Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win — Hamilton and, uh, idk hmm

skymurdock

asked:

Hamilton and, uh, idk hmm - STAR WARS AU. "pardon me, are you Master Burr, sir?" "that depends, who's asking?"

SHOWTIME.

So some thirty parsecs past the ass end of the galaxy there’s this tiny nothing planet that’s mostly ocean, and the planet is called Nevis, and one of its islands is called Christiansted, and if anyone who didn’t actually live there was asked to find it on a star map, they definitely couldn’t do it. This is where Alex is born and this is where his mother dies of some disease brought in by a trader and this is where he almost dies with her, almost dies in a hurricane that swallows the island whole, almost starves when his cousin eats a blaster, before someone notices that—kriff, but this kid is brilliant. Another trader gives him work and he proves rapidly that not only is he a dab hand with numbers, but he can blow through a five hundred page holonovel in a few hours and learn a language in a couple months.
His mother always said talking was his strong suit and now he’s proving it, because Alex has to be the best to survive, so that’s what he’ll do. He’ll talk, and he’ll write, and he’ll get off this rock if it kills him. He wants something to do, he wants to change the galaxy, and there’s something murmuring to him, like a whisper of wind, that he’ll do it if he can just get off Nevis.

He talks more, shouts, screams, but it’s an essay that finally gets him free. It’s about the hurricane, more personal than he usually prefers to get, and there’s a casual cast-off line about helping to search for survivors in it, about how Alex could just…feel them.
The man who turns up on Nevis is dressed in brown robes and there’s the hilt of something attached to his hip and when he sees Alex, seventeen and arguing vehemently with a trader, his face falls. He takes Alex offworld anyway—Master Stevens, apparently, and Alex introduces himself as Hamilton and point-blank refuses to use the word master because, hello, he’s not a slave, slavery is wrong and abhorrent and would Stevens like to hear his thoughts on the fact that there are still slaveholding worlds? The man looks stunned as Alex gears up for his tirade, and, ha, they’re on a ship in hyperspace, Stevens isn’t getting away from him any time soon.
It turns out that there’s a name for it, for that murmur, for the way that Alex always knows which traders will try to con him, the way he managed to survive the hurricane. It’s the Force, which…is a children’s story, but also unarguably real, because Stevens throws a wrench at Alex and he puts out a hand and it’s deflected away as if off transparisteel. Stevens is a Jedi Master, apparently, and he had hoped to train Alex, but Alex is seventeen and they don’t take grown—or almost grown—men. This statement is confirmed on Coruscant, when Stevens drags Alex out of a very interesting conversation on the matter of slavery to parade him in front of a Council who mutter that he’s so strong, so powerful, but too old.

“All right,” Alex says, doing the best imitation of disinterest he’s managed in years. “As long as you don’t ship me back.”
They don’t, and Alex starts making a habit of breaking into their library.
He doesn’t need someone to teach him the Force, he mutters as he selects a few books and sits down to read, he can teach his own damn self the Force, he taught himself to read and to write and to do complex math. He can lift some rocks, it’s all just modifications of what he’s already started to figure out, he’s got this.

Okay, cut forward a couple of years and Hamilton—he almost always goes by Hamilton, now, except for Hercules, who calls him Alex or hey asshole depending on how concerned he is about Hamilton’s lack of sleep—is living with the best tailor in the Continental systems. Actually, Hercules is the apprentice of the best tailor, but whatever, Hamilton doesn’t care, Hercules is the best tailor and also the best friend for letting Alex live with him while Alex continues to learn everything about everything.
Hamilton’s not exactly a fully trained Jedi because having no emotions sounds like a fucking dull way to live, do not sign him up for that, but he’s learned everything he can from the books he can find and figured a ton out on his own, so he’s pretty damn close and he’s moved on to other subjects. He’s doing politics and economics lately, which is how he learns some Very Important Shit about how the Empire is screwing the Continentals over all the way from Coruscant. (Actually it’s not so much an empire at this point as it is a trade federation with vassals, but everyone calls it the Empire and King George III, the guy in charge, probably can’t spell ‘federation,’ so Hamilton’s letting it go. He is, seriously, Hercules’ comments otherwise are mean-spirited and petty.)
A rebellion is starting. A revolution. And the Jedi are involved on all sides–for, against, neutral.
So Hamilton can’t be blamed for finding the youngest Jedi around (he would like to point out that he himself technically qualifies for Knighthood just on the argument of skill, but there’s that whole noncommittal emotionless thing and, wouldn’t you know it, Hamilton has Feelings and Opinions and doesn’t feel like giving them up) and…it’s possible he stalks the guy a little. He finally corners him outside a cantina, though, (do Jedi even drink?) so it’s worth it, Hamilton has questions and the Jedi are scraping together an army and the Force is screaming with satisfaction. He’s going to be in this war if it kills him.

“Pardon me, are you Jedi Burr, sir?”
“That depends,” the tall man says, “who’s asking?”
Hamilton appreciates that the Jedi are supposed to be mysterious or whatever, but honestly, it’s a yes or no question, and that lightsaber hilt on his hip is all the answer Hamilton needs, anyway.

Turns out Jedi do in fact drink if you annoy them enough. Hamilton considers this his specialty, and Burr makes a hilarious face when Hamilton proves that yes he can use the Force, no need to be rude. He doesn’t get to prod him further, though, because Hercules comes spilling through the door with two other young men in tow, one dressed in a fine Naboo Senator’s jacket and the other in the plain clothes of a Jedi student, with a thin black braid behind one ear and a wide grin. All three of them are clearly a little tipsy already.

“Alex!” Hercules shouts delightedly. “I met these two earlier. This is Marie-Joseph Paul Gilbert—wait, kriff, bantha shit, I forgot one, didn’t I—Lafayette, he has too many names, so just Lafayette, the youngest Senator from Naboo.”
Lafayette’s Standard is fragmented and heavily accented, so Hamilton whips out some of his old Nabooian that he learned back on Nevis. There’s a beat of collective shock from everyone save Hercules before Lafayette bursts into a gleeful flood about how he snuck off Naboo to help with the war effort. He’s impossible to dislike, Hamilton thinks, a grin starting to tug on his lips, like a fluffy Wookie cub, even if he is a Senator.
“And this is John Laurens,” Hercules continues once Lafayette and Hamilton have wound up their chatter, clapping the other newcomer on the back. “He’s a Jedi Padawan.”
“I remember you!” Hamilton blurts as he shakes hands with the (shockingly handsome) Jedi. He’s not sure if he remembers the Force signature, the name, or the plethora of freckles. “I met you at the Temple, when I went for the first time, we talked about slavery.”
John Laurens grins. “I remember. Hamilton, right?”
“Tell you what, my dear Laurens,” Hamilton says with a frank appraisal that earns a ferociously adorable blush, “you can call me Alex.”
“Laurens, Lafayette, this is my roommate, the one who’s determined to know everything and join the war,” Hercules says. His eyes land over Hamilton’s shoulder, on Burr. “And that…I don’t know who that is.”
“Master Burr, sir,” Laurens mutters, releasing Hamilton’s hand like it’s burned him and ducking his head.
That, Hamilton decides on the spot. He does not like that. He adds ‘fix the Jedi’ to his mental to-do list.

Hamilton doesn’t care that much that he didn’t get to keep hassling Burr, because Laurens and Lafayette have more information and a better in and, furthermore, are a lot more fun. He’s never gotten drunk with a Jedi and a Senator before (he’s gotten drunk with Hercules plenty of times) and it is an experience, he loves these guys and, even weirder, they seem to like him pretty well too. He and Laurens get in a fight with a couple of aliens at the cantina who are a little too pushy with the waitress, which is good fun, and the four of them click like an engine, perfect balance.
Okay so Hamilton has friends now, like, more friends than just Hercules, it’s weird but he’s rolling with it. They take one look at his extensive writings and notes on the whole…situation, and Laurens grins and claps him on the shoulder and says there’s someone he and Lafayette need to meet.
Laurens takes them to his Master, who he admits usually goes by General because—Hamilton tries really hard not to have a heart attack on the spot—Master Washington was always a military man at heart and the Continental Congress handed him a ragtag half-formed fleet not a year ago and told him to turn it into a Continental army.
Over the heads of the Coruscanti Jedi Council, by the way.
General Washington takes Lafayette on in a heartbeat, because Lafayette’s entire introduction is “My name is Senator Lafayette of Naboo, I would like to fight for your cause, I am glad to pay my own way as well as whatever else I can give you.” Hamilton would take him on, too, fractured Standard or not.
Laurens takes all of a minute and a half to hand over Hamilton’s writings, to his not-inconsiderable alarm, and to his even less inconsiderable alarm Washington offers him a job as his aide on the spot.
What the hell, he’s done stupider things for worse reasons, he’ll take it.

I don’t want this to get super fucking long or turn into a fic so here are some other things I’m considering for this:

GWash is Literally The Best Jedi right up until Congress put him in charge of the army at which point the Council looks around at each other and they’re like “what the fuck just happened there.” Because Washington gets the fleet and he’s like “all right guys, thanks for the training and the lightsaber, I’m going to lead the war against the Empire centered on Coruscant like three miles from the Temple.”
General Washington is not in good standing with the Council right now, okay, Laurens turns out to be half padawan and half voluntary kidnap victim. Hamilton is miles beyond amused by this. Burr is kind of torn because on the one hand Jedi Council but on the other hand Revolution and it leads to him being…Burr-ish and indecisive, basically.
The Schuyler sisters WERE the well-bred daughters of wealthy political bigwig and sometime general Philip Schuyler, but Peggy can fly a ship and Eliza has a knack for negotiations and Angelica can kill you at forty paces with words or with a blaster, so they end up basically running supplies and arms and whatever else is needed for the war effort.
Monmouth still happens and it’s still a fucking disaster, I am Committed to Monmouth as a fucking disaster that Washington and his forces manage to drag out of the ashes and turn into a strategic victory.
Lee and Laurens duel with lightsabers in this universe I guess, Alexander has a heart attack over how worried he is, Alexander likes blasters because they are a goddamn ranged weapon, could the Jedi please get on his level.
Um…Valley Forge is an ice moon because Star Wars is weird and has monoclimes, the entire army spends a winter there because most of their ramshackle ships are increasingly too shitty to fly and they’re all undertrained as fuck. Baron von Steuben still pops out of the woodwork to turn them into an actual army and throw underwear parties.
Oh, and Hamilton doesn’t get married to Eliza because she’s too busy flying around kicking copious amounts of ass with her sisters. He’s their primary contact, though, and he kind of low-key flirts will all three of them and they roll with it. They also meet a bounty hunter who barely scraped out of an abusive marriage, who likes to dress in red and carries two dainty blasters hidden in her fine clothes and introduces herself as just Maria, ladies.
Laurens S U F F E R S because his Master’s new pet feral Force user is Too Pretty For These Damn Chastity Vows.
A lot of that problem is rather abruptly solved when Martha Washington storms onto Valley Forge with a small army of very efficient minions and plants a rather emphatic kiss on their general. There is apparently a lot beneath that well-heeled, button-up exterior, including a secret wife. “I’ll be damned, Your Excellency,” Hamilton says admiringly, and Washington doesn’t answer except to smirk just a bit.
Needless to say,that has Some Effects on Laurens’ suffering re: Hamilton’s face.

God I have a lot more to say about this universe, if you have more questions hit me up, this is awesome.