Archive of Our Own

38 BBY. Scene: the largest amphitheatre aside the Coruscanti Jedi Temple. It is an outside location, with forceshields preventing the noise of the ecumenopolis from reaching them. A distance away, the huge block and sharp towers of the Temple proper loom. Gentle slopes and wooden benches provide seating on the ground, a series of stepped pools accommodate aquatic species, and there are even subsections with their own forcefields containing a different gas mixture for non-oxygen-breathing folks. Floating vessels and pods in bright colours dot the skies, silently hovering. Casting droids are also present, for most galactic holobroadcasters. In physical attendance are over fifty thousand people, including every single senator and representatives of non-Republic systems; in virtual attendance, it feels like the entire galaxy is watching.

YODA: Welcome, welcome. Gentlebeings, not-so-gentlebeings, senators, chancellors, esteemed sapients, welcome.

YODA waits for the crowd to get seated and quieten down.

YODA: A very particular journey through life, I have had. In the last few years a long… meditation I have undertaken. Today, reintroduce the Jedi Order I will, to the Galaxy, such that together we may, live long and prosper.

YODA throws a Vulcan salute, to the general confusion of all.

YODA: To begin with, some common assumptions, to impart on you I wish. With me bear: for many I hope, basic knowledge this will be. In my… travels I have however, many discovered who these core precepts did not understand.

YODA: The most fundamental knowledge about Jedi, about any Force user, really, but most importantly about Jedi it is, that every single birth and death we feel, every single one that around us happens. When born a being is, the joy of their sapience manifesting itself in the Force we feel. When a being die they do, their sorrow, their pain, their release sometimes, and the loss of a sapience in this universe we feel.

Murmurs in the AUDIENCE, unrest in some of the attending SENATORS.

YODA: All Force users feel so. From the first time as sapient beings they awaken. Restricted to fellow sapients this feeling is; reasons why this is so, not entirely understood they are. Certainly Force-sensitive some midi-chlorian-bearing species are, plants and animals and organisms, yet sapient they are not, and their births and deaths we do not feel.

YODA: Every Force user, from their very first conscious thoughts, feels such. But this, Jedi deepen. Descendants of the ancient order of Ja'aha'd'i, we are. Ja'aha'd'i, "Those Who Listen For Death," means. Roughly translated. Spiritually descended from the ancient order of the Whills, we also are. A pre-Ektara word, that is, and quite simplified it means "Life." Thus, Life and Death. A Je'daii, and later as Jedi, trained this feeling we did, and our own consciousness of life and death, we expanded. Outwards, in distance; inwards, in our very own cells and organic life systems, such that learn to recognise the presence of non-sapient life we may; and sideways, into the presence of life we made ourselves aware, rather than merely its beginning and ending.

YODA: Our connection to the Force, we also deepen, such that much more precisely we may be able to feel what those beings themselves feel, that we touch with our minds. Always more strongly it will be at their births and deaths. Doing so, one last axis to be explored we find: post-, co-, and pre- cognition. At its core, the feeling of life and death in the spatial-temporal this is, instead of only in the physical realm. With some advanced forms of precognition the truth of the multiverse comes, of infinitely many universes branching from every single decision made, every chance taken.

YODA: The peacekeeping, diplomacy, disaster, rescue, the agricorps, the research, the medical, the telekinetics, the mind-tricks, the light-sabers, the extreme dedication to excellence in martial and saber arts (with honour to the Mandalorians acknowledged)… our visible trappings, these are. Our occupations, our jobs if you will, our busywork these all are. Oh, some of us, our entire lives we spend in those pursuits. Yet at the core of everything we do, at the heart of the Jedi Order, attuning ourselves to the lifeforce of the universe is what we are about.

YODA pauses to have a drink, as a deliberate move to observe the AUDIENCE, which is rapt in attention. This is new to them. That is a little worrying to YODA.

YODA: That is why our Temple, the place where raise our younglings we do, in the most densely populated place in this galaxy, it is located. That is why our Initiates and Padawans into conflict zones we send.

Some in the AUDIENCE are starting to get it, and are paling rather dramatically.

YODA: We Jedi, attuned to the lifeforce of the universe we need to get, and because we feel every life and every death we do so. To practice, where beings are born and die we live. Then, when sufficiently inured to that feeling we are, and able to survive we are, into places where death is omnipresent we go, and attempt to change that and restore balance we do.

The AUDIENCE is pretty aghast at this point.

YODA: This is why so prized as peacekeepers and negotiators Jedi are. In an environment of constant birth and death, we are all raised, and every single one we feel. Since this lecture I have started, fifty-seven thousand and four people in this and neighbouring star systems died, eighty thousand four hundred and twenty-eight people were born, and eight-hundred and eighty-five thousand twenty-three, no, ninety-five, people into and out of my lifeforce perception migrated. Only to just outside Empress Teta my own fully extended active sensory field reaches. Very old I am, and quite sensitive to the Force indeed, but chosen to primarily pursue administrative, leadership, and holistic guidance duties I have chosen. Thus in comparison to a few others, very powerful I am not. When but very young I was, at the age of thirty, only able to feel my great-great-grandmother's passing in the nearest hospital I was. Very weak indeed, hrmmm. At least one toddler there is alive right now, who the lives of every being on their home planet they can feel. Very strong indeed they are, and stronger still they will become.

YODA: As Jedi, found we are, and moved to we are, and raised we are, in places where life and death are in ratio and balance, and where peaceful most deaths are, where comfortable most life is. That feeling of balance we then hold, and with us take to use as point of comparison, when outside the planet a mission we have. This Coruscanti Temple in contract with the planet's, and later the galaxy's, government, was established. To guaranteed that these conditions, this balance, would endure for as long as the contract stood, the deal was struck. Service to the galaxy via the Republic, was offered in return.

YODA pauses, here, and surveys the audience regally, before fixing his glare in the direction of the SUPREME CHANCELLOR SKOR KALPANA, who happens to have a certain SENATOR SHEEV PALPATINE sitting next to him.

YODA: This lecture I have called in the deep realisation that not only has this contract been broken, but unknown to the vast majority of you it is, and more alarming still, unknown to many Jedi who worked in close contact with the Senate is was. But nevertheless, as of the start of this lecture, Coruscant as the Seat of the Republic, in egregious breach of terms is found, and departing the Order is. Last, I will go. This lecture I will finish, so that all of you the consequences will know, and what damage whoever this offence committed upon the Galaxy could have wrought.

Beyond the forceshield, thousands of shuttles are taking off, carrying with them the entirety of the Order. Even more specialised transports are at work dismantling the structures of the Temple, gigantic spires rising slowly through the air underneath carriers to awaiting capital ships above the planet. Several officials in the AUDIENCE are frantically trying to reach air control, to no avail. Some try to leave, but bounce off the barriers.

CHANCELLOR, standing up and approaching the dais: My friend, I assure you, I did not know about this, and, while I respect the new position of the Order to determine their own residence, and recognise their sovereignty over their templar constructions and lands, as per the agreement of 9392 and the convention of 32802… this move is a bit, hem, hasty, perhaps?

YODA: That it was of the utmost importance to safeguard our collective future I can assure you in turn, friend. Not only that of the Order, but of the Galaxy. However, to some of your concerns assuage: a thorough internal consultation and discussion process the Order held, and this course of action deliberated for a long time it was. Not hasty, this process is. Due to interferences in the power structure the representative of which you are, alas, directly involve you we could not. Now that the Order clear and soon safe it is, to restart negotiations the Republic free will be.

CHANCELLOR: You are insinuating that my office is compromised?!

YODA: Insinuating I am not. Stating, I am. Confirmation of this infiltration of have had, through Jedi assigned there. Many, corrupted or unduly influenced had been, and most from their earliest days. Some, sought the like-minded they had instead, though the depth of betrayal they had not realised — free of abjection ourselves we are not, nor of perversion of our own precepts — you, personally, Master C'baoth may recall, most recently of the Ando mission. Most helpful, he has been, if utterly troubled in his own thoughts he has been.

SENATOR MOSBREE, of the Bormea sector, has been approaching the pair during this exchange, after being chosen as representative by a discussing group of senators: Master Yoda, are you implying, in your earlier speech, that the Jedi Order deliberately inflicts psychological harm on the younglings relinquished to your care in order to mould them into... agents for your cause?

This provokes a lot of noise in the AUDIENCE, a mix of boos and acclamations, which is utterly ignored with the ease of long practice by all those who hold office.

CHANCELLOR: Senator, I must object—

He is interrupted by YODA holding a hand up.

YODA: Peace. A fair question it is. Do so, we do, yes.

The booing gets louder.

YODA: Yet harm nor indoctrination it is not, no.

The booing putters off, confused.

YODA: While other traditions of Force users in the Galaxy there are, and while many of these sink into feeling the lifeforce of their surroundings as much as we Jedi they do not, all Force sensitives this particularity they have. Turned off, it cannot be. Some materials mute it they can, but rare and expensive they are, and cut off from the Force any person within these is, as well. While soothing this can be, in short doses, an excruciating experience it is, for longer periods. In the same was as sitting in a dark quiet room calming can be, while sensory deprivation torture it is. Contain some of this material, our Temples do; both for soothing and for containment we use it. Indeed thin sheets you'd find around the quarters of our youngest, such that protected when at their most vulnerable they can be, and gradually at their own pace into the reality of the world they can be introduced themselves.

YODA: Outside of the Jedi, or of other Force organisations which protect their young… exposed, sensitives are — often accidentally, as well known in this time this is unfortunately not — to deaths (and to births!) and very traumatic they may be, without support, without understanding from their carers, and to such events increasingly they will become exposed as grow up they do, merely from their social and ambulatory circles expanding. Removing them from their environment, immediately cease this incidental yet uncontrolled exposure we do. By then acclimating them, slowly, from the lowest to the highest amount of this feeling to ever experience they are likely, into robust individuals we build them, who not only function they are able to, but an active role into our galaxy they take.

The AUDIENCE has been mostly cowed, and both CHANCELLOR and SENATOR have regained their seating. Some eyes are widening at the implications in the last few statements.

YODA: As a concrete example: Thankful it is that most species' newborns not yet sapient at birth they are; in those that are, Force sensitive newborns most often at a hospital being born survive they do not. Singular places in that harbour much new life and much death and suffering they do, and all this in the same proximity they have, hospitals.

The AUDIENCE is again aghast, but for a completely different reason. Some members are visibly horrified and in grief.

YODA: Three ways only of making Force sensitives and users comfortable in the long term there are. Ours is one, and for most other groups we have communicated with, this one is theirs too. Deep philosophical differences we may have, but on this topic in agreement almost all of us are. The best funded and the largest reach we have, true, though in large part because of the public service we render, that is; those services only possible due to our training, they are.

YODA: Another method, to completely isolate every Force sensitive from anyone who dying or suffering might be, there is, from the moment of their birth, until their old age and death. As per isolation, too, before dying taken away from their only family and isolated elsewhere they should be. Often that very act, their end, it precipitates.

YODA: The third way, the least desirable is: as soon as detected Force sensitivity is, either a coma or cognition-altering drugs be applied. In that state, unable to feel any or at least negative emotions, they remain, until death. Death which hastened might be, due to this practice.

YODA, pausing to gravely survey the deathly silent crowd: Hope, I do, that conveyed, I have, how ineffective, distressful, and horrifying these other two options are. Unfortunate it is, for us all, that neither hypothetical, nor historical, these are. One particular instance, in the history of my own people, is written. Today, very few of us there are. Extremely long lived, we are. Not always so, this was. My species, for mere few centuries once lived, but genetically engineered ourselves we did, many tens of millennia ago, for longer, almost indefinitely my ancestors wished to live. My people's project it was, for the ultimate Force sensitive population to be created, only among ourselves we'd live, never dying, and thus never experiencing death or suffering we would need. No birth, no death, forevermore. Only the Force. Over three centuries, the project seemed to work, until one day, a stray shuttle from a hyperdrive malfunction dropped nearby, and through the atmosphere without shields it crashed, and on re-entry disintegrated it did. For the first time in their lives, beings with centuries of experience honing their Force skills and sensitivity, death and acute suffering they felt. A terrible shock it was. None, process it were able to. Millions, almost instantly, died. Every generation of my species since, this story has passed down: to never repeat it, to always remember. Today, onto you I pass it.

YODA observes a moment of silence.

YODA: Every time talked of other organisations I have, qualified them with the mention that they too the practiced of acclimatisation they used, I have. Speak of those that do not, I will now. For if our Order destabilised as per the machinations of whoever is responsible had been, to Jedi too happened this may have. Many approaches there are, but four I will speak of, in increasing order of danger to individuals and communities.

YODA: The first and most obvious, not to do anything, it is. Young sensitives, in whatever environment born, they live. Often, by the time puberty individuals start, in species where a thing that is, already severely traumatised they are, and most likely themselves they repress, as well as temperamental, behavioural, or cognitive issues or particularities they will be having. Learned coping strategies they will have, through bad experiences oft repeated. In core and inner rim worlds, that is, and even then, in socio-economic contexts where only a light and occasional amount of death and suffering there is, and where in hospitals these generally happen.When death and suffering omnipresent is… already we all know that witnessing such things, on the psyche a terrible strain it is, and permanently the mind and the heart it often affects. Now this imagine, but instead of merely witnessing it, feel everything as if it was themselves they do, over and over and over, and on top of their own circumstances.

YODA: Thus to the second most common active approach taken we come: leaning into it. After sufficient deliberate exposure, possibly accompanied with social reinforcement, conditioned to seek it out one becomes. Very often degenerates into the third form, this does, which can be counter to the survival of the society, so safeguards there are in place to avoid excesses…

YODA waits a beat, just enough for the AUDIENCE to think that's not too bad—

YODA: …usually in the form of execution or banishment.

YODA: The third most common form, and the second most dangerous, revel is. Instead of surviving or merely leaning into the feeling, encouraged to revel in the death and suffering, these are, especially that which they create. Psychopaths they become, and psychopaths who excessively efficient at dealing death and elongating suffering, they are, and to cause suffering on larger and larger scales they are driven, to satisfy a hunger which always deepens it does.

YODA: Finally, the fourth form we find, and the most dangerous of all: the Sith. Who not only in pain and death revel, but this suffering to power themselves they do. What they inflict on others into the Force they feed, reflected back at them suffering is, and harness this feedback loop of hate and pain they do, wielding corrosive power no mortal being should. Siths the lifeforce of everything around them they corrupt, even metal, stones, and crystals defiled they are, such that every weapon they build, as red and black as their souls bleed. A Sith the initial architect of this situation is, though the Republic to account I hold, for upholding their duty they failed to. Here, the Sith is, listening, seething.

SENATOR PALPATINE, standing up and striding forward: Oh, as if the Jedi did not manipulate and corrupt. As if your so called Order wasn't everywhere, in every world, orchestrating it all for your own prestige and power, uncaring of the suffering you inflict on populaces, on the anguish you cause families when you rip their children from their breast. The Jedi, mysterious and remote in your palace, far away removed from the worries of the common folk, you have fashioned yourselves wizards and sorcerers, superior to all.

Having reached the dais, PALPATINE turns back to the crowd.

SENATOR PALPATINE: Enough! Enough, I say, of the domination and the lies. They want to leave us? Let them, I say! But they want to hold us to account? For their own failure at preserving peace on this world, and for an imaginary contract they claim everyone but them has forgotten about? Bah! Let us banish them from every Republic world until they are ready to come crawling back to us, in need of our funding and leadership!

YODA leans over, and whispers, unheard from the AUDIENCE: Right you are, Sidious. Plot we do, and a higher master we serve. Too foolish, he thinks you are. Over, your life is, courtesy of Darth Plagueis.

YODA makes as if drawing a lightsaber, and pushes on the Force to project danger. PALPATINE whirls about, drawing his own weapon.

PALPATINE, a furious rictus suddenly distorting his face: NEVER!

PALPATINE slashes through YODA with a blood red lightsaber, only to recoil when the later's cloaks fall to the ground, empty. His eyes widen, he has been tricked, and unmasked.

Scene: on the deck of the HOLDFISHER, a Jedi Cruiser. YODA is kneeling on the floor, recovering from extreme effort. Jedi Masters SIFO-DYAS, JINN, and WINDU are in attendance.

WINDU: That was too close. The universe is still screaming. You owe me for the headache you've inflicted on me. I'm going to see spots for days.

YODA: And a change, that is? Shatterpoints, spots, are they not?

MACE WINDU growls.

SIFO-DYAS: Do you believe that will have been enough, Master Yoda?

YODA: Enough? No. Only beginning the work is. Right he was, in part: held ourselves apart we have.

JINN: I shudder just thinking that this Sith was in any way possibly right. What will we do now, Grandmaster?

YODA: We? I, to Tatooine will go. The leadership of the Order, Masters Windu and Sifo-Dyas will have. Retiring, I am. New ideas, it is time for.

JINN: Retiring? To Tatooine?! It is Hutt space!

YODA: Hutt space, it was. High time it is, for us to take it back. But if worried you are, Grandpadawan of mine, with me come you shall.

With that, YODA turns, leaning on his gimmer stick as he hobbles away. He has one last murmur for us:

YODA: Easy you made it look, Master Luke, hrmph.

THE FORCE only laughs softly in response.