[X] Request an AgriCorps deployment.
For the first and probably last time in your career as a Jedi, you walk out of the High Council chamber saying, "Well, that was easy."
And it was. The Council approved your proposed AgriCorps mission to Kalee unanimously, with hardly even a debate.
"I'm still a little concerned that you expected it to be anything but," Obi-Wan murmurs.
You shrug. You're enjoying this moment too much to spoil it with an argument about the Masters' intentions. "So what happens now?"
"Logistics, for the most part—though I know that's not exactly your favorite word," he says with a wry twist to his mouth. "We'll have to meet with the Reassignment Council and the AgriCorps coordinators and give them more details about what they're in for. Fortunately, the geotechnical data Grievous sent us when I told him what we were trying to do was quite thorough."
"Wouldn't have expected a Wild Space warlord to care about that sort of thing," you note.
Obi-Wan chuckles. "I get the sense that he's not a being who likes to leave a task half-done."
He certainly is not—and the two of you have that in common.
Obi-Wan is quite right that terms like "logistics", "preparation", and "risk management" don't exactly occupy pride of place in your vocabulary. But you can tolerate them now for one reason: things are getting done. You'll leave the galaxy a better place than you found it when this is over.
You stand at Obi-Wan's side resolutely and try not to let your mind drift as he shifts the pieces into place. In the process, you start to get to know the AgriCorps—and, in doing so, discover a side of the Jedi Order that you never knew existed.
Contrary to popular belief (you learn), not all Jedi who fail their Initiate trials are assigned to the Agricultural Corps. Should they choose to remain in the Order—though many do not—their fates are placed in the hands of the Reassignment Council, which finds a place for them in one of the four Jedi Service Corps. Jedi "washouts" can be found variously as nurses and orderlies in the Medical Corps, teachers and archivists in the Educational Corps, or even occasionally as technicians and pilots in the Exploration Corps. But despite all the advances of technology and organization since the first sapients to sow seeds in a field, agriculture still demands labor in a way that those other specialties simply do not. That meant that those Jedi who, for whatever reason, were not selected as Padawans, the vast majority were sent here.
And among the crops they grew to feed a hungry galaxy, they also germinated a self-fulfilling prophecy.
EduCorps, MediCorps, and ExplorCorps all have notable staffs of Knights and even a few Masters among their number, those who are invested in their particular branch's mission and feel that their talents are best used there. The number of Knights in AgriCorps can be counted on one hand with fingers to spare. This place was where most of the "failures" ended up, and so it became a place where no one who wasn't a "failure" was willing to go.
Most of the AgriCorps members you meet are either trying to put on a brave face in a situation they'd clearly hoped not to end up in, or simply resigned to a life of ignominy. Some, realizing that they're largely beneath the High Council's notice, have bent the Jedi rules around attachments, taking solace in their families or even—surreptitiously—in each other. Surprisingly few are outright bitter, probably because most of those who were have simply left the Order altogether (you try not to think about the implications of large numbers of grudge-bearing ex-Initiates wandering off into the galaxy to fend for themselves).
But the most confusing, and perhaps the most tragic, thing about it all is how few of them seem to realize the importance of their own work.
Obi-Wan—though you'll deny having admitted this even to yourself if asked—was right. They're key to this peace you're hammering out, of course, but more than that: you know what it is to go hungry. When lean times come, slaves are not the first to be fed…especially not slaves in the desert, where every crop harvested is a minor miracle. Back home, coaxing a few extra drops of water from a plot of arid soil was life and death. For the AgriCorps, it's a slow day at work. And yet, despite the countless lives they've doubtlessly saved, they've been made to see themselves as lesser, as damaged goods, because they couldn't meet the Jedi Order's arbitrary standards of talent or behavior.
It kindles a spark of anger in your heart.
And there's another realization that strikes you, too: this is why the Apprentice Tournament looms so large in the minds of your peers. Success in its battles is a surefire way to avoid this fate. Failure puts one at risk of meeting it—and a serious enough failure might even guarantee it. You'd never really thought much before about the rumors that an Initiate was killed once over grudges that spawned from an apprenticeship lost in the Tournament, but now you're forced to wonder if there's more to them than you realized…
That thought is still occupying your mind as you head back to your quarters hours later (without Obi-Wan, who apparently had some sort of private meeting to attend with Battlemaster Drallig but promised to meet back up with you later). On your way there, you pass by the training salles, where a holo has been set up that shows a list of names of the Tournament entrants. Perusing it is an Initiate with a familiar shock of red hair.
"Hi, Darra," you say as you walk up behind her. "Checking out the competition?"
She turns halfway towards you and says in the overly patient tones of someone who's had to repeat herself many times, "Actually, I've decided not to participate."
You do a double-take at the list. Serra's name is on it, naturally, as is Iskat's and, to your surprise, Tru's. But sure enough, "Darra Thel-Tanis" is nowhere to be found.
"Serra's gonna be devastated," you say half-jokingly.
Her mouth tightens into a thin line, and you realize too late that you've touched a nerve. "Everyone keeps telling me what Serra is going to think about this, as if I don't know her well enough to know that already."
"Sorry," you say. "I should have asked you first—what do you think about it?"
She sighs. "What I think is that Bode was right. The whole thing is a sham. We're supposed to prove ourselves to the Masters, but…I already know I'm good with a lightsaber. Everyone already knows I'm good with a lightsaber. I could go in there and beat some other poor Initiates into the ground and crush their dreams of becoming Padawans, but what would that prove? That I can hurt people until they stop doing whatever it is they're trying to do, I guess. Because that's what makes a great Jedi, right?"
"Depends on what they're trying to do," you say, thinking of Gardulla and Watto and Gunray and Maul.
"Right," replies Darra flatly. "Tell me that again when Iskat splits her knuckles open on someone's face."
You're getting ready to argue the point, but you're interrupted by a tap on your shoulder and a voice saying, "Excuse me, are you Padawan Skywalker?"
You turn. The voice belongs to a boy a few years older than you, perhaps fifteen or sixteen. He is no Jedi, that much is clear from the obvious awe with which he regards the vaulted halls of the Temple—and the style of his clothes, gaudy and elaborate and woven from rich fabrics where a Jedi would be simple and austere.
You have a bad feeling about this.
"I'm Rush Clovis," he says. "I'm a courier for the Intergalactic Banking Clan. I'm technically supposed to deliver this message to the Jedi High Council, but…I thought you and your Master should see it first." He hands you a datapad.
Your eyes flick over the words with the same precision with which you pick targets from a fighter cockpit. We regret to inform you…interference with worlds under IGBC jurisdiction…cancel proposed asset deployment…legal action may be necessary…
It is a cease and desist message for the entire AgriCorps operation you have just put together.
You look back up at Clovis with a fury so palpable that he actually physically recoils. "You can't do this."
"I'm sorry," he says, sounding genuinely contrite, for all the nothing that's worth. "It wasn't my decision. I'm just the messenger."
Darra glances at the two of you. "Does someone want to tell me—"
"They're killing the relief mission to Kalee," you say through clenched teeth.
"What?" The one silver lining of the news is that it snaps Darra out of whatever funk she's falling into, even if only briefly. "In no universe are they even close to having the authority to do that."
"Well…if they really believed that, they wouldn't have sent me," Clovis points out diffidently.
"Yeah?" It's a serious effort of will to keep your hand from reaching for your lightsaber. "Maybe you can take a message back to your bosses for me about where they can shove their cease and desist."
Clovis winces. "It's clear that I've overstayed my welcome. I'll get out of your hair now. But please make sure that message reaches your Master and the Council. I'd hate for there to be any further unpleasantness."
Coming from anyone else in his position, that would be a veiled threat, but the Force tells you that somehow, Clovis actually means it. Somehow that makes it even worse.
As he beats a hasty retreat, you turn to your friend, and all your differences of philosophy and outlook fall by the wayside in the moment of crisis. "Darra…"
She nods once, firmly. "I'll get the others. You go talk to your Master."
"This is unprecedented," Obi-Wan mutters. You stop yourself from raking him over the coals for worrying about procedure at a time like this only when you realize that he's said "unprecedented" in a tone that would better fit a phrase like "completely idiotic". "Only the Trade Federation opposed the Jedi any more directly than this, and then only because they believed they could kill me and Qui-Gon and quietly cover it up. To openly try to compel the Order to forswear an entire sector of space…"
"We can't back down on this," you say before his train of thought can go any further. "You know that, right? I don't know the Banking Clan, but on Tatooine, if you let the gangs get away with extorting you once, they'd do it again and again until they were selling you on the auction block. If the whole galaxy finds out that if you're rich and powerful enough you can just stop the Jedi from going somewhere…"
"Oh, I quite agree with you," he says, stunning you into silence. "This requires a response, and believe me, the Order will respond. But our first responsibility is to our mission, not to the political difficulties unfolding around it."
You shoot him a skeptical glance. "So you want us to just carry on like nothing's happening?"
"What I want," Obi-Wan replies levelly, "is for us to do everything we can to help innocent victims of war and slavery. We can get bogged down in politics and leave Kalee to an uncertain fate in the meantime…or we can do our duty, and trust in the Force."
Well. When he puts it like that.
Still, though, you have no intention of putting off this reckoning forever. By the time you return from your next meeting, the battle lines will have been drawn, and you'll be able to choose where to make your stand. But until then, you'll seek out your first ally…
[ ] …on Naboo.
Queen Amidala is a sworn enemy of the megacorps, but this will take time you may not have.
[ ] …in the Senate.
Is there anyone in the Republic who has power they're not willing to sell to the highest bidder?
[ ] …in the Supreme Chancellor's office.
Palpatine's incisive policies can slash through this intricate knot.
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