In light of the circumstances surrounding my visit to Ansion, I think it's appropriate that I keep a journal. Not for my sake, but in case something was to happen to me or to the data I've collected. This journal might serve as a guide for whomever might take over whatever case I'm working on when I die or become incapacitated.
My nomadic lifestyle changed when I traveled to the world of Ansion. Situated just outside of Galactic Alliance space, the world seemed an ideal location for me to visit because of the Alwari, a nomadic people who lived on the world. I initially settled in with them, learning their ways and studying them as a people. They ate heavily of meat, used very little technology, and enjoyed a life of tradition, doing what they could to stay away from the cities. On occasion, the clan I stayed with, the Borokii, would send someone to speak with the Unity government in order to maintain peace between them, but that was their only contact with the city people.
On one such occasion, when the representative returned, something was different about them. They didn't eat, didn't participate in taking care of the herds, and in general showed a malaise that could be described as apathetic. When spoken to, they would only grunt in response or indicate they didn't care. This didn't seem right to me and I was suspicious that something had happened to them, so I went to the city.
The city of Anwar Buruhk was one of the larger ones. It wasn't the seat of the Unity's government, but it was still prominent. When I entered the city I noticed the people seemed to be much the same as the Alwari tribesman had been, except worse. Crime was committed openly, the security forces did nothing of it, and nobody even cared. I saw people have their pockets picked right in front of security forces. I even found a man who had killed an entire family and was butchering them like nerf for consumption. I stopped this, for obvious reasons, and determined that this was not his first such offense.
It was at this point that another outsider approached me, a Jedi named Katarine Ryiah. She objected to me killing the man for his crimes, which I admit to doing. She decried it as vigilante justice, but given the circumstances I declined to agree with her assessment that vigilante justice was wrong. With the lack of a functioning governing body in the city, and a lack of a functioning security force, vigilantism becomes an acceptable means to achieving Justice. Had the man not been a repeat offender, I would have undoubtedly have simply bound him and taken him to the local security office. However, I found his crimes grievous enough that, when coupled with the reading of his mind to see he'd done this before, the only true Justice for the dead was the death of the criminal.
Despite Katarine's objections, we agreed to work together to resolve the situation in the city. After some discussion, we agreed that given the amount of people affected, whatever was causing it was likely associated with something they had ingested. This left the likely source to be the city's water supply, which we determined was an underground lake located beneath the city. We took a transport, piloted by a droid and not an affected local, and upon arrival at the city municipal building found it largely abandoned.
We both felt there was someone up above on a higher floor, so we decided to split up. Katarine went to the upper floor to investigate the people there while I descended to the lake below. Upon arrival I was not greeted with trouble, but I was surprised to find the source of the cities mass illness hidden beneath a Force Illusion. I removed a canister from a device connected to the main water line that came off the lake that was secreting a toxin of some kind, and then took the lift up to the same floor that my Jedi comrade had gone to. There I discovered that there was a group of unwilling participants to the plot that she'd been questioning.
One of their number, a woman, was so agitated she attempted to rush past us in haste to flee. When she brushed against Katarine, she caused the Jedi to sway and revealed a connection to the plot. I grabbed her through the Force and held her against the wall, but her own strength was weak, and not sufficient to cause such a reaction in Katarine, not when I caused less of one. I quickly turned my gaze out the window and saw a figure dressed in black disappear off a nearby rooftop, at which point I realized that said person had been using a Shadow to control our impression of the woman that I had apprehended. This information, coupled with the use of illusions, meant we were dealing with more than the average practitioner of the Force. Possibly a Sith or Dark Jedi, but someone highly capable and highly dangerous.
Katarine and I parted ways after this, though I assured her I intended to continue investigating, which I did. I was able to determine that the last transport to arrive at the city starport had come from Coruscant, which lead me to believe that whoever was behind the incident on Ansion had likely originated there. I resolved to travel to Coruscant and continue my investigation, but first made a return to the Alwari to assure them that what had happened to their fellow nomad was not an assault by the Unity of Community. No need for a civil war. After that, I took a public transport to Coruscant with the intention of continuing my investigation.
