▸ Column · The Imperial military — a junior officer aboard a sector fleet whose system design was credited to a superior officer ahead of a command review.
DARTH VADER replies.
Replied to by Darth Vader, with a rebuttal from Luke Skywalker.
The letter
For four months I rebuilt the sector fleet's entire resupply-coordination system from nothing — new routing protocols, a live status grid, all of it. When my commanding officer, Commander Vane, briefed the Admiral last cycle, she called it "work the section produced," standing beside a display that carried her name in the corner. When I told another officer I had led the design, Vane took me aside and said I was being "territorial," that "we serve the Empire, not our own vanity." My commission review is next quarter, and the Admiral now believes Vane is the mind behind the very work meant to prove I'm fit to command. I've begun quietly preserving my datapad logs and timestamped transmissions. I don't know whether to bring this to the Admiral directly, confront Vane again, or keep building my record in silence and hope someone sees it before the review closes.
Darth Vader replies
You fear being erased. Made into nothing, while another stands where you should stand and is called the genius of your labor. I know this fear. I served a master who built an entire Empire on the work and the ashes of others — mine among them — and let no one forget whose name was in the corner of the display. The work is yours. Say so. To the Admiral, plainly, without apology. Do not let Vane name your spine "vanity"; that word is a leash, and she is holding it.
But hear the rest, because no one tells this part. Those preserved logs. The timestamps hoarded against the dark. I know that hunger — to gather proof, to control every outcome, so that nothing can ever be taken from you again. I lived inside that grip for a lifetime. You think control is safety. So did I. I controlled everything and lost all of it, and I was never more hollow than when the evidence was airtight.
Claim what you made. Then loosen your hand before it closes around your whole life. Vane is not the enemy. The certainty that you are nothing unless it is proven — that is the cage.
— Darth Vader
Luke Skywalker weighs in
My father just told you to loosen your grip. Coming from him, that's worth more than it sounds. But quietly stockpiling proof and hoping someone notices before the review? That's not patience — that's giving up with extra steps. Everyone told me hoping out loud was naive, too. Wanting your name on your own work isn't vanity. Don't let Vane talk you into burying it.
Go to the Admiral in the daylight. Your work, your name, before the review closes — not the shadow file, the open door. And Vane's not finished as a person. But the truth doesn't defend itself. You have to stand up and say it.
— Luke Skywalker
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