Faking being scared wasn't really all that hard when faced with the sith, but I knew how things were going to play out from here. Though what had happened was interesting since it had played out very differently than in the movies without actually changing anything. For example, the which was unarmed, but a Hutt would pay a royal ransom for, not that Watto would know, but also yeah he did... Was almost permanently grounded. It would be a year without a tow before the vessel could get back up and running after what had happened to the left engine and it's housing. If it wasn't for the royal chromium alloy the ship would have been completely destroyed. The mix had barely any chromium in the alloy but there was a reason why all the luxurious and powerful Naboo craft had that shiny silver exterior**.
Still, the damage was so great that the cruiser less landed and more fell with style. If it didn't have repulsers installed it would have been just another wreck on Tatooine. But they did, and instead of taking the Naboo cruiser, they gained a . This was enough for a couple of handmaidens, the Pilot, guard Captain Panaka, Padme, the two jedi, and Anakin... barely. Oh that reminded me, I needed to purchase Shmi... discreetly of course. As one might expect, they won the pod race, but this time Amidala bet herself as a slave. This only gained Anakin and Shmi was kept as a slave. Sidious was not yet interested in they had grabbed up a slave and looked at me awkwardly when I had asked. I played it of as interested curiosity as to why they would jeopardize themselves for one and Sidious waved it away as jedi compassion.
So now they were racing up the trade run***. Still, this all falls into Sidious plans. While it would be good if the queen was dead, so he could pin it all on the Trade Fed and make them look even worse, it was of no consequence. The Jedi were no help either, had Qui Gon Jin actually killed the Sith, the council would have declared the Sith order dead again and gone on with their lives. Honestly, with how many with there are running around he was amazed, sure they were not 'true' sith, but can anyone really claim that after the Jedi bombed a species out of existence?**
I knew I had time now, it would be six months to a year before the queen would make her last stand after returning and Anakin magically blows up my command ship. Or at least it should happen that way, however there were many surprises in store. For starters I had all the incompetent captains, that were not on ships I own, off trading slaves to the Hutts. It might have seemed like I had given them the better deal, after all they were able to make side deals, however that was not the case. All of the captains that were left were making a base profit off of shares on all profits made on the venture. This was going to kill the quarters of the captains that left, and in Niemidia that wasn't simply a humiliation. I would own those vessels before they were even able to make five trips, earning me new vessels to add to my growing fleet.
In the Trade Federation loss was acceptable so long as profits flowed. The Trade Federation and the Niemidians were younger than the IGBC, but they still understood general success. This meant that they would prefer you surrendered a frigate over actually damaging it provided that it was ransomed back at a reasonable rate. Of course, you might not get your commission back, or you might find yourself with a promotion, it was all about your connection. I knew that was good for the trade fleet, but it was terrible for the military core, so I was busy working on making that diamond hard core.
Meanwhile various ships in my fleet were being retrofitted as 'battleships'. Quite literally, these ships were having the Rasun Reformations as their design principle. I wanted to throw this out, but we still had years to work within these rules. So instead I had them draw up designs for after the Rasun Reformations were thrown out. Still, what you ended up with was a 'battleship' that was outgunned by the munifecents it was being escorted by, which was in turn outgunned by the average pirate that could get to that class. All of which flowed through Hutt space where they still built the super massive turbolasers without the restrictions the republic had placed upon itself.
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Of course, I was amazed that it lasted for a thousand years. I knew of several races and species that would tear through the republic and even the core, especially from the core, in the coming years without an actual fleet. Some would say it was because of the war that attracted them, I would blame the story maker***. I wouldn't be surprised is Naboo plopped out some ancient sith horror, or the entire planet just became a monster, all to save it's precious heroes. Meanwhile old Nute died, quite randomly and quietly in the clone wars. Maybe he lost his force halo at that time, I was given that he was a pawn the whole time and thus did not have one in the first place. This meant I did not have one.
All wasn't lost however, the thing about having all the Supermans running around was that a little bit of cryptonight actually killed them. As opposed to making them stronger, giving them new powers and just about anything else that was not actually killing them. It honestly made me wonder how the Kryptonians actually died. Was it the kryptonight, or did superman go back in time and murder them all, even the babies in the crib? Probably didn't strangle them with their own umbilicals, but her really was 'capable of anything'...
Now, Nute didn't have a halo, but Sidious does, and he has the Sigurd halo. His only vulnerability is the chosen one and guess what... But that doesn't mean Vador can't make up his mind a bit earlier than he did. Though, it would mean that Palpatine's whole clone thing would have likely succeeded. And since there were like 10 or 20 clones... Yeah, the man just wouldn't die!...
But that was a distant thing. Near future I would have to deal with the chosen one himself. There would be no Gungun army for the little queen, but why would she need one? She had an Anakin. It just meant that they would perform more of an assassins creed vs earth defense force. Still, I had to get rid of some weaknesses. Or did I? Sidious wanted a pet, well then I would be the most spoiled of all. I had been working on making the siege a success, but maybe I shouldn't. A man without shoes and all that...
** So, the reason why the Naboo stuff was all shiny was because it was made with precious or semi-precious metals. These metals did actually have very good armor capabilities, and made good armor, because star wars. This, and the fact that the Naboo vessel was a cruiser and not a common freighter meant it was worth more than a few slaves, but rather possibly a few slave villages. After all, slaves were used as disposable labor when it would be expensive to use droids. Now, there could be something to be said about the value of a slave in Hutt space because there was actually market value and stuff instead of simple, slave #s. Still, there are a lot of holes in this particular arc, and yes it was written by GL. The only thing I can think of that Watto could even be talking about is the value of the part and still, he could have fixed up the cruiser and made bank easy to a Hutt.
** So yeah, the Pias Dia era of the Jedi got super xenophobic and went on a 'righteous purge' and murdered a bunch of xenos species. Of course, none of those species were destroyed as completely as the sith species. There's some explanation of it, and some pandering, but yeah, even the light side can go full 'kill all humans'... wait...
*** So I tried to look up what trade routes Naboo is on and what ones they would be using coreward, didn't go so well. I'm just assuming it's the 'old trade federation route', which I'm shortening to trade run. Anybody that's more weaboo about starwars then me that can correct me or give me more details about it, that would be great... Also wonder why there isn't an interactive SW map yet, particularly one for free and not some book some dude wrote... Because I'm not paying for something I'm writing for free, lol!
*** Good ol' GL personified. I imagine the 'intellect' of the force as two GLs playing a weird star was multidimensional chess/table top. The pieces might be unique, but their classes are all the same, and they both geek out like kids saying 'Mine can do this, fly, and shoot lasers out of it's eyes!' and the other goes 'Nuh uh! That's against the rules! So you can't do it and it didn't happen!' then the other goes starts to cry and says 'It is too part of the rules! Because I said so and I'm telling!' then the other yells back 'Well Fine! Then mine has wind breath, can teleport, and can see the past present and future!' This last one starts the argument again, only reverses the roles. Technically, the two would be the light and dark of the force, realistically neither truly matters, they both want chaos and a good story to tell.
