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:: An ongoing episodic story of fan-fic set after Episode VI Return of the Jedi, and inspired by George Lucas' historical draft concepts ::
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The Virtual Edition : Leia becomes a Whill !
30th June 2025 |
For many years as I've drafted the continuing adventures of the Virtual Edition, I've had certain concepts and scenes floating around in my mind. One such idea was to distill George Lucas' possible intention for Leia Skywalker : she may well have been - and continued to be - a political leader, but, on the face of it, Luke was to have "passed on what he had learned", and his sister would become a Jedi, possibly one of the greatest ever alongside him.
As Scott and I created the Virtual Edition Episode VII, we were careful to keep Leia a Jedi Learner, consciously mirroring her brother's awareness and abilities in Episode IV, and simply hint at her potential ; then, in Episode VII her skill as a Jedi warrior-monk would shine through - but still inferior and weaker than her peers and adversaries, and to ultimately be bested by Darth Kayos. However, in Episode IX, solely created by myself, I pushed the idea that Leia was special, that as the sister of Luke Skywalker and the daughter of Anakin Skywalker, and committed to Han Solo, destiny might hold a different path for her.
In tandem with my creative writing, I was aware that here was my opportunity - writing as if George was in fact continuing his own legacy with these sequels - to further explore Lucas' concepts of the Force and the Whills, how to definitively identify and illustrate these deliberately vague constructs, and to see if I could incorporate Leia, and Anakin's Youngling Massacre, in some way. In the Virtual Edition Episode IX, I proposed that the Massacre ruptured the Force, cursing it, so that no new Force-sensitive children would be born - Luke and Leia would be the last of their generation. When Master Jedi Leia Solo trance-descends into the Netherworld, she reconciles her parents Anakain and Padme, and vanquishes the possessive spirits of Darth Plagueis and Darth Sidious, thus resolving the curse, and allowing new Force-sensitives to be born. A mysterious Old Lady aided that meditative trance, a figure who materialises at times in subsequent episodes, providing cryptic insight and advice.
If Lucas had felt that the Whills were a "higher godlike entity" - later distilled down to the Force, and later still, reconstructed as the symbiotic conduit known as the midichlorians - who were observers only of the heroic adventures, which, in turn, had been recorded in the "Journals of the Whills" (Episodes I-VI), then could I, writing as Lucas, corporeally introduce such Gods more formally ? And where Leia, frustrated by her initial inability to conceive children, and scared to lose the man she loves, might seek powers that unnaturally force the natural order of Life ? To this end, in Episode IX I introduced Leia's singular ability to seer-journey through the Force, not just experiencing visions, but to physically re-locate to a new location in concurrent time ; and this developed more in Episode X. I was also exploring her use of Force-lightning, not necessarily in the destructive fashion favoured by the Sith, but more in the 'spark-of-Life' genesis of creation.
As Leia further explores her seer-journeying, oftentimes concurrently at several locations, she becomes more and more powerful. Now naturally a mother, her earlier experiments with lightning have given her a unique insight. Eager to discover and learn more, yet perhaps knowing deep down that it might lead her on a path from which she cannot return, she pushes on regardless, defiantly prepared to face the consequences... much like her Father before her.
She pursues a Force-vision - or is it a seer-journey ? - to a hazy scene describing two scientists. Her actions in helping the lead scientist conceive Life through the midichlorians will cement her destiny and seal her fate. Leia will disappear and be elevated to the status of a Whill, forever accompanying her brother and her children and her children's children, but forever being apart.
In Episode XI, when the mysterious Old Lady reveals to her, and near-paralysing her, a moment of all Life in Space and Time, she confides to her brother this afeared self-realisation that she might be becoming a Whill.
Where Luke Skywalker's destiny is to rebuild the Jedi Order, his sister, Leia's, destiny is to resolve the Curse on the Force and become a Whill.
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As I did with the progression of the Virtual Edition Episode X, I will post below sections of the prose for Episode XI as I draft it.... Over three separate scenes, spread throughout the story, Leia witnesses, through the Force, two scientists trying to create Life by manipulating the midichlorians, and she can't help but lend a helping hand... only to discover her actions will lead to a shocking time-twisting reveal... !
To craft these scenes I had to revisit what Scott and I had 'laid down canoncially' in our VE Episode VIII The Darkness Within to ensure these new scenes aligned with Palpatine's holo-diary entries that Leia had previously stumbled upon. |
Scene 1
Seemingly unmoved from her seated position on the low dais, Grand Master Leia Solo, eyes still closed in deep meditation, fidgeted slightly. Her brow furrowed as an inner struggle played out. The calm ochre-hued surroundings of her chamber could do nothing to bring balance or grounding.
A ghostly figure lying on a table. Two cloaked phantoms either side.
Leia metapsychically leaned in once again, and this time was rewarded with voices, made faint by distance more than anything else. She strained with all of her very being to amplify the conversation.
One voice old and raspy, the other young and keen. Hard-worn patience countering against impulsiveness.
The wispy apparitions firmed up and solidified. The two standing wore black robes, cloaked and hooded, the taller figure was bipedal but not human with an elongated head shape and long spindly fingers. The shorter companion was more likely a human, but neither person could be identified. A small hovering recorda-droid floated nearby. Who are these people ? Leia mused.
Leia couldn’t see their faces but she discerned from their hunched posture and their tight demeanour that they were under some duress. Their auras in the Force were tinged with dark red and purple, as well as flashes of moss-green.
The old voice was directing : “Hold the gamete there... good... now push gently... gently...”
The figures were not holding anything, but the item was being manipulated by their mind powers alone. Their attention was solely focused on the abdomen of the prone and inert figure between them, a female human.
Deep inside the female, Leia could sense movement at a cellular level. They must be surgeons or scientists, she deduced.
“Yes, see here ? The ovarian midichlorians ?”
“Yes, Master, but how can one distinguish between those of the mother and the oocyte cells ?”
The tall figure with the ancient voice pointed abstractly with a long finger.
“Feel its potentiality in the Force.”
Despite herself, Leia was fascinated. This was what she had been trying to do herself before her twins arrived !
After a moment the young voice affirmed. “It’s so delicate, it’s hardly there.”
“As with all things in Life, my young friend, one needs only a speck of an idea to foment a revolution.”
The shorter figure chuckled, a slight laugh that held very little warmth.
The mentor continued.
“Our challenge to ourselves is to manipulate the cell into thinking it’s to fuse with a male gamete.”
“The creation of Life to our specifications...”
“A New Order, my Apprentice, that bows to one Master.”
The younger man shuffled in his poise.
“I can see the midichlorians in the oocyte dancing in anticipation !”
“Yes, good, good... Now, hold her steady, and ensure she is open and receptive... I will focus my energies into simulating a gamete... and make it my own...”
“It’s so delicate, Master, I don’t know if...”
“Focus, boy ! Channel all of your being, hold those cells fast, while I...”
Leia watched fascinated as midichlorians poured forth alongside and through the energies of the Force, all the while the human cells were being held fast by the scientists’ minds.
Where is this happening ? Leia wondered. And when ?
At that moment, Leia sensed a disturbance in the Force, as did the other two.
“Master... what is... ?”
The venerable one hissed in frustration. “The cells are breaking down... we need to hold them together...”
The three witnesses watched impotently as the cells fractured and disintegrated, the midichlorians spilling out and dispersing into the aether.
But then the Great Mystery drew a veil across Leia’s view, and the vision faded.
In the meditation chamber of the Jedi Temple, Leia gasped in frustration, and blinked open her eyes. She sighed. The Whill of the Force remained as fickle as ever.
Scene 2
Grand Master Leia Solo was determined to see the vision with clarity and finality. She had to know whether these two scientists had been successful, and how her own meagre experiments would compare.
She once again sat in the cool ochre-coloured meditation chamber within the Jedi Temple Principalle. The cushioned dais under her conformed to her contours and weight, ensuring her comfort without distraction.
She took a deep breath, released it slowly, and closed her eyes.
Her mind sought out the location of the tantalising glimpses that the vision had provided, and she focused her full attention on recalling what few details she remembered of the setting, hoping to conjure it before her once more.
“There ! Got it !” the raspy voice burst in to her search. “Droid ? Are you recording this ?”
Before Leia the vision unfolded. This time she was aware of a single individual, the older scientist, and a small hovering droid unit.
The recorda-droid responded : “Yes, Master, on all visual levels, including resonance imaging.”
Leia briefly wondered where his companion might be and what had brought about his absence.
“I couldn’t wait,” the venerable one muttered, as if vindicating to himself. “He’ll understand. We’re on the edge of success, I can feel it !”
Leia shared his mind’s eye view, and once again saw the gamete and the oocyte being pushed together. The fusion would create the zygote, and other than the fact that, like before, he was carrying out this procedure artificially and with his mind’s power alone, it was clear he was trying to create not only a new life but one in the image, or as close to it, as his own Force identity.
Leia intuited that all previous attempts had failed.
I wonder why ? she mused. She recalled her own experience resuscitating Han and her subsequent experiments. Force lightning provided the spark of genesis ! But why and, for that matter, how ?
Leia returned her attention to the figure in the vision.
Now his mind was focused intently on directing the midichlorians. The older mentor was drawing upon all his strength in the Force to hold the zygote together, and, concurrently, was directing the midichlorians in intense concentration. The dual task was clearly an effort for the old scientist. Leia could sense sweat on his face and an increased heart beat ; stress hormones raced around his body.
“Remember,” the elder said, “I am one with the Force and the Force is with me. The Force guides me, and I guide the Force....”
The three witnesses present watched as the oocyte and the gamete were held fast, and the naturally occurring midichlorians within were augmented by a flow of energies from the elder. The multi-coloured hues Leia had observed previously now tinted the flow.
There existed still a veil of sorts obscuring Leia’s fullest appreciation of the scene. She could sense this individual was particularly strong in the Force, and in fact had once been very powerful, but he was old and the frailty that the natural order of life brings to a body resulted in a fragility to his midichlorians.
Deep inside the female, the cells and the midichlorians once again embraced and entwined and fused... and once again they began to fracture.
The elder visibly sagged at the disappointment, and the tautly-held connection between him and the female severed abruptly.
No ! cried Leia. Don’t let this go to waste ! You are so close ! The Cosmic Force shares a symbiosis, through the midichlorians, with the Living Force. You must call upon the greater unity that binds the Cosmic to the Living !
The figure turned his head to one side, as if listening.
“I sense the Whill of the Force beside us, droid,” he muttered absently.
The elder paused, lost in thought. He exhaled, and tried to push away the exhaustion to seek out the intuition whispered to him by the Force.
“My focus is on the Living Force. Yet it co-exists with the Cosmic Force, not in opposition to it. I must seek to blend the two, and do so precisely... but how...?”
Once again the veil thickened, and Leia was brought away from the moment. However, this time she felt that both the scientist and herself had made progress. She was also seeing inspiration and enlightenment, recalling her own previous experiences. What she had felt intuitively, she was now understanding.
She opened her eyes, and, unseen, the meditation chamber gazed back.
“To blend the Cosmic potential with the Living moment you need a conduit of the purest form... you need lightning !”
Scene 3
Leia Solo meditated once more, focusing with earnest upon the old scientist conducting his experiments. She sensed that the event had occurred in the past, rather than concurrent in her present, but other than that, she could not discern a more accurate timeframe.
The call to vision returned a sense of renewed vigour, comprehension, and determined aspiration. New possibilities had been unveiled.
“I cannot let him usurp me ! I must have successors who will always call me Master ! And I must retain oversight !”
Leia was shocked to hear the incandescent vitriol in the words that burst through the aether. There was a level of paranoia, and even urgency, that hadn’t existed before.
Previously, the scientist had come across as composed and methodical. This was the same person, and once again he was stooped over the supine female, and the hover-droid floated just behind. But his agitation was palpable.
“He is moving against me, I know he is !”
The droid piped up.
“Master, we need to focus on the task at hand”, it remonstrated. “Your experiments thus far have proved that the essence of your spirit can be translated, but....”
“... I can’t retain the form in the host ! Yes, I know !”
Leia saw the figure turn to regard the droid. The cowl shifted, and she identified the scientist as a Muun, a tall bipedal with an elongated head and long hands and fingers.
A scrawny finger pointed towards the hovering droid. “And I think I now have the answer ! I need to blend the Cosmic and the Living together.”
The scientist returned his attention to the female on the medical table.
“The power of Lightning is raw power at its purest. It chastises... it melts and it fuses... it burns and it destroys... it energises and it creates...”
Within the vision, Leia saw the Muun scientist raise his hands and point his long fingers downwards.
“And I have perfected my control over it. The Force does my bidding !”
No blue light crackled from his fingertips, but deep within the female’s body flickers of blue-white in its purest form flashed around the cells.
Leia watched on fascinated. She could sense the darkness wrapped around the Muun, and the earlier green hues had now been entirely replaced by the deep reds and purples. She suspected him of being a Sith, or a student of the Dark Arts at the very least. She wondered if she should she try and stop this ; but her impression was that this vision was of a past event and now concluded.
Leia returned her focus on to the cells being manipulated. The zygote was being created, cocooned within a ball of lightning. A trail of red stardust, entwined with an escort of crackling lightning, meandered its way from the Muun direct to the woman’s fallopian cradle.
This is it, thought Leia. He’s going to succeed. He’s protecting the zygote, and his essence is translating across.
The pairing was stable, it was not about to fracture... but Leia could sense something was missing. She remembered how, on Corellia, the unbidden lightning had sparked Han’s heart, and resuscitated him. That had been crucial. But where had it landed ?
Leia watched the Muun’s process with a critical eye. Not just sealing it.... inside there, too...
The Jedi Grand Master felt compelled to act. He was so close, and failure was again a moment away. As a reflexive jolt, and before she could counter her own decision, she directed her thoughts into the abdomen of the female lying on the table.
And, with the briefest of flashes of sapphire blue, Leia arrowed her own lightning of stardust into the zygote and breathed a first new life into the cell.
No Leia, the faintest of voices whispered, unheard and unheeded, not this....
The blue-white-red flickers calmed and faded, and the zygote remained.
The Muun leaned back, his eyes open wide in anticipation. “Have I... ?”
“Affirmative, Master,” the droid replied without emotion. “Conception has been obtained.”
Despite herself and her misgivings, Leia felt a flush of triumph and satisfaction ! Surely this vindicates her own experiments all those years ago ?!
The Muun, ever-methodical and diligent, addressed the droid.
“Monitor her, and alert me if the pregnancy turns awry.”
“As you wish, Master,” the droid clicked and whirred for a moment. “Should I remind you that Palpatine will be returning from Coruscant soon ?” it added.
The scientist looked sharply at his companion, and rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
“Yes, of course. I must keep this from him, otherwise he will have me in his thrall.”
The Muun paused, considering his options. Coming to a conclusion, he addressed the droid once more.
“I am due to visit Kalla the Hutt on Nar Kaaga. Arrange for Shmi to be sent ahead to prepare my arrival. She can remain at the villa for the duration.”
In the meditation chamber, Leia gasped at hearing her grandmother’s name, and the vision slid sideways and dissolved. Her hand flew to her mouth in horror and confusion.
What have I just done ??!
You have chosen your path, Leia, said the old lady sat cross-legged opposite her, a sombre expression upon her face. You have created me....
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| Nathaniel Reed, 30th June 2025 |
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