Character
"Brothers. Sisters. We are true children of Kheedar. Long have we lived here, mining under it's surface to claim the bounties within. We've processed countless tons of hydrocarbon to sell amongst the stars, but are we given anything in return? We can't afford the homes we live in. We can't afford the food we eat. All while the king and his loyalists gorge themselves on excess. Lay down your tools. They cannot mine their riches themselves. They cannot make their wealth without us. We will show them just how much they need us. We will show them that without living wages, we will not work for them."
It had been the start of a peaceful protest. An elder spoke to his people, every day citizens looking to make a living. Not from greed, but a desire to go back to their homes and show their loved ones a world they could grow happy. All around him the other workers, fed up with such abuse from those who were supposed to pay them, laid down their tools and joined his protest. It was a movement that spread across the world of Kheedar rapidly. People believed in peace, they believed they could change the king's mind and change their world for the better.
They were wrong to believe as much.
Outrage was the only thing that met the protests as they continued. Mild annoyance from the king turned to a fury that consumed peace. Protestors were beaten to be forced back to work. When they refused, people were killed, and once that line had been crossed chaos consumed the world. Peaceful protests erupted in violence. The elder tried to keep the peace, even went so far as to send a messenger to try and ask the Jedi for help, but the message left too late.
The king's military might was far too much for the workers. They had no weapons to properly fight back. There was no hope for victory, but the rebellion that had formed tried regardless even as the elder begged them not to. When they were rooted out and killed to the last, it was the elder that wept for their loss. He never gave up on peace, not until the end. He was the example. The one who had started the protests, peaceful as they had been. His people turned their backs on him as their lives turned from unbearable to hell on earth. By the end, he was to be executed for his crimes against the crown. He had tried, but failure weighed heavy on his heart. He accepted his fate.
His fate was not his alone.
The first protestors. His fellow workers, his town, his family. They were all killed, butchered, and left to rot around him. He would die a slow death of dehydration amongst those corpses, left to rot in his chains. That was the last that was heard of him. For months he had become a cautionary tale of the cost of rebellion. Kheedar was too far, too isolated, to rely on the help of others. To survive, they would have to bow their heads and pray to live.
The elder had been forgotten by this point, but the elder had not.
Hatred was the only emotion he had left. Peace was a belief he no longer held as he stepped through the streets of the capital city. He had only the dirty robe that clung to his shoulders as he looked. Excess. While the villages outside these walls struggled for food, he could see trash overflowing with perfectly good food.
"While we suffered, they lived in luxury. No more. If we do not have the food we need, we will take it. If we do not have the strength to do so, we will find it. No matter the cost, we will pay. Go, take what they have denied you. Take what should be yours. The hell they have made us suffer, bring to them."
They were once human. They ran through the streets like beasts, breaking through windows and walls with an inhuman might that betrayed how far they had strayed. They had paid the cost with their humanity. Their forms were twisted, some looking more human than others, while others looked nothing like the people they once were. Demons, the people cried out in fear as they were slaughtered. Devils, the nobles cried out as everything they owned burned.
The first steps had been taken. Kheedar would find it's worth on the path.
