101 Star Wars Variations 87: Graduating Class

Darth Maul wonders what happened.

A long time ago, he was just another Sand Person, growing up on Tatooine and terrorizing moisture farmers like everyone else.  Then he decided to do something with his life.

A lot of his friends had the same goal, and a lot of them achieved it, too.  The one who didn't was Cliegg Lars.

You see, not all Sand People become Tusken Raiders.  That's only the level of the population that has no ambition, can't rise above poverty, however you want to describe it.  Most Sand People don't even stay on Tatooine.  I mean, given the choice, who would?

If you're not trying to escape Tatooine, you're not really trying.

Maul dreamed of escape his whole life.  It was a certain amount of rebellion that led him to have the horns implanted in his head, of course, rebellion against a family that seemed to have achieved nothing for whole generations.  He formed a circle of friends based on their mutual interest in rejecting the failures that ashamed each of them.

And all of them succeeded except for Cliegg, the bleeding heart who sacrificed his whole life, like everyone else in his pathetic family.

Perhaps it was a bargain with the devil that led Maul to learn and thrive in the ways of the Sith.  He doesn't particularly care.  If it took him away from Tatooine, so much the better.  End of story.

He hopes to never return.  His master is telling him, though, that there's a disturbance in the Force, located somewhere on Tatooine.

He won't go back.  It'll be the death of him.  He won't end up like that stupid martyr Cliegg.

But he's started to realize he won't have a choice in the matter.