Also worth considering is how much of a fleet does the CIS still have at this point and how big a fleet would the CIS assign to any singular (Super) Tactical Droid?
A Galaxy Asunder (Star Wars AU) (Currently Closed)
- Thread starter Skywalker_T-65
- Start date
- Location
- North Carolina
Hahahhaha.That moment when Paven and Malorum meet:
'What do you mean your Empire?"
- Pronouns
- She/Her
From what I know the CIS had like 3 military leaders of any note, Count Dooku, General Grievous and Admiral Trench, and since all three of them are dead by this point I feel like they wouldn't have much of a choice except giving more power to the Super Tactical Droids unless they want some literal randos as admirals and generals. Like yeah they probably have some other off-screen leaders, but considering how much the CIS rely on Drones and how they are mostly made up of corporate entities I doubt those leaders would be any good skill wise, most likely hired mercs or random corporate executives put in charge of fleets, and since the Empire and republic both have much better military leaders the CIS would have to put more Super Tacs into action to compensate for their lack of talented leadership, because without plot armor to protect the heroes the Super Tacs are actually extremely competent commanders and the CIS needs that more than ever.
Right, they can use Super Tactical Droids help fill the gaps, and may need to give more power to the ST Droids, but how much power and how much command would be given to any one single ST Droid vs building more Tactical Droids and ST Droids?
- Pronouns
- She/Her
If they wanted more Super Tacs they would have built more earlier in the war, they obviously can make as many as they want so they could have made thousands of them if they wanted, but they didn't, which means there's a reason why they couldn't or didn't want to. I don't know what that reason is but there obviously is a reason, and it's probably to do with it being harder to oversee that large an amount of droids or something like that, but needless to say I doubt that they will start mass producing them now, but even if they do make some more I doubt they would make more than a dozen at most, which means they would still need to give the existing ones way more operational freedom and overall power.
Puppernickel
Lord of the No-Prize
- Pronouns
- He/Him
If I might contribute a bit to the discussion? Please, forgive me for interjecting, but I feel I must ask since this would actually be relevant to pretty much everyone IC.
Setting aside even the question of "Would the CIS give that many assets to a ST Driod?", what about the question of whether they even have the numbers to do so? Clearly they still have ships, but they're going to spread out, and a far number of them have been destroyed over the war at this point. Would they even have the ability or desire to concentrate enough forces into a single clump to accomplish a fleet that big? Perhaps I'm overthinking it, but it does seem to umdermine the whole "on the back foot" aspect, would it not?
Also, darn post button being so easy to hit on mobile....
Setting aside even the question of "Would the CIS give that many assets to a ST Driod?", what about the question of whether they even have the numbers to do so? Clearly they still have ships, but they're going to spread out, and a far number of them have been destroyed over the war at this point. Would they even have the ability or desire to concentrate enough forces into a single clump to accomplish a fleet that big? Perhaps I'm overthinking it, but it does seem to umdermine the whole "on the back foot" aspect, would it not?
Also, darn post button being so easy to hit on mobile....
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Skywalker_T-65
Writer with too many ideas.
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- Plural/They/He/Her
We're busy with video script writing right now, but a general guesstimate would be:
A single Luchrehulk, and probably a carrier variant at that.*
A couple Providences, of the smaller variety.
Maybe three-four Recusants (again, smaller variety)
Maybe six-to-eight Munificents.
And assorted smaller ships (corvettes and the like) that probably don't number much more than 15-20.
This is just a guesstimate, final numbers pending. A rough spread of ships for different roles and the like. It is worth noting that the CIS fleet has been kicked across the Galaxy and back multiple times at this point, in addition to pissing away most of their strength over Coruscant. There just aren't that many ships to go around. More could be built (or converted, in the case of a Luchrehulk) but it would take time to do so. While the Republic-into-Empire transition has somewhat splintered the Republic(Empire)'s fleet as well, it doesn't change that fact. The Confederacy just plain doesn't have massive fleets at this point.
So any one fleet, especially one lacking an organic commander, isn't going to be terribly large. The best of the ships are going to be with organic commanders (such as those exist), so even past that, you'll see primarily lighter ships involved. Which is where we go to:
*Luchrehulk Battleships are beasts. Maybe not a Subjugator (of which only a couple (up to five, depending on how one counts canonicity here) were ever built and if any are in progress in some dock somewhere, they aren't near completion) but still. They're fully capable of fending off multiple Star Destroyers. As such, you would really not see these without an organic commander, in our mind.
Battle carriers, on the other hand, are weaker in direct combat but just have more fighters to throw at the problem. Cheaper conversion, there's more of them out there, and they would be fine for a Super Tactical Droid to have as flag.
(Providences, in spite of what Episode 3 would imply, are roughly comparable to a Venator and, as such, not the most powerful ships the CIS has.)
A single Luchrehulk, and probably a carrier variant at that.*
A couple Providences, of the smaller variety.
Maybe three-four Recusants (again, smaller variety)
Maybe six-to-eight Munificents.
And assorted smaller ships (corvettes and the like) that probably don't number much more than 15-20.
This is just a guesstimate, final numbers pending. A rough spread of ships for different roles and the like. It is worth noting that the CIS fleet has been kicked across the Galaxy and back multiple times at this point, in addition to pissing away most of their strength over Coruscant. There just aren't that many ships to go around. More could be built (or converted, in the case of a Luchrehulk) but it would take time to do so. While the Republic-into-Empire transition has somewhat splintered the Republic(Empire)'s fleet as well, it doesn't change that fact. The Confederacy just plain doesn't have massive fleets at this point.
So any one fleet, especially one lacking an organic commander, isn't going to be terribly large. The best of the ships are going to be with organic commanders (such as those exist), so even past that, you'll see primarily lighter ships involved. Which is where we go to:
*Luchrehulk Battleships are beasts. Maybe not a Subjugator (of which only a couple (up to five, depending on how one counts canonicity here) were ever built and if any are in progress in some dock somewhere, they aren't near completion) but still. They're fully capable of fending off multiple Star Destroyers. As such, you would really not see these without an organic commander, in our mind.
Battle carriers, on the other hand, are weaker in direct combat but just have more fighters to throw at the problem. Cheaper conversion, there's more of them out there, and they would be fine for a Super Tactical Droid to have as flag.
(Providences, in spite of what Episode 3 would imply, are roughly comparable to a Venator and, as such, not the most powerful ships the CIS has.)
- Location
- United States
Well, I can change the Lassell's Trident to a carrier Lucrehulk then. Darn.
That's about what I had in mind for Leviathan's fleet, though, and even then it's pitifully small to essentially be the main force blocking an invasion of Sluis Van or Mustafar; but you gotta work with what you got. There's the planetary defenses for backup, I guess. Sluis Van probably has an organically commanded Lucrehulk battleship on overwatch, at least.
Honestly, even a Recusant is a force to be reckoned with; small, fast, and with those twin superheavies in the prow, a few of them in the right place can really pack a punch.
That's about what I had in mind for Leviathan's fleet, though, and even then it's pitifully small to essentially be the main force blocking an invasion of Sluis Van or Mustafar; but you gotta work with what you got. There's the planetary defenses for backup, I guess. Sluis Van probably has an organically commanded Lucrehulk battleship on overwatch, at least.
Honestly, even a Recusant is a force to be reckoned with; small, fast, and with those twin superheavies in the prow, a few of them in the right place can really pack a punch.
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- Pronouns
- She/Her
So I have a question. How well defended are orbital shipyards and could I, hypothetically speaking, take over one with a fleet of that size? This being a completely hypothetical scenario that has nothing to do with my future plans of course.
An equally important question worth considering is 'how large an orbital shipyard can you take and hold?'
Conquering a shipyard is one thing. It's an entirely different question of how long can an upstart rouge force hold that shipyard without someone noticing and coming to take it back.
Skywalker_T-65
Writer with too many ideas.
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- Plural/They/He/Her
Especially considering most orbital shipyards are going to have major worlds beneath them, yes.
A Wise Hermit
Well, Sometimes.
Depends on where you are and against which faction, if you're out in the outer rim and your dealing with minor sector / system level ship yards you might be able to take one over quietly
Eventually though, Imperial / AoFS / Whoever reinforcements will be there to pack you up, but since you're in outer rim you might fend off lighter response forces before they prepare a feet tough enough to take on a Luchrehulk and it's escort fleet
(Granted Luchrehulks are kinda over-rated in a battleship role? They have a lot of firepower on paper but all of that firepower is spread around the entire circular hull of the ship IIRC, their main role is being the tank of fleet with their strong shields while they just disgorge tri-fighters and other star-fighting droids)
With your sort of fleet load-out you probably won't be taking and then holding ground but doing what the CIS did early on during the war - quiet raids, cutting off supply lines, etc. You just have to keep a low presence, which means that unless you know it's gone hot you'd probably have to reserve your bigger ships while you send out smaller ships to harass passive assets
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Or, alternatively, Rebel tactics, with an emphasis on Piracy.
Capture ships in tact, 'liberate' new droid allies, maybe turn the Luchrehulk into a kind of mobile factory of sorts that can repurpose and repair droids and smaller ships and have a good place to hold all that stolen cargo until it can be put to use.
A Wise Hermit
Well, Sometimes.
Not quite Rebel tactics since it's difficult to do HUMINT infiltrations and face-to-face smuggling operations with droids, but in a tactical sense? Yes
@SkylerTheWise
This has precedence, by the way, with a half-and-half re-conversion between the Luchrehulk droid control ship version and it's base form, you can have limited droid production and repair capabilities while having it's high freight capacity, since it's a repurposed freighter
Considering it's sheer size, though, I'd imagine that any refit like that would require dedicated shipyards of some kind... 🤔
(Funnily enough moblie shipyards do exist as starships IIRC, they are just slow and probably won't work in hit and run attacks, so you'd have to keep them far away and hide them behind a moon or something
Sounds like a Clone wars episode tbh, hunt down the Separatist mobile ship-yard
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Puppernickel
Lord of the No-Prize
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Sounds like a character arc to me
A Wise Hermit
Well, Sometimes.
*Chills out in afternoon tea with fellow Senators while others discuss fleet and ship arrangements*
Que random clone trooper complaining about politicians getting involved in micromanaging the military and messing it up 😜
UbeOne
Daydreaming CPU
- Location
- Philippines
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Nah, a good politician knows to focus on political objectives while letting the generals and admirals handle the military arrangements
Edit: An idea for a second character for myself is the starship engineer Lira Blissex, the idea being that she didn't marry the future Moff Denn Wessex, and instead of being in the Empire, she joins her dad Walex Blissex in the AFS, and while she remains ambitious in proving the worth of her engineering skills and her starship designs, she'd rather do so in the more upright AFS than in the cutthroat Empire. Plus it'd be a personal dare and challenge for her to work with more limited resources.
Thoughts?
Edit: An idea for a second character for myself is the starship engineer Lira Blissex, the idea being that she didn't marry the future Moff Denn Wessex, and instead of being in the Empire, she joins her dad Walex Blissex in the AFS, and while she remains ambitious in proving the worth of her engineering skills and her starship designs, she'd rather do so in the more upright AFS than in the cutthroat Empire. Plus it'd be a personal dare and challenge for her to work with more limited resources.
Thoughts?
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Vozen
Magic Adventure Cat
- Location
- Seattle
I'm mulling over how the inevitable Ahsoka and Barriss conversation/fight will go down.
Like when she's asked why did she do it, does she say she was scared and things spiraled out of control? Does she go off about how this was more important than individual lives? Does she say she planned to confess before the execution via coms once she was offworld and this was all to show her the truth?
So many options…
Like when she's asked why did she do it, does she say she was scared and things spiraled out of control? Does she go off about how this was more important than individual lives? Does she say she planned to confess before the execution via coms once she was offworld and this was all to show her the truth?
So many options…
Lira Blissex
UbeOne
Daydreaming CPU
- Location
- Philippines
- Pronouns
- She/Her
My second character:
Name: Lira Blissex
Rank: Chief Starship Engineer
Faction: Alliance of Free States (AFS)
Age: late 20s
Race: Human
Canon: Yes
Weapons/starships:
Key Assets and Allies:
Homeworld: (Unknown)
Bio, Personality, Traits and Relationships:
Name: Lira Blissex
Rank: Chief Starship Engineer
Faction: Alliance of Free States (AFS)
Age: late 20s
Race: Human
Canon: Yes
Weapons/starships:
- Starship engineering: She doesn't wield weapons herself, but she designs the ships that carry them, potentially to victory. Her dad, a living legend among starship engineers, trained her, and she is his finest student. While she's not as good at engineering as him yet, she's a much better hand at computers, and does much of the computerization for him. Her best work so far is the Imperator-class Star Destroyer, followed by the battle-proven Venator-class Star Destroyer, and she hopes to make even greater, grander designs down the line, resources permitting. At this time, she has preliminary sketches and studies for a Star Dreadnought that is nineteen kilometers long, though it's more of a dream project while more immediate, important wartime requirements are being addressed.
Key Assets and Allies:
- Walex Blissex
- Kuat Drive Yards contacts
- Contacts and researches with various engineering institutions
- AFS engineers
- AFS design facilities
- Former Kuat Drive Yards development think-tank members
- Various starship designs
Homeworld: (Unknown)
Bio, Personality, Traits and Relationships:
- Lira Wessex/Legends
- However, this Lira, while still ambitious, shares similar values as her father Walex, and has thrown her lot in with the AFS instead of the Empire. She had a romance with Denn Wessex, heroic naval commander and fellow tech geek, but they broke off since he decided to join the Empire as one of its first Moffs. In any case, she looks forward to the challenge of working with more limited resources, since working miracles with them would certainly prove her worth as an engineer.
- Coming along with her are fellow engineers from the Kuat Drive Yards development think-tank she led, who unanimously chose to lend their talents to the morally upright AFS.
My character (Auro Praxis) would love to have a use under Leviathan/Gunray, as a supporting character in any actions around Naboo, or in any harassing of enemy supply lines. If you also need to gather materials from hostile systems, Auro could be the man for the job as well!
Auro's primary goals as things kick off--keep Drunkenwell/his family safe, and climb up the CIS ladder to assist in doing so. Also, keep his OOM '42 charged and motivated! 42 is a snarky droid captain.
Yes! Auro will do what he excels as and disrupt
. Besides, raiding shipbuilding sectors means profit for him, and delays for his enemies.As for the fleet in Auro's possession, may I lay one out based on his backstory and ask if that is permissible (given he is made up):
1 derelict Lucrehulk without any warfare conversions, laid out with internal living space and farms etc so only point defense and shielding.
2 Providence class ships, the flagship "Striking Star" and its sister ship "Shining Spear"
3 Recusants (fixed in scrapyards, so lower quality, smaller version)
6-8 Munificents
With anything less I would be unsure if Auro would have the means to be any threat when raiding, I feel like with these numbers he would easily pick off undefended parties but would not be a significant threat alone which would be the point.
Ooh neat
Didn't see this up, will get a char up soon
Got a couple of ideas…
Either a Clone Commando or a Iron Knight.
Didn't see this up, will get a char up soon
Got a couple of ideas…
Either a Clone Commando or a Iron Knight.
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Right. This character is based on an interpretation of the Dark Side that may be controversial, so if the GM doesn't like the concept, I'll drop the character without argument.
The basic idea though is that Palpatine isn't a monster because of the Dark Side, he's a monster because he's a career politician with delusions of grandeur. And that a person can use the Dark Side for good intentions because Hate, Anger and Fear are not inherently evil emotions, but emotions that can be pretty damn justified.
In that sense-
Name: Annantar
Rank: Darkside user
Faction: Head of an independent partisan group, though open to cooperation with the AFS.
Age: 17
Race: Twilek
Canon: No
Weapons/Starship: Lightsabre, vibro-staff
Ship: WIP
Homeworld: Unknown
Appearance:
Bio:
Force Powers:
Force Lightning
Force Choke
Force Push
Force Jump
The basic idea though is that Palpatine isn't a monster because of the Dark Side, he's a monster because he's a career politician with delusions of grandeur. And that a person can use the Dark Side for good intentions because Hate, Anger and Fear are not inherently evil emotions, but emotions that can be pretty damn justified.
In that sense-
Name: Annantar
Rank: Darkside user
Faction: Head of an independent partisan group, though open to cooperation with the AFS.
Age: 17
Race: Twilek
Canon: No
Weapons/Starship: Lightsabre, vibro-staff
Ship: WIP
Homeworld: Unknown
Appearance:
Bio:
Being a Jedi used to be what I wanted most. It was all I knew. As far as memories are concerned, my life began within the temple. Of what came before, I only remember faded images and distorted whispers within dreams.
And for most of my life, I embraced the absence of any roots connecting me to the place of my birth. The friends I made recently sometimes ask if this ignorance about where I came from saddened me, but truly, back then, it never did. Emotions such as sadness were far from my mind, as within the confines of the temple, I was at peace. Content with the structured and serene existence within the order. Heh, not to brag, but I dare say that young-me was a good student. Don't get me wrong, I was far from a prodigy, and my lightsabre skills were solidly average. But I was always happy to learn, seldomly complained, and especially loved to read about history. Especially once I realised I would never run out of new history to read.
Life continued to be good. The day I became a Padawan was the second-best day of my life. Thanks to the knowledge I was privileged to learn in the temple, I felt secure when my Master first took me out into the wider galaxy. My master, he... he was a great Jedi, and a good man. He always made me feel safe throughout our adventures, and I was proud to be his obedient student. No matter what we faced, we prevailed, master and student in harmony.
...
Then the war broke out. And the harmony I held so dear was shattered. Suddenly, the entire galaxy was gripped with a chaos I had not thought possible. And I... perhaps for the first time as far back as my memory goes, was afraid. Afraid of death, when the news came that the Jedi would act as leaders in this chaotic war. And with this fear of death came a new fear, of dying without ever knowing where I had come from.
I felt ashamed of such selfish thoughts, but when I shared my fears with my master, he encouraged my curiosity. Offered to take me to the archives to find out about how I had come to be at the temple. To my own surprise, I took him up on the offer.
What I found out, it felt... underwhelming at first. As thorough as the account was, the place of my birth remained a mystery still. The Jedi who brought me to the temple had found me, a child of two, during a mission in Hutt space. Up for sale at a slave auction. Sensing the Force within me, she purchased me to bring me to the safety of the temple as soon as possible.
Back then, that discovery felt satisfactory. While I would have liked more details, at least I knew that it was unlikely that any old family somewhere far away would miss me. It was just me and the order, simple and comforting.
Then I went to war, and had no more time to really think about it. At least at first. This war changed a lot of people, and did not wait for me to get my thoughts in order.
Before, I had only ever read about slavery. There was much, far too much, written about it in the history text I loved to consume so much. But reading about it was nothing in the face of beholding it with my own eyes, when my Master led me and a squad of clones to liberate a separatist-owned mining colony. Oh, officially the workers there weren't slaves as far as the owners were concerned, but fancy contracts only make things legal, but not right.
Of course, I was proud and happy to see the relief, the gratitude of those corporate slaves once we got them onto a ship and the reality of the situation finally sunk in. But, the misery I had seen them in before, it was enough to make me question. Talking to them, most of them had been slaves since long before the war began. So why was the outbreak of the greatest war since several lifetimes necessary for both the order and the Republic to finally do something about it?
And, selfishly, I wondered. I used to be a slave. And my freedom had been bought, only enriching the person who would claim to own me, and so much more.
Yes, I know, the Jedi who bought my freedom probably had good reasons for not freeing me with force and striking down my previous owner. Most likely doing so would have been suicide and helped nobody in the long run, perhaps she was on a mission of vital importance and could not spare the time. Now I shall never know, and I suppose it does not matter.
My master gave me those and a lot of better, logical and compassionate answers when I brought my trouble to him. It mollified me, but not for long. Doubt continued to gnaw at my mind, so many mysteries all focused on the one question, how could slavery have been allowed to remain such a widespread and profitable business?
I received no answers that would satisfy my young, naive mind. And the doubt that this caused continued to cloud my mind. Distracted me.
The next mission I went on went badly, and because it was of me. Because my head was elsewhere. Inattentiveness at a crucial moment saw me ruining the mission, and the only reason why I did not die this day was that my master sacrificed himself so that I would live.
During the following years, there were many times when I wished our roles had been reversed.
Instead of dying, I was captured. Later I would learn that the separatist commander who did so then used me as a gift to a political ally of his. He kept my lightsabre as a trophy though.
And thus, for the second time in my life, I became a slave. Only this time I would remember every single second of it. Commit every cruel face that sneered down at me to memory. Made to never, ever, forget the hell I was consigned to for close to two years.
Zygerria. The most wretched, miserable, contemptible, monstrous place I have ever known.
...
Well. To be precise, I did not spend much time on Zygerria itself, but seeing how its inhabitants were the worthless scum who destroyed my old self, I conflate the two. As it was, my new... owner spent a few weeks showing off his prize catch to his friends and a few masses of Zygerrian trash jeering at the broken Jedi. Nowadays, I can sparsely believe I thought that humiliation would be the worst of it.
Kadavo quickly freed me from that misconception.
Ah, Kadavo. A barren, near lifeless rock of a planet whose mere existence had been turned into almost as great a crime as the continued existence of even a single Zygerrian bastard in this galaxy.
See, officially Kadavo is simply a planet in an otherwise worthless system by the same name that is important only due to a single mining facility extracting precious ore from beneath its barren surface.
The horrid truth is that Kadavo was an important cog in the monstrous machine of the foul scrapheap that was the resurgent Zygerrian Slavery Empire. For the mines of Kadavo were used as one of the primary facilities to "process" new slaves.
Hah. Process. A word so simple, so inadequate to describe its meaning here. To the Zygerrian scum, to process a slave was to break them. To destroy their mind. Torture, beat, strike, murder the person they used to be. To crush their spirits into tiny pieces, bringing them so close to the brink of oblivion, so close, then holding back just enough to reassemble the shards to build a broken, empty husk of a being. To turn people into animals. Deny them all that makes them who they were, to crush their hopes, dreams and joys, leaving only mindless shells who know nothing but obedience in the face of their master's whip.
When I arrived, I was one person among hundreds, maybe thousands. But the guards, the warden, oh, they paid special attention to me. Their prize challenge. An actual Jedi. A target for their impotent frustration about past humiliations. A chance to prove their worthless pride.
Kadavo was hell for any non-Zygerrian cursed enough to enter it. In that regard, I was not special, we all suffered equally. But, as a force-wielder...
The Zygerrians guarding and running the facility kept their sanity because they were soulless monsters basking in the suffering of others. Had anyone else, someone with even a shred of empathy, been in that place, even as a free person with all comforts, they still would have suffocated under the collective misery and pain every slave was constantly living in. Simply by having to see.
I did more than see it. I sensed it. Everywhere, all the time, even in, no, especially in my dreams. My own pain was but a candle in light of the wildfire of misery that raged throughout the whole planet. Like an ugly, pulsating scar in the very Force itself.
Then there was all the extra attention paid to me, of course. Naturally, they took precautions against a Jedi, even a mere padawan. There was a collar around my neck at all times. Every single Zygerrian on Kadavo had their own personal button to expose me to electroshocks strong enough to have me on my knees, crying out in pain within seconds. And as I found out several times, simply causing too much pressure to the collar, like one would when trying to disassemble it with a tool or even just crush it with the force, caused an automatic shock as well, too strong and quick to destroy it before the pain brought me down.
So I did as all slaves are forced to do. Worked as my masters ordered me too. Backbreaking labour with only just enough rest and sustenance to avoid death, but always just enough respite to remain in a state of constant agony. Under never-ending surveillance.
I tried to endure. To remain proud, to find peace in the Jedi Code. There is no conflict, only peace. There is no death, only the Force.
Kadavo would not let me have any peace. Especially at first, I could bear violence and mistreatment against my own. But especially at first, I often resisted when I saw guards abusing other slaves, which happened more times than I could count every day.
Resistance never worked. And the worst thing was not the pain when the laughing scum electrocuted me. It was how they always, every time, would brutally beat another slave, so that my defiance came at a cost to not just myself, but others. And, if there is one thing to be said about the Zygerrian scum, it is that they are monstrously, unforgivably good at their vile trade. Within days, I was completely isolated, most of the other slaves openly resenting my very presence for fear of it causing them even more misery.
Oh, the blessed innocence I had back then. I was sure I would be able to resist for years, and surely a rescue would come long before them. Instead, I broke within days. Debasing myself, begging the guards to stop hurting others, to hurt me instead. Sometimes they laughed and continued to beat others anyway. Sometimes they laughed and did as I asked, torturing me instead of others. And... a few times the pain was so bad that my delirious mind begged them to hurt someone else after all. Then, they would usually force me to watch them kill a random slave while loudly telling everyone how all was my fault.
Yes, I broke fast. Sinking into a spiral of despair and self-hatred. But I did not shatter, at least not completely.
I think my... processing was supposed to take a few months at most. But while stuck in that hell, despite the pain, I was afraid of leaving it the most. Of being deemed a successful project and be sent to Zygerria, or be sold off to some Separatist politician for a favour. There was a good chance being away from Kadavo would free me from the worst suffering, but...
I still remembered the salves I saw on Zygerria, briefly. The ones who had been processed. Physically most of them looked fine and healthy, but their eyes... when not locked to the ground, they were empty. Bereft of will and purpose. Obeying all commands without question.
More than the tortures of Kadavo, I feared the oblivion of Zygerria. To be an empty shell, less than a droid, a mere puppet being drawn through a worthless existence.
Thus, every time I thought the wardens were becoming convinced to have completely broken me, I would act out. Be it by attacking a guard in seemingly lunatic rage, or intentionally being caught trying to share food with another slave.
The worst thing was, I knew full well that my defiance only ever meant more suffering, sometimes death, for other slaves. But I was so afraid of becoming that empty puppet on Zygerria, I continued on this path anyway.
Heh. Perhaps at some point, the wardens gave up on processing me, thinking me a failure. Perhaps some would have preferred to simply put a blaster bolt through my skull, or keep pressing the shock button until my body could take no more. Truly, I have no idea why they let me live. Knowing Zygerrians, it was probably sadism, pure and simple.
That could have well been the end of me. No rescue was coming. They had broken me. My body was the weakest it had ever been. My mind clung to the thinnest strand of defiance, but I had given up on the Jedi code I once held so dear. I lived on out of possibly misguided defiance, but aside from that defiance, I had nothing left.
Nothing, except my fear. And my hate.
By the teachings of the Jedi Order, I had kept hatred far from my mind. While a youngling, this was easy. While a Padawan outside Coruscant, less easy, but manageable.
On Kadavo? Hatred grew with every second, with every lash, every bruise, every cruelty big or small. Only matched by my fear of the pain, for the other slaves, of the vision of a Zygerrian puppet. Held in check by the misery, the sadness, the desperate hope that the Jedi Code would grant me peace.
For so long, nearly two years, I kept my hatred silent. But it kept growing. It boiled. The constant work and torture did not leave much room to think, but when I could, clearly, my treacherous mind questioned why I kept the hate and anger down. For who could say that it was not justified a thousand times over?
When each day in that hellhole had long since stopped being distinct, eventually, the dam burst.
I cannot recall exactly how it happened, what led up to it, what was going through my mind before. Or even what triggered it. Perhaps one of the countless simple cruelties just made the pot boil over.
All I know is this.
The day when I stopped suppressing my hatred. When I gave myself to it. When I did not stay down after a guard struck my face.
Seeing the confusion, then concern in his eyes as the electricity from the collar did not drive me to my knees. The indescribable feeling of the voltages coursing through my veins as I surrendered myself to the fear.
That moment when, as the skin on my throat began to fume. When I raised my hands and unleashed upon that guard lightning that made his face twist in such glorious agony,
THAT was the best day of my life.
Pain could no longer stop me. The shocks from the collar were only fuelling my rage until I used the force to rip it apart.
The rest of that day is a blur, leaving me only with the memory of bliss. Like every day on Kadavo, it may well have been my last. But for all their bluster, the guards and wardens were only used to beating down malnourished, scared, unarmed and bound slaves. They were not prepared to face a force-wielder they had no way to pacify with pain, and who was too far gone to back down when they threatened to kill more slaves.
I came back to my senses in the main control room of the facility, surrounded by dead wardens, the blood of the head warden on my hands. As far as I can tell, I ripped his throat out with my bare hands and killed everyone else by striking them with Force Lightning until the pain killed them.
...
If there is one thing I could do again, I would like to have tried and saved as many of the surviving slaves on Kadavo as possible. Alas, my mind was not all that well put together. I heard that a few of them escaped in the chaos, but to my shame, that was not my concern then. Instead, I stole a single starfighter and escaped the planet on my own. Probably only escaping destruction through Zygerrian ships by going in the opposite direction of what they assumed.
For my hatred directed me straight to Zygerria. I managed to enter the atmosphere without causing much of a stir and set down close to the capital city. Single-minded as I was, I don't know if it was luck or the will of the force that allowed me to remain undetected as I snuck into the royal palace in search of my prey. The queen of Zygerria, that abominable thing I wanted to tear apart more than ever.
Well, that didn't happen, though what did happen was even better in a way. See, there I was, crouching on top of the palace's highest tower, looking down at the royal bitch I was stalking, waiting for the right moment to attack, thinking of what the best time would be to kill her in as painful a way as possible.
Only to see someone else beat me to it. Bessiru, bless her, then just another one of the queen's many personal servants. I dismissed her, walking demurely behind the queen-thing while carrying a tray with refreshments and snacks.
Suddenly she takes a simple cutlery knife from the tray and rams it into the bitch-queens back. Then, while the royal monster howls in outrage, shoves her from the balcony. Made for a pretty big splatter.
As you can imagine, Bess was resigned to die, though glorious person that she is, was preparing to go down swinging, tiny-ass knife against pissed-off royal guards. Lucky for her I then come down from up high, using my hate and anger to lightning every guard in sight to death.
The rest, as they say, is history. Bess and I escape the palace. Hide, exchange stories. Then we spend a month or so breaking into mansions to kill high-ranking Zygerrians while helping their victims escape. Until eventually our group of ex-slaves becomes too big to hide, so we enact a mad plan to steal a warship and flee the planet, who thanks to all the leadership bastards we killed, was already descending into chaos, as it well should.
And now would you look at that. Just as we made it into Republic space, both the Republic and the Jedi Order break apart. An already chaotic galaxy becomes even more chaotic.
Fortunately, our path forward is clear.
The details are a bit different for everyone on the crew, we did only just meet after all. But, everyone who decided to stay with me instead of being dropped off on a safe planet, stayed for the same reason: To kill slavers.
This... Empire seems like a place that will have a lot of it, and obviously some Seperatists are complicity in it as well. So we are not short on targets.
But even if the Republic had not broken, had in fact won the war and there was peace. Our goal would still be the same. Because a peace that allows for the continued and unchallenged existence of the Hutt is not worth its name. A peace that prevents Zygerria from being turned into a burning ruin is nothing but a lie. The mere existence of slavery on an industrial scale is not something that should be accepted with serene quiet. No, it causes anger, and that anger is justified. We will use that anger to draw to us others who feel like we do, inflame the passions and hatred in them. Through their aid, we gain the strength of numbers. Through that strength, we gain the power to change the galaxy for the better. And eventually, that power will bring us the victory where our, where all, chains are broken.
The Force will set us free.
And for most of my life, I embraced the absence of any roots connecting me to the place of my birth. The friends I made recently sometimes ask if this ignorance about where I came from saddened me, but truly, back then, it never did. Emotions such as sadness were far from my mind, as within the confines of the temple, I was at peace. Content with the structured and serene existence within the order. Heh, not to brag, but I dare say that young-me was a good student. Don't get me wrong, I was far from a prodigy, and my lightsabre skills were solidly average. But I was always happy to learn, seldomly complained, and especially loved to read about history. Especially once I realised I would never run out of new history to read.
Life continued to be good. The day I became a Padawan was the second-best day of my life. Thanks to the knowledge I was privileged to learn in the temple, I felt secure when my Master first took me out into the wider galaxy. My master, he... he was a great Jedi, and a good man. He always made me feel safe throughout our adventures, and I was proud to be his obedient student. No matter what we faced, we prevailed, master and student in harmony.
...
Then the war broke out. And the harmony I held so dear was shattered. Suddenly, the entire galaxy was gripped with a chaos I had not thought possible. And I... perhaps for the first time as far back as my memory goes, was afraid. Afraid of death, when the news came that the Jedi would act as leaders in this chaotic war. And with this fear of death came a new fear, of dying without ever knowing where I had come from.
I felt ashamed of such selfish thoughts, but when I shared my fears with my master, he encouraged my curiosity. Offered to take me to the archives to find out about how I had come to be at the temple. To my own surprise, I took him up on the offer.
What I found out, it felt... underwhelming at first. As thorough as the account was, the place of my birth remained a mystery still. The Jedi who brought me to the temple had found me, a child of two, during a mission in Hutt space. Up for sale at a slave auction. Sensing the Force within me, she purchased me to bring me to the safety of the temple as soon as possible.
Back then, that discovery felt satisfactory. While I would have liked more details, at least I knew that it was unlikely that any old family somewhere far away would miss me. It was just me and the order, simple and comforting.
Then I went to war, and had no more time to really think about it. At least at first. This war changed a lot of people, and did not wait for me to get my thoughts in order.
Before, I had only ever read about slavery. There was much, far too much, written about it in the history text I loved to consume so much. But reading about it was nothing in the face of beholding it with my own eyes, when my Master led me and a squad of clones to liberate a separatist-owned mining colony. Oh, officially the workers there weren't slaves as far as the owners were concerned, but fancy contracts only make things legal, but not right.
Of course, I was proud and happy to see the relief, the gratitude of those corporate slaves once we got them onto a ship and the reality of the situation finally sunk in. But, the misery I had seen them in before, it was enough to make me question. Talking to them, most of them had been slaves since long before the war began. So why was the outbreak of the greatest war since several lifetimes necessary for both the order and the Republic to finally do something about it?
And, selfishly, I wondered. I used to be a slave. And my freedom had been bought, only enriching the person who would claim to own me, and so much more.
Yes, I know, the Jedi who bought my freedom probably had good reasons for not freeing me with force and striking down my previous owner. Most likely doing so would have been suicide and helped nobody in the long run, perhaps she was on a mission of vital importance and could not spare the time. Now I shall never know, and I suppose it does not matter.
My master gave me those and a lot of better, logical and compassionate answers when I brought my trouble to him. It mollified me, but not for long. Doubt continued to gnaw at my mind, so many mysteries all focused on the one question, how could slavery have been allowed to remain such a widespread and profitable business?
I received no answers that would satisfy my young, naive mind. And the doubt that this caused continued to cloud my mind. Distracted me.
The next mission I went on went badly, and because it was of me. Because my head was elsewhere. Inattentiveness at a crucial moment saw me ruining the mission, and the only reason why I did not die this day was that my master sacrificed himself so that I would live.
During the following years, there were many times when I wished our roles had been reversed.
Instead of dying, I was captured. Later I would learn that the separatist commander who did so then used me as a gift to a political ally of his. He kept my lightsabre as a trophy though.
And thus, for the second time in my life, I became a slave. Only this time I would remember every single second of it. Commit every cruel face that sneered down at me to memory. Made to never, ever, forget the hell I was consigned to for close to two years.
Zygerria. The most wretched, miserable, contemptible, monstrous place I have ever known.
...
Well. To be precise, I did not spend much time on Zygerria itself, but seeing how its inhabitants were the worthless scum who destroyed my old self, I conflate the two. As it was, my new... owner spent a few weeks showing off his prize catch to his friends and a few masses of Zygerrian trash jeering at the broken Jedi. Nowadays, I can sparsely believe I thought that humiliation would be the worst of it.
Kadavo quickly freed me from that misconception.
Ah, Kadavo. A barren, near lifeless rock of a planet whose mere existence had been turned into almost as great a crime as the continued existence of even a single Zygerrian bastard in this galaxy.
See, officially Kadavo is simply a planet in an otherwise worthless system by the same name that is important only due to a single mining facility extracting precious ore from beneath its barren surface.
The horrid truth is that Kadavo was an important cog in the monstrous machine of the foul scrapheap that was the resurgent Zygerrian Slavery Empire. For the mines of Kadavo were used as one of the primary facilities to "process" new slaves.
Hah. Process. A word so simple, so inadequate to describe its meaning here. To the Zygerrian scum, to process a slave was to break them. To destroy their mind. Torture, beat, strike, murder the person they used to be. To crush their spirits into tiny pieces, bringing them so close to the brink of oblivion, so close, then holding back just enough to reassemble the shards to build a broken, empty husk of a being. To turn people into animals. Deny them all that makes them who they were, to crush their hopes, dreams and joys, leaving only mindless shells who know nothing but obedience in the face of their master's whip.
When I arrived, I was one person among hundreds, maybe thousands. But the guards, the warden, oh, they paid special attention to me. Their prize challenge. An actual Jedi. A target for their impotent frustration about past humiliations. A chance to prove their worthless pride.
Kadavo was hell for any non-Zygerrian cursed enough to enter it. In that regard, I was not special, we all suffered equally. But, as a force-wielder...
The Zygerrians guarding and running the facility kept their sanity because they were soulless monsters basking in the suffering of others. Had anyone else, someone with even a shred of empathy, been in that place, even as a free person with all comforts, they still would have suffocated under the collective misery and pain every slave was constantly living in. Simply by having to see.
I did more than see it. I sensed it. Everywhere, all the time, even in, no, especially in my dreams. My own pain was but a candle in light of the wildfire of misery that raged throughout the whole planet. Like an ugly, pulsating scar in the very Force itself.
Then there was all the extra attention paid to me, of course. Naturally, they took precautions against a Jedi, even a mere padawan. There was a collar around my neck at all times. Every single Zygerrian on Kadavo had their own personal button to expose me to electroshocks strong enough to have me on my knees, crying out in pain within seconds. And as I found out several times, simply causing too much pressure to the collar, like one would when trying to disassemble it with a tool or even just crush it with the force, caused an automatic shock as well, too strong and quick to destroy it before the pain brought me down.
So I did as all slaves are forced to do. Worked as my masters ordered me too. Backbreaking labour with only just enough rest and sustenance to avoid death, but always just enough respite to remain in a state of constant agony. Under never-ending surveillance.
I tried to endure. To remain proud, to find peace in the Jedi Code. There is no conflict, only peace. There is no death, only the Force.
Kadavo would not let me have any peace. Especially at first, I could bear violence and mistreatment against my own. But especially at first, I often resisted when I saw guards abusing other slaves, which happened more times than I could count every day.
Resistance never worked. And the worst thing was not the pain when the laughing scum electrocuted me. It was how they always, every time, would brutally beat another slave, so that my defiance came at a cost to not just myself, but others. And, if there is one thing to be said about the Zygerrian scum, it is that they are monstrously, unforgivably good at their vile trade. Within days, I was completely isolated, most of the other slaves openly resenting my very presence for fear of it causing them even more misery.
Oh, the blessed innocence I had back then. I was sure I would be able to resist for years, and surely a rescue would come long before them. Instead, I broke within days. Debasing myself, begging the guards to stop hurting others, to hurt me instead. Sometimes they laughed and continued to beat others anyway. Sometimes they laughed and did as I asked, torturing me instead of others. And... a few times the pain was so bad that my delirious mind begged them to hurt someone else after all. Then, they would usually force me to watch them kill a random slave while loudly telling everyone how all was my fault.
Yes, I broke fast. Sinking into a spiral of despair and self-hatred. But I did not shatter, at least not completely.
I think my... processing was supposed to take a few months at most. But while stuck in that hell, despite the pain, I was afraid of leaving it the most. Of being deemed a successful project and be sent to Zygerria, or be sold off to some Separatist politician for a favour. There was a good chance being away from Kadavo would free me from the worst suffering, but...
I still remembered the salves I saw on Zygerria, briefly. The ones who had been processed. Physically most of them looked fine and healthy, but their eyes... when not locked to the ground, they were empty. Bereft of will and purpose. Obeying all commands without question.
More than the tortures of Kadavo, I feared the oblivion of Zygerria. To be an empty shell, less than a droid, a mere puppet being drawn through a worthless existence.
Thus, every time I thought the wardens were becoming convinced to have completely broken me, I would act out. Be it by attacking a guard in seemingly lunatic rage, or intentionally being caught trying to share food with another slave.
The worst thing was, I knew full well that my defiance only ever meant more suffering, sometimes death, for other slaves. But I was so afraid of becoming that empty puppet on Zygerria, I continued on this path anyway.
Heh. Perhaps at some point, the wardens gave up on processing me, thinking me a failure. Perhaps some would have preferred to simply put a blaster bolt through my skull, or keep pressing the shock button until my body could take no more. Truly, I have no idea why they let me live. Knowing Zygerrians, it was probably sadism, pure and simple.
That could have well been the end of me. No rescue was coming. They had broken me. My body was the weakest it had ever been. My mind clung to the thinnest strand of defiance, but I had given up on the Jedi code I once held so dear. I lived on out of possibly misguided defiance, but aside from that defiance, I had nothing left.
Nothing, except my fear. And my hate.
By the teachings of the Jedi Order, I had kept hatred far from my mind. While a youngling, this was easy. While a Padawan outside Coruscant, less easy, but manageable.
On Kadavo? Hatred grew with every second, with every lash, every bruise, every cruelty big or small. Only matched by my fear of the pain, for the other slaves, of the vision of a Zygerrian puppet. Held in check by the misery, the sadness, the desperate hope that the Jedi Code would grant me peace.
For so long, nearly two years, I kept my hatred silent. But it kept growing. It boiled. The constant work and torture did not leave much room to think, but when I could, clearly, my treacherous mind questioned why I kept the hate and anger down. For who could say that it was not justified a thousand times over?
When each day in that hellhole had long since stopped being distinct, eventually, the dam burst.
I cannot recall exactly how it happened, what led up to it, what was going through my mind before. Or even what triggered it. Perhaps one of the countless simple cruelties just made the pot boil over.
All I know is this.
The day when I stopped suppressing my hatred. When I gave myself to it. When I did not stay down after a guard struck my face.
Seeing the confusion, then concern in his eyes as the electricity from the collar did not drive me to my knees. The indescribable feeling of the voltages coursing through my veins as I surrendered myself to the fear.
That moment when, as the skin on my throat began to fume. When I raised my hands and unleashed upon that guard lightning that made his face twist in such glorious agony,
THAT was the best day of my life.
Pain could no longer stop me. The shocks from the collar were only fuelling my rage until I used the force to rip it apart.
The rest of that day is a blur, leaving me only with the memory of bliss. Like every day on Kadavo, it may well have been my last. But for all their bluster, the guards and wardens were only used to beating down malnourished, scared, unarmed and bound slaves. They were not prepared to face a force-wielder they had no way to pacify with pain, and who was too far gone to back down when they threatened to kill more slaves.
I came back to my senses in the main control room of the facility, surrounded by dead wardens, the blood of the head warden on my hands. As far as I can tell, I ripped his throat out with my bare hands and killed everyone else by striking them with Force Lightning until the pain killed them.
...
If there is one thing I could do again, I would like to have tried and saved as many of the surviving slaves on Kadavo as possible. Alas, my mind was not all that well put together. I heard that a few of them escaped in the chaos, but to my shame, that was not my concern then. Instead, I stole a single starfighter and escaped the planet on my own. Probably only escaping destruction through Zygerrian ships by going in the opposite direction of what they assumed.
For my hatred directed me straight to Zygerria. I managed to enter the atmosphere without causing much of a stir and set down close to the capital city. Single-minded as I was, I don't know if it was luck or the will of the force that allowed me to remain undetected as I snuck into the royal palace in search of my prey. The queen of Zygerria, that abominable thing I wanted to tear apart more than ever.
Well, that didn't happen, though what did happen was even better in a way. See, there I was, crouching on top of the palace's highest tower, looking down at the royal bitch I was stalking, waiting for the right moment to attack, thinking of what the best time would be to kill her in as painful a way as possible.
Only to see someone else beat me to it. Bessiru, bless her, then just another one of the queen's many personal servants. I dismissed her, walking demurely behind the queen-thing while carrying a tray with refreshments and snacks.
Suddenly she takes a simple cutlery knife from the tray and rams it into the bitch-queens back. Then, while the royal monster howls in outrage, shoves her from the balcony. Made for a pretty big splatter.
As you can imagine, Bess was resigned to die, though glorious person that she is, was preparing to go down swinging, tiny-ass knife against pissed-off royal guards. Lucky for her I then come down from up high, using my hate and anger to lightning every guard in sight to death.
The rest, as they say, is history. Bess and I escape the palace. Hide, exchange stories. Then we spend a month or so breaking into mansions to kill high-ranking Zygerrians while helping their victims escape. Until eventually our group of ex-slaves becomes too big to hide, so we enact a mad plan to steal a warship and flee the planet, who thanks to all the leadership bastards we killed, was already descending into chaos, as it well should.
And now would you look at that. Just as we made it into Republic space, both the Republic and the Jedi Order break apart. An already chaotic galaxy becomes even more chaotic.
Fortunately, our path forward is clear.
The details are a bit different for everyone on the crew, we did only just meet after all. But, everyone who decided to stay with me instead of being dropped off on a safe planet, stayed for the same reason: To kill slavers.
This... Empire seems like a place that will have a lot of it, and obviously some Seperatists are complicity in it as well. So we are not short on targets.
But even if the Republic had not broken, had in fact won the war and there was peace. Our goal would still be the same. Because a peace that allows for the continued and unchallenged existence of the Hutt is not worth its name. A peace that prevents Zygerria from being turned into a burning ruin is nothing but a lie. The mere existence of slavery on an industrial scale is not something that should be accepted with serene quiet. No, it causes anger, and that anger is justified. We will use that anger to draw to us others who feel like we do, inflame the passions and hatred in them. Through their aid, we gain the strength of numbers. Through that strength, we gain the power to change the galaxy for the better. And eventually, that power will bring us the victory where our, where all, chains are broken.
The Force will set us free.
Force Powers:
Force Lightning
Force Choke
Force Push
Force Jump
That one can wield the Dark Side and be heroic sounds like it spits directly in the face of everything the Dark Side is supposed to be in Lucasverse canon.
EDIT: I considered it would probably be a good idea to expand, especially since The Force is something I consider to be of the greatest importance within Star Wars and I've given a lot of thought to the matter over the years.
The first thing is that I think you have the matter of Palpatine backwards. Darth Vader is a monster because of the Dark Side.
Palpatine, on the other hand, he isn't a monster because of the Dark Side, Palpatine wields the Dark Side because he's a monster. Palpatine is probably the kind of guy who would be self-serving and evil even if he didn't have The Force. The Force just enables the villainy that was already there.
Second, you're right that Hate, Anger, and Fear are not inherently evil emotions. Hatred of Evil is not a bad thing. There does exist righteous Anger. Fear can provide a valuable clue that something is dangerous and can either hold us back or drive us to heights not possible otherwise - Dark Knight Rises touched on a similar concept with Bruce trying to leap to freedom. With fear of the fall and the rope tether, he was stuck. With fear of the fall and no rope so that failure would mean death, Bruce had the motivation he needed to make the jump.
The question is whether those emotions guide you or if they control you. Hatred of Slavery and Anger towards those who practice it could lead to abolition and fighting to free slaves, if you let it guide you. However, if you let that same hatred and anger control you, it could easily drive one to go way too far by murdering everyone and everyone who may have any connection in so much as the slightest to slavery, possibly even inventing reasons to murder people and justify it "because slavery".
And while Force Choke as it's usually seen very much falls into matters of the Dark Side, I think that Force Lighting is a power where their is limited room for someone to wield it without tapping into the Dark Side. Namely, my personal opinion is that there is a very viable niche where if the lightning is wielded against the likes of droids or mechanics, you could pull it off and it works. When you use it against people, however, it's very much a matter of causing unnecessary suffering so it's kind of hard to justify it. So at the end of the day, it's understandable both how it would normally be seen as strictly a 'Dark Side' power and why you'd rarely see it being wielded by Jedi.
Ultimately, the core difference between The Force as it is meant to be and the Dark Side of the Force is "Are you using The Force for what The Force wants you to use it for, or are you using The Force to achieve your own ends." At the core of the conflict is "The Force for Selfless reasons versus The Force for Selfish reasons." In the same vein, the question of "Are you able to let go?".
This is ultimately what did in Anakin. Yoda's advice of being willing to let go, that is ultimately what Anakin needed - to be prepared to let go of Padme. Unfortunately, Anakin was so damaged by everything else he'd lost, combined with his overall relationship with the Order, and a lack of proper communication built off lies and secrets, that Palpatine's years of seducing Anakin to the Dark Side gave Anakin exactly what he wanted to hear.
Yoda told Anakin what he needed to hear, Palpatine told Anakin what he wanted to hear. And the irony is that what he wanted resulted in the very thing he sought to avoid.
So ultimately you have a conflict of the Light Side serving a greater mystical purpose while the Dark Side is about using The Force to serve yourself and ultimately being seduced by ever greater possibilities and power, which makes the Dark Side a bit like being addicted to drugs.
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