...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?

She has so many questions.  Like: Karking why!

"...I have a large number of questions about how and why we use lightsabers if they are in fact tools invented by the Dark Side."

One of the less concerning things she could have said, he'll take it. "Dark side users having made the first lightsabers doesn't mean modern sabers are connected to the dark side. We don't want Sith to just be able to come up to us and cut us in half because we don't have our own weapons. Besides, natural crystals usually have a closer connection to the light side than the artificial ones the Sith made."

"...Is that all there is to it, then?  No - relevant theology?"

"I wouldn't call it theology, and - lightsabers aren't something that can only be used by one side. Lightsabers don't take contr- typical lightsabers that haven't been imbued with very specific dark side artificing don't take control of their wielders."

"...I do remember the, uh, booby-trapped one, yes."

"I guess the other question is - why did the Jedi order of the day, decide to fight fire with fire, when it came to vulnerability to being cut in half?"

"What do you even mean? I know you can shoot past lightsabers sometimes, but you still need something to block oncoming attacks - oh on that topic, yes, Otoh Gunga's moving through on the deal with the new shields conditional no unauthorized distribution beyond the Order for at least twenty standard years. Which weren't around back then, and anyway, it's useful to have a weapon that works for offense and defense."

She nods.  "I do think I have ideas on that front.  And...Hmm.  On the one hand, of course it is.

"On the other hand, the purpose of a blade is to cut.  And yet the Force is not a weapon.  It's the thing that brings us all together.

"Why is the iconic symbol of the Jedi a naked blade?  What are we cutting, Master Windu - what are we cutting and why?  It - is disconcerting, to me.  Now that the galaxy isn't engulfed in a sandstorm, I - I look at what the Order has done, and what the Republic has done to the Order, and I find myself worried that any collection of mortal beings is capable of holding the det-codes for organized Light-wielding Force-use.

"That's not to say that -"

She pauses.  Tears herself from whatever thought she's having, because it's just become a wordless inchoate tangle that comes out in a strangled noise.  Aggressively messes with her hair.

"Regardless of whatever I was just saying, which was some - half-formed, messy, thing - I do think that it is good for the Republic to exist.  I just don't...

"Even with the Iblis-Antilles Chancellorship, I feel like the Order cannot pursue the Force with the devotion the task deserves, if it is also trying to serve Masters -" and from the twist Kina puts on the word, Windu can be quite sure that Kina means the slaving kind - "that will, we all know, eventually find their way back into the halls of power, because good people don't want to have such things.

"I guess the thing I'm trying to say is that -

"There was a comment General Syndulla made, when we were kicking over Jabba.  And it's still haunting me.

"Because when I became a Jedi, I thought I was free.

"And I'm not sure if I am, anymore.

"And..."

...She pauses.  Sits herself in a meditative position, hands clasped together, knuckles white, eyes closed, breathing heavy but slow.

"Most of this conversation has just been me opening my mouth and words falling out that I am just as surprised as you to hear.  This bit is quite possibly more premeditated.

"Albeit, clearly not premeditated enough, because something about the idea of casually admitting that a lot of what sparked this musing had been premised firstly upon the question of whether Light Sith could exist as much as Dark Jedi do, secondly upon a scrap of Force-philosophic tripe allegedly uttered by Darth Revan, and thirdly upon the fact that something about this 'Father' figure is just rubbing me raw the more I think about what he seems to stand for -

"Well, it's a stupid decision, but I've made it, so if you think I've gone nuts please make it quick.  But I think that...to distil what little truth I'm sure of -

"There is a way in which the Jedi Order has forgotten the foundation of compassion that feats of Light require because it doesn't want to think about love.  Because it euphemizes the cloying, suffocating ownership urge as a simple 'attachment'.  Because it says fear is of the Dark side but cannot seem to say that courage is of the Light.  Because - we sit here, in our grand Temple, while there is still suffering beneath our very feet, blind to what we don't allow ourselves to see.

"And I feel like I'm falling into that trap with you and I don't know how to fix it!

"...I don't think that's - all that there is, though, that I should mention.

"I tried to contact the other Force entity, not the Dark one, not the so-called Father.  And there was something she wasn't being allowed to warn me of, and I don't know why but it - it's grating like a loose repulsor coil in my ears that there's something that's going to go wrong.

"Though I suppose that's more an internal feeling than an external one.  All I have that's sure is that she said something like 'pay attention to the people you care about, figure out what's hurting them, and try to fix that', but that still means that people are getting hurt!"

...The room stops shaking.

"...I don't like it.  When people get hurt.  But I'm not sure how to stop that.  Because I can't be everywhere at once, or...

"Or trust, I suppose, that people I don't know will do the - right, good - no...the good thing, more than the right one.  Whatever that means.

"I might trust a certain Separatist leader about doing a thing right, to pick an intentionally controversial example, but I don't think I can ever trust him to be doing the exact same thing he might do right, to be done goodly.

"And that's..."

She trails off, mid-sentence, as something hits her.

"Oh.

"I'm afraid."

It looks like an epiphany.  It looks like defiance of suffering and all its works.  It looks like Kina's guttering, drawn-inward Force presence flaring with renewed brightness.

"Kriff that.  You won't take me like that, you karking piece of bantha dung.  I banish you, I cast you out, may the sands and suns scour you clean from memory and time!  Begone from me, for there is nothing you have that I desire!"

She allows herself a small, relieved laugh.  "I suppose if this 'being a Jedi' thing falls through somehow, I might have a career as an actress; my apologies for the entirely necessary dramatics, nonetheless.  It...  Helps.  And, hey, there's technically a real person I'm shouting at, if the Father is to be believed!

"...Pursuant to that whole 'Oh hey I just noticed I'm terrified' thing, Iiiiiiiiiii, am gonna go ask Yoda a philosophical question real quick!  I need to go get some surprisingly enigmatic wisdom!"  She seems - surprisingly peppy, really, as she bolts off.  "Be right back!  Eventually!"

And when she finds Master Yoda, and makes it through the required pleasantries, she has a question for him: "How is it, Master Yoda, that one overcomes one's fears of fear itself?"

(She hasn't run the whole way there, but there's still a certain dishevelment to her that shows that she really hasn't stopped buzzing for a second since the question hit her, despite the effort it took to hold on to her mental state.)

"Ah... the strongest fear of all, that can be."

"Powerful is a deadly prophecy that fulfills itself, and yet so is the other side. If you are afraid because you believe you will be afraid, then so can you be at peace if you believe you will be at peace."

"...when you put it that way, it's pretty obvious, isn't it.  Thank you.  I needed to hear that advice.  Though the problem is, as always, in the implementation details.

"...While I'm here, though, I have a bit of a brain-teaser I wish to pose to you: If there is such a thing as a Dark Jedi, is there a reason there ought not be something like a Light Sith?"