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

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Dr. Snark said:
"I believe we must all begin to consider a future where the Republic and Jedi Order as we know it are unable to survive the coming days to be a far more likely one," Tholme said, his voice cold. "From what I understand we have been operating under the assumption that both entities were salvageable, however it is now clear that alternate solutions must be considered."
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"In order to ensure our security and continuing stability, the Council of Neutral Systems shall be reorganised into the First Galactic Empire. For a safe and secure society."

Max Uristwell said:
Thrawn is Conquest, Grievous is War and The Silencer is Death so whoever it is would be Famine. As has been mentioned, it could either be Borvo (for the comedy version) or Unrestrained Ciaran (for the horror version).
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Another interpretation of The Third Horseman is Corruption, as the rider of the black horse isn't shown killing crops, but instead hiking up the price of essential foods (and is ordered not to touch the oil or wine), while holding the scales of justice. Considering Ciaran is subverting the law and institutions of the Republic for her own means, even for a good cause, makes her the candidate for the position.
 
Whumbly said:
Realistically we either go New Galactic Republic (NGR), or Commonwealth (which is Imperial for a democratic Empire without an Emperor).
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tbh it was a wisecrack more than a serious thought. it seemed in fitting with Ciaran's blatant troll-ish sense of humour.

'New Republic' just seems like slapping a coat of fresh paint over all the old problems--it worked better in the EU because there was a nostalgia factor. 'Commonwealth', or maybe 'Alliance of Free Worlds' or something in that vein, seems better.
 
Omake: Piebald's Plan

Less than twenty minutes after asking her agents to think of plans to get the Jedi to evacuate their temple Ciaran was given a thick (500+ page) folder titled "Operation Sneaky Dream". It contained everything from structural analysis of the temple and surrounding area, to geological reports and surveys both resent and ancient, to fuel flow rates at the Jedi's private landing pads.

The plan itself was simple, there was a crevasse in the mountain the temple was built atop which in the far past was paved-over and mostly forgotten which would be cracked open and filled with a mixture of ship fuel and a chemical referred to as FOOF. While that was being done several supports in the Undercity would be chemically weakened but not destroyed. Then a service droid would be programmed to create a microfracture in the fuel line nearest the crevasse.

Once everything was in place the mixture would be detonated. This would cause part of the mountainside to collapse into one of the most toxic and least inhabited parts of the Undercity on the world, undermining the western half of the temple. It would also cause a backwash of noxious gases and "deep grunge" to well upon the temple and surrounding area. The amount of lost life expected was surprisingly low, although the property damage estimates were enough to make Ciaran cringe.

The truly surprising thing about the plan was the sheer amount of research, data and safety planning that went into each step especially as its creator was agent Piebald or Boom Lord as he signed the plan.

After running it through the various experts and simulators you had on hand (without telling them whose idea it was of course) you got a surprising response. The plan looked like it would work and the damage estimates actually might be 'worse' case scenarios rather than expected results.

Once more sitting down Ciaran flipped to the page that contained what she considered the riskiest part of the plan, the request for an outside expert. Piebald was requesting a single expert by name and that name was "Scorch".

As Ciaran considered the likely result of Piebald and Scorch working together an icy shivered ran down her spine. This had nothing to do with the grin that trying to cross her face.

What do you think @Dr.Snark
 
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Nami Tetra said:
The destruction of most of the buildings on Ciarans personal retreat planet?
With accompanying Sith virus causing zombies?
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He is also 64% of the way to having the plans needed to blow up a small moon, he is just missing a big enough power source that will not self-destruct without warning.

Edit: The current plan utilized a restrained Palpatine forced to watch the worse children programming 24/7.
 
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prince84 said:
He is also 64% of the way to having the plans needed to blow up a small moon, he is just missing a big enough power source that will not self-destruct without warning.

Edit: The current plan utilized a restrained Palpatine forced to watch the worse children programming 24/7.
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Yeah, Palpatine would self-destruct far too quickly to be a usable power source.
 
I don't like that Siri is a love interest of Obi-Wan's. Satine is easier to get attached to because of The Clone Wars and because we've seen her personality in Invisible Hand. Siri is a lot more obscure and has barely been given any sort of characterisation of Invisible Hand. That whole relationship feels forced and it interrupts the story of Obi-Wan's relationship with Satine to a grating degree. Every time she shows up or gets mentioned in Invisible Hand I think to myself, "This person who doesn't need to exist is adding nothing narratively worthwhile and is getting in the way of a good story."
 
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Andres110 said:
"This person who doesn't need to exist is adding nothing narratively worthwhile and is getting in the way of a good story."
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You'd think that until you realize that there's fuck tonne of stuff happening behind the scenes that the QM doesn't have the time to depict. For one thing Obi Wan's a lot more loose and accepting of our bullshit, before he was just humouring us, but now...well, it could be the revelation of the fact that we know a lot more than what we've been letting on, that finally broke THAT particular camel, but someone or someones have been keeping him busy and/or centred.

Or it could be me blowing a whole load of nothing, because I've been enjoying the byplays of the characters with each other even with such a massive cast. So it does seem like that there are character who don't contribute much to the story until you realize that Character Interactions don't just stop when Ciaran isn't there.

For all we know, Siri's been interacting with the new Guardians and training them on how to fight Force Users more effectively, which will only help us later on down the line when some shit pops off near Mandalore and we need back up.

Tl;dr Characters continue to interact with other beyond what the audience reads/sees, it's the author's job to keep track of these interactions and their results.
 
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qsurf said:
You'd think that until you realize that there's fuck tonne of stuff happening behind the scenes that the QM doesn't have the time to depict. For one thing Obi Wan's a lot more loose and accepting of our bullshit, before he was just humouring us, but now...well, it could be the revelation of the fact that we know a lot more than what we've been letting on, that finally broke THAT particular camel, but someone or someones have been keeping him busy and/or centred.

Or it could be me blowing a whole load of nothing, because I've been enjoying the byplays of the characters with each other even with such a massive cast. So it does seem like that there are character who don't contribute much to the story until you realize that Character Interactions don't just stop when Ciaran isn't there.

For all we know, Siri's been interacting with the new Guardians and training them on how to fight Force Users more effectively, which will only help us later on down the line when some shit pops off near Mandalore and we need back up.

Tl;dr Characters continue to interact with other beyond what the audience reads/sees, it's the author's job to keep track of these interactions and their results.
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True however that does not address the matter of the interactions feeling random to the reader. I'm not particularly invested in Obi Wan's love life but I can see how it would be grating to have one of the major actors be barely present in the story and and only relevant to that prot by default.
 
Andres110 said:
I don't like that Siri is a love interest of Obi-Wan's. Satine is easier to get attached to because of The Clone Wars and because we've seen her personality in Invisible Hand. Siri is a lot more obscure and has barely been given any sort of characterisation of Invisible Hand. That whole relationship feels forced and it interrupts the story of Obi-Wan's relationship with Satine to a grating degree. Every time she shows up or gets mentioned in Invisible Hand I think to myself, "This person who doesn't need to exist is adding nothing narratively worthwhile and is getting in the way of a good story."
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For those of us who grew up on siri and obi, satine is the interloper. It's worth recalling that satine came later.

Taken together, they tell two different sides of Kenobi (the Jedi, the martially inclined peacemaker). They both add some color to his OTL choice to let Anakin and padme be a thing instead of taking him to the council.

I do think it's unfortunate that they seem to primarily exist as characterization for Kenobi rather than their own ends, but this is star wars, where the one significant woman per four hours of media rule (padme, leia) was only recently revoked.
 
Barondoctor said:
For those of us who grew up on siri and obi, satine is the interloper. It's worth recalling that satine came later.
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yuuuup. I grew up on the EU, so my initial foray into this quest had me going "Sawhothefucknow?"

I think it's also worth remembering that because of our role in the CNS and our involvement on Mandalore, Satine is gonna show up a lot more than Siri is, and do so outside of the role of "Obvious Obi-Wan Ogler" more often. Given how events are unfolding, we may end up seeing a lot more of Siri soon, though. Especially since, besides Padmé, she's the one who likes us the most out of those we persistently troll about their love lives. Hmm...would it be possible to recruit Siri as a hero unit?
 
I might as well point out that despite being pretty blatantly on Team Siri, I had no clue who she was prior to this quest and grew up with Clone Wars. I just think she works better with Obi-Wan than Satine. More of a Batman x Catwoman (where they're both involved in the same life and understand each other) while Satine is a Spider-Man X Black Cat (they just really wanna bang each other). But hey, that's just how it seems to me.
 
RE: Talkin' 'bout lots of characters:

qsurf said:
Tl;dr Characters continue to interact with other beyond what the audience reads/sees, it's the author's job to keep track of these interactions and their results.
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This. I really would like to remind people that - on a good day - I have to consider the actions of several dozen characters for every single turn that I do.

If it seems like someone doesn't get as much face-time as they did anywhere else, it's because I literally don't have the space to go into full details on their thought processes, motivations, and so on. This is not a story that is told from their perspectives. This is a story told from the perspective of Ciaran and the Abyss Watchers. There's definitely more stuff going on with people behind the scenes, but if I tried to detail everyone's actions this quest would probably be at least 1-2 million words longer. And people would criticize it as filler. (Honestly, they'd be right.)

I try to at minimum give bare-bones characterization to people who show up but sometimes the narrative means that someone just won't get the time of day for more than a few lines. And on the flip-side people who were basically ignored in canon might suddenly get far more complex characterization (hi Seti and Saato!). And there's also the fact that if I flat-out ignored someone then people would start going "but Snark, what about So-and-So? It makes sense for them to be here and adds more to this part of the narrative!" And they'd be right...to a point (there are things so dumb that I'm prepared to say "that didn't happen. No.").

So that's how it is.

Edit: Just to be clear, this is not me saying "uggh, I wish there were less characters because I'm lazy!" It's more "I am very much human, I have my limits, and the fact of the matter is that you guys are here for the story of the Abyss Watchers."

Double Edit: Also if you're worried about your favorite character not getting enough screentime, write omakes on them and so long as they stay in character and it makes sense within the narrative I'll canonize it anyway. Raith got to be fleshed out way more thanks to Stealthy's omakes, Ciaran's cousins actually have personalities thanks to Panory going overtime, and so on. Don't hesitate! Use that creativity to add depth where I don't! That's part of what makes a quest like this so fun to begin with.
 
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Andres110 said:
I don't like that Siri is a love interest of Obi-Wan's. Satine is easier to get attached to because of The Clone Wars and because we've seen her personality in Invisible Hand. Siri is a lot more obscure and has barely been given any sort of characterisation of Invisible Hand. That whole relationship feels forced and it interrupts the story of Obi-Wan's relationship with Satine to a grating degree. Every time she shows up or gets mentioned in Invisible Hand I think to myself, "This person who doesn't need to exist is adding nothing narratively worthwhile and is getting in the way of a good story."
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Also, Siri and Satine are sharing Obi-Wan, obviously.
 
Andres110 said:
I don't like that Siri is a love interest of Obi-Wan's. Satine is easier to get attached to because of The Clone Wars and because we've seen her personality in Invisible Hand. Siri is a lot more obscure and has barely been given any sort of characterisation of Invisible Hand. That whole relationship feels forced and it interrupts the story of Obi-Wan's relationship with Satine to a grating degree. Every time she shows up or gets mentioned in Invisible Hand I think to myself, "This person who doesn't need to exist is adding nothing narratively worthwhile and is getting in the way of a good story."
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while i understand the view you have and mostly agree with the point you have made.
i disagree with that she is getting in the way of a good story.
obi-one being pulled on both sides make it even more fun to watch.
 
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