Voidtrecker ~ Imperial Luke Application

[faithfulson]

Player Information

Name: Skyla
Age: 35
Contact details: SkylaDoragono
Other characters: NA

Character Information

Name: Luke Skywalker
Canon: Star Wars
Canon Point: What would be between Episodes IV and V in canon, post the 2015 Darth Vader comic series.
OU/AU/CRAU/OC: AU, Imperial Luke
Age: 20

World Information: A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away… or something like it at least.

Personal History:

• Everything follows Star Wars canon up to the point where, at 11 years old, Luke runs away from home. He ends up stowing away on a cargo ship supplying the Devastator, Vader’s flagship at the time. The Dark Lord finds him and, after the record scratch heard ‘round the galaxy upon discovering who he was, immediately takes him into his care. He quickly realizes that he can’t take care of him under the current circumstances, and leaves him at an Imperial Academy as far away from the Emperor as possible, though he keeps in touch over the subsequent years.


• Luke graduates school at 19, and after a terrorist attack disrupts his graduation ceremony, enters Imperial service as part of Vader’s Black Squadron soon after, along with his best friend from school, Teak Windsor. It’s not long before Luke’s skill in the Force becomes apparent to the point it can’t be ignored, and Vader privately offers to train him, still concealing the fact they are related.


• Canon events proceed as normal (Rogue One, A New Hope), with the caveat that Luke is on the wrong side of the fence. He participates in the Battle of Scarif, and ends up stationed on the Death Star after Princess Leia’s subsequent capture. The destruction of Alderaan was too much for his developing Force skills to handle, and he ended up passing out, getting a first hand sense of just how wrong things in the Empire are.


• As Leia escapes with the help of Han Solo and the Battle of Yavin approaches, Vader tasks Luke and Teak with being his wingmates in the coming fight. Their goal was to let “the Rebel Jedi” (Leia, who had been trained by Obi-Wan after Luke left Tatooine) destroy the Death Star or, if she could not, destroy it themselves. The three of them paved the way for Leia to take the kill shot at the battle station, and were “pursuing” her when Han entered the battle, killing Teak. Luke knocked his fighter into Vader’s, sending him clear of the shot that could have killed him as well as knocking the both of them away from the impending explosion.


• Luke survived the crash, though he lost an arm as a result of the damage to his fighter, and was in a coma for two weeks. After waking to a group of Rebels in Vader’s palace that were in way over their heads, Luke trained himself back into shape, waiting for orders from Vader, even after discovering that the Dark Lord had been removed from command of the armed forces.


• Vader eventually orders him to look for a Doctor Aphra and Luke, along with the surviving Rebel, Alanis Danres, and Black Squadron ready officer, Lieutenant Gregory Tanbris, set out together to do so. The three of them recover Chelli Lona Aphra from her own heist gone bad, and Triple Zero and BT-1 are activated while enroute to rendezvousing with Vader. They end up on Geonosis to recover a droid factory used during the Clone Wars, though Luke wanders off, eventually finding the arena where his parents had declared their love for each other. Vader finds him after they’re done, confessing that he cared for Luke’s parents before scolding him for being reckless, as he doesn’t want to lose him like he lost them.


• At Vader’s command, Luke along with their developing rag-tag group of misfits invade the whale-ships of Doctor Cylo, as Vader knew the Emperor was using the man to keep something from him. That something turned out to be engineered replacements for Vader, something that Luke got to find out first hand. Vader came to Luke’s rescue, though the Emperor himself showed up before a full blown fight could break out. Palpatine led Luke away, essentially holding him hostage as Vader was left to fight Cylo’s creations alone. He attempted to goad Luke into admitting that Vader was outmatched, but Luke refused to say so, pointing out that Vader would succeed not just because he was strong, but because he inspired his allies to be strong as well. Irritated, the Emperor made a point to tell Vader to give up on training Luke once the fight was over, least his faith in someone so weak lead him to dying abandoned and alone “as Anakin Skywalker had.”


• Luke questioned Vader on how his father died afterward, and from his answer and the many stories Vader had told him in the past, was able to conclude that Vader was his father. Vader confessed that he had been afraid to tell Luke the truth, as he wasn’t sure how he would take it, and Luke admitted that part of him always knew, he was just afraid of the responsibility of being his son. It’s during this time that Vader tells Luke he’s not an only child, as he had discovered Leia was also his daughter some time after Yavin.


• Danres, meanwhile, along with Aphra and Tanbris, come up with a plan to have forces loyal to Vader work secretly in tandem with the Rebellion, forcing the Emperor into fighting a battle on two fronts. Luke and Vader approve of the plan, and they all split off into groups. Vader returns to the fleet to keep the Emperor’s eyes on him, while Luke and Tanbris go to recover one of Vader’s agents, and Aphra and Danres look for the new Rebel base.


• Luke goes to Nar Shaddaa, and masquerades as a Jedi in order to get the attention of the Jedi artifact collector Hutt that his father’s agent had been spying on. He’s easily captured and Kreel, irritated that months of undercover work was about to go down the drain because of political crap, assisted in getting the both of them out. The Hutt had a holocron of Luke’s father before he became Vader, however, and used it as bait to try and get Luke to cooperate. It only served as fuel to irritate him and, after the holocron was destroyed, Luke’s rage bubbled over and he ended up strangling the Hutt with the Force, before using several lightsabers to stab him to death.


• The group reunites, forms a plan to steal the Rebellion’s Fulcrum spy codes so they could secretly send messages to them, before heading off to the base at Vrogas Vas. The plan almost immediately goes south; Vader is shot down over the planet and, instead of trying to keep casualties to a minimum, stays in character and sets out to slaughter everyone in his way. Luke, who was only supposed to serve as transport for the crew sneaking into the base for the codes, abandons his post upon seeing the Millennium Falcon, knowing that was the ship that killed his best friend. He very nearly gives in to his hate and anger, coming close to murdering Han in cold blood, but managed to pull himself back. Leia jumps on him before he can make sure he didn’t actually kill the smuggler, destroying the lightsaber he was using before demanding his surrender. Luke stood his ground, trying to explain himself, only to get punched in the face by a very angry Chewbacca.


• Luke is captured and initially uncooperative, upset at himself for losing control. A pep talk and several days long nap later, Luke awakes to the sound of the Rebel ship he’s on being hijacked, and the sense of his sister in trouble. He breaks out of the brig and rushes to her aid, before assisting in helping the ship get back into safe space. He later pleads his and his father’s case to the Rebellion leadership, but after Vrogas Vas, they have very little reason to believe Luke’s words are genuine, and offer to drop him off somewhere as a gesture of good faith after his efforts to save the ship.


• Leia offers to take him back to Vrogas Vas, but their ship is attacked, and they end up marooned on an island on an unknown world in the middle of nowhere. The two of them spend several weeks living off the land, waiting for a rescue, before they were finally able to bait the troops looking for them, fixing up their ship, and flying off. They had a better relationship by the time they make it to Vrogas Vas, and Leia gives Luke their father’s old lightsaber, promising that, while she can never forgive their father for all he’s done, she’s willing to work with him and Luke, and will try to convince others to do the same.


• Luke homes in on where his father is, leading him back to Cylo’s whale-ships just in time for them to go off into hyperspace with Vader on board. He helps save the Devastator from a ship that stayed behind, getting field promoted to Commander in the process, before pursuing Cylo’s shole to the Kuat Drive Yards, where the Super Star Destroyer Executor is being built. While breaking his way onto the captured ship, Luke feels his father dying and flies into a cold rage, very nearly killing one of Cylo’s followers in the process. He pulls himself back, before hurrying to find his father — still alive and well, despite the scare. The two of them fly off, breaking into Cylo’s main ship, and Luke is the one to use the Force to order the whale-ship to fly into the sun, effectively killing the whole shole and Cylo.

Personality: Luke is a kind person at heart; no alternate universe or time spent in self-imposed isolation could ever change that. Imperial conditioning never really worked on him, despite spending eight years at the mercy of the navy education system. He is the kind of person that would give you the shirt off his back if you needed it, with a farm boy charm that would leave you feeling guilty if you tried to say no. He has a smile that could light up a room, and a genuine innocence to him that catches many people off guard, and is more often than not so out of place in Imperial military culture that it actually gets him in trouble. On top of that, there is a naivety to his actions and opinions, and oft times he comes up with plans and goes through with them simply because he truly, honestly believes they could work, never mind how ridiculous they may be to a more practical person.

Luke honestly, genuinely believes that the Empire could work as a governing body for the galaxy, though this belief largely steps from the early days of the Empire. Many worlds that had been ignored by the Republic for being too small to care about thrived under Imperial rule, something Kreel backs up for him, as he was from a world ruled by overlords and fighting pits, and would have died in those pits if the Empire had never arrived. However, he also fully acknowledges that the current system under Palpatine is utterly and completely broken, deliberately set up to feed the needs of the wealthy, rather than the people of the galaxy as a whole, and purposefully set up to constantly fuel a pervading sense of fear and hopelessness in order to feed the Dark Side of the Force. He is loyal to the ideal of the Empire — of a galaxy of people united as one and working to help one another — and knows that the Emperor’s ideals do not line up with that. He has admitted to Vader, even before he knew of their relationship, that the Rebellion had many good points — that the senseless draining of resources needed to be stopped, that non-human species needed to be treated fairly, and that everyone needed their fair voice in how the government was run. He does also acknowledge that the changes that need to happen cannot happen easily, and that a second, sudden transition of government ruling style would hurt the galaxy more than it would help. Despite that, he strongly believes in working with the Rebellion to de-throne Palpatine, and he hopes that by the time that happens, the two sides would have worked together long enough to be able to set aside their differences and meet halfway for the good of the galaxy.

Luke was told who his mother was at an early age, and being at an academy instead of a backwater world gave him the means to watch holos of Padmé’s past speeches (albeit many of them he knows were doctored to show she was a stronger supporter of Palpatine than she actually was). Her influence on his opinions about politics clearly shows in just about everything he does, and it’s led him to an almost bullheaded determination to change things from within the Empire. He knows he has his father’s support in this, but he is also very well aware of what Vader wants for him. He knows that once the Emperor is removed, his father wouldn’t take the throne himself, placing the responsibility on Luke instead. Despite how much he wants the Empire to change, this thought terrifies him, as he feels he could never be prepared for such a huge responsibility. Yet at the same time, he understands why; his father is a military leader, not a political one, and the galaxy needs a guiding hand at the helm, not a clenched fist. Even though he’s scared of this future, he does everything he can to learn of and establish political relations with leaders he meets, making use of that farm boy kindness and charisma to open doors.

Despite all this, Luke did still spend eight years of his early life training to be a soldier and pilot for the Imperial Navy. When in combat, the farm boy gets set aside in favor of the moment. He is unforgiving to his enemies, never hesitating to pull the trigger or lash out with his lightsaber, yet he is not a monster. If an enemy is defeated and unable to fight back, his first instinct is to offer them a chance to surrender, at one point going so far as to say he did not kill unarmed opponents (though this came at the expense of someone he had literally disarmed). That said, he is an exceptional fighter; an ace pilot second only to Vader (though he would rate himself below Leia as well, never mind they are about equal in skill), and a fair swordsman, if only because he’s still learning.

His military background has also instilled a maturity in Luke that isn’t seen in him until later in canon. The whiny farm boy complaining about power converters is long gone, replaced with someone who takes his responsibilities seriously. Military decorum has been drilled into him, and he takes every debrief, every meeting, every task with the same measure of seriousness and proceeds accordingly. Despite this, there have been moments where he has lost his grip on that maturity, and allowed his emotions to run out of his control. Though it is very hard to push him to this state, extreme stress or extreme dislike for an individual has pushed his anger to the forefront, most notably when his father nearly died and when presented with the chance to get revenge against the man that killed his best friend respectively.

The bonds he forms with others is a definite weakness of his. His personality leads to him making lasting close friends, and while normally this would be fine, when your main enemy is a manipulative, decrepit old master of the Dark Side that will use anything and everything against you, this is a massive detriment. Especially so because Luke would do just about anything for his friends and family, believes in them and all that they’re capable of, and would risk his life at the drop of a hat if any of them were in danger. This behavior is most noticeable with Vader, as he long adored his father and looked up to him as a mentor even before he knew they were related. Even Vader, the last person in the galaxy who has any room to talk about this sort of behavior, has pointed out to Luke how this could work against him, but it still hasn’t been enough to stop Luke from caring about the people he loves.

Overall, Imperial Luke’s personality doesn’t stray that far from canon. He’s still a kind, if naive, person that would do anything for the galaxy and the people he loves. He’s just a little more ruthless while doing so.

Key themes: Balance is important to Luke; balance in government and especially balance in the Force, as either extreme light or extreme dark can have negative effects on the people influenced by such powers. Also, his friends and family means everything to him, even if they can be used against him.

Main Motivation: To protect the people he cares for, even if it's at his own expense.

Skills: It's important to note that Luke's potential for the Force is near limitless for either side -- Dark (the "bad" side) or Light (the "good" side). In canon, he demonstrates an amazing ability to learn even complicated powers by just piecing together the brief guidance he received from Obi-Wan during the first movie, and that remains true for this AU. The major difference is that he is being trained by his father, and while Vader has not forced him to strictly follow either side of the Force, Luke’s powers definitely have a darker slant to them.

Force Strong
The Force in Star Wars is an ever present energy that binds all life (and even some non-life) in the Galaxy together. Those that are sensitive to it are capable of amazing, almost super-human feats that most other organics cannot hope to match. Luke's connection to it in particular is very strong, and much like his father, he is practically a flaming beacon of power to other Force sensitives.

Some of Luke's abilities in the Force can be broken down as follows:

Telekinesis: Luke has demonstrated a rudimentary understanding of being able to lift and move objects using the Force. He is able to call his lightsaber to his hand in a moment of need, and has managed to hold two people aloft, though he admitted it did take a lot of his concentration to do so. He still comes to a bit of a stumbling point when it comes to larger objects, and while he managed to succeed in lifting something heavy with his father’s guidance, he has trouble wrapping his head around being able to lift something larger and heavier than himself with just his mind. What he has managed to do rather successfully is grab people by the throat, going so far as strangling them — this is entirely Vader’s influence and his fault.

Telepathy: Telepathy in the Force has a broad range, from being able to influence minds, to reaching out and communicating with others over a distance, to sensing the presence of others. While eventually he will be able to sway the weak minded, Luke only has a 50/50 chance of being successful; he was able to influence the mind of a space whale, but the creature was already essentially brain dead, modified by Cylo’s electronics to the point where it had no thoughts of his own. Communication, however, is something he does frequently, as his close relationship with Vader enabled him to sense and eventually speak with him over long distances. He was able to instinctively reach out to Leia as well, long before he even knew who she really was. Luke's senses are very strong; he can pick up on presences he knows very easily, and is able to piece together where individuals are. He can even sense the energy powering droids, though not the droids themselves, given they are not alive in the same sense as an organic being. This ability to sense can also work in reverse, allowing to dampen his own presence in the Force, something he has had a lot of practice in, as it was the first thing Vader taught him how to do.

Precognition: Precognition falls under two categories: anticipation of actions and visions of the future. Even at his point, Luke has demonstrated a remarkable ability to anticipate and react to outside influences, whether it's to intercept a blaster bolt or to help prevent someone else from being injured by debris. Future visions, however, is a bit of a double edged sword for Luke, much like they were for his father. While being able to see the future has helped, particularly bad visions tend to linger, plaguing his nightmares until he does something about them. In addition, after the Emperor reveals to Luke that he was responsible for bringing Anakin Skywalker into existence, he unconsciously begins to develop the power of foresight, much like Palpatine, though his works differently. Occasionally he is able to see the paths the future will take in the form of moving shadows, usually just a few seconds ahead of when things will actually happen. The time for this will eventually increase, despite how much he attempts to deny he can even do this.

Body Conditioning: Even without having a little green man strapped to his back and running around a swamp yet, Luke is very physically fit. By training his body, Luke is able to learn to reach though the Force to help aid himself, improving on his own physical limitations that he otherwise would not have been able to improve on naturally. This is what enables him to perform jumps and feats of endurance that a normal human would be unable to otherwise.

Force Lightning: Luke hates this power. Luke absolutely loathes this power, which is ironic as his ability to channel lightning was brought about when he was at his most hateful and spiteful. While he can’t command it through his prosthetic arm, in the moments where he’s giving in to his darkest emotions, he is able to send bolts of electricity out of his left hand. This had a detrimental effect on him as well, and he still bears white, lightning bolt scars on that arm from when he nearly killed Han with that power.

Item: Anakin Skywalker’s lightsaber.

Sample:
Stealth wasn’t Luke’s specialty. If there was one thing he had in common with his father, it was that he vastly preferred to jump in, lightsaber flashing, and eliminate whatever enemies that stood in his way as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, that was not really viable this time, not with the stolen dralite potentially being used as a bargaining chip when he made things hairy for the smugglers. So Luke sat back and waited out of sight, observing the smuggler camp and trying to strive for the patience he would need to keep himself from rushing in.

It wasn’t until the early hours of the morning that he moved from his hiding place, slipping past the asleep or half asleep guards and carefully making his way deeper into the camp, his black clothes working in his favor at making him hard to spot, and he stretched out with his senses to feel the little baby dralite in the Force. Their small minds led him to the back of the camp, where he found them in a small cage stacked up on some other boxes. He peered inside, smiling sadly when he saw the young ones had been muzzled, and he didn’t need the Force to know they weren’t happy about it.

“Don’t worry, little guys,” he said, trying to fiddle with the lock. He could have used his lightsaber to just cut it off, but he was certain the noise would attract attention. “I’ll get you out… somehow.”

Unfortunately, things were not going to go his way. A warning from the Force alerted him to someone approaching far too late for him to hide. Luke ended up whirling around in time to see one of the smugglers appear, stopping and staring at him wide-eyed.

“You don’t see me,” Luke blurted out without thinking. The man froze, staring at him in utter confusion, and Luke tried again, this time putting as much of the Force in his words as he could. “You do not see me.”

The man blinked, before…

“A’course I do; you’re standing right there.”

Luke blew out an annoyed breath; Leia always made it look so easy.

“Well, I tried,” he muttered defeatedly, before flinging his hand out and pushing the man with the Force as hard as he could. The smuggler went flying back several feet, crashing loudly into something he couldn’t see. The camp started to come alive as Luke whirled back around, grabbing up the cage.

“Sorry, little guys, I’ll have to get you out later,” he apologized, muffled peeps of protest rising from the cage as he bolted away as fast as his legs could carry him.

Notes: Dear lord, I tried to shorten this, I really did. I’m so sorry for how long it is.