Author's note: Some people are like "Why is Luke so blunt with the Jedi?" Remember, people, this is a Luke who's been through the Galactic Civil War, Fragmentation of the Empire, Purge of the Imperials, Thrawn Campaign, Operation: Hammerblow, Black Fleet Crisis, Alamanian Uprising, Imperial Skirmishes, Corellian Crisis, Caamas Document Crisis, Pre-Vong skirmishes, and lastly the Yuuzhan Vong War. To put it shortly, he's not the same person from episode 6. The countless wars have forced him to adapt with necessary blurred lines of what's "good" and "evil" despite being a follower of the Light Side. War is a tragedy for all. For the people who are protected in the galaxy, war being over is great. But for the soldiers, for the people that are there, it changes them. Luke always believed in people and that mentality got people killed. Luke being a war veteran implies some very dark things: one example, he had to give orders to glass entire worlds with innocent civilians on it for a better outcome because doing otherwise would doom the soldiers and people on his side. He'd survived it all. EU Luke has multiple reasons to run away but he never did.

As for people who are like Luke knows too much, he had well over decades to learn about the days of the Old Republic, Jedi, Sith, and would read into them all to avoid making the same mistakes with his own Order and pupils.

Feel free to join my Discord server: . disc ord. gg /3b3B xdHQKG (delete the spaces). You can talk about whatever you want in there. SW and RDR channels are in there as well.

Chapter 12

With the loss of Nute Gunray, Rune Haako had unofficial control over the Trade Federation. Haako wasn't blind. The Neimoidian knew exactly the potential consequences of working with the Sith. If the Jedi discovered them-or in the more likely case, if Gunray squealed, the amount of trouble that the Trade Federation would be in, the trouble that they were already in would be an understatement. Their importance could be destroyed!

He'd wanted to pull back on this invasion and not look back, leaving the peaceful world with him now in control. He did consider the factors that this move could bring the galaxy down on them. The Sith were treacherous backstabbers who would throw them into the dust if they could benefit from it.

He hoped that no more malfunctioning mistakes would happen. Due to glitches in the battle droids' programming, particularly in threat recognition, a number of unarmed citizens were mistakenly gunned down. He wasn't heartless. He did feel guilty about the deaths. But he was trapped. Sidious was intentionally vague with most of his instructions. The Trade Federation leadership was ignorant of the larger plans of the Sith, and he wanted to keep it that way. The Federation was used to interpreting his broad directives rather than following a hyper-specific plan.

Not so long ago, the Trade Federation was led by multiple people of multiple species. Sidious managed to assassinate them all, except for Gunray and Haako himself. As the last member of the board, Gunray assumed the role of Viceroy of the Trade Federation.

For this reason, most did not trust Sidious. They did not see themselves as allies, and Sidious frequently threatened their positions of power and their lives in order to cajole them into action. The Federation leadership was enacting and constantly tweaking their own plans. They were skittish about the initial invasion, and all parties assumed negotiations would resume quickly, so he concluded they were taking prisoners.

Now that he was gone, Rune Haako was the unofficial Viceroy of the Trade Federation. And while he didn't like to show the cowardice or greed Gunray and many others of his species have, treating the prisoners as well as he could have, because truthfully he didn't agree with attacking Naboo call it paranoia or intelligence, it was too late to take it back.

Despite what many people assumed about them, the Neimoidians were many things, but lazy and procrastinators weren't one of them. One thing he knew for certain...

The Trade Federation couldn't collapse with Gunray.

The last few days on hyperspace from Coruscant to Naboo had passed in hazes of preparations. Luke engaged in several things: meetings with the Queen and Handmaidens which didn't all consist of formalities, the meditation sessions, keeping himself centered in the Force, and lastly sparring sessions with the two Jedi.

As soon as they arrived, Luke decided to meditate under the trees. Even a Jedi Master preferred the shade, and growing up on a hot-invested planet like Tatooine gave him preferences for such things. What clouded his senses was the death. Unfortunately, Luke was used to it: how the Dark Side fed on it like it did to all things, mocking those who remained resilient to it, cackling in gleeful desire.

Luke considered the topic of the Sith. He cursed himself ever so slightly. Given how corrupt the Republic of the era was, it simply couldn't be helped democratically. Removing any corrupt Senators was unlikely to help much because those who would be voted in or appointed by local governments to replace them wouldn't be much better. Sidious's manipulation went so far that he placed the Jedi in a position where they had no choice but to commit treason in order to stop him.

They had no legitimate proof of any wrongdoing from Palpatine-merely his father's words that he was a Sith... and that settlement hadn't been illegal in the past few centuries. After all, Palpatine never confessed that he was the one behind the war, never confessed that he wanted to twist the Republic into the Empire, not before the Jedi reacted and hammered the last nail in their metaphorical coffin.

It was telling that when Sidious announced to the Senate that the Jedi were traitors and he was turning the Republic into an Empire, most senators cheered the end of the Jedi and the Republic.

In short, his mother was wrong when she said that democracy, liberty in the Republic, and the system itself died with applause. Legit democracy in the Republic had been already dead long before that. Probably long before this Trade Federation Invasion...

And the Jedi never noticed.

One possibility Luke concluded was to de-escalate. Remove the Sith between maintaining their legitimacy and allowing the Jedi to go by using the dissension within the Order as an excuse to officially dissolve it and pack everyone not in active military service off to various planets to "reconnect with the people" and then escape from there to the Unknown Regions to refracture to take down the Sith using the same sort of plan that the Sith did. In an ideal galaxy, that was what the Jedi would have done-if they had to evacuate in the first place. Getting out was what was best for the Jedi, if they managed it, true enough. Of course, there was a little problem with that idea. The kriffing Vong!

That didn't take into account a few things-Palpatine could very much keep his hands clean and still put his Clone Army or even the Judicial Forces on them and then use a patsy to take the blame. However, this wasn't the important point. The Jedi severing their losses and running would mean that they would betray their oaths. It would require practically abandoning the galaxy to the Sith. After the Order was lost, when it was even more vital for the lingering handful of Jedi to go to the ground, instruct Padawans, and form a Rebellion: Yoda and Obi-Wan instead went to kill Sidious and Vader. This wasn't the action of people who would choose to do what was best for the Jedi, but one taken by those who would risk the unmitigated extermination of their Order so they could give the Republic and her people one last opportunity.

Even after decades of interacting with politics-up until the post Vong War, Luke still didn't quite understand fully how decisions were made if it was not simply based on what was morally right.

Luke had been blind.

He should have seen it far sooner.

Perhaps he should have known when there was propaganda after the fall of the Empire that said that the Second Death Star was actually a mining station that was trying to be captured by the Rebel Alliance to turn into a weapon of mass destruction and that Palpatine died as he self-destructed the station, heroically sacrificing himself and his station to keep it from behind used for evil purposes. The same propaganda machine would word something as such.

If the Anti-Sith Bill was never nullified, Luke realized how easier this all would have been. Of course, life wasn't like that. Luke should know...

Even if it was exposed that he was a Sith, there was still no evidence that Palpatine was anything but one of the best Senators and Chancellors the Republic ever had. Even after what happened to Alderaan, his Empire didn't splinter.

Concerning the context, outright killing him would also be detrimental to Luke's long-term plan. He would have to find some sort of way to reorganize the Republic into a stable enough system for the Vong. The added contribution of personally ensuring Anakin Skywalker didn't become Darth Vader and Padmé Naberrie didn't die. Biologically, they were related to him, but they were not... them. Not his parents. Luke was older than both of them.

Luke clenched his mechanical hand up into a fist and exhaled a breath of frustration.

'Damn you, Darth Sidious.'

Luke knew morality was a fragile thing. The Vong being defeated once? Luke wasn't going to leave his family in the hands of the trainwreck that was the New Republic if he didn't have to. The Republic at this time, even more so. The Republic at this point would be almost useless since they relied entirely on planetary defense forces. Kuat and Corellia stood a chance, but that would assume that the Vong wouldn't be prepared. In both situations, Luke could rule out the Jedi Order as a formidable force since the Vong were immune to the Force.

And... the idea of working with Darth Sidious of all people until the Vong War was completely unacceptable. Well, if Luke was still around in this timeline until then.

'A Jedi uses the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack.' Well, hell, THAT philosophy had worked out so well when the Vong attacked the galaxy and slaughtered trillions of people.

"Luke," Obi-Wan greeted behind him, snapping him out of his musings, causing him to look behind his shoulders to stare deeply at his once Master.

"Obi-Wan..." Luke greeted back, waiting for Obi-Wan to come to his side.

They stood in a somewhat tense silence.

It was obvious Obi-Wan was still sore about his discussion with Tiin. Truth be told, Luke felt some shame. He'd needed the Jedi on his side against the Vong, but those like Tiin would be a problem if he couldn't be persuaded. He and Mundi. Many Jedi in Luke's time described Mace Windu as a cautionary tale: a dogmatic fool who destroyed the Jedi Order, something Luke always disagreed with. Windu was just blindly loyal to the Republic and lost to his emotions when they were most critical. However, he had another attachment.

Depa Billaba.

When Billaba fell on the war-ravaged world of Haruun Kal, her former master sought her out, and she attacked him after a prolonged hunt, resulting in her falling into a comatose state. When she recovered from her coma a year following, she'd faced a trial for crimes against civilization. Windu advocated for her freedom - downright pleaded with the Jedi Council and the Republic to give Billaba a second chance - and presented a formidable case in the courts. Billaba was monitored heavily by the GAR and went on to train Caleb Dume later after she'd redeemed herself.

Was Luke MISCHARACTERIZING the Master of the Order or could he be saved with enough time and reasoning? He had plenty of time to find out...

"Are you alright?" Luke inquired.

"Yes," Obi-Wan replied a little bit quickly.

Thoughts of the woman flashed in his eyes. "Your thoughts dwell on Siri Tachi," Luke noted with a slight smirk.

Kenobi immediately defended, "Tachi means nothing to me."

The time traveling Jedi Master wanted to help Obi-Wan with his situation. "I never said as much..."

He pouted. "I haven't seen Siri for five years anyway," he vented.

"Why?"

"We almost violated the Jedi Code. We came too close." He shuffled.

Luke resisted gripping his forehead, "And so you alienated one another?"

"A few years ago, on a mission to save a boy, me and her fell in... love." The word sounded foreign on his tongue. "But we abandoned it."

"I see..." He replied. An extended silence passed. "Did you buy her flowers yet?" he quipped, a smirk on his lips.

"What?!" Kenobi flushed. "No! We couldn't live double lives!" he defended. "Attachments lead to the Dark Side. I had to do what was necessary. We both did."

He quipped. "So you're a Dark Sider currently?"

Obi-Wan didn't get it. "What?"

"You have an attachment with the Jedi Order," Luke elaborated. "You have friends, correct? You have your Master? The drive to become the best Jedi you could ever be? For a fallen Jedi, you seem to be relatively light. Curious." A bit of old sarcasm leaked into his tone.

Kenobi stiffened, "It's not the same."

"Oh?" Luke arched his right eyebrow.

"Well, can a human who never held a lightsaber beat a fully trained Dark Side user?"

"Touché. Now, answer."

"The policy is an ideal we're supposed to strive for, a hard rule we to abide by. The reason for this is that we need to be able to let go of those attachments when the time came without it destroying of our lives. The life of a Jedi is characterized by near constant travel and seclusion. Trying to balance a relationship with that kind of life would destroy both members of it more often than not."

A reminder of why celibacy was a toxic mindset to follow.

Luke never fell into that polycephalic trap. His unequivocal declination to dismiss all his attachments aside, he had spent long years disputing the matter with lifeforms even before he had first encountered Jem Ysanna. The importance was comprehending the dangers in them, and discovering when it had become tainted with possessiveness.

Oh, it occurred to him slowly. Now, Luke was in many ways than one: a widow. He had to deal with living his life without a committee. Including voting on so many things. Having to agree on the house, the town to reside in, what to spend their currencies on and how much to spend, which side of the bed to sleep on, which Holofilms to rent; the list went on and on.

He missed his wife, but somewhere in that aching chest, he knew that he would take this chance time and time again if offered only to prevent so many tragedies.

"You're not entirely wrong," Luke nodded, "but this is exactly the problem with the Jedi Order. Attachments, and specifically love, are what give us our power. I would argue that the passion Revan had for Bastila Shan is part of what gave him the power to defeat Darth Malak, and Meetra Surik's love for Atton Rand motivated her to defeat Darth Traya. Now, it can blind them, yes. One can be consumed by their fear for losing loved ones. There will be judgment and error along the way, but salvation is possible and will be better overall."

Obi-Wan was already shaking his head by the end. "No, possession leads to the Dark Side. One has to let go of what they fear to lose, to never grow emotionally attached. That is what allows the Jedi to focus on their main mission. When they are not doing so, it risks corruption."

"No, Obi-Wan, denying emotion, trying to suppress it, forbid it, contain it, and avoid it, you are even more vulnerable to this source of potential corruption. Denial, abstention, suppression-these teach one how to try to avoid a trap, perhaps. But they also prevent any opportunity to teach one how to escape that trap if they should end up confronting it anyway. The Jedi should not be teaching emotional suppression and avoidance. They should be teaching emotional maturity."

"We do."

"You don't, I'm afraid," Luke sighed. "The point I'm trying to make, Obi-Wan, love doesn't lead to the Dark Side. Passion can lead to rage and fear, and can be controlled... but passion is not the same thing as love. Controlling your passions while being in love... that's what they should teach you to beware. But love itself will save you... not condemn you."

"I'm going to assume you know someone," Obi-Wan said sarcastically.

"Actually, I do," Luke acknowledged. That wasn't the entire truth. He knew an "acquaintance" but never met the man personally. "His name was Starkiller."

"Never heard of him," Kenobi said.

"He wasn't evil by choice. He was found by a warrior of the Dark Side at a young age. He was deeply loyal to the Master, and taught through brutal sessions for over a decade. During this time, he'd encountered a female pilot. Unfortunately, it was only a matter of time before the Master betrayed him to his own Master."

Obi-Wan's sigh was prolonging, "Such is the fate of those who walk down the path of the Dark Side. Let me guess, the Master killed the lover."

"Ah, I'm not finished. His Master restored him back to life and unleashed him on their enemies to manipulate. However, through companionship, friendship, and eventual love, he was driven away from the Dark Side. He'd sacrificed himself for people he'd barely knew and the light of his life: that woman."

From Obi-Wan's perspective, he wanted to believe it was a manipulation. A story that could be easily twisted for Obi-Wan to be converted to his blasphemous philosophy. Except the Force rang truth. Was it... possible that Obi-Wan or Siri wouldn't have fallen to the Dark Side if they engaged in their blossoming relationship? Beside, it had been over twenty five thousand years and there had to be someone in the Jedi Order.

No, that wasn't...

But it was...

But it couldn't...

"There's more you need to discuss?"

Damn, Skywalker may have got to know him too well.

Kenobi shoved aside those thoughts forcefully and focused on another, already knowing Luke would see through him...

"Qui-Gon has been lecturing off about how the boy you'd freed is strong with the Force," Obi-Wan said. "He already made hints that he wanted me to take the trials."

"I see. Do you feel like you're ready for them?" Luke inquired patiently.

"That doesn't matter," Obi-Wan deflected. "Qui-Gon decides."

"Last time I checked," Luke responded dryly, "it is the responsibility of the Master to make sure their Padawans are situated before they make such a decision. YOU must feel like you're ready."

Obi-Wan looked down. "I-"

"Obi-Wan, do you feel like you're ready for Knighthood?" He tried again, knowing the answer.

"No," Obi-Wan admitted lowly, borderline a whisper. "But when Qui-Gon sets his mind onto something, he goes against the wishes of the Council." He shrugged slightly. "He wants me to pass. He wants me to pass," he repeated, "to train my own Padawan someday. It's always been like that..." he added solemnly without thinking. "I guess that's because of Xanatos."

Alarm shot through the Force. Obi-Wan stiffened, eyes widening.

Xanatos? Xanatos? Xanatos?

The name sounded familiar, but distinct at once. Who was Xanatos?

Before Luke could prod him for answers, they spotted running figures. Both moved with haste, coming next to the Nabooian. Luke frowned, the Force attempting to warn him of something.

"What's going on?" The Jedi Padawan asked, reaching for his cylinder hilt on instinct alone.

That was answered seconds later. There was a dust cloud ahead of them, getting closer rather than further away.

Through the dust cloud, he could see Gungans. However, there was something wrong. The Gungans were close together, and Luke could only watch as they dropped onto the ground, bloodied to the last.

Lieutenant Gavyn Sykes shouted out as he spotted them, and they came together in another swirl of dust. Limping, Panaka was gripping the man's shoulder, the Handmaidens scurrying past them, blasters also armed, prepared for action.

It was Padmé who moved first, dashing forward to throw Sykes' arm over her shoulder. Sykes hissed, and Luke, Kenobi, and Jinn - who just joined the party - moved toward them-dropping next to his mother who took in his prone form with concerned eyes.

Luke placed a hand on the injured spot, earning a grunt from the poor man. Blue swirls exited his hand as he focused. The man gasped as he stabilized the wound. Force healing helped, Luke knew, but it was just accelerating the natural recovery process a bit. The man would need a medical center if he was to ever look forward to a true recovery. This was Cighal's expertise. Luke didn't even know Force healing was a thing until Cighal demonstrated the ability to him.

"What happened?" Jinn questioned.

"The Gungans aren't there," Panaka panted, gulping in breaths. The future Moff of the Chommell Sector looked rough, but unharmed. "It was a trap. They were waiting for us."

"Boss Nass?" His mother asked, slowly.

"Dead," Panaka stated gravelly, but he didn't show much emotion. "Most of the Gungans are. A few survived but they're injured." He grunted. "They must have used flame throwers or bombs. It wasn't pretty."

His mother's expression broke his heart, but Jar Jar's state was beyond excruciating. The Gungan was staring down at the corpse of one of the murdered Gungan-a child, his eyes shone with sadness and loss unfitting on his face.

The moment caused great pain in Luke's heart, and he wanted to reassure him but held himself, understanding that it would ultimately be for nothing. Was this the result of capturing Gunray? What would happen to the Gungans now? How would they ever rebuild?

He didn't have long to contemplate, for there was another cloud of dust just beyond them, coming closer, too, minute by minute. Luke saw the moment the Naboo saw it.

A second before a blaster went off.

Rabé swore in Sullustese. "Looks like they've found us!"

Author's note: Yay or nay for making Jar Jar a more serious character?

Alas, this story isn't meant to be one of those: any interjection in the Prequels will make it better or whatever. I actually love the Prequels flaws and all and frown at the Clone Wars many retcons like the Inhibitor Chips in the Clones. Remember, Lucas at least did something original. Can the Disney Sequels say that much?

May the Force be with you all always.

PS, did anyone spot one of Jolee Bindo's lines? Come on, my KOTOR fellow fans! Come forward! Lol