We Are Here For Our Interviews [TSO, Yula Knezevic]

[Velok the Younger]

Ziost
Headquarters of the tabloid 'The Sith Inquisitor'

The latest issue of the Sith Inquisitor, well-thumbed, dangled from Velok's three-clawed hand. This particular edition had caught his fancy while he'd been farting around on the Tion Trade Nexus. The opportunity was compelling.

He'd hopped on a nondescript shuttle at once. Now he stalked into the main office's reception area, brushing Ziost snow off the shoulder of his robes.

"Hello," said the massive Whiphid genially, leaning on the receptionist's desk. It creaked. "My name is Velok. I bring gossip."

[member="Darth Imperia"] [member="Malok"] [member="Yula Knezevic"] @whomever

 

[Darth Metus]

In the shadow of the Whiphid was an ape.

Well, an ape-man.

He stood behind [member="Velok the Younger"] with a bemused expression on his ugly mug, for there was nothing better than supermarket tabloids. They were that juicy piece of literary junk that made checking out bearable.

And now, they were at the source.

[member="Velok the Younger"], [member="Darth Imperia"], [member="Yula Knezevic"]

 

[Isar]

The desiccated, animate corpse of a Massassi warrior shambled into the office just behind Velok. Its eyeless sockets stared around, full of unlife. Such restless spirits were not altogether rare on Ziost. In fact, some said the infested Ruins of Hask lay near to this city. Some said they lay very far away. No one could really know for sure, except for the Ewok riding on the cadaver's shoulders.

"Matsu Xiangu is cheating on Reverance," announced the furry warlock. He held up a mangy paw to forestall the inevitable protest of, "but they aren't together."

"It is all true. I know."

 

[Darth Imperia]

Darth Imperia followed quietly behind the monkey and the warthog. She herself had little interest in tabloids, and hadn't even heard of "Sith Inquisitor" before Velok invited her along to this little party. After thumbing through an edition of the magazine, however, she quickly determined that it was one of those things that simply couldn't be allowed to exist in the universe - much like gamorrean prostitutes, or communist Sith.

She was there, then, to provide some tasteful carnage when the evening inevitably took a turn for the violent.

Then an ewok sitting upon the shoulders of an animate massassi corpse arrived on the scene, and Imperia concluded that it was going to be one of those days.

---

[member="Warok the Defiler"]
[member="Malok"]
[member="Velok the Younger"]
[member="Yula Knezevic"]

 

[Klesta]

How could the Sith even realize that there even is a Sith Inquisitor magazine floating around the galaxy? Why did they take that long to realize that I betrayed the Sith Order on Yutan? Or was it my sortie on Alexandria that made them realize that I am a traitor, a heretic, to the Sith? she thought, while at the Sith Inquisitor's headquarters that produced the tabloid. She had an editorial meeting with the chief editor of the Sith Inquisitor: they argue about the content of the next two issues. Since she took out the business loan to buy the Sith Inquisitor, she made an effort to make sure that the loan would be paid back: she sold some stygium crystals for lightsaber use, she also sold some stygium crystals to Ringovinda StarYards for their lines of stealth craft, these were the main ones. The Sith Inquisitor might be junk but coverage of current events is time-sensitive: she knows as much. But the SI is different from most tabloids, in that it will accept to cover current events much more readily: in that sense it is one of the many smaller outlets that are alternative, more than simply a tabloid.

"Boss, there is a new story in"

"What is it now?"

"Matsu Xiangu is cheating on Reverance" the chief editor reported, based on [member="Warok the Defiler"]'s findings.

"This is par for the course for the tabloid: every edition has news like these. No, what will make the next issue sell will be how I betrayed the Sith Order and why; everything began on Yutan. We shall also reveal that there are Sith behind the atrocities on Christophsis and Alexandria, and that their defeat on Christophsis forced them to be highly dependent on the Sith"

"Boss, I feel that no treatment of Christophsis is complete without Jessica Med-Beq's role in it: you want a story about the Sith on Christophsis and Alexandria, you need to tell about how the two invasions of Christophsis are part of a plan aimed at defeating the Black Tie Syndicate"

"You have two stories capable of anchoring an issue: go forth, and write these two stories. I want you to prioritize the Black Tie Syndicate arc for this week, and my treason for next week"

Yet, knowing the chief editor, Yula will simply have to deal with the fact that the "anchor stories" will be more accurate than the rest. The last issue's anchor story pertained to the propaganda war between the First Order and the Galactic Alliance over Kaeshana and how the two juggernaughts of the southwest accuse each other of various evils. She can readily see the headlines of the SI issue with her treason as the anchor story: I betrayed the Sith Order: they are monsters! In her mind, these Sith are not worthy of the title Sith. Yutan and then Alexandria showed them as much. But she couldn't sense any of the Sith participants on Alexandria being there today. And, somehow, Yula feels uneasy: was it a thug crew hired by a Kaeshana participant that was coming to ask for retribution for that article? Was it another retinue of Sith Lords out for blood that decided that the Sith Inquisitor was too good for them?

[member="Darth Imperia"] [member="Velok the Younger"] [member="Malok"]

 

[Velok the Younger]

@Malok@Warok the Defiler[member="Darth Imperia"][member="Yula Knezevic"]

It became clear in short order that the receptionist had no idea what to do. A couple of other staffers were visible, clearly listening and trying not to look like they were listening. One was messaging furiously as Warok babbled about infidelity.

Velok grunted and examined the issue in hand. The propaganda piece was overblown, so far as his sources could determine, but that fit his expectations for a publication like this.

Since all eyes were on the Sith, Velok shrugged and started wandering through the offices, looking for the nicest one. Since all ears were on the Sith too, he opted to just start talking. A Whiphid's inside voice tended to carry.

"The Silver Jedi dropped their prisoner Charzon Loulan on Korriban after sentencing her to life. She was dead when we found her. Scandal scandal scandal. Matsu Ike is a Sith Lord; the evidence is comprehensive. Here's the file." He tossed someone a datacard. "That was sent to the Mandalorian Council and they did nothing, clearly because they wanted Sith help at their latest raid, which they got. But which Mandalorian leaders betrayed their people's longstanding grudge against the Sith? Scandal scandal scandal. Master Mara Merrill lynched a couple of Mandalorians on Ord Mantell after a street brawl. Scandal scandal scandal. The Galactic Alliance has been infiltrated by the One Sith, and Atrisia was one set of Sith turning a tool loose against another set. Seventy percent of the galaxy's largest companies are run by secret Sith Lords. The average Sith Lord is thirty-six twenty-four thirty-six and under twenty-five years old. Most of the great Sith holocrons have been claimed and hidden by Jedi, so we expect a good conversion rate in the coming years. The Silver Jedi invited me to Loulan's trial and I attended. Someone I don't know dropped a major military offensive on my position at Yutan, and that person owns this newspaper."

By now he was in the middle of the bullpen. The cubicles came up to his waist. He flung his arms wide, as if to embrace the petrified staffers.

"Would you like to know more?"

 

[Klesta]

"The Silver Jedi dropped their prisoner Charzon Loulan on Korriban after sentencing her to life. She was dead when we found her. Scandal scandal scandal. Matsu Ike is a Sith Lord; the evidence is comprehensive. Here's the file." Velok tossed a datacard to the petrified staffer that inadvertantly left a channel open to Yula. "That was sent to the Mandalorian Council and they did nothing, clearly because they wanted Sith help at their latest raid, which they got. But which Mandalorian leaders betrayed their people's longstanding grudge against the Sith? Scandal scandal scandal. Master Mara Merrill lynched a couple of Mandalorians on Ord Mantell after a street brawl. Scandal scandal scandal. The Galactic Alliance has been infiltrated by the One Sith, and Atrisia was one set of Sith turning a tool loose against another set. Seventy percent of the galaxy's largest companies are run by secret Sith Lords. The average Sith Lord is thirty-six twenty-four thirty-six and under twenty-five years old. Most of the great Sith holocrons have been claimed and hidden by Jedi, so we expect a good conversion rate in the coming years. The Silver Jedi invited me to Loulan's trial and I attended. Someone I don't know dropped a major military offensive on my position at Yutan, and that person owns this newspaper" [member="Velok the Younger"] blathered through the channel inadvertantly left open.

"Most of these items were already published in past issues of the Sith Inquisitor! There is very little new material for the next issues in what that Sith said!"

Some petrified staffer inadvertantly left a channel open to the office where Yula was still having an editorial meeting, which meant that Yula could hear everything said by the Sith that made it inside the newsroom. The content made the chief editor cringe, and Yula cringed too, but for another reason. The receptionist has been mind-tricked! she thought. Upon hearing the content of what the Sith had to say, the two people inside that office are themselves scandalized. The only new material pertains to Yutan. They definitely know about how I betrayed those Sith by now, and that should be added to the newspaper article about my betrayal of the Sith Order, she thought, while sifting through the deluge of journalistic information. They were the main outlet regarding several things; Directive 12 as it pertained to Operation Blackout on Coruscant, the Sith-induced disaster on Mindabaal...

"To be frank, the last bit could be included in a future article, and also the average age of Sith Lords. As for the rest: last year we ran an article on how Charzon Loulan was dropped on Korriban after being sentenced for life, the Sith Order found her dead and subsequently ate her body, and the week before that, a headline was run about the Sith attending the trial of the Butcher of Korriban, Matsu Ike being a Sith Lord was already ran as a headline when I first started out as a journalist here, about 12 years ago, the lynching of Mandos on Ord Mantell by Mara Merrill about 3 months ago, the GA being infiltrated by the One Sith and how it led to the Atrisia Campaign was run 2 months ago, the great Sith Holocrons being claimed by Jedi has been run a month after Chandrila, how the Sith secretly dominate the galactic business world has been run the week before Operation Blackout, the week after that was about how Darth Centax triggered Directive 12, and the Mandos betraying their longstanding hatred of Sith was run four months ago when they attacked Ossus"

[member="Malok"] [member="Darth Imperia"] [member="Warok the Defiler"]

 

[Velok the Younger]

[member="Yula Knezevic"]

"See, here's the thing," said Velok, leaning over the comm, a process which involved reducing the structural integrity of a cubicle. "You're full of it, as my grandsons would say. The Ord Mantell incident was far more recent than that, just for starters. You're trying to make yourself sound smart and take the wind out of our sails while earning a couple wupiupi off me, my people, my associates, my affiliation. And that craven nonsense just isn't acceptable. Less so, in fact, than the problem of the existing satirical tabloid, also called the Inquisitor, also covering Sith issues, which you plagiarized comprehensively. No, this whole place just makes me feel positively unclean.

"If you're Knezevic, I understand and respect that you showed up out of nowhere to help murder Jedi in bulk. That doesn't make us friends. In fact..." His head tilted. "...the man sitting across from you, the one who spoke a moment ago, is trying very hard not to think about you, me, and some kind of...betrayal. Would you care to enlighten me before my associates attempt their own incendiary journalism? I guarantee their respect for their subject matter will prove comparable to yours."

 

[Klesta]

In addition of not thinking about me, Velok or my... betrayal of the Sith Order, which became clear on Alexandria, the chief editor has mixed up dates and has been wrong on the Ord Mantell count, she thought. After the Directive 12 headline was run, the Sith Inquisitor began to portray both One Sith and Sith Order as filled with Sith that were brainless butchers. That was long before she even bought the Sith Inquisitor in the first place, using an eight-figure commercial loan; when D12 happened, Yula was but a child. Like Reverence, Matsu Xiangu (a story is even run about the latter's infidelity to the former), all of which were subsequently portrayed as not worthy of the title Sith in the tabloid. Yet, in the tabloid world, everyone was out to get each other.

"The Inquisitor has also had trouble adhering to the journalistic standards of the more... respectable newspapers in the galaxy. The head editor has had some issues lately, which has led to what you perceived as comprehensive plagiarism" she answered when [member="Velok the Younger"] told Yula about the factual errors that caused the SI journalistic problems, which were par for the tabloid course. "What exactly has transpired on Yutan made the Inquisitor depict me as a Light Sith in its wake. And these guys like to poke fun at Darth Veles; he used to be the most widely circulated name in the galaxy among the Light Sith until Lothal came, which completely dispelled any notion of him drawing from the light side of the Force. On Yutan, I went there because I felt a visceral need to avenge Darth Maladon, in essence, finishing what he began, and Lord Maladon was killed in the planning stages of what ultimately led to the assault on the Jedi Temple on Yutan. Before I was awarded the mantle of command that Darth Maladon left behind when he was killed on Eol Sha, Darth Maladon was already heavily stigmatized in the dark-sided world, which made so many Sith reluctant to rise up to that challenge"

"Someone wanted to barge in there in an attempt to burn a tree deep inside the temple complex. I suppose that is nothing new to you"

"The Sith Inquisitor staffers seem to all think that the Sith Order is mostly populated with brainless, cannibalistic butchers, whose major moves are ultimately excuses for carnage and explosions, even going so far as to eat the Butcher of Korriban as alchemized long pork, which forced one Thirriken away from action for weeks to cure his food poisoning. Do the Inquisitor portray Sith as brainless, cannibalistic butchers who live mostly for carnage and explosions? If they don't, then it places limits on exactly how far our plagiarism extends"

[member="Malok"] [member="Warok the Defiler"] [member="Darth Imperia"]

 

[Isar]

"Incendiary," squeaked the Ewok.

He clapped his paws. Sparks flew when they met.

"Inflammatory."

Warok rubbed them together with not a little glee. The air around his paws distorted slightly, like a desert mirage.

"Inflammable?"

Black eyes gazed at the Whiphid's shaggy fur, the primate's too. Yes. No? No. They shifted to the human. Maybe. And then they looked all around. Warok giggled.

No, no, no.

 

[Velok the Younger]

Velok leaned farther. One massive claw touched a button on the cubicle phone and depressed it by a precise amount.

Click.

He straightened to his full height, hair brushing the ceiling, and turned to the other Sith.

"I would invite you to do as you will."

 

[Isar]

Warok made a surprisingly intricate gesture given the nature of his paws and uttered a few words in some pidgin of Kissai-Dathomiri-Ewokese.

Abruptly, all the office plants grew to twice their normal size and began strangling hapless gossip columnists. While fibrous stalks wound windpipes shut and turned faces blue, a number of the reporters began to realize that their companions had sandbagged the wrong people. So naturally, they started screaming.

The warlock smiled from atop the dead Massassi's shoulders, revealing teeth whose shape vaguely resembled tombstones: blocky and discolored.

"Shhh, shhhhh. Don't cry. You come to live with me now."

 

[Darth Imperia]

While the ewok began strangling reporters with plants (a display of magic that impressed even Imperia, who was about as cynical as an aging neimodean prostitute), the dark haired Knight went to work on the receptionist.

First, Imperia raised her left arm, flicking her wrist and sending an arc of crimson lightning through the air, straight for the poor woman's chest. Outside of Tutaminis or other Force Powers, there was no real defense against that sort of thing, so the office worker was fortunate that Imperia was in a 'merciful' mood; rather than killing the woman, she simply rendered her unconscious. Making a note of the woman's appearance, Imperia strolled past the slumped and unresponsive desk jockey. She'd wake up after the debacle back on Imperia's ship, then be swiftly sold off to work in some mine in the Outer Rim, or perhaps as a 'dancer' for some low-level crime boss. It didn't really matter to Imperia, so long as she got her credits.

With lightning still crackling in the palm of her left hand, the Knight casually strolled further into the building, humming a tune to herself.

Finally, something exciting had happened.

---

[member="Warok the Defiler"]
[member="Velok the Younger"]
[member="Yula Knezevic"]

 

[Velok the Younger]

As Warok and Imperia went about their business, Velok ambled to the edge of the bullpen. An office door plaque read 'Assistant Editor.' Inside, a human male cowered on a swivel chair that cost more than everything Velok was wearing. The human squeaked as Velok pushed him gently aside. His chair, with him in it, rolled up against the wall. Velok eyed the sizeable desk, then gripped it with both hands and upended it in a shower of papers.

"This isn't chaos for its own sake," he explained to the assistant editor. "Even if you don't mock the Sith on this world and get away with it. No, what I'm doing is purely functional. Think of shucking shellfish. There's no malice in the act." He knelt where the desk had stood, and rummaged among the wires. "I'm just excavating the meat."

Metal shrieked. Wiring snapped. He stood on creaking knees and tucked a hard drive into his robe. Then he grumbled something about advancing age and fumbled with his robe again. A stream of pungent urine fell upon the ruins of the assistant editor's computer.

"Never get old," he said to the human, over his shoulder. "No fun whatsoever."

He readjusted his robes and shambled out of the office.

 

[Klesta]

"This is not good: by now they know we are telling the truth, they haven't responded to us"

She turned to the PA system, after sensing that Warok strangled some of the staffers to death. "We really are telling the truth: their every move is just an excuse for mindless butchery! They proved it right here by using Plant Surge to kill staffers by suffocation! Sound the alarm! Evacuate the office!"

Sadly, Yula realized that [member="Warok the Defiler"] used Plant Surge to strangle some of the newspaper's staffers; there was no time for mourning the dead just yet. She could readily see a special edition: Je Suis Sith Inquisitor, where the scoop on the attack will be full-page cover. Which means, unfortunately, that the scoop on her treason will have to be postponed until the week after the Je Suis Sith Inquisitor edition. Said special edition will out-sell most editions, despite them having to be printed from Glyss or Ringo Vinda. With the remaining newsroom staffers running for their lives, scrambling to get out of the premises, they do not suspect that [member="Velok the Younger"], [member="Darth Imperia"] or even [member="Malok"] are potential parties behind the mayhem occurring right before their eyes. No more than they suspected Darth Veles of having fed the Sith Inquisitor the Mindabaal scoop. Yula ignited one of her lightsabers, and then uses Force Push to have it punch a hole through the window. Once the process was over, she summons back the lightsaber and deactivated it, and then turned to the head editor, about to jump from the third floor with the head editor in tow, praying that the snow drift below will amortize their fall:

"Hang on tight, head editor: the insurance company will reimburse all our claims!"

"I'm ready, boss"

"Now!" she shouted, while using Force-jump to make sure that their jump out of the third floor will not result in any serious injury.