"Jedi. I mean you no harm."

Revan hoped the dark side energies searing his insides did not undermine his statement. He could mask almost all of his own direct uses of the dark side, but not his use of the Star Forge. Certainly not a use of it as grand as the one he had just pulled off. His insides roiled. Pain of this magnitude could not be inflicted by physical means alone. Such pain could be used for immense power, but not without a cost. Fortunately, that was not a cost he needed to pay today.

He bore the pain expressionless, decades of discipline more than ample to contain it to a small section of his mind.

Motionless, he directed a stray tendril of power to straighten his robes, an indulgence of his personal preference for order in all things.

- And a guy just randomly appeared in front of him. Someone who feels like they have both good and evil in them -

And who knows Luke's a Jedi, though that knowledge is probably spreading pretty rapidly.

Luke gets to his feet, wary. Not reaching for his lightsaber yet, though.

"Who are you?"

The man was speaking Galactic Basic, as expected, but with a different accent, also as expected. Revan probed gently at the edges of the man's mind, reading off the speech-generation structures and pulling them into himself. When he spoke, his speech was no different:

"I am Rellav Maelstrom. I have traveled far to speak with you."

Revan took a deep but quiet breath. The man was clearly ridiculously powerful, in the sense of raw access to the Force, but he did not have the aura of a master, much less the aura one would expect of the most powerful Force-user of his era. That didn't seem right. Had Revan arrived too soon?

"I'm Luke Skywalker. Where are you from? Who are you with?" His brow furrows. "Are you a Jedi?"

Not the questions Revan would have asked, but he wanted to signal cooperation, so he answered nonetheless:

"I was born on a forgotten planet in the Outer Rim, though I've been many places since then."
"I am not allied with any of the major or minor factions in the Galaxy."
"I estimate that I have more than half of the properties of a Jedi that matter to you."

"Where were you before you - appeared? How'd you get here - without me noticing?"

Bummer. He'd noticed. What to do, what to do. The complete answer would require revealing more information than could be processed, understood, or believed. Untrue answers would be flimsy. What? He's going to claim to have been using a stealth field generator. He wasn't carrying one.

"I used a piece of very sophisticated technology. I would be willing to tell you more in time, but first I have questions for you."

"Luke Skywalker, Master Jedi, who are you with?" 

"If you were looking for me, wouldn't you already know that?"

"You are correct to be suspicious. I was looking for a person particularly gifted with the Force, which happens to be you. That is what I know about you, though I am indeed curious to know more."

"I will be more transparent. I want to work with you. Help you. That is, assuming your goals and motives are not incompatible with my own. To do this, we must trust each other, and to trust each other we must know something about each other. I ask who you are with since it is the question you asked me and presumably speaks to how you think about things, but I am generally interested in the entirety of who you are, what you are trying to do, and how I might help you."

"Note, I have not paid attention to the present galactic matters, so you might find that I am ignorant of many present things, for example, the members of a presiding Jedi Council. I might have a number of foolish-sounding questions. I pray you are patient with me." 

"Jedi Council? - I've never heard of that, but there aren't enough Jedi left for a Council anyways."

"I'm with the Alliance, though the Empire calls us rebels. I'd figure most Force users wouldn't be fond of the Empire, but at least one is."

Revan pondered: "The Empire" – more a Sith name than a Jedi one. Few Jedi. Not even a council. And his search for the most powerful Force-user of the era led him to an untrained youth. For that matter, the galaxy felt barren, in a way: the pinpricks of light side force that dotted the galaxy, the Jedi, were absent. Only now with his senses clearing post-Star-Forge-travel did he notice it.

The Jedi had been almost entirely wiped out. The Sith dream finally accomplished. Revan felt a sadness stir in him. There was so much he hated about the Jedi, but they were half a whole he was increasingly convinced was important. Still, it wouldn't matter in the scheme of things. Not if he succeeded.

"I'm with the Alliance." Ah, so a holdout group possessing at least this Jedi. They assuredly would be bent on overthrowing their Empire and restoring justice and peace and so on and so on. The script for gaining trust and allyship was clear.

"Things are worse than I feared then. I am a man of many talents, Luke, and I would like to help your rebels in your fight against tyranny and oppression."

Luke's fairly sure he's at least somewhat sincere.

But...

There's still that odd - darkness, he guesses - that he'd sensed.

"...Why didn't you already know that?"

Revan sighed internally, a motion perfected over the years. Building trust could be so tedious. No wonder it was one of the later skills he had developed.

"As I said, I traveled far to be here." This was in fact true both for time and distance. "Where I have been for the last many years of my life, I have had no access to any HoloNet that could have informed me about the state of things here, nor did any of the events here touch the places I have been."

"If you would be so kind, at some I'd greatly appreciate a datapad to help me become apprised of recent developments."

"I can get you a datapad, yeah, though maybe not right away, though a lot of the Empire's stuff is censored. Where were you, earlier?"

"Looking for lost technology on lost worlds, the very same that helped me travel here to you."

"Surely you have learnt, Master Skywalker, that technology is neither good nor evil, yet its possession can decide which prevails. I don't need your datapad to guess that the Empire has you outgunned and out-teched, so I hope you'll understand my interest in technology."

"Also, without knowing your exact role within your alliance, I hope you recognize that my frank admittance of knowledge of advanced technology is a considerable sign of goodwill. I'd be happy to talk to your allies, particularly the strategists, and I am confident they would agree on this point."

Luke was likely the only rebel figure of interest, but Trust-Building 201 says sometimes it's wiser to take an indirect path. If a person is not easily swayed with reason, find a reason-amenable confidant of their's, earn the confidant's alliance, and let it propagate backwards through the social chain. Cooperation with extra steps.

He considers this.

He's unsure whether she'd want him to lead this Rellav straight to Leia - and the wider base, of course. The stranger's probably a better Jedi than Luke, and probably can find the base on his own -

He's also aware the Alliance's information streams aren't airtight, and a strange Jedi - oddly unaware of the Empire - with advanced technology could be a huge boon. If it's true.

He pulls out his transmitter, calling Leia directly - "Hey, gonna come in early. Side door still unlocked?" And, pushing across the still somewhat hard to reliably use mental link to her - he found something, he's unsure of this, and wary, but cautiously hopeful, and the something is a person.

She answers promptly, of course. "I'll make sure it is."

And pushing towards Luke - a very firm sense of I hope you know what you're doing.

(She starts moving to an unwatched side door; Luke should be able to head straight for her.)

"Thanks." He likes her so much.

To Rellav: "Well, I can bring you in on my speeder."

Revan was surprised. Then he was surprised at his own surprise. He should know better by now. Of course the man who failed to ask any of a dozen actually good questions to ferret out Revan's motivations would also flip to taking him right into the midst of his allies after a mere few minutes of conversation. People don't reason consistently, but they do usually reason inconsistently consistently.

Yet...something was wrong. How could this be the one?

"Thank you, sincerely. I am ready."

He nods.

And the reason he might've been less hesitant to reveal the base turns out to be that it's literally within eyesight - they don't have clear lines of sight to where Luke had decided to meditate, and their location is obviously obscured (especially from the air), but Luke would've been able to see anything exploding, and Revan would've been able to see it without much walking. It looks like a smuggler's hideaway - a more thorough disguise than simple invisibility, since it'll be hard to entirely hide signs of activity. It's incredibly small, though, especially for somewhere that might claim to challenge an 'Empire,' and very thinly staffed. (In truth, this base is far from anything major, and it's half been an excuse to squirrel Luke away so he can train himself without cutting him off entirely from the Alliance like he would be on Dagobah.)

Getting the speeder in takes only a few minutes, and most of that's taken up by Luke swinging out past the main approaches and to an odd little side route.

Leia meets him there, outside the door. She's put the base on low alert, and let their guards know there's a unknown approximately fitting Revan's description - who isn't to be trusted if found away from Luke or Leia. Nothing of Luke's hopes for him, or the weird sense of surprise from Luke, or the odd feeling of power she's getting off him.

She glances to Luke, briefly, confirming You're okay? (he is) before turning to Revan.

"Who are you?"

The woman had a keenness to her. Revan liked it. Bizarrely, she had much the same aura as her comrade, though she seemed completely untrained in the Force– as opposed to only mostly untrained. And...yes, these two were connected. It was both alike and unlike his own connection to Bastila. Sigh. He would miss her.

"I am Rellav Maelstrom. I was once a Jedi, though I left the order to pursue my own path to improving the world."

Even after recovering from the memory wipe and indoctrination, Revan had used the alternative name on more than one occasion. It was almost not a lie to say that's who he was. Though, if the rest of the alliance were no more educated than Luke, he could have safely used the true and blackened name of one infamous historical figure.

"For the last two decades of my life, I have been in worlds beyond the reach of this galaxy, pursuing my work. My work, however, has now led me to your brother and you. You are my biggest hope." 

That is, assuming he'd performed the calculations correctly...

"We're not related," she says, immediately, though - something about those words sparks an unease in her gut...

"What is your work?"

Revan was amused. Why would she deny it? Then again, the way the young man looked at her... If this era was no different than his own, it made sense that they'd wish to avoid publicly committing a taboo. Well, shaking them up had an element of risk, but also might result in them being off-balance and therefore in a more receptive mood for subsequent discussions.

"I can't tell you everything, not yet, but I will work very hard to avoid telling you anything actively false. I'd be very grateful if you did the same to me. Now, I trust my senses. Do you wish to tell me that if each of you submitted a sample to a medical droid, it would not confirm your biological relation? This is a very easy test to conduct and I don't mind waiting if you want to stand by your statement and prove it. Fear not, I won't judge you for being honest here, such practices don't bother me."

Revan glanced knowingly at Luke, the barest hint of a smirk showing through.

"We're from different planets, raised by very different people. The chances of us being related are astronomically small, and it doesn't matter, anyways."

"Now, my question?"

Revan sensed that the statement was honest, maybe she really did believe it. That would imply a curious history.

"In that case, running the test and getting my predicted outcome should serve as strong evidence of my knowledge and perception. I implore you to run it if you find yourselves doubting me."

"Yes, my work. I suspect there are powers operating in this galaxy that are more insidious than any tyrannical empire that rises and falls from time to time. My work for the last many years has been seeking the knowledge which might confirm my suspicions, and if so allow me to take necessary actions to ensure the flourishing of the galaxy. It is slow work with many steps." This was more than he'd like to say freely, but he wagered he needed to say at least this much.

"I come seeking your help." Revan looked squarely at Luke. "Though it will take time before I can trust you and you can trust me. And simply time before you are ready and able to hear what I already know."

"That is why I'm willing to help you. It will help us build the requisite trust, though I suspect your cause is indeed just and it pleases me to help for that reason too." Just, but also insignificant at the moral scale Revan typically operated at.

Luke's pretty sure the guy's being truthful, though he's still not mentioning some pretty big stuff.

He glances at Leia, raising an eyebrow - he doesn't think letting this guy help will damage their operations, but...

"I can get you the history you've missed, then. More... I'll wait and see."

"Thank you." Revan inclined his head slightly and executed the closest approximation he had to a meek smile. His roles as revered military leader, feared Dark Lord of the Sith, and lone seeker of knowledge on abandoned worlds had not given him much practice in this kind of social approach. The years spent wearing a literal mask probably didn't help either.

Leia nods, and retrieves a data pad loaded with texts on recent history. And, of course, some slightly less recent history - she's not bothering to separate out specific chapters.

"Unfortunately, a lot of the last twenty years of history texts are either Imperial propaganda or oral history. These texts should be mostly trustworthy, they're as neutral as Imperial law allows, but you'll want to talk through history - probably with me - to actually get a full picture."

Revan was excited and fearful– what had the centuries or millennia (he was about to find out which) since his own time brought? He'd made endless predictions before making the jump– one does not often get an opportunity to so thoroughly and quickly test their models of the world.

As he confidently predicted, datapads were still a dominant way to consume information. This is one of the great mysteries Revan was determined to solve: why across tens of thousands of years and millions of worlds, was technological development in the galaxy so uniform? Or more accurately, so uniformly capped? Species could rise up from mindless animals, develop fire, electricity, computers, droids, shields, ships, near-miraculous healing substances (kolto in his era, now bacta was in fashion). But that was kind of it.

Revan had scoured the history available to him in his own era, and this picture just held up. Only the Rakatans seemed to have done better, and only briefly before they'd been destroyed by their creation. Revan had posited this fate happened to other species, but 1) there was no evidence of this, 2) across thousands of worlds, at least some should have survived with their more advanced tech, 3) most species already possessed the ability to destroy themselves, and by and large they didn't.

It didn't make sense– a straightforward extrapolation said that more should be possible. There was no reason for technology to cap at this level. Yet it did. 

Much the same mystery held for intelligence. Insects and animals were less intelligent than "sentients" along a continuum of cognitive ability, but while sentients varied a little among themselves in their ability to think, species across the galaxy were remarkably uniform. Perhaps some showed more aptitude in different tasks, but there were no strict superiorities of mental prowess (barring, again, maybe the Rakatans). Why did the ability to think cap out at point?

And if you wanted to combine the above two mysteries...well, droids.

"Find what you're looking for?"

Revan paused his reading, disengaging his use of force speed– a rudimentary ability that for some perplexing reason most force-users thought was only good for combat.

It hadn't taken him long to link the current calendar system back to the system he was used to. It was going to him a lot longer to absorb the result. 3,900 years. Thirty-nine hundred years. THIRTY-NINE HUNDRED YEARS. It wasn't a surprise, not given his careful estimations of where he might end up, but it was still an adjustment even for him to find himself suddenly that far from home.

--

"Find what you're looking for?" Revan marveled at the terseness, almost brusqueness, of the young rebels' interactions. It was either a bold or foolish way to interact with an unknown entity of indeterminate power who was currently offering assistance. He a grew a little tired of it. He was trying to help them. He was trying to help everyone.

He stood from where he had been sitting to read, and began "idly" levitating the datapad, spinning it gently about its center as it hovered above his hand. He pulsed the rotational velocity rhythmically: a little bit faster, a little bit slower. Exceptionally precise movements.

"Yes. A clear and tragic story. The Republic had a great many flaws, but even at it's worst the system did not have a fraction of the wanton contempt and disregard for its citizens as the new Empire evidently does. I am glad I arrived before it got any worse." He genuinely meant that.  "You've answered my most pressing questions, thank you. I place myself at your disposal. Use me as you see fit."

The datapad floated a just little bit more forcefully as eccentricities were added to its cycle.

Her expression doesn't change, but it's clear she's alert to his movements, a bit wary of him.

"We'll need more information on your abilities, to figure out where you're best used."

Luke stirs, a bit. "Going directly after Vader, maybe - "

"Risky, at this point. Just because she didn't kill you last time..." She trails off, trading a look laden with meaning with Luke.

Interesting. Revan would enquire in a moment what that was about.

"To answer your question, if you'll forgive the lack of humility, I'm an extremely powerful force-user with the typical implications that has: combat prowess, stealth abilities, starpiloting skill, and even some wisdom." He paused, lips twitching slightly with his self-amusement at the last item on that list.

"I have been a military commander and strategist." They would assume he fought in the Clone Wars, which was fine. "I am highly proficient workings with droids and computer systems."

The woman clearly wanted him to be forthright, so he hoped that would help.

"Useful."

"Do you know who Darth Vader is?"

"The name suggests she is a Sith Lord, but no, she was not mentioned in the histories on the datapad you gave me. Empires typically involve the Sith, so I am not surprised that you have such an enemy." Honestly, he would know.

"Luke thinks you'd be best directed against her, or at least her wider efforts - and I'm inclined to agree with the general idea. She's currently the most dangerous to our forces, directly or through those she commands, second only to the Emperor."

"She's supposed to be the Emperor's right hand, who helped him carry out the Purges of the Jedi. She's known to be powerful, intelligent, temperamental, and cruel."

Luke glances at Leia again, and then ignores how she sighs. "I think she can be turned, though. There's good in her."

There's good in her. If that were true, this Vader had formidable spirit. The dark side offered great power, yet it turned a person into a hollow shell; a mockery of everything they once stood for and valued; nothing but a husk hungering solely for destruction and pain. Only one with a mighty spirit could be a dark lord and still harbor any goodness. Here too, he would know. He survived, Malak did not. His once dearest friend had already been eaten away by the time Revan slew his body.

"To be taken by the dark side is a terrible fate for both the one taken and those they hurt. I am pessimistic, as one should be here, but I am willing to help you try to save your Vader from the dark side."

"There's always a path back. I think - I can't be a Jedi and not help people, and she needs help."

The Jedi penchant for trying to redeem people at times felt insufferable to Revan. How many countless souls had died because the Jedi had refused to destroy bloodthirsty monsters when they had the chance? On the other hand, Revan's own continued existence was only due to Jedi mercy, and he still hoped to prove his redemption worth it.

"I once turned someone back from the dark side. I estimate that I succeeded because I loved them and they loved me, but I assume that dynamic is unlikely to play out here. In any case, the advised approach is the same as it is with almost all things – understand, and the correction actions will become apparent."

"What do you know about Vader? How and why did she turn to the dark side?"

Awkward look with Leia.

"...Uh, the Emperor is also a Sith Lord, and he manipulated her into the Dark. She hates him. I've been trying to figure out what happened - I have a name, but not much else to go on. She was a hero in the Clone Wars and was generally assumed dead in the Jedi Purges. She was known to be kind of mercurial. She supposedly used battle meditation in the Clone Wars, but no one's seen her use it as Vader."

Staring contest with Leia involving several expressions, which Luke apparently wins.

"She's also my mom, and last time we met she offered to help us overthrow the Emperor and put Leia in his place if we'd side with her. She's very conspicuously refused to kill us."

"I think she'd turn to save our lives, but Leia thinks intentionally setting that up would be really stupid. Leia generally thinks we should just kill her, though..."

Huh. Huh indeed.

"I think this is something we can work with."

"However I'm confused. Why would she want to place Leia at her side and not you, her son?" Revan gave in to the temptation to inquire about this curious point again, though it was legitimately relevant.

"Luke's not interested in leading," she says, "And the conversation with me was earlier than the one with Luke - she offered to turn on the Emperor on terms unfavorable to the Alliance, I counter offered, she turned me down and and then refused to negotiate further. She didn't try to claim I was her daughter, but I wouldn't have accepted that as a reason to listen to her."

"It makes sense to me now."
Revan resists the temptation to smirk openly and does so only internally. They in fact held the sibling-hypothesis, but he couldn't fault them for being cagey about it given its significance.

"Regarding the bigger picture: people aren't just 'manipulated into the dark side' – they are manipulated in the dark side along their fault lines: lust of power, greed, fear, shame, and so on. Reality is detailed, and the details matter. Jedi training emphasises the connectedness and oneness of things, and there's truth to that, but it misses that distinctions matter. Details matter."

"If we are to bring Vader back, we must know the path she took to arrive where she is. We must collect what information we can. You have a name, that is a start. Do you know anyone who knew your mother before she was Vader?"

"Separately, the Jedi would have kept records on her, and notwithstanding the purges, I would be very impressed with any empire that would both successfully destroy all external copies of the archives and also be foolish enough to not retain their own copies."

"The Emperor still has archives, yes, though they're harder to access."

"I know she was intensely sad, around the time we were born. Given the Republic fell then, we suspect she turned to the Dark Side around that time. She was still coordinating with at least one Jedi as of our birth - I was sent to be raised on Alderaan, by someone she'd worked alongside when she was fighting with the Senate, and Luke was sent to Tatooine and watched over by a Jedi Master in hiding. Both my parents and Luke's Master are dead, though."

The first pieces of the story were being laid down. Revan muses that it might even be entertaining – there was intrigue any time a Jedi was impregnated, let alone carried a child to term.

"What of Luke's father?"

"We don't know. My aunt and uncle and Master all said she never told anyone - hid the pregnancy, too, as long as she could."

It was clear that they were hiding names, but Revan could hardly blame them for not revealing the existence of their full network of contacts to him yet.

It is amusingly curious that they were both sent to be raised in different places at the same time, both had dead parents, and yet Leia wanted to maintain that being raised by different people was evidence of non-relation, not to mention Vader's interest in Leia rather than her own son as co-ruler. Yet Revan judges that it's not important to press on this at this time.

"Let's focus on the Emperor's archives then. 'Harder to access', perhaps, but not harder to access than dead people, I would generally estimate."

"Besides, no rebel band survives long without the ability to obtain information."

A bit cagily: "We can get some information from them if it's not too deeply buried and we know what we're looking for, right now. Broader or nonspecific or hidden information would be a more serious undertaking." 

"Of course. I didn't imagine otherwise."

"If you equip me with a ship and whatever information you have about the location of the archives, I am confident I can obtain the records of young Vader. I would welcome company but is not required. I understand if you'd prefer to not risk your people on a mission only a stranger believes to be necessary."  He did not actually need help (or more information, for that matter), but working alongside each other would build more trust than him simply returning with the information via unseen methods.

"You don't have your own ship?"

"No." He'd left his infinite fleet at home. Internal amusement.

Revan glances at Luke. He really had assumed this kind of information would have been passed along. Maybe Leia simply did not believe her brother's report.

"I used a piece of very sophisticated technology to arrive here, not a ship. That technology, however, is not appropriate for everyday uses."

She nods, gaze evaluating.