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Practical Philosophy, Tuesday

"We've had a pretty quiet first week," Ender observed, sitting on a blanket in their usual spot on the lawn. "So we might as well continue on a theme we started on last week."

He reached for his bottle of water.

"Where we come from colors the way we look at the world," he said. "We take our principles with us. Along the way, we might lose some and gain others, but some bedrock will always remain."

He looked around the group. "What do you think your bedrock is?" he said. "And what is something you're surprised you lost along the way?"

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How do you look back on how your past formed you?

Ben, still with pink paint in his hair from his first class of the day (thanks for that, Anakin) grinned at his husband. "Well, a lot of you were there for most of it," he said. "My bedrock is my family, and the surprise was how the definition of that expanded along the way. It started with Mom and Dad, Dad's sister, her husband and their kids. Then I came here and my family got larger and more complicated." He smiled. "And then there was you."

Ender let out a soft little huff. "And I could fill in the blanks from there," he teased gently. "What is 'family' to you, now?"

"You and the kids," Ben said with another smile in reply. "Then Val and Dad and Peter and the whole other motley gang."

"Even Peter?" Ender said, with a snort. "Now that's benevolent."

"I learned pretty early on that liking someone and having them be family aren't the same thing," Ben said.

Jacen, you jackass.

Ender chuckled. "Very wise," he teased. "What's with the new hairstyle, by the way?"

"You mean getting rid of the braid because the braid was dumb?" Ben teased back.

"I mean the pink streak," Ender said, grinning, "Though the braid was certainly a... look."

"Oh, Granddad used the paintball setup for class this morning. Apparently we'd left some traps undetonated yesterday. I think it works for me!"

Ender picked up his bottle of water.

"It doesn't," he said, "But I appreciate your optimism."

"Val will like it," Ben decided.

"I'm a Jedi," Anakin said, firmly but softly. "Even though I'm no longer in my own galaxy, it's the core of my identity. I've taught my children its tenets and trained others who come through this nexus. The Masters who knew me as an impetuous teenager would probably laugh to see me now."

Ender… would not challenge that last statement. It would do very little but make Anakin defensive, if it did anything at all.

"How do you live as a Jedi when you are no longer on active duty?" he asked. "What does that look like?"

"I'm not starting my own Temple," Anakin said with a tiny quirk of his lips, "but I do think it's strategically sound to have someone strong in the Force on a multidimensional nexus as powerful as this one seems to be. So I think my duty had shifted from diplomatic firefighter to reserve infantry."

"Ah," Ender said. "So it's still strategy. Military."

"Well, we do call ourselves knights," Anakin said. "For most of the history I knew, the Republic didn't have a standing military like the clones. We had us."

"But that's not all the Jedi were or are," Ender noted.

"Of course not," Anakin agreed. "But I have no interest in negotiating with governments or forming councils. I explore the Force through the ways others come from my galaxy and tell me their understanding of it. I check it against my own understanding."

Anakin had always had such a lack of imagination - but then again, there was a reason Ben, with his empathy and his broader view of the world, was Ender's favorite Skywalker by far.

Perhaps he was just biased.

"Are you ever surprised by anything?" he said, abandoning that path before his personal opinions might get in the way of an actual conversation.

"Constantly," Anakin said. "And slightly jaded that the same cycle seems to consume my universe despite the good will attempts to stop it from happening."

"I am a Planeswalker," Liliana said confidently. "At the end of the day, that is the core of my identity. It is more than just a means to an end, or a handy trick, it informs my outlook, my abilities...everything that makes me Liliana has been shaped by that single fact. As for things that I was surprised to lose...I cannot particularly think of any--" that she was willing to share in class. "Everything I have lost or given up has been done deliberately, to further my own ends. I suppose one could argue the fullness of my spark, after the Mending, as that also affected my sense of self and my understanding of the Multiverse."

Another lie. But an expected one. Ender nodded, showing no sign of whatever he was thinking.

"Being a Planeswalker must give you a much wider frame of reference," he said. "A way of looking at possibilities, moreso than restraints?"

Liliana lied like she breathed. You were meant to perceive her as she wished to be perceived, thank you.

"Precisely," she said. "Each plane that I spend a significant amount of time on manages to expand my view of the world, of how things are done and can be done, of different ways people think and speak and feel. I have never been much for tradition, nor upholding ways simply because they have always been so, and being a Planeswalker only underscores that."

"Are you born a Planeswalker?" Ender wondered. "Or do you wander into it?"

"A bit of both, actually," Liliana said. "To have the potential to become a Planeswalker, you must be born with a bit of the Blind Eternities stitched into your soul, which we call a spark. This is incredibly rare, mere chance, and we're talking one in...any number of millions, possibly billions. But people's sparks may lay quiescent their entire lives - one doesn't become a Planeswalker until and unless that spark ignites. Unfortunately, there's no good way to figure out how many people's sparks ignite versus how many people are born with one, so..." Liliana shrugged.

"I've heard a number bandied about - eighty-four," she said, thinking of the Astrotorium and the attraction that had been closed. "I do not know whether that is the number of Planeswalkers alive now, or ever inexistence, but I do feel confident in saying that the total number of Planeswalkers who have ever existed is likely somewhere below five hundred. Possibly well below five hundred. And that's in the entire Multiverse and at least ten thousand years of history.

"My sister disappeared without a trace when we were children," Watts said. "My desire to find her is what led me to the constabulary, and becoming a detective. My career- was my life. For a long time."

Edited 2024-05-21 17:15 (UTC)

"But was it a means to an end?" Ender asked. "Joining the constabulary? Or a calling?"

"Both, I suppose," Watts said. "I discovered a talent for and interest in the work in general to go along with the passion I had for solving that particular mystery, and thus found myself rising through the ranks rather quickly."

"You said 'was', earlier," Ender said. "What changed?"

"Oh, I found her," Watts told him. "After that I had- much less of a singular focus on a particular goal."

Edited 2024-05-22 22:36 (UTC)

"I was raised Sith in the Empire," Lana said. "I never thought I would leave any of that behind, but when your emperor tries to kill the entire galaxy, it's hard to deny there's something wrong. Now I've left the Empire and I rarely look back."

She shrugged. "I still define myself as Sith, and that has been my bedrock, but I've been redefining it and branching out a bit lately. I'm not entirely sure where it's going to lead."

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Practical Philosophy, Tuesday

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