#but sith are more likely to enact it on a large scale

[iconac]

revisiting the kotor comics and i do enjoy how sw lore always brings up causality manipulation super casually. visions are one thing, but yeah, sometimes jedi just sorta reach out and give causality a little tip in the direction they want it to go. like?? yeah, when qui-gon rigged the dice in phanton menace he just move the dice with the force, but also, he could've moved probability itself if he really wanted to.

[viceroygunray]

ANIMATED // have you met NUTE GUNRAY yet? THEY are a SIXTY-FIVE year old AGENDER NEIMOIDIAN. they’re originally from NEIMOIDIA and now show loyalty to THE SEPARATIST. they are best known for being a FORMER VICEROY OF THE TRADE FEDERATION/CHAIR OF THE SEPARATIST COUNCIL, and i hear they’re pretty PRAGMATIC yet also GREEDY at times; i hope they survive the galactic civil war. (Devin, 23, EST, He/Him/His)

THE PAST

Born in the year 84 BBY, Nute Gunray like all Neimoidians spent the first seven years of their life in a communal hive, where with the other grubs had to hoard food in order to survive. Not only was Nute able to hoard food to surive, they hoarded more than any other in their hive, proving themself worthy of being a high ranking member of Neimoidian society. Joining the Trade Federation as a Junior Trade Officer, Gunray made the final decision to expel a member of the corporation, opening a seat on the Trade Federation Board of Directors, which by the age of 30 Gunray filled. 

In addition to the seat Gunray was also appointed the Trade Federation’s Senator, where they served for the next 10 years. During the year 44 BBY, the Trade Federation came into issues with the Stark Commercial Combine. After the brief Stark Hyperspace War Gunray was made Viceroy of the Trade Federation for their role in securing a victory for the Trade Federation. Eleven years into their leadership of the Federation, Gunray would come into contact with Darth Sidious for the first time, when they were gifted with a rare red spotted pylat. Sidious would help Gunray turn the Trade Federation into a Neimoidian monopoly at the disastrous Eriadu Trade Summit. Giving Gunray complete control over the corporation.

Shortly after, the senate and Chancellor Valorum would enact taxes on the free trade routes, and with the backing of the mysterious, yet powerful, Darth Sidious Gunray would enact a blockade around the small, minor planet of Naboo. This blockade would soon become a full scale invasion. Taking control of Naboo, a resistance formed, and Queen Amidala formed an alliance with the Gungans. Together they defeated the Federation and Gunray was shipped to Coruscant where they stood trial 4 times, where they failed to convict and they remained Viceroy. 

After going through these trials, Gunray was approached by Count Doou, where they joined the former Jedi in forming a new galactic government, The Confederacy of Independent Systems. In that role they served as the Chairperson of the Separatist Council, they would also put a bounty on Padme Amidala’s head, seeking revenge for the Naboo incident. Being present at the Battle of Geonosis, and the start of the Clone Wars, Gunray would watch as the galaxy became embroiled in war. Falling in Republic hands at one point, and watching as Neimoida, and Cato Neimoida were attacked by the Republic, Gunray’s only remaining option was to trust in Dooku, and Sidious. 

During the final days of the war, and after the deaths of Count Dooku, and General Grievous, Gunray would be the Head of the CIS, overseeing the final few hours of the war from a bunker on Mustafar. Sidious promising the CIS leadership peace, and a new place in society. Instead Gunray and the other CIS leadership were struck down by Sidious’ apprentice, Nute having been betrayed by the man who he had entered into deals with 14 years prior. 

THE PRESENT

The last thing they remembered was the slash of red, and then nothing. Yet now, Nute Gunray had awakened on Cato Neimoidia, 26 years after they had died. Wasting no time, they have discovered that the Trade Federation was disbanded, but that the Separatist movement lived on through the New Separatist Union. Using the cover story that they had committed suicide after they knew the war was lost, Gunray blasted this as Imperial lies and that they had been in hiding all along. Gunray before this had been considered a martyr of the CIS. Like any wise Neimoidian, Gunray had kept secret safe houses where they had houses robes, a very large sum of credits, and other valuables Nute did not trust the rest of the CIS knowing about. 

Taking advantage of their Martyrdom and their sudden return, Nute has taken up a leadership role within the New Separatist Union, this time actually wanting to create a new sustanable government for two reasons. The first, to make money and secure a high ranking place for themself. Secondly, to be safe from Amidala and other former Republican officials who may want to see them arrested, as they now have diplomatic immunity. 

PERSONALITY

Nute Gunray is duplicitous, greedy, cunning, and extremely avaricious. They are also however pragmatic and before Sidious came into their life knew how far they could push the law. With this second chance, Nute does not plan on falling in league with any Sith Lords, they wish to return to the life they had before Sidious, where they were wealthy, feared, and respected but also incredibly comfortable. Now with so many various galactic factions though, the galaxy is ripe for the picking, and Nute plans on getting their share of the riches.

[ramajmedia]

Star Wars: Everything We Know About The Galaxy After The Last Jedi

Star Wars canon hasn't told many stories beyond the events of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, but with a bit of a time gap before Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker there's still a lot of story to account for. Star Wars 9 will pick things up one year after Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and while the Resistance found renewed hope at the end of Rian Johnson's film, that hasn't fully spread across the galaxy.

With the opening of Star Wars Galaxy's Edge, a publishing program of various tie-in novels and comic books has been released, just as Disney did for Star Wars: The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi (and will do for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker). This means that fleshing out the backstory of Galaxy’s Edge, seeing how the Resistance attempts to take up refuge in the distant planet of Batuu, is also developing the backstory of Star Wars 9, prepping audiences for the First Order’s final, climactic push for galactic dominance.

RELATED: Star Wars Addresses Why Leia Didn’t Use The Force Before The Last Jedi

Star Wars 9 will end the Skywalker Saga and bring the conflict between the Resistance and the First Order to a close, and we have a good picture of what General Leia Organa, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, the two respective organizations they head, and the Star Wars galaxy as a whole have been up to between Star Wars: The Last Jedi and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

The Hosnian Cataclysm, when Starkiller Base obliterated the five planets of the Hosnian star system in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, has left the New Republic without its capital, its Senate, and the vast majority of its already-small fleet. Even worse, although the Resistance enacted a counterstrike that, in turn, destroyed Starkiller, no one in the galaxy seems to be aware of this fact – the First Order has a vested propaganda interest in covering that fact up, and the Resistance is too scattered to wage a PR campaign of its own. This means that the general populace of the Star Wars galaxy lives in perpetual fear of another system-wide murder, which they think could land at any location and at any time should they speak up against the neo-Imperial regime. (Making matters even worse is that, on some backwater planets like Batuu, they don’t even think the First Order really exists, as inexplicable as that may be.)

This has allowed Kylo Ren the luxury of not only moving into entire swaths of the galaxy en masse (though we have yet to see this militaristic push directly in canon), but also of mercilessly hunting the Resistance as it attempts to set up new headquarters in another hidden part of interstellar space. Think of this, then, as the exact same set-up we saw exiting Star Wars: A New Hope and entering The Empire Strikes Back: the good guys are too busy scrambling for their very lives to think about the next major military initiative, perpetually just one step away from utter and total defeat.

Even before the Hosnian Cataclysm, Leia Organa knew that the First Order had something major planned (thanks to the events of Star Wars: Resistance) and devised a new strategy of her own. She dispatched a handful of operatives to seek out new planets (inhabited, with an active port that the Resistance can piggyback off of, but nothing too major or obvious) that new back-up bases can be established on – the two biggest assets the general foresees needing are allies and places to hide should her years-long cold war with the First Order suddenly become hot.

Related: Star Wars Finally Reveals The Resistance's Fate After The Last Jedi

In the aftermath of Star Wars: The Last Jedi’s disastrous Battle of Crait, after which only small handfuls of Resistance members were left alive, that directive takes on a whole new urgency, going from back-up plan to dire necessity. The Resistance’s top spy, Vi Moradi (a books-only character who now is meetable-and-greetable in Galaxy’s Edge), suggests Batuu, which has become a safe haven for smugglers and other never-do-wells in the millennia since faster-than-light travel rendered it from economic hotspot to forgotten has-been. Audiences only get to see Vi’s mission on the world’s capital, Black Spire Outpost, but they’re emblematic of all the other efforts in all the other neglected corners of space – and, even more, the agent’s occasional communiques with Leia paint a picture that is still dreary and bleak for their freedom movement, with base-building and recruit-gathering only going slowly and painfully, and with not enough resources around to spread from one site to the other.

That the First Order is mercilessly hunting them, of course, only makes the effort harder. The would-be Empire has hired the renowned mercenary Bazine Netal (a character originally introduced as a background player in Star Wars: The Force Awakens but who has since made several appears in the novels, comics, and short stories) to track the Millennium Falcon down, which she successfully does to Batuu; Hondo Ohnaka, that infamous space pirate from the Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels television series, has taken temporary custody of the legendary vessel, and he splits his time with it running mercy missions for the Resistance and running smuggling operations for his own pocket (this is the backstory for one of Galaxy’s Edge’s two rides, Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run).

Though Hondo is cleverly able to throw Bazine off of his tail, that doesn’t leave her employer undeterred. Once word reaches them that Vi Moradi has also been spotted in Black Spire, the First Order arrives in successive waves of force, culminating in the Supreme Leader himself arriving to personally supervise the operation.

Kylo Ren isn’t only on Batuu to enforce the planet’s newfound occupation ahead of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker – he may also just be there on a more personal mission. Although only fleetingly mentioned in Star Wars canon thus far, it is clearly established that the still-new Supreme Leader is actively searching for any artifact having to do with the Force, whether Jedi or Sith in nature. The reasons for this type of crusade could be legion: the progeny of Anakin Skywalker could be eager to finish his Force education now that his former master, Snoke, is dead, or he could have stumbled upon Emperor Palpatine’s huge collection (which we now know, thanks to the Aftermath trilogy of novels, he had hidden among dozens of different worlds) and wishes to finish it, or his idolization of his grandfather’s Darth Vader helmet has become more of an obsession over the past five months. There’s also the fact that Luke Skywalker spent a few decades attempting to gather his own library of Force-related lore and items before setting out to rebuild the Jedi Order from scratch – yet another rhyming device in a franchise that is already packed with them.

Related: Evidence Kylo Ren Is Reverting To His Force Awakens’ Self In Star Wars 9

Batuu is potentially filled with such relics – possibly much more so than the average planet in the galaxy. Dok-Ondar, the infamous black-market dealer, is the proprietor of Dok-Ondar’s Den of Antiquities (one of the gift shops guests can visit in Galaxy’s Edge), a store that is filled with such treasures as an archaic Jedi statue carved with a lightsaber out of a large kyber crystal that was taken directly from the Guardians of the Whills and, even more ominously, the legendary Sword of Khashyun, which was fashioned by a sect of ancient Dowutin Sith warriors who deemed that normal lightsabers were for the weak (this old-fashioned blade is still so powerful and dangerous, Dok-Ondar patently refuses to allow it to fall into Kylo’s hands).

And then there is Savi, a junker who partially runs his salvaging company as a front to screen all of the galaxy’s trash for any hidden or otherwise overlooked Jedi accoutrement – particularly lightsaber components, which he gladly helps those touched by the Force build in secret for the day that the Jedi may be rekindled (Savi’s Workshop – Handbuilt Lightsabers being another of the attractions that costumers can partake in at the Star Wars-themed land). Savi’s backstory and guiding principles are particularly noteworthy, as he was a lifelong friend of Lor San Tekka and a fellow member of the Church of the Force. As he himself puts it to one of his so-called gatherers:

"We are gatherers, not Jedi. The flock, not the shepherds. We have no powers, no edict. We can only wait and watch and listen, not guide. We hold a candle but will not light any fuse. We do protect the balance [of the Force], but not always by shifting the scales. This conflict [between the Resistance and the First Order] is far from over. I’m certain we will play our part one day – but not today."

All of which is to say that Kylo Ren may have bitten off more than he can chew in the final months before the end of the Skywalker Saga. With the First Order retaining control, the Resistance weakened but still fighting, and the shadow of Palpatine ready to emerge, the Star Wars galaxy is in a fascinating position after The Last Jedi and heading into The Rise of Skywalker.

Next: The Star Wars Sequels Would Have Already Finished If Disney Followed Their Plan

source https://screenrant.com/star-wars-after-last-jedi-before-9/