Fanclub Hapes Fan Club-for Queen and Consortium!

Wait, since when does the Hapan Royal Navy have X-wings? Buying them after their reopening with the rest of the galaxy in COPL, okay, but before that (i.e. at the height of the Empire when it was actually a potential invader), I thought all they had were their own Miy'tils.

 

Another Inuniverse Headcanon Conspiracy Theory that may or may not be true:

The Lorell Raiders were known to kidnap the beauties and treasures, but they operated from Lorell, not the Hapes Cluster. Once driven off Lorell and into the Cluster for refuge, the story is far different from what one might suspect. They fled right into the hands of the dominant alien species inside the cluster, the Mairan Bors and their Forceusing Elite that ruled the Mairan and other hapan societies with an iron grip. Loosing their treasure and beauties to the Mairan Bors the pirates weaseled themselves free with a deal: Provide more! For the Mairan Bors now hungered for more stories and beauty from the galaxy beyond the clusters veil that hides their Empire.
The Raiders though providing more to free their held hostage fellows and families fell prey to the Jedi and the Mairan Bors were unhappy that nothing more came into the cluster. Hence they released some women with altered memories and minds to lure their pirates back. These female raiders became known as the Dragon Queenmothers and finding no Raiders, themselves looted and raided the surrounding worlds for their Mairan Bor Overlords.
But there came a time when the Killik-esque hold of the Mairan Bors over mind and memories weakened. So drunk on knowledge and beauty were they, that they had created vast libraries of kidnapped people put into stasis for them to read their minds and memories any time they wanted to. And with more and more Bors occupied to drink in knowledge, not enough remained to control the populace and direct their slaves. Thus began the rebellion of the hapan women.
Taking over one world after another they reduced the Mairans to their original homeworld and killed or drove off into the galaxy any forceusing Mairan Bor they could get ahold of, freeing the enslaved people in the millions strong stasis library. Since then, the Queenmothers loathed Forceusers who had slain their pirates AND tried to enslave them. Since then, rumors never died of one or frew remaining Bors hiding in the palace still controling the Queenmothers after having taken control from their brothers and sisters via them.

 

Like I said on the other thread, I really like this theory, not only because it gives the Mairans something to do, but because the image of a shadow government of Mairan Bors manipulating everything in the Consortium from behind the scenes is just perfect for the snake pit of Hapan politics. Is it a total myth, a conspiracy theory probably tainted by human prejudice that exists as a Protocols of the Elders of Zion type story blaming all the system's problems on hidden and nefarious "others?" Is it actually real, a secret society that may not actually rule the Consortium single-handed but is at least a presence there, sometimes as an ally and sometimes an enemy engaging in cloak-and-dagger battles with the Queen Mothers and other factions? ... either of them honestly fit the setting completely.

I imagine them being basically like the Court of Owls from Batman. A mostly forgotten urban legend, mainly surviving in things like nursery rhymes whose origins and meaning most people don't even think of anymore. ... but, dig a little deeper into them, and it might turn out that there's something to the stories after all?

Which in turn made it occur to me; in some alternate timeline, or maybe even in Legends, I could totally imagine Tenel Ka, sick of the cesspool that is Hapan politics and sick of having to play politics at all which she's never really liked, starting to dress up as a vigilante folk hero and going out some nights to dish out justice to the powerful and corrupt. Not the most imaginative use of her Hapes story, I know, but hey.

 

@Ackbar's Fishsticks I love your expansion of my ideas.

Tenel Ka could easily switch roles with her Cousins impersonating her on the throne... or for some consort she doesn't like ! Then she can vanish into the night and do secret Jedi justice all covered up in Hapan commando gear seen in the WOTC sourcebooks. The Veiled Crusader? What name would the people give this hero?

I also got Old Ones / Cthulu vibes of the Mairan Bors with some revering them still in secret wishing for their return and others opposing that.

Makes me wonder how the Hapans would react upon hearing a forceusing Bor has been discovered outside the cluster... close up? Sent assassin teams in force?

In Aphra comics the Empire had one Mairan Bor in their employ... and Aphra was as per FFG sourcebooks in the Hapes cluster once to upgrade her ship the Ark Angel (which canonised Hapes finally!). So there may be story there! Did the Empire work with the Bor or a Bor and used it to crack Hapes nutshell? Did Hapes and the Empire agree on terms so long the Bor is kept safely away?


PS: this double posting here and in Lit is ok with me but I wonder what to discuss where best. But no Hapes topic seems to stick over there for long.

 

Don't know, but the one thing about her is that she can't overtly be a Force user, or too many people would immediately draw the conclusion that it's either Tenel Ka or someone associated with her. That probably means no lightsabers either, just to distance the character from her as much as possible. But this is actually perfect for Tenel Ka; she's spent so much time as a Force minimalist, stressing her physical capacities and only using the Force when she has no other choice, that playing this kind of character would be second nature to her.

I also think that whatever clothes and weapons and tools her character uses would have to be as plebeian as possible, something no one but a pretty menial worker would have. Three reasons - 1) again, it puts as much distance as possible between her (well, the palace) and her character, 2) it helps her character gain more legitimacy among the people by making them think she really is one of them, and 3) it keeps the nobility on their toes by making them think there's a whole boiling pot of anger in the public out there that they need to watch out for (which in turn makes them more jittery and likely to come to her for protection). # 2 and # 3 could also have the effect of inspiring more boldness and calls for justice from the general public, at least some of which she could then treat openly with in her capacity as Queen of Hapes.

This might actually be the best way of splitting the difference between the two theories I had above.

The Mairan Bor shadow government doesn't exist. It hasn't in centuries. It's just a conspiracy theory that, like the Protocols of Zion, some bigoted human elites have kept alive so they'd have some alien puppetmasters to blame for things. But over time, some secret cultists have assembled who believe that it does exist, or have committed themselves to resurrecting it somehow - and some of these people are in the upper ranks of the Hapan nobility, too.

So you have the conspiracy, and the conspiracy nuts, at the same time.

Remember that the other side has them too - Saw Gerrera from Rogue One had one he used as a truth teller. Who knows what's going on there.

Also, I never realized until this conversation that Bor Gullet from that movie was supposed to be a Mairan. It's nice that they brought that fairly obscure species over from the expanded universe.

 

Moving this to here:

This is the third time I’m trying to write this post, the earlier times it was delated by different things, sorry it took so long to replay. Well, third time is the charm as they say.

“And what should other, homegrown force-user groups probably do otherwise than spoon bending and aura reading?” Spoon bending and aura reading for the crown of course A bit more serious so is my impression that the Consortium dislike not the Jedi for their powers but for historical reason (them stopping the Lorell Raiders) and because the Jedi don’t answer to the Ta'a Chume. If the Ta'a Chume could order them around and make them ignore whatever she wanted or putting extra focus on others’ possible schemes would she probably not have any real problem with them. It’s rather smallminded to think that just because they dislike the Jedi do they dislike all with divine/mystical powers.

But to continue with what homegrown force-user groups could do otherwise than spoon bending and aura reading. I’m personally of the school of thought that most of the Force traditions in GFFA are not just low budget Jedi without lightsabers and monastic lifestyle, no matter what the RPG:s tells us (I’m looking at you WotC). Based on how the Consortium looks (geographically and politically) do it feel that the likeliest types of Force traditions to be develop and be notable are spies/assassins, advisors, bodyguards and/or space navigators.

Spies/assassins would use the Force to enhances their own physical ability and/or to cloud people’s minds so they can pass undetected. The ninjas in Ninja Assassin or Way of the Tiger is a good example of how Force using assassins/spies could look in action and what powers they could have.

It's not unusual for RL people in positions of power, both historically and in the now, to have spiritual advisors or seeking the advice of people who say/believe they are able to read the fortunes. There could be a Force tradition that serves as advisors to nobles, using their ability to see possible futures, reading the weather and/or feeling what paths are dangerous, together with training in political-, social-, economic- and similar skills to give advices to nobles.

Force using bodyguards would enhance their reflexes and sense with the Force and use a danger sense to protect their charges. A bodyguard that react before weapons have been drawn or just know when something is poisonous would be highly praised.

Since the Consortium's nebula is hard to navigate so is there possible that there is one (or more) Force traditions of mystical navigators who are able to always (more or less) know the dangerous ruts, can quickjump without calculating and while they may no know where they will appear it will be somewhere that will not instantly kill them, can always find their way back home even when they are lost.


None of those exemplars as imaged here would consciously use telekinesis and only two of them are combat oriented. It’s possible that they would not realize that it was the Force that they were channeling. Or maybe they do, after all the belief in the Force seems to be the main religion of GFFA (likely in a combination with some other faiths, like how Buddhism is combined with (among others) Shinto in Japan, and Taoism in Kina) but they would probably have a bit of a different idea about the Force than the Jedi.

Bernael Edit: Thread locked by moderator due to inactivity. Should you desire the thread reactivated please contact Sinrebirth, darthbernael, or Bardan_Jusik.