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Using The Force Made Easy

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Bloodalchemy said:
His priorities are in order.

For some reason I'm surprised Dooku knows Sidious is Palpatine. I don't know why but I had the thought that the Master kept their public persona a secret from the Apprentice as another method of control.
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He knows by the time of the clone wars but I thought I used sidious or master for every address. Did I miss one?
 
Sidious, in spite of owing part of his success to the old grand plan.
Is nothing if not really good at political machinations and on the fly improvisations. For well, it took lots of adaptability to make his way through the chaotic clone wars.
Although the biggest one, being found out by the Jedi early, turned out to be a blessing as the Jedi just charged into the office trying to arrest him, something palps was prepared for. While yoda was a threat, yoda couldn't fight both Sidious AND the grand army forces moving in. And, came AFTER the first response.
 
Fencer said:
The fools in the Senate are most easily swayed when I can present them a plan to follow."

"You could outlaw the practice." I suggested.
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Dooku knows Sidious is highly placed in the Senate.
Fencer said:
Sidious's face shifted to a mocking exaggeration of how he presented himself to the galaxy as a whole
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If Dooku recognizes it as a mocking exaggeration then he knows how the regular persona acts.
 
Ya know, I cant help but feel that this plan will backfire slightly.

One of the biggest Jedi killers in the early Clone Wars was sheer lack of experience in pitched combat, putting the Order up against the Black Sun and the Hutts is going to spread valuable combat experience.

At bare minimum, I expect the Geonosis arena battle wont be nearly as punishing.

Not to mention the good optics of the high and mighty Jedi cracking down on the spice trade.
 
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Roaming_Guardian said:
Ya know, I cant help but feel that this plan will backfire slightly.

One of the biggest Jedi killers in the early Clone Wars was sheer lack of experience in pitched combat, putting the Order up against the Black Sun and the Hutts is going to spread valuable combat experience.

At bare minimum, I expect the Geonosis arena battle wont be nearly as punishing.

Not to mention the good optics of the high and mighty Jedi cracking down on the spice trade.
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Honestly, it probably would help, by forcing the jedi in an in-between type conflict. Closer to the familiar police action type stuff, and yet at the same time closer to the war, giving some experience in the types of operations if/when they get thrust into command positions of the clone wars.
 
Themarineguy said:
Honestly, it probably would help, by forcing the jedi in an in-between type conflict. Closer to the familiar police action type stuff, and yet at the same time closer to the war, giving some experience in the types of operations if/when they get thrust into command positions of the clone wars.
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A war is kill or be killed on a grand scale. The only place the Jedi could get a grand scale drug/slave bust is the Hutt Cartels which are strong enough that the Old Republic couldn't deal with them. Which included enough Jedi that they basically ran a planet in the core. Otherwise, yes this is a valid mid-level training combat method to eliminate the weaker in skill and ability Jedi through blasters.
 
Ha! I do believe sidious is seriously over estimating how easy it is for the people trained to by the videos to fall to the dark side. they explain clearly what the dangers are and he isn't speaking to a bunch of children.
 
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death & gravitas said:
Ha! I do believe citrus is seriously over estimating how easy it is for the people trained to by the videos to fall to the dark side. they explain clearly what the dangers are and he isn't speaking to a bunch of children.
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One of the largest pitfalls of the sith is their sheer arrogance. Something that our Captain Kessel could very easily point out. Sith, especially bannite sith, are very much consumed by the Dark Side. The only sith that ever had a civil discussion with a Jedi (The Grandmaster at the time) about their code was also far before this time, and she was very much not a traditional sith.

Lana Beniko, for those wondering.
 
Eeeexcellent chapter. I can't wait for more people to discover and start to learn.

There are organizations that definitely would be interested.

The first Crime Cartel starting to utilize it would be fascinating. But imagine Mandalore.

The Mandalorians have fought literal wars against the Jedi. Some successful, most not. They are the Jedi Killers of the Galaxy. And a very spiritual people oriented to honor, martial skill, and family.

If some Mandos start learning from Kesel, and start actively training? And showing rapid(for self trained force users) advancement? Oh dear oh dear.

Some members of the Death Watch alone might be more then willing to try. And what of Jango? What would he do? Would he eventually teach Boba?

How many of them will think Kesel a hero? A rebel? A teacher? How many will start their own groups and learn as time goes on?

Imagine how exciting and chaotic it will be. John is going to be a legend all too soon.

I eagerly await seeing what comes of that, and how far you intend for the story to expand, Fencer.

Hell, John might rapidly gain a troupe of loyal and thankful Mando Force Users who follow him around eventually.

And it would be both hilarious and glorious!
 
The ironic thing about the Mandalorians and the Jedi is that they're achingly similar.

Must be why they hate each other so much :p
 
death & gravitas said:
Ha! I do believe citrus is seriously over estimating how easy it is for the people trained to by the videos to fall to the dark side. they explain clearly what the dangers are and he isn't speaking to a bunch of children.
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I can't tell if that last line is meant to be sarcastic or not, since after all the entire point is that Kessel has no control over who he is speaking to.

Certainly I do think Palpatine is right that people who already make a living by violence and are very comfortable killing people might be willing to give it a go if it will give them more of an edge.
 
I think the reactions to this from Palpatine and Dooku are very fitting. Dooku is impressed and amused at the sheer balls of Kessel and how much chaos this will cause for the Jedi but is also wary of the amount of chaos it will make for him. Palpatine is conflicted as hell, on one hand pissed because he's messing with his plans but on the other is really amused at the whole thing. Then there is the force teachings itself, Palpatine is pissed that normies will have the force and sees it as a insult but also really interested in the abilities that have been shown. Dooku also made a very insightful comment that normal people will likely make their own force techniques which is very likely to happen.
 
It's interesting that Sidious openly discussed how much training Ventress should be provided, In Clone Wars he orders Dooku to kill her the instant the count started to consider really training her as a Sith apprentice instead of only keeping her as a disposable weapon.

Here he is altering the plan so she can take a position similar to what the Grand Inquisitor would become in the future before the clone wars even start.

If her personality stays the same as in the show, I can see this backfiring horribly for the Sith, Ventress had the tendency to pick up temporary allies from all over the place after the Sith showed they could not be trusted, she had no issues teaching lightsaber combat to nightsisters, working with bounty hunters to earn a living or forming temporary truces with Jedi to survive dangerous situations.

She has the potential to be one of those Darksiders that are terrifying, not because of their power, but because they can be somewhat reasonable instead of raving lunatics.
 
I feel your Sidious missed the real opportunity here: hide the true Sith order even further in the shadows. Instead of taking apprentices (Ventress?) and have him/her pass down half-baked lessons to make potentially useful pawns, and at the same time creating a direct link between them and himself, what Sidious should have done is twofold:
- disseminate curated knowledge that leads headfirst to the Dark Side of the Force (from sith alchemy to old myths to simple shortcuts that leave you vulnerable to your emotions going wild), and disseminate it massively. Like at least a handful of such items (books? databases? carved tablets?) per habitable world. Bonus points if the items have part of the info missing to force people in a intergalactic "treasure hunt".
- fabricate either a fake "Captain Kesel" (or a dozen, or a hundred!) to spread either contradictory or just misleading information, or simply modify the original videos (with said fake info) and re-upload them far and wide. Basically: drown the information.

Heck, for a true virtuoso politicial beast, like Sidious is, the very first thought should have been "how do I control how, where and to whom this new world-changing videos are presented?"

Roaming_Guardian said:
Ya know, I cant help but feel that this plan will backfire slightly.

One of the biggest Jedi killers in the early Clone Wars was sheer lack of experience in pitched combat, putting the Order up against the Black Sun and the Hutts is going to spread valuable combat experience.

At bare minimum, I expect the Geonosis arena battle wont be nearly as punishing.

Not to mention the good optics of the high and mighty Jedi cracking down on the spice trade.
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True, but as is often the case Evil is self-defeating. Usually due to arrogance and pride.
 
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Now I wonder if maybe the Sith might start practicing John's advice about coming back to center from using the Force while under the influence of emotion, even subconsciously.

Wouldn't it be interesting for them to find themselves less and less working off The Dark Side simply because they're inadvertently taking his advice?
 
Ayashi said:
I feel your Sidious missed the real opportunity here: hide the true Sith order even further in the shadows. Instead of taking apprentices (Ventress?) and have him/her pass down half-baked lessons to make potentially useful pawns, and at the same time creating a direct link between them and himself, what Sidious should have done is twofold:
- disseminate curated knowledge that leads headfirst to the Dark Side of the Force (from sith alchemy to old myths to simple shortcuts that leave you vulnerable to your emotions going wild), and disseminate it massively. Like at least a handful of such items (books? databases? carved tablets?) per habitable world. Bonus points if the items have part of the info missing to force people in a intergalactic "treasure hunt".
- fabricate either a fake "Captain Kesel" (or a dozen, or a hundred!) to spread either contradictory or just misleading information, or simply modify the original videos (with said fake info) and re-upload them far and wide. Basically: drown the information.

Heck, for a true virtuoso politicial beast, like Sidious is, the very first thought should have been "how do I control how, where and to whom this new world-changing videos are presented?"
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This would be a lot of work that the Sith here don't have time for. I mean hiding artifacts on every habitable world? That would be a nightmare to do with two or three people. Especially when those people are already pretty busy. The merit of Sideous plan is that he is trying to extract benefit from the situation with minimal effort. Assigning Ventress to do some recruiting is easy and yields some useful assets. Trying to control this would take a lot of work.

It would also have points where it is noticeable. The Jedi will notice if forged videos start showing up with clear intent towards corruption. They would hunt that down hard. Similarly trying to distribute Sith artifacts would see the Jedi involved extremely quickly to prevent it and hunt down the source.

In the end this is a trade off of the Rule of Two. The rule helps with stability and secrecy immensely. But it also limits the resources of the Sith in the same way. There is no Sith Empire to execute grand orders. They are limited to a very small number of agents and what they can manipulate others into doing. Sideous needs to defeat the Jedi first before he can control things on a large scale like that.
 
Ayashi said:
- disseminate curated knowledge that leads headfirst to the Dark Side of the Force (from sith alchemy to old myths to simple shortcuts that leave you vulnerable to your emotions going wild), and disseminate it massively. Like at least a handful of such items (books? databases? carved tablets?) per habitable world. Bonus points if the items have part of the info missing to force people in a intergalactic "treasure hunt".
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I think you've missed something major about the Sith here: Sith lords generally don't want more Sith (or Dark Side users in general) cropping up unless they have some way to control them.

More force users turning to the Dark Side is more potential enemies they have to watch out for. Even if they can form alliances they will be unsteady alliances and they'll have to constantly be on watch for betrayal because such is the nature of the Sith.
 
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Lycanthromancer said:
Now I wonder if maybe the Sith might start practicing John's advice about coming back to center from using the Force while under the influence of emotion, even subconsciously.

Wouldn't it be interesting for them to find themselves less and less working off The Dark Side simply because they're inadvertently taking his advice?
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Honestly, the one who has the most hope of re-centering themselves is Ventress. It's hard to say how far gone Dooku is at this time, but Sidious and Plagueis have no such chance of listening. Sidious is simply a born hard-core Sith and sociopath; even if he had encountered those lessons when he was young I don't think he would go any other way. His calm competence is a charade to hide his sadism.
 
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