ADAS KALLIG

Hi, it's me again.

Right now I am on Nar Shaddaa, the capital of gambling and illegal trade.

The moon I sort off...own now?

Let me explain from the start.

I was walking through the streets of Nar Shaddaa, looking for a good trader for the junk I got on Tython. I was accompanied by Raksh, the only flesh raider I decided to take with me for now. I didn't exactly have a place for them on my ship and I didn't really want to deal with flesh eating monsters roaming Nar Shaddaa, so I just said that I would use my steel bird to sail the stars and they should just wait for me. They listened of course, as they knew I could just kill them all in case they disobeyed.

I took the Raksh though. Guy needed a field trip. He wouldn't be able to become a good darksider without at least some knowledge about the galaxy and I knew the trip would help him grow.

It didn't hurt that travelling with Raksh was a pleasure. He had the most adorable ideas and opinions.

"THEY WEAK. KILL WEAK. STRONG RULE" He said, looking at the crowd. People around us started to look at him warily, beginning to walk faster, eager to get away from the dangerous giant.

Not the most eloquent sentence, but he actually presented a very simplified Sith ideology. Not very creative, but still better than all that unnecessary gravel used by sith philosophers to sound smart.

"That's not a viable long term plan Raksh" I said, trying to pass some of my vision to my understudy. We were reaching the promenade, a known market square in Nar Shaddaa, where I was hoping to find someone interested in jedi trinkets. "You kill some of them, yes, but eventually they will unite to put an end to you. And you are not strong enough to defeat them all"

"SITH STRONG. SITH KILL ALL WEAK" he said. Well, I am happy to have his confidence. It spoke of the traditional sith witness though.

"I could. There is no one strong enough to defeat me here and it wouldn't be hard to just kill everybody. But that wouldn't be a solution" I said confidently. But my strength really didn't matter.

Most of the sith were very simple. They would just use power in the most obvious way, killing anyone who disagreed and forcing others to serve through fear. It worked in the short term, but it wouldn't last. "If I did that, no one would trust me. People working for me because of the fear of death would scheme behind my back, constantly trying to betray me. I would then have to kill them. That would only make my reputation worse, leading to more people going against me. Eventually, there would be someone strong enough to take me on. And that someone would have a lot of allies to help him do that, often among my own subordinates." It was probably a controversial opinion among the sith, but I wanted to at least try to make Raksh understand.

"That's why making people work for you for reasons other than fear is a better solution in the long term. It's harder to do that though, as you have to care about your subordinates' problems at least a little. You don't put them above yourself of course. Your benefit is always a main priority. But if your subordinates are happy working for you, they will think twice before betraying you."

This sounded almost jedi-like, but it was true. It was idiotic to just threaten everyone and steal whatever you want. That's why the empire wasn't able to win against the republic, despite having so many advantages. Sith were just to stupid to actually care about someone other than themselves. I wasn't saying that the sith should try to be more compassionate or anything like that, but I found out that it was more pragmatic to have a good relationship with your subordinates.

Raksh fell in thought, which was good. Even if he wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, at least he tried to learn something from this talk. He started to speak slowly, trying to convey his thoughts to me.

"...WEAK PEOPLE HAPPY. WEAK PEOPLE NOT STRONG WHEN HAPPY. WEAK PEOPLE SERVE." He looked at me, trying to find out if he was right. I was almost sure that he didn't fully understand the lesson, but it was good enough for now.

"Yes, glad to see you learn. We will make a proper darksider in no time"

"KALLIG SMART. RAKSH THANKS" He smiled or at least I thought he did. It was hard to tell.
I noticed that some people reacted to my name, starting to stare at me intently, but I decided to ignore them for now. If they wanted to ask me something or kill me, they would come to me on their own.

We were reaching the promenade. I could see the market, buzzing with activity. There were hundreds of shops and stands, all full of both exotic and mundane stock. A lot of the wares were definitely illegal in the republic, making Nar Shaddaa a haven for smugglers and thieves. The moon was located in the hutt space and was ruled by the hutts though, making it impossible for the republic to actually do something about the problem. Not that I complained, my memories from my stay on Nar Shaddaa were pleasant. I gambled, I created a cult and found out about some interesting experiments conducted by Revan in the past.

I decided to walk through the promenade for now, to see if there was something interesting to buy and hopefully find someone willing to buy jedi relics.

While we were browsing the merchandise, I was able to eavesdrop on an interesting conversation between two traders.

"Hey, did you hear the news about the war?" Said one of them. He was a spice trader, though he was openly selling the drug on the market. One of the benefits of living in hutt space I guess.

"No, what happened?" Said the other one. He was selling weapons, mostly blasters, though they were of subpar quality. Most likely he found them somewhere and decided to make a quick profit, hoping for some idiot to buy it.

"After these jedi nutjobs attacked the chancellor, separatists decided to step their game. Maybe they became bold or something, I don't know. But they started to use much more droids than before, slowly overwhelming the clones. It is so bad that the republic was forced to start using real soldiers. Core worlds started creating their own armies to fight for the republic, afraid of being conquered by separatists. Things are getting heated up!"

"Why would we care? It's not like any of them would attack us. Neither side wants to make the hutt space their enemy right now. Only an idiot would start a two front war now"
"Well, maybe you are right, but..."

I stopped listening to their conversation. Republic stopped relying on the mandalorian army? Well, it would make sense. Mandalorians are battle maniacs, who are very hard to make obedient. It would be easier to just use a normal army. Safer too. Why didn't they do it sooner? A question for another time.

After a while I was able to find a woman willing to buy relics. She looked extremely shady, with black cloak hiding her face, a faint feeling of the dark side and unwillingness to carry the conversation, but it wasn't something I really cared about. As long as I got the money it wasn't my problem what she did with these relics. For a while I thought she would try to mug me, as she took me to some deserted alley to make the transaction, silent all the way there, but she didn't do anything stupid, instead prefering to obtain items peacefully.

We made a deal, she left the alley with relics and I got a hefty amount of credits. Everyone won.

I was about to leave when I saw numerous people entering the alley and walking in my direction. They didn't feel hostile and they didn't try to sneak up on me, so I signaled Raksh to not attack. For now.

The group consisted of various humans and aliens, all visibly poor, with worn down clothes and dirt on faces. Not the most prestigious group. I could feel their intense gaze directed at me though, full of hope and anticipation, making me curious. They must have been very determined to talk to me as they even ignored a three meters tall monster, focusing their attention only on me.

When they were about ten meters away, they stopped, with one of them, a young female twi'lek with blue skin, being the only one to approach me.

"Are you truly Lord Kallig?" She asked, voice strangely full of hope. I didn't exactly know why she would look for me, but replied anyway.
"I am Adas Kallig, also known as Darth Imperius. Why did you approach me?" I wasn't exactly the most known man in the galaxy anymore. I became famous for rescuing Palpatine, but not famous enough to be recognised by some peasants from the hutt space on sight.

When the group heard that, they all fell on their knees. They started to chant, repeating some prayer and looking at me with devotion. Some were even crying from happiness, hugging each other and thanking the heavens. What?

I was honestly puzzled, not understanding the situation in the slightest. What was going on?

The young twi'lek stood up and signaled everyone to quiet down. Then she turned to me, spreading her hands and looking at me with a face full of joy.

"Lord Kallig! We waited so long for your return! Thousands of years passed since you last blessed Nar Shaddaa with your presence, but your faithful didn't forget. We knew you would come back to aid your people. With you here, Nar Shaddaa will finally become free. Praised be Lord Kallig! Praised be Lord Kallig!" She started to chant. Soon she was joined by the others until everyone was praising my name, surrounding me and prostrating themselves. Raksh, proabably thinking it was normal, was looking at me with obvious respect, trying to chant the same sentence, though without much success.

And I was just standing in the middle of the newly created circle of the faithful, happy with the development, but puzzled all the same.