Opening the doors, the Rear-Admiral swept his eyes around the Lucerne dining room, noting the various works of art, mostly pre-Clone Wars vintage from Alderaan; relics gathered by his father before the family’s transplant to Kashan. Several House of Lucerne banners hung ceremoniously from the vaulted ceiling. At the centre of the marble floor stood a hardwood table, this one a relic from his mother’s side of the family from Kuat. Corise stepped in, Fyre following him; their footsteps echoing throughout the room.
“Sweet home, huh?” stated the Commander, his eyes wandering around the room.
The younger Lucerne mirthlessly smiled. “You mean my parents’ sweet home. This place looks like it should be in a museum to me.”
Fyre snorted. “Or as some holo set.”
Corise nodded.
Fyre shrugged. “You’ve heard the latest INS news report.”
The Kashan man nodded. “Most of the Confederation has seen it. It was interesting at least. Besides, the newest broadcast makes Zell seem somewhat foolish.”
Fyre cocked his head to his side. “How so?”
“Zell contradicted himself. On one hand, he claims that the Empire did not know about the Confederation being a part of the Coalition. But he then proceeds to use the fact that the Confederation is part of the Coalition in order to justify the use of a punitive attack on Metalorn. So, within a half hour, he has claimed two completely different things, and viewers are noticing that,” mused Lucerne, “he’s been caught in a lie; that reduces his credibility. People can claim that evidence was manufactured or records were erased in these debates whether the Empire knew of our membership within the Coalition; Imperial Intelligence or CSIS could have do certain aspects of that process, but how do you erase the memory of people who have saw Zell’s mistake? I suppose through the Force perhaps, but in that case, there are going to be several thousand force-users running across the galaxy trying to erase millions of people’s memories. If you have to lie, you have to keep a good memory; though I suppose I’m really not surprised that Zell forgot. He is getting old. In any case, every time they try to put something through INS, it tells about the questions and problems they’re dealing with on the home front, and the effectiveness of their propaganda. Some of our analysts are beginning to joke about INS being their daily entertainment.”
Fyre’s mouth gaped. “Their daily entertainment? They have nothing better to watch?”
The Rear-Admiral nodded, pulling out a hardwood chair for Fyre. “For them, yes. Propoganda is an interesting thing. It can backfire just as easily as it can succeed. The smallest word used in a sentence of a pages long news report can trigger can move the masses.”
“You’re saying INS is a propaganda machine.”
Corise laughed hard. “It’s not even slightly concealed, mainly so because it’s not even close to balanced. Has anyone ever seen any criticism of the New Order on the show? Everyone makes mistakes, even our own Pro-Consul, but the sheer lack of mistakes made by TNO shown by the show seems abnormally suspiciously to even a mildly observant watcher. That is, if they didn’t know already know it was a propaganda effort. It’s very name shows that it’s directly connected to TNO.”
Fyre frowned. “Isn’t CCNS name directly connected to our own?”
Corise nodded. “Yes, namely because that’s the government’s official press release organization. Sure, there are some independent columnists and editorials that in every edition, but most of it is for government personnel, by government personnel. I think the editorial by Ms. Toymia is an excellent example of a government personnel making a contribution to the paper. Whether what was presented in it was correct or not is certainly up for debate.”
Fyre shrugged. “It certainly sounded better than whatever crap Zell was saying.”
Lucerne leaned back in his chair. “Like my underwear? Zell is if anything amusing. I’d say he is generally the comedy part of the show.”
Fyre stared at him. Corise shrugged.
“Case and point, the ridiculous amount of insults geared at the Coalition at large. It’s just as much of a turn-on for people as it is for turn-off. In fact, I bet it hurts the propaganda efforts in some ways.”
“Oh?”
Corise shrugged. “Would you take political advice from a landspeeder mechanic?”
Fyre frowned. “No…”
“He sounds like a landspeeder mechanic; the diction, the cussing, the continual insults. He doesn’t seem remotely professional in anything, which in turn discredits him to more people than the whole plain folks concept could possibly endear him.”
The Commander nodded. “I want to say something like every 3 words was either insult or a swear word of sorts. You know, I think a lot more assertions were made rather than actual facts.”
Corise nodded. “Which in turn discredits INS to anyone who actually digs for information past INS itself. The fact that Starwind station isn’t secret for example; in fact, TNO ambushed a diplomatic convoy heading to the summit, so they must of known of it somehow even if it wasn’t advertised on Coruscant. I’d bet that most of their mildly intellectual populace doesn’t believe a word they say.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ever hear of the ancient story of the Boy who Cried Wolf?”
Fyre nodded. “Tell a lie so many times that no-one will believe you?”
The older Kashan man nodded back. Fyre glanced at his chrono for a second.
“Isn’t the opposite also true? Tell a lie so many times that people will eventually accept it as truth?”
The Rear-Admiral nodded. “Certainly, if the target audience never really analyzed or even questioned the content. That happens sometimes, to be sure, but you have to be pretty dimwitted not question where the information is coming from, or is the person trying to influence me for his own selfish end? Is the information confirmed by other sources? That’s one of the main faults I see with INS, in fact, that since it only appears there, it has no backing one way or the other.”
“One could say the same thing about CCNS.”
Corise snorted. “Not really. CCNS is one of many holos throughout the Galaxy, or even the Confederation. Aside from a few government press releases, the news stories presented there are shown by other, private holos. People can cross-reference, and they do, if they want to find the truth. And that contributes to what I think is interesting.”
“Hm?”
“The separation INS is creating among the Empire’s populace.”
Fyre stared at the Rear-Admiral. “Are you sane?”
“Just hear me out. Basically there are three types of people in regards to INS. The people who think that INS is the Word of the Maker, the people who pay no attention to it, and the people have paid attention to INS, looked further, and realize it’s a sham.
The first group are the people who don’t look further. Those are the people to whom the lies have become a truth. In general, those are the people who aren’t terribly smart or intellectual; they don’t think for themselves-”
“Like sheep, dumb and easily led,” interrupted Fyre.
Corise shrugged. “Something like that. The people who pay no attention to INS generally have pretty neutral feelings to the Empire, the Coalition, and most major powers. They are the people who just care about their civilian job, their family. It doesn’t matter to them who rules their planet, as long as neither of the above are effected. It’s a reasonably sizeable group, mostly in the Empire’s outlying worlds, or so the analysts tell me. That’s something that people seem to forget. Simply because someone lives within the Empire doesn’t mean they’re a die-hard supporter of the Regime.”
“One could say that about the Coalition.”
Corise shrugged. “In general, not really. Namely because the people under the Coalition government do so by their own will. There might some neutrals, like Stellar’s factory workers on Genon, but not to the extent of the Empire, whose continual conquests are bringing neutral parties under their banner.”
“So simply because the Empire has a larger population doesn’t mean they have a whole lot supporters with which to operate their military and its assets.”
“Correct. In fact, some of the neutrals tend to become anti-Imperial once the Empire has invaded their planet. That’s how a lot of grassroots resistant movements form. It’s rumoured that there’s one on Bandomeer, or was it Serenno? Well, wherever the Empire came up with the bright idea to bombard a civilian park...”
The black-haired officer leaned back. “And the third group?”
Corise grinned. “The people who actually think; the intellectuals, the deepthinkers. These are the professionals; they have an education, and they use it. If you see the lies, there are a lot of interesting turns that one could take. One is to recognize the lies, see what they really are, and act on them. That’s where you get the critics starting to form up and educating the public-”
“Which leads to internal strife-”
“-and the other option from that path is to leave the Empire and head elsewhere.”
“Basically brain drain?”
Corise nodded. “Brain drain. Which is bad for them, obviously because of a lack of professionals, and generally because those self-exiled professionals come to the Coalition to reverse what they’ve found out what the Empire is. Or more often, they go to a neutral world or faction like the Vinda-Capricia Commonwealth.
On the other hand, once they’ve discovered the truth, they could deny it, which leads to their ignorance and incompetence in other matters, or to being morally corrupt. Something which is easily used by covert elements, whether it be GLF or the Bothan Spy Network. Or even us, if it comes down to war. In any case, I think we have some exiles coming through immigration, not a whole lot, at least not compared to flux from the poorer worlds. I imagine will be keeping customs busy for a while; and myself.”
Fyre raised an eyebrow. “I knew we had an influx of people coming here, but how are exiles from the Empire going to be keeping the SCO busy?”
Corise smiled. “Well, these exiles aren’t from the Empire. They’re from something much smaller. After dinner gets here, I’ll get you the briefing on how the immigration is going and the other matters while I’m gone to the exiles.”
“You should make a holo about this conservation.”
Corise raised an eyebrow. “So you can be a holo-star?”
Fyre gave an irritated glance to the younger Lucerne. “Because the ideas are interesting.”
Corise shrugged. “Those aren’t my ideas. They’re already floating around in various holos except for that last analysis part. That’s the work of CSIS analytical intelligence branch…”
