here is a fun little star wars scenario that has been pinging around inside my head like a screensaver:
so letās say thereās some very zealous, very low-ranking fresh young Imperial officer on duty the day they take the Senator from Alderaan into custody.Ā
and he is very very nervous because a) heās been here for like a week and b) none of that week required him to be in a room with Darth Vader. which he now is. so he is trying to focus very very hard on Doing Everything Exactly According To Protocol, as a means of not focusing on the seven-foot evil wizard standing fifteen feet away.
and part of the protocol for processing new prisoners is to make a new file for them in the prisoner database, and enter all their biographical details and vital statistics and a gene sample and their known associates and the nature of their terrible crimes against the Empire and so on. which he does! very meticulously!
except the computer keeps throwing an error message. the stupid thing keeps beeping at him, this awful grating little noise that makes his shoulders ratchet up tighter and tighter every time it honks at him, and he canāt fix it and Darth Vader is right over thereā
except oh god oh fuck the beeping noise must be annoying Darth Vader, too, because heās coming over here and our poor junior officer is convinced heās going to die before he even lives long enough to send his first paycheck home to his poor widowed mother ā
he stammers out an apology. Vader just stares at him. he swears heāll figure out the problem right away, sir, itās probably a bug in the system, itās just that for some silly reason it keeps saying this gene sample doesnāt match the one on file for the Senator so he canāt get her logged as a new prisoner just yet ā
āDismissed,ā says Vader. the poor kid flees, gratefully.
Vader considers the matter. in fact, his underling was correct: the gene sample, which he saw taken through his very own helmet lenses, does not match the official record of Senator Leia Organa, heir to the throne of Alderaan. so: perhaps the sample on record was falsified. not impossible, but very, very difficult. and ordinarily a crime attempted by the lowly and desperate. he cannot see any need for it, in the daughter of a queen.
another possibility presents itself. Alderaan has no history of using royal doubles, as some worlds do. but Bail Organa has worked closely with royal houses where the practice is long-established. perhaps he was inspired. perhaps the girl they captured is not Leia Organa at all.
Vader runs the gene sample against the shipās database. it is woefully incomplete, of course, containing only a fraction of the Empireās billions of citizens: the shipās own complement, a selection of known criminals and Rebels they might encounter, high-ranking officials whose identity must be confirmed should the Emperor require their presence. unlikely that this girl, whoever she is, would have a record here, or even a partial matchā
the computer beeps at him. itās a cheerful beep, this time, not the error message that stymied the junior officer. the computer reports that the gene sample is a partial match for Pooja Naberrie, the Senator from Naboo. they are, with eighty-nine percent probability, first cousins.
and Vader just. kind of stands there. for a minute.
when he goes to Leiaās cell, thereās no interrogation droid with him. he goes in. he shuts the door behind him. he stands there, silent, for frankly a worryingly long time, until Leia has run through her entire stockpile ofĀ āhow dare you, Iām a member of the Senate on a humanitarian missionā and āwhatever you want, you canāt possibly think I would be of any helpā and āwell, if youāre going to interrogate me, get on with it alreadyā and āare you even listening to me?ā andĀ falls silent herself.Ā
Vader has been listening to her. he has also been listening to the Force, which seems to think that sheās not lying. obviously the humanitarian mission part is bullshit, that goes without saying. but the āIām Senator Leia Organaā parts and the āI wonāt help youā parts? yeah. he searched his feelings. he knows them to be true. the Force is singing in his head, bright and clear, in a way it hasnāt for nearly twenty years.
thereās still Tarkin to deal with, though. Vader turns and leaves the cell without a word.
Tarkin wants to blow up Alderaan. this is unacceptable, obviously, and Vader forbids it on the grounds that the Queen and the Viceroy possess vital intelligence, not disclosed to their daughter, that must be acquired. said intelligence being, not that heās saying this out loud, how the fuck Bail got his hands on his daughter, and who else knows about it.
āthe fate of the galaxy rests on it,ā is what he does say out loud. from the way the Force harmonizes with his words, that might even be true.
so the Death Star just. parks there. in an incredibly threatening orbit around the planet. they issue a demand that the Organas surrender themselves, or else, but apparently the happy couple just left for a low-tech weekend retreat in the mountains, what awful timing, theyāre sending someone to fetch them right away. Vader shuts himself up in his quarters, to seethe and watch the surveillance feed from Leiaās cell. heās not really paying attention to much else.Ā
and itās not like a random freighter getting tractored in for being an incredibly obvious smuggling vessel is the kind of thing youād alert Darth Vader over, anyway.Ā
so heās still sitting there, one great big thought filling up his whole entire head, watching Leia take a frustration nap, when her cell door opens.Ā
and the trooper takes off his helmet.
and he says, āIām Luke Skywalker. Iām here to rescue you.ā
