Ripples and Waves: Year 5

With the currency issues Palpatine tried many things to stabilize the credit, and with a push of initiatives and economic stimulus packages aimed at industry and infrastructure. The credit slowed its fall to 5% against Valorum levels, the IOC finding many backroom deals and pork-barreling, mostly in connection to the Trade Federation. In response to this, the Trade Federation started using their own monetary system lowering confidence in the republic credit despite government efforts. Even with the credit dropping value, with the glut of new ships and designs many captains were upgrading, and selling their old ships at a price new captains could afford, meaning trade and transport enjoyed a revival.

By the fifth year after the battle of Naboo, the credit had fallen to 75% of what it had been under Valorum, Palpatine had many detractors murmuring how it was his fault, but his efforts had stabilized the fall of the credit and it seemed that it would at least hold at that level. The IOC remained a thorn in the side for Palpatine, doubly so with Senator Amidala jumping on abuses in power and latching on like an attack dog. As many of the issues found by the IOC were connected to the Trade Federation, at first this behaviour was thought to be vindictiveness against those that invaded her planet. But as more of the issues became validated as real breaches of trust, the behaviour started to be jokingly claimed to be like a hunter following a scent by those that despite scoffing at her pacifistic leaning, admired her tenacity at defending her own, and what she felt was right, like a mother predator defending her cubs. Those with similar pacifist leanings started whispering to each other with the nickname Amidala the great, while those with a more militaristic outlook nicknamed her a pacifist with claws. In an odd way, this brought both extremes of people like the Mandalorians together in their views about her, leading to many invitations to visit and talk. The glove of velvet with a core of steel image some had of the Senator helped to prevent more splintering of the republic, though the introduction of alternate currencies continued unabated. As the tensions between the Senator from Naboo and the Trade Federation started to become the face of the senate, those planets sympathetic to the Federation were more often leaving or boycotting the senate meetings, tensions inside the senate halls were starting to become strained.

Naboo enjoyed a flourishing economy despite keeping the republic credit, the increase in trade and tourism more than compensating for the low value of the credit. This coupled with its easy access exchange of other currencies due to strategically positioned booths rented out to some of the less stuck up banking clans meant that the flow of money into and out of the republic credit was a way that tied the new currencies to the old credit. This meant that the credit had an invisible buffer that had slowed and then stopped its fall, as the side economies doing brisk business gave the ailing currency the shot in the arm it needed to get its feet back under it. Sure if the credit rose again then it would be slowed by the side markets taking their share with them, but the stopping of the fall was more important. This meant that even though Palpatine wanted everything under his control, with the major hub of inter-currency exchange outside of Coruscant in his home system, it was easy for him to keep an eye on it, so he let it slide as it progressed his plans.

The Serenno enclave had been busy in the last few years, having visited planets and sectors that the Coruscant Jedi rarely if ever visited, they had started to find even more mysterious groups of people that had abnormal connections to the force, in almost all cases these were ether slaves, or in other circumstances similar. This pointed to a large hole in the operations of the Coruscant Jedi, as if they had missed these by not bothering to check if slaves had the force. While this was not the case, the perception of it had started to grow, and the enclave, already flush with Ex-slaves, started to add unwritten rules for their branch of the order, and the welcome addition of one of them being to try and free all the slaves breathed even more energy into their efforts. Anikin practically threw himself even harder into the training he was progressing fast in, Qui-Gon convinced he was the chosen one, but wise enough to not say anything about it, Anikin knew nothing about any prophecy about him being special, but his dream from back on Tatooine about him freeing all the slaves grew into a goal to free all the slaves in the entire galaxy. He knew he could not do that alone, and that the goal was seemingly impossible, but with the enclave at his side helping he knew he would give it his best. So as Anikin trained and immersed himself in the force, he started to dream of travelling to remote and fantastic planets, leading a charge of white-clad figures stretching out to the horizon on each side, against a numberless horde of glowing-eyed droids doing their best to stop him and the army in white.