cuckoo bananas
"What has the world come to... that I am bored enough to write these things down?"
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To formulate some of Mercy's scattered thoughts and scribbling
- Image Credit: NA
- Canon: NA
- Permissions: NA
- Links: Way of the Monolith | System Shock | Mercy | Sith Covenant
- Media Name: Musings of a Warlord and Empress
- Format: Holobook entry compilation
- Distribution: Unique
- Length: Short
- Description: Fragmented entries of a personal journal that Mercy began to keep in the aftermath of the War in the Core. The entries outline a growing dissatisfaction Mercy has with the way the Sith generally grow their power, her challenges mastering the Force on her own terms, and certain limitations she is trying to shatter after encountering them over and over again during her fights.
- Author: Mercy
- Publisher: Private
- Reception: Only located on her datapad, few if any have been able to read her inner thoughts, but Mercy can be careless. Sooner rather than latter someone might get access to it.
The compilation can be roughly divided into seven chapters.
Chapter I: On the Force and patterns within fights
They always try the same things. Break me, through overwhelming force, until they realize that they can't. That my command of the Force keeps me going long past my peers. Then they try to take the Force away from me. This happened... too many times to count. Several during the Galactic Kaggath. Hapes. Coruscant. Those stay with me, but there were other times too. I get tired of it. Their mediocrity and their attempts to make me as average as they are. I have begun to smoke my pipe more often now. She hates it, it amuses me. But more importantly... it lets my body get used to the effects even more. But that by itself isn't enough, I need to- oh screw this, am I really writing this down? I don't need this, I am not bored.
Chapter II: On the scale of power and inevitability of growth
I wonder if that is my problem. Often when Sith Lords become more powerful, they expand their reach. They bring storms down that cover planets. They create black holes or drain entire planets of their life-force. Fun things, I suppose, but never something that interested me. I have always believed that true mastery lies within you. Even when I was young and stupid. I explained it differently, but it came back to that. What use is it to destroy a planet with a ritual, if a needle prick can bring you down? What is the point of being able to control armies with your mind, if you can fall off a steep hill and break your neck? I need to think on this. These Lords and Masters do not impress me, but clearly they impress some. Maybe... it's time to do more. Try harder. I stopped trying, didn't I? Maybe that's why I feel like I am dying from the inside every moment I sit on this throne.
Chapter III: On my own strength and the meaning of Lordship
I break less easily than I did five years ago, which was an improvement over ten years ago. My body acclimitizes. Some days I think it can learn to withstand anything with enough exposure. Pain is no longer a distraction. Even when I feel it, it is like a friend, always there with a welcoming touch. I have caught myself cutting away when I am bored now. It adds some sharpness and texture that I find myself lacking in between campaigns. When is the next time we go to fight? Coruscant was my magnus opus, sometimes I wonder if I can top it, some nights I am concerned this is the height of my accomplishment and that the rest is a slow decline.
Lysander von Ascania
, talking in command and confident, or think about young
Alcariel
and the way her powers grow nightmarish.
Vestra Tane
and her grasping of the mantle. And I think to myself, even if I step into the shadows my legacy isChapter IV: On small things and large things
Art of the Small, they call it, those Jedi pests. I don't like them for the most part. But they have some interesting ideas. I have said it before, the mistake of those who call themselves Lords is reaching outward for their power, when all the strength they need is inside of them. Everything you need is under your skin. Cells that replicate, transform, repair. My blood is not unique to me, I know this, but still... Firrerreo flesh does not bend easily. What if I can direct it more? What if I gain complete control over what is happening inside of me? Why not, after all? It is my body. My blood, my flesh, my will to direct it. Why should I not be able to make it do whatever I wish it to do? I have broken men and women alike, strong and powerful. I have directed my flesh before, in small things, when the need was high. Is this any different?
Chapter V: On the source of the Force
Midi-chlorians. Sounds made up. Fake. Stupid name, who even came up with that nonsense? If it was the Jedi, it only confirms why I don't like them. But... there is a point to this. They reside in our bodies. Even those that can't command the Force. In the cells. This is beyond dispute, every test has confirmed it. If I can control my body, my flesh, my cells, what more can I do? Is this what I have been looking for? Something to escalate what I can do further? Density, resilience, I don't need to immunize myself. All I need to do is interfere with their attempts to make me average, make me mediocre like them.
Chapter VI: On limitations
I was warned not to take this too far. Apparently there are limits and consequences to pushing them. Maybe. But they must have known that giving me a warning like that won't do anything but encourage me to press on. What consequence is too great? Death? I already know where I am going. There is a seat for me in the Field of Blades. There where the war rages unending, I will have my place there, when I am ready for it. I do not care about immortality, death does not frighten me.
Arris Windrun
found that out when she challenged me in her own way in my throne room. Destroy the viewport, let us both get sucked in. I wonder if she realized in that moment I craved for it and was about to smash through it for the both of us. But then the moment passed and the emergency shutters came down. There are no limits I will accept. If a Sith can bend gravity, I should be able to achieve similar levels of power in my body. Here, where I hold dominion. Here, where I am Lord proper. I am not going to stop, I cannot, it is not in my nature.Chapter VII: On the tithes of Rule
It's the only thing keeping me happy right now. Being an Empress is tedious. I do not know how
Srina Talon
does it. Why she does it. And I believe her task is much harder than mine. For the most part the Covenant runs itself, by design. Arris and Vestra... I will never tell them this, but each day it brings me satisfaction to watch them work. Even if they piss me off. Especially when they piss me off, maybe. But that means I can pour my attention into this. I can travel. The Throne is never empty, not as long as I draw breath. In between campaigns... I can work on this. I will keep pushing, until something pushes back or I break these final infernal chains hooked in my flesh. There is no other way. It must be like this. My life has been struggle, always, I do not think I know of a different way to exist. If need be, I will create it myself. I could never abide by stagnation.HISTORICAL INFORMATION
This compilation is a fragment of Mercy's personal hololog in the aftermath of the War in the Core and the consolidation of power on Coruscant.
The majority of the journal is disordered, inconsistent, and frequently overwritten or erased. But these seven chapters have a pattern. They show her frustration. How restless she is becoming in the face of victory. A fixation, perhaps even obsession, on limitation and the insistent need to remove it.
It begins as a minor irritation at repeated battlefield tactics but it slowly warps into something else. In some ways Mercy takes inspiration from Ashin's Monolith holobook, if not in purpose, then at least the idea that the mountain could write something down as she is working through something. Something that might be useful. Or at least convinces her she is not rotting on a throne.
Because the Kath Hound caught the spaceship, but now it doesn't know what to do.
And in the end it will be everyone else's problem when it finds a new purpose.