Private The Golden Age of Golbah

[Alkor Centaris]

HEAVY IS THE HEAD ​

The Crown was abuzz with the news. Confederacy First was hours old. Viceroys were up in arms, and shareholders of various businesses were screaming across HoloNet feeds. The market was reeling, stocks were plummeting, assets were surging outward from Confederate Space. Alkor watched the terminal in the Vicelord's Office impassively. Their responses were predictable, but the final outcome was doubly so.

The fear would pass, and the cracks and weaknesses of the Confederacy would sort themselves out. After the dust settled, their monies and worries would level out, and they could move forward. They had made such sudden, swift, isolationist moves knowing how the foreigners would respond.

That was why they did it to begin with.

Alkor and John Locke were never well acquainted. Though elevated to the position of Exarch at the same time, they had never formally met or worked together, or even spoken. The former Minister of Science and ex-Knight Obsidian stood quietly as the news raced across the screens and calls flooded the lines.

Alkor sat himself down on the desk and rested his useless arm in his lap. "The Confederacy takes an isolationist stance, and the Galaxy goes insane," Alkor mused. "So much for everyone who said that nothing we do matters."

John Locke

 

[John Locke]

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THAT WEARS THE CROWN​

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Metallic hands slipped into John’s pocket’s in a well-practiced motion as the newly appointed exarch stared at the screens, at the data streaming before their eyes. This was his world, the world of data and numbers, of stocks and shares. Yet behind each piece of data currently racing across the boards there was a person, confidence and needs, wants and hopes. It was too easy to forget that, to treat the data as simply that, data without remembering that it represented peoples lives.​

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“People tell themselves all sorts of lies to make themselves feel better, anything so they don’t have to face upto the truth of what’s out there. What they really feel.”​

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A single hand slipped out of the man’s pockets, gesturing at the boards as John turned away for a moment, stepping over towards the window to stare out at Golbah city. From the room they’d commandeered he could see out along the cityscape, all the way out to the spaceport. Could see a civilian transport lifting off, a commercial transport slipping into its transport spot.​

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“Whatever they say, whatever the naysayers might say the truth of it is out there. People come and go, goods still move. Life goes on. They can spin all the stories they want, they can claim anything they want about the repercussion of our actions. The very fact that they care so much, well isn’t that proof that everything they’ve claimed is wrong? They’ll never be happy with us, but they’ll never be happy with anything. The citizens, the actual traders and travellers, they’re still moving so, it can’t really be all that bad can it?”​

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Dark eyes flicked over to meet Alkor’s gaze, lips half-lifted in an amused grin, as if sharing a private joke. Life went on, despite the edicts of the great and the mighty, the powerful and rich. Despite everything they and their naysayers did, the citizens out there, their lives were hardly affected.​

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Alkor Centaris​

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[Alkor Centaris]

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JEN'JIDAI​

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All the lessons learned in his years of separation from Galactic affairs yielded the Corellian Exile a touch of skepticism when it came to the common people. Everyone had hopes and dreams, and they all aspired to different things. That fact alone separated mankind from baser creatures. Beyond it, they were all slaves to instinct and emotion.​

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No better than beasts.​

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The Confederacy of Independent Systems offered a bastion, a defense to its citizens in spite of the harsh truth of their inborn condition. It was the dream of a Sith Lord alone that knit together the lives of politicians, military forces, and the common Confederate. That single, fragile, yet simultaneously powerful ambition had blossomed into a marvel of Galactic power.​

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They had cultivated the seeds, now it fell to them to prevent the rest of the Galaxy from trampling the saplings. It was all...​

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...Alkor managed a smile when Locke spoke. His eyes remained a gentle sea blue as he regarded the cybernetic man, their fierce and violent true color hidden away. "There are those who do, and those who do not." Alkor replied. "Those who do not will always criticize those who do."​

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He left the implication to fall where it may. Politics were not the Dark Jedi's field of interest. The sordid affairs of the Galaxy beyond their borders would never interest him. The workings of the common folk barely did. His reality was one of ennui: a world that offered no challenges, and no danger.​

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Alkor Centaris sought an obstacle worthy of being overcome, and this Galaxy had offered him nothing in many years.​

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And so, to give rise to an enemy for himself, he would dip his hands into the ugly innards of politics and work the forge.​

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"Mankind is a species that necessarily finds a way to fulfill its needs. Whether we put an obstacle in their way or clear a path, they will forge ahead regardless." Like ants. "They will whine, they will rant, they will throw their tantrums, but in the end they will become complacent."​

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Alkor looked out at the machinery that raced through the skies over Golbah City, reminiscent of the Coronet from his youth. His expression softened a bit, not oblivious to the irony. "The Confederacy is merely the form that their angst has adopted for the moment. Anything to shunt the worries away from their own failures."​

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He reached for a glass of half emptied rum that sat near him on the desk. "What needs have driven Exarch John Locke to rise above the pack and lead it?" Alkor asked him. "Or is this, too, a convenience?"​

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John Locke​

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