The average Joe's access to the Force

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Mr. Oragahn
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The average Joe's access to the Force

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Wed Jan 13, 2016 11:21 pm

Been reading this article from the official website:
http://www.starwars.com/news/so-what-th ... -chlorians
When Episode I came out a few people were upset by the role midi-chlorians played in the Force — particularly when a drop of Anakin’s blood revealed an unusually high number of them in his system. As Lucas explained in a talk with author Terry Brooks, who was about to start writing the novelization of the film, “In Anakin’s case, there are, instead of one or two or three midi-chlorians in each cell, there’s like a thousand. It’s unbelievable how many midi-chlorians are in there.”

So…what are they? Lucas expounded: “I’m assuming that the midi-chlorians are a race that everybody knows about [in the world of Star Wars]. The way you interact and interface with this larger energy field [the Force] is through the midi-chlorians, which are sensitive to the energy. They are at the core of your life, which is the cell, the living cell. They are in a symbiotic relationship with the cell. And then, because they’re all interconnected as one, they can communicate with the larger Force field. That’s how you deal with the Force.”

At least a few people felt that this negated the democratic aspect of the Force, despite the fact that in Return of the Jedi the story and dialogue had already made it clear that the Force was, at least in some ways, hereditary. The film had lines such as, “The Force is strong in my family,” which Luke tells Leia.

Indeed until that line in the film — or perhaps until we found out that Vader was Luke’s father in Empire — many viewers of the very first film, in 1977, might have entertained the possibility that he or she, too, could become a Jedi. After all Ben Kenobi hadn’t said that Luke needed any special abilities or blood testing when he asked him to start his training in Episode IV. Luke just needed to learn how to tap into the mystical energy field called the Force. Lucas, even after Empire, said as much in his story conference talk with scriptwriter Lawrence Kasdan and director Richard Marquand before they started shooting Jedi:
Kasdan: The Force was available to anyone who could hook into it?
Lucas: Yes, everybody can do it.
Kasdan: Not just the Jedi?
Lucas: It’s just the Jedi who take the time to do it.
Marquand: They use it as a technique.
Lucas: Like Yoga. If you want to take the time to do it, you can do it; but the ones that really want to do it are the ones who are into that kind of thing. Also like karate.
In this Lucas was consistent with what he’d said in the summer of 1977 — the first time he’d had to explain in more detail many of his concepts:

“The Force is really a way of seeing; it’s a way of being with life. It really has nothing to do with weapons. The Force gives you the power to have extra-sensory perception and to be able to see things and hear things, read minds and levitate things. It is said that certain creatures are born with a higher awareness of the Force than humans. Their brains are different. The Force is a perception of the reality that exists around us. You have to come to learn it. It’s not something you just get. It takes many, many years…Anyone who studied and worked hard could learn it. But you would have to do it on your own.”

[Please note: While we were preparing the text for The Making of Star Wars, Lucas added a note to this passage about midi-chlorians, bringing his original words in line with his later thoughts and the events of the prequel trilogy.]

It’s interesting to see, however, that in 1977 Lucas was already talking about creatures with a more natural capacity to interact with the Force; perhaps he was already thinking of a creature such as Yoda. Perhaps, in a way, that idea morphed into Anakin (a “creature” born without a father — a result of the “will of the Force”).
The laws of the Force seem to have pushed all that pertains to its access and use to a VIP club.
Or has it?
We know that some people can be gifted, that is, have a high number of midi-chlorians, but it also implies that maybe all people in the galaxy can have some.

It's often been asked if one could artificially increase their count, or even inject them, clone them, etc.

A question that doesn't seem to be asked though, moving away from a more technology orientated consideration, is whether it's possible to stimulate midi-chlorian growth through years of practice, under the patronage of a Force Master.
As it turns out for many elements within our bodies, the physiology being elastic and responsive to some degree, just as much as you'd increase muscular mass by practicing weight lifting, cardio and what you want in a fitness club, couldn't one create a need for more midis by simply increasing his or her turning to the Force and its use?

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Moff Tarquin
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Re: The average Joe's access to the Force

Post by Moff Tarquin » Sun Jan 17, 2016 12:22 am

Well, athletic activity increases mitochondrial counts, so it's entirely reasonable to think that (just like everything else in biology), nature and nurture both play a role.

That being said, nature places limits on how far nurture can improve things. So it's not like Han could have been a Jedi with the right training, any more than he could have been taller than Chewie if he had the right diet.

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Re: The average Joe's access to the Force

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Fri Jan 22, 2016 12:17 am

Moff Tarquin wrote:Well, athletic activity increases mitochondrial counts, so it's entirely reasonable to think that (just like everything else in biology), nature and nurture both play a role.

That being said, nature places limits on how far nurture can improve things. So it's not like Han could have been a Jedi with the right training, any more than he could have been taller than Chewie if he had the right diet.
Thing is, initially, it was the way it worked. Like training a kid at kung fu. Sure, some people would have more potential, but with proper training, you could actually build a large community of fighters. Not all of them would be stellar but if in theory one were to force an entire nation into such prolonged training, then the nation shall be one of fighters.

The evolution of the concept of the Force's use has made things more elitist. The blood tests in TPM pretty much sealed the deal.
I don't know where to sit with that. On one hand, it started as a very meritocratic system, then throttled right into a blue blood demi-god supertight aristocratic pattern, and quite a very technical one at that, since based on some symbiotic lifeform's count.

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Re: The average Joe's access to the Force

Post by Moff Tarquin » Mon Jan 25, 2016 2:13 am

Mr. Oragahn wrote: I don't know where to sit with that. On one hand, it started as a very meritocratic system, then throttled right into a blue blood demi-god supertight aristocratic pattern, and quite a very technical one at that, since based on some symbiotic lifeform's count.
What were we to expect? The OT was explicitly a story about the conflict between father and son, both of whom were strong in the force. The fact that force-sensitivity was hereditary should have tipped us off that it was genetic/epigenetic in nature - in other words, we already knew that it could be "in the blood." All the PT did was bring that feature into the limelight with some technobabble.

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Re: The average Joe's access to the Force

Post by mojo » Thu Jan 28, 2016 1:44 pm

if you read 'the secret history of star wars' you find something i thought was just absolutely fascinating, and offers a different view on statements like, 'the force is strong in my family.' now, this comes from a very early script, so obviously it doesn't gel with what we eventually got, but i think it's worth bringing up in a discussion involving the evolution of the idea of the force. ignore if you disagree.

i wish like hell i still had a copy of that so i could quote it specifically without paraphrasing, but the idea was this: the force meant literally 'life force'. it was literally the power that runs the mind and body, and each person/alien/whatever had a finite, irreplaceable supply. jedi could do all the crazy things they can do now, but they were basically running on internal power, and when they ran out.. dead. in this system, the dark side had to do with using the life force of others instead of your own. there were no clear upper limits as to what could be accomplished when doing this, since it was basically an infinite supply of life force energy.

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Re: The average Joe's access to the Force

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Fri Jan 29, 2016 12:44 am

Moff Tarquin wrote:
Mr. Oragahn wrote: I don't know where to sit with that. On one hand, it started as a very meritocratic system, then throttled right into a blue blood demi-god supertight aristocratic pattern, and quite a very technical one at that, since based on some symbiotic lifeform's count.
What were we to expect? The OT was explicitly a story about the conflict between father and son, both of whom were strong in the force. The fact that force-sensitivity was hereditary should have tipped us off that it was genetic/epigenetic in nature - in other words, we already knew that it could be "in the blood." All the PT did was bring that feature into the limelight with some technobabble.
ANH had left the door open although Obi-Wan's obsession on training Luke implied the boy had more potential than any others.

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Re: The average Joe's access to the Force

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Fri Jan 29, 2016 12:54 am

mojo wrote:if you read 'the secret history of star wars' you find something i thought was just absolutely fascinating, and offers a different view on statements like, 'the force is strong in my family.' now, this comes from a very early script, so obviously it doesn't gel with what we eventually got, but i think it's worth bringing up in a discussion involving the evolution of the idea of the force. ignore if you disagree.

i wish like hell i still had a copy of that so i could quote it specifically without paraphrasing, but the idea was this: the force meant literally 'life force'. it was literally the power that runs the mind and body, and each person/alien/whatever had a finite, irreplaceable supply. jedi could do all the crazy things they can do now, but they were basically running on internal power, and when they ran out.. dead. in this system, the dark side had to do with using the life force of others instead of your own. there were no clear upper limits as to what could be accomplished when doing this, since it was basically an infinite supply of life force energy.
Oh, it would be fantastic if you could put your hands on this material. Gives the Sith side a very vampiric touch.
In a way, this idea hasn't really been erased. At least in the movies, the Jedi made a moderate use of the Force, favouring the use of their weapon eventually. Anakin, being special, would surely be found to use it a lot. The Sith, on the other hand, show less restraint on relying on it, especially in offensive ways.

Makes me think of a plot right here, a prequel to SW, exploring very old times when, in order to protect the galaxy from people abusing the Force as it was spreading across populations and becoming unmanageable, the newly created Jedi Order had sealed the access to the Force and limited it to a few, for the sake of control, but forgot about how this was achieved, or even when or where, only to be found looking out for "leaks" in present times, i.e., previously undetected Force sensitive people (hence screening the population like in TPM).

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Re: The average Joe's access to the Force

Post by mojo » Mon Feb 01, 2016 12:55 pm

https://drbeat.li/album/B%C3%BCcher/The ... r_Wars.pdf

the only problem being that this is a 500 page book, and it's mostly interested in proving that lucas did not have everything planned out from the beginning. uh, good job? next, a novel length book explaining why we should believe water is wet. i've read it multiple times tho, because when the guy isn't trying to prove the sky is up, he spits out no end of fascinating tidbits.

i may read it again, and quote the relevant section.

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Re: The average Joe's access to the Force

Post by mojo » Mon Feb 01, 2016 1:02 pm

oh yeah, he also says that the 'if you strike me down, you'll make me more powerful..' line in anh comes from this initial idea of the force as well - the general idea was that if a jedi died before all his force energy was used up, he could actually do more than just stick around as a ghost - he could come back to life anywhere, at any time he chose. obi-wan was meant to do this in an early draft, and lucas didn't throw the idea out with the early concept, as in an early draft of rotj, both obi-wan and yoda come back to life to fight vader and the emperor.

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Re: The average Joe's access to the Force

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Mon Feb 08, 2016 12:19 am

Many thanks for the link! Now I have to find time to read all of this.

Regarding Obi-Wan's line, I pity him really. Unless he was throwing a desperate last taunt at Vader, you can imagine his disappointment when he realizes that this mighty extra power he's been bragging about boils down to linger as some kind of Force hologram.
Woop-tee-doo.

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Re: The average Joe's access to the Force

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Mon Feb 08, 2016 12:21 am

In retrospect, it sounds like "if you cut my dick, it will become bigger than you could ever imagine."

.... ?..

Yeah whatever.

/

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