"We walk through the ages
The world on our shoulders
The burden we carry
To the dark end of our days
A thousand eyes watching
every step we are taking
waiting to see us
struggle and fall."
"How long has it been? Since you left?"
"Thirteen years. I was only nineteen when I answered the call to courage."
"I thought you were exiled."
"I was. But that wasn't until I returned from the war, which lasted three long, bloodstained years. You see, the time when I went to war was the exact moment when I left the Jedi; some part of me knew I wouldn't be coming back. By the time the war ended, I was practically deaf to the Force."
"Deaf to the Force? What happened?"
"Do you know of Malachor 5 and what transpired there?"
"That was the planet where the Republic made its final stand. I heard it was a massacre. One of the most devastating battles in galactic history."
"You heard correctly. Out of the thousands of ships that came, only a small handful of them were barely functional enough to limp away, never to fly again. There were only enough survivors to fill a stadium, and over half of them eventually died as well."
"That is horrible, but it doesn't explain how you nearly lost your connection to the Force."
"The Force is in all of us, Chronicler. Some may not be sensitive it, nevertheless it is there, often remaining dormant for a lifetime. But that is beside the point. There were close to four million people in the Battle of Malachor, about ninety percent of whom died simultaneously. Now, let's pretend that ten thousand people die in a raid bombing. That alone would cause a figurative cry of pain in the Force, because when someone dies, the Force that dwells within them usually dies as well."
"I am beginning to see where you're going with this."
"Approximately three million people died - in the same instant - during the destruction of Malachor 5. Can you even begin to imagine the repercussions of a massacre of that scale?"
"No. I cannot."
"Exactly."
"And it was that slaughter that ultimately cut you off from the Force?"
"To those who are Force-sensitive, the Force is like music. It is a constant melody too sweet to describe, swirling around you, guiding you along your path, like a river carries a raft. As long as the song of the Force echoes through your mind, there is no chaos, only serenity. You're at peace. But for nearly ten years, the only thing I heard was the death scream of thousands upon thousands of mortal souls crying out in agony. For almost a decade, I was completely alone."
"How did you go on?"
"If I were still a Jedi, I wouldn't have. Anger is strictly forbidden to Jedi, and it was my anger which was the very thing that gave me the strength to survive. With anger comes determination. With determination comes resolve. With resolve comes strength. And through strength, anything is possible."
"Is that your code?"
"It might become one, some time. Anyway, my anger was what saved me, Chronicler. It's the only reason I'm still alive after Malachor."
"I also heard you were the sole Jedi survivor of that battle. Surely some part of you must have died with your colleagues, after having known them for so long."
"I won't lie to you, Chronicler. I walked away from that battle permanently scarred. Permanently. The accumulative death during the war reached a culmination at Malachor, and caused a wound in the Force, which affected me as well. Subsequently the Force within me became a storm of throbbing pain, and accompanied with the screams of the dead and dying, caused me mental and physical torment for many long years. Only now am I beginning to heal."
"But you will never truly recover."
"Time will tell. It is possible that I may never again hear the Force as clearly as I once could. I trained myself to hear past the screams, to reach through the scorching flames of my suffering and feel the Light. That notwithstanding, I couldn't shut out the screams, no matter what I did. Even as my powers redeveloped, the sounds of a planet dying a violent death in mere minutes rang in my ears, and to this day it still does. It's my curse. One that I've learned to live with, because my only other choice was to give up and die."
"You sacrificed nearly everything to stop the Mandalorians, including that which you held dear. Such heroism can only be admired. What I would like to know is how the Jedi could find it in themselves to cast out someone who had given up so much for the greater good?"
"Because they didn't believe in what I was doing. Let me tell you that heroism is all too often a thankless task. Countless acts of valor, selflessness, and self-sacrifice all too often disappear as quickly as they appear simply because no one remembers them. Or because no one wanted to acknowledge it. Or, in thise case, because the hero was punished for his actions to defend the defenseless. Chastised for intervening when the powers that be could not, or would not carry out their sworn duty. When the hero becomes the villain because he did what he knew was right, it brings about a question that we all ask ourselves. A question to which very few find the answer."
"What question is that?"
"The question is: why? The answer is never the same, and it is always elusive. It always hangs just beyond our reach, like a fruit on the highest branch; we try as hard as we can, but despite our efforts we just can't quite reach it. In the end, however, even if we don't find the answer, it doesn't really matter why no good deed goes unpunished."
"Because those who have the ability to act, have the responsibility to act, and that which is right and just must be done, no matter how daunting or horrific."
"Exactly. And believe me when I tell you that war is truly horrific."
"I believe you more than anything. War is a nightmare for which there can be no preparation."
"Nothing in my life could ever have prepared me for the horrors that the Mandalorians unleashed upon this unsuspecting galaxy. The pleasure I saw in their eyes as they forced men to watch while their families were ravaged and eviscerated right in front of them was the single most terrifying thing I have ever seen in my entire life. It scared me to the depths of my soul to think that anyone, even the Mandalorians, could take such perverse pleasure from such grievous atrocities. And it was that inhumanity which is the reason why I do not regret what happened at Malachor 5. Yes, that was a horrible and terrible thing, I've had no illusions about it. But it had to be done. Heavy sacrifices had to be made. We had to win the war, or we would all be dead, because the Mandalorians would not have stopped at uprooting the Republic. They would have continued their blood-stained campaign of terror until every last man, woman, and child lay dead at their feet. They say they fight for honor. Maybe that's true for some. But not these. Some terrorists kill people in the name of their false god. Some terrorists kill for political reasons. The Mandalorians, however, butchered helpless people, burned entire worlds, because they liked it. It wasn't for any particular reason, just for their own sick, depraved pleasure. They claim to be warriors who wanted to face the full strength of the Republic in battle. I know they are nothing more than sadistic, genocidal cowards who wanted a war for the mere sake of having a war to fight."
"And such an enemy must be stopped at any cost."
"Precisely, Chronicler. Now Malachor 5 may have been a heavy cost at the time. In retrospect, however, it was a small price to pay in comparison to the devastation the Mandalorians would have wrought had they not been stopped. That was our last resort. Our last option. For months I racked my brain, desperately trying to think of a different way to end the war. The last thing I wanted to do in order to stop the enemy was to destroy another world. The last thing I wanted to do was to become, in any way, like the Mandalorians. In the end, I came to see that, like the war, the ruin of Malachor 5 was as inevitable as the war itself. We were left with no choice but to destroy one last world in a last ditch effort to hopefully save what was left of a dying Republic. If the Mandalorians had not taken the bait, I would not be here talking to you. If we had failed at Malachor 5, this galaxy would lie dead, rotting in complete and utter ruin, only to be rebuilt in the Mandalorians' savage, violent, war-loving ideal."
"But has it been saved? Will we ever see true peace again?"
"Maybe we will prevail and move on. Perhaps we won't. Maybe someday, the Republic will crawl into a proverbial gutter and just let itself die. No one can know, because the future remains unwritten."
"I cannot help but wonder how anything could go back to the way it was after so many terrible things, so many nightmares. I look around myself, staring this wounded galaxy wondering, how can civilization go on?"
"Peace is a fragile thing, Chronicler, and the war shattered it."
"It's been ten years since the death of Malachor 5. Was that the right thing to do?"
"Yes."
"Do you believe the wound in the Force will heal?"
"Time will tell, my friend. Time will tell."
The quotation at the beginning is taken from the Arch Enemy song 'Carry the Cross.' In case you were wondering, I don't own it, and this is strictly non-profit blah blah.