thisavrou | video; backdated to 05/20; locked to Padmé, Satine, and Zam

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star wars: satine kryze

video; backdated to 05/20; locked to Padmé, Satine, and Zam

[ Returning from Amissis-Re, Obi-Wan has never been more relieved to be riding with Anakin — a feeling altogether foreign most other times. At the moment no one is piloting transporter 002 in any meaningful way. They are, in fact, taking the long way back, and by way of abusing Skywalker's status, which affords them a little time to formulate a crucial warning.

No doubt, they both feel the heaviness of certain burdens. The trip through the Alter-Ingress had been both terrifying and sobering. The information they now find themselves in possession of is like a great mountain atop their shoulders — more so Anakin's, it seems, if his distant expression is any indication. It's why Kenobi doesn't hesitate to take the lead. ]

If you can spare a moment, we— Anakin and I have discovered information we feel is necessary to be shared and further disseminated going forward. Please, it's important.

[ On a locked frequency, the message is only for a very select few — those who would be most greatly affected by the information. ]

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[Zam wasn’t expecting the other Jedi to join the conversation, at least not with her, but she isn’t fazed for long.] So you’re saying all it took was one man giving the word and the rest of the Senate turns a blind eye while he wipes out the Republic’s own allies in the middle of Coruscant? [Zam may not be the most politically astute person in the galaxy, but even she can tell this isn’t how the system should work. Why attack the Jedi when the Republic already had the Separatists spoiling for a fight? It was like cutting off your own hand when you already have a blaster pointed at your head.]

That can’t be the whole story. Either the Chancellor staged some sort of coup or… [Or the Jedi did something to provoke the attack. Given current company, probably best not to repeat that particular suspicion aloud.]

It isn't the whole story. We don't have the whole story — we were too late for that.

[ The only reason Obi-Wan believes this could be the obvious outcome to their future (two-thirds of their futures, at least) is because the pieces fit together almost perfectly with all of the other information he's received from credible sources. As credible as he believes them to be, at least. ]

We now know the Chancellor is a Sith Lord. We engaged several aggressive clone troopers that appeared to be following orders to kill us. We've seen the Jedi temple in ruins.

I think a coup is the obvious answer, but the underlying mechanisms—

[ He'll need to think on that, mostly because he hasn't had a second to weigh his memories of Palpatine against this new information. ]

Clone troopers? Since when does the Chancellor have clones at his beck and call? [This just keeps getting more and more bizarre.] You're sure this was our galaxy, right? Not some fusion or... I don't know, alternate version? [She herself has been visiting fusions almost exclusively in the past few jumps. It would certainly explain the strangeness of everything the Jedi is describing.]

I had initially believed that to be the case, but there are certain similarities I can't ignore.

[ The Force hadn't changed, and as much as Obi-Wan would like to think it permeates all universes in the same way, he already knows from his time on the Moira that isn't the case. ]

We learned of the creation of a clone army not long after your death. I traveled to Kamino where they were commissioned.

[ Kenobi shakes his head. The timing wasn't convenient, it was planned that way, he realizes far too late. ]

The Kaminoans cooperated, but I did chase their prototype to his eventual end. He seemed to have something to hide.

[There’s a palpable silence on Zam’s end of the conversation after Obi-wan mentions Kamino. Slowly, the pieces start to fall into place. The massacre at the temple. A clone army from Kamino. And a bounty hunter with a decades long grudge against the Jedi.

Zam had known the Kaminoans were using Jango’s DNA for something, had even known that it involved clones. She can still remember, of course, the cruel trick Jango had played on her, using a cloned child’s body to convince her, just for a moment, that he had killed his own son. But not even she could have guessed the scale of what he’d taken part in.

Her voice is quiet when she speaks again.] Jango Fett… He was the template, wasn’t he?

[ The pause is reflected back, Obi-Wan's silence as telling as can be. He sits forward, closer to the transmitter, his voice turning grave but still curious. ]

Yes. [ And then a further thought: ] You were closer than originally suggested. Was it just a job as you'd originally said, or is there more to it than that?

[Zam’s already bristling before he even gets to the question.] That’s really none of your—

[She cuts herself off with a scowl. Except it is his business now because Jango had to go get involved in… whatever this was. Clone armies. The Chancellor. Genocide.]

He didn’t tell me about any of this. But he’d been living on Kamino for the past few years and had reason to hate the Jedi. Wasn’t hard to guess he was the template. [She had thought he had chosen to live on Kamino because it was isolated – a safe, unknown place to raise Boba without any of his enemies even knowing of the boy’s existence. But it seems that had only been a sliver of his true intentions. If he had been hiding this under her nose the entire time, she must have been even more a pawn than that she had realized.]

[ Well, that answers his question, doesn't it? ]

What reason did he have? Do you believe he— He wasn't wittingly applying himself to this scenario, was he?

[ Now there are some further implications he doesn't want to consider. How could that potential hatred have been duplicated? Obi-Wan doesn't think so, but the Kaminoans are the cloners, not him. ]

He couldn't have known the Jedi would be targets, not all along...

I don’t know for sure. But Jango Fett of all people just happening to be in a position where an army wearing his face would massacre the Jedi a few years down the line? That would have to be one hell of a coincidence.

[It’s possible, of course. But what snippets of information she could tease from the bounty hunter about his past make it hard to believe that this could have been an accident. Not completely, anyway.]

Jango Fett isn’t -- wasn’t a simple man. Even if he sometimes acted like it.

He wasn't very simple as he tried to blast me to pieces on Kamino, so I don't have a problem believing that.

[ And then, a further thought: ] He had a boy with him at the time. An unaltered clone, they told me. I'm not sure what happened to him.

[Zam knows. Her recent trips through Amissis-Re’s Ingress had provided her with answers: namely, that Boba and his father had been chased off Kamino and that Boba had successfully evaded Republic capture for at least a number of months. It occurs to her now that Obi-wan is likely the one who did the chasing. She feels an instinctive anger at the Jedi, just as quickly followed by scorn for the emotion. Why should she care what happened to her killer or his son? They weren’t her family, not really. And yet...]

He doesn’t know anything. [Zam doesn’t know if it’s true, but she says it with practiced certainty.] Jango wouldn’t have told him anything that would make him a target.

[ Obi-Wan isn't entirely certain he's willing to believe that, especially after having some direct contact with Boba. He very vividly remembers nearly being blasted apart on Kamino. And let's not talk about that whole prison altercation... ]

Regardless, Jango appears to be central to this entire endeavor. If I have more questions in the coming days, may I bring them to you?

[There’s a pause as Zam considers. And then:]

On one condition: whatever you learn, you share it with me.

[Woah. Look, whatever he might think about this: and it's nothing great, that's a massive request, regardless of the context.]

If it's pertinent.

["Whatever" means a lot. Come on, Obi-Wan, how is this an equal exchange here?]

[ Obi-Wan tsks over the audio feed, but cuts back in smoothly. ]

Of course. I'll be in touch.

[ Notice he didn't say we'll be in touch. ]

[Zam frowns at the other Jedi’s grumbling protest in the background, but fortunately Obi-wan doesn’t seem to share his companion’s reservations -- at least, not out loud.]

Thank you. [There’s the faintest hint of smugness in her tone, despite everything. Just for you, Skywalker~] Hopefully, we’ll both get some answers out of this.

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video; backdated to 05/20; locked to Padmé, Satine, and Zam

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