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May The Invisible Hand Be With You - (Star Wars CK2-Style Quest)

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"Realistic." By and large the theme of arc 2 of Riphath's growth has been "Get strong enough in the Force and decide what's realistic for the world." Which is all the more scary when realizing you're not strong enough in the Force to do that.
 
Well-done crack can be fun. Narratives where effects follow causes and characters retain their traits are easier to do well and easier to make fun.

Oddly, kinda like the Force. At sufficient levels of skill you can do anything, but we mortals should probably try mostly playing by the rules. =P
 
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Darkness and Light (Currently non-canon)
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    • Darkness and Light​

    Masha and I traded more messages back and forth. Apparently she'd traveled the galaxy looking for Force Organizations. No one organization had all the pieces, but together...as she would tell it, "It's in the Force for someone to be the galaxy's greatest superspy. Perhaps someone already is and they're so good we've never been able to find them." Between Theran Force-listening, the ability to conceal one's Force presence and one's physical presence, silence one's steps, fold space, and walk through walls, as well as manipulate electronics, mind trick, memory rub...the possibility certainly existed.

    When she was younger, she'd chased that ambition. She ran into a catch, though, in that learning new powers to an adequate level typically took a while, because picking up new languages and new ways of thinking in addition to everything else was tricky. She didn't let on how many powers she'd actually learned, but given I still remembered all my interactions with her and didn't have any blank spots in my memory, it was fair to assume that if she did know how to rub out certain bits of one's memory, she hadn't used that ability on me.

    "Far as I'm aware, Battle Meditation is something fairly unique in the organization. Keep practicing and you'll develop a niche. It's a good ability to have, even if you're not ludicrously and overwhelmingly powerful. Which is good. So few of us are, Skywalker aside. Today, though? Today it's a collection of tricks I picked up back when I was learning stealth operations from the Disciples of Twilight. They protect the weak from the cruelty, misdeeds, and injustices of the strong, but without weakening the weak by taking their battles away--just setting them up so they could actually win. You'd like them."

    Yes, yes, I know I haven't done whatever the meditation thing is--Alchaka--curse my trick memory, always figure out what it is after giving up on figuring it out. I haven't developed an Alchaka routine, but given that the only other human / near-human / not-obviously-of-another-body-type (great, now I'm thinking about her body, I really need to see Masha again to get that out of my system) with a mumuu mask is Ciaran, patterning my weak-but-skilled ways after her wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Battle Meditation, medicine, these tricks Masha's telling me about.

    I took a breath. My thinking is scattered. I hit pause on Masha's message, sat, meditated, cleared my mind of distractions. Weak but skilled is a viable path. Ciaran herself has been said to be on that path, as the other Walkers have told me. Battle Meditation is a valuable ability which is somewhat unique in the organization. That felt better.

    I rewound the message and hit play, listening again. Yeah, I would like the Disciples of Twilight. "They use the Force to bend light. Which leads to three components of the Jedi Superspy package. Which no Jedi would ever actually take and use, because they'd first have to take the stick out of their asses, but it rhymes and sounds cool. Also they'd have to actually talk to a bunch of other groups about the Force, which I don't see them doing any time in the next...ever."

    A bright surge of light blinded the recording device temporarily. "The first trick, probably the easiest for you to pick up. Most natural. You call upon the power of the light side and generate a bright burst of light. You'll get an idea of what using the Force to play around with light feels like. The other two go along that line, but will probably be harder for you. Why don't you work on that one a bit, get a sense of it, and then play the rest of the recording? I know you. You're as light side as they get, Riphath. Light side as it's possible to be in the Abyss Watchers. You genuinely want to preserve life, ease suffering, and make the galaxy a better place. Don't stop. The galaxy needs more people like you. Still working on generating that light?" I hit pause.

    I was flattered. I thought back to the shoni spear Grievous' personal guard had sent me at the Home when they learned I was getting promoted to Walker. Etched along the handle was "First do no harm...nor by inaction allow it" in Basic and Kalee.

    I closed my eyes, opened my hand, and thought to myself that it would be really nice if I could make an orb of light float above my hand.

    I opened my eyes, and there it was. It wasn't much. More like a glow-globe than anything, but the fact that it came so naturally and easily to me? That was amazing.

    My mind then went to Blazing Chains. I created a packet of energy, I could probably telekinetically manipulate it. I spun it around in a few lazy circles, gestured for it to fly at the wall. It bounced, soundlessly, returning to my hand. A few more lazy circles and then I bounced it around the corner of the room before calling it back, finally dismissing the light. Cool. Now...I'm going to take this into the 'fresher, because that's an interior room without any light, if I don't turn on the interior lighting. I took the datapad with me, heading into the refresher without turning on the light, pulling the door closed. It was dark in there. Then I called up the light again. I can see. I can see in the dark. I turned my eyes away from the light, looking at the far wall, and pushed as much oomph into the light as I could. A bright hot magnesium flame. It seemed like I'd turned a theater spotlight on the wall. Not bad. At the very least, I could throw it into an opponent's eyes before dismissing it and that would buy me a few seconds.

    I hit play on the datapad. "That was the easy one. If I know you, you went into a dark space to test it. You're going to stay there. Your next trick is seeing in the dark without the benefit of any light. No tech, nothing but your eyeballs, the Force, and what little light is seeping its way in."

    I hit pause. Damned if Masha didn't know me. It was then I realized it wasn't perfectly dark in the room. The datapad was backlit and throwing off just a tiny bit of light.

    Little human vision lesson: human eyes have two photoreceptors. They're known as cones and rods. Cones are what makes human vision great. Great spatial acuity, best focus in the middle, able to see color. They're huge. Their only problem? They need light. Rods? Well, they're okay. They give humans what little low-light vision they have. No real color differentiation, no real spatial acuity to speak of. They let humans not be blind at night, but they don't exactly clear that bar by much.

    I had just learned I could telekinetically move light. So I gathered up what little light there was in the room and bounced it off the walls so I could see. There's got to be a more efficient way to do it, but for now that's at least something. If nothing else, I could make it faster and less effort with more practice, but it's definitely something.

    Masha smiled as the recording continued. "The last bit? Well, similar to the ancient Jedi technique of using the Force to make one less noticeable...this is, plain and simple, taking all that light-bending stuff to the next level. You bend the light and sound around yourself so that you go unseen. It's difficult to teach, but if you've been able to learn these first two things--the making a light and seeing in the dark--then shifting the light in a room so you aren't seen would be a natural follow-up."

    I scoffed. Any invisibility that truly worked around light-bending would also render you blind, because sight works off of light touching your--wait a minute. If I can take in light and make it reach my eyes like with that seeing-in-the-dark power, then I could probably use that to see even if I'm moving light and sound waves around myself.

    The problem is...if I'm using the Force to see in the dark...I won't be able to tell if I'm invisible, because I'm using the Force to see myself. So how will I gauge my progress? Running around a Watchers complex saying that I'm invisible and seeing if anybody snarks at me?

    I'll need to think about that. For now? A bright light and sight in darkness is a pretty good day.
     
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    • ....Now I'm remembering that naked man who got arrested attempting to rob a bank because he paid a 'wizard $200 to turn him invisible' and then, after getting arrested, tried to sue the 'wizard'.....
     
    I've been sick the last couple days and I've been drinking tea. I don't understand what @Teron gets from it. Most of my best omakes come from coffee.

    All that to introduce this song, which seems rather apt, and to ask the question: why have the Abyss Watchers not gotten into the caf business? Charra's in Republic space, but Garqi belongs to the CNS.
     
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    Barondoctor said:
    I've been sick the last couple days and I've been drinking tea. I don't understand what @Teron gets from it. Most of my best omakes come from coffee.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    BLACK TEA! BLACK TEA! VERY HOT WITH LOTS OF SUGAR! THAT IS THE BEST POSSIBLE TEA! NOT WHATEVER YOU HAVE BEEN DRINKING!

    UNCIVILIZED BRUTES, THE WHOLE LOT OF YOU! *TEA SIPPING LIKE A GOD DAMN GENTLEMAN INTENSIFIES*
     
    Ah. That explains it. I'd been using honey instead of sugar.
     
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