I will be Chancellor.
A year had passed for Chancellor Palpatine and in that time he had been keeping himself busy, and as he took a brief break from the secret report he had just received from Kamino concerning the new army of clones which would be ready within the next nine years, Palpatine took a moment to think and reflect on his first year as Chancellor of the Republic.
The clone army Plagueis had manipulated Jedi Master Sifo-Dyas to order was certainly coming along nicely. The bounty hunter, a Mandalorian by the name of Jango Fett had already supplied enough DNA, and there were now millions of clones who had had their growth accelerated until they were now infants. Within another two years, they would have begun their training already, learning from the bounty hunter how to be professional soldiers. While he had known some people would not be happy with his appointment as Chancellor, even Palpatine had not expected to be attacked, especially by a revolutionary strike force. If the need for secrecy wasn't so great, the Sith Lord would have despatched them right there. He had gotten his revenge on them by ordering his minions to hunt down and exterminate their supporters and organisers, and even their entire families.
One thing he had enjoyed the most about the last year or so was how Mas Amedda had believed he was malleable enough to manipulate. The fool had believed him so simple-minded that he would do as he wanted, and Palpatine had let him while he prepared a trap. In the end, he had the slimy fool muzzled for life, because if Amedda tried anything, Palpatine would ruin his life and his career for good. The Republic was full of people like Mas Amedda. Every day many senators tried to lobby for attention for the endorsement of something mundane, but Palpatine had quickly made it clear he was a man forged in durasteel and he was selective about whom he met.
They meant nothing to him.
All that mattered was gaining more power. The formation of the Separatist movement was growing steadily, mostly thanks to the policies he was putting into place and thanks to the way Palpatine had ensured harsh sanctions were placed on the Trade Federation following Naboo. Critics had decried him for it, claiming he was lashing out at the Trade Federation for what they had done to his own world. Palpatine had countered that with the counterargument the Trade Federation could easily attack and occupy other worlds, and many agreed with him while he worked on his plans for the organisations whom he knew would ally with the Federation when the war began.
A lot of them were based in the Outer Rim, which would cause untold amounts of damage to the galaxy when war was declared at last. Thanks to one of Palpatine's Sith predecessors, exploration and expansion in the Outer Rim had seen the settlement of millions of people with the ultimate aim the inevitable war would cause massive damage to the Republic. And it had worked. Many of the descendants of those colonists had grown up to resent the Republic, either because other Sith schemes caused problems for the Republic and for the Jedi, resentment had set in, especially for the ambassadors and senators who represented the Outer Rim worlds who'd joined the Senate.
Palpatine was passing bills aimed at making it easier for the separatist movement to grow and while the groundwork was already there and his various minions both within the senate and out were doing their part in causing dissatisfaction while he prepared for outside meddling to begin work.
He and his minions within the senate would take care of the senate, but the economic matters would take place soon enough.
It would be so easy.
Thanks partly to Sith manipulations although there were moments where the crises occurred that were outside the Sith's control or had happened without Sith knowledge, the Republic had been chipped at gradually over the years either internally, or by tensions on the Outer Rim which had begun over a century ago, thanks in part by the aforementioned Sith Master who had ensured colonisation and expansion within that part of the galaxy.
Large areas of the Outer Rim had Fair Trade Zones where trade could be implemented without government taxes, a plan endorsed by the Sith. The Trade Federation had grown extremely powerful thanks to the money that came in from such zones. Their power had grown so much that Valorum had restored taxation. Urged by Palpatine in his Sith guise, Naboo was blockaded. The Stark Hyperspace incident had done wonders for the Sith's plans, especially as the Trade Federation, long predicted to be of great benefit for the Sith, became radicalised. It was so easy to encourage Gunray to make the idiotic Neimodian take the stand needed to force the senate to back down from their taxation.
Their attitudes had been hardened by their defeat.
The shockwaves were still rippling through the galaxy, it wouldn't be hard to set up the movement. Many of them would see and they had started to see that the Senate was a failing government. Corruption had set in like a disease that had started as an infection. But there were hundreds of planets out there unhappy with the Republic in some way other than economic grief and political intrigue; many had been neglected due to wars, famine, and disease, and many of them were both in the Mid Rim, the Core, and on the Outer Rim. Getting support and manipulating it for the movement would be easy once Palpatine knew what it was they ultimately wanted.
It would be easy to play off the Republic's faults to them. The corruption was there long before the Sith got involved and only made it worse, but no one had bothered to stop the corruption in the first place. There was no doubt in Palpatine's mind if Darth Bane had not taken the steps needed to preserve the Sith Order, then it was likely an organisation like the Trade Federation would have attacked and occupied Naboo anyway.
Palpatine let go of the past and he thought of the future. For the next decade, he would work carefully to make sure the separatist movement gained its momentum and would become the instrument of the revenge of the Sith. They had waited a long time for this, but Palpatine would wait a little longer.
