V.1-C.14│Plans III│

Dathomir.

Nicknamed the 'rancor planet,' Dathomir was considered a temperate and beautiful planet by Human standards, with a varied terrain that included coastal lakes and tar-pits, thick forests and snow-capped mountain peaks, powerful rivers and broad savannas, small icecaps and dramatic rift valleys.

Dathomir had a deep history with many stories revolving a legendary feminine figure that was especially told and passed down through the Darksisters whom are the supposed descendants of such a character.

At that time, however, a rogue Jedi Knight named Allya was banished to Dathomir by the Jedi Council. She took the leadership of the survivors, teaching the ways of the Force to the exiles, and eventually to her own children.

In later centuries, Allya was remembered as single-handedly transforming Dathomiri society, credited with enslaving the entire male population under her leadership, turning the rancors from predators to friends, pets, and war mounts, and codifying her teachings in the Book of Law.

Some accounts even seem to suppose that she was a lone woman within an otherwise entirely male population but in reality, these practices may have evolved over several generations, and the parallel with the matriarchal social structure of the rancors may be significant, especially given the symbiosis of the Human warrior-women and their mounts.

Allya's leadership undoubtedly laid the foundations of a unique culture, dominated by Force-using women who regarded themselves collectively as her descendants, known to outsiders as the Witches of Dathomir.

Over the centuries, the total Human population of Dathomir grew to perhaps just over five thousand, based in a relatively narrow coastal area of one of the planet's continents where more than 90% of the planet remained unexplored.

The Dathomiri came to be divided into a number of reasonably permanent local clan communities, which took their names from significant geographical features such as Singing Mountain, Frenzied River, and Misty Falls.

These clans, each just a few hundred strong, accounted for almost the entire planetary population, but there were also small numbers of exiles who lived outside the clan communities, including the planet's dark-siders, called Nightsisters, who at times existed in sufficient numbers to form a distinct clan.

In total, the clans could probably put at least a thousand warrior-women into the field, each of them a trained Force-user and many of them riding rancor mounts.

Nowadays the warrior-women that come from the Darksisters has significantly increased, at least the potential number of warrior-women have increased. All because of the the introduction and appearance of the boy known as Anakin Skywalker.

The strength of the Dathomiri was discovered by the Jedi Order in around 310 years prior to now, when the Jedi academy ship Chu'unthor crashed into a tar pit on Dathomir.

At some point, Dathomir appears to have been part of the Republic, and was classed as part of Quelii sector, but eventually, it fell into the space under the rule of the Drackmarians which were another matriarchal warrior race, but this time methane-breathing aliens, for whom the planet held little real interest.

A few generations ago, a small group of Iridonian Zabrak's originating from Rattatak, where their ancestors had crashed in a starcruiser, were brought to Dathomir during pirate raids.

When the Human Nightsisters discovered that they could interbreed with Zabrak's, they isolated them to a small part of the planet where they could draw from them at whim. The Nightsisters also sold some Zabrak's and Zabrak-Human hybrids (and even some of their own) to the Rattataki.

Prior to the reign of Talzin, Nightsisters were known to utilize various male castaways for slave labor; Talzin restricted the use of males to the Zabrak Nightbrothers.

That was among may of the things Talzin had changed and it was just the start. With the aid of their benefactor so to speak, they could change the way they do alot of things. Of course they like the way their culture has developed and are unwilling to change to much but many things could be rearranged.

So many things did.

They had not needed to worry about high death counts anymore because of their lack of technology or education elevating their medical knowledge such that could survive.

No, they could do much more then simply survive, they could thrive now and they have been throughout the past four years.

With their population steadily over the years and their progress in educating their children helped tremendously but that have been more then that. They had begun to slowly take over the settlements around the planet no matter how low in resources or population they were.

The reason for this was to increase the pull they had on the planet to claiming themselves as the new rulers of the planet and by having more people the better it is. Of course having a viable military force to back oneself up would help.

That is covered by the Darksisters themselves specially trained warrior-women and the multiple other people they could train in combat. They also had access to the droids graciously given and or if they need more were borrowed and supplied by their mysterious and young ally.

Tribe after tribe they had been at it, slowly but surely establishing their dominance and it sure does help once the supplier they had started giving them ships.

It was very helpful and Talzin had considered why the boy continued to help them, and perhaps had taken an interest in them other then the ritual afforded to him. Of course she was not naïve to think the boy did not have any plans for them it was just the Force had helped here with her visions and she could not see any for him.

At least none so directly connected to him but indirectly she could she how her people would benefit as a whole in the continued relationship with him.

For now there has been no signs of the boy leaving them or abandoning them in the near future considering most of her visions provide her evidence suggesting continued cooperation. Talzin had decided that his cooperation needs to be cemented, set in stone and she has ideas of how to do this.

These ideas of hers may very well break some of the traditions she has kept close at heart and grown up with and has passed down to others but this would be the exception.

She would just have to start increasing communication between both parties and try and set up a meeting, because it would be necessary but it would also be interesting to see his progress, his growth.

[]

Coruscant.

It had been a weird and exhausting few years for the Jedi. Busy had they been with many things but the galaxy at large at least to them was secure, safe and most important of all to them, at peace.

This was not 100% true as there had been conflict happening on and off throughout the many years and they had come into a lull of sorts.

Grown complacent in their position of power and secure in the knowledge that the peace within the republic is continuing must mean their efforts were not in vain. Well from the position of the Jedi everything was going just fine, meanwhile there was a Sith Lord and his apprentice right under their noses.

The Jedi Council had gotten a new member just last year, Ki-Adi-Mundi.

Yes the ever small group of Masters that sit upon the Jedi High Council where only the best of the best, most powerful within the Force and talented ever get to reach.

The members of the Jedi order had many positions within its metaphorical walls, but the most prestigious and sought after would be the High Council. Despite this position there are not many qualified to reach this level.

One such person whom had been qualified to join the High Council went by the name of Qui-Gon Jinn. A Force-sensitive human male, was a venerable if maverick Jedi Master.

Wise and well-respected member of the Jedi Order, and was offered a seat on the Jedi Council, but chose to reject and follow his own path. Adhering to a philosophy centered around the Living Force, Jinn strove to follow the will of the Force even when his actions conflicted with the wishes of the High Council.

Born on the Core World Coruscant, the capital of the Galactic Republic 48 years prior, Jinn eventually learned the ways of the Force as the Padawan of Jedi Master Dooku before ultimately attaining the rank of Jedi Knight.

He would go on to take an apprentice of his own, Obi-Wan Kenobi, who adhered to the principles of the Jedi Code more than his own master.

Although their relationship was sometimes tough, the two Jedi overcame early difficulties during a mission to Pijal, which concluded in Jinn turning down a request to join the Jedi Council to continue teaching his apprentice.

Qui-Gon and his apprentice Obi-Won had recently been ordered to meet with the Jedi High Council for something important.

A meeting was to take place about an urgent matter, that matter being blockade created by the Trade Federation around the peaceful planet of Naboo.

[]

The galaxy at large was first exposed to the planet Naboo in the backwater Chommell sector around 29 years ago, when Subtext Mining discovered rich veins of plasma. Members of Subtext Mining were hired by the King Bon Tapalo's opposition to conduct surveys.

Sith Lord Darth Plagueis, in his guise of Hego Damask of Damask Holdings, visited the world to discuss mining rights. He visited with disgruntled members of the nobility, including Ars Veruna.

Plagueis was able to negotiate with the Naboo to expand their spaceport facilities and build a processing facility on the Solleu River. Outer Rim Construction and Assembly was contracted to build the facility.

As part of the deal, Plagueis agreed to finance Tapalo's election to the throne. Damask's support of Tapalo led to the Nubian's election as king and an opening of Naboo to interplanetary trade. King Tapalo and his chief advisors, led by Ars Veruna, succeeded in negotiating a contract with the Trade Federation to ship out the plasma from Naboo and sell it to other planets along the Hydian Way.

The deal with the Trade Federation allowed a great period of economic prosperity to settle on the Mid Rim world but the Naboo quickly begun to grow dissatisfied with the result: while they sold their plasma to the Trade Federation for fixed prices, the latter could sell the plasma at inflated prices on the open market, reaping much larger profits than the Naboo.

As a result, a great deal of resentment against the Trade Federation developed on Naboo, specifically amongst the Royals who had opposed Tapalo's election to the throne, led by Senator Vidar Kim.

Secretly, Tapalo and his advisors had made a profit themselves for agreeing to the deal with the Trade Federation.

Veruna, upon his election as King of Naboo after Tapalo's term had ended, became intent on forcing a confrontation with the Trade Federation over control of Naboo's plasma resources. As such, he created a corps of Nubian Design Collective starfighters.

He also planned to have the Trade Federation's part in the transport of plasma from Naboo taken over by the Hutts, namely his ally, Gardulla Besadii, whose transports would move the plasma from Naboo to its client worlds, under the protection of Black Sun and the Bando Gora.

The move was opposed by Naboo Senator Palpatine, who later split with Veruna and convinced the young Padmé Amidala, the popular Governor of Theed, to run against the king in the following election.

Amidala's platform concentrated on a renegotiation of the original contract with the Trade Federation while Veruna planned a more militaristic approach. Eventually, Veruna was forced to abdicate and Amidala won the throne by a landslide.

In secret, Plagueis and his apprentice, Darth Sidious, the Sith identity of Senator Palpatine, had manipulated events to cause a crisis between the Trade Federation and its client worlds. With Naboo seeking to renegotiate its contract with the Trade Federation, they had what they needed to throw the Republic into chaos.

Just as they had secretly replaced Veruna by engineering Amidala's election, they placed their puppet, Trade Federation Viceroy Nute Gunray, as the overall leader of the conglomerate by having the Trade Federation Directorate killed during the Eriadu Trade Summit.

[]

'So close. So close to when everything is to begin and spiral out of control.' Anakin thinks over the events to happen in the near future.

'My planning and the practice I have put into my Force related abilities should be enough, so that by the time I want the things I want, everything would go smoothly.'