#theforceiswithher

Shmi is strong in the force too.  Perhaps she is not her son, no: But she kept /up/ with her son, and for all he amazed her: he learned and loved and obeyed, too.

She doesn't learn from the temple Jedi: Too old, too bitter, too enslaved, too /angry/, no Jedi educated in a temple would have dared.  The woman who teaches her barely has a year to do it: 'Rey' wanders in out of a storm, frees her, and wanders back into the stars in a freighter so battered and patched together, Shmi is afraid it will fall apart around them.   The Falcon never does, and when Rey leaves - fading away into the force like she was a ghost the whole time - she leaves a barely educated Jedi with two things: The deed to the Millenium Falcon and the most important lessons: Never forget who you are.

And Never stop Learning.

Shmi never calls herself a Jedi.  She has a lightsabre and she has the force and she wanders the galaxy, touching base with Anakin when they can, and the only thing she calls herself is a student - even when her mastery of the force, learned by practical use and study of easily a dozen salvaged Holocrons - outstrips half the jedi masters in the temple.   When the Council tries to grant her mastery for her obvious stability and compassion, she scathes them with her tongue: Shmi Skywalker will never accept the title of 'Master'. Not from anyone.

Anakin never throws a tantrum about his advancement, or lack thereof despite showing power and skill basically no one can match; He never says a word. And the Council looks in his eyes and half of them cringe. They know what's comeing.

Yoda grins.  It's a very pointy expression and makes the troll look positively demonically gleefull.  This does not make most of the rest of the council any more easy with the coming refusal.

Half of Shmi's Holocrons will never see the light of day, and by the time Anakin is given the title of 'Jedi', all but one of those has been destroyed; They are Sith Holocrons, and Shmi has listend to the prophets of evil and made notes about things that they knew that could be used and history they contained- and burned them to ash once she was done.   The things are /evil/ and laced with traps and horror and worse, but history is something 'Masters' like to take from people.

She never sets foot on Tattoine again.

Her tallents with a Lightsabre are terrifying; Obiwan can attest to that, and to the fact that, after crossing blades with Mother Skywalker, Count Doku turned tail and /ran/; Anakin, he thinks, will excede her before he is thirty.  Untill then, one of the best swordswomen in the order..isn't in the order.   Shmi doesn't grandstand or play at all: her style is simple, elegant and excruciatingly deadly.  She simply flows into the most appropriate peice of the most appropriate form for every move, having no favorites between the known forms.

Shmi despises using the thing, but recognizes sometimes it's the best bad option, and therefore resolved, while learning from Rey, to make the absolute most of what tallent she had.  And Anakin's talent did come from somewhere.

The Republic never falls. Palpatine's honeyed words meet not the ears of a young Jedi unsure of his place in the world, but of an Anakin Skywalker who has been reminded more frequently of what lying 'masters' on Tattoine would say to slaves they wanted to be willingly obedient...and of an Anakin Skywalker who's mother is one of the galaxy's best healers, already attending his wife and unborn children.   When Sideous attempts to command Order Sixty six, Anakin cuts off his comlink before he can, and the Dark Lord winds up on Trial for treason, murder, and many, many more crimes in chains;  When Sideous breaks them and proceeds to attempt to slaughter the Senate, /Obiwan Kenobi/ cuts him down while he is wracking Anakin's body with lighting where Anakin stood to defend his wife and children.

Doku lives a couple more years: He dies not under the blade of a great duelist, but by having his head cut off from behind by Padme Skywalker, when he attempts to kidnap her twins and is narrowly backing Anakin into a trap; His concentration on the premiere duelist of the order at the time is total, and he ignores the Senator. 

Shmi Skywalker's first student makes him -briefly- aware of his foolishness.

In centuries to come it will be Padme's name that makes it most into the history books, a celebrated leader and reformer in the republic Senate who's influence burns corruption to ash where it passes; Anakin will be famous amoungst the Temple jedi as the most powerful Jedi of the age - who used his power to let someone /else/ achieve great victories, many times over - and Shmi Skywalker's line will be accorded 'Respect due to students of the light who have never wavered'.