Star Wars – Recordings from the Holocron of Kira Keldav – The Paradox

My sister is the analytical one, not me. Sadly, she did hammer into me many lessons on the proper use of logic. Because of that, I now get this annoying sensation in the back of my mind whenever I get a great idea. This is the feeling that there is a flaw somewhere in my logic. Life was so much simpler in the days when I could just form an opinion and stick with it, despite the evidence. As she is fond of saying, “You’re not thinking things through, ignoring it isn’t going to make it go away”. So let’s look at it and hopefully resolve it so I can get back to staying alive another day.

While the Anti-Force theory I detailed earlier does wonders about explaining a wide variety of phenomena, it suffers a single fatal flaw. It is unable to explain itself, or more specifically, why no one in the last 21,000 years of the Republic has apparently thought of this. This either says the theory is incorrect, or that attempts to harness it have had a 100% failure rate.

If the Anti-Force turns out to be incorrect, then there should be records of failed experiments and abandoned research. While such research would probably be obscure, a dedicated hunt should reveal at least some record or location involved. Sadly, at that point, I am not sure where to go after that except to study old records and look for other hints.

However, if the Anti-Force proves to be correct, but intensely difficult to harness or control, then hope remains. The critical question at that point is what is stopping further research into the Anti-Force? It could be that attempts to achieve a breakthrough in potential are always fatal, attempts to harness the Anti-Force lead to a complete shutdown of potential, or something is killing experimenters before they can achieve success.

If attempting to force a breakthrough in the Anti-Force is fatal, then life is going to become very difficult. If it takes the form of stopping the heart, then that might be overcome, but if it takes the form of yet another explosion, then that will be difficult to fix. Now finding out the method of lethality before trying it myself is going to be a problem. Hopefully records exist somewhere that I can learn from prior attempts on what might have gone wrong.

If it results in a complete shutdown of all potential, then that will be disappointing. It would suggest then that the only way to use either the Force or Anti-Force is to become unbalanced. Plus, I would have thought, since the experimenters survive, the concept would be better recognized among the Jedi as something that exists but is devoid of practical purpose save to turn off potential in especially difficult cases. Since this is not the case to my knowledge, this suggests this idea is a deadend.

Now the idea that something is killing would be experimenters before they can achieve success is a conspiracy theory of the grandest scale. No organization could hope to kill everyone who shows the slightest interest in pursuing research into the Anti-Force. Twenty one millenia is far too long to have to maintain that sort of success rate across an entire galaxy. Now the idea that the Force itself may be actively preventing research into the Anti-Force is only plausible if you make certain assumptions. These assumptions would be: the Force is sentient, the Force is against the study of the Anti-Force, and the Force is willing to kill to prevent this.

I find all three of these hard to swallow on the grounds that the Jedi have, to my knowledge, not seen any sign of the Force being that active in galactic affairs. Nor is there any sign that the Force is that aware if at all. About the only real selling point in my view regarding this theory is the fact that it explains why people keep exploding or using massive weaponry only meters from me. So I consider this a deadend as well.

So we are back to the idea that trying to tap the Anti-Force is deadly. Well, if the Force is about tapping into the Life around us, then perhaps the Anti-Force is about tapping into the Death around us by feeding it personal life energies. This would certainly be lethal to anyone caught unaware of this when trying to tap into the Anti-Force. Those watching would only see that the experimenter dropped dead or worse with no real warning whatsoever. It wouldn’t be hard to imagine then that no further research has been conducted, few are that suicidal.

If this is the case, then exploring the Anti-Force may require extreme caution at first. It may work best to capture an area or creature strong in the Anti-Force first and see what makes it different from normal and Force sensitive creatures. I suspect the critical difference may end up being having a larger than normal personal life force to draw upon, although nothing is certain without more information.

I suppose a distinct possibility I should keep in mind is that some experiments may have been “successful” in tapping into the Anti-Force. All of those holos of vampires and other Force draining monstrosities may very well have a basis in fact deep in history. Now as to whether those things really exist or if they are entirely fictional remains to be seen, but following up on any rumors would be one way to look further into what is the Force and how do I keep from being corrupted by it.

There, my sister would be satisfied, I reviewed the potential flaw in my logic and came up with an argument that continues the original theme while keeping an eye on specific problems that might occur. I am not used to thinking in this way. It makes my head hurt almost as much as the lessons on the Jedi Code I am now being subjected to every free moment I have. It seems to be one of the constants in my life having women sit there preaching at me on what I am doing wrong.