Entry Nine – Days after Geonosis, Forty-One
My shame at working alongside Takul no longer scours me nearly so deeply. This is not forgiveness, indeed it is not anything I have done at all. Rather it is the consequence of a shift in perspective, for I now find myself part of truly extensive fellowship of those guilty of great ethical compromise. It seems this war has taught all Jedi to forsake their principles, and done so with striking swiftness. The weakness I indulged has therefore been revealed not as some unique personal failing, but instead one common to us all.
This is the opposite of comforting.
Doubly so given that it seems the war is going poorly. The Separatists have tightened their grip on the major hyperlanes and our fleets have so far failed to force them back. Apparently unless this hold is broken they can strangle the Republic. After our various failures to breakthrough it seems a new strategy has been advanced, one that was relayed to me during my brief return to the Temple. The Hutt Clans have an entire alternative transportation network, hyperlanes hidden and unknown to the Republic that can bypass the Separatist blockade. We are to make common cause with them and forge an agreement whereby they will allow Republic shipping the use of these routes.
Perhaps, from a purely military perspective, this is a good plan. I cannot speak to such matters. I can be certain there will be a grave price to pay, and it will go further than whatever trade concessions and payments the Hutts demand. The war is barely a month old and already we have forsaken all hope of triumph without the support of one the galaxy's greatest nests of horrors. The Hutt Clan is powerful, certainly, but they care nothing for any standard of ethics or fairness. They are antithetical to democracy, freedom, and justice on a level rooted in their basic psychology. To a Hutt other sapients are slaves at best, and many do not rise above the level of fodder in their minds. Their network is a poison lose in the veins of the galaxy.
But it seems there is no choice. Even with the Clones, the Republic cannot match the readiness of the Separatists, and without access to the resources of distant worlds the industrial powers of the Core will never acquire the supplies necessary to rectify this deficiency. The Hutts can change that purely through the exchange of data, so appeals are inevitable. The directive behind this strategy comes from the Supreme Chancellor, a curious maneuver from a man who built his career as an anti-corruption crusader, but I suppose war usurps all other policy priorities. Regardless, though it may be the politicians who write out such rules, in this war it falls to the Jedi to implement them.
This extends even to such a minor personage as myself. I have been asked to attempt the identification of any Hutts of influence within the Underworld and if possible arrange for a meeting with a suitable representative. It is not a task I approach with any eagerness. I broached the idea with Officer Morne, as he is one of the few here I feel I can truly trust, and he said he would assemble a summary of which syndicates are most likely to have the appropriate connections. He made it clear that he dislikes the prospect of negotiating with the Hutts at all. Apparently such discussions rarely go well.
Worse than the compromise itself it the implications it carries. I cannot guess at the Chancellor's motives, perhaps he forecasts some long-term benefit due to closer ties with what is arguably the galaxy's largest independent power, but the Order's agreement carries with it a horrific forecast. Somehow, it was one I had not even considered up to this point.
The possibility that we might lose.
An embarrassing thing to admit, I have to say, but it truly seems that I had simply believed the Republic's victory to be inevitable until now. I would blame the propaganda, but prior to my brief return to the Temple I'd barely encountered any of it. That campaign has yet to filter down to the lower levels. Truthfully, beyond the bombings and assassinations there is little direct evidence within the underworld that the war even exists. My patients speak little of it, and Officer Morne claims that major gang conflicts have unleashed far worse spasms of violence even within the last decade. People here have felt the conflict only through supply shortages and other economic means.
Among those I have spoken with, through my clumsy and half-hearted attempts to discover Separatist sympathizers, I detect mostly indifference to the whole affair. For all that they live on the capital world of the Republic, most residents of the Bucket are largely disconnected from galaxy-wide politics. They are also naturally cynical. One Twi'lek patient, blessedly frank, told me point blank that no matter who wins nothing down here will change.
I do not believe that, and I find this conviction is strong. Dooku has embraced the dark side, this is not simply a war fought over economic developments or even inter-species hatreds. It goes deeper. Having seen the slaughter unleashed by the Yellows firsthand I cannot discount the horrific reports of atrocities from the Outer Rim as so many others do. In the dark hours of the artificial night cycle I imagine a victorious Separatist regime simply sterilizing the Bucket and replacing all its residents with droids. That is probably unlikely, doubtless it would be more profitable to ship them all to the asteroid mines of the distant rim instead, but that particular fate might well be worse.
The neglect the people here feel fuels their indifference, and I am not blind to it. They have no true representation, no control. Decisions from above appear to them arbitrary and capricious, and ultimately changes do nothing but shift the reigns from one source of exploitation to another. Yet for all the very real suffering I have encountered in ruined alleyways and squatter camps this is far, far from the worst place in the galaxy to live. Though drenched in grime, this is actually a realm of prosperity. I have seen true desolation, and the Bucket is not of its kind.
We have to win. The consequences of defeat are immeasurable. I will do my part, even if it means talking to Hutts. I only wish I believed this path led to victory.
Notes
At this point this diary begins to intersect with canonical events. The events of TCW are sorted into chronological order, but unfortunately they are not matched to any particular dates. I have formulated a timeline accordingly to try and gauge how long events take. The first major sequence is the one described by the animated movie, which begins with a Separatist seizure of the major galactic hyperlanes and the subsequent effort by the Republic to forge an alliance with the Hutts. One thing I intend to stress during this narrative is that while the TV series moved at a breakneck pace from one event to the next, a significant amount of time actually passed between sequences over the course of at least 1100 days of warfare.
It is an interesting consequence of the chronology that, because the animated movie happened first, it means that the first major development of the Clone Wars was the Republic forging a successful alliance with the Hutt Clan. Considering this, it puts all the various ethical lapses and consequences from the rest of the war in perspective. The Hutts are not nice people, and if the Republic was willing to countenance such an alliance so early on, no wonder Palpatine was able to pass all that horrible legislation. It's really an amazingly significant development that has received relatively little attention (mostly because I think everyone wants to forget about the animated TCW film), and it's going to be a major focus of many subsequent diary entries.