"I – look," Rey began. "I need to ask. I need to know… what happened?"

"What happened with what?" their contact replied.

"What happened when the signal went out?" Rey asked. "What happened when the Resistance called for aid?"

"...oh, right," the Bothan said. "You're talking about the whole thing with… yeah."

He shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck. "See… you have to realize that the First Order hasn't really done much?"

"They blew up Hosnian Prime," Rey retorted.

"Yeah, they blew up the government," the contact pointed out. "And then… they haven't done much of anything since."

"They've been…" Rey began, then paused.

Frowned.

"...Poe?" she asked. "How much of a fleet does the First Order have?"

"They've got a huge fleet," Poe replied. "Thirty Resurgent-class Star Destroyers, and a Mega-class Star Dreadnought, plus a Mandator-IV class Siege Dreadnought."

"Still?" Finn asked. "After all the damage we did?"

Poe frowned.

"...wait, no," he said. "That wasn't counting the damage… hang on, uh… I think the final total was…"

He coughed.

"Okay, new total," he said. "They've got at least ten Resurgents, and we don't know if they have anything else because the bomber strike blew up the Fulminatrix and Holdo killed the Supremacy and twenty Resurgents."

"Yeah, that's kind of what I'm getting at," Rey replied. "For reasons I still don't know, Kylo Ren and Snoke have both been obsessed with me. I actually think…"

She glanced back at their contact.

"Have they been doing anything else?"

"Searching for you, that's about it," the contact shrugged. "There's enough ships that when they show up somewhere everyone has to listen, but there's not enough to do much of anything else and they mostly haven't tried. They just want to find and wipe out The Resistance."

He shrugged. "Of course… the shipyards they're using did get quietly nationalized by the Kuat government a few weeks ago, but there's no sign they noticed. There's no sign they noticed much of anything."

"I don't believe this," Rey said, quietly.

"What don't you believe?" the contact asked, offended. "My intel is good!"

"Not what I mean," Rey replied, sitting down. "I mean… I can't believe that the Resistance is doomed solely because Kylo Ren hasn't got the object permanence to realize that the First Order isn't actually controlling the galaxy and that all he's functionally doing is flying around looking edgy."

"It's probably better than the alternative," their contact said. "Not for you guys, I mean. You guys are screwed. But at least the First Order is hurting surprisingly few people for an attempt to bring back the Empire."

"What can we do, then?" Finn asked.

"There's not a lot we can do," Poe sighed. "Not ethically, anyway. So much of this depends on the extent to which the First Order is or isn't doing the evil things. And it's not like we can make them more evil – or should."

"True," Rey said. "It's just… what would make it so people would?"

"Like Poe says, there's not a lot you can do," their contact shrugged. "It'd take the First Order somehow getting a reputation for doing something horrible… well, more horrible than blowing up the government, at least."

"About that," Finn asked. "Why don't people care about that?"

"The New Republic Senate was kind of a trash fire," Poe admitted. "I hate to say it, but they failed to fund a military for fifteen years when both political parties were in favour of one. That kind of deadlock makes an impression on people."

Rey and Finn exchanged glances.

"...yeah, that's fair," Finn muttered.

There was a knock on the door, and Rey and Poe tensed.

"Dad! Dad!" a young Bothan said, opening the door and hurrying in. "My game's being really weird!"

"Weird?" his father replied. "Weird how?"

"Wait, are you guys – Dad, I didn't know you were cool," the boy said, ears flicking. "You're working with terrorists? Wizard!"

"They're not – look – what's up with your game?" the older Bothan asked.

"Some weird grody looking guy came on and said that he was back and he was going to take over the galaxy," the boy explained. "And Yarley Fats was saying the sponsor was some guy called Sheev Palpatine? There's all kinds of arguments about it on BlueSpace."

"Palpatine?" Poe asked.

"Who or what is Yarley Fats?" Rey said, completely distracted.

"You don't know who Yarley Fats is?" the boy asked, sounding less impressed with the terrorists than thirty seconds earlier. "He's a really popular streamer, he plays loads of Spacefort and Kesselcraft."

"...okay I am completely lost," Finn admitted.

"Palpatine?" Poe repeated. "How could – Palpatine was the Emperor. He's dead."

"He did kind of look like a zombie," the kid replied, thoughtfully.

Rey's eyes narrowed.

"...if this is real, would the galaxy be interested in stopping the First Order now?" she asked.

"Sithspit, yeah," their contact muttered, then his ears went flat as his son giggled. "Forget you heard that. But yes, everyone would want to stop Zombie Palpatine…"

AN:

Inspired by a review that pointed out that – basically, nobody seems to care about the First Order unless Zombie Palpatine is also involved. The fact the Galaxy could destroy the Final Order and all existing First Order ships simultaneously within less than about two hours from the call means that they could have done it at the end of TLJ… they just didn't.

Also, Spacefortnite is so silly that I'm going to keep (spacecoin) mining it for comedy.