Private Corporate Diplomacy

[Tertius C. Nargath]

It has been quite some time since Tertius in his capacity of both the Marquis of Valkan and Chairman of the Board of Directors to the N&Z Umbrella Corporation, had made any sort of political or diplomatic move. For the better part of two years he had been content with letting others run the N&Z, expand it and fortify its galactic position, but even he could not ignore the elephant in the room: The Sith Order.

With its expansion, the Sith order had effectively taken hold of the Seswenna Sector, not to mention Tertius' own homeworld and the original center of the N&Z's corporate activities in the form of the industrial world Eriadu. Its importance to the company was understated and the weight on the shoulders of those running the company was immense, when the isolationist practices of the Sith Order effectively turned the company's seswenna activities and assets into costly posts where losses were guaranteed and stability was not.

While this had led to a quick reorganization, with the company's temporary headquarters being located on Mygeeto, while a large effort was made to expand their core operations to systems like Bescane and Corvus, Tertius knew that as long as the Sith Order wasn't properly addressed and an accord or understanding reached, even if for the most minimal and basic level of activity in the territorial assets within the Sith Order, the N&Z's expansionist ideology would be hampered greatly.

It was to this end that he held council with several of his division chiefs, non-aligned boardmembers and his legal representatives. In the end, it was agreed that direct negotiation with the Sith Order's primary authority in the form of the Dark Council was to be initiated in the hopes of allowing a better business precedent for the N&Z and to reaffirm the massive corporation's distinctly neutral stance in the political spectrum of the galaxy. With this recommendation in mind, Tertius had already sent a request for an audience through the proper channels to the Dark Council and hoped to receive an affirmation or answer to this request, as he knew that just showing up unanounced might be seen as a nuissance rather than something to look forward to. Not to mention the fact that each of the members of the Dark Council was no doubt busy in their own sphere of power, their own domains and territories, meaning getting them all at the table at once would most likely require some logistical effort.

Still, Tertius was fairly certain that a request coming from a corporation of such a magnitude as the N&Z couldn't just be handily ignored, not even by those who held the highest court in arguably the current most powerful faction in the galaxy. yet, despite his beliefs and his confidence, all he could do was wait for a reply to his request, an affirmation or a rejection...

TAG: Lirka Ka | Gerwald Lechner | Quinn Varanin | Darth Caedes | Taeli Raaf | Srina Talon

 

[Darth Caedes]

C O R P O R A T E
D I P L O M A C Y​

Outer Rim Territories
Planet: Mirial
Safe Zone Aurek
From orbit, the planet's scars were nigh unmistakable. Great swathes of the once vibrant Mirial remained barren and gray to this day, replete with frostbitten and jagged deserts, whereupon whistling winds dragged fog and other obscure debris across the ground. Broken cities lay half-buried in the sand and ice, their skeletal towers jutting up like the snapped bones of some long-dead titan.

The descending shuttle broke through Mirial's pale atmosphere and pushed through its cloud layer with a powerful, thrumming engine-shriek, its polished hull glowing faintly against the cold light of a distant sun. Even from this high up in the sky, movement could sometimes be seen down there on the surface. Slow, erratic hoards shambled across the wastes in numbers too vast to count. Zodou Shades, they were once called, though now they were merely known as the walking dead, or "ghouls," or the un-living; the single most disturbing legacy of a worldwide genocide.

Caedes had seen many worlds ravaged like this before, such as Odacer-Faustin, yet always they felt disturbing to observe. They were eerie and foreboding to him, as if to land there was to flirt with the possibility of finally joining with the shambling hoards himself. How many Sith Lords had thought themselves immune or superior to the undead, only to be claimed by their unyielding masses and gnashing teeth. Despite this, he had countless times committed the crime of afflicting similar fates onto unsuspecting planetary holdings, and watched as cities fell before the relentless dead of his own making. During the Caldera Crisis, and preceding the fall of the Galactic Alliance, he had littered moons and planets with diverse strains of contagious undeath; watched as armies and innocents were unmade and then remade into members of their own, new stinking hoards. On Brosi, his Jen'ari had swept across the world and fed on the few, unlikely survivors of an apocalyptic plague. On Korriban, they had risen to consume the Ashlan Crusaders who thought to hold the Sith's most ancient home world. Now, beneath the auspices of his Kingdom, those very same dead were revered as honored servants and unyielding laborers, shepherded and corralled by the Dread Lords and necromancers of the Sepulchral Black Gate. Oh yes, he had grown familiar with undeath in recent years. Nevertheless, desecrated worlds like this caused the hairs to stand along the back of his neck, for they were lawless and chaotic places, and their hunger for destruction seemed to beckon for him in the Force, inviting him nearer, closer, closer...

High above it all, concealed by thick and gliding clouds, hung the New Hirona. The massive orbital city dominated the heavens along the planet's Western hemisphere, its appearance like that of a massive moon—a refuge and monument to the Mirialan's survival. For them, it was proof that their culture could endure even when their sacred world had been taken from them.

The shuttle banked low and leveled out, its noise echoing against frozen dunes, causing the dead to stir and gape upwards, grasping for and sprinting after the speeding vessel. Ahead and in the fast-approaching distance, rising up from the tundra with barely visible spires and towers of its own, stood the planetary safe zone: Aurek.

Walls of black patchwork alloy encircled the settlement in a wide defensive ring, thick and steeply sloped like fortress ramparts. Watchtowers punctuated the perimeter at measured intervals, their silhouettes seeming stark and severe against the moody sky beyond. Light defensive batteries, and anti-infantry weaponry, protruded from exterior bastions along the wall's outer edge, a promise of firepower to push back the wilds lurking beneath sturdy armor plating. Within the walls, the safe zone city thrived. Resilient pink and green vegetation spilled over terraces and rooftops in the expanding residential districts. Gardens flourished along elevated walkways connecting one tower to another. Wind turbines spun lazily, capitalizing on the planet's near constant droning gusts. Habitation structures had been carved into stone and finished with interiors of polished wood, their curved architecture echoing traditional Mirialan aesthetics more than the harsh geometries Caedes had come to expect from the Order's more urban metropolis worlds.

Solar arrays had been erected to stand between orchards and farmland, though to what degree of usefulness Caedes could not say. Artificial water channels threaded through plazas filled with native trees. The pathways followed organic curves instead of rigid grids. It was a simulacrum of old Mirialan life, cultivated carefully to make a dead world feel more welcoming to its people. Yet woven through that serenity were unmistakable signs of industry. Along the western quarter of the safe zone rose the skeletal frameworks of factories and fabrication yards. Massive assembly gantries and conveyor systems loomed large above where transports and walkers stood half-complete beneath suspended cranes.

At the southern edge of the city, where the defensive wall rose highest, lay a menacing fortress, somewhat at odds with the charming habitations below it. The structure had been built directly into the ramparts themselves; part castle, part command citadel. Dark durasteel battlements crowned its upper levels, their jagged silhouettes reminiscent of ancient strongholds from a more primitive age. Sensor spires and shield emitters rose from its towers like so many horns. As if frowning, the behemoth structure overlooked both the city within its walls and the wasteland beyond, where roamed the dead.

The shuttle descended toward a landing platform within the city's innermost district, its repulsors kicking up spirals of dust and frost as it settled with a deep mechanical sigh. Hydraulic struts extended beneath the hull as the engines powered down, the lingering whine of cooling turbines echoing across the platform. Steam hissed along the landing ramp as the vessel's hatch opened, thick and white, and made to creep along the platform and persist at ankle height, clinging to boot and the fabric of cloaks.

Presently, figures emerged through the drifting vapor. They came cloaked against the cold, silhouettes partially obscured by the lingering haze of hydraulic discharge. The first seemed to glide down the ramp's slope, clad in simple dark robes which fell loosely around him. Darth Caedes, King of Korriban and member of the Order's Dark Council had a decidedly serpentine aspect, with striking features and angular cheekbones. His hair was dark and unruly in the wind, though he quickly pulled a hood up to guard against the cold. His gate seemed unhurried, almost contemplative, as he regarded the city rising around him and beyond the platform. The golden glow of his gaze was visible even from afar, even in the pale daylight which yet lingered. Behind him descended a second figure whose bearing was unmistakably regal. Blue skin marked the man as Chiss, though his attire elevated that recognition to one Ufsa'ynth'aris himself, the Voice of the Dark Lord, Darth Caedes. Layers of elegant regalia hung from his shoulders in structured folds, the fabrics dyed in deep blues and golds, and adorned with badges and jewelry, suggesting equal parts authority and vanity. He followed a pace behind Caedes without speaking. Other cloaked members of the Dark Lord's entourage emerged from the shuttle thereafter, their identities obscured beneath layered robes and shadowed hoods.

Along the outskirts of the city, where habitation slowly gave way to signs of industry, eye-catching spiraling constructs rose some thirty or forty feet towards the sky, their dark surfaces carved with alien runes which seemed to glow like blown upon coals. They rose from the ground or from along wall emplacements in the form of great twisting obsidian columns coiling 'round one another. Some were seemingly completed structures while others were yet skeletal frameworks, surrounded by scaffolding and construction equipment; though all were obviously arcane and unnatural, at odds with the otherwise charming safe zone city. Far off engineers and lab coats moved carefully around the unfinished structures, pointing and typing notes into datapads as segments were lifted into place along the towering spirals. Caedes' gaze seemed to catch and linger on these oddities, lips forming a momentarily lopsided grin, before he continued down the ramp and towards his destination ahead.

At the edge of the landing platform, connected by a winding walkway festooned with evergreen plant life, stood a stone tower, built deliberately apart from the main administrative districts. Unlike the fortress dominating the southern wall, and despite its comparatively larger make than those structures adjacent to it, this building carried an almost disarming charm. Its architecture followed Mirialan tradition: arched stone supports, leafy vines woven along its outer lattice, and tall windows allowing natural light to spill across polished wooden interiors. A place, it would appear, for hospitality. Subtle defensive emplacements were well hidden within its design; surveillance nodes nestled among the greenery, hidden compartments, armored shutters concealed behind decorative panels, and the almost imperceptible hum of a shield generator buried somewhere deep beneath the tower's foundation. The building had been prepared for a meeting. A neutral ground of sorts, baring iconography from neither the Sith Order nor any other competing power.

Without need for ceremony, Caedes stepped away from the landing ramp and crossed the platform toward the structure. Those who emerged to offer their greetings to the Dark Lord were summarily waved away—bowing, and dismissed to scurry back from whence they came. With a wave of his hand, the doors to the parlay hall opened and he entered. Inside, tables and scattered chairs made up a scene of luxury and comfort. Standing bars with exotic liquors and ice chests held crystal goblets and decanters. Holo-projection units created viewing rooms or substituted chairs 'round a table for purposes of remote diplomacy. Dioramas covered display surfaces, suggesting the expansion intended for the safe zone city in coming years, or else depicting the likeness of other safe zone cities around the world. Climate control air conditioning kept the air within warm, eliciting sighs of relief as Caedes' entourage dispersed around him.

Gerwald Lechner Lirka Ka Quinn Varanin Taeli Raaf
Srina Talon Madrona A’Mia Lodd Grimmin

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[Lirka Ka]

TAGS: Darth Caedes Gerwald Lechner Taeli Raaf Quinn Varanin Srina Talon Tertius C. Nargath

So oft politics was a dreary thing. Lirka was thankful for the choice of decor, the wounded misery of Mirial warmed her cold dead heart. She had made something of a hobby of visiting worlds that had been scarred by the forces of Darkness - holy sites, if one possessed the vision to see it. But alas this was work, not pilgrimage. She had little opportunity to explore versus gathering with her fellows to hear out an outsider bold enough to summon the Council. The bravado of the thing was respectable in its own way, certainly.

Many of the Lords and Ladies of the Empire carried themselves with a similarly loud bravado - it was the nature of Sithdom after all. More often than not, Lirka joined such displays though the arrival of the Empire’s oddest Councillor was a rather drab affair. Her vessel, a craft of abyssal blackness gleaming like an oil spill arrived on silently humming engines. Setting down with the rest of the gathered ferries that had arrived upon this neutral holding.

She understood the reasoning for stepping outside the wall - it was safer to keep potential threats outside the wall rather than let anything in. But there was a certain homely that was lost stepping so far away from the bleakly suffocating architecture of a place like Jutrand: she rather enjoyed the impression it gave. She posited that perhaps this little beacon of life on the world would be plenty to show Sith might.

And with the thumping of metal footfalls she descended from the craft. She came with no great entourage, only the bristling body of herself - the suit still bore the minor blemishes of Brosi, but the worst of the damage yet to be melded away hid beneath a half-cape of billowing crimson that fluttered from her side as she walked. Clawed hands clasped behind her back as her powersuit whirred with each heavy step she took - it was a silent show of force and utterly unnecessary. But when forces gathered mighty enough to bend the Galaxy, it paid to present the sort of brutal violence Lirka had acquired a reputation for.

Certainly in terms of reputation Tertius C. Nargath represented an unknown variable to her. And Lirka brought a certain careful razor’s edge to all unknown variables - a corporate representative, war profiteer judging by the product she had been able to gleam. An interesting prospect - though corporate war profiteering was something she felt oh so wonderfully aware of despite his status of an unknown after the myriad of schemes Darth Nefaron Helix and herself had been brewing for the poor sods outside the Wall.

As the monstrous Once-Sephi pressed deeper into the meeting chamber, the warmth of the place put a small frown on her face beneath the marred visage of her helmet. She did have quite the enjoyment of vague discomforts after all, silent and negligible sufferings to sharpened the mind: but she’d make no comment save for a silent complaint in her own head. Following in after the King of Korriban Lirka kept a healthy distance from Darth Caedes and his entourage - it would have been bad decorum to interrupt a procession, after all. Once the Korribanites entered, Lirka’s own rumbling form soon followed.

Slit lensed eyes glazing over the meeting hall, wordlessly and all but unrecognizably on the lookout for any form of assassin that may have lurked in the shadows of the Council-Gathered - habit, ultimately. She knew no one would be foolish enough to try.

And now, the waiting game till the fun of jabbing words and twirling negotiation began.

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