I was coming here to share the good news but you all beat me to it. I feel like I read the first part before though. Was there a teaser put up somewhere, or am I just delusional?

 

Maybe at the end of Empire's Son, but yes, I recall reading it as well

 

This is good news. Very good news.

 

Based on vojorocks' comment from before the update, there were extra scenes posted after the epilogue of part I. Presumably they were on FFN until the author took them down with the announcement of part II.

I thought they might have been on blank101's website, but I didn't find it on Wayback Machine's archive (and the site's dead), so FFN is probably where it was posted.

 

It was at the end of Empire's Son. They were somewhat different, though. There was no woman putting kohl on her eyes, and no sabacc game with Lando. I remember Lumiya and Mara Jade attacking him and nearly failing even though he was spiced out of his mind.

 

Yeah, I definitely remember some sort of fight in there.

Anyway, so pumped for this. Out of all the fics I wished were continued, this certainly ranked up there.

 

How much Star Wars knowledge do I need to have to fully enjoy this? I've only seen the movies.

 

As long as you've seen the original trilogy, you should be fine. Since it is a complete AU, even the little minor bits of the EU that appear are usually explained or unimportant. Same story with his other work, the Son of Suns Trilogy (if you haven't read that either, it's definitely worth checking out).

 

I've got an offline copy of the old sequel excerpt, if anyone is interested.

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Title pic for ESII (I don't know if this was here the whole time but only just noticed it):



So definitely Jade, and I'm pretty sure that's Lumiya. Any idea who the man is? He reminds me of Kevin Spacey.

 

I don't know who it is, but it's definitely not Kevin Spacey.

 

Is that image broken for anyone else? I even pasted the url into my browser and still couldn't see it. Where did you find it, Og?

 

Yeah, it was broken for me as well. I think it's fixed?

Spoiler

I just got it by going to his profile page and clicking view image on the title.

Edit: And yeah, not Spacey, but vaguely similar upper body. Dunno, I don't know enough about the immediately-post-RotJ canon to guess.

Also, you can see what looks like (the silhouette of) Palpatine in the bottom left of it.

 

It's not just you. It's broken for me too. The image URL is a direct link to a CDN. They're notoriously temporary.

 

Yeah it's working now, thanks. Interesting picture, I'm definitely excited for Mara to show up - he wrote her pretty well in his other fic. No clue who the guy in the background is either though.

 

I was getting frustrated, so here's a hosted version of it:

 

Thanks Qgqqqqq. Interesting pic.

 

This just updated again, the author is planning for a biweekly schedule.

 

So, we're caught up to the preview now - which is a pity, because I was really hoping we'd learn some of the Hand's motivations, here.

Based on a pm conversation with blank101

Spoiler

Lando isn't going to show up again for a while. Given what just happened, I think that means that Luke'll go offworld pretty soon, probably in the Falcon, though probably escorted by the Hands. I don't think he'll want a confrontation with the rebels quite yet, and if the Falcon was left Han would probably stumble across it which would drag Lando into the mix. Anyway, speculation, but I think it's informed.

I didn't realize last chapter, but Lando is almost certainly not part of the Alliance. Which makes this coincidence a bit far-fetched, by eh well.

I'm unsure if Luke cheated or not. There are strong indications that he did - his earlier uncertainty despite having literally the second beat hand in the game, and his final exchange - but that doesn't sit well with all of the prose around adrenalin and excitement.

Leia/Han's thoughts was a bit of a boring sequence. I suppose a lot of it was to sum up the previous story, but still. So little happened.

 

It updated again, I'm not sure I like druggie Luke.

 

Yeah, I'm not sure I like the increased focus on his growing addiction, too.

The chapter is good as always, but after 29k words with addiction as subplot a change to his attitude would be nice.