Pre Author Note - know that all the author notes were written when I first posted these chapters on Patreon thats why it seems not 'up to date' and I can be bothered writing different updates each time for patreon and non patreon, but as of today 26th October my laptop is dying (after 8 years) and I can't really afford to buy a new one. Teehee.
Author - wow, for once I got nothing really to say. Uhmm.
I am currently simping for malfoid on twitter? I have not folded for a fictional woman this hard ever since I seen Yasakas big yams from highschool dxd.
Also sorry it took so long I got new kitten and it loves just jumping on my keyboard when I am typing or lying on my arms/hand and I did not have the heart to move it when it fell asleep in my left palm, its so small, cute and fluffy.
Patreon is 5 chapters ahead - Deluxee
****
Atii's eighteenth arrived on a clear sunny day with no cloud in sight both physical and metaphorical.
We kept the official side of it contained, I refuse some slimy and opportunistic governors sending their gifts to Atii or worse. Marriage proposals, I think I would start ripping people in half with my hands.
It was just a small gathering mainly the core group and Mandalorian and some others.
She spent the first part of the morning pretending she did not care about celebration and failing spectacularly.
First she trained quickly which is uncharacteristic of her then she vacuumed the food like the vacuum from Teletubbies then she was practically vibrating as we said we have some gifts for her.
A reinforced flight harness from Jaster's along with a new jetpack, a compact toolkit and splicing device from Lira and Mira, and a ridiculously practical cold-weather cloak from Elara that Atii immediately inspected for knife slits and hidden pockets and then wrapped it around her immediately.
When the noise thinned, I took her aside with a sigh that made her eyes narrow at once.
"What?" she asked.
I held out a key fob and authorization chip on a plain ring that had a small etching of a Mythosaur.
She took it, puzzled, turning the chip under the lights. "If this opens another storage closet of ceremonial rifles, I'm throwing you into the training pit and locking the door."
"Landing pad feed," I said. "Mountain complex, eastern outer shelf, landing pad seven."
She frowned, pulled the feed up on the nearest bay terminal, and went still.
The SS-54 assault ship sat on the pad like it had been waiting for her specifically: compact, mean-lined, already altered from baseline by the look of the reinforced nose and the reworked engine wings.
Kind of like a Razor Crest but better and more militaristic, of course it has been already upgraded.
On the secondary data strip beside the image, the modifications were listed.
Upgraded Class 1 hyperdrive, hardened cannon mounts with improved output channels plus overall better cannons along with an extended range kit. And, beneath that, a scheduled appointment with the best mechanic on Elyria, open-ended all under my tab which will include paint job and designs, further structural changes, cockpit layout, anything she wanted short of installing a throne.
Atii stared at the feed for a full second of complete silence.
Then she made a sound I had never heard from her and turned into brown haired Atii shaped missile, aimed right at me.
The hug hit like an industrial clamp.
She kept jumping against me, key fob still jammed in her fist, and kissed my cheek hard enough that I felt teeth-adjacent enthusiasm more than her lips. Her strength, unrestrained by armour etiquette or common sense, crushed the air out of me in one undignified long ass wheeze.
"Atiiiiihhhhhhhh- ohmyfuckingodmyfuckingback"
"You bought me a ship."
"I bought you a ship," I managed, half-folded. "Please do not use it to kill the Moff that gave it to you."
She only squeezed harder, then pulled back just far enough to look at the feed again, eyes bright, face split by a grin. "Class 1 with ship killing cannons. mechanic on demand. You absolute madman."
I just rolled my eyes.
Jaster, from somewhere behind us, made a noise that could have been approval or paternal sigh of future property damage. "My dear, just please dont go racing between the building on Elyria... Do try to keep the damage minimal and dont fly close to the pastures the engines on these things will give the cattle a heart attack."
Atii bounced once more on her heels, caught herself, and then because she was still Atii pointed a finger at my chest. "I'm painting it properly with multiple mandalorian artworks and if your mechanic argues, I'm throwing him into the pit."
"He's paid to argue productively," I said, still recovering my ribs. "Happy birthday."
After a while she finally dragged Jaster and two of her clan-cousins out toward the pad for a direct inspection, still talking too fast about cannon channels and paint scheme.
"I wonder what she will name the ship."
****
Now that Atiis birthday is behind me time to get back on the god damn grind that is work, so I called up Grok's channel and opened it in the secure room.
"Things have escalated." he said.
The map he pushed into the air was all kinds of unstable with marked broken lanes, buoy traces, and worse. Ship search patterns, they are looking for something. Possibly a way to "find" their new enemies which would be us.
"They are expanding their probe range," Grok continued. "Current projection: discovery of the stable approach route in one week, two at the outer bound. Once they hold that route, concealment becomes impossible."
I stood with both hands on the table. I am a Moff, I could not simply swing line ships into uncharted regions against an unknown species without creating questions that ended at NIDA, Grok, and every illegal and hidden thing under my feet.
"We can't have an open deployment," I said. "Not under Elyrian colours at least and definitely not under Imperial codes."
"Agreed. Therefore the force must be removed from visible structure before it is used."
Reza's public fleet charts still carried dozens of hulls that looked useful on paper and were chronically under-crewed in practice: light cruisers held in secondary readiness, a thinner band of heavy cruisers waiting for crews and some gunships assigned to quiet route sections where nothing had happened long enough for clerks to forget them, mostly used for training purposes or as a punishment.
Those were the first targets, human crews would be stripped and transferred inward to ships that actually saw action near home lanes and would be now properly crewed those still in training would be moved to ships on the outer lanes filling out positions or shadowing experienced sailors..
Then the emptied hulls would be fully droid-staffed.
Complete NIDA replacement under false maintenance and deep-patrol cover, then once they are not needed they would be quietly rotated back once we have enough human crew to staff them or at least a large naval droids in stockpile with the required modules installed for the particular ships they would be crewing.
And as always, Grok was 3 steps ahead.
"I have already configured the most optimal amount of ships that can be discretely taken off the patrols and sent here, approximately four dozen," Grok said. "Majority light cruisers. Selected heavy cruisers, a few gunships . In addition, all Vulture craft and CIS-origin droid vessels currently held under your public procurement narrative as Elyrian defense acquisitions."
Those last ones had always been a political thorn for him official story goes that they were bought cheap, justified as stopgap, tolerated because the sector had needed them as they could not afford the 'pristine top of the line Imperial hulls'. Now they became the easiest to vanish, with us "sending obsolete CIS droid craft and other surplus light hulls to scrap as they could not be manned."
I pulled up various channels and started shaping the lie.
Decommissions.
Long range unknown region patrols.
Scrap yard and cannibalising hulls to fix other one.
In reality after the last honest checkpoint, they would dissapear into Grok's cold droid greedy hands.
"Any risk?" I said.
"Existing trackers, a curious navy clerk asking why so many light cruisers become scrap but otherwise minimal."
"Good enough I guess."
"Timeline requires initiation within the next two local days if droid conversion and route staging are to complete before projected Varanki discovery."
"Then we will start on it tonight."
I authorized the first list later in the evening: twenty light, six gunships, two heavy cruisers already marked for delayed work-up, and the full public droid-craft pool. Transfer orders went out with a small note explaining where and why, just for bookeeping. Then what happens to the crew with consolidation, training concentration, crapping of obsolete autonomous stock, deep patrols, disposal for hulls not worth full human restoration.
None of it said: prepare for a secret war against a species the Empire does not know exists, fingers crossed at least.
When the first confirmation returns landed, I released a sigh. If this worked, Grok would have a decent sized fleet of a rather above average quality, even if they outnumber us their ships are like early ironclads going against early battlecruisers.
"Begin conversion as the crews clear," I said. "I dont want any NIDA signatures near any public lanes, if a hull cannot be cleaned of public tracking it doesn't."
"Acknowledged."
The channel closed.
I remained in the secure room long enough to rewrite three disposal justifications so they sounded even more mundane, then sent Reza a priority note ordering the human-crew transfers as a readiness correction.
He most likely dislike the suddenness but would execute it anyway because of his trust in me. That was one reason he was my sector admiral.
****
So now its meeting time, and its just my usual group like always, so I brought them into the secure room after second shift and locked it down before anyone could start asking why.
All of them sat around the holo table while Rusty positioned himself directly behind me, man I love my clanka.
Anywho, after some greeting I decide to finally get this show on the run and opened the channel.
Grok's image came up over the table with the outer map already lit. He then gave the abbreviated but somehow still highly detailed explanation what or who the Varanki are, our little history with them and the problem they are causing.
"Now that everyone in your trusted circle is informed Moff we can proceed onto current matter, that the Varankis' probe patterns have accelerated. They are searching for the source of prior contact. At present rate they will find the stable route in one to two weeks."
Lira zoomed the edge corridors. "How many systems on their side?"
"They have a few systems that are densely saturated but deeper probes revealed some systems beyond their own locked in system, at present our best estimates place it at them having an additional ten or so systems beyond their own home sector." Grok said. "They outnumber any concealed deployment we can feasibly concieve, however. Their ships are inferior with hyperdrives that are slow and unstable along with armaments and shielding that are centuries behind. Local space around their worlds does not support reliable long lanes. They have little experience with true interstellar fleet combat."
Reza studied the route mouth. "So they can throw mass, but not cleanly or quickly."
"Correct, they have mostly been isolated for centuries and have developed their own technology while salvaging and reverse engineering any and all ships they come in contact from the wider galaxy which resulted in them having tactics, armaments, hull schematics and shielding centuries from us at best and millennia at worse."
Atii's arms were folded tight. "And our response to that would be?"
"You are aware of the ships I have sent to scrap or to deep patrols?" I said. "They are ships we could easily strip of their skeleton crew and vanish with no problems and they will then be droid staffed and sent out to Grok."
Jaster's mouth flattened. "You are putting a war in the hands of CIS machines."
"The CIS is dead and they are no longer under Separatist command but Elyrian" I said.
"They are still those machines." Atii's voice stayed even. "Dooku tried to use us. Pre Vizsla took that poison bait and dragged Mandalore into it. Just because a droid got a new paintjob it doesn't change the programming, even if it is a super advanced droid."
Grok did not argue history with her. "Final operational command control remains under Kael Voss, not tied to his office as governor, or now moff. Autonomous range is limited I work for the betterment. They are tools in this room's plan, not a government in their own right."
Torv tapped the table once. "Tools or not, if this leaks, the Empire does not care about your distinctions."
"Which is why it cannot leak, even if we dont use Grok and ask empire or use our own forces it would sooner or later leak that there is a strong droid presence and will no doubt send a punitive force for the CIS remnant." I said.
Elara had been quiet until the map resolved far enough to show systems with atmosphere markers. "If you stop them at the route mouth, what happens to the people on those worlds?"
That was the actual question.
Reza answered before I did. "I propose we do the bare minimum: seize the lane and the mouth system. Kill their ability to push survey and military traffic into our space. If the fight goes better than expected, we should take their key worlds and hold them and force them to the negotiating table kicking and screaming."
"Hold them with what?" Thorn asked, we are still undergoing re-standarisation and remilitarization and the approval for establishing our own imperial army group is still going through the pen pushers up in the core."
"Grok," I said. "Droid garrison, he has more than enough to hold them, even if he doesn't his foundries have more than enough production output to win a war of attrition and we can source any weapons through our new friends that are Pykes or even give the useless surpluss."
Mira looked sick. "And if we lose?"
"Then we cut the route, burn what we can, and deny every trace that points back here and militarise the entire chokepoint with mines and a permanent garrison fleet which would be costly to maintain since the fleet can't be too small and constant resupply would be needed for fuel and to re-charge the droids." I said.
"If we cannot do that cleanly, this becomes an Imperial contact event and all of us go down with it if we can't spin the story right. We might be able to put a random command droid and sacrifice the worlds and most of the forces while taking the most expensive and important assets to a different uncharted sector."
Jaster gave a short, unhappy breath. "Best outcome?"
"Key worlds fold under our permanent control," I said. "We would put a new friendly government and prop it up with our might and give them better medicine, food and technology to sway them to our side, it would be a concealed territory under Elyrian direction through Grok's management. Labour, resources, and further intelligence would be added to us."
Atii stared at the map hard. "And if they fight to the bitter end or worse prove more dangerous?"
"Then they stay contained," I said. "But I will not turn this into a war of extermination, no glassing of planets or use of widespread chemical attacks. At worse we bombard key military sites and military industries along with prominent governmental buildings and contain them."
Reza nodded. "Strategy next. What we have, what we can move in time, where we force the fight."
****
Grok then put the most up to date map along with relevant statistics like probable garrisons, populations, fleet compositions and whenever possible specs for the ships.
"The only stable exit into our monitored space is here," he said. A single corridor mouth glowed into focus. "We named it Red Shear in the buoy logs. Everything around it is trash space. Micro-lanes open and collapse. If they try to come through anywhere else in force, they lose hulls to the void."
Reza leaned in. "So they have to use Red Shear if they want to advance.."
"Yes. Their survey craft can sniff around the edges. A fleet cannot."
Lira marked ranges. "And our side?"
I took over the force list before anyone started inventing comfort. "Four dozen transferred hulls, mostly light cruisers, a few heavies, gunships. Full droid crews. Plus all the old CIS ships we have here and few dozen ships that Grok has, mostly gunships with a few frigates and cruisers."
Torv grunted. "Against how many?"
Grok did not soften it. "If they commit to the route once they find it, projections put their local mobile mass at several times ours. Hundreds of hulls if they push their ready groups. More if they strip home systems, but no true capital ships, the biggest one is roughly the size of Iron Reaver and that is with worse shielding and armaments along with hyperdrive. However, for us ground numbers are worse. They breed somewhat fast and individually they are stronger and have more endurance than an average human with higher bone density, however from preliminary screening shows that their intelligence while still high is somewhat lower than galactic standard with only a select clique of elites smarter than average. Possible way to control the masses, keeping them simple. Their advantage is mass and the ability to keep coming with almost fanatical loyalty and battle fervour. Also local adaptation is in play. Over centuries they have learnt to navigate the region without a stable and reliable navigational computer so their pilots and admirals fly by half instinct and feel while our charts and computers loose precision. Essentially crippling us as we are not used to such battles but should we keep it in a stable pathway or a buoy line we should come out on top."
Damn, I know droids don't need to breathe but still could have give it a pause or something.
Atii stared at Grok a bit taken back at all the information dump before pointing to the area outside of the stable lines. "So we do not fight them in there. Got it."
"Yes," Reza said. "We fight them where the corridor stabilizes on the outer approach, where the choke point is the narrowest and opens to a wider corridor. Here, here, and here. Fixed engagement pockets. They will be forced to revert in a tight grouping limiting their mobility."
Reza then zoomed in to the particular place in space and keeps pointing out various ship placements and inputs various signatures into the holo to show it better.
"We spread out all around so that every ship has a clean line of sight on the emerging enemy, and because the chokepoint opens up wider we can surround them from basically 135 degrees up and down, we out range them as well so we place the heavies back in overwatch and keep the lights mobile up front to kite them just in case. If they manage to break through and leave the shear we do not give them battle, we continuously move back while dealing with their fighter and bomber screen once those are depleted we turn around and pummel them with what we have while our fighters and bombers can wreck havoc on their unprotected ships."
Jaster's eyes tracked the flanking lanes. "What if they move from the side or through a route we have not discovered yet?"
Grok took command over the shared holo and inputed some commands and the entire table lit up like a fucking christmas tree, so much so I had to squint to see the thousands of little lights. Squinting more I realise some are even still moving.
"These are the probes and sensor satellites I have embedded on all axis along the theoretical border and then the border of these as well, the moment they move we will know, plus we have eyes on the biggest concentrations of their ships, should they move to a place that is other than the choke point we will know."
I nodded. "Brillian work Grok"
I tilt my head studying the map in more detail
"All in all we are looking allright unless they pull some magic trick out of a hat, though we should try to disable their ships when possible, after some retrofitting we could have quite the navy even if they are all small ships, it would allow us to focus on bigger and heavier ships and allocate more spending for other matters or even exporting some of these ships and marketing them as 'exotic' or native Elyrian design or something."
Thorn frowned. "That is all great and all but if they ignore the losses or have more than we can destroy and shove through anyway?"
"Then we fall back to the other neighbouring systems, spend some extra money and seed the entries with enough mines, move the entire Grok foundries to war footing and get some more ships from the sector and buy up some others and possibly orbital canons and place them on the asteroids while constantly sending in bomber strike groups to harass them." Reza said.
Grok shifted the chart to predicted Varanki movement once contact starts. "They will likely attempt full frontal assault spearheaded by their biggest and best ships, supported by myriad of smaller vessels and a swarm of rather low tier fighters and bombers. It matches existing behaviour and past skirmishes."
Atii tapped the outer flank markers. "Two light groups here and here. Not to hold ground. To punish anyone trying to edge around the mouth."
Jaster still looked unhappy with the droid half of the board, but he was reading it like a fight now. "Minimum is seize Red Shear and the first system beyond it," He said. "Destroy outbound survey capacity and any staged military groups near the exit. Best case, we take the key worlds tied to that route and lock them down before they can reinforce, hopefully it will be the best case."
Grok dimmed the holo as he spoke. "I can have the first converted groups at staging area within a day with a full resupply starting from the moment they are under my control, full readiness at the mouth depends on the last ship deployment."
"Then those heavies are the priority," I said. "Everything else forms around them."
Well, thats as good as anything.
Space battle theory 101 is done, now for ground battle theory 102
"Now lets assume everything goes smoothly and we achieve our minimal objective points take then what?"
Torv answered first. "Landfall on the key worlds before they reorganize or put up any solid defences. Not everywhere or every world. Only those that have a military value such as key industrial nodes, shipyards, military staging areas or depos."
Grok brought up a tighter chart of the first system beyond Red Shear. Three main worlds. One industrial moon. Two orbital clusters worth anything. "Population density is high on the primary and secondary worlds. Local defense is built for ground endurance and short-range orbital denial, mostly geared towards anti revolutionary actions than actual outside military."
Jaster leaned on the table. "So we hit the vitals, not the whole body."
"Yes," Reza said. "Seize key control nodes and cut local broadcast and military coordination. Secure ports and other areas."
Elara's eyes stayed on the population markers. "We already established that Grok will hold it but what will he hold it with? How many actual droids does he have."
Silence held for a second longer than it should have.
"A droid occupation force, where have I heard that before. Should we start calling you Master Dooku?" Atii snickered.
"A containment force more like," I said. "With rules like no free fire on noncombatants. No scavenging beyond supply need and it will be more easily enforced since droids will not break protocol to go loot a random shop of its alcohol and the only thing they require is energy and ammunition and some maintenance gear and not food, water and medicine."
I then hum as I zoom in to the holographic projection of the supposed central governmental building. "Local administration stays in place if it obeys and surrenders, if they don't we just make an example of them and find someone who will gladly take their place."
Lira looked between me and Grok. "What happens when they fold fully? Or if we can't find a native administrator?"
"Should they fold we will integrate them slowly and over time on controlled terms," I said. "Better food, medicine, technology maybe temporary reduction of taxes while bringing exotic goods to appease them, have some collaborators spread the word how good we are. Now if we can't find a collaborator I am more than certain we can dress up someone as one of them."
Mira's voice was thin. "That only works if you actually have the droids to garrison it effectively."
Grok turned to her, then to the rest of the room. "Current NIDA strength exceeds one million active chassis across combat, construction, mining, and support roles. Associated fleet and transport assets are sufficient to move first-wave occupation loads for the mouth system and two key worlds at once. Foundries and refineries are online at secure sites and can replace losses without drawing from Elyrian and surrounding markets."
No one spoke for a moment.
Then Reza recovered first, practical as ever. "One million."
"Yes."
Torv just whistled as he nodded.
"If better integration becomes possible down the line, we will take it of course. If not, garrisons stand, though I would prefer to have them integrated as garrisoning worlds will no doubt be expensive." I tell them
Torv scratched his thumb against the table edge. "Command layer on the ground?"
"Droid officers under Grok's control, mostly command droid with a few elite configured B1s" I said. "A small trusted oversight channel from this room only if needed."
Thorn nodded slowly. "Extraction routes for any we gather?"
Grok answered. "Already drafted through non-commercial buoy chains. Material can move without touching official Elyrian customs."
Elara still had not looked away from the world markers. "What happens to the rest of their people? We will occupy one system with them having many more"
"We will continue trying to open a friendly dialogue," I said. "However, make no mistake should they prove troublesome I will have Grok subjugate the entire sector if we have to protect Elyria as a whole."
It was not a kind answer but at least it was an honest one.
Torv and Thorn then took over with a significant input from Jaster about a simulated landfall and garrisoning. They pointed out potential landing points and how to advance on all axis then where to set up checkpoints and garrisons throughout the planets for maximum efficiency to keep law and order while still protecting the droids from any guerrilla style warfare, this part took better part of two hours before finally we had a semblance of a draft that we will continue to work upon.
After leaving Atii invited me to go for an impromptu inspection that led us all around the gardens, markets and museums of Elyria.
I am starting to feel that this was not an inspection at all.
****
After me and Atii finished our 'inspection' I asked Elara something before I forget or something... or someone steals my attention again.
"I want to see the oldest artefacts," I said. "Not the display pieces for visitors or trinkets for sale but the really, really old ones."
She studied me for a second. "Why?"
"I've got more free time than I used to before, and I'm curious. That's all because of Luthen I realised that there is so much I dont know about Elyria and Elyrians and I simply wish to know more about your people and your culture along with history." I shrugged. "Thrawn initially got me into it but Luthen showed me how much I still dont know about the people I rule."
She gave me one of her rare genuine smiles as she nodded happily and told me which halls still kept pre-Imperial and even pre-republic material under local custody and which museum stores on Durak's Hold and Elyria required an Elder vote to open, some of these artefacts are hidden and protected under specific clans so not just anyone can enter.
I started on Elyria.
The first clan hall sat half a day out from Havenridge, built low against the wind with smoke-dark beams and a records room that smelled of oil, dry fiber, and old stone dust. What they called ancient was already limited. The caretaker, an old woman with rust-brown skin and amber eyes, brought out sealed wraps and clay-banked boxes like she was handling sacred saintly bones.
Most of it dated, by their own counts and by the few laboratory tags Lira later confirmed, to somewhere between two thousand and a thousand years before years back. Road markers. Hearth tablets. Knot-records of drought routes. A broken mask with faint ridges at the cheek that no one in the hall could explain and a small map that does not fit anything on Elyria or even surrounding systems..
"Older than this, we have only stories," the caretaker said. "And ruins that do not talk."
She was right about the ruins though as I have intimitely came to learn, they are everywhere even under my palace. Something the infiltrators clearly took advantage of but anyways.
Outside several settlements the ground still broke into cut foundations and collapsed galleries, some half-swallowed by soil, some still exposed in clean enough lines to show that there used to be a different settlement here, and judging by its structure it was some sort of skyscrapper, and looking at it blackened outside and the way it is crumbled and leaning on the side it was not simply abandoned and left for nature to do as it wished it was a forceful and violent break, the blackened pieces probably gave it away but it most like was damaged by a blast from a canon or some type of weapon.
So the possibility of older Elyrians having a rather advanced and populous civilization were high but something either an invasion or a particularly brutal civil conflict utterly decimated their settlements and population so much so they turned tribal and lost most if not all information about their past.
Durak's Hold was worse and better at the same time. Worse because the mining city had less the moon was lacking older settlements for us to analyse, but on the other side it was better because it houses the collective storage that had taken in objects from clans who no longer wanted to house or even extinct.
There the dating got narrowed down more.
Multiple objects sat in that same window: 2,000 to 1,000 BBY. Which coincided to before and during the New Sith Wars, if you used the wider calendar. Blades with ceremonial weight and practical balance while there were tablet fragments with marker systems too complete to be random decoration.
A preserved set of beads arranged for lineage and land claims to lands alien to this system. One damaged relief, reconstructed from three pieces, showed figures in armour with swords drawn and faces worn smooth by time and handling.
Not modern Elyria style dress but similar and definitely not republic, imperial or mandalorian.
I stood over that relief longer than the attendant liked.
The last reliable presence of Sith Purebloods in the old sith territories fell in that same broad age that these artefacts the science division dated to.
After Sith Purebloods disappeared withing just a few generations after that, the wider galaxy mostly treated them as closed history and legends.
But now looking at Elyrian faces every day the red undertone in the skin, the yellow and orange eyes, the rare tendril traces people shrugged off as bloodline quirks and warrior culture prevalent is not dissuading me from the inevitable conclusion that is already swimming in my head.
A hidden colony, maybe.
It is as far as you could go from the old Sith Empire, far enough to be forgotten when the old wars tore the galaxy apart.
Then they were cut off by collapsed lanes and communications, defeat, or deliberate retreat. Left for centuries to interbreed, forget, and survive by themselves until the original names meant nothing and only the traits and histories remained, though they probably still had access to Sith record.
The ruins made more sense that way too, just now I dont know if it was a devastating internal war, or a war that followed them here and burned the upper layer of their past down to foundations leaving few survivors.
But why the lack of force sensitivity?
Elyrians thought the Jedi were just some fancy space wizards at best and con artists at worse. There is also no mention of "special powers" or "glowing fire swords" in their history or culture.
But what caused an inherently force sensitive species to lose connection to it? Even if they have somewhat evolved over time there should still be at least one or some born over these years.
The sith interbred like crazy between each other and even other species and still managed to have a high ratio of force sensitivities but for centuries not one appeared in Elyria, what in the fuck happened here.
On the way out through Hold's upper streets I saw two mine workers arguing over shift changes, both with that same warm red undertone in the face, one with eyes like old amber. While the other hand eyes red as a ruby and face tendrils reaching halfway down his neck.
Ordinary people on an ordinary day.
If palpatine learns of them he no doubt will try to find out why they lost their connection to the force and try to bring it back and make his own sith army, or at worse he will just wipe them all out should they prove to be difficult to control.
In the shuttle back to Havenridge I kept the working theory to myself and all the revelations.
If I was right, Elyria's oldest secret was not treasure.
It was ancestry that could get a whole lot of people interested in them only for the wrong kinds of reasons.
I sealed my notes under personal cipher and went home with dust still on my sleeves.