"It's a lie, fear is a lie, passion, a lie, fear gives temporary power and passion is easily manipulated. Real strength comes when one is no longer afraid. And one can purge fear when one stops grasping--after power, after things, after life itself--and allows the force to guide him...there is only the force. Sith philosophy claims to break it's follower's chains but instead traps them in their own fear. What I learned lives on through this image and it's device. Yet i am one with the force, eternal, and at peace...."

not surprising that guy wound up dead.

He's essentially a Light-side Sith. He doesn't follow the Jedi code (obviously) but his ideas have similarities; if anything I believe he would be close to what the Jedi would be if they weren't so often mired in... ceremony and adherence to precedent.

I like him! You don't get jedi chains and you get to do good. Win/win right?

I like him! You don't get jedi chains and you get to do good. Win/win right?

 

well until the sith kill you for heresy....

"It's a lie, fear is a lie, passion, a lie, fear gives temporary power and passion is easily manipulated. Real strength comes when one is no longer afraid. And one can purge fear when one stops grasping--after power, after things, after life itself--and allows the force to guide him...there is only the force. Sith philosophy claims to break it's follower's chains but instead traps them in their own fear. What I learned lives on through this image and it's device. Yet i am one with the force, eternal, and at peace...."

 

Fear is good why applied to the enemy. See Dread Masters at work.

 

Peace is a lie. What the USA does now as 'world peace keepers' confirms it.

 

Without a drop of passion, you would just stay c**k-in-hand doing nothing 100% of the time.

 

I am the Force. Resistance is Futile.

Edited May 6, 2015 by Overmind

One of the most interesting characters in the game. His story deserved to be expanded. Edited September 25, 2015 by Unchosen

Fear is good why applied to the enemy. See Dread Masters at work.

 

Peace is a lie. What the USA does now as 'world peace keepers' confirms it.

 

Without a drop of passion, you would just stay c**k-in-hand doing nothing 100% of the time.

 

I am the Force. Resistance is Futile.

 

He doesn't say to drop passion though, just that it's a lie and easily manipulated.

 

It's nice to see some of the grey's though. No matter which side they're on, it seems if one tends to go to far in any direction, things can get a little wonky...less so really on the LS though, but that's a hard one to decide on. Knight gets DS for romancing Kira but Consular doesn't for Nadia.

 

So, I'm not so sure one needs to forgo love to be LS, rather it's just the Jedi's code, which all the masters seem to fail at.

He was an interesting character for basically speaking truth about the dark side. Granted, it's nothing that hasn't been said in the series by Jedi before, but it was unique in that it was coming from a former Sith who had an inside view.

 

As much as the Sith like to prattle on about the dark side break chains, the truth is that it chains them to a miserable existence. They can't trust anyone and live in an enviroment of fear and paranoia. The higher you rise the more you have to fear rivals or a knife in the back. Even the ones at the top of the pyramid can't enjoy the power they've accumulated or all the trappings that come with that. Some of the Dark Council members have even gone the Howard Hughes route, for fear of assassination.

Edited September 27, 2015 by Aeneas_Falco

He was an interesting character for basically speaking truth about the dark side. Granted, it's nothing that hasn't been said in the series by Jedi before, but it was unique in that it was coming from a former Sith who had an inside view.

 

As much as the Sith like to prattle on about the dark side break chains, the truth is that it chains them to a miserable existence. They can't trust anyone and live in an enviroment of fear and paranoia. The higher you rise the more you have to fear rivals or a knife in the back. Even the ones at the top of the pyramid can't enjoy the power they've accumulated or all the trappings that come with that. Some of the Dark Council members have even gone the Howard Hughes route, for fear of assassination.

 

Which is why my original intent with my SI was grow in personal power, but live the life of an adventurer. Then the game threw her into the Dark Council

 

The life of a Tomb Raider may not be safe, but one could live a little less worried about their position

Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion i gain strength. Through strength i gain power. Through power i gain victory. Through victory my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.

 

From the purey logical view, the argument is flawless (unlike the Jedi code). The dark side as interperted by the Sith is the glorification of the individua and his advancement, thus individuas we end up fighting ike Vitiate, The Dread Masters and others are simply taking the Sith code to it's logical concusion. From the pure phiosophical view, they are the perfect Sith, in the sence that they seek power for themseves

 

Many Sith however have seen that that the code is fundamentaly flawed in application to society. Sith are made to embody passion, strength and power, victory and freedom. By their own admission, this is WHY they deserve to lead and to rule. Yet Vitiate and The Dread Masters embody nothing but empty madness, and the Dark Council embodies petty bickering and power pays to the detriment of the Empire's and the Sith Order's cause. And if such individuas are allowed to rise to the highest station in Sith society, what does that mean

 

It means that that power and strength are useless if you have nothing else to fight for. Victory is pointless without cause, and freedom is useless without commitment and responsibiity. Passion without cause is emptiness. A Sith doesn't need to follow the tenets of the Jedi to understand that, in Swtor many do, Darth Marr first and foremost. But even being LS doesn't mean that a Sith becomes a Jedi - the flaws of the Sith don't make the flaws of the Jedi any less.

 

What Kel'eth Ur advocates is a sort of "golden path" between the Jedi and Sith philosophies - seeing as both take their interpetation of the Force to a level of religious zealotry and suppress any other teachings, which they brand as heresy (I can't even write that word with a straight face-ACTIVATE THE EXTERMINATUS).

He's the central liberal between the communists and the fachists, so to speak.

He doesn't say to drop passion though, just that it's a lie and easily manipulated.

But isn't the problem that connecting with the Light Side of the Force requires inner calm and balance? If you can't quiet your passions and surrender yourself to the current of the Force (the core of Jedi philosophy and anathema to the Sith) you can't use the Light Side. Kel'eth Ur says to "stop grasping after life itself" - you have to be willing to give up everything.

One thing that always stuck me was how much the Jedi prattle on about "Balance" but then seek a total eradication of the Dark.

 

Wouldn't true balance be EQUAL Light: Dark?

 

Take the emotion, the ambition of the dark side, and temper it with the rationality and responsibility of the Light side. Shouldn't THAT be the ultimate goal?

Edited September 27, 2015 by OathboundCoH

But isn't the problem that connecting with the Light Side of the Force requires inner calm and balance? If you can't quiet your passions and surrender yourself to the current of the Force (the core of Jedi philosophy and anathema to the Sith) you can't use the Light Side. Kel'eth Ur says to "stop grasping after life itself" - you have to be willing to give up everything.

 

It's what the Jedi say, but often it's proven otherwise. In the end all that's ever been proven is Dark Side can be just as powerful as the Light Side. Only DSers want to rule the galaxy, but they never last for long.

 

So, a powerful DSer can think "Only have to do it for so long and then I live on forever"

 

In the end, the DS only lends itself to socio/psychopaths.

 

It's been proven one can love and be light side. Jedi just know, love leads to heart break which leads to powerful force users possibly lashing out. When the number for those powerful enough in the force to be few, this is less a worry. When you start getting enough to fill a planet (small number in terms of people in the galaxy but large number in terms of a group) then bad things can happen!

All of this is just my take on things, so... consider it for whatever it's worth.

 

It's been proven one can love and be light side. Jedi just know, love leads to heart break which leads to powerful force users possibly lashing out. When the number for those powerful enough in the force to be few, this is less a worry. When you start getting enough to fill a planet (small number in terms of people in the galaxy but large number in terms of a group) then bad things can happen!

I think there's a slightly deeper aspect to it than that. Of course you can have emotions in your life and still be Light Side - as I think you noted earlier, Jedi do this all the time, and they talk constantly and openly about their feelings. But when you draw on the Force itself, you need to be able to achieve a balanced, calm state so that your own passions don't (so to speak) drown out what the Force is telling you. In SWTOR the game mechanics of "centering" and "zen" used by Sentinels reflect this - even combat is a kind of tranquil trance where you let the Force guide you without participating emotionally in the battle. The more you are impassioned, the more you will feel the impulse to control, to seize the power rather than allowing it to flow through you.

 

Having attachments and long-term personal relationships means there is a part of you that's much harder to leave behind when you need to enter this trance state. Yes, in the worst cases you will lose someone, go crazy and fall to the Dark Side on the spot - but there are intermediate cases where you are distracted for a key moment by the thought of someone who's more important to you than life itself, and your connection to the Light Side is broken in that moment.

 

Then again, I would also take the philosophical view that love is not a passion, and that what the Jedi teach is fundamentally about love... and that's a whole other thing.

 

Edit:

One thing that always stuck me was how much the Jedi prattle on about "Balance" but then seek a total eradication of the Dark.

 

Wouldn't true balance be EQUAL Light: Dark?

 

Take the emotion, the ambition of the dark side, and temper it with the rationality and responsibility of the Light side. Shouldn't THAT be the ultimate goal?

"Balance" is a complex idea. If two things are in balance it means that there is an "appropriate" amount of each, not necessarily an equal amount of each. If you decided to "balance" the level of salt in your food by adding one gram of salt per one gram of rice, say, then... you'd die. A little of one thing against a lot of another thing can be balance.

 

But I think the more important idea here is that the Dark Side is imbalance and the Light Side is balance. The Light Side is a two-directional relationship, you and the Force, giving and receiving. The Dark Side is a one-directional, parasitic relationship. You take and take without giving back. In the end it's the unhealthy nature of that relationship that causes Dark Side corruption, of body and mind.

Edited September 28, 2015 by Joachimthbear

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It's been proven one can love and be light side. Jedi just know, love leads to heart break which leads to powerful force users possibly lashing out. When the number for those powerful enough in the force to be few, this is less a worry. When you start getting enough to fill a planet (small number in terms of people in the galaxy but large number in terms of a group) then bad things can happen!

 

The interesting thing is that both groups of warrior monks preach avoidance of romantic relationships. The Jedi do so for fear all all the complications and drama that sometimes go along with those relationships (heartbreak, jealously, ect) could place force users at a greater risk of falling to the dark side. The Sith do so because they see love and empathy, and all those things necessary for a healthy romantic relationship, as weaknesses or an angle for a rival to exploit. Love of course is also as much a light side emotion as hatred is dark side. Unlike the Jedi the Sith can and do marry officially, but it seems like their ideal would be something more along the lines of Lord & Lady Grathan's marriage: A political union between force using nobles with the goal of creating more force using nobles.

Edited September 28, 2015 by Aeneas_Falco

I loved seeing this teaching. My Sith Warrior thought everything he said made sense, and decided to keep that in mind as she explored the power of the Force. My Inquisitor thought it sounded ridiculous and un-Sith and threw it out.

But I think the more important idea here is that the Dark Side is imbalance and the Light Side is balance. The Light Side is a two-directional relationship, you and the Force, giving and receiving. The Dark Side is a one-directional, parasitic relationship. You take and take without giving back. In the end it's the unhealthy nature of that relationship that causes Dark Side corruption, of body and mind.

 

How is it two-directional? The ultimate expression of Jedi-advocated Light Side philosophy is to completely give yourself over to the Force, to become nothing more than an instrument of it; that's not symbiosis, it's submission.

How is it two-directional? The ultimate expression of Jedi-advocated Light Side philosophy is to completely give yourself over to the Force, to become nothing more than an instrument of it; that's not symbiosis, it's submission.

Because the Force gives back.

 

Any Force user, Light Side or Dark, can use telekinesis to move objects, perhaps saving their own life by doing so. The Dark Side user demands the power and wields it. The Light Side user asks for the power, trusts in the Force, and the Force answers.