New Korriban, part two: Where Master Yoda has a theological debate with a Skywalker and mistake truth-seeking for philosophy

"The Desert, what for you, it is?"

"What is the Force for you, Master Yoda?" replies his guest, warming her hands around her teacup. Warm planet, Tatooine, cold Coruscant must seem, muses Yoda.

"The Desert, you call the Force?" he asks, his ears twitching in interest.

"Did I say that?"

"Say that, you did not, but implied it, you did"

"I merely used as an example what I thought would mean as much for you as the Desert means for me". Yoda hums, sips his tea, then answers as a test : "The Force, bind all, it does, and me with all".

Cheni cocks her head on the side then says: "The Desert is encompassing. It rages and sometimes weeps, stretches in an endless quietness and sometimes guides the lost one to haven". Yoda nods, recognizing the Force and both of its sides, presented in equality. It is not the doctrine of the Jedi, neither the one of the Sith for in both a side triumph on the other. But it is a doctrine as can be expected in its infancy.

"And to you, the Desert speaks?" asks Yoda but he already knows the answer, having felt it in the Council room. Attentive to the Force Cheni Skywalker is, and through the Force to her interlocutors. But to do so, to be aware of the Force, one does not need.

"To me and to every who listen, and to none because it speaks not. The wind sings, the sand shifts, the stars shine. But the Desert is all and never talk for we are nothing before its might".

"But guides the lost, the Desert does" notes Yoda.

"If one would listen and if the Desert will for them to live".

"Will, the Desert does?"

"Will and will not. Will so immensely we cannot understand the scope of its will. Will a moment, then will another the next, will and discard, give then take, or take upon take and rarely give upon give, because the Desert care not in the same scope as us and is an harsh master". His ears twitch and Yoda ponders the words. The will of the Force, difficult to discern, true it is. Too vast to a too limited understanding.

"Your master, the Desert is?"

"The Desert will have my bones, like he had those of my foremothers and will have those of my children's children. It nurtured me and will burrow me. It breathes through me, fills my lungs of sand with all rights and no care for it birthed me". Ah, life philosophy. The roots of all Force philosophies and one Yoda had never encountered before. Duty to the Force unlike the Dark Side, but no confidence in the Force benevolence which may be more linked to life conditions than religious belief. Yoda hums then remarks: "Clearer you speak now, than when before the Council, you were."

"You came with questions, they came with answers. One cannot help one who wish not to hear other than he believes"

A couple of youngling runs near them, chasing each other. The clan Clawmouse if Yoda remembers well. One too young for him to have already taught them. The Force flickers around Cheni as the younglings splashes around one of the fountains in this room with a thousand of them. It is not dark, per se, but angry and resentful. It last barely an instant and rather than question her about it directly he chooses to enquire about tenets of philosophy: "The Desert rages, you said, why?"

"The star shines, the wind blows, the livings die and the Desert rages. Why does one breath, Master Jedi?" Certainly the dark side if rage is as much inherent to it as Will is to the Force.

"What reason does the Desert weep for?" he asks curiously. Most Force-sensitive cultures inclined toward the Dark side identify the wish of destruction it bears, but fewer trace its roots. Fright is the origin of the Dark Side, fright of loss, of helplessness inducing anger, hatred and destruction.

Cheni Skywalker considers him a long moment, then puts her empty cup before her, places her hands on her laps and starts : "When the Desert was, with it was Will and so the Desert willed the sands and stars, the nights and days, the waters and beings. And so came to be the children of the Desert, free to roam under its gaze but with a duty to their creator. For the Desert was hard but it was just as he took from the foolish and gave to the wise. And so the Desert taught its children to listen to its will: to sing along the wind when wind blow, to seek shelter when the sand dance with the wind, to dream along the stars and to never forget its teaching. The children abided by its will and the Desert gave and took in harmony. But a day, foreigners came and rained death on the Desert children. Sun-blades shone on red sand and mothers begged for their children to be spared. The Desert gave and took. For its children he offered the unforgiving sand to seek shelters in hidden oasis which he masked from the foreigners. For the foreigners he heated the sands and stars, made the land unforgiving so never could they call it their land for the Desert would rather eschew all beings than welcome those deaf to its will. But took already from its children the foreigners had and such would mean to take again from them, and so the Desert gave its children a choice:

"Shackles you will bear and your children after you. Suffer you will and so will your children. But so will they and I will grind their number every generation until your blood overcome theirs and my will supersede their will. For this day I promise you: from your suffering, I will gave you strength. From your tears, I will gave you resolve. From your patience, I will gave you heirs. And those I will free." Yoda cup wobbles in his grip because those words cannot be heard without echoing to other words. Those terms are ritual, transmitted along generations and they are too telling to be happenstance. Sun-blade, red sand. Chains the Force will break and strength drawn from suffering. How much sense they make. What horrific sense they make. But Cheni, implacable, continues: "But until I deliver my word, I will weep and bled with you, for you are my children. Or I can call the brightest day on them and plunge them in an eternal night and you with them." And its children answered to the Desert: "Singer of wind, dancer of sand, dreamer of stars, breath of my lung, sire of my being, I will endure the shackle and the whip, I will endure the pain and the loss, the hunger and the hopelessness. I will shift with their will and wait for the day of my children freedom. And until then, I will call myself Leia in honor of your promise".


Sands and stars: it is said there are as many grain of sand on Tatooine as stars in the sky, and that each grain of sand his a star system of itself: and so Tatooine is a metaphor for the galaxy.

Night and day: reference to the Shifter

Water and being: water is essential to beings survival and so they are associated. Both have in common to be rare and therefore precious: water to beings, beings to the Desert.

The Shifter: a figure of time the Jedi previously mistaken for the state of switching side in the Force.

Leia: mythical female figure of endeavor and works. Considered the Shifter daughter due to the myth of the off-worlder arrival.

The off-worlder arrival: transmitted through oral tradition by the Tatooinian natives, this myth recount the enslavement of Tatooinian natives by technologically more advanced off-worlders, and the birth of the Tusken tribes.

What Yoda understood : it look a lot like the Sith Code.