Joining up, Part I

I've decided to do something a little novel and start a serial story told in records and transcripts. Do feel free, anyone, to write the next installment; I don't know where this is going, aside from wanting it to contact someone from our game (or maybe even in our game) at some point.

Transcript from a rimworld public terminal, 0 ABA, 10th month, 11th day, 1645 local standard time

guest.e02346.4b8>
guest.e02346.4b8>load advertisements.* %filter.temp7

ADVERTISEMENTS.EMPLOYMENT.OFFWORLD.AD1255961
WANTED - Mechanics, technicians, and security for new venture. Risk involved, Imperial record not an issue. Comm 0x8a322 and input code 6a6f696e20746865.

ADVERTISEMENTS.SOCIAL.NONCOPULATORY.GROUP.AD1255962
POLITICAL DISCUSSION GROUP - Join us for a frank and involved discussion of galactic politics, starting on recent events on and near Alderaan and the new 'Jedi Order.' Anonymity available for those who wish it. Comm 0x8a322 and input code 20726562656c20.

ADVERTISEMENTS.EMPLOYMENT.OFFWORLD.AD1255963
NEED TO GET OFF WORLD? - Adventure, the chance to start a new life, work, fortune, and possibility await in the wider galaxy! We can help you work your training and passage without involving enlistment or Hutts! Comm 0x8a322 and input code 416c6c69616e6365.

guest.e02346.4b8>comm 0x8a322

PLEASE ENTER CODE

guest.e02346.4b8>6a6f696e2074686520726562656c20416c6c69616e6365

CONTACTING RECRUITEMENT OFFICER AWAIT FURTHER CONTACT

SEC-COM AUTH ID 42908AURESACO
TRANSMISSION ENCRYPTION SET TO: full
SEC-COM ORIGIN: fleetcom/command/ackbar
SEC-COM DESTINATION: specops/liasion/projectwellspring

Alliance Intelligence SigOp group intercepted a communication between Imperial military satellites in the Sienar and Coruscant systems. SigOp cryptologists were able to break the code; the communication is currently being reviewed in Analysis. This portion was flagged for my personal attention; I am forwarding it to you for review and dissemination to to the members and affiliates of Project Wellspring.

DECRYPTION PROTOCOL X897DA009 BEGIN

Turning now to the matter of the resurgent Jedi Order that has aligned itself (or is wholly part of) the Rebellion. I don't need to remind you of the catastrophic losses inflicted by these terrorists, both in terms of material, personell, and propaganda. Imperial Forces have consistently and repeatedly been unable to offer meaningful opposition to these new Jedi; to the best estimates of Imperial Intelligence their operational success rate is 100%. I have recieved instruction from the highest posts in the New Order to see that this string of disasters comes to a halt immediately.

To wit, effective immediately all Imperial Garrison Forces will be resupplied with specialized equipment proven effective in laboratory conditions as anti-Jedi measures. This equipment will include but not be limited to: stun-net launchers, stokhli-spray sticks, flechette launchers, Golan anti-infantry concussive grenade launchers. Instruction and training in the use of this equipment will be provided as available; where live training is not practical full written documentation and instructional holovids will be provided.

Sector Command Forces for all sectors will organize and equip a specialized Anti-Jedi Fast Response Task Force. These Task Forces will be trained and equipped for anti-Jedi operations and available to all Imperial Forces in the sector upon confirmed contact with a Jedi. Base commanders and security forces will be provided with rotating Emergency Codes to be used exclusively for situations involving confirmed Jedi contact. Misuse of these Emergency Codes will result in full disciplinary action. Imperial holdings designated as High-Risk/High-Value will be assigned full-time Anti-Jedi Task Force units.

Certain Imperial installations will be retro-fitted with enhanced physical security measures designed to neutralize Jedi. Reinforced blast doors with a minimum 4' thickness and electric discharge generators are to be installed in critical areas. Fortified flechette turrets are to replace blaster emplacements. All ground vehicles will be equipped with double-lock systems on all entry points and operational terminals will be reprogrammed to require access code inputs after entry points are engaged. Electric discharge generators are to be installed on ground vehicle entry points where practical.

Research is progressing on cybernetic countermeasures to the abilities commonly exhibited by the Jedi terrorists. Further information on these countermeasures is currently classified and will be distributed on a need to know basis.

The Imperial Knights project has undergone a significant setback, greatly reducing their projected growth numbers. For the time being, Operational Order #4224629 is still in effect and all Imperial Knights are to be given full cooperation by all Imperial military units. The Imperial Knights' primary task to this point has been to serve the New Order as a popular counterpoint to the Rebel Jedi; in the future they will be used as a direct counter to the Rebel Jedi whenever possible.


DECRYPTION PROTOCOL X897DA009 END

It would appear that you've managed to put quite a large bug in the Empire's ear, my friends. I hope you'll continue to do so.

May the Force be with you,

-Adm. Ackbar

Session Summary, 9/27 (Jolee's Journal)

0 ABA, 12th month, day 6

Well, I'm still on the herd ship, the Gentle Sunlight. It's going to Yavin. Be a bit of a surprise for everyone at the academy, I bet. It's slow going, but it's nice and peaceful. And by peaceful, I mean kind of boring.

I spend most of the day just wandering around the forest/meadow/top part of the ship. I don't really feel like talking to anyone. I don't really know Zach, Taryn is a bit... much, Tallia is Tallia, and frankly I'm embarrassed to be around Pel. He saw me break down on the Imperial Knight's ship, and so I'd rather not be around him right now. He's emotionally touchy-feely and I don't like talking about anything.

So, after my last entry, we went a bunch of different places. Some Sullustan Corp. mining station where we tracked the pirates to. From there we went to a pirate hide out. It was probably the dingiest, must unpleasant station I've been on. I met some nice Duros drug dealers though. I have no idea what to do with all this glitterstim they gave me.

So, what happened. Well, on the mining colony we tracked down the pirates, but the trees weren't there. So, we called the Imperials on the pirates so they would flee to their base. After fighting a bunch of Tie-fighters, we did so. Once we got to the pirate base, we went to a little cantina to try to find the main pirate guy. Evidently he's big on explosions. Taryn seems terrified of him. Anyway, almost as soon as we got there, Zach tried some glitterstim the Duros gave him. It was pretty funny.

Side note: I tried glitterstim once. Han found out I hadn't tried any and gave me some, so I "won't be tempted if we ever end up shipping some of this stuff." Chewbacca found me a few minutes later, put me in the med bay, and then yelled at Han in Shryiiwook for an hour or two.

Zach got into a fight when he was on glitterstim. More dangerous and more intereting. I helped the Duros to safety, but was a bit distracted when a bunch of droids with explosives on their chest came. Ended up escaping in an elevator with the Duros and some pirates. Luckily, the pirates didn't know I was with the people who started the fight in the cantina, and I was able to just walk to where the trees were. The others didn't appreciate this when I told them. Not my fault they'd rather kill everything they can see than simply walk away and protect innocent drug smugglers.

Anyway, we found the trees, found a weird Ithorian tending them. Evidently he like experimenting with plant/sentient combinations and it got him banned. He agreed to help us move the trees back to the herd ship, but the head pirate guy came out, Zach (Pel? I don't know. Zach is like a near-human Pel with better hair. Hard to tell them apart,) threatened the pirate dude left, and the Knights showed up. Eventually, after much posturing, they agreed to my idea, which was to take some of the Knights on the Wayfarer with the trees, and some of us on their ship, and meet up at the herd ship and let the Ithorians decide who gets the bacta.

Pel and I ended up with the Knights. We found out from a communication Draco received from someone called "Neida" that they were planning on destroying the herd ship if the Empire didn't get the bacta. I basically called Draco a jerk, he told me to shut my mouth because I was lucky he didn't kill me, blah blah blah, said it was no wonder my famiy was dead, I hit him and then I started crying. It was really very embarrassing. I hate crying in front of people.

Well, the Ithorians gave the Alliance the bacta, Draco turned out to be a decent fellow (he apologized for his comment, btw) and delayed reporting to the Empire until the herd ship had time to mobilize and go somewhere where the Empire couldn't find them, which turns out to be Yavin.

Zach is taking an Ithorian apprentice. I guess she looks just like his "partner" before the carbon freeze. I don't know what "partner" means exactly. I didn't think near humans and Ithorians were into that sort of thing with each other.

Well, I'm going to head off. I scrounged up enough spare parts and equipment, and I'm going to strip Darth Bane's lightsaber and make a new one that's more comfortable for me. I'm trying to keep at least the outside of it intact, since Zach seems to want it, but I'm pretty much going to have to gut it to make a new one.

I wonder if I'll eventually set a record for most lightsabers made and lost in a lifetime.

--Jolee

From the journal of Zane Tardith

This update is from a little bit in the future, but I don't think I'm speculating too much on future events.

From the journal of Zane Tardith -

I found this datapad in the garden and the writing was all weird and loopy like in a historical holo. i asked Quan Hu for a translation program and he was like for what and i didnt want to say so i said I wanted to teach myself hi galactic and he laughed and he loaned me a datapad with a translation program so heres the output. Zach doesnt talk like this but hes been weird since they got back you know always humming or dancing and going for runs in the jungle at night. I dont want to tell Dory everything in here because she'll run and tell Quan Hu i read this and then she'll go on about how smart and kind Quan Hu is and how Jolee isnt so brave and she could go out and rescue people if they would let her.

[BEGIN AUTOTRANSLATION CODEX OUT OF DATE APPROXIMATE TRANSLATION BEGUN]

In this year after the seventh battle of Ruusan One Thousand and Two, on Seventhday of Eighthmonth, I Jedi Knight Zach Ouichee mark and proclaim this record.

It is odd to have another student and odder still one with more than passing likeness to Nalara. Rolana beseems kind and clever, yet still I fear for how the other students will treat her. They have goode hearts for the most part but that whoreson pirate worries me. Perhaps I will ask Pell to talk to him for me; Pell has a sweet tongue and knowes the pirate better than I. Odak is no foole so I think he will know better than to harm Rolana. I must bend my mind towards creating a curriculum as best I can.

My companions are odd but good. I cannot tell if they are oftimes strange of if the death of Aegon has made them so but we all have our strangeness. Taryn and Talia seem heartsick with anxiety sometimes and I know no words to counsel them. I only hope they both will detonate something big enough to shake their fears away. I do not thing Talia knowes what to make of me but she seems stalwart and will see. She strikes me as passing similar to General Onasi only female and not whiney. Taryn was shocked by my taking the glitteringstim but I will be a mare to Mosh the Rancor before I take that again. That hang-over was worse than Sith lightning. She has cared for me in my long sleep and I will watch over her and aid her quest for her people however I am able, for her and in memory of my kinfolk.

Pel has a good heart but I feel that something great or terrible still lies in his future. Jolee vexes my mind, for she is true to herself and at the very center of things yet I have no idea what she feels about those around her. I only hope she will not join those red knights as this new order needs her. Meena I have not sensed for a while now. She is a master as good as cloaking herself as any I have met and with her healing and counsel she is like a Force ghost cloaked in flesh. When she rejoins the force it will be as gentle a change as any who do not fade directly into it.

My hearts worry is dwarfed by my hearts hope though and the stars are alight again with promise and wonder. I have landed in a dark time in desperate need of help but the storm has an eye filled with able fellowes and new worlds to tread. I have a new student who will understand the glory and beauty of the force and I hope to teach another the sabres subtlety. I am hale as ever I was and so I finally feel that I can embark on mastering Vapaad. Mayhaps the less morose and stupid of those red Knights could learn and force be willing the children Tardith will ask me for help with Ataru.

Now I go for to cleanse my mind and work my body. I will need to be my keenest for Vapaad for teaching and for stopping the Sith. I have good work and tools to do it.

May the Force be with us all Jedi Knight Zach Ouichee

[END AUTOTRANSLATION]

Destroyed Journal Entry

0 ABA, 12th month, day one.

Quan told me that even if I didn't want to talk to him about things, I should write them down somewhere. Said something about it being therapeutic. He said that when his father died when he was younger his mother wrote a letter to him, and then burned it. I don't know if it's an Alderaanian tradition, or just a family one. I can't find any paper, but I did find this busted up memory chip. It will have to do, I think it will burn in the memorial pyre they have planned. So, here goes:

Dear Egon,

You idiot. There was no reason for you to do what you did. Did you have a death wish? You always forget about your mortality. Maybe that's where I get it from.

But, you're gone now. My mother's gone, my father's gone, and now you're gone. Every adult that has ever meant anything to me in my entire life is dead. I'm not sure whether or not I'm sad because you died needlessly, sad because you're gone, or sad because I'm lonely.

I know we weren't as close as we once were. I took your announcement of your Force ability a bit personally. You were always the one I felt I could come to what I needed to vent about the force, Jedi, my father.

I remember right after Zane and Dory came to the academy. I thought I wasn't good enough for my father, and that he wanted to replace me. My mother was busy getting them settled in--they were only four, I was nine, she thought I could fend for myself for a bit while she mothered them. I ran to you crying about how they were replacing me with two new children, that they didn't love me anymore. You told me I was being silly and then showed me how to use a hydrospanner properly, and then we fixed up an old speeder bike. Well, you fixed it up and I handed you things and generally got in the way. You didn't mind.

We got closer after my mom died. We both know that my father turned cold and distant, and while you didn't shower me with affection, you were there for me. I was past the age where I needed someone to patch up scraped knees, but you would sit and listen to me talk about things while you worked on your repairs. You were the one who listened as I talked about how irritating Pel was, or how Dory called me ugly, or how Kerrick still didn't know I wasn't a kid anymore.

The main thing is, you were there for me. You always listened. You made me feel better about myself, about life, about what was out there for me. When I talked back to you, I don't think it bothered you. I think you were proud that I was thinking for myself, even if I was deeply and horribly wrong.

You made me the independent, impetuous, and irritating person I am today. And you're gone. I thought you would always be there. I still think you did a dumb thing and it got you killed. But I think that's what you wanted. Not necessarily there, or in that way... but you died serving a cause that you believed in. I still wish you hadn't gone and done that. I miss you.

All of my love,

Jolee

Session Summary, 8/23 & 9/13 (Jolee's Journal)

((I'm trying something new. I've been slacking on the updates because I often mostly only remember things that happened directly to or directly involving Jolee... so I'm going to try to do updates in a Jolee journal style. We'll see how it works.))

0 ABA, 12th month, day 1.

So much has happened in the past few weeks, it's overwhelming. I'm not a very emotionally open person, so I don't like talking about it. But Quan suggested just writing it down without ever showing it to anyone might help me sort out my thoughts. We'll see.

Egon's dead. It happened less than a week ago, on Felucia. There's some irony there. Or maybe symmetry, I'm not sure. We were on Felucia to find out more about some Jedi the Empire has. Zer'ul was linked to the project, and Felucia was linked to Zer'ul, so off we went. The Republic commando that we'd met last time on Felucia was dead, and the native Felucians weren't very friendly. The Mandolarians shooting at them probably didn't help. We did learn that the Felucians were being kidnapped by Stormtroopers.

We made our way to the facility, into the building that we destroyed the last time we were here. We ran into some of the force users, they call themselves Imperial Knights. We saved them from spider babies (creepy things) and then ran into dozens of stormtroopers, some walkers, and Zer'ul, who invited us in for dinner.

I spent most of the dinner talking to Luke... knowing what I do about him, I didn't want him to attract Zer'ul's interest much. Also, philosophy is boring. The force is what it is, and it's what you do with it that matters. Anyway, we learned that they were stealing the force potential from the Felucians and forcing it into kidnapped Alderaanians, who were then trained to use it. Zer'ul agreed to let us take the "unnecessary" Alderaanians back home. I'm not sure what we promised him. I was probably telling Luke about the time I rode a rancor.

So, we're leaving, the Alderaanians are leaving, it's going well, when all hell breaks loose. I'm not quite sure whether it was the Felucians on Rancors, the Mandolorians, the Stormtroopers, Egon, or the Knights. Anyway, shots started to be fired and, well, Egon ended up dead, along with most of the Mandolorians. Luke and I saved several of the Imperial Knights from the thermal detonator Egon dropped, and Obi-Wan took them in. I'm not sure what he's doing with them, or if the Alliance knows we have them.

We're now on a mission to a herd ship to get some bacta. They requested Pel speci

Sorry, pirate trouble. Tallia freaked out over Pel's hero complex. She tried to talk to me today after she handed me Egon's old toolbox. It was bizarre. It did knock me out of my funk a bit, since it was so awkward and strange. Approaching herd ship now. Will continue later, hopefully.

--Jolee


0 ABA, 12th month, day 2.


Herd ships are amazing. It's hard to believe this is a mechanical construct floating in space. We're en route to find some sentient baby trees that are smarter than everyone I know put together and talk to you through vibrations that were kidnapped by pirates. Odak An's old gang. Too bad we don't have a way of contacting him. He'd probably just say something rude anyway. I can't decided whether I think he's a bad person, or if I really like him.

Some Imperial Knights were also on the herd ship. The Ithorians invited them too. Evidently we're racing to save baby trees, and the winner gets the Ithorians support. Seems dodgy to me. The Knight were from Alderaan. They didn't seem half bad. Young, too. Their leader was only a few years older than me, his name was Antares Draco. Reminds me a bit of me. A spacer that we rescued from an attacked ship is helping us find them. He seemed shaky for some reason when we brought him on board. So did Taryn. I wonder what happened when I was in the cockpit?

Will write more later.

-- Jolee

Recovered from Jedi Archives

2 ABR - Order of the Jedi Archives - Liber Jedorum 20238-1A - Supplicant Thesis - Zach Ouichi

A Introduction to Sun-chii, for Padwan and Knights Unfamiliar with the Tradition

Within the splintered and searching Jedi Order, we struggle to redefine the Order and with it, ourselves. We must abandon or redefine many of our traditions, especially our martial mores. When the current conflict is over, we may disband our armies, decomission our navies, and sunder our armor. With the tools of supremacy, bureaucracy, and control we put both ourselves and the Galaxy at risk. We risk the temptations that the Sith embrace.

We will not, of course, abandon all of them. Our lightsabers are badges of station and our final appeal to peace. Our Order teaches and guides us when the force is unclear. Our tradition of Sun-chii joins them, as a valuable component to the Jedi Way.

Few Jedi still practice Sun-chii, old as it is, and many do not even know of it. Here I will explain it for you, for your edification and consideration.

Sun-chii is a contradiction, a compassionate way of making war. Two Jedi form a long term bond, the Sun-ro. The Sun-ro consists of a consular, the more skilled Jedi. That Jedi is the better arbiter and diplomat, and she focuses her lightsaber training on defensive abilities, frequently excelling in the trick of redirecting blaster fire and warding away explosives with the Force. The lesser Jedi is not encouraged, of course, to neglect training, but it is that lesser guardian who hones abilities in offensive lightsaber combat and pure Force use. The Sun-chii consular is worldly and weathered, a friend who can program a navcomputer and navigate a difficult moral quandry. The Sun-chii guardian is a faithful companion who basks in the consular's direction and wisdom, taking the opportunity that surety and security provides to hone himself to a bright edge, moving in and with the force and piercing through complexity and foe alike.

I am part of a Sun-ro, and I would recommend it heartily. I am that lesser, the guardian, and with that I know absolutely my place in the Order and the Galaxy. My consular knows that she will always have a companion and friend, one who will trust and accompany her until his death. Our Padawan have flourished and before we depart on a long journey, I write this to help preserve this sweet fellowship and the tradition that has nurtured it. My consular Knight, Nalara, is too overcome with characteristic Ithorian modesty to pen this.

-- rest of document continues in Liber Jedorum 20238-1B --