2 Months after the Treaty of Coruscant
Daimon had been on Coruscant since the treaty was signed, ensuring that things were progressing as he intended them to.
A few days ago, he had already done a live holo call that was broadcast throughout the entirety of the Imperium. It was a long speech that lasted almost 2 hours, but to sum it up, he officially declared victory over the opposing forces and called for an end to the Holy War.
With this mass celebrations were announced across all Imperial words, and the 30 million Imperial soldiers and civilians who lost their lives in the war would get a monument dedicated to them.
Thrace was painted as the main agitator of the war to halt the hatred that was present against the Republic. Sure, some of it would still exist because of lost family members, but by shifting the focus, they could start rebuilding relations slowly over time.
The former empires of the Theocratic Dominion of Kalyndra and Coalition of Free Stars were not given the same treatment. Due to their involvement in the war and betrayal after fighting with the Imperium against the Abominor, they were not given the same treatment as the Republic.
They would be forced to become Imperial citizens and adopt Imperial culture and traditions while their own culture and traditions got largely erased. Daimon may have showed mercy to the Republic because of their historical impact, but for those unknown empires, he wouldn't be soft.
He wanted to send two different messages with these decisions. The first was that he was not some ruthless ruler who wanted to kill billions of people because of the decisions of their leaders and the widespread of misinformation.
The second message was that betrayal carried consequences that no amount of pleading or negotiation could undo. Those who had once fought alongside the Imperium, who had shared resources and shed blood against a common enemy, and then turned that shared trust into a weapon against the Imperium, would find no mercy waiting for them. The punishment was cultural erasure, not genocide, but in many ways the former was a slower and more thorough form of the latter.
On Coruscant, Daimon sat in a temporary office that had been set up within the Senate complex. Lord Maxim stood to his right, reviewing reports from across the Imperium on a datapad. Across from Daimon sat Sela Voss, one of the Penitent faction's senior representatives, and Grand Master Oren Daas of the Preservationists.
The third seat, designated for the Absolutist faction, was empty.
"The last confirmed Absolutist cell was eliminated on Kashyyyk wo days ago," Lord Maxim reported without looking up from his datapad. "Ascendant Task Force Seven reports forty-seven detained, nine killed in combat. The rest surrendered once they realized help wasn't coming."
"And the remaining cells on Ossus?" Daimon asked.
"They capitulated without a fight. The senior Knights there turned themselves in voluntarily after seeing the Kashyyyk reports. They're currently being processed at the detention facility on Tython."
Daimon nodded. The Absolutist resistance had collapsed faster than he'd anticipated, which told him something important about the faction's true composition. The loudest voices had always been a minority. The majority had simply been caught up in institutional momentum and the intoxicating certainty of ideology.
Remove the certainty, demonstrate its futility decisively enough, and most people discovered their survival instinct was stronger than their dogma.
"Grand Master Daas," Daimon said, turning his attention to the elderly Kel Dor seated across from him. The old man's goggles and breathing mask made his expressions difficult to read, but Daimon could sense the complicated mixture of grief, relief, and cautious hope radiating from him through the Force. "How is your Order processing the restructuring?"
Daas folded his hands on the table. "Honestly, Emperor? Many of my Preservationists are relieved. We spent decades warning the Council that the Absolutist faction was steering the Order toward militarism. Nobody wanted to listen because the Absolutists were louder and more politically connected." He paused. "Being proven right offers little comfort when you consider the cost."
"It rarely does," Daimon agreed.
Sela Voss of the Penitents spoke next. She was younger than Daas, perhaps forty standard years, yet she had the weathered look of someone who had spent most of her life traveling the galaxy's less hospitable regions.
"The Penitents are largely willing to cooperate with the doctrinal reformation. Most of us left the formal Order precisely because we disagreed with the direction it was taking. Coming back under different terms is..." She searched for the right word. "Complicated emotionally, but philosophically sound."
"I'm not asking you to come back," Daimon clarified. "The Penitents serve a function that the formal Order never could. You maintain connection with ordinary people, with communities the Temple never bothered to visit. That role should continue."
Voss looked mildly surprised. "Then what exactly are you asking of us?"
Daimon leaned forward slightly, resting his forearms on the table. "I'm asking you to help build a bridge between what the Jedi Order was and what it needs to become. By combining the ideas of both factions, we can continue to maintain institutional continuity and the connection to the living galaxy. And the Balance Keepers can provide a philosophical framework that neither faction currently possesses."
"You want us to learn from your Balance Keepers," Daas said. It wasn't quite a question but more of a statement.
"I want you to learn alongside them," Daimon corrected. "There's a difference. I'm not asking the Jedi to become Balance Keepers. Your traditions have value. Your history has value. But your understanding of the Force has been artificially constrained for generations, and that constraint is what allowed Thrace to weaponize you so effectively."
Grand Master Daas was quiet for a long moment. Through the Force, Daimon could feel the old Kel Dor wrestling with something, not disagreement exactly, but the particular ache of a man who had spent his life inside a system and was only now being asked to see its walls clearly.
"The Code," Daas said finally. "You intend to change the Code."
"I intend to expand your understanding of what it was always trying to say," Daimon replied. "There is no emotion, there is peace. A reasonable aspiration, just poorly taught. Generations of Jedi interpreted it as a command to suppress their feelings entirely. What it should have produced was practitioners capable of experiencing emotion without being controlled by it. There's a significant difference between mastery and amputation." Daimon was also talking about the Jedi families who allowed their blood to control their emotions.
Voss quietly agreed with what Daimon said. "That's the argument many have been making for two hundred years."
"And nobody listened because the argument came from people who had already left the institution," Daimon said. "Reformers are always more threatening from inside the walls than outside them. Outside, they can simply be dismissed as apostates."
"Emperor, I want to ask you something directly, and I would appreciate a direct answer." Daas said.
"Go ahead."
"Do you believe the Jedi Order should exist at all?"
Hearing the question, Lord Maxim glanced up from his datapad for the first time in several minutes.
Daimon thought about his response carefully, not because he was uncertain of his answer but because the answer deserved the weight of proper words.
"I believe the galaxy produces Force-sensitive individuals regardless of whether any institution exists to organize them. The question has never been whether such people will exist. The question is whether they will be shaped by something deliberate and principled, or whether they will shape themselves according to whatever circumstances and temperament happen to find them first."
"The Jedi Order, at its best, is an answer to that question. A flawed answer, historically speaking, but an answer, nonetheless. So yes, Grand Master. I believe it should exist. I simply believe it should exist more honestly than it has."
Daas was completely satisfied with that answer. While he had only met Daimon in person this one time, he could tell that the Emperor had a higher understanding of the Force, or at least of how to use the Force. "Then I will cooperate fully. I can't speak for every Preservationist, but I believe most will follow."
"Most is sufficient," Daimon said. "Unanimity is the ambition of tyrants. I'm not looking for a room full of people who agree with everything I say. I'm looking for people willing to do the difficult work." Daimon hated yes men, as they were often the cause of the problems. They either didn't speak up because of fear or because they didn't have anything to say.
He stood up, which prompted both Jedi representatives to rise as well. "I think this meeting was very productive and I look forward to our continued cooperation." Lord Maxim waited until both Jedi had departed before setting his datapad down. He had a particular way of doing this when he wanted to speak candidly, a small habit that Daimon had noticed centuries ago and never mentioned.
"You're being more patient with them than I expected," Maxim said.
"You expected me to disband them entirely."
"I expected you to consider it more seriously than you apparently did."
Daimon moved to the window overlooking the Senate plaza below. The afternoon light on Coruscant was artificial, filtered through atmospheric processors and reflected off ten thousand kilometers of durasteel and transparisteel, yet it managed to replicate the impression of something natural.
"Disbanding the Order would have been the easier choice," Daimon said. "Easier choices tend to produce harder problems for the future."
Lord Maxim understood his reasoning. He never doubted him for a second as the decisions that Daimon made always benefited the Imperium one way or another. It was more of a sanity check since he had not seen Daimon be this merciful ever during his time by his side.