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Imperial Centre • Priority Transmission
Holonet Weekly Feature Page
By: Markus Bouto
Curated by Markus Bouto
Holonet Weekly is proud to present an exclusive preview from Hester Shedo’s forthcoming political chronicle Empires of Now. With the fall of Fondor still reshaping the Core and the Outer Rim fracturing into competing claims, few voices carry more weight than Shedo’s. Her history across the CIS, her native Scarif, and now Hamra gives her a vantage point that is both rare and unsentimental.
Below is a major excerpt from Chapter 3, followed by editorial analysis and the live gossip feed currently circulating across the Holonet.
Excerpt from Chapter 3: The World After Fondor
By Hester Shedo
I have spent my life watching governments collapse. First the CIS where procedure devoured purpose. Then Scarif where a single night stripped away the illusion of permanence, and the Fireflash plagues that followed. Later Hamra where the Kestrin Mandalorians taught me that conviction without structure is simply ritual. Every collapse taught me that a government dies the moment it fears the consequences of its own decisions.
This is why the fall of the Galactic Alliance on Fondor felt inevitable. I had watched that Senate argue itself into paralysis. When it capitulated, the sound reminded me of the CIS in its final hours. It was a body exhaling for the first time in years.
Coruscant was too saturated with memory to shape what came next. Imperial Center, however, rose in its place, because Solipsis needed a capital free of inherited guilt. Wulf needed an administrative landscape she could build without wrestling centuries of symbolism. Together they have created a city identity that expresses purpose rather than apologises.
From the vantage of an industrial magnate, I can say that the Core benefits from this clarity. Trade flows. Infrastructure stabilises. Regulations make sense. Yet stability often travels with obedience. The Empire’s efficiency is striking. Its appetite is something worth watching.
Outside the Core, Fondor’s fall shattered the Rim. Entire sectors declared independence by instinct, only to discover they lacked the means to sustain it. Into that vacuum stepped the hopeful and the hungry. High Republic revivalists selling nostalgia. The Imperial Confederation claiming legitimacy. The Diarchy expanding wherever confusion allows it. None possess the mandate to govern these systems. All will claim they do.
Doubtless, The Empire will not stand aside. It cannot afford to. Vacuums invite rivals, and the Rim is now one vast vacuum. If the Empire intends to shape the next century, it must act before these worlds construct identities strong enough to resist. I learned on Hamra that the force which arrives first with certainty usually wins. Certainty is the Empire’s greatest strength. It is also its greatest temptation.
This brings me to the rumour whispering through Core policy circles. Reports claim that a captured former Alliance senator may face trial and execution. If true, it would offer symbolic closure for citizens who endured years of Alliance failure. Yet symbols always cut more than one way. Closure can steady a state or embolden it too far. The Empire must choose carefully.
Empires rise through clarity. They fall when clarity convinces them that they cannot fall. Solipsis and Wulf may be correct about the world they are shaping, but every world shapes its architects in return.
Hester Shedo writes with elegance and precision. Empires of Now is both admiring of the Empire’s competence and sharply aware of its potential for overreach.
Her framing of Fondor is bold. She does not narrate the Alliance capital as a tragedy but as a system relieved to acknowledge its own exhaustion. It is a view many have quietly held but few have said aloud.
Her analysis of the Rim is the clearest I have read. She is unsparing toward the High Republic revivalists, sceptical of the Imperial Confederation’s claims, and wary of the Diarchy’s expansion. Shedo argues that only the Empire has the machinery to stabilise the region. Whether that stability will limit or accelerate Imperial appetite remains her central question.
And then there is the rumour. Reports circulating in selective Core circles suggest a former Alliance senator may face public execution. Shedo does not sensationalise this. Her caution adds weight to what many already suspect.
Empires of Now will provoke debate across Imperial Center. Shedo offers clarity where most prefer comfort, and she does so with the authority of experience.
USER COMMENTS
Imperial Centre • Priority Transmission
Imperial Centre • Priority Transmission
• CorePoliticsNet:
Hearing that an Alliance loyalist in custody may be facing a very public judgment. No confirmations. Very nervous language from several ministries. Something is brewing.
• ScarletSpireSalon:
If Shedo is hinting at an execution, it is because someone in the Vizierate wanted the whisper out there. The Empire does not leak by accident.
• OuterRimPulse:
The Rim is already panicking. Some worlds think they will be next after the senator. Others say the Empire is trying to scare the Confederation and the Republic.
• FondorRefugeeBoard:
People here are divided. Some say the senator deserves whatever is coming. Others fear this means the Empire wants a clean symbolic end to all Alliance memory.
• MandaloreIronChat:
Hamra Mandos commenting that Shedo is right. Whoever moves first with certainty owns the battlefield. The Empire seems ready to move.
• CoronetCityWhispers:
Rumours that Imperial Center is preparing a plaza for a major public event. No one knows if it is ceremonial, administrative, or punitive.
• HolonetAnon:
If the senator rumour is true, this will be the moment the Empire announces its vision for the Rim. Actions speak louder than broadcasts.
