Mind Your Business [SJO Dominion of Hex AB, 31]

[WelshPsych]

Yuroic chuckled, while Jairdain was actually blind, he seemed to be blind to fashion. Though, it was a weakness he figured he could live with. Purchasing the green necklace, he offered both items to Asaraa and smiled. "A ship? No, Jairdain has one that suits her well. No, what I do is travel to different worlds and carve out the night sky above me. It takes a long time but then she gets to feel where the stars are and 'see' it."

Yuroic gave a slight blush. It was strange to confession what had been a very private thing between himself and Jairdain. He was also slightly embarrassed about how emotional it might sound. He tried to be a calm and collected being while around Jedi. "Jairdain might seem like she has found balance but there was a long path to that. Very difficult as well. Her mind was messed with by a strong Sith Lord, named Krest, he made her think that the Dark Side and the Sith were her allies and that the Jedi abandoned her. She struggled to remember what was real and what was not for a while."

Yuroic gave a slight sigh, it was hard to remember times when he was not on the same side as Jairdain. Yutan was especially tricky one, the genocide and his body barely surviving the bombardment. It was a tough day. "Balance is key. For there is no Light without Dark but the Dark cannot survive. I wish that there was no conflict, that perhaps we could create peace and live amongst each other but the Sith do not share that goal, neither do the Galactic Empire or the First Order. These factions want to rule everything and everyone." Yuroic let another sigh out. He had tried to be peaceful at first, but most of the time it did not work.

[member="Asaraa Vaashe"]

 

[Ugohr Poof]

Location: Willis Plaza Convention Center
Objective: Business Exhibition
Company: Pizza Hutt

That customer wanted the pizza being offered to the contest's winners even if he lost the dartboard challenge. Pizzas, Skor cakes, Vader cookies... if only the Gungan could eat the former two for dinner! He was peddling Skor cakes without even eating those for himself. He realized that these three items accounted for about 90% of all sales today on Randon, and, of course, he knew that the Squibs on Skor preferred to eat Squib chocolate or Skor cakes. So he had to keep in mind that the Squib crew will want their slices of the Skor cake once the convention is about to end. The Gungan saw a wide array of customers come and go, and the Squib workers will soon be making a new shift, while their manager made preparations to get a new location built on Randon, hopefully with those same Squibs working there, provided, of course, that there is no "local-labor" provision on Randon; Ugohr knew that local-labor provisions were common in SJ-land, and also in GA-land, although usually set at the planetary level. Trandosha in particular did not have any.

"Yousa set aside una Skor cake for usen to eat"

"One Skor cake, one large pizza" the Squib cook acknowledged, while keeping a bar of Squib chocolate.

 

[Dahlia]

“A coincidence?” She echoed, “If you say so.”

Dahlia’s shoulders rose into a tiny shrug, her ego was one that did not bruise easily. As Jihun’s hand disappeared momentarily beneath his jacket, the guard’s posture stiffened. Slightly taken aback, Dahlia merely looked at the business card that Jihun held between two fingers. Blinking, she snatched it up and had a look. It was crisp and clean – listing his name and a title at the IGBC.

“Well, I’ll be.” She said, brows lofting. “You’re moving up in the galaxy, aren’t you?”

There was a hint of teasing to her tone. Slipping the card into her bag, she tucked the clutch into the crook of her arm. As Jihun lit up a cigarette of his own, she smirked. Even with the ladylike appearance, she had a way of being a bit of a bad influence… and she rather liked that.

“Mmhmm,” She took a drag, “This sector could be a gold mine.” A tiny laugh punctuated her point. “I’m not one to miss out – you know that. I’m thinking about opening…” She trailed off to keep in waiting, just for fun. “A casino. Won’t that be grand?”

[member="Cardinam"]

 

[Asaraa Vaashe]

“I’m sure they would argue it take two to tango,” Asaraa pointed out almost playfully as she ran her fingers along the soft material of the shawl, slipping it over her shoulders so the ends rested down just covering her lekku. “They might want to force their choices and actions on everyone around them, but you can’t say we don’t either. Not that I think we’re anywhere as bad as they are, but we do have certain requirements which we press on the people around us, fair practice, no slavery you know, pesky little things like that.”

The girl took a step backwards, smiling at the man as she glanced around the market, “I know I said it before, but that’s really really sweet.” Slipping her hands into her pockets she flashed a bright grin at the man, “So you must get around a lot then, to make the most of it, see all the stars?” There was a note of jealousy in her voice as she nodded at the man, “I’m sure she loves those gifts, so, you’re pretty good at the carving then?”

[member="Yuroic Xeraic"]

 

[WelshPsych]

Yuroic found her point of view curious and slightly refreshing. He heard from too many people that there was only good and bad, that the Sith were only bad. Though he disagreed with the manner that they went about things, it was hard not to draw similarities to the Jedi ways. "Hm, well, perhaps slavery and fair trade are poor examples of things we enforce. Slavery is a horrid business that involves the worse kinds of people." Yuroic commented, he had the eyes of someone who had been a slave before, and his old master was not a nice man.

"But yes, there are similarities between us and the Sith, why people sometimes get confused which side of the Force one is sided with. Doesn't help that there are unaligned Force Users as well, making it more grey than people can sometimes handle." Yuroic noted as he watched Asaraa put her shawl on. "Very nice, suits you." He commented.

"I travel more than I previously did. However, for now I go where the Order needs me. I would love to travel to worlds and assist in talking to foreign leaders. My linguist skills are sorely underused right now." Yuroic sighed, war had struck the Galactic Alliance, a strong ally so the Order had been busy assisting them. "But during our training we could do more travelling, it is good to explore the galaxy outside the Temple and its surroundings. Meet real people and see how life works with the Force."

He chuckled as he thought of how much Jairdain loved the first one he carved so long ago, it was of Voss's night sky. His skills weren't as refined as they were now but he was sure that he far from perfect. "I have improved since I started, takes patience as I do it by hand and eye, however, the reward is worth the work. Seeing her smile as much as she does from the gifts, nothing beats that. My skills are far from perfect, there is always room to improve, even for a master." Yuroic nodded his head and smiled.

[member="Asaraa Vaashe"]

 

[Sunny Lee]

Sunny made her way around the KSA area, making some notes on her datapad. From here, she could already tell that the young executive was busy. No doubt there were others here that were interested in speaking with her today. She set a note to make an appointment, or rather to have Ami call to make said appointment. A narrow-eyed glance shot down the aisle, looking for her assistant.

A moment later, as if on cue, the young woman came strolling down the row.

From what she could tell, Sunny assumed that Ami was thoroughly enjoying herself. She had a sample of Skor cake in hand, and a few more sample bags on her arms. The Seoulian woman perked a brow ever so slightly; she supposed that it was good to let her assistant have some fun… on occasion. Sunny knew that she was probably not the easiest boss to please, and working for her could be quite the task.

“Oh, Ms. Lee! Did I take too long, I’m sorry. Is there anything you need?” Ami began, eyes wide and apologetic.

“No, no…” Sunny held up her palm. “I don’t require anything at the moment. If you’d like, you can continue to browse. I think I will remain here for now.”

 

[Eugen Aker]

"This time it may be a coincidence, but I reckon I'll have to keep my eye on you from here on out." He gave her a once-over from the corner of his eye while taking a drag. "Now that you're mobile."

Dahlia liked to be chased, she had hinted that much. He loved to chase all that he deemed worthwhile.

She looked genuinely surprised when he passed his card along and revealed himself as being more than a simple gun for hire. That made him huff in amusement, long lines of smoke puffing out from his nostrils.

"Well no, I've been at this for a while now."

He had been on the job the night they had first cross paths, on a stakeout for one of her well-connected patrons. Following that night, said patron would never be making a return to the club. There were consequences trying to cheat out IGBC.

"A casino, eh?" He asked after another drag. "This area doesn't seem to have much of a night scene, while it's full of the upwardly mobile with big disposable incomes. No doubt you could make a killing as a novel attraction for blowing off steam."

Knowing Dahlia, there had to be had to be something more to her plans. Likely some sort of laundering scheme, a casino was a good front for that sort of operation.

"IGBC is always on the lookout for good investments if you're looking for backers."

[member="Dahlia"]

 

[Ugohr Poof]

Location: Willis Plaza Convention Center
Objective: Business Exhibition
Company: Pizza Hutt

Ugohr was busy serving the customers while a Squib cook prepared the communal meal for all the workers that were inside the booth for the business exhibition, Squib or otherwise. The Skor cake the Squib staffer took out was big enough to serve five Squibs twice over. Likewise with the pizza: everyone eating among the people who staffed the booth this time around would be entitled to two slices of both the cake and the pizza, admittedly a little much for the average Squib but Ugohr could eat that much, in addition to the five Vader cookies he previously ate while getting his juggling act together, drawing a few customers to buy Vader cookie jars after the fact. At the same time, the Squib field manager of the Randon operation returned with the findings, as to whether or not opening a location on Randon was feasible. With the Squib manager now being there on scene, he would eat the first slice of the pizza, whose slices are neatly positioned on five paper plates, with the cake slices on five more such paper plates, the very same as used to serve the customers.

"Me back with findings, boss" the Squib manager reported, while getting seated at the table.

"What yoursa findings are?"

"Me find Randon good place to open new Pizza Hutt, boss"

"Now yousa get to work and hire what staff issa possible"

 

[Ala Crescent]

As she wrapped up her presentation on the Bengal, she noticed Admiral Quee hovering in the area. Just the man she had been waiting for all this time, the chief representative of Lucerne Labs and the Directorate.

"Well, I think I've just about covered about all the main features of the Bengal. If you have any additional questions, then we have techs on hand prepared to give you more in-depth explanations about the capabilities of the Bengal, as well as our other products and services currently on display today."

The crowd gave her a small applause, and then she smiled and waved before leaving the side of the tank to approach Quee.

"Admiral Quee," she started, offering a hand. "It's a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance. You're just in time for my main presentation, it's set to start within the next hour."

With some technical assistance from Lucerne Labs, KSA had just set down the groundwork for a new navigation network that would revolutionize hyperspace travel.

"How about Lucerne? Anything new to share?"

[member="Sunny Lee"] [member="Ugohr Poof"] [member="Gir Quee"] [member="John Locke"] [member="Camellia Swift"]

 

[Gir Quee]

Gir's lips slowly curled into a smile as he shook [member="Ala Crescent"]'s hand.

"Lucerne Labs is well," said Gir, briefly glancing downwards.

True enough words, though they did not paint the whole picture of the company's health. The company's small craft division was booming, and their orders for their larger warships were steady. They were profitable, but they hadn't really broken through to where the Circle had envisioned the company being. But if the group was right, their work with KSA could bring them up to their expected market growth.

"We have a few new products," said Gir, "that might be suited for the work cut out for us: a probe droid and a scout ship. What about KSA? How have things fared for you all?"

 

[Reggie Faayare]

Reggie found some interesting things while browsing the market. There wasn't anything he would get for himself, nothing yet at least, so he just enjoyed the walk across the harbor. It had been awhile since Reggie had any time to just take a walk and enjoy the day. He was always busy with his research, training, and a few other things. Of course, this was no one's fault but his own.

After awhile, he realized that he was pretty hungry.

 

[Ala Crescent]

Ala smiled and nodded, genuinely pleased with news of Lucerne's rise to prominence. Both companies had a close working relationship through mutual associations that stretched back to the time of the Galactic Republic, building off each other's gains over the years.

"Things have never been better for KSA, we now offer products and services in just about every market (sans Imperial and Sith space, of course). We have a lot of exciting new developments to coming down the pipeline, starting with the tech demo we have planned later this afternoon."

Other VIPs began to approach her with questions so she would be pulled away as she entertained potential buyers for the next half hour. Then she disappeared as she prepared for her main presentation.

At the top of the next hour, Ala reemerged atop a small stage setup within KSA's space on the floor. Feeds of the executive were displayed across displays all over the convention center. She paced around for a for about a minute before launching into her introduction. All around her high detailed full colored holo renderings began to appear on the stage.

"There is probably no single breakthrough that has had more impact on the galaxy than hyperspace technology. With it, countless civilizations became interconnected, ushering in an explosion of innovation from a melting pot of ideas. We were finally able to touch the stars."

There were images of Duros and Corellians launching their very first hyperdrive capable ships, starting a revolution in the face of the collapse of the Infinite Empire. Over time, these first crude ships became increasingly sleeker as they assumed the more familiar forms of modernstarcraft.

"However, after that initial development, successive advancement has been rather lackluster. There have been advances in hyperspace technology for sure, but mostly incremental changes hampered by the same limitations. That has been, the inability to reliably utilize real-time astrogation on a mass scale. As result, there has always been an upper limit to efficiency."

"However, I am happy to declare that changes today, with the introduction of Lodestar."

On one side the symbols of an eight-pointed star appeared beside her, and a rendering the Randon sector overlaid with all knownhyperoutes.

"From our research, KSA has determined there haven't been any significant pathfinding operations since the Golden Age. That is, over four hundred years stuck with the same minor lanes that may take days or weeks to traverse, leaving areas lagging in development."

"However, that will soon all be a thing of the past." With a wave of her hands, the oldhyperlanes disappeared, replaced by new lanes highlighted in neon green.

"These are brand new lanes plotted by our Lodestar AI, resulting in at least a 500% increase in efficiency in all areas of the sector as determined by our survey drones. What then took weeks or days of travel time has now been reduced to mere hours and minutes. I'm happy to report that these new lanes are just about ready for public use, once regional authorities confirmed their safety."

For months, KSA had quietly selected a few test regions to deploy its new AI, initially trained by Lucerne's own Compass AI units. Now they were already in action, steadily optimizing lanes for future use.

Ala took a pause to allow the crowd to applause and to snap pictures of the renderings before resuming. Next, she would explain the underlying mechanics of the system.

[member="Sunny Lee"] [member="Ugohr Poof"] [member="Gir Quee"] [member="John Locke"] [member="Camellia Swift"]

 

[Gir Quee]

Gir watched as [member="Ala Crescent"] got pulled into more conversations. That was the one thing he liked about being incognito; no-one would be going out of their way to find him, and even if they did, he could always deny who he was. As she slipped away, Gir leaned up against a nearby wall and went to work on his datapad. Even though Gir really only ran the strategic direction of the company, and had little to do with the immediate, direct day to day operations, he almost always found himself dealing with a few comm-messages to answer every day, whether it was his opinion on an emerging technology or market or deciding if relations with a potential customer should be advanced or refuted. He managed to wade through and answer several messages before the woman reemerged to discuss the Lodestar project.

The Compass AI created by Azira had hoped to be a similar breakthrough to Lodestar, but in many ways, had been a different application of similar technology. Compass had been designed to blaze new routes in unknown areas, whereas Lodestar appeared to try and redesign routes in already know areas of space. Undoubtedly, some of the routes had been formed originally by sheer luck, old political alliances, and half a dozen other reasons which had no impact on the modern geo-political realities of space while tradition, BoSS, and inertia had maintained the old routes. If successful, it would undoubtedly raise both the fortunes of the local worlds and KSA. But any interest in the strategic benefits of the system were offset in Gir's mind by how it would be done. If his own curiosity didn't hold him to rapt attention to Crescent's words, he knew that Azira would undoubtedly have questions for him when he returned to Hast.

 

[Dahlia]

“Mmhmm,” Dahlia purred, “We’ve got to give all of the overworked business men somewhere to go after hours.”

A rather sinister smile appeared on her lips for a brief moment.

Just as Jihun likely suspected, Dahlia would be using this new location to her own benefit. A casino would be a perfect front for some money laundering. Credits came in, they went out – who was going to notice a little bit extra here and there? After all, the credits she gained from her spice trade had to go somewhere…

“Is that so?” She asked, a look of genuine interest in her eyes. “Well, then… it sounds like we’ll be going into business together, doesn’t it?”

She popped her bag open and pulled out her datapad. With her cigarette dangling between her lips, she typed a quick reminder to follow up with Jihun at a later date. But for now, she decided to keep him interested. Pulling up a screen, she tilted the datapad so that he could see as well.

“Have a look at this. It’s a bit of concept art.” Dahlia’s dark eyes glanced up at the skyline; all of the buildings here had a similar look to them. After one final drag of her cigarette, she dropped it onto the sidewalk and stamped it out with the sole of her shoe.

“It’s a bit… unconventional, I know. But can you picture it here on Randon?”

[member="Cardinam"]