The backstory is amazing and it just works. And echoing the *sadface* at Anakin.
Yes, yes, yes to all your thoughts on SOTE! Xizor getting his is awesome. Except (okay, more of All My Love For Leia As Vader's Kid) I wanted some mutation of the story where Xizor's pursuit of Leia happens at a time when Vader knows she's his kid. Because. MWAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAH.
I feel comfortable in saying after your above comment that Death Star is definitely too much with the moral ambiguity/humanization of the rank-and-file of the Imperial military for your taste. (I handwave it that the Imperials we see anywhere close to Tarkin and Vader probably were either the gung-ho types or pretending to be, because the more decent/morally gray/non-ruthless among them probably kept a lowish profile, and Tarkin especially seems the sort to reward slavering violence in the name of the Fatherland, but.)
What it has are a series of OCs and relationships among them that read to me as a subtle sort of commentary on the dynamics between Obi-wan, Anakin, and Padme, and also on the Jedi Order generally, in the PT. In particular, there is Nova Stihl: Sergeant in the Imperial Military, martial artist, and unknowing Force-sensitive. Stihl is not quite an ascetic: he drinks sparingly, reads philosophy and practices his combat skills in his spare time, and teaches martial arts; when we meet him, he's a prison guard who teaches the weaker prisoners how not to become the prey of the stronger ones (the prison colony where he's stationed is a mix of genuinely bad seeds and People Who Annoyed Palpatine; Stihl's students are mainly among the latter). Basically, the dude's living like a Jedi. And he's come to this lifestyle all on his own. He didn't have to be taken away from his family and indoctrinated; he picked it up on his own, because he had a calling. So on the one hand as a character he's a brilliant defense of the Jedi way--- on the other, he's a wonderful critique of it, and specifically of their training program and the reasons for it.
Because letting Force-sensitives come to the Order's way on their own, by way of a vocation like Stihl's, is all well and good if you're running a contemplative order of warrior-monks who maybe go out in the galaxy and do good according to their personal callings within the Force. It is utter crap if you are trying to field a peacekeeping-and-special-operations force in service to a galaxy-spanning government; you can't get the numbers to play that secular role, nor have enough control over your members, and there's also the danger that some Force-sensitive out there will come up with a contrasting philosophy that's no less effective unless you get them early and make sure they never ever think about other ways of using the Force.
And it's the secular role that is the Jedi's downfall in the PT; Qui-gon Jinn is like the only Jedi who ever talks about the will of the Force, and Obi-wan in particular is guilty of talking about an allegiance to the Republic and the Senate at least twice--- not that this is a bad thing, mind you, except, you know, in a Jedi: a member of a mystical/spiritual Order with a direct connection to a higher power. And then there's Yoda, who smacks down Mace's suggestion of telling the Senate that the Jedi's connection to the Force has weakened, by saying that their enemies would multiply. That is Yoda the politician right there. (This is why I talk about the Jedi as reminding me of the Catholic Church, and specifically the Church in the Middle Ages and during/immediately after the Renaissance: it's a religious order that has gotten more focused on a political mission. And oh dear Force do I want an icon of Mace and Yoda with the caption "Princes of the Church", because that's what they are: religious leaders who have become all too secular in their focus.)
Stihl's the character with the most comprehensive set of PT-analogue issues, but there's also a couple of quasi-Anakins with corresponding quasi-Padmes; I think you'd like the dynamic between pair of them, which implicitly quasi-implies that if Anakin and Padme's relationship had been entirely platonic but no less attached and protective-on-his-part, it would have been healthier. But from what you've said above, I think the more-ambiguous Imperials in the book would just not be your thing. (Tarkin is properly sleazy, though, without for a minute acknowledging to himself that he's sleazy, and Vader is just Vader.)
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The backstory is amazing and it just works. And echoing the *sadface* at Anakin.
Yes, yes, yes to all your thoughts on SOTE! Xizor getting his is awesome. Except (okay, more of All My Love For Leia As Vader's Kid) I wanted some mutation of the story where Xizor's pursuit of Leia happens at a time when Vader knows she's his kid. Because. MWAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAH.
I feel comfortable in saying after your above comment that Death Star is definitely too much with the moral ambiguity/humanization of the rank-and-file of the Imperial military for your taste. (I handwave it that the Imperials we see anywhere close to Tarkin and Vader probably were either the gung-ho types or pretending to be, because the more decent/morally gray/non-ruthless among them probably kept a lowish profile, and Tarkin especially seems the sort to reward slavering violence in the name of the Fatherland, but.)
What it has are a series of OCs and relationships among them that read to me as a subtle sort of commentary on the dynamics between Obi-wan, Anakin, and Padme, and also on the Jedi Order generally, in the PT. In particular, there is Nova Stihl: Sergeant in the Imperial Military, martial artist, and unknowing Force-sensitive. Stihl is not quite an ascetic: he drinks sparingly, reads philosophy and practices his combat skills in his spare time, and teaches martial arts; when we meet him, he's a prison guard who teaches the weaker prisoners how not to become the prey of the stronger ones (the prison colony where he's stationed is a mix of genuinely bad seeds and People Who Annoyed Palpatine; Stihl's students are mainly among the latter). Basically, the dude's living like a Jedi. And he's come to this lifestyle all on his own. He didn't have to be taken away from his family and indoctrinated; he picked it up on his own, because he had a calling. So on the one hand as a character he's a brilliant defense of the Jedi way--- on the other, he's a wonderful critique of it, and specifically of their training program and the reasons for it.
Because letting Force-sensitives come to the Order's way on their own, by way of a vocation like Stihl's, is all well and good if you're running a contemplative order of warrior-monks who maybe go out in the galaxy and do good according to their personal callings within the Force. It is utter crap if you are trying to field a peacekeeping-and-special-operations force in service to a galaxy-spanning government; you can't get the numbers to play that secular role, nor have enough control over your members, and there's also the danger that some Force-sensitive out there will come up with a contrasting philosophy that's no less effective unless you get them early and make sure they never ever think about other ways of using the Force.
And it's the secular role that is the Jedi's downfall in the PT; Qui-gon Jinn is like the only Jedi who ever talks about the will of the Force, and Obi-wan in particular is guilty of talking about an allegiance to the Republic and the Senate at least twice--- not that this is a bad thing, mind you, except, you know, in a Jedi: a member of a mystical/spiritual Order with a direct connection to a higher power. And then there's Yoda, who smacks down Mace's suggestion of telling the Senate that the Jedi's connection to the Force has weakened, by saying that their enemies would multiply. That is Yoda the politician right there. (This is why I talk about the Jedi as reminding me of the Catholic Church, and specifically the Church in the Middle Ages and during/immediately after the Renaissance: it's a religious order that has gotten more focused on a political mission. And oh dear Force do I want an icon of Mace and Yoda with the caption "Princes of the Church", because that's what they are: religious leaders who have become all too secular in their focus.)
Stihl's the character with the most comprehensive set of PT-analogue issues, but there's also a couple of quasi-Anakins with corresponding quasi-Padmes; I think you'd like the dynamic between pair of them, which implicitly quasi-implies that if Anakin and Padme's relationship had been entirely platonic but no less attached and protective-on-his-part, it would have been healthier. But from what you've said above, I think the more-ambiguous Imperials in the book would just not be your thing. (Tarkin is properly sleazy, though, without for a minute acknowledging to himself that he's sleazy, and Vader is just Vader.)