Starfleet Jedi

(Potential spoilers for those who see TCW on a delay of some kind)



In the past couple of TCW trilogies, the Force witches of Dathomir and the Force-wielding family on Mortis both seem to have their magical Force-related events surrounded by a mysterious green fog.

With regards to Dathomir, this was seen in regards to healing efforts, transformations of living things, and in cases of the creation of objects as if by Force-replicator.

In the case of Mortis, this was especially the case in regards to the Father, his lair, and his powers, and the cave with the magic sword that can kill folks who could otherwise apparently eat lit lightsabers for breakfast.

And although there's naturally no real connection, I couldn't help but make connections between the two franchises, and in the process was reminded of Dr. Beverly Crusher's affair with the mysterious green fog known as Space Ghost from Scotland: The Planet.

Space Ghost, who called himself Ronin, was an anaphasic lifeform that needed a compatible biological host in which to reside due to his unstable anaphasic nature. So he plied the women of Crusher's family with sweet words and fantasies and orgasmic bliss, occasionally appearing as Zorro from the early 1990's TV show (just as Chakotay would occasionally have vision quests featuring Zorro's 2nd dad) and at other times appearing as a big green fog.

Zorro the Space Ghost was capable of shooting out lightning capable of killing incomprehensible people, and was also known for moving objects around and otherwise wreaking havoc on things. And, once he infused himself into a person, their eye color changed.

So I think what we have going on here is that the Force is really just some anaphasic energy in the Star Wars galaxy being manipulated (or doing some manipulating).

Whereas the Howard women of Scotland: The Planet were subject to the sentient Force being known as Zorro the Space Ghost, the Star Wars galaxy is more full of the Force in general, perhaps more like a simple jungle-esque ecosystem of anaphasic lifeforms with no discernible intellect . . . that is to say, Force plants.

And these Force plants inhabit our Jedi heroes and Sith villains with their high midichlorian counts (read: compatible biological hosting plans, now with Frontpage extensions and e-commerce shopping carts), seeding them and taking root within them just as surely as Zorro wanted to merge with Dr. Crusher.

Of course, there are other possibilities, such as a whole community of non- or semi-sentient Force beings more like animals, or perhaps merely a general field of widespread anaphasic energy almost like a Force ocean.

But given how those Jedi hippies are always a-twitter over the w(h)ill of the Force and having it speak to them and so on, I'm really thinking it best to go with some sort of plant theory, here. That way, much as tree-huggers on Earth might declare that a plant has spoken to them and told them things, so too might the Jedi think there's more to the Force than there really is. Similarly, while plants and ecosystems and so on might react to stimuli . . . blooming in the sun, dying in the winter, and so on . . . so too might the Jedi read this flowering or malaise in a way that makes them feel as if the Force is guiding them. Which is true, to an extent, because just as a plant will grow toward the sun, so too might it draw a Jedi toward whatever seems nurturing and away from whatever seems harmful.

And as we saw on Mortis, the darker side of the Force did have a habit of killing plants, and the light side had a habit of restoring them.

I would further submit that the light side / dark side struggle may not represent good and evil per se, but could simply be something between different plant species. Perhaps it's the difference between a lovely and lush lawn full of the most pristine turfgrass and an invasive, pernicious crabgrass weed species bent on uglying up the yard . . . neither are evil. Both are merely doing what they do, and it's really the same thing . . . just one's called a weed and the other is called lawn grass.

Perhaps hostile emotions and whatnot merely output biochemistry that makes one (and one's midichlorians) a better host for the crabgrass and a worse host for the preferred lawn grass . . . that would go a long way toward explaining the weirder philosophical aspects of the two. And we don't even have to assume that an individual is single patch of ground covered in one grass or the other . . . much like a sprawling yard, there may be areas of light and dark within every person.

That anaphasic plant species difference might also explain the rather off-green eye color of Sith and other dark side folks . . . perhaps the crabgrass causes a yellowish tinge regarding the ocular effects.

And, of course, as if we needed any more connection, there's a Vader in Planet Scotland's cemetary!

"Zorro the Space Ghost"... "Plant theory"... "Magic Green Clouds" ?...



Guide you, the Weed of the Force you should let.

While interesting--and probably half a joke, I would argue for something else.

I think midichlorians are in a way--addictive. I think that all force users are in a sense, adrenaline junkies.

I believe that midichlorians make the user feel good when the host embraces emotion. And to this extent, the Sith came to be because they were just adrenaline junkies getting their fix--driven to do bigger and greater things to get the emotional gratitude that made them feel good. And not just from themselves; but from others. They would enjoy invoking strong emotions from others...with pain, fear, despair, and anger being the emotions that gave them the greatest pleasure.

The Jedi I believe, were those who discovered their powers, but unlike the Sith who became addicts stuck in a cycle of constant abuse of themselves and others--were able to recognize that danger and resist it. They believed that the only way to keep themselves from falling was to suppress their emotions. The Jedi were thus be, in a sense, always in danger of falling to the dark side. Things that would put Jedi into positions that might compromise them were banned; they were taught not get attached to anything and love, being one of those things, would certainly be outlawed for the Jedi. Thus, the Jedi used discipline and careful control of their emotions to harness their natural talents into skill.

This eventually led to a clashing; the Jedi could not tolerate the power mad and emotionally unstable Sith Lords who would always try to manipulate and control everyone around them for the sake of their fix. The Jedi next to eradicated the Sith (multiple times I guess) in an effort to remove what they believed to be a dangerous practice.

However, neither of those is what it means to be balanced. I think originally, the Jedi were what one would call 'balanced'. They didn't try to purge their emotions, but did not allow themselves to be controlled by their fix. they could embrace the feelings of love, joy, loss, and hatred without going too far. But I think that such a thing was eventually removed as the Old Republic came to know peace. The dogma of controlling one's emotions became more literal; that all emotion all the time had to be controlled. It was a justified change that would ensure the safety as every loss would pose a challenge of character to Jedi.

In the end, the council decided to train their pupils from a young age to purge all emotion and to install strict, rigged discipline so that all but the strongest emotions. They were taught not to marry, to love, and to stamp out all attachments lest they risk their own sanity.

I suspect though, like all groups, certain factions did not approve. I believe that Qui-Gon was one of those. Someone who took a look at the ancient laws of the Jedi from a more realistic and contextual point of view; that it wasn't the elimination of all emotion, but a balance of the two; to not allow one's self to be ruled by their feelings, but not to remove all sense of it from them.

Thus, Qui-Gon was someone who was searching for the balance he had never known. He was raised from near birth to purge all emotions and to remain de-attached. So to find it was hard, so he improvised. He would follow his feelings on matters where even basic logic would have told him it was a dumb idea--such as trying to train Anakin. Thus, when he died, he had not achieved the balance state, though he apparently did after his death (somehow?).

This lead to the training of Obi-Wan, who is by all means, one of the more 'human' of characters. Most Jedi we see are rarely display any strong emotion--often coming off as incredibly bland. Obi-Wan was trained with in a way, would be a more liberal view of the Jedi faith, though he was clearly not as liberal as his mentor.

Then Obi-Wan came to train Anakin.

All sorts of problems. Obi-Wan was probably too young to train anyone and the sort of training his master had put upon him was that far different than that of any Jedi who he had ever trained with or could call upon. The style he knew was different than Yoda's Windu's, or whoever. Worse still, Anakin was much older than what would normally have been accepted into the Jedi faith. Thus, uncontrolled emotions was something that Anakin had already known throughout his life.

It I believe, was a recipe for disaster. Ben adopted a difficult training methodology for someone who was too old to properly install it into--and didn't have the wisdom to do it properly. Worse still, Anakin was rumored to be the chosen one. So Anakin grew up to be arrogant because of his abilities and to a degree, passionate because the methods of training Ben used were not designed to suppress emotions, but simply control them. One might also believe that those with higher counts could face greater risk of addiction due to the quantity of midichlorians producing stronger effects. Thus, Anakin would face almost inhuman emotional swings.

Of course, Anakin was trained well enough that he could resist his desire to indulge himself on a regular basis. But we saw that in moments of stress, he could respond very, very violently. To the point where if he faced a great enough loss, he could become outright homicidal. We see this with the loss of his mother, with his fear of losing Padme, with the fear of losing Ashoka (how it drives him to obsessive behavior seen throughout the Clone Wars). Anakin's weakness was his fear and compassion; his desire to do the right thing muddled through the arrogance that he had the power--and the responsibility to make it better.

Anakin was doomed to be a failure from day one of his training with Ben.


EDIT:

Crap! Forgot where I was going with this!

All in all, I think that green stuff was really there to sort of amplify their victim's emotional state. Hence why he had become in nearly every sense, a complete and utter animal. By taking advantage of the fact that midichlorians respond easier to strong emotions, they had effectively made themselves a soldier on par with all but the strongest Jedi Masters.