Ok so talking to a friend of mine and we we're thinking. How would the story for SWR be different if the Wren siblings switched places, Sabine was ok with the weapons only if meant clan Wren survived but Tristan had a problem and fled or they both fled mandalore together because siblings always have each other's backs?
These are 2 very very different AUs you’ve got there - the only logical thing for me to do is to tackle them separately!
AU Number 1: Sabine the Weapons Designer:
Sabine has approximately the same horror to her theoretical designs being built and used to install terror.
In this universe, though, she doesn’t speak up. She’s simply too afraid.
She does manage to remove all traces of her project’s designs from Academy computers.
She even manages to pin her slicing of the system onto another cadet. Probably not Ketsu, but who knows?
Some never stop suspecting her, on both sides….
Gar Saxon keeps Sabine in Sundari, or occasionally alongside him on missions. She’s allowed to paint to her heart’s content, but that’s the only freedom she truly feels.
In theory she could call her family. She doesn’t.
Even if the Imperial-aligned Mandalorians did let her, what would she say to them?
Without Sabine publicly giving voice to fears of what the Academy was doing to their best and brightest, far more of the cream of Mandalorian talent remains within the Empire.
In surprisingly few years, companies like MandalMotors are pumping out powerful, elegant weapons of war for the Empire’s use.
Nothing that specifically targets Mandalorian armour - Gar Saxon never used The Duchess in canon after the first time, after all.
This fact just about helps Sabine sleep at night.
These designs grab the attention of Grand Admiral Thrawn, who manages to politically maneuver Saxon into transferring his most talented teams of designers and engineers directly to Lothal.
Where they have ample natural resources for testing and ample targets for them to be tested on.
Meanwhile, without the political pressure to force Tristan to join the Supercommandos, he gets to spend time with Clan Wren’s merchants, mercenaries and those in the wider galaxy. This traditional education gives some rather nontraditional results!
Namely, he manages to record and disseminate an awful lot of evidence that shows how the Empire and Imperial-aligned Mandalorian abuse their power systematically.
This gets traced back to him after a few months - he’s not a slicer, and he doesn’t know any skilled enough to evade the Empire for long….
So he flees to some obscure system called “Lothal”!
A confrontation between the Wren siblings is all but inevitable, sooner or later…
AU Number 2: The family that stays together, slays together:
Ursa, somehow or other, managed to wrangle a family visit to see Sabine in the academy. The Duchess testing ended up happening during this visit, and Tristan saw the horrific results.
So he ends up speaking up along with his sister.
Thus Ursa has to denounce both, for the sake of the Clan’s survival.
Both fleeing, perhaps they end up with the Ghost. Perhaps they don’t.
Either way, with both her children denounced, I think Ursa would be more committed to building up an insurrection force - Clan Wren’s tarnished either way!
