So who talks first? | Calibrations

[happybeeps]

WHO: Poe Dameron, OPEN
WHERE: Poe's Calibration room
WHAT: Calibrations
WHEN: 3 June - 10 June
WARNINGS: Torture, War, Weapons of Mass Destruction



You step out into a hangar, half sheltered, but open to the air along one side. The sky is blue, and in the distance there's scattered chatter from resistance members passing by as Poe and BB-8 work. Poe's perched atop the broken wing of his X-wing, scorch marks on her belly suggesting they'd recently come out of a tough scrape.

Poe's still half in his flight suit, the upper half tied round his waist, his old jacket sitting off to the side, draped over a ladder rung with care. There's scattered tools and wires to navigate, a makeshift workbench set up with his helmet and blaster abandoned there, next to his data pad which flashes at him with some unread message, though Poe seems to be pointedly ignoring it. Looking quite out of place, there's a tooka doll, not the sort of sentiment one might associate with Poe, and beside it, and old model of an A-Wing.

Comments

[happybeeps]

Poe scoffed in surprise, arching a brow in turn, but of course Thrawn would think that.

"Unlike yourselves?" he countered pointedly. No government was going to be perfect, but the Republic was far better than how the galaxy suffered under the Empire.

[art_of_war]

Thrawn's other eyebrow joined the first.

"But it is not called the new Empire. My people knew that the Republic was decaying long before it fell, and I sincerely doubt that they were the only ones. So I find it passing strange that another galactic government would use the moniker of one that fell."

[happybeeps]

"We believe in the fundamental premise of the Republic. We believe in the Senate, and in democracy." The data pad seemed to flash a little more urgently, and Poe made a point to ignore it. "It's was a new start." Was.

[art_of_war]

Thrawn's lips quirked up in a small, rueful smile. He turned back to close his eyes and enjoy the flow of air currents. But he would have to move out of the sunlight soon.

"I see."

Thrawn was categorically against democracy systems of government, feeling they were far too slow to react and sluggish throughout that response. To him, they were just a chaotic group of voices.

"And has it been a 'new start' free of corruption?"

[happybeeps]

Poe frowned, not in the mood to be challenged on this point, clearly, but not about to back down.

"No system is perfect, but the people were free." The freedom was hard fought for, and however short the peace might have been, it was worth it.

[art_of_war]

"And has 'being free' been enough to stop smaller disputes from escalating into wars? Has it fed the starving or cared for the sick?"

Thrawn did step out of the sunlight now but he hadn't looked at Poe again. The Empire certainly hadn't done any of that, but that was exactly Thrawn's point. Poe had been quick to break righteous on Thrawn and made 'being free' a point of morality. But the truth was The New Republic must have its share of corruption because every government did including the Empire's extreme cruelty. If history was any indicator the New Republic would eventually give another army/navy and other resources to a single person again.

[happybeeps]

Poe fixed Thrawn with a hard look, a twitch in his jaw and he was silent for a long while. "It did a lot of good for more than two decades. We had peace." Past tense. It was all past tense.

"My parents fought for that peace. They fought so we wouldn't have to fight any more."

[art_of_war]

Thrawn was unmoved by Poe's angry behavior. He still had his hands clasped behind his back and remained icy calm as he moved from the sunlight of the open hangar doors to the relative shade beside Poe's X-wing.

"It seems to me that you are conflating your parents' war on your own."

Thrawn didn't say it but had the thought that two decades was not as long a time as Poe was making it out to be. He also noticed that Poe continued to use past tense.

"Or at the minimum, you are aggrandizing them."

[happybeeps]

"You really think the Empire was going to be the saving grace of the galaxy? With everything they did?" Poe countered. Maybe it was different working for them, but Poe couldn't understand how anyone could think trying to find a better way than ruling by threat of death was a bad thing, now matter how short lived it was.

[art_of_war]

"No, I do not. But the Empire had a standing army and a fleet of operational Warships."

And whatever their questionable behavior, Thrawn only had an interest in their military capability.

"Thre is a larger galaxy beyond the Empire, Poe Dameron."

[happybeeps]

"And they were still beat."

Poe narrowed his eyes at that last comment. It doesn't feel like it a lot of time. However much they've tried to escape the past, pieces of the Empire were still there, still trying to make the galaxy bow down.

"Empire...First Order, neither of them will be satisfied until the whole galaxy is theirs. There won't be any larger galaxy left."