That is the problem of arguing against many at the same. some people are treating the ship like that.
So i have to ask is what exactly is the ship then. Because what i have told is the jesus ship that can be printed like a B-1 at virtually no maintenance cost and is easy enough to train pilots that a regular mid rim planet having a swam of those.
No counting that this high spec production idea run into the idea of the craft being mostly made of airspeeder parts.
Again i getting a lot of inconsistent praise for the ship and the only thing i can say if all is true is that it will fuck obliterate the power balance on the setting, like to absolute space dust.
The problem with the DRM like sistem is also the idea of the ship being made of reused parts and having an acess port to astromechs, so code cracked pirated X-wing would be a thing.
That's the thing. It's both. It's a Wonder Weapon capable of rewriting the entire galaxy, and nothing special in the grand scheme of things.
Honestly, most of the Wonder Weapon bits, is because it's explicitly a multipurpose single pilot vehicle. Because they can be used to fight against impressive monsters like the Death Star. However, it's nothing special, because the bigger stuff is always going to be able to use the shit that's available on a smaller scale, on a MUCH more grandiose scale. Like, if we took the basic blaster pistol, and modified it so that mechanically it was put into a more Rifle-like pattern, then it could do a lot of the things a rifle made from the same company as the Blaster could do, albeit with a shorter life.
The BIGGEST problem AND Benefit of dealing with X-wings as an asset, is getting the resources required to upscale it to potentially Capital Class tiers. That wasn't an issue for the Rebels, because they didn't need Imperial Dreadnaught level spaceships, because they were a REALLY small group of resistance fighters, and needed the ability to hide more than anything. The CNS, However, would benefit from the X-Wing being Scaled Up, and that's more difficult.
The BIGGEST problem AND Benefit of dealing with X-wings as an asset, is getting the resources required to upscale it to potentially Capital Class tiers. That wasn't an issue for the Rebels, because they didn't need Imperial Dreadnaught level spaceships, because they were a REALLY small group of resistance fighters, and needed the ability to hide more than anything. The CNS, However, would benefit from the X-Wing being Scaled Up, and that's more difficult.
This is interesting, a crusier that share the desing principles of an X-wing would be a lot of flexibility (even if it would probably be something akin to the EU new republic ships).
And we do have an "magical" lost tech machinery printer for the prototyping.
Trough would be sad the day when we retire the oracle, the ship is above all else Ciara's ship. The invisible hand can be become a museum because it would be funny trough.
Very Important Question: would it be possible to have a ship, fighter or capital, that has a massive lightsaber on the "front"? Or some kind of static plasma weapon.
Because ramming is clearly the best form of ship to ship combat, and Grievous already had that idea for Sienar with ram ships
Very Important Question: would it be possible to have a ship, fighter or capital, that has a massive lightsaber on the "front"? Or some kind of static plasma weapon.
Because ramming is clearly the best form of ship to ship combat, and Grievous already had that idea for Sienar with ram ships
Huh. Still not at all interested in watching it, but that one ship is very cool. Since we're getting X-Wings early, I sincerely hope we can get whatever that is early too, even if Ciaran has to have a horrible Force-experience first
Huh. Picked a hell of a time to discover this quest.
This is a really, really good story. Outside the movies (and part of the Clone Wars tv show) and a small part of the EU (the force unleashed games plus the DS game the force sensitive clones X1 and X2 are from) I only have a bit of info from wiki dives in the past, yet I'm able to keep up with only minor issues by quickly googling things when needed. It's entertaining, and the Sage dice level rolls have lead to completely absurd yet still fairly believable divergences from canon. Grievous might be my favorite character in this quest (One step forward, not one step back is genuinely inspiring), he's just awesome, but everybody is interesting.
I really like what you've done with canon characters, the trio of Anakin, Obi-wan and Ahsoka especially, and I'm really excited to see Obi-wan and Anakin especially in the near future. I'm stoked to see how this all ends. Glad to be here.
Huh. Picked a hell of a time to discover this quest.
This is a really, really good story. Outside the movies (and part of the Clone Wars rv show) and a small part of the EU (the force unleashed ganes plus the DS game the force sensitive clones X1 and X2 are from) I only have a bit of info from wiki dives in the past, yet I'm able to keep up with only minor issues by quickly googling things when needed. It's entertaining, and the Sage dice level rolls have lead to completely absurd yet still fairly believable divergences from canon. Grievous might be my favorite character in this quest (One step forward, not one step back is genuinely inspiring), he's just awesome, but everybody is interesting.
I really like what you've done with canon characters, the trio of Anakin, Obi-wan and Ahsoka especially, and I'm really excited to see Obi-wan and Anakin especially in the near future. I'm stoked to see how this all ends. Glad to be here.
Thrawn's perfectly sane! His excuse not to be weirded out by Ciaran is the old "we're not so different, you and I". And as we all know, Ciaran's the picture of sanity
As striking and lovely as the sunset had been the previous night, Padmé Amidala thought that the sunrise offered by Dantooine's skies deserved appreciation in its own right. After waking and finding herself some cosy loungewear, she had made her way to one of the quaint secluded verandas behind the resort in the pre-dawn glow, intending to enjoy a quiet moment to herself before whatever further shenanigans Ciaran doubtlessly had schemed found their way to her. For now, she sipped at her tea, a nice herbal blend from Alderaan she'd come to acquire a taste for, and just admired the slow transition of the sky.
It was grounding, to hold a simple mug of water steeped with herbs and watch a sunrise over a grassland sea. The artificiality of, well, everything on Coruscant, made her cherish the unusual in the ordinary all the more: here, there was no light pollution to obscure the stars fading at the edges of the horizon; no satellite or skyhook interference in the atmosphere; even the water here, lacking the ever-present hint of chemical processing that could never be fully disguised on the capital world, took on a measure of grace by comparison. It isn't home, Padmé thought, but it comes so much closer than Coruscant ever could. She would never feel this relaxed on Coruscant, not even if she were dosed with surgery-grade anaesthetic.
Even the appearance of Ciaran could not make a dent in her relaxation. Her friend approached her from the resort, dressed in loungewear much like her own, but with the addition of an unusually restrained and simple (for Ciaran) veil, and a more in-character ostentatious green-and-gold velvet robe that caught the rising light in its iridescent smocking. Padmé had some distant recollection of a similar robe in her possession, but dismissed it as coincidence; it was altogether likely she and Ciaran shared a Naboo tailor or two in common, after all.
"You're up early," Ciaran said in greeting.
"As are you. Or," Padmé had a thought, "are you up very, very late?"
Ciaran chuckled. "No, I only stayed up a little later than you; just enough to handle two or three things before bed."
"Only a little?" She raised an eyebrow. "Are you sure? You didn't sneak up on me with all your customary sneakiness just now."
"I stomp up to you with all the silent grace of a punch-drunk gundark," Ciaran said back. "You're just normally so focussed, and stressed, you don't notice me."
"…I can't tell if you're exaggerating or not," Padmé confessed, "which probably says a lot about my normal stress levels."
Ciaran nodded. "I haven't been pestering you to come out here because it's fun and entertaining for me. I've been pestering you to come out here because you'll never take a break of your own volition."
"I believe you mean that … but you want me to also believe you don't do it for fun and entertainment?"
"Two things can be true," Ciaran said.
"Thought so," Padmé sighed good-naturedly. "So were you hoping to get an early start to the fun and entertainment this morning, or to make sure I was taking a break?"
"I actually wanted to talk to you about something." In the early dawn light, Ciaran seemed smaller somehow. Not diminished, necessarily, more like 'not as larger than life as usual', Padmé thought. Or maybe it was the lack of caffeine. Then Ciaran yawned extravagantly, and Padmé revised her estimation to 'definitely the lack of caf.' "My apologies," she said as she rubbed at her eyes under her veil.
Padmé gestured for her to sit in the chair next to her own, saying, "None needed. What is it?"
"I have a proposal I've been thinking about for some time," Ciaran began slowly as she sat, "and I'm hoping you'll hear me out–"
"Ciaran, my darling, that's very sweet and I'm very flattered," Padmé cut in as she squeezed her friend's forearm, "but I don't think Ani's inclined to share. Not yet, certainly."
"...what? No, that's not what I--" Ciaran's cheeks actually pinked a little before she cut herself off. A rueful grin crossed her face. "Why, Senator Amidala, look at you; taking advantage of me in my compromised state. What has become of you?"
"Corruption comes calling in some form to every Senator, soon or late," Padmé teasingly smiled back. "It's just your poetic fate that the corrupting influence was you."
"My own worst enemy." While Ciaran's rueful smile remained, it seemed a little forced in that moment, and Padmé wondered why.
She knew she was unlikely to get a straight answer, though, and let the moment pass as Ciaran waved at a human she didn't recognise. The human, dressed in clothes indicating he worked at the resort, approached them with a small datapad in hand. "Good morning, my lady, Senator," he said with nods to each. "Can I bring either of you anything?"
"Some breakfast, I think," Padmé answered. "Fresh fruits, if you have them, and a cup of half-caf for me," and after taking a glance at Ciaran she added, "and some extra-strength caf for her."
He made quick notes, and then turned to Ciaran. "My lady?"
"Bacon, please, Raymus," Ciaran said. "I need to bite something and feel it crunch."
"As you wish," he nodded. "And, erm," he paused his typing, "your orders stand?"
Ciaran gave a visibly reluctant nod. "Just tea, thank you."
"Right away, ma'am," Raymus gave a slight bow before leaving them.
For her part, Padmé blinked uncomprehendingly at Ciaran. "No caf?" She'd made the mistake of directly sampling Ciaran's strength of caf only once – it took most of the day for her hands and eyelids to stop twitching – and she could not imagine a tea in the galaxy strong enough to be a substitute.
Unhelpfully, Ciaran merely nodded again as she discarded her veil. "No caf. Not for a little while, anyway." She grimaced and mumbled as she rubbed at her eyes again, "I had something of a bad experience."
"What happened?"
Ciaran fixed her with a glare that could have frightened her, if she wasn't Ciaran's best friend, and if Ciaran didn't still look half-asleep. "I had. A bad. Experience." Her meaning could not have been clearer: leave it. Naturally, Padmé made a small mental note to ask her friends/contacts in Ciaran's group what this was all about. Opportunities to needle her friend back were usually thin on the ground, after all, and she'd take whatever she could get.
"As you say," Padmé let it slide for the moment. "And as you were saying, there's something you wanted to talk with me about?"
"It would be better to wait a few minutes," Ciaran dodged, "at least until the tea and food has arrived. What I've been thinking about is an awfully sensitive proposal, and I'd rather not chance being interrupted or overheard while we talk about it."
"Even in your own resort, you're worried about this being safe?" Padmé wondered at that, and at what could possibly make Ciaran act so seriously.
"Not so much the safety," Ciaran said, "so much as it's delicate, and if the wrong people hear about it too quickly, it could be wildly misinterpreted and we'd end up seeing some awfully dramatic responses before we have a chance to talk about it properly."
"Are you sure you're not propositioning me and my future husband?"
Ciaran loftily and artfully said, "Quiet, you."
Padmé just beamed at her. It wasn't much wait at all before she saw the doors into the resort open, and several uniformed humans spill out.
"Here we are," Raymus returned, carrying a few plates of assorted fruits, bacon and other protein sources. Behind him came two other resort workers, one carrying a tray of her half-caf, accessories, and a self-warming carafe for refills, and the other worker carrying a similar tray with Ciaran's tea and accessories, and a small box with assorted options for follow-up cups. "Please, enjoy your morning," Raymus said with a smile.
"Well, not likely, but the short-term chances just improved." And with that, Ciaran bit into her bacon like a starving and particularly testy nexu.
"Thank you, Raymus," Padmé covered for her friend, and looked to thank the other two, but they had already departed. Raymus gave another small bow and followed after them, leaving the two of them alone.
For a little while, Padmé was content to let the quiet stand and the two of them could eat and drink until they made better semblances of normal, functional beings. At length, Ciaran ate more like a person and less like a half-tamed shadowcat and seemed reasonably alert after her third cup of tea, so Padmé felt comfortable broaching the topic.
"You were saying something about a sensitive proposal, and wanting me to hear you out?"
Ciaran nodded. "I have been trying desperately to find a foolproof way to present the delicacy of this proposal and to also not leave you an opening to make a joke about your personal life, but at this point the best I can do is hope that it's out of your system and you'll be patient with me."
"I can promise only one of those things."
"Best I'm probably going to get," Ciaran said with a shrug. She went to refill her tea, and spoke as she did. "So. It doesn't take great or supernatural foresight to see that the end of the war is, if not within sight, then just over the horizon. And when that arrives, the status quo that the war has helped keep propped up is going to come to an end as well. It is simply out of the question that more than one of the present states could continue beyond the war's end, and more likely than not, none of them will."
Padmé sighed and nodded in agreement. The Separatist government was little more than window dressing for its corporate backers and their armed forces, and the Republic was at this point held together by little more than spit, prayers, and Sheev Palpatine … and increasingly, she had come to wonder just how much he would allow the galaxy to burn if he could stay on top of the ashes. Only Ciaran and Satine's CNS had any semblance of functionality outside of armies and individual personalities, and even so it hardly seemed to be fully prepared to step into the void that the belligerent states would leave. And that also required believing that neither of the collapsing states would try to drag the CNS down with them out of sheer spite.
Padmé didn't believe in much anymore, and she certainly didn't believe that either.
If Ciaran was surprised by the lack of pushback, given Padmé had once been one of the Republic's most outspoken champions, she didn't show it. Selecting an herbal variety of tea Padmé didn't recognise (the label suggested it was a Dathomiri blend) Ciaran went on. "Now, there are many accusations that have been levelled at me over the years, but to my knowledge no one has ever accused me of being naïve or being an idealist. So I think it says something that I truly feel that there are more reasonable people in the galaxy, and in the varied states, than there are dedicated belligerents.
"It probably helps that I know a great many of them, and of those people I've worked with most of them at least once or twice," Ciaran acknowledged as she steeped her tea, "but my point stands: there are enough of us, in enough of the right places, that we can have some say in how things come to an end. And in what comes next."
Finishing her caf, Padmé took the opportunity to consider her next words, though she was sure Ciaran saw through the pretense. "This all sounds very serious and well-reasoned, so far. Which makes me nervous, given the messenger." Ciaran offered the temperate and measured response of sticking her tongue out at Padmé, which she politely ignored. "The only point I'd contest is to ask just how much of a say you imagine those dedicated belligerents intend to let us have."
"With respect, my dear," Ciaran sipped at her tea, "the dedicated belligerents are concerns for which I will talk to other people. The reasonable individuals are the part where I'd like your help."
"You said you know plenty of them," Padmé said, "so I'm not sure what help I can be if not in making introductions."
Ciaran smiled. "I'm more interested in your neural connections than your social ones." From somewhere within that oddly familiar robe, she produced a datapad which she passed over. "Please keep that in your possession at all times, and please don't take anything of it off the premises."
"What is it?" Padmé took the proffered datapad, but did not power it on.
"It's a little of a lot of things," Ciaran answered. "A peace treaty, organising principles, constitutional drafts, and the like."
"Does it have a name?" Padmé asked.
"I batted around a couple names to headline this. 'New Republic' has too much baggage, a Galactic 'Federation' likewise given a primary belligerent in this war – kriff, the corporate belligerents alone have made 'Federation', 'Union' and 'Alliance' toxic. Besides the which, 'Galactic Alliance' sounds more like a military compact than a governing body, and 'Covenant' has some connotations I'd sooner not invoke. So I asked myself," she continued, "what if I'm going about this backwards? What if, instead of testing names and finding fault, I consider what I'm seeking to define, its qualities and specifics, and see what fits the bill.
"A collective of individuals, bringing different voices, formed in different groups, coming together to work towards a common goal," Ciaran described. "Voices at times louder or quieter than the rest, at times with different ideas, but throughout it all working as parts of a whole, towards harmony. Not acting in unison..."
"But in concert," Padmé finished her thought. At a flick, the datapad turned on, and showed a letterhead reading 'Articles of Galactic Concert'. She smiled, "I like it."
"I'm glad you like the name, at least," Ciaran said with a relieved smile. "There's definitely some things in it you won't like, but I'm hopeful you'll at least understand them if not wholly agree with them. And I hope," she added, "that you would hear me out on my reasoning, much as I'll hear you out on whatever concerns you bring up."
At a glance, Padmé could see that there were several pages to this document, and a lot of text and detail to the overwhelming majority of those pages. "There's rather a lot here, Ciaran."
"There's rather a lot of galaxy out there," Ciaran replied, "and there's a lot of mistakes that need correcting. Or at the very least, some mitigating."
"It's just…" Padmé let out a little sigh. "I just hope this isn't a top focus of your efforts."
A look crossed Ciaran's face that Padmé almost never saw from her, and as such it took her a long moment to recognise it as vaguely sheepish. "My focus sometimes leaves a bit to be desired. I'll be the first to admit to that." She inexplicably glared at her tea, as if willing it to become caf through sheer alchemical force of personality, before giving it up as a bad job and returned to sipping it. "But why do you say that?"
"…because it does feel a bit idealistic, doesn't it?" Padmé shrugged. "To plan for a future neither of us is all that sure we'll get to."
Ciaran gave her a long, searching look. Finally, she said, "Best way to make sure you have a future, I find, is to plan for one. You go too long planning no farther than tomorrow, the odds you make it past tomorrow start to get long, too."
Padmé sat with that for a moment. "I suppose that's answer enough," for now, she kept to herself. She fiddled with the datapad a bit. "Would you like me to look over this now?"
"At least to start," Ciaran nodded. "I don't expect we'll get through all of it in one sitting, but that's not a worry for me. I have my entire day cleared for just you, and your input."
"You aren't worried about the other guests intruding on us?" Padmé asked as she took up a pear to nibble at. "You've been very clear about the sensitivity of this, after all."
"I'm glad you understand and agree with me about that, at least," Ciaran said as she smiled, a smile that grew larger and more predatory as she went on, "but no, I'm not worried about the other guests anytime soon."
"…should I be worried?"
Ciaran shook her head. "No, not at all." She took a sip of her tea. Then, "I made sure you and I had the only unspiked punch in the house."
On reflection, Padmé decided to worry. "What have you done?"
"Nothing sinister, I promise," Ciaran said rather unconvincingly. "The only thing that will happen is that they all get a restful and long-overdue lie-in."
Padmé simply stared her down, unblinking.
"…well," Ciaran relented, "it'll be restful for most of them, anyway."
Siri Tachi awoke slowly, feeling more relaxed than she had in years.
Clearly, something was wrong.
She opened her eyes, and learned nothing for it. The room she was in was dark, but for a small part in the curtains through which the faintest colours of dawn struggled to enter. There was a quiet murmur of sounds she could not make out, as though it were far away from her. Eyes still adapting to the darkness, she stared at the ceiling and took an inventory of what she knew of her situation, checking her tactical awareness. Where was she? How did she get there? What was the last thing she remembered? … what am I wearing?
Her inventory consisted of a fuzzy terrycloth robe, a taste of sherbet in her mouth, and a lot of gaps.
Right, then. Context clues. Sherbet meant punch, and punch meant a party … Ciaran's party, she finally remembered. That explained the absurdly comfortable bed, the equally absurd magenta of the terrycloth robe that she could now make out in the growing dawn light, and the stubbornly impermeable haze clouding over her recollections.
It did not explain the presence of cool sandy blonde hair on the pillow beside her.
Or the still-asleep face of Satine Kryze beneath that hair.
Or the slender legs she could feel entangled in her own.
Or the apparent lack of anything besides bedsheets and terrycloth robes covering either of them. Robes that, while comfy, even the edges of her peripheral vision could confirm they were not all that concealing, indeed were just shy of indecently short, and it didn't look like either of them had troubled to tie their robes closed ... and bedsheets that she and her still-sleeping companion were only partially underneath.
Somehow, Siri thought with a dissociated mildness, I just know this is Ciaran's fault.
I regret nothing.
For those wondering about the fashion: Ciaran's iridescent robe is a rather shameless recolouring of one Padmé has on Naboo in Ep. II (some reference photos). The look is accomplished by smocking, a painstakingly insane process that produces that finished robe - three, maybe four yards of measurable garment, there? - from literally dozens of yards of velvet. Finished garment probably weighs several kilos; how Natalie Portman made gliding around in that thing look effortless, I'll never understand.
(I know these things because I liked the look of it onscreen, spent a weekend of lockdown searching out what it was and how it was made, and then promptly deciding I've come too far with my mental health to lose it all trying to make that monstrous thing.) (if anyone's interested in the robe, I did keep the info and links to discussions about its construction, because I haven't come that far with my mental health, and if you're asking after this process to make it yourself, clearly you haven't either)
For those wondering about the Articles: I'm a recovering poli-sci major who, in a fit of youthful self-punishment, focused in Constitutional Law. Of course I have a longer-than-the-US-Constitution draft of those Articles of Galactic Concert that's been steadily growing over the past year, that in all likelihood I wouldn't even publish outright, just use as a reference document to keep writing these omakes. Not to say that I wouldn't share it with anyone who was interested, just that the minutiae of it would bore the average reader to tears - not unlike the US Constitution - so I'd be unlikely to post it in-thread.
To be fair, the US Constitution is not terribly long. This does not imply that you have not written a significant amount, but it is not a sprawling textbook. Still, might be interesting to see sometime if you're bored.
As the remnants of their breakfast were cleared away, Padmé Amidala poured herself one last cup of half-caf before asking for a self-heating carafe and a selection of tea, mirroring the spread that lay before her best friend, Lady Ciaran. Once the servers wandered away, she toggled the datapad back on, and read again the headline of Ciaran's draft proposal, her Articles of Concert.
Ordinarily, she would have taken her time with it, looked to tease the individual sections and clauses apart and see how each thing interacted with the other, possibly have on hand drafts of other constitutions and peace treaties, even academic literature discussing the same as well as the shortcomings that the framers had not foreseen or adequately considered. She also would probably have found the experience entirely unpleasant, and not felt any great compulsion to get right into it. But it did occur to her that a woman as sharp and cunning as Ciaran had probably done a lot of that work herself, indeed could quite plausibly call up obscure treatises or arguments from memory given how wide and weird her interests in history were. And Ciaran had cleared her entire schedule to spend the day with Padmé, saying she wanted to sit with Padmé and discuss their respective opinions and insights. For her part, Padmé decided to take that in the spirit it was presented, and not particularly consider what a distraction-free Ciaran could do with a full day of attention.
Past the standard diplomatic fluff of preambles, the first part of the Articles was broken into sections (which Ciaran had helpfully labelled with notes such as 'The Peace', 'The Transition', 'The Reconciliation', and so on). The Peace was fairly straightforward, if perhaps a little optimistic about how easily Republic, Separatist, and Council militaries would 'cooperate in Concert' to enforce the declared peace against belligerent holdouts. She nonetheless could see the wisdom in declaring an end to hostilities and an accord between powers instead of anyone being made to surrender; not only would a surrender implicitly cast some as the winners and others as the losers, any surrender would explicitly require negotiation of boundaries and restitution, cause some worlds and sectors to fracture off or have their positions compromised … in short, she thought as Raymus returned with her tea and a new box of selections for Ciaran before he again departed, it would be a ghastly mess. By contrast, these accords would unite the former belligerents in common cause practically overnight, and have a better chance of securing a lasting peace.
In her estimation, The Peace looked quite solid and without need of her probing or input. The Transition, however, was much more of a thorny looking mess that required Padmé's close attention … and quickly thereafter, Ciaran's explanation.
"So this 'Provisional Council' of yours is..."
Ciaran answered, "In principle, it's comprised of a diplomatic and martial leader from each antecedent state. In truth it is that ... but the members are going to be from our little band of comrades. This will allow for the people that we trust, and can work with, to be the ones calling the shots and assuming overall command of the disparate militaries."
Padmé didn't need to count out the numbers to detect a flaw. "That would only comprise six members. How do you plan to prevent deadlocked vote decisions? Or decisions where two former states gang up on the third?" Unbidden, images of resentful Separatist members stewing as Council and Republic members pushed them around flew through her head alongside images of Republic and Separatist members hanging costs onto the Council's collective heads. It didn't make for a promising future.
But Ciaran had an answer for her concerns. "That would be the Chair of the Council. A seventh member selected by consensus of the other six and serving only as a moderator, unless a deadlock or your scenario occurs, in which case the Chair's decision is weighted as three votes."
Padmé restrained a whistle. "You'd need quite the candidate for that seat. Someone all parties could trust to be fair and impartial. Someone who could be trusted with outsized influence one moment and a mere advisory role the next. Someone who wouldn't seek further power or influence..." she cut herself off as she saw Ciaran's brazenly self-satisfied smirk, "...and you already have someone in mind, don't you."
"Just the one. Obi-One."
Padmé did not restrain a groan at the pun. "Stars, even for you that's just awful."
"I regret nothing." Ciaran's smirk didn't budge. "But joking aside, he's perfect for the role: he's level-headed, diplomatic, fair-minded, decisive. There's a reason he's called the Negotiator, after all. And on a personal level, he wouldn't want to be put in a position to be the one making the swing decisions of that magnitude, so he'd be doing everything possible to get consensus decisions made."
She nodded along, seeing the wisdom in that. "Structurally this makes sense to me. But politically?" Padmé sucked her teeth. "There's no checks or accountability for this council, no way of countering it or changing its members. This is wildly undemocratic."
"Yes. Yes, it is." Ciaran was completely unapologetic. "Those unhappy, unrepresented sectors best ratify the rest of the Articles quickly then."
"Quite the shock-stick. Plan to offer any carrotin with it?"
"You mean, apart from a stable, legitimate and at least theoretically responsive Galactic government?" Ciaran sipped at her tea before continuing. "If you're talking about enticing rewards, much that it grieves me to say it, that's the wrong way to go about this."
Padmé fiddled with her datapad a bit. "I won't pretend to be entirely unaware of some of the company you keep," she said as she looked across the table at Ciaran. "I hope you would extend me the courtesy of not pretending that you won't face urgings to reconsider that position. Nor to pretend that none of those urgings would come from inside your own head."
Ciaran leaned forward in her seat, nursing her tea in the moment as if it were a much stronger drink. "We get this thing off the ground, we might well entertain the notion that I would be without peer of leveraging connections with political, martial and industrial leaders, making offers and deals and handsome profits while generally driving those wonderful fools senseless. But not here. Not in this. After the corruption, hypocrisy, and myopic self-interest that has sundered faith in and the function of almost every Galactic institution, there cannot be even the impression of some incentive, outside good governance, to signing on.
"No, the carrotin I mean to have on offer," she continued, "is twofold: first, once ratification hits a critical mass the Provisional Council, and its attendant clauses, are rendered null and void. Legally erased from existence. No more unelected autocrats, no more shadowy committee decrees, just the legitimate successor state to Galactic government. It'll encourage the sector representatives to work quickly rather than dither about, as they so often do."
Padmé could, at least, see how there would be some incentive to restore truly representative government with that in mind. "And the second?"
Ciaran offered her a conspiratorial smile. "As to the second, the Articles have a clause about the Council: any member of the Provisional Council agrees that they shall decline to seek, and refuse to accept, any executive or major leadership role. Which," she continued with her smirk broadening, "is why I'll be the diplomatic representative from the CNS to this provisional government. Our personal and ideological clashes aside, I'm smart enough to know I would rather Satine Kryze be available to take leadership roles in the future, and she's just one of many who would rather I wasn't. Plus, it would be a conflict of interest, given her relationship with Obi-Wan."
"But she's not in a relationship with Obi-Wan."
"Oh, we'll just see about that." Ciaran finished her tea, and reached for a milder, caf-free herbal blend. "Besides, this will also help encourage him to take the Chair position; if the Duchess isn't there to keep an eye on me and keep me in check, he'll feel obliged to be."
Padmé sighed, "It's just schemes within schemes with you, isn't it," more as an observation than as a question.
"It isn't ... okay, not always," Ciaran started, then relented at her best friend's pointed look. "Sometimes I just pretend to be scheming, or to have secondary motives or goals, to keep people guessing."
"That makes it hard for people to trust you."
"I have all the trust I'll ever need," Ciaran answered with a pointed look of her own that caused Padmé to slowly blush. "And everyone else wasn't inclined to trust me anyways. So, if they won't trust, then I need to keep them confounded."
"You need to," Padmé clarified, "and not because it amuses you?"
Her friend's conspiratorial smile returned as she eventually confessed, "Life does have its little bonuses."
The two of them shared a chuckle at that, until a thought occurred to Padmé. "Hold on. You said ratification would render the Provisional Council obsolete. And the relevant sections as regard them."
Ciaran nodded, "I said that, yes."
Padmé tilted her head, a suspicion growing. "...would that also negate the clause about council members being ineligible for high office?"
The answer she received was not at all the emphatic denial she hoped for, merely a noncommittal shrug … though she supposed she had no business expecting anything else. "I imagine that would be an argument to be taken before the Courts," Ciaran mused, as if it were an idle hypothetical, and not one that she'd almost certainly engineered into the document. "Myself, I would consider that promise to be binding, and I think the people who would agree to Council membership in the first place would, too."
But how many people will trust that you feel that way, Padmé wondered. For starters, she could think of a few people here at the resort … wait. Some of those people were odd choices for party/vacation attendees. But not, she contemplated, as choices for additional sounding boards.
"Are you alright," Padmé asked, "with me talking to a few of the other guests here about some of these ideas?"
Ciaran offered another shrug and smiled mildly, as if it weren't another nesting-egg scheme of hers that had just hatched in her presence. "I'd feel alright with the more civic-minded individuals, at least. Obi-Wan likely wouldn't be a good option, he'd reject any role or input outright, but the political minds seem good options."
Padmé nodded as her best friend indirectly confirmed her suspicions. "I might discuss this with Mon," she suggested.
"Carefully," Ciaran emphasized. "We can't chance anyone outside this group hearing of it."
"I'll be careful." Padmé smiled. "I won't even mention your name to her."
Ciaran shook her head. "Now that, I'd actually like for you to do."
"What? But she doesn't like you."
"Nonsense. Just about everyone likes me, sometimes despite themselves." That, Padmé could agree with, though she wouldn't vocalize it. "She doesn't trust me," Ciaran added before taking another sip, "which will be a good deal more useful in this case."
Padmé blinked. "You're making even less sense than usual. And that's saying something."
Ciaran set her tea aside. "Right now her worry, and yours, and mine, is the Chancellor. Consequently, her thoughts will be on working backward from him, and installing stopgaps and checks against anyone following his path. Which is good ... so long as any would-be tyrant tries to follow that same path. But that's not the only path to power in the galaxy, and his flavor of tyrant is not the only threat. And if we focus on refighting the last threat, we leave our enemies the chance to adapt, to evolve.
"But," a nefarious smile spread across her face, "if she approaches it with the threat of the unknown," she gestured at herself, "in the forefront of her mind, she'll devote her attention to finding every last gap and possible point of egress to keep me out. And in the process, she may find something I hadn't thought of, and help prevent the next catastrophe from coming to pass."
"So you don't think drawing her attention to you would leave an opening for that next catastrophe?"
"It would," Ciaran said easily, "if I was actually working at cross-purposes to her. But while she's busy making sure I don't slip in through a window or door, I'll be on the outside making sure no one else gets close enough to the house to try it."
Padmé gave a her a long, searching look. Finally, she said, "On sheer scale, that's probably one of the more underhanded thing you've plotted for the good of the galaxy."
Ciaran picked up her tea again. "It's one of the more underhanded thing I've plotted for the good of the galaxy that you know about," she clarified with a small smirk over her mug.
As Ciaran sipped at her tea, Padmé started to wonder if she should ask what else would qualify ... and if she really wanted to know. She was taken away from that line of thought by a hotel worker approaching Ciaran with a datapad.
"Your pardon, my lady, but you wanted to sign off on this, and, er," the Rodian began before he leaned in to whisper in Ciaran's ear about the details. She watched a truly feral grin spread across her friend's face, not unlike the look she'd been on the receiving end of when Ciaran found out about her engagement, and Padmé felt only a little shame about her relief that this time it was definitely directed at someone else.
"Oh, yes," Ciaran said silkily, "I'll cover any and all expenses. Pass along my best to Master Tachi when she inevitably tries to pay." Ciaran's stylus scrawled quickly across the bottom of the datapad, and the Rodian departed with a bow.
"Ciaran," Padmé asked as casually as she could, "what did you do?"
Her best friend looked back at her, the image of innocence. "Why does everyone think, when something funny happens, that I was involved?"
Padmé said drily, "Long, arduous hours of experience."
"I'm hurt by your insinuations," Ciaran lied brazenly through her cheery smile.
"You're also not denying them."
"No time for that," Ciaran finished her tea before standing. "We have a spa day to get to."
"We can't," Padmé protested. "I should get to work on this," she gestured with her own datapad.
"Fine, fine, fine, we'll make it a working spa day," Ciaran said as she took Padmé's arm, "and we can talk about it as we go."
"All right," Padmé sighed. "As long as we don't wear those eyesore magenta bathrobes again."
"I guarantee you," Ciaran's predatory smile came back in full force, "we won't be wearing the magenta bathrobes."
Siri Tachi had always tried to remain wary of conspiratorial thinking. Like most Jedi of the last thousand years, she'd been well and truly sceptical of anyone who thought the Sith were an active threat, never mind being behind most everything that caused the galaxy's problems to escalate. Since coming to learn she was wrong about that, she still resisted the siren call of seeing conspiracy behind everything she couldn't easily explain or account for. In this moment, however, with the fog that clouded her memory of the previous night, and the dawn glow that cast distorted shadows through the room, the siren call was hard to ignore.
For instance, she could not recall filling or placing a glass of water on her bedside table, nor could she recall seeing one there the previous night. Had she simply not remembered, her subconscious mind not considering it worth recollection? Had the memory been consumed by the implacable fog that mired her brain? Or had it been placed there by Lady Ciaran? And if she had done so, had it been a simple gesture of kindness (doubtful) or a self-indulgent cherry on top of the shenanigans she had masterminded (all too plausible) to produce this scenario? Or (most likely of all) both?
Calmly reaching over and sitting up slightly to take a sip of the water, she focused on the soothing effect it had on her dry throat and the mollifying effect it had on the aftertaste of sherbet in her mouth, and didn't do much in the way of thinking about the unconscious woman in her bed, the legs tangled in hers, or the certainty she possessed that Ciaran had something to do with this. For two or three moments, anyway.
It wasn't that Satine Kryze was uninteresting or unattractive – far from it, a wicked voice in her mind (that sounded alarmingly like Ciaran's) offered. Siri might not have been the most worldly of women, but she was neither blind nor stupid, and she would have needed both in spades to hold a genuinely negative opinion of Satine. While it had been more than a bit annoying to hear Obi-Wan talk about the Duchess when they were padawans, and a bit more than that after the war began in earnest, it had been another order of magnitude entirely that, when she met Kryze for the first time, Siri thought that he was right – that, if anything, Obi-Wan had not done her justice.
It also wasn't that Siri found herself being one of those people who made choices in the dark and regretted them in the dawn. For starters, she thought as she set the suspicious glass of water down, I can't be certain what's my choice and what's someone else's contribution. That they both wore the same robes seemed a little too neat to her, as did the trail of garments leading away from the bed that sitting up had brought into sight. But by the same token, she couldn't dismiss it; the trappings being cliché didn't mean they were staged. It just meant she, or her sleeping companion, were staggeringly unoriginal.
As Siri tried to work out just what she should do, or even say, the other woman stirred and her eyes blearily came to focus on Siri's.
She blinked. Twice.
Satine Kryze was many things. A Duchess. A Mandalorian. A leader. A diplomat. One thing that all those disparate roles had in common was skill and economy in using her words to convey her thoughts and intentions. Obi-Wan, when he could be suckered into talking about his personal life within Siri's earshot, had more than once voiced how impressed he was with her fierce and compelling intellect, her innate talent with words.
"Erm."
…Lady Ciaran thinks of this woman as a worthy adversary, Siri thought to herself, sleep fading from her mind faster, apparently, than it did from Satine's. Either I've missed something, or I drastically need to reconsider my threat assessment of Ciaran.
"I … erm."
A small but genuine smile slipped beyond Siri's control and onto her face as words accompanied it. "I've never made a politician speechless before. I'm quite flattered."
The Duchess' pale features went flush with the most endearing shade of red Siri had ever seen.
As the other woman's eyes dropped from hers and she continued to struggle with finding words, Siri thought to reevaluate two things of her previous observations: the first, that the colouring she saw was closer to the magenta of their robes than to red; the second, that this was the Duchess of Mandalore. Not that Siri doubted the woman's identity, but on reflection, the Duchess was more of a mantle: a suit of Mandalorian armour specially crafted for a pacifist politician, but armour nonetheless. The inarticulate, blushing woman before her was not wearing that armour. This, Siri was coming to realise, was Satine Kryze without the mantle of office – someone only a few people in the entire galaxy had ever been allowed to see.
Even as she came to that insight, Siri observed something else: flustered as she was, Satine had yet to disentangle her legs from Siri's. Or to even move away the tiniest bit.
With a careful casualness, she shifted a little, brushing their calves together in a gentle, soothing motion. "Satine?" Once the other woman stopped trying to talk, and met her gaze again, Siri continued, "Milady, you can breathe. Take your time."
A startled laugh seemed to escape past her attempts at composure as Satine tried to do as she was told. "Sorry, it's just," she started to find her words at last, "I think we're well past honorifics this morning." A perfectly sculpted eyebrow arched upwards. "Don't you, Master Jedi?"
"Point taken," Siri felt a bit of heat from her own face.
"I … well," Satine's amused expression faded, "I still haven't devised a tactful or discreet way of asking this. But do you remember … do you know how we got here?"
"Um. No." Siri sighed. "I just have kind of a fog over everything between now and the party last night." …oh stars, I hope it was only last night, Siri thought to herself with a bit of alarm that she tried to keep hidden. Surely their absence would have been noticed if it was more than a single night. "I sort of hoped," she tried to push the thought from her head, "you had some clue."
Satine shook her head a little. "I just know I blame her." The vehemence left no doubt as to who she meant.
…funny how you can say something in your head and it sounds fine, Siri thought, but hear it out loud and the connotations come out from the shadows. Sure, she'd had the suspicion that some amount of chicanery was afoot, and there was a prime suspect who enjoyed little in the galaxy so much as screwing with everyone around her … but now that she thought about it, was it really the only possible answer?
She did what she thought was a reasonably good job in keeping a level tone to her voice as she said, "You think this could all be Ciaran's fault?"
Satine cleared her throat. "I didn't say it's all her fault; I said that I am blaming her. An altogether different thing."
"Is it?"
"Forgive me," Satine offered, "but if you had a sister, you would know the distinction."
"Say I didn't know the distinction, though," Siri asked, "how would you explain it to me?"
"Well, I can't say it's her fault partly because, as per usual," she said with a bit of a snarl, "there's no way to prove she was involved, and partly..." her voice trailed off.
"Yes?"
That flush of colour returned to Satine's face as she looked away. "Are you going to make me say it out loud?"
It was Siri's turn to arch an eyebrow. "Say what?"
"…I can't say with any certainty that it's her fault," Satine eventually said as she brought her eyes back to Siri's, "when there's a good chance it occurred without her intervention." And she brushed her calves against Siri's slowly. Deliberately. And kept them there.
Ah, Siri thought with a mildness that she didn't feel. Because she might have given some thought to this sort of thing before now.
"But I know she was involved somehow," Satine continued, clearly oblivious to the effects of her previous interaction, "because I cannot remember ... erm ... an event, or any conversations or connections that would lead up to it ... and," she added in a very small voice, "I would very much have wanted to remember those."
"You would have?" Siri asked softly.
Satine blinked. "Well. Yes." There was a visible heat to her eyes as she met Siri's gaze.
Okay. No 'might' about it. 'Has', definitely. "The feeling's mutual," Siri confessed, and was able to see the intensity rise more than somewhat in Satine's eyes.
"Also," Satine added with a withering look at her shoulder, "I am inclined to suspect her because I hate this colour, and I'm quite certain I would never intentionally put it on. Comfy though it may be."
Siri smiled then, feeling a bit emboldened. "Well, it seems to me..." she reached out, and rested her hand on Satine's shoulder for a moment, waiting for any hint of discomfort. When none came, she pushed the offending item off Satine's shoulders, and was rewarded with that endearing shade of red returning to the other woman's now-grinning face. "…that there's an obvious solution to both your problems."
Ciri misunderstood something, the lovely Darth Treya don't see the duchess as a rival in fact she plays in a whole diferent level. No it's worse than that Satine is one of the people that Ciara thinks needs her "help".
And she every so glad in "helping".
