Chapter 41: Demonize your allies.

"Let's begin with a simple question, shall we?" I said, amused.

"What sort of parents name their child Grevious?"

"Bad ones?" The padawan from earlier said.

I snorted, laughing.

"I suppose that is one answer. But not to this one.

It's a trick question! They don't.

Grevious's parents named him Qymaen jai Shaleel.

And how many of you knew that?" I asked, "How many of you bothered to wonder why Grevious was your enemy, what led him to be so? What life did he lead that made him the man he was?

No one?"

No one responded.

"Thought so! Because none of you corrected me when I mispronounced his name. Grevious wasn't born Qymaen jai Shaleel. He was born Qymaen jai Sheelal!"

I pulled up a star map, and fiddled around with it as I continued.

"Sheelal as he was known then, was born on the planet of Kalee and grew up to be hunter and a warrior like his father there many decades ago." I said, highlighting a planet on the map.

"How many of you know where that is? Can you do a show of hands?"

I counted.

"A handful of people, no more than a dozen. Great!

Because that is not Kalee. This is."

I moved the tag, highlighting another planet on the map.

"But I doubt any of you knew that, did you? There's a word for that - ignorance. And I'm sure your jedi tenets have something to say about that, don't they master Yoda?" I taunted.

"Say much, the tenets do. Mistakes made, we have." He admitted, admirably.

"Oh mistakes are they, master Yoda? Is that what you call them? Genocide? A mistake? And what about you master Shaak Ti? The destruction and desecration of an entire culture? It's a mistake, is it?" I asked.

"Hey! You ask for too much! We can't be expected to know about every little corner of the galaxy!" The earlier padawan shouted again.

"You're right!" I said, "You can't be expected to know about every little corner of the galaxy. There are 39 million planets and nearly 80000 recognised sentient species here.

But I do expect the jedi to know about the worlds where they have been deployed for war! Or is that too much to ask for too?"

"The Huk War, I sense you wish to talk about." Master Yoda said, his brows furrowed.

"Indeed, master Yoda. Tell me, how long have you been on the jedi council?"

"Much time has passed." He replied.

"That it has. Far too long in fact. So let me refresh your memory. To deploy the jedi into battle, do you not need the unanimous consent of the jedi council?"

"Yes. On the council, I was. A decision, we made." Yoda replied.

"So you admit it happened with your full support and consent?" I asked.

Yoda's face soured as he looked away, shaking his head.

"The Huk War was a necessity! The evil Khaleesh were about to wipe out our allied states of the Yam'rii! We couldn't just stand by and watch it happen!" Yarael Poof interjected.

"Oh? Is that what happened, master Poof?  And pray tell, how was it that the primitive and xenophobic Khaleesh, who hadn't yet flown their own skies much less taken to the stars, get their hands on an entire batlleship armada? Were there traitors in the republic helping them, supplying them with weapons? Or did they perhaps get aid from the Chiss ascendancy?"

"They stole it from the Yam'rii! Killed them all and stole their ships!" He replied.

"Oho? So you're telling me, that the Khaleesh used their stone spears and slugthrowers to rob an entire armada from the hyperspace travel capable far advanced Yam'rii from four hyperspace jumps away? Without having the capability to use the force at that? Truly fearsome opponents they must have been then! I'm surprised the republic is still standing against such godly beings who can throw their little stone spears across hyperspace!" I mocked.

"It is obvious they stole it from the peace ambassadors the Yam'rii sent to their planet!" Yarael Poof refuted.

"If the jedi's idea of a peace mission is sending an armada of star destroyers, I fear the peace your kind intends to bring to the galaxy!" I shouted, cowing him down.

"Let's not play word games here! The Yam'rii sent an armada to destroy all resistance from the native Khaleesh and occupy their planet, selling them into slavery and robbing them of all they had, not because the needed the world, but just because they could!

And the jedi just sat back and watched it happen. So much for your compassion and peacekeeping!

Yet, the moment the Khaleesh fought back, to throw off the yoke of their oppressors, the jedi were the first on the scene, pushing the broken and downtrodden Khaleesh back into the dirt, where you believed they belong!

You didn't fight to keep the peace or bring justice! You fought for the Yam'rii because it was profitable and you fought the Khaleesh because it was easy!

And all throughout master Yoda, you and your jedi council gave this act your full support.

The jedi desecrated and defiled their ancestral graves and religious centres, destroyed their culture, carpet bombed entire tribes off the map!

I know that master D'oon here sold the Khaleesh civilians into slavery in the outer rim!

I also know for a fact that master Jmmaar there butchered Sheelal's wives and innocent children in cold blood right before his very eyes.

That was the day Sheelal took the name Grevious, for he would forever grieve the deaths of his people and his family at the hands of the republic and their jedi!

Is it any wonder Grevious hated the jedi with a passion?

Is it that surprising that he would want revenge when all justice was denied to him and his people?

Is it not right then that he had no reason to trust the jedi, when they allowed such atrocities to occur by their own hands?

Look at them. Slavers, murderers sitting amongst you, bearing the title of master. And you allow it to happen all the same!

Truly great the jedi are!

The jedi commited genocide against the Khaleesh! Today there exist less than a thousand of them in the galaxy and the majority of them are slaves!

You expect me to trust such an order?

I will not deny that Grevious was a monster!

But he was a monster that the jedi created with their own hands! By betraying all that they stood for!"

"That...may be true. But you cannot blame the war on us by mention of one extreme exception." Master Mundi waved away.

"One exception? Oh it's more than just one exception! In the past 20000 years, from Revan to Dooku, over half the sith that appeared in the galaxy came from the jedi order! Fallen jedi as you like to call them."

"Weak of will! That's what they were. They fell to the temptaion of the dark side by their own inadequacies. It has nothing to do with the order." Mundi replied, ever calm in his tone.

"Really? Are you so up your own ass that you won't even question why so many of the jedi fall to the dark side? Have you learned nothing from the fall of Revan and Kreia? From the devastation of Malachor V? Even as recently as jedi knight Dooku and padawan Asajj Ventress?!

For all your reflections you never reflected on the mistakes you made with them?

The jedi are not supposed to be like the rest of us. They are supposed to see a higher purpose, train their students responsibly so that the mistakes of the past are not repeated. And yet all I see in the jedi today is arrogance and ignorance.

The jedi tenets are flawed, your approach to the force is unnatural and unkind. In your path to understanding it's mysteries you have become inhuman! And you see none of that? So deluded are you that you never asked what would bring Dooku, an ideal jedi knight if there ever was any to fall to the dark side? What would cause Sypho Diez turn his back on the order that raised him up?

There was a time when I wondered why the noble jedi hadn't stopped the practice of slavery in the outer rim territories?

Why were we ignored? Were we not worth saving?

But now I know.

And somehow, I am not surprised!

You rip children from their families as mere babes, all but imprison them in your temple and brainwash them into believing in your cultish ideology with zealous fervor, in the name of the greater good.

If I did that, I would be called a slaver!

And yet you get away with 'recruitment', robbing these children of their childhood!"

"It is an important ritual. I wouldn't expect you to understand!" Master Mundi scoffed.

"Why don't you try then? I might just get it. But I know you won't!

It reminds me of an old jedi tale.

That of master Hortath.

In the old jedi order there once was a jedi master named Hortath. He was a kindly old jedi that meant well, but with age his vision had begun to decline.

He would walk into walls, knock over tables, mistake apprentices for rancor beasts, that sort of thing. And he was too proud to submit to proper treatment.

Some used to counsel him to use the force, to let it see for him.

But he was too proud to believe that his eyes were failing him.

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He simply squinted more and more as the years went on, the other jedi just passing it off as the amusing little quirk of an otherwise compassionate old man.

So one day, a young padawan meets the jedi master in the courtyard and not knowing of his blindness ask him for directions to the council.

Quite sure of himself, Hortath gave the boy directions that lead straight back outside the enclave.

The padawan is confused, naturally, and asks if master Hortath is sure they are the correct directions. He suggests that he should ask someone else for help.

But the proud Hortath now feels insulted and tells the padawan to take the path he prescribed and no other!

Rather dejectedly, the padawan decided to take the path suggested and ended up leaving the jedi order forever.

It was later decided that it was the boy's 'fate' to do so, that it was the 'will of the force'!

Because the jedi did not wish to believe that they had made a mistake. Because they did not wish to take responsibility for it.

The same way you are trying to force the blame for the death of master Obi Wan onto my shoulders instead of admitting your mistake and taking responsibility for your severe and continued lapse in judgement that led to the sith infestation of the republic.

I would tell you to know shame, but seeing that you welcome genociders and slavers in your midst, I doubt you have any.

The jedi are a festering plague on the galaxy, corrupt and incompetent, powerhungry warmongers.

The true jedi order that the republic so adores died in the first siege of Mandalore, decades ago when the jedi abandoned their monkly robes for war armor.

Those who are left here are no more than parasites humping the corpse of the jedi order into perpetuity.

I see before me today, no true jedi! Only thinly veiled sith!"

At that master Shaak Ti jumped off her seat and landed before me, putting her lightsaber to my neck.

"You dare slander our name!" She bellowed.

"Go on! Do it!" I said, stepping forward, fearlessly, "Show the republic exactly what you jedi are. Prove me right!"

"Are you not afraid of death?" Shaak Ti asked, shaken.

"No more than I am of losing the last vestiges of the republic to your ineptitude!" I replied, staring her right in the eyes.

"We are trying our best!" She cried, lowering her lightsaber hesitantly.

"If this is your best, then no one can save the galaxy." I mocked.

"If you won't do it, let me!" Master Mundi said, walking down the stairs towards me.

"Stop, master Mundi." Yoda ordered.

"With all due respect, master Yoda, he is too dangerous to be left alive." Mundi replied, coldly.

"Embarass the jedi, no more." Yoda said, hunching in his seat, his eyes hollow with worry.

"Ah...before you decapitate me, master Mundi, just one more thing." I said, turning to the cameras, "Let me show you just how incompetent the jedi are!"

I raised a hand and snapped, as the doors to the auditorium slammed shut.

I had taken over the system in here the moment I walked in, and now with my power, it was time to show the republic the truth of the jedi.

Shaak Ti leapt back, suddenly wary of me, as all eyes fell upon me.

"I count some 200 so called jedi in this room. Enough to matter.

So let me give you all a chance at redemption.

Here among us, is one secret lord of the sith, hiding in plain sight. Prove to me and the republic that the jedi are truly not as incompetent as you seem.

Find the sith lord. There is only one. Go!" I said, staring straightforward at Mon Krell, offering a distraction, while keeping my mind and intentions away from the true sith, lest he figure out my motives.

Taking my distraction as confirmation, some jedi turned to glare at Mon Krell himself, some even surrounding him, lightsabers drawn.

While he was going to become a sith lord later in the series, he had yet to do so. So he was actually innocent.

But seeing the jedi tear into their own would be fun in it's own right!

"Mon Krell!" Yoda stood up, and afixed his gaze at the man.

"Is it true?"

"No. It is not." I answered for him, causong everyone to do a double take, as I spun with frightening speed, my taser armband expanding across my arm, and let loose a shot in Padme's direction.

"Padme! No!" Anakin screamed, as she jerked in shock, when suddenly the shot stopped mid air, right before Jar Jar Binks's face.

Out of impulse, and likely muscle memory, he had used the force to stop the bullet from hitting him, only to end up revealing himself.

"I present to you everyone, Darth Plagueis, dark lord of the sith, hidden once more, right under your noses!

The jedi truly are inept and useless!" I announced to the cameras.

"Howsa did yousa find out?!" He chuckled in a low tempor, confident in his escape.

"It was pretty easy. Because unlike the jedi, I am not blind and incompetent." I said, snapping my fingers.

The second taser bit suddenly burst forth, exploding from within the first one startling him, as it landed on his face, shocking him to death.

I turned once more to the cameras, and smiled.

Time to play the Xanatos Gambit.

"Citizens of the republic, look upon your heroes, and know that they are false.

Let not the incompetence and warmongering of the jedi hold you down any longer. This is a new era, an era of change. And as they say, the only constant in life is change.

If the jedi cannot change with the times, let them be left behind!

Let today mark the end of the jedi order, if only in spirit!"

Just then someone shouted angrily from behind.

"Who do you think you are? To determine the fate of the order!"

It was the padawan, furious and overzealous.

Time to milk his impulsiveness to cement my image in the eyes of the republic.

"Who am I you ask?" I said, turning to face him and stepped forward.

"I am an orphan from the outer rim territories, who crawled and clawed his way to where I am today, with sheer force of will and hardwork!

I am the rylothian father who worries about his daughter going out at night, for fear she may become a slave.

I am the mandalorian who has to choose between putting food in his kids bellies or affording fuel in case we have to escape in the middle of the night to another coup.

I am the rodian boy who sees no future to my world, smoking my life away.

I'm the alethian farmer whose crops get confiscated to feed soldiers in a war I will never see.

I am the neimoidian merchant whose wife calls dutifully whenever I conclude a trade, asking how the deal went, when in fact she wants to know if I'm still alive or not!

I am the coruscanti who suffers under corporate corruption and flourishes under just rule of law.

I am the clone who gets his arm amputated because someone high up in the hierarchy decided that I wasn't worth proper medical treatment.

I am the mirialian who has lost someone I love to the jedi's senseless warmongering.

Pick a face among the throngs of crowds in any system in the galaxy.

I am them.

I am just a stupid common man who is sick and tired of waiting and watching as my world burns to ashes around me.

And I am not going to stay silent any longer!

I will repeat what I said before. The jedi have a choice to make.

Reform, and earn back the trust of the republic or fade into the annals of history like the fossils you are! I care not!" I said, ripping off the commander insignia from my jacket, "Today, I resign from the republic military establishment.

And keep your medal of valor.

I did not kill General Grevious to earn a medal. I did it to save the lives of the ones I care about."

With that I walked out and away.

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