Chapter 56: Expansion

We were a victim of our own success.

The Liberation of Karazak started out as a seven episode miniseries. It was pretty similar to Generation Kill, focusing on a single specific squad before, during, and immediately after the operation. The realism made it illegal to show in a little over a tenth of the galaxy as showing actual deaths for entertainment violated their obscenity or safe-space laws.

In the parts of the galaxy where we could show it, a lot of people weren’t interested. They either saw violence as something barbaric and beneath them (an especially common reaction for some species), or were pro-slaver, or anti-law-and-order, or had their own nationalistic governments and militaries to support. To make things worse, our PR campaign for it was a bit of a flop and had to be redone, doubling the already high advertising cost.

But those who did watch it tended to like it. A lot. So the word of mouth was good. And it was a fairly unique product. Real combat videos tended to be messy, but between the sensor quality, sprites and AI ours was incredibly clean, and I’d hired the very best to direct and manage the videos. The unit that was followed was one of many that had been specially formed for their natural cinematic quality when they were in training. And then any areas that needed to be fleshed out or modified were, whether using computer graphics or acting.

Within a few months, about a trillion and a half people had watched it. We made an order of magnitude more credits off of those viewers than we did with all the seized slaver assets (though compared to income from manufacturing and stock-trading everything else was still insignificant).

The demand for more was high. So we had spin-offs. Some focused on different units within the marines. Others focused on naval personnel. Others on recruits going through training. One, which proved to be the most popular in the long run, was a true-crime series focusing on the slaves, from capture, through rescue, and then the associated trials and punishments for the slavers.

Twenty billion people had looked into our recruitment policies seriously enough that it was clear they were very interested in my company. Of those, social data mining analysis and automated background investigation showed that a little under a billion fit the potential recruit profile; ie, they lived in polities where joining GSD was legal, were likely to join if asked, and met the physical and psychological requirements.

When we took Karazak early in 972 ARR (after Ruusan Reformation) it was four years after I’d had to fund the hiring of an army to retake Naboo. I could now supply that army. Not the ones to take the Neimoidian worlds, at least not yet, but the Coyn force which I’d hired at least was smaller than what I had under arms. By 973 ARR, I planned on quadrupling my forces, going from three hundred and twenty frigates in eighty detachments to over twelve hundred frigates in three hundred and twenty detachments. Karazak itself had become a new GSD construction and staging zone; it was a little out of the way, but the area around it wasn’t developed or claimed by anyone whose rights we were acknowledging, so it was a good place to set up shop.

So we were massively expanding, yes. But even that massively expanded fleet only needed some nine million people to staff. In other words, out of the billion likely recruits, I only really wanted some ten million or so (the extra needed to allow for recruits that fail training). The question thus became: how to select them?

Luckily, I had a good solution.

Our mind-machine interfaces continued to be a big selling item, and were now being produced at four billion models a year, with roughly ten thousand credit profit on each unit made. But the demand was extreme. Further, my analysts estimated a massive untapped market for super-realistic VR (including games) and less intensive productivity applications. In other words, a personal computer versus the industrial devices that were selling.

The new pixie models, named as a lesser version of sprites, were the answer. Our first factories were already producing them, in enough numbers that I could use my potential recruits as “beta-testers”. Subsequently, we’d be making about ten times as many pixies as sprites, using a similar auction process with a thousand credit minimum to sell them. Gangari Gaming Corp, one of my (many) subsidiaries already had some pretty damned good simulators and war-games which I’d had developed for internal training purposes. For the beta-testers it would be free to play, and in the future I was planning on running it on a freemium model (where paying for items could help, but wasn’t necessary), including in-game marketplaces which accepted either in-game or galactic credits (though my company would take a cut on all transactions).

Part of the plan was for the games to be addicting. Users couldn’t get access to full-capacity Gangari Security quality equipment inside the games without having active duty or GSD veteran status. To make those perks even more alluring, the occasional limited-duration special event allowed them to get just enough of a taste. Using GSD power armor compared to even top-grade Mandalorian was basically the difference between driving a Ferrari versus some old clunker. Similarly, export pixies and sprites were limited to 90% and 95% synchronization respectively, compared to 99-100% with my internal sprite systems. For a real enthusiast, that extra power from the gear, that extra bit of realism in the game or training simulation could be worth it. Not to mention the fact that those games suddenly had real purpose, real meaning.

On my side of things, we’d be able to evaluate and recruit the very best, and might learn better ways to conduct training, new strategies, etc. Game modes which focused more on administration, trade, exploration, design, etc. were also under development to help with civilian job recruitment in the future. As I shifted the galactic economy into a true-blue highly automated post-scarcity state, I expected that internal VR economy would become just as important as real-life.

Other than that, final designs and tests for the cruiser class were underway. At 600m in length, fully twice as long and eight times as massive as the frigates, the cruisers were really designed to serve as flagships for frigate flotillas, or as the backbone for naval combat fleets designed to engage and destroy other modern navies which served major star-powers. Each cruiser carried a regiment of over a thousand aerospace strikecraft, equal to that carried by an entire frigate detachment. Depending on the variant and mission marine complements could vary greatly, but standard cruisers intended for space/ground operations carried two divisions, a group of marine aerospace strikecraft, and a company of SBU. Together with their escorts, that meant a cruiser had a total of a full corps of forty-nine thousand marines to deploy as needed. It was a self-contained unit capable of projecting power against second and third rate galactic powers, and at least serving as a deterrent to the more powerful systems like Corellia or Kuat.

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I bowed lightly after entering Amidala’s private audience chamber.

“Your majesty, it’s been too long,” I greeted politely, vaguely wondering what she was upset about now.

Amidala fixed a gimlet stare on me, not that anyone without mystical powers could really tell given how she was all made up and in her ridiculous garb. “Lord Gangari. We have heard about the GSD building cruisers.” As if that was meant to be some great surprise to me, some got-you! moment.

I mean, it certainly took her long enough. I’d been dangling that information out there for various spies to catch for months by that point. I’m pretty sure there had been at least one article in a defense-oriented magazine; they’d even got their hands on some of the exterior image mock-ups which we’d leaked to only the best information gatherers.

Could I have managed a near-perfect information blackout? Yes, easily, especially with my sprites. But that sort of thing makes spies (and those who command them) very nervous. After all, why that level of secrecy, something almost impossible for any other to manage on that scale, unless it was nefarious?

“Yes, your majesty,” I replied calmly. “Why, were you interested in hiring some?”

She snarled at bit at that. “Hiring some!” she exclaimed, as if she’d never been more offended in her life. “I demand that you cease, immediately!”

“And why would I do that?” I asked. Really, I was quite interested in her answer.

“These cruisers represent an unacceptable escalation. Your stations and existing ships are more than sufficient for defensive and anti-pirate purposes. Those frigates of yours are already more than We believe is necessary. The only purpose of cruisers is to project force, and We will not permit it!”

Wow. Wow. “May I remind your majesty that Coyn and Ailon Guard both used cruiser-weight ships to liberate Naboo. In fact, that both used ships above cruiser weight?”

She was taken aback by that for a bit.

She was right, by the way. Cruisers were designed to project power. They were politically equivalent to third-rate ships of the line back in the age of sail. Not enough to make you a top national power, or even a second rate one until you had enough of them, but something needed to hold your head up in any way when speaking to those who did have proper ships. And enough to bully your neighbors who didn’t have such ships, at least a little. In more modern times, cruisers were not the equivalent to having aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines. They were the equivalent to having attack subs and amphibious assault ships, those little pocket-carriers that were much smaller than a proper aircraft carrier but could launch enough helicopters and VTOL jets to support limited contested landings.

There was a threshold in shield capacity and weapon power where suddenly typical light defenses, the sort of thing used at the vast majority of stations and small-to-mid sized planets, became minimally effective. Cruisers crossed over that magic threshold, and even small numbers of them could dominate most polities. Naboo, for example, would likely have lost its orbitals to a conventional cruiser squadron before my arrival, and Naboo was a relatively wealthy sector capital (if perhaps less militant than most).

Frankly, we’d only managed the Karazak invasion because my ships were so much better than they should have been for their size, and because the Karazak slavers were almost entirely ship based. Normally, that sort of mission would have needed cruisers. I wanted to take on harder targets in time, the sorts that kept proper battle-fleets. And for that, I needed not just more ships, but heavier ones.

Plus cruisers were really the smallest ship that could do bulk-freight in the armed merchantman variant, or serve as small mobile yards for mining and manufacturing, or do any of a dozen other tasks.

Finally (and now armed by a legal argument whispered in her ear by one of her handmaidens) she rallied. “That is immaterial, and just serves to prove Our point. The liberation of Naboo and the operations against the Trade Federation constituted full military action. Coyn and the Ailon Guard are both not just sources of mercenary forces, but member-states of the Republic. Their forces, while for-hire, are nonetheless duly constituted system defense fleets. Furthermore, their heaviest naval assets are only hirable by those, like Ourselves, who are themselves legally entitled to do so. Gangari Security Directorate is not a governmental entity, nor is it entitled by Republic law to possess capital ships.”

I grinned. “I am forwarding your majesty certain documents. You will see that per 182.76.14 subclause A, the Judiciary has ruled the Karazak a legitimate capture from enemies of the state, and awarded it to the Gangari Security Directorate. Per 241.83.17 subclause C, as citizens of standing of Naboo we applied for, and were granted, the right to treat Karazak as a high-risk colony, and per 73.9.84 subclause B are allowed to possess capital ships. Per 732.18.9 subclause F, as a state with the right to possess capital ships, in good standing with the Republic, and with Judiciary approval, we are allowed to hire such forces for military engagements, pursuant to the laws of the Republic.”

A handmaiden quickly scanned through the forms I’d sent her, checking their digital signatures. Then, with shocked awe and horror on her face, she turned to Amidala and nodded.

Amidala looked at me. “How?” she asked with wonder. “How did you manage that?”

She had a point. The bureaucracy should have kept those requests tied up in red tape for decades. Suffice to say, those who could be bought were bought. Certain people had not been sufficiently discreet with their indiscretions, especially since GSD, due to my sprites, represented perhaps the single greatest intelligence gathering and analyzing entity in the Galaxy. And for those who were neither financially nor morally corrupt, well, either their backers were, or they were promoted somewhere they couldn’t cause me mischief.

I allowed my grin to break into a wide smile. “Suffice to say, majesty, that while your concern is appreciated, it is unnecessary.”

She sank back with a sigh. “Gangari, what do you even want them for? What are you planning? What are you going to drag Naboo and Our people into?”

I looked at her seriously. “Safety and security from any power that my anti-slavery operations may anger. Larger armed merchantmen for trade and convoy protection. Mobile shipyards and manufactories. And yes, in the future when GSD is large enough and strong enough, maybe we’ll do something about Senex-Juvex, Zygerria, Hutt space, and every other festering den of iniquity. But for now, I’m well within my rights.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them. “Very well. It seems We cannot stop you. But We beg of you, Odysseus, do not be hasty. Peoples’ lives are not a game, no matter how wealthy you are. And this is not an age where men build empires by war.”

I shook my head at her naivete. “I will bear your words in mind, majesty. But kind words did not defeat the Trade Federation. Nor do moral platitudes protect those stolen or born into slavery. And for all that things are quiet in the Republic, and have been for centuries, the base realities of war never change.”

There were still a few platitudes and bits of empty ceremony, but my audience was at an end.

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We weren’t just occupied by an orgy of expansion. After Karazak, and some associated follow up raids on slaver satellite bases, business was good.

That year, GSD had two major military operations. First, we were hired by the Jedi of all people to end the Open-Closed war. They had sent a knight to investigate a signal on Carnelion IV, a planet thought destroyed in a vicious civil war. Unknown to the galaxy at large, though reduced to a post-apocalyptic remnant, the locals were still fighting. Knight Kiri Sera’s ship was damaged by the debris in orbit, and she was stranded. She managed to get a new distress signal out, but extraction from an active war zone was pretty difficult. Mostly because the Jedi didn’t have many ships with sufficient shields and armor to safely enter the planet, and none were available at the time.

Our old “friend” Qui-Gon, since raised to the Jedi High Council, liked to keep an eye on me and my operations, so he was familiar with GSD’s naval capabilities. In their reduced state, neither of the Open nor Closed armies were in a state to resist our rescue operation, and the Jedi were able to negotiate a peace under the shadow of our ships.

Our second operation was on Haruun Kal. The planet was only marginally inhabitable, with super-aggressive force-fueled fungi that attacked electronics and massive clouds of toxic gasses. The only true natives were the Korunnai, Force-sensitive (because no one else could survive in that place) tribesmen descended from a Jedi vessel which crashed thousands of years ago during one of the wars against the Sith. They were why I was interested – I wanted to start bulking out my military with Force sensitives, and the Korunnai represented a large pool of possible recruits (at least, large in terms of force-sensitives). Notably Mace Windu, Master of the Jedi Order, was Korunnai.

Unfortunately for the Korunnai, but luckily for me, they were locked in a seasonal war against the Balawai, or Outsiders, offworlders who were interested in harvesting certain spices and drugs local to the planet. Thyssel bark, a hallucinogen thought to be able to give Force-visions, was particularly valuable.

There were only about a million of these Balawai on the planet, and it wasn’t hard to chase them off. A few hundred Korunnai youths interested in change, technology, or adventure joined up, and began training under the mana-summoned copies which I’d made of Force-Adepts from various sects.

My Force-sensitive population was growing rapidly. My hobby, or at least one of them at that time, was tracking down and getting the patterns for as wide a variety of Force Adepts as possible. Given the massive resources I was able to devote to the task, it was no surprise I was highly successful. I had over a hundred unique patterns in a mixture of Jedi Masters, Matukai Martial Artists, Keetael Huntmasters, Luka Sene Mentors, Mind Walkers, Dagoyan Masters, Guardians of the Whills, Disciples of Twilight, Salai Kasi Adepts, Teepo Paladins, Theran Listeners, H’drachi Seers, Wardens of the Sky, Jal Shey Mentors, and Zeison Sha warriors.

Many of these organizations were somewhat persecuted by the Jedi, whether through direct theft of their more powerful children, or through more subtle legal discrimination at the behest of either the Jedi Council or local Sector Watchmen. While some, such as the Miralukans, were often quite happy to join the Jedi, others, such as the Zeison Sha disliked the Jedi and their kidnapping ways. I was always happy to give sanctuary, support (whether financial, legal, or a frigate detachment to shadow visiting Jedi ships), and training to any Force-sensitives who were willing to align themselves with me. With hundreds of summoned trainers, and thousands of Force-Sensitive recruits (even if most weren’t strong enough to hack it as Jedi), Gangari was quickly becoming one of the largest organizations for Force-Sensitives.

I was keeping it as quiet as possible, but I knew the Jedi had notice and weren’t exactly pleased by the situation. Still, Force Sensitives were just too useful. Whether it was the slight edge they got in combat, or being superior negotiators, salespeople, strategic planners, empathetic managers/human-resources staff, inspired inventors, or just passively lucky, I wanted their talents.

The ex-slave, Anakin Skywalker, was one of the strongest force sensitives. In fact, he was on the pilot’s track in his training and education, and was one of the top performers in the flight simulator; he was among the top in his age group for lightsaber combat as well. Unfortunately his strategy and tactics needed some work, but as a pilot alone he was consistently in the top five, and when he commanded strikecraft in wargames they were most often victorious (if with higher casualties than might be desirable, the boy needed to learn that not everyone was nearly so skilled as himself). I’d already offered him a slot in the Academy and (assuming he passed) an officer’s commission for when he turned sixteen (the minimum age for recruitment, and even then it needed a waiver).

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But as much as we grew in 972 ARR, that was only the beginning.