Saga - OT Saga - ST Memoirs of the First Senator [Post-ROTJ AU] (DDC 2025)

Entry Eighteen
Alsakan, 14 ABY

The Senate has relocated to Alsakan. It's certainly a pleasant and prestigious city planet, and they gifted us a nice and shiny new building that's much nicer than the old facilities on Coruscant – I am especially fond of the new chairs, which I believe officially makes me an old lady. There is, however, the small problem that most of the Senate's support staff, administrative bureaucracy, and security personnel come from Coruscant. They do not appreciate being relocated to the home of their ancient rivals.

Mon Mothma recognizes this, she had the Senate vote them all a bonus. I can't do that, but I was able to distribute vouchers for a nice meal delivery service. A small thing, but small things matter at this level too.

The move has bogged down the Senate almost completely, and for a truly inane reason. The Alsakans, being residents of a city planet, placed the new senate offices in a sleek stacked tower structure. This launched a huge debate regarding who gets to be 'on top' in a most literal fashion. Mon Mothma tried to diffuse this by relinquishing her penthouse to the Senate's youngest member – a fifteen-year-old girl from Naboo, that planet, I swear – but she was overruled by the aristocratic wing of the senate who wouldn't hear of such usurpation of prerogatives. The result has been a truly interminable fight over ranking, prestige, seniority, age, and even species that has occupied almost the entirety of the legislative session. Even obligatory legislation barely managed to squeeze through the deadlock.

As it happens, my caucus controls more or less all of that legislation, aside from the annual funding resolution, which means that development priorities are sustained. Still, there are limits to the original approach. Trade throughout the New Republic hasn't just expanded, it's multiplied, and even with an almost complete inability to levy taxes, revenue intake has increased greatly through long-standing customs duties. Many thanks to the hard-working and mostly formerly imperial members of the customs service. I have concentrated power in my office, but I can't make full use of it while the Senate remains deadlocked over which senator deserves a corner office.

 

This is why so many politicians are useless. The Senate needs more civil servants like Leia who focus on making positive change and not their personal status. Good move on Mon's part, relinquishing her penthouse. Can't believe the Senate would overrule something so petty.

 

So, this whole bit is based on the Senate dysfunction mentioned in Bloodline, during which the NR Senate spends days arguing about protocol errors related to a statue-unveiling ceremony. That's some years down the road, but if matters got that petty, arguing over who gets which office - something that does matter in a both a symbolic sense and little bit in a practical one (since you want to have allies close by) - seems like it would have happened.

It's also fair to say that some of this is deliberate. The NR Senate has a substantial pro-gridlock caucus, consisting mostly of those who represent the kind of people who attending Dr. Pershing's big speech in The Mandalorian. These people represent the rentier class - they have old money that comes from immobile physical assets (land, orbital rings, starbases, etc.) - and they are fighting to preserve their prerogatives against the engine of economic change unleashed by galaxy-spanning warfare and prevent the newly launched capitalist economic power block that emerged as a result of the three decades of galactic war from taking control.

And that later block is the one Aes Rimi is utilizing to support all her stuff - I didn't put Domina Tagge in this at random, she's practically the standard bearer for emergent Star Wars capitalism. She's leveraging the resources of the new, capitalist oligarchs (and also marginalized groups like the Hutts and other rich aliens) to force the old aristocracy to stop sitting on their money and actually put it into motion, thereby triggering self-reinforcing economic expansion.

It's also worth noting that both Mon Mothma and Leia Organa are part of the aristocratic block. They're old, old money and they were mostly raised not to question the setup of the economy that benefited them. Also, Andor involves Mon Mothma making compromises with new money by basically selling off her only kid and I suspect she's still rather salty about that. They just fundamentally don't understand how the economic circumstances of the masses work.

Honestly, the Disney timeline really, really hacks at Mon Mothma, which I find very frustrating. I've tried to, in this story, represent her as canny and charismatic, but with some significant blind spots. It seems like the best compromise available.

 

Entry Nineteen
Alsakan, 15 ABY

After finally deciding on a system to determine who gets which windows, all that work is being completely upended. The Senate is adding new members so fast that the Alsakan building is now too small. The combination of rapidly increasing prosperity – no don't thank me, really – and a growing threat from expansionist local powers that the Senate will never vote to confront directly has led to numerous systems running into the arms of the New Republic seeking blasters and credits.

The latest impetus is the Epicanthix, who just decided to lay claim to the majority of the Moddell Sector. However, they skipped Endor, even though the system is defenseless, because Princess Leia talked the Ewoks into joining the New Republic in the aftermath of the Battle of Endor. Truthfully, once you get past the fact that their representative strongly resembles a large stuffed toy, you find that the Ewoks wisely sent a studious politician who takes his responsibilities on the Indigenous Affairs Committee quite seriously and has been a key vote supporting most of Nacai's major bills. The Ewoks even participate in the militia, they fly starfighters using bizarrely modified prosthetic systems, which is oddly hilarious, but also works.*

Most of the newly integrated systems are mundane, and the demographic upheaval rarely imperils more than one senator at a time while in the same process increasing the overall resources and scope of the New Republic. Some, due to cultural quirks and past history, are rather more complicated. The Yam'Rii petitioned for membership earlier this year not because they were under threat, but because their economy is a wreck and they were trying to find a creative way to get out from under their war debts. Mon Mothma, bless her overly ethical heart, demanded full payment prior to processing their admission and a promise to apologize directly to the Kaleesh in front of the full chamber. Needless to say, they went back home without joining up. Maybe that was a worthy stand, maybe not. Either way, their holdings are sufficiently small enough that the impact was minor.

The petition for membership by the Senex and Juvex lords is anything but.

Those wretched slave-holding aristocrats control a full two sectors worth of the Mid Rim, full of technologically backward but heavily populated star systems. Trillions of people live beneath their velvet gloved control, but without a way to produce modern starships and insufficient money to purchase them, the sectors are like a buffet to waiting warlords.

The New Republic outlawed slavery – a stance I fully support, since it's both a moral abomination and bad economic policy at the same time – but the Senex and Juvex delegation argues that immediate abolition would lead to the collapse of their economy, widespread famine, and massive civil unrest. The data they present in support of this is convincing, regrettably. They've offered, instead, to commit to a graduated abolition system that would unfold across multiple generations.

That's a sham.

I know better than most how to make false promises couched in convincing legalese. The plan is to offer a few token chosen slaves, mostly old people with nowhere to go, their freedom, and then to renege later after everyone has forgotten about them, bog the whole thing down in the courts, and eventually continue to keep slaves after paying out some puny settlement for their crimes.

Thankfully, while Senator Xiono could care less about slavery he does care about labor policies that could potentially undercut the basis of his financial empire. As head of the Finance Committee he raised some very substantial, if monstrously hypocritical, objections. He's dead set on keeping slavery out of the Republic to prevent the slavers from gaining any competitive advantage in the labor market, and he has sufficient influence that so long as he opposes the entry of the Senex and Juvex lords it will never happen. He's the richest and most pedigreed member of the Core World aristocrats in the Senate, the others naturally defer to him.

Normally, I'd be all for letting the slaver lords twist in the wind, but there's just one problem. If no one reaches out to project those two sectors, then by the end of the year they're going to be the property of Shea Hublin and his Eriadu Authority. Hublin, who now controls the strongest remaining imperial successor state, has been a problem for a while, but Ackbar had him contained. Now, with the weakness of the Senex and Juvex sectors revealed, he could acquire them and in doing so the resources to stabilize his own floundering economy. If he does that, he'll have established a template for other post-imperial territories to persist over the long term. That's nearly a fourth of the known galaxy, still. It needs to be stopped.

Most imperial warlords overreach, they launch an attack on New Republic assets when they think no one is watching and the fleet – which still loves to pound Star Destroyers into dust – rolls them up quick. Hublin's not like that, he's careful and even, by all reports, intends to honor the Galactic Concordance. He avoids aggressive moves towards the New Republic and in return ensures the Senate will never authorize an offensive against him.

In every direction other than Senex and Juvex he's contained. We all thought the slaver lords completed that containment. We were wrong. We have to bring in the slaver sectors or we lose the most productive part of the southern Outer Rim for a century.

It can be done. The SP-4's have spat out a plan that will work. I have the resources. But I don't have the mechanism. Only Mon Mothma does. Do I dare to trust her?

Notes
* - Yub, yub, Readers (please, for the love of all that is Star Wars, tell me someone gets this reference)
The Epicanthix are a Legends canon near-Human species from the Pacanth Reach, a sector way on the edge of the known galaxy next to Endor.
The Yam'Rii/Kaleesh Conflict is canon, and represents a core part of the backstory of General Grievous, who was a key participant.
The Senex and Juvex Lords were first introduced in Children of the Jedi, before being seriously detailed in The Essential Atlas. They are, in fact, quite close by to Eriadu.
Shea Hublin is a Legends character from Eriadu who was a notable imperial officer. I have modified his backstory to make it fit the Disney timeline.

 

Entry Twenty
Alsakan, 15 ABY

Starvation in the Senex and Juvex sectors is, ultimately, an agricultural problem. It is a suitable issue for the Chairwoman of the Agriculture Committee to use to acquire an audience with the chancellor. Mon Mothma actually asked to speak with me on the matter, not the reverse, which solved so much. She may be naive about disarmament, but she's not blind to strategic realities and on defense listens to Ackbar, Organa Solo, and Syndulla, who are all reliable on that front.

Since she came to me, I was able to offer her a plan that gives her exactly what she wants most: admit the Senex and Juvex sectors while still enforcing the ban on slavery. When I presented the necessary resources and transports to feed those planets, prop up the local economy, and maintain orderly distribution she gave me a funny look but refrained from asking how I could get them.

It seems serving in the Imperial Senate teaches some lessons that are never forgotten.

The aristocracy that rules those sectors will retain their non-slave assets. That will mean the economy of the sectors will split in half: the old land-based economy and the new one reliant upon Republic support and seeding. That would be disastrous, if they were operating at current technological levels. Since they are not, the old economy will simply be rendered obsolete and eventually be reduced down to comparatively nothing beside the new one, leaving the aristocrats forced to sell off their assets in short order to maintain their lifestyle. In a few decades they'll have nothing but empty titles.

Of course, the ones who buy up those assets will be the managers and corporate administrators who administer the aid programs, not the local population. This is not a panacea. The slaver aristocracy will fall, but it will be replaced by a corporate oligarchy. Senex and Juvex will become like everywhere else. In the end, the people will still be richer and more secure than they ever were before.

Taxation, redistribution, that is a war that will come, but the current New Republic Senate, with its weak constitution and powerless chancellor, can't win it.

I'm too old for idealistic crusades. That will be Selea's campaign to wage.

 

Entry Twenty-One
Alsakan, 15 ABY

If I support Mon Mothma's plan it will pass the Senate and move forward with the full strength of the New Republic. Unfortunately, that strength is limited. Shea Hublin knows this, and knows how to test it. He kept his fleet very carefully away from Senex and Juvex, but annexed the remaining independent worlds of the Videnda sector and every star in the Bozhnee sector except for Belsavis – the former prison world has a New Republic cultural heritage team still trying to sort through that mess. These acquisitions, added to his holdings in the Brema sector and of course his core territory of Seswenna give him a proto-empire that is, on the map at least, a force to be reckoned with.

Sort of.

The Rimma Trade Route might be home to Eriadu, but it has plenty of other resident powers, including neighboring Sullust and Sluis Van. Both the Sullustans and Sluissi put forward a proposal in the Senate for a blockade of Eriadu. A good move, that. Fleet Intelligence has a good profile on Hublin, and it seems he thinks of himself of Eriadu's natural champion and has a very real sense of noblese oblige. If the system is isolated and its people suffer, he might well cave. At the very least, he could potentially be convinced to abdicate in favor of one of the younger Tarkins, which would signal a rapprochement.

But the Senate can't find the votes to authorize a blockade. It's too aggressive, too likely to provoke a shooting war with a nominally independent state. Besides, everyone knows that Senex and Juvex are behind this and no one wants to fight for slavers. The debate has stretched out for months, even as aid has already started arriving on the slave worlds. Dozens of viable proposals have made it to the senate floor, but not one has even come close to passing.

In the absence of Senate action the Sullustans and Sluissi, along with some other regional allies like the Omwati and the Gran, have launched their own, technically unofficial, blockade. It's limited, since they can't override customs outside of their home systems, but it's still curtailing imports to Eriadu by over fifty percent. For now, that seems like a reasonable plan, certainly not something worth opposing. Hublin's done nothing, for now, but he'll have to react eventually.

I suppose we'll see what he chooses and how this ends.

 

Entry Twenty-Two
Alsakan, 16 ABY

And so, the saga of Shea Hublin ends in fire.

Faced with a partial blockade and potential invasion – the Sluissi were threatening to secede from the New Republic and launch an attack supported by everyone on the Rimma Trade Route Rimward of Eriadu – the warlord chose to prioritize critical military imports. Of course he did, it’s what any self-respecting veteran officer would do. Unfortunately, that meant neglecting critical domestic supplies. The people of Eriadu were left to starve.

Controlled since Jakku by its homegrown warlord and his backers in the House of Tarkin, Eriadu has not benefited from any of my programs and its food system has been precarious for centuries. Some opportunistic smugglers tried to change that. They appropriated technology and a wide range of components capable of conversion through Eriadu’s factory system and attempted to run the blockade. They got past the Sullustans, but Hublin, suspecting spies, caught them. Like any good imperial, he confiscated their cargo and had them executed.

Normally this would mean little, but unfortunately this little smuggling operation included Nyla Gan, a princess from Hynestia moonlighting as a humanitarian.

Royalty getting in bed with a bad boy smuggler who has a warm heart under the rough exterior? Tale as old as time. One a certain Leia Organa Solo has recently popularized. But when this sort of gallivanting goes bad, it goes very bad indeed.

Hynestia declared war. They attacked Eriadu, straight down the Rimma. Sullust, Sluis Van, Omwat, and other worlds supported this. All unofficial of course, but ‘pirates’ don’t have modern star cruisers fresh out of professional yards. Hublin resisted, equally obvious, betting on his Imperial Navy veterans against young recruits fresh out of the private academies.

The resulting battle was the bloodiest since Jakku. Shattered ships crashed through Eriadu’s failing planetary shield and impacted the planetary cityscape. A massive firestorm consumed huge portions of the surface. The death toll is estimated at over ten billion.

Hublin perished leading a successful assault on the Hynestian flagship. The battle raged on for over an hour, pointlessly, with both leaders dead, until scrambling engineers managed to establish communication channels allowing Luce Tarkin, only nineteen years old, to surrender the fleet. Casualties on both sides were extreme. The leadership of the Eriadu Authority has collapsed, and the Hynestian Royal Family lost enough members to instantly fall into a succession crisis. They aren’t republic members though, so that’s someone else’s problem.

The Eriadu Authority is gone. Surviving governors and fleet captains have claimed sovereignty over individual systems even as vengeful Sullustans are slowly purging imperial influence from the sector. Eventually, many of these devastated worlds will join the New Republic, but by that time the humanitarian disaster will be in full bloom. A sector squeezed by months of blockade has no reserves to fall back on in the face of this disaster. Luce Tarkin has some good advisors and registered an emergency petition for New Republic membership, but the Senate will still take months to resolve that. By the time I can direct support to the Seswenna Sector billions more will starve.

This is my fault. I could have taken action, could have used my influence to stop this, to prevent this terrible outcome, and I chose to do nothing. Selea Terset flung those accusations in my face, in my office, and she was not wrong. I am not perfect. I make errors in judgment the same as everyone else. And the more power you have, the more those mistakes expand; the more other people pay the price.

The fires of Eriadu will haunt me for the rest of my days.

But there is no going backwards, not in politics or in life. I told Selea that too, and after a few drinks we reconciled. We could not avert this disaster, but we can use the power we have to fix this, and to prevent the next one. That is the price that must be paid to rise to the top.

 

Entry Twenty-Two
Alsakan, 17 ABY

The Eriadu Affair, as it is becoming known, has divided the Senate and served to formalize nascent factions into formal party divides. Everyone agrees that what happened was tragic, but no one agrees on the proper response. The two camps are bitterly opposed, as ever. One faction supports a strong, highly centralized military capable of preventing petty conflicts like the one that just erupted through strength. The other faction believes every planet must be able to defend itself and that concentration of power in the hands of a few worlds fostered this conflict.

Both sides have reasonable points, and while I favor a centralized military since the absence of one was responsible for the Clone Wars, too much power in too few hands spawns emperors. There are technical fixes, ways to structure the military forces of the galaxy, that can provide some insurance against this, but all are far from perfect.

Ultimately, the best defense against war is happiness. Prosperous people don’t waste their prosperity attacking their neighbors, they have too much to lose. That’s not just a belief, the evidence is there, it comes in stronger every day. Over a decade of work has now gone into building up the galactic economy. As the development initiatives transform systems and sectors, violence drops. Moreover, stronger states have greater defensive potential. Who needs a vast standing star fleet when the New Republic has millions of freighters it can turn into cruisers? Already, I’ve allowed Baroness Tagge to selectively modify some of her marketing to make it clear just how many warships we are, theoretically, sitting on. Beyond that, the Indigenous Militia, trained up by Mandalorians and hardened by anti-piracy operations, has become a force to be reckoned with. Many of the lesser warlords, deprived of revenue by the now feared Flocks of Pigeons, have given up and fled to points unknown.

Many planetary defense forces have grown used to working with the militia, providing capital ship support where armed transports are insufficient. The independent powers now know that the outer fringes of the New Republic have teeth. Unfortunately, many have not yet been convinced to come within the fold. Independent states also benefit from increased trade, and while they can’t stay on the cutting edge while disconnected from the heart of the galaxy, technology always filters across borders, especially in civilian spheres. The petty states remain at an economic disadvantage, but not enough of one to make their leaders cast their lot with an openly dysfunctional democracy. Worse, the ongoing situation may lead to violence.

Out of all my programs so far, the colonization initiative has seen the greatest success. Iezl, Nagad, and Raspis have done incredible work on this front, increasing the number of settled worlds in the galaxy by tens of millions. Most of the resulting settlements are tiny, and a lot of them are infill – new colonies on planets in already inhabited star systems – but ultimately the New Republic is bigger, much bigger, than ever. We are now approaching the size of the Empire at its height. We are taking people out of the slums of the urban worlds and giving them new, productive, and profitable lives across countless newly opened systems.

But the lava flow surrounds the rock that stands alone. While some independent polities, like the Jekevians, moved aggressively in the aftermath of Jakku and are well-positioned to sustain their boundaries for many generations, others are old and crumbling and will face, just as Senex and Juvex did, every increasing pressure to either submit and join the New Republic or to strike out at their neighbors while they retain the strength to do so. Such petty uprisings plagued the Old Republic, and we will surely face such a threat soon. If a real crisis comes, how will this Senate react? A trick sufficed to stop Thrawn, but eventually we will face a foe that demands real leadership.

 

Entry Twenty-Three
Alsakan, 17 ABY

The next election cycle has begun. I expected it to be sedate, but that has changed, unexpectedly and severely.

Earlier today Mon Mothma called me into her office and told me that, in the coming term, she will not stand for Chancellor and, in fact, intends to retire as soon as Chandrila appoints a new Senator, and the capital relocation is completed.

I can only say that I did not expect this. Though she is in her late sixties, she remains younger than me and has always seemed vigorous in her office. She confided to me, privately, that this is an illusion. In fact, her health has been impaired for some time. She has a chronic nerve condition stemming from injuries sustained during the war and the inability to receive necessary ongoing medical treatments due to supply shortages during the Rebellion. Her condition can be managed through regular infusions, but the damage has progressed to the point where it is not longer practical to maintain the busy schedule imposed on the chancellor.

This will precipitate a crisis. Mon Mothma has been the New Republic’s shining sun for twelve years, three full terms. She cannot be replaced. No one has her combination of charisma, popularity, and military support. She is also, in spite of her blind spot regarding defense needs, far shrewder than she lets on.

I have long doubted that she was as blind to my activities as she formally appeared, and she has now confirmed that she has been aware of my scheming from nearly the beginning. She explained to me that her long silence on the subject was a diversion, just as she often acted to avoid activities during her days in the Imperial Senate. She also noted that she has many enemies and no desire to add me to that list. We have different visions of what the New Republic should be, but, as she observed, ‘we both want to see the people smile.’

I will miss her, greatly. The challenge set before her was immense, and while I remain convinced she made several key catastrophic errors, it was inevitable that any state, emerging from the excesses of the Galactic Empire, would err on the side of weakness. She did not, thankfully, ask me to replace her. We both know I can accomplish more outside of the chancellorship than shackled to it. She did, however, honor me by asking for suggestions as to who would be a good choice to follow her.

Considering that Mon Mothma’s endorsement is almost certain to sway any vote for her successor, that was an act of considerable trust.

I did not name names, obviously. That would be crass. However, I did make note of certain factors. For one, the next chancellor must not be Human. A Human has held the highest office in the galaxy since Kirames Kaj was Supreme Chancellor almost sixty years ago. Most members of the Senate were not even born then. The New Republic must break the chain of Human leadership now, before it becomes established as a trend. A non-human chancellor will also serve to draw in more alien systems, especially those featuring exotic native species in the vein of Iezl’s Dra-Ron. We still haven’t gotten the Gree to rejoin. I want the Gree. They know things. Things we can use.

Beyond that, the new leader must be someone who will not spook the oligarchs. The chancellor might not have much in the way of real power, but it is still the highest office and receives outsize attention from the media. A bomb-thrower who says the wrong things in front of the holocams would be disastrous. Frustrating as it is to bow to current circumstances, it is essential that the New Republic prove it can handle the transfer of power without provoking a succession crisis or launching galaxy-wide rioting. The ship of state is rocketing in the wrong direction but attempting to course correct too hard would simply snap it in half.

That being said, I also suggested that the ultimate candidate, who will inevitably be a compromise choice, be someone old. That way they won’t linger in the post and become a problem when the time for dramatic shifts does arise.

Mon Mothma did not give me any special hints, so I suppose I’ll learn who it will be alongside everyone else. Rather frightening, that.

Notes
Canon is, currently, largely silent on when Mon Mothma retired. However, there is one data point. Bloodline says that there have been Chancellors, plural, since her and that’s in 28 ABY. Given four year terms, this seems like an appropriate date. Mon Mothma having health issues due to injuries suffered during the Rebellion is canonical.
Kirames Kaj, mentioned in the novel Master & Apprentice, was the Supreme Chancellor immediately prior to Finis Valorum. She was a Togruta.

 

Entry Twenty-Four
Denon, 18 ABY

As it happens, Mon Mothma took all my suggestions, in a sense. Truthfully, I suspect she had her choice in mind long before talking to me. Frustratingly, though her choice meets all the criteria I laid out: non-human, calm, noble, and old; she is also one of the last senators I would have chosen.

The second chancellor of the New Republic will be Senator Oko-Po, of Ithor. Gracious, cultured, and personable, she’ll occupy the office elegantly for ceremonial purposes. She is also, regrettably, one of the leading voices for near-total disarmament, a true pacifist to the end. Her very first act was to commit the fleet to a ‘defense first’ posture and to proclaim the imperial remnant threat ended.

Someone is going to test this Ithorian, and I do not see any outcome other than failure.

This shift does not come without some benefits, however. Ithor is located in the Mid Rim, and having a Rim-born Chancellor should help push the borders of the New Republic outward accordingly. Also, the Ithorians never met an environmental restoration program they didn’t love, so that offers a vehicle for continued support of the development program so long as Ese works a way to ensure Oko-Po’s pet causes – she really likes commemorative trees, really big ones – sail through the Environmental Committee. Beyond that, the Development Caucus can probably rely on her to ignore the rest of the legislative process.

The move to Denon has been slightly rocky. While it is certainly appropriate, if we’re going to commit to this periodic relocation of the capital, to move it out of the Core Worlds from time to time, the Core Worlds have a very large population and commensurate representation in the Senate. Their senators are complaining about this, a lot. This has taken the form of some remarkably petty backbiting. Literally the first bill brought to the floor this term was a condemnation of the housing provided to the senators and a proposal for vouchers to rent their own accommodations instead.

I already miss Mon Mothma.

Notes
Oko-Po, Senator of Ithor, briefly appears in Aftermath: Empire’s End. I did not want to invent OCs to serve as Chancellor, which was harder than it sounds. The list of canon New Republic Senators is surprisingly short.