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    Galen Marek/Starkiller Respect Thread - Updated

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    Azronger

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    #1  Edited By Azronger

    Introduction

    No Caption Provided

    This respect thread is intended to be the most comprehensive thread on Starkiller’s powers and combat abilities. For convenience’s sake, I have included both the original Galen Marek’s and his clone’s feats and accolades in the same thread, since they are practically the same character with relatively minor differences in regards to their combative capabilities. Special thanks goes to @jkbart and @i_like_swords for helping me categorize some of the more obscure powers and feats.

    If you are skeptical of me using concept art as legitimate showings for Starkiller, The Force Unleashed Campaign Guide has clarified that concept art is an accurate depiction of the character, so it should be canonical.

    The Force Unleashed Campaign Guide
    The Force Unleashed Campaign Guide

    For easy navigation, I have separated the thread into the following sections:

    You can jump to the section of your choosing by clicking the links above. Do note that the feats are mostly in chronological order. Particularly noteworthy ones will be marked with ★. You can also search individual words and sentences by pressing Ctrl + F on your keyboard for a search bar to pop up. Unfortunately, this function only works on computers (to my knowledge), so mobile users will have to get by without this feature.

    Before you begin reading, here is some awesome music to listen to:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKwSIEfcd9A

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSa8QrLClIg

    With all that out of the way, respect Darth Vader’s Secret Apprentice!

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    Azronger

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    Overall Force Power

    No Caption Provided

    Starkiller is a powerful, almost primal Force wielder.

    The Force Unleashed Databank
    The Force Unleashed Databank
    The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
    The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
    Insider #118
    Insider #118

    Galen Marek is far more powerful than his Father, Kento Marek, and highly skilled in the Force, even while barely a toddler.

    Loading Video...

    (8:35)

    Vader strode into the hut, where he used the Force to grip the man around his throat and wrench him into the air. His bright red lightsaber pointed directly at the man's chest.

    Victory.

    And yet, on the cutting edge of perception, reason to reconsider.

    Vader cocked his armored head.

    "I sense someone far more powerful than you nearby. Your Master . . . Where is he?"

    The choking Jedi Knight struggled to speak. "The dark side has clouded your mind. You killed my Master years ago."

    "Then you will now share his fate."

    Vader raised his blade to cut down the Jedi Knight, but before he could swing it the lightsaber suddenly flew from his hand. The Dark Lord wheeled around to attack, his free hand raised to crush whoever dared oppose him.

    He hesitated, an uncommon move for Darth Vader - and the apprentice felt his mind spin with shock - at the sight of a human child standing in the corner of the hut, dirty and bruised by the fall, dressed in clothes bearing Wookiee touches similar to those of the man still hanging in the air behind the Dark Lord. The boy held Darth Vader's lightsaber in both hands. The tip danced, but only slightly.

    "Run!" choked the Jedi. "Run now! Don't look back!"

    "Ah," said Vader with dawning understanding. "A son."

    The Force Unleashed
    The Force Unleashed II: Prima Official Game Guide
    The Force Unleashed II: Prima Official Game Guide

    Galen Marek is the photo negative of Luke Skywalker, having the Force potential to overthrow Emperor Palpatine and become the most powerful Force user in galactic history.

    Insider #100
    Insider #100
    Insider #106
    Insider #106
    The Force Unleashed Campaign Guide
    The Force Unleashed Campaign Guide
    Darth Sidious, The Force Unleashed
    Darth Sidious, The Force Unleashed

    Starkiller’s strength in the Force grew under Darth Vader’s tutelage and learned to wield many fearsome dark side powers.

    The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
    The Force Unleashed Databank
    The Force Unleashed Databank
    The Force Unleashed II: Prima Official Game Guide
    The Force Unleashed II: Prima Official Game Guide

    Never once in all the days they had sparred together, with lightsaber, telekinesis, or suggestion, had the Dark Lord offered a single word of encouragement. And that was as it should be, he knew. A teacher's job was not to drag a student along a single, well worn path. Rather it was to let the student forge his or her own way through the forest, intervening only when the student was hopelessly lost and needed to be corrected.

    Even on the wrong paths, he knew, lay some wisdom. What didn't kill him only made him more powerful in the dark side.

    [...]

    His skills were not inconsiderable now, and growing stronger with every mission, but this would test his every ability to the limit.

    The Force Unleashed

    By the time he is a teenager, Starkiller had grown to be more powerful than most Jedi Knights had been during the Clone Wars.

    The Force Unleashed Campaign Guide
    The Force Unleashed Campaign Guide

    Raised under the careful eye of his dark Master, his skills had been honed to the point that not even Jedi could stand against him.

    The Force Unleashed

    By the time he reached adulthood, Starkiller had become one of the most Force users in the galaxy.

    The Force Unleashed Campaign Guide
    The Force Unleashed Campaign Guide

    Starkiller surpasses Vader’s expectations in surviving the Dark Lord’s training.

    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation
    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation

    "You were weak when I found you." The voice seemed to come from the far end of a long, deep tunnel. "You should never have survived my training."

    He closed his eyes. He had heard these words before. They were the closest thing to a bedtime story he'd had as a child. The moral he had taken from them was burned into his mind: Learn... or die.

    Behind his eyelids he pictured again the clean, cleansing heat of the lightsaber. He had brushed his skin against it many times, defying the pain, and taken numerous small wounds while dueling with his Master. He imagined that he knew what the blade would feel like when it struck him down. Part of him longed for it.

    The lightsaber drifted so close to his neck that he could smell his hair burning.

    "But now, your hatred has become your strength."

    The lightsaber retreated. With a hiss it deactivated.

    "At last, the dark side is your ally."

    He didn't dare nod or look up. What was this? Some new ruse to lure him into overconfidence and failure?

    His Master's next words made his heart trip a beat. "Rise, my apprentice."

    Apprentice. So he had always thought himself, but never before had it been said aloud! And that strange motion with the lightsaber... Could he possibly have just been knighted?

    The Force Unleashed

    Note: Starkiller’s training was brutal and bordered on torture.

    Insider #106
    The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
    The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia

    Starkiller remembered one of his training sessions, when Darth Vader had placed a blast helmet over his young apprentice's eyes and locked him in a cage with a trio of starved howling rasps. The hunger-maddened birds had pecked and bitten at him until, by sheer necessity, he had learned to listen to what his instincts, not his covered eyes, were telling him. Not one of the birds had survived.

    [...]

    He fought like a machine, too, with relentless blows and single-minded aggression. The first time they had dueled, in Starkiller's first life, Vader had displayed no anger at all - just determination, not to kill his apprentice, but to wear him into submission. The fight had raged across the training deck of the Executor for hours, with Starkiller never landing a single blow, no matter how he tried. He had gone from excitement at thinking that he had graduated to a new level of mastery to realizing just how much he had left to learn. More fuel had been added to the hatred he had felt for his Master and tormentor, along with a twisted kind of love for the man who made him stronger by showing him how weak he was. The fight had only stopped when Starkiller collapsed unconscious from exhaustion and was dragged by PROXY to his meditation chamber.

    [...]

    Once, he had been paralyzed and abandoned in a trench full of bloodwolves, with no way to reach safety except by using the power of his own mind. It was a lesson Darth Vader had made sure his apprentice learned before even beginning combat training. Killing enemies wasn't the same thing as controlling them. Each method had its uses, but they weren't interchangeable.

    The Force Unleashed II

    The Apprentice’s power increases alongside Darth Vader’s.

    All his life he had been trained to turn fear into anger, and anger into power. It was no different, he realized, for Darth Vader. Where else could Lord Vader look for increased power than to the Emperor himself? People were either predators or prey. That was one of the most basic rules of life. Together, Darth Vader and his apprentice would ensure that their joint power only increased.

    The Force Unleashed

    The Apprentice feels stronger than ever after being knighted.

    The apprentice wasn't afraid of dying. His only fear was of failing his Master, and that fear he put to good use. The dark side ruined through him, made him strong and resilient. He felt more powerful than he ever had before.

    The Force Unleashed

    The Apprentice’s skill with the Force far exceeded those of Felucian warriors.

    The bone swords were resistant to his lightsaber, but his skill with the Force far exceeded theirs.

    The Force Unleashed

    Note: The Felucians were skilled enough with the Force to bend light to turn invisible, an ability they taught to Maris Brood.

    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation
    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation

    The Apprentice becomes stronger after defeating Shaak Ti.

    Use the fear, he wanted to tell her. Use the fear to make you angry, because anger makes you strong. I killed your Master. She tried to kill me and I am stronger for it. You could be, too, if you would only realize that simple truth!

    The Force Unleashed

    Starkiller is determined to learn all about those aspects of the Force Vader didn’t teach him about.

    "There are two things I want, and I can't get them on my own. The first is revenge. To get that we need to rally the Emperor's enemies behind us."

    She nodded, thinking of Callos and her father. After witnessing the way Starkiller had killed the troopers on the Empirical, she had no doubt of his sincerity - or his ability to deliver. "Go on."

    "The second thing I want is to learn all the things that Vader couldn't - or wouldn't - teach me about the Force."

    The Force Unleashed

    Starkiller’s connection to the Force becomes deeper than ever on Cloud City.

    All thought ceased; his connection to the Force became deeper than it ever had been before.

    The Force Unleashed

    Starkiller’s skills have improved since his duel with Rahm Kota above Nar Shaddaa.

    The apprentice' nodded, satisfied that his skills had improved since Nar Shaddaa.

    The Force Unleashed

    Galen Marek becomes far more powerful after a Force vision in his childhood home.

    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation
    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation

    "I'm not wearing out," he said. "The moorings were tough, but I feel stronger than ever now. It gets easier, I think, the harder you try. The Force is stronger than anything we can imagine. We're the ones who limit it, not the other way around."

    The Force Unleashed

    Galen becomes more powerful after his understanding of the Force evolved.

    For the first time, he understood that the one didn't come in two shades only: dark and light, distinct and combative, never meeting in the middle to form gray. Those were ideals, and ideals existed solely for philosophers and theoreticians to argue over. In the real world, dark and light coexisted in varying proportions; nothing was ever static. Thus this former Jedi Padawan could turn to the dark side after a lifetime serving the light - and she could just as easily turn back to the light afterward, if she survived.

    Light, dark, Shaak Ti had tried to tell him, they are just directions.

    We're always moving, he thought, toward the dark or toward the light. It's impossible to stand still. Some, like Darth Vader and the Emperor, had been descending through the dark side for so long that the light must have become a faint and distant memory. Some hovered eternally in the gray, never entirely choosing a side. There were, in fact, no actual sides, just the direction in which one happened to be moving. It was all relative.

    Coming to that understanding gave him a new kind of strength.

    The Force Unleashed

    Bail Organa hasn’t seen anyone of Galen Marek’s strength since the Clone Wars.

    "That does sound a little unusual, but I've heard of stranger arrangements." He assayed half a smile, then let it drop. "The feats he accomplished back there showed outstanding strength. I haven't seen anyone like him since the Clone Wars - and that's not necessarily a good thing. Such power, unchecked, can be dangerous. The dark side feeds on a taste for power. It can be deadly for those caught in the way - as a young learner discovered today, very nearly at the cost of her life."

    The Force Unleashed

    Galen believes he has surpassed Darth Vader after pulling a Star Destroyer out of the sky.

    What was the point of being stronger than Darth Vader if he couldn't save his best friend?

    The Force Unleashed

    Galen becomes more powerful during his duel with Darth Vader.

    "I don't hate you," the apprentice went on, blocking him blow for blow. "I pity you." With a new strength of his own, he forced Darth Vader onto his back foot.

    The Force Unleashed

    Galen Marek is able to achieve utter Oneness with the Force, glowing golden and making all his efforts with the dark side look like child’s play in comparison to the power he wielded.

    A squadron of stormtroopers ran into the room, led by a limping Darth Vader. They raised their blasters to gun down the Rebels as they fled up the Rogue Shadow's ramp.

    "No!" the apprentice cried, dropping his defenses to strike one last time at the Imperials. Energy surged through him. He felt as though a star had blazed to life in his chest. Driven by concern for his friends rather than himself, he embraced the Force completely, utterly, and was rewarded with strength that made his efforts with the dark side look like those of a child. His nerves were on fire. Streamers of light radiated from his skin. His bones glowed like radiant lava.

    The Force Unleashed

    A visual depiction of Oneness:

    No Caption Provided

    The Starkiller clone possesses the original Galen Marek’s power in the Force, and is even stronger, deadlier and a greater combatant than the original.

    The Ultimate Visual Guide: Updated and Expanded
    The Ultimate Visual Guide: Updated and Expanded
    The Force Unleashed II: Prima Official Game Guide
    The Force Unleashed II: Prima Official Game Guide
    Insider #118
    Insider #118
    Insider #120
    Insider #120

    "Wait. " The return of Kota's vigor took Starkiller by surprise. One moment he was half dead; the next he wanted to wage war on the entire galaxy with Starkiller leading the charge. Kota's faith in him was touching, but it needed to be tempered with a little reality. "Don't you want to know where I came from?"

    "Why? You're back; that's all that counts. "

    "But I'm not back. I'm not him. "

    Kota shook his head emphatically. "I may be blind, but I'm still connected to the Force. I know what I'm sensing. "

    [...]

    Starkiller turned to face Kota. "What do you think I'm afraid of?"

    "Being yourself. Being Starkiller. Being Ga..."

    "Don't say that name. I'm not him. I'm a clone, a copy - and a bad one at that."

    "Is that what Vader told you?"

    "Yes."

    "I don't believe it. " Kota spoke with surety and great force. "No one can clone Jedi. It's never been done."

    "That you know of."

    Kota grabbed Starkiller by the shoulders. "I can sense how powerful you are - and here you are wasting it..."

    The Force Unleashed II

    The Starkiller clone has more Force powers than the original Galen Marek.

    The Force Unleashed II: Prima Official Game Guide
    The Force Unleashed II: Prima Official Game Guide

    The room above was sparsely furnished, with no windows, just one exit - the turbolift - and little light. Shadows cast by terminals and floor lamps made its very dimensions ambiguous, but Starkiller knew from long training exercises that the room was circular and its walls were impenetrable. He flexed his fingers, yearning for a lightsaber to hold. Muscle memory was keener than any other kind. Even with the new skills Darth Vader had taught him, his hands wanted to fight the way he knew best.

    The Force Unleashed II

    Vader trained Starkiller to defeat any opponent aside from Vader himself, and in contrast to the original Galen Marek being a mere assassin, the cloned Starkiller was trained to be “the ultimate Sith warrior,” indicating he received full Sith training from Vader.

    Insider #118
    Insider #118

    Slowly a dark understanding began to form. All the duels, all the tests, all the torturous mind games, had been to ensure his survival against every opponent - bar one. His Master. In a sense, they were still playing out the first time they had faced each other in combat.

    The Force Unleashed II

    Starkiller becoming stronger under Vader’s training.

    "I am strong, my Master, and I am getting stronger. "

    Vader stepped behind him and waved a hand. Metal complained as the manacles dropped from Starkiller's wrists and hit the floor with a boom.

    The Force Unleashed II

    Starkiller feels stronger than ever after escaping Kamino.

    But now he was back. Nothing could stand between him and Juno. Not for long, anyway. With her ahead of him, leading him on, he felt stronger than ever.

    The Force Unleashed II

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    Azronger

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    #3  Edited By Azronger

    Known Force Powers

    No Caption Provided

    Force Sense

    Starkiller senses the movement of birds.

    They hurried through the ship with their lightsabers at the ready. Starkiller remembered one of his training sessions, when Darth Vader had placed a blast helmet over his young apprentice's eyes and locked him in a cage with a trio of starved howling rasps. The hunger-maddened birds had pecked and bitten at him until, by sheer necessity, he had learned to listen to what his instincts, not his covered eyes, were telling him. Not one of the birds had survived.

    The Force Unleashed II

    The Apprentice senses Darth Vader’s wrath.

    Breathing heavily after a punishing round of blows, lightsaber lowered in submission, he knelt before his Master and prepared for the killing strike. He could feel the wrath radiating from the Dark Lord like heat - a visceral, angry heat that brought out his skin in gooseflesh.

    The Force Unleashed

    The Apprentice senses Vader has a more difficult mission for him than assassinating non-Force users.

    "You have defeated many of my rivals. Your training is nearly complete. It is time now to face your first true test."

    A roll call of past missions sped through the apprentice's mind. Lord Vader had instructed him to dispatch numerous enemies within the Empire down the years: spies and thieves, mainly, with the occasional high-ranking traitor as well. He felt only satisfaction at having fulfilled his duty. His victims had brought their fates upon themselves, these vermin that gnawed at the footings of the Empire's magnificent edifice.

    But this was different. He could sense it in more than his Master's words. Darth Vader wasn't talking about some low-life smuggler with no awareness at all of the Force. There could be only one foe he was worthy to fight now.

    "Your spies have located a Jedi?"

    "Yes. General Rahm Kota." The name meant nothing to the apprentice: just one of many in an archive of unconfirmed Jedi kills. "He is attacking a critical shipyard above Nar Shaddaa. You will destroy him and bring me his lightsaber."

    The Force Unleashed

    The Apprentice feels Rahm Kota’s presence.

    Loading Video...

    (1:23)

    The apprentice didn't dissuade her, although he knew her efforts would be mostly unnecessary. He could already feel the presence of the Jedi radiating through the facility like a bright light after a snowstorm. Kota wanted to be found, all right.

    [...]

    Ambient gravity was noticeably lighter by the time he reached the doors that Juno assured him led to the control center. That meant the entire facility was falling at a faster rate than he cared to think about. Taking a moment to gather himself, to wrap his will like a cloak around the fiery heart of his anger, he prepared himself to face the Jedi whose presence he could feel through several centimeters of durasteel.

    The Force Unleashed

    Starkiller took a moment to look for Kota. The old man was neither lying squashed on the arena floor nor foolishly rushing in to help, and both relieved him. He needed Kota alive, if he was going to find Juno soon, and he didn't want to be distracted by keeping the old man that way. But he didn't want to lose him, either.

    A quick search through the Force revealed him to be climbing upward through the stands, slashing at anyone who stood in his way. Settling that score he had mentioned, Starkiller assumed. Then there wasn't time to ponder the matter any further.

    [...]

    The crowd on the ground cleared his head of any kind of nostalgia. Spaceports were typically chaotic, but this one broke all the records. Since the collapse of Imperial control, all manner of beings roamed the streets, free to pursue whatever dreams or fancies took them. Starkiller kept his guard up, and his senses tuned for Kota. The old man had said that he was heading here after Commenor, and he had definitely arrived. Starkiller recognized that mix of anger and self-control anywhere.

    The trail led him to a market, and from there to a machine repair shop. A cover, he assumed. Kota was very close now.

    He went inside. It looked perfectly innocent, from the mess of spare parts to the three-eyed Gran behind the counter. Behind the facade, though, Starkiller could sense something very different.

    The Force Unleashed II

    The Apprentice senses movement ahead of him.

    He sensed movement ahead and slowed his pace to an ordinary walk, then a more stealthy creep as voices became audible, too. Not human voices: a mixture of electronic babble and high-pitched, liquid Rodese. Droids and Rodians, then.

    The Force Unleashed

    The Apprentices senses he has moved the corvette far enough.

    When he sensed that it had gone far enough, he relaxed his concentration.

    The Force Unleashed

    The Apprentice senses Kazdan Paratus near him.

    As he walked cautiously forward, feeling the nearness of Kazdan Paratus but uncertain of his exact location, one of the rubbish piles stirred.

    The Force Unleashed

    The Apprentice senses Shaak Ti from orbit.

    Although he had sensed her clearly from orbit as a deformation in the Force, much like a body of mass deformed the fabric of space-time, he hadn't anticipated the dense flows he would encounter on the surface.

    [...]

    He could sense the Jedi Master nearby, burning brightly in the Force but hidden like a lantern behind a shutter.

    The Force Unleashed

    Starkiller navigates through impenetrable air.

    He hurried to her, finding his way via the Force through the impenetrable air. She was on her hands and knees, struggling to find her feet on the uneasy floor. She clutched at him when he burst out of the smoke and pulled her upright. She weighed almost nothing.

    The Force Unleashed

    Starkiller enhances his physical senses.

    The apprentice grunted an affirmative. He strode down the main corridor, kicking open doors and using the Force to enhance his physical senses. The smell of burning food came from the kitchen. He ignored it.

    The Force Unleashed

    Starkiller senses great darkness and sadness in Kashyyyk’s forest.

    "Just an old hut," Starkiller said. "A ruin, really. But it feels familiar." Juno could hear the strain in his voice. "I've been sensing something strange ever since I arrived on Kashyyyk. There's a great darkness in the forest. And - yes, sadness. Something happened here."

    The Force Unleashed

    Galen Marek senses Felucia has shifted to the dark side.

    IT TOOK HIM NO TIME at all to attune his senses to the vast and tangled life-fields of the fecund, overrun world. The balance had indeed shifted profoundly toward the dark side since his last visit.

    The Force Unleashed

    Galen senses the sarlacc’s suffering.

    Galen Marek, The Force Unleashed
    Galen Marek, The Force Unleashed

    Galen senses Maris Brood’s location.

    Galen Marek, The Force Unleashed
    Galen Marek, The Force Unleashed
    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation
    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation

    Galen feels Senator Bail Organa nearby.

    Juno Eclipse and Galen Marek, The Force Unleashed

    (★) Galen meditates on the Force, actively casting his consciousness through space and time, and forcibly ripping information from the future.

    Loading Video...

    (4:50)

    Loading Video...

    (1:10)

    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation
    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation

    A faint vibration made the ship's decks rattle. Concerned, she checked the sublights. Finding everything in order, she assumed that they had just passed through a dense region of interplanetary dust.

    When the vibration returned, stronger and longer than before, and the cause still remained unknown, she began to worry about what form of sabotage she could have missed - to the generator, the stabilizers, even life support. . .

    A faint sound to her left interrupted her train of thought. She turned to look at Galen and her eyes widened in surprise.

    His lightsaber was floating in the air in front of him, turning slowly as though in free fall.

    Juno stared at it for a moment, and then reached out to check the gravity generators. She stopped herself, knowing that they hadn't been tampered with. She could feel the field around her, operating normally. Yet still the lightsaber floated, and as she watched more items in the cockpit joined its aerial display: her blaster and holster, a cup, a datapad. The ship shuddered again, as though something powerful and mysterious was subtly interfering with its function.

    Galen's eyes rolled under his closed eyelids. A line had formed between his eyebrows. His lips twitched.

    She raised a hand to shake him, but found her fingers effortlessly deflected. The Force filling the ship was emanating from him.

    His frown deepened. His head turned to the right, then to the left.

    "Galen? Are you all right?"

    His hands clenched and unclenched, then his whole body twitched, making her jump. "Galen, can you hear me?"

    He moaned softly, as though caught in a nightmare. His skin was slick with sweat.

    She crouched in the pilot's seat, unable to do anything but watch.

    He moaned again, louder this time. His legs kicked out, making the whole cockpit shake. The objects floating in the air began to spin around them. The lights flickered.

    "No," he said distinctly. His head jerked from side to side, his face locked in a rictus of pain. "No, Kota-!"

    His eyes shot open. She gasped. The objects around them crashed to the floor. He stared at nothing for a second, wildly, frightened. His chest rose and fell as though he had just run a marathon. His breathing was the only sound in the suddenly still cockpit.

    [...]

    Sighing, he shut off the blade and confronted the visions he had received while meditating. He had glimpsed the future before - several times now, while on the brink of death - but this was different. This time it had been his conscious choice to pierce the boundary of the present, and he had made that choice with a clear act of will. That didn't make interpreting what he had seen any easier. In fact, it made it more difficult, because instead of remembering isolated fragments, now he remembered everything, and not all of it could be true. At least, not all of it at once.

    The future was a mess of possibilities - some likely, some incredibly unlikely - shot through with hard certainties that were unchanged in every outcome. The Death Star was one such certainty: an enormous battle station that, when completed, would rain still more terror on the Emperor's subjects and ensure his domination of the galaxy. Its location was another certainty, and that this was where Vader had taken his prisoners.

    The apprentice knew exactly that much with confidence. The rest was a morass of contradictions. In some futures, he survived; in others he fell. Juno lived; Juno died. They were together; they were apart. The Rebels prevailed; the Rebels were annihilated. In one future, even PROXY was still alive, something that had patently not occurred in the timeline he occupied.

    The glimpse of a wider universe of what might and might not have been made his head ache, and made preparing for what might yet be even more difficult.

    The Force Unleashed

    Galen feels Kota and the Senators’ presences onboard the Death Star.

    Then, putting her out of his mind - as much as he was able - he chose between east and west at random and began looking for a way into the station. He could feel Master Kota and the others somewhere in the massive superstructure, but their Force-signatures were obscured by the presence of so much suffering. If the Emperor was there, too, that would further cloud the issue. The apprentice had never met his Master's Master in person, but the Sith Lord who had single-handedly wiped out nearly every Jedi in the galaxy would cast a shadow deep enough to hide anything.

    The Force Unleashed

    Galen senses Darth Vader nearby.

    Galen Marek, The Force Unleashed
    Galen Marek, The Force Unleashed

    Starkiller had his sights set much higher. He was sure now that he had the right spire. He could sense both Juno and Darth Vader in the cavernous spaces above him. It was just a matter of getting to them.

    [...]

    Unsurprised, Starkiller stepped back and looked around for the real Darth Vader. He could see or hear nothing, but his senses tingled with an acute and insistent message.

    Above him.

    He somersaulted upward and landed in a crouch, ready for anything.

    "You are confident, " said Darth Vader. "That will be your downfall."

    The Force Unleashed II

    (★) Starkiller feels the life force of every living thing in the galaxy, essentially a communion with the Living Force of the galaxy as a whole, and pinpoints Kota’s location.

    Starkiller breathed deeply and closed his eyes. His mind was just one speck in the endlessly shifting sea that was the galaxy. He felt the eddies and currents of the combined life force of every living thing sway through him - and with only a small effort he detached himself from himself and joined that flow, seeking the one he needed.

    The roar of a crowd filled his mind. Movement scattered his mental vision, made it hard to make our anything specific. Was that fluttering wings, or banners? He couldn't quite tell. Figures that might have been beings glowed blue all around him. Above him hung a giant eye, staring downward.

    Are you still with me, Kota?

    His vision shifted, became red-tinged - deeply red, as though someone had cut the throat of a giant beast and drained it onto the ground. Something snarled. Something roared. There was a flurry of limbs, a wild rush of violent intent.

    "It's all in your mind, boy," said Kota from his memory.

    Green light flashed. More blood. Severed limbs fell onto the dirt. The crowd roared.

    General Rahm Kota, leaning back on his heels, breathing heavily, surrounded by a ring of corpses. How long had he been fighting now? Six days? Seven? Fatigue was taking its toll. With every wave he came closer to making a mistake - and when that happened, it would all finally be over.

    Starkiller opened his eyes. His lips were pressed into a thin line.

    "Hold on, old man," he whispered, and brought Darth Vader's TIE fighter smoothly out of orbit.

    The Force Unleashed II

    Starkiller senses the Gorog’s fear and rage.

    The stench of the Gorog's fear and rage came heavily on the air as he approached it.

    The Force Unleashed II

    (★) Starkiller feels every mind in the galaxy and actively casts his mind through space and time to find Juno on Dac (which happened in the past).

    Instead, he closed his eyes and reached out with the Force.

    Juno.

    He could see her in his mind's eye as clearly as if she were standing before him. Blond hair, blue eyes, strong jaw, proud nose - he would carry her face with him for the rest of his life, now that he had escaped Darth Vader's dire influence. When they were together again, they would never be separated. It was just a matter of closing the gap between them - and what was distance but an illusion of the mind? To the Force, all things were one.

    Faintly, he heard the Rogue Shadow creaking and swaying, but he didn't let himself be distracted. He was out among the stars, seeking, searching. There were quadrillions of minds in the galaxy, and he was looking for just one of them. He sensed fear and great tragedy, cruelty and petty hate. He saw death everywhere, and life, too, ebbing and flowing in that eternal tide. The Force surged within him, primal, powerful, potent - like a beast one never entirely tamed. He felt Kota next to him, full of anger and impatience. He sensed-

    A hint of Juno flashed through his mind.

    "I don't trust that kind of power. A lesson learned the hard way is hard - perhaps impossible - to unlearn. "

    They weren't her words, and it wasn't her voice, but she was near their source, which was itself a tantalizingly familiar presence.

    Water.

    Kota's urgency flared, pulling Starkiller out of his meditation. A dozen floating objects fell to the floor with a loud clatter.

    The Force Unleashed II

    Starkiller senses life on Dagobah and then a knot in the Force unlike anything he’d felt before.

    He closed his eyes and let the Force tell him what it could. Life roiled around him, tugging his mind in a dozen directions at once. He let himself be buffeted, tilting his head from one side to the other, testing the flows. There was a hint of something unusual to the east, a knot in the Force unlike any he had felt before. It drew him and repelled him at the same time. The longer he studied it, the more he felt as though it was studying him right back.

    The Force Unleashed II

    Starkiller senses Juno nearby.

    Juno.

    Her proximity filled his mind, making it hard to deal with anything or anyone else around him. After leaving Kota, his comlink had squawked and blared about distant events and conflicts, so he had switched it off in irritation. He didn't care what happened outside the ship, only what happened to Juno inside it. When stormtroopers had crossed his path, he had blasted them out of the way with disinterested ferocity. Nothing could slow him. Nothing would stop him. The only thing keeping him and Juno apart was distance, and that could easily be overcome.

    [...]

    He forced himself to concentrate, seeking her through the many walls and decks of the Salvation, and finally sensed her presence two decks up. They were connected through the Force, by invisible lines that might fade but would never entirely break. Now he saw them clearly, it was just a matter of following them. Forgoing stairwells or lifts, he simply blasted his way through the ship's infrastructure. Metal and plastoid could be repaired. Wires and hydraulics could be rerouted. Human life - Juno's life - could not be replaced.

    [...]

    Starkiller had his sights set much higher. He was sure now that he had the right spire. He could sense both Juno and Darth Vader in the cavernous spaces above him. It was just a matter of getting to them.

    The Force Unleashed II

    Starkiller can see without his eyes, through the Force.

    Instantly the world was fire. The air around the ship consisted of a blinding plasma, hotter than any ordinary flame. He forced his way into it, bracing himself against metal rungs that had turned instantly red on exposure to the outside. His eyes narrowed to slits in order to make out even the nearest outline. He could barely see the fingers in front of his face.

    He didn't need to see. The Force guided him, move by move, out onto the hull, where he braced himself with his back to the short-range array and turned to face forward. Like Kota, he would see without eyes.

    The Force Unleashed II

    Starkiller senses the other Galen Marek clones.

    Starkiller, The Force Unleashed II
    Starkiller, The Force Unleashed II

    Starkiller senses Vader has more surprises in store for him.

    He jumped to the second level, and there came face-to-face with Bail Organa, then Kota, then Mon Mothma, then Garm Bel Iblis. When all the leaders of the Rebel Alliance lay dead at his feet, their droid bodies exposed beneath treacherous holograms, Darth Vader attacked again. His blows were swift and economical, and the threat no less than it had ever been, but Starkiller sensed more was to come. Darth Vader would kill him, yes, without hesitation, but he would rather turn him first.

    The Force Unleashed II

    Starkiller senses Vader is testing him.

    He rolled and leapt, and came up swinging. Covered in blood - the blood of his fellow clones - and knowing Juno was close, he fought his former Master with single-minded focus. Vader was still testing him; he sensed that more and more keenly, with every passing moment, but to what purpose he still couldn't tell.

    The Force Unleashed II

    Starkiller senses Juno’s plan.

    Starkiller ran past Darth Vader to where Juno lay broken on the edge of the cloning spire's roof. Horror and self-reproach filled his mind. He hadn't seen her crawling for the lightsaber; he hadn't sensed her desperate plan until the very last moment - and it was his alarm that had alerted Vader, he was sure of it. He and his former Master had reacted at the same time.

    The Force Unleashed II

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    Azronger

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    Telekinesis

    Galen Marek tears Darth Vader’s lightsaber from his grasp.

    No Caption Provided

    Vader strode into the hut, where he used the Force to grip the man around his throat and wrench him into the air. His bright red lightsaber pointed directly at the man's chest.

    Victory.

    And yet, on the cutting edge of perception, reason to reconsider.

    Vader cocked his armored head.

    "I sense someone far more powerful than you nearby. Your Master . . . Where is he?"

    The choking Jedi Knight struggled to speak. "The dark side has clouded your mind. You killed my Master years ago."

    "Then you will now share his fate."

    Vader raised his blade to cut down the Jedi Knight, but before he could swing it the lightsaber suddenly flew from his hand. The Dark Lord wheeled around to attack, his free hand raised to crush whoever dared oppose him.

    He hesitated, an uncommon move for Darth Vader - and the apprentice felt his mind spin with shock - at the sight of a human child standing in the corner of the hut, dirty and bruised by the fall, dressed in clothes bearing Wookiee touches similar to those of the man still hanging in the air behind the Dark Lord. The boy held Darth Vader's lightsaber in both hands. The tip danced, but only slightly.

    "Run!" choked the Jedi. "Run now! Don't look back!"

    "Ah," said Vader with dawning understanding. "A son."

    The Force Unleashed

    Starkiller leapt to his feet and followed him, keeping up the lightning attack and using telekinesis to rip Vader's lightsaber from his temporarily weakened fingers.

    The Force Unleashed II

    Starkiller spars with Lord Vader in telekinetic fights.

    Never once in all the days they had sparred together, with lightsaber, telekinesis, or suggestion, had the Dark Lord offered a single word of encouragement.

    The Force Unleashed

    Starkiller chokes out an Imperial officer.

    Starkiller had visited Port Pixelito just once, while in the service of Darth Vader. A treacherous Imperial aide who had run up gambling debts from podracing had been his target, and one soon dealt with, even in the early days of his apprenticeship. In disguise and with PROXY'S help, he had infiltrated the security installation without being detected, then sliced into the mainframe to find his target. From there, he had crawled through ventilation ducts until he was above the target's private chambers, then Force-choked him while he worked at his desk. Escaping had been just as simple. To dare, he was sure no one knew what had really happened that night.

    The Force Unleashed II

    The Apprentice manipulates debris.

    The Art and Making of the Force Unleashed
    The Art and Making of the Force Unleashed
    No Caption Provided
    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation
    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation

    He reached out with his cupped left hand and swept a metal tool kit across the hangar bay, toward his opponent's head.

    [...]

    So the duel proceeded for almost a minute, with Kenobi and the apprentice dancing like acrobatic Gados from stack to stack, lightsabers spinning and clashing, racks and tools turned into temporary weapons as they hurled themselves from one to the other.

    [...]

    The men leapt and tumbled with inhuman agility. When they gestured, metal walls buckled and engine parts flew like missiles.

    [...]

    "Right." The deck was still moving underfoot as he made his way out of the assembly area, blocking the path behind him with a pile of ejector seats and unmounted ion engines. "Where did you say this control center was?"

    [...]

    More cautiously the apprentice circled him, slicing chairs to pieces as he walked and sending the glowing fragments at his enemy's head.

    [...]

    Even as darkness crowded around the edges of his vision, he sent objects hurtling at Kota's legs and face, battling him on all fronts.

    Finally a fragment of smoking debris struck the general's knees from behind.

    [...]

    Caught by its predicament, the apprentice used the Force to push the rubbish away, allowing the droid to burst free.

    [...]

    Ducking under the swinging blades, he sent bolt after bolt of lightning into the massive wound he had made, while battering it with panels ripped from the walls and hurled with every iota of energy he could muster.

    [...]

    Felucians tried to stop him, but he hurled giant trunks at them, driving them back.

    [...]

    With a flick of one wrist, he ripped a mushroom out of the sarlacc's skin and threw it at her head.

    [...]

    Changing tactics, he stilled the lightning, clenched his hands into fists, and ripped the box out of the wall with one single, uncompromising wrench. The machinery inside exploded, filling the air with clouds of acrid debris. Juno cried out again, but this time in relief.

    [...]

    Drawing on the Force, he burst the barrels, tore the crates apart, and filled the air with debris.

    [...]

    He proved to be tough work until the apprentice wrenched the next giant fan off its gimbals and sent it spinning through the air. The black guard seemed so stunned by the sight of it that he didn't jump until it was too late. One spinning blade took his right leg off at the knee. From then, the fight was over.

    [...]

    Larger fragments began to fall and he batted them away with the Force, feeling no more drained by his exertion than he would have from a light run.

    [...]

    Two against one was a fairer fight. Soon a rotting branch he brought down made it even.

    [...]

    Raising his left hand, he used the Force to lift a mound of bones into the air. Rattling and tumbling, they swirled around the two of them, picking up speed.

    [...]

    The roof sagged heavily now. Another broken beam would bring the whole lot crashing down. Seeing that there was no way he could win, Drexl bolted for a jetpack leaning against the far wall. He was too far away for Sith lightning, so the apprentice threw an assortment of tubes, restraining bolts, and drained batteries at him. Jumping and ducking, the Rodian managed to dodge all of them. Scooping up the jetpack and swinging one arm through the straps, Drexl bolted for an exit on the far side of the chamber.

    [...]

    His physical reach. No doubt the Core would expect him to use telekinesis to break the link, so he hadn't even tried that. But there were more indirect ways of attacking. The cable traced a sinuous path over the heads of the slave droids. It didn't take long to find a big one in exactly the right spot. It was even easier to grip it with the Force and squeeze it until its power supply erupted.

    [...]

    Dropping off the ramp and onto a conveyor belt, he ran to the head of the slave convoy and dropped the lead stormtroopers before they even saw him. He swung his lightsaber twice more, cutting the binders of the lead Wookiee slave to make clear his intent, then reached up with the Force and telekinetically wrenched the far wall's ramp out of its footings, spilling the guards to the bottom of the trench.

    [...]

    He slowed, approaching the end of the exhaust port. A broad-bladed fan spun swiftly in his path. He stopped it telekinetically and slipped safely through to the other side, but not before triggering obstruction alarms and drawing technical and security personnel from far and wide.

    [...]

    A hail of shattered transparisteel and debris drove the Emperor back from Kota, breaking his concentration and freeing the Jedi Master from the fatal web of energy. Smoking and weak, Kota fell away and was caught by Garm Bel Iblis. The apprentice tossed them the comlink and advanced on Palpatine.

    The Force Unleashed

    No less than a dozen droids were climbing toward him, hopping from deck to deck through the gaps the larger version had created. He reached out for the crates remaining in the cargo hold and sent them rumbling down on the droid's heads. They fell with legs spinning and were crushed far below.

    [...]

    He ran faster and leapt when he was at the closest point to the tower. For a moment he was in free fall, and then he hit the side of the tower with lightsabers pointing forward. They arrested his downward slide just above an observation window, which he shattered with a quick Force push. Swinging himself down and through the window, he made his way to the nearest stairwell before any of the snipers could turn their high-powered weapons inward.

    [...]

    The Y-wing began to curve around the inside of the dome, dodging fire from turbolasers and TIE fighters. Starkiller braced himself with both feet and one hand gripping a manipulator extended by the R2 unit. With his free arm, he supplemented the starfighter's energy shields with one lightsaber, bouncing laser blasts up into the dome and Force-pushing ion torpedoes away.

    [...]

    He fought his way into the second tower against a steady rain of blasterfire, while at the same time defending his back. He buckled lofty platforms, ripping stormtroopers to their deaths far below. He used cloning rubes as flying bombs, turning the floor underfoot slick with spilled amniotic fluids. He peeled plates from the walls and sent them flying into clutches of stormtroopers too time-consuming to confront head-on. Ruination surrounded him.

    [...]

    The harness seemed large enough to hold a rancor, and still the soldiers were nervous. Starkiller stayed nearby, in case of slip-ups or the slightest hint of an escape attempt. Except for one moment, when the harness swung a little too far to the right and threatened to hit the Rogue Shadow's air lock frame, he let the soldiers do their work unimpeded. A slight nudge through the Force put the harness on course again, and no one was the wiser.

    The Force Unleashed II

    The Apprentice pushes PROXY.

    No Caption Provided

    The Apprentice manhandles Kota’s insurgents.

    Loading Video...

    (14:33)

    No Caption Provided
    No Caption Provided

    A dozen open-helmeted men and women in brown combat uniforms - Kota's insurgents, the apprentice presumed - came down the hangar's primary access corridor, sealing the blast door behind them. Baring his teeth, he ran to meet them, eager to take the offensive. Their rifles were no match for the power of the Force. A single, powerful push scattered them like dolls. One he blasted with lightning. A second he choked until all consciousness fled. A third he swept up and pounded against the nearest bulkhead. The rest he dismembered with graceful aggression, ignoring their cries of fear and pain.

    [...]

    Juno guided him through the quaking facility. Anyone unlucky enough to get in his way was unceremoniously pushed aside by telekinesis. Doors buckled shut and weapons mysteriously jammed. He didn't have time to play games anymore.

    The Force Unleashed

    The Apprentice throws around TIE fighters and TIE fighter parts.

    The Art and Making of the Force Unleashed
    The Art and Making of the Force Unleashed
    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation

    "Give up!" the insurgents shouted. "We have the factory!"

    "What is he?" called another to one of his fellows. "Some kind of shadow trooper?"

    "Doesn't matter. Blast him!"

    Anger rose up in him, pure and clean, sweeping all other concerns aside. He vaulted a stack of detached solar gather panels and sent a stream of machine parts raining down on the source of the weapons fire.

    Screams sounded over the crashing of metal. Kota's insurgents scattered from behind the TIE cockpits they had been using as shelter. Some fired shots at him, employing a range of weaponry that displayed either a lack of organization or restricted resources, or both. He deflected every shot with controlled fury and poured his rage into retaliation. He felt no need to hold back. Those disloyal to the Empire deserved everything they got.

    Only when the last was buried under a small mountain of titanium alloy hull plates and reactor shielding did he examine in more detail the equipment they had been carrying. As well as their motley weapons and mismatched armor, the fighters had brought explosive timer packs and had clearly been setting such charges elsewhere on the level. He'd best hurry, he told himself, before the whole facility went up in flames.

    [...]

    By now the Imperials on the ground were calling for reinforcements from above. A trio of TIE fighters shrieked down through Kashyyyk's atmosphere, stitching the blackened permacrete with needles of fire. He laughed mirthlessly. They considered that a solution?

    With a well-timed nudge on the lead TIE fighter's port solar gather panel, he sent it tumbling into the permacrete, where it exploded instantly. The impact shook the ground beneath his feet and sent cracks spreading across its face.

    That gave him an idea. When the two remaining TIEs came around for another pass, he sent them both into the third and fifth moorings. The fourth took so much collateral damage that it fared almost as badly as its siblings.

    The Force Unleashed

    The Apprentice manipulates his lightsaber.

    Loading Video...
    No Caption Provided
    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation
    The Force Unleashed II comic adaptation
    The Force Unleashed II comic adaptation

    The apprentice acknowledged the gambit before blowing the mannequin to pieces and reaching out for his fallen lightsaber. The hilt arrived in his hand just in time to deflect another blow from Paratus, fully recovered from the waves of Sith lightning he had just endured.

    The Force Unleashed

    The pressure fell away. He leapt to his feet. His lightsabers flew out of the shadows and landed in his hands, and were lit an instant later. They were red once more, as red as the blood in his final vision. The shadows fled.

    The Force Unleashed II

    The Apprentice opens doors.

    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation
    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation

    Then he gestured with one finger, and the heavy blast doors slid open.

    [...]

    My good deed for the day, he thought as he burned out the mess and used the Force to push the door in.

    [...]

    IT WAS EMPTY. BEFORE ANYONE could respond to the sound, he telekinetically sealed the doors leading back into the Death Star. Then he turned and wrenched the inner doors open.

    The Force Unleashed

    One long, straight corridor led to a double door made of durasteel. It was guarded by six stormtroopers. Starkiller didn't bother stopping to fight them. With a gesture, he pushed them aside, then burst open the doors.

    [...]

    He faced the wall and Force-pushed, gently at first but with growing insistence. Machine parts rattled and shook. Glass smashed. With a groan and squeak of tortured metal, a section of the wall began to swing back.

    [...]

    What came next happened almost too quickly for her to take in.

    First, the doors ahead of her burst open, punched by unimaginable force from the far side.

    Then the force field collapsed, sending everything in the room rushing toward the endless vacuum of space - including her and the dark figure standing where the inner doors had once been.

    [...]

    He wrenched the door off its hinges.

    [...]

    He burst in the door on the uppermost level and found himself at the center of a web of concentrated blasterfire.

    [...]

    When he reached the top level, Vader was disappearing behind the doors of another turbolift. Starkiller ripped them open, but the cab had already begun to ascend. He had no intention of waiting for it to return. He braced himself on the inside of the shaft, and jumped.

    The Force Unleashed II

    The Apprentice manipulates Republic gunships.

    (★) The Apprentice stalemates Rahm Kota telekinetically.

    This time he pushed telekinetically as he came, attempting to knock Kota's feet out from under him before bringing his blade to bear.

    Again, however, Kota deflected his Force energies back at him. Again they were pushed apart.

    [...]

    He caught the general in a choke hold and maintained his grip even though it turned partially back on him. He had been ready for this; his lungs were full. The general, however, clutched at his throat with one hand while barely managing to parry with the other. The apprentice let the fire in his lungs fuel his lust for triumph. Even as darkness crowded around the edges of his vision, he sent objects hurtling at Kota's legs and face, battling him on all fronts.

    The Force Unleashed

    Note: Rahm Kota is powerful enough to wrench down the TIE fighter factory’s control center.

    No Caption Provided

    The Apprentice grabs a missile and sends it back towards its launcher.

    No Caption Provided

    The Apprentice manipulates droids.

    The Art and Making of the Force Unleashed
    No Caption Provided

    The apprentice acknowledged the gambit before blowing the mannequin to pieces and reaching out for his fallen lightsaber.

    [...]

    Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi he smashed together and hurled out the window.

    [...]

    Yoda he picked up with the Force and used as a missile to strike Paratus through his flailing artificial limbs.

    [...]

    The red-eyed droids recovered as quickly as PROXY and soon joined in the fray. He knocked them down in droves with telekinesis, but they inevitably got up again or were replaced by more from outside.

    [...]

    He leapt out of PROXY'S reach and into the clamoring mob of slave droids. Swinging his lightsaber wildly around him, he cut cables and sliced through processors with abandon. Surges of electronic thought seared the air as droids rushed him all at once. He blew them back and thrust his blade deep into a bank of processors.

    [...]

    It was already over, but the Core still had some fight left. Hundreds of slave droids converged on the apprentice, hoping to crush him under their combined weight before he could reach the nearest processor. He blew them away with a single push and slashed open the processor's casing. Ignoring the hot metal edges, he pushed his left hand into the workings inside.

    The Force Unleashed

    The Apprentice detonates and throws grenades.

    A rain of concussion grenades fell toward him. He deflected them all toward the lodge's door, careful to avoid anything resembling a guest quarters.

    [...]

    As he turned to it, he became aware of the clanking of an AT-ST coming from behind him. He turned just in time to deflect a barrage of precision weapons fire from the nose of a walker that was sprinting at him as fast as its two mechanical legs could run. A flurry of concussion grenades followed.

    He detonated them all before they could arrive and repulsed the furious blossoming of hot gases in a sphere around him.

    The Force Unleashed

    The Apprentice manhandles Rodians.

    Before Drexl could give the order to fire, the apprentice dropped to one knee and telekinetically shoved with all his strength. He couldn't deflect everything at once, but he could shorten the odds a little.

    Rodians flew everywhere, arms and legs akimbo, in a sudden maelstrom of rubbish. Weapons slipped from startled fingers. Some discharged, adding to the contusion. The pipe flexed and twisted, resonating to the force of his blow. The sound it made was, momentarily, louder than even that of the ore cannon.

    [...]

    The apprentice reached out one hand with the palm cupped and lifted the device into the air. Drexl's feet left the ground and his legs pinwheeled in space. "Waaargh!" he cried, frantically trying to start the jetpack. Higher he rose, wriggling and wailing. The jetpack coughed and flared into life. The apprentice held it tight for a moment as Drexl pushed the throttle forward in an attempt to break free. When the engine was straining at its maximum output, the apprentice flipped it upside down and let go.

    With one final cry, Drexl Roost plowed into the ground and the jetpack exploded. The shock wave was too much for the ceiling, which collapsed in a slow but inevitable rush. The apprentice walked through the chaos, deflecting the worst of it. In the path he left behind, no living beings stirred.

    The Force Unleashed

    The Apprentice brings ceilings down.

    Another Rodian came running up the corridor behind him, firing at his back. He deflected the shots with his lightsaber and brought the ceiling down on the raider, effectively sealing himself into the hyperdrive access room. No matter. The walls were weak with metal fatigue. He could punch out in an instant when he was finished.

    [...]

    "Unless it gets too hot there." He brought the ceiling down on one of the troopers and telekinetically threw rubble at another. "Stay close and wait for my signal."

    The Force Unleashed

    Starkiller rook a moment to bring down the ceiling over the hatch, so no one could follow him, then crawled on hands and knees into the secure facility.

    The Force Unleashed II

    The Apprentice blows holes through metal walls.

    No Caption Provided

    Straining, he blew a hole in the side of the downed ship wide enough for a TIE fighter to pass through.

    The Force Unleashed

    Forgoing stairwells or lifts, he simply blasted his way through the ship's infrastructure. Metal and plastoid could be repaired. Wires and hydraulics could be rerouted. Human life - Juno's life - could not be replaced.

    The Force Unleashed II

    (★) The Apprentice ragdolls thousands of droid golems, forming a massive hurricane.

    Soon the foyer was full of the twitching, smoking bodies of the temple's hapless guardians. He began to tire, not from exertion but from the tedium of knocking down droid after droid, to no apparent end. There might have been thousands of them.

    Deactivating his lightsaber, he took a deep breath. With one mighty exhalation of power, he blasted all of them - those in pieces and those approaching with needle-tipped fingers and vibrosaws upraised - out of the foyer doors. Then he blasted the rubbish piles after them. He kept pushing until a dark cloud toured out over Raxus Prime's hideous landscape - an artificial hurricane full of droid golems.

    When the foyer was clear, the apprentice straightened. He was no longer pushing with the Force, but the floor beneath him shook nonetheless. A heavy booming sound came from deeper in the Temple, and was getting louder. He had certainly attracted someone's attention now.

    The Force Unleashed

    Note: The droid golems were powered by Kazdan Paratus’ Force abilities, giving them the ability to use powers such as telekinesis, Force shield and Force drain. So the Apprentice essentially ragdolled thousands of Force users.

    PROXY and the Apprentice, The Force Unleashed
    The Force Unleashed Databank

    (★) The Apprentice telekinetically battles Kazdan Paratus, first in his Force-imbued mech, then his normal form.

    Igniting his lightsaber, he slashed one of the reaching appendages clean off and batted another aside with a firm telekinetic punch.

    [...]

    The apprentice took the opportunity to finish it off. Again he pushed with the full power of the Force, blowing its body off its tangled leg and hurling it through the far wall. He followed it, just in case it still had any fight left in it. Striding confidently through a gaping rent in the foyer wall, he found himself in a place he had thought never to enter, even in a bizarrely re-created form such as this.

    The Force Unleashed

    At the fight’s conclusion, the Apprentice then ragdolls Kazdan Paratus.

    No Caption Provided

    The apprentice reached out and caught the Jedi Aleena in a light Force grip. Paratus's artificial arms crumbled, unable to resist his power. Lifting the diminutive alien into the air, the apprentice swung his captive from side to side, smashing him into the window frames and roof until rubble rained down on them both. He deflected the worst of it from himself and saved the damage for Paratus. Soon the aging Jedi was too weak to fight, but still the apprentice continued battering him. He remembered what had happened with Rahm Kota at the very last. Wherever that strange hallucination had come from, he would not permit a repeat.

    The Force Unleashed

    Note: Kazdan Paratus was powerful enough to animate thousands of droid golems with the Force across a radius of kilometers and use abilities such as telekinesis, Force shield and Force drain through them. His droid golem army was even powerful enough to hold off the forces of the Galactic Empire for years.

    PROXY and the Apprentice, The Force Unleashed
    The Force Unleashed Databank
    No Caption Provided

    Soon the foyer was full of the twitching, smoking bodies of the temple's hapless guardians. He began to tire, not from exertion but from the tedium of knocking down droid after droid, to no apparent end. There might have been thousands of them.

    [...]

    "I have images of you snooping around when that mad old fool in his Temple bought it. His droids kept the Empire at bay for years, you know. Once they were gone, the planet was easy picking." Drexel's purple face twisted in something that could only have been a snarl. "Half the metal is gone in this area, and what's left isn't worth excavating. And now you come scurrying back here, acting all innocent. Well, we saw you first and arranged this little reception. No more mother lodes for you, I'm afraid. No more lucky finds. Your masters will think twice before messing with us again when we present your head to them on a platter. Ready!"

    The Force Unleashed

    (★) The Apprentice muses he could level Kazdan Paratus’ junk Jedi Temple with a single push.

    As they reached for orbit, he watched the Temple retreat behind him until the outline of its ludicrous grandeur was barely discernible among the surrounding junk hills. He could have knocked the ridiculous toy castle down around Kazdan's ears with one Force push.

    The Force Unleashed

    Note: The Temple was stated to look exactly like the actual Jedi Temple on Coruscant by Juno Eclipse.

    "What about Kazdan Paratus?" Starkiller asked PROXY. "I can't hear any clues that would lead us to him." Juno's eyes widened. Her right index finger came up to draw her companions' attention back to the view. "What about starting over there?"

    So saying, she banked the ship to starboard, the better to reveal the structure she had just discovered.

    Five slender towers rose up out of the junk piles like a surreal tribute to the past. The central tower was the tallest of the five, with a boxy structure near its tip that always made her think of old-fashioned torpedo fins. The other four were simpler, less ornate. Although undoubtedly made of junk itself, their unique lines could not be mistaken for those of any other monument in the galaxy.

    "That looks exactly like the old Jedi Temple on Coruscant," she said.

    Starkiller nodded. "Set us down as close as you can."

    The Force Unleashed
    No Caption Provided

    The Apprentice hurls stormtroopers.

    The Art and Making of the Force Unleashed
    The Art and Making of the Force Unleashed
    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation

    Sith lightning crackled; bodies broke under his irresistible telekinesis; his mind influenced the decisions of officers, who ordered their underlings to attack one another in droves. None could stand up to him and survive.

    [...]

    A recon party of stormtroopers stumbled across him while converging on the Rogue Shadow's landing site. One of them must have noted its descent by eye, since the cloak blocked all other electromagnetic sensors. He warned Juno and suggested she move the ship to another location. She acknowledged his suggestion, and he went back to eliminating the Imperials he had found. They clashed on the side of a lake of quicksand, into which the apprentice telekinetically pushed several of his assailants. They went down fast thanks to their heavy armor. Their cries for help sounded loud over their companions' comlinks until their air supply finally ran out. The clamor of blasters and lightsaber drew the attention of more scavengers and even prompted a rancor to roar a short distance away.

    [...]

    DESOLATION. DESTRUCTION. DEATH.

    That's what I bring, the apprentice thought, wherever I go. Ten stormtroopers, a hundred, a thousand - the numbers don't matter, faceless, futureless, disposable, they're all the same to me.

    And that isn't power.

    He glanced behind him, at the swath he had cut through the Imperial forces. Wrecked walkers lay in smoking ruin, red-glowing gashes still visible in their armored exteriors. Stormtroopers lay in piles where they had died, futilely regrouping to turn back his advance. Choked, blasted with lightning, dismembered, they had at least met quick deaths. He had lost the stomach for prolonged engagement. He just wanted to get in and out and back to the ship - where a host of difficult problems remained, for certain, but at least he wasn't treading the same old territory.

    [...]

    Raising both hands, he choked the trooper on the right until he dropped unconscious to the railing, then coerced the left into turning around.

    The Force Unleashed

    One long, straight corridor led to a double door made of durasteel. It was guarded by six stormtroopers. Starkiller didn't bother stopping to fight them. With a gesture, he pushed them aside, then burst open the doors.

    [...]

    When stormtroopers had crossed his path, he had blasted them out of the way with disinterested ferocity. Nothing could slow him. Nothing would stop him. The only thing keeping him and Juno apart was distance, and that could easily be overcome.

    [...]

    He reached the maintenance hatch and cut his way through it. A stormtrooper armed with a flamethrower tried to roast him once he was inside, but a solid Force push threw him back into his squadmates, where his fuel tank exploded.

    [...]

    "Then she will die," Vader said, raising one hand in a signal to her guards.

    They raised their weapons, took aim, and fired.

    It happened so fast she barely had time to flinch. Vader had been keeping her alive for so long now that it didn't seem entirely real that he would dispose of her so suddenly. She jerked forward as far as the shackles allowed her, straining to get away. Every muscle in her body tensed in readiness.

    The weapons' muzzles flashed...

    ...and at that very instant a massive force struck her and the guards, flinging her backward so hard she thought her chains might break her wrists. The stormtroopers effectively disappeared, swept off the top of the spire in an instant. The shots they had fired all missed, deflected by the powerful force, although one burned her right cheek as it went by. The four energy bursts followed wild trajectories, outward across the crowded sky.

    The Force Unleashed II

    The Apprentice pushes away a sarlacc’s tentacles with a Force repulse.

    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation
    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation

    In return she took tighter control of the beast's distributed intelligence and sent its food-seeking tentacles flailing for him. He repulsed them and fought on.

    The Force Unleashed

    (★) The Apprentice holds Shaak Ti back with telekinesis.

    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation
    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation

    The third would have skewered his right eye had he not held her back at the last minute with a desperate telekinetic block that stopped her lightsaber barely a millimeter from his skin.

    The Force Unleashed

    Note: Shaak Ti was powerful enough to turn the entire planet into a light side nexus, meaning the Apprentice would have been hindered as of this feat.

    Getting to her, however, was proving to be something of a problem. Although he had sensed her clearly from orbit as a deformation in the Force, much like a body of mass deformed the fabric of space-time, he hadn't anticipated the dense flows he would encounter on the surface. The entire jungle was alive with tin Force, from the tiniest spore to the mightiest rancor, and the Felucians themselves were alive with it, too - so alive, in fact, that they tapped into the Force as naturally as humans breathed an oxygen-rich atmosphere. That made them dangerous to him, the Sith apprentice who had come to crush the regime Shaak Ti had nurtured on Felucia.

    She had taken a world enjoying the normal flows between the light and the dark sides of the Force and twisted it out of balance. There was still darkness on Felucia, but it was stifled, frustrated, weakened. He strained to awaken it, to remind it of its proper place in the universe. The light side had held sway for far too long. It was time to redress the issue. Killing Shaak Ti would do that quite nicely.

    The Force Unleashed

    Note: Shaak Ti was powerful enough to telepathically influence the flora and fauna of Felucia, a completely overgrown planet, making her a planetary Force user.

    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation

    "No major settlements," she said, glancing at PROXY's board, "but life signs are overwhelming the scanners. The planet is completely overgrown. I have no idea where we should set down."

    [...]

    The thought hadn't appalled her. If anything it had filled her with wonder - the same sense of wonder she now felt stirring at the sight of Felucia's vast fungal forests and verdant lakes. Again she was struck by the contrasts among Nar Shaddaa, Raxus Prime, and this world. Felucia was brimming over with life in all forms, from the tiniest grass blade to the most massive fungi she had ever seen, with roots snaking over the ground, vines and mildew curling up swaying trunks, and insects everywhere. The air in the upper atmosphere exhibited pollen and spore counts that were off the scale. Her eyes felt assaulted by color everywhere she looked.

    [...]

    Life in abundance, she reminded herself. Think of that for a change.

    And she did manage it, marveling at the huge diversity of plants, fungi, insects, and animals in the jungle surrounding her. Many were rubbery and translucent. Liquid oozed from gaping pores and vents. The most corpulent of the life-forms looked as though they would burst if she so much as touched a finger to them. But all had teeth or spines and other means of self-defense. Many were vigorous hunters or parasites. She could hear the roaring of mighty predators and the crashing of large bodies through the undergrowth, distantly and sometimes directly beneath her strange, precarious landing site.

    The more she observed, the more she thought of Callos. She had never set foot on that world, but from orbit it had had the same verdant sheen as Felucia. Could it have possessed forests as vibrant as these, as rich and splendid with life in all its forms? As she patrolled the lip of the giant mushroom pad, she wondered how many species had never been cataloged here, and now never would be on Callos. A familiar guilt rose up in her like sickness, making her want to throw up, and she had to turn back to the ship.

    The Force Unleashed

    The effect Shaak Ti’s death had on the planet and its inhabitants is explained, further clarifying the immense power she held over them in life.

    Galen Marek, The Force Unleashed
    Galen Marek, The Force Unleashed

    And found himself in the center of a ring of Felucians. There must have been fifty of them - warriors, shamans, and rancor riders standing alongside parents, children, and mushroom farmers. Their faces were hidden by their headdresses; he couldn't read their intent. But the Force swirled around them in thick, turbulent currents. Shaak Ti's death affected them deeply, so profoundly entangled had she become in the energy flows of the world.

    Well, good, he thought. She was responsible for the planet's imbalance. With her gone, maybe the dark side could reassert itself and the natural rhythms of life resume.

    [...]

    Kota leaned closer. "Don't be overconfident, boy. Felucia is a world finely balanced between the light and dark sides of the Force. Shaak Ti was the only thing keeping it from being consumed by darkness. If anything's happened to her, your experience in the hut will seem like a bad dream in comparison."

    [...]

    IT TOOK HIM NO TIME at all to attune his senses to the vast and tangled life-fields of the fecund, overrun world. The balance had indeed shifted profoundly toward the dark side since his last visit. He found the world's new ambience familiar but not comfortable, and felt that he was recognized but not welcome. The latter surprised him and occupied his mind even as he defended himself against every able-bodied predator the world had to send against him.

    So it seemed, anyway. Without Shaak Ti keeping their innate Force sensitivity in check, the native Felucian species fought him every step of the way.

    The Force Unleashed

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    Azronger

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    #5  Edited By Azronger

    Starkiller appears to levitate.

    No Caption Provided

    Starkiller chokes a Whipid.

    No Caption Provided

    Starkiller uses telekinesis on Uggernaughts.

    The mechanical "Uggernaughts" were heavily armored and armed both. His first priority was to knock them out. He pushed one onto its side with the Force and overloaded the electrical systems of the second, encouraging the stormtroopers in scatter. The smell of scorched Ugnaught fur made the cantina smell even worse. From outside, he could already hear the clanking of reinforcements.

    [...]

    Chased by blasterfire, he ran across the room in three steps and leapt onto the nearest Uggernaught. Lightsaber flashing, he cut the pilot and the gunner free and used the Force to crudely turn the machine about. Its weapons barked and sent its siblings reeling backward, showering sparks.

    [...]

    He tossed the last of the Uggernaughts into the spinning blades of a fan four times as tall as he was. It exploded in a ball of flame, almost taking out its twin farther along the heat exchange.

    The Force Unleashed

    Starkiller unleashes a Force repulse that causes his ears to ring, the dock underneath him to buckle, popping rivers, tearing welds and sending a Shadow Guard flying.

    No Caption Provided

    Drawing on the sense of betrayal and shock he had felt on seeing the figure waiting for him - this deadly, dark assassin who might or might not have something to do with Darth Vader - he pushed with all his might.

    His ears rang, such was the energy he released. The dock buckled underneath him; rivets popped and welds tore. His assailant went flying across the wide space, arms spread wide apart.

    The Force Unleashed

    Starkiller wreaks messy havoc with telekinesis.

    He moved with grace and pure reflex, ducking under saber-staff blows, hurling troopers bodily at their Ugnaught allies, tossing walkers off the dock, and even raining supplies from one of the balloons above.

    The crew of the balloon bailed out in a small speeder. Seeing it abandoned gave him an idea. When his enemies regrouped for a second combined charge, he wrenched the balloon physically downward from the sky, crashing its entire weight down on them all - and then, when the petals of the explosion were at their peak, sweeping the entire mess off the dock with one cathartic flexure of telekinesis.

    The Force Unleashed

    Galen muses he could casually crush an AT-ST or throw it at a skyhook’s mooring.

    Sturn's walker jogged ponderously toward him. He considered his options. It would be a simple matter to crush the walker as would a faulty comlink, collapsing the casing and instantly killing, the man within. He could play with the walker as he had played with the two by the lodge and blow it up from within. He could even use it as a battering ram to destroy the last mooring, thereby killing two spade-headed smookas with one swipe. The grim irony in that appealed to him.

    The Force Unleashed

    Galen destroys weapons.

    No Caption Provided

    He reached out and crumpled the walker's cannon and grenade launchers.

    The Force Unleashed

    Missiles from the newly arrived pair peppered him, filling the air with smoke. His Force shield kept the worst of their effects at bay, and he pressed forward, reaching out to telekinetically crush the missile launchers and trigger the remaining charges. With a bright flash and a deafening boom, the last of his obstacles disappeared.

    The Force Unleashed II

    Galen manhandles Ozzik Sturn.

    No Caption Provided

    (★) Galen keeps a bull rancor’s jaws from closing, after which he blows up its head from within.

    When the mouth was open to its full extent the apprentice took two steps and a deep breath, and jumped inside.

    The smell alone was almost enough to knock him out, but that was the least of the dangers he had to face. He used the Force to keep the jaws open just long enough to avoid the teeth when they closed. Then darkness fell and the creature's tongue became the biggest threat. His lightsaber - the only source of life in the dark, dripping maw - made short work of that. The bull rancor's head whipped from side to side, but his will overrode the reflex to open its mouth - something Maris had not thought to control.

    Seeking to stun the beast, the apprentice drew on all the power of the Force and sent a sizzling blast of Sith lightning into the unarmored roof of the creature's mouth.

    Every neuron in the bull rancor's brain lit up like a firework. The following seconds were among the worst the apprentice had ever experienced. The bull rancor's convulsions were wild and prolonged. He clung on for dear life, half drowning in blood and half choked by the foul air, with arms and legs bracing him firmly against the heaving, fleshy walls.

    But it didn't die. He couldn't believe it. Wretched, weakened, stumbling, the bull rancor clung to life with Kota's tenacity. No less desperate, the apprentice played the only card left to him.

    With one powerful release of kinetic energy, he exploded tin bull rancor's head from within.

    Immediately he was falling. A torrent of blood and vile liquid rushed up the gaping throat, sweeping him out onto the field of bones. Blinking, gagging, he barely retained a grip on his lightsaber as the massive headless body dropped to the ground behind him with a mighty, wet crash.

    The Force Unleashed

    Note: The bull rancor’s armored hide was lightsaber-resistant. So in essence, Galen shattered lightsaber-resistant material with his telekinesis.

    His head ringing, the apprentice burrowed out from under the bone pile barely in time to avoid a giant clawed foot crashing down on him. He ran between the enormous legs and away from the swishing tail, slashing as he went, but the creature's skin was so thick it didn't even bleed. Surmounted with tusks and horns longer than he was, the brute - clearly a bull of the species - was by far the biggest living thing he had ever seen. Armor plating thicker than some starship hulls protected its neck and head. Its every movement was ponderous but powerful. It stank of alien flesh and the dark side. The imbalance that had tipped Maris Brood against the Jedi had also turned what had probably once been a noble beast into an insatiable monster.

    And now he had to kill it. His mind was undivided on that point, even if the precise details eluded him. It had his scent now and all the malicious will of Maris goading it to attack. Between grasping hands and cracking tail, he was going to have a hard time just getting near it. When he tried tipping it over with the Force, it simply roared at him in annoyance. Sith lightning glanced off its armored hide like water. He could slash at it with his lightsaber for years and have no effect. Its mind was small and already consumed by Maris's will.

    The Force Unleashed

    Galen brings down support beams.

    As the raiders fanned out and called for help, he reached up through the Force and brought down one of the overhead beams.

    The raiders directly below scattered as it crashed to the floor. A rain of trash followed. The ceiling sagged.

    [...]

    The apprentice seconded that sentiment. With a flexing of his will, another beam came down from directly above the quad cannon, squashing it and its operator under an avalanche of rubbish.

    [...]

    Bad luck for him, the apprentice thought as he brought down a third beam. Leave no witnesses.

    The Force Unleashed

    Galen ragdolls a Shadow Guard.

    No Caption Provided

    (★) Galen brings down a falling Imperial Star Destroyer.

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    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation

    Can't you see it, he wanted to say, then realized who he was talking to. He described the scene in as few words as he could, unable to tear his gaze away from the sight of the disintegrating shipyards. Huge, molten chunks were tearing free and tumbling either out into deep space or down into lower orbits while further explosions continued to tear the facility apart. The scaffolding around the nearly completed Star Destroyer had bent and torn completely away, leaving the ship free to power down into the atmosphere of Raxus Prime. Already it was visible as a distinct triangle glowing orange around its leading edges and conning tower. It was coming directly toward him.

    It was aiming for him.

    "Juno can't fly the ship at the moment," said Kota firmly, "and neither can PROXY. We have to find another solution."

    "What's wrong with Juno?"

    "Concentrate on what's important, boy. That Star Destroyer is coming down fast. You'll never get clear in time. You need to pull it into the cannon."

    The apprentice was temporarily lost for words when he realized what Kota was suggesting.

    Kota wanted him to move the Star Destroyer using nothing but the Force.

    "You're insane," he gasped. "It's massive!"

    "What is mass?" Kota said. "It's all in your mind, boy. You're a Jedi! Size means nothing to you!"

    Kota's voice had changed. The surly, drunken slur was completely absent; in its place was the durasteel bark of the seasoned combat veteran the apprentice had first met.

    "Can you hear me, boy? Reach out and grab that ship, or you'll die on this trash heap!"

    The Star Destroyer was growing visibly larger and hung like a burning, triangular moon low in the sky of Raxus Prime.

    You're a Jedi! Size means nothing to you!

    He wasn't a Jedi but the message was the same. The Force didn't recognize big or small, heavy or light, hard or easy. The living flows of the galaxy encompassed all scales, from the very small to the extremely large. The Star Destroyer was part of it, and so was he. The Force bound them as surely as gravity. He could make its invisible muscles flex, if he dared.

    Had his Master ever done anything like this? Had the Emperor? Had any Sith or Jedi in the history of the galaxy?

    He doubted anyone would ever know about his success or failure in the next few minutes. "Be quick about it, boy!"

    Fast or slow were also irrelevant to the Force, but the apprentice took Kota's point. The sooner he started, the sooner it would be done.

    Deactivating his lightsaber and attaching the hilt to his belt, he adopted the opening stance of the Soresu form, with his right arm and fingers outstretched, pointing at the Star Destroyer. His empty left hand he tucked in next to his heart. With his legs braced firmly in the trash, he reached as deep as he had ever reached into the Force, and then went farther still, feeling as though a mighty chasm had opened up under him and his mind and will plunged down into it. The chasm filled. His mind opened. The physical existence of the Star Destroyer slid painlessly inside.

    Nearly sixteen hundred meters long and capable of carrying a crew in excess of thirty-seven thousand, the ship was a familiar design. Its engines and armament weren't fully installed, but its Class One hyperdrive would have taken it anywhere in the Empire at speed, there to deploy walkers, fighters, barges, and shuttles. Armed with a host of turbolaser and ion cannons, plus no less than ten tractor beams, it could have blockaded an entire system on its own. The reinforced durasteel hull was solid enough to rip a gouge in Raxus Prime that might take centuries to fill. Scavenger droids would have a field day when it came down. Wherever it went down . . .

    There is no wherever, he told himself. There is only where I tell it to.

    Focus.

    The tip of his right index finger and the Star Destroyer became as one in his mind. Every nut and bolt and plate and wire of the massive machine was contained within that tiny space. It wasn't hard to move an arm, a finger, a single human cell. He could direct one barely without thinking, so why not the other, too? Instinct was clearer on that point than the workings of his mind. Ignoring perspective, the two were about the same size in his field of vision.

    Except the Star Destroyer was growing larger with each passing second, and waves of TIE fighters and TIE bombers were pouring forth from its brand-new hangar decks. Laserfire cut huge super-hot channels through the atmosphere ahead of them.

    The apprentice ignored it all. While the illusion held, he moved his hand a very slight distance to his right. The sensation of containing a vast, million-ton machine in the tip of one finger was deeply disorienting. He felt as though every muscle fiber, nerve, and bone groaned along with the metal seams and joints of the ship. What it felt, he felt, too, and even a small acceleration had a profound effect on such a large scale. It resisted with all the momentum it possessed. Hatches swang open; rivets popped; bulkheads twisted; pipes burst.

    The Star Destroyer didn't appear to have moved much in the sky. It was still coming in low on the horizon, aiming to pass over him and strafe him from above. He shifted his hand a second time, but instead of changing its course he mistakenly gave it a slight tumble. He needed to apply the Force the right way for this to work, taking the growing forces of friction and the shifting of its center of gravity into account. A spinning Star Destroyer would do more damage than one burying itself nose-first into the cannon and its superstructure. Damage was good, when it came to destroying the Emperor's handiwork, but too much damage could destroy him and perhaps the Rogue Shadow as well under a deadly rain of molten shrapnel.

    Bring it down in one piece, he told himself. Bring it down hard.

    The ship growled and squealed in metal torment. He was getting the hang of it; he could see how its course was slowly shifting. As wide across as his outstretched hand now, it was hitting the atmosphere at a steeper angle than he had intended, burning bright red and already gouting a trail of black smoke and sparkling debris. He became aware of a sound communicated through his feet: a rumbling much deeper and more sustained than the pounding of the cannon, which had fallen silent after the firing of the third projectile. The Star Destroyer's incomplete frame was acting like a giant tube, and the atmosphere was resonating inside. His whole body sang with it.

    More. The Star Destroyer was really picking up speed now. The thickening atmosphere had a slight braking effect, but nothing could prevent the inevitable. It was going to hit soon. A wild exodus of droids ran past him, fleeing the crash site. The TIE fighters it had launched raced ahead of the chaotic atmospheric waves it generated. He ignored them and concentrated on shifting ground zero as close to the cannon as he could.

    Sparks danced in front of his eyes. The edges of his vision faded to black. Light and dark swirls spun around him, wraithlike. He felt momentarily faint and wondered if it was possible to dissolve into the Force. He was a speck caught in the updraft over a forest fire - yet somehow he had the audacity to try to command the fire to do his will.

    Who did he think he was?

    A sudden panic almost made him lose control. The Star Destroyer, now a burning, shrieking meteor, filled his entire forward vision. The hull was peeling away in fiery, golden strips, each one weighing hundreds of tons, exposing the darker skeleton beneath. It looked like a death's head, a ghastly mask not dissimilar to his Master's, but one molten like lava. This could well be the end of everything, he thought distantly. Of him, of his plans, of his feelings for Juno, and of the boy called Galen who had lost a father a long time ago and whose grief had already been effectively erased

    But his name had survived, and names had power. The apprentice clutched at it with desperation, needing to regain control of the Star Destroyer lest it tear itself apart and disperse the impact. He needed to find his focus again, to ignore the feeling of dissolution eating at the edges of his self, and to tip the balance of power back toward him.

    Galen had stood up to Darth Vader as little more than a child. Galen had wrested the lightsaber from a Dark Lord of the Sith and stood bravely in the face of death. Galen may have been ground down by years of training and darkness since, but was he truly gone - or had he just gone into hiding until the opportunity came to emerge back into the light?

    Are you there, Galen? I need your help!

    No answer came.

    The Star Destroyer's catastrophic reentry made the world shake. There was no time to try again. For Juno, then.

    He gritted his teeth and snarled at the sky. The dead weight of the Star Destroyer shifted one last time, changing its angle of descent just enough to hang together those last few hundred meters, but not enough to risk bouncing. Only seconds remained before it hit and it was still getting bigger. It was impossible that the sky could contain so much metal!

    Abandoning his control over the ship, knowing there was nothing now that he could do to alter its course, the apprentice staggered backward, dazed. The Force fled from him, leaving him wrung out and drained. With a sound like the world ending, the Star Destroyer completed its first and final journey. It hit the cannon, exactly as it was supposed to, and the sky turned white. The ground buckled beneath the apprentice's feet. He pinwheeled, unable to find his balance, as a tsunami of junk and waste rose up ahead of him and blotted out the sun.

    [...]

    Kota shouted as though the static were a personal affront.

    "Answer me, boy!"

    A clicking rose up out of the white noise, followed by a weary but familiar voice.

    "Relax, General. I'm still here."

    [...]

    He was Darth Vader's secret servant, capable of moving Star Destroyers with nothing but his will - yet what else was he? Was he a freedom fighter, a friend, a lover? Was he still the master PROXY was programmed to serve?

    The Force Unleashed

    Galen manhandles Kleef.

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    Galen throws a Mandalorian at a wall.

    No Caption Provided

    Galen shakes the Rogue Shadow and levitates multiple objects in levitation.

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    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation
    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation

    A faint vibration made the ship's decks rattle. Concerned, she checked the sublights. Finding everything in order, she assumed that they had just passed through a dense region of interplanetary dust.

    When the vibration returned, stronger and longer than before, and the cause still remained unknown, she began to worry about what form of sabotage she could have missed - to the generator, the stabilizers, even life support. . .

    A faint sound to her left interrupted her train of thought. She turned to look at Galen and her eyes widened in surprise.

    His lightsaber was floating in the air in front of him, turning slowly as though in free fall.

    Juno stared at it for a moment, and then reached out to check the gravity generators. She stopped herself, knowing that they hadn't been tampered with. She could feel the field around her, operating normally. Yet still the lightsaber floated, and as she watched more items in the cockpit joined its aerial display: her blaster and holster, a cup, a datapad. The ship shuddered again, as though something powerful and mysterious was subtly interfering with its function.

    Galen's eyes rolled under his closed eyelids. A line had formed between his eyebrows. His lips twitched.

    She raised a hand to shake him, but found her fingers effortlessly deflected. The Force filling the ship was emanating from him.

    His frown deepened. His head turned to the right, then to the left.

    "Galen? Are you all right?"

    His hands clenched and unclenched, then his whole body twitched, making her jump. "Galen, can you hear me?"

    He moaned softly, as though caught in a nightmare. His skin was slick with sweat.

    She crouched in the pilot's seat, unable to do anything but watch.

    He moaned again, louder this time. His legs kicked out, making the whole cockpit shake. The objects floating in the air began to spin around them. The lights flickered.

    "No," he said distinctly. His head jerked from side to side, his face locked in a rictus of pain. "No, Kota-!"

    His eyes shot open. She gasped. The objects around them crashed to the floor. He stared at nothing for a second, wildly, frightened. His chest rose and fell as though he had just run a marathon. His breathing was the only sound in the suddenly still cockpit.

    The Force Unleashed

    Instead, he closed his eyes and reached out with the Force.

    Juno.

    He could see her in his mind's eye as clearly as if she were standing before him. Blond hair, blue eyes, strong jaw, proud nose - he would carry her face with him for the rest of his life, now that he had escaped Darth Vader's dire influence. When they were together again, they would never be separated. It was just a matter of closing the gap between them - and what was distance but an illusion of the mind? To the Force, all things were one.

    Faintly, he heard the Rogue Shadow creaking and swaying, but he didn't let himself be distracted. He was out among the stars, seeking, searching. There were quadrillions of minds in the galaxy, and he was looking for just one of them. He sensed fear and great tragedy, cruelty and petty hate. He saw death everywhere, and life, too, ebbing and flowing in that eternal tide. The Force surged within him, primal, powerful, potent - like a beast one never entirely tamed. He felt Kota next to him, full of anger and impatience. He sensed-

    A hint of Juno flashed through his mind.

    "I don't trust that kind of power. A lesson learned the hard way is hard - perhaps impossible - to unlearn. "

    They weren't her words, and it wasn't her voice, but she was near their source, which was itself a tantalizingly familiar presence.

    Water.

    Kota's urgency flared, pulling Starkiller out of his meditation. A dozen floating objects fell to the floor with a loud clatter.

    The Force Unleashed II

    Galen throws debris at the speed of missiles, knocking out turrets. He then pushes an AT-AT on its side.

    Automated weapons emplacements spotted him instantly. Red weapons fire stitched lines of explosions across the station's patchwork hull as he ducked between the AT-AT's massive legs. Scooping up components from the nearest construction conveyor belt, he threw a series of high-speed missiles at the turrets, knocking five out of commission. A stream of Sith lightning put the AT-AT itself out of action, and a good, solid shove tipped it over with a crash, providing cover for the Wookiees when the time came to cross.

    The Force Unleashed

    Galen weakens the floor.

    Rigging a simple mechanical switch, he leapt back out and joined the fight. Another two walkers were approaching. He weakened the hull metal beneath their broad feet, sending them crashing down into the superstructure. The next TIE patrol was coming in fast.

    The Force Unleashed

    (★) Galen blows up an AT-AT.

    Behind him, triggered telekinetically, the downed AT-AT exploded, expending all its stored munitions in one blistering blast. Instead of destroying everything nearby, the blast was channeled along the trench and upward, enclosing the two nearby walkers, the stormtroopers firing from the guardrails, and the approaching TIE fighters. A new series of explosions followed the first, and the apprentice felt the superstructure kick beneath him. Fiery debris rained around them as they finally reached the hatch and threw themselves inside.

    The Force Unleashed

    Note: Only the toughest turbolasers can damage AT-ATs.

    No Caption Provided

    Galen uses telekinesis to create distractions.

    He sat under cover for a minute, considering his options, then backtracked to the last junction and slithered into a ventilation duct leading upward, to a ledge on which the cannons were mounted. He sneaked his nose out the far end and used telekinesis to create a distraction below. While the guards' attention was elsewhere, he slithered out and ran to the first of the cannons.

    The Force Unleashed

    Running lightly around the base of the tower, he approached the first clutch of sentries from behind. A judicious use of telekinesis triggered a life-support alarm a dozen clone tubes along, prompting a quick inspection by the stormtroopers. While they were distracted, he ran up the stairs they had been guarding, to the next platform.

    The Force Unleashed II

    Galen blows away debris hurled at him by Darth Vader.

    No Caption Provided

    He staggered backward and found himself at the center of a telekinetic storm. His Master seized on his momentary weakness and hurled missiles at him from all sides, hoping to keep him off his guard. For a moment, it worked.

    Then the apprentice straightened and, with a sweep of his left arm, blew the missiles away.

    The Force Unleashed

    (★) Galen stalemates Darth Vader in a telekinetic war.

    And there were ways to fight that didn't involve lightsabers. Loose objects, accelerated to killing speeds by the Force, became projectiles that converged from all directions. Invisible fists clutched for throats or punched with the power of pile drivers. Floors tipped underfoot; severed beams stabbed like javelins; overloaded circuits exploded.

    [...]

    "You can teach me nothing," Darth Vader's leaden voice intoned. One black glove clenched, and for a moment the apprentice's throat closed tight.

    He beat back the telekinetic attack with one of his own, shoving his Master in the chest with the force of a small explosion, throwing Darth Vader backward across the room.

    The Force Unleashed

    Note: Darth Vader is powerful enough to ragdoll Rahm Kota, who was able to stalemate the Apprentice at the beginning of The Force Unleashed, indicating Galen could also ragdoll Kota and his former self.

    Before anyone else could react, Kota whisked the lightsaber from Starkiller's belt and launched himself at the Dark Lord. Vader raised a hand and caught the general telekinetically about the throat. Kota dropped the lightsaber and desperately clutched at the invisible fingers choking him, but the pressure only increased. When his resistance was crushed, Vader threw him bodily toward the stormtroopers and turned his attention elsewhere.

    The Force Unleashed

    (★) Galen throws large pillars at Vader with enough force to grievously damage his armor.

    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation
    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation

    (★) Galen disarms and ragdolls an injured Darth Vader, battering him with debris.

    The Force Unleashed II comic adaptation
    The Force Unleashed II comic adaptation

    Vader prepared for combat again. His power over the apprentice, however, was gone. His lightsaber went skittering and sparking across the floor, twisted out of his grip by telekinesis. The Force wrenched him into the air, as he had once lifted the apprentice's father, and a barrage of missiles struck at him with increasing strength. He raised his gloved hands to defend himself, but the battery continued until, with a crash, the apprentice ripped the energy field generator in the center of the room right out of the floor and hurled it at his former Master.

    The generator exploded with greater force than he had expected, throwing him and everyone else to the floor. The transparisteel dome shattered. Debris rained everywhere. The sound of the explosion rang in his ears for an unnaturally long time afterward.

    The Force Unleashed

    Note: Even while injured, Darth Vader is powerful enough to bring down a cathedral that housed a labyrinth beneath it.

    Darth Vader and the Lost Command

    Galen tosses around Emperor Palpatine, although obviously he wasn’t resisting.

    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation
    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation

    Galen frees Senators Bail Organa, Garm Bel Iblis and Mon Mothma from their floating prisons.

    No Caption Provided

    Starkiller rips out a communications tower and throws it around.

    No Caption Provided

    He reached out with his hands and flexed his will. The Force responded, swelling and rising in him like an invisible muscle. A nearby communications tower groaned and twisted. Sparks flew. He wrenched the tower down and sideways, sweeping it over the platform, knocking the AT-STs into the ocean and crushing the stormtroopers gathering to rush him.

    The Force Unleashed II

    (★) Starkiller blows a huge-ass hole in a city on Cato Neimoidia.

    The Force Unleashed II comic adaptation

    Note: The object that the arrow points at is the Tarko-se arena, which is also massive, but clearly smaller than the hole Starkiller made in the city’s roof.

    No Caption Provided
    No Caption Provided

    Starkiller accelerates his fall.

    It was surprising just how far the Gorog had already fallen toward the gaping mouth of the sinkhole, but he refused to be discouraged. He dived in a straight line, using the Force to propel him through the whipping wind. He remembered with perfect clarity his former self's plummet to the surface of the incomplete Death Star, and hard on the heels of that memory came the sensation of Juno's lips against his. Longing for her filled him, driving him downward even faster.

    The Force Unleashed II

    Starkiller slows his and Kota’s fall.

    Starkiller put an arm around Kota's shoulders. Together they leapt off the Gorog's hand. Starkiller could slow their fall somewhat, but he couldn't fly. The beast fell ahead of them. Maybe, he hoped against hope, it would go some way toward arresting their impact.

    [...]

    Though Starkiller pushed down against the starship's hull with the Force to cushion their fall, they still hit the surface hard. Starkiller blinked away stars and groaned under the return of gravity.

    The Force Unleashed II

    Starkiller shakes the Rogue Shadow.

    From Dagobah to Malastare was a relatively short journey, but it seemed to take forever. With nothing to do but think and worry while the Rogue Shadow was in hyperspace, Starkiller paced relentlessly from one end of the ship to the other, turning over everything he had seen and felt on the swampy world receding behind him.

    "He has a healthy head start."

    "We've been breached. Troopers boarding!"

    Juno lying dead in his arms.

    "Whatever you have seen, follow it you must."

    He had gone to Dagobah hoping for clarity, and all he had received were visions and cryptic advice. Was he closer to Juno or getting farther away? Would he be able to save her, or was she already dead?

    The Force reflected his inner turmoil, sending occasional shudders and shakes through the ship. He tried his best to calm down. If his mood disrupted life support or the hyperdrive, he might not make it to Malastare at all.

    The Force Unleashed II

    (★) Starkiller wills the Rogue Shadow to fly straight against the gravitational disturbances of a nearby nebula.

    The ship shook, disturbed by the widely distributed mass of the nebula. He gripped the console, urging it to fly straight by the force of his will. This had to work. He had to arrive on time. There was simply no other option.

    The Force Unleashed II

    (★) Starkiller tries to pull Juno and Slave I to him but is interrupted.

    No Caption Provided

    Clinging to the edge of the cargo bay door, withstanding the emptiness of space, the doors that were trying to close on him, and the shots fired his way by the bounty hunter, was Starkiller. One hand reached for her, fingers straining as though clutching at something invisible. Through the Force, he was trying to bring her back.

    The whining of the grapnel reached a higher pitch. It was only a matter of time before something snapped - either the cable or the motor trying to reel it in. Juno had no doubt of that. Starkiller had shifted whole Star Destroyers. It would be nothing for him to overpower a single motor.

    The bounty hunter reached around her to push yet another button on his gauntlet. For a second it had no obvious effect. Then, in the cargo bay behind Starkiller, something vast and angular moved.

    Sparks flared. Starkiller turned with lightsabers swinging. The force pulling her back to safety faltered - and then died entirely as the cargo bay doors slammed shut between her and him.

    [...]

    Starkiller braved the hurricane pouring past him and skidded to the very edge of the air lock. There he found purchase against the bulkhead and stretched one hand out toward them. Again, he could have wrenched them back into the frigate without great difficulty, were it nor for fear of hurting Juno in the process. If he pulled too hard, she might be crushed. Also, the man holding her was armed and unafraid to use his weapon. If he turned the weapon on her, she might be killed before Starkiller could prevent it.

    Still he tried, straining against the cable winch and, when that proved too difficult, actually dragging the ship in toward the frigate. Why fight the winch when he could just as easily move the anchor it was attached to? The stocky ship rocked and swayed and began to creep toward him, Juno and her captor with it...

    Then a shadow fell across him from behind. His concentration wavered. Something was moving toward him. Nor a stormtrooper, visible or otherwise. It came from above, and got bigger the more it came into view.

    The Force Unleashed II

    Note:Slave I entered lightspeed as soon as Starkiller’s hold on itwas released, indicating Starkiller exerted enough force to prevent the ship from entering lightspeed.

    Starkiller believes he could vaporize cargo bay doors in an instant.

    Starkiller reached the cargo bay doors. They were locked, but that didn't slow him for longer than a second. Inert matter was no match for the Force, and therefore no obstacle to him. Had Juno not been on the other side, he would have vaporized it in an instant, sending scalding metal shrapnel flying all through the cargo bay.

    The Force Unleashed II

    (★) Starkiller believes he could atomize Boba Fett.

    It was a delaying tactic. Just like everything else had been, ever since Starkiller had engaged with the Imperials. Their leader, the bounty hunter, had wanted to grab Juno only in order to lure him elsewhere. He had never intended to engage directly with Starkiller. And that was a good call, for Starkiller would have blown him to atoms had he stood between him and her. Instead, the bounty hunter was forcing him to come face-to-face with the only man in the galaxy who had ever killed him.

    The Force Unleashed II

    (★) Starkiller telekinetically guides the descent of the Salvation while ragdolling Tantive IV’s, large portions of Star Destroyers as well as disintegrating asteroids, before finally atomizing the Salvation.

    Loading Video...
    No Caption Provided
    No Caption Provided
    The Force Unleashed II: Prima Official Game Guide
    The Force Unleashed II: Prima Official Game Guide

    Barely a minute into the dive, Starkiller knew he had to move. Nebulon-B frigates weren't designed for rapid reentry. Anything over eight hundred kilometers an hour risked tearing off control vanes and external sensors - and the Salvation was already doing far in excess of that.

    The ship shook and thundered. Strange screeching noises ran from nose to tail, as though it might tear apart at any moment. It would physically hold together long enough - he was sure of that, but the controls in the bridge were already approaching useless. The main display was full of static. He could barely make out the planet, let alone the location he was aiming for.

    He needed a better vantage point if he was going to pull this off.

    That he was effectively riding in a giant metal coffin was an additional thought he tried to suppress.

    The ship could fly itself for a short time. He had patched the navicomp into what remained of targeting computers, leaving him reasonably certain that it could point and thrust effectively while his hands were off the controls. He didn't want to leave it long, though, so he ran for the exit and headed upward as fast as he could, taking turbolift shafts and passages cur by the bounty hunter wherever he could. He ignored bodies, personal effects, fires - everything. Where doors or bulkheads lay in his path, he telekinetically ripped them aside and kept running.

    The ship lurched beneath him as he entered the upper decks. That, he presumed, was the result of the primary forward laser cannon being ripped away by the rising atmospheric friction. Its center of gravity perturbed, the ship began to sway from side to side. He tried not to imagine superheated air boiling up through the infrastructure from the hole left behind. He would be exposed to the same soon enough.

    He reached the freshwater tanks and began moving horizontally, toward the rear rather than forward. When he reached the surgery suite - even more of a bloody mess than it had been before - he headed upward again, to where the short-range communications array protruded from a bulge on the frigate's upper fore section.

    He could hear the air rushing past as he approached the outer hull. It sounded like a mad giant screaming.

    The ship lurched again, but less noisily this time. The rupture was more distant - probably the static discharge vanes on the aft section, he decided. That would rob the ship of even more stability.

    Even as he thought that, the Salvation began slewing from side to side.

    "Hang in there, " he told the ship. "I'm coming. "

    He found a maintenance ladder leading to an air lock and leapt up it in two bounds, blowing the inner hatch as he came. He could feel a wild drumming from the far side of the outer door. The ship was moving so fast now that unexposed flesh wouldn't last a microsecond. He would have to rely on a Force shield to keep him safe. A single lapse in concentration would be the end of him.

    He took a second to compose himself.

    For Juno.

    Then he raised a hand and telekinetically burst through the outer hatch.

    Instantly the world was fire. The air around the ship consisted of a blinding plasma, hotter than any ordinary flame. He forced his way into it, bracing himself against metal rungs that had turned instantly red on exposure to the outside. His eyes narrowed to slits in order to make out even the nearest outline. He could barely see the fingers in front of his face.

    He didn't need to see. The Force guided him, move by move, out onto the hull, where he braced himself with his back to the short-range array and turned to face forward. Like Kota, he would see without eyes.

    A trembling shape up and to his left chose that moment to give way, showering molten fragments all along the spine of the ship. The primary array was no great loss: he couldn't have heard anyone anyway over the racket in his ears. But the forward turbolasers and primary sensor unit, the next two chunks to go, were more of a concern. The ship was seriously unbalanced now. It shuddered underfoot, pulling wildly in different directions. If he was going to prevent it slipping into an uncontrollable rumble or rearing apart, he had to act quickly and decisively.

    This was where it got difficult. He needed to maintain the Force shield against the sort of hear he might find in the outer layers of a star. He also had to keep in mind the target ahead - a target he couldn't see through the plasma, but had to hit square-on or else the planetary shield generators wouldn't fail. No matter what happened, he had to fly straight.

    Starkiller took a deep breath. The cool trapped air behind the shield would last long enough, he hoped. He had been too worried about frying to consider suffocating to death.

    He raised his hands and spread his fingers wide. His eyes closed tightly against the fiery brightness of the plasma. With each bucking and shaking of the ship beneath him, he encouraged himself to ride with it instead of fighting it. He was part of the ship, not a passenger. He was the ship, not a reckless pilot guiding it to destruction.

    In the same way that he could feel his fingers and toes, his mind seeped outward into the metal and plastoid of the frigate, until every joint and weld, every porthole and deck became part of his sense of being. There was no line anymore between Starkiller and the Salvation. They were one and the same being, from the perspective of the Force.

    He raised his right arm, and the ship followed the movement, listing slowly and heavily to starboard. Some of the headlong shuddering faded, as though it were grateful to have someone at the helm again. Even the wind's shrieking seemed to ebb.

    Something tore away at aft of the ship, and he bent his knees slightly to absorb the shock.

    The Salvation steadied, found a new center of gravity, and roared on.

    Confident that his vast metal charge was now under control, he cast his mind outward. He was shocked by how far he had fallen. The Salvation must have punctured the planetary shield itself some time ago, and he simply hadn't noticed in all the turbulence. Now the cloud cover was less than a hundred meters below and coming up quickly. Behind the Salvation, a long fiery wake stretched across the sky, trailed by starfighters, and, farther back, capital ships on both sides, coming through the hole in the shield. The generators below would soon repair the hole, if he didn't guide his hurtling missile correctly, leaving the Rebel ships on the inside trapped, with him.

    Assuming he survived...

    For Juno.

    The frigate slammed into the clouds with a rearing sound. At that speed, individual droplets of water hit like thermal detonators. The Salvation's own shields were holding, barely, but even so it lost still more of its mass to the ongoing battering. Several lower decks peeled back and were swept away, including the bridge. Most of the short-range array was gone, leaving him with just the base to hold him steady. He clenched his hands into fists and willed the ship to keep going.

    Something succumbed to the plasma with a flash. A bright spark tumbled in his wake - the secondary reactor he had spent so much energy saving from the giant droid. He ignored it. The bottom of the cloud layer was approaching, and with it would come his first clear glimpse of the shield generators.

    The air became still and relatively quiet when the Salvation punched through the clouds. The extra friction had slowed the frigate somewhat, making it a more manageable beast. Starkiller opened his eyes and discovered that he could see over the bulge of the forward decks to his destination. Perhaps some of the hull had been ripped away there, too.

    The cloning facility lay spread out ahead of him. Had he wanted to, he could have hit it dead-center and wiped it off the face of Kamino. And had Juno not been inside, he would have been tempted. He felt no sentimental attachment to the place of his rebirth, and if there was any chance of taking out Darth Vader with it, all the better.

    His sole target, however, was the shield generator buildings, and at last he saw them, as clear as they had seemed from the bridge, directly ahead.

    Carefully, wary of putting too much strain on an already overtaxed chassis, he nudged the Salvations nose down. If he came in low and hit the ocean first, he could concentrate the damage to one location. If he overreached by so much as a degree, he might miss the ocean completely and scrape a long, fiery line right through the heart of the facility.

    The Salvation resisted. He pushed harder. The nose descended and held there for ten seconds, strain echoing all through the ship. It wasn't made for anything like this. Nothing larger than a starfighter was. Neither was he.

    With a bone-jarring crack, the spine connecting fore and aft sections of the frigate snapped clean through. Starkiller reached out with the Force, trying desperately to keep the two pieces together, but nothing could be done. They were already moving on slightly different trajectories. Air and debris sprayed from the great wound that separated them, providing entirely unpredictable thrust.

    Groaning, juddering, the fore section began to lift again. Starkiller didn't fight it. With so much mass already stripped from it, the damage it would do when it hit was negligible. The rear was the priority. The heavy engines and main reactor continued powering forward on the trajectory it had originally been following. Was that the right trajectory or not? Starkiller anxiously studied its fall, projecting it forward to the best of his senses.

    It looked good. He felt positive about it. Keeping an eye on the stubby rear section as it passed under him, he braced himself for impact. Barely a minute remained now. If he survived the crash, he would soon know whether he was right or not.

    Ahead, a series of cloning towers loomed, standing as upright and tall as wroshyr trees on Kashyyyk. The fore section he stood upon was going to come down among them, doing a considerable amount of damage in the process. Starkiller didn't mind. Until their memories were activated, clones weren't truly alive; they were little more than meat in suspended animation. And the technicians attending them were servants of the Empire, and therefore viable targets. Some of them, perhaps, were responsible for his birth, if clone he truly was, and for their complicity in Vader's twisted plans. He smiled as his fiery steed descended toward them, imagining them fleeing in the face of the meteor as it grew large in the sky.

    He could actually see tiny long-necked figures running through the complex, white-armored stormtroopers resolutely standing at their stations, and a black-robed figure looming high above them all, watching him approach.

    Vader.

    Below and slightly ahead, the engines struck the surface of the sea, sending a wave of superheated steam radiating outward along the wave tops.

    Starkiller couldn't take his eyes off his former Master. He was right in his path, and not even moving! For a moment Starkiller couldn't understand why - until, next to Vader, bound in shackles and so small he had barely noticed her, he saw-

    Juno.

    A huge eruption heralded the impact of the engines into the side of the shield generators. The sky and sea convulsed. A shock wave spread through the facility, making the cloning towers sway. The fore section of the Salvation rolled to starboard, but not by enough to miss the cloning towers. Its terminus was fixed.

    Just seconds remained before the Salvation's fore section hit Kamino. The facility was in close focus ahead of him, and he imagined he could see Juno's eyes widening on seeing him, haloed with his Force shield on top of her precious ship. Did she know it was him, or did she wonder at this strange apparition? Did she imagine that he was her death coming at last, from the skies instead of Darth Vader's hand?

    Starkiller closed his eyes. He didn't have time to wonder what was going through her mind. He had to think of something fast, or Juno was going to die.

    There was only one thing he could do, and although he knew he wasn't likely to survive, he didn't hesitate. What was death when the love of his former life was at stake? Besides, anything was possible. Dying, as he had thought once before, always seemed to bring out the best in him.

    With his mind and all the power of the Force, Starkiller embraced what remained of the frigate beneath him - and blew it into a billion pieces.

    [...]

    Juno was hypnotized by the fiery blaze in the sky. Ever since it had broached the cloud cover, two things had become clear. It was a ship, a big ship, and it was going to hit the facility. The roar it made vied with thunder for loudest sound in the sky. Lightning scattered from the disturbed clouds in its wake.

    Then the falling ship had split in two, with one half powering down at a steeper angle, and the other continuing onward. Only then had she realized that the second one was coming right for her.

    "Was this part of your plan?" she asked Vader, who still stood, unmoving, beside her.

    He didn't respond. Neither did he make any move toward the ramp that might take him to safety. Maybe, she thought, he had other means of protecting himself, means that neither she nor the stormtroopers possessed. She could see that they were getting nervous, too. The fiery balls grew brighter and brighter until they were almost too painful to look at. She refused to avert her eyes.

    The first came down hard and fast, striking a well-defended portion of the facility outside the dome immediately surrounding her. There was a bright flash of light. The boom followed later, along with a rising sensation that she assumed was the shock wave rolling through the flexible foundations of the ocean-bound facility. She could see the cloning towers swaying from side to side. A vast column of flash-boiled steam and wreckage rose up into the sky. Hot, damp air rushed outward in its wake.

    Still the other fragment of the ship came toward her. Seconds remained before it hit - not long enough to think anything coherent, barely time even to observe what was happening. The stricken ship was glowing red, with the last shreds of plasma still clinging to it like flames. Its class was almost unrecognizable, but she made out stumps that might once have been a communications array on the upper port side. That made it a Nebulon-B frigate, one of many EF76s in the service of either the Empire or the Rebel Alliance. It could have been any one of them.

    So why, then, did she feel a cold stab of certainty in her gut that this was none other than the Salvation?

    Her own ship was going to kill her.

    The irony wasn't lost on her.

    At the last instant she made out a tiny human figure standing on the upper hull. The flames and rushing wind swept past him, as though he were impervious to their touch. His arms were upraised in defiance and his head was tipped back so she couldn't see his face. But she knew. Just as she knew that it was the Salvation, she knew it was him.

    He would come for her in flames and smoke, wreaking destruction all around.

    Despite the apparent certainty of her death, she smiled. Either he would save her - in which case there was nothing to worry about - or he wouldn't, and she didn't want to live anyway.

    The ship was almost upon them when the figure brought his hands down in a fierce, pounding motion, and the last solid fragment of the Salivation exploded into fiery pieces.

    She had to close her eyes. The conflagration was too intense, and the sound was that of worlds ending. The cloning tower kicked beneath her. She was momentarily afraid that she might be falling with it into the sea. But then she was rising again, and she understood that the structure had survived, somehow, and so had she.

    Her eyelids flickered, braving the brightness that only slowly faded around her. A cloud of hot metallic fragments was spreading across the city. Dense splinters rained from it, hissing where they landed. Heavier fragments struck with more substantial thuds, near and far. None struck her. The rain ceased for a moment, and then returned, settling the cloud of dust still further. Of the Salvation, nothing at all remained.

    Darth Vader lowered the hand he had risen to shield his helmet and took stock around him. Juno did the same. Fires blazed in the wreckage where the rear half of the Salvation had come down. Alarms sounded through the facility, loud enough even for Juno's blast-numbed ears to hear them. Ash was settling on every horizontal surface and forming a thick, gray sludge.

    Above, the clouds, already disturbed by the Salvation's fiery passage, were being torn apart by a new outrage. Starfighters and capital ships powered down from orbit in large numbers, dodging and firing at one another as they went. Juno recognized more frigates, and dozens of Headhunter, Y-wing, and TIE fighters. There were bombers, cruisers, even Star Destroyers bringing up the rear. An all-out war was taking place above Kamino, between Imperial and Alliance forces, and it, too, was growing ever nearer.

    "I ask again, is this part of the plan?"

    Instead of answering, Vader stalked off, waving for the stormtroopers to remain where they were. When he was gone, they stationed themselves several paces away from her and carefully watched the perimeter around them. High above their heads, the secure facility's dome began to close.

    Juno coughed and wished she could wipe her eyes clear of ash. Her ship had blown itself practically to atoms; she had seen it happen, right in front of her. There was no chance at all that Starkiller could have survived. He had been riding right on top of it.

    But she knew as well as they did that this wasn't the end. He had come back from the dead sufficient times now to make anything possible. Anything at all.

    [...]

    Starkiller's eyes jerked open. Where was he? All was dark around him. He smelled smoke and his body felt as though it had been hit by an asteroid. The last thing he remembered was tightening the Force shield around him and destroying the Salvation so it wouldn't kill Juno. He was somewhere on Kamino, then. But his mind remained full of strange images and feelings that he had never experienced before.

    The Force Unleashed II

    Note: Given how we can see the final explosion be much larger than the Kaminoan cloning spires, which are as large as the wroshyr trees on Kashyyyk which in itself are many kilometers tall, we can estimate Starkiller’s explosion to be dozens of kilometers wide and around ten kilometers tall.

    Ahead, a series of cloning towers loomed, standing as upright and tall as wroshyr trees on Kashyyyk.

    The Force Unleashed II
    No Caption Provided
    Complete Locations
    Complete Locations

    (★) Starkiller manipulates a massive ship to create a bridge.

    Loading Video...

    (9:50)

    (★) Starkiller pulverized a legion of Galen Marek’s clones.

    He sought strength from within himself, and pushed outward with all his might. Clones went flying. The empty rubes from which they had emerged shattered into millions of pieces. Platforms buckled and fell with reverberant crashes. The interior of the cloning tower rang as though struck with a giant hammer. Every muscle in his body shook with the effort of it.

    The echoes faded, and he felt a peculiar kind of quiet descend.

    The air was misted red, and every surface was slick with blood. He tasted it on his tongue and smelled it in his nose. His blood. A veritable ocean of it.

    The Force Unleashed II

    Note: Galen’s clones possess their genetic host’s Force abilities.

    The Ultimate Visual Guide: Updated and Expanded
    The Ultimate Visual Guide: Updated and Expanded

    (★) Starkiller pushes blaster bolts mid-flight.

    They raised their weapons, took aim, and fired.

    It happened so fast she barely had time to flinch. Vader had been keeping her alive for so long now that it didn't seem entirely real that he would dispose of her so suddenly. She jerked forward as far as the shackles allowed her, straining to get away. Every muscle in her body tensed in readiness.

    The weapons' muzzles flashed...

    ...and at that very instant a massive force struck her and the guards, flinging her backward so hard she thought her chains might break her wrists. The stormtroopers effectively disappeared, swept off the top of the spire in an instant. The shots they had fired all missed, deflected by the powerful force, although one burned her right cheek as it went by. The four energy bursts followed wild trajectories, outward across the crowded sky.

    The Force Unleashed II

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    Force Lightning

    The Apprentice shocks PROXY out of his training module, damaging him badly.

    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation
    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation

    The Apprentice blasts one of Kota’s insurgents with lightning.

    A dozen open-helmeted men and women in brown combat uniforms - Kota's insurgents, the apprentice presumed - came down the hangar's primary access corridor, sealing the blast door behind them. Baring his teeth, he ran to meet them, eager to take the offensive. Their rifles were no match for the power of the Force. A single, powerful push scattered them like dolls. One he blasted with lightning. A second he choked until all consciousness fled. A third he swept up and pounded against the nearest bulkhead. The rest he dismembered with graceful aggression, ignoring their cries of fear and pain.

    The Force Unleashed

    The Apprentice blasts stormtroopers with lightning.

    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation

    Driving two stormtroopers ahead of him with the threat of Sith lightning, he pressed resolutely on.

    [...]

    Sith lightning crackled; bodies broke under his irresistible telekinesis; his mind influenced the decisions of officers, who ordered their underlings to attack one another in droves. None could stand up to him and survive.

    [...]

    DESOLATION. DESTRUCTION. DEATH.

    That's what I bring, the apprentice thought, wherever I go. Ten stormtroopers, a hundred, a thousand - the numbers don't matter, faceless, futureless, disposable, they're all the same to me.

    And that isn't power.

    He glanced behind him, at the swath he had cut through the Imperial forces. Wrecked walkers lay in smoking ruin, red-glowing gashes still visible in their armored exteriors. Stormtroopers lay in piles where they had died, futilely regrouping to turn back his advance. Choked, blasted with lightning, dismembered, they had at least met quick deaths. He had lost the stomach for prolonged engagement. He just wanted to get in and out and back to the ship - where a host of difficult problems remained, for certain, but at least he wasn't treading the same old territory.

    [...]

    The quartet had already started firing at stormtroopers converging on the scene. A furious exchange of blasterfire painted the air thick with energy. The apprentice deflected anything headed his way as he hacked into the side of the AT-AT and dropped into its munitions bay. The crew within was no threat, killed by the lightning, but he was careful not to knock any of the charges in case their contents had become unstable. He didn't want it to blow up just yet.

    The Force Unleashed

    Kota stood over the fallen troopers and pointed down into the shadows. Starkiller could see nothing with his eyes, but he drew the full power of the Force into his hands and blasted the empty air. Blue lightning made short work of the camouflage system of the trooper hiding there. He writhed and sparked until Starkiller released him, letting him drop heavily to the depths below.

    [...]

    Satisfied, he entered a narrow junction between that cloning tower and the one above it. There he met his first real opposition. Camouflaged troopers guarded a bottleneck between the towers. On seeing him, they opened fire immediately. He shocked their armor back into opacity and quickly dealt with them, but the damage had been done. Troopers above and below the junction knew he was there, and they converged on his location en masse.

    The Force Unleashed II

    The Apprentice blasts Kota with lightning.

    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation
    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation

    He raised his left hand and with the power of the dark side unleashed a bolt of Sith lightning at the renegade Jedi.

    Kota only laughed. Raising his left hand in a move that was a mirror image of the apprentice's own, he sent the lightning arcing back to its source. The energy struck both of them, hurling them apart.

    The Force Unleashed

    (★) The Apprentice powers a humongous corvette with lightning.

    On moving to another vantage point, the apprentice ascertained that the starship had at least one engine still in its housing, a bulky hyperdrive that seemed to be undamaged. Perfect.

    [...]

    He hurried by, into the bowels of the corvette. A ramp had been added to aid the Jawas in their exploration and evisceration of the ship. It led up at a shallow angle into a stack of collapsed levels that had once been the crew midsection. He ran lightly along it, making no sound at all.

    [...]

    A herd of Jawas ran by, squeaking, their glowing yellow eyes flashing on and off. He let them go, not having a second to spare, and followed the most likely route to the hyperdrive. When a pair of Rodians stepped out of a hole in the wall ahead of him, he didn't give them a chance to raise their blasters. He sliced one in two while the other fell back clutching his throat.

    "Are you having fun down there?" came Juno's voice over the comlink.

    "I'm making progress," he said as his objective came into sight. The turbines of the massive hyperdrive lay dead ahead, their shielding removed in preparation for extraction elsewhere. Naked conduits and cable bundles snaked into the walls or hung limp, severed, on the floor.

    [...]

    Another Rodian came running up the corridor behind him, firing at his back. He deflected the shots with his lightsaber and brought the ceiling down on the raider, effectively sealing himself into the hyperdrive access room. No matter. The walls were weak with metal fatigue. He could punch out in an instant when he was finished.

    Kneeling in front of the turbines, he took a handful of cables in both hands and called on the Force. Energy surged through him, making him stiffen. Sith lightning sparked from his skin and snaked through the ragged metal walls, floor, and ceiling. Distantly he heard screams as the many beings inside the wrecked corvette suffered from the aftereffects. He ignored them, along with the smell of smoke rising from his own tattered uniform.

    Focus, he told himself. Undirected power was power wasted. Gritting his teeth, he gathered the energy and directed it down his arms, into his hands. Blue light strobed across his vision as the lightning flowed into the wires and from there into the hyperdrive turbines. Groaning, then shrieking, the massive engine came alive. Damaged, completely out of alignment, and barely controllable, the turbine shook with propulsive power, then strained against the braces still holding it to the corvette's warped chassis.

    The deck kicked underneath the apprentice. He swayed as the entire corvette shifted. With a terrible sound, it began to move, plowing a brutal furrow through the surrounding rubbish. He could picture it clearly in his imagination and through the vibrant flow of the Force. As lightning poured through him and into the engine, it pushed the stricken corvette physically out of his path. The way to the Temple was now clear.

    When he sensed that it had gone far enough, he relaxed his concentration. Smaller discharges of energy skittered across his skin. Somewhat shakily, he stood, then almost toppled over as the engine continued to fire, sending the corvette onward, out of his control.

    He hadn't expected that. There was enough residual potential in the turbine to keep it running for dozens of seconds. He had to get out of the corvette before it dragged him any farther from his goal.

    Straining, he blew a hole in the side of the downed ship wide enough for a TIE fighter to pass through. The wall of a junk canyon was gliding by, raining rubbish. With one smooth leap, he caught hold of dangling cable and swung free of the wreck. It roared on, dragging itself through the dregs of the galaxy on its disintegrating belly, sending waves of disturbed filth radiating outward from its path.

    The Force Unleashed

    Note: The corvette was so large that it might have taken scavengers months to pick it apart, and it would have taken the Apprentice hours to get around it on foot.

    While she searched, he found them swarming over the corpse of a crashed starship that lay directly in his path - obviously the corvette she had mentioned earlier. From the vantage point of a teetering trash hill, he peered through electrobinoculars at the green-skinned aliens and the tribe of tiny, brown-robed Jawas they had coerced into service, either by bribes or threats of violence. There were dozens of them, with several tracked vehicles lined up to take their booty away. The Corellian corvette, its precise make rendered indeterminate by the damage it had sustained in the crash, was being sliced up for scrap, meter by meter, with delicate and therefore more valuable components removed before the cutting machines came in. The apprentice was put in mind of the creatures that fed on the bodies of whaladons when they drifted to the bottom of an ocean: in months or even weeks there might be nothing left of the starship at all except the crater it had made on falling.

    The apprentice didn't have months or weeks up his sleeve. The longer he roamed Raxus Prime, the greater the chances that he might be discovered.

    The starship lay directly between him and the Temple and was far too big to get around. That could take him hours. He would have to either go through the starship, or move it.

    A slow smile crept across his face. Why be coy? He was the apprentice of Darth Vader and a servant of the dark side. It didn't pay to creep about in fear of raising his head.

    The Force Unleashed

    So essentially, the Apprentice’s lightning generated enough joules for the corvette to move the same distance in seconds that would’ve taken the Apprentice’s Force-augmented speed hours, and had enough residual potency for the ship to have moved dozens of seconds even after that.

    The Apprentice blasts droids with lightning.

    Scattered Jawas in singed robes were clambering into their transports to give chase to the corvette. He ignored them, used Sith lightning to blast a dozen droids that rushed him with electric claws raised, then turned left where the corvette had formerly rested to resume his approach to the strange parody of the Jedi Temple.

    [...]

    Ki-Adi-Mundi he blasted with lighting before doing the same to Saesee Tiin, Agen Kolar, and Shaak Ti.

    [...]

    Reaching down for a cable, he sent a wave of Sith lightning through it. Lights flared and junctions sparked. The Core's processors shrieked at the sudden overload, and so did its servants. PROXY was one of them - and unlike the others, he was physically attached to the systems his master was assaulting, so the effects of the energy surge on him were severe. The hologram dissolved into static and his arms came up. Static electricity crackled from every joint.

    The Force Unleashed

    The rattling of tiny feet reached a crescendo. Five miniature versions of the huge droid rushed out of the hole on four sharp-tipped feet. He snapped out of his thoughts and ran forward to meet them, wearily grateful for the opportunity to act rather than think. The first two leapt at him, and he sliced them in pieces right out of the air. The other two split up and came for him from opposite sides. He met both advances with a lightsaber outstretched in each hand, using the Force to guide his blows. The droids shot piercing darts of energy in streams at him, trying to get through his guard. They, too, were immune to their own reflected fire, so instead of pursuing that tactic he danced closer to one and sliced its domed midsection in two, then brought his free hand around to blast the other with lightning. The miniature droid went wild, spinning in circles and sending energy darts about the cargo bay. Its green eyes glowed blue, then purple, and then its head exploded. Tiny bits of metal rained all over the hold with an almost musical sound.

    The Force Unleashed II

    The Apprentice blasts Kazdan Paratus with lightning, first in his mech and then the actual being.

    No Caption Provided

    Ducking under the swinging blades, he sent bolt after bolt of lightning into the massive wound he had made, while battering it with panels ripped from the walls and hurled with every iota of energy he could muster.

    Finally it weakened. Listing heavily on its left side and missing one of its axes, it staggered ponderously backward across the foyer.

    [...]

    Outside his droid golem shell, however, Paratus was more vulnerable to Sith lightning. What he couldn't absorb into the junk metal burned him and left him writhing in pain. The apprentice sent bolt after bolt hurtling into the tiny figure. It almost seemed that the fight would be over before it had really begun.

    The Force Unleashed

    The Apprentice kills Felucian warriors with lightning.

    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation
    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation

    THE APPRENTICE DUCKED ANOTHER BOLT of Force energy hurled by the Felucian warrior to his right and sent a jagged line of Sith lightning crackling across the distance between them. The warrior dropped dead to the ground but two more leapt out of the bushes behind him, waving their bone swords and howling in their strange, guttural language.

    [...]

    Two against one was a fairer fight. Soon a rotting branch he brought down made it even. Sith lightning finished off the last, although he had to strain until the creature's headdress caught fire before it finally died. The smoke was foul.

    The Force Unleashed

    The Apprentice kills a rancor with lightning.

    Once the rider was dispatched, he brought down the rancor with a stream of Sith lightning that made its eyes shine like the headlights of a city speeder. It died with a roar that echoed through the jungle.

    The Force Unleashed

    The Apprentice hurts a sarlacc with lightning.

    In desperation, he summoned a bolt of Sith lightning and sent it down, into the flesh of the sarlacc. The beast roared and shook, giving him the opening he needed.

    [...]

    The apprentice was running out of teeth to sever, so he resorted more and more frequently to Sith lightning and random slashes of his lightsaber to keep it twitching underfoot.

    The Force Unleashed

    Starkiller blasts Juno’s cell with lightning.

    No Caption Provided

    The droid tottered off through the air lock while the apprentice deactivated his lightsaber and looked around for the magna lock generator. It had to be there somewhere, a big one, sufficient to power all the restraints in all the cells. The air was becoming fumy and thick, and the flashing lights made it hard to concentrate. Thick bundles of cables snaked along the walls and under metal grilles. He traced them as best he could to their source, a large boxy structure fixed to a wall two doors along.

    He didn't have time to perform a thorough investigation. It was the right size, so he would have to chance it. Raising both hands, he sent a wave of lightning through it, causing it to blacken and smoke. Current surged along the wires, sending out showers of sparks. Juno cried out in sudden pain.

    The Force Unleashed

    Starkiller blasts Uggernaughts with lightning.

    The mechanical "Uggernaughts" were heavily armored and armed both. His first priority was to knock them out. He pushed one onto its side with the Force and overloaded the electrical systems of the second, encouraging the stormtroopers in scatter. The smell of scorched Ugnaught fur made the cantina smell even worse. From outside, he could already hear the clanking of reinforcements.

    [...]

    Chased by blasterfire, he ran across the room in three steps and leapt onto the nearest Uggernaught. Lightsaber flashing, he cut the pilot and the gunner free and used the Force to crudely turn the machine about. Its weapons barked and sent its siblings reeling backward, showering sparks.

    The Force Unleashed

    Starkiller easily overpowers a Shadow Guard in a lightning lock and kills him.

    A bolt of Sith lightning shot from the hand not holding the staff. The apprentice grinned, having anticipated that tactic. He met the lightning bolt with one of his own. They collided in a spitling, tackling ball of pure energy that danced crazily from side to side. The air filled with the sharp stink of ozone.

    The hooded assassin grunted and applied more effort. The apprentice met that effort and exceeded it. The ease with which he drove his assailant's lightning back surprised him. For one wielding a Sith blade, the man he was fighting had less power than he should have.

    The ball of energy where their crackling bolts met drifted closer and closer to the black guard. He grunted audibly and leaned physically forward with both hands upraised, one in a shaking claw and the other stabbing the saber-staff into the beam, adding its energy to his desperate attack. To no avail. The ball inexorably approached, driven by the dark power of the apprentice's will. When it touched the hilt of the black guard's saber-staff, all its pent-up energy was drawn into him.

    With a truncated shriek the guard flew out the open dock and buttered away, dead before his feet even left the ground.

    The Force Unleashed

    Starkiller has a lightning clash with another Shadow Guard.

    Out of the cloud of metal fragments leapt a second of the Emperor's Sith assassins, saber-staff upraised. The apprentice met him with a clash of sparks and lightning.

    The Force Unleashed

    Starkiller blasts an AT-ST with lightning.

    The apprentice spun and opened his eyes a split second before they collided. Raising his free hand, he sent a powerful bolt of lightning into the buckling armor shells. The energy raced along wires and cables deep into the cargo bays and ammunition stores, tripping safeties and triggering detonators. Energy begat energy.

    The Force Unleashed

    Starkiller blasts an Imperial Guard with lightning.

    The Imperial Guard lasted barely as long, felled with four swift lightsaber strokes then shocked with lightning as he dropped backward to the ground.

    The Force Unleashed

    (★) Galen Marek blasts Maris Brood with lightning, burning her skin badly.

    No Caption Provided
    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation

    When she turned to run, he struck her in the back with Sith lightning and she fell sprawling to the bones.

    The Force Unleashed

    Note: Galen likens Brood’s power to his own self when he was consumed by the dark side, so roughly around the power level he possessed when he fought Shaak Ti.

    He was fighting himself - but not in some flashback-inspired hallucination, where the Jedi and the Sith warred in him for control of his future. This time the fight was real, and his opponent was as joyously rich in the dark side as he had ever been.

    The Force Unleashed

    (★) Galen powers a cannon with lightning that is powerful enough to tear a hole straight through an Imperial Star Destroyer and destroy the orbital Star Destroyer shipyard.

    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation

    Note: The shipyard in question was larger than any structure Juno Eclipse had ever seen, including Kazdan Paratus’ scrap Jedi Temple which she concluded to be exactly the same size as the real one, and Darth Vader’s flagship the Executor which is 19 000 meters long.

    THE SHIPYARD ROSE UP OVER the planet's filthy horizon like some strange, mechanical moon. Disk shaped, with complex docks and cranes radiating from its outer edge, it was by far the largest artificial structure she had ever seen. Over a dozen Star Destroyers were currently in dry dock: one nearly complete, the others triangular shells at various stages of manufacture. Giant balls of ore floated near the station, awaiting refinement. Huge arcing sparks shot from the Star Destroyers as massive, complicated machines welded panels in place.

    The Force Unleashed

    Galen blasts Rodians with lightning.

    The apprentice didn't waste any time following up on that surprise. Lightsaber cutting aqua arcs through the air, he struck down any Rodians who managed to get to their feet. Their alien squeals and cries grew louder when he started using Sith lightning to drive them ahead of him up the tunnel. Drexl ran at the head of the pack, exhorting his underlings to fire behind them as they fled. Any bolts that did come the apprentice's way he managed to send back at their source, prompting renewed cries of alarm and panic.

    The Force Unleashed

    Galen blasts a Shadow Guard with lightning.

    No Caption Provided

    (★) Galen melts the Core’s entire network to slag.

    It was already over, but the Core still had some fight left. Hundreds of slave droids converged on the apprentice, hoping to crush him under their combined weight before he could reach the nearest processor. He blew them away with a single push and slashed open the processor's casing. Ignoring the hot metal edges, he pushed his left hand into the workings inside.

    Lightning surged through him and all the processors making up the Core's network. He projected all his anger and grief into the surge, and the strength of it surprised even him. For PROXY, for Juno, for Kota, and for himself he fried the planetwide mind into slag.

    Slave droids jerked about in a ghastly dance. The sound they made was awful to hear, the dying scream of a mind that had never before had to contemplate its own demise. It should have been immortal. It had planned to rule the galaxy. Now it was just a tangle of wires experiencing a brainstorm that would inevitably destroy it.

    "Order!" it roared and raged. "Order must be restored!"

    The paroxysm of the droids took minutes to ebb, during which time the apprentice kept up the blistering power of his rage, ensuring that he erased every last trace of the memories pulled from PROXY'S braincase. Nothing of him would remain there. The Emperor would never know how forces had gathered to unseat him, for good or for ill. There would be no witnesses, living or droid.

    When the last metal body was still and silent, along with all the processors and every blinking light, he let himself sag down onto his knees, then slip around with his back against the processor's plastic casing. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

    Was that enough? Would anything more be asked of him today? He was so tired. A week of sleep might not revive him.

    The Force Unleashed

    Note: The Core’s network is spread out across all of Raxus Prime. So Galen pretty much spread his lightning across the entire planet.

    "Master," said the droid, "I'm picking up Imperial transmissions from the planet itself. They appear to originate in the sentient computer core."

    "According to the records I've been able to access, the Empire has reprogrammed the Core to move salvage toward the smelting pits. All the data banks I have accessed so far suggest that, apart horn this new allegiance, it's harmless."

    "Hah," said Kota. "There's no such thing as a harmless computer. That thing probably knows everything that happens on the surface of the planet."

    [...]

    He leapt out of PROXY'S reach and into the clamoring mob of slave droids. Swinging his lightsaber wildly around him, he cut cables and sliced through processors with abandon. Surges of electronic thought seared the air as droids rushed him all at once. He blew them back and thrust his blade deep into a bank of processors.

    "Does that hurt?" he asked the Core.

    "I do not feel pain," said the Core through PROXY'S vocoder, "and my thoughts encompass the entire planet. Nothing you accomplish in this room will make a difference."

    [...]

    The apprentice didn't waste energy on speech, blocking each of the Core's moves and driving the droid a step backward. Frustration made him strong, even if he presently had no outlet for that strength. Bringing down the ceiling could kill both of them and probably wouldn't have a profound effect on the Core. If it really was distributed across the entire planet, it could be unkillable.

    [...]

    He projected all his anger and grief into the surge, and the strength of it surprised even him. For PROXY, for Juno, for Kota, and for himself he fried the planetwide mind into slag.

    [...]

    This was his most challenging test. Killing Jedi had been easy by comparison. Destroying Imperial factories, likewise. Bringing down skyhooks and Star Destroyers, convincing would-be rebels of his sincerity, dueling planetary minds and other servants of the dark side - all in a day's work.

    The Force Unleashed

    Galen blasts a Mandalorian with lightning.

    No Caption Provided

    (★) Galen disables an AT-AT with lightning.

    Automated weapons emplacements spotted him instantly. Red weapons fire stitched lines of explosions across the station's patchwork hull as he ducked between the AT-AT's massive legs. Scooping up components from the nearest construction conveyor belt, he threw a series of high-speed missiles at the turrets, knocking five out of commission. A stream of Sith lightning put the AT-AT itself out of action, and a good, solid shove tipped it over with a crash, providing cover for the Wookiees when the time came to cross.

    The Force Unleashed

    Note: Only the toughest turbolasers can damage AT-ATs.

    No Caption Provided

    (★) Galen blasts Darth Vader with lightning.

    Loading Video...

    (18:40)

    No Caption Provided
    The Force Unleashed II comic adaptation

    Reaching out with his left hand, he blasted his Master with Sith lightning. That broke the momentum of the furious onslaught, enabling him to stand and catch his breath.

    The Force Unleashed

    Before Vader could strike, Starkiller turned. He didn't activate his own lightsabers. Vader would expect be expecting that - a defensive pose, or at best a halfhearted attack. Starkiller would surprise him with the one weapon Vader couldn't wield in return.

    A burst of lightning arced from Starkiller's fingers. Too late, the Dark Lord raised his lightsaber to catch the attack. Lightning crawled up and down his chest plate and helmet, provoking a painful whine from his breathing apparatus. The servomotors in his right arm strained.

    Starkiller had only a split second before his former Master repelled the attack. The Force flowed through him. Droid parts and debris rose up and spun around the room. With a harsh rending sound, the metal wall burst outward, letting in the fury of the storm.

    But even in the grip of his passions he knew that there was a difference. He was intimately familiar with what being driven by negative emotions felt like. His original had been a slave to the dark side until Juno and Kota had shown him how to be free. That legacy remained even now. He would choose the emotions that ruled him. He would not be a slave to them.

    The dark side tugged at Starkiller, and it was hard to resist. He hated his former Master. He feared for Juno. He doubted the very fact of his existence. Killing the man who had created him would go some way to solving at least two of those problems. The temptation was very strong.

    Vader's blade caught the edge of the lightning. The Dark Lord began to straighten.

    [...]

    But the same was true in reverse. And when Vader forced Starkiller onto his back foot and raised his lightsaber to strike him down, Starkiller fired a lightning blast into the side of Vader's armor that was so concentrated, even the new insulation couldn't absorb it.

    The Dark Lord stiffened, betrayed by his extensive prosthetics. The distraction lasted only a moment, but it was enough. Starkiller knocked his blade out of the way and moved in to strike.

    [...]

    With both hands he sent a wave of lightning into the sparking gash Juno had made in Vader's chest plate.

    The Dark Lord staggered backward, transfixed by the unexpected retaliation. Starkiller leapt to his feet and followed him, keeping up the lightning attack and using telekinesis to rip Vader's lightsaber from his temporarily weakened fingers. Sheers of energy spread our across the wet rooftop. Smoke and steam rose up in a tortured spiral. The grating whine of Vader's respirator rook on a desperate edge.

    He went down on one knee. Starkiller stood over him. Vader's lightsaber swept into his former apprentice's hand. The blade came to rest at his throat.

    Starkiller stared into the black mask, breathing heavily. One twitch of the blade and Vader would be dead at last.

    The Force Unleashed II

    Galen blasts Emperor Palpatine with lightning.

    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation
    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation

    (★) Starkiller atomizes armored stormtroopers with lightning.

    No Caption Provided

    (★) Starkiller splits an Imperial Star Destroyer in half with a concentrated ball of lightning.

    Loading Video...

    (18:09)

    Note: At 18:09 we see how a normal shot from the cannon does absolutely nothing to an ISD's shields. At 18:15, a shot from the ISD disables the Salvation's cannon, so Rahm Kota tells Starkiller to fire it by hand, which he does at 18:36, resulting in the complete destruction of the ISD. The Prima Official Game Guide for the game also clarified that he did power the cannon with his lightning.

    The Force Unleashed II: Prima Official Game Guide
    The Force Unleashed II: Prima Official Game Guide

    Now, I'm not the most knowledgeable fleet guy, but from what I can tell, a Star Destroyer's shields are potent enough to take fire from other capital ships for lengthy periods of time as we see during the Battle of Coruscant. Turbolasers of an Acclamator-class military transport also yield 200 gigatons of force per shot, and the Venator-class Star Destroyers, Recusant-class light destroyers, and Munificent-class star frigates being equipped with multiple such turbolasers.

    Incredible Cross-Sections Episode II: Attack of the Clones
    Incredible Cross-Sections Episode II: Attack of the Clones
    Incredible Cross-Sections Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

    To put that into perspective, If I were to drop a nuke with 200 gigatons on top of New York, the resulting blast would look something like this:

    No Caption Provided

    Even if you're skeptical of using calcs as legitimate indicators of power (even though these numbers are part of Legends), we have examples of ISD's being capable of destruction on the scale that is right in line with the numbers in Incredible Cross-Sections.

    Imperial Sourcebook
    Imperial Sourcebook

    ”We failed to destroy it last time.”

    “We can reduce a planet to molten slag from orbit. Let's not rule out the possibility of needing to do that to Centerpoint—even if it would be best preserved to defend the Alliance.”

    “It's populated,” said Luke.

    “So are warships.” Omas interrupted, looking at his chrono.

    Legacy of the Force: Bloodlines

    So in order to blow up an Imperial Star Destroyer and penetrate the shields of one, Starkiller would have to generate continental levels of firepower with his lightning.

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    Azronger

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    Force Defence

    The Apprentice deflects the explosion of a railgun charge with a Force Barrier.

    On the floor of a massive starfighter assembly rig, he stopped with his head raised and his lightsaber cocked. A prickling in the back of his neck warned him of a new threat just as a railgun charge exploded to his right, sending bits of TIE fighter in all directions. He deflected the main force of the explosion, but was still stung by tiny pieces of shrapnel down the back of his right hand.

    The Force Unleashed

    Galen Marek repulses hot gases in a sphere around him.

    As he turned to it, he became aware of the clanking of an AT-ST coming from behind him. He turned just in time to deflect a barrage of precision weapons fire from the nose of a walker that was sprinting at him as fast as its two mechanical legs could run. A flurry of concussion grenades followed.

    He detonated them all before they could arrive and repulsed the furious blossoming of hot gases in a sphere around him.

    The Force Unleashed

    Galen deflects rubble with a Force Barrier as he falls down the Death Star.

    Loading Video...

    (6:15)

    He positioned himself at the edge of the ramp. The taste of her was still strong on his lips. Despite everything, he smiled.

    "Goodbye, Juno."

    Before she could say anything, he turned and dived with arms outstretched into the roiling atmosphere. Glowing gold with the protective power of the Force, he fell as straight and free as an arrow toward the surface of the Death Star below.

    [...]

    The apprentice wove around bundles of giant metal girders and other debris as he fell, trusting in the Force to protect him from the worst of it. As he neared the surface of the Death Star, he flipped upside down so he was descending feet-first and braced himself for impact.

    He came down securely on the gray hull in a clear patch between two major construction sites. His lightsaber was instantly in his hand. Glancing upward just once, he failed to make out the Rogue Shadow among all the other mobile stars above. If Juno had any sense, he thought, she was already well away from the battle station and heading for safety.

    Be safe, he wished her. Be well.

    The Force Unleashed

    (★) Galen contains Emperor Palpatine’s Force lightning with Force Deflection and walks through the attack to reach the Emperor.

    Loading Video...

    (0:40)

    Loading Video...

    (9:35)

    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation

    "You fool!" snarled the Emperor, sending another wave of Sith lightning into Kota's back. "He will never be yours."

    Kota fell with his arms upraised, and the apprentice knew that it wasn't over yet. The moment of truth had arrived.

    Without hesitation, he stepped between Kota and the Emperor, taking the full brunt of the Sith lightning into his own body.

    The pain was incredible, searing every nerve back to its individual cells, skewering each of them on white-hot needles. He had never before felt anything like this. He wanted to recoil from the source, to curl into a ball and let unconsciousness take the pain away, but somehow he stayed standing, seeing the world through a crackling blue light, and even took a step toward the Emperor.

    "Go!" he hissed at Kota. "Hurry!"

    The general hesitated only for a moment. He, too, had seen a glimpse of the future, the apprentice remembered. He knew that it came down to a simple choice: him and the Rebels or the apprentice and darkness forever. Gathering up the Rebels, Kola ushered them toward the descending ship.

    Another staggering, painful step and the Emperor was within the apprentice's reach. With shaking fingers, he took the old man's bony shoulders in his hands and gripped them tight. The Sith lightning spread to engulf the two of them, fueled by both their desperations. The Emperor tipped back his head and howled in lascivious pain. Darkness threatened to envelop the apprentice's mind, but he clutched to consciousness with feverish will. He had to see this through. He had to.

    The Force Unleashed

    Note: Emperor Palpatine is the most powerful Sith Lord and dark side Force wielder in history, meaning that by virtue of this feat, Galen can at least contend with any Force user who has existed up to that point.

    “Plagueis the Wise, who in his time truly was, except at the end, trusting that the Rule of Two had been superseded, and failed to realize that he would not be excused from it. Plagueis the Wise, who forged the most powerful Sith Lord the galaxy has ever known, and yet who forgot to leave a place for himself; whose pride never allowed him to question that he would no longer be needed.”

    Darth Plagueis
    Darth Maul: Sith Apprentice
    Darth Maul: Sith Apprentice
    No Caption Provided
    Attack of the Clones: The Visual Dictionary
    Attack of the Clones: The Visual Dictionary
    The Clone Wars: Masters of the Force
    The Clone Wars: Masters of the Force

    Yoda was a master at masking his emotions, but not even he could hide them from the greatest Sith Lord ever known.

    The Clone Wars: Wild Space
    Revenge of the Sith Collection: The Sith
    Revenge of the Sith Collection: The Sith

    Their clash transcended the personal; when new lightning blazed, it was not Palpatine burning Yoda with his hate, it was the Lord of all Sith scorching the Master of all Jedi into a smoldering huddle of clothing and green flesh.

    Revenge of the Sith
    Jedi Battles
    Jedi Battles
    Insider #86
    Insider #86
    The New Essential Chronology
    The New Essential Chronology
    The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
    The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
    Epic Battles
    Epic Battles
    Legends Epic Collection: The Empire Volume #1
    Legends Epic Collection: The Empire Volume #1

    Note: Yoda was unable to advance on the Emperor as much as Galen, being overwhelmed and blown out of the fighting stage.

    Hurling Force lightning, the Emperor backed away, to the very edge of the platform. Following him was like walking against hurricane winds. Never had Yoda faced one so strong in the dark side. Before he came within reach, a particularly strong blast knocked Yoda out of the pod.

    Revenge of the Sith junior novelization

    Note: Sidious’ lightning is powerful enough to bend lightsaber blades, meaning its potency outstrips that of lightsaber plasma, meaning Galen was handling energies more lethal than a lightsaber.

    Now Anakin was at Mace's shoulder. Palpatine still made no move to defend himself from Skywalker; instead he ramped up the lightning bursting from his hands, bending the fountain of Mace's blade back toward the Korun Master's face.

    Palpatine's eyes glowed with power, casting a yellow glare that burned back the rain from around them. "He is a traitor, Anakin. Destroy him."

    "You're the chosen one, Anakin," Mace said, his voice going thin with strain. This was beyond Vaapad; he had no strength left to fight against his own blade. "Take him. It's your destiny."

    [...]

    Mace's blade bent so close to his face that he was choking on ozone. "Anakin, he's too strong for me—"

    Revenge of the Sith

    Starkiller shields himself from the effects of missiles with a Force Barrier.

    Missiles from the newly arrived pair peppered him, filling the air with smoke. His Force shield kept the worst of their effects at bay, and he pressed forward, reaching out to telekinetically crush the missile launchers and trigger the remaining charges. With a bright flash and a deafening boom, the last of his obstacles disappeared.

    The Force Unleashed II

    (★) Starkiller blocks the Gorog’s fists with a Force Barrier, with them having the force to “crack a moon in two.”

    Both fists came for him, converging with enough force to crack a moon in two. He stood his ground, adding his defiant shout to the creature's angry roaring. The fists came together, making Starkiller's world shake, but he went unharmed behind the strongest Force barrier he could muster. When the fists lifted, he found himself buried almost a meter deep in a gravel pit of shattered rock.

    The Force Unleashed II

    Note: This is the Gorog:

    No Caption Provided

    The Gorog had enough strength in its fists to utterly crush a bull rancor.

    The Force Unleashed II: Prima Official Game Guide
    The Force Unleashed II: Prima Official Game Guide

    A series of thudding clangs came from a vast gate on the other side of the arena, and the huge metal doors began to open. From the darkness on the other side came a vicious snarl.

    Starkiller turned to face the latest threat.

    "Why don't you sit this one out, General?"

    Kota gripped Starkiller's shoulder and bared his teeth. "Never. I've got a score to settle. "

    Something moved on the other side of the gates. Something heavy and bestial and very, very big.

    Starkiller grinned back, although he didn't know what was funny. He wanted to ask about Juno, but just then wasn't the time. "You were never very good at taking orders. "

    Out of the darkness thundered a bull rancor, roaring and spraying drool. Starkiller came forward three paces, putting himself squarely between the beast and Kota, feeling nothing but confidence. On Felucia, his former self had defeated just such a beast. This one, he was sure, would prove to be as significant a foe. He raised his lightsaber to strike.

    There was something wrong with the way it was running, though. Its eyes were wide and staring, but they weren't quire focusing on either Starkiller or Kota, and the light he saw in them wasn't fury. It was something else, something Starkiller didn't immediately comprehend.

    "I don't care whether the restraints have been tested or not, " boomed the voice a second time. "Open the Gorog gate now!"

    Starkiller recognized the voice as belonging to the potentate who had "welcomed" him on the landing deck, and heard another loud clang. The bull rancor glanced over its shoulder, and Starkiller realized then that it wasn't running toward him, but away from something else.

    The look in its eyes was fear.

    Through the open gate behind the rancor came a giant hand, attached to an arm as thick as a small cruiser. Each clawed finger was as long as a starfighter. With surprising speed, it reached out and snatched the bull rancor off the floor of the arena, right in front of them, and pulled it screaming back into the darkness. Something crunched, and the screams were cut off. Bones cracked and splintered with a sickening sound. Sinewy tissue stretched and tore.

    The crowd was utterly silent, now. Not a soul moved.

    Starkiller backed up a step, staring up into the shadows in shock. What exactly had he just seen? Was it a hallucination?

    An earsplitting roar came from the darkness, and he braced himself to find out.

    The Force Unleashed II

    Considering that bull rancors are lightsaber-resistant, yet the Gorog crushed one anyway, Starkiller would have blocked a force greater than lightsaber plasma with his Force Barrier.

    His head ringing, the apprentice burrowed out from under the bone pile barely in time to avoid a giant clawed foot crashing down on him. He ran between the enormous legs and away from the swishing tail, slashing as he went, but the creature's skin was so thick it didn't even bleed. Surmounted with tusks and horns longer than he was, the brute - clearly a bull of the species - was by far the biggest living thing he had ever seen. Armor plating thicker than some starship hulls protected its neck and head. Its every movement was ponderous but powerful. It stank of alien flesh and the dark side. The imbalance that had tipped Maris Brood against the Jedi had also turned what had probably once been a noble beast into an insatiable monster.

    And now he had to kill it. His mind was undivided on that point, even if the precise details eluded him. It had his scent now and all the malicious will of Maris goading it to attack. Between grasping hands and cracking tail, he was going to have a hard time just getting near it. When he tried tipping it over with the Force, it simply roared at him in annoyance. Sith lightning glanced off its armored hide like water. He could slash at it with his lightsaber for years and have no effect. Its mind was small and already consumed by Maris's will.

    The Force Unleashed

    Starkiller shields himself from having every bone in his body broken by the Gorog’s fists with a Force Barrier.

    The eye rolled, fixed him in its black stare. The pupil tightened. It had seen him. Before Starkiller could move, one mighty hand came from behind him and, with the force of a mass-drive cannon, swept him from his precarious perch.

    For a moment he was both weightless and stunned. The world turned around him, and he thought he heard Juno saying, "Have you done this before?" and himself responding, "Trust me. I'm doing the right thing, for both of us. "

    Then he hit the stadium, and only a Force-barrier reflex honed by thousands of hours of punishing training stopped him from breaking every bone in his body.

    The Force Unleashed II

    Starkiller shields himself from Boba Fett’s missile with a Force Barrier.

    And he had seen her, briefly, face white and spattered with her own blood, eyes wide and staring at him in utter disbelief. What was going through her mind he could not begin to guess. Joy? Confusion? Relief? Doubt? They had only locked stares for a moment before the man who had taken her captive pushed her out of sight. Then he had fired a missile at Starkiller's feet that had blown a massive hole in the frigate. Starkiller had thrown up a Force shield at the last instant, but had still found himself four decks away when the blast dissipated. By the time he had retraced his steps, Juno was gone.

    The Force Unleashed II

    Starkiller ranks repeated blaster fire with a Force Barrier.

    No Caption Provided

    (★) Starkiller shields himself from atmospheric re-entry, which greatly damages the Salvation and is heat comparable to the outer layers of suns. He then blows the Salvation to atoms and shields himself from the explosion. These are applications of Force Barrier.

    Loading Video...
    No Caption Provided

    Barely a minute into the dive, Starkiller knew he had to move. Nebulon-B frigates weren't designed for rapid reentry. Anything over eight hundred kilometers an hour risked tearing off control vanes and external sensors - and the Salvation was already doing far in excess of that.

    The ship shook and thundered. Strange screeching noises ran from nose to tail, as though it might tear apart at any moment. It would physically hold together long enough - he was sure of that, but the controls in the bridge were already approaching useless. The main display was full of static. He could barely make out the planet, let alone the location he was aiming for.

    He needed a better vantage point if he was going to pull this off.

    That he was effectively riding in a giant metal coffin was an additional thought he tried to suppress.

    The ship could fly itself for a short time. He had patched the navicomp into what remained of targeting computers, leaving him reasonably certain that it could point and thrust effectively while his hands were off the controls. He didn't want to leave it long, though, so he ran for the exit and headed upward as fast as he could, taking turbolift shafts and passages cur by the bounty hunter wherever he could. He ignored bodies, personal effects, fires - everything. Where doors or bulkheads lay in his path, he telekinetically ripped them aside and kept running.

    The ship lurched beneath him as he entered the upper decks. That, he presumed, was the result of the primary forward laser cannon being ripped away by the rising atmospheric friction. Its center of gravity perturbed, the ship began to sway from side to side. He tried not to imagine superheated air boiling up through the infrastructure from the hole left behind. He would be exposed to the same soon enough.

    He reached the freshwater tanks and began moving horizontally, toward the rear rather than forward. When he reached the surgery suite - even more of a bloody mess than it had been before - he headed upward again, to where the short-range communications array protruded from a bulge on the frigate's upper fore section.

    He could hear the air rushing past as he approached the outer hull. It sounded like a mad giant screaming.

    The ship lurched again, but less noisily this time. The rupture was more distant - probably the static discharge vanes on the aft section, he decided. That would rob the ship of even more stability.

    Even as he thought that, the Salvation began slewing from side to side.

    "Hang in there, " he told the ship. "I'm coming. "

    He found a maintenance ladder leading to an air lock and leapt up it in two bounds, blowing the inner hatch as he came. He could feel a wild drumming from the far side of the outer door. The ship was moving so fast now that unexposed flesh wouldn't last a microsecond. He would have to rely on a Force shield to keep him safe. A single lapse in concentration would be the end of him.

    He took a second to compose himself.

    For Juno.

    Then he raised a hand and telekinetically burst through the outer hatch.

    Instantly the world was fire. The air around the ship consisted of a blinding plasma, hotter than any ordinary flame. He forced his way into it, bracing himself against metal rungs that had turned instantly red on exposure to the outside. His eyes narrowed to slits in order to make out even the nearest outline. He could barely see the fingers in front of his face.

    He didn't need to see. The Force guided him, move by move, out onto the hull, where he braced himself with his back to the short-range array and turned to face forward. Like Kota, he would see without eyes.

    A trembling shape up and to his left chose that moment to give way, showering molten fragments all along the spine of the ship. The primary array was no great loss: he couldn't have heard anyone anyway over the racket in his ears. But the forward turbolasers and primary sensor unit, the next two chunks to go, were more of a concern. The ship was seriously unbalanced now. It shuddered underfoot, pulling wildly in different directions. If he was going to prevent it slipping into an uncontrollable rumble or rearing apart, he had to act quickly and decisively.

    This was where it got difficult. He needed to maintain the Force shield against the sort of hear he might find in the outer layers of a star. He also had to keep in mind the target ahead - a target he couldn't see through the plasma, but had to hit square-on or else the planetary shield generators wouldn't fail. No matter what happened, he had to fly straight.

    Starkiller took a deep breath. The cool trapped air behind the shield would last long enough, he hoped. He had been too worried about frying to consider suffocating to death.

    He raised his hands and spread his fingers wide. His eyes closed tightly against the fiery brightness of the plasma. With each bucking and shaking of the ship beneath him, he encouraged himself to ride with it instead of fighting it. He was part of the ship, not a passenger. He was the ship, not a reckless pilot guiding it to destruction.

    In the same way that he could feel his fingers and toes, his mind seeped outward into the metal and plastoid of the frigate, until every joint and weld, every porthole and deck became part of his sense of being. There was no line anymore between Starkiller and the Salvation. They were one and the same being, from the perspective of the Force.

    He raised his right arm, and the ship followed the movement, listing slowly and heavily to starboard. Some of the headlong shuddering faded, as though it were grateful to have someone at the helm again. Even the wind's shrieking seemed to ebb.

    Something tore away at aft of the ship, and he bent his knees slightly to absorb the shock.

    The Salvation steadied, found a new center of gravity, and roared on.

    Confident that his vast metal charge was now under control, he cast his mind outward. He was shocked by how far he had fallen. The Salvation must have punctured the planetary shield itself some time ago, and he simply hadn't noticed in all the turbulence. Now the cloud cover was less than a hundred meters below and coming up quickly. Behind the Salvation, a long fiery wake stretched across the sky, trailed by starfighters, and, farther back, capital ships on both sides, coming through the hole in the shield. The generators below would soon repair the hole, if he didn't guide his hurtling missile correctly, leaving the Rebel ships on the inside trapped, with him.

    Assuming he survived...

    For Juno.

    The frigate slammed into the clouds with a rearing sound. At that speed, individual droplets of water hit like thermal detonators. The Salvation's own shields were holding, barely, but even so it lost still more of its mass to the ongoing battering. Several lower decks peeled back and were swept away, including the bridge. Most of the short-range array was gone, leaving him with just the base to hold him steady. He clenched his hands into fists and willed the ship to keep going.

    Something succumbed to the plasma with a flash. A bright spark tumbled in his wake - the secondary reactor he had spent so much energy saving from the giant droid. He ignored it. The bottom of the cloud layer was approaching, and with it would come his first clear glimpse of the shield generators.

    The air became still and relatively quiet when the Salvation punched through the clouds. The extra friction had slowed the frigate somewhat, making it a more manageable beast. Starkiller opened his eyes and discovered that he could see over the bulge of the forward decks to his destination. Perhaps some of the hull had been ripped away there, too.

    The cloning facility lay spread out ahead of him. Had he wanted to, he could have hit it dead-center and wiped it off the face of Kamino. And had Juno not been inside, he would have been tempted. He felt no sentimental attachment to the place of his rebirth, and if there was any chance of taking out Darth Vader with it, all the better.

    His sole target, however, was the shield generator buildings, and at last he saw them, as clear as they had seemed from the bridge, directly ahead.

    Carefully, wary of putting too much strain on an already overtaxed chassis, he nudged the Salvations nose down. If he came in low and hit the ocean first, he could concentrate the damage to one location. If he overreached by so much as a degree, he might miss the ocean completely and scrape a long, fiery line right through the heart of the facility.

    The Salvation resisted. He pushed harder. The nose descended and held there for ten seconds, strain echoing all through the ship. It wasn't made for anything like this. Nothing larger than a starfighter was. Neither was he.

    With a bone-jarring crack, the spine connecting fore and aft sections of the frigate snapped clean through. Starkiller reached out with the Force, trying desperately to keep the two pieces together, but nothing could be done. They were already moving on slightly different trajectories. Air and debris sprayed from the great wound that separated them, providing entirely unpredictable thrust.

    Groaning, juddering, the fore section began to lift again. Starkiller didn't fight it. With so much mass already stripped from it, the damage it would do when it hit was negligible. The rear was the priority. The heavy engines and main reactor continued powering forward on the trajectory it had originally been following. Was that the right trajectory or not? Starkiller anxiously studied its fall, projecting it forward to the best of his senses.

    It looked good. He felt positive about it. Keeping an eye on the stubby rear section as it passed under him, he braced himself for impact. Barely a minute remained now. If he survived the crash, he would soon know whether he was right or not.

    Ahead, a series of cloning towers loomed, standing as upright and tall as wroshyr trees on Kashyyyk. The fore section he stood upon was going to come down among them, doing a considerable amount of damage in the process. Starkiller didn't mind. Until their memories were activated, clones weren't truly alive; they were little more than meat in suspended animation. And the technicians attending them were servants of the Empire, and therefore viable targets. Some of them, perhaps, were responsible for his birth, if clone he truly was, and for their complicity in Vader's twisted plans. He smiled as his fiery steed descended toward them, imagining them fleeing in the face of the meteor as it grew large in the sky.

    He could actually see tiny long-necked figures running through the complex, white-armored stormtroopers resolutely standing at their stations, and a black-robed figure looming high above them all, watching him approach.

    Vader.

    Below and slightly ahead, the engines struck the surface of the sea, sending a wave of superheated steam radiating outward along the wave tops.

    Starkiller couldn't take his eyes off his former Master. He was right in his path, and not even moving! For a moment Starkiller couldn't understand why - until, next to Vader, bound in shackles and so small he had barely noticed her, he saw-

    Juno.

    A huge eruption heralded the impact of the engines into the side of the shield generators. The sky and sea convulsed. A shock wave spread through the facility, making the cloning towers sway. The fore section of the Salvation rolled to starboard, but not by enough to miss the cloning towers. Its terminus was fixed.

    Just seconds remained before the Salvation's fore section hit Kamino. The facility was in close focus ahead of him, and he imagined he could see Juno's eyes widening on seeing him, haloed with his Force shield on top of her precious ship. Did she know it was him, or did she wonder at this strange apparition? Did she imagine that he was her death coming at last, from the skies instead of Darth Vader's hand?

    Starkiller closed his eyes. He didn't have time to wonder what was going through her mind. He had to think of something fast, or Juno was going to die.

    There was only one thing he could do, and although he knew he wasn't likely to survive, he didn't hesitate. What was death when the love of his former life was at stake? Besides, anything was possible. Dying, as he had thought once before, always seemed to bring out the best in him.

    With his mind and all the power of the Force, Starkiller embraced what remained of the frigate beneath him - and blew it into a billion pieces.

    [...]

    Juno was hypnotized by the fiery blaze in the sky. Ever since it had broached the cloud cover, two things had become clear. It was a ship, a big ship, and it was going to hit the facility. The roar it made vied with thunder for loudest sound in the sky. Lightning scattered from the disturbed clouds in its wake.

    Then the falling ship had split in two, with one half powering down at a steeper angle, and the other continuing onward. Only then had she realized that the second one was coming right for her.

    "Was this part of your plan?" she asked Vader, who still stood, unmoving, beside her.

    He didn't respond. Neither did he make any move toward the ramp that might take him to safety. Maybe, she thought, he had other means of protecting himself, means that neither she nor the stormtroopers possessed. She could see that they were getting nervous, too. The fiery balls grew brighter and brighter until they were almost too painful to look at. She refused to avert her eyes.

    The first came down hard and fast, striking a well-defended portion of the facility outside the dome immediately surrounding her. There was a bright flash of light. The boom followed later, along with a rising sensation that she assumed was the shock wave rolling through the flexible foundations of the ocean-bound facility. She could see the cloning towers swaying from side to side. A vast column of flash-boiled steam and wreckage rose up into the sky. Hot, damp air rushed outward in its wake.

    Still the other fragment of the ship came toward her. Seconds remained before it hit - not long enough to think anything coherent, barely time even to observe what was happening. The stricken ship was glowing red, with the last shreds of plasma still clinging to it like flames. Its class was almost unrecognizable, but she made out stumps that might once have been a communications array on the upper port side. That made it a Nebulon-B frigate, one of many EF76s in the service of either the Empire or the Rebel Alliance. It could have been any one of them.

    So why, then, did she feel a cold stab of certainty in her gut that this was none other than the Salvation?

    Her own ship was going to kill her.

    The irony wasn't lost on her.

    At the last instant she made out a tiny human figure standing on the upper hull. The flames and rushing wind swept past him, as though he were impervious to their touch. His arms were upraised in defiance and his head was tipped back so she couldn't see his face. But she knew. Just as she knew that it was the Salvation, she knew it was him.

    He would come for her in flames and smoke, wreaking destruction all around.

    Despite the apparent certainty of her death, she smiled. Either he would save her - in which case there was nothing to worry about - or he wouldn't, and she didn't want to live anyway.

    The ship was almost upon them when the figure brought his hands down in a fierce, pounding motion, and the last solid fragment of the Salivation exploded into fiery pieces.

    She had to close her eyes. The conflagration was too intense, and the sound was that of worlds ending. The cloning tower kicked beneath her. She was momentarily afraid that she might be falling with it into the sea. But then she was rising again, and she understood that the structure had survived, somehow, and so had she.

    Her eyelids flickered, braving the brightness that only slowly faded around her. A cloud of hot metallic fragments was spreading across the city. Dense splinters rained from it, hissing where they landed. Heavier fragments struck with more substantial thuds, near and far. None struck her. The rain ceased for a moment, and then returned, settling the cloud of dust still further. Of the Salvation, nothing at all remained.

    Darth Vader lowered the hand he had risen to shield his helmet and took stock around him. Juno did the same. Fires blazed in the wreckage where the rear half of the Salvation had come down. Alarms sounded through the facility, loud enough even for Juno's blast-numbed ears to hear them. Ash was settling on every horizontal surface and forming a thick, gray sludge.

    Above, the clouds, already disturbed by the Salvation's fiery passage, were being torn apart by a new outrage. Starfighters and capital ships powered down from orbit in large numbers, dodging and firing at one another as they went. Juno recognized more frigates, and dozens of Headhunter, Y-wing, and TIE fighters. There were bombers, cruisers, even Star Destroyers bringing up the rear. An all-out war was taking place above Kamino, between Imperial and Alliance forces, and it, too, was growing ever nearer.

    "I ask again, is this part of the plan?"

    Instead of answering, Vader stalked off, waving for the stormtroopers to remain where they were. When he was gone, they stationed themselves several paces away from her and carefully watched the perimeter around them. High above their heads, the secure facility's dome began to close.

    Juno coughed and wished she could wipe her eyes clear of ash. Her ship had blown itself practically to atoms; she had seen it happen, right in front of her. There was no chance at all that Starkiller could have survived. He had been riding right on top of it.

    But she knew as well as they did that this wasn't the end. He had come back from the dead sufficient times now to make anything possible. Anything at all.

    [...]

    Starkiller's eyes jerked open. Where was he? All was dark around him. He smelled smoke and his body felt as though it had been hit by an asteroid. The last thing he remembered was tightening the Force shield around him and destroying the Salvation so it wouldn't kill Juno. He was somewhere on Kamino, then. But his mind remained full of strange images and feelings that he had never experienced before.

    The Force Unleashed II

    Note: Given how we can see the final explosion be much larger than the Kaminoan cloning spires, which are as large as the wroshyr trees on Kashyyyk which in itself are many kilometers tall, we can estimate Starkiller’s explosion to be dozens of kilometers wide and around ten kilometers tall.

    Ahead, a series of cloning towers loomed, standing as upright and tall as wroshyr trees on Kashyyyk.

    The Force Unleashed II
    No Caption Provided
    Complete Locations
    Complete Locations

    (★) Starkiller shields himself from the Force lightning blasts of his fellow clones with a Force Barrier.

    Moving out of the center of the ring of converging clones brought him into contact with the third wave, the most cunning he had encountered so far. Long-armed and long-fingered, with blackened, blistering skin, these employed lightning when attacking him, and then by devious means. They would wait until he was distracted and attack him from behind, or come at him from three directions at once, or even use one of their fellow clones as an impromptu conductor. Deadly currents crackled and sparkled around him, kept barely at bay by the judicious application of a Force shield. Sometimes a lucky strike caused him pain, but he fought through it, found the source, and put the attack quickly to an end.

    The Force Unleashed II

    Note: Galen Marek’s clones possess his Force abilities.

    The Ultimate Visual Guide: Updated and Expanded
    The Ultimate Visual Guide: Updated and Expanded

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    Alter Environment

    Pyrokinesis/Heat Manipulation

    The Apprentice melts a mannequin droid of Kit Fisto.

    Kit Fisto he melted.

    The Force Unleashed

    Starkillers burns out a mess.

    My good deed for the day, he thought as he burned out the mess and used the Force to push the door in.

    The Force Unleashed

    Starkiller detonates fuel tanks and ammunition stores.

    The Imperials were rallying. They needed to be reminded of who they were dealing with. While crossing to the next mooring in line, he detonated fuel tanks and exploded ammunition stores. AT-STs cracked open like seedpods and burst into short-lived flame. He reached his target without encountering serious resistance and brought it down as he had the first.

    The Force Unleashed

    Galen Marek’s clones possess a flame attack.

    The Force Unleashed II: Prima Official Game Guide
    The Force Unleashed II: Prima Official Game Guide

    Starkiller extinguishes a fire.

    Thick smoke hid the carnage, but he could smell it in the air. A fire was burning and no one was purring it our. He extinguished the flames with one sweep of the Force and sucked the acrid black smoke into the corridor outside. The unnatural wind howled, echoing the tension in his heart.

    The Force Unleashed II

    Acoustics/Sound manipulation

    Starkiller muffles the sound of his footsteps.

    The moment he and his fellows were busy, Starkiller crept past them, too. The Force absorbed all sound of his movement and shrouded his form in shadow. He didn't just fade into the background: he became the background.

    The Force Unleashed II

    Technometry/Electronic Manipulation

    Galen Marek fuses together the internal components of the skyhook’s mooring and wreaks utter destruction within it, obliterating it utterly.

    When he reached the base of the skyhook, he was momentarily given pause. How to bring about the ruin of six constructs several stories high? Their super-strong materials were designed to handle the stresses of holding the massive station directly above, against all the laws of physics. How would he overcome their resistance?

    The answer, as always, lay in the Force. The Force was beyond physics. The Force could not be resisted, when wielded by confident hands. The Force would always be sufficient.

    Turning his back on the body-strewn battlefield, he put both hands on the base of the nearest mooring. Closing his eyes and his mind to all forms of distraction, he imagined himself as one with the metal, permacrete, and stone. He felt the mooring's strengths and its weaknesses. He resonated with it, until it was hard to tell where his hands stopped and the mooring began.

    When he could achieve no greater focus, he reached out for the dark side and let it guide him.

    Energy came like a dam bursting, as wild as every predator on Kashyyyk combined but as pure as a laser. He tilted his head back and relished the wonder and terror of what he had brought into being. This was a power far greater than Sith lightning, designed for one single task. He lost himself utterly in that task. He became destruction.

    The mooring shook. Its more delicate components - nanowires, sensitive self-regulating systems, microscopic hydraulic channels - fused almost immediately. Once the complex processes maintaining its stability were disrupted, a chain reaction began that could not be stopped. Pressures mounted in areas close to exceeding their maximum load; hairline cracks formed and spread; a deep vibration sprang up that could not be dampened. Even if left to its own devices, the mooring would shake itself to pieces in minutes.

    The apprentice maintained his assault until hairline cracks became gaping rents and the vibration shook the world, howling material agony over the renewed firing of blaster cannons. When the first shower of boiling dust and pebble-sized fragments rained down on him, he decided it was time to step back and take stock - and to prevent some hapless stormtrooper creeping up on him and shooting him in the back.

    He opened his eyes and looked up. The mooring was barely recognizable as the same structure. Electrical discharges danced across its conducting surfaces. Ultrastressed permacrete flowed like treacle. Larger fragments began to fall and he batted them away with the Force, feeling no more drained by his exertion than he would have from a light run. He almost smiled at his accomplishment, but one stark fact sobered him to the core.

    One down. Five to go.

    The Force Unleashed

    He does the same to another one.

    The Imperials were rallying. They needed to be reminded of who they were dealing with. While crossing to the next mooring in line, he detonated fuel tanks and exploded ammunition stores. AT-STs cracked open like seedpods and burst into short-lived flame. He reached his target without encountering serious resistance and brought it down as he had the first.

    The Force Unleashed

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    #9  Edited By Azronger

    Telepathy

    Starkiller spars with Lord Vader in telepathic battles.

    Never once in all the days they had sparred together, with lightsaber, telekinesis, or suggestion, had the Dark Lord offered a single word of encouragement.

    The Force Unleashed

    The Apprentice claims Juno Eclipse cannot hide her thoughts from him, no matter how deeply she buries them.

    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation
    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation

    The Apprentice tames a river beast. This is an application of Beast Trick.

    At the river's edge he used the Force to attract one of the many hard-backed river beasts he had seen the Felucians ride. Its mind was semisentient at best, but its mighty flukes could manage a fair turn of speed. Gripping its carapace with one hand, he rode its undulating body toward the town, occasionally pausing to fling lightning at Felucian guards who bothered him.

    "That'll do," he told his half-submerged steed as they approached the town's borders. The beast nuzzled into the bank and he leapt aground near a massive, conical standing stone that loomed half a head taller than him among the gelatinous trees.

    The Force Unleashed

    Starkiller tells a bartender to go bother someone else. This is an application of Mind Trick.

    The nearest bartender cocked an antenna. The apprentice gestured at him, encouraging him to think about someone else. He didn't want a drink. He had just one purpose. This, the first real test of his Master's new plan, was the only thing on his mind.

    The Force Unleashed

    Starkiller puts a stormtrooper to sleep, then uses Mind Trick on another one and puts him to sleep too. Putting someone to sleep is an application of Malacia.

    Dropping with apparent weightlessness through the branches, he landed between the members of a two-man patrol. Before either could sound the alarm, he raised his left hand and ordered one of them to sleep. As that trooper sagged gently to the ground, the second fell under the influence of a different mind trick.

    "You're not alarmed," he told the trooper. "I'm authorized to be here. In fact, you've been expecting me."

    The man in the anonymous white helmet nodded. "Everything's in order, sir. Can't explain what's gotten into Britt here, though..." He kicked his unconscious fellow with one white boot.

    "Britt isn't your concern. You want only to help me."

    "Yes, sir. I'm at your disposal. How can I assist you?"

    The white helmet tipped inquisitively to one side, and the apprentice gave thanks for the small minds of most stormtroopers.

    "Tell me who's in charge here."

    "Captain Sturn, sir."

    "And where would I find him?"

    "In the lodge with the guest, sir, if he's not out hunting."

    "Who's the guest?"

    "I don't know, sir, but we're under strict orders to keep them out of harm's way. These Wookiees are mindless brutes."

    The apprentice ignored the speciesist slur. "Is this person a guest, or a hostage?"

    "I don't know, sir."

    "Can you show me to the guest quarters?"

    "I'm not authorized for that area, sir." Again the helmet tilted. "Why don't you ask Captain Sturn these questions?"

    His hold on the stormtrooper's mind was slipping. Before it could fall away entirely, the apprentice asked him about the Wookiees.

    "What are we doing with them, sir? Why, giving them what they deserve. Filthy, mindless animals. Hey, you're not one of those sympathetic types, are you? One of them tore my platoon leader limb from limb, right in front of me. Kill them all, I would, like Captain Sturn..."

    "Enough." He waved his hands across the stormtrooper's face and stepped back to avoid his collapse. Leaving the pair where they lay, he melted into the shadows of the undergrowth and began to circle the enormous clearing.

    The Force Unleashed

    Galen Marek influences the decisions of Imperial officers who order their underlings to fire on one another. This is either an application of Mind Trick or Dominate Mind.

    Sith lightning crackled; bodies broke under his irresistible telekinesis; his mind influenced the decisions of officers, who ordered their underlings to attack one another in droves. None could stand up to him and survive.

    The Force Unleashed

    Galen uses a Mind Trick on a stormtrooper and then puts him to sleep. The latter is an application of Malacia.

    Raising both hands, he choked the trooper on the right until he dropped unconscious to the railing, then coerced the left into turning around.

    "Tell me where the prisoners are housed," he said without mincing words.

    "Uh, each of the twenty-four zones has a worker restraint facility," said the stormtrooper. "Those hairy beasts down there are always running amok. There are also cell blocks on the Detention Level for traitors and spies."

    The apprentice's stomach sank. By the time he searched twenty-five such facilities, the Rebels would be dead for certain. "Have any new prisoners arrived?"

    "How would I know? I've been working this grind for a week now."

    "Does the Emperor or Lord Vader ever come to supervise your operation here?"

    "Constantly. It makes the engineers nervous."

    "Do they stay anywhere in particular?"

    "You're asking the wrong guy. I'm not privy to the Emperor's movements. Try Sergeant Jimayne."

    The apprentice was beginning to realize that he was wasting his time. "See any Jedi around lately?"

    "What? Are you kidding? They were all killed years ago. Hey..." The stormtrooper glanced down at the apprentice's lightsaber as though seeing it for the first time. "Isn't that a-?"

    The apprentice put him to sleep with a single thought and stepped over the stormtrooper's crumbling body. Before the pair's opposite numbers on the far side of the trench could notice, he hurried on his way, thinking through the few possibilities open to him.

    The Force Unleashed

    Starkiller uses a Mind Trick on a Gran.

    "The Jedi," he said, exactly as he had on Cato Neimoidia. "Where is he?"

    "No Jedi here," said the Gran, blinking its eyes one at a time from right to left. "Got something to fix?"

    "I'm not a customer." He raised and passed his hand in front of the Gran's face. "You'll show me the way."

    The Gran couldn't resist the Force. Starkiller's suggestion was as implacable as gravity, made all the more irresistible by his urgent need. The Gran pointed hesitantly at the shelves. There was no door visible. Starkiller didn't have the patience for guesswork, not when Juno's life might be at stake.

    The Force Unleashed II

    Starkiller uses a Mind Trick on Berkelium Shyre.

    He took three steps closer to Shyre and raised his left hand.

    "You don't know me, " he said.

    The repairman stiffened and his voice took on a distant tone. "I don't know you. "

    "I was never here. "

    "You were never here. "

    "Neither were Kota and Juno. "

    "Neither was Kota. "

    "Or Juno. "

    Shyre's jaw muscles worked. "Or Juno. "

    "Good. You've got a lot to clean up and you'd better get on with it. "

    "Okay, well, I've got a huge mess to clean up here. Guess I'd better get on with it. "

    Starkiller released his hold over him. Shyre turned and went looking for a broom. Starkiller left him to it.

    The Force Unleashed II

    Starkiller places a thought in a stormtrooper’s head that makes him think he heard a disturbance. This is an application of Suppress Thought.

    There he put the thought into the mind of another trooper that he had heard a disturbance some distance away.

    The Force Unleashed II
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    #10  Edited By Azronger

    Shatterpoint

    Galen Marek feels all the strengths and weaknesses of the skyhook’s mooring, becoming one with it.

    Turning his back on the body-strewn battlefield, he put both hands on the base of the nearest mooring. Closing his eyes and his mind to all forms of distraction, he imagined himself as one with the metal, permacrete, and stone. He felt the mooring's strengths and its weaknesses. He resonated with it, until it was hard to tell where his hands stopped and the mooring began.

    The Force Unleashed
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    Force Blast

    (★) Galen Marek unleashes all his Force power in a tremendous blast that destroys the Emperor’s observation dome and wounds Darth Vader, while in a state of Oneness.

    Loading Video...

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    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation

    A squadron of stormtroopers ran into the room, led by a limping Darth Vader. They raised their blasters to gun down the Rebels as they fled up the Rogue Shadow's ramp.

    "No!" the apprentice cried, dropping his defenses to strike one last time at the Imperials. Energy surged through him. He felt as though a star had blazed to life in his chest. Driven by concern for his friends rather than himself, he embraced the Force completely, utterly, and was rewarded with strength that made his efforts with the dark side look like those of a child. His nerves were on fire. Streamers of light radiated from his skin. His bones glowed like radiant lava.

    He saw rather than felt the massive shock wave that consumed a large portion of what remained of the observation dome. A glowing bubble of fire tore the stormtroopers to shreds and engulfed Vader and the Emperor. Shrapnel filled the air like dust caught in the beam of the Death Star's powerful laser.

    Tossed like a leaf, the Rogue Shadow fled in haste, ramp snapping shut on its precious cargo.

    The apprentice felt himself leaving his body again. Or was his body leaving him this time? He felt ripped apart by the energy that had flowed through him. Every cell was in shock; every fiber shook. The fire on his face possessed no heat at all. His limbs felt as distant as the farthest arms of the galaxy. He was amazed there was enough left of him to think at all.

    Weakened by the blast, the dome's supports gave way. It collapsed into the superlaser dish, triggering a series of conventional explosions. Stormtroopers converged on the site. Through the dense smoke, two figures were visible from the apprentice's rarefied perspective.

    Darth Vader struggled to his feet from the rubble, even more damaged than before. He reached out for support and found only his Master, scowling.

    The Force Unleashed
    The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia
    The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia

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    Force Ghost

    Galen Marek retains his identity after death, becoming more powerful than ever and being able to observe the physical world as an incorporeal presence.

    A squadron of stormtroopers ran into the room, led by a limping Darth Vader. They raised their blasters to gun down the Rebels as they fled up the Rogue Shadow's ramp.

    "No!" the apprentice cried, dropping his defenses to strike one last time at the Imperials. Energy surged through him. He felt as though a star had blazed to life in his chest. Driven by concern for his friends rather than himself, he embraced the Force completely, utterly, and was rewarded with strength that made his efforts with the dark side look like those of a child. His nerves were on fire. Streamers of light radiated from his skin. His bones glowed like radiant lava.

    He saw rather than felt the massive shock wave that consumed a large portion of what remained of the observation dome. A glowing bubble of fire tore the stormtroopers to shreds and engulfed Vader and the Emperor. Shrapnel filled the air like dust caught in the beam of the Death Star's powerful laser.

    Tossed like a leaf, the Rogue Shadow fled in haste, ramp snapping shut on its precious cargo.

    The apprentice felt himself leaving his body again. Or was his body leaving him this time? He felt ripped apart by the energy that had flowed through him. Every cell was in shock; every fiber shook. The fire on his face possessed no heat at all. His limbs felt as distant as the farthest arms of the galaxy. He was amazed there was enough left of him to think at all.

    Weakened by the blast, the dome's supports gave way. It collapsed into the superlaser dish, triggering a series of conventional explosions. Stormtroopers converged on the site. Through the dense smoke, two figures were visible from the apprentice's rarefied perspective.

    Darth Vader struggled to his feet from the rubble, even more damaged than before. He reached out for support and found only his Master, scowling.

    Together, unspeaking, they searched the rubble.

    When they found what they were looking for, neither of them looked any happier for it.

    "He is dead," the Dark Lord intoned, gazing dispassionately at the body at their feet.

    This moment, the apprentice thought. I saw this!

    "Then he is now more powerful than ever." The Emperor glanced up, watching sourly as the Rogue Shadow sped away into the busy sky. "He was meant to root out the Rebels, not give them hope. His sacrifice will only inspire them."

    "But now we know who they are, my Master. I will hunt them down and destroy them, as you always intended - starting with the traitor Bail Organa."

    The Emperor waved him silent and turned to walk away. "Patience, Lord Vader. Far better to destroy a man's hope first. Or that of someone close to him ..."

    Hope will never he destroyed, the apprentice thought. Not now. It'll survive anything else you can throw at them . . .

    Darkness pressed in. He didn't fight it. Juno was safe. That was all he cared about now. He didn't need to be there to see what happened next. He could imagine well enough.

    With his last thought, he whispered his own name.

    Unnoticed by anyone, the Dark Lord raised a solid, black boot heel and crushed his fallen apprentice's lightsaber to dust.

    The Force Unleashed

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    Sith Sorcery

    (★) Starkiller manipulates and influences the Force illusions created by the Cave of Evil.

    Note: The dark clones and the plants are not real, but merely Force illusions. Thus Starkiller influencing them counts as altering existing Force illusions i.e. Sith sorcery.

    (★) Starkiller creates phantoms in the minds of stormtroopers. This is an application of Force Illusion.

    Before long, though, the guards became suspicious. They were of course in constant contact via their helmet comlinks, and a plethora of false alarms was itself unlikely to be innocent. So Starkiller turned the screws a little tighter, creating half-seen phantoms in the minds of the troopers that literally ran circles around them.

    The Force Unleashed II

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    Force Concealment

    (★) Starkiller becomes invisible. This is an application of Cloak of Shadow.

    The moment he and his fellows were busy, Starkiller crept past them, too. The Force absorbed all sound of his movement and shrouded his form in shadow. He didn't just fade into the background: he became the background.

    The Force Unleashed II

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    Physical Capabilities

    No Caption Provided

    Strength

    Galen Marek punches a metal wall, leaving a crater.

    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation
    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation

    (★) Starkiller pushes a Terror Walker hard enough to bend the outer of hull a frigate.

    He hoped Juno would forgive him for the damage when he finally found her. It was still her ship, after all, and she might not take kindly to his giving it such a battering.

    Still, he thought, shifting a couple of meters to his right, it wasn't as if he had much choice...

    The droid tracked his movement, and pounced.

    He ducked as he had many times before, and gave the droid a solid shove as it went over his head. Its lasers flashed around him, cutting yet another hieroglyphic pattern deep into the metal deck. Its innards whined as it spun to reorient itself, intending to arrest its trajectory against the wall ahead with three feet, and then leap back at him, stabbing with the fourth limb, hoping to impale him on its deadly, sharp tip.

    He stayed still just long enough to give the machine the impression that this time, unlike all the other times, its plan might work.

    The droid hit the bulkhead with a mighty thud, and kicked its three legs as hard as it could. The bulkhead, strained and scarred by many such impacts, gave way with a shriek. The noise was instantly joined by another, much louder sound - that of atmosphere rushing our into the void.

    This was no ordinary bulkhead. It was the outer hull of the frigate, and it had been pushed far beyond its tolerance. The droid, realizing its error, scrambled to withdraw the legs that now stuck through the hull, outside the ship, but Starkiller wasn't having any of that. He braced himself firmly against the interior bulkhead behind him and pushed. The droid sank a meter deeper into the metal, which tore and stretched further in response. Through the rents he glimpsed the abstract angularity of hyperspace rushing by, and he felt the droid’s desperation increase. Starkiller didn't know what happened to ordinary matter when it was separated from the hyperdrive that lay at the heart of a starship and left to founder in the unreal spaces beyond. He suspected the droid didn't, either. It was about to find out.

    One last flurry of laserfire slashed and burned at him. He ducked but held his ground, not caring if the droid scored a few light hits at this terminal stage. There was only one possible outcome now.

    He pushed again, and the hull bent outward. The droid gave up all attempts to fight back and concentrated solely on survival. Its legs left deep scratches in the metal as they fought to maintain their purchase. But Starkiller's strength was too great, when combined with the strange effects of hyperspace outside. One claw slipped, then another, and then, with a final shriek of metal, it vanished, swept away by forces neither of them could understand.

    The Force Unleashed II

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    Speed

    (★) Galen Marek was faster than Darth Vader during their duel.

    The apprentice understood that, until this moment, they had never truly fought as equals. His Master had either held back, or he himself had capitulated. Now, for the first time, they would see each other's true potential. Where Darth Vader was strong and relentless, he was fast and sly.

    [...]

    The lightsabers flashed again - and it was the apprentice who found the chink in the armor that both of them had been waiting for. Vader's lightsaber moved too slowly to block a blow to his chest, allowing the apprentice's blade to slash deeply across his armored throat. Vader staggered backward, gloved hand upraised to the smoking wound.

    The Force Unleashed

    Note: Darth Vader is fast enough to speedblitz PROXY, who gave the Apprentice significant trouble at the start of The Force Unleashed, indicating Galen could also speeblitz PROXY and his former self.

    Darth Vader raised his bloody blade, but the sound of another lightsaber igniting behind him forced the Dark Lord to turn around.

    The apprentice couldn't keep his eyes open any longer. His fingers were numb; he couldn't feel anything at all. Weightless, he seemed to drift away from the cliff wall. His eyes were closed, but somehow he could still see. As though from a position high above, he watched his Master spin around to face Obi-Wan Kenobi.

    The Dark Lord froze. In that moment of hesitation the long-dead Jedi Master attacked, his face a mask of determination. At the very last moment Vader parried, then parried again. He took a step backward, toward the cliff's edge, and then rallied. With two sweeping strokes, so fast they blurred in the cold air, he disarmed Kenobi and slashed him in half.

    As the pieces fell to the ground, the hologram enfolding them dissolved. Sparking fitfully and spilling delicate components into the snow, PROXY twitched once, and then his photoreceptors went out.

    The Force Unleashed

    Note: Darth Vader speedbitzed Ferus Olin and Roan Lands so fast he appeared to teleport, and Ferus commented how he moved faster than anyone he had ever seen aside from Yoda.

    "He is a former associate, yes, but --"

    It happened before he could get out another word. Faster than an eyeblink. Faster than he'd seen anyone move, anyone except Yoda.

    The lightsaber hadn't been there, and then it was, and the lightsaber was a blur. Vader moved without seeming to move, and the lightsaber sliced into Roan, straight into his chest. Straight into his heart.

    Last of the Jedi: Secret Weapon

    Galen perceives Rahm Kota in slow motion, indicating he is much faster than the general.

    "No!" Kota's voice came as though from a great distance. The apprentice noted, as though viewing the world in slow motion, the Jedi Master telekinetically snatching the Emperor's lightsaber from his waist and, with a surety belying his physical blindness, using it to cut down the Imperial Guards watching the prisoners. Lunging forward, he struck next at the Emperor, who stood, apparently unarmed, with one hand still reaching out for the apprentice.

    The Force Unleashed

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    Endurance/Stamina

    (★) Starkiller fights Darth Vader for hours on end.

    He fought like a machine, too, with relentless blows and single-minded aggression. The first time they had dueled, in Starkiller's first life, Vader had displayed no anger at all - just determination, not to kill his apprentice, but to wear him into submission. The fight had raged across the training deck of the Executor for hours, with Starkiller never landing a single blow, no matter how he tried. He had gone from excitement at thinking that he had graduated to a new level of mastery to realizing just how much he had left to learn. More fuel had been added to the hatred he had felt for his Master and tormentor, along with a twisted kind of love for the man who made him stronger by showing him how weak he was. The fight had only stopped when Starkiller collapsed unconscious from exhaustion and was dragged by PROXY to his meditation chamber.

    The Force Unleashed II

    The Apprentice learns to virtually ignore the pain of small lightsaber wounds.

    Behind his eyelids he pictured again the clean, cleansing heat of the lightsaber. He had brushed his skin against it many times, defying the pain, and taken numerous small wounds while dueling with his Master.

    The Force Unleashed

    The Apprentice survives being stabbed through the gut, having his body contorted and smashed against walls as well as exposure to the vacuum of space for a time.

    Loading Video...
    Loading Video...
    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation

    THE APPRENTICE STOOD IN FRONT of the massive bulkhead leading to his Master's chamber for a long moment, gathering his self-control and centering himself within the Force. Ambition stirred in him: he pictured himself at his Master's side, the two of them striking the Emperor down together, as he had imagined many times down the years. He saw himself in regal attire as Lord Vader became Emperor Vader and assumed the mantle of Coruscant and all the other jewel-like worlds in the galactic crown. What sights awaited them in the Imperial court! What new challenges and aspirations!

    But his training demanded a careful balance between the lust for power and self-denial. Control was paramount, as in all things. He wanted to present the best face possible to his Dark Lord, lest once again the attainment of his dreams be denied.

    "Is anything the matter, master?" asked PROXY from the droid's familiar position at his shoulder.

    "Nothing at all," he said.

    Straightening his shoulders, he waved a hand. The massive door slid open. Suppressing a smile, the apprentice strode confidently into Darth Vader's inner sanctum.

    His boots rang out on the metal floor, echoing through the familiar chamber. The red sun glared through the broad viewport, but there was something new in that vista: a fleet of Star Destroyers and support ships clustering around his Master's flagship like carrion.

    Darth Vader didn't turn. "The Emperor's fleet has arrived," was all he said.

    The apprentice felt a quickening in his throat. Moving in front of his Master to get a look out the viewport, he pressed his palm against the thick transparisteel and smiled. Destiny.

    "You lured him here." He could hear the excitement in his voice. "When do we strike?"

    "I did not summon him." There was no warning in his Master's deep voice, no hint at all of what was to come. With an unexpected snap-hiss, Darth Vader's lightsaber was active, reflecting in the viewport beside the baleful orb of the sun. "His spies followed you here."

    The apprentice opened his mouth to protest, but had barely begun to turn when his Master's potent blade stabbed through his back. His eyes widened in shock at the sight of the lightsaber protruding from his stomach. The pain was unbearable, much worse than he had ever imagined it would be.

    The lightsaber's fiery blade disappeared as Darth Vader deactivated the weapon.

    With a choked scream, the apprentice fell to his knees. Darkness threatened to spread across his vision, but he resisted it with all his strength. Despair likewise. This had to be a terrible mistake. It couldn't be happening.

    His Master loomed over him, studying him impassively from behind his black mask. Without turning, he gestured at PROXY.

    "Begin the transmission."

    "Yes, Lord Vader."

    PROXY, standing slightly behind their dark Master, transformed by sinister stages into the Emperor, hooded and enshrouded in shadow. The two Sith Lords looked down at the apprentice, who gasped helplessly at their feet.

    "What is thy bidding, Master?" Darth Vader asked.

    "You have forgotten your place, Lord Vader. By taking this boy as your apprentice, you have betrayed me." The Emperor's lone was at the same time harsh and hypnotic. One claw-like hand reached out from the sleeve of his voluminous cloak. "Now you will kill him, or I will destroy you both."

    The apprentice watched his Master, pain twisting his features into a rictus. There was nothing he could do to stop this terrible reversal. He could not lift a hand against his Master, who had raised him and taught him all his life. But he would not die silent.

    "Don't, Master!" he gasped, struggling to stand but failing. The darkness encroached further. "Together we can defeat him!"

    "Do it now, Lord Vader!" insisted the Emperor. "Strike him down and prove your loyalty to me!"

    Darth Vader looked from the Emperor to the apprentice as though weighing up two very heavy alternatives. Then he lashed out with the Force, unleashing a mighty telekinetic surge that sent the apprentice crashing into one of the transparisteel viewports behind him. With a piercing sound, it cracked.

    "Yes, Vader!" the Emperor crowed. "Kill him! Kill him!"

    The apprentice was gripped tightly in his Master's will and pulled away from the viewport. For a faint instant, he thought his Master had changed his mind and decided to defy the Emperor after all. But then he was hurled back at the transparisteel with all the force of a small meteor. The viewport shattered outward in a huge explosion, sucking him into the cold vacuum of space.

    His final cry went unheard. Darkness and despair closed in again, and he no longer tried to fight them. There was no point. It was over.

    [...]

    IT CAME LESS AS A surprise, more of a relief, when he finally awoke. At first, anyway.

    His first clue that he had returned from the dead came when darkness truly fell. The visions evaporated, and the voices went with them. For a very welcome period, there was nothing to see or hear, or even think. He could just rest, and be.

    Then new noises began to intrude on the peaceful silence: the whirring of cutting blades, low-pitched beeps and clicks from droids, a fizzing, spitting noise that could have been a cauterizing tool, and other sinister sounds. His heart rose at the sound of a respirator rising above the others. The faint sticking point between each breathing cycle was horribly familiar.

    An artificial voice spoke: "Lord Vader, he's regaining consciousness."

    "Keep him restrained until I'm finished."

    "Yes, sir."

    The former apprentice raged against invisible bonds to move limbs he couldn't feel. The babble of noises faded for a moment, then returned, this time with light and sensation accompanying it. He was strapped prone to a medical table in the center of an operating theater. Multicolored tubes and wires ran from several places in his body to dark machines hovering around him, and stretching up to the high ceiling above. Angular droids milled about him, poking and prodding with sharp-tipped appendages.

    The familiar silhouette of Darth Vader loomed over him as, without warning, full sensation was returned to his body.

    He strained against the straps holding him down and screamed with rage.

    "You!" Foam flecked his lips. He had never felt such anger - brilliant in its purity, yet so untamed it utterly debilitated him. "You killed me!"

    "No." Vader leaned closer, resting one gloved hand on the table as though to literally impress his gravity on his former apprentice. "The Emperor wanted you dead, but I did not. I brought you here to be rebuilt. If the Emperor knew that you survived, he would kill us both."

    He stared up at the expressionless mask, neck twisted to increase the distance between them. Could it be so? His memories of betrayal and pain were so unclouded by doubt. A flash of his Master's bright red lightsaber protruding from his gut threatened to tip him back into unconsciousness. He resisted, thinking of Shaak Ti's final words: The Sith always betray one another. He had been so sure - but surety meant nothing. He had to decide with his mind, not his gut.

    "Why?" he asked. "Why rescue me if it puts you in so much danger?"

    "Because you are the advantage I need to overthrow the Emperor. He forced my hand, before we were ready. Now he believes you are dead. His ignorance is your true power, if you have the will to use it."

    "And if I refuse?"

    Darth Vader's voice grew harsher, his silhouette darker, if that was possible. "Then you will die. This lab will self-destruct and you will perish along with all aboard. There will be no witnesses."

    There never are, he thought, where you're concerned. But a lifetime of servitude forbade him from saying the words. He closed his eyes, unsure of which possibility he was more afraid: that Darth Vader was telling him the truth now, or that everything he'd ever been told was a lie.

    The harsh breathing of the respirator came closer still. "The Emperor ordered your death," Darth Vader said. "Only by joining me will you have your revenge."

    He opened his eyes and stared straight at the mask hiding the man who had killed him, then saved him.

    Only one choice gave him time to think this strange happen stance through. Only one decision came with the option of changing his mind later. Only one fork in the road before him left him alive, not dead.

    In a hollow voice, the apprentice said, "What is your bidding, my Master?"

    The Force Unleashed

    As a result of the above operation, Starkiller became significantly tougher physically than before.

    He flexed his fingers, feeling stronger and different somehow. The pain was completely gone. He felt better than he ever had before, as though he had spent months in a bacta tank.

    [...]

    THE APPRENTICE CROUCHED FACEDOWN in the snow, surrounded by rubble. His breath came in agonized, short gasps, but he was grateful for each one. He should be dead. That blow should have killed anyone. The fact that he was breathing testified to one mistake his Master had made.

    He had been rebuilt tougher than before.

    The Force Unleashed

    Galen Marek survives having a massive stone table hurled at him by Darth Vader, and in that condition he falls down many kilometers onto the ground off of an icy cliff, yet survives that too.

    No Caption Provided

    Before Starkiller could reach out for where his lightsaber lay fallen on the ground, the stone conference table lifted into the air and hurled itself at him. Crashing through three of the pillars and catching him squarely in the chest, it drove him out into the snow. Ignoring everyone else in the room, Vader strode heavily after him, lightsaber raised.

    [...]

    THE APPRENTICE CROUCHED FACEDOWN in the snow, surrounded by rubble. His breath came in agonized, short gasps, but he was grateful for each one. He should be dead. That blow should have killed anyone. The fact that he was breathing testified to one mistake his Master had made.

    He had been rebuilt tougher than before.

    As heavy boots crunched through the snow toward him, he knew that it would take more than one mistake to bring about the fall of Darth Vader.

    He raised his head and spoke painfully through clenched teeth.

    "You agreed to stay away ..." Blood dripped from his teeth onto the icy ground.

    "I lied," said his Master, "as I have from the very beginning."

    The power of the dark side lifted him out of the snow and into the air. Pain threatened to overload his nervous system, but he refused to cry out.

    From the very beginning?

    "You never planned," he gasped, "to destroy the Emperor!"

    "Not with you, no."

    Vader casually tossed him toward the icy cliff. He slid across the ground, clutching weakly at the snow, and then spilled over the edge.

    The world turned for a moment and he thought he might have fainted as he fell. The bottom of the cliff was thousands of meters below, impossibly distant. It didn't seem to be coining closer, which puzzled him momentarily.

    [...]

    Suddenly the apprentice was back in his body. The cliff's edge and his life's ruin was far, far above him. He could feel nothing at all, physically or emotionally, except a vague curiosity.

    What is it about dying, he asked himself, that brings out the best in me? First seeing the future . . . then leaving my body . . .

    The world turned black and cold. There was nothing he could do to stop that, so he gave in to it and let all his concerns wash away.

    One last thought curdled incomplete in his mind: I wish I could've told Juno . . .

    Then he was gone into the deep and dreamless dark.

    [...]

    Something caught her eye on the shelf outside: a single body, sliced in two. She gasped on recognizing PROXY'S gray skin. Snow had already dusted him, and she swung the ship lightly overhead, blowing it away. Doing so exposed a patch of dried blood not far from where he lay and brought into sharper relief a series of footprints leading to the edge of the cliff. She didn't want to look, but she had to. There was a tiny brown dot at the bottom of the precipice. Juno reached for the ship's sensor controls, then thought better of it. This she needed to see with her own eyes.

    Bringing the ship about and letting gravity tug it down the sheer side of the cliff, she braced herself for what she would find.

    He lay on his side, curled like a child with one hand up close to his face. The ship's wash made his hair and cloak move in a semblance of life. It was a cruel illusion. The snow beneath him was only centimeters thick, nowhere near enough to have cushioned a fall that far.

    With the rational dispassion of someone keeping her emotions carefully in check, she debated whether to collect his body and take it away, or leave it as a piece of material evidence in the hope that it might encourage just one honest CorSec operative to look deeper and wonder what had really happened . . .

    His hand moved in the downdraft and she assumed that was an illusion, too.

    When it moved again, she nearly crashed the ship in her haste to bring it down and was running to him before the shutdown command had even reached the engines.

    He was trying to sit up, without much success, blinking snow from his eyes and waving his left arm feebly through the air. She knelt next to him and got her arms under him. Once she had his weight, he was able to bend more successfully. It surprised him, her helping, and he looked up at her with his one open eye as though he hadn't noticed the ship arrive.

    His lips moved, but she couldn't hear what he was trying to say.

    "It's Juno," she reassured him, just in case the fall had affected either his memory or his comprehension, or both.

    "Juno," he repeated as though struggling to think some vast and complicated thought. "My name ..." He stopped and swallowed. "My name is Galen."

    The Force Unleashed

    Galen endures the pain of having almost all of his bones shattered, and manages to walk with only a small amount of assistance.

    His bones must be shattered into a thousand pieces, she thought. Nevertheless, he was able to stand and even to walk with only a small amount of assistance.

    The Force Unleashed

    Starkiller survives in isolation for thirteen days without food, drink or sleep.

    He shied away from both memory and contemplation. There was no point wasting energy on either when his very survival was at stake. How many days he had been down the pit he no longer knew, but in that time he had neither eaten nor slept. His enemy wasn't physical in the sense of a foe he could strike down or manipulate. It was himself - his fallible body, his weak mind, his faltering spirit. He would endure and emerge whole, or never emerge at all.

    Such was the life of Darth Vader's secret apprentice.

    "He is dead. "

    "Then he is now more powerful than ever. "

    More voices. He closed his eyes and shook his head. Kneeling, he placed his manacled hands on the slick metal surface below him and concentrated on hearing the world outside.

    Long stretches of isolation had attuned him to the cloning facility's many moods. Through the metal he heard a relentless hiss that could only be rain. Sharp cracking sounds were lightning, coming and going in staccato waves. Rolling rumbles were thunder, and a deeper note still was the song of seabed - hugging currents that circled the world.

    He was on Kamino. Starkiller was sure of that much. He had been reborn on the distant water world, where a significant percentage of the Emperor's stormtroopers were grown. Here it was that he would live and grow strong, or die weak and unmourned. Every hardship, every hurdle, was one step closer to full mastery of his fate. That was the lesson underlying all lessons.

    A new note entered the planet's endless song: the scream of a TIE advanced prototype starfighter. Angular and fleet, with bent vanes, it entered the atmosphere with a whip-crack sonic boom and descended on a bold, high-energy descent toward the facility.

    Starkiller tensed. He knew that ship's sound and could sense the well-practiced hand behind its controls. He heard stormtroopers marching quickly in response to their master's electronic summons, calling orders to one another as they went. Blast doors opened and closed with booming thuds. The facility woke from its unattended slumber.

    He didn't move as the TIE fighter landed. He didn't open his eyes as two heavy, booted feet dropped onto the platform and began the long walk through the facility. He breathed at a steady pace through the whine of the turbolift and the hiss of doors opening. A ring of red lights at the top of the pit came on, and although he felt the light against his hunched back, he didn't look up.

    He heard breathing, mechanical and regular. Heavy footsteps came to the very lip of the pit, and stopped.

    "You're alive," said Darth Vader.

    At the voice of his former Master, Starkiller looked up, blinking against the light. Vader's boots were three meters above him, barely visible behind the lights and the grate that separated the pit from the dark room beyond. The Dark Lord loomed like a shadow, a black hole in the shape of a robed man.

    Starkiller's throat worked. It was so dry he could barely talk at all.

    "How long this time?"

    "Thirteen days. Impressive. "

    The compliment was hard-won. It ground out of the triangular grille covering Vader's mouth and fell on Starkiller's ears like dust.

    "The Force gives me all I need. "

    [...]

    The rain and wind scoured him clean. He opened his mouth and felt moisture on his tongue for the first time in thirteen days. After so long in the pit, it tasted like freedom itself.

    The Force Unleashed II

    (★) Starkiller fights a Terror Walker for what feels like hours.

    Mentally, Starkiller triple-checked the layout of the secondary reactor against the rest of the frigate. He and the droid had been sparring vigorously for what felt like hours, and he was afraid of getting everything back to front. Without a clear landmark, that would have been very easy. Two decks, uncountable rooms and corridors, and one water tank had been completely destroyed during their fight, leaving an immense tangle of wreckage in their wake.

    The Force Unleashed II

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    Azronger

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    #18  Edited By Azronger

    Martial Arts Prowess

    No Caption Provided

    The Apprentice has dueled PROXY all his life.

    He had been dueling PROXY all his life; knew the weaknesses and strengths of droids, even one capable, by a clever use of repulsor technologies and a specially adapted antique training lightsaber, of imitating a Jedi.

    The Force Unleashed

    Starkiller never lost any of those duels and defeated all of the training modules.

    Galen Marek, The Force Unleashed
    Galen Marek, The Force Unleashed

    Starkiller never lost - which was lucky, because PROXY spoke with disarming openness of his intention to kill his master should he ever find a chink in his armor.

    The Force Unleashed

    Numerous pairs of eyes lit up in the shadows. The PROXY droids were activating. Starkiller's fists balled in readiness. He had defeated their training programs over and over again. There wasn't a Jedi simulation that could beat him.

    The Force Unleashed II

    The Apprentice vs PROXY’S Obi-Wan Kenobi training module.

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    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation

    Even as he mulled over this new development, a familiar snap-hiss sounded to his right and a glowing blue-white blade sprang into life in a dark corner of the hangar. A brown-robed figure ran forward, weapon raised.

    Instantly in a fighting crouch, the apprentice brought his own blade up to block the blow, teeth bared in a delighted snarl.

    He and his adversary held the pose for a bare second, lightsabers locked across their chests. The apprentice quickly sized up the being who had attacked him. Human male, fair-haired and bearded, with calm, serious eyes and a firm set to his jaw. Anyone within living memory of the Clone Wars - or possessing free access to the Jedi Archives - would have recognized him immediately.

    Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, High General of the Galactic Republic and master of the Soresu form of lightsaber combat, slid his deadly blade down and to the right, ducking at the same time to avoid the inevitable countersweep. Sparks flew as the apprentice Force-leapt high into the air and landed with perfect agility on top of a stack of crates. He reached out with his cupped left hand and swept a metal tool kit across the hangar bay, toward his opponent's head. Kenobi ducked and leapt up after him, deflecting a flurry of blows that would have left an ordinary man in pieces, then responding with a sweep of his own that sent the apprentice dodging backward, jumping from one stack to another in temporary retreat.

    So the duel proceeded for almost a minute, with Kenobi and the apprentice dancing like acrobatic Gados from stack to stack, lightsabers spinning and clashing, racks and tools turned into temporary weapons as they hurled themselves from one to the other. The racket was enormous, and the threat very real. Kenobi slashed a new rip in the sleeve of the apprentice's combat suit with a move that would have taken his arm off at the elbow had he not moved in time. Twice he felt rather than saw the Jedi's blade sweep over his head.

    The apprentice wasn't afraid of dying. His only fear was of failing his Master, and that fear he put to good use. The dark side ruined through him, made him strong and resilient. He felt more powerful than he ever had before.

    Vader was sending him to hunt one of his old foes - and how better to warm up for the mission than by killing the man who had once been among the most famous Jedi in the galaxy?

    Alive with murderous intent, the apprentice rushed forward, his red blade swinging, to finish the job.

    [...]

    At the sound of an unfamiliar energy weapon activating nearby, Juno Eclipse looked up from her work and reached for the blaster pistol at her side. She had just about finished sealing up the hull of the Rogue Shadow, and her thoughts had already turned to testing the new systems she'd installed when this distraction had come along to ruin her concentration. Combat drills weren't unknown on large Imperial vessels, but she'd yet to see anyone on the secure deck - indeed, anyone anywhere on the ship - apart from Lord Vader. Her appointment was still so recent, and so soon after the catastrophe on Callos, that she felt compelled to treat any unexpected development with caution.

    Two weapons were in play, humming and clashing, and the harsh, almost percussive sound was punctuated by noises of physical violence. Metal banged and crashed as though a dozen troopers were throwing armor at one another. There were many fragile components stored in the hangar, some of them actively dangerous if handled carelessly, but a cry of anger stalled on her lips. There was something about the sound of those weapons... something familiar that she couldn't quite place...

    [...]

    An obedient Imperial officer, Juno had done as she was told and gone to see her new command. The ship had impressed her, requiring only a small amount of tinkering to make it function at its full potential. But now this strange clamor, this rowdy duel had taken over the hangar and, by the sound of it, threatened to spill out of Lord Vader's secret spaces and into the wider ship.

    Creeping around a cryo cylinder taller than she was, Juno finally caught sight of the combatants. Her blue eyes widened in surprise.

    What struck her first were the weapons: glowing swords of a type she had seen only once before, on an old, forbidden holo her father had found in the depths of their new home's database. He had shown it to her before erasing it with a snarl. "Murderers," he had declared of the figures she'd glimpsed: brown-robed men and women of various species, fighting droids with shining swords of pure light. "Traitors, all of them."

    "What did they do?" She had been younger then, not yet fully cognizant of the frustration and resentment her father kept bottled up inside him. It only fully manifested when she gave it reason, and it was only ever directed at her.

    "What did they do?" He turned on her, tone harsh and disparaging. "The Jedi filth betrayed Palpatine - that's all they did. What rubbish do your teachers fill your head with if you don't even know that?"

    The memory of his mockery still stung. Juno forced herself to put it aside while she assessed what was happening before her. Two men - one bearded and solemn, the other much the same age as her, stubble-haired and thin as a whip - were dueling with weapons identical to those of the hated Jedi. One blade was so bright and blue, it burned almost white. Its counterpart was red and just as deadly. When they clashed, sparks flew in all directions. The men leapt and tumbled with inhuman agility. When they gestured, metal walls buckled and engine parts flew like missiles.

    She didn't dare make a sound. Every muscle was frozen as she crouched in the shadows, filled with a mixture of fear and awe. In all her years of service to the Empire, she had never seen anything like it. Heard rumors, yes - of Lord Vader's arcane powers and of the cylindrical hilt that hung at his side - but seen nothing. It had been easy to dismiss the rumors as scaremongering and propaganda disseminated to instill fear and encourage loyalty. She had never needed to be threatened into service, so she had happily ignored them.

    Now she was wishing she had paid closer attention.

    Things became stranger still when the younger of the combatants, with a look of wild satisfaction, rammed his crimson lightsaber through the chest of his opponent. Defeated, the older man dropped to his knees, a look of shock spreading across his face.

    That expression was shared by Juno when the form of the older man began to spark and flicker like a hologram - which, she realized an instant later, was exactly what he was. Arms, legs, torso, and face sputtered and dissolved, revealing the bipedal form of a droid beneath. He stirred and fell forward with a clatter of metal on metal.

    "Ah, master. Another excellent duel." The droid's words were muffled until the young man who had "killed" him rolled him over onto his back.

    "You caught me by surprise, PROXY," the man said with an easy affection that belied his former ferocity. "I haven't fought that training program in years. I assumed you'd erased it."

    The droid struggled to stand, but succeeded only in losing his balance and almost falling again. His owner caught him in time and helped him straighten.

    "Easy, PROXY. You're malfunctioning."

    "It's my fault, master," the droid said with an electronic sigh, looking down at the smoking hole in his chest. "I had hoped that using an older training module would catch you off guard and allow me to finally kill you. I'm sorry I failed you again."

    A concerned smile flickered across the young man's face. "I'm sure you'll keep trying."

    "Of course, master. It is my primary programming."

    The Force Unleashed

    Note: Obi-Wan Kenobi is PROXY’S most dangerous training module.

    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation
    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation

    The Apprentice vs Rahm Kota.

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    (24:20)

    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation

    "A boy?" With one blindingly fast movement, the lightsaber was in his hand and lit. "After all these months of attacking Imperial targets, Vader sends a boy to fight me?"

    Grim and silent, the apprentice adopted a fighting crouch. So the trap had been directed not at him but at his Master. If Kota was disappointed, the apprentice swore that this would be the last emotion Kota ever felt.

    He raised his left hand and with the power of the dark side unleashed a bolt of Sith lightning at the renegade Jedi.

    Kota only laughed. Raising his left hand in a move that was a mirror image of the apprentice's own, he sent the lightning arcing back to its source. The energy struck both of them, hurling them apart.

    The apprentice broke off the attempt, blinking smoke away from his eyes. His anger intensified. He was the first to his feet and running as soon as his boots touched the deck. He felt completely weightless, yet full of momentum, like a hurled spear. His red blade cut a blur through the air, aimed hard at Kota's throat.

    The Jedi general ducked and swept his green lightsaber up and down in a lazy attempt to catch him as he went by. That was a move the apprentice had long ago learned to avoid by tucking his head down closer to his center of gravity and rolling in midair, then kicking himself back at his opponent off the nearest wall. This time he pushed telekinetically as he came, attempting to knock Kota's feet out from under him before bringing his blade to bear.

    Again, however, Kota deflected his Force energies back at him. Again they were pushed apart.

    More cautiously the apprentice circled him, slicing chairs to pieces as he walked and sending the glowing fragments at his enemy's head. Anger made him eager to attack, but he knew better than to give in to it. He hadn't been humiliated. He had successfully tested Kota's defenses. Now that he knew a direct attack would probably fail, he had to find another way to get closer to the man. Or to make the Jedi come to him.

    Suddenly Kota was moving, charging with astonishing speed behind a furious diversity of strokes. The apprentice retreated with lips pulled back over his teeth. This is more like it! Green and red energies clashed as he blocked blow after blow and still Kota kept coming, attempting to overwhelm him with sheer determination and speed. The apprentice went back four steps, then stopped. He drew his blade close around him, forming a tight defense in deliberate imitation of the Soresu style that Obi-Wan Kenobi had favored. Realizing he couldn't penetrate it, Kota backed off and tried a different style - slow, deliberate, with sudden and devastatingly quick strikes. These, too, the apprentice parried, and when the old man's guard looked to be slipping, he offered strikes of his own.

    The duel raged all across the control center, which shook and rattled as the facility around it broke apart. The apprentice ignored everything else - Juno's voice, the wildly fluctuating gravity, the never-ending explosions, the rising temperature of the floor beneath him - in order to concentrate solely on this one vital battle. Kota wouldn't beat him, but could he beat Kota? He had to. He would rather go down with the ship than break off and admit failure. Darth Vader's secret apprentice knew which fate would await him if he did.

    The general was wily and strong and possessed some moves the apprentice had never seen before. But he was older and willfully ignorant of the dark side of the Force. He attempted his charge attack two more times, obviously hoping to force a mistake or wear out his opponent, but it was he who started to show the effects of the duel, he who took hits. Soon his cloak was a smoking rag and one of his shoulder pads was glowing red-hot.

    The apprentice pressed harder, feeling victory and the attainment of his full power approaching. Soon the Jedi's lightsaber - and head - would be his. Then he truly would be worthy of his Master's praise!

    He caught the general in a choke hold and maintained his grip even though it turned partially back on him. He had been ready for this; his lungs were full. The general, however, clutched at his throat with one hand while barely managing to parry with the other. The apprentice let the fire in his lungs fuel his lust for triumph. Even as darkness crowded around the edges of his vision, he sent objects hurtling at Kota's legs and face, battling him on all fronts.

    Finally a fragment of smoking debris struck the general's knees from behind. With a cry of frustration, the flailing Jedi went down, his face purple and eyes bulging. The apprentice relented slightly, letting them both have a little air, but before Kota could scramble to his feet he was on him, pressing down on their locked light-sabers, which sizzled just millimeters from their faces.

    Kota strained but couldn't force the red blade away. In his blue eyes the apprentice saw not cleansing hatred, but regret. Even at the end, Kota clung to his weak Jedi ways.

    "Vader thinks" - the old man gasped - "he's turned you. But I can sense your future - and Vader isn't part of it!"

    The apprentice urged the lightsabers even closer to Kota's face.

    Sweat beaded on the Jedi Master's forehead. "I sense- I sense only ..." A look of shock and confusion passed over his face. "Me?"

    The apprentice forced Kota's own lightsaber down into his eyes.

    And suddenly - as though in a vision from out of time, exactly the sort of vision the apprentice sought in the fire of his red blade - Kota's face became that of another man, a man with dark hair and strong features, features not dissimilar to the apprentice's own.

    The general cried out in pain - and in that cry the apprentice thought he heard a man shouting, "Run!"

    He flinched away, blinking furiously, wondering if Kota in his desperate extremity had concocted some new and insidious Jedi mind trick. But his head seemed clear of intrusion, and the general seemed to be thinking of anything but attack. Blinded and agonized, he scrabbled backward, his lightsaber slipping from his fingers and dropping with a dead thud to the deck. A blast of telekinesis erupted from him, shattering every viewport in the command center and sending the apprentice flying. A raging wind swept past them, sucking out the smoke and shrapnel of their duel. Kota, too, was sucked out and fell with a fading cry into the atmosphere below. Or had he leapt?

    The apprentice let the gale drag him closer to the hole where the viewport had once been. Catching a bent stanchion with one hand, he carefully leaned out and looked down, lightsaber at the ready for any final deception.

    Kota's body was already far below, spread-eagled and dwindling among the skylanes of the Vertical City. A large transport intersected his path; thenceforth his body was invisible. The apprentice imagined it being swatted like a bug on a transparisteel windscreen and told himself to feel the satisfaction of a task completed.

    The Force Unleashed

    The Apprentice vs the spirit of Darth Desolous.

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    (7:45)

    Note: Desolous killed nearly two thousand Jedi in life, and the entire Jedi Council was forced to take him down together.

    "It took the entire Council to kill me, boy. You have no chance."

    The Force Unleashed

    Desolous' rampage led to the slaughter of nearly two thousand Jedi, but eventually he grew overconfident. Desolous confronted a small force of Jedi on Yaga Minor, but these Knights were simply bait to draw the killer into a tactically disadvantageous position. When Desolous attacked, a large Jedi Fleet appeared out of hyperspace, preventing Desolous' retreat. Outnumbered and outmatched, Desolous' army was destroyed and the Sith Lord was finally struck down.

    The Force Unleashed Databank

    Desolous became even more powerful as a spirit.

    “I am more powerful in death than I was in life!”

    The Force Unleashed

    The Apprentice vs Kazdan Paratus and the droid Jedi Council.

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    Then a strange thing happened. The droid golem's dead weight shifted slightly. A hiss came from a seam down its front. With a groan, its armor plating opened. Four long, spidery arms emerged, tipped with manipulators salvaged from four very different droids. The manipulators gripped the body of the dead golem and hauled a tiny gray figure into the light.

    "Kazdan Paratus," said the apprentice. "At last."

    The minuscule being looked at him with darting, paranoid eyes. A member of the Aleena species, he was short and large skulled, with bright eyes and long, agile fingers. The harness affixing him to the strange, mechanical arms allowed him free movement with his lightsaber - a double-bladed pike with one blade significantly longer than the other. He raised it as the limbs' function turned from arms to legs and raised him to full human height.

    "Sith trash," he hissed in a voice that was high-pitched but full of contempt. "Don't worry, Masters. I'll defend you!"

    The apprentice didn't know who he was talking to until a clamor rose from the seated mannequins and, as one, the junk Jedi Council woke.

    Paratus lunged while the apprentice was momentarily distracted. The pike left a shallow cut down his left forearm before he could repulse the strange creature's attack. Part flesh and part machine, the renegade Jedi Master was proficient with the Force, and quick with it as well. Every blow the apprentice tried to make was instantly blocked by either end of the whirling pike. As fast as he lunged or retreated, the mechanical legs outpaced him. Paratus hopped around the dilapidated chamber like a deranged jumping spider.

    Outside his droid golem shell, however, Paratus was more vulnerable to Sith lightning. What he couldn't absorb into the junk metal burned him and left him writhing in pain. The apprentice sent bolt after bolt hurtling into the tiny figure. It almost seemed that the fight would be over before it had really begun.

    Then something struck him from behind, breaking his concentration and knocking his lightsaber from his hand. He turned, ducking robotic limbs and a sudden swipe from the light-pike. The mannequin of Plo Koon had risen from its chair and attacked him, holding a vibroblade in a crude approximation of the long-dead Master's renowned lightsaber style. The Way of the Krayt Dragon, it had once been called. It looked ridiculous now in the hands of a patchwork droid.

    Still, it had taken him by surprise. The apprentice acknowledged the gambit before blowing the mannequin to pieces and reaching out for his fallen lightsaber. The hilt arrived in his hand just in time to deflect another blow from Paratus, fully recovered from the waves of Sith lightning he had just endured.

    This time the apprentice was ready for the attacks from behind. One at a time, or occasionally in pairs, the mannequins moved in to distract him.

    Mace Windu and Coleman Kcaj he dismembered. Kit Fisto he melted. Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi he smashed together and hurled out the window. Ki-Adi-Mundi he blasted with lighting before doing the same to Saesee Tiin, Agen Kolar, and Shaak Ti. Stass Allie he beheaded with a single stroke of his lightsaber. Yoda he picked up with the Force and used as a missile to strike Paratus through his flailing artificial limbs.

    Kazdan Paratus moaned as each junk Master fell, mourning them as though they were actually alive. When the last one went down, he was actually weeping.

    The apprentice reached out and caught the Jedi Aleena in a light Force grip. Paratus's artificial arms crumbled, unable to resist his power. Lifting the diminutive alien into the air, the apprentice swung his captive from side to side, smashing him into the window frames and roof until rubble rained down on them both. He deflected the worst of it from himself and saved the damage for Paratus. Soon the aging Jedi was too weak to fight, but still the apprentice continued battering him. He remembered what had happened with Rahm Kota at the very last. Wherever that strange hallucination had come from, he would not permit a repeat.

    Finally, the Jedi Master's strength was spent. The apprentice let him drop to the ground, where he was pinned by an avalanche of junk falling through the ceiling. Clearly dying, he lay face up and closed his eyes.

    "I'm sorry, my Masters," he lamented. "I've failed you." With those words, he expired.

    The Force Unleashed

    The Apprentice vs the spirit of Darth Phobos.

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    (7:45)

    Note: The Jedi and the Sith had to unite to defeat Darth Phobos in life.

    Recognizing that Phobos and her sect posed a major threat to the galaxy, the Jedi grudgingly joined forces with the Sith to hunt her down. She was killed in battle with Jedi and Sith warriors, but her cult remained active for many years afterwards, finally disappearing around the time of the "Fourth Great Schism" almost 2,000 years before the Clone Wars.

    The Force Unleashed Databank

    The Apprentice vs Shaak Ti.

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    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation

    He didn't believe that for a second. With a flick of one wrist, he ripped a mushroom out of the sarlacc's skin and threw it at her head.

    She flicked it away with the Force, barely moving an eyebrow.

    "You reek of that coward Vader," she said, unfurling her legs and standing in one smooth movement. Her horn-like montrals framed her red-skinned face like an elaborate headdress. The white oval patches around her eyes gave her a slightly startled look, but the apprentice was under no illusion that he had surprised her. She was dressed in the fashion of the Felucians, in a garment made of vegetable material-some still living, judging by the mossy sheen on her belt - and bone. Her striped lekku hung well out of the way down her back, adorned by ribbons and decorative tassels.

    He raised the tip of his lightsaber in challenge, but still she didn't reach for hers.

    "My Master is not a coward," he said.

    "Then why are you here in his place?" she asked with a knowing smile. "Welcome to the Ancient Abyss, a place of sacrifice since time immemorial."

    He smiled, letting anger fuel his hatred for her and for all that the Jedi represented. With the dark side behind him, he reached out for the mind of the sarlacc and goaded it to lash out at her.

    All the creature did was roar. It resisted him, he realized, with her help.

    She smiled in mockery. "Are you prepared to meet your fate?" Then her lightsaber was lit and she was spinning through the air toward him, striking downward as she fell.

    The apprentice simultaneously backflipped and blocked her opening blow. The force of it surprised him, and the recoil threw him backward. His hood caught on one of the sarlacc's teeth, and he tore it impatiently away before the snag could interfere with his defense. Shaak Ti's lightsaber was a jagged blue blur between them. He blocked her as best he could until he had his balance again.

    Then he jumped. Over her he spun and fell down two layers of teeth toward the mouth of the sarlacc. From there he jumped up again, angling away from her to avoid giving the Jedi the advantage of height, but she was there ahead of him, driving him back down with a series of blows so rapid he barely caught them all.

    In desperation, he summoned a bolt of Sith lightning and sent it down, into the flesh of the sarlacc. The beast roared and shook, giving him the opening he needed. Shaak Ti's right foot slipped, forcing her to flip elegantly out of reach of his blade. He leapt after her, swinging as he came.

    The fight progressed around the sarlacc's center rings, blow and counterblow accompanied by the roaring of the beast. The apprentice cut off teeth and threw the fragments at his adversary's head. In return she took tighter control of the beast's distributed intelligence and sent its food-seeking tentacles flailing for him. He repulsed them and fought on.

    Down they drove each other, closer and closer to the very lip of the creature's enormous mouth. The air was foul down there, heavy with digestive by-products and the stink of rotting meat. Ghastly exhalations rolled over them as the sarlacc roared on. The apprentice was running out of teeth to sever, so he resorted more and more frequently to Sith lightning and random slashes of his lightsaber to keep it twitching underfoot. Thick ichor leaking out of the wounds made the footing even more treacherous.

    "You can't keep this up forever," he taunted Shaak Ti as they dueled.

    "Neither can you," she said. "You are wasting your strength too quickly."

    "The dark side is inexhaustible."

    "Your strength is prodigious," she admitted, "but that is your doing. Light, dark..." She paused to aim a blow at his head that he barely deflected. "They are just directions. Do not be fooled that you stand on anything other than your own two feet."

    He slashed at her own feet as they spun by overhead and sent one of her ribbons twirling down into the sarlacc's gaping mouth. "Spare me the philosophy lesson, Jedi," he snarled. "I'm only here for your blood."

    "And you may yet have it, or I yours."

    On her last three words, she struck three blows that each partially found their mark. The first burned a sizzling line down the apprentice's left shoulder. The second scored diagonally across his chest. The third would have skewered his right eye had he not held her back at the last minute with a desperate telekinetic block that stopped her lightsaber barely a millimeter from his skin. He could feel his eyelashes and eyebrows burning. The right side of his sight was entirely blue.

    She gasped and staggered backward. Her lightsaber and her gaze dropped. A full half meter of red blade emerged from her stomach, then the rest came free with a hiss.

    He backed away, shocked by how close he had come to death and how lucky he had been to defeat her. He had raised his lightsaber by reflex. She had, in the desperation of her final assault, practically thrown herself on the blade. Perhaps she had meant for the two of them to defeat each other at the same time.

    Her weakening fingers let go of her lightsaber, which deactivated with a click as it spun away into the sarlacc's mouth. She didn't look angry, just weary and in pain. Her red skin was suddenly very pale.

    He feinted toward her, but she didn't react in any way, except to look at him.

    "You are Vader's slave," she breathed, "but your power is wasted with him. You could be so much more."

    "You'll never convince me to betray my Master." He was shocked that she would try such a weak gambit again. Were these the depths to which the Jedi had sunk?

    "Poor boy." She winced. "The Sith always betray one another - but I'm sure you'll learn that-soon enough..."

    There was pity in her eyes as they rolled up into her head. She went limp and fell back into the mouth of the sarlacc. The apprentice reached out halfheartedly to catch her body, but was too slow. A second later, he wished that he had tried harder.

    A huge explosion of Force energy threw him bodily off his feet. The sarlacc went berserk. Its tentacles lashed out at him and its surface quaked violently, trying to toss him into its waiting maw. He dodged the tentacles' frenzied lunges as best he could and dived for safety onto the town street.

    The Force Unleashed
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    Azronger

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    Starkiller vs Shadow Guards.

    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation

    The black guard deflected every bolt he sent his way. When the last of the troopers fell, the black guard stepped forward with his saber-staff lowered to charge.

    "Stay away from the dock!" the apprentice warned both Juno and Kota. "We need another rendezvous point!"

    "There's a shipping balloon dock not far from you," Juno responded as his lightsaber clashed with his new enemy's. "What's that noise? You're not fighting Kota, are you?"

    "Too hard to explain," he grunted, not sure what the explanation even was. "Get to the balloon dock and wait for me there."

    He broke off communications to block a downward slash that almost knocked him flat. Glancing around for Kota, he was relieved to see that the general was nowhere nearby. Now he could summon the full power of the dark side. Drawing on the sense of betrayal and shock he had felt on seeing the figure waiting for him - this deadly, dark assassin who might or might not have something to do with Darth Vader - he pushed with all his might.

    His ears rang, such was the energy he released. The dock buckled underneath him; rivets popped and welds tore. His assailant went flying across the wide space, arms spread wide apart. The saber-staff cut a long, twisting line in the metal floor as its owner rolled and came up standing.

    A bolt of Sith lightning shot from the hand not holding the staff. The apprentice grinned, having anticipated that tactic. He met the lightning bolt with one of his own. They collided in a spit-ling, tackling ball of pure energy that danced crazily from side to side. The air filled with the sharp stink of ozone.

    The hooded assassin grunted and applied more effort. The apprentice met that effort and exceeded it. The ease with which he drove his assailant's lightning back surprised him. For one wielding a Sith blade, the man he was fighting had less power than he should have.

    The ball of energy where their crackling bolts met drifted closer and closer to the black guard. He grunted audibly and leaned physically forward with both hands upraised, one in a shaking claw and the other stabbing the saber-staff into the beam, adding its energy to his desperate attack. To no avail. The ball inexorably approached, driven by the dark power of the apprentice's will. When it touched the hilt of the black guard's saber-staff, all its pent-up energy was drawn into him.

    With a truncated shriek the guard flew out the open dock and buttered away, dead before his feet even left the ground.

    [...]

    Out of the cloud of metal fragments leapt a second of the Emperor's Sith assassins, saber-staff upraised. The apprentice met him with a clash of sparks and lightning.

    Sith against Sith, they fought backward and forward through the broad, metal-lined space. This assassin was more proficient than the first, wiry and strong with a good reach and penchant for telekinetically throwing items from inside the apprentice's blind spot. He proved to be tough work until the apprentice wrenched the next giant fan off its gimbals and sent it spinning through the air. The black guard seemed so stunned by the sight of it that he didn't jump until it was too late. One spinning blade took his right leg off at the knee. From then, the fight was over.

    [...]

    Stepping out into the open air, he found himself facing another squad of troopers, two more of the Emperor's assassins, and no less than six Uggernaughts. Two transport balloons heavily weighted with supplies hung overhead, motors whirring to keep them on station, presumably waiting to land. Kota was nowhere in he seen. The apprentice bent his knees and adopted a fighting stance.

    "Are you sure you want to do this?" he asked his gathered foes.

    The answer came in the form of blasterfire from the troopers, a barrage from the Uggernaughts, and a combined charge from the two assassins. He whirled and leapt, filling the air with reflected energy. All thought ceased; his connection to the Force became deeper than it ever had been before. He moved with grace and pure reflex, ducking under saber-staff blows, hurling troopers bodily at their Ugnaught allies, tossing walkers off the dock, and even raining supplies from one of the balloons above.

    The crew of the balloon bailed out in a small speeder. Seeing it abandoned gave him an idea. When his enemies regrouped for a second combined charge, he wrenched the balloon physically downward from the sky, crashing its entire weight down on them all - and then, when the petals of the explosion were at their peak, sweeping the entire mess off the dock with one cathartic flexure of telekinesis.

    The Force Unleashed

    Starkiller vs PROXY’S (most likely) Qui-Gon Jinn training module.

    She hesitated a moment, then opened the screen that enabled her to spy on the activities within. In the deep gloom of the chamber, Starkiller knelt with his eyes closed and his back to the door, which her viewpoint covered. The faint shape of PROXY glowed all over for a second, morphing into a new shape. When the transformation was complete, he stood some centimeters taller and broader than before, with a beard and long hair, and wearing the standard robes of a Jedi Knight. The new expression he wore was one of determined solemnity.

    Starkiller opened his eyes but didn't move until PROXY had activated a bright green lightsaber and raised it vertically in a balanced, two-handed pose on the right side of his body. Then Starkiller was up and defending himself so quickly that Juno had hardly seen him move. PROXY rained blows upon him with speed and athleticism belying his construction. Spinning, tumbling, and cartwheeling all across the room, he was constantly on the offensive, employing swings that were both fast and powerful. Starkiller had his hands full deflecting them all. In the flickering, light, she saw sweat standing out on his forehead.

    The clash and crackle of lightsabers filled her earpiece. She turned the volume down so as not to disturb Kota's sleep. This wasn't the first time she had witnessed a duel between Starkiller and his training droid. They had fought like dervishes during the first days after fleeing the Empirical, the droid obviously helping him let off steam. But for those releases, she wondered if the pressure cooker of his mind would steadily build up stresses until he exploded.

    She hadn't learned, however, to relax during them. Starkiller never lost - which was lucky, because PROXY spoke with disarming openness of his intention to kill his master should he ever find a chink in his armor. What life would be like after such a fatal mishap, she didn't like to think, so for now she tolerated the occasional practice sessions, even if she couldn't enjoy them.

    PROXY didn't stay still for a second, attacking from the ground, the walls, the ceiling, even from midair. It was like watching a dance, but one in which the slightest slip could mean death. Starkiller danced with him long enough for her to worry, then he changed his own style to match that of the droid's - and suddenly she could see the difference between the human and the mechanical. Where PROXY had been fast, Starkiller was graceful as well. Where PROXY had simply slashed and stabbed, Starkiller applied flourishes to his offensive strikes. Where every move PROXY made involved his entire body, Starkiller could launch an attack with one finger, or block by shifting his foot a single centimeter.

    The end came suddenly, with the green lightsaber stabbing deep into the belly of the unknown Jedi. Starkiller withdrew the blade and stepped backward. The other lightsaber deactivated and fell with a thunk to the metal floor. Starkiller's virtual opponent crumpled forward and had returned to PROXY'S usual form before he hit the ground.

    "I've failed again," came the muffled voice of the droid. "I'm lorry, master."

    "It's not your fault, PROXY." Starkiller extended a hand and pulled the droid to his feet. "Ataru doesn't work properly without the Force. You managed a credible impersonation of it, though, especially in such a confined place."

    "Thank you, master. Perhaps I will succeed next time."

    The Force Unleashed

    Starkiller vs the spirit of Kento Marek.

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    Galen Marek vs Maris Brood.

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    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation

    It was lucky he had retained his weapon, for Maris was on him in an instant, blades humming and whirling. He barely raised his lightsaber in time to avoid decapitation and stumbled awkwardly to his feet to deflect another attempt.

    "You've made me angry now," she said, "and I'll make you regret that."

    "I gave you a choice," he said, blocking another double blow "You killed that thing, not me."

    "The dark side doesn't split hairs," she snarled.

    Her eyes blazed red as she rained blow after blow upon him. He staggered backward, weakened by more than just his battle with the bull rancor.

    He was fighting himself - but not in some flashback - inspired hallucination, where the Jedi and the Sith warred in him for control of his future. This time the fight was real, and his opponent was as joyously rich in the dark side as he had ever been. She, too, had lost someone she cared deeply about; she, too, had been sent out into the hard galaxy to fend for herself. They should be helping each other, not fighting each other. But with Bail Organa watching, he couldn't even raise the possibility of a truce. He was even using Soresu moves against her raw, unpredictable lunges, just as the vision of himself had done in Jedi robes. And yet. . .

    As he defended himself, he saw nothing but self-pity and fear in her eyes. Both were inferior to pure anger, although both could be potent gateways to the true mastery of the dark side that his Master had demonstrated to him. Maris was a newcomer, barely beginning her journey - as he, too, was journeying along a path toward full mastery. For the first time, he understood that the one didn't come in two shades only: dark and light, distinct and combative, never meeting in the middle to form gray. Those were ideals, and ideals existed solely for philosophers and theoreticians to argue over. In the real world, dark and light coexisted in varying proportions; nothing was ever static. Thus this former Jedi Padawan could turn to the dark side after a lifetime serving the light - and she could just as easily turn back to the light afterward, if she survived.

    Light, dark, Shaak Ti had tried to tell him, they are just directions.

    We're always moving, he thought, toward the dark or toward the light. It's impossible to stand still. Some, like Darth Vader and the Emperor, had been descending through the dark side for so long that the light must have become a faint and distant memory. Some hovered eternally in the gray, never entirely choosing a side. There were, in fact, no actual sides, just the direction in which one happened to be moving. It was all relative.

    Coming to that understanding gave him a new kind of strength. When Sith betrayed one another, it wasn't because they were enemies. Their paths had simply diverged. So fighting Maris wasn't turning his back on the dark side. She was simply in his way, like so many other people before him.

    Do not be fooled, Shaak Ti had also said, as so many have before you, that you walk on anything other than your own two feet.

    Blocking Maris Brood's spinning strikes, he changed from the staid form of Soresu into the more aggressive Juyo favored by the dark side. Maris noticed the shift in his fighting style but, having only been trained in Jedi methods, failed to understand what it meant. She continued attacking with increasing desperation, even as he began to drive her back across the mounds of bones, past the body of her giant pet and away from Senator Organa. Her breathing became hard and her moves less focused. Fear began to dominate the wild look in her eyes. She was close to losing her concentration entirely.

    Use the fear, he wanted to tell her. Use the fear to make you angry, because anger makes you strong. I killed your Master. She tried to kill me and I am stronger for it. You could be, too, if you would only realize that simple truth!

    But even in the depths of her darkness, the light had corrupted her too deeply. She was a lost cause.

    Enough, he thought.

    Raising his left hand, he used the Force to lift a mound of bones into the air. Rattling and tumbling, they swirled around the two of them, picking up speed. Maris didn't know where to look. While she was distracted, he disarmed her with two swift, precise moves. Her blades skittered away through the bones and she fell back, rubbing her singed forearms. Defiance gleamed in her eyes, but too late. Much too late.

    When she turned to run, he struck her in the back with Sith lightning and she fell sprawling to the bones.

    With his lightsaber held loosely in his right hand, he approached her.

    "No," she gasped, making a futile attempt to imitate the bone dance floating around them. He batted the missiles away.

    "Please!" Defiance turned to despair and still she resisted het anger. "Don't!"

    The Force Unleashed

    Galen vs PROXY’S Anakin Skywalker training module.

    A brown-robed human figure stepped out of the shadow, with one gloved or artificial hand and thick, dark blond hair. His eyes were in shadow, but there was no mistaking his intent. A bright blue lightsaber flashed into life as the figure approached, his steps quickening, intent on attack.

    "A new one, PROXY? Excellent."

    The apprentice swept his lightsaber into his hand and blocked the first of a series of rapid-fire blows. The droid had been working on this module for some time, it seemed, judging by the skill he displayed. His combat style ranged from the aggressive Jedi style Shien to the more advanced form of Djem So with occasional flashes of rage that pushed the combat beyond offensive barrage to outright, fury-fueled Juyo. The apprentice danced with feet and blade, admiring the techniques and tricks of his newest opponent - whom he naturally recognized as the long-dead Clone Wars hero Anakin Skywalker - and prolonging the duel to see where it might lead.

    But despite his intellectual interest in PROXY'S handiwork, his heart wasn't in it. He had fought real Jedi Knights now, and fallen Jedi Padawans. In his visions he had fought as his Master, Darth Vader, and even fought himself. Such duels were very real, whereas this felt, suddenly, empty, and no longer served even as a distraction. Were it not for PROXY'S feelings, he would end it quickly and conserve his energy for other purposes.

    Even as he thought that, PROXY surprised him. Ducking under a particularly rash stroke, the droid rolled as expected but came up empty-handed. The apprentice looked for the lightsaber and saw it barely in time to avoid dismemberment. PROXY had used his repulsors to imitate a telekinetic push that sent the hilt of the lightsaber spinning across the room and back again - a move the apprentice had never seen him use before. The apprentice's block stopped the blade from slashing his throat, but in ricocheting it scored a gash down his arm. The light wound sent a neural shock through his system. He laughed, not just at the sudden rush of adrenaline and endorphins.

    "Well done, PROXY," he said. "You almost had me there." The droid didn't break his disguise as he fell back under a flurry of retaliatory blows. Revitalized by the reminder that even play-fighting with PROXY could be deadly, the apprentice drove the droid into a corner and rammed the tip of his blade through PROXY'S metal chest.

    The hologram sparked and flickered. PROXY'S familiar features appeared through those of the legendary Jedi Knight, and the apprentice reached out to steady him.

    The Force Unleashed

    Galen vs the Core in PROXY’S body. PROXY cycles through a multitude of training modules mid-combat, including Maris Brood, Rahm Kota, Darth Maul, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon Jinn, and Anakin Skywalker, yet Galen defeats them all.

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    PROXY transformed into Obi-Wan Kenobi and activated the lightsaber that had been hanging at his side. The droid's opening move was much faster than any he had attempted before - as of course it should have been, the apprentice realized when he blocked the blow barely in time. The Core had access to all the same records he did; its knowledge of Jedi lightsaber techniques might be unsurpassed in the entire galaxy.

    But knowledge was not the same thing as experience, just as clever technology wasn't the same thing as the Force. He was confident that he could defeat the Core in PROXY'S body at a fair fight.

    As he jumped up onto a nearby processor to avoid another expert swing, he saw the Core's other droid servants closing in. Fair fights were as rare as Jedi in the galaxy these days. He would have to even the odds somewhat.

    Reaching down for a cable, he sent a wave of Sith lightning through it. Lights flared and junctions sparked. The Core's processors shrieked at the sudden overload, and so did its servants. PROXY was one of them - and unlike the others, he was physically attached to the systems his master was assaulting, so the effects of the energy surge on him were severe. The hologram dissolved into static and his arms came up. Static electricity crackled from every joint.

    The apprentice cut the current before he could fry his friend's brain completely. There had to be some of PROXY left in there, somewhere, and he would rather fight an unfair fight than that remnant.

    Leaping down from the processor, he swung his lightsaber at the cable, but the Core regained its concentration in time to put PROXY'S body in the way. Their lightsabers clashed, and the apprentice gave ground to think what next to do.

    PROXY'S holographic skin re-formed in the shape of Qui-Gon Jinn. The long-dead Jedi Master's fighting style, however, was all the Core, with swift efficient lunges and more-than-adequate blocks. The Core kept its body and blade carefully between the apprentice and the cable. Every trick he tried to get past them the Core anticipated and forestalled.

    The red-eyed droids recovered as quickly as PROXY and soon joined in the fray. He knocked them down in droves with telekinesis, but they inevitably got up again or were replaced by more from outside. Still weary from his efforts with the Star Destroyer, he saved each big push until the very last moment, to spare his energies.

    And ultimately the droids weren't his enemy. He had to find a way to strike at the Core directly, without hurting PROXY. Sith lightning was out of the question, but there were other ways.

    He leapt out of PROXY'S reach and into the clamoring mob of slave droids. Swinging his lightsaber wildly around him, he cut cables and sliced through processors with abandon. Surges of electronic thought seared the air as droids rushed him all at once. He blew them back and thrust his blade deep into a bank of processors.

    "Does that hurt?" he asked the Core.

    "I do not feel pain," said the Core through PROXY'S vocoder, "and my thoughts encompass the entire planet. Nothing you accomplish in this room will make a difference."

    PROXY leapt over the droids, shaped this time like Anakin Skywalker. The apprentice met him in midair and attempted to drive him back. The cable danced behind the droid, never snagging or looping forward. The Core used PROXY's internal repulsors to keep it securely out of his reach.

    His physical reach. No doubt the Core would expect him to use telekinesis to break the link, so he hadn't even tried that. But there were more indirect ways of attacking. The cable traced a sinuous path over the heads of the slave droids. It didn't take long to find a big one in exactly the right spot. It was even easier to grip it with the Force and squeeze it until its power supply erupted.

    The explosion boomed through the massive chamber. PROXY reeled backward in midparry. The apprentice hung back, waiting to see what effect the explosion might have. Holograms flickered and fled across his friend's fluid exterior. Famous figures came and went, human and alien, light, dark, and all shades in between. Again he saw himself flash into being and was intensely glad that someone else soon superseded him. He had had enough of fighting himself for one lifetime.

    The smoke cleared. PROXY straightened, and his image settled into the form of a Zabrak with eyes full of hate and numerous horns sprouting from his red-and-black skin. His robes were midnight. His leer was full of bloodlust.

    The apprentice was taken momentarily aback. He had never seen that training module before. Either it had been dredged up from the depths of PROXY'S memory banks, or the droid had been saving it for just the right moment.

    The Zabrak Sith grinned at him and drove forward through the parting sea of droids. None now came within a meter of the intact cable, so even that option was lost.

    "You are weak," crowed the Core as it approached. "You will not sacrifice this droid even though letting me possess its memories means your downfall."

    The apprentice didn't waste energy on speech, blocking each of the Core's moves and driving the droid a step backward. Frustration made him strong, even if he presently had no outlet for that strength. Bringing down the ceiling could kill both of them and probably wouldn't have a profound effect on the Core. If it really was distributed across the entire planet, it could be unkillable.

    What was the point of being stronger than Darth Vader if he couldn't save his best friend?

    "Violence feeds disorder," blared the Core as they fought "Violence is a threat to control. Violence will, therefore, be eliminated under my rule."

    "Sounds like you've thought of everything." He barely blocked a combination of blows that he had never seen before, even when fighting his Master.

    "There is not a contingency I have not explored," the Core said through the mouth of the Zabrak Sith.

    "Oh no?"

    The apprentice drove the android back with a series of fast strikes and acrobatic maneuvers. PROXY was nowhere near as flexible as him and had none of the Force-enhanced reflexes he possessed. The droid could never beat him at a lightsaber duel, even with the Core behind it. He fought with a single-minded intensity - one designed to empty his mind of all thought and feeling. The being he was fighting was neither Sith nor PROXY. It was the Core - and the time had come to stop playing with it.

    They froze with lightsabers locked and scraping together, human strength warring with droid's, brown eyes fixed on red photoreceptors.

    "Submit or die," said the Core.

    "There is a third option." With a sudden, twisting move, he brought his saber down into PROXY'S chest and slashed deep, right through the droid body. "I could beat you."

    The red eyes flickered. For an instant just enough of the Core remained in PROXY to register surprise and then extreme alarm. The hologram sparked and faded, revealing the terrible, smoking wound in the droid's chest. The apprentice removed the blade, satisfied that his blow had done the job.

    The Core spun the body around, reaching in vain for the open hatch from which the severed cable protruded. Then all control left the metal limbs and PROXY dropped heavily to the floor.

    It was already over, but the Core still had some fight left. Hundreds of slave droids converged on the apprentice, hoping to crush him under their combined weight before he could reach the nearest processor. He blew them away with a single push and slashed open the processor's casing. Ignoring the hot metal edges, he pushed his left hand into the workings inside.

    Lightning surged through him and all the processors making up the Core's network. He projected all his anger and grief into the surge, and the strength of it surprised even him. For PROXY, for Juno, for Kota, and for himself he fried the planetwide mind into slag.

    Slave droids jerked about in a ghastly dance. The sound they made was awful to hear, the dying scream of a mind that had never before had to contemplate its own demise. It should have been immortal. It had planned to rule the galaxy. Now it was just a tangle of wires experiencing a brainstorm that would inevitably destroy it.

    "Order!" it roared and raged. "Order must be restored!"

    The paroxysm of the droids took minutes to ebb, during which time the apprentice kept up the blistering power of his rage, ensuring that he erased every last trace of the memories pulled from PROXY'S braincase. Nothing of him would remain there. The Emperor would never know how forces had gathered to unseat him, for good or for ill. There would be no witnesses, living or droid.

    When the last metal body was still and silent, along with all the processors and every blinking light, he let himself sag down onto his knees, then slip around with his back against the processor's plastic casing. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes.

    Was that enough? Would anything more be asked of him today? He was so tired. A week of sleep might not revive him.

    The Force Unleashed

    Galen Marek vs Darth Vader, round 1.

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    (26:54)

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    The Force Unleashed comic adaptation

    The Dark Lord was already moving. The red blade of his lightsaber flared into life, casting bloody shadows across the room. There was no discussion. He offered no threats. It was clear he intended only to complete what he had failed to finish on Corellia.

    The apprentice knew exactly what to expect. They had dueled many times before. He had learned how to fight at the hands of the man in the black suit - the man whose face had been forever hidden from him. He knew the intimacies of his refined version of Djem So, a fighting style that incorporated elements of Ataru, Soresu, and Makashi. He had fended off many wild, slashing attacks that would have overwhelmed even an extraordinary Jedi Knight. He had borne the brunt of many psychological battles.

    He thought he was ready - and so the sheer severity of the opening blow took him by surprise.

    A simple double stroke, up and then down, it contained enough power to jar his wrists and shoulders and very nearly disarm him completely. The collision of their lightsabers was blinding. He staggered backward and found himself at the center of a telekinetic storm. His Master seized on his momentary weakness and hurled missiles at him from all sides, hoping to keep him off his guard. For a moment, it worked.

    Then the apprentice straightened and, with a sweep of his left arm, blew the missiles away. He blocked a savage slash that would have cut him in two and another that would have lifted his head clean from his shoulders. Ducking low, he stabbed for his Master's belly then flicked the tip of his lightsaber upward, hoping to catch the chin of Darth Vader's helmet and spear him through the throat. The red lightsaber blocked the blow, but only barely. They parted for a moment to assess the brief exchange and circled each other warily.

    The apprentice understood that, until this moment, they had never truly fought as equals. His Master had either held back, or he himself had capitulated. Now, for the first time, they would see each other's true potential. Where Darth Vader was strong and relentless, he was fast and sly. And there were ways to fight that didn't involve lightsabers. Loose objects, accelerated to killing speeds by the Force, became projectiles that converged from all directions. Invisible fists clutched for throats or punched with the power of pile drivers. Floors tipped underfoot; severed beams stabbed like javelins; overloaded circuits exploded.

    "You are weak," the apprentice said as his former Master launched a second series of bone-crushing blows, each one of which he blocked with elegant precision.

    Darth Vader fought brilliantly, never employing anything less than a killing stroke. His intention was lethal. All he needed was one slip, one tiny gap in his opponent's defenses.

    The apprentice vowed not to give him one. He whirled and danced around his Master's defenses, testing them to their limits.

    "You thought I was dead," he said, letting that small triumph spur his determination to new heights. Their lightsabers danced, blurring and sweeping and shedding sparks in a way that would have been beautiful had their intent not been so deadly. The apprentice felt the wild, joyous energies of the dark side flowing through him and he resisted its call, seeking a better way to finish the job.

    They fought back and forth across the observation dome.

    "I understand you now," he said, still trying to goad his former Master into breaking his concentration. "You killed my father and kidnapped me from Kashyyyk, not just to be your apprentice, but to be a son to you. Was that how your father treated you?"

    The intensity of Darth Vader's attack redoubled. "I have no father."

    The apprentice fell back under the rain of blows. The sizzling of fabric and a faint stink of burning skin told him that at least two of Darth Vader's misses had been horribly near, but he felt no pain. He, on the other hand, had definitely struck a nerve.

    Glancing over Darth Vader's shoulder, he saw the Emperor watching the duel, his face screwed up in malevolent delight. And the apprentice understood. A better way to kill. . .

    Not out of hatred. Whatever lay beneath that black mask, it wasn't beauty or happiness. Only ugliness and pain would hide itself away for so long. Hatred would not be enough to turn the tables on Darth Vader.

    Reaching out with his left hand, he blasted his Master with Sith lightning. That broke the momentum of the furious onslaught, enabling him to stand and catch his breath.

    "I don't need to hate you in order to beat you," he gasped. "That's something I will teach you now."

    "You can teach me nothing," Darth Vader's leaden voice intoned. One black glove clenched, and for a moment the apprentice's throat closed tight.

    He beat back the telekinetic attack with one of his own, shoving his Master in the chest with the force of a small explosion, throwing Darth Vader backward across the room.

    For all his size and occasional clumsiness, the Dark Lord was sure on his feet. He landed upright and launched himself back into the fray.

    "I don't hate you," the apprentice went on, blocking him blow for blow. "I pity you." With a new strength of his own, he forced Darth Vader onto his back foot. "You destroyed who I was and made me as I am now, but this wasn't your idea. It was the Emperor's, and it's what he's already done to you." A strip of Darth Vader's cape fluttered away, smoking. The two came closer together until they were face-to-mask. The apprentice stared directly into the black eye guards of his former Master. "You are his creature just as I was yours - but you've never had the strength to rebel. That's why I pity you. I will no longer serve a monster, and if I have my way I'll make sure you don't, either."

    Vader tried to pull away, but the apprentice followed him, keeping him on the back foot.

    "I will kill you," he said, "to set you free."

    The lightsabers flashed again - and it was the apprentice who found the chink in the armor that both of them had been waiting for. Vader's lightsaber moved too slowly to block a blow to his chest, allowing the apprentice's blade to slash deeply across his armored throat. Vader staggered backward, gloved hand upraised to the smoking wound.

    There was no blood. Instead of pressing the attack, the apprentice stood his ground. Despite himself, he was as surprised as his former Master clearly was.

    For a moment, the only sounds were the twin humming of the lightsabers and the wheezing of Darth Vader's respirator.

    Then the Dark Lord laughed.

    It was an awful sound, empty of humor and full of mockery. In it, the apprentice heard a decade and a half of torture and abuse.

    Anger flared. He lunged forward. His former Master barely blocked the blow. A second scored a deep wound across his black-clad shoulder. A third stabbed deep into his thigh.

    Darth Vader reeled backward, servos whining in his injured limbs and lightsaber shaking.

    The apprentice gripped his lightsaber in both hands and held himself back. Anger was familiar and powerful; it also clouded his eyes when he most needed to see clearly.

    Vader prepared for combat again. His power over the apprentice, however, was gone. His lightsaber went skittering and sparking across the floor, twisted out of his grip by telekinesis. The Force wrenched him into the air, as he had once lifted the apprentice's father, and a barrage of missiles struck at him with increasing strength. He raised his gloved hands to defend himself, but the battery continued until, with a crash, the apprentice ripped the energy field generator in the center of the room right out of the floor and hurled it at his former Master.

    The generator exploded with greater force than he had expected, throwing him and everyone else to the floor. The transparisteel dome shattered. Debris rained everywhere. The sound of the explosion rang in his ears for an unnaturally long time afterward.

    He was the first to his feet, striding across the rubble to where Darth Vader lay face-forward, gravely wounded and stripped of his armor in places. Flesh and machinery showed through the gaps. Finally, some real blood was flowing.

    The apprentice stood over him with his lightsaber upraised and ready to strike. His former Master was trying to stand, feebly willing his massive bulk to move as it was supposed to. Servomotors whined and strained. When he rolled over, the apprentice froze.

    Darth Vader's helmet had been ripped away by the blast. Beneath was the face of the man who had stolen and enslaved him, a pathetic, hairless thing covered in wrinkles and old scar tissue. Only the eyes showed the slightest signs of life: blue and full of pain, they stared up at him with undisguised weariness.

    The Force Unleashed

    Starkiller vs PROXY’S Darth Vader module.

    "You have returned. "

    Starkiller looked around. He couldn't pinpoint the origin of his former Master's voice.

    "As you see, " he said, moving slowly forward in a confident but wary stance.

    "It was only a matter of time. "

    "Where is Juno?" he asked. The last he had seen of her, she had been on the roof of the spire. She could have been moved anywhere since then.

    A dark figure lunged at him from the shadows. Starkiller blocked a powerful slash to his head, and retaliated with a double sweep to Darth Vader's legs. The Dark Lord leapt upward, out of reach of his weapons, and Starkiller followed.

    When he landed on the first platform, Darth Vader was nowhere to be seen.

    Something moved to his right. He spun to face it, lightsabers upraised.

    A slender form stepped out of the shadows.

    "I knew you'd come, " said Juno, smiling. "At last, we are together again. "

    Almost, he lowered his weapons. It was her. She held out her arms to embrace him. He longed to run to her. But an instinct told him something was wrong.

    A flash of memory - a memory of a vision - came to him. He had seen a vision of Juno on the bridge of the Salvation, when the bounty hunter had captured her. Everything about that vision had come true, right down to the last detail. PROXY had been taken out, along with her canid second in command. She herself had been shot in the shoulder.

    This Juno was uninjured.

    "Stay back, " he said, tightening his defenses.

    Juno's smile faded. Her arms came down. When she moved, she did so with a speed that wasn't human, reaching behind her back with both hands to produce two Q2 hold-out blasters. With blank- faced, depersonalized lethality, she came for him, firing both blasters at once.

    Starkiller deflected the shots right back at her, and she staggered backward with a cry. Then he was on her, bisecting her abdomen with his left lightsaber and taking her head off at the neck with his right.

    As the body fell in pieces to the metal floor, showering sparks, Starkiller stood over her, breathing heavily.

    The illusion died, revealing the wreckage of a PROXY droid at his feet.

    "It's a lot easier to fight the Empire when it's faceless, " he heard her say from the past, "when the people whose lives are ending are hidden behind stormtrooper helmets or durasteel hulls. But when they're people we knew, people like we used to be... "

    He spun, catching the faintest echo of an in-drawn, artificial breath from behind him, and caught Darth Vader's lightsaber on the downstroke. They stood that way, locked blade-to-blade, for a moment, and then Starkiller pushed the Dark Lord back. He swept one lightsaber on a rising arc that would have taken off Darth Vader's left arm while the other he flicked sideways, hoping to catch his opponent in the chest unit.

    Vader blocked both blows, then leapt a second time, the next platform up.

    "How much harder is it going to get?"

    Starkiller scowled.

    "Are you having second thoughts?" he had asked Juno that same day - the day after he had seen the vision of his father on Kashyyyk. Her answer had been immediate: No. But he had sensed an uneasiness within her, just as his former Master had sensed uneasiness within him shortly afterward. Their loyalties were being tested. Principles, too. Such testing was never easy.

    Darth Vader was playing a very obvious game now. Starkiller could see it, and he would not be deflected from his course.

    He jumped to the second level, and there came face-to-face with Bail Organa, then Kota, then Mon Mothma, then Garm Bel Iblis. When all the leaders of the Rebel Alliance lay dead at his feet, their droid bodies exposed beneath treacherous holograms, Darth Vader attacked again. His blows were swift and economical, and the threat no less than it had ever been, but Starkiller sensed more was to come. Darth Vader would kill him, yes, without hesitation, but he would rather turn him first.

    On the fourth level, he came face-to-face with his own father, and struck him down without hesitation. Dreams and memories had no power over him anymore.

    He spun to face the attack he had come to expect from the real Darth Vader, full of confidence and surety. The Dark Lord fell back under his blows, and this time, when he leapt for safety, Starkiller telekinetically pulled him back down. His former Master sprawled before him, lightsaber raised defensively. He slashed the hand holding it away, and then plunged his second lightsaber deep into his chest.

    With a gasping, wheezing moan, Darth Vader fell back and dissolved into another PROXY droid.

    The Force Unleashed II

    Starkiller vs a horde of Galen Marek’s clones.

    The Dark Lord was standing out of Starkiller's reach. Instead of attacking, he gestured at the rows of cloning tanks beside him. Lights flickered on inside them, revealing row after row of identical forms. Clad in stripped-down version of his former training suit and attached via tubes to complex feeders and breathers, they hung weightlessly in transparent fluid, twitching occasionally in their sleep.

    Starkiller felt a shock of recognition jolt through him. These weren't stormtroopers. They were him. Incomplete, and oddly-warped from true, but definitely him.

    Vader gestured again, and the clones' eyes opened.

    In them Starkiller saw nothing but hatred, anger, confusion, betrayal, madness, and loss.

    Their glass cages shattered. Amniotic fluid boiled away. They pulled free from their cables and tubes and, with motions faltering at first but quickly growing stronger, climbed free from the wreckage.

    Starkiller stood his ground as a circle of failed clones formed around him.

    Behind them Darth Vader nodded once.

    The clones came forward in one overwhelming rush.

    [...]

    Starkiller fought as he had never fought before. Clones - his clones, nightmarishly imperfect but powerful all the same - pressed in on all sides. Darth Vader's vile conditioning had a profound hold on their immature psychologies. The desire to kill consumed their thoughts. It was all they radiated. Together they could easily have turned on their creator and overpowered him. Instead they were driven to destroy their own.

    Nor their own. Just him. Whether he was the original Starkiller, as Kota believed, or simply the best copy to date didn't matter. He was their target, and they used every power they possessed to bring him down.

    On Kashyyyk he had fought a vision of himself, and won.

    On Dagobah, he had seen other versions of him, and spared them.

    On Kamino, the choice was taken from him. He had to fight if he was to live, and he had to live in order to save Juno. Thought didn't enter into it. The Force rushed through him, and his lightsabers moved as though of their own accord.

    His clones screamed as he cut them down.

    It quickly became apparent that the first to rush in were the wildest and weakest both. In their eagerness to do battle, they didn't stop to plan their strategies. What they possessed in speed, they lacked in forethought. He was armed and they were not, so for being headstrong beyond all reason these brutish beings paid the ultimate price.

    The next wave either learned from the fate of the first or had enough innate caution to stand back a moment and observe the way he fought. They came at him from all sides, using telekinesis to try to knock him off balance on the blood-slicked floor. He was too fast for them, leaping over their heads and attacking from behind, slashing at their overdeveloped shoulders and hunched backs without remorse.

    Moving out of the center of the ring of converging clones brought him into contact with the third wave, the most cunning he had encountered so far. Long-armed and long-fingered, with blackened, blistering skin, these employed lightning when attacking him, and then by devious means. They would wait until he was distracted and attack him from behind, or come at him from three directions at once, or even use one of their fellow clones as an impromptu conductor. Deadly currents crackled and sparkled around him, kept barely at bay by the judicious application of a Force shield. Sometimes a lucky strike caused him pain, but he fought through it, found the source, and put the attack quickly to an end.

    From above came the sound of lightsabers activating, and he braced himself for another, more dangerous onslaught. These, the most normal looking of all the clones, spun, slashed, hacked, and stabbed at him from all sides, one-handed, two-handed, with all possible variations of lightsaber combat styles. Red-eyed and hate- filled, they fought each other, too, and the ones who had come before. There were no allies, just a sea of individuals.

    And yet... Confidence, determination, intelligence, and cunning - combined with physical strength and agility - the clones possessed every attribute he did, in greater or lesser degrees. He saw in their faces the same confusion he felt. They were all clones, so who was he to stand out from among them? What special qualities set him apart?

    Who was Starkiller, in this mass of faces and bodies?

    A desperate rage built up inside him. What if what he felt was nothing but a lingering imprint left behind by the first Starkiller? Did he cling to his feelings with all the more desperation because deep down he knew they were counterfeit? "The memories of a dead man," Vader had called them, blaming them for the torment and confusion he had felt. "They will fade," Vader had promised, but they had not. Did the other clones experience the same hopes and fears? Were their experiences any less worthy than his?

    "Destroy what he created... hate what he loved... be strong..." That was the command Vader had given him, on threat of death. But who was the deliverer of that death? Wasn't he the one delivering to the clones the very fate that he had feared? Had they all been given the same ultimatum?

    "You will receive the same treatment as the others."

    Death by lightsaber, at his own hand. Perhaps this macabre free-for-all was Vader's way of weeding out the imperfect stock. The last one left standing would be considered the perfect Starkiller, the one who would take his place at Vader's side. Perhaps that was his plan.

    "You have faced your final test," Vader had told a victorious version of himself in the vision he had received on the Salvation. Maybe the vision he had received on Dagobah had warned him of a very real trial, nor the metaphorical one he had imagined it to be.

    The dark side awaited his call. But if this was his final test, then he would not fail. There was too much riding on it. If he gave in to temptation and became Darth Vader's apprentice once more, then it was clear from the vision that Juno would die. She was the whole reason he had escaped, and then returned. He would not turn his back on that, even to survive.

    He sought strength from within himself, and pushed outward with all his might. Clones went flying. The empty rubes from which they had emerged shattered into millions of pieces. Platforms buckled and fell with reverberant crashes. The interior of the cloning tower rang as though struck with a giant hammer. Every muscle in his body shook with the effort of it.

    The echoes faded, and he felt a peculiar kind of quiet descend.

    The air was misted red, and every surface was slick with blood. He tasted it on his tongue and smelled it in his nose. His blood. A veritable ocean of it.

    The Force Unleashed II

    Starkiller vs Darth Vader, round 2.

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    "Why me?" he asked the silent cloning tower.

    "Search your feelings," Vader said, stepping into view at the very top of the tower, lightsaber held tightly in his right hand. "The answer lies within you."

    Starkiller stared up at his former Master. What did he have that none of the other clones did?

    He remembered:

    "How long this time?"

    "Thirteen days. Impressive. "

    And he remembered:

    "The Force gives me all I need."

    "The Force?"

    "The dark side. I mean."

    Slowly a dark understanding began to form. All the duels, all the tests, all the torturous mind games, had been to ensure his survival against every opponent - bar one. His Master. In a sense, they were still playing out the first time they had faced each other in combat.

    He didn't remember the early days of his apprenticeship, when the memories of his parents had been strong and the young boy he had once been resisted Vader's absolute authority, but he was sure the battle had been even then, psychological. The battle would never cease until one of them won.

    Was this what it was like to be a Sith? Forever at war with one's own Master?

    "Your training made me strong enough to escape you," he said, "not obey you. "

    "Yet here you are." Darth Vader's words fell on him like heavy weights. "My most deadly creation."

    "You lie!" Starkiller jumped up to the next platform, passion stirring him to action. "You never wanted this. You can't have. Once Juno has been rescued, your facility will be destroyed. You with it, if there's any justice."

    "There is no justice, " said Darth Vader, watching him ascend. "Only power."

    Vader made no move to defend himself when Starkiller reached the very top of the cloning tower. Determined to prove him wrong, Starkiller didn't waste time announcing his intentions. He just lunged. Only at the very last moment did Vader raise his blade to block the blow, and even then the move seemed almost casual, disinterested. Starkiller struck again, with both lightsabers. Vader blocked one blade and used telekinesis to throw the other off target. The platform buckled and twisted, sending Starkiller flying.

    He rolled and leapt, and came up swinging. Covered in blood - the blood of his fellow clones - and knowing Juno was close, he fought his former Master with single-minded focus. Vader was still testing him; he sensed that more and more keenly, with every passing moment, but to what purpose he still couldn't tell. Vader himself fought more cautiously than he had on the Death Star, the last time they had dueled in earnest. His armor seemed to have improved, too; it was less vulnerable to lightning than it had been just days before.

    Vader threw wrecked platforms and cloning rubes at him, while he scored three slashes to the Dark Lord's cape in return. They circled the top of the cloning tower, striking and assessing, then striking again.

    Starkiller swore that he would not give in to anger or frustration. If that was what Darth Vader wanted, he wasn't going to get it. The only emotion he would give in to was love.

    Finally, Starkiller saw an opportunity. They were exchanging rapid blows along the edge of the buckled platform, blades swinging so fast they were visible only as blurs. Vader's defenses were impenetrable; his lightsaber seemed to arrive a split second before Starkiller's, every time. He may have defeated Vader before, but Vader had learned from that mistake. He knew the measure of his former apprentice now.

    But the same was true in reverse. And when Vader forced Starkiller onto his back foot and raised his lightsaber to strike him down, Starkiller fired a lightning blast into the side of Vader's armor that was so concentrated, even the new insulation couldn't absorb it.

    The Dark Lord stiffened, betrayed by his extensive prosthetics. The distraction lasted only a moment, but it was enough. Starkiller knocked his blade out of the way and moved in to strike.

    Juno lying limp in his arms.

    The vision struck him as powerfully as a physical blow. When he tried to push it aside, it returned with even more power.

    Juno - dead.

    He reeled in shock. Was this what would happen if he killed Vader? He had no choice but to believe so. But if he didn't kill Vader, how would he ever get to her?

    The Dark Lord took advantage of his momentary confusion. He delivered a telekinetic shove that threw Starkiller backward off the platform and down to the lower levels of the ruined cloning tower. The blow and the fall had the welcome effect of clearing his mind. He turned in midair and landed on his feet. An instant later he was leaping upward again, his face a mask of determination.

    Whatever happened to Juno, he saw no choice but to confront Darth Vader. The Dark Lord had killed his father, betrayed him at least once, and would kill Juno the very second she was of no more use to him. Their time of reckoning was long overdue.

    The attainment of his true mastery of the Force - the destiny Darth Vader so often threatened him with - could only come one way. He saw that now. His final test was to kill Vader himself.

    When he reached the top level, Vader was disappearing behind the doors of another turbolift. Starkiller ripped them open, but the cab had already begun to ascend. He had no intention of waiting for it to return. He braced himself on the inside of the shaft, and jumped.

    One powerful leap saw him rising almost as fast as the cab. He reached telekinetically for its underside, and caught it. When the cab started to slow, he approached close enough to physically hold on to the underside, and raised one lightsaber to cut his way through.

    The cab jerked to a halt. Vader was already gone by the time Starkiller emerged through a circular hole in the floor. Outside the cab wasn't another cloning tower. A short ramp led up to the roof of the spire itself, currently out of sight. Starkiller emerged from the cab, a tightness in his chest telling him that Juno was very close now. Very close indeed. She was exactly where he had last seen her.

    It was raining.

    The dome had been breached. All around him, the fight between the Rebels and Imperials waged on. Wrecked starfighters tumbled from the sky in flames. Debris gushed out of wounded frigates. A listing Star Destroyer vented air and bodies in huge quantities. Across the facility, dozens of dark columns of smoke formed a thick veil of carbonized ash, choking the air. A constant high-frequency pulsation of energy weapons came from all around him, punctuated by the occasional bass explosion. It was impossible to tell who was winning.

    Wary of an ambush, Starkiller walked up the ramp. As he did so, Darth Vader came into view. The Dark Lord stood with his lightsaber extinguished in the center of the roof. Behind him, partially obscured by their lord, were four stormtroopers with weapons held at the ready.

    "Get out of my way," he said.

    "Your memories betray you," Darth Vader said.

    "They make me who I am."

    "You must turn your back on them in order to become who you will be."

    Starkiller stopped in his tracks. Was that why Darth Vader burdened him with everything the original Starkiller had been - to demonstrate his strength and commitment by dismissing it, his former self with it? Or was there still some other motive that he couldn't discern?

    Of only one thing was he certain. He wouldn't turn his back on Juno for any incentive.

    "Never," he said.

    "Then she will die."

    Darth Vader stepped aside, revealing Juno in shackles. He gestured, and the four stormtroopers surrounding her raised their weapons and fired as one.

    [...]

    When Darth Vader walked onto the roof, the stormtroopers stood to immediate attention. Juno straightened, too, but not out of respect. She didn't know what was coming, but she swore she would be ready for it. The strange sounds coming from below - the screams and clash of lightsabers - had encouraged her to hope that it would be Starkiller who came to her first, but that was dashed now. If he was dead, then Vader would surely have no reason to keep her alive.

    Her guards' comlinks chattered too faintly for her to make out the words. Orders, she assumed, from the Dark Lord. They nodded and took new positions, two on either side of her. Then they all turned to face their Master, and he turned his back on them.

    For a second, the world paused. The fighting around the spires seemed to lessen. Even the conflict in the sky grew still. She felt as though everyone in Kamino was looking in her direction - although surely, she knew, they didn't even see her. It was all about Vader and Starkiller - if the man she had loved was still alive.

    Footsteps came up the ramp. She strained against her bonds, but Vader was directly in her line of sight. She couldn't see past him.

    She could hear, though, and she would recognize his voice under any conditions, just like the Rogue Shadow.

    "Get out of my way," he said to Vader.

    "Your memories betray you."

    "They make me who I am."

    "You must turn your back on them in order to become who you will be."

    "Never, " he said.

    Vader stepped to one side, and past the swirling of his cloak, Juno saw him - Starkiller - and for an instant she didn't see the blood all over him or the tattered state of his flight uniform. All she saw was his eyes. And they in turn saw nothing but her.

    "Then she will die," Vader said, raising one hand in a signal to her guards.

    They raised their weapons, took aim, and fired.

    It happened so fast she barely had time to flinch. Vader had been keeping her alive for so long now that it didn't seem entirely real that he would dispose of her so suddenly. She jerked forward as far as the shackles allowed her, straining to get away. Every muscle in her body tensed in readiness.

    The weapons' muzzles flashed...

    ...and at that very instant a massive force struck her and the guards, flinging her backward so hard she thought her chains might break her wrists. The stormtroopers effectively disappeared, swept off the top of the spire in an instant. The shots they had fired all missed, deflected by the powerful force, although one burned her right cheek as it went by. The four energy bursts followed wild trajectories, outward across the crowded sky.

    "Juno!"

    Her shackles fell to the ground with a heavy clatter.

    Alive but winded, she couldn't reply. She could barely even believe she was alive. She had caught just the fringe of the push that had killed the guards, and she knew that even so she had almost been killed herself.

    A different force gripped her, one no less powerful than the first, but aimed at her, not at anything else. It gripped her cruelly about the throat and lifted her so her feet barely touched the ground.

    "Bow before me," said Vader to the man she loved.

    Starkiller took a step forward. The force gripped her even more tightly, closing her windpipe. She choked, kicking out and finding no ground at all beneath her now. Her hands pulled at her throat, but there was nothing there to grip, and no way to fight it.

    "Juno!"

    She heard the furious despair in Starkiller's voice, and understood that he was fighting for her, and losing.

    "Bow before me," Vader repeated, "or she dies."

    Don't, she wanted to say. Don't do it. You've been down that path before. You know where it leads you. But she couldn't speak. She could barely even see him. Black dots were crowding out her vision as her oxygen-starved optic nerve began to fail. Don't let him trick you again.

    He couldn't possibly hear her, but she suspected it wouldn't make any difference. In his shoes, she would be tempted to give in, too. After all they had been through, after all they might have been but had been denied, they at last had a second chance. Arguably that was worth more than any political movement or philosophy. So long as they survived, their love would survive. Nothing else mattered.

    She understood, but she felt no relief as Darth Vader's terrible grip loosened and she fell painfully to the ground. Cool air rushed into her lungs. She coughed as though retching, feeling pain all along her windpipe.

    Over the sound of her hacking and wheezing, she heard two metallic clinks and looked up to see what had happened.

    Starkiller had deactivated his lightsabers and thrown them at Vader's feet. They rolled across the rooftop, their residual hear making the raindrops steam.

    Her vocal cords were red raw. Juno could only shake her head as Starkiller rook three steps forward, and went down on one knee at Darth Vader's feet.

    "I'll do your bidding," he said. "Just promise me you'll never hurt her again."

    "That, " said Vader, "depends entirely on you."

    Starkiller bowed his head, and Juno fought the urge to weep. She understood the dark place from which his capitulation had come, but submission to Darth Vader was not the way to save her. That way lay nothing but more separation and death. And betrayal. And murder.

    She had to find the strength somehow to free Starkiller - just as he, clone or original, had somehow fought his way back from the dead in order to find her again.

    Her desperate gaze caught sight of one of Starkiller's lightsabers. It had rolled in her direction and lay just out of her reach. If she was quiet, she might just be able to reach it.

    The equation was very simple, really. Once before, she had abandoned her entire life for Starkiller. She could easily abandon this one too if it meant saving him from the horrible fate he had just accepted, thinking that it would save her.

    Vader's back was to her, and Starkiller's head was still bowed.

    She raised herself to hands and knees and reached out for the lightsaber.

    "You will find and kill General Kota," Vader said. "If you refuse, the woman dies."

    Starkiller said nothing. Maybe he nodded, but Juno couldn't see him. Vader had placed himself firmly between them once again, symbolically as well as physically.

    "You will return to me and give yourself to the dark side," Vader went on. "If you resist, she dies."

    The warm metal hilt slid into Juno's hand. She lifted it gently, afraid of making any noise at all, and raised herself to her knees. This was the first time she had held a lightsaber. She knew all too well that it was probably going to be her last.

    "And when your training is complete," Vader said, "you will hunt down and execute the Rebel leaders."

    Still winded and aching from head to foot, Juno rose unsteadily to her feet, feeling for the lightsabers activation switch and hardly daring to take her eyes off Vader's back as she did so. They were less than two paces apart.

    "If you fail, she dies. "

    She pressed the activation switch at the same instant she lunged. The bright blue blade sprang to life with a startling hiss, but she didn't let herself be distracted. She had used vibroblades in her training days; she knew how to wield a sword. It was even simpler than the point-and-shoot quip about blasters.

    She stabbed at Vader's back, taking the one chance she had left to reclaim her life with Starkiller.

    For an instant, she thought it might actually work. Vader's attention was firmly on Starkiller, and the sounds of battle provided effective cover. What was one more energy weapon over the hundreds in play in the facility?

    At the last instant, however, some arcane instinct must have warned him. He turned with inhuman speed. She could barely credit her eyes - black holes didn't spin so fast. The tip of Starkiller's lightsaber grazed the front of his chest panel, producing a shower of sparks. She felt no resistance.

    Then he pushed her in exactly the same way Starkiller had pushed the stormtroopers. She felt as though the world moved out from under her, sucking all the air away with it. The lightsaber fell from her hand, and suddenly she was flying. Her head snapped forward, and the rain boiled around her. The air itself seemed to hurt, she was moving so fast. Vader receded into the distance with uncanny speed.

    How far he pushed her, she couldn't tell. It seemed to last forever, but she knew she had to hit the ground sometime. She hoped it wouldn't be soon. Landing was going to hurt.

    Something slammed into her from behind.

    It did hurt.

    The last thing she felt was rain falling into her open eyes. The last thing she saw were three lightsaber blades painting red and blue shapes against the encroaching black.

    [...]

    Starkiller ran past Darth Vader to where Juno lay broken on the edge of the cloning spire's roof. Horror and self-reproach filled his mind. He hadn't seen her crawling for the lightsaber; he hadn't sensed her desperate plan until the very last moment - and it was his alarm that had alerted Vader, he was sure of it. He and his former Master had reacted at the same time. If Starkiller had moved an instant faster, had a fraction more of a second to think the problem through, he would have pushed Vader just as Vader had pushed Juno, impaling him on the blade before it was whisked away. Instead, he had thought only of saving Juno - a plan, he feared, that might always have been doomed to failure.

    He stopped her before she flew off the edge of the roof, at least, but the grisly crunch of bones when she landed was unmistakable. Her head was bent at an impossible angle, and her eyes didn't track him as he ran toward her.

    "Juno!"

    A black-gloved hand grabbed his shoulder. He pulled away, howling with rage. His fallen lightsabers snapped into his hands and came instantly to life. With both blades moving in tandem, he struck out at his former Master using all his strength, all his rage, all his grief. Darth Vader blocked the blow, but only just. Starkiller pushed, and the Dark Lord stumbled backward.

    Instead of pursuing the attack, Starkiller went to go to Juno, but once again Darth Vader stood in his path.

    "Get out of my way."

    "Your feelings for her are not real," Vader said, not moving.

    "They are real to me."

    Starkiller attacked the Dark Lord again, but this time he was the one driven back.

    With a sense of piercing despair, he saw exactly how the fight would go. He and his former Master would dance like marionettes while Juno lay dying - if she wasn't already dead - and the war raged around them, unchecked by this minor tragedy. In the context of the galaxy's suffering, Juno was just one freedom fighter who had died that day - one among many on Kamino alone. Only she hadn't given her life in combat or to save someone less fortunate than herself. She had been snuffed out thanks to the manipulations of one single tortured man, a man whose stubbornness would never allow him to give up, admit fault, or compromise.

    Starkiller knew nothing about the Dark Lord's origins, but he knew what he had become. More monolith than man, his shadow bestrode the Empire, casting darkness wherever it fell. But what was the source of that scourge? What twisted psychology had brought him to where he stood now - risking his life to prevent the clone of his failed apprentice from coming near the body of the woman he had loved?

    Sudden understanding burst in Starkiller's mind. This was what Darth Vader had wanted all along. He had been right to fear that Juno was in danger, but not just from clones like him - from Vader, who would use her death to destabilize Starkiller and lead him headlong back to the dark side via anger and despair. Where Starkiller had seen hope, where Starkiller had been willing to sacrifice his own destiny to give the woman he had loved a chance to live, his former Master had seen only opportunity for betrayal - for without Juno, what did Starkiller have left to live and fight for? He had no family, friends, or allies. Juno was always intended to be the catalyst for his downfall. Her precipitous attack had merely brought the critical moment forward.

    Starkiller saw things very differently. It wasn't Juno who had to die to complete Starkiller's training. It was Darth Vader himself, and he had brought this moment upon himself. Had he been content to let Starkiller go, none of this would have happened. Were he dead or freely searching for Juno, either way, he would never have willingly come back to Kamino. He would have gone anywhere else, and never returned.

    Darth Vader simply wouldn't let go. The massive cloning exercise itself was proof of that. He had raised Starkiller to be a monster, and he would let nothing get in the way of achieving that outcome. Not even Starkiller's own death. Even if it took a thousand reincarnations and the death of trillions of innocent people, Darth Vader would not give up. His persistence, his unwillingness to accept defeat, was both his greatest strength and his greatest weakness.

    All the clones were destroyed. As far as Starkiller knew, he was the last one left - so that was one vision averted, at least. No matter what happened, no version of him would hill foul of Darth Vader's vile plan now.

    They fought like the Sith Lords of old, raging back and forth across the roof of the spire, uncaring what happened around them. Starkiller maintained his efforts to get to Juno, and Darth Vader did everything in his power to stop him. Neither would capitulate. Neither would be the first to break. Their wills were locked.

    They broke apart, lightsabers hissing in the ceaseless rain. Lightning split the sky into a thousand jagged shapes. Thunder rolled. Neither had noticed the battle fading around them.

    "Let me go," Starkiller said, sounding much calmer than he felt. His heart was pounding, and his lungs burned. "You've taken everything from me. You must see that I will never serve you now."

    "You are wrong. I have given you everything."

    "This?" He gestured at Juno's inert form. He couldn't tell if she was breathing, but he still held out a distant hope. "You have done nothing for me."

    "It is our destiny to destroy the Emperor. You and me, together."

    There it was, Starkiller thought. That promise again. Surely Darth Vader could see that it meant nothing now, after so many times offered in the past, and none of them fulfilled?

    Unless... A deeper layer of understanding presented itself. Unless Darth Vader felt exactly the same as he did.

    What lengths had the Emperor, Darth Vader's Master, gone to in order to create him? And how far would Darth Vader go to get revenge? To attain his own destiny as a Sith?

    "The Rebels want to destroy the Emperor," Starkiller said. "Why not work with them rather th-?"

    Vader attacked before he could finish the sentence, a blistering combination of blows that left Starkiller on his back foot. Clearly he had hit a very deep nerve. For a fleeting moment, the plan had seemed almost inspired. With Darth Vader on Kota's side, what couldn't the Alliance accomplish?

    But it was a dream. The Rebels would never trust the Emperor's apprentice, and Vader was making it very clear that he wanted no part of it either. The vehemence of his response left no doubt about that.

    Starkiller found himself backed up almost to the edge of the cloning spire's roof. One more step, and he would fall, and to fall would give Vader the high ground. That might not result in his death, but it would certainly end the fight.

    It needed to end now, or else it might never end.

    Blow after blow rained on him, forcing him back. There had to be a way to free himself and avenge Juno at the same time... but a stalemate seemed unavoidable. Any move he made was sure to lead him to an indefensible position.

    Then it occurred to him. An indefensible position was exactly what he needed.

    He lunged. Darth Vader saw him coming and swiped with unbearable strength, sending Starkiller's left lightsaber flying in pieces. Starkiller lunged again, and his right lightsaber joined his left. He fell back, beaten, and stared up at his former Master.

    "This is your last chance," Vader said, standing over him with the unwavering tip of his lightsaber pointed directly at Starkiller's chest.

    Starkiller stared up at the black mask, sure of two things. Vader didn't want to kill him, but not out of mercy or sympathy for his lot. The Dark Lord had invested far too much time and energy in re-creating his former apprentice, and he wouldn't want to throw all that away. Not when he seemed on the verge of victory.

    Juno was dead or dying. Starkiller was disarmed and helpless.

    Any rational being would at least consider Vader's offer.

    The second thing Starkiller knew was: The best way to beat Darth Vader is to let him think he's won.

    Thinking of Wedge Antilles, he said, "I make my own chances."

    With both hands he sent a wave of lightning into the sparking gash Juno had made in Vader's chest plate.

    The Dark Lord staggered backward, transfixed by the unexpected retaliation. Starkiller leapt to his feet and followed him, keeping up the lightning attack and using telekinesis to rip Vader's lightsaber from his temporarily weakened fingers. Sheers of energy spread our across the wet rooftop. Smoke and steam rose up in a tortured spiral. The grating whine of Vader's respirator rook on a desperate edge.

    He went down on one knee. Starkiller stood over him. Vader's lightsaber swept into his former apprentice's hand. The blade came to rest at his throat.

    Starkiller stared into the black mask, breathing heavily. One twitch of the blade and Vader would be dead at last.

    The Force Unleashed II
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    Azronger

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    Thank you for reading!

    May the darkness of Sheev be with you!
    May the darkness of Sheev be with you!

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    dark-sith123

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    #22  Edited By dark-sith123

    Very good. While I've never been too impressed with Marek's saber skills and strength, his Force power at such a young age stuns me. It's a pity that guys like Anakin and Marek have such potential but for some reason it's just wasted. Would have loved to see full potential Marek vs ROTJ or DE Sidious.

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    WollfMyth209

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    Nice nice.

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    redheathen

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    This is a really well done, RT, az. It's difficult to understand why some people think SK is overrated.

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    Zapan871

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    Fantastic job, it looks like it was a good idea to leave this to you after all. I didn't expect to have overlooked so much stuff.

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    killbilly

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    #27  Edited By killbilly  Moderator

    I informed you of many thinks you overlooked over the years Zapan...

    Az, this is a masterwork. I'm really glad somebody besides myself decided to take up the cause.

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    killbilly

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    #28  Edited By killbilly  Moderator

    Just going over the thread to add a few things that might be missing.

    1. The Felucian Comparison.

    - The Felucians many be one of the most naturally Force adept species in the galaxy.

    "The entire jungle was alive with tin Force, from the tiniest spore to the mightiest rancor, and the Felucians themselves were alive with it, too-so alive, in fact, that they tapped into the Force as naturally as humans breathed an oxygen-rich atmosphere."

    -- The Force Unleashed.

    - Felucian warriors are able to send out bolts of Force energy.

    The apprentice ducked another bolt of Force energy hurled by the Felucian warrior to his right.

    -- The Force Unleashed.

    - Felucian Shamans are able to completely heal debilitating wounds in minutes.

    He recognized the largest as one he had injured previously, but he moved now with perfect grace and aggression; the shaman he had spared several minutes earlier must have doubled back and healed the warrior's injuries. He vowed not to make the same mistake again.

    -- The Force Unleashed.

    Note: Given many high tier Force user's struggle to fully heal their subject, it's quite the demonstration of the Felucians raw power.

    - Felucian warriors are able to wield telekinesis and possibly strengthen their bone swords so as to be resistant to lightsaber blades.

    The bone swords were resistant to his lightsaber, but his skill with the Force far exceeded theirs. Dodging their clumsy telekinesis and unwieldy blows, he dispatched them calmly and without fuss, saving his energy for the real enemy waiting for him.

    -- The Force Unleashed.

    The novel implies that a random Felucian beastrider has powerful enough Force defenses to deflect/resist the energy of a lightsaber blade for a period of time.

    "A rancor bearing a Felucian rider thundered through the forest, crushing delicate life-forms beneath its clawed feet and sniffing for his scent. The apprentice jumped from mushroom cap to mushroom cap until he was in a position above the rider's head, then he leapt down with lightsaber swinging. The rider's organic headdress covered everything from the neck up, as with all the warriors. He had some Force resistance, but he couldn't withstand Darth Vader's apprentice for long."

    -- The Force Unleashed.

    - Galen fought a planet of these being whilst on a Lightside nexus which weakened him.

    "She had taken a world enjoying the normal flows between the light and the dark sides of the Force and twisted it out of balance. There was still darkness on Felucia, but it was stifled, frustrated, weakened."

    -- The Force Unleashed.

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    killbilly

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    #29  Edited By killbilly  Moderator

    @azronger: Hey man, just got the section about the junk golems. Even I didn't know they were force resistant. Great find.

    - - -

    The ship shook, disturbed by the widely distributed mass of the nebula. He gripped the console, urging it to fly straight by the force of his will. This had to work. He had to arrive on time. There was simply no other option.

    The Force Unleashed II.

    I overlooked this one as well. ^

    - - -

    Last question is more of a request for clarification. Did you not mention Galen/Starkiller being a practitioner of Juyo in the Martial Prowess section because Zapan's thread already had it?

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    ShootingNova

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    Excellent. Very comprehensive and helpful.

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    Zapan871

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    @killbilly:

    I informed you of many thinks you overlooked over the years Zapan...

    Then I just forgot to add them, I guess? But even then, I doubt the thread would have been this long.

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    GoofTheFloof

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    Loved the first game, not so much the second. Overall I really liked starkiller

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    Jmarshmallow

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    Holy crap, awesome RT. So much detail.

    Mad props, bro.

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    AmethystGravity

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    Wow. That's extremely comprehensive, and very nicely done!

    I admit I don't entirely understand the calcs/scaling with Star Destroyers and such, but the TK, barrier, and lightning feats are still crazily impressive, regardless of the specifics.

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    dark-sith123

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    @redheathen:

    Ah well, I guess that's back from the days where "HURR DURR STARKILLER PULL DOWN STAR DESTROYER" and all those threads in which people said he beat Sidious, and that he could wreck Yoda, blah blah blah.

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    redheathen

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    @redheathen:

    Ah well, I guess that's back from the days where "HURR DURR STARKILLER PULL DOWN STAR DESTROYER" and all those threads in which people said he beat Sidious, and that he could wreck Yoda, blah blah blah.

    When I posted, I was thinking about a thread I saw last night with the top ten overrated Sith Lords, which had SK on it.

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    dark-sith123

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    @redheathen:

    That thread also includes outside of CV rankings, and I'm sure some casuals still think Marek>>anyone.

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    killbilly

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    #38 killbilly  Moderator

    Wow. That's extremely comprehensive, and very nicely done!

    I admit I don't entirely understand the calcs/scaling with Star Destroyers and such, but the TK, barrier, and lightning feats are still crazily impressive, regardless of the specifics.

    The calcs with the Star Destroyer is that Starkiller can power a cannon which overwhelmed the shields of a Star Destroyer that can take exponentially more then 200 gigatons of energy.

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    reactor

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    @dark-sith123: To be fair, the former actually has a just cause; there is a contradiction between the progression of events between The Force Unleashed video game, its primary outlet, and the supplementary material. This is actually super common, (for example, the Revenge of the Sith novelization has several contradictions with the film) and is usually done for the sake of adding in additional detail. In this case, however, that somewhat backfired.

    Those that played the game clearly saw Starkiller telekinetically rip an undamaged Star Destroyer out of the sky (which was explicedly stated and heaily built-up moment), whereas those that went to the novel (a relative minority) got the detail that the SD was descending already. Two canon sources, two canon depictions, which one is the correct? The primary (game) or the secondary (novel/comic)? Normally, people go by the standard set by the movies, in that when contradictions arise, go by what the main narrative tells you (which, for instance, would mean if the RotS novel contradicts the film, on principle, go by the film upon which the book was based upon).

    This is what led to the "HURR DURR STARKILLER PULL DOWN STAR DESTROYER", because depending on which source you held as "more canon", he did.

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    killbilly

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    #40  Edited By killbilly  Moderator

    @reactor: Leeland Chee clarifies the novel holds precedence over the other TFU adaptions.

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    reactor

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    @killbilly: Did he really? Could you link me to that? It'd be nice to have it as a resource

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    Dawn_of_Ages

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    #42  Edited By Dawn_of_Ages

    Excellent thread. Most impressive.

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    killbilly

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    #43 killbilly  Moderator

    @reactor said:

    @killbilly: Did he really? Could you link me to that? It'd be nice to have it as a resource

    Source: First Look: The Force Unleashed Novel, starwars.com (2007)

    In 2008, the next chapter of the Star Wars saga will be told in LucasArts' brand-new, next generation video game, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. The game casts players as Darth Vader's "Secret Apprentice" and the storyline promises to unveil new revelations about the Star Wars galaxy. The official The Force Unleashed novel by author Sean Williams (based on the story by Haden Blackman) will cover the events of the game, providing the one true "canon" path of events that affect the Star Wars saga.

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    reactor

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    @killbilly: Isn't that the quote released specifically regarding the game's ending (since it had two endings via player choice)? Regardless, I'll take it, thanks bro!

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    xolthol

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    #45  Edited By xolthol

    @azronger: Fantastic RT... A référence... But I still disagree with some deduction that you give us... Particularly in term of lightsaber equivalence and proxy module....

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    killbilly

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    #46 killbilly  Moderator
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    DarthSkywalker0

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    #47  Edited By DarthSkywalker0
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    killbilly

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    #48 killbilly  Moderator
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    LordOfTheLight

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    Great thread.

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    Azronger

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    @xolthol: What do you disagree on about PROXY?

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