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May The Invisible Hand Be With You - (Star Wars CK2-Style Quest)

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Uh... I'm working on a survey of the Inner Rim, and I think our recent Caamas ceasefire may have thrown a bigger spanner in the works than we realized.

This is Tap Nar Pal. He's a Cerean, which means he has one more brain than most people. He's also a Jedi Padawan who recently had the bright idea of testing the Galactic Senate for individuals with high midi-chlorian count. (You know, since the Jedi already knew from Dooku that the elusive Sith Master was in control of the Senate.... Yeah, apparently it takes two brains to come up with that? Oh well).

Unfortunately, Tap Nar Pal first suggested the idea to his master Ronhar Kim (a native of Naboo, and not gifted with a second helping of brain), who immediately decided to bring the proposal to his close friend Sheev Palpatine. Palpatine dissembles, tries to convince the pair that the Galactic Senate would never go for it, especially Bail Organa (...yeah, Palaptine was really 'reaching' here, to try to make the two Jedi suspect his political rivals. Not his finest hour).

Tap Nar Pal suggests that Palpatine take the lead and be the first one to take the blood test, so the others can't possibly object.

Palpatine quickly nods, tells them "great idea!", says he'll plan for its implementation. However, to ensure it stays a secret, he asks them to not tell the Jedi Council until they return from their upcoming mission to... <quick check> right, the Merson asteroid field.

The Jedi depart for his mission, only to discover (surprise, surprise) that Republic Intelligence had catastrophically underestimated the CIS strength in the region, by a factor of five. The Separatist trap is sprung, the Republic supporting fleet is forced to withdraw, the entire clone ground army is slain, along with their generals Tar Nar Pal and Ronhar Kim, and Palpatine's identity is saved for another day.


...Except that was canon, and the calendar dates put the Battle of Merson squarely in the middle of our Caamas ceasefire.

So, three options for @Dr. Snark:
  1. Tar Nar Pal never had the idea in the first place (Obi-Wan was never imprisoned by Dooku, so the Jedi don't learn what he has to say, at least on that occasion or in that particular way). Our presence on Geonosis butterflied the whole thing away.
  2. Tar Nar Pal did come up with the idea, and his master did bring it to Palpatine, but Palpatine ensured their death some other way. Most likely by using one of his agents (and/or pet bounty hunters) to do the job for him. In this case, this would be another 'string' we could pull to learn how Palpatine works and who his agents are. It might also provide more evidence to point to Palpatine's culpability, if we can prove it.
  3. Tar Nar Pal has not yet had the idea, but will come up with it in the near future, at which point Palpatine will lay a trap for them -- either using the CIS army, or contracting an agent/bounty hunter. In this case, this would be a future event we could interfere with, letting us save and possibly recruit one or two Jedi as allies.


(In unrelated news: one of the planets in my Inner Rim survey is honest-to-goodness nightmare fuel. If you're curious, just google 'Ithull'. Yeah. It turns out that the space slug from Empire Strikes Back has a natural predator...)
 
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Publicola said:
(In unrelated news: one of the planets in my Inner Rim survey is honest-to-goodness nightmare fuel. If you're curious, just google 'Ithull'. Yeah. It turns out that the space slug from Empire Strikes Back has a natural predator...)
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So the "Grievous Hunts, Captures, and Tames the Galaxy's Most Fearsome Predators" subplot has a final boss.
 
Publicola said:
  1. Tar Nar Pal never had the idea in the first place (Obi-Wan was never imprisoned by Dooku, so the Jedi don't learn what he has to say, at least on that occasion or in that particular way). Our presence on Geonosis butterflied the whole thing away.
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That's what happened there. Not only does that make sense but TBH there's not much I could do with the idea anyway; even if you did get evidence from the "assassination" Palpatine could easily say that it was the result of faulty intel or some excuse like that.

DrachenEngel said:
We should try to get one of those Wasp ships, refit it into a carrier and load it up with Hornets.
Instant nightmares for everyone.
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Yo dawg, I heard you liked bees, so we put bees in your bees so you can buzz while you buzz.
 
Andres110 said:
The wiki says they get poached, so they're probably not that scary.
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I think that's more tied to intelligence than danger levels. People who poach tigers do not attempt to kill them using their teeth, people don't hunt Rhino's by challenging them to a headbutt duel.

They could be one of the most dangerous predators in the galaxy, but if they aren't as smart as a standard being then they will be poached.

Or they could be smarter than the average person but they are worth enough to make the risk worth doing. People will always do stupid shit for enough money, even if they aren't human.
 
Darrenb209 said:
I think that's more tied to intelligence than danger levels. People who poach tigers do not attempt to kill them using their teeth, people don't hunt Rhino's by challenging them to a headbutt duel.

They could be one of the most dangerous predators in the galaxy, but if they aren't as smart as a standard being then they will be poached.

Or they could be smarter than the average person but they are worth enough to make the risk worth doing. People will always do stupid shit for enough money, even if they aren't human.
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Apparently, they are considered 'extremely dangerous' and it wasn't unusual for poachers to lose their lives.

But then again, I'm not even sure if they are still around, considering they date back to the Old Republic.
 
Sorry for asking this, seeing as it has nothing to do with the quest, but there was a link to a fan-fiction posted in this thread (at least, I hope it was this thread or I'll feel even stupider) that involved Anakin getting his memories as Darth Vader when he was on Mortis. Does anyone still have the link? Searching the thread has given me nothing.
 
Wilgar said:
Sorry for asking this, seeing as it has nothing to do with the quest, but there was a link to a fan-fiction posted in this thread (at least, I hope it was this thread or I'll feel even stupider) that involved Anakin getting his memories as Darth Vader when he was on Mortis. Does anyone still have the link? Searching the thread has given me nothing.
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Right here.
 
So I've been thinking about my previous idea of bringing down the Zygerrian Slave Empire and I've decided I'm going to expand on why we should do it and how we should play it.

First of all, it's going to be difficult. This is an entire empire we're talking about here, after all. Thankfully we have several very competent heroes and forces to aid us. Thrawn is a tactical genius, Grievous is a great general in his own right and has a reputation in the underworld, Asajj is a Sith Assassin and is even more powerful than in canon thanks to her recent experiences, we have what's basically the Terminator, we have what's basically the Terminator (again), and there is of course Ciaran herself. Combine it with our default bonuses and omake bonuses and we stand a pretty decent chance of accomplishing it. (Note: There will be a large up-front cost to hire a sufficient number of mercenaries+bounty hunters to make this plan work. Hiring so many may increase our relations with them.)

Now, what do we get out of breaking the ZSE?
- Ships. Any empire worth the name has a ton of ships, and defeating this empire will end up with many of them destroyed, crippled, captured, and abandoned. Those ships can be taken into our private forces, donated to the CNS to up its military power, or sold for credits.
- Treasure. Slave empires tend to be rich and have lots of credits present in them. Whether they're in hard cash, art pieces, property, actual treasuries, or anything else, there will be a lot of loot for the taking. We once looted a planet, now let's loot an empire.
- Bank accounts. Whether we do it by slicing into their systems or breaking their knees/threatening their lives for bank details, we're going to get even more loot.
- Humanitarian aid. Or in other words, "getting filthy force-damned rich off the suffering of others, but in a good way". This is an empire's worth of downtrodden people who desperately need our aid. The massive reputation boost from giving them that aid is obvious, but there's so much more. Refugee resettlement programs (looking at Taris here), investment opportunities from grateful planets getting their enslaved citizens back, planetary colonisation by people with nowhere to go and who love us to pieces, etcetera. Basically what we're doing now but on a much larger scale, and thus with much more profit.
- Employment. Doubtlessly a great many slaves will be of the skilled kind, and since those slaves will need work to survive one way or the other, why not work for us? It's a good chance to pick up a lot of talent that we can use for ourselves. Some Zygarrians might also be useful to us and willing to work with us. There's also the prospect of picking up Force-sensitives which are always useful. The Zygarrians were intending to enslave the Jedi, so we might find more here than anywhere else.
- Bounties. Slavers suck and get people pissed off at them. Pissed off people hire bounties on the people who piss them off. We're killing and capturing a lot of those people. Easy profit.

Still, there are more ways we can benefit from this, especially with the Caamas Ceasefire in effect. To begin with, the Jedi can be propositioned to join in our destruction of the ZSE. This will increase the chance of success, drive up the chance of a critical success, increase our relations with the Jedi Order, increase the public support of the Jedi (this will delay Order 66 and boost the support of pro-Jedi senators (of which many are anti-Palpatine)), and will provoke the CIS, but in a good way.

The Jedi are firmly on the Republic side of the war and doing something as public and universally praise-worthy as bringing down the ZSE will make them - and by extension the Republic - look really good, to say nothing of what our involvement will do for the CNS. If the CIS want to keep up in the PR game they too will need to join in the fight. The Jedi and the CIS can be assured that they will keep to the task of bringing down the ZSE instead of fighting each other via a combination of the Caamas Ceasefire and our own presence (and also PR-1). It's not just a PR (as in 'public relations', not the droid) game, however. The Caamas Ceasefire means that there's going to be a lot less fighting for the CIS to do, and a lot less chance for generals/admirals to show their worthiness for promotions. Giving the opportunity for some generals and admirals within the CIS to earn prestige by engaging in military action without breaking the ceasefire will go appreciated by those we invite into the campaign, and there are also some members in the CIS who aren't complete assholes who would like us just for the good we're doing. The CIS's opinion of us may well go up. There's also the usual benefits of increased chance of success/increased chance of critical success of the entire campaign, of course.

Just a little behind the huge monetary gains in terms of satisfaction gained from the endeavour is the fact that this is an anti-Sidious campaign. Sidious wants the ZSE on his side for their slaves, explicitly mentioning to Dooku how the ancient Sith Empires were built on the backs of slaves. This will delay whatever plans he might have, plans which may or may not include the Death Star (construction of which may have already begun since Geonosis didn't happen).

In conclusion, while this plan may not have an inherently high chance of success, the fact that most of our actions have 90+% chance of success with the application of a single hero unit should make this more-or-less possible. We stand to gain an extraordinary amount of everything if we succeed and we'd also be hindering Sidious.
 
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no one likes slavers, and in this version of events both sides have to care about reputation because systems have been jumping ship to the CNS. I suspect getting the CIS to look the other way as a mercenary band that is technically not associated with anyone, took them down.
 
Renars said:
Good intentions, and I more or less (DESPERATELY) want this, but weren't they affiliated with the CIS? Y'know breaking CNS "neutrality" and guaranteeing the "all clear" for CIS/Republic invasions?
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They were secretly affiliated with a few CIS elements. Nothing overt, nothing in an official capacity, and affiliation is not the same thing as alliance. Using it as a casus belli against the CNS would be political/diplomatic suicide for the CIS as doing so would mean admitting that they were allied with a slaver empire. We'd also be doing this in a very private capacity, very much not with the CNS (it's why we're hiring mercenaries instead of using CNS troops.)
 
Andres110 said:
They were secretly affiliated with a few CIS elements. Nothing overt, nothing in an official capacity, and affiliation is not the same thing as alliance. Using it as a casus belli against the CNS would be political/diplomatic suicide for the CIS as doing so would mean admitting that they were allied with a slaver empire. We'd also be doing this in a very private capacity, very much not with the CNS (it's why we're hiring mercenaries instead of using CNS troops.)
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I also want to do this, but we must remember that we are still alive because Palpatine considers us a relatively minor annoyance to be swiftly crushed once he seizes full power. But we should do what we can so don´t decide that we are no longer an annoyance but a threat, and he decides to take this matter into his own hands.


This is not the most probable course of action that he will take, but it´s a terrifying possibility.
 
Maul should have run instead of staying and fighting. Maybe set the self destructive on his way out.
 
Andres110 said:
So I've been thinking about my previous idea of bringing down the Zygerrian Slave Empire and I've decided I'm going to expand on why we should do it and how we should play it.

First of all, it's going to be difficult. This is an entire empire we're talking about here, after all. Thankfully we have several very competent heroes and forces to aid us. Thrawn is a tactical genius, Grievous is a great general in his own right and has a reputation in the underworld, Asajj is a Sith Assassin and is even more powerful than in canon thanks to her recent experiences, we have what's basically the Terminator, we have what's basically the Terminator (again), and there is of course Ciaran herself. Combine it with our default bonuses and omake bonuses and we stand a pretty decent chance of accomplishing it. (Note: There will be a large up-front cost to hire a sufficient number of mercenaries+bounty hunters to make this plan work. Hiring so many may increase our relations with them.)

Now, what do we get out of breaking the ZSE?
- Ships. Any empire worth the name has a ton of ships, and defeating this empire will end up with many of them destroyed, crippled, captured, and abandoned. Those ships can be taken into our private forces, donated to the CNS to up its military power, or sold for credits.
- Treasure. Slave empires tend to be rich and have lots of credits present in them. Whether they're in hard cash, art pieces, property, actual treasuries, or anything else, there will be a lot of loot for the taking. We once looted a planet, now let's loot an empire.
- Bank accounts. Whether we do it by slicing into their systems or breaking their knees/threatening their lives for bank details, we're going to get even more loot.
- Humanitarian aid. Or in other words, "getting filthy force-damned rich off the suffering of others, but in a good way". This is an empire's worth of downtrodden people who desperately need our aid. The massive reputation boost from giving them that aid is obvious, but there's so much more. Refugee resettlement programs (looking at Taris here), investment opportunities from grateful planets getting their enslaved citizens back, planetary colonisation by people with nowhere to go and who love us to pieces, etcetera. Basically what we're doing now but on a much larger scale, and thus with much more profit.
- Employment. Doubtlessly a great many slaves will be of the skilled kind, and since those slaves will need work to survive one way or the other, why not work for us? It's a good chance to pick up a lot of talent that we can use for ourselves. Some Zygarrians might also be useful to us and willing to work with us. There's also the prospect of picking up Force-sensitives which are always useful. The Zygarrians were intending to enslave the Jedi, so we might find more here than anywhere else.
- Bounties. Slavers suck and get people pissed off at them. Pissed off people hire bounties on the people who piss them off. We're killing and capturing a lot of those people. Easy profit.

Still, there are more ways we can benefit from this, especially with the Caamas Ceasefire in effect. To begin with, the Jedi can be propositioned to join in our destruction of the ZSE. This will increase the chance of success, drive up the chance of a critical success, increase our relations with the Jedi Order, increase the public support of the Jedi (this will delay Order 66 and boost the support of pro-Jedi senators (of which many are anti-Palpatine)), and will provoke the CIS, but in a good way.

The Jedi are firmly on the Republic side of the war and doing something as public and universally praise-worthy as bringing down the ZSE will make them - and by extension the Republic - look really good, to say nothing of what our involvement will do for the CNS. If the CIS want to keep up in the PR game they too will need to join in the fight. The Jedi and the CIS can be assured that they will keep to the task of bringing down the ZSE instead of fighting each other via a combination of the Caamas Ceasefire and our own presence (and also PR-1). It's not just a PR (as in 'public relations', not the droid) game, however. The Caamas Ceasefire means that there's going to be a lot less fighting for the CIS to do, and a lot less chance to show a general/admiral's worthiness of promotion. Giving the opportunity for some generals and admirals within the CIS to earn prestige by engaging in military action without breaking the ceasefire will go appreciated by those we invite into the campaign, and there are also some members in the CIS who aren't complete assholes who would like us just for the good we're doing. The CIS's opinion of us may well go up. There's also the usual benefits of increased chance of success/increased chance of critical success of the entire campaign, of course.

Just a little behind the huge monetary gains in terms of satisfaction gained from the endeavour is the fact that this is an anti-Sidious campaign. Sidious wants the ZSE on his side for their slaves, explicitly mentioning to Dooku how the ancient Sith Empires were built on the backs of slaves. This will delay whatever plans he might have, plans which may or may not include the Death Star (construction of which may have already begun since Geonosis didn't happen).

In conclusion, while this plan may not have an inherently high chance of success, the fact that most of our actions have 90+% chance of success with the application of a single hero unit should make this more-or-less possible. We stand to gain an extraordinary amount of everything if we succeed and we'd also be hindering Sidious.
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I support this action, though I doubt we'd be able to swing quite as much support from the Republic and CIS in full on official military capacity. At least not certain enough that we should count on in, and instead consider it a possible bonus. The Jedi are a bit more certain, but again wouldn't design a plan relying on them. We should still have enough pull on our own to assemble forces to bring them down, just between pirates, mercenaries, smugglers, bounty hunters, militias, and other ragtag elements to bring them down.

Don't get me wrong, we should still try our damnedest to get outside aid, just don't assume we'll get it. Also should approach the Hutts to see if they'll help take out some rivals, or at least assure them that they won't be next. The Wookiee might also be interested in this, and probably some other races and minor powers.

Fanhunter696 said:
I also want to do this, but we must remember that we are still alive because Palpatine considers us a relatively minor annoyance to be swiftly crushed once he seizes full power. But we should do what we can so don´t decide that we are no longer an annoyance but a threat, and he decides to take this matter into his own hands.


This is not the most probable course of action that he will take, but it´s a terrifying possibility.
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Maul was a significantly bigger threat to Sidious, at least visibly so, because he knew Sidious personally (though maybe not his identity as Palpatine) and was a powerful Sith in his own right. Sidious doesn't know that we're a powerful force user, or that we know what we know about him. An action like taking out the Zygerrians would be more in line with what we did with Jango: headache inducing, confusing, kinda throws a spanner into some possible future plan. Bumps us up a few more places on the "people to kill" list, maybe an actual assassin sent after us, but probably not enough to warrant personal attention. Yet, at least. Actions like this are more likely to send someone else at us, as he's unlikely to risk discovery over stuff like this.
 
Bones said:
Don't get me wrong, we should still try our damnedest to get outside aid, just don't assume we'll get it.
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Yep, that was the intention. We have enough bonuses and money that we could pull it off entirely on our own.

Bones said:
Also should approach the Hutts to see if they'll help take out some rivals, or at least assure them that they won't be next.
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The Hutts have been around since the time of the Old Republic at the least while the Zygerriens got taken out by a single concerted Jedi offensive. They're on completely different levels. Just as they wouldn't care if one undercity gang takes out another undercity gang, they won't care what we do to the ZSE, especially since our very close ties to them has them assured that we won't use our power against them. If anything, they'll see it as a fortunate thing - a useful ally making itself more useful by feeding on the corpse of someone they don't give two craps about.
 
What if we could manipulate Maul so that he would be a bigger distraction to Sidious than he was in canon? Make it so that Sidious would have to waste more time trying to hunt him down so it could delay any of his plans.

What if we could drop him into say... the Zygerrian Slave Empire where he would be much harder to dispose. He might be interested in disposing the ZSE because of the mere risks that could occur for his identity. If Maul exposes to the public that there was an another Sith Lord, (even if he didn't know it was Palpatine specifically) that could throw several wrenches in his plans.

The problem is finding out that Maul is still alive and sending him there.
 
Andres110 said:
The Hutts have been around since the time of the Old Republic at the least while the Zygerriens got taken out by a single concerted Jedi offensive. They're on completely different levels. Just as they wouldn't care if one undercity gang takes out another undercity gang, they won't care what we do to the ZSE, especially since our very close ties to them has them assured that we won't use our power against them. If anything, they'll see it as a fortunate thing - a useful ally making itself more useful by feeding on the corpse of someone they don't give two craps about.
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They may not care for the ZSE, but we are whipping up a big anti-slavery crusade amongst all the big name factions. There might be... concern it could blow their way. Suspicions. Other such things. They'd definitely survive something like that, but it would definitely cut into profits.
 
Bones said:
They may not care for the ZSE, but we are whipping up a big anti-slavery crusade amongst all the big name factions. There might be... concern it could blow their way. Suspicions. Other such things. They'd definitely survive something like that, but it would definitely cut into profits.
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Good point. Some effort may be required on that front assuming the Hutts don't handle it themselves, but ultimately it shouldn't be too much of a problem for Ciaran.
 
Andres110 said:
Good point. Some effort may be required on that front assuming the Hutts don't handle it themselves, but ultimately it shouldn't be too much of a problem for Ciaran.
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The Hutts may be about as ancient as the Republic as an institution, but you don't last that long without growing eyes on the back of your head. We may be friends, but that's very different from being trusted. They don't even trust each other. We already wiped out the Black Sun on our own, twice, and they were definitely on a much higher level. Now we're planning on wiping out another underworld power, while whipping up a great anti-slavery crusade so strong we're going to gather at our side two factions in open warfare with each other. You can bet your ass the Hutt Council is going to be wary of us.

So yeah, at least sending something to reassure them we're on the level would be a good idea.
 
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