#seedsofhope

I am creating a conversation story. I did finish one story about dismantling stoicism, it is fun and absurd check it out if you re interested, but for a year I have also been creating a story that offers what is missing. A conversation.

Why Star Wars for this backdrop?

Here is a break down of things that happen in my life time comparing it to star wars and you will see that the reason we are here because it is a pattern I learned while listening to lived experience. And of course me being autistic, unfortunately I do enjoy patterns and the pattern of harm I know VERY well.

If you like to donate to me and my work. It would be greatly appreciated too because I am surviving in silence: buymeacoffee.com/dukemarjorie

Star Wars ↔ Real-World Fascist Parallels (1984–2025)

1.

Bureaucracy, gridlock, & corporate capture

Star Wars: The Galactic Senate allows the Trade Federation, Banking Clan, Techno Union to hold seats. Private corporations had armies, veto power, and sway over Jedi missions. (TPM, AOTC, Clone Wars).

Real World (1980s–2025):

1980s–90s: Deregulation & neoliberal globalization (Reagan, Thatcher). Corporations gained massive political influence.

2008 Crash: Big banks bailed out, ordinary people left behind. Same “too big to fail” logic as Banking Clan arc.

Now: Tech giants (Google, Meta, X) hold unprecedented influence over politics and information, mirroring corporate cartels inside the Senate.

2.

Emergency powers & normalization of authoritarianism

Star Wars: Senate grants Palpatine emergency powers in Attack of the Clones after the Naboo/Padmé crisis — cheered through without debate.

Real World:

9/11 (2001): U.S. passes Patriot Act, granting surveillance and detention powers. Ordinary people cheer in fear of terrorism — like senators clapping.

COVID-19 (2020): Governments invoked emergency powers worldwide. Some temporary, but others normalized surveillance and restrictions, echoing Palpatine’s slow “legal” consolidation.

3.

Weaponized propaganda

Star Wars: Republic broadcasts portray Jedi as heroes; Separatists portray them as warmongers. Both sides spin half-truths. Count Dooku’s speeches on corruption echo real grievances but serve Sith aims.

Real World:

1990s: Cable news wars (CNN vs. Fox News). Each side portrays the other as corrupt or dangerous.

2000s–2010s: War on Terror propaganda (weapons of mass destruction, “with us or against us”).

2016 onward: Social media accelerates polarized propaganda, echoing Clone Wars’ “both sides are lying, but the lies hide a seed of truth.”

4.

Exploiting legitimate grievances

Star Wars: Separatist worlds like Raxus leave the Republic because of corruption, over-taxation, or neglect. Their pain is real, but weaponized by Dooku/Palpatine.

Real World:

1980s–1990s: Rust Belt deindustrialization in U.S.; rural economic collapse in Canada. Factories closed, jobs lost, communities neglected.

2010s–2020s: Populists exploit those wounds (“elites don’t care about you”) — Brexit, Trump, convoy movements in Canada. Same as Separatists: legitimate grievances twisted into fuel for authoritarianism.

5.

Militarization & disposable soldiers

Star Wars: Creation of the Clone Army in secret. Clones treated as expendable tools. Umbara arc (Clone Wars) shows Jedi generals (like Krell) throwing lives away. Order 66 built into their DNA.

Real World:

Post-9/11 wars (Iraq, Afghanistan): Soldiers deployed in endless wars, often poorly cared for on return (PTSD, underfunded VA/healthcare).

Drone warfare (2010s): Reduces warfighters to “disposable” tools.

Now: Rise of private militaries (Wagner Group, PMCs) mirrors corporate droid armies.

6.

Neutrality as complicity

Star Wars: Jedi refuse to intervene in slavery (Phantom Menace, Zygerrian arc). Claim “political neutrality,” but that allows suffering to continue.

Real World:

1994 Rwanda genocide: Western nations claimed neutrality, pulled peacekeepers, leaving civilians massacred.

Climate crisis (1990s–2020s): “Neutral” corporate/government stalling = complicity in worsening disaster.

Canada specifically: Longstanding “neutral” stance on Indigenous land disputes, but in practice siding with extractive industries.

7.

Banking Clan / financial control

Star Wars: Clone Wars Season 6: Banking Clan scandal → Palpatine seizes control of galactic credit system. Quiet but decisive fascist power grab.

Real World:

2008 financial collapse: Led to central banks + IMF consolidating control over national economies. Bailouts concentrated wealth at the top.

Crypto & digital currencies (2020s): States & corporations experimenting with centralized control of digital money. Same as Palpatine nationalizing banks.

8.

Peat-moss fire (slow burn authoritarianism)

Star Wars: Republic tolerated corruption for decades. Naboo blockade allowed to stand legally (TPM). By the time people noticed the danger, Palpatine’s roots ran deep.

Real World:

1980s–present: White supremacist and neo-Nazi groups never disappeared — they burned underground like peat fires (Ruby Ridge, Oklahoma City, etc.).

2010s–2020s: Social media oxygen re-ignites those embers (Charlottesville, Capitol riot, Canada convoy). Like the forest suddenly on fire after years of underground smoldering.

9.

Targeting & scapegoating communities

Star Wars: Palpatine frames the Jedi as traitors, turning public opinion overnight. The Order’s dogma and aloofness made this believable.

Real World:

1980s–1990s: “Superpredator” myth scapegoated Black youth.

Post-9/11: Muslims scapegoated as terrorists.

2020s: Trans people scapegoated as threats to children. Same fascist trick across eras.

✅ Through-line for your generation (1984–2025):

You grew up in the in-between. You were born into a world where fascism was smoldering underground (1980s–90s deregulation, far-right fringes), came of age as it burst into flame (9/11 wars, 2008 crash, rising online extremism), and now live in the forest fire era (open authoritarianism, climate collapse, disinformation floods).

So... Even if you don't know Star Wars fully you can see how much it aligns with us. This is why I am writing a story about a conversation that someone needed before they got stuck in the story the other two want them to play. And it is a Trickster who is going to show you how to take back the story and become the hero we needed all along which has been happening while the rest try to make you unsure who your friends and where your community is because they will change the ground you use to know ans put you in a box whether you want to be in it or not...

This is a project I am hoping to do that artist can start doing in spaces like fandom spaces. Taking franchises and turning them on their head and making "fanfics" as a form of protest. I just did star wars because I knew the most about it. I am on the track to finishing the draft and hope to have it out for the holidays.

II YouTube II Instagram II Print Shop II

And from a tiny spark shall grow a light so bright we are all lifted out of the dark.

I'm using it to explain things to the reader and the character in the story but I have a strange predicament. I have aphantasia, which is I can't see anything in my head if I've never seen it before It is like being blind until I see it outside of myself.

Could you imagine what it's like to develop a world I cannot see? It's quite unusual for me to use AI for this specific problem just so I can interpret the visuals of what I FEEL in my head even though I really would rather have an artist draw stuff for me. I'm using the AI to fill in the blanks that I cannot see. So a lot of times I use that as, I guess, the visual development of my project in hopes that I either make funds with this or something and I can actually afford to pay someone to do the designs. For now that is my workaround so that I can visually see what's going on. And right now I have been working on trying to figure out what I am feeling to put in the story because I can't see. I can feel and I know something is there but I need visuals to get it out of me because I am stage managing the story I can't see and I know where it needs to go but I need outsidd stimuli to find a thread.

That's why I was always really into theatre and movies because visual storytelling is really how I learned how to do a lot of things. Because you can explain what an apple looks like in such great verbal detail, I'll never be able to see it. I'll never fully understand it until I actually see an apple, eat it, taste the flavour, and all of that to understand what it is.

So I was watching Trainspotting for a particular chapter I'm working on and I chose Trainspotting because the character in my story is a young man who has been on the darkside of life that the reader seen as a villain in the beginning. Also the writer Irvine Welsh had a really good way of making something very dark while having a very pleasant way of describing it that I really enjoyed, but becauss I saw the mvoie first then read it I could follow better.

the whole story is about finding the exit out of your stuck in and is killing you. Renton was able to find a way out of his story while everyone else in that story stayed.

Here is the Star Wars Seeds of Hope Fanfic. Happy May 4th

Seeds of Hope. Planting a root system in a story that outlives an empire from the very people I learned it from.