toplvl | unpopular opinions

The galaxy was better off with the Empire in charge of it.

[ Just this look. ]

[Oh, good, the woman she's always considered something of her opposite number. Oh, not a head of Intelligence, to be sure - but then again that's not all Isard is, either. No, more the glue holding the structure together.]

A counterpoint, Highness?

[ Leia wouldn't give her that much credit or that much loathing. Issard was good, no way to deny that but she was a terrible person with a terrible agenda and loyal to the wrong people. ]

Oppression, tyranny, hatred, and fear have no place in the universe. I will see at least what the Empire spews is ended.

And yet, they are fundamental forces the galaxy has never been rid of, anytime in its history. At least the Empire provided central order. Peace, if at a cost.

Is that how you see it? I think conscripted soldiers and victims would see it very differently. I know I do.

[She allows a languid smile to cross her face]

Of course you do - a Princess from vast wealth, who can afford to stand aside and theorize. The rest of us had work to do, our parts to play in strengthening the galaxy, not tearing it apart.

A child who was raised to see people, not things. I had the best father and mother to raise me, to show me the reality people like you would put a clean face on. There was nothing clean in what you did but I suppose when you only look at numbers and not faces that is easy to forget.

Philosophy unmarried to action is a dream. Action is what drives the hope that sparks change.

Clean? Of course not. My task was to defend the Empire from treasonous threats such as yourself. Striking from the shadows, insidiously undermining...no, there is nothing clean about such work. Necessary though it is.

And ah, yes, change. After the deaths of untold billions, you will have...change. With all the uncertainty, disorder and chaos that accompanies it. And ultimately, we both know the only way it will work is if it becomes that which it overthrew.

Treason very much depends on the side your on, when you are under the heel of oppression it's fighting for freedom. The Empire hates anything that doesn't fit in their narrow view of acceptability and I know you know this.

A new alliance with representative governing will never be perfect but it allows a lot more freedom than any imperial culling has offered. People gave their lives for the idea of that freedom and that is not to be forgotten, not by us.

So beauty in the eye of the Rebel beholder, then, hmm? What nonsense. The Empire had great freedoms - for all who were willing to play their role in the growth of the state.

And oh yes, the siren call of representative government. Since the Senate turned out so well the last time, you'll try it again.

[She smiles, thinly]

It won't hold, you know. It can't. The Bothans alone will tear it apart with their scrabbling little claws just so you or Mon Mothma can't outshine them.

A Senate that is more than name only and not a puppet for those who desire to amass power or wealth can work. But you have to admit that Palpatine had been working to destabilize the process for decades before he finally made his grab for power.

I'll worry about maintaining things once they are established and have a chance to take root.

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iceheart_imperial - 2022-04-29 13:36 (UTC) - Expand

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alderaani - 2022-05-10 20:59 (UTC) - Expand

You must have really hated Alderaan, then.

[And, in a familiar manner, she slides into looking both offended and also saddened, all at once.]

Far from it - Alderaan represents the most appalling tragedy, one that cannot ever be allowed to happen again. An event the Emperor himself sacrificed his life trying to prevent from repeating.

Nobody suspected the depths of Governor Tarkin's animosity towards Bail Organa - that he would repurpose a mining installation as he did...and a double tragedy, because his attempt to escape the Emperor's wrath for his misdeeds took so many good Imperial personnel with him.

So...your defense is that the Emperor's only crime was that he was incompetent. Or that he just couldn't be bothered to pay attention to what one of his Grand Moffs was doing until said Grand Moff managed to blow up a planet.

[She shakes her head, sighing.]

My defence is that the Emperor, whose only concern was - as always - serving the myriad interests of the galaxy, could not prevent it despite his benevolence. Even Darth Vader, his most trusted servant, was distracted by a plot between the surviving Jedi and the Rebels and was unable to stop Tarkin in time.

Which is why the Emperor vowed that all such projects would, thereafter, be under his personal purview.

[Much as she wishes she could just shoot him in the head for the arrogance. But that would hardly fit the propaganda.]

...

[ EXCUSE. ]

You have been misled about the history between Palpatine and Bail Organa.

And Tarkin.

Palpatine's death.

When the Death Star was started. What it was for.

[She is one of the few people who doesn't look upon Darth Vader with fear - in part because of having spent so much time around him. She turns, folding her hands behind her.]

The history is meaningless. You were dead, having betrayed my Emperor. I was left to hold the Empire together with what resources I could grasp and the fools of the court. I made of Endor the propaganda I could.

What was I do to do? Tell the truth? That decades of resources had been thrown at near-useless weapons that had drained the economy and produced no tangible results? That Tarkin's stupidity with Alderaan created the most titanic propaganda that he possibly could have made for the Rebellion? That the Emperor himself fell into Tarkin's dead-end vision?

[She shakes her head]

The Empire is my responsibility now, and I will zealously defend its interests, as I always have.

I betrayed nothing. Above Endor I showed him the exact measure of loyalty he's always shown me.

[ It's not a hard game to play, really. ]

You could have used what Thrawn said - the Death Star was a project which worked only on paper and the same who mired the Republic in war had again rose to power. It has the benefit of being true, giving you one less lie to remember. And something of an alliance with those still loyal to him.

As for Palpatine - he fell to his own hubris and to forgetting just whose hands it was that gave him that throne, to begin with. Had he remembered, he wouldn't have put his hands on my son, he knew what I was and was not willing to lose.

You were made to be his servant, as I was. Unlike me, your usefulness was rapidly drawing to a close.

[Not a hard game? He has no idea. Vader never had any idea. Vader was the club, the fist. Oh, clever in his way, she admitted that much - but not an administrator. No, that had been her job. And it was why he had been supplemented, even in his role, by subtler tools like Mara Jade or Inquisitors like Tremayne, or Jerec - all of whom could have, and maybe would have, replaced Vader in the long run.]

[If only the Emperor had kept some of his other paladins closer to him.]

You were too busy leading Death Squadron - I had to build from the orders I already had, after you and Tarkin failed at Yavin. COMPNOR crafted the cover story, I have built it from there.

As for your betrayal...you think that it was your hands that gave him the throne? You were a piece in a grand design, crafted over decades. I keep all his extant secrets now, and even I can only guess at parts of it. You were convenient, but not essential. I only wish he had remembered that.

I'm sure he told you that. He told so many people so many different things. I know what bargains he claimed to want to strike with me. Did he ever beg you for your help?

[ Politics themselves. He'd done it until he didn't have to, because he truly didn't want to. A child slave of a Hutt known to devour children learns fast and learns brutally - the lessons just made him hate the game. ]

I didn't actually believe him to be stupid enough to build another one after the first one blew up. A miscalculation on my part.

[ Almost worth what Palpatine did to him for it too. His only regret was not being able to rub Tarkin's nose in the failure. ]

But yes, my hands. My battles. My men's blood and lives to keep him popular and the Republic loyal. My hands, delivering the Jedi Temple and all its secrets. My victories, my conquests. Palpatine's first solo plan was beaten into the ground by a little girl, her handmaidens, an aging Jedi, a Padawan so lackluster many thought him best fit for the service corps, and a slaveboy. His own first apprentice? A woeful disappointment which caused only strife with Nightsisters, and Maul's replacement was a fallen Jedi who believed himself Sith and was far more responsible for holding the other half of war than Palpatine wanted to believe. You have to guess at parts because they predate you.

[Does he...does he actually not know? After all this time, does the great and terrible Darth Vader, who stood at Palpatine's side for decades, not understand the whole at all? Her look is incredulous, and vaguely amused.]

He never needed to. I was loyal. To him, and his vision.

[That's the thing - Vader was always a flawed apprentice. The best tool for the job available. She was a child of the Empire, her whole life spent in and dedicated to the New Order. It was why the second Super Star Destroyer off the line, the secret one, had been hers and hers alone to know about. Had Vader ever turned on his Master, she would have been there as a counter. The subtle left hand compared to Vader's gauntleted right. He held the lightsaber, but she always held the stiletto.]

And you think...all of that was separate attempts? It was all one plan - he chose his tools for the role they were to play. And dispensed with when their utility was reaching an end. Why do you think he ever agreed to try and convert your son?

[Because with the Rebellion gone, what use was an aging, quasi-loyal cyborg to Palpatine?]

Palpatine's design was all of one piece. Maul's purpose was to create a threat, and after that could be dispensed with. Dooku was to create the Clone Wars, to ensure they stretched the hated Jedi to the brink. All of it, a manipulation of events to create the New Order that ran for decades in plain sight of his enemies, undetected. You, like me, were cogs in that machine.

But you seem to be under the mistaken impression you were special.

A puppet then.

[ Did she not know that Palpatine was actually impressed with his attempts to build his own Empire in the shadows? Clearly not. ]

Of course it was. You know little of the Sith and the rituals Palpatine sought to imitate. He desired power, and discounted mine. Mistakenly.

[ Because Palpatine was dead. ]

Palpatine's interests would have been better served had the Jedi remained in the dark about the existence of the Sith. They still believed Dooku to be a friend - and would have, had his ties to the Sith Order not been seen. But instead, he relieved their existence to arrange the assassination of a Jedi Master, with ties to the Grandmaster and a much-beloved friend of Dooku - which turned Dooku against him, causing a security issue. All to get to me.

What were you worth? A nanny-droid?

[ He may, possibly, be laughing at her. ]

A puppet implies I required control. A servant, yes, I harbour no illusions about that. And now steward in his stead. Only one of us is deluded enough to think they meant more.

[Impressed? Perhaps, in the same way one might be that a pet lothcat learned a new trick - Palpatine's system had required his presence, true, but it masterfully balanced itself so long as that was true.]

Mistakenly? He took you with him, for all your storm and thunder. An enemy I could have defeated any time he required it of me with a handful of DEMP devices.

[Had she devoted time to figuring out how to kill Vader if Palpatine had commanded it? Absolutely. Frankly, the larger problem would have been the fleet officers who would have had to go with them. They were harder to replace. Jerec, Tremaybe, Hethrir - any of them could have filled Vader's boots. But that's just it, isn't it? the arrogance of the Sith to think they were irreplaceable. The Jedi in another shade - at least Palpatine had tried to rise above the old paradigm, casting off the Dark Lord title to Vader and striving for something greater still.]

You speak about factors that do not matter to the grand design - you understand nothing, perceive nothing of the whole. Do you truly not understand? By the time Dooku was corrupted it didn't matter - the Jedi Order was already ensnared in a fatal trap. Knowing he was Sith only made it so they had even less opportunity to escape it - focused on destroying their eternal enemy, they failed to look within and around themselves.

Darth Maul having already accomplished his most useful purpose - destroying the only reformist who truly stood a chance at breathing new life into a moribund structure.

I don't need to defend my worth to you. I know what I achieved, I know my value to the Empire.

[Not least of which being: which of the two of them had Palpatine been working on replacing, hmm?]

Edited 2022-04-20 23:35 (UTC)

You think he doesn't control you still?

[ Because Vader does. ]

A DEMP couldn't have killed me. An inconvenience? Yes. Painful? Yes. But pain is fuel and if Mustafar couldn't kill me, I'd survive your pathetic attempts.

[ Because they were - dying on the second Death Star just means he wasn't fueling himself with the Dark Side - he understands that would kill him. But something as simple as not doing able to breathe? Did she truly not know how often that game was played? ]

You, silly child, still believe Palpatine meant the Empire to be something other than a machine to funnel power into his hands. That he cared about the galaxy as a whole. He didn't. They wouldn't even have come close to discovering what Palpatine was if they weren't looking for a Sith, blind to even a pitched battle between two on their own home planet. He wasn't trusted because he came to power in the midst of the Sith reassurance. His master understood that but overplayed his hand. He trusted his apprentice. Palpatine never forgot to fear his own.

You don't, for you have not even an understanding of what it was, so deluded with a politician's words. It's almost quaint.

[ If you aren't worth killing, you aren't worth leading or teaching. It's always been true for the Sith. ]

Why do you think he didn't want anyone to know what he truly was? Why it was a capital offence?

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iceheart_imperial - 2022-04-22 03:43 (UTC) - Expand

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Ysanne Isard | Star Wars: Legends

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SWTOR Smuggler, but I'm gonna bump him ahead for this.

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Oh she knows.

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