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Welcome
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Nathaniel Reed's
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:: An ongoing episodic story of fan-fic set after Episode VI Return of the Jedi, and inspired by George Lucas' historical draft concepts ::
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| June 2021 |
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Latest news on The Acolyte !
30th June 2021 |
Through the month of June, snippets of news came out for the in-pre-production Disney+ TV live-action show The Acolyte. Following some insights from the producer Leslye Headland, it was determined that the show might be scheduled to film at Pinewood (UK) in February 2022. Headland had revealed that, though she had a deep and enduring love for Star Wars, ranging from the movies to the role-playing games, she had pulled together quite a mix of writing talent, including someone barely clued-in on Star Wars, as a deliberate ploy to provide a refreshing critique on the overall conceptualising.
Intriguingly, Headland has also recently revealed that not only had she been inspired by the canonical 'Atlas' map of the galaxy, but that, on seeing Episode I The Phantom Menace for the first time, she was more excited by the hints and implications offered to suggest the historical mindset of the Jedi Order at that time, and what might have happened over a century or two that had led up to that point. Currently, the show will focus on a female lead in a story exploring the Dark Side in a time when the Sith are believed to be extinct, but are actually in hiding. The story genre is believed to be a planet-hopping martial arts mystery thriller.
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The illustrated virtual edition of Episode VII : Plague of Doom continues with Weesla, the incumbent Hutt Lord of Kessel, smashing the turbo-lift controls with his fist, and facing a barrage of laser bolts with his thick slimy leathery hide ! The Huttlets are safe to escape !
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| You can see the VE artwork in the 'Kessel' art gallery as well as in the online illustrated story, and you can discuss this in the forum here ! |
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My prose writing for virtual edition Episode X 'The Riddle of the Pirates' begins to race towards its epic climactic batle and conclusion......
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| Nathaniel Reed, 30th June 2021 |
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The two Jedi MPVs flashed into view as they dropped out of lightspeed. The elongated bulbous craft arced around and faced the tumbling maelstrom of Gensys-Sucal. A glint of light to their starboard indicated the stationary Millennium Falcon.
Luke was in the cockpit of the lead gunship, while Spikey, the Devaronian, accompanied him from the co-pilot’s seat.
The Jedi Master had his eyes shut as his hands held the yoke, allowing for the full benefit of the Force to guide him on his path.
“Naga-One to Naga-Two,” chimed Spikey. “Stay tight on our tail, we’re going in !”
The two gunships held a cadre of PA commandoes and Jedi Knights. Relying on Alana’s team to open a corridor within the asteroids, their task was to enter the pirate base and neutralise the foe.
The MPVs accelerated towards the asteroid field and vectored in on an almost imperceptible gap in the tumbling rocks.
“There !” Jenna pointed at the screen. “Give me a moment for the resolution filters, but the speed they’re coming in at...”
Yuide nodded. The two newcomers were also coincidentally in the same quadrant as the crippled freighter. Chekkel had gone to the hangars to supervise the launches and to coordinate repelling any attacks within the base.
“No-one in their right mind would accelerate into an asteroid field.... except they’re heading straight for where the asteroids aren’t...” he mused out loud. “Update the fighter pilots,” he announced.
He glanced out of a window at the coruscating view outside.
“Big Bertha will sniff ‘em out...” he smiled wryly.
In the cockpit of the lead MPV ship, Luke deftly tweaked the yoke and, as Spikey’s red-hued eyes opened wide in alarm, the vessel slipped under the first tumbling asteroid.
“That was close !” he moaned. He shot a quick glance sideways at Luke, but the Jedi Master remained with his eyes shut and impassive. The Devaronian patted the dashboard affectionately.
“There, there, girl, he’ll get us through this in one piece....”
He grimaced and tensed as the view outside the cockpit was almost filled with craters and ravines.... and then it disappeared below, and the path ahead became clearer, save for a handful of smaller rocks spinning past. Spikey swayed a little in his seat as the ship jinked past the rocks and settled on its course again.
Like raindrops smearing across a windshield, the asteroid field stretched above and below them forming an unnatural tunnel shape. Clusters of smaller rocks would periodically break free of the curtain and Luke and his fellow Jedi pilot would weave around and slip past. But the larger asteroids were all being successfully deflected.
The Grand Master was dimly aware of the nexus of concentration emanating from his wife and the other Jedi stationed on the Falcon, and was grateful for their efforts. He sensed a small rock below and port-side and pulled back a little on the yoke, and, having lifted the ship’s attitude, settled it down again.
In Naga-Two, the other MPV ship, Master Flo-Ra was accompanied by a female Twi-lek co-pilot by the name of Biv Radian. Like Master Skywalker, Flo-Ra had her eyes shut in concentration, her long lithe fingers resting lightly but positively on the control yoke. Every now and again she would adjust the ship’s path compensating for the rogue chunks of carbon and silicate and iron that would break free of the shield being held by Master Seren and the others on the Falcon.
Radian flicked her eyes over the ship’s status monitors, and angled the deflector shields as needed. Although she trusted the Jedi pilot beside him, it was prudent to be ready and responsive to the smaller rocks about them. She spared a glance ahead at the sister ship’s blue-white engine glow, and saw what appeared to be a line of asteroids stretch out towards the leader from the left of the view. She was about to open the comms channel and give a warning, when a second line of cratered rocks seemed to push out almost inquisitively. Her purple lekku head tentacles quivered with anxiety and her yellow eyes narrowed in puzzlement : what was going on ?!
At that moment she saw Naga-One bank hard to starboard, and noticed the Maser Jedi beside her open her eyes in alarm.
“Break ! Break !” Spikey’s panicked command exploded over the intercom.
In the cockpit of Naga-One, Luke was leaning into the yoke, putting the ship into a steep dive. Small rocks and meteors splattered across the hull, and the interior lighting flickered as the shields took the brunt of the battering. The Jedi Master sensed alarm and confusion from his wife on the Falcon, and felt the mental shield holding back the asteroids weaken with the distraction.
Outside, more rocky tentacles – for that’s what they were – stretched out and grasped for the intruders. Like strings of dark brown mud-packs, one set searched about, while another set were propelling from the larger asteroids ; in their centre-point was a massive soft-skin organism with a hungry orifice that was opening wide.
The behemoth bore down on the two ships, quickly encompassing the lead vessel, while the second craft was able to flit and weave between several out-stretched tentacles.
Its ‘mouth’ gaped wide, surrounding Naga-One, and slowly and inexorably closed.
Spikey screamed as the darkness – a different kind of entombing darkness than the black of space – closed around their rapidly diminishing view.
With one hand on the yoke, Luke lifted his right hand and pushed it palm-out towards the cockpit window and the inside of the creature’s cavernous mouth. His eyes still tightly closed in concentration, his face creased in the mental exertion as he drew on the Force to encourage the interstellar organism to open its maw and release them.
When the behemoth appeared, Master Flo-Ra had opened her eyes wide in shock. Recognising that it was futile to try and help the Grand Master – the mouth had yawned and lurched around the lead ship in an inescapable encompassing but slow-motion speed – she had leaned heavily on the piloting yoke and dived the ship to starboard. Her co-pilot, Biv Radian, having overcome her own shock, was frantically bolstering the deflector shields, the instruments tracking a huge rock encrusted tentacle coming their way !
Inspired by the Force, Flo-Ra suddenly pulled sharply back on the steering mechanism, and the ship climbed tightly, and then tilted to starboard once more : the tentacle swept below the MPV gunship, blindly searching.
Push on ! came Luke’s voice in her mind. Trust in the Force !
Flo-Ra banked the ship to port, and then to starboard, before accelerating towards the mission target.
All around the ship, smaller meteors and carbonaceous rocks flashed past. Like a huge tidal surf at the point of breaking, the unnatural arch of deflected asteroids that towered above them had begun to let slip the more diminutive constituents.
An alarm sounded in the cockpit, and Biv identified it immediately : “Vessel proximity alarm ! Three marks, coming in fast at point seven below !”
Alana had tensed when she sensed the monster suddenly envelop Luke’s ship. Why hadn’t either of them detected its approach ? The Jedi Master was astute enough to appreciate that one’s connection to the Force wasn’t always ever-present and all-knowing. You’d have to be a midichlorian, or a fabled Whill, to be like that ! she mused wryly. Nevertheless, she recognised that this strange interstellar creature was an organic that lived among and presumably consumed symbiotically the rocky asteroids, and was thus in effect camouflaged, plus it lived in a particularly frenetic maelstrom environment too ; and one couldn’t forget the unusual nexus of the Dark Side of the Force emanating from the pirates’ base. Perhaps it was no wonder the Jedi had been oblivious to its presence, she conceded.
From where she sat in the rear hold of the Falcon, Alana remained with her eyes tightly shut, but now her hands were stretched out in front of her, turning and twisting, her fingers reaching and grasping.
“Stay in Concert !” she called out to the other Jedi around her. “Etoille, bolster the shield ! Don’t let it weaken !”
Master Etoille and the other Jedi called out their affirmation, and then their hands too grappled with imaginary asteroids and meteors before them.
Push on ! came Luke’s voice in their minds. Trust in the Force !
“Hold firm, my love !” she whispered. “I’m coming....”
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