Anakin Solo and LotF

This is an essay which I based a small blurb of fan-fiction off of back when Betrayal was a brand new hardcover. At the time I had No Krakana set up over at blogs.starwars.com which doesn't like anything that even hints of fan-fiction or creative narrative in general from its members. Anyways, since that particular novel has been released recently in its paperback format, plus some throw away lines from the new novel Sacrifice tied into what I read in Exile and Bloodlines well, I figured that it would be a decent time to have a chat about this concept.

Anyhow, a major plot point of the novel Betrayal was the inclusion of Ani-bot. Which as anyone who has read the novel knows is a biometric droid designed by Thrackan Sal-Solo to interface with Centerpoint.

This was an important concept. Why? Because Centerpoint is bonded to Anakin Solo. During the Corellian Trilogy, Anakin imprinted himself onto Centerpoint. It was later established in the NJO that only he could activate it. Basically, without Anakin Solo, Centerpoint is nothing more than a massive floating tin can.

But Anakin Solo was killed off in Star by Star.

Which is why they had to use what has been dubbed Ani-bot.

It's fine and dandy. An incredibly interesting concept.

But it raises questions in my mind, foremost among them is where did they get the biometrics?

After all, Anakin is dead. His body burned to a crisp in a clearing of Hapes.

Additionally, Anakin's home planet (and where all that biometric type of information should have been stored) was Coruscant. A planet that was vongformed. Star by Star showed us that Fey'la destroyed the Senate databanks, which is where Anakin's information was probably stored, after all his mother was the former Chief of State.

So, just how did Sal-Solo get that biometric information for his young cousin? I mean, it's more than just a thin slice of DNA, it's things such as brain scans and auras.

Even if for some reason that information survived the Vong's conquest of Coruscant, Sal-Solo would not have been someone authorized to retrieve that information. I mean we have severe laws in place concerning a hospital's requirements to protect health information (and having developed software for use in a hospital/clinical setting I've had to read that particular law), how much worse would the GFFA's be?

Anyways, we have Sal-Solo with biometric information he should never have been able to get his paws on. How? How did he manage it?

Which is when I stop to think about just what it was that Sal-Solo was doing after Anakin died during the Vong War.

And I remember that he was in charge of the Peace Brigade.

Now, one of my personal pet theories on how Anakin could have survived was the fact that he was in a cloning facility, and in the YV's hands for a few hours at least, and then couple that with the fact that Jaina felt "compelled" by an outside force to retrieve the body (that's in Dark Journey), and I get the distinct impression that Anakin didn't die, but rather the YV quickly created a clone body which Jaina could retrieve, and Vergere helped along by using a Force suggestion to ensure that Jaina obediently came along and took the body away from the Vong.

Yet, what bothered me the most about this theory was Anakin's disappearance from the Force. Of course, a few months ago, I thought up a reason on just why that was something of a non-issue (Midichlorians versus Slave coral).

Anyways, taking that theory in hand, I then combined it with a couple of established facts from the NJO. First the Peace Brigade were used to move slaves around YV space. Second the Peace Brigade's home base of Ylesia was decimated by Alliance forces, while Sal-Solo was there on the planet.

So, my question then became, if Anakin did survive Myrkr and was in the hands of the YV, sooner or later they would want to sacrifice him. So the Peace Brigade would conceivably be tasked with moving him from one planet to another. After all by this point, the YV were stretched really thin. Sal-Solo would have recognized Anakin, and more importantly, recognized the potential Anakin promised via his relationship to Centerpoint.

Sal-Solo would not have hesitated to "rescue" Anakin from the YV at this point. Not in an effort to save Anakin so much as an effort to control him, and use him to gain more power (namely Centerpoint).

This theory provides for the biometrics necessary to produce the Ani-bot.

As for why Ani-bot, well the real Anakin didn't like Sal-Solo, and would not have helped him. Ani-bot is just flat out easier to control than the real Anakin.

Anyways, we have the biometrics needed to produce the Ani-bot, and then Ben comes along and messes up that plan by destroying Ani-bot.

So, it should be a simple matter of Sal-Solo getting more biometric information and rebuilding the Ani-bot, right?

Well, yeah, but Sal-solo was killed shortly thereafter, and if Sal-Solo was the only person who knew that Anakin was alive and well in some warehouse owned by Sal-Solo then who's going to get the biometric information then?

What is interesting (and part of why I'm writing this now) is the fact that as of Sacrifice the Corellians still have not gotten Centerpoint back up and running even to the point it was at during Betrayal. This seems to imply to me that they no longer have access to the biometric data used in the creation of Ani-bot.

I realize that this is somewhat, esoteric and inane, as least as far as theories goes, but it explains a lot.

It explains why the text of SbS never explicitly says that Anakin died. It explains the compulsion which Jaina felt in recovering his body. It explains what the Vong were doing with his body for those couple of hours they had it. It explains where the biometrics for Ani-bot came from. It explains why the Corellians don't seem to have that biometric information now.

I can admit, that I'm still holding out hope that Anakin will show up again. After all, Star Wars needs a hope like that these days. Star Wars needs the next Luke Skywalker back. After all, there is no other character suitable for being an archetypal Star Wars Hero. It's why Luke is still doing everything.

I guess all we can do is hope - which is kind of ironic, even though he's "dead" he's still the most hopeful, and human, character in the EU.