meetings and talking

Palpatine hid his inner smirk as the Jedi council members gave weak sounding reasons for why they were being ineffective, or at least they would sound weak once he tweaked the recordings for the later part of his plan, he would eventually turn the entire galaxy against the Jedi to such an extent that even historians would mock them endlessly. However, for his plan to work, then he needed a war with the Jedi leading from the front to lower their numbers to the point that he could smash the rest in one finishing blow. The ironic statement from Mace Windu that the Jedi were keepers of the peace, not soldiers, followed by Yoda commenting that the Jedi would do their duty. Palpatine knew that with a war going on, the republic senate would demand the Jedi lead the army, as they were so used to the Jedi being in charge of any dangerous missions, and he agreed with Windu that the Jedi as they were, they were diplomats, not warriors, and the first part of the war would be a meat grinder for the Jedi. His desk gave a chime and the Chancellor's aide announced the arrival of the loyalist committee, Palpatine told his aide to let them in and waited for them to enter.

Jar Jar walked in with the rest of the Committee, still having bacta infused bandages on from the hospital, he barely had time from waking up before he was checked on to see if he could attend this meeting with the Chancellor. Binks agreed to come, as he was already starting to get bored, and he wanted to know more of what was going on. There were the usual greetings and giving of condolences, and when asked if there were any leads about who was behind the explosion, some bunk about spice miners on the moons of Naboo was spouted. Jar Jar knew this was not the case, as it was not the case last time, and this time there was far better system infrastructure meaning even fewer reasons for disgruntled miners. However as this time, Dooku was not part of the CIS, senator Amidala's suspicion of the Trade Federation led block was less dismissed out of hand. Palpatine suggested that the senator be put under Jedi protection, even with the order being stretched thin, he convinced the senator that the situation was that serious, though he did comment that maybe someone the senator was already familiar with might be a good choice.

With the Jedi stretched so thin, as well as the recommendation that a familiar face might help things out, the Coruscant Jedi sent word to Serenno for some extra help. Qui-Gon still dealt with the wounds gathered on Naboo and had taken a slower pace teaching younglings at the enclave, however, Obi-Wan had recently made the rank of Master, the intervening decade being one packed with missions and adventures. Obi-Wan chose to bring another friendly face, even though his padawan had not seen the senator since the events on Naboo, the fact that he helped save the planet from the blockade should help keep the senator calm.