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Tukphen
Jun 15th, 2016, 07:03:05 AM
Alliance Cruiser Defiance

It was a rare experience that Tukphen enjoyed today: staring down at the slowly rotating orb of one of the homeworlds, through a viewport constructed by Mon Calamari hands. It was not his homeworld of Mantan of course, nor the Mon Calamari spawnworld of Dac that he represented in the Senate: in fact it was Pammant, a world settled largely by the Quarren cousin-race. Perhaps there was a time when that distinction might have been important; but if that had ever been a viewpoint in Tukphen's heart, it had been purged from it now.

He had researched on an idle whim, wondering if any of the young men and women serving aboard this starship had even begun to breathe life's waters at the time of the Clone Wars, and the last great schism that had turned the Quarren and Mon Calamari against each other. Soldiers of his generation remembered the war; remembered the Quarren culpability in it; retained the age-old impulse to blame the Quarren for the Imperial occupation that had been brought down upon them - retaliation for the aid the Quarren had provided the Separatists with. People of Tukphen's age knew from birth to blame the Quarren's for all their ills, rightly or wrongly. But the officers aboard this ship? Aside from seven out of a crew of thousands, all had been born under Imperial rule. They understood the important truth: that the Empire was the true enemy, and that freedom demanded unity. That was the prybar by which they had liberated themselves from occupation. That was the tool they had forged into a weapon to strike back at the Imperials on the Rebellion's behalf. That was the absolute truth, the one that mattered: two species, but one race. That was the reality Dac and it's sister worlds needed; and that was the truth that Tukphen had embraced into his soul.

Yet, the divisions still existed. While the Mon Calamari strove for integration, the Quarren people demanded equality: balance, rather than unity. Were the Defiance's orbit lower, he would see that the dockyard constructs orbiting the world below were not marked with the symbol of the Mon Calamari Shipyards, but rather of Hoersch-Kessel Drive: a corporation gifted to the Quarren leadership, to empower their contributions to Alliance industry, independent of those of the Mon Calamari. Perhaps it was a step in the wrong direction; or perhaps it was the pragmatic reality, rather than his idealistic hopes for oneness. Perhaps the Quarren truly did deserve the agency and freedom to leverage their own role within the Alliance, instead of sharing the one that the Mon Calamari had carved and designed. Yet, there were those among his own people who saw it as a dangerous choice: Hoersch-Kessel was, to the minds of many, irrevocably entangled with the Confederacy it had produced ships for; on Minntooine in particular, the Quarren had helped to forge some of the Separatists' most dangerous warships. By gifting such a corporation to the Quarren, some saw it as a dangerous past adversary rearming itself, gathering it's strength to betray the Mon Calamari people yet again. Perhaps there was some shred of truth to that also; or perhaps it was nothing more than the persistence of old paranoias.

So much truth. So many different, conflicting viewpoints; none of them false. Tukphen squeezed processed oxygen from his air bladder as he had often seen the humans do: a sigh, they called it; an auditory expression of so many states. For Tukphen, it conveyed weariness, and the realisation that for all his hopes for the future, the utopian ocean he drempt of was still far from reach.

A sound chimed through the Defiance's internal communications, a few words - uttered in Basic, as per Alliance protocol - notified the crew of their impending departure from orbit, advising them to brace themselves for hyperlaunch in the next few minutes. Tukphen paid the warning little mind: he had what the humans called sea legs, a notion that amused him greatly; and until a few months ago, this fine vessel had been the seat of Admiral Tukphen's command. There was little that she could do that the Senator's old bones were not instinctively prepared for.

Abandoning his viewport, Tukphen turned to his sweeping desk, disc-like eyes drinking in the details of the bureaucratic display now arrayed before him. He missed the Rebellion: missed the tangled makeshift complexity by which it functioned. He missed his uniform, and the role that went along with it: not merely the Alliance Minister of Supply, but the Admiral of it's Ordnance & Supply Corps, commander of a fleet of starships, transports, and medical frigates that catered to the Alliance's every need. It was not as glamorous as the commands of Admirals like Ackbar or Reshmar, it did not bring with it the same kind of glory and prestige; but it felt valuable, a contribution worth making. Nowadays, Tukphen had been elevated; hoisted from his position like a faulty drive coil, another Admiral nestled in leadership of the Sixth Fleet while he languished like a beached Whaladon atop a sandbank of politics and bureaucracy.

At least on occasion he was able to escape, find excuses to spend time here aboard his old ship, commandeering it by Senatorial decree for important business. Such was the case these past days; the opportunity that had allowed him to return to the Calamari Sector, ostensibly to tour the various shipyards and construction sights to review their production readiness. It was not entirely a fictitious excuse: maximising the output of the Mon Calamari Shipyards, and bringing these Quarren yards back into operation was of vital importance if they wished to supply the Alliance with the ships it would need to patrol her boarders and safeguard her space. Starkiller weapons were all well and good for discouraging the Empire, but they did little to allay the pirates and smugglers that had already begun to plague the Alliance; and when the Imperials finally grew too impatient with peace and sought to test the Alliance's resolve, the fleets would need to be ready to act, lest the Alliance be forced to do the unthinkable - again.

Tukphen reached for his comlink, attaching it to the lapel of his uncomfortably civilian robes. He felt the slight shift in the air, the faint rumble through the deck, and felt himself brace in reflex as the Defiance hurtled itself to speeds beyond that of mere light. A glance at the viewpoint confirmed as much. The last leg of their shipyard tour complete, the Defiance's commander had ordered to convey Tukphen and his Quarren counterpart back to Dac, to deliberate with local leadership before they were forced to return to the woefully arid savannahs of Bothawui.

With one last look at his desk, and a gentle caress of the Defiance's nearby bulkhead, Tukphen squeezed out another sigh, and set off into the bowels of the ship in search of Thada Adel.

Thada Adel
Jun 16th, 2016, 09:16:27 PM
There was no such thing as a pleasant trip home. Not anymore. As much as it would be nice to be able to turn everything off and focus on the shipyard inspection, there was simply too much to do in the short visit to the system. The race and class discussion was ever ongoing. She kept in touch with her allies and pledged her support from afar, but now that she was in system it was harder to ignore the plight of her people. It had come a long way from where it was so many years ago. She remembered growing up in the darkness at the bottom of the oceans. She remembered the bitter hate bred in her people. Hate for the Mon Calamari. It was only matched by their lust for the surface. Since then a unwavering campaign for equality had seen Quarren rise from the depths and ascend to new heights. By cooperating instead of seizing.

It was far from perfect. There was generations of racial hate to weed out still. She had accepted that a truly united Dac would never come about during her lifetime. She would toil away regardless so that the future generations might someday enjoy a peace and love for all citizens of the system.

Being a senator was something she would never get used to. She would always prefer to be out there, campaigning for equality. Here she had the potential to do so much more for not just her people but the whole Alliance. It was too great a thing to pass, but she would always miss just being Thada. Miss being home on Dac. Miss having to only think about her own planet instead of the hundreds that she now concerned herself with. Dac was not the only planet that needed help. There were plenty of others dealing with racial hate, slavery, environmental disasters, and greed corporations. They all needed an advocate to fight on their behalf. Thada Adel was mother to all worlds.

The observatory had offered a wonderful view of the shipyards before they entered warp. Thada glanced up once in while to watch the stars zip by, but her attention was in great demand across the numerous datapads that littered the round table before her. Messaging being sent back and forth between corespondents on Dac flashed with new messages that she would reply to with a delicate taps of her clawed fingers. There were many who wished a meeting. Fellow advocates, politicians, business owners, and of course, her father. Not that he deserved that title, and it had been years since she had referred to him as such, but every once in awhile he would try to get in her good graces. It never worked. She was dedicated to dismantling his company and he knew it. His corruption, pollution, and abuse of workers was not sustainable and it was only because of his vast wealth and influence that he'd manage to keep the doors of his mines open this long.

The old generation was holding out against the new.

The whooshing of the door caught her attention, forcing her eyes up to see her colleague and friend Tukphen step into the Observatory. Setting down her datapad among the others she greeted him with a smile on her orange lips. "Only one more shipyard to inspect. Our journey is almost complete."

Tukphen
Mar 3rd, 2017, 01:24:40 AM
"Would that it were," he replied, with as much of a somber tone as he could inject into Basic words. Were he human, he might have offered a sad smile to his political compatriot. "The task at hand may be close to an end, but there are many leagues left to swim on our journey, and the current flows against us."

There were many who found the swirling vision of hyperspace reassuring. Tukphen was not one of them. To him it was a maelstrom, a swirling funnel of air that kept the world's nourishing waters out of reach. It sparked fragments of old, unpleasant memories that he had no desire to relive. Perhaps that was the hidden blessing of political office: though his duties as Minister saw him travel the stars often, he spent far less time in hyperspace than he had as part of a Rebel fleet on the run. He even had the opportunity to experience natural gravity and natural air for many of his working days; such a shame that it was the savannahs of Bothawui beneath his fins and not a more hospitable, humid world. The Alliance government had made its home on Dac once. Sadly, a Mon Calamari's paradise was not quite suited to all of the Alliance's other races. Many candidates had been considered, and Tukphen had himself hoped that Naboo would be chosen: perhaps he could have felt at home there, amidst its swamps and subterranean oceans. Instead the Bothans had got their way, arguing so effectively as they always did.

Tukphen turned his attention to Thada Adel. He was not sure what constituted beauty among the Quarren, but he found her presence pleasing: not in an amorous sense, but in that he felt at ease; an odd sentiment for a Mon Calamari to feel towards a Quarren. It was her passion that Tukphen respected, her dedication to progress and her belief - which he shared - that Dac should move forward, and that its people should do so together. He wondered how the people of Dac had been so lucky: how fortunate it was to have representatives of the two races who were, at times at least, capable of agreeing and cooperating. Not always of course; but that foundation of concord turned each argument into an empassioned debate. Every shoal had a silver gleam, and when it came to politics, that gleam for Tukphen was Senator Adel.

Perhaps now was the time for such a discussion.

"Since we have a short time before our next inspection, perhaps there are some preliminary talks that we should embark upon? As Minister of Supply, and as an advocate of progress, it does my heart glad to see Quarren industry beginning to find its feet once again. But as representative of the Mon Calamari -"

Another opportunity for an improvised human sigh. As well as a gleam, many shoals hid a sharkfish as well, and this was Tukphen's: the curse that his ideals did not always align with his people's government, and that at times he was required to speak with their voice instead of his own.

"- there are concerns."