Republic Credits

Lyrics

Year Thirty-Two, Before the Battle of Yavin.Or maybe May nineteenth, Nineteen Ninety-Nine.A lesson in fiat currency, taught in a junkyard.Under two suns.The Jedi Master arrives, a man from the core.Qui-Gon Jinn. His power is a quiet hum, an assurance.He speaks for the Republic, a galaxy-wide idea.And in his hand, unseen, he holds its promise.A digital ghost, a number in a ledger on Coruscant.He offers this idea, this Republic Credit,for a T-14 hyperdrive generator.For a boy's freedom.It's the currency of senators and skyscrapers that touch the clouds.It should be enough. It has always been enough.But the shopkeeper shakes his head.His wings beat the dusty air."Republic credits? Republic credits are no good out here.""I need something more real."This is Watto. A Toydarian.Immune to the famous Jedi mind trick.You cannot wave a hand and change his accounting.His world is what he can lift, what he can weigh.The grit of sand in the gears of a pit droid.The smell of ozone from a faulty power converter.He understands the wupiupi, the trugut, the peggat.He trusts the heft of metal.A promise from a government a thousand parsecs away...is just a story.He just shakes his head.His wings beat the heavy air."Republic credits? Your credits are no good out here.""I need something more real."And there it is.The moment the map is not the territory.The moment the full faith and credit of a civilizationdissolves into heat shimmer over sand.A Jedi can bend a spoon with a thought.He can persuade the weak-minded.But he cannot make a man on the edge of the systembelieve in a story he doesn't live inside.The reach of a central bank has its limits.Something more real.A coin you can bite.A debt you can see.Something more real.