Master and Apprentice (Star Wars)

by Claudia Gray

“The Jedi don’t make the Republic do anything. We serve the Republic, not the other way around. But as to why the Republic doesn’t act…I have no good answer for you.” Rahara wiped her cheek roughly, with the back of one hand. “If the Republic can’t do something as decent and basic as attack slavery, why do we have a Republic to begin with?” Qui-Gon repeated, “I have no good answer.” Enslavement was one of the evils that existed outside the Republic—a dirty fact of life there, one the Republic had never sought to eradicate. Some planets had never operated under any other system of labor. And different species interpreted slavery in different ways. The concept meant something rather different to humans than it did to, say, the T’zaki, insectoid beings who shared a hive mind. In the T’zaki language, the word freedom translated roughly as “purposelessness.” But for the overwhelming majority of sentients, slavery was deeply painful, and its operation extremely corrupt.