The History and Development of Lightsaber Form 8: Fulcrum
By the Jedi Historian; Corwin Black: Year 2017 ABY
Form 8 was a very well developed but almost unheard of lightsaber form initially developed between 30 and 22 BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin). The practitioners of this style are rare and only six, possibly seven (depending on which historian you talk to) masters of this form are recognized as such. What is not in question is who originally created the Fulcrum style of lightsaber combat. Alexander Wolf, an unorthodox Jedi by anyone's and everyone's standards created the form to match his unusual and sometimes described as "backwards" approach to almost everything he did as a Jedi. To better understand Fulcrum we should examine the life and Jedi career of the master who developed it.
Alexander Wolf was not a pure human and was born somewhere between 240 & 130 BBY. Alexander Wolf himself wasn't even sure of his actual date of birth. His father was a rogue Jedi and his mother was Miraluka. He was raised by his Grandmother, also a Miraluka, and never knew his parents. Alexander was not even certain if his Grandmother was a blood relative. As with many hybrids of Human/Miraluka origin he had an unusual connection to the force. First of all he was very long lived. He was discovered by Yoda in 26 BBY; and Wolf was supposedly 100 to 200 years old; although he was actually much older.
By aging standards Wolf was a middle aged man who had spent the last several decades as a force empowered bounty hunter, and gambler. Even before he was discovered my Master Yoda; Alex Wolf had obtained a very old lightsaber (with a green blade) and knew how to use it, although his form appeared crude and simplistic. He had used the force to increase his odds at gambling so many times that he had been thrown out of more casinos than he could count. However, if the confrontation turned violent, as a few of them did; the bouncers would find themselves leading Wolf into a back alley to teach him a lesson, only to find themselves distributed into a greater number of trashcans than bouncers.
When forced to resort to violence the seemingly calm and peaceful Wolf would turn insanely vicious. Once his lightsaber was turned on Wolf would show them all of the power. Jabba the Hutt was one of the first to recognize Wolf's ability at cheating at the craps table. Jabba was also one of the first to lose over three dozen bouncers over the course of several years trying to evict him forcefully. Alex always waited until the bouncers got him out of harms way ensuring that innocents were not around to be harmed. That's when asked politely to just be let go. If they decided to turn violent instead then Wolf tore into the bouncers like a rancor who had just been kicked in the 'you know whats'.
Eventually Jabba and Ziro the Hutt employed legendary bounty hunter Jango Fett to hunt down and, "ensure that this troublesome wolf of a man never entered one of their casinos ever again." Jango left Kamino on his way to one of the Casinos on the outer rim where he assumed that Wolf would eventually show up at. On the way there Jango reviewed the surveillance footage of Wolf. Interestingly, the electronic surveillance was almost never able to accurately pick up what Wolf actually looked like. Alexander had developed a form of force illusion that was specific to fooling and corrupting electronics from recording him accurately. Later Yoda would observe that it was like a force power that was the offspring of Force Meditation and Force Illusion..
However, Jango made several observations about Wolf from these records. Wolf was calm and almost passive on the outside. He would even ask the bouncers nicely to not hurt him, with a fair amount of sincerity. However, once it did turn violent Wolf attacked with such brutality it even shocked Jango. One such attack occurred on Nar Shaddaa.
Jango would later recount what he saw to Jabba and Ziro as justification on his resolution to their conflict with Alexander Wolf. At the small but full service Casino in the Gama district of Nar Shaddaa; Wolf would bet on pod races, usually only minutes before the race began, and won more often than not. Once the race was over he would collect his winnings as fast as possible and then leave the building with the same kind of urgency as a Rock Star after a concert. This method of beating the house had won Alexander Wolf more credits than he had ever won at the craps table; a fact that Ziro and Jabba were un aware of. Wolf had made off with millions of credits from betting off of pod races and the Hutts were none the wiser.
It was during one of these instances that Jango first met up with his quarry. Wolf had bet on four races that day. He lost miserably on the first two and lost tens of thousands of credits, The third race was a long shot and he won over seven hundred thousand credits on 30 to 1 odds, against. The fourth race was a "sure thing" and Wolf lost almost 100 thousand credits on that race; ironically the odds on that race was a 3 to 1 favorite. Jango noticed that some unsavory types had taken a real notice to Wolf and after seeing him win big on the one race; placed bets just as he did on the final one, where they lost all of their money. The gang of six unruly gamblers, who were also wanted for violent crimes, followed Wolf out the back only to discover that they were not as magnificent as they thought they were. Jango had a front row seat to this confrontation.
As the six of them cornered Wolf and surrounded him outside of the Casino in an alley they failed to realize that instead of Wolf walking into their ambush, Wolf had already anticipated their move and used the situation to ambush them. When the assailants demanded the cash at gunpoint Wolf asked them, really rather nicely, "Hey guys just let me keep what I've earned because I'm more trouble than I am worth and I really don't want anyone to get hurt, like me; for example." This only angered them. Seeing no way out of a fight Wolf threw down the bag of money to the assailants in front of him which distracted them and tricked them into thinking that Wolf was going to comply. That's when Wolf stomped his left foot on the ground and demonstrated a unique Force ability that he had developed. Gravity reversal. When he stopped the feet all six bad guys flew straight up in the air four to six meters. Wolf then maneuvered, using the force, without moving his feet and seemingly glided backwards a few feet such that when the assailants who were once behind him now fell right in front of him.
As the two fell to their impending doom Wolf pulled out his lightsaber and he cut the assailant on his left simply by putting the Cyan blade in the assailant's path and letting gravity do the rest. With the second assailant hitting the ground, and braking his legs Wolf plunged the tip of the blade through the bad guys neck and slashed forward as the bad guy fell backward. Jango had never seen a Jedi perform such brutal attacks against opponents who were clearly outclassed. He had only seen such things from Darth Tyranus, a Sith Lord.
The other assailants quickly realized that this was a really bad idea and ran away, as fast as they could on legs and ankles that had been sprained or broken by their fall. Jango expected the brutal force user to lunge at them and cut them down with little or no effort. However, Wolf simply let them limp away, and picked up his money.
It was after this that Jango spoke with Wolf, kindly asking him to refrain from visiting casinos or using bookies employed by the Hutts. Wolf agreed and went upon his way. Jango reported his findings to Jabba the Hutt instead of Ziro. He felt that Jabba, while quicker to anger, was a lot smarter than Ziro. Jango explained that this force user was like a lighthouse; easy to negotiate with, and catastrophic to ram into; Jabba agreed. This was the first time that Alexander Wolf was compared to a lighthouse, and it is credited with giving form 8 its title, "Path of the Lighthouse."
Ziro the Hutt was not so satisfied with Jango's solution of simply asking Alexander Wolf to leave them alone; which ironically actually worked. Instead Ziro petitioned the Jedi council to intervene and reel in this rogue Jedi; going as far as to call him a 'Dark Lord of corruption and murder. The fact that Ziro the Hutt who was legendary for his corruption and murder plots; was found to be hilarious to a large number of Jedi.
Ziro's demands went largely ignored by the Jedi Council. Force users and lightsaber wielders outside of the official Jedi Order, while very rare were not unheard of in the galaxy, and didn't particularly raise the interest of the Jedi, especially when he was disrupting the corrupt empire of the Hutts.
However, when a description of this mysterious force user's lightsaber found its way to Yoda, he took a sharp interest in it. Yoda inquired with Ziro about the mysterious 'Jedi'; more out of curiosity than out of a sense of duty to Ziro. When Yoda got a fairly good video image of the lightsaber; Yoda was noticeably intrigued as well as concerned. The saber was none other than the one that had belonged to Qui-Gon-Jinn.
The saber of Qui-Gon-Jinn, after the battle of Naboo was in the possession of Obi-Wan-Kenobi. After Obi-Wan-Kenobi constructed his second lightsaber Qui-Gon's lightsaber had 'disappeared'. Obi-Wan-Kenobi reported it stolen; from his quarters in the Jedi temple no less; a very unlikely occurrence. However, he never found it.
Yoda searched through the force. He eventually made contact with Qui-Gon-Jinn's force ghost. After a brief discussion; Yoda knew what to do. He took a sabbatical from the Jedi order. This was not necessarily unusual. Yoda was, after all, hundreds of years old and was known to take a couple of years off once in a while. However, with tensions rising in the galaxy Mace Windu took notice of how unusual the timing was. Windu decided that Yoda knew what he was doing and his sabbatical was approved unanimously.
Windu however, was deliberate to ask Yoda to not hesitate to call on him or anyone else in the Jedi order if their assistance would be 'helpful' during Yoda's supposed 'sabbatical'. Mace Windu surmised that Yoda wouldn't take a sabbatical right after a Sith Lord had been discovered without a real good, but possibly concerning, reason.
MORE TO COME!
