Entry Thirty-Six – Days after Geonosis, Two Hundred
Marg Krim has not replied to me, but several supposed producers and distributors in the spice trade were arrested today. The police quickly advanced the claim that these were those responsible for the recent deaths. I doubt they were the actual decision makers, but they certainly seem the type to be guilty of serious crimes. I do not believe anyone, including the criminals themselves, is under any illusions as to what is going on.
Equally, I fear this problem will not go away while the war lasts. Even should the Republic retake Ryloth, something we all hope occurs soon, this sort of market disruption is inevitable. All businesses dependent upon dubiously legal imports are under severe strain. The Ayae, for one, appear to be having difficulty importing weapons parts and are instead buying refurbished components from Wandering Star. Major Kayi actually complained about this in front of me. Even Isoxya has spoken of difficulties in acquiring the specialized gyroscopic bearings used in her armor wheels. Apparently they are now on a restricted military products list because several Separatist droid models use the same components.
Under normal conditions any sort of legal or enforcement crackdown on a commodity is matched by a subsequent increase in smuggling effort. Tesso helpfully provided me with an analysis of long term policing data trends that makes this quite clear. The war, however, has suspended normalcy. New smugglers cannot come into being when every new ship off the production lines is conscripted into the war effort. More and more smugglers convert to legal cargo service everyday as well due to wartime premiums. The civilian shipping market as a whole has shrunk substantially once military commodities are excluded from the data.
This is probably temporary. The GAR military shipbuilding program is complemented by an equally massive civilian one to both expand the government merchant marine and to support private enterprise, but for now the galaxy reels from the loss of countless vessels drafted into the fleets of the Separatists. The Hutts may have provided us with the routes to ferry supplies, but we yet lack the hulls to haul all of them.
I do not know how to mitigate this problem. Takul and those like him already provide all available oversight to this sphere. I cannot assist and they do not need my help. The circumstances that drive a person to take up the use of narcotics are not something I understand anyway. There seems to be an endless array of causes, a nefarious and intertwined web.
Chronic disease must be part of it, and that enemy I can face, but I wish I could understand a greater portion. There are so many leaks in the Bucket. I wish I could patch them all, not just one little fragment here or there. It seems no one can, the necessary resources simply do not exist.
Such thoughts lead my mind to politics. A sour matter indeed. The news is full of the Supreme Chancellor, of the endless programs launched by his office without proper Senate approval. These seem to be much more efficient than all the endless debates that preceded them. I cannot imagine the Senate passing even a fraction of this legislative volume in a decade, never mind two hundred days. Indeed, I have observed the inability of the Senate to approve even simple and obvious measures firsthand when the Chancellor's emergency authority cannot overrule them.
There is something wrong with the Republic, some deep wound near to the heart of it. The war is simply a symptom of this underlying condition. Dooku spews vile poison to be sure, but viewed from my new perspective standing among the powerless I see that as only a part of it. This violent suppuration of blasters and starships does nothing to resolve the core illness. It is necessary, of course, otherwise the symptoms will kill, but I feel now that we must find a way to address the heart of the matter.
Should we win this war there will be a brief window of opportunity to change the Republic, to reach down to the roots and inscribe new principles upon the core. Is it strange that I have begun to dream of ways and means? One question looms above all in such fancies. More democracy or less?
The Chancellors successes would seem to argue for the latter, but I cannot help but see a future here in the Bucket were all are greatly benefited by the former. After all, the Ayae tried to barter with me for representation they lacked; millions without a voice. The Bucket alone is more populous than most planets. Alderaan has not a tenth of its citizens but possesses a Senate seat in perpetuity. No one gives the full population of the galaxy a proper voice, not the Republic and certainly not the Separatists. Why has this happened?
The Force speaks to us all. Should not all be heard in turn?
Probably I am naïve, but it does make the mind churn.