Dateline FSW: Father Figure

Thank you for joining us today as we embark on a new ongoing series on FSW. We have teamed up with the team behind hit newsmagazine series Dateline NBC to bring you the same in-depth news journalism and investigation but within the Galaxy Far, Far Away. Without further ado, Dateline FSW.

The following is the intergalactic journey Maury Povich endeavored upon to deliver groundbreaking news to the family of Anakin Skywalker. (As told to me to tell you.)

And So It Begins

I arrived at the Mos Eisley spaceport on Tatooine in the early morning. The dual rising suns as the backdrop to my arrival were an interesting greeting. Legend has it that the locals believe those are two rival brothers or gods or both, I honestly can’t keep track with all the folklore here and it’s not the reason for my visit. Maybe next time.

The sand-infused wind instantly whipped through the open corridors and passageways as I stepped down the ramp. Strangers from even stranger places eyed me as I pulled my duffle bag tight and proceeded through the winding maze of halls to get to my awaiting airtaxi. On the way, I bumped into a freakishly deformed man, or perhaps a normal-looking alien, who threatened me in a bizarre, guttural language and shook his… hooves? It was starting to look like one of those days where you wished you’d hit snooze and stayed in bed. But, alas, I was on a mission over 30 years in the making.

Who is Anakin?

Anakin Skywalker is not a name most know around these parts. Sure, you’ve heard of him, but that’s only because you’ve been given a highlight reel of a very narrow limb of a family tree growing amid a forest teeming with life. My airtaxi driver, a humanoid fellow with eyes literally in the back of his head, said he’s maybe heard the name “Skywalker” before, but he can’t remember when or where. And this from the guy who said he knew everything that goes down on Tatooine. All this to say, my mission, while very important to me, barely registers as fodder for small table talk in this neck of the galaxy. Perhaps I should’ve asked him about Darth Vader.

Speaking of Vader, while I would’ve loved to speak directly to him, his people never got back to me. However, I was on this desolate and sandy rock to speak with Anakin’s stepbrother. While I didn’t know at the time whether he knew that Anakin was Vader, or if he simply thought Anakin was a rogue Jedi who went nuts, or if Obi-Wan had told him that Anakin had been reduced to charcoal, none of that was under the purview of my trip. I held in my hands a dirty little secret that would call into question the entire Jedi Order.

The Stepbrother

Owen Lars was shirtless, shotgunning bottles of fermented blue milk on his front porch when my airtaxi floated up. He was three sheets to the wind, stumbling about, and moaning about how his wife, Beru, wanted him to get out of the moisture farming business and take the job her father was offering at Tosche Station because of the “kid.” Needless to say, when I heard a child was involved, I perked up and no sooner did I lean in did the aforementioned Beru step outside followed by a young boy no older than ten years old.

Enter Luke Skywalker. A scrappy, thin kid carrying a milk jug of his own, but this milk was green. Owen jumped up when he saw Luke and tried to appear sober, all under the disapproving eye of his wife. To immediately ease the newfound awkward tension, I mentioned to both Owen and Beru that what I had to say was probably best spoken outside of Luke’s earshot, so he was lead back inside leaving me, a rapidly sobering farmer, and several empty bottles. Exit Luke Skywalker. Soon after, I left as well.

The Junker

Owen told me that Obi-Wan, or “Ben” as he liked to be called now, dropped Luke off like an unwanted sack of potatoes and ran off into the desert to become a hermit in a hut in the middle of nowhere. He hadn’t seen or heard from him in months, but suspected the man was a Peeping Tom, even claiming to have seen him on the hill watching Beru and Luke in the yard a few times. And just when this part of my journey looked like a dead-end, Owen pointed me in the direction of a junker who not only may be very interested in what I had to say, but who just might just have a few answers of his own.

I found the oddly stereotyped secondhand merchant, Watto, counting credits and flapping around his overstocked little store bulging at the seams on the outskirts of some pop-up village a day’s journey from Owen’s farm. He greeted me warmly and just in time as a sandstorm began to whip through the area. 

Before we could get to the reason I was there, he had already placed a cup of what I can only assume was a local tea and raised a glass for a toast. I chalked his uncharacteristic charm up to the little blue guy figuring I was an eager, yet rich sucker ready to spend a stack of money in his shop. Much to his chagrin, I took the drink and then placed my duffel on the table, retrieving the yellow envelope from inside.

I asked him if he knew Anakin Skywalker and he immediately burst into laughter, then tears. It was an odd roller coaster of emotions, but his story about how “Little Ani” was his friend many years ago and how he missed him shed a little light on the subject. A little further prodding on my part revealed that Anakin’s mother, Shmi, was also his “friend” which I began to understand via context to actually mean “slave.”

Drunk on memories, Watto began to tell me all about life elsewhere on Tatooine when he acquired Shmi, their business dealings with other merchants and local ne’er-do-wells, and then, finally what I wanted to hear, on to when Shmi suddenly became pregnant with Anakin. According to Watto, the pregnancy was a miracle. No father. At least, that was her story. I had a different one.

Double-Crossed

I first came to know the truth about Anakin’s father a few years back. As emails and letter pour into the show day after day, I’ve been known to allow my aides and minions to hand me one to read. It was one such letter from an anonymous source saying I needed to investigate this so-called “miracle birth” of the Chosen One. 

At first, I bought into the mainstream propaganda that, yes, Anakin has no father because The Force is his father. I immediately dismissed the letter and went about my day. But then I read an Internet rumor about how Palpatine was Anakin’s father through some sort of dark science. Again, I brushed it off as nonsense, but it left me with a nagging desire for absolute certainty on the matter. So, I started digging.

That digging led me straight to Watto’s shop.

I slid the envelope over to Watto and watched his stubby little fingers slowly open it and take hold of the document. I watched his eyes line by line until they froze on a particular line. I couldn’t even see the paper’s contents from my vantage point, but I knew they stopped on the words “99.9% match.” He just floored by a bombshell. Anakin indeed had a real, human father. Shmi lied to him for the entire nine years that she and her son served him.

Watto was speechless, and I got the feeling that this was something rare. He simply shook his head and tightened his grip on the paper. I packed up and got ready to leave, carefully prying the document from his hands as he slowly began to mumble something about “he double-crossed me” and “they were in on it together” under his breath. Fearing he was on the edge of a mental breakdown, I showed myself out and stepped back into the sandy fray.

Middle of Nowhere

I was a ship without a compass on the sand-filled sea of Tatooine. My leads had dried up just like this planet and my hopes of finding the one person I was seeking were being dashed against the endless rocks when I remembered what Owen Lars had said about Ben being a Peeping Tom. I then instinctually glanced up to a see a hooded hobo staring back at me through binoculars from a rooftop fifty yards away. Was it him? 

I called out his name and he flinched before turning around and running. I gave chase. He was hard to follow as he bounced from roof to roof and down into the vast, wide open desert, but I was able to keep him in my sights. As the suns began to set, I saw him slip into a hut in the middle of nowhere.

You are the Father

I could hear Ben speaking to someone as I crept up to the doorway and ducked inside. I hid behind a crate of spice and tried to get a peek at the other person in the conversation. I could hear them telling Ben that he needed to continue watching over Luke and that he should kick his spice habit. Ben replied that he could quit anytime, but first tried to say he was just holding it for a friend of his.

The strange thing about this mystery person was that they emitted a bluish glow across the room and their voice sounded close, yet far away at the same time. As I wracked my brain to who this may be, the Force smiled upon me when Ben called him “Qui-Gon.” Eureka!

I bound into the room with the envelope held high. Both men turned to me in a fight-ready stance, and what followed was my first time getting a lightsaber pulled on me. Ben demanded to know who I was, and I replied that I was the person he was perving on outside the shop. He corrected me by saying he was suspicious of me since I first visited Owen before Watto. I replied by saying that Owen was right about him being a Peeping Tom stalker which apparently hurt his feelings. 

It was about this time that the ghost of Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn asked what was going on. That was my cue. I pulled the 23andMe document out of the envelope and read aloud:

Qui-Gon Jinn. When it comes to Anakin Skywalker. You ARE the father!

Deep coughing in the corner of the room turned me around to see Ben choking on a big rip of spice. He and Qui-Gon had a few words with each other, then they turned to me. At first there were denials, but soon after there were realizations.

Ben remembered that Qui-Gon chose Tatooine of all the habitable planets to land on after leaving Naboo. He remembered passing by a number of other shops before happening to stop in the one that had a part for their specific ship. He remembered a certain familiarity Qui-Gon had with Shmi right away even though they were supposed to be complete strangers. He remembered Qui-Gon taking a liking to the little shop kid despite him not being very personable. Even down to trying to get Anakin to come with them and train as a Jedi after some possible Midi-chlorian test manipulation. Anakin went off the rails in the end after all. Maybe he wasn’t the Chosen One. Maybe that, too, was a lie. Everything seemed way too convenient in the light of this DNA report. 

I left Ben in a quandary, second-guessing his former Master and the entirety of his Jedi ways. I probably could have stuck around to see him through this, but my job was done. Qui-Gon was aware that we were all aware and that was that. As to whether all this was a moot point since both Shmi and her baby daddy were dead and Anakin was now a cyborg with deep Imperial pockets, well, that’s for you to decide.

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