This is another crackish tangent that grew out of a review (and following discussion). As Jackdaw_Kraai over on AO3 rightfully commented, Luke is on the Lady for a mere couple of hours when he has every person, that he spoke more than a handful of words with, convinced to commit high treason with him. Which shows a level of charisma that is both hilarious and terrifying to watch, and it occurred to us that the Empire really dodged a bullet when Uncle Owen kept Luke from going to the academy. Well then, we promptly wondered, what if Uncle Owen had failed ….
I sat on this for a good while, but since the muse is still on strike for the main story, I blew off the dust, polished a bit and here you are. 😊
Skywalker genes come with a ridiculous helping of charisma. Exhibit A: Clone Wars legend Anakin Skywalker, The-Hero-With-No-Fear. Exhibit B: Leia Organa, who held the New Republic together – or at least its ideals – by sheer force of will. Luke, though … Luke is just a nice kid, isn't he? Well, what if he DOES have the family charisma, and it just manifests a bit differently?
Luke Skywalker spent the first few years of his life not meeting more than a handful of people, which made his first interactions with his agemates awkward and not much of a success.
By the time he is an older teen, however, he has grown into his confidence. And not only that: just like he dips into some indescribable source of skills when it comes to flying, when Luke is convinced of something, it … radiates.
Uncle Owen wants nothing more than keep his nephew home, where he's safe – bored out of his skull, maybe, but safe! – and will marshal any argument to make it so. As long as Luke considers those arguments valid, all goes well. The moment the boy realizes that the latest one is a stalling technique, however, Uncle Owen doesn't stand a chance.
When Luke boards a shuttle bound for the Academy on Carida a month later, he has his uncle's blessings. And his aunt's love, of course.
Oo oo oo oo oo oO
Carida Academy has a long and prestigious history to look back on, and all the traditions that come with that.
One of them is social divisions: the elite kids – sons of sons of sons etc. of the entitled – have picked on the charity cases and scholarship students since times immemorial.
Cadet Skywalker is on the Academy grounds for less than two days when he is introduced to that tradition, in the shape of a group of Core-born upperclassmen harassing a scrawny first-year, mocking the lower-class accent and graceless way to move.
By the time Skywalker reaches the group, the older cadets have just kicked the younger's satchel through a railing, into a four-story drop.
"That wasn't very nice," Skywalker tells the upperclassmen disapprovingly, standing barely a hair taller than their first victim and entirely without rank to protect him.
He should be getting himself a thorough kicking, too, but somehow ….
Kuat-born Etohkan Andrim has kicked lesser beings since literally the day of his birth – his first nanny was one of his mother's telbun. But looking into the sky-blue eyes of stupid Cadet Skywalker, Andrim feels ashamed for the first time in his life.
He tries to laugh it off, and his cronies follow suit, but the feeling stays. It keeps gnawing at the back of Andrim's mind until the next time he runs into the charity kid – seated next to bloody Skywalker, of course! – and Andrim finds himself apologizing. Skywalker beams at him, and Andrim feels buoyed for the rest of the day. It sets off a weird reinforcement circle.
It's going be far from the last.
In fact, Skywalker would count as an anti-bullying measure all on his own – if Carida had any such measures in place. They are a military academy, for Stars' sake, not a nursery school, and a little adversity can only serve to toughen up the students and inspire them to excel.
Or so the theory went, previously. Then Cadet Skywalker comes along and team coherence reaches marvelous levels. Scores soar.
Oo oo oo oo oo oO
On a different level, things go just as weird.
Skywalker isn't a stupid kid, but Tatooine educational standards are somewhat lacking. He does work hard to catch up, but there are obvious gaps in his knowledge. And that is where the next anomaly happens.
Carida Academy instructors are not known to coddle their pupils, but when Cadet Skywalker asks trivial questions, he doesn't get snapped at and told to catch up on his own time – at best! – but gets … actual informative explanations.
Skywalker is pathetically appreciative of those explanations and keeps asking, and asking, and asking, and nobody really recognizes the moment when he starts arguing back.
He has some thoroughly outlandish notions on certain topics – arse-end-of-the-universe yokel that he is – but while he is commendably willing to learn from his betters, Skywalker can be astonishingly competent at reasoning his point when he is truly convinced about something. None of the other cadets – and more observant instructors – can figure out how he gets away with it.
Some blame it on the accent – so backwater that it stopped being water and turned into dust – that lends Cadet Skywalker a certain rustic charm.
Except that the quip about backwaters had been a snide remark from a Core-born second-year originally, that had Skywalker laugh along with the jeering second-years and say, "Hey, that's a cool way of putting it, thank you!" and skip off with a beaming smile, to reuse the quip whenever someone asked him where he came from.
Some suspect a more unwholesome reason, even whisper about 'the Force,' but even watched by many suspicious eyes, Skywalker never does anything visibly sorcerous.
Except maybe while flying, that is the one course he aces from the beginning. But since piloting is the talent he got his scholarship for, this is not exactly proof for anything untoward.
Otherwise, Skywalker is a good but not outstanding student, passionate about anything mechanic but merely diligent about the rest; and even in the engineering courses he has a lot of catching-up to do before he starts showing promises of acing the course next term.
He could be better at the tactical courses, if he wasn't so overly fond of thinking outside the box. "You'd certainly stun the enemy if you could pull this off, boy, but you'd need the Devil's own luck to get that far," is more or less the standard response whenever it's Skywalker's turn to make battle plans in the tactical exercises.
Their instructor there is a crusty old general from before the Clone Wars, who did a double-take the first time he saw Skywalker's name; but then the boy introduced himself so earnestly as a farmer's kid and the son of a freighter navigator, that the general saw his budding suspicions allayed from the start.
There is something niggling at the back of his mind whenever Cadet Skywalker forgets that he has a perfectly good handbook full of sensible maneuvers to follow, but the general can never quite put his finger on it.
Beyond the purely academic pursuits, Skywalker doesn't have the stature to truly excel in either close-combat training or sports, but he's fast and wiry, and it would be a severe mistake to underestimate him in either field.
Socially, Skywalker is respectful towards his superiors and genuinely, honestly nice with his peers.
Oo oo oo oo oo oO
It's impossible to notice close-up, but for a distant, independent observer, Cadet Skywalker would resemble a rogue black hole. Wherever he goes, previously unshakable views get … distorted.
The Empire is all about unity. Skywalker nods sagely at that. He grew up on a desert world, well aware that in times of need you all have to stand together or everyone perishes in the end. And just like that, 'suppress all differing opinions' inexplicably morphs into 'support each other.'
The Empire is all about law and order. Skywalker totally agrees with that. He can get surprisingly vehement when he tells about his grandma who was a slave until grandpa bought her free, and that the Hutts still keep slaves on Tatooine, and one day, Skywalker swears, he is going to free them all! And corruption: about half of the money that ought to go into better education and healthcare on Tatooine disappears into various pockets, and if you're rich enough you can buy yourself free of any charge while being poor can become a crime in and of itself. Skywalker is going to change all that, he vows. Put like that, it's perfectly obvious.
The Empire is all about power. That, Skywalker raises an unconvinced eyebrow about. A certain amount of power is necessary to make laws and enforce them and all that, but power for the sake of power – what would be the point of that? Somehow, no one can bring forth a convincing answer if put to the spot like that.
The list goes on like this.
Skywalker is spreading sedition, people allege repeatedly, if only, curiously enough, those who know him exclusively by hearsay.
Various levels of authority summon Cadet Skywalker to face the accusations, and find themselves appalled that someone would denounce this earnest young man so baselessly!
Harsh reprimands are handed out to the accusers, and when they try to take out their frustrations on Skywalker in person, most of them find themselves apologizing for the intent, and never mind getting around to any actual deeds.
A few more cerebral types try to draw Skywalker into a public discussion, that should prove to all and sundry that he is only sprouting rebel slogans. They find themselves – and the audience – convinced that Skywalker's arguments are entirely reasonable.
Oo oo oo oo oo oO
By the time Skywalker finishes his first year at the Academy, he is known, not only to his own year mates but every year up to the graduates – and the teaching staff! – as the kid from the back-of-beyond that has a unique talent for putting complex topics into simple understandable words.
When COMPNOR comes along to demand the usual round of cadets to impress on their SAGroup kids the proper way to serve the Empire, the teaching staff shares one wordless look and puts 'Skywalker' on top of the list.
And so, Cadet Skywalker goes and tells score upon score of wide-eyed kids – and their equally enthralled group leaders – about his visions for the Empire. The other cadets on the list do not have his raw talent, but they have listened to Skywalker often enough and their conviction is strong and carrying, too. They endorse the same visions.
And the trouble with visions is: they spread like a contagion. Infect enough of a starting population, and they will multiply beyond your wildest dreams.
By the time Skywalker graduates, he has infected seven consecutive classes of the Empire's future leaders with his ideas. Plus, the teaching staff, which will ensure that his influence will spread even further.
It's the beginning of the end for certain practices – and a beginning for something new.
A/N: The original discussion went a bit further – and quite a bit wilder – culminating in Commander Skywalker, Imperial officer and overall far too likeable guy, getting handed the title of 'Emperor of the Galaxy' when the last one catches a sudden case of dead*. The muse refused to flesh out more than some Academy scenes, though, and so I had to end things here. But who knows, perhaps one day the muse is willing …. 😉
*wild tooka attack, that miraculously left several scorch marks on the body – and no, the witnesses have no idea how that happened, either!
A/N2: I'm wondering if I shouldn't put this snippet and 'Friendly dragon' into a new collection, like 'Welcome – Offshots' since they have less connection with the story proper than the original snippets. What are your thoughts?