Jedi Padawan Quest (Star Wars)

[The Laurent]

Star Wars Quest Mechanics

This Quest will be based, with some changes, and plenty of homebrewing, as well as using the Homebrewing of others, on Fate Core. Fate is a system with many intricacies, only some of which you need to understand. Dice rolls will be behind the screen, as it were, but your actions can affect when, how, and to what ends the dice are rolled.

So here's a run-through. This is all subject to change.

The Many Uses of Aspects

Aspects are everywhere in Fate. A room on fire has an Aspect, weapons have an Aspect (a Lightsaber is an Aspect), and people have Aspects. These Aspects define things. For instance, say you have a Jedi Knight who has Knight In Shining Armor. He is brave, loyal, honest and true: he fights for truth, justice, and the Republican way. He might also be a Sullustan, and that's another Aspect, and perhaps he likes to dance, and for some reason this matters. So you combine all these Aspects, and these are the tools both for… and against, a character. Each character has a High Concept, which defines what their character is overall, and a Trouble, a problem which also defines their character and while will be used to help push the story along. Han Solo, for example, is a Cocky Smuggler, but he also Owes A Big Debt to Jabba.

The player has a Fate pool: this represents, in some ways, luck: but also the Agency of a PC. This Fate Pool refills at special times and places, and its size will vary, but by spending one Fate Point, you can Invoke an Aspect.

That is to say, you're a Knight In Shining Armor. So when it comes time to endure great hardship to save the life of an innocent child, you declare that your Will Skill roll that you've made or are going to make… is especially blessed. This this Invocation adds either a +2 to the dice pool, or lets you reroll the whole thing. We will obviously be deciding which to do when you use an Aspect, which you can do via votes. An example vote might be.

[] (Knight In Shining Armor, Persuasion) Try to convince the slaver of the errors of his ways, playing to his moral compass, buried and ossified as it is.
[] (Knight In Shining Armor, Athletics) Run past the slaver, grabbing the slave and trying to escape with her.

Etc, etc. We'll talk about challenges, but even when your Athletics is higher than your Persuasion… there's still cause to think about it.

So, to reiterate: everything has Aspects. You, your enemies… a building you lit on fire with your mind, and Consequences, which are the long-term result of paying a price. Anakin Skywalker gets chopped up by Count Dooku and takes the Serious Consequence: "He's 'Armless, Duke." Or something like that.

Sometimes, invoking an Aspect can be free. If you create an "Advantage" by your actions, you can then invoke it for free. For instance, if you use your Lightsaber to kick up dust, and succeed on the roll, you create an Aspect in the area: "Choked With Dust." And then you invoke that Aspect when trying to flee from the enemy. Or so on.

But, then, what about the other half of it? Because an Aspect you have can be compelled. You're a Knight and Shining Armor, in this hypothetical example: that means as the QM, I'm going to throw situations at you that make you pay for that Aspect and its gain. As a Knight In Shining Armor, you can't step aside and say, "It's not my problem" when a woman screams in pain and fear when she's attacked. This is a "Compel." You're made to do something. Accept it and you get a Fate point. Don't accept it and you have to spend a Fate point to fight against your very nature to stop it.

Thus, yes, you'll both be able to use Who your character is to aid you, and it'll also hopefully work just as well, if not better, than the sort of weighted vote, which always had the problem of how to keep the voters up and active in working with it.

Each character, along those lines, has a High Concept that defines them. "Gentleman and a Thief" or, "Grandmaster of the Jedi Order."

The Skilled and the Dead

Besides Aspects, Skills are the largest part of the Quest's mechanics. There's a list of Skills that I'm provisionally going with, and you can find that list in the "Additional Links" section. But what you should note, is what Skills do?

You add them to your roll. That is to say, a +3 means that you add three to the result of the dice roll… which I, the QM, will handle.

You attack and defend with Skills, you can Overcome challenges or try to create Advantages, and these skills themselves range from +0 to +8, though results can range a little lower:

-2: Terrible
-1: Poor. Again, this is a result, not a skill-level you can normally have.
0: Mediocre. This is the skill level of a skill you don't have points in.
+1: Average. A Stormtrooper might have this in Blast, a thug in Fight, etc.
+2: Fair: In this warlike age, many Jedi all but expect new Padawans to be at this level in Fighting, because otherwise they'll certainly have trouble. A skilled clone trooper on his own can Blast at this level as well.
+3: Good
+4: Great--A Jedi is thought of as more than adequately skilled in the blade if they have a Fighting of +4.
+5 Superb--A Jedi with this in Fighting is reckoned to be a Master Swordsman. Anakin was this, until he grew even better during the war.
+6 Fantastic--Both Obi-Wan, Dooku, Anakin, Mace Windu, and Palpatine are examples of fantastic Lightsaber-wielders. This is seemingly the peak of what most people can do. A person with even one Skill at Fantastic is doing well.
+7: Epic--Yoda's Fighting is Epic, as is Palpatine's skill at Persuasion.
+8: Legendary--The highest a person can get, period. Yoda's Lore, Palpatine's Blast. A skill at this level lives up to its name: people have heard of it, people have celebrated the skill, and it's even hard to find examples which aren't so far over the top as to awe

You aren't going to ever have a skill at Legendary, this isn't that sort of Quest.

Dice rolls themselves can range from -4 to +4, so you add the skill, like let's say +3, to it. Most rolls, however, fall between -2 and +2. They're somewhat bad (and you'd better hope your skill lets you try to muddle through) to somewhat good. Fate uses four fudge dice, with +s and -s, which add to the roll, rather than a typical six-sided dice. If all four dice land up +, that's a +4, if all four land on a minus, it's a -4, and of course most results are between the two extremes.

Look At What I Can Do: Stunts

The skills, as you'll notice when you look at the link, are both diverse… and yet also very, very broad. Stunts are what helps to make it specific. They're what makes a character special, even if two characters have the same Skills.

Stunts are a definite puzzler, and making tons of good Stunts is one of the jobs I have as a QM. Stunts, if you're wondering, can work several ways. Some require the spending of a Fate point, but many are rather more inherent. They create an exception to the rules, strengthen a particular application to them, or allow a new type of action.

As an example, Empathy is a great skill, and with the Force you can understand people more deeply. But you cannot apply Empathy to objects.

But if you have the Psychometry Stunt, you can, and if you succeed you can get special outcomes that you couldn't otherwise. But to be more specific to non-Force examples, consider acting first. Notice is what allows you to determine order, but let's say you're a quick-draw blaster slinger, than you could have this Stunt:

Quick on the Draw. You can use Blast instead of Notice to determine turn order in any physical conflict where shooting quickly would be useful.

Similarly, on top of what the link lists as Stunts, there are far more, including a 'Novice' and "Grandmaster" version of each of the Lightsaber Styles that will be done in time to eventually apply.

The Force

The Force manifests most of all as a combination of Stunts and Aspects. You can apply the Aspect related to using the Force (such as "Hot-shot Jedi Knight") to any roll that would be relevant (for the usual choice of rerolling or adding +2). This builds on what is already there. The empathic person finds, with the Force, that they can understand people deeply Of course, you have to spend a Fate point unless you get a Free Invocation. You Invoke the Force and become one with it while piloting, you push an object further by adding it to Blast, etc, etc.

The Force is also a set of Stunts. These Stunts, like the Psychometry idea above, allow you to do the impossible, but these two are tied, rightfully I think, into Skills. The Force makes you more, it cannot make the foolish wise, it cannot make the weak-willed powerful.

And of course, you need the Force in order to be able to purchase a Lightsaber, that most special of weapons. Much more will be explained about the Force and how to use it later on, and I might create a list of Stunts you've seen, or the like.

A Bad Feeling… Combat, Challenges, and so on!

When you roll all this, what are you rolling against? Well, it depends! A Challenge is a set of rolls (a single roll is just a basic "Overcome" roll of the dice against a passive difficult, which you must roll over) to do an action. For instance, you crash down on a deserted planet after a battle. There's no water, and you need to find that, there are wild beasts attacking you, at the same time as you're hunting for water and avoiding beasts, you have to repair your ship to escape, while Hiding from the enemy droids looking for you.

Thus, it becomes a series of rolls that you then combine to see the outcome. This will be especially common, since this is a Quest. You'll set a course of action, I'll do rolling, and then use that to describe just how everything goes wrong… or right, that can happen too.

A Contest involves two people going up against each other, often rolling different things: can someone shoot down the ship using Blast before its pilot escapes using Transport?

And a Conflict, well, that's when fight scenes begin… though conflicts can in fact be shouting matches, or other such things. Each character has a turn-order, they have Zones to occupy, they attack (whether physically or otherwise) and in fact they do damage.

So what is damage? First, it can cause "Stress." Stress is those lucky shaves. Stress is ducking just before a laser blows your head off, Stress is managing to keep from blowing your lid at an insult.

The average PC, and some NPCs, have separate boxes for physical and mental stress. They have a "one shift" box, and a "two-shift box." That means they can take up to 3 shifts (or pips, or whatnot) of Stress in that area before it has to roll over to Consequences, explained below. If you don't have room to take Consequences, and you take a stress beyond those three… then congratulations, you've lost.

Consequences are a nasty thing. There are three levels of Consequences: mild, moderate, and severe, with 2, 4, and 6 boxes respectively: you subtract the boxes from the attack. As in: if you have a full stress box and someone attacks you again for 1, you can take one box of Mild Consequences. Unlike Stress, Consequences don't go away after the end of a conflict. You gain a negative Aspect, such as, "Missing Arm" that can be invoked for free by your opponent, and doesn't go away after the fight. Obviously, mild is for far less than "Missing Arm" and Severe can be game-changing.

Final question, then: what does it mean to succeed? When you roll, you have four outcomes.

If you fail to roll as high as them, or below a target, you just plain Fail.

If you Tie, then you get a lesser version of it, or it at a minor cost. You're trying to fix the ship, and you get it working, but the shields are flickering, or you get all of it working… but only on repulsorlifts.

If you succeed, getting one or two points above, well. You do it!

And if you beat the roll/target by 3 or more points, you get a Success with Style, and that means that I, the QM, will throw good things your way. You fix the ship almost better than new, and for a little while, it'll run, "Straight Out of the Factory" because you fixed some minor problem you'd missed before. As an example.

Milestones

This is a Quest. The character will grow and change. Some of this will just be straight up being offered (or effectively offered) choices of skills, Stunts, and etc, but when?

I think in some ways that Milestones are still a good concept to use, and if it turns out they're not quite working, I can eliminate them and replace them with something else. Your advancement in the narrative means your advancement otherwise: you can fight a dozen foes and win, but if it doesn't advance the story (though it'd be likely it would), then, well, nope.

Milestones come in three different forms. First, a Minor Milestone should happen, on average, every 3-5 updates. It's the end of a Session, and anytime you could imagine it being the end of a chapter if it was a work of fiction, that's where. During a Minor Milestone, you may rename character aspects, switch the order of Skills, replace a Stunt (though all three will be guided via votes), and more importantly, you can change Moderate Consequences to more neutral Aspects.

The burn heals, the enraged feeling sinks back down to relative calm: it's not gone, it's not forgotten (at least not yet), but it's reduced.

Significant Milestones occur only when something major happens. The end of a plot-line, etc, etc. You learn something and grow, and thus you may add one skill point either to a skill you have, or bring up a non-existent skill to Average (+1), and of course you can do anything you can do with a Mild Milestone involving Aspects… except you can also rename a Severe Consequence.

A major milestone, on the other hand, is big. It's the end of a Star Wars movie, honestly, is how to describe it. On top of everything you gain from the previous two, you can make even an Extreme Consequence (the level beyond even Severe) be altered. As in, Anakin Skywalker loses an arm, and at the end of Attack of the Clones he can spend his Major Milestone to get a robot arm, among other things.

You can also take another point of Fate… or buy another Stunt on top of the ones you already know, and if you've majorly changed, you can even rename your High Concept. Anakin Skywalker slaughtered a vast number of innocent people in Revenge of the Sith, and his High-Concept changes to represent that he is in fact now a Sith.

Thus will you advance, hopefully, on the road to becoming a Padawan!

Additional Links:

https://libskia.so/pub/Star-Wars-Fate-Edition.pdf

Welcome to Fate SRD | Fate SRD

 

[The Laurent]

Name: Nima Tyruti.
Species: Twi'lek
Gender: Female
Age: 14 and 4/5th
High Concept: Twi'lek Jedi Padawan
Trouble: Little Twi'lek, Big War
Aspects: Twi'lek, Jedi Consular Hopeful, Jedi Padawan, Heir of Dumu-Malik, Apprentice Mind-Healer
Consequence: N/A

Skills: Empathy +4 (Great), Fight +2 (Fair), Athletics +3 (Good), Persuasion +2 (Fair), Vigor +2 (Fair), Will +2 (Fair), Lore +1 (Average), Notice +2 (Fair)

Fate: 2 points

Stunts:

Lightsaber Deflection: May use Fight against Blast attacks using blasters to deal with it/deflect the shots. Bonus of +1 to Fight while doing so, if the situation has an aspect that could aid this.

Mind Healing (Novice)--Empathy Can roll Empathy to remove mental stress from a target. Succeeding by three or more degrees means one can remove two mental stress. The challenge is Average (+1) for close friends and those one understands well, Fair (+2) for people one knows, and Good (+3) for strangers, as the empathic approach to Mind-Healing requires more understanding than a more scholarly approach.

Additionally, if one passes a Fair (+2) challenge, one can begin the healing process on a Moderate Mental Consequence. Succeeding on a Good (+3) challenge allows one to eliminate a Minor Mental Consequence, once a scene per target. If one is very close to the target, one can roll Empathy with a Good (+3) challenge to also begin the healing process for Severe Mental Consequences.

Jar'kai (Novice): You take no penalty for dealing with the attacks from multiple opponents, but take a penalty of -1 to blocking lightsabers while using this form, and may double that penalty (from 0 to one for non-lightsabers, and -1 to -2) in exchange for +2 on one's next attack. One can only use this surge once every 3 rounds.

In a duel, you are constantly flowing, as deep and mysterious as the ocean. One moment you might be tranquil and placid, another storm beaten, or concealing dangerous reefs. Your opponent has a hard time figuring out if your attack can be swept aside or weathered, or if it's a suddenly revealed rock that will flounder them. With the sweeping inexorable tides of your saber and the sharp, sudden stabs of your shoto you can keep your opponent off guard, deflect attacks suddenly, and use careful feints. But just as the ocean is slow and ponderous at times, you'll never have the force of a raging river with your attacks and your stance keeps you from putting the full force of both hands into blocks.

Lightning-Round Therapy: During a formal meeting, whether a debriefing, interview, or therapy session, Nima may ask certain questions designed to get to the truth. If the subject cooperates overall, by the end of a thirty minute period, Nima can learn that person's Trouble, plus two of their Aspects. Each additional thirty minutes added onto a session reveals two new Aspects. Once all Aspects are revealed, High Concept is next. However, if a subject is trying to hide an Aspect, they may roll a hidden Persuasion or Deception roll. If they are successful, they may obscure (as if it doesn't exist) or redefine one Aspect, Trouble, or Concept. An example of redefinition is one using this technique on Palpatine, but him tricking the user into thinking Lord Of The Sith is 'A Lord Among Men.' Or 'Lordly Demeanor.'

The Blinding Wind: Nima Tyruti can do a Force Push using the principles of flow and movement of the Rider's. This creates a great gust of wind, charged with hope, love, and perhaps a little righteous wrath. This functions as a regular Force Push in terms of damage, but gains +1 to the Will Roll if Nima successfully used Empathy shortly beforehand. It also imposes a Situational Aspect with 1 free invocation on the scene targeted against uses of the Dark Side, and acts or moments of supernatural malice. This Aspect lasts five rounds, under usual circumstances.

A Thousand Tongues: Using Force abilities, Nima can learn any language more quickly. She can get a very basic understanding in a day if given hours to talk to others with open minds, a decent understanding in a week, and a full conversational understanding in under a month. It may take years to master a language beyond that, but weeks is far faster than the months it would have otherwise taken Nima to reach that level. To activate it costs 1 Fate point.

Specialist (Diplomatics): Nima has gained, through her research, a decent basis of how to research, study, and understand the field of diplomatics. She gains +2 to all Lore rolls relating to that area of specialization.

None Faster Than The Wind: A Rider can lose a chase, but not for ordinary reasons. She is not only as fast as an average Speeder, but in any scene where she spends a Fate point, she is always within the same speed category or higher as any other vehicle or person under any circumstances, thus granting no vehicle free invocations of vehicle aspects. An attack cannot come so fast as to prevent her from being able to defend against it, except from total surprise.



Equipment/Extras:

Nima's Lightsabers
Permission: Jedi Padawan
Cost: None
Aspect: Shoto-and-Saber, LIghtsaber, Built Strong
Weapon: 2--Ignores all armor, with certain limited exceptions.

The saber is more like normal, though with twining gold and silver elements, and built to last, while the shoto has a smooth gem at the bottom, and is built like a Shuhudaku dagger. Both have different forms of the same symbol: A Tek'taka carrying a lightsaber around a tower, with a city in the background.


Extra: Dumu-Malik's Rider Boots
Permission: One Aspect related to being a Rider.
Cost: None.
Aspects: Wall Running, You Can Jump How High?!, Built To Last
Fate Points: 1 (Dumu-Malik's Boots)+1 (Basic Rider Training)=2, refreshes every day.

Dumu-Malik's Rider boots are not the most advanced, being the first. By all accounts they should be, and in some ways are, inferior to what Seluku and Baqqanid wore on a day to day basis. But objects of great significance in the Force have echoes, impressions, and these make it about the equal, or even more than that, than even the most 'modern' such boots in Seluku's memory.

When competing in an Athletics roll-off with someone else using Rider Boots, Nima wins all ties.

In a contested Athletics roll involving acrobatics, gain a success-with-style when you succeed by two shifts, rather than three.


Attached Stunts:
Faster Than Fast: For the purposes of travel through a city, use the Speed rating/category of the average Speeder.
Wall Running: During combat, you can move to any adjacent zone even if there would normally be obstructions so long as there's a wall that you can run along. While you're on a wall, enemies without ranged attacks can't reach you, and vice versa, unless some other advantage allows you to.
Amazing Feats of Acrobatics: During combat, you can spend a fate point to immediately move to any zone on the field, and gain an advantage for surprising your opponent.
Super-Duper-Mega-Jump: When performing an Athletics roll to jump, you can spend a fate point to reach distances or heights that would normally be superhuman even by Jedi standards.


Extra: Nima's Shuhadaku Knife
Permission: Heir of Dumu-Malik
Cost: None
Aspects: --Almost As Good As A LIghtsaber
--Subtle, Deadly, and Quiet
--???
Weapon: 1, ignores most armor

Nima Tyruti's Shuhadaku Knife is small, carefully crafted--if somewhat inexpertly--and the pommel has a blue heart as its symbol. She is still inexperienced with it, and has a lot more to learn before she truly understands what it is and how to use it.



Extra: Riders' Training Crash Padding, and Armor-weave
Permission: None
Cost: None

When leaping great distances, having padding is important. It isn't much good for stopping any sort of weapon, but when wearing it, gain an extra Mild and Moderate Consequence box that can only be used to absorb damage from crashing into something or falling.

The new Armorweave functions as Armor 1.

 

[The Laurent]

Note: Outdated at the moment, sorry.

But still spoilers for new readers! So...

Spoiler: This is a minor spoiler, despite being outdated

Scout: Scout's a new friend, and her being older means they don't have classes together as often, but Nima enjoys talking and training with her. She hasn't had time to spend with Scout lately, though.

Hannah: Hannah seems to have somehow... stopped disliking her at some point? Nima still isn't sure if this is mutual.

Wessen: Nima has watched Wessen become something new and impressive, someone able to stand up for herself, despite her stuttering. Though also someone in a relationship with Jayne.

Jayne: A footloose young boy who loves exploring and exfiltration. He... he's in a relationship with Wessen, a covert one.

Ayguin: Ayguin is a dear friend, and she often studies with Nima, or talks her through things. She's a medic.

Aydan: Nima considers Aydan a bully, and is wary about him trying something on her friends in the future. It seems too easy that he'd just stop, right?

Ahsoka: Ahsoka is a friend of a friend, and Nima isn't that close to her, but they get along nicely. Ahsoka seems to enjoy helping the younger students train, and the chances to relax with them.

Cho: Nima is on good terms with the opinionated Calimari, and discusses reforms or news with her frequently. Cho is almost oddly cheery, considering how steeped she is in the news lately, but it's inspiring in a way. Of course, sometimes he grates, and she's been a little busy lately.

Anakin: Angry, troubled, strange. Somehow they're... friendly. Or very friendly. It's hard to tell. She thinks that he might not see her, not really, or see her as representing something or... it's hard to tell.

Obi-Wan: Master Kenobi isn't a friend, but they've interacted in a friendly way before. He seems to respect her, at least.

 

[NemoMarx]

Electives

Climbing - Scout mentions that this bolsters physical strength, and we can assume that it's also about agility or dexterity to a lesser extent, and there is the promise of Bear teaching us how to fail and get back up.

Philosophy - Obviously you'd learn actual philosophy, with some notes about the philosophy of war. This might give a historical perspective on life, war, the sentient condition, and maybe be interesting for Nima's personal development, as well as learning more philosophical lore? And obviously, with the current conditions and the recent changes, you might learn or argue about how this philosophy intersects with the present, instead of just what it meant in the past.

Strategy and Tactics - This is a much more modern take on war, primarily, with actual real world examples that have happened recently, and how to think about battles and prepare for them. Basically what it says on the tin. Also more down to earth, combat wise. Rather than primarily a grand strategy of an entire front, or an art of war kind of perspective, this might touch more on leading men and the ebb and flow of battles.

Linguistics - The martial change here is that it focuses a bit more about the languages the seperatists use, and on negotiation and understanding them. It's also still linguistics, of course, and that usually means a bit about culture and how that interacts with language, how to understand people.

Art of Movement - This seems more war oriented than Bear's course, with dodging laser fire, navigating confusing terrain, and an emphasis on speed and fluidity over strength.

First Aid - I already commented briefly, but this one has Ayguin, as well as basic or immediately useful medical knowledge. Setting broken bones, cleaning and bandaging wounds, but probably not how to perform surgery.

Piloting - How to fly and learn spaceships, from a safe simulator seat instead of actually in space. Again, pretty what it says on the tin.

Note: While the process is only semi formal, and there's never a course catalog or anything, electives usually run for about half a year. Two electives is what nima has time for, not any sort of standard, because it's more based on your workload and fitting them in around your core lessons.

While technically initiates are free to tell a Master they're leaving the course and try to switch, Nima isn't likely to do that unless some narrative reasons compels her (failing out of them miserably, or a plot event.)

What's offered each "semester", or at any given time, is basically up at the Master's discretion, and they might choose to change to a new course that they think will be better for the temple, or keep doing the same one with only minor tweaks. Philosophy adding some more martial elements is an example of this.

 

[NemoMarx]

Force healing is not a simple technique, a silver bullet, or a cure all. Force healers do not usually bring someone back from the brink of death, regrow lost limbs, or end disastrous plagues. Healing will not allow someone wounded in battle to immediately leap back into the fray.

What it will do immediately is close wounds, cleanse them, knit flesh and maybe bone, dull pain, and start the process of healing greater injuries. Some users can enter a healing trance, or focus on the same subject over a longer period of time, but these are more advanced variations.

Mechanically, Fate has more than one kind of damage. You have physical stress, which is sort of like hitpoints, and healing will totally be able to handle that. You have mental stress, which force healing will not work on (although there may be other talents that do this. Yoda was able to calm minds and remove negative emotions, temporarily), and there are consequences(Physical and Mental both), which are what happens when you take too much damage in a fight. A physical consequence might be losing an arm, for instance. Force healing will not solve that for you, although with enough proficiency you may be able to downgrade a very serious consequence to a moderate consequence, or a moderate one to mild.

Force healing is also not a single skill, either narratively or mechanically. There are many different techniques out there. The way that Darth Bane healed himself is almost entirely different from the way Obi-Wan was able to heal Luke, for instance.

Mechanically, this means that healing is not locked behind a single skill, and may not work in the same way for all persons. Healing could be from Lore, from Will, from Vigor, or even from Empathy, depending on the user. And each of those might have different drawbacks or be able to handle different things. As an example, a Lore healer might need to know more about how the body works, visualize the parts that they're healing, but they'd have more finesse with their technique, while a Will healer could do it with less preparation and time, and might just be focusing on channeling the force to tell someone's body to heal, with downsides from that.

 

[The Laurent]

I too think actually discussing the options is a good idea. So, that's what we're going to do, if nobody minds. Past this point, there will be, from when this is posted, a six hour voting moratorium.

No votes beyond this point. Actually discuss what you want and why, it won't hurt you.

 

[The Laurent]

Monday, February 11th: Survival, Part 1--By @The Englanderish
Tuesday, February 12th: Every Piece On The Board by Yours Truly.
Saturday, February 16th: Darker Waters, Part 1 by Me.
Monday, February 18th: Survival, Part 2--by @The Englanderish
Tuesday, February 19th: Each Bird That Falls by Me
Saturday, February 23rd: Darker Waters, Part 2 by Moi.
Tuesday, February 26th: Episode 2 name announcement and etc!
Saturday, March 2nd: Darker Waters, Part 3 (Finale) by Me
Monday, March 4th: Episode 2 Opening Crawl
Tuesday, March 5th: Episode 2 Begins

******

Survival: "A set of snippets giving insight into the Order 66 experience for various Jedi across the galaxy. These snippets also show a dioramic cutaway of a part of JIQ's galaxy otherwise unseen until now."--The Englanderish

Every Piece on the Board and Each Bird That Falls: Companion Intermissions, each involves an important character considering where they've been, where they are now, and where they will go from here. They're a matched pair of Interludes, and are meant to parallel each other.

Darker Waters: It's more than a What-If, but most of all it's a day in the life of Grand Vizier Nima Tyruti, the second most powerful sentient in the entire Empire, a Nima fallen to the Dark Side, a Nima who is not a Sith, but is no longer a Jedi. A dangerous woman, a kind woman, a fanatical woman, a strange woman. Set fifteen years from current day, it's a non-canon hypothetical of sorts, and is hopefully suitably... well. It's not a pretty picture, all things considered.

Name Announcement: It'll be clever, I give you that. I've already hinted at what it'll be.

Opening Crawl: What Star Wars Episode doesn't have an opening crawl?

Beginning: It will begin with I, then II. In other words, we're starting anew, and in proper Star Wars style we're starting above a planet!

 

[The Laurent]

Preamble

We, gathered here, declare revolution necessary, and feel the solemn duty to explain what impels such a drastic act, and what is intended by such a revolution. What governments are worthy of revolution? Those governments which show contempt for the rights of sentients, which hate their own former ideals, and which are ruled by tyrants, especially those soaked in the Dark Side, are not owed loyalty. Though good sentients might stand with it out of loyalty, it is not deserving of their sacrifices, and thus we call upon all honorable and good sentients, and all planets where the rights and good of the galaxy are paramount, to rebel against Chancellor Palpatine and the system of the Republic which has allowed his rise.

A system which once brought freedom, democracy, and order to the galaxy has decayed, and over the last decade has abandoned all it once held so dear. We mourn its loss,. However, we heed the wisdom of the Jedi's creed, which is that to cling to attachments too strongly can bind one to fear, hate, and folly, all of which have sickened our galaxy over the last decades. Once a thing's time has passed, to cling to the attachment is to step towards the Dark Side. Thus we, the free sentients of the galaxy, do sever our attachments with the Republic and with Chancellor Palpatine, that we might better the galaxy.

Thus we do declare a Galactic Coalition to restore Peace, Freedom, and Democracy to the galaxy. We do so with no light heart, but with the greatest of causes, and the strongest of hopes that we may form a more perfect Galactic polity, and free countless sentients living and the yet unborn quadrillions from the rising tyranny of Darth Sidious, called Sheev Palpatine, and those who follow his creed.

[A section on Grievances follows.]

Goals

We reject separatism in all its forms.

We reject them in the specific, that is to say the Confederacy. There are many within the Confederacy who embraced separation out of the purest motives. Yet its highest leaders--those of the Trade Federation, Darth Tyrannous, called Count Dooku, General Grievous, and the Techno Union--were in league with Darth Sidious, and represent many of the evils that the Republic had been troubled by. Designed by a tyrant to be an excuse, an enemy to justify concentrating power within his office, the Confederacy as it stands is no able successor to the Republic. Its Parliament was ignored by those in power, its tactics do not bear scrutiny, and its victory would not have resulted in a freer, healthier galaxy.

However, we reach out our hand to those individual member states who joined the Confederacy out of disgust for the ills of the Republic, even though they didn't know the flaws of the Confederacy. We will fight for equality, peace, and justice, and we shall accept all who accept and exemplify our ideals, our goals, and our methods. We will do so without prejudice to past struggles, but if we are attacked by the Confederacy, we shall respond to defend ourselves.

We also reject separatism in the general sense. We desire not our own government, though we shall form one so that we may protect, defend, and serve the people of the Coalition, but the overthrow of the government of the Republic, which through the years has truly lost its status as a democracy. We will thus not rest, though the costs may be great, until the Sith no longer threaten out galaxy as they once had in the days before the Republic rose and, for a time, acted in good faith and with good governance to unite the galaxy.

It is our intention to do the same, and to unite as much of the galaxy as would join us. We respect the neutrality of any planet uninvolved in the war, and will not attempt to force them to join our Coalition either by violence or underhanded means. We cannot promise that the Republic will not try to do the same, but we will fight both for and with our ideals.

Endeavoring to do so, we shall outline our ideals, and outline the government which we shall form for the prosecution of the war and the maintenance of the well-being of the sentients within the Coalition. This government shall be temporary, and yet the ideals by which it is informed will presage that which shall be created by Constitutional Convention upon the ending of hostilities.


[A section outlining ideals, and a section still deeply in debate outlining the form of the Coalition government, followed.]

Conclusion

We respect the wisdom of the Jedi Order: and they often say that war does not make one great. It is not by violence that a government become legitimate. Instead, peace is the greatest measure of any government, and to avoid unneeded violence any good government's goal.

Yet we also hope to act as the Jedi have. They have fought, and shall continue to fight, often against seemingly impossible odds, to protect and defend the weak and innocent. They fight with honor, and have been a beacon in the gathering dark of the Republic's twilight. They have concerned themselves not merely with the most powerful, or the most influential, but those at every level of the galaxy. This fundamental decency has led to the choice of many Clones to side with the Coalition and those who cared for them over the cruel autocrat, Darth Sidious. We hope to embody this decency, this willingness to, if necessary, fight for what is right without sacrificing our core ideals.

It is in this spirit that we offer the only path to peace. To engage in civil war when it could have been averted is the second greatest calamity the galaxy could face. One might ask why we do so, then? It is because the greatest calamity the galaxy could face is to be run by the dictatorship of a Sith, Darth Sidious. This would lead to the resumption of the Sith Empires which have haunted and scarred the galaxy so many times before. The Jedi hoped that the age of such evils had at last ended, but just as they and countless other heroes struggled to overcome the Sith and other tyrants of long ago, so too are we assembled determined to do so again. We shall not surrender, or be swayed from doing what is right by the dangers. Thus we have only two demands to prevent a war. First, that Sheev Palpatine, Lord of the Sith, be handed over for trial. Second, that the government of the Republic call a Constitutional Convention, in which all parties may construct and create a successor state to the Republic in peace, without necessitating any more violence.

We hope these terms will be accepted, but fear they will not.

Until and unless these terms are accepted, we are in a state of war with the Republic. We shall not yield, not in the face of any hardships. We risk everything not for ourselves, but for the galaxy. We put all of the efforts, wealth, and wisdom of our planets--and our own lives--towards this just cause. We know that it will be no short war, and no easy task.

But we hope that the Force will be with us, that we will act according to what is right, and that by these acts we will awaken the galaxy to the threat of Palpatine and a Republic that has abandoned its way.

Thus we, representatives of the constituent planets of the Galactic Coalition, do sign this document, of our own free wills.

[Signatures below]

 

[The Englanderish]

The Worlds and Territories of Jedi Padawan Quest​

Introduction
The galaxy has splintered, factionalised and divided by one of the most monumental backfires in classical history. Because of this, it will be helpful to you, the players, if you are made aware of the new status quo in greater detail, to better understand and make decisions for Nima. To this end, two maps have been put together by me with extensive input from The Laurent, and using a variety of resources to make decisions on what in the galaxy stands where. The chief base for this map is Henry Bernberg's Star Wars Galaxy Map, an online resource that compiles the vast majority of existing lore and charts into a fanmade, searchable supermap. Go share the link with all your friends and support him in any way you wish. That said, some worlds had to be sourced and grafted on using info from other resources, mostly map scans on Wookieepedia from the Essential Atlas or the Essential Guide to Warfare. Also worth mentioning is GIMP 2.0, a free image editor that has allowed me to build this map in such a way that on my end I can easily modify the map once it is built and generate new versions.

Both maps are very large, so you may wish to click to enlarge them and have a good look around. For the benefits of those on metred or limited data (or just with poor bandwidth), they have been hidden by default so as to not devour those peoples' conections or bills.

The first of these is a territorial map that shows areas of general control and allegiance:

Direct link.

And the second breaks down allegiances of specific places:

Direct link.

​

It should be noted that, as Star Wars is so vast, this map can only be so complete - as can the specific allegiances. But from a private noteset of over 240 pages, I feel fairly confident that the vast majority of the places that even slightly matter are accounted for.

Additionally, due to the fluid nature of Star Wars continuity, several decisions have been made by The Laurent to reconcile (or decide between) conflicting lore or throw out unwanted components.


How To Read The Map
Territorial control in space is rather murky and often vague. A more 'correct' territorial map would be essentially a web of thin connections. That would largely be illegible though, so for functionality, the territorial map is a more traditional one of painted areas. With the state of the war complicating things, the precise nature and positions of borders will be quite undefined.

Due to the sheer scale of the Star Wars lore, many planets have been left unhighlighted on the specific map despite being physically on the map. This doesn't mean they don't exist in the quest, simply that for the most part me and The Laurent are unaware of them beyond footnotes. A given world of this type may or may not exist - if there's anywhere you're curious about that's not highlighted, feel free to ask and we can look into if it has a place here. By contrast, certain places have been R E M O V E D from the map, our illustrious QM having deemed them unworthy unsuited to JPQ's setting for one reason or another.

One other thing to remember is that the base of the map (as with 90% of all SW maps) is drawn from the GCW era regions and sectors. As a result the Corporate Sector has yet to balloon in size, large sections of the Western Reaches lie beyond Republic borders, and assorted Imperial conquests in the furthest parts of the Outer Rim and Wild Space are much less relevant.

You may note that worlds are marked in orange dots or blue; this is due to the base map denoting Legends-only worlds and DisneyCanon (and by extension any Legends places that were adopted by Disney) worlds and is largely irrelevant to our purposes - it's just I'm not going through the entire thing to make every single world one colour.

Finally, some places are not as accessible as others, particularly as you get further from major hyperlanes. In particular, the Deep Core's high star density moving slowly inwards has resulted in many hyperroutes being lost and having to be recharted and consequently proximity in that region is no reason to assume accessibility between two points, though there is one major hyperlane.

If you are curious about info for any places highlighted, by all means ask and we shall share a suitably redacted amount.


The Galactic Republic
Led by Chancellor Sheev Palpatine, the territories of the Republic are generally more centralised and cohesive. They are mighty certainly, holding the majority of the Core and certain key strategic points that will not fall easily. On top of this, the Republic is rather consolidated when compared to the other powers, boasting rather astonishing production and technological assets.

That said, their grand army is in anarchy and understaffed in the fallout of Order 66, meaning that while their naval power is exceptional, their ability to actually hold worlds they conquer will be difficult. The Republic's supporting factions range from the worst of contemporary corruption to duped idealists who favour the benefits of the Republic for one reason or another. Palpatine's personal upper echelons will become more and more comprised of the former group. There are also Republic 'supporters' who do so out of self-preservation and pragmatism, lacking alternative options in the present. Additionally, there are those for whom the name 'Republic' and its history is more important than any limitations of the current leadership. These are especially prevalent in some military positions.


The Coalition
The Jedi and their allies have moved fast and profited from it. In just a few short weeks, newly incumbent Master of the Order Adi Gallia and Master Jordyan Bell of the Council have taken part in the formal creation of a Coalition. An alliance of dissidents and protestors, states and revolutionaries all aligned to support the Jedi - and by extension the Clone uprising - in opposition to the longstanding failures of the Republic that culminated in the now-infamously botched Order 66. Its territory is vast but has paid the price for such a rapid assembly in disorganisation, overextended fronts and lacks anything so consolidated as the Republic's Core density. Its naval security is patchwork, and there are gaps in its strength even in its heartland.

That said, it has powerful assets, drawing from galactic heavyweights such as Saleucami, Kashyyyk, Telos IV, Wroona, Ord Mantell, Dac, Uyter and more. These, in addition to assorted key supporters from more grassroots backgrounds like Ryloth and Karthakk, combine to give the Coalition a fighting chance. Its decentralisation and relative dearth of solid coreward power will make it an uphill battle, as will the steep gradient in ruthlessness and brutality either side is willing to employ.

How the Coalition interact with the Jedi is something of an unorthodox matter - the latter have made it extremely clear that they are not interested in being the rulers of this Coalition, though by necessity are interwoven to varying degrees into both the emerging government and the military effort. It is a notably different relationship to the past one with the Republic, however. The Coalition itself has adopted two ruling bodies - a parliament and and more direct ruling Council. This Council is, by necessity, both larger and less overwhelmingly powerful than the Separatists' own highly undemocratic Council, and its members will have to be re-elected through Parliament.

Militarily, the Coalition has a powerful army, but an incredibly patchy navy, and this military is currently intimately tied up with the Jedi, complicating the power structure yet further. Time will tell how these contradictions will either be survived, or will lead to further troubles.


The Confederacy of Independent Systems
Already bleeding from the past year of losses, as well as the much more recent deaths of two key military leaders, the CIS has been especially harmed by the defection of Telos IV, which in turn took a not-insignificant portion of worlds by knock-on effect. At this point, the CIS is doomed - it is simply a matter of how long it takes to fully collapse.

It does have immediate survival options, especially with the current chaos, but fundamentally it is no longer a sustainable power, especially with their lines hemmed in by a variety of sieges. Making matters worse, its acting head-of-state, Nute Gunray, is not an effective independent leader, though this will be alleviated by the almost-certainly impending replacement of him by a more qualified council member.

Distressingly, however, large parts of what remain of the CIS are still at war… with the Jedi, and yet seemingly not the Republic. Meanwhile, what passes for its democratic leadership wrings its hands and debates what to do about Nute Gunray, the Council, the army, and all the threats that seem as if they will soon extinguish the Separatist dream.


Contested Regions and Systems
Some worlds are locked in the grip of sieges or otherwise contested between one or more major power block.

Moreso, in certain parts of space, sizable regions are unclear in terms of overall allegiance, having a situation akin to the OT-era Galactic civil war, where who actually has what in a given area remains muggy and hard to define until the region as a whole is cleared up. This is mostly the case in more far-flung and undercharted regions - especially those which had loose at best affiliations with either the Republic or the CIS.


The Council of Neutral Systems
Some fifteen-hundred worlds, powers, systems, stations or other polities have organised together to remain out of the war as a neutral power block. Collectively, they are substantial enough that violating the neutrality of any member world could turn a significant chunk of the galaxy away from the violator's side.

Led primarily by Mandalore and Duchess Satine Kryze, the group has been part of brokering failed negotiations between the CIS and the Republic, but otherwise has carefully maintained its status as neutral ground. It doesn't seem likely to change its stance anytime soon, though Duchess Kryze is suspected by many to sympathize more with the Jedi than the Republic. But if this is so, it has not yet resulted in any difference of policy.


Hutt Space
There is a distinct difference between the area of Hutt influence and the actual territory held by the Hutt Cartel. The former is what is typically known as Hutt Space and extends deep into Republic, CIS and non-Hutt worlds; the latter is a rather skeletal region distinct from the Republic and utterly dominated by the clans, in effect a minor-but-major regional power. They are officially neutral, but not part of the Council of Neutral Systems.

In truth, they do have a very strong loyalty.

That loyalty is Credits.


Miscellaneous Neutral Regions and Systems
Not everyone elects to join Satine's council - and while that leaves them far more vulnerable to having their neutrality violated, it does give them more independent freedom. Though many of these worlds have their own bargaining chips (or just lack of advantage to be gained) that keeps them out of the war. Others have their own territorial ambitions, and indeed some planets have left the CIS only to set out on their own personal path of conquest and local domination.


Undeclared Areas
The galaxy is still in shock, people are still deciding, and as a result, there are 'holes' in the first map, areas that have not declared one way or the other. The Coalition is far more permissive of these undeclared powers than the Republic or CIS is.


Other Points of Interest
Some places are not really held by anyone, but still have the odd something there that may or may not be relevant. These places can be found on the second map.

 

[The Laurent]

Month 4: The Eternal Republic

I ask of you: is it just and glorious to die in the name of the Republic?

That is the topic of this essay, based off of a question about the importance of patriotism raised by our duly elected Chancellor, whose voice represents the People themselves. I answer as part of an essay contest for the youth of this galaxy in a time of crisis. At nearly eighteen, I am old enough that I could go to college, and my grades allow it. But I will not. Instead, I will enlist, and I will do what I can for the Republic, at any cost.

My time, effort, and sacred duty is to act in whatever way I can. There is a path forward, offered by the Chancellor after recent legislation to begin to recruit a more loyal army than the 'boys in white' who lacked the variety and the sentience that has made this Republic great. The touchstones of our system are how it encompasses all known space. At one time or another every part of the galaxy has been under the benevolent hand of the Republic, even the Hutts once upon a time, before they turned back to their old ways of corruption and crime.

We have forgotten this, though, as the Republic has declined. It has done so before, but now we have a chance at last to break the pattern forevermore. Thirteen years ago, we began to remember. When Palpatine at last took his rightful place as Chancellor, there was a change that few could see. Even when Separtist feelings rose, so did feelings of loyalty among those who had been most true. Through his programs and his kindly, fatherly wisdom, those in the galaxy who had been loyal to the Republic learned to love it above all else.

In the first year of the Clone Wars, when speaking of the evils of the Separatist menace, some Patriots began to speak of the Thousand Year Republic, established since Ruusan, as the foundation of all democracy, justice, and order. They spoke well, and when this formulation was endorsed by Palpatine, having organically risen up to his attention, it soon became widespread among all, except some disloyal Jedi.

Others, in this last year, have gone further, and spoken of the Ten Thousand Year Republic, since the fall of Pius Dea. This Republic has endured through loss and defeat. Some elements of it have been imperfect: the Republic has declined and risen again, but it will survive this challenge. It endures even when democracy, bureaucracy, and the inconsistent Jedi fail it. This too has spread far and wide.

I seek to take it one step further. I believe not in some temporal Republic, but in the Eternal Republic, the font of all order, justice, peace, light, and goodness in the galaxy, even in its corrupted Pius Dea formulation. The Eternal Republic is not a democracy, but nor is it not not a democracy. Instead it is a set of ideas, and a set of places, from which the galaxy must be ordered not for the one, but for the many. The Eternal Republic is ten thousand species, all working for one common end. It is the greatest civic, political, and historical entity of all time. This essay asks whether it is just and right to die in the name of the Republic. Perhaps it might not be, some would argue. But there is no justice and right except to die in the name of the Eternal Republic, whose merits, virtue, and nature I will now outline.

First, there is the simple fact that the Republic is the only multi-planetary government consisting of many species to last more than a generation. The Hutts have many slaves, but no fellows, and all other experimentations have been either limited or failed. The genius of the Republic's attempt is the power of the Core, consisting of both human and non-human planets, to provide leadership and guidance to the Outer Rim, which is yet too poor and too underdeveloped to achieve the highest echelons of power. Yet Palpatine is from Naboo, and so this is changing.

However, it is no surprise that both the Confederacy and this Coalition, two sides of the same cred-coin, have come from the Outer Rim primarily. Some in the Core have said that this genius is only because of humans, but one only has to see the perfidy of some humans in the Outer and Mid Rim to understand that this is speciesist absurdity. Even though, in the fullness of time, all the galaxy can and will be united and equal in a government.

Second, the Republic is strong because it can change. At times the Republic has no need for democracy, and at times it has need for the most radical democracy at all. Democracy most of all is a concept that covers an underlying fact, which is that a government must represent the hopes, wishes, and dreams of its people. Such a government, whether it is called 'oligarchy' 'democracy' or even 'dictatorship' is just, righteous, and good. Only rarely has the Republic strayed from these virtues, and when it does it has suffered. But even the perfidious Pius Dea won election by the popularity of their platform. If anything they show not the necessity of democracy, but its limitations.

These limitations, if need be, may be surpassed in times of turmoil or uncertainty.

Third, the Republic is strong because it has changed. Every possible change and formulation has been achieved, for the Republic is endlessly old. New attempts at innovation that do not reference the past are like art that attempts to be shocking or grotesque for its own sake. We have built a powerful society that those outside of us envy, and one of the ways the envious try to ensnare us is to suggest that no model of the Republic can possibly be as great as their supposed 'trade federalist' or 'anarchic moneyist' or 'true democratic' reforms. But in the history of the Republic is all things a sentient needs to know about the history of the galaxy.

For, fourth, the Republic has concentrated the wealth, power, talent, and intellect of the galaxy, magnifying it and reflecting it in order to better govern it. Think of the Jedi: when they have stepped away from the Republic, they have become corrupted and weak, as they acknowledged the Jedi Lords to be. Now that they do so again, they have proven themselves life unworthy of life, an organization unworthy of its continued existence. Perhaps Palpatine will be so generous as to allow some force-users in the name of the State to continue to practice their religion and serve as enforcers of justice. But the Jedi's time has come, and passed. The Republic's time never will.

Fifth and finally, the Republic endured past all endurance. It is in the hearts of a quadrillion sentients, tireless and infinite. Against that, the life of any one sentient is small, and yet through the Eternal Republic we are made large.

Thus, to return to the question, there is no other justice, and no other glory, than to live and die in the name of the Eternal Republic. Each worker in each factory, each soldier on each battlefield, each academic organizing production or balancing the economy, brings us closer to victory. Only together we can win, and thus against that, complaints, or shirking, or petty concerns for mortality, are nothing. They are nothing, but you are everything, for you are the Eternal Republic when you act in its name.

So I will be happy to serve and die in its name, in whatever form it takes, knowing that its leadership is just and that the only true immortality is through service to it. I encourage all of you to do the same! There is nothing that we cannot do, if we work together. There is no foe that can resist us.

Forward, to victory! Forward, to glory! In the name of the Eternal Republic, all must do their part.


Big Explosion of Eternal Mania
--Article in Republic Weekly Bulletin

Eternal Republic-mania, as some call it, has swept the Republic. Since the lightning publication of the article by a young student, dozens of academics, thinkers, and figures have expanded on his bold new thesis. Already across the Republic, many prominent universities have opened courses examining the history of the Republic titled after this brave answer to the question. New textbooks have been generated, and millions have willfully signed up to do their duty to the Republic.

This bottom-up, organic transformation of our society was approved of, belated, by Chancellor Palpatine, who expressed his surprise, and admiration, for the wise words of such a young man, whose name is still anonymous for his protection against revolutionary murders. Already, thousands of teachers are individually deciding to push these revealed truths, and further and more complicated revelations of these simple truths are likely.

At the acclaim of the people, as well, there have been set up Eternal Republic Brigades to be trained for our important cause without going through the slow and stodgy procedures of normal enlistment, controlled by reactionaries, especially those that believe the outdated theory of "High Human Culture."

There is no end to the mania, it seems, and this can only be good for the Republic.

When asking citizens of Coruscant, one said…[Read Full Article?]

Report: Agent Bovel

It is likely that the sentient who wrote the article exists, but it's almost certainly Palpatine's ideas expressed through his pen. It has been very, very effective, and pushed members of High Human Culture out of several important roles, including a vital position as Senator Snopps from Corulag and Advisor On Culture to the Chancellor. Palpatine, however, seems to be preserving some of them in areas, especially military advisors, perhaps to counterbalance any movements.

It seems a total change, and one which is already penetrating into every single aspect of the Republic. Fiction is already being published in record numbers, romances or other quickly made holonovels set in the glorious Republican past, or exulting death in the name of the Republic. Music, holovid programming, textbooks, there seems to be no limit for this total penetration and control of society. In fact, the Eternal Republic ideology makes explicit that the Republic's control of every single element of each sentient's life can be necessary and justified in the name of the cause. It's expected that, if this enthusiasm keeps up, they'll be able to at least hold steady in army numbers enough to garrison their forces.

We need to disrupt these delusions, before we're overwhelmed by fanatics. To do so, I have several proposed moves. The line I'm using should be safe, but as per the rules, I will seek only local Intelligence approval.

With hope for democracy,

Agent Bovel.