Fanfic / Alien Exodus

"An even longer time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..."

In 1993, Bob Carrau's Monsters and Aliens from George Lucas, a (non-canonical) book about monsters and alien species in various Lucasfilm movies (including the Star Wars trilogy and the two Ewok films) was published. After the book's success, it was suggested that Canadian science fiction writer Robert J. Sawyer write a trilogy of novels that narrated the origin of the Star Wars species.

Alien Exodus would have been the first novel in the trilogy. The book would have followed two parallel plotlines — the first is the story of Cosmo Hender, leader of the human slaves from the Varlian Empire, and their liberation of humans and other species starting on the planet Forhilnor. The second would have been about a document called "The Human Exodus" that tells how humans came from Earth of the XXV century to the Star Wars galaxy after falling into a wormhole to Alpha Centauri. The history would have also included information on the Hutt civilization, the origin of the Force, and the surname Skywalker.

Everything was going to be in line with the canon until that point. Sawyer's two main sources would have been A Guide to the Star Wars Universe, an important book of reference of that time, and the Galaxy Guide 4: Alien Races of the role play.

However, negotiations between Ace Books and Lucasfilm did not go as expected and it was decided that the books should not include anything from Star Wars. Sawyer left the project and a few years the idea was repurposed into a trilogy of novels called Alien Chronicles. This trilogy was written by Deborah Chester and published by Lucasfilm.

In 2003, Sawyer published the summary of what would have been the first novel and its first chapters on the Internet. These can be read here.

The plot of the novel was included inside of Star Wars: Cult Encounters and Supernatural Encounters, but with some differences: The resistance become the Sons of Freedom, the Varlians are renamed to the Vulagool, and the wormhole is opened by a celestial named Tilotny.

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Provides Examples of:

• Aliens Speaking English:
  • Averted Trope in the Human Exodus outline, where Laximas the Bith must learn how to speak English from humans, and he then serves as an interpreter to the other aliens (because he is a linguist).
  • Justified Trope in Alien Exodus because it takes place five generations later, plenty of time for English to have spread.
• All Planets Are Earth-Like: Corellia (not named yet) is described as a land-water world, with an atmosphere humans can breathe in, covered with vegetation, with many types of animal life, but no indigenous intelligent life.
• Androcles' Lion: After the first earthquake, Cosmo saves a Gamorrean guard trapped under a piece of rubble. Later, when sneaking into the palace during the escape, he and some other slaves are cornered, unarmed, by a guard — the same guard as before, who lets them pass by unharmed.
• The Ark: The Oort Raider, the colonial ship, that the underground movement use to flee of the Earth and find a new home with free society of the controlling computers.
• Bizarre Alien Senses: The Bith have microscopic vision, but this skill is at the cost of not being able to see distant objects clearly. Mon Calamari, meanwhile, have eyes that can deal with multiple refractive indices, what it grants them with a keen vision, almost telescopic when working in the air.
• Body Horror: The Changa Bloodrot effects include purple and green splotching on the skin of the infected.
• Born into Slavery: The slaves of Forhilnor have been enslaved for at least five generations.
• Canon Welding: Sawyer takes three previously unrelated works of George Lucas and puts them into a single shared continuity with Star Wars. THX 1138 (the future society of the Earth and serial number THX series, which is a nod to THX 1138's title character), Willow (the two-headed dragonlike creature in Rodian cargo) and American Graffiti (descendants of Curtis Henderson, Dale and Cosmo Hender)^note this would also by extension include the obscure Lucas movie The Radioland Murders, as Roger and Penny Henderson from that film were intended to be the parents of Curtis Henderson. Surprisingly, Indiana Jones is left out of this completely.
• Didn't Think This Through: The serum designed by Ugerat, Ridbrek, and Galarax was to prevent Varlian larvae from entering the cocoon state. They hadn't anticipated them simply continuing to grow into cruel and greedy slathering monstrous beings that were five meters long.
• Due to the Dead: The Sullustans believe that those who seek power are inherently damned, and that the souls of all leaders and authority figures will descend into Hell unless their followers pray for them five days to lift them to Heaven instead.
• Dystopia: The future of the 25th century Earth has computers taking control of society, pacifying the populace with drugs to control their emotions, and replacing names/identities with serial numbers.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Although the protagonist dies, the slave races escape from their captors, they manage to acquire the power of the Force, and they go towards with their new freedom to Corellia.
• Earn Your Title: Taffee confers Cosmo with the nickname "Skywalker" for his ability to levitate high off the ground.
• Emotion Suppression: The main purpose of drugs for the Humans in the 25th century society is to control and reduce their passions.
• Evil Minions: The Rodians and Gamorreans; clients and henchmen of the Varlians who work as foremen of the slaves and guards of the palace.
• Evil Overlord: Kaxa, the Varlian governor of Forhilnor, described in the outline as cruel, mean-spirited, and power-mad.
• Expy: Paxton Solo is a deliberate analogue to Han Solo. By having the same family name, it is implied that Han is a Generation Xerox of Paxton. Paxton also pilots a ship called the Century Eagle, the name of which parallels the Millennium Falcon.
• First Contact: In the Human Exodus, the first contact of the Humans with alien life forms were the Biths and Rodians. The first was good and the second bad (the Biths was slaves of the Rodians, and although the humans tried to help the Biths, they all ended up being enslaved by the Varlians.)
• Force Feeding: The Human Exodus excerpt specifies it clearly that the computers to begin force-feeding drugs to the humans.
• Foregone Conclusion: Because Human Exodus happens before Alien Exodus, the human refugees and the Bith will become slaves of the Varlians.
• Friend-or-Idol Decision: Antonia has to choose: either make a mad dash for the wormhole that transported them to an unknown galaxy, or wait for the return of her lover Paxton. She chooses the latter, unable to strand her lover alone in a strange galaxy, and she and the crew leave the wormhole before it collapses.
• Get Out!: While the plague rages among the Varlians and the other slaves, Cosmo removes his tunic during an audience with Kaxa and shows that he also has the plague. The Emperor, terrified of further infection, says to him, "Take them, take them and get out!"
• A God Am I: Taffee McMal, the Kitonak leader, mentions that Kaxa thinks of himself as a god, and that there's nothing more dangerous than an insane god.
• Government Drug Enforcement: The computers are taking control of Earth society, by pacifying them with drugs.
• The Hero Dies: Cosmo Hender who dies managing to rescue all the slaves and escape from the Varlians.
• Heroic Sacrifice: In the Human Exodus, Antonia Corelli sacrifices her life when a Rodian leader is about to execute Laximas the Bith.
• Homeworld Evacuation: In Human Exodus, some of Earth's population plan to escape on a mission to Alpha Centauri.
• Humans are Leaders: The Alien Exodus have to Cosmo Hender and in Human Exodus to the underground members.
• Imagine Spot: In the sample chapters, Cosmo mentioned he'd fantasized about crushing Leego's green head with a mallet and about turning a Gamorrean's short sword onto its owner.
• The Immune: The Changa Bloodrot plague can infect any species that have DNA including all the slave species, the Varlians, and the Gamorreans. Only Rodians are immune, because their planet is unique in the galaxy in having intelligent lifeforms based on RNA rather than DNA.
• Insectoid Aliens: The Varlians. The antagonists from the novel, described as cold, calculating insectoid creatures, three times as large as a human.
• I Owe You My Life: Cosmo heroically saves several other slaves, and even one Gamorrean, who was pinned by a large piece of rubble when an earthquake occurs. Later, the same Gamorrean lets Cosmo go during the escape.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: Bisbee, a human slave, shouts "Freedom!" but is killed mid-word by a Gamorrean guard.
• He Knows Too Much: The reason why Cosmo and Jax kill the Gamorrean guard, he discovered them outside their domes and could have reported with the Overlords about the secret tunnels for their secret meetings
• Last-Minute Baby Naming: While Cosmo is in Governor Kaxa's palace, his mate Salee gives birth to a son, but holds off naming him until she and Cosmo reunite. They agree to name the child Freedom.
• The Leader: Each race has their own leader, but Cosmo Hender is the hero and the de facto head of the slaves council.
• Licking the Blade: Leego, after cracking a Twi'lek slave named Bellona several times with his whip, uses his tongue to clean the blood off the leather.
• Limited Wardrobe: Justified, due to their status, the slaves use torn and stained shirt made from coarse wormsilk raised by Kubazi slaves, a belt of knotted cord, ragged pants, and dewback-leather sandals.
• MacGuffin: The Force crystal used by Kaxa for moving Forhilnor to the mainstream of Varlian space, later used by Cosmo and the slaves for moving the Bloodstars at their escape.
• Made a Slave: The 15,000 Bith and the 5,000 Humans are taken as slaves for the Varlians to Forhilnor.
• Manchild: The neotenic Varlian larvae retain their progenitors' tyrannical culture and belief in their primacy over everything else, but also remain selfish, cruel and unempathetic in the way only a child can be.
• Meaningful Name: Freedom, son of Cosmo and Salee; his name means the freedom from slave status that his parents fervently hope for him.
• Metamorphosis: In the three hundred day of their larval state, the Varlians begin to secrete a cocoon casing about them, where at last emerges as a metamorphosed adult in fully insectile Varlian form.
• Mile-Long Ship: The Oort Raider, a giant comet-mining ship converted to a colony ship. It carries five thousand Humans and is over ten kilometers long.
• Mook–Face Turn: Leego and the other Rodians planned eliminating the Varlians. It did not end well for them.
• Multiple Head Case: The giant, two-headed dragon, a rare monster collected from very distant lands that resembles the Eborsisk in Willow.
• Mythology Gag: Varlians larvae are sluglike beings larger than a human, with two small arms, giant mouths slitting their massive heads, and huge golden eyes. This is an obvious description of the Hutts, and that is what the Varlians become.
• Naming Your Colony World: The planet Corellia (the first planet the humans discovered) is named after pilot Antonia Corelli, who died at the end of the Human Exodus excerpt.
• Never Grew Up: The fate of the Varlians larvae that fail to begin the metamorphosis — they can endure, potentially forever, as overgrown versions of their child selves, but can never develop into emotionally and reproductively mature adults.
• Never Learned to Read: Almost none of the slave species know how to read until Delba teaches Cosmo. He in turn teaches the other slaves.
• Origins Episode: The story describes the origins of the Force, the Hutt civilization, the name "Skywalker", and the human race in the Star Wars galaxy.
• Our Wormholes Are Different: The wormhole did not just displace the dissidents from the Earth into another galaxy, but in another time, billions of years in the past: in other words, they found themselves "A Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy Far, Far Away...."
• Patient Zero: Gelleda, son of Delba, is the first Varlian larva that failed to enter the cocoon state, making him the first Hutt.
• Pig Man: The Gamorreans, stout, piglike, green-skinned aliens with upturned tusks.
• The Plague: The Changa Bloodrot, a deadly plague characterized by purple and green splotching on the skin that nearly wiped out the Varlians centuries ago.
• Power Crystal: The Force crystal used by the Varlians.
• The Promised Land: Corellia, the world that slaves plan to make their home after escaping.
• A Protagonist Shall Lead Them: Cosmo Hender, the protagonist and hero from the novel, leads the slaves towards freedom.
• Punished for Sympathy: When he was younger, Cosmo once intervened in one of Leego's cruel displays. He received severe beatings.
• Rapid Aging: Cosmo ages forty years in a few minutes when the Force crystal shatters.
• The Resistance: The secret slave council of Alien Exodus, intended to end the Varlans' tyrannical rule, and the underground movement of Human Exodus, which opposes the growing power of the machines.
• Sacred Scripture: The Divine Varlian Destiny, a manifest-destiny tract about how the Varlians are entitled to subjugate all other lifeforms.
• Sadist: Leego is described as a sadistic, cruel being who delights and enjoys in beating the slaves working beneath him without provocation.
• Same Surname Means Related: Justified: Cosmo Hender, the protagonist of the A-plot, is the descendant of Dale Hender, the protagonist of the B-plot. This is also implied to be the case with Paxton Solo and Han Solo.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: When Delba decides to teach Cosmo to read, he points out that it's illegal to teach a slave to read, but Delba counters that she is the Governor's daughter, so she can do whatever she pleases.
• Shed the Family Name: A variant, Dale Hender has a similar but different surname than his ancestor Curtis Henderson, because in the 21st century the practice of using non-sexist, non-patronymic names was introduced.
• Single Line of Descent: Cosmo Hender is the sole descendant of Dale Hender.
• Slave Race: Humans, Bith, Ithorian, Kubaz, Ortolan, Kitonak, Twi'lek, Mon Calamari, and Sullust are all kept as slaves.
• Slave Liberation: The main theme of the novel sees Cosmo Hender lead a slave revolt.
• Sole Survivor: One Rodian slaver gets away and manages to send a radio signal before he is captured.
• Sterility Plague: The mutagen created by the slaves causes Varlians to be stuck in their larval form, unable to complete the Metamorphosis required to become reproductive adults. Any Varlians that are capable of reproduction before infection pass on the plague to their offspring, risking species-wide extinction.
• Super Drowning Skills: The Human Exodus mentions Rodians are unable to swim at all, because Rodia is a jungle world where rain evaporates as soon as it hits the ground, meaning there are no open bodies of water.
• Taking the Bullet: Antonia Corelli takes a blaster shot intended for Laximas the Bith.
• A Taste of the Lash: Leego, the Rodian taskmaster, delights in tormenting the slaves with his whip. Bellona is living proof of that.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: The Rodians and Gamorreans work together serving the Governor, but there is no love between those two races; they have an uneasy alliance at best.
• Transplanted Humans: The Star Wars humans were transplanted through space and time from Earth by a wormhole.
• Trapped in the Past: Humans wind up trapped billions of years in the past in a distant galaxy, which they realize when they notice that the cosmic microwave background is off by a few degrees, putting it at a level that it only occupied when the universe was billions of years younger.
• Vocal Dissonance: Ridbrek the Mon Calamari leader have a deep voice, like a male human; but is female. Something that Cosmo has to remind himself periodically.
• Water Source Tampering: A heroic variation, Ridbrek, Ugerat, and Galarax poison the water supply in the palace with a serum designed to prevent Varlian larvae from entering the cocoon state. They achieved their goal, but turned the Varlians into something much worse.
• We ARE Struggling Together: The secret slave council, because of their different customs; the outline mentions that Fob Discordia the Twi'lek and Cosmo don't really like each other, because all Twi'leks strike humans as being sly and cunning, and Discordia has had more than his fair share of these.
• Weird Sun: The planet Forhilnor has a blue-white sun.
• We Will Use Manual Labor in the Future: The Varlians use the slaves to build temples in the quarry, but they have a high level of technology, spaceflight, and many kinds of machines that could make their work much easier and faster. Justified later — it is revealed that Kaxa is using the Force crystal to harvest Force energy from the millions of slaves who worked towards the building of the temple, with the goal of physically moving the Forhilnor system towards the center of the Varlian Empire.
• Whole-Plot Reference: The elements of the story (the plagues, the escape of a slave people from bondage, the parting of the Bloodstars, and the liberator who does not live to see the promised land) are reminiscent of the Biblical Book of Exodus.
• You Are Number 6: The computers were going to start replacing names and individual identities with serial numbers. Dale Hender was to be the first of the THX series, THX 0001.

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