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           Her face is wet with tears, but it feels as though her entire head might split open from the sheer force of her smile.

           (They’ve won. The plan actually worked and they’ve won! She can barely believe it!)

           What they’re getting on comms is still somewhat garbled, but it’s clear that the Trade Federation’s droid armies have all been disabled by the destruction of the Trade Federation’s main battleship and its Central Control Computer (no one is claiming responsibility for it, yet, but reports indicate that a Naboo Royal N-1 starfighter definitely flew out of the Lucrehulk-class Droid Control Ship as it was already beginning to explode, so it seems clear that someone on their side has managed to pull off what amounts to a miracle for Naboo). Apparently, it’s as though someone has simply suddenly pulled the power cord on everything, from the individual droids all the way up to the armored tanks. The Gungans are reporting victory and, with Gunray captured, Theed Palace is theirs, which means that the city and the province (and, thus, the whole world) will follow.

           She’s honestly just starting to think (to hope) that maybe they’ve actually pulled this off (that they’ve won, that the fighting is over and no one else is going to have to be hurt or killed to win back their freedom from the oppression of the Trade Federation) and that everything is going to be alright, now, when she suddenly hears a harsh indrawn breath behind her, as though in shock or pain or both. Normally, a noise that soft wouldn’t necessarily register on her; Sabé’s been working with her lately on situational awareness, though, and, perhaps more importantly, less a heartbeat later the sound comes again, only much louder, as though multiple individuals have all simultaneously been shocked or startled or wounded into drawing a breath, and that’s enough to thoroughly catch her attention. She turns slightly away from where she’s been firmly dictating the terms of the new treaty to that mhalldaichte phéist of a mná, Gunray, just enough to see that, at some point during their discussion, Sabé has brought Eirtaé and Rabé (and several other guards) back into the throne room.

           Sabé looks positively stricken – Eirtaé actually has a hand on her shoulder, as though to brace her upright on her feet, while Rabé basically hovers over them both, all but wringing her hands together in distress – though she cannot see any visible marks of physical injury. Her first thought is to demand to know what’s wrong (and what she can do to fix it), and only the fact that Sabé’s right hand is rather emphatically signaling her to not react keeps her from immediately turning all the way away from Gunray and going straight to her handmaidens. She forces herself turn back to Gunray through sheer power of will alone, but cannot quite keep from being brusque and at least a little bit distracted (thankfully, she’s had a revised treaty ready for Gunray since shortly before landing on Coruscant and, given the circumstances, he can’t exactly try to argue or weasel his way out of agreeing to exactly those terms). As soon as the Neimoidian and his posse of sniveling hangers on have finally been dealt with (dozens of their people have made their way to the throne room, by then, so Panaka is able to send what seems like an entire troupe of his best guards to escort them to a suitable cell in the ancient dungeons below the old heart of the Palace complex), she turns towards Sabé, striding over to her and demanding to know, “What is it? What’s wrong?”

           Sabé is so pale – even under the makeup – that she looks as though she might be sick. “I fear something terrible has happened,” she replies, voice low and dull. She’s hugging herself hard enough that her shoulders are hunched inwards at an almost painful angle, and, to either side of her, Eirtaé and Rabé stand, physically bracing her, each one supporting her by an arm, as though afraid she might faint dead away or else simply fall into the floor without their support. When she looks up, her dark eyes are wet with unshed tears as she miserably explains, “I could swear I heard Bendu Kenobi screaming.”

           “Has anyone been in contact with the Jedi?” Padmé immediately demands, turning back towards Panaka and the other guards. She’s not one who’s blessed to be able to touch (and to use) the living mantle of power of Asherah, the Great Lady of Life, Goddess of Seas and Stars, but she’s well aware of the fact that Sabé (like many native Nabooians. The distrust between Nabooians and the Jedi Order has almost certainly stood for so long because Nabooians tend to be more strongly Force-sensitive than most average humans or near-humans and yet are entirely uninterested in becoming Jedi, in essence culturally dissuaded from willingly sending their younglings to the Jedi to train) quite assuredly is, and she’s so utterly used to trusting Sabé’s feelings about things – not just her intuition, but the whisperings of the criosanna teinedíait in her very veins – that it doesn’t even occur to her to doubt that her beloved’s right and something truly awful has happened. “Do we know anything about how their battle has gone?”

           Panaka (who’s been listening to the comms and at least attempting to keep them all informed of what’s going on) raises one hand in a fairly universal manner to request a moment, clearly listening intently, before eventually offering, “They seem to have pursued the creature out of the hangar and into the Theed power generator.”

           “The Plasma Refinery Complex?” Padmé asks, utterly aghast at the thought of a running fight in anywhere near the main reactor. Between the seemingly bottomless extraction shaft and its mazelike crisscross latticework of catwalks, the twelve acceleration shafts for the plasma, and the facility’s main activator and purification chamber, with its safety corridor of constantly cycling laser gates (in case of potentially dangerous levels of energy output), combatants would be in constant danger of being separated, becoming disoriented and lost, and in simple danger of falling from what would amount to immense heights. Short of battling it out in an actual river (or the edge of a waterfall), she can’t actually think of a worse place on Naboo for a fight.

           Panaka grimaces as he nods. “There’s safety footage from the power generator facilities, but it’s taking some time to pin down which cameras need to be accessed to accurately trace their path. One of our teams is on it, already, since we don’t want the Sith to escape,” he explains (and that makes sense, both because the Sith is a virtual unknown and a major potential threat and since the power generator, itself, is just two buildings over from the headquarters for the Royal Naboo Security Forces, so that it’s members can better guard both the plasma being harvested and refined for use and the refined plasma being stored in the massive drum-shaped holding tank that’s literally next door to the power generator. Plus, the Trade Federation’s interest in Naboo has always pretty much begun and ended with their plasma, so securing the Plasma Refinery Complex has always been their next immediate concern, after taking out the Droid Control Ship and seizing Gunray and, thus, the Palace). “We know they all went in; we don’t know, yet, if any of them have come back out again.”

           She lets herself close her eyes for a moment and just breathe before replying. “If the Sith is still at large and fighting, then our victory here is incomplete and potentially little more than a minor setback for our enemies.”

           Panaka nods in agreement, a little reluctantly. “I agree. But Highness – ”

           “We will just have to go and see for ourselves,” Padmé firmly interjects, cutting him off before he can finish giving whatever excuse it is that he’s wanting to give for keeping her away from those facilities, deliberately adopting what she and Sabé refer to as the royal voice for emphasis. “If our Jedi allies need us, then we are honor-bound to provide our aid, if only in response to their earlier support and protection.”

           Panaka sighs but inclines his head. “Yes, Your Highness. I’ll tell the tech to keep looking through the footage, though, just in case.”

           She nods regally and waits a few moments for Panaka to comm in his orders before heading towards the doors, allowing guards to proceed and to essentially surround her, sticking determinedly by Sabé, Eirtaé and Rabé on their heels.

           They manage to make it just over halfway there before Panaka signals for a halt, hand to his ear as he listens to his comm. Face grave, he tells her, “They’re at the main activator. The Sith’s apparently been dealt with, but Master Jinn is down. He doesn’t seem to be moving.”

           “Dhiabhail!” she curses, quietly but fervently, eyes slipping shut, even as she hears Sabé suck in a ragged breath in shock (as though she’s been punched in the gut) beside her. A moment later her eyes fly back open as she demands, “Obi-Wan?”

           “He’s the one who cut the Sith in half,” Panaka explains, sounding a little impressed, in spite of himself (but then, Panaka hasn’t approved of or trusted the Jedi at all, not this entire time, and, as she well knows, he can hold a grudge. He’s not likely to forgive Master Jinn for anything, simply because he’s fallen essentially in the Queen’s service, nor is he likely to warm towards Obi-Wan now, just because his Master has been slain). “He doesn’t seem to be injured – not visibly, anyway.”

           Sabé’s sigh sounds like a sob. “He’s never going to forgive himself.”

           She only just manages to swallow back a reflexive, I’m sure it was Jinn’s own damn fault, the arrogant bastard. She sighs, even as she rather furiously thinks, All that blasted foresight and knowledge and power, but he couldn’t stand to ask anyone else for help or advice and the whole damned ’verse would end before he’d ever admit that another way than his own chosen pathway might actually be the preferable tack to take. Scowling, she declares, “We won’t let him blame himself. Come on. It may not be too late. Call for a medic!” she throws over her shoulder at Panaka as she takes off at a near run, Sabé automatically keeping pace as she hurries towards the area informally known as melting pit.

           They very nearly make it – she can see Obi-Wan, kneeling on the floor like a statue, next to his fallen Master – before a small tan colored blur races past them, so quickly that her eyes honestly can’t quite more than a blurry blob of motion.

           Obi-Wan stands in one long oddly graceful unfurling of motion, just in time to catch a sobbing Anakin Skywalker as he hurtles himself into his arms.

           She stops, startled and taken somewhat aback, and her handmaidens and the guards (about half of them Palace Guard and the others Security Guards or Security Officers, a mass of reds and oranges and maroons and blues all rushing in her wake) all stop moving with her.

           Anakin is sobbing like his heart is breaking. “I’m sorry – I’m sorry! I stayed in the ship, but the ship didn’t stay put!” he wails, the words slightly muffled against Obi-Wan’s shoulder.

           Obi-Wan holds Anakin with an oddly almost detached tenderness, cradling him securely against his larger bulk but not seeming to know what to do with his hands. Anakin clings to him like a Kowakian monkey-lizard, legs wound securely around his waist and arms visibly all but strangling tight around his neck. Obi-Wan kind of . . . pats at him, awkwardly but kindly, even as he makes a sort of odd half crooning hushing noise. “You did very well, young one. I know he would have been proud of you. The Force took you where you most needed to be, in that moment, and was able, thus, to work its will through you,” he murmurs, just barely loudly enough that Padmé can understand what he’s saying over the sound of Anakin’s disconsolate crying (his voice hoarse, as though he’s also been sobbing . . . or screaming).

           “I didn’t – I wasn’t – I didn’t mean to – ”

           “You took out the Droid Control Ship, which took out the Central Control Computer and so deactivated all the battle droids and armaments of the Trade Federation’s droid armies,” Obi-Wan calmly proclaims, and Padmé’s so shocked that she gasps gracelessly, staring at them like some thunderstruck yokel. “You did well, young one, honestly.

           Anakin half screams and half sobs, “But I wasn’t here! I didn’t make it in time! I couldn’t help you and Master Qui-Gon!”

           “But you helped with the Trade Federation ship, which in turned deactivated the droids, which saved our Gungan allies and inspired Nute Gunray to surrender peacefully,” Obi-Wan calmly but firmly insists (and seriously, how in the frakking hells does he even know all of that? Does the fact that he’s a Jedi mean that the Force skips straight past the relatively gentle nudging and hints of feeling and presentiment to essentially whispering in his ear like a voice on an open commlink?). “The day has been saved, for Naboo, in large part because of your efforts.”

           “I could have helped! I could have – I could have helped him, but I – I wasn’t even – ”

           Obi-Wan makes a hushing noise and stokes his hand firmly down the length of Anakin’s back. “No, you couldn’t’ve. You would’ve only been in danger, too, and driven him to run ahead of us all the harder.”

          Sabé’s right hand tightens convulsively around her left hand, at that, because of course Padmé’s right and apparently this actually was that mhalldaichte arrogant idiot’s fault, because evidently it is her lot in life, now that she’s Queen of Naboo, to have to deal with this kind of insanely ridiculous deàrgámadí dúr focáelirí all the bloody time. (She’s not even surprised. What does that say about her – about the kind of life she’s been living, since she became Queen – that she’s not even capable of being surprised by this kind of sheer idiocy, anymore?)

           Goddess bless, she just really wants to smack the life back into Qui-Gon, right now.

           Anakin, of course, just keeps sobbing, brokenly apologizing for not being able to help save Master Jinn from the Sith and for thinking that, since the autopilot took his ship straight up to the Trade Federation’s battleship, he should go with it and try to help by firing everything he possibly could, while inside the battleship’s own shields, instead of immediately fighting to get back down to the surface and to them, which, of course, leads right back to him blaming himself and apologizing for not having been better and quicker and for failing to get to them in time. Obi-Wan keeps making that oddly flat, not quite crooning hushing noise, one large hand circling slowly over Anakin’s shaking back, awkwardly trying to offer comfort, until eventually Anakin mostly just cries himself out. Obi-Wan pats as his back awkwardly as the boy half sighs and half hiccoughs tiredly against his shoulder, slowly murmuring, “It will be alright. You’re overtired. You need to rest. Everything else can keep, for now. Go to sleep, Anakin. Sleep. We’ll work out what to do later.”

           Her eyes actually glaze over, at the command to sleep, and it’s not until Sabé physically jolts against her that she realizes she was actually about to just drift off, right there, standing on her feet. By the time she’s finished blinking herself back to full awareness, Anakin is out like a proverbial light, slumped seemingly bonelessly in Obi-Wan’s arms. She’s still staring at them, wondering if that wasn’t some kind of Force-suggestion (the Jedi are able to use the Force to influence the weak-willed, she knows, but can they actually do the same thing to those who’re as strong-minded and self-aware as Anakin Skywalker?), when he shifts around, slowly but surely (moving Anakin up to his right hip as he turns, so he can free a hand to wipe off his own face, rubbing away the signs of his own tears, before facing them), until he’s looking at them (instead of out at the melting pit, so that Anakin’s face would be turned away from the sight of Qui-Gon Jinn’s body). There’s a crowd of them – her and Sabé and Rabé and Eirtaé and a double handful of guards under Panaka, plus three fighter pilots, who’d apparently been following Anakin – though he hardly seems to notice, his gaze (gray as a winter storm and cold as death) fixed at some empty point somewhere between her and Sabé. “Forgive me,” he murmurs after several long moments of silence, chillingly dry-eyed and composed. “Do you require my aid?”

           Padmé automatically starts to reach out to him and about three things happen all at once. Sabé sucks in a breath and yanks, hard, to keep her from rushing forward, like she intends to; Panaka’s commlink trills unexpectedly to life; and Obi-Wan flinches as though struck, half drawing away (clutching Anakin protectively towards himself), right hand drifting down to the lightsaber hilt (but not the same lightsaber hilt he’s always carried. Is that actually Master Jinn’s lightsaber? Where’s Obi-Wan’s lightsaber?) secured at his belt, as though in response to a threat. She’s so startled she lets herself be held back and distracted by the noise, waiting a few moments for Obi-Wan to relax enough to realize that he’s not under attack, before finally earnestly and quite formally offering, “Apologies, Bendu. We grieve with thee. Master Jinn’s death is a grievous loss. We only want to try to help make things easier for you.”

           Obi-Wan tilts his head in a considering manner, but then he just sighs, “There is no death; there is only the Force.”

          Sabé very clearly growls, if low and under her breath, and she perfectly understands and shares the sentiment. There’s quite a lot that she wants to say, in response to such obvious shaak-shit, but Theed Palace and the planet are honestly only nominally regained (there’s likely chaos breaking out all over the planet, now that the droids are down) and, unfortunately, with Qui-Gon Jinn’s likely still cooling body just behind them, it’s fairly obviously not the time to try to get into an ethical argument with Obi-Wan about the sheer idiocy and unhealthiness of his entire blasted Order’s blasted main philosophy. Calmly, she tells him, “Obi-Wan, Bendu, I swear my handmaidens and I can look after Anakin for you the rest of this day, easily enough. You will need to contact your Order about what has happened here, and it will surely be easier for you to have privacy, while you are doing so. Please. Let me help.”

           She steps forward, with Sabé, slowly but determinedly, and expectantly holds out her arms – essentially necessitating that Sabé hold her arms out, too – until it finally seems to register on Obi-Wan just what it is that she’s trying to do. Anakin passes to her and from her to Sabé without a hitch, if slowly, as though Obi-Wan were reluctant to let go of him. From there, it’s fairly easy to get Obi-Wan to come away from the blasted melting pit, though he refuses to leave Master Jinn’s body and won’t let anyone help carry him (he carries him with the Force, instead, which is an extremely eerie thing to watch, the corpse floating along in Obi-Wan’s wake like some kind of macabre tethered balloon) to the infirmary.

           Even with everything that follows – the discovery of bodies locked in some of the Palace quarters, as though they were cells, some of them dead for days and others still clinging on to life; sporadic fighting, as collaborators and hired lackeys lash out, trying to steal everything they can and fight their way to freedom; her family showing up and her sister so distraught that she very nearly miscarries (Obi-Wan all over blood, where he’s literally put his hands on Sola to channel the Force into her and stop the bleeding, ease her bodily back into equilibrium, so the baby won’t come too early) – she somehow manages to keep it together, in public, even though all she wants to do is scream and rage and just . . . just hit that mhalldaichte ámadán focáeir, for getting himself killed.

           Literally all the power in the ’verse, thanks to the Force, and Qui-Gon Jinn still couldn’t protect himself from the lightsaber (or saberstaff, she supposes, given that the Sith’s weapon had clearly been capable of emitting a blade from both of its ends) of a Sith.

           (All the power in the world, as Queen, and she couldn’t keep one stupid Jedi from dying.)

           She manages to keep it together until she’s finally alone with her handmaidens, and then Sabé snatches up a vase and hurtles it, screaming, into the floor, and Padmé immediately turns around and opens her arms and bursts into tears, and they rush together and cling to one another, crying and screaming because they’ve won and it’s over but people are hurt and people are dead (Qui-Gon Jinn is dead) and she is never, ever going to be able to forgive Nute Gunray and the Trade Federation for any of this, no matter what else may or may not happen or what reparations they may be forced to make to Naboo, not ever.

           The monarch is the soul of the land and the blessed, living avatar of the Lady Asherah.

           This is how it’s essentially always been, on Naboo, from the time when there were first settlers enough from Grizmallt to fill a town, to justify calling it a city-to-be and a province, with lands enough and subjects enough to shepherd (even in Uriash, the Duke or Duchess represents the heart of the people and the spirit of the land, as the chosen and best-beloved of Lady Nisaba). Even before the first true unification of Naboo, when King Jafan ended the Time of Suffering by ushering in the Great Time of Peace, the various rulers (in the oldest records often referred to as Princes or Princesses, rather than Kings or Queens, which is precisely why it’s become tradition for the elected representation of the great cities of each Nabooian province to be known as the Prince or Princess of that city) of each city-state or province (or mountain or island or mountain pass) were accepted as divine-elect representations of the great goddess in that particular corner of the world. Even in places where the same family line ruled for generations, it would often be the most fit (not the firstborn or the eldest surviving child) who’d actually end up ruling, after all.

           Chosen companions and/or handmaidens of the monarch are the chosen guardians, help-meets, and close companions of that monarch, the friends and allies, political aides and personal secretaries, lady’s maids and ladies-in-waiting or valets and personal attendants (the gentleman’s gentlemen, as it were), guards and spies and potential assassins (both of the reputation and mind as well as of the actual physical body) specifically sworn to that specific Lord or Lady ruler. This is also has it’s essentially always been on Naboo, from the time there were first rulers of Naboo.

           No matter how much Padmé whinges (or winges over it, for that matter) or even outrights bitches about it, it’s not ever going to change the simple fact of the matter, which is that, as her handmaiden and primary decoy – as Queen’s First, the aónes dævítru eisharti or first attendant of the divine-elect attendant upon the Lady Asherah (Amidala being Céauntaónîs dævítru eisharti or Queen of Naboo) – it is Sabé’s sacred duty to protect her, first and foremost and forever, with her life, if necessary.

           So she can stop looking like Sabé shot down her favorite damned twirrl any time now.

          Sabé scowls as she stabs particularly hard at a bit of salad that keeps refusing to stay on her fork, grimacing as (of course) the tines scrape painfully across the surface of the blasted china instead of just cooperating and spearing the stupid bits of recalcitrant greenery.

           Across the table from her, Yané Cashillé also grimaces, wincing at the protesting shriek of sound. “Please stop assaulting the fine china,” she sighs tiredly. “I know you and Padmé are having one of your tiffs and I also know she’s being unreasonable about it – believe me, I know. I think after this many weeks, everyone in the entire blasted Palace knows about it, Sabé – but that’s really no reason to attack the plates.” The other handmaiden (their youngest, to date) waves her fork with negligent grace over her own plate of salad. “She’ll come around eventually. She kind of has to, if she wants to do this properly,” she adds with a bit of a graceful shrug.

           Unspoken is the fact that Padmé really only has to be reasonable about this if she wants to do the job and not spend her entire time on the throne alone and lonely and utterly miserable (and that the idiot is entirely too stubborn for her own damned good and, thus, entirely too likely to cut off her own damned nose, just to spite her face, just to prove a point, just because she can). Sabé harumps moodily as she (slightly more gently) stabs herself a forkful of salad. “You’re only saying that because you don’t know how obstinate she can be,” she points out before taking the bite, chewing her food morosely.

           Yané, though, just rolls her eyes. “Excuse you, but I think you’re forgetting just how long our families have known one another,” she rather snootily replies. “We may not have been best friends growing up, but you’re not Padmé’s only friend, here, Sabé. We’re all part of the same overall crowd, no matter how much you might feel like clinging on to her just now. Just because she’s being a gualaar’s behind, that doesn’t mean you have to act like one, too. You’re both a little older than I am, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know how you both are. I’ve heard plenty of the horror stories, in addition to actually being there for several of them,” she adds with a snort, tossing her head slightly. With a small smile (so that her words won’t be taken as mean), she then adds, “I know she’s making you crazy, but she really will come around, barring an actual catastrophe. She loves you too much to keep this kind of stupidity up for too much longer.”

           Sabé huffs an irritated breath, makes a face at her salad, and then sighs, slumping over the table despondently (only just barely resisting the urge to actually push her place setting away, so she can knock her head against the solid surface of the table . “She insists that she can’t be with me without taking advantage, now that I’m her handmaiden, and, since she won’t take advantage of me, she can’t be with me any longer.”

           “Shaak-shit,” Yané immediately replies, voice oddly (almost gratingly) cheerful. “We all know it’s shaak-shit and odds are Her Worshipfulness does, too. She’s just peeved at you for going over her head about it when she was still busy angsting her way through the implications of how reinstating the program would actually work and what it would mean for her, personally. If you’d just waited a few more days for her to get it out of her system, she wouldn’t be having a strop and a snit about it and you two lovebirds would be making the rest of us crazy with your cooing instead of next best thing to bonkers over all the sulking and constant gloom and doom.”

          Sabé’s mouth twitches, in spite of herself (granted, mostly at Yané’s frankly irreverently brash forthrightness, especially her nickname for Padmé). “Careful,” she warns, pitching her voice lightly, so Yané will be able to tell that she’s not actually upset with her. “Don’t let the others hear you calling her that. Eirtaé will – ”

           Yané, though, just outright snorts at her. “Eirtaé can learn how to relax, some. That girl is entirely too tense. We’re not always in the public eye and we don’t always have to act like we are, either. We’ll just make ourselves crazy, trying to act like we are, worrying all the time about what we look like and who might be watching and what they might be thinking of us.”

           Sabé laughs a little, startled into it by the younger girl’s openness. “I’m pretty sure Eirtaé thinks it’s part of our duty to do that, you know. Worry about our image all the time, I mean.”

           Yané blows air through her lips, deliberately making a rude noise. “Eirtaé is too damned high-strung for her own good. We all know whose fault that is, of course,” she adds, rolling her eyes and carefully not mentioning the icy blonde’s father (and perhaps even more carefully avoiding mentioning her mother), “but that doesn’t change the fact that she takes entirely too many things entirely too damned seriously. She’d probably be monarch, herself, if she’d ever actually learned how to unbend enough to smile at people, and we wouldn’t be here having this conversation,” she adds, laughing a little as she shakes her head. Her full mouth quirks a little bit wryly, then, as she sighs. “My cousin has a bit of that exact same problem, so believe me, I know whereof I speak.”

          Sabé makes a face. “Your cousin,” she rather dryly points out, “thinks the entire ’verse should be handed to her, just because of her last name.”

           “And so you see, I know whereof I speak,” Yané just laughs back at her. “The two of you have been all but joined at the hip ever since Padmé’s family moved down from the mountains into Theed. Everyone knows that. She’s not going to freeze you out for forever, Sabé, no matter what it may feel like now. The two of you have years of history. There’s no way she’s going to be stupid enough to throw it all away now, just because she’s in a temper. You put your foot down about something – something that we all agree that you need to do, by the way – and, sure enough, she got her feelings bruised, but it’s not the end of the world. And I bet if someone were to ask Her Worshipfulness, she’d admit that she knows that, too.”

           Sabé just sighs. “Hard to get her to admit it when she won’t even talk about it.”

           Yané gives her a sideways sort of look, one eyebrow half cocked. “Silent treatment. Really?”

           “And then some. She’s all stone cold politeness and distance and acts like she can’t even hear me, when I try to talk to her!” Sabé complains.

           Yané frowns contemplatively down at the remains of her now mostly eaten lunch for a few moments before slowly offering, “You know, she’s probably just being stubborn about this because it’s one of the few things that she can actually feel like she’s in control of. Doesn’t make her any less of a gualaar’s ass,” she adds with a small shrug, “but at least you know why she’s being extra stubborn about it.”

          Sabé snarls reflexively, stabbing at her salad again before finally putting her fork down and shoving back away from the table in disgust. “I hate the Trade Federation! We all know it’s them – everyone does, after the big stink they made about always getting their way, in the end, after Veruna was voted out of office and the plasma exports came up for renegotiation – and yet no one says anything or does anything, because supposedly there’s no proof that Gunray and his toadies are the ones paying the thugs who keep harassing our people and screwing up the harvesting schedule and the shipping lines. If this keeps going on for too much longer – ”

           “I know. I know, Sabé,” Yané insists when Sabé scowls at her darkly. “And everyone’s doing their best to collect the evidence that the Judicials supposedly require, before they can act. But in the meantime, nothing’s moving like it should, there are food shortages in almost half the central cities and towns, and everyone’s worried and upset, including Her Crankiness.”

           “If she would just talk to me – ”

           “She’ll come around. There’s only so long a person can stand to bottle things up, and Her Cranky Worshipfulness has never struck me as the kind to suffer in stoic silence. Her temper’s too volatile for that,” Yané insists, flashing her a reassuring grin.

           But, “It’s not her temper I’m worried about,” Sabé admits. “It’s whoever put this shaak-swill nonsense in her head, in the first place, about taking advantage. She’s our queen, now. We need her present and focused on the work, not bound up in knots and eaten away with idiotic guilt that doesn’t even make any sense!”

           Yané just shrugs, though. “The Trade Federation’s run by greedy fools. They’ll screw up and implicate themselves eventually, and then the crisis will be over, since this world and this system are ours and no one has the right to dictate what we will or won’t offer in trade, not even the mighty Trade Federation, itself. Things will get back to normal, then. You’ll see. It’ll all turn out, in the end.”

           “I don’t know, Yané. She seems awfully convinced – ”

           “And I cry shaak-shit,” Yané firmly interrupts to reiterate. “We Nabooians have a long and storied history of romantic involvement with our companions. We wouldn’t have even half the romance ballads and tales that we do, if it weren’t so, which you, of all people, should know. She’s guilty and angry about the Trade Federation – that she can’t legally do anything just yet to stop them from harassing our people – and I’m sorry to say that she’s taking it out on you. Give it awhile longer and she’ll realize that she’s not being fair and she’ll go straight from sulking to panicking and showering you with gifts and signs of her affection, to try to make up for being such an ass.”

           Sabé sighs. “From your mouth to Asherah’s ears.”

           Yané takes one last enormous bite of her salad (essentially clearing the plate) and then cheerfully offers, “I know what’ll make you feel better, in the meantime. Come spar with me! We’re on the same rotation, so I know you have the rest of the day free. You can do your sacred duty by Her Crankiness by making sure I’ll be fit for more than just looking pretty at her side and maybe being able to hit the broad side of a barn, if it’s holding still!”

          Sabé snorts at the younger handmaiden, in spite of herself. “You’re already a better shot than that. I’ve seen your scores – ”

          “Yeah, but there’s always room for improvement and you and Rabé can both beat me without even breaking a sweat. So come and help me improve, so I can stop feeling guilty about not being better than I am and you can feel good about being useful!”

           Sabé shakes her head but she’s laughing as she pushes her chair back and stands. “Alright, twist my arm, already! Prepare to be instructed!”

           Yané flashes her a bright grin. “Oh, I’m all a-quiver with anticipation!”

           Dryly, Sabé replies, “You’re something, Yané Cashillé, but I’m pretty sure quivering isn’t among them.”

           Yané just snorts at her again. “Give us a few hours in the salles and I will be.”

           Sabé rolls her eyes and lets herself be chivvied along, aware that the younger girl is humoring her, but willing (at least for a little while) to be humored, if only it’ll take her mind off of things that she’s cannot change.

             Padmé tries, but she’s just . . . not a singer.

           Unfortunately, there are several outstanding musicians on the Thule side of the family, so this is a problem, especially when Sola (the absolute brat) twitters about like a songbird, making Jobal smile with unabashed delight . . . and then look at Padmé like her heart’s breaking, because most of the time her youngest can’t even manage to carry even so much as single solitary tune in a tin bucket (even if essentially given a lockable lid, for Asherah’s sake!), unless she’s either harmonizing with someone else or singing along to an instrument being played (or both at once. She actually has a fairly decent voice, if she’s harmonizing to someone else playing and she’s not the only one who’s singing – light, but clear and sweet and emotionally resonant – even if she loses all ability to keep in tune if she’s singing by herself and anyone in her family or close to her mother happens to be within both sight and earshot of her).

           Padmé’s (usually) better with an instrument . . . to a degree, anyway . . . at least until it becomes painfully clear that she’s once again been skiving off of her music lessons and has already either forgotten roughly half of the motions she needs to make, to actually get fully-formed chords out of whatever instrument it is that she’s trying to play or else hasn’t kept up with her practicing enough to keep from hurting herself on the strings of what she’s trying to pluck/strum (which, unfortunately, does tend to happen, when one lacks the proper calluses for playing). She actually very nearly masters the cithren, but fails utterly at harp (lever and pedal), lute (bent-necked and long-necked), and hammered dulcimer (the less of which is ever spoken about the better, especially in regards to just what actually happened to most of the hammers). She’s honestly really quite good at the cembalo, especially two manual (stacked) versions, and, even better, genuinely likes to play that kind of instrument (unlike the cithren, which she mostly just grimly sets herself to learning until she’s technically mastered the basics, as least, even if she can’t quite manage to play one with very much grace or soul) . . . so of course her mother all but despises that particular kind of instrument, constantly sneering down her nose about how inferior and limited the sound is, compared to the klavier.

           “I think – no, I’m pretty sure – that I’m just doomed to be a disappointment to my mother from now until Chaos takes the ’verse or Asherah comes down among us again, whichever comes first,” Padmé finally gloomily declares one day, slumped despondently over the bench of her cembalo.

           Sabé sighs, absently retuning the cithren that (unsurprisingly) Padmé clearly has no designs whatsoever on even attempting to touch, much less practice with, anytime soon. “You’d think by now she’d be used to the idea that you aren’t going to have a career in music, no matter what she might prefer,” she grumbles, not really sure what to say (Padmé’s mother is an absolute bother, but she’s still Padmé’s mother. And it doesn’t help that this is one area where Sabé has always, always led, talent-wise). “I mean, she mostly stopped arguing about all the extra lessons with Athro Naberrie a few years ago, right?”

           Padmé shrugs one shoulder, slumping so far down that she almost looks in danger of sliding right off the bench and into the floor. “Hope springs eternal, I suppose. More’s the pity.”

           “Well, what if you stick to the cembalo and I add either theorbo or mandocello for harmony and we both sing whatever piece we decide to go with for Winter Fete?” Sabé offers cajolingly. “Surely she can’t claim that you aren’t trying if we both – ”

           Padmé actually leans forward until her head comes to rest propped on the edge of the cembalo’s case, something about the way she does it making Sabé think that, if she were seated at her mother’s beloved klavier, she’d’ve dropped the lid shut, just so she could immediately slam her head down against the level surface (under other circumstances, Sabé might actually be tempted to laugh at all the dramatics. It’s hard to find things humorous, though, when she knows that Padmé really and truly is honestly upset). Miserably, she replies, “She’ll just say I’m glomming off your work. As usual. Or using your talent prop myself up instead of working hard enough to stand on my own merits. Again. You know how she is. It’s all about being good enough to actually rate going solo, and we both know that I’m just . . . not that good.”

           “We could always do another switch. Only this time, make it like a switch and a half, so that I’m you and I’m me, too, so that they won’t immediately know that you aren’t me, like they did last time,” Sabé offers after a few moments of thought.

           Padmé rolls here head around to look at her, where she’s sitting cross-legged in the floor of the music room. “It was apparently cute, when we were five, but I think she might actually skin me alive, if I tried it, now. Besides,” she rather gloomily adds, “they’d all know the truth as soon as you opened your mouth, anyway.”

           “Alright, so then we beat her at her own game,” Sabé only insists again. “Do some research. Find a song whose meaning is thematically dependent on or openly reinforces the idea of cooperation, of working together. And we both play part of it and we both sing and she won’t be able to complain without actually openly dissing a festival song, which she won’t actually do, because that would look bad and she’d secretly be worried about disrespecting the festival and upsetting the gods. We can even ask your da’mâth Thule for a suggestion, maybe, since you know she’s not happy with Jobal pushing you so hard towards music when all your best scores are consistently with language, not music – oration and poetry, especially – and everyone knows theatre would be a much better fit, if you didn’t already have your heart set on politics.”

           The noise Padmé makes, at that, is completely disgusted. “How theatre can be too vulgar when getting up in front of Asherah and everyone to sing is supposedly a perfectly fine and respectable pastime for a young lady – ”

           Sabé snorts before she can quite stop herself. “That’s because she likes music but she’s not good at acting,” she points out, voice briskly matter of fact (though she does manage to keep herself from pointing out that it’s also why Mâthair Jobal always looks like she’s just drunk something ridiculously tart and/or bitter, whenever the topic of their shared lessons with Athro Naberrie come up, even though she’s had years and years, now, to get used to the idea). “Plus, her father was the Naboo Royal Advisory Council’s Music Advisor for years, so she thinks that automatically means that making music – even if you’re just singing or playing and not actually creating new music – is high art and completely respectable for everyone.”

          Padmé positively pouts. “I swear she does it on purpose, just to make things difficult.”

           Sabé just raises an eyebrow at her. “So we turn it around on her and make it respectable and seasonally appropriate for us to be doing so together and she’ll just have to smile and bear it, for once.”

           Padmé curls in on herself until she’s managed to pull her legs up onto the bench, arms linked around her legs, face hidden in her knees. “She’ll still find a way to ruin it. Somehow. She always does.”

           Sabé makes a point of just looking at her, for several moments, until she finally squirms enough to turn her head sideways and peek out at her from behind her hair. Once Padmé is actually looking at her, she makes a point of waggling her eyebrows in obvious exaggeration, asking, “What,” as she half gasps and clutches the cithren to her chest, “so you don’t think we could make beautiful music together, anyway, is that is?”

           Padmé, thankfully, immediately bursts into laughter, bad mood sloughing away like a shed skin. “I think – I think that might – just a little bit, mind you – maybe be the wrong festival you’re thinking about!”

           Sabé just gestures towards herself and makes a classic face – Who, me? – while Padmé laughs until she nearly rolls off the bench into the floor.

           Eventually, after several long moments (and Padmé eventually does slide off of the bench into the floor, though she at least manages to make it look like she’s doing it on purpose, instead of because she can’t control her laughter enough to actually keep her seat on the polished wood), Padmé grins at her in absolute delight (wide enough to flash her teeth, hard enough to wrinkle the bridge of her nose) and grandly declares, “Alanna, we will always make beautiful music together! Even,” she adds, giggling unabashedly as she flings her arms extravagantly wide, “if I am the worst musician in the entire blasted household!”

           Sabé snorts unabashedly. “I think you probably have your father beat, to be fair.”

           Padmé breezily waves the observation away. “Eh. Details, details!” She grins at Sabé again, demanding, “Besides, he’s our designated audience, remember?”

           Sabé nods in a knowingly wise manner. “Ah, yes. Designated audience. Kind of have to have one of those, or there’s not much point to the music, is there?”

           Padmé makes a sour face, at that, strong enough to wrinkle her nose again. “Not unless you’re not just wanting endless critique over how bad you are at what you’re trying to do.” She sighs, but the gloomy humor gripping her seems to have well and truly broken, the corners of her mouth creeping towards a smile. “I suppose it could be worse. She could want musical recitals for every blasted holiday there is, instead of just Winter Fete and sometimes on Harvest Day.”

           Sabé shrugs slightly, noting, “Flower festivals that depend largely on the weather and when things decide to bloom aren’t really for staying inside and playing stationary instruments, nor is the Festival of Light or Shelova. She only gets away with it on Harvest Day because it’s become so tied up with feasting.”

           “Plus, duty,” Padmé agrees, rolling her eyes slightly in reference to the fact that her family is considered fairly solidly Noble, nowadays, even though her father’s parents were a chosen companion and a handmaiden to monarchs of Naboo and so technically were and still often are only considered to be Ennobled (though the fact that Keibhan Naberrie followed his Duke from Uriash does tend to muddy the waters somewhat for the class-conscious snobs, since the system there isn’t quite the same as in the rest of Naboo and, after all, Keibhan Naberrie’s also quite famous for having been the First of King Vísudeva, the Great Peacemaker, while Winama Tannis Naberrie also quite famously was the First of Queen Madeva, the Great Unifier).

           “True.” The two share a look of commiseration (If anything, Sabé’s family background is even more aristocratic than Padmé’s, even though her father’s completely useless and estranged from the rest of his family, to boot. Her mother’s parents have raised her and they’re able to essentially spoil her because they’re both old Noble Houses and even older money, which is why she’s had access to enough musical instruments for it to have been clear, several years ago, that she’s actually far more musically talented than Padmé.) “So do you want to do research first, or try comming your da’mâth Thule and asking her opinion before we do anything else?”

          “I think Da’mâth Thule will be more likely to help if we do at least some research first, so we have a few things we can mention as possibilities. Unless you know of anything off the top of your head that might work . . . ?” Padmé asks, raising an eyebrow questioningly.

          Sabé thinks about it for a few moments before finally offering, “There’s always the old variants on the two sisters who helped Shiraya steal back the water-moon from the thief who took it to the pirate king, especially the earlier ones, before the whole weirdness with the double marriage that wasn’t and the demon and – well.” She cuts herself off with a wry smile when Padmé makes a bit of a face at her, realizing that she’s starting to ramble. “The earlier variants would actually be a good fit. It’s all about them working together to steal back the water-moon so the southern lands won’t drown.”

           Padmé actually blinks at her. “The pirate queen sisters?” she laughs. “Are you sure you’re not trying to make my mother mad with us?”

          Sabé waves a dismissive hand. “You’re thinking of the later variants – and some stories that aren’t even properly part of the cycle, anyway – not the ones about stealing back the moon.”

           Padmé’s expression is slightly skeptical, but she kind of half shrugs and half nods anyway. “You know more about the old folk variants than I do, seeing as how you know more about music, in general, than practically everyone, except maybe Da’mâth Thule, so I’m going to trust you on that, okay?” Leaning forward, she plants her elbows on her knees and demands, “Tell me more about the basic story, so I’ll either know what I need to be researching or I’ll know enough to be able to ask Da’mâth Thule questions she’ll appreciate enough to answer, please, so hopefully we’ll definitely end up making some memorably beautiful music together,” she adds, flashing Sabé another smile.

           Sabé obligingly strikes a dramatic cord on the now properly tuned cithren, waiting until the sweet notes fade before declaiming, with an equal amount of theatricality, “Once, in the long ago, when gods and goddesses both above and below often worked Their wills and whims upon the lands of man and Gungan, there were two clever young sisters who lived in the cliffs by the western sea, brave and wild and beautiful as the night is long . . . ”

           There are half a dozen Queen Amidalas wandering around the swamps of Naboo, like barely distorted reflections of one another.

           Sabé is still more than slightly worried about the fact that they haven’t been able to manage to properly dress and field at least a few more decoys (she’s convinced that the only way they’re all going to survive this desperate mad plan of Padmé’s is if they can keep all the droids confused and the Neimoidians and the turncoats utterly perplexed as to just whom it is that they’re chasing after for the entire duration of the assault on Theed Palace), though honestly it’s a miracle (mainly down to Rabé’s foresight and the fact that Fé Gélètánine, the Queen’s primary dressmaker, is in the midst of expanding a line of couture and bespoke fashion from Naboo to Coruscant, largely by way of her successful apprentices) that they’ve managed as many as they have. The thought that Amidala and her handmaidens might specifically need battledress one day – not just protective clothing cleverly disguised as high fashion and/or regular handmaiden robes, specifically made from fabrics meant to turn blades and deflect or absorb blaster fire, but actual garb meant to be worn into battle – had still been a fairly recent one, when the blockade began, and, unfortunately, they’d still been in the midst of receiving individual battledress outfits as Fé and her people were finishing them when the blockade became an invasion (though ten of them had just been moved to the Naboo Royal Starship the day before the dropships started dumping droids out all over Naboo). Fé’s people on Coruscant had already been scrambling on a rush order for more (believing that the work would be wanted, once Amidala reached Coruscant) and, because Rabé thought to make contact with Fé’s fashion house, they have nearly forty complete handmaiden battledress costumes and six versions of the Amidala battledress, in addition to the original one (which Sabé has claimed as a matter of course).

           So many of the young women who actually went through (or were, at the time of the invasion, still in the process of going through) handmaiden training have either been captured or injured that they don’t have nearly enough bodies to fill all the uniforms. So they’ve decided to put members of the Royal Naboo Security Forces, Palace Guards, and volunteers actually able to fit into them into the additional handmaiden battledress costumes, since they have so many of them, if only to further surround the individual decoy Queens with apparent handmaidens and, hopefully, really sell the various Amidala lookalikes to their enemies (and so keep the real Queen hidden and at least somewhat safer than she otherwise would be). There are so many teenagers (and even a few preteens) and young women running around dressed as handmaidens that    

          Sabé; Dormé; Dané Cashillé (they cannot afford to refuse to allow her to take part in the planned assault on Theed Palace, however much they might want to be able to do so, all things considered); Shelanné Glenn (even though it’s clearly not a good idea to split her and Dané up); Nanné Maranno (who hardly seems to know what to do with herself, with her cousin too badly injured to join her); Betté Steadhart (who is surprisingly steady and should, perhaps, receive more training, later, as a backup decoy, if they actually survive this); and Emmé Harwood (who has the natural graceful poise and inherent strength to carry if off, even if she’s physically more difficult to try to make over as Amidala than the others): seven Queen Amidalas in battledress, like viewing slightly skewed images of the Queen reflected in a series of splintered mirrors.

           Sabé’s head hurts, as she reflects on the lineup.

           There are girls in handmaiden battledress who’d make convincing decoys for the Queen, if only they had more of that particular costume (girls she’d honestly think had been through the handmaiden training, if she didn’t know better). She barely knows half of the names and faces, from before, but Dormé and Princess Ellie have vouched for most of them and the rest either were already on the roles as possible future recruits or else are from families known to Eirtaé and above reproach, so she trusts that they will do their duty to protect their Queen through whatever means may prove necessary (even if it requires flinging themselves bodies between blasters and a decoy Queen, to keep the illusion intact). There’ll be six “handmaidens” apiece with Emmé, Betté, and Nanné; five each with Shelanné, Dané, and Dormé; three with Sabé; and she’s utterly determined that Rabé and Eirtaé will stay with Padmé throughout (though Padmé keeps trying to argue that Eirtaé, as the most visibly recognizable of Amidala’s handmaidens, should be with Sabé, to reinforce the ruse). She desperately wishes that they had Yané in Amidala’s dress, not to mention Aideé Gardia and Etté Zirach (who are both nearly convincing as Amidala as Dormé or even Dané, at least before the invasion and occupation. Before the self-proclaimed Ladies of Pain allied themselves to Gunray and the Sith), too, though. Padmé keeps trying to argue that having more decoys would only end up backfiring on them, since having so many different Amidalas all running about Threed would only make it that much more obvious that much more quickly that more than one person dressed as the Queen has taken the field of battle and, thus, tip Gunray and his forces off to the fact that they’re deliberately running decoys, in order to try to protect the real Amidala; the entire ruse is basically an elaborate shell game, though, so Sabé honestly feels as though the more decoys they can field, the better off (and the less obvious a target) Padmé will be.

           To be fair, though, they could have twice the number of Amidala decoys they actually have, and Sabé still wouldn’t feel all that much better about their overall chances for success.

           They need to get to the Viceroy, true enough, but their forces absolutely have to destroy the Trade Federation’s Droid Control Ship (and, unfortunately, no matter how she turns things about in her mind, she can’t see another way for this to possibly work . . . not without relying on an actual miracle, that is). This entire mad whirl of planning could all too easily fall to pieces, if their pilots don’t manage to take down the ship with the Central Control Computer for the droid armies. Gunray’s cowardly enough that, if captured, he’d very likely surrender altogether, even with his droid armies still functionally intact; they can’t take the risk of some power-hungry underling or ambitious crony deciding to essentially write Gunray off, so long as the Trade Federation continues to control Naboo, though. If the pilots can’t take out that ship (in essence deactivating essentially all of the Trade Federation’s forces, aside from the collaborators and traitors they’ve managed to sway to their side), it won’t matter how many decoy Amidalas or how many handmaidens they flood the field with.

           (Shiraya would have to weep a million million reflections of Amidala to earth before they could possibly hope to stand against the might of the Trade Federation’s functional droid armies. The world would need to be drowning in Amidalas, for them to have even a chance at pulling this off, if those droids aren’t essentially removed from the picture.)

           “It will work,” Padmé insists, voice pitched low but fervent, as she slips up behind her, threading her left hand through Sabé’s right. “Stop fretting about the number of decoys, ansa. The plans are set for the numbers we have, not the numbers we might wish to have. This will work. No one will expect an attack like this, much less for an alliance between us and the Gungans, and we have multiple safe ways of getting into the city and even the Palace. As long as we all do our parts, we’re going to win.”

           “It’s the ‘all’ that’s bothering me. The pilots – ”

           “ – are all well aware of just how much hinges upon their ability to take out that ship. The Jedi have agreed to help, you know – ”

           “I hardly think it will matter what they might intend to do, if the Sith show up again.”

           Padmé sighs, and tugs on her hand until Sabé finally gives in and turns around. The look on her beloved’s face is one of absolute determination and unflinching belief and, in spite of herself (in spite of the bottomless pit of fear that seems to have taken up permanent residency right at the bottom of her stomach), she feels oddly reassured. “This is the best choice we have to break Gunray’s hold over us – the only real choice we have, since the Senate’s failed to send aid and there’s no way of knowing if Palpatine will ever be able to wrangle the politicians into acting in time to be of any real help to our people – and I honestly believe that we can do this. I know the odds aren’t exactly in our favor, but – ”

           “No.”  Sabé sighs, even as she shakes her head. “You’re right. This is our best chance – our only chance, really, if we want to surprise them. And anyway, I shouldn’t be borrowing trouble, as many troubles as we already have,” she adds with a slight smile. “We can do this – we can make it work – and we will, because we have to.”

           Padmé’s mouth twists slightly, like she’s tempted to say something wry and biting about how Sabé still needs to leave the motivational speechifying up to her; in the end, though, she just smiles, her expression at once somehow both tender and fierce. “Together, cariad.”

           Sabé nods once, decisively, and smiles, bright as a drawn blade. “Yes. Cómhlámh go bràch.”

 They’re going to celebrate the victory over the Trade Federation and the new friendship and alliance between the Nabooians and the Gungans (mostly because they cannot quite get away with not celebrating such momentous things, even though nearly everyone involved in the actual Victory – and Padmé can hear the capitalization being used quite plainly in the voices of her people and new allies, just as clearly as she could hear the capitalization of the outworlders on Coruscant when referring to the increasing harassment that led to the blockade and then full-on invasion and occupation of her world and system as the Naboo Crisis – would frankly much rather either find a quiet, dark, safe place in which to curl up and sleep for an age, or else a quiet, dark, safe place in which to sit and cry for an age for all of the crimes that have been committed against their peoples and all those whose lives have been taken from them untimely or all but ruined, simply because of the Trade Federation’s ruthless greed and the willingness of entirely too many oillphéists to join them in their efforts to essentially steal Naboo from her rightful peoples), though not until after a full week has passed since the actual assault on the Palace. (It will be on the sixth day afterwards, which is almost too symbolic, all things considered, perhaps; Boss Nass and the other Gungans all seem to agree that it would be the most auspicious day, though, and so Padmé is doing her best to keep her thoughts about resealing all of the Gates of Chaos to herself.) Qui-Gon Jinn’s funeral is, thankfully, already over with – that happened on the night of the third day following the three linked battles for Naboo (for the Palace and, thus, Theed; on the Grassy Plains, between the Gungans and the droids; and for the space surrounding Naboo and, thus, the system, itself) and, subsequently, the Victory – and, though she’s honestly neither particularly liked nor been able to respect the infuriating man all that much (her opinion of the seemingly endlessly arrogant and all but criminally reckless Jedi basically decreasing more and more the longer their time together stretched out), she is grateful that the Jedi who wanted to attend all managed to arrive in time, so that they would not have to delay it or risk having to light the pyre without their presences, if only for poor Bendu Kenobi’s sake. 

(Obi-Wan Kenobi saved Sabé from the Tusken Raiders, on Tatooine; he defeated and slew the vicious Sith Lord who followed them from Naboo to Tatooine and then apparently back to Naboo again, to stand against them in their attempt to retake their world and system; and he’s personally saved the life of her only sibling, her older sister, Sola: if Padmé could beg a favor of the Lady Asherah and walk among Her sacred halls, she would gladly yank Qui-Gon Jinn back into the realms of living with her own two bare hands, if only she could, to try to repay Bendu Kenobi for his extraordinary gallantry, heroism, kindness, and compassionate healing touch.) 

Padmé already possesses a gown fashioned after the manner of a conventional jubilation dress – the sort of traditional raiment that ladies of high rank and/or politicians/officials of high rank would wear during times of great rejoicing or when first meeting a fellow dignitary with whom one has high hopes of gaining alliance/friendship – and, even better, the gown has been found to number among those of her possessions that were apparently sealed away unharmed in her chambers (out of some strange hope, perhaps, that she would prove cooperative enough to become a puppet monarch for Gunray to order about, if successfully recaptured?), which is a good thing, as she definitely wouldn’t want to try to force anyone to make her such a dress in time for the actual celebratory parade (although the white gowns themselves are customarily fairly simple, they are meant to be accompanied by elaborate layered mantles, cloaks/capes, or veils in shades of the hopeful new dawn being represented by the costume, itself, and she cannot imagine how anyone would procure such a thing in time, since each gown is only meant to be worn as an actual jubilation dress the once, even if some do get around this tradition by keeping the dresses within the family, passing them along from mother to daughter or aunt to niece or eldest sister to youngest sister and so on and modifying them a little bit each time, to technically make the dress new. Come to think of it, there is actually a very good chance that the multiple layers of extremely elaborate mantles/cloaks/capes/veils either originally came about due to or else simply owe quite a bit of their sheer ornate complexity to this habit of passing the dresses on within a family and subtly altering them with every new wearer for each use. Eirtaé – who seems to somehow know everything there possibly is to know about Nabooian traditions and customs, especially among the Royal, Noble, and Ennobled Houses, as well as the Housed – would almost certainly know for sure, if Padmé were to feel the need to ask). 

(Those of her handmaidens who’ve survived these trials intact enough to be able to stand with her, for the entire duration of the celebrations, will essentially be wearing green – the color of new beginnings, hope and wonder, freshness, vigor, growth, abundance, healing, vitality, life and death in its endless cycle – including a fairly light green underdress in observance of healing and hope, new growth and the promise of life, and a darker green combination mantling overrobe and modified hooded capelet and tabard to hint at mourning, in recognition of the endless cycle of life and death. The darker green is a silk velvet over an almost shockingly vivid deep magenta pink backing with a lining of the same intensely colored silk, which bleeds through the green just enough to cause hints of violet undertones, to remind all who see them of just how many have fallen, to give them the Victory that they will be celebrating, but also to call to mind the caring and compassion of allies who’ve helped make the Victory possible, the tender and nurturing role of those who will help to pick up the pieces and carry on, hopeful for a brighter tomorrow.) 

Louchair flowers blossom (creating beautiful, enormous, delicately scented flowers, their ruffled petals variegated, moving from cream to faintly blushing shades of pink and yellow, like the first faint flush of dawn) only every eighty-eight Nabooian years. There are three eighty-eights of “petals” (individually cut and ombré dyed in graduations and combinations of pink and yellow over the ivory of some kind of almost gauzy lacelike silk and no two are exactly alike, just as in nature. Saché and Yané had both all but squealed with delight over them and the cape in general, when the costume had first been presented to her by her undeniably proud tailor, back in the early days of her reign; now they can’t even be here to see her actually wear it, though, and it desperately makes her want to beat Nute Gunray to death with her own hands, slowly, for having ever letting those focáiel oillphéists near enough to her handmaidens – to her people – to even look at them sideways, much less cause them harm) hand sewn onto the ivory cape (which, of all things, is meant to fasten somehow under her arms and the cape itself, so that the ties won’t show. Padmé wishes they’d just let her tie the blasted thing across her front. She’s gotten used to the high necklines of her traditional regnal costumes and the neck of this dress is lower than she likes, plus she feels as though having the attached tabard there draws entirely too much attention to the amount of skin that the gown is going to be showing). Somehow, despite the whole thing being made out of various kinds of silk (she’s not actually sure what all of the different kinds are – she knows that the gown itself is made out of Dramassian shimmersilk, which is why it has a luster to it that almost makes the white seem ivory, since it picks up the colors from the cape, but that’s about the limit of her knowledge – though Rabé could almost certainly tell her, if she were to ask, since she seems to have assumed much of the responsibility for her wardrobe, as well as her hair, in the wake of . . . everything that’s happened), the petals of the cape manage to have enough of a fluffy flounce to them that the cape itself somehow looks as if it’s part of an opening flower. (It’s also surprisingly lightweight, for all that fabric, which she definitely appreciates, after spending so much time in the relative freedom of her handmaiden disguise.) 

(She remembers one of her dama’mâthair Naberrie’s jubilation dresses – from the first round of reconciliation talks with Uriash, before the marriage discussions between Queen Madeva and Duke Najaffa, later King Vísudeva – with four layers, including the veiling. Pure white underdress, simple almost as a slip but for the carefully tailored seams, platinum and seed pearl embroidered lace overdress, a split “cloak” like two long dagged wings of layer upon layer of delicate silk tulle netting carefully overlapped and stitched together, and then layers upon layers of lace and tulle veiling, until her grandmother’s lovely dark hair had barely been visible in the preserved images. She’d been a vision, of course, shining bright as an avatar of Shiraya, Herself, but Padmé has also been allowed to handle the actual dress, and knows that the heavily pearl-encrusted layers of the overdress and veiling had been almost shockingly heavy. So she’s grateful for her much lighter layers, truly, even if she dislikes the entire notion of wearing them.) 

Instead of one of the elaborate headpieces (which often essentially involve wigs or come with the “hair” already worked into the headpiece design), they’re going to let her wear one of the smaller, simpler diadems and pull her hair back and then style it so that it’s in a star-like (blossom-like) arrangement of five rolled and pinned sections that will fan into crescents – the sixth will be represented by the aureate ivory organza net of the almost parasol-like ruff that will fan out behind her head (and, unfortunately, very likely end up putting a crick in her neck, by the time the celebrations are over with). The effect is very pretty overall, she knows – Fé Gélètánine never would’ve let her have the costume in the first place, if she hadn’t been fully satisfied as to the fit of the gown and the overall effect of the dress – but she really does wish that they would have just somehow designed an actual ruff on the dress or the cape or something, instead of having it as an extra piece. It’s meant to attach right at the base of her neck and it is made to curve out somewhat behind her head, but she knows she’s going to have to end up holding her head at an odd angle, both to keep from crushing her hair against the material – and possibly snagging it on one of the finials – and to hopefully keep from accidentally bending the fan at some kind of obviously weird angle. Plus, the blasted thing is attached by ties that have to run under the cape, to where the ties for the cape will also be running under her arms, and she’s honestly a little bit worried about it actually staying where it’s supposed to, when she has to move her arms during the ceremony to present Boss Rugor Nass with the Globe of Peace. 

(She’s had entirely too many visions of the ties somehow becoming tangled and pulling the parasol-like ruff so violently awry that her arms end up binding just enough at precisely the wrong moment, so that she fumbles the Globe of Peace and ends up dropping the blasted thing at the Gungan’s feet, instead of managing to smoothly hand it to him. Padmé’s not usually one to start or fright at shadowy fears or bad omens, but the thought of doing something so obviously ill-omened makes her feel wretchedly sick to her stomach with dread and it’s almost enough to make her want to demand that either the entire blasted piece be left off or that they let her tie it to the cape somehow and then tie the cape across her chest like a normal person, instead of trying to hide the entire mess of ties underneath her arms. She’s almost certainly fretting for no reason – Fé put her properly through her paces when the costume was first fitted to her and she knows that she has a fairly decent range of motion in it, so long as she’s careful of her hair – but that hasn’t kept her from having more than one nightmare about the entire Nabooian-Gungan alliance violently falling apart, all because she’s dropped the Globe of Peace at Boss Nass’s feet.)  

The gown is simple enough (except for the tabard, of course, and the sleeves are also a little bit fussy, what with the fluttery ruffled bit of silk at the top over the actual sleeves, which fit close to her arm all the way down to nearly the tops of her palms and are made out of the same extremely loosely woven silk as the petals on the cape) that it honestly almost reminds her of a nightgown or an underdress. While she truly does appreciate both the simplicity and relative lightness of the entire costume, she can’t deny that she’d like it quite a bit more if the dress itself didn’t have quite such a low scooped neckline (one of the main reasons why it reminds her of a nightdress so much is actually because the neckline is so very low). She will make a very pretty picture in it and no doubt inspire the citizens of Theed (and, hopefully, all of Naboo, as well, including the Gungans); yet, a very large part of her still feels as though celebrating at all is in frightfully bad taste, after everything that’s happened (multiple Republic systems have already promised aid – some planets are already rushing first shipments of mostly rations and medical supplies, while Grizmallt, working with Chandrila and Alderaan, has promised to find volunteers capable of truly helping with the worst of the aftermath, including as many Healers and Minders as they can possibly persuade to come help – but so many crops have been lost or ruined, so much destruction wrought, so many lives damaged or lost, that she’s afraid the death toll will only continue to rise, in the days and weeks to come) and she’s afraid that it’s going to show, somehow, how much of a fraud she’s certain she’s going to feel like, going out there in this ridiculously (naïvely) hopeful jubilation dress when what she really feels like doing is putting on mourning violets (with maybe just a touch of transitional indigo, though she does not feel as though blue would yet be appropriate) and not coming out of them until justice has been served against the Trade Federation and all the traitors and criminals who joined them in their desecration of Naboo and its peoples. 

(Of course, they won’t let her anywhere near the so-called detention and reeducation camps, but the very fact that her people are going out of their way to keep her from seeing the actual conditions in which so many of her people have been kept tells her far more about how utterly wretched those camps must have been than even Padmé honestly wants to think about. She can at least somewhat understand the desire to protect her and shield her from the worst of the horrors, especially when her handmaidens are involved; unfortunately, the simple fact is that she’s become all too familiar with the just how violence and untimely death tend to smell, and entirely too much of Theed Palace reeks of pain and violence, from the crimes carried out within its walls. Too many traitors turned and sided with the invading Trade Federation, too many sadists and bullies and sociopathic/psychopathic individuals gleefully remade themselves as torturers and spies for the conquering Neimoidians. Sabé and Panaka’s soldiers have done their best, to clear the Palace of the worst of the signs – the worst of the remains – but there are places in the Palace that have all be been remade as abattoirs, and she knows she’s not nearly the only one who’s found it hard to sleep in the Palace, no matter how oddly untouched so much of her private chambers seem to be.) 

Unsurprisingly, Sabé is the one who finds out her up (when she knows she should be at least trying to rest. It’s extremely dark out but technically quite, quite early on the morning of the fifth day, after the Victory), scowling at the entire getup where it’s been pulled out of her closets, to air before the celebrations begin. 

“Ma’chara, are you still fretting about the jubilation dress?” Sabé’s voice is more tired than sleepy – she’s fairly certain that Sabé was awake before the last nightmare (involving the Globe of Peace unceremoniously bouncing down the stairs of Theed Palace, to shatter all over the terminus of Palace Plaza) drove Padmé from sleep – as she comes up behind her, slipping her arms loosely around Padmé’s waist and hooking her chin companionably over her right shoulder. “If you scowl at it much harder or for much longer, alanna, I’m afraid you’ll cause the entire costume to spontaneously combust, and then what will we do for the celebrations?” 

Padmé makes a grumpy noise even as she lets herself relax back into Sabé’s embrace. “I’m sure Fé or her current apprentice, Gilliarc Nócrydden, could come up with something suitable, if they absolutely had to. Or if all else failed, I could just wear the mourning violets I wore for Master Jinn’s funeral pyre.” 

She can tell, just from the sound of Sabé’s voice, that she’s being smiled at. ”You’re not going to the celebration in something you’ve publicly worn already, and you’re most especially not going in mourning violets, cariodal. The people have had more than enough of suffering: they need reasons to carry on and rebuild and hope for a brighter future, now. You are our symbol – our hope – and so you must shine for us, muilaidh, to remind us that hope and healing and love are still possible, no matter how cold or how cruel the wider ’verse may seem.” 

Padmé sighs tiredly. “I know my duty, Sabé – the Queen is ever the céauntaónîs dævítru eisharti of Asherah – and I will do what I must, of course. But still – ” 

“ – it burns, to have to smile and smile and pretend that everything is alright now, when it is not. I know, ansa. Believe me, I do.” Sabé’s arms tighten around her. “But we’ve won, despite the odds stacked against us, and, whether some of us may feel the need to or not, the truth is that we’ve earned the right to celebrate.”  

“I’m afraid I won’t be able to smile.” Once she’s begun to speak, she can’t seem to stop herself, and the words tumble out, in a rush of fear and shame. “I know I must – I know I need to let the people see me and know, in their hearts, that I am rejoicing with them, that the Victory is real and won’t simply be snatched away from us, whether by the Trade Federation or the Sith or anyone else – but I’m afraid – ” 

“Alanna, the people themselves will give you plenty of reasons to smile. They will be cheering for you to the heavens and flinging flower petals and ribbons at your feet, especially the children. You may be troubled now, but you will feel different, on the day. Trust me. Between the parades and the crowds, the excitement will carry you,” Sabé insists, turning slightly to press a swift kiss to Padmé’s cheek. “It will be like the procession for your coronation all over again, only instead of oaths and anointment and investment and crowning as you proceed through the city to the Palace, for the passing of the royal scepter, you’ll just have to stand on the Palace steps and watch the parades as they pass by and receive the Globe of Peace from Governor Bibble, to entrust to Boss Nass.”  

“If I don’t drop it,” Padmé just gloomily replies. “If I don’t fall out of the blasted dress entirely, lunging after one of the oldest and more revered relics of our people, because I’m such a bumbling idiot that I’ve dropped it. If, that is, I don’t just break my fool neck altogether, tripping over the blasted cape and tangling up in the stupid ruff, trying to chase after the Globe of Peace before it can roll down the entire blasted avenue and break itself against the Triumphal Arch.” 

Sabé’s arms tighten around her a fraction more, comfortingly, and she automatically relaxes (at least a little bit) into the hug, in spite of herself. “You’re not going to drop it, ansa. And even if you do, I hardly think it’s so very fragile that it would shatter.” 

“But if I – ” 

“Ma’chara, you will be fine. It will be perfect. You aren’t going to trip on the cape or fall out of the gown. The neckline isn’t that low – you only think it is, because of the tabard and because you’ve grown used to necklines that come halfway or more up around your throat,” Sabé replies, not quite laughing, but clearly amused. “If it truly bothers you that much, I’m sure we can ask Rabé about a band of decorative ribbon or a lace fichu or something, to help cover up a bit more of your chest without also making it obvious that something’s been added to the gown that wasn’t originally meant to be worn with it. It isn’t as though we have a shortage of lace. I’m sure we could come up with something to make you a little more comfortable. And anyway, it’ll only be for the day – and not even the full day. The people just want to see you and be assured that you’re alright and that Gunray was lying about you having been killed in an attempt to flee the planet. They already love you and they will only love you more – ” 

“The Queen who couldn’t save them from invasion and occupation by a foreign power,” Padmé only bitterly notes. “The Queen who failed to move the Senate with the truth or to secure aid for her people, much less outright defense of her system. The Queen – ” 

“ – whose cleverness and bravery has won our freedom, despite the failure of the Senate and the Republic to ensure our rightful sovereignty,” Sabé firmly interjects. “The Queen who’s set the whole of the Republic government on its head – which is no less than what they deserve, after so obviously failing to come to the aid of one of its own member states – and gotten a Supreme Chancellor elected who doesn’t hail from the Core or Colonies or even the Inner Rim.” 

Padmé immediately shakes her head. “I’m not sure I did well, in that. Valorum was our staunch ally – ” 

“ – but he failed to break the blockade and could not sway the Senate to our defense, after the invasion,” Sabé quickly points out. Then, with a shrug, she adds, “Palpatine, at least, is one of our own, even if he is too ambitious for my peace of mind.” 

“I’ve never understood why you don’t like him more – ” 

Sabé makes a noise that somehow manages to come across as about half thoughtful and half dismissive. “I don’t like the way he looks at you – like you’re a particularly useful pawn to be moved about on some internal holochess board towards his own purposes – and I also don’t like the way that Athro Naberrie has always looked as though she smells something particularly foul, when she’s around him. And his manner is too naïve for someone who’s been in politics as long as he has. If he wishes for us to trust him, then he should trust us enough to remove his masks around us, alanna.” Sabé shrugs again, slightly, before adding, in a much lighter tone, “It will still be good to have one of our own in a place of such high power, no matter how much I might wish for a little more openness and trust on his part. I’m sure he can’t possibly be any worse than Valorum would have been until the next election, and having him as Chancellor will surely help to keep the Trade Federation’s crimes and all that Naboo has suffered in the forefront of the galactic consciousness, even if he’s not properly elected to a full term of his own, after the term that would have been Valorum’s runs out. Senator Antilles of Alderaan probably would have been a better choice – he would have been in a position of power strong enough to stand against the Trade Federation and refuse to give in to the corruption miring the Senate – but he may still be elected, after Palpatine. Honestly, what bothers me most about all of this is the idea of that humanocentric bigot Greejatus standing in for the rest of Palpatine’s term as Senator.” 

Padmé immediately makes a disgusted noise. “The Royal Advisory Council is strongly suggesting Lady Oshadam as an alternative, and I know she would do it, if asked, but I know that she hopes to be a grandmother, soon, and I also know that the move from Internal Affairs to the Ministry of Culture was meant to be prefatory to her eventual retirement. I hate to ask her to do such a thing, when it would keep her on Coruscant, so far away from Naboo, for so long.” 

“Then don’t. Let me do it. Let me go and act as your hands and eyes – ” 

Padmé  shakes her head wildly, insisting, “Palpatine is afraid that the Senate will balk, if we try it, that it’ll look too much like cronyism or like we’re trying to remake the democratic processes as anocratic at best – ” 

Sabé snorts, roughly pointing out, “Palpatine is a little too concerned about his own blasted image for someone who’s essentially an interim Chancellor because the tragedies and disasters his homeworld has suffered at the hands of an invader bent on conquest. I could do it, Padmé – I wouldn’t be happy to be away from you, but Dormé is worthy of becoming Queen’s First and I know that the new handmaiden recruits will guard you with their lives, no matter what might happen – and that way we’d both know that someone with Naboo’s best interests at heart would be representing the people and fighting for their freedom and their right to justice, no matter how many creds Gunray and his Trade Federation goons spread around, to try to buy their way out of the punishment they’ve earned. I’d be honored to take up such a cause in your name, beloved. And there would be an Amidala here, on Naboo, helping with the process of recovery and healing, and another on Coruscant, fighting for justice and liberty – ” 

“But I don’t know that I can do this, without you.”  

Sabé freezes, as that (the nearly wailing admission), before moving to take her by the shoulders and spin her bodily around. “Padmé.” She looks into her eyes, expression so fiercely determined that Padmé can’t quite bring herself to try to look away (even though she wants to, even though she’s ashamed of herself, for such a pitiful outburst). “You will not lose me, just because I am away from you. I would be preparing the way for you, when your time here, as Queen, is done – ” 

“But I don’t know that I want that, anymore! I don’t – ” 

“And what will you do, then?” Sabé immediately interrupts to demand. “Retire before you’re even twenty? Raise and family and bury your head in the sand and ignore the rotting heart of the Republic that we both know is dying, under the weight of so much indifference and corruption – ” 

“No! No, of course not! But – ” 

Sabé’s hands tighten on her shoulders. “The problem is – larger than we thought. Much worse than we’d feared. I know that. The rot’s gone deeper and spread far wider than we’ve ever imagined, even on our darkest days. But beloved, doesn’t that just mean that the need to fight is all the more pressing? The Republic – ” 

“ – the Republic permits slavery, for Asherah’s sake!” Padmé shouts, her anger flaring momentarily out of control. “This is a slave state, not a democracy! How can we – ” 

“ – we take what we know, what we believe, and what is right, and we make the changes that we want to see in the ’verse, just like Athro Naberrie taught us,” Sabé staunchly replies. “Isn’t that why you chose politics, instead of letting your mother pressure you into a career in music or some kind of work behind the scenes, as an orator and speechmaker for hire?”  

“Yes, but – ” 

“Then where are all these fears coming from?” Sabé immediately demands, dark eyes narrowing thoughtfully as she searches Padmé’s face. “Ma’chara, we won. We had no business winning against such long odds, but we have, and the galaxy will never be the same, now, because of our Victory. This can’t all be because of your dislike of the jubilation dress – ” 

“I hate it!” Padmé instantly flares. “I hate the idea of it and I don’t want to wear it! Why should we be celebrating, acting as though all is right again with the ’verse and our world and system are part of a just and good government, when our so-called galactic democratic republic is nothing more than a slave state, when our people are still suffering and dying, when the gods and goddesses alone only know how many innocents are starving to death, in the cities, how many are lost, in the countryside, and how many are still suffering in the camps that none of you will tell me anything about – ” 

Sabé shakes her head at once, firmly insisting, “The camps are irrefutable proof of crimes against sentiency, which is why the Jedi High Council specifically ordered Judicials here, under Bendu Kenobi’s purview, to record and investigate everything having to do with them, every step of the way, and why are closest allies are scrambling so hard to send us Healers and Minders, rather than the regular student volunteers. Our own people aren’t equipped to deal with – ” 

“And so you keep it from me, as if not knowing will somehow make it go away – ”  

“Cariodal, no. No.” Sabé doesn’t quite physically shake her by the shoulders, but it’s a very near thing. “We’re letting the professionals gather the information and the evidence that they need, to make the reports we’ll need to prosecute Gunray and his minions and the traitors who chose to turn against us for the promise of Trade Federation wealth and power. And, in the meantime, we’re doing what we can, to encourage the people to have hope and remember that the Trade Federation, for all its power and creds and machines of war, haven’t actually defeated us. There’ll be more than enough time to mourn, later, but for now, since we have won – ” 

“ – and, in the process, made enemies of Nute Gunray and his Trade Federation cronies for life, not to mention the Sith, for Asherah’s sake – ” 

“Is it the resurgence of the Sith that’s bothering you?” Sabé stares at her for several long moments, clearly perplexed at her outburst. “Ma’chara, the Jedi have always made their own worst enemies. The history of the Galactic Republic is essentially the history of the Jedi Order and one godsawful ridiculous schism or another. The Sith have been beaten before, though – in the end, most of the time, they practically all but self-destruct under the weight of their own insanity and greedily power-grasping ways – and at least now we know that they’re here, working behind the scenes against the Jedi and the Republic and against us. They can’t ever catch us completely off our guard again, now that we know they’re still out there. I know it seems bad, but I truly do believe that finding out about them now will help us, in the long run.” 

“They are never going to stop trying to come after us, not when we’ve ruined their plans. If I send you away from me – if I ask you to go to Coruscant, to the heart of all that rot, and the Sith – the Sith – if they manage to strike out against you – ” 

Sabé’s baffled expression abruptly warms to a melting tenderness. She darts forward, pressing her lips to Padmé’s forward, and then dips her head, brushing her lips softly across Padmé’s mouth. “You are not going to lose me, just because I am away from you for a time. We can do this, ansa – I can do this for you, acting as your eyes and ears, your hands and your will, your own true self, on Coruscant, while you are still here, as Queen – and the Sith will have to scramble to deal with battle joined immediately on two fronts – ” 

“But I don’t want to risk losing you! Sabé, we’ve lost so many – so many volunteered to dress as you did, as a decoy, during the assault on Theed Palace, and so many of them died – ” 

Sabé sadly shakes her head. “It is a handmaiden’s prerogative to defend her sworn Lady, even with her life, my Queen. We all know this. We enter into the life with our eyes opened. All of those girls may not have had time to make it completely through any formal school of training for handmaidens or even handmaids, before the invasion, and they may not even have known they wanted such training, before the occupation, but they came to us already handmaidens in their hearts and their souls, and I know that each and every one of them would do the same thing again, if only to protect you and keep you safe, so that you might lead us out of this disaster.” 

Padmé shakes her head frantically, in response. “I don’t – I don’t want them to ever have to do that! I’m not – I’m just – I don’t know that I’m worthy of that!” 

“You are our Queen. Onóir acus eanach searbheáil, and Amidala an uachdar.” 

Padmé rears back as if she’s been slapped. Physically shaking, she hisses, “Don’t – don’t you dare repeat platitudes or – ” 

“You are my Queen, Padmé – mine – and I swear you will not lose me. Not ever. You’re not the only one who made vows to Asherah,” Sabé darkly replies. 

“But it’s not on your head if – ” 

Sabé, though, just snorts at her again. “If I am both careless and stupid enough to let the Sith kill me, then yes, actually, it will be on my own head. But I don’t intend to be that foolish, now, do I? The handmaiden program works. We’ve seen that it works and that it works best if someone who can actually read those who apply and not be taken in by pretty faces or smooth words is put in charge and permitted, if necessary, to firmly reject applicants who aren’t suited for the life. Half or more of the worst damned trouble we’ve had, with traitors, is because that idiot, Panaka, let himself be taken in by sweet smiles and batted eyelashes like a – ” 

“He’s doing his best, Sabé – ” 

“ – and his best clearly isn’t enough, now, is it? Lietté Gaillen; Roché Jodelle; Essé Seltrin; Rosé Ganesa: these are all indisputable failures of Quarsh Panaka’s judgment – ” 

“There was no proof of ill-intent or maliciousness – ” 

Sabé scoffs openly, shaking her head. “No. Not until the faithless kung turned streppoch and began slaughtering our own, as much for their own dark amusement and power as for any purpose in support of their new masters among the Trade Federation. He was warned, and he accepted them into the training programs, anyway, and they’ve proven themselves deserving of no more than the title of khiel-streppain. Let me have say over my own handmaiden corps – ” 

“You can’t train your own handmaidens while acting as interim Senator!” Padmé quickly protests, shaking her head violently. “Asherah’s sake, there aren’t enough hours in a day for – ” 

“Let me appoint whomever I wish, either from the handmaidens who’ve survived or the girls who’ve basically made themselves acting handmaidens, during the occupation, and it won’t matter, because I’ll have my own version of myself – of an aónes dævítru eisharti – to act as my prime decoy and the extension of my will,” Sabé only firmly retorts. “If you don’t want to trust Dané Cashillé, after what the so-called Ladies of Pain did to her family, then give her to me, with Shelanné Glenn, and I’ll go from there. Or else let me have first pick of the surviving volunteer decoys and handmaiden guardians who helped us muddy the waters and keep Gunray and his thugs from successfully targeting you, when we stormed the Palace, and I’ll have a strong enough core for a coterie I’ll be able to trust with my life and your heart both, beloved!” 

“You aren’t the only other choice for this role – ” 

“But I’m the best and most reliable one you’re ever going to get and you know it,” Sabé flatly interjects. “Why are you fighting this so hard? The galaxy is on our side, right now, but if we wait too long and squander the guilt and goodwill of so much of the Republic – ” 

“Because I want you here, with me! Because I’m not sure that the Republic’s worth it – that it can actually be saved – when it’s already so far gone! Because this is a war we’re about to declare and, if it weren’t for the Sith, I’d think we should be on the other side of the battle!” Padmé finally lets herself be goaded into shouting. “If this so-called democratic republic is no better than a thinly disguised slave state and our own government can’t even be trusted to stand up for the sovereign rights of its member states or the supposed universal rights of citizens to freedom and justice, then why in Asherah’s name should I be willing to fight for it, much less make you an obvious target of its worst foes? Why shouldn’t I be burning it down and salting the ashes behind me? We’re supposed to be better than this! We’re supposed to be – ” 

“I will follow where you lead, and so will all of Naboo,” Sabé immediately declares. “If you think it would be better to leave the Republic entirely or to openly declare the Republic little more than a cesspit of corporatocracy that should be torn down entirely to make way for a truly functional democracy, then I will support you and I will follow you wherever you lead, Padmé. But if you want to stand against the Sith and keep them and greedy, arrogant thugs like the Trade Federation from ruining the Republic, then I will follow your lead and I will work with you so that we can salvage as much as we can and either dismantle or utterly destroy all that cannot be saved. The handmaidens will support you, whatever you choose, and so will your people, who rightfully love you. All you have to do is say the word. You don’t have to do so tonight – if you’re having nightmares about breaking the Globe of Peace,” she adds, mouth twisting a little wryly, in amusement, “then maybe you should wait until after we’ve survived the celebration, before you make any firm decisions – but ansa, it is a decision that you’re going to have to make and it’s not going to wait on you for forever. We have a fairly brief period of time, in which we can choose to act so as to make the most powerful possible impression and win as many firm allies to our side as we feasibly can hope to – ” 

“Not tonight,” Padmé quickly agrees, shaking her head. “After the celebrations. If we actually survive and I manage not to break both the alliance and the Globe of Peace.” 

Sabé snorts, rolling her eyes slightly, and drops another kiss on Padmé’s forehead. “You won’t drop it and it won’t break and you aren’t going to disgrace yourself in your jubilation dress and it will be fine, Padmé, I promise. Do you want me to try to speak to Rabé about – ”  

“No.” Padmé shakes her head firmly. “She’s already trying to do the work of at least three handmaidens, if not four. I’m sure you’re right and it’ll be fine.” 

Sabé smiles at her softly, pointing out, a little slyly, “It is a beautiful outfit, for a very beautiful Queen with exceptionally beautiful skin.” 

Padmé snorts, mouth moving to the shape of a smile in spite of her lingering bad mood. “You needn’t try to sweet-talk me, you know,” she sighs, a little sourly. “I’m not going to shock poor Fé or offend the whole world by wearing mourning violets to a victory parade, no matter how much I feel like wearing nothing but violet until Nute Gunray’s sentenced for life and the Trade Federation utterly dissolved, for crimes against sentiency. I just – I’m tired. And I don’t like this. I feel like it’s too soon, like we’re moving too quickly – ” 

Sabé, though, just shrugs. “Wait too long and lose the chance. At least this way, the people will know that we have hope and that we trust that help is on the way, for those who are still suffering.” 

“I know. I know. Really. I just – ” 

“ – you’re tired and you’re still angry at the Senate for failing us. You’re not the only one who’s upset about that, you know. I think even Bendu Kenobi is still more than a little miffed about how things went, there. The Jedi had testimony and we had recorded footage that we all ought to have been called upon to give, before any decisions were made, and yet, somehow or another the Trade Federation twisted things around until Valorum couldn’t even get that much on record as proof of Gunray’s crimes. The entire thing was a farkled mess, from start to finish. If you want to burn the Republic down for that, alone, a lot of us honestly wouldn’t blame you.” 

Padmé just harrumps irritably, though. “I don’t want to do the dirty work of the Sith. I just – I feel like we’re missing something, like we’re moving too quickly and we’ve overlooked something of vital importance – ” 

“We still have at least a little time. The galaxy won’t spontaneously end if you take a few days before you decide to make a nomination for Palpatine’s replacement, you know,” Sabé quickly points out, flashing her a reassuring smile. “No matter who’s pushing that mhalldaichte sgreamh, Greejatus, since Palpatine undeniably hails from Naboo, Naboo has the right to make the final decision on an interim replacement, not Chommell Minor, no matter how rich and powerful Greejatus might be.” 

Padmé only grumbles a bit more, though. “Maybe I should just send Dané and Shelanné Glenn to Coruscant, and keep you here with me, to take over the handmaiden programs here.” 

Sabé just raises an eyebrow at her calmly. “Do you actually trust her to do the job and not simply seek absolution through her death? Even if you do send Shelanné to look after her?” 

Padmé makes a sour face. “I don’t know what I think, just yet. But you’ve said I have a few days to make up my mind, so here’s me,” she rather bitterly insists, spreading her hands wide, “trying to work through the possibilities so I can make up my mind in enough time for it to actually mean something.” 

“It will mean something, whatever you decide,” Sabé quietly promises. “Whatever you want to do, we will make it work.” 

Sighing, Padmé replies, “I believe you. I’m just – tired.” 

Sabé’s mouth quirks with sudden humor.  “That’s because you should be resting, but instead you’re trying to glare your jubilation gown out of existence. Come on, alanna, come back to bed, before we argue the sun to rising. We have won, and we are alive, and we have time before we have to make any more decisions. Let’s lie back down and rest, while we still can.” 

Padmé sighs again, before letting herself lean forward and kiss Sabé once, lingeringly. “I couldn’t do this without you, you know.” 

Sabé just smiles at her softly before shaking her head, slightly but noticeably. “You could, but you don’t have to. Nor will you ever have to. You’re not alone, ma’chara, and you never will be.” 

A little plaintively, Padmé insists, “I love you.” 

“I know, beloved.” Sabé flashes her a bright smile, before turning and pulling her back towards the bed. “So since we have some time, why don’t you show me how much you love me?” 

At least with Lucas et al, we get an old-timey Roman “dux” feel for the whole Duke/Duchess of Mandalore thing, which makes sense in a weird sort of rip-off of an historically based version of King Arthur kind of way, in that, in the Roman military, a dux or duces/ducēs – basis for the later title of duke and all of its variant forms (duca, duce, doge, etc.) – started off as a leader of two or more legions, became the commander of an expeditionary force (as Viri Perfectissimi or members of the second class of the Equestrian Order), usually made up of detachments (vexillationes) from one or more of the regular military formations, generally to deal with military situations when the threat seemed beyond the capabilities of the province-based military command structure that had characterized the Roman army of the High Empire (3rd century), and evolved into the highest military office within a province and commanded the legions (the governor did still have to authorize the use of the dux's powers; once authorized, though, the dux could act independently from the governor and handle all military matters). (And in the Byzantine era of the Roman Empire, this rank also became equivalent to and eventually replaced the rank of general, while the megas doux or grand duke became commander-in-chief of the entire navy.) King Arthur is often described as a dux bellorum, or dux of battles among the kings of the Romano-Britons in their wars against the Anglo-Saxons, with the connotations of a sort of High King by merit of battles won lining up well with the Mandalorian traditions of the warrior class, myriad clans, and war leaders. That the New Mandalorians exist at all makes sense as an eventual backlash by the people against millennia of rule by swaggering warrior bullies and their constant warmongering ways, which has resulted in Mandalorians being used by the Sith again and again as shock troops (and, thus, slaughtered in droves by the Republic and the Jedi) and decades of civil war and infighting that has left vast swathes of the planet uninhabitable deserts (safe only under protective domes). That their rule is relatively short-lived also makes sense, as they exile their warlike foes rather than simply slaughtering them out of hand, as those same foes would do to them, if given half a chance, and the Sith are, after all, not extinct and still like to use Mandalorian warriors to do their dirty work for them. 

But then you get to DISNEY SW, and whole WTF-ness of Satine Kryze, Duchess of Mandalore, being the latest in a long line of puppet rulers established by the so-called Galactic Republic at some point after yet more Jedi vs. Mandalorian warfare (the last round of which probably coincided with the New Sith Wars, so that, after the Sith were thought wiped out, the Republic then turned its full attention to Mandalore and decided to take preemptive measures, to keep the Mandalorians from ever rising up against the Republic again), with all the warrior clans and warlike members of the population having been exiled to Concordia while the Republic-backed New Mandalorians essentially took over and gutted the culture and warrior codes of the people. Now, I know that this is on Filoni about as much as it is on DISNEY, but seriously, folks, just WTF?!?! You want to say that the Republic and the Jedi are the good guys, and then you have shite like this going on directly due to Jedi acting under orders from the Republic? And you still want to say that the Republic is a democratic organization rather than an imperialistic dictatorship propped up by a fanatical religious order? No. Just. No. This does not work in real life. Sure, it’s a lot more realistic, if you want to go in for Earth history for basically any and every nation in the world that’s ever conquered another nation and tried to put it forever in check by essentially killing off the other people and/or breeding them out of existence and/or forcefully remaking them in the image of their conquerors (Great Britain, I am especially looking at you, though hells bells, I am also looking at Greece, Rome, Japan, China, Russia, what became the United States, etc.), but those are imperialistic nations intend on expanding their borders, not peaceful democracies mostly just trying to mind their own business and ensure that their own myriad peoples have lives of safety and freedom and choice (which, by the way, is how the Republic is generally presented and accepted as being, or at least it’s how everyone acts as though it is, even when it’s actual canonical portrayal veers way the frak off the mark). In case you can’t tell where I’m going with this, DISNEY, it’s not exactly kosher to say that the Galactic Republic is one thing (democratic, for one. Peaceful, for another) when you are actively portraying said Galactic Republic as SOMETHING ELSE ENTIRELY (imperialistic, for one. Prone to preemptive acts of war, for another. This is basically right up there with saying that slavery is illegal in the Republic at the same time that the Republic is essentially using cloned soldiers as enslaved cannon fodder or “meat droids” – denied even the most basic citizenship rights – under the command of Jedi war leaders during a civil war essentially based on the rights of sovereign member states to secede from said governing body).

 2.) Reducing what Lucas established as a four-year term for the elected monarchs of Naboo into a measly two-year term, when realistically that means that any elected monarch has about a year to try to rule a whole planetary system that involves the entire planet plus multiple colonized moons (Naboo consistently has at least three moons, from Lucas to DISNEY, though neither one seems to be able to quite agree as to what they’re called. Comparing the two sets of lore, it seems likely, though, that the largest moon is Ohma-D’un or the Water Moon and that it has quite a few Gungan settlements as well as human settlements, Onoam is populated largely by the wealthy who own vacation homes there, and Rory, which King Veruna may have tried to rename Veruna after himself, is both the smallest moon and has a lot of spice mines) and then a year to try to campaign for election to the second term legally permitted a monarch of Naboo. That? Is utterly unrealistic and unworkable for so many reasons that honestly I can’t believe DISNEY was ever this stupid. There’s a reason why Lucas chose terms of four years for both the monarchs of Naboo and the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic, and it has to do with the fact that, realistically, a democratic leader put in charge of that many sentient beings cannot actually be expected to get anything done past his/her/xyr/its inauguration without, at minimum, a year or so in which to gather allies, a couple of years in which to actually put those alliances to good use by persuading whatever legislation and/or judicial branches exist to go along with any proposed changes to law and/or policy, and a year or so in which to campaign based on the results of those changes for a second term. That’s essentially how it’s done here, in the real world, where most of the democratically elected leaders of large nations have, at minimum, four years (unless we’re talking the entire bloody European Union, which has a two and a half year term, mainly as a way to try to cut back on possible corruption and because no one expects the entire bloody EU to act like a single sovereign nation) and often as much as seven years, per elected term, to permit said leaders to actually try to establish herself/himself/etc. as a viable leader. Don’t believe me? Take a gander at this list over here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_term_limits for basic worldwide term limits for elected heads of state/government.

And yet DISNEY thinks it’s alright to make the term for the elected leader of an entire planetary system the same as that for what amounts to the locally elected mayor for a single city of the main planet of said planetary system (in other words, the monarch of Naboo and the local municipal-level leader of Theed – the Prince/Princess of that city, as opposed to the Governor of the entire surrounding province/state/former kingdom of Theed, with the difference in positions basically being the same as Earth’s real world difference in positions between an elected mayor of a single city and the elected governor of an entire state within a larger nation – have the exact same two-year term and can only be elected for two separate terms legally, according to Naboo’s local constitution). Just. HOW IS THIS SUPPOSED TO BE AT ALL LOGICAL, DISNEY?!?!?!?! Because seriously, DISNEY, this IS NOT LOGICAL. The length of elected terms tend to go UP as the number of beings ruled and the size of the lands involved increase, they do not STAY THE SAME or even DECREASE (and given how long Sio Bibble is Governor of Theed, you cannot tell me that the term limits for leaders doesn’t go up from municipal leader of Theed city to the more sub-national level of Governor of the entire province/state/whatever it’s called on Naboo of Theed only to then GO BACK DOWN for the elected leader of the ENTIRE PLANETARY SYSTEM, because that is essentially exactly what DISNEY is saying happens on Naboo and that makes no bloody sense simply given how politics and people in general work. Generally speaking, when going from municipal to state to federal levels of government, terms increase in length to allow elected leaders more time to try to work within a framework involving magnitudes more people being represented but term limits also get applied the higher up in the overall government one goes, in order to avoid corruption and the possibility of a dictatorship. In other words, it makes sense, from a real world standpoint, that the municipal level would have a shorter term but allow for at least a couple of terms of elected rule, since the municipal level involves the least amount of individuals being ruled over, while the state and the federal levels would both have longer terms but that the federal level would have more stringent term limits than the state level. In my opinion, there should always be term limits of some kind for every level of government, if only to curtail corruption, but just the fact that individuals always have to be elected/reelected to their positions should help curtail at least some of the corruption that tends to creep in with actual democratic processes, if only on account of money). Insisting that the absolute highest level of local/system-level government be held to the same restrictions as the lowest municipal level of rule when the layers in between those two extremes patently are not held to those same restrictions frankly is a recipe for disaster. You’d have a parade of ineffectual figureheads supposedly ruling over the entire planetary system, switched out like clockwork every two years to avoid the possibility of any kind of effectual powerbase being built up and used (outside the possibility of an actual catastrophe like, say, a fairly newly elected monarch happening to overthrow an illegally invading and occupying alien faction, in defense of her people’s sovereign right to rule themselves), while the layer or layers immediately below the planetary/system level of ruler inarguably either have much, much longer terms or else no limit (or a very high limit) to the amount of times that they can be elected or both, while the people elected at the local level have next to no chance of amassing enough power/influence/supporting alliances to oust those at the those higher levels, since their term lengths and term limits are the same as those governing that of the ruler of the whole planetary system. DISNEY, I hate to tell you this, but this pretty perfectly sets up a system that is democratic only in name, while a system of effective dictatorships rule over large swathes (nations/provinces/etc.) of land and huge numbers of beings who reside on those lands and have enough power behind them to essentially ignore the constantly swapped out figurehead leader who is supposed to have control over the entire planetary system. THIS IS NOT HOW A FUNCTIONAL DEMOCRACY OF ANY KIND WORKS, DISNEY.

And before anyone says that DISNEY is just trying to make sense of an extra/impossible Queen of Naboo introduced by Filoni et al during the war, allow me to point out that it makes perfect sense for there to be another Queen of Naboo during this timeframe if the previous Queen has been untimely killed due to all the military actions that keep happening on her planet and/or within her planetary system and her interim replacement either decides not to run for a full term of her own when the remainder of the term she’s either been appointed to fill or elected to fill via some kind of emergency referendum is over with or else ends up going the same way as her predecessor basically at what would’ve been the end of her interim term? There’s the easy, simple, LOGICAL explanation for the apparently extra/impossible monarch of Naboo during the Clone Wars (Neeyutnee, that is, who is shown in Star Wars: The Clone Wars as ruling over Naboo during the Clone Wars, when Queen Jamillia has already canonically been established in AotC as the Queen of Naboo during part of this timeframe and Queen Apailana has already canonically been established in RotS as the Queen of Naboo during the rest of this timeframe) that doesn’t involve screwing up the entire ruling political body of Naboo. As an interim ruler, who covers the rest of elected term of the murdered monarch (or perhaps simply the impeached monarch. Maybe Queen Jamillia, who in the old EU was accused of being too sympathetic towards the Separatists, ends up being impeached and removed from rule, rather than killed. Or maybe she doesn’t support the war and resigns from her position as Queen of Naboo as a point of honor, in essence abdicating from the throne like Edward VIII of Great Britain abdicated his throne in order to marry the woman he loved. Or perhaps Queen Jamillia is just so badly injured at some point during the war that she is deemed no longer capable of ruling and an interim monarch is appointed for the rest of her elected term. Honestly, any/every of these explanations would work and be both rational and legal and, more importantly would not involve messing with the canonically established length of an elected monarch of Naboo’s term), much the same way that someone necessarily has to take over for Senator Palpatine as Senator for the Chommell sector towards the end of TPM, when he is made Supreme Chancellor (since he logically cannot legally fulfill both roles at once).

 3.)  WTFingF do you MEAN, DISNEY, by stating that Senators of the Galactic Republic have no term limits???? HOW THE HELL DO YOU JUSTIFY SAYING THAT THE GALACTIC REPUBLIC IS A DEMOCRATIC BODY, MUCH LESS AN ACTUAL FUNCTIONING REPUBLIC, WHEN THE SUPPOSED REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PEOPLE ARE NOT ELECTED (given what happens in Queen’s Shadow, with Padmé Amidala essentially being appointed to the post by fiat, by the new Queen of Naboo) AND HAVE NO TERM LIMITS (as specifically thought by Padmé Amidala in Queen’s Shadow, when she is contemplating spending the rest of her bloody life as Senator for the entire bloody Chommell Sector, which, may I just point out, canonically is supposed to be made up of 36 full-member worlds, over 40,000 settled dependencies, and 300,000,000 barren stars, among which are those of the Naboo system)?!?! Let me break it down for you what a democracy actually is, folks: at its most basic, a democracy (from the Greek, literally “rule by the people;” thus, the common belief that democracy is rule by the majority) is a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state (it’s legal citizens, in other words), typically but not always through elected representatives, where the people exercise power by voting. In a direct democracy, the citizens as a whole form a governing body and vote directly on each and every issue. In a representative democracy, the citizens elect representatives from among themselves and these representatives meet to form a governing body, such as a legislature, and then vote amongst themselves on each/every issue. In a republic, laws are made by representatives who’re elected the people and must comply with a constitution that specifically protects the rights of the minority from the will of the majority. Thus, a republic can be democratic but a democracy is not always a republic. A liberal democracy, in which the powers of the majority are exercised within the framework of a representative democracy, but the constitution specifically limits the majority and protects the minority, usually through the enjoyment by all of certain individual rights (such as freedom of speech and/or freedom of association), is essentially the same thing as a republic. Whatever way you cut it, though, if the so-called representatives of the people in a governing body aren’t elected through the process of citizen voting (and if they cannot legally be voted out of office by the same people they are supposed to be representing), then, by definition, that government is not democratic and it is not a republic. So seriously, DISNEY, WTAF?!?! Lucas at least was careful to refer to elections for figures like Galactic Senators and Supreme Chancellors, even if corruption in the government meant that basically whoever had the most money would end up and stay in office, short of some kind of cataclysmic scandal. But according to DISNEY, not only are Senators not elected at all, but rather appointed by fiat, at the whim of planetary rulers who somehow or another are able to ignore multiple other planetary rulers within their sectors to make said appointments, but they’re not subject to terms limits, not subject to the requirements of reelection, and apparently completely and utterly outside the control of the beings that they are supposed to be representing. How the frak is this a democracy, DISNEY? Better yet, how the frak is this supposed to be an actual democratic republic or any kind of a republic at all if apparently the only person actually being elected in any way, shape, or form in the combined legislative and executive branches of the entire blasted government (and the vast majority of the judicial branch is made up of a mystical/religious/spiritual militaristic order, otherwise known as the Jedi Order, whose only right to being the Jedi Order is determined by their strength in the Force, which is an hereditary bloodright, apparently, and has nothing whatsoever to do with elections of any sort or even basic training in law) is the Supreme Chancellor and even that post is apparently subject to having legal term limits ignored in times of warfare (given how Palpatine manages to still be the Republic’s Supreme Chancellor years after his second term has legally ended)? Sure, the leaders of individual planetary systems and/or individual worlds and/or moons might be democratically elected, but then, they might be controlled by constitutional monarchies, or by actual monarchies, or by war leaders, or whoever the heck has the most money/influence/power at any given time. So how the frak is this the so-called Galactic Republic actually a democratic republic, DISNEY, huh?  Huh?!?! INQUIRING MINDS WOULD LIKE TO KNOW. 

I mean, there are doubtlessly a lot of other examples to support the fact that apparently DISNEY fails utterly and completely at understanding how basic politics WORK, but FFS folks, these seem like the most glaringly obvious (and persuasive) examples, to me. The whole thing where apparently DISNEY has made the Galactic Republic into some kind of weird oligarchy that maybe wants to be a meritocracy but is fairly obviously sliding more towards outright autocracy (hence, Supreme Chancellor Palpatine becoming Galactic Emperor Palpatine) absolutely takes the cake, for me. DISNEY, I hate to break it to you, but you actually do have to have functional democratic elections, constitutional limits to keep from the majority from running roughshod over the minorities, and things like term limits and/or legal limits to how long a being can hold a position to actually have a functional democratic republic. Don’t call the Galactic Republic a democratic republic if you plan on systematically stripping it of EVERYTHING that actually makes it both democratic and a republic. Some of us actually know what those two things mean and involve and aren’t all that thrilled at the notion that you’ve essentially deliberately reduced Lucas’ somewhat corrupt and ineffectual but still technically functional democratic republic into what amounts to an outright oligarchy just waiting for a strong enough despot to come along and declare himself supreme mugwhump (or Emperor) for life.

Canonically, Galen Walton Erso is supposed to be about five years older than Orson Callen Krennic. Canon puts Galen’s birth in 56 BBY on Grange whereas Orson’s birth is in 51 BBY in Sativran City on Lexrul (there’s no indication as to just when during those years the two were born, unfortunately, so, depending on how early in 56 BBY Galen is born and how late in 51 BBY Orson is born, the gap could be anywhere from just over four years to almost six years, with five as the general average). Orson is canonically accepted in the Republic Futures Program http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Republic_Futures_Program (also occasionally referred to as the Republic’s Futures Program, which, to me, seems to indicate that maybe the Empire might have a version of the program, at some point, too) on Brentaal (apparently actually Brentaal IV, technically) http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Brentaal_IV when he’s younger than Galen was on his acceptance into the Program (Orson is only fifteen when be enrolls. The math for Galen puts him at sixteen, since he enrolls in 40 BBY and by 36 BBY, after losing both of his parents, is supposed to be best friends with Orson, who has just started the Program that same year), and Orson technically would have almost certainly been considered even more of a rube by his so-called “peers” at the Program – given that he’s from a planet that’s actually even further out from the Core – than Galen, even if Lexrul http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lexrul is urban and Grange http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Grange is an agriworld, Grange being located in the Expansion Region (and therefore closer to the Core) whereas Lexrul is out in the Mid Rim. Leaving aside, for the moment, the (to me) frankly somewhat troublesome fact that Orson at fifteen (who’s just entering the Futures Program on Brentaal IV and, let me repeat myself, younger at the time of his entry into the Program than genius polymath Galen Erso) somehow quickly becomes best friends (who’re quite possibly strongly co-dependent, based on the way that they’re written, in Catalyst) with a probably twenty-ish Galen (who’s already had about four years, himself, in the Program, by that time) and that (according to Lyra, anyway, though, to be fair, she’s not exactly a reliable narrator) Orson apparently is widely known among his fellow graduates from the Futures Program as something of a charming facilitator for group projects whose “nocturnal carousing had become legendary” during his time in the Program, there’s also the fact that Lyra, herself, is almost as much younger again than Galen as Orson is. 

Canon puts Lyra’s birth in 47 BBY, on Aria Prime http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Aria_Prime a world that hasn’t, as yet, even been assigned to a specific region of the galaxy (though logically it should probably be somewhere in the Outer Rim Territories, near the Tion Hegemony http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Tion_Hegemony/Legends possibly just off either the Perlemian Trade Route http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Perlemian_Trade_Route or else the Far Perlemian https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Far_Perlemian since Lyra is said to have gone to school, at the University of Rudrig http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/University_of_Rudrig and that’s solidly within the Tion Hegemony). This means that Lyra’s probably 21 when she meets Galen – who would’ve likely been 30, in 26 BBY – on Espinar, acting as a guide for his team of scientists studying crystals found in a cave system there, and they have such an apparently whirlwind romance that they’re lovers by the end of the expedition, six standard months later, and have been married for “almost five years” by the time she and Galen are seized, on Vallt, putting the wedding sometime in that same year, unless Lyra is rounding up enormously. (I know that there’s apparently a date in Rogue One: The Ultimate Visual Guide that puts the wedding in 25 BBY, but unless it’s at the very beginning of the year, I’m not sure that the math could actually work out for that, given what Lyra specifically thinks, in Catalyst, unless she’s the kind of person who, after four years and one day, rounds up to five years.) In other words, there is not only almost certainly a nine year gap between Lyra and Galen’s ages, Lyra is what we would barely consider legal drinking age, here in the states, when she meets and marries Galen (who, again, is nearly a decade older than she is). 

In regards to James Luceno (author of Catalyst), this makes a reference to Lyra having traveled to and seen multiple wonders of the galaxy “by the time she was twenty-nine,” before meeting and marrying Galen, patently impossible, since, again, she’s canonically twenty-one when she first meets Galen, on Espinar, and they end up lovers who (according to Lyra and the math involved) marry before the year’s out. Either Luceno made an eight-year mistake in the dates and all that visiting of natural wonders must have occurred before she was twenty-one or else Lyra is making the entire thing up wholesale, since, at the time she’s thinking about all those trips, the war is still on (it’s unclear as to whether or not it’s still 20 BBY or already 19 BBY, though, if I had to, I’d personally guess 20 BBY, given this is before the family’s relocation to Lokori, which is where they still are when the war ends) and she’s almost certainly still only twenty-seven, at the time. 

To put things a little bit more in perspective, regarding everyone’s ages, Galen is about thirty-four when the war starts (sometime in 22 BBY), Orson doesn’t even turn thirty until the year after the war begins (sometime in 21 BBY), and Lyra (who is probably barely seven years old when Galen joins the Futures Program and only eleven when Orson joins the Program and meets and becomes best friends with Galen) is in her mid- to late twenties (25-28, roughly) for the entire duration of the Clone Wars. 

In case y’all can’t tell, the age differences between all three of these characters bother me. I am frankly a little less bothered by the age difference between Orson and Galen when they meet and become best friends (largely due to the way that Galen is consistently described, in the book. Lyra obviously is biased towards her husband and against Orson pretty much from the get-go, but Galen’s actions in the book just don’t fit the kind of predatory complex one would halfway expect or at least fear, in what amounts to someone who’s been with the Program long enough to graduate befriending a fifteen-year-old who’s only just starting the Program) than I am by the fact that the book more than once refers to Orson as having been a legendary partier during his time in the Program (when, again, he’s only fifteen when he joins the Program). That there’s a nine year gap between Galen and Lyra’s ages is, in my opinion, only somewhat mitigated by the fact that Lyra has apparently led a much less sheltered and more experienced life than Galen, just given how much she’s been traveling and working since she graduated from the University of Rudrig. On the other hand, though, there’s also the difference in actual education (not just age) between Lyra (who’s apparently only gotten some kind of basic undergraduate degree in geology – mostly, or so it’s heavily implied in Catalyst, just to get out of the house and away from her mother, an artist who apparently drives Lyra crazy – whereas Galen is specifically said to have pursued multiple courses of study just to stave off boredom and intellectual stagnation and is almost certainly a multiple PhD, given how long he remains in the Futures Program and his attachment afterwards to Coruscant’s Institute of Applied Science) and her husband, and frankly that bothers me, too, especially given how many times the author reminds us, in Catalyst, that, even though Lyra’s the one responsible for collating/transcribing Galen’s notes, she doesn’t actually comprehend what it is that he’s doing or even begin to understand the science behind what he’s researching and trying to do. (It also does not help matters any that, even though she clearly doesn’t understand what Galen’s trying to do, her lack of comprehension doesn’t in the least bit keep her from disapproving of her husband’s study of kyber crystals massively.) 

The more I think about all of this, the more I honestly start to think that it’s no wonder Lyra dislikes Orson and feels threatened by his relationship with her husband, given the fact that she’s so much younger than both of them and not only has so little education compared to them but so obviously doesn’t understand what it is that Galen’s trying to do, with his kyber crystal studies, and can’t really talk to him about his work (not like Orson can, anyway). Even if she weren’t illogically biased against the very idea of studying kyber in the first place (and I’m sorry, folks, but once you start bringing superstition and religious/spiritual beliefs into things, you lose all claim to rational thinking, especially when it comes to biases based solely on those superstitions and religious/spiritual beliefs), she still couldn’t really talk to her husband about his work, given the basic fact that she doesn’t comprehend what it is that he’s doing and/or trying to do (in other words, she doesn’t know the science behind it all and so does not and cannot understand the science that Galen is attempting to bend to his own purpose). Lyra, from literally the beginning of the book, is described as attractive, athletic, energetic, spirited (almost vivacious), and opinionated, whereas Galen is consistently described as retiring, shy (too shy to even want to celebrate his own birthday, according to Lyra), intelligent to the point where he lives in his own head, wrapped up in his work (obsessed, even, with his work) and therefore too preoccupied to notice much about his surroundings, and not particularly at ease with talking about much of anything but his work. Not only after the rescue of the Ersos from Vallt, Orson actually reflects on the fact that he’d originally thought that Galen and Lyra were “drawn to the other’s exotic qualities” (in other words, that opposites attract) and that their relationship would never last (the implication quite strongly being that it couldn’t last because the two have nothing in common and physical attraction wouldn’t be enough to hold them together, in the long run, given the fact that they are so unalike as to have virtually nothing to say to one another), which is why “all these years later [he] still wasn’t used to the two of them” being a couple. 

Honestly, given the way that Lyra and Galen are actually portrayed, in Catalyst? I would’ve been right there, with Orson, assuming that the relationship couldn’t possibly last, for exactly the same reasons. Of course, it doesn’t at all help matters any that Lyra, herself, stresses the physical side of the relation and Galen’s initially almost hostile reaction to her, on Espinar, as being due not to disinterest but rather his physical attraction to her, which she rather condescendingly refers to as Galen “being confused by his changing body and how it sometimes took him out of his mind, out of his deep thinking” and to him wanting to sort out “what she wanted from him” and to solve “the calculus of their relationship” before ever even approaching her. The simple fact of the matter, though, is that these two characters, who are consistently described throughout the book as basically being polar opposites, don’t talk to each other in any truly meaningful way for virtually the entire course of the novel and the two actually meaningful conversations they have (if they can be called meaningful, as opposed to simply truthful and somewhat desperate) are in the last few chapters of the book, when Lyra is convincing Galen that Orson and Palpatine/the Empire have been lying to him all along about the use to which they mean to put his research and that he should leave the work and Coruscant behind and essentially run away with her. Lyra and Galen are married and supposed to be in love, and yet they hardly ever speak to each other about anything but Galen’s work and Jyn, unless forced to by outside circumstances (like the Valltii deciding to side with the Separatists, the Separatists breaking through Republic defenses on Lokori, etc.). Which brings me to yet another frankly disturbing observation about Lyra, which is that this supposedly energetic, opinionated, independent woman, who loves the wilderness and loves her work and fairly obviously can’t stand to be cooped up on a city-world like Coruscant, never once attempts to return to her own work or to take on employment of her own, during the entire novel, until Orson basically bribes her into accepting the job on Alpinn, researching the possibility that it might be another source of kyber crystals and therefore potentially quite important for Galen’s work. 

Granted, there’s a period of some months, after Orson rescues them from Vallt and returns them safely to Coruscant, when the Erso family is basically trapped on Coruscant, banned from travel (more specifically banned from leaving Coruscant while the war is ongoing), due to the fact that Galen has been accused of sedition in the whole Vallt mess and the Republic (in the personage of Wilhuff Tarkin, of all people!) is investigating the charges and etc. (plus the fact that, even after Galen has been cleared of charges, the Republic still doesn’t trust that he wouldn’t be of enough interest to Dooku that, if the family were to leave Coruscant, the Separatists wouldn’t just snap him right back up again), but that’s not until after accusations of treason are made by a drunken scientist named Daigo Belcoze at a party that occurs several months after the family’s return to Coruscant, given that Jyn is described during the rescue as being six months old and as having been a “year-old” left at home with a nanny at the time of the party. Jyn Erso canonically is born in 21 BBY and the trip to Alpinn (which lasts at least three months, according to Catalyst) is sometime in 18 BBY, probably late 18 BBY, given that the family flees from Coruscant to Lah’mu not long afterwards and they are both canonically given four years in hiding on Lah’mu before Orson finds them, leading to a confrontation where Lyra attempts to murder Orson and Orson’s guard shoots her dead, and that Lyra’s death is given to occur 13 BBY. (The math makes Lyra approximately thirty-four at the time of her death and it’s not until her trip to Alpinn and the family’s decision to flee Coruscant at the very end of Catalyst that Luceno’s reference to her at being twenty-nine much earlier on in the book actually becomes factually applicable.) There are still at least two full years (if not more) in that stretch of time (from 21-18 BBY) when Lyra could have chosen to take on work of her own (and therefore gotten out of the urban landscape she fairly obviously hated) and yet failed to do so, even though the family’s finances are in dire straits and she actually reflects on this fact at least once (during the chapter where she’s also mentally grousing about the fact that Corsucant has too many peoplemovers and not enough stairs, that it’s next to impossible to get a good workout when you can’t even break a sweat, and that she misses the wilderness and dislikes how tame and boring Coruscant and its endless cityscape is). She also flat out reminds Galen, essentially immediately after their return to Coruscant from Vallt, that she’s capable of working, too (even though she completely fails to even so much as once attempt to find work of her own, the one job she does take on in the book having essentially been handed up to her on a silver platter by Orson). So in other words, she is aware of the fact that the family’s in trouble, on the verge of going deeply into debt, she knows that Galen would necessarily be available to watch Jyn (since, after all, it’s his inability to get another job, after the whole mess with Zerpen and Vallt, that’s causing the financial strain, since he won’t take a position that would have him working for the military, even though the Republic is at war), she supposedly misses the wilderness and her own work, and yet not once in the book in there a single mention of Lyra actually attempting to find work of her own, with the one and only job that she actually takes on being due to Orson bluntly offering her the work and the work being potentially linked to Galen’s work by the possible existence of kyber on Alpinn. 

This is not how a supposedly independent, clever, energetic woman would behave. Lyra’s failure to seek work – the fact that the one contribution she makes to the growing desperation of the straits surrounding the Erso family is a suggestion that, if/when the traveling ban is lifted, they should relocated to Aria Prime and move in with the mother she’s apparently had such a bad (or at least strained or contentious) relationship with that she not only went to college to get away from her but immediately went to work once she out of college to pay back the loans that her artist mother took out, so she could afford going to university in the first place – is troubling on multiple levels, primarily due to the fact that it not only directly contradicts her supposedly independent nature, it strongly hints at the possibility that Lyra in fact thought Galen’s work more important (even though she disapproved of it and was “secretly glad” when he was forced to give the work up, after Vallt . . . at least until Orson brought him in on a joint project basically based on Galen’s kyber research) than her own work (given that the one job she does agree to take on is essentially presented as being important to her because it is potentially important to Galen’s work, since Alpinn is potentially another source of kyber for Galen to research/utilize in his work) and that she must have had reasons that she thought good ones to remain on Coruscant, even though the book makes it clear that she all but hated it there and “needed wind and rain, cyclones, quakes, and the threat of avalanches. Unpredictability. Natural forces at work,” in order to thrive. This is especially problematic and troubling given the fact that Lyra also spends the entire blasted book, from virtually the first moment Orson Krennic is reintroduced into her life (even though, again, that reintroduction happens because Orson is personally risking his life in order to rescue the Erso family from captivity on Vallt and the distinct possibility of being turned over to Dooku by the Separatist aligned Valltii), disparaging and disliking/distrusting Orson (the one that really gets me is her rather catlike inner thought about how she’s not even sure if Orson graduated from the Program or not, literally while the just rescued family is still in transit from Vallt to Coruscant. Let me remind folks, again, that Orson is younger than Galen on his entry to the Program and such a brilliant and prolific architectural engineer that, when he first meets Has Obitt, “Regalia Station” is one of his more prominent past projects and there are so many other prominent sites of his past projects on Coruscant alone that he’s able to promise to “give [Has] a list of which of my works to visit on your next stop-over.” Moreover, the “just turned thirty” Lieutenant Commander is “the person largely responsible for remodeling and expanding the building” on Coruscant being used to house the meetings for the Strategic Advisory Cell responsible, among other things, for shepherding what will be the Death Star project and has already been made coordinator of the Special Weapons Group specifically responsible for said Death Star project for the Strategic Advisory Cell. That Orson is brilliant is fairly manifestly obvious throughout the novel, and yet Lyra Erso specifically thinks to herself, in regards to Orson’s talent and intelligence, that she “never saw it” and “was never clear on whether he had graduated or been dropped from the [Futures Program]”) wanting him away from her husband and out of their lives, hating the fact that Galen is working for Orson, and finally persuading Galen that, because Orson has lied to him about the Empire’s plans for his research, he should drop everything (work and all) and essentially run away with her from Coruscant. 

Do I actually need to say that Lyra’s frankly rather obvious dislike of Orson (long before he’s actually done anything to merit her distrust and long before she could possibly have any rational reason to doubt him or his intentions, regarding Galen or Galen’s work with kyber, even when he is literally risking his life to rescue her and her family from probable fates worse than death, as Dooku’s captives) and her extreme envy of Orson’s close relationship and past history with her husband strongly hints at both a deep uncertainty of her own place (her actual importance) in Galen’s life and a fairly disturbing lack of trust of the husband she supposedly loves? Do I actually need to explain just how problematic this is for Lyra’s character (when it’s basically yet more proof of her hypocrisy, given that she claims to love her husband deeply but clearly doesn’t trust him and that she presents herself as independent and as loving her job when she is actually behaving in the exact opposite way as someone actually independent and actually feeling that her job has value/worth in and of itself, without involving her husband’s work, would)? This kind of crap is EXACTLY why I say that the writers involved with Rogue One and Catalyst apparently have no freaking clue how to write women characters and no real business trying to do so, either, when the result is this kind of character butchery. I feel like I keep saying this, but it’s pretty damned ridiculous that the person who’s basically framed and set up as the main hero for Catalyst should actually be depicted as a hypocrite who apparently either isn’t at all sure about her husband’s affection for her or else doesn’t trust him, at least in regards to Orson Krennic  (or some combination of both things), even though she constantly declares herself in love with her husband, is violent and uses force and threat of force consistently, even though she thinks of herself as a pacifist, not so secretly hates her husband’s work (which, again, she literally does not and cannot comprehend), even though she also constantly thinks of herself as supportive of Galen’s work, and apparently also doesn’t think her work is all that important (or else that it’s not nearly as important as staying on Coruscant so she can keep watch over her husband, who, again, she apparently doesn’t exactly trust to be alone with Orson, even though she knows that the family’s finances are increasingly dire and, for at least part of the time when she’s refusing to take on work of her own, she’s pretty much the only Erso who could have actually gotten paying work), for all that she presents herself as an independent woman who loves her work and the wilderness that her work takes her to. 

NRGH.

In short, having pacifist tendencies and supporting pacifist philosophy and morality in the abstract does not make you an actual pacifist, not if you demonstrably constantly resort to violence and/or the use of force rather than peaceful means in the face of opposition and/or violence. This is not to say that there’s not a difference between absolute pacifism and, say, the pacifist viewpoints that support nonviolent resistance, up to and including destruction of property under certain circumstances (generally involving paint and/or destruction of objects used as weapons), because honestly pacifism as both moral and political philosophies covers a spectrum of views. Those viewpoints all center about the basic belief that all disputes (from the personal to the national level or higher) should be resolved peacefully rather than through the use of violence or threat of force, though, so once violence and/or the use of force (and even the restraint of others by definition involves the use of force, folks) enter into the picture as anything other than nonviolent resistance or (for some viewpoints, at least) the most basic acts of self-defense and/or the defense of innocents, pacifism as a whole by definition exits the picture. 

I mention this here not only because I am really tired of people slapping a term that they pretty obviously do not comprehend on SW characters like labels, but because my automatic response, when I read something like, oh, say, Catalyst or the Rogue One novelization and come across references to Galen Erso and Lyra Erso as being pacifists, is essentially to scoff dismissively and roll my eyes disgustedly and/or to laugh and laugh and laugh, and try not to cry, at the inclusion of yet another blatant falsehood in the SW canon. Demonstrably, through the actions they take throughout their lives, as portrayed in both the Rogue One film and the accompanying SW novels, comics, etc., neither Lyra Erso nor Galen Erso are actual pacifists. Lyra, especially – whose first action, on being discovered, on Lah’mu, is to contact the leader of an extremist group of freedom fights thought too violent and too much like terrorists and anarchists to be considered worthy allies by the Rebel Alliance, and then go for a blaster, which she in turn draws on Orson Krennic, in order to deliberately threaten his life, even before the guards surrounding him can bring their own weapons to bear, choosing to ignore the attempts of both her husband and Orson to get her to put the weapon down and to literally take a shot at killing Orson, rather than surrender, leading to Orson being shot in the shoulder and Orson’s guards shooting her and killing her – is quite obviously not a pacifist. She is, in fact, depicted consistently as both fierce and somewhat bloodthirsty, in the defense of her family and especially her husband, Galen. 

There is an instance in Catalyst that I find particularly useful, as an example for why neither Galen nor Lyra are actually pacifists, during a party, when an inebriated scientists openly accuses Galen of treason against the Republic and then proceeds to take a swing at him. Rather than back away or attempt to use words to try to defuse the situation, Galen’s response is to literally beat the Iktotchi, Daigo Belcoze, down, after which Lyra moves up to her husband’s side, ready and willing to puts the spiked heel of her boot through the scientist’s forehead, essentially threatening to murder Daigo Belcoze by ramming her heel through his head – since, logically, putting a high heel through a forehead would be a killing blow – if Daigo doesn’t concede the fight. Galen may prefer not to fight, himself, but that does not make him a pacifist, as he is clearly, by his own actions, both capable and willing to resort to physical violence, if pushed (and Lyra arguably is even more willing and capable of violence, even in instances where it is painfully clear that resorting to violence will do nothing but cause an escalation of violence and force, in effect making matter far worse than they already are. Lyra may justify the threat of force that she brings to bear against Orson Krennic as an act of protection and potential rescue, for Galen and herself, but when she pulls the trigger on the blaster she knows that her attempted justifications were, in fact, incorrect, and that she’s misjudged both Orson Krennic and the situation. She takes the shot anyway, not out of any belief that it will help the situation, but rather because she wants to kill the man she blames for upending her life and that of her family. She is, in fact, perfectly willing to do murder – to use violence purely as an act of vengeance – something that frankly is anathematic to the pacifist philosophy, which eschews violence and force in favor of peace). 

Lyra and Galen may, in essence, be conscientious objectors to the war, but they are not pacifists. The two things are not the same and are not interchangeable terms. In fact, it is, in my opinion, arguable as to whether or not Galen can even truthfully be classified as a conscientious objector, given his willingness/eagerness to work for the government under the auspices of the military, as recounted in Catalyst, even if that willingness is, in large part, due to being tricked about both just what why it is that his research is being supported by the government and said military and just what it is that the military – under direct orders from Palpatine, himself – ultimately plans to do with that research and why. Galen’s eagerness to pursue the kyber crystal research evaporates when he learns more of the truth about what that research is actually being use for; the fact remains, though, that, when Orson Krennic eventually finds Galen and his family on Lah’mu, Galen deliberately chooses to remain behind – knowing that he will almost certainly be captured and that Orson fully intends to put him straight back to work on making the Death Star’s main weapon functional – in order to gain Lyra and Jyn enough time to run and hide, so that Saw Gerrera will hopefully be able to rescue them and take them somewhere where the Empire won’t be able to find them. Then, after Lyra’s attempt to murder Orson and her subsequent death, he chooses to resume the work, seemingly willingly. Granted, this is ultimately in order to sabotage the Death Star, but the fact remains that Galen deliberately chooses to help the Empire finish building a fully functional superweapon more than capable of destroying whole planets, knowing full well that it might be used before his sabotage can become known to anyone who might be in a position to use that knowledge to destroy the Death Star and knowing, too, that destroying the Death Star will, at the very least, necessarily involve the deaths of millions of sentient beings, including not only hundreds of thousands of stormtrooopers and both enlisted and commissioned personnel for the Imperial Army and Navy among the crew and support staff, pilots and support crews, gunners, technical personnel, etc., but also civilian workers in places like the numerous cantinas and commissaries in the food and recreation areas surrounding the housing blocks and any/all prisoners being kept in the detention levels. 

Frankly, on a moral level, it’s extremely difficult trying to reconcile true conscientious objection to war in a man who deliberately performs acts of sabotage in the hopes that doing so will lead to the destruction of the Death Star, knowing all the while that this will necessarily result in the deaths of approximately two million sentient beings, among them citizens, prisoners of war, and potentially innocent beings being held prisoner aboard that same Death Star. Sources may vary, regarding just how many actually die aboard the Death Star over Yavin IV, but the number is fairly consistently given (even since the DISNEY buyout) as at least between one and two million, and, given the secrecy surrounding the project in the first place and the fact that construction on the main weapon has literally only just been completed, prior to that first test fire on Jedha and then its subsequent use on Scarif and Alderaan, odds are that the estimated death toll of two million is more accurate, given the fact that there are almost certainly still slaves and contract laborers still aboard the station, who wouldn’t necessarily be known of to the Rebels and who likely wouldn’t ever be counted by the Empire on any subsequent casualty lists. If Galen honestly hopes for his sabotage to become known and be used to destroy the Death Star as soon as is possible, hopefully before that main weapon can be used to destroy too many worlds, then odds are that he’s aware of the fact that this would involve killing hundreds of thousands if not millions of workers, the vast majority of whom are slaves and “prisoners” of the Empire (among them so-called political prisoners and very likely numerous innocent beings). That he still deliberately chooses to undergo years of seemingly willing work on the Death Star (specifically its main weapon) in order to sabotage it, anyway, rather than take his knowledge and expertise with him, to the grave (which would have brought work on the main weapon to a halt and possibly made it impossible for the Empire to complete a fully functional Death Star either before the rest of the galaxy found out what was being done or even at all), in my opinion, makes it pretty damned obvious that Galen Erso is not a pacifist and makes it problematic, at the very least, to even label the man as a conscientious objector to war. 

This is not to say that the Death Star – in every single iteration – does not need to be destroyed. Given both its purpose and its usage, I would personally place the destruction of the Death Star and any/every version of such a superweapon on the level with a moral imperative, verging on a moral obligation. But then, I am quite decidedly not a pacifist and, if it came down to it, I would be right there, volunteering to do anything/everything I possibly could, to support the Rebels (even if I would almost certainly make a lousy soldier, given my health issues). 

The point is, though, that even though words like “pacifist” and “pacifism” get thrown around a lot in SW canon, they are categorically and demonstrably being used incorrectly. Saying that one prefers diplomacy to violence when one carries a blaster and tends to shoot first and ask questions either later or else not at all does not make one a pacifist. Insisting that just because one doesn’t support or agree with a particular war when one is willing to get into a bare knuckle brawl over an insult and willing to use the threat of not just force but death to end such a brawl (a high heel through the forehead would blatantly be a killing blow, folks!), not to mention more than willing (if not, ultimately, capable) of doing murder for personal vengeance, does not make one a pacifist. Lyra can say that she loves nature and claim to admire the Jedi and to believe in the Force all she wants too, and it doesn’t negate the fact that she’s demonstably bloodthirsty enough to let her personal hatred of one man turn her into an attempted coldblooded murderer (and may I remind folks that it is only because she is apparently incapable of aiming her blaster all that well that she doesn’t, in fact, become an outright murderer. She is killed in Rogue One specifically because she has attempted to murder Orson Krennic and his guard responds by shooting her, after she has already shot Orson in the shoulder), in a situation where she easily could have chosen to listen to the people asking her to put down the blaster and surrender so that she could then attempt to find other, less blatantly violent (not to mention less obviously suicidal) ways to fight back and/or escape (and may I also remind folks that if Lyra actually were a pacifist that not only should she have put the blaster down and let herself be taken, with Galen, but that she shouldn’t have had a blaster to draw on Orson Krennic in the first blasted place). 

If anything, Lyra is portrayed as an environmentalist, not a pacifist. More, even though she lets herself be radicalized by knowledge of the Empire’s actions and intentions, her response is, first, to essentially gather up her family so they can all run away and hide (in essence ignoring all the evil being done in the galaxy, in order to selfishly pursue a life with her family, away from both the Empire and the nascent revolution against the Empire), and, second, to abandon her eight-year-old daughter and only child in hopes that said daughter might successfully hide, so that a terrorist leader might be able to rescue her later, so that Lyra can attempt to go commit cold-blooded murder as an act of personal vengeance, rather than following the actual plan (involving hiding with her eight-year-old child in hopes of rescue by Saw Gerrera) and instead of choosing to surrender in hopes of either eventually escaping or else finding some way of resisting/fighting back against what the Empire desires of her family. Even leaving aside the frankly extremely problematic fact that Lrya willingly chooses to abandon both the plan and her eight-year-old daughter due to the fact that she thinks that her husband “needs” her more than Jyn does, the fact remains that Lyra at no point within SW canon so much as attempts to try to organize or take part in any overt act of resistance (nonviolent or otherwise) – unless one wishes to grant that taking herself and her family and running away from the Empire (in effect turning her back on the galaxy as a whole) counts as an act of nonviolent resistance – or even to openly protest against the myriad crimes being committed under Palpatine’s rule. Frankly, this makes her a hypocrite, one who comes off as a holier-than-thou two-faced sanctimonious pietist, given that, throughout Catalyst especially, she continually thinks of herself as a pacifist and claims to support neither the Clone Wars nor the Empire’s warlike actions, yet fails to do anything whatsoever to openly protest the war, the Empire, or the Empire’s myriad crimes, much less attempt any acts of nonviolent resistance against either the Republic at war or the Empire at war, with her personal actions constantly disproving her claim towards pacifism. Lyra willingly, canonically uses force, threat of force, and outright violence, in situations where an actual pacifist would eschew such violence and use of force for more peaceful actions. 

Which brings me to the real reason for this post: Lyra Erso as a fridged nonentity of a character (for those who are somehow not yet familiar with the “women in refrigerators” trope, I suggest reading this article https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StuffedIntoTheFridge and this one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Refrigerators for the basics and for further links for those who are interested in finding out more about either the trope and implications of the trope or its history) who pretty obviously exists and is summarily killed off in Rogue One solely in order to provoke a strong emotional reaction from Jyn (who never forgives the “man in white,” even though she’s witnessed her mother pulling a blaster on the man, threatening to kill him, and subsequently firing upon and shooting him in his left shoulder) and from Galen (whose decision to pretend to cooperate with Orson Krennic and the Empire in order to sabotage the Death Star, so that it can be destroyed, follows so closely upon Lyra’s death that at least some causality is clearly implied). One is rather prone to think that the writers/directors/etc. also meant for this death to resonant strongly with the audiences of the film and provoke empathy, if not sympathy, both for the character and for her family, though unfortunately in the film she actually comes off as either something of an idiot, suicidal, or such a radical extremist that she goes out there fully intending to be shot and killed, if not a combination of all three things at once, all well as perfectly willing to commit murder, none of which are all that sympathetic (or particularly appealing in a character who is supposed to be one of the “good” guys, honestly), given the circumstances surrounding her death. (Why they chose to frame the events leading up to her death as they did, I honestly could not say, given that her death is clearly framed as an act of defense by Orson Krennic’s guard, who don’t even get a chance to bring their weapons to bear before Lyra is aiming her blaster at Orson and threatening to kill him and who are filmed as being ordered to act essentially simultaneously with her pulling the trigger on Orson, so that Orson falls back from the hit to the shoulder and then Lyra falls to the ground, dead from probably multiple blaster wounds.) 

The character of Lyra Erso logically is almost certainly meant to be a sympathetic one – she’s essentially coded as one of the “good” guys, as Galen’s wife and Jyn’s mother – but her actual depiction in the Rogue One film mostly serves only to portray her as an ultimately inept wannabe murderer who abandons her eight-year-old daughter and years of emergency planning in order to essentially suicide by cop (with Orson’s death trooper guards standing in as cops) so that she can try (and fail) to take vengeance on the man she blames for wrecking her life and that of her family’s. The novelization for Rogue One only serves to worsen the situation, as Lyra is not only depicted as being bitter and resentful of Orson Krennic, whom she disparages mentally and wants to kill, but is also written as having decided to throw away years of the family’s emergency planning simply because she thinks that her adult husband – who, again, has deliberately stayed behind to try to buy Lyra and Jyn more time to hide and, thus, a better chance at escape – “needs” her more than her eight-year-old child does. In other words, her selfish desire to rescue Galen drives her to literally abandon Jyn without so much as a second thought or backward glance. Worse, Lyra is also depicted as taking the shot at Orson Krennic after having already come to the conclusion that she’s misjudged both the situation and Orson and has absolutely no chance of successfully rescuing her husband, meaning that she essentially lets her desire to murder Orson Krennic completely override any/all care for both her own life/safety and that of her husband (having, in essence, already proven that she has no care for Jyn’s continued safety, by deliberately abandoning her) and willingly chooses to resort to violence when she could have easily responded to her husband’s begging to put down the blaster by doing so and surrendering (and, thus, living) to fight (or escape) another day. Frankly, she comes off far less as a victim of the Empire (or of Orson Krennic) than someone too morally lazy to actually oppose the Empire, too stupid and too bitter to choose to live, and too murderous to back down when faced with the fact of her own bad judgment. 

And then there is Catalyst, in which, may I repeat, Lyra’s actual depiction versus how she thinks of and speaks of herself frankly paints her a hypocrite, one who comes off as a holier-than-thou two-faced sanctimonious pietist. This, despite the fact that Lyra is framed as the main hero of the story, given that she’s the one who has doubt and distrust from even before the story opens (even though there’s no good reason ever given for such ill-feelings and even though Orson Krennic is actually reintroduced to Lyra in the story as a literal savior, come to rescue her, baby Jyn, and Galen from the Valltii and the Separatists and, thus, from Count Dooku, who would certainly use Galen’s genius towards evil ends) and pursues said doubts/distrust to the bitter end, eventually revealing Orson Krennic’s lies and the Empire’s evil (even though the fact that the Empire is evil  already should have been pretty damned obvious, considering how the Empire literally begins, with the genocide of the Jedi, a fact that is all but glossed over and rapidly forgotten – except in the end, as yet more proof of the Empire’s evil – by the characters in the book), and prompting her husband to agree to pack up the family and run, so they can live in hiding (and continue to do absolutely nothing about the evil being perpetrated by the Empire). 

Honest to ever-loving gods, y’all. The more I think about it, the more at a loss I am about just what the authors Rogue One and Catalyst actually thought that they were doing, in regards to the character of Lyra (no given last name of her own) Erso. This character? Is an unmitigated mess. Her portrayal is not actually sympathetic in Rogue One, her depiction is even less sympathetic in the novelization for Rogue One, and Catalyst consistently says she is a pacifist while revealing her as rather violently inclined and hateful, making her out as a hypocrite who also spends most of the book behaving like a petty, jealous (and I mean eaten alive with envy, y’all), controlling shrew who can’t stand to have her husband’s attention or affection diverted from her in any way and frankly behaves in an unforgivably abominably rude towards his best friend (and the only actual friend Galen is really shown as having, in the book). That the best friend in question, Orson Krennic, turns out to be a liar who’s so caught up in the idea of destiny that he’s been manipulating Galen into helping build a superweapon (first for the Republic and later for the Empire) doesn’t change the fact that he is presented as and shown to be Galen Erso’s closest and oldest friend, and frankly the fact that the woman is rather bitchily thinking to herself that she’s not even sure if Orson ever graduated from the Futures Program less than an hour after he has personally risked his life to save the Erso family from Vallt (and quite possibly from fates far worse than mere death, all things considered) doesn’t exactly incline me to like the woman or to wish her at all well. 

Really, the more I think about it, the more certain I am that the various authors in question must have no idea how to write a female character at all sympathetically (and apparently no business trying to write one, either) and so ended up botching Lyra’s character out of a combination of sheer ineptitude, idiocy, and laziness. Lyra is not at all likeable or relatable as a character. She’s not depicted in a sympathetic manner and, in fact, comes off as a selfish/self-centered, arrogant and obstinately sure of herself, domineering, envious, jealous, bitter, petty, and blatantly two-faced hypocrite. And infelicitous gods, but I hate hypocrites. 

This is particularly troubling to me, both as a writer and as someone who almost always writes AU and frankly tends to prefer truly well-written AU to the canon (any version of it, both pre- and post-DISNEY buyout) in far too many instances. SW is a difficult fandom for women in general – there aren’t enough female characters, period; there aren’t enough well-written, strong female characters; and frankly a lot of the supporting texts for the films accomplish little but to reduce the canon characters to petty caricatures of themselves – and the addition of a character like Lyra Erso, who starts out as a fridged nonentity in film and is elaborated upon in print to become frankly the single most unsympathetic female character in SW since … gods, I don’t even know, Ysanne Isard or Natasi Daala or Viqi Shesh, maybe? Honestly, I’m not entirely sure I can remember ever having such a powerfully visceral negative reaction to a female character in SW before (especially not one who is logically meant to be a good guy and even the main hero, in Catalyst), though I’ll admit that if I’d actually read more of the old EU seriously from the whole Yuuzhan Vong mess onwards this might have changed (I can remember really hating Viqi Shesh, though I also seem to remember being rather confused as to just what the frak her motivations were supposed to be for being a turncoat. It took me a long time to actually read the NJO books – mainly because I flat-out hated them – and I never did get around to making myself read anything past the whole Joiner fiasco all the way through. I balked utterly at what the EU did to Jacen Solo and the whole murdering Mara Jade thing. I only ever read more of the EU because of the prequels and because of Tim Zahn, honestly. I have spent a long time being disappointed by SW tie-ins – I had actually all but sworn off reading official SW books entirely, until I became aware of a slew of entertaining and fairly well-written prequel-era novels being published – and, unfortunately, DISNEY has frankly done not a single frakking thing to improve that opinion. So far, the DISNEY books are so badly written, so disjointed, and so overpopulated with frankly out of character main characters that they’re like reading painfully bad teenaged fanfic rather than supposedly professionally produced works). 

I am fairly certain that the only reason I managed to finish reading it (though it took four days) is because my head hurt too much and the weather was too bad to spend much of that time on the computer or attempting to watch anything and it was the closest book to hand those two days I mostly spent in my room trying to avoid bright lights so as to try to avoid vomiting. Ergh. Truly, folks, I’ve read some dull books in my day, but this one pretty much takes the cake. There are no really memorable new characters to carry the plot (the truly interesting ones are all killed before halfway through the book), the attempted plot twist was fairly obvious from the get-go (and as soon as the mysterious “Devon” showed up I knew who he actually was, since everyone kept harping on the fact that Quell’s a liar and of course that meant the memory that the book started with would turn out to be false in some way), the one character I really recognized by name (Hera Syndulla) barely showed up in the book at all, and honestly, the most memorable thing in the entire book is something that a reprogrammed IT-O torture droid says to Quell on the last page of the next to the last chapter, regarding Palpatine and Operation Cinder. “The Emperor who ordered Operation Cinder, who built two Death Stars, who oversaw countless genocides and massacres and created an Empire where torture droids were in common use, was not a man of secret brilliance and foresight. He was a cruel man. Petty and spiteful in the most ordinary of ways; and spiteful men do spiteful things. Whatever else he intended, that is the root of it all.” It’s memorable, to be sure, but it also mostly left me thinking, Well, no shit, Sherlock! And also, Thank you, Captain Obvious!

Seriously, folks, the entire book is not just boring, it completely fails to engage at any level. At least the first Aftermath book – as purely infuriating as it is that Chuck Wendig has apparently never heard of a complete sentence in his life and lacked an editor capable of recognizing that roughly 99% of the text is nothing but a confusing tangle of sentence fragments and run-ons – has somewhat engaging characters (not counting the Imperials, who are mostly frankly obnoxious as all get out) and a plot that isn’t completely obvious from a thousand parsecs away.

I swear, I’ve read four SW books in the past four months and every single one of them has been underwhelming and/or enormously disappointing. Say what y’all will about the old EU, at least it was almost always engaging/exciting on some level (no matter how occasionally ludicrous and wildly over the top). Honestly, aside from Catalyst and Ahsoka (though I honestly have a hard time believing that the same person wrote Ahsoka as authored the absolute mess that is Queen’s Shadow, which is probably the next most boring SW book I’ve ever had the misfortune to read, being mostly comprised of arrogance/overwhelming privilege and faffing about clothes and makeup and extremely light on plot, not to mention being a far more insulting experience to read, given how offensively reduced and petty and small minded the main characters frankly tend to come across as being, especially Padmé) and possibly Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn books (which aren’t nearly as complex or well-written as the old EU books about Thrawn, but hell, at least they’re still somewhat engaging and not quite so blasted formulaic that most of the plot is obvious from the first chapter), I can’t think of a single SW book published since the DISNEY takeover that I would unreservedly say has been worth the price of buying (and Catalyst has its own problems, chief among those that it’s interesting almost as much for the things that aren’t said in it as it is for that which are). One would think, with all the money it constantly rakes in, that DISNEY would be able to pay to hire writers capable of producing original, engaging, exciting SW novels. But apparently this is just too much to ask for, alas!

Thank all the deities in existence for fanfic, is all I have to say!

Rules for Nabooian Names (as they currently stand)

Note: This list of rules/customs is subject to change and will likely be added to as I continue to make up some names for some of my more minor original characters (and continue to discover the existence of more minor EU/Legends characters) from Naboo! First-born child as a daughter: Ends in -a (Example: Sola Naberrie) Second-born child as a daughter: Ends in -é (Example: Padmé Naberrie) Third-born child as a son: Ends in -n (Example: Kason Gardia, Jarrisen Maurello, Davin [Naldona] Harwood, Corban Nepascia, Keibhan Naberrie, etc.) Fourth-born child as a son: Ends in -a (or -ma) (Example: Druthma Jaffa) First-born child as a daughter: Ends in -a (Example: Ayesha Jamillia Zyanya, Essara Till, Sabitha Aldona, Myria Veganis, etc.) Second-born child as a son: Ends in -d (Example: Feyd Janra) Third-born child as a daughter: Ends in -i (or -ni) (Example: Arani Korden, Mahuri Dixdi Zyanya, etc.) Fourth-born child as a daughter: Ends in -m (or -rm) (Example: Yarm Najaffa, a Queen of Naboo born ~500 years before the Battle of Geonosis) First-born child as a daughter: Ends in -a (Example: Keiana [Apailana] Adrasteia, Quianna [Kylantha] Alcmene, etc.) Second-born child as a daughter: Ends in -é (Example: Aideé Gardia, Shelanné Glenn, etc.) Third-born child as a son: Ends in -n (Example: Roshan Navaren, Dren Melne, etc.) Fourth-born child as a daughter: Ends in -l (or -yl) (Example: Evenyl Yob) First-born child as a daughter: Ends in -a (Example: Amesha Myman, Rigana Gyllen, etc.) Second-born child as a daughter: Ends in -é (Example: Gwené Maranno, Maitané Aldona, Ellessé Veganis, etc.) Third-born child as a daughter: Ends in -y or -i (Example: Lehari Nhaven) Fourth-born child as a son: Ends in -io (Example: Sio Bibble) First-born child as a son: Ends in -e (Example: Sharuke Zyanya) Second-born child as a daughter: Ends in -u (or -nu) (Example: Rhiannu Naberrie, Ashæru Adrasteia) Third-born child as a son: Ends in -an (Example: Roshan Navaren) Fourth-born child as a daughter: Ends in -ja (Example: Pooja Naberrie) First-born child as a son: Ends in -e (Example: Sharuke Zyanya) Second-born child as a daughter: Ends in -u (or -nu) (Example: Rhiannu Naberrie, Ashæru Adrasteia) Third-born child as a daughter: Ends in another vowel besides either -a or -u or any form of -e, whether accented or not. (Example: Ryoo Naberrie, Solei Rishima) Fourth-born child as a daughter: Ends in -ja (Example: Pooja Naberrie)

First-born child as a daughter: Ends in -a (Example: Keiana [Apailana] Adrasteia, Quianna [Kylantha] Alcmene, etc.) Second-born child as a daughter: Ends in -é (Example: Aideé Gardia, Shelanné Glenn, etc.) Third-born child as a son: Ends in -n (Example: Roshan Navaren, Dren Melne, etc.) Fourth-born child as a son: Ends in -o (Example: Palo Tilera) First-born child as a son: Ends in -e (Example: Ruwee Naberrie, Líruwee Naberrie, etc.) Second-born child as a son: Ends in -s (Example: Cianus Tammesin) Third-born child as a daughter: Ends in -i (or -ai) (Example: Yseultai Tammesin, though readers should note that, in the naming of her three youngest children, Lady Illyn [Jaffa] Tammesin essentially ignored the existence of her first-born daugher, Ryseidas [Dormé] Tammesin) Fourth-born child as a daughter: Ends in -n (or -yn) (Example: Illyn [Jaffa] Tammesin, Catárren Marchei, etc.) First-born child as a daughter: Ends in -a (Example: Elynna Dahn Nabish, Shesha Grandin, Surana Barakis, etc.) Second-born child as a son: Ends in -d (Example: Feyd Janra) Third-born child as a son: Ends in -l (Example: Katerol Jaffa) Fourth-born child as a daughter: Ends in -m (Example: Yarm Najaffa, a Queen of Naboo born ~500 years before the Battle of Geonosis) First-born child as a son: Ends in -e (Example: Sammase Marano, Dallone Harwood, etc.) Second-born child as a son: Ends in -s (Example: Darniss Maranno, Ioannes Tammesin, though readers should note that, in the naming of her three youngest children, Lady Illyn [Jaffa] Tammesin essentially ignored the existence of her first-born daugher, Ryseidas [Dormé] Tammesin) Third-born child as a daughter: Ends in -i (or -ai) (Example: Mahuri Dixdi Zyanya, Yseultai Tammesin, though readers should note that, in the naming of her three youngest children, Lady Illyn [Jaffa] Tammesin essentially ignored the existence of her first-born daughter, Ryseidas [Dormé] Tammesin) Fourth-born child as a son: Ends in -r (or -ar) (Example: Vidar Kim) First-born child as a son: Ends in -e (Example: Graelynde Adrasteia, Taymore Larminta, Callume Nabish, etc.) Second-born child as a son: Ends in -s (Example: Darvis Kolan, Reis Larminta, Kieras Nepascia, etc.) Third-born child as a son: Ends in -nn (Example: Alenn Dahn, Shaunn Nepascia, etc.) Fourth-born child as a son: Ends in -a (Example: Mitcha Larminta, Connla Nepascia) First-born child as a daughter: Ends in -a (Example: Nyda Larminta, Amilla Alcroft, Lahura Boranys, Ellindra Ghende Boranys, etc.) Second-born child as a daughter: Ends in -é (Example: Emmé [Naldona] Harwood) Third-born child as a daughter: Ends in -y or -i (Example: Lehari Nhaven) Fourth-born child as a daughter: Ends in -m (Example: Yarm Najaffa, a Queen of Naboo born ~500 years before the Battle of Geonosis. Scholars still argue over the exact composition of her family, given her name) Note #1: Rules vary when children are born as twins or triplets (or conceivably as quadruplets on up, though there has not been a multiple live birth involving more than three children among the native human population of Naboo for over a thousand years), though not all Nabooians follow the rules for multiple births if the births occur over a larger space of time than a few minutes (instead reverting to first-born child, second-born child, third-born child, etc., rules). And, of course, as these rules are only traditional customs, they are not adhered to rigidly, especially among families of mixed ancestry where adoptions of children from other worlds have brought traditions and customs of other peoples into the mix. However, the most common endings used for multiple births are: -a and -e or else -ei and -u for fraternal twins of differing sex who're born quickly together (for a first born child as a girl and then a first born child as a boy, and for a first born child as a boy and then a first born child as a girl); -æ and -œ for identical girl twins born quickly together; and -y and -g for identical boy twins born quickly together. This tradition, of course, is generally not held to if the children are born more than an hour or so apart. Triplets are extremely rare on Naboo; however, traditionally, for a girl and then a boy and then a girl, the endings are -a and -th and -i or –it; for a girl and a boy and a boy, the endings are -a and -es and -ll; for a boy and a boy and a girl, the endings are -ei, -ss, and -ae; for a girl and a girl and a boy, the endings are -ua and -ae and-eu; and for a boy and a girl and boy, the endings are -ey and -ou and -ui or -nui. There’s no general difference to the endings used depending on how long far apart triplets are born (largely because triplets are so exceedingly rare on Naboo). Note #2: Children's names - traditional names given to a child after birth, to confuse any evil spirits (Sith ghosts, for example) and so protect the child from attempts at possession - generally don't follow the rules for those given to children legally, for life, for fairly obvious reasons. The custom has evolved over time so that the tradition is less about attempting to protect a child against possession than it is about differentiating between a child and a legal adult who has undergone the traditional coming of age ceremony. Childhood names - known formally/ritualistically as "shadow names" - are essentially given up after one reaches legal majority and/or undergoes the ritual coming of age (which occurs approximately around age thirteen for girls and fourteen to fifteen for boys), though one's family and close friends often use these as pet names or affectionate nicknames. Note #3: It is traditional among the women of Naboo to give a private "blood name" when a girl-child of Naboo comes to the full flowering of her womanhood and/or reaches the age of legal adulthood. This name, known among men and boys as a "seed name," is given to a child who has been deemed an adult in a private ceremony among either all of the adult females or else all of the adult males of the family (or with at least one surrogate brought in especially for this purpose), and is generally never spoken again (save, perhaps, by its recipient), outside of extremely private family matters involving issues of faithfulness or treachery to the family and within the bounds of highly intimate relationships, where the trading of full names is seen as a sign of unquestioning trust. It is not common for a blood/seed name to be known beyond the bounds of one's immediate blood kin and legal spouse(s), and these names generally do not follow any set pattern, beyond a certain tendency for some names within a family to resemble each other. Note #4: In the exceedingly few/rare cases of truly unwanted children (children, for example, who are or who may be the product of rape), it can often be observed that the mother of the child(ren) will deliberately break with the traditional rules of naming for her children in such a way as to skip over acknowledging the unwanted child(ren) as the issue of her body. The most famous example of this is likely the case of Lady Illyn (Jaffa) Tammesin, who, after being viciously attacked by a man hired by the sibling wives of her only two known living immediate blood relatives (in an attempt to avoid the bankruptcy that they knew would otherwise be brought about by a legal action taken against their combined household for the illegal appropriation of Lady Illyn's birthright and inheritance), gave birth to a girl-child who might have been a product of the rape she suffered or who might just as easily have been a product of any one of a number of the immediately previous loving nights she spent in the embrace of her husband, Cianus Tammesin, an aide/advisor and highly trained guard in the employ of the then Queen (Ashtara Adeé Russe) of Naboo. Unable to bring herself to allow to have the child's paternity tested, Lady Illyn agreed, with her husband, to raise the child as if she were their own first-born; yet, Illyn failed to adhere to the traditional naming customs, naming the girl Ryseidas (a name associated with darkness, tragedy, and heartbreak, in Nabooian culture) instead of giving her a name ending in -a, as is customary name for a first-born child who is a girl. This girl-child would later go on to become a handmaiden and decoy of another young Queen of Naboo, Padmé Amidala, and, oddly enough, it would be by her childhood name (the name traditionally given to a newborn child and used by close family and friends at least up until the time when that child participates in a ritual coming of age and so is recognized as an adult), Dormé Tammesin, that she would become famous for her courage, compassion, and wisdom . . .