"I think we'll stick to trail mix and water." She checks her pockets, makes a bit more while she's sitting here. 

"Good call. Anything else you need?"

"Can't think of anything. Jet?"

Jet, who's sat on the lower bunk with the tablet, shakes her head.

"All right, then. I'll see you tomorrow morning."

"See you!"

And she flops next to Jet with her own tablet.

She closes the door behind her and it locks with a click.

Lots to do. Get in touch with Chance, make excuses about the rendezvous, find out what he knows, orchestrate his death, contact that Dr. Lokin and see if he's come up with anything, figure out what if anything she'll be passing along to Hunter about that... busy, busy. And of course, there's the kids to think about. They seem... earnest. Which is not the same thing as naive, but it's still exploitable. She'll keep half an eye on their Holonet activity, see if anything happens there.

The features of their browser are 'convenient' as well as 'specifically magically untraceable and secure.' Cipher Nine does not have the relevant meta-permissions to access what they're doing.

(Which for Wiccan is mostly searching for a large scatter-shot of assorted media. The local cultural equivalent of soap operas says a lot about that culture. Do they have aliens? What do people think about the aliens? Are Force users funny or feared or normal - )

Jet meanwhile reads through history books and posts and internet articles, any blogs about politics... She can accelerate her eyes without it being obvious, so to the outside it looks like she's skimming a bit quickly while she's actually reading everything. Not as fast as she could, but still faster than someone in slow-mode.

Humans are the most common species in the galaxy, but there are lots of others. Notables include Twi'lek, Mon Calamari, Rodians, Hutts, Wookies, Ithorians, Zabrak, Duros, Gand, Mirialan, Anomid... the list continues for quite a while. The Galactic Republic is notedly multicultural, the Sith Empire decidedly less so. Force users are mostly feared or respected, and seem to uniformly be either Sith or Jedi.

The recent history of the galaxy is... fraught. There are two major powers: the Galactic Republic and the Sith Empire. The Republic occupies territories more towards the core of the galaxy, the Empire lives closer to the fringe. Around forty years ago, the expanding Republic encountered the edge of the Empire. The Empire killed the explorers for landing on Korriban, which is approximately holy to the Sith. The Republic sent a fleet to look for them. The Empire attacked the fleet. Things sort of spiraled downhill from there, culminating in a siege of the Republic's capital world, Coruscant, by the Empire. Following that, a treaty was signed which established a shaky peace, following the drawing of new borders. (Reading between the lines, the Empire was overextended.) This was just over twenty years ago. In the intervening time, the treaty has slowly diminished in force, becoming not even worth the flimsiplast it was written on. It is commonly accepted that the war is back on now.

Sounds complicated, yeah.

She starts poking at cultural stuff surrounding Sith and Jedi. Does either side have, like, a publicly published manifesto? (She'll probably have Jet read that.) Do people in the Empire or Republic seem happier? Does either side have censorship laws?

There's no manifestos as such, but she can pick up a general sense of the public's perception. At their best, the Jedi are the guardians of peace and justice in the galaxy and the Sith are the ultimate expression of freedom, power, and will. At their worst, the Jedi are oppressively conservative tools of a moribund bureaucracy completely out of touch with the modern galaxy and the Sith are murderous tyrants who would see the galaxy burn for their personal amusement.

Both sides have laws about the sorts of things one can say during wartime, but these are trivially bypassed and no one thinks too much of them. There's no perceptible difference in happiness levels, except for people who live on worlds where the war is currently being fought. No matter which side they're on, they don't like it.

Yeah doesn't seem like there's super obvious bad guys here. More two cultures that met and instantly disliked each other.

What are the laws like? How do you become a Sith or a Jedi?

Force sensitivity is apparently something one can be tested for. Babies born in the Republic are tested at birth, and those that pass a threshold are given to the Jedi Order. The Sith induct their recruits later, in the ten-to-fifteen years old range. Joining up does not seem to be entirely voluntary, in either case.

The Galactic Republic is a kind of federated representative democracy. Members are largely free to self-govern on the level of planetary systems, as long as those governments meet basic standards defined in the Republic's constitution. System governments send representatives to the Senate, which is the legislative body for the Republic as a whole. There are a few multiple-system subpolities, but these are rare, as they still only get the standard Senate representatives. The Senate elects from its members a Supreme Chancellor, who leads the Senate and wields executive power, though much of that is semi-permanently delegated to smaller committees within the Senate.

The Sith Empire is ruled absolutely by the Emperor. Theoretically. He hasn't given a direct command since the Treaty of Coruscant. In practice, the Dark Council rules the Empire, and is made up of the twelve most powerful Sith in the Empire. Each is responsible for a certain aspect of the Empire: Military Offense, Military Defense, Military Strategy, Production and Logistics, Intelligence, Ancient Knowledge, Mysteries, Sith Philosophy, Laws and Justice, Expansion and Diplomacy, Technology, and Biotic Sciences. The Councilors organize their responsibilities into various Ministries, which direct and employ the non-Sith officials.

She really isn't happy with forced recruitment, thinks she might have a bias towards 'democracies' but a bigger bias towards 'guys stop fighting.'

Well, is there any really low hanging fruit lying around at least? Famines, droughts, giant evil space whales, diseases caused by things she can straightforwardly picture and wish away whose absence won't cause other troubles...

There are enough habitable planets in the galaxy that there's always some natural disaster happening somewhere. Earthquakes, floods, superstorms, wildfires, runaway greenhouse effects... Giant evil space whales don't seem to be a class of problems encountered here. Medicine is pretty advanced; anything that they only have palliative care for is complicated enough that she'd need to do more than cursory research into it.

Maybe 'teleporting around fixing natural disasters' is something she could talk to Cipher Nine about; that's usually appropriately non-controversial hero work, and could at least establish her as powerful enough to get a say in things. (In the morning, her teammate's started kicking her and telling her to sleep.)

She curls up on the bottom bunk so there's still enough room for Jet to sit, and drifts off.

Jet stays awake, reading more about politics and history.

There's lots of both. Are there any particular areas she wants to focus on?

Mostly identifying politics local to where they are right now. Imperial, right? So what's the laws and shit that're gonna apply to them?

Taris is technically within Imperial territory, but based on the hyperlane connections, it's much closer to Republic space. No one really cares because it was bombed to oblivion during the Republic's Mandalorian Wars some three hundred years ago, and nobody wants to front the cost of reconstruction.

Imperial citizens are required to serve a minimum of two years in the military upon reaching age eighteen for human-standard lifespans, though this is deferrable up to age twenty-five with an educator's recommendation. Theft, assault, murder, and such are all illegal with punishments ranging from fines to imprisonment to execution. Law enforcement is done by police, except if the crime involved or was committed by an active member of the military, in which case the military police would be involved. Citizens are required to obey orders given by military officers even if they are not in active service. They are also required to obey orders given by Sith, though there is no official punishment written out for failure to do so. It may be inferred that Sith do their own punishment for disobedience. Imperial systems are run by a system governor, who may enforce additional laws specific to his or her situation, as required.

Well, they're both physically sixteen (though chronologically their age is a mess; an argument could be made they're also either 'eight' or 'fourteen'), so, even if they had a stroke and decided becoming citizens was a good idea they're under the threshold for military service. Laws don't seem too byzantine on an imperial scale, though she's going to have to ask Cipher Nine what's up with the Sith's legal position... What's the position of non-citizen residents?

Non-citizens are exempted from military service and holding or performing any government jobs. They are required to comply with all Imperial laws, and crimes committed by or to them are investigated by the military police, except if the non-citizen resident is a slave, in which case jurisdiction is determined what category the owner falls under.

Slavery is possibly a problem to point Wiccan at. What kind of slavery, how do you become a slave, how are people kept in slavery, how are they released...

Debt bondage is the most common form of slavery in the Empire, and the only one legal for citizens of the Empire to engage in. However, it is not illegal to lease chattel slaves from a non-Imperial actor, such as the Hutt Cartel. A ninety-nine year lease is a common tactic exploiting this loophole, and the Cartel offers this as a standard contract.