scrape_r_rational/data/cache2/2mmyoo.md

## Any good Star Wars rational fics? I need to get the bad taste that is the EU out of my mouth.

* Author: u/None *
* URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/2mmyoo/any_good_star_wars_rational_fics_i_need_to_get/
* Score: 11

* Created: 2014-11-18T05:14:38

### Post:

Are there any brave writers out there who looked at the Star Wars Universe and thought that they could do better than a mediocre power creep anime?

Because I can't like Star Wars anymore because everything has become about cool factor and upping power levels so everything is the most powerful **ever**. Everytime I hear that a Star Destroyer laser puts out 18 million trillion gigamegawatts or I want to shake small children. 

### Comments:

> **u/scruiser** [+17]  *CYOA* (21 minutes later)
> 
> I feel like the whole Jedi precognition angle is heavily underused.  In Worm, thinker powers totally dominate at the highest level.  I would really enjoy a fic that shows just how much effort Palpatine had to put into coming up with a plan to mess up their precog and out maneuver the entire Jedi council.  Palpatine could be rewritten as a tragic anti-hero who succeeded in his instrumental goals, but failed in his terminal goals as he went mad with power from over using the dark side.
> 
> Other fun angles I would want to see:
> 
> * Dealing with instrumentally useful powers that adversely affect your epistemic rationality or your values.  Top tier light side abilities require faith/trust in the force, reducing your epistemic accuracy but granting amazing insight and precognition.  Top tier dark side abilities have a lot of raw physical power but ultimately cause the user to become mentally unbalanced to lose sight of their values.
> 
> * Clever use of force precognition by the characters and to explain in universe characteristics.  Why do they have human fighter pilots instead of all droids?  Force precognition exists at a low level in most sapient beings, giving an advantage over droid systems.  Jedi using their force precognition to be in the right place at the right time to mediate conflicts, thus explaining how mere thousands of them can keep peace in a galactic empire (this is hinted at in the novelizations I think but not fully explored).  
> 
> * Droids.  Artificially created intelligence.  So much more to explore there.
> 
> I would consider writing such myself, even with my lack of experience, however I haven't read any of the EU or even the novelizations of the movies so I wouldn't be able to do a good job with that stuff.

>> **u/artifex0** [+12]  (12 hours later)
>> 
>> >  Top tier light side abilities require faith/trust in the force, reducing your epistemic accuracy but granting amazing insight and precognition. Top tier dark side abilities have a lot of raw physical power but ultimately cause the user to become mentally unbalanced to lose sight of their values.
>> 
>> I've always thought that the Force makes the most sense if you suppose that being a Force sensitive tends to drive a person insane.  That's the reason decent Force sensitives can be tempted by the idea of becoming sadistic overlords. It's why the Jedi Order teaches extreme self-control, and trains Force sensitives to suppress all emotion, including love.  
>> 
>> The Jedi Order, according to this theory, wasn't founded to protect society through the use of the Force, it was founded to protect society from Force sensitives.  The culture of asceticism, the constant self-sacrifice, the training of very young Force sensitives- these were all meant as ways of helping Force sensitives maintain sanity.  Even the idea of a separate light and dark side was invented as a way of giving Force sensitives a tangible thing to resist, since they can't ignore their link to the Force entirely.
>> 
>> The reason people like Palpatine and Anakin became a new generation of Sith was because the Jedi had forgotten their original purpose.  For a long time, they'd been devoting their resources to accumulating political power and political responsibility instead of focusing their efforts on finding and training Force sensitives.

>>> **u/scruiser** [+4]  *CYOA* (16 hours later)
>>> 
>>> > I've always thought that the Force makes the most sense if you suppose that being a Force sensitive tends to drive a person insane.
>>> 
>>> I really think it would be an interesting conflict for our rational character to need to use a dark side technique to accomplish a really important goal, one worthwhile enough that the risk of going insane is a good trade-off.  You could do a Wildbow type deal were you portray everything from the main character's perspective, even as they go insane.
>>> 
>>> > It's why the Jedi Order teaches extreme self-control, and trains Force sensitives to suppress all emotion, including love. 
>>> 
>>> I also think it would be really interesting to cover the history of the Jedi Order, when they were first laying down their rules and developing their training techniques.  They attempt to study a phenomena, the Force, which doesn't obey any of the precepts of a reductionist paradigm, and which actively corrupts users that try to bend it to their will.

>>>> **u/artifex0** [+7]  (18 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> > I also think it would be really interesting to cover the history of the Jedi Order
>>>> 
>>>> The very early history of the Star Wars universe has always seemed like a setting where some very interesting stories could be told.
>>>> 
>>>> The way I'd write it would be to have the first, most powerful Dark Jedi emerge in an early spacefaring society.  They'd be able to shield their bodies from bullets and pull jet fighters from the sky, and they'd wage a merciless war of domination against all of the nations of their world.  That war would see the first energy blasters invented as anti-Jedi weapons- force users only being able to deflect material projectiles- though the invention would come far too late.
>>>> 
>>>> In the following Dark Jedi-ruled age, the history of the galaxy would be lost, and the energy weapons that had been created to fight the Dark Jedi would become their tool.  With any threat of rival force-users kept in check by the countless blaster-armed soldiers of the Dark Jedi, no one could pose a credible challenge.
>>>> 
>>>> That would change with the invention of the lightsaber.  It's inventor, a genius lacking any Force sensitivity, would nevertheless recognize it's significance.  They would found a Light Jedi Order in secret, a prototype for the Jedi Order later founded on Tython.  They would recruit Force sensitives and train them in both a method for maintaining their sanity and a Force technique for deflecting blaster fire with the lightsaber.  The blaster-equipped armies of the Dark Jedi made obsolete, the Light Jedi would finally bring a new order to the galaxy, and found what would later become the Galactic Republic.

>> **u/None** [+4]  (39 minutes later)
>> 
>> Honestly I would like to go back to the basics on the force and just start over, I felt like Star Wars really got caught up in this Naruto style labeling of everything to do with the force ever and I'd like to go back to a time when the force was more vague and pervasive than the solidified form it had in the EU or even in the prequels and just go on from the info we get in the original three movies.

>>> **u/None** [+11]  (10 hours later)
>>> 
>>> I like the idea that [midichlorians are a *result* of being force sensitive, not a *cause*](http://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/2b0img/star_wars_rational_take/cj1o4ji). As in, midichlorians grow or concentrate in people who are force sensitive. I would read the *fuck* out of a story that followed a [rational!Skywalker](http://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/2b0img/star_wars_rational_take/cj0rycv) through the Clone Wars as he struggled with the slavery of sapients (both droids and humans), Jedi mind control, the difference between the Light and Dark Sides, and finally the almost-certainly-artificial origin of the Force (Celesials as UFAIs) …
>>> 
>>> Damn, maybe I should write it.

>>>> **u/None** [+3]  (12 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> I feel like researching the Force would be the major focus of a rational!Star Wars fic, just as researching magic is for Harry Potter, researching Sakuradite for Code Geass, researching Spiral Energy for Tengen Toppa, etc.. Reclassify the Jedi Order as an order of researchers and scientists rather than peace-keepers.
>>>> 
>>>> Additionally, I read on this subreddit at some point a theory on the Force that I rather liked. To paraphrase: "There is only the Dark Side of the Force, and the Light Side is just people strong-willed enough to take advantage of it without being corrupted."
>>>> 
>>>> Edited note: I haven't actually seen a rational!Code Geass fic. I'm intending to write one, though, and that would focus on Sakuradite.

>>>>> **u/scruiser** [+3]  *CYOA* (16 hours later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> > I feel like researching the Force would be the major focus of a rational!Star Wars fic
>>>>> 
>>>>> I would actually like to see a deconstruction of this.  Anakin or whoever our rational Jedi is wants to research it, but the Jedi archives have most of his ideas already tested with inconclusive results.  The danger of the dark side makes his other experiment ideas too dangerous.  Our rationalist then has to rely on Bayesian probability estimates using the existing body of knowledge about the force because there are issues making the force hard to study (the dark side, plus the Force not following reductionist rules, etc.).  
>>>>> 
>>>>> Actually, in general, I would be interested in the state of the scientific method in a galaxy in which technology and science have stagnated at such an advanced level.  If all the basic research has been done, it may be a matter of archiving and sharing data effectively versus trying to recreate research some other scientists already did a millenia ago.

>>> **u/alexanderwales** [+8]  *Time flies like an arrow* (15 hours later)
>>> 
>>> The big problem with ditching canon is that people don't tend to like divergence. Star Wars fanfic will most likely be read by people who like Star Wars, and if you change the things that they consider fundamental to the universe, they'll complain (or more likely, just close the tab and not read again). This is true even if you're up-front about the fact that the fic you're writing takes place somewhere that's only tangentially related to canon.
>>> 
>>> A second problem is that if you're going to be rebuilding Star Wars from the ground up, there's a strong argument for just making your own unique space opera (and people will ask you why you're not doing that).
>>> 
>>> I've written a few pieces of fanfic that diverge strongly from the source material, and have gotten these types of complaints.

>>>> **u/None** [+5]  (16 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> I mean, I think of HPMOR as divergent just because it doesn't view magic throught the same lens as the original, that's what makes it good. The whole point of a Rational Star Wars fic to me would be to take a different approach to the force as defined in the movies and avoid the generic anime style cut and divisions the force turned into.
>>>> 
>>>> I wouldn't want to see a rational fic that adheres to the portions of the EU which exist for little rational reason. I hate that the force became something so driect and really kind of uninspired instead of pervasive and indirect; when the force was considered a greater power than the death star and that actually meant something besides that a Jedi could just physically blow up a planet with his mind. Apparently in the EU there was no idea that this comparison could be taken in any other way than the most literal way possible and we ended up with Jedis who could pull Star Destroyers out of the sky and a bad guy who can make black holes with his mind. 
>>>> 
>>>> God forbid that anyone have the idea that maybe the force is more powerful than a giant laser because saying that the death star is more powerful than the force is like trying to say that a bullet is more powerful than water. You can kill a person with a bullet, but water has shaped the course of civilization and scored the earth through erosion in such a way no measly piece of metal could ever do. 
>>>> 
>>>> But no, we couldn't have the idea of the force as something pervasive and immutable, something ordinary weapons could never touch by virtue of its timelessness, we got something that we could apparently only relate to if we turned it into magic ninjitsu and had characters be able to perform greater more powerful feats over time as the only way to advance the universe, as opposed to you know, having a real story and not requiring insane levels of power creep to keep things interesting.
>>>> 
>>>> I really wanted the EU to be Cowboy Bebop, but instead I feel like I got Bleach instead. But I am an irrationally bitter asshole when it comes to the direction Star Wars went in so take what I say with a grain of salt.

>>>>> **u/scruiser** [+5]  *CYOA* (16 hours later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> > I hate that the force became something so driect and really kind of uninspired instead of pervasive and indirect; when the force was considered a greater power than the death star and that actually meant something besides that a Jedi could just physically blow up a planet with his mind.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Precog, used well, is super OP.  Seeing the exact time and place to to fire and having supernatural reflexes to pull it off is a lot more powerful than raw physical powers.  A rationalist should really appreciate the value of mental abilities over physical ones in terms of maximizing their capacity to actualize desired results.  Hence why I brought up Worm, because thinker powers are extremely powerful.  The most powerful parahuman isn't Eidolon, but rather Contessa.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Another idea I had is to have an dichotomy between dark and light side of the force in how they use its power.  Dark side bends it to their will and thus have more raw physical power and the ability to force the future they want (EU blowing up star destroyer type stuff).  Light side lets the force guide them and thus they have subtler physical powers but they can guide the future more gently.  A rationalist fic could really play up this dichotomy, and a rationalist character would really appreciate and minmax precog.

>>>>>> **u/None** [+2]  (16 hours later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I really am ok with the precog aspect, as it fits with the idea of true power as knowledge trumps brute force and with precognition that goes double.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I can appreciate the idea of Dark side having more physical power in relation to Light side but I still think physical power is overplayed outside of personal conflicts or rather to say conflicts between individuals. I really imagine that the power of the precog is not to see full events but to just be in tune with the force which guides force-users to smaller events which have larger over-reaching effects.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> The light side users are generally more direct-action, they interfere with events as they happen, scoring victories and bringing the universe in alignment with the light. Whereas the dark side users, there being smaller numbers of them (like the sith rule of two for example) are generally working behind the scenes Palpatine style analyzing the greater structure of causality and having a better feel of the big picture as to allow their actions to hold more weight.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> An event like the accidental death might seem a little important to a normal lightside user, something that will turn the timestream surrounding the subject of the accident more Light. The dark side user however, can see down the line further and realize that saving that person now makes said person the critical link in some much bigger development when it would have been someone else had the person died.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> If the Sith were able to be essentially tap the force to allow them to see through Chaos theory, they would both be extremely powerful and nigh undetectable by anyone except maybe the best of the Jedi, and that would be a Master who had even caught on that there was something wrong in the first place, as the Sith's influence will undoubtedly pass as the natural order of events to all but the most keen Jedi.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> It is in keeping with the idea of the Sith being few in number and powerful, and their near-legendary status by virtue of being effectively a myth to the general population, most Jedi's included.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I really should read Worm, that's on my to-do list.

>> **u/Chosen_Pun** [+1]  *The Chosen Ones* (2 hours later)
>> 
>> > Droids. Artificially created intelligence. So much more to explore there.
>> 
>> More than Gungans or Ewoks or Midichlorians or what have you, placement and treatment of droids is my number one pet peeve about Star Wars. When they aren't part of the scenery, or tools that do what they need to (except when they can't, for plot) all their characterization is through slapstick comedy.
>> 
>> Note: I haven't yet read any EU, only seen the movies, both Clone Wars series~~, and the Star Wars Holiday Special, to my eternal chagrin~~.

> **u/alexanderwales** [+7]  *Time flies like an arrow* (25 minutes later)
> 
> Though I'm fairly sure that you've read them, since they're entryway books, I do want to mention that the Thrawn trilogy is the most rational of the EU books. You can tell that actual thought went into strategy and tactics. They're *far* from perfect, but I consider them the best of the bunch.
> 
> I know of no rational take on Star Wars. It's a universe that's fairly ripe for it in some ways (in that it's a universe/plot in need of fixing) and terrible in others (a lot is left very vague, and it would be hard to make the universe consistent, especially if EU is considered canon).

>> **u/None** [+3]  (30 minutes later)
>> 
>> I did read the Thrawn trilogy way back when. I definitely remember them being the cream of the crop of the EU books I read, beside perhaps maybe the Brain Spiders but that's more nostalgia than anything else really.

> **u/AmeteurOpinions** [+4]  *Finally, everyone was working together.* (7 hours later)
> 
> [Here's the best suggestion from a similar thread](http://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/2b0img/star_wars_rational_take/cj0rycv).

> **u/MadScientist14159** [+4]  *WIP: Sodium Hypochlorite (Rational Bleach) Eventually. Maybe.* (7 hours later)
> 
> I would really like to see rational!Anakin.
> 
> *He built a human level AI as a child* for crying out loud.

>> **u/Escapement** [+12]  *Ankh-Morpork City Watch* (8 hours later)
>> 
>> Building a human level AI as a child in a universe where there are millions or billions or more human AIs running around already doesn't seem like as much of an accomplishment as it might otherwise. I mean, I could 'build' an operating system comprised of millions of lines of code by downloading the source code and compiling it, and I don't think that reflects super-well on my skill as a programmer - and the equivalent for making human level AIs in Star Wars may not be much more complicated (and indeed may be rather simpler).  If "build an AI" is "download the code for generating a protocol droid personality and hit OK past a couple EULAs then maybe set some sliders for personality" that makes a lot more sense with Anakin's portrayal and personality in the rest of the series. 
>> 
>> Notice how Anakin made a human droid that was *exactly the same body plan and size and functionality and everything as existing protocol droids* - like, he was not exactly putting a new robot together from scratch starting with a pile of servos and some scrap metal with zero plans, the end result looks instead a lot like Anakin 'built' his robot in the same way I 'built' a desktop PC by plugging together standard parts that were built to be removable and plugged together. If I was told an eight year old "built a computer" by managing to plug tab a into obviously-tab-a-shaped-slot-a and so forth, I would be only slightly impressed.
>> 
>> That said, making Anakin into an actual genius instead of a stupid little kid would have a lot of potential for making a prequel trilogy SW more interesting. Excise stuff like the immortal line, "From my point of view the Jedi are evil!" and insert some actual analysis and maybe even actual reasons or motivations to join the dark side of the force...

>>> **u/scruiser** [+3]  *CYOA* (16 hours later)
>>> 
>>> You could give Anakin his knowledge of cognitive biases from the time he spent debugging C3PO.  Even if he just set sliders on personality and programs, he still needed to get a decent end result and possibly train/fine tune the C3PO's learning algorithms.

>>> **u/MadScientist14159** [+2]  *WIP: Sodium Hypochlorite (Rational Bleach) Eventually. Maybe.* (10 hours later)
>>> 
>>> I guess it depends on how difficult the AI building kits are to use.
>>> 
>>> If it was just moving some sliders then hitting "Go!", then yes. Not very impressive.
>>> 
>>> But if they require you to design a virtual connectome from scratch or write complicated bits of software for each aspect of the personality which the kit then connects together into a functioning AI, then it's a lot *more* impressive.
>>> 
>>> Since not everyone in starwars has a droid butler, and Anakin is too poor to buy a super expensive kit that's out of most peoples price range, I can only assume that the answer leans at least somewhat towards the latter.

> **u/iamzeph** [+3]  (2 hours later)
> 
> A somewhat rational fic is Conquest at http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Fanfic/Conquest/index.html as a Star Trek vs Star Wars novel.
> 
> It's somewhat biased towards an (IMO) overpowered Empire. While not strictly rational fiction as we know it, the story does a pretty thorough job pitting the two franchises against each other, both exploiting each other's strengths and weaknesses, though the SW side conveniently has fewer weaknesses.

> **u/None** [+2]  (6 hours later)
> 
> I must, of course, make note that if there isn't, **you** could write it.

>> **u/alexanderwales** [+5]  *Time flies like an arrow* (15 hours later)
>> 
>> Yeah, but writing is hard and time-consuming. Who wants to put in actual effort like that?

>>> **u/None** [+2]  (15 hours later)
>>> 
>>> You're right, of course. I certainly don't enjoy doing stuff.
>>> 
>>> (note: In making that sarcastic comment, you've made me realize I really should be working on my own writing. Guess I'm doing that, now, so thanks.)

>>>> **u/alexanderwales** [+4]  *Time flies like an arrow* (18 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> I'm only being halfway snarky. There are a ton of things that I'd love to read, and a ton more that I'd love to write, but the difference in time commitment is immense. *Metropolitan Man* is 80K words, and took me (as a lower bound) 65 hours to write. It can be read in a handful of hours - maybe less.
>>>> 
>>>> I would *love* to write my own version of Star Wars ([see here](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskScienceFiction/comments/2cp4qg/luke_and_leia_are_switched_at_birth_he_becomes/cjhs5e3?context=3)), but to write even a novella length treatment would take so much time and effort, and there are so many things that I would rather be spending that time and effort on.
>>>> 
>>>> A lot of time on this subreddit I see people putting in requests, or suggestions for how a thing should be written, but not actually writing. And while I think that's sort of regrettable, since I would much rather read a well-done treatment of the subject than theorycrafting about how to do a treatment of the subject, I get that the reason that it happens so often is the amount of time and effort involved in writing compared to the time and effort involved in reading.

>>>>> **u/callmebrotherg** [+1]  *now posting as /u/callmesalticidae* (4 months later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Hm... 
>>>>> 
>>>>> The biggest time investment (at least for me) is in plotting and worldbuilding and outlining. OTOH once I have an outline, I can pump out up to 1,500 words an hour. 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Taking that in mind, and the subreddit's love for, as you say, theorycrafting, I wonder if there's any potential in crowdsourcing the world and outline and then another person (I'm happy to volunteer myself) doing the actual pounding out of words. 
>>>>> 
>>>>> What do you think-- stupid beyond belief, or worth trying?

>>>>>> **u/alexanderwales** [+2]  *Time flies like an arrow* (4 months later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> It's worth trying. I guess my advice would be to be on lookout for someone with opposite strengths - someone who is good (or just efficient) at outlines and plotting but bad (or just inefficient) at writing prose, and be ready to pull them into one-on-one collaboration. My experience has been that two people working in close contact with each other tend to produce better/faster work. There's a reason that you see a lot of books that are written collaboratively are written by two people and not three.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Successful crowdsourcing is hard though, especially if you don't have a ready supply of interested people. It might be better to just make an open call for a singular collaborator.

> **u/ToaKraka** [+2]  *https://i.imgur.com/OQGHleQ.png* (7 hours later)
> 
> I'm not sure how *rational* it is, but [here's](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3975597) a good story featuring Jacen Solo being perhaps a *little* smarter than in canon--though, really, my memories of LotF's canon are rather fuzzy at this point.

>> **u/FeepingCreature** [+3]  *GCV Literally The Entire Culture* (a day later)
>> 
>> Tl;dr: Jacen is Sith!Madoka flavored with Paul Atreides. This is my new standard of Godmode Sue.

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