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Introduction to FFA

This contest entry was posted in late May 2008, in the "Balance to the Force" event for rehoming inactive characters. The prompt appears first, and then my response.

The Prompt: Your student heard from someone else at the temple (Master Char Langui? Kailey? Jiri Yim? Edan? A cleaning droid? Details, details...) that if they aren't chosen as an apprentice by their next birthday, they'll be sent to Agri-Corps for the rest of their life. Whaaaaat? You thought the Jedi/Sith didn't do that anymore! (They don't.) Anyway, you're about to ponder how to solve this predicament when you discover that your birthday is only two days away! What to do?
In a Solo RP somewhere around 500 words long and no longer than 1000 words, please demonstrate your student's reaction, their handling of the situation, and how they get it all sorted out.

In your response, if you are entering for a student with a changeable name, you can use the name you would like to give them should you win.

Feel free to NPC various temple staff, but please don't get other people's characters involved without their permission!

Username: Bress Baltar
Entering for: Si'enn Var
How much do you love Star Wars? Too much. I own/have copies of every major Star Wars parody (Star wars holiday special, Robot Chicken Star Wars edition, Family Guy star wars, Thumb Wars, Store wars, the list goes on). I also have more than 15 star wars parody songs. I have an original RotJ movie poster mounted and hanging on my wall, in addition to having a lego robotics R2-D2 sitting on the desk next to me. I have several star wars shirts. Not only can I do a good Darth Sidious impression, but in my senior year of high school I dressed up for Halloween as him, and was allowed to do a group biology presentation with friends (also dressed up, though not SW) while in character. We were doing ours on plant cell respiration, and I (Darth Sidious) gave a presentation on the "Dark Side" of the Calvin Cycle (there really is one). I’ve read many of the novels (<3 T. Zahn) and have many other objects/games onwards.
…I’ve never tallied that list before. I hadn’t realized I was that into it, really. Hmm.
If you do not win the student you are entering for, would you accept a different one? Which ones? In agreement with others, I must say that I think that unless there's a very good reason, primary entries should always be considered first.
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Prompt response:
It had begun quietly. News of any sort usually did. The rumour had begun with the droids, or so it was said. When the government decided to refinance the academy again, they made the slip of returning many of the decades-old cleaning and service droids. Once several younglings had heard the story of the Jedi-run agricultural facilities, it had become somewhat of a taunt. Sometimes just to tease, but mostly it was to get the dander up of your physical training partner. “You’ve got to be faster than that, unless you’re planning on AgriCorps!” “That’s AgriCorp material, right there!” Interestingly, the masters never commented, or at least hadn’t given acknowledgement to it. After a short while, no one took it seriously, or at least the meaning behind the name. It was just training pressure.
That was, until the day that young Si’enn Var was shunted one particularly low blow from one of the other apprentices while practicing; Jhordaan was his name, if she could remember. “Isn’t your birthday fast approaching, Si’enn?” Unfortunately for her, his distraction had worked, and she was mentally off-balance for the rest of the session.
She walked back to her room in am anxious silence. Was it soon to be her birthday? The masters had expressed their wishes for the students not to use calendars; only clocks were permitted. That way the students focused on the academy, not what was happening elsewhere at the same time.
Alone, Si’enn felt free to use Rylothean, growling. “Ish’cha schutta.” He probably was just egging her for the advantage, but she found drawn to check the database – it was important to her, no matter what the masters said. Finally making it up the height to her floor, she pressed the small button to slide open the large metal door of the room.
“Oh, mistress, good, you’ve returned!” The metallic Basic was being spoken by the near-cylindrical maintenance droid assigned to her room. SL-496, if she remembered. Si’enn generally despised its hand-wringing servitude. Twi’leki had enough dealings with slavery without becoming seeming masters themselves. It wasn’t that she didn’t want her room maintained, but simply that just that it didn’t speak unless spoken to, first.
What was more was that it only spoke Basic, which in itself was tiresome. The pronunciations were so crude. “Essel, what do you know of AgriCorps?” The question had been twofold: it gave Si’enn more information, but mostly it kept it too busy to notice she was logging onto the small datapad terminal and accessing files she shouldn’t. She had found attached to a ventilation node under the wall panel – probably used for diagnostics of the system, and could not access much, but it had to have a clock in it, if it had to know when to heat or cool the flow of air. Bringing up the thumb-sized display for the timer, she saw the Coruscanti calendar appear, with the day’s date. Now it was just a matter of converting it to Twi-leki. “Yalena twelfth means… frotz!” Two days. A meagre 36 hours away. Her tchun twitched at the thought. What if they were true, the taunts?
“ – so it was my understanding, mistress, that they are sent to the facilities to use those limited abilities to aid as they can, being kept out of harms way, unlike those to go on to be knights -“
Si’enn had not realized how much the droid’s voice was annoying her as she stared at the screen. With a small clang, the droid stopped speaking. Spinning to see the droid, she saw the pathetic thing trying to speak, but only clicks were coming out. It appeared she’d either broken something within Essel or thrown a hidden switch Si’enn didn’t have knowledge of.
No matter. It had given her the information, and the droids were breaking often with aged parts. If she called a technician later, it shouldn’t draw suspicion of what she did, accidental or not. She was just glad she had the solitary room; a roommate would be a pain she was glad to avoid.
Needing air from the shock of the date, she went out of her room and down the tall corridor to a large open window, seeing the bright blue sky. It was a shame. The land could be more beautiful: darker, with more moons, like home.
She shook herself a little. She shouldn’t think of home. Si’enn Var had to prove herself to the masters in a very short time, and being distracted wouldn’t help. Tchin and Tchun moving slightly in the windless place, she considered her options. In the end, she had to show herself to the masters, by any means necessary. She did have the ability, and the will to use it.
In her heart, she felt that the masters wouldn’t send the potentials away. No, they would never leave a person they found force-sensitive on their own. They would probably kill the ones that didn’t make it. No reason to let pontential threats wander about. It was morbid, but… it’s something she could consider.
But she wasn’t going to die. She was going to show them that she could make the cut, no matter what.

Minor Notes:
- I plan to use a different name, but as Twi’leks go to great lengths in naming, I feel I should not be hasty.
- I use Canadian spelling. Many words, such as those ending with ‘er’, are ‘re’ and other alternate spellings.
- I have used multiple resources to make this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dates_in_Star_Wars
http://www.freewebs.com/dtknuppe/
http://drakeswg.forumarena.com/drakeswg-thread15.html
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Twi'lek
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Agricultural_Corps
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Aayla_Secura
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Lekku

History

Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away…
There was a girl. Not just any girl, but it felt like it at times. Poly’loyi’nercathi was born, as most are, and was raised on Ryloth. She was a member of Ac’gruuvan, a large fungus-growing complex on the equator.

Members was the term they used publicly after the insurrection of anti-slavery crusades swept through. They came with trumpets and banners and ideals, and left little assurance to stop the problem. Poly’loyi and many of the other Twi’leks were bonded into labour from birth. The complex was large enough that, when born, children were able to be separated from their parents to ensure no ‘funny business.’ Instead, members saw to other members. Because of this, neither she nor her peers ever knew who their parents were, though they were probably around. The parents themselves likely didn’t know, either.

Poly’loyi never wore manacles or chains, though. No, those were bound to be noticed by the rare ‘slavery inspectors;’ instead, she had a simple chip somewhere on her, as the old custom dictated. Besides, anything physical would slow down work. At the age of three, she started the simplest of tasks, such as watering mushrooms or looking for someone when another asks. As she grew older and her lekku grew stronger, she took on more ambitious tasks. Commanding droids, refuelling furnaces, and harvesting were expected jobs by age seven.

However, Poly’loyi got many of the more ‘fun’ tasks. Most of the others her age were boys, and were a lot bigger, so she could go places the others couldn’t. Many of the old boilers and machinery broke down often, and the only way to service them besides completely ripping them apart was to crawl through the crevices and tighten pipes or fix small panels. On occasion Poly’loyi had the pleasure of squeeze through hot, grease-ridden piping and circuits to bang a wrench at something until it worked, or hotwire another short-circuit to give them a few more days to work on something. After a while, she picked up on a lot, even if a lot of it was taught by someone yelling on the other side of a boiler.

In addition to Twi’leks, there were a large host of droids to complement sentient work. Besides the off-chance of a working mechanic droid, the majority of the droids were reprogrammed Pistoeka sabotage droids. Somehow the complex had accrued hundreds of them. They were better at disassembling or sorting through scrap then they were at fixing things, though. Sometimes the sheer skittering of the things was deafening.

It was quite an awkward community, but community it was, none the less. Men, women, and children ate together, worked together, and slept in semi-private quarters. Members were switched around every few months by the hierarchy, again trying to loosen bonds between individuals. As a side effect, everyone knew everyone to some degree or another. And sometimes, just sometimes, the administration let groups out of the compound as a ‘vacation’, letting them visit nearby locations on Ryloth – but guards still watched. One of Poly’loyi’nercathi’s greatest memories was that of the Floating Rock Gardens.

Ac’gruuvan was not all that it seemed, though. As many of the members learned from overhearing loud administrators, Ac’gruuvan was a food production plant for the Zann Consortium Palace located nearby. This didn’t mean much to the inhabitants, though. It just meant that you really had to watch your tongue, and keep away from anyone who looked at all out of place. Ruthless crime organizations don’t usually handle slaves nicely. Even then, there were notable leaders that many of the Twi’leks knew about – one of them being Barania, a Dathomiri witch.

And that’s where Poly’loyi’nercathi’s tale begins, really. She was working on a nutrient injector, like any other day. It had gotten moisture in it again, and the nutrient pellets had dissolved and clogged the tube. Using a needle brush, she worked through the caked parts in the tubing. Others were all around, working on whatever. There was a brief crackle of electricity, one that they all knew well: Pistoeka droid cutters. Before someone could shout out, a huge heat lamp began falling from the ceiling, disconnected by a malfunctioning droid – right above Poly’loyi. Looking up, she had just enough time to cover her head with her hands before… it stopped. In midair, inches above her head, it stopped, hovering in nothingness for all of a couple seconds. As suddenly as it began, the lamp shunted to one side and dropped harmlessly in a loud crash on the ground.

The room had been speechless, trying to figure out what happened. Scared, Poly’loyi ran to her quarters. Because of all the incessant chatter of the event, the hierarchy switched everyone around the next day – which only made it worse. Two days after the fact, rumours and half-truths spread like wildfire through the compound. Someone rushed in and caught the massive thing themselves. No, the light had missed the girl by meters. No, Barania could see through walls, and using her dark magic stopped the light – but for what reason? Poly’loyi was just glad few people took the time to name the little girl, rather than recount the feat. She denied any questions about it for days, for fear of repercussions.

The last was discredited by many who had heard the witch was offworld at the time. But too many knew what the nightsister could do, and saw the parallel. Which, in its own way, was a blessing. The members started talking, and then the guards and the administrators and then even to a couple of the local towns. And lucky for Poly’loyi’nercathi, there was a Jedi in town looking for odd children.

A couple greased palms and confused conversations, and she found herself getting ready to leave. It had been really sudden, but there it was. She didn’t quite understand, but the human who had helped her didn’t seem like the rest. Poly’loyi even had the chip, apparently in her shoulder, deactivated. One of the women who worked in the administrative quarters as a cleaner, Alema’afa, decided Poly’loyi needed a parting gift – by ‘liberating’ one of the dresses of one of the hierarchy’s guests – with a couple alterations, it fit just right.

And then she was off in a starship, travelling in the blackness of space. And for once in her life, she wasn’t just any girl.

Possessions

RP Log - RP Chronology

Arrival at the Temple (Choosing of Sith)

Character Reaction Notepad

The Masters:
Char-Langui - I don't know much about him. The small man is practical and to the point.

Svarsika-la-toa - The woman seems to want to keep the pressure off.

Resource Library

Total list of links out to Star Wars resources I've used in RP.

SW Races
Twi'lek Dictionary
Wookiepedia - Twi'lek
Wookiepedia - Ryloth
Wookiepedia - Zann Consortium
Wookiepedia - Pistoeka Sabotage Droids
Wookiepedia - Nightsisters
Wookiepedia - Floating Rock Gardens

Reserved