I have turned thirty-five years old and have returned to Coruscant. I'm utterly sure I won't be recognized, thanks to the mechanized fat suit I wear and the subtle Force illusions that surround me. The fat suit is something I created myself. It acts just like a mobile healing and protective tank. With a mixture of healing kolto and the new regenerative agent bacta, my body is refreshed and energized constantly.
My comprehensive understanding of the body, my knowledge of healing, my power over the Force, the dark alchemy I've learned on my travels, and my physically reinforced body have kept me at my absolute physical peak with zero medical consequences. It baffles me that other Force users who search for unlimited life didn't combine medical, mechanical, and the all powerful Force together to gain what I have. I can't say for certain that I will live forever, but it certainly feels like it. I've never been as strong physically, mentally, or with the Force as I am right now.
This was the main reason why I'm confident about returning to Coruscant, despite it being the Jedi's main stomping grounds.
My old name, Ban Bailo, has been lost to time and fake death, replaced by my nickname, Bee. I have taken active action in running my business, which is no longer "Bee's healing rooms," but "Bee's healing halls." The business has grown much bigger. It was once just a single room with the bare necessities, and with time it spread throughout Coruscant, covering all the different vertical levels. The speed it grew was insane.
Just like compound interest, the healing rooms grew. When there were enough healing rooms, the process looped on itself and started to upgrade the facilities into healing halls with new and better equipment.
Then it hit me. Instead of aiming for mutual destruction to deter my enemies, I could aim for political suicide for them.
By making the common people love me, or at least love what I can do for them, no bigshot or bigwig would dare to attack me due to the inevitable repercussions from the normal populace. It had already happened on a small scale when gang members tried to take over my early healing rooms. The common people, fearing the loss of cheap medical care, fought back to protect what they had.
That was the plan from now on to get the people to love me so I could use them for protection. The first step was to put a face to the name of Bee's Healing Halls. I solved that by going on the holotube and plugging a new idea to the people.
I wore my fat suit and told the common people who I was. It was a gamble to show the people how fat I was, but I spun the idea of a fat, caring uncle who was there to help you. I was also brutally honest with them. There was nothing more damaging to politics in any form than for the people you wanted on your side to think you were fake and a liar.
"I know what you're thinking," I said to the holographic camera, forcing a hearty chuckle and giving a conspiratorial wink.
My voice, electronically modulated to sound deep and friendly, boomed. "You're thinking, 'Look at that fat guy! He probably ate all the profits!' And you're half right! I like food. But I also like making money. I'm not doing this out of the goodness of my heart, folks, but I promise you this I will never take what I offer away from you!"
I then offered cash for great ideas. "If you have a prototype but not the cash to finish it, come see Uncle Bee. I will offer to buy it. I will make money from your idea, but you will get paid fair market value." I announced a new holographic show, openly inspired by primitive shows like Dragon's Den and Shark Tank. I would make money from the show while actively looking for new investment opportunities. It would take time for people to take advantage of my little deals, but with a lot of adverts plugging the new program, I would get the message out.
In the meantime, I put together a different plan to make the people love me: Project Eden. By pooling existing technology, I created a blueprint for a level detachable, advanced hydroponic base. The core idea was to produce a huge amount of amazing, cheap food.
Water would be needed, but that was solved thanks to the technology of moisture farmers. The energy was solved due to thermal, wind, and solar collectors. Artificial gravity and environmental controls to manage the comfort of the plants were extracted from salvaged starships.
The necessary technology already existed; all it would take was to put it together. A hexagon shaped, single storey building took shape with all the specific needs that a collection of plants would ever require. It was a beautiful design, easy, simple, and stable. A great design, if I do say so myself. A mini forest or a highly efficient growing lab could be grown with ridiculous ease. I was incredibly proud of the design, and the best part was that it could be extended with new floors added to the whole structure, just like LEGO bricks.
With blueprints in hand and a big construction team following my precise orders, building began on a scrap yard moon I had secretly acquired.
The moon was a hidden secret from the galaxy. I hadn't stopped my sticky fingers from pillaging derelict spaceships while I was learning from the fringe Force traditions. The alien race known as the Aing Tii hated slavery and attacked any slave ships they could find. A lot of the ships in this scrap yard moon came from them. The construction material for my Eden Project would be found here; it had almost everything needed for the project. I left my team to it while I went to enjoy a nice piece of cake.
The cake was heavy with cream and fruit, just the way I liked it. My fat suit was a heavy piece of technology that no normal person could move in without significant effort, and yet I had to keep up the appearance of a food loving fatty that looked like they had family in the Hutt species. Still, the food was nice.
As soon as the first Eden hexagon was completed, I brought it to various planets to test them out. I left my construction and engineering team to complete more Eden Hexagons while I focused on field testing the prototype.
It might have been wise for a normal person to have a team of testers work on Eden, but I wasn't normal. I could inspire growth using the Force, cutting the testing time down dramatically, and I didn't need people questioning why the plants were growing so quickly. I had to keep my secrets to myself.
As time went by, my testing grew. New floors were added to my Eden garden, and different planets became their home. Surprisingly, desert planets worked incredibly well with the Eden ships; the excesses of heat and light became the reliable factors.
Space was inhospitable, and if you wanted to survive there, you needed reliable technology that all starships seemed to have. So, a desert planet was simple compared to space. The heat and light powered the facility to keep it at the ideal conditions for plants.
The artificial gravity machine worked against the planet's gravity to create a moon-like atmosphere inside that sped up the incredible growing speed of the plants, which also caused a nice little hop and skip to anyone who was working in Eden.
The water was collected at night using the same technology as moisture farmers, but on a bigger scale, and used during the day. Growing food this way meant only ten percent of the water used in normal farming was needed. The excess was recycled and stored for further use.
The unseen benefit that I hadn't expected was the sheer amount of oxygen produced by each Eden. Most desert planets didn't have oceans to support oxygen producing plants and so had to be artificially created by giant structures called air scrubbers.
Any family who ran one of these would get paid by the government or whatever taxes they could collect. If the Eden units produced enough oxygen, then they would also get paid extra by the government. A nice little financial consequence for what a plant would consider a waste product.
Manuals were drafted for each different kind of planet and how Eden ships would react. For example, high freshwater planets that had a lot of insects meant the air purifiers would need to be cleaned almost daily because of the constant insect invasion.
Testing was complete. Construction was constantly increasing the number of Eden ships being built, and all that was needed now were people to maintain and repair the mechanics and droids.
I went the way of the Jedi, but better.
My organization visited the families of Force sensitive children that had dismissed the Jedi, instead of handing them over to the Order, and made them a better offer. Instead of taking their precious children away, my organization wanted the whole family to work in their own Eden ship. They were offered a better life with guaranteed profit, and their Force sensitive children would be trained in growing plants and repairing the Eden units.
"We don't want your child, we want your family," my representative would tell them. "You stay together, you run the garden, and your child learns a skill that uses their unique talent to feed the hungry."
It was a win win for everyone. The family would stay together, producing mega amounts of food that would be bought by my company and sold cheaply in Bee's Food Halls across the most starved worlds. The Force sensitive kids would learn a craft and use their Force abilities to produce more fruits, vegetables, and ultimately, cash.
I would be famous for my good works and feeding the hungry, but still make a tidy profit on the side.
Worlds that desperately needed food, like the lower levels of Coruscant, would get it, making me and my organization a necessity that no sane government official would think about messing with.
A new school was developed, teaching everything that was needed for Eden. While I would have liked a Force sensitive child in each Eden to dramatically increase the growing speed, the truth was there were so many mouths to feed and not enough Force sensitives to staff the projects.
Lotteries were set up where the winners would be sent to my Eden school with their families to fill the need for food manufacturing.
This was just the beginning.