Something else one should note about vode is that, when intrigued about something, they are insatiable.
It doesn't take long for Fives to decide, given the early success of their religion, that he needs more information. So far, he's exhausted the Jedi archives, General Skywalker, and General Kenobi.
"They're all so karking stupid," Fives shakes his head. "They don't even know what they believe."
"Maybe you should go straight to the source then?" Echo suggests.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, if none of the Jedi seem to agree with each other, then surely the leaders of the order will have the legitimate way things are supposed to be interpreted?"
"You mean Yoda?"
"I'd been thinking of General Windu, but ye-"
"Perfect! We'll be back in Coruscant in a few days anyway!" Fives gleefully says. "You can talk to General Windu then."
"Now wait just a minute-"
"No no no it's perfect. I'll talk to Yoda, you talk to Windu. Surely at least one of the supreme priest carriers will have the information we're needing."
When Fives finally finds Yoda, it's in the room of a Thousand Fountains.
He's currently hunting and posed to pounce by the looks of it. Fives waits a moment longer for Yoda to catch his dinner. It's truly distrubing how easily the squirming frog slips down his throat.
"Trooper Fives, here, why are you?" Yoda asks, then licks the remains of the frog from his lips.
"Have questions for you, I do," Fives begins. "Speak in riddles, why do you? Demand it, does the Force?"
Yoda blinks at him.
He's never had riddles spoken back before.
"Demand it, the Force does not," Yoda answers. "Demand it, the council's lack of humor and levity, does."
"For comedic relief, this is?"
"One of many reasons, it is."
"Other reasons, there are?"
"Old, I am. Let the young translate me, I do. Listen to others, work enough is," Yoda explains, then continues. "Infuriate the council members, it does. Slow down their decisions, it does. Make them think twice, it does."
"Wise you are," Fives nods sagely.
"Questions, you said you have?"
"To have tiny priests inside you, how feels does it?"
"What."
Meanwhile, Echo and Windu are chiling in Windu's office.
"Chilling," meaning Echo finds himself standing awkwardly in the doorway waiting for Windu to look up from his filmsy work and notice him. He's been standing there for well over half an hour, despite having knocked on the doorway several times.
Eventually, Windu sighs.
"You're more persistent than most. Take a seat."
Echo startles at the sudden recognition and scrambles into the chair opposite to Windu's desk.
"You know I was there?"
"I'm a Jedi, of course I knew you were there."
"Then why did you make me-"
"I was hoping you would go away."
Echo awkwardly watches Mace continue doing his filmsywork for a few minutes before Mace looks up at him.
"Is there a reason you're interrupting my daily filmsy work penance?"
"Well, sir, I just had a couple questions, well they're not really my questions, they're actually Fives' questions, but I'm kind of helping soo..."
Mace puts down his stylus and rubs his temple, leaning back in his seat.
"Alright then, let's hear them," He sighs. "Apparently the Force has elected to declare them as important."
Echo nods and pulls out what appears to be a small piece of filmsy and begins unfolding it.
Mace watches as Echo continues unfolding it. And then unfolds it a little more. A piece of filmsy that size should not have been able to be folded that small.
By the time Echo seems to have finished, he holds up the piece of filmsy and prepares to speak, but then hesitates.
"Oh, oops," He mutters, and then he picks at the corner of the filmsy and it doubles in size once more.
Mace's headache spikes. He's not sure if it's the shatterpoint or just... this.
The Force suddenly bangs on his mind's shields like a gong to make sure he knows it's a shatterpoint.
Mace winces, presses a hand to his temple, and reaches blindly for his comm.
"Penny, clear my schedule for the day. It appears I'm going to be busy for a few hours, and I will be having a migraine at 3pm."
Echo looks at him, unsure.
"Well, let's get on with it," Mace sighs. "What's the first one?"
"How does it feel to have tiny priests inside of you?"
Mace gives himself a moment to process before saying:
"You've been speaking to Knight Skywalker, haven't you?"
"Uhh not recently, sir?"
"Recently enough, it seems."
Mace raises his comm to his lips again.
"Remind me to schedule Knight Skywalker for remedial ideology lectures."
"He's already scheduled, sir." Penny answers.
"How long has he been going to them?" Mace frowns.
"He hasn't, sir."
"Can he even do that? Skip?"
"I don't know, Master Windu, you're the head of the council. Can he?"
Mace groans and rubs his eyes, "Remind me to get a secretary with less attitude."
"I'll put it on your calendar, sir."
Echo smiles awkwardly.
"What's your next question?" Mace asks. "I refuse to dignify the first with an answer."
"Uh ok... since you're the master of the order, does that mean the priest bugs talk to you the most even though you don't have as many as General Skywalker?"
Mace takes a deep breath, trying to summon every last ounce of his dignity and patience.
"Alright," He nods slowly. "Apparently we're dignifying it. What are these... 'tiny priests' you are speaking of?"
Echo gives him the most judgmental look, "You're the head of the Jedi Council and you don't even know your own religion well enough to know your tiny priests?"
"I've never heard of 'tiny priests' so you're going to have to explain a little further please."
Echo shakes his head in dismay, "The tiny priests that live inside of you and help you talk to the force. The mito- midi- midichloria? Mitochondria?"
Ohhhh... Now it's starting to make a little more sense to Mace.
"You mean midichlorians," He nods.
"So you do know the tiny priests?" Echo narrows his eyes. "Why did you say you didn't?"
"I assure you, trooper, it's not out of any malice," Mace states. "I... have simply never heard them referred to that way."
"So your first question was what does it feel like to have midichlorians," Mace nods. "You should be able to answer that one yourself, given that you have some."
"I have tiny priests?"
"You do. Everyone has them. Some more than others."
"Well, yeah, I just didn't think that vode could have them."
"Why wouldn't you?"
"We were cloned in tubes, not born," Echo explains. "So unless the Kaminoans put the midi-whatnots in the tube, how could we have them in us?"
Which, Mace thinks, is actually an excellent point.
He's never heard of a force sensitive Kaminoan.
In fact, he's never heard of a force sensitive in any species that reproduces via cloning.
"Honestly, Echo, I'm not certain," Mace answers bluntly. "I'll have to get back to you on that one. Perhaps we could get you or one of your brothers tested. That would at least answer the question of whether you have them, if not how they got there."
Needless to say, that is not the end of Echo's questioning, and the questions do not get any easier at all.
Mace is rapidly and repeatedly prompted to think about the Force in terms he'd never considered before.
"So when Jedi go rejoin the Force after they die, what do they do?"
"What do you mean?" Mace asks, frowning. "I'm afraid I don't quite understand the question."
"Like is this a soup or salad situation?"
Mace is no less confused.
"I'm... still going to need more explanation. Soup or salad?"
"Do they all combine and dissolve into Force soup and become a collective consciousness or do they retain their individual consciousnesses and just kinda link arms, pull a three Kobalts in a trench coat routine and go 'I am the Force, do not doubt my wisdom despite the fact that I'm made up of thousands of di'kuts.' "
Echo wiggles his fingers for effect.
Mace purses his lips, "Uh... Both? I believe?"
Echo nods and scrawls down some more notes onto his datapad.
"And woul dyou say it's more soup or more salad?" He asks.
"Ummm..." Mace considers. "Next question please?"
Turns out Echo is very good at the game "Stump the Master."
"Why are you all Generals if you're supposed to be peacekeepers?"
"Sometimes when there is no peace left to keep, you must make it for yourself," Mace explains. It's taken him a long time to terms with that himself.
"And you think you can do that by cutting droids in half with Force-powered laser beams?"
"I think that's a bit of an oversimplification," Mace frowns. "We're protecting the galaxy from those that would see it suffer."
"By cutting droids in half with Force-powered laser beams," Echo levels.
Mace sighs.
"What would happen if the Separatists won?"
"They would likely take control of all Republic planets and impose strict laws and rules on them that would only serve to benefit the upper classes."
Echo squints.
"So... if nothing would change, why are we fighting it so hard?"
"Things would change," Mace insists. "Just think of what could happen to you and your brothers. You could be forced to fight wars, forced to comply with orders you don't agree with."
Echo squints harder.
"How... how does that change things?"
Mace blinks.
Mace is now thoroughly overwhelmed and struggling to keep a professional bearing as he continues to get more and more bewildered. The questions just keep rolling.
"So the Jedi have a code, right?"
"Yes, of course."
"What's it say?"
Mace quotes the code to him from memory and watches as Echo processes for a moment.
"There is no emotion, there is peace.
There is no ignorance, there is knowledge.
There is no passion, there is serenity.
There is no chaos, there is harmony.
There is no death, there is the Force."
"Respectfully, Sir, that sounds fucking boring," Echo says bluntly. "And it's literally impossible."
Mace stares and waits for the galaxy-rearranging explanation he knows is coming (as is par for the course for all other questions.)
"Logic dictates that if one thing exists, the lack of it must also exist, yes?"
"I don't understand what that has to do with-"
"How can there be knowledge if there is no ignorance? Like you can't just be born knowing stuff. Even if you're decanted like me, tubies don't know anything until they start the sleep words and flash modules. In order for knowledge to exist, there has to be ignorance first."
Echo continues his tirade.
"And 'there is no emotion, only peace'? Either all of you are really karking horrible Jedi or that's a bunch of banthashite. And 'there is no death, there is only the Force'? You literally just said you have to die to join the Force? Which. Means that death is in fact a thing that exists."
Echo emphatically gestures with air quotes every time he references the code.
"And 'there is no chaos, there is harmony'? Have you met Master Kenobi? Knight Skywalker? Master Yoda?"
Mace sighs.
"Unfortunately," he says. "They are called the disaster lineage for a reason."
"So either you don't give a kriff about your code," Echo continues. "Or you're all really bad at following it."
"I feel like I follow it fairly well," Mace ruffles in response.
Echo raises an eyebrow and gives him a dead stare.
" 'There is no passion, only serenity.' You sure looked serene when you found out what decommissioning was," Echo states flatly. "You sure looked serene when you thought Master Kenobi had been blown up. You sure looked serene when-"
"Alright, alright, little sithhells, I get your point."
Eventually, Echo's list did actually run out questions.
While Echo may have gotten some answers, all Mace got was questions.
Mace, his mind tumultuous, decides he must meditate on the concerns Echo has brought to light.
He finds himself slowly, reluctantly inching his way over to Master Yoda, who was also meditating.
"So. I have some questions," Mace admits.
Master Yoda gives him a long look.
"Come to see you, Echo did?" Yoda asks.
"Yes?" Mace is a little startled that Yoda already knew what was on his mind.
"and come to see me, Fives did," Yoda nods sagely. "Troubled, I am. Troubled you are, as well?"
"Kriff."
Meanwhile, Fives and Echo compare notes.
"Well, I mean the inconsistency gives me hope for our religion," Fives starts. "Clearly you don't have to have everything figured out for it to work."
Echo snorts, "You don't even have to have most of it figured out, apparently. Master Windu didn't even know if his tiny priests had names!" Echo rolls his eyes. "Imagine being someone's holy secretary your entire life and they never even bother to address you directly? That's got to be so rude. I'm surprised the tiny priests don't rebel."
"Wait!" Fives jumps on the idea. "Maybe that's what happens when you fall? Your priests rebel?"
"But... if that's the case, then the whole order will fall one day," Echo says with slight horror and no small amount of accompanying consideration.
"But the why do some fall faster than others?"
"I don't know," Echo shrugs. "Maybe the ones who fall faster did something extra to piss them off?"
"Huh," Fives considers for a moment, then lies the topic to rest. "Anyway, General Yoda invited me to go frog hunting with him."
"He did what now."
"Frog hunting. He says they're a delicacy on his planet," Fives adds. "I wanna try them."