Daily OpusEverything I write is freely rebloggable. Just keep the source and tell people about my books :D [Until I decide otherwise, my pronouns are Ze/Hir/Hirself. As in "Ze went to the shops to get hir medication hirself". Thank you for the respect.]
You ever fuck up so bad you overthrow a Chinese emperor?
I know what the Han Dynasty is, I swear, but I’m so used to seeing Star Wars content on my dash that until I hit “Qin Dynasty” I literally thought this was a Star Wars novel about the one time Han Solo took a job for the Empire and I was thinking 1) this is definitely something Han Solo would do and 2) I need to find the title of that novel so I can read it.
Oh. OH. (I am on mobile, apologies for the formatting and lack of readmore. But this story DEMANDED TELLING)
A brief account of the Glorious Ascension of Emperor Solo:
It was a job, and the Empire was paying.
Did he like using the Falcon for prisoner transport? No.
Did he like his continued existance, which he was NOT AT ALL sure would continue if he turned down the offer. Quite a bit, actually.
Still, how hard could it be, bunch of drugged and restrained people from one place to another?
One day, Han Solo would learn not to ask that question.
What do you mean my motivator stopped working?
At least we’re near a spaceport.
What do you mean the skinny little one woke up?
At least he’s still restrained. I’ll just drug him again.
WHY AM I UNDOING HIS RESTRAINTS?
Aaaand, he’s gone.
Kriffing *magic powers* kriffing *old religions* I am going to DIE.
Oh, inspection time…yes…of course…we still have all the prisoners? Why wouldn’t we?
Aaaand, now the inspection officer is dead.
I don’t need you laughing at me. Wait, why are you awake enough to laugh at me?
Oh, because you’re a Wookie. Damn it didn’t they drug anyone properly?
Yes I do see you are not restrained anym-
STOP CRUSHING MY WINDPIPE
Look, I enjoy being alive. I will die if I show up without the skinny little mindflayer. Maybe we can work something out.
Set everyone free? Sure. Already on it. And then me and my ship will just go…hide in the outer rim for all etern-
You want my ship. My life or my ship….
I AM THINKING ABOUT IT.
Alright, fine, I’ll go with you. Oh no, I am definitely invited along, none of you lot know how to treat my girl right.
Stop laughing. What’s your name, anyway?
Okay, Chewie, we need a plan. You have a plan?
Oh you were a General. I just…set a General free…no big. Nooooo big everything is fine.
Take over port control and contact the Rebellion. Yes, of course, all for it.
goingtodiegoingtodie
Hey, this is actually going pretty smoothly. Oops.
Yes this is…give me his I.D.! Commander Ravisk, we are undergoing an emergency drill and I just need…everyone to evacuate, please. Thank you. Have a nice day. Long live the Emperor.
That worked pretty well if I do say so myself…is that a Star Destroyer?
Kriff.
Yes, of course, Admiral Pohlash, I’d be happy to board and discuss the nature of the emergency.
I hate this collar, it’s too tight. You sure we can’t just leave? I can outrun a Star Destroyer.
Okay, fine, I can’t get everyone on board, warm the ship up, launch, and then outrun a Star Destroyer with all its cannons pointed at me.
Yes I am Commander Ravisk, this is my manservant Jimminy.
I really don’t care if you don’t like the name, sell the bit
Hello Admiral. Oh. We’ve met before…um…facial surgery is the new big fad?
Yeah, that was always a longshot.
A dead Admiral, not like this day can get any worse.
One day, Han would learn.
Quick, lets get out of here…what do you mean we are no longer over the same planet?
WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE’VE BEEN SUMMONED BY A MOFF?
Ah, yes, of course, good job…anticipating orders…Ensign. Admiral out.
This collar is even worse.
Yes, good point, it’s a nice cape.
Hello Moff…
Yeah, I really shouldn’t be surprised by this point.
Sure, whatever, this is Moff Ispsiallion, I’m pleased to announce the celebration of the Emperor’s Half-Birthday! Everyone gets a day off.
Maybe we can get out of here.
What do you mean we can access the Imperial palace?
Why would we want to access the Imperial palace??
I’m am *not* going to depose the Emp…
Yes, yes, big fan of breathing.
Even with Moff clearence codes we couldn’t just walk in there.
What if we…no, bad plan.
Really, it’s a bad plan, General. I’m sure you can think of a better one.
Well…we don’t need to walk in there, do we? We’ve got a Star Destroyer. We just need an excuse to get it close enough…
What do you mean GOOD PLAN?
ORBITAL BOMBARDMENT IS NOT A GOOD PLAN.
They did what to your planet?
Okay, I’m seeing the benefits of this plan.
We’re going to die. You know that, right buddy?
Yeah, sure, worthy cause. Never thought I’d get one of those.
A Little Later:
Wow, bright eyes, no, I’m not Moff Ispsiallion. Was my youthful good looks or my regicide that tipped you off? I’m Han Solo, and I just killed the Emp-
Why are you kneeling?
EMPEROR SOLO!?
What do you mean forty percent of the fleet has sworn allegiance to me?
Orders?
Um…I’m going to defer to Grand Moff Chewbacca over here. He’s in charge of your ships, got that?
Good…good. I’m just going to go into this little room and lock the door.
*muffled screaming*
*STANDING OVATION*
(You can always count on Star Wars fandom to really take something and run with it.)
Oh good god(s), what would the Rebellion’s response to this be? What would Vader’s response be?!
This is beautiful and wonderful, and long life to Emperor Solo! Long may he reign! (You know for a fact that Chewie has to sit on him to keep him from scampering. This - might occur multiple times.
…I also have the mental image of Han Solo trying to get an urgent message over to Lando ASAP - partly because Lando is one of the slickest, most slippery people he knows. If anyone can figure a way out of this, it’s Lando.
Lando does not figure a way out.
Lando shows up at Coruscant (formerly Imperial Center, because Han can’t look at anything with the terms ‘Imperial’ ‘Empire’, or ‘Emperor’ these days without feeling a vein throb) SPECIFICALLY to point and laugh.
Han get revenge by making Lando Grand Vizer. So there.
Nah, but see, the thing is, Lando has a streak of respectability. Not the “I want people to think I’m Nice and the Right Sort of Person” sort of respectability, but the “I want to do a good job, protect my people, and figure out how to use my skills to make things better for us” sort of genuine moral courage. He may be a con artist at heart, but consider how much he loved Cloud City and its people, how much he used those skills (or tried to) for their protection. (Vader, alas, not being susceptible to conning, or to keeping his deals.)
Put Lando in charge? And Lando would become the greatest politician ever. And unlike most politicians, he’s been in the underbelly of society–he knows the difference between the way things look on paper and the way they play out in reality for the people on the bottom rung. I bet you that Lando has a list of things that SUCK about society that he would totally change if he could, but will exploit the fuck out of and con because one con artist can’t change the world.
But if you make him the Emperor’s Grand Vizier? Then he can. And he can schmooze the higher-ups into LIKING some of it, and point stormtroopers at them if they balk at the stuff even he can’t charm them into liking. Things will change, and change QUICKLY, and all of a sudden the ordinary person on the street is going to find the laws are a LOT more in their favor. And the planets that aren’t Core Worlds are going to find the same thing. And the people who benefited, both under the Republic and the Empire, from exploiting others or just being born into the right class on the right planet? They’re going to find life a lot harder.
Anakin was right about one thing. A dictator can make change happen more quickly than a democracy, and a dictator who is wise and smart and good can really swing things in a positive direction. The problem is, how do you ensure that the person who comes after your dictator isn’t going to use that same power to push things in a negative direction?
And the answer is, in this case, that the former Rebel Alliance pushes for a restoration of the Republic, Han says “fuck yeah, anything to get me out of here,” and Lando says “sure, we can talk democracy, but we’re going to set it up differently so it actually listens to the needs of the guy on the street in the Outer Rim, not just the whims of the major Coreworld corporations.” And then, once the transition to democracy is complete (it probably takes a decade or so to get everything together, because Lando, like any good conman, would be out for all he could get, which in this case would be protections for his people, which by this point would be, like, everybody except the old elite) Lando would get himself elected a Senator. Maybe from his home planet, wherever that is. Or maybe he just picks a planet he likes that’s benefited from his reforms. And then he shows up and gets back to being respectable.
(And the remnants of the old elite, and the people who hoped to retain under the New Republic the same privileges they had under both the Empire and the Old Republic, they say to themselves, “oh shit.” They were counting on him being gone. They were counting on being able to undo some of his changes! And here he is!
Han has entertained fantasies of being able to go back to being a pilot when this is all over. But the former Emperor trying to haul cargo doesn’t really … work, for a variety of reasons. He periodically comes back to Coruscant to complain to Lando about this. Lando just points and laughs and has him (the former Emperor who toppled the Empire and Restored Freedom And Justice To the Galaxy!) record a message or do an interview in support of Lando’s latest piece of legislation. There are all kinds of conspiracy theories on the HoloNet about how democracy is a sham and Emperor Solo is still in command, albeit by proxy from the shadows by controlling Senator Calrissian. They are, of course, absolutely bass ackwards; in the reign of Emperor Solo, Lord Calrissian was the puppet-master working in the shadows controlling the Emperor, and now he is openly working through the democratic process.
Leia showed up on Coruscant as the Senator from Alderaan somewhere in the middle of all this. (Remember, this all would have had to have happened some years before A New Hope. Therefore, the Imperial Senate was never disbanded, however vestigial it may have been by the time Han burst on the scene.) She thinks the Emperor is an idiot (albeit a handsome one) and she finds him incredibly infuriating when he tries to flirt with her instead of talking politics. She thinks, at first, that this is because he has that Imperial gender chauvinism, even if he CERTAINLY doesn’t have the Imperial species chauvinism. (Actually, he points out HER chauvinism a couple of times, which both infuriates her and shames her, because she thought she was BETTER than that.) Eventually she figures out that the Emperor doesn’t want to talk politics with her because he doesn’t want to talk politics, period, full stop, with anyone, ever, for any reason. (It takes her longer than it should to figure this out because how, hoW, HOW does someone who genuinely hates both politics and being in charge end up as EMPEROR?)
With Lando, she gets along SO WELL, YOU GUYS, THEIR ENEMIES ARE TERRIFIED. Where they agree, they are ABSOLUTELY UNSTOPPABLE. Leia comes out with passion and fire, and then Lando comes out to schmooze, and if the one didn’t convince you, the other will. Where the disagree, they can usually find an acceptable compromise that works for both of them, and somehow everyone else goes along with it. Where they disagree but can’t find a compromise … everyone else is just Very Thankful that such things don’t happen often.
I don’t know how the relationships end up in this world. Maybe Leia marries neither of them. Maybe she marries both of them. Maybe Han and Lando are married, and Leia is the occasional invited third. Maybe Leia and Lando marry, and dominate Republic politics for decades while Han warms their bed when he’s in the area, and they are his safe harbor to come home to while giving him the freedom he needs to roam. (And he needs a LOT of room to roam after having been tied down as Emperor for so long.) Maybe Han and Leia marry, which fuels AT LEAST two dozen different conspiracy theories, and after Han abdicates he stays home playing with the children (and taking them out flying while Mommy is working), and Lando is their boyfriend and partner in every sense, but he maintains his own home and his own life because he finds he likes his life a little less … fiery, than life in the Organa-Solo household tends to be.
But while life is never quiet, they all live happily ever after.
This is an absolutely wonderful, exquisitely detailed analysis of the reign of Emperor Han Solo, First of His Name, Supreme Overlord of the Galaxy, Protector of the Stars, Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, etc, etc.
It is said that the best leaders are those who do not want to lead. “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them“ - Han is most definitely in the latter category. He was dragged into greatness kicking and screaming - and, much to everyone’s surprise, he actually ends up being moderately good at it.
Mainly because he has a very good grasp of his own strengths and weaknesses. He’s an amazing pilot. He’s not a politician - as such, he delegates like hell. Chewie gets to be in charge of the military as Great Grand Moff, and Han is extremely enthusiastic about being Lando’s puppet Emperor. He probably outright offers to abdicate and put Lando on the throne (Lando just laughs at him again. At length. In retaliation, Han makes him Chief Ambassador. So there.)
Han has a habit of giving Lando more Government Positions when the latter is annoying him. Lando really doesn’t mind; Han certainly doesn’t mind. Han is also a bit curious about where Lando dug up some of the people he’s putting into various government roles, as well as a little impressed - how the hell did Lando talk Talon Karrde into being Minister of Intelligence?!
Han, as such, is basically stuck with all the publicity stunts and formal appearances and Being Emperor. Which basically means wearing a bunch of very uncomfortable clothing and shaking hands and kissing babies and ugh. …he does kinda like opening up all the new charities and organizations. Especially when it comes to helping orphans, the homeless, etc - the people who really do need help. (And now he can).
Han also is particularly gleeful when it comes to repealing the Empire’s various human-centric policies. Chewie is as well.
How many spit-takes do you think occurred across the known galaxy when a number of people took in the fact that Han Solo had somehow ended up becoming Emperor? I think several individuals who had had business dealing with him in the past started wondering if just when they’d gotten so drunk they were now hallucinating…
Han and Darth Vader unexpectedly bond over an utter hatred of slavers and slavery. Han (and Chewie) provide him with a rather significant number of the Armed Forces and turn him loose in the Rim, with orders to stamp out slavery - Vader takes on this task with relish. (Lando quietly - or not-so-quietly - institutes the various social systems needed to help the suddenly vast numbers of former slaves; he and Han take a certain glee in watching holos of various Hutt-occupied planets being ‘liberated’.)
Just think about all the various long-term plans - of ‘former’ Jedi, of the Rebellion, of the Empire - that Han ruins by accidentally becoming Emperor. It’s positively gleeful; I also get a laugh out of Lando cutting finances to the Death Star because it’s a black hole in terms of all the money sunk into it.
So does Vader find Luke on one of his expeditions to take down the slavers? Do Luke and Leia then find each other?
@copperbadge I had the same thought, so glad you ran with it!
Emperor Solo….fantastic!
Part of Vader wanted to go to Tatooine first. Another part of him wanted to never set foot on the planet again, as he had vowed in the wake of his mother’s death. But now he finally had the chance go back and free all the slaves, the goal he had held in his heart since he was nine and had followed the Jedi away from his mother. And it would be good to topple Jabba and send a message to the rest of the Hutt clan. And Emperor Solo hadn’t liked Jabba either, and their unexpected bonding over their mutual hatred of slavery meant that this Emperor’s opinion meant something more to Vader than it would have otherwise.
So Vader found himself back on Tatooine, the smoking ruins of Jabba’s palace behind him, the Hutt strangled and cut into pieces where he sat on his throne. His troopers were finishing up the operation, clearing out the last of the slavers and bounty hunters and sycophants, and they were all equipped with a scanner (a more sophisticated version of the one Vader had built as a child) and tracker deactivator. The trackers would be surgically removed once they got the former slaves to medical care. Vader knew how having a slave tracker in you weighed on your mind even when it wasn’t active.
He left the clean up to his men and found himself gazing out at the setting binary suns, feeling a tug on his awareness. It didn’t take him long to procure a speeder bike (snagged from the palace’s hangar), and he soon found himself outside a painfully familiar homestead. Now why would the Force bring him here… His eyes strayed to the patch of ground he knew should be marked as his mother’s grave. But it was empty, not only her headstone removed, but all the ones that had been there before. A curious and somewhat infuriating thing, that.
Still. He remembered where she was buried, and though he never intended to, he found himself on his knees in front of her, head bowed in grief that had never healed and under the weight of what he knew would be her disappointment in his actions these last 15 years. He had allowed himself to be enslaved again, almost willingly, and he had then helped to enslave the Galaxy to his Master. But he would right those wrongs now. His annoyance and skepticism when the smuggler (he had dug into Solo’s past when he took the throne) had become Emperor had turned to cautious hope when he continued to help the Galaxy instead of hurt it further. Now he could actually do what he had wanted to do in the first place. End slavery, bring peace. Make the Galaxy a better place for his chil– No, he wouldn’t think about that. He wouldn’t go back down the road of “what if” again, as he had so many times when he was alone and despairing of what he had done to his life.
“He started asking too many questions,” a soft, vaguely familiar voice from behind Vader startled him out of his thoughts. He was on his feet and facing the source of the voice, hand on his lightsaber, before a startled expression could even form on Beru’s face.
Tatooine had aged her, as it aged everyone, but he still recognized the kind, quiet girl he had met a lifetime ago.
“Hello Anakin.”
Vader blinked. That was… unexpected. He tried to come up with a response and failed.
“Who asked too many questions?” he asked instead.
Beru tilted her head as looked at him, eyes searching his mask. She bit her lip and nodded slightly, coming to some decision or another. She made it quickly enough that Vader’s patience did not wear thin, or perhaps his patience with her, this girl who had loved his mother, was longer than with most people. Or perhaps standing on the sacred ground of his mother’s grave was no place to lose his temper.
“Your son.”
It took a minute for those words to process, and then despite his earlier thoughts, his temper did flare.
“What?” he snarled. He took a step forward, and Beru held her ground. “My child is dead. Do not - ”
Beru shook her head. “He’s alive,” she whispered. “I can introduce you. Come with me.”
She held out her hand, and he stared at it. No one had offered their hand to him in over a decade, and for a wild moment, he was tempted to take it. But he shook the desire off and stepped forward, ignoring the hand. She dropped her arm but led him back to the entrance to the dome.
He had to duck to fit through the doorway and low staircase, but the discomfort no longer mattered when they entered the kitchen and Vader’s eyes fell on the boy sitting at the table. His eyes were wide, staring at him, scared recognition in them, and Vader realized he didn’t know what stories about him had made their way to this backwater planet.
The boy stood slowly. Only once he was on his feet did his eyes jump back to Beru.
“Aunt Beru?” he asked quietly.
“It’s okay, Luke.” Vader filed the name away carefully, savoring the sound of it. “This is…” Beru hesitated, taking a deep breath. The wait grated on Vader’s nerves and he wanted to say it himself, but he still wasn’t sure he believed it. Even though those were his eyes in a face that was equally hers and his, and his hair and her stature. He reached out in the Force, lightly touching the boy’s mind, and found it shielded. But he wasn’t shielding himself. Someone else was, and Vader recognized the feel of it. He gritted his teeth. Obi-Wan’s final treachery.
“This is your father,” Beru finally said, and Vader hadn’t thought Luke’s eyes could get any bigger but he was wrong. They turned back to him, scared, hopeful, pleading, and something in the Force burst to life between them, a bond that Obi-Wan’s shields had never been built to contain. Luke wouldn’t be able to feel it beyond maybe a slight gravitation towards Vader, untrained as he was, but to Vader the bond was confirmation beyond any DNA test.
“Father?” Luke said, taking a step towards him.
Vader, who realized he had been doing his best impression of a statue since he had laid eyes on the boy, finally moved and crossed the room quickly to stand in front of Luke. Luke had to crane his neck to keep Vader’s mask in sight when he stood this close, but he didn’t flinch.
Vader reached out and touched Luke’s cheek gently. “Hello son.”
~*~
The Galaxy went into something of an uproar when Darth Vader returned from his first slavery-destroying trip to the Outer Rim with a small blond boy in tow, claiming that he was his son. Both Emperor Solo and Calrissian took a quick liking to Luke, and it wasn’t long before Chewbacca was almost as fiercely protective of the boy as he was of Solo, though he had nothing on Vader’s protectiveness. And Vader found himself surprisingly glad that he hadn’t found his son when Palpatine was still Emperor. At least Solo wouldn’t kill him intentionally. He would have to put a stop to the racing though, before he got him killed accidentally.
Screenshot of the article linked above that reads, “The 6-year-old dangled his legs above the floor as he sat at the table with his defense attorney, before a North Carolina judge. He was accused of picking a tulip from a yard at his bus stop, his attorney Julie Boyer said, and he was on trial in juvenile court for injury to real property. The boy’s attention span was too short to follow the proceedings, Boyer said, so she handed him crayons and a coloring book.”
Retweet by @/DearDean22. “He was arrested for picking a tulip while he waited for the bus. Someone called the police on a 6 year old Black boy because he picked a flower. The police arrested him. He had to go to court w/ a criminal defense attorney who gave him a coloring book to sit still. We are hated.” End ID.]
I just saw the coolest thing! There’s a company called Deaf Metal that makes jewelry specifically designed to accessorize hearing aids and cochlear implants! They’re made of hypoallergenic silver and use a cool little silicone sling to attach the jewelry to your existing device.
They create designs for people of all ages, gender presentations, and personal styles. For the hearing aid designs, they have designs that go behind the year as well as ones that slide onto the pipe going into the ear. They’re designed to be fashionable but not decrease function!
They advertise them as a way to both help you accessorize and to help you keep your hearing aids as findable as possible in the event that you misplace one, or in the case that your hearing aid slips off. Their safety chain options are available in both adults and children’s designs.
They’re designed by a Finnish HOH designer named
Jenni Ahtiainen
who has previously done accessory work for people like Snoop Dog & Bono. She believes that hearing aids & cochlear implants should be like glasses, you should be able to style them to your liking. All the products range in cost from $15-50 and if you only wear a hearing aid in one ear, many designs offer the option of purchasing an earring for your other ear so you can match! You can see her other design work at @gtiejenni and @gtieneckwear.
Deaf Metal sells & ships worldwide (USA, Canada, Australia, Great Britain, Norway, Finland, and France, to name a few) from their online store and their amazon shop. They also have some brick and mortar retailers that carry their designs in Norway and Finland.
You can find their website in this post’s sources.
