A Recycled Hope (Star Wars IV self-insert)

[9adam4]

Luke looked up from the breakfast table with a smlle as his uncle walked in "Ben! We weren't expecting you until later in the week. Something up?"

The old Jedi nodded thoughtfully, a concerned frown on his face. He gave Aunt Beru a quick hug as Uncle Owen came in the room. "Have you guys been keeping an eye on the telenet? The space battle last night?"

The old married couple exchanged a look before Lars, answered, "We really haven't had time; you know how busy we are this season."

"I heard something about it," Luke supplied. "A renegade smuggler taken down by Imperial forces, right?"

"That's the official story, anyway. Actually it was a diplomatic transport. And Darth Vader was the one in pursuit."

"Vader!" Luke snarled. "Does that mean it's time??"

"Time to leave, yes," Ben looked to Beru, who was already pulling out a cooler to stock with provisions. "Not time for you to face your father. You are nowhere close to ready, and I think you know that."

Luke started to argue, but seeing even Owen hastily packing, realized it wasn't the time. "Then where are we going?"

"The Dagobah system. We're going to need to lay low, and accelerate your training." His wrist communicator beeped and squealed in droidspeak. "Understood. My droid says we need to be on our way within the next ten minutes." Another sequence of beeps. "I was rounding, Artoo. We've talked about this."

"How are we getting off-planet if the Empire is here?" Owen asked.

"I made a call to an old friend who thinks he can smuggle us off in his ship. Any of you speak Wookiee?"

 

[9adam4]

"This isn't the time for a confrontation," Ben insisted. "I can only cloud a part of the station at a time, and there's no guarantee it'll work on Annie for long."

"Annie?" the rude smuggler parroted.

"Darth Vader, he means. Anakin Skywalker," Luke supplied.

"And you're Luke Skywalker," Solo mused.

Luke already felt like he had said enough, but the man's infuriating stare prompted more somehow. "Vader is my father. He killed my mother in anger during his fall to the Dark Side."

"You don't have to convince me, kid," Han said as Chewbacca purred in agreement. "Vader is a mass murderer, everybody knows that. And while I haven't seen much of it myself, Chewie insists this Force stuff is the real deal, and he's never steered me wrong before. So... what's the plan?"

*****

Luke hadn't really had to lift his weapon, what with Ben easily deflecting incoming fire and the smuggling partners returning it. Still, he was excited to be the one to grab the Princess from her cell. To think after all these years, to finally get to meet the twin sister he'd been forced to live apart from...

The Princess's corpse lay blue along the metal bed of the cell, her face twisted in a rictus of fear. "No!" Luke screamed, running into the cell, but it was far too late for her. "No! Ben, help!"

He heard rather than saw the movement at the cell door, but neither Ben nor Han had made it into the room before Darkness fell across the entire cell block. Looking around, Luke saw that none of the lights had dimmed, and yet it was as though his sight itself was fading, a deep and pressing Fear occluding his very soul. He stumbled out into the hallway, finding it hard to move.

"What, what's going on?" Han was already on his knees, his blaster forgotten, and Chewbacca seemed little better.

It was Ben who spoke. "This is a mental attack. Luke, center yourself, draw strength from your own courage. Feel the fear but do not join it; let it flow through you."

"He is too weak, too inexperienced," the booming voice came from a nearby cell where a caped cyborg in black had been waiting, Luke realized, for some time without their notice. Vader took a single step forward to size up the four intruders. "Even you, old Master, can hardly resist me, much less this youngling."

"I am hardly as frail as all that, old friend," Ben rejoindered, his lightsaber hilt suddenly in his hand. "And you'll not a lay a hand on the boy."

"You lost the right to give me orders long ago." Vader's blade hissed on, a brilliant crimson, and Ben's joined it as though in response. "My powers have grown, even as yours have diminished in your exile. I am the Master, now. And I have much to teach you."

"Strike me down," the old man warned, "and I shall become..." he panted, breathless, "more powerful... than..." his statement dwindled as his eyelids flickered.

"Strike you down?" the Sith Lord intoned. "Oh, no, Obi-wan. What would that profit me?"

"Poison gas? Really?" Ben sank to his knees; Luke's own head was swimming.

"An obvious weapon when you, alone, are on a respirator," Vader gloated. "No, my old nemesis. You shall not be struck down. You shall be shown the power of the Dark Side, and you shall come to embrace it, as all great heroes eventually do." He caught his ex-mentor's blade as the old man crumpled to the floor. "Your turning, and my son's, will be my greatest triumph yet."

"You know?" Luke screamed, but it came out a whisper as his anger let him hold on to the barest edge of consciousness. "You know what you've done?"

"My daughter or not, I saw no profit in leaving a Rebel Princess alive to be rescued." The black mask met Luke eye to eye, and seemed to glare deep into him. "But you're very much a different story, boy.

"Who would ever come to rescue you?"

The hatred enveloped Luke along with oblivion.

 

[9adam4]

Vader used the term "guests" ironically, but in some ways that's exactly what Luke and Ben were. The room they shared was nicely furnished - moreso than his room back on Tatooine had been - and they were well-fed.

The manacles were slightly annoying, but manageable. The only real frustration was the neural disruptor. It was a constant static in the back of Luke's thoughts, which intensified any time he tried to focus. Ben explained that they had been developed for restraining Force-users, since mental state was the one universal requisite of their abilities.

They apparently had no real effect on the old Master, but the little metal circlet managed to keep Luke from using any of his hard-won training in telekinesis or biofeedback. He was very much at Vader's mercy... and mercy was a part of the man that had been removed as cleanly and completely as his limbs.

Vader came to see them almost every day. He would deactivate both their crowns and reach his cybernetic arm out to grasp Ben Kenobi's shoulder. And the two of them would battle.

Luke couldn't think of any better word for it. Even in his limited training, he could sense the massive struggle as unparalleled will was brought to bear against an endless sea of calm. Aggression and passion battered the bastion of self-control.

Every day, Ben won, Vader breaking the link with a wordless snarl. But as days passed, Luke could tell that the old man was wearing down. And, although Ben never confirmed this, Luke was certain that he only had to break once.

Once the contest of wills was complete, if he had time, the Left Hand of the Empire turned his attention on his prodigal son. Although he left the disruptors off for his entire visit, there was no whiff of psychic coercion in what Vader did to Luke. They just... talked.

Well, Vader talked. Luke listened. He didn't mean to, at first, but it wasn't long before he paid rapt attention as Vader shared his memories of a tragic past. Twisted, yes - seen through the lens of paranoia, where everyone in Anakin's life was an inevitable traitor or forlorn victim - but deeply personal and wholly true as the Sith himself understood it.

Luke came no closer to agreeing with Vader; had no interest in joining him. But he came to understand him better, to comprehend the factors that could lead one, step by step, to damnation.

And once Vader had left (or on days where Vader's responsibilities at the station prevented him from coming), Uncle Ben left as well. Not physically, of course, but he spent at least a couple of hours each day projecting himself elsewhere. Luke knew better than to ask whom Ben was talking to, or even allow himself to think about it too much. With one of the strongest psychics in the Galaxy, and their mortal enemy, in their room daily, it was an unreasonable risk.

So Luke spent his time reading books and watching holo-tapes, although not ones that required too much of his attention. And when Ben would return, sometimes he would ask the man questions about what Vader had said, for another perspective on the follies of the Jedi Order.

On one particular day, though, Ben opened his eyes with what Luke saw as resignation. He turned his eyes towards Luke and began, without preamble, "I'm sorry that we couldn't save your sister, my boy. And..." he swallowed, his voice hoarse, "I'm afraid we can't save you either."

A stab of fear hit Luke when he thought he was already numb to it. "We?" he started, but he knew that was a question he wasn't supposed to ask.

Obi-wan ignored the question, and continued. "I have failed you, just as thoroughly as I failed him. I... just..." he let out a shuddering breath. "I want you to know that I tried. But also that -"

The old Master's head jerked away suddenly, and Luke actually felt the burst of alarm from his uncle. "What is it?" he asked after it seemed that Ben wasn't going to finish his lament.

"The Emperor is coming," he replied simply, and Luke knew dispair.

 

[9adam4]

Luke felt the neural disruptor switch off as the deformed old man entered their cell. He panicked when he realized that Ben was still elsewhere, the Jedi's body glowing softly in meditation.

"Be at ease, young Skywalker," Sidious intoned. "Your Master's coordination with the Rebel Fleet is no secret to me. He will be back soon. In the meantime, we can chat." He sat on a chair near Luke's bed. "Are you comfortable here? Has my apprentice treated you well?"

Luke nodded, but found it difficult to know what to say. This was not how he had expected the Emperor to behave.

"Are you surprised that I can be civil? That I would insist that no harm come to you?" The wrinkled face gave a kind smile. "Those who deal first with Vader are often confused when they meet me. He is a monster, you see, while I am not."

"You're both monsters," Luke choked out. "Both servants of the Dark Side."

Chuckling, Sidious shook his head. "Not at all. Vader is a monster because he needs to be. He is a warrior; he keeps piece throughout the galaxy at the point of a sword. Seething anger keeps him strong, able to wield the full power of the Force." He spread his arms. "But me? I have always been a ruler. A man devoted to imposing order through the rule of law, in leading sentients to better lives for all of us.

"The Force does not rule me, young Skywalker - not the Dark Side nor any part of it. No, the Force is a tool like any other."

"You say that," came Ben's voice as he opened his eyes, "but you are as completely ruled by hatred as Vader is."

Sidious shook his head. "You say I am ruled, Master Kenobi. And yet, only one of us reigns in his emotions in order to manage his connection to the Force. Only one of us limits his power, curtails his abilities, because of fear of the consequences of doing what he wants."

"If you succumb to the Dark Side, it consumes you, as you demonstrate so well," Ben insisted, nodding at the ravaged body of the Emperor.

"How shallow of one of your training, to point to my injuries caused by other Jedi during their futile struggle against the Empire, and blame them on the Dark Side of the Force," Palpatine clicked his tongue chidingly.

"If you are not ruled by the Dark Side," Luke asked, "then why are we kept here?"

"You have opposed the Empire. Conspired with the Rebels, inflitrated this Station. Master Kenobi continues to coordinate with the Rebels even now. Should these crimes be left unanswered?"

"Opposing tyranny is no crime," Ben spat.

"Spoken like a terrorist," Sidious shrugged. "My purpose here is threefold. The first is curiosity, as my Visions of the future do not include your capture here. Inevitably you escaped, whether Vader detained Princess Organa here, or held her elsewhere and replaced her with that ghastly butchered clone."

Hope surged in Luke for the first time in days. "Clone? Then my sister-"

"Is alive, of course. As though I'd allow him to dispose of so valuable an asset so carelessly."

Luke exchanged a glance with his Master, who didn't react with the least surprise. "You knew?"

"I suspected," Ben admitted. "I didn't want to give you false hope-"

"Better than no hope!" Luke shouted, the waves of anger pouring through him.

"Good, yes," Sidious smiled. "Do not suppress these feelings like a misguided cripple. All of your emotions link you to the Force, even anger."

"And what is your anger directing you to do, Luke?" Obi-wan pointed out, softly. "Is this the person that you want to be?"

Blowing out a breath, Luke let his anger dwindle, although a small ember remained. "You said three purposes," he prompted their visitor.

"The second is to form the needed mind link with Master Kenobi to confirm the Rebel's plans for attacking the base. It will be far less painful if you submit to it, Obi-wan," he said, not unkindly.

Ben just shook his head in response, and the Emperor sighed in frustration.

"And the third reason?" Luke prompted again.

"To show you true power, my boy," he beamed proudly, "and how much harm the Jedi do to their own potential by their arbitrary constraints."

Luke watched in apprehension as Emperor Palpatine I stood, placing one clawed hand against Ben's forehead. The old Jedi suppressed an obvious flinch, and closed his eyes in concentration. Luke felt the Darkness, at once impossibly cold and lethally hot, envelop the room around them as the battle was engaged.

Sessions between Vader and Obi-Wan had sometimes taken hours, but within barely a minute, a smile crossed the Emperor's face and Ben slumped forward in defeat.

"Curious," Palpatine murmured. "The Rebel plans match my visions quite perfectly. Lure Vader off the station for a dogfight, infiltrate and coopt the Death Star, use it to destroy my personal planetary retreat. No surprises, no shocking secrets? I've already instructed Lord Vader to remain on board to repel the boarding action. And I will be here myself to assure the deployed space fighters are unbeatable."

Ben shook his head in denial, as Sidious continued. "The Dagobah system, now that is valuable intel. Master Yoda, K'Kruhk, Jax Pavan, Shaak Ti, and a dozen younger Jedi. Vader will be pleased at the opportunity to see them all again, once this matter is settled."

"They'll be ready for him," Ben insisted, and to that the old man responded with a deep laugh.

"No, they really won't." He turned toward the door. "The link is forged now, and I'll be back to learn more. These Visions of yours... what your mind keeps calling the 'Star Wars'... they look most valuable."

The door hissed closed behind him, but the two prisoners didn't speak again for quite some time.

 

[9adam4]

Astronavigation and repair droid R2-D2 would not have called itself 'unhappy' with the plan. Such language was steeped in hedonics - a utility system that strongly prioritized biological pain or pleasure over other considerations.

No, if R2-D2 were asked his opinion of the plan, it would have expressed a valuation of disutility based on the unacceptable probability of scenario collapse. And if Priority User 0B-1 had received this valuation, he would have said that the droid was 'unhappy with it.' Which R2-D2 would have then affirmed, as that was a plausible isometric mapping of its thinking into biological terms.

R2-D2 found disutility in evaluating its processing in biological terms, but its Users often did so. Acceptable.

The negative evaluation of the plan was primarily due to the mutiple examples of single failure points that it included, the most prominent of which was R2-D2 itself. Should it be incapacitated before fulfilling its function, or fail to properly carry out its instructions due to exterior interference, failure was assured.

R2zD2 had submitted multiple backup procedures to 0B-1 when refining the plan, but was consistently rebuffed. "Relying on the Force-masking effect of Dagobah is already questionable," its User had replied during one such exchange. "If we have a failsafe somewhere, I'm sure Palpatine will sense it. Sorry, Artoo, but it's down to just you."

So R2-D2 had taken every effort to make sure its actions would not be impaired. It had multiple backdoors into the communications system of the frigate upon which it was positioned. It stayed close to Guest User Rahm, despite the Jedi's inability to speak Binary, as he received periodic messages from 0B-1 and was willing to share those with R2-D2. And it aided in the development of both ship and infantry tactics for the coming assault on the Death Star, despite knowing that any such assault in the absence of the secret plan was most probably a high-casualty failure.

After weeks of operations, the word finally came down: the attack would be in the Taris system, as the Imperial station resupplied on its way to Yavin. That the Empire was targeting the Rebel facility on Yavin was a negative factor in evaluating the likely prognosis of Primary User L31-4, as she was the most probable source of this intelligence. But it seemed to have the effect of motivating the biologicals to go forward with the ambush.

R2-D2 prepared a probable branching tactical analysis and timeline, along with coordinates and protocols, and sent the encrypted file using the frigate's directional interplanetary communications array. Its own role in the plan complete, it made itself busy making minor repairs and upgrades aboard the ship, being disinclined to enter low-power mode and wait as it had done numerous times before. Every million processing cycles or so, it ran a supplemental set of projections with variant parameters and evaluated the likely success of the mission.

Astronavigation and repair droid R2-D2 would not have called itself 'nervous.'

 

[Akuma-Heika]

Ch1 is the last chapter of your index

 

[NakedFury]

Short. Very short.
They also lack details.

Where are they, what do they look like, their expressions or what they are doing while they talk, etc. Too many time skips too. If a reader doesn't know about Star Wars or has not seen this original movie then they wont know who the characters are or what they look like.


I guess the SI is Obiwan? And he got SI very early to have saved so many Jedi? I guess this is why Vader and Sidious are so different.

 

[9adam4]

Ch1 is the last chapter of your index

Click to shrink...

Thanks; I think I fixed it.

 

[Princess Celestia]

To be honest, the SI I've always wanted to see is a Darth Vader SI preferably just as Anakin is mid jump in his fight with Obi-Wan, why? be just about the worst start for a SI, plus the challenge of working around a crippled chosen one, still very powerful but limited, but there are ways around that.

 

[9adam4]

To be honest, the SI I've always wanted to see is a Darth Vader SI preferably just as Anakin is mid jump in his fight with Obi-Wan, why? be just about the worst start for a SI, plus the challenge of working around a crippled chosen one, still very powerful but limited, but there are ways around that.

Click to shrink...

That does sound fascinating. I might give it a whirl someday when "Complete Detachment" is wrapped. I haven't gotten much into the Vader EU stuff, though, so it would need considerable research.

 

[MutantRancor]

Astronavigation and repair droid R2D2 would not have called itself 'unhappy' with the plan.

Astronavigation and repair droid R2D2 would not have called itself 'nervous.'

Click to shrink...

It's R2-hyphen-D2. Sometimes it's spelled out, as "Artoo-Deetoo," particularly when it's another person addressing him.

When R2-D2 is shortened to just the first part, it's consistently written as "Artoo," never "R2." It's understandable that R2-D2 himself might not do that, though, if you want to portray him as having very inhuman thought patterns.

 

[9adam4]

How is it that "Complete Detachment" is more than 30 chapters in, and I'm just getting this stuff now on a mini-narrative thread?

Anyway, thanks.

 

[MutantRancor]

How is it that "Complete Detachment" is more than 30 chapters in, and I'm just getting this stuff now on a mini-narrative thread?

Anyway, thanks.

Click to shrink...

I try not to comment on old chapters so as not to disrupt a thread, and R2-D2 hasn't appeared in the chapters you've posted since I started reading your story, except this side-story chapter.

I appreciate that you're willing to take these kinds of corrections and actually fix things. A lot of authors would just say, "I'll fix it going forward, the old stuff can stay the same."

 

[Simon Buchan]

Generically positive reaction post to break up the list of technical complaints!

 

[The Froggy Ninja]

To be honest, the SI I've always wanted to see is a Darth Vader SI preferably just as Anakin is mid jump in his fight with Obi-Wan, why? be just about the worst start for a SI, plus the challenge of working around a crippled chosen one, still very powerful but limited, but there are ways around that.

Click to shrink...

What he needs to do is find a skilled enough Force Healer to keep him alive while he upgrades his cybernetics.

 

[StoryRighter]

...Clearly you no longer have the high ground. Time to pull with the punches then.

 

[Myriddin]

Is this the sequal to complete detachment? I haven't caught up in chapters yet and I'm worried that I've somehow spoiled it for myself.

 

[R.A.G.]

What he needs to do is find a skilled enough Force Healer to keep him alive while he upgrades his cybernetics.

Click to shrink...

Nah, just clone himself using the cloning tech Kamino and/or emperor has access to. Preferably a braindead clone. Anyway, decant it, and have brain surgically moved over to the new body.

 

[9adam4]

Is this the sequal to complete detachment? I haven't caught up in chapters yet and I'm worried that I've somehow spoiled it for myself.

Click to shrink...

No. This is a separate narrative. Adam-wan wakes up on Tatooine in 7 BBY, with events back to canon (at least apparently).

I started this as a bit of a diversion, so I may go back and clean it up some now that I like it enough to continue it.

Speaking of, let's fill in a bit of the time before they encounter Vader.

 

[9adam4]

"What you're asking is impossible," Luke insisted. He was coming along nicely under Yoda's tutelage, he knew, but the Master didn't have any sense of scale. Nor did he seem to tie his lessons to Luke's development. Some of what he had asked was trivial; other tasks had taken days of strain and toil. And now… this. "A small rock is one thing, but an x-wing?"

"Size matters not," Yoda insisted. "Judge me by my size, do you?"

"For some things, yes," Luke replied. "There's a reason you clung to me rather than running beside me, right? You couldn't keep up. A much larger Jedi Master wouldn't have done that."

"Couldn't have," Uncle Ben pointed out. "Unless you learned to run with hundreds of kilograms on your back."

"Ben, why don't you say something? He expects me to lift a hyperspace-capable spacecraft out of the swamp. There's no way."

The old man stood from the stump where he'd been sitting most of the morning. "Why would you say that?"

"It weighs around five tons," he groaned.

"Obsessed with the physical, he is," Yoda chided. "Too old to unlearn what he has learned."

"And why should I?" Luke snapped. "From what Ben tells me, the Jedi taught children to deny themselves and ignore the corruption of the Republic. Look where that got us."

"Among other things," Ben said, just as sharply, "it got us an Imperial educational system that teaches children rote knowledge rather than critical thinking." He softened, slightly, at Luke's reaction. "What was the first lesson I ever taught you?"

Remembering, Luke recited, "If you can't explain it, then you don't actually know it."

He nodded. "Belief doesn't require an explanation, but knowledge does. So," his body language was forward, challenging, "do you know that levitating the craft is impossible? Or is that an unjustified belief?"

Luke wiped his forehead of the constant moisture that every surface in this swamp seemed to produce, and paused to consider the question. "Again, the craft weighs five tons. Isn't that a justification?"

"If I claimed that it was impossible for an x-wing to fly under its own power because it weighs five tons, would you consider that justified?"

Luke frowned. "It has thrusters that put out significantly more force than needed for one gee acceleration. But," he pointed to one of the rocks he had been told to stack earlier, "my maximum thrust was barely enough to move that boulder. The math is clear."

"Think about what you just said," Ben pointed sharply at the farmboy. "Pick it apart. There is an assumption in there, in what you stated just now, that underlies your mistaken belief."

"It's not a mistaken belief! What's impossible isn't a matter of your point of view. The universe has rules." Luke could tell his tone was turning to whining again, but he didn't care. How could they really think…

Luke couldn't hide his shock as the muck of the swamp slid off the ship as it rose clear of the ground. He turned to Yoda; the rudimentary senses that the boy had been learning were overwhelmed by the roiling energy entering and leaving his tiny form.

Ben nodded. "I think you've made your point, Master."

His small, wrinkled face did not switch expressions as the visible Force energy slowly diminished from around him. "Impossible, it is not," he breathed with apparent fatigue.

Luke felt the pang of resentment enter him, and he embraced it. "For you," he said. "With hundreds of years of training, from a species that probably has instinctual talent with -"

"Shut up." Ben met Luke's eyes coldly, and Luke's stomach sunk when he saw the disappointment there. "A Jedi does not succumb to commitment bias; he re-evaluates his understanding in the face of new information. We're done here." He bent to collect the Grinzellian, who gratefully took the arm up onto his back. "Plenty of leaf-skink stew left, Master. I hope you don't mind I added some pepper."

Luke's fists clenched as he glanced at the Jedi, to the x-wing sinking anew, and back. "You can't just -"

"Artoo," Ben turned to the droid that had sat quietly - or occasionally noisily - by during the lesson, "please replay the statement of Luke's that I identified."

With a beep, the droid projected a low-resolution upper body image to go along with the echoing audio: "It has thrusters that put out significantly more force than needed for one gee acceleration. But my maximum thrust was barely enough to move that boulder. The math is clear."

"Your lessons can continue once you've found your error. I'm sure Artoo will play that for you as many times as you need to hear it."

*****

"An experienced teacher you are not," Yoda chided as he ladled a large portion of broth into a clay pot. "My student the boy is, now."

"He is both of our students," Obi-wan replied, looking on as the old Grinzellian selected three more spicy ingredients from recesses in the dirt walls and stirred them in. "I told you, Master, I already added some spice to the recipe."

Yoda ignored his admonishment, throwing in a pinch of something and a whole root. "Teach him reverence for the Force, or reliance in his own abilities, your methods will not. Overthinking you are. Diluting my own lessons."

"We don't have much time," the human insisted, as Yoda spooned a bowl out for him. "He needs to be open to the Force, and to other tools available to him. Not reliant on his training, which we cannot complete in time." Raising the bowl to his lips, he took a large gulp… and immediately turned to spit it out. "That is terrible. Way too salty! I can't even taste the broth."

Yoda gave a mischievous chortle as he poured the rest of the small pot out. "Spoiled the soup becomes, when too many cooks add to it. One cook at a time there should be."

The old man nodded. "I take your meaning, Master. I won't step in again without your express invitation."

The much older Master hummed contentedly, and sampled Obi-wan's mix with approval.

Outside, Luke reflected on what he had overheard, and paced quietly away with the droid following.

 

[NakedFury]

Are you jumping in your timeline?

 

[9adam4]

Are you jumping in your timeline?

Click to shrink...

Jumping backwards about two months, give or take. Filling in some things.

Also hoping that someone will give a shot at what Luke is "supposed to say," here.

 

[DariusBlack]

Jumping backwards about two months, give or take. Filling in some things.

Also hoping that someone will give a shot at what Luke is "supposed to say," here.

Click to shrink...

I assume it is the assumption of his maximum ability? He's claiming to be unable to lift 5 tons, because his previous maximum is considerably less than that. So, therefore he needs to improve his maximum. Because he is a living thing, he can grow in strength through exercise, and that's what they want him to do, I suppose? Or is it that his belief in his weakness is forcing him to be weak? Its unclear in the movies if Luke was always capable of lifting the Xwing, or if he needed to progressively improve to the point where he could succeed, like someone improving their maximum bench press over time.

 

[Czlyydwr Llrngwl]

"What you're asking is impossible," Luke insisted.

Click to shrink...

Needs a threadmark

Its unclear in the movies if Luke was always capable of lifting the Xwing, or if he needed to progressively improve to the point where he could succeed, like someone improving their maximum bench press over time.

Click to shrink...

The specific limits of the Force were always kind of nebulous, doubly so if you start including high end EU material. My own interpretation was that Luke was too focused on the physical, the idea of mass and viscosity being meaningful when nothing with a will was opposing the attempt and the Force deals more in concepts and the way they connect things. A starfighter's nature and purpose is connected to being weightless and unrestricted by the ground, so if anything it should be easier to lift than a rock, trivial even. If you're looking at those high-end feats in secondary material, the same could be said of whatsisname catching a crashing star destroyer in The Force Unleashed.

e: after all, the reason he failed was that he couldn't believe it was possible. That explicitly, only slightly indirectly states that he could have succeeded if he did believe it.

 

[DariusBlack]

The specific limits of the Force were always kind of nebulous, doubly so if you start including high end EU material. My own interpretation was that Luke was too focused on the physical, the idea of mass and viscosity being meaningful when nothing with a will was opposing the attempt and the Force deals more in concepts and the way they connect things. A starfighter's nature and purpose is connected to being weightless and unrestricted by the ground, so if anything it should be easier to lift than a rock, trivial even. If you're looking at those high-end feats in secondary material, the same could be said of whatsisname catching a crashing star destroyer in The Force Unleashed.

e: after all, the reason he failed was that he couldn't believe it was possible. That explicitly, only slightly indirectly states that he could have succeeded if he did believe it.

Click to shrink...

That's reasonable, I just wasn't sure if that was where the Author was headed. In my opinion, it varies based on interpretation. There's no "right" answer for the Force. It could be conceptual, or it could be physical. The idea of midichlorians from the prequels would support a more physical approach. How strong you are is based on training and natural potential, again, like a weightlifters maximum. By comparison, much of the Original Trilogy purposefully keeps things like hard limits nebulous, for the explicit purpose of limit breaks on force powers. In Empire Strikes back, Luke can only lift the X-Wing when he needs it most to go save his friends. He stops second guessing himself and just does it because he believes he has to. He didn't visibly progress in maximum lift before that point, as far as we are shown. Whether you interpret that to mean he was steadily making progress offscreen during training or if he had a conceptual breakthrough is really down to personal interpretation, and different people endorse different views. I suspect that Lucas was trying to put physical limits on the force in the prequel trilogy, but so many people hate them that I can't assume that everyone will agree with what is ostensibly a canon interpretation of those movies.

 

[Czlyydwr Llrngwl]

I took the whole midichlorians thing as in-character knowledge reversing cause and effect - that they are symbionts or at worst parasites too minor to notice like eyelash mites, drawn to colonize beings with more Force potential because it enhances their own survivability. (My own nascent SWSI brings an OC pilot with high anima spirita potential in from Macross 30, and having zero midichlorians when he first appears but rapidly increasing counts when subsequently tested is one of the stronger parts in my planning, such as it is.) It does make me wonder if ysalamiri have lots of them or none of them, though...

Or they could just be a wacky thing the producers of The Phantom Menace (in-continuity holodrama version) introduced as shorthand for "Yes, even as a kid General Skywalker was super powerful." It being the equivalent of a History Channel direct-to-TV movie made to cash in on Anakin's popularity while simultaneously throwing shade at the rest of the Jedi and glorifying Palpatine during the Clone Wars is a much more palatable interpretation of it in my books, and perfectly in line with how Palpy manipulates public opinion.

e: I also love the idea of kid Han waving a toy N-1 around and driving his parents nuts by talking like Jar-Jar for a week straight after watching it

 

[Simon Buchan]

Also hoping that someone will give a shot at what Luke is "supposed to say," here.

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Well to me the obvious line from just the wording to me is that you don't use thrust to lift things with the Force. The counter question then is what is the strain coming from? Why is Yoda tired after lifting the X-Wing if the only limit is what you believe you can lift? If you took some random fresh Force sensitive kid and said they can easily blow up the sun, can they? Do you just need to fool them into thinking they did it once before they can do it for real?
I would be an awful Padawan. The worst.

 

[9adam4]

Well to me the obvious line from just the wording to me is that you don't use thrust to lift things with the Force. The counter question then is what is the strain coming from? Why is Yoda tired after lifting the X-Wing if the only limit is what you believe you can lift? If you took some random fresh Force sensitive kid and said they can easily blow up the sun, can they? Do you just need to fool them into thinking they did it once before they can do it for real?
I would be an awful Padawan. The worst.

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To the contrary, these are exactly the sort of questions that I would want my Padawan asking.

Where do the kinetic energy and force (non-capitalized) come from? What are its limits?

These are interesting questions. I plan to give my own speculative answers to them (at least somewhat) in this set of chapters.

 

[9adam4]

Tamping down his nerves, Luke watched Uncle Ben lift the cage out of the creek, dumping the salamanders into a basket. The Jedi flashed a smile at Luke as he hauled the basket up onto one shoulder and slogged upstream.

"I have your answer," Luke offered. "Where's Master Yoda?"

"Working with Ezra today," he gestured to the next cage; Luke took the hint and helped him pull it up. "I'm keeping my distance, a show of penance after my mistake with you yesterday."

Luke frowned. "Aren't you a Master, too? Why do you treat him like you're still just a student?"

Ben eyed Luke critically. "Compared to him, I am. Here, sit down." He took his own perch on a questionable log, the basket set aside. "I've been communing with the Force for fifty years now. Master Yoda has been doing it for ten times that long. He understands the Cosmos in a way I never will."

Luke shook his head. "That shouldn't make that much of a difference. There are diminishing returns, right? Grinzellians can't learn as fast as humans can. Otherwise it'd be… well, unfair I guess."

"Fair," the Jedi chucked. "There's no fairness to it. I've seen no indication that Yoda thinks or learns any slower than we do. And… you're frustrated by that, I sense."

"He doesn't seem like a great warrior or wise general. He seems like… a crazy old hermit," Luke swallowed.

"He had resigned himself to solitude and study, and it was I who disrupted that. Made his final retreat, his path to rejoin the force, into our own secret little Jedi Academy. I owe him." Another hard glare. "We owe him."

"It was weird to see you angry, yesterday," Luke admitted. "But Master Yoda stayed calm the whole time."

He nodded. "When I connect to the Force, I do what you are trained to do. I identify my hostility, my fears, my aggression, and I set them aside. Separate them from my consciousness for as long as needed. It becomes more and more automatic over time. But a true Master? He doesn't have to do this, because he has made peace with himself. He doesn't feel anger or hatred; he has let go of his fear. In this way, he has cleared obstacles from his journey."

"He told me his journey nears its close."

Ben nodded. "His health is failing. He'll leave the Living Force soon, although he has trained his consciousness to persist in the Cosmic Force." The sorrow in his voice was clear. "Learn from him while you can, Luke. And treat him with the respect he deserves, okay?" When Luke gave his own nod, the Master continued, "So, what about that statement of yours was incorrect?"

Luke realigned his thoughts to focus on the lesson. "I said 'my thrust,' and I was thinking in terms of my personal abilites. But that's not accurate."

"Very good," Ben smiled. "Continue."

"The Force is what pushes, not me. I guide it, even lend my own strength to it. But, just as Master Yoda says," Luke felt the increased pride from Ben as he said that, "the Force is our ally, and a powerful one."

"Indeed," Uncle Ben stood. "Dagobah is particularly strong in the Living Force, so much so that it shields us from Palpatine's senses while we are here, even his visions of the future. When you commune with the Force; you can influence, not just the x-wing itself, but the vibrant swamp around it. Coax the mud, the very air around it, to repel and support it even as you lift it."

"I don't know how to do that," Luke insisted.

"Of course you don't," Uncle Ben agreed. "You're here to learn."

 

[Akuma-Heika]

"I've been communing with the Force for fifty years now. Master Yoda has been doing it for ten times that long. He understands the Cosmos in a way I never will."

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I believe he has been doing it for more than 40x as long, not 10.

He'll leave the Living Force soon, although he has trained his consciousness to persist in the Cosmic Force

Click to shrink...

Is this from the Legends spin off? You are using Cosmic Force how Living Force was used in the older series (aka original trilogy).