(Thanks to Arania for the following introduction...)

Exodus

In a future far, far away, Grand Master Pyralis, after returning from his retirement on an unknown planet, looked at the assembled students in the largest class room of the New Shadow Academy and took a deep breath.

"The universe is indifferent to the little struggles of mortal beings, their fear, their hopes, the successes and failures. Our lifetimes are nothing compared to the bigger picture, yet sometimes, some of us influence history in a way that at least a little part of the universe, our very own galaxy, will remember us. Not necessarily as individuals, but as a group. If this remembrance will be good or bad is always decided by our actions and the view of those who learn of us later."

The old men took a break and let his eyes wander to the electronic records in front of him. Memories, bitter and sweet, rushed back into his mind, some of which he would rather have forgotten. But they were nevertheless part of history.

"In our galaxy, in a part called the Outter Rim, a change happened that did influence stability and economics at a large scale, and in several regions at that. As most of you know, we were once a part of the now destroyed Emperor's Hammer. Yes, the Brotherhood was not an organisation by it's own right, but was ruled by a Dark Jedi called Ronin and his hand Astatine, another Dark Jedi who dreamed of ruling us all with less regard to each of our potentials.

I was there at the time. I have seen what can happen if control is overdone, if the rules are so strict that true development is impossible. I have seen it, and I was Headmaster in the end times of our stay with the Hammer. In fact, I was one of The Seven!"

A murmor went through the room. Probably most of the students had heard of the events and knew of the importance of The Seven. Pyralis was very sure that most of them knew his name before he mentioned the past, yet they must have had a hard time to belive that the fragile looking old man talking to them was one of the most feared and admired Jedi of the time of the Exodus. He smiled to himself. He was old, and maybe he wouldn't have much more time left. But he needed to bring the records to the new generation.

"We broke from Hammer control for several reasons. One of the main reasons was a planet we had discovered in uncharted areas, some distance away from Hammer territory. The planet, as you can guess, is Antei itself. Antei is special, as you all know. Yet, when we told ronin that we would like to settle there, most of us at least, the leader of the Hammer felt that his control over us might be lost if we were so far away. From his point, I guess it made sense to deny our request. But he had not paid attention to the strong feelings our Jedi had about this. No Force user on the quest for power and in his right mind would let a chance like this go. We prepared for the worst and let Ronin know that either he'd agree or we would leave the Hammer. Of course, he didn't agree.

How we got to Antei is for another lesson. Today, I will show you the records of us leaving the grip of Ronin and his consorts. They didn't like us leaving. They tried all things possible to make it hard for us. But we prevailed. "

The old man lifted up the records in front of him.
"Here are the records of those who left. Some of them are long dead, many are still alive. All of them had a unique perspective on the happenings. I want you to read through them, study them carefully. When you are done, you will know more about what had truly passed than our somewhat imprecise official records could tell you. Each of you grab a copy. We will discuss this further in one week time. For now, I need a place to rest..."

Your task: Write one of those records describing the Exodus. Tell us what your character(s) and/or others went through during the flight from Hammer territory. The story should start with leaving or just having left your clan's home and end with arriving in the unknown territories without mentioning any new systems you might end up in!

Your writing can be in first person format if you like, but it does not have to be. It also does not need to center around your character only, because the record could be written by anyone else but you (aka, you can write about things that happen someplace where your character isn't present). You can also write together with someone else if you want to. Try to stick largely to writing about your own clan so that stories from the different clans don't contradict tooooo much.

The closing date is about 6 weeks away, so that hopefully every clan will have designed new home planet systems by the time the winning stories are announced.

Minimum length is 2 pages Arial 12 pt. No maximum length.

Closing date: June 21st. Send your entries to [Log in to view e-mail addresses]

Make sure to include ID line(s). If you have clones, you can send in a submission for each clone, of course.

Good luck!!