EXT. GEONOSIS – CONDAWN CITY – DAY
Located atop a plateau surrounded on all sides by open, barren, cold desert is Condawn City, capital of Geonosis’ Condawn Province. Though there are veritable metropolises built deep underground in immense subterranean caverns, at 122.19 km2 in area, Condawn City is the largest settlement located atop the surface of the planet.
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The Condawn Capitol House, located near the heart of Condawn City. While once a resplendent monument at some early point in its long history, unnameable generations of destruction and restoration wrought by the planet’s harsh elements and fierce battles have left it only a little less nondescript – a little less shabby – than its neighbouring buildings.
INT. CONDAWN CAPITOL HOUSE/CHLORIAN VADER’S OFFICE – DAY
Within the spacious office room, GOVERNOR CHLORIAN VADER sits behind his pearlwood desk. Clad in a simple brown Imperial uniform stripped of any and all rank insignia, Vader is burly with solid gray hair, a man in late middle age – possibly somewhere in the neighbourhood of 115 to 120 years old. Exhausted, his face pasty and gray eyes bloodshot, he can no longer read over the pile of datapads strewn atop his desk; closing his eyes, he rubs the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.
SHMI WARKA then enters the room. A slender woman with long, braided brunette hair and a pleasant face marked by laugh lines and crow’s feet, she, too, can be considered middle-aged, though she is at least ten years Vader’s junior.
A tray of food and drink held between her hands, Shmi walks up to Vader beside his desk.
CHLORIAN VADER: Shmi. (notices the tray) What’s this?
SHMI WARKA: It’s food.
CHLORIAN VADER: I can very well see that. I didn’t ask for anything to eat.
SHMI WARKA: It’s been two days since you’ve had a meal.
CHLORIAN VADER: I’ve been too busy to eat, Shmi. (beat) Besides, how can I eat when the people are going hungry out there? (shakes his head) No, take it away, take it home. You and your son could do with it more.
SHMI WARKA: Darth and I are well enough off, don’t you worry. (clears a space on the desk and sets the tray down)
CHLORIAN: We both know that’s a damn lie. (laughs mirthlessly) No one’s well enough off.
Rising from his chair, Vader crosses over to the twin transparisteel doors which lead to the balcony outside. He doesn’t open the doors to go outside; he just stands there, looking out across the dismal brown cityscape beyond.
CHLORIAN VADER: What has it been, now – almost three months? Three months cut off from the rest of the Galaxy. We can’t leave and no one can arrive. The Underdwellers have sealed the entrances into their cities, hoarding their caches of supplies, leaving us topside to starve. We can’t even call to ask what is going on out there; all hyperwave transmissions are being jammed. (sighs) By the Ancients, it feels like it’s been a hundred years, not three months.
Walking up to Vader, Shmi rests her hands on his shoulder.
SHMI WARKA: Don’t trouble yourself so, Chlor. Have faith that Providence will provide for us when the time is ripe. (beat) Now come – your brunch awaits.
Smiling slightly, Vader rests a hand on Shmi’s own. Turning around, they head back to the desk.
At that very moment, the light coming in through the doors grows dim, casting the office into a deep twilight of shadow.
CHLORIAN VADER: (frowns) What’s this?
The governor and his servant return to the twin doors. Looking out through the transparisteel panes, their mouths drop agape.
EXT. CONDAWN CITY – DAY
Having arrived from the depths of space, the Imperator-class star destroyer Purifier now resides over Condawn City, its vast bulk blocking out the sun. Thousands of TIE-fighters accompany it, swarming about like metallic locusts, choking up the skies.