The Fanon Menace/Season 2

"No! I'm not going! Not with you, Darth Vader, dum-dum-dum-da-dum-dum-da-dum-dum! " "It's Darth Vader, *Imperial March tune*.  It kinda has a tune."

- Leia Organa Skywalker to Darth Vader

The Fanon Menace: Season 2 followed (loosely) the storyline of Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope, Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, and Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. During the season, Princess Leia was kidnapped and freed, the Death Star battle station was destroyed twice, the Jedi Order was reborn, and the Dark Lord of the Sith's apprentice, the notorious Darth Vader was redeemed to the light side of the Force.

Above the lonely planet of Tatooine, a space battle raged. The dark forces of the Domain had lost the Death Star plans, and they intended to retake them. Unable to find what they were looking for, the Domain retreated to the Death Star battle station, taking with them the Rebel leader, Princess Leia. Meanwhile, in an attempt to return a pair of droids to the Rebellion, a young farm boy, a rather crazy old Jedi Master, and a brash smuggler and his Wookiee companion rescue her from her predicament. The resulting conflict saw the destruction of the Death Star, but also cause the relocation of the Rebel base. This base was quickly discovered by the Domain and evacuated, and Luke Skywalker, now a crucial component in the Rebellion, travelled to the planet of Dagobah to complete his Jedi training. Upon the rash advice of his mentors, he travelled to Cloud City on Bespin, where he lost his lightsaber and right hand, and where the smuggler Han Solo was turned into carbonite. After having a cybernetic replacement for his hand installed, Luke, accompanied by Chewbacca, Leia, and their new friend, Lando Calrissian, freed Han from the clutches of the vile crimelord Jabba the Hutt. Succeeding in that, the heroes returned, Luke to Dagobah to finish his training, the others back to Rebel Headquarters, only to find that they were required to destroy the Death Star II. Luke returned just in time for the end of the briefing, and a small strike team assembled to hit the shield bunker on Endor. After the shield was destroyed, Luke decided to turn himself in so that he could duel Vader and achieve the status of True Jedi. He succeeded, and the Death Star II was destroyed by his counterparts in space. The season ended with a huge celebration with the Ewoks on Endor.

Part I - A New Mope
"Take her to her bell! We will determinate her soon! " "I got the cell, but what's determinate? That's not even a real word, is it? " "Let's just take her to the cell; with any luck, it'll be the next shift left to…"determinate" her."

- Grand Moff Tarkin, TK-422, and TK-421 on the Death Star

Part I of Season 2 of The Fanon Menace followed Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope. The season opened on the Tantive IIVI, where the crew had just attempted to repel a Domain invasion. Princess Leia hid the plans in a place where not even the notorious Darth Vader could find them. The Dark Lord, frustrated by his inability to find the stolen plans, kidnapped Leia and took her to the massive Death Star battle station, where she was scheduled to be terminated because she refused to divulge the location of the plans.

Meanwhile, on the small planet of Tatooine, a young farm boy, named Luke Skywalker, found two mysterious droids, which led him to Obi-Wan "Ben" Kenobi, a strange old hermit, who gave the young lad a lightsaber and began his training as a Jedi Knight. After dragging his would-be mentor from the Mos Eisley cantina onto the Millennium Falcon, a decrepit old YT-1300 freighter, the group of now four individuals and two droids travelled to Alderaan…or so they thought. Han Solo, the navigator, made a slight error on his hyperspace calculations and wound up in an asteroid field about 30 parsecs from Alderaan. This was conveniently the same asteroid field that the Death Star had taken up temporary residence.

The Millennium Falcon was captured by one of the tractor beams, but the stalwart crew escaped before they were detected. They regrouped in a control room outside the hangar, where Obi-Wan decided that he would disable the tractor beam so that they could escape. Luke, Han, and Chewie went to the detention block, where they freed Leia and made a daring escape from the battle station, leaving Obi-Wan, who became one with the Force in his practice duel with Darth Vader, behind.

When they arrived on Yavin IV, where the Rebel base was located, they were greeted by Mon Mothma and Bail Organa. There they were informed that the Domain had tracked Bail's ship, and the Death Star was very near. Luke was drafted into the starfighter corps of the Rebellion, and wound up taking the battle station out with a well-placed proton torpedo.

Part II - The Domain Cancels Out
"Transport, this is Han. We can't get to you; I'll get her out on the Falcon. " "Roger that. It's a good thing the Falcon ' s still here, 'cause we've already left. " "Already left? " "Yes.  We thought you would like spending time with Han."

- Transport operator, Han, and Leia in the evacuation of Hoth

Part II of Season 2 of the Fanon Menace followed Star Wars: Epsiode V: The Empire Strikes Back. The opening scene found Luke Skywalker and Wedge Antilles in their X-wing starfighters, scouting the ice planet Hoth for potential bases. They discovered a prefabricated base that they could have, built by Han Solo and Chewie, who were stranded there due to nav system breakdown, for the small price of allowing Han to stay with the Rebellion. Reluctantly, Luke agreed and landed, while Wedge returned to the Rebel fleet to report their discovery.

The base was short-lived, however, as the Domain discovered it shortly after the Rebels did, and planned an attack. The shield held the fleet off, and while the Domain sent AT-ATs, AT-STs, and IFT-Ts to take the shield down, the generator was well hidden, and General Veers was left searching for it for hours before giving up. In the meantime, the Rebels escaped, Han, Leia, Chewie, and C-3PO in the Millennium Falcon, Luke and R2-D2 in Luke’s X-wing, and Mon Mothma and the rest of the Rebellion in the transports. Luke travelled to Dagobah to continue his Jedi training while the crew of the Falcon experienced hyperdrive troubles and ducked into the asteroid field near Hoth to make quick repairs.

The asteroid that C-3PO picked for their repairs turned out disastrous. First, while Han was fixing the engines, he realized that he had left his spare hydrospanner on Hoth, and that his main set was with his old friend, Lando Calrissian on Bespin. Then they made the incredible discovery that they had landed not in a cave, but the mouth of a record-size space slug, and barely escaped, only to fly out of the asteroid field and into a Star Destroyer. With some quick thinking on Han's part, they managed to fly out with the garbage, fooling all on the Star Destroyer but Admiral Thrawn and Boba Fett. The Falcon and her crew limped to Bespin, taking an entire hour to get there, rather than the five minutes it would have taken by hyperdrive.

Meanwhile, Luke had arrived on Dagobah to continue his training under the tutelage of Master Yoda. He passed the first test with a little help from a friend, John, and started his training. He was well on his way to becoming a Jedi Knight when Yoda and Obi-Wan saw a possible future on Bespin, and sent him off to fix it. As a result, he dueled Vader, losing his right hand, and, more importantly, his lightsaber, in the process.

Leia and Han wound up having dinner with Vader, Leia's father, before Han was frozen in carbonite and taken away by Boba Fett, who was going to collect the bounty on his head, placed there by Jabba the Hutt. In a vain effort to free their friend, Leia, Lando, and Chewie, with the help of Lobot, freed themselves from the Domain stormtroopers and escaped in the Falcon. They were trying to leave the planet when they ran into a cloud bank and wound up underneath the city again, where Leia accidentally caught Luke as he fell from his duel.

With the whole gang together again (with the exception of Han) and the hyperdrive fixed, the crew of the Falcon returned to fleet, where they expected to drop off Luke, Leia, and the droids before continuing on to Tatooine to rescue Han from the clutches of the evil crimelord. However, things did not go quite as planned…