Star Wars - Ripples of the Void Chapter 3: A New Order (Patreon)

Chapter 3: A New Order

“…And after a lengthy debate, we have confirmed the nomination of Admiral Jarik as the new Head of State for the Confederacy of Independent Systems!” Bec Lawise called out, his words echoed by holo-casters and radios across thousands of worlds, ships, and space stations.

There was cheering and clapping, and above all, relief. The sudden decapitation strike of so many of their leaders had crippled the Confederacy for a few days and fear had run rampant. The news coming out of Republic Space did not help matters. But now, with a new leader – and a war hero to boot! – in charge, people were no longer as afraid as they had been.

“People of the Confederacy! Thank you, one and all!” Admiral Jarik said as he stepped up to the podium once Bec Lawise had moved aside. “I shall strive to be worthy of this position, just as my uncle, the beloved Count Dooku, once was!”

“I vow to do all I can to ensure that the Confederacy does not fall! That we remain strong in the face of this series of tragedy and disasters! Fear not! Though there will be rough patches ahead and the future seems uncertain, we shall prevail! Trust in me! Trust in your fellow sophonts! And trust in the Confederacy!”

Jarik, now Head of State, raised his fist and saluted Congress and every single person watching the event, and this brought forth a new series of cheers and applause.

Yes, things were bleak at first, but now there was a bright star shining bright!

111 &&& 111

With a groan, I sank into my chair, wishing that the universe would slow down so I could take a break. But it wouldn’t, and so I couldn’t relax for long. A day and a half after Mustafar, I was elevated to Head of State, just as I had planned. And ever since, I was running around, putting out fires and putting heads on pikes. And not always as metaphorically as I’d have liked.

My allies had come through for me, even if I feared I’d burned some bridges with a few of them. Mina would certainly be a lot more wary and distant from me, same as Unpellga once she figured out I was her new boss in the Trade Federation.

Before anything else could be done, though, I had to take stock of the state of the military forces we had available.

In the last four days, more news about the CIS droids had trickled in. By now, all of the devices I’d given patch 2.1.8 to had come back online and resumed operations. Namely, turning on and updating the rest of the CIS military units.

Based on Nail’s predictions – backed up by the calculations of many other Super Tactical Droids and super-computer brains – that most of the CIS units that had been shut down by Palpatine’s code would all be back under my control within another two months.

We knew where they were, or at least supposed to be, as many had been ordered to go to ground before the Shutdown, but some would have been lost in Deep- or Hyperspace when the droid pilots suddenly turned off without warning. To say nothing of the commanders who’d gone rogue and taken their droids with them.

Leaving aside the traitorous elements of the fleets and armies out there alongside the lost units, at least seventy-five percent of the droid forces should be recoverable. Well, 75.386%, but ‘seventy-five’ was easier to say and digest.

Stragglers had staggered back to Raxus, many demanding answers, some just glad that there was still a chain of command following the Massacre of Mustafar, as it was now being known as.

Unfortunately, I’d had to arrest a few officers who’d tried to overthrow me, and issued warrants for those who’d decided to defect or strike out on their own as pirates and petty warlords. They’d need to be dealt with, and soon.

‘The one good thing about those Separatist generals and admirals who’re trying to become petty warlords is that they’re still using droids infected with the Sith Code,’ I thought to myself, folding my arms across my chest. ‘That means they’re vulnerable to being shutdown again without Patch 2.1.8.’

And that gave my commanders the advantage. Any droids used by traitors that didn’t have the upgrade could be shutdown on demand, allowing my men and women to arrest them without worrying about being attacked.

Oh, I was sure some enemy officers would figure out there was a problem and try to remove the Sith Code, but the damned corruption was built into the OS itself. Short of building entirely new droids that lacked the standard CIS codes and protocols, their ‘rebellion’ would never take off the ground if I did not let them.

In the meantime, reorganizing the military was paramount. Using droids as the majority of the foot soldiers and crew was fine, but only using droids with a handful of organic officers was a mess and disaster waiting to happen. Again.

A crew or army comprised of 99% droids left the organic commanders without anyone to truly question them, and limited what could be done, as droid brains, even those used by Super Tactical Droids, rarely developed the flexible thinking of sapient minds. Not without many, many years without a mindwipe.

My plan to remedy this issue was simple: include organic officers in every droid formation. Every droid squad would be led by an organic sergeant or private, and the platoons, companies, regiments and battalions would also be led by sophonts.

This would allow for far greater tactical flexibility on the field, and ensure that the droids would be led by people who knew what they were doing, while also making the commanders take more responsibility. It was easy to throw away droids and clones because they weren’t real people. But actual people? Who might have powerful friends and family? Those cannot be thrown aside so easily.

Unfortunately, it would take a while to train up a cadre of new officers, and there were a lot of things I needed done in the meantime.

‘Not to mention the costs,’ I thought with a groan.

Establishing military academies and officer bootcamps would cost money, something I’d need Congress to approve of. Though at the moment, Congress was on my side.

‘I’ll need to throw them some bones to appease them,’ I mused. ‘If I let some Congressmen open up more technical school and universities, they will likely let me add some of my officer training schools as well.’

Expanding the education of the CIS was something I wanted to do as well, because a dumb populace was not a productive one. Loyal? Hardly. But ignorance merely made them pliable, not loyal. No, wide-spread education reform was absolutely necessary.

‘Thankfully, I have a few individuals in mind for getting that ball rolling,’ I thought.

The brief moment of peace I’d been enjoying was to be cut short, sadly, and with a trill of a digital alarm, I straightened up behind my desk, hid my exhaustion, and pressed a button, allowing my next guests to enter.

“Commadores,” I said, giving Teekla, Lap’Lap, and Rozenburg a warm smile as they entered.

“Head of State,” Lap’Lap replied, saluting. The other two saluted as well as they stopped in front of my desk.

“We’re all quite busy, so I’m going to be a bit curt and cut the ceremonial stuff short. Congratulations,” I said, passing over their new rank chits.

“Thank you, sir,” Rozenburg said, saluting me before accepting his promotion.

Lap’Lap and Teekla did so as well, and pinned their badges to their uniforms.

“As Rear-Admirals, I’m afraid I have to throw you into the deep end,” I apologized. “The fleets need to be reorganized, and there are more traitors to hunt down and systems to secure. We need this done, and I trust you three to ensure this happens.”

“Of course, sir,” Teekla nodded. “We will bring order back to the navy.”

“Good. Rear-Admiral Teekla, I and sending you to the Baznor System, where the 11th, 14th, and 20th Naval Task Forces are refueling. You will take control of them and head to the Norl Cluster. Strike down all traitors within and take back any lost planets.”

“Yes, sir!”

“Rear-Admiral Lap’Lap, your mission is to take the elements of the 2nd Fleet currently within the Raxus System and secure the Hyperlane corridors between us and Sullust. We need the industrial power of the sector and SoroSuub, and can’t let the Rimma Trade Route fall. Already, reports of pirates are surfacing in the region.”

“Yes, Head of State!”

“As for your assignment, Rear Admiral Rozenburg, I need you to take the 8th and 9th Naval Task Forces and go to Geonosis to deliver our condolences to the queen for the death of Poggle the Lesser, but also to remind them of their oaths to the Confederacy, and place an order for more droids and starships. Once that is done, swing around and pick up the fleet elements waiting in the Kro’Belli System. They should still be shut down, so reactivate them and begin patrolling the borders and Hyperlanes in the area.”

“It will be done.”

With one final round of salutes, the naval officers departed my office, and I had a two minutes to catch my breath before my next meeting.

This one was going to take a while, too. It was with Avi Singh, and was about the expansions I wanted to do on Raxus to improve the planet. The cities were too small and the infrastructure too limited for the center of the Confederacy.

I had a feeling the Congressman would see things my way, though. And all I’d have to do afterwards would be to attend a major shareholder meeting with the Retail Caucus where I laid out the law and informed my new underlings of the new direction the company would be taking.

That was not going to be easy, and I could already feel a headache forming at the thought of all the shouting I’d end up hearing from greedy businessmen.

‘No! Stop spiraling!’ I told myself. ‘Deal with Singh first, then worry about the next one!’

Ugh, being the Head of State was not nearly as pleasant a job as Dooku had made it seem. How did he get away with not doing any work?

‘Oh, right, he delegated and used droids to do his paperwork,’ I thought, before I slapping my face, feeling like an absolute moron for forgetting the basics of governing in the Confederacy.

I must have been more tired and harried by these past few days than I initially thought. Making a quick note to see if I could find my uncle’s stash of paperwork droids, I pressed a button as an alarm trilled out, and welcomed Avi Singh into my office.

First things first, though. Politics.

111 &&& 111

“Thank you so much for your help, Head of State Jarik!” a young human woman said gratefully, all but bouncing on her feet as she greeted me. My security detail watched her closely, but since they hadn’t tackled her to the ground, they’d deemed her safe enough to get close.

“Of course. Serving the Confederacy means more than just fighting for it,” I said, shaking the woman’s hand. “It also means ensuring people are kept alive and well, especially the children and the veterans who’ve fought for us.”

She grinned at that, before turning her attention to a group of people nearby, her smile softening. I joined in her watching as several children took their first tentative yet excited steps on new legs, and older people looked at their new limbs in joyous awe.

As jaded as I was, even I couldn’t keep a smile off my face, and in the back of my head I knew that media would be having a feeding frenzy today as they recorded video and snapped photos that would be up on the holo-net by end of the day.

One of my strongest desires was to ensure the people had what they needed. And in this instance, that meant proper prostheses and medical upgrades for those who required them.

The Star Wars universe was very strange, in that it was almost low-tech. Yes, they had space travel, but they were very limited. They’d reached what they believed to be the limit of their technology and didn’t really try to experiment or develop new technology.

Why would they? There was no need to, in their eyes. They already had a safe and effective form of FTL travel and communication, so no need for other methods to go faster than light. They had advanced agri-sciences capable of producing food to feed trillions of mouths, medicine that worked on all sorts of species, and industry that was able to make objects and appliances usable by anyone, so they did not need to innovate in that direction.

The Star Wars galaxy was honestly like late 20th, early 21st century Earth, just with spaceships and hovercars. They didn’t try and innovate because it had already all been invented, or was already good enough and didn’t need to be improved.

Hell, the current galaxy were actually less advanced compared to some of the older eras due to losing certain kinds of knowledge and scientific bases. Personal shields, for instance, and actual handheld laser weapons instead of the blasters currently used, which were technically plasma weapons since they used superheated gases instead of light.

Part of this was economy of scale. When you have literally tens of thousands of inhabited worlds, some of them are going to fall through the cracks, and not everyone will be able to maintain the same level of technology and infrastructure as others, and what they already had was ‘good enough’ in their eyes.

Another aspect of this avoidance of improving, developing, and advancing technology was cultural. People in this galaxy did not really use their technology to the fullest, and the stagnancy of the Republic greatly contributed to this.

The best example for this was the fact that the galaxy had fully functional cybernetic prosthetics that provided in-depth haptic feedback and possessed seamless mind-machine interface to the level it was almost impossible to distinguish the difference between the original limb for the best quality models, yet hardly anybody used cybernetics to the fullest.

Indeed, in the old Republic, cybernetics were seen as being used exclusively by ‘poor people’ who couldn’t afford flash-cloned or donated replacements.

Cybernetics in this galaxy were viewed as ‘primitive’ and ‘crude,’ and in my opinion, not all that impressive. There was nothing like Cyberpunk 2077 level stuff or wide-spread acceptance of it, despite more than enough technology to do so.

I wanted to change all of that, hence why I was here at a cybernetic clinic in one of the cities of Raxus, trying to normalize the use of cybernetics and promoting improvements to the field of study.

To that end, I had set up a number of charitable foundations to provide cybernetics to those in need. One was for veterans of the Clone War to be fixed up. Even if we didn’t use many organic soldiers, plenty of them still served on the ships and battlefields of the Confederacy, and lost their limbs in the brutal fighting of the last three years.

The other one was a charity for helping sick and injured children get access to cybernetics. Some species didn’t respond well to cloned or donated organic matter, others had to wait till they were adults for it to be most effective, and others just couldn’t afford whatever medical fees such an operation would necessitate. Cybernetics were, frankly, cheaper.

I was currently working on getting both of these foundations government backing with a steady trickle of funds to help cover some of the costs. Restoring loyal veterans was an easy way to get points from the voters, and helping cute, innocent children have a better life was another crowd pleaser, so very few Congresspeople were opposing it.

To my pleasant surprise, getting public acceptance was going smoother than I expected. It seemed that, thanks to the Confederacy’s heavy use of droids, most civilians were far more accepting of cybernetics.

Indeed, it was starting to become something of a line in the sand for public perspective. The Confederacy used cybernetics, droids, and the most advanced machines possible. Unlike the Republic, who mass-produced clone soldiers, advocated for gene-mods and biological manipulation for replacing lost bits, and worshipped the unknowable Force rather than good old fashion science.

‘Well, it’s the Empire, now, I suppose,’ I mused.

News about the sudden and unexpected transition of government was still trickling in, and most people were either in disbelief or thought it was a hoax or joke. Yet that was far from the truth.

‘I expect a number of planets in the Mid Rim who were on the side of the Republic, as well as some of the neutral Outer and Mid Rim worlds, to petition us to join the Confederacy as the truth about the formation of the Empire continues to trickle and they finally realize it is not fake,’ I mused to myself.

Whether or not the Empire would last was up in the air. Without Palpatine to hold it together, it probably wouldn’t survive, at least not without somebody with a lot of power taking over. Civil war was likely, and of course, the Rebellion would rise up as well if the Empire did not fall within a decade or so.

Perhaps it would transform into something vastly different to the authoritarian Sith-ruled regime it had been in the timeline I knew of. Maybe if we were lucky it’d collapse entirely. But I’d put money on sheer weight of age and indifference keeping it together for a little while.

I didn’t know, though, so all I could do was keep on smiling as I shook hands with grateful, teary-eyed parents and former soldiers who’d given up hope.

Seeing the good I’d been able to do… it made me feel good. Like I’d done something right, for once. It was a heady feeling, and it made the last few days more bearable.

So, I continued to smile, and silently prayed that the future would turn out better than it was supposed to.