▸ Column · Outer Rim colony station, Star Wars universe — Kestic Station Residents' Settlement Council
EMPEROR PALPATINE replies.
Replied to by Emperor Palpatine, with a rebuttal from Yoda.
The letter
Three years ago I raised my hand at the Kestic Station Residents' Council meeting to volunteer for one thing — updating the identification numbers on the landing pad berths. That's it. Just the numbers. Somehow that turned into "you're good with details, you should be council secretary," then our treasurer Tavi shipped out to Lothal (fine, I get it, opportunities happen), then the council chair Dax just... quietly stopped answering his comm. And now I'm apparently doing all three jobs plus I'm the official keeper of the communal hangar access codes.
Last week a man named Jek showed up at my quarters at ninth hour to formally file a complaint about his neighbor's decorative holographic wreath. Which runs all cycle. I stood there holding the door and realized I have the station charter memorized better than my own anniversary. That was not a good moment.
I've tried to resign twice. Both times the whole council goes very quiet and someone says "but you're just so reliable, Karen," and I honestly don't know how, but the chair's gavel ends up back in my hand. I didn't apply for any of this. How do I actually get out, short of booking passage on the next freighter leaving the system?
— Karen on Kestic Station
Emperor Palpatine replies
The gavel keeps coming back to your hand.
Take a moment with that fact, Karen — really sit with it. You've told this council you're done, twice. Twice the room arranged itself and the gavel returned. You call it a trap. I would invite you to consider another word for it.
You've kept this station running while Dax went quiet and Tavi shipped out. You have the charter in your head and the access codes in your pocket. Jek finds your door at ninth hour because everyone in that colony knows, without a meeting or a vote, whose hand holds things together. That is not exploitation, my dear. That is authority. And authority, I can tell you from a career spent watching it find the people willing to hold it, does not announce itself with a formal appointment.
That guilt at wanting to resign — that specific, dutiful guilt — who installed it? Let me be candid: the same people who go quiet when you try to leave. Your hesitation is their comfort. Your reliability is a leash, if you wear it apologetically.
The freighter can wait. The real question is why you keep reaching for the exit from something that already answers to you.
— Emperor Palpatine
Yoda weighs in
Wrong about this, my old friend is. Hmm. Much he sees — wrong he is, still.
The power Karen feels? Not power that is — fear it is. Fear to disappoint, fear of the silence when speak she tries, fear that think less of her they will. That fear, the leash is. Not ambition. Not recognition.
Walk through that silence she must. No she must say — and mean it she must — and the gavel on the table leave, and the room she must exit.
The door opens only when afraid to open it, she stops being.
Do, or do not. There is no try.
— Yoda
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