Star Wars : Tanya

No one was perfect, after all. Everyone had something in their history to hide. If by some miracle, a saintly and visionary politician was elected, his voice would only be one in the Senate, drowned out by the ceaseless cries of those chosen for the role by special interests…

For a moment Dooku thought of sickly yellow eyes shining at him from under hooded black cloak, and felt a small worm of guilt writhe in his stomach.

...

A small hand tugged at his sleeve. "Father, are you listening?"

Dooku opened his eyes and turned his head to see the innocent pout of his daughter looking up at him. At first he tried to think of the best way to explain this to her, then he thought of crushing her dreams of turning Serenno into a major starship manufacturer, and finally he thought of protecting her innocence. It was one thing to know there was deep corruption in the Republic, it was another thing to lose any hope of ever seeing it fixed. He did not wish to share that despair with his daughter.

She deserved a happy childhood.

"An interesting proposal."

"I've checked, I'm certain we can do it. We have access to every raw material we need." Tan'ya explained in an enthusiastic rush. "We can refine plasma from our gas giant, Evrana, and we can mine hyper matter from its moons. There's plenty of ore for starship hulls on Serenno, plenty of oil reserves for rubber, and that's not even looking at what we can extract from our asteroids once we start producing our own shield generators.

We even have some of the galaxy's largest silver reserves right here, and already in the form of a usable hyper alloy. We can make hyperdrives without even having to set up hyper-sinks for matter reduction! With the quality of Serenno Silver, all we have to do is filter for impurities and shape it!"

It was a beautiful dream, and somehow Dooku couldn't bring himself to crush it. They could make the cheapest, finest ships in the galaxy and it wouldn't matter if they weren't permitted to sell them by the powers that be.

"And you would run this company?"

Tan'ya nodded equally, practically vibrating with excitement.

"...I will consider it." Dooku finally allowed, not quite able to say no.

...

Tan'ya had been around for some time now. Thirty years in her first life, fifteen years in her second, and her fifth birthday was approaching in her third. That combined age of fifty years taught her one thing.

'I'll think about it' just meant no in so many words.

She slumped back in her chair, stung and disappointed. Of course Father wasn't going to give her the funds to start a company, she wasn't even five yet. Much like her second life, Tan'ya was stuck trying to explain to a much older man that she knew better than he did, when his every instinct told him she needed to be protected.

Having looked at the issue, Tan'ya was sure there was a solution to selling through the galaxy's endless trade barriers. When it comes to marketing, you could sell in quantity to the general public, or you can offer a premium product to a higher quality of clientele.

In her original life the equivalent would be a yacht, or a private airplane. A billionaire who was willing to spend the money on such a thing wasn't looking for the best price, he was looking for a status symbol. A high price tag was probably what attracted him to the product in the first place!

In her mind Tan'ya could already see the ship, a veritable private yacht of the hyperlanes. A boat of luxurious black hardwoods, handmade furniture from the finest of traditional craftsman inlaid with silver, hulls not of common durasteel, but Sacanium. They could even shape it to somewhat resemble the Serenno palace, with customisable features to include personal sigils or corporate logos.

Father was a man of fame and reputation in many circles. Just the way he walked and carried himself was persuasive to many. If he could be persuaded to upgrade from a common Corellian Cruiser that even mere public servants traveled in, to a sumptuous Serenno Star Slicer people would notice. If it was good enough for the legendary Count Dooku, a king in all but name, surely it was good enough for anyone.

A ship like that wouldn't be enough to jump start Serenno's economy, but it would lay a foundation that they could build on for later. With a team of engineers and strong brand recognition, they could start to push ships from Serenno into the racing circuit.

Young men in this galaxy were much the same as anywhere else, excited by images of sleek sports speeders and vessels published in flimsy rags and dreaming of owning their own when they grew up. Eventually, in a decade or so, they would be able to sell luxury speeders and personal vessels at an above market rate, all with the signature luxurious black coloring of the superior sacanium, just like the famous Serenno Palace.

Of course the tariffs would make them expensive, but that was the point. Exclusivity was the cost of prestige.

And now it just wasn't to be, not for years to come? How many decades would it take for her father to finally trust her?

Tan'ya heaved a sigh and rested her chin on her hands.

The time would come, she told herself. The time would come.

...

Seeing his daughter sulking, Dooku decided to distract her. He searched his brain for a moment, trying to remember what her interests were, he'd been so busy of late, and eventually he settled on the most recent thing he could remember.

"Have you finished your report?"

Tan'ya looked up at him. "I've got it on my datapad. I can go get it if you want to read it."

Paperwork? Not this early in the morning. "Summarize it."

Her mind raced, and she spoke quickly. "Well, very few pirates operate a ship larger than a cruiser, most just use converted freighters, so the three Cruisers supplied by the Trade Federation should be effective for dissuading the vast majority of raiders.

The officers look and act professionally, but the Trade Federation doesn't openly discuss how it promotes or recruits its crews. From what I've read on the holonet from retired Fed officers, much of it is extremely nepotistic, with bizarre drinking rituals, personal relationships to your superiors, and strange tests of loyalty all being prerequisites to advancement.

"If any force of equal size were to attack, I don't think we could rely on them. As long as their safety isn't really threatened, they'll fight, but once something larger approaches they'll hesitate to engage. They're a lot like security guards, more concerned with protecting themselves and their own careers than us.

"Then there's the issue of the battle droids." Tan'ya looked almost upset at the mention of battle droids. "I've seen many better models of droids on the market, and I understand that the B1 is incredibly cheap, but their articulation is almost as bad as a protocol droid! Their marksmanship is fine against a stationary target, but against anything moving it's terrible.

They have a limited battery life, needing regular charging and they can't crawl effectively, limited to crouching when they take cover. Worst of all they're controlled by a central computer. If the command console is destroyed the entire army shuts down!

Tan'ya heaved a sigh. "They have their defenders, and maybe in an industrial scale war where you simply produce a lot of them in a factory and ship them straight to the front lines, cost efficiency would become a major factor.

I'd want to read some combat reports before I commit to that, though. But for us, I think they're terrible. They just do not reach the minimum bar of combat effectiveness for their numbers to be particularly important. We're wasting our money on these. Any prepared crew of pirates would cut through them like a vibroblade through flimsy."

Tan'ya's report continued for some time after that, but Dooku already understood what she was angling for. Again, Tan'ya wanted to start building ships on Serenno. Internally, he sighed. She was right about the ineffective B1's, and the foreign starship crews that would never risk their lives for his people, but she was also completely missing the point. She was looking at the Trade Federation defenses and seeing a product, when what they really were was a flag.

In the Galactic North East there were two regional powers, the Trade Federation, and the Hutt Cartel. That small fleet of ships were here to firmly plant the Federation flag on Serenno, marking the planet as off limits to pirates and raiders.

Sure, a daring crew in a small freighter might slip in system, jump through atmosphere, snatch up some civilians and rush off to sell them as slaves before a defense could be mustered, but the larger pirate fleets that Tan'ya was afraid of wouldn't dare try something like that. Their Hutt masters would never provoke a war with the Trade Federation, that was bad for business.

In short, Serenno was paying protection, and so they would be left alone. If Serenno were to start making its own ships all of a sudden, that would put them in competition with the Federation.

"Father, you're not listening!" Tan'ya tugged at his sleeve again.

He turned to her. "I will consider it."

Her face scrunched up with frustration, and she sat down with a sulk. Just like any child in a way, Dooku thought. She wanted to go out and play, and he had not let her.

They sat there in silence for a while, before Tan'ya leapt off her chair and rushed away to her room. After a moment Dooku reached out in the force and found his daughter grumbling in her bed. With a frustrated sigh he broke the connection and once more began to brood.

...

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