The First Contact War
Chapter 23
Cultural Exchange
"We meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance. The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds.
Despite the striking fact that most of the scientists that the world has ever known are alive and working today, despite the fact that this Nation's own scientific manpower is doubling every 12 years in a rate of growth more than three times that of our population as a whole, despite that, the vast stretches of the unknown and the unanswered and the unfinished still far out-strip our collective comprehension.
No man can fully grasp how far and how fast we have come, but condense, if you will, the 50,000 years of man's recorded history in a time span of but a half century. Stated in these terms, we know very little about the first 40 years, except at the end of them advanced man had learned to use the skins of animals to cover them. Then about 10 years ago, under this standard, man emerged from his caves to construct other kinds of shelter. Only 5 years ago man learned to write and use a cart with wheels. Christianity began less than 2 years ago. The printing press came this year, and then less than 2 months ago, during this whole 50-year span of human history, the steam engine provided a new source of power.
Newton explored the meaning of gravity. Last month electric lights and telephones and automobiles and airplanes became available. Only last week did we develop penicillin and television and nuclear power, and now if America's new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight.
This is a breath-taking pace, and such a pace cannot help but create new ills as it dispels old, new ignorance, new problems, new dangers. Surely the opening vistas of space promise high costs and hardships, as well as high reward." John F. Kennedy
Extract from a Mandalorian news Artilce.
"…I know I'm far from the only person that can't wait to get more detail about O.A.G. history of war and military, and I'm a military strategist—it's my job to be excited about this stuff. The reserves are showing incredible anticipation and excitement, too, and it's easy to see why. Initial reports from diplomatic teams are that O.A.G. war history is like a bizarre cross between old Republic scale and brutality, Mandalorian virtues and skill, and Yaka gambiting and technological races of advancement.
Only two have received a name thus far—World War 2 and The Cold War. The former is peculiar—a very odd naming convention for any war, but it also clearly implies that there was yet another such war beforehand, and potentially more after the second one. Regardless, that Cold war is garnering intense interest amongst even diplomatic and social issue groups, because of the basic facts we know about it so far, and their possible relevancy to our society:
Two major superpowers vying for supremacy of ideology (not religious ideology, either), manoeuvring their way to greater and greater spheres of influence through various means, treating their entire homeworld like a giant game board.
Thousands of powerful nuclear warheads on both sides, each aimed at each other from hundreds of inter-continental ballistic missile silos, mobile ballistic missile launchers, nuclear-powered submarines, supersonic long-range bombers, and many other delivery systems. A large part of the war was cultural development before technological development reached a critical point, leading to all-out nuclear war and total devastation of the entire planet.
Numerous proxy wars.
A vast intertwining of subtle and strong diplomacy and military action that would prevent nuclear war, whilst somehow defeating the other superpower (without inciting a conventional war, or even a small clash of arms).
In the end, one superpower collapsed because its economy did…because it bankrupted itself in the ludicrously expensive, many-decades-long arms race with the other superpower, which had a stronger economy. While an arms race of several decades might not seem overly expensive, apparently O.A.G. arms races are truly something else. The little hints we have to go on thus far have only served to whet appetites. One quote comes to mind: "they started with primitive jet aircraft, armed with only machine guns and the most basic and primitive of transistors, and ended up with hundreds of MIRV ICBM's, their very first space programs (including a "space race", culminating with multiple landings on their sole, large moon), jet aircraft that could utterly decimate their predecessors even when vastly outnumbered, and dozens of nuclear powered submarines that were capable of exceptional stealth, range, and underwater launching of dozens of long-range, nuclear ballistic missiles. They had plans for weapons of absurd levels of destruction, but they never came to fruition due to the abrupt and surprising end to the war, and the sheer lack of necessity of more destructive weapons (even if no retaliatory strike was launched, the damage done would wreck the planet's biosphere…yes, it is as insane as it sounds).
World War 2 is even more interesting. We've only received hints so far, but the incomplete picture they paint is still too confusing to do more than basic speculation. However…
It was a truly global conflict, featuring every kind of warfare except one: space. The technology to launch anything into space simply didn't exist until near the end of the war, and even then, it was barely capable of doing so. It would lead, with astounding quickness, to impressive space programs, though.
It was arguably the most important war in human history, with only the Cold War disputing the distinction and later the Insurrection war.
It was a war unlike anything else in human history, before or since.
It is one of the rare wars in human history where very few believe that it didn't need to be fought. Despite both sides committing horrible acts, one side (the only that ultimately lost) was indisputably immoral and monstrous, and it was extremely aggressive. It even nearly won; only the heroic, desperate, and determined efforts of the rest of the world held the line and turned the tide.
The very first nuclear weapons in O.A.G. history were invented, from scratch, and quickly deployed. Only two were actually used, both within a week of each other. Though very low yield, they were dropped on two cities, killing over 200,000 people, mostly innocent non-combatants (though many significant military targets were destroyed, along with thousands of military personnel). Nuclear weapons have not been used by humans since, outside of testing. The incredible thing is that their usage was arguably justified, and as shocking as it might seem, as what we've heard so far indicates that their usage likely saved many more lives than they ended. More horrifically, many more people were killed by conventional bombing raids in that time period than by nuclear weapons. That fact is astounding—it might give a clear picture of the scope and severity of this conflict.
In many cases, it was total war—even the morally superior side resorted to massive bombing raids against enemy cities, just to do damage to the other side, especially because they lacked the technology for reliably precise bombing.
It united most of the world, in one way or another, like nothing else had before, in completely new ways. Millions of people from all over the world were interacting with each other for the first time, finding much in common and taking great interest in the differences, despite the misgivings they might have had. According to the reports coming in, this war changed the cultures of the world so dramatically that it shifted the general O.A.G. perception from viewing their world in terms of individual countries into terms of an entire interconnected planet.
It was the first war in O.A.G. history to be extensively documented in visual, audio, personal written accounts, and video, and in turn seen by the publics at large—either through visual recordings or the widespread, cataclysmic effects of this global war upon their homes and countries.
From a military standpoint, I've read some incredible things. Little of it is confirmed yet, so count this as rumour and speculation. But if even half of it is true, then I couldn't possibly be disappointed. Here we go:
There were three major theatres of the war. The first is the Earth continent of "Europe". It was mostly ground-based fighting, but it featured massive battles in the air, intense and bloody urban fighting, huge battles between thousands of armoured vehicles and artillery guns, and at least one colossal amphibious assault. That last one seems to be most likely a major exaggeration or rumour, especially since one rumour about it claims that nearly 7000 ships were involved, and at least 250,000 infantry. Needless to say, I can't imagine there ever being a need for an amphibious operation that large, nor can I fathom how such an operation could be at all practical.
The second major theatre was "The Mediterranean"—mainly large infantry and armoured vehicle battles in a large stretch of desert, full of mountainous terrain and littered with the occasional city. Apparently this one is characterized as rapid strategy gambits and relatively "clean" warfare.
The last major theatre is the most fantastical and bizarre: the "Pacific". If that massive amphibious operation seemed like an exaggeration, then this will seem like outright mythology. Two absurdly large sea-going navies repeatedly engaged each other—their fleets had everything from submarines and gunboats to large dreadnoughts and something called "carriers". Apparently, "carriers" are capital ships that are essentially mobile airbases for fighters and small bomber craft, and they dominated the naval war and continue to do so today, on Earth. I'm not sure how a capital ship could be effective with small aircraft as its only major armament or defence, but I hope we get to find out soon. On top of the naval warfare, there were dozens of amphibious assaults, including one on a strategically important, yet tiny and barren island where many thousands of people died—the only description of the battle that we currently have is "a bloodbath where an unstoppable force met and immovable object." One naval battle we've heard a little about is a huge mismatch, where a handful of armorless frigates (or their human equivalent), whose main armament would literally bounce off the hulls of the enemy ships, charged the most powerful battle-group of heavy cruisers and dreadnoughts in the world, and against all odds managed to confuse and fluster the enemy into retreating. Lastly, the losing side, due to refusing to surrender or retreat, received endless bombings, until two almost-simultaneously deployed nuclear bombs convinced that side to finally surrender, ending this "World War 2".
And the opening battles of the war? Two superpowers jointly invaded a country in-between them from both sides, provoking a declaration of war from some other superpower nations. Poland, the name of this hopelessly outmatched country, put up an admirable fight and an effective underground resistance after their country's official defeat. One battle placed 700 [/sic: Polish] soldiers in a handful of pillboxes against a mechanized army (complete with armoured vehicles and more advanced small arms) that outnumbered them by a ratio of fifty-nine to one. Yes, over 42,000 better-equipped soldiers with armoured vehicles against 700 soldiers in some rudimentary bunkers. The 700 held out for three days, buying other [/sic: Polish] armies critical time (and inflicting over 1000 casualties and 10 armoured vehicle kills).
If that sounds like a mythical, heroic mismatch for a species that has barely ventured into space, just wait until you learn about their naval battles. The good news? A significant amount of video footage of varying (though poor at best) quality exists, but the countless verified accounts of these events and the intense interest in them by humanity at large means that hours upon hours of live-action dramatizations, computer-generated recreations, and fictional works in the setting exist.
Needless to say, we seem to finally have an answer to a centuries-long question: are large sea-going naval battles inherently unlikely and impractical, or is it mere chance that the right species in the right circumstances just hasn't come along yet? I was able to ask the most knowledgeable personnel at the O.A.G. Embassy on Mandalor (though that isn't saying much, as they don't yet know that much more than we do) for their understandings on the subject, and the answers were intriguing. Humanity, as we know, is biologically adept in the water for a non-aquatic species. Earth's geography gives control of the seas a large importance in both war and economy, and Earth's surface is between 2/3rds and 3/4ths water; in fact, the two major supercontinents of Earth are completely separated from each other by vast oceans, which means that O.A.G. is the first non-theoretical example of a sapient species that developed into modern times as two completely separated peoples. The O.A.G. has also had a great deal of war, though it is apparently highly inconsistent in terms of degree, scale, frequency, and nature; however, wars are steadily decreasing in scale, frequency, and severity in the past several centuries. Lastly, the O.A.G. seems to have very strong ties to Earth's seas and operating in them. Humanity has fought naval battles since its ancient history, too. And I mean ancient. Many of their early naval battles involved ships ramming each other to deal critical damage, followed by massive boarding operations to physically kill the crew. They were propelled almost entirely by at least a dozen rowers using long oars, and they used a person playing a steady, loud beat on a large drum in order to provide synchronization for the rowers. Humanity has a widely-known term related to ships because of this: "ramming speed". In those ancient times, "ramming speed" was an actual, standard practice that involved the drummer steadily increasing the tempo of the beat to signal faster, harder rowing—for an imminent ramming. These ships were largely open-air, so yes, everyone nearby could hear it. I could be wrong, but I imagine this is about as absurdly awesome as it sounds.
I did also get one interesting bit of trivia: The O.A.G. has built the largest sea-going, surface-operating vessels in the galaxy—though the Mon Calamari have built bigger sea-going ships, they are all submarines that are incapable of surfacing more than a third of their volume.
2623 May 9th Earth Standard Calendar, Earth Orbit, CDR. Luke Sparrow.
Luke watched the O.A.S. Washington exit the bluey-white slip-space and enter real space. He much preferred this method of travel to the Republics hyperspace.
"Woah, It's so blue!" Luke heard Ahsoka exclaim. He remembered her reaction back on Courascant when she had been told that she, Anakin, Senator Amidala and clone security detail would be going to visit Earth. She had been so excited at the prospect that she hadn't been able to stop asking questions about the O.A.G.'s economy, politics, philosophy, day to day life and other things.
"That's right, she's seventy percent water, with multiple biomes from desert, tropical, temperate and artic. Home to diverse history, culture and people." Luke explained walking over to the viewing port, standing next to her.
"It's a shame that we can't go down there."
"Well you could get permission, even if it wasn't for long."
"If we did where would you recommend I go?"
"I would say either the capital, New York City on the continent of North America. The other major city called London, which in my opinion has more culture and history to offer, it's in Europe, or Shanghai in eastern Asia." Luke said pointing toward where the megacities that could be seen were.
"They aren't anything like Courascant but there the biggest cities we have."
"I'll have to see them at some point then."
"Yeah. Come on we better get to the hanger. We have a schedule to keep to after all." Ahsoka nodded and followed after him.
"So can I ask a question?"
"You just did."
"Not what I meant!"
"I know, just teasing you," Luke grinned at her whist she glared playfully back.
"Are there any sites that are worth seeing?"
"Well if you went to New York you could see the old U.E.G. senate building, the world's tallest building the Olympus tower, the statue of Liberty. In London there are the famous museums, buildings, palace. There's other places you can go to elsewhere, like the great wall of China, the Shinto temples in japan and the pyramids in Egypt just to name a few. Your from Shili aren't you, anything to see there?"
"Yes master Plo found me there when I was young and took me to the Jedi Temple. Though Shili only has one large city. It mainly has small towns. The planet has also raided frequently by slavers in recent years."
"You people suffer from slavers?"
"Do your people not?"
"No. Well at least not for the last few centuries."
"Well, Shili suffers from slavers from Zygerrian Slave Empire. The Zygerrians are a humanoid species from Zygerria. They built a powerful empire by selling their slaves, until the Jedi of the Old Republic went to war with them and outlawed it. The Zygerrians attempted to openly revive their slave trade when they allied with the CIS. They are ruled by a monarchy, who is served by the Prime Minister and the Zygerrian royal guard. They patroll on the backs of flying brezaks and like to use electro-whips to control their slaves."
"Why hasn't the Republic done anything?"
"Resources are stretched thin as it is. We just can't spare the men or ships to either defend Shili or attack the Zygerrians."
"The 6th and 7th fleets should be nearly ready to deploy soon. We could probably use one to invade them."
"How is it you guys are always on the offensive so much? You never seem to do any occupation."
"We do some occupation of planets but our military is more orientated towards attacking the enemy, not occupation or police actions. The Republic on the other hand has built up an army that doesn't specialize in any one field but can do all of them. Attack, defense and occupation. Don't get me wrong we can still do all three but we focus slightly more on offense. That's why the Republic tends to occupy planets we liberate as that way we can focus on attacking."
"Or the army is just better."
"Ah Rex glad you could join us. What do you think of the ship"?
"It's pretty similar to our Venator class star destroyer, just bigger with more features."
"One day, you and I are going to sit down and seriously talk about which of our militaries is better."
"Yeah… We would totally win."
"Dream on grunt, Marines for the win."
"You two are incorrigible."
The large metal door opened to reveal the portside hanger. Crew were doing routine maintenance or just idly talking to one another. Luke and the others turned towards the new transport aircraft being introduced to replace the ageing fleet of Warbird VTOLs. The D79H-TC Pelican. The Pelican was an extremely versatile aircraft capable of carrying troops, cargo, or vehicles, and sporting a heavy arsenal of weapons. This model of the Pelican has two nose-mounted machine guns operable by the pilot. The G79H-TC/MA Pelican was the gunship variant. With a crew of three and capable of carrying up to twenty troops, ten more than the Warbird.
"Glad to see you made it."
"Nice to see you too master Skywalker. Ready to go meet some politicians!"
"Not all politicians are bad." Senator Amidala said walking over to the Pelican.
"No, but you haven't been near our politics before. And while we may have a good, transparentish government. That doesn't stop us from being the cynics we are."
"As much as politics interest me, don't we have a schedule to keep." Anakin said.
"That we do. After you." Luke said motioning for the others to get onto the ship before him. Walking into the Pelican, Luke saw it had a walkway of sorts and that on each side there were about ten seats with harnesses above them.
"Attention passengers, this is Eagle one. We are waiting for clearance to take off. Once we do it'll be a twenty-minute journey." The pilot said over the intercom.
Well, twenty minutes of shuteye then.
Time Skip
2623 May 9th Earth Standard Calendar, Earth Orbit, Earth Senate Station canteen, CDR. Luke Sparrow.
Luke plonked down at one of the tables where the clones were sitting with a tray of roast dinner. There were five clones, including Rex assigned to a guard detail along with Anakin and Ahsoka. They and Senator Amidala had been sent to 'improve' relations between the Republic and O.A.G. by Chancellor Palpatine. Sociologist, Xenobiologists and historians would be exchanged to study each other's culture.
"So how is it visiting the political center of the O.A.G."
"Eh... politics is all the same to me." One clone said.
"Give me a blaster any day and a war to fight, that I can do, politics is not something I like getting involved in."
"I'll drink to that."
"So how babysitting?" Rex asked.
"I think we all know the answer to that." Luke deadpanned. He received some chuckles.
"So I overheard you and Ahsoka talking about which military is better. So what's your analysis?"
"Well, looking at infantry, you have our two different training programs. The O.A.G. course takes about eight months of basic training and then afterwards you can do some specialization training. Special forces receive longer and harder training. You clones are raised from birth to fight and train your entire childhood and teenage years. When it comes to raw skill, you have the advantage, you spend more time in training than we do. So you should have the better infantry in theory. When it comes to tanks and armoured vehicles, you have the AT-TE walker, it tries to be both a tank with its turret up top and four smaller cannons at the front and two at the rear. A troop transport with its rear cargo hold and a command center. While we have a dedicated tank, armoured transports and IFVs and mobile command centers. The AT-TE has a max speed of twenty miles an hour while our Titan tanks have a top speed of sixty miles an hour. Our vehicles don't try to be more than one thing and instead focus on one roll, making them the best in their field. The Republic suffers from this a lot when it comes to vehicles, it's smaller walkers and speeders are fast but exposed, it's ships tend to be carrier-troop transport and ship of the line all in one. While our Liberator aren't too dissimilar in that regard, they do prioritize ship to ship engagements.
Then there's armour and camouflage. Your armour covers your whole body offering good mobility and protection yet your armour tends to stay pure white with a few units using forest or desert camo this means you stand out like a sore thumb. White doesn't exactly blend in with natural surroundings or man made ones except in arctic conditions. O.A.G. armour on the other hand just covers the chest, head, shoulders and knees. It's thicker and more durable thanks to the Beskar-Steel alloy plate with spall fragmentation protective coating with two gels layered in, one to absorb recoil the other to absorb heat. Only a few special forces have pure Beskar armour. However, our armour doesn't protect the legs or arms. But we heavily use camouflage when compared to you.
Doctrine and tactics also differ. You mainly use large infantry assaults backed up with armoured vehicles and space craft. You also focus on being seen by the public and winning them over. While we focus more on defeating the enemy in battle with armoured assaults being backed up with infantry and spacecraft. We do a little towards hearts and minds, but we leave it mainly to the Republic forces once they take over. For example, when advancing up a street with a tank, you will walk in front of it exposed for all to see so people know your there and seem more… human if you will. While we would advance just in front, next to and behind the tank using it as protection from enemy attack. We would call in an airstrike on a building with enemies in it while you would clear it out yourselves to avoid civilian casualties. We have vast fast moving advances while you have a slow methodical advance.
It really comes down to the fact we spent nearly a century fighting an insurrection while this is the Republic's first war in centuries."
"I can see what you mean with the camouflage. We stick out while you blend in. The white colour does paint a large target on us as it is easier to spot us. But as you say, we focus on hearts and minds more than you do." One clone said while the others looked thoughtful.
"I see you have a knack for military tactics and technology. I'm Biggs by the way. That's Wave, Delano, Irons and Hot Shot" Biggs said.
"Yeah… Well… I was raised to be a soldier and I'm probably going to be a career soldier unless I get discharged. It would be weird, at least to me if I didn't have a moderate understanding of my trade."
"Back on Kamino we would have to experienced advanced training to do all of that or spend a lot of time in the field to come up with those comparisons."
"Yeah… I have been in the field a long time now. An d I was told I was always observant. Must be nearing five years' service in the Marines now. I've heard there planning on rumors of a joint Republic-Mandalorian-O.A.G. units being set up to encourage co-operation between all three nations."
"That'll be an interesting mix, the traditional warrior culture of the Mandalorians and the disciplined elite soldiers of both the Republic and O.A.G."
"No kidding." Delano said.
"I heard that a while back you used a swear word around the general's padawan and had to explain it to her." Irons asked.
"That was an interesting conversation explaining what the word 'fuck' meant."
Flashback
"Hey! Luke!... I was wondering what that… word… you used earlier meant." Ahsoka asked sounding awkward as she did so and looking uncomfortable.
"Didn't master Skywalker explain it to you?"
"He said it was an act between two people who loved each other a lot. He said it held an important emotional part of a relationship as it is something special. It shows how much you love and trust someone."
"Did he explain the act to you though?"
"No, he didn't."
"Well… have… you… heard of the act called… sex?" Luke asked trying to find the right words to say.
"Y Y Yes." Ahsoka said blushing.
"Well Fuck is another word for sex." Luke watched Ahsoka blush even more red. "But sex is not just used to show how much you love someone even though that is what is supposed to mean by societal standards. It can be casual sex where two people have sex to relive stress or to release urges. The act of sex can also have many meanings and implications in different societies." Ahsoka just nodded in response.
"I can go into details if you want about what happens during the act if you would like?" Luke teased.
"No thank you!" Ahsoka exclaimed quickly in response and turned even redder. Luke just laughed at her reaction.
Flashback End
"It was funny yet awkward." Luke explained.
"I bet it was."
"You haven't had to explain any other words to her have you?"
"I kept my language in check around her… for the most part."
"Good, we don't need you corrupting her innocence any more than you have."
"We're at war Rex, innocence is the first thing to die, it's always one of the first things to become a casualty."
"Yes but it's our job to protect other people's innocence. Even if we must lose ours."
"It's our job to do a lot of things." A somber mood settled over the table.
"Sooo… any other things that differ between our respective militaries? An why do you have different levels of Beskar purity in armour?" Hot Shot asked trying to alleviate the mood.
"Well, you all know that Beskar is extremely potent tin blocking everything from blasters to lightsabres, right?"
"Right." The clones responded.
"Well, we get a limited supply of Beskar as we only get so much from Mandalor each month. Therefore, Special Forces who are doing more important operations, and higher risk missions need superior armour and weapons than the regular servicemen. So about forty percent goes towards making pure Beskar amour for SF while the other sixty percent gets melted down and combined with steel to form an alloy to increase the effectiveness of their armour." Luke explained
"Well… as for differences between our respective militaries... Special forces and unites tasked with specific jobs. You have the ARC, ARF, Commandoes and LRRPPs. You also have a few battalions and legions but you mostly consist of infantry Divisions. We have Mountain Divisions, Jungle Divisions, an Aquatic Division, armoured, marine, mechanized, motorized, support, airborne and a new Orbital Drop Shock Trooper Divisions. We then have around a hundred other special forces groups. Our military has seen more action in the last few centuries than the Republic has in a millennium. The republic is relearning its military doctrine and tactics, while we are simply refining ours."
"Yeah there were a lot of blunders at the start of the war. Lost a lot of good friends." Delano said.
"What are Orbital Drop Shock Troopers?" Rex asked.
"Orbital Drop Shock Troopers or ODSTs are essentially highly trained operatives that are launched out of ships in orbit in small pods into the atmosphere behind enemy lines. They even received a nickname, the 'Hell Jumpers' going feet first into hell."
"That sounds crazy! Who would be launched from orbit planet side in their right mind!" Hot Shot exclaimed.
"Oh… right… um… you see, they first separate the men from the boys, then they separate the men from the fools. Then finally, the fools jump feet first into hell."
"You've been selected to join haven't you?" Rex spoke.
"Wow… just… take all the fun out of it. Just put the fun in camps why don't you." Luke said feigning hurt.
"Umm… What?"
"It's… It's an earth thing. But yeah, I've been offered to join and I'm thinking of accepting it, the 105th Orbital Assault Division. The next big thrill. I would join but I am being transferred to the 'cultural combat exchange unit'."
"You would be joining the ODSTs because you get a rush out of it?" Wave asked surprised.
"War is a drug my friend. Nothing compares to an adrenaline rush." Luke retorted.
"I'd challenge you on that but then again, some of our brothers also get a rush out of it." Irons responded.
"Yeah, from what I can tell there is a Mandalorian and two Jedi that are going to be part of the squad I'm going to be in. The new units are technically fall under the Navy's command so I have to default back to my Naval rank of lieutenant."
"You were part of the Navy? I thought you were a Marine." Rex inquired.
"I transferred from the Navy to the Marines after… some things happened." Luke explained, not willing to speak any further on the matter.
"Hey! Luke! This is where you've been hiding." Ahsoka said coming over with a tray of food.
"Well, I haven't been hiding, I was providing extra security detail to the station during your visit. Were you able to get a visa to go planet side?"
"No, unfortunately I was unable too due to short notice, so… could you tell me more about earth and its history Luke?"
"Sure. There are many different interpretations and theories about how humanity came to be but for the sake of argument we'll say that it started in the continent of Africa, in or about the year 50,000 b.c. We were living in the savannahs of East Africa, hunting for meat, gathering berries, and otherwise looking like any other group of two-legged apes, once common in Africa. But something was different about us. We decorated and adorned our bodies; we created art; we planned our hunting and gathering; and most importantly, we improved on everything we did and taught our children everything we knew, in the hopes that their lives would be better. Nobody yet knows what made us different from the other apes—perhaps it was a combination of seeking new ideas and having the language to communicate those ideas to others—but whatever happened so many years ago in Africa finally made us human and that's when our story starts.
There were only a few thousand of us back then. All of humanity could have fit into a ballpark. Every day under the burning sun the men hunted while the women collected berries and nuts. Every night under the brilliant stars we huddled together and told ourselves stories. And sometimes we were afraid, when the storms washed the land, or when a lion came to hunt, but we knew where to hide and we knew how to fight and every day we learned new things. There were only a few thousand of us back then, but every century there were more of us.
We have always been seekers of new things, and we have always been seekers of fame. It did not take long for some of us to leave the hunting grounds of East Africa and head north across the African plain. As each century passed, we left our footprints on more and more of the world. We walked to the Fertile Crescent, settling in the places we liked, happy near the abundant game and the bountiful earth. Later we walked towards the Northern Star and settled in the craggy majesty of Europe; and we walked East towards the rising sun and walked on the golden steppes of Eurasia. Eventually, we even built boats to reach the land of New Guinea and antipodal Australia. In only a few millennia we had populated three-quarters of the land. It has always been a small world after all.
As we walked and hunted throughout the world we were not always alone. In Europe we met another group of ape-descendants who had left Africa long ago. The Neanderthals were our older cousins. They were larger than us and had hunted in Ice Age Europe with fire and stone for more than 50,000 years. But by then, our skills were great and our tools were powerful. Nobody knows whether we out-hunted them or out-fought them. All we know is that the Neanderthals disappeared soon after we arrived.
Millennia went by and our collection of tools kept increasing: gravers, borers, and scrapers; arrows, knives, and spears of all kinds. Every tool allowed us to live in new places. With fish hooks made from ivory we could live by the coast. With sewing needles made out of bone we could make furs and live in the tundra of Asia. In time we followed the woolly mammoth across the ice and found a whole New World.
We crossed the icy-covered Bering Strait into America no later than 10,000 b.c., just as the glacial blankets were retreating towards the pole. The world was warming, and other species struggled to adapt. The mammoths disappeared, as did the megathere, the sabre-toothed cats, the American lions, and the mastodons, animals from the time. But we had no trouble adapting to the changes and in the end we thrived. Nobody knows whether we pushed those other animals towards extinction. All we know is that our campsites were filled with their bones.
And so, at the end of the Ice Age, having started in Africa, we now lived on every continent on Earth, save the coldest one at the bottom of the world. The mammoths and the mastodons were gone, but we hunted other prey. And now everywhere we went, we met ourselves, and all other ape-descendants were gone. There were 4 million of us then, spread-out all over the world, living much as we had lived for the last 40,000 years, and entirely unaware of the wrenching changes that were to come.
At first, farming was a giant leap backwards. The reedy weeds that passed for crops back then were nothing like the hypermarket corn that you can buy today. But hunting was a source of protein only if the hunt succeeded, and it's no surprise that we liked the idea of food that couldn't run away from you.
Eventually, of course, we got better at growing food. But more amazingly, eventually food got better at feeding us. Every spring we planted many different seeds. At harvest time, we could see that some seeds resulted in a better crop than others. The next season we planted the seeds from the best crop. Thirteen-thousand years later we realized what we had done: We had selected the genes that were best at feeding us. We genetically engineered our food in 11,000 b.c. In that way we domesticated barley, grapes, and olives in the Near East; we cultivated soybeans, cabbage, and plums in China; and we grew maize, squash, and chili peppers in Central America.
Even animals were not immune from our influence. Wolves came by our campsites from time to time. Those that attacked us, we killed; those that were friendly, we fed. By 10,000 b.c. the wolves at the fringes of the campsite had turned into dogs sleeping by the fire. Cats, ever more independent, joined us 4,000 years later. The mammoths were dead, but the dogs, the cats, the sheep, the goats, and the cows now lived. The world was being shaped by our hands, consciously or not, and not for the last time.
With our newly altered crops and our loyal animals, getting enough food to eat no longer required sixteen hours a day. For the first time in our history there was a surplus of food. More importantly, we were no longer walking around the world following game to hunt. Our campsites became more permanent and soon they turned into villages. Those two changes in our lives, the surplus of food and the emergence of villages, led to the greatest transformations in our history. Civilization lay ahead.
Economics in 11,000 b.c. was simple. Farmers grew more than enough food for their families, so they gave some of their food to metal-workers. In exchange, metal-workers gave the farmers tools for the farm. But it didn't take long for things to get complicated. Bandits could take food from the farmers and force the metal-workers to make weapons for them. This forced the farmers and the metal-workers to hire soldiers to protect themselves. In exchange farmers gave the soldiers food and the metal-workers gave them weapons.
But for us, nothing stays the same. We are always looking for new things and we are always looking for fame. And so, the villages got bigger and bigger, and the farms got better at growing food; and the metal-workers created new tools and new weapons. But it was the soldiers who benefited most. With more and more surplus food, they could support larger and larger armies. And among the soldiers, some ruled over the others, and these rulers became kings and queens of the villages. And though the farmers just had enough food for themselves, the kings and queens, the sultans and viziers, the emperors and their bureaucrats, all controlled the wealth of the kingdom and their word was law.
The division between the haves and have-nots has been with us ever since. In a sense, it was both the cause of civilization and the first product of civilization. But the greatest contribution of civilization has been to provide an environment in which new ideas could prosper. And not the least of those new ideas, was the thought that all people are equal, and that all, not just kings and queens, deserve the same opportunity and freedom to pursue their dreams.
But that idea would have to wait. Other ideas were flourishing that increased the power of a civilization. One of the greatest must have been the realization that the sun, the moon, and the stars moved in predictable ways. More importantly, we discovered that the motion of the sun marked the seasons and could tell us when to start sowing and when to start reaping. Can you imagine a more encouraging discovery? It must have seemed as if the universe itself was helping us to succeed. This discovery was so important to us that we devoted enormous time and energy to build gigantic monuments to help us track the position of the sun. These monuments connected our day-to-day farming life with the ethereal mysteries of the cosmos. This was organized religion in 4,000 b.c.
The greatest idea of this time was probably writing. We are all born with an instinct for spoken language—children will spontaneously develop grammar for a pidgin language that lacks it. But the idea of making marks on clay to represent words only occurred to us in a few places in the world. At first, writing was used mostly for record keeping. But in time, writing served as the repository of knowledge. The wisdom of a thousand of year was preserved in the written word, long after authors were dead. Unlike many other inventions and discoveries, writing improved the process of invention and discovery itself.
And the world had changed again. Mesopotamia in the Near East was the first to see the transforming power for civilization. The city of Ur rose on the Euphrates river by 3500 b.c. In Egypt, the kingdom of the Pharaohs grew on the Nile around the same time. The valley around the Indus river followed in 2500 b.c.; and the Chinese civilization around the Yangtze blossomed in 1800 b.c. Any hunter from the beginning of our story would have been lost in these great cities, unaccustomed to the new roles farmers, craftsmen, soldiers, kings and to the new ideas writing, organized religion, money. To us, on the other hand, a visit would be no more than an exotic vacation. The differences between 2000 b.c. and our time are no more than those that can be covered in a good travel guide.
In a.d. 1969 two ape-descended human beings walked on the surface of the moon. On Earth, 600 million people watched or listened, using two recent inventions known as television and radio. At the exact same moment, two other ape-descendants held the power to launch thousands of nuclear missiles, very similar to the ones that had just propelled the astronauts to the moon, and loaded with enough destructive power to kill most of those 600 million people.
3,000 years earlier, we struggled to understand the world: What laws governed the motion of the planets? What were rocks, trees, and rivers made out of? What caused diseases and how could they be cured? What was the best way to defeat the enemy? How should people be governed? Many ideas were proposed to answer these and other questions. Some of those ideas succeeded in answering interesting questions—other ideas did not fit the facts. Over the years, the successful ideas were kept while the unsuccessful ones were discarded. And always, ideas built on other ideas, so the more we learned about the world, the easier it was to learn more.
On the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea, the civilization of the Greek city-states produced many new ideas. Greek philosophers measured the circumference of the Earth, speculated on the circulation of blood, and launched a massive research-and-development program to develop the catapult. Democracy was another such idea. Instead of a permanent king who ruled over all, Greek democracy called for shared rule, in which each landowner took turns serving in a ruling council.
In the second century b.c. the Greek civilization was conquered by the Romans, but the ideas that the Greeks possessed were not lost—they were simply adopted by the Romans. And in turn, the Romans built on the past and developed new technologies to improve their life.
Many new ideas improved our control over the natural world, but some ideas were more personal and dealt with the questions that all humans have asked: Why am I here? How should I live my life? Why do people suffer? What will happen after I die? Many tried to answer these questions. In northeast India, Buddha began a religion eschewing selfishness and desire. In China, Confucius taught guides of conduct, reinforcing the mutual responsibilities of rulers and subjects. And in the Near East, Jesus Christ preached a religion founded on love. The philosophies of these three men have endured long after their deaths and millions are now inspired by their ideas.
In fourth century a.d. the Roman Empire succumbed to invading Vandals and Goths. The ideas of that civilization were lost for a time, but other empires rose in its place. Mohammed united the tribes of the Arabian Peninsula and built a religion and an empire that challenged every realm from Spain to the western mountains of India. The Islamic empire preserved and extended many of the ideas of the ancient world. Algebra was one of those ideas. The number zero was another.
Secure in the middle of Asia, China produced more than its share of ideas and innovations. Books were printed in a.d. 868. and gunpowder was known by a.d. 1044. Nevertheless, the Mongols, united under Genghis Khan, managed to conquer Peking in 1215. China turned inward and tempered its curiosity about the rest of the world. In the early 1400's China possessed the skills to build ships that could cross the Pacific. But the Middle Kingdom, then the most advanced civilization in the world, saw nothing outside itself that was of interest.
The various tribes and civilizations of America were isolated from each other. The ideas of the Aztecs, for example, were not known to the Incas, and neither was able to learn from the other. In contrast, the civilizations of Europe, Asia, and Africa, all traded with each other and all learned from each other. For example, paper was invented in China in a.d. 105, but Arabs acquired the technology from captured Chinese papermakers in 751, and Europe learned it from the Arabs in the twelfth century. If an American delegation had visited Europe in 1492, they would have found European technology to be almost indistinguishable from magic. Unfortunately for the Native Americans, it was Europe which sent a delegation to America in that year.
The European powers of the sixteenth century lacked the technological sophistication of China or the Arab world. Moreover, bottled-up in Europe, they ended up fighting each other over land, religion, and power. But their competition encouraged innovation and exploration, and when the New World appeared before Columbus, it set off a race to exploit its treasures. Britain and France fought for control of North America while Spain and Portugal raced to subjugate South America. For the civilizations of the Americas, resistance was futile. The Spanish Conquistadores charged on horses, fought with iron, and brought numerous infectious diseases.
The competition among the European powers centred as much on technology as it did on conquest, and soon the skills and knowledge of Europe surpassed those of the rest of the world. Discoveries followed rapidly: In 1610, Galileo worked a few laws of motion using, for the first time, experiments and numerical measurement. In 1687, Newton published the Principia which provided us with the tools to predict the behaviour of the planets and control the motion of cannon balls. In 1769, James Watt perfected the steam engine. In 1789, Antoine Lavoisier revolutionized Chemistry. In 1831, Michael Faraday discovered electromagnetic induction, the principle behind electric motors and generators. In 1859, Charles Darwin explained why we are here when he published On the Origin of Species. And in 1905, on the American coast settled by Britain only three centuries before, Albert Einstein developed the equation E = mc2, which accurately predicted the ferocious power unleashed by an atomic bomb.
Armed with these and a thousand other advances, the European powers fought each other, while the rest of the world served as their pieces and their board. In the eighteenth century, French and British empires fought each other around the world; warships were their technology, and they both fought for control of the seas. The American Colonies seceded during this war, and vowed never to become entangled in the affairs of the Great Powers. In the nineteenth century, France and Britain fought again, this time on land, and with Germany as their pawn. But as the twentieth century opened, France and Britain became reluctant allies as they warily realized that Germany was no longer a pawn, and that the once dormant countries of Russia, China, and Japan, had begun to stir.
We pause our story at the threshold of the twentieth century, the most remarkable century in our history, to look back at where we started. The agricultural revolution 12,000 years ago unleashed two irresistible forces. The first was the increasing power of technology that enabled our competitive human need to amass wealth, power, and status. The second was the system of ideas that tempered and guided the first. But as the power of technology increased exponentially, the temptation to use that power for conquest and control outstripped the guiding force of democracy, the rule of law, and human rights. These powers increased so fast and furiously that the deeds and weapons that burned the twentieth century would have been imaginable to the first Fertile Crescent farmers only as visions of Hell.
It is said that the First World War started by accident, but if so, it was an accident that required meticulous preparation. In 1914 Germany and its allies fought against France, Britain and its allies. Everyone thought that this would be just another short European wars, but the power of technology was too great for easy prediction. Machine guns and chemical weapons kept the armies in the muddy trenches for years, and when overwhelming strength finally broke the stalemate on the French and British side, the shock of defeat on the German side virtually ensured a sequel. Other states were also casualties of that war. The Ottoman Empire collapsed, turning the Middle East into a dozen, warring, jigsaw-puzzle pieces. The Russian revolution ushered in a totalitarian leadership that corrupted the social aspirations of the masses to assume dictatorial control over the largest country in Asia. And Imperial Japan realized that technology was power and decided to amass as much of it as it could.
Japan invaded Manchuria in 1932 and fought on the plains of northern China in 1937. In Europe, the bitter defeat of World War I and the Great Depression left Germany prey to the totalitarian ambitions of Adolph Hitler. Germany invaded Poland in 1939 with Russia as its ally. Weak and tired of war, France and Spain succumbed to the German advance by 1941. Britain remained unconquered but exhausted, while the United States, looked the other way, safe on its own continent. But Japan did not trust the strength of the US peace movement to keep the American power out of the war. In 1941 it attacked and destroyed the primary American naval base in the Pacific. In retrospect, this was a miscalculation.
Another miscalculation was Hitler's betrayal of its Russian ally. German armies invaded Russia in 1941, opening up a disastrous second front. Meanwhile, the latent industrial might of the United States surged into gear. Thousands of tanks and airplanes rumbled out of factories in America. The Western Front was won by the allied powers after an audacious amphibious invasion in 1944. The Eastern Front was won by Russia only after a sacrifice of millions of soldiers. The war now turned to Japan, and once again the economic power of the US was decisive. Battleships and carriers left American docks almost every week. Island by island, the United States shrank the Japanese Empire until American marines where fighting on the shores of Okinawa. In previous centuries, this would have been the end, and the leaders of Japan and the US would have settled on terms. But this was a total and final war; too many people had died and too many people had suffered. This had to be the war to end all wars or else what was the point of fighting? In 1945, the United States sent a message to the Japanese Emperor: Surrender or be annihilated. In any other century this would have been a bluff, and the Japanese treated it as such. But the power of technology was incalculable. A few days later, the United States dropped an atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, instantly destroying the city centre and killing more than 100,000 people. A few days later, another bomb was dropped, this time on Nagasaki. Japan did not wait for a third. The Second World War was over.
The dictatorships of Germany and Japan were defeated and both were rebuilt by the allies into democratic republics. But the dictatorship of Russia endured and prospered. In 1949, Russia tested its own atomic bomb, the same year that China fell under the control of totalitarian communism. To the countries of the Western World it seemed as if the power of their democratic ideas would fail under the contagion of totalitarianism and one-party rule. East and West developed and built more powerful nuclear weapons and the missiles to carry them. Every person on Earth lived at the endpoint of a missile's ballistic flight path. And just as it seemed that this balance of terror would go on forever, the world changed again.
In the end, the power of ideas was just as great as the power of technology. The world was truly small now, and everyone could see how the rest of the world lived. As the people of the communist world saw the success of the Western economies, they yearned to follow their example. In 1989, the Soviet Empire collapsed, and the fear of nuclear holocaust collapsed with it.
After that the world spent a century dealing with terrorism and developing a way off world. Eventually in the twenty second century we developed a way to colonise our solar system. Then in the twenty third century we developed FTL and started a rapid colonisation process that lasted into the twenty fifth century. We then faced one of the bloodiest wars of our history. The UEG-Insurrection war or The Long War as it's called took up most of the twenty fifth century, millions died both military and civilian. In that time, we made numerous amounts of advancements in all fields of research, and that brings us up to the present day."
"Someone studied history in school."
"Yeah I was kind of a History nerd." Luke said rubbing the back of his head out of embarrassment.
"Your people's history sounds so violent and full of suffering. So much of it could have been avoided." Ahsoka said dejectedly.
"People are naturally selfish. They'll want more power than they have, want more money, more fame, more… something. And some would trample whoever they need to in order to achieve it. And sometimes, in the case of the atom bombs in world war two where one evil deed outweighs another. In this case the death of thousands vs millions of deaths."
"That doesn't make it right though, there is always a better solution, in a case like that couldn't the allies just blockade Japan?"
"They could but the war had dragged on for six years, they wanted it to end quickly. Starving out a country can take years to accomplish and you have to keep that blockade tight so to not let any ships in, carpet bombing Japanese cities had proven ineffective in demoralising them, not to mention surrender was a taboo among their society."
"But still isn't it better to spare lives whenever possible rather than take them?"
"I'm not saying you're wrong but sometimes you have to do something in the morale grey area."
"It doesn't mean you should."
"Never said you didn't, just that you may come across a situation where there is no black and white situation and as soldiers we have to make split second decisions under a lot of stress. But I'm sure you'll make the best decision you can with the information you have available to you. That's all anyone can ask. Otherwise their a naïve idealist."
"What's wrong with being naïve or an idealist?" Ahsoka asked.
"Nothing is inherently wrong with either but being naïve is not exactly the best thing to be in our position and ideals tend to be warped and twisted in the crucible of war."
"You make it sound so bleak."
"War is not glorious, its bloody, messy and chaotic. To quote a saying War is Hell. And after every engagement, every battle I've been through. The comrades, brothers and friends I've lost seems endless. Nearly a years and a half into this war the O.A.G. alone has lost close to… close to one hundred and thirty-two million personnel and heavens knows how many Republic and Separatist civilians and clones. Probably in the trillions. The O.A.G. has resorted to turning the moon of New Carthage into a grave world where most of the dead from the war are being buried."
"It's difficult to imagine the suffering let alone the number of dead."
"One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic. But we fight to prevent more people from suffering. Well if you excuse me, I have to get back to work. My break ends in five minutes and I need to be on the other side of the station. I'll see you guys later." Luke excused himself as he picked up his tray and walked towards the door after depositing his tray.
"Now that I think about it, he always seems to be working on something and never takes a break." Ahsoka said as she watched the doors slide shut behind him.
An article from the Galactic Times on the O.A.G.
Though I respect my colleagues and their work, I feel that they unintentionally only showed half of the picture regarding humanity (I will be referring to the inhabitants of the O.A.G. as Humanity).
As obvious as it is to say, I'll reaffirm it anyway: they're like us. Imperfect, flawed—perhaps heavily so. They have many incredible, endearing, and inspiring traits, as a whole. They also have horrifying, absurdly irrational, and contradictory traits as well. Like us, they will grow and mature as a whole over time. That progress is often inconsistent, but the overall pattern is there.
From what we currently understand (which, given the nature of these studies, isn't nearly as much or as well as we'd like), much of the same qualities that make humanity amazing also make it irrational, inefficient (in most ways), and inconsistent. While that concept is not exactly unknown to us (in the sense that I will refer to), it is perhaps taken to a much higher degree than we are familiar with.
The best, albeit oversimplified, way to explain this is to start with this leading theory: these humans think in different ways than we do (or at least the vast majority of us do). No, I don't mean they're better or worse, just different. They arrive at most of the same conclusions, but the path they take to get there is strange, usually inefficient, and often absurd. But sometimes that same way of thinking also fuels extreme creativity and ingenuity. Sometimes it allows them to reach a much better conclusion faster than would otherwise be possible. Sometimes (or, perhaps, often times) it leads to poor conclusions, or even worse conclusions than what they started with. Roughly comparing technological development with that of humanity (using a comparable time period for each), overall trends and patterns are relatively clear: Republic tech progress was faster and almost always more cutting edge, but human tech progress excelled in the areas of market penetration, as well as being generally more reliable (I say generally, because sometimes the exact opposite is the case). Another example is with human war tactics within a 20-year span—in their first "World War", their tactics were outdated against the recent technological developments, leading to insanely high casualties for almost no change at all for the entire duration of the war (which also highlights the problematic stubbornness of humanity in general). Twenty years later, they were using highly advanced, innovative, and creative tactics (which sometimes were ahead of the technology needed to make them effective, ironically) in many different kinds of situations. Instead of stubbornly sticking to outdated and horrifically ineffective tactics time after time for four years, both sides of the second "World War" were constantly adapting, innovating, and trying new tactics.
In other words, humanity is not only a wildcard to us, they're a wildcard to themselves. They seem to be very frustrated with themselves in that regard, and understandably so. The unusual level of diversity and variety of humanity (in nearly every regard) also causes huge problems for them, too: getting things done can be absurdly difficult even when the solution is simple and extremely agreeable. Technological progress in one area may inexplicably grind to a halt while another area booms—but the booming area may be ignored or marginalized (which is absurd to another species). Their democratic governments is extremely stable and highly adaptable (relatively speaking), but they only reach that state if they can survive the usually tumultuous and chaotic years following their formation. However, their democracies sometimes rely on the principles of curbing their own ability to accomplish or change things in a reasonable amount of time or degree—put another way, they have to keep themselves in check to save themselves from themselves.
As a whole, humanity tends to react to cognitive dissonance in irrational, illogical, and sometimes horrifying ways. And the negative results are enormous. Our current psychological understanding of most races indicates that cognitive dissonance is most often resolved by seeking outside perspective or changing one's beliefs so that they do not conflict logically or rationally. A typical human approach to resolving cognitive dissonance is to dismiss the conflict's existence itself, or to adopt a new thought/idea that eliminates the conflict (whether or not said idea has any logical, rational, factual, or philosophical merit, which is the important distinction). The final common approach (which is the only one also well-known to us) is to resolve the dissonance by forcing oneself to not care.
There are other related effects and psychological practices, but I don't have enough translated material yet to comment on them. I could, potentially, also be wrong or have interpreted the data incorrectly, but this is our best guess at present. Regardless, this previously uncommon dichotomy of being simultaneously extremely empathetic and extremely uncaring (sometimes even hateful) can be largely explained by that concept.
Humans are also highly individualistic and ambitious. They are not at all hesitant to let their opinions be known, and many deliberately express them as vocally/noticeably as possibly (with the important distinction that they will do so even without anonymity). The result, at least in part, is that human society is usually chaotic and inefficient (especially when that individualism and ambition lead to selfishness in many cases), but also (generally) far more diverse and complex. I believe a (true and verified) story explains the strengths and weaknesses of such a situation: intellectual and open-minded humans express acute envy at the societies and governmental systems of, say, Republic and Naboo, lamenting how theirs are so much fairer, efficient, and happier than humanity's. But when asked about how the humans viewed the strengths/diversity of their own unique-yet-bizarre society, they expressed surprise and confusion that Republic and Naboo societies didn't also have them, too. This next point is just speculation, but I think humanity's society is designed around this abnormally high individualism and ambition, and so systems that are both free/tolerant and far more effective/efficient than their own seem entirely better, because they can't imagine such a system not being built around those ideals of high individualism and ambition. I could easily be wrong, though, so take that speculation with a heavy dose of scepticism.
I also need to reiterate that, as a logical inverse to what I mentioned earlier, some humans indeed think the way the vast majority of us do. Anyone with even a basic familiarity with statistics, sociology, or other such fields understands that every group has variation, and the larger the group, the more variation. And, interestingly enough, humanity has more variation than any other species out there (to clarify, I mean that more along the lines of extreme or strong variation occurring more often and consistently, not that their variation is more extreme or strong period).
I suppose that is what we find most fascinating about humanity as a whole: it varies more consistently, it varies more often, and it varies in more inconsistent ways than any other species-wide group.
21 BBY Republic calendar, Darth Sidious, Coruscant
"Yes my Master, it will be done." The holo-projector with Count Dooku shut down. He had just been discussing plans to break the stalemate that the Separatist-Republic/O.A.G. forces had worked themselves into. Darth Sidious sat back in his chair and removed his black cloak revealing Chancellor Palpatine underneath. Turning his chair, he gazed out the window over the Coruscant skyline of skyscrapers as far as the eye could see replacing whatever vegetation had once been ion the planet.
That blasted O.A.G. has proved a thorn in my side. Everything was going to plan, the Separatist and Republic were at war at last and then these… barbarians from beyond known space come in and screw up everything that I have been planning for years. These unknown variables could change everything, the fact that they refuse to reveal their position on the maps makes the job of infiltrating them or learning more about them so much more complicated. I don't know what their full military capacity is or what their intentions are or if they have technology more advanced than ours. Hopefully with this 'cultural exchange' programme I can get some spies into the O.A.G. and find out what I need to know or do to manipulate or conquer them. From the way the war has entered a stalemate they must be very competent to combat a superior force like they have and they need to have exceptional soldiers. The fact that they thwarted my plans for the Death Watch and the Mandalorians was frustrating as it is. They need to be removed from the equation before they become a bigger problem than they already are… Otherwise I'll have to deal with them when I become emperor and it would be difficult to scour all unexplored space to find them... What to do though... what to do...
Palpatine reached over to activate the Holo-projecter. He had some calls to make.
AN
Let me know if you think that the news articles are a good idea or not for showing the impact of the O.A.G. on the Republic.