"...I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understand what you're implying; can you - expand that out a step, especially the 'known strength of Jedi' bit, and whether you expect the new order thing to produce action for or against un-horrible-ifying things?"

Deskyl and DZ sign back and forth for a minute, after DZ offers a polite 'one moment, please, ma'am'.

    "Master Deskyl expects that most of the high-ranking Sith will attack whoever defeats the Emperor immediately after he's defeated, in order to take advantage of any injuries, exhaustion, or other effects on them from the battle with him. But she doesn't expect all of them to do so; some will try other strategies, likely including fleeing, taking revenge on Sith they disliked but were prevented from killing by the Emperor, or killing other Sith or otherwise capturing their resources in hopes of convincing whoever ultimately achieves control of the empire of their strength or usefulness. She doesn't know enough about Dark Council or their internal politics to make specific predictions; she just notes that this is typical behavior for experienced Sith in a situation like that. In particular she doesn't expect someone who defeats the Emperor to face an alliance of more than, at most, two or three Council members, and it's very likely that their attacks will interfere with each other, or that they'll attack each other outright in hopes of improving their chances of taking the emperorship. She expects this to happen regardless of who defeats the Emperor; it's unrelated to whether he's defeated by someone who will improve things. Jedi don't behave that way - she's not entirely sure why, but it seems to be related to the fact that you aren't involved in governing - and that makes you more able to act as groups in coordinated ways, without infighting, which is a noticeable strategic advantage."

"Thank you; I was under the impression that you were saying that, but couldn't entirely rule out other potential meanings."

"It seems that the situation that is likely to be most necessary to have a good plan for recovering from is 'literally the entire Sith Empire is backstabbing itself'.  That's kind of horrifying, honestly; how it's survived this long is becoming more and more of a mystery with every new fact I learn about it."

Dekyl nods again.

    "That's mostly accomplished via a combination of top-down and lateral defense, ma'am - Master Deskyl and her co-prentice Lord Grauzatis would have killed each other, but Lord Pritruth disallowed it and would have killed either of them if they'd tried; many of Lord Pritruth's clients would be more than happy to take his facility for themselves, but his other clients would object to losing access to his services and would cooperate to defend him against that."

"Good grief."

    "Yes ma'am."

"...Is there something I should know about this Lord Grauzatis fellow?"

Deskyl is slightly more insistent about the calming effect, this time, though if Diana hasn't taken it after a moment she'll signal for DZ to go ahead anyway.

    "He's studying torture, ma'am."

"...for what possible kriffing reason?!  Oh wait it's the institutional kriffing suffering fetish, kriffing banthashit Sith philosophy --"

Diana pauses.  Takes a deep breath.  The swirl of emotions she's feeling becomes more stable, controlled, though it's certainly not denied.

"I see why you want him dead.  You know him better than I ever could.  Will he stop, when he's told to?  Was this research his idea?"

Deskyl sighs.

    "Killing him would arguably be a mercy, she says, ma'am. He won't have much left without his research."

"...Empty void, that's just...sad."

Nod.

    "Lord Pritruth has gotten better at not breaking his apprentices since Lord Grauzatis, she says, ma'am."

Diana opens her mouth, but no words come out for a good few tries.

"That should not have to be a skill that one learns.

"It's different from being a good teacher, but, not hurting your students and certainly never leaving them worse off for learning, is a minimum for being a teacher at all."

Shrug.

    "Nobody was going to stop him, she says, ma'am."

    "She says that the two of you could, though."

"Then let's...do that.  Stop him, and stop the structure above him from replacing him with someone who perpetuates the cyclical abuse, and eventually just stop the whole kriffing Empire.  I think we can.  I think we should.  ...You in?"

    "She says she'll need another month or two of recovery, ma'am."

"Certainly, I wouldn't want to be unprepared.  That time estimate...Is it calculated with or without the aid of healing techniques such as may be learned by Jedi?  I can learn more than I know."

    "She doesn't expect healing to help beyond what it has, ma'am. Most of what she needs is to get back into fighting form."

"Oh!  I actually know techniques specifically for that sort of thing!  I could teach you them!  I wonder if they can be improved by feeding them emotions?  And, I heard something about Sith Alchemy once?"

    "She is absolutely not going to do Sith Alchemy to herself, ma'am."

"Yeah I kind of figured, I just wanted to see if there was something she knew to be potentially useful that I would not be capable of knowing because, Jedi.  I'll get you a holocron of the reinforcement stuff later?"

    "Yes ma'am, she says thank you."

"We're allies and hopefully friends; we help eachother.  ...that said, I have a vague impression that I'd be making a hypocrite of myself if I brushed this off as nothing, so, you're welcome?  I'm going to go encode the - oh, are we going to have weird holocron compatibility problems?  Is that a thing?  I don't think it's a thing if I make the holocron myself since I'm sure you're not evil, but I figure I'd better ask, just in case."

    "She doesn't expect it to be, ma'am. And there's a chance she'll be able to work with standard Jedi holocrons even if most Sith can't, though she won't want to do it very often."