And Sometimes I Geek Out and Also Write Rogue One Fan Fiction

Another fan fic, this one inspired by the first glimpse of Mads Mikkelsen as Galen Erso. What can I say?  I am a total and utter dork, and have no regrets.

"Entanglement"

Galen Erso’s days began in very much the same way they ended: entrenched in his mind and his work. Even after all these years, he wrote, he thought, he obsessed. The eternal Why and Why Not his steady companions. His need to work out vast equations in his mind was constant. It was all he knew, really.

Rising from his bed, Galen wearily made his way to the kitchen as calculations made their way into his thoughts.

When Jynea was born, Galen would often stare at her for hours on end as she slept. Wondering, picturing, dreaming of all the particles that made up her being. The human body is made up of something near 37 trillion cells. The number of atoms in each of those cells is around 100 trillion. The calculations could be endless. She was beautiful. Something so beautiful.

Still, Galen spent most of Jynea’s childhood working in his lab.

“Papa, can you play with me?”

“Not right now, Jynea. Perhaps later. I have work to do.”

On occasion she would accompany him there. Watching her father work, write, think, obsess. Galen was on the verge of creating something new. The eternal Why and Why Not cheerleading his endeavors.

“Papa, can you read to me?”

“Not right now, Jynea. Perhaps later. I have work to do.”

And when his dreams became reality and the equations aligned perfectly within the walls of his lab, he knew right then and there what it must feel like to be one of the gods.

“Galen, could you sit and talk?”

“Not right now, Jynea. Perhaps later. I have work to do.”

He looked at his work and smiled.

​“So beautiful,” Galen said to himself alone, for you see by then he was alone. His wife was gone. His daughter was gone. Such was the price of godliness.

But the beautiful can never be ignored for long, and Galen’s work garnered attention, good and bad. However, the bad always had a lovelier siren song (“It really will benefit mankind greatly. Your work will benefit mankind greatly.”)

And so now, years later in hiding, Galen finds himself alone with his calculations, his thoughts, his regret. His work taken and used for death and destruction. How does one live with that? Not easily.

​Staring out into the horizon, he thinks of Jyn -- as she now prefers to be called -- and how to reach her. How to mend. How to rebuild. The equations for that beginning to form.