A Long Time Ago

The first Star Wars game I played in was back in university. The campaign had been running through a few iterations before I joined and used the West End Games D6 system. The campaign was set during the period of the Original Trilogy (or just the Star Wars Trilogy as it was known in those days, before the prequel and sequel trilogies).

One of my favorite characters was the one from this campaign. The character was envisioned as a con artist, with his first name Janus coming from the "two-faced" Roman god and his last name Karridian being a variation on the spelling of the name of a one-off character from a classic episode of Star Trek, Anton Karririan (aka Kodos the Executioner) from the episode The Conscience of the King. The Karridian name also became the namesake for this website, mostly because I was playing the character at the time I created the first version of the site on Geocities and it seemed as good a name as any to use for a user name.

The characters were members of the Rebel Alliance, fighting alongside the likes of Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Han Solo against the Emperor, Darth Vader and the Empire as well as bounty hunters and other galactic scum and villainy. The game more or less stuck to the continuity of the original films and made use of whatever Expanded Universe (now Legends) content the Gamemaster felt was useful.

The characters in the game shifted now and then as new players came and old players went, or in cases when a player decided to switch characters, but the core group that was around for most of the time I was player were these ones (including my character).

• Lancer: Force user
• Nikki Dawnstar: meddlesome kid
• Calvin and Hobbes: a smuggler and his partner
• Ordaka: Wookie freedom fighter and later Karridian's reluctant guardian
• Janus Karridian: galactic con-man, see below for more details
• Ric Drebel: rebel pilot and Karridian's occasional partner-in-crime
• R2-K8: Drebel's loyal (mostly) astromech

While Calvin and Hobbes had their own transport, and Drebel often flew an X-Wing fighter, the group often made use of a modified Lambda-class shuttle they had christened the Dawnstar, named for their precocious companion Nikki (who had helped in the original capture of the vessel and therefore claimed it was her ship anyway).

Janus Karridian

Janus Karridian was a human originally from Norval II who was making a moderate living as a con artist bouncing from planet to planet around in the Outer Rim territories before falling in with the Rebellion. At some point before either was associated with the Rebel Alliance, Janus met future X-Wing pilot Wedge Antilles while the latter was a young smuggler.

Janus was running a con on an Outer Rim world involving passing low quality crystals off as Altairan Flame Gems. Janus was caught out in the scam and had to flee his angry targets. Running for his life, Janus was shocked when he was called over to a YT-1300 transport in one of the docking bays. Not wanting to pass up an opportunity to escape, Janus got on board. The crew turned out to be members of the Rebel Alliance, including one who was Force sensitive and was the one who had told the crew to bring Janus on board due to something he sensed. Janus was glad to have been saved, and hoped to be dropped off at another space port; unfortunately for him the ship, the Stellar Pegasus, was bound for a Rebel base on Hoth, an ice planet in the Outer Rim.

Against his better judgment, Janus gets pulled into the Rebellion. Initially he seeks to make a profit, despite being stuck in the middle of nowhere with the Rebels. His first effort was undertaken as soon as he got to Hoth. Janus took the cheap gems he had been trying to peddle, created loops for them out of wiring, and would then proceed to sell them to anyone he could by calling them Force Focusing Pendants. He also took advantage of the first Rebel mission he got dragged on. The mission was to recruit a resistance cell on the polluted industrial world of Wendam. Realizing that he was surrounded by easily transportable fresh water in the form of all the ice around him, Janus loaded several containers into whatever nook and cranny of the Stellar Pegasus he could find. Unfortunately the resistance leader on Wendam discovered the water ice before Janus could off-load it and it was instead given to the people as a gift. Janus was so annoyed by this he concocted several more schemes to try and make money from Wendam.

Over time, Janus became friends with Rebel pilot Ric Drebel, who was often assigned on the same missions that Janus found himself on. Ric had his own roguish streak and the two would often pair up to run schemes against their Imperial enemies. One of their most memorable adventures happened when they had infiltrated an Imperial Star Destroyer. They had found the robes of some of the Emperor's Dark Side Priests and managed to bluff their way into key areas of the ship. For a second it looked like they were about to confront the Emperor himself, but it turned out to be a holographic communication and the two luckily managed to escape.

Janus was rather averse to combat, and when fighting did break out on a mission his first move was almost always to find cover where he could wait it out. This did not stop Janus from earning something of an enemy in the form of bounty hunter Jodo Kast. Jodo Kast crossed paths with the team a few times, and on one occasion suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of Janus. It was during a firefight in a cantina, where Janus had taken cover behind the bar. At one point Jodo found himself near the bar and Janus took the opportunity to dump a bucket of Bantha lard over the bounty hunter, providing the distraction needed for the team to escape. Ultimately Jodo would fall the Janus, where once again the con artist found himself in an opportune position. This was during another firefight, this time at a spaceport, and Jodo did not realize that Janus was on the ship Jodo had chosen to use the ramp of as cover. Janus snuck up behind the bounty hunter and ambushed him, firing a point blank shot that even Jodo's Mandalorian armor could not fully block. The shot proved to be lethal, and Janus would take the bounty hunter's shattered helmet as a trophy.

Over time, Janus lost some of his cynicism and started to believe in the Rebellion. By the time of the Battle of Endor, Janus was a trusted member of the Rebel Alliance and served as a flag officer in charge of a small fleet of cruisers during the battle. After the destruction of the second Death Star and the death of the Emperor and Darth Vader, Janus was part of the operation to take the Galactic capital of Coruscant. Janus and Ric run one more scam, digging out their Dark Side Priest robes and bluffing their way onto one of the Super Star Destroyers now orbiting the capital. Several senior Imperial officers are vying for control of the Empire, so Janus and Ric claim that they (the Dark Side Priests) are the ones who will declare the true successor to the Emperor. They manage to get the senior officers together in one location, at which point Rebel commandos take them into custody. With the senior Imperial leadership captive, Rebel forces first take the Super Star Destroyers and then Coruscant itself, with almost no shots fired. With the restoration of the Republic, Janus accepts a position as a Senator in the new government.

Prequel to Infinity

This campaign was set during the Prequel Trilogy era and used the d20 Star Wars Revised Core Edition rules from Wizards of the Coast, later transitioning to the Saga Edition rules after those had been released. The campaign was what would generally be considered an Infinities story, meaning it greatly diverged from Star Wars continuity. In this case it was a retelling of the events of the prequels, but with our characters instead of the ones from the films, and where our decisions and actions would therefore cause events to play out differently.

It was a relatively long-running campaign and covered the same timeline as the prequels, starting with the Trade Federation blockade of Naboo and finishing with the end of the Clone Wars. There were changes with the characters as some players left, others joined, and some switched the character they were playing, but I stuck with the same character from beginning to end.

The game began much as the film The Phantom Menace had, with the Republic sending negotiators to Naboo to try and end the blockade. In this case, however, the negotiators were not Jedi Knight Qui-Gon Jinn and his Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi but instead it was our characters; though at first glance one might question the wisdom of the Republic in this particular universe sending a bunch of 1st level characters on such an important mission...

The characters on that fateful mission to Naboo were:

• Drake Freestar: my character and the pilot of the group
• Vim Tunn: Human Jedi Knight (technically a Padawan at the start of the game) and secretly the son of Count Dooku
• Adar: Sullustan mercenary
• Jalek: Bimm shaman, a Force-user
• Lasheya: Human technician

The group got a ship they named the Phoenix and went on many adventures. They were joined for a time by a Twi'lek trader named Raif Ryman who later left to start his own spaceship design business. During a mission to the Unknown Regions a Kel Dor mercenary named Tran became part of the crew; and during the Clone Wars a fighter from the same spacer clan as Drake, nicknamed "Wookie" for her prodigious strength, joined them.

Drake Freestar

Drake Freestar is a human pilot; a member of the Wanderers descended from early Corellian explorers. Drake was born and raised aboard the family ship Freestar, the youngest of six children. As the youngest, Drake had no inheritance to speak of so when he came of age at 16 he left the family ship to seek out his fortunes in the Galaxy. With his upbringing making him an experienced spacer, Drake soon found work on a space transport. Impressing his superiors, Drake worked his way through the ranks, and by age 18 had achieved a position as pilot of a Republic Cruiser, one that was soon sent on a fateful diplomatic mission to the planet Naboo.

Episode I: The Phantom Menace

The Trade Federation attempted to kill the crew of the Republic Cruiser, who escaped to the surface of Naboo. They helped Queen Amidala escape in her ship, which had its hyperdrive damaged in the process. Drake managed to get the ship to Malastare, earning money in a podrace there to pay for repairs to the hyperdrive. The group were attacked by the Sith Darth Maul but escaped and got the Queen to Coruscant. When it appeared the Senate would not do anything the Queen returned to Naboo, accompanied by Drake and the others. Drake, Lasheya and Jalek infiltrated the Trade Federation Droid Command Ship while Vim and Adar stayed on the surface to help the Queen return to the capital of Theed. The trio on the Droid Ship were captured attempting to shut down the droid army, but the group on the surface were able to capture Viceroy Nute Gunray and force the Trade Federation to stand down their droid army. The group encountered Darth Maul again, but the Sith Lord managed to escape.

After the victory at Naboo, Drake and the others were hailed as heroes by the Queen and the Republic. The Jedi Council, concerned about the reappearance of the Sith after so many centuries, asked the crew to try and track down Maul. The Council provided the group with a transport ship, providing them a cover as cargo haulers as they searched for the Sith. The group christened their new transport The Phoenix, with Drake piloting and Lasheya working on some custom modifications (work she would continue with almost continuously during her time aboard). While waiting for some of the initial modifications to be made to the ship, time also spent tracking down leads, Drake earned some more money betting on himself in swoop bike races.

Interregnum: Sith Hunt

Information on where Darth Maul might have obtained the cloaking device on his Sith Infiltrator ship led the team to Sri Luur, but the Sith Lord had apparently already been there and covered his tracks by killing those involved and destroying any evidence. The Jedi then directed the group to try and track where the Sith had come from, sending them to the ancient Sith homeworld of Korriban and to Ruusan, site of the final battle of the war between the Jedi and the Sith. They were able to learn that one Sith Lord, Bane, had survived and that he had preserved the Sith, but this did not help locate Darth Maul. Instead the group resumed tracking down the source of Maul's ship, investigating the major ship manufacturers like Sorusuub and Sienar and shipyards like Sluis Van. Finally at Centerpoint Station the group once again confronted Darth Maul, managing to defeat the Sith Lord. Not only had they stopped the Sith, but the group now had his advanced Sith Infiltrator ship plus his Dark Eye probe droid and custom Bloodfin swoop bike, the latter of which Drake took for himself.

After this success the group were permitted to keep the Phoenix and began taking new jobs, not lacking for adventure. In between the regular cargo runs there were confrontations with Hutt crime lords and battles with space pirates. Modifications of the Phoenix continued, and the group acquired an astromech (R2-T5) and a new crewmate (a Twi'lek "businessman" named Raif). A battle with slavers led to more clues about the history of the Sith. The clues lead to a confrontation with another group of pirates, leading to the discovery of an ancient Sith data core, the contents of which point to the Unknown Regions.

Interregnum: The Unknown Regions

With this discovery the Phoenix crew were assigned a long-term mission to follow the clues to the Unknown Regions. With the mission involving exploration and the discovery of new worlds the crew start taking turns naming the new planets they come across. There are battles with hostile droids, and with more space pirates. It is during a battle with pirates that a stray shot causes a hyperdrive malfunction that sends the Phoenix to the alternate dimension of Otherspace (since it was Drake's turn to name the group's next discovery he decided to name this new dimension after himself, calling it the Drakoverse). After battling the death-worshiping arachnoid natives of the Otherverse called the Charon, and rescuing some crew from another vessel that had also been trapped there, the Phoenix manages to escape the dimension. The Phoenix crew return to normal space only to learn that three years had passed during the short time they had been trapped there. One of the rescued crew from the other ship, a Kel Dor named Tran, joins the Phoenix crew.

After a brief return to Coruscant and some time resting and recuperating, the group headed back out into the Unknown Regions to resume their search for the Sith. Despite having to occasionally return to the Outer Rim for repairs and resupply, the crew of the Phoenix eventually locate a lost Sith Empire, a splinter of the Sith that had survived a thousand years. This "Empire of 100 Worlds" was led by six Sith Lords who were constantly vying against each other in power games. The Phoenix began disrupting the affairs of the different Sith Lords, disrupting the Empire. The Sith Empire starts to collapse into chaos due to the groups' activities, but not without a price as they are forced to leave one of their own, Jalek, behind when the Phoenix returns to Republic space.

Returning to Coruscant, the crew of the Phoenix are hailed as heroes. While the Phoenix undergoes repairs, Drake rents a small scout ship and goes to Naboo where he starts to woo the former Queen, now Senator, Padme Amidala. The crew reunites and starts taking missions for the Republic again, including dealing with a droid rebellion, a diplomatic escort, confrontations with Hutts, and battles with slavers. Under Drake's insistence the crew pool their acquired wealth to get a Marauder class c orvette and a crew and head back into the Unknown Regions to find the lost Jalek. The effort is successful and they locate their friend before engaging in a few more missions in the Unknown Regions, including recovering a Sith holocron, before returning to the Core Worlds.

Episode II: Attack of the Clones

Drake takes advantage of the return to Coruscant to continue his relationship with Senator Amidala, who is there to try and keep the Republic from going to war to bring Separatist systems in line. Drake is on hand when there is an assassination attempt against Amidala, and he and the rest of the Phoenix crew are able to track down the assassin only to have the killer in turn killed herself by a mysterious figure in Mandalorian armor. Drake and some of the group head off to track down the ultimate source of the assassination attempts, with Amidala insisting on coming along and leaving one of her doubles in her place on Coruscant, with other members of the crew staying to protect the "Senator", stopping another assassination attempt. Drake and Amidala track the Mandalorian killer to a hidden world called Kamino where they are joined by the rest of the Phoenix crew. The Kaminoans are pleased to see Vim, welcoming the Jedi and revealing the Clone Army and its alleged ties to the Jedi Order and the Republic. The Mandalorian is identified as Jango Fett, the genetic source of the clones, who flees when the team tries to arrest him.

After a failed attempt to pursue Fett the Phoenix crew head for Geonosis, Vim having been called by Count Dooku and Amidala seeing it as an opportunity to negotiate directly with the Separatists. Unknown to the rest of the crew, Lasheya has informed the Separatists of the existence of the Clone Army on Kamino, thinking a pre-emptive strike there by the CIS might provide incentive to find a peaceful solution to the Separatist Crisis. Dooku claims that the Republic Senate is being manipulated by a Sith Lord and reveals the Droid Army being built by the Geonosians. Also present are Jedi Knights Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi. Drake and Amidala leave for Naboo (where her double had gone) so the Senator can then go to Coruscant to tell them the Senate what she has learned. The rest of the Phoenix crew stay on Geonosis until the Separatist fleet leaves for Kamino. The Separatist strike takes out the Kaminoan capital Tipoca City and clone troopers trigger a self-destruct to prevent the Separatists from seizing the cloning facilities. At Coruscant the word of the attack comes and despite Amidala's efforts the Senate votes to grant Palpatine the power to create the Grand Army of the Republic, starting the Clone Wars. In protest Amidala declares that Naboo is seceding from the Republic. Drake gets Amidala safely off of Coruscant and takes her back to Naboo.

Drake and Amidala are married in a quiet ceremony on Naboo before they head back to Geonosis to rendezvous with the rest of the Phoenix crew. Amidala stays there with Lasheya, under the protection of Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan while Drake and the rest of the Phoenix crew head off to try and find more information about Dooku's alleged Sith Lord. The Phoenix wound up working alongside Separatist forces against the Republic Clone Army during the opening stages of the Clone Wars. While this was happening, Lasheya was working behind the scenes helping Naboo set up planetary defenses and putting safeguards in place in case Dooku and the Separatists turn out to be the greater threat.

The Clone Wars

When the Phoenix crew discover a massacre perpetrated by a secret CIS elite commando squad that included Dark Side Force users with Sith-style red lightsabers, Drake sends a signal to Lasheya about the revelation. This sets off a series of events, starting with the paranoid Lasheya setting off an explosion on Geonosis and releasing a computer virus that turns the Droid Army forces in orbit to turn their weapons onto the planet itself. When the Phoenix arrives the droid factories have already been destroyed and the crew are detained by Count Dooku, who attempts to sway Vim, who it turned out was the Count's son, to his side. This fails and the crew escapes their cell, aided by Obi-Wan who reveals that Lasheya had warned them in advance and helped Qui-Gon flee to Naboo with Amidala. The Phoenix crew arrive to help Vim, who is in a fierce lightsaber duel with Dooku and on the verge of losing.

Dooku gets help from his own Dark Side apprentice, Asajj Ventress, but Obi-Wan is able to delay her long enough for the crew to assist Vim and gain the advantage, forcing Dooku to use the Force to bring down the ceiling to cover his own escape. After rendezvousing with another Jedi Knight, Ki-Adi Mundi, Drake and the others learn the details of Lasheya's actions. Based on the information the Phoenix crew had provided Lasheya had attempted to have Dooku replaced as head of the Separatist Council by Amidala. When the Council refused to comply she set off the explosions and released the virus, killing most of the Council before being killed by Dooku. Drake makes a point of finding her body so they can bring it back to Naboo.

At Naboo the crew meet with Amidala, who reveals that thanks to Lasheya's advance warning she had been able to copy vital data from the CIS computer systems before fleeing, including top secret plans for a moon-sized space station with weapons capable of destroying planets. Amidala plans to use this information as leverage to bring Naboo back into the Republic. We travel to Coruscant where Amidala meets with Chancellor Palpatine. They opt to describe Naboo's original secession as having been a ruse to gather information on the Confederacy. With Naboo back in the Republic, Drake and the Phoenix crew now find themselves assisting with Jedi and Clone Army operations against the Separatists. The first mission is to go back to Geonosis, where it is confirmed that Dooku survived Lasheya's virus-induced droid revolt and escaped.

Another mission led to another confrontation with the bounty hunter Jango Fett, who was working for the Separatists alongside another bounty hunter named Durge, defeating them though both bounty hunters managed to escape capture. Other missions included a stealth infiltration of Geonosis, which was still under nominal Separatist control, as well as missions for the Jedi to follow up on reports of more Sith and Dark Force users. A later confrontation with Jango Fett finally led to his capture along with his clone son Boba. The Phoenix crew also deal with a plot to capture them involving a traitorous Senator, escaping with the help of a team of Clone Commandos.

When Naboo comes under attack from a Separatist fleet, Drake and the Phoenix head there ahead of a Republic force, sneaking past the enemy to reach the capital Theed. The Naboo forces have managed to hold thanks to the planetary defenses provided by Lasheya, but if the CIS manages to land droids they may not be able to withstand a ground assault. Jalek makes contact with the native Gungan population and after two days of negotiating gets an agreement from them to help defend Naboo if droids do land. When Republic ships arrive the Phoenix joins in the battle against the CIS forces commanded by General Grievous and the Separatists are forced to retreat from Naboo.

Intelligence uncovered by examining navigation data from Separatist ships reveals what might be a command ship, a vessel named Maleficent. The Phoenix gets a location for the Maleficent and lets the Republic know before heading to intercept it. Drake gets the Phoenix in close to the vessel before they are detected, close enough for some of the crew along with a squad of Clone Troopers to board while Drake takes the Phoenix away to make it look like they are retreating. He sneaks back and attaches the Phoenix to a hiding spot on the hull of the massive Separatist ship before it jumps to Hyperspace. On board the crew and the clones fight their way to the command deck where they find Count Dooku. This time Vim emerges victorious against his father and the Separatist leader is taken captive and brought with the group as they evacuate aboard the Phoenix before the Maleficent is destroyed.

The group return to Coruscant with Dooku as their prisoner. They find the Republic capital has become more militaristic, with clone troops patrolling the streets. Drake learns that Amidala is pregnant before he and the rest of the Phoenix crew are given medals by Chancellor Palpatine and honored for the capture of Count Dooku. While staying on Coruscant the crew start to see some disturbing trends in the actions of Palpatine, who has been pushing dual propaganda that seems to claim both that the Republic is winning but that the Separatists remain a major threat so they must not let their guard down, while also centralizing more and more power in the office of the Supreme Chancellor. Amidala says that much of the Senate has sided with Palpatine, who is demanding personal loyalty claiming that the Senate is either with him or against him. A small group of senators including Amidala, Bail Organa, Mon Mothma and others are all that remains of any form of opposition to Palpatine's power grab.

The Jedi have begun questioning Dooku, who reveals that the Sith Lord he claimed was secretly manipulating the Senate was also the one giving him orders, meaning the Sith have been stage managing the whole Clone Wars. Before more can be learned the Separatists launch a massive assault against Coruscant. After making sure that Amidala and the other Senators reach the safety of a bunker, Drake joins his friends in helping defend Coruscant from the droid assault. When word comes that Separatist forces have captured Chancellor Palpatine and taken him to their flagship, the Invisible Hand, Drake and the Phoenix crew take off on a rescue mission.

Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

Drake flies the Phoenix through the Separatist defenses to close with the Invisible Hand, where a close pass gives the crew a view of an observation tower where they spot General Grievous and several droids standing guard over Jedi Knight Qui-Gon Jinn, who had apparently also been captured. The crew board the ship but Grievous kills Qui-Gon before they can rescue him. Drake, Vim and Wookie engage the cyborg general and avenge the fallen Jedi before the crew search for the Chancellor. Drake and Tran return to the Phoenix while Vim, Wookie and Jalek locate the Chancellor. When they find him they take a bold exit strategy by blowing out a window and use a grapple line to ride over to the Phoenix, which has flown to their position, before they succumb to the rigors of space. A squadron of Acclamator assault ships arrive and destroy the Invisible Hand.

Returning to Coruscant with the Chancellor, the crew learn that Dooku had been killed during the droid ground assault. With Dooku and Grievous both gone the Separatists have lost their key war leaders, so the victory should be near, but the Chancellor seems to be in no desire to see it end anytime soon. Amidala and the loyalist senators want to table a bill in the Senate to force a decision, but Drake persuades her to hold off until they can find out more, as the secret Sith Lord is still at large. Chancellor Palpatine meets with the Phoenix crew in private and shares information he says he overheard while being held captive, that Grievous had ordered the Separatist Council to be taken to the planet Mustafar. He also claims that the Jedi Council covets power and is plotting against him.

The Phoenix crew do not fully trust the Chancellor, but cannot overlook the possibility that the intelligence about Mustafar is correct. As a precaution, Drake has Wookie contact some Wanderers to help arrange an escape route for Amidala if things go bad while they are away, and then the Phoenix heads for Mustafar. When they arrive they find that the Separatist Council have already been killed and they are confronted by a human Sith Lord calling himself Darth Vader who claims that his master had warned him the Phoenix crew would be coming. (In this timeline, where he was never found by the Jedi, Anakin Skywalker had made a name for himself as a podracer, eventually parlaying his skill and fame into freedom and escape from Tatooine. He continued to race on the circuit around the Outer Rim on worlds like Malastare, at one point having raced Drake though they never met face to face, until eventually Darth Sidious found him and the Sith Lord made Anakin his new apprentice).

By this point in time the Phoenix crew have become quite experienced fighting Sith, even ones as powerful as Vader. The fight proves fatal for the Sith Lord, but knowing the importance of what Vader might reveal the Phoenix crew manages to revive him to bring him back to Coruscant as a prisoner. The crew return to Coruscant with not only the captive Sith but also the bodies of the Separatist Council. Drake meets Amidala at the Senate, where she and the other loyalist senators table their motion to end the war. To bolster this, Drake uses this opportunity to reveal to the Senate that the Separatist Council have all been killed leaving the CIS completely leaderless. Drake then leaves things in Amidala's hands and heads out to make sure the Sith prisoner remains properly secured.

As the debate rages in the Senate, the rest of the Phoenix crew have filled in the Jedi Council everything they have discovered. Jedi Master Mace Windu comes to the conclusion that the evidence points to Palpatine being the secret Sith Lord manipulating everything and he takes a team of Jedi Knights to confront the Chancellor. Vim, Jalek, and Tran go along with Vim trying to persuade Windu to avoid a violent confrontation. His pleas fall on deaf ears as Windu puts an ultimatum to Vim that if he is not with them he should stay behind. Vim reluctantly agrees and joins Mace Windu, Saesee Tiin, Kit Fisto and Vim's own master, with Jalek and Tran also coming along. At the office of the Supreme Chancellor the Jedi make their accusation, and rather than deny or attempt to deceive them Palpatine admits that he is the Sith Lord Darth Sidious, igniting a hidden lightsaber. Sidious and his guards attack and Jedi Knight Saesee Tiin is killed, but the others are eventually able to overwhelm the Sith Lord. Rather than allow himself to be taken, Sidious summons all of his Dark Side power and self-destructs, sending out a wave of Force energy that sweeps over Coruscant. The Jedi at ground zero are able to shield themselves, while the rest of the planet mostly sense it as a deep chill. The exception is Darth Vader, who is killed by the backlash of his master's destruction as Drake and Obi-Wan Kenobi can only watch helplessly.

Aftermath

The campaign effectively ended at this point, with the final defeat of Palpatine, with questions as to what happened next left unanswered. A couple of years after the game ended one of the players started planning a follow-up game set in the aftermath, with a leaderless Senate in disarray, a public suspicious of the Jedi Order due to the involvement of Jedi in the death of the Chancellor, and a Jedi Order greatly weakened by the losses during the Clone Wars and demoralized by the public backlash against them. This game never got off the ground, but a couple of years after this another player managed to start a sequel campaign of sorts.

There is Another

This was another Infinities-style what-if campaign, this time taking place during the original trilogy of Episodes IV, V and VI. The game started out using the West End D6 system but soon transitioned to the Wizards of the Coast D20 Saga Edition rules.

The game followed a group of Rebels who assumed the role of the protagonists in this alternate take on the original trilogy. The core group were:

• G'hayden K't'yuan (Kit): Nagai Jedi (my character) from the Unknown Regions
• Arka Roon: Sullustan engineer
• Will Blackwell: Human, a farmer from the Outer Rim drawn into the Rebellion by chance
• Kyra Andet: Near-human TIE Fighter pilot gone AWOL from the Empire
• Roark Kritchlow: Human noble
• Janus: Human mercenary

The group frequently worked alongside Princess Leia Organa throughout the campaign. For most of the game the group used a ship called the Free Trader Beowulf (an obscure reference to the Traveler RPG). The details of the Free Trader Beowulf can be found in this PDF.

G'hayden K't'yuan (Kit)

'Kit' is a young Nagai, around 17 years of age at the start of the saga (even Kit isn't sure how old he really is). The majority of the Nagai are refugees, descendants of the Nagai who fled their homeworld when it was conquered 300 years ago. Kit was orphaned as a child and he and his older brother, Baran, eventually found themselves living in the Undercity (slums) of the city of Gwynenn Tor on the planet Oberaan. Baran worked hard to take care of his younger brother, stealing food and protecting Kit from the harsher aspects of the Undercity. When Kit was around six years old Baran was killed by a criminal gang, leaving Kit on his own. Kit managed to survive as a beggar and thief in the Undercity, working alone or occasionally joining with other children living in the slums.

One day, about four years later, Kit picked the pocket of man in the marketplace. When Kit returned to his home (a room in the upper floors of an abandoned building) he was shocked to find the man he had stolen from waiting for him. The man's name was Rouan Tyche and he told Kit he was impressed with the young Nagai's skills. Rouan said he believed that Kit was destined for greater things than life on the streets of Undercity and offered to help the child achieve his true potential. Kit was initially skeptical, but something about the man seemed trustworthy. An offer of a warm bed and hot meal made up Kit's mind and he decided to accompany Rouan.

Rouan took the young Nagai out of the Undercity, and out of the city entirely. The pair traveled into the hills and Kit got his first sight of his new home, the Shida Monastery. Kit had seen the Shida monks in the marketplace and elsewhere in the city, but he'd seen how the other gangs feared them and so left them alone. Kit was taken in by the Order and began learning from the Shida monks. Kit learned the philosophies of the Xao Tet practiced by the monks and received martial training as well. More importantly, Rouan Tyche became Kit's mentor and teacher and began training him in skills not known to the other monks.

Rouan told Kit he came from a world far away called Alderaan and that he once belonged to a group of beings called Jedi Knights. The Jedi practiced a philosophy similar to that of the monks, but the Knights had also been the protectors of a great alliance of worlds called the Republic. Rouan told Kit how an evil Emperor had seized control of the Republic, turning it into his personal Empire. To ensure that the Jedi could not threaten his rule, the Emperor sent his soldiers out to kill the Knights while at the same time poisoning the minds of the people against the Jedi. Rouan was one of the few Jedi to survive the Emperor's purge and he fled the Republic to the Unknown Regions. Rouan eventually found his way to Oberaan, where the Shida monks welcomed him. He went on to explain to Kit that the Jedi used something called the Force that granted them great abilities; and that Kit had the potential to learn to use the Force as the Jedi did.

As the years passed, Kit continued his training with the monks, and his Jedi training with Rouan. While he strived to be a good student, Kit had a rebellious streak forged from his life spent on the streets of Undercity. The others studying at the monastery were older than Kit, and had chosen to come to the monastery to study. While Kit tries his best to do his studies, he was not the dedicated student that the others were. Occasionally Kit would have a fight or argument with one of the monks or with Rouan and would run away, usually spending a few days in one of the nearby towns. If it was a particularly bad fight Kit would sometimes head back to Gwynenn Tor and the Undercity and live on the streets with his old friends. Inevitably, though, Kit would return to the monastery, usually after having chastised himself for his rash behavior, which ran against the teachings of the monks. When Kit returned to the monastery he would be welcomed back, though there was usually some form of punishment, which he readily accepted. As he grew older, Kit's "vacations" dwindled, though his rebellious streak remained.

As Kit's training progressed he became powerful in the Force. Rouan was proud of the progress Kit had made, but always cautioned the young Nagai against the dangers of the Dark Side. Rouan often denied Kit extensive training in the more physical elements of Jedi powers but Kit would sneak out to train on his own. Already possessing excellent agility and dexterity thanks to his years on the street, Kit's Jedi training greatly enhanced these abilities, especially when combined with the martial skills taught by the monks. Kit also became skilled in the use of the Jedi's weapon, the lightsaber, and was given his own saber by Rouan, a yellow-orange saber the former Jedi said once belonged to an ancestor of his.

In addition to the Jedi training, Rouan often told Kit tales of the Jedi and the Republic. The stories ranged from stories of the Old Republic and the ancient wars to more recent developments, like the Clone Wars and the rise of the Emperor. For Rouan these stories were a way of remembering what had been lost, but they had the unfortunate side effect of feeding Kit's rebellious streak and starting a desire for adventure in the young Nagai. Kit once again began sneaking away from the monastery for days at a time, traveling the lands seeking adventure. He would even head back to Gwynenn Tor on some of these adventures, always watching for some wrongdoing to combat and occasionally getting himself into trouble. As before, Kit would always make his way back to the monastery to continue his training, suffering whatever punishments Rouan or the other monks would assign to him for leaving.

One evening, when returning from one of his adventures Kit noticed a column of smoke in the distance. As night fell he realized the smoke was emanating from a large fire that seemed to be located near the monastery. Kit hurried through the night to get back to the monastery and arrived just at daybreak, his worst fears confirmed. In the light of the rising sun Kit saw that the monastery was destroyed, burned to the ground. He dug through the wreckage looking for survivors, but found only bodies. As he searched, Kit came to realize that the fire and the bodies were not the result of an accident but of a battle. The few bodies that had not been burnt by the fire had been killed by weapons, and not the typical weapons used by the locals. The death and destruction surrounding him reminded Kit of just one thing: the stories his mentor had told him of the Clone Wars. Reminded of Rouan, Kit began searching for any sign of his teacher but to no avail.

Kit proceeded to bury all the bodies he could find, then gathered up what supplies he could and set off. As he made his way to the nearby villages, Kit made inquiries, trying to discover what had happened at the monastery. A few people he talked to remembered seeing some strange lights in the sky two nights earlier and hearing strange sounds in the distance, like thunder, but none had seen anything of significance. What little information Kit was able to gather pointed to only one thing: that off-worlders, not any of the local warlords, were responsible for the attack on the monastery. Kit eventually made his way to Gwynenn Tor, knowing that if there were any clues as to the identity of the off-worlders it would be found amongst the pilots and traders passing through Oberaan's only spaceport.

Kit spent several days eavesdropping on spacers in the various bars and shops around the spaceport. His efforts garnered little more information on the potential identity of the attackers, though. In the end, Kit decided that his quest would have to take him off-world and that he would have to rely on the Force to guide him. Kit snuck aboard the next space transport that was leaving and soon found himself off-world for the first time since he was an infant refugee. At the transport's next port of call Kit snuck off and began quietly continuing his investigation, but with little luck. Far from the only home he had known, Kit fell back on the lessons he'd learned as a child on the streets to survive. Begging, and occasionally stealing, food and other necessities, Kit stumbled from spaceport to spaceport, stowing away on transports, overwhelmed by the expansiveness of the Galaxy.

Kit spent weeks, perhaps months, riding the hyperspace routes through the Unknown Regions before receiving a sign to guide him. In a spaceport on a world on the edge of the Outer Rim, Kit heard a pilot mention the planet Alderaan. If he could not find those responsible for the destruction of the monastery, Kit could at least find Rouan Tyche's family and let them know what had happened to the Jedi Knight. This would also bring him out of the Unknown Regions into the Galaxy proper, where he might begin a search for any other surviving Jedi who could help him complete his training. Kit stowed away on the pilot's freighter, hoping to reach the wondrous planet of Alderaan he knew only from Rouan's stories. Fate intervened and an Imperial blockade forced the transport to land on a small agricultural world instead of Alderaan. Kit snuck off the transport when it landed and began hanging around cantinas and other establishments hoping to find another transport bound for Alderaan. The Force, however, had other plans for young Kit; for on this world he would encounter the forces of the Empire for the first time and would also be drawn into the growing Rebellion against the Empire.

Episode IV: A New Hope

On the Mid-Rim agricultural world of Kevron, six strangers stumble into a Rebel operation to smuggle vital information. A teenage quasi-Jedi, AWOL TIE Fighter pilot, scoundrel tech, rogue noble, local farm boy, and fringe soldier crossed the Imperial forces on the world and helped the Rebels escape the planet. They accompany the Rebels to the planet Ralltiir on their ship, the Midnight Star, learning that the information being smuggled are the plans for the Empire's new super-weapon, the Death Star.

There is a strong Imperial presence on Ralltiir, the Empire having recently bombarded and occupied the world after discovering Rebels operating there. The Rebels and the six newcomers land near a city in one of the less damaged areas of the planet, a region that has become home to a large refugee population. Kit senses a disturbance in the Force, later learning that it is from the presence of Darth Vader on the planet. The group meet with Princess Leia Organa, the Senator for Alderaan who is also secretly helping the Rebel Alliance. She asks the six to undertake a mission to the Outer Rim for the Rebellion while she takes the Death Star plans to Alderan on her ship, the Tantive IV. The situation changes when more Imperial forces arrive and they blockade Ralltiir, grounding all vessels. Princess Leia decides to come with the six aboard the Midnight Star, bringing the plans with her while also sending a copy with her close confidante, Winter, to Alderan on the Tantive.

The Tantive IV uses its diplomatic credentials to get past the blockade, but the Midnight Star has to fight its way clear before it can jump to Hyperspace. A direct jump to Tatooine is not possible as the Imperials would be able to determine their destination, so the Midnight Star heads to Onderon instead. There they are able to trade the ship for a new one, a heavily modified former luxury yacht called the Angel's Wing. a ship that would soon get a new name and would become the primary vessel used by the six on their missions for the Rebellion.

On the new ship the six and Princess Leia make their way to Tatooine where they are able to locate Clone Wars veteran, General and former Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi. With General Kenobi they again evade the Imperials and escape Tatooine, setting course for Alderan. They arrive at Alderaan in time to see the planet's destruction by the Death Star. As the Imperials begin hunting for any ships that might have escaped the destruction, the Angel's Wing again flees into Hyperspace. Leia guides the ship to Dantooine, where the group are able to resupply and Arka modifies the transponder to give their ship its new name, the Free Trader Beowulf.

From there Leia directs the group to their next destination - Yavin 4, the fourth moon of a gas giant and home to Rebel's main base. Unfortunately the Empire has also learned the location of the Rebel base and the Death Star soon arrives in the system. By analyzing the plans that Leia brought the Rebels discover a weakness in the station and plan for an assault to destroy it before it can use its super laser to destroy Yavin 4 and the Rebel base. Andet joins an X-Wing squadron while General Kenobi enters the fight aboard the Beowulf, using the Jedi Battlemind technique to help the Rebel assault. Darth Vader leads a TIE FIghter counter-assault, and when he senses the presence of his old mentor and foe Kenobi on board he targets the Beowulf. With Kenobi focusing on the battle it is Kit who deals with Vader, using the Force (augmented by Kenobi's Battlemind) to damage the stabilizer on the Sith Lord's TIE Advanced fighter and knock him out of the fight. The X-WIngs get past the Death Star's defenses and Andet is able to launch a proton torpedo that strikes a thermal exhaust port. The hit leads to a chain reaction in the station's main reactor that causes it to explode and destroy the Death Star.

Acts of Rebellion

The Rebel Alliance is forced to flee from the base on Yavin 4 when Imperial reinforcements enter the system and land troops on the moon. The Beowulf team flee in Hyperspace but are caught in a trap laid by slavers in a nearby asteroid field. The team escape and defeat the slavers, freeing the captives and discovering key information about a new potential threat. When the slavers' ship was captured, the team learned it was provided to them by the crime lord Tyber Zann, head of the Zann Consortium, expressly to help the slavers capture Rebels fleeing from Yavin.

Back with the Rebellion, the team are sent on a mission to help rescue scientists being held on Kessel. The team first travels to Nar Shaddaa to meet with a Rebel cell there and get funds intended to bribe the warden at Kessel. Unfortunately the cell had been nearly wiped out by a Swoop Gang who also stole the bribe money. Unable to recover the funds, the team instead travels to Bothan space where Roark is able to win enough money at a casino world. The funds prove insufficient when the warden ups his price, so the team instead use the money and resources to arrange for the prisoners to be processed through a medical facility when they are being transferred to Kessel. A team of Rebel commandos go into the medical facility to retrieve the scientists while the Beowulf team provide a distraction. This becomes more difficult when a team of mercenaries assault the facility to get the scientists for their employer, Jabba the Hutt. The team succeed in buying enough time for the Rebel commandos to escape with the scientists while also planting evidence incriminating the Kessel warden. As a result the warden is punished by the governor of Kessel, and due to their actions thwarting the mercenaries Jabba puts out bounties on the Beowulf team.

Hidden Order

The Beowulf is undergoing repairs and upgrades when there is a risk of the work being interrupted at the shipyards where it is being performed. In exchange for seeing that the work on the Beowulf is not compromised the team agrees to help one of the shipyard's stakeholders, a Cerean named Tir-Idi, track down an associate who has skipped out on him with some valuable cargo. The stakeholder loans the team a YT-1300 transport to use in the pursuit of their quarry, a Twi'lek smuggler named Olim, who was last known to be headed towards Zeltros. Before departing the system the team must pass through an Imperial Customs stop and are surprised to discover a pair of Inquisitors are overseeing the customs team searching the transport. The Imperials find nothing, but after they have left Kit senses a presence in the Force and discovers a teenage boy named Gannar has been hiding in a smuggling hold on the YT-1300. He claims to be looking for Olim as well so the team decides to let him come along.

On Zeltros the team find Olim's co-pilot and she reveals he has gone to a cantina on an island outside of the tourist zone, one frequented by smugglers. They find Olim there but are confronted by Imperial troops as well as the Inquisitors from earlier. They escape and flee back to the mainland only to see the Inquisitors' shuttle pass overhead, meaning that the Imperials will be waiting for them. At the spaceport the group again confronts the Inquisitors and more stormtroopers, at which point Gannar reveals that he has a lightsaber. Kit defeats one of the Inquisitors and takes his lightsaber, after which his partner flees and the Imperials are driven back. The team flee Zeltros with Olim and Gannar, the latter of whom explains that Jedi survivors of Order 66 had been using Olim to smuggle Force-sensitive children to a hidden Jedi Order. Gannar also reveals that he had used the force to trick Tir-Idi into hiring us to track down Olim.

Double, Double, Toil and Trouble

With the work on the Beowulf complete the team are assigned a new mission by Rebel leader Mon Mothma. Dame Corda, a noblewoman on Naboo, has a plan to replace the planet's current Imperial loyalist Queen with one of her doubles and needs Rebel help to facilitate the switch. The plan is to do the substitution during the festivities surrounding a riding tournament that the Queen and much of the Naboo nobility will attend. As the tournament approaches some complications emerge, with not only Imperial ships arriving in orbit bringing a high-ranking officer who intends to attend the tournament but also the discovery that there is also a Rodian bounty hunter planetside who is looking for Roark.

On the day of the tournament the team are in various positions ready to enact the plan, including Wyl participating in one of the races. During the race Wyl causes a disturbance on the field, creating the distraction the team intends to use to make the swap. Things get more chaotic when the Rodian bounty hunter arrives with Gungan backup and makes an attempt for Roark. Imperial forces arrive to try and restore order, leading to Kit and Andet having to deal with an AT-ST. The mass chaos is enough to cover the exchange and the double is successfully put in place of the actual Queen. The team are able to return to the Beowulf and Dame Corda provides them with a transponder that will let them leave the planet without issue.

Homecoming

The team's next mission strikes close to home for Andet, literally as the Rebels want to locate and scout her homeworld. After acquiring a set of coordinates from a Correllian informant on Ord Mantell the team heads off. The Beowulf emerges from Hyperspace at the coordinates to find itself in the middle of a squad of Tie Fighters on maneuvers, including some new models of Ties that are unfamiliar to the team. Andet is able to confirm that this is her home system so the team take the Beowulf towards an asteroid belt to try and evade the Star Destroyer that was overseeing the Tie Fighters. When this fails the crew instead take the Beowulf into the planet's atmosphere diving for a raging hurricane hoping the Tie Fighters will not be able to follow. They succeed in evading the fighters, but the storm is too much for the Beowulf and it crashes.

The crew survive the crash but the Beowulf is stuck upside down in a swamp. The team makes their way by foot until they encounter some of the locals. They are taken to the regional capital and learn some details. The planet does not have a unified government but consists of nation-states that are in various degrees of conflict with each other. While generally militaristic, there is a key absence of space travel capability, a deliberate act on the part of the Empire. Andet's people are natural pilots, so the Imperials keep the population planet-bound and encourage interstate conflicts. They then cherry pick the best pilots and bring them to an orbiting station where they are groomed to become part of an elite corps of Tie Fighter pilots for the Empire. Should the planet ever become unified it would be difficult for the Empire to maintain control without an outsize expenditure of military resources, so keeping the people at war with each other serves multiple purposes.

The local leader, Lord Adetsin Maar, believes that the people could be unified but it would require a sign of weakness from the Imperial forces that orbit the planet. He must make at least a show of obeying the Imperials, which unfortunately means handing the AWOL Andet back to the Empire, but he promises to assist where he can. Fortunately the Empire has only been made aware of Andet's presence, allowing the human members of the team to pose as Imperials. The disguised team members accompany the Imperials taking Andet to the orbiting base while Kit and Arka manage to sneak aboard the shuttle in order to come along.

On board the team splits up, with Kit freeing Andet while the others rendezvous with Arka. Roark gets ahold of the base commander's code cylinder and uses it to fake a message sending the Star Destroyer away and also sends a signal calling the Rebels to the planet. The plan is almost thwarted by Andet's former mentor but the team is able to capture him. The orbiting base is sabotaged, which is enough to trigger several uprisings across the planet. Back on the surface Kit is able to use the Force to retrieve the Beowulf from the swamp and the team departs, leaving the arriving Rebel forces to help the planet deal with the remaining Imperials.

Consequences

From intelligence reports Roark learns of an Imperial General being held in a maximum security prison on the "death world" of Felucia. The General had been arrested for trying to sell Imperial secrets and Roark wants to break him out to get those secrets for the Rebellion. The team will be accompanied by a commando squad while Rogue Squadron will provide air support. The team is placed in charge because Arka is familiar with Felucia, having been there during the Clone Wars when he was an operative for the Separatists.

On the surface the team and the commandos make their way to the prison. They find that the compound is surrounded by hundreds of ferocious Acklay, who are kept from overrunning the prison itself by a Rancor held inside. The Acklays present a challenge, but Kit covers his cloak in local plants to disguise his scent and he is able to sneak past the creatures and get inside the prison compound. He is spotted, but frees the Rancor from its pen which causes chaos to erupt inside the prison. With the distraction the rest of the team and the commandos are able to get in and free the prisoners after which Rogue Squadron bombards the compound. Arka recognizes some of the prisoners as ex-Separatist special forces and tries to follow them but they escape in a Clone Wars-era Geonosian ship that had apparently been left behind on the planet during the war. The team takes their target prisoner to Taris where he is handed over to the Rebellion.

The team head to the Kira system to rendezvous with another Rebel group. On the planet they learn of a missing Core Worlds heiress who was in the Outer Rim on a humanitarian mission. Investigating the team discovers a group of slavers operating from a private reserve on the surface. During the investigation they come across a familiar group of Nelvaanians (who had been among those freed when the team disrupted the operations of another slaver with ties to Tyber Zann). The Nelvaanians were searching for some of their own people who had gone missing. The trail of the missing people leads to the same slavers the team is tracking so the Nelvaanians join in the assault on the private reserve. Together they infiltrate the reserve and manage to locate and free the missing heiress as well as the imprisoned Nelvaanians. After a fierce battle they manage to get clear and escape, taking the Nelvaanians with them. Between battle to escape the Kira system and the rough Hyperspace journey to the remote Nelvaan homeworld the team's ship sustains some damage. They do what repairs they can on the primitive world, enough to get the team as far as Ryloth, so they head there next with the heiress in tow.

The team receive a far warmer welcome than expected at Ryloth, and are surprised to find themselves guests of crime lord Tyber Zann. Despite the group having interfered in Zann's business in the past, the crime lord tells the team that they have been a greater threat to his rivals like Jabba the Hutt and that their actions have actually allowed him to grow his influence to rival the Black Sun syndicate. Their actions have been disruptive enough that Jabba has placed a half-million credit bounty on them, but Zann promises that they will be safe on any of "his" planets.

Cautiously accepting Zann's hospitality, the group tries to relax. Arka is recruited by a Twi'lek nobleman to authenticate a Clone Wars artifact while Andet has to fend off unwanted advances from Zann himself. Zann is trying to use her to bring her planet under his influence, and shows off his advanced Star Viper starfighters. Arka's mystery artifact turns out to be an old Viper droid fighter, but according to its identification it comes from a "ghost" CIS fleet that seemingly malfunctioned and never responded to summons to participate in a battle at the end of the Clone Wars. Kit senses danger ahead for the team and later starts having nightmares. Unknown to Kit and the others, Zann is secretly conspiring with a group of Dathomiri Nightsisters.

Based on their suspicions the group plans for contingencies, including Arka rigging the Viper droid to potentially serve as a distraction later. Kit's prediction of danger comes true when, despite Zann's promises of safety, a group of bounty hunters (including 4-LOM, Boushh, and Zuckuss among others) attacks the team. The heroes fight off the bounty hunters and Zann sends his Star Vipers to destroy the hunters' ship. The team refuses Zann's request that they stay under his “protection” and instead leave his palace to try and reach the starport where they landed their own ship. Without assistance the group must walk overland to reach the city and soon discover that they are being hunted by the Nightsisters and their mutated creatures. The team are barely able to fend off the attack from the Nightsisters, with Janus and Kit both sustaining major injury, but finally make it to the city and the ship. When he learns that the Nightsisters failed Zann sends his fighters, but they are intercepted by TIE Fighters from Imperial forces that have just arrived at Ryloth.

The team manage to sneak out past the Imperial ships, including Darth Vader's Super Star Destroyer The Executor, by using the wave of criminal vessels fleeing the Imperial arrival as cover. At the palace Tyber Zann is confronted by Darth Vader and the crime lord bargains for his freedom by offering up vital information from his informant inside the Rebellion.

Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

The Rebellion flagship, Rebel One, is rocked by attacks as an Imperial fleet drops out of Hyperspace. Four Interdictor cruisers block escape routes while three Star Destroyers led by the Super Star Destroyer Executor continue the attack. From on board the Executor, Darth Vader sends waves of Dark Side energy to demoralize the Rebels. Rebel One is lost, but the Beowulf crew are able to evacuate Alliance leaders Mon Mothma and Adar Talon. They get past one of the Interdictors and are able to flee to Hyperspace, escaping the Imperial trap.

The group reach the Rebel base on New Freisia but it is apparent the location might be compromised so the Alliance leadership orders the base evacuated and for everyone to rendezvous at the alternate Rebel base in the Hoth system. The team gets a new mission, to follow up on the possibility of locating the rumored CIS ghost fleet. Arka thinks the fleet might also be linked to the team's now-missing R5 astromech, which has exhibited strange behavior in the past and which Arka discovered was equipped with a mystery "black box" component he could not identify.

The mission takes the team to Cloud City in the Bespin system, where they discover that Jabba the Hutt has placed a bounty on all of them. Evading various people trying to follow them, the team meets up with a group of alleged pirates who have some information about the R5. They know where the R5 has gone, but will only take two of us along. Arka and Andet are ready to go along when a couple of groups of thugs arrive. The team helps fight them off, and the pirates reluctantly decide to let the team follow them in the Beowulf.

The destination of the pirates turns out to be Geonosis. Ignoring quarantine warnings the Beowulf and pirates dock with an old, beat up Banking Clan frigate manned by CIS holdouts from the Clone Wars that also arrives. They have R5 and also want the information he is hiding in his black box. While Roark negotiates the Beowulf receives a priority transmission informing the team that the Rebel base on Hoth is under siege. Arka and Janus are able to retrieve the navigation coordinates to the ghost fleet, but the team do not want to risk the CIS holdouts locating it. Arka and Janus fake an accident on the Banking Clan ship and escape in space suits where the rest of the team picks them up in the Beowulf and they jump to hyperspace before anyone can follow.

After two days in hyperspace the Beowulf emerges somewhere over the plane of the galaxy. There are two dozen CIS capital ships floating at the coordinates, all showing minimal power. Using the transponder from the Viper droid he examined on Ryloth, the Beowulf is able to safely approach the ghost fleet, docking with a Geonosian dreadnought. The team dons space suits as the life support is not active and then they head for the bridge. They are able to get life support working, and discover that the Separatist General who originally brought the fleet here is apparently still alive, though in stasis.

The team continues examining the ship, and as they do they realize that their activation of some systems is causing the dormant droid crew to also reactivate. Just then another ship arrives and attaches itself to the hull of the dreadnought. It is a Ghtroc freighter and whoever is aboard breaches the hull to board. The team intercepts the intruders and recognizes them as the people who were following them on Cloud City. Apparently they had hidden a tracker of some kind on the Beowulf. After the team defeats the intruders the dreadnought's now-active security droids take them into custody and lock them in the brig.

Roark starts negotiating with the droid commander to bring the fleet to the Hoth system. During the discussions the team learns some of the history of the ghost fleet; they were the 8th Fleet but their commanding general was unstable. She arranged for the deaths of the other organic command crew and reprogrammed all the droids to be loyal to her. Seeking more information, and knowing that if the fleet does go to Hoth it may need to be convinced to join the fight, several of the team go over to the Penance-class vessel that was the general's flagship for the fleet. On the flagship, Kit uses the Force to try and read the past and see what happened at the end of the Clone Wars. He gets feelings of the Dark Side and fleeting images of passages from a Dark Jedi text as well as a name being repeated: "Trayus".

The droid commander is convinced to take the ghost fleet to Hoth. Arka has been working on the control processors to try and get the fleet to engage the Imperial forces, with two of the four resisting. The defenses detect his efforts and send Magnaguards to stop him, but Kit holds them off until Arka is able to slice a third over to their side and the fleet moves in to engage the Imperial forces in orbit, while launching droid forces to the surface. The team leaves on the Beowulf, except for Janus who wants to prepare some backup plans.

The Beowulf goes down to Hoth, heading for the satellite base where Wyl and others are under attack. The team arrives to find the attackers are the 501st with Darth Vader himself in command. Vader is after Obi-Wan and Leia. As they close in, Vader strikes down Obi-Wan, whose body vanishes. Kit grabs Obi-Wan's lightsaber and engages Darth Vader, dual-wielding it with his own saber. Kit is ultimately no match for the Sith Lord and his lightsaber is nearly destroyed, but he is able to distract Vader long enough for Wyl and Leia to commandeer a speeder for a quick escape. Kit is nearly killed, but is saved by Leia, who uses her own burgeoning Force abilities to pull his limp body away from Vader and onto the speeder. While he is unconscious, Kit receives a Force vision from Obi-Wan telling him that he and Leia must travel to a world called Dagobah and find someone named Yoda.

Jedi Quest

After Kit has recovered from his injuries, he tells Leia about the message from Obi-Wan. They decide to go, but the Rebels cannot spare any transports. Instead they decide to take a Y-Wing, with Leia's astromech R2-D2 handling the flying while Kit and Leia use Force Trance to slow their breathing and preserve the life support on the starfighter. The Y-Wing crashes on the swamp world and Kit and Leia are soon met by the diminutive Jedi Master Yoda.

Yoda is surprised to see Leia, indicating he was expecting someone else. He also gives Kit the cold shoulder initially. Obi-Wan's Force Ghost appears and confronts Yoda about some of his attitudes. Yoda then agrees to finish Leia's training as a Jedi. With Kit, Yoda's problems were mainly philosophical differences between his beliefs in the Force and what Kit was taught by his master and the Shida monks. Yoda does help Kit try and repair his lightsaber, but the crystal was too badly damaged by Vader. As Leia trains, Kit engages Yoda in discussion and debate about the Force.

During the stay on Dagobah, Kit becomes aware of a Dark Side presence centered on a large tree. Yoda informs him it is used as part of training Jedi, but does not want Kit to go in. Kit goes anyway, and in the cave beneath the tree he is confronted by the Force ghost of a woman who is standing amidst a pile of bones that reminds Kit of the remains of the Shida monks. The woman tells Kit that the Dark Side does not want to seduce him because it prefers him as he is, always running. Kit thanks the woman for the insight and tries to leave, but he is confronted by another presence. This one initially appears to be Darth Vader, but Kit sees that it possesses elements of other Dark Force users he has confronted. The thing ignites a red lightsaber and lunges for Kit. Evading, Kit spies something on the ground and sees it is a broken lightsaber. He grabs it and tries to ignite it but this only results in a bright flash. When Kit's sight returns the Vader-thing is gone. When Kit emerges from the cavern he is confronted by Yoda and Leia, who inform him he was there for hours, despite it feeling like only a few minutes to Kit.

Kit reflects on what the woman told him and admits that she was right, he has been adrift and purposeless. Yoda meets with Kit and presents him with his damaged lightsaber and the one Kit had brought back from the Dark Side cave. The one from the cave still has its crystal, so the two broken sabers can be combined to create a new one. When Kit finishes the new lightsaber, the woman from the cave appears to him again. She tells him how many times over the millennia the Jedi Order has made mistakes that necessitated the Order to be remade along a different path. She goes to say that it is usually someone far from perfect who winds up being the one to pick up the pieces. She also intimates that she was responsible for laying the seeds of what would become the Shida Order while traversing the Unknown Regions.

Kit goes to Yoda to show him the lightsaber and talk to him about what the woman said. Yoda believes the woman to be the one known only as the Jedi Exile. When Kit ignites the new saber the blade is revealed to be an unusual silver-cyan color. Yoda understands the purpose that the woman was laying out for Kit, to restore the Jedi Order, so he reveals that he knows where some other surviving Jedi might be found. The location is the planetoid Polis Massa, and Yoda says that R2-D2 would have the coordinates. With Leia's training complete and Kit having a new purpose they are ready to leave. Kit uses the Force to lift their Y-Wing from the water it had crashed in, and once it is ready they take off and get R2 to take them to Polis Massa.

Polis Massa had an old, inactive station, though the automation was still functioning, including the docking bay. Kit and Leia land, and exploring a little they see signs of an old battle. Droids are still maintaining the station. They reach the operations center and see that another vessel is approaching the station, a Corellian CR-90 corvette. Leia and Kit meet the ship at the docking bay, where they find it crewed by a mix of humans and aliens. Kit recognizes one of them immediately; it is Olim, the Twi'lek smuggler who was helping Force sensitives escape the Empire. Kit also senses other Force users among the corvette's crew, including a male Togruta who seems to be one of the leaders.

The corvette is the Drunken Dancer, a pirate vessel whose captain ,Olee Starstone, is also Force user. Also onboard was a female Twi'lek and a human woman named Chase Piru, both of whom were keeping watch over a group of Force sensitive children. They had come to the station to meet with another “Master” from their hidden Jedi Temple so they could deliver the new students. Kit takes the opportunity to make his case for the Jedi Order to return.

Shortly another ship arrives, this carrying the insectoid Master Solum Sar and his student, Kotal. The Master had another student but Solum Sar claims he had decided to leave. Just then R2 reports on the arrival of yet another ship. This turns out to be the Whiphid Jedi Master and Clone Wars veteran K'Kruhk, who has worked with the Hidden Temple but declined to take any students. Solum Sar examines the children the others have brought, but rejects them all as potential students. Starstone is concerned, because he believes the Empire has also been gathering Force sensitive children and taking them to an unknown location.

In the operations center, the station sensors discover a body in a maintenance shaft. It is a young human who appears to have fallen to his death in the shaft. The shaft itself leads to an evacuation area that shows damage indicating the Jedi had used it for lightsaber training at one point. The body is wearing the robes of a Jedi padawan, and shows some lightsaber marks. Kotal identifies it as Solum Sar's other student, Kannen Tanzer, the one Sar had claimed had left. Kotal thinks he may have committed suicide, but Kit disagrees and K'Kruhk agrees with him that it was likely murder.

Kit returns to the docking back to find Leia and Starstone to let them know what they've discovered when he senses a disturbance in the Force. Solum Sar has gone mad, claiming that none of them are strong enough to face what is coming. He has taken out K'Kruhk and has taken over the station's communications array, presumably to summon the Imperials. Kit, Leia, Starstone, and Kotal head to stop Sar. Kit faces him with his new lightsaber and despite the Master's years of experience, Kit is victorious.

Kit leverages his victory to convince the others that it is time for the Jedi Order to return. K'Kruhk is puzzled at Kit's victory over the blade master Solum Sar and examines Kit's lightsaber. He realizes that the crystal is the Mantle of the Force, the heart of a legendary lightsaber that often returns when the Dark Side of the Force is dominant.

Hunters

Having succeeded at reviving the Jedi Order, Kit and Leia return to the Rebellion. Taking the Drunken Dancer with the Jedi they rendezvous with the Beowulf and the rest of the team at Sluis Van. There they learn that Arka had been killed and they meet the team's new astromech, an R3 unit that has been equipped with a vocabulator that lets it speak Galactic Basic. Arka had been killed in the Rebel operation to seize the shipyards at Sluis Van, an operation that had succeeded and had netted the Rebellion several new ships in the form of under construction Star Destroyers.

The team has been given a new assignment in Ithorian space and they travel aboard one of the captured Star Destroyers. In Ithorian space they transfer over to a herdship, the T'fanda Bey, which serves as the nominal capital of the Ithorians. The Ithorians are concerned with a rise in anti-Ithorian rhetoric in the Galaxy, propaganda that does not appear to be coming from the Empire.

The team sends out probes to seek out anything unusual along the herdship migration path, and pinpoint Ord Binir as a potential source of the propaganda. They jump to that location to investigate, and at a spacer cantina they spot some Black Sun operatives who work for Prince Xizor. The Black Sun operatives refer to some others on the planet so the team decides to check them out. They track down a Lamda-class shuttle with a couple who are equipped with Mandalorian armor. There does not appear to be a connection to the anti-Ithorian propaganda so the team switches efforts.

The R3 unit manages to track the propaganda back to Arkania. The team heads there in the Beowulf and are intercepted by local security in TIE Fighters. They locate the comm channel that is the source of the propaganda and discover it is linked to a Bothan artist. They question him and he indicates it was work for hire. He is willing to arrange for the team to meet with the client in exchange for a favor. He has made a statue for the client, and will allow the team to be the ones to deliver it, which will take them to the person they want to see. Their destination is a Medstar Corporation satellite, where the team delivers the statue. The recipient is one of the vice-presidents, who cannot be bothered to meet with delivery people, but the team are able to bluff their way into his office under the pretense of installing the statue. The R3 unit is able to slice into the executive's computer, and the initial information points to the board of directors being behind the propaganda and it being linked to the company's xenobotany research.

Kit sneaks into the facility's xenobotany labs where he discovers some specimens of Ithorian flora and fauna as well as the bodies of several Ithorians. He makes a copy of the data in the lab computers before escaping and rejoining the team. Unfortunately Kit is discovered and the team has to retrieve him. They use the Beowulf to blow out a cargo bay and then use the boarding tube to cut into the xenobotany section to get Kit on board, and then they flee the Arkanian system. They think they have successfully escaped, failing to notice both the Lamda-class shuttle seen earlier and a Firespray class ship both following them.

En route to rendezvous with a Rebel cruiser, the team reviews the data Kit found. It reveals that the Arkanian scientists had found several interesting compounds in Ithorian biology, compounds they wanted to exploit. They were pushing the propaganda to get the Imperials to quarantine the Ithorians in a single place, where the Arkanian scientists could then get easy access to all the material they could desire. The Beowulf docks with the Rebel cruiser and the team relays the information to the rest of the Rebel Alliance, then the cruiser jumps to hyperspace to rejoin the Rebel fleet.

While the cruiser is in hyperspace, Kit awakens with the sense that something is wrong. He gathers the rest of the Beowulf team and they investigate, discovering that the cruiser has been sabotaged. R5-ME finds a series of secret commands embedded in the ship's computer set to drop the cruiser out of hyperspace, vent the hangars, and eject all the escape pods. The team raises the alarm and a booby trap goes off, taking out most of the cruiser's security team. They discover a pair of ships have attached themselves to the hull, the Lamda-class shuttle and Firespray.

The team splits up, with Kit and Andet encountering the couple from the Lamda, fully decked out in their Mandalorian gear. They are the bounty hunter Jodo Kast and his partner Zara. Elsewhere other members of the team learn that the Firespray is none other than Slave I, the ship of notorious bounty hunter Boba Fett. Janus encounters Fett and they start to battle. Kit takes care of Jodo, while Andet is able to deal with Zara. R3 manages to get aboard Slave I and takes control of the weapons, firing its ion gun at Jodo's shuttle. He then detects a third ship attached to the hull. The other intruder has kidnapped Roark and stolen the Beowulf. Kit joins Janus and they capture Boba Fett, while Andet takes a starfighter to try and pursue the Beowulf.

Andet is unsuccessful, so the team turns to questioning their prisoners Jodo Kast and Boba Fett (Zara had died from injuries sustained in the fight with Kit and Andet). Boba reveals that the kidnapper is another bounty hunter, Scorn, who Boba had previously trained at the request of Jabba the Hutt. Jodo mentions that he knows that Scorn has a mercenary contact on Ylix, where a civil war is currently raging. With the Beowulf gone, the team instead takes Jodo's Lamda-class shuttle. They arrive in-system into the middle of a three-way space battle between Imperial forces and two local factions. Evading the battle, they spot a freighter with corporate markings when it suddenly disappears before their eyes.

Landing on the planet, the team finds no sign of the Beowulf at the main spaceport, which indicates it is likely at one of the terrorist-controlled stations. They get a lead on someone trying to find exotic spaceship parts and take a speeder to reach the cantina where they can make contact. They get the name Galandir, but it is not clear if this is an individual or if it refers to the entire clan family with that name. Around the cantina there are whispers of a major piece of technology having made its way on-world. Kit explores the settlement and spots a technician with an off-world, corporate accent, and decides to follow him.

Kit follows the technician to a spaceport where he spots the vanishing freighter. It has Seinar markings and a great deal of advanced equipment attached. Kit is caught by security and placed in a holding area with several other prisoners, including a Corellian smuggler named Han Solo and his Wookie partner Chewbacca. Solo reveals that the freighter is equipped with an advanced cloaking device. Not realizing what Kit was, the security had left Kit's lightsaber in the holding area, so Kit is able to use the Force to retrieve it and uses it to cut his way out of the cell. Han and Chewie follow Kit to the spaceport, where Han wants to steal the stealth ship. A woman arrives alongside Scorn and the woman threatens to destroy Solo's ship, the Millennium Falcon. Scorn approaches and starts shooting, but Kit deflects the blasts into a fuel depot, causing an explosion.

Scorn retreats, and the explosion has attracted attention. Andet and Janus arrive, having seen the blast and realizing it was Kit, but enemy fighters also start to approach. Everyone piles into the stealth ship and take off. The rest of the team had managed to find Roark as well as the Beowulf, with Andet's Star Viper fighter. The Millennium Falcon also takes off, apparently stolen by Scorn. Solo pilots the stealth ship in pursuit of the Falcon, getting close enough that Kit is able to Force leap over and board. The ships reach orbit where they attract the attention of one of the Star Destroyers. Kit Force stuns Scorn, then radios the stealth ship for help piloting the Falcon. Solo instructs him how to pull coordinates from the navicomputer and jump to hyperspace. After going to lightspeed, Kit realizes that Scorn had recovered and taken one of the Falcon's escape pods. The Falcon, as well as the Beowulf and the stealth ship, arrive at a smuggler port. Han and Chewie take back the Falcon while the team gets custody of the stealth ship for the Rebels.

Examining the stealth ship, the Rebels determine that the technology is based off of a rare kind of crystals. To prevent Seinar building more stealth vessels for the Imperials the Rebels plan an assault at the deep core mining facility that is the likely source of the crystals. The Beowulf team take the lead and make the landing. There are few Imperials on the ground, security is mostly corporate mercenaries. After the team and their Rebel troops clear the security around the facility they get in. R5 and a demolition team head for the facility's main reactor while the rest of the team try to reach the control center. The team are ambushed by security guards equipped with personal cloaking devices. Kit is still able to sense the guards in the Force and is able to take care of them. The demolition team encounters HK droids in the reactor core and suffer heavy casualties. The team reaches the control room only to find that the self-destruct has already been activated. Roark is unable to stop the self-destruct, but the reactor is geothermal so he can drop it into the planet's core. R5 and the surviving demolition team members flee, leaving the HK droids to fall with the reactor. The base's commander tries to flee but is captured by the Rebel Star Destroyer.

Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

The Rebel Alliance learns that the Emperor has recalled Darth Vader to Coruscant and turned the Imperial Fleet back over to the Grand Admirals. More importantly, the Empire is revealed to be building a second Death Star, possibly somewhere in the Kuat sector. Closer to home, Leia has gone missing. She had been trying to locate the Tantive IV, which had gone missing back before the battle at Yavin IV. A team made up of Kit, Janus and R3 are going to Coruscant to try and find her, where intelligence reports indicate she had been seen in the company of Black Sun leader Prince Xizor. A strike team led by Roark would await what the first team discovered. In one of Coruscant's lower levels, Kit, Janus and R3 sneak into a Black Sun data haven. They retrieve some information before being discovered and having to fight their way out.

The recovered data confirms that Xizor is holding Leia at his personal palace on Coruscant in the Imperial Sector. The Rebels plan a multi-prong operation; while one group launches an attack at a Black Sun location as a distraction, a second team will pose as a COMPNOR team raiding Xizor's palace, and the Beowulf team will infiltrate the palace in secret to find Leia.

The team fumbles the infiltration, and Kit senses a tremor in the Force. They discover that the Empire has apparently decided to send forces to retrieve Leia from Xizor rather than negotiate for her. The team abandons their original plan and instead Rummy locks out all the palace's elevators except one for the team to use. The team reaches the main quarters, and Kit clearly senses Vader's presence in the building. The team frees Leia, who was being guarded by Xizor's human replica droid assistant Guri. Vader arrives as Janus blows out the room's window for an exit. Kit wielding the Mantle of the Force distracts Vader, and surprisingly Xizor fires a shot at Vader. Pushing Vader down an elevator shaft, Kit rejoins the rest of the team as a shuttle retrieves them in the midst of a chaotic scene with the Stormtroopers of the 501st engaging Xizor's security forces. Once they get away and rendezvous with the Rebel ship waiting for them the team learns that the Emperor was off-world, which might explain why Darth Vader was bold enough to assault Xizor's palace.

Endgame

At Kuat, a Rebel Blockade Runner is under heavy attack. Rogue Squadron and Andet's Valkyrie Squadron move in to assist. The attackers are piloting advanced TIE Fighters, including some with cloaking devices, others with missile pods, and even some with capital ship-scale light turbolasers. When damaged the TIE Fighters would attempt suicide runs. More Rebel ships arrive, including the Star Destroyer, which is able to recover the Blockade Runner and they are able to escape.

The Blockade Runner was escorting an Imperial defector, a cloning expert who had been working on several key projects for the Emperor. One explained the unexpected expertise of the TIE Fighter pilots the Rebels had just encountered; the Empire has created an artificial organic duplicate of the natural reflexes of Andet's people. This has resulted in the development of effectively "brains in jars" with extraordinary combat abilities that can be hooked up to starfighters. To keep the Rebels from using Andet's people as pilots to counter these new TIE pilots, the Emperor will send the second Death Star to destroy Ander's homeworld. The second key project is related to the Empire's kidnapping of Force-sensitive children; the scientists have finally managed to create a Force-sensitive clone body for the Emperor to transfer his consciousness to, as his own body is slowly breaking down. The second effort is referred to as Operation Trayus, the word that Kit had heard in the Dark Side cave on Dagobah.

Kit calls in the New Jedi Order and they join the Rebel forces at Corellia. The Jedi attempt to locate the Emperor's Operation Trayus. In a meditative trance they are able to view Jedi history and learn that Trayus is a location on the Sith world of Malachor V. At that point a group of Sith warriors attacks the Rebel Council. The Jedi move in and stop the attackers, leaving them with two prisoners.

The Rebels will send the fleet to Andet's world to engage the second Death Star, while the Jedi will travel to Malachor V to destroy Operation Trayus, to be accompanied by a Rebel commando team under Roark. The Jedi take the Beowulf to reach Malachor, a journey that greatly taxes the hyperdrive. The facility turns out to be a station orbiting Malachor V, and there are already several Imperial attack shuttles here. Strangely, it appears that the Imperial shuttles had been attacking the station.

The team boards the station and finds Sith warriors executing Storm Troopers. For some reason Darth Vader had led the 501st Legion against the station. Kit takes out the lead Sith Inquisitor, Carnor Jax, and they find that Vader has been captured. The Sith are torturing him, slowly crushing his armor and limbs. The torturers are Scorn and a mysterious woman. She is Arden Lyn, an ancient Dark Jedi who had survived millennia in a Force trance before being found by the Emperor's Inquisitors. Scorn is revealed to be Leia's twin brother, Luke Skywalker, who the Emperor has turned to the Dark Side; and Darth Vader is revealed to be their father. Kit duels with Scorn, eventually stunning him. Everyone's attention turns to Arden, who has been attacking Leia. Shockingly, Vader shields Leia from the attacks. Confronted by the existence of his children, and Kit's revelation in their last encounter that the Jedi had returned, Vader had turned away from the Dark Side. In the end it is Roark who stops Arden Lyn, hitting her with a sniper shot.

While it appears that the Jedi and Rebels have gained the upper hand, the Emperor himself arrives to protect his cloning technology and his new body. It is Darth Vader who confronts the Emperor, and sacrifices himself to destroy the station and the Emperor while the Jedi and Rebels escape.

At Andet's homeworld, the Rebel forces have been fighting a desperate battle against the Imperial fleet, the Death Star, and the new advanced TIE Fighters and their clone pilots. The tide turns when the Emperor is killed at Malachor. His Dark Side power had been helping the clone pilots, and without his influence they lose much of their edge. The Rebel fighters, led by Andet and her people, are able to gain the upper hand. Andet leads a squadron of fighters inside the partially-constructed second Death Star and she again fires the killing blow to the station's reactor, destroying it.

With the Death Star destroyed, and word reaching them of the Emperor's death at Malachor, the Imperial fleet scatters. It is a decisive victory for the Rebel Alliance, and they soon go on to overthrow the remains of the Imperial government and restore the democratic rule of the Republic to the Galaxy.

Sequel to Infinity

This game was a nominal sequel to the Prequel to Infinity campaign, though not by the original GM. One of the players from the earlier campaign decided to run a game in the Original Trilogy period, but in a universe extrapolated from how the previous game had ended, with some changes. The earlier game had covered the Prequel Trilogy, and ended with the characters successfully stopping Palpatine / Darth Sidious. In this new game the ending events were slightly altered. In this case, Palpatine still forms the Galactic Empire, though with no Darth Vader to act as an enforcer. There is a nascent Rebel Alliance, but this time it is centered around Padme Amidala, who did not die and was married to my character from that earlier game, Drake Freestar.

The new game was using the Fantasy Flight Edge of Empire rules, and was centered around a group of rogues, smugglers, and mercenaries operating on the fringes of the Galaxy. My original character in this game was a Zabrak named Kanto Valadus, called Vlad. Vlad had been a slave, bought by an Imperial governor as part of the "stock" for his game reserve. The governor liked to hunt sentient beings, and would buy up alien slaves, but Vlad turned the tables on his captor and killed the governor. Vlad then escaped with one of the other player characters, joining the initial group as their mercenary muscle. This did not last, as I grew tired of playing Vlad after a bit and decided on a different character, one with direct ties to the old game.

Anaka Thule

Anaka (Anna) Thule, aka Leyanna Naberrie Freestar, second child of Drake Freestar (head of the Freestar Wanderer Clan) and Padme Naberrie [Amidala] (former queen and senator from Naboo), sister to Kiryan Freestar. She was born two years after the end of the Clone Wars and the formation of the Galactic Empire under Palpatine. Her brother is 14 months older than her.

Anna takes after her father, sharing a thirst for adventure and a bit of a reckless streak, while her brother is like their mother, more level-headed and mature for his age. Unfortunately for Anna, her father seemed to pay more attention to her brother than to herself when the siblings were growing up. It may have been a bit of his old self coming through, or centuries old Wanderer misogynistic cultural biases, but Drake saw Kiryan as the heir apparent and focused on raising him to groom him for a traditional Wanderer position in the family fleet. Meanwhile their mother Padme seemed intent on raising Anna as a proper noble lady, with focus on etiquette and diplomacy.

The result of this parental blindness meant that, while not wholly unhappy, the siblings' upbringing was not as ideal as it should have been had the parents not clued in that Anna was her father's daughter and Kiryan their mother's son. For Anna even childhood nicknames were frowned upon, though in private her mother would often call her Leya for short (while she herself preferred Anna and encouraged her childhood friends to call her that).

Their early childhood was spent amongst the ships of the Wanderer fleet. Their parents had retreated to the Outer Rim, fleeing the fledgling Galactic Empire once Palpatine had completed his takeover. While Drake focused on assembling the fleet of the new Freestar clan, Padme worked on diplomatic efforts to build an alliance amongst those opposed to Palpatine's new Empire. In their early years the children were largely unaware of these events going on around them; and in fact were frequently left in the care of other Freestar clan families while their parents were off on diplomatic (or not so diplomatic) missions.

It was once the children were older that their parents took a more direct hand in their upbringing, with Padme taking Anna under her wing and Drake taking Kiryan. Seeking to avoid the dreary lessons in diplomacy and proper behavior, Anna would frequently sneak away and hide. One time she went and hid in her father's old Correllian transport, the Phoenix, and in a smuggler compartment made a discovery. Tucked away in a dusty corner of the compartment was a deactivated probe droid, one of the DRK-1 probes her father and his compatriots had captured from the Sith Lord Darth Maul decades earlier. Anna reactivated the droid and discovered to her glee that it had extensive records of the exploits of her father and his compatriots leading up to and during the Clone Wars. With its holoprojector the droid could show her footage of those adventures, or when it had not been present it could still relate events that it had been made aware of.

Anna snuck the droid out of the Phoenix and, nicknaming it "Boomer", it became her secret friend. When her parents caught wind of "Boomer" they assumed it was an imaginary friend, as the DRK-1's stealth abilities allowed it to remain undetected. At Anna's request it frequently told and retold the stories of her father and his friends. Her sense of adventure led her to imagine herself on similar adventures, and she frequently snuck away to other Freestar ships (in true Wanderer fashion), learning the ins and outs of life as part of a spacer crew. Each time she was returned to her parents, her mother would be cross with her and would increase efforts to curb Anna's rebellious streak, which only served to reinforce it.

Things came to a head when Anna overheard part of a conversation between her father and the leader of another Wanderer clan. What it sounded like to Anna was that her parents were trying to arrange to marry her to someone in the other clan in order to seal some sort of alliance. For Anna this was too much. It was enough that her mother was trying to turn her into a "lady" but now they were going to treat her like some kind of bargaining chip. The sixteen year-old made the decision right then and there to run away.

Anna knew how to fly a ship, and how to keep one running, but also knew that she would need some help. She couldn't go to any other Freestar Wanderer, they were too loyal to her father; and her brother was not as adventurous as she was and would only try and dissuade her. That just left her old secret friend "Boomer". She asked the droid point blank if it could interface with a ship's computer. When it acknowledged that it could, she took the droid with her. Gathering some belongings and supplies, and with her droid friend in tow, Anna stowed aboard a departing transport to begin her life on the run.

Since leaving her home fleet Anna has been bouncing around the Outer Rim. Her natural wanderlust keeps her moving, always eager to explore. She also keeps moving to avoid being found by her parents. Anna has taken the name Anaka Thule, using her grandmother's maiden name plus a given name that shortens to her preferred nickname.

At first she worked as crew on ships, but it became difficult to do so without being recognized by Wanderers. Since then Anna has adopted a new method of traveling between worlds - joyriding in stolen spaceships. When it is time to move on Anna will cruise the local spaceports looking for interesting ships. Anything with good speed and range that she thinks she can handle with the help of her droid friend. Anna never steals a Wanderer-allied ship, and she prefers fast, expensive models reasoning that anyone that can afford a really nice ship can afford the insurance or to replace it. Once she has picked her target, Anna moves quickly. She gets the probe droid to bypass any computer security on the ship while she works the physical security systems. With control of the ship she takes off and makes the hyperspace jump to her next stop.

Once at her destination Anna usually stashes the stolen ship at an out of the way spaceport. If she needs cash she'll sell the ship's location and access codes to someone local. If not she just plays tourist, exploring the area until it's time to move on. In any case she never stays very long in any one place. Anna has made the habit of not sticking around long enough to be linked to the thefts of the starships. Sticking to the Outer Rim tends to mean that even if the ship owners report the vessels stolen, Anna has already taken it out of system so word of the theft takes time to reach wherever she is.

For now Anna has managed to stay out of major trouble. No one has tied her to the thefts, and with no real centralized law enforcement there is little to indicate that the thefts are all the work of one individual. She's naive enough to think this can last forever, and really doesn't understand just how dangerous it is for her. Some of the people she has stolen from are rich enough to afford to hire someone to find out who stole their ship. If there is any real legitimate law enforcement in any of the sectors where she stole a ship then a clever investigator might make the connection if they spend enough time on it. And despite her efforts to avoid her family, the fact that she is the daughter of key leaders of the Rebellion makes her a tempting target - not only are allied Wanderers looking for her to bring her home, but rogue Wanderers wouldn't mind grabbing her as a hostage, and the Imperials would dearly love to get their hands on the daughter of Drake Freestar and Padme Amidala.

Found Family

Anaka and Boomer had been running from starport to starport for a little while when their luck finally ran out. Having stolen a Baudo star yacht and brought it to the Wheel, a large space station on one of the main hyperspace trade routes, Anna sold it to a group that would strip it for parts. Unfortunately they put the parts on the black market too quickly and the authorities were alerted before Anna and Boomer could jack another ship and leave. With no other choice, Anna snuck aboard the closest starship she could find that was about to leave, which just so happened to be the transport used by the other player characters.

Initially Anna and Boomer stayed hidden, but eventually she came out and helped rescue the others from some trouble they’d gotten in. Anna stayed aboard the ship as the mechanic and occasional pilot as they took jobs and avoided the Imperials, as well as other groups that were hunting one or more of the crew. Over time the group began to become aware of an increase in the Imperial actions, hints at the existence of the Death Star as well as increased propaganda against Anna’s people, the Wanderers, to paint them as terrorists.

Some of the crew’s jobs started bringing them into the sphere of the nascent Rebellion, including one instance where Anna had to hide to avoid being spotted by her brother or another Wanderer that might recognize her. Eventually the ship found itself in a confrontation with Imperial forces and taking heavy damage. The crew’s astromech R4 plotted a course out of there, and Anna desperately threw the ship into hyperspace.

This is the point where the campaign unfortunately ended, leaving the fate of the ship and characters a mystery.