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The Mind Trickster


Ardrossan

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Note: This is not finished and may take awhile to finish. At the moment, it's more of a collection of Wookieepedia references than a coherent story. I welcome critical feedback.

***

10 years after the Breakup of the Sith Empire

Coruscant

The Jedi Temple

9:18:11 Galactic Standard Time

 

Concentrate…Concentrate…Concentrate...

 

“So, the most interesting thing happened while I was patrolling Senate Plaza today. I knew I had to wait and tell you all about it.”

 

Temo groaned and broke his focus. He didn’t bother trying to hide his expression, M’salame wouldn’t be offended. He could shout, curse the entire Twi’leki pantheon of underworld deities, and the other Jedi would still tell him all about his doubtless fascinating afternoon travels. He wouldn’t have a choice.

 

“Well, it started when I finished my Shien practice for the day. Before I began my patrol, I decided to go to a local tapcaf for lunch, you know the one in the Old Galactic Market? The one that became famous after…”

 

Temo’s gaze gloomily fell on the pebble he’d been trying to levitate. Apart from a twitch when he’d begun, it hadn’t moved in the two and a half hours he’d been at this.

 

For a Jedi, there is no try, only do or do not do.

The adage was frequently an admonishment from his Masters, usually paired with ‘all things are possible with the Force’, but Temo had long ago realized that not everyone is equally strong at all things with the Force, or else why would people say that one is ‘strong with the Force’? That clearly suggests that to some the Force comes naturally, to others, not so much.

 

“…I had just settled down to a Roba steak and was debating if I also wanted a Javarican Espresso, when someone tapped me roughly on the shoulder. I turned…”

 

Most Jedi had aptitude for a few Powers and lightsaber forms, such as levitation and the acrobatics of Ataru, but not others, like energy absorption or the blaster deflection skill common to Shien. In fact, Jedi often trained with that point in mind, to use their strengths to minimize their weaknesses. One didn’t need to block blaster bolts if they could dodge them, nor did one need to leap out of the path of a lightsaber lunge if one could drain the energy from the weapon. A Jedi’s strengths and weaknesses were often paired accordingly, as if the Force had a logic to it. Only in Temo’s case did it seem the Force had been taking a caf break when they’d been handing out Powers.

 

As Temo was musing on his failures, he realized that he hadn’t been paying attention to M’salame’s story. Not that it mattered, the story was of no consequence and the other Jedi would obligingly repeat it all over again if Temo asked.

 

“…so then the Barabel asks me why the lightsaber is considered more civilized than a blaster. His nestmate used to be a mercenary before he’d lost both his hands to a Jedi on Denova, one of those minor conflicts in the big war. Now at the time, I was thinking that as Barabels are classed as a reptiloid species, they can regrow the limbs, so what is he really complaining for? I asked him that and it turns out they can’t, but he claimed that wasn’t the point, that if the Jedi had had a blaster he could have stunned his nestmate instead of delimbing him.”

 

M’salame gave Temo a pitying glance, which Temo obligingly, grudgingly, returned. It was Trandoshans on Denova, not Barabels. Temo made the appropriate conversational noises, coupled with an – for anyone else - inappropriate helping of sarcasm. “You don’t say.”

 

“Well then, I asked him, what was his nestmate doing that occasioned a Jedi to do this to him in the first place? It’s not like we go around committing cho sun on every sentient we come across, am I right? As Jedi we are taught that there must always be a good reason before we draw our lightsaber.”

 

If the history of our Order is at all accurate, and if Jedi paid as much attention to our historical failings as successes, then surely no one would ever make such a fatuous remark again. He didn’t say that, of course, or any of his stray jibes. If he did, he’d be here all day. But he did make a knowing smile in reply, which M’salame correctly interpreted, because his voice carried a defensive whinge.

 

“But perhaps civilized isn’t the right word for it. I had heard during my Padawan training that the expression dates back to the Indecta era from an Arkanian proverb, and in ancient Arkanian, to be civilized was to be a cultivator of art, so perhaps it is not that lightsabers are a civilized weapon, but a more artful one than a blaster. Of course I tried to explain all this to the Barabel, but you know how they can be…”

 

Temo had never met a Barabel in person, but if the descriptions were a good accounting of the species, he was beginning to feel distinctly Barabel-like after listening to this prattle.

“M’salame, you’ll have to excuse me, but I must return to cataloging.” Temo added a slight Force nudge to this, hoping that it might be enough of a compulsion for the Twi’leki Jedi to leave him alone. Deliberate compulsion was frowned upon in the Order, but the Masters usually overlooked conversational nudges – Master Aliquan, no maverick, often used them to dissuade intractably persistent tourists hoping for a peek [and if they were insanely lucky, holocam footage] of a lightsaber sparring duel. It was either that or move back to Tython, and the Order had too many sunk costs in the rebuilt Temple.

 

With Temo’s peculiar affinity, a deliberate nudge for the other Jedi to find something else to devote his time to shouldn’t be too much to achieve.

 

“Oh, what are you working on right now? I heard the Archive just received transcripts of the Ossus resettlement last week.”

Sith’s Blood!

Temo improvised. “I usually don’t work with flimsi, I’ve got a holocall meeting to get to with our Cultural Attaché on Zeltros, but it’s been great chatting, M’salame, bye!” Exit strategy made – and it wasn’t exactly a lie, he did have an appointment, though not with anyone from Zeltros. Getting a posting on that pleasure planet would be a plum assignment for anyone but a Jedi. Temo picked up his brown robes dangling off the edge of the floor and nearly threw himself out to the corridor leading back to the Library.

It was a wonder that he got anything done all day when he was constantly being harried by one being after the other, all of whom had the most interesting story, roadside anecdote, dinner monologue, dark confession, or some such, that they absolutely must relate to Temo despite both ordinary and extraordinary cues that he wasn’t remotely interested. It certainly helped him perform his duties, but only when it didn’t eat up all the time in his day to actually do them.

 

As he walked through the halls of the temple, the walls showing little sign of the massive rebuilding efforts made in the decade since the Great Galactic Wars, Temo reflected on his afternoon, while studiously avoiding glances and greetings from fellow Jedi. As an added level of anti-social protection, he’d raised the hood on his cloak to obscure his features, not that this was uncommon in and around the temple, nor, conversely, that not being able to see his face would keep people from reacting to his Presence. But it helped him feel more secure. While he walked, he listened to the conversations around him, the better to avoid them in case the speakers noticed him.

 

“Master, we have three more cases of Sith prisoners turning up in the Belsavis excavations.”

“Seal them back up, that’s my recommendation. But I suppose it’s up to the Council.”

“But don’t you find it strange that the original excavations during the wars didn’t discover them?”

“Reread your history, Padawan. The Republic’s stewardship of that planet was a fiasco from day one. Never mind the Imperials, every week that didn’t involve fighting undead alien gods, they were busy with the psychotic alien gangs they intentionally created. That didn’t leave much time to play archaeologist.”

“They deliberately--!”

“Be mindful of your feelings, Padawan. Yes, they looked at the Imperial Science Bureau and thought ‘like this, but with more cruelty’, but they were also stationed on a frozen rock of a planet that looked like bread mould from space and had just enough lava rifts to smell perpetually of rotten eggs without making the temperature noticeably warmer. And that doesn’t begin to get into their actual job, which was to guard the worst scum in the galaxy. Stress, not sadism, was the chief culprit. An enterprising student might write a comparative essay between the Republic’s efforts on Belsavis versus Taris and the effect of stress on its military personnel.”

“…Haven’t we gotten off-topic, Master?”

“Oh yes, the prisoners…here comes a fellow Jedi, why don’t you put your question to him.” But Temo had already jumped on one of the slow-moving elevators leading up and away from the pair. He sounds like my old Master.

 

Temo got off the elevator and, seeing that there was no one waiting to talk to him, relaxed a little. As he walked to his destination, he reflected on his aborted telekinesis exercise. The attempt to move the pebble was actually part of Temo’s duties, though not a significant part. All Jedi, even those in roles that were removed from combat environments, were required to spend part of their time practicing and improving their Powers, especially their weak areas. For Temo, that was nearly all of the Core Powers, but he often thought that if he could improve even slightly his skill in telekinesis, one of the showier and archetypal signs of Forceful ability, he’d feel more comfortable among the Order, more like a real Jedi, instead of a one-trick bantha.

 

He saw a cluster of initiates standing in the middle of the hallway he needed to go down. No way to avoid them, but as luck – or the Force, though Temo personally found it tiring to ascribe every bit of chance to the will of the Force – two masters, an attractive, green-grey Nautolan and a seasoned-looking Zabrak broke through, talking loudly. He scooted by in their wake.

 

“…been on Corellia, surprisingly. She was counting on citizens mistaking her for a Green Jedi.”

“Are we talking about the same Sith? Darth Alluress—”

“She hasn’t used that title in years.”

“Has she started wearing clothes that cover her belly button too? Or did she think wearing a green kimono would be enough?”

“Is what she’s wearing or not wearing really pertinent to the discussion? Do half-naked Sith women occupy your thoughts?”

“Um…”

“Well, master Jedi?”

“…What’s surprising is that there are any Green Jedi left, between the Sith and our forces conscripting the survivors afterward.”

“You’re still bitter about--”

“Let’s not get into that again.”

 

His ‘trick’ didn’t have a particular name, as such. Temo called it his Presence, from a footnote in one of the texts in the Archives that described the effect of a Jedi’s charisma, or force of character, as a physical property. In Basic, the usual meaning of presence as a trait was someone with a magnetic personality, charming, suave. As a Force ability, it was in the domain of Alter Powers, which included in its umbrella all abilities relating to a Jedi using the Force to alter his environment or those around him.

When used with conscious intent, it could affect the minds of beings, usually to persuade or cajole. Humans, Twi’lek, Gran, Anomids, no one was able to resist chatting him up. Taciturn species like Weequay or Gand were overcome with the desire to tell him whatever was on their mind, even if they didn’t speak Basic. The Presence could also, as Temo had learned from rapprochement conferences with Cartel overseers in the Y’toub sector, affect species that had resistance to Mind Tricks, like Hutts and Toydarians. Even other Jedi weren’t immune. It would be an amazingly useful ability if the extraneous dross could be filtered, if he could get specific answers from specific questions, but in all of Temo’s life, he’d never been able to find a way to filter it. Sith and Dark Jedi, for example, used a more aggressive form of Alter to dominate the minds of others, forcing them to submit to the darksider’s will. That wasn’t Temo. He wasn’t supernaturally likeable, nor could he persuade anyone to do anything except talk. He’d always had it, and far from being something he had to work to improve, it was something he had to work to minimize. After today, however, he might not have to do that anymore.

 

A squad of troopers in full battle gear were walking – not marching – down a corridor, led by a Cathar Major with his helmet in tow, and a much younger Knight hectoring him. It was not unusual to see troopers in the Temple; the wars of the last generation had brought the Jedi and the Republic military inexorably closer together, the ‘special relationship’ it was sometimes called in the Senate. After all, just because the Sith were all but gone didn’t mean the Republic didn’t still have problems only the Jedi could solve. This knight was attempting to give the officer instructions.

 

“…is Master Leb Sona, Council of Reconciliation. She’ll be able to brief the High Council, if she deems it necessary.”

“You’re expecting her to turn her nose up at this?”

The knight, a human, sniffed delicately. “Master Sona doesn’t have a nose, she’s Bith.”

“I’ll give her my condolences.”

The knight looked shocked. “You…!” A trooper snickered, and the major bit back. “Quiet down back there!”

He turned back to the knight. “Master Jedi, the Voss are suddenly feeling chatty, which is never a good sign. If they’ve got a prophecy concerning the whole galaxy but they’ll only tell the Jedi, we need to hear it before they tell someone else.”

The knight was looking increasingly out of his element. Temo felt a little sorry for him. “It’s about the Republic. Who would they tell besides us?”

“The Hutts, the Zakuulan Remnant, maybe even the Chiss. We know they’re still active in the Outer Rim, and they’d probably get along great with the Voss – they’re both cold, condescending b...”

“Major!”

The Cathar grinned, showing fangs the size of Temo’s thumbs. He looked like he practiced it in a mirror everyday. Temo passed by the troopers (who were loving the show, albeit quietly), and kept his back to the knight as he scooted past the major. He didn’t want to be pulled in to offer assistance.

“Lucky for the Republic, we got our own cold, condescending…beings, on our side, to talk to them. So what do you say, Master Jedi, does this sound like something maybe the High Council should hear about directly?”

 

On second thought, maybe the special relationship could use some distance.

 

Most days at the Temple were much like another. Every morning, Temo woke up in his quarters, dressed in his typical robes, ate in the Main Hall with the other members of the Order and began his duties. In this, he had a role different from most in the Order. All Jedi were slotted into a specific Council, of which there were four: The High Council, The Council of Reconciliation, which the beleaguered knight he’d left behind belonged to, the Council of Reassignment, and the Council of First Knowledge. Temo was a Consular whose work treaded the borders between the Council of First Knowledge, which focused on maintaining the Jedi Archives and Academies, and the Council of Reconciliation, which focused on diplomacy and internal discipline, but he was neither a librarian nor a diplomat, but a sterile crossbreed of the two. Rather, Temo’s job, while officially part of the Council of First Knowledge, was to receive information directly from sources in the Council of Reconciliation, both Jedi and otherwise, and transcribe it into texts and holocrons to be preserved by the Council of First Knowledge.

 

He was getting closer to his destination now. The temple took up ten city blocks, and Coruscant had long blocks. He was just passing by the interior office suites set aside for the Council of Reassignment, and noticed a Master speaking to a Pureblood Sith, his red skin looking out of place in his brown Padawan robes. The Pureblood (most preferred not to be called Sith anymore) looked like he was trying to appear contemplative, but still didn’t look happy.

“We all start as a Padawan, whoever we were before we joined the Order. No one comes to us and jumps the queue to become a Master.”

“I understand, Master, but do you understand that I’m not asking for a Master’s title?”

“Knight, Master, Grand Master, it doesn’t matter. You may have skill in the Force, but it was skill gained outside our teachings. It was in service to the Sith.”

Purebloods can’t blush, but Temo thought this one was making a good stab at it.

“Not the Sith, Sith Intelligence, and we’ve been reformed for years. The Minister didn’t select for genocidal tyrants.”

“I advise you not to reference that being again. It’s still a sore spot around here. And whatever their respective merits, that…individual was certainly of the dark side.”

“But pragmatic. And since then, we’ve moved away completely from the dark side. We might be Sith, but we’re Light-Side Sith!” He began to ball his hands into fists, but thought better of it and attempted to calm himself.

The Master noticed anyway. “And now you’ll learn how to be Light-Side Jedi,” he said with implacable resolve, “which should prove less confusing because Jedi are only light-sided, so we just say Jedi for simplicity’s sake.” Temo grinned to himself. Now that’s a degree of condescension that takes work ethic to achieve.

The Pureblood looked extremely skeptical. “I’ll have to take this back to my team. If this is the only way to rejoin galactic society…” Temo had his hand on the door leading out when he heard the Pureblood’s voice trailing off. A split-second of force speed, that’s all he’d need not to get pulled into this conversation.

“But you there, you’re a Jedi too. What do you say to this…?”

Temo didn’t like to do it, he felt embarrassed every time he had to. With no chance of a burst of Force-imbued speed, he chose instead to pull the door open and sprint away at a dead run without looking back.

 

When he wasn’t juggling the competing interests of these two Councils, Temo spent nearly six hours per day training to improve his powers, of which two hours a day were spent on lightsaber training, the Niman form, disparagingly called the Consular’s form by combat-oriented Jedi who found it to be a mediocre combat stance. They might mock it, but they did so impotently. Combat-oriented or not, the days of the Jedi as lightside warrior, with emphasis on warrior, had ended, and Temo had never had to draw his lightsaber against a real attack. The training continued anyway, but the emphasis had shifted to a focus on contemplating the light side of the Force.

 

A Jedi like himself, with no great talent for combat or combative force powers, could get by quite easily in this new era, but unlike those Jedi of the recent past, Jedi of this time were strictly policed in the application of their powers. Some of the greatest Jedi of the preceding wars had done many things that were not precisely in keeping with the light side. The Hero of Tython, who’d defeated at least one incarnation of the Emperor, had at one point been seduced by the dark side and murdered countless civilians while in its sway before coming back to the light.

Then there was the example of the Warden of the Order, the great Consular of that era who’d trained in the non-combat roles of healer and diplomat. That great Jedi had very publicly cured six Jedi masters of a dark side insanity plague (the result of which had forced the Senate to create a million-credit public relations campaign to assure the people that Jedi don’t routinely go berserk), prevented elements of the Republic from seceding and exposed a plot to seed the Order with mind-controlled puppets of the Emperor. On the flipside, this Jedi, one of only three in history to hold the honored title Barsen’thor, had accomplished these fantastic deeds by racking up thousands of kills.

In both cases, the response from the High Council of their day was more or less to shrug, perhaps deny them a Master’s title or a seat at the Council, but otherwise handwave their dark side actions away as unfortunate necessities of war. In the absence of galactic-spanning war, however, the Order had become zealously recommitted to light side purity, which struck Temo as a good thing. Jedi didn’t need to be heroes to do good throughout the galaxy. Heroes just got everyone else killed.

 

The moment of Temo’s destiny came at hand on a typical day just like today, when, approaching the Room of A Thousand Fountains after a painstaking morning reconstructing an annotated history of the machine planet Iokath, he met a Gran in tan robes observing the water gardens, who spotted him and began to walk over. Temo saw the exact moment the being’s three eyes went from a casual roving of the park, to suddenly whirl around to focus intently on him.

“Jedi, Jedi!” He raced over, extending an appendage.

Temo reluctantly shook it. “Temo Solani, Jedi Knight.” He paused, then went on. “Council of Reconciliation seconded to the Council of First Knowledge,” he stated the grandiose titles dully.

“Nook Bador, Jedi Knight, Council of Reconciliation attached to the Starcruiser Zallow for the Wild Space expedition. Pleased to meet you, Jedi!”

 

Wild Space. That was interesting. All sorts of weird things came out of that little-explored area of the galaxy. Most recently, the first and second Eternal Wars. In the midst of a number of conflicts between the latest incarnation of the Sith, usually coined the Resurgent Sith Empire by archivists like himself, a new series of attacks had struck the Republic out of Wild Space, with no warning or defence. The war had been precipitated by a ready-made ‘eternal empire’, complete with fabulous technology, dozens of planets and a strange order of Force-sensitives who didn’t align to a particular side of the Force, and supposedly under the control of the concurrent Sith Emperor, though the Sith worlds were attacked just as savagely. The Republic, with the Jedi leading the charge, had fought and killed the Sith Emperor, Vitiate, several times, with the Sith using the ritual of Essence Transfer to escape to a new host body. He’d had a thousand year reign, during which time he’d apparently spent a large chunk of it creating a totally distinct, and for awhile, unstoppable empire in the back reaches of the galaxy. A rainy-day empire, Temo had once quipped to his Master when the subject had arisen. He’d sat out the night on the Serenity Rock for that bit of cheek.

 

The Zakuulan conflicts, despite its fantastic elements [and incredible scope of devastation], was little more than a discordant note in the midst of the two back-to-back wars with the Sith, particularly as that conflict reignited almost immediately after the Zakuulan wars finally ended. When Zakuul was defeated, the Republic had drawn back, and contact had been lost with the native Zakuulans, who independently formed their own democratic government. The Senate had initially demanded that cruisers patrol the area to keep watch on signs that the Human-majority worlds were keeping to their disarmament treaties, but as the years went by, the war-footing budget had shrunk back to its previous [that is, almost nonexistent] levels, and the patrols were reduced to twice annual fly-bys.

 

Such was the way of the Republic, where the last decade’s explosive conflict would fall into this decade’s trash compactor, to be recycled into next millenia’s terror from beyond. Still, while a scouting expedition of Wild Space would no doubt be fascinating subject matter and eventually of interest to his own work, Temo didn’t dare ask for details lest he be inundated in a flood of trivia.

Not that it mattered. The Gran had other things on his mind. “I was just standing here admiring this room and ruminating.”

 

Of course you did. And you can’t wait to share your findings with a perfect stranger.

 

Temo forced himself to keep his growing anxiety from showing. For years he’d cultivated a remarkable patience for the frequent diversions that his ability took him on, but as time went on, it had grown to be a headache.

 

“Looking into these waters, I find myself looking into the Force that binds the galaxy together. I see in the lapping green, grey and red fountains, a vision presented to me of the confluence of events that have brought the galaxy to where it stands now. We are still taking stock of the damages from the Resurgent Sith Wars, and will likely be recovering for another thousand years. On the plus side, we have new diplomatic partnerships with the Chiss, the Voss, the Gree and a dozen previously unheard of species. Technologically, we have created ships to prosecute the war against the Sith and the Eternal Empire, ships whose designs might very well continue to be used for thousands of years to come. Why not? We have the scanning work proceeding apace on the ruins of Iokath, and we are slowly unlocking the transporter and stasis technology of the Rakata.”

 

It sounded like a speech, or perhaps the working draft of one, and Bador was no ambassador, but in the grip of Temo’s Presence, all beings riffed expansively, channeling their inner bombast. They didn’t even have to be talking directly to him, just nearby. As for the content, Temo didn’t have an opinion, at least not one he cared to share. He didn’t want to express an opinion. Opinions only encouraged beings to continue plaguing him with their thoughts.

 

“We Jedi are supposed to avoid war, to end conflicts peacefully. This is particularly the case with the Council of Reconciliation. Yet we live in an era where war has been an indisputable boon to our lives. At the beginning of the Mandalorian Wars, five hundred years ago, blaster rifles had limited power packs. Now, they’re nearly infinite. Given reliable supply chains to hypermatter suppliers, our ships can travel at speeds that earlier generations would have called impossible. Where once a being with a blaster wound would have lain in a kolto tank for days healing, now we can spray a jet blast of the stuff to heal the most severe wounds. A Republic trooper fighting in the skirmishes of the Cold War could be stabbed through the stomach with a lightsaber, take a splash of kolto from a medic and be on his feet fighting again in seconds.”

 

Temo, knowing it to be a vain effort, nevertheless tried to speed this up.

“Jedi, this is a fascinating discussion and would make an excellent article. Perhaps you could get started on it in the archives, while I head to a previous engagement.”

“A moment more of your time, Jedi Solani, a moment more! I feel like I am on the cusp of a great epiphany. It is not just technology or interspecies cooperation which has improved in the past five hundred years, though obviously one could spend a lifetime just relating every fascinating discovery, but it’s also our increased connection to the Force. As the Resurgent Sith disintegrated, we’ve discovered--”

Before Bador could reveal his amazing, but probably extremely boring discovery, a shadow fell over the Temple, and Temo’s face fell against the floor as everything went dark.

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