"You can, but I don't expect they will see their future as being so inevitably similar to their past as I do."

"We could discuss what to do if hypothetically it is."

"You could put the Jedi on the other end of the universe from where the Sith are."

"I'm definitely going to do that, but if they're inclined to invent enemies no matter what that might not be enough."

"I suppose they are at least less obvious about it than the Sith. Someone like you publicly watching might keep them in line."

Nod.

And pop back to the garden place -

Where Satele is still sitting serenely.

"My advisors are worried that even if the Sith were all gone you'd want to keep up the war with the Empire."

"If the Sith were removed I do think a peace could be brokered between Empire and Republic. We would only continue to fight if the Empire gives us no other choice."

"Are you good at noticing when you have other choices?"

"I'm not sure what you mean."

"Like - hmmm. Someone says to me 'I wish we had a choice besides eternal war, but there's no other choice.' If the person is really creative and really motivated to avoid war then I might believe them about not having other choices. But if the person is not very creative, or if they don't mind that much, then I probably won't believe them. I know someone who fed a planet into a black hole. He didn't have a better choice. But most people, if they told me they did that and didn't have a better choice, I'd wonder how long they tried for one, how bad they actually thought it was..."

Satele was not expecting the black hole anecdote.

"If the Sith disappear, the Republic will reopen peace negotiations with the Empire. They will be conducted in good faith on our end, as we always have done. The Jedi object to the war the Empire is currently waging, not its existence."

"But trying to 'conduct a negotiation in good faith' isn't the same thing as trying to end a war."

"Explain the difference to me."

"If the other side's being really stupid and unreasonable and you're trying to have conducted a negotiation in good faith, then you go 'well, here we are being reasonable and them being unreasonable, I guess we've done all we can'. If you're trying to end the war you - offer to apologize for things you don't think you did wrong, when the other side is stupid and unreasonable you try harder, you don't worry about whether you conducted yourselves with honor, you just worry about whether the war ends."

"I see your point. I agree, war is terrible and if we sacrifice our dignity to end it, that would be a small price to pay. But the Jedi would not be the only party at the table, the Republic's negotiators may not take to it so readily. And if compromise is not fully accepted by both sides we only sow the seeds of the next war."

"The Republic is losing all its planets because they'd rather have infinite stuff than endless war. Maybe they want peace too."

"I hope that proves true."

"Me too."

And pop. And he waits for Cipher Nine to be done with whatever she's doing.

"Back again?"

"Yeah. I'm not good at this stuff, I don't know how to end the war. I tried explaining to them how to not be awful but it's hard to explain to people."

"Yeah. I don't think it's the best use of your time."

"All the planets have all their stuff, I did that first."

"I think the Jedi mostly just wanted to meet you, if you don't want to keep talking to them that would be okay."