Darth Cain, the Reluctant Sith Lord
(also on AO3 and FFNet) is a Ciaphas Cain/Star Wars crossover fanfic by Zahariel.
Some time between The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, a hyperdrive malfunction results in the return of a long-lost ship from the ancient Sith Empire, carrying the dreaded Darth Cain, whose reputation in the Old Republic was matched only by his imposter syndrome.
Needless to say, this throws a wrench into the plans of Darth Sidious …
Enough Tropes to be Terrified of Here:
- Asshole Victim: Vaylin choking Jabba to death with his own slaver chains on live holonet may have been brutal. But no one can say it wasn't earned or satisfying.
- Axe-Crazy: Nefertari, one of Cain's Sith followers, is every bit the bloodthirsty warrior with a lightsaber one would expect. Fortunately for everyone she has the relatively sane Iskandar as a Morality Chain. Relatively.
- Awakening the Sleeping Giant: The Hutts, despite their image as lazy decadent and physically incapable. There is a reason no one has managed to conquer Hutt space or wrest control away from the Syndicates, and now Cain has gone to war with them.
- Bad Powers, Good People: Cain is a full Sith Lord, drawing on the power of fear. Who spends most of his time rationalizing to himself how doing the good, moral, even heroic thing is simply pragmatism and a healthy dose of cowardice.
- Challenge Seeker: Both Darth Sidious and Marlo the Hutt are intrigued to see someone who will finally give them a challenge after their long success.
- The Confidant: In this alternate universe Amberly sees through Cain completely, and always has. By this point he knows she knows, which means she's the one person he can be completely honest with.
- Crazy-Prepared: Captain Varan did have his Vibroblade reinforced with a Cortosis weave specifically to protect against lightsabers. Not that it helped him much.
- Cain is also paranoid as always, if not more due to living in the nest of vipers that was the Sith Empire. When Perlia's regent promises to welcome him in a way "worthy of his station", he is immidiately starts to worry that someone will pull an Exact Words and try to assassinate him.
- Compelling Voice: Captain Varan, who is a Outer Rim pirate lord and secret Dark Side acolyte, is able to bend the thoughts and wills of weaker minds to his own. He uses this to keep control of the essential personnel of his ship's crew and as a tool against his enemies. Vaylin, Cain's apprentice, shrugs it off and flies into a rage. Shortly after, while being interrogated by Darth Cain, the same power is used on him to force him to answer Darth Cain's questions.
- Cosmic Plaything: Possibly. Cain certainly believes the Force has it in for him, due to his incredible string of bad luck.
- Dramatically Missing the Point: Anakin - fourteen at the time of this fic - is under the impression that real Jedi don't have emotions and tries unsuccessfully to repress his. This is the kind of repression that would lead to his explosive outbursts in canon. This is also, in fact, a critical misunderstanding of Jedi philosophy.
- Evil Is Deathly Cold: When Cain calls on the Dark Side the room becomes cold enough to instantly frost.
- Experienced Protagonist: Cain is already well into his career as a Sith Lord and had been offered a spot on the Dark Council itself before this story begins.
- Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: Palpatine, as usual. His seething hatred of the Jedi and disdain for everyone beyond himself is carefully concealed, and has been for decades.
- A Father to His Men: Cain, as usual. Though of course he rationalizes it as self interest and keeping those thousands of troops with heavy weapons pointing them at the enemy rather than him. He knows the exact number of soldiers under his command, works hard to use strategies that preserve their lives, and ordered their fighters redesigned to make them more survivable for the pilots.
- Friendly Enemy: Cain's relationship with Amberley Veil, who is a Jedi Knight in this continuity. On paper, the two of them are technically enemies by virtue of one being a Sith Lord and the other being a Jedi Knight. In practice, however, any enmity between the two is basically nonexistent, and the two of them are close confidants to the point that Veil is the only person in the entire Galaxy who knows Cain's true personality and Cain trusts her enough to confide secrets in her that he shares with nobody else.
- I Just Want to Be Free: Vaylin's interpretation of the Sith Code remains focused on the final goal - "Through Victory my chains are broken. The Force will set me free." Which is why, given an excuse, she liberates Tatooine and declares open war on the Hutts.
- Insistent Terminology: Vaylin has to constantly remind herself that Cain is her teacher, not her Master or anything like it.
- Long-Lived: The Hutts, as in canon, who have a lifespan of a thousand years. Crucially this means that to them Cain and the Sith Empire is relatively recent history, and they have a good idea of what they're dealing with.
- Mile-Long Ship: Cain arrives in a ship whose main gun is larger than several pirate vessel's entire ships and boasts a crew of nearly a hundred thousand.
- No-Sell: Captain Varan, Dark Side Acolyte, tries to mind control Vaylin out of desperation. It's not only completely ineffective, the attempt sends her into a rage.
- Offered the Crown: Darth Cain, in his heyday, was offered a seat on the Dark Council. He refused, hoping to retire in anonymity.
- One Woman Army: In Vaylin's liberation of Tatooine she is the distraction for the larger revolt. Which is to say she singlehandedly assaults Jabba's palace, cutting a direct line to the throne room and slaughtering anyone who tries to stop her.
- Only Sane Man: Darth Cain realized that the Sith Empire was doomed to self destruction, and set himself up in Perlia hoping to avoid war crimes and be offered a quiet house arrest on the Republic's eventual victory. Fate, unfortunately for him, had other plans.
- Pragmatic Villainy: Cain is convinced that he is engaging in this, as are his more morally dubious followers. Amberly is not convinced, and thinks he's a Pragmatic Hero instead.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Darth Cain, both in general and specifically compared to other Sith Lords. He specifically notes to himself how wasteful and counterproductive it is to Shoot the Messenger.
- The Jedi Council as well, whose response to Cain is to immediately dig into the archives. Once they establish that he was reasonable enough that Jedi of the day would do business with him, that he kept his word, and that he avoided civilian casualties and war crimes, they are willing to send a diplomatic delegation rather than assuming the worst.
- The Remnant: Darth Cain and his crew are, technically speaking, the last loyal remnant of the Sith Empire. Cain is of course absolutely terrified by this, since he doesn't actually give a fig for the Empire but his crew does.
- Rightful King Returns: To the citizens of Perlia Cain is their legendary greatest ruler, returned after three thousand years. The Regent's first act on seeing Cain is to immediately abdicate.
- Secret Test of Character: Vaylin interpreted Cain sending her to Tatooine with an overwhelming force to the task at hand - rescuing the Perlian citizens grabbed by slavers - as this. So she decided to follow the spirit of the request rather than the letter and liberate the planet. Cain, of course, meant nothing of the sort.
- Slave Liberation: Vaylin, having been through traumatic enslavement and torture at the hands of her father and former master, has strong opinions about what to do to slavers. Over the course of several weeks she infiltrates Tatooine, organizes a large scale and coordinated slave revolt, and executes Jabba the Hutt on live holocam.
- Supernatural Fear Inducer: One of Darth Cain's most famous qualities was a constant aura of terror he was projecting, capable of acting as almost a Brown Note - when he uses it against Captain Varan, it terrifies him far more than the woman with a lightsaber or squad of soldiers that had just stormed his bridge. And when they are actually fighting he's actually unable to focus on anything but Cain, dropping into terrified tunnel vision. Afterwards he's able to recognize there are many things that should be scaring him, but he just doesn't have the energy to be terrified of anything else. Of course, this is actually Cain's own constant fear he purposely projects around.
- Time Travel: Darth Cain's ship, the Invincible, suffers a hyperdrive malfunction that takes him, the ship's crew, and his subordinates on board 3,500 years into the future, from the time of the Old Republic to the modern Galactic Republic.
- Trauma Conga Line: Vaylin, Cain's apprentice, has absolutely been through it. Given that she was the daughter of a Sith Lord, and had been raised through brainwashing mind control and torture, it's astounding that she holds together as well as she does.
- Unholy Matrimony: Two Sith Acolytes in Cain's service, Iskandar and Nefertari, are very much in something with each other. They went through their own Enemies To Lovers arc in the Sith academy, when they began as rivals and then were forced to cooperate to survive the outbreak of civil war among the students and faculty.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Amberly is fully convinced that Cain is a good man traumatized by his time in the absolute snake pit that was the Sith Empire, finding whatever excuses he can to do what he really wants - be a hero. She also finds it very frustrating that he has absolutely no faith in himself.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Once Darth Cain has confirmed that Captain Varan knows nothing of Darth Sidious other than that he exists he executes him immediately. He does, at least, make it quick.
