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Master Fay was at the controls with Harry, not willing to let him take the controls in such a busy space Lane, while Aayla was listening in on the local traffic. "That's surprising…" she said after a second, her head whipping up as she looked over at her Master then Master Fay. "But according to the news, the queen of Naboo has just pushed for a vote of no-confidence in the Chancellor."
Master Fay brows knit together, unable to bring to mind who that was. "What was the Chancellor's name again? So many have come and gone I forget."
Quinlan looked at her askance for a moment, trying to figure out if that was a joke or not but Master Fay was being serious. Very few chancellors ever did anything that mattered to the Outer Rim, and she had not returned beyond the Inner Rim let alone the Core Worlds up until the point where the Force had told her she needed to be on the Explorer. Moreover, she couldn't really care less about the Senate or its power structure. She dealt with the politicians on the planet she went to, not the sector representatives.
"Chancellor Finis Valorum, he's been in power for eight years. As to the vote of no confidence have no idea whether or not that's a good idea or not," Quinlan replied eventually decided to take Fay's question at face value. The Chancellor has been rocked lately by several scandals since well before the Trade Summit on Eriadu and of course you know about all of the recent conflicts that have been popping up here and there throughout the Republic. There has been talk of his weak leadership being at fault for that, and that more centralized power and control could help stop further outbreaks of violence."
"Ah of course if something doesn't work once, why not try it again and again until it does..." Master Fay said under her breath, a sign of disdain she would normally not have allowed anyone to see.
Beside her Lily shook her head from where she was 'standing', half her body visible through the wall of the cockpit. But it was the ghost who expanded upon their joint opinion. "Even with Hypercom and hyperspace travel the Republic is too large for that kind of centralized authority to work in actually keeping order unless you're going for a full totalitarian government. The Ord systems are a better idea, nodal military forces able to respond to anything in their sectors. But given the downsizing the Republic fleet has seen in the last six hundred plus years I can't say it surprises me that there's been more outbreaks of violence in recent decades."
"Agreed, and at the same time factionalism and guilds have grown in strength throughout the Republic, each of them spending more time arguing about their rights rather than obligations." Fay went on as they finally got clearance to descend through the planetary shield, which shut down in a set section to let them and a few other ships through. "The Senate, even the sector representatives from the Outer Rim or even Colonies Region, have been too busy with their own power base, looking inward rather than outward for as long as I can remember, and that is a very long time. And whenever trouble comes up it is always someone else's duty to do something about it, and someone else's problem that it came up at all."
"That was too obvious a setup for me to want to follow up on Fay." Lily replied dryly. "But she's right. You can't have it both ways, both wanting more centralized authority but not actual responsibility."
As Quinlan's shoulders moved in a half shrug to indicate his ambivalence towards politics of all kinds Lily looked at her son. "Your Force Stealth is covering you?"
"Yes Mum," Harry said, looking ahead of them out the viewport as they descended through the shield, taking in the expanse of the city that was this entire planet. "I, I really don't like it here," he said after a few seconds of shocked staring, shaking his head. "I had heard that the whole planet was a gigantic city but seeing it is something else. This planet has no balance, no growing things, no natural source of water, I mean, how can it even survive like this?!"
"Most of the cargo haulers you see are bringing in food or taking away waste because you are correct Harry. Coruscant could not survive without interstellar trade for more than two weeks from what I remember. And you are correct my padawan," Master Fay said formally shaking her head and sighing sadly. "Coruscant has been like this for tens of thousands of years. No one has seen the ground, the actual surface of this planet for millennia."
'I always feel sad when I come here, that there are so many billions of people here who will never see anything remotely like actual nature." she continued, shaking her head. "The Temple was built here to make us that much closer to the Senate, but I've always felt that was wrong. It centralized our Order and placed us near the halls of power, but also removed us from the common people too."
A second later Fay felt her lips quirk upwards as she felt a mind through the Force reaching out to her in greeting. "Master Yoda knows we are here," she said aloud, "or at least that I am. If Aayla is correct about how good your skills are now Harry, he should be unable to sense your Force presence just yet."
A moment later, Aayla and Quinlan felt Master Yoda's mind reaching out to them as well, and Quinlan smiled faintly at the gentle pressure through the Force. Master Yoda's presence sometimes filled the temple when he was doing something like this. The other Masters could do much the same at this distance, at least those who had studied mind techniques. But their touches were like a poke or a touch felt through the mind. Yoda's was like a wind, moving over and around you.
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