Vox Populares

High Councillor's Office

Jedi Praxeum, Kiast

Mihoshi gripped the bridge of her nose between two fingers, trying to ward off the building headache. Actually, it had been ‘building’ for over a week now. She knew there was a bottle of Corellian wine Masahiro had kept in one of these drawers, and she had been tempted many, many times over the past days to pull it out.

She resisted. There were more than enough rumours flying about the Temple without the new High Councillor being seen drinking on the job.

War. Again. Stars and hells, did it ever stop in this damned system?

No one had fired a shot yet, true, and thank whatever gods there were for that; it meant there was a chance, however slim, to salvage this whole mess and…

And what? Wait for the next one? Kaltani was determined to finish off the separatists hiding out with the Burmessians. Her brat of a son was a useless glory-hound convinced his sabre-rattling would lead to some kind of glorious conquest for the history books.

Tisto was still off who-knows-where agitating the lower classes without a hint of concern for the consequences. Celevon was still in prison and they still hadn’t decided what, if anything, to do with him. Now this Zakfein clown was breathing down their necks so hard she had been persuaded to put Jon -- Jon Silvon of all people! -- as an Aedile just to make sure he was out of the vindictive old crow’s reach for the moment.

Everything was spiralling and she felt like she was just trying to keep all the plates spinning for a second longer before they inevitably crashed onto the floor, irreparable.

She looked up into the dim-blue light of her dark office, and chuckled.

“Come out, little chipmunk,” she said. “I know you’re there.”

A figure emerged from the shadows, small and slight -- though near a foot taller than Mihoshi herself -- with pink skin visible beneath her Jedi hood.

Anaya Anasaye pulled the hood back, her dark-violet Padawan brain falling over one shoulder. She had, to the High Councillor’s bemusement, enough decorum to look sheepish. Not so much at breaking into the office, Mihoshi suspected, but certainly at getting caught.

Mihoshi felt a smirk prick up her face. Probably the first real one all day. “You’ve got a lot to learn before you can sneak by me, kid.”

The crown-princess of the Vatali Empire and Jedi Padawan looked down, one of her hands fiddling with the sleeve of her robe.

“What are you doing here?” Mihoshi asked.

Anaya was silent for a minute and then: “It was wrong of her. To kill that minister.”

Mihoshi sighed, pushing her seat back from her desk and standing. “Right or wrong’s not the issue here. It could’ve been the most justified thing in the world and we’d still have all these problems.”

“Kiast is my home,” Anaya insisted. “I don’t want to see it dragged into another war. Neither do the people.”

“Oh? And would these be the same ‘people’ that rumours say the ‘Jedi-Princess’ has been making speeches to at underground rallies?”

If Anaya was surprised the High Councillor knew about that, she impressively didn’t show it. Good girl. Strong instincts.

“I’ve tried reaching out to Mother. She won’t listen to me -- she won’t even admit what she did wrong! I can’t even get through to Vosen, to try and talk some sense into his idiot head.”

There was frustration in the Princess’ voice. The impotent rage of the young coupled with the inborn sense of authority of royalty.

Every young Padawan thought they should be able to change the galaxy however they like, Mihoshi knew; right all the wrongs, fix every injustice. Anaya was one of the few that actually had some power -- in theory anyway -- to actually act.

But when Miho looked in her eyes, it wasn’t the impotent morality of childhood. It was something steelier. More unbending.

Interesting.

Mihoshi leaned back against her desk, and crossed her arms.

“And what do you propose to do about it that the entire Jedi Temple, OUSC, Consular Corp, and SeNET haven’t?” she asked pointedly. “You just said your mother and brother aren’t listening to you. The default power of royalty is, traditionally, that people listen to them.”

“My family won’t listen to me, but the people already are,” Anaya continued. “And not just me! The workers have started rallying around Master Kingang, and there are already whispers among the Quorahi of another uprising! People are furious at my family for starting another conflict; they don’t want to send any more of their children to die.”

“And you’re proposing… what, exactly? A populist uprising?”

“I think,” she said slowly. “That is going to happen no matter what, High Councillor. And I am asking you to help me direct it before it spins wildly out of anyone’s control.”

Opening:

Hello, everyone. It’s been more than a month and my report is latelatelatelate. Sorry about that, I’m trying to be better about these things but I never liked doing them so it’s forcing me to break an old habit of ignoring them for as long as I could because, well, I can’t do that anymore. Why did I wait so long? Because I did. When I finally managed to get enough report sorted out it was already the last week of January sooooo here we are.

Scimitar of Hoth:

2025 has come and gone and with it, we have finished another year of the Scimitar of Hoth competition. As is tradition, the winner of the year gets a fancy sword to hold onto until someone comes along and beats them for the prize.

If you click on that, you’ll find that this year's winner is none other than The Hothfather himself, Edgar Drachen. Congratulations, old boy. You get a new thing to poke people with.

[Insert from Wolfe~] Heya Folks, here are the details for the December’s Scimitar Congratulations Remy, Seals, Edgar, Asani, Arch, and Lady Caprinet!

And here’s the data from the Yearly Scimitar

Congratulations to Edgar for taking the Scimitar, and to Seals, Remy, Kav, Tisto, and Tarvitz for their consistent activity throughout the year. [Exit stage left]

You want to take the fancy sword away from him? Well, you best get to gaming, writing, arting and participating! As it’s an actual possessions item, you can (I think) equip it to a loadout for use in fictions, ACC, RPs, etc.

That all being said, 2026 - Scimitar of Lord Hoth has begun. Get out there and do damage to things.

Promotions:

• Kav was promoted to EQ4

• Seals was ALSO promoted to EQ4

• Aurelis cruised on up to JM2

• Corpzen made it to JM3

• Lysa Morrow has made their way to NOV3

• Grik Spiceminer managed to get their hands on a JM2 promotion

• John Ward made it to JM3

• Arabella snagged a promotion to JM4

Awards:

• Kav received an Amethyst Kukri

• Seals got her first Ruby Scepter

• Xantros got himself a fancy new Emerald Dagger

<-

News Corner:

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you may have noticed big things going on this last past month.

• Atra became Grand Master and hired Idris to be his second banana.

• Wolfe became the new Voice replacing Idris in office.

• Idris went over his tenure as Voice, giving us a look at all the things that happened.

• Kam put out the call for CoJ applications to help him out in the ever expansive job of HR Justice-y things.

• Dacien left to go get some milk as the newest and last chapter of Parabellum has opened. Before he left, the powers that be did give him a shiny new toy for all his hard, tireless work.

• Wolfe went and abandoned me so he could pursue time as the Voice, leaving Jack screaming into the void and looking for a replacement

• Turel also needs a few good men women PEOPLE! to fill his staff up again in the form of a Wiki Tribune and a Praetor

• Zentru’la stepped down as Praetor and offered us one last piece of advice but this also left Wolfe needing a Praetor as well

• Lastly, Ood put out a call of his own, probably sounding something like the Entmoot and taking forever to actually get through, for a new M:Con over in Taldryan

Not only has it been a month or two of big movements, there’s also a plethora of work that can be done and positions that can be filled. If you’re looking for work in any fashion, go apply and see what happens!

Words, words, words

This will be the area your new Proconsul gets to use for their projects going forward. We are gonna miss the ramblings of a certain dog, but he is doing bigger things now.

It's almost like I can still hear him sighing at me because I can't handle a spreadsheet.

What About the Campaign?

Between health and work issues in the Upper Summit, we’ve had further delays in the continuation of the campaign. This, however, came with potential for some positive changes. The next phase is being worked out with the upcoming fiction.

I don’t want to spoil or promise anything big at the moment, but discussions are ongoing with individuals outside of COU regarding a potential collaboration.

What’s the Dog Wolfe Doin’?

I already spoke on what I’m doing DB-wise above, so I’ll talk about the rest of my nerd-life: Gunpla and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 have been my guilty pleasures lately. Tor and I are working on a few new High Grade kits together, MS-06S Zaku II (Char Aznable’s Zaku), RX-178 Gundam Mk-II (A.E.U.G.), and XXXG-01S Shenlong Gundam. We’re also getting an Entry Grade Gramps Gundam to put together with the kiddo. I’m also spending more time lately getting back into rapier form practice, waiting for the warm weather to come back so I can fence in earnest again.

And Wolfe also went off and became the Voice after Idris stepped up to fill the role of DGM.

Mihoshi Keibatsu, High Councillor of Odan-Urr

(Note to self: Still need to make a signature.)