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Morality of Action, Wednesday Afternoon

Kreia swept into class exactly five minutes late, her hand folded into her sleeve and her Jedi robe swishing dramatically as she entered. If she was aware of this drama, she did not show it.

"It has come to my attention that some of you are adepts of the Force," she announced. (Especially, one young man, who had seemed rather confident in his abilities last class.) "Those of you who are not familiar with it, consider yourselves fortunate."

She would have eyed the class, but, well: that would require functioning eyes. Instead, she radiated disdain in a somewhat more existential fashion than usual. "The Force is an entity that rules my galaxy, and I sense its grasping fingers stretching out into this one. It is an energy field that connects all living things. Those who are sensitive to it may call upon it and wield its power to accomplish fantastical feats. Yet that is also a trap. It fosters dependence, clouds our sight to solutions that would occur more readily to those who do not command its power. And it has a will, a design of its own to pursue, ever-searching for balance, ever-burning more lives upon its wheel to accomplish it."

Sorry, Cal and Lana. Kreia had feelings.

"But the Force can be instructive as an example to those of you yet free from its machinations," she said. "Consider the ways of the Jedi, a faction that wields the Force freely in order to achieve what they believe is peace and prosperity for the galaxy. Their mastery of the Force is great, and yet, in my time, most have fallen. They were either corrupted, slain by their corrupted brothers and sisters, or hid like cowards."

"The Force itself had turned against them," she continued. "When war came to the galaxy, some of their number went to fight it, to protect the Republic. But such pain and death poisons the Force, twists those who command it. It becomes... easy, to fall, to embrace your worst impulses. When you have given all that you are to the Force, it in turn will change you."

"Meanwhile, the Jedi who hid could not grow, could not adapt to this new galaxy, more treacherous than the last," she said. "To become a part of the world around them, they would have to embrace the ways of the Force-blind. To learn how to wield plows and blasters, the way they had come to wield their lightsabers, their powers. They could not. After all, who would abandon such power? Turn away from it, remake one's self, become something better, ready for this new age?"

Just one woman. One incredible, terrified Jedi knight.

"If one must take a lesson from this class, any lesson at all, by the time we are done, let it be this," Kreia said. "Power does not merely change you. It strives to make you reliant on it. To make you believe that you and this power are one. Do not let it. Always be prepared to walk away from it."

With that said, she dropped her arms beside herself. (It put emphasis on her missing hand. It was likely deliberate.) "Tell me," she said. "Which of you have held such power in the palm of their hand? What did it feel like? Did it drive you to make different choices? Were you stripped of it? Do you know what you would do if you ever were?"

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With UNLIMITED POWER.

Sorry, Force users.

"Tell me," she said. "Which of you have held such power in the palm of their hand? What did it feel like? Did it drive you to make different choices? Were you stripped of it? Do you know what you would do if you ever were?"

She is seated at the head of the class. It seems peaceful.

Oddly enough, the squirrels are keeping their distance.

Sir Graham of Daventry

Cal Kestis

The commentary on hiding like a coward hit Cal a little hard, but she certainly wasn't wrong about most of this.

"I guess the closest thing we have to that kind of power," Graham offered, after taking a good long moment to really think about it, "is magic. And I have a little bit of that, but not a lot, so I can't say I've really had that kind of power before. But if you look at the people in my world who do....you get a lot of them being corrupted and doing terrible things with it. Not everyone!" He was very hasty to add that, his eyes bouncing around to anyone he knew might use magic in the class. "There are definitely some good magic users, too, but most of them do tend to get a little overarching with their powers."

Then he frowned a little deeper, brow knitting as he continued to think about it.

"I like to think," he ventured, "that I would do well with that kind of power if I ever did become strong enough in my magic for it to make a big difference, but I also think it's one of those things you can't really know for sure until you're in the situation..."

There was a grim amusement in Kreia's voice. "There is not a living being in any galaxy who does not believe they would 'do well' with such power," she said. "You are correct in that one does not know until one is tested. As it is with many things, truly. Will you seek such tests?"

Edited 2024-09-18 19:31 (UTC)

There was a long, uncomfortable sort of pause.

"I don't know," Graham finally admitted. "Maybe. I've been thinking about it, a little, and I think...I mostly want to focus on my knight job. You know, quests and missions and adventures, things like that. And if I happen to find someone or something I think can teach me more, then it would be a good idea to take the opportunity, but also, if I don't....I think that'd be fine, too. I don't really want that kind of power, I just want to be able to help people and do right by the world. I don't want to be a wizard, I want to be a knight, and so that's what I want to focus on. But I guess it's nice to have...options? You know?"

Lana Beniko

"I'm a Force user," Lana said. She'd been thinking a lot during Kreia's lecture. "I do think you have a point about relying on it too much," she conceded. You had that in common with Atton, Kreia! Weren't you happy to know that? "I can't tell if I would have made different decisions without it, though. Apart from taking a different role in battles, of course. I use its information to inform my decisions, but I don't allow its presence to drive them."

She thought. "If I were stripped of it... Hm. I imagine I'd take on more administrative tasks and forego being on the front lines until I learned to use a blaster better. I'd play to the strengths I had remaining."

"There was a period where my connection to the Force was broken," Cal explained, because not being honest seemed like the wrong idea. "It was awful. I felt like a part of me had been carved out. I know we're reliant on the power it gives us, and I've seen what happens to those who don't use it with good intentions. But I don't know if I can ever go back to not having my abilities and not being able to fight to protect the people I care about."

"And that is your weakness, as it is that of many Jedi," Kreia spoke. "That you cannot conceive of a way you could possibly protect that which you care about without the interference of the Force."

Hmph. Kreia would Force lightning the first person to insinuate she and Atton Rand may have a moral system in common. (All right, she wouldn't be that unsubtle. Probably.)

But with no such insinuations made, Kreia looked... thoughtful.

"Do you see yourself as wholly separate from your connection to the Force?"

"Perhaps," Kreia noted. "But be wary. What options you choose may well come to define you, more deeply than you would expect."

Liliana Vess

Liliana was not grinding her teeth through the lecture but her jaw was set very tightly.

"And what was your choice, Kreia?" Liliana asked, voice cold. "When this happened, when your vaunted pupil turned away to found their school, what were you doing? What was your choice?"

Arden Finch

Arden kept sneaking glances Cal's way, eyes concerned.

Arden wondered what World's Scariest Grandma would think about people who had access to some measure of power but hid from it for their own protection.

Probably nothing good.

"I...I don't have any experience in what you're talking about," Arden admitted, walking the line of truth very carefully. "Power isn't something I have a whole lot of experience with. And most of the time I've seen it in action, I've been scared of it, of what would happen next. I know a lot of my friends have power and use it and try to be responsible with it...But I don't think that having something like that would make me very happy."

"I had been stripped of my considerable power, and in her, found new purpose," Kreia said, her inflection communicating the arched eyebrow no one could see. "I chose to offer my life to complete her training."

She was lying, wasn't she? Kreia did not call her on it. There was no need: the core of her statement held true.

"There is no shame in such things," she said, somewhat less severe than usual. "Know that to be capable of harnessing power is not the same as being capable. Nor does it demonstrate strength. In some ways, you may be vastly more competent than your Force sensitive friend - capable of acting and thinking in ways he cannot."

Lana frowned. "I do see it as a part of me, if that's what you're asking. But it's like my sight or hearing, or an arm - it's part of what I am, but it doesn't define me. If I lost it, I imagine it would hurt a great deal and take time to adjust, but I would survive. Assuming whatever got rid of it didn't kill me," she added wryly.

"And without it, you suddenly found yourself with no skills, no other training to fall back upon? You were as helpless as a newborn kitten in the woods? Because that sounds like a skill issue to me," Liliana declared. "Does not relying on blasters means that should they be taken away, we've lost the ability to fight with sticks and rocks? Has beating our swords to plowshares cost us our ability to clear fields by hand?"

She scoffed. "Yes, you have a point that relying on magic to the expense of everything else is a fool's errand. I'll even grant you that perhaps it's different in your universe, where your power can twist who and what you are--" sounded like another skill issue to her, but whatever "--but the concept of being well-rounded exists for a reason.Power is a tool, and eschewing it is no more noble than relying on it alone."

"We were like gods, once. More than a few of my number were worshipped as gods throughout the Multiverse. We changed reality by thought and created new planes of existence by whim. And when the laws of the Multiverse itself was changed and sent us crashing back down to mortality, and I lay on a mountaintop broken and bleeding amidst the ashes of--" Nope, nobody here had earned that bit of her tragic backstory "--I learned exactly what I would do to survive, to scrabble and claw my way back up and out, and the answer is anything."

"Then you have been tested, and were not found wanting," Kreia said simply. She did not budge an inch in the face of that vehemence. "Congratulations. Though why you believe you are arguing with me, I can't possibly fathom. Some personal insecurity, perhaps?"

Edited 2024-09-19 20:34 (UTC)

She was definitely misleading, yes. But not outright lying.

"But that's true in reverse, right?" Arden asked. "He can act and think in ways I can't, too. Which means that, like...we're strongest together, right? Both of us overlapping in some ways and then covering each other's weaknesses?"

"You would be surprised to find how many Force users feel differently, when the time comes," Kreia said. "I do hope you hold on to this pragmatism even when times are dire."

"That is a conclusion you could come to, if you wish," Kreia said. Helpfully. "One rarely understands the universe through one perspective alone."

"I mean, I can still fight, and empower others to fight too. But with the Force, I don't have to put anyone else in danger." He wasn't going to mature past this any time soon, alas.

Lana smiled ruefully. "I would not, unfortunately, be surprised. I've known too many stuffy Sith and Jedi. Fortunately I do know some that are practical, though. Maybe one day we'll convince the rest."

She doubted it, but hey, it was a goal.

"Don't you?" Kreia asked. (That arched eyebrow was audible again, yes.) "Possessing some mastery over the Force, using it, in and of itself invites conflict, draws it to you."

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