Monday, June 11, 2012

What if Gandalf Fought Luke, pt 4 (The Star Wars Blogathon)

Installment 4 of

What If Gandalf Fought Luke?



READ PART ONE here.

Read PART TWO here.

Read PART THREE here.

The best part is: it is so simple the beings will not see it coming, Luke thought.

The energy swirls around them, the beings that had so long served Luke instead trying to destroy him, and Luke feels his hold on the shield falter one second... two second... and he can hold it no longer and the pent-up forces that he has been pushing out, as well as the laser bolts he was holding in, escape, all the barriers he can erect dying at once.

Almost at once.

************************************

"There is a reason," the man says at the head of the classroom, "Why there are no stories written which use omnipotent beings as a protagonist or antagonist."

"OH MAN" stage whispers a boy in the back of the classroom.  "Now we're learning storytelling."

The other students around him snicker, except for Jndr, who cannot laugh at all because he does not breath air.  He instead makes a thumping sound with two tentacles.

Luke looks at the boy, who sits in the back everyday, slumped in his chair, an attitude that is affected to impress the other students, he knows.  The boy looks back at him.

"Perhaps you want to teach, Monie?" he asks.

Monie says:  "I'll teach," and he reaches out with his mind, manipulating what he thinks are tiny unintelligent blots of life but which a few short days hence will reveal themselves to be anything but unintelligent, and the styluses that the students use to take notes all lift, in unison, and fly at the teacher from nearly every direction and every height, some of them faster than others, some of them dipping and raising to make it harder to catch them.

It's an impressive display.

All of the styluses stop, though, and neatly line themselves up in a row in front of Luke.  They then appear to hop back, on thin air, until they stand in front of Monie.  They form a wall in front of him, and then they climb up higher, hopping on their ends, until they are above his head.  He looks up at them.

They drop.


He flinches, only slightly, but it is visible to everyone but Jndr who sees in chemicals; a moment later, Jndr will get a whiff of the scent of fear that Monie emitted and will tap his tentacles lightly in amusement.

The styluses stop a centimeter short of Monie's face, and hang there for a second.

Then they disappear.

The class gasps.

Monie waves his hand threw the air in front of his face, certain they are being cloaked.

They are not.

They are gone.

The class stares, and chemically sniffs at Monie's area, for a few seconds longer, and then turns back towards the teacher.

"Where are they?" asks Senna.  Like all of her people, her skin betrays her emotions and they are roiling like the colors that swirl on her face and hands.  Luke has made her wear clothes to attend the Academy.

"I was doing some reading in the Library last week and I came across an old story," Luke says quietly.  "I thought at first it was fiction.  But..." he pauses and looks at them meaningfully "... I decided that it's only fiction if I don't let it happen."

*********************************************************************

So much is so simple, Luke muses, and dives in.

*********************************************************************

BACK TO THE BLOGATHON: Andrew, you've been replaced as leader!


QUESTION 94:






What two real-life sounds make up the lightsaber noise in the movies?

Today's rules:

1.  The question is worth 10,000 points.

2.Mention Andrew Leon's class' book on your blog, get 10,000 points (leave me a link.)


3.  If you HAVE NOT answered a question at all in the past two weeks, leaving a comment gets you 75,000 points. 



 UPDATED STANDINGS:


 P.T. Dilloway: 164,121. Author Patrick Dilloway blogs here, and wrote the excellent book Where You Belong, available here.)
 

Andrew Leon: 150,411 1/4. (Andrew's the author of the great YA book, The House On The Corner. Click here to go to his blog.)

Michael Offutt, 16,3021/2, author of  the great sci-fi book Slipstream, which you can read about on Goodreads)

Rusty Webb: 4,022, Blogger at The Blutonian Death Egg, author of the great novella A Dead God's Wrath.

11 comments:

PT Dilloway said...

Q: I've been wondering for 20 years: How are the various lightsaber sounds made?

A: The lightsaber was, in fact, the very first sound I created for A New Hope. Inspired by the McQuarrie concept paintings, I remembered a sound of an interlock motor on the old film projectors at the USC Cinema Department (I had been a projectionist there). The motors made a musical "hum" which I felt immediately would complement the image in the painting. I recorded that motor, and a few days later I had a broken microphone cable that caused my recorder to accidently pick up the buzz from the back of my TV picture tube. I recorded that buzz, and mixed it with the hum of the projector motor. Together these sounds became the basis for all the lightsabers.

PT Dilloway said...

BTW, I knew my experience at making bad jokes would finally pay off.

Michael Offutt, Phantom Reader said...

Oh...I totally own Rusty. I'm gonna go with PT Dilloway's answer as my own.

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

If I leave a comment, can I give the points to Andrew?
And agree - no eBook should be over ten bucks.

Andrew Leon said...

Ooh! I'd love points! And I also agree on the $10 thing. I'll probably respond at greater length when I get to responding to the comments on my blog later.

A third sound that went into the lightsabers was striking a taut wire with various types of metal. That was used to make the sounds of the lightsabers clashing.

I think I've decided I disagree with your story. This is not a Luke vs Gandalf story, because he's not really fighting Gandalf.
I do like today's installment, though, and I'm looking forward to seeing where that bit is going.

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Andrew, the points are yours!
And sorry I missed the post about how to peel hardboiled eggs.

Andrew Leon said...

Woot! Thanks much!

But, um, what post about peeling hard boiled eggs? I hate peeling those things, so, if there's a post about it, I want to read it!

PT Dilloway said...

Great, this is like in "Survivor" when people form alliances to vote someone off the island.

I know Briane and I were talking about peeling hardboiled eggs on Twitter earlier. I always have a hard time with that for some reason. The shell keeps sticking to the egg so I end up tearing up parts of the egg white to get the shell off. It's annoying.

Andrew Leon said...

Yeah, I hate when pieces of the egg come off. That can be somewhat alleviated by crushing the shell into smaller pieces which leads to egg shell stuck all over my hands, which I hate even more.

Yzerbear said...

I was told I had to make a comment. I've never commented before. I don't even like Star Wars, but if you ever want some blackmail material on P.T. Dilloway, let me know! I know where the embarrassing naked baby photos of him are! Bru ha ha ha ha. :)

Yzerbear said...

I want to give my points to P.T. Dilloway.