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Darth Vader: Shattered Galaxy

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Five years have passed since the Invasion of Naboo, and since Darth Vader took the timeline by storm. The Republic's stability frays by the day as systems prepare for when it might fail and fall. The Jedi and the Sith remain at "peace," as both Orders grow and adapt in these uncertain times. But there will be many enemies for the Galaxy to face, beyond the Light and Dark.
Summary

Darth Vader: Shattered Galaxy is a Star Wars Time Travel fanfic by AkumaKami64. It is the sequel to the popular fanfic Darth Vader: Hero of Naboo, and the second and current chapter in the "Vaderline Trilogy".

The premise of the series is that Darth Vader was sent back in time from the climax of The Empire Strikes Back to the events of The Phantom Menace. As depicted in the previous story, Vader was able to eliminate Darth Sidious, thereby unveiling the presence of the Sith to the Jedi, and liberate Naboo from the Trade Federation. Shattered Galaxy picks up five years later, with the galaxy still reeling from the events, with Vader secretly working behind the scenes and planning for the future as the Republic slowly crumbles.

The fic was first posted on March 27, 2023 and is still ongoing.

Beware of Late Arrival Spoilers from the first story here.


This fanfic contains examples of:

  • Adaptational Heroism: Since Palpatine is no longer around to get in his head, Dooku never left the Jedi and is still on the side of the light.
  • Adaptational Nice Guy: Due to being trained by the more experienced Qui-Gon, this timeline's version of Anakin is far less emotionally troubled than Vader was at his age.
  • Agent Provocateur: Qui-Gon and Anakin come to the conclusion that someone is deliberately causing the Alberry plague on Albingi in order to use the crisis to stoke tensions between the three native races. A later conversation between Plagueis and Arden Lyn reveals that Vader suspects that time-displaced ISB agents operating outside of his control are doing so as part of their own agenda.
  • The Alliance:
    • It's stated that Vader has been building up one of these behind the scenes, though details of it have yet to be described, beyond the knowledge that Vader is planning to set up his own take on the Galactic Empire once the Republic inevitably crumbles.
    • The Anti-Federation alliance that Padme joined in the previous story has since solidified into a properly organized bloc called the Protection Coalition.
  • Alternate Self: Invoked by the Nohgri aboard the Executor in regards to Vader killing Palpatine, noting that he wasn't the Emperor but just a version of someone who might have become the Emperor in another life. They also clarify that this applies to their Undying Loyalty for Vader, stating that it applies only to this version of him, not to his younger self in the timeline they're now in.
  • An Arm and a Leg: Piett lost a leg at some point in the fighting with Ozzel's forces.
  • Anti-Mutiny: During the Assassination Attempt on Vader by Captain Almurn and General Rulls, Commander Marwell responds by seizing control of the ship's AA batteries so that they can't be used on Vader (albeit for pragmatic reasons, as he figures that Vader will win and he doesn't want to lose those weapons).
  • As You Know: In the first chapter, Jango Fett summarizes many of the problems that the Republic is currently facing, causing Vader to note that he knows all this already. Jango admits to just thinking out loud as he tries to figure out what their group's next move is.
  • Badass Boast: When Lyn informs Darth Plagueis that a number of time-travelers are stirring up trouble and need to be dealt with, they end the chat by asking if he has any plans. Plagueis' response:
    "I've already made ten amid this conversation."
  • The Chains of Commanding: Supreme Chancellor Grebleips is all too aware of how the Republic is living on borrowed time, yet tries his best to keep it from falling apart and provide whatever help he can to a galaxy reeling from Palpatine's death along with the exposure of his conspiracy.
  • Civil War: According to Jango, the Trade Federation is splintering into at least two rival factions fighting for control.
  • Creepy Child: Farmile, the young boy that tags along with Vader on Carnelion IV, is completely nonchalant about the death around him, with Vader noting he's likely to grow up to become a dangerous killer at this rate.
  • Do with Him as You Will: Vader leaves Black Sun Vigo Ertern to the tender mercies of the latter's Twi'lek slaves after chopping the gangster's hands and feet off with his lightsaber.
  • Earth-Shattering Kaboom: The Heinsnake cult's planet self-destructs after Vader gets ahold of their superweapon's power source, as per the old timeline.
  • Enemy Civil War:
    • When Vader locates the stranded Star Destroyer on Carnelion IV and informs its crew of his changes to the past, the Captain and General in charge try to assassinate him in retaliation. Naturally, Vader makes short work of them and their forces.
    • Later, it turns out that there are Imperial Security Bureau agents who are operating outside of Death Squadron's control and are using their now-outdated knowledge of the timeline to manipulate events to their benefit. Vader intends to track them down and put a stop to them, having no patience for their antics.
    • When Vader finally locates the Executor, he learns that when they heard about his killing of Palpatine, Admiral Ozzel and his loyalists declared him a traitor and decided to start their own empire, only to face resistance by more reasonable forces led by Captain Piett. A year later, the fighting is still ongoing between the two factions, as well as with a third group referred to as "Nutters", who apparently went crazy from realizing they were in the past and are now killing everyone. And when Vader shows up to put his foot down, Ozzel's forces turn on each other out of indecision whether to surrender or keep resisting.
  • Enemy Mine: Coruscant's security forces have cut deals with various criminal organizations to work together against the various monsters from the lower levels which are being drawn to the surface by the lingering effects of Sidious' Force Storm.
  • Evil Power Vacuum: As Vader notes, with Sidious dead and Plagueis more inclined to let the Republic decay on its own momentum, numerous warlords and would-be conquerors are popping up across the galaxy to take advantage of the current state of affairs.
  • Eye Scream: The insane engineer that Vader finds locked into the Executor's hyperdrive chamber has long since gouged his own eyes out, due to the Insane Troll Logic that now he'll always know when he hallucinating since that's the only time he'll be able to see anything.
  • Failed State: While it hasn't quite reached this yet, more realistic characters note that the Republic is declining towards this point, as the Senate is dividing up into blocs more interested in squabbling over petty differences than trying to serve as a functioning government. Meanwhile, many planets are increasingly left to fend for themselves, with Chancellor Grebleips citing how many of them are using Loophole Abuse to get around the laws against independent militaries as an example of how the Republic is slowly falling apart.
  • Fingore: When Ozzel tries to hit a Self-Destruct Mechanism trigger to keep Vader from retaking the Executor, Vader freezes his hand in place. Despite this, Ozzel keeps trying to press his thumb on the trigger button, until it breaks from the sheer pressure he's applying to it.
  • Fish out of Temporal Water: In addition to Vader and the rest of Death Squadron who are now Trapped in the Past, there's also Arden Lyn, who as per Legends canon has been awakened after nearly 25,000 years of suspended animation to find a galaxy that she doesn't recognize.
  • The Friend Nobody Likes: It's made pretty clear that none of the Jedi actually like the Dark Woman.
  • Genghis Gambit: Mace Windu proposes to Supreme Chancellor Grebleips that they could use Darth Vader as a common enemy for the Republic to rally against. Grebleips shoots it down, citing how that plan could blow up in everyone's faces given the increasing balkanization of the galaxy.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: Rona'Ba, the Aing-Tii that Vader and Plagueis meet to get insight into the strange temporal phenomena Vader's been encountering, warns that the Yuuzhan Vong are coming decades sooner than they were meant to.
  • Happiness in Slavery: Not quite happiness, but T'lanan refuses to be set free when Vader liberates the Black Sun ship that she was kept as a slave aboard, on the grounds that she's been a slave literally her entire life and wouldn't know what to do with freedom. So she instead insists on being his personal slave as thanks for freeing her from the more cruel Black Sun Vigo that she belonged to previously.
  • A House Divided:
    • The Jedi in general appear to be quite divided on Anakin, mostly due to his connection to Vader, whom they are even more divided over.
    • It's later clarified that it's not just the matter of Anakin, the Jedi are very divided on the entire matter of Vader and the enforced truce with the Sith. Obi-Wan mentally refers to the resulting different ideologies as the Stubborn Faction (those like Mace Windu and the Dark Woman, who refuse to trust Vader) and the Considering Faction (those like Yoda and Yarael Poof, who are giving the truce a chance).
  • A Lighter Shade of Black: Darth Plagueis, when compared to Darth Sidious. Make no mistake, Plagueis is unquestionably a Dark Lord of the Sith, who has already taken measures to manipulate Padme by gaining her sympathies as a victim of Sidious and has outright admitted to one of Vader's lieutenants that he intends to carve out and claim his own piece of the Galaxy once the Republic inevitably falls apart. But he is INFINITELY better than the sociopathic and monstrous Darth Sidious. Unlike Sidious, he is not actively trying to drive the Galaxy into a massive and chaotic war that he organized all for his own aggrandizement, merely preparing for the inevitable collapse of the Republic and seeking out advantages he might gain from it. He is also genuinely willing to honor the truce between Jedi and Sith, even if it is out of scientific curiosity than for any moral reasons. He is also a willing and (so far) honest partner with Darth Vader (who by now falls squarely in the Dark Is Not Evil camp) and is fully cooperating with him to defend the galaxy against the Yuuzhan Vong invasion that is soon to come. It might not be saying much, but the presence of Darth Plagueis is leagues better for the Galaxy when compared to Darth Sidious.
  • Loophole Abuse: Vader promises not to kill Black Sun Vigo Ertern. He did not promise that he wouldn't sever the bastard's hands and feet before leaving him to be tortured to death by his vengeful slaves, though.
  • Ludicrous Gibs: Vader kills the last Nutter aboard the Executor by shredding him with shrapnel from his hacked Mouser droids, leaving nothing behind but boots filled with blood stains and bone fragments.
  • Mercy Kill: Vader views killing Admiral Ozzel as this, given how insane the man has become.
  • Mind Screw: The arc set on the Heinsnake planet quickly turns into this, as Vader and the Jedi encounter some sort of Time Crash that has them running into versions of themselves from multiple outcomes of their choices since setting foot on the planet.
  • The Mole: Liberation Lane has operatives acting as mid-level slavers in order to purchase and then free slaves.
  • Mook Lieutenant: Admiral Pyrl serves as Vader's Number Two while the Executor is still out of contact with the rest of Death Squadron.
  • Noodle Incident:
    • The Dark Woman once kidnapped Anakin for some reason. No one is willing to let her live it down.
    • At some point during the Time Skip, the Dark Woman and several likeminded Jedi hunted down Vader in a distant star system and were attacked by something which killed the others, leaving the Dark Woman convinced that it had been a trap on Vader's part. Vader explains that in actuality, whatever it was that attacked the Jedi also attacked his forces.
    • The Nohgri that Vader meets aboard the Executor let slip that they once ate the corpse of a child, but only because they didn't realize its age (as they thought its unidentified species didn't grow past a certain point).
  • Not Used to Freedom: T'lanan has been a slave for literally all her life. She has no idea what to do with the freedom Vader has given her, so she choses to enslave herself to him, as thanks for dealing with her abusive previous master, the Black Sun Vigo.
  • Odd Friendship: Since their alliance against Darth Sidious in the first story, Vader has this with Yarael Poof.
  • Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Vader was evidently involved in the Huk War, and whatever he did was enough to earn so much respect among the Kaleesh that they now view him as a living god.
  • Oh, Crap!: Vader's reaction when he learns that one of his lost Star Destroyers has been found destroyed. More specifically when he learns its location and realizes that it stumbled on the Heinsnake cult.
  • Once Done, Never Forgotten: No one is willing to let the Dark Woman forget the time she kidnapped Anakin.
  • Point of Divergence:
    • Vader's presence in the past continues to have ripple effects. In the first chapter alone, he manages to prevent Yarael Poof's death by intercepting Ashaar Khorda's attempt to use the Infant of Shaa as a weapon against Coruscant and killing him, thereby preventing Khorda from ever mortally wounding Poof in the fight over the idol.
    • Palpatine's Force storm on Coruscant had damage and aftereffects that are lingering even years later, causing many people to relocate elsewhere. For instance, Obi-Wan's friend Dex (the restaurant owner from Attack of the Clones) has moved his business to Taris on the Outer Rim.
  • Pragmatic Villainy:
    • As Vader explains to Jango, he only prevented Khorda's attack on Coruscant because he didn't want the planet to be martyred for the failing Republic.
    • Darth Plagueis himself exercises this trope. As detailed in A Lighter Shade of Black above, he is very much Evil™ despite being an infinitely better person than his late apprentice Sidious, but he no longer seeks to accomplish the Grand Plan the way Sidious did, and cares more for his scientific curiosity than seeking rule and dominance, willingly and (so far) honestly cooperating with Vader as a business partner, helping prepare for the premature Yuuzhan Vong invasion, and genuinely honoring the new truce between the Jedi and the Sith.
    • Vader says that if it were possible to return to the original timeline, he'd let any of his forces who want to do so to do it, but only if it's a one-way trip, as otherwise that timeline's Sidious would try to take advantage of the new timeline's existence if it's possible to move between the two realities. However, if it's not, he'd rather just let anyone who doesn't want to stay with him leave rather than have to deal with them.
  • Reality Bleed:
    • Plagueis speculates that the Time Crash on the Heinsnake planet was caused by this — since Vader was essentially repeating his actions there in the previous timeline, those future events started imposing themselves on the present.
    • A more clearcut version occurs when Anakin enters the Cave of the Dark Side on Dagobah and speaks with Luke from the original timeline. The two quickly deduce that they're not just communicating across time but also different realities, due to the number of inconsistencies between what the latter knows of history and what the former has already experienced.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: Grebleips, the new Supreme Chancellor elected after the chaos of the previous story, is determined to keep the Republic together, but refuses to take risks like agreeing to Mace Windu's plan to use Vader as an external unifying threat (especially as he's not sure it would work), instead trying to focus on things like having the Jedi help clear up the aftereffects from Palpatine's Force Storm.
  • Red Baron: As the Dark Woman notes, Vader earned himself the name "Vesdon gan Grozzal" for his actions during the Huk War, which, when translated from Kaleesh, means "The Terror To Whom We Kneel".
  • Right for the Wrong Reasons: The Dark Woman is right that Vader has lost track of several of his ships, but she believes that it's due to in-fighting among his forces, not being aware that they were scattered by the time travel.
  • Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: When the variations of all the characters on the Heinsnake planet are merged back together, Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, and the Dark Woman all have flashes of their deaths in the original timeline.
  • Secret-Keeper: At some point during the Time Skip, Vader recruited Jango Fett, and apparently told him everything about being from the future, since they both openly refer to Boba as Jango's son.
  • Slave Liberation: Liberation Lane is an organization that's been harassing slave trading in the Outer Rim, freeing slaves and robbing the slavers. Obi-Wan works as a middleman for them, and recruits aid from Padme on their behalf, while Jedi Master J'Mikel and his apprentice Xiaan are introduced having being working undercover with them; it's implied that many other Jedi are also members in similar such capacities.
  • Spared by the Adaptation: Yarael Poof is never killed by Ashaar Khorda, as Vader kills him first.
  • Time Crash: On the Heinsnake cult's planet, something causes Vader and the Jedi to splinter into numerous duplicates based on all the possible outcomes of every choice they've made since coming to the planet. And on exploring the cult's temple, it's abandoned until Vader reaches the chamber of the cult's superweapon, which causes its absent power source crystal to suddenly appear in Vader's hand and the planet to start self-destructing as it did in the old timeline, during which Vader sees flashes of the cult members flickering in and out of existence. All of this convinces Vader that something is wrong with time itself.
  • Time Skip: Picks up five years after the end of Hero of Naboo.
  • Timey-Wimey Ball: Vader eventually realizes that Death Squadron's ships didn't all arrive in the past at the same time.
  • Took a Level in Kindness: Anakin, due to his tutalage under Qui-Gon and experiences with Vader in the first fic, is a lot less temperamental than he was in canon. That does not stop him from being a snarky Skywalker, however.
  • Undying Loyalty: The Nohgri, as per canon, are utterly dedicated to Vader.
  • Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Plagueis gains Padme's trust by claiming to have been a victim of Sidious' schemes, instantly earning her sympathy. To be fair, Plagueis isn't wrong since he would've ended up six feet under by his own apprentice if it wasn't for Vader's presence being a Spanner in the Works.
  • You Are in Command Now: Captain Piett has been acting as Admiral of Vader's loyalists aboard the Executor during the fighting Ozzel's forces. Upon being reunited, Vader formally promotes him.

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