EPILOGUE II - Just Something They Talk About on the Holonet

Half a galaxy away on Yavin IV, Jedi Knight Rosh Penin stretched and splayed contentedly across the double-sized conform grav lounger in the dormitory that he shared with his best friend and former classmate, Jaden Korr. A cool, comforting breeze stirred the room from the air filtration unit, contrasting quite nicely with the muggy atmosphere outside. Across from him was the holovision set, framed by a slitted viewport that showed off the jungle landscape beyond the Jedi Academy. The feed was alternating between electrical ghost-images of popular datacaster Jann Tosh and his guest, Kyle Katarn, who had trained Jaden and Rosh both as Jedi. Right now the volume was on low. Rosh's attention had wandered to the point of detaching his prosthetic arm—the price of his rescue from the Ragnos cult on Taspir III—and tossing it to himself like a baton.

Behind him, around the corner in the little foyer by the exit, he could barely make out Jaden's side of a comlink conversation.

"For the last time, no, I'm not saying it's some kind of official Jedi teaching. I'm not trying to act as a spokesbeing for the order. I understand several Jedi Knights are attending—"

A low, squawky sort of nattering cut him off. With the Force, Rosh could have amplified his senses enough to hear, but he didn't feel like bothering.

"Yes, I'm aware of that ruling, and I respect the Court's decision, but I'm entitled to my personal opinion." Ever so slightly, Jaden's voice had tightened. He always did try to be the stoic one. "I don't have anything against Major Klivian or Major Janson, but as I see it, it's not proper to have something like this in public with all the same accolades and fanfare of a normal—"

There was a harsh burst from the comlink that, to Rosh Penin's ears, sounded distinctly like an obscenity.

"If you would just calm down for a minute, we can— Hello? Hello?"

"Don't feel bad, Jaden. You did your best," Rosh offered cheerfully as his fellow Jedi shuffled back into the room, hanging his head in frustration. Unsurprisingly the compliment didn't land, and Jaden began to pace. He was a tall human with modest brown hair and deep, steely eyes, the eyes of a philosopher.

"I just don't think it's normal, that's all," he said, half to himself. "I don't understand why this has to be so personal. I haven't attacked them or called anyone names. It's purely a matter of principle."

Rosh's prosthetic arm spun into the air, then snapped smartly back into his hand. Jaden didn't react. He'd gotten used to it.

"I'm not sure I get it either," Rosh said. "It's not as if you know all those people super well."

"Exactly! I've never met either of these men in person, but I've somehow deeply offended them and their whole extended families and all of Rogue Squadron by declining to attend? I don't even know why they invited me in the first place."

"Sure you do," Rosh told him. "It's because of that wizard stunt you pulled off on Kril'Dor."

"Well, I suppose it could be, but General Antilles planned that entire operation. Any Jedi could have contributed what I did."

"Jaden, let me tell you: one of these days, you have got to get a little full of yourself."

Stopping, his fellow Jedi finally gave him a look. "And you need to let some exhaust out of your reactor core before your ego melts down."

Jaden wasn't smiling, but Rosh sensed that he'd still broken through (just a little) and smirked in satisfaction. Twirling the prosthetic a final time, he grasped it by the connector tube and extended its half-limp fingers toward the other man in a crude salute. "Well, what really counts is that you're standing by your principles, Jaden. My hand's off to you."

That had never failed to put a pained expression on Jaden's face, or to make him roll his eyes, and it didn't fail this time either. Rosh duly chortled for a moment, then started plugging his arm back in.

Gradually their attention was drawn to the holovision, where Kyle was still talking with Jann Tosh.

"How far along is this?" asked Jaden.

"About two standard hours. Halfway."

"What do you think of all this?"

Rosh ran a hand through his slick black hair. "I think it's the funniest thing since Fey'lya threw up on the prime minister of Krant."

"You think this is funny?"

"It is funny. Not to mention wizard, to see Kyle on the HoloNet. It's good for a Jedi like him to have exposure. Get the public to see that we're regular guys like them."

"Humph, I suppose that's a good thing," Jaden granted. "But if you ask me, it's not a good thing that it had to come to this. That a Jedi Master could only stop an Imperial extremist by taking him to court."

Rosh propped himself up on an elbow. "What do you think Kyle should do? Arrest the guy?"

"Well, yes. He's spreading dangerous propaganda and misinformation from a New Republic world, across the New Republic HoloNet."

"The HoloNet got denationalized a long time ago. Back when both of us were kids," Rosh pointed out.

Jaden chewed on his lip for a moment. "Maybe so, but... Look, I know we have free speech, and that's extremely important. But consider this: just because we're at peace with the Imperial Remnant doesn't mean that Imperial ideas are no longer a threat. Pellaeon's ideology is problematic, but the spectrum can get much darker than him. Look what happened just last year with the Shadow Academy. Somebody like this man, this Jek Torvis, using his HoloNet show to capitalize on people's fears and misplaced nostalgia, pushing regressive ideas back into the public consciousness—that's a threat to the New Republic itself. He's potentially creating a new generation of radical Imperialists..." He trailed off, his eyes narrowing with confusion as he caught the grin spreading across Rosh's face. "What is it? What's so funny?"

"Radical Imperialism—have you watched any of Jek Torvis's show?"

"No, why would I?" asked Jaden, frowning. "I didn't know about him until today, when I read the piece on NR Prime Newsgrid—"

"Oh, Jaden, Jaden, Jaden," Rosh cackled, sitting up, "have I got a treat for you."

Extending a hand, he deftly reached with the Force to the holovision controls and muted Tosh Talks, then typed in the HoloNet code for Jek Torvis's datacast. A directory of episodes appeared—hundreds upon hundreds, dating back about five standard years. He flicked through titles for a moment before selecting one on a whim: Asymmetrical Warfare and Rebtard Talking Points.

With another Force-tap, Rosh jumped to a random point in the datacast. The hologram flickered, then reformed into a minimalist studio, with a well-dressed humanoid about Jaden's age seated at a desk, directly facing the holocam. The backdrop was a viewport showing the skyline of Coruscant—obviously digitally inserted, since the broadcast came from Bestine IV. The young man seated there had his elbows resting on the table, leaning eagerly toward the viewer. Though the hologram's tint somewhat hid his blue skin, the dimly glowing red eyes tipped Jaden off that this man was a Chiss—or rather a human-Chiss hybrid, judging by his peculiarly pale complexion. In one hand he clutched an open aluminum can of photon fizzle, a popular carbonated (and extremely sugary) beverage.

"...that what she did to those squatters on Dantooine was a massacre, a war crime," Jek Torvis scoffed, rolling his eyes. "I'm not gonna get into the problems of letting a woman think she could steer the Empire, even if it is a redheaded human we're talking about. Daala gave the final word on that when she steered an SSD straight into a gas giant, okay? But the question is: why are the rebtard journalists wrong? Why was this totally justified? I'll prove this with a hypothetical.

"Suppose I'm in my house, minding my own business, asleep with my family, and some two and a half meter-tall, thirty-IQ Trandoshan shows up..." He raised his hands and gesticulated as though trying to weave the image together in the air. "This giant, scaly-armored Trandoshan motherfracker with claws and teeth that are sharp as frack, just smashes down my front door and barges in, because he wants to rape and eat my wife and children because that's just his culture—" Jek winked, then mimed drawing and firing a blaster pistol. "—and I break out my trusty DL-44 and blow his reptoid hide back to hell where he fracking came from. What did I do in this scenario? Did I commit a war crime against that Trandoshan?

"I'll give you a hint: in order for an act to be a war crime, it has to take place in the context of a war, meaning an armed conflict between two actual governments. So if you're not a drooling, mentally deficient dweezer, the answer to this hypothetical is obviously no, because first of all he deserved it, second because he's not a soldier representing a government, and sure as hell he's no innocent bystander. He's a criminal. And so is the New Republic. They're all criminals, they're all crooks. Their regime is totally illegitimate. There's no such thing as committing war crimes against them."

Rosh skipped ahead a ways. Jaden glanced at the timeline and was dismayed to see that this episode was five hours long. Jek Torvis was leaning back in his chair now, rubbing his forehead as his face screwed up with disgust, and perhaps even pain. His jacket was open, his tie looser than before. Two empty photon fizzle cans were on the desk beside a fresh one.

"I swear, these people give me a headache. You want war crimes? We'll give you war crimes, you kriffing Rebtard pussy faggots—and crimes against civilization, while we're at it."

The look of pure scandal on Jaden's face deepened into a furrow. "This person is an adult? Who talks like this?" he murmured. His arms were folded before his chest as though to insulate himself from the profanity.

"And my vote for top candidate to get the bantha shit warcrimed out of them goes to the Noghri. Was there ever a more ungrateful planet of disgusting, backstabbing alien bastards than the Noghri? Never forget what they did, fellow patriots—never. Makin' you a promise right now: when the Emperor and Thrawn finally return for real and the Empire's in charge again, we're gonna remember Honoghr. And by 'remember,' I mean Base Delta Zero. I mean turn their planet into molten slurry."

Jaden looked askance at his fellow Jedi, who was choking down nervous laughter. "He thinks Thrawn will return? And Palpatine too, again?"

"Course he does."

"But Thrawn's clone died on Nirauan, and Byss was obliterated, and... The Second Imperium fraud, it was only last year...," said Jaden, his face straining as he tried to comprehend it all.

Rosh shrugged. "Doesn't prove anything. There can always be more clones hidden away somewhere, and when they come back they'll save us all from the Far Beyonders."

"The what?"

"Alien invaders from outside the galaxy, or some tusker poop."

"This is complete nonsense," Jaden observed, scrunching his face up.

"Yeah, and it's a million times funnier than Bendunight Holoskits."

"You actually watch this? For entertainment?"

"Eh, once in a while."

"These stupid kriffing reptoids don't even cook their meat," Jek said, waving his hand. "There's no such thing as committing crimes against their civilization because they don't have any civilization, just like they don't have any culture, or industriousness, or philosophy, or virtues... Virtues like gratitude? Hey, imagine that. Imagine the Noghri expressing gratitude for all the billions of Imperial credits we wasted trying to fix up their planet for them. Might have been possible, too, if their zero-IQ lizard brains had been able to resist that Jedi princess schutta Leia Solo, and her degenerate engspice-snorting feminine wiles. And you still see, whenever she's on the news holos, who's she got with her all the time? Is it her spice-running deadbeat cuck of a husband, or their brainwashed Jedi spawn? No, it's those midgety, muscled-up Noghri 'bodyguards,' and you know what gets goin' as soon as they're hidden away from the holocams—"

Jek's following words were so staggeringly obscene that Jaden's hair nearly stood on end. Even Rosh was embarrassed. He hadn't seen this particular bit before, and he felt bad simply to hear something like that uttered about one of the Skywalker-Solo clan—the same family of Jedi which had given Rosh a second chance after he had temporarily given in to the dark side.

"Enough!"

Jaden force-slammed the mute button so hard that the entire holovision set rattled, then turned on Rosh. "That's what I'm talking about, Rosh! This is... This is disgusting. It's absolutely vile. What kind of awful person would say those things about anyone—let alone someone as good and gentle and... and noble as Master Skywalker's sister? You shouldn't be watching this kind of garbage, ever."

Rosh could feel his face reddening. It had been years since his best friend had looked on him with genuine disappointment, and it cut deeper than he wanted to admit. "Okay, yeah, that was over the line. I'm sorry I showed you that part."

"I can't believe this man is even allowed on the HoloNet, that he has his own show and everything. It's nothing but lies and obscenity and subversion. People like him ought to be banned. Their programs should be canceled, and they should be put in prison."

"Woah, okay, hey now, that's a bit too far, Jaden," began Rosh, spreading his hands. "The Republic can't go around arresting people just for saying things, even if they are crazy or gross or whatever."

"We can't allow darkness like this to fester."

"So we'll censor them? Criminalize opposition? That's a step back toward the Imperial days." Rosh nodded pointedly at the hologram of the half-Chiss provocateur, who still babbled on in silence. "It's what people like Jek Torvis want."

Jaden countered, "No, it's the opposite of what he wants. He's advocating for the resurrection of the Empire: a regime of complete evil, tyranny and totalitarian control."

"So let him," Rosh snapped, putting his feet on the floor. "As long as he's not calling for assassinations or anything like that, he's free to say what he wants. It's right there in the Galactic Constitution."

"Do you really believe people like this should be allowed to say whatever they want? Without any pushback?" Jaden planted his fists on his hips. "Isn't it our duty as Jedi to fight against this sort of evil?"

Rosh switched the holofeed back to Tosh Talks. "Of course it is, and that's what Kyle's doing."

The two paused to watch Kyle and Jann. Though the transmission was still silent, it was clear from their animated expressions and gestures that it was a fruitful dialogue of two free citizens, bonded together by common moral principles and mutual respect.

"That's the answer right there. This kooky made-up story about the New Republic being founded by groomers and all that? Stopping that isn't the government's job. We don't need the government for that. You heard what Kyle was saying before: it's defamation and historical revision and that kind of thing. The solution is for the people who know the truth to speak up—and to use the courts, in this case."

"I suppose that is one reason we have a judicial system," Jaden admitted grudgingly. "Even so, it's possible for the courts to take the wrong side, make the wrong decision."

Even a full decade into his career as a Jedi, Rosh Penin was rarely able to peg a serious look, but he managed it here. "Jaden, remember who you're talking to. Ten years ago. Vjun, me, a red lightsaber, the Disciples of Ragnos. Ring a bell? People always might make the wrong decisions. That's just life."

The other Jedi's expression cooled. He knew better than to argue this time. "You're right about that, but this still doesn't sit well with me. If the Empire ever rises again—"

Rosh raised a hand. "I know where you're coming from. Really, I do, but get serious. Even the Hutts control more planets than the Remnant does. The Empire's finished, and Jek Torvis? Sure, he can get into the news, he spins up a lot of turbines, but that's all he's ever gonna be. He might convince a couple of really, really stupid people here and there, but his barvy ideas are never gonna find traction with the general public... Definitely not in real institutions like the Senate, and that's a fact. I don't think even Imperial citizens are dumb enough to take him seriously."

Jaden had slowly made his way over to the bunk bed as he listened. With a thoughtful murmur he sat on the bottom one's edge and bowed his head, his hands folded.

For a while neither Jedi spoke. Then Rosh checked his chrono and sprang up from the grav lounger. "Hey, guess what time it is."

His friend slowly looked up. "I don't know, what?"

"Happy hour. Drinks with the guys. Raltharan's buying, since I roasted his jiffies at dejarik. You coming?"

There was a painful pause. "Nah, I'm good. You go ahead, Rosh. Tell everyone I say hello."

"Ah, Jaden, come onnnn," Rosh growled, stomping near. He reached over to try and ruffle his friend's perfect hair, but Jaden's arms intercepted his, and after a brief struggle he left off. "You gotta live a little—show your face, maybe meet someone. You know, I hear Jaina Solo's gonna be in the commons."

"You're making that up."

Rosh threw up his hands. "Yeah, I made it up. But if I hadn't, you totally would be coming, right? Right?"

Jaden's mouth quirked into a sad smile. "Just go, Rosh. I'll... I'll catch up with you guys later."

Knowing that was as good as he was going to get, Rosh shrugged and started for the door. "All right, sounds good... but catching up's not easy, Coruscant kid. Not in this galaxy. Better hope the Force is with you!"

When Rosh had gone, Jaden used the Force to switch off the lights. With only the fading shimmer of Yavin's primary and the holovision's soft glow to see by, he sat in silence for a long time, contemplating everything he and his friend had spoken of.

On reflection, he supposed Rosh had a point. Maybe. Given the current state of the galaxy, it was hard to believe that people like Jek Torvis were really that much of a threat. The quality of public education in the New Republic had soared since the war ended with the Pellaeon–Gavrisom Treaty. So had civic participation rates. Despite the eagerness of HoloNet news outlets to give coverage to barvy extremists like Torvis, the fact was that their believers and supporters were an insignificant minority. The general populace was far too well-informed to ever fall prey to such deceptions. Meanwhile, with Master Skywalker's Jedi Order growing stronger every year, the New Republic was undeniably ascendant.

Yet even knowing all that, Jaden's mind was not at ease. He had been cursed with a craving for certainty, a need for rightness, and he could not shake the suspicion that he, and Rosh Penin, had overlooked something. That in the vast and mind-bogglingly complex machine that was the New Republic, there was some hidden flaw or missing component waiting to be exploited—and that, somehow, someone needed to find that weakness and mend it before it was too late.

Where were people supposed to draw the line? If it was true that some forms of speech had to be disallowed, then who was to judge? Who could be trusted to? Was it possible to find someone wise enough for such a task? Or was that a fool's quest—doomed, as Rosh had argued, to lead back into the brutal, despotic ways of the Galactic Empire and the dominion of the Sith?

Halfway across the room, Tosh Talks had evidently moved on to a lighter subject. He could see the ghostly holo-image of Kyle Katarn silently laughing in response to something the holographic Jann Tosh had said—and in the process nearly spilling a drink he'd been given. One thing for sure, it was a good thing for the galaxy to see that a man like Kyle could laugh. Meanwhile...

Jaden Korr had many questions, and he doubted he'd find the answers anytime soon. One other thing he knew for certain, though, was that for better or worse, he lived in interesting times.