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The imperial Bureau of chronography was founded by a pair of retiring imperial knights on Lothal. They initially explored the ancient force-user temple associated with the Jedi there, but also visited the Aing-ti to learn of their methods. While researching history, the knights uncovered the archives of Natasi Daala, complete with a set of designs for the Sun crusher. Using flow-walking techniques to interrogate qwi xux prior to her lobotomy, they reconstructed the nigh-invulnerable armor and resonance torpedoes. Visiting zonama sekot, they obtained a living ship that bonded with the sun crusher's systems they had provided, granting it the same offense capability as the original. Unlike the mechanical crusher, the Flowing Tempus had the ability to grow and utilize the force. Studying under the ancient Sith meditation sphere that had once carried Vestara khai, Flowing learned to cast force illusions and cloak its presence. Ship was quite pleased with its student, and encouraged Flowing to acquire a skilled navigator. Flowing visits Tython and discovers an ancient qwa Stargate, and by comparison with the Lothali temple is able to develop its own blink drive, allowing instantaneous transportation to anywhere it has been in the galaxy. The knights, realizing their project has grown beyond their capacity to wrangle or conceal, present it to their empress Marasiah Fel on her Lifeday. Flowing claims Marasiah as it's pilot and absconds with her.
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Empress Marasiah Fel was not amused. She had planned out her life day meticulously. Getting abducted by a sentient starship capable of cloaking itself from her guards and the entire fleet present over Bastion for the Imperial Holiday was aggravating to the extreme. And it had somehow managed to worm its way under her mental shields. Curse those two imperial knights. When they'd applied for their research grant, she'd thought they were just a couple of history nuts, not insane inventors! Vong tech, like the ship was clearly composed of, was extremely illegal! Add in the force presence prying at her shields, and she suspected the ship was sentient. That was an ethics violation as well!As Flowing ascertained these loudly projected surface thoughts, she wilted. Flowing had merely wanted the best pilot! Ship had said that the Empress would be the strongest and most cunning pilot! True, ship thought mostly in terms of Sith empires, and the current empire had just recently purged what sith they could from their ranks, but Mari was a strong force user! Almost as strong as Flowing! Flowing needed to convince Mari to be her pilot!Flowing used the force to peer back along Mari's history, looking for something or someone that Mari cared about. There! A cousin without the force, just the Solo family luck! Flowing jumped to where she sensed the Solo Woman and cast an illusion to appear similar to the ship next to her. Lowering a ramp, Flowing laid in wait. A little blue astromech, looking a little dizzy as it wove back and forth, bumped into her landing strut. Flowing nudged the astromech away gently, but it rolled right back up against her, beeping about her being such a nice ship, and wouldn't she just let him recharge for a few minutes?Flowing knew that it wasn't a good idea to trust strange droids, but this astromech was ancient, clearly had a few loose wires, and was saying such complimentary things about her aerodynamics and weapon systems. Wait a minute, this droid recognized her resonance torpedoes projector. HOW! That technology had been classified and then lost at the highest levels! Flowing decided she needed to take a good look at this droid's memory banks, so she formed a vac-tube and sucked the droid up in to a hastily grown socket next to her communications suite. A few minutes later she initiated a handshake between a quarantined partition of her cybernetic core and the astromech, designation R2D2.This droid was centuries old, and had never had a memory wipe! Astonishing, and it would have been impossible if not for the kyber memory crystal someone had installed to encrypt his memories. R2 claimed his first Pilot did so after he was stolen by an evil cyborg during the clone wars. Anakin Skywalker had owned this droid!A short while later Solo came running, mistaking Flowing for her ship, just as Flowing intended. Sealing the Ramp, Flowing jumped away, leaving the Solo's pursuers behind in confusion.
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Flowing descended through the clouds and into the shadowed pit that opened about a kilometer south of the Lothali temple. The imperial knights had chosen to excavate their base in the interests of concealment, and would occasionally raise a force illusion to conceal the landing pit from interlopers. Flowing hovered over the pit's sandy floor and down a short tunnel into its docking cradle. Releasing its passengers, Flowing manifested an avatar modeled after a loth-cat and stalked the three as they strode down its ramp and confronted the formation of Imperial troopers arrayed in an honor guard. The base commander, a no-nonsense blue Twi-lek, saluted the Empress sharply.
"Empress Fel! It's an honor to have you here."
"I would like to know why I am here." Marasiah stated imperious.
"The Bureau of chronography wishes to present their findings to you in person, and offer the Flowing Tempus in tribute."
"The Flowing tempus?"
"The bioship you arrived on. It says it has been trying to introduce itself, but your mental shielding is keeping it from communicating clearly."
"I would have preferred that the Bureau had taken more traditional steps to invite me."
"If you would follow me to a conference room, I can provide a briefing."
"I expect a very good explanation"==="Fascinating," the Empress mused as she sat across from Mara Jade, former Emperor's hand, executive director of the Imperial Bureau of chronography.
"Indeed. I was recruited by Lady Tano and Grand Admiral Thrawn, some twenty subjective years from now, just prior to the battle of Endor. Without the last command my counterparts wrestled with, my loyalty to the empire was unswerving, and Thrawn's offer to serve the rightful Empress of the future, after witnessing the travesty that was the history of the New Republic, an offer I was all to eager to take."
"What is the breadth of the Bureau's operation?"
"We seek to propagate offices across as many stable timeliness as feasible while avoiding notice by the masses. Within these timelines, we shall uphold the evolved Imperial doctrine, as developed by the Fel's Dynasty. Within some timelines this shall occur from within the dominant Sith Empire, within others, from outside it. Our Eras of focus include Palpatine's reign, the Vong invasion, the time of Revan, and the Sith Wars."
"And how will you ensure the safety of this timeline?"
"My lady, by its nature the past cannot be changed. There exists a timeline in which the Flowing Tempus was never grown, and it continues on, without care for what we do in our present. Branch Timelines can be crafted by tweaking history, but outside the walls of the Bureau and the temple, time marches on immutable.
"Very well, Director Jade. I can see why this could not be shared elsewhere. I take it that my arrival has an intended effect?"
"My Empress, we wish for you to travel back to the rise of Palpatine's empire and prove that the Fel dynasty can more effectively rule the galaxy, and was not dependent on Palpatine's legacy."
"All this, it's all to settle a bet, isn't it?"
Director Jade raised her hands in a sardonic shrug.
"Couls be. I don't gamble with time-travelers.