Wrath of the Outer Rim : Episode I

It took a few weeks, but my part in the Naboo affair was over. The Trade Federation bought back all but four of the Lucrehulks used in the blockade. Three were to be converted into orbital hydroponics facilities. The ships would be gutted of most systems, and several decks are broken down and redesigned to make more room in the interiors. Some of the larger, more expensive components, such as the engines, were ripped out and sold back to the Trade Federation as intact as possible, to be used in the construction of replacement Lucrehulks.

Naboo's engineers were surprisingly enthusiastic about the project, especially since it was being subsidized by the Trade Federation. Republic worlds rarely built new orbitals, minor, unmanned installations like weather and comms satellites not included. To some extent, this was because if you really needed additional space infrastructure, you could almost always simply expand an existing station. Mostly though... the Republic's economy had stagnated. Neither experiencing notable growth or decline. Individual worlds might experience economic boons or downturns, but local planetside economic changes rarely had enough of an impact to affect changes in orbital commerce or industry.

As an example, the newest orbital structure above Kuat was eight hundred years old. Most of the shipyards had been mothballed over the centuries, why order new ships when you could fix up an old one? While my previous life hadn't exactly been spent memorizing the industrial capacity of major shipyards, in this life I was a fully qualified aerospace engineer. I hadn't yet tried designing my own ships from scratch, but I could with my background, and I was successful enough that I could make proposals directly to the Directorate. As such, when I took the time to crunch the numbers...

In the original timeline, I'm not sure Kuat would have actually built any new orbitals until after the Clone Wars were long over. If they simply reactivated and modernized all their mothballed shipyards, they'd have the ability to churn out fifty Venators a month before they had to build new facilities. I suspected Sith interference, Kuat had a long history of designing ships in the Sith-preferred "dagger" style, Bane's descendants would have had a vested interest in ensuring Kuat mothballed rather than decommission any of their shipyards.

As far as Naboo's engineers were concerned, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. When I had left Naboo, they had been drawing up plans to permanently fuse three of the Lucrehulks together to make one large station. In a concerning move, Padme had decided the fourth would temporarily serve as a military vessel until Naboo had its own defensive fleet, at which point it would be converted to some sort of military station. I may have had a bigger impact on Amidala's ideology than I thought.

There were several other stipulations in the treaty as well. Obviously, the treaty as a whole was heavily in Naboo's favor, and while I hadn't been able to prevent the Trade Federation from paying hefty reparations, I'd managed to salvage an exclusive trade agreement for their plasma, albeit this new one was far more expensive and lacked a quota like the original had. I also slipped in a few opportunities to make some of that money back, although it cost a fair amount of credits and would not pay off for years at best. For example, there were promises of loans to Naboo's small but bountiful ranches to help them expand, as well as exclusive rights to export the meat off-world. Still no quota though. Export quotas were a bad idea, and even the Federation's most conservative members were starting to become leery of them. Food was a guaranteed market, not the most profitable thing, but ecumenopolises like Coruscant were always looking for more imports.

Surprisingly, Coruscant and worlds like it didn't have problems feeding their populations. These worlds had massive food synthesizers that recycled damn near any biological waste into "protein bars." There were even rumors that some of the shadier ones would recycle the corpses of sentient beings, something law enforcement was reluctant to investigate for fear of disrupting protein bar protection and causing a food crisis.

Naturally, these bars tasted like absolute shit. Unfortunately, more often than not, even middle-class families often had to supplement meals with them. To say nothing of the estimated quadrillions of working-class and impoverished people on Coruscant, so numerous that the Republic's census boards were incapable of keeping track of them, and refused to try and factor them into official population counts. As such, while it wasn't the most profitable of routes, it didn't matter what you brought, you were guaranteed to earn more than you spent if you brought enough to offset travel expenses.

My personal favorite clause had been an agreement for the Trade Federation to lease a small section of the hydroponics station to use as a testbed for orbital "credit crop" plantations. Most crops could be transplanted from planet to planet without issue so long as the conditions were roughly the same. Some, however, just plain refused to grow anywhere but in their native environments, and would be killed by the slightest difference. My proposal to the Directorate had been that orbital plantations would allow us to control the environments down to the last detail, something that was not possible on a planet. For instance, trying to use gravity generators in the atmosphere was considered a universally bad idea. The conflict between the generator and the native gravity could rip a ship apart. A fixed ground structure could pull it off for short periods of time, minor fluctuations in the generator, ordinarily harmless in zero-g environments, would begin to stack up until the conflicting gravity caused an earthquake. The movement would destabilize the gravity field and promptly rip apart the facility.

The idea of using space stations to grow valuable and overly sensitive crops had come up before in the Trade Federation's history, and there were even a few operational prototypes from before the Neimoidians had taken over. However... for all their economic prowess, Neimodians had a distinctly merchantile philosophy. Wealth was obtained by dominating and strictly controlling the supply. Demand outstripping supply was a good thing; to the merchantile mindset, you did not compete with rivals to find ways meet demands, you used any and all means necessary to destroy rivals and become the sole supplier, even selling goods at a net loss if it meant gaining control of the market and ultimately setting whatever price you wanted.

Neimoidians were not interested in meeting demand, only controlling supply. This had allowed them to eliminate competition at all levels, but it did not generate wealth. As far as the Directorate was concerned, they were richer than everyone else, and that was that. My success with focusing on demand rather than supply, however, had highlighted a crucial detail. They could get even richer.

As I had told Amidala, the newly reformed Trade Federation Directorate consisted of the old guard. People who had been sitting at the top of the pile for a very long time. That said, they had gotten there for a reason. I was doing things differently, and it was working. They were set in their ways, but they were cluing on. Loosening their grip on the economy, just a bit, investing in untapped markets rather than hoarding wealth and letting it gather dust.

My actions had thrown the Galaxy off the rails, the original timeline was good and gone. I had no idea what came next. Given where canon had gone, I probably should have done it sooner.

-----

"As much as I'm happy for the business... doesn't the Trade Federation have its own shipyards?"

I waved my hand in a vague gesture. The contractor sitting opposite of me had an uncertain smile on his face as if my offer was too good to be true.

"Yes, but none of our designers have anything that meets my requirements as closely as yours do. As wonderful as the Lucrehulk-class is... it's a bit much for the routes I had in mind. Our smaller ships are typically not designed for the hazardous conditions of the outer rim. I need ships that are a great deal smaller while still able to defend themselves on the outer rim trade routes. I had been prepared to spend a great deal of time and money having a new line of deep space trade ships introduced when lo and behold, the fine men and women of Kuat have already designed a ship I can use as is. Excellent cargo capacity, strong shields and armor, and a rather impressive armament... I dare say pirates will think twice before trying their hands on these ships!"

The man started to smile more earnestly now. He began typing on his terminal, readying the necessary paperwork. "I can assure you, Captain Montoo, you will get every last credit's worth."

"Oh, don't I know it," I replied with a smile.

Five hours later, I walked out of the shipwright's office, having placed an order for two Venator-class star destroyers.