Jedi Dawn
Author: Paul Cockburn
Medium: Gamebook
Publication date: September 1993
Timeline placement: 0 BBY
Series: Lost Jedi Adventure Game Books #1
You are Havet Storm, 16-year-old aspiring Jedi and protagonist of this Choose Your Own Adventure-style gamebook. Unlike that classic children's adventure series, however, this UK-exclusive publication needlessly over-complicates the concept by adding TTRPG character speccing, inventory management, and dice rolls. What fun!
You, Havet, have been on the run ever since your mother's death a year ago from dehydration and old age, your father having been assassinated by the Empire when you were a child. Going through your mother's belongings, you discovered a K-9 series Mechanical Hound containing an orange-bladed lightsaber lightsabre and a message recorded by your grandfather, Morvet Storm... Jedi Knight! Keep in mind that you were born only three years after Order 66, so Granddad must have been out sowing his wild oats long before the Clone Wars even began. He briefly explains the Force to you, his future grandson, but his warning about the dark side is cut off prematurely: "Vader! Has it come to this?" You grab your lightsabre and your robot dog and set out on your adventure.
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| I could conquer the world if I could conquer myself. |
Now you find yourself on the planet Toprawa in the days before the Battle of Yavin. Depending on the choices you make and the numbers you roll, you can have several different exciting encounters, from fighting that vicious bounty hunter Boba Fett, who is written horribly out of character (although this book came out so early in the EU I suppose it's technically the Boba Fett of Andy Mangels, John Wagner, Daniel Keys Moran, Paul Danner, and John Ostrander who was out of character with Paul Cockburn's depiction), to roofying a blonde.
Vermilion hands you a small glass bottle. "Get Facet to drink this if you can; it'll put her to sleep for hours."
It takes real willpower to mix Facet's drink first; three parts citrus juice, one part local bitters, ice and just a small vial of sleeping draught to taste. You hand her a long glass, and she drinks deeply.
As for you, well, you've finally got your hands on a tube of Star Racer. Nothing is going to stop –
There is a thump behind you, and you jump out of your skin. The tube falls to the floor, and breaks on the tiles under the bar. NO!!! You look round, ready to scream at Facet, but she has fallen from the couch and lies in a heap on the floor. You rush over to check her pulse. She's alive, but her running lights have been switched off – she doesn't stir when you call and only groans slightly as you lift her onto the couch. That sleeping potion must have been strong stuff!
No comment.
The blonde in question is one Facet Anamor, 17-year-old daughter of the head researcher at Toprawa's Imperial Research Station. Cockburn lovingly describes her as "very pretty (lovely deep blue eyes!), a year or two older than you, and she has a great sense of humor. It turns out she has been waiting to have lunch with a guy she works with. This guy doesn't sound too much like competition – it comes up in conversation that he's a small fat guy in the Records Department – and he can't be too bright to miss a date with a girl like this." Methinks the author was taking his name a bit literally while writing this character.
The Rebel Alliance recruits you to infiltrate the Research Station and steal the plans for the Death Star superlaser. The schematics for the rest of the structure were already stolen by Rebel operatives while the Imperial convoy carrying them was stopped at Toprawa, but they still needed to give you, Havet Storm, something to do.
You confront Facet's father, the evil Imperial scientist Druth Anamor, and with a little help from your dog you obtain the superlaser plans and get them into Rebel hands. The final battle ensues, and it falls to you transmit the combined schematics to Princess Leia's ship. In a bit of early EU continuity, Havet Storm is revealed to be the "Rebel voice" Leia speaks to when she receives the Death Star plans early in the 1981 NPR Star Wars radio drama, delivering the iconic line "Come in, Skyhook! Come in, Skyhook!"
Your blonde love interest Facet Anamor is revealed to secretly be the brunette Imperial assassin Diamond Cobra, so you get a new girlfriend in the final pages of your adventure, a Rebel soldier named Surna. Maybe you'll be luckier in love come your sequel, The Lost Jedi Adventure Game Books #2: The Bounty Hunter, but that doesn't take place for another two years. In the meantime, you'll have to drink a lot of soda.
Despite the RPG mechanics the author wants you to play with, Jedi Dawn reads like a standard Choose Your Own Adventure book in practice. You can just pick your own combat results instead of rolling dice, who cares. There are a lot of different options and viable narrative paths you can choose from, and I'm tempted to read through it again and check out some of the alternative ways the story can unfold, like sucker punching Facet into unconsciousness instead of drugging her. You're the hero now, Havet!
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