neverjoinyou | Application for LastVoyages

User Name/Nick: Kris/Pepper
User DW:

my_daroga
AIM/IM: PLURK:

original_fine
E-mail: mydaroga [at] gmail
Other Characters: James T. Kirk, Spike

Character Name: Luke Skywalker
Series: Star Wars (the original trilogy)
Age: 23 (of your Earth-years)
From When?: After Return of the Jedi

Inmate/Warden: Warden. Luke is not only compassionate, he is powerful. He's also struggled with the dark side and temptation, so he offers a very strong moral compass that he's had to address within himself. Luke is also such a strong believer in redemption that pretty much his second thought upon finding out Darth Vader is his father, after "noooooooo," is "I can save him." I think the Admiral would pick up on that.
Item: Lightsaber

Abilities/Powers: At this point, Luke has had some training in the use of the Force though it is incomplete and likely to remain that way. It heightens his instincts, as demonstrated by his accuracy without targeting computer when destroying the first Death Star. It gives him a growing facility with telekinesis, manipulating physical objects in space. To a limited degree, and under great duress, he has demonstrated telepathy, though possibly only with other Force-sensitive subjects like his sister, Leia. The Force also offers some mind-control facility, where the user can manipulate weaker wills by voice command. The Force also augments his ability with a lightsaber, a technique he has little formal training in but great aptitude for. Luke is considered to have great potential with the Force, leading the remaining Sith to attempt to recruit him. The Force allows Luke to manipulate his surroundings, but can also allow the Force to "take over" offering reflexes that aren't possible by the conscious mind.

Luke is also a good pilot, able to quickly learn new controls, as well as a skilled combatant with the lightsaber. He's intelligent and generally a quick study, with good instincts he can often rely on.

Personality: In the ongoing conflict of Luke's struggle against the Empire and his own dark side, several traits stand out as working with and against one another: compassion, loyalty, passion, and impulsiveness.

His reckless nature is apparent from the beginning, as well as observed by other characters. Luke disregards personal safety to the point of great bravery or stupidity, depending on who you might ask. He answers quickly, takes little care to filter himself from speaking his mind, and jumps into situations seemingly without thought. The one exception is his decision to go to Alderaan with Obi-Wan Kenobi, which he initially refuses, but it seems clear this is an internalized reaction of his uncle's and his upbringing, momentarily at war with his intense desire for adventure, as well as his loyalty, of which I will speak more later.

Luke has wanted to escape the insular life of Tatooine for as long as he can remember, and his nature chafes at the plodding, backwater life of a moisture farmer. In trying to keep him safe from Vader and the Emperor, Luke was kept isolated, not from friends but from a life elsewhere and the political situation. Once escaped, he has never looked back to that life, instead continuously seeking new challenges and taking on all that's put before him. Though sometimes frustrated at the discipline required to master the Force, he nevertheless demonstrates perseverance and fearlessness. The negative side of this restlessness is impatience, an unwillingness to look at the present and the current reality and a tendency to jump without looking, perhaps assuming (given his sheltered upbringing) that he'll land on his feet. This is also the reason for his frustration when he does not instantly grasp some aspect of his training.

This impulsiveness is but one aspect of his great passion. Luke is an emotional person, and while he is capable of calm (and later attains much more of it) he is rarely stoic. He expresses his grief and joy openly, though it means he's also capable of sulking and lashing out. Typically, however, Luke is warm and open, giving to his friends, and strongly led by emotion.

He is also strongly influenced by his idealism and compassion, a belief that good can triumph and, moreover, there is good in everyone. He never wavers in his belief that Darth Vader can be redeemed, and his default setting (despite the dark times) is to think the best of people. This is sometimes tempered by danger or by frustration, but overall Luke is an optimist. This can lead others to see him as naive, and while it's certainly true at the beginning of his adventures enough of it remains after his experience to suggest that it is not merely the result of ignorance, but rather an innate quality. This idealism is a strength, offering a certainty to his actions; he does not consider not helping in the rebel effort, not rescuing someone he barely knows, not attempting to redeem Vader. Combined with his fearlessness, it's a powerful motivator.

His other primary motivation is loyalty. Loyalty to family, and to the friends who become his family (and, as he eventually learns, sometimes are). He initially refuses to leave Tatooine because his aunt and uncle need him, despite all the protests he's made to them against staying. His loyalty to Obi-Wan is quickly won, and his trust is absolute; while his affinity to Han Solo is a little more difficultly won (on both sides), once that respect is there friendship follows quickly. Leia, too, becomes a good friend, as does Yoda and even the droids C-3PO and R2-D2. This loyalty, combined with his bravery, means that Luke will do literally anything for his friends. Again, without question. If someone is in danger, he does not rest until they are safe, sometimes to the point of recklessness. He suspends his training with Yoda--not to be taken up again--when he senses Han and Leia are in trouble; nothing Yoda or Obi-Wan can say will dissuade him from his course, despite great personal danger as well as the potential to ruin all hopes for a victory over the Empire. Personal loyalty trumps political. It is familial loyalty which, combined with his optimism, insists on rehabilitating Vader. Luke cannot help but see good in him; and as his son, he will not back down from demonstrating this.

What all this adds up to is a person of great strength and vulnerability, sometimes in the same breath. His bravery is useful but dangerous, his compassion ultimately good but potentially naive, his emotions a motivation for good and ill, his loyalty blinding him to other duties. While it is his emotional nature and loyalty which leave him susceptible to the temptations of the dark side (in Return of the Jedi), those are also his primary motivations in joining the rebel force and wanting to make the galaxy a better place. There is, therefore, a conflict within Luke much like the fundamental conflict of the light and dark sides of the Force--the same qualities and abilities can be used for different things, motivated by different things, manifest differently. Luke must guard against giving in to the power the dark side would give him to defend his friends and loved ones, but without his passion and love he would be the lesser force for good, despite the Jedi teaching of removing personal emotions from the equation. Fitting, perhaps, for the nearly extinct Jedi order's last best hope.

Barge Reactions: Luke will probably take most things in stride. The space travel, the people of different appearances and powers, etc. He grew up on a farm, but he's always been aware of other races (many very, very different from anything he'll encounter on the Barge). The floods and breaches, he won't have any context for, but he'll assimilate quickly enough.

REVISION: We'd like to see a little more thought given to how you feel Luke would deal with the breaches and floods inherent to life on the Barge. What kind of coping methods can we expect to see, what will be hardest for him, what will be easiest, why, are all good examples of what kind of explanation we'd like to see here.

Luke's responses are generally fairly impulsive and strongly based on loyalty. So in some measure, certain reactions will depend on who he's gotten to know and if he's close to anyone--floods and breaches which threaten those in his "circle" will get a larger response and cause more rash behavior (putting himself in danger, etc). I think the largest adjustment will be related to protag syndrome--he's the prime mover and shaker in his universe, and while that's just canon for Star Wars, I think he'll have a difficult time with the fact he can't actually fix everything. But he'll try. I think he'll be tempted to assist others as a way of coping, because the past few years have thrust him into leadership positions. Even so, I don't think he'll go so far as to assume actual leadership--he's a hero, sure, but a leader by circumstance, not desire.

Floods which involve things like the reappearance of people from his life, I think, will feel like an opportunity since he's got so many familial issues, and he's already sort of used to the idea that certain people can come back. Floods and breaches which involve things more along the line of alignment shifts will be much more disturbing, because this is something he's already struggled with and knows the consequences of. He'll be anxious about what his power could be turned to, when he's not in his right mind, and I think the first few mind-altering events will shake him up much more than seeing himself as a woman or becoming an alien. He's spent the first twenty years of his life being lied to about who he is, a lot of the past few years trying to learn who he is, and having that taken away will require a lot of soul-searching and self-doubt in the aftermath.

Basically, if people are in danger, expect rash protective acts. If it's more about his own identity or morality, expect some brooding and contemplation. In the interim, he will probably seek out connections because while he's used to solo missions and taking care of himself, he draws strength from his connection to his support structure, aka Han and Leia, et al.

Deal: I don't think Luke would ask for Anakin to be brought back, but he would make a deal for, say, the lost history of the Jedi, so he knows what he's getting into when he gets back.

History: Wookiepedia

Sample Journal Entry: TDM link
Sample RP: The stars aren't the ones he's familiar with, but Luke's understanding of space and distance aren't the same as many on board. He's traveled far enough for the stars to change, so it bothers him less than it might, that he can't see familiar patterns. He still likes to come up to the Deck, and think about where he's come from, and where he's going when he goes back.

Maybe it's the symmetry of those unknown voids that attracts him.

He comes here to think about all the people he wants to help, and the one he couldn't until it was too late. And he wonders if he made the right deal--it had been tempting to ask for Anakin Skywalker. But wrong, he knows. As much as he laments his father, he refused to render his death meaningless.

Being here isn't at all what he'd expected. Now he's not so sure what that even was, but he certainly hadn't thought it'd be this hard, after everything else he's been through. Sometimes the people here make him feel like that naive farmboy again, which is an odd feeling given how the past few years have raised him, in his own society, to something of a legend.

Maybe that's the other reason he's here, though. To stay humble.

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