First Reply Moridinae | What A Desolate Place This Is

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

She'd ruled under other faces: the robes and mask of Anger weren't strictly necessary. But she'd grown accustomed to them over the years, and anyways Manda'yaim was a fitting place to wear a mask. Besides, being Anger was just plain comfortable - a natural response to what the Empire had done to the world.

The Manda'yaim she'd defended had been a land of farming homesteads and ancient megastructures. This Southern Moridinae - clean, wealthy, cultured, brutalist - was absolutely unrecognizable. Also the Mandalorians were gone, exterminated. A quiet old part of her had ridden a Basilisk from orbit and been adopted by Jasper Ordo. In a sense, a Mandalorian walked here again, though she didn't feel like one, or look like one either.

Hate knotted behind her Sith-tattooed sternum. She banked the fire and went to look at an art display as one more exotic wealthy settler in the crowd. It seemed a noted painter and sculptor was putting on an open-air exhibition.

 

[Joycelyn Zambrano]

Blood of traitors had soaked the sands of Moridinae this past year, but among the stormclouds there were moments of respite in which the true potential of a civilised mandalorian could be perceived. While some of the Sith-Imperial administration would see the world brought to complete extermination, Joycelyn Zambrano saw a glimmer of hope for an imperial Moridinae; a cradle for the strongest and truest soldiers of the Sith Empire come the new decade.

A pipe-dream perhaps.

Yet, she among others had sought to back the spread of Sith-Imperial culture on Moridinae, and fostering joint culture and intergration, sprinkled displays of grace to those of the people who display complacency or even loyalty to their new Sith overlords.

So the Princess of Dromund Kaas walked openly to this exhibit of stunning landscape paintings, bloody chronicle pieces from the war, and sculptures of exquisite likeness to life, interspersed with more abstract and experimental shapes that could only be said to explore the artist's frame of mind and emotional life.

It was impressive to see the breadth at which the artist worked to create expressions.

While Joycelyn walked out in the open, unarmoured and barely armed, she was not fool enough to leave home entirely unprotected. She knew her protectors were watching vigilantly for dangers, allowing her to focus her attention on the event.

Yet, a sensation kept popping up in the back of her mind like a pinch she couldn't find, or an itch she couldn't sate.

Ashin Cardé Varanin

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Joycelyn Zambrano

At five-foot-ten, Ashin-as-Anger came up to the sternum of the mutant Epicanthix princess. She just happened to wind up beside Joycelyn's imposing bulk as the artist, a richly tattooed Zabrak, waxed poetic about one of his sculptures.

"Frankly, Your Highness," Ashin said quietly out of nowhere, "I'm not certain the piece says what he wants it to say about the freedom of a leader's achievement. Note how bound the ascended element is to the limits and possibilities of what's below it. If I was to give the piece a title, I'd call it The Tethered Immortal."

 

[Joycelyn Zambrano]

Somewhere between boredom and polite interest, Joycelyn had been quietly paying attention to the lecture about the piece when the woman next to her spoke. It sparked her interest that someone disagreed with the claims of the artist.

"Well, art is in many ways subjective. He speaks from his experience, and you from yours." Joycelyn's head nodded to the left to illustrate one the one point "I admit, I do not see the leader as truly free either, but nor do I see it as held back." Then forward to punctuate the next, before she straightened her neck with a small pop of her vertebrae. "Rather, the Tethered Immortal, as you named it, raises its base to new heights and achievements."

It was difficult being quiet, but she didn't want this little exchange to be stopped right away.

"For what is power without purpose."

It was a paraphrasing of Darth Krayt's response to the ever-lasting search of personal power within the Sith before him.

Ashin Cardé Varanin

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Joycelyn Zambrano

"Oh, that's certainly true enough. But what is ascension if not a question of priorities? See how the ascendant piece is already surging to outgrow the limits and possibilities of the base, but remains bound. That implies limits to the ascendant's own true potential."

The masked face turned and looked up to meet Joycelyn's eyes.

"The question isn't merely academic. If you'll forgive a petty treason, how much could an Emperor or an Empress grow in their relationship with the Force if they didn't need to spend the bulk of their life running their empire?"

 

[Joycelyn Zambrano]

Sensing the increase of attention from the masked figure, Joycelyn returned the gesture. She did not just look down at her, but turned to face her entirely. This discussion had far overtaken the artist's lecture in interest, and presumably the artist would soon drag the troupe on to the next installation.

"Is that not the burden of leadership?" "Not only is one supposed to stand on the pinnacle oneself, but to be strong enough to elevate that which one carries with as well."

"It would be easier to simply guide oneself, but no good emperor came from a position of ease." "It is our right to rule, but it is also what is demanded of us."

Curiosity grew in her as to the nature of this person who inquired with her so, but she was also cautious not to spook her.

Ashin Cardé Varanin

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

"That's a remarkably responsible perspective," Ashin said, and meant it. Joycelyn Zambrano 's father had never struck Ashin as particularly...idealistic. "I have to wonder how it translates to the real world, though. Other than vainglorious frippery like this city, is there an argument to be made that the Rule of Order really does - what was your word? Elevate? In practice, how does the rule of the one elevate the people of the Empire?

"I'll admit the question is a smidge less innocuous than it seems. It speaks to the heart of what you call the right to rule. How does Zambrano dynastic thought compensate for the fact that an assumed right leads to...excessive comfort? Complacency? Perhaps even taking positions of power for granted? Not to be combative, but didn't half the Sith just leave to form another Empire because nobody was paying attention?"

Her tone was warm, teasing, certainly not as aggressive as the mask - or the words.

 

[Joycelyn Zambrano]

It was interesting for Joycelyn to be challenged in this manner, rather than the more common direct challenges of right, or those who went a few steps too far to appease her due to her family name. She did not have a perfect answer for everything, and the questions coaxed her to think about the place of an Empress and the duties of an Empire.

The statement about the apostates did spark a little anger in her, in part for it being mentioned, in part for it having happened. In part for her not being there in person. Then again, would she have made a difference? She had listened, she had learned, she had considered their perspectives and what could be done

It was her place as heir to the Empire, after all.

"Half is an overstatement, and the primary concern of those who left was a desire for the practice of Kaggath." "A practise which was restricted due to its role in undermining the Empires of the past"

She studied the mask of anger just then, focusing on the item more than the person wearing it. In a metaphorical sense, it was a mask she had worn many times. It had saved her in battle and rescued her from the clutches of captivity. It was, in many ways, the most comfortable mask to wear.

"As for how an Empire may elevate its people. Direction: Less time is spent in argument. On the large scale, advice is given, then the Emperor decides what advice to follow." "But I assume you are more interested in the populace. The Emperor cannot directly control everything, but he holds the regional governors accountable."

The wind picked up for a moment, carrying with it the white dust that covered so much of the planet's surface and carrying it in sporadic swirls. As it rushed past the two, Joycelyn pushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

"Most worlds within our grasp live comfortably, though some worlds must be pacified for the safety of others." "As for my family."

Joycelyn's brow furrowed as she now tried to peer past the mask.

As Ashin would see in return, Joycelyn greatly resembled a young Kaine Zambrano in her facial structure, albeit more feminine, the brow, cheeks and jaw in particular carried Kaine's influence. The eyes, though clearly marked by the dark side of the Force, were far from Kaine's.

"There is decadence in my kin, and for a long time I resented my name for that very fact, but they are not the ones given power." "I am not the oldest of my siblings; I was not first in line by birthright." "I earned my place by my deeds before any challenger."

Ashin Cardé Varanin

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

"Now, I wasn't present at the schism, but I suspect at least one of us is relying too much on secondhand knowledge. I'm reliably informed that the kaggath question was peripheral to the apostates' concerns - and that most of those who spoke in favor of it have taken your father's side in the civil war. Perhaps they understood that the kaggath is just a Sith regime's immune system, and a schism accomplished much the same purpose. That's a guess, of course. I certainly would never associate with apostates."

As Joycelyn Zambrano gave her answers, Ashin took a seat on a stone park bench and rubbed her knee absently. She'd had a limp there for a long time across several bodies, courtesy of coincidental and distinct injuries and maybe a mental component too. Also she'd been standing for a while.

"So if I'm hearing you correctly, the regime elevates the people through central efficiency and extermination of planets that posed a threat to others?" She waved around at Southern Moridinae. "I'm not one to moralize, but I do have one principle that has served me well. I learned it from Velok the Elder when your father was a Knight and a bureaucrat. Don't do contemptible things. If you find an action or a quality contemptible in others, avoid it. Through that lens, isn't the extermination and total reimagination of Mandalore just a matter of venal pettiness, scapegoating to distract from the Empire's real problems? We both know this place posed no serious threat and offered real opportunities to strengthen the Empire. Is Moridinae a...representative example of the quality of the Empire's ability to protect and uplift its people?"

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Joycelyn Zambrano

Ashin smiled under the furious mask. The hard-edged smile would be audible in her voice.

"Don't work too hard to rationalize it, dear, if that's what's slowing you down. A genocide should stand or fall on its own merits, don't you think?"

 

[Joycelyn Zambrano]

She shook her head for a moment, letting the thoughts that had cluttered up her mind clear.

"Apologies, I got lost in thought." "You are very well spoken and conversation was never my best field." "Though I do try to learn."

She looked up, letting her sight fall beyond the brutalist architecture and on the pale stretches of land and the distant sheer, sharp features of Moridinae.

"This all isn't the norm; it's the exception." "The Mandalorians challenged our borders, supported our enemies, murdered my brother and attempted to hold my father captive." "To be Mandalorian was to be against us, so we needed to act, and just occupation would not do. That we could see immediately."

"They are strong, stubborn, and fiercely loyal to their own." "I would have liked to have them beside me, but I would know they would not betray me as they have before."

"It starts with genocide and suppression, but will have its renaissance and a new golden age."

Ashin Cardé Varanin