Heather's Library

Star Wars: Labyrinth of Evil
by James Luceno

p.22 In peaceful times Anakin might have been able to bridle his rage, but now he relied on it to drive him forward, to transform him into the person he needed to be."

p.49-50 Bail motioned to the identichip he had already slotted in the scanner. "It’s all there, Sergeant. I’m a member in good standing of the Republic Senate."
     The helmeted noncom glanced at the display screen, then looked down at Bail. "So it says. But I’m still going to need to see further identification."
     Bail sighed in exasperation and fished into the breast pocket of his brocaded tunic for his credit chip.
     The new Coruscant, he thought.
     Faceless, blaster-wielding soldiers on the shuttle landing platforms, in the plazas, arrayed in front of banks, hotels, theaters, wherever beings gathered or mingled. Scanning the crowds, stopping anyone who fir the current possible terrorist profile, conducting searches of individuals, belongings, residences. Not on a whim, because the cloned troopers didn’t operate like that. They answered merely to their training, and the duties they performed were for the good of the Republic.
     One heard rumors about antiwar demonstrations being put down by force; of disappearances and seizures of private property. Proof of such abuses of power rarely surfaced, and was quickly discredited.
     The omnipresence of the soldiers seemed to bother Bail more than it did his few friends on Courscant or his peers in the Senate. He had tried to attribute his agitation to the fact that he hailed from pacific Alderaan, but that explained only some of it. What bothered him most was the ease with which the majority of Courscanti had acclimated to the changes. Their willingness--almost an eagerness--to surrender personal freedoms in the name of security. And a false security, at that. For while Coruscant seemed far from the war, it was also at the center of it.

p.51 Before the war, widespread corruption had stifled the legislative process. Bills languished, measures sat for years without being addressed, votes were protested and subjected to endless recounts...But one effect of the war had been to replace corruption and inertia with dereliction of duty. Reasoned discourse and debate had become so rare as to be archaic. In a political climate where representatives were afraid to speak their minds, it was easier--and thought to be safer--to cede power to those who least appeared to have some grasp of the truth.

96 "In their eagerness to perfect me, I’m afraid they’ll wipe my memory!" the droid said.
     "Would that be such a bad thing," Anakin said, "after what you claim to have been through?"
     "How can I be expected to learn from my mistakes if I can no longer remember them?"

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Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
by Terry Brooks

p.27 The Jedi Knights were peacemakers; that was the nature of their order and the dictate of their creed. For thousands of years they had served the Republic, a constant source of stability and order in a changing universe. Founded as a theological and philosophical study group so far back that its origins were the stuff of myth, the Jedi had only gradually become aware of the presence of the Force. Years had been spent in its study, in contemplation of its meaning, in mastery of its power. Slowly the order had evolved, abandoning its practice of and belief in a life of isolated meditation in favor of a more outward-looking commitment to social responsibility. Understanding the Force sufficiently to master its power required more than private study. It required service to a greater community and implementation of a system of laws that would guarantee equal justice to all. That battle was not yet won. It probably never would be. But the Jedi Knights would not see it lost for their lack of trying.

p.57-58 Like all of the Jedi Knights, Obi-Wan Kenobi had been identified and claimed early in his life from his birth parents. He no longer remembered anything of them now; the Jedi Knights were his family. Of those, he was closest to Qui-Gon Jinn, his mentor for more than a dozen years, wh o had become his most trusted friend.
     Qui-Gon understood his attachment and shared it. Obi-Wan was the son he would never have. He was the future he would leave behind when he died. His hopes for Obi-Wan were enormous, but he did not always share his student's beliefs.

p.81-82 What interested him was her youth. She was barely out of girlhood, certainly not a full-grown woman, and yet the people of Naboo had chosen her as their Queen. This wasn't one of those monarchies where blood determined the right of rule and dynasties prevailed. The Naboo chose the wisest among their people as their ruler by popular acclaim, and Queen Amidala governed at the sufferance of their people. Why they would choose someone so young and naive was a mystery to him.

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