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Using The Force Made Easy

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So far the concern in the story has mostly been focused on individuals misusing force powers, or maaaybe individuals coming together to form new groups which might misuse those powers. But the end of this chapter, talking about mind tricks, has me rethinking that.

Because honestly I might almost be more scared about putting mine trick information in the hands of law enforcement than anyone else. The coercion of confessions through torture, lies, trickery, and simple pressure is so common among law enforcement around the world you might as well call it the default. It takes a lot of very careful effort and oversight to get law enforcement body to not do that.

Handing a law enforcement body the ability to tracelessly compel confessions? Holy shit. It's terrifying. And that's without even getting into the "there is no war in Ba Sing Se" stuff a genuinely totalitarian government could get into with a large enough population of force users. Heck even without mind tricks, using empathy to ferret out dissent is on the table. The jedi, for all their flaws, at the very least don't use the force to directly brainwash their younglings to act as the ultimate secret police.

The possibility of a force date rapist s horrifying, truly. But the implicit assumption that anyone heading a planetary government or security force is going to be asking about mind tricks for good reasons and should be answered almost scares me more.
 
Sengachi said:
So far the concern in the story has mostly been focused on individuals misusing force powers, or maaaybe individuals coming together to form new groups which might misuse those powers. But the end of this chapter, talking about mind tricks, has me rethinking that.

Because honestly I might almost be more scared about putting mine trick information in the hands of law enforcement than anyone else. The coercion of confessions through torture, lies, trickery, and simple pressure is so common among law enforcement around the world you might as well call it the default. It takes a lot of very careful effort and oversight to get law enforcement body to not do that.

Handing a law enforcement body the ability to tracelessly compel confessions? Holy shit. It's terrifying. And that's without even getting into the "there is no war in Ba Sing Se" stuff a genuinely totalitarian government could get into with a large enough population of force users. Heck even without mind tricks, using empathy to ferret out dissent is on the table. The jedi, for all their flaws, at the very least don't use the force to directly brainwash their younglings to act as the ultimate secret police.

The possibility of a force date rapist s horrifying, truly. But the implicit assumption that anyone heading a planetary government or security force is going to be asking about mind tricks for good reasons and should be answered almost scares me more.
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John's not teaching anyone mind tricks but he does plan to give LEOs some nightmare scenarios to expedite outlawing them.
 
It has the potential of allowing true totalitarian governments to really institute a "thought Police" in reality. Which is actually pretty terrifying.
 
Zebrin said:
It has the potential of allowing true totalitarian governments to really institute a "thought Police" in reality. Which is actually pretty terrifying.
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And that implication really does support the Jedi Council's views on matters, that public force knowledge is dangerous. It's actually a really good plot point because it shows that neither John nor the Jedi Council are completely in the right here. Ultimately John is the protagonist and the story is about doing things his way, but having an opposition that raises good points makes for a much more compelling story than a black and white "John right, Jedi wrong" narrative.
 
Meh. Per tradition, when one system creates a thought police system, the Force will enable some other group that is in opposition to them with the ability to counter their power.



The Force will be Entertained.



Because the Force is the true ROB behind everything.
 
VehicularZombie said:
And that implication really does support the Jedi Council's views on matters, that public force knowledge is dangerous. It's actually a really good plot point because it shows that neither John nor the Jedi Council are completely in the right here. Ultimately John is the protagonist and the story is about doing things his way, but having an opposition that raises good points makes for a much more compelling story than a black and white "John right, Jedi wrong" narrative.
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That kinda depends. John is also stopping authoritarians from having it easy by creating lots of people with the ability to resist such tactics and strike back. And authoritarians hardly need mind control to exist. Also he isn't actually teaching anyone how to do mind tricks. And when it comes down to it he is far from the only source that could spread such knowledge meaning that secrecy was never really a good plan anyways. Any plan that hinges on everyone in a ultimately very large group of people, many of which actively hostile to each other, keeping something a secret is likely doomed to failure eventually.

Also in some way the Jedi order is a thought police propping up a dubious government. I mean they are nicer about it than most examples but without them the Republic would have fallen long ago and in many ways it is a very flawed government. Far from the worst it could be but pretty corrupt, inefficient and dissociated from the actual populace. And the Jedi keep it around by showing up, propping up the status quo and then leaving often without solving any fundamental issues that caused the situation.
 
FullNothingness said:
Also in some way the Jedi order is a thought police propping up a dubious government. I mean they are nicer about it than most examples but without them the Republic would have fallen long ago and in many ways it is a very flawed government. Far from the worst it could be but pretty corrupt, inefficient and dissociated from the actual populace. And the Jedi keep it around by showing up, propping up the status quo and then leaving often without solving any fundamental issues that caused the situation.
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Yeah...
Like are not, the Jedi kinda made themselves enforcers of the republic.
They may not try to do wrong, but they can only do so much, especially with issues like Galidran sometimes cropping up due to being misled by officials the jedi trust too much.
 
Themarineguy said:
Yeah...
Like are not, the Jedi kinda made themselves enforcers of the republic.
They may not try to do wrong, but they can only do so much, especially with issues like Galidran sometimes cropping up due to being misled by officials the jedi trust too much.
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Part of the problem is that the Jedi either didn't do enough to investigate and prosecute government corruption in the Republic itself (not only in the Galactic Senate, but the Republic's bureaucracy in general), or they lost the authority to do that effectively (or do it at all), either in the Ruusan Reformation, or the long decline after it.
 
IMO a lot of it comes down to the Corusant Jedi Order being far too small to do the job they set themselves. I mean they make themselves responsible for the galaxy/Republic but they don't even come close to having one Jedi per inhabited planet. Honestly they probably don't even have enough people to just manage Corusant and bring it up to a reasonable standard of justice and peace. And they are trying to do the job mostly alone too when the sensible thing to do would be to have some kind of major Republic federal police force or something that could pick up the slack and they could work with... But if there is something like that it isn't made clear in the stories I've seen or read.

It is pretty obvious that they are going to cut corners somewhere since they simply don't have the time to do things right. The Jedi may be able to get themselves pointed at the bigger problems by virtue of their ability to see the future and because some big issues are obvious. But smaller issues often cause bigger issues and they can't deal with those so they keep having to patch things up. There is IMO a reason that once the Shroud come into play and seeing the future became hard the Jedi had major issues.
 
FullNothingness said:
IMO a lot of it comes down to the Corusant Jedi Order being far too small to do the job they set themselves.
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I'm really not sure how accurate 'they set themselves' is for this, though. I don't recall who, but a wile ago someone posted a pretty good argument that the Jedi were victims of creeping featurism: Their numbers were fine for what they were supposed to be doing, but the Senate kept adding more, little by little, mostly to save money and/or as 'temporary' measures that became permanent.

(Not saying that the Coruscant Order was blameless, just that I really don't think it's reasonable to give them more than half the blame, and it's probably a fair bit less than half - with most of the blame that the Jedi do deserve going to the Council.)
 
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Prince Charon said:
I'm really not sure how accurate 'they set themselves' is for this, though. I don't recall who, but a wile ago someone posted a pretty good argument that the Jedi were victims of creeping featurism: Their numbers were fine for what they were supposed to be doing, but the Senate kept adding more, little by little, mostly to save money and/or as 'temporary' measures that became permanent.

(Not saying that the Coruscant Order was blameless, just that I really don't think it's reasonable to give them more than half the blame, and it's probably a fair bit less than half - with most of the blame that the Jedi do deserve going to the Council.)
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I am not sure how exactly the Coruscant Jedi got to this point true.... But IMO it probably wasn't just externally imposed. I mean if the Senate told them to "do X from now on" then the Order could have just said "We can't do that we are already too busy". And then the Senate would basically end up having to either try to sanction the Jedi into compliance which would be pretty hard and self destructive or they would have to accept it. In many ways the Senate needed the Jedi far more than the Jedi needed the Senate.

My personal guess is that the Coruscant Jedi got stuck doing far too much mostly by pride. They often believe they are the best choice for any given job. And often that is true since the Force is really useful. But by picking up job after job out of sense of being the best and being the most trustworthy in their opinion they ended up in a position where they have so many responsibilities that they can no longer do a good job. And then the Sith used that to set them up and we have a somewhat classic 'Pride before a Fall' scenario.

By contrast look at the Green Jedi. They seem to have set themselves a far smaller task. And then they stuck to that. And as an end result they ended up being actually pretty useful from what I can tell. And they were as I understand it mostly stable until an outside force attacked them. Granted that probably means they were a bit too isolationist but they still did far better overall IMO.
 
FullNothingness said:
I am not sure how exactly the Coruscant Jedi got to this point true.... But IMO it probably wasn't just externally imposed. I mean if the Senate told them to "do X from now on" then the Order could have just said "We can't do that we are already too busy". And then the Senate would basically end up having to either try to sanction the Jedi into compliance which would be pretty hard and self destructive or they would have to accept it. In many ways the Senate needed the Jedi far more than the Jedi needed the Senate.

My personal guess is that the Coruscant Jedi got stuck doing far too much mostly by pride. They often believe they are the best choice for any given job. And often that is true since the Force is really useful. But by picking up job after job out of sense of being the best and being the most trustworthy in their opinion they ended up in a position where they have so many responsibilities that they can no longer do a good job. And then the Sith used that to set them up and we have a somewhat classic 'Pride before a Fall' scenario.

By contrast look at the Green Jedi. They seem to have set themselves a far smaller task. And then they stuck to that. And as an end result they ended up being actually pretty useful from what I can tell. And they were as I understand it mostly stable until an outside force attacked them. Granted that probably means they were a bit too isolationist but they still did far better overall IMO.
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Honestly, the situation where the Jedi were talked into being generals probably shown part of why the Jedi wound up taking so much responsibility.

I mean, they are jedi right? Surely they should be able to do a good job. A perspective likely shared by both sides, leading to suggestions that the jedi would accept thanks to their own pride. And the issue of numbers is one that might have come up on the higher levels occasionally, but to solve it, would require major change, in both how the Jedi agents are trained, which is a very thorny issue, and if they want to maintain the corps, relax their standards of potential and/or the very thorny issue of requirements such as age.

Simply put, to address the numbers issue in any way, they run headfirst into the issues of their 'right' training methods, ones that were entrenched in the Rusaan reformation. And without any major threats, since the Sith seemed to have been eliminated, there was no chance the inirtia could be overwhelmed, even with the Jedi getting pressured by the responsibilities they taken up.
 
Themarineguy said:
Honestly, the situation where the Jedi were talked into being generals probably shown part of why the Jedi wound up taking so much responsibility.

I mean, they are jedi right? Surely they should be able to do a good job. A perspective likely shared by both sides, leading to suggestions that the jedi would accept thanks to their own pride. And the issue of numbers is one that might have come up on the higher levels occasionally, but to solve it, would require major change, in both how the Jedi agents are trained, which is a very thorny issue, and if they want to maintain the corps, relax their standards of potential and/or the very thorny issue of requirements such as age.

Simply put, to address the numbers issue in any way, they run headfirst into the issues of their 'right' training methods, ones that were entrenched in the Rusaan reformation. And without any major threats, since the Sith seemed to have been eliminated, there was no chance the inirtia could be overwhelmed, even with the Jedi getting pressured by the responsibilities they taken up.
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Tellingly the Jedi becoming generals and getting involved in the Clone Wars was probably the main mistake that got them mostly killed. So yeah it was probably typical and that is what Sideous used.

As for increasing their numbers... Honestly it may not have mattered much. In the end the Coruscant Jedi Order was extremely understaffed. Even if they had had ten times the numbers they still would probably not have had enough people to do all their jobs properly. It would have helped but it probably wouldn't have been enough. And they were probably correct in that many of the steps that could have increased their numbers by a substantial margin would cause other issues.
 
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Sword fighting!!!
  • Informational
    • Yo, I've had a poorly thought out critic from ff.not bouncing around in my head for a while so I kind of want to ramble at all of you about sword fighting for a bit. Cool? Cool. Knew you folks would understand.

    So I have three years of foil fencing experience, a few times dabbling with epee fencing for shits and giggles, and maybe five or six months of this weird martial arts class that took a bunch of weapon designs but mostly katanas. made them out of heavy foam with a rubber core and then was basically a less expensive (less protective gear) less rigid, more varied sorta kendo it had daggers and spears and you get the idea.

    I am not some mythic swords master who has dedicated their life to the blade in all its forms but I've gotten around done my research and I've learned some shit.

    I know I ranted for awhile about how surprise, someone doing the unexpected can absolutely throw even or rather especially an experienced person off their game as they try to figure out what the hell just happened. This is absolutely true and a major part of why John got the first hit in. But it's not the only reason.

    Those of you who are already familiar with jedi lore will know there are multiple lightsaber styles that can stack up as a sort of rock paper scissors manor against each other and against other types of combat.

    John practices a bastardized form 2 which is a sort of blend of the three fencing styles further adapted to take advantage of the nature of a lightsaber and is the go to style if you want to kill someone else who also uses a lightsaber. He is not the most experienced because he doesn't have anyone to practice against besides a training droid I haven't shown him using yet but he's decent and thanks to matukai training he's fast and has a lot of endurance. Speed is a fencers and thus form 2's best friend. In and out rapid attacks. Japanese quick draw attacks are the only thing I've heard spoken of in a similar way but I've never seen one of those in a compare and contrast and I've never seen a jedi use them so it's a bit of a moot point.

    Obi wan will go on to become the hands down master of form 3 soresu. This is all defence all the time fuck you you ain't getting through. Problem is it was primarily designed to help Jedi deal with blaster fire. Two hands on the blade, blade held in front of chest twist a bit to reduce target area instead of facing chest full on, but because they use two hands for the extra control and leverage they can't fully turn like with form 2 or fencing so there is more target area to aim for even if you have to extend a little bit farther to hit it.

    Tight short movements across the chest to block attacks. Only against another blade you can't intercept like a blaster. You are parrying, pushing aside, which means you have to move farther so the attack will be out of line with your chest. If the attack goes low; legs, lower torso, feet. You're probably better off moving out of the way as a block would bring your blade way out of line and be a bit slower. Though not massively and that might be personal bias because the idea of blocking so as to leave my chest unguarded rather than stepping back or to the side feels crazy to me.

    An in and out style like form two can absolutely tease it's way past this sort of defence. I am not saying that just to back up the scene or my argument I say that as cold hard fact that I know from experience.

    Fencers do not block. They do not lock blades in an epic struggle. They parry, which in foil just means making blade contact, but in real life would mean forcing the blade out of line so it will not hit you.

    Now one of the most basic of basics in fencing is a back and forth loop of parry repost. Most fencers I knew would not engage in this the way I used to. They would hit and fall back or press forward but me? Against certain people I would get into it. Parry riposte loops where you and your opponent just keep repeating the same actions over and over until someone is a fraction of a second too slow and the other guy gets through. My mom once got a video clip of me backing an oponent to the end of the fencing strip and going into ten or fifteen seconds of this kind of back and forth. Where every attack takes less than a second and that was both people using the same style. And I was nowhere near olympic levels, never mind force augmentation. (Dooku vs obi wan and Anakin should have ended in a five second blur of motion) A two handed style with more target area? And they aren't even in a position to counter attack before the next thrust? I wrote that fight scene because I know how this plays out. I've done it to other people, I've missed a step and been the one to get hit instead. This isn't dragon ball. Power levels are not a thing here and even when you know exactly what's coming it doesn't matter if you can't get into position fast enough.

    Ahhh I feel better. But wait, there's more!!!!!!!

    So I love the fact that Star Wars accounts for multiple combat styles. You have no idea how much I love that. However it stops there and that saddens me. Because as crazy as this may sound it doesn't stop there irl. There are subtleties within any style that a person will naturally gravitate too to make it their own. Defensive, offensive, people who thought fighting left handed made them invincible because for some reason that just tripped up a lot of people. People that liked certain moves and built themselves around those. People that tried for fancy footwork to trick opponents into giving them an opening. People who just honed the basics as much as they could. People who liked to go for particular target area, people who go for any target area. People who crack under pressure if you push them hard enough or people who float through it all without losing focus… and I have absolutely zero idea how to put that kind of detail into words because at that moment there is no plan, there is no thought, there is action and reaction and their muscles tensing that way means move move move move!

    I wish I could bring that kind of detail to you all, but I've read fight scenes that try and while they can go on for pages and pages of detail I always feel like it sucks the energy out of a fight scene. Because it's supposed to be motion and adrenaline and opening, move! Hit, bleeding, circle, kill!

    Anyway, that's my ramble. Love you all almost done with archer update will be this weekend if I can stay away from eden ring and then I owe you all a sith reacts update.
     
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  • Informational
    • Fencer said:
    I wish I could bring that kind of detail to you all, but I've read fight scenes that try and while they can go on for pages and pages of detail I always feel like it sucks the energy out of a fight scene. Because it's supposed to be motion and adrenaline and opening, move! Hit, bleeding, circle, kill!
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    Good, well said. A proper fight, life and death struggle is usually only a few seconds, maybe a minute long. At least, ones with no rules, or so I've heard.
     
    Take your time and write it however come out best.

    In my own works I try to avoid long fights. If the characters have enough time to properly think and strategize, it's not a real fight. I get a bit of flack for it, but I spent my youth getting into brawls with other people. If I spent the time to think 'I should slam my fist into his gut so he'll bend over and I'll be able to-'

    And right about there is where the fist would meet my face and I'd lose control of the pace of the fight.

    I think you've been doing pretty well. Just move at your own pace and post what you're satisfied with. Genuine criticism is great, but don't let the self-entitled neck-beards tell you 'Well, actually...' when it comes to things they've read instead of actually doing.
     
    Fencer said:
    Anyway, that's my ramble.
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    It was an entertaining ramble, and since you do seem pretty interested in the subject of swordsmanship, I'll point you to this one original fic, The Strongest Fencer Doesn't Use [Skills]. It's a LitRPG set in a world where everything is decided by sword duels, and sword duels are decided by a person's inborn [Swordsmanship] level. Into this is dropped an isekai, who being from outside the world, has a swordsmanship level of 0.... but on Earth he was a world champion level fencer.

    The story goes into great detail on the technical aspects of fencing using a variety of sword styles, you might enjoy it.
     
    Tale Swapper said:
    Good, well said. A proper fight, life and death struggle is usually only a few seconds, maybe a minute long. At least, ones with no rules, or so I've heard.
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    Yeah. I don't think I've ever had a practice blade fight last more than 30 seconds without contact that would draw blood with real weapons. And my plan if I ever have to deal with an active shooter who *isn't* currently focused on me is to grab the nearest stabber or bone breaker, attack from ambush, and try to end the fight in one hit. Assuming it would be feasible to attempt that, as opposed to running and hiding.

    Strategy in a fight only happens if you have time to think. Which can be hard to come by.
     
    Gremlin Jack said:
    It was an entertaining ramble, and since you do seem pretty interested in the subject of swordsmanship, I'll point you to this one original fic, The Strongest Fencer Doesn't Use [Skills]. It's a LitRPG set in a world where everything is decided by sword duels, and sword duels are decided by a person's inborn [Swordsmanship] level. Into this is dropped an isekai, who being from outside the world, has a swordsmanship level of 0.... but on Earth he was a world champion level fencer.

    The story goes into great detail on the technical aspects of fencing using a variety of sword styles, you might enjoy it.
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    Dude! Oh man that sounds awesome but a word of warning giving the author juicy distractions when they're already fighting to stay away from Elden ring does not a faster update speed make.

    But then I'm always reading something so one more on the pile won't really matter.
     
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    ForestGardener said:
    Strategy in a fight only happens if you have time to think. Which can be hard to come by.
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    Yup.

    You plan before the fight starts, including contingency after contingency for when the plan doesn't work out, and drill until your flinch/twitch reflexes are subsumed by your training.

    You need to have what you're going to do already burned into "muscle memory," because the speed of though is way too slow for fighting.
     
    Fencer said:
    I wish I could bring that kind of detail to you all, but I've read fight scenes that try and while they can go on for pages and pages of detail I always feel like it sucks the energy out of a fight scene. Because it's supposed to be motion and adrenaline and opening, move! Hit, bleeding, circle, kill!
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    That's when you make an interlude flashback as one of the fighters is recovering. Medically, or maybe waking up from a nightmare where they failed in X minor way and died. That way you can go into that microscopic detail for a few brief exchanges instead of the entire battle.
     
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