Star Wars : Tanya

Through sheer corruption and inertia, they had somehow forgotten that the orders issued by the Senate only carried weight if they had the force to back them up.

Maybe a hundred years ago, ten thousand Jedi might have been enough to maintain peace in the Galaxy, but not anymore. The Jedi were outnumbered by a ratio of billions, and without an army of their own to call upon they were doomed to fail.

...

Sifo stared into the bottom of his glass, seeing his own reflection in the melting ice cubes. Peace requires strength. If the Jedi are weak, there can be no peace for anyone.

He knew that, history showed it again and again. Weakness invites attack, like a magnet draws iron or blood draws a predator. All those things the idealists obsessed over, personal rights, a free judiciary, fair elections, the sacred role of democracy, all of that just disappeared when someone shoved a blaster in your face.

Any right to personal property is completely forgotten when confronted with bandits and pirates, and a fair court system was meaningless in the face of an endless cycle of violent reprisals. Any democracy would melt away like an asteroid that strayed too close to a star if an army of corporate droids kicked down the senate door.

The Republic needed an army, but all its institutions were failing. He wouldn't trust the Senate with an army, no more than he trusted the Hutts. The only old institution that still worked, still did its duty unbowed and with diligence were the Jedi. Of course the Clone Army had to go to the Jedi.

Had Lord Hoth ever felt this conflicted when he called up the Legions of Light? To take all that power into his own hands, the power to do anything, remake the galaxy as he saw fit, and to use it to battle the Darkness? A Jedi Lord, not beholden to any democratic procedures, with a vast army of billions at his personal command, and no one anywhere that could possibly tell him no.

Lord Hoth was a hero. He destroyed the Sith of his era and saved the Republic. A good man by all accounts, even if he had an explosive temper and didn't like compromising much. Hoth had been compassionate, brave, and cunning. Abrasive and stubborn. Sifo thought of him often, and knew it was good that he'd died when he did. Hoth had walked into the pages of history, his record unblemished by ugly postwar power struggles.

Alone with his thoughts, Sifo-Dyas stared at his tired, wrinkled face in the murky reflection of his Correllian Brandy, and thought how strange it was that the past and future met in him.

History was one of his interests, the other was prophecy.

The Jedi Council despised prophecy. Some masters believed that its power lay exclusively in the retelling, that by speaking of it they made it true, or worse, by struggling to avoid it you made it certain. The trick to avoid prophecy, they argued, was to just ignore it. After all, if it was real, it would happen regardless of your efforts, and if it wasn't then there was no need to trouble yourself with it.

The Temple on Coruscant had a vault stuffed with prophecies, a veritable labyrinth of problems that those on the Council simply chose not to think about if they could. Maybe they had a point. Sifo knew there were many prophecies that had not come to pass in that vault. If some on the Council had its way, Sifo's prophecy would have just ended up collecting dust with the others.

This prophecy had been different though. Not because of what it promised, but because of what it assumed.

"The Child of the Twentieth Lost would tear the Veil of Deception open, and reveal the circling darkness once more."

A single sentence, with a frustratingly unclear meaning. What was the 'Veil of Deception'? Was it even about Tan'ya? She was definitely one of the children of the Twentieth Lost. Was it saying she would become a sith? It couldn't be, she was so powerful, the Living Force clearly had great plans for her. Sifo shuddered to think of her as a new Lord of the Sith. He hoped it really meant that Tan'ya would reveal some hidden cell of the Sith, but he just didn't know.

All that he knew was that first speaking the prophecy brought a sensation like burning alive and starving to death at the same time. His skin seared too hot to bear, and his stomach gnawed at him, swollen and empty, eating itself. It only lasted a minute, but it stuck with him years later. Any who viewed his prophecy on the holocron it was recorded on reported the same thing. They all felt fire and hunger, absolute and complete agony.

The exact meaning of it escaped everyone. Sifo had a suspicion that he almost was afraid to utter aloud.

Fire and starvation, what could that mean but war? A new great war to divide the galaxy. Somewhere out there, potentially in the unexplored regions, a new Sith Empire must be brewing. Sifo didn't have a lot of evidence to prove this, but his prophecy had presupposed the existence of the Sith. Tearing the Veil of Deception and revealing them to the Galaxy meant they had to be alive and active right now.

Similar things had happened before, with the Great Galactic War and the Cold War that followed it. If Sith Emperor Darth Vitiate had plotted in the unexplored regions of the Outer Rim for generations before launching his assault on a peaceful and unprepared Republic, what was to say a Lord of the Sith couldn't be hiding in Wild Space or the Unexplored Regions even now? Who's to say that Tan'ya wouldn't be the one to discover them?

There were whispers in the Temple that Tan'ya might be the Chosen One. Sifo dismissed those. The Prophecy of the Chosen One clearly stated he would be 'born of no father' and Tan'ya definitely had one of those.

Dooku, who was proving himself to be a very protective Father, had told Sifo in no uncertain terms that Tan'ya was not to know about his prophecy, or any prophecy that hadn't long ago come to pass. Sifo understood the motivation, he really did, and he didn't even mind that Dooku was obviously very attached to his family, but in some ways it made it rather difficult to prepare his student for the coming storm.

She needed to know about the Sith and the threat they presented, but she had to learn it in such a way that wouldn't frighten Dooku. Sifo stood up and took his now empty glass over to the sink, where a quick run through the sonic scrubber left it shining spotlessly. After putting it away he turned and headed back over to find his seat, before sitting cross legged and beginning to meditate.

He didn't have as much time as he'd like to these days. Between corresponding with Kamino, finding suppliers for the army and now teaching Tan'ya, Sifo was stretched thin. As much as he wanted to write his book, he had no idea where he'd find the-

"Oh." He opened his eyes. Now that was an excellent idea. Sifo jumped to his feet and grabbed his compad, before dialing in Dooku's number.

...

The next day Sifo found Tan'ya waiting in the classroom for him, his arrival obviously anticipated eagerly. She was getting a lot better at shielding her mind, but her body language and facial expressions were incredibly easy to read.

"I spoke to your Father last night, and he has agreed with me. Our lessons are moving too slowly." He smiled at her, and took out his datapad. With a few button presses he shared his notes with her.

"Normally it would be expected for a Youngling to have to be taught skills like mathematics, reading and writing, and other foundational knowledge that everyone should learn. But you have already learnt most of this, which means to keep your lessons moving at a pace that keeps up with you, we're going to do things differently.

"Rather than stay here in the Temple, you will be accompanying me to various libraries, universities, and archaeological sites across the Galaxy. Together we will write up a complete history of the Galactic Republic, volume 1. Congratulations, you're my new research assistant."

She looked at him like she didn't know if that was a good or a bad thing, and he couldn't help but smile.

It was adorable just how easy Tan'ya was to read.

...

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