Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View (From a Certain Point of View #1)

by Elizabeth Schaefer

That was the most bitter irony of war: The greatest acts of love for your family were the ones that kept you apart from them.

“We’re not done yet,” I said. “The trick with datawork is layering and complementing.” “Sounds like you’re talking about fashion,” he muttered.

But you know, I’ve always wanted to know what it’s like to fire the guns on this thing. Even datawork wizards like pew-pew-pew, you know?”

Every centimeter of a sandcrawler is prudently designed to fit the ship’s grueling function, and sandcrawlers have a lot of centimeters.

Customers wanted to believe their products to be as new as possible, despite purchasing them from an enormous, mobile dumpster.

For the first time, he felt like he wasn’t just a passive observer of the story of his life. He was a participant. It was an enlightenment the likes of which few are lucky enough to experience during the span of their lives. Jot just happened to find it in a furnace-hot, coffin-sized design flaw in the side of a rolling junkyard.

In low power, surrounded by Jawa bodies, he could barely make out R2-D2’s twittering farewell. Thank you, friend, the little blue droid called to him. You may have saved the galaxy today. I will never forget you.

He would have to hurry, because his damage was critical. But he had no regrets, and he did not look back. R5-D4 was barely a mote on the barren, ocher landscape as he rolled toward the horizon, free and full of hope.

The brain of a krayt dragon occupied only a small portion of its massive skull. The rest of the space, according to Tusken lore, was storage for pure, unadulterated hate, a gift from one of the skybrothers far above.

The heat of the suns sinks into the grains of sand until they glow, containing all the energy and possibility to become glass the color of jewels.

No place is barren of the Force, and they who are one with the Force can always find the possibility of life.

“Battles and wars aren’t the measure of a Jedi. Anyone can fight, given a weapon and an enemy. Anyone can use a lightsaber, given due training or even good luck. But to stand and wait—to have so much patience and fortitude—that, Obi-Wan, is a greater achievement than you can know. Few could have accomplished it.”

Every step of this long, unfulfilling journey is one Obi-Wan had to take alone…and yet he never faltered. As the rest of the galaxy burned, his path remained true. It is the kind of victory that most people never recognize and yet the bedrock all goodness is built upon.

Owen and Beru knew the risks when they took the child, and they took him anyway. Took him, protected him, loved him. It is as pure a heroism as Qui-Gon has ever known.

As Obi-Wan will soon learn, the most beautiful form of mastery is the art of letting go.

That day old Ben Kenobi showed up with the baby, my first instinct was to run. I may be a country girl who’s never been offplanet, but even I’m aware that when a Jedi walks up to you and says, “Here, have a baby,” it’s not going to end well.

I think my teacher was wrong: making cheese wasn’t what I was born to do. I was born to make people feel good when everything around them seemed just awful.

Now go drink your milk. And may the Force be with you.

This fool would be lucky to make it through an entire drink at Chalmun’s, never mind another year of his life in general.

Solo glanced to one side as though in thought. The last thing the luckless Rodian saw was a flash of bright light. His last memory was that of bitter injustice.

D’an had me keep a close eye on Greedo and find some dirt on him. I pointed out the bucket of sand I had to wash out of my eyes every night and said I got dirt on everyone, it’s right there, but he told me to get over it and stop complaining.

“What a pit, huh?” Tech asked, looking around the cantina. “Better than Jabba’s,” I said. From then on, “better than Jabba’s” would be how we would describe anything that was terrible.

Maybe he could change his destiny. But would he?

I passed out and you stole it from me, the Muftak counters. I find that interpretation radiantly unkind, counter-counters the Chadra-Fan.

Sooner or later, they’ll all end up at the bar. At Mos Eisley, sooner or later everyone ends up at the bar.

“And watch your backs. The Hutt has gone high enough on your bounties that every boy with a blaster and an itch to make his bones will be aiming to make them with yours.”

I need a drink, says Kabe, and she escapes under the table to approach the bar. I am going to die, the Muftak says.

The only thing worse than waiting is being made to wait when you’ve resolved to do something after you’re finished waiting but now have no control over how long that waiting must last.

It turns out that, sometimes, friends take care of one another, even in a place like Mos Eisley, and that makes all the difference in the world.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the whispers of surprise when I walked onto the scene. That’s right, boys. Fett’s here. Do me a favor and fall to the side after you’re hit. I really don’t want to trip over your idiot corpses once the shooting starts.

Mama Fett didn’t raise any fools. Strictly speaking, my mama was a birthing pod, but you get the point.

Were any other members of your detachment involved in this incident? Oh yes. Very much so. Which ones? (Be specific!) Literally all of them. Were any officers injured during this incident? One can only hope.

Also: sand. All the sand. All the sand ever.)

If we didn’t we’d be summarily executed, remember? Or long-distance choke-smashed by your beloved archwizard woo-woo-in-chief. Hard pass on that option, thanks!

“These are not the droids you’re looking for,” Old Guy says. And he was right. He was so right. It was like, of course they’re not!

What further actions did you take following the initial events surrounding the incident in question? Well, we went and got sizzled on some Jawa juice, my guy! What do you think?

It’s the constant feeling that the world may be very, very beautiful somehow if only one could remove the crap-stained glasses that come with being a member of this ridiculous army.

and it was like a gentle, terrible whisper that this world I once thought to be dead is so alive, just like me: so alive, and born and reborn in the storm, and absolutely free.

I need you to know that the Empire exists because of people like Corbin, who are too weak or ambitious to stand up to people like Duggan, and the Rebellion exists because of people like your mom, who are willing to risk their freedom and their lives to stand up to them both.

They love you very much, and they’re going to take you to a planet called Alderaan, which is far away from any fighting. You’ll be safe there. You can grow up and make friends, and have the kind of life I always wanted you to have.

T_T sobbing foreverrrr

Unwilling to see that the large round laser at the heart of the Death Star was just as easily a target as a weapon.

Weapons riled people up, reminded them that they could fight. It was bureaucratic mediocrity that made them accept their fate. Show a man a blaster, and he looked for a way to take it for himself and turn it on you. Tell a man he can fight in court, and nine times out of ten he’ll disappear just to avoid the tediousness.

He had assumed the Empire’s greatest weapon was the Death Star. But he was beginning to realize that it might just be Lord Vader himself.

I would welcome, under more appropriate circumstances, the opportunity to learn more about Lord Vader’s understanding of the Force, and how it enriches his daily life. I do not welcome Lord Vader quite literally attempting to shove his religious beliefs down my throat.

For all his claims that the power of the Force is greater than the destructive capabilities of this Death Star, it strikes me as more than a little disingenuous if he cannot even remotely choke a single individual from across the room. I imagine Lord Vader would have had to stand very close to the planet Alderaan indeed today if he had wanted to demonstrate how thoroughly his Force-wielding abilities outmatch the Death Star.

I do not attend Lord Vader’s religious ceremonies and demand he venerate the Death Star’s architectural staff; I ask him to refrain from interrupting my meetings and insisting I kowtow before this Force of his.

You would not betray her. Your spirit was shaken, and your loyalty changed. Your silence made you her ally. You were now as doomed as she was. You would never betray her. You had joined her rebellion.

I wouldn’t worry. I’m struggling to imagine a scenario in which fluent Shyriiwook would benefit her.”

A moral dilemma. Or, as Aphra preferred to think of them, dilemmas. “Moral” never really came into it.

SYNTACTICAL ANALYSIS: SARCASTIC BUT NOT RHETORICAL. RESPONSE REQUIRED, AFFIRMATIVE: Beepbeep.