(As always see the end for notes as some things may have changed since this opening was written.)
Alright, I know I need to stop this, but I have another idea. This one was quite interesting when it popped into my head. Alright, so how many of you have heard of the anime "From the New World"? I don't want to spoil too much of it (unfortunately I will have to in order to even write this story) but it boils down to Earth in the future has turned into a barren wasteland thanks to a war between those between us normies who don't have any psychic powers, and those that do. The end result is that the superior version of humanity survives and those of us normies that are left over either interbreed with the psychics, die off or become part of a genetically modified subrace subservient to the psychics. And trust me, the last one sucks.
Anyway, during the second season they head into Tokyo, or the remains of it, to plunder a weapons research building to recover a device/compound called the "Psycho Buster", which happens to be a way for those that weren't able to kill telekinetic people before without the element of surprise, like snipers if they were lucky.
So, as you can also see, this is a crossover with Star Wars (one of my favorite series of all time if you haven't guessed). So, how am I going to cross it over? I'm going to set the Star Wars part of this in the Legends, or old, universe which has a lot of leeway to work with especially as there are more Jedi and lots of years to explore after Return of the Jedi. So, what am I going to do? Well, for once it won't be surrounding a Mandalorian for those of you sick and tired of me just fellating myself about them. This time the character will be a Corellian because, you know, Corellian smugglers and all that jazz; that, and Corellian light freighters like the YT series. Admit it, you want a ship like the Millennium Falcon, I know I do.
Anyway, this male character will act as a contracted explorer for the Fel Empire who get paid to find new systems and chart them and does so in a heavily modified YT series freighter housed inside of a modified Star Destroyer. He's a former Jedi who left because of personal reasons but still kept his lightsaber as he does know how to use it. I will state that I took major inspiration for his wardrobe from Star-Lord from Guardians of the Galaxy, a great film and the second one is just fun to watch. But now, that this is all been explained, let's get this show on the road.
Disclaimer: I own nothing except my copy of MS Word and my laptop. Star Wars belongs to Disney and From the New World belongs to Yusuke Kishi and whomever else was involved. See the foreword for the full disclaimer.
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"Talking."
'Thinking.'
"Communications over comlink/other communication methods."
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Son of Corellia, Hyperspace. En route to an unknown system on the edge of Wild Space.
A single twenty-six-year-old male sat on the bridge of an old, yet heavily modified, Victory II-class star destroyer watching the sensors carefully. This man watched over his crew as they worked at their consoles.
Alarms started to blare as a crew member shouted out, "Captain, we're coming up on a gravity well, planet-sized!"
"Drop us out of hyperspace," he ordered. The crewman complied and the kilometer-long ship dropped back into realspace with a blue marble of a planet sitting in the center of the viewport.
"Sir, we're picking up some chatter on the long-range sensors," another reported. "However, it's coming from further out in the solar system."
"Nothing from the planet itself?"
"No, it appears that the planet itself is dark, although sensors indicate that there are satellites in orbit. Attempting to slice in to gain any information."
"Your thoughts?" the captain asked his first mate.
The chiss female at his side replied, "This planet could have been technologically advanced at one point enough to launch objects into orbit and emit transmissions from the surface."
"Makes sense," the captain replied. "Any luck on that satellite?"
"Still in progress, sir. The encryption is different from anything I've seen before."
"Will this be an issue?"
"No, our algorithms are already in progress of cracking it, it shouldn't be much longer." Minutes passed as the captain waited patiently and was about to ask for a progress update when she said, "I'm through." Data started to load up on her screen and she paged through it. "It looks like I have tapped I to an old communications satellite from around a thousand years ago if the data I'm looking at is correct. I'm going to start connecting to others in its network to see what I can find. Want me to look for anything specific, boss?"
"Anything on what species was here and what happened to them. Archive any data and prepare a data packet to be set back to the Fel Empire," he ordered.
Data flew in the screen and the crewman remarked, "They're human."
'Interesting, humans this far out here,' the captain thought.
"I've found a few files, some video but most are audio." She then played the first audio file in the stack. "I don't know that language," the crewman replied.
"I do," the captain replied as he stood up and walked over to the console. "It's a derivative of Old Corellian, one of the dead languages my father forced me to study."
"I never knew you knew Old Corellian, captain," the crewman noted.
"Well, when you have a father with high expectations from his children you sometimes end up taking classes in secondary school you hate with a passion but still do good in lest you get in a shouting match with said father."
A bridge guard chimed in, "I know how that is. Mom was a big sports buff and I ended up taking up at least a half-dozen different sports before secondary all at the same time."
Several of the bridge pit cringed. They all heard of mothers and fathers like that during their schooling years that lived vicariously through their children. The captain brought up a headset and listened carefully to the transmission. "It seems to be some kind of report. 'All resistance failed. Stop. Retreat to the exclusion zone. Stop. Initiate cleanroom protocols. Stop. Do not allow Psychos to cross the line. Stop.' Any further communications ceased after that."
"That doesn't sound good," a crewman replied, speaking for the whole crew.
The captain put his hand to his chin. "Your orders?" another asked.
He thought for a long minute and replied, "Send a scout Interceptor, I want a map of this place before any ground excursions take place."
"Where should they start?"
"Start where the last transmissions were sent from, expand from there. Tell the pilot to mark any landmarks of note, the initiate a full planetary scan."
"Aye, sir," was the response from the crew.
The next few hours passed painfully slow. A single TIE Defender was sent out sporting scanning equipment more than it had weapons on it. It could fight with the best of them, but this specific outfitting was meant more for scouting rather than fighting.
"Sir, initial telemetry coming in," a crew member reported. A holographic globe appeared in the center of the bridge's walkway with a line of miles appearing along the flight path of the Defender. The planet's biomes were quite diversified, it was expected from a planet in the habitable zone in its solar system.
"ETA for mapping completion?" the captain asked.
"All data has been sent, captain. We're just waiting for the central computer to process all of the terrain mapping data along with any points of interest."
"Recall the Defender and wait for data processing. We'll proceed with first contact protocols when it's done," the captain ordered.
As one crewman was already acting on the first portion of the order, his XO asked, "Are you sure that there's a technologically advanced civilization still able to receive radio transmissions?"
"No, but we don't really waste any resources in trying."
Hours passed before the final rendering was complete. When it did, it revealed the splendor of the garden world below them. Vast rolling plains of grass reminiscent of Naboo. Arctic wastelands that reminded some of Hoth. Vast forests that reminded some of either the forest moon of Endor or Kashyyk. Vast sandy desert wastelands that reminded many of Tatooine. While it was to be expected that there would be many different biomes on a garden planet, it was shocking at how many there truly were on a single planet. Data from the satellites were collected and analyzed further. Finally, they had a starting point.
"Captain, we've triangulated the origin of the transmission that we skimmed," one of the techs reported. They highlighted an island archipelago on the planet's map. From there, it zoomed in to a ruined cityscape. It looked like late industrial, pre-space age architecture. The entire area around it appeared to be a complete wasteland. "It seems to be coming from this building."
The captain paused for a moment before following up with, "Put together a landing team. Full combat gear."
"Sir?"
"Whatever caused that level of destruction would have left the surviving populace in a state hostile to outsiders. While the team is being prepared, try and send the standard First Contact package and see if we get a response."
"Aye, captain," the officer replied and entered several commands into the terminal he was working at. He picked up a set of headphones and listened as the transmission went out. This went on for a while before the officer set them down. "Sir, the package was broadcasted on all known frequencies as well as unsecured ones across the spectrum, no response."
The captain sighed, "Very well." He started to walk towards the turbolift.
"Where are you going, sir?"
"I'm going down with them," he said as the doors closed.
Before heading to the hangar, he stopped at his quarters and opened his small armory of personal weapons. One weapon being one that he had been raised on, a lightsaber. He hooked it to his holster belt as well as grabbing a DL-44 high powered blaster pistol. The last thing he grabbed was a nerf leather duster, something that would be well suited for places out in Wild Space. On this planet and the area that he would be landing in, it would serve the purpose of hiding his armament from those that may have more hostile intentions. Although, he was pretty sure that this planet was in a technological era where either slugthrowers were just emerging again, or they were still on bows. Once he thought he was reasonably equipped, he made his way to the hangar. Inside was an old Lambda-class shuttle, the workhorse of the old Palpatine era Empire. Inside was a six-man squad armed to the teeth.
The captain entered the cockpit and looked to the pilot. "Are we all set?" he asked.
"We are fueled, armed, and loaded," she replied.
"Take us down to the surface."
"Aye, captain." The shuttle's loading ramp raised and sealed itself with the vessel and the engine started to hum louder as the pilot maneuvered the repulsors to give them a more direct exit from the bay.
The flight down to the surface of the planet was quiet with the occasional rattling of the bulkheads as reentry caused slight vibrations in the shuttle's hull. The vibration settled as they finished entering the atmosphere. As the clouds cleared up, the captain saw the ruined cityscape. It was like a primitive version of the ruins on Taris from back during the Revan-Malak War, one of the many names people knew that conflict by that took place during the Old Republic era. They set down in a bay area. It had plenty of visibility all around and gave them a good layout of the area by visuals alone.
"Life signs?" the captain asked.
The pilot tapped at several controls as they finished their descent. "Tons of wildlife, but still no active radio signals," the pilot replied.
"Passive ones?"
"Just echoes."
"Lock on to those, send them to our comm equipment."
"You intend to go wherever it is?"
"Best place to start, if any," he shrugged.
"Be careful. There are pockets of high radiation trapped in the city and large biosignatures roaming underground."
"Well, it's a good thing we've grabbed heavy ordinance," he cautiously dismissed the report.
The troopers and the captain started their long march towards the echo of a signal. The eerie silence had them all on edge. But as the captain walked through the city, he could feel the spirit of this place through the Force. There was much sorrow, fear, and death here. He kept his composure as he felt the icy, eerie feeling from running down his spine. A tragedy happened here to the point where it forced the survivors to flee from here. They continued to march; their weapons ready to unleash hyper-excited particle devastation.
Eventually, they reached what looked like a bunker. The captain hopped on his comms equipment. "We're at a bunker, it looks like. Maybe a military base of some kind," he reported to the pilot.
"That's the origin of the echo." There was a pause. "Are you intending to go in?"
"If we want to know what happened, yes. The Empire does have a strict colonization policy about taking over already lived on worlds."
"But not ones where they wiped themselves out," she finished. The policy that the Fel Empire had was very strict on this. If there wasn't already a people or civilization that possessed or housed themselves on a world, it would take manpower to create a delegation to get territory. And there were horror stories from spacers that told of primitive or fearful civilizations that outright attacked the more technologically advanced delegation party causing deaths on both sides of the fence. It was a calculated risk to hire mercenaries or bounty hunters to scout or chart a world for future habitation; they knew the risks when getting into it and were paid accordingly. The same can't be said for other persons in the Empire or even the Galactic Alliance. Live and let live and all that.
"Once we know everything this world has to offer, we'll report back to the Empire," the captain concluded.
[See the post notes from here on out.]
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Alright, so this one was one of the projects that I had started on my other PC that I had gotten a fair way in with a general outline before I just lost any passion for continuing it any further. Here were the events that were supposed to take place, as I did have general guidelines set for this oneshot.
1. Infiltration. The captain and his team would enter the base and split up.
2. Yakomaru/Squealer and his psychic was supposed to enter the same base (different from both the anime and the manga where it seems like the Psycho Buster is located in an office building; odd considering the fact that it is a bioweapon) and kill a fair amount of the away team prompting the captain to play a game of cat and mouse with the psychic to learn its strengths and weaknesses.
3. The captain would join up with Saki, Kiroumaru, and Satoru in the final showdown with the psychic. The captain would have used his knowledge gained over his cat and mouse chase to disable the psychic allowing him to strike at Squealer's forces with little resistance and with great effect due to combat training and the Force itself.
4. Extraction. The captain would extract Saki and company topside and take them back to the ship. From there he would learn the world's history as Saki knew it as Satoru (who at that time was injured per the anime) would be undergoing treatment. At the same time, the Fiend would be in a Force-proof prison cell surrounded by ysalamiri preventing it from attacking anyone. Squealer would be interrogated with all available Star Wars means to get the complete story of Earth from the queerats perspective.
5. Base Delta Zero. Seeing the threat of these psychics, who appear to be all the more unhinged than any Force user in the wider galaxy, should any make it off world. The Fel Empire initiates Base Delta Zero, otherwise known as orbital bombardment, upon major psychic settlements that show themselves to be threats. The primary target being the Holy Cherry Blossom Empire whose atrocities left a scar on the wider country committed by their emperors.
6. The returning of Saki, Kiroumaru, and Satoru Earthside to their village along with the reconditioned fiend child who seems to now have an aversion to killing anything in general. Squealer is kept alive for research purposes by the Fel Empire and is never seen again on Earth, the queerat rebellion dies without its leader and their trump card weapon.
Now, as for some of the reasons why I abandoned this. The lore. In order to really get all of the backstory of this series, there is a 7-volume manga which contains much more information than the 2-season anime about the world itself in terms of world building. According to the wiki, the island of Japan is what appears to be a quarantine zone for psychics and scientists from the outside study them as well as the societies they exist in so that they can be manipulated into whatever roles are needed. Of course, my information may be incorrect. This worry about incorrect information portrayed by the show is what spurned this idea from going forward and why it's sort of sat on my drive for almost 2 years without any continuation.
Will I ever come back to this one? I have no idea. I like the base concept of the idea, a third party discovering a destroyed Earth where the remnants have recreated society with a new hierarchy and the third-party needs to decide whether they will intervene or allow the species to evolve to interstellar status, or if they will due to the threat presented.
Let me know what you guys think of the idea itself and whether it has merit. I figured that I may as well put this out there to bring awareness to this series since it doesn't appear to get much love from the community all that often.
Until next time.