This story tells the end of The Jedi. The rise of the Sith.
This story tells the end of Anakin Skywalker. The rise of Darth Vader.
This story happened in a galaxy far far away, a long, long time ago.
It is already over. Nothing can be done to change it.
It is a story of love and hate, brotherhood and betrayal, courage and sacrifice and the death of dreams. It is a story of the blurred line between our best and our worst.
It is the story of the end of an age.
This is the twilight.
The end starts now.
The end began with The Separatists' Capture of Chancellor Palpatine.
Coruscant is ablaze with war.
The battle from inside is a storm of confusion and panic, of galvened particle beam flashing pass your Starfighter so close that your cockpit rang like a broken annunciator, of the boot-sole shock of concussion missiles that blast into your cruiser, killing beings you have trained with and eaten with and played and laughed and bickered with, from the inside, the battle is desperation and terror and the stomach churning certainty that the whole galaxy is trying to kill you.
Beings across the galaxy watch, and shudder, and pray that they might wake up from this awful dream.
Because they know what they are watching, live on the HoloNet, is the death of the Republic.
Many break into tears, many more reach out to comfort their husbands or wives, their crèche-mates or kin-triads, and their younglings of all descriptions, from children to cubs to spawn-fry.
But strangely, few of the younglings need comfort. It is instead them who offered comfort to their elders.
Their message is all the same: don’t worry. It will be alright.. Anakin and Obi-wan will be there any minute. They say it with such conviction, as though these names can conjure miracles. From the beginning of the clone wars, the phrase Anakin and Obi-wan has become a single word. They are everywhere. HoloNet features of their operations against the Separatist enemy have made them the most famous Jedi in the galaxy.
Kenobi would rather talk than fight, but when there is fighting to be done, few can match him. Skywalker is the master of audacity; his intensity, boldness, and sheer jaw dropping luck are the perfect complement to Kenobi’s deliberate, balanced steadiness. Together, they are a Jedi hammer that has crushed separatist infestations on scores of worlds.
The younglings know their names, know everything about them, and follow their exploits as tough they are sports heroes instead of warriors in a desperate battle to save civilization. They know that when they get there, the dirty Seppers are going to wish they stayed in bed today.
The adults know better, of course. That’s part of what being grown up is: understanding that heroes are created by the HoloNet, and that the real life Kenobi and Skywalker are human beings, after all.
Even if they really are everything the legends say they are; who’s to say they’ll show up in time? Who knows where they are right now? They might be trapped, captured, or wounded. Even dead.
Some of the adults even whisper to themselves, they might have fallen.
Because the stories are out there. Whispers of names that the Jedi would like to pretend never existed. Jedi who have fallen to the dark. Who have joined the Separatists, or worse; who have massacred civilians, or even murdered their comrades. The adults have a sickening suspicion that Jedi cannot be trusted. Not anymore. That even the greatest of them can suddenly just ... snap.
No human beings can turn the tide, the republic will fall. No mere human beings would even try, not even Kenobi and skywalker.
And so it is that these adults across the galaxy watch the HoloNet with ashes where their hearts should be.
Ashes because they can’t see a pair of Starfughters streak into the storm of separatist vulture fighters will all guns blazing. A pair of Starfighters. Only two.
Two is enough. Because the adults are wrong, and their younglings are right.
Though this is the end of the age of heroes, it has saved its best for last.
The end is evident.
It is evident when all hopes of the Republic falls on one person: Chancellor Palpatine.
It is evident when he is captured by the Separatists.
It is evident when the Jedi had to be deployed for war all across the galaxies.
It is evident when these Knights of the Republic are no longer trusted.
What is not evident; is simply the question of when, and how.
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