The Force Always Says Yes [Star Wars]

[TFTwink]

Lawful vs Good is a topic I haven't seen people approach with much nuance. It's either 'Good is messy, which is why we need laws to be followed even if they aren't perfect" or "[Insert Atrocities] were lawful; good has to be fought for even though the immediate consequences are regrettable". There's probably some good ones that can do it justice that I haven't seen, and given this story so far, I hope this is one of them.

 

[shukkets]

Wonderful!
Thanks for the chapter.

 

[Grimmouse197]

Wow I love your interpretation of the force. And Your interpretation that following the force like a slave Is basicly the dark side.

 

[jason1stlegion]

Is there a mismatch of chapters? I see 55 over in AO3, with Symbionts being #55

 

[Hyenanon]

Is there a mismatch of chapters? I see 55 over in AO3, with Symbionts being #55

Click to shrink...

Not exactly! Archive Of Our Own does not allow unnumbered chapters. So for each of the interludes and vignettes, like the End Of Arc 1 Vignette: It's A Cheap Trick But It Works, I did not number them in my personal copy of the story, nor did I number them as I uploaded them onto QQ and Spacebattles. Unfortunately, Ao3 requires them to be counted, which inflates the numbers of chapters afterwards. It's really frustrating!

 

[TroubleFait]

From my point of view, the Jedi are evil! the Jedi Order is a slave to the Republic, and the Jedi themselves are slaves to their flawed perspective.

When Yoda complained in episode 2 that more and more Jedi were arrogant, he felt so passive about it. Rubs me the wrong way.

Oh, and the famous line: "If an item does not appear in our records, it does not exist."

I have trouble explaining it, but this form of arrogance is what Yoda felt, I think it's also what he nurtured.

 

[Goudeauboywade]

next, it just better have some real sunlight."

Click to shrink...

Careful girl that is how you end up on Jakuu or tatooine.

 

[Driven_by_Apathy]

Hmm.... is there an invisible chapter 51 that I don't know about between 50 and 52, or is that just a typo?

I'm hoping for the former, but its probably the latter.

 

[Hyenanon]

Hmm.... is there an invisible chapter 51 that I don't know about between 50 and 52, or is that just a typo?

I'm hoping for the former, but its probably the latter.

Click to shrink...

AAAAAH! I knew I would do this sooner or later! It's a typo. Unforutnate! I'll fix it.

I am currently very busy with a bunch of things so there probably won't be a new chapter uploaded for another few days. It's coming though!

 

[Hyenanon]

Chapter 52: The Sith And The Jedi​

Nerim's hands were uncomfortably warm against the surface of the furnace, not quite to the level of burning his skin but close enough to make his brainstem scream at him. Tetha's cooler hands were pressed against the back of his, forcing him not to pull away.

"This is deeply uncomfortable," Nerim complained, a bead of sweat trailing down his temple. "I would have a much easier time sensing the interior without physical contact."

"But you would have a harder time relating with it," Tetha responded. "You're not touching it to sense, you're touching it to feel. You need to embrace the pain."

"What does it mean to 'embrace' the pain?" He asked in an unfortunately whiny tone, his legs twitching underneath him in a fidgeting discomfort.

"You must understand it. Accept it. Use it. Pain is nothing but sensory information designed to give you a course of action. It tells you where pressure is being applied, and once you've transcended the animal need to instinctively react, it will give you a new dimension of data by which to formulate your response."

Nerim began actively struggling against her hands. "Ow ow ow," He hissed through his teeth, "The heat is building up. I'm going to start getting burns if we keep like this."

"Use the Force to circulate the energy through your body. But don't do it too well. You need the pain, just not the damage."

"This sucks so much, I wanna go back to Ilum," he muttered as he closed his eyes and took a sharp breath, attempting to call the Force to his aid. It almost seemed confused at the stupidity of his request, although he realized that was probably his own thoughts leaking in to his focus. The thought of using the Force to mitigate damage he was actively doing to himself was non-intuitive to him, and it didn't flow naturally. Obviously the advisable course of action was to simply pull his hands away from the damn contraption.

"Use your feelings," Tetha said, holding him down tighter to the furnace. "What is it that you're sensing?"

"It's hot!" He replied, frustrated.

"Yes, it's hot," she agreed. "It's not bad. It's hot. You're treating it like it's something bad, like it's evil for it to be molten rock. But it's not. It simply is hot. The key is to separate your sense of pain from your sense of bad."

Nerim felt a sudden sense of recognition, a memory leading back to the Revanchist Temple. Dangerous, not evil, like a cliff. He took a steadier breath, and thought back to when he was trapped in that waterfall sensation of the Force, and how he broke out; he had let the water break around him. Confronted with the heat of the furnace, he attempted the same. The heat broke around him, just slightly, some of it diverting a microscopically short distance over his skin and trailing up his arms like invisible aurora during a solar flare.

The heat was suddenly bearable, but still very much uncomfortable. Painful, even. It was uncertain even now if he'd manage to get out of this without at least first degree burns across his palms if they went much longer. "Okay," he said evenly, "I'm in a lot of kriffin' pain, but it's not bad. Got it."

Tetha nodded. "Good. Feel how close the cells in your hand are to bursting, disgorging their contents and mixing together into an indistinct mass."

"That's disgusting," he grimaced.

"It's okay for it to be disgusting," she reproached. "Vinegar is disgusting to drink, that does not mean we should avoid consuming or even thinking about vinegar."

"I...see," He frowned, closing his eyes again and focusing. "Okay. What about my cells?"

"The heat is close to reducing them to base components. It is from this slurry that one could, theoretically, reorganize the proteins and molecules into new organic forms. So too, with the stone. Inside it has been burst and disgorged, and it is now that one could reform it."

He felt the roiling material inside, molten and formless, truly protean in nature. "How does one reform it?"

"Ithorian viridite is particularly easy at this point in the process. It will more or less grow itself once you get it started. The difficulty is going to come from splitting your focus. I will help you the first time," she said, and he felt her presence expand into the small molten chamber. "You will need to form a pocket of colder stone at the center, enough for it to nearly solidify. Then, you have to mix it in a very particular order. Observe."

He felt the molten rock cool at the center at an infinitesimally small point, held in place by Tetha's power. Then, on all four sides, and both above and below, the liquid began swirling. Clockwise to the north, east, and above, counterclockwise on the south, west, and below. These six swirling patterns were perfectly matched in speed, and soon replaced the random roiling that had originally dominated the interior.

"This is far beyond me..." Nerim breathed out in awe.

"It won't be forever," she said reassuringly. "What I need you to do right now is to focus on what I'm doing, and slowly take over from me, one swirl at a time. Finally, you will have to connect them to the gem at the center, and hold that center in place while feeding it the material from the rest."

"Piece of cake," he said sarcastically. He felt Tetha smile.

"Wait until we get to the hard part."

He groaned. "When do I ever get to an easy part?"

She laughed softly. "This entire time, the most important part of the process is to feed the Living Force inside the chamber. If you fail to do that, it will simply produce a mess of stone. In order to produce true viridite, you must act in tune with the Living Force and nurture it."

He paused. "...Oh. That's it?"

"That's the hard part for a Sith," she laughed again.

"Huh."

"Now, let's proceed. I'll be giving you the shape of the whole process, I just want you to practice powering it."

True to her word, as he extended his personal Force into the chamber, hers did not retreat. It weakened, and he picked up the slack as best he could in perfect proportion, but the outlines of her influence stayed the entire time. The best way he could think to describe it was the difference between drawing on blank paper, versus a coloring book. And he tried his hardest not to let that make him feel as juvenile as it sounded.

The process took quite some time, long enough that the meditation disconnected him from his internal clock and he had completely lost track of how long it really was. His body was flushed from the heat and stiff from the posture, but the strong flow of the Living Force through him kept him from falling to fatigue. That infinitesimally small point began to grow as the material was funneled into it, which surprised Nerim, as he was not cooling the rock down; it simply began solidifying. Microscopic channels and fractal patterns appeared in the gem as it formed, forming the distinctive swirls that he saw on Tetha's bracelet.

Once all of the material had solidified and they arose from meditation, he suddenly gasped for air again, as he often did whenever he escaped from the immersion of meditating. He pulled his hands away from the furnace and shook them out. They definitely felt like they had been burned at least somewhat. Looking up to the clock, he realized it had been a little over an hour since he last closed his eyes. Both Arwain and Jianno had left at some point.

Tetha smiled at him and began the process of opening the furnace, breaking the vacuum seal. "Let's see what we've got. Lift it out."

The small round door at the top opened, and Nerim reached a hand out and attempted to grasp onto the stone with the Force. It was a slippery, faltering process which he failed at a couple of times, but eventually the Force responded to him and he felt the weight and shape of the round stone as it lifted into the air out of the hole. It was about an inch in diameter, and a deep dark green, with brilliant lighter swirls across its glassy surface. Tetha craned her head around it with an appraising glance, and then nodded.

"Looks pretty decent," she said, reaching out and grasping it. Nerim's eyes bulged.

"Whoa! Hey, that was just molten!" He cautioned.

She scrunched her nose with a smirk and tossed it between her hands. "What, still afraid of a little heat? Catch!"

She tossed it his way, and instinctively he caught it in his hand, before immediately letting go of it. The moment after he let go, he realized it wasn't actually hurting him. He attempted to grab it out of the air with his other hand, and it bounced off, leading to several attempts to grasp it before it finally landed back in his palm.

"What the...?" He tilted his head. It was very warm to the touch, but much less so than even the surface of the furnace, let alone the interior. "Why did it cool down?"

"It didn't. It's still just as hot as it was in the chamber. Viridite has an incredibly low thermal conductivity, similar to how metal always feels hotter or colder than carpet, even if they're the same temperature," she explained. "You could drop that thing in liquid nitrogen for a week and it would come out room temperature. You could keep it in for a month, and it would come out cold for a year."

"Remarkable..." He mused as he ran his fingers across the orb.

"Unfortunately, this makes them about the least useful possible thing for a core lightsaber crystal," she joked. "But it can come in handy on its own."

"At the very least, I can imagine it's nice jewelry to have in inclement weather," he nodded slowly, trying not to aggravate the burns on his palms as he held the stone between his fingers.

She frowned, and stood up, finding a small plastic bottle of light blue liquid in the cabinets. She brought it over and gestured for his hand. "I have some old pseudo-kolto that'll help with that."

He placed the viridite onto the floor between his knees and reached his hands out, letting her squirt the healing gel onto his palms. "I think I understand the lesson on pain, but I'm not sure I like it," he grumbled.

Tetha looked back up at him and gave him one of her barely-noticeable smiles. "Most lessons in the Sith will be like this."

He thought for a moment, and tilted his head. "...How much of the Sith training you underwent do you carry with you?"

She shrugged. "I'm not in the habit of dropping things, so everything, I suppose. I was always training under the impression that I would learn everything, but only selectively apply it."

"I was always taught that the Dark Side was infectious, corruptive. That once you started using it, it would consume you," he looked down at his right hand, still glistening with gel. "I've only tapped into it once, I think. It was very difficult to stop in the moment, but I haven't been particularly tempted since."

She looked down in thought. "Darth Machina taught me that the Sith believed the Dark Side was the original form of the Force. That it arises from animal impulses, such as rage, fear, desire, and so on. As such, he believed, it must have been what arose first, when the Force was developing in tandem with life. In a sense, it was like a disease, infecting creatures and driving them mad with the urge to self-preserve and self-propagate."

"I see even the Sith take a quite grim view of it," he said with some surprise.

"Sort of. You see, an unavoidable part of the nature of diseases is that, if they are too successful in parasitizing their hosts, they will burn out. A disease that quickly kills any being which catches it is doomed to wipe out its own habitat. A much superior disease is merely inconvenient. But even inconvenient diseases make themselves a target for intelligent life to wipe out."

Nerim blinked. "And the ideal form of a parasite is, eventually, a symbiote, because then intelligent life will protect it."

"Exactly," Tetha nodded. "This is how he explained the Jedi Order to me. According to him, the Light Side is the result of the Dark Side successfully disguising itself as something that ought to be protected. And, he told me, from a certain point of view it is a successful transformation from a competitor into a collaborator. It's not exactly a matter of deception, the Light Side is helpful to its hosts. The Dark Side is the remainders, the old strain, which is anemically limping along in vulnerable gene pools. This, he said, also explains why the Jedi Order is ascendant, and all Dark Sider organizations have been chased to the shadows."

"But if all this is true, why use the Dark Side? Isn't this just admitting to being on the losing side?"

She slowly shook her head. "No. You see, there are so many more options here than three. There is not just parasites, victims, and symbiotes. There are also predators, who predate on parasites. In much the same way a large whale is often surrounded by small lifeforms which live symbiotically with the whale by eating parasites which attempt to leech off of it, there are beings who can predate on the Dark Side, using it for their own benefit. There are also those who can reverse the game, becoming a parasite on the Force, which in a sense is its own titanic lifeform. And, ultimately, there is the theoretical higher lifeform, who can use their capabilities to manipulate the entire process, and liberate themselves and others from the inexorable laws of nature. The goal of the Sith is to produce this higher lifeform."

She reached to her wrist and fiddled with her own viridite bracelet, before continuing. "Ultimately, this is what he taught me about the difference between the Sith and the Jedi. The Sith view the Force as a thing which can be controlled, utilized, and in some sense used to transcend. The Dark Side is like electricity; wild and dangerous and immensely powerful, but immeasurably useful when subdued. The Light is, meanwhile, an evolutionary trap. It is good, but not as good as the Sith way, and in a game of evolution, only comparative advantage matters. And in a more messianic sense, it cannot lead to the ultimate lifeform, because they are tethered to the symbiont circle, which they can never transcend."

Nerim considered for a moment, and then when they met eyes, he spoke. "You've talked a lot about what Darth Machina thought. What do you think?"

"I think the Sith are deeply incurious about what that ultimate lifeform would do with their freedom," she replied instantly. Then she looked to the side. "Elements of it are very alluring to me, after spending my life in a soft sort of prison, living as a pre-planned person in a hole on the Outer Rim. But it didn't take long for me to realize Darth Machina was rather unconcerned with my freedom or happiness. He made that holocron because he had his own plans for anyone who found it."

She became quiet, and Nerim shifted in position out of seiza, sitting with crossed legs and holding the viridite in his hands. "What would you do with such freedom?"

"I can't honestly say. That would entail such a shift of perspective that I'm not sure I could possibly guess," she admitted. "But I know for sure there's one question that would need to be answered, which Darth Machina never gave me a satisfying answer to. Given perfect freedom, why wouldn't the ultimate lifeform choose to live in the symbiont circle? I've seen the symbiont circle from the outside. And I want in," she said firmly.

Slowly, Nerim smiled. "Sounds doable."

Tetha's steely expression broke with an exhale of amusement. "I sure hope so..." She trailed off, looking at the floor.

"I have no doubt that—"

"Nerim." She interrupted him, meeting his eyes with grave sincerity. "I don't know why you don't feel it. But I do. I do feel the corruption of the Dark Side. Almost every day, I want to tap into it. I feel like I...I can't be me without it. Everything is muted, and monochrome, and distant, and fake. Every now and then I can feel the Light, and everything gains beautiful clear sound, and vivid colors, and warm sensation. But then it goes away. And the Dark is always there, always real. I can't make the Light come to me, but I can make the Dark come to me, and it's so hard to resist."

Nerim blinked, listening in rapt attention, not even breathing so as to avoid interrupting her.

She frowned deeply, an expression of deep grief crossing over her like a shadow. "Part of why I want to learn the Force from you is to learn how you deal with it. How you deal with these monochrome moments between the Light. I wanted to know how you deal with the temptation, but you don't even feel it, do you? How?"

Nerim furrowed his brow. "What exactly is it that you're tempted to do?"

"To tap into the Dark," she said quietly.

"What exactly?" He insisted.

"To give into anger, and fear, and desire. To scream, and throw things, and run away whenever I feel like it, and live for myself and do what I want even if it's at the expense of others. I want to use my powers without ever even thinking about any rules! I want to hurt the people who hurt me and make the Galaxy cower the same way the Galaxy tries to make me cower!" She clenched her fists, her voice growing louder and more frantic as she went on. "I want to be a real person, not just window dressing that steps aside and bows and apologizes whenever I'm told!"

The Force around her grew twisted and rapid and cloudy as she spoke, and she began to hyperventilate, her face growing red and veins bulging in her forehead, before closing her eyes and slowly regaining control of her breathing. The Force became less tense, but no less cloudy. Nerim moved over to her, and placed a hand on her shoulder, and she looked over to him with dull black eyes and frowned. "Why don't you feel it?" She asked.

He closed his eyes and thought. "I want to be happy, and free. But I want a particular type of happiness, and a particular type of freedom. When I say happy, I don't mean positive sensory experiences, though those are nice, or the nostalgia of looking on my past works proudly, though that is nice. It's not something that exists in the past or the present. The type of happiness I want most of all is a sort of pleasing expectation. A sense that, at some point in the future, something nice is going to happen, that everything will be okay. And when I say free, I mean both autonomy and control over myself. Not simply a lack of external restraints, but also of internal ones."

He opened his eyes, glanced over the regrettably sorrowful expression on her beautiful face, and grasped her hand in his. He continued, "To be honest, I'm not even entirely sure what the Dark Side is. Ever since I visited the Revanchist Temple, I've felt that the Force is much larger than we give it credit for. And, really, I'm not even all that interested in the answers. I just want happiness and freedom, and when I think about those things, the pain of others never seems desirable. I don't know. I feel like screaming is fine. Throwing things is okay. Living for yourself is most certainly reasonable, and I don't know that rules are exactly necessary. But every time I get close to the Dark Side, I both lose control, and my mind is filled with fear and anger. I sense no happiness or freedom down that path, and so it doesn't tempt me right now."

Tetha's frown deepened, and she looked back down at her hands. "My mind simply doesn't work that way. It does not always search for happiness. Sometimes I want to be angry more than I want to be happy."

"Me too," he admitted somberly. "That's why I ended up tapping into it on Cathar, I think."

She looked up at him in surprise. "Then what do we do?"

Nerim was still and quiet for a moment, and then shrugged sluggishly. "I don't know. I'm just a Padawan, I have no clue what I'm doing."

She smiled sadly at him, and shook her head. "We're so screwed."

 

[Cobalt60]

Huh. That's certainly one of the most unique philosphies of the force I've seen and I think it works really well for a sith perspective. I also really enjoy that it's not yet another reinterpration of yingyang duality.

 

[TFTwink]

I'm just a Padawan

Click to shrink...

Oof, still not used to it huh?