466, Separatists
As time goes by, Separatist Movement, which was started by Count Dooku, is also continuing to grow and develop.
Chancellor of the Galactic Republic Sheev-Palpatine devoted all his energy to cracking down on dissidents, expanding his own power, and completely allowed those Galactic Republic corrupt officials to act against Outer Rim Territories.
Under such circumstances, coupled with the unparalleled reputation and eloquence of Count Dooku, a large number of Outer Rim Territories planets joined Separatist Movement and began to resist a series of policies of Galactic Republic.
Since 500 planets, including Dawn Star Planet, publicly announced their refusal to pay taxes for Galactic Republic, more and more planets have joined in. The Free Trade Zone tax policy that Galactic Republic has worked hard to implement since the previous speaker Phineas-Valorum has become a dead letter.
Next, Count Dooku secretly cooperated with Trade Federation, Technological Alliance, InterGalactic Banking Clan, Corporate Alliance, and The inter-galactic Mega-corporations, headed by Merchant Guilds and Fourth Group, reached a preliminary agreement to let them join their cause to fight against Galactic Republic.
And the promise he gave was that once they successfully force Galactic Republic to submit, these companies will have astronomical financial gains and can legally occupy a large number of galaxies. At the same time, they will also receive unimaginable privileges.
That's right, he was never talking about starting a life-and-death war with Galactic Republic, but telling these corporate giants that war is just a means to get Galactic Republic to sit on the negotiating table, or even subvert the current Galactic Republic government and replace it with them.
Each of these corporate giants has ulterior motives. For example, Trade Federation is because Governor Newt Gunray was coerced and recruited by Darth-Sidious, InterGalactic Banking Clan is Darth- The arrangements left by Pregas during his lifetime, the basic bases of the Technological Alliance and Corporate Alliance were originally in Outer Rim Territories, but the ambitious Merchant Guilds wanted to seize this opportunity to reach a higher level.
As for Fourth Group, they are eager for this war to start, and the bigger the better, it is best to fight out all the brains.
But no matter what, Count Dooku eventually received funding from these companies, and his activities became increasingly larger and more blatant. In Outer Rim Territories, Xu Draon Planet has stopped playing Galactic Republic's media and has switched to playing a large number of Count Dooku's speeches.
This not only intensified the conflict between Outer Rim Territories's planet and Inner Rim and Core Worlds, but also made the atmosphere at Galactic Republic more tense.
Sheev-Palpatine has made public speeches more than once, stating that he cannot accept the behavior of dividing the country under any circumstances, and called on the Separatists protesters to return to the negotiating table and not be blindly aggressive.
But having said that, he did not take any substantive action, he just kept trying to persuade Outer Rim Territories through the media.
Naturally, the slogan that the upper and lower lips touch the empty mouth and the white teeth come out cannot be accepted by Outer Rim Territories, but Palpatine also hopes for this. The reason why he said this is just to create a setting where he still loves peace and longs for the unity of Galactic Republic.
As for Count Dooku, since he already had enough support, he quickly started preparations.
The first thing is the industrial aspect. According to the report of Trade Federation Governor Newt Gunlay, Trade Federation was jointly developing an upgraded version of Dreadnought-class heavy cruiser with Rendili StarDrive - Deceiver-class destroyer (Providence-class carrier/destroyer) [Note 1].
Deceiver-class destroyer is a multi-functional battleship equipped with an advanced command system and heavy armor, and adopts a modular design, which can easily replace the functional cabin. According to different configurations, Deceiver-class destroyer can be used as a command ship, aircraft carrier and battleship.
But in fact, in order to avoid suspicion, Rendili StarDrive outsourced this project to Free Dac Volunteers Engineering Corps (Free Dac Volunteers Engineering Corps), a large engineering company established by Quarren, which mainly provides outsourcing and processing services for Rendili StarDrive.
As Separatist Movement becomes more and more violent, Rendili StarDrive can no longer sit still, and they are preparing to withdraw from this project. At the same time, Count Dooku intervened in the dispute between Mon Calamari and Quarren in Mon Calamari, gained support from Quarren, and allowed Free Dac Volunteers Engineering Corps to break away from Rendili and build a warship specifically for Separatists.
The Deceiver-class destroyer project was also brought over by Free Dac Volunteers Engineering Corps, and Trade Federation continued to invest in preparing to complete this powerful battleship.
Free Dac Volunteers Engineering Corps secretly built a huge shipyard in Parmant, the colonial world of Quarren, specifically for the construction of Deceiver-class destroyer.
And after having decided to embark on the road to war, the ambitious Count Dooku even persuaded Trade Federation to spend huge sums of money to design a more powerful invincible warship based on Deceiver-class destroyer - the Subjugator-class heavy cruiser (Subjugator-class heavy cruiser)!
As these were not enough, Count Dooku asked Merchant Guilds President Shu Mai and Corporate Alliance President Parcel Argent to jointly fund and cooperate with Hoersch-Kosher Power Company (Hoersch-Kessel Drive) to design a powerful fire support ship. This project was named Defiant-class light destroyer (Recusant-class light destroyer).
Hirsch-Kosher Power Company is one of the oldest spacecraft design and construction companies in the galaxy, with a history of more than 4,000 years. However, in the subsequent competition, it was defeated by emerging super industrial enterprises such as Kuat Drive Yards and became a subsidiary of Trade Federation. It was successively transferred to the Duros consortium and the Nimbanel consortium of Hutt Space.
But after all, this is a company with a deep foundation, so it is no problem to carry out some design and construction work. But after all, the company's scale is limited, and it is currently mainly engaged in the construction and renovation of Luukri-Hok-class freighter, so the construction work of Defiant-class is also scheduled to be handed over to Free Dac Volunteers Engineering Corps.
In addition, Technological Alliance mainly provides technical support in all aspects, including the research and development of army equipment, various robots, and fighter jets. InterGalactic Banking Clan naturally pays for it.
Here, the main job of Fourth Group is to cooperate with Trade Federation to build Hiigaran-class battlecruiser and Wraith fighter. These are the only two things Count Dooku looks at among the product lines announced by Fourth Group.
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[Note 1: As always, the battleship classification in "Star Wars" is particularly fascinating. Divine-class alone has several names such as command ship, battleship, dreadnought, cruiser, and destroyer... Here it is defined as a destroyer according to the official name in the setting.]