Originally posted by Faunus
You know, the Luke vs. Sidious excerpt actually almost managed to make me mildly lessen my undying hatred for DE. Brilliant writing on a level evocative of a modern day epic poem.
Publius is awesome. He also attributes Palpatine's Force Storms to the infernal mechanisms of Palpatine's flagships. I say burn the comics and publish that. You ever get MSN, I'll send you the whole thing.
Originally posted by Faunus
I ever get a new laptop, I will indeed. Like I explained to LS, this one's complete garbage now.And the ship makes the Force storms now? Sweet. Finally, a moderately logical embodiment of weaponized SW tech. Can you post that here, or just link it?
No, it doesn't. But in his fan novelization, it does. The link to the story is down, I have an old copy he sent me.
The conclusion to Publius's ToW. Amazing. I worship the man.
There was a great disturbance in the Force, like a thousand voices crying out in terror.Luke and Leia both staggered as they felt the Emperor's wrath take form, as they felt the lives of thousands of brave men and women be extinguished by the vast storm of raw energy, as they felt the rending of the very fabric of space and time itself. Luke could feel the agony in his soul, his mind's eye blinded by the fierce power the Emperor had unleashed.
"What is it?" Leia called, struggling against the pain in her own mind. "What's he doing?"
"It's a storm," Luke answered, dropping to his knees and clutching at his temples. The pain of it was overwhelming; the Force was strong in him, and here, now, in the focus of the Eclipse's infernal architecture, every sensation his clairvoyance brought him was amplified a thousandfold. "A Force storm – the Sith Lord's most terrible weapon!"
"Yes," the Emperor said, rising now to his full height, his diabolical laughter resounding in their ears. "Yes! Do you see, Skywalker, do you see at last? Do you finally comprehend my glory?"
And once more the hurricane's gale answered his summons, hurling both Luke and Leia into the far bulkhead, away from the broken throne and viewport – and this time, not even Luke could stand against him. Debris wrenched itself free from the twisted remnants of the throne room and struck him once more. "Do you see, Skywalker? Do you see?" The Emperor's face was twisted in hatred, his snakelike eyes gleaming with zealotry. "This power could have been yours! You could have served at my side! You could have been a god! And you rejected me! You rejected me! And for what? For this? For misery, and pain, and death? You pathetic fool!"
And now the storm was raging in the throne room as well, the demonic winds tearing apart whatever remained from the test of wills. The air sizzled with the Emperor's hideous lightning, snaking along the deck and bulkheads without focus. The full rage of the deathless autocrat had been unleashed, and it was a fury unlike anything the galaxy had ever seen.
"You could have been great!" He roared. "This is your prize now, Skywalker! This is your triumph! You dared think you could defeat me? Me? I who destroyed the Jedi? I who conquered death itself? You think your pathetic lightsaber could defeat me? I am a god, Skywalker, I am the dark side, I am the universe itself! You cannot defeat me! I am invincible!"
But Luke stood fast. As the wind and darkness screamed around him – as the Emperor's storm laid waste the fleet beyond – as the Emperor raged and roared and buffeted him with sound and fury – he stood fast. He called upon the light side, and it answered his call, shielding him from the Emperor's wind and lightning, deflecting his missiles, breaking his invisible walls and javelins. And even as the Emperor threw all his great darkness, Luke released all of his light – and the light burned brightly.
"Leia!" Luke called over the hurricane's roar, "Listen to me! We can stop him! I have learned his secrets – not even he can control the chaos he's unleashed! Together, we can turn back his wave of darkness!"
Brother and sister together must fight this Dark Lord
And as Luke's light burned in the midst of the Emperor's eternal darkness, he felt his sister's hand take his, felt her light join his own – her light, and a tiny spark, the light of another.
And their light mingled, merged, became as one. Their harmony was a tiny one, compared to the vastness of the god-Emperor arrayed against them. And yet it rippled, spread out, grew stronger – from a few solitary notes before, now cutting through the Emperor's cacophony of evil –
My ally is the Force, old Yoda had once told Luke. And a powerful ally it is – life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us . . . luminous beings are we . . .
And their symphony grew stronger, summoning light from the waters of Da Soocha, from the hearts of the brave Sailors facing their doom in the void of space beyond, from the courage of those leaders who had taken up the fight against tyranny, even in the face of the unstoppable armies of Palpatine the Undying, those nameless, faceless armies who would be content to trample their boots in the face of freedom – forever.
They drew light from the stars, from the rocks, from the twisted metal of the Emperor's throne room . . . and from the wells of courage deep within themselves. Their harmony swelled now to a crescendo of light –
The Emperor blinked.
There was something wrong, something horribly wrong. He could not feel his wrath now, could not feel the awesome power pulsing through him. The darkness that was his eternal companion – the darkness that penetrated every fibre of his being – was gone. He reached for his lightning, but it did not answer. He summoned his winds, but they did not come. He snarled in impotent rage – and only then did he understand.
Only then did he see the light.
He screamed in wordless agony, a scream of horror that cut deep into the soul. The light washed over him, washing away his evil, burning away the darkness that fed him, that empowered him, that filled his being. The light enveloped him, driving away the shadows of all his lifetimes.
He was the Master of the dark side, the Lord of all it offered. War itself had become his weapon, his tool; he had defeated the Jedi because they'd failed to realize that they lost the moment they began fighting him. Their greatest warriors became his pawns, their most noble struggles fuel for his power. And as Yoda himself had fought him with all his power, he had not realized that he only fed the insatiable hunger of the dark side – the insatiable hunger of the Sith.
And yet these two – these three – had not fought him. They had not used the Force to crush him, to sweep him aside – but to heal him, to protect him. When he had plunged himself into the very depths of the dark side, they had used the light to reach down and pull him out.
They had exposed him to the light for the barest of instants.
And that was far too long for the Galactic Emperor.
The Force storm beyond had been summoned from the Emperor's soul, formed of his rage and his will and hurled upon his enemies – his implacable wrath given form. And now as the dark side fled him, his will no longer drove the raw destruction he had unleashed. His power overreached, his rage lost cohesion – and the unfathomable force he had unleashed and driven lost direction. No longer was his rage driven outward, and so the cataclysmic storm did the only thing it could –
It returned to its maker.
All the Galactic Emperor's godlike power – the incomprehensible fury of his Force storm – uncontrolled and uncontrollable, rushed back into his soul, and not even that abyss could hold it. No longer could he control the darkness. His power was too great, too massive – it filled him until he could hold no more, and even then it pressed on – his great power grew greater and greater, filling him beyond limit – until reality itself bent, and it all collapsed inward. In a moment of exquisite agony – agony beyond words, beyond description – agony that no living being had ever felt before, or ever would again – he became in fact what he had always been in spirit:
A black hole of the Force.
At that moment, all that was Palpatine the Undying – all that was Palpatine the Emperor – dissolved into nothing at all.
And with that, the mighty Emperor – the deathless Emperor – the invincible Emperor – conquered himself.
I have to admit, now that Gideon's shown me, Luke vs. Palpatine part one is pretty awesome, too.
Palpatine doesn't just DISARM him. He uses Malacia first to throw Luke off...then lifts him up with the Force and begins flinging him into the walls, over and over again until most of his bones are broken.
By the by, Faunus, what are your thoughts on the ToTJ stuff? Or the Clone Wars/Obsession comics?
http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?showtopic=28998
If anyone wants to see the BEST POST EVER about Revelation...scroll down to my giant post on this board...I copied and pasted a guy from TFN's review and it is a must read