Chapter 121: Reformations
Chapter 121: Reformations
– Jedi Temple – 23.8 BBY –
The entire High Council looked unhappy as they received the detailed report from the head of the Temple Guard and the lead Jedi Investigator of a team recently turned loose for internal investigations. The attack of a Dark Sider on Master Zane at the potential satellite training academy site on Alaris Prime had triggered a deeper investigation than any previously done. Already, since the Sith reemerged, previous security sweeps had found an irritating level of electronic surveillance. Subverted cleaning drones, inadequate or outdated cyber security, bugs planted in meeting rooms. A standard security review had been performed on a technical level and numerous holes patched. They’d even brought in a few outside experts to help close slicer vulnerabilities that they hadn’t had sufficient in-house expertise to deal with.
They had all thought that had been the end of it.
After all, while droids and automated systems were fiendishly hard to detect with the Force, outright sentient spying would be detected by one Jedi or another, surely? Despite his own belief in the Force, Mace himself had wanted to be a bit more aggressive, yet hadn’t had a firm enough position to insist at the time. Not with how fractured the Order had become in the last several years. Cracks that had only escalated in severity with the Hutt Crusade and how many Jedi ‘abandoned their posts’ to go join it.
Alaris Prime had been enough ammunition for Mace to finally force through a more…comprehensive review.
Instead of only looking for electronic surveillance methods, a team of Jedi Investigators had been pulled from other important duties and set loose on the Temple as a whole. They’d performed as thorough of a sweep and audit as could be made through the support staff, and had even been allowed to dig into the personal communication logs of all Initiates and Padawans. The Temple Guard had carefully monitored them, acting as a check on them going too far…and authorizing them to investigate the logs or effects of a few higher ranked Jedi as well.
The results were ugly.
Dozens of their support staff were completely compromised, reporting to everyone from individual senators, to the Chancellor’s office, and even a few criminal groups! They had remained undetected, at least in theory, because they had each believed reporting to those people was the right thing to do. With no feelings of guilt or betrayal to zero in on, no one had noticed how utterly their low-level support staff was riddled with security leaks. Even the criminal groups that had managed their own plants had apparently figured out this vulnerability, convincing those that reported to them that they were part of the planetary security services and just ‘keeping an eye’ on the Jedi.
From there, the report had only gotten worse when it moved onto actual Jedi.
The least damning was also the most expected, though the severity of the issue had been a shock. Dozens of Padawans had been found to be leaking information. Admittedly, mostly unintentionally. The most disturbing pattern among them, and something many were now silently cursing themselves for not seeing as a problem previously, were the numerous Padawans that had struck up ‘friendships’ with various senators or senatorial aides. The communication logs of such conversations showed what were, to far more experienced eyes, clearly powerful individuals fishing for information…and often getting it. One of the absolute worst was a ‘friendship’ between the Supreme Chancellor himself and young Anakin Skywalker.
Several of the High Council had known peripherally that they communicated, but the extent of that communication had been horribly underestimated. Young Skywalker had leaked the results, in detail, of virtually every mission he’d been on. Including a lot of political details he’d been privy to which the Supreme Chancellor had no doubt used in his political role. Obi-wan, after all, was one of their best negotiators and Anakin had been involved in dozens of critical diplomatic meetings as a result. Nor, unfortunately, was Skywalker’s case a standout in any way except the high rank of whom he was leaking information to. At least a dozen other Padawans had been leaking just as much information, though to far lesser sources.
Clearly, they had made a horrible mistake by not including far more instruction on information control in initiate training. Something that was now horribly obvious in hindsight, given the high-level politics Jedi routinely got involved in. Yet, they weren’t a militant or police order, and had never considered the need for teaching preteens information security. Not beyond the basics, at least. Generally, it had been left up to Masters to do a more comprehensive job, and clearly all too few actually followed through on doing so.
Which, considering that some of the Masters were also leaking information they shouldn’t be, made entirely too much sense. There was clearly a systemic problem that was in desperate need of being corrected, and they were incredibly lucky nothing more sensitive than possible sites for new training academies had leaked. So far, at least.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t even the worst of it.
The worst of it was discovering no less than five actively practicing Dark Siders among their own numbers. The highest ranking, and the reason six Temple Guard now lay dead and four more injured, had been the widely respected Sora Bulq. The very same weapons master who had helped Mace refine Vapaad, and who taught entirely too many of their basic lightsaber classes. Worse, Bulq had been actively corresponding with someone, though they didn’t know who, and that someone had been encouraging the Weequay Master to spread his influence within the Order. The Temple Guard had failed to capture him for interrogation, though they had killed him at great cost to their own numbers.
Finally, after a horrible, lingering silence after the report finished, it was a worried sounding Master Coleman Trebor who spoke.
“This could become an even greater catastrophe, if it becomes a witch hunt. We are all aware of the…tensions…among even this High Council, let alone the Order as a whole. If this information spreads and everyone starts questioning everyone else…”
Master Trebor trailed off, but he didn’t need to finish the thought for the rest of the Council to get it. Despite recent disagreements, none of them wanted to see the Jedi Order as a whole crumble, and this had entirely too much chance of causing it to do so. The fracture lines caused by so many Jedi leaving for the Hutt Crusade had only just barely begun to heal, after all.
Mace was in full agreement, trying not to grimace as he raised a follow-up point.
“It would shatter much of the momentum we’ve managed in cleaning up some corruption from the Senate as well. That is already slowing down, as the Veil regains strength, and we’ve just had proof that the Order is leaking information like a sieve. If our problems become too public, or the Order fractures, we may lose what little progress we’ve made in preventing the slide toward war.”
There were grim nods all around the room, and Mace abruptly realized that, despite his own horror, there was an opportunity here. At least for this one moment, the entire High Council was once again united. Determination filling him, he took the bull by the horns.
“We need to address our factional issues. Right here and right now. Then, we need to decide, together, how we are going to clean this mess up without it being noticed by literally everyone, both internally and externally. We shall start with the obvious. The fact that none of the Jedi returning from the Hutt Crusade ended up flagged as a problem in this investigation…”
Several of the Jedi Masters present looked like they’d just sucked on a sour fruit, but none of them protested as he began to firmly guide the High Council. All of them were united in this one thing at least, for the first time in years. Even before the Hutt Crusade, there had been internal factions and disagreements that made wrangling the Council a full-time job. Yet, at least for now, this new set of revelations was suppressing their differences as they started proposing and debating solutions on how to deal with the mess.
… … …
– Vaklin – 23.7 BBY –
Laranth Tarak had not seen the twist her life had taken coming. Perhaps other Jedi would have felt that was a failing, an inability to properly navigate the currents of the Force. Laranth, however, like all the Gray Paladins, did not see the Force that way. Their little faction of the Jedi Order had long been considered near-heretical by the traditionalists among the rest of the Order, as they believed firmly that the Force is only a secondary aspect of life, and not the primary.
They eschewed the use of the Force in any physical manifestation, relying rather on militant skills and other talents to achieve their goals. All of them did use the Force still, of course. But generally only to enhance the skills they’d already gained the hard way, rather than as a crutch to replace those skills. They didn’t even use lightsabers, instead preferring a good blaster or vibroknife. The goal was minimal dependency on the Force. To use it only as one tool in a vast toolkit. As one might imagine, this put them at odds with most other Jedi, with the various councils barely tolerating them.
Which made it very unexpected and highly ironic that the entire sect was now on a long-term mission for the High Council itself.
Officially, in a move that showed far more concern and awareness of information security than any of the Paladins had expected, the Gray Paladins had finally split from the Jedi Order ‘on their own initiative.’ Instead of being a way to shoo them off to an unimportant duty and hope they vanished, though, the sect had been quietly provided with a lot of money and Orders. Orders which took them to the world of Vaklin. It was a mining world in the Inner Rim which had a long history of deep respect for the Jedi Order. Not only had a Jedi Master Prokreisha saved the local population from a Rust Plague in the distant past, but the world had been protected by Jedi Lords during the New Sith Wars, and various other Jedi over many generations had made a difference here.
Which they were now doing again, as they brought a massive infusion of credits for the local economy. Credits that were quietly being used to expand the mines, build industrial capacity to actually use the mined material locally…and support a brand new Military Academy that was intended to turn out a full-blown ground army. Not a huge army, with their orders only being to bring the numbers up as close to 100,000 troops as they could over the next two to three years. But a legitimate, professional, standing army, whose loyalty would be entirely to the Jedi Order.
It was something that hadn’t happened since the New Sith Wars, and it showed just how worried the High Council was about the tensions building in the galaxy. Not that she personally thought they were overreacting. If anything, from what she could see it probably wouldn’t be enough. Though she’d gotten the impression that theirs was only one of several operations that the Order was abruptly undertaking. So hopefully she was wrong about that.
Regardless, being a more militant sect, one with a lot of the relevant skills required, the Gray Paladins had been entrusted with this immense task. They had help, in the form of advisors from the Antaran Rangers and returning Jedi from the Hutt Crusades who had gained firsthand experienced with ground armies. Likewise, a handful of commanders from worlds that had suffered local wars had been snapped up and would be helping build the structure of the army. Yet, it was the Gray Paladins who were being placed in overall charge of getting the job done.
It was a hell of a wild swing from what any of them had thought they would ever be doing, but it was a job they were all eager to tackle. Even the most cynical of their sect took a considerable degree of pleasure in being recognized as the right people for this job, and all of them were hoping to prove that their approach to the Force was a valuable addition to the Jedi Order as a whole…
… … …
– Hynestia Prime – 23.6 BBY –
Hynestia Prime was a remote world of cold, windswept tundras, with the only real exception being at the equator, where virtually the entire sentient population of the world resided. Not having the fortune to be near any major hyperlanes, the world saw very little travel despite being in the Colonies region. It had been known to the Republic for a long, long time, having been one of many such worlds discovered when the Core Worlds first pushed outward to expand the Republic. At the time, the Republic had been struggling with overpopulation and desperate for new habitable worlds, with every such world they found inevitably getting a colony. Its presence in the ‘Colonies Region’ which resulted from that ancient push meant that, despite the low amount of trade it saw, it was still somewhat protected by Core World interests and had a fairly significant level of development. At least in that band of warmth that existed along the equator.
Yet, for all that it wasn’t quite forgotten, it also wasn’t any sort of major player in the galaxy. It did have a few modest exports, such as gherlian furs, and a Royal Family who had honestly done quite well by their world over the millennia. It also, as it happened, had a bit of history with the Jedi Order. Specifically, it had hosted a Jedi Outpost during the High Republic era, one of many such that had eventually been shuttered due to the shrinking size of the Order during and after the New Sith Wars.
Despite the Outpost closing down over a thousand years previously, the locals still had a moderate amount of warmth for the Jedi Order. In large part due to the fact that they had been among those worlds that had fallen under the protection of various Jedi Lords during those wars. They were, in fact, one of the rare worlds that had come through the New Sith Wars largely unmolested. The combination of not having industry worth taking and a Jedi presence having been enough to keep the fighting away. Something which, as perhaps the most colorful single anecdote in an otherwise fairly modest history, was still taught in the schools of the world to the modern day.
It hadn’t, originally, been considered as a site for the Jedi to found a satellite academy. Yet, with the worlds that had first been scouted for such now known to have been leaked, a second round of diving through archives and attempting to find viable options had been done. Worlds that could better hide such an academy through the conflict they all knew was coming had been prioritized, and Hynestia Prime had a little-known secret to off-worlders that made it perfect for that purpose.
Specifically, that important detail was that entire planet was riddled with massive underground caves and hot springs.
For the most part, this had traditionally been a detriment to the world. Quite aside from the lack of major hyperlanes nearby, the caves and crisscrossing underground waterways made the idea of trying to mine for resources horrifically risky. With the resources of the world extremely difficult to tap into, and little arable land for crops, the world as a whole had never had much of a chance to develop. Its largest city housed less than two million people, and the total population was under 35 million. A highly unusual statistic for a habitable world within the Colonies Region of the Republic.
It was also a very useful state of affairs for clever Jedi charged with hiding a new academy.
Unlike virtually anyone else in the galaxy, Jedi could sense where it was and wasn’t safe to excavate under the snowy tundra of the planet’s surface. With the right Jedi, equipped with the right tools, it was easily possible to find a location that was geologically stable, yet surrounded by hot water underground springs that could be diverted into a loop that would warm an underground base. Which, as it happens, is exactly what they were here doing.
Jedi Knight Xiaan Amersu was one of the Jedi with the right skills. It wasn’t something that most people tended to remember, given how common Twi’leks were in the galaxy, but the vast majority of Ryloth’s settlements were underground. Much like Hynestia Prime, only far worse due to being tidally locked, her homeworld had only a narrow strip of truly habitable territory. Outside of that, the only way to survive was to dig down for protection from the hot and cold sides of the planet. While she had, thankfully, not exactly lived on Ryloth long in her youth, she had been there long enough to gain a sense for underground spaces. A more than ordinary sense, in point of fact, that had ended up revealing her as a Force Sensitive.
Now she was almost feeling nostalgic as she oversaw the formation of the caves into a new satellite academy, alongside several other Jedi whose races had similar expertise. She hadn’t even been aware there were any Elom Jedi, and the Anx on the team reminded her painfully of her first Jedi Master, who had been killed by Aurra Sing. They and others were mapping the tunnels and caverns, indicating to the droid tunneling machines where to dig to create a larger network of caverns. Other Jedi were following behind, deciding how to use each area and setting construction droids working to make it happen.
Inside a few months, this hidden academy would be ready to receive a pair of youngling clans and their minders, as would other locations she knew were under construction but had no idea of the locations of. It was a bit sad that everyone felt this was all needed. Yet, she had to agree that protecting the future of the Order through the upcoming conflicts was important, and the security of the main Jedi Temple had proven very much less than reliable…
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A/N 1: Ah, the poor Jedi. The reality checks are still falling fast and thick for them. It will do them good, though, and better they get their house in order before Yoda comes back with the information passed on to him by Izuku and co.
A/N 2: The Gray Paladins were always an interesting concept for me, and it occurred to me some time ago that they are pretty much the only ones in the Order who've actually cultivated proper military skills. Making them a logical choice to create a ground force, albeit a small one, for the Jedi. Note that the troops they are working with ARE a ground force. Marines and naval officers are being trained elsewhere. Mostly at Antar IV and Space City.
A/N 3: Hynestia Prime is BARELY mentioned anywhere, so I had to expand a bit on it. But it is a legit location within Star Wars, and the bare bones of it are lore accurate. I dug around quite a bit among lesser known worlds with some Jedi affiliation for a place to put one of the new hidden academies...
A/N 4: You probably know this bit by now, but I need to say it anyway ;-)! Once per set of chapters released, I point out that I have a Page with Early Access content. In example, I just released chapters 122-126 of Displaced Hero there, adding roughly another 15,000 words which will remain in Early Access until next month. Similarly, there are at least a few Early Access chapters there for ALL of my stories, though NONE of them are ever permanently paywalled. All fanfiction content I make ends up here (or on Fanfiction.net and Questionable Questing) eventually, as new content for each story is released. Typically, there are 75,000+ words of additional early access content for patrons at any one time, all for just a dollar a month! As well as chances to vote in polls that influence which stories are updated, pairings, and other such things.