on the topic of humans being the intergalactic “hold my beer” species: imagine an alien stepping onto a human starship and seeing a space roomba™ with a knife duct taped onto it, just wandering around the ship
it doesn’t have any special intelligence. it’s just a normal space roomba. there are other space roombas on the ship and they don’t have knives. it’s just this one. knife space roomba has full clearance to every room in the ship. occasionally crew members will be talking and then suddenly swear and clutch their ankle. knife space roomba putters off, leaving them to their mild stab wounds.
“what is the point?” asks the alien as another crew member casually steps over the knife-wielding robot. “is it to test your speed and agility?”
“no it doesn’t really go that fast,” replies the captain.
“does it teach you to stay ever-vigilant?”
“I mean I guess so but that’s more of a side effect.”
“does it weed out the weak? does it protect you from invaders? do repeated stabbings let your species heal more quickly in the future?”
“it doesn’t stab very hard, it gets us more than it gets our enemies, and no, but that sounds cool — someone write that down.”
“but then what is its purpose?”
“I don’t know,” the captain says, leaning down to give the space roomba an affectionate pat. “it just seemed cool”
We all know that Hoth was a simmering mess of hormones and stress and I would pay good money for a soap opera about them. Here are some things which Definitely Happened:
There’s a betting pool going on who takes Luke’s virginity. The favourites are Han and Leia, but Wedge Antilles has pretty good odds, and there’s a small contingent of aliens who are convinced it will be Chewie (after all, who could resist that Wookie musk? Headcanon: most alien races consider humans soft and gross. Most alien races find Wookies absurdly attractive. Han Solo isn’t the ladykiller; Chewie is.)
Leia and Han scream at each other in every corner of the base. Everyone is desperate for them to fuck. They do not. The sexual tension is so thick that it could be cut into blocks and sold as wall insulation. More than once they are ‘accidentally’ locked in a supply cupboard in the vain hope that claustrophobia will act as the catalyst that enables their frustration to spark into true love – or at least nasty raunchy cupboard sex. It does not. All that happens is that the offender has legally changed their name to escape the Wrath of Organa.
Someone paints a shirtless Han Solo on their X Wing. Leia is furious. Han is delighted: both at the highly flattering portrait (he has an eight-pack, he is shredded) and at Leia’s fury (you’re jealous princess/no I am not/you’re jealous, hey I can pose like that for you if you –). Hoth’s winter had nothing on the chilly silence that followed that suggestion.
Luke and Leia both have very graphic dreams about Han Solo. Han Solo has very graphic dreams about the twins – individually, together, he’s thirty fucking years old, why is his brain doing this to him.(Later on they will, individually, realise that due to Luke and Leia’s Force-bond they probably created a circle of Han Solo Sex Dreams: Leia had them, so Luke sensed her lust for Han which intensified his own lust for Han, which led to Luke having Han Solo sex dreams, which led to Leia lusting – and so on, and so on. For the sake of their sanity, they never share this revelation which each other.)
Luke is SO COLD. All the time. WHY DOES NO ONE APPRECIATE HOW COLD HE IS. He comes from a desert world. Of course he’s cold! What is all this white stuff? It was pretty for the first fve seconds but holy fucking Force it is so cold it burns and what the hell is going on with that? He bundles himself up in so many layers that he waddles rather than walks. Fearsome Last of the Jedi indeed.
Luke tapes a knife to a cleaning droid (disc-shaped things that swish around the base, sucking up dirt) and names it Stabby. Why, says Leia. Luke, the boy from Tatooine, shining and happy despite everything says why not. Why not indeed. Stabby is very fond of chasing Han. Han wants desperately to shoot the fucking thing– but then he sees big-eyed Luke and sharp-toothed Leia cooing over it and, well. A little bit of light stabbing is nothing, compared to those two smiling.
STABBY THE SPACE ROOMBA!
I am torn between wanting Stabby to be grabbed and evacuated along with the Rebels and make it to the next base, and wanting Stabby to get Vader.
Compromise: shortly after losing the Millennium Falcon, Vader, storming through the Rebel base, is startled to feel a sudden jolt of pain from the artificial sensors on his left leg prosthetic: a sharp sensation on his ankle. Surprised, because he sensed no threat–is the limb malfunctioning?–he looks down, and there is a cleaning droid with a knife taped to it, a little painted-on Rebel lieutenant’s insignia, and the word STABBY written on it.
He stares down at it, completely and utterly taken aback for the first time in over a decade. Fearlessly, it chitters back at him, sounding very triumphant.
He picks it up.
Off in the fractal weirdness of hyperspace, Rebels on several ships are surprised to find an update on Stabby’s kill-update feed, and then thoroughly shocked at the accompanying image: the upward-pointing camera has captured an image of Darth Vader staring down at the droid.
It’s the fastest news ever to travel through the Rebel grapevine, the mix of triumph and loss that is, they are certain, Stabby’s heroic last stand.
Until a day later, when the thing updates again, this time showing an extremely confused Imperial officer. And another, and another, and another, day after day.
They cancel the funeral.
Vader hasn’t done much just for the fun of it in two decades. Watching Imperial officers swear and clutch their ankles as a cleaning drone with a knife taped to it, an Imperial emblem, lieutenant’s insignia, and the word STABBY painted on it, bumps into them and then chatters triumphantly, he’s figured he’s earned.
STABBY FIC! STABBY STARWARS FIC! YOU HAVE MADE MY DAY!
But do they send in a rescue unit to reclaim their most honorable POW?
no, the rebels are all too happy to have vader backing one of their most valuable psychological weapons. stabby’s antics are invaluable for their ability to escalate tension within imperial ranks, and vader’s personal amusement means stabby will get to keep running his miniature interference mission for a long time to come
YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSSSSS
STABBY LIVESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
Grand Moff Tarkin limps into Vader’s quarters. Again. “Lord Vader, enough of this.”
“I have altered the droid; pray I do not alter it any further.”
(If there’s one thing young Anakin Skywalker can appreciate, it’s a hot-rodded maintenance droid, c’mon.)
VADER PUTS A LIGHTSABRE ON STABBY
HE CALLS IT HIS APPRENTICE
MY SON WILL NOT TURN TO THE DARKSIDE BUT MY SON’S STABBY SON WILL
Stabby is eventually recovered and given a medal after the defeat of the Emperor, but his poor little chassis is too badly damaged by then to even hold onto the knife anymore. His internal mechanism is removed and upgraded, and then the Master Droid Tech charged with fixing him casts around for a new casing to put him in.
“Hey!” calls a teenaged Poe Dameron, walking into the Droid repair shop. “I got this decommissioned BB-8 chassis they said to bring in here. It needs a new owner. Captain said I can have it if I can find a new mechanism for it.”
The Master Droid Tech looks at Stabby, then at the BB-8 chassis, then back at Stabby. Stabby turns his unsheathed ocular sensor to Poe and beeps adoringly. (This is a common if relatively new reaction to Poe Dameron, who has just graduated from his Awkward Stage.)
“Yeah, I got one for you right here,” the Tech says, grinning.
