Turning Point
Author: Charlene Newcomb
Medium: Short story
Publication date: February 1995 in Star Wars Adventure Journal #5
Timeline placement: 6 BBY
The unfortunately named Dair Haslip has been accepted to the Imperial Academy on Raithal, a lifelong dream of both himself and his best friend, Joss Whedon. Dair’s friend will not be accompanying him to the academy, however, due to Joss Whedon’s father recently having been revealed to be a member of the underground resistance movement on Garos IV. Nevertheless, Dair Haslip and Joss Whedon remain huge Empire stans, until for no reason they decide to sneak around the woods and spy on a couple of Imperial scout troopers, who shoot Joss Whedon in the back. Dair murders them in return, then confesses his crime to his grandmother, who reveals that she is also part of the resistance movement. Dair decides not to reject his academy acceptance and to use his position to fight the Empire from within.
This story is all a big nothing, with one exception that I’ll mention in a moment. We all know that the Empire is evil, but all these Adventure Journal and Galaxy and Gamer stories were written to promote Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, the point of which, I thought, was that you could be anyone in the Star Wars galaxy you wanted to be. So why do so many of these stories go the predictable route of having their protagonists end up joining the Rebellion? “I love or am indifferent to the Empire! Oh no, the Empire fucked me over in the most horrible way, I guess they were evil after all.” This same arc plays out so many times these stories end up feeling like white noise. How about an Imperial protagonist who doesn’t switch sides at the end? We’ve got the TIE Fighter game, select issues of the Empire comic, and…?
But on the plus side, “Turning Point” features the earliest chronological appearance of Alex Winger! She’s only six here, but we will watch her career with great interest. Sadly the same cannot be said about our already forgotten hero, Das Hairlip.
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