Darth Vader Goes to School

The Stupidest Assignment in the Galaxy

Sometimes, Darth Vader was way too good at his job.

His primary goal after the rise of the Empire had been to hunt down and destroy the remaining Jedi. He'd spent years taking great pride and pleasure in fulfilling that role. But with each success, it brought him that much closer to losing his purpose.

And now, eighteen years later, the remaining Jedi were either dead or so deep in hiding it was no longer his top priority. Sure, there was the Rebellion to occupy his time, but they didn't offer nearly any sort of challenge. The moment he stepped onto a battlefield, the battle was won. They were just... too easy.

He was, simply put, bored out of his mind.

"Take up a new hobby." The Emperor suggested when he expressed his frustration. "Torturing people is quite an elegant art form."

It was the first thing he tried, and it proved interesting the first few times...but then that grew boring as well.

Then, one morning while glancing at the latest headlines on the holonet (they painted him more as a phantom than as a living man, he wasn't sure he was amused), he noticed an ad in the top corner of the data screen.

Reinvent Yourself! Was the headline over a smiling, young man. Then underneath was a quote, "I've grown in ways I never thought possible! -Marie Radar, class of '16 AFE."

He stared at it, completely ignoring the captain who was giving him a status report on Rebellion movements. It was a stupid ad for a equally stupid school. Who even knew if Marie Radar existed, much less gave a quote for an ad? And yet...

He'd never been to school.

Before the Jedi, he...wouldn't have been allowed to go. Then after joining, they'd enrolled him in their own education system, focusing almost solely on practical skills outside of Force abilities. He'd never even thought about getting a traditional education.

It...could be interesting. It would give him something to work on in his spare time.

While the captain was still talking, he began searching for actual, credible universities. If he'd grown up as a normal person, he knew exactly what he would have gone into instead.

Engineering.

So he looked up schools with a good engineering program. Most seemed to be in the core or mid-rim, but those schools often played so by the rules they lacked innovation. They were handed everything, so why bother thinking outside the box? Some of the best engineers in the galaxy came from the Outer Rim...

He searched there, and found a viable option: Eriadu. It was a planet important to manufacturing and trade, so it only made sense that the Outer Rim's most prestigious Engineering program was located there.

He scrolled through the site for a while, noting that the program was even comparable to the universities in Coruscant, and even better, it had online options.

Perfect. He could do his coursework on his own time and relieve himself of this infernal boredom.

Except...he couldn't exactly enroll as Darth Vader. That would cause too much distraction for other students, and he didn't feel like automatically getting perfect marks simply because his instructors would be terrified of him. He'd get perfect marks anyway, but he wanted it to be on his terms. He couldn't enroll as Anakin Skywalker for...many reasons, either.

So, who...?

He glanced up at the captain who had fallen silent, probably waiting for his response to the boring report he'd completely ignored.