Ripped from his home, subject to slavery and now free of it. Cillian will return home, and with him the forces necessary to liberate it. Or if required liberate itself without him, Earth will have its freedom or the Galaxy will be set afire.
The Bloody Tree (Star Wars AU) Terra Under Palpatine AU)
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The Bloody Tree - Chapter 1
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The Bloody Tree - Chapter 1
Being caught up in a security sweep was not what one would consider the most pleasant of things to occur. Especially considering the pants-shitting terror of the possibility that he'd actually been caught for the 'crime' he'd committed in fighting for the liberty of Britain. Loe and behold that wasn't the case. Instead he was arrested for participating in one of the few protests at the beginning (or end really) of the war that wasn't immediately met with violence. A trumped up charge if there ever was one but one that he was immediately grateful for. Yet considering the sweep had been initiated for the destruction of a supply dump and the entirely incidental destruction of an imperial barracks - which said a lot about imperial command… who puts a barracks next to a supply dump? Imperial 'justice' had been ironically meted out.
That's how he found himself off-world, in a galaxy initially so far beyond comprehension it left him with only a fitful night's rest for months as he digested that fact. In fact he hadn't realised he was off-world for a not so insignificant amount of time, taken away in a shuttle and then shuffled through corridors it seemed he might have been stuck in a prison system of some sort. Then he was ushered into a high ceilinged room and packed in with so many people from earth that he felt for a moment that that was the end. He'd known imperial justice as an outraged observer and then committed freedom fighter and he felt that this could have been the end. That the fascists from space would employ methods like the fascists from Earth had always been on his mind, and the mind of his brothers and sisters in arms.
That in retrospect he'd been shuffled into a slave pen and was on the way to a slave auction almost rankled in its seeming antiquity. The humiliation however was real, stripped of clothes, branded on the arm, shackled and collared and paraded like prize stock in front of a chattering mass of slavers whose innumerable languages and forms made them seem like locusts picking at the crop of freedom sparked a rage inside him.
Yet he knew it was better to follow the inexorably moving cart that he was tied to than to fight its movement ever forward (metaphorically). A detail that he'd missed initially but quickly realised when he was immediately brought to his buyer and draped in a shawl/blanket was that he'd been bought individually. What followed was the buying of groups of people from earth, in their tens and hundreds, and his stomach fell further as he came to the comprehension that their likely fates were to be worked to death or breaking in some form of slavery or other. That his was to be more personal was a cold comfort and selfish comfort considering that the last few groups of slaves were purely stripped women (some far too… it's best not to think about) which seemed to set bidding into a frenzy. He knew what their likely fates were and from the looks on some of their faces their best guesses echoed his as well.
It was that depressing scene that had etched its way into his mind throughout his enslavement and subsequent self-liberation. Yet the three years sometimes felt like thirty. Nevermind the fact that he was a household slave for some middling slaver family, a mercy compared to many of those that he had shared that pen with, no doubt. Forced into the role of personal educator (only after a years worth of catching up, but he was a quick study desperate for a change in role to say nothing of his university education). He retained his role as punching bag for the elder notables and… comforter… for any who'd demanded it, the back breaking duties were reduced but the soul crushing ones simply intensified.
There was an irony to it, he'd admit that to himself, as he ran through the dreaded and continuous action of processing the whole ordeal following his escape. A self-schadenfreude at the fact that he'd simply neglected to consider that he could be subject to one form of slavery he so readily understood others were likely to be subject to.
There was the small victory that one of those who'd used him grew attached, grew feelings and he'd manipulated them as soon as he'd realised the extent of them. Perhaps it was luck, or a drive to survive and escape, or some underlying part of him was truly capable of outright using someone in turn but he'd succeeded. He didn't want to consider the latter, he'd never been like that on Earth (home, that pale blue dot). Forthright if genuinely asked, expected nothing, reliable, and if not industrious nevertheless diligent on task. Never a manipulator, now he was. Words spilled from his mouth and actions greased his skin like oil as he wore a mask to survive, and now he feared his face grew to fit it. It came all too easily nowadays.
Turnabout's fair play, he knew that, he felt that, he'd internalised that. He just didn't like what was necessary to learn and sacrifice in turn. He'd get over it, just give him time.
It helped that he'd been more than successful. A trip off-world with the smallest of retinues to some agricultural estate with a stopover in a freeport that managed to strike a balance between seedy and polite society gave him the opportunity he'd needed. He planned as best he could and as the woman who considered her slave a kindred soul had given him a heads up that they were going away he'd adapted all he'd done up until that point. Once they hit the freeport he took in what information he could and upon being given a long leash he took as much as he could, always conscious of the slave chip in his neck.
Once off the freeport the crescendo of the plan involved the removal of a restraining bolt on an astromech under his instruction that may have missed a memory wipe or a few; an impromptu bit of by the pants autosurgery with a dash of signals warfare with said astromech as a helper; the lifting of a blaster; a quick and immediate assault on the cockpit with said slave chip as an impromptu breaching device; the takedown of the lone pilot alongside the lone guard who was acting as copilot; control secured of the two droids who were brought along as heavies if needed; the rapid uncontrolled disassembly of an unrepentant protocol droid; and, finally, the rendition of a confused slaver.
Yet his conscience threw a spanner in the works, he'd set the blaster to stun, and left his captors alive. Rationally as well he knew if he killed the woman along with the others he'd have a bigger target on his back. The family who'd held his chain would seek revenge, on top of restitution for the property stolen. His fate would be a flip of a coin between execution and a lifetime of enslavement. Mutilation and torture would be his lot on either flip, if he was caught. Which he would not be, not ever.
Managing the captives was a tiring process of restunning them whenever they awoke and inevitably attempted to escape. He'd mulled over what to do before shortly he dcieded that it was necessary to drop them at the originally intended location. Sans communication devices and about a weeks walk away from the compound that they were originally heading towards. Along with survival rations and kit. He chanced it because he knew the planet was well out of the way of any major space lanes; at least from what he could tell by inference from the droid and the navigational computer. In addition, its defense was its obscurity and the fact that it wasn't intensely exploited.
Conversation with the slaver when he was performing his duties implied that the location was almost intentionally rustic. Although the equipment on the estate was advanced agriculturally the only way on and off the planet was via ship. Few were kept around due their potential use in a slave uprising and escape. Traffic was regulated to when there was goods to move or labour to import. There was no ground based communication systems except for guard posts and the primary estate, records on the ship indicated that sensors were nonexistant and any defenses were minimal - relegated to some old anti-air guns which were taken down for maintenance. It seemed the universe had made his choice for him, or at least intended for his conscience to not interfere overly much with his escape.
The flight to the planet was a flurry of planning and preparation. He couldn't head back to that freeport and he'd need to sell the ship on. Outside of the immediate need for currency and a form of transport that wasn't as identifiable as the spacecraft he was in right now he needed a continuous source of income and a place to call home. Yet it seemed his luck, entirely unsatisfied with simply handing him the perfect chance for escape, waxed even further.
The drop off was an unceremonious dumping of supplies, bodies and what passed for paper in space (which seemed more like plastic) with directions saying 'go that way' more or less. The escape was dull, what with the astromech doing most of the piloting, although it attempted to guide him through the process. With what little droid speak he could understand it was more like him guessing and the droid warbling in the affirmative or negative. High pitched squeals of warning indicated something to explore later, on solid ground or at least in atmosphere somewhere safe.
The seedy port he had headed to, luckily, had an abolitionist tinge to it. It wouldn't stop people wheeling, dealing and stealing; you still had to keep an eye on all your belongings and be careful who you laid your eyes on. But having seen what amounted to the local security forces holding a being at gun… blaster point, storm its damaged ship and bring out beings crying tears of joy which brought similar tears to his eyes affirmed to him that he'd found a safe place to bed down.
He'd sold off the ship, received kudos from the buyer for having escaped, and was gouged anyway for the work that the buyer would need to do to have it pass as legitimate. Sand the serial numbers off and such. And turn a profit no doubt. At least he assumed he was gouged given the alarmed noises from the astromech as the offer was conferred initially. He'd haggled a bit but as he'd never haggled before the price hadn't gone up much.
'Much' as if 300,000 credits wasn't much. At the time he didn't have an exchange rate worked out but from what he'd seen and experienced it would have been enough for years of idleness, living off that single score.
Yet he wasn't given to idleness. Not when Earth, Britain, his family and friends were under the jackboot of a Galactic Empire. He often wondered if they thought him dead in some mass grave somewhere, or imprisoned never to see the light of day, or this or that. He hoped that they'd kept their heads down. It was a blind hope, he knew his family but he knew not what they'd do.
But that was neither here nor there, really. He couldn't do much about what they'd do, and worry paralysed. Thus after having secured accommodation, weaponry (which was abundant at this freeport, he would learn the same could be said for most free ports) and the necessities of living he'd sat down and planned.
He knew he'd need to acquire funds. How did rebel groups acquire funds? Primary resources, items which required little in terms of additive labour to develop value. Gems, oil, cash crops, drugs. Sympathetic elites, fat chance of that in a galaxy which had thousands, hundreds of thousands… no millions of inhabited planets. They'd be focused locally at least concerned with their homeworlds or previous interstellar territories. No one would give an ounce of care for one pre-interstellar planet amongst many.
Crime, which tied into the primary resources and sympathetic elites. You'd need to smuggle, steal, wash and so on to ensure that you acquired funds, elites tied into this somewhat as they could legitimise your funds or simply hand you theirs.
There was kidnapping for ransom of course, but that was put to the wayside at the beginning. Not to mention it tinged on the morals somewhat.
There was also taxation, literally, take control of a territory, put the people to steady work and act as a government. Yet that was far beyond the initial embers of what he'd be able to do. There was also the issue of the geopolitical nature of the galaxy. Take a planet or some land on a planet and you open yourself up to a direct contestation over what you've developed. Whereas remaining 'stateless' or having no hard territory had its own challenges you could move more freely. A mixture might be useful but it was all hypothetical at this point.
He was only one man, and two currently deactivated security droids. The astromech tagged along but he didn't expect it to, if it so wished it could have pursued its own path. Ultimately, it had decided to stay and he was grateful for it.
The astromech was designated R4-Y4, actually an agromech, which made him question how exactly R4-Y4 was able to pilot the ship that he'd…they'd stolen. R4s response had sounded indignant when asked how and said something about parts or stages. So he'd deduced that R4 had been subject to some upgrades or was modified before purchase. Or at least before he'd been placed under his instruction.
The first few weeks of freedom were lazy but productive: he situated himself locally; made frequent trips to the local firing range; deepened his knowledge of the galaxy outside of the broad strokes he could gleam from conversation and the granulated specifics he'd learned to fulfill his previous duties; learned more about the freeport, its politics, the moon it was situated on and its place in the galaxy; frequented bars and pubs (cantinas apparently) and mingled as best he could with the locals; he'd attempted a club but the press of bodies in the line unsettled him so he'd gone home panicked; he'd learned and continued learning droid speak, and whilst he was no expert he would eventually become conversational in it.
There was a lot of ground to cover and it wasn't helped by the fact that he hit an initial wall in his investigations. He had no idea where Earth was. And that left a pit in his stomach which would visit him constantly until he did. He had no idea where to look, was half scared that if he searched 'Earth' on the Holonet that either slavers or an imperial intelligence team would kick down his door It was such an odd thing, to know that Earth existed, but not where.
He'd spent the majority of his life there and he was suddenly faced with the possibility that he'd never even be able to return for fear of looking. Or not even knowing where to look.
That was the big picture, one which inspired dread. But scale down and look at the smaller picture and he was in a position of provenance, of hope. So he'd focused on that instead.
The moon, dubbed Aut Nomos, was largely irrelevant due to it not being on any major hyperlane routes, was nestled between the Caloran Sector and Hutt Space. Considering his former slavers were Zygerrian and they often mentioned Hutt Space he assumed they had links to the Hutts, most likely due to their agricultural interests, and in some form or another owned land and property or at least worked it on behalf of them nearby. For a given value of 'nearby'.
And weren't the Hutts a lovely bunch of people. A slaving criminal empire that had made it. They'd lasted thousands of years and there was no indication that such a thing was going to end anytime soon. Even the Empire seemed tolerant of them.
Yet its position meant that whilst not out of reach it was nominally out of mind, there were more important worlds, more important routes for the powers-at-be to focus on.
Aut Nomos hadn't known the touch of conflict for over a century. The local government, whilst permissive domestically, had seemed able to move between the regional powers, warlords, criminal gangs and such with a deft grace. From what he'd observed the defenses around the spaceport were formidable, the local security forces were celebrated - and not in the way that dictatorships fronted, and the most notable of local industries tended towards small spacecraft building and refurbishment and all that entailed. Electronics, propulsion, sensors, weaponry, computation and much more.
Yet, that didn't make it a great power. Just simply not worth stomping because any value from the world would be lost in any potential conquest. So middling and lesser slavers of note dropped their ships off for upgrades, refurbishments, as did the minor powers, pirates, private individuals and so on.
All in all despite the obvious internal outrage at doing business with slavers he'd approved of the pragmatic and effective governance of the moon.
And that would be something to emulate. There was opportunity here, he could sense it, all that was left was to grasp it. And he would.
Cillian Rhett would return to Earth and at his back would be the force necessary to liberate it.
—
A/N: So this is based on Superspleen's Terra Under Palpatine. His work gave me the writing bug and this is the result. After speaking with him, and considering the size of what i intend to write it was probably better to spin this thing off into its own thing. He has his plans, and I mine.
This is the first time i've written anything more than shorts in quite a few years so people will need to forgive the quality etc. I'm trying to work out what my authorial style is and what the style i use for this fic should look like. This first chapter is more internal in substance and simply a recap to get us to this point. I had considered starting from capture but decided i wasnt interested in writing three years of slavery.
This is very much by the seat of my pants.
I'd also take a beta if anyone is interested, beta experience would be appreciated but not required.
Also internet cookies for whoever figures out what The Bloody Tree is a reference to.
Being caught up in a security sweep was not what one would consider the most pleasant of things to occur. Especially considering the pants-shitting terror of the possibility that he'd actually been caught for the 'crime' he'd committed in fighting for the liberty of Britain. Loe and behold that wasn't the case. Instead he was arrested for participating in one of the few protests at the beginning (or end really) of the war that wasn't immediately met with violence. A trumped up charge if there ever was one but one that he was immediately grateful for. Yet considering the sweep had been initiated for the destruction of a supply dump and the entirely incidental destruction of an imperial barracks - which said a lot about imperial command… who puts a barracks next to a supply dump? Imperial 'justice' had been ironically meted out.
That's how he found himself off-world, in a galaxy initially so far beyond comprehension it left him with only a fitful night's rest for months as he digested that fact. In fact he hadn't realised he was off-world for a not so insignificant amount of time, taken away in a shuttle and then shuffled through corridors it seemed he might have been stuck in a prison system of some sort. Then he was ushered into a high ceilinged room and packed in with so many people from earth that he felt for a moment that that was the end. He'd known imperial justice as an outraged observer and then committed freedom fighter and he felt that this could have been the end. That the fascists from space would employ methods like the fascists from Earth had always been on his mind, and the mind of his brothers and sisters in arms.
That in retrospect he'd been shuffled into a slave pen and was on the way to a slave auction almost rankled in its seeming antiquity. The humiliation however was real, stripped of clothes, branded on the arm, shackled and collared and paraded like prize stock in front of a chattering mass of slavers whose innumerable languages and forms made them seem like locusts picking at the crop of freedom sparked a rage inside him.
Yet he knew it was better to follow the inexorably moving cart that he was tied to than to fight its movement ever forward (metaphorically). A detail that he'd missed initially but quickly realised when he was immediately brought to his buyer and draped in a shawl/blanket was that he'd been bought individually. What followed was the buying of groups of people from earth, in their tens and hundreds, and his stomach fell further as he came to the comprehension that their likely fates were to be worked to death or breaking in some form of slavery or other. That his was to be more personal was a cold comfort and selfish comfort considering that the last few groups of slaves were purely stripped women (some far too… it's best not to think about) which seemed to set bidding into a frenzy. He knew what their likely fates were and from the looks on some of their faces their best guesses echoed his as well.
It was that depressing scene that had etched its way into his mind throughout his enslavement and subsequent self-liberation. Yet the three years sometimes felt like thirty. Nevermind the fact that he was a household slave for some middling slaver family, a mercy compared to many of those that he had shared that pen with, no doubt. Forced into the role of personal educator (only after a years worth of catching up, but he was a quick study desperate for a change in role to say nothing of his university education). He retained his role as punching bag for the elder notables and… comforter… for any who'd demanded it, the back breaking duties were reduced but the soul crushing ones simply intensified.
There was an irony to it, he'd admit that to himself, as he ran through the dreaded and continuous action of processing the whole ordeal following his escape. A self-schadenfreude at the fact that he'd simply neglected to consider that he could be subject to one form of slavery he so readily understood others were likely to be subject to.
There was the small victory that one of those who'd used him grew attached, grew feelings and he'd manipulated them as soon as he'd realised the extent of them. Perhaps it was luck, or a drive to survive and escape, or some underlying part of him was truly capable of outright using someone in turn but he'd succeeded. He didn't want to consider the latter, he'd never been like that on Earth (home, that pale blue dot). Forthright if genuinely asked, expected nothing, reliable, and if not industrious nevertheless diligent on task. Never a manipulator, now he was. Words spilled from his mouth and actions greased his skin like oil as he wore a mask to survive, and now he feared his face grew to fit it. It came all too easily nowadays.
Turnabout's fair play, he knew that, he felt that, he'd internalised that. He just didn't like what was necessary to learn and sacrifice in turn. He'd get over it, just give him time.
It helped that he'd been more than successful. A trip off-world with the smallest of retinues to some agricultural estate with a stopover in a freeport that managed to strike a balance between seedy and polite society gave him the opportunity he'd needed. He planned as best he could and as the woman who considered her slave a kindred soul had given him a heads up that they were going away he'd adapted all he'd done up until that point. Once they hit the freeport he took in what information he could and upon being given a long leash he took as much as he could, always conscious of the slave chip in his neck.
Once off the freeport the crescendo of the plan involved the removal of a restraining bolt on an astromech under his instruction that may have missed a memory wipe or a few; an impromptu bit of by the pants autosurgery with a dash of signals warfare with said astromech as a helper; the lifting of a blaster; a quick and immediate assault on the cockpit with said slave chip as an impromptu breaching device; the takedown of the lone pilot alongside the lone guard who was acting as copilot; control secured of the two droids who were brought along as heavies if needed; the rapid uncontrolled disassembly of an unrepentant protocol droid; and, finally, the rendition of a confused slaver.
Yet his conscience threw a spanner in the works, he'd set the blaster to stun, and left his captors alive. Rationally as well he knew if he killed the woman along with the others he'd have a bigger target on his back. The family who'd held his chain would seek revenge, on top of restitution for the property stolen. His fate would be a flip of a coin between execution and a lifetime of enslavement. Mutilation and torture would be his lot on either flip, if he was caught. Which he would not be, not ever.
Managing the captives was a tiring process of restunning them whenever they awoke and inevitably attempted to escape. He'd mulled over what to do before shortly he dcieded that it was necessary to drop them at the originally intended location. Sans communication devices and about a weeks walk away from the compound that they were originally heading towards. Along with survival rations and kit. He chanced it because he knew the planet was well out of the way of any major space lanes; at least from what he could tell by inference from the droid and the navigational computer. In addition, its defense was its obscurity and the fact that it wasn't intensely exploited.
Conversation with the slaver when he was performing his duties implied that the location was almost intentionally rustic. Although the equipment on the estate was advanced agriculturally the only way on and off the planet was via ship. Few were kept around due their potential use in a slave uprising and escape. Traffic was regulated to when there was goods to move or labour to import. There was no ground based communication systems except for guard posts and the primary estate, records on the ship indicated that sensors were nonexistant and any defenses were minimal - relegated to some old anti-air guns which were taken down for maintenance. It seemed the universe had made his choice for him, or at least intended for his conscience to not interfere overly much with his escape.
The flight to the planet was a flurry of planning and preparation. He couldn't head back to that freeport and he'd need to sell the ship on. Outside of the immediate need for currency and a form of transport that wasn't as identifiable as the spacecraft he was in right now he needed a continuous source of income and a place to call home. Yet it seemed his luck, entirely unsatisfied with simply handing him the perfect chance for escape, waxed even further.
The drop off was an unceremonious dumping of supplies, bodies and what passed for paper in space (which seemed more like plastic) with directions saying 'go that way' more or less. The escape was dull, what with the astromech doing most of the piloting, although it attempted to guide him through the process. With what little droid speak he could understand it was more like him guessing and the droid warbling in the affirmative or negative. High pitched squeals of warning indicated something to explore later, on solid ground or at least in atmosphere somewhere safe.
The seedy port he had headed to, luckily, had an abolitionist tinge to it. It wouldn't stop people wheeling, dealing and stealing; you still had to keep an eye on all your belongings and be careful who you laid your eyes on. But having seen what amounted to the local security forces holding a being at gun… blaster point, storm its damaged ship and bring out beings crying tears of joy which brought similar tears to his eyes affirmed to him that he'd found a safe place to bed down.
He'd sold off the ship, received kudos from the buyer for having escaped, and was gouged anyway for the work that the buyer would need to do to have it pass as legitimate. Sand the serial numbers off and such. And turn a profit no doubt. At least he assumed he was gouged given the alarmed noises from the astromech as the offer was conferred initially. He'd haggled a bit but as he'd never haggled before the price hadn't gone up much.
'Much' as if 300,000 credits wasn't much. At the time he didn't have an exchange rate worked out but from what he'd seen and experienced it would have been enough for years of idleness, living off that single score.
Yet he wasn't given to idleness. Not when Earth, Britain, his family and friends were under the jackboot of a Galactic Empire. He often wondered if they thought him dead in some mass grave somewhere, or imprisoned never to see the light of day, or this or that. He hoped that they'd kept their heads down. It was a blind hope, he knew his family but he knew not what they'd do.
But that was neither here nor there, really. He couldn't do much about what they'd do, and worry paralysed. Thus after having secured accommodation, weaponry (which was abundant at this freeport, he would learn the same could be said for most free ports) and the necessities of living he'd sat down and planned.
He knew he'd need to acquire funds. How did rebel groups acquire funds? Primary resources, items which required little in terms of additive labour to develop value. Gems, oil, cash crops, drugs. Sympathetic elites, fat chance of that in a galaxy which had thousands, hundreds of thousands… no millions of inhabited planets. They'd be focused locally at least concerned with their homeworlds or previous interstellar territories. No one would give an ounce of care for one pre-interstellar planet amongst many.
Crime, which tied into the primary resources and sympathetic elites. You'd need to smuggle, steal, wash and so on to ensure that you acquired funds, elites tied into this somewhat as they could legitimise your funds or simply hand you theirs.
There was kidnapping for ransom of course, but that was put to the wayside at the beginning. Not to mention it tinged on the morals somewhat.
There was also taxation, literally, take control of a territory, put the people to steady work and act as a government. Yet that was far beyond the initial embers of what he'd be able to do. There was also the issue of the geopolitical nature of the galaxy. Take a planet or some land on a planet and you open yourself up to a direct contestation over what you've developed. Whereas remaining 'stateless' or having no hard territory had its own challenges you could move more freely. A mixture might be useful but it was all hypothetical at this point.
He was only one man, and two currently deactivated security droids. The astromech tagged along but he didn't expect it to, if it so wished it could have pursued its own path. Ultimately, it had decided to stay and he was grateful for it.
The astromech was designated R4-Y4, actually an agromech, which made him question how exactly R4-Y4 was able to pilot the ship that he'd…they'd stolen. R4s response had sounded indignant when asked how and said something about parts or stages. So he'd deduced that R4 had been subject to some upgrades or was modified before purchase. Or at least before he'd been placed under his instruction.
The first few weeks of freedom were lazy but productive: he situated himself locally; made frequent trips to the local firing range; deepened his knowledge of the galaxy outside of the broad strokes he could gleam from conversation and the granulated specifics he'd learned to fulfill his previous duties; learned more about the freeport, its politics, the moon it was situated on and its place in the galaxy; frequented bars and pubs (cantinas apparently) and mingled as best he could with the locals; he'd attempted a club but the press of bodies in the line unsettled him so he'd gone home panicked; he'd learned and continued learning droid speak, and whilst he was no expert he would eventually become conversational in it.
There was a lot of ground to cover and it wasn't helped by the fact that he hit an initial wall in his investigations. He had no idea where Earth was. And that left a pit in his stomach which would visit him constantly until he did. He had no idea where to look, was half scared that if he searched 'Earth' on the Holonet that either slavers or an imperial intelligence team would kick down his door It was such an odd thing, to know that Earth existed, but not where.
He'd spent the majority of his life there and he was suddenly faced with the possibility that he'd never even be able to return for fear of looking. Or not even knowing where to look.
That was the big picture, one which inspired dread. But scale down and look at the smaller picture and he was in a position of provenance, of hope. So he'd focused on that instead.
The moon, dubbed Aut Nomos, was largely irrelevant due to it not being on any major hyperlane routes, was nestled between the Caloran Sector and Hutt Space. Considering his former slavers were Zygerrian and they often mentioned Hutt Space he assumed they had links to the Hutts, most likely due to their agricultural interests, and in some form or another owned land and property or at least worked it on behalf of them nearby. For a given value of 'nearby'.
And weren't the Hutts a lovely bunch of people. A slaving criminal empire that had made it. They'd lasted thousands of years and there was no indication that such a thing was going to end anytime soon. Even the Empire seemed tolerant of them.
Yet its position meant that whilst not out of reach it was nominally out of mind, there were more important worlds, more important routes for the powers-at-be to focus on.
Aut Nomos hadn't known the touch of conflict for over a century. The local government, whilst permissive domestically, had seemed able to move between the regional powers, warlords, criminal gangs and such with a deft grace. From what he'd observed the defenses around the spaceport were formidable, the local security forces were celebrated - and not in the way that dictatorships fronted, and the most notable of local industries tended towards small spacecraft building and refurbishment and all that entailed. Electronics, propulsion, sensors, weaponry, computation and much more.
Yet, that didn't make it a great power. Just simply not worth stomping because any value from the world would be lost in any potential conquest. So middling and lesser slavers of note dropped their ships off for upgrades, refurbishments, as did the minor powers, pirates, private individuals and so on.
All in all despite the obvious internal outrage at doing business with slavers he'd approved of the pragmatic and effective governance of the moon.
And that would be something to emulate. There was opportunity here, he could sense it, all that was left was to grasp it. And he would.
Cillian Rhett would return to Earth and at his back would be the force necessary to liberate it.
—
A/N: So this is based on Superspleen's Terra Under Palpatine. His work gave me the writing bug and this is the result. After speaking with him, and considering the size of what i intend to write it was probably better to spin this thing off into its own thing. He has his plans, and I mine.
This is the first time i've written anything more than shorts in quite a few years so people will need to forgive the quality etc. I'm trying to work out what my authorial style is and what the style i use for this fic should look like. This first chapter is more internal in substance and simply a recap to get us to this point. I had considered starting from capture but decided i wasnt interested in writing three years of slavery.
This is very much by the seat of my pants.
I'd also take a beta if anyone is interested, beta experience would be appreciated but not required.
Also internet cookies for whoever figures out what The Bloody Tree is a reference to.
- Location
- UK
Thank you I appreciate it 😊
My first thought is Thomas Jefferson, "the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants".
How much are you borrowing from Terra under Palpatine?
- Location
- UK
Pretty much the initial setting, but now that this it's own thing it'll diverge heavily over time.
How the occupation resolves, what occurs under it, what occurs after it, will be different. At the same time there will be similarities.
TUP, whilst being a fic in its own right is also a considerable 'commons' in the sense that anyone contributing is likely to influence the world in some way.
TBT, simply because it's a spin off and focuses on a specifc journey will be less of that.
Plus there is the simple fact that this will get less viewer ship so the contribution on my end will need to be more substantive to drive engagement. But it was going to be more substantive anyway with the story I want to tell.
And yes that is the reference.
I generally dislike that style of storytelling as not everyone is on the same page in regards to plot, progression, etc. I'm sold. I don't recall if TUP ever stated WHEN earth got occupied, do you have a solid date yet?
- Location
- UK
I believe the invasion was around 2006 in TUP's timeline.