19:00, sunset
Nayaman Ruins, Seraph

Alara lifted her eyes from the jungle floor to the large, ridged blocks of sandstone that arched over the cave's orifice.

*There has to be something important in there . . . Too bad I didn't bring Artemis on this journey,* the Quaestor thought to herself. Alara stepped under the archway and flicked the switch on her favored lightsaber to light the path ahead.

The cave was lined with ivy, vines, and alien reptiles of which species she was definitely not familiar with. A three-eyed orange lizard blinked a few times at her before disappearing with camoflauge into the cave wall. The cave ceiling was a lot higher than she anticipated. With a glance upwards, she realized ancient Nayamans, or whoever decided to decorate in here, had shaped stalactites into an odd arrangement of chandeliers. With a twist of her wrist, the half-Sephi called upon the Force and threw fireballs at the torch spots. She clicked her saber off and fastened it to her belt.

The corridor had storage chests on each side of the wall, slightly dug further into the rubble of the main surface. However, it looked as though thieves had already stolen any spoils that were there, and they must have done it quite a long time ago since dust rested on the chests' lids. With a bite of frustration on her lower lip, Alara continued down the main hallway's path, stepping over rocks and skeletons as she went.

Suddenly she realized a giant sculpture stood before her at the far end of the highway. When she looked up as far as she could to see the top, pointed ears barely were noticeable through a warrior's helmet. With a gasp, she ran closer to find out more information.

" . . . Sephi? A Sephi? Could it be?" she spoke to herself aloud. As soon as she lifted her hand towards it and rested her palm on the soldier's massive feet. When she did so, the entire sculpture's armor lit up immediately, throbbing with a firelike pattern. She looked up in shock and recognized the eyes were flashing the same auras. When Alara looked down at her hand that had touched the statue, it began shining with the same effect, and much like a fire catching light, it caught to the rest of her arm and appeared with similar markings all across her body. When she looked to a nearby puddle, she saw it: her eyes, like fire, resounded flickering flames in her eardrums. She touched her newly marked face to feel what possible indent it coudl have made on her skin until the throbbing overtook her body in echoes and took over her heartbeat.

That's when she fell to the ground.

Money makes the world go ‘round, and the old adage holds true even in a galaxy far, far away. *The Last Jedi* had a whole sidestory arc on its own planet to demonstrate that. But Scholae Palatinae left its money sources back in Cocytus, which wasn’t beneficial to them.

Hence, we need to look at the assets we have brought with us, and how to make money on them without selling them off piecemeal.

**Scholae’s Fleet** is at the moment one of the top three fighting navies in the Caperion system and surrounding space, with future upgrades only able to excel ultimately. The fleet like is also allied with one of the other big fleets against the third, with no pressure to go into an all-out shooting war anytime soon.

This frees up some vessels to serve as scouts or escorts in and out of the system to allow trade to happen in relative safety, and there is no reason to not take a cut of the profits. Excidium with its independent flotilla can start up a believable piracy menace to motivate potential customers, snatching up some goods along the way.

Related to that, Scholae has a better working knowledge of the galaxy outside Caperion, and can serve as factor for business negotiations for the native nations, again creating the demand for their escort services.

**Tipoca Station** is a state-of-the-art hospital in space allowing for up to 80.000 patients to be treated at once. That is more capacity than Scholae Palatinae’s navy crews, ground forces, auxiliaries and Clan members combined could occupy, or not far off.

The surplus capacities could be utilized to handle the patient overflow from other other factions, or straight rented out to Elaya.

Another option would be the refurbishing of one wing or two into upper crust hospitals and spas, siphoning money from the native rich for providing services they could get planetside for a quarter of the price if they were willing to miss out on the prestige of having foreign elite physicians.

**Caelestis City and its surroundings** are not yet fully mapped, so I will have to present some speculations. The city itself is a demonstration of power and wealth, and supplying it from Seraph in an active war like the present one would not only tie down ships, but risk their destruction every time they make a run. Hence, I have to assume that Caelestis’ sources of foodstuffs and raw materials are on Ragnath, and close by too to protect them. It would be too easy to starve the city out otherwise.

So, we have:
-one Meraxian idol city
-a food supply to go with it
-whatever light industry is necessary to maintain it
-considering it’s a propaganda stunt, the means to fabricate and spread Meraxian culture.

Going from this, we could open parts of the city to tourism (including event tourism like three days in a Meraxian dungeon with Scholaean soldiers roleplaying) and/or sell Meraxian foodstuffs and luxury items (consumer electronics, wine etc) to the free nations.

Based on the events depicted in the Deceived Trailer for The Old Republic Video Game.

https://www.darkjedibrotherhood.com/members/15036/snapshots/694/1426