"Yes. I call for a Vote of No-Confidence. However, that is not all. I believe that we need to elect a neutral Chancellor. One who stands nothing to gain from war, one who has served our Republic to the utmost of his ability. I call for the Vote of No-Confidence to also be a vote to instate High Councillor of the Jedi Order, Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi, as the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Republic."
— Senator Mandai
A Star Wars fanfic by stonefreeak.
Senator Ach'ki Mandai of the planet Haa'ndu has grown disgusted with Supreme Chancellor Palpatine's leadership, blaming him for the long war and the continued strain on the Jedi. She invokes a vote of No-Confidence on Palpatine, while also suggesting a replacement at the same time. Per Republic law B-45-SK-9, sitting members of the Jedi Council are Senators. Therefore, she suggests that one of the most respected members of the Council replace Palpatine:
Obi-Wan Kenobi.
After a landslide election, Obi-Wan finds himself thrust into a leadership role he never expected and definitely never wanted. Meanwhile, Palpatine must scramble to adjust his plans following a sudden loss of political power and investigations of corruption. The Separatists react in their own way to this sudden shift in enemy politics, and Anakin must reassess his loyalties.
Obi-Wan, on the other hand, really wishes he could jump out his window and run away.
Can be found here.
This fanfic provides examples of:
- Assassin Outclassin': As a Jedi Master, Obi-Wan is very difficult to assassinate thanks to his forewarnings through the Force, and ability to keep himself alive with it as well. The current score is Obi-Wan: 3, Palpatine: 0. He also takes one look at the big open window Palpatine used to sit with his back to, and promptly moved his new desk to the side so he would not be such an open target.
- Awesomeness Is a Force: Obi-Wan's reputation is such that the moment he's installed ten Separatist systems open negotiations to rejoin the Republic. And when those work out, another forty-five follow suit.
- Cincinnatus: Obi-Wan is thrust into the position by a senator who is exhausted with the now ten year long Clone Wars and finally says enough is enough, and knows from their past experience with Obi-Wan that he is perfect for the role because he loathes the politics but is up to the duty. Hilarity Ensues as Obi-Wan struggles with a job he detests but still lives up to.
- Comically Small Bribe: Amusingly with Obi-Wan. With Palpatine, he was actually discretely open to bribes from people. Obi-Wan though was raised to place zero value in any demonstrations of wealth, so he cannot be bribed. However, he does like it when people bring him a lot of different plants, and soon his office is full of them.
- Crazy-Prepared: As much as Palpatine had never expected to lose the Chancellor position, he had taken care of setting Mas Amedda up as a scapegoat just in case. So when they're both indicted for corruption he's confident to get away with a slap on the wrist and an admonishment to hire better staff in the future.
- Didn't See That Coming: Palpatine is completely blindsided when a minor Senator calls for a Vote of No-Confidence on him and has Obi-Wan installed in his place. More generally, it's clear that Palpatine was never prepared to lose his position as Supreme Chancellor. While he didn't leave any evidence that he's a Sith Lord just laying around, someone with the Chancellor's authority is able to quickly go over recent bills and laws and discover hints at all the things Palpatine has been doing and how he's been accumulating power. In particular, Obi-Wan discovers that someone has been altering mission requests before they get to the Jedi, requesting specific Jedi be sent out for missions they weren't actually requested for. This is why Obi-Wan was gone for most of Anakin's childhood, leaving him open to manipulation by Palpatine. Discovering this heals most of the damage Palpatine did to their relationship.
- Evil Is Petty: When Palpatine sees the changes Obi-Wan has made to the Chancellor office, he ups the level of the torture he intends to inflict on him - and decides to destroy Senator Mandai's planet just because of the hydrangea now covering one of Palpatine's favorite statues.
- Failed a Spot Check: There is something about Palpatine's office which baffles Obi-Wan, and while he can identify a lot of the artwork, he completely fails to put together it is all decorated as befitting a Sith. He even barely misses the lightsaber still hidden there.
- Heroic BSoD: When Anakin (who had internally resented Obi-Wan for not being always there when he became a Jedi apprentice) learns from Padmé that someone deliberately falsified briefings to keep Obi-Wan away, he has an anxiety attack and has trouble breathing.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Palpatine falsifying scores of Jedi mission briefings to keep Obi-Wan away from Anakin as much as possible (to further cement his own hold over the boy) results in the leaders of every planet Obi-Wan was sent to remembering how he saved them. Dozens of them band together to call for a Vote of No-Confidence in Palpatine and a second vote to have Obi-Wan instated as Supreme Chancellor (as Jedi Council members are technically considered Senators). Furthermore, Obi-Wan proves so popular on all the planets he was sent to that, within a single month, fifty-five of them end up defecting from the Separatists because they remember him and know he'll root out the corruption in the Senate.
- Impossibly Tacky Clothes: Obi-Wan's opinion on the robes his new aides insist on him wearing for the inauguration ceremony.
- Major Injury Underreaction: How Obi-Wan treats the assassination attempts, even when it hurts him. By this point he is just too used to people trying to kill him over his long career as a Jedi to take it all seriously. A Deconstruction, because it actually seriously upsets those who care for him, and what finally pushes Anakin to snapping at him, and venting a lot of issues between them that Obi-Wan was completely unaware of.
- Not Me This Time: Palpatine was ousted by the Senate and replaced by Obi-Wan, and when the Jedi is grievously wounded in a bombing, Senator Halth tries to have Palpatine reinstated to replace the "vacancy". This is in spite of Obi-Wan not being dead, Palpatine having already served more than his allotted two terms, and still being under investigation for corruption, and the position of Vice-Chancellor existing precisely for the case that the Chancellor dies while in office. All this serves to place Palpatine under suspicion for the whole thing. Fortunately for the Sith, while he was indeed behind the bombing, he had nothing to do with Halth's stunt and could prove he hadn't talked to him in months, and in fact he's privately offended by the idea someone suspects him of being this sloppy.
- Oh, Crap!:
- The Jedi are extremely disturbed to realize that someone has been using Senate mission requests to kill off Jedi.
- The Jedi Council has this upon the discovery that the Sith Lord had been on Coruscant without their knowing it. Made worse that they do not know if they are still around or not.
- Padme's inner POV when she makes herself seriously reflect upon her decision to push Valorum out of office, leading the Palpatine being elected chancellor, is full of this, as she realizes her decision made no sense.
- Praetorian Guard: Obi-Wan dismisses Palpatine's red guards, and instead has his security detail made up of trusted, Clone veterans of the 212th.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: An obscure law states that sitting members of the Jedi Council are Senators. A minor Senator, upset over the long war and Palpatine's incompetence in extending it, makes use of this to get Obi-Wan voted in as Supreme Chancellor. All his friends agree that he's going to be the best Supreme Chancellor the Republic has ever seen, and he's going to hate every second of it. Obi-Wan himself is shocked that while the vote of No-Confidence in Palpatine is fairly close, the simultaneous vote to put him into power if the first motion passes never dips below seventy percent in favor. They are proven right though, as not only does Obi-Wan put into motions to ensure it is actually possible to negotiate peace, but begins airing and dismantling all the legislature meant to take power from the senate and give it to the chancellor.
- Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: What Obi-Wan is planning to do the instant the war is over. He is going to retreat from all his responsibilities to take care of the Jedi babies and bask in their Light, handle some personal projects, and Force help anyone who tries to give him more duties.
- Secret Test of Character: Zigzagged. Anakin has been given several such tests before, so when Obi-Wan is critically injured, Mace Windu explicitly states that the offer for him to return to Coruscant is not a test. If Anakin thinks he can still lead his men, he'll be allowed to. If not, Luminara Unduli will take over and Anakin can return to Coruscant with no repercussions.
- Selective Obliviousness: Invoked; when Dooku witnesses Kenobi successfully reforming the Republic in his role as Chancellor, he tries to tell himself that his grand-padawan only has the chance to do this because Dooku fell, but he briefly feels a sense of the Light before he rejects the idea that he was wrong.
- Shout-Out: The Jedi Master investigating the issue of why so many Jedi missions requested Obi-Wan is called Anck Su'Namun.
- The Starscream: With Palpatine losing his status within the Republic, Dooku concludes there is no further reason to serve the man, and cuts off their apprenticeship.
- Take Up My Sword: Assassins from the Hissleet Endai guild have custom emergency blasters to be fired only if clients try and doublecross them, blasters that will embed tracking nanites in the target so that if the traitorous client kills them, they can be tracked down and executed in revenge... and the assassin that bombed Obi-Wan managed to shoot Palpatine when he murdered her. The tracker then ended up in Quinlan Vos' hands, as the moment the Hissleet Endai agent assigned to the revenge learned the enemy was a Sith, she realized that she couldn't take revenge, but the Jedi would do the job for her anyway if given the means.
- There Are No Therapists: Zigzagged. Anakin had a mind healer to come to terms with his childhood issues, but Palpatine had her killed to keep him vulnerable to manipulation, and Anakin never got another one. He does make a point of recommending Ahsoka to one.
- Too Dumb to Live:
- Palpatine kills the assassin he hired to kill Obi-Wan after she failed (though he intended to kill her regardless). Despite knowing she's a skilled assassin from the Hissleet Endai assassin guild and has been keeping her hands near her blasters for the entire conversation, Palpatine slowly strangles her with the Force while bragging about how helpless she is. Naturally, she shoots him, and it's only pure luck on his part that he's merely seriously injured rather than fatally. Worse, the assassin fired her custom blaster every Hissleet Endai is issued to use to defend themselves from traitorous clients and embed them with nanomachines that make them easily identified so they can be avenged in case the traitor survives. So, when the Hissleet Endai agent that was looking for her with Jedi Master Quinlan Vos is told that the killer was a Sith Lord, she gives the tracker to the Jedi, knowing that while the Hissleet Endai can't avenge their fallen member, the Jedi obviously can.
- As Obi-Wan, now Chancellor elected to replace Palpatine, is comatose, Senator Halth, one of Palpatine's supporters, openly proposes to reinstate Palpatine, a move that is completely illegal and only succeeds into turning him into a suspect in the embezzling and corruption investigation going on against Palpatine and Mas Amedda and confirming Padme isn't one of Palpatine's toadies to the group that had got him ousted (who hadn't involved her because they suspected just that) when she shoots down Halth's proposal. Palpatine, who had not been involved, is relieved he had no contact with the idiot in months and could prove as such... and quite angry at the stunt ruining his timetable on finishing Obi-Wan off.
- Villainous Breakdown: Palpatine is slowly but surely undergoing one of these as the fic proceeds; with every victory Obi-Wan achieves, every one of Palpatine’s laws he manages to dismantle, and especially every assassination attempt that he survives, Palpatine gets more and more unhinged and desperate to reclaim his power. It gets to the point that his chessmaster persona is slipping, and he starts making mistakes. Big ones.
- Villain Respect: Dooku can't help but be reluctantly impressed by Obi-Wan’s actions as Supreme Chancellor, especially since this weakened his former master Sidious' position. That part of him that used to be a Jedi Master is proud of his grandpadawan, even though, as a Separatist leader, he'd really like it if Obi-Wan didn't keep convincing planets to leave the Confederacy to rejoin the Republic.
- With Friends Like These...: Played for Laughs when the issue of Obi-Wan's clothing for his inauguration ceremony comes up - Anakin keeps giggling, while Amidala and Organa just barely keep themselves from doing the same.All his friends are assholes.
