A warrior must only take care that his spirit is never broken.
—Shissai
Fault Lines is the thirty-seventh installment in the Untitled New Sith Wars series. Tirien Kal-Di, Narasi Rican, and Mali Darakhan grapple with the fallout of both the Conscription Act and their mission to Valin Aresh's cathedral ship.
Opening Crawl[]
Excerpt[]
| Source: Part 1 | Attribution: Sakaros |
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Shaking her head, Narasi combed her claws back through her hair. "Master, we have to stop Darth Alecto. We have to." "Someone will have to stop Alecto," he corrected, "but that isn't where we're needed now." "What could possibly be more important?" "I gather from Princess Elyria that you've been following the Conscription Act?" "Yeah, it was a huge thing on Alderaan; protests for weeks. She and I talked about it a bunch. A lot of the Rim refugees were really worried they were going to get thrown into the Army. King Rosulus let me attend a couple of his council meetings, and they talked about it every time." Touched by Rosulus's courtesy—and mildly surprised that Narasi considered herself to have been allowed to attend—Tirien said, "Ironically, Alderaan's willingness to absorb so many refugees placed it among the worlds exempt from conscription. But the majority of Republic worlds are not, and not all their populations have been half so peaceful in their dissatisfaction as Alderaan." | |
Segments[]
Appearances[]
| Characters | Creatures | Droid models | Events | Locations |
| Organizations and titles | Sentient species | Vehicles and vessels | Weapons and technology | Miscellanea |
Characters
Dramatis personae
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Other characters
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Creatures
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Droid models
Events
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Locations
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Organizations and titles
Sentient species
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Vehicles and vessels
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Weapons and technology
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Miscellanea
Plot Summary[]
Amid Operation Liberator's success, impoverished factory laborer Cono Altiotz and his girlfriend, Mavin Rizzi, contemplate suicide on Quellor, but they are stopped by a woman named Yodess, a recent arrival from Milagro.
Seven months later, Tirien Kal-Di retrieves Narasi Rican from her spiritual retreat on Alderaan; the two have been tasked with easing turmoil which has followed the passage of the Conscription Act. On Corellia, Mali Darakhan labors to keep his fellow Corellians from acting rashly in the wake of Jendaya Rose's kidnapping and Nawsa Arodion's murder before the Council sends him to deal with draft riots on Quellor—but not before promoting Mali to Jedi Master.
Tirien attempts to help Narasi work through her lingering heartache over killing Aldayr Nikodon, but their reunion with Mali on Quellor is tense. Mali confides his concerns about Corellia to Tirien, as well as his unease about his promotion. The three Jedi pledge their support to Quellor's government, but Yodess and her cell of the Flame of Retribution—now swollen to eight members—chooses that time to begin active attacks with a suicide attack by Cono. Tirien admits to Narasi that since his near-death after the cathedral ship mission, he has been having issues with dropping into meditative detachment when he does not mean to.
Mali tries to balance his offworld concerns with his immediate problems, but when he spots a member of Yodess's cell with a Flame of Retribution tattoo, he tasks Tirien to apprehend him; Tirien is lost in a vision, so Narasi gives chase, but is ambushed. Though she and Tirien survive the encounter, they discover the multimillion-credit bounty the Empire has placed on their heads. Mali, annoyed that Tirien kept his issues secret, assumes greater control over the Quellor situation to root out the Flames and prevent a repeat of the civil strife on Milagro.
Relations among the Jedi sour when Mali admits to doubting whether Narasi did everything possible to Aldayr, and he and Tirien nearly come to blows. At the same time, Judicials arrest Morid Dosio and Belusa Rho for conspiracy to have Jendaya assassinated, heightening tensions in the Senate. The Judicials arrest Mavin, and Tirien reluctantly uses a mind trick that forces her to divulge Yodess's plan for a terrorist attack during Mali's planned speech to the protestors; the mind trick causes Mavin to suffer a psychotic break, further amplifying tensions between Tirien and Mali.
The Jedi come to a shaky peace the day of the speech. Yodess detonates a bomb under Terrina Square, but Tirien and Mali mitigate the damage on the surface, while Narasi kills Yodess's co-conspirator before he can detonate a secondary explosive with greater casualties. Having come to believe Narasi needs to round out her Jedi skills rather than focusing solely on the military, Tirien decides to leave the Eighth Fleet. Mali agrees only reluctantly, and the two Jedi part uncomfortably.
Behind the Scenes[]
Fault Lines was tentatively titled The Draft Riots for over a year; Sakaros changed the title halfway through writing as the plot evolved.
Some of the geography of Belleau-a-Lir was inspired by this image by Leon Tukker.
Shout-outs include:
- Tirien's observation that, "if the Force flows more strongly through me than many of my colleagues, that only means both the Council and the Force have the right to expect all the more from me" is based on Luke 12:48.
- Inido Hass's thought that "a bushel basket could be set over a flame to hide its glow until the time was right for the fire to spread" is a deliberate inversion of the parable of the lamp under the bushel.
- Yodess describes herself as a "servant of the secret fire", a title Gandalf claimed in The Fellowship of the Ring.
- Yodess's comment that "the Jedi struck the herder and scattered the nerfs" references Zechariah 13:7 (later referenced in Matthew's Passion account at 26:31).
- Narasi asks Tirien, "Master…do you think it will really come to war?", a near-verbatim quote from Attack of the Clones.
- Tirien snarks to Mali, "We'll always have Ithor", a reference to the famous "We'll always have Paris" in Casablanca.
The idea of a mind trick "breaking" a mind was mentioned, but not explored, in "Children of the Force", the third episode of the second season of Star Wars: The Clone Wars.