Chapter 11: Luke Skywalker’s Academy
After the Battle of Endor, Luke Skywalker faced a choice that would define the rest of his life. He was the last Jedi—the only trained Force user aligned with the light side remaining in the galaxy. The responsibility of rebuilding the Jedi Order fell to him alone. For years, he traveled the galaxy, searching for knowledge, artifacts, and individuals who might help him understand what the Jedi had been and what they might become.
His travels took him to worlds where the Jedi had once been revered and to others where they had been feared. He explored ancient temples on Jedha, recovered texts from the ruins of the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, and sought out the scattered remnants of Jedi knowledge that had survived the Emperor’s purges. With each discovery, his understanding of the Force deepened, though he also came to appreciate how much had been lost. The Jedi of the Old Republic had accumulated millennia of wisdom, and all of it had been nearly destroyed in a generation.
Eventually, Luke established his training temple on a world far from the centers of galactic power. The location was chosen carefully: remote enough to avoid attention, strong enough in the Force to aid in training, and beautiful enough to inspire the peace and contemplation that Jedi training required. Here, he began to gather students—Force-sensitive children and young adults from across the galaxy who showed potential to become the next generation of Jedi.
The academy in this era is small, numbering perhaps a dozen students at most. Luke teaches them the ways of the Force as he understands them, drawing on his training with Yoda and Obi-Wan, his experiences in the war against the Empire, and the knowledge he has gathered in his years of searching. He emphasizes control, compassion, and the dangers of the dark side, but he also allows his students more emotional freedom than the old Jedi Order would have permitted. He believes that the old Order’s rigid suppression of emotion contributed to its downfall.
Among his students is his nephew, Ben Solo, the son of Han Solo and Leia Organa. Ben is perhaps the most gifted of Luke’s apprentices, strong in the Force beyond any of his peers. But there is a darkness in him that troubles Luke, an anger and fear that seems to resist all efforts to address it. The boy carries a heavy burden: the weight of his lineage, the expectations placed upon him, the knowledge that his grandfather was Darth Vader himself. Luke watches him carefully, hoping to guide him toward the light, unaware of the influence already being exerted on the boy’s mind.
Chapter 12: The Corruption of Ben Solo
From across the galaxy, Snoke has reached out to touch the mind of Ben Solo. The connection began subtly, manifesting as dreams and whispers that the young man initially dismissed as imagination. But Snoke is patient, and his touch is insidious. Night after night, he speaks to Ben of power, of destiny, of the truth about his heritage that his family has tried to hide from him.
Snoke exploits every vulnerability. He reminds Ben of every slight, every moment when he felt overlooked or misunderstood. He amplifies the boy’s natural teenage anger into something darker, something that feeds on itself and grows stronger. He speaks of Darth Vader not as a monster but as a visionary who was betrayed by the Jedi and the Republic he served. He suggests that Luke fears Ben’s power, that the Jedi training is designed to suppress rather than enhance his abilities.
The process is slow, taking years. Snoke knows that a sudden conversion would be unstable, that Ben must come to the dark side through his own choices, his own reasoning, his own pain. Each manipulation is designed to seem like Ben’s own thought, his own realization. By the time the corruption is complete, Ben will believe that he chose this path freely, that the dark side is his true calling, that everyone who loved him was actually holding him back.
In this era, Ben Solo is still a Jedi student, still struggling with the darkness he feels within himself. He has not yet fallen, has not yet become Kylo Ren, has not yet destroyed Luke’s temple and killed his fellow students. But the seeds have been planted, and they are growing. The tragedy that will destroy Luke’s hopes and scatter the new Jedi to the winds has not yet occurred, but it draws closer with each passing day.
Luke senses that something is wrong with his nephew, but he cannot identify the source. The dark side presence touching Ben’s mind is too subtle, too distant for Luke to perceive clearly. He tries to address the boy’s anger through additional training and meditation, but his efforts seem to have little effect. The frustration this causes only feeds Ben’s growing conviction that the Jedi way is flawed, that there must be another path.
Chapter 13: The Force in the Galaxy
Beyond the struggle between Luke’s nascent Jedi Order and the dark side influences corrupting Ben Solo, the Force manifests throughout the galaxy in ways both subtle and profound. Force-sensitive individuals are born on countless worlds, most never knowing the nature of their gifts. Some become local healers or mystics, their abilities attributed to luck or divine favor. Others suppress their talents, sensing instinctively that such powers invite danger. A rare few seek out Luke Skywalker, following rumors of the last Jedi to worlds where he might be found.
The dark side is similarly active. Cults and covens dedicated to ancient evil persist in the shadows, their members practicing corrupted Force traditions that predate the Sith. Some of these groups have been contacted by First Order agents, their members recruited or eliminated depending on their potential usefulness. Others remain hidden, pursuing their own inscrutable agendas. The galaxy is larger and stranger than most beings realize, and the Force touches all of it.
The Knights of Ren, a group of dark side warriors who follow a philosophy distinct from the Sith, operate in this era as independent actors. They serve no master, answer to no authority, and pursue a path they call simply “the Ren”—a devotion to the dark side that emphasizes action over contemplation, passion over control. Snoke has taken an interest in them, seeing potential tools for his purposes. In time, they will serve Kylo Ren after Ben Solo’s fall, but that day has not yet come.