Ask Argazdian Affluence

[Hera "The Joyful" Albion]

When Maura returned from her 'outing,' she and the Argazdian would see the redhead Jedi Master hunched over the back of the HK droid, his panel out and half of his parts scattered across the table. Lifting up her blackened goggles, Hera grinned at the pair and spoke, "You're back! Excellent work! I trust the ride was pleasurable, Mayor Horrace Jef? We were just discussing how best to have our conversations and I decided to fix HK-76's language issue. Please, take a seat!"

Using the Force, she lifted a rock over for the big hat man to sit on. Regaining his composure as he dismounted the speeder, the Mayor began ranting. "I cannot believe this! Do you know who I am, I have direct ties to the planetary governor! I will see you Jedi get banned from this world forever, never allowed to come back!" He raved, attempting in vain to fix his poor crumpled hat. Hera, sitting opposite him with the droids, shook her head and responded, "But then you'd still be left with your droid problem. At least let us try and fix it first."

Grumbling, the Argazdian mayor sat down while Hera gave Maura a thumbs up. Continuing to work inside the HK droid and replacing her goggles back over her eyes, Hera motioned for the tactical droid to begin talking. The practically ancient droid leaned forward and placed his 'hands' on the table. His expressionless face nodded as he began speaking, "Our Creator is in dire straits. He requires a minimum of a 22 percent increase in spare parts in order to maintain basic life support, and an additional 30 percent in extraneous parts in order to operate at full function. This you will provide us."

Immediately, the mayor slammed his hand on the table. And, immediately, he regretted it as he just hit a rock. Waving his smarting hand, he spoke, "N-NO! You demand our resources with no compensation! On top of that, your 'glorious creator' in an abomination! They're not even Argazdian anymore with how much robotics have been strapped to them. In fact-" At that moment, the mayor stopped as Hera poked her head out.

While it appeared, for a moment, that she looked at the Mayor, she actually turned towards Maura. A silent nod, meaning 'go on, mediate.'

 

[Maura Starwalk]

"Mr. Mayor- " Was it bad she'd already forgotten his name? Probably, but his hat was just so big and stupid that she couldn't remember or pay attention to anything else about him! Now that she thought about it, he was kind of ugly.... Did they wear big hats to distract from their ugly faces? "Uhh..." Shit. She'd lost her train of thought. "Look away from the hat. Look away!"

Her eyes tore away from the stupid hat she wished she'd completely torn apart earlier and leveled down to the man's eyes. "You called us here to help. You can't get mad at us when we do exactly that." Her words caused the man to think for at least a couple of seconds while he tried to find a way to argue that, and it gave her enough time to sort her jumbled-up thoughts.

"These are spare parts, no? Junk? Scrap?" She buried her black eyes into his sunken-in, wrinkled old man gaze, unblinking and definitely a little unsettling. He opened his mouth to protest, but she started again before he could drool out any more stupid excuses. "And their master - you said they're 'not even Argazdian anymore', right? Who said you get to decide who is and isn't Argazdian?"

"Th- they're more machine than man!" the Mayor protested. "Okay and? What have they done other than take spare parts to keep themselves alive?" she retorted before turning to the droids. She'd almost forgotten she was supposed to be mediating this and not picking one side over the other, even though the hat man was clearly in the wrong.

"Did you and the other droids ask permission before taking the parts?"

tag: @Black Noise

 

[Hera "The Joyful" Albion]

Hera sat quietly working on the droid while Maura did her 'diplomacy' between the Mayor and the droids. Honestly, it was going well, until Maura finally asked, "Did you and the other droids ask permission before taking the parts?" At that, the Argazdian slammed the table and cried out, "Of course they did, but we denied them! They have nothing to OFFER! We cannot be giving away our parts for free! Even if we were to put aside our differences, compensation is necessary for commerce!"

Then, with a spark from the HK droid, the machine finally turned on again. The Mayor could be seen physically recoiling as the strange machine awoke once more, but this time it spoke in a far calmer tone. "STATEMENT: Perhaps this situation can be resolved most amicably if your concerns around compensation were properly addressed. QUERY: What is it that we could provide you in return for parts?"

Hera, clearly pleasantly surprised that her work had come to fruition, began buttoning the HK droid back up as the mayor suddenly lost the composition with which he shouted at Maura with mere moments ago. "I-I-I W-Well, w-we could uh, you s-see-?" Interjecting, the HK continued, "STATEMENT: We possess the firepower to wipe your village off the map, yet we have not attacked you. This is because we have always sought a peaceful solution. OFFER: I present you with the following deal, we will send B1-battle droids to you to assist in sorting your scrap piles, in return, you will allow us to take what is necessary to sustain our master, build more droids as needed, and maintain our forms. QUERY: Is this acceptable?"

The Mayor, still clearly confused, turned to Maura as if she would suddenly be on his side. In his moment of utter bewilderment, he was actually relying on the Padawan to answer the droid for him.

 

[Maura Starwalk]

Maura folded her hands on the table in front of her, listening intently as the droid explained itself. When it declared that it had always wanted a peaceful situation and that it could wipe the Argazdians from the map if it wished, Maura shot a look at the mayor, her lip pursed and eyebrows raised.

"This seems pretty reasonable, don't you think Mr. Mayor?" Maura leaned over closer to the Argazdian and grinned. "Your town will look so much better with organized piles, and the droids get what they need to aid their master." She gave the man back his space and clapped her hands together. "It's a win-win situation!"

But really, this wouldn't be the end of it would it? Maura's face fell into thought for a few moments, and she opened her mouth again to speak. "But, Mr. Mayor, you should really think about why you dislike these droids so much. They seem very reasonable. They've even offered to give aid, and like they said, they haven't been violent at all!"

"So I think this sounds completely acceptable."

tag: @Black Noise

 

[Hera "The Joyful" Albion]

Of course it was perfectly reasonable, the Mayor knew that, but he didn't like it. However, he liked the idea of arguing with these Jedi and being continuously raided by these droids even less. Sighing loudly and with a great deal of huff and puff, the mayor raised himself up and offered out a hand to shake. Not to the droids, but to Hera, he didn't want to touch those damn machines.

Shaking his hand with a smile, Hera announced, "So it's settled then! Alrighty Maura, let's go! Let these guys talk a little more amongst themselves!" The mayor seemed flustered by this, but Hera didn't give him time to protest. Beckoning Maura over, Hera headed over towards the speeders. The mayor would need to get over his issue with the machines, after all, they were his ride home now.

Walking with Maura back towards the swoop bikes, Hera asked with a grin, "So! Good job! I feel that wrapped up nicely, even if the big hat bitches are a little flustered anyway. How are you feeling?"

@lizziie

 

[Maura Starwalk]

Hera said they were ready to go, and Maura had never jumped up so quickly in her life. She giggled when Hera called them 'big hat bitches', and only thought for half a moment about her reply.

"I feel like that mayor dude is a real pain in the ass," she responded. "Dunno what his problem was. He should chill out." His vibes were definitely off the rails. Maura shook her head. "At least we solved the issue, kinda. Hopefully they don't like, go back to hating each other."

This was the part of being a Jedi she struggled the most with. Trying to relate to others when one side was clearly in the right... it was definitely something she'd have to get used to.

tag: @Black Noise

 

[Hera "The Joyful" Albion]

Hera shrugged and smiled in response to Maura's musing. Then, getting back onto her swoop bike, Hera remarked, "It's entirely possible that, in a month's time, they will attempt to kill each other. A bloodbath of horrific proportions could occur, men, women, and children all falling to the blasters of hundreds of angry machines." Revving her speeder, she laughed, "Who knows? It's not up to us at this point! We have laid the groundwork for peace, given them the tools to work together, and I personally saw to it to correct that HK's behavior module. They have everything they need in their arsenal to do the right thing and protect one another-"

Looking at Maura, a wide grin still on her face, Hera shrugged one more time, "They just need to do it! We can't force people to do the right thing, or even to act in their own self-interest! We can only prepare them to do what is right and good. Prepare them, and hope for the best."

At that, Hera would speed away with Maura. Heading back to their starship and back to the Jedi Temple. Their work was done, and the groundwork was laid for a presence of Jedi on the world should the droids and Argazdians continue to live in harmony. The pair had done all they could, all that was left was for the Argazdians to do what was right.

@lizziie
/endthread