"Not really?" says Bultar Swan. "I mean, they're there to teach us, aren't they? What else would they do?"

"Well, when I want to know something, I generally start by looking it up in the library, not - hoping that if I sit in front of someone for an hour they'll say something relevant about it."

"I... guess so, but, like, they know what you're supposed to be learning."

"...I think it's more that they know what they're supposed to be teaching, rather than any particular - oh, Force preserve me, I was about to go on about Master Yoda's meditation class again.  

"Teachers - don't have inherent competency in knowing what you do or do not know, is the thing.

"And who's to say that - anyone is inherently supposed to learn anything?  Who chose the order?  Who set the pace?  Why did they make those choices?  Do we even know?"

"They're probably teaching us things for... the Force, things that help with that. And I guess just things that we need to know to be Jedi, like for the planets we might go to and all that."

"But why are we being taught 'things that are useful for the Force'?  Who decided that?  I know there probably isn't a single person in this Temple who doesn't enjoy moving things with their mind, but - oh, why lightsaber combat?  Who decided that kids like us need to be taught how to swing a deadly weapon?"

"Well, Jedi need to be able to use the Force, and they need to be able to use lightsabers, and it's easier if we start when we're young." Bultar shrugs. "I don't know who decides this stuff. Probably someone on the Council."

"Why do Jedi need to be able to use lightsabers?"

"Like... if we need to fight someone?"

"Why do Jedi need to be able to use a lightsaber - remember, extremely injurious melee weapon - when stun blasters exist?"

"Well, with a blaster against a blaster it's a lot harder. You can use a lightsaber to, like, deflect the shots and then rush up to them."

The other students are also weighing in, and they seem to also agree that lightsabers are very good weapons!

"..."

"And you really want to spend more time in a position where this person with a gun can shoot you?  Getting closer and closer, where the admittedly potent technique of blast deflection gives you less protection because the blade is only able to cover so much space guaranteed?"

"But it's not that hard to deflect the shots, even up close," says one of the other students, Tru Veld. "With Force reflexes, and all."

"Yeah, it's a lot easier to block the shots than to hit someone from a distance," replies another one, Ferus Olin. "I'm sure the Council knows what they're doing."

...Hm.  She might actually need to do math about this.

She'll pull out a flimsi, and her datapad, and start doing the math.  Her assumptions are flawed.  ...Has she been using Force reflexes the entire time without knowing?

"What does that feel like?  It's not the same thing as precognition, right?  And how fast is it?"

But still...

"Still, though - wouldn't a shield be better at deflecting?

"I know I've had some success with mine."

"Well, yeah, a shield's cool too!" says Bultar. "Where'd you get it?"

"Naboo; from the Gungans."

"Can I get one?" asks the last student at the table, Darra Thel-Tanis. She is then followed by the other three proclaiming that they too want shields.

"Well, I'll have to ask the Gungans about it - I paid for these fair and square, even if I've been tinkering with them enough that they might count as 'my' design by now, and even if I could build more from scratch it'd be rude to do so without credit - but I think that's possible."

Shields! Shields are cool!

The conversation will attract the attention of Master Tera Sinube, an older Jedi who often teaches lightsaber classes. "What's that about shields?"

"Kina's getting us all shields!" says Tru.

"I'm seeing if it's possible for me to build them shields like the shield I use without annoying Otoh Gunga.  Because they've been pretty useful, and - well, in at least one instance I could have ended up dead without one, so...shields.  To save lives-in-expectation."

"Sure. Kina, yes? It's a finely made shield, but the lightsaber is the traditional weapon of a Jedi, and it can be your shield. With training, a Jedi can become stronger with the lightsaber than you might expect."

"...I fail to see how the strength of a Jedi with a lightsaber alone is relevant to whether a shield is good to have available, and if you are suggesting I discard mine entirely, I have mathematical evidence as to why that's asking for me to be shot."

Sinube raises his eyebrows. "I wasn't telling you to do anything that would get you shot. But I think you'll find that it's easier without it. A large shield like that isn't very versatile, is it? Heavy, slow, maybe blocking your own way just as much as it blocks the shots."

"At first, it might be easier to just let the shield block things for you. But if you have patience, you'll get to the point where you don't need it at all."

"Except when I'm trying to block more than five or so bolts at a time, Master Sinube.  Try to connect five to seven randomized points with two straight lines - not even line segments - and you'll see why.  And - this really isn't that heavy?  A bit bulky, yes, but that's partially the point.  A lightsaber can do many things passably; this shield, however, is the sledgehammer of blaster-deflection to the lightsaber's precision multitool."

"How often do you find yourself with five or seven blaster bolts coming at you at the same time?" asks Sinube.

Meanwhile, Bultar and Darra have started arguing over whether you can draw two straight lines through any five points. Darra says yes. Bultar says Darra's lines are all too crooked. Darra says they're close enough.

"...Let me think...At least twice so far?  Being able to deflect more bolts would certainly have saved Master Trebor.

"...Excuse me, they're misunderstanding geometry over there."  She ducks out of the conversation and into Bultar and Darra's.

"So, Bultar, Darra - you're both right.  There exist sets of five and seven and nine and fourty-two points that you can draw lines through, because - lines are a collection of points, and you can just do - " Kina draws a straight line with the edge of her datapad - which seems to be marked like a ruler - and proceeds to dot it with points - "this, but - the amount of times you get that, if you're selecting points randomly?  The chances of that go down a lot, because you can define a line from any two points.  Which is to say that if we pretend lightsabers are infinitely long, and ignore that they can move in and out as well as up and down and left and right, there's a maximum number of randomly-selected points we can pick on a sheet of flimsiplast - or an infinite plane - and be sure that we'll only need two lines to go through every one.  It's four points.  So you can only be really sure that you can block four blaster bolts at once if you're dual-wielding, and really I think the guaranteed-deflection number for people who only have one single-bladed lightsaber is one - not even two; lightsabers aren't long enough to cover your whole hit zone.  So that estimate of four?  Cut it down to two, because I was assuming a double-bladed saber for some reason."

"Now consider," and here she gives Master Sinube a look, "the idea of seeing how many randomly-selected points you can fit inside a rectangle.  It's a lot more!  And I think that even if the model gets more complicated, takes into account timing and 3D movement, that the rectangle still wins out on blaster shots successfully deflected."

"Well yeah, a rectangle's bigger than a line," says Darra, "but look, I can draw two lines that go through the five points - "

"No, look at this!" Bultar responds, scribbling a square on the table. "See, look, you draw these four dots that make a square, and then you have to use these two lines, or these two lines, to get through them all. And then I just choose another place to put the next one that isn't on those lines, and then you can't hit them all."

"Oh. But you can also do the diagonal lines on the square, here - "

"Well, I can just put one somewhere that isn't on those, either."

"Yes, it's good to see you working on your geometry," Sinube nods, "but you can still try to dodge them, and it's not just that five shots are coming at you and you have to find lines that go through them, they're coming at different times; if you practice you can deflect them all. And what happens if people are shooting from different angles? It's far better to have a nice, nimble lightsaber that you can move around to protect you from every direction, than a big, cumbersome shield on one arm that you can't move around."

"The lightsaber has proved itself a good fit for the Jedi over countless generations, and in time, you'll all learn to use it well." Sinube pats Kina on the shoulder, and turns to leave, the question apparently settled.

Kina jerks her shoulder away from Master Sinube before the touch is consummated.  "No.  First of all, I didn't say you could touch me, second of all, your assumptions are wrong.  Would you care for a demonstrative sparring session, Master Sinube?  I have something that ought to prove my point."

The room becomes silent.

"Oh? Well, if you want to spar, then let's give it a go."

This one's arrogant. He'll put her in her place.

The thing that Kina is is confident.

Not arrogant.

A small, but subtle difference.

She has, herself, practiced against the weapons she plans to use.  She knows their nature and their limits.

"Master Sinube, have you any preference upon the scoring and the permitted tools of this spar?" 

"You may use what you want." He walks away, slowly, and returns with a pair of green training lightsabers.

Then Kina shall be using - quite a lot, it seems; her blaster-saber tonfa, for one, and furthermore, four modified blaster-deflection training drones - she's flattened them out, and given each of them two additional blasters, arranged in a wide triangle.  She also attaches a small, three-barreled device to her right shoulder, and connects it to her green 'welding' lightsaber's output.  And, of course, she has her shields.

"I am as ready as I expect to be."

"...that is not quite what I meant."

"...One must always seek clarity and precision in language when one is negotiating a contract with adversarial parties, the guide to diplomacy says.  Is there a specific objection?"

"You cannot use training drones in a sparring match. It is you against me."

Kina is rather unimpressed with this argument.  "They are drones I built, just as I built this lightsaber.  If I were to go into the field again, I would bring them with me.  Is there some such item you lack?"

"The point of a sparring match is to test each other's abilities, not the abilities of drones. I might say that I now lack Master Yoda, with whom I have fought many times. Shall I go fetch him, then, and see if he can defeat your drones?"

"Master Yoda is not a tool you can wield, Master Sinube.  These drones are."

(Unless you're a Sith Lord doing some sort of mind-control ritual, she doesn't add.)

"You are confident that no amount of blaster fire should faze you, regardless, aren't you, Master Sinube?"

"The drones are separate allies, which you cannot call upon during a spar. You can shoot your own blasters at me, and we will see how well those weapons work."

"Let us compromise: I turn off the computer cores and repulsors.  They are no longer autonomous allies, but truly tools to use.  Is that acceptable?"

Sinube sighs. "Very well, then. You now have a great many blasters at your disposal. Will it be enough? Let us begin." He ignites a training saber, and begins to slowly circle Kina.

Kina's blasters proceed to go brrrrrrtttttt.

Well.  The one mounted on her shoulder does; a stream of constant blasterfire dashing lines of green in careful sweeping strokes, pressuring Master Sinube even as the sets of tri-blasters fire in pairs - and her saber-tonfa remains trained on Master Sinube, waiting for the opportune moment to break his guard.

Half a second before Kina starts to turn on the blasters, Sinube makes a crisp turn and begins walking in the other direction, at the same pace as before. Any stray blasts that Kina had fired behind him will land on his lightsaber, which is angled precisely to send them straight back to Kina. And if she's not too distracted by the oncoming fire, and starts sending more blasts at where he's now going, well, he'll ever so slightly quicken his pace to just barely move in front of the main streams of lasers, and deflect the remaining few bolts back in her direction.

It is not only Tera Sinube who can play at the precognitively-dodging-blasterbolts game, however, and Kina takes two precisely-calibrated steps as she dances through the raindrops.  How quickly can he react to the stream that he was fleeing ending up in front of him, Kina's facing turned just so to poke the turret out safely while twice-reflected bolts spall over the arena from shield deflections and drones sweep fire beneath his feet?

It's not necessarily being quick that counts; it's his foresight. His lightsaber is often already where it needs to be before the shots have even been fired. And then so is his other lightsaber. And yet there are still a lot of blaster bolts. "Maybe I should get myself a few shields," chuckles Sinube. He lifts the four drones with the Force into the way of Kina's other blasters.

If he wants to give her a perfect opportunity to fire twelve blaster bolts at him in total synchrony, that's his decision!  She'll let him think he got one over on her as the stream of green bolts cuts out, and follow up with her patent-pending saber-breaker blaster septet as she brackets his position with drone-fire!  (And if he tries to jump, well, the gatling blaster is still spinning.)

With the drones keeping Kina from firing her own shots, Sinube is able to deflect the bolts from the drones, and with a few calm movements, slice through each of his flying enemies. (Well, he's actually just triggering the mechanisms on the drones that shut them down when they sense connection with a training lightsaber, but for the purposes of the spar, he's sliced through them.

He is not quite as prepared to block the giant blast from Kina's... lightsaber gun. He manages to just barely knock it out of the way, but the impulse sends him staggering back, and he's a little off balance.

And Kina seizes the opportunity to shoot him again, both with the drones he's 'cutting' through - as he cuts through them, Kina just holding the triggers down - and with all her guns.

Sinube can't deflect all of those in time, but he manages to leap over the blasts and land on the other side of Kina.

...he really shouldn't have done that, because unless he's really good at midair deflection, Kina can shoot him from below with ease.

Especially since he's going over her head!

What was he thinking?  Was he thinking?  He sacrificed the one thing that could keep his deflections stable, and put himself on a predictable trajectory!

Kina spins around in a heartbeat, but she rather thinks that this match is over.

He is fairly good at deflection, even in midair, but the predictable trajectory thing means he ends up running into one of the bolts as he lands.

There's a brief pause, and then most of the younglings watching start to cheer.

"Well fought, Master Sinube."

Kina bows politely; it seems like the right thing to do.

A still very surprised Sinube will slowly nod, his eyes narrowed.

Kina is - very politely confused at why Master Sinube is looking at her like that.

"Well, now that we've shown off our best efforts - do you think it would have been easier to block some of that with a shield?  That was the original premise of this spar, after all."

Because she just beat him! She's a kid! Even if she's a pretty talented kid, he's a Jedi Master!

Sinube winces, and sighs. "Well, perhaps."

Even Jedi Masters are not immune to geometry, though Kina's honestly impressed with how well he held up under all that.

"So... does this mean we do get shields?" asks Bultar.

"Well... I suppose so... maybe you should take this to the Council."

"I suppose I'd best go find Master Windu."

Master Windu is findable.

"Master Tera Sinube and I had a bit of a spar today, over a question of whether lightsabers were totally effective at blaster deflection.  The answer was no, and the various younglings and Padawans with whom I had originally brought up the subject now want shields of their own.

"These aren't my own original design, though I would credit myself with substantial innovation in the deployment mechanisms, and I'd rather not annoy the Gungans who did come up with these designs by making false copies, so I'm bringing the matter to your attention in case there's something I'm missing about either the Order's policies on equipment or galactic trade law."

"So you... are you saying you shot Tera Sinube in a sparring match, to demonstrate that the rest of the younglings should get energy shields. And now you want us to go talk to the Gungans and make sure they're okay with this, and then give all the younglings energy shields - Kina, why do you keep doing things like this?"

"...I'm not sure what you mean by 'things like this', so I can't give you an answer of the quality that I would prefer?"

"Just... all of this! Everything that happened with Tatooine and the Sith Lord, challenging Master Yoda's curriculum, having Force visions that summon Sith, the whole fight with Palpatine, the clones, making political agreements with Count Dooku, the vision in the cave with the Sith you - why do so many of these involve Sith and visions - and that's not even half of what you've gotten involved in. And yes, my question is answering itself, I know most of this has ended up making things a lot better for us, but could you possibly try to do... whatever it is you do... without so much chaos?"

Windu sighs, and drops his forehead to his desk. "I'll talk to the rest of the Council, and I guess the Gungans, and see if we can get a few shields here. But I'm not promising anything about the other students getting to keep them for too long. Rates of Jedi getting shot are very low. I don't know what happened with you and Sinube, but I'm guessing it involved a lot more creativity than actual combat conditions ever include."

"So if I can swing this with the Council and Gungans, we can try out teaching people to use shields for a bit. But I don't expect it to actually be all that helpful, and if after a while it's not helping people's combat abilities, we're not keeping them."

"I can't say I wasn't being creative, so, that's fair.  All the same - I can't help but wonder if Master Trebor would have survived Tatooine, if he had one.

"As far as measuring if the shields help in combat, do - test under high volumes of fire; the - original reason I wanted one of these was the geometric impossibility of guaranteeing you can make two lines intersect five randomly selected points.  Because, with enough incoming fire, eventually there will be five, or three, or however-many, blaster bolts coming at you simultaneously.  Sooner, if your enemies are smart.

"...I'll get you a copy of the plans for the modified quick-deploying version I worked out.  That will hopefully impress Otoh Gunga a bit.

"And as far as chaos - isn't it the Order's official position that there is no chaos, there is harmony?"  She grins.  "I'll try to tone it down for you, though."

Windu will leave, then, and talk to the rest of the Council.

Elsewhere, Count Dooku stands before his newly acquired students in an empty Serennan hall.

"Today, your training begins. I require apprentices possessing of both great talent in the Force, and the slightest shards of sanity. Both of these qualities, however, are so rare that I have been unable to find anyone who possesses the both of them and is willing to train under me. And unfortunately, until such time as I have either stolen or exhausted my wealth purchasing access to a certain colleague of mine's research, I am incapable of granting the powers of the Force to anyone sane. So I shall instead have to try, though I do not expect to succeed, to beat some sanity into two people who have the Force."

"Your purpose is yet unknown. My own goal is one devoted to improving the galaxy, helping its people - don't give me that look. If you find altruism an insufficiently dark cause, then you may consider your interim goal to be proving yourself useful enough to my cause to avoid having me kill you and sell your bodies to the aforementioned colleague, which is at the moment the only guaranteed use I have for you. Hopefully I can find a better one, although it seems the only training you possess is in the realms of murder and perhaps basic espionage."

"Why are you trained as assassins? Why, of all the things you could have become, of all the ways you might have tried to achieve whatever it is you do hope to accomplish, have you settled on killing people? You have a level of power within you held by not one in a million people; you could easily enough spend your lives doing more. As an extreme lower bound, by generating enough energy - " he flicks his wrist, and a small bolt of lightning crackles between his fingertips " - to fund yourselves and several hundred others living comfortable lives. Slightly more specialized pursuits would be more in the realms of contributing to research; even just the resources of one telepath would be enough to enhance cognitive science to an incredible degree should anyone have ever thought of the idea. And those like myself have far greater ambitions than that. But instead, we find everyone with any real ability using it solely as a weapon, and regardless of whether they fight for justice or for their own advancement, they do not achieve it."

"What do you even want? Has the question even occurred to you? Do you expect your current path to lead you to it? This is an actual question, now, what are you looking for?"

"Power?" volunteers Ventress, after a moment of silence. "Wealth? ...power?"

"Freedom," rumbles Savage. "Escape from those who seek to control me." His gaze is carefully not directed at Ventress or at Dooku in particular.

"What is power even for, Asajj," says Dooku in the bored tone of someone who has had this conversation before at least a dozen times. "Is there any specific power you were hoping for, or is it just that the word 'power' sounds good to your ears. Have you made even the slightest effort to seize this power, or wealth, or whatever it is you're looking for - well, yes, I'm sure you've made effort, but have you done anything particularly out of the ordinary, or simply tried very hard to do well in school in the hope that it would lead to some vaguely defined power."

"You, Savage, are at least a little more specific. Well, you are no longer a slave to the Nightsisters; and should you provide enough value for me, I shall not force you to serve me beyond that. You now have more of a life ahead of you than you expected. What will you do with your freedom?"

"It doesn't matter," says Savage, internally wondering if Dooku is anywhere near being honest. "As long as I'm free."

"I would guess the answer is no, but would you go back to free the others?"

What kind of a question is that he is standing right next to a Nightsister right here even if he did want to which he kind of d which he certainly doesn't he wouldn't say it out loud - "No."

Ah. "Even so, you seem rather... limited in your ambitions, Savage. It seems that selfish values would not decrease, and in fact quite possibly increase, the amount that the quality of your free life should matter to you."

"There is a framework that a great many people seem to fall into, even if - " he turns to Ventress " - they conceptualize themselves as caring about getting more power. All too often, when they imagine changing their lives, it is solely in ways such as gaining freedom, or wealth, or even just status and prestige, and they do not even ask themselves if there is a way to transcend all that they know as life to begin with."

"If you want the power to do anything more than break those who are below you, all the weapons in the galaxy will be of no use to you, for those who are above you are not breakable by weapons. And if you want to defeat those who are presently controlling you, you are going to have to start challenging the forces that control even the most powerful among mortals."

"It is not that immortality is quite the only goal in life, and indeed it means little without something that you are living for. But I cannot imagine many things I would care much about, that I could complete within the blink of an eye that is a hundred years of life, nor in but a hundred hundred. And bringing about a future in which none have to worry of such things is indeed all that I currently aim for."

He brushes away the guise he wears, shakes away each drop of white dye in his hair, and tears away each wrinkle from where they are fastened somewhat looser, today, than usual. "My associate has bought me half a century of additional life already, at the cost of two others' lives. And make no mistake, that is a cost, Jedi though they may have been. It is not a cost that I will keep paying again and again indefinitely, and it has certainly not bought me anything near a satisfactory solution. We will all, should our mission succeed, soon have that chance to keep living beyond the shackles of death."

"You are not currently in any condition to contribute to that mission. We shall begin correcting that problem. I only wanted to ensure that you know that it is in your very best interests to cooperate, not out of threat but out of your very own self-interest, because this is what we are fighting for."

"Or, perhaps, not 'fighting for' - it matters not at all, how much we fight, how very hard we try to make things better, if we all die anyway despite our noblest efforts. What matters is that we succeed."

And then the training, if it could even be called that, begins.