Reposting Author's Notes and references to One Path

[so_out_of_ideas]

An Introduction to One Path

The story is a co-creation between Lionchilde and Aruna7. We have the utmost respect for the work of George Lucas. We also respect the efforts made by the writers of the SW EU although we have different opinions as to the level of canonicity that the EU should be afforded. We understand that, while portions of the story may have been changed along the way, Mr. Lucas had a vision for the Star Wars Saga even before A New Hope was ever introduced to the rest of the world. We also know that the characters of the Star Wars movies were meant to be in some ways reflective of literary and mythological archetypes. In writing One Path, it is our main hope to keep those characters true to Lucas' portrayal of them while exploring another possible avenue for the unfolding of events in the galaxy.

You will find many elements here with which you are familiar. This is still the story of good versus evil played out on a galactic scale. It is still the story of the love between a man and woman, a father and son, a brother and sister. It is still the story of heroism and betrayal, of faithfulness, sacrifice, and ultimately, of redemption. One Path is also the story of Obi Wan Kenobi and Padme Amidala who find a sort of happiness that they were never allowed in canon. It was conceived in our love for them, and our hope is to honor Lucas' vision of them as we take them down a path they never traveled. Welcome to One Path.

Author's Notes For One Path

Aruna and I decided that there was only one way to tell this story, and that was to do so from the very beginning. Chapter 1 begins as Queen Amidala's transport breaks through the Trade Federation blockade in The Phantom Menace.

*Since the fic takes place during the movies themselves, there is some re-telling of events from the point of view of either Obi Wan or Padme.

*My references for dialogue in Chapters 1-7 were the TPM script and the novelization by Terry Brooks.

*Chapter 8 takes place shortly after Padme is elected to the Senate. I think I did my math right here; if I miscalculated feel free to smack me. Merryn is a bit of self-indulgence. Aruna and I had recently discussed the fact that Dooku was originally supposed to have been female. The Count himself, of course, will appear in the chapters set during AtoC.

*My references for dialogue in Chapters 9-23 were the AotC script and the novelization by R. A. Salvatore.

Chapter 16 contains dialogue based on events in Rogue Planet by Greg Bear.

*Our Clone Wars have been extended for plot purposes and take place over 5 years instead of three. Although Ventress does make an appearance, the events in Chapters 24-27 are not meant to mirror events in the Clone Wars cartoon series. Those events will begin during year 2 of the war, which starts at the end of Chapter 27.

*My reference for events in Chapter 29 was James Lucerno's Labyrinth of Evil. I tried to stay as close to the book's portrayal as I could, but there are places where previous events in the AU demanded differences.

*My references for dialogue in Chapters 30 through the end of the PT were the RotS script and the novelization by Matthew Stover.

*Chapters 61-70 take place between the PT and OT eras. Where possible, I referenced material either from ANH or from Shmi Skywalker's journal as written in Tatooine Ghost by Troy Denning in an effort to create a childhood experience on Tatooine that felt "genuine".

*My reference for Chapters 71-87 was the ANH script by George Lucas.

*Chapters 88-144 take place between ANH and ESB. Characterization on Mara Jade is based on the work of Timothy Zahn.

*My reference for Chapters 145-180 was the ESB script.

*My reference for Chapters 181-244 was the RotJ script.

*For all source material, I chose to use whichever version provided the most rich basis for the actual dialogue in the story, but neither are copied verbatim and nothing has been plagiarized. Where events are portrayed differently depending on source, I attempted to composite them, unless a particular version made a lot more sense in view of previous chapters. I did not re-create every scene, but in cases where re-creation was necessary, my reference for people's locations was either the scripts or clips of the movies, except when previous events in the AU dictated that they be different. There are some obvious differences in events, but I tried to remain as close to the timeline of the movies as I could. Any gross errors are soley due to my own carelessness and not a reflection on my beta readers.

A note on names, which I have been meaning to put up for some time:

*The spelling of Obi Wan, with or without hypenation? The TPM script source I used, as well as some other random material I have doesn't hypenate. Other novels do, but I decided to just pick something and stick with it. There will also be a reason it becomes important in the OT segments of the fic, if you're watching carefully. ;)

*My script sources give write the diminutive of Anakin's name as "Annie". However, I have an aunt and a grandmother both named "Anne", my uncles all refer to their sister as "Annie", and I simply can't picture the future Darth Vader if I'm writing "Annie." It just looks wrong, and I don't hear the correct pronunciation when I'm typing it that way. (I know, like what does "hearing" have to do with writing? Right? Well, I don't know if it's a writer thing or a "me" thing, but I have to hear it. So, I went with Ani.

*On the appearances/role of Qui-Gon as a Force Ghost:

I know that the conversation between Yoda and Obi at the end of ROTS indicated that Yoda was going to "teach" Obi Wan to interract with Qui-Gon, however since Luke had almost no training in the Force whatsover, I am willing to assume that it's possible for a Jedi Spirit to interract with whoever he/she wants, and that probably what Yoda was doing was "unteaching" Obi Wan whatever preconceived notions had prevented both of them from realizing that Qui-Gon was still around. Also, children have rather a knack for being able to do things that adults can't, chiefly because they don't have the barriers of a lifetime worth of preconceptions in the way. So, I think that by the time Qui-Gon interracts with anyone over the age of four, enough work has been done in the fic to establish the erasure of the aforementioned preconceptions. I could, however, be wrong, in which case, as usual, feel free to smack me.

*I recently received some concrit from One Path readers in an anonymous reviews. Since the reviews are anonymous, I can't respond directly to the feedback, but I would like the opportunity to do so. I always welcome and respond to all feedback on One Path, whether positive or negative. One reader writes:

"They're all clueless. Jedi males are no exception."

It's things like this that reinforce the negative stereotypes that plague
women.

We of course have no desire to offend anyone with the writing of this story. However, that particular line was included with the purpose of injecting realism into the story and adding a bit of humor to what was otherwise a pretty harrowing chapter to write. I have no social agenda in writing One Path; it's a story meant to be entertainment and therefore fun for me to write. However, for both Aruna7 and myself, women say things like this. If it reinforces a negative stereotype, then the issue is with the real women that the line was meant to reflect. Also, given the circumstances, the age of the characters, and the fact that the person whose line it was had a good deal of maturing left to do, the line was in character, and we felt it was appropriate.

*A second reader feels that the children portrayed in One Path are inauthentic because they are too articulate for their ages. Again, this was a choice that we made specifically for this story and we felt that it reflected something genuine about who these children are. Their parents are Obi Wan and Padme Kenobi. Their mother was the elected ruler of her world at the age of fourteen. She was serving in the Legislative Youth program at the age of eight, and was known to be a prodigious child. Her niece, Pooja Naberrie was said to have been even more articulate and followed in Padme's footsteps, also participating in the Legislative Youth program at an early age and going on to represent the Chommell sector in the Imperial Senate until Palpatine dissolved the body in 0 ABY. Their father was also known to be unusually intelligent and articulate for his age. It stands to reason then that One Path's children would have a very high likelihood of inheriting that particular genetic trait. Also, studies clearly show that children who spend the majority of their formative years associating with adults rather than other children tend to speak sooner and be able to express themselves more clearly, especially when those adults do not talk down to them or use "special" language with them. My own personal experiences indicate that this research is valid, and while these children are far different from me, there is something of every author's personal experience in a story like this.

*A third reader writes in regard to the famous "Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs" line from ANH:

I'm sure you've gotten this before, but I should explain what they mean by 12 parsecs. Kessel is surrounded by black holes (I'm sure you know this). What he's talking about is the route he took was so short, it's implying that it was very quick. No other ship would have had the power to cut the corner that close to the black holes.

We’re both aware that the scene has been retconned in the EU, however the choice to have Ani and Luke interpret the line as an attempt on Han’s part to mislead the Kenobis was intentional.

While we both respect the work of the EU writers, Aruna and I have somewhat different views on how much of the EU we regard as “canonical” in the sense that the EU explanation of an event is the only possibility and therefore needs to be strictly adhered to in One Path. This was a compromise between our two viewpoints. Our scene doesn’t address whether or not Han DID shave physical distance off the run by bringing the ship closer to The Maw. So, he very well may have done that if readers wish to interpret it that way. The Kenobi boys have no way of knowing about that. We don’t find it very likely that Han would offer an explanation to potential passengers while sitting in the cantina, and Chewie would think it was funny when someone was unimpressed with Han regardless of the situation.

There were several other attempts at “explaining” the line before it reached the EU, and as an author I feel that the most likely one—that Han was bragging to impress people he perceived as ignorant—is supported by the original script and the camera work in the film which cuts back to Obi Wan’s expression:

HAN It's the ship that made the Kessel run in less than twelve parsecs! Ben reacts to Solo's stupid attempt to impress them with obvious misinformation.

The ANH novelization doesn’t use the word parsec at all, but rather Han says “standard time units,” so since the EU seems to be contradicting itself on the matter of exactly what the line refers to, I chose to use the source that made the most sense within the context of the story. Aruna fully supported my choice, and this scene was the result.

*Some time ago, we received a comment from a reader who felt that because Obi Wan and Padme didn't die when they did in canon, the children were in some way prevented from growing up. I did respond to this person directly, but I have been wanting to address the issue for a larger audience. We acknowledge and respect the elements of both myth and fairytale that are present in Star Wars. The death of parents/mentors is very often used in this type of story as a symbolic turning point for the hero. One of our intentions with One Path was to balance elements of archetypal storytelling with elements of realism and the freedom that the written word provides to develop characters on more of a complex, multi-faceted scale than it was possible for Lucas to do within the confines of the films. Most people don't need their parents and mentors to die before they are able to grow up, and it was our belief that Obi Wan and Padme had meaningful contributions to make to the story beyond the roles that they were allowed to play in canon. We feel that there was a more than adequate progression in the lives of all three of their children from the dependence they showed on their parents at the beginning of the OT to the independence they demonstrated by the story's close.

As always, we welcome and appreciate reader feedback, and we’d like to reassure everyone that very little happens in One Path without a great deal of thought and consideration of character motivations and canon material.

*A note on One Path's retelling of RotJ: I anticipate a few questions regarding my choice to limit the story's portrayal of the mission to Endor so that readers only saw what was happing on Endor itself and aboard Death Star II. One of the critiques we received during the ESB portion of the story was that there were too many shifting POVs because we had various groups of characters either with the Rebel fleet, on/en route to Bespin, and on/around Dagobah. Readers seemed to feel that it was hard to remember who was where if updates were not posted very fast. Given the nature of the Kenobi family and the way that portion of the story played out, the shifting of POV was unavoidable. However, with RotJ, I decided that readers were familiar enough with canon events that I didn't need to show what was going on with Lando, and it was fairly obvious that Obi Wan and Padme's time would be spent largely caring for their grandsons and worrying. I hoped that by sticking with two locations/groups of people, the story would be a little more streamlined and easier to follow in RotJ. With a story this big, it's sometimes not possible to please every reader, so to those who were hoping for more details about the events that occurred with Lando or Obi Wan and Padme, perhaps in the future there can be some missing scenes written separately.

I would like to address recent comments about Anakin/Vader's death in One Path. I realize that many people may have hoped that he would survive, but in our opinion, the merciful choice was to end his suffering and let him become one with the Force. We made a point of discussing how unhappy he was with life in the suit and how much would have to be done in order for him to have anything approaching an existence independent of it. Also, after such a long time immersed in the teachings and philosophy of the Sith, it would have been unrealistic to expect that he would have been able, emotionally, to make a successful transition into life outside the Emperor's grasp. He was tired, and frankly, except for the Kenobis, no one in the galaxy would have trusted or welcomed him. Our goal from the outset was to keep this story true to the intent and spirit of Star Wars. I won't apologize for maintaining the story's integrity, and I hope that whether the ending makes you happy or not, you will have found this story to be a journey worth taking.

I know that there are some questions left unanswered here, most notably the fate of our Mara Jade. I had considered writing an epilogue of sorts to close things up, but ultimately, I feel that things are better left the way they are. Aruna and I do plan for there to be a sequel series to One Path entitled The Kenobi Way, and I want there to be some surprises in store for those of you who decide to brave the waters of this 'verse when it moves beyond the film saga. For the present, I have to say that, while I love the GFFA and the universe of One Path, I have decided to take a hiatus to focus on my original work. I will be compiling and moving all of the author's notes and responses to specific reader feedback over the next few weeks, as well as a list of the existing "missing scenes", One Path music videos, and other things of interest. Currently I plan to begin work on The Kenobi Way in January of 2010. I have no idea when the series will end up being posted, and while I know that some may be disapointed, I really feel that this is the best thing for me and for the story. I want to be able to give it the care and attention that it--and you as the audience--deserve. Until then, may the Force be with you. -Lionchilde