The Jedi Order had not spent twenty-five thousand years refining methods for training children without good reason.
Under proper instruction, my progress accelerated dramatically, and it soon became painfully obvious that most of my previous efforts had been spectacularly inefficient.
The difference was like comparing delicate surgery performed with a scalpel to dropping a concrete slab onto a patient and hoping for the best.
That was the gap between formal Jedi training and everything I had taught myself.
So I swallowed my pride and started over.
This time, under the guidance of a highly experienced, slightly deceased instructor.
“Master,” I asked one day after finally completing an exercise involving five floating nuts and an empty package of local snack food, “are there many children like me?
Hidden Jedi children?” Beyond Force training, Qui-Gon occasionally shared stories.
Some were lessons about the Jedi Order.
Others covered galactic history.
Many explored the philosophy of the Light Side.
Every so often, however, they sounded suspiciously like the sort of advice elderly men wrapped inside convenient parables.
Regardless, he was the best source of information available.
Likely the best source I would have for many years, at least until I finally escaped this dusty rock.
I understood perfectly why the original Luke had hated Tatooine.
The climate was pleasant enough.
Everything else was awful.
As a storyteller, Qui-Gon was surprisingly engaging.
His views also seemed noticeably less rigid than those of most Jedi.
“The Order moved away from that practice,” Qui-Gon replied after a thoughtful pause.
“By my lifetime, Jedi no longer formed families.” “Then what about me?” I asked, injecting as much childish confusion into my voice as possible.
“Was I hidden because I’m illegal?
Why would families be forbidden?
Isn’t love a good thing?” “Attachments lead to the Dark Side.” The answer came automatically, almost like a line recited from an old training manual.
“At least, that is what we believed.” For a moment, the Force ghost looked strangely distant.
“Perhaps we were wrong.
The absence of attachments did not save the Order.
Though it is also true that not every Jedi followed that rule.” As usual, Qui-Gon ignored the part of the question concerning my father.
He never liked discussing Anakin.
Officially, all I knew was that Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan had discovered my father on Tatooine before bringing him to the Jedi Temple, where Qui-Gon died shortly afterward.
Everything beyond that either remained unknown to him or was information he considered inappropriate for a child.
He almost never spoke about the end of the Clone Wars.
Whether that silence came from ignorance or deliberate caution, I could not tell.
“If I love Aunt Beru and Uncle Owen,” I asked with perfect innocence, “will I turn red and grow horns too?” Qui-Gon had already told me stories about the Sith who killed him.
Since I had never actually seen a Zabrak, pretending to confuse the species with the Sith seemed perfectly believable.
To my surprise, Qui-Gon smiled.
Force ghosts did not do that very often.
“You will not become a Zabrak.
That is a species, just like humans or Rodians.
One must be born as one.” The smile lingered for another moment before fading.
“A Jedi must learn to govern his emotions.
To control them.
Otherwise, he may become like that Sith, a creature ruled by the Dark Side.
A Jedi masters his emotions and protects his mind from darkness.” “If I want to be a Jedi,” I asked, “does that mean I can’t have a family?” Then I pressed further.
“What about my father?” For a long moment, Qui-Gon looked impossibly tired.
“We lost.” The words came quietly.
“There is no Jedi Order anymore.
Only your generation can decide what the next Order will become.
Across the millennia, it has taken many forms.” “But I’m alone.” This time, I let genuine seriousness slip into my voice.
“I’m only seven.
Surely there are others.” “That is why I teach you, Luke.” The weariness deepened.
His voice grew quieter.
Slower.
“If you study well, you may restore the Jedi Order.
You may find new Jedi.” He straightened slightly.
“Our lesson is finished for today.” “Please don’t leave, Master.” I watched as the Force ghost slowly dissolved into nothingness.
Once both his image and his presence had vanished completely, I let out a long sigh.
Otherwise I’ll die of boredom during the next three years.
Unfortunately, the threat of death by boredom remained very real.
After making certain nobody was nearby, I retrieved a hidden notebook.
It served as my personal archive.
Inside, I organized every scrap of knowledge I possessed about the Star Wars galaxy.
The information needed to be preserved.
Even with Qui-Gon’s training improving both my memory and my ability to organize my thoughts, there was no guarantee I would remember every useful detail over the next decade.
Writing everything down was simply safer.
Even if I eventually had to burn the notebook, the act of recording the information would reinforce it in my memory.
Its greatest security feature was also its simplest.
Nobody in this galaxy could read it.
My notes were effectively encrypted.
The real question was determining exactly which version of the galaxy I had been reborn into.
Disney canon?
The old Expanded Universe?
Or something else entirely?
From a survival standpoint, Disney canon was unquestionably preferable.
Survive the Original Trilogy, avoid becoming collateral damage, and life remained relatively manageable.
No Yuuzhan Vong.
No endless parade of ancient evils awakening every few years.
No seemingly immortal Palpatine returning from the grave every other decade.
Even Grand Admiral Thrawn became significantly less terrifying.
From an entertainment perspective, however, the Expanded Universe was vastly superior.
It offered countless adventures, mysteries, forgotten civilizations, and opportunities that Disney canon had simply erased.
Unfortunately, it also contained an alarming number of intelligent and genuinely dangerous enemies.
Worse still, many of those threats had an unfortunate tendency to attach themselves directly to Luke Skywalker.
Meaning me.
There would be no quietly avoiding the plot from the sidelines.
My sixth sense, the Force itself, strongly suggested that this was exactly the timeline I should be worried about.
Everything around me deserved to be taken seriously.
I had no intention of losing this life as stupidly as I had lost the last one.
Then again, there were advantages.
Expanded Universe Luke aged far better than Mark Hamill.
Remaining handsome well into old age sounded rather appealing.
Assuming, of course, that nobody killed me first.
There certainly would be no shortage of volunteers.
At least the Skywalker bloodline would not accidentally expand because of some random Twi’lek romance.
Recreating the remarkable interspecies achievements of Caleb Dume, better known as Kanan Jarrus, seemed highly unlikely.
Though, to be fair, I still knew far too little about how the Force influenced such matters.
For now, that was hardly my greatest concern.
Remembering every useful detail about my biological father would prove far more valuable.
There was also a third possibility.
This galaxy might belong to neither Disney canon nor the Expanded Universe.
It could be an alternate continuity.
A hybrid timeline.
Something entirely new.
The odds of suddenly encountering asari or Tyranids were low enough to ignore.
Everything else remained uncertain.
The six films could safely be treated as absolute canon.
Beyond that, prediction became increasingly unreliable.
Yet the Force continued whispering the same warning.
Sooner or later, canonical disaster would come looking for the protagonist.
Meaning me.
I had no desire to overestimate myself by assuming events would unfold exactly as they had in the films.
For one thing, I did not know how to fly an X-wing.
There was no guarantee I ever would.
If I wanted to survive, I would have to act.
Train.
Prepare.
The earlier, the better.
It was still too soon to interfere with major events, but eventually I might have to involve myself in canon far earlier than Luke ever had.
At the very least, I needed information.
Knowledge of what was coming.
Besides, trouble had always followed Luke Skywalker wherever he went.
Relying solely on Obi-Wan would be foolish.
Qui-Gon’s appearance alone proved that history had already begun diverging from established canon.
The butterfly effect had begun.
I would have bet good money that a Force ghost wandering around Tatooine, worrying about the future, had already sent ripples through the Force that would eventually produce consequences no one could predict.
For now, all I could do was wait.
Prepare.
And grow stronger.
After all, I’m still only seven years old.
If disaster arrived tomorrow, the best I could currently manage was throwing something at the enemy with the Force.
And it would not even be anything particularly heavy.