SE: A new Star Wars series is on the horizon - called Mara Jade: By the Emperor's Hand. How did you become involved in this series?
MS: An editorial comment on the letters page of one of the issues of The Last Command adaptations asked if readers would like a Mara Jade mini-series. From what I've been told the response to that question was immediate and overwhelmingly positive. Readers expressing a preference also suggested that the series should be written by Timothy Zahn or me, which I took as quite a compliment. Since the series I was supposed to be working on at the time had just hit a snag in the approval stage, Peet Janes shifted the creative team from it to Mara Jade.
At that point Tim and I started talking (rather, continued the conversations that make SPRINT rich). Tim came up with the basic storyline for the series and because of our respective schedules and the nature of the early part of the saga, we split the scripting down the middle. I worked with Tim's outline, consulted with him as I fleshed out some story points, then wrote the script for the first three issues. He tackled the last three, with both of us tossing material back and forth to make everything tie tightly together.
SE: Mara Jade has become one of the most popular characters in the Star Wars
universe - what do you think accounts for that? And what do you think she represents to all the fans who have rallied to claim her as a favorite character?
MS: Mara has two aspects that I think bring her the great fan loyalty she enjoys. First and foremost, she's a very strong female character -- on a par with Leia in terms of strength of personality. She's a loner who is definitely deadly, yet can be elegant; smart and insightful, with a fierce sense of duty and loyalty. The second aspect going for her is that she's an Imperial and there is a fascination with the enemy in this saga. We all know the Rebels are the good guys, but it's the nature of their opposition that shows how hard they had to work to win their victory. Had Mara succeeded and killed Luke in Jabba's Palace, well, I wonder how Han Solo would actually take to saying, "Yes, Lord Vader, more polish on those boots immediately..."
SE: Given all these traits, I'm sure that also makes her a fun character to write.
MS: She's a great character to write, but one that is tough to get right. Her fans are very particular -- getting her wrong in print could be disastrous.
SE: What sorts of things do you keep in mind when you're writing her? What drives her? What would you say she uses as a 'moral compass?' What is important to her?
MS: Mara is a very difficult character to quantify because she is so complex. She was trained to be able to adapt to any situation to get her missions done, so she can be many things and can change from one to the other in a split-second. She's coldly competent and a very harsh judge of her own performance. She's also thoughtful and smart, which means a
writer has to be at the top of his game to make sure you don't let her make stupid mistakes.
She seems to be driven by a need to fulfill her assignments and even fulfill them perfectly -- up to her own standards, which are very high. She also has a sense of loyalty that doesn't quit. It's tough to earn, but once you do, you have a friend who will do anything for you. Her moral compass is directed toward those ends, but she won't resort to just ANY means to accomplish them -- efficiency counts for a lot. Would she murder someone? Sure, she's at Jabba's Palace to nail Luke. Would she be cruel for the sake of being cruel? Nope, not in her makeup.
SE: Also, where does Mara Jade come from? What is her origin, and does she have a family life of any kind?
MS: One of the things about Mara that attracts folks is that we don't know a lot about her background, and this series will allow us to explore some of that. We do know that the Emperor selected her for training at a young age, but exactly how young we aren't sure. While Tim and I have discussed some possible events in her early life, they've been points
that haven't been fixed in time. As the saga unfolds, as more about her is revealed, you'll get a look at these sorts of things. (And very close attention is being paid to the corpus of Mara Jade fiction to keep the continuity airtight.)
SE: This is the first story that really focuses on Mara. Can you set the stage for us? Where is she coming from? What is her aim in the very beginning of the series?
MS: This series starts from the end of the Mara Jade story in the anthology Tales from Jabba's Palace. Mara is there to kill Luke Skywalker, but fails. The Emperor excuses her from that mission and gives her another one -- a simple assassination of a criminal attempting a revival of a cartel similar to Prince Xizor's Black Sun. Always and
ever the loyal agent, Mara sets out to do her master's bidding.
SE: And where she ends up is obviously very different than where she
envisioned herself from the start. Her very position as a powerful player in the
Empire has also made her very vulnerable. Is this the first time she's
been in this sort of trouble?
MS: One of the problems with a Court as full of intrigues as the one on Imperial Center is that when your patron is removed, you're suddenly stripped of power. When the Emperor dies, Mara finds herself with some fairly nasty enemies, including Ysanne Isard, the director of Imperial Intelligence. Mara is likely to have been in tighter spots in her career, but never quite so alone as she finds herself after the Emperor dies. Of course, for Mara, what would cause another to despair is just a call to action.
SE: Let's talk about what happens in the course of the series.
MS: The cool thing about the series is that we get to see Mara in a number of roles. She starts as the Emperor's Hand, with the resources of the Empire at her disposal. Then she find herself without any of that, and without the social framework that defined her, gave her a place in the galaxy. She's been stripped of everything and has to reach inside to rebuild herself. And then, of course, we get the rebuilt Mara Jade, the hero who has been sorely tested and, as every reader knows, that's a Mara Jade to be reckoned with.
SE: The main faction she seems to be up against is the Black Nebula. What are
these guys all about? Why are they seen as such a threat?
MS: Black Nebula is a criminal organization that's setting itself up to recreate Xizor's Black Sun. Any criminal organization is going to be an agent of anarchy: the more central authority breaks down on a governmental level, the easier it is for criminals to operate. At the point where the story takes place, the Rebellion is getting stronger, so the Emperor wants Black Nebula eliminated to lessen the pressure on the Empire itself. Palpatine's death does nothing to hurt Black Nebula's plans, so their threat continues to grow.
SE: Mara is representative of so much of the Star Wars universe. She's the Emperor's Hand (up to that crucial time when he's killed), and the Emperor is seen as anything but compassionate. Yet, Mara empathizes with various groups of people - particularly those she sees as being oppressed by the Black Nebula. This isn't really a side of the Empire's forces that is often portrayed. Why her?
MS: It's very easy, when we have the Emperor and Darth Vader as examples, to cast everyone in the Empire as a vicious fascist consumed by a lust for power. Characters like Mara Jade and even Baron Fel, show that people working for the Empire have more depth than that -- have a humanity. They work for the Empire because, among other things, they see it as a force for Order in the galaxy. They're in a position to prevent anarchy and violence and petty hatreds from sparking hundreds of civil wars in the galaxy and that certainly is a noble endeavor. Mara is also someone who, because she holds herself so tightly, doesn't make many friends. When she does and those friends have trouble, she's going to be there to help them out as best she can.
SE: And similarly, this series, like some of the other comic series, does a great job of getting behind the ideas that drove the original Star Wars films. For example, as a kid watching those movies, I thought it was a clear cut case of good vs. evil. Now everything is much more gray, and Mara's character is a good example of having Imperial characters who are somewhat admirable and sympathetic.
MS: I think comics and novels are a place where writers get more room to explore such things. There is clearly good and evil in the SW universe, but when you get down to the line between them, you find a bit of blurring, and that's the place to find great stories to be told.
SE: In fact, I found it very compelling how you have Mara pondering what happens "when Imperial order breaks down." And this, it seems, is at the very heart of the Star Wars light side vs. dark side dilemma. One stands for hope amidst the chaos of a changing galaxy, and the other stands for seamless control over the entire galaxy, no matter what the cost. Is this close to the general theory you guys (Mike and Tim) are operating from?
It certainly makes for a compelling read.
MS: That's very much one of the vectors we've taken with this story, but it comes in at a tangent with another storyline that will make Mara's continuing saga even more fun to explore. That is this: what sort of pressures does it take to make someone who believes in order finally wake up and decide their loyalty is misplaced? Exploring that psychological growth of a character, and portraying the adventures that contribute to it is wonderful material for stories. Every reader knows where Mara ends up because of Tim's novels, now we have a chance to get her there.
SE: And finally, where does this series leave us?
MS: At the end of the series we have Mara Jade, ex-Emperor's Hand, now a free agent. She still has her enemies (Isard among them), but she has a whole new and chaotic galaxy to explore. She's seeking her place among the stars and that's going to be one exciting journey to undertake.