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thomastapir — Luke Starkiller
Published: 2013-03-12 04:37:07 +0000 UTC; Views: 625; Favourites: 10; Downloads: 2
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Another VERY rough sketch from last night...My thinking was a sort of "alternate Star Wars" closer in look and feel to some of the earlier script treatments. The setting is a far-future Milky Way largely dominated by humans, where Earth is only a forgotten legend. In the tens or hundreds of thousands of years since humanity's initial galactic diaspora, and through contact with diverse alien species and cultures, the cultivation of ki, chi, qi, prana, mana, vril, orgone, or "life force energy" by any other name has become formalized and systematized to the point where, with the proper training, practically any individual can be taught at least some rudimentary telepathic, telekinetic, and psychometric skills. The Jedi Bendu are merely one of many such sects, schools, cults and orders throughout the galaxy. Of course, some life force practitioners are quicker studies, and some have more natural aptitude than others....I wanted the look and feel of Luke's outfit and acoutrements to reflect a synthesis of these different mystical and practical aesthetic elements--a kind of high-tech "Knights Templar meets Shaolin monk." I also wanted to allude to the original story's obvious roots in the Dune universe (Jedi Bendu = Bene Gesserit, another mystical school of practical mind/body and life-force control?) with the Freemen-like environment suit, cloak, and segmented armor, recalling sand worms and Stormtroopers in equal measure.
I know this sketch is crap but there's something I kind of like about it--it just does a pretty good job of capturing the vibe I was going for. I'd like to refine it some time before the Great Galactic Diaspora!
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Comments: 16
Man, I was walking the dog much longer than usual today and my mind started to wander. I eventually ended up on this and started wondering, where would the other factions from Dune sink into this alternate Star Wars? Where would the Tleilaxu fit? The Mentats? The un-aligned Ginaz Swordmaster school? Would Jango Fett be more like Duncan Idaho? Would the Hutt crimelords be replaced by a CHOAM style business conglomerate, with Great and minor houses? Would there be some Guild-like monopoly on space travel?
This idea has a huge potential for exploration. I'd love it if you continued working on it.
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--Also, the prevalance of alien sentients in the Star Wars universe versus the largely (or entirely) anthropocentric Dune universe--that opens up some interesting possibilities for repurposing Dune sects, schools, and guilds as artifacts or constructs of the various alien races endemic to the Star Wars galaxy. The B'omarr monks, for example, would be a perfect point of potential overlap between an alien race and some of the esoteric orders of the Dune universe.
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I would be disappointed if there were no repurposing of Dune factions as alien organizations.
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Man, those are all really good ideas/questions! I wasn't necessarily thinking of all those sects and institutions as having exact correspondences or counterparts within the "Starkiller" (for lack of a better term) universe, but it definitely fits with what I had in mind as far as the diversity of schools and disciplines dedicated to the realization of human potential and of "bioenergetic"/psychic abilities. And the diverse philosophical concentrations and approaches--some are martial, some are mystical, some are intellectual...In general I envisioned a more nuanced and complex panoply of disciplines, versus the binary/dualistic "canonical Star Wars" dichotomy of "light versus dark" or "Jedi versus Sith." You know, there are as many approaches to using one's bioenergy as there are people (or "beings") in the universe, that kinda thing...I was thinking of the Jedi and Sith as being perhaps the most powerful, or maybe just the most polarized factions, but also perhaps overlooking critical nuances that other schools have concentrated on developing.
One of the main differences I was considering is the limitation on technology in the Dune universe versus what we could potentially see in Star Wars...I mean, as long as there is a ban on thinking machines in the Dune universe, there is never going to be a technological singularity of the kind often posited in contemporary science fiction. The transformative evolutionary event is the transformation of the human body and consciousness through these various disciplines and the exploitation of exotic but naturally occurring resources such as the Spice Melange. This same sort of feudal/low-tech vibe was retained for Star Wars, but without any real rationale for the underlying cultural conditions...Such proscriptions against technology might not be a factor in the "Starkiller" universe. What I'm getting at is, Would Mentats even be necessary? Or might they be more of a cyborg life form rather than true "human computers"...? Perhaps Lobot of Cloud City fame is the Starkiller equivalent of a Mentat.
I was also thinking about going back to Star Wars's origins in other sci-fi properties, not just in Dune exclusively. The Hutts, for example, are obviously derived from the Regul of the Kesrith series ([link] ), and those various nefarious institutions like the Banking Guild that Lucas returned to for the prequels are obvious analogues to CHOAM and the other powerful political and commercial interests of the Dune "Imperium." So, you know, it's Dune, it's Lensman, it's Faded Suns, it's the Foundation series, and I think returning to that source material and dealing with it in a more explicitly derivative way would provide a lot of the "flavor" I'm imagining for the Starkiller (versus Star Wars) universe.
Not to beat a dead tauntaun, because I know I've hammered on about this before and even done a poll about it, but the main difference I see between Star Wars and the source material it draws on is that these other sci-fi universes are clearly set in the future, after the migration of humanity out into the galaxy at large, and that "psychic"-type powers, if they are employed at all, are at least dealt with in a faux scientific fashion or as "natural" abilities that even modern-day humans could potentially develop rather than as a separate, mystical energy field unique to that fictional setting or, paradoxically, as the side effect of a fictional microscopic symbiote.
By the way, "walking the dog for longer than usual" sounds like a euphemism for something vaguely tawdry.
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Perhaps the Mentat school (or whatever analog), instead of arising as a necessary replacement for artificial computers, grew out of some group with a desire to forgo modern conveniences like computers and focus on the development of sentient potential. They don't necessarily require the exact Dune conditions to exist. They could be another faction trying to expand on the bioenergetics thing, focusing almost exclusively on development of the mind to do so.
Or perhaps they ARE cyborgs, a faction devoted to the integration of biological and artificial means of tapping into the bioenergetic field.
Or maybe they have no interest in bioenergetics at all, and they're a bunch of extreme technophiles. That would certainly be interesting. Maybe their embrace of cyborganic components somehow puts them outside the bioenergetic field, at least partially, giving them some native defense or resistance against the rest of the schools. How would all the different schools react to a school that is outside their fundamental power to manipulate or even understand? And in the same way, would their cyborg nature limit their understanding of the other schools, who use machines but focus entirely on natural potential?
And getcho mind outta the gutter, meng! Buddy is not a euphemism. I do have an amazing ability to say things that can be taken as euphemisms, though.
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Thanks, I very well might! I wasn't sure where to go with it from here, but Robert/~fractal's comments (see below) really got me chewing away at it and I think I've got a few ideas to develop now....
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I'm totally getting the shaolin vibe merged with the traditional knight. Very cool.
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Thanks so much--that's the main thing I was hoping to get across, so I'm glad it reads that way for you!
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That was an intentional "mis"-spelling to emphasize the word's origins.
Thanks, man!
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D'oh, and here I was trying to sound smart.
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No, you totally did! I was hoping somebody would pick up on that.
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YEAH! 
*reads description now* Oooh, man that's neat
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Thanks, Darcie! Got a few ideas percolating, so I'll have to see where they go.
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