The Emperor and Darth Vader are dead – the Rebel Alliance has won the Galactic Civil War. But peace is not so easily won; join the Legendary Adventures as we explore The Truce at Bakura!
After almost two decades, the Empire, formed out of a Sith coup led by Darth Sidious, has fallen. After significant Rebel victories at Yavin and Endor, the Imperial forces are drained. On the second Death Star, Luke Skywalker confronted Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine. Because of Luke’s belief in the innate goodness of his father, Darth Vader turned again to the Light Side of the Force, and tried to atone for his dark deeds by tossing Emperor Sheev Palpatine down a shaft, ending his life. The redeemed Anakin Skywalker would soon succumb to his own injuries before Luke joined the rest of the Rebel forces for a celebration on Endor.
The Rebel Alliance would be renamed the Alliance of Free Planets, composed of planets loyal to the Rebellion and planets that recently left Imperial control. The leaders of the Alliance were fully prepared to start having conversations about the future of the galaxy, and what a New Republic would look like, but first, they stopped to celebrate for a little while with the Endor native Ewoks and with the Rebels who risked it all to secure freedom for the entire galaxy. But, sometimes, life doesn’t let you sit and have peace to plan for the future, as the Alliance would soon learn. Instead, the future of the galaxy would be determined by hastily-drawn alliances with enemies, threats of invasion, and general danger beyond that which the Empire ever proved.
For instance, the Imperial infrastructure wouldn’t fall in a single day, which would be the new Alliance’s number one priority to take care of before establishing a new galactic infrastructure. Imperial holdouts all over the galaxy haven’t heard that the Emperor is dead, and even those who do refuse to give up the power they hold. One such Imperial hold-out is stationed at Bakura, which is now beleaguered by an invasion force of aliens called the Ssi-ruuk. It seems the rot of the Empire was evident to even the Imperials themselves, as this Bakuran government was rejected reinforcements for years to combat the Ssi-ruuk in order to stave off a greater crisis. In light of how many times they were ignored, the Bakurans recently sent a message to Emperor Sheev himself. That message would never reach the audience of the now-late Emperor.
The Alliance of Free Planets intercepts this message from the Imperial forces, deciding they, as a force for freedom and change in the galaxy, should respond to the message and help the Imperials, especially after learning about the Ssi-ruuk; This begins a long string of Alliance-Imperial talks for the foreseeable future. While the Alliance was dead-set on tearing down the Empire, and restoring freedom to the galaxy, they (quickly, and quite confusingly) grow more willing to create truces and ceasefires with the Empire as time goes on. It seems strange to think that the Alliance would, immediately after the death of Palpatine, even consider creating truces and alliances with fascists and people who have organized many genocidal acts. For some, this might be seen as an act of reconciliation, offering an olive branch to former enemies in an effort to create a more stable galactic peace for a galactic populance who have seen nothing but non-stop war since the beginning of the Clone War. Some also see this as a betrayal of everything that the Alliance had worked for, saying that a truce with fascists would be a moral rot that would eat away at the New Republic. But, for the time being, the argument is put aside in an effort to combat the Ssi-ruuk instead.
As Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Leia Organa travel to Bakura, they meet Imperial leaders like Commander Pter Thanas, who is unwilling to work with the Alliance, Governor Nereus, the Bakuran leader who is an Imperial sympathizer, and Senator Gaeriel Captison, a religious woman who rejects Luke based on his allegiance to the Jedi Order. The Alliance builds a flimsy truce with these Imperial leaders, one which the Imperials have no plans to abide by. These figures represent quite a few of the types of people we’ll meet for a while as the Adventures continue: Imperial warlords and non-Jedi and non-Sith religious figures. In the past, we’ve come across religious orders that are more splinter cells of the Jedi or Sith Orders, like the One Sith or the Atlissian Jedi. These religious orders will flourish without Imperial dominance, and come to challenge Luke Skywalker’s view of the Jedi, as Gaeriel does in this novel.
The Imperials lay out the horrifying forces that are attacking them: The Ssi-ruuk are a terrifying species who have mastered the technology of “entechment”. To put it simply, entechment is technology augmented by the life force of slain beings, which, for the Ssi-ruuk, are slaves captured in the course of their conquests. The Ssi-ruuk are particularly interested in the Force, as they believe that they can use the Force to augment their entechment to create a wider net, preparing themselves for a more direct attack on the Empire. They have enlisted the aid of a human named Dev Sibwarra, who is himself strong in the Force.
Unfortunately, the truce is broken rather quickly: Governor Nereus poisons Luke and hands him over to the Ssi-ruuk. The Ssi-ruuk hope to use Luke’s Force abilities to wage war on the other Imperial forces and Nereus hopes to use Luke as a bargaining chip to prevent the destruction or enslavement of Bakura. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work out for either party: Luke is resistant to the Ssi-ruuk’s mind-control, even converting Dev to becoming his Padawan before his untimely death, and the Ssi-ruuk have no interest in peace.
Nereus’s betrayal also affects the entire fleet. A joint Imperial-Alliance force was put together to combat the Ssi-ruuk, but Nereus commanded the Imperial fleet to fire upon both Alliance and Ssi-ruuk ships. The Alliance suffers heavy losses here, but they retreat with Luke to safety, presumably to begin the actual process of rebuilding and charting the future of the Alliance of Free Planets and the coming New Republic.
These galaxy defining events are not the only shaping events that happen to our heroes. Both Luke and Leia struggle with their pasts and their future. Luke’s body is still reacting to the immense power of the Force lightning that flowed through his body, and his recovery is slow going. But he also has to consider what it means to be a Jedi Master as he takes Dev as an apprentice, even though these questions were cut down quickly. Leia is faced with the long process of coming to accept that Darth Vader is her father, and she must then decide whether or not she is going to forgive him. Even when Anakin, as a Force Ghost, visits her, she rejects his visit, refusing to speak with him.
These challenges, both on a galactic level, such as the Alliance’s relationship with the Empire, the challenges of rebuilding a government, and potential invasions, and on a personal level, like the future of the Jedi Order led by Luke and the family history of Leia, will continue to be pressed as time goes on. After the fall of the Empire, things get harder, unfortunately, not anymore easy. In fact, Luke will soon come to face his greatest personal challenge as he faces Lord Shadowspawn and his Sith-adjacent religious order….
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Galactic Civil War Era: A New Hope | The Empire Strikes Back | Return of the Jedi