#jedi as indentured servants to the republic

[jedi-enthusiasm-blog]

The Many Names of Peace (pt.1/?): Mercy

"If you hate genocide so much, where were your people at the Dral'han?" Terith asks with a scoff.

The Jetii stops muttering and goes still. Slowly, she turns, with a movement too fluid for a human. She's shorter than them, very slim and apparently frail, and her blond —almost white— hair is tied in a braided bun. Her eyes, which are a glowing emerald green, are burning.

"Where were we? You're asking me why we did nothing when your people were attacked?" The kage Jedi asks the Mandalorian with a soft tone of voice and a polite nod, looking almost like a respected jaieh accepting a padawan's question.

It is not.

Underneath their buy'ce, Terith's lips curl at her words, at her threat.

Zahara begins to move from one side of the room to another. It's too controlled to be called pacing, but the tension is visible in her movements.

"Not all Jedi are human. In fact, most aren't. There are species with very long lifespans and, considering Force-sensitives tend to live a few decades longer than others of their species, two hundred is far from an uncommon age among Jedi" The Jetii doesn't seem to be answering their furious question at first. "We were not there, Mandalorian, because every sitting member of the High Council during the genocide of your people remembered how Mandalore reacted when they came for us, first."

Drovan, her crechemate, her enishee, her brother of the soul, was a member of the EduCorps. He hadn't wanted to be a Knight, done the math, and decided to free up a space for somebody else. In particular, he was fascinated by the History of the Order. Zahara remembers quiet nights, when she was at the Temple resting after a taxing mission, when she Drovan used to sit down on comfortable cushions and her closest sibling rambled about what he was learning.

She's heard him ranting about the Ruusan Reformation, and the cruel limitations it places on her people even now. She's read it herself, once she began her Shadow training, learning every single restriction in search for loopholes that could be exploited to make the Order's job and life easier.

Her people's memories are long. Kages remember. The Jedi remember. Zahara remembers.

"They vividly remembered when the Republic we served brought down our Temples, when they took us from our homes, when they tried to destroy a whole branch of our Order" Zahara lists, voice cold and eyes blazing, "when they took our armor, our back-up and defenses, when they stole everything but our Lightsabers… and when your people laughed and called it easy hunting."

The Mandalorian pride in Terith's heart wants to protest, to deny the Jetii's words. But she speaks like a scholar in a subject she's clearly well versed in, like a grieving verd mourning the violence against her people they'd known nothing about.

History isn't always kind, Mandalorian history in particular rarely is, but it's always worth learning from. It's something Kyr'tsad and the extremists among the Nu'Mando'ade don't understand, and Terith refuses to make their same mistakes.

So, they swallow the growing lump in their throat, ignore the stone sinking in their stomach and try to listen.

Zahara's voice begins to break away from the calm, even tones of a teacher, and slowly fall into the ragged tones of soul-crushing grief. Her breath becomes shallow and rapid, and air gets stuck in her throat. Still, she continues.

"The Republic had been destroying us for two hundred years by the time of the orbital bombardment on Mandalore, and in that time, the number of Lightsabers and Padawan braids and beads seen on Mandalorian armor as trophies skyrocketed" The Jetii hisses, spitting the word trophies with the same venom he would use to say hut'tuunla or demagolka. "We were trapped, betrayed and dying… and your people murdered our young and desecrated our corpses, and had the nerve to carry the stolen lives of our kin as proof."

The air grows colder, a sharpness in it that's as familiar as her own reflection. The galaxy around her sings with promises of vengeance, of justice. Justice for her enishee, justice for Feemor and his charges, justice for Jaieh Ta'ra's murdered Padawan, for the all Jedi dead during the Mandalorian sack of the Anohrah, for the bastardization of Jaieh Tarre Vizla's story and the systematic erasure of his Jedi identity, for all the Jedi younglings dead at Mandalorian hands.

Not against the Mandalorian that did any of those things, but against a Mandalorian, anyhow.

"Your people sacked the Temple, stole the life and soul of a respected Jedi Master, got two of his Padawans murdered, erased every single hint of his Jedi upbringing, and perverted everything he stood for in life, all because he happened to be Mandalorian as well."

The song reaches a crescendo, the highest notes she's ever heard in a Force song, making her ears ring. The melody sounds off-key, and the final notes become loud and insufferable high-pitched screams. Zahara grits her teeth, and breathes in deeply. The xari in the air slowly dissapears.

She will not take revenge.

She's a Jedi, and revenge is not the Jedi way.

She will not Fall. She will not let her anger act upon her and betray everything she, Drovan, Feemor, Ta'ra and her Padawan, Tarre Vizla and his Padawans have ever stood for.

Zahara will not take revenge because it's not what Drovan would have wanted. It's not what any Jedi would want.

She will not take revenge because it's not as useful and satisfying as the thores of passion lead you to believe.

This Mandalorian is innocent. They haven't done anything wrong. They're angry about their people's genocide and rightfully so. They're ignorant, and ignorance can be fixed.

Words, the sharing of knowledge, bringing understanding when there was previously none. Those are her greatest weapons, and she can wield them freely and with as much efficiency as a Lightsaber.

Terith is frozen in place, mind racing with the desire to be anywhere else, away from this hurting, angry sorceress that sees them as an enemy. The manda in their chest screams, in offense or the pain of dishonor Terith isn't sure.

They wish their buy'ce was recording. That way they could investigate the Jetii's claims.

Everyone and their mother has heard the rumors about the Jetiise. Sorcerers from the Core that don't reproduce like other beings, but take Children from their parents and train them to be as emotionless as droids, beings that beat all the love and concern for others out of themselves because they believe attachment is a weakness.

Terith believed them, once.

Now Terith doesn't know what to believe. The Jetii speaks with too much knowledge and pain to be lying, nobody can fake that well, and the air around them both is mournfully singing as the truth of her words sink into the depths of their runi.

Zahara breathes out slowly. Still hurt, but… determined not to Fall, not to take out her grief and anger on someone who's done nothing wrong.

"So" the kage Jedi flashes a polite but completely unfriendly smile, "why did we do nothing when they came for your world?"

Within their battered heart, stung with the pain of dishonor, with the stain on the manda itself, Terith knows the answer before the Jetii says a word.

"We did nothing because Jedi are merciful, Mandalorian."

(Notes under the cut)

Dai Bendu

Jaieh — Jedi Master (rank and role).

Padawan — apprentice, learner, student. Lit "the one who learns". Please picture a Jedi hearing a politician saying "Padawan learner", and containing the urge to eye twich.

Enishee — crechemate.

Anohrah — Jedi Temple, home. Before the Ruusan Reformation used to refer to the Temple the speaker was from.

Xari — darkness, the Dark Side of the Force.

Mando'a

Jetii(se) — Jedi (add 'se' at the end to make the plural).

Buy'ce — helmet.

Verd — warrior.

Kyr'tsad — Death Watch, lit "death society".

Nu'Mando'ade — New Mandalorians.

Hut'tuunla — coward. Very harsh insult.

Demagolka — someone who commits atrocties, a real-life monster, a war criminal - from the notorious Mandalorian scientist of the Old Republic, Demagol, known for his experiments on children, and a figure of hate and dread in the Mando psyche

Manda — collective soul of the Mandalorians.

Runi — spirit, soul of the individual.

Zahara is a kage Jedi Knight, officially a Sentinel and a Finder, which is used to explain why she can be in places she isn't supposed to and bust slave rings without prior Senate authorization. Unofficially, however, she's a Shadow. It's common practice for the Jedi to register Shadows as Finders in order to give them more freedom of action.

Terith is a Mandalorian bounty hunter, but they're very picky about their jobs and have interest in medicine, particularly "mind-healing". They were born in a New Mandalorian family but found greater calling to Jaster and the True Mandalorians and switched allegiance once they were of age. They are mildly Force-sensitive, not enough to become a Jedi and only gives them good instincts.

The Dral'han is the orbital bombardment of Mandalore done by the Galactic Republic in roughly 800BBY. The Republic used Jedi ships, but there were no Jedi involved. Mandalorians believed the Jedi were guilty at first, but the truth was uncovered only a decade later.

Dai Bendu is not my creation. It's a colang, although the story of the language is something I made up. Dai Bendu is the language spoken by the Order of Dai Bendu and, later on, the Jed'aii Order. It fell out of use after the Jedi joined the Republic in 25,000BBY, but came back in full swing during the Jedi-Sith Wars when it was very useful to speak a language the enemy couldn't understand.

I don't know if it's canon, but in this story Force-sensitives live longer than the average of their species. Those who aren't trained only live a little longer (a decade in humans), but for those who, like the Jedi, have training that lifespan increases (three to four decades in humans).

"Free up a space". Taken from the Jedi Apprentice series, where Jedi age out at thirteen and there are limited Masters, and where those who aren't chosen are sent to the Corps. Drovan knew he didn't want to be a Knight, so he requested to be sent to the Corps as soon as possible to give the chance of becoming a Knight to someone who actually wanted to be one. Unlike Jedi Apprentice, however, this is an imposition from the Ruusan Reformation, and the Jedi try to bend this rule as much as possible.

Kages' memories begin forming almost at birth. Zahara remembers with vivid detail most of her life. She's doing an alliteration: she remembers because she's a kage and because she is a Jedi.

This is the "Ruusan Reformation but make it worse" AU:

"Brought down our Temples". The Ruusan Reformation demanded the centralization of the Jedi Order. Therefore, all Jedi were forced to move to Couruscant, and their other Temples were either destroyed or repurposed.

"Took us from our homes." Although Terith doesn't know it, Zahara is being redundant. The word for Jedi Temple in Dai Bendu also means home. She's putting enphasis on how painful it was for the Jedi to lose their homes.

"Tried to destroy a whole branch of our Order." The Shadows were supposed to be dissolved after the Ruusan Reformation was signed. However, the Jedi managed to keep training Shadows in secret.

The Jedi used to have weapons, armor and many defenses besides their Lightsabers, but the Ruusan Reformation ordered their demilitarization and "demilitarization". Among the things they lost were the right to carry their birth cultures' sacred armor and weapons. A Mandalorian Jedi wouldn't be allowed to have armor, for example.

Mandalorians tend to take trophies from their enemies after a battle. This is done both for, well, bragging rights and to respect the memory of a worthy opponent (similar to their remembrances for their fallen comrades). However, the bragging rights part can overshadow the respect for a worthy opponent part, and many Mandalorians hunt down defenseless "enemies" to steal important objects from them. The Jedi in particular were a favored target for these… individuals, seeing as they had no armor, only carried one weapon and were usually alone or in pairs because that's how the Senate decided to send them in missions. The victims were usually Padawans, hence the name Padawan Hunts.

Tarre Vizla's story shows the greatest difference between how Jedi and Mandalorians (at least in that era) treat different cultures and double cultured children. The Jedi don't hide that Tarre Vizla was Mandalorian, everyone knows that he left the Order to rule Mandalore, and know what happened to his armor and what he wanted to happen to his body and Lightsaber. However, Mandalorians either don't know or refuse to recognize Tarre Vizla's Jedi status.

"Sacked the Temple". Tarre Vizla left his armor to his Clan and his Lightsaber to the Jedi. When he died, he wanted to be burned in the Temple (both cultures burn their death, so little to no issue here) and his ashes to be spread on Mandalore. House Vizla, however, did the equivalent of spitting on Tarre's funeral pyre and sacked the Temple to steal the Darksaber.

"Stole the life and soul of a respected Jedi Master". Tarre Vizla was a Jedi, and the Darksaber is his life. House Vizla, however, had no respect for their relative's other culture and did the worst thing they could do to him: killing and hurting his Jedi family, and stealing a sacred item they knew was sacred.

I headcanon that Tarre Vizla had three Padawans. He finished the incomplete training of the first because their Master died, did the whole training of the second and got promoted to Master as a result, and only started the training of the third before he went to his home planet to unite Mandalorians against the Sith Empire. Two of them were killed during House Vizla's sack of the Temple.

"Erased every hint of his Jedi upbringing." House Vizla replaced the Jedi Order symbol on Tarre's armor with the symbol of House Vizla, refused to acknowledge Tarre's desire to be remembered as a Jedi and forbade anyone from speaking about his Jedi status, and never say that the Darksaber is actually a regular Lightsaber they stole.

"Perverted everything he stood for." Lightsabers are a Jedi's life, hold their souls in the same way beskar'gam holds a Mandalorian's. Tarre. Ever since it was stolen, the Darksaber has been used as a symbol of authoritarian and tyrannical leadership, warmonging, imperialism and military violence. It's so fucked up that the crystal is beginning to break (the white cracks, originally the Darksaber was pure black) and, had those who held it been trained Force-sensitives, the crystal would have bled.

Terith doesn't know they're Force-sensitive, but they know their instincts are rarely wrong, and they can feel the honesty and grief coming from Zahara in waves. They don't doubt her precisely because they know she's not lying, she's seeing things as she sees them and, even if she's wrong, it's something Terith believes to be worth looking into.

[phoenixyfriend]

Slaves of the Senate AU

Do you ever come up with a premise for a Star Wars fic that is just so fucked up--

Okay so if you've ever read the Bleach fic New Order, it's a little bit inspired by that, but also by Jedi Indentured AU, Boundless, and a couple of others. Warnings will be just under the cut and in the tags, so please scroll past if you're not in the mood for That Stuff.

This is not a happy AU and will contain the usually Ugly things from the Indentured AU and similar, namely slavery with sexual elements. From this point forward there will be a lot of references to noncon, dubcon, pregnancy, torture, and so on.

Pre-RotS notes: Ahsoka is still a Jedi, and derailing RotS involved her still being there (keeps Anakin a fraction more stable), and Ventress having been captured at some point shortly before.

Setting start: RotS goes differently, in part because O66 doesn't get kicked into gear. Anakin doesn't Fall, and not all the Council members die, so Palpatine has the clones enact a different brain chip order: taking all the Jedi captive as traitors to the Republic to await an appropriate sentencing from the Senate.

Between Palpatine's emergency powers, anti-Jedi sentiment (enabled by the fact that Even The Clones have turned against them), and the breakdown of democracy, Palpatine does get to be Emperor, and he unilaterally decides on a punishment for the Jedi: Force-Nullifying cuffs on everyone over the age of one, and direct service to the Senate, under clone guard.

(This is actually better than the initial suggestions; Padme and Bail and the rest of their cohort managed to ensure the clone guard element; it's not there to protect Senators from the Jedi, but to protect Jedi from the Senators.) (The clones are still, by and large, under active chip control.)

Any given adult or teen Jedi is 'matched' to a planetary delegation. The Jedi are then 'given the freedom' to decide where to send the Initiates and Crechelings, since there are so many more kids than there are adults, what with the war killing off so many of them.

Palpatine has a goal with all this: putting the Jedi in this situation increases the general suffering a lot (so, yay, more Dark Side Energy for him), but also it gives him a way to directly impact Anakin.

Palpatine claims Anakin, Ventress, and Mace Windu to his own offices as his new Jedi Criminal Support or whatever they choose to call them. No younglings, just these three incredibly dangerous and important people that he can show off as having both won the war and subdued the Jedi uprising.

I think he maybe does a Dark Side thing to anyone who found out he was a Sith, to force them to keep their mouths shut. That way, some of RotS could still happen, leading to less "uhhhh let's figure out some plot? how did this even happen?"

The Senate is given leave to squabble amongst themselves to 'claim' Jedi. For his own entertainment, Palpatine 'suggests' that the Jedi are paired up to planets or senators they already have connections with, if possible. It's seen by the public as a kindness, to let Bail pull Obi-Wan, for Padme to claim Ahsoka, and so on.

It's meant to put them with friendly faces that can help 'rehabilitate' the Jedi to being law-abiding citizens who support the glorious new Empire and all that. Palpatine's handling of the Jedi and the Senate, even after declaring himself Emperor, was always at least partly a matter of balancing public perception.

I didn't really decide on who goes where elsewise, except that Yoda either ended up escaping and is biding his time, or he's with the Wookiees, and most people ended up at with the delegation of their planet of origin, when the numbers worked out. They are also generally guarded by clones they know. The clones don't necessarily act like the people they knew, but most Jedi do not know about the chips, so...

In public, the Jedi just look like. Servants/slaves. They're the latter, but they're all criminals, so does it really count? Look, they were even allowed to keep their children!

(Yes, it would count as slavery even if they were actually traitors.)

In the Senate Dome, Palpatine makes a habit of having Anakin and Ventress kneeling at either side of his throne, wearing a fancy gold collar and fancy gold cuffs that link behind their backs. This is very much a show of wealth and power, ostensibly. (In reality, it's less about showing off his power and more about humiliating these two.)

Some of the Senators do bring the older Jedi with them to the Rotunda. Some do it to be cruel (look how far you've fallen, look how futile it is, look at your fellows chained and tortured), and some do it to be helpful (Bail is hoping for Obi-Wan to pay attention and act as a sounding board to him to help reverse all of this)

Palpatine very rarely allows any clones to be active without their chip to tell them the Jedi are bad. When he does, it's temporary and very much meant to make everyone feel worse about the situation in general. He taunts them all with forcing the active-chipped to do things while the inactive watch in horror and helplessness.

In other areas, the clone guards on the Jedi are generally preventing the Jedi from being sexually assaulted by the less scrupulous Senators... usually. If Palpatine has decided a Jedi is causing too much trouble, or a Senator is worthy of a reward under the table, he can make sure the clones are looking away. (He can even have them do the deed, if the Senators aren't on his side. Nothing quite like the Emperor telling one of your best friends to rape you and then your best friend having to do it, right?)

Rex is actually chip-free, and slowly working to dechip some of his brothers, but that's a very, very small number and the spread is slow. He's been allowed to work under the Naboo delegation to guard Ahsoka. This is, again, meant to be a false kindness, and nobody can figure out what the catch is.

Padme has twin infants in her rooms, and Ahsoka's actual usual day-to-day is keeping an eye on Luke and Leia, and riding herd on a bunch of Initiates who are almost old enough to actually understand what's going on.

It's a very tense situation overall, but the actual horrors are, for the most part (so far), happening up in Palpatine's offices.

He knows that Anakin no longer trusts him, and is actually coming quite close to hating him, and so he doesn't try to pretend he's kind. He has Mace, but mostly just forces him to stand around and watch what's actually going on, which is usually... commanding Anakin and Ventress to have sex, and then shocking them with the collars or threatening Anakin's loved ones if they refuse.

He doesn't stay around to watch--it's not of any interest to him--but he does command chipped clones to ensure the two complete the deed, and that Mace watches from the wall without interfering.

(Mace does not want to watch, but even if he closes his eyes, he can hear, and he's the one that gets to apply bacta or cleanup when the incident is over.)

The three of them are not provided any contact with other Jedi, so nobody really knows what's going on with the three of them other than that Mace is never seen, and the younger two look deader in the eyes with every passing day.

(They're trophies, and at least a few Jedi are trying to make plans for Anakin having a far more complex relationship with this situation than most of them, on account of both his history with this trauma and his connection to the man who ushered it in.)

At one point, Palpatine decides to introduce a new element on a random schedule, which is Alpha-17 and the order to "visit some revenge upon the wretch who tortured you with Kenobi, won't you? There is what you may recognize as a 'breeding bench' in the next room, should you want it."

Alpha-17, for the record, does not want to do that. Alpha-17 does not have a choice.

Even without a chip in his own brain, there are brothers here, and Palpatine threatening to kill Fox if Alpha doesn't take him up on the offer to violate Ventress kind of makes the decision for him.

(So does Ventress catching his eyes and giving him the subtlest nod she can, because they're ALL fucked right now, and there are only so many ways to please Palpatine enough for the tortures to remain at a minimum.)

Palpatine is having a lot of fun finding out how close he can push Anakin to Falling like this.

At one point, a reporter of some shade catches Ahsoka in an off moment and asks if she's had any contact with the disgraced Skywalker. She says that no, she hasn't, and nobody else has, either. "Weren't you civvies all really upset about the whole 'child-stealing' rumor, by the way? Wasn't that a big part of the reason you were angry at the Jedi? Skyguy hasn't even gotten to meet his babies because of the Emperor's punishment. Why should his family be getting torn apart when that's one of those things you guys are always mad about in the first place?"

This hits the media trail and does rounds, but doesn't really have an effect.

Anakin isn't aware of it, of course, because his life is currently hell.

He and Ventress have been bonding over a lot of things, like how they were both slaves from a young age until a Jedi freed them, and the more recent bullshit, which they share with Mace (and sometimes Alpha). Ventress's wartime crimes are still a major horror for all three of the Rep-side guys, sure, but it's kind of fallen by the wayside considering everything going on in the moment.

The Senators who aren't pro-Jedi are getting more and more bold, and Palpatine is letting them push what few boundaries were set at the start. They are dressing up their Jedi in more revealing costumes, having them kneel at their feet in the pods or in the center of their offices. Many of the more attractive Jedi are put in next to nothing and made to serve drinks in a way that, to those in the know, is not dissimilar to a Hutt's court. They are asked to dance, or pose and hold as decoration, or to lay by the Senator's feet and suffer their affections like a pet.

(Senator Taa has not yet had his way with Aayla, but she hates him for how she is sat by his feet so he can caress her lekku and call her a good girl.) (She is finding it ever harder to convince herself that it is wrong to kill an unarmed sentient.) (Most of the Jedi are.)

In some cases, when there is an awareness of who a Jedi might consent to sex with--often a clone or a fellow Jedi that there have been rumors about--those Senators will arrange a show. Sure, the clones are meant to keep them from assaulting the Jedi, but there's nothing in those patchy rules the Emperor gave them about watching a Jedi get railed by her clone commander, right?

(Bly wishes it could have happened differently.)

After all, the Emperor always invites his favorite Senators to come up for drinks when Ventress and Skywalker are putting on a show, gagged and bound and blindfolded. Clearly, it's fine to watch. Sometimes, the Emperor even makes sure the two are in ever so humiliating outfits. It's almost cute!

(Sometimes, it's not the favorite Senators that are invited, but the ones that are the most horrified. Padme isn't, because he's still playing at keeping her and Anakin apart. )

(Bail is, because someone needs to ensure Obi-Wan knows what's going on, and Palpatine can almost taste how delicious his horror at his padawan's suffering will be, when the Senator of Alderaan reports back.)

Sometimes, Fox or Thire or whoever is on guard that day is asked to enact some humiliation, such as cuffing them up and waxing them bare, or binding them in some mutual predicament bondage where neither can escape, an act that is humiliating but not directly sexual so much as enabling the furtherment of Palpatine's enjoyment of the 'show couple' that he's made... and then the clone commander has their gun confiscated and their chip deactivated, and they are left in the room with the full weight of their actions and no weapons to even attempt a revenge on the man who's doing this to them.

They are left to sit with that horror, desperately trying to apologize to Anakin and Mace and even Ventress, maybe, and just when they start to bring themselves back together, the chip is reactivated.

(It happens repeatedly. Sheev thinks it's funny, after all.)

Then, because Palpatine wants to dig all these knives deeper, because incremental increases to the psychological torture truly do give him joy, Ventress is confirmed pregnant.

(It's not like Palpatine ever shied away from nonconsensual body modification in canon, and removing some birth control is nothing compared to what he does to Vader.)

The news leaks, probably by way of clone, but maybe it doesn't, and people just don't know or even suspect until Ventress starts showing, or a non-human delegation with particularly sensitive noses can tell by scent. Bothan, maybe.

The baby is probably Anakin's. (It might be Alpha's.)

This sets off gossip and tabloids like none other, and then Padme demands custody.

The Emperor claims that the child's parents are both terrorists or traitors or felons or what have you? Fine. They can't have custody of any child until they are released? Okay. In that case, the newborn should go to the nearest living relative, and since the Empire--by way of inheriting laws from the Republic--still has a rule on the books and in precedent that prioritizes keeping siblings together whenever possible, one that has not yet been overturned, Ventress's child should be with Luke and Leia, as half-siblings. Padme, as Anakin's wife and mother of his children, is thus the nearest living individual with a right to claim them.

Palpatine lets that happen, because he has precisely zero interest in having a wailing newborn in his living or office space, and it's probably going to really fuck up Ventress to have her child taken away only minutes after it's born.

The media starts clamoring a bit and asking if, since they can't take Padme's children away, and Anakin should be with a Senate member anyway, why not just transfer his sentence to the Naboo delegation? And since Ventress is carrying his kid, presumably, shouldn't she go with him too? It's far more in line with galactic policy, right? You'd still have the Head of the Order, Emperor. That's quite the person to have as your own resident Jedi Criminal!

Palpatine decides to let it happen, for now. A touch of happiness in the moment will make the later horrors when they're ripped apart again so much harsher, when there's been a chance to build up some fragile bonds again, and even in the meantime, Anakin's marriage will be on the rocks from the (forced) infidelity, the new child, and the circle of horror that's going to happen whenever they talk about what they've been going through.

(And they can't even mention Palps is a Sith.)

The family is somewhat happily reunited. Padme pastes on a fake smile--she's trying REALLY hard, you guys--for Ventress, and asks if she's had any prenatal care, because Padme wasn't too great about that herself, and she wishes she'd tried harder to discretely see a doctor. Threepio knows how to make a variety of pregnancy-friendly foods, by the way, do you need a snack?

Padme has to put in a lot of effort to not be jealous of how close Anakin and Ventress are now, how well they know each other, compared to Anakin and Padme after their snatches of time here and there over the course of three years. It's patently ludicrous to be jealous of their situation, so she shoves it down deep and decides to deal with it later.

Anakin gets to hold Luke and Leia, at least. He cries. So does everyone else, especially Ahsoka.

(The Guard show up one day. They need to 'borrow' Anakin and the very pregnant Ventress for an event the Emperor is hosting. He'd like to display them, you see. All above-board, promise.)

(They are met by Alpha-17, and they all know the rest of the night is going to be nothing but bondage and unwanted sexual activity.)

(Anakin ends up fucking into Ventress while speared on Alpha's cock, and it's... he might have enjoyed it, in another situation. Here... no. Nothing.)

Their 'reward' for cooperating is that Alpha gets to move into Padme's apartments with them.

It's deeply awkward, for all the same reasons, except also because Rex was kind of in love with Anakin for the last bit of the war, Anakin who has now been fucked by Rex's big brother apparently, and that's not romantic but it is trauma and bonding through sexual horror, and also Rex refuses to make a move while Anakin is in this specific shape of hell and flinches from even his own wife, so what can he even do? The web of relationships with just the four people actually doing sex things is already complicated enough, he can't do anything about it.

Alternately, Rex isn't interested in Anakin but has been having his own horrible situation going on with the Emperor 'encouraging' Padme to put Ahsoka in her place with the help of Rex's dick, which is all kinds of weird and uncomfortable since they were sort of dating, but also not.

IDK where I'm going with this as a plot, other than the idea that some of the Jedi who escaped capture try to save their family after regrouping in the Outer Rim. It involves Cal and Merrin, mostly because I need Merrin and Ventress to somehow compound their powers the second the Force-nullification cuffs and collar come off.

Other option is that, between Rex's spreading of the chip removal and Ahsoka getting temporarily possessed by a magic owl from outer space, the revolution starts from 'inside the house,' so to speak.

[kitkatt0430]

A Star Wars Sequel series AU idea

Ben Solo wasn't Han and Leia's only child. They had a daughter too, but around the same time that news broke that Leia was Darth Vader's biological daughter, that little toddler girl was kidnapped. They never found her and it was the first big crack in the foundation of Han and Leia's marriage. When Ben turned to the dark side, they ended up drifting apart. Leia becoming more involved in the political movement opposing the First Order and Han returning to his smuggling roots.

TFA events are largely unchanged, but Rey doesn't immediately head out after Luke. They wait for Finn to recover, then Leia sends Rey with Finn, Chewie, Poe, and R2 to track down Luke.

Now, Luke is not the 'last' of the Jedi. Not only is Leia trained as a Jedi, but there are various others who are members of a new Jedi Order. It's not what the old Order was, but so much of that history was deliberately lost that they couldn't recreate the exact same thing from before. Ben Solo's defection killed off a number of the order, so they're all currently spread across the galaxy. Some searching out new force sensitives to teach, others using their abilities to help people in need...

Luke, specifically, went in search of the origins of the Jedi. He entrusted his flight plan to very few in order to keep the growing First Order off his back... but also to keep his other objective from being found out. He didn't want to give Leia false hope after failing to find her missing daughter all those years ago. But new clues have surfaced recently and there are a handful of planets where they might be able to pick up clues to his missing niece's whereabouts.

One of those worlds was Jakku where Luke's friend - but not a Jedi himself - Lor San Tekka has been scouring for records of a girl matching Breha Solo's description having been taken through one of the many spaceports some sixteen or seventeen years ago. And he's not only found that evidence... he thinks that girl is still on the planet.

He gives this information along with the map to Poe, as the First Order has been taking an interest in Jakku and it's only a matter of time before they show up... a matter of time being mere minutes in this case.

When R2 wakes up and displays the map, he keeps the other information private. it's coded specifically for Luke. But Leia, and even Han before he died, felt a connection the young woman from Jakku.

Leia wonders, if her daughter was still alive, would she be something like Rey? Han wishes he'd been the kind of father who could protect his children, but maybe there's still something he can do to make this girl's life better?

Luke's been setting up his secret enclave Jedi school in a system similar to the Corellian system (as in, it's artificially created and maintained) where he has reason to believe the Jedi originated in the time following the fall of the Rakatan Infinite Empire, long before the rise of the First Republic. The Ancient precursors to the Jedi believed in, and taught, the balance between the light and the dark and the necessity of followers of both paths, something the Jedi eventually lost. For all that they believed in balance, by making the dark side something forbidden and taboo they may have inadvertently created an imbalance of the Force. He still has a lot to learn about the origins of the Jedi, though, so a lot of what he's deciphered is still speculative at best.

This is where Rey and Finn find him, along with R2, Poe, and Chewie. And Luke welcomes them. Though of course he's especially excited to have two more students to learn the ways of the Force. And then R2 delivers his second message from Lor San Tekka.

He found the girl, Breha Solo. He's sure of it. She was brought to Jakku and sold as an indentured servant to one of the local scrapyard owners: Unkar Plutt. She'd earned her freedom at the age of sixteen but was rumored to still be on planet, living as a scavenger. Going by the name Rey, which Tekka suspected was a child's derivation of Breha.

Rey, the girl that Leia just sent to Luke for training...

[shadowmaat]

No magical fix-its

Trying to figure out an AU where Order 66 never happened for handwavy dead Palpatine reasons. The war continues on for a few more years before the new Chancellor get the Seps to the table and manage to hammer out SOME kind of agreement. No one’s really happy with it and there’s bad blood on all sides, but the cease fire holds. The droid army is reprogrammed to work restoration on worlds devastated by the war. Clones become indentured servants, working to pay off the cost of their creation, implementation, and upkeep.

The Jedi fight hard to try and help the clones, but despite a “better” Chancellor being in charge they just don’t have the numbers to do much. Plus there’s a lot of backlash against the Jedi themselves from the Senate, the general public, and the CIS. They lose even more autonomy and a number of worlds ban them from any interference at all.

Thus the Jedi retreat to their Temple and do their best to recover from the war. So very many of them died and more are permanently traumatized. Adjusting back to a “civilian” life is hard on everyone, but especially on the padawans who’ve never known anything but war.

Yoda steps down from the High Council and disappears, seeking to rebalance himself.

Anakin leaves immediately after the cease fire is official. He’s one of the Order’s most vocal detractors and the twisted tale he spins of emotional manipulation, impossible standards, and brainwashing does more damage than Palpatine could have dreamed. The fact that his wife leaves him not long after and takes their children with her makes him an even more tragic figure in the eyes of the public. He may even find himself elected to office.

The decline of the Jedi Order continues. They’re fading into obscurity when the Clone Rebellion reminds the galaxy that they exist. The Senate calls upon them to take up arms once more and defend the Republic from this new threat. The Jedi refuse, ignoring public condemnation and the accusations of cowardice, collusion with the enemy, and malicious intent towards the government. Their right to exist as an organized religion is rescinded and they’re ordered to comply or leave.

They leave. Or go into hiding. A few do join up to fight the clones, mostly the ones who never actually fought with them or who were so damaged by the war they don’t care who they’re aimed at as long as they can fight. Some of them head to the older Temples, seeking to rebuild somewhere beyond the Republic’s reach. Many find ways to help the clones in their rebellion, either joining the fight as advisors or bolstering the Underground to help those who wish to escape.

Not everyone hates the Jedi or has a misinformed understanding of their purpose. Padmè shows up at one of the smaller temples, seeking admission for her children and protection from her ex, who has continued to pursue them from one end of the galaxy to the other. All three are given a safe place to live and grow. The twins learn the ways of the Force alongside others, many of them orphaned by the war or rescued from conditioning camps Palpatine implemented before his demise.

Rules vary from Temple to Temple. Some allow families to live with the students if they wish while others impose a 1-5 year ban on visitations so the students can concentrate on the basics. Education is more varied, with some preparing their students to rejoin the galaxy at large rather than following the path of a Jedi. Help is given to all who need it, although there are a few scattered groups who cut themselves off from everything in order to focus on their own continued healing.

Obi-Wan splits his time between helping the clones and teaching classes at the Temple where Padmè lives (she chose that one because of him).

Ahsoka is at the forefront of the clone rebellion and maintains a fractious relationship with her former Master. She still loves him, but when he speaks out against the rebellion she isn’t the only one left feeling betrayed.

Eh. I just think it’s interesting to veer off from the happily ever afters. The Jedi have fuckloads of trauma and a juggernaut of bad PR that continues to steamroll after Palpatine’s demise. The war doesn’t end instantaneously because wars never do. The clones definitely aren’t going to get rights overnight, either. And Anakin is so steeped in anger and arrogance that even without falling I can’t see him becoming a good father. He’d run hot and cold with them and that’s hella dangerous.

Anyway, fun little experiment. I added some flexibility to the “rules,” but TBH I think the original ones are just fine. The problem is that we’re viewing them through the incredibly skewed and self-centered lens of Anakin Skywalker. ;)

[thedroidsyouarelookingfor]

2021 Reading Challenge:

Star Wars the High Republic: Into the Dark by Claudia Gray

★★★1/2

My thoughts below…

Okay, I rounded up to 4 stars on Goodreads since they don’t let you do half stars and this book is definitely more interesting than some other books I’ve rated at 3 stars. The big problem here is that a majority of this book is a slog to read. There is an interesting story in here, and a few likable characters, but at the same time the story dragged a lot of the time, and I just never cared about the majority of the people we were introduced to.

You may be thinking, “But Light of the Jedi had a ton of characters!” and you would be right, but that book didn’t really set any of them up to be the main protagonist. It was much more broad in its storytelling as different people were reacting to different things. The action in this book is only divided between two main focuses: a group consisting of Jedi and civilian pilots, and a flashback to an event 25 years ago that’s supposed to give us insight into two of our Jedi characters. 

Our Jedi Characters: Padawan Reath Silas, the human male apprentice of Togruta Master Jora Malli; the newly self-declared Wayseeker, the white-skinned female Umbaran Orla Jareni; human male Cohmac Vitus, a folklorist; and finally Jora Malli’s former apprentice, human male Jedi Knight Dez Rydan. Our pilots: Affie Hollow, a young female human, the co-pilot of The Vessel and foster daughter of the Byne Guild leader, Scover; Leox Gyasi, human male pilot; and Geode, the ship’s navigator...and a rock.

I was really uninterested in the flashback chapters and found them very boring. Spoilers... Orla and Comach are padawans at the time. They are on their way to resolve a hostage crisis, two rulers from two different planets were kidnapped. Comach’s master gets killed in a crash. Orla hesitates to follow her instincts because she believes they go against the Jedi’s teachings and one of the hostages ends up dying. So we are lead to believe this event pretty much traumatized Orla and Comach 25 years ago. The book takes forever to actually tell this small story, making it really difficult for me feel any tension with such dragged out action. It is difficult for me to believe the impact this event had as well, since Jedi seem to frequently teach the benefits of following your instinct and trusting in the Force. Why is Orla under the impression that this is wrong? It makes no sense. Comach on the other hand, is struggling with intense anger over the fact that he’s not allowed to mourn his master...but like...no one told him he can't? It feels like this is a self made problem. He keeps telling himself that the Jedi are wrong for not allowing him to feel anything over losing someone he was close too, but they never tell him he can't...in fact, with the way they handle Reath later in the book, I’d say they’re very supportive dealing with loss! So this whole part of the book was weird. 

To me the best characters were Reath and Affie. Dez was hardly even in the book, so I really don’t have much to say on him. That seems to be a problem with every character besides Reath and Affie. No one else was developed enough, or just not interesting. Reath didn’t want to leave Coruscant because he prefers reading all day in the archives instead of going to the “backwaters” of the outer rim. He has the most character development, and this book is really his story.

“Adventure is usually a euphemism for going somewhere with lots of bugs.”

Affie’s story is more interesting than Orla and Comach’s backstory, but still a little under developed. She was orphaned at a relatively young age, and was taken in by the leader of the Guild her parents’ worked for. She finds out while exploring the abandoned space station they’re stuck on, that the Guild uses this place for some secret and nefarious purpose. She finds out the Guild uses indentured servants, that her parents were indentured, and this is likely where they died. The Guild would “reward” indentured workers by knocking off a few years of their service for doing dangerous jobs, but I never really understood what the Guild was doing at this station. The place was overrun with plants, and presumably the Guild did not use the hyperspace pods that made the station valuable to the Drengir and Nihil, so I suppose it was only for tech that was stored in the station? I’m unclear on it. In the end, she exposes her foster mother and gets her arrested. Despite not liking the side-story so much, Affie was an interesting character and I wouldn’t mind seeing her show up again in the future. I guess Leox is okay too. 

The villains of the piece:

The first part of the story takes place right after the Legacy Run disaster. Our Vessel crew have to jump out of hyperspace and take refuge in an abandoned space station. They send a message to all other ships in the area to meet there as well, hoping they can work together to survive for a while. Well they don’t get a long great, but not much time is spent on the conflict. We get over-protective killer pruning droids and creepy statues, but not much else during this first time in the station. Among the refugees are an old man and his ward, Nan. Nan acts flirty with Reath, but not much happens between them. The older Jedi think the statues are evil, so they plan to take them back with them to the Temple. Dez appeared to die in an accident while exploring the lower levels of the station. They get word that it’s safe to come home and they leave. Then they realize they need to go back. And they do lol. I just don’t think the way the story was broken up was really the most effective way to tell this story. The statues were actually keeping evil sentient meat-eating plants dormant, so by removing them, the Jedi inadvertently woke them up! Nan turned out to be Nihil, a connection Reath makes when seeing pictures of their distinctive ships. Nan had summoned her Cloud to the station. Dez is alive, a prisoner of the killer plants, and discovered after Reath gets transported through some funky hyperspace magic to the plant folks’ home world. Orla uses the Drengir to distract the Nihil. Reath ends up saving Dez, and ejecting all their enemies into space. That’s about it. Nan gets away.

So yeah, the story wasn’t great. I liked Reath though, but don’t know how i feel about him being apprenticed to Comach now that Jora Malli is dead. I really appreciated the way the Council dealt with him after his loss though. They made it very clear that whatever happened next to him would be entirely his choice and on his own time. They were very supportive. This is supposed to be Jedi at their best, so I hope that’s really reflected in future stories. I worried a bit after the mess of Orla and Comach’s backstory. 

When this book was described as having people stuck on an abandoned space station with a weird monster, I was really hoping it was going to be more creepy, and my expectations were completely unmet. I really struggled to keep my attention on what I was reading. 

Nitpicks: I have always said that if the Jedi are so set on preserving life then maybe their weapon of choice should not be a lightsaber, but a blaster that only stuns! It’s such a silly part of Star Wars, but it’s even funnier here because it actually came up multiple times in this book that a blaster would be more efficient. 

Too many humans. 

The narrator for the audiobook made Nan sound like Stitch from Disney’s Lilo and Stitch, which made even the slightest hint at a flirtation between her and Reath laughable in the extreme. 

Claudia Gray seems to like putting in a lot more sex and drugs in Star Wars than I would personally like. Even underage drinking found its way into this story. The part I really hated, however, was the super gross rapey scene with a pirate who was trying to kidnap Nan. “Good market out there for little girls” is one of the grossest things I’ve ever read.  I know the universe can be a dark place, but I just really do not want sex slavery in my Star Wars. Even in space fantasy women can’t just be.

Reath did a heck of a lot during this book, to the point where I was surprised he wasn’t Knighted at the end. I’ll just say he did a heck of a lot more impressive things than we’ve seen Vernestra do. Ugh lol. Yes, I am still bitter about A Test of Courage. Vern is 15 or 16, and this book refers to Affie (19, I believe) as a child. Vern is a child! She should not have a padawan!

More continuity errors! High Republic seems to have a lot of these, unfortunately. Lightsaber blade color differences and straight up gender differences between this book and Light of the Jedi. There’s more too, you can read them on Wookieepedia. (x)

Things I liked:

Wookie baby. Sentient rock.

[kinsbin]

An Impulsive Purchase

Title: An Impulsive Purchase Ship: Of Kindness and Evil [Xena/Darth Maul - OC/Self Insert X Canon] Rating: T 

Summary: Xena is an indentured servant, paying her way out of her boss’ shop by working as hard as she can. When a mysterious stranger comes in looking for information, only to find her instead, his offer to pay off the rest of her remaining debt is more than surprising. What’s even more surprising than that, though? The reason why he did it.

A/N: Wrote a little fic about how Darth Maul and I first met and how he recruited me onto his ship! I couldn’t resist writing for myself a little between commissions ;w;

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Tatooine’s sands were endless, but that was not something Xena wasn’t used to. She bore it as well as any native of the planet might do, with an occasional wince to her face as sand dug itself into her vision and comfort in the heat that burned her sweat-laden skin as she moved box after box of heavy supplies from her bosses shop onto a cargo-freight pulled along by droids who looked nearly bored in their impatience for her to finish up. She ignored them, too, for the most part, focusing instead on making sure that the cargo was not damaged in any way as it landed on the freight, less the price of each piece come in years until she was free from him.

Indentured servitude wasn’t the way she had wanted to settle into Tatooine, but it was the only way she could escape her native home and the war that ravaged it. The Clone War had devastated a number of planets and, she remembered back with bitter annoyance, the Republic was only so keen on helping those with little to no profit within the Galactic Trade Federation. So, stealing off on a cargo ship, her Boss had simply offered her a ride for a few years of helping him manage goods and wares on other planets. The deal was nice at first, and he treated her with respect. Not as a slave but as a co-worker pushing away a debt. There was, at least, some dignity in it.

“That’s the last box,” The man’s gruff voice echoed behind her as he pat the cargo with a caring gesture to it, “They’ll be going to take it off planet, I believe.”

Xena only nodded, her longing hidden behind a small wave of regret as she watched the cargo slowly fade into the distance of the setting sun. She had grown stir crazy too fast on this planet. On this little shop selling nothing but smuggled goods and secrets for those willing to pay the price for them. Her Boss wasn’t a cruel man, well, not a cruel man on the planet’s standards, but he had a set of demands that were required to be followed. Sometimes she was a scapegoat for work and money more than she was an actual worker in itself...

A sharp nudge on her side made Xena groan and wince, glaring up only slightly at the man to her side, who ruffled her short hair with a frown.

“New customers coming in, little one, focus.”

“Yes, Sir.” She responded with an automatic huff before focusing on the sight of those walking towards their shop. Her breath caught in her throat as she stared forward.

The man walking between two other guards was sharp looking in all senses of the words. The thick black coats he wore billowed in the sandy winds of the desert and echoed in their flapping. It hid most of his body well, but the vague remnants of light that did shine on his available face made the shadows of its hood cast further across him. The hints of crimson and black shone across his skin, horns poking slightly from the top of the hood as he moved forward. The billowing of his cape revealed a thin tube at his side. A tube that even she knew what the sight of meant.

Jedi.

Her Boss knew too. A slap to her back made her push forward towards the door of their shop.

“Go and set up in the shop, girl.” He hissed with a demanding tone in her direction. Xena scrambled into the cooler interior of the shop, organizing things here and there, though not really sure of what he wanted her quite to do. So she stood behind the counter and twiddled her thumbs, ears straining as voices grew closer and closer, her Boss’s above the rest as he talked about one thing or another to the new arrival with a nervous cadence about his tone. He was scared. She could feel it warp in her chest like a strong empathy and she swallowed at it, trying not to allow it to consume her. 

“The information you want is rare,” Her Boss’ words were sharp as he added, “The more rare the information, as I’m sure you know, the more expensive it is.”

The man had little words to this, his quip simple as he spoke in his dark, heavy cadenced growl:

“My master is willing to pay whatever is necessary to acquire it. Your price is no hassle.”

“Good, good,” He hummed with a smirk, gesturing to Xena after a moment, “My servant here keeps up to date on all going ons around Tatooine. I’m sure what you ask of her she will know.”

She tried to smile, but it faltered when the man looked at her.

His amber eyes were intense. More intense than she had ever seen in her life. Deep and terrifying, she felt something crawl out of him. An energy that touched at her and prodded with angry curiosity. Yes, she read in surprise, it was anger. Anger and a restlessness that filled her stomach and bit at her insides as their eyes continued to lock. What did he want to know, she wondered? What did he see in her that they kept staring like this? Oh god, she realized with horror, had she been the one staring this whole time? Was she the rude on here?

“You.”

The stranger’s voice startled her as he drew closer, brow ridges furrowing as he gazed with something akin to frustration across his handsome face. 

“Y-Yes, Sir,” She murmured out after being addressed, “I... I know most of the going abouts here... Anything you ask I will likely-”

She quieted as he drew closer, squinting further at her and the feelings around his aura grew more and more intense with every second until they were a loud, screaming hum in her ears. Xena winced and bit her lip, trying to avoid his eye contact but she felt as though to pull away from that dangerous look would be a sin of some sort, so she remained compliant to the apparently silent interrogation.

“Sir,” Her Boss’ voice echoed above the screaming hum, “She’s an informant, not a whore. If you want to fuck her with your eyes like that then I suggest you-”

With a whip of his hand, the stranger sent the other man flying back, crashing into a nearby wall where he kept him there by the throat, struggling to breath where the invisible power clung to his trachea.

“Your sensitivity to the Force is something to be admired,” The Stranger spoke slowly, “... and something that may be used.”

Xena bit her lip, unsure of what else to say as she gazed on at him. Her eyes flitted to behind him, where her Boss hung groveling in pain. Seeing her gaze, the stranger pulled away from the other man, allowing his body to crumple to the ground as he gasped for air. Turning away from her, the stranger approached her Boss with an intense look in his eyes. She was starting to feel that all of his looks were intense.

“I have no need for your information,” His voice was even as it was dark, making Xena shiver, “But there is someone else I would like to purchase.”

Someone else... The word was not lost as Xena inhaled sharply. Was this man really... ?

“My servant,” Her Boss gasped bitterly, “Is not for sale, Sir. Besides, she is indentured. She will be free once her full debt is paid off here.”

There was a snarl to his features as he turned to face Xen again, bright amber eyes staring into her. Slowly, surely, she realized a sound rang out in her head. A voice, similar to the man’s but distorted in some way. She chewed on her lip as it murmured words softly somewhere in her brain.

‘Come with me.’

She could only find a small will to think in return:

‘If I were free, I would.’

Suddenly the stranger pulled a satchel from his side, the coin falling to the floor in front of her boss with a low clatter as he growled, “Will this cover it?”

She wasn’t even sure her boss counted before he agreed a little too eagerly.

And that was how Xena found herself being pulled away from her once home, turned prison and turned past residence. How she found herself trailing behind the Dathomirian Sith Lord known as Darth Maul. She said nothing as she followed him through the darkened sands of Tatooine, nor did he. They were silent until they reached his ship.

Upon entering it, Xena stopped her jaw from dropping. Stopped her eyes from wandering with too much awe as she pet at the smooth metal surfaces around her. A real ship. One she hadn’t ever been in before. The reality of her decision settled into her chest as the door closed behind her and the being before her stood, intimidating and taller than her, to look down with apprehension at her shrinking form. 

She licked her lips, knowing she was free but still scared to speak outright. 

“Speak,” He demanded, as though her mind was clearly being read. Xena exhaled.

“I appreciate your assistance in my debt,” She spoke finally, “But I’m still wondering why you would buy a random servant girl from a slum in Tatooine without even receiving the information you were bartering for in the first place.”

He said nothing for a long time, and it prompted her her next question:

“I don’t even know your name.”

Fingertips gripped at his hood and Xena inhaled. She watched as it fell away, rivulets of silken material balling at the base of his neck to reveal the intricate tattoos against red flesh that littered his entire face. The horns (there were more than one, she could see now) stood proud. Like a crown around his mind. It only made his gaze more intense as she looked him over, fascinated and curious and oh-so interested. He was... handsome, certainly. But her question still wasn’t answered, not even as he turned away from her and began setting up the cockpit in his ship for take off.

“You’re a Jedi, aren’t you?” She asked curiously. A mistake, it seemed.

He sneered from his seat and looked on at her, glaring sharply and making her flinch away from the look before he spoke with a spite in his tone the likes of which she had only heard in the most hated of enemies:

“No, little one, I am no Jedi.”

“Then what are you?”

“Darth Maul,” He spoke curtly, “is what I am called. As for you... You feel it, don’t you? The hum of the Force around you. Its substance reaching out to you. Touching at your core and burning at your fingers...”

Xena swallowed as she didn’t answer. He knew what her answer was. What she recalled as the memories of their voices echoing without words sounded in the distance. 

“Someone as Force Sensitive as you should not be ignored,” He continued, “and, with training, I can help you to use it. Help you to understand the power you weild.” 

It was all so much. All too much, almost. Xena’s head spun as she took it in. A Force user? Like the Jedi? Like the Sith? The man before her was clearly not on the Republic’s side, that was for certain, but did that matter? What had the Republic done for her? Not as much as he did, paying her out of her debt and taking her away from a planet of danger...

Slowly, she smiled. Excitement built and curiosity welled eagerly as she tightened her grip on her arms.

“I... I’m Xena,” She spoke softly, “Is there anything i should call you in particular, Darth Maul?”

“... Refer to me as Master from now on, little one.”

“Yes, Master.”

And it was the beginning, she knew, of something wonderful. 

[gffa]

aifsaath replied to your photoset: Master and Apprentice | by Claudia Gray I DON’T...

Qui-Gon is a good man strangled by his own hubris. And on the issue of leeroy jenkinsing the slave situation: you do realize they’re essentially hostages. The moment anyone comes with the force at the slavers, it’s *slaves* who’re going to pay the price.

Qui-Gon is absolutely a good person, a moral person, who is getting strangled by idealizing his own ideals! And there’s a few further inconvenient truths about the situation:  Qui-Gon’s half-assed call to leeyroy jenkins it wouldn’t necessarily work, we know it doesn’t, because we’ve seen it in Star Wars already.  We’ve seen it in Claudia Gray’s books already!  The Rebellion overthrows the Empire and sets up the New Republic (which was after they tried to better the system and had hit the moral event horizon for the whole thing), the most leeroy jenkins thing they could do.  And there’s still slavery.  Leia walks right past an “indentured servant” in Bloodline and barely blinks, because the system hasn’t been changed and the public’s opinion hasn’t been changed. Not only are you right that the slaves are the ones who would pay the price in any faction coming at them in force (and would only be replaced, because it’s not actually solving the problem), not only does Qui-Gon ignore the reality of the numbers of the galaxy (the Jedi are 1 in something like 7 to 20 billion, no matter how good a Jedi is, there’s no way they can each stand up to a billion’s worth of people, they would absolutely get their asses kicked, along with they would lose any and all legal authority to help anyone else, they’d have to go rogue and given that we see the galaxy is willing to stand by and let their Temple burn and their children be murdered, I’m pretty sure everyone’s willing to turn on the Space X-Men on a dime)--but none of it would actually work. You have to change the system of oppression itself and you have to change the public masses, from top to bottom, you have to make it so that slavery isn’t tolerated by the majority of people, because otherwise it will just come back again and again and again.  And Bloodline shows us that already. dotsandfoxes said: 

I love your metas so much and this is a really smart take. A minor thing that really threw me was that Qui-Gon discovered the perpetuity clause in the treaty at the 11th hour. Like, seriously, no one else read it that closely? Or was versed in Pijali legal terminology? Where are the experts here, or is Qui-Gon supposed to be an expert in gov and law and trade policy in addition to being a space!Jesuit with a laser sword?

I think the book is on your side with this!  It’s mentioned that, yeah, no one else read it that closely, that Rael Averross was supposed to have read it that closely, but he became so attached to Princess Fanry that everything he was doing was only for her benefit and he was losing sight of the rest of Pijal.  I think they were all trusting him to give them a heads up if he needed help--which he does when it comes to the Opposition, but not when it comes to having actually paid attention to the treaty and how it wouldn’t benefit anyone but Fanry. Further complicating it was that nobody off-planet realized the power of the perpetuity clause, because it was cloaked in local metaphor that only people on Pijal would get, someone reading it on Coruscant would have no idea that it was a permanent clause instead of just fancy language, that they trusted the locals would advise them on any tricky stuff like this.  But everyone on Pijal is just sort of sticking their head in the sand about the truth of it, is tunnel-visioned about it, or possibly in on it/wants Czerka to have permanent rights.