Hello and thanks for reading. Here are a few quick thoughts on the story so far.
Okay, go to YouTube and search these words: 'Malgus return trailer 2011'. Pull up the SW The Old Republic Cinematic trailer 'The Return' from 2011. That's our young hero, Gaius Veradun, Lord Malgus at the Battle of Korriban. He's making the first of several big mistakes that will have lasting consequences. That trailer and its fallout are what's coming next in Part Two, readers. But you're all here for the drama, right?
Drama is the point of SW and it is the secret allure of the Sith. As far as I'm concerned, there are two leading families of the Force, the Skywalkers and the Veraduns. You all know who the Skywalkers are and how twisted and tragic their saga is. The Veraduns of the Old Sith Empire are equally as extreme, equally gifted, and equally as responsible for their own (and others') suffering. So . . . who are they again?
You can meet the patriarch Carl Veradun as the pitiful teenage mass murderer with the Force who Sith Emperor Marka Ragnos fears and his Empress protects in my story Dyad. Carl's full backstory comes out in Taking the Veil when a thousand years later he falls in love with another Lord's wife. Carl Veradun has amazing Force but that's not enough to make him happy. Still, peevish, insecure, and oftentimes funny Carl Veradun sees and does it all. He is the threat in the background for Darth Revan in Recalled to Light, the object of Darth Bane's quest in The Apprentice, and even Rey of Jakku's secret daddy in my sequel trilogy AU Versions of You.
But readers of Star-Crossed don't care about Carl Veradun. You care about Gaius Veradun. You meet him here as a young striver about to make a lot of mistakes. This is a coming-of-age story that will set dynamics in motion that will influence events years later. In his middle years, Gaius will become the reformist minded, master military strategist of Darker. Lord Malgus and his lady Eleena Daru are among the great lovers in the SW Legends canon. They are also the first two Sith warriors to storm the Coruscant Jedi Temple. (You can watch the cinematic trailer for your then middle-aged action hero by searching 'Malgus Deceived trailer 2011.' It's actually very satisfying to watch a bunch of Sith lay waste to Coruscant.)
So, to borrow a phrase from The Force Awakens, it's true . . . all of it. I'm not making much of this story up. Darth Malgus is SW Legends canon, as are many of the secondary characters in this story, like Lords Adraas, Angral, Vindican, Vitiate, and Azamin. The history of the Sith exile, the Sith defeat in the Great Hyperspace War, and the protracted the Great Galactic War that is just beginning in Star-crossed are all SW Legends canon too. Canon is like one great big puzzle framework I must write within. The characters, their attitudes and motivations, and the plot arc must all work independently and dependently to tell a coherent story within the larger SW context. I relish that sort of thing.
Darth Malgus has long been a favorite of mine and I believe Darker is one of my very best stories. It starts slow but it picks up speed fast at the end. The last part of the story is some of my best writing as the plot comes to fruition, a war is forfeited, and an awful secret revealed. Star-crossed is the prequel to Darker. It's the younger Malgus, immature and earnest. Before injury, frustration, and failure have left their mark. Malgus is trying to fit in and to succeed but failing miserably at it. His biggest obstacle right now is himself. Later, it will be Carl Veradun.
Yes, this may be the Ye Olde Sith Empire, but it's still SW. And SW wouldn't be SW without intergenerational conflict, an 'I am your father' moment, and a 'Join me' pitch. My Sith Empire has mommies who lose the will to live, obscure impoverished young men who are discovered to have the Force and become saviors of their people, plots that work, plots that fail, masters who refuse to train you, a resurrection, and even a superweapon. Because it's SW and that's what you're here for, right?
My Sith Empire is modeled on ancient Rome. Kittat, the Old Sith language is Latin, and many of the social conventions—from names to the arena 'bread and circus' games of Marka Ragnos—harken back to the ancient world. So too, does the rigid social hierarchy that would have excluded a 'novus homo' like Malgus from acceptance within the ruling class.
Readers should keep in mind that at this point in the SW timeline, the Sith are a hidden empire. They have had little contact with the outside galaxy and they don't really know what they're facing in the Republic. That context matters here—the last time the Sith attempted revenge, it was a apocalyptic failure. The Republic beat the Sith in battle and then went on to invade their Empire to destroy the Sith culture, rightly judging them to be an existential threat. That matters because in a society of inherited Force, every elite Sith man, woman, and child becomes a target if the goal is to wipe out the Dark Side. Think about that. That is the truly genocidal slaughter that Portia fears she may be facing. Emperor Vitiate's making a huge gamble with his invasion.
Genocide by the Jedi? Come on, you say. But considering SW from the Sith perspective really flips the script. There are two sides to every war. Explaining the Sith aggression and putting it in context matters. I'm not saying who's right or who's wrong, but trying to get inside my characters' heads. To set a logical background for how they feel and why they feel that way. Moreover, when you are raised in a certain culture, you often fail to perceive your own blindspots about it.
Part Two will be told from Gaius' point of view. He's about to kill his Master. But whereas killing your master is like graduating under the later 'kill and replace' Rule of Two formulation of the Sith religion post Darth Bane, it is a heinous act in the Old Sith Empire that will not be well received. It will start Gaius down the path of slowly becoming who he is, although it will take him many years to actually discover from whence he has come. And, ironically, by that time he won't care any longer.
Portia Metellus isn't SW canon, but her brother Darth Adraas is. Adraas will become the bitter rival of Darth Malgus. Their decades long conflict is a running feud. The cause of that feud is—you guessed it—Portia. But Adraas isn't a bad guy and he will take actions appropriate to his responsibilities, position, and his mindset. He dearly loves his little sister and he wants the best for her. Adraas is operating under his own set of pressures.
It's been a long time since I was seventeen, but I remember the anxiety of wondering about my future. I remember hanging around my girlfriend's bedrooms after school talking about the future. What would I become, would I marry, would I have children, where would I live, what would I accomplish? Perhaps life scripts are so relaxed and optional now for Gen Z-ers and Millennials that there is less pressure. I don't know . . . if anything, it seems like social media feeds everyone's competitive impulses for comparison. In Portia's character, I wanted to capture that sense of being on the brink of adulthood. Not yet a woman, but growing beyond wanting girlish things. You're pulling away from your family at that point and often becoming more invested in your friends. That's a natural preparation for the independence required to make your own decisions and go off into the world as your own person. For Portia, the defining moment that begins adulthood is marriage. She has a lot vested in that decision, and she knows it.
In some ways, she's a poor little rich girl. People throw around the word privilege a lot nowadays and sometimes use it to erase someone's concerns if they aren't the result of race, class, or poverty. As a society we seem to increasingly understand people primarily through a lens of power. That's certainly one approach, but it marginalizes and ignores the very real struggles of the privileged. Hear me out on this. All you have to do is read the internet to see that education, wealth, and status do not insulate you from suffering. Those attributes may well bring their own pressures to bear. Moreover, there is something universal and hard about the experience of growing up, no matter who you are. That concept gets lost a lot today, I fear. And, in some ways, young people who have had to grapple with unfairness and adversity (i.e., those who lack privilege) may be better prepared to confront adult life. They have the personal grit and the self esteem to get through hard things. They also may be reconciled to a non-perfect life in ways the privileged cannot—or maybe will not—accept easily. Anyhow, Portia Metellus has everything going for her, but she has issues all the same. She, like all of us, has a nuanced experience that defies easy categorization.
Her neighbor, Darth Azamin, is the Emperor's elderly gentleman henchman. He knows everything that matters in the Empire. And though he has a thick veneer of understatement, Grandpa Azamin is ruthless. There's a reason he's Emperor Vitiate's only friend.
Next up: that secret comlink will get a lot of use.
