oohhhh brain juice strong today
here’s the plot bunny that just jumped out at me:
-Cody is a purge trooper, serving under Darth Vader
-Vader somehow gets ahold of baby Luke, and assigns Cody to Luke personally, with orders to protect Luke at any cost.
-Cody decides that Luke’s current situation is, in fact, not safe. Partially because the Emperor clearly intends to train Luke as an apprentice and Cody can see what that did to the last guy (there is no way Cody doesn’t know who Vader is), partially because children need things like “friends” and “positive role models” and “houseplants”, partially because of Vader himself (Cody’s like “wow this possessive obsessive murderous asshole’s gonna give this kid so many daddy issues”)
-Cody yeets himself and Luke the hell out of there
-Cody proceeds to find the safest, most supportive, most house-plant-y place he can to raise Luke, because Cody takes his orders seriously
-Cody gets really offended whenever anyone suggests that he deserted or is on the run from the Empire, because he’s a LOYAL SOLDIER who’s just FOLLOWING ORDERS
-When Luke joins the Rebellion, Cody does too, because he’s still gotta protect Luke
-he insists that he is still a loyal soldier of the Empire, and for all intents and purposes, he is, he’s just, on special assignment.
-When Rebellion leaders express concern about the Purge Trooper actively professing loyalty to Vader and Palpatine, Luke’s like “oh lmao don’t worry Dad’s just like that”
-Rex is so confused and pissed off
-Above Yavin IV, Cody manages to steal a TIE fighter and hovers aggressively behind Luke, shooting the shit out of anyone who comes near him
-Luke is on Bespin. Vader is on Bespin. Vader is dueling Luke and taunting him about the Dark Side. Vader is about to disarm (and dis-hand) Luke. Vader gets fucking tackled by a purge trooper, out of fucking nowhere. Cody just. fucking YEETS himself on top of him, punches him a couple of times, then grabs Luke and books it.
- “was that fucking CODY”
-he thinks Cody’s betrayed him
-he starts trying all the old secret communication channels that imperial spec ops has
-Cody is more than happy to give him a mission update, and is confused and offended when Vader accuses him of treason
- “I’m following orders sir you said to protect him and that’s what I’m doing”
- “I removed him from an unsafe situation and cut contact with individuals likely to have a negative impact on his emotional wellbeing”
- Vader has zero chance of winning this argument, Cody has an entire library of parenting books and child psych texts to throw at him
-anyway fast-forwarding to the Battle of Endor
-Luke and Vader face off again with Palpatine being an evil cackling shit in the background
-Luke has decided that since Cody is “dad” Vader can be “father”
-Luke getting zapped by Palpatine, “Father please, help me”
-Vader having an existential crisis
-out of fucking nowhere, Cody just full-body tackles Palpatine and yeets him into the reactor shaft
-Vader: “…I was gonna do that”
-Cody: “glad to hear it, sir. Keep it up and I might consider weekend visitation rights”
-also it is very important to me that Cody has been wearing his Purge Trooper armor this entire time. The whole 18 years or so of raising Luke on the run, Cody got up every morning and put on his Purge Trooper armor, because he is an on-duty soldier of the Empire and just because he’s on special assignment doesn’t mean he’s gonna skip out on his uniform