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6 BBY
Yan found that being dead was not that different from when he was alive, after he’d helped Qui-Gon save Obi-Wan’s life on Utapu. He and Qui-Gon had talked some now that there was no excuse, as he watched how Sidious tore the galaxy apart and remade it in his image as a Galactic Empire.
By the end of his life, he’d despised most of the galaxy and how it was content to allow the obvious corruption in the Senate to continue, and didn’t care about how his civil war had been causing hundreds of millions of deaths. Free of Sidious' influence now, he was horrified at what he’d done. He’d wanted reform and had been sick of the Senate’s corruption, but rebellion had not been his aim.
There was so much blood on his hands, of clones and Separatists and Jedi, of the True Mandalorians, he knew no matter what Qui-Gon told him, he wasn’t welcome on the other side. He saw it in their faces and in their presences when they passed beyond him, deeper into the Force; they were disgusted with him, angry, and Yan didn’t blame them.
Qui-Gon spent most of his time circling his aging Padawan, staying with him on Tatooine as Obi-Wan watched over Skywalker's son. Yan couldn’t bring himself to join him though, not after everything he’d done against his grand-Padawan, and instead had turned his attentions to another: Sheev Palpatine.
For fourteen years he’d watched the Sith Master, and by proxy, the Clone Commander who had served with his old friend, Mace. He watched as Sidious' plans came to fruition, as one by one rebellion had been snuffed out – or at least, that was how it should have gone.
Yan watched two separate realities play out, differentiated for him as is and was to be, by the presence and the absence of the clone.
Is, showed him how the clones were in rebellion six months after the Republic died, and the ripples of change thus wrought.
Was to be, showed how the Rebellion floundered and scrambled and was forced completely underground to survive as the galaxy suffered, and twenty years later, a planet-killer destroyed Alderaan. The Empire eventually fell but it was slow and many died or were indoctrinated into it.
Six months after Palpatine became Emperor was the major changing point.
Yan couldn’t identify the lynchpin moment that had taken them down the current road without diving deeper into the Force, and Qui-Gon had told him how discombobulating it was to exist in the then and now and will be, the could have and would have and should have, the here and there, the everywhere and nowhere. His former Padawan didn’t need to explain that it had been his attachment to Obi-Wan that had allowed him to not lose himself in the Force, to master the Whills technique and exist within the Force but separate. Yan knew that he didn’t have nearly as strong of a tie to this moment, this reality, and the risk he would be lost elsewhere and elsewhen was much higher.
Regardless of that mystery, it was ever so satisfying to watch Palpatine dismiss the disappearances of some of the clones, as they abandoned the Empire, as something not of concern. Instead, he gloated still over what he considered a complete destruction and dismantling of the Jedi Order.
He didn’t see any concern over the fact that some clones left but others stayed.
He didn’t see any concern in how those that stayed all worked to put themselves in positions that would serve them best in their chosen objectives.
He didn’t see any concern in how his Empire was being chipped away at from both within and from the outskirts, when it appeared to be small things, just little acts and mistakes that weren’t meant to be connected.
He didn’t see any concern in how any Jedi who survived those first six months, were no longer caught by the clones.
He didn’t see any concern in the fact that the number of Force Sensitives strong enough to have been found on Search, didn’t go away, weren’t found by Jedi-traitors-turned-Inquisitors, were still out in the galaxy and weren’t noticed by design.
By the time he realized that the Ryloth Rebellion wasn’t going away, that they had just dug their heels in and were fighting tooth and nail, it was too late.
Ryloth was in open rebellion.
Jango Fett had come out of the woodwork, alive – and Qui-Gon had told him then about how he’d tried to save him and how Obi-Wan had faked his death, but Yan had not thought the Mandalorian would challenge the Empire, by declaring himself Mand’alor and that the True Mandalorians would fight against the tyranny of the Empire to free Mandalore from a puppet master.
Mon Cala, with King Lee-Char, refused to accept the Empire as its sovereign, and created a Fleet that served the Rebellion well by protecting the re-purposed A-, X-, and Y-wings they used, and helped maintain them.
Naboo, with Senator Amidala’s Handmaidens, royal successors, and the Gungans supporting, was waging a guerrilla war that Palpatine did his best to suppress any news of. He was only mostly successful, as Yan made sure whispers persisted and circulated.
Alderaan was undermining the Empire from within as its people trained and prepared and its Senator – both the elder and younger Organa each in their time – threw roadblock after roadblock in his plans, waiting for when its Queen would declare war.
The Wookie aided any rebellion they could find, as did the Lasat.
Coruscant was the main hub of an underground railroad of rebels and Force Sensitives in and off the city-planet.
The Rebellion was in full swing across a dozen planets, and every day that Palpatine failed to wipe them out, they grew stronger, found more supporters and sympathizers, and every action he took to wipe out one rebellion just fueled the others like gas on fire.
Yan watched how Sidious would throw things and scream and rage, and smirked with a dark pleasure as his plans started to unravel.
He would get the last laugh from beyond the pyre, he was sure of it.
Particularly as he found ways of leaving some of the information that he overheard somewhere his great-great-grandpadawan could find and then use, to hasten the end of the Empire.
~
5 BBY
Yan was standing behind Palpatine when he received the news that Alderaan had rebelled, its Queen declaring war to avenge her daughter after the girl was unjustly captured for questioning and called traitor without proof while on a ‘humanitarian mission’.
It tired him, but he caused the communication to fuzz out just as Sidious would be informed that this was because his foolish great-grandpadawan had captured his daughter – without knowing that detail – before letting it come back just to hear that this was because Admiral Tarkin had commed the Queen and told her he thought the girl was a traitor and thus would be treated like one.
Sidious had seethed, and then the entire Empire had gotten a message from aboard the Vengeance.
It was Obi-Wan, robe-less and looking the sort of scruffy fifteen years of hard living on a planet like Tatooine did to a man, with his beard and hair streaked with grey.
He started to smile and it was all sharp teeth and deadly promise beneath an edge of serenity.
“Su cuy’gar. This is High General Obi-Wan Kenobi. ori’shya tal’din, ner burc’ya. Ib’tuur jatne tuur ash’ad kyr’amur.”
Yan matched that smile as he translated that, and knew his grand-Padawan was back. If Sidious had thought he’d had a fight with the Rebellion so far, he’d forgotten how much of a pain Obi-Wan could be to any sort of plan, far more strategic than most had given him credit for and the sort whose very presence made all plans go up in smoke. Yan knew that personally.
He knew he probably shouldn’t, but he’d chosen Qui-Gon for his Padawan for a reason and that was because, sometimes, you had to live in the moment.
He made himself visible to Sidious, smirking all the while because the Force was singing with hope and second chances as the Light burned brighter than any sun with Luke and Leia and Obi-Wan all starting down the road that would bring the galaxy back out of the Dark.
“My line endures still despite your efforts, and your line will die with you.”
Then he left Coruscant to join his Padawan in watching Obi-Wan, as his grand-Padawan prepared to wage another war.