Governor's Gambit - Star Wars SI into Imperial Governor

[Introverted]

I'd say it's an easy spin in the Rebel Alliance's favor. The Galactic Republic was reformed into The Empire in response to corruption and poor policy as well as years of war. Systems traded autonomy for safety and prosperity, but receive nothing of the sort. Why? Because the reforms never addressed the issue, just codified ,solidified, and even expanded the power bases of the corrupt or incompetent that caused the problems in the first place.

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Not really in the Rebel Alliance's favor.

The fact that the Imperial System can work undermines their rhetoric and reinforces the idea that the System can provide safety and prosperity (exhibit A: Minda)

 

[Johnlemmingson]

New republic historian gonna eventually throw a book to people's heads that explain that no, outlier is not the representative of the whole galactic empire full of horror and atrocities.

 

[Pef]

New Republic historian gonna eventually throw a book to people's heads that explain that no, outlier is not the representative of the whole Galactic Empire full of horror and atrocities.

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Or rather, a New Galactic Empire historian will point out that here, is when the seed for normal and civilized society was planted, that eventually resulted in the galaxy waking up.

I mean, it would be like the entire Asia decided they had enough corruption and totalitarian regimes and decided to become part of Singapore.

 

[Yacov]

Or rather, a New Galactic Empire historian will point out that here, is when the seed for normal and civilized society was planted, that eventually resulted in the galaxy waking up.

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Funnily enough an Imperial Remnant led by Las would be one of the few with a prominent civilian section of government. Civilian rule in the Empire technically continues after Endor with the Grand Vizier running things until Coruscant falls in 7ABY. However most Warlords ignored Coruscant in favor of acquiring personal and military power long before then.

Most other realms of Warlords are run as stratocracies with a focus on acquiring more and more ships with little power or even care given to the Civilian sector outside of delegating to oligarchs and corps. For this class of strongmen, the size of your fleet was directly tied to your political power and legitimacy.

Las staying behind a desk and coordinating with civilians, bureaucrats, and politicians while his subordinates control the military is certainly going to be seen as novel. It will also allow him to have a heck of a lot more industrial output than most of his peers due to being a state with an army rather than an army with a state.

At the very least Las won't be leading fleets and invasions from the front and getting killed in battle. That is how a lot of Warlord's big and small meet their end in the post-Endor era. A Warlord's death usually leads to their realm collapsing as there is rarely a Plan B in place.

 

[None of your bee wax!]

Funnily enough an Imperial Remnant led by Las would be one of the few with a prominent civilian section of government. Civilian rule in the Empire technically continues after Endor with the Grand Vizier running things until Coruscant falls in 7ABY. However most Warlords ignored Coruscant in favor of acquiring personal and military power long before then.

Most other realms of Warlords are run as stratocracies with a focus on acquiring more and more ships with little power or even care given to the Civilian sector outside of delegating to oligarchs and corps. For this class of strongmen, the size of your fleet was directly tied to your political power and legitimacy.

Las staying behind a desk and coordinating with civilians and politicians while his subordinates control the military is certainly going to be seen as novel. It will also allow him to have a heck of a lot more industrial output than most of his peers due to being a state with an army rather than an army with a state

At the very least Las won't be leading fleets and invasions from the front and getting killed in battle. That is how a lot of Warlord's big and small meet their end in the post-Endor era. A Warlord's death usually leads to their realm collapsing as there is rarely a Plan B in place.

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Funny how much media misses the point of "war being a resource sink" is part of the Strategy. It doesn`t matter how hard you alpha strike, if its a one-and-done, and the other guy just walks it off.

Grinding others beneath your treads is less important then crushing them underneath you supply convoys.

 

[Freefaller]

Chp-57: The Weight of Judgement

So many projects. So much work.

If all the reports, contracts, and various other documents I was dealing with were physical in nature, I would have comically large stacks surrounding me at all times.

The kind that falls over in cartoons.

Thankfully, printed copies go into secure filing cabinets, with only the most important ones getting copies in my office. Well, the important ones that I need to reference.

Right now, I was dealing with pushback from Rendili and CEC in regards to the contracts they signed. They wanted to renegotiate their contracts in light of the new quota's and increased pressure from the Empire.

And I understand them, I do. The Governor of Clok, one Umber Tion, and the closest thing I have to a friend on the political stage, has been under more pressure than the system can handle.

Trade is good through his system, but the strain is evident. Clok will survive, so I thankfully don't have to intervene. Because that would be a massive headache.

The two shipbuilding companies now want to get better deals. Their supply lines are being strained, and shipping parts and the like out to Minda is becoming more and more difficult, to say the least. They are looking for reductions in the contracts.

I'm not even against it, all things considered. I'd rather them not do that, but it's understandable and I don't want to hurt any possible future relationships with them. The problem is that they want both a decrease in production, an increase in their shares of the profits(which are already 70%), and for Minda to start doing parts of the shipping.

I sent them a kind letter saying that only the first one is possible, because they already have a majority of the profits, and because Minda's trade fleet is being made to ship parts for the upcoming shipyards.

And yes. I mentioned the yards. They know they'll be strapped for both cash and production capabilities. Especially out here. The yards will be the bait, for all intents and purposes. It'll keep them around, and I'm sure the Moff wouldn't mind renting out one or two. After all, these are megacorps we're talking about. The man is clearly quite ambitious, and corporations are just another rung on the ladder.

Now, the contract will likely have to be renegotiated anyways, but once Oioro is off of her vacation, she'll deal with the corpos. Corpos. A word I've been saying a lot recently.

Fuck! Now I'm having flashbacks to 2077!

As my mind spirals into a haze of chromed out borgs, chooms who got zeroed too early to matter, glitter snorting cyber-psychos, and rockerboy freedom fighters/terrorists, my terminal pings with another report.

Checking it, a small smile makes its way onto my face. The tug teams just got to Rothana. Soon, they would begin the trip to Minda, shipyards in tow.

For a moment, I considered hiring more tug teams. I could theoretically have all the shipyards in Minda by the end of the month if I paid out the ass for a bunch more of those tugs.

Thing is, I don't want the yards to get here in a month. If I did, then I would be expected to start production far sooner. As it stands, the licenses were only just purchased, and factories were being built, along with housing for new workers, transportation systems, infrastructure, etc…

On some plains, just a mile north of the city's edge, the R&D team was busy tearing apart some Vigil, Raider, and Custom's Corvette's in order to simplify them, and ensure an easier logistical flow.

Last I heard, they were considering using more TIE parts, since we already build a shit ton of those, and it's the most common Imperial ship in the galaxy.

Regardless, they were on the clock. 5 months before the yards got here. Not the greatest timeline. Thankfully, Minda has enough spare cash to fulfill a few batches worth of orders without the simplified logistics, but it would be best for everyone involved if they completed the task ASAP.

Aside from that, things had actually been slowing down for once! With the yards being the big project on the way, and considering the fact that Minda now owes KDY some 9 billion or so credits, any infrastructure projects or other such things that don't drive profits up won't be implemented.

When I say that, I mean that unless the project is needed for some reason, or is already being worked on, then it will not be started. The Mega-Buildings, for example. Construction started many months ago, and so by now it would be a waste not to finish them, especially with all the workers that will be coming in to work the yards.

As I looked out over the city, and to the stars that I could already see in the night sky. Accordia used almost exclusively warm colored lights, and at this time of night most were out, so light pollution was kept to a minimum.

The stars were, as always, beautiful. An ever distant dream. For all that I now lived in the most sci-fi of sc-fi universes, I rarely left the planet. Hell, I rarely left my office!

Just like on Earth, but I actually work for a living instead of living with my parents and hating the job market for English majors.

Politics. Never thought this would be the career I got stuck with. Certainly not the one I wanted. I just wanted to write, ya know? Maybe even for some video games. That was the dream.

Now I'm here pouring over fucking economics textbooks and political journals and philosophical treatise and so much shit I justwanttogothom-!

Calmtruststablesafe

I take a deep breath. Not the time for a panic attack. Never the time for a panic attack. Mugwuffin purrs a little, and I thank her with headpats. It's nice to have more allies than enemies.

And oh boy did I have enemies.

No explicit ones, mind you. Not that I know of at least. But political ones. The governmental elite of the sector have been content in their stagnation for a while now. Sure, the sector acts as a graveyard for political careers but the Moff was fat, lazy, easy to please.

This sector used to be a pit that could be crawled out of.

But now? I've raised the bar. I've actually made something that isn't total fucking garbage. Some Governors, like Tion, are chill with this. Mostly because he profits from my success, but still.

Many are unhappy. They don't say it. But I can feel it. As if their animosity is stretching across the stars themselves.

I imagine it will get worse, now. With the new quotas, and few systems able to meet them, those that do will get more attention. Last thing I want. Hell, I wanted to be out of here!

So, I look away from the stars, and towards my terminal once more. Information, publicly available, on the ongoing endeavors of the other Governors. Some were trying to replicate my success, but started far too late or used the wrong methods.

Some were actually doing well. A few systems further southwest had banded together to create a trade union of sorts. All of them were broke as shit, but together they came to around a third of the Minda/Edin economy. Quite impressive, I should get into contact with them. Might be worth it to team up, boost ourselves. Assuming they aren't all prideful bastards, which is more likely than I enjoy.

As I sat there, taking a real gander at local politics and trying to see where I could stand to gain something worthwhile, my terminal pinged.

"Yes?" I asked my temp secretary. Someone from Admin, Gary I think his name was.

"Sir, an ISD has just entered the system. They're saying they've been assigned here."

"Who are they?" I ask, my mind already running ahead of me.

"Someone calling herself Captain Shal Mola, sir."

Fuck. I think.

"FUCK!" I yell.

-

Shal Mola
Minda System

The Minda system was almost as far from the Core as Scarif was.

It was also significantly nicer to be in.

Those thoughts were the only thing helping her keep her composure. That fool Gorin tried to drag her down with him after his disastrous failure at Scarif. The blame sat on him alone, that much was clear even to the blind fools in Highcom. Still, Gorin had just enough clout left over to get her career shot.

She was still a Captain. She still commanded the Heavy Judgement. But now, she was assigned to a world, a system, a sector with no prospects.

Still, what she had been able to gather told quite the story. A system with only 200,000 people had more than doubled its population in the past two or so years. Now, with a little over 500,000 people, Minda was a prosperous world.

And that was just the permanent population.

Tens if not hundreds of thousands of merchants, mercenaries and more moved in and out of the system on the daily. Companies were setting up shop left and right, mercenary companies were forming, and credits were flowing.

The Edin system, also under her brother's control, was worse off. A hive of scum and villainy, it took concerted military efforts to rid the system of the worst criminal elements. Even now, mercenaries and military forces work to hunt pirates and crush cartels. The system had only 200,000 citizens accounted for.

She hadn't gotten much information on Edin aside from that, but mentions of education and infrastructure projects told her that things were advancing there in much the same way they advanced on Edin.

What truly irked her, however, was how she was given the assignment. Shal hadn't even met with the Moff, instead having received an order to report to the Minda system as part of its defense force.

Now, she was here. Sitting in a Lambda flying down towards Minda's capital city of Accordia. From the window she could see the city glimmering in the light of dusk. Warm lights shone from windows and lampposts. A million different architectural styles could be seen, from the brutalist ferrocrete Imperial structures to the rounded spires native to Lothal. Arched domes that reminded her of images of Naboo dotted some parts of the city, seeming to center around patches of grass and trees, vines climbing up the sides and encircling garden filled terraces that overlooked the many, many local markets.

The shuttle eventually came to a stop atop the tallest building in the city. A tall spire, it speared up into the sky. It flared near the base, spreading out into a wide foundation, with many exposed pillars of ferrocrete spearing from said base into the main structure.

From the landing pad, she could see the rest of the island the tower sat on. A bevy of buildings sat on the landmass, only some of which she could identify. What seemed like a garrison, some apartment complexes, but aside from that she couldn't tell.

Stepping from the transport, the first thing she saw was her younger brother.

There he stood, flanked by two Stormtroopers in modified armor. At his side, a reptilian creature of sorts sat on the ground, eying her with a gaze filled with judgement. Behind them, standing to the side, was a striking figure. Covered in red and black armor, their hands and face hidden, they struck an imposing figure.

Las looked her in the eye, drawing her gaze back to him.

"Captain." He said simply. "What brings you here?"

What? Did he not know?

"I was assigned to guard this system, Governor." She stated. It hurt that he didn't even call her by name, but they had never been close. With time…maybe.

"By who?"

"The Moff."

"I wasn't made aware."

Before she could respond, the creature by his side let out what could only be a sassy snort. He turned to it.

"You getting sassy with me, Mugwuffin?"

Another snort.

"My problem? It's your problem too, numbnuts."

It gave Las what could only be described as a major side eye.

"You know, the budget has been getting pretty tight…might have to start cutting down on some excess, ya know?"

Its eyes widened.

"Little luxuries, right? You'd understand…wouldn't you?"

A quick nod.

"Good." He said, turning back to her.

Behind him, the creature stuck its tongue out at him. The look on his face told her he knew it was doing that.

"Like I said, I wasn't informed of this development by anyone. I'll contact the Moff's office for more clarification, but in the meantime, please send a report on everything you need to keep your ship running."

With that, he turned, already walking away. They had barely spoken!? Before she could get another word out, he turned back to her.

"Oh. I almost forgot. Alvi is here. Somewhere in Edin. I'll have her number sent up to you."

And then he was back to walking, PDA in hand, whispering under his breath about contracts and all other manner of things.

Shal simply stood there. Eyes glued to her brother's back. Is this how their relationship is now? Cold and detached.

She was an Imperial officer. She was used to pain.

But not this kind.

Never this kind.

-

Hi there folks! I'm back at it again! Literally nothing else to say here, which is kinda weird for me but whatever I guess.

Commentary and feedback appreciated.

Thanks for reading!

-Freefaller

 

[Darkban]

uuuf, yeah, i guess that it would hurt. Then again, it sounds like the original las never got along with his family anyway, and for this sister in particular sounds like it's been years out of contact, and then you have that he's-possessed- now.And, of course, the stress he has with all that is to come. xD

yeah, i guet the character not giving her too much time xD

Still,auch!

Thanks for the chapter, author!

 

[CreepyUncleLuke]

Shal simply stood there. Eyes glued to her brother's back. Is this how their relationship is now? Cold and detached.

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Man that's crazy, it's almost like Las doesn't really want anything to do with the sisters that didn't help him at all against an abusive mother.

 

[gale]

Man that's crazy, it's almost like Las doesn't really want anything to do with the sisters that didn't help him at all against an abusive mother.

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Its not like she could of done anything, she was far off and trapped in her own way

 

[UndeadLord22]

She was an Imperial officer. She was used to pain.

But not this kind.

Never this kind.

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Ye, that kind of pain lasts for almost a lifetime if not settled.

 

[Natelord28]

Yikes poor girl doesn't even know that Las is gone just now some random guy wearing her brothers skin as a suit.

 

[Immenotyou]

She hadn't gotten much information on Edin aside from that, but mentions of education and infrastructure projects told her that things were advancing there in much the same way they advanced on Edin.

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I think you meant Minda at the end of this paragraph.

 

[CreepyUncleLuke]

Its not like she could of done anything, she was far off and trapped in her own way

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Literally every sister chose their career over Las. Being too far away isn't an excuse when the abuse is so bad the guy who reincarnated into your brother is still traumatised.

 

[gale]

Literally every sister chose their career over Las. Being too far away isn't an excuse when the abuse is so bad the guy who reincarnated into your brother is still traumatised.

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Being so far away means there is nothing they could do. Your also leaving out he wouldn't be the only marked by abuse.

 

[Battle_Unit_3]

Sometimes I think Las feels that the only person he can trust to be himself with is Mugwuffin

 

[faultlesselm16]

Being so far away means there is nothing they could do. Your also leaving out he wouldn't be the only marked by abuse.

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There was nothing they could do physically yes but this is Star wars galaxy and they could have reached out using there version of discord/phone/text. We know that's possible as they show video calls across the galaxy. So if they wanted to they could have reached out and talked to him.

 

[Morkail]

Poor bastards going to end up having to save bis sisters from them self's, and the fall of the empire. He won't want to care but it seems clear they aren't heartless.

 

[gale]

There was nothing they could do physically yes but this is Star wars galaxy and they could have reached out using there version of discord/phone/text. We know that's possible as they show video calls across the galaxy. So if they wanted to they could have reached out and talked to him.

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I mean the holonet can allow that but there is also the sisters's own trauma which likely doesn't help.

 

[AldariSiradla]

Now most of the family come to him amidst these trying times.
It's a challenge.
A very complex challenge, oh dear~

 

[FutureFocus]

I yearn for more family drama.

 

[paxus22]

I yearn for more family drama.

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who know maybe there will be a minda holo drama based upon it?

 

[readsalot]

Shal simply stood there. Eyes glued to her brother's back. Is this how their relationship is now? Cold and detached.

She was an Imperial officer. She was used to pain.

But not this kind.

Never this kind.

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Oof that hurts, but oh well you can get to know each other better later on

 

[Frater Astrotechnicus]

So that's only the intel sister and the mother left out there

 

[RageKnight]

There was nothing they could do physically yes but this is Star wars galaxy and they could have reached out using there version of discord/phone/text. We know that's possible as they show video calls across the galaxy. So if they wanted to they could have reached out and talked to him.

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*snort* like their Commandant mother wouldn't bug or screen their calls

 

[Frater Astrotechnicus]

Any bets on his mother running here after endor?

 

[TRm]

Great job on the chapter

So that's only the intel sister and the mother left out there

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Pretty sure we saw intel sister planning on making her way back here

 

[lusians]

Man that's crazy, it's almost like Las doesn't really want anything to do with the sisters that didn't help him at all against an abusive mother.

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Help with what? Geting in same fire as he was?

Remember earlier interludes from sistets PoW where it was revealed that sisters themself did wath they could to get out of their mothers thumb.

 

[TheHoneyPot]

You just know that at this rate the entire family, mother dearest included is going to end up at minda with him...

 

[sperance]

Help with what? Geting in same fire as he was?

Remember earlier interludes from sistets PoW where it was revealed that sisters themself did wath they could to get out of their mothers thumb.

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Fair enough. But if that's the case, then they also shouldn't be expecting Las to be all warm and cuddly with them. If it's every sibling for themselves, then Las is just doing what they did: carve a place for himself. As such, he has no obligation to entertain their delusions of family, especially when their POVs have made it clear none of them gave an actual shit if their mother ended up killing Las. Hell, Zyx outright aid she'd help their mother track Las down if he pulled a runner and then had the gall to be upset her brother doesn't bother hiding how much he doesn't trust her.

 

[CreepyUncleLuke]

Remember earlier interludes from sistets PoW where it was revealed that sisters themself did wath they could to get out of their mothers thumb.

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Cool, why didn't they help Las escape too then? You can pretty it up all you like, but they ran away and left their little brother to fend for himself.