You could have Harry as a resistance fighter on Tatooine (that was Earth once, wasn't it?) that got trapped in a Rakatan Mind Prison during the war. Eventually some unfortunate Sith Archaeologist (assuming you want to write TOR) opens it and thus releases the Master of Death.

 

...Earth has more than a single sun? Did I miss something, walking outside today?

(Okay, it was more like looking at pictures of the Solar System through Google, but I digress)...

Tatooine was a garden world that was pretty much bombed into oblivion by the Ratakans -- it's why the metal in the planet is so fucked up (looks good on surveys; companies set up mining operations; metal turns out to rust and wear out quicker than condoms on a porn star; company abandons the settlement; cycle repeats).

When the Resurgent Sith Empire was clearing Dromund Kaas, they came across ruins in the jungle, built by some unknown civilization. Shit gets too spooky for even the Sith to deal with, so they seal that area off until the Emperor himself or his Council can deal with it.

However, Revan's fuckery put a stop to that and any other research avenues, so that area of the planet was pretty much avoided and untouched by standing orders.

A rather pissed off Master of Death Harry somehow gets released from the ruins, which were partially shrines of worship and partially a warning site (basically, a giant, "FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT'S HOLY, DON'T FUCKING OPEN THIS TOMB!), goes on a rampage, and then escapes off-planet.

The Sith are reeling, wondering just what the fuck happened on their homeworld.

 

What I meant was that KotOR kind of gives the impression of Tatooine being the possible origin of humanity (with all the slaves taken and left on so many other planets), which woud make it the equivalent of Earth in the SW-verse. Also, what's a suns or to when merging universes?

 

There are a lot of contradictory things in the SW continuity.

The Old Republic era was once Lucas' golden child, so it got all the good 'backstory'; when something better comes along, they'll simply retcon any hints or facts stated in the then soon-to-be red-headed step-child for the new Golden.

It was even said that Coruscant was the human homeworld once; then Alderaan, then Corellia (see below).

Hell, the original origin was based on time/freak space travel from an AI-dominated Earth to Corellia. I think there was even an unpublished novel about it?

Oh, oh, I know! It'll soon be revealed that humans originally evolved on Korriban, predating the native Sith species... when it was, you know, more hospitable and less Mars-like.

 

FYI:

"Leland Chee announced the creation of the Lucasfilm Story Group, a new division that will determine all Star Wars canon and whose goal is to abolish the current canon hierarchy system and establish a single cohesive continuity." ~Chee's Twitter (he's the current holder of the canon holocron database)

 

Huh. So, does this mean that it's essentially going to be a Star Wars "New 52", but instead of writing new back-history they're "cherry picking" existing material?

 

Well, obviously the Legacy Era is probably disappearing, at least in it's current form. I assume they're going to leave most of everything else in place, pulling out the the inconsistencies that have accumulated over the last few decades.

All the Dark Horse comics are going kaput as well. Rights were just given to marvel a week back, I think.

So anything I come up with will be pre-ROTJ. I can't see where they would alter any existing facts from the movies, but anything is possible I suppose.

 

Aw man, Dark Horse is going under? Terrible, terrible day for comic-book goers everywhere.

 

I meant all the Dark Horse "Star Wars" titles are kaput. That was inevitable with Disney owning SW and Marvel. Of course they're getting the rights. When Marvel had them before, the stories sucked. Typical goofy 80's comic book crap. Dark Horse always had pretty decent writers for theirs.

 

Given that the method of gaining immortality in that plot bunny was horcruxes, I'm going to hazard a guess and say it's not going to involve rabbits and kittens in large amounts. Unless they're the ones being sacrificed.

 

Oh, thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster I misunderstood! Dark Horse, the whole company, going under is too horrific a notion to even think about!

 

This was my initial thought for a first scene. If you don't recognize the date, this is post- Battle of Boz Pity where Asajj Ventress is taking a hike as far away from everyone she can.



16:2 GrS (20 BBY)

“You’re Harry’potter, the bounty hunter.”

She pronounced my name like that, like any number of species that use apostrophes instead of separating the two names like normal people. Twi’lek are that way on their homeworld. Sometimes I think they do things like this to make themselves sound more exotic or something.

You don’t see very many bald human women these days. The occasional one is found, usually in the music or holovid industries, but typically they tend to just have very close cropped hair. This one though, she was completely, unequivocally without a hair on her head save for a set of very thin, highly arched, eyebrows.

The woman didn’t wait to be asked before she slid onto the seat opposite me. From the pair of curved lightsaber hilts attached to her big circular belt buckle I assumed she was a Jedi of some type. Her eyes weren’t the red/yellow most times associated with Sith, but that didn’t really mean much while there was a war going on.

The Separatists tended to hire any sort of thug and that meant failed Jedi as well. I’ve seen it happen before, taken down two of them as well. They were between me and my bounty at the time, and they weren’t too experienced with magic either. I’ve got the lightsaber hilts to prove it if you’re the disbelieving sort. I like collecting things of an esoteric type. You never know when they’ll come in handy.

“And you are?”

Her seriously pale blue eyes tracked a brown-robed Bothan as he passed. Narsk was old and in the same business I was. He only took the easy jobs these days, because of his artificial leg. They cost serious credits to replace and his had been giving him trouble after taking a plasma arrow to the knee while on a particularly trying hunt.

The bald woman ignored my question in lieu of adjusting her own black hood to cover more of her face. “I’m told you can make people… disappear.”

This was getting old. I didn’t know how many times I’d been approached by Republic and Separatist spies. It was quick money, but there was no fun in altering someone’s face and changing their skin color. Sometimes I was asked to make a talisman for less permanent changes, but that was about it. There was no challenge anymore in this galaxy.

“I’ve heard that too. Depends on whom, not to mention how much you’re willing to pay.”

Her eyes narrowed when she scowled. It wasn’t a pretty sight. As long as her face was neutral she was what I would call exotic looking. Good for a one night stand or even a spaceport fling now and again, but not much else. It’s the exotic ones that are seriously ugly when they get older. I mean one minute you’re thinking that you’ve hit the jackpot, because she’s got a hot body and can swallow your goods while she’s breathing out the side of her neck, and the next thing you know it’s ten years later and you’re waking up next to a Hutt. For the most part I leave the exotic ones alone – unless there’s neck breathing going on. A wizard’s got to have his standards.

“Depends on the quality of your work,” she shot back at me.

I shrugged and twirled my wand underneath the table. Her skin went a dark shade of black. You know that really dark black that almost looks purple in the right light. She jerked and stared, virtually stunned, at the fingertips poking out of her gloves. When she pulled up her robe up baring one of her arms I got the reaction I was looking for.

“Not me,” she bit off harshly. “I want someone dead, liquefied, shot out of a Corellian Light-Cruiser’s waste hold, and floating in the Maw.”

Giving a reverse swirl with the wand I returned her natural skin tone to the pale white it was before. If I didn’t know any better I’d say she was pureblooded Dathomirian, but they were wiped out a couple of years back. I know; I was there hiding out from the orbital bombardment in a cave. Maybe she was off planet at the time. It happens. Not too often, since they tend to stick to their homeworld.

“Oh,” I said. “Well then. That’s something completely different.”

Flipping my free hand off the table, I made a show of slowly reaching down to my utility belt and extracted a single red stone before setting it on the table between us.

“This is a truthstone. Its function is simple enough and probably self-explanatory. Tell a lie and it glows red, very soon thereafter things get unpleasant. Is your occupation in law enforcement or possibly with the Jedi?”

Her pale eyes lifted from the stone in recognition. That pretty much cemented her heritage in my mind. I learned how to make it out on Dathomir.

“No.”

I’ve yet to encounter a species the truthstone doesn’t work on. Considering her origins, no glow was good enough for me.

“I’ve been known to… remove certain people, but there are some that I won’t touch. What’s the name of the mark?”

“Count Dooku.”

A snort worked its way out before I had a chance to stop. “Dooku? The leader of the Separatists? The Sith Dooku?”

“Yes.”

She was serious. That was bad. I’ve lived this long because I know my limits. The days of going head to head with people that like to call themselves Dark Lord are long past.

“Just out of curiosity’s sake, how much is the assassination of a Darth running these days?”

Her eyes tracked to the left again as another brown-robed figure walked past the table. You’re really hard-pressed to find any other color on this planet. Sometimes cloaks run in beige, but for the most part people like brown.

“I have access to twenty-million Republic credits.”

That wasn’t a number to scoff at, but I wasn’t really interested. “Credits don’t really mean much on the Outer Rim with transaction trails and such. You’re on Tatooine. We deal in gold, precious metals, jewels, spacecraft… or esoteric items that can’t be found at every port on the Rim.”

She grit her teeth and hissed as she revealed that scowl again, but then the tension showing on her face eased. “I have access to a heavily modified Star Courier: solar ionization canons, point five rated hyperdrive, Stygium cloaking device, thrust trace dampeners, and much more. It was worth fifty-five million credits when it was new and it’s never been in a single battle.”

That got my attention. I needed a new ship and that one sounded sweet. Small, heavily armed, and with a cloaking device… yeah. However, that sounded a little too good to be true.

“And how quickly would I be detained by Republic forces when they found out it was stolen?”

The woman leaned back, a bored look dropping over her face. “If you can’t change a registry and fake a bill of sale then obviously I have the wrong person for the job.”

It was true. Like I said before, this was the Outer Rim, in Hutt Space no less. If it wasn’t stolen and passed off as legitimate under scrutiny in the first place, your reputation was crap. That’s pretty much how I acquired my first ship.

“Will you do it or not?”

Kill a Sith Lord? It was probably a revenge thing… It was then that it finally clicked as to who I was talking to. “I’m not an assassin, but I can get you close enough to do the job yourself, Miss Ventress.”

Her hands slid onto her lap, probably very close to her lightsabers. “I was told…”

“Your sources misunderstand. I’ve killed some very powerful people, but they’re the ones that sought me out, or ones that had a legitimate bounty on their heads. What I can do is get you into their presence, within a single meter if you want, without them knowing. The rest is up to you.”

“He’s Sith. He’ll sense our presence – your presence at least. I am talented enough to mask my own.”

“As am I.” Taking the truthstone I returned it to my pouch. “Miss Ventress, I know you to be a singularly talented individual. Going head to head with a number of Jedi and walking away, much less killing – what is it now? Five, six?”

“Seventeen.”

That brought me up short. My own surprise was evident. “I stand corrected. Anyway, Dooku has a reputation with his lightsaber. I have… well friends would be too much – business acquaintances that have been cut down by him, not to mention that little trick he has with the blue lightning.”

“The rumor was that you didn’t fear anything,” she said.

I didn’t take the bait. “My point is that it would be my pleasure to help you… dispose of the Count. The trouble is knowing where he’ll be next. I assume you have access to this knowledge.”

Reaching into her jerkin beneath her robes, Ventress pulled out a data pad and thumbed up the display before sliding it across the table. I glanced at it for a moment and recognized the floor plan to the monastery of the B'omarr Order, otherwise known in these parts as Jabba the Hutt’s Palace.

The monks that built the place wanted to detach themselves from the universe, and they did. When they achieved a certain level of training and enlightenment they’d have their brains surgically removed and placed in these round containers, where they were hooked up to some type of life support to keep their brain functional. This was so they could achieve total sensory detachment and contemplate whatever it is bodiless brains contemplate.

Occasionally they like to move around, and their containers are placed in a giant spider like exoskeleton. That creeped me out the first time I saw one moving about.

Jabba is a fairly decent source of income when he’s not being a sloth-like ass, which is becoming more of a thing these days. There’s nothing worse than a crime boss who’s bored, fat, and has a fetish for Twi’lek slave girls. Tatooine, while being a desert shithole, used to be known as a hub for smugglers and bounty hunters to congregate and seek work. These days it’s more of a place to get shot for marginally offending someone. It’s really gone downhill since Jabba stopped making public appearances. Assassination attempts; they come and go. I give it a couple more years and he’ll be out there leaving slime trails behind him again.

“Tricky, but not by any means impossible,” I said passing the datapad back. “You just can’t get caught.”

“Obviously.”

“No, you don’t understand. Jabba likes to make examples of anyone that breaks into his palace. The Order of B’omarr is still active in the bowels of that place. They pay rent to Jabba by randomly transplanting brains of trespassers into other random bodies. Screw up and you can only hope you wind up in the body of a humanoid.”

One of her eyebrows lifted.

“I once knew a Falleen Black Sun gangster that Jabba had his brain switched into the head of a Twi’lek prostitute. Then he sold him to a rival syndicate at a discount. The point is, if you’re caught, you might want to think about just blowing your head off… if that’s where your brain is I mean.”

You couldn’t take these sorts of things for granted in this galaxy.

“Perhaps I’ve come to the wrong person,” she said dryly. “You’re far to neurotic for my tastes.”

“Just cautious; it’s a reasonable trait considering my choice in occupation.”

“Yes or no?” Ventress was beginning to get impatient. “Dooku will be here in less than a week to negotiate safe passage for Separatist vessels with the Hutt.”

My gut said to pass on the job, but my aging hyperdrive said do it or I’ll scatter your pieces across the Corellian Hyperspace Route. There was a reason I was semi-stranded on this planet.

She relaxed her posture, but kept a steely glare on me. “If you can accomplish this then I’ll have two more missions for you.”

That one was easy to figure out, considering battles between two specific Jedi and the assassin Asajj Ventress were all over the HoloNews every other day. “I’ll have to decline on those, I’m afraid. Messing with Jedi is bad Karma. I’m gathering that you already know this and that’s why you’ve sought outside assistance.”


~~~~


So, soon after, Harry comes under the notice of Palpatine, the Jedi, and he has Jabba (and every bounty hunter on the Rim) after him for breaking into the palace. Hijinks ensue.

 

Small bunny which perhaps was mentioned before.


In 1900 the wizarding world was shaken when one day in most respected newspapers across the entire Earth appeared an article, translated to the relevant language.

It began with a simple introduction: "My name is Nicolas Flamel. I was born in the year 1326. I think that I am the first man in history to reach the age of 574. This is all thanks to the Philosopher's Stone, my greatest achievement. I apologize for not taking this action sooner. Here is the complete text which describes how to create the Stone..."

Many wizards and witches across the world test this and create working Stones. Everything changes, especially when it is revealed that the Elixir of Life does not work on Muggles or Squibs.

By 1991, the wizarding world is unrecognizable from canon.

 

Xandrel, I really wish you would write some of these awesome stories you come up with.

I was thinking about Harry Potter the other day, while reading Worm. In Worm, the main character has a power that seems underwhelming at first, but because of this she's forced into using it in creative and unexpected ways in order to make it in the Worm-verse. In Harry Potter, Harry's powers are at the level of or greater than most everybody he meets. I started wondering what an underpowered!Harry story would look like. Maybe, for example, he's fairly poor at magic in general, but has an affinity for potionmaking. This could be interesting because it forces Harry to be smarter than his enemies if he wants to beat them.

I note potionmaking in particular because I think it leaves a good opening for Harry to be plausibly intelligent, in that it encourages forethought. Even if Harry isn't a genius, sufficient preparation and forethought can put him in the position to outsmart his enemies while having more or less normal intelligence.

Other ways to put him plausibly in the position of outsmarting his enemies that I had considered generally seem to involve some level of gift in Divination, but I've had a hard time coming up with any type of future-telling that doesn't smack of deus ex machina.

It also seems difficult to make Harry realistically underpowered. I've been trying to figure out what exactly 'poor at magic' would mean -- whether spells would be weaker or maybe even likely to backfire or do other things than he intends for them to do. Another interesting, more specifically realized weak point might simply be making it necessary for Harry to practice a lot more than other people just to make low-level magic work, making high-level magicks essentially impossible for him to ever pull off.

The point of the story wouldn't be to have Harry not using magic -- quite the contrary. I just think that in a lot of stories Harry becomes an unstoppable god of war and essentially wins by using better spells than his enemy, and that seems boring to me. This would hopefully just focus in on Harry being forced to use what little magical ability he has to its fullest potential.

 

You lost me here.

 

Where did I lose you?

Harry's powers are average for a wizard, if not better than most. That's established pretty clearly in canon. Maybe he's not Dumbledore or Voldemort level, but claiming that canon Harry is underpowered for a wizard seems more than a bit ridiculous.

 

I don't agree that Harry's powers are at the level of or greater than most everybody he meets. I'd argue my case but this isn't really the thread for it. A Harry that is even worse at magic but develops one special skill simply holds no interest to me. Hence, you lost me.

 

When you say underpowered Harry specializing in Potions, I am pretty sure many will have a kneejerk reaction of closing the fic because of Harry/Snape.

 

Whenever I actually sit down to start writing, this cycle happens.

1. I take a plot bunny and expand it into a full outline.

2. I write the first chapter.

3. I decide that the entire thing is too boring and needs more original ideas.

4. I add two more plot bunnies to the already existing outline. I rewrite the chapter accordingly.

5. The process repeats itself several times. Eventually the outline becomes a mess with too many plots and ideas.

6. I scrap the entire thing and start from scratch. The entire process repeats.


I should stick to making Plot Bunnies for now.

For example, these are ones I came up with just today:

Reverse. Harry Potter series with books written in reverse order, with Hallows being the first and the Stone being the last. Harry begins his first Hogwarts year with Britain secretly ruled by Voldemort. Dumbledore dies in his second year, The Order is formed in third, The Tournament happens in fourth, Sirius escapes in fifth, Chamber is opened in sixth and the Stone is the main theme of the Seventh.

---

Mirror. Harry Potter Mirror Universe. Good guys are bad and bad guys are good. Would require alternate origins for characters. Tom Riddle Jr. would not be a Love-Potion-Baby, but instead would be raised by the Riddles. Dumbledore and Grindelwald rule the world. POD would be when instead of simply hurting her, the muggles kill Ariana.

---

Founders. Opposite of a Self-Insert. In 1980, Dumbledore and Voldemort appear in the real world. Their arrival brings magic and nine months after they appear, first muggleborns are born.

---

Potter Minus Potter. Two PODs. Voldemort does not make any Horcruxes. Harry dies with the Dark Lord when the Killing Curse rebounds in 1981. The text would describe the lives of other characters as they live in a world without Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort.

---

Everybody Dies. Hermione is killed by the Troll and Ron is killed by Fluffy. All the Basilisk Victims die and Ginny dies in the Chamber. Sirius is Kissed by Dementors while Pettigrew kills Lupin. In an alternate Fourth Year Harry is a completely different person.

---

Ruined. Story which shows how smartass 'plot-fixing' would ruin the Potterverse. Would include things like...

"Why they don't put the Stone under Fidelius?!" - Harry and Ron don't become friends with Hermione. Someone else is hired instead of Quirell. Things have the worst possible outcomes.
"Why they don't use the Time Turner to kill Voldemort?!" - Someone attempts to go back in time and kill Voldemort in the past. They die and Voldemort learns about future events.
"Why they don't use Veritaserum and Pensieves in trials?!" - People Obliviate themselves after committing crimes and nobody is ever caught.
"Why aren't Unbreakable Vows widely used?!" - Everyone in the Wizarding Britain is forced into slavery using the Unbreakable Vows.
"Why isn't Voldemort the Badass characters describe him as?!" - Voldemort takes over the world and exterminates muggles.

---

 

That reverse one is definitely amazing. And given that it's concept is good enough on its own, I don't think you would necessarily run into the "too much convoluted plot" problem you described before.