Title: Black Squadron
Author: Gigira
Rating: T
Status: Complete
Wordcount: 117,966 (+17,151 from the sequel)
Summary: When Luke Lars, a gifted young pilot recently graduated from the Imperial Academy, is assigned to Darth Vader's personal TIE fighter squadron, it is a dream come true: since childhood, his one aspiration has been to fly. But life on a Star Destroyer is not all the bliss he thought it would be, especially with the Dark Lord of the Sith holding him under such close scrutiny...
Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12450071/1/Black-Squadron

As the summary suggests, this is an alternate route of events happening in the timeframe of Episode IV. This is a completely original story, no bland canon rehash. Luke entered the Imperial Flight Academy under the false name of Luke Lars, and ended up assigned to the Black Squadron, Vader's personal TIE fighters. It isn't long before his conflicting feelings about the things an Imperial pilot must do and his smart mouth get him in trouble with Vader.

The relationship with Vader is at the core of the fic, and it's better done than we usually see. Vader ends up noticing the spark of potential within Luke and being impressed by his resolve, so he tones down his discipline from murder at the first offence to a more by-the-books military grounding. There are elements of mentorship, though it's muddled by Vader's wrathful and capricious nature, and some pieces of Force training which I rather liked.

Luke doesn't know or really care what the Force is at the beginning of the story, but Vader manages to make it relevant by sliding it in as extra instruction for improving Luke's flying with the preternatural reflexes of the Force. The additional attention from their enigmatic commander causes tension with the rest of his squad, and the jealousy and suspicion over his compassion towards the rebels causes words like treason to be flung around.

It's not a perfect story, not by any means, but I stayed up later than I should have reading this. I enjoyed the Force training sessions quite a bit, and Vader was written in a way that I mostly liked - I did feel, however, that his characterization was hamstrung by the decision to write chapters from his perspective as well as Luke's. It could have been a much stronger story if he had remained enigmatic and unpredictable, hinting and teasing at his true motivation to the reader instead of spelling it outright. By writing from Vader's PoV, some of the potential mystery and tension was lost.

Luke feels a bit juvenile at times. He's fresh out of school, so that kinda fits, but the school is also an Imperial military academy, so I'd have preferred it if he had a bit more fortitude.

One selling point is that the story is complete. The pacing isn't entirely where it should be - it spins in circles for a while and then rushes too quickly to a conclusion. But that's fine, because the sequel is up to continue for all the unanswered questions. I'm not certain splitting it into a sequel was a good choice, and wonder if maybe it would have been better to continue as a single fic, but that's barely a concern given how easy it is to click over onto the next link. Updates seem to be coming fairly regularly, too, so I'll be keeping an eye out for updates.

I rarely award half-points because I try to commit to a solid number where possible, but this is a real 7/10 piece. I'd be doing it a disservice with less, but it lacks the narrative hook to bring it to the top shelf. A shame, because all the right pieces are there. The author just didn't use them in the right way to build tension.

3.5/5

 

Fic could have been done in 40k words, not 110k. It dragged at times, and Luke feels naive, more than I would expect. Sidious' manipulations were super blatant, and I can only assume they worked on Vader because of Force shenanigans. The ending was unsatisfying, and Vader felt toothless overall.

Spoiler

Frankly, I expected him to go on a fucking rampage when Sidious ordered him to knowingly torture his son for information that would see him executed.

Could have been a rather good fic, but fell short in a few too many areas. 2.5/5, rounding up to 3. Definition of average.

 

I’m going to have to read and review this since it’s actually one of my potential plot lines from a quest I ran a couple years back. It exactly the same, but caught my attention. I’ll review once I’ve read it.

 

Back to review: I’d put this at a 3/5. Not sure if that’s what I tapped at the top because I’m on mobile and think it may have hit 4.

The good from the story’s characterization side is Luke maintains his desire for peace and his desire to keep civilians safe. Vader’s appropriately conflicted in his interactions with someone who reminds him of his son, but still “isn’t”.

In many ways though, it seems like that’s where the things end. The characters feel a bit more flat than I was expecting- even the Emperor didn’t much reflect what I’d hope for in a story like this. Unless the sequel shows convincingly that he was playing a longer game it falls flat. Vader has moments where I went “There you are,” and then other moments where I was scratching my head.

Snubfighter scenes worked well, and was actually one of the stronger points of the story. The force training writing felt incomplete- I wanted more of it, to see inside a bit more.

I say again: 3/5. I like the concept, but think the execution was off.