Chapter Text
Coruscant
Yr 1 of the Chancellorship of Their Excellency, The Mandalorian, CRC 7955
The Senate meeting is banthashit. It takes an hour and a half of Senators making speeches before they get to the actual testimony. The Jedi have recordings of the droid factories, taken by the retrieval team that infiltrated Geonosis. They have recordings of Count Dooku and the Separatist Senate meeting. They have witness statements from Obi-Wan, Murder Skywalker, and Senator Amidala, who were captured but saw the droids and droid factories before they escaped.
This is all shocking to the Senate. They are shocked. They are shocked, appalled, and betrayed. There’s a lot of arguing. The droids are a lie. The droids are not a lie. The Jedi are lying. The Jedi are not lying. The Separatists are a threat. The Separatists are not a threat.
Din doesn’t see how these people get anything done, ever.
At Helpful Yellow’s suggestion, Din has given him limited access to the feed in his HUD. Every so often, he sends a message to Din’s display, giving him a script to read whenever it’s his turn to talk. From repeated exposure and prompting, he’s learned the following:
- He’s ‘The Chair.’ The one they’ve provided in the pod is fine, but it isn’t that exciting. He’d prefer to be called ‘The Mandalorian,’ but Helpful Yellow says ‘The Chair’ is traditional. What happens if the chair breaks. Do they get a new chair, and does that become The Chair?
- ‘Open’ means ’get started.’ ‘Close’ means ’stop.’ Someone somewhere modeled this vocabulary off a hopeful idea that they could just lock these sleemos into a box to get them to shut up.
- ‘Recognize’ means ‘I admit you exist.’ ‘Do not recognize’ means ‘I refuse to admit you exist even though you’re standing right there.’ The Senate does a lot of denial, somehow thinking that has an effect on the real world. Din finds their shared delusions frankly alarming.
- If he doesn’t put a time limit on that ‘recognition,’ these people will refuse to stop talking.
- Every single one of them feels a desperate need to thank him and everybody they’re about to question before they start being insulting. They use a lot of words to do it, but he’s a bounty hunter from the Outer Rim. Kriff you and the loins you came from is something he recognizes no matter what the language.
- There’s no way the New Republic is going to last if this is how they function. Or not function, as it happens.
Din sits in his Chair, The Chair, feeds Grogu cookies and the occasional frog from his belt pouches, and stoically reads through Coruscant bounty postings in between ‘recognizing’ Senators for ten endless minutes at a time.
The Senate is getting frisky about something Obi-Wan said that Din wasn’t listening to. He’s made a list of bounties he's interested in and has moved on to reading through the Senate rules on his HUD—they’re actually longer than the New Republic’s Constitution, which doesn’t seem right—finding multiple reasons to make Senators do crunches until their livers fall out.
The Trade Federation senator is incredibly irritating.
I can’t just kick them out? Din asks Helpful Yellow via private message while Dod continues to not understand what ‘shut up’ means.
Helpful Yellow, parked in the pod with him but slightly back and to the side, responds after a moment through his HUD. Not unless you have cause.
He won’t stop talking.
Yes, sir. He’s a politician.
Din sighs. He figured if he just pretended he was a training officer over a rookie squad of Fighting Corps, everything to do with the Senate would go a lot smoother. And it kind of works. He’s got a reasonable baseline of frustration to work with.
Unfortunately, he's already been informed he's not allowed to use the same tactics a Fighting Corps trainer would to keep the Senate on track. For example, he’s not allowed to make arguing senators spar with him. Helpful Yellow and some human called Sergeant-at-Arms told him he’s also not allowed to send misbehaving senators to clean the latrines. Or stun them. Or send them out to run laps around the Senate building until they shut up. In fact, the list of things he’s not allowed to do to enforce discipline pretty much explains everything he sees wrong with the New Republic so far, in his opinion.
Fortunately, Helpful Yellow continues his trend of being Helpful and Yellow.
You can threaten the Trade Federation with censure for speaking out of turn, Helpful Yellow offers over the HUD.
What does censure involve?
The Secretary of the Senate and the clerks write it down on the permanent record for the session.
And then?
And then he goes back to interrupting.
That seems toothless. Can’t I just turn off his sound?
His HUD display shows Helpful Yellow freeze for a long moment before breaking out into a massive, toothy grin.
Sen. RIORIDAI. Are you aware that Count Dooku of Serenno and Duke Poggle of Geonosis have demanded that you be turned over to them to be tried for the murder of twenty-two brave Geonosian soldiers, Padawan Skywalker?
Sen. BINKS. Meesa think it wasa twenty-six, yeah?
Sen. RIORIDAI. Of course, my thanks to the Senator from Naboo for the correction. The brutal murder of twenty-six Geonosian soldiers defending their home planet from an invasion of hostile forces? Protecting their people from an unbalanced Force user and a Senator who had gone rogue?
Pad. SKYWALKER. It wasn’t like that.
Sen. RIORIDAI. Wasn’t it? Exactly what was it like, Padawan?
Pad. SKYWALKER. I was there to protect Senator Amidala.
Sen. RIORIDAI. Yes, you were assigned to protect her by Chancellor Palpatine, were you not? He ordered you to take her to Naboo. But you didn’t stay on Naboo, did you?
Pad. SKYWALKER. No.
Sen. RIORIDAI. That seems irresponsible of you. May I ask your reasons for taking the Senator away from Naboo security? Were they incompetent, perhaps? A threat to her safety?
Sen. AMIDALA. He didn’t take me anywhere. I decided to travel and he went with me as my protection.
Sen. RIORIDAI. My question was for Padawan Skywalker, Senator. Please let him answer.
Pad. SKYWALKER. What she said.
Sen. RIORIDAI. May I ask what reasons she gave for leaving Naboo?
Pad. SKYWALKER. It was for.
Sen. AMIDALA. I had business that is none of your concern, Senator. I fail to see what this has to do with the subject at hand.
Sup. Chanc. MANDO. Interrupting.
Sen. AMIDALA. I apologize, Your Excellency. I was under the impression that the the esteemed senator was directing the question at me. If I am asked a question, of course I must respond.
Sen. RIORIDAI. None of my concern, Senator? I think it is very much my concern. It should be everyone’s concern considering it directly led to mass murder!
Pad. SKYWALKER. It wasn’t murder! It was.
Sen. AMIDALA. Protection! He was protecting me!
Sen. RIORIDAI. Was he? Did you order him to slaughter those Geonosians on your behalf when you illegally trespassed on a hostile planet? Tell me, Padawan Skywalker, were you a knowing accomplice to her attempt to start a war? Or an unwitting tool of her manipulations? Given how you seem incapable of answering questions without having her step in for you, it seems more likely to be the latter.
Pad. SKYWALKER. I wasn’t a tool! She wasn’t manipulating me!
Sen. AMIDALA. I resent that implication.
Sen. RIORIDAI. I wasn’t implying anything, Senator. I was flat out saying it. I must congratulate you. Most people would think inciting one planetary war during their career would be sufficient, but you’ve graduated to starting galactic wars instead. Your legacy will be unparalleled. Naboo must be so proud.