He's not talking. The Jedi will relay an emotion described as incredulous snort.

Kina shrugs.  "Well.  I tried.  The offer's on the table.  Hard way it is, til then."

And she hangs up.

She'll just have to collect all the Kaminoan records, then pass them to the analysts, as well as the Healers.

Antilles and Chancellor Elbis aren't able to get authorization from the Senate before the day is over, but they're prepared to shut down the program as soon as possible. The two hundred thousand clones in preparation haven't actually made it beyond a few cells, so they're probably just going to abort those. The thousand who are already born... well, they're prepared to go forward with, uh, buying them, and then finding them new homes. They were hoping to be able to invalidate the contract, but it seems like Kamino will be able to claim payment for the costs they've already spent, although of course they'll at least try to get their money back through the courts. But overall, it's early enough in this project that the consequences aren't going to be that serious.

Unless, of course, the Senate votes to form an army.

The thing is, even with this being basically slavery, there's going to be a pretty strong case that an army is necessary. Despite the Republic claiming to be the rulers of the galaxy, they really only control 75% or so, and the remaining quarter are generally those with the strongest armies - the Confederacy, the Hutts, and then a lot of smaller planetary systems experienced in war, such as Mandalore, Oba Diah, Ord Mantell... it all adds up to a lot. Luckily enough, the Republic's enemies aren't actually allied with each other, but if they were... well, no matter what their population, the Republic planets' military presence isn't 75%. It's about 20%.

Could they build up an army, maybe even faster than the eight years or so it'll take these clones to reach adulthood? Yes. But it would be incredibly difficult, primarily just because no individual planet really has much of an incentive to contribute - it'll cost so much, and why should they bother, they won't have much of an impact by themselves. Even with the new reforms, coordination isn't really something the Republic's good at. And if a planet has to contribute somehow... well, ethics aside, it's a lot cheaper to pay a bit in taxes and create an army of formulaic slaves, then to send their own people to die.

This time, it's not even the Senators' corruption that would make them vote for the clone army. The people are going to prefer growing soldiers over joining a fight themselves.

This is bad. This is bad. Why do they even have to have a war looming on the horizon? If the Confederacy would just stop building so many damn droids, they wouldn't have to worry about this, it would be better for everyone. What is Dooku even doing?

Well...

He could, uh...

Have his, uh, ambassador handle this?

The one person on his side who inexplicably seems to have a bit of Dooku's trust?

Why is his life like this.

"Make sure they take out the sunsscorched """loyalty""" chips either way.  Those are Sith-grade horribleness waiting to happen.  They might be Sith horribleness.  ...If it helps, I don't think that it's - inherently wrong to clone someone, or make a sapient droid; it's just inherently wrong to conscript them once you've done that; it's - there's a moral argument around creating people that like to do horrible work, too, but honestly as long as they're in this of their own free informed choice, with no strings attached, I think that the best you can do from your position has been done, no matter what the Senate ends up deciding.  ...That said, if the Confederacy is building droid-based military, why isn't the Republic making their own droid forces?  Surely we have some industry, even without the Trade Federation, and we can make better droids than the poor clankers we saw in the Senate attack, or the droidekas.  I certainly have design thoughts.  And do contact Naboo; the Gungans are almost miracle workers with especially their shield technology."

Kina taps the shield on her back.  "This bounces blaster-bolts."

"...If you're suggesting I visit Serenno, you'll need Master Windu's sign-off. Not that I, too, don't want to ask Dooku what the actual kriff he thinks he's doing, but, the Order's a bit leery of having me around him, and frankly I endorse being leery of him just on general principle.  At best he's constantly walking the edge of a knife; at worst, he's slipped.  Dooku as a Sith in Palpatine's mold, would be...uh...bad."

"I wasn't suggesting any more than a call, but yes, we should speak to the rest of the Order first. Dooku is... I mean, for a Sith, he's not as bad as I would have expected, but yes, he's dangerous. I think one of the main things they're concerned about is that he'll end up tricking you into joining him, which I'm not as worried about, but it's a reasonable concern to bring up. Still, I think our primary goal should be just... getting him to at least treat us as political opponents instead of pure enemies. And while I can tell you and Dooku disagree on a great many things, my impression is that it's less of a you are horrible and must be destroyed sort of thing, and more of I get what you're trying to do, but you're making big mistakes. From both sides. Would that be accurate?"

"As for the droids idea, I think the Confederacy is going to have superior technology no matter what we do - it's not just the Trade Federation, they also have the Techno Union and the Banking Clan and the Corporate Alliance and the Commerce Guild. Most of the really large businesses aren't really in favor of centralized government. But yes, that's one alternative to at least consider."

"Yeah, that sounds about right, as far as I think I understand how he understands me, and it's certainly my position with regards to him.  And yes, that's the Council's thought.  I'm not quite sure why, really; every time I get a closer look at how Sith operate I see more reasons to not be one."

"...Corporations are always, always beholden to their wallets.  The droids they took Naboo with had a centralized server and human rifles they had to carry.  Now, maybe the Trade Federation isn't the driving force behind their buildup anymore, I assume you'd know more than I do, but if it's still a corporate structure in charge, they're going to optimize for cheapness first and care about quality afterwards.

"You're the one that told me to look at what motivates people, a while back; I can tell you what motivates a corporate boss, and it is ultimately greed.  They're optimizing for cheap job lots of droids they can spin out for kilos on the cred, not actual performance - except where it would otherwise be a waste of money.  To beat that with middling industry?  You bring basic quality they lack.  Outweighing them with quantity while maintaining workplace safety is impossible, but you can exploit their shoddy worksmanship all day, with luck.  Don't go too heavy on quality, though.  Ten good workmen now can do a lot more than the promise of a master-craftsman in the future.

"Their other threat is likely to be specialist units; there, you get every single tiny company competing on the number of wizard-sounding features, rather than price or ease of use or effectiveness, because wizardry sells where functionality doesn't.  To beat that sort of tactic, you want simple, reliable, effective tools.

"As far as getting the Republic's member states to spring for an army themselves...  I have a couple thoughts."

She drums her fingers on the floor of the Jedi ship's soundproofed meditation room, and puts stylus to flimsiplast as she thinks.

"The next time taxes go up, you could offset buildup as tax breaks for material contributions to Republic defense; I'm sure there's a market for looking patriotic, and there's undoubtedly room for anti-CIS backlash.  The Senator that replaced Teem, something Aak, is certainly rabidly patriotic - which concerns me, but can probably be tempered for the good.

"You could frame new strictures about system defense, especially in the wake of Naboo, that happen to be militarily beneficial, and later co-opt or exploit the structure those regulations accrete.  I'm not as sure of this one.

"You could probably convince the Senators that the rest of the galaxy should be doing more to support their defenses, specifically, and rely on their own selfish interests to strip out any attempts at individual evasion.

"And you could possibly have the Republic itself look into manufacturing a whole toolchain to build its own stuff, in general, which would start slowly but end up being lastingly effective in both military matters and in disaster relief efforts."

"Sounds reasonable! I don't know the exact details of the droids' quality, but that seems like a generally good strategy to pursue. And yes, describing things in terms of the rest of the galaxy should be supporting us and then eliminating hypocrisy... that's actually a really good way to handle this."

He is briefly distressed that Kina's mysterious ability to master everything is already letting her come up with political ideas that he hasn't, before he reminds himself that people being better than him is a good thing from the perspective of getting his job done. Besides, Kina isn't better than him at politics. She had this one good idea that was pretty much what he was already going to do, just framed a little better. She won't be better than him at politics until she's practiced for at least another week.

"I guess I'll call Master Windu right now, then, and if Dooku will be reasonable for once, we hopefully won't even need to raise an army. Oh, and he probably knows about all of this mess with Kamino - or even arranged it - but if you can, try not to mention any details directly unless you can tell that he knows, just in case."

"You don't?  We have plenty spare intact models of at least the line units plus quite a few scrapped droideka from Naboo, and while I bet they've stopped relying on central servers by now, they're probably using the same molds, at least.  It protects their transport investments.

"I certainly didn't plan to tell Dooku about this, no, not unless he brings it up first.

"May the Force be with you, Vice-Chancellor.  Thank you for taking my call."

...Kina's hardly mastered politics, from her perspective; if you asked her to actually make that strategy happen she'd probably fall flat when it came out to the point of talking to thousands of individual Senators and crafting all the compromises to implement things, every single day.  It's just that what she did do is mostly just abstract psychology.  She's good at abstract psychology; she had to learn it the hard way.  Politics, however, includes public speaking.

...Okay maybe she's not bad at that, either, if she's pressed, but still, she'd very rapidly lose track of everything that's happening, or lose all of her remaining patience for niceties-while-horrors-lurk, if she worked in the Senate; Bail Antilles does work she absolutely could not do herself.

After a while, Windu will grudgingly give Kina permission to talk to Dooku, mostly because he doesn't think the permission is actually going to be necessary. But he will be watching. That won't be enough to stop something from going wrong, but it should help.

And here's Dooku! "Kina Skywalker! I assume there is a galactic emergency of some sort? And that you have a way to blame it on the dark side of the Force?"

"Unfortunately, no, the looming galactic crisis is much more pedestrian than a Sith loose in the Senate, this time; the massive military buildup the Confederacy appears to be doing, and its knock-on effects as everyone sees it and freaks out about what the kriff it could possibly be meant for, have quite a few people worried.  Are you organizing the buildup for...any particular reason?"

"Well, most of it is really just overflow from Palpatine. His plan was... well, I'm not going to tell you all of his plan, either because there's part that I need to keep secret or to maintain plausible deniability for other secrets that I legitimately do need to keep. But part of it was using the Confederacy as a straw villain to scare the Republic into uniting behind him and giving him substantially more power. What he did to the queen of Naboo, but on a galactic scale. So he needed to boost up the army."

"I am slowing down rates of military production, but yes, I admit we still are continuing for the most part, because... hmm. Secrets, secrets, secrets."

"Hmm. I really can't tell you any of the details of my plans. There might be some less revealing way to handle this... oh, I can at least tell you that if you did know all of my plans, I predict you would be less concerned about being attacked. Although I suppose if you have enough secrets that I'm off on what you're predicting, that might not be relevant."

"Do you have any ideas for vague, general ways to discuss this? I do want to negotiate cooperation when possible, but there are issues given that we can't be legible to each other."

"Well, if you can tell me a certain secret that I know about Palpatine's military buildup plans, I'd be able to discuss certain things about the Republic more frankly with you.  It does make sense that this is ultimately Palpatine's fault; you've inherited his catspaws."

"Oh, a certain secret you know. Hmm. I can allude to a few of them, in ways that wouldn't make sense unless you knew them. Let's see. The first big one... I don't even know how to allude to that one, it's more of a large conceptual thing. The second big one, that I can allude to. Let's see. You know Yarael Poof? He doesn't know it, but he secretly has a twin brother."

"...to be clear, he doesn't actually, it's a metaphor and Yarael Poof isn't involved."

"Mhm, that one.  We have found the secret clone army, and the slave chips, and would like to not have to seriously consider actually continuing cloning people that are being made to die.  ...Let alone whatever he was planning to do with the slave chips.  I'm guessing it was 'arrange to have Jedi killed somehow'."

"That's the sort of thing I should keep secret."

"But... hmm. I would say... and I am aware that saying this is probably going to give me more villain points, but I don't actually see what makes you consider sending clones into battle so wrong? I mean, reasons that war in general is bad would apply, but what makes it any worse than standard soldiers?"

"Because the outcome is meaningfully somewhat under your control, rather than a choice made by the soldiers.  And certainly the level of control you're exerting in such a hypothetical situation could be no more than any parent's, but who wants to -"

A realization hits her; her face blanches.

"Oh, Force, they're just, will still be only children.  And I might not have even noticed, and I'm already travesty enough!  They would still be children, not even children remotely akin to me - and were I given a button to press that would bring a thousand of me into existence I would not press it, because while I'm sometimes a wonder, I'm equally a travesty of a girl who's twice the age she should be because of the strain of being me - and the Republic would have almost no choice but to ask of those children their lives!

"Please don't make the Republic raise children for war, Lord Dooku.  You do not need to stain your hands with their blood, just because of Palpatine's plans.  The Republic doesn't want to fight you.  Has no substantial enmity with the CIS.  Probably a bit of a grudge against the Trade Federation, after Naboo, and the attack on the Senate, but a lot of the blame can be pinned on their now ex-leaders, and Palpatine.  ...Say, how would you like some joint anti-slavery operations, in the spirit of galactic cooperation against the worst of its evils?  The Hutts aren't yours, nor are they Republic, either.  Spin it as good PR for the corporations, divert some of that buildup from being outright military threats, and of course the citizenry of both the Republic and Confederacy will eat it right up...Obviously I'm not capable of making that happen by myself, but the Chancellery actually does care about walking the walk, these days.  I think they might buy in on it.  And a spirit of friendly international competition, in the name of cooperation, never hurt anyone, hm?"

"It is, in fact, a choice that the clones would be making. I don't think it's really valid to prioritize the wants of the imaginary person they would have been without the chips, and say that we should respect those decisions? They're made with a desire to follow orders. The chips are a meaningful part of who they are. Why would you think it any worse to let a person make a decision just because they were designed to make that decision?"

"I don't understand how... well, that's not quite the right phrase, I think I do comprehend your thought processes. I think you have some sort of aversion to the concept of creating a person as a tool, and I think you're uncomfortable because it feels to you like overriding an existing person. But I would say that in the end, someone is going to have to risk their life, and it's strictly better for that person to be one who's specially crafted to have as much attachment to their cause as possible. Ignoring a possibility that will in the end save more lives, just because you can't stand to violate freedoms that really didn't exist in the first place... well, that seems like less about what actually makes things better, and more about matching patterns to some deontological code that doesn't actually represent what happens to people."

But by now Dooku is beginning to realize that this is counterproductive - of all the deep metaethical differences they could be arguing about, he really shouldn't be focusing on this. Not only is he unlikely to change her mind on this, but changing her mind wouldn't be a good thing now - it would only make her open to the possibility of making the Republic stronger, which he doesn't want to encourage!

He just couldn't wait and think strategically, when he finally has the chance to have an actually sane debate with someone who isn't significantly less intelligent than him. Sitting back and pretending not to notice that an argument is built on false premises doesn't come naturally to him, especially when it's an argument that is so fulfilling... but this isn't an argument that he should be having.

For all Dooku's practice in refusing to let his emotional desires take precedence over strategic benefit, this one didn't even occur to him until he had already blurted out a decent portion of what he had to say. Maybe because this situation just isn't one he's found himself in often enough to get practice in it.

So he'll change the topic, and actually, the second thing Kina said is something where he actually has something to gain from this conversation. "On the topic of cooperation, yes, I would be quite in favor of us working together against the Hutts, and other similar groups. There are some issues standing in the way... I don't think the policy would go over well with any of our populations, their animosity towards the other side might have precedence over their desire to end slavery. Also, I am somewhat hesitant to eliminate the only other opposition to the Republic, because it wouldn't really be strategically beneficial, but honestly, they're so much worse than even the Republic that I do agree that it's worth it."

"But yes. Regardless of any of that, there are a great many people who are in trouble, and whatever our disagreements, this is so far from optimal for the goals we do share, that I assume there is clearly some way to save them that will be an improvement for both of us."

"The chips are actually a massive strategic flaw, in my opinion.  Those definitely must go.  But honestly, you're not wrong about the situation, per se.  It's just that pushing through anyway, without greatly considered thought, betrays the counterfactual worlds in which those clones can choose to do and be anything other than soldiers.  So I prefer universes where they have ways to flourish outside of the battlefield, and the best way to avoid those universes is not having them need battle-training at all.  ...I was born a slave.  I won't suffer that for others.  Especially not ones that are born to die."  She takes a slow, calming breath.  "Sometimes, you have to hold a line, even though it costs more in the moment, because of the way that compromising yourself now means that you're more likely to make worse, less needful compromises in the future.

"I think that's probably part of how the - maybe not the Dark Side of the Force as in techniques, but - the force that makes people like Sheev Palpatine exist in the first place, 'gets' people, if you can say it has volition.  You're tired, and hurting, and desperate, and it looks easy to just compromise your lines, and the bright, shining future gets a little bit darker; time after time after time it comes to you, like a gang member drawing you into their protection racket, and you Fall.  Or you find that the pressure you're under is too much, and you turn to the addictive siren song of power like a drug, and your desperate clambering to keep chasing the high drags you to the depths.  Or, perhaps, the pressure on you is simply too much, and you just give into the alluring concept of no longer caring about yourself, others...But now's not the time to talk about Force philosophy, as much as I'm enjoying the opportunity regardless."  She treats him to a soft smile, then brushes the thoughts away.

"I think that we, the Republic and the Confederacy, actually have a stellar opportunity to blame most everything wrong on Sheev Palpatine and his ongoing conspiracy to kriff over both the Republic and the CIS - because if he wasn't setting you up as his patsy, setying you up to fail, I'd be shocked.  He's uncontroversially and incontrovertibly evil.  And I agree that the Republic and the CIS aren't going to be allies very soon - but with good messaging, we can spin the New Republic and the Confederacy of Independent Systems being amicable rivals.  Competing in being the systems people want to govern them.  Especially set up against the Hutts.  The Hutts kriffing suck, and I'd know; I lived on Tatooine for a decade."

Dooku nods. "Then I suppose I will speak with the Chancellor, and we can hopefully spin this that way. This truly is quite a good opportunity to change the galaxy for the better."

"But... the Republic doesn't have much of an army yet. I am concerned that if we began an opposition towards the Hutts, and we weren't able to scare them into a surrender immediately, then the majority of the cost of war would fall upon the Confederacy. What does the Republic have to offer in this scenario?"

"That, I can't yet answer, especially as I'm hardly in the know about the Republic's military - you'd want to ask someone who does know about its readiness - but I was not expecting this to be immediate.  Just soon, within the next few years, to give everyone involved time to prepare for such things as resettlement operations, unless there's some sort of surgical strike within everyone's current capacities that'll work.  And I can say that the Republic is working on actually having a military worth mentioning relative to its present size, within, well, the next few years.  With or without the clones.  Plus there are some forces that can be committed by individual Republic planets even in the absence of coordinated Republic response...and honestly, that may well be what you could stand to gain: planets.  You have a lot of industrial powerhouses, but you don't have as many sources of materials, nor do you have markets that compare to your production capacity.  I doubt the corporations have realized this, yet, but with, what, ten percent of the galaxy under your banner, you'll run out of people to buy things, soon enough, at the sheer scale you're producing.  You'll need the Republic's markets.  And you can't have those without some normalization of relations between the Republic and the CIS."

...She looks over at Mace Windu.  "And while I hardly speak for them any more than I speak for the Republic, I imagine that the Jedi Order would be quite willing to support ending the institution of slavery throughout the known galaxy."

"They certainly haven't done it of their own accord," Dooku says bitterly, "but yes, I assume they can be persuaded to help."

"Are there any other pressing issues to discuss?"

"Well, they were being pressured to not meddle by previous administrations, and very certainly won't be this time, especially given that one of the first things the new administration did was make the Hutts officially agree to slavery being illegal even if they weren't compelled to enforce that personally; I'd vouch for the good intentions of at least Vice-Chancellor Antilles myself, and though I haven't actually yet met the present Chancellor, Antilles did back him.  I can't think of anything that needs to go through myself in particular unless Palpatine hid a bomb in the Senate or something, since I'm not actually a professional diplomat, so, is there anything you think needs to be discussed?"

"Nothing beyond deep ideological debates that are unlikely to get resolved any time soon!" Dooku replies. "I don't know of any bombs in the Senate, but it seems like the sort of thing you should at least check."

"Then, goodbye, Kina! And thank you for being... I don't even know. Just sensible. Actually trying to fix things."

Even if he isn't being completely forthcoming about all of his intentions, his gratitude is entirely honest.

"It's what the Force asks of me, and my own morals; I just try my best.  I hope you find success in your world-bettering endeavors as well, and it has been a pleasure talking with you.  Goodbye for now, then."