Star Wars - Darth Plagueis

the Trade Federation will remain binding and inalterable. The Federation will continue procuring our plasma for meager credits and marketing it for inflated prices. But Naboo will at least be on the public record as having stood up to the galactic conglomerates.”
    “More playing politics, is that it?”
    Palpatine rocked his head from side to side but said nothing.
    “And what about Magister Damask?”
    “Apprise him of the plan beforehand. He’s not unreasonable.”
    Veruna stroked his beard in thought. “That just might work.” He smiled slyly. “It’s a pity Naboo already has a voice in the Senate.”
    Palpatine sniffed. “Should the opportunity ever arise, I would, of course, accept. But until then, I’m content to serve in my own way.”
    “Serve Naboo.”
    “Who or what else?”
    Veruna rubbed his hands together. “One day, if I have my way, our Space Corps will include a fleet of swift Nubian fighters capable of chasing the Trade Federation from our system.”
    “I, too, foresee the day,” Palpatine said.
    Veruna laughed again. “Ah, but when? How long will we have to wait, Palpatine?”
    “Only until Hego Damask awards you the throne.”

15: QUANTUM BEING
    A gift to Damask from the Council of Elders on the occasion of Yinchorr’s seating in the Senate, the towering reptilian condemned murderer shuffled to the center of the energy field that defined his cage on Aborah and, with confusion contorting the features of his beaked face, prostrated himself on the permacrete floor and mumbled in Basic: “I’m honored to be here and to perform whatever tasks you require of me.”
    Standing at the field’s shimmering perimeter, 11-4D pivoted his head toward Plagueis. “Congratulations, Magister. At last he responds to your suggestion. You have undermined his resolve.”
    That resolve , Plagueis had learned after more than two years of experimentation on the Yinchorri, was in fact a kind of Force bubble fashioned by the turtle-like alien’s limited number of unusually willful midi-chlorians. This suggested that the Yinchorri was actually strong in the Force, despite his pitifully low count. The discovery had come as a breakthrough, and Plagueis was still grappling with the implications.
    The Force bubble itself was similar to those generated by creatures that drew on the Force to avoid predation by natural enemies. The relationship between the arboreal ysalamir and its adversary, the vornskr, provided a curious example, in that the latter was attracted to the former by the very mechanism the ysalamir employed as a defense. Where an extremely low midi-chlorian count might have bolstered the odds of survival, nature had instead made the ysalimir species strong in the Force. So strong, in fact, that several of the creatures acting in concertcould create a Force bubble encompassing kilometers rather than meters. In a sense, the Jedi Order had done the same on a galactic scale, Plagueis believed, by bathing the galaxy in the energy of the light side of the Force; or more accurately by fashioning a Force bubble that had prevented infiltration by the dark side, until Tenebrous’s Master had succeeded in bursting the bubble, or at least shrinking it. How the Order’s actions could be thought of as balancing the Force had baffled generations of Sith, who harbored no delusions regarding the Force’s ability to self-regulate.
    The Yinchorri former convict wasn’t the only new addition to Plagueis’s island facility. In the eleven years that had elapsed since the capture of Venamis and the recruitment of Sidious, Plagueis had collected more than a dozen beings of diverse species and had been subjecting them to a wide range of experiments involving volition, telepathy, healing, regeneration, and life extension, with some promising results. As for the Bith would-be Sith Lord, he was alive and well, though kept comatose more often than not, and always under the watchful photoreceptors of 11-4D or a host of custodial droids.
    Plagueis hadn’t lost interest in Venamis by any means, but the Yinchorri’s immunity to Force suggestion—an immunity the species shared with Hutts, Toydarians, and others—had provided him with a new line of investigation. Unlike ysalamiri, which created a Force bubble in the presence of danger, the Yinchorri were in a perpetual state of involuntary immunity to Force suggestion. The fact that immunity was in a sense hardwired into them meant that the ability was an adaptation,