Zimmerwald1915
Revolutionary Defeatist
- Location
- Lake Wobegon
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
[X] Move the capital to Hosnian Prime
- Pronouns
- She/They
[X] Park our entire fleet in orbit around the new capital
<o>U<o>
Cannon Fodder
Indeed, Hosnian has long been on the Senate's shortlist for a permanent capital, and this choice formalizes the New Republic's break with the Old.
> OK
> Don't give me any more advice
- Location
- United Kingdom
Take the time you need. We can keep ourselves busy in the meantime.
[X] Glory.
Your name, and the stories that may one day be told of you.
- Location
- SF Bay Area
I think it's funny, but also, it would probably be helpful for my concentration if people held off a bit.
[X] Unfortunately for you history will not see it that way.
3.4: Perspectives
- Location
- SF Bay Area
[X] Form VI - Niman
In some ways, learning a new lightsaber form is like learning to pilot a Podracer. You have to familiarize yourself with all the quirks in the way it is controlled, with every aspect of its motion through space, until you can guide it by muscle memory alone. You must do this, because every time you put it into action (real action, not the sealed-off safety of a spar or a test run), you are taking your life into your hands.
Your instinct, when dancing on the edge of death in that way, is to rely first upon speed—the kind of speed that comes from power, breaking every safe limit and feeling your heart leap into your throat as your afterburner roars with combusting fuel. But you are a Jedi now, and that means that you must learn different ways of seeing. It means that you must find out what the galaxy looks like when you take a moment to slow down.
That's how you find yourself tucked away in one of the Temple's private training rooms, a secluded spot in the upper floors that boasts a dazzling view of the Coruscant sunrise, moving as deliberately as you can bear to through the basic katas of Niman. By your side is Aayla Secura, synchronizing her movements with you as only two Jedi can. She, too, is in need of a moment's calm; the swiftly approaching Apprentice Tournament is the talk of the Temple among your generation. Even those like you and Aayla, who have already been chosen as Padawans, tend to be swept up in the anticipation, since the trials of the Tournament reveal what sorts of people you're likely to be fighting alongside in the future—and where the points of tension and conflict lie among your peers.
"So who won, the year you became a Padawan?" you ask Aayla, as your lightsaber sweeps out a humming blue arc alongside hers.
"Bultar Swan, and it wasn't even close," Aayla recalls. "You might know the name—she's Master Koon's Padawan now."
"Hmmm." Your voice harmonizes with your blade as it comes around in an obliquely angled slash at nothing. "He doesn't seem like the type to pick an apprentice for her combat skills."
"He's not. But he was very close with her first Master, Micah Giett. When Master Giett was killed in action—the year before you came to the Temple—Master Koon took her on to finish the training that his friend began."
You nod somberly. "I can't imagine losing Obi-Wan like that."
Not in the rhetorical sense that it's a scary or painful idea to consider—you literally cannot imagine what your future would even look like without him.
"Neither could I with Master Vos," agrees Aayla.
You don't trip or stumble, exactly, but you miss half a beat, which when wielding a lightsaber is nearly the same thing. Aayla notices the very moment it happens, and she switches her blade off mid-swing, stowing the hilt at her side in the same motion that would have followed through on her strike.
"You're wondering how I can still call him that when I have this," she realizes, gesturing to the scar on her abdomen that marks the former place of her slave chip.
"People here tell me it's about mastering a skill or an art, not a person," you say. "But they don't understand what it's like."
And Aayla does, even if only a little—so why doesn't it hurt her the way it hurts you?
There's a strange twitch in her head-tails, a Twi'lek expression you can't identify, and then she says, "You know, the average person doesn't actually know the difference between the Jedi ranks. We're all just 'Master Jedi' to them, even Padawans."
"Aayla, that's worse if anything—"
"Let me finish. Some of the people I've met who were most insistent on calling me that, even when I corrected them and told them I was still only an apprentice…were slaves on Nar Shaddaa. Not because they thought I had power over them, but because the Jedi are proof that the word can mean something different, something better. Proof that their owners can't control language, or shift reality to suit their whims."
It is the same impulse that brought Amatakka into existence, the dream to have words that cannot be twisted by the desires of the powerful. You are reminded that beyond the sands of Tatooine, not every slave is lucky enough to have a language to call their own; others must look further afield for a way to speak their mind under Depur's nose.
"Maybe we're the ones who know what 'Master' really means," Aayla persists. "Maybe it's the slavers who have been using it wrong this whole time."
A galaxy where the very concept of owning someone is a distant, fading memory. The promise of the first Jedi, fulfilled at last. It's a beautiful dream.
But until it comes true, you'll still be taking orders.
The Temple's various kitchens and dining halls are naturally busiest at certain times of the Coruscanti day, but they're kept open at all hours of the day and night for the sake of species with differing sleep cycles, the always-on-call Temple Guards and Healers, Jedi returning from missions at unusual hours…and those who simply prefer to stay up late.
Naturally, you fall into the latter category. You've made an effort—more for Obi-Wan's sake than your own—to exercise good sleeping habits, but you still find yourself burning the midnight oil from time to time when working on something particularly important. And tonight's project certainly qualifies.
One of Grievous's demands for peace between Kalee and Huk was for the Yam'rii leaders to be punished for their crimes against his people. So you've curled up in the corner of the dining room with a cup of tzai you brewed yourself, and a copy (an authorized copy this time, thank you very much, Ferus) of one of the Archives' holobooks on Republic sapient rights and war crimes laws.
It's not exactly light reading. In fact, only your diligent study during your first months in the Temple makes it anything but impenetrable. But with enough time and effort (and enough tzai), a pattern begins to emerge.
It's not a good pattern.
Almost all of the statutes currently on the books date back to the Ruusan Reformation almost a thousand years ago, and in the aftermath of the darkness that engulfed the galaxy during the New Sith Wars, the new laws were firm and unwavering to prevent a repeat of that grim era. But the centuries have corroded that legal bulwark. Loopholes began to appear; codes ceased to be enforced. At first the decline was slow (although whatever the "Mandalorian Excision" was, someone clearly decided that it merited a few hasty changes to the books). But in the last two centuries or so—since the end of the High Republic era—the protections have all but disappeared. Today, even you, a former Outer Rim slave with no legal training whatsoever, can discern a method or two to get someone acquitted of the kind of abuses the Yam'rii have perpetrated. Convicting them, on the other hand…
You're shaken from your thoughts as the distinctive presence of another Jedi sweeps into the room. That strange mix of the familiar and the unknown, the pride and the determination—it can only be A'Sharad Hett.
It's still strange seeing the mask of a Tusken—no, of a Ghorfa, that's what he told you his people call themselves—in the Temple, but the oddity is diminishing every day. You've met Jedi from much stranger and more far-flung places; and besides, it hardly hurts to know that you're not the only son of Ar-Amu here. You wave him over. "A'Sharad, hi! I thought you were still tracking that bounty hunter?"
"We are," he says as he takes a seat next to you, "though the trail has gone cold for now. But we've gathered some evidence for the analysis droids to go over. We'll have her yet, mark my words."
You sigh. "Wish I was doing that instead of staying up at night reading law books."
A'Sharad's mask hides his expression, but you sense something in his manner turn grave. "No, Anakin. You really don't."
You decide not to press him on that, so there are a few beats of slightly awkward silence before he says, "Enough about me and my missions. What's important enough that it's gotten you of all people to study codes of law?"
"It's for the peace treaty between Kalee and Huk," you explain. "The Kalee Khagan wants the Yam'rii leaders who did war crimes to be punished, but—"
"The Republic's sapient-rights laws aren't worth the flimsiplast they were written on?"
"How'd you know?"
He lets out a bark of bitter, derisive laughter. "Lucky guess."
"It's a disgrace, A'Sharad," you mutter, standing up to pace the empty dining hall. "I want to go to the Senate myself and look the people who are writing these laws in the eye. Maybe then I can find out who's protecting the Yam'rii."
He shrugs, which is a rather complicated gesture for someone wrapped in layers of robes and tunics. "It's not a terrible idea. Sometimes you need to meet your enemy face-to-face. But if you plan to do this…there's a piece of advice my father passed on to me that I think would be useful to you."
You pause in your restless pacing. Your friend speaks of his father, Sharad "the Howlrunner" Hett, only rarely. It's no small thing that he's willing to share his wisdom with you.
Seeing that he has your attention, A'Sharad fixes his gaze on you from behind the lenses of his mask. "When he had to deal with a chief of a rival tribe, or a Jawa clan, or even a Hutt, he would always remind me, 'Understanding of a person doesn't come from knowing what they want. It comes from knowing why they want it.' It was a principle that was useful with both his friends and his enemies. When his opposite number could be reasoned with, that understanding helped him find common ground. When they could not, it helped him find weak points to strike at."
Right now, the second of those benefits sounds far more appealing to you than the first. But you can see the logic in his words. Still, you have one last question: "Did he learn that as a tribal chief or as a Jedi Knight?"
"He never said," A'Sharad replies. "But honestly, I've always believed that it was a little of both."
You would think that a lesson on lifting objects with the Force would be trivially easy for you of all people, but Obi-Wan Kenobi has a gift for making easy things extremely difficult.
You could lift every single chair in this classroom up to any height he pleases and hold them there until you fall asleep, but what he's asking of you now is subtly different and far more complicated. Your goal is not to move the chairs to a specific position; it is to levitate them so that they float free, using a subtle touch of the Force to simply release them from the hold of gravity. It is a lesson not in control but in giving up control, and it is all but giving you fits.
There are eight chairs, designed in the elegant minimalist style the Jedi have long preferred, arranged in a circle around the empty classroom. With Obi-Wan's careful guidance, you've managed to achieve the effect on only one of them. And one seems to be all you can manage, because you're forever fighting the temptation to take hold of it whenever it wobbles or drops a few inches. The more you tighten your grip, the more it seems to slip through your fingers.
"So, Anakin," Obi-Wan says, "have you had any thoughts on the quandary Grievous has presented us with?"
Answering him will split your concentration from the exercise, but with a strange lesson like this you're not sure whether that's meant to make it easier or harder. Either way, though, you could use a distraction at the moment. "I still think you should have just let Chancellor Palpatine handle the politics. But I guess we could always go to the Senate ourselves and see who we can, uh," you swap out threaten at the last moment for, "convince to help Kalee. A'Sharad gave me some advice that could help with that. Or with the whole project, really."
"That could certainly be worth our while," he acknowledges. "I'm sure there are some Senators who might be willing to pitch in for Kalee, especially if we framed it as a peacekeeping mission that could benefit all the surrounding sectors. What else have you come up with?"
"Well…" You tap the side of the floating chair with two fingers, sending it spinning lazily through the air. You're hesitant to tell him about your next idea, not because you think it's a bad one, but because you're not quite sure that politics and economics are really what make it so appealing to you. "We could ask Pad—Queen Amidala for help. I know Naboo is still rebuilding from what the Federation did, but she's still the ruler of an entire planet. And she knows what it's like to have your world occupied and exploited."
"A good idea, provided we're careful about what kind of aid we request from a planet that still has problems of its own. The Queen is an able ruler, but rebuilding one war-torn world is neither cheap nor simple, let alone two."
"So," you say dryly, "besides the Chancellor's office, we've got one group of people who could help but probably won't, and one person who would help but probably can't."
"There's one more solution you haven't considered," Obi-Wan points out as you reach out with a tendril of the Force towards another chair. "The AgriCorps specializes in exactly these sorts of missions. They could make all of this far simpler."
All you do in reply to that is raise an eyebrow, but any skepticism that isn't written on your face, Obi-Wan can sense in the Force. "I know they have a reputation as a home for those who failed to make it as Padawans, but the AgriCorps's work is crucial, and too often underestimated. There are entire worlds that simply could not feed themselves without them."
"Maybe, but…" You lift one of the other chairs with one hand and let it go. It's lighter than normal, but it still falls back to earth. "An AgriCorps mission this big would have to be approved by the High Council."
"And?" he asks, though you're certain he knows perfectly well what you mean.
"And you know how the Council feels about me," you say impatiently, ignoring the thud as the chair you were levitating falls to the ground.
"Anakin." Obi-Wan's expression has turned deadly serious. "Do you truly believe that the Council would let innocents suffer solely out of distrust for you?"
It is not a rhetorical question.
Your first impulse is to snap out an indignant "yes", but then you think back to that first, fateful High Council audience. Master Koon mentioned that the Council might be giving a false impression of callousness. Master Gallia spoke of your "unique perspective" on the galaxy. Those statements did not exactly sit well with everyone in that chamber. And now Obi-Wan is asking you, in complete seriousness, if you feel that they would put their own agenda over sapient lives. Is there more going on with the Council than you knew?
Is there more going on with the Jedi Order than you knew?
In the end, though, no matter what trouble is brewing behind closed doors, one thing remains true. If you don't believe that the Jedi are—or at least could be—a force for good in the galaxy, everything you've done since you left home would have been for nothing. And that is a thought that you cannot abide. So your answer must be, "No. I guess not."
Obi-Wan sighs, a sound full of weariness and worry and other, deeper emotions. This is not the first time you've heard it and it will not be the last. "Anakin, I know that your relationship with the Council has been fraught from the start. But please, just consider letting the Order do what it does best. That's all I ask."
"Okay," you say at last, and a little of the tension in Obi-Wan's shoulders relaxes. Not all. But a little.
"Thank you," he replies. "Now, it seems we have the beginnings of a plan. But only the beginnings. Where would you like to really get started?"
[ ] Visit the Senate.
Journey into the anoobas' den.
[ ] Contact Queen Amidala.
Enlist a voice of hope.
[ ] Request an AgriCorps deployment.
Place your trust in the Jedi.
(Choose only one. You will be able to select more options later, but there will be tradeoffs for doing so.)
In some ways, learning a new lightsaber form is like learning to pilot a Podracer. You have to familiarize yourself with all the quirks in the way it is controlled, with every aspect of its motion through space, until you can guide it by muscle memory alone. You must do this, because every time you put it into action (real action, not the sealed-off safety of a spar or a test run), you are taking your life into your hands.
Your instinct, when dancing on the edge of death in that way, is to rely first upon speed—the kind of speed that comes from power, breaking every safe limit and feeling your heart leap into your throat as your afterburner roars with combusting fuel. But you are a Jedi now, and that means that you must learn different ways of seeing. It means that you must find out what the galaxy looks like when you take a moment to slow down.
That's how you find yourself tucked away in one of the Temple's private training rooms, a secluded spot in the upper floors that boasts a dazzling view of the Coruscant sunrise, moving as deliberately as you can bear to through the basic katas of Niman. By your side is Aayla Secura, synchronizing her movements with you as only two Jedi can. She, too, is in need of a moment's calm; the swiftly approaching Apprentice Tournament is the talk of the Temple among your generation. Even those like you and Aayla, who have already been chosen as Padawans, tend to be swept up in the anticipation, since the trials of the Tournament reveal what sorts of people you're likely to be fighting alongside in the future—and where the points of tension and conflict lie among your peers.
"So who won, the year you became a Padawan?" you ask Aayla, as your lightsaber sweeps out a humming blue arc alongside hers.
"Bultar Swan, and it wasn't even close," Aayla recalls. "You might know the name—she's Master Koon's Padawan now."
"Hmmm." Your voice harmonizes with your blade as it comes around in an obliquely angled slash at nothing. "He doesn't seem like the type to pick an apprentice for her combat skills."
"He's not. But he was very close with her first Master, Micah Giett. When Master Giett was killed in action—the year before you came to the Temple—Master Koon took her on to finish the training that his friend began."
You nod somberly. "I can't imagine losing Obi-Wan like that."
Not in the rhetorical sense that it's a scary or painful idea to consider—you literally cannot imagine what your future would even look like without him.
"Neither could I with Master Vos," agrees Aayla.
You don't trip or stumble, exactly, but you miss half a beat, which when wielding a lightsaber is nearly the same thing. Aayla notices the very moment it happens, and she switches her blade off mid-swing, stowing the hilt at her side in the same motion that would have followed through on her strike.
"You're wondering how I can still call him that when I have this," she realizes, gesturing to the scar on her abdomen that marks the former place of her slave chip.
"People here tell me it's about mastering a skill or an art, not a person," you say. "But they don't understand what it's like."
And Aayla does, even if only a little—so why doesn't it hurt her the way it hurts you?
There's a strange twitch in her head-tails, a Twi'lek expression you can't identify, and then she says, "You know, the average person doesn't actually know the difference between the Jedi ranks. We're all just 'Master Jedi' to them, even Padawans."
"Aayla, that's worse if anything—"
"Let me finish. Some of the people I've met who were most insistent on calling me that, even when I corrected them and told them I was still only an apprentice…were slaves on Nar Shaddaa. Not because they thought I had power over them, but because the Jedi are proof that the word can mean something different, something better. Proof that their owners can't control language, or shift reality to suit their whims."
It is the same impulse that brought Amatakka into existence, the dream to have words that cannot be twisted by the desires of the powerful. You are reminded that beyond the sands of Tatooine, not every slave is lucky enough to have a language to call their own; others must look further afield for a way to speak their mind under Depur's nose.
"Maybe we're the ones who know what 'Master' really means," Aayla persists. "Maybe it's the slavers who have been using it wrong this whole time."
A galaxy where the very concept of owning someone is a distant, fading memory. The promise of the first Jedi, fulfilled at last. It's a beautiful dream.
But until it comes true, you'll still be taking orders.
The Temple's various kitchens and dining halls are naturally busiest at certain times of the Coruscanti day, but they're kept open at all hours of the day and night for the sake of species with differing sleep cycles, the always-on-call Temple Guards and Healers, Jedi returning from missions at unusual hours…and those who simply prefer to stay up late.
Naturally, you fall into the latter category. You've made an effort—more for Obi-Wan's sake than your own—to exercise good sleeping habits, but you still find yourself burning the midnight oil from time to time when working on something particularly important. And tonight's project certainly qualifies.
One of Grievous's demands for peace between Kalee and Huk was for the Yam'rii leaders to be punished for their crimes against his people. So you've curled up in the corner of the dining room with a cup of tzai you brewed yourself, and a copy (an authorized copy this time, thank you very much, Ferus) of one of the Archives' holobooks on Republic sapient rights and war crimes laws.
It's not exactly light reading. In fact, only your diligent study during your first months in the Temple makes it anything but impenetrable. But with enough time and effort (and enough tzai), a pattern begins to emerge.
It's not a good pattern.
Almost all of the statutes currently on the books date back to the Ruusan Reformation almost a thousand years ago, and in the aftermath of the darkness that engulfed the galaxy during the New Sith Wars, the new laws were firm and unwavering to prevent a repeat of that grim era. But the centuries have corroded that legal bulwark. Loopholes began to appear; codes ceased to be enforced. At first the decline was slow (although whatever the "Mandalorian Excision" was, someone clearly decided that it merited a few hasty changes to the books). But in the last two centuries or so—since the end of the High Republic era—the protections have all but disappeared. Today, even you, a former Outer Rim slave with no legal training whatsoever, can discern a method or two to get someone acquitted of the kind of abuses the Yam'rii have perpetrated. Convicting them, on the other hand…
You're shaken from your thoughts as the distinctive presence of another Jedi sweeps into the room. That strange mix of the familiar and the unknown, the pride and the determination—it can only be A'Sharad Hett.
It's still strange seeing the mask of a Tusken—no, of a Ghorfa, that's what he told you his people call themselves—in the Temple, but the oddity is diminishing every day. You've met Jedi from much stranger and more far-flung places; and besides, it hardly hurts to know that you're not the only son of Ar-Amu here. You wave him over. "A'Sharad, hi! I thought you were still tracking that bounty hunter?"
"We are," he says as he takes a seat next to you, "though the trail has gone cold for now. But we've gathered some evidence for the analysis droids to go over. We'll have her yet, mark my words."
You sigh. "Wish I was doing that instead of staying up at night reading law books."
A'Sharad's mask hides his expression, but you sense something in his manner turn grave. "No, Anakin. You really don't."
You decide not to press him on that, so there are a few beats of slightly awkward silence before he says, "Enough about me and my missions. What's important enough that it's gotten you of all people to study codes of law?"
"It's for the peace treaty between Kalee and Huk," you explain. "The Kalee Khagan wants the Yam'rii leaders who did war crimes to be punished, but—"
"The Republic's sapient-rights laws aren't worth the flimsiplast they were written on?"
"How'd you know?"
He lets out a bark of bitter, derisive laughter. "Lucky guess."
"It's a disgrace, A'Sharad," you mutter, standing up to pace the empty dining hall. "I want to go to the Senate myself and look the people who are writing these laws in the eye. Maybe then I can find out who's protecting the Yam'rii."
He shrugs, which is a rather complicated gesture for someone wrapped in layers of robes and tunics. "It's not a terrible idea. Sometimes you need to meet your enemy face-to-face. But if you plan to do this…there's a piece of advice my father passed on to me that I think would be useful to you."
You pause in your restless pacing. Your friend speaks of his father, Sharad "the Howlrunner" Hett, only rarely. It's no small thing that he's willing to share his wisdom with you.
Seeing that he has your attention, A'Sharad fixes his gaze on you from behind the lenses of his mask. "When he had to deal with a chief of a rival tribe, or a Jawa clan, or even a Hutt, he would always remind me, 'Understanding of a person doesn't come from knowing what they want. It comes from knowing why they want it.' It was a principle that was useful with both his friends and his enemies. When his opposite number could be reasoned with, that understanding helped him find common ground. When they could not, it helped him find weak points to strike at."
Right now, the second of those benefits sounds far more appealing to you than the first. But you can see the logic in his words. Still, you have one last question: "Did he learn that as a tribal chief or as a Jedi Knight?"
"He never said," A'Sharad replies. "But honestly, I've always believed that it was a little of both."
You would think that a lesson on lifting objects with the Force would be trivially easy for you of all people, but Obi-Wan Kenobi has a gift for making easy things extremely difficult.
You could lift every single chair in this classroom up to any height he pleases and hold them there until you fall asleep, but what he's asking of you now is subtly different and far more complicated. Your goal is not to move the chairs to a specific position; it is to levitate them so that they float free, using a subtle touch of the Force to simply release them from the hold of gravity. It is a lesson not in control but in giving up control, and it is all but giving you fits.
There are eight chairs, designed in the elegant minimalist style the Jedi have long preferred, arranged in a circle around the empty classroom. With Obi-Wan's careful guidance, you've managed to achieve the effect on only one of them. And one seems to be all you can manage, because you're forever fighting the temptation to take hold of it whenever it wobbles or drops a few inches. The more you tighten your grip, the more it seems to slip through your fingers.
"So, Anakin," Obi-Wan says, "have you had any thoughts on the quandary Grievous has presented us with?"
Answering him will split your concentration from the exercise, but with a strange lesson like this you're not sure whether that's meant to make it easier or harder. Either way, though, you could use a distraction at the moment. "I still think you should have just let Chancellor Palpatine handle the politics. But I guess we could always go to the Senate ourselves and see who we can, uh," you swap out threaten at the last moment for, "convince to help Kalee. A'Sharad gave me some advice that could help with that. Or with the whole project, really."
"That could certainly be worth our while," he acknowledges. "I'm sure there are some Senators who might be willing to pitch in for Kalee, especially if we framed it as a peacekeeping mission that could benefit all the surrounding sectors. What else have you come up with?"
"Well…" You tap the side of the floating chair with two fingers, sending it spinning lazily through the air. You're hesitant to tell him about your next idea, not because you think it's a bad one, but because you're not quite sure that politics and economics are really what make it so appealing to you. "We could ask Pad—Queen Amidala for help. I know Naboo is still rebuilding from what the Federation did, but she's still the ruler of an entire planet. And she knows what it's like to have your world occupied and exploited."
"A good idea, provided we're careful about what kind of aid we request from a planet that still has problems of its own. The Queen is an able ruler, but rebuilding one war-torn world is neither cheap nor simple, let alone two."
"So," you say dryly, "besides the Chancellor's office, we've got one group of people who could help but probably won't, and one person who would help but probably can't."
"There's one more solution you haven't considered," Obi-Wan points out as you reach out with a tendril of the Force towards another chair. "The AgriCorps specializes in exactly these sorts of missions. They could make all of this far simpler."
All you do in reply to that is raise an eyebrow, but any skepticism that isn't written on your face, Obi-Wan can sense in the Force. "I know they have a reputation as a home for those who failed to make it as Padawans, but the AgriCorps's work is crucial, and too often underestimated. There are entire worlds that simply could not feed themselves without them."
"Maybe, but…" You lift one of the other chairs with one hand and let it go. It's lighter than normal, but it still falls back to earth. "An AgriCorps mission this big would have to be approved by the High Council."
"And?" he asks, though you're certain he knows perfectly well what you mean.
"And you know how the Council feels about me," you say impatiently, ignoring the thud as the chair you were levitating falls to the ground.
"Anakin." Obi-Wan's expression has turned deadly serious. "Do you truly believe that the Council would let innocents suffer solely out of distrust for you?"
It is not a rhetorical question.
Your first impulse is to snap out an indignant "yes", but then you think back to that first, fateful High Council audience. Master Koon mentioned that the Council might be giving a false impression of callousness. Master Gallia spoke of your "unique perspective" on the galaxy. Those statements did not exactly sit well with everyone in that chamber. And now Obi-Wan is asking you, in complete seriousness, if you feel that they would put their own agenda over sapient lives. Is there more going on with the Council than you knew?
Is there more going on with the Jedi Order than you knew?
In the end, though, no matter what trouble is brewing behind closed doors, one thing remains true. If you don't believe that the Jedi are—or at least could be—a force for good in the galaxy, everything you've done since you left home would have been for nothing. And that is a thought that you cannot abide. So your answer must be, "No. I guess not."
Obi-Wan sighs, a sound full of weariness and worry and other, deeper emotions. This is not the first time you've heard it and it will not be the last. "Anakin, I know that your relationship with the Council has been fraught from the start. But please, just consider letting the Order do what it does best. That's all I ask."
"Okay," you say at last, and a little of the tension in Obi-Wan's shoulders relaxes. Not all. But a little.
"Thank you," he replies. "Now, it seems we have the beginnings of a plan. But only the beginnings. Where would you like to really get started?"
[ ] Visit the Senate.
Journey into the anoobas' den.
[ ] Contact Queen Amidala.
Enlist a voice of hope.
[ ] Request an AgriCorps deployment.
Place your trust in the Jedi.
(Choose only one. You will be able to select more options later, but there will be tradeoffs for doing so.)
Oof.
Now this? THIS is a hard vote, where the red option is actually tempting.
Is walking into the Senate worth risking getting adolescent Anakin under the eye of enemies?
Is talking to Queen Amidala worth risking leaving her planet open to more problems?
Is taking the Agri-Corps option worth risking the voters continually building up more red stress until it explodes because future blue options don't fit their vision of who Anakin "should" be?
Now this? THIS is a hard vote, where the red option is actually tempting.
Is walking into the Senate worth risking getting adolescent Anakin under the eye of enemies?
Is talking to Queen Amidala worth risking leaving her planet open to more problems?
Is taking the Agri-Corps option worth risking the voters continually building up more red stress until it explodes because future blue options don't fit their vision of who Anakin "should" be?
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MrWealthman
Filthy Capitalist
- Location
- The Shop in your basement
Something to note is that if we do the red option we will be halfway to filling up the stress meter.
PrognosticHannya
Far Too Enthusiastic About Etymology
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Request an AgriCorps deployment.
Sorry, but I just can't see any other option here. This will work, Anakin knows it will work. Anakin needs to learn to trust, if not the council, then some individual members. And if the council proves unworthy of his trust? Then that's a valuable lesson to both him and us.
Think about what's best for Kalee, not what's best for Anakin. Because ultimately that's what's best for Anakin in the long term.
Sorry, but I just can't see any other option here. This will work, Anakin knows it will work. Anakin needs to learn to trust, if not the council, then some individual members. And if the council proves unworthy of his trust? Then that's a valuable lesson to both him and us.
Think about what's best for Kalee, not what's best for Anakin. Because ultimately that's what's best for Anakin in the long term.
- Location
- Te Ika-a-Māui
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] Request an AgriCorps deployment.
[X] Request an AgriCorps deployment.
- Location
- Canada
"Trust? The Jedi? Not in my house young man! You'll go
- Supreme Chancellor Palpatine
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- Location
- New York
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Request an AgriCorps deployment.
- Pronouns
- He/They/She
The High Council is stressful, but objectively the most likely to be useful.
Padmé will give us something we can use, I have that faith in her, but it's more likely to be a bolster to Anakin than something immediately practical.
The Senate probably won't be terribly useful, but it could be....educational. And potentially more stressful than the High Council.
Padmé will give us something we can use, I have that faith in her, but it's more likely to be a bolster to Anakin than something immediately practical.
The Senate probably won't be terribly useful, but it could be....educational. And potentially more stressful than the High Council.
- Location
- Infraspace
[X] Request an AgriCorps deployment.
[X] Visit the Senate.
Its about time we do a classic yolo anakin move.
Its about time we do a classic yolo anakin move.
[x] Request an AgriCorps deployment.
[X] Visit the Senate.
[X] Request an AgriCorps deployment.
Place your trust in the Jedi.
Place your trust in the Jedi.
[X] Visit the Senate.
Roger Roger!
Was there any doubt?
[X] Contact Queen Amidala.
'course not.