Emotional state vs. DNA evolution in SW: ROTJ

March 23, 2009 9:36 PM

Star Wars Filter: Does the Emperor not foreseeing that Darth Vader would kill him mean that all Jedi have lost this force ability and that midichlorians leave the body after death and have evolved as they drifted with innumerable species by finding an athletic host who would benefit from incredible power?
posted by parmanparman to grab bag (40 answers total)

Bonus Question: is Highlander roughly based on this premise?
posted by parmanparman at 9:37 PM on March 23, 2009

No, because midichlorians weren't invented back then.
posted by turgid dahlia at 9:41 PM on March 23, 2009 [9 favorites]

I can't even believe that I'm about to enter into this discussion, but since there's a long history of the Sith "Rule of Two", with the implied continual murdering of the master by the student so that the student can "graduate," I'd say that it's par for the course that the Emperor couldn't forsee the murder happening. On the other hand, not to expect it seems a little thick. It's pretty much a paradox of the Sith belief system to embrace total selfishness and then create a system by which you must train someone who will want to murder you to take their place.
posted by Bookhouse at 9:41 PM on March 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

See Also: No one in the Jedi council noticing that the Emperor is a Sith Lord.
posted by niles at 9:43 PM on March 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

I vote for emotional denial. Addicts hang on to their coping system despite its harmful effects. Riding it out on your anger is a sure way to get what's coming to you. You'd have to be in denial not to think that this way of going about things wasn't going to be biting you in the ass.
posted by Ironmouth at 9:50 PM on March 23, 2009

Niles, where do you land on this, that could be ecological if you accept the DNA premise. Unless! Here's a third hypothesis that is beyond the movie: that Midichlorians themselves are not heterogeneous and have as each force-held body carries an individual swarm of them that evolve differently but that Midichlorians have instead created a kill-switch which removes the swarm from the defensive/offensive mode they evolved into and lays out a prime-directive that has evolved to chime in with: Remember, the host dies and we are still able to live. I find this odd because it involves the premise of Scientology.
posted by parmanparman at 9:51 PM on March 23, 2009

Proof that everything, even magic, is fallible? That the dark side has a down side? That someone didn't titrate their dose quite so well?
posted by gjc at 9:56 PM on March 23, 2009

What if the sith student who is powerful enough to defeat their sith master... is able to mask their master's ability to see the future?

After all, the master forsees the future as 'oh, that lackey's going to be a lackey forever until I retire and leave everything to them' whereas the lacky gets powerful enough to mess around with their boss's premonition abilities.

Besides, Darth Vader decided pretty much at the last moment to throw Palpantine down the shaft. The master probably needs a little lead-time; it's not like they know everything as it happens. Probably need to do a little sitting around and meditating or something to see the future.

This is assuming that premonitionary powers are based on free-will-what's-going-to-happen rather than "fate."
posted by porpoise at 10:05 PM on March 23, 2009

It's pretty much a paradox of the Sith belief system to embrace total selfishness and then create a system by which you must train someone who will want to murder you to take their place.

I imagine the master killed the apprentice more often than not, just as in the case of Palpatine/Darth Sidious allowing Count Dooku/Darth Tyranus to die at the hands of young Anakin.
posted by grouse at 10:13 PM on March 23, 2009

What if the sith student who is powerful enough to defeat their sith master... is able to mask their master's ability to see the future?

Vader basically does this when the Emperor says that Skywalker should be killed and Vader suggests that they should turn him.
posted by Ironmouth at 10:13 PM on March 23, 2009

In "Return of the Jedi" it seemed like the Emperor was actually cool with being killed if Luke would take over for him. He pretty much had him brought to his place just for that purpose.

I would have to guess that eventually they get old and want to "retire," so as long as their is a suitable successor getting killed is cool with them. Also, if he's like the good Jedi, he gets to live on as a ghost anyway.

(no comment on the mitochlorine crap as I don't acknowledge those films as part of the story, and it's pretty clear that aspect was shoehorned into the story after the fact, and not well).
posted by drjimmy11 at 10:18 PM on March 23, 2009

This is assuming that premonitionary powers are based on free-will-what's-going-to-happen rather than "fate."

Vader does talk about "destiny" rather a lot.

Also, we have an example in the canon videogame Force Unleashed of an earlier Vader-baked murder plot on the emperor. So, it's not like Vader's eventual destruction of Palpatine is the only example of an intent to kill.

I'd say that a lackey is going to learn how to cloud his thoughts from his master pretty quickly simply out of day-to-day self-preservation. So, that prevents the master from simply reading a murder plot out of the lackey's head.

In addition, the Jedi have routinely copped out saying that the future was hazy or some other Magic 8-Ball bullshit. So, perhaps Vader killing Palpatine was lost amongst all the other choices and actions people were undertaking throughout that final decisive battle. Perhaps he'd been prognosticating and meditating over the Battle of Endor instead of his own confrontation with Skywalker, secure in his prideful knowledge that Skywalker as a prisoner represented no threat to his badass lightning skillz.

My sister's answer: "It's the helmet."
posted by Netzapper at 10:20 PM on March 23, 2009 [3 favorites]

Dr. Jimmy: I appreciate what you said about the newer films not being considered by you as part of the canon. I often find it almost a religious thing with fans. Not like in the way that Evangelicals are tied to Conservatism, but more like how the Samaritans worship what most consider an earlier form of Judaism.
posted by parmanparman at 10:24 PM on March 23, 2009

I imagine the master killed the apprentice more often than not, just as in the case of Palpatine/Darth Sidious allowing Count Dooku/Darth Tyranus to die at the hands of young Anakin.

Also remember that Darth Maul was simply killed by Jedi. I would imagine the apprentice attrition rate is pretty high, so it's a bit hard for a Sith Master to know which apprentice is going to live long enough to become an actual threat.

And at bottom, there's probably a seriously Darwinian attitude among Sith: Being powerful is all there is, and if someone more powerful than you manages to come along, then that's that. And the only way to determine that they're more powerful than you is to kill you, at which point it doesn't matter.

I'm reminded of the scene in Dune where Baron Harkonnen, after a failed assassination attempt by Feyd Rautha, points out that he's still got some tricks left, and is still useful. A Sith Master probably lives with and continually foils plots on his life by whomever is his current apprentice. In that atmosphere, the one that actually gets you might be quite a surprise. Certainly the Emperor looked a bit shocked when Vader picked him up.

Yes, I'm speaking of this in the present, factual tense. So?
posted by fatbird at 11:23 PM on March 23, 2009

Perhaps the skills of foretelling the future is something akin to being able to tell the most probable future amongst many different possibilities? Sooner or later your opponent will lay down a royal flush to your straight flush
posted by edgeways at 11:56 PM on March 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

I think it is part of the risks of the job: you are the Sith Lord and you want an apprentice as strong and as dark as possible.

Of course the pupils they dont have the capabilities to overthrow their masters in the beginning. But when the dark side is strong in them, stronger than the master's their thirst for power make them after the ultimate power: the sith lord.

The sith lord knows this can happen at any time and when it happens - it means it was time for it to happen and that they selected/trained the best candidate to become the new sith lord.

No matter in foreseeing or not, just matters if they are strong enough to beat their pupils or be beaten. If you are in the Force business, when somebody overpowers you you're usually dead.
posted by madeinitaly at 12:22 AM on March 24, 2009

I'm sorry, but this question does not seem to make any sense and, frankly, I don't see the point in forcing the movie to conform to some lay notion of microbial evolution.

Anyway,

In The Phantom Menace, Qui-Gon Jinn tests Anakin Skywalker's midichlorian count using what appears to be a standard piece of equipment, and it is made clear that the Jedi are active recruiters of the Force-sensitive. It is suggested that recruitment typically occurs during a recruit's formative years, and for humans this is yyounger than nine.

It is also made clear that the Jedi are a monastic order, and though Lucas has stated that they are not necessarily celibate, it is heavily suggested in The Clone Wars that attachment is discouraged. Attack of the Clones indicates that romantic attachments are particularly discouraged (and Anakin is forced to marry in secret.)

Thus, it should be clear that the Jedi cannot organize a non-technological breeding program. They might have a genetics program similar to but less advanced than the clone breeding system on Kamino, but this is unlikely*. Now, that we see great species-level diversity in the movies suggests either the Jedi are not running a breeding program or that the Jedi have aggressive institutional support for species-level non-discrimination (likely resulting in skew that could be subject to the same criticisms many conservatives have for American opportunity programs for traditionally underrepresented minorities.) The former is more likely.

(*Expanded universe materials suggest that the Force-sensitive can be cloned but the result are always mentally unstable.)

Complicating this matter is what appears to be a hereditary transmission of Force-sensitivity from Anakin Skywalker to Luke Skywalker; however, despite the abundance of female Jedi, Leia Organa is never shown to have any Force-sensitivity in the non-Extended universe.

With this in mind, we can generally assume that midichlorians are not sexually transmitted, and I think the above makes it clear that they are also probably not transmitted chromosomally or through any other xenobiological sexual or asexual genetic transfer mechanism.

Additionally, Anakin Skywalker's parthenogenetic (or hermaphroditic) birth in combination with his geographic isolation on the backwaters of Tatooine prior to his contact with Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi* suggest the pathogenesis of his particularly impressive Force-sensitivity follows neither a genetic nor physical transmission mechanism. Furthermore, that Jinn, despite lacking the most basic tools to repair his ship, is able to make a conclusive field assessment of Skywalker's Force-sensitivity strongly suggests that Jedi recruitment operates non-epidemiologically, corroborating this assessment.

(*Skywalker's power is established prior to his contact with the two Jedi, making infection by Kenobi or Jinn an unlikely scenario.)

Simply, we cannot assume the pathogenesis of Force-sensitivity operates according to any known mechanism. This is the answer to your question.


However, I would like to bring up some additional issues. First, the precognitive abilities of the Jedi are never established to be complete. That Palpatine does not foresee Darth Vader-né-Skywalker's killing him in such matter does not suggest any abnormality in the Force or Palpatine's Force-sensitivty. Second, Palpatine is established as Force-sensitive contemporaneously with all other known Jedi in the non-Extended universe, so his failure to predict treachery at the hands of Vader should not imply any “loss” of ability. Lastly, there is never a mention of midichlorian loss or weakness in Force-sensitivity by any known mechanism. Indeed, the Jedi Yoda demonstrates complete aptitude even at an age advanced such that he has become weakened physically.

But most importantly, the emperor does not fail to see his overthrow by Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. In fact, while he does seem to fail to predict being killed by Vader, but he accepts that Luke Skywalker might “strike [him] down with all of [Skywalker's] hatred.”

Consider that the whole point of the end of Return of the Jedi is Anakin Skywalker's redemption, but whether his fate is redemption or total damnation, the result may be identical: Vader or Skywalker killing Palpatine. Yet what marks his redemption, what is of greatest importance to the story, is that Vader kills Palpatine not out of hatred but out of love for his son. This is what Palpatine does not and cannot predict.
posted by Sangermaine at 12:58 AM on March 24, 2009 [21 favorites]

Jedi's light or dark, can't see the future. It's more about sensing the now. The emperor is too arrogant to think anybody would ever be able to kill him, and thinks he has complete control of Darth Vader by this point.
posted by w0mbat at 2:33 AM on March 24, 2009

SangermaineL But how can we differentiate the act from genetic self interest? Vader only acts when he is already badly hurt/near death and is effectively screwed. If he doesn't kill the emperor the emperor will certainly kill him. His best result at that stage is to save his son.
posted by biffa at 2:58 AM on March 24, 2009

It's pretty much a paradox of the Sith belief system

There is no paradox here. It's quite straightforward. George Lucas is a hack.
posted by KokuRyu at 4:24 AM on March 24, 2009 [2 favorites]

So is it apostasy to consider the Sith a check on the growth of Force-sensitive beings? Their major role seems to be the killing of other Force-sensitives, be they Sith masters/apprentices or other Jedi. The very nature of the power makes then burn much brighter, much faster than your normal Jedi, so that they either burn themselves out or get whacked pretty quickly.

I'm definitely apostate when it comes to a split in Sith and Dark Jedi. To me, Sith are the master/apprentice duos with their own order and history, while Dark Jedi are just those Jedi who've said nuts to the Order and headed off to do their own thing. Maul would fall under the former, Dooku the latter. Were there no Sidious around, Dooku would have still strayed and done his thing with the Trade Federation, but there'd be no Sidious waiting to take advantage of him and manipulate him into an even bigger scheme. That's why Dooku never took on his own apprentice, instead aping the Sith tradition by employing General Grievous in the role.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 4:33 AM on March 24, 2009

Does the Emperor not foreseeing that Darth Vader would kill him mean that all Jedi have lost this force ability

No, it just means that while the Emperor was all "Got off my lawn, you damn rebels," he forgot that blood is thicker than water.

and that midichlorians leave the body after death

Did you miss the sparkly, glowly people who don't stay dead? Seems like the Force is bound to a person's soul.

and have evolved as they drifted with innumerable species by finding an athletic host who would benefit from incredible power?

What? "finding an athletic host"? Do you think the midichlorians are just hanging out by the boardwalk, checking out the bodies that go until they find some nice young thing and then are like "Yo yo, I gots to get into that shit" and other midi's be like "I dunno yo, that looks like too much athletic host for you, remember that Geonosian you thought was so fine, it fucked your shit up for weeks, think about it homes, thinkaboutit."

The canon seems to be that people are born with the Force or not. There's no midi's out searching for hosts, no grand plan, it's all random, no pattern save what we imagine after staring at it for too long. No meaning save what we choose to impose. This hacked together mythology is shaped by vague plot devices. It is not midicholorians who kills good movie franchises. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that dreams up Jar Jar Binks. It’s Lucas. Only Lucas.

Here's a third hypothesis that is beyond the movie: that Midichlorians themselves are not heterogeneous and have as each force-held body carries an individual swarm of them that evolve differently but that Midichlorians have instead created a kill-switch which removes the swarm from the defensive/offensive mode they evolved into and lays out a prime-directive that has evolved to chime in with: Remember, the host dies and we are still able to live.

You do realize that Lucas is a bit of hack, right?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:32 AM on March 24, 2009 [1 favorite]

First off:

Jedi's light or dark, can't see the future.

The plural is Jedi.

Disregarding that RoTJ is the least consistent and most poorly written of the trilogy (and discounting midichlorians altogether), we can glean the answer to your question from just a few lines that Master Yoda speaks in the second movie (and disprove the above quote).

Through the Force, things you will see… other places, the future, the past… old friends long gone.

So Jedi can see the future. We knew that already.

Second:

Difficult to see. Always in motion is the future.

Whatever the Emperor believed would happen may well have been going to happen. But the future changes; destinies aren't cast. Luke saved Anakin Skywalker, then Anakin Skywalker killed the Emperor. Palpatine couldn't have foreseen this, because it wasn't the future until Luke saved his father. Could Palpatine have foreseen that Luke would turn Vader back to the good side? Perhaps - probably, even - but the arrogance of the Sith may have led him to believe that he could prevent it.

He was wrong.
posted by armoured-ant at 5:48 AM on March 24, 2009

Does anyone consider the possibility that the Emperor is betting that Luke will kill Vader, and then become the Emperor's new apprentice?

The Emperor wins three ways. He kills Vader (who is shown in the Force Unleashed to be attempting to assassinate the Emperor); gets a brand-spanking new apprentice that is arguably more powerful than Vader; and deprives the Rebellion of its only Jedi.

IMO, in the Sith "there can be only two" mindset, the master is actually killing apprentices most of the time. Kind of like a Mafia don, who has a bunch of capos beneath him, takes steps to ensure that no one capo ever rises to the level of a threat.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 5:54 AM on March 24, 2009

It was my impression that the Jedi ability to see the future gets more murky with time, distance, and free will taken into account. Jedi can predict the trajectory of blaster fire or torpedos with nearly perfect accuracy, but Yoda's predictions regarding Luke's premature confrontation with Vader are little better than a magic 8-ball or fortune cookie.

And it's a common trope going back to Shakespeare and Homer that the recipients of prophecy let their own ego get in the way of their ability to interpret it.
posted by KirkJobSluder at 6:08 AM on March 24, 2009

Does anyone consider the possibility that the Emperor is betting that Luke will kill Vader, and then become the Emperor's new apprentice?

Yarg. I've been reading down the whole thread for someone to finally mention this.

The entire reason Luke was brought to the Emperor, at his order to Vader, was for Luke to be turned to the Darkside and replace his father. The Emperor even says this, "Good! Your hate has made you powerful. Now, fulfill your destiny and take your father's place at my side!"

It's entirely possible that Palpatine figured/saw/knew that Vader was or would one day attempt to kill him. Heck, it's the Sith way of doing things. Palpatine would have been repeating what he did with Count Dooku, his former apprentice, who he had Anakin kill much to Dooku's surprise. That not only opened up a void for a new apprentice (but also a much more powerful one). It would seem that the Emperor sought to avoid the Sith cycle by replacing apprentices before they could kill him.

Going back to the OP, the likelihood is that the Emperor did believe Vader was or would turn on him. The vision of the future is not absolutely clear, either, as already quoted above. It's not crystal clear and what the Emperor probably believed he saw was Luke killing Vader, not Vader turning on him then and there. Note how spiteful and disappointed he is when Luke denies him for the last time, and the Emperor begins to use the force lightning to kill Luke.

So trying to make a conclusion involving midichlorians playing a role in the Emperor's death by blocking his vision of the future is probably erroneous. Besides, the future is only visible through meditation, so it's not as if the Emperor should have known a minute before Vader grabbed him, that his death was imminent.
posted by Atreides at 6:21 AM on March 24, 2009

Precognition in the Star Wars universe is unreliable at best. For instance, why doesnt anyone see anything coming? Why doesnt Yoda see who the Emperor is. I think youre looking at this in the wrong way? These things exist because they make storytelling easier/better. They dont exist in a logical or technical way. Lucas and his writers dont agonize over these issues, they agonize over making a movie thats marketable and profitable. Fans just dont understand this.
posted by damn dirty ape at 6:35 AM on March 24, 2009

The teacher and student dynamic only survives if there is healthy amount of respect involved in the relationship. Something that probably isn't really promulgated throughout the darkside, unless you count fear as a type of respect.
A much more likely scenario would be a multiple student counter-balance.
posted by P.o.B. at 6:39 AM on March 24, 2009

Don't forget the necessary role that fear and anger must play in the seduction of a Sith apprentice. Anniken Skywalker had the perfect psychological profile for the Emperor's manipulatioin.

"I sense much fear in him ... Fear is the path to the dark side: fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering."

A Sith Lord encourages and promotes a culture of fear and anger and in so doing, all Sith court and plant the seeds of their own destruction. A dance with their own death is necessary to lure an apprentice into serving. Vader knows this and provokes Luke's anger with the mention of his sister. Luke responds with a maniacal assault that drives Vader back. The Emperor responds with glee as if this is just what he needs to seduce the next apprentice. He feigns powerlessness in his swivel chair and coos that Luke should take his light sabre to "strike me down and take your father's place at my side" knowing full well that he could repel Luke's "puny efforts." He just wanted Luke angry enough to surrender to the seduction of the dark side.

"Beware of the dark side. Anger...fear...aggression. The dark side of the Force are they. Easily they flow, quick to join you in a fight. If once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will, as it did Obi-Wan's apprentice."
posted by birdwatcher at 6:44 AM on March 24, 2009

In order to answer this and plenty other questions here someone has to state the basics here:

Sith - All their powers come from their own bodies. They do not need anything else to use the force. All their powers are chaotic and based on pain and destruction. They are deceitful and only trust themselves. If the emperor could have foreseen Vader throwing him down a long star warsish pit thingie... the emperor would have killed both Luke and Vader. Could the emperor have foreseen this? Maybe but he saw a chance to upgrade from a Vader to a younger stronger Luke. He already did this to Maul and Dooku. This leads me to the Jedi

Jedi - are in harmony with nature and everything around them. Their powers are drawn from this harmony. All their powers are based on healing, protection, and not disturbing the natural flow of things. They can foresee the future but it comes in cloudy dreams and symbols. The reason for their no attachments BS is to prevent jedi from becoming selfish and falling into the dark side of things.

Also they were right about Anikin he did bring balance to the force. Their timing was just a little off.

Lastly I think the whole midichlorians thing was stupid. Trying to explain a super natural force that way should have been done. They should have just said it is a force that exists in all things. Some people have a strong connection with it... others do not. That would havbe been soo much better
posted by Mastercheddaar at 6:54 AM on March 24, 2009

First of all, keep in mind that any in-world explanation is inherently limited to talking around what George Lucas messed up. Lucas learned from a great teacher, but he himself was not great, simply a reflection of greatness. This simple admission explains all of the cracks, large and small, that riddle every layer of his works.

Second of all, it was clearly and repeatedly established that death is not the end of a Jedi, that through the Force, one can live on. Vader's true treachery wasn't killing his master. The end of a physical form isn't a major setback for one truly in tune with the Force. The real treason is, after that, not keeping himself and his son on the dark path, letting the dynasty die out.

But, of course, now I'm falling into the same trap I mentioned earlier, so there you go.
posted by paisley henosis at 7:35 AM on March 24, 2009

Many great answers. I think I showed off some faulty reasoning through my layman's understanding of biology. This was really an expanded universe question and certainly I had planned on also bringing up cloning and the biological kill-switch in the Force probably coming not from physical prowess but by cognitive and intellectual fortitude. One did not have to be fastest with the sword to be greatest with the force, but one had to be able to outwit their opponents and hide their feelings successfully. It is very much a Machiavellian game of intrigue.

I should have also taken note on the Jedi/Dark Jedi/Sith conundrum, as the preponderance of thinking is that Dark Jedi do not serve as a bridge but rather as a unique identity that often in the expanded universe comes down to "Crazies" who must be destroyed even though - and this is the oddly funny part of it - they are often just individual Jedi who have decamped to planets far on the Outer Rim. If they ended up in a place with a large population, perhaps they would be considered progressive and helpful, like in the interesting comic adventure where Han Solo wandered through a cosmic cloud and ended up in a steampunk fantasy island with a Jedi master running the show.

I agree with Cool Papa Bell's insight about the Emperor having to routinely kill off his apprentices in order to find "The One".
posted by parmanparman at 10:19 AM on March 24, 2009

Yeah, I'm with paisley. It's entirely plausible to me that Lucas wanted to have it both ways, where he can give the Jedi a really cool force power like prognostication, but also have a cool plot development like the student dethroning the master.

As far as the question of whether midichlorians leave the Jedi's body and mutate...if Lucas had this concept in mind, used it to fuel his story in the 80's, and didn't reveal the concept until decades later, I would be very impressed.

My take on midichlorians and force powers, incidentally, is that your ability as a Jedi does depend on some kind of inborn ability--it does make sense to me that Anakin would have had way more midochlorians in him than your average force-sensitive kid.

This could be why, in New Hope, when Vader's locking onto Luke's X-wing at the end, he says "The Force is strong with this one". (That's another prognostication error--wouldn't he have known it was his own son?). In a bunch of the later books, you run across characters who had some small amount of Force ability, but didn't get hunted down by the Sith because they were minor. Leia has force sensitivity, but only becomes something of a Jedi after training later in the story.

Fiiiinally, the video game Dark Forces II does tell you what happens to midichlorians when a Jedi dies: they all travel to the Valley of the Jedi and pool together in a giant Jedi-power-well! If you beat the game you get to suck it all up and make yourself an uber-Jedi. They don't evolve, as far as I know.


I think next time I get to ask a MeFi question, it's going to be about time management.
posted by world b free at 11:17 AM on March 24, 2009

Fiiiinally, the video game Dark Forces II does tell you what happens to midichlorians when a Jedi dies: they all travel to the Valley of the Jedi and pool together in a giant Jedi-power-well! If you beat the game you get to suck it all up and make yourself an uber-Jedi. They don't evolve, as far as I know.

I don't know. I think this is pretty far-fetched. To say that Midichlorians themselves have a homeworld is just totally ridiculous. Because think of other Sentient microorganisms in the SW expanded universe, like the "ocean" of intelligent microorganisms that Luke encountered in Empire's End. If Midichlorians did in fact have a homeworld, how did they travel so far so quickly and what would be the purpose of seeding into thousands (millions?) of species and ecological conditions.

I am going off track, but it raises an interesting question of who will claim the ideological high road on the hermeneutics on the canon.
posted by parmanparman at 11:26 AM on March 24, 2009

To say that Midichlorians themselves have a homeworld is just totally ridiculous.

Midichlorians themselves are ridiculous. Theyre fantasy. They follow no rules of nature nor any understanding of biology, because those things are real and SW is fiction. I mean, youre arguing how many acres it takes to run a unicorn farm and how many bushels of rainbows to feed them. Step back from the problem and see the big picture.
posted by damn dirty ape at 11:32 AM on March 24, 2009

To clarify, the game itself never mentions "midochlorians" specifically, (probably because it came out two years before Phantom Menace). What happens is, spirits of Dead Jedi and Sith "travel" to the Valley of the Jedi, and their loose powers become, collectively, the Powers of the Jedi. This is all on the planet Ruusan--there's a Jedi temple there, so it may not be a "homeworld", but just a place the Jedi set up to attract the loose force power in the universe.
posted by world b free at 11:34 AM on March 24, 2009

My overall point is, the Star Wars people make up whatever they want, or need, to serve a narrative purpose at a given time.

Maybe they have a master "Bible" where everything is laid out coherently, but I doubt it.
posted by world b free at 11:36 AM on March 24, 2009

Im also curious why a midiclorian homeword is ridiculous but FTL, telepathy, telekinesis, ghosts, psychic powers, space pirates, cyborg sorcerers, light sabres, desert people, moisture farming, etc arent. I think youre just drawing the line at some arbitrary point and these questions are 100% unanswerable, just like in my unicorn farm example.

Just because this stuff has the trappings of technology and science doesnt mean its scientific at all. Its fantasy!
posted by damn dirty ape at 11:50 AM on March 24, 2009

When in doubt of canon, always fall back on the movies.
posted by Atreides at 11:53 AM on March 24, 2009

Another point in fact - Jedi don't automatically gain the ability to return as force "whatever/ghosts/orsomething". This may have once been true, given the first trilogy (4 - 6), but as shown in RoTS by Yoda, it's achieved by means of studying a technique discovered by Qui-gon Jin.
posted by Atreides at 11:55 AM on March 24, 2009