Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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Private Time To Process

Coruscant, the bright, shining capital of the Galactic Alliance. Eva had never even dreamed she'd end up here.

The young trooper... no, ex-trooper now, was finding that very little about the wider galaxy was anything like what she'd been told to expect. Sith-Imperial state media had painted Coruscant as a grimy, chaotic, crime-ridden cesspit, the seat of a senate whose members were owned body and soul by greedy corporate interests. It had been the morale officers' boogeyman in their most impassioned speeches, the embodiment of every principle they opposed. Freedom sounds nice, they would say, until you realize what it really means. It means that no one knows their place. It means that no one regulates bad actors before they cause havoc. Freedom means the greedy and unscrupulous are free to take advantage of others, and that decent, hardworking people are free to make life-destroying mistakes that a firm regulatory hand would prevent.

The Sith Empire had preached that most people didn't know what was good for them. Life was full of choices, and individuals rarely have all the facts when they make the most important ones. Enter a scientific, bureaucratic approach. Let the government, which has studied the most efficient ways to protect and utilize every citizen, make your decisions easier by simply outlawing suboptimal choices. Isn't an omnipresent safety net - economically, medically, educationally, militarily - worth giving up some control over your own life? We will keep you from making the mistakes that would derail your life, and the lives of others within our great, unified whole, the Empire's civil administration would say. Accept our help to succeed, and embrace your place in life. It is worth it, because the freedom you are surrendering is the freedom to fail.

There were things they'd been right about. Even restricted - at least for now - to move only in certain districts of the city planet, Eva had seen crime and disorder, and she knew that some districts here on Coruscant genuinely were overrun by gangs and poverty; she'd seen them in Holonet reports, and heard them discussed on the street. But the impression that stuck with her was one of vibrant diversity. Walking down the street, she had passed people from dozens of different species and cultures, trying their hand at dozens of different kinds of business. The streets were abuzz with food, entertainment, and commerce of every kind she could imagine... and then some, because she was discovering that her imagination had been quite limited up until then. Everyone was busy and energetic and alive.

Some would make it big, and some would lose it all, but the freedom to try energized them no matter the outcome. And it wasn't like there was no social safety net here, whatever the morale officers had tried to claim. The Alliance government worked hard to take care of its people; they just tried to do it without taking their choices away. Eva was still trying to untangle the apparent mess of the political system, watching news reports nightly as she grappled with the idea of different parties with differing positions on what the government should do within the government. After the Empire, it all felt janky and chaotic... but that didn't seem as bad as it once would have. Where the Empire spoke with one voice, and silenced all dissent in the name of unity, the Alliance had many voices, respecting one another as they worked toward a consensus.

So what was her impression of Coruscant? It was loud, and dirty, and disorganized, and beautiful.

Eva had found herself with a lot of time to think since the end of the Stygian Campaign. True to his word, the Jedi Aaran Tafo Aaran Tafo had brought her safely out of the warzone, and had treated her more as a refugee than as a prisoner. When they'd made it back to Coruscant, he'd advocated for her, and no one had raised much of a fuss. Rather than being tossed into a cell, she'd been put up in a hotel in the same general district as the senate building while they processed her paperwork. They were designating her a noncombatant with refugee status, and processing her for Alliance citizenship. She'd been asked not to leave the district, and to check in with the front desk each night, and then pretty much turned loose. They'd even given her a little spending money so she could pick up some food, and clothes that weren't military-issue.

She'd been flabbergasted. Even after the Jedi's promises, she'd expected at least a cursory interrogation and a term of imprisonment. Maybe it was because she'd been little more than a grunt, or maybe because the war against the Sith was over anyway - she could scarcely believe how quickly the regime had fallen - but she suspected it wasn't either of those things. It was kind, good-hearted people overlooking her past just because she'd said she wanted to change.

Over the last few days she'd wandered around the market, figuring out which kinds of street food she liked and gaping at the sights like a credulous tourist. In the evenings she'd been working on a petition for refugee status for her mom, still back on Soullex as far as she knew. The Jedi Aaran had promised to help with that, and he'd been as good as his word. That wasn't the problem. The question was whether proud, stubborn Marin Betrik would accept coming to live in Alliance space. She'd been born in the Core, then been driven out when it fell to the One Sith. She'd sought out Imperial space, looked for security and control over freedom. There was no guarantee she'd be willing to change her mind about rejecting the Alliance's principles.

But Eva knew she had to try. Maybe her mom had lied to her, going along with the dark picture the Sith had painted of the Alliance when she karking well knew better... but she was still Eva's mom, and with the Empire she'd run to collapsing, there was no safety or stability left for her on Soullex. With a sigh and a little prayer - she wasn't sure to whom anymore, as it didn't seem like the Empire's patron god Typhojem was likely to answer her - she hit the SUBMIT button. Maybe the Alliance would reject the application, and she wouldn't have to worry about the coming confrontation with the woman who'd raised her. But she didn't really want that, even if it'd make life easier. Eva lay back on the hotel bed, her hair splaying out around her in a wide halo. It was getting pretty long now that she'd stopped cutting it to regulation length.

There was a chime on her door console, and a little mechanical voice. "Miss Betrik, you have a visitor. May she come in?" Eva sighed again; she'd just gotten comfortable, and had been contemplating taking a little nap. But she didn't want to be rude to her hosts. Every so often, an Alliance diplomatic officer would come talk to her about her citizenship application, or to bring her orientation materials, which she always devoured ravenously. They never pushed her for anything military, though they sometimes asked questions about her homeworld and her experience living under Imperial rule. They were young, and earnest, and kind, and they'd slowly earned her trust. If this was another one, she supposed she wouldn't mind the company. "Sure," the ex-trooper said, "that's fine." She sat up and smoothed her simple dress, gloriously non-regulation.

She would never have guessed who was actually going to walk through that door... someone from the recent past.

 

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