Tropes Media Browse Indexes Forums Videos Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Tools
Cut List New Edits Edit Reasons Launches Images List Crowner Activity Un-typed Pages Recent Page Type Changes Changelog
Tips
Creating New Redirects Cross Wicking Tips for Editing Text Formatting Rules Glossary Edit Reasons Handling Spoilers Word Cruft Administrivia FAQ
Tropes HQ
About Us Contact Us Advertise DMCA Notice Privacy Policy Report Bug
Go Ad-Free Changelog
  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Highlight Links
 

Follow TV Tropes

Following

Fanfic / A Single Decision

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/wwwfanfiction_5.jpg
Cover Art: The Confederate Hexagon
A Single Decision is a Star Wars fanfic written by Fanfiction.net author Timewatch, being a rewrite of his now-dead original story of the same name. Started in 2016, the story centers around an Alternate Universe setting set in the Prequel Era where General Grievous makes a single decision, in which Anakin Skywalker and Chancellor Palpatine are accidentally killed aboard the Invisible Hand during the Battle of Coruscant. This event changes the course of the Clone War drastically, as Sidious's plans are immediately scrambled and the war he orchestrated is left to wage naturally. Soon enough, the story explores both the military and political ramifications of this event on the Galaxy at large as both sides work to fill their respective power vacuums and end the war.

As of April 2024, A Single Decision (Take Two) sits at 53 Chapters and 520K words.

Due to the author Timewatch both losing interest in Star Wars thanks to Disney and focusing (and enjoying) writing on other original works he created, ASD has been Dormant since August 2022, and progress on new Chapters has been slow with Timewatch's last update on Fanfiction.net being from September 2023.

A Single Decision contains examples of:

  • Achievements in Ignorance: With a hefty dose of Dramatic Irony. By ordering Palpatine to be killed, Grievous, with him being none the wiser, has put a hard end to Darth Bane's Order of Sith Lords, stopped a plan for galactic domination that has been centuries in the making, prevented the Republic from becoming a totalitarian empire, and saved the Jedi Order from complete annihilation. At least at Palpatine’s hands.
  • Adaptational Badass: Nothing in canon even suggests that Janus Greejatus is a Force Sensitive. While not terribly powerful, Janus in this story is able to use the Force to read minds.
    • The Separatist battle-droids count as well. Instead of being the useless scrap piles in The Clone Wars, they are instead much more effective, while also retaining their flaws. Rather than charge at enemies in open formations, they often take cover and aim their shots, B2 Super Battle-droids and BX-Series Commando droids slaughter anything that isn't a Clone Trooper or a Jedi, and their Comedic Relief is tone down.
  • Adaptation Name Change: In their first appearance the civil government body of the CIS was called a Parliament. While the name is used by Republic Senators who call them that, here in ASD its official name is the Confederate Congress.
  • Adaptational Nice Guy; Heavily downplayed with General Grievous. Sure, in both the story and canon he has murdered many innocents, slew many Jedi, and bashed droids (and sometimes organic) heads for making him angry. But in ASD, even Grievous has standards.
    • Due to his backstory with the Huk Empire enslaving his planet, Grievous absolutely despises the practice, and only tolerated the Zygerrians because Count Dooku had ordered him to.
    • His use of the Brain-Rot plague as a bio-weapon is, in his mind, entirely justified - the Republic gave his battle-droids viruses all the time.
    • When Grievous' doctor removes Count Dooku's and San Hill's mind implants in the first chapter, he does however soften up noticeable as his old noble Kaleesh self begins to reawaken. Including sparing both the former Jedi Esera Komara and allowing her to be his Morality Chain and most useful servant, and later the Agri-Corps girl Sanya, who'd go on to assist Esera in her ventures for the Confederacy.
  • Adaptational Species Change: Zule Xiss is a Zeltron in this fic when she was a Falleen in Legends.
  • The Alleged Car: Esera's Recusant-Class destroyer, Encounter: technically a loan, and later bought from the tactical droid Khan's fleet, it is in a state of complete disrepair when she acquires it, and has to undergo several refits over the course of her time in command like having to replace the entire stern section after being torn off inside a Venator-class Star Destroyer, or the engines after the very dangerous space-time shenanigan of being piloted into an Event Horizon.
  • Alternate Universe: With Anakin and Palpatine both lying dead on the observation deck of the Invisible Hand in chapter 1, one can imagine that there will be some very immediate, very dramatic deviations from the canon timeline.
  • The Alternet: The Holonet, particularly the CIS-hosted Shadowfeeds, is used occasionally by Esara between missions, and is often presented as a mirror of real life forum discussion pages.
  • And There Was Much Rejoicing: Downplayed. Even the Jedi and Palpatine's political detractors lament the tragic circumstances of his death, and admit he was doing a good job leading the Republic through a time of war. However, they can't help but also feel relieved over it, since they were worried he was gathering too much power, and in a way, they feel Grievous did them a favor by disposing of Palpatine before he could grow into a bigger problem.
  • Attempted Rape: The Zygerrian King Atai attempts to lure the Jedi girl Esera Komara (mind you she is seventeen at this point) into his bed after Esera ingests alcohol and gets drunk. However one of Esera's B2 Super Battle-droid escorts interrupts them claiming there was a priority call from Grievous, really was the tactical droid Khan who believe Komara's judgment was being clouded, thus saving her from the King's clutches.
  • Back from the Brink: At the beginning of the story, the CIS is on the cusp of losing the war, as it suffers defeat after defeat until Grievous leads the assault on Coruscant, kills Anakin and the Chancellor, and throwing the Republic into complete disarray, giving the Separatists precious time to regroup and replenish. This is in spite of Sidious and Dooku having no intention of the Separatist movement lasting for more than a few years.
    • And even then, the damage from being pushed out of the Core and the Outer Rim sieges has led to the brink of defeat constantly being on the horizon for the Confederacy. It is until Mas Amedda's incompetence as Chancellor and Grevious' strategies in Operation Striking Star that the CIS is able to be saved for the time being.
  • Became Their Own Antithesis: In order to turn the tide of the losing war, most Separatist commanders agree to consolidate all the power into a centralized government and nationalize every asset that can help them win the war. Many Separatists point out that the CIS was formed precisely to escape a big, centralized government, and let systems rule themselves and trade freely without a higher power overlooking them and demanding them to pay taxes. They also begin to push for less reliance on droids and more reliance on organics, since they feel the droids' very limited intelligence cost them many battles.
  • Big Badass Battle Sequence: Naturally happens considering this is STAR WARS, they primarily happen over the course of several chapters.
    • The Raxus Coup: The Commerce Guild, the Corporate Alliance, the Banking Clan, and the Trade Federation all betray the CIS and try to apprehend Grievous to the Republic. With Raxus' Droid army shutdown and Invisible Hand chased off the system, only the Raxus metropolitan police, and the former Jedi Esera Komara could help Grievous overcome the traitors, whose forces consist of Koorivar Fusiliers, Gossam Castell Commandos and Neimodian Gunnery Battalions.
    • Operation Striking Star: After the previous chapters consisted of combining the two main CIS pockets, which involved the annexation of Zygerria and the Corporate Sector, Grievous executes a gamble to save the CIS from the brink of defeat by encircling an overstretched and low-supplied Republic naval force. It is divided between the land and space battles of the Second Battle Of Kashyyyk, involving the first deployments of Imperial-Class Star Destroyers to even a duel between Master Yoda and General Grievous it was a resounding Confederate victory. It also ensures the rise of Tarkin, who uses the failure to overthrow Mas Amedda.
    • The Northern Offensives: The final operation that would allow the CIS to unite their three primary pockets. Tarkin forced Grievous' hand before he is ready by moving a fleet to intercept the CIS forces, causing Grievous to deploy his unprepared fleet. This culminated in the space Battle Of Vinsoth, where the Mandator-II SSD Incomparable and the Subjugator-Class Cataclysm duke it out. The main ground battle is on Agamar, which had been going on for months, where Separatist Battle Droids, Agamarian conscripts, and Neimoidian soldiers fight against Loyalist Cademimuese auxiliaries and Clone Trooper in a gas-filled and scorched wasteland.
  • Break Out the Museum Piece: The Malevolence's sister ship, Cataclysm, is brought back into service to help bolster the weakened CIS navy after spending the majority of the war as an empty superstructure, its internal components having been cannibalized and used to repair other ships in the fleet.
  • Broken Pedestal: Grievous loses all respect for Dooku and Darth Sidious and grow to curse upon discovering after their deaths, with Esera's help, that the Sith only viewed and used the Confederacy of Independant Systems as a pawn, and that the Confederacy was sabotaged and set up to lose the war from the start.
  • Butt-Monkey: The Quarren Isolation League Representative Tikkes is this, every time he appears. After losing supremacy over Dac, (Twice) Tikkes was living on the charity of Count Dooku, being forced to buy meals from Trade Federation vending machines. After Dooku's death, he supported the Commerce Guild coup but only survived because the Quarren Isolation League didn't want bad publicity because of his execution. His organization promptly abandoned him, and by Chapter 44, he is about to be kicked out of his apartment and is begging Nute Gunray for money!
  • Cliffhanger: Several
    • Chapter 3: Change Courses - The Jedi Esera Komara, after being wounded by a sniper, is left behind by her Clone Troopers in a hospital. Minutes later, the Separatists arrive.
    • Chapter 11: Hitting The Fan - Esera and a bunch of Confederate Senators all move to free Grievous from the Gossam corporate commandos. Meanwhile, Bail Organa and several other Republic Senators hope that the Raxus coup would end the war soon - just as the high CIS Admiral Hithlu announces that the Confederate military does not support the coup.
    • Chapter 12: An Unlikely Team - Komara realizes Grievous is changing and remembering his past, as the removal of Dooku's mind chips is slowly reawakening his Kaleesh self. Then Grievous orders her to move out.
    • Chapter 18: Jailbreak - General Grievous choose to save a wounded Komara instead of pursuing Ahsoka, Rex, and Asajj, who slip away with Obi-wan.
    • Chapter 25: Striking Star I - Komara escapes Aspar and his Clone Troopers on Naboo, but is heavily wounded in the process, only saved by her astromech R8 before going unconscious on an auto-piloted ship.
    • Chapter 34: Hot Nights In Ibisa - Esera's crewmate Voyan is kidnapped by Asajj Ventress, and she calls down Murshida and the battle-droids to land on Zeltros. Meanwhile, Tarkin relieves Obi-Wan of his command and orders Commander Cody to land troops on the planet as well.
    • Chapter 35: A Separatist Menagerie - Esera manages to escape with Voyan at the cost of most of her crew being wounded, her Nimbus Commando attaché being killed by Asajj, and violating Zeltros' laws, thus losing her diplomatic standing with them. Then Encounter's battle-droid commander reports that the Republic's Venator-class Star Destroyer in orbit is firing up her guns.
    • Chapter 36: A Low Tangle Orbit - Grievous realizes Tarkin is on to him and has his fleet move out to battle much earlier than expected.
    • Chapter 39: Agamar Drop - Obi-Wan is forced to leave the Agri-Corp girl Sanya behind at the clutches of Grievous in the wasteland that is Agamar. All because she wasn't vital to the Republic's war effort.
    • Chapter 42: Reunions And Schisms - Aspar has escaped custody, and now has joined Tarkin in his war effort while calling for Jedi to join him, resulting in the Jedi Order suffering a massive schism
    • Chapter 44: Sun And Shadow - The crew of the Encounter has just managed to prevent the ship from tearing itself apart. Then word gets out that the ship is being boarded. By Republic Commandos.
    • Chapter 48: Mandalorian Intrigues - Tarkin orders his Jedi Knight to have her Tector-class Star Destroyer destroy Encounter and assassinate both Komara and the Mandalorian leadership through any means necessary.
    • Chapter 49: Glass Towers - Komara nearly listens to the Dark Side again, nearly killing the pirate Samé Sellero in anger, and Sanya deciding she is gonna break the silence between her and Komara. Then Shadday Potkin gets vital intelligence in the form of Samé's pirate crews betraying her and giving her the access codes of the Battle-droids guarding the Mandalorian meeting.
  • The Conscience: Esera is this to Grievous, as she always tries to make him try nonviolent solutions to problems before resorting to Grievous' preferred method.
  • Continuity Nod:
    • Grievous in the early chapters suffers respiration damage he got from Mace Windu and later notes that he spared Shaak Ti during his kidnapping of the Chancellor.
    • In one of Grievous' strategic meetings, it is mentioned that the tactical droid Kalani is still defending the planet of Agamar in a brutal siege against the Republic.
    • After the death of Alto Stratus and the end of the battle of Jabiim, the Jabiimis continue to support the Confederacy, and even resurrected and brainwashed the former Jedi Zule Xiss into their service. Another nod is the mentioning of Iaco Stark's role in the Stark Hyperspace War and him later fleeing to the Corporate Sector.
    • Nute Gunray during the Raxus coup remembers his meeting with Darth Sidious and how he regrets ever joining him, wanting to go back and turn off the security droids the Dark Lord tampered with to kill the non-Neimoidian members of the Trade Federation Directorate, ensuring Gunray's rise to power in the company. This references the events in the Legends prequel book Cloak Of Deception.
    • When Esera Komara is thinking about her past role in the war, she remembers she had fought in the battles at Ryloth and Umbara, the latter of which is later on mentioned to be still under Republic occupation. Later on, Asajj Ventress meets with Ahsoka Tano on Republic-occupied Mandalore prior to rescuing Obi-Wan from Invisible Hand.
  • The Corrupter: In contrast to the Jedi-minded Esera, there's Ricimer Eemon, one of Grievous' new commanders, recognized for his talents, as he's the one suggesting Grievous many reforms, used by his father on the tyrannical dictatorship on Caramm V that bring the CIS closer to a fascist regime (power concentrated into a centralized government, the implementation of a Secret Police, etc). Though, unlike most examples of this trope, Eemon isn't evil or even malicious; he's aware of the implications of his suggestions, but he believes they're the price to pay if they hope to defeat the Republic.
    Ricimer Eemon: There's total war, and then there's wanton murder. There's a line there, I don't want to cross it.
  • Crazy Enough to Work: A major battle between the Republic and CIS is decided in a crazy plan by Grievous that involves a half-finished superweapon, wreckage from a previous plan, and obfuscating stupidity.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: Several of the crew of the Encounter have this.
    • Esera Komara was but a shy and timid girl who did not get on well with the other Younglings in the temple or was particularly strong in the force, being lucky that the master that picked her to be his Padawan was late and randomly chose her. When the Clone Wars started, the first battles she fought were simple Clones vs Droids, but as the war progresses, she fought to kill living rebels, destroy nations, and witness war crimes under the Republic, despite her role as a Jedi being a supposed peacekeeper. Then her beloved master died, slowly and painfully months before the story starts, and the Jedi Order would later disown her for trying to stop Aspar from bombing Separatist cities.
    • Miha Voyan had the misfortune to be born in Hutt-space, and when managed to get out, lived in a less than stellar Trade Federation world before being betrayed by what he thought was his lover who instead used him as a Spice Runner, before ultimately joining the Trade Federation Defense Forces to be battered down by pirates and the corrupt Neimodian leadership.
    • The Zygerreian Cook Alize was but a middle-class working mother when her husband left her for another woman. When Esera overthrew the Zygerreian King she lost her job and had to leave Zygerriea as her reputation on the planet was ruined, and she would not risk her children's reputation as well. She pretty much had to start over from scratch, and was soon able to make it to Raxus Secondus before joining up with Encounter.
    • Zule Xiss was not the most well-minded Padawan in the Jedi Order, but being killed on Jabiim, being forcibly resurrected by the Jabiimis, learning that Anakin Skywalker got off scot-free after leaving her and the rest of the Padawan Pack behind, being brainwashed by the Jabiimis and constantly threatening to be Nerve-stapled by them while also beginning to believe in their philosophies, finding out the weakest girl in the Jedi Order became Grievous' right-hand, and on top of being a Zeltron in the normally celibate Jedi Order did little to ease her mind by the time she joins the Encounter's crew.
    • The Agri-corp girl Sanya, unlike Esera, did not have the fortune to be chosen by a Jedi master and become a Padawan learner, thus she had the ability to live out a normal life as an Agri-corp worker, a dull existence of growing food and plants. Then the Clone Wars started, and she was sent out to clean up war-torn planets and grew witness to the barbarity of both the Republic and the Confederacy. By the time Obi-Wan meets her on Agamar, she is unable to deal with the hypocrisy that the Jedi and the Republic do to keep "order" in the Galaxy while Loyalist and Clone forces invade the Agamarians' planet (who would gladly burn their own homes down and fight to the death in defiance). So much so that she has lost faith in the Jedi as a whole. Things would ironically get better for her when she is soon after captured by Grievous.
    • Shau Meo of Zoma V has a small one: His people are constantly being raided by Hutt slavers to be sold off as sex slaves or laborers, and while Shau does want to take on the Hutts, he isn't exactly a warrior like his sister, and feels like he can't do anything but hide when the Hutt-slavers arrive.
  • Darker and Edgier: Much more than a normal Star Wars movie, going into the darker aspects of the Clone Wars. Compared to the 2008 CGI Clone Wars, ASD has more grim depictions of battles, a less than stellar showing of both sides of the conflict, mentions of rape, etc. ASD can be compared to the more mature version of the Clone Wars era of the old Legends Multimedia project.
  • The Dark Side Will Make You Forget: Averted, as Esera is told a few times throughout the story not to give up on her ideals for the sake of getting results. Played Straight, as Grievous constantly struggles to remember his actual past from the Clone Wars.
  • Decisive Battle: Averted, because after the Battle of Coruscant left the Republic and CIS injured but not beaten, both sides came to the conclusion that the war would not be won by any single pitched battles between massive fleets, even if such events happened again.
  • Demoted to Extra: Happens to the surviving members of the Separatist Council, Poggle The Lesser, Wat Tambor, and Nute Gunray. Once being the major funding and supplier of the Confederate war effort, after Grievous dissolves the council in the aftermath of the Corporate coup on Raxus their civilian powers are taken over by the Confederate Congress and they are replaced by their Corporate representatives. Poggle and Tambor are both sent off to see to the war effort, while Gunray, untrusted by Grievous, becomes his Financial Minister.
  • Door Stopper: A Single Decision's word count sits at a fine 450k+ over the course of 48 Chapters and is currently ongoing!
  • Downer Beginning: The start of Esera Komara's story (beginning in Chapter 2) has her, already tired and half-starved, being captured by Separatists in a ruined city laid waste by months of siege and an ongoing ethnic conflict. Esera begs the Separatist commander to surrender to the Republic but he refuses, knowing of the fate of captured Separatists at the hands of Loyalist militia on the planet, and the only reason he and his men still fight and not have left is that the militia had burnt their homes down and massacred their families. The commander then has a nice conversation with her and allows her to leave when her Clone Troopers arrive, but not before he takes his remaining battle-droids and goes out to have a doomed fight with the Clones. Then Esera's hopes of peace get absolutely shattered when the Jedi Knight Aspar orders a massive orbital bombardment of all remaining Separatist holdouts, that includes the last remaining cities, on the planet.
  • Dragon Ascendant: After Palpatine's death, pro-war senators and other officials loyal to the late sith will work to place one of their own (Tarkin) in the Chancellor's seat to continue the war effort and bring to fruition their predecessor's grand designs.
  • Dramatic Irony: Given the plot, plenty:
    • Grievous hates the Jedi with a passion and works for Sith Lords. By killing Palpatine shortly after Dooku's death, Grievous put an end to the Order of the Sith Lords and ensured the Jedi Order's survival.
    • During his trip back to Utapau, Grievous expects Darth Sidious to be pleased to hear that Palpatine and Skywalker are dead. Too bad Grievous is unaware that he killed the very Sith Lord he served under as well as the Jedi said Sith Lord was grooming to become his ultimate apprentice.
  • Fate Worse than Death: the story introduces a time-honored piece of sci-fi to the Star Wars Universe: Nerve Stapling, where a person's body is hijacked via the brainstem and controlled like a biological droid, causing irreversible damage and deterioration to the brain over time until it dies.
  • Fix Fic: The raison d'être for this entire work is that from an early age, the author had been frustrated by the show "Star Wars: The Clone Wars"'s portrayal of the Separatists as Card Carrying Villains, despite the fact that the Episode III opening had stated there were "Heroes on Both Sides".
  • Gone Horribly Right: When Grievous tells the droids to kill Anakin and the Chancellor, he is very much surprised and disappointed when he finds out later that they succeeded.
  • Gray-and-Grey Morality: As seen in Fix Fic above, the main motivation behind this fic was to portray the Republic as less unambiguously heroic and the Separatists as less unabashedly evil, to the point that several characters point out the Loyalists and Separatists have little difference with each other:
    • While the Republic has many heroic Officers and Jedi, there are quite a few willing to commit war crimes and incur massive civilian casualties to win battles. It is also implied in many conquered Confederate worlds such as Umbara, there is a very repressive military occupation by the Loyalist forces on those planets.
    • While the Separatist Council members are the same greedy slimeballs they're portrayed as in canon material and Grievous can be as cruel as he is a capable leader, the fic also shows many other Separatists with very valid reasons for wanting to leave the Republic and genuinely believe in the Separatist cause. Planets such as Agamar fight for the CIS because they really do support its goals, not because they're being threatened, bribed, lied, or otherwise forced to.
    • Both sides put up tyrannical governments, employ abusive mega-corporations, and work with slavers such as the Hutts and Zygerrians in an effort to keep control over their parts of the galaxy.
    • Later, it begins to move towards Black-and-Grey Morality when Tarkin becomes the new Supreme Chancellor, and, with the help of Palpatine's circle of confidants who were aware of his plans and identity as a Sith Lord, begins to slowly turn the Republic into a proto-Empire.
  • Harmless Villain: According to the Republic Constitution, if the Chancellor dies, his position is filled by the Vice Chair until an emergency election can be held, and in this case the Vice Chair is Mas Amedda, a being known only for standing next to the Chancellor during speeches and waiting for "cooler heads to prevail". Despite the numerous executive privileges granted to him as Chancellor, Amedda pulls Republic forces from the Outer Rim Sieges to reinforce the Core in the wake of the Battle of Coruscant, costing them victories in multiple sectors and giving the CIS time to regroup and deal with their own transition of power. These actions are immediately and obviously unpopular, but he continues this strategy of doing nothing until a vote of no confidence is called on him.
  • Hate Sink:
  • Honor Before Reason: More personal pride than honor, but Grievous has this regarding Obi-wan: he has Obi-wan locked in a cell for months because he can't bring himself to order Obi-wan's execution without beating him in a lightsaber duel first, and when Ahsoka, Ventress and Rex infiltrate the Invisible Hand and try to break Obi-wan out, Grievous returns Obi-wan his lightsaber so the two can have a duel there. Needless to say, things don't go the way Grievous planned and the breakout is a success. He's later forced to admit that it wasn't one of his most clever moves.
  • Insistent Terminology: The Republic military would rather refer to the CIS as Separatists, while the CIS wants to be referred to as the Confederacy since it gives them legitimacy instead of merely being an insurrection of rebels. The engineer/mechanic Voyan really supports this.
    Miha Voyan: Confederacy Of Independent Systems. Separatist Alliance is a Loyalist propaganda term, made up to imply we're not a real, functioning state.
  • Karma Houdini Warranty: King Atai Molec gets one at the end of the Zygerria Arc. His Royal Guards are slaughtered by battle-droids, he is overthrown by Komara and would see his slaver regime replaced by a new Abolitionist one led by plebians. Considering the man betrayed his queen, enslaved many people, and even tried to lure Komara into his bed when she was under the influence, no one but his sons will miss him.
  • Lady Land: Deconstructed with the Emberlene system, a sector ruled by women where men are, at best, second class citizensnote , who are proud of their misandry and practice eugenics. Despite their Cultural Posturing on how civilizations where men and women are treated equally being "barbarians", they're an incredibly backwards society, both socially and technologically, and get their ass handed by the Authala Alliance, needing the CIS to rescue them.
    • Their Gender flipped counterparts are the fearsome Sun Guard mercenary group (the very ones that Darth Plagueis once used). Hired by the Authala for a very high price, they had suffered under another misandry all-female matriarchy, and thus they in turn, treat women like shit. To the point that they would not listen to Komara even as she tries to get them to see reason and surrender, while also implying they're gonna rape her.
    Sun Guard Warrior: If she breaths, she's a harlot!
  • Laser-Guided Karma: Shortly after Palpatine pulls a rather cruel You Have Outlived Your Usefulness on Dooku, he's immediately killed by Dooku's second in command.
  • Morality Chain: Esera Komara is this for Grievous, insisting on finding diplomatic solutions before trying it his way.
  • Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Defied, much to Grievous' chagrin, regarding the name of his Secret Police.
    Grievous: We have a new agency in the government. I am calling it the Office of Safety and Information. The name was not my first choice, but I was told that these things require... subtlety.
  • Noble Demon: Without Sidious or Dooku around to control him, Grievous starts to reconnect with his Kaleesh warrior roots, and is often pressured by Esera to refrain from immediately blasting apart anything that agitates him.
  • Occam's Razor: Discussed on chapter 41. After Esera is done investigating Sidious' identity through Dooku's Holocrons and claims that the more likely candidate was Palpatine himself, Grievous naturally disputes this claim, since there's no way Sidious would die to a bunch of battle droids. Esera, however, rebuttes it by claiming that this is the conclusion with the fewest assumptions and the one that makes the more sense, especially if one takes into account all the political power Palpatine had gathered during the war.
    Esera: Maybe Sidious is a shapeshifting Sith magician. Maybe Sidious is a literal nobody so obscure he's not even in the records. Maybe Sidious is sitting in a hospital with amnesia- or maybe Sidious is the one person with power and influence we know for a fact is dead. That is the explaination with the fewest assumptions, Grievous. Palpatine and Sidious are the same person, and your droids killed him half a year ago. You executed your own master by accident.
    Grievous: Do you realize how ridiculous it is that the Jedi would not have been able to sense that Palpatine is a Sith Lord?
    Esera: Grievous, you of everyone should know how fallible Jedi are. If the Jedi weren't able to sense a Sith Lord in direct contact with the Chancellor, there's no way they'd be able to sense the Chancellor being a Sith Lord.
  • Old Master: During the Operation Striking Star arc, while escaping the Jedi Knight Aspar, Esera encounters and later recruits Harak Murshida, a former Chaplain of the Skakoan Cyber-Guard, an older, cybernetically-enhanced warrior who has intuited methods of healing through the force, wields a cortosis-weaved Vibro-ax in combat, cladded in an armored pressure suit and trained to fight Jedi while also suffering from arthritis.
  • Patchwork Fic: A Single Decision, while also being a galaxy where Anakin and Sidious are dead, is also a merging of EU Legends and Canon EU.
  • Playing Both Sides: Palpatine's death puts an end to this trope. The Clone Wars was a gigantic farce that the Separatists were destined to lose from the very beginning, whose purpose was to help Palpatine achieve absolute power and destroy the Jedi Order. Since there's no one left to pull the strings of either side, the Clone Wars is now a genuine conflict.
  • Point of Divergence: Grievous' Single Decision to assist Count Dooku against Anakin and Obi-Wan leads to massive changes on a galactic scale, the destruction of the Sith Lords, and death of the Chosen One aside.
  • Police State: The Dictatorship on the pro-CIS planet of Caramm V is this, a nightmarish one. The paranoid Ado Eemon rules with absolute power, the Carammite intelligence roots out all opposition, both real and imagined, the world is polluted either from the factories that produce CIS war machines or from the unification war that led to Eemon taking power, and the masses who don't live in constant fear, simply stop caring whenever or not they are taken to be Nerve-stapled, mostly because the Carammite government has already stapled the rest of their family. Both the Jambiimis and Chancellor Tarkin are taking notes of their effectiveness. The author himself had wanted it to be a combination of Blade Runner and Ba'athist Iraq
  • Propaganda Machine: Both sides have a large news outlet that their respective populaces know full well to be extremely and blatantly biased in the content they put out. For the Republic, think about how it is portrayed in The CGI Clone Wars, while for the Separatist, think about the how the Droids appear in the Republic Commando video game.
  • Sacred Hospitality: A big part of Kaleesh culture; when Ahsoka, Ventress and Shaak Ti go to Kalee in order to investigate Grievous' past, and they find that the Kaleesh they've been talking with knew all along that they were Jedi despite not bringing lightsabers precisely to hide that fact, they asked him why did he welcome them into his home and agree to answer their questions about Grievous; the Kaleesh replied that, since the Jedi came to his house unarmed, they were guests and thus were to be treated as their customs demand.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: When Esera learns Republic forces in orbit plan to bombard an entire city full of civilians and lie to the people in charge to get away with it, she decides to get out of dodge by stealing an ARC-170 and flying as far away as possible.
  • Secret Police: After being nearly killed by a coup launched by the Commerce Guild, Grievous accepts the suggestion of one of his commanders to create this in order to eliminate potential traitors before they have the chance to act.
  • Shout-Out:
    • The dictator of Siskeen is a rather beautiful looking, ring-wearing, black-haired and flaming eyed Sephi despot named Tar-Mairon.
  • Shown Their Work: The author Timewatch is very knowledgable with Star Wars lore and in ASD even reintroduces very obscure old EU Legends content. In his notes of the first chapter, he had done very hard-core research on the Wookieepedia, while also re-watching the The Clone Wars in preparation for writing ASD.
  • Slave Liberation: The Zygerriean Abolitionist Necho Tahnat wants to free Zygerria of slaves, not because he thinks it's immoral, but because he does not want the Zygerrian lower-classes suffering economic loss because of "Imported Labour." He succeeds with the help of Komara, who overthrows King Atai Molec with her mechanic/engineer Voyan and a small army of battle-droids.
  • Spared By Adaptation: Considering the deaths of Anakin and Sidious at the beginning of the story, many canon characters who died in Revenge of the Sith live here. So far.
    • Subverted for the members of the Separatist Council who (with the exception of the Quarren Tikkes, Poggle The Lesser, Wat Tambor, and Nute Gunray who otherwise survive) are all executed by Greivous' Magnaguards for their role in the Raxus coup, less than a year after their canon deaths.
    • Subverted again with the Jedi Masters Luminara Unduli in Chapter 25 and Quinlan Vos in Chapter 27, who are both killed by General Grievous at the Second Battle Of Kashyyyk
    • Played Straight with Asajj Ventress, who appears in the story due to the fact the author disliked the canon Dark Disciple book
    • Another character who lives here in ASD is the Koorivar Fusilier General Oro Dassyne who survives his encounter with Anakin and Obi-wan on Bomis Koori IV unlike in Legends. Albeit, he had to get his face, and the rest of his body, rebuilt and was demoted to Colonel by Grievous for his failure.
    • Downplayed with Zule Xiss. She was crushed by a Republic AT-AT and died - for less than thirty minutes, before the Jabiimis dug her up from the mud, rebuilt and brainwashed her into their personal Jedi assassin.
  • Villain Protagonist: Much of the story is told from Grievous' point of view. He does become gradually less villainous.
  • War Is Hell: The author shows a much more grim Clone War compared to the animation series or even the movies. This includes unconventional warfare that involves resistance and insurgencies, use of dirty tactics such as spice running, and privateering to disrupt the enemy's economy, increasing deployment of total war, mass conscription, etc. Neither the Republic nor the Confederacy is clean, and both sides can be cruel to each other. The War is constantly taking its toll on the many people living in the galaxy, even Jedi are not safe (the fact they can feel the person they kill's lifeforce drain out of them or that many are barely out of their twenties, some being younger does not help), to the point it has perverted their morals that it leads them to be increasingly brutal, hoping that this conflict will just end.
  • We ARE Struggling Together: Palpatine and Dooku's deaths has this effect on both the Republic and the Separatists.
    • The Republic main split seem to be between those who supported Palpatine and want the war to continue, led by Wilhuff Tarkin, and those who opposed him and want the war to end already, lead by Mon Mothma, Bail Organa and Padme Amidala.
    • Later, this happened within the Jedi Order, between those who still follow the Council and try to fight battles while trying to minimize casualties and destruction, and those who want the war to end as soon as possible, and resort to all kind of war crimes to win battles. The latter camp eventually split from ther Order and swear their alliegance to Tarkin.
    • The Separatists have a similar split, but there's another between the military commanders who lead the war effort and the heads of the Mega Corps who fund it: the former want to win the war at all costs, even if it comes at the expense of the principles the CIS was founded on, and want to stop relying on droids so much, since organics are more intelligent and capable; the latter feel winning the war is pointless if they lose their wealth in the process (to the point that some even consider surrenderring to the Republic a better choice if they can negotiate a deal that keeps them rich), and they're against the idea of replacing droids with organics since organics don't work for free like droids do. To the point that the Commerce Guild attempts a coup d'etat against Grievous in order to take over the CIS government and officially surrender to the Republic.
    • Downplayed with the rest of the Confederacy as a whole, outside of the corporations who fund and supply it. Throughout the story, there are many CIS worlds and armies that all have different goals and agendas, but all are united on the agreement that the Republic is beyond saving. Along with the humans of the Tion Cluster, which includes the capital of Raxus, this includes the revolutionary Jabiim, the mathematic Givin of Yag'Dhul, the shadowy Umbarans, the nightmarish dictatorship of Caramm V and their extensive spy networks, exiled Quarren living on Minntooine, the militaristic warrior women of Emberlene, Corporate forces of Neimoidans, Koorivar, and Gossams after they got absorbed in the aftermath of the Raxus coup, and even pro-emancipation Zygerrians, who all despite their ideological, government, social, and even racial differences, it only comes down to a few disagreements, helped most likely by Grievous managing to hold them all together.
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: Anakin and Palpatine are both killed off very unceremoniously in the first chapter, eliminating their presence in the story right off the bat and serving as the catalyst for everything that happens over the course of the story.
    • The Nimbus Commando Mofuwa. He is introduced at the tail end of the Zygerria arc (Chapter 23 Regime Change) and only appears for 2 chapters as a minor character before being killed by Asajj Ventress in the penultimate chapter of the Zeltros arc (Chapter 35 A Separatist Menagerie)
  • Written by the Winners: Despite the Kaleesh being the victims of the conflict with the Yam'rii, the latter's support from the Republic and the Jedi meant that the Kaleesh were framed as the aggressors, who had to be punished for their actions. Upon visiting Kalee, and hearing their side of the story, Ahsoka and Shaak-Ti are both deeply troubled to realize that the Jedi may have been unknowingly complicit in the brutal subjugation of Kalee.
  • Young Future Famous People: During the beginning of the Striking Star arc, Esera encounters Padme Amidala and her two "adopted" war orphans: Luke and Leia on Naboo.

Save your Confederate credits, boys, the Rim will rise again!

Previous

Index

Next

  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Wide Load

Important Links

Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Go Ad Free!
Crucial Browsing
Resources
Top