From Star Wars Tales #1, "Skippy the Jedi Droid" Written by Peter David, pencils by Martin Egeland, inks by Howard S. Shum. The secret life of R5-D4, as an astromech droid who achieves both sentience and Force powers. How? "His lubricants were rife with midi-chloroxians, giving him mastery of the Force." No more far-fetched than midi-chlorians anyway; or, as David points out, a planet orbiting a pair of binary stars.
But, as reported on CNN recently, scientists have discovered a planet orbiting a binary star system! While the scientists admit it is highly doubtful the planet they already refer to as Tatooine could support life, just the fact that it's there at all is exciting.
Also, David wasn't the first to consider the untold history of R5-D4: the band Servotron beat him to it with "Red Robot Refund"! Check it here. Man, I saw them play years ago, and I can't help but think if they were out now, they would've been bigger.
If you can find a copy of Star Wars Tales #1, it's well worth reading "Skippy the Jedi Droid," though: there's cameos from Bender, Crow and Servo, the B-9 from Lost in Space, Boba Fett; and an utterly heartbreaking sacrifice. One that you'll remember, the next time you watch A New Hope...(David and Egeland had a solid run on Aquaman as well.)
That's it for this week, have a good weekend!
I heard about the binary star system it's pretty cool.
ReplyDeleteWill try to dig out the stories you mentioned as R5 always seemed weirdly cooler than R2 to me.