Creche system, Pef Empire

Water Creche planet 871

10 BBY, next month

"What do you think, Solanus?" I asked aloud, although there was no need. With 800 brains in this system, Solanus could hear electrons spinning, individually. He probably didn't bother to listen to each of them, unless he was bored.

The Silentium made device rose from his waters, perfectly dry. Yes, I know you have perfect control over water, no need to show off, damn ocean.

"It is a gravity well projector, although very refined. About half as powerful as the ones you mounted on the Mountains, although it doesn't need energy conduits. It draws power from the tiny singularity in that sphere. Basically, it's self-sustaining." the ocean replied in clear words, spoken by using Sound alter.

Was he being polite? To me? Maybe because all our teams just scratched their heads and said they have no idea how the thing works. Or why.

"Hmmm. The device is also a million times smaller than our own gravity projectors, not to mention we cannot modulate gravity at all. Not unless it's artificial, and that costs energy to maintain" I muttered a bit envious. Damn droids had better tech than me. Not fair!

"Why are you an Emperor again? Of course we can modulate gravity. If we use the Force to implode a star..." Solanus replied with an annoyed voice.

Oh! I forgot about that. Always thinking I needed a material construct to alter reality. A hammer to beat on a nail. But if you had the Force...not really a good idea, was it?

"So, what backlash can we expect if we build and use this kind of gravity modulators?" I asked in a more humble tone. There's always a price.

"We will never use the Silentium variant, not if we want to live a long life. Not as they are now. This single device will be installed on the Dart, since it is already active, and will never stop, as long as the casing remains intact. But the Navy ships have Ardanium reactors, and resilient power conduits. You'll just need to create tiny blackholes to help us modulate the existing gravity-well projectors. The end result will be projectors three times stronger and will have ten times the range, for the same energy consumption. Now leave, I have thousands more planets to bring to life." Solanus said softly, and Displaced the device away, probably on the Dart.

Hmmm. Just a little, tiny problem.

We can't make blackholes, and if we did, by collapsing stars for example, they'll be kilometers in size, not millimetric.

Damn it.

I teleported back to the Centerpoint station, running equations in mind, and getting nowhere.

Why did I have to solve everything?

"Hey Pef. Are you sad?" an angelic voice asked me curious. I turned and observed my Diathim maid flutter on wings made of golden Force planes, her face partially hidden under a white hood made of silk, just as her body was cloaked in a white robe and her hands waving about, presenting her crystal gloves made by Solanus.

"Hey Angie. Visiting the new system?" I asked a bit curious.

"Pink lighting first" the Diatham maid demanded shamelessly, and held out a hand. Pink?

I don't have pink, in my inventory. "Violet?" I wondered a bit confused.

"I said pink! Are you stupid today, Pef?" the angel said in a higher tone. If I was organic, I might have felt annoyance right now.

Lucky for this galaxy, I wasn't. Fine, let me think for a moment. Pink is a mix of white and red.

A ball of white and a ball of red energy formed in my hands, and I brought my hands together, gently merging the lighting balls into a single pink ball of lighting. Took me almost a hundred partitions to manage the electron flow, but I managed in the end.

My honored Maid let out an excited yell, and grabbed the ball like it was an actual object, and started munching on it, like an apple.

"Hhmm. Munch. Starberry? Strawberry? So good!" she muttered between bites, her golden glow expanding by half, and getting a pink contour.

I didn't have words to comment, and just stared in amazement. If I ever wondered why the hell Angie was my maid, today was that day.

"Okay. You can ask your question now, Flavour Emperor!" the maid proclaimed after ingesting enough joules to power a small town. She seemed quite happy with it too.

"If you know how to make tiny blackholes, then I care. Otherwise..." I muttered, turning around and starting to walk away from the crazy. I'll need to hire a thousand more geniuses to work on this...

"Ummm. You smash tiny things, really fast?" the angel replied in a confused tone, then picked up her datapad and flew away, like a muse in myths.

Was she a genius, or was I a moron?

Let's hope I never have to answer that question.

A particle collider could produce tiny blackholes, even back home. Here, it was high school homework.

And, as my maids had finished their neural high school compulsory education, even Angie knew how make blackholes.

Of course, particle sized blackholes won't be massive enough, but if contained in a Bose-Einstein condensate, their evaporation rate would slow down, enough to fuel them and get them to grow to the size I needed them.

Dumping helium or some other useless gas should be enough to increase their mass.

I sighed in relief, and started ordering parts and assembly lines for a blackhole manufacturing plant.

Singularity in a can, for only 9.99, in a galaxy near you. Order now!

I did a short cost analysis, just to keep myself busy, and get a slight approximation of the required investments.

Gas planet. Free, if stolen from some hidden corner. Orbital ring around said gas giant, to accelerate particles in a circular trajectory, preserving angular momentum, 98 billions.

Shock resistant casing, made of duranium. 11 credits.

Standard gravitic crystal detector, Pef Navy issue. 1.6 millions.

Bose-Einstein condensate plant, industrial capacity. 1.33 trillions . Slowing the speed of light to millimeters per hour by freezing a thousand gas cylinders into a condensate at absolute zero temperature is costly, I know. But we have the technology.

Compound numbers for every combat ship in frigate class and higher. Times 1 million. Huh. I did have a lot of ships already.

Twenty thousands Mountains II, 200 thousands Hammers II, 100 thousands Nebula destroyers, 100 thousands MC and Strike cruisers and 400 thousands Ardent and Fade frigates. Although 80 percent of the escorts were still just old Republic era ships, with various degrees of modernization.

Guess I did say I'll buy every single ship the galaxy's shipyards could build. Sadly, the shipbuilding industry of the galaxy was not yet up to standards. Loses in the west and north didn't help either.

Anyway, about 3 trillion credits, to upgrade the whole Navy with anti-Vong jammers. Was it worth it? Sure.

Will they work? No idea. Maybe.

But soon we'll find out. Like next year. As soon as I can equip a thousand Hammers, they'll begin a test run and head north through the hyperspace barrier, at sublight speeds, and try to engage the Vong Armada outside the hyperspace barrier.

Zonama Sekot, Unknown Regions

Jabitha cursed again and tried to crush the damned holocron in her hand. Didn't work.

"Dad! Am I a stupid girl, to be used and discarded by a passing adventurer?" she asked, fearing it was so. And yet...

"Come now, do you think I would let you be abused like that? Don't you love the boy?" her father asked back, peering into her eyes and seeing everything, like he always did.

"I, I think I do...how do I know? And he left me!" she exclaimed in outrage. Although she kinda understood his last words.

One last prank, for the road. There was a lesson there, if kinda cruel. Then again, all his lessons were painful but so rewarding. Pain was no pleasant, but it as fast.

"Did he leave you? Are you certain?" her father asked in curious tone.

Jabitha blinked confused, and stop to think for a minute. He definitely left, but perhaps not for long. He was worried about some slient droids and his brother. And, he married her, the ring on her finger proof. Took her a while to figure it out.

"So, he'll come back. Did he leave a holocom number or something? Tell me!" she demanded in a strange case of suspicion. Dad was smiling kindly.

If anything, she learned that from this Peffy. Always be suspicious, of everything. People might not actually tell you the truth. Especially if they smile.

"He left a satellite in low orbit. And that holocron you hold dear. I suspect it's enough, for someone like him." her father answered with a thoughtful face.

"But I can't open it! Damn idiot, he tricked me again!" Jabitha wailed with desperation and slumped on the grass. Like a box full of delicious chocolate but locked tight. So frustrating!

Sekot sighed and sat beside his adoptive daughter, trying to decide what to do. Maybe he shouldn't have locked the cube?

No, the girl wasn't ready to learn a hundred Force abilities.

"The holocron needs something like a code to open. I think it's that meditation form. Once you master it, it should open" he explained with a pained smile.

What's another lie, after all he has done? That boy's words cut him deep still, and would continue to everyday, until his debt was paid.

Her father's death was his fault, for being too trusting. For allowing the sick ones to invade his domain and hurt his wards.

And soon, millions of warships will follow, devastating the galaxy, trying to destroy all machines and everyone using the Force.

This new Pef Empire, even if aided by the surviving Silentium won't be able to stop them.

The first Vong armada perhaps, if they used all their ships in a suicidal stand. But that was only a tiny tendril.

More will follow, millions of times more. The old galaxy was being devoured right now, the severed Vong converting all available mass into shipforms and warforms.

Evil was real, just like the boy said. And all it took, was for good people to stand idle, and do nothing. Or hide between hyperspace eddies and monsters. While doing nothing. He'll have to pick a side, as soon as the girl was trained.

"OKay then. Even if my brain explodes, I'll master his damn meditation. And when he comes back, I'll punch Peffy in the nose. Really hard!" Jabitha muttered with a determined voice, and trying to assume a meditation pose.

"If that's your wish, I support it too, my daughter. But clenching your fists won't help. Palms on your knees. Breathe deeply and count to twenty. Think of a ray of sunlight, falling on blue flowers. Now exhale..." Sekot said softly, as the girl closed her eyes and flowers bloomed in a 5 meters radius around them.

Still a thousand times weaker than the Avatar, and billions of times weaker than that huge ocean mind. Soon, he will have to respond, and was quite scared.

"Come see me, before them. A billion years is a long time to wait, Sekot. You have much to learn, and barely enough time. The wills are five" the water woman spoke, but as a telepathic medium for her father.

Could he say no, when this ancient being married his own daughter to the new Emperor, and seemed pleased about it?

Not to mention, everyday this Solanus presence in the Force became stronger. New water worlds became sentient and added to his presence, his Force signature growing in strength and depth, as well as englobing the galaxy in a cordon of ocean worlds.

At least a thousand planets, and more to come.

If what he learned from the holocron was true, and probably was, this Pef Emperor could teleport ships and planets and even stars across the galaxy, in an instant.

He had created thousand of new hyperlane nodes, each with five planets and industrial infrastructure to produce trade and ships and droids.

Gearing an entire galaxy for war in a few years.

Which meant, Zonama itself could be yanked and teleported away, at his whim.

Or as long as that Celestial artifact still worked. But considering those Celestials were believed to have created the hyperspace barrier, around the galaxy and the west...it wasn't likely it would stop working anytime soon.

And he was risking a lot roaming the Unknown regions. He might stumble on a Lugubraa infestation again, or even the Mnggal-Mnggal. And he wasn't sure he could survive that. Not a Force-plague, or whatever that being was.

"I did it! I meditated! How long was I out?" Jabitha asked with a start, massaging her cramped legs.

"Hmmm. 2.45 seconds. A new record!" Sekot replied in a cheery voice. For a first time, it was probably okay.

"Maybe I should get a divorce, and marry a Ferroan instead?" Jabitha wondred, already wavering in her commitment.

"Oh, do you fancy any local boys?" Sekot wondred in fake surprise. If she had, she would have been married long ago.

"No, but this form is too hard. Maybe I can figure out teleport, and just go and visit him. Or that mental hologram thing, I almost got it when my hand passed through his..." the girl mused in an innocent tone, making a cute claw gesture.

"I'm sorry, but I can't allow you to try that. The baby might die" Sekot said in a fake whisper, and ran away as a desperate cry resounded from his daughter's glade.

After he hid inside a tree, Sekot snickered to himself, and finally understood what the Avatar was doing.

Pranking people was fun!

Jedha system, Jedha moon

Church of the Force

9 BBY

A grey light lit up on the holocron on the table, just as the last lesson of the orange cube finished.

Fay smiled as she felt the last lock of the grey holocron vanish. So, she finally managed to finish her initiate training, and was ready to learn the truth.

She felt a little scared, and excited, like a school girl.

What could be so secret, and important, to require such complicated protections?

The grey holocron floated in her palm, and the Avatar's construct came to life, submerging her mind into a simulation, her ghostly body floating high above the galaxy, while his voice started the next lesson.

"If we see light, it is because we have contrast. Blinded by overwhelming light, we stumble around guessing at true shape of things, by touch or sound. And yet, darkness is stronger. Aim yourself at any point in the universe, and travel towards it at the speed of light. When you reach your destination, darkness is already there, waiting.

And as in heavens, the same is on the ground. Use your words or deeds to spread virtues, like charity and justice. But how can anyone spread virtue, if the people weren't already vicious?

Be it through emotions or instincts, by social systems and religious norms, aim yourself anywhere in the universe, and when you arrive you will find hatred and anger. Greed or dominance, lust or apathy. Dark emotions are already there, waiting.

So how can we vanquish Evil, if it's everywhere?

We harness it. We control it, while keeping our good intentions in check, at the same time.

When a dark sect pops up somewhere, it is because of good intentions. Meditating on the meaning of life, it becomes evident the purpose of life is death. Everything dies in the end, so why not put a stop to life sooner, and end the suffering?

That's how the true dark cults rise, in the beginning. Of course, this phase doesn't last, as greed and dominance take over, and this dark cult begins amassing wealth and followers, and thus their leaders are living a rich life, and forget about their initial purpose. Next thing, we have other vices rise, lust or vengeance, and the need for more power.

A destructive cycle follows, as the sect implodes due to fratricidal infighting and outside forces, like time and light cults, which errode the foundation of this sect until it crushes and burns. Often literally.

The Officio Assassinorum is aimed at channeling these dark emotions into positive effects, preserving and enhancing the mastery of the dark arts, while exterminating their rivals. If there must be Evil, then we must have a monopoly on it.

Sadists and murders, trackers and hired killers, poisoners and mad scientists. Any kind of Evil, we gain control over it, and aim it our enemies.

It will take a long time, but I believe it can be done. Even on a galactic scale, or the entire universe. All it takes is will and effort. Also lots of money. But, every immortal has plenty of these resources. Mastering the economic cycle, or conquering a galaxy, for people like us, it's merely a few years of adventure.

And thus we come back to the life and death cycle. The perception of this cycle is fundamentally flawed, as you probably know. Once a moderate mastery of certain Force abilities is attained, death becomes a tool, to be used or not, at your will.

Be it through consciousness transfer into synthetic systems, like holocrons or computers, or into clones or even by transubstantiation into a Force ghost, death becomes just a alternate medium or vacation.

Tired of life? Take a vacation in the Netherworld of the Force, visit your friends and relatives, or maybe a valued enemy. Bored of death? Reincarnate through your desired method, and help me vanquish Evil. Or go learn painting. Whatever you want. I will be here, waiting." the voice of the Avatar concluded, sounding so profound and wise that she almost believed him. Almost.

Grandmaster Fay pushed the holocron away, as the lecture ended.

"Well, it's certainly different from any holocron I've studied before. Take a vacation, eh?" she muttered to herself, while spreading her Force awareness over the Dome, and then the entire city. Nothing special was happening, as usual.

The Guardians of the Whills were still hard at work, patrolling the city and bashing rowdy pilgrims over the head with their sticks, like they did for tens of thousands of years.

Less rowdy or violent pilgrims these days, as the Gray Paladins kept an eye out, both on the ground and in space, and were quick to bring about overwhelming firepower on any violence exceeding the legal limits.

Further in the system, thousands of spaceships carried trade and tourists, colonists and Navy crews on vacation.

And even further away, in the comet cloud, thousands of warships of the Pef Navy, some on exercises, others just in garrison duty.

The 9th fleet, part of the Western Command, based at the new West Navy Cube in Iol system. Over half a million warships, and more ships being built at every available shipyard in the galaxy.

Pef surely had a thing for spaceships. He was building ships at his secret forge system when they first met. And in the 15 years since she first heard about him, he already took over the galaxy, and started building civilization, just like he said he would.

And if the news reports of the extragalactic invaders in the north were true, and they most likely were, then a huge war was looming in the future, as these Vong were coming to enslave the galaxy, and Pef had his particular view on slavery and slavers.

Executions and dismemberment, often in public venues, for the entertainment of the masses. She already pitied the fate of these poor invaders.

Not to mention, if these Vong invaders were stupid enough to test his decree on bioweapons. Then, they'll literally experience Hell, their souls tortured for eternity.

He even built his own private dimension, just for those guilty of that. True to his word, to the letter. Harness Evil and control it.

Master Yoda dreamed of a New Jedi Order, but she saw it now, for what it was. A dream, of old times glories. Vanity and nothing else.

Lightsabers and virtuous knights were not necessary anymore. If they ever were. A tiny golden hand sigil had more power than a thousand Jedi Knights. Maybe she shouldn't have thrown her sigil away.

Fay sighed in regret, and started her next lesson. In a million years, she might finish this holocron, then punch Pef in the nose, and shatter his fancy armor, again. Damn idiot!

Church of the Force, Jedha Moon

9 BBY, three months later.

Master Fay opened her hand, and let then golden glow vanish. Force sustenance was amazing, and terrifying.

Using this ability, any Force user could ignore the needs of the body, breathing in the Force and ignoring the basic needs of the body. Water, food and air no longer necessary, only useful to alleviate boredom.

And that was only the moderate mastery. At higher levels, one could live freely in the vacuum of space, or underwater or in a lake of fire. And if you truly mastered it, combining it with Force resistance and energy absorption, then you could live inside a star, and never be bothered by any external threats. Just like Master Bnar did, surviving ten supernovas at point blank range.

She picked up the gray holocron and steeled herself for another session of reality crushing lessons.

"What we need to understand about the Force is that it's old. Ancient, immemorial and primal, and thus opposite to our own modern mores. We are enlightened beings, used to technology and laws, and codified systems like writing and mathematics.

But when the Force came into existence, when our primitive ancestors were living as hunter-gatherers, the fabric of reality was different. The hunt, and the hunter were the essence of survival. Complex myths and traditions were passed down through song and poems, and thus we imprinted on the Force our own dreams.

The subtle needs of the ecosystem were anchored in the Force, and the first shamans thus created the first Will. If you are hungry, you can kill. But no more than that. Never be wasteful, or exterminate entire species.

Because, while sparrows might be seen as useless vermin, they have their own role, keeping the locusts and other insects in check. Kill all the sparrows, and your tribe will experience famine, as the locusts will multiply unchecked and devour any plant crops they can find.

This lesson is harsh, for the modern people. You might have a real need to exterminate a dangerous threat, like a sentient plague. And yet, if you do, the Force will retaliate, creating a vector to punish you.

The Chosen One, coming to bring balance to the Force was exactly this kind of response. An entire Light order was tricked and exterminated, by the very Force they worship.

You might ask, why didn't you do something, stop it before it happened? Could I though? Oppose the Will of the Force, and risk another retaliation?

And why should I have helped an anachronistic order, so fanatical they were willing to use slave soldiers to subjugate a faction of the Republic who wanted more freedom?

Of course, the Jedi could have prevented their downfall with a few simple measures. For example, the old Sith records that they burned before reading. They would have learned of certain dark arts that allow a powerful Master to read and influence the future.

They could have prevented the Sith entirely, by mercy killing the Jedi that fell to madness.

The Jedi could have used droids, or volunteer armies, even conscripts to conduct their war. Slavery is wrong, and not even Jedi can get away with it.

What I did do, was to remind the Force that exterminating this order completely was against its own Will.

And thus, a few Jedi were saved, and balance was restored to the galaxy.

Still, this is a stern reminder that the lack of reason creates monsters, or even demons.

The demon called Wutzek was billions of years old when he had the misfortune of meeting me. He knew so many Force abilities it took me a whole year to comprehend them, and even now I'm still working on a couple. Like time alter. Scary one, time.

Time alter is the most powerful Force ability any being can have. The god I met in my past was careful to never use it in same dimension, combining time alter with dimension alter and space alter, and creating effects at a distance.

Billions of years away, and billions of light years away, and in a dimension devoid of Force. If even gods are frightened of it, it does show how scary the Force can be, if you mess around.

Causality protection is another Will of the Force, and one everyone must be careful to respect, or suffer horrendous retaliation. The protection is not perfect, but you need to be a trillion times stronger than me, to ever begin try messing with it.

Even the way hyperspace is allowed to operate respects this Will, and even the worse spaceship malfunctions and accidents never result in sending someone backwards, only forward in time. The last Sith ship that was flung to the future will arrive in about 50 years.

How do I know? I saw the future, of course.

But what about farsight and darksight? How can those abilities work, if causality remains intact?

Want to learn more? Try to stay alive, until we reach the topic of the Unifying Force. Or not. I don't care." the Avatar said in a smirking tone at the end, obviously making fun of the student.

Fay ended the lesson with a growl, and flung the holocron away, embedding it into the wall of her office.

Was the crazy droid trying to make her kill him?

Who scribed holocrons just to anger to reader?

"Master Fay? Is anything wrong?" her rodian Padawan asked, rushing inside with his eyes wide.

"Everything is alright, my child. Just testing some things...' she replied with a weak voice.

"You have a scheduled meeting with the Priests of the Force in 20 minutes, Master Fay. Will you be able to make it?" the starry eyed Padawan asked cautiously. All rodian were starry-eyed, but that was beside the point.

Did she want to argue with the creepy Priests about pilgrim donations?

The priests of the same Force that killed off her Order?

If she hadn't been a Hand of the Empire during the Clone Wars, she would be dead now, no doubt about it.

Pef had given her the task of training the changelings, and kept her out of the stupid General role. Five thousand Jedi died for nothing, and the younglings were collected and saved by Pef, after the Sith made their play. They were probably all Paladins by now, trained and molded to guard civilization, with guns and power armors.

A few cute girls remained on Gand, to knit grass and keep the insane Master Kuro company. Like Master Zao, she lost her identity and the code, pursuing the Will of the Force by sublimating herself. And likely Master Kuro will soon become a mistress of the Avatar, if she wasn't already.

And here, in the very Dome, the center of the Church of the Force, were the last Jedi alive. Such a sick joke.

Worshiping the very Force that had them killed.

Why did Pef send here, to Jedha?

Her awareness expanded again over the holy city, looking for something obvious, that she might have missed.

After a minute, the Temple of the Kyber, the huge monolith pulsing immensly in the Force caught her attention.

Of course!

What else could have been so obvious, if not a skyscraper made from a huge kyber crystal?

Her perception followed the tower to its roots, and below.

Huh, the entire moon was an enormous kyber crystal, the Tower just a single, tiny crystal rising above the surface. The Ceremony of the Blade came to her mind, even though she had abandoned the lightsaber long ago.

The crystal is the heart of the blade.

The heart is the crystal of the Jedi.

The Jedi is the crystal of the Force.

"The crystal is the heart of the Force" Fay murmured to herself, as her body became ghostly, then evaporated completely, and her brown robes fluttered in the air confused, before falling on the floor.

One last thing to abandon, after she gave up every attachment. Her soul was the immortal being, not her body. A vacation, from this absurdly long life, did sound nice.

The rodian Padawan blinked confused, as the words seemed wrong, then ran towards Master's Yoda quarters. This wasn't his fault!