Would the Force even WORK in our galaxy?

[KirkSkyWalker]

Obi-wan said that the Force binds the galaxy together-- not the universe.
So if the Force was local to their galaxy, then it would be useless in ours; and its users would be rather powerless if they tried it here.

He also said that it's an energy-field created by all living things; this would indicate that it's a bio-electric field like the kind tapped in The Matrix by the machines, and humans were just kept for their energy. But without midichlorians to combine it, then it wouldn't have any way for the Force-users to channel it in order to use their freaky Sith-powers.

Therefore if they tried to fight the Federation, they'd have to rely on their technology only-- no cheating.

[The Dude]

Thats just a cheap cop out, we generally assume that everything works the same so that forces get what they typically get and the Jedi aren't just monks standing off to the side with sliced off arms.

[Mike DiCenso]

Maybe, maybe not. The midiclorians might still allow the Force to work, if a Force user has enough of them when they go outside to the Milky Way or any other galaxy. The Force still becomes an issue one way or the other since those going on a counter invasion or other missions in the SW galaxy, have to contend with it there. Of course, by the time of ANH, there aren't that may Force user offically running around, so it's not like it is that big a factor for most battles.
-Mike

[The Dude]

One of the things I find most amusing about the force and VS scenarios is that Jedi and Sith are so rare that most people would never meet one. By ANH theres four users active (probably more in the EU but fuck that shit), yet it always becomes a battle of the ubermensch. The Emperor will take to the field of battle personally and bitch slap the enemy single handedly.

Yeah, why does he have an army again. *roll*

[KirkSkyWalker]

Thats just a cheap cop out, we generally assume that everything works the same so that forces get what they typically get and the Jedi aren't just monks standing off to the side with sliced off arms.

That's like saying Superman would have the same powers on Krypton that he had on Earth. It would be one thing if the power came from the Jedi, but in this case it would be just like Superman on Krypton: i.e. NO POWERS, since just like Superman's power doesn't come from himself but from Earth's yellow sun, the Jedi's power doesn't travel with them but comes from the Force, which is in their own galaxy but not necessarily in ours.

The Force might be unique to the SW galaxy, or it might need a lot more life-forms than our galaxy has in order to give any real power, or maybe they need a lot of midichlorians etc.

Since our galaxy doesn't have a lot of inhabited planets to create the bio-energy, or ANY midichlorians to channel it (other than those in the Jedi/Sith themelves), then there might not be that much of Force-type energy for them to use.

This could also be why the entire SW galaxy was inhabited, but they can don't travel to an OTHER galaxies even though theyre visibly close by like at the end of Ep.V.

[Mike DiCenso]

One of the things I find most amusing about the force and VS scenarios is that Jedi and Sith are so rare that most people would never meet one. By ANH theres four users active (probably more in the EU but fuck that shit), yet it always becomes a battle of the ubermensch. The Emperor will take to the field of battle personally and bitch slap the enemy single handedly.

Yeah, why does he have an army again. *roll*

The Emperor would not go directly into battle, though we have seen on occasion Vader do so. And as AoTC and ANH showed, Jedi, never mind Sith, are not immune to being overwhelmed by superior numbers or a good old fashioned sneak attack by non-Force users.
-Mike

[KirkSkyWalker]

One of the things I find most amusing about the force and VS scenarios is that Jedi and Sith are so rare that most people would never meet one. By ANH theres four users active (probably more in the EU but fuck that shit), yet it always becomes a battle of the ubermensch. The Emperor will take to the field of battle personally and bitch slap the enemy single handedly.

Yeah, why does he have an army again. *roll*

The Emperor would not go directly into battle, though we have on occasion Vader do so. And as AoTC and ANH showed, Jedi, never mind Sith, are not immune to being overwhelmed by superior numbers or a good old fashioned sneak attack by non-Force users.
-Mike

But Palpatine the Sith-lord was behind all that, basically building the Jedi's trust in the clones in order to set them up for it; and he was only able to do so because he used the Dark Side as a cloak for his actions in order to keep the Jedi from sensing it.

As as Mace Windu at the Jedi council said, they were no longer able to read the Force; but Yoda wouldn't let them tell the Senate because he was afraid it would make things worse.

So the Force's man power seems to be an overall ability to sense what's goign on in the greater scheme of things, not just the kung-fu and mind-trick stuff.

If the Force didn't work in our galaxy, then that would change things significantly-- particularly considering that the pro-Wars people tend to depend on Force-powers completely, thinking it's neato super-cool.

[Praeothmin]

Well, like Mike and The Dude said, seeing as how there are very, very few Force users in the Galaxy (Jedi or Sith) by the time of ANH, then it's a moot point.
Heck, even by AotC, there were only 10 000 Jedi in a Galaxy of hundreds of thousands of systems, so even at that time, the odds of meeting a Jedi or any Force user were astronomically thin...

[KirkSkyWalker]

Well, like Mike and The Dude said, seeing as how there are very, very few Force users in the Galaxy (Jedi or Sith) by the time of ANH, then it's a moot point.
Heck, even by AotC, there were only 10 000 Jedi in a Galaxy of hundreds of thousands of systems, so even at that time, the odds of meeting a Jedi or any Force user were astronomically thin...

Assuming random chance. The Force defies probability, however, since Force-users are able to sense things anywhere that the Force exists; and so, 10,000 of them were able to keep order in the Old Republic for thousands of years.

And if only two of them were Sith-lords, meanwhile, then, those odds would rise to 100% in a war between the Federation and the Empire. It wouldn't take much for Palpatine to use the Dark Side in order to influence a lot of anti-Federation groups in our galaxy (like the Romulans, Breen, Cardassians, Founder etc), rallying them to his cause; and what if he could wave his hand to one of them and say "Resistance is not futile?" YIKES!

Two Sith-lords were able to conquer and rule an entire galaxy, despite the Jedi; so since we would have no Force-users opposing them, then they might be able to do it even more easily. However they were only able to do it by using the Force, so that makes this a very relevant issue-- the most relevant of all, in fact, since it spells the difference betwen the Sith being able to operate in our galaxy directly, and having to run the entire thing from their own galaxy a zillion light-years away.

[Praeothmin]

The Jedi kept order in a Republic that accepted slavery, criminal empires, and basically only got involved when the Republic itself, not it's members, were in danger.
Their intervention on Naboo shows it clearly:
They were there at the behest of the Council because the Council deemed what was happening important to their goals.
Jedi did not engage in peace keeping by themselves, and did not police the entire Republic.
Many crimes were left unanswered, and many criminals unpunished.
They did not dether the Trade Federation, even though they obviously know about Jedi and fear them.
The Jedi are nothing more then the Republic's Preatorian guard, their "goto" forces, and were not, in any way, keepers of anything except the Republic's own corrupt ways...

And their senses were NOT that develloped, only powerful Masters like Yoda could even sense grand events on a Galactic scale...

Just the way Anakin first reacted to Qui-Gon shows that people could spend an entire lifetime without ever seeing a Jedi or any Force user for that matter.
Even though they know they exist, they still tell stories about them, such as "its impossible to kill a Jedi"...

So chance does indeed exist.

and Palpatine first took complete control of the Galaxy without even using his Force powers.
He was already Grand Chancellor before his first Force power displays....

[KirkSkyWalker]

The Jedi kept order in a Republic that accepted slavery, criminal empires, and basically only got involved when the Republic itself, not it's members, were in danger.

To be fair, the Republic didn't "accept" these things: it simply didn't force (npi) its domestic policy on non-member planets. Neither did the Federation; both simply respected planetary sovereignty and autonomy, and didn't try to be policeman of the galaxy. Even the Organians didn't want to intervene between the Klingons and Federation, they were just protecting both sides from making a fatal mistake which would have cost millions of lives.

Their intervention on Naboo shows it clearly:
They were there at the behest of the Council because the Council deemed what was happening important to their goals.
Jedi did not engage in peace keeping by themselves, and did not police the entire Republic.

Sure they did; the Trade-Federation blockade of Naboo was legal, and therefore not a Jedi matter. But once the Trade Federation tried killing the Jedi on Palpatine's order, things changed.

The Jedi are nothing more then the Republic's Preatorian guard, their "goto" forces, and were not, in any way, keepers of anything except the Republic's own corrupt ways...

The point is that they were still able to do it with such a small number, due to their Force-abilities; they kept the peace so well that they didn't need an army until the Sith undermined it using the Dark Side.

And their senses were NOT that develloped, only powerful Masters like Yoda could even sense grand events on a Galactic scale...

The fact is that the Council could, as could the Sith.

and Palpatine first took complete control of the Galaxy without even using his Force powers.He was already Grand Chancellor before his first Force power displays....

What about using the Dark Side to shield his actions from the Council? He did that from square 1. And don't forget Darth Maul, and Darth Tyrannus (aka Count Dooku), who definitely used Sith-powers. Likewise, they used their Sith-powers of mind-influence as well as intimidation; they had ALL the Jedi-powers, in addition to Sith-powers.

[Praeothmin]

To be fair, the Republic didn't "accept" these things: it simply didn't force (npi) its domestic policy on non-member planets. Neither did the Federation; both simply respected planetary sovereignty and autonomy, and didn't try to be policeman of the galaxy.

Uh, no!
If you don't accept things like slaves and corruption, then you won't accept members who believe in them.
The Federation did not, as far as I know, accept any society in their midst that had slaves, or that were part of an intergalactic crime organization...

Sure they did, the blockade was legal.

So they said, but the Naboo sure didn't share their opinion, now did they?
Had they had the military might to do so, they would have kicked the Trade Federation from Naboo's borders, it is easily evident watching the movie.
How can blockading a sovereign nation member of the Republic be legal?
They never provided any proof of this "lagality", and the fact that the Republic sent Jedi to "negociate" is proof that this "legal blockade" was anything but...

What about using the Dark Side to shield his actions from the Council? He did that from square 1. And don't forget Darth Maul, and Darth Tyrannus (Count Dooku).

What got him to power was his backstage manipulations.
The Dark side usage only affected the Jedi's Force vision.
But you're right, he did use them even if discreetly...

[KirkSkyWalker]

To be fair, the Republic didn't "accept" these things: it simply didn't force (npi) its domestic policy on non-member planets. Neither did the Federation; both simply respected planetary sovereignty and autonomy, and didn't try to be policeman of the galaxy.

Uh, no!
If you don't accept things like slaves and corruption, then you won't accept members who believe in them.
The Federation did not, as far as I know, accept any society in their midst that had slaves, or that were part of an intergalactic crime organization...

Neither did the Republic, AFAIK. Tatooine wasn't part of the Republic, it was in Hutt space.

Sure they did, the blockade was legal.

So they said, but the Naboo sure didn't share their opinion, now did they?
Had they had the military might to do so, they would have kicked the Trade Federation from Naboo's borders, it is easily evident watching the movie.

The point is that Palpatine was disguising the matter as a civil dispute, via using the Dark Side in order to mount an imperial coup via causing civil unrest that the normal Senate couldn't handle, and claiming that the Senate and Jedi were unable to keep the peace; but in reality the did it just fine, when he wasn't using the Dark Side against them.
Originally, the Sith operated fairly openly, but now he was secretly plotting their revenge-- as Darth Maul implied when he said "at last we will have our revenge?", with "our" meaning the Sith.

If the only things determining war and peace is Force-users, then that's a very significant factor wouldn't you say?

What about using the Dark Side to shield his actions from the Council? He did that from square 1. And don't forget Darth Maul, and Darth Tyrannus (Count Dooku).

What got him to power was his backstage manipulations.
The Dark side usage only affected the Jedi's Force vision.

"Only?" That's the whole issue we're discussing here: i.e. the Jedi Council was able to keep peace by using the Force to sense disorder in the galaxy, and the Dark Side is the only thing which stopped them. In contrast, the other Sith-powers like Force-lightning and jumping around sword-fighting like the Errol Flynn and Jackie Chan with a Tesla-Coil are fairly mundane.

[Praeothmin]

Neither did the Republic, AFAIK. Tatooine wasn't part of the Republic, it was in Hutt space.

Woops... He he, you're right...


You know what, the more I think about it, the more I agree with you.
Fact 1: The Republic didn't have its own amry, relying instead on local police forces;
Fact 2: When local Forces were insufficient, they sent in Jedi;
Fact 3: Palpatine's manipulations made the Trade Federation rebel against the Republic by promising them the Republic's inefficiency would keep them from acting, but they got very afraid when they saw the Jedi and panicked...

Still, they are not the ultimate force as we saw in RotS, when their own troops killed them easily enough, or even in TCW, where we see the limits of their powers.
I think the Jedi's efficiency in keeping the peace throughout the Galaxy owes as much to their actual prowess as it does to their inlfated reputation...

[KirkSkyWalker]

Neither did the Republic, AFAIK. Tatooine wasn't part of the Republic, it was in Hutt space.

Woops... He he, you're right...


You know what, the more I think about it, the more I agree with you.
Fact 1: The Republic didn't have its own amry, relying instead on local police forces;
Fact 2: When local Forces were insufficient, they sent in Jedi;
Fact 3: Palpatine's manipulations made the Trade Federation rebel against the Republic by promising them the Republic's inefficiency would keep them from acting, but they got very afraid when they saw the Jedi and panicked...

Still, they are not the ultimate force as we saw in RotS, when their own troops killed them easily enough, or even in TCW, where we see the limits of their powers.
I think the Jedi's efficiency in keeping the peace throughout the Galaxy owes as much to their actual prowess as it does to their inlfated reputation...

First of all, the clones were about a million Jango Fett's, against 10,000 Jedi; and as we saw, a single Jango Fett was a match even for Jedi like Obi-wan and Mace Windu (who only beat Jango because of the surprise-element after being run over by the rhino-thing-- and that only happened because he tried to grab Mace Windu's lightsaber off the ground, out of a foolish risk to try to kill Windu with his own lightsaber as a trophy-kill).

Likewise, the clones were only able to kill the Jedi because Palpatine used the Dark Side to cloud their vision, and set them up by gaining their trust of the clones: we saw, for example, that Obi-Wan was good friends with Commander Cody, and trusted him implicitly; however Cody had no problem turning on Obi-wan, being genetically altered to obey any command-- and taught by Palpatine that "Order 66" meant that the Jedi had turned against the Empire. Naturally, Palpatine would have told them that this was just an "emergency measure" to be used in case the Jedi turned and tried to mount a take-over, and would need to be killed quickly; after all, that's how all tyrants do it, including Hitler with the Weimar Constitution, Lincoln with his Grand Army of the Republic etc..

Here, only Yoda had the force-sensitivity to sense that the other Jedi were being killed, and so was able to know that the clones had turned against them; and for this reason, he was just barely able to kill just two clones immediately before they would have killed him-- and again, the Jedi were outnumbered by the clones by about 100:1, so even Yoda barely escaped. Obi-wan likewise was completely fooled, and only got away at the last second.

Without Palpatine using the Dark Side to cover his actions and otherwise set up the trap (for which the droid-army was just bait), then the Jedi Council would have easily sensed it IMHO.