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The Slave Who Makes Free: An Anakin Skywalker Quest

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[X] Plan: Engaging with the Premise
-[X] Make contact with potential allies in the Senate.
-[X] Link up with the Senate Intelligence Division.
-[X] Find out what's happening with the Council.
-[X] Check in on your friends.
-[X] Request help from the Chancellor.
 
Etranger said:
I had this really long post all ready to go about how always avoiding Palpatine is not actually a viable long-term strategy, but ultimately it boils down to this: Palpatine is a great character and trying to meta-game around him is boring. If Anakin is going to distrust him, then I want there to be an actual story reason for it. Right now, he doesn't have one.
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All right, I'll bite.

Palpatine levered himself into the Chancellor's seat on the back of Padme's crisis and now there's one with a similar enough smell. He's "Help from the Core."

Great character? Yes. There's kinda a lot of those in this franchise. It's why we keep coming back.

And just to bring in one of them...

What does Obi-Wan think of all this? How much have we gotten to talk to him?
 
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[X] Plan: Engaging with the Premise
-[X] Make contact with potential allies in the Senate.
-[X] Link up with the Senate Intelligence Division.
-[X] Find out what's happening with the Council.
-[X] Check in on your friends.
-[X] Request help from the Chancellor.
 
Etranger said:
I don't fully understand what you're going for with the rest of your post, but I will point out that Palpatine is actually from the Mid Rim, not the Core.
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In the AU all of the details about Tatooinian culture is borrowed from, "help from the Core" is a phrase referring to help that never materializes, does nothing important, or flat out makes stuff worse. There's a scene in one of their fics where Anakin mentions the phrase to Palpatine and he completely misses the actual meaning. It was pretty funny.
 
Etranger said:
I don't fully understand what you're going for with the rest of your post, but I will point out that Palpatine is actually from the Mid Rim, not the Core.
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In the same way that many longstanding US Senators become creatures of Washington DC rather than wherever they may have originated, gone to primary school, and skinned their knees while learning to walk...Palpatine's been a Senator for 20 years by now assuming pre-thread history aligns with OTL and that much time being in a place has a tendency to creep into one's habits and thinking.

And with the rest of it? Palpatine turned Padme's crisis into a way to get himself more power and I have rather strong suspicions that he'll try and do what he can to use this one as well.
 
Draz said:
I think it is unwise to assume that a police or military force will act in our interest.

If the anticorruption cops are powerful then they will have been co-opted by our enemies. They are only useful to us if: they are weak enough that no one has bothered; they somehow have a useful leader rather than a collaborator or a spineless liberal; and jedi magic can make them suddenly more relevant.
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Something relevant to note: Part of the corruption in the Senate that the Sith and corporate entities have benefited from was greatly enabled by the corruption in the Senate Guard. In Legends, the Blue-helmeted Roman-looking people used to have the authority to investigate, detain, and outright remove Senators over crimes committed by members of the institution. They were the premier law enforcement agency in the galaxy, ran their training program like BUD/S In Space, and made incorruptibility a key quality in accepted recruits.

But then they started taking bribes from the same groups that were paying off the Senators.

The Judicial Forces aren't as bad, but it's more like they have their own source of political patronage and under the table dealing that keep out most of the corporations: The Old Families, the ex-military families and institutions that made up the Republic Military a thousand years ago and soon are set up to sell out democracy for their prestige and power restored and expanded.

So the Intelligence person being gung-ho is not necessarily a good thing.
 
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Barondoctor said:
The old line about "who watches the watchmen", literally old as antiquity, comes to mind.
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I think most people in the Republic who're clear-eyed about their own Star system and the Galaxy would paraphrase Yang Wen Li on government styles and generational power. For all the Senate is a democracy where the representatives are elected, most of the planets and star systems are still ruled by nobles and monarchs. Nobles and monarchs who are supposed to embody the Platonian "Philosopher-King"…. but the reality is very mixed.
 
[X] Plan: Engaging with the Premise

I think we're more likely to protect ourselves from Palpatine by making him expose his unhelpfulness in the political arena (with a more politically savvy Anakin) than by trying to avoid him.
 
Always Late said:
I think most people in the Republic who're clear-eyed about their own Star system and the Galaxy would paraphrase Yang Wen Li on government styles and generational power. For all the Senate is a democracy where the representatives are elected, most of the planets and star systems are still ruled by nobles and monarchs. Nobles and monarchs who are supposed to embody the Platonian "Philosopher-King"…. but the reality is very mixed.
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I'll go a step further: the Republic itself doesn't (and I would even argue that by sheer dint of size and disparity of interests can't) work. Although I find this article contorts the narrative around its point as it goes on its discussion of "what constitutes a state" and whether the Republic meets those criteria (spoiler, it doesn't) is worth considering in light of our continued discussions of "wow the Republic is not effective". (I would personally recommend stopping at the splash screen of RotJ Palpatine; I found it becoming less enjoyable to read other than to disagree with and to find where its distortion of the narrative is stronger than its point in paragraphs beyond)

The Senate, per the Wookiee, had ~1000 senate pods (but the Delegation of 2000 and Petition of 2000 suggest that the exact numbers are not something the narrative basically ever concerned itself with. Which means I don't envy Kirook.)

We might discuss better ways for the galaxy to be governed (some form of federation of self-governing oversector-sized-states is my two credits), but none of them are how the galaxy _is_ governed. Poorly enough that they'll swipe those two credits and give me nothing for them. =P

...and to remain on topic for the broader discussion:
triumph8w said:
I'll say that without Palpatine's assistance, there is a distinct risk that this fails. And that it failed because we didn't want any 'help from the Core.'
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And if that is the case that is worth knowing too.
 
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