Probably not a good sign when the self-interested gangsters start making sense.
As Doc Painless listened to Ivory, he found himself agreeing with every word she said - protecting civilians through careful rules of engagement, making use of street-level knowledge to combat superior numbers and financing, fighting the information war with underground media, all of it was
exactly the direction he'd wanted to push Darkwire in.
Ethical Insurgency, the ideology was called, and it
worked. An insurgency built on random acts of terror was easy to demonize and prevent from ever achieving legitimacy. That
must not happen. If Darkwire wanted an uprising that would actually lead to a better world, they needed to show the galaxy that they could form a legit government.
They needed to prove to the Senate that they weren't just another Maw-like gaggle of madmen to be put down.
But as much as he liked what he was hearing, the Doc had always been taught to consider the
source... and he still didn't trust Ivory, not fully. The Coruscani gangster was not the type to do
anything out of the goodness of her heart. If she wanted CAD toppled, it was because she expected her operations would thrive in the aftermath, thrive enough that any losses they sustained in the uprising would be more than balanced out. When they'd first met, back at the charity giveaway during the blizzard in District Nine, the Doc had indicated to her that he was onto the way her type operated, and that he would be watching. But now here she was, calling and directing Darkwire meetings.
She'd risen
scarily fast in the group. If she tried to co-opt this whole thing, could he even stop her at this point?
And then there was Priddy, another of the dangerous characters he'd met that same day. The one who had used the supplies she'd "donated" as a hiding place for murder droids intended to get revenge on her old enemies. She had already
proven that she would use whatever was going on around her to advance her own goals, turning his well-intentioned bit of humanitarian aid into cover for her assassination plot. What might she use Darkwire's insurgency, so much greater in scale and importance, as cover for? Everything she was saying was true, good, helpful... but the Doc worried about the
price of her help, what she might be doing behind the scenes and how it would impact Denon.
This was the problem that all insurgencies faced: choosing who to trust, and whose help to accept. Doc Painless had a beautiful vision of a self-governing Denon, a place where each District could be a collection of
communities rather than a series of exploitable markets. He wanted to see his adopted homeworld send a senator to Coruscant who really, truly cared about the poorest and most desperate, someone who would advocate for the people who were suffering rather than protect corporate interests. But there was another possibility, one that weighed heavy on his mind: that Denon, freed of the Corpos, would simply collapse into a crime-ridden cesspit, just as Hacks had predicted.
And then the crime lords would be in charge... which might be
exactly what these gangsters were already planning.
But it was too early, and too delicate a situation, to turn away anyone's help yet. All he could do was
hope.
"I like that idea," the street medic finally cut back in, nodding at Xan's suggestion of a place they could hit to spread their message all across Denon and its neighboring worlds.
"Whatever we can do to increase our visibility in positive ways, show people that we're not just another band of self-interested criminals, that we're fighting for them." He paused, choosing his next words carefully; he had to find a way to try to apply the brakes on some ideas without kiboshing the overall enthusiasm.
"But let's not hit every target of opportunity willy-nilly. Factories are usually full of innocent workers; we'd have to time things right, or we'd damage our own image."
And kill innocent people. But he was trying to put things in pragmatic terms, for the less bleeding-heart among them.
The word
hostages hit him like a gut punch. Sure, the
Corpos ripped people from their beds and forced them into labor pools, but Darkwire needed to be
better than that. If they went around kidnapping people for ransom, they'd look like just another crime syndicate.
"If we're going to snatch Corpos," the street medic said carefully,
"we need to choose who we grab very carefully, and be very clear about why we're grabbing them. If we do it wrong, it will be easy for the Corpos to paint us in a bad light, and groups that might otherwise become allies will lap it up and turn against us." He had an unpleasant vision of
Jedi beating down Darkwire's doors in a rescue mission.
"I'm all in for helping the people, which shouldn't surprise anyone." He smiled at the pronouncement, trying to lighten the mood.
"All the better if we can show them that the supplies we're distributing are things the Corpos have hoarded while they go without. That's how we build belief in our message on the streets. We'll just have to make sure it's all untraceable. I don't want anyone put at risk until they actively decide to be part of our war." If people started getting arrested for receiving stolen goods from Darkwire, that would set them
way back. Being a Darkwire
sympathizer needed to stay
safe for now, even as being a Darkwire
member was dangerous.
The Doc offered Peyton a nod.
"That's the goal. Glad to have your help." They
needed experienced insurgents.
People who had the stomach for the gritty part of this work, because he wasn't sure how much
he did.
Daiya
had graced her presence for that brief time before the discussion began. Almost beginning a tangent of questions, Ivory cut through it with a topic that had a brow arching on the woman.
