Just before the Clone Wars began, Mace Windu ignored a shatterpoint in the Force. 

Sometimes, if you hit a corusca gem just the right way at just the right angle, the whole thing shatters, sometimes violently. 

In the Force, to him, anything can be like that. People can be like that - one perfectly-chosen word or gesture is all it takes. 

Rarely, the future can be like that for him. The whole structure of time can turn on something, anything: a planet, a person, a feeling, a bad motivator unit, a sword through an old friend's heart.

More rarely now than before. When he was younger, the world would crystallise more often, more clearly, the weak points obvious. Now, like everything, there is mostly grey darkness. 

War does cloud the Force. Uncounted trillions of lives cut short all the time, the whole galaxy a cauldron of fear and hate and violence, is like a constant unhealed burn, every moment of every day. 

But it is more than that. The Jedi speak little of it: public morale is weak enough as it is, and the Jedi were supposed to be - are supposed to be - the final security of the Republic, within and without. And the truth, that there is something out there powerful enough to cloud the sight and slow the limbs of every Jedi everywhere, all across the galaxy - that could unnerve even younger Jedi, if it got out.

But there had been one shining moment on Geonosis where he saw how the war to come turned on Jedi Master Dooku, how his death at that crucial point would make the Confederacy crumble and the Clone Wars sputter out before they began, and he saw in that moment, and just for a moment, how one fluid thrust with all his strength would slip past his foresight and his defences and his ribcage and save untold lives. 

He hadn't done it, and the moment had passed, and that might spell the end of the Republic. 

So when, one day, in a brief lull in the intensity of the Outer Rim sieges, he settles to meditate and perceives for one shining moment a vast cleavage plane in the future, one of the biggest he's ever seen, that cuts straight through him and straight through the abandoned and barren planet of Jebble - the sort of break that could make the galaxy something new, perhaps something other than this - he stands up briskly, alerts the clones to his impending brief leave of absence, lets the Force guide his fingers as he enters hyperspace coordinates, and finds himself on the frozen surface of a dead world.

Before him is a gleaming black casket newly thrust out from the ice, without even snow settled on it, looking for all the world like it was polished an hour ago for all that it juts out of ancient permafrost and is inscribed in a lost language of the Sith. 

That fracture in the Force leads here, and straight through the invisible joints in the casket. 

...He doesn't sense anything inside. Not that it's empty - he doesn't sense emptiness, not the quiet activity of air or the humming void of deep vacuum or the slow hard presence of solid metal - he senses nothing. 

Fools have tried, but no mere physical procedure can affect the Force. It's possible to extract and measure and even concentrate midichlorians, but nothing of interest happens when you do. 

Some lost archaic Sith, then, made this device, and wanted whatever was inside forgotten and lost. 

That doesn't necessarily mean he wants it out, so he palms his lightsaber. 

But the shatterpoint leads here and doesn't seem to pass through his own death, and beyond that... he will take a gamble, over the current doomed course the Jedi walk.

He follows those complex lines, and reaches out with the Force, and applies pressure to the casket just exactly right.

It hisses open.

Inside is a Falleen woman, vividly orange as is seen rarely amongst that people, wearing plain black robes that nonetheless have a timeless elegance to them, as well as a severe-looking mask, who blinks awake, rolls to her feet as if she hasn't been stuck in a box for a thousand years, and says, in archaic - but not that archaic - Basic, "Break this right now," as she thrusts a golden amulet that seems to be moving of its own accord towards him, her presence flaring with Light as the Force transfixes it.

It shouldn't be possible. This woman should have been dead for millennia. Cryopreservation has its limits, surely, and she should at least be sickly, half-dead as she comes out from hibernation. 

But it makes sense. Some ancient Jedi the Sith couldn't kill for some reason, but managed to trap.

This is what he is thinking, but it's only a small part of him that is thinking at all. Most of him is open to the Force, and the Force doesn't tell him to ignite his lightsaber, but to bring it up and slam the pommel down sharply at a strange angle onto a pointed corner of that golden amulet. 

And as the Jedi hits the Shatterpoint, she throws her own weight behind him, into the amulet's chains of control, into the hooks laid into the rakghoul plague ever so long ago, and breaks them - trying to tear the plague apart.

In victory my chains are broken.

Be set free.

A Dark presence rages as the amulet Shatters, clawing angrily at reality as its hold is broken and the Force finally takes into itself what should have been gone long ago.

"And go kriff yourself, Karness Muur."

"...I have been waiting for this moment for a long time.  Ever since I failed to break that blasted thing myself.  Time blends, when you are that long without even the sense of your own body, but...  When am I, now?  And where?"

There is, now that the Force is not screaming about that amulet, more to notice about the woman.  The 'saber on her belt, which keens softly, as if it already mourns the lives it knows it will someday end.  The blaster pistol, sharp and elegant as the woman that wears it, with well-tended wear borne of use upon its frame.

She sits back down upon the edge of the opened coffin, the frantic energy ebbing out of her now that it is no longer needed.

Her eyes are a soft amber.  "...I hope that worked.

"Even though, given how I am unaccountably drawn to compare the current feeling of the galaxy to tales of those dark times when Vitiate lurked beyond known space, playing both sides against eachother so he could sweep in from the wings, I doubt that rakghouls, however awful, are most pressing for the Order at the present moment."

He can feel this woman do something complex in the Force, and a brief and terrible presence flares and vanishes. 

Then she immediately asks for a situation report. 

His eyes tighten slightly, in a way that would equate to a broad grin on another man. He approves of this probable ancient Jedi. 

He collects himself, and reaches out towards her presence in the Force. She seems uninjured, but he doesn't trust his senses. They are only flesh. Is she in any danger?

The blaster is a little surprising, but there are old records - much of the Jedi philosophy on weapons postdates the Reformations. The lightsaber more so. His lightsaber doesn't mourn anyone, any more than his hands do. That's his job. Specifically his last job. 

"979. - After the Ruusan Reformations, 3632 ATC. The planet Jebble, currently uninhabited. Rakghouls are extinct. We do suspect the involvement of a Sith Lord in occluding the Force, and in the present conflict. Welcome to the Clone Wars."

She is not in any immediate danger, or in for any particular biological dangers at all.  The probability of medium-term danger might be different.

"Someone actually got their act together and put them down?  And here I was worried that Taris wouldn't muster the administrative will to make it happen.  Good on whoever that was, I suppose, and even better that if that's the case, we just destroyed the only thing that could make more.

"The Clone Wars."

She doesn't like the sound of that.

"You, suspect, a Sith Lord - singular - is pulling strings?  My, how the mighty have fallen.  Of course, the subtle knife is more dangerous than the naked blade, when it comes to politics, so that cannot possibly be helping.  But I presume the Empire's fallen with the Sith, so who's fighting?  Has someone finally declared war on the Hutt Cartels?  ...No, there's a Sith involved, there's going to be much more pointless cruelty for cruelty's sake if they at all fit the mold I'm used to.  They wouldn't want to reduce the population of slaves in the galaxy, no kriffing matter that the only self-consistent reading of the Sith Code requires that one be firmly anti-slavery...  Not that they care.

"Ah, but you didn't ask me for my pet Sith heresy.

"Why are they the Clone Wars, then?  And, ah.  Introductions.

"You can call me Knight Vaudelle, at least in Basic.  I have more than enough unpleasant associations with 'Master' than to ever want to hear it about myself.  And you?"

"I am Mace Windu, Master of the Jedi Council."

He's actually only even heard of rakghouls in passing, in those days after Master Qui-Gon's death when he and Yoda went deep into the old Jedi Archives, to learn about an enemy even the Grand Master isn't quite old enough to remember. 

"I wish our other problems could be so neatly contained, Knight Vaudelle. The Sith had been gone for a thousand years, or so we thought, and now we're fighting a war with them. There are always only two, ever since the last war, a master and an apprentice."

(At least, so Yoda is convinced, but all they really have to go on is wild rumour and some questionable fragments from a thousand years ago. There was one Sith who escaped Ruusan, and they killed him.)

"We're fighting the Separatist Confederacy. Mostly the holdings of the Trade Federation and others like them, not happy that we have laws against theft and fraud and slavery. Some genuine dissidents," his tone doesn't give away what he thinks of them, "and some chasing the spoils of war, all held together by the Sith Apprentice."

(And he is not sensing darkness in this person like he did in Dooku. If the Force led him here, like this, then the Force led him to be truthful.)

"And they're called the Clone Wars because of the army of clone soldiers the Republic acquired under unclear circumstances. Very little is clear."

 He doesn't need to gesture, she can sense the cloud on the Force too.

He hesitates for a moment, weighing, but this woman is part of a shatterpoint in the Force, and bluntness is the least respect he owes an ancient Jedi. 

"...The Sith Code is about personal power, and nothing more. 'I gain. The Force shall free me.'"

"Ah, but you are part of the Force, and the Force is part of everything, so you are part of everything.  And you cannot be truly free, when someone who is part of you by that same logic, is in chains.  Or, at least, that's my thoughts on the matter.  I'm sure the Darth you're dealing with would disagree with me as much as Karness Muur did.  Karness Muur, though, has no room to kriffing talk.  He's one of the reasons that that Sith Code exists, not one of the people who used it to overthrow the people like him."  ...She seems to feel quite strongly about this, actually.

"It's almost direly funny, when you take that Code and place it back in its original context of quite literal chains, where peace could not be found because every moment a master could kill you for their own amusement, to look at what has been done with it since.  It's not, but...  There's a horrible irony to it.  They freed themselves, and turned back to forging chains for others who would later do the same to them.

"Still.  As much as I'm interested to hear how the various Force philosophies of the galaxy have developed...

"...You say that the clone army appeared under unclear circumstances.  And that you are certain that an apprentice is on the other side of the conflict.

"Given that the only thing that an orthodox Sith likes more than pain and suffering is 'pain and suffering brought on by backstabbing and betrayal'...  Have you checked these clones for traps?  Have you checked your government for Sith Lords?  I can't help but feel my comparison to Vitiate's tactics was...  Well.  I have a feeling about it.  Whether it's a bad feeling, or a good one...  We'll find out."

"I think you have successfully derived the Jedi Code from the Sith. And I don't find it ironic at all. Of course revenge only creates more suffering in the end. Putting a stop to it is what the Republic is for."

He doesn't actually recognise the name 'Karness Muur', but he can fill in the gaps. 

Anyway, none of that is as relevant as the matter at hand. 

He wouldn't normally stand here and discuss the war with what is still technically a civilian, but the Force did lead him here, and the shatterpoint has cracked into many different possible futures from here, one possible timeline having been averted already. 

"The clones are a trap," he says grimly. "It's too convenient. For someone. Here we are with an army of dangerous soldiers who know only war. Better give them one or fear them. And here we are with a rebellion. Like a pair of sock puppets. And it's worse than that. The apprentice told us the Sith Lord controls the Senate. We haven't found them yet."

...Shatterpoints in the Force happen, he's noticed, around times when people might just do something they don't normally do. If he's going to take this opportunity, it had better not just involve the same kind of conversation he's had with Yoda and Kenobi a dozen times. 

"I know Vitiate's name, but not very much more. Tell me about your feeling. Please."

"I have derived, I think, the Light Side of the Force, from the Code of the Sith.  Having once had a chance to compare with the holocron of a Sith who did, in fact, rederive the Jedi Code from first principles, it seems a slight but meaningful distinction.

"But.  Vitiate.

"Vitiate was a name of a man who was once the Emperor of the Sith Empire.  Because there had been, and would be - or so it seemed - no others.

"We are not dealing with him.  Not least because if your Darth is controlling the Senate they can hardly be building a power base off of the bones of an ancient empire in the Unknown Regions as part of their plot to enact a galactic-scale sacrificial ritual, and I'd hope you'd have noticed a second Nathema as part of the preparatory work.  Ugh.  Even saying that puts a bad taste in my mouth.

"But - who is indispensable to the war effort?  Who has made themself a fixture, and accumulated power from it?

"If I were a Sith Lord who had dreams of recreating the old Empires, political ambitions, and enough skill to obfuscate myself on, seemingly, a galactic scale...  I'd be in the center of the web I was spinning.  My arrogance - the hubris necessary to set off something like this at all - would demand nothing less.  And I'd be so horribly smug about managing to hide in plain sight for long enough to do this...  Ugh.  I hate having to think like that.

"...The clones are a trap, yes, but are they, also trapped?

"Trapped as in they cannot leave, trapped as in slave chips, trapped as in...  Any number of things.  If these two Sith were involved - and really, I have no doubt they were - there's going to be something horribly...  Inventive."

It has a certain horribly crystalline logic to it. 

"His name is Chancellor Palpatine."

Who was brilliant. Who was patient and calm, kindly in person but ironclad in the Senate. Who was the first to strike a blow for democracy and the last to accept the endless 'emergency' powers he was plied with. Who was, surely, the only being in all the Republic who could keep hope, and order, and discipline, among a gigantic and terrified body of countless quadrillions of beings for whom real wars had been a bogeyman out of classical antiquity, who defended the Republic.

"The Force led me here, and this is a shatterpoint in time."

His voice doesn't quaver. He hasn't even changed expression. Even though he has fought for a Sith Lord for years, coolly sacrificed friends and soldiers and enemies for him, even though the Republic itself is long dead. He is still the same, and his next steps - making a clear plan to impeach, try and execute the Chancellor without throwing the galaxy into anarchy - are still clear.

"You may be right. I am here for a reason. ...I have spent hours in the same room as Chancellor Palpatine. As has Master Yoda. Could Vitiate have hidden himself that well, even while pouring such darkness into the Force? How could a Sith be so powerful? How could they be killed if they were?"

"Vitiate?  No.  He was far too powerful to hide if you were even in the same star system.  If this Chancellor Palpatine is the Darth you are looking for, he will have to be on...  A merely mortal scale.

"Not that Vitiate wasn't, eventually, dissipated like a bad smell, but that took a lot more doing because he'd eaten a kriffing planet first.

"As for how to kill him...

"...The quickest answer is to ask me, and tell no-one I exist until it's done.

"I have rather a lot of experience.

"Somehow I don't think that's the answer you want, though.

"The question is how you stop him.

"That's more complicated."

"I really think you need to check the clones for traps, now, because - the Chancellor is still the ultimate command authority of the Republic's military, yes?

"He wouldn't have just let an army exist that would, probably, side with the Jedi against him, without a kill switch at least."

He closes his eyes and breathes deeply, feeling the shock of ice-cold air in his sinuses, the bleak smell of the snows of a dead world, centring himself around the moment. 

(It has not occurred to him to ask if she'd prefer to talk somewhere more comfortable. They're Jedi, and this is important.)

He orders possible concerns neatly in his memory. 

It is only a feeling, and the time is past when he could trust his feelings. The future hinges on this meeting somehow, but not necessarily in a good way. Their first guess might not be right. 

But it's where the smart money goes. 

He wishes he were so sanguine about the scale. Not being able to hide is still a limit. If Palpatine is the Sith Lord, he can conceal himself perfectly - not only hiding, but projecting a perfect false seeming, in front of Yoda. While holding a conversation. And clouding the Force itself.

Second: should they kill the Chancellor, if this ancient Jedi has the power?

Ideally, he should be arrested and tried. But while all the might of the Jedi Order might suffice to kill him even if Palpatine is the greatest Sith in history, it probably won't suffice to hold him. 

Mace has killed people before. Never in anger, never for his own convenience, never without weighing the cost of a life, but he has done it. 

He will meditate and hunt down any remaining feelings, betrayal from a man he'd admired, rage at the blow to his pride, grief for a country that was never real, and put them all to rest, and then make this decision again. He knows it will stay the same. 

As for the clones... they might in fact simply follow their orders, if the Chancellor ordered them to cut down the Jedi. It's how they were trained. It shouldn't be that easy to kill Jedi -

- but in this state -

- and there would be no hate in the clones, no fear to sense, just orders to follow -

- and if it targeted all the Jedi at once, the shock of their deaths whiting out the future -

- Oh. 

"I think I can guess. But we should not trust guesses. Why do you think killing him wouldn't work."

"Oh, no, it would, absolutely, work, to remove the Sith, if I just went and killed him.

"It's the second-order consequences that would be disastrous, without a very good plan I can't handle the politics of.  He's the lynchpin, and he's not a figure of terror it's easy to stir - hatred, I suppose - for, like the Empire's reaction to Vitiate's betrayal.

"The Republic would crumple and then you have the other one still making a mess.  ...And if we tried for a coordinated strike - myself against the apprentice, while the Order strikes the Master...

"...If you did it successfully, that could work.  You could release the evidence of their collusion for all to see - and people do not like dying in wars for the pleasure of tyrants.  If you did not succeed...

"You'd give him a very good-looking reason to do something he already wants to do anyway.  So you had best succeed.

"...I would like to take the measure of anyone you wanted to send on this mission."

Just because he loves the Republic doesn't mean it wouldn't be right to sacrifice it to stop the Sith, if it came to that. Hopefully it won't. But he'll weight that cost no more than if it were someone else's country at stake. 

"You're confident you could kill him, yourself. Why?"

The problem is that he doesn't have evidence of collusion. He has a vision in the Force and an awful sinking feeling in his gut, and the Senate won't buy that, not any more, not against Palpatine. 

As for who should go... ideally, himself, Yoda, Kenobi... not Skywalker, they're too close and the boy doesn't need any more glory... maybe Fisto as well. 

"Past experience.  Admittedly, I've never assassinated a Chancellor of the Republic before, but I have killed many, many Sith Lords, in an environment where they were expecting me.  The Chancellor, assuming he's your Darth...  He is not expecting me."

His senses in the Force are still mostly preoccupied by the cleavage planes running all through the future, and now it's plain instinct that raises the hair on the back of his neck. "Can you explain how?"

"I have a very particular set of skills.  Surely your Order has not forgotten its Shadows?"

No, but they make people uncomfortable. Mace is of the opinion that people should be uncomfortable more often. It's good for them. 

"Records are scarce. Not just for secrecy. Every so often someone would bring them back, for some emergency, and they would eventually fall, and somehow the Archives would gloss over whose foolish idea it was. It's impossible to bring light to the darkness with yet more darkness."

"...If your Shadows are regularly Falling, then you really need my help.  The whole point of Shadows is to not do that, even when confronted with the worst sorts of Darkness.  To be the candle in the dark, rather than the irrepressible beacon of Light - but nonetheless to be a force for Light.

"That, and to deal with leftover Sith...  Everything, once the fighting's over."

"There is exactly one thing the Dark can do to fight the Dark, and that is 'betray itself'.  All else is a trap, and that merely one that is sometimes worth sticking your hand in."

"It's been tried. The Dark can't be destroyed, Knight Vaudelle. The Dark is what you get when you destroy. Dark is the way the world. Light has to be created. Built."

"I did not say 'destroy', Master Windu, I said betray.  The Dark does not go away when it turns against itself.  It simply becomes much less organized.  And sometimes that chaos is exactly what you need."

He really doesn't know what to say to that. 

Which is a sign that he's just looking for things to say instead of listening, let alone thinking. 

"Yes. The Sith do destroy themselves, in the end. The Apprentice slays the Master and is killed in turn."

He sighs. 

"Under the circumstances, I am inviting you back to Coruscant to speak to the Jedi High Council. ...After we send out encrypted messages about what we suspect, just in case."