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No one knew who had been the first to play, but it swept through the ranks of the GAR like wildfire. It was one of the most popular holonet games for bored troopers to play during downtime. Alliances were formed and dissolved at will. Treachery was expected. Ranks were ignored. And frankly, the little half dead bodies with the bone sticking out of them were just plain adorable.
Truly, Among Us had become a galactic sensation almost overnight. And no one loved it more than the Vode. The original game split players into two categories within a series of rooms. Each set of rooms could hold up to 10 players called “Crewmates” who would have tasks of varying length spread throughout. Then there would be anywhere from 1-3 hidden “Imposters” running around attempting to kill the crew.
And once a bored slicer had figured out how to run the game through the HUD of their buckets? The game became even more outlandish. A myriad of troopers could be found slinking through the halls of their flagships during long hyperspace journeys. Or in battlefield camps after successful campaigns. It was galactically accepted that electrical was a kriffing death trap, and starting the reactor was a pain.
Videos of games had begun to circulate across the GAR. Rex had been downloading data in navigation when Ahsoka had literally dropped down from a vent to kill him, only to disappear back into the vent moments before Cody rounded the corner. The Wolfpack, nerds that they were, had been known to sweep through the Triumphant in perfect formation. Which made it twice as funny when Boost and Sinker had isolated and then killed Comet and Wolffe while they attempted to clean the O2 filter.
Commander Stone had slipped into the CG medbay for a scan and reported General Vos dead. There was no one around but Commander Fox would spend the rest of the day smiling while doing his paperwork. In the words of Commander Thire, “It was incredibly sus.” It was even rumored that the Jedi council had been known to play a game or two.
To say nothing of the memes that had cropped up. Someone had photoshopped a pic of a droid crying hysterically while holding the “dead” body of another droid and captioned it “Me, after self reporting a body I just slaughtered two seconds ago…” Another one had been captioned when you’re imposter and someone tells you to vote an innocent, featuring a smirking General Kenobi saying “Don’t mind if I do.”
Frankly it was some of the best entertainment the clones had for spending time between battles. Which is why no one took it well when a group claiming to be “CIS hackers” kept interrupting the games one evening, and making a nuisance of themselves threatening to hack the devices of all the beings playing if they did not join the CIS. Com calls rang out across the galaxy and within minutes the best slicers in the GAR had begun to band together and fight back against the attackers.
It was unknowingly, the beginning of the end. By all means it probably should have ended there, with the hackers being stopped and everyone celebrating but everything ultimately going back to normal. Except for the fact that one gifted young Vod had somehow hacked into a live CIS transmission, panicked, and then broadcast it to the holonet. From the chambers of the Senate itself all the way to the outer rim and every galactic news station in between.
Nothing had ever trended faster.
Within minutes members of the Jedi High Council, Coruscant Guard, and Senate Judiciary were converging on the Rotunda. Although there were some fairly serious injuries and a great deal of damage done, no lives were lost taking Chancellor Palpatine into custody for treason against the Republic. It is after all, rather hard to deny allegations of treason when the entire galaxy has just watched you give orders to Count Dooku himself.