Catching up on research

Remembering that they've got a missing Force-sensitive boy who was plugged into a Thule engine until recently, Kedrihm'Val learns from Dalt that he had labs on Naboo, in the Corporate Sector, and another hidden space station, where he stowed the boy. Dalt’s a bit reluctant to turn over information on all his bases (“I might need them again.”), and during the conversation comes up with and idea for Jedi-powered cyborg power armor, which he's pretty keen on. He had the kid working on some sort of arm band or wrist device, but can’t remember details. “Glad I left him a lot of food," he comments.

Ree hands notes on her Anakin dreams over to the Jedi librarian, and tells Luke about the vision where she saw him (or Zann, or Kyp) dead in a battle with the Thule. He takes it under advisement. The Ossus librarians are still researching the Sith space station.

They head to the station, which is cloaked with Dalt’s stealth tech. After hailing, they get caught in a tractor beam, and let it pull them in.

The station is a small one. Droids dressed like Imperial Guards come down to escort them up. The droids have boxes that radiate the Force on their arms. The boy, who has no name and doesn't seem to care that much, thinks Vader was a hero, Palpatine and the Jedi are all evil, and is waiting for orders from Dalt. Doesn’t want to come with them. He’s unwilling to believe anything they say, says that it could all be propaganda, but shows no inclination toward harm or even conflict.

They go back to the Starwind and call Dalt, who says that the boxes give droids minor Force powers. He intended them to eventually work for people too, but hasn’t gotten that part to work yet. Dalt gives them a string of numbers that’ll “make him pliable” (conditioning from the boy’s time as a Thule slave). Dalt seems...well, let’s say morally flexible and still a touch megalomaniacal.

They call Luke and talk to SARR, and decide to give the boy the code and explain about the danger from Thule, that he’s not safe out here. He agrees to come, and is surprised when they show no inclination to restrain him or control his behavior on the ship. They put him up at the temple and offer him freedom to roam, but ask him to keep an escort with him if he wanders outside to the city, since it’s huge and can be dangerous in some places. He says he wants to sleep, then talk to Dalt.

Oola talks to Dalt, who wants to know what their plans are for him. He’s bored and annoyed by the idea of them just picking his brains and riding on his coattails. She distracts him for a bit by talking about walking thrones. Later, he wonders why the Republic has allowed Thule to sit there enslaving Bimmisarri. Oola thinks they still distrust Thrawn too much to act. Dalt scoffs at that. He doesn’t find Thrawn scary, he says. He thinks the Republic has been infiltrated by Thule. “You need to go on an unreasoning witch hunt,” he offers, then suggests setting up the infiltrators by having one of the group voice something in public and see if someone tries to eliminate them.

Ree finds Kyp. “I have a bit of a...personal question to ask.” He gives her a wide-eyed, alarmed look, but she just wants to know how to talk someone back from the Dark Side. “You know, a Jedi is probably the worst person to ask,” he says. “I don’t know any who’ve done it.” He says you have to find out why they turned to begin with. They talk about Ree’s aunt. She was adopted at the age of two by her grandfather...what mission was he on? Endek might know. And Ree’s uncle might know what turned his wife, but her family is so reluctant to talk about it, and they keep telling her that it'd hurt him. If she was at all good, Kyp thinks it probably had to do with something happening to her loved ones. He also suggests she ask Dalt, since he knows Mora somewhat.

After lunch, Ree talks to Dalt. He’s sulky on the topic. He says Mora is mean and completely obsessed with power. Barely notices males, and wants females to be little copies of her. Dalt finds her clichéd: “She’s a not-ugly version of Palpatine.” They kept the special students on Dathomir under her tutelage: the children from the Jedi families, along with exceptionally strong Force users. “I think my virile nature intimidated her,” he opines. She is proud of her daughter, Jude, who won’t give her the time of day. Aunt Mora was already on Dathomir when Dalt got there. He doesn’t know what she did between leaving Ree’s planet and his meeting her on Dathomir. It was her idea to kidnap Jedi families and the house symbols were her plan. Dalt figured they'd be useful to him, so he went along with it, but he doesn't know what the house seals were supposed to be fore. Ree thinks Mora might’ve gotten into her granddad’s records and found information about the gate there. He adds that he wants out of his imprisonment. “I’d be willing to be wrong in order to get out.”

Ree sets to work constructing a timeline. She gets sealed records from her planet and finds that there’s one week missing out of a particular month.

Oola’s homesick.

Kedrihm'Val also starts putting together a timeline. He researches the B’omarr monks, hoping to trace the Skywalker medallion. They’re only about 700 years old, one of the first settlers on Tatooine. The coins seem to be about 2000 years old, dating to just after the Ryssand fiasco when most Jedi died and Jedi order reorganized with the Council first forming, but the Skywalker coin far predates the others, and its prophecy seems to have inspired the Jedi to create the rest. So what did the Jedi know about Ree’s planet and the gate? Ree's planet was settled only 300 years ago. Is the gate not from the Jedi?

Erin and Master Roon look through Senate family records, and the crew talks to Sent’s family holocron about Senator Sent’s relationship to his family. They also set Z on Sent to research and learn all he can about him. Kedrihm and Onna tail the Skywalker prophecies, while Ree keeps pursuing information on her planet and the gate.

Oola talks to her brother. He finds Sent frustrating: “Such a politician,” he says. That seems to be a recurring theme around Sent, actually. Sent’s not very remarkable, her brother tells her. The guy doesn’t trust Jedi. He's very conservative, exerting great influence over the traditionalists. He’s been quiet lately, out of the Senate on vacation since his wife is having a child. They’ve gone to their vacation planet, Chandrila. Took their staff with them and everything, so his place is pretty empty. Oola senses opportunity.

Ree's planet was settled 300 years ago. Her family pops up during the colonization, but aren’t accounted for in any transit records. They and the Sins appear on-planet like they’d been there the whole time. There are no records of land distribution to them, aren’t in transport ship manifests. Her family goes back about 10,000 years. She finds that her planet appears on star charts at the founding 300 years ago, but not 400 years ago...but the solar system was on record about 1900 years ago, and her planet was noted then.

The Ossus librarians interrupt Ree's research with some information from the Jedi Temple: the librarian there learned that the Oracle of Pelgrin is apparently meant to guide the Chosen One in bringing balance to the Force. It was built for that purpose. The prophecy waxed and waned in popularity. During times of war and tumoil, they obsessed over it.

Kedrihm and Onna find that the Chosen One prophecy goes back as far as the Jedi do: 25,000 years. Essentially, when the Jedi started writing, that’s what they were writing about. It’s copied exactly the same then as it’s remembered now. Onna wants to know how Luke fits it.

They find a prophecy regarding the family medallions from about 10,000 years ago. It’s a bit fragmented. Says something about a family that didn’t exist then, a brother and sister, a dark father. Says they join the ranks of the other great families in “preserving a way of life.” The Ossus librarians think there’ll be more on that subject at the Jedi temple. One of the librarians mentions to Kedrihm in passing that “the show will be starting soon.” He has no idea what that means.

They head back to the temple and check in on Kyp’s translation of the Sith hieroglyphs from the space station. He’s been keeping Luke distracted from it. Luke's been working on the Sith coffin that held Darth Whatsisname. Kyp says the wall refers to a being known as “The Leader.” Talks about him as the greatest Sith lord ever to exist. He says it reads like an evolutionary chart of Sith greatness. Vader is “the dark lord.” “The Leader” is a different guy. There’s talk about the Dark Lord returning...is that metaphorical or literal? Kyp wonders if it’s all a Sith misinterpretation of the builders’ original intent, which was apparently “something’s coming and Luke needs to be a Sith Lord to face it.” Kedrihm’Val recalls that most of the station didn’t feel particularly evil.

Well...hey, the two Jedi and their droid from the Rakata ship come from a couple thousand years ago, and Jenn is from around 10,000 years ago, right? Also, it might be worth hunting up the Chiss, who said he’d be sticking around on Coruscant for a while. He might’ve explored the logs of some of the older ships. Perhaps there was useful data on those.

Z breaks into the Sent estate, finding nothing but fairly average stuff for a Senator. On the way back, he discovers what the librarian meant about his cryptic words to Kedrihm'Val: there are ads all over for a holo-vid show called “Primal Justice.” It’s produced by a guy named Yurd Pedron and features Z and Kedrihm'Val in a detective partnership format.

The Jedi from the Rakata ship say the Oracle at Pelgrin was there when the Jedi first landed on Pelgrin. The theory about the Oracle helping the Chosen One was popular in their time. The family coins date from about 2000 years ago, based on the Skywalker coin. They were created to help preserve the Order. When asked about the space station and its signal, they say there are rumors of the “true Sith” being out there. Something to do with Darth Revan, but they're not clear on the details.

Their droid--who seems to be privy to more information than the Jedi themselves, or maybe he just has a better memory--remembers one ship that had something dealing with “true Sith” on it. There are always extra prophecies about the Chosen One popping up, and they were housed in the temple’s databanks. But the old records were lost to the Empire. Maybe the Emperor kept copies? Also, Kedrihm’Val reminds them about the database from the Sith lab they found in the swamp. Maybe the Sith had their own prophecies.

Ree asks about her planet. The droid doesn't have much to share that they don't already know, but something about his manner makes it uncertain whether he’s telling them everything. Kedrihm'Val points out that some of the secrets the Jedi kept, they might never have written down. Ree feels pessimistic at that, but the droid chides her, reminding her that the Force will provide. Kedrihm reminds her of Ben and Yoda’s holocrons. The droid believes those two might have squirreled some things away. And Kedrihm wonders suddenly why Maul was on Dagobah after all. Z says that Drath would know.

They find the Chiss lurking about in bars, bemusing himself with human behavior. He says the Chiss have legends of the True Sith. They’re some ancient evil out past the Rim that tried to make inroads by telepathically influencing people in the Old Republic, but they failed so they wait till they’re summoned back.

Oola finds a set of childrens’ storybooks on the ship the droid named. There are Jedi tales about fighting the True Sith from beyond the Rim: hyper-intelligent beings that the catfish Sith are devolved versions of. A book called Tales of Darth Revan tells his story: he's very Luke-like in some ways. He translated all the Sith prophecies and claimed he figured out the Chosen One thing and that it didn’t mean what everyone thought. Only one book is missing from the set: Jedi Prophecies and Folktales.

They can’t find any copies in the libraries or museums. These books date from a bit after the Mandalorian Wars, which is Jenn’s time period. Maybe he remembers having some of those stories read to him? He thinks he remembers seeing one when he was roaming about in an adult body, but it’s all blurry. Something about a bar, or a nightclub?

Turns out, it’s at the Smashed Holocron! They have a copy in their display of Jedi memorabilia. While Ree makes a duplicate, Z gets blitzed in the record time of 1.5 minutes by downing the Full Council. He runs out shouting “LET’S REEEEEEEEEEEAD!” and flies off with his rocket pack.

The book tells about Revan's vision of the Chosen One. It opens with a drawing of little Anakin. “The Chosen One should be this little failure,” Revan writes, "but it's not." The boy was given every chance by the Force but couldn’t overcome his own weakness. He had a vision of the true Chosen One. Though he didn’t see his face, the picture is of a young man in white leathers standing before two setting suns outside a hut in Tatooine’s desert. Revan believes that ‘balance’ is about the nature of Force as it's active in galactic society: in the government, where it should neither rule, nor isolate itself. Luke and Leia are twins who establish this balance through their interaction.

Revan also tells about the True Sith. He says they are from "beyond the stars," presumably meaning from beyond the Galactic Rim. The Sith were an experiment, he says, guided from a distance. The True Sith will take over from the old Sith when they falter, and wipe them away. Maybe this is why the Sith wanted Luke to be their next Sith lord: because he was strong enough to keep the True Sith from destroying their tradition?

Revan’s droid sounds...awfully familiar. HK-47. An awful lot like SARR. On digital steroids.

So anyway, they know that the Sith tower was a farseeing device and a Skywalker shrine before the Sith got to it, and apparently it was meant to call the True Sith back. But the thing was still built by the Architects, and they still don’t know why the Architects were so obsessed over Luke or the True Sith. Why would the Architects want to summon them?

Ree placed a call with Salek Endek a few days earlier. He calls to say he’ll be there in a day or two. Meanwhile, Erin drops in to say that their records show there should be another Sent. Someone’s unaccounted for, and it follows the pattern of those families who tried to hide members from the Emperor.

Z suggests a break. While Oola visits with her family, Ree relaxes...and has a vision. She watches as a young Obi-Wan drops a baby off with a couple and head out into the Jutland Wastelands. He hides a computer core in a box with some Force-sensitive gizmos and buries it. The vision ends...kind of, but Ree can’t shake out of it. After trying briefly, she gives up, muttering, “It’s really warm here.” Shockingly, Obi Wan hears, spinning to face her. “I hate farseeing,” she says by way of explanation. “This is no kind of farseeing I know,” he replies, approaching her. “You need help?” “No, no. This has already been very helpful. In the...future. Uh. I can’t say more.” A satisfied look comes to Obi Wan's face as he assures her, “You’ve said more than enough." Then Ree wakes.

Endek slides into a chair at her table while she’s having breakfast that morning. He doesn’t know much about the senator, through birth records don’t show anything odd (which could be another issue, he comments), but he knows about the Sents. He and her granddad followed a distress beacon to an asteroid field, where they saw a ship crash, pursued by clone troopers. A Jedi gave them the baby and told them to run, then held off the soldiers, but this was shortly before the Purge happened, so they were quite confused. At any rate, the man was a Sent Jedi, and the baby was Ree’s aunt.

Endek says he told her granddad at the time that she was suspiciously quiet for an infant, and that she had shifty eyes. Her grandfather laughed like he'd told a joke, but Endek says, he was quite serious. He wonders if something was in the container with the baby.

When Ree mentions what they’ve been looking into, he reminds her that he’s a tomb raider. he remembers that everyone always told him to ask Yoda when he asked about the True Sith, which he thought was garbage because the backward-talking munchkin never answered a question straight in his very long life. He knows about the Sith tower, and thinks that some Jedi knew about it too. Ree’s confused by that--wouldn't they have told the other Jedi?--but Endek reminds her that while the Master’s Council knew just about everything, other Jedi didn’t always talk. And the Council started acting really weird when they lost the ability to see the future. It was almost as if they didn’t want to make a move move till they could see the outcome.

She asks about the Chosen One prophecy. His exasperated reply: “I have found prophecies on every Jedi wall of every Jedi crapper... Most of them fit your Luke. He’s always fighting some goddamned menace. Or he is some goddamn menace. Or Kyp is a goddamn menace.” Ree's surprised by that too, but apparently blowing up a solar system gets you prophecies.

Speaking of which, he speaks on prophecies: “If there’s anything you need to know about Jedi, it’s that knowing what’s going to happen before it happens always leads to problems. You always try to change it.”

On the Architects: “The Architects were crazy shithouse mad enough to call the True Sith so they could throw down with them. They left because they got bored.” Bored? Yep, bored. they moved planets around, rebuilt the galaxy, created all kinds of superweapons, and eventually just wandered off to find something else to do. But, Endek comments, the galactic society they've got now could trash the Architects. They never had anything like the Skywalkers.

On Imperial propaganda: They painted the Emperor as a grandfatherly old man, they talked up the Imperial fleet as a noble enterprise, they advertised the Death Star as a boarding school for orphans, but “they never tried to make Vader anything other than what he was: a 7-foot-tall house of pain.”

Leading to his opinion on the Skywalkers: Leia seems stable, sure, and Luke's nice enough, but “The Skywalkers are entropy with Force sensitivity.” He suggests Ree not forget that, because things will undoubtedly turn for the worst otherwise.

She asks him what he knows about the gate on her planet. “'Heart of the living Force,' the Jedi called it. What is the living Force, Ree?” He knows it’s something about bringing the dead back to life, but he guesses that to be a metaphor, that it’s a repository of knowledge...but of course, such repositories sometimes house things like superweapons.

They argue over Ree’s fame. She thinks it’s a fad, but he wants her to understand. He takes her out for a couple of hours to show her how famous she really is, and what an inspiration she is to people. “It’s ridiculous? Imagine you’re a kid. Would you drink from a Luke cup? If you had one, would you drink from it every morning at breakfast? ‘Cause I drank from an Anakin cup and he ended up killing people!”

On Ree’s aunt: “I have to at least try to save her. She’s my aunt!” “Oh, yeah, you drank from a Luke glass.” He thinks Mora was jealous of Ree’s mom, who was kind and friendly and popular. Mora intimidated and bossed people. He says that to save her, Ree needs to find something she cared about. She needs someone to be as directly honest with her as possible.

All told, Salek Endek is bitter, snarky, and jaded, and admits it. This, he says, is why he spends more time in tombs than with people. And it becomes clear why Ree's mother holds her opinion of him.

Ree talks to Luke and tells him Dalt’s suspicions about Thule infiltration in the government. Luke ponders that, considering using Dalt as bait (with Dalt’s permission, of course) by nosing about that he’s regaining memories. It would be dangerous...and Ree's not willing to risk Dalt.

Kedrihm'Val asks Dalt about the Force boxes on those droids. How do they work? Dalt seems to have a good idea why he's asking, and explains that the boxes draw in ambient Force energy and collect it, then interface it electrically with the wearer's nervous system so they can use it. This is easy enough to do with droids, but it killed most of the organics he tried it on. Mostly. Pressed further, he admits that he ended up with three cyborged psychopathic possible Force-users after testing those boxes, and gave them to Maul for bodyguards. Speaking of whom, neither Dalt or Kedrihm’Val really think Maul’s dead. Dalt thinks Maul’s gone underground and is being subtle. After all, he was a physical monster of a man, but he was also a genius. Dalt’s very...admiring of Maul. I mean, really admiring. Uncomfortably admiring.

The group decides to ask the Kenobi holocron about the gate. The Jedi don’t seem to like talking about it, but Obi Wan always seemed practical about people needing to know things. And he is, but he mostly repeats what they already know. Says maybe the Emperor got a copy from the recordings in the archives. He's able to tell them a bit more about the Sents, though. He knew the Sent family had a baby girl and an older boy who was a Jedi. The Emperor kept the Sent family distracted, constantly sending them on missions across the galaxy, but he recalls that they did find something at right around the point of the Coruscant invasion.

They thank him and talk to the Sent family holocron. Tal Sent tells them the oldest brother was a Jedi. Dalt and Mora were twins. The Emperor knew about Dalt, but they hid Mora. Raasik Sent is a much younger brother, and the holocron believes that he still has his parents’ diaries.

Z immediately flies off. Realizing what he's got to be heading off to do, Ree shouts at him to come back. An argument ensues. Ree insists it would be illegal and wrong, while Kedrihm'Val points out that it would be recklessly obvious to fly to the Sent house to break in. Z keeps repeating the phrase “stealing the diaries from Sent’s house” till Kedrihm asks why he keeps saying it like that. Onna suddenly exclaims, “That comm is on! Oh god, SARR!” And then everybody starts talking at once. Kedrihm'Val, noticing that SARR’s not really listening to the demands that he not rob the Sents, orders, “SARR! Don’t kill anyone. Don’t harm anyone.” Which, SARR says, sounds like permission to him. The Sent holocron wants the diaries since he says he’s supposed to be an archive of all the family’s history. SARR asks about copying instead of stealing. Oola sends SARR the house codes while everybody argues. Ree starts scolding them all for being immoral, and right in front of her! A moment later, SARR’s voice cuts back in saying, “Download incoming.”
Ree: “You stole them!”
SARR: “No.”
Kedrihm'Val: “He convinced a house droid to copy them.”
SARR: “The kitchen-bot is terrified of me. She won’t squeal.”

The Sent family had a vision about twins saving the galaxy. They assumed that meant Dalt and Mora, so they put it into both their heads that they were important and needed to do important things to save the galaxy. Then they spirited Mora away, but the Emperor got hold of Dalt. Which explains why Mora and Dalt both have inflated senses of importance.

Then they take some time to brief the holocron on Dalt's family on Miraluka. Ree leaves a note with the Council regarding Dalt’s crazed cyborgs and the hidden Maul bases.