Two Jedi walk into a bar. Everyone notices immediately because no one else would wear robes into a bar. Despite the fact that I should find that amusing I'm not laughing. I'm not laughing because there are two Jedi in the room with me, and not three hours after I called them out for the whole galaxy to hear. Oh, and I explained how any sociopathic moron with Force potential could become a shadow of their historic enemy. Joy. The only reason I wasn't running for my life was the lack of warning from the Force. Whatever they were here for it wasn't to hurt me.
I could try and slip out the back, but I wasn't even certain this bar had a back. You could never tell on this planet. The back of a building could be another street or alley, or it could be a twenty plus story drop to a lower level road. Why anyone thought it was a brilliant idea to turn an entire planet into a city I would never know. A battle seemed unlikely. Retreat wasn't exactly a viable option; they probably knew where I was docked anyway…
"Another round please!" I called out before downing my drink. "I think I'm going to need it." I muttered.
As expected, that drew the attention of not only the bartender, who was very distracting and needed to either lose or close several buttons, but the Jedi as well. The one with the beard slid onto the stool next to mine just as my new drink arrived and the kid who was definitely too young to be here sat on his Master's other side.
"So, the Jedi have taken up drinking since I left the order, huh? And man, you are starting them off young. Still, he looks about the right age to need the talk, and I always thought that was a conversation best had after a few drinks." I quipped.
The bartender laughed, and the kid sputtered. The bearded one quirked his lips in a blink and miss it grin. Better results than expected. "I'll pay for their first drinks, so long as they stay away from the top shelf." I shot the woman a grin as I hitched my thumb towards my unwanted drinking partners. I ignored their orders in favor of sipping my own drink and trying to eke any insights from the Force. As usual all it told me was they weren't a threat. Never did get the hang of looking into the future. Maybe that one crazy sage had the right of it when he suggested taking hallucinogens first?
"John Kesel, but I get the feeling you knew that already."
The man took a slow sip of his drink before answering. "Obi-Wan Kenobi, and my Padawan, Anakin Skywalker."
"Uh huh. You a Master or Knight?"
"Knight, though there has been some talk of my advancement." I only hummed an acknowledgment before sipping at my drink.
After that we settled into silence. It didn't take long to realize that he was waiting for me to speak. Classic, and mildly insulting. If he didn't want to talk, I could just finish my drink, pay and leave... Nah. Sure, that would force him to give up on it, but it wasn't really worth the awkward silence. Besides, I'd still have to talk to him in the end. He'd just hound me all the way back to my ship if I didn't. Could I get a Jedi arrested for harassment? I shook my head and jumped in feet first.
"Well, you aren't here to kill me, and I'm pretty sure I haven't broken any laws… pretty sure. Can never be certain when every planet has their own legal system. Had a buddy get arrested for asking a girl on a date once."
That got me raised eyebrows. "Truly?"
"Well, it was more of a drunken proposition of a female officer." I admitted with a shrug. "To be fair though, he only grabbed her breasts because I tripped him." Obi-Wan snorted and the bartender, who was apparently paying attention to our conversation, laughed. I shot her a winning grin and toasted her with a raised glass.
"No, you haven't broken any laws that I'm aware of, just shattered over a thousand generations of tradition." Obi-Wan stated dryly. I perked up at that. The Jedi didn't really have any jokers, but they did turn out a few people who made wonderfully dry cutting remarks.
"Traditions are terribly stuffy things, sometimes it's best to do away with them."
"And sometimes they exist for a reason."
"But after so much time has passed, when memory and records have failed us, who can really say if those traditions truly serve the purpose that made them? Or if they are only carried on by momentum? How can we know if we don't take the chance to try something new?" I grinned into my drink.
"You told the entire galaxy how to access the Dark Side of the Force." Obi-Wan cut right to the heart of the matter, abandoning our game of talk around the issue.
"What else should I have done? Not told them? How would that turn out for them if they lashed out not even knowing the risks? At least I gave them a real explanation instead of endless warnings about the horrors of the Dark Side." I wiggled the fingers of the hand not holding my drink. "Oh they told us what it was, but not until they spent… what? Eight or nine years? Filling our heads with warnings about how it would consume us. Do the Jedi even know how it consumes people? If I tried that with a bunch of grown adults someone would decide to play with it, just to see what all the fuss is about. No, if you want to deal with adults you have to treat them like adults. That means giving them all the information they need to make their own decisions."
"... I must admit I'd never heard such a detailed explanation of the risks. Perhaps the Masters or the council are informed of those details…" Obi-Wan trailed off and shook his head. "Regardless, why do any of this in the first place? Even with warnings and explanations some will still Fall and spread chaos and suffering."
I blew out a breath, downed my drink, and signaled for another… I should probably savor it and cut myself off though. Being responsible wasn't much fun, but getting smashed never made things better anyway, and I'd need my wits about me for this.
"Part of it is revenge." I admitted with a careless shrug. "You can't just take responsibility for a kid from before he can form memories, spend a decade telling him he's special, and then expect him to just go along with it when you decide he isn't special enough."
"There's no shame in being a member of the Agri corps." It was a weak defense and we both knew it.
"No shame." I agreed. "No glory. No excitement. No chances to change carriers. No chance to really learn more about the Force beyond how to help crops grow. No relationships. No intimacy… Honestly given how much I disagreed with the whole no attachments; emotions are bad nonsense... I suppose it was an excuse to leave as much as the last straw. I'd have probably left the order eventually anyway."
"If you say you would have left eventually anyway, then why seek revenge over it?" Kenobi asked, sounding honestly baffled.
I shot the man an exasperated look. "It's revenge. People generally only try to get revenge when a person or group has hurt them." I told him flatly. "Getting told sorry you just aren't good enough for us because you're thinking for yourself? That hurt."
Kenobi looked particularly sour.
"Of course, there are other reasons too." I sipped my freshly poured drink. "Whole Galaxy and there are only a handful of Force sects. And sitting high and mighty above them all are the Jedi. You know how many Force techniques there are beyond the handful the Jedi teach?"
"... I can't say that I do, no."
I grinned. "Neither can I." Anakin leaned around his teacher, no longer pretending that he wasn't paying attention. This had his full interest. "Six years spent bouncing around the galaxy talking to medicine men, witches, historians, and on one lucky occasion, six months spent with an actual Matukai instructor. I still have no idea what the Force is really capable off." I grinned, honest and wide. "I've heard stories of people redirecting blaster bolts, and strengthening common items to the point they can survive sustained blaster fire. Rumors about illusionists, and people who can manipulate light. Legends of Seers who can pierce the veil of time, and historical accounts by the truckload of Sith tossing around lightning like water in the ocean."
I turned to face them head on resting my left elbow on the bar paying no mind to the fact we were the center of attention and everyone was trying to eavesdrop. What did I care? I planned to tell the whole Galaxy all this in more detail at some point. A half empty bar? When everyone but the bar tender was far enough away to only catch a few words? Not a big deal.
"Part of it must boil down to what a person is good at. Natural talent matters, you know? But part of it has to be related to teaching styles and lessons getting passed down and improved on generation after generation. Practice too, that much I'm certain of. There is no other way to explain a bunch of tiny groups in which all their people have the same skills."
I gulped a bit of my drink, then slapped the bar counter with my free hand. "I've been hunting for the secrets of the Force for thirteen years, and I've only scratched the surface! The Jedi know some of what the Force can do. Other groups scattered about know things the Jedi don't. But who's to say that between all the scattered groups we know everything? How much has been lost? How much has never been discovered? And what right do any of those groups have to hoard all that knowledge for themselves?" I leaned forward and fixed Kenobi with a mild glare. "What the hell gives you the right to deny anyone that knowledge, that chance to learn?"
He puffed up in offense. "The fact that without proper guidance they could easily fall to the Dark Side and do untold harm!" Kenobi snapped back.
"So could a Slicer with the right computer virus." I countered flatly. "Or anyone with a good sized ship and the know how to turn an asteroid into a planet killer. Bioweapons are the stuff of nightmares for a damn good reason. Some guy could spend years planting explosives and just set them off one day to kill hundreds, or thousands. There was a lunatic who turned an industrial digger into a tank and leveled a small town a few months back. No Force required for any of those. And let's say you're right. A bunch of idiots ignore the warnings and intentionally launch themselves on killing sprees, just to be contradictory assholes… How long until planetary security and law enforcement recruit or train their own Force users?"
Kenobi froze up.
"As soon as people realize my instructional videos are genuine some military minded individuals are going to start training people. I'd bet plenty will start training before their superiors can even ask. Just for the physical benefits and the ability to dodge blaster fire. In the meantime, I'm sure the Jedi can help out until better systems are in place."
"You fully admit that you started this, knowing it will seed chaos across the galaxy? Have you no remorse for all those this will effect?!"
I didn't answer at first. Hell, part of me didn't want to. I'd debated this with myself round and round, driven myself to drink debating the details. Kenobi was acting like I hadn't. Like I didn't know people were going to get hurt after I let the genie out of the bottle. I knew. I'd done it anyway. Did that make me a terrible person? Or just someone with too much drive for their own good?
"I made my choice. Stopping now would only make things worse. I'd just be leaving who knows how many to stumble along blindly. I'm committed. All I can do is see it through."
He didn't seem to have a response to that, which was fine by me. I didn't have anything more to say about it anyway.
"You mentioned balance, in your last video." Anakin's question dragged me out of some particularly dreary thoughts before they could gain momentum. "What did you mean?"
"Balance is balance." I shrugged and with a light mental touch floated a coaster onto one corner and set it to spinning on the bar top. "If I were desperate, it might look something like this. Emotions swirling around me, and only that one centerline holding me steady. Like the eye of a hurricane, calm in the middle of the storm. Feeling all that emotion but refusing to let it influence me. I've had to employ that mentality once when I had the bad luck to be in a town that was getting raided by slavers… And I didn't quite get it right." They both looked at me cautiously. But I was in full lecture mode now, I wasn't going to cut off mid lesson.
"I was terrified, and furious, and desperate. And I fed some of that into the Force and used it because I needed the slavers dead, and I needed them dead fast. But at the core I was fighting to keep myself and others alive and free, not to hurt or kill. Emotion and logic, or maybe I should say purpose, fed into the Force together. Not just emotion. Like I said, I didn't quite pull it off as intended, and it wasn't safe. It was like being caught at sea in a storm, you have to try and find the smoothest route you can. Don't ride to the top of the big waves or it could flip your boat. Try not to let too many waves crash on the deck or they could sweep you over the side, get out as fast as you can, and when it's all said and done?" The coaster slowed and then rested on an edge rather than a point. "Decompress. Get all the extra water out of the boat, put anything that was tossed about back in place, and repair whatever might have been damaged."
Both Jedi were giving me very scrutinizing looks. But it was Kenobi who spoke up.
"You didn't mention this in your video. You didn't even hint at it. You just told them to experiment with as little emotion as possible."
"Of course. I'm not mentioning that in a training video till they've had time to really digest the risks. I'd be amazed if even a dozen people out there can feel the Force at all yet. I'm not bringing this up anytime soon. Especially not when my only trial run was so dicey." I defended myself. That seemed to actually relax Kenobi a lot, but Anakin still seemed distracted.
"Anyway, after that fight wrapped up and everything that could be taken care of was? I spent a lot of time meditating. Just soaking up as much of that feeling of peace as I could. Purging those negative feelings. Until I was back to that." I pointed back to the coaster. "Logic," The coaster tilted to the right. "and emotion," It tilted to the left. "in balance." It went back to standing vertical on one edge.
Anakin bit his lip and reached forward to push the caster flat. He very pointedly pushed it to the right. "According to the Masters, that should be what balance looks like."
Kenobi looked downright disturbed now, his face actually seemed a bit pale. I got the feeling there was something I was missing here but decided to humor the kid.
"By that same logic," I reached over and flipped the coaster on its other flat. "This would be too. But I wouldn't want that kind of balance. You?"
Anakin shook his head.
"Yeah, if I had to pick an extreme then I'd have to go with the Jedi. But I don't think it has to come down to that. Balance isn't easy, sometimes you're going to lean more one way or the other, but I'd say it's worth it."
Anakin glanced at Kenobi. The kid was still worrying at his lower lip and Kenobi was actually drinking his drink, finally. Then a pair of very nervous sky blue eyes looked me square in the face.
"I think we need to go with you." The teen said with the oddest mix of uncertainty and determination.
There was really only one thing I could say to that.
"Oh hell no."