Fanfic / The Guides Series

Civil Wars, Whistleblower Tactics, Schematic Drafting, And The Finer Points Of Sith Adoption: The Essential How-To Guide For The Engineering Jedi, or in short The Guides series, is a Star Wars fanfiction by Jackdaw_Kraai on Archive of Our Own with heavy themes of Found Family, freedom, and how aggressive compassion can make change for the better.

Taking its initial premise from Tuning up your TIE-Fighter to prove you’re better than the bastard currently running the TIE-Fighter Program for fun and profit by loosingletters, wherein Luke and Vader become internet friends via Luke's Space!YouTube channel, the Guides takes an alternate ending where Luke accepts Vader's offer of a job on the Executor without revealing his true name is Luke Skywalker. Instead, Head Engineer Luke Lars quickly turns the Executor, and later the Empire, on its head when he is tasked with coming up with a prototype for a new Stormtrooper armor.

The series is (as of this posting) intended to have twenty-eight installments, four of which are posted and complete. As the titles are all long, they have shorthand titles for use in discussion. Installments so far are:

• How To Reinvent The Stormtrooper Armor To Make Your Surrogate Father Proud And Shut The Naysayers Up For Fun And Profit (Armor): Head Engineer Luke Lars's arrival unwittingly turns the hierarchy of the Executor on its head, and Captain Piett watches and contemplates the change while Luke is challenged to design a new prototype Stormtrooper armor.
• How To Give A Presentation To The Imperial Court While Accidentally Committing Light Treason By Making A Friend (Presentation): Luke presents the new SUTA armor before Palpatine and the Imperial Senate, putting himself in the galactic spotlight. Along the way, he befriends Zevulon Veers, and promises to help him escape the scrutiny of COMPNOR and the ISB.
• How To Design Your Own Prosthesis And Turn The Project Into A Bonding Experience (Prosthesis): A sabotage attempt gravely injures Luke, and while he recovers, Vader and Piett investigate to find who would hurt the Head Engineer and Lady's Sun.
• How To Win A Bar Fight And Practice Diplomacy While Negotiating A Bounty On Your Head (Barfight): On Kuat for The Gathering, Luke prepares to help Zev with his escape, while others prepare to make a move on Luke himself.

The Guides also has a very active Discord server where Jack posts snippets and discusses story aspects and world building, as well as Jack's own Tumblr blog.

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The Guides series contains examples of:

• 0% Approval Rating: Ozzel, outside of his own cronies.
• Academy of Evil: The Imperial Academy, at least as far as Zev is concerned.
• Adaptation Expansion: AND HOW! Among other things, Jack includes:
  • An entire culture for Tatooine, including gods, rituals, festivals and celebrations, and social and spiritual roles for its members.
  • Kuat in Canon is just the Shipyards for the Imperial Navy. In Guides, its culture is a blending of Venice, Florence and a smattering of other European cities, with a sci-fi flair to round it out.
  • The GFFA has an actual name: The Skyriver Galaxy.
• Adaptation Name Change: Variant. Luke’s actual name didn’t change, but his legal and public name is Luke Lars.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: The whole premise of the series, with Luke and Vader being holonet-friends-turned-mentor-mentee-turned-adopted family instead of mortal enemies revealed to be related.
• Adaptational Badass: Luke in canon was just a simple farm boy, longing for adventure, and eventually discovering the Force. Guides!Luke is a Runner who operated in the largest territory on Tatooine, including Jabba’s palace, and has led over 100 Flights, losing only nine charges in that time, starting when he was 14.
• The Aesthetics of Technology: Space! Technology aesthetics make many appearances, such as with SUTA
• Affectionate Nickname: Vader calls Luke “Little one” or “Little star”.
• All There in the Manual: Jack's Tumblr and the Guides Discord server has a lot of information about the series that has not made it into fic yet.
• Alternate Universe Fic: Starts two years before A New Hope does, with Luke having taken a job on the Executor just after his 18th birthday.
• An Arm and a Leg: Luke loses his right arm in an assassination attempt via exploding machinery.
• Arc Words: Presentation introduces one for Luke and Vader.
  "Trust me." "Tell me how."
• Arbitrarily Large Bank Account: The Empire does believe in “Spare No Expense” when it comes to its military
• Artificial Limbs: Aside from Vader's canonical ones, Luke loses a hand in Prosthesis and he and Vader design a prosthetic for him. It is made of white and tan enameled metal, etched with designs based on the Children's culture, with kyber crystal shards acting as data processors.
• Assassination Attempt: Prosthesis kicks off with one on Luke. It fails, but he loses his right hand in the explosion.
• Asshole Victim: Ozzel and his allies in the conspiracy.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Luke, aside from having the brains needed to upgrade the Lady's systems and reinvent stormtrooper armor, is also able to pick out disguised bounty hunters in a crowd from the way they walk.
• Bad Boss: Ozzel
• Berserk Button: Do. NOT. Attempt to hurt Luke when Vader is anywhere nearby. Ozzel and his conspiracy learned this the hard way. As did Sixth Company.
• Beware the Nice Ones / Beware the Silly Ones: Luke comes across to most as an optimistic, slightly sheltered farm kid from a backwater planet on the Outer Rim. Those who get on his bad side quickly learn there's a reason he earned the title The Storm Wraith.
• Big Damn Heroes: Vader at the end of ch 15 of Barfight.
• Blue Blood: Ozzel, who lets the status go to his head.
  • On the flip side, Leia and Bail Organa are good examples.
  • The Kuaras of Kuat (and by Word of God, the rest of Kuati nobility) are also a positive example, while Prince Cormus Alun of the Alun System starts antagonistic, but starts changing for the better after the Flight starts.
• Body Horror: The results of The Massacre in Prosthesis. It starts with Vader making one of the conspirators vomit up his own heart, and ends with Ozzel being melted and living through it.
• Bridal Carry: Vader carries Luke in this way after the Festival in Prosthesis.
• Continuity Nod: Has nods back to the Prequels and parts of the Original Trilogy.
• Cradling Your Kill: In Barfight, Luke does this with one of the bounty hunters after stabbing them with a neurotoxin dart, soothingly whispering them to sleep before hiding the body.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: The Massacre. Aside from the three officers who had their necks snapped before it officially started, the man who vomited up his own heart had the easiest death. Ozzel isn't even killed by Vader melting him, and has to be euthanized.
• Culture Clash: Several examples are shown between the characters from the Outer Rim and those from the Core, from things as minor as diet (eg: Piett's preferred spice levels vs Veers's), to major ones like morality (eg: Ozzel's fate.)
• Curb-Stomp Battle: What Luke and Vader deliver to the Sixth Company in the climax of Barfight.
• Cute Machines: Luke works on and with many small droids. He also names them. Most notable is Emmy, a white mouse droid he originally fixed up on Tatooine and brought with him to the Lady.
• Dark Is Not Evil: A major theme of the series, most prominently in Vader
• Deadpan Snarker: Vader, Luke, Piett, Zev... just about every POV character has some level of snark to him.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: Ozzel. In canon, he was simply choked to death about four years into the future. In Guides, Vader melts him into a pile of human sludge, and leaves him alive afterwards. The responding medics have to euthanize him so he can pass on.
• Dramatic Irony: Vader and Luke adopt each other as Home and eventually Father and Son, completely unaware they are blood related.
• Dirty Coward: Ozzel
• Early-Bird Cameo: Piett, Veers, and Ozzel were first introduced in The Empire Strikes Back. As the majority of the series is set on the Executor, all three appear much sooner.
• Earn Your Title: Luke is given the Mandalorian title Goran (meaning "Armorer") by the members of the 501st after the designs and builds the SUTA armor. Luke also carries the title The Storm Wraith on Tatooine, for running over 100 successful Flights over the widest area, including Jabba's palace. This is a title he's had since he was 14.
• Failed a Spot Check: Luke points out in Barfight that most bipedal sentients almost always fail to look up. He uses this to his advantage against a group of mercenaries.
• Family of Choice: A huge part of the Children's culture, with a distinct difference being made between biological family and Home and Family (the latter two involving ritualized practices where both sides reciprocate the relationship).
• The Family That Slays Together: Luke and Vader are quite the deadly Father-Son team.
• Fan Verse: There are currently 28 installments planned for the Guides; four of which are completed. It has also inspired both canonical and fan-written spin offs set in the Guides universe, primarily a spin-off focused on Biggs Darklighter's time in the Rebellion.
• Finagle's Law: When a Skywalker is involved, this is the natural order of the universe.
• Flower Motifs: In Presentation, there are lush gardens in the public parts of the Imperial Palace, but as one enters the Emperor’s inner sanctum, they are replaced by sterile walls. At the end of the book, Vader gifts Luke a terrarium with a tree from Naboo which represents families of choice. The gifting itself is a Tatooine tradition, where giving someone a plant means you see them as your Home.
• Found Family: Luke and Vader become this to each other.
• Good Is Not Soft: Luke. He is as kind and caring as anyone could be, but when he needs to fight or defend himself or others, he goes all out with whatever he has on hand.
• Heroic BSoD: Piett in Prosthesis, when Vader makes him the new Admiral of the Lady. All reality shifting revelations before took only a two second adjustment. This has him standing there uncomprehending for several minutes.
• Hidden Depths: An in-universe example, Luke disparages the art gallery paintings involving Vader because they only show the "Fist of the Empire" persona, and nothing of his actual personality or "spark".
• Humble Hero: Luke is proud of his role as the Storm Wraith, and knows he's done well at it, but ultimately doesn't see himself as more special than anyone else. Valmora insists that he is a legend and hero of mythic proportions, and Lakkmir doesn't seem to disagree.
• Improvised Weapon: Luke uses a shattered wineglass to stab one of the first two bounty hunters in the neck. He then grabs the dinner knives and passes them to Quin and Tirian.
• Internal Reveal: In Prosthesis, Luke finds out that Vader was originally from Tatooine too (though nothing more, as Vader cites a tradition that lets him keep his secrets with no attempt at prying).
• Intrinsic Vow: Luke, as a Runner, holds one to always protect his charges, even up to costing him his own life. This plays a big part in Barfight, where he cites this vow against Vader after revealing Zev is a rebel. And then when the Flight kicks off for real.
• Licked by the Dog: The Oríoko of Kuat are a koi-like fish that are considered symbols of longevity and good fortune and have an affinity for light, both physical and spiritual. When Luke stops by a pond of them, the whole school gathers around him.
• Literal Disarming: As standard for a story about Skywalkers, Luke loses his right hand in an explosion in Prosthesis.
• Married to the Job: Piett is this.
• Mook Horror Show: The mercenaries in Barfight learn the hard way that Luke is not to be underestimated.
• Never Gets Drunk: Luke muses in ch 8 of Barfight how it takes quite a lot for him to get drunk, noting that an entire tray of montaar (a sparkling rosé wine of Naboo) would only barely get him buzzed.

• Queer Establishing Moment: Luke comes out to Vader as asexual in ch 6 of Barfight, after the latter teases him about his friendship with Zev.
• Rage Breaking Point: Vader was already mad about Ozzel and his men attempting to break lockdown, but then he gets the call that Ozzel ordered the wiping of the security data cache, leading directly to...
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: ...The Massacre.
• Slave Liberation: One of the jobs of the Runners is to rescue slaves from their owners and bring them to safety among the other Children. Luke is one of, if not the, most successful Runners ever, with over 100 successful Flights between the ages of 14 (when he became a Runner) and 18 (when he joined the Executor crew)
• Spotting the Thread: Luke quickly figures out who the disguised bounty hunters are because, while dressed as civilians with no visibly weaponry, they still walked like soldiers.
• Steampunk: Barfight features a subway train that runs on a mix of steam and electrical power.
• Technology Marches On: Discussed in Barfight, Citámasché used to have a subway system to transport people, until hovercraft technology developed enough to be more reliable.
• Too Dumb to Live: Given that he knew just how many important people were taking an interest in Luke, Ozzel should have known better than to try to kill him.
  • The mercenaries Vader interrogates in ch 12 of Barfight.
• Underground City: The Underground of Citámasché, a town inside the old abandoned underground railway tunnels of the city.
• Unstoppable Rage: Vader enacting the Massacre.
• Villain Takes an Interest: Palpatine becomes very interested in Luke in Presentation, even offering to transfer him to any post in the galaxy. Luke turns him down, as he is quite happy staying on the Lady with Vader.
• Wham Line: A powerful one in ch 11 of Prosthesis, after Ozzel is revealed to be behind Luke's maiming.
  Vader saw red as he remembered the oldest lesson the Desert taught. You didn’t let your Enemies live.
  • In Barfight, ch 12.
  A Storm was rolling in.
  A Storm that, apparently, against all odds, had changed course and was now heading directly for the city.
  There was something here.
• A World Half Full: Tatooine specifically and the Skyriver Galaxy (GFFA) as a whole are very much examples. Despite the atrocities of the Masters and the Empire, people like Luke are out there trying to make their corners of it a better place.
• Worldbuilding: A LOT! Most notable examples so far are the culture of the Children of Tatooine and the entirety of Kuat in Barfight.