AN: Right the scene with the Jedi Council is a lightly edited and modified omake donated by @Immortal Lurker you'll notice the shift from first to third person. Never quite felt like I got the hang of third person. Too much time writing in first person before I tried to make the switch I suppose. Now it just feels clunky and awkward. No issues reading it, but writing it?
Honestly despite everyone wanting reaction chapters for the council… meh? I'm not that inspired to write them as a group. Too many people, too many opinions, too fractious. Individuals? I've got some ideas for Mace, some for Yoda too but in regards to the rest of them? Nada. So big thanks to Immortal Lurker everyone for doing the heavy lifting on this scene.
{}{}{}{} onboard the Arcane Knowledge Obi-Wan's POV
"Master Yoda, Master Windu." I inclined my head towards the hollow projector.
"Knight Kenobi." The pair nodded back.
"An update you have for us?"
"We've moved on to Corelia. The Captain plans to have the ship modified in her home shipyards to make things a bit more… comfortable." I paused to gather my thoughts. "He's planning to post his next video tomorrow. I'm forwarding it to you now."
I waited patiently as the two Masters watched the video of Captain Kesel explaining the candle meditation. When they refocused on me I was surprised to see that Master Windu actually appeared thoughtful. Master Yoda did as well, though the low dip of his ears betrayed his concern.
"He's training her to come back to the Light." Master Windu broke the silence as he cupped his chin.
"He's teaching her to use the Dark side, but also to stop using it. To center herself after each use… With enough training it would become engrained. An impulse even. Draw on the Dark side then center yourself within the Light."
I blinked, startled at the insight. I'd been so caught up in the fact he was drawing on the Dark side I hadn't thought to look past that.
"Mmm," Master Yoda hummed,
"precautions he is taking. His words, weighted to impart warning. But still the Dark Side he teaches them to touch. Troubling."
"This certainly won't make the debates any simpler."
"Debates, Master?"
The two Jedi Masters shared a brief look. Before sending me a data packet which I immediately loaded and watched.
{}{}{}{}
The councils debated. All the councils. Attendance wasn't required, there wasn't a war on, and many individual masters had other duties. But between the holograms and those present physically, it was standing room only in the high council room. Yoda had wanted to hold the event in the Room of a Thousand Fountains, but the Council of First Knowledge had insisted on a private location.
The reason was made clear almost as soon as the meeting came to order.
"We should have Kesel taken into custody immediately, and wipe the video from the holonet. Many will have viewed it already, but the information he has conveyed up to this point is minimal at best. We can stop this now before more harm is done. I have a team of slicers on standby, and Knight Kenobi and his Padawan are already in place to make the arrest." Astaal Vilbum, the Caretaker of First Knowledge spoke in a low and serious tone. The Caretaker of First Knowledge officially dealt with the preservation of holocrons and other lore. Unofficially, he was responsible for the Jedi Shadows, which hunted for and destroyed Sith artifacts. His budget had been quietly tripled after Naboo.
"Arrest?" said an indignant hologram of Master Jertia, head of the Agri-Corp. She did not often set foot on Coruscant, the city-planet having no farms. "For what?"
There was no murmuring in the council room. However, the Force moved in eddies and whorls, as so many Masters reached into the force to try and get a grasp on the situation.
Master Astaal spoke levelly as he turned to face Jertia. "For releasing dangerous information in a totally uncontrolled manner. All a viewer has to do is ignore or fail to follow the laughably inadequate safety instructions and the risk of them falling to the Dark Side becomes unacceptable."
Uncowed, Master Jertia shook her head. "Then you don't mean 'Arrest', you mean 'Kidnap', or possibly 'Abduct'. I've got the actual law for "State Secrets, Protected Knowledge, and Dangerous Information" right here on the datapad. A court order is required to take the video down, and they only grant those if the knowledge being shared falls into a few explicitly enumerated categories. Knowledge of the Force, even the Dark Side, is not one of those. If he starts teaching them how to make a plague, slice a moving spaceship, or use Sith Alchemy, we have him dead to rights. Until then, he's a taxpaying free citizen of the Republic we all swore to protect."
Master Astaal stewed in this for a bit, then projected humility into the Force as he bowed to the projection of Master Jertia.
Master Jertia graciously returned the bow. She turned to address the rest of the assembled masters. "I've seen young John's frustration a dozen times before. Many of our younglings are devastated when their time runs out, and they realize that they will never be Knights. This problem is ultimately a symptom of a deeper cause, that younglings who go down other paths are regularly crushed. Many find peace with their roles given time, but it does not make the initial transition any easier. We can control this by shifting a few things."
Master Jertia pressed a button on her datapad. There were no beeps or whirrs of notification, but a dozen Masters felt a nudge, and silently checked their own devices.
"This is the proposal I sent last year, with a few modifications. Some might be seen as radical, but I urge you to consider. The basic features are a path to knighthood for all younglings, and paths outside knighthood that allow younglings to use the years of training that they have been given."
The projection of Master Jertia grinned. "The most relevant being outreach. We can teach the same things young John is trying to teach, only we can do it better, because we will have flesh and blood Force users in front of them, not a low quality holovid. They can do it in a safe environment, and most importantly this can be used to spread word of the dangers of doing this without an instructor to guide them. We address the root of the problem, warn the galaxy, and provide a better, safer, alternative at the same time. This can stop the situation from getting out of hand, and allow the Order to grow in numbers like never before."
Often, speaking is not necessary for a large group of Masters. The Force enables an understanding deeper than words. Even those not present could tap into the feeling permeating the room, albeit weakly. There was conflict. Appreciation at a path forward which required no violence, and offered a better connection to a galaxy which had seemed so distant and hostile of late. Doubt for introducing so many unknowns.
An idea could be felt in the room. You got those, sometimes, an idea that couldn't properly be said to have a single owner. Drawing from a half dozen sources, a conjecture from one, an insight from another. Oppo Rancisis, head of the Council of Reconciliation, who dealt in diplomacy and negotiation, felt it most clearly, and gave it a voice.
"Our prodigal youngling has claimed to want revenge. But it seems clear from the way he speaks and acts that what he wants is reform. These reforms, in fact, are likely very similar to some of the ones that he wants."
Master Jertia spoke, perhaps a trifle quickly, though not rudely so. "If the reforms are for our own betterment and that of the galaxy as a whole, does it truly matter what instigated the changes?"
"It matters because these may not be all the reforms he wants. If he realizes that threatening chaos causes us to yield here, might he threaten chaos elsewhere to get more? And if we decide that his new demands are not beneficial, will he follow through?"
The masters considered. Eventually, Master Jertia bowed conceding the point.
Master Rancisis returned the bow. "The reforms are a good idea, and demand lengthy meditation from all of us at the very least. And my heart is troubled for the plight of our prodigal youngling, resentful and alone. The Council of Reconciliation has been lax in its duties. We must provide a way for those outside the Order to actually reconcile with the Order. We must be a living, breathing part of the Republic. If the voices outside cannot actually be heard, truly heard and considered, with our reasoning laid bare, then they will scream at the door without end. The only way to contain the chaos is open the door and let them in. I propose that every month or so, a few outsiders, ideally representatives of larger groups, be given an hour with a Jedi Master. They can talk about whatever concerns them, and ask questions about whatever policy is troubling them. Our rogue instructor should be given the first of such appointments, and we should use it to go over his doubts about the Order, and our proposed solutions."
There was no grumbling. But it was clear that the thought of regularly scheduled disruptions was displeasing to many present. Particularly disruptions by angry people who wanted to shout in their peaceful temple.
Putting a whisper of Force behind his words to draw attention back, Master Rancisis continued. "I know, I know, none of us want any more conflict in our lives, we get enough on the missions and in meetings. But the conflict is already there, we just blind ourselves to it. Our options are to face it, and invite it inside where it can be controlled, or ignore it and leave it uncontrolled. The spread of the videos has yet to reach truly worrying levels, but it is only a matter of time. And once it does there will be groups seeking answers from us. I'd much prefer to have a solution in place before the problem arrives."
Quiet fell on the council room, deeper than the mere silence of a gap in a conversation. Each Master was retreating into the Force in their own way, wondering what was best for the temple, the order, the galaxy.
Long minutes passed.
The Force began to swirl, and all were drawn from their contemplation. It was not sudden, or violent, or dangerous. It was simply there, like a great mountain. Powerful, impossible to miss, though not demanding attention, even for those not physically presented. With all eyes on him, Yoda, Grand Master of the Order, and head of the High Council, began to speak.
"Control!" cried the ancient Master. "Control, control, control! Speak of nothing else, will we? Is the Galaxy ours, that we must choose everything for it? Is the Republic? The Force?"
"Master Rancisis," said Grand Master Yoda, turning to the Thisspiasian, "Has it been so long that you forgot the first lesson I taught you?"
It had been over 200 years since Master Rancisis had been in a class with the other younglings, listening to Grandmaster Yoda. But he remembered anyway. "Don't look. Feel."
"No!" said Yoda. "Before even that, it was."
Master Rancisis frowned. That had been the very first words at the start of the lesson. He had barely seen Yoda before that day. The only thing that had happened before that was calling the class to order...
"Sit still. Pay attention." said Master Rancisis.
"Yes. Reform, perhaps we should. Listen, absolutely we should. But stop this, we should not. Not yet. Decide what it should be, we should not. Decide what the galaxy should be, we should not."
The Force cleared and flowed smoothly as the Masters received the Grand Master's wisdom. Agreement and consensus were forming, progress was being made.
"Master Yoda—" There was a thrum in the Force as two dozen masters turned as one with a diamond hard focus on the one dissenting voice. One could of course disagree with the Grand Master. But to contradict him so directly in front of all four councils just as they were starting to form behind him, was not a common sight.
"Master Yoda," said Master Astaal, "The Republic is ours."
Murmuring. Actual, vocal murmuring broke out in the High Council Room.
Ignoring them, Astaal continued. "Ours to defend. Ours to protect. Ours to uphold. They have no standing army, no fleet to speak of. They have had no need of either, because for the past thousand years, since the Ruusan Reformations, when the Republic needed defending, the Order defended. When action was needed, the Order acted. We have kept the old ways, because their fruit has been a golden age that has lasted a thousand years."
His shoulders sagged. "We aren't perfect. Slavery was never expunged from the outer rim. Naboo was allowed to starve before our eyes and we sent one Knight and one Padawan into a deathtrap set by the first Sith to be seen in a thousand years. We do need reform, we do need to listen. We are not above the law, and cannot go abducting people who say things we do not like."
Resolve poured into the Force. "But we can't pretend all is well. We can't pretend our enemies do not actively conspire against us. The Order has lost more Knights to violence in the past 10 years than in the previous 50. We have had more leave the order in the past 10 years than in the past 500. And something is clouding the future. To throw ourselves open to outside influence, when all about us there are signs of malicious intent… How can we know which ideas put forward are truly safe, for ourselves or those under our protection. Every change we make may well invite the Fall, and we might never know until it is too late. And to stand by and not act as change sweeps the galaxy throwing all into imbalance… is that truly a path we can take knowing the harm it might cause?"
The Force grew chaotic again, as a dozen conflicting viewpoints from different Masters tried to work themselves out.
Grand Master Yoda sighed.
The councils debated.
{}{}{}{}
I rubbed my temples in a futile attempt to ease my growing headache. "The Council is in a deadlock. I can't think of any time such has happened in the past…" I trailed off trying to actually think of such an occasion either in my life or historically.
"More common than you might think, this is." Grand Master Yoda admitted with a sigh,
"But to such a degree, rare. Like younglings debating the 'best' saber form it is."
Memories of long and heated debates over the merits of each saber style flickered through my mind and I couldn't quite suppress a grin at the comparison. There was precious little in the temple for younglings to disagree over but the benefits and shortcoming of saber forms never failed to draw out personal opinions.
"We were surprised that we never saw the video you were given the opportunity to create. Were there difficulties?"
"Of a sort." I frowned. "The Captain deemed my first attempt counter productive, and too different from what he had suggested."
"How so?" Master Yoda asked.
"I dedicated the majority of the video to cautionary tales about the dangers of the Dark Side. The Captain claimed that I would only encourage anyone that intended to do harm with his teachings, while scaring off those who did not. He was also rather insistent that it did not constitute a suitable explanation and representation of the Jedi Order."
The two masters shared a look.
"He may be right." Master Windu admitted.
"The teachings are out there and available now. A heavy handed approach might only serve to deafen his audience to our words."
"Mmm, meditate on this we will. Perhaps record a lesson I might. Give our words more weight, it would."
"If you feel that is the best Master. I'll bring it up with the Captain when he returns." I murmured, my thoughts dozens of parsecs away from the conversation.
"Something troubles you, Knight Kenobi?" Yoda prompted.
"Yes, Master… Kesel's lessons on drawing upon the Dark Side of the Force… They unnerve me. More precisely, when he draws on his anger. It's like feeling a shadow of Darth Maul's presence. I don't think clearly about it. I hadn't even noticed he was training Delia to return to the Light. All I could focus on was that feeling of anger… I wanted to draw my lightsaber. To end the threat. I know he is not a Sith, but that feeling…" I closed my eyes and shook my head. When I looked back at the holo projector the Master's faces showed sympathy and concern. "I'm sorry, I'm not certain I was the best person to be sent on this mission."
"Mmm a difficult path for you to walk this has become. Others, I believe, might have done far worse."
"Master?"
"Think, Knight Kenobi." Master Windu answered solemnly.
"What might have happened if another had been sent on this mission. Someone more prone to reacting and less prone to thinking?"
"Gained access to his ship they might not have." Master Yoda reclaimed the conversation.
"Your Padawan, pushed for it he did. How many Padawans might have done the same, hmm?" Given the reason Anakin had pushed for it… few, very few, if any.
"And even then had they secured a place on the Captain's ship, attack him you have not. Others? More sure in their path, and less willing to listen? What might have happened had they chosen to act where you chose to wait?"
I took my time considering the question carefully.
"The Captain, for all that his training is inconsistent and informal, is talented. Both with the Force and with a lightsaber. His style is unusual and
meant for dueling. If it came down to a fight I'd not feel comfortable betting against him." I admitted both to the Master and to myself. I was all too aware that the Captain was being rather circumspect with showing any Force techniques he may have learned over the years. A good surprise or three mixed with what skills I had seen and he could very well be a match for many Knights, and perhaps a few of the less combat inclined Masters.
"Mmm and if he escaped an attack by the Jedi, what then?"
"I don't know. I suppose he would try to disappear. Perhaps hide out in a less populated system until he thought it was safe?"
"Perhaps." Master Windu eyed me carefully.
"Or perhaps he would take the opportunity to proclaim to all of his viewers that the Jedi had attempted to kill him. Imagine the potential repercussions. If those who have grudges against the Order got ahold of such news we would be decried for sending assassins after those who threaten our power and position."
I grimaced at the very idea. It could be a heavy blow to our reputation. One that could take many years to recover from. Perhaps I wasn't the worst person to be on this mission after all.
"These videos have yet to make the Captain a household name. But he is rapidly gaining more and more attention as some few are beginning to claim actual results from following his teachings. Not much, but enough to garner growing interest. Our best guess is that it will come to the attention of major news industries within the next six months. And we only suspect it will be delayed that long because the skeptics will be so hard to convince of the tutorial's veracity."
"Stop this we cannot. Copies no doubt have been made by many. His student spread the videos to dozens of smaller sites, she has. His teaching cannot be made to disappear. A response we must find and soon, or be left behind we will."
"Yes Master." I responded thoughtfully.
"I'm sorry this mission is taxing on you, Knight Kenobi, but you and your Padawan have done well so far. Better than many others might have in the same situation. Do not doubt that. Stay the course. For all that the Council is conflicted, they know we need a response to this soon. We'll find our way through this."
"May the Force be with you." Master Yoda smiled kindly.
"And with you, Masters." I answered as they cut the connection.
(I've lived through 4 different 'canon' eras, I just gave up separating them)
