Ask Ossus Flowery Conversation

[Alexandria Voran]

Alex trudged up the Temple steps, the snaps of holovids sounding in the background. A sense of finality settled around her shoulders. There was no going back now. She made her intentions to the galaxy clear. The path forward rested firmly in her hands. Suddenly, the weight of the galaxy seemed to press around her. Alex breathed deeply and held her head high. She was ready. The Temple doors opened slowly to reveal the battle scared entry way. She shook her head slowly. The Morellian Jedi was responsible for most of the damage. Bad look. Her eyes shifted to the Temple Guard standing at the ready.

“Please bring Lieutenant Haradan to the east gardens.” The guard nodded solemnly. “Yes, Master Voran.” Alex walked slowly to the eastern section of the ancient Temple. The gardens opened to a spectacular view of the mountain range. Through a little creative use of the Force all manner of flowers blossomed. It created a truly serene setting. The backdrop of the towering Ossien mountains with the bright petals was spectacular. This was one of Alex’s favorite places and suited her particular needs perfectly. She needed privacy for this next conversation. Scaring interrogations in dank cells would be pointless. The Lieutenant did not strike her as a man easily intimidated.

In time, she sensed the guards approaching with their guest in toe. She turned to watch them enter the gardens. “Lieutenant, will you walk with me?” She gestured for him to follow her down the carefully curated path. Alex’s quickly shooed away the Temple Guard. “We’re fine, you can leave us.” There was a moment of hesitation, but they were too well trained to protest. She returned her gaze to Ossien fighter. “Please?” There was more than one way to learn your enemy.

@Eccles

 

[Ben Haradan]

Ben's first encounter with involuntary confinement was when he was just thirteen. Rhommamool's navy had decided that the Ossein scrappers weren't justified in scrapping a ship that hailed from the secretive heavily industrial planet and had swept all the individual scrappers up in tractor beams to get interrogated for thirty hours. Were they secret spies from the planet Osarian? What secrets did they intent to steal from the Rhommamool's ships? Where did such an utter trash people learn how to scrap military-designed spaceships?

It happened a couple of more times until he decided to leave the station behind and join the crew of the Haradan. Confinement by the Free World's Alliance had been much the same, but it had been the ships and planets under control from the Sith warlord Asminys that had truly scared him. The Sith as an entity scared him. They had the power to be truly free, but decided to use it control and destroy others. Ben couldn't think of something more at odds with the Ossein ways... and yet he trained their bridge crews and joined their fleet.

Necessity? Perhaps, but being a captain, a Noy, or just a leader of men, wasn't black and white. Ben's existence consisted of hard choices. Every scrapping operation in the endless black of space was life and death. Every boarding operation had a theoretical survival chance of forty-odd percent.

Imprisonment by the Jedi Order seemed to be not too different. He was their prisoner and sat in the cell, waiting for his interrogation. At least this time he sat there alone. His crew thankfully was with their people. So when Ben was escorted out of his cell he had expected to be seated inside another one, but slightly bigger, seated opposite a stern-looking Jedi holding a datapad. Instead they lead him to a garden where the Jedi that he had shot at was waiting for him. "I am an old man being asked to walk unsupervised with a young woman?" he smiled, oblivious to the fact that the woman he was referring to was more than twice his age. "As long as you cut the lieutenant crap. I'm Ben."


@Valen Pelora

 

[Alexandria Voran]

“Thank you, Ben.” Alex returned the smile. She turned to walk through the gardens. “Although, I’m walking with the younger man.” The Morellian Master turned and her ‘prisoner’ a coy smirk. “I was probably born before your parents.” Her people were long lived. She was maybe a quarter through her life. The Force gave her longevity not even the oldest Morellians could hope to find. Alex continued her slow walk, assuming the young Lieutenant would walk beside her.

“We build these Temple, hide them, protect them…but we spend so little time learning the people we ask to be our neighbors.” She shook her head. The honesty in her voice unmistakable. “It is a constant failure. I’ve tried to break that cycle by first learning myself and then encouraging others.” Alex turned to face him pulling a rose from nearby.

“Ossus is beautiful but dangerous...” She spun the rose in her hand. “Cliché, I know…but Ben…all I’ve learn of Ossus and the Ossien fleet, none of it makes a Sith.” The Councilor continued her walk. “I know evil. I stared into the mind of the man you served. You don’t strike me as evil.” Her eyes titled skyward. “Tell me then, how did become entwined with Asminys? It will keep an old woman entertained on our walk.” She smiled again. Laughing lightly.

@Eccles

 

[Ben Haradan]

Ben was surprised by the revelation that the woman who looked over ten years his junior had been born in the time of his grandparents. It wasn't something he was going to dwell on for the sentiment was still true whether she was old enough to be his grandmother or the young thing he thought she was; she was much nicer to look at than the four walls of a holding cell.

He walked alongside her and took note of the plants and flowers that he undoubtedly found pretty, most of them he was seeing for the first time, but they failed in comparison to the longing he felt for open space. An Ossein like him was, suddenly he started laughing, "Oh, Jedi-" he exhaled sharply and stopped his walk to turn and focus on the older woman, "-good and evil are words only used by zealots and senators." It was a sharp rebuke and he was sure she would see right through the words and to their meaning. After all, for almost all of the galaxy except the very few that were so-called 'Force sensitive' life was a struggle and a constant battle between survival and excruciating pain and death. "Take the infamous Preef Callo," he smiled as he referenced the legendary rodian outlaw, "he murdered his way to the top, sure, but once he got there?" Ben started walking again, "He freed slaves, pooled all his resources into fighting the AMS virus and then?" he made a throwaway gesture, "One of you forcies snuffs him out in his own home for unknown reasons." It was then for the Jedi to decide if she thought the rodian was good or evil and Ben suspected that she wouldn't be able to make that choice.

There was anger in his words and a clear discontent over the plight of the regular sentients in the galaxy. Not the ones gifted with special power, not the ones born in incredible wealth or hailing from superior species. The galaxy wasn't a fair place, there were no equal opportunities planetside, only in space could you be truly your own self. "Did you know I once accompanied Darth Stolas to Belsavis?" the memory of the event was painfully clear. A senator, a member of the Galactic Senate that the Jedi Order was part of as well, represented a planet filled with nothing but slaves and the owners of slaves. The Jedi sat next to slave owners in their senate and yet she spoke of good and evil. "I'm the one that wanted to kill all those slavers, throw them out of my airlock and be done with it." another emotional spike of anger before he turned his head towards the Jedi, offering her his whole face, burnscar included. "Stolas wanted a peaceful transfer of power, leave them in charge-" he smiled as if he just confirmed the Jedi's viewpoint of evil, "-and then phase slavery out altogether."

@Valen Pelora

 

[Alexandria Voran]

Ben possessed depth Alex had not expected. The philosophical musings of a pirate would not have topped her list scholars, but here she was fascinated by the conversation. His pain and anger in the Force were palpable. She understood. Ordinary people felt caught up in a war where the outcome rarely changed their lives. Alex knew the Jedi failed to draw a clear enough line. The solution never seemed to come to her. “So, the ends always justify the means? It does not matter how you arrive as long as you arrive?” She believed the journey mattered. The path made shaped who you were. Murdering and burning to achieve ‘good’ changed who you were.

“You know Stolas has done far more harm than good and what of the others? Raze burned a planet. What good did that accomplish? What wrongs has Asminys righted?” Alex raised her hands before he could respond. “I understand what the galaxy sees, Ben. A holy war between mystics with powers they can’t understand. You know there is good and evil in the galaxy…even if it is not always clear.” She sighed. Her exasperation was real. The balance they tried to achieve often felt impossible. She could be more honest with a captive than her friends.

“We don’t want a war but what are we to do when they come for us? Ossus did nothing to provoke this attack.” Alex turned to look at Ben. “Whatever good the Sith do, will always be balance out by atrocity. And I know the Republic and the FWA are not free from criticism. Is the only way to change that through violence?” She believed changed through compassion was possible. How could they ever do that if the Sith brought war to every world. All that did was further rip the galaxy apart.

@Eccles

 

[Ben Haradan]

Another oversimplification by the Jedi, Ben thought as he listened as she said her piece. "Always?" he asked her rhetorically and shook his head, "No, but did the Jedi not try to do the same thing on Kessel?" their failed attack on Kessel, thwarted by Preef Callo himself with the aid of the Sith, of all allies, was the talk of syndicate space a few years ago.

He continued his walk slowly, "Sending my crew out to do a job, an Ossein crew, meant they didn't have to send a Sith." The implication in that statement should be obvious to the Jedi. By serving the Sith he could avoid atrocities while at the same time keep his crew alive. How many times had he not wanted to beg Darth Asminys to send them instead? The Byblos prisoner massacre was a good example of that. Ben had been ready and the Haradan had been waiting on the edge of the Byblos sector, hiding between an asteroid field, but at the last minute the Sith Lords claimed the operation to favor committing atrocities and their theatrics.

"You know that on the way here I caught a glimpse of the HoloNet news?" the pirate smiled and tapped his right temple as if he was trying to show the Jedi that he was onto her. "You say you don't want to be, but your are still at war, a holy war, I can guarantee you that killing you is the Sith's sole focus and yet you sit here in hidden temples and when the galaxy wants to take away the Empire's armada-" he had raised his voice mid-sentence out of frustration and now paused to give himself a moment to exhale and relax, "-you abstain."

Ben maybe didn't know a lot about fighting galactic wars and compared to the Jedi he may be still a child, but he had never heard someone win a war by doing nothing.



@Valen Pelora

 

[Alexandria Voran]

“What would you suggest I do?” The sharp edge in Ben’s voice was clear. She knew better than any this war was not a choice. “The Force grants us extraordinary gifts. We serve the Light and strive to hold those ideals in all that we do…but the Force is not whispering in my ear what to do. There is no magically guiding Light ensuring we make the right choice.” Her footfalls slowed. This was what the galaxy truly failed to understand. “We are mortal like anyone else. We make mistakes like any else and we have made mistakes.” Max and Hans had started to put the Order on a better path. Talak, in his own way, corrected past mistakes. Alex was confident they were on the right path, but bumps were inevitable.

“As long as the Sith exist, they will come for us, but the Empress wants more than the Jedi gone. She wants her Empire. I’m forced to play an awkward political game.” Alex stopped to gesture around them. “I don’t have an army which means we must rely on others to fight back, and they don’t like the idea of the Order dabbling in their sovereignty.” She was droning on. She knew it. “So, I’ll ask again. What should I do?” The Morellian had made promises. Promises Ben couldn’t possibly know. She would not kill, and she would not make the Jedi into an army. It left her with few good choices.

@Eccles

 

[Ben Haradan]

For a moment, Ben hesitated. He didn't really have an answer. "Abandon your temples," he replied after a moment of thought. "The Ossein Fleets are filled with refugees or the descendents of refugees." he continued, but wasn't too sure where he was going with this as he cast his eyes upwards to the skies.

"The Empress uses your presence on worlds as an excuse to invade them, so" he lowered his gaze to look back at the Jedi, "become nomadic." It was the same thing the Ossein had done, what countless of people had done trying to flee from the previous Empire and the First Order. In fact, even the Sector Rangers had resorted to establish their new headquarters on a spaceship after the Sith kept massacring them on Republic worlds. There was a lot she could learn from Saul, Ben knew, in terms of taking care of a people that is always on the move. The worries, the risks, the lack of medicine and foodstuffs, they could all be mitigated, planned on drive a nomadic jedi to prevent a sith onslaught.

"You either bring the fight to the Sith, or you wait on the edge of space for the free worlds to request your aid." He didn't like his own advice, but perhaps, just perhaps, it was the only course to take if they wanted to avoid unnecessary slaughter. By Corellia, Ben could actually help them fly their mother ship.


@Valen Pelora

 

[Alexandria Voran]

Alex was silent. She rarely struggled to find words these days, but Ben’s advice stuck in her thoughts. It wasn’t perfect…or good…it did make some sense. “That might actually work?” The Order had resorted to a single mobile Temple in the past with mixed results. A model closer to the Ossein Fleets made a great deal more sense. Was she ready to order the abandonment of the Temples? She wasn’t sure. “Andruil’s false pretenses would be gone…it might unite the disparate Alliance worlds.” Alex was thinking out loud, her thoughts churning. “We would need time to prepare, and it is not a perfect solution.” She turned to look at him.

“You can’t feel it, but the Temples are nearly universally located where Light shines strongest. That’s protection a ship cannot provide.” Her face scrunched for a moment. Why did she confine in a pirate she barely knew? The answer was simple but frustrating. She was the face of the Jedi Order. They looked to her for guidance. She could be honest with a stranger in a way she simply could not with the rest of the Order.

“I made a promise to stop us from making the mistakes of the past. We would not become some crusading army bringing war behind us.” Alex met Ben’s gaze again. “But I must confess I am tiring of watching the Sith strike at the galaxy without consequences.” The Morellian Grandmaster played defense. She would not betray her oath. She had to find a different path…she simply saw none.

@Eccles

 

[Ben Haradan]

Ben heard her words, although he didn't quite grasp the part about Light shining strongest, having no clue how the Force worked. "I'm not saying become crusaders," he corrected her with a soft smile, "I said become nomadic."

"The only way the Sith managed to bring destruction on the galaxy unpunished is because they -and the governments that fear them- hide behind their war with you," One only needed to watch the senate and see how fearful worlds were to openly go against the Sith Empire despite all the horrible things it has done recently and in the past. "I may be young," he chuckled, not being used to use that argument, "but as far as I know expansionists are never treated as neutral."

Right now the Sith claimed they invade planets to get rid of the Jedi "terrorists", but take away the Jedi and they're simply invading worlds, expanding an Empire whose principal actors are all known mass murderers that thrive on destruction, fear and death. The argument of neutrality from the senate didn't make sense to Ben, but then again, he had witnessed these atrocities first hand as a willing participant.

"Billions of people suffer from the AMS virus," he reminded her, "your Force probably cries out for them, or is it not referred to as the power of life?" Numbers of infected had only risen after the Empire killed that region's only champion against the spread of the virus. If the Jedi were nomadic and openly traveled the galaxy to provide aid and nurture broken people and broken worlds, then how could the rest of the galaxy stay neutral when they're attacked by the Sith? "There are places you have to be and its not hiding away in these temples."



@Valen Pelora

 

[Alexandria Voran]

Ben possessed a humble wisdom. A perspective not often seen in the halls of galactic power. He showed her the blind spots that slowly grew in her vision. She returned his smile. “The crusades are best left far in the past.” Their history had already traversed that path. She had no interest in returning. “The Force weeps as war and the virus ravage the galaxy.” Alex’s gaze grew distant.

The Force wound of Firrerreo beating in the distance. Great gaping holes pulling her to the centers of infection. She kept her mind sheltered least that pain overwhelm her senses. Alex was a beacon of the Light. That came with a price. More than any Jedi, she felt the aching of the galaxy. “I can show you.” She held out her hand.

“We are all connected…I need only open your eyes.” She paused for a moment. “If you were given a chance to leave the Asminys. Given the chance to silence those tears…would you take it?” She met his gaze earnestly. Her voice ringing with nothing but truth. “No tricks. No traps. Just a chance to change fates.” The Order often lost perspective. They could all feel the waves of the Force. Perhaps what they needed was one who saw things from the ground up. Despite his passion for the sky.

@Eccles

 

[Ben Haradan]

Suddenly there was a lot to unpack and it would be clear that Ben was struggling to understand what exactly was asked of him. "You're asking me to break my word and-" he tried his best to prevent the cynic within him to come out and ruin the pleasant conversation they'd been having, fearful as he perhaps was to return to a cell once the Jedi Order realized that the Free Worlds Alliance has a standing bounty to put him in a windowless cell for years. "-wipe away a tear?"

The war between the Jedi and Sith was not something he could stop on his own. Nor could he stop the terrible expansion of the Empire or the spread of the AMS virus. So what chance did he have to silence those tears? None, not in Ben's mind, anyway. "Fate's not looking to kindly on me now, though, so show me what you want to show me."

This could turn out to be a terrible mistake, but if the Jedi were convinced his fate wasn't dying in a prison cell or getting ripped apart by an angry Sith Lord.. well, that'd be progress, wouldn't it?

@Valen Pelora

 

[Alexandria Voran]

“Yes…to wipe away a tear.” Alex took Ben’s hand, and her soul touched his soul. Physical connection wasn’t always needed but it helped ground her and give Ben a warning. Her mind spread out across the galaxy. She kept the heartbreak of the universe at bay. Otherwise, her mind would break. Her strength was first among Jedi and she felt the march towards Darkness. Ben saw it all. The pain, suffering, and desolation of the galaxy. It was not just the Sith. The virus, crime, poverty all warred against life. The Force wept as the natural cycle was upended. He saw what Alex carried each day. Slowly, she returned them to their mind, taking her hand from his.

“I don’t know what I’m asking…we are supposed to be guardians of life, but the galaxy is filled with suffering.” Alex looked skyward. “Our gifts are great, but our number are limited. And we often lose perspective.” She returned her gaze to Ben. “We forget what ordinary people feel…what men who won’t break their word see.” Honor in a galaxy devoid of it.

“I need help to change all that.” She could not see her path forward. No resolution of the Force. Was she right? “It doesn’t take mystical powers to know how to help ordinary people.” Alex was growing tired of catering only to the powerful. Those she thought could change the tide of the war. They lost sight of why they fought and who truly needed their help.

@Eccles