dismay show. Instead she looks out of the bridge window at the remaining X-Wing fighters, who have surrounded what Loyalists were left stranded in space, their suits disabled by EMPs.
LEIA: The ship's secured?
SUNN: All Loyalists onboard are accounted for. Dead.
LEIA: Then bring in those survivors. We can question them.
As Leia says this, we see the floating Loyalists each activate a panel on their wrists. One by one, their suits self-destruct, killing them. Leia slams a hand on the window.
LEIA: Damn idiots didn't need to do that. We'd have treated them gently enough!
SUNN: They've never let themselves be taken alive.
Leia's fingers now absently go to her throat. She notices the missing necklace.
LEIA: The data chip! They have it! We need to go after them, find them.
SUNN: They've gone to hyperspace, Chancellor, I'm sorry.
LEIA: (addressing the bridge, shouting) Then get us back home. We need to track them down and stop them. (quietly, to only Commander Sunn) With the data on that pendant they can find the temple. They can find Luke.
We finally see a shot of Soryn and Finn in the cockpit of their stolen fighter, fleeing through hyperspace. Soryn examines the necklace in her fist and nods at Finn. Finn, piloting, removes his helmet with his free hand and stares straight ahead. His expression is haunted, as stars flash by.
END OF SCENE I
Writer's notes:
So how am I doing? That's my opening anyway: action-packed, Leia kicking ass (because come on, she totally trained with Luke after Jedi). And yes, in my version the New Republic is absolutely the power in the galaxy now, not some dream that failed somewhere in the gulf between movies. My villains aren't an all-powerful force; they're the rag-tags, striking from the shadows. And they're dangerous because they have everything to fight for. They are the rebels in this story, because rebels on the wrong side of history are seen as terrorists, and we're going to explore that dichotomy.
I'm fond of my portrayal of Finn. I loved the idea of an enemy trooper gone good, but hated how little the sequel trilogy did with it. I can promise you, my Finn's going to have an ARC, so stay tuned.
Anyway, if you like what you've read, click that 'next' button. In the next chapter, we'll meet my take on another sequel trilogy protag.