Profile

Brief notes on personality: He's got some serious anger management issues and tends to keep people at arm's length, and in his work life he's known for his absolute professionalism but definitely not for being the kind of guy you'd grab drinks with after a job.

Unlike Kylo Ren, he has enough of a sense of self-worth not to be hung up on needing external validation, but deep down, he still hates it that he's not better with people, and especially that he sucks so much at maintaining relationships with the rest of his family. Luke is the only one who's still alive that he actually gets along with, but the two of them have mostly lost touch over the years. He and Han get along on a professional level, but on a personal level, they're way too good at winding each other up, and have fairly frequent periods of refusing to speak to each other because of it. Ben's personality is basically incompatible with Leia's on a fundamental level, or so he thinks, and he's built up a lot of resentment for her over the years that he can't manage to deal with. And while he wants to be a good big brother to his younger siblings (for EU crossovers), he's very aware that he's an asshole and a bad role model.

Under the right circumstances, he's actually capable of being very nice and enjoyable to be around, but those are extremely unusual circumstances for him, and unfortunately it doesn't take much for him to start getting defensive again.

Background: Ben Solo is from an AU where Darth Vader not only survived assassinating Emperor Palpatine, but lived almost another 17 years beyond that. After the loss of the second Death Star and the Emperor, Vader ordered the Empire to stand down and surrender, and most of it cooperated; for this, he was granted amnesty by the Rebellion, though - especially after the formation of the New Republic - there would always be a small but vocal minority calling for it to be revoked and for him to be tried as a war criminal. Ultimately, he was only able to ignore both them and the temptation to try to seize the reins of power again because it wasn't long before he had something much more important to focus on.

Family was always the most important thing to Anakin - the identity he'd tentatively begun to return to, with Luke's encouragement - and he hoped that the birth of his grandson would be what brought them all together; at the very least, it was an opportunity to have the kind of relationship with his own flesh and blood that he'd missed out on with his children. Though he was careful to remain on his best behavior at all times, Leia was initially reluctant to allow him much contact with Ben - but before Ben was even two standard years old, it became apparent that he was incredibly strong in the Force, and that Anakin was the only one who truly knew what to do with him. For most of Ben's childhood, the two of them were almost inseparable; Anakin doted on his grandson, and Ben flourished under his care.

However, not everything was idyllic. The largest surviving fragment of the Empire had re-formed as a dictatorship called the First Order, under the leadership of Snoke. He would have courted Anakin for a position at his right hand, had he not known exactly why it was far too risky; instead, he went after Ben, and was able to insinuate himself fairly deeply within the boy's mind before Anakin realized what was going on. He was able to teach Ben how to block Snoke out, for the most part, but he was forced to leave it to the New Republic to pursue a more permanent solution to the problem of the First Order.

Meanwhile, Ben's strength in the Force continued to grow. He trained extensively with both Anakin and Luke - with the latter, mostly under the close supervision of the former, not because Anakin didn't trust them together or didn't believe in his son's abilities, but rather, to try to determine what gaps in Luke's knowledge he'd have to fill in, and to help him refine his skill as a teacher. Anakin was acutely aware of the fact that he wasn't going to be around forever, after all, and that it would fall to Luke to instruct the next generation in the ways of the Force.

Ben wasn't as close with his parents as he was with his grandfather and uncle, though his relationship with his father was mostly good - though, the main reason why Han went so far out of his way to try to impress and build bridges with his son was because he was jealous of how close Ben was to his grandfather. Ben's relationship with his mother, however, grew strained; her duties to the New Republic kept her too busy to spend much time with him, and Ben developed the impression that, while she loved him, she didn't really like him - that he had too many of his father's traits that pissed her off, and he'd inherited too many things from his grandfather that frightened her. While it was basically Anakin's dying wish that the two of them try to mend fences, they never did become particularly close.

When Ben was 15, Anakin's health began to decline rapidly; however, he wasn't one to sit back and peacefully welcome the end. By then, the New Republic had been forced into a stalemate with the First Order, and Snoke was still alive - and since Anakin would no longer be around to help Ben protect himself, he figured the most important thing he could do was rectify that. Anakin went into First Order space knowing that he'd never be coming out. And when he found out what was pulling Snoke's strings... he died finishing what he had started.

Ben was devastated. Without his grandfather's guidance, and without Snoke to set himself in opposition to, he felt completely adrift; then, his father did what was probably the best thing anyone could have done for him at the time.

Han gave him the Millennium Falcon for his 16th birthday, and suddenly, Ben had a project to keep him occupied. The ship's condition had deteriorated significantly since the heyday of the Rebellion, and Ben set off on a quest to find all the parts he needed to restore it properly. Actually, he could've ordered almost everything he needed off the HoloNet, but a bargain-hunting trip to the far-flung ends of the galaxy was more along the lines of what he needed to clear his head. After talking Chewbacca into accompanying him, he set out.

He also started going by Ben Skywalker during this time, though he dropped it a few years later when he realized his father felt a little put out over it. However, he doesn't correct anyone who still knows him by that name.

(Optional background: one of Ben's earliest stops on his trip was Jakku - where, while he was nosing around to see if he could find a better deal on anything, he encountered and managed to befriend a very young scavenger girl named Rey. Deeply concerned for her safety - not just because Jakku was no place for a child to be all alone, but because he could sense the potential still sleeping within her, and he knew now that there still those out there in the galaxy who preyed on Force sensitives where they could find them - he tried to convince her to come with him; however, she was adamant that in the past couple years in which she'd been on her own, nothing bad had happened to her, and her parents would be back any day now. Reluctantly, Ben left without her, but he returned to visit nearly every standard month for the next several years, until finally she decided that perhaps just a short foray away from Jakku with him wouldn't hurt anything. Those short forays gradually got longer and longer, until at last he was able to get her to come aboard permanently as his copilot after Chewbacca returned to working with Han.)

Beyond this point, I'm still fleshing out his background, though he's ended up a smuggler like his father - he could have done something his mother considers "better," but this allows him to keep a close eye on the flow of former Empire craft and munitions through the black market. And what he's been seeing lately indicates that the remains of the First Order are attempting to rally one last time.