compnetwork | The questions and the answers

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The questions and the answers

[ A video post to the COMP network ]

[ Garviel stares into the screen for a moment his helm removed, his expression... pensive. ]

What defines humanity? At what point is someone so altered they are no longer human, and what emotions can we lose before are are not even remotely humane? I am curious.

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[ Loken nods his head, face hard, and showing very little, though there is something almost like disgust in his eyes.]

Go on.

The Force is connected deeply to the mind and personality of anyone who tries to use it. In general, the Force...seems to want to be used for the good of the Universe in general. Lightly, unobtrusively, and for the sake of the continuation of life. To do this, the Jedi traditionally cultivate a balanced and detached emotional state, especially whenever we're actively using the Force. Peace and serenity rather than emotion and passion.

There are, however, other ways to use the Force. Strong, violent emotions, selfish desires, the desire for death and destruction are common to almost all living things. When someone uses the Force in tandem with strong emotions like anger, fear, or aggression, they can be much more powerful, but it comes at a cost. Twisting the Force, a universal entity, for your own personal feelings or selfish needs is a corruption of it, and people who do so become corrupt in turn.

This is the Dark Side of the Force - power and strength at the cost of corrupting your mind and even body into something hateful toward life and peace. It's like spice - an addiction. Sacrifice your morals for the sake of yourself and you gain a little power, and next time it becomes much easier to do the same thing, and then again, until - if you don't check your advance down this path - you're left with nothing but your basest instincts and petty needs, and a massive power you can only use to destroy.

[She pauses.]

Of course, sometimes it's more complicated than that, but that's the general idea of what happens. It's why I try not to act out of selfishness or commit violence out of anger, and if I do, I never drag the Force along with me. It's a dangerous road that's lured too many people I once cared about.

It sounds disturbingly like the warp, the base emotions and impulses that spring from death and the loss of loyalty.

All in all though, it sounds very close to warp, with the dark side being the emanations of chaos. There is a reason the Emperor decreed only sanctioned psykers would use it, after Nikaea, and bound the Librarians of the legion to not use their gifts. For their corruption was far too dangerous.

The Jedi Order tried imposing strict rules on the use of the Force, our lives, and everything we did in an effort to eliminate the use of the Dark Side. Still, members of the Order defied it and fell to the Dark Side's lure. Sometimes they were defeated and recovered their sanity, sometimes they weren't. The toll taken by the people who assumed the name of "Sith" has more or less destroyed the Order itself by now, although the Sith destroyed themselves in turn.

Well, the Sith and myself, but I'm not too proud of it.

Why not? My undertaking to slay my traitorous brothers is all that I have left to have pride in.

Of the three "Sith Lords" who were running roughshod over what was left of the Order when I returned from Exile, one had fallen so deep into the twisted mess we made of the Force at Malachor he was barely even sapient, and the other two...

...well, Sion and Kreia both loved me, in their own bizarre and obsessive ways. If I could have spared them, I would have, but in both their cases, it was more like putting them out of their misery. And, like I said, Kreia may have wanted it that way the entire time.

The Dark Side doesn't just make you dangerous, it warps you. Makes you miserable, cuts you off from everything that may have given you joy or comfort except yourself. It is...suffering. I can't feel anything but sadness for people caught in its cycle.

I cannot find it in my hearts to show mercy to traitors. The wounds are too deep. Loyalty is everything for the Legions, and that is what they broke. I will spare the lost and the mad, as I was once spared.... but those who have broken oaths, those who are truly corrupt, there is only one kind of mercy I can give them. A swift death.

[ He thinks about Kreia, and for a moment, considers Aximand as well, though in Truth Kreia's attempt to destroy the force was somewhat similar, though he doesn't know it, to the Emperor's plan to weaken the Chaos Gods themselves. ]

My brothers and I loved each other as well but Istvaan broke everything, everything except the justice that I must now find a way to bring to them.

I guess that's still braver than what I did after Malachor.

I just went back. Let the Order exile me. Got told it was no longer any of my business. I knew exactly what would happen, and I let it.

Then Revan happened, then Traya, Nihilus, and Sion. After all that happened, there weren't a whole lot of Jedi or Sith left.

......

And it occurs to me now that I have no idea why I'm telling you all this.

I'm not sure that rampaging mad in a world of corpses and daemons for 6 months was particularly brave. I spent all my time mourning the lost or slaying the foul undead things that surrounded me.

[ He shrugs his shoulders. Loken doesn't realize, or often acknowledge it, but he's got some charisma to him as well, a leader himself with both empathy and the ability to lead from the front. ]

It could be we both need confessors. Not so much for our sins, but rather, for our secrets. I have always hated secrets and lies, but that is the life I have been forced to live. Perhaps you are burdened as well.

Heh. That could be it. Secrecy isn't exactly the path to the Dark Side, but do it too much and you'll start deceiving yourself, too.

Plus it's not like there are probably many other people here who've killed a planet.

I think that unlikely as well. [ He is quiet for a moment, haunted by his memory of such dark moments. ] Consigning a world to such a fate is a hard choice.

[ Garviel changes the subject, and says. ] Yes... secrecy can lead to such self-deception. The warrior lodges began as a harmless secret brotherhood, but ended up being the conduit that destroyed my Legion from within.

Frankly, Malachor V had it coming. If I'd known what was down there the first time, I'd have aimed for more structural damage. It was all the people around it who went with it who didn't deserve that.

And to my knowledge, nothing good has ever come of secret brotherhoods, either. But that might be a coincidence.

Of late, I have been inducted into one, but it is.... one that is required, it is not a conspiracy, but rather, a sort of specialized operation. Those who have lost their place and their Legion, and who are now loyal only to the Emperor. We are basically the ghosts, and as such, we perform the duties no one else can.

Special operations is different, at least most of the time.

It doesn't feel right, to me, to fight this shadow war, this secret war.

That's how the last war I fought turned out. Sometimes, you have to meet the enemy on their own terms, especially if you don't want to endanger more people...

[ Loken is silent for a moment, and then nods. ]

I just worry about sacrificing my honor. Or slaying loyalists.

Honor is subjective, in my book, but killing people who are on the same side is always something to be avoided. I've ordered men to their deaths, but...

It is one thing to order your soldiers to your deaths. It is another thing entirely to slay them with your own hand out of necessity.

Well, they presumably volunteered for the first one. Other than that, though...

I've seen it done. I wasn't happy.

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The questions and the answers

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