- Location
- Somewhere!
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Voting should close tomorrow, just so you all know.
Jedi Padawan Quest (Star Wars)
- Thread starter The Laurent
- Start date
- Location
- Somewhere!
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Vote Tally : Jedi Initiate Quest (Star Wars) | Page 60 | Sufficient Velocity [Posts: 1487-1527]
##### NetTally 1.9.10
[X] Politics and the outside world intrude in odd ways. Some sort of foiled attack on the Temple leads to a security lockdown and the Initiates are huddled together for protection. The threat turns out to be nothing, but being up in one location like that turns out to be very, very tense and scary
No. of Votes: 16
[X] Training is not that dangerous, but there are certainly risks. Nima witnesses a training accident that leaves scars, if little more than that. And a single accident can have repercussions that can follow one quite a way.
No. of Votes: 5
[x] A Padawan whose Master had died had apparently been asked to leave, after nearly a year of… well, the rumors were that he was always very reluctant, and that he'd been pressured into moving on, rather than leaving the Order earlier. Nima got to be there to witness the fireworks.
No. of Votes: 5
[X] Being around and friends with other people means seeing fireworks. Sometimes those fireworks reveal people in a different light. People you liked seem harsh, people you hated seem… not that different. It can be most distressing.
No. of Votes: 5
Total No. of Voters: 31
##### NetTally 1.9.10
[X] Politics and the outside world intrude in odd ways. Some sort of foiled attack on the Temple leads to a security lockdown and the Initiates are huddled together for protection. The threat turns out to be nothing, but being up in one location like that turns out to be very, very tense and scary
No. of Votes: 16
[X] Training is not that dangerous, but there are certainly risks. Nima witnesses a training accident that leaves scars, if little more than that. And a single accident can have repercussions that can follow one quite a way.
No. of Votes: 5
[x] A Padawan whose Master had died had apparently been asked to leave, after nearly a year of… well, the rumors were that he was always very reluctant, and that he'd been pressured into moving on, rather than leaving the Order earlier. Nima got to be there to witness the fireworks.
No. of Votes: 5
[X] Being around and friends with other people means seeing fireworks. Sometimes those fireworks reveal people in a different light. People you liked seem harsh, people you hated seem… not that different. It can be most distressing.
No. of Votes: 5
Total No. of Voters: 31
And closed. It's finals season, so expect the update sometime early next week?
The Sandman
So Zetta Slowpoke
- Location
- Wherever I am, which isn't where I'm not
So, apologies if I missed lots of previous discussion of this, but... is there actually any way we can avoid Order 66 and the ensuing death of ourselves and everyone we know, given that we'll probably still be an Initiate by the point it happened in canon?
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Depends.
Does the mentor who gave us a memento and rescued our mother die earlier than Order 66 or not?
Wait nvm. Basically though I think that we should operate under the assumption that Palpatine is an evil dick who hatches evil plans and will dick over the Galaxy, the Jedi, and us (in that order) eventually.
- Location
- Vancouver
Death of ourselves? Probably to somewhat likely based on the choices we make. Death of everyone else we know? Unlikely. Some are almost certainly going to die, and it'll probably be a lot of them in total, how many will likely depend on our choices and rolls.
Drag it out by making palps work for seducing Anakin, more time to not be in ground zero
Ultramandalore
Errant Quester
- Location
- just south of Parts Unknown
well, in the Legends timeline plenty of Initiates, Padawans, and low-level knights actually survived the initial purge and survived all the way to New Jedi Order so surviving that probably won't be too difficult. I don't think stopping the rise of the Empire is feasible though.
- Location
- Somewhere!
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The quest is not intended to end with Anakin cutting you down.
Edit: Note, I may have been unclear. Intended means that this isn't a definite endpoint we set out for the quest, a rocks fall everyone dies waiting for you regardless of decisions. This should not be taken to mean that you are invincible against Anakin. You're not Whie, you don't get to act invincible
Last edited:
- Location
- United States
I guess its impossible to stop order 66 ourselves right? Is it possible to have AnakinVader to spar us if we get him to like us? As in getting a head start to get the fel away from him. Even if its only one time?
Is it possible to surrender without dieing when order 66 starts?
Is it possible to surrender without dieing when order 66 starts?
- Location
- Somewhere!
- Pronouns
- She/Her
As a hypothetical, would him liking you always make him want to let you go?
He liked Ahsoka, and his interactions with her in Rebels are more mixed. Certainly, the fact that he knows your name, that he knows you have a mother, that he's confided in you about serious things... this all means you won't be a face in the crowd to him. In a white room scenario where Vader walks into a room full of younglings, he might recognize you first now, or at least quickly.
XV: Distractions
- Pronouns
- They/Them
XV: Distractions
Life was its own best distraction. Despite all Nima had been dealing with, and her Mom had been struggling with, she got back into the swing of things. So did her mother, though the dreams seemed almost plain now. At work. At home, the scent of caf and the sound of frayed tempers on the deadline days and slacking off on the other days. Then going to dinner, so many different places, spending money she definitely did have. They were all so simple that she could almost forget that there was a time not that long ago when Mala hadn't been okay.
Nima knew it couldn't last, her or her mother. In fact, if she paid too much attention to the war, thought about it too much, then her mood soured. It seemed like every day for two weeks straight brought in bad news and then more bad news. The war was chaos, one day the news speaking of a total victory on this and that planet. The next, total disaster. Word, too, reached the Temple of more fights between Jedi and Dark Acolytes. Obi-Wan and Anakin both featured prominently in more than a few of them.
They're heroes, unable to lose… no, unable to lose everything. When they lost they came back the next day. There was a back and forth to the war that made such contortions of speech inevitable, which wormed its way into the Temple. Until it'd been announced that there'd be only one mandatory meditation session a day. So that there was more time for other classes. They were afraid, and so were the Initiates.
Nima had stared in dismay at the datasheet when she'd heard that and gone running to keep from pacing and worrying. She could see it in all of her classes, the way that the seams were slowly beginning to come off the Temple. She couldn't even do anything, she was part of it. The Clone Classes, despite how valuable they were, were teaching kids about how to be a soldier. Not a Jedi. Not… really.
Except Jedi were being made to act as soldiers. Could it be bad to prepare them for this? She wavered and hesitated and clung to what normalcy she could.
Lexia didn't do that, though. When other teachers tried to make themselves relevant, the Zeltron didn't give her stories about military figures. She didn't give her case studies of war veterans. She taught as if the galaxy was at peace, and amid all of the confusion and chaos that felt like it could sometimes spill over into the Temple, Nima appreciated it. She'd find herself dropping her burdens at the edge of the room to be picked up afterwards.
These moments, and other moments, became like tiny bubbles of consolation in a sea of troubles, ones which Nima couldn't solve or even really navigate. The thought of going off to war settled badly in the pit of her stomach, and for all of the physical training she went through she felt more and more convinced that there was something… wrong with this war?
Wrong with all of this. She couldn't put it quite into words, at least not out loud. But she mediated on the problem, and while her vision and understanding felt clouded, even the small hints she could glean seemed almost to confirm...
But she knew what they said. At times seeking wisdom in the Force could become looking in the mirror and seeing one's opinions and assumptions confirmed. And even if the war was a mistake, it was one that couldn't have been stopped, wasn't it?
So she worked as hard as she could with Cin Drallig, and she didn't slack off in the class by the clones. In fact, those too had their restful, meaningful moments, the times when she just sat down and talked to them, turned it into an attempt to understand them. But they felt different, it was part of a trend that Nima couldn't entirely approve of, even while she thought the clones were good people. Not just good soldiers, but legitimately nice, loyal and honest. From what she knew of history there were far worse soldiers out there than people whose strict code of conduct meant they wouldn't go around committing atrocities because the other side was somehow sub-sentient.
Beyond that, even, she just liked them. But… it was Lexia that Nima kept on coming back to. She threw herself into her studying, for it felt like a way forward. A way to something else.
Yet, shouldn't she feel guilty? If the war was still going on, it was her duty to help out. Her own wishes didn't need to be involved at all.
But what if…
In moments like that, where for a moment she felt so much older than she was, old enough to be tired, she cherished what time she had in the Temple.
*******
Lexia, after the first meeting, no longer wore the hooded robe. She was still dressed in a very traditional way, but not quite so heavily. She'd pace around, shaking her head every so often. She no longer smelled as she did, though Nima had expressed interest in the trial with smells. So instead she smelled clean, like good skin and better soap, everything about her seeming detached from the ugliness of the war. It was a balance Nima lacked, and she knew that Lexia could see it in her emotions, yet trying to hide it would only make things worse. And she hadn't gone off to war at all… who would she be if she actually went off to fight.
All she could know was that in the room, learning Mind Healing, she'd felt better.
She'd asked Lexia about being in that one test, of special perfumes, and Lexia had nodded, frowning a little. Had said she'd taken it into consideration. She'd been a little quieter after that first day, let Nima sometimes talk herself to her own conclusions.
Like the day that she was supposed to be discussing a Trandoshan Diaspora short-story, "Father-Killing." It wasn't like she expected. It talked about this boy's relationship with his father on a planet far from the Score-Keeping she'd always been told about. And the Father-Killing was entirely symbolic, instead of the disturbingly common habit among some Trandoshan to condone such patricide in limited ways.
"So, did you expect it to have those themes?" Lexia asked carefully.
Nima always felt a little like she had to show off, even when she wasn't quite sure why she wanted to so much. "I didn't, but at the same time it makes sense, doesn't it? Killing your parents can hardly be the best strategy for a functioning society? But the way Arnoo struggled with his father's expectations was interesting. Becoming a lawyer wasn't a twist I expected, but the way he justified it… made it make sense."
"Yes. Keeping Score in a very different way," Lexia said, sounding a little amused. "Do you think the author was writing his own experiences?"
"I think he might have been," Nima said, carefully, trying to consider all of the possibilities.
"What if I told you that the author's name was fake, and that the author was a woman. Would that make it less authentic?"
"I don't know. I think that it'd depend. But there's something fascinating about the way his mind tries to justify it? It's clear that he doesn't care about the Score at all. He doesn't care about the goddesses… could that be part of who the author is, if it's a she? I've heard they're very…"
Nima trailed off, not sure how to say it politely. After all, she'd met Trandoshan Jedi before.
"Sexist?" Lexia supplied with a quirk of her brow.
"Y-yes," Nima said, flushing at gently amused look on Lexia's face. "I… yes. They're sexist. Like some Twi'lek, but not all of them. And, my mother, that makes me think…" She paused, tried to gather her thoughts. Could it be so? Or was it a challenge? It always felt like she was not quite prepared enough for Lexia. But the Knight never blamed her for her mistakes. "I think that if the author was a woman, then would she have really treated the mother so slightly? There was almost none of the mother in it at all. She was barely existent, and then only as a figure in the background. And Trandoshan culture does value strong women in the right contexts? Wouldn't she have participated?"
"An interesting point. So inauthentic?" Lexia asked, leaning in a little, her lips quirking into an interested smile. There was something intense and fascinated about the look on her face. She wanted to know, she cared about Nima's opinions.
"In some ways I suppose. I can't know about the truth of some elements. I'm not a son, I don't know my father." Somehow in this room it didn't feel painful to admit it. It was just a fact, something to state. It was how Lexia acted, of course. "And yet I can understand enough of it to like the story? But more could have been done with the mother, really. Yet the story was long enough on its own." Nima frowned, frustrated that she wasn't able to come to a straight and simple conclusion on the matter.
This kind of conclusion wouldn't have been tolerable in her Philosophy class, but instead Lexia was smiling wide. "It's good to admit the limits of your understanding. It's the only way to begin to understand others," Lexia said, with a nod.
Nima felt as if she was glowing with happiness at the sort-of compliment. She let herself smile and said, "Thank you. What do you think of the work?"
"I find the emotions plausible, but some of the relationships… well. As you said." Lexia shrugged. "But I'd also like your opinion on The Invisible Numbers."
Nima was glad that she'd not read ahead because Lexia had a tendency to switch around what she was going to assign. She never added something new, just switched around future stories or case studies based on what she thought would work. "Yes, I think that it's an interesting idea, of someone who can only see the world through numbers and math? Is it possible?"
"No less possible than the Force. And there are people whose minds certainly get a lot more meaning from math then they do from poetry," Lexia said.
"I actually managed to look up the author, and it seemed like his experiences in life were pretty similar to the story," Nima said.
Lexia nodded, clearly pleased.
Nima was starting to get a little bit better at feeling out what Lexia's emotions were at any particular time. When she let it, the emotions would wash over her, feeling so light in her mind. Right now Lexia was proud, but this pride was leavened with the worries and cares of her day. She had a life beyond this, of course. She had patients that she was concerned about, and a little bit of that couldn't help but leak through. But there were also Nima's own emotions, and those were more like a raging river. It slowed down to a stream at times, but adding them to Lexia's felt unfair.
And that made Nima want to be happy, just because it'd make Knight Lexia happier. But it was impossible and foolish to force that. Nima wasn't that foolish. "So I think I really liked it. It was a good attempt to present a very different view of how the world worked, and the prose itself was… good." Nima had no real experience in prose, but she knew that the dialogue had felt a lot more natural than many of the holovids she'd watched with Scout. "I liked the part where he went to the park and kept on seeing actuarial statistics for everyone. It was fun, and the whole story felt… right? Complete. It was pretty short, but that meant it didn't outstay the welcome with its gimmick? I'm not sure how much it taught me, though."
By the end she realized she was babbling. But by the end she also realized that Lexia had got up and sat right next to her, so she was perhaps a little curious about that.
"That's fine. Learning about people through fiction is difficult. People can do a lot of things to hide their own presence or understanding of the world in the words they write." Lexia shrugged. "So I have a few more short stories and a case study to assign, but I figured since we've barely started we could spend the rest of the time training."
"Training in what? The mind thing you'd mentioned? Involving strengthening my emotional control?"
"Exactly," Lexia said. "I'll project emotions, simple ones. You pull them apart. And distinguish them."
Nima nodded, even though she was still nervous around Lexia. It was an odd sort of nerves that couldn't go away even when the reasons were long gone. There weren't any other secrets to be revealed beyond what Lexia could no doubt guess.
"Please, don't worry."
"I'm not that worried. I just, I don't want to fail or make a mistake, and I've not been doing so well with this. I know that you said that it's hard and that everyone will get it at their own time, but I bet Marruc--"
Lexia shook her head. "Marruc isn't here. Focus on Nima."
Nima nodded, and Lexia reached her hand out. Nima could feel the movement, and Lexia in fact, in the Force. It was almost physical, almost synesthetic, and that's how some people felt it. She was bright and chipper, strange and changing, some days in a strange, distracted mood. Other days she felt calm and eternally present.
Focus on Nima. And focus on now, too, as well. She took a breath and worked on it. She tried to focus on and understand what she was feeling. She was tired, and unsure, and yet also happy. Content to be here. She centered herself on that contentment as Lexia touched her forehead, very briefly. Just a flick.
"What was that?" Nima asked.
"Mnemonic," Lexia said, as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world. "I associate the flick with the emotions you were feeling at that moment so that I can call back to them easier."
Which didn't sound like it'd work, but Nima was too busy trying to steel herself. But she wasn't doing so well.
She felt the happiness Lexia was pushing, but it was too easy to feel it and dive into the sensation as it pulsed outwards into her head. It wasn't angry or powerful, it wasn't controlling her, but she felt happy when she shouldn't, quite. So she took a breath and tried to work on her breathing as more and more emotions began to pile up in her head. She tried to hold onto the ones she knew were real, but her mind felt too much of a muddled mess.
With her eyes closed, there was nothing more than the Force and her emotions, and each of them was too vast for her to really grasp or grapple with.
It was a frustrating experience, and--
Nima held onto her frustration. That was a feeling she knew was real and hers, that she could cling to. So she hardened that thought, and when Lexia tried to hit her with contentment, or patience, she waved them off, holding onto her impatient frustration with her own failings.
They struggled for control and Nima lost count of the time. Lexia won every single time, sooner or later. There was no emotion she had that Lexia couldn't erode if she was trying hard enough with her Zeltron psychic abilities and the Force, when they truly combined like that. Nima was pretty sure that Lexia could be trying a lot harder, too.
"I… give up," Nima said after the tenth just defeat.
"You're doing well," Lexia said, calmly.
"Not I'm not."
"This is a difficult technique. If you begin to learn it after a year at any level of consistency and skill, that's not a bad outcome," Lexia said, softly.
Nima found herself relaxing from her agitated state. It wasn't even the Force, Nima checked for that. She just smiled and said, "Thank you."
"If you keep on practicing it: holding emotions, letting them go, and dividing yourself like this, it'll get easier. Now, sorry I almost went over the time, It was fun training you, and I hope you enjoy the next stories. I don't want to go too hard on you…" Lexia said doubtfully.
Nima shook her head, trying to suppress the brief moment of panic where she thought Lexia was going to change anything when this was perfect. "No, of course not! I'm really grateful for the lessons." She felt as if her legs were some sort of pudding and her body itself all shook up. She couldn't stand that thought.
"Well, then. I'll see you soon," Lexia said, with a nod, though there was something curious in her eyes. "If you have any problems, send me a message."
Nima nodded, and gathered herself before leaving.
She had no idea what about the lessons that made her so nervous, not when she liked them and treasured some time away from war. There was some strange edge that she felt like she was balancing on, walking through the halls. Her own footsteps seemed to echo with more weight than they should.
But she stopped just before she left tha hall, and savored her progress.
*******
"Hey, wait up!" Cho said. She was panting a little, the aquatic initiate not used to Nima's pace. It'd been two weeks, and Nima was just sticking her her routine as much as possible. She'd run when she could, do her regular exercises, meditate three times a day, and then deal with the reading and the classes. It was a very full life, and she had been enjoying herself, losing herself in the simple activity. She slowed down a little, her heart racing. She was sweating a little, but that was okay.
Outside, the sun was setting, and the light and shadows were odd in this part of the temple, Nima thought as she continued to slow until finally Cho had caught up.
"Hey, I wanted to say. I… I heard that you were talking more to Hannah."
"I haven't talked to her in weeks," Nima admitted. They weren't friends, so why should they.
"Well, I have. I don't like her. She's horrible," Cho said.
Nima opened her mouth to defend her.
"But she's right about Palpatine's party. Events are pushing them the wrong way. Maybe I don't hate him as much as she does, but…"
"But the situation in the Senate is getting worse," Nima guessed. She hadn't paid politics that much mind, but it wasn't hard to guess.
"Yes, exactly!" Cho seemed almost excited at the idea that she could find some connection point with Hannah.
Nima smiled a little, amused by the enthusiasm. "Well, is that that unexpected? Nobody is entirely bad. Well, nobody here." Nima bit her lip, thinking about the war. She'd heard stories about Confederate ship captains making 'daring' raids on civilian cities, and there had been other even more questionable stories.
Rumors of massacres, and yet Nima couldn't pin them down. The stories contradict each other. And she hated thinking about it.
Even though she knew that plenty of evil things had happened before the war. At nights she'd sometimes watch silly comedies, even though she didn't get half the jokes, just to--
And now Cho was coming to her with politics.
Nima was going to listen and smile. Maybe she'd even enjoy it, she told herself, taking a breath. She liked Cho, most of the time. This just had to be one of them.
"I suppose you're right, but she's still what she is. I think we should talk to her, figure out why she's so speciesist and stop it. Through political suasion. Or something?" Cho frowned a little and shook her head. "I just thought maybe you could help me double-team her?"
Nima turned a little bit and said, "You think she'd appreciate it?"
"Well, I don't know about that…" Cho began.
"No, I don't think she would," Nima declared, quietly. "I don't know if that's how it works."
"But how can we know if we don't try?" Cho asked. She looked big-eyed at Nima. "And if she's right about…"
"I'm the one who talked to her first," Nima said. "If we're going to do anything, it should be listening to her and judging her accordingly. But she's not going to talk about it. I tried to wait for the right chance to do that, and I didn't find it. There's not a time when she won't be offended or dismissive."
Cho fidgeted with her hands a little. "But can someone be--"
"Prejudiced, and yet still sometimes right?" Nima asked, her lekku shifting a little as she considered it. "But being right sometimes doesn't change that she's wrong sometimes too."
Nima thought about the cases she'd heard, about the war, in which violence had to be done to stop violence. She'd read about a man who thought he was glass, and a woman who couldn't help but triple-check every single door she went through, in case it went to another world, somehow. She thought about little things like that, and big things like the way that there was word that there'd been a thousand people dead in some shuttle accident in a battlefield. A LAAT, or two, or… the stories depended. Running into a village in the middle of a fight and starting a fire that had engulfed an entire huge forest.
She thought of all of this, pressing down on her endlessly.It came in waves, those thoughts, and she had to struggle to keep ahead of it, sometimes.
"You're very mature," Cho complimented.
But she didn't want to be.
"Well, maybe I am, but I don't feel like it. If we aren't going to argue with Hannah, I know something else we could do."
"What?"
Nima stepped closer, and Cho looked a little baffled. Her huge eyes grew even wider, gaping a little uncertainly.
Nima tapped Cho on the shoulder, feeling the mix of confusion and anticipation and trust, and committing it to memory.
"Tag, you're it."
She turned and ran off, and Cho let out a shout and began to chase her.
There. That was better.
******
Amusements. Diversions. And whatever her Mom was doing.
It took a while to recognize it at first. Nima didn't have the experience to really understand it, but slowly she realized that dreams of her mother going out to eat with a bunch of different men, and then going to an art gallery with a different man, and then going to a holovid with a different man… were dates.
They didn't all end badly, but she never saw the same guy repeated. And she could feel Mala's frustration. Whatever she saw in the Twi'leks and humans--though it was mostly Twi'leks--it wasn't quite what she was looking for.
They talked a lot, or they talked too little. They laughed loud or they never laughed at her jokes. She was unused to it, and unused to how they acted around her. They felt like a burden, and being with them made the music too annoying, the food too tasteless… it just didn't work. So on to the next one.
Nima witnessed all of it with an increasing desire to perhaps find a way to stop seeing it. To stop spying on her mother's attempts at happiness.
Each time she saw more of it, the awareness increased that this was her mother's life, one that didn't actually have much to do with her.
Her mother wasn't required and hadn't lived her life in mourning for her daughter who'd joined the Jedi Temple.
Mala worried about the war, but in an abstract way. She had her day job and she just wanted to find someone to love.
Someone to care for.
Nima wondered, vaguely, what that was like. But it really wasn't that important, and so she just hoped her mother found someone.
And also that she'd start having a dream, any dream, that wasn't about her mother.
******
It was early in the morning when she got the summons in the middle of class for a 'game' that she was invited to, as part of the Clone Class. They'd assembled and taken apart a rifle, and they'd gone for a lesson in bailing out of ships, if not flying or operating them, at least not yet. It'd been fun, and that's the technique they'd always used.
They made it into a game, into something for children. Though at least they weren't teaching it to anyone under ten.
There were some things the Temple wouldn't allow, and even though Nima knew that clones had been doing these sorts of things with far younger figures, she was glad.
The clones certainly wouldn't have thought about that limit on their own.
Despite all that, she followed the directions to the letter, heading down towards the less-used wing of the Temple, and finding a door with a sign in front of it. 'In Here' it said, and Nima smiled, relaxing a little.
Then she saw what was inside. The first thing she could smell was blaster gas, and then came polish, boots, sweat and… plasma? It was hard to quite define, but of course what she saw confirmed it. There were a bunch of buckets in the room, some of them filled with various types of blasters, others filled with headsets, or material to make a trap. It looked as if there were entire kits in there.
Wessen would have a field day… and so would Ayguin, because there were what looked like dummy, painted doctor's bags. She walked over towards them and opened one, and saw that the needle was fake. But a note read: 'Can give a second chance to a downed comrade.'
Huh. Nima was starting to guess what it was, especially when she saw that the very last barrel included these straps and sensors that were no doubt supposed to tell her when she was dead, versus wounded. Lucky that she's brought both of 'her' lightsabers, as there was a bucket with practice ones… but none were a shoto.
A straight out war game, and she bet that--
She turned in time, sensing him in the Force right before he stepped in.
Aydan stared at her. He had peach fuzz on his face and looked a little more together than he had before, but besides that it was as if a year and change hadn't passed. But it had, and so Nima tried not to react negatively.
"You! What are you doing here?" he said. His voice cracked this time, just a little.
"Preparing to play a game," Nima said. "I think?" She couldn't feel his emotions, but his face itself showed everything.
He was, to put it simply, suspicious of her. "Oh, right. It's been a while since we've really talked."
"It's been forever since we've really talked," Nima said. Really talked and not argued, or been her defending Wessen from him. She'd never been close, and she'd never had to be. He wasn't her clan mate, after all.
"I… guess. Are you the one who snitched on me?" Aydan asked, though he didn't sound as angry as she expected.
"Snitched?" Nima asked, as she felt three figures moving towards the door. She recognized all three of them in the Force. "What do you mean?"
"To Yoda!" Aydan said, sounding a little frustrated as he stalked forward… but not towards her, instead going to a wall and leaning against it. He stank of sweat, and had clearly come off of some other bit of exercise. Perhaps he was too tuckered out to waste his energy fighting with her when he had to conserve it. Perhaps not? "Care for others, you must show. I got to be a babysitter, and… a bunch of other things."
"Babysitter?" Nima asked.
"For the very youngest Younglings," Aydan said. "I guess they're cute kids, and hopefully the war'll be done before they have to get involved at all."
Nima allowed her shoulders to loosen a little, as she considered this. "I hope they don't either," Nima said. "I don't feel sorry for that. I've done things I feel bad about. That's not one of them."
"Ah," Aygan said, quietly. He tensed a little, but didn't say anything as Yarua stepped in, two clones in armor behind him. They had their helmets off, and Nima could recognize the force presence of Lark and the newest of the clones, Eleven.
"Alright, this is simple. Nima's already begun to suit up, but we take what weapons and equipment we want, we take sensors, and then there's a specially designed battlefield. The goal is to beat the other team of five." Lark grinned. "Really simple. Obvious rules, no killing anyone or hitting anyone who is already declared dead. Other than that, there are no rules. Do whatever we decide to do. Oh, and what's the last rule Eleven."
"Oh," Eleven said, a little hesitantly. "You can't ask us for too much advice. You're supposed to be practicing squad tactics, not obeying orders."
Nima blinked. That was a lot to dump on them. It was true that they'd had a little practice with squad tactics, there was a holovid show and a talk about how to lead one… but they'd barely seemed to touch on it before this. But maybe that was the point?
A test of how they were doing.
Yarua roared (saying "Will this stuff fit me?"), and Nima frowned, trying to think through all the problems there'd be. The clones were starting to pick up a little bit of Wookie, but communications there would be rough.
She glanced over at Aydan, and took a deep breath.
And she'd have to work with him. If she didn't know better, they were trying to test her with people she'd struggle to work with.
If they'd done so, they'd done a good job.
So, what's the general plan?
[] Clumping. Stay in a group, close together, and try to use Aydan's skill at a lightsaber and Yarua's bowcaster to just power through any enemies one meets. Take blasters as side-arms for the Jedi, and a few flash grenades to shock people before an attack. Simple, clean. Very simple, in fact.
[] Lark is a comms expert. Could they use the headphones and jam the other team and try to spread out slightly to take advantage of the enemy fighting blind? It would risk being defeated one by one, or in small groups, but it's an advantage they theoretically have.
[] Send someone ahead to scout in the room and then return. Nobody says that they all have to enter at the same time, and with the headphones this might help determine the best approach… or it might cede the advantage of positioning to the enemy.
[] Write-in. Really, these are just three of plenty of general ideas. I'll reject anything I don't think fits Nima, or one of the other two, but that's pretty broad.
*******
A/N: A bit shorter than usual… but not short by any means, and hopefully this makes up for the time lost.
Thanks to @NemoMarx.
Also, your vote last time will come up, just not yet.
[] Politics and the outside world intrude in odd ways. Some sort of foiled attack on the Temple leads to a security lockdown and the Initiates are huddled together for protection. The threat turns out to be nothing, but being up in one location like that turns out to be very, very tense and scary
Life was its own best distraction. Despite all Nima had been dealing with, and her Mom had been struggling with, she got back into the swing of things. So did her mother, though the dreams seemed almost plain now. At work. At home, the scent of caf and the sound of frayed tempers on the deadline days and slacking off on the other days. Then going to dinner, so many different places, spending money she definitely did have. They were all so simple that she could almost forget that there was a time not that long ago when Mala hadn't been okay.
Nima knew it couldn't last, her or her mother. In fact, if she paid too much attention to the war, thought about it too much, then her mood soured. It seemed like every day for two weeks straight brought in bad news and then more bad news. The war was chaos, one day the news speaking of a total victory on this and that planet. The next, total disaster. Word, too, reached the Temple of more fights between Jedi and Dark Acolytes. Obi-Wan and Anakin both featured prominently in more than a few of them.
They're heroes, unable to lose… no, unable to lose everything. When they lost they came back the next day. There was a back and forth to the war that made such contortions of speech inevitable, which wormed its way into the Temple. Until it'd been announced that there'd be only one mandatory meditation session a day. So that there was more time for other classes. They were afraid, and so were the Initiates.
Nima had stared in dismay at the datasheet when she'd heard that and gone running to keep from pacing and worrying. She could see it in all of her classes, the way that the seams were slowly beginning to come off the Temple. She couldn't even do anything, she was part of it. The Clone Classes, despite how valuable they were, were teaching kids about how to be a soldier. Not a Jedi. Not… really.
Except Jedi were being made to act as soldiers. Could it be bad to prepare them for this? She wavered and hesitated and clung to what normalcy she could.
Lexia didn't do that, though. When other teachers tried to make themselves relevant, the Zeltron didn't give her stories about military figures. She didn't give her case studies of war veterans. She taught as if the galaxy was at peace, and amid all of the confusion and chaos that felt like it could sometimes spill over into the Temple, Nima appreciated it. She'd find herself dropping her burdens at the edge of the room to be picked up afterwards.
These moments, and other moments, became like tiny bubbles of consolation in a sea of troubles, ones which Nima couldn't solve or even really navigate. The thought of going off to war settled badly in the pit of her stomach, and for all of the physical training she went through she felt more and more convinced that there was something… wrong with this war?
Wrong with all of this. She couldn't put it quite into words, at least not out loud. But she mediated on the problem, and while her vision and understanding felt clouded, even the small hints she could glean seemed almost to confirm...
But she knew what they said. At times seeking wisdom in the Force could become looking in the mirror and seeing one's opinions and assumptions confirmed. And even if the war was a mistake, it was one that couldn't have been stopped, wasn't it?
So she worked as hard as she could with Cin Drallig, and she didn't slack off in the class by the clones. In fact, those too had their restful, meaningful moments, the times when she just sat down and talked to them, turned it into an attempt to understand them. But they felt different, it was part of a trend that Nima couldn't entirely approve of, even while she thought the clones were good people. Not just good soldiers, but legitimately nice, loyal and honest. From what she knew of history there were far worse soldiers out there than people whose strict code of conduct meant they wouldn't go around committing atrocities because the other side was somehow sub-sentient.
Beyond that, even, she just liked them. But… it was Lexia that Nima kept on coming back to. She threw herself into her studying, for it felt like a way forward. A way to something else.
Yet, shouldn't she feel guilty? If the war was still going on, it was her duty to help out. Her own wishes didn't need to be involved at all.
But what if…
In moments like that, where for a moment she felt so much older than she was, old enough to be tired, she cherished what time she had in the Temple.
*******
Lexia, after the first meeting, no longer wore the hooded robe. She was still dressed in a very traditional way, but not quite so heavily. She'd pace around, shaking her head every so often. She no longer smelled as she did, though Nima had expressed interest in the trial with smells. So instead she smelled clean, like good skin and better soap, everything about her seeming detached from the ugliness of the war. It was a balance Nima lacked, and she knew that Lexia could see it in her emotions, yet trying to hide it would only make things worse. And she hadn't gone off to war at all… who would she be if she actually went off to fight.
All she could know was that in the room, learning Mind Healing, she'd felt better.
She'd asked Lexia about being in that one test, of special perfumes, and Lexia had nodded, frowning a little. Had said she'd taken it into consideration. She'd been a little quieter after that first day, let Nima sometimes talk herself to her own conclusions.
Like the day that she was supposed to be discussing a Trandoshan Diaspora short-story, "Father-Killing." It wasn't like she expected. It talked about this boy's relationship with his father on a planet far from the Score-Keeping she'd always been told about. And the Father-Killing was entirely symbolic, instead of the disturbingly common habit among some Trandoshan to condone such patricide in limited ways.
"So, did you expect it to have those themes?" Lexia asked carefully.
Nima always felt a little like she had to show off, even when she wasn't quite sure why she wanted to so much. "I didn't, but at the same time it makes sense, doesn't it? Killing your parents can hardly be the best strategy for a functioning society? But the way Arnoo struggled with his father's expectations was interesting. Becoming a lawyer wasn't a twist I expected, but the way he justified it… made it make sense."
"Yes. Keeping Score in a very different way," Lexia said, sounding a little amused. "Do you think the author was writing his own experiences?"
"I think he might have been," Nima said, carefully, trying to consider all of the possibilities.
"What if I told you that the author's name was fake, and that the author was a woman. Would that make it less authentic?"
"I don't know. I think that it'd depend. But there's something fascinating about the way his mind tries to justify it? It's clear that he doesn't care about the Score at all. He doesn't care about the goddesses… could that be part of who the author is, if it's a she? I've heard they're very…"
Nima trailed off, not sure how to say it politely. After all, she'd met Trandoshan Jedi before.
"Sexist?" Lexia supplied with a quirk of her brow.
"Y-yes," Nima said, flushing at gently amused look on Lexia's face. "I… yes. They're sexist. Like some Twi'lek, but not all of them. And, my mother, that makes me think…" She paused, tried to gather her thoughts. Could it be so? Or was it a challenge? It always felt like she was not quite prepared enough for Lexia. But the Knight never blamed her for her mistakes. "I think that if the author was a woman, then would she have really treated the mother so slightly? There was almost none of the mother in it at all. She was barely existent, and then only as a figure in the background. And Trandoshan culture does value strong women in the right contexts? Wouldn't she have participated?"
"An interesting point. So inauthentic?" Lexia asked, leaning in a little, her lips quirking into an interested smile. There was something intense and fascinated about the look on her face. She wanted to know, she cared about Nima's opinions.
"In some ways I suppose. I can't know about the truth of some elements. I'm not a son, I don't know my father." Somehow in this room it didn't feel painful to admit it. It was just a fact, something to state. It was how Lexia acted, of course. "And yet I can understand enough of it to like the story? But more could have been done with the mother, really. Yet the story was long enough on its own." Nima frowned, frustrated that she wasn't able to come to a straight and simple conclusion on the matter.
This kind of conclusion wouldn't have been tolerable in her Philosophy class, but instead Lexia was smiling wide. "It's good to admit the limits of your understanding. It's the only way to begin to understand others," Lexia said, with a nod.
Nima felt as if she was glowing with happiness at the sort-of compliment. She let herself smile and said, "Thank you. What do you think of the work?"
"I find the emotions plausible, but some of the relationships… well. As you said." Lexia shrugged. "But I'd also like your opinion on The Invisible Numbers."
Nima was glad that she'd not read ahead because Lexia had a tendency to switch around what she was going to assign. She never added something new, just switched around future stories or case studies based on what she thought would work. "Yes, I think that it's an interesting idea, of someone who can only see the world through numbers and math? Is it possible?"
"No less possible than the Force. And there are people whose minds certainly get a lot more meaning from math then they do from poetry," Lexia said.
"I actually managed to look up the author, and it seemed like his experiences in life were pretty similar to the story," Nima said.
Lexia nodded, clearly pleased.
Nima was starting to get a little bit better at feeling out what Lexia's emotions were at any particular time. When she let it, the emotions would wash over her, feeling so light in her mind. Right now Lexia was proud, but this pride was leavened with the worries and cares of her day. She had a life beyond this, of course. She had patients that she was concerned about, and a little bit of that couldn't help but leak through. But there were also Nima's own emotions, and those were more like a raging river. It slowed down to a stream at times, but adding them to Lexia's felt unfair.
And that made Nima want to be happy, just because it'd make Knight Lexia happier. But it was impossible and foolish to force that. Nima wasn't that foolish. "So I think I really liked it. It was a good attempt to present a very different view of how the world worked, and the prose itself was… good." Nima had no real experience in prose, but she knew that the dialogue had felt a lot more natural than many of the holovids she'd watched with Scout. "I liked the part where he went to the park and kept on seeing actuarial statistics for everyone. It was fun, and the whole story felt… right? Complete. It was pretty short, but that meant it didn't outstay the welcome with its gimmick? I'm not sure how much it taught me, though."
By the end she realized she was babbling. But by the end she also realized that Lexia had got up and sat right next to her, so she was perhaps a little curious about that.
"That's fine. Learning about people through fiction is difficult. People can do a lot of things to hide their own presence or understanding of the world in the words they write." Lexia shrugged. "So I have a few more short stories and a case study to assign, but I figured since we've barely started we could spend the rest of the time training."
"Training in what? The mind thing you'd mentioned? Involving strengthening my emotional control?"
"Exactly," Lexia said. "I'll project emotions, simple ones. You pull them apart. And distinguish them."
Nima nodded, even though she was still nervous around Lexia. It was an odd sort of nerves that couldn't go away even when the reasons were long gone. There weren't any other secrets to be revealed beyond what Lexia could no doubt guess.
"Please, don't worry."
"I'm not that worried. I just, I don't want to fail or make a mistake, and I've not been doing so well with this. I know that you said that it's hard and that everyone will get it at their own time, but I bet Marruc--"
Lexia shook her head. "Marruc isn't here. Focus on Nima."
Nima nodded, and Lexia reached her hand out. Nima could feel the movement, and Lexia in fact, in the Force. It was almost physical, almost synesthetic, and that's how some people felt it. She was bright and chipper, strange and changing, some days in a strange, distracted mood. Other days she felt calm and eternally present.
Focus on Nima. And focus on now, too, as well. She took a breath and worked on it. She tried to focus on and understand what she was feeling. She was tired, and unsure, and yet also happy. Content to be here. She centered herself on that contentment as Lexia touched her forehead, very briefly. Just a flick.
"What was that?" Nima asked.
"Mnemonic," Lexia said, as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world. "I associate the flick with the emotions you were feeling at that moment so that I can call back to them easier."
Which didn't sound like it'd work, but Nima was too busy trying to steel herself. But she wasn't doing so well.
She felt the happiness Lexia was pushing, but it was too easy to feel it and dive into the sensation as it pulsed outwards into her head. It wasn't angry or powerful, it wasn't controlling her, but she felt happy when she shouldn't, quite. So she took a breath and tried to work on her breathing as more and more emotions began to pile up in her head. She tried to hold onto the ones she knew were real, but her mind felt too much of a muddled mess.
With her eyes closed, there was nothing more than the Force and her emotions, and each of them was too vast for her to really grasp or grapple with.
It was a frustrating experience, and--
Nima held onto her frustration. That was a feeling she knew was real and hers, that she could cling to. So she hardened that thought, and when Lexia tried to hit her with contentment, or patience, she waved them off, holding onto her impatient frustration with her own failings.
They struggled for control and Nima lost count of the time. Lexia won every single time, sooner or later. There was no emotion she had that Lexia couldn't erode if she was trying hard enough with her Zeltron psychic abilities and the Force, when they truly combined like that. Nima was pretty sure that Lexia could be trying a lot harder, too.
"I… give up," Nima said after the tenth just defeat.
"You're doing well," Lexia said, calmly.
"Not I'm not."
"This is a difficult technique. If you begin to learn it after a year at any level of consistency and skill, that's not a bad outcome," Lexia said, softly.
Nima found herself relaxing from her agitated state. It wasn't even the Force, Nima checked for that. She just smiled and said, "Thank you."
"If you keep on practicing it: holding emotions, letting them go, and dividing yourself like this, it'll get easier. Now, sorry I almost went over the time, It was fun training you, and I hope you enjoy the next stories. I don't want to go too hard on you…" Lexia said doubtfully.
Nima shook her head, trying to suppress the brief moment of panic where she thought Lexia was going to change anything when this was perfect. "No, of course not! I'm really grateful for the lessons." She felt as if her legs were some sort of pudding and her body itself all shook up. She couldn't stand that thought.
"Well, then. I'll see you soon," Lexia said, with a nod, though there was something curious in her eyes. "If you have any problems, send me a message."
Nima nodded, and gathered herself before leaving.
She had no idea what about the lessons that made her so nervous, not when she liked them and treasured some time away from war. There was some strange edge that she felt like she was balancing on, walking through the halls. Her own footsteps seemed to echo with more weight than they should.
But she stopped just before she left tha hall, and savored her progress.
*******
"Hey, wait up!" Cho said. She was panting a little, the aquatic initiate not used to Nima's pace. It'd been two weeks, and Nima was just sticking her her routine as much as possible. She'd run when she could, do her regular exercises, meditate three times a day, and then deal with the reading and the classes. It was a very full life, and she had been enjoying herself, losing herself in the simple activity. She slowed down a little, her heart racing. She was sweating a little, but that was okay.
Outside, the sun was setting, and the light and shadows were odd in this part of the temple, Nima thought as she continued to slow until finally Cho had caught up.
"Hey, I wanted to say. I… I heard that you were talking more to Hannah."
"I haven't talked to her in weeks," Nima admitted. They weren't friends, so why should they.
"Well, I have. I don't like her. She's horrible," Cho said.
Nima opened her mouth to defend her.
"But she's right about Palpatine's party. Events are pushing them the wrong way. Maybe I don't hate him as much as she does, but…"
"But the situation in the Senate is getting worse," Nima guessed. She hadn't paid politics that much mind, but it wasn't hard to guess.
"Yes, exactly!" Cho seemed almost excited at the idea that she could find some connection point with Hannah.
Nima smiled a little, amused by the enthusiasm. "Well, is that that unexpected? Nobody is entirely bad. Well, nobody here." Nima bit her lip, thinking about the war. She'd heard stories about Confederate ship captains making 'daring' raids on civilian cities, and there had been other even more questionable stories.
Rumors of massacres, and yet Nima couldn't pin them down. The stories contradict each other. And she hated thinking about it.
Even though she knew that plenty of evil things had happened before the war. At nights she'd sometimes watch silly comedies, even though she didn't get half the jokes, just to--
And now Cho was coming to her with politics.
Nima was going to listen and smile. Maybe she'd even enjoy it, she told herself, taking a breath. She liked Cho, most of the time. This just had to be one of them.
"I suppose you're right, but she's still what she is. I think we should talk to her, figure out why she's so speciesist and stop it. Through political suasion. Or something?" Cho frowned a little and shook her head. "I just thought maybe you could help me double-team her?"
Nima turned a little bit and said, "You think she'd appreciate it?"
"Well, I don't know about that…" Cho began.
"No, I don't think she would," Nima declared, quietly. "I don't know if that's how it works."
"But how can we know if we don't try?" Cho asked. She looked big-eyed at Nima. "And if she's right about…"
"I'm the one who talked to her first," Nima said. "If we're going to do anything, it should be listening to her and judging her accordingly. But she's not going to talk about it. I tried to wait for the right chance to do that, and I didn't find it. There's not a time when she won't be offended or dismissive."
Cho fidgeted with her hands a little. "But can someone be--"
"Prejudiced, and yet still sometimes right?" Nima asked, her lekku shifting a little as she considered it. "But being right sometimes doesn't change that she's wrong sometimes too."
Nima thought about the cases she'd heard, about the war, in which violence had to be done to stop violence. She'd read about a man who thought he was glass, and a woman who couldn't help but triple-check every single door she went through, in case it went to another world, somehow. She thought about little things like that, and big things like the way that there was word that there'd been a thousand people dead in some shuttle accident in a battlefield. A LAAT, or two, or… the stories depended. Running into a village in the middle of a fight and starting a fire that had engulfed an entire huge forest.
She thought of all of this, pressing down on her endlessly.It came in waves, those thoughts, and she had to struggle to keep ahead of it, sometimes.
"You're very mature," Cho complimented.
But she didn't want to be.
"Well, maybe I am, but I don't feel like it. If we aren't going to argue with Hannah, I know something else we could do."
"What?"
Nima stepped closer, and Cho looked a little baffled. Her huge eyes grew even wider, gaping a little uncertainly.
Nima tapped Cho on the shoulder, feeling the mix of confusion and anticipation and trust, and committing it to memory.
"Tag, you're it."
She turned and ran off, and Cho let out a shout and began to chase her.
There. That was better.
******
Amusements. Diversions. And whatever her Mom was doing.
It took a while to recognize it at first. Nima didn't have the experience to really understand it, but slowly she realized that dreams of her mother going out to eat with a bunch of different men, and then going to an art gallery with a different man, and then going to a holovid with a different man… were dates.
They didn't all end badly, but she never saw the same guy repeated. And she could feel Mala's frustration. Whatever she saw in the Twi'leks and humans--though it was mostly Twi'leks--it wasn't quite what she was looking for.
They talked a lot, or they talked too little. They laughed loud or they never laughed at her jokes. She was unused to it, and unused to how they acted around her. They felt like a burden, and being with them made the music too annoying, the food too tasteless… it just didn't work. So on to the next one.
Nima witnessed all of it with an increasing desire to perhaps find a way to stop seeing it. To stop spying on her mother's attempts at happiness.
Each time she saw more of it, the awareness increased that this was her mother's life, one that didn't actually have much to do with her.
Her mother wasn't required and hadn't lived her life in mourning for her daughter who'd joined the Jedi Temple.
Mala worried about the war, but in an abstract way. She had her day job and she just wanted to find someone to love.
Someone to care for.
Nima wondered, vaguely, what that was like. But it really wasn't that important, and so she just hoped her mother found someone.
And also that she'd start having a dream, any dream, that wasn't about her mother.
******
It was early in the morning when she got the summons in the middle of class for a 'game' that she was invited to, as part of the Clone Class. They'd assembled and taken apart a rifle, and they'd gone for a lesson in bailing out of ships, if not flying or operating them, at least not yet. It'd been fun, and that's the technique they'd always used.
They made it into a game, into something for children. Though at least they weren't teaching it to anyone under ten.
There were some things the Temple wouldn't allow, and even though Nima knew that clones had been doing these sorts of things with far younger figures, she was glad.
The clones certainly wouldn't have thought about that limit on their own.
Despite all that, she followed the directions to the letter, heading down towards the less-used wing of the Temple, and finding a door with a sign in front of it. 'In Here' it said, and Nima smiled, relaxing a little.
Then she saw what was inside. The first thing she could smell was blaster gas, and then came polish, boots, sweat and… plasma? It was hard to quite define, but of course what she saw confirmed it. There were a bunch of buckets in the room, some of them filled with various types of blasters, others filled with headsets, or material to make a trap. It looked as if there were entire kits in there.
Wessen would have a field day… and so would Ayguin, because there were what looked like dummy, painted doctor's bags. She walked over towards them and opened one, and saw that the needle was fake. But a note read: 'Can give a second chance to a downed comrade.'
Huh. Nima was starting to guess what it was, especially when she saw that the very last barrel included these straps and sensors that were no doubt supposed to tell her when she was dead, versus wounded. Lucky that she's brought both of 'her' lightsabers, as there was a bucket with practice ones… but none were a shoto.
A straight out war game, and she bet that--
She turned in time, sensing him in the Force right before he stepped in.
Aydan stared at her. He had peach fuzz on his face and looked a little more together than he had before, but besides that it was as if a year and change hadn't passed. But it had, and so Nima tried not to react negatively.
"You! What are you doing here?" he said. His voice cracked this time, just a little.
"Preparing to play a game," Nima said. "I think?" She couldn't feel his emotions, but his face itself showed everything.
He was, to put it simply, suspicious of her. "Oh, right. It's been a while since we've really talked."
"It's been forever since we've really talked," Nima said. Really talked and not argued, or been her defending Wessen from him. She'd never been close, and she'd never had to be. He wasn't her clan mate, after all.
"I… guess. Are you the one who snitched on me?" Aydan asked, though he didn't sound as angry as she expected.
"Snitched?" Nima asked, as she felt three figures moving towards the door. She recognized all three of them in the Force. "What do you mean?"
"To Yoda!" Aydan said, sounding a little frustrated as he stalked forward… but not towards her, instead going to a wall and leaning against it. He stank of sweat, and had clearly come off of some other bit of exercise. Perhaps he was too tuckered out to waste his energy fighting with her when he had to conserve it. Perhaps not? "Care for others, you must show. I got to be a babysitter, and… a bunch of other things."
"Babysitter?" Nima asked.
"For the very youngest Younglings," Aydan said. "I guess they're cute kids, and hopefully the war'll be done before they have to get involved at all."
Nima allowed her shoulders to loosen a little, as she considered this. "I hope they don't either," Nima said. "I don't feel sorry for that. I've done things I feel bad about. That's not one of them."
"Ah," Aygan said, quietly. He tensed a little, but didn't say anything as Yarua stepped in, two clones in armor behind him. They had their helmets off, and Nima could recognize the force presence of Lark and the newest of the clones, Eleven.
"Alright, this is simple. Nima's already begun to suit up, but we take what weapons and equipment we want, we take sensors, and then there's a specially designed battlefield. The goal is to beat the other team of five." Lark grinned. "Really simple. Obvious rules, no killing anyone or hitting anyone who is already declared dead. Other than that, there are no rules. Do whatever we decide to do. Oh, and what's the last rule Eleven."
"Oh," Eleven said, a little hesitantly. "You can't ask us for too much advice. You're supposed to be practicing squad tactics, not obeying orders."
Nima blinked. That was a lot to dump on them. It was true that they'd had a little practice with squad tactics, there was a holovid show and a talk about how to lead one… but they'd barely seemed to touch on it before this. But maybe that was the point?
A test of how they were doing.
Yarua roared (saying "Will this stuff fit me?"), and Nima frowned, trying to think through all the problems there'd be. The clones were starting to pick up a little bit of Wookie, but communications there would be rough.
She glanced over at Aydan, and took a deep breath.
And she'd have to work with him. If she didn't know better, they were trying to test her with people she'd struggle to work with.
If they'd done so, they'd done a good job.
So, what's the general plan?
[] Clumping. Stay in a group, close together, and try to use Aydan's skill at a lightsaber and Yarua's bowcaster to just power through any enemies one meets. Take blasters as side-arms for the Jedi, and a few flash grenades to shock people before an attack. Simple, clean. Very simple, in fact.
[] Lark is a comms expert. Could they use the headphones and jam the other team and try to spread out slightly to take advantage of the enemy fighting blind? It would risk being defeated one by one, or in small groups, but it's an advantage they theoretically have.
[] Send someone ahead to scout in the room and then return. Nobody says that they all have to enter at the same time, and with the headphones this might help determine the best approach… or it might cede the advantage of positioning to the enemy.
[] Write-in. Really, these are just three of plenty of general ideas. I'll reject anything I don't think fits Nima, or one of the other two, but that's pretty broad.
*******
A/N: A bit shorter than usual… but not short by any means, and hopefully this makes up for the time lost.
Thanks to @NemoMarx.
Also, your vote last time will come up, just not yet.
Last edited:
[X] Send someone ahead to scout in the room and then return. Nobody says that they all have to enter at the same time, and with the headphones this might help determine the best approach… or it might cede the advantage of positioning to the enemy.
Silvereagle21
Soaring through the Sky
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
[X] Send someone ahead to scout in the room and then return. Nobody says that they all have to enter at the same time, and with the headphones this might help determine the best approach… or it might cede the advantage of positioning to the enemy.
- Location
- Nowhere
- Pronouns
- She/her
[X] Lark is a comms expert. Could they use the headphones and jam the other team and try to spread out slightly to take advantage of the enemy fighting blind? It would risk being defeated one by one, or in small groups, but it's an advantage they theoretically have.
Our team is pretty skilled in terms of combat but not so much in utility. Dividing the enemy so we can manage a defeat in detail and leverage our superior combative skills seems like the best route. Jamming their comms also reduces the efficacy of more complex tactics against us. Anyhting relying on a split group or forward scouting will end up failing badly against us.
The only real risks to this plan are that the enemy will be better than us in combat which with a wookie, a skilled duelist and Nima doesn't seem particularly likely or that the enemy will focus on stealth attacks and presence concealment. But we don't really have a great counter to that anyways, so that should be an exceptable risk.
Combining good team coordination and strong close combat skills seem to be the best option for us.
Our team is pretty skilled in terms of combat but not so much in utility. Dividing the enemy so we can manage a defeat in detail and leverage our superior combative skills seems like the best route. Jamming their comms also reduces the efficacy of more complex tactics against us. Anyhting relying on a split group or forward scouting will end up failing badly against us.
The only real risks to this plan are that the enemy will be better than us in combat which with a wookie, a skilled duelist and Nima doesn't seem particularly likely or that the enemy will focus on stealth attacks and presence concealment. But we don't really have a great counter to that anyways, so that should be an exceptable risk.
Combining good team coordination and strong close combat skills seem to be the best option for us.
- Location
- Ural, Russia, Earth
[X] Lark is a comms expert. Could they use the headphones and jam the other team and try to spread out slightly to take advantage of the enemy fighting blind? It would risk being defeated one by one, or in small groups, but it's an advantage they theoretically have.
- Location
- United States of America
[X] Plan Just like the simulations.
Last edited:
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Lark is a comms expert. Could they use the headphones and jam the other team and try to spread out slightly to take advantage of the enemy fighting blind? It would risk being defeated one by one, or in small groups, but it's an advantage they theoretically have.
Do we know who's on the opposing team?
Do we know who's on the opposing team?
While I'm all for comm jamming I imagine splitting up might prove to be a weakness. We should be spaced out to avoid being taken out by a grenade, but how we move is fully dependant on what the battlefield looks like. If it was an urban environment I'd recommend breach and clear tactics. If it's more open spaces well, nothing wrong with staying in cover and letting the enemy come to us. We could also hunt down and stalk the team, ambush them individually with our larger group when they split up due to lack of communication.
Do we have any clues to what the battlefield looks like?
Do we have any clues to what the battlefield looks like?
Ultramandalore
Errant Quester
- Location
- just south of Parts Unknown
[X] Send someone ahead to scout in the room and then return. Nobody says that they all have to enter at the same time, and with the headphones this might help determine the best approach… or it might cede the advantage of positioning to the enemy.
Oh also here's a SWAT Tactics manual I found, also a marine rifle squad manual. Not sure how legitimate either of them are but worth a read.
Also, again I feel the leading vote is lacking. Lacking Grenades. We need more grenades in the plan.
And by that I mean we need to capitalize on the disorientation caused by the lack of communication. We enter a room? Grenade it first. We see them? Grenade and suppressive fire. We move in a group that can't be taken out with a grenade. If we can ambush them we ambush them with grenades.
I mean we have a wookie, we can carry a lot of grenades. Also, I imagine that bowcaster is REALLY good at suppressive fire. All of these things are necessary for taking out force sensitives.
Plus this isn't canon, they won't just all walk in a straight line towards us firing wildly.
Also, again I feel the leading vote is lacking. Lacking Grenades. We need more grenades in the plan.
And by that I mean we need to capitalize on the disorientation caused by the lack of communication. We enter a room? Grenade it first. We see them? Grenade and suppressive fire. We move in a group that can't be taken out with a grenade. If we can ambush them we ambush them with grenades.
I mean we have a wookie, we can carry a lot of grenades. Also, I imagine that bowcaster is REALLY good at suppressive fire. All of these things are necessary for taking out force sensitives.
Plus this isn't canon, they won't just all walk in a straight line towards us firing wildly.
- Location
- Nowhere
- Pronouns
- She/her
Oh also here's a SWAT Tactics manual I found, also a marine rifle squad manual. Not sure how legitimate either of them are but worth a read.
Also, again I feel the leading vote is lacking. Lacking Grenades. We need more grenades in the plan.
And by that I mean we need to capitalize on the disorientation caused by the lack of communication. We enter a room? Grenade it first. We see them? Grenade and suppressive fire. We move in a group that can't be taken out with a grenade. If we can ambush them we ambush them with grenades.
I mean we have a wookie, we can carry a lot of grenades. Also, I imagine that bowcaster is REALLY good at suppressive fire. All of these things are necessary for taking out force sensitives.
Plus this isn't canon, they won't just all walk in a straight line towards us firing wildly.
Does it work better with this addition?
[X] Lark is a comms expert. Could they use the headphones and jam the other team and try to spread out slightly to take advantage of the enemy fighting blind? It would risk being defeated one by one, or in small groups, but it's an advantage they theoretically have.
-[X] Focus on shock and awe tactics. Capitalize on the enemy team's disorientation by freely using flash grenades and suppressive fire.
I think a slight edit to the starter plan would be better. Perhaps something like:
[X] Plan Just like the simulations.
-[X] Lark is a comms expert. Could they use the headphones and jam the other team? Focus on shock and awe tactics. Capitalize on the enemy team's disorientation by freely using flash grenades and suppressive fire.
--[X] Squad should move methodically. Close, but not close enough to all be flashed. All angles covered while moving, rooms should be checked before entering. Again, liberal use of flashes and/or suppressive fire.
Last edited: