A Wind to Shake the Stars

As the episode opens, Luke is in his farm's tech dome listening to a recruitment tape from the Imperial Space Academy. Luke has listened to the recording enough to have it memorized, quoting along to parts of it and humming the background music. His friend Windy enters unannounced. Luke, embarrassed, tries to quickly stop the recording, but Windy grabs the tape from him and reads it. He makes fun of Luke's dream of following Biggs to the Academy.

Windy takes Luke to Tosche Station, where they join the three other members of the group of friends: Fixer, a cocky young man who runs the station; Camie, his admiring girlfriend; and Deak, who seems content to follow Fixer's lead in everything. Windy tells the group about the recruitment tape that he caught Luke watching, subjecting him to another round of mocking. Camie in particular accuses Luke of only wanting to attend the Academy because he wants to imitate Biggs.

Luke manages to change the subject when he asks Fixer about his plans for the day, to which Fixer replies that he wants to do "speed runs" - race skyhoppers through Beggar's Canyon. Luke accepts Fixer's challenge to a race. With Windy copiloting, they board Luke's skyhopper and begin the race. Fixer and Deak quickly gain the lead and fly in a way that prevents Luke from passing them. With a terrified Windy protesting, Luke decides to attempt a shortcut through the Stone Needle, a dangerous maneuver known as threading the needle. Luke wins the race and the grudging respect of his peers, though not without damaging his skyhopper.

In the morning after an unspecified amount of time, Luke is having breakfast with his Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. Owen nags Luke about repairing moisture vaporators on the farm's south ridge. Luke suggests that the family buy more droids to help with the workload. Owen retorts that the droids would not be necessary if Luke spent less time daydreaming. Beru chides her husband and says that she could use a new droid around the house, then in private tells him that he should go easier on Luke and not begrudge him for having dreams bigger than the farm.

In the next scene Luke is with the repair droid Treadwell, working to repair a vaporator. The droid is clumsy and malfunctioning and damages itself while trying to perform the repair. At that point Luke sees flashes in the sky. He looks through his macrobinoculars to see two starships that appear to be shooting at each other in the upper atmosphere. He leaves Treadwell and hurries to Tosche Station to tell his friends.

At the station, Luke is surprised to see Biggs hanging with the group, just like he used to do before leaving for the Academy. He explains that his graduation has been accelerated by imperial order and that this will be his last visit home before reporting to his new ship, a freighter called the Rand Ecliptic. Luke tells the group about the battle that he witnessed. Most of them ridicule him, while Biggs tells him more gently that it was unlikely that there would be a battle over Tatooine and that the two ships were probably refueling, not fighting.

Fixer, Camie, and the others go back inside, and Biggs asks Luke to drive out to Beggar's Canyon in the landspeeder. Once they arrive, Biggs confides his secret plans: that he and a group of fellow graduates plan to jump ship and join the Rebel Alliance. He also criticizes Luke for giving in to his uncle's pressure to stay on the farm rather than go to the Academy himself. This angers Luke, who does not want to abandon his family when they need him. Biggs apologizes. Their parting is bittersweet and emotional. Luke still wants to follow Biggs to the Academy and then, maybe, the Rebellion. Luke comments that the wind is picking up, and Biggs replies that it's rising all across the Galaxy and even Tatooine will feel it soon. He also tells Luke that he believes him that there could have been a battle in the sky.

Luke's skyhopper had been seen in the background of the film A New Hope but not flown or turned on. Therefore Tom Voegeli had to develop an original sound effect for the hoppers during the episode's post-production.

None of the events of "A Wind to Shake the Stars" appear in the original film. The episode fills in much of the backstory of Luke's dissatisfaction with life in Tatooine and his difficulty fitting in with his Anchorhead friends. The first several scenes - the recruitment tape, the race through Beggar's Canyon, and Luke's conversation with his aunt and uncle - are original with the radio drama. The episode's later scenes on the moisture farm and in Anchorhead closely parallel scenes cut from the first Star Wars film and included in the novel. The conversation between Luke and Biggs uses most of the same dialogue as the deleted scene but is moved from outside the station to Beggar's Canyon. Together these scenes portray a familiar picture of teenage life with a dynamic not unlike the small-town teens in Lucas' earlier movie American Graffiti.

In his conversation with Luke, Biggs specifies that the Rand Ecliptic is a merchant ship and that he fears being drafted someday into the Imperial Starfleet. This contradicts later Legends works and sources that describe the Ecliptic as a military frigate.

• The Making of Star Wars For Radio: A Fable For the Mind's Eye
• Star Wars: The National Public Radio Dramatization
• "A Wind to Shake the Stars" — Star Wars Galaxy Magazine 2