Ripples and Waves: Trade Federation

The Viceroy seethed as the final signing was taking place, the Naboo Queen had the gall to force him to sign the disgusting deal on what used to be his own ship. The extra insult to injury had him vow to himself that someday, somehow, he would make her pay for this. The Viceroy had a slight bit of hope when the rest of the blockade fleet arrived, the massive vessels clearly visible though the windows, but the feeling quickly left as after a few moments the enormous engines on the visible ships went dark. The Queen had laughed in his face when the report that the fleet that had shown up had surrendered when the captured ship[s cannon turrets had turned on them, doubly frustrating as they could not know that the weapons were for the most part offline from battle damage. With the bluff having even more ships captured, the section in the treaty of having to give up captured elements of the blockading and invasion fleet stung that much deeper.

With the glut of captured ships Naboo went from having just a few fighters for self defense, and the galactic standard for local hyperspace lanes mapped out. Then they found themselves with the remains of the mostly intact invasion and blockade fleet, and the far more comprehensive map of trade lanes, mostly from the sector they were in, though the extra lanes on file for the other sectors would be valuable bargaining chips in the days to come. The maps did however shed light as to why the Trade Federation would invade the peaceful planet, according to the maps, Naboo was in a strategic spot to bypass almost all of the know republic checkpoints between the core and the outer rim. With the recent disagreement in the senate about taxing trade lanes, this back door to bypassing taxes and tariffs would have made the Trade Federation an unstoppable economic juggernaut as they could sneak by the fees that their competitors would have to pay. The Queen was quick to see that the loss of the secrecy of these trade lanes would hurt the Trade Federation far more then the loss of a single fleet. As the Queen was in a still vengeful mood she was quick to contact parties that would be interested and made deals that should have commanded far higher prices, but the extra good will from the trades, plus the warm feeling of getting one over on those that had invaded her planet made up for the lost potential revenue in those trades.

As the traded for maps of the trade lanes would invariably expand traffic and ships though the Naboo system, and that the Naboo peoples did not want any heavy industry or sprawling spaceports ruining the planets beauty, a stray comment by the Gammorian Captain about how the captured ships were each the size of a space station, a plan was put into effect. Once enough crew and pilots were put together the captured gigantic cargo vessels were sent to Corellia, once there they traded the maps to the Corellian government,and one of the ships to the Corellian Engineering Corporation for them to break apart to uncover the secrets of Trade Federation large ship design. In exchange the rest of the cargo ships were loaded to the brim full of various CEC modules for shipyards, manufacturing, industry, and more. The modules would be used to turn most of the cargo ships when they returned into various industry and ship servicing stations that just happened to still have engines attached. Others of the cargo ships would be habitats and science platforms, working on integrating the Gungans aptitudes in shield and design, as Naboo had not had to design anything larger then a luxury transport in a long time.

One of the ships, that was still in the droid control ship configuration would have something different done however. The Vuutun Palla would be re-purposed to a luxury trade station, this was where travelers would dock to spend their credits, or to trade for the local luxury goods from Naboo. The entire ship would undergo refit in the new shipyards to update its looks. The Gungans would be brought in to install massive permeable shield domes and sections that they specialized in, this would complete the main circle of the ship, as well as place massive intricate domes above and below the completed droid. The plans also filled in much of the inner areas with an open air park design, with backup shield designs in case of attack. The finished product would look like a fancy decoration for the festival of light, the domes making it look like a blown glass sphere inside a giant ring. Needless to say the overall design would take years to complete, but once finished would be a testament to the engineering and artistic prowess of both peoples of Naboo. The final name of the station would likely still be in committee until the time to paint said name on the station, but it would likely reference the tasks that had happened during the blockade and getting freedom from that.

Nute Gunray would return to the Trade federation in shame and disgrace, the Federation having to send a ship to pick up him and all the captured personnel, the debacle would set Nute's plans back years, maybe decades, and he would have to fight his way back to the position as the board would undoubtedly strip him of the powerful spot as punishment. But one day, one day... he would be back, and he would cherish every moment in crushing those that would defy him. Until then, he would keep his head down, and use the vast amount of blackmail he had to keep some of his power, then he would rebuild his power base and ensure that they would pay for this.