"I don't think Revan wrote much, and no, I'm not giving you recommendations."

It seems Windu isn't changing his mind.

"Well.  If you're certain, I can hardly hope to change your decision.  That said...There is no ignorance, there is knowledge."

...She's going to go regroup and think about what she wants to do about this.

...It's obvious, when she finally thinks about it.

She's going to ask the Force.  Or more accurately, the woman who the Father called his daughter.  She might believe what the man says, but she's pretty sure she doesn't actually trust him.  He sounds...

Wrong, somehow.  Like a trap, or a trick, or...

Something isn't right about him.  It's probably the paternalism.

So she wants to hear from his daughter.

"Asking the Force" isn't quite a high-enough-bandwidth channel for a conversation in Basic, but sure, the Daughter can send general impressions of answers to Kina's questions.

...What does she think of The Father?

What does she think of her brother?

What does she think of herself?

Is there somewhere she thinks Kina should look, for...anything she thinks Kina ought to know?

She likes her father, although she's a little frustrated at him. She definitely does not like her brother. Generally positive feeling regarding herself, although she gives off the impression that she's a bit confused by what the question is asking.

Kina should pay attention to the people that she cares about; think about what might have been hurting them, and try to fix that. Another feeling of frustration, as if she's having trouble answering the question.

Is there somewhere that would make it easier for her to do that?

She can try coming to Mortis?

...That feels like it's going to be dramatic.  Right now she's kind of not really feeling like adding more drama is going to help.

Is there something specific about what might have been hurting Kina's friends, that she wants to try and twenty-questions out?  Would that help?

"You're sure I can't tell her - "

"That would be interfering a little too much. Each of them is on their own path in the Force, and his is not ready to be shown."

Nope! Nothing to say!

...Well, thank you for the warning, nonetheless.  She'll...

...realize that she's not actually sure who she could consider herself friends with.  That's kind of sad, honestly.  Obi-wan?  Padmé?

...Though, really, if she thinks about the people she's dead sure she cares about...  ...It might just be her mom.  And there's the people she's helped, but that's not really in quite the same way...

...Is she on the right track, though?

Nooot-answering-the-question.

...well, that's definitely not a good sign.  Especially because of how it doesn't feel like this is something she doesn't know, and rather feels more like it's something she isn't being allowed to say.

...She'll keep her eyes, and her heart, open.

...And because she really does think she needs to know - if she tunnels out of the Temple network, do any of these reputed universities have any psychohistorical analyses of Sith lying around?

Yes, but most of them seem to have less information than the Jedi texts. The old Jedi Archives saying of "if an item does not appear in our records, it does not exist" is not literally true, but the Jedi actually do have more firsthand accounts of the Sith than anyone else - and of course, you could get a bad reputation if you had materials in your own archives from Sith-affiliated sources. No prestigious university would do something like that.

Unless their planet is under the sway of a political movement led by someone who, while not officially a Sith, seems to favor them a little more than the Jedi! Plenty of Separatist-controlled libraries have as much information on the Sith as Kina could want.

Why.  Is it always.  Politics!

And even the kriffing Jedi getting in on it!  Why!

Also weren't the Sith supposed to be dead for a thousand years.  What happened to ancient history being ancient history?

From bootleg recordings of Darth Revan's Sith Holocron:

The Force will change you. It will transform you. Some fear this change. The teachings of the Jedi are focused on fighting and controlling this transformation. That is why those who serve the light are limited in what they accomplish. True power can come only to those who embrace the transformation. There can be no compromise. Mercy, compassion, loyalty: all these things will prevent you from claiming what is rightfully yours. Those who follow the dark side must cast aside these conceits. Those who do not—those who try to walk the path of moderation—will fail, dragged down by their own weakness.

...And that is some absolute bantha poodoo.  Oh, not the bit about moderation - not, she thinks, even the transformation - but the bit about compassion.

It strikes her like a bolt from the blue, searingly, confidently, correct.  A Jedi, one who hews to the true calling of the Force...  They must love all, equally.  That the Jedi of today have forgotten that to love all you must first love is a tragedy of the highest order.

She opens a draft document.  Pastes in the quote.  Pens a title, humming thoughtfully.

There is No Compromise, There is Only Compassion: A Reflection Upon A Sith's Reflection of the Flaws of the Order

The Force will change you. It will transform you. Some fear this change. The teachings of the Jedi are focused on fighting and controlling this transformation. That is why those who serve the light are limited in what they accomplish. True power can come only to those who embrace the transformation. There can be no compromise.  [...]  Those who do not—those who try to walk the path of moderation—will fail, dragged down by their own weakness.

The Holocron of Darth Revan

I know that it is, already, pretty much a heresy to study Sith thought to improve the Jedi.  And yet, when this quote found me - I knew, in an instant, that Revan, as foolish as the Dark Side is, had hit upon a too-true flaw of the Order:

We have, time after time, compromised.  We have looked at what was right and chosen what was easy.

We have tried to moderate ourselves, level off our lights under a bushel.

I do not call for something so absurd as Armies of the Light.  War is the least compassionate thing one might do, and if there is one thing I and the Ruusaan Reforms agree upon, it is that the Jedi must not be weapons.  It is a shame that the Reforms could never have accomplished this goal.

 

If there is one thing I most stringently refuse to countenance, it is that the Order's ultimate subjugation to the Republic is at all a desirable thing for the Order, and for the Republic.  I call your attention to several disasters ordered by the Senate, but blamed upon the Order: Galidraan, where Death Watch terrorists manipulated the Order into exterminating the last bastion of organized pan-Mando'ade (tomyc'mando'ade) opposition to their philosophy - by utilizing a suborned planetary governor's petitions to the Senate.  Even with the increasingly-strident objections of the Knights and Masters on-site (cf. Dooku's Preliminary Report on Galidraan, Jedi Archives), the Council was effectively threatened into overruling them (Council Minutes, vol. mmcxvii, Jedi Archives).  [NOTE: This section needs more examples]

 

Note, then, what comes after.  Trace the careers of these Jedi as they are pressured to turn from the Force.  What do so many do?  They fall to the Dark.  And I know that many who read this essay are already thinking "Well, that's because there was a Sith in the Senate!"

The Sith masquerading as Sheev Palpatine is not, I regret to inform you, responsible for all the galaxy's ills.  Even when you look for times where we know where the relevant dark-side cults are - to the best of our ability to know, at least - and find that none are in the right place to have possibly influenced a particular Jedi, when a Jedi is overruled by a Republic government, the Dark Side, and suffering, builds ever more - often within that very Jedi!

Now, Jedi do police their own, but Force-sensitives who have taken up the Dark Side...

It is like an insidious drug.  It leaves you seemingly flush with energy and power, while demanding ever greater sacrifice to sustain it, draining from you like water into the sands of Tatooine if you neglect to feed its appetites.  You can feed it your health, you can feed it your sanity - or you can feed it lives.  We do not have proper etiology of the Dark Side - but those few sources who have managed to come back from Dark addiction and then documented it have described their experiences thusly.

And that the Republic can currently, completely legally, force this compromise to happen to the most well-known protectors of life in the galaxy...

That is very bad for the Republic.

The Jedi must not be chained from following the will of the Force, and actually protecting people, like we observed with the Naboo.

 

[Pt. 2: What is Love?: Why Compassion Must be Cultivated, not Instilled]

[Pt. 3: Failures of Ruusaan: "This weapon is your life", and other problems with lightsabers.]

[Pt. 4: This Little Light of Mine: An Activist Jedi Theology.]

...So where did the Jedi pick up their penchant for plasma cutters from, anyway?  Is that something she can read about?

There's debate among historians as to the exact timeline, but the predominant view is that the earliest weapon similar to a lightsaber was developed about 40,000 years ago by a species called the Rakata, more commonly known for inventing the hyperdrive (and immediately using it to conquer the galaxy). Technology at the time wasn't actually advanced enough to make lightsabers or hyperdrives using any standard methods; the Rakata allegedly used the dark side of the Force to power all of their inventions, and the "lightsaber" was essentially a handle for a crystal that only emitted a beam when one was actively pumping unsustainable amounts of Force energy into it.

Je'daii inventors developed mechanical lightsabers 16,000 years ago, but they barely ever worked outside a laboratory setting and required too much power to be portable, so they eventually faded into obscurity. It was actually members of the Sith Empire who created the first functional mechanical lightsabers millennia later, and by about 5,000 years ago, they had been adopted as the standard weapon of all Jedi warriors.

...

What the actual kark?