Archive for the 'Moneta' Category
I was working in my office in city hall when my desk rattled slightly and the familiar sound of a ship flying low overhead passed . I couldn’t help but smile to myself. Kiwon was home.
I went out to greet her. I could tell something wasn’t quite right and she wasted no time relaying the bad news.
“You’re not going to like this, Bee. Regional governor is making a sweep. He wants the sector clear of all Rebel activity and I can’t keep them outta here this time.”, she confided.
I asked her to do what she could to help them complete their sweep while keeping all Moneta’s citizens safe. She understood exactly what I was asking of her and she did a wonderful job handling the situation. She directed the troops to inspect various sites and it wasn’t long before they were satisfied Moneta was secure.
Once the troops had moved on, life in Moneta quickly went back to normal. Neighbors who have diverging alliances behind closed doors exchange pleasantries in the town square, share resources and frequent one another’s businesses.
I admit that I often go about the business of my day successfully avoiding having to confront the reality of this terrible conflict. I know I’m not alone in this. My fellow citizens and I pass by troops all the time and, on occasion, even witness a skirmish. But we all go about our business as if none of it exists. It’s simply to much to consider the many hundreds of people on both sides, each actively involved in plotting the demise of the other.
This war has already gone on too long and claimed more lives than I can fathom. But this most recent intrusion makes me wonder if perhaps the worst is still yet to come…
MNETA recently had our Life Day party. Everyone managed to find gifts under the 1000 credit limit and they were anonymously distributed among all our guests. I also put together some gift bags for everyone with some decorative and useful items including a festive Life Day hat.
After the gifts were all handed out we enjoyed some drinks and music over at the Regal Beagle. Oceat did a wonderful job decorating just for the occasion. It was a lovely party and it seems everyone enjoyed themselves… some perhaps a bit too much….
But just as the festivities geared up, a frantic call from Doaba Guerfel came in on my comlink. The gifts collected for the less fortunate had been hijacked by a band of thugs! It didn’t take the Brigade very long at all to mobilize, track them down and recover the stolen presents, still wrapped and ready for distribution.
Happy Life Day!
It’s been a summer of comings and goings.
Several friends have recently been called away. Business trips, family obligations and various other reasons have taken good citizens away for a time. I really can’t put in words how much I miss them. To walk by Ioh’s bunker, for instance, knowing full well, he’s not inside crafting like he always was… it’s just very hard some days.
Then too, there’s been an influx of wonderful new citizens come to join us. Rarely is the guild channel void of good humor and interesting remarks. There’s been plenty to keep me busy as we work to settle everyone in and set them all up with the things they need.
And then there are those who are both coming and going all at once. Crafters who have fired their vendors and given away their inventory and walked away from their trade to learn another, more dangerous one. Others have hung their blaster on the wall and taken to the fields to sample for materials and tinker with schematics.
The upheaval brings a freshness and excitement to the guild for sure. But such so many changes all at once tend to leave me feeling a bit …unsettled.
It feels as if I’ve fallen out of my groove, rolling along in a very haphazard way. I’m behind in stocking my vendors and I can’t seem to shake the feeling that I’m forgetting important things. A search through my datapad reveals nothing pressing yet I can’t shake the feeling that I ought to be rushing somewhere to do something….
But not a moment too soon, this season is ending. And I look forward to a return to the calm, stability the next one should bring.
The past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of news and activity. To sum up….
Our village became a town. We installed a cloning center, created a commercial district, registered on the map and gained a few new citizens in the process.
A huge army gathered outside our new town. Colonel Daenyathos Caeon led a small group of men, including MNETA Brigade’s finest, into battle and miraculously won.
Our town became city. We installed a shuttleport, added new decorations, finished creating city zones and increased our citizenship again.
Bermuda appeared unexpectedly and, in typical Bermuda fashion, skipped a romantic dinner with me in favor of going hunting, took dangerous missions across the galaxy and managed to appear completely unimpressed with my work in the city.
So that’s my past two weeks in a nutshell. I think I need a nap!
I left the emergency meeting feeling a whole lot better about having over a thousand troops sitting only a few hundred meters away…. but still entirely uncertain about what would happen next.
I watched in awe as Iohimais began calling in favors and friends from around the galaxy. Little by little a small army of our own began to appear right outside my house. Colonel Caeon was busy gathering MNETA’s finest, ordering buffs and discussing strategies. I watched the flurry of activity from my front step.
As the appointed time grew near you could feel the excitement build. How these folks can get excited about a looming battle is beyond my comprehension. But their eager anticipation of that first blaster fire helped to keep my fear at bay. Perhaps a win wasn’t such an impossible hope after all….
Just before they began I went in my house and locked the door. I could hear the blaster fire interspersed with loud explosions and yelling. As the minutes ticked by the sounds grew more and more faint. Hours went by and listening intensely to the quiet, I drifted off.
I awoke with a start the next morning. I ran to the door, pressed my ear to it and listened. There was nothing but silence. I opened it and stepped cautiously outside. I looked down toward the river. The only movement was the gentle swaying of the trees in the morning breeze.
I hopped on my swoop and made that same large arc around the area coming to rest where I’d first seen that droid army yesterday.
Nothing. Nothing but gears and metal shards scattered over the landscape to prove I hadn’t just dreamt the whole affair.
I raced back to town where I found Once. She told me all about the long, bloody battle. We’d experienced some casualties but no one had been seriously injured. And in the end…. we’d defeated hundreds of foes with little more than a handful of brave men and women.
With citizens scattered throughout the galaxy, only three were able to join me in city hall for the emergency meeting. As it turns out, it was the three I most needed to speak with.
Ioh was there, of course. I’d asked him to come early so I could speak with him in private. I felt it was only fair to warn him ahead of time of my plan to suggest that a possible solution to bring peace back to Moneta was to move Iohimais out of town and into hiding.
When the other two citizens arrived, I should have known right then that peace wasn’t in the cards. Colonel Caeon and one of his sharp new recruits went out and surveyed the situation. He agreed the situation was indeed, quite grave. But he remained remarkably calm and asked if any demands had been made yet.
In my panicked state of mind, the thought hadn’t even occurred to me.
He bravely offered to go and open a dialog to find out what it was they wanted even as he calculated what more we’d need to win a war and how long it would take us. Listening to him move smoothly through the various scenarios without so much as a tremor of fear in his voice, it suddenly occurred to me that this is exactly why I’d hired this man for the job.
He ended his list of possible outcomes with the worst case scenario - certain death for us all. But somehow he managed to deliver it with a chuckle and a smile that made even that seem like it wasn’t so bad.
When I first took this leadership position, I made it clear to everyone with me that day that although I had aptitude for certain parts of the job, it was only with a capable team at my side that I could succeed. Many times since, I’ve reminded myself and others of this irrefutable fact. Yet somehow hundreds and hundreds of battle droids caused me to panic and feel all alone in this mess…. when all the while a team of outstanding individuals stood waiting to do what they do best.
I sometimes wonder if I’m really cut out for this mayor job. Though it may be idealistic, in my mind I imagine a good mayor as someone who’s cool and calm in any circumstance. I imagine that she makes the right decisions with ease…. and never, no never, get’s caught up in emotion when considering what’s best for her citizens.
By that definition, I’m in the wrong line of work.
Today as I stood on my doorstep I spied movement in the trees down by the river. Moving closer to investigate I saw a few armed men and immediately retreated to a safe distance. Jumping on my swoop I made a large arc around the area where I’d seen them. I crossed the river and came to a dead stop. A droid army has been gathered within a stone’s throw of Moneta.
An army.
I turned the bike off and sat there peeking through tall grass. And I cried. No, I’m not that pillar of strength I imagine that ‘good mayor’ would be.
I contemplated what my next move should be. Even if our militia was fully formed and ready we’d be no match for an entire army. How did it come to this?!
Oh, yes. Iohimais.
I’ve been in denial for several weeks now. I know this is all happening because he’s here. I’ve tried to be firm. I’ve tried to be calm. I’ve spoken with him and then walked away crossing my fingers…. just hoping it would all resolve itself. I know I’ve given him more time and space than I should have. I know I’ve let my friendship with him keep me from making the difficult choice. And this is the result.
So I’ve called an emergency meeting at town hall this evening. The situation will be presented to Moneta’s citizens and I will ask them to decide if Ioh has crossed the line and betrayed Moneta or if we all stand behind him come what may.
I’m just glad I won’t be voting because at this point, I’m not sure what is the right thing to do…
It seems a need for increased security has accompanied our recent increase in size. Gone are the days of a safe, quaint little village.
Colonel Daenyathos Caeon is overseeing the initiation of a local security force called the 1st MNETA Brigade. His resume is impeccable, his knowledge and skill in the field impressive. I trust him implicitly to have a well trained militia up and running in no time.
Which is good, because it seems that thanks to Iohimais, we’ll need them sooner rather than later.
I’d grown accustomed to the group of emails that I recieve from the planetary authorities each week. They acknowledge we’ve paid our bills and they tell us that although we’ve qualified for an increase in rank, our request to become a township has been denied due to planetary overcrowding.
So imagine my surprise when I opened the mail to find the planetary authorities have granted Moneta the rank of township!!!
Thrilled just doesn’t do justice to how glad I am for this stroke of luck! With the increase in our city limits and new civic structures to place, we immediately got to work moving buildings to maximize the effectiveness of our space. We created a commerical district at the center of town for our shop owners, added buildings for guild use, added a cloning center (affectionately refered to as ‘The Recylcer’) and added a junk terminal to our banking center.
The changes are still in progress and it will likely take us several months to complete construction but I think the end result will be worth the effort.
I want to thank all Moneta’s citizens for their efforts and contributions toward making Moneta the finest township on Corellia.
When I spoke with Iohimais last week about the small army camping out around his bunker, I gave him a week to clear up the problem and bring Moneta back to being a place where we could walk around without fear.
A few days ago, I rode into town and was shocked to find they’d all gone. I breathed a sigh of relief and went about my business, thankful that the situation had been resolved.
Or had it?
Today I was working overtime on a new uniform in my office in Moneta. I’d been at it for hours and when I began mixing up various shades of brown I was working with, I decided a quick nap would help clear my head. I laid on the couch and closed my eyes.
A while later I woke to a crashing sound. Still dressed in mixed up sample pieces of the project I’d been working on, I ventured to the entrance of city hall. Parts of an aircraft lay burning near the town square and several familiar looking gunmen were scattered about.
I quickly ducked back into my office and sent out a distress message on the guild channel. It wasn’t long before a parade of armed citizens secretly joined me in city hall to try to piece together what had happened.
No one knew exactly what was going on. One citizen noted he’d seen a Skull Squad ship firing at an unknown vessel near the Corellian space station. It came as no surprise that the person doing the firing was none other than our dear Iohimais.
My foremost concern is always Moneta’s citizens so after unsuccessful attempts at hailing Ioh, we quietly left the strangers scavenging their wreckage in Moneta and went to the starport to launch a search party.
Once in the air, we successfully tracked him down in another system. He explained he’d stumbled across a theft in progress in Moneta, taken down the shuttle they were using to transport the goods they’d stolen and then chased the escort ships.
With the citizens accounted for, the next task was to secure Moneta. I’d only gotten a brief look at the group we’d left with their broken shuttle in the middle of town, but I was fairly certain we were going to be outnumbered. But given the circumstances, negotiations for a peaceful end seemed as much like a suicide mission as simply going in with guns drawn.
We gathered outside of town and laid out a plan of attack. It was executed well and our citizens managed to rid the town of the intruders with only a few minor injuries.
Scattered among them we found several crates of weapons and equipment from Av’ar’s munitions shop. There’s still some disagreement about who these thieves were but I have theories of my own. See, that small army that camped outside of Ioh’s place had a clear view of Av’ar’s workshop…. and nothing better to do for days on end than to observe our citizens as they went about their work.
Though Ioh always presents it to me as no big deal, speaking to other citizens I’ve discovered that Czerka employees have set up in his bunker against his wishes. It seems the situation has not been resolved as I’d hoped.
As much as it pains me to have to, I’ve enlisted the help of Colonel Daenyathos Caeon to train a number of volunteers to help form a security force for Moneta. They will be known as the 1st MNETA Brigade.
I remain hopeful that the streets of Moneta will one day be safe and secure again. In the meantime, I’m encouraging all her citizens to go about their business with the upmost caution.
