may-time mingling (starstruck!)

[mucked]

Who: Starstruck crew + visitors
Broadcast: N/A
Action: Aboard the Starstruck!
When: The merry merry month of May

[ there's been a tiny regime change and doubtless some debriefing after that masquerade! have at it, starstruckers. mingle away! ]

Comments

[nostraightlines]

....I've never told you any of this, huh? Okay.

Back in 2016, a plague started that wiped out most of the population. Cole was sent back in time to prevent it from happening. But that would reset the timeline that we live in and erase everyone born after the plague.

[resnipstance]

[Ahsoka's expression gentles in understanding.]

... Oh.

We-- the people here from my universe and I-- are having a similar dilemma. I... sympathise.

[nostraightlines]

A plague?

[resnipstance]

No. Sort of? More of a-- timeline problem.

About six months into my future... something terrible is supposed to happen. Not a plague, but-- something that will wipe out almost everyone I know and care about. Not to mention, an entire way of life.

[nostraightlines]

[ ... okay she's got his attention. This is the first he's heard of anyone having a problem like his world's. ]

And you think there's a way to change it, but it would alter the timeline?

[resnipstance]

Exactly. It wouldn't bother me so much if there weren't already people here from our future-- but then again, if there weren't people here from our future, we never would've learned about Order Sixty-Six until it was too late to stop it.

But they are here, and I've met them. They're good people. I like them. But if Anakin and I prevent that future from happening... well, they'll still be born-- one of them is already alive at the point I come from, and the other two I think are in the womb, but-- their lives will be totally different.

[nostraightlines]

That's really rough. But if they'd still be born and their lives would be better..? I'd try to change things.

[resnipstance]

... That's what I think, too.

[nostraightlines]

What does Anakin think?

[resnipstance]

[Ahsoka's expression darkens.]

Anakin doesn't get a say, because Anakin is going to die if we don't change the future. And then his kids are going to grow up not knowing who he is. And that's not something I can accept.

[Nobody's told her about Vader, okay.]

[nostraightlines]

So... changing the future. Got it.

Any idea what you're going to do yet?

[resnipstance]

First of all, we're going to march back into Coruscant and arrest the Supreme Chancellor for treason. That sleemo is going to rot in prison forever, and even that's too good for him.

[nostraightlines]

What's he the supreme chancellor of?

[resnipstance]

The entire Galactic Republic.

... Yeah.

[nostraightlines]

Shit.

[resnipstance]

He's got the entire Republic wrapped around his little finger! Thinking he's their benevolent grandfather. He even had the entire Jedi Order fooled! Me-- Anakin-- everyone! But he's using us all as his puppets, engineering a war that never needed to happen-- I can't believe we were so blind. Well, no more.

[nostraightlines]

How are you going to prove it, then? Back in your time?

[resnipstance]

Prove it?

[The surprise in her voice indicates she hadn't actually thought that far ahead.]

I don't know, we'll-- oh! The clones. We'll prove the existence of the control chips and-- no, even that won't work. He'll just find a way to pin it on someone else... [Ahsoka lets out a long string of expletives under her breath in another language, which the translator doesn't translate. Still, Ramse can probably get the gist.]

[nostraightlines]

Whoa, clones? Control chips..? Like he programs people?

[resnipstance]

The Grand Army of the Republic-- the GAR-- is comprised entirely of genetically modified, lab-born clone soldiers, so that civilians wouldn't have to be drafted to fight.

Only, it turns out, the Chancellor had secret control chips implanted in their brains from birth all along. A failsafe, so that he could never be betrayed by his own military. With the flick of one switch... he can compel them to obey his orders. It's monstrous.

[nostraightlines]

That's fucked up.

[ Straight to it. ]

Bad enough you're creating people just for them to die, but they don't have any free will either?

[resnipstance]

... It was a kind of no-win scenario, to be honest.

The Separatists were preparing for war against us for nearly a decade, behind our backs. They manufactured a droid army-- billions of droid soldiers, computing trajectories and strategies several hundred times faster than the human brain, obeying orders without question, unable to feel fear or pain, or show mercy or empathy. You have to understand-- before this, the Republic had been at peace for over a thousand years. Our army wasn't in any way sufficient to stand up to that.

And... if we'd surrendered, we would have been surrendering to a corrupt, totalitarian Sith Empire. Which is no option at all.

[Not that it mattered, in the end-- Ahsoka realises that now. No matter who won the war, the outcome was the same.]

[nostraightlines]

How did you have time to grow an army? Wouldn't it have been faster and more efficient to make your own droids?

[resnipstance]

If the clones had been made when the war was sprung on us-- then yes.

But that wasn't what happened. Apparently... one of the old Jedi Masters had a vision, many years ago, of a war to come that would engulf the galaxy. He tried to convince the Council that we would need an army to fight it, but the Council wouldn't hear of it and removed him of his position. So he went behind the Order's back instead.

By the time the war rolled around, the clones had already been in production for over a decade. And clones age at twice the speed of normal humans. [She's sure Ramse can do the math there.] Just when we most needed an army to fight... one was provided for us.

[nostraightlines]

...how long ago was this for you?

[ He's curious if Ahsoka knew any of them, had ever met a clone, could say whether they had the same emotional capacity as a person. It just doesn't seem fair or reliable to throw a clone army into a war, but he understands why it was done if not how. ]