The Clusters

The Clusters was a four-volume epic poem, written by Mag Osellinos early in the Republic's Great Manifest Period. It is the poet's most famous, and most infamous, piece of work. The central character of The Clusters is the tragic hero Myont Tasseles. Under the employment of a fictional corporation he participates in the settlement of several star clusters in the Expansion Region. Though it at first attempts to negotiate with the native species already living there, under pressure from his superiors he and his colleagues find themselves driving many of them off of their planets, and forcing more into subservience to them, using exploitative techniques that, unknown to the general population of the Republic at the time, were commonly used in the Expansion Region. Smooth-talking colleagues and bosses, and his own need to justify himself, leave Myont convinced he is doing what is best for the natives, especially when he marries the beautiful alien Em'prast. For many years he does not notice Em'prast's resentment of the humans, until finally she gathers her husband's employees and stages a revolt, which is brutally put down while Tasseles looks on helplessly. Realizing what he has done too late, he committs suicide at the end of the poem. The publishing of The Clusters provoked a ferocious corporate backlash, and the powerful beings of Coruscant did all they could to discredit and suppress the poem. Most who read it ultimately refused to believe that it was a fair depiction of the Expansion Region. Osellinos died under suspicious circumstances two years after publication, after which the poem quietly went out of print, and would remain so for nearly a thousand years. It was nonetheless preserved in private archives, and eventually noticed and re-published when time had rendered it a far less dangerous work. Even so, accusations of baseless propaganda have dogged it, while many corporate authorities have suffered from their enemies making use of its message. The Clusters has often been outright banned by totalitarian governments, and was also banned under the Galactic Empire. This ironically may have led to more people reading it, as it was ensured it was passed around privately by figures just as Haali-Ola-Edi and most notably by her Gliasi accomplice Ivorn Tika.